Thursday,
Families Of Fallen Karabakh Soldiers Still Not Compensated
• Susan Badalian
A satellite image shows a long traffic jam of vehicles along the Lachin corridor
as ethnic Armenians flee from Nagorno-Karabakh, September 26, 2023.
None of the families of at least 198 Nagorno-Karabakh soldiers killed during the
last Azerbaijani military offensive has received financial compensation from the
Armenian government.
Armenian law entitles the family of a soldier killed in action to a one-off
payment of 10 million drams ($25,000) and monthly benefits worth around 250,000
drams ($615). The closest relatives of Karabakh Armenian military personnel have
also been eligible for this compensation paid by the Soldiers’ Insurance Fund.
The state fund, also known as Zinapah, said on Thursday that it has still not
compensated the families of the fallen Karabakh soldiers because it has not
received mandatory documents certifying that they died in combat situations.
The law requires that paperwork to be done by the commanders of army units that
suffer combat casualties. Karabakh’s Defense Army was disbanded as a result of
Azerbaijan’s September 19-20 offensive that restored Azerbaijani control over
the region and forced its population to flee to Armenia.
In a statement to RFE/RL’s Armenian Service, Zinapah said there are now no other
bodies that can submit valid documents needed for the compensations. Armenian
government agencies are “working” to overcome this legal hurdle, it said without
elaborating.
The Armenian Defense Ministry said, for its part, that it is looking into
potential alternative mechanisms for unblocking the badly needed financial aid
and could propose legal amendments if it does not find any.
Gegham Stepanian, Karabakh’s exiled human rights ombudsman, countered that the
Armenian authorities had enough time to draft and enact such amendments by now.
He suggested that they are reluctant to do that for political reasons.
Many of the Karabakh soldiers killed in the two-day heavy fighting with
Azerbaijani forces were the main breadwinners of their families that are now
struggling to make ends meet in Armenia.
They include the mother, the wife and three young children of Gagik Hakobian, a
39-year-old warrant officer who died on September 20 while defending the eastern
Karabakh village of Harav. Their only source of income now is 200,000 drams in
monthly housing compensation paid by the government.
They spend at least three-quarters of it on a small apartment rented by them in
a village 20 kilometers south of Yerevan. Hakobian’s widow Vilena is now looking
for a job while still hoping to qualify for the military compensation scheme.
“Nobody has visited us to ask how we support the kids,” said Hakobian’s mother
Nargiz. “It’s tough.”
Armenian Government Gets Stake In Key Mining Project Frozen In 2018
• Artak Khulian
Armenia - Gold mining facilities constructed by Lydian International company at
Amulsar deposit, 18 May 2018.
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian predicted a further boost to economic growth in
Armenia on Thursday as his government was granted a minority stake in a
multimillion-dollar gold mining project which it helped to freeze in 2018.
Pashinian confirmed that the government wants to revive the project that would
create hundreds of jobs and generate tens of millions of dollars in annual tax
revenue.
The country’s former leadership had granted a formerly U.S.-based company now
called Lydian Canada Ventures a license to develop a massive gold deposit at
Amulsar in 2016. Lydian planned to start mining operations there in late 2018
and produce 210,000 ounces of gold, worth $420 million at current international
prices, annually.
However, those plans were put on hold after several dozen environmental
protesters started blocking all roads leading to Amulsar shortly after the
“velvet revolution” that brought Pashinian to power in May 2018. They said that
the project would wreak havoc on the environment. Lydian dismissed those claims,
saying that it would use modern technology that would prevent such damage.
Pashinian made conflicting statements about the Amulsar project at the time. His
administration did not revoke Lydian’s mining licenses. But it also refrained
from using force to end the blockade.
The company, which claimed to have invested $370 million in the project before
the blockade, filed for bankruptcy protection in Canada in 2019 before being
restructured. It is now owned by two U.S. and Canadian equity firms specializing
in mining.
Armenia - Economy Minister Vahan Kerobian (center) shakes hands with
representatives of Lydian Canada Ventures and Eurasian Development Bank,
February 22, 2023.
Following the disastrous 2020 war in Nagorno-Karabakh, Pashinian’s government
signaled plans to revive the Amulsar project and started negotiating with Lydian
for that purpose. The two sides reached an agreement to that effect in February
2023. Economy Minister Vahan Kerobian announced that the U.S. and Canadian
investors will give the government a 12.5 percent stake in the project in return
for its pledge to manage their risks.
Pashinian’s cabinet formally accepted the lavish donation during a weekly
meeting in Yerevan.
“I think that this model of exploiting the Amulsar mine will dispel many
concerns,” the premier told the meeting. “It will also give additional impetus
to Armenia’s economic growth and development. And we hope that the Amulsar mine
will be a platform for introducing new standards in our mining sector.”
Lydian’s Armenian subsidiary told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service that the transfer of
the minority stake will allow the company to “share both successes and
responsibility” with the government. It gave no precise date for the start of
mining operations at the deposit located in southeastern Vayots Dzor province.
Kerobian said last February that Lydian needs $250 million to finish the
construction of mining and smelting facilities and installing other equipment
there. In particular, he said, Lydian will borrow $100 million from the
Kazakhstan-based Eurasian Development Bank (EDB) and another $50 million from an
unnamed Armenian bank. It is not clear whether the company has raised the rest
of the sum.
Moscow Blasts Armenian Opposition To Russian Control Of Road For Azerbaijan
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov attends a meeting with his Azerbaijani
counterpart on the sidelines of the annual meeting of the Caspian Sea littoral
states' foreign ministers, Moscow, December 5, 2023.
Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov complained on Thursday Armenia opposes
Russian control of a road and railway that would connect Azerbaijan to its
Nakhichevan through a strategic Armenian region.
Lavrov insisted that it would not call into question Armenian sovereignty over
the transport links sought by Baku.
“They don’t want Russian border guards to stand there, even though this was
written down and signed by Prime Minister [Nikol] Pashinian,” he told a news
conference. “He doesn’t want neutral border and customs control. [They want to
do that] only by themselves, and that contradicts what was agreed upon.”
Lavrov referred to the Russian-brokered agreement that stopped the 2020
Armenian-Azerbaijani war in Nagorno-Karabakh.
Paragraph 9 of that agreement stipulates that Russian border guards stationed in
Armenia will “control” the movement of people, vehicles and goods between
Nakhichevan and the rest of Azerbaijan. Armenian officials say this only allows
them to “monitor” the commercial traffic, rather than escort it, let alone be
involved in border controls.
Pashinian reiterated that stance on January 13 when he reacted to Azerbaijani
President Ilham Aliyev’s latest demands that people and cargo be allowed to move
“without any checks.” The premier again argued that the 2020 truce accord does
not commit Armenia to opening any extraterritorial corridors.
The main purpose of the accord cited by Lavrov was to stop fighting in Karabakh
and prevent new hostilities. The deal also led to the deployment of Russian
peacekeepers in Karabakh. The peacekeepers did not intervene when the
Azerbaijani army went on the offensive on September 19, forcing Karabakh’s
practically entire population to flee to Armenia.
Pashinian said that the Azerbaijani offensive and Russia’s failure to prevent or
thwart it means that Baku and Moscow effectively scrapped the 2020 deal. “There
is no way that document can no longer be valid for two parties [that signed it]
but continue to be valid for the third party,” he said.
Russia has repeatedly defended its peacekeepers and claimed that Pashinian
himself sealed the fate of Karabakh with his decision to recognize Azerbaijani
sovereignty over the region recommended by Western powers. Lavrov repeated those
claims during the press conference in Moscow. He said the West is also behind
Yerevan’s alleged failure to comply with the agreement on the transports links
for Nakhichevan.
On Wednesday, one of Lavrov’s deputies, Mikhail Galuzin, urged Yerevan to agree
to resume Russian-mediated negotiations with Baku. Pashinian’s government has
preferred Western mediation in recent months.
Russian-Armenian relations have steadily deteriorated since the 2020 war, with
Yerevan accusing Moscow of not honoring security commitments to its longtime
regional ally. Azerbaijan’s recapture of Karabakh only added to those tensions.
Lavrov said late last month that Armenia is reorienting its foreign policy
towards the West at the expense of its alliance with Russia. He warned that the
South Caucasus country cannot successfully confront its grave security
challenges with the help of the United States and the European Union.
French Senate Condemns ‘Azerbaijani Aggression’ In Karabakh
France -- The French Sentate debates a bill criminalizing the denial of the
genocides, including the Armenian genocide, Paris, 23Jan2012.
France’s upper house of parliament has strongly condemned Azerbaijan’s September
“military aggression” against Nagorno-Karabakh and “repeated violations” of
Armenia’s territorial integrity and called for sanctions against Baku.
In a resolution approved almost unanimously late on Wednesday, the French Senate
said that the “forced exodus” of Karabakh’s ethnic Armenian population caused by
the offensive amounted to “ethnic cleansing.” It reaffirmed support for the
Karabakh Armenians’ right to self-determination, saying that is “the only
possible path towards lasting peace between Azerbaijan and Armenia.”
The international community should therefore demand that Baku guarantee the safe
return of the Karabakh refugees to their homeland, adds the non-binding
resolution passed amid France’s heightened tensions with Azerbaijan.
The Senate went on to deplore what it described as Azerbaijani territorial
claims to Armenia and, in particular, Baku’s demands for an extraterritorial
corridor to the Nakhichevan exclave. It demanded the “immediate and
unconditional withdrawal” of Azerbaijani troops from Armenian border areas
seized after the 2020 war in Karabakh.
The resolution also calls on the French government as well as the European Union
to consider imposing sanctions such as “the seizure of Azerbaijani leaders’
assets and an embargo on gas and oil imports from Azerbaijan.”
Armenia welcomed resolution on Thursday through its parliament speaker Alen
Simonian. In a Facebook post, he thanked the French senators for “the important
initiative to support Armenia and the Armenian people.” The Armenian government
stopped championing the principle of self-determination in the Karabakh conflict
in 2022.
Meanwhile, the Azerbaijani parliament’s foreign relations committee strongly
condemned the resolution. In a statement, it urged the Azerbaijani government to
cut economic ties with France and expel all French firms from Azerbaijan.
Tensions between the two countries already run high prior to the resolution.
France has stepped up support for Armenia and criticism of Azerbaijan in recent
years. It initiated an emergency session of the UN Security Council right after
the Azerbaijani assault on Karabakh condemned by key EU member states as well as
the United States.
In October, France became the first Western nation to sign major arms deals with
Yerevan. Baku condemned those deals before expelling two French diplomats in
December. Paris ordered the tit-for-tat expulsion of two Azerbaijani diplomats
shortly afterwards.
It emerged early this month that a French citizen based in Azerbaijan was
arrested and charged with espionage around that time. The French Foreign
Ministry accused Baku holding the businessman, Martin Ryan, arbitrarily and
demanded his immediate release.
Reposted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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