Author: George Mamian

 17:11,

YEREVAN, 31 MARCH, ARMENPRESS. The Central Bank of Armenia informs “Armenpress” that today, 31 March, USD exchange rate up by 0.18 drams to 388.48 drams. EUR exchange rate down by 0.11 drams to 422.28 drams. Russian Ruble exchange rate down by 0.01 drams to 5.02 drams. GBP exchange rate up by 1.66 drams to 480.74 drams.

The Central Bank has set the following prices for precious metals.

Gold price up by 21.37 drams to 24552.69 drams. Silver price up by 5.82 drams to 296.14 drams. Platinum price stood at 16414.1 drams.

 11:59, 22 March 2023

YEREVAN, MARCH 22, ARMENPRESS. French senator Valérie Boyer has reiterated solidarity and deep friendship with the Armenian people amid the Azeri blockade of the Lachin Corridor.

“Azerbaijan has been blocking the Lachin corridor for 100 days, cutting off Nagorno-Karabakh and its 120,000 inhabitants from the rest of the world, in general indifference. I have a thought for all the Armenians and I want to show them once again my solidarity and my deep friendship,” the senator tweeted, along with a photo of herself at the Tsitsernakaberd Memorial in Yerevan during an earlier visit.

 15:04, 23 March 2023

YEREVAN, MARCH 23, ARMENPRESS. Russia and Belarus will not participate in the European Weightlifting Championships 2023 due in Yerevan, according to Russian news media.

The men’s and women’s teams of Russia and Belarus were not included in the final entry list of nations by the EWF.

The EWF European Weightlifting Championships 2023 are scheduled to take place 15-23 April in Yerevan, Armenia.

In 2022, the EWF indefinitely banned Russian and Belarusian athletes from participating in its events. Russia and Belarus nonetheless submitted bids to participate in the Yerevan championships but the EWF turned them down.

 16:56,

YEREVAN, MARCH 15, ARMENPRESS. The European Parliament adopted the resolution on the EU-Armenia relations. 534 MEPs voted in favor, 10 voted against, while 66 abstained.

Amendments to the report were proposed, particularly to condemn the continuing blockade of Lachin Corridor which deteriorates the humanitarian crisis in Nagorno Karabakh, and to condemn the "March 5 incident" between Azerbaijan and the Armenians of Nagorno Karabakh which led to deaths and jeopardized the peace process. The verbal amendments were also adopted.

The report noted that “over more than three decades, the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict as well as the recent incursion by Azerbaijan into Armenian sovereign territory have resulted in tens of thousands of casualties, immense destruction and the displacement of hundreds of thousands of people…”

It further noted that “in September 2022, Azerbaijan attacked three Armenian provinces: Gegharkunik, Syunik, and Vayots Dzor; whereas Armenian authorities reported that the attack had resulted in the occupation of 220 km2 of Armenian sovereign territory, that it had left 201 people, both military and civilian, dead and that 27 people remain missing…”

“Azerbaijani military actions follow worrying statements by Azerbaijani authorities referring to the territory of the Republic of Armenia as Azerbaijani ancestral land and threatening to use force; whereas, since December 2022, civilian traffic between Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh on the Lachin corridor has been blocked, which has had a negative impact on the deliveries of food and other essential supplies and services to the region,” reads the report, in part.

The report mentions that Armenia made a 16-point improvement on Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index over the five years  from 2016 to 2021, and Armenia has the leading position in its neighbourhood in the Economist Intelligence Unit 2021 Democracy Index and the Reporters Without Borders 2022 World Press Freedom Index and that Armenia has improved its positions in the World Bank’s Women, Business and Law 2022 report, the Global Startup Ecosystem Index Report 2022, and the World Economic Forum Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Report 2021.

