Friday,
Armenian, Azeri FMs To Meet Again In Moscow
Tajikistan - Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov meets his Armenian and
Azerbaiani counterparts in Dushanbe, May 12, 2022.
The foreign ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan have accepted a Russian proposal
to meet in Moscow soon following a series of negotiations mediated by the United
States.
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev was the first to announce the upcoming
meeting on Thursday. The Armenian Foreign Ministry confirmed it later in the
day. Neither side gave a date for the talks.
Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan and his Azerbaijani counterpart Jeyhun Bayramov
most recently met outside Washington for four consecutive days late last month.
They continued their discussions on an Armenian-Azerbaijani peace treaty.
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian said afterwards that progress made by them is
“not significant.” Pashinian’s July 15 talks with Aliyev held in Brussels also
did not yield tangible results.
As European Union head Charles Michel hosted the latest Armenian-Azerbaijani
summit Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov expressed readiness to organize a
fresh trilateral meeting with Bayramov and Mirzoyan. According to the Russian
Foreign Ministry, they should discuss the peace treaty and try to lay the
groundwork for its eventual signing at a “Russian-Armenian-Azerbaijani summit in
Moscow.”
Russia has been very critical of U.S. and EU efforts to broker such a peace
deal, saying that the main aim of the Western powers if to drive it out of the
South Caucasus.
U.S. - Secretary of State Antony Blinken meets the Armenian and Azerbaijani
foreign ministers in Washington, June 27, 2023.
Bayramov phoned Lavrov on Thursday to discuss what his press office described as
“existing difficulties” in the peace process. According to a Russian readout of
the call, they looked at “ways to intensify joint work on the key tracks of the
Azerbaijani-Armenian normalization.” There was no word on the upcoming talks in
Moscow.
In Yerevan, meanwhile, Pashinian and Mirzoyan met with Igor Khovayev, the
Russian co-chair of the OSCE Minsk Group. They discussed the deteriorating
humanitarian situation in Nagorno-Karabakh caused by Azerbaijan’s seven-month
blockade of the Lachin corridor.
In a June 15 statement, the Russian Foreign Ministry “strongly” urged Azerbaijan
to lift the blockade, saying that it could have “the most dramatic consequences”
for Karabakh’s population. Baku rejected the call.
The Permanent Council of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe
discussed the severe shortages of food, medicine, fuel and other essential goods
in Karabakh on Thursday at an emergency meeting in Vienna initiated by Armenia.
Addressing the meeting, Mirzoyan said the Armenian-populated region is “on the
verge of starvation” and called for stronger international pressure on Baku.
On Friday, the Karabakh parliament appealed to Armenia to ask the United Nations
to give the Russian peacekeepers stationed in Karabakh an “international
mandate.” It said the lack of such a mandate prevents them from unblocking the
sole road connecting Karabakh to Armenia and the outside world.
Pashinian suggested in December that Russia itself seek such a mandate or ask
the UN Security Council to send an “additional, multinational peacekeeping force
to Nagorno-Karabakh.” A senior Russian diplomat countered that the idea of a UN
peacekeeping operation is “hardly realistic.”
Suspect Dies In Armenia After Interrogation
• Nane Sahakian
Armenia -- The entrance to the main Investigative Committee building in Yerevan.
A man suspected of drug trafficking reportedly fell to his death after being
interrogated by an Armenian law-enforcement agency on Thursday.
The Investigative Committee said that the 30-year-old Russian citizen was
brought in for questioning at one of its divisions one day after police arrested
him for receiving “parcels containing narcotics.”
It said that the handcuffed suspect was escorted out of an interrogation room
located on the fifth floor and reached a “door leading to the elevator.”
“As soon as the door opened, he unexpectedly quickly approached an open window
next to the elevator and jumped out of it, dying as a result,” the committee
added in a late-night statement. It did not identify the suspect.
The statement stressed that the interrogation was filmed and attended by his
lawyer. As of Friday afternoon, the still unknown lawyer did not publicly
comment on what the investigators described as an “accident.”
Artur Sakunts, a human rights activist, decried the man’s death. He said the
law-enforcement agency is “directly responsible” for it even if the official
version of events is true.
It is not clear whether a criminal case was opened in connection with the deadly
incident.
Human rights groups say that ill-treatment of criminal suspects remains
widespread in Armenia despite sweeping law-enforcement reforms promised by Prime
Minister Nikol Pashinian’s government. Law-enforcement officers are still rarely
prosecuted or fired for such offenses.
As recently as on June 22, a man in Yerevan claimed that the Investigative
Committee chief, Argishti Kyaramian, personally tortured and threatened to kill
him following his arrest on June 17. A spokesman for Kyaramian denied the
allegations.
Russia Again Warns Armenia Over International Court Treaty
Russia - Federation Council vice-speaker Yury Vorobyov (second from left) speaks
during a meeting of Armenian and Russian lawmakers in Irkutsk, .
Russia again warned Armenia on Friday against ratifying the founding treaty of
the International Criminal Court (ICC) that issued an arrest warrant for Russian
President Vladimir Putin earlier this year.
Yury Vorobyov, a deputy speaker of Russia’s upper house of parliament, brought
up the issue during a meeting of Armenian and Russian lawmakers held in the
Siberian city of Irkutsk. He referred to the Armenian Constitutional Court’s
decision in March to give the green light for parliamentary ratification of the
treaty, also known as the Rome Statute.
