17:30,
YEREVAN, OCTOBER 22, ARMENPRESS. The Defense Ministry of Artsakh said today that 40 more of its servicemen have been killed in action in the defensive operations against the Azerbaijani attacks.
The total death toll in the Defense Army of Artsakh has reached 874.
Editing and Translating by Aneta Harutyunyan
October 21, 2020
The Library of Congress corrected its “Armenian Massacres subject heading to “Armenian Genocide”
Success of ANCA Campaign Will Cascade through Thousands of Libraries across America and around the World
WASHINGTON—A campaign, launched by the Armenian National Committee of America and strongly backed by key Congressional allies, resulted, this week, in a determination by the Librarian of Congress, Dr. Carla Hayden, that books and other resources currently cataloged under the subject heading “Armenian Massacres” will be referenced as the “Armenian Genocide.”
“This long-overdue correction by the Library of Congress – a principled, fact-based stand for the integrity of American institutions against malign foreign influence – comes at a particularly meaningful moment for Americans of Armenian heritage,” said Aram Hamparian, Executive Director of the ANCA. “We see today the painful, real-world results of American leaders having allowed Turkey to bully our country into a century of silence on the Armenian Genocide. Even today – as Ankara and Baku openly seek to complete the destruction of the Armenian homeland – our government remains all too fearful of truth-telling to Erdogan and Aliyev. That has to end.”
Bipartisan letters to the Library of Congress calling for this change were spearheaded in the U.S. House by Reps. Adam Schiff (D-CA), Gus Bilirakis (R-FL), Dina Titus (D-NV), Frank Pallone (D-NJ), and Jackie Speier (C-CA) and in the Senate by Bob Menendez (D-NJ).
In a December 4, 2019 letter to Dr. Hayden, the ANCA recommended changing the terminology for the Library of Congress Subject Heading from “Armenian Massacres, 1915-1923″ to: “Armenian Genocide, 1915-1923,” in the wake of the near-unanimous passage of H.Res.296 (405-11) by the U.S. House of Representatives on October 29th of last year (the Senate passed an identical resolution, S.Res.150 (100-0) on December 12th.
The University of California – Los Angeles, one of America’s leading research libraries – played a vital role in this change, by submitting a formal request to the Library of Congress last month. The UCLA request was echoed by the ANCA in its own submission.
Over the past several months, thousands of community advocates weighed in directly with the Library of Congress and their Members of Congress via a dedicated portal on the ANCA website.
Congressional leaders welcomed the Library of Congress decision to change the Armenian massacres subject heading and properly characterize the Armenian Genocide.
“It is welcome news that the Library Congress, at our urging, will now use the historically accurate term ‘Armenian Genocide.’ This is one further step in overcoming the decades-long campaign of denial that has silenced too many about the murder of 1.5 million Armenians,” said Rep. Schiff. “This recognition is particularly meaningful at a time when the genocide of a century ago seems all too immediate, as Azerbaijan and Turkey are committing atrocities right now in Artsakh.”
“I am glad that the Library of Congress has chosen to honor the Armenian Caucus’s request to change the subject heading to match the historical fact that the Ottoman Turks perpetrated a genocidal campaign in the early 20th century that systemically and ruthlessly targeted Armenians,” said Rep. Pallone. “This change establishes the categorization that the Armenian Genocide deserves to match the historical record and helps set an example for scholars worldwide. The Library’s change follows the important precedent set by Congress last year when both the House of Representatives and the Senate passed resolutions commemorating the Armenian Genocide.”
“I am glad to see the Library of Congress will finally recognize the Armenian Genocide for what it was; a genocide,” said Rep. Bilirakis. “For decades there has been a campaign of denial that silenced any attempt at recognizing the 1.5 million Armenian lives that were lost. While our work is not done, this is an incredible step as we work towards international recognition of the atrocities that were committed by Turkey only a century ago.”