The European Parliament “considers that the armed Nagorno-Karabakh conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan, which over the years has caused immense suffering and destruction, has significantly hampered the socio-economic development and stability of the whole South Caucasus region; is convinced that durable and sustainable peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan cannot be achieved through military means and the threat of  force, but requires a comprehensive political settlement in accordance with international law, including the principles enshrined in the UN Charter, the 1975 OSCE Helsinki Final Act, namely the non-use of force, territorial integrity and the equal rights and self-determination of peoples, and the OSCE Minsk Group’s 2009 Basic Principles and all the agreements reached between the two parties, including the Alma Ata 1991 Declaration;

Reaffirms that, in order to be effective, a comprehensive peace treaty must include provisions that guarantee the integrity of Armenia’s sovereign territory, the rights and security of the Armenian population residing in Nagorno-Karabakh and other conflict-afflicted areas, and the prompt and safe return of refugees and internally displaced people to their homes; recalls that the root cause of the conflict, which is the situation and security of the Armenian population of Nagorno-Karabakh and the status of the formerly autonomous region, remains unresolved; calls on the international community to keep its attention on this conflict, which is a matter of stability and security for the whole region;

Strongly condemns the large-scale military aggression by Azerbaijan in September 2022 against multiple places in the sovereign territory of Armenia, which constituted a serious breach of the ceasefire and contradicted earlier commitments, including those made as part of EU-mediated talks; condemns military incursions into the internationally recognised territory of Armenia since May 2021; recalls that this follows violations of the territorial integrity of the Republic of Armenia as reported in May and November 2021; urges the return of all forces to their positions held on 9 November 2020 and stresses that the latest September aggression has no direct link to the long-lasting conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh; reiterates that the territorial integrity of Armenia must be fully respected in line with international law and the UN Charter and calls on the Azerbaijani authorities, therefore, to immediately withdraw from all parts of the territory of Armenia and to release the POWs under their control; urges the EU to be more actively involved in settling the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan; emphasises that both sides have to respect the principle of territorial integrity, which is key for peace in the region;

Condemns the blockade of the Lachin corridor; urges Azerbaijan to remove any obstacles that would hinder freedom and security of movement along that corridor as stipulated by the trilateral statement of 9 November 2020; calls on Armenia and Azerbaijan to address all concerns relating to the functioning of the Lachin corridor through dialogue and consultations with all the parties involved…”

The EP also condemns in the strongest possible terms the torture, mutilation and killing of Armenian military personnel, including women, and eight unarmed Armenian POWs by Azerbaijani armed forces in September 2022; deplores the fact the perpetrators filmed these heinous acts and posted them on social media themselves; takes note of reports by human rights groups, in particular by Human Rights Watch, classifying this act as a war crime; calls for a full independent and impartial investigation to identify those responsible and hold them accountable for their actions.

 10:47, 3 March 2023

YEREVAN, MARCH 3, ARMENPRESS. The United States Senior Advisor for Caucasus Negotiations Louis Bono will be traveling to Armenia and the other countries in the region next week, the US State Department announced.

State Department spokesperson Ned Price said Bono will kick off his regional trip – the first since taking office on February 1 – from Azerbaijan and will then travel to Armenia and Georgia.

“The Senior Advisor for Caucasus Negotiations [Louis] Bono is traveling to the region next week on his first trip in this role. This is the first of what we will – what we expect will be regular travel to all three countries of the South Caucasus. Mr. Bono plans to meet with senior leaders to support the Armenia-Azerbaijan peace process and our sustained commitment to Georgia’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. As I mentioned before, he will visit all three South Caucasus countries as part of his visit. He’ll travel to Baku, to Yerevan, Tbilisi as well, in that order. This, we believe, will be an opportunity for Mr. Bono to build on the meeting between Secretary Blinken, Armenia’s prime minister, and Azerbaijan’s president at the Munich Security Conference a couple of weeks ago now, in mid-February. We – as we said at the conclusion of that trilateral engagement, we are encouraged by recent efforts by Armenia and Azerbaijan to engage productively on the peace process. And Mr. Bono hopes to be in a position to build on that effort, and to see that progress continue. In all three of these cities, Mr. Bono will emphasize the United States is committed to promoting a peaceful, democratic, and prosperous future for the South Caucasus region,” Price said at a press briefing.

