13:15,
YEREVAN, OCTOBER 28, ARMENPRESS. Armenian health authorities consider keeping schools closed for another week after the two-week autumn break amid rising COVID-19 infection rates, health minister Anahit Avanesyan told reporters.
Meanwhile, universities have switched to remote learning. Avanesyan said this will help in suppressing the spread of the virus.
Editing and Translating by Stepan Kocharyan
PanARMENIAN.Net - The World Court in The Hague has promised to make a decision as soon as possible on a case case Armenia filed that said Azerbaijan promotes ethnic hatred against Armenians and asked the court to stop the cycle of violence and hatred.
The judge said the decision will be adopted as soon as possible, adding that the sides will be provided information about the date a little later, Sputnik Armenia reports.
The hearing dealt with Armenia’s request for emergency measures to stop the violations, while the court considers the claim. The Armenian lawyers said Azerbaijan’s authorities are fostering ethic hatred and a culture where murder and torture of ethnic Armenians were “systematic”.
“Generations upon generations are indoctrinated into this culture of fear and hate of anything and everything Armenian,” Yeghishe Kirakosyan said.
Dozens of videos of Azeri troops cutting the throats and ears of Armenians have been spreading online since the final days of the war in Nagorno-Karabakh.
The Azerbaijanis subject the Armenian POWs and captives to physical abuse and humiliation. The videos depict Azerbaijani captors variously slapping, kicking, and prodding Armenian POWs, and compelling them, under obvious duress and with the apparent intent to humiliate, to kiss the Azerbaijani flag. In most of the videos, the captors’ faces are visible, suggesting that they did not fear being held accountable.
S Jaishankar on Tuesday arrived in Armenia on the last leg of his 3-nation tour to Central Asia
Yerevan (Armenia):
"Ajanta in Armenia", said External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Wednesday after he visited the famed heritage sites and commented on the deep historical ties between the Caucasus nation and India.
"The Armenia-India connect so visible in the Matenadaran library in Yerevan. First Armenian newspaper and Constitution that were published in Madras (Chennai)," S Jaishankar tweeted, attaching photographs of him seeing the 18th century documents.
Established in 1959, the Matenadaran Library is one of the world's largest repositories of ancient manuscripts.
Later, Mr Jaishankar, the first Indian External Affairs Minister to visit Armenia, toured the National Gallery of Armenia.
"Ajanta in Armenia. Paintings of the caves by noted Armenian Artist Sarkis Khachaturian at National Gallery of Armenia in Yerevan. Also at Matenadaran library, a copy of the Mahabharata in Sanskrit," Jaishankar tweeted, along with photographs of the historical pieces.
The Buddhist Caves in Ajanta date back to 2nd Century. They are 30 rock-cut cave monuments in the Aurangabad district of Maharashtra.
Mr Jaishankar on Tuesday arrived in Armenia on the last leg of his three-nation tour to Central Asia with an aim to further expand bilateral ties and discuss key regional issues including the developments in Afghanistan.
Earlier during a joint press statement with his Armenian counterpart Ararat Mirzoyan, Mr Jaishankar said: "Relations between the two countries actually go back several centuries. And there is recorded history with the presence of Armenian diaspora in India, and the rich Armenian heritage with churches, cemeteries and education institutions."
"To add, a stamp was issued by the Armenia Post in the 1990s of a church in Chennai, which is fondly etched in my memory. Armenian heritage has been preserved with great care and respect for all traditions. And the Armenian community's contributions to India's progress has been noteworthy," he said
13:16,
YEREVAN, OCTOBER 11, ARMENPRESS. Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan will pay a working visit to the Russian Federation on October 12, his Office said in a statement.
Nikol Pashinyan will meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow.
The parties will discuss issues related to the implementation of the trilateral statements of November 9, 2020 and January 11, 2021, as well as further steps to strengthen stability, resumption of economic ties and current developments in the region.
Nikol Pashinyan and Vladimir Putin will also discuss issues on the agenda of Armenian-Russian allied relations, as well as further cooperation in integration unions.
Armenia’s Human Rights Defender (Ombudsman) Arman Tatoyan presented the reports on the torture and ill-treatment of Armenian prisoners of war (POWs) and other captives in Azerbaijan after last year’s war to members of the Italian Parliament’s Committee on Human Rights on Wednesday.
He stressed the urgency of the release of Armenian captives being held in Azerbaijan, stating that the international requirements have been ignored and they are being held captive for military and diplomatic bargaining, Tatoyan’s office reported.
