Human Rights Watch Oct. 15, 2021 [Authorities Deny Afghans Right to Seek Asylum] (New York) – Turkish authorities are summarily pushing Afghan asylum seekers crossing into the country from Iran back to Iran, in violation of international law, Human Rights Watch said today. Six Afghans, five of whom were pushed back, told Human Rights Watch that the Turkish army beat them and their fellow travelers – some to the point of breaking their bones – and collectively expelled them in groups of 50 to 300 people as they tried to cross the border to seek safety in Turkey. Some families were separated in the process. “Turkish authorities are denying Afghans trying to flee to safety the right to seek asylum,” said Belkis Wille, senior crisis and conflict researcher at Human Rights Watch. “Turkish soldiers are also brutally mistreating the Afghans while unlawfully pushing them back.” Chancellor Angela Merkel is scheduled to visit Turkey on October 16, 2021 to meet with President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Merkel should push the Turkish government to end its summary expulsions of Afghans; investigate allegations of collective expulsions, rejections at the border, and the denial of the right to seek asylum; and remedy such instances. From September 25 to October 11, Human Rights Watch remotely interviewed six Afghans, five of them in hiding in Turkey to avoid being expelled to Iran, and one who had been forcibly returned to Iran for a third time. All had fled Afghanistan shortly before or after August 15, when the Taliban took control of Kabul. They said they had traveled through Pakistan and Iran, and that Iranian smugglers took them to the mountainous border with Turkey in the middle of the night and told them to run across. Turkish soldiers started firing above their heads. and two said that the soldiers brutally beat them. While one of the Afghans successfully remained in Turkey on his first try and one had been deported back to Iran, the four others said Turkish soldiers forced them back up to three times before they succeeded in remaining in Turkey. Two said that Turkish forces destroyed their possessions, and those of everyone in the group they were expelled with. “Once they arrested us, they confiscated our phones, money, food, and anything else we were carrying and burned all of our things in a big fire,” one woman said. “I assume they did this to send the message that we should not try to cross the border again.” One man said they stripped the men in his group down to their boxer shorts and burned the clothes and all their belongings, then forcibly returned them. One man said that soldiers beat them with the butts of their guns and that several men in his group had broken hands, arms, and legs from the beatings. “It took 10 days for the pain to go away, but for my friend it was worse,” he said. “He had to get our smuggler to take him to a doctor in Iran who treated him for a broken arm and leg.” Another man said: “The second time I crossed into Turkey I saw the Turkish soldiers beating people crossing with me to the point that they were covered in blood and had big wounds to their heads. They beat me for about 20 minutes with the butts of their guns and sticks, leaving me bleeding.” Three Afghans said that while they were not seriously beaten themselves, they saw soldiers brutally beating, including with heavy hoses, others running with them. “There was one very tall soldier, with his face concealed,” a woman said. “He was like a madman, wildly beating my brother with a stick and yelling, ‘Why did you come here?’” One woman said that on her third attempt to cross into Turkey with her two children, her brother, his wife, and their child, Turkish soldiers detained her brother and his wife and expelled them, leaving their child with her. One man said that a man in his group was forced back with him to Iran, while his wife and children were taken to a detention center in Turkey. He said that police arrested him in a town 180 kilometers west of the border and brought him to what looked like a refugee camp that was being used as a detention center, where his group joined about 135 people. He and another man said that after they were sent back to Iran with their group, thieves abducted the group and demanded ransoms to release them. “The thieves came in cars and on motorbikes, wielding knives and sticks,” he said. “They demanded that we get our families to send US$100 per person. We got our smuggler, who we could reach on the phone, to send them the money, and then of course we owed that money to the smuggler afterward.” The other man said the thieves held them for two days, took all their belongings including cash, beside their phones, and forced them to call their relatives to send money through brokers in Iran. Turkey hosts the world’s largest number of refugees, 3.7 million from Syria granted temporary protection status, and over 400,000 refugees and migrants from Afghanistan, Iraq, and other countries. Human Rights Watch has previously documented illegal pushbacks and beatings of asylum seekers, including to Syria, and the media has reported on the violent pushbacks of Afghans to Iran. While most people interviewed said they were forcibly returned close to the border, one said that he and eight of his relatives were deported after