11:11, 29 May, 2021
YEREVAN, MAY 29, ARMENPRESS. 42new cases of COVID-19 have been confirmed in Armenia in the past 24 hours, bringing the total number of confirmed cases to 222,555, the ministry of healthcare reports.
186 patients have recovered in one day. The total number of recoveries has reached 212,752.
The death toll has risen to 4428 (5 death cases have been registered in the past one day).
3084 COVID-19 tests were conducted on May 28.
The number of active cases is 4294.
MOSCOW (Reuters) -Azerbaijan captured six Armenian servicemen in the early hours of Thursday morning, the defence ministries of both countries said, the latest twist in a simmering border dispute.
The Azeri defence ministry accused the Armenian soldiers of trying to cross into Azeri territory. Armenia's defence ministry said its soldiers had been carrying out engineering work in the border area of its eastern Gegharkunik region, which neighbours Azerbaijan.
"Necessary measures are being taken to return the captured servicemen," Armenia's defence ministry said.
The United States said it was concerned by the border incidents between Armenia and Azerbaijan, including the detention of several Armenian soldiers, urging both sides to "urgently and peacefully" resolve the issue.
In a statement, the U.S. State Department said it considered any movements along the non-demarcated areas of Azerbaijan and Armenia border to be "provocative and unnecessary".
In separate comments, Armenia's acting Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan called for international observers from Russia or other countries to be deployed to a portion of Armenia's border with Azerbaijan, where he said the atmosphere was tense.
Pashinyan also directed his proposal at the Azerbaijan leadership, Russian news agencies quoted him as saying.
"Let's agree that the military units from both sides rapidly move away from the border and return to their permanent bases, and station international observers from Russia or other countries in the OSCE Minsk Group."
The U.S. State Department also urged both sides to return as soon as possible to substantive negotiations under the auspices of the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs to achieve a long-term political settlement to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.
Armenia earlier this month accused Azerbaijan of sending troops across the border, highlighting the fragility of a Russian-brokered ceasefire that halted six weeks of fighting between ethnic Armenian forces and the Azeri army last year.
That conflict saw Baku drive ethnic Armenian forces out of swathes of territory they had controlled since the 1990s in and around the Nagorno-Karabakh region.
Azerbaijan on Tuesday denied accusations by Armenia that it had fired across the border at Armenian positions, in a shootout in which Armenia said one of its soldiers had been killed.
(Reporting by Anton Kolodyazhnyy, Alexander Marrow and Gabrielle Tétrault-Farber; additional reporting by Humeyra Pamuk in Washington; Editing by Andrew Osborn, Toby Chopra and Grant McCool)
Dadivank, a beautiful Armenian monastery in the Kalbajar region of Azerbaijan, could be the world’s most fortified church: Its ancient ramparts bristle with sandbags and gun emplacements, and cloisters have been turned into an army barracks. Just six months ago, Armenian pilgrims could worship here freely and in peace. Now, the only way to visit is with a Russian army escort that leaves twice a month from Stepanakert, the regional capital of what remains of the self-declared Republic of Artsakh, an Armenian breakaway region that controls just over two-thirds of Nagorno-Karabakh. The fate of this 12th-century monastery has become a flash point for the conflict over Armenian cultural heritage in land recently retaken by Azerbaijan.
As we stood in the courtyard of Dadivank after a recent Sunday service, Narik, my Armenian escort, pointed to the remains of an old water tower on a hill above us. “There is an Azerbaijani outpost right over there,” he said. “Careful, I bet they’ve got their rifles trained on us as we speak,” he added, a touch dramatically.
As one drives into Stepanakert itself, a billboard with a stony-faced portrait of Russian President Vladimir Putin glowers down. It reads “Man of the Year,” and the locals mean it seriously. The inhabitants of Armenian-populated Nagorno-Karabakh regard Moscow as their last protector. Russia, for its part, has been increasingly cutting off and controlling the breakaway state, leaving Armenia more and more powerless in the region.
Last month, the world’s attention was focused on Russia’s troop buildup on the border with Ukraine. But while international attention was distracted by what now seems to have been a fakeout, Russia was quietly consolidating control of another restive region in its environs: Nagorno-Karabakh.
