Tuesday,
U.S. Weighs In On Russian-Armenian Tensions
U.S. - State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller answers questions during a
news briefing in Washington, July 18, 2023.
The U.S. State Department has called for the dispatch of an international
monitoring mission to Nagorno-Karabakh and effectively backed Prime Minister
Nikol Pashinian’s claims that Russia cannot guarantee Armenia’s security.
“I do think that Russia has shown that it is not a security partner that can be
relied on,” Matthew Miller, the department spokesman, told a news briefing in
Washington on Monday, commenting on the ongoing war of words between Yerevan and
Moscow.
Tensions between the two longtime allies deepened early this month after
Pashinian stated that Armenia’s reliance on Russia for defense and security has
proved a “strategic mistake” because the latter is “unable or unwilling” to
defend the South Caucasus nation.
The Armenian premier doubled down on his criticism following Azerbaijan’s
September 19 offensive in Karabakh launched despite the presence of Russian
peacekeepers there. He said on Sunday that the military alliance with Russia is
not enough to ensure Armenia’s national security.
The Russian Foreign Ministry responded by accusing Pashinian of seeking to ruin
bilateral ties and reorient Armenia towards the West. Russian officials have
repeatedly charged that the United States and the European Union are keen to
drive Russia out of the South Caucasus.
Pashinian and his political allies have so far not signaled plans to get Armenia
out of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) or other Russian-led
blocs. Nor have they indicated any alternative geopolitical arrangements which
they believe can protect Armenia’s borders.
Miller reaffirmed U.S. support for Armenia’s territorial integrity but declined
to clarify what Washington could do if it is jeopardized by Azerbaijan. “What we
think is important is that Armenia and Azerbaijan reach a lasting peace
agreement,” he said in this regard.
ARMENIA - Refugees from Nagorno-Karabakh arrive in the border village of
Kornidzor, .
Miller also reiterated U.S. concerns about the fate of Karabakh’s ethnic
Armenian population severely affected by last week’s Azerbaijani assault.
“The population of ethnic Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh should be able to remain
in their homes in peace and dignity, with respect for their rights and security
if they choose to do so,” he said. “Those who want to leave and return should be
allowed safe passage overseen by a neutral, independent third party.”
“We do believe there should be an international mission to provide transparency,
reassurance, and confidence to the residents of Nagorno-Karabakh and the
international community, that … their rights and security will be protected
consistent with the public statements that Azerbaijan has made,” added the U.S.
official.
Yerevan advanced the idea of such a mission even before the latest escalation.
Baku strongly opposed it.
Baku, Yerevan Resume Talks On Peace Deal
Belgium - Armenian, Azerbaijani, French, German and EU officials meet in
Brussels, Septembe 26, 2023.
The European Union urged Armenia and Azerbaijan to find “decisive compromise
solutions” on Tuesday as it hosted fresh talks between senior officials from two
states one week after the Azerbaijani military offensive in Nagorno-Karabakh.
Armen Grigorian, the secretary of Armenia’s Security Council, and Hikmet
Hajiyev, a senior aide to Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, met in Brussels
together with diplomatic advisers to EU chief Charles Michel, French President
Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz. The EU’s special envoy to the
South Caucasus, Toivo Klaar, was also in attendance.
They are understood to have concentrated on preparations for Aliyev’s next
meeting with Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian which is expected to take
place on the sidelines of an EU summit in Granada, Spain on October 5.
A spokeswoman for Michel, Ecaterina Casinge, said Hajiyev and Grigorian
discussed “possible concrete steps to advance the Armenia-Azerbaijan peace
process in the upcoming possible meeting, such as those with regard to border
delimitation, security, connectivity, humanitarian issues, and the broader peace
treaty.”
“Concrete action and decisive compromise solutions are needed on all tracks of
the normalization process,” said Casinge.
“The EU believes that the possible meeting in Granada should be used by both
Yerevan and Baku to reiterate publicly their commitment to each other’s
territorial integrity and sovereignty in line with agreements reached previously
in Prague and Brussels,” she added in a statement.
Reuters quoted Hajiyev as calling the Brussels meeting “quite constructive” and
saying that it increased chances of an Armenian-Azerbaijani peace deal. He did
not elaborate.