they went to a local immigration office in Turkey. He said they went to the office because they were ill and needed to be allowed to go to a hospital. “When we got there, the authorities arrested us and took our phones and turned them off, so the rest of our family had no idea what happened to us,” he said. “They held us for two nights and one day, and only fed us twice … after the second night they put us onto buses with about 100 other people and drove us to the border. One soldier at the border told us, ‘Here is the border. Don’t come back. If you do, we will beat you.’” All governments receiving Afghan asylum seekers and other migrants, including Turkey, should fully respect international refugee and human rights law, as enshrined in the 1951 Refugee Convention, human rights treaties, and customary international law. Notably, the obligation of nonrefoulement prohibits returning anyone to a place where they would face a real risk of persecution or threats to their lives or freedom, torture, or other serious harm. Iran continues to deport Afghans to Afghanistan. For example, Iran deported 28,735 Afghans back to Afghanistan in the span of three days in early September. The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), governments, and other actors should monitor, document, and challenge pushbacks at Turkey’s borders. Governments with embassies in Turkey should support Turkey to register and protect Afghan asylum seekers and press Turkey to allow all agencies working for refugees to freely assist and help protect all Afghans, including those who are unregistered. The Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, the European Commission, and European states should publicly press Turkey to refrain from summarily expelling Afghan refugees to Iran, where they are at risk of chain deportation to Afghanistan and other serious harms. The Commission should closely monitor developments and take into consideration collective expulsions and deportations of Afghan asylum seekers in its cooperation with Turkey on migration control and for its reports on Turkey’s accession process and on the European Agenda on Migration. “EU member states should not consider Turkey a safe third country for Afghan asylum seekers and should suspend all deportations and forced returns of Afghan nationals, including to third countries like Turkey where their rights would not be respected,” Wille said. “They should also ensure that Afghans entering the EU via Turkey have access to fair and efficient asylum procedures.”
Author: Jirair Kafian
Turkish press: Where is the homeland?
By YUSUF KANLI [email protected]
The stone walls on the edges of the fields, which looked like they were going to be destroyed if you touched them, were like the walls of my grandfather’s olive garden at Elanoz. I closed my eyes as if I, like very much the trips I made during my childhood, were going from Nicosia to my grandfather’s farm in Kotsiakis. I inhaled that scent in the air… Was it that of the maquis shrubland, heather and rosemary that produced that smell reminding me of my childhood?
Then I noticed the towns as I walked through the footprints left by the Knights of Malta. Although similar in many respects, that Mediterranean island state was very different from Cyprus. Most importantly, although the two elements that make up the islanders retained many different characteristics, they were able to demonstrate a common culture, language and even the ability to build a future together. It wasn’t my homeland; I wish the peoples of my homeland had the ability to reconcile as much as the Maltese and build a common future rather than pulling each other into bloodshed and enmity. Who’s right and who’s wrong doesn’t really matter at this point. They succeeded to build a common future under the same frying sun, we failed spitefully, and at this point, we are only at the point where we can only understand the meaning of living together by getting a divorce. In this respect, the European Union also faces a golden role to play, but unfortunately, it is not aware of this possibility. Within the EU, two states can, in fact, form an indirect federation and perhaps a framework for a more sincere arrangement after walking such a road for a while.
When we landed in Delhi on the first scheduled direct flight, I think it was 2007, we were greeted by a spectacular crowd of voices and images. We stayed in a historic hotel that was magnificent and for decades, Hollywood celebrities and historical figures stayed. We visited Agra, Taj Mahal, Jaipur and many more places, but my obsession was to visit Kashmir, Srinagar, Mogul Gardens, where Indian authorities were very reluctantly granting anyone travel visas due to the violence in the region at the time.
We arrived in Srinagar accompanied by a guide and with very strict security measures. Our hotel, which was previously a Hilton hotel but was converted into a state guest house in those days, was hidden behind sandbags.
Our local hosts were very concerned about the safety of me and my wife because the local elected administrator had very recently survived an assassination attempt, but was wounded. However, since I was at a place I dreamt of a lot since my childhood and has always considered myself a “platonic Kashmiri,” I was extremely happy to be there.