“Last year I was proud to co-lead the historic House resolution to formally recognize the Armenian Genocide, along with the Co-Chairs of the Congressional Armenian Caucus,” Rep. Speier said. “As an institution founded on the principles of scholarship and learning, it is imperative that the Library not shy away from the truth. I am encouraged to see the Library correct its research headings to adhere to historical accuracy – and to properly acknowledge the murder of 1.5 million Armenians at the hand of the Ottoman Empire.”
“The use of the term ‘Armenian Genocide’ is necessary to paint an accurate picture of history and rightly honor the victims of this atrocity,” said Rep. Titus. “I am grateful that the Library of Congress will no longer conceal the truth about these horrific crimes. The Trump Administration should do the same.”
23:25,
YEREVAN, OCTOBER 20, ARMENPRESS. Representative for California's 32nd congressional district Grace Napolitano urges the USA to officially recognize the independence of the Republic of Artsakh, ARMENPRESS was informed from the Armenian National Committee of America.
Referring to Nagorno Karabakh (Artsakh) conflict, she said that Artsakh cannot be part of Azerbaijan, adding that it has been the integral part of Armenia for thousands of years.
‘’Freedom is the only answer left for Artsakh’s survival – history-based, law-based, survival-based remedial secession’’, Napolitano said, adding that the path forward is one of liberty.
11:40,
STEPANAKERT, OCTOBER 17, ARMENPRESS. Three civilians have been wounded in the latest Azerbaijani bombardment of Stepanakert, the capital city of Artsakh.
Many apartments have been destroyed, and one economic facility was also hit in this attack, the Artsakh State Service of Emergency Situations said.
The wounded civilians are hospitalized.
“During the night Azerbaijan bombarded several streets in Stepanakert’s central part and the suburbs with different weapons and cluster bombs, significant damages were inflicted to private property of residents, apartments are ruined. One facility of economic significance was also hit,” the State Service of Emergency Situations said, adding that they are currently assessing the damages.
Artsakh’s Human Rights Defender Artak Beglaryan released a video on his social media account showing the consequences of the night bombing. “This is the consequences of Azerbaijan’s deliberate strikes with 6 heavy missiles at the peaceful settlements of Stepanakert,” he said, posting the images of the ruins.
Stepanakert City and other towns in Artsakh have come under intense shelling by the Azeri forces since the attacks on Artsakh began. At least 34 civilians in Artsakh have been killed in the attacks.
Editing and Translating by Stepan Kocharyan
Large number of Azeri fighters amass along Araks River at Artsakh-Iran border
09:10, 7 October, 2020
YEREVAN, OCTOBER 7, ARMENPRESS. Azerbaijani forces are amassing in large number of groups directly along the length of the Artsakh-Iranian border from the Artsakhi side (along the Araks (Araxes) River) and are factually taking shelter with the border in an attempt to advance, Armenian Defense Ministry spokesperson Artsrun Hovhannisyan said.
“The Azerbaijani armed forces units – not having sufficient capabilities of engaging in effective offensive operations, are resorting to obvious provocations for already the second day. Namely, in the southern direction of the Artsakh-Azerbaijan military operations, the Azerbaijani units are amassing in large groups directly at the length of the Artsakh-Iranian border (along the Araks River) and are trying to advance by factually taking cover with the border,” he said.
He said this is a clear provocation by the Azeris trying to incite the Artsakhi forces to open fire or deliver strikes along the border, factually in the direction of Iran. Hovhannisyan didn’t rule out the possibility of these Azeri fighters retreating or fleeing into Iranian territory.
“In order to avoid this all, we believe the Iranian side – which certainly is seeing this, must prevent or force the Azeris to refrain from such amassing,” he said.
Editing and Translating by Stepan Kocharyan
Canada is suspending the export of sophisticated Canadian drone technology to Turkey while the government investigates claims that it is being used by the Azerbaijani military against Armenian forces in Karabakh, Foreign Affairs Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne said Monday.
"Over the last several days, certain allegations have been made regarding Canadian technology being used in the military conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh. In line with Canada's robust export control regime and due to the ongoing hostilities, I have suspended the relevant export permits to Turkey, so as to allow time to further assess the situation," Champagne said in a statement.