Yet the regional power that has benefited most from the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war is Russia, Armenia’s supposed ally. Today, Russian troops are stationed in Nagorno-Karabakh for the first time since the fall of the Soviet Union, and they now seem to have the final say over the region’s political matters. All this has rendered the statelet more and more isolated. Since February, it has become almost impossible for foreigners—bar Russians—to enter Nagorno-Karabakh. Almost all foreign press and aid organizations who have tried to enter the region have been blocked from doing so by the Russian authorities.
A document obtained and published by Aravot, an Armenian national newspaper, listed that around 80 or so organizations had been barred from entering Nagorno-Karabakh. These included Médecins Sans Frontières, the International Crisis Group, and even the Halo Trust, a demining organization that had been well respected by locals before and during the conflict.
The BBC, Radio France, and many freelance journalists also had their press accreditation denied. The photojournalist Kiran Ridley was even issued a visa by the Artsakh authorities, only to be turned away by Russian soldiers at the border. They told him that only Russian and Armenian nationals were allowed in Nagorno-Karabakh from now on.
The exact chain of command in Nagorno-Karabakh is deliberately opaque. The leader of the Russian peacekeeping mission, Lt. Gen. Rustam Muradov, meets frequently with Azerbaijani and Armenian leaders to hear petitions about what should happen in the statelet. But because Armenian forces were forced to withdraw from the area—while Azerbaijan’s troops remain behind the new line of contact—Russia now has complete military control of Nagorno-Karabakh.
Jeanne Cavelier, the Central Asia regional director for Reporters Without Borders, said these restrictions risk transforming Nagorno-Karabakh into a news and information “black hole” and called on the Russian peacekeepers to expand access for international media. This is a stark contrast from before. When Nagorno-Karabakh was under Armenian control, NGO workers, journalists, and even tourists could enter the region almost at leisure.
In March, the parliament of the Republic of Arstakh introduced Russian as an official language, and officials in both Yerevan and Moscow have proposed giving the region’s population Russian passports. While such an arrangement would be new to Nagorno-Karabakh, it tracks with how events have unfolded in other frozen conflict zones where Russia has extended its grip.
Across Eastern Europe and the Caucasus, Russia has used its peacekeepers to put pressure on regional foes while offering Russian citizenship to locals. South Ossetia, a breakaway region of Georgia recognized as an independent state by Russia, is controlled by Russian peacekeepers. It is extremely difficult for foreigners to access and completely geopolitically reliant on Moscow. Meanwhile, in Ukraine, Russia’s demand that its peacekeepers patrol the borders in the Donbass region in the county’s east is one of the main sticking points preventing a lasting cease-fire.
Russian peacekeepers have also patrolled two other frozen conflict zones—the regions of Abkhazia in Georgia and Transnistria in Moldova—since the early 1990s. These areas remain similarly isolated, though slightly easier to access than South Ossetia and the Donbass. A senior Ukrainian general told me in 2018 that Russia had mobilized its peacekeepers in Transnistria in 2014 in case they were needed for an invasion. Indeed, one of the Ukrainian military’s biggest fears is that Russia could launch an offensive from the Donbass or Moldova.
Of course, there remain significant differences between Nagorno-Karabakh and these other enclaves. For one, both Armenia and Azerbaijan signed off on the presence of Russian peacekeepers in their cease-fire last fall. Ukraine and Moldova, by contrast, had turned definitively toward the West when Russia intervened in their local conflicts.
Both Armenia and Azerbaijan have also retained friendly relations with their former colonial ruler in Moscow. Yet the two countries themselves remain sworn enemies, and, in Nagorno-Karabakh, mere yards separate Azerbaijani troops from their Armenian enemies. This reality has rendered Moscow’s men less controversial than elsewhere, as they are seen as a neutral party. But skirmishes still break out.
When I visited this line of contact shortly before access for foreign journalists was cut in February, I witnessed one of these violent encounters for myself. A small group of journalists, of which I was a part, was accompanied by a squad of Armenian troops who were standing guard in Taghavard, an Armenian village that is cut almost directly in two by the new front line. Shortly after arriving at what the soldiers said was a heavily mined line, we heard gunfire coming from the Azerbaijani positions barely a mile from us.
