Thursday,
Armenia, Azerbaijan Face Off At UN Court
• Karlen Aslanian
NETHERLANDS -- People walk toward the International Court of Justice in the
Hague, August 27, 2018
Armenia accused Azerbaijan of serious human rights violations as the two South
Caucasus nations that fought a six-week war last year faced off at the United
Nations court in The Hague on Thursday.
A lawyer representing Armenia, Yeghishe Kirakosian, made the accusation as a
hearing opened at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) into a request by
Armenia for judges to impose urgent interim measures to prevent Azerbaijan
breaching an international convention to stamp out ethnic discrimination.
Yerevan specifically wants the court to order Baku to release dozens of Armenian
prisoners, shut down an anti-Armenian “park of trophies” in the Azerbaijani
capital and stop destroying Armenian cultural and religious monuments in parts
of Karabakh captured by it during the war.
Kirakosian said Armenia is not asking the court to rule on the root causes of
the war but “seeks to prevent and remedy the cycle of violence and hatred
perpetrated against ethnic Armenians."
“Azerbaijan captured, arbitrarily detained and tortured many Armenian servicemen
and civilians and is now continuing to destroy Armenian cultural heritage and
religious sites or deny their being Armenian,” he said.
Lawyers representing Azerbaijan addressed the court later on Thursday. One of
them, Peter Goldsmith, urged the UN tribunal to reject the injunctions sought by
Yerevan, saying that Baku has fully complied with a Russian-brokered ceasefire
that stopped the hostilities last November.
He also claimed that the several dozen Armenians remaining in Azerbaijani
captivity are guilty of “grave crimes.”
Kirakosian dismissed such claims when he spoke with RFE/RL’s Armenian Service
from the Dutch city. “It is crystal clear that all Armenians held by Azerbaijan
are protected by international humanitarian law,” he said.
Azerbaijan has filed a similar case alleging discrimination against its citizens
by Armenia and also has requested the world court to impose interim measures.
Hearings in the Azerbaijan case are scheduled to start on October 25.
Rulings on both requests will likely be issued in coming weeks. But both
nations' cases alleging breaches of the International Convention on the
Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination will likely take years to
reach their conclusion at the ICJ.
Armenian, Azeri FMs In Fresh Talks
Belarus - The foreign ministers of Russia, Azerbaijan and Armenia meet in Minsk,
.
The foreign ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan met on Thursday for the second
time in less than a month for talks mediated by their Russian counterpart Sergei
Lavrov.
They also held separate talks with Lavrov before the trilateral meeting held on
the sidelines of a gathering in Belarus’s capital Minsk of top diplomats from a
dozen ex-Soviet states. The Russian Foreign Ministry publicized Lavrov’s
comments made at the start of his conversations with Ararat Mirzoyan and Jeyhun
Bayramov.
“We spoke at length in Moscow recently but can today look at some additional
issues of both bilateral character and of course the region,” Lavrov told the
Armenian minister. “Karabakh must always receive our attention.”
Speaking with Bayramov, he cited unspecified “issues that need to be resolved.”
The Russian Foreign Ministry said that at their ensuing trilateral meeting the
ministers “reviewed” the implementation of a Russian-brokered agreement that
stopped the six-week war in Karabakh last November.
“They concluded that most provisions of that Statement are being successfully
implemented. They agreed to intensify work on the remaining issues,” it said
without elaborating.
Mirzoyan was cited by his press office as saying that Baku is continuing to hold
dozens of Armenian prisoners of war and civilian captives in breach of the truce
accord. He also reaffirmed Yerevan’s stated commitment to a “comprehensive and
lasting settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh” advanced by the U.S., Russian and
French co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group.
The three mediators took part in Mirzoyan’s first meeting with Bayramov held in
New York on September 24. In a joint statement, they said they “proposed
specific focused measures to deescalate the situation and possible next steps.”
They did not disclose those proposals.
The mediators are expected to visit Armenia, Azerbaijan and Karabakh soon. It
will be their first tour of the conflict zone since the 2020 war.
The Karabakh issue also featured large during Russian President Vladimir Putin’s
latest meeting with Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian held in Moscow on Tuesday.
Pashinian described the meeting as “very productive” but did not give its
details.
Armenian Anti-Vaxxers May Have To Pay For COVID-19 Treatment
• Artak Khulian
Armenia - Anti-vaccine campaigners demosntrate in Yerevan, September 19, 2021.
Armenians contracting COVID-19 after refusing to get vaccinated against the
disease may soon be required to pay for their treatment in hospitals, a senior
government official warned on Thursday.