The ombudsman also called attention to the illegal deployment of Azerbaijani soldiers on intercommunal roads in Armenia, which endangers the lives and safety of civilians.
During the discussion, Tatoyan stated that the state-sponsored policy of Armenophobia and hostility in Azerbaijan is at the root of human rights abuses, including torture and inhuman treatment.
TEHRAN – Iranian Deputy Transport and Urban Development Minister Kheirollah Khademi has announced an agreement between Iran and Armenia for establishing new transit routes, IRNA reported.
“The alternative transit route for Iranian trucks in Armenia will be asphalted within the next month, and there will be no need to use the previous route which passes through Azerbaijan and requires us to pay tolls to the country,” Khademi said.
Earlier this week, Khademi visited Armenia on top of a delegation for discussing solutions to resolve recent transit problems posed by Azerbaijan along a 20-kilometer section of Armenia’s Goris-Kapan Road stretching from Norduz (in Iran) to Yerevan.
“Positive meetings were held with Armenian officials, including the Minister of Infrastructure and his deputies. In order to determine a new route for Iranian trucks; good solutions were also suggested with a specific schedule to solve the problem,” the official stated.
The northern part of the route (from Yerevan to Georgia) has been completed by Armenia and the southern part toward the Norduz border in Iran is remaining which the two sides agreed to launch the construction operations.
According to Khademi, Armenia's long-term plan is to build section 4 of this global corridor, and Iran has announced its readiness for its consultants and contractors to participate in the implementation of this project.
Azerbaijan is controlling and claiming ownership for approximately 20 km out of a 400 km route from Norduz to Yerevan. Since last month, Azerbaijan has imposed strict regulations on Iranian drivers which are posing major problems for them passing through the 20-kilometer section of Armenia’s Goris-Kapan Road including paying tolls levied by Azerbaijani border guards.
Iran and Armenia are seeking ways to bypass Azerbaijan for their traffic.
The Goris-Kapan Road is the main traffic route in southern Armenia. Since the end of the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War, a 20-kilometer section of the road has been under Azerbaijani control. But since early 2021 it has set up border guard posts on their sections of the road, thereby disrupting the traffic along the route.
EF/MA
13:50, 7 October, 2021
YEREVAN, OCTOBER 7, ARMENPRESS. Secretary of the Security Council Armen Grigoryan received today Ambassador of the Netherlands to Armenia Nico Schermers.
“The sides praised that the Armenian-Dutch relations are on friendly nature and have a tendency for further development”, Mr. Grigoryan’s Office said in a statement.
The Dutch Ambassador highly appreciated the resistance of democratic institutions in Armenia during this difficult period, as well as the efforts of the government for the constant development of these institutions.
The Secretary of the Security Council presented the Armenian government’s works aimed at strengthening democratic institutions and rule of law, as well as upgrading the Armed Forces.
Both sides stressed the importance of the fight against corruption.
Armen Grigoryan and Nico Schermers also discussed the security issues in the region and the situation on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border.
Editing and Translating by Aneta Harutyunyan
The U.N. Must Investigate Nagorno-Karabakh War Crimes
By Sheila Paylan, an international criminal lawyer and human rights expert with more than 15 years of experience advising the United Nations.
Both claims arose almost one year to the day after Azerbaijan, backed by Turkey, launched a full-scale armed attack to reclaim the Nagorno-Karabakh region. Armenia and Azerbaijan signed a Russian-brokered cease-fire on Nov. 10, 2020, to end six weeks of heavy fighting, leaving Azerbaijan the clear military victor.
Azerbaijan regained the seven territories surrounding Nagorno-Karabakh that it had lost during the first war in the early 1990s and also now occupies approximately one-third of Nagorno-Karabakh itself, including the Hadrut region and the city of Shushi. Yet there is still no peace agreement or definitive resolution to the ongoing conflict.
While there are many causes for the lack of lasting peace, one major blind spot has been on the issue of criminal accountability for atrocities committed during the hostilities.
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The charges in the ICJ case are not entirely new. Armenia and Azerbaijan have already filed interstate cases against one another before the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) to resolve their respective disputes about alleged human rights abuses committed during the 44-day war. Armenia also filed a case against Turkey alleging the latter’s essential role in providing material assistance to Azerbaijan during the conflict, including with the supply of drones and mercenaries. These cases are still pending.
