Thursday,
‘Ethnic Cleansing’ In Karabakh All But Complete, Says Yerevan
• Nane Sahakian
• Astghik Bedevian
Amenia - Refugees from Nagorno-Karabakh ride in a truck upon their arrival at
the border village of Kornidzor, .
All ethnic Armenians remaining in Nagorno-Karabakh will flee to Armenia in the
coming days, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian said on Thursday, accusing
Azerbaijan of practically finishing “ethnic cleansing” in the region.
“Analysis shows that there will be no Armenians left in Nagorno-Karabakh in the
coming days. This is a direct act of ethnic cleansing and depatriation, and
something we have been warning the international community about for a long
time,” charged Pashinian.
He complained that international criticism of Azerbaijan, which went on a
large-scale military offensive in Karabakh on September 19, has not been backed
up by “concrete actions.”
“If declarations of condemnation are not followed by commensurate political and
legal decisions, condemnations become acts of acquiescence,” he added during a
weekly cabinet meeting in Yerevan.
He spoke as a steady stream of Karabakh Armenian refugees crossed into Armenia
through the Lachin corridor for the fifth consecutive day. According to the
Armenian government, their total number reached 76,400 by 8 p.m. local time. The
figure is equivalent to nearly two-thirds of Karabakh’s estimated population.
Nagorno-Karabakh - Refugees gather around a fire to warm themselves as they
stuck in a jam of vehicles on the road leading towards the Armenian border,
September 25, 2023.
The government pledged to help evacuate people remaining in Stepanakert and
other Karabakh towns and villages. Deputy Prime Minister Tigran Khachatrian said
many of them own no cars, trucks or other vehicles that would transport them to
Armenia.
The government is planning to send a convoy of 35 buses to Stepanakert for that
purpose, Khachatrian said, adding that Russian peacekeepers have agreed to
escort it. He said the buses cannot head to Karabakh now because the
50-kilometer road connecting it to Armenia remains clogged by hundreds of
vehicles. It now takes at least 30 hours to drive from the Karabakh capital to
the Armenian border, Khachatrian told Pashinian and fellow cabinet members.
In the Armenian border town of Goris, government officials and private
volunteers kept scrambling to provide the arriving refugees with food, housing
and other vital assistance. A spokeswoman for Pashinian said only 17,150
refugees have accepted accommodation provided by the government in hotels,
resorts and public buildings across the country. The prime minister announced
later in the day that each refugee will receive a one-off cash payment of
100,000 drams ($260).
Meanwhile, Baku has denied the accusations of ethnic cleansing and insisted that
it wants to "reintegrate" the enclave's ethnic Armenian population into
Azerbaijan. In a statement, the Azerbaijan's Foreign Ministry urged ethnic
Armenian residents to stay in Karabakh.
Armenia - Karabakh refugees board a bus near a Red Cross registration center in
Goris, .
Russia, which has been criticized by Yerevan for its peacekeepers' failure to
prevent the fall of Karabakh, suggested that the fleeing Karabakh Armenians have
nothing to fear.
"It's difficult to say who is to blame [for the exodus.] There is no direct
reason for such actions," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.
The exodus followed a Russian-brokered ceasefire that stopped the lighting
Azerbaijani offensive. Under the terms of that agreement, Karabakh disarmed its
army, paving the way for the restoration of full Azerbaijani control over the
territory.
In line with the deal, Samvel Shahramanian, the Karabakh president, also signed
a decree on Thursday disbanding all government bodies and saying that the
self-proclaimed Nagorno-Karabakh, set up in September 1991, will cease to exist
on January 1.
The ceasefire also commits Baku to permitting the “free, voluntary, and
unrestrained passage” of Nagorno-Karabakh's ethnic Armenian residents, including
''servicemen who have laid down arms.” Tigran Abrahamian, an Armenian opposition
parliamentarian who used to work in Karabakh, said that despite this provision,
the Azerbaijani authorities have threatened to arrest some Karabakh Armenians.
“I know names but it’s very dangerous to publicize them now,” Abrahamian told
RFE/RL’s Armenian Service.
“The people remaining in Artsakh now, from ordinary citizens to the president,
have the status of hostages,” he said.
Ruben Vardanyan, a former Karabakh premier, was arrested by Azerbaijani security
forces in the Lachin corridor on Wednesday.
Armenia Moves Closer To Ratifying ‘Anti-Russian’ Treaty
• Artak Khulian
Armenia - Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian greets Russian President Vladimir Putin
at Zvartnots airport in Yerevan, November 23, 2022.
In what Russia called an “extremely hostile” move, Armenia’s leadership on
Thursday took another step towards accepting jurisdiction of an international
court that issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin in
March.
The Armenian parliament’s committee on legal affairs gave the green light for
parliamentary ratification by of the founding treaty of the International
Criminal Court (ICC). This means that the National Assembly controlled by Prime
Minister Nikol Pashinian’s party should debate and vote on it next week.
The decision came amid a continuing deterioration of Armenia’s relations with
Russia, which is increasingly calling into question the long-standing alliance
of the two nations. The Russian Foreign Ministry listed earlier this month
Yerevan’s plans to ratify the treaty, known as the Rome Statute, among “a series
of unfriendly steps” taken by Pashinian’s administration.