The Armenian troops were tight-lipped about the situation but confirmed to us that they were still suffering injuries from sniper fire they had endured earlier that day—meaning that such skirmishes were a routine occurrence. In a separate engagement that day, as many as 62 Armenian troops had been taken prisoner while defending the Armenian villages of Hin Tagher and Khtsaberd in otherwise Azerbaijani-controlled territory. The status of these villages had not been settled under the cease-fire agreement, so Azerbaijan decided to settle the matter by force.
The mayor of Taghavard told us that when a villager crossed into the other Azerbaijani-controlled part of the village to visit his brother’s grave, he was taken hostage by Azerbaijani troops who claimed that Armenians in the area were saboteurs. The villager’s whereabouts remain unknown, although local officials suspect he was taken to Baku.
One Armenian foreign official in Yerevan complained to me that while Russia had done nothing in response to Azerbaijan’s initial attack in the war last fall, it moved very swiftly as soon as given the chance to deploy troops in the region. Still, many Armenians feel that they have no choice other than to turn to Russia for protection.
Despite the recent influx of Russian troops, a semblance of peace has been restored in Stepanakert itself. During the war in September 2020, locals would rise early in the morning to sweep away the broken glass and debris from shelling the night before. A local told me that keeping their city presentable was a small act of defiance during the war. Now, the streets are clean, and most of the damaged buildings have been repaired or covered up. Life has returned, and Stepanakert looks as if it just suffered a bad storm rather than a pitiless military bombardment.
The Armenians who remain, however, face a deep identity crisis. The hastily brokered cease-fire agreement made no mention of the future of Nagorno-Karabakh, which parties relegated to later talks. But this intractable issue is at the heart of the conflict over the enclave, and until it is sorted, Nagorno-Karabakh will join Abkhazia, South Ossetia, the Donbass, and Transnistria as a frozen conflict zone reliant on Moscow. Russia, for its part, has grown extremely comfortable with the indefinite nature of these conflicts: Frozen conflicts prevent any of the countries involved in them from joining NATO, which requires that applicants for membership have no outstanding territorial disputes.
Russian troops also now function as a bulwark against Turkish influence in Nagorno-Karabakh as the growing rivalry between the two powers escalates. During the September 2020 war, Turkey threw its full diplomatic and military support behind Azerbaijan, and Turkey’s supply of high-tech military hardware was likely the decisive factor in the conflict’s outcome. Indeed, many of the drones Azerbaijan had used were piloted from Turkish bases in Ankara.
Yet it seems Turkey achieved little for its support of Azerbaijan. Ankara has no military presence on the front line, having been relegated to a joint Russian-Turkish observation headquarters miles from the conflict zone. Plans for a land corridor between Turkey and mainland Azerbaijan via Nakhichevan have also stalled. And U.S. President Joe Biden’s recent recognition of the Armenian genocide demonstrated to many observers that Turkish influence has waned in Washington, not least over the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.
Meanwhile, Armenia and Azerbaijan are caught in yet another tense military standoff. Azerbaijani troops marched several miles into the southern Armenian province of Syunik on May 12, prompting U.S. and international calls for their withdrawal. Once again, Russia has been called to meditate, further increasing its influence in both countries.
Back at Dadivank, I saw no omens for peace and reconciliation. As the afternoon dragged on, three men dressed in Azerbaijani military fatigues came down from their perch in the hills to buy snacks and supplies at the makeshift food truck Russian troops had parked next to the monastery’s chapel. They were tall and lanky with trimmed moustaches but couldn’t have been older than 21. As they huddled among themselves, the men looked awkward and uncomfortable—hardly the conquering horde of Armenian imagination. They were probably the first Azerbaijanis any of the Armenians I was with, most of them worshippers and priests, had encountered in the flesh since the borders closed more than 25 years ago.
But when I suggested we approach the Azerbaijani soldiers and get a quote from them, Narik raised his eyebrow at me and grimaced. “I’ll always hate them, and they’ll always hate me,” he said.
