Author: Adrine Hakobian

Nordwind Airlines Moscow-Yerevan flight aborted during takeoff due to technical problems

Adrine Hakobian

Nordwind Airlines Moscow-Yerevan flight aborted during takeoff due to technical problems

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17:03, 8 August, 2019

YEREVAN, AUGUST 8, ARMENPRESS. Nordwind Airlines flight NWS377 en route from Moscow to Yerevan aborted the takeoff on the runway of the Sheremetyevo Airport in the Russian capital due to technical problems in the engine, the Civil Aviation Committee of Armenia said in a statement.

The takeoff was aborted by the Airbus A 321 plane’s captain.

There were 213 passengers on board.

No injuries were reported.

The airline replaced the plane and the passengers arrived to Yerevan at 22:27 local time.

Edited and translated by Stepan Kocharyan




Asbarez: Hai Tahd: It’s Not Magic

Adrine Hakobian
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13 hours ago

The author, Varant Anmahouni, with the ANCA Leo Sarkisian and Maral Melkonian Avetisyan summer internship team of 2019

BY VARANT ANMAHOUNI
ANCA Leo Sarkisian – Class of 2019
Georgetown University Law School – Class of 2022

I came to D.C. in search of a lesson on the organizational aspect of advocacy. Like any “engaged” Armenian, I was familiar with the effective work of the ANCA headquarters in D.C., and hoped for the opportunity to see what they did differently. In a sense, I was in search of some special insight into the magic being worked at 1711 N St NW, Washington, D.C. Eight weeks later, I have come to realize that there is no magic; that the meat and potatoes to the Hai Tahd equation in D.C. is no different from our community’s successes worldwide. Everything is—and always will be—contingent upon principled action, total accountability, and committed advocacy.

This point may appear self-evident: after all, many people talk freely about “devotion” or “commitment” to a cause. However, talking about dedication and actually dedicating oneself to every aspect of a given task remain entirely separate matters. In this sense, the Leo Sarkisian Internship has also doubled as a graduate course on organizational commitment—taught by staff members who have shown us what such work might look like, in lieu of simply telling us.

To illustrate this point, allow me to share some observations. Consider Harout Margossian: a life-long advocate who has given more to the Armenian community than most ever could. Today, even in his professional retirement and no-doubt deserving of a “break,” Mr. Margossian’s efforts remain steadfast. Indeed, he continues to serve the ANCA and goes about his work—including tasks that others might consider mundane—with the same seriousness and passion with which he has always served the community. Others have no hesitation working past midnight to focus on the latest Artsakh initiative, before returning to work a few hours later with the same enthusiasm. These examples, which hold true for everyone at the office, provide a salient lesson: when it comes to advocacy, there is no such thing as “small” or “big” tasks. The job is the job, and compromising on any one aspect threatens the structure upon which our larger aspirations rest.

This situation owes to Armenia’s geopolitical realities—particularly due to our relative lack of regional assets. For decades, such material disparities have proven limiting when it comes to our influence at the negotiating table. And while the “paper ladle” to which Armenians have been limited has gained strength since Khrimian Hayrig extended his famous analogy, we are still building the geopolitical teeth to truly dictate nation-building on our own terms. Consequently, the success of our national prospects often relies on an equalizer of sorts: an unmatched wealth we possess to favorably tip the balance. Or, to echo ANCA chairman emeritus Garo Armenian, “leverage.”

Our leverage is grassroots advocacy. As Armenians worldwide coalesce around pressing matters, our ability to dictate nation-building grows more fruitful. But the flip side is also true: our influence diminishes where we zig-zag around issues that ought to be non-negotiable. Even where we portray unity on such issues, weaknesses still arise when we seek substitutes for hard work and committed advocacy. This adds an urgency to the Armenian identity—an existential choice, if you will, compelling everyone who so-identifies to play their part in giving Armenian policymakers the tools they need to secure our interests. Fortunately, there is a silver lining: the strength of a diaspora spread throughout dozens of countries, coupled with the dedication of our co-ethnics in Armenia and Artsakh, provide a wealth of unique angles to better serve Hai Tahd.