Canada's Armenian community as well as the disarmament group Ploughshares International have been calling on the government to stop the export of Canadian drones and targeting systems to Turkey following reports that Ankara has deployed dozens of unmanned aircraft in combat against Armenians in Karabakh.
In a press briefing on Monday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said he has asked Champagne to travel to Europe to work with allies on the "developments in Eastern Europe and the Caucasus, particularly in Nagorno-Karabakh."
Fierce fighting along the entire Line of Contact betwee Karabakh and Azerbaijan raged for the ninth consecutive day on Monday, with Armenian authorities reporting heavy bombardment of the region's capital Stepanakert and several other towns.
In addition, Amnesty International says its Crisis Response experts were able to trace the location of the footage released by Karabakh authorities to residential areas of Stepanakert, and identified Israeli-made M095 DPICM cluster munitions that appear to have been fired by Azerbaijani forces.
Armenian populated enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh declared independence from Azerbaijan in 1991 during the breakup of the Soviet Union. The Republic of Armenia refers to itself as teh "guarantor" of Karabakh's residents' security.
22:43, 3 October, 2020
YEREVAN, OCTOBER 3, ARMENPRESS. As a result of the Azerbaijani strikes against Artsakh’s capital Stepanakert, the electricity network building has been damaged. The correspondent of ARMENPRESS reports from Stepanakert that at the moment the city is out of electricity.
At this moment the situation in Stepanakert is calm.
Starting from September 27, Azerbaijan, backed by Turkey and thousands of terrorists unleashed military operations against Artsakh, using its entire arsenal and targeting even civilian population both in Artsakh and the Republic of Armenia.International reporters have also been targeted, including the reporters of French Le-Monde.
Turkey has deployed mercenaries from the northern parts of Syria to Azerbaijan to fight against Artsakh and Armenia. The number of mercenaries ranges between 3.000-4.000, who according to international media reports are paid 1500-2000USD monthly to fight against Armenia and Artsakh.
Editing and translating by Tigran Sirekanyan
The conflict has its origins in the Stalin era, when the South Caucasus – today, the independent countries of Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan – was part of the Soviet Union. The borders of Azerbaijan were drawn to include majority-Armenian Nagorno-Karabakh, which didn’t much matter while both Armenia and Azerbaijan were part of the same state. When the USSR collapsed, however, Nagorno-Karabakh declared independence. Armenian forces and Azerbaijan fought a brutal war over the territory which ended in Nagorno-Karabakh, internationally recognised as Azerbaijani territory, gaining de facto independence as the Armenian-sponsored Republic of Artsakh. Negotiations to solve the conflict have never made much progress and there are frequent skirmishes between the two sides.
The renewed conflict is a tragedy for civilians on both sides, including Armenian civilians settled in Nagorno-Karabakh who bear no responsibility for the political situation in their statelet, and Azeris expelled during the 1990s who dream of returning to lands they had lived in for generations. Regardless of the legal status of Nagorno-Karabakh (inherited from arbitrary Soviet-era administrative divisions), any attempts to disrupt the uneasy status quo antebellum other than through negotiations will harm tens of thousands of civilians living in the territory.
There is some evidence that this latest bout of fighting was planned by Baku, as Eurasianet reports. Azerbaijan has been offered unequivocal support from Turkey, a regional power many times larger than the two Caucasian rivals combined. Ankara is providing political backing to the Turkic Azerbaijan and, according to some reports, organised the transfer of Syrian mercenaries to the Caucasus to fight Armenia. The Armenian Ministry of Defence even claimed on Tuesday (29 September) that a Turkish fighter jet had shot down an Armenian plane inside Armenian airspace, though this should be treated with some scepticism. Still, Turkey’s newfound assertiveness in the conflict, possibly spurred by its recent adventurism in Syria and Libya, threatens to internationalise what had for 30 years been a fairly localised land dispute, Vahe Gevorgyan, an advisor to the Armenian Foreign Minister, told the New Statesman.