Armenian parliament speaker Alen Simonian said late on Sunday that Baku and
Yerevan are now “very close” to signing a bilateral peace treaty which has been
the main focus of Armenian-Azerbaijani negotiations over the past year. He did
not clarify whether Pashinian’s administration is ready to make more concessions
now that Azerbaijan is regaining full control over Karabakh as a result of the
September 19-20 offensive.
U.S., EU Announce Relief Aid To Karabakh Refugees
• Susan Badalian
• Nane Sahakian
ARMENIA - Vehicles carrying refugees from Nagorno-Karabakh region queue on the
road near the border village of Kornidzor, .
The United States and the European Union pledged on Tuesday to provide urgent
humanitarian aid to ethnic Armenian residents of Nagorno-Karabakh fleeing to
Armenia in droves amid the ongoing restoration of Azerbaijani control over the
region.
A steady stream of these refugees crossed the Armenian border for the third
consecutive day in cars, trucks and buses that jammed the main road connecting
Karabakh to Armenia. Their total number reached 28,000 as of 8 p.m. local time,
according to the Armenian government.
The vast majority of an estimated 100,000 people remaining in Karabakh are
expected to follow suit in the coming days and weeks. They too are unwilling to
live under Azerbaijani rule as a result of last week’s Azerbaijani military
offensive.
“We have been hungry for four days,” one of the refugees told RFE/RL’s Armenian
Service in the Armenian border town of Goris. The visibly exhausted woman said
she and her family members spent five days at a Russian military base in
Karabakh before being evacuated to Armenia.
ARMENIA -- A refugee from Nagorno-Karabakh holds a child while standing next to
a car upon their arrival in the border village of Kornidzor,, .
Some of the other refugees said they left behind children and other loved ones
who went missing or were seriously wounded and hospitalized during the
Azerbaijani assault that reportedly left dozens of Karabakh Armenian civilians
dead.
All arriving refugees are redirected to a reception center set up by the
government in Goris. Government officials and private charity activists working
there offer them food, temporary housing and other urgent assistance.
Another Karabakh woman, who fled to Armenia together with her children on
Monday, complained that they have still not been provided with any
accommodation. “We are now going into the [Goris] municipality building to see
where they are going to send us,” she said.
In Yerevan, Deputy Prime Minister Tigran Khachatrian reaffirmed the Armenian
government’s pledge to accommodate all Karabakh refugees. In his words, 2,500
refugees have already been sent to their new homes in various parts of Armenia,
while 1,200 others are in the process of receiving government-funded housing.
“The other people [who fled Karabakh] have said that they have somewhere to live
and don’t need our assistance,” Khachatrian told a news conference.
ARMENIA - Refugees from Nagorno-Karabakh register at the aid centre in the
border village of Kornidzor, .
Some refugees interviewed by RFE/RL’s Armenian Service said they have rejected
government offers to settle in towns or villages close to Armenia’s volatile
border with Azerbaijan. They said they do not want to fear for their safety
anymore.
Samantha Power, the head of the U.S. Agency for International Development
(USAID), witnessed the flow of refugees and spoke to some of the displaced
Karabakh Armenians when she visited the Goris area adjacent to the Lachin
corridor on Tuesday.
“The experiences these families have had are harrowing,” she told reporters
there. “Many of them fled their villages under shelling and many who have
arrived here, according to the doctors that we spoke to, are suffering from
severe malnutrition.”
Power announced that the U.S. government will provide $11.5 million in
humanitarian assistance to the refugees.
“This assistance will be used to provide everything from food to psychosocial
support, given the psychological wounds that so many citizens are carrying,” she
said, adding that it will also support “efforts to reunite families” from
Karabakh.
Armenia - USAID chief Samantha Power talks to refugees from Nagorno-Karabakh,
.
“There are many unaccompanied children who have crossed into the Republic of
Armenia and it is absolutely urgent that they be reunited with their families,”
explained the U.S. official.
The European Union announced, for its part, a relief aid package worth 5 million
euros ($5.1 million) for Karabakh’s civilian population. An EU statement said
the sum will be spent on providing “cash assistance, shelter, food security and
livelihoods assistance” to up to 25,000 refugees in Armenia. It said similar aid
will be delivered through the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to
around 60,000 Karabakh Armenian remaining in their homeland for now.