Still, actualizing this potential requires honesty. It is contingent upon understanding our respective strengths and limitations—what we are, and what we are not. For instance, while we may feel a “call to action” upon hearing of 19-year-old Armenians who are killed weekly on the front lines of Artsakh, most of us are not soldiers. We may read and hear stories of the uncompromising advocates who propelled the issue of Hai Tahd to prominence during generations past, but we ourselves are not yet so polished. We are, however, uniquely situated as citizens of the United States—empowered by unique opportunities and growing up as a generation that worries not with the struggle of establishing an independent homeland.

To this end, we have prior generations to thank—generations which, through their resilience and principled advocacy throughout decades of Soviet Rule, proved that it was not simply nationalistic romanticism to believe that an independent Armenia would once again exist; that there is a difference between having ideals and being ideologues. We stand to gain something by keeping this perspective in mind. The fear of standing for something nonsensical, especially when your aspirations amount to little more than basic justice for some of the darkest stains on the moral fabric of humanity.

Amidst this backdrop, members of the Diaspora can choose from a multitude of avenues for advancing Hai Tahd. Leo Sarkisian interns do so by joining an organization and a community which has continually played a front-line role in pursuing these issues—by creating leverage. Indeed, as Artsakh’s Representative to the United States Robert Avetisyan aptly noted, “you have to create your own luck.” The ANCA certainly has.

Armenian Assembly of America and Armenian National Institute Pay Tribute to Vahakn Dadrian (1926-2019)

Adrine Hakobian

ARMENIAN
ASSEMBLY OF AMERICA
PRESS RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Date: August 6, 2019

Contact:
Danielle Saroyan

Telephone:
(202) 393-3434

Web: www.aaainc.org

ARMENIAN ASSEMBLY OF AMERICA AND
ARMENIAN NATIONAL INSTITUTE PAY TRIBUTE TO VAHAKN DADRIAN (1926-2019)

 

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Armenian Assembly of America
(Assembly) and the Armenian National Institute (ANI) join in paying tribute to
Dr. Vahakn Dadrian, the internationally renowned scholar of the Armenian
Genocide who passed away on August 2 at the age of 93.

The author
of a set of critically important books and articles on the Armenian Genocide,
Dr. Vahakn Dadrian was a central figure in the emergence of the field of
genocide studies in general.

He wrote
several groundbreaking works which forcefully demonstrated the state-wide
mechanisms the Young Turk regime implemented in the course of World War One in
order to eradicate the Armenian population of Armenia and Anatolia.  The
History of the Armenian Genocide: Ethnic Conflict from the Balkans to Anatolia
to the Caucasus (1995); German Responsibility in the Armenian
Genocide: A Review of the Historical Evidence of German Complicity (1996);
and Warrant for Genocide: The Key Elements of the Turko-Armenian
Conflict (1998), among other works, constitute the landmark studies
that transformed the discipline of genocide studies by introducing a compelling
body of evidence hitherto unexamined by scholarship. 

With his
formidable grasp of sources in multiple languages he erected a mountain of
evidence extracted from archival repositories, and augmented by a wide reading
of documentary and testimonial evidence, including the commissioners of the
crimes themselves. In a number of articles in academic journals and in the
series edited by Dr. Israel Charny titled Genocide: A Critical
Bibliographic Review, Dadrian laid out the evidence from German and
Austrian sources, which he regarded central to proving the conspiratorial
nature of the Young Turk regime since Germany and Austria-Hungary were joined
with the Ottoman Empire as allies during WWI and thereby had greater access and
insight into the plans of the Turkish government.

By
methodically constructing this body of evidence and demonstrating numerous
parallels with the genocidal policies of the Nazi regime in conceiving and
implementing the Holocaust as a crime specifically intended to destroy the
Jewish populations under their rule, Dadrian single-handedly began to forge the
comparative study of the problem of genocide. In the face of early skepticism
about his theories, over the course of the years he successfully argued his
case in multiple academic venues until such time as by the year 2000, 126 Holocaust specialists joined him in a public petition affirming
"the incontestable fact of the Armenian Genocide" and urging
"Western Democracies to officially recognize it."