This latest flare-up also demonstrates what many will characterise as the obsolescence of the Cold War era military alliances. For perhaps the first time in recent history, western European countries such as France have begun offering cautious political support to the same side of a military conflict as Russia and Iran (both allied with Armenia) against the ally of a Nato member (Turkey).
The conflict could end in the absurdity of aligning Nato members with different sides, or even Nato members against each other – though not for the first time, as the ongoing stand-off between Turkey and Greece in the eastern Mediterranean reminds us. Yet again, a conflict in Nato’s back yard positions Turkey against much of western Europe. The US, meanwhile, is consumed with a debasing presidential election campaign and has been largely absent, a state of affairs which is unlikely to change with the country's commander-in-chief now taken ill with coronavirus. “It is not at all a coincidence that fighting broke out just a month before the US presidential election,” said Carey Cavanaugh, a former co-chair of the Minsk Group, the international body charged with resolving the conflict peacefully. “We can see that with the American response, which has not been swift or very strong.”
Emmanuel Macron was widely criticised for terming Nato “brain dead” in an interview last year. Macron’s reasoning was that there was no coordination of strategic decision-making between the US and its Nato allies, in addition to “uncoordinated aggressive action” by Turkey. Who, looking at the debacle in Nagorno-Karabakh, could claim that Macron’s logic has not held up?
As Gevorgyan put it: “The division between East and West is not there. The old world no longer exists.”
13:44, 1 October, 2020
YEREVAN, OCTOBER 1, ARMENPRESS. Australia is concerned by the renewed fighting in the Nagorno Karabakh conflict zone, Foreign Minister Marise Payne said in a statement.
“We urge parties to the conflict and all other sides to show restraint and support the efforts of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Minsk Group to help negotiate a peaceful resolution”, the statement says.
Azerbaijan launched a massive attack against the Republic of Artsakh on September 27. According to the latest data, the Azerbaijani side lost nearly 1280 soldiers with 2700 wounded in its offensive launched against Artsakh. Azerbaijan has lost 90 UAVs, 10 helicopters, 181 armored equipment, 1 aircraft, 2 Smerch launchers and 3 TOS-1A heavy artillery systems.
Editing and Translating by Aneta Harutyunyan
What you need to know about the deadly clashes over the region of Nagorno-Karabakh.
By
Updated 9/28/20, 8:05 PM CET
Violence flared up in a longrunning conflict on Europe's eastern edge this weekend as Armenia and Azerbaijan clashed over the embattled region of Nagorno-Karabakh.
The fighting, which continued on Monday, left at least 39 people dead — the most serious escalation in years.
The two former Soviet states have clashed over Nagorno-Karabakh, an Armenian-controlled enclave internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan, for three decades. But the conflict is more than a Cold War-era relic. Both sides enjoy the support of powerful backers and with the South Caucasus occupying a strategic position in the global energy market, the fighting between Armenia and Azerbaijan could end up reverberating beyond the region.
Here's what you need to know about the latest escalation in Nagorno-Karabakh.
Armenia says that on Sunday morning, Azerbaijan launched air and artillery attacks on Nagorno-Karabakh, while Baku says it was conducting a "counter-offensive in response to military provocation." As the fighting turned deadly, Armenia declared martial law and general mobilization. Azerbaijan announced a state of war in some regions.
The death toll is disputed. Armenia on Sunday confirmed 16 fatalities, with more than a hundred people injured. On Monday morning, media reports put the overall death toll at 39. Azerbaijan claimed it had killed 550 Armenians, which Yerevan denied. Armenia, meanwhile, claimed it had killed 200 Azerbaijanis. Both sides accused each other of killing civilians, including an Azerbaijani family of five and a woman and one child on the Armenian side, Agence France-Presse reported.
During the so-called Four-Day War in 2016 — to date the worst breach of a 1994 cease-fire agreement — more than 200 people died.
The Nagorno-Karabakh clashes have the potential to draw in larger powers — in particular Russia and NATO member Turkey, two countries that already support opposing sides in Syria and Libya.
