Monday,
More Noncombat Deaths In Armenian Army’s Ranks
• Artak Khulian
Armenia - Soldiers march at an Armenian military base, December 24, 2022.
An Armenian soldier reportedly shot dead a comrade before taking his own life
while on combat duty on Sunday, adding to the growing number of noncombat deaths
in the Armenian army’s ranks.
Armenia’s Investigative Committee suggested on Monday that the fatal shootings
were the result of a gross violation of military regulations. The
law-enforcement agency did not immediately arrest or charge any other servicemen
in connection with the deadly incident which it said occurred at an army post on
the border with Azerbaijan.
The shootings sparked fresh uproar from human rights activists monitoring the
armed forces. According to one of them, Zhanna Andreasian, 54 Armenian soldiers
died in the first half of this year, and only a dozen of them were killed by
enemy fire.
Fifteen other conscripts were found dead in January at their military barracks
destroyed by a major fire. Virtually all other victims of deadly noncombat
incidents committed suicide, according to military investigators. Six more
soldiers, including the latest victims, died in August.
“This is unprecedented,” Andreasian said on Monday, commending on the grim
statistics. “There was no such scale under our former rulers.”
The veteran activist blamed Defense Minister Suren Papikian and the army top
brass for the increased number of deaths which she said makes mockery of
sweeping defense reforms repeatedly announced by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian
after the 2020 war with Azerbaijan.
“He [Papikian] doesn’t speak up, and we don’t know … what they are reforming. He
had better resign together with his boss [Pashinian,]” she told RFE/RL’s
Armenian Service.
Another human rights campaigner, Artur Sakunts, said the declared reforms cannot
make any difference unless the authorities take “urgent” measures to tackle poor
army discipline. He said military commanders must at last be held accountable
for deaths and other serious incidents happening in their units.
Andreasian similarly complained that senior or mid-ranking officers are rarely
prosecuted over such crimes. She accused investigators of routinely covering
them up.
France's Macron Seeks Stronger Pressure On Azerbaijan
France - President Emmanuel Macron gives a speech in front of French ambassadors
at the Elysee Palace, Paris, .
France will try to drum up stronger international pressure on Azerbaijan to end
its continuing blockade of Nagorno-Karabakh, French President Emmanuel Macron
said on Monday.
"I will have an opportunity to speak this week with [Armenian] Prime Minister
Pashinian and with [Azerbaijani] President Ilham Aliyev,” Macron told French
ambassadors to countries around the world.
“We will demand full respect for the Lachin humanitarian corridor and we will
again take a diplomatic initiative in this direction internationally to increase
the pressure,” he said in remarks cited by French media.
Macron gave no details of that initiative. France’s Le Figaro daily reported
last week that Paris is “preparing to submit” to the UN Security Council a draft
resolution designed to help Karabakh’s ethnic Armenian population left “on the
verge of starvation.”
The Security Council discussed the worsening humanitarian crisis in Karabakh
during an August 16 meeting initiated by Armenia. Although most of its members,
including the United States, urged the lifting of the Azerbaijani blockade, the
council did not adopt a relevant resolution or statement.
The U.S., the European Union and Russia have repeatedly called for renewed
commercial and humanitarian traffic through the sole road connecting Karabakh to
Armenia. Azerbaijan has dismissed their appeals.
Baku was quick to denounce Macron’s latest remarks, saying that his “language of
pressure” is unacceptable. An Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry spokeswoman also
objected to the French leader’s use of the term “Lachin humanitarian corridor.”
He said it violates Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity.
France, which is home to a sizable Armenian community, has been the most vocal
international critic of the eight-month Azerbaijani blockade. Baku has
repeatedly accused Macron and other French officials of siding with Armenia in
the Karabakh conflict.
Bread Shortage Worsens In Karabakh
• Susan Badalian
Nagorno-Karabakh - People wait in a line outside a bakery in Stepanakert, August
8, 2023.
Authorities in Nagorno-Karabakh have urged local farmers to sell wheat harvested
by them amid a deepening shortage of bread resulting from Azerbaijan’s
eight-month blockade of the Lachin corridor.
Bread appears to have become the main staple food in Stepanakert and other
Karabakh towns since Baku tightened the blockade in mid-June by halting all
relief supplies to the Armenian-populated region carried out by Russian
peacekeepers and the International Committee of the Red Cross. Local food stores
have run out of limited amounts of other basic other foodstuffs sold in previous
months.
The bread shortage worsened in recent days, with Stepanakert residents saying
that they now have to spend more hours waiting in lines to buy up to loaves per
person from bakeries.
“When you stand in a line you lose a whole day,” one of them, Arega Ishkhanian,
told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service. “If you queue up at six in the evening, you may
have to wait until the next morning.”
“And the problem is not just bread, there is nothing else available,” she said.
“But at least the kids could eat bread.”
Nagorno-Karabakh - Stepanakert residents line up to buy bread, August 8, 2023.
In a statement issued on Sunday, Karabakh’s Agricultural Fund said it is
supplying additional quantities of flour to bakeries to try to alleviate the
problem. Underscoring its gravity, the agency said the authorities are ready to
buy up all wheat grown and stored by Karabakh farmers and to swiftly pay for it
in cash. It urged the farmers to sell off their wheat stocks.
The authorities are facing growing calls to introduce bread coupons and thus
reduce waiting lines formed outside bakeries and shops.
The Armenian government warned in July that Karabakh is now “on the verge of
starvation.” It urged the international community to put stronger pressure on
Azerbaijan to lift the blockade.
The United States, the European Union and Russia have repeatedly called for
renewed commercial and humanitarian traffic through the sole road connecting
Karabakh to Armenia. Baku has dismissed their appeals.
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev made clear on Saturday that he will not bow
to the international pressure. Visiting the town of Lachin close to Karabakh’s
lifeline road, Aliyev said Baku’s actions are aimed at “fully restoring
Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity.”
“Nothing can force us to deviate from our path,” he said.
Three More Karabakh Men Arrested By Azerbaijan (UPDATED)
• Ruzanna Stepanian
A view of the Azerbaijani checlpoint set up in the Lachin corridor, June 23,
2023.
Three residents of Nagorno-Karabakh were detained by Azerbaijani security forces
on Monday while traveling to Armenia through the Lachin corridor.
Karabakh officials said that the young men, identified as Alen Sargsian, Vahe
Hovsepian and Levon Grigorian, were “kidnapped” at the Azerbaijani checkpoint
blocking the corridor as they were escorted by Russian peacekeepers along with
other Karabakh civilians.
One of the officials, Artak Beglarian, told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service that the
peacekeepers are negotiating with the Azerbaijani side to try have them freed.
Arayik Harutiunian, the Karabakh president, held an emergency session of his
security council later in the day.
“Azerbaijan is continuing its genocidal policy towards the people of Artsakh,
once again violating international humanitarian law,” read a Karabakh statement
issued shortly after the detentions.
The Azerbaijani authorities did not immediately comment on the arrests. But
media outlets linked to them reported that the three Karabakh Armenians are
suspected of being members of a Karabakh football team that had “disrespected”
the Azerbaijani national flag in a 2021 video posted on social media.
Beglarian said he “cannot confirm” that Sargsian, Hovsepian and Grigorian played
for that youth team based in the Karabakh town of Martuni. “All three of them
are students of Armenian universities,” he said.
In any case, added Beglarian, the Azerbaijani allegations are “absurd” and aimed
at intimidating Karabakh’s ethnic Armenian population opposed to the restoration
of Azerbaijani control over their region.
Another Karabakh man, Vagif Khachatrian, was arrested at the Azerbaijani
checkpoint in late July while being evacuated by the International Committee of
the Red Cross (ICRC) to Armenia. The 68-year-old was taken Baku to stand trial
on charges of killing and deporting Karabakh’s ethnic Azerbaijani residents in
December 1991, at the start of the first Armenian-Azerbaijani war.
Karabakh’s leadership rejected the “false” accusations and demanded
Khachatrian’s immediate release. The Armenian Foreign Ministry likewise
condemned Khachatrian’s arrest as a “blatant violation of international
humanitarian law” and “war crime.”
The ministry condemned the latest detentions as well. It described them as a
further indication that Baku intends to “avoid dialogue with Nagorno-Karabakh by
all means and continue instead his policy of ethnic cleansing.”
Khachatrian is the first Karabakh patient arrested by the Azerbaijani
authorities during regular medical evacuations organized by the ICRC after Baku
halted last December commercial traffic through the only road connecting
Karabakh to Armenia.
Last week, Baku also allowed other categories of Karabakh’s population, notably
university students and holders of Russian passports, to travel to Armenia. They
are escorted by Russian peacekeepers.
Reposted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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