Firmly
persuasive in his scholarship, Dadrian also fearlessly challenged deniers by using
official Turkish documents to make the point. By the same skill and patience
with which he built his evidence, he demolished the false arguments and exposed
the distortion of facts and evidence that formed the basis of a persistent
denial of the Armenian Genocide by Turkish authorities and their academic
cohorts. He summarized his finding in The Key Elements in the Turkish
Denial of the Armenian Genocide: A Case Study of Distortion and Falsification,
published in 1999 by the Zoryan Institute, where he served for many years as
Director of Genocide Research.

Dadrian's
authoritative investigations were published in a number of legal journals,
including the Yale Journal of International Law. His 1989
book-length article, Genocide as a Problem of National and
International Law: The World War I Armenian Case and its Contemporary Legal
Ramifications proved a watershed event in historical and legal
disciplines, securing his reputation as an internationally-recognized
authority.

Speaking on
behalf of the Assembly, its Board of Trustees Co-Chairman Van Z.
Krikorian, reflecting upon the Yale Journal article said
as follows: "This seminal publication also played a remarkable political
role in altering United States policy and distancing it from echoing the
Turkish government's views. I remember Congressman Charles Pashayan of
California handing President George H.W. Bush a copy of Dadrian's publication
and I am convinced of its contributive role in bringing about an improvement in
U.S. policy by destroying the credibility of those in the U.S. government
denying the Armenian Genocide which reduced their position to no longer denying
the historical facts. The brilliance of this work was an exposition of Turkey's
own trial records in unprecedented detail demonstrating the guilty finding of
the indictments of the intentional annihilation of the Armenian people by the
Young Turk leadership. Every person frustrated by the denial of the Armenian
Genocide owes Professor Dadrian a debt of gratitude for countering this
insidious practice."

Admired by
colleagues, sought out by researchers from around the world, and a public
lecturer who was given the podium at universities and the halls of parliaments,
Dadrian was honored with many awards in his lifetime. Upon hearing of Dadrian's
passing, Dr. Israel Charny recalled his friendship by writing:
"I hail his greatness – the audacity of his researches, the steadfastness
of his contributions, and his deep devotion to his people and to justice."
Upon hearing the news of Dadrian's passing, Dr. Michael Gelb,
Associate Editor of Academic Publications and Assistant Editor of Holocaust
and Genocide Studies at the United States Holocaust Memorial
Museum, stated: "it is indeed no mere formality to say that his influence
on the field was inestimable." 

Dr. Bedross Der Matossian, President
of the Society for Armenian Studies, described Dadrian as "the preeminent
scholar of the Armenian Genocide" as well as "the founder of the
field of Armenian Genocide Studies and one of the founders of the field of
Comparative Genocide Studies." President of Armenia, Dr. Armen
Sarkissian, recalling the honorary doctorate bestowed upon him by the
Armenian Academy of Sciences, described him as the "acclaimed researcher
of the Armenian Genocide."

Dadrian's
publications were translated into several languages including Turkish,
effectively making them some of the first works to introduce the subject in
Turkey where an unofficial silence was maintained over the decades. Garo
Paylan, a current Member of Parliament in Turkey, himself of Armenian
background, noted: "His books published in Turkey played an important role
in the international recognition of the Armenian Genocide."

"It is
customary for younger generations to honor the memory of an authority of the
stature of Vahakn Dadrian by speaking on how they stand upon the shoulder of
giants," remarked ANI Director Dr. Rouben Adalian.
"Vahakn Dadrian, however, was a giant of such immense stature and stands
so tall that no one can even think of climbing upon his shoulders."

In May 1976,
along with other prominent scholars such as Richard Hovannisian, Avedis
Sanjian, Shavarsh Toriguian, and Dennis Papazian, Vahakn Dadrian testified
before Congress on the Armenian Genocide. He spoke eloquently and prophetically
of the continuing threat of genocide in front of the then Subcommittee on
Future Foreign Policy Research and Development of the Committee on
International Relations of the House of Representatives.

Clearly, we are moving in a direction where
parallel to the shrinkage of financial, technical and administrative
prerequisites to fashion a genocidal apparatus of destruction, the global
vulnerability of vast masses of people to such destruction is increasing. This
inverse relationship between reduced resources and amplified risks, symbolizing
the explosive marriage of modern industrialism with nationalism, is perhaps the
greatest challenge presenting itself to our present system of international
relations.