Then there's the region's role in the global energy trade: The pipelines connecting Azerbaijan with Turkey are crucial for the European Union's oil and natural gas supply — and pass close to Nagorno-Karabakh.
Christian-majority Armenia and Muslim-majority Azerbaijan have had frictions for centuries, but religion does not play a major role in the modern-day conflict. A lot of the blame rests with Joseph Stalin. The former Soviet leader placed the majority-Armenian region of Nagorno-Karabakh (known as Artsakh to Armenians) into Azerbaijan after the Caucasus was conquered by the Red Army in the early 1920s. Neither side was pleased, though for decades it didn’t matter much.
But when the USSR began to collapse in the late 1980s, powerful nationalist forces on both sides turned Nagorno-Karabakh into a powder keg. The enclave’s ethnic Armenians declared independence in 1991. War erupted between Azerbaijan, which insisted on the inviolability of its borders, and the Nagorno-Karabakh Armenians, who received support from Armenia itself. By 1994, the Armenians had succeeded in driving the Azerbaijani army from the enclave and large surrounding swathes of land. Hundreds of thousands of people had to flee.
These days, the United Nations still recognizes Nagorno-Karabakh as part of Azerbaijan’s territory; no country considers the enclave an independent country — not even Armenia, which also hasn’t formally annexed it but supports the region financially and militarily. Since then, the two countries have hunkered down on either side of a line of control marked by landmines and snipers.
Armenia's 2018 "velvet revolution," which toppled its longtime leader Serzh Sargsyan, briefly raised hopes that long-stalled peace negotiations could resume. But Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, the opposition politician who rose to power after the mass protests, largely ended up sticking by his predecessor's rhetoric.
An election organized this spring by the self-declared Armenian government in Karabakh was viewed as a provocation in Azerbaijan and drew international criticism. And in July this year, tensions started surging after a series of clashes killed more than a dozen people, with the catalyst still remaining unclear. The fighting prompted thousands of Azerbaijanis to demonstrate for war with Armenia; at the same time, Turkey ratcheted up its rhetoric in support of Baku.
EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell has urged "an immediate cessation of hostilities," a call echoed by the U.S. State Department and the United Nations.
Turkey sided firmly with Azerbaijan, with President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan describing Armenia as "the biggest threat to peace" in the region. Russia took a more cautious approach: In a phone call with Armenia's Pashinyan, President Vladimir Putin said it was important to "halt military actions," according to the Kremlin's account of the conversation.
Iran — an ally of Armenia — offered to mediate, saying Tehran was "ready to use all its capacities to help talks to start between the two sides.”
For more than a quarter-century, an international peace initiative, known as the Minsk Process, has tried and failed to bring a resolution to the conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh after the cease-fire in the region in 1994.
Chaired by France, Russia and the United States, under the auspices of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, the Minsk Group has sought to prevent military clashes and to implement a peace settlement.
But years of diplomatic meetings and various missions to the region, as well as to the capitals of Armenia and Azerbaijan, have come to naught.
There were brief flickers of hope after Pashinyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev met formally for the first time in March 2019, and later in February 2020 for a public debate at the Munich Security Conference. For years, Armenian and Azerbaijani leaders had refused to even appear in the same room. But the coronavirus pandemic interrupted diplomatic efforts earlier this year.
On Sunday, the Minsk Group co-chairs issued a statement decrying the latest violence.
It's too early to say how long the fighting will continue or whether it could escalate into a full-blown war. Both the 2016 clashes and the skirmishes in July lasted only a few days.
The picture would change significantly if a major power were to enter the conflict — yet even Turkey has so far limited its involvement to rhetoric. Armenia has claimed Ankara has redeployed fighters from northern Syria to Azerbaijan, but Baku issued a swift denial.
https://www.politico.eu/article/the-nagorno-karabakh-conflict-explained-armenia-azerbaijan/?fbclid=IwAR0h35Inqs8wUXKqnb412Ynov2MhfJ_gmYOee6CvcMmhZ48_gOQbyVpvjkE