Deputy Health Minister Gevorg Simonian said the Armenian Ministry of Health is
considering taking the harsh measure as part of its efforts to boost the very
slow pace of coronavirus vaccinations in the country of about 3 million.
According to the ministry, just over 344,000 people received at least one dose
of a coronavirus vaccine and only 170,212 of them were fully vaccinated as of
October 10. Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian deplored these “very bad” numbers
last week and said relevant authorities must rely on their “administrative
levers” more heavily to speed up the vaccination process.
The authorities had already obligated all public and private sector employees to
get inoculated or take coronavirus tests twice a month at their own expense, a
requirement effective from October 1. Health Minister Anahit Avanesian revealed
on Monday they could also introduce a mandatory coronavirus health pass for
entry to cultural and leisure venues.
Thanks to government funding, Armenia’s hospitals have treated all COVID-19
patients free of charge since the start of the pandemic. The government claims
to have spent over $80 million for that purpose.
Armenia -- A healthcare worker clad in protective gear looks after COVID-19
patients at the Surb Grigor Lusavorich Medical Center, Yerevan, June 5, 2020.
Simonian said that forcing infected anti-vaxxers to cover their hospital
expenses, worth an estimated 800,000 drams ($1,660) per person, would enable the
government to cut the funding and spend more on subsidizing treatment of other
serious illnesses.
Davit Melik-Nubarian, an independent health expert, spoke out against the
possible measure, saying that it would result in fewer hospitalizations and more
deaths. He said the government should instead do more to explain the benefits of
vaccination to skeptical people.
Melik-Nubarian cited a recent opinion indicating that only 7 percent of
Armenians categorically refuse to take vaccines. “Others are ready to change, in
one way or another, their attitudes if they get answers to their questions,” he
told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service.
Coronavirus infections in Armenia have steadily grown since June not least
because of the authorities’ lax enforcement of mandatory mask wearing in indoor
public spaces and other sanitary rules.
According to the Ministry of Health, 1,589 people tested positive for the
coronavirus on Wednesday, the largest single-day number of cases recorded this
year. The ministry also reported on Thursday morning 29 deaths caused by
COVID-19 in the past day.
Officials warned that Armenian hospitals are running out of vacant beds for
COVID-19 patients.
Armenian Government In No Rush To Brief Parliament On Border Tensions
• Gayane Saribekian
Iranian trucks are parked on the main road connecting Armenia with Iran.
Armenia’s top defense and security officials appear reluctant to brief lawmakers
on lingering tensions along the country’s border with Azerbaijan that have
caused serious disruptions in Armenian-Iranian trade.
The two main Armenian opposition forces demanded such a briefing immediately
after Azerbaijani authorities began levying on September 12 hefty duties from
Iranian vehicles passing through an Azerbaijani-controlled section of the main
highway connecting Armenia and Iran.
They said Defense Minister Arshak Karapetian and National Security Service (NSS)
Director Armen Abazian must come to the National Assembly to answer questions
about the Azerbaijani roadblock and the overall situation along the country’s
borders.
Parliament speaker Alen Simonian said he will consider organizing such a
discussion. Simonian has made no further statements on the matter since then. It
therefore remains unclear whether the authorities will accept the opposition
demand.
In a bid to step up the pressure on them, the opposition Hayastan and Pativ Unem
blocs have drafted legislation requiring top security officials to appear before
the parliament in such cases. They will try to push it through the parliament
committee on defense and security first.
The committee is scheduled to hold on Friday an emergency meeting initiated by
its four opposition members. The committee’s chairman and six other members
representing the ruling Civil Contract party have not yet commented on the
opposition bill.
“I hope that common sense will prevail and this initiative will not be blocked,”
Pativ Unem’s Tigran Abrahamian told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service on Thursday.
“The fact is that those officials who are supposed to be at least somewhat
accountable to the public are dodging that in all possible ways,” he said.
Opposition leaders have repeatedly condemned Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s
government for handing over a 21-kilometer section of the Armenia-Iran highway
to Azerbaijan shortly after last year’s war in Nagorno-Karabakh. Pashinian said
at the time that the road section is located on the Azerbaijani side of
Armenia’s Soviet-era border with Azerbaijan, a claim disputed by his political
opponents.
The Azerbaijani roadblock and its resulting negative impact on Iran’s cargo
traffic with Armenia have fuelled unprecedented tensions between Tehran and Baku.
Senior Armenian and Iranian officials have discussed the issue in recent weeks.
Yerevan has pledged to accelerate the ongoing reconstruction of an alternative
road in Armenia’s Syunik province which will allow Iranian trucks to bypass the
Azerbaijani checkpoint.
Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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