“Why would we ever talk to each other?”
US policy in the South Caucasus has not changed considerably since President Joe Biden came to power. Paul Stronski, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, stated this at Saturday’s First Armenian-American Political Science Forum.
According to Stronski, the South Caucasus is a very distant region with which the US does not have as active trade relations as with other regions, and therefore these relations are maintained in connection with the problems related to the collapse of the USSR since the 1990s.
But it should be borne in mind that the geopolitical environment is changing rapidly, and the Biden administration will respond to events, war, and the need to stabilize the region, the analyst added.
Stronski noted that he believes that the US should continue to be engaged in the issues of the South Caucasus.
Speaking about the region, Paul Stronski noted that snap parliamentary elections are approaching in Armenia, and the US hopes that the positive changes in Armenia in terms of elections will continue.
As per the analyst, however, Azerbaijan can become a difficult partner for the US.
Turkey has slammed a report approved by the European Parliament which calls on the European Union to suspend the accession process should the candidate country not fulfill criteria and reiterated that it will decisively continue its efforts to join the EU as a strategic goal.
“This unilateral and, by no means objective, report, adopted in a period when efforts are made to revive Turkey-EU relations on the basis of the EU membership perspective within the framework of a positive agenda, is unacceptable,” read a statement by the Foreign Ministry late May 19.
“We reject this biased text which not only includes false allegations regarding human rights, democracy, the rule of law, our governmental system and political parties, and views Turkey’s effective, solution-oriented, humanitarian and enterprising foreign policy as a threat, but also reflects the completely unfair and biased Greek and Greek Cypriot arguments regarding the Aegean, the eastern Mediterranean and Cyprus issue and supports the one-sided and inconsistent Armenian narratives regarding the 1915 events,” it added.
The report reflects a lack of vision by trying to open the future of Turkey’s accession negotiations to discussion, the ministry stated, “EU membership is a strategic goal for Turkey and will be beneficial for all of Europe and beyond. Turkey will decisively continue its efforts in line with this objective.”
“As a candidate country, Turkey expects the EP to carry out constructive efforts about how relations can be improved with Turkey and how it can contribute to Turkey’s EU integration process, rather than being a platform for baseless allegations and blind accusations against Turkey,” it read.
Ties at historically low point
Members of the European Parliament adopted the report, warning that relations between Turkey and the European Union were at a “historic low point.”
The text was passed with 480 votes in favor, 64 against and 150 abstentions. Rapporteur Nacho Sánchez Amor said the report was “probably the toughest yet in its criticism of the situation in Turkey.”
Parliamentarians said Turkey had distanced itself from European values and continued backsliding in the field of the rule of law and human rights.
“Because the accession process is not driving democratic reforms, the European Parliament is committed to include democratic conditionality in every aspect of our relationship,” said Sánchez Amor.
The report, however, described Turkey as a key partner for stability in the region and for combatting terrorism and cooperating with Europe in handling the refugee problem stemming from the Syrian civil war.
Report suggests ban on Grey Wolves
In a separate statement, the ministry also slammed the report for calling on the EU and its member states to examine the possibility of adding “Grey Wolves” to the EU’s terror list, to ban their associations and organizations in EU countries.
The Grey Wolves is a movement of nationalist groups. The French government has recently banned the group’s activities on its territories.
“This wording demonstrates how the European Parliament, which is supposed to be the defender of freedom of _expression_ and thought, is contradictive and prejudiced. While the activities of the PKK/PYD/YPG and FETÖ-affiliated associations are tolerated by some EU member states under the pretext of freedom of _expression_ and demonstration, a call for including a legal movement, which is stated as associated with a long-established political party in our country, into the EU Terrorist Organizations List and proposing to ban its affiliated associations in the countries where they legally operate can only be defined as a case of lapsus mental,” it said.
Racism and fascism are concepts that belong to western political jargon, and this political line should not be confused with the perception of nationalism in Turkey, the ministry stated, “Especially, such slanders, fabricated by the anti-Turkey Armenian diaspora as well as PKK and FETÖ circles, and used by Western politicians for their domestic political agenda are unacceptable. In addition to the false allegations in the report about our country, a call for restricting fundamental rights and freedoms is another indicator of how the EP is detached from the reality and European values.”