Dr. Vahakn Dadrian, 1976

Founded in
1997, the Armenian National Institute (ANI) is a 501(c)(3) educational charity
based in Washington, D.C., and is dedicated to the study, research, and
affirmation of the Armenian Genocide.

Established
in 1972, the Armenian Assembly of America is the largest Washington-based
nationwide organization promoting public understanding and awareness of
Armenian issues. The Assembly is a non-partisan, 501(c)(3) tax-exempt
membership organization.

###

NR#: 2019-032

 

Photo Caption
1: Dr. Vahakn Dadrian speaking at the Library of Congress during the 2000
conference organized by the Armenian National Institute jointly with the
Library of Congress and United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

 

Photo
Caption 2: Rouben Adalian, Vahakn Dadrian, Peter Balakian, and Aram Kaloosdian
at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in September 2000

 

Photo
Caption 3: Dr. Vahakn Dadrian testifying in front of the Subcommittee on Future
Foreign Policy Research and Development of the Committee on International
Relations of the House of Representatives in May 1976.  Front row at the desk are Dennis Papazian,
Vahakn Dadrian, Dicran Simsarian, and Leo Sarkisian; Second row from left to
right, Avedis Sanjian, Richard Hovannisian, Shavarsh Toriguian, Haik Kafafian,
Hratch Abrahamian, and Aram Kaloosdian

 

Available
online: http://bit.ly/2TcZOPc



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A family divided: ‘We didn’t say a proper goodbye that morning’

Adrine Hakobian
The Irish Times
August 2, 2019 Friday
 
 
A family divided: ‘We didn’t say a proper goodbye that morning’
 
A Galway-based woman whose husband was deported wants him to be allowed to return
 
Fri, Aug 2, 2019, 01:00
Marese McDonagh
 

Vahram Harutyunyan missed his daughter’s fourth birthday party in Galway on Thursday because they have been separated for almost a year.

On August 15th last year the Armenian-born barber, who has lived in Irelandfor almost 13 years, was deported, leaving his wife, Viktoria Gagkaeva, and their Irish-born daughter, Alina, behind .

He had gone to Dublin for a regular appointment at the offices of the Irish Naturalisation and Immigration Service but shortly after arrival was arrested and within 24 hours was on a flight to Armenia.

Gagkaeva says apart from a five-minute phone call when he was surrounded by gardaí, he never got a chance to say goodbye to his family. After being detained, his phone was taken from him, he was put in prison and then put on a flight in the early hours of the following morning, she says. “I got a voicemail at 4am saying he was on the flight. There were four gardaí with him, sitting alongside him in the back of the plane. He said he felt like a murderer.”

She breaks down when she recalls how she tried to make sense of that five-minute call when her world fell apart as her husband apologised for having to leave her alone with their child.

“We didn’t say a proper goodbye that morning as he was late and ran out the door, saying ‘My God I will miss the bus’ ”, she recalls. Her husband had for three years regularly signed on at the immigration service office on Burgh Quay in Dublin, having sought legal advice about how to regularise his situation.

Vahram had spent a short while in direct provision after arriving in Ireland in 2006, but hated it because he wanted to work and help his family, so he just left. “He always worked. He never applied for social welfare here. He was shamed by it.”

Gagkaeva acknowledges a deportation order was issued against her husband before she met him. After they became a family he wanted to sort out his situation and so made contact with the authorities, she says.

“He was hoping that the Government would understand we are a family. We have done nothing bad for this country. We always worked,” she says. The couple got married in Salthill in 2015.

Gagkaeva was born in Russia and spent eight years in direct provision here, from the age of 14. She and her family have been granted leave to remain and will be eligible to apply for Irish citizenship next year. Her parents live in Cork, and she says since her husband’s deportation she feels alone.

Alina spent weeks waiting every evening at the door of their apartment in Renmore, thinking her father would return , according to her mother. “I said, ‘He is not coming’. It was so tough. Nobody knows how much she misses him. I think she sees him in her dreams and when she wakes and he is not there, she cries and says ‘Why is he not here?’ ” Gagkaeva says Alina was so traumatised she was forced to give up work.

Gagkaeva worked as a beautician in Galway city and Harutyunyan usually picked their daughter up at the creche. “Her eyes used to light up when she saw him ,” recalls Tracy Lee, who looked after Alina there. “She was obviously Daddy’s girl and she was very bright and bubbly, but when he left she seemed sad and lost". Remzi Ozdiner, who employed Harutyunyan for more than five years at his Turks Barbers in Renmore, says he was “a good guy who always worked hard”.