After meeting with local administrators, soldiers, and walking around the Mogul Gardens and even the Governor’s Mansion and the magnificent grove next to it, I was able to somehow contact Muslim dissidents and listen to them. How sad that the Kashmir issue, which could be a haven of peace between India and Pakistan and will make great contributions to the two countries and the region before anyone else, cannot be solved. When I left Kashmir, I felt sad as if I was leaving Cyprus. Unfortunately, opportunities to visit the Pakistani part of Kashmir have always been postponed so far, due to earthquakes or other problems. It’s fate.
Years ago, in 1992, a ceasefire was not yet been declared. Russian-backed Armenian attacks were advancing in Nagorno-Karabakh. Cities and regions were falling into the hands of Armenians one after the other. As members of the TRT and AA teams, we watched the war with great pain as we see escapees, witnessing misery and cruelty.
There came a moment when on our one side was Iran, while on the other three sides of us were lands occupied by Armenian soldiers; we were besieged. After a few minutes of evaluating the situation, we thought if we fall into Armenian hands obviously we would be tortured to death but “if we are caught by Iranians, we will be tortured the most, they will not kill us, after a while hand us back to Turkey in one piece” and thus decided to escape into Iranian territory. Since Iran already moved its borders as far as 30 kilometers inside Azerbaijan, demonstrating a great example of humanity so that Azerbaijani escapees can reach comfortable free zones through that “presumed” Iranian territory, we entered the Iranian territory comfortably. We even “borrowed” a large can of gasoline from a temporarily abandoned military garrison for our vehicle that ran out of gas. After going about 90 kilometers inside Iran along the border, we returned to Azerbaijani territory around Beylegan. Surat Husseinov had staged a coup. Haidar Aliyev, who came from Nakhichevan, became head of Ali Mejlis and declared a state of emergency. Since it was past midnight, the wises way was to drive our car toward Baku through those secondary roads.
Exhausted, we saw the lights of a farm around 3:45 a.m. We haven’t eaten or drunk in almost 20 hours, so we’re desperate. If there were soldiers, we would surrender. As we approached the farmhouse, we heard an old man shouting at her wife: “My wife, get up! We have guests…” Turkish culture. At that hour of the day, the tandoor was burned, a few chickens they had were cooked and fresh grapes were brought from the vineyard. We were given a feast… In the meantime, we found out in the conversation that these people, who welcomed us and spoke in a smooth “Turkish Cyprus dialect,” were displaced people from occupied Agdam. A relative had temporarily placed them in that vineyard. Tears poured down our eyes. What a generosity!
That evening, I had one of the greatest experiences of my life. Once again, I have come to believe that the true homeland is the language.
Armenia readying to issue Diaspora bonds
PanArmenian, Armenia
Oct 7 2021
October 7, 2021 – 11:26 AMT
PanARMENIAN.Net - The Armenian government has decided to issue bonds for the Diaspora. The problem of whether issuing Diaspora bonds by Armenia is expedient has been regularly raised, but the government is now looking to regulate the issue by legislation.
The Armenian government needs to invest the financial resources of the Diaspora in the economy, and the funds should not be donated, but lent to the country. Chairman of the Financial Market Members Association Karen Zakaryan told the Public Radio on Wednesday, October 6 that the government will issue retail bonds, whose yield is slightly lower than in the event of conventional bonds.
The Diaspora bonds will be issued in dollars may be available for $100 each․ The matter is still under discussion.
The Diaspora High Commissioner Zareh Sinanyan noted that the government came up with the idea in 2018, discussed it for a long time, and now a research phase is underway to determine the "mood" and how feasible the idea is. The initiative is also a way to generate money quickly in emergency situations, says the Chief Commissioner for Diaspora Affairs.
A Year After Unleashing War Crimes Against Indigenous Armenians, Azerbaijan’s Threats And Violations Continue
Forbes
Sept 27 2021
A year ago today–on September 27, 2020–The Republic of Azerbaijan, with Turkey’s full military support and over 1,000 trafficked Syrian jihadist mercenaries, launched a war against the indigenous Armenians in the disputed territories of Nagorno-Karabakh (Artsakh). Throughout the 44-day war, Azerbaijan’s indiscriminate use of cluster munitions, drones, and artillery rockets included phosphorous bombs which scorched forests causing severe burns among soldiers and civilians.