Pashinian reaffirmed the ratification plans on September 24 as he blamed Moscow
for Azerbaijan’s latest military offensive in Nagorno-Karabakh and effectively
accused it seeking to turn Armenia into a Russian province. He claimed that
signing up to the Rome Statute would help to safeguard Armenia’s independence.
Netherlands -- The building of the International Criminal Court in The Hague,
November 23, 2015.
The main official rationale for the ratification is to bring Azerbaijan to
justice for its “war crimes” and to prevent more Azerbaijani attacks on Armenia.
Pro-government members of the parliament committee echoed it as they backed a
corresponding decision proposed by Pashinian’s government.
Opposition politicians and other critics counter that Azerbaijan is not a party
to the Rome Statute and would therefore ignore any pro-Armenian ruling by the
ICC. They say the real purpose of ratifying the treaty is to drive another wedge
between Russia and Armenia and score points in the West which has accused Russia
of committing war crimes in Ukraine. The ICC endorsed those accusations when it
issued the arrest warrant for Putin in March.
Independent legal experts believe that the ratification will commit the Armenian
authorities to arresting Putin and extraditing him to The Hague tribunal if he
visits the South Caucasus country. Yeghishe Kirakosian, who represents the
Armenian government in international legal bodies, denied this during a meeting
of the parliament panel boycotted by opposition lawmakers.
Kirakosian claimed that Putin and other heads of state enjoy immunity from
arrest and that the Rome Statute allows countries to sign bilateral agreements
to ignore ICC arrest warrants. Yerevan offered to sign such a deal with Moscow
in April, he said, adding that the Russian side has still not responded to the
proposal.
Armenia - Yeghishe Kirakosian (center) speaks at a parliament committe meeting
in Yerevan, .
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said he is “not familiar” with the proposal
cited by Kirakosian. Armenia’s ratification of the ICC treaty would be a move
“extremely hostile” towards Russia, said Peskov.
“Moscow hopes that there will be sober-minded forces in the National Assembly of
Armenia that will not rubber-stamp a decision that is obviously toxic for
Armenian-Russian relations,” the Russian Foreign Ministry warned, for its part.
The “political decision” to ratify the treaty is unacceptable to Moscow, it told
the RIA Novosti news agency.
The ministry already warned on Monday that Pashinian is “making a huge mistake
by deliberately trying to destroy the multifaceted and centuries-old ties
between Armenia and Russia.”
Armenia was among 120 countries that signed the Rome Statute, in 1998. But its
parliament did not rush to ratify the document. In 2004, the country’s
Constitutional Court ruled that the treaty runs counter to several provisions of
the Armenian constitution which guarantee national sovereignty over judicial
affairs.
Pashinian’s government decided last December to ask the court to again look into
the Rome Statute and determine its conformity with the constitution that has
been twice amended since 2004. The court ruled in March that the Rome Statute
conforms to the amended constitution. The ruling came one week after the ICC
issued the arrest warrant for Putin.
Azerbaijan Indicts Former Karabakh Premier After Arrest
AZERBAIJAN - A screenshort of Azerbaijani government video of Ruben Vardanyan's
transfer to a prison in Baku, .
Authorities in Azerbaijan brought on Thursday a string of criminal charges
against Ruben Vardanyan, an Armenian-born businessman and former
Nagorno-Karabakh premier, one day after arresting him in the Lachin corridor.
Vardanyan, who held the second-highest post in Karabakh’s leadership from
November 2022 to February 2023, was arrested at an Azerbaijani checkpoint on the
main road connecting Karabakh Armenia as he fled the region along with tens of
thousands of its ordinary residents.
Azerbaijan’s State Security Service said the prominent billionaire was charged
with “financing terrorism,” illegally entering Karabakh last year and supplying
its armed forces with military equipment. It said an Azerbaijani court remanded
him in pre-trial custody.
Born and raised in Armenia, Vardanyan is a former investment banker who made his
fortune in Russia in the 1990s and 2000s. The 55-year-old relocated to Karabakh
and was appointed as its state minister last November shortly before Baku
blocked traffic through the Lachin corridor. He made defiant statements during
and after his short tenure, urging the Karabakh Armenians to resist Azerbaijani
efforts to force them into submission.
Vardanyan is the first Karabakh leader arrested after last week’s Azerbaijani
military offensive that paved the way for the restoration of Azerbaijani control
over the Armenian-populated territory. There are growing indications that Baku
is seeking to also jail other current and former Karabakh officials.
Nagorno Karabakh - Davit Babayan, 31March, 2022.
Davit Babayan, a well-known adviser to Karabakh’s current and former presidents,
said on Thursday that “the Azerbaijani side has demanded my arrival in Baku.” He
said he will turn himself in later in the day because he does not want to “cause
serious damage” to other Karabakh Armenians who have not yet left the region.
In Yerevan, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian expressed serious concern at
“arbitrary arrests” made at the Azerbaijani checkpoint. Without mentioning
Vardanyan by name, he said the Armenian government will take “necessary steps to
protect the rights of arbitrarily arrested individuals, including in
international bodies.”
The government on Wednesday asked the European Court of Human Rights to order
Baku to urgently provide information about Vardanyan’s whereabouts and detention
conditions. The Armenian Foreign Ministry said it will do its best to try to
secure the tycoon’s release.
Vardanyan, who renounced his Russian citizenship late last year, has been
increasingly critical of Pashinian in recent months, repeatedly denouncing his
recognition of Azerbaijani sovereignty over Karabakh.
Reposted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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