Saturday,
Armenia Calls On UN To ‘Restore Neutrality’ In Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict
The building of Armenia’s Foreign Ministry in Yerevan.
Armenia has demanded that the United Nations take steps “to restore its neutral
position in the context of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict” as it protested the
participation of the global organization’s officials in an event that Azerbaijan
held in a key Karabakh town earlier this week.
Acting UN Resident Coordinator in Armenia Lila Pieters Yahia was invited to
Armenia’s Foreign Ministry on Saturday and informed that the ministry “strongly
condemns the involvement of the UN Office in Azerbaijan in the event organized
in Shushi on March 18.”
The ministry said that a note of protest was handed to the UN representative in
this regard.
Azerbaijan organized an event in Shushi (Susa) on Friday dedicated to the 30th
anniversary of the country’s membership in the UN. Baku said that the UN
resident coordinator in Azerbaijan and other representatives of the organization
participated in the event during which a UN flag was raised in Shushi.
The UN did not immediately comment on the reaction in Yerevan.
Earlier, Nagorno-Karabakh’s ethnic Armenian authorities also condemned
Azerbaijan’s holding of such an event in Shushi.
Stepanakert accused official Baku of trying to use international structures in
its policy aimed at “legitimizing the results of its aggression” against
Nagorno-Karabakh in 2020.
Shushi (Susa) is a key town in Nagorno-Karabakh contested by both Armenians and
Azerbaijanis. Ethnic Armenians took control of the town in 1992 as they fought a
separatist war against Azerbaijan following the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Azerbaijani forces regained control of Shushi during the second Karabakh war in
2020. The capture of the strategic town by Azerbaijan marked a turning point in
the hostilities and was followed by a Moscow-brokered ceasefire that brought
Russian peacekeepers to the region.
Nagorno-Karabakh’s de-facto authorities consider Shushi and other areas of the
former Nagorno-Karabakh autonomous oblast proper currently controlled by
Azerbaijan to be occupied territories.
Baku considers the town and the rest of Nagorno-Karabakh to be Azerbaijan’s
sovereign territory.
France ‘Ready’ To Support Armenian-Azerbaijani Peace Talks
• Siranuysh Gevorgian
French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian
In separate phone calls with his Armenian and Azerbaijani counterparts this
week, French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian has said that as a co-chair of
the OSCE Minsk Group France is ready to make efforts to support the negotiation
process between Yerevan and Baku over a peace deal.
According to the French Foreign Ministry, in telephone conversations with Ararat
Mirzoyan and Jeyhun Bayramov, Le Drian highlighted the importance of stability
and peace in the South Caucasus and stressed the readiness of Paris for
consultations with the countries of the region.
Armenia’s Foreign Ministry said on Monday that it had applied to the OSCE Minsk
Group co-chairs (France, the United States and Russia) to organize
Armenian-Azerbaijani negotiations on a peace treaty “on the basis of the UN
Charter, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the
Helsinki Final Act.”
It followed a statement by Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Bayramov that Baku had
submitted a five-point proposal to Yerevan to normalize relations.
In his conversations with the Armenian and Azerbaijani foreign ministers, Le
Drian also reportedly expressed concern about the recent tensions on the ground
and called for all possible measures to be taken to reduce them.
The top French diplomat, in particular, stressed the importance of contacts
between the sides on the issue of restoring gas supply to Nagorno-Karabakh,
which was disrupted earlier this month due to a damaged pipeline passing via
Baku-controlled territory.
Nagorno-Karabakh’s ethnic Armenian authorities on Saturday said that gas supply
to the region had been partially restored after the completion of maintenance
work on the gas pipeline.
Earlier, Stepanakert accused Baku of not allowing Armenian maintenance workers
to enter the territory controlled by Azerbaijan for repairs, as a result of
which the region was deprived of gas supply for 11 days amid freezing
temperatures.
During his telephone conversation with Mirzoyan, the French foreign minister
also welcomed the recent visit of the Armenian foreign minister to Turkey,
stressing that France “encourages continued negotiations on the normalization of
relations between the two countries.”
The situation in Ukraine was also reportedly discussed during both conversations.
Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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