The ICRC is the only international humanitarian organization which is allowed by
Azerbaijan to operate in Karabakh. Power said Baku must also give other aid
agencies “full and unimpeded access to the Lachin corridor and into villages and
towns of Nagorno-Karabakh.”
Armenian Medics Rushed To Karabakh After Deadly Blast
• Tigran Hovsepian
• Ruzanna Stepanian
• Robert Zargarian
Nagorno-Karabakh - This grab taken from video distributed by Siranush Sargsyan's
Twitter account on Sept. 25, 2023, shows smoke rising after a fuel depot
explosion near Stepanakert.
Azerbaijan allowed Armenian doctors on Tuesday to visit Nagorno-Karabakh to
treat and evacuate scores of people injured in Monday’s powerful explosion at a
fuel depot outside Stepanakert.
Karabakh authorities said at least 20 people were killed and over 270 others
seriously injured and hospitalized as a result of the explosion. They appealed
for urgent medical aid from Armenia, saying that Stepanakert’s two main
hospitals cannot to provide adequate care to all victims due to their limited
capacity and lack of medication.
A team of Armenian doctors flew to Stepanakert early in the morning and
evacuated the first injured Karabakh Armenians by helicopter hours later. They
were transported to hospitals in Yerevan. Three more such flights were carried
out in the following hours.
At least 14 patients were admitted to the Yerevan-based National Center for
Burns and Dermatology in the afternoon. An ambulance driver there said more of
them are on their way to the hospital.
“The team of doctors transported by helicopter from Armenia to Stepanakert with
necessary medicines and medical supplies are currently in the medical
institutions of the [Karabakh] republic and together with local doctors are
providing the necessary medical assistance to all the victims,” read a statement
released by Karabakh health authorities.
Early in the afternoon a convoy of Armenian ambulances escorted by
representatives of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) left
Armenia for Karabakh through the Lachin corridor controlled by Azerbaijani
forces. A senior Azerbaijani official said, meanwhile, that Baku is ready to
open a “medical corridor” to Karabakh for the ICRC.
The precise cause of the blast remained unknown. An official in Stepanakert,
Davit Babayan, told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service that the authorities there believe
it was most probably an accident caused by “negligence.” He said they are hardly
in a position to conduct an investigation given the ongoing exodus of Karabakh’s
population to Armenia and Azerbaijan’s takeover of the region.
According to the Armenian government, the number of Karabakh residents who have
fled to Armenia since Sunday surpassed 13,500 by Tuesday morning. The Lachin
road connecting Karabakh to Armenia reportedly remained clogged by hundreds of
vehicles carrying other Karabakh Armenians.
Many Casualties Feared In Karabakh Fuel Depot Blast
Nagorno-Karabakh - A fuel depot outside Stepanakert burns after a powerful
explosion, .
A powerful explosion destroyed a fuel depot near Stepanakert, killing and
injuring many people, authorities in Nagorno-Karabakh said late on Monday.
They said they are unable to immediately specify the number of casualties or
establish the cause of the explosion at the facility located on a highway
connecting the Karabakh capital to the town of Askeran.
Karabakh’s human rights ombudsman, Gegham Stepanian, said more than 200 people
were injured in the explosion. He said that due to their limited capacity and
lack of medication Stepanakert’s two main hospitals cannot to provide adequate
care to all of these people. Many of the critically injured persons need to be
urgently flown to hospitals in Armenia, added Stepanian.
“Active efforts are being made to organize the transportation of the injured to
Armenia by helicopters,” the Armenian Ministry of Health told RFE/RL’s Armenian
Service later in the evening.
The blast occurred amid a mass exodus of Karabakh’s population that followed
last week’s Azerbaijani military offensive.
Videos posted on social media showed a long line of cars parked near the depot
that received large quantities of gasoline over the weekend for the first since
Baku blocked traffic through the Lachin corridor last December. Their owners
were apparently waiting to fuel up and drive to Armenia along with their
families. Thousands of other Karabakh Armenians fled to Armenia earlier on
Monday.
Reposted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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