13:02,
YEREVAN, MAY 11, ARMENPRESS. The delegation of the Parliamentary Assembly of the International Organization of La Francophonie visited the Tsitsernakaberd Armenian Genocide Memorial in Yerevan during their visit to Armenia.
Parliamentary Assembly of the Francophonie Europe mission chief Jean-Charles Luperto, France MP Sophie Mette, Catalan MP Aurora Madaula, Cameroon MP Joshua Osih, Parliamentary Assembly of the Francophonie administrative secretary general Emmanuel Maury and advisor for European region Fatmir Leci were accompanied by the lawmakers of the Armenian delegation to the assembly Hovhannes Igityan (head), Arman Yeghoyan, Arusyak Julhakyan and Sona Ghazaryan.
The delegates laid flowers at the Eternal Flame in honor of the victims of the genocide and then toured the Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute, the parliament's press service said.
Editing by Stepan Kocharyan
13:23, 4 May, 2021
YEREVAN, MAY 4, ARMENPRESS. Armenia’s foreign ministry has released a statement regarding the construction works being carried out by Azerbaijan in Shushi’s Ghazanchetsots Cathedral.
Armenpress presents the MFA’s statement:
“The actions being carried out by Azerbaijan at the Ghazanchetsots Cathedral of the Holy Savior in Shushi are deplorable, as there are already many precedents for the destruction of Armenian places of worship, monuments, as well as for justification of such actions.
Among the many war crimes committed by the Azerbaijani armed forces during the aggression against Artsakh is the deliberate targeting of the Shushi Ghazanchetsots Cathedral with high precision weapons twice within a day, followed by the act of vandalism after the ceasefire was established.
It’s noteworthy that Azerbaijan carries out actions at the Shushi Cathedral without consulting with the Armenian Apostolic Church, which clearly violates the right of the Armenian believers to freedom of religion. It is equally concerning that Azerbaijan has started to change the architectural appearance of the church before the launch of work by the UNESCO expert assessment mission. It is obvious that Azerbaijan is deliberately blocking the entry of UNESCO experts to the endangered Armenian cultural heritage sites, on the one hand to cover the war crimes it has committed, and on the other hand to change the historical-architectural integrity of the monument.
In this situation, all the concerns of the Armenian side that these actions of Azerbaijan are manifestations of vandalism, aimed at depriving the Shushi Mother Cathedral of its Armenian identity are more than substantiated.
No action can be carried out at the Ghazanchetsots Cathedral, the numerous Armenian historical and cultural monuments and places of worship in the territories of Artsakh under the Azerbaijani occupation, without documentation of the current situation by international, first of all, UNESCO experts and their active involvement in restoration works. Shushi Cathedral is one of the important centers of the Armenian Apostolic Church in Artsakh, it should serve as a place of worship”.
Thursday, May 6, 2021
Opposition Parties Confirm Alliance With Kocharian
May 06, 2021
• Naira Nalbandian
Armenia -- The Armenian Revolutionary Federation holds a rally in Yerevan's
Liberty Square, May 23, 2019.
The Armenian Revolutionary Federation (Dashnaktsutyun) and another opposition
party officially confirmed on Thursday that they will join forces with former
President Robert Kocharian to participate in snap parliamentary elections
expected in June.
“We will soon make a joint statement on the formation of the alliance, its name,
electoral list and other tasks,” Ishkhan Saghatelian, the head of
Dashnaktsutyun’s governing body in Armenia, said in a video address posted on
Facebook.
Saghatelian said the Dashnaktsutyun leadership has decided to team up with
Kocharian and the newly established party called Resurgent Armenia because they
have similar “visions for Armenia’s future.”
Dashnaktsutyun, which also has branches in Armenian Diaspora communities around
the world, was allied to Kocharian when he ruled the country from 1998-2008. It
is not represented in the current parliament, having garnered only about 4
percent of the vote in the last elections held in December 2018.
Resurgent Armenia announced the creation of the alliance in a separate
statement. It said the alliance will be led by Kocharian.