 20:36, 3 March 2023

YEREVAN, MARCH 3, ARMENPRESS. Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan's working visit to the Federal Republic of Germany continues. Today, the Prime Minister was hosted in the Bundestag and had a meeting with the members of the Foreign Affairs Committee headed by Chairman Michael Roth. The latter welcomed the Prime Minister and noted that the visit is a good opportunity to discuss both the Armenian-German inter-parliamentary cooperation and the processes taking place in the South Caucasus region, ARMENPRESS was informed from the Office of the Prime Minister.

Prime Minister Pashinyan made a speech, in which he specifically stated:

"Mr. Chairman,

Dear Colleagues,

I am very happy to be here and to see you, because I think there are many issues that we would like to discuss today. I hope today we will have an open and constructive discussion.

You emphasized that there is a new factor in our relations with the EU, and that factor is the monitoring mission of the EU along the Armenia-Azerbaijan border. First of all, I would like to thank the EU for taking this decision. That decision was the outcome of the quadrilateral meeting in Prague when the short-term mission arrived. After that, we applied for a long-term mission and we are grateful to the EU for making that decision.

In general, the situation remains tense, first of all due to the continuous blocking of the Lachin Corridor by Azerbaijan. Unfortunately, despite the decision of the International Court of Justice, Azerbaijan has not opened the Lachin Corridor yet. I would like to draw your attention to the fact that the decision of the ICJ has a legally binding force. I think this is a situation that should be discussed at the international level, because it is unacceptable to leave the decision of the International Court of Justice without a reaction, in particular, when the humanitarian crisis in Nagorno Karabakh continues, and an international reaction is needed.

By the way, what is very important in this context? it has been more than 80 days that the Lachin Corridor has been closed, and during this time Azerbaijan insisted that the Lachin Corridor is not closed, it is open. The decision of the International Court of Justice is very important in terms of clarifying this issue, because the court stated that the Lachine Corridor is closed and should be opened.

 

During my visit, I heard some opinions that support the idea of sending an international monitoring or fact-finding mission to Nagorno-Karabakh and the Lachine Corridor to observe the humanitarian situation and see what is happening there, because it is a crisis that could have irreversible consequences, it can grow into a humanitarian disaster. I think we should work together to prevent the situation from getting out of control.

But the most important question is why Azerbaijan is doing this. We are sure that Azerbaijan's goal is to carry out ethnic cleansing in Nagorno-Karabakh and cleans Armenians from Nagorno-Karabakh. I think the latest statement of Azerbaijani president Aliyev proves this, because Aliyev said that the Lachin Corridor is open for Armenians who want to leave Karabakh, which I think automatically means that the Lachin Corridor is closed for Armenians who live in Nagorno Karabakh and who want to live there. This is the core cause of Azerbaijan's actions.

There are concerns that this is just the beginning of escalation in Nagorno-Karabakh, perhaps along the Armenia-Azerbaijani border as well, because Azerbaijan continues to express aggressive thoughts, aggressive rhetoric. You know that last September, Azerbaijan initiated a large-scale aggression against Armenia, occupying the sovereign territories of Armenia. But, on the other hand, we reached an agreement in Prague, according to which Armenia and Azerbaijan recognize each other's territorial integrity and sovereignty, based on the Alma Ata Declaration of 1991, which means that the administrative borders of the Soviet states turn into state borders. Alma Ata's declaration was about the collapse of the Soviet Union and the creation of the Commonwealth of Independent States. 13 former Soviet states agreed that administrative borders become state borders.

By the way, we also reached an agreement in Prague that the border delimitation process between Armenia and Azerbaijan will be based on the same declaration of Alma Ata. The surprise was that after that the president of Azerbaijan announced that the delimitation should be based on historical maps. You know, it's very difficult to explain what that means. Maybe the new initiative of the president of Azerbaijan can clarify this situation, because recently we witnessed the presentation of the so-called "Western Azerbaijan" initiative, and the whole idea of this initiative is that the entire territory of the Republic of Armenia belongs to Azerbaijan, and the capital of Armenia is an Azerbaijani city.