Among other heinous war crimes, the Azeri military posted social media videos boasting beheadings and torture of captured Armenian civilians and military. A strong-arm trilateral agreement on November 10, 2020, negotiated between Armenia, Azerbaijan and Russia, ended the war and stationed 2,000 Russian peacekeeping troops in Artsakh.
The spoils of the war left nearly two-thirds of the indigenous Armenian lands in Artsakh occupied by Azerbaijan. With over 5,000 Armenians killed, 110,000 displaced, 10,000 fighters wounded and 200 POWs detained illegally in Azerbaijan prisons and tortured–there are still hundreds of unaccounted Armenian MIAs.
A year later, the Azeri assaults on the Armenian population continue. In the occupied Hadrut Region, Azeri soldiers desecrated Armenian cemeteries. The French Journalist, J-Christophe Buisson tweeted about the masked armed Azeri soldiers who stopped the Artsakh Armenian youth soccer team bus on its way to Armenia for a soccer match. Using a dagger to scrape off the Artsakh flag from the surface of the bus, the soldiers inspected the war-traumatized children’s phones, stating Nagorno-Karabakh is part of Azerbaijan.
Last month during a CNN Turk interview, Azerbaijan’s president Ilham Aliyev had a warning. “…if Armenian fascism tries to raise its head ever again, we will crush it again. The defeat in the second Karabakh war should be a lesson for them……It seems that the second Karabakh war has not been a lesson for everyone yet. If this is the case, then we are ready to teach them another lesson.”
The U.S. House of Representatives on September 23, passed the Cardenas-Schiff-Sherman amendment demanding Azerbaijan “immediately and unconditionally return all Armenian” POWs and captive civilians. It also called for a report on Azerbaijani war crimes, use of illegal munitions and white phosphorus against Armenian civilians, and an investigation into the use of U.S. technology in Turkish drones that targeted Armenian civilians during the 2020 war.
The Republic of Armenia “instituted proceedings against the Republic of Azerbaijan before the International Court of Justice,” the principal judicial organ of the UN. Earlier this year, Armenia also filed interstate complaints against Turkey with the European Court of Human Rights.
“Human rights abuses and violations of international humanitarian law were widespread after Artsakh was attacked. Mercenaries and jihadis were deployed from Syria and Libya under Turkey’s command. These perpetrators were responsible for horrific crimes, which are ongoing despite the ceasefire agreement. Columbia University’s Artsakh Atrocities Project has been documenting events. We hope that the information we’ve compiled can be used to hold Turkey and its cohorts accountable for its wanton abuse of civilians, including women and children, as well as cultural crimes,” says David L. Phillips, Director of the Program on Peace-building and Rights Institute for the Study of Human Rights, at Columbia University.
While Azerbaijan refutes the legal right to self-determination of the Armenian population of Artsakh, last year’s war echoed memories of September Days 1918 and the systematic extermination of nearly 15,000 Armenians in Nakhichevan and Artsakh. Similar to their brethren Ottoman Turks’ occupation of Armenian properties and landmarks during the 1915 Genocide of 1.5 million Armenians, Azerbaijan continues desecrating Artsakh’s churches, ancient cemeteries, sacred cathedrals and historic sites dating back a millennium.
Citing recent Caucasus Heritage Watch (CHW) report, Hakim Bishara reports in Hyperallergic how “over a dozen Armenian churches, cemeteries, sacred cross-stones (Khachkars), and other cultural properties have either been destroyed, damaged, or threatened by Azerbaijan.” Azerbaijan’s President Aliyev ordered the removal of medieval Armenian inscriptions from churches, calling them “fake” and rebranding the sites as “ancient Azerbaijani” landmarks. The 2019 groundbreaking forensic reportage in Hyperallergic by Sarah Pickman and Simon Maghakyan details Azerbaijan’s long history of erasure and destruction of indigenous Armenian sites including “89 medieval churches, 5,840 intricate cross-stones, and 22,000 tombstones.”
Well-orchestrated PR campaign machinery, constructed in advance of last September’s war by high-end U.S. PR agencies and lobby groups, orchestrated a widespread misinformation campaign against Armenia, as Azerbaijan carpet bombed Artsakh. Anti-Armenian reports and articles germinated across top media outlets most prominently led by Carlotta Gall, The New York Times’ Istanbul bureau chief. International organizations such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch issued pro-Azerbaijan reports accusing Armenia of instigating the war, and then changed their claims. DataPoint Armenia offered the most comprehensive analysis on the “social media narrative warfare during the war” or “astroturfing” concluding that pro-Armenian social posts had “small effect on international audiences.”