The party, which held its founding congress earlier this week, is led by Vahe
Hakobian, a former governor of Armenia’s southeastern Syunik province. Most of
its senior members are elected local government officials and other well-known
residents of the region sandwiched between Iran, Azerbaijan and its Nakhichevan
exclave.
They have angrily challenged Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian in recent months,
blaming him for Armenia’s defeat in the autumn war in Nagorno-Karabakh which
left Syunik facing serious security challenges.
The Resurgent Armenia statement said the “grave situation in Armenia and
Karabakh” is what necessitates the party’s electoral alliance with “like-minded
political forces.”
Armenia - Former President Robert Kocharian meets with supporters, Yerevan,
April 21, 2021.
Kocharian did not immediately comment on the announcements made by the two
parties. But he did say last month that he will lead a bloc comprising at least
two opposition parties. He expressed confidence that it will be Pashinian’s main
election challenger.
The announcements came the day after Levon Ter-Petrosian, who had served as
Armenia’s first president from 1991-1998, publicly urged Kocharian and another
ex-president, Serzh Sarkisian, to team up with him and try to unseat Pashinian
in the upcoming polls. Ter-Petrosian said the incumbent prime minister’s
reelection would be “much more dangerous for Armenia than even possible or
hypothetical threats emanating from Azerbaijan and Turkey.”
Both Kocharian and Sarkisian were quick to turn down the proposal. Sarkisian
reaffirmed his Republican Party’s decision to form an alliance with another
opposition group led by Artur Vanetsian, a former head of Armenia’s National
Security Service.
Russia Vows No Letup In Karabakh Peace Efforts
May 06, 2021
• Sargis Harutyunyan
Armenia - Armenian Foreign Minister Ara Ayvazian meets with his Russian
counterpart Sergei Lavrov, Yerevan, May 6, 2021.
Russia will keep doing its best to ensure the full implementation of the
Russian-brokered agreement that stopped the Armenian-Azerbaijani war in
Nagorno-Karabakh, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said during a visit to Yerevan
on Thursday.
“We are not reducing our efforts at returning all detainees to their homes,
demining, preserving cultural and religious heritage as well as launching the
work of relevant international organizations in Nagorno-Karabakh,” Lavrov said
after talks with his Armenian counterpart Ara Ayvazian.
In that context, he stressed the importance of Russian efforts to get Armenia
and Azerbaijan to open their transport links after decades of conflict. He said
a trilateral working group formed by the Russian, Armenian and Azerbaijani
governments for that purpose is helping to further stabilize the situation in
the Karabakh conflict zone.
“The success of this work will be decisive for normalizing the overall situation
and laying the groundwork for creative cooperation in the post-conflict period,”
added Lavrov.
He further stated that Armenia and Azerbaijan are now also engaged in a
demarcation and delimitation of their internationally recognized border. Prime
Minister Nikol Pashinian and other Armenian officials have repeatedly made
statements to the contrary.
Speaking at a joint news conference with Lavrov, Ayvazian reiterated the
official Armenian line that the conflict cannot be deemed resolved until the
conflicting parties agree on Karabakh’s status, the main bone of contention.
Yerevan says such an agreement must reflect peace proposals made by the OSCE
Minsk Group co-headed by Russia, the United States and France.
Armenia - Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov lays a wreath at the Armenian
genocide memorial in Yerevan, May 6, 2021.
Lavrov, who is due to visit Baku early next week, said the group’s chief
priority now must be to create an atmosphere of mutual trust.
In a joint statement issued on Wednesday, the Minsk Group co-chairs called for
“concrete steps to create an atmosphere of mutual trust conducive to
long-lasting peace.” They urged the parties to “fully and expeditiously complete
the exchange process for all prisoners, detainees, and remains, and to respect
their obligations to ensure the humane treatment of detainees.”
The statement came the day after Azerbaijan released three more Armenian
prisoners of war.
Baku remains reluctant to set free more than 100 other Armenian POWs and
civilian captives believed to remain in Azerbaijani captivity. Yerevan regards
this as a gross violation of the November 9 truce accord brokered by Russian
President Vladimir Putin.