Gagkaeva and Alina went to visit Harutyunyan some weeks ago but she says Ireland is their home and she is pleading for her husband to be allowed return. “He is sleeping on a couch in his parents’ kitchen. When we got back I was very sad but I was also relieved because I was always worried Alina got sick in Armenia.”

Yesterday on Facebook, Harutyunyan sent birthday greetings to “my sweet princess Alina”, and the mother and daughter made a birthday cake and wished for him to come home.

In a statement the Department of Justice said for reasons of confidentiality neither the Minister nor his officials in the immigration service could comment on individual cases.

It said decisions to repatriate were not taken lightly and were open to judicial review. Enforced repatriation was only carried out as a last resort, it added, and it was open to anyone with a deportation order to make a request to have that revoked. “A request for revocation needs to be based on new information or changed circumstances, which were not part of the original application when the order was made,” the statement said.

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/a-family-divided-we-didn-t-say-a-proper-goodbye-that-morning-1.3974621


Salpy Eskidjian Weiderud Honored With International Religious Freedom Award

Adrine Hakobian
Oikoumene.

Peace dialogue facilitator Salpy Eskidjian Weiderud. Photo: Claus Grue/WCC

Salpy Eskidjian Weiderud, leader of the Religious Track of the Cyprus Peace Process, has received an International Religious Freedom Award from the US Department of State. The awards “honor extraordinary advocates of religious freedom from around the world” and will be presented on 17 July in Washington, D.C.

Weiderud was born in Cyprus, a grandchild of Armenian refugees. She is an architect and facilitator of the unprecedented peacebuilding initiative in Cyprus known as the Religious Track of the Cyprus Peace Process, which operates under the auspices of the Embassy of Sweden.

Weiderud has focused her career on facilitating peace with passion, said World Council of Churches (WCC) general secretary Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit. “Salpy has used her special talents and energy for peacemaking in many settings, some of them in the service of the WCC,” he said. “We are grateful for her many contributions, and this award for the work in Cyprus is well-deserved.”

Beginning as a student in the 1980s, Weiderud worked on a variety of bicommunal civil society and women’s peace initiatives in Cyprus.  She was the first young female program executive working on religious freedom, human rights, and peace issues at the Middle East Council of Churches.

During her time at the WCC – between 1995 and 2005 – Weiderud served as executive secretary for International Affairs, programme executive for the Middle East, and special consultant on Palestine and Israel.

She founded the Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel, was a founding member of the International Action Network on Small Arms and Light Weapons, and initiated and led the Ecumenical Action Network Against Small Arms. As the executive coordinator of the Programme to Overcome Violence of the WCC, she led its Peace to the City Campaign (1997-1998) and initiated the WCC’s Decade to Overcome Violence: Churches Seeking Reconciliation and Peace (2000-2010).

Weiderud has served as the executive director of the Office of the Religious Track of the Cyprus Peace Process since 2012.  Originally a quiet initiative that started in 2009, the religious track is now an active peacebuilding effort based on four pillars: to get to know and build trust among the religious leaders and respective faith communities; to promote confidence-building measures; to advocate for the right to free access and worship at churches, mosques and monasteries; and to ensure the protection of all religious monuments in Cyprus.

 
 
 
 

Armenia hands over illegal-border crosser back to Azerbaijan

Adrine Hakobian

Armenia hands over illegal-border crosser back to Azerbaijan

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15:32, 28 June, 2019

YEREVAN, JUNE 28, ARMENPRESS. Armenia has handed over Elvin Arif Oghlu Ibrahimov to Azerbaijan, the foreign ministry said.

The Azerbaijani citizen had illegally crossed into Armenia on March 16 and was detained ever since.

He was handed over to Azerbaijan with the support and under the auspices of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC)

The foreign ministry said Armenia remains committed to international humanitarian law norms and its assumed international commitments.

Ibrahimov, escorted by ICRC representatives and respective Armenian bodies, was handed over to Azerbaijan on June 28th.

“Armenia has carried out this humanitarian step without any pre-condition”, the foreign ministry said.