Our assessment is that all this, the blocking of the Lachin Corridor, the so-called "Western Azerbaijan" initiative, is a preparation for a large-scale aggression against Armenia.

By the way, I would like to draw your attention to another very important situation. We had a discussion at the German Council on Foreign Relations yesterday, and some of our colleagues there used the so-called "Zangezur Corridor" term. I asked our colleagues to be careful because sometimes the same word can have different meanings in different regions and in different political and geopolitical circumstances. Usually in Europe, saying corridor, people mean routes that provide transport services with better quality, etc. But our situation is that we have a legally agreed point on the word corridor in our trilateral declaration of November 9, 2020, which put an end to the war in Nagorno-Karabakh.

So we only have one point about corridor there and that is the Lachin corridor which is currently blocked. The Lachin Corridor was established for providing connection between Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh. Lachin Corridor is not just a road, it is a security zone with a width of 5 km, and according to the relevant point of the statement, Lachin Corridor should be outside the control of Azerbaijan and should be under the control of Russian peacekeepers.

In the same declaration, we have point 9, which is about the opening of all transport and economic routes in our region. And yes, there is a point that Armenia should provide a connection between the western regions of Azerbaijan and the Autonomous Republic of Nakhichevan, but there is no point that those routes should be outside of Armenia's control. That route should operate in the context of the opening of roads and railways in our region. I must mention that Armenia is ready to open all communications even today. But every time we try to do this, Azerbaijan says that these routes should not be under the control and legislation of Armenia, which is totally unacceptable to us. Recently, the president of Azerbaijan publicly admitted that there is no point in the trilateral declaration about the so-called "Zangezur Corridor", and it was he who incorporated such that term into the context of regional communications.

The problem is how one can unilaterally incorporate something into the trilateral declaration? This is a total absurd. Thus, I would like that phrase not to be used, because it would mean support for Azerbaijan's territorial ambitions against Armenia. But, on the other hand, I once again confirm that we are ready to open. Moreover, for more than six months now, we have a draft government decision on opening three checkpoints on the Armenia-Azerbaijan border, but every time we try to adopt this decision, the Azerbaijani side makes a lot of noise, saying why they want to open a checkpoint near our borders without adjusting with us.

This is the overall situation, but I think we should focus on the peace agenda. As you know, our government has taken responsibility for the peace agenda, I am personally committed to the

peace agenda and democracy, because I believe that democracy and peace go together, and because democracy is a strategy for us, we are interested in peace so that we can ensure the continuous development of democracy, economy and freedom. This was the general assessment of the situation. I will gladly answer your questions."

Next, Prime Minister Pashinyan answered a number of questions of the members of the Bundestag.

CIVILNET.AM

 11:46, 1 March 2023

YEREVAN, MARCH 1, ARMENPRESS. Armenian law enforcement agencies seek to introduce electronic monitoring to deter repeat domestic violence offenders from reoffending and to keep victim-survivors safe.

Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs Arpine Sargsyan presented a bill on introducing electronic tagging in preventing domestic violence at the plenary session of parliament on March 1.

The current law enables law enforcement agencies to conduct either “urgent intervention” or institute a “protection measure” in domestic violence cases, with the latter requiring a court order.

Citing international experience, Sargsyan said the electronic monitoring will increase effectiveness of protecting the victims.

The bill seeks to enable relevant authorities the power to order the offender wear the ankle or arm monitor, while the victim will have a notification device designed to issue a warning (both to the victim and police) in case of the offender approaching them.

 19:13,

YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 28, ARMENPRESS. Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan chaired a consultation, during which issues related to the development of the demographic strategy were discussed, ARMENPRESS was informed from the Office of the Prime Minister.

In particular, reference was made to the current demographic situation, existing risks and opportunities, management of migration flows, changes in the population structure, demographic programs and other topics.

An exchange of ideas took place on the goals and targets of the strategy to be developed.