While diaspora Armenian communities demanded justice against the Azerbaijan-Turkey alliance, diaspora Turks unleashed hate crimes defacing Armenian churches, schools and cemeteries. When France sent humanitarian relief aid to Artsakh, calling for the region’s recognition, Azerbaijan’s parliament called for France “to be stripped of its mediation role in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict to punish the French Senate.”
Neither Azerbaijan nor Turkey has earned human rights awards in recent years.
Democracy Today NGO’s report “Never Again–44-day war: war crimes and international law” documented the Azeri/Turkish war crimes during and after the 44-day war and attacks on civil population, children, journalists, members of humanitarian missions, and religious, cultural, and educational institutions and civil property. The report documents Azeri torture and inhumane treatment of civilians and some 200 POWs–filed and referred to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) by the Government of Armenia as a permanent documentation for world history of crimes committed by Azerbaijan and Turkey.
Formed in November 2020, the Center for Truth & Justice (CFTJ) provides “a voice to victims of human rights violations.” The unaffiliated, all-volunteer NGO is run by approximately 25 American-Armenian attorneys, who oversee a law clinic in Armenia and train local law students and young lawyers to collect evidence through witness interviews with survivors of the 44-day war. To date, CFTJ has conducted nearly 150 interviews and trained 100 people in Armenia and Artsakh to obtain testimonial evidence.
“What CFTJ does is bear witness to the stories of war survivors, create a record of the stories, and secure the records so that no one can ever try to rewrite the stories. In a world of fake news, where the truth constantly gets buried, we believe firsthand testimonies are one of the last few reliable sources of evidence,” says Tamara Voskanian, an ethics attorney and one of CFTJ founders, who explains how interview questions are designed to garner evidence to support legal prosecutions. After the interviews conclude, the evidence collected is categorized into potential legal causes of action. CFTJ has already provided evidence to lawyers in several countries who are working on cases in their own jurisdictions.
Since most CFTJ volunteers, both inside and outside Armenia, are women, interviews often present challenging cultural dynamics when the witness is male, and the interviewers are female. In the traditional patriarchal Armenian society, men are often discouraged from opening-up and being vulnerable–critical components of a successful interview–so CFTJ’s training guides the law students and lawyers around such complexities. Female interviewers are taught to establish their neutral authority early on and to build trust with their witnesses prior to recording any discussions.
A portion of CFTJ’s interviews are with returned prisoners of war (POWs) and their families. Nearly a year after the war’s end, Azerbaijan continues to hold nearly 200 Armenian POWs, while publicly admitting to holding fewer than 40. The joint statement to end active hostilities, signed by Armenia, Azerbaijan and Russia last November 9, required all captives on both sides to be released. In compliance with the statement, Armenia does not currently hold any Azerbaijani POWs, while Azerbaijan continues to hold Armenian POWs–violating both international law and the joint peace statement.
“The accounts of torture from released POWs interviewed by CFTJ are entirely consistent,” Voskanian says. POWs were subjected to burning of fingers, electric shocks, beatings while blindfolded, humiliated, and beaten repeatedly in the same areas of their bodies so that their injuries would appear to be old rather than recurring.
CFTJ’s recent White Paper, presenting the evidence of inhumane treatment and torture of Armenian captives, was sent to select members of U.S. Congress, which Voskanian says provides a basis for conducting congressional hearings into Azerbaijan’s violations of human rights. It also urges Congress to sanction and withhold aid from Azerbaijan until they release all Armenian hostages.
According to CFTJ, Azerbaijan is violating international law by prosecuting Armenian POWs in sham trials as during this past summer, when Azerbaijan tried and convicted dozens of Armenian POWs. In some ongoing trials, they deprive Armenian captives of the most basic legal protections while the sentences are arbitrary and excessive, unsupported by any factual evidence but are more of a show.
Returned female POW Maral Najarian spoke to CFTJ after her release from Azerbaijan this March. The Lebanese citizen moved to Artsakh after the Beirut blast, and following the ceasefire agreement, was captured along with her partner, Vicken Euljekjian, and held by Azerbaijan for four months accused of being a “mercenary” but was not convicted. Euljekjian, however, was tried and convicted in a Baku court in June and is now serving a 20-year prison sentence in what Voskanian calls a travesty of justice.