Edited and translated by Stepan Kocharyan





Sports: In One Shot: Happy Ararat with the USSR Cup

Adrine Hakobian
MediaMax, Armenia
June 17 2019

1973 was a year of football and success for the Armenian nation: FC Ararat had a mad season, winning game after game and crowning the achievements with a domestic double – the USSR Championship and Cup.

The win over Dynamo Kyiv in the cup final was one of the best examples of unity and the resolution to fight until the end.

This edition of Mediamax Sport’s In One Shot columns recalls the final and takes us back to the photo, made in 1973, which depicts happy Ararat players posing with the USSR cup.

On October 10, 1973, Lenin Stadium in Moscow gathered 60,000 fans for the cup final. Dynamo Kyiv was to face Ararat.

In the 61st minute of the match, Dynamo’s Viktor Kolotov put the Ukrainian team ahead with a flawless penalty. One minute before the end of the game, Levon Ishtonyan equalized. He proceeded to score the winner in the 103rd minute, helping Ararat win the club’s first USSR Cup.

“We were greeted by a huge crowd in the airport in Yerevan. It took us four hours to get to the city. People would have carried the bus if they could. I had never seen anything like and I don’t think I ever will again. We won over the hearts of the people. We made history,” said Eduard Markarov, who played for Ararat as forward.

The players were back, but they had no time to celebrate: they were still fighting in the championship. Nevertheless, the team found time to make a photo.

Wearing white kits and wide smiles, the first USSR Cup winners in the Caucasus shone in front of the camera as much as on the pitch.

Unfortunately, many of the players depicted on the picture are no longer with us: the legendary captain Hovhannes Zanazanyan, goalkeeper Alyosha Abrahamyan, Alexander Kovalenko… But as long as the fans of Ararat ’73 are around and people remember the achievements of that team, they will live on.


Agriculture must have the greatest investment potential in Tavush province: Governor introduces investment programs

Adrine Hakobian

Agriculture must have the greatest investment potential in Tavush province: Governor introduces investment programs

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13:17,

YEREVAN, JUNE 22, ARMENPRESS. 110 thousand hectares of agricultural land exists in Armenia’s Tavush province, but only 30% of it is being used, Governor of Tavush Province Hayk Chobanyan said during the My Step For Tavush Province business forum in Dilijan on June 22.

“We have an additional great volume for realization and we have the same quantity of forest space which is also of agricultural significance. Bog bilberry and olive grow here. This diversity enables an investor of any agricultural taste to come to Tavush. In the coming years agriculture must have the greatest investment potential in the province”, the Governor said.

Talking about the problems, he stated that they face a major infrastructural problem connected with the irrigation systems.

As for the forest opportunities, the governor noted that according to the studies, the forests in Tavush have an opportunity of 300 million Euro goods.

Edited and translated by Aneta Harutyunyan




Armenian Foreign Minister Discusses Regional Problems With US Under Secretary of State

Adrine Hakobian
Sputnik News Service
Thursday
Armenian Foreign Minister Discusses Regional Problems With US Under Secretary of State


YEREVAN, June 20 (Sputnik) – Armenian Foreign Minister Zohrab Mnatsakanyan discussed international and regional issues with US Under Secretary of State David Hale, the foreign ministry said in a statement on Thursday.

Mnatsanakyan is on a trip to Washington where he will meet with his Azerbaijani counterpart Elmar Mammadyarov on Thursday to discuss the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict under the auspices of the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs.

"In Washington, Foreign Minister Zohrab Mnatsakanyan met with US Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs David Hale. The parties discussed a number of topical international and regional issues," the statement says.

The minister confirmed consistent cooperation of Armenia with world and regional partners aimed at strengthening the country's security agenda.

Mnatsakanyan also explained Armenia's position on the Nagorno-Karabakh issue at Hale's request.

The conflict in Armenian-dominated Nagorno-Karabakh started in 1988 with the autonomous region announcing its secession from the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic. In 1991, the Armenia-backed region proclaimed independence from Azerbaijan and the creation of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic. This move triggered a military conflict, which led to Baku losing control over the region.

The situation in the region is monitored by the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) Minsk Group chaired by Russia, the United States and France, within the framework of which negotiations on peace settlement has been conducted since 1992.