“While we proceed from the assumption that this step by our Armenian partners
does not have an anti-Russian subtext, in practice it is causing significant
damage to Russian-Armenian relations,” Russian news agencies quoted Vorobyov as
saying.
“We call on our allies to once again carefully consider the implications of
joining the Rome Statute and assess potential risks to allied relations with
Russia,” he told deputy speaker Hakob Arshakian and other pro-government members
of the Armenian parliament attending the meeting.
According the Armenian parliament’s press office, Arshakian assured the Russian
side that Yerevan’s plans to submit to the ICC’s jurisdiction are “in no way
directed against Russia” and are aimed instead at “preventing Azerbaijani
attacks on the sovereign territory of Armenia.”
Other Armenian officials made similar statements following the Constitutional
Court ruling which came one week after the ICC issued the arrest warrant for
Putin over war crimes allegedly committed by Russia in Ukraine. Moscow was not
convinced by those assurances. It warned Yerevan later in March that the
ratification of the Rome Statute is “absolutely unacceptable” and would have
“extremely negative” consequences for bilateral ties.
Russia - Russian President Vladimir Putin and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol
Pashinian meet in Sochi, June 9, 2023.
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s government appears to have ignored the warning,
sending the treaty to the National Assembly for ratification late last month.
Arshakian revealed on Friday that “active discussions” on the matter are now
underway between Armenian and Russian diplomats. He expressed confidence that a
“legal solution acceptable to Armenia and Russia” will be found.
Independent legal experts believe that recognition of the ICC’s jurisdiction
would require the Armenian authorities to arrest Putin and extradite him to The
Hague tribunal if he visits the South Caucasus country.
Armenian opposition lawmakers have expressed serious concern over such a
dramatic possibility, saying that it would ruin the country’s relationship with
its key ally. One of them claimed in March that Pashinian engineered the
Constitutional Court ruling to “please the West.” Most of the court’s current
judges have been installed by Pashinian’s political team.
Russian-Armenian relations had already soured in the months leading up to the
March ruling due to what Pashinian’s administration sees as a lack of Russian
support for Armenia in the conflict with Azerbaijan.
Earlier this week, South Africa announced that Putin will not attend a summit of
the BRICS nations in Johannesburg scheduled for August. South Africa is a
signatory to the ICC treaty.
Armenia Warns Of Famine In Blockade-Hit Karabakh
Nagorno-Karabakh - Residents of Stepanakert line up outside a food store to buy
bread, July 18, 2023.
Armenia urged the international community on Thursday to put stronger pressure
on Azerbaijan to reopen the Lachin corridor, saying that Nagorno-Karabakh’s
population is “on the verge of starvation.”
“We are not speaking about a looming crisis anymore; we speak about an ongoing
humanitarian disaster,” Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan told an emergency
session of the Vienna-based Permanent Council of the Organization for Security
and Cooperation in Europe. “The mediaeval practices should be ceased. This
cannot continue if we are serious about values and principles.
“The international community in general and the OSCE in particular cannot remain
silent simply because the lives of 120 thousand people are at stake,” he said.
Armenia initiated the meeting to draw greater international attention to the
seven-month blockade of Karabakh’s sole land link with the outside world, which
has led to severe shortages of food, medicine, fuel and other essential items in
the region.
Nagorno-Karabakh - Empty shelves at a grocery store in Stepanakert, July 18,
2023.
Azerbaijan has also cut off Armenia’s supplies of electricity and natural gas to
Karabakh. The humanitarian crisis deteriorated after Baku blocked on June 15
relief supplies carried out, in limited amounts, by Russian peacekeepers and the
Red Cross.
“Prior to the blockade, around 90 percent of all consumed food was imported from
Armenia, and with every passing day the people of Nagorno-Karabakh don’t receive
400 tons of essential goods,” said Mirzoyan. “Furthermore, by using force and
the threat of force, Azerbaijan continues to obstruct agricultural activities on
approximately 10,000 hectares of land adjacent to the line of contact, which
constitutes a significant portion of [Karabakh’s] total cultivated land.”
“As a result, today the people of Nagorno-Karabakh are on the verge of hunger
and starvation,” he warned.
The United States, the European Union and Russia have repeatedly called for an
end to the blockade. Moscow said late last week that it could have “the most
dramatic consequences” for the local population.
Nagorno-Karabakh - Karabakh Armenians protest against the Azerbaijani blockade
of the Lachin corridor, July 14, 2023.
Baku has rejected such appeals, denying the humanitarian crisis. It has offered
to supply Karabakh with basic necessities from Azerbaijan proper. Karabakh’s
leadership has rejected the offer as a cynical ploy designed to facilitate the
restoration of Azerbaijani control over the Armenian-populated territory.
Mirzoyan said that the blockade could also “seriously harm” ongoing
Armenian-Azerbaijani negotiations on a bilateral peace treaty. But he stopped
short of threatening to suspend the talks if Baku remains adamant in keeping
Karabakh cut off from the outside world.
Mirzoyan also reaffirmed Yerevan’s readiness to recognize Azerbaijani
sovereignty over Karabakh through the treaty. “The respect for the territorial
integrity of Azerbaijan should not and could not be anyhow misinterpreted and
used as a license for ethnic cleansings in Nagorno-Karabakh,” he added.
Domestic critics of the Armenian government say the recognition openly pledged
by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian in May only emboldened Baku to tighten the
noose around Karabakh. They are also highly skeptical about Yerevan’s insistence
on an internationally mediated dialogue between Baku and Stepanakert on “the
rights and security” of Karabakh’s population.
Reposted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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