But the ECHR’s jurisdiction is limited to determining whether human rights violations occurred. It has no competence to declare whether the facts underlying such violations also amount to international crimes. Human rights violations are, in important ways, qualitatively different from international crimes, which carry more gravitas and require higher evidentiary standards. Also, neither the ECHR nor the ICJ has the power to prosecute or send any perpetrators of crimes to prison.
There is evidence that civilians were killed on both the Armenian and Azerbaijani sides; if it can be proved that they were deliberately targeted, these killings could amount to war crimes. In addition, cultural and religious treasures were destroyed, such as the 19th-century Ghazanchetsots Cathedral, which was struck in two separate, apparently deliberate, attacks just hours apart. Numerous gruesome videos also circulated widely over the internet last year of executions, live beheadings, torture, and mutilations of civilians and military personnel captured during the war and after the cease-fire.
The most appropriate forum to investigate and prosecute such crimes would be the International Criminal Court (ICC), inaugurated in 2002 to fight impunity for the worst international crimes. However, since neither Armenia nor Azerbaijan is a state party to the Rome Statute, which established the ICC, the court has no jurisdiction over crimes committed by their nationals or by anyone on their territory. Nagorno-Karabakh also never joined the ICC, but since the de facto republic’s statehood remains officially unrecognized (including by Armenia), it couldn’t even if it tried.
Even if they were ICC members, the principle of complementarity demands that the ICC only exercise its jurisdiction when a country is unwilling or genuinely unable to investigate and prosecute suspected perpetrators of such grave crimes. Customary international law, deriving mainly from the 1949 Geneva Conventions, requires that states “must investigate war crimes allegedly committed by their nationals or armed forces, or on their territory, and, if appropriate, prosecute the suspects.”
Soon after the outbreak of hostilities, Armenia announced that it had started investigating serious violations of international humanitarian law arising from Azerbaijan’s aggression against Nagorno-Karabakh. To date, Armenia has tried and convicted two Syrians for committing war crimes and fighting as mercenaries for Azerbaijan in the 44-day war, sentencing them to life imprisonment. It is unclear how far other investigations or prosecutions of possible war crimes in Armenia have progressed.
Azerbaijan, in turn, announced last December that it had charged and arrested two Azerbaijani service members for defiling Armenian corpses and two others for desecrating Armenian gravestones. There is no further information as to whether these soldiers were ultimately tried or convicted of the charges against them.
In any event, investigating or prosecuting a few low-level perpetrators while letting many more serious offenders go free amounts to tokenism, not justice. Even worse, the perpetrators may have been acting on the instructions of, or under the direction or control of, the Azerbaijani state. It seems hypocritical, after all, for Azerbaijan to charge two soldiers with vandalizing Armenian gravestones when it has destroyed the largest ancient Armenian cemetery in the world, in what has been dubbed “the worst cultural genocide of the 21st century.”
Moreover, in Armenian society, a mindset of victimhood resulting from the 1915 Armenian genocide and exacerbated by the Nagorno-Karabakh war continues to prevail such that Armenians may lack sufficient critical self-reflection to be able to remain completely objective in investigating possible wrongdoing on their part.
The same can be said of Azerbaijani society, which has lived with the burden of roughly 600,000 internally displaced people from the first Nagorno-Karabakh war. However, the situation in Azerbaijan is much more dangerous because there state-sponsored anti-Armenian hatred is known to be extreme, the erasure of Armenian culture is a matter of state policy, and crimes against Armenians are glorified.
In this context, it’s doubtful whether war crimes investigations could be truly independent or impartial if performed exclusively by the warring parties. At the very least, one could expect more effort will go into pursuing perpetrators of opposing sides than one’s own.
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In Armenia, the conversation is shifting toward granting amnesties for crimes of minor or medium gravity (such as desertion) committed during the war. Meanwhile in Azerbaijan, more than 60 Armenians taken hostage during and after the war have been subjected to rushed trials and convictions on charges including “espionage” and “illegal border crossing.”
Armenian and international actors have criticized these charges as fabricated in support of sham trials to pressure Armenia into conceding to Azerbaijan’s demands. Such a reproach is not without merit, as Amnesty International and Freedom House have reported that trials in Azerbaijan are systemically unfair, especially when politically motivated.
Azerbaijan’s rhetoric is also growing more bellicose and disturbing, with President Ilham Aliyev creating an anti-Armenian theme park in April and publicly demonizing Armenians as the “hated enemy” just two months ago. Such brazen and tenacious incitement to hatred—in addition to the presence of several other atrocity risk factors, such as Azerbaijan’s (and Turkey’s) denial of the Armenian genocide and identity-based Armenophobic ideology—is alarming.