As the neighboring Armenia and Azerbaijan have been at war since before both countries formally broke away from the Soviet Union, the lack of diplomatic relations has created a deep information vacuum following the most recent war, says Voskanian.
With men comprising 45% of Armenia’s population, over 10,000 are now disabled veterans, while hundreds suffer from severe burns caused by the white phosphorus used by Azerbaijan. This lays most of the responsibilities of managing displacement and survival primarily on the women.
Women comprise 30% of the IT workforce in Armenia while the global average share of women employed in IT is less than 20%. To create high-paying job opportunities for displaced women, the Gyumri Information Technology Center (GITC) educational foundation is offering free web development courses to 100 female members of the veterans’ families. The initiative is supported by U.S.-based Armenian donors, including Fund for Armenian Relief.
“The GITC initiative provides women with skills that they can learn quickly and opens opportunities for building a solid, high-paying IT career with possibilities for flexible remote work that accommodate the women’s family and domestic responsibilities,” explains Amalya Yeghoyan, Executive Director at Gyumri Information Technologies Center who is negotiating job placement opportunities with the private sector for the beneficiaries of the GITC program.
The International Christian Concern (ICC)’s Artsakh project manager, Claire Evans, says nearly 60,000 Armenians were displaced from Artsakh. Most of the displaced now live in Armenia.
“With the Armenian government’s temporary housing about to expire at the end of the year, we expect a major housing crisis at the beginning of 2022, assuming that the government cannot complete its construction of new houses,” Evans explains how displaced women from the villages need start up materials as seeds for gardens and livestock, to generate income and improve quality of life in the interim.
Their immediate needs are hygienic care, including diapers and washing machines, since there’s nowhere to do laundry. Evans cites a displaced woman’s case from Hadrut whose husband was “found tortured and hung in their home and her son killed” on the battlefield–she now lives in emergency housing in Armenia’s capital city, Yerevan.
“It’s impossible for her to ever consider returning home because Hadrut is now fully occupied by the Azeris,” says Evans. “With no source of income, she is so traumatized that she struggles to even communicate. She has secured a loan to buy a house but can’t afford the full price. We think this is the best long-term option for her.”
ICC continues to provide services for the hundreds of displaced individuals among them, an 11-year-old boy and his family eager to return to Artsakh, and the bride who had to bid farewell to her fallen father right before her wedding. Continuing to monitor Azerbaijan’s ongoing crimes against Armenian captives, the ICC’s humanitarian perspective statement urges further investigations into the Artsakh situation, calling on the international humanitarian and religious freedom community for “awareness, assistance, and advocacy.” It also calls for humanitarian observations for the remaining Artsakh residents’ needs. Azerbaijan and Turkey’s “seizure and presumed destruction of personal properties” and personal identification papers for displaced persons, further isolate “the survivors from humanitarian solutions.”
“Family members of the missing, many of whom are essentially kidnapped kids (since many soldiers were teenagers) are living a daily nightmare. As a mother, I feel deep empathy and sorrow for the families of POWs, especially the mothers and young wives,” Voskanian says the impact of this war multiplied the pressures on Armenia’s women, who were already struggling in a fledgling economy and political instability. While highly educated, women holds few positions of power–as evident in recent elections where of the 15 appointed government ministers, only one was a woman. “One of CFTJ’s goals is to expand the role of women in Armenia’s legal system, thereby raising their status in society. In working to address and heal the wounds of this war, women in Armenia are carrying the country through these difficult times and preparing it for a brighter future.”
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Rapid breakthrough unlikely in deadlock on Armenia-Azerbaijan transit routes
The Tribune
Sept 24 2021
BAKU
By Lada Yevgrashina
Months of discussion on resolving outstanding differences between Armenia and Azerbaijan have produced a deadlock unlikely to be resolved quickly as the first anniversary approaches of the outbreak of the six-week blitz resumption of their conflict in which Baku rapidly recaptured large swathes of territory lost in the 1990s.
Little common ground has been found on the main issues separating the two ex-Soviet states – principally the restoration of blocked transit routes, now the focal point of attempts to move on