Meeting with Pashinian later on Thursday, Lavrov said Russia will spare no
effort to secure the release of the remaining Armenian prisoners. “We are
confident that we will manage to solve this issue soon,” he said.
Lavrov also assured Pashinian that Moscow remains “committed to ensuring the
security of our ally, Armenia.”
Latvia Also Recognizes Armenian Genocide
May 06, 2021
Latvia – Latvian and European Union flags fly in the capital Riga.
Latvia’s parliament voted on Thursday to pass a resolution recognizing the
Armenian genocide in Ottoman Turkey and honoring its 1.5 million victims.
The resolution was drafted by the parliament’s foreign affairs committee and
approved by 58 votes to 11, with 7 abstentions.
It says that the mass killings and deportations of Armenians, which began with
the April 1915 mass arrests of Armenian intellectuals in Constantinople,
constituted a genocide perpetrated by the Ottoman government. It notes that the
European Parliament first recognized the genocide in 1987.
The resolution also says Latvia believes that condemnation of all crimes against
humanity is important for preventing a repeat of such tragedies in the future.
Armenia’s outgoing ambassador to the Baltic state, Tigran Mkrtchian, hailed the
development and thanked Latvian lawmakers for “addressing this issue extremely
important for the Armenian people.”
“What was hard to imagine years ago became a reality today,” Mkrtchian wrote on
his Facebook page.
Predictably, the Latvian resolution was condemned by Turkey, which continues to
strongly a deny a premeditated government effort to exterminate the Ottoman
Empire’s Armenian population. The Turkish Foreign Ministry said it is devoid of
“any legal basis.”
The vehement Turkish denials are dismissed by most scholars outside Turkey.
The Armenian genocide has also been recognized by the parliaments and/or
governments of three dozen other countries, including Latvia’s Baltic neighbor
Lithuania as well as the United States, Russia, France, Germany and Italy.
U.S. President Joe Biden used the word “genocide” in his April 24 statement on
the 106th anniversary of the World War One-era slaughter of Ottoman Armenians.
Pashinian’s Party Not To Form New Election Bloc
May 06, 2021
Armenia - Campaign posters of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian's Civil Contract
party are displayed in Yerevan, May 5, 2021.
A senior member of Armenia’s ruling Civil Contract party said on Thursday that
it will not form an alliance with other political allies of Prime Minister Nikol
Pashinian to participate in upcoming parliamentary elections.
“The Civil Contract party will participate in the elections as a separate party,
rather than in an alliance,” Lilit Makunts, the leader of the party’s
parliamentary group, told journalists.
Pashinian set up such an alliance ahead of the last elections held in December
2018. The bloc dominated by his party and called My Step won 70 percent of the
vote at the time.
Makunts refused to shed light on the list of Civil Contract’s candidates for the
snap polls expected in June. “I will just say that there will be new people on
our electoral list,” she said without naming any of them.
Pashinian pledged in March to call the vote amid renewed anti-government
protests staged by opposition forces blaming him for Armenia’s defeat in last
year’s war with Azerbaijan and demanding his resignation. He and his cabinet
stepped down for that purpose on April 25.
Under the Armenian constitution, early elections must be held within two months
if the prime minister resigns and the National Assembly twice fails to elect
another head of the government.
In what was the first step towards its dissolution, the parliament controlled by
Pashinian did not reelect him or install another premier on Monday. It is due
vote again on May 10.
Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
Copyright (c) 2021 Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, Inc.
1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.
Public Radio of Armenia May 7 2021 President Armen Sarkissian hosted today veterans of the Great Patriotic War Rozalia Abgaryan, Shoghik Sarafyan, Papin Marukhyan and Khachik Hovakimyan. President Sarkissian congratulated them on the 76th anniversary of the victory over fascism. Freedom and victory are never given as a gift, they are achieved through your will and efforts, at the cost of your health,” said the President. In a warm atmosphere, President Sarkissian talked to the veterans. They shared their memories of the war, their military path, the feelings of Victory Day, May 9, and conveyed their wishes of peace to the entire Armenian people. The President wished the guests and all the veterans good health, noting that their life stories are a military-patriotic lesson for generations.