Both sides expect a lot from the ECHR and the ICJ in helping to prevent further atrocities, resolve the conflict, and bring restorative justice to the victims thereof. But to ensure criminal accountability, Armenia and Azerbaijan would do well to join the ICC. As Armenia signed the Rome Statute in 1999, it need now only ratify it, and Yerevan appears more receptive to the idea than Azerbaijan, which has done neither and seems far less inclined to expose itself to international scrutiny.
Even if both countries did ratify the statute soon—the odds of which are slim—the principle of nonretroactivity would normally preclude the ICC from exercising jurisdiction over crimes from last year’s war. An alternative, tailor-made accountability mechanism—such as the one created for crimes committed by the Islamic State, called UNITAD—would therefore be more suitable.
Such a mechanism should include independent, impartial international experts and be mandated to collect, preserve, and analyze testimonial, documentary, and forensic evidence of serious violations committed during the Nagorno-Karabakh war to prepare files for criminal proceedings in national, regional, or international courts that have or may in the future have jurisdiction over such crimes, including on the basis of universal jurisdiction.
The UNITAD model is ideal because it works in partnership with the government of the country in which the crimes occurred, thus necessitating the consent and cooperation of Armenia or Azerbaijan (or preferably both as consent by either will be limited to investigations of their own nationals or within their respective territories). Lack of consent or cooperation, however, does not necessarily pose an impediment as the United Nations’ creation of similar accountability mechanisms for Syria and Myanmar shows.
Such a forum could also be brought under the auspices of regional bodies such as the European Union (which created something similar for Georgia in 2008-2009) or the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, whose Minsk Group is still mandated with finding a peaceful resolution to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.
Whatever the model or overseeing organization, the most important thing is to end impunity for serious violations of international law. The international community’s heightened involvement in helping Armenia and Azerbaijan to bring perpetrators to justice is therefore paramount to ensuring lasting peace in Nagorno-Karabakh and the wider region.
Sheila Paylan is an international criminal lawyer and human rights expert with more than 15 years of experience advising the United Nations. She regularly consults for a variety of international organizations, NGOs, think tanks, and governments.
20:09, 6 October, 2021
YEREVAN, OCTOBER 6, ARMENPRESS. Prime Minister of Armenia NIkol Pashinyan informed about the negotiations on building a new nuclear power plant in Armenia, ARMENPRESS reports Pashinyan said during the parliament-Cabinet Q&A session, answering the question of MP Sergey Bagratyan representing Civil Contract Party.
Bagratyan reminded that recently the Chairman of the Board of Directors of GeoProMining Company announced about investing 2 billion USD in mining, he also spoke about 1.5 billion investment to build a new copper smelter.
“Let’s note that for the first time since the 2000s, Armenia and the people of Armenia are co-owners of the Zangezur Copper and Molybdenum Combine. I hope that this share will increase, but to such an extent that it will not distort the market nature of our economy," Pashinyan said.
The Prime Minister noted that when it was announced that the Government was becoming the co-owner of the Zangezur Copper and Molybdenum Combine, there were opinions that there was a dark and suspicious deal. "If the owner of that 15 percent was not the Government, but an offshore company, and the owner of that offshore company was another offshore company, and the offshore owner was a member of the Prime Minister's or any minister's family, then it would be a dark deal," he said.
Pashinyan noted that there are people sitting in the part of the hall representing the opposition who have made such deals during their activities, and believes that law enforcement agencies should seriously investigate into those deals to find out their cause and effect, including potentially treacherous deals.
An offer was made to Armenia by one of the owners of "Geopromining" company, a member of the Board of Directors, we discussed the offer, we saw that the offer corresponds to the economic and state interests of Armenia. “This includes two very important components: the first is the construction of a copper smelter, which means that Armenia will no longer export concentrate and import ready-made copper from somewhere else to be used in other products, but copper will be produced in Armenia. Second, the construction of a new nuclear power plant is part of this program, and this large company has undertaken investment commitments for the establishment of a copper smelter, which has been duly recorded, and negotiations on the construction of a new nuclear power plant in Armenia have already started”, PM Pashinyan said, adding that the participation of the Government in that process is important for that the nuclear power plant cannot be a fully private company, the Government should have active participation in it.
Pashinyan noted that now the Government's task is that the construction of a new copper smelter kicks off by June 2025. "And we must try to make the construction of the nuclear power plant happen in parallel. It would be good if the operation of the copper smelter and the nuclear power plant coincide," he said.