Tuesday,
Baku Promises Quick Release Of Karabakh Detainees
• Susan Badalian
Armenia - Protesters picket the Russian Embassy in Yerevan, .
The three residents of Nagorno-Karabakh arrested on Monday at the Azerbaijani
checkpoint in the Lachin corridor will be set free after serving out a 10-day
“administrative arrest,” according to Azerbaijani authorities.
The young men were taken into Azerbaijani custody as they and dozens of other
Karabakh Armenians travelled to Armenia in a convoy of vehicles escorted by
Russian peacekeepers. Karabakh’s leadership and the Armenian government strongly
condemned the arrests.
Azerbaijan’s Office of the Prosecutor-General said late on Monday that the three
detainees are members of a Karabakh football team that had “disrespected” the
Azerbaijani national flag in a 2021 video posted on social media.
In what it called an act of “humanism,” the office said that they will not be
prosecuted on relevant criminal charges and will be placed instead under a
ten-day administrative arrest. They will be freed and “deported from Azerbaijan”
after completing the short jail term, it said.
Arayik Harutiunian, the Karabakh president, met with the detainees’ parents
early on Tuesday. They said he assured them that their sons will be released and
brought to Stepanakert very soon. Harutiunian’s office did not clarify who will
repatriate Alen Sargsian, Vahe Hovsepian and Levon Grigorian and when.
In Yerevan, meanwhile, dozens of mostly Karabakh-born citizens demonstrated
outside the Russian Embassy for the second consecutive day to demand that Moscow
ensure the immediate release of the three men in line with its peacekeeping
mandate. They were furious with the fact that Russian peacekeeping soldiers
escorting the convoy did not stop Azerbaijani security officers from arresting
the men.
“As we can see, such cases keep happening and we see no mechanisms for
preventing them,” one of the protesters, Arega Hovsepian, told RFE/RL’s Armenian
Service.
Hovsepian pointed to the July arrest at the Lachin checkpoint of another
Karabakh Armenian man, Vagif Khachatrian, who was being evacuated by the
International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to Armenia for urgent medical
treatment. The 68-year-old was taken Baku to stand trial on charges of killing
and deporting Karabakh’s ethnic Azerbaijani residents in 1991. Karabakh’s
leadership rejected the “false” accusations.
The ICRC has organized such medical evacuations on a regular basis since
Azerbaijan 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.
No Karabakh residents were transported to Armenia through the Lachin corridor on
Tuesday. Gegham Stepanian, Karabakh’s human rights ombudsman, said that both the
Russian peacekeepers and the ICRC must refrain from organizing more such trips
in the absence of Azerbaijani “security guarantees.”
France Slams ‘Immoral’ Blockade Of Karabakh
Azerbaijan - French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna attends a joint news
conference with Azerbaijan's Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov in Baku, April 27,
2023.
France stepped up on Tuesday criticism of Azerbaijan’s blockade of
Nagorno-Karabakh’s only land link with the outside world, with Foreign Minister
Catherine Colonna saying that it is aimed at forcing the Karabakh Armenians to
leave their homeland.
“The strategy of stifling, which aims to provoke a mass exodus of Armenians from
Nagorno-Karabakh, is illegal, as was established by the [International Court of
Justice,] and it is also immoral,” Colonna declared during an annual conference
of French ambassadors held in Paris.
She said that France is seeking a “just and lasting peace” between Armenia and
Azerbaijan that would allow Karabakh’s ethnic Armenian population to continue
living there and guarantee “respect for their rights, culture and history.”
Speaking at the conference on Monday, French President Emmanuel Macron said
Paris will try to drum up stronger international pressure on Azerbaijan to end
the blockade that has led to severe shortages of food, medicine and other basic
necessities in Karabakh. He said he will hold further discussions with Armenian
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev.
Baku denounced Macron’s remarks, saying that they run counter to Azerbaijan’s
territorial integrity. The Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry was also quick to hit
out Colonna. It accused Paris of obstructing Baku’s efforts to “integrate the
Karabakh Armenians” into Azerbaijan.
“We are once again calling on the French side to put an end to such subversive
and provocative statements,” added a ministry spokesman.
Macron spoke with Pashinian by phone on Tuesday. According to an Armenian
readout of the call, Pashinian told him that the humanitarian crisis in Karabakh
is “worsening by the day” and requiring urgent international intervention.
France, which is home to a sizable Armenian community, has been the most vocal
international critic of the Azerbaijani blockade. Azerbaijan has repeatedly
accused Macron and other French officials of siding with Armenia in the Karabakh
conflict.
Karabakh Rejects Azeri Aid Offer
• Ruzanna Stepanian
Nagorno-Karabakh - Activists block a road from Stepanakert to Aghdam offered by
Azerbaijan as an alternative supply line to Karabakh and demand the reopening of
the Lachin corridor, July 18, 2023.
Nagorno-Karabakh’s leadership on Tuesday dismissed an Azerbaijani proposal to
provide the Armenian-populated region with food that has been in short supply
due to Baku’s eight-month blockade of the Lachin corridor.
The government-linked Azerbaijan Red Crescent announced in the morning that it
is sending two trucks loaded with 40 tons flour to the town of Aghdam adjacent
to Karabakh and hopes that the Karabakh Armenian will accept the shipment. It
also expressed readiness to deliver other basic foodstuffs.
The Azerbaijani offer came as Karabakh struggled with a worsening shortage of
bread that has become the main staple food in Stepanakert and other Karabakh
towns since Baku tightened the blockade in mid-June.
A spokeswoman for Arayik Harutiunian, the Karabakh president, rejected the offer
as a ploy designed to deflect international attention from the blockade and a
serious humanitarian crisis caused by it. Lusine Avanesian said Baku should
instead allow renewed traffic through the only road connecting Karabakh to
Armenia in line with a Russian-brokered ceasefire that stopped the 2020
Armenian-Azerbaijani war.
“If the Azerbaijani authorities are really interested in ending the worst
humanitarian disaster of the people of Artsakh and stopping their genocide, then
instead of playing false philanthropy they should stop blocking the restoration
of supplies to Artsakh through the Lachin Corridor envisaged by the tripartite
declaration of November 9, 2020 and the orders of the International Court of
Justice,” Avanesian told the Artsakhpress news agency.
Harutiunian likewise ruled out accepting any aid through the Aghdam route when
he addressed hundreds of people who rallied in Stepanakert’s central square on
Monday night.
“Only one road will be functioning: the Lachin road. We’re not going bring in
food from any other places,” Harutiunian told the angry crowd in a speech
repeatedly interrupted by jeers and heckling. This was the only part of his
speech that drew applause.
The spontaneous rally was triggered by the arrests at an Azerbaijani checkpoint
in the Lachin corridor of three Karabakh men who traveled to Armenia in a convoy
escorted by Russian peacekeepers. The Azerbaijani authorities accused them of
desecrating an Azerbaijani flag in 2021.
The protesters demanded that the authorities in Stepanakert take urgent measures
to secure the release of the young men. Harutiunian addressed them after
midnight following an emergency meeting with his top aides as well as other
leading Karabakh politicians.
The Karabakh leader said the question of his resignation, which has repeatedly
come to the fore during the Azerbaijani blockade, was also on the agenda. He
said he will decide in the coming days whether or not to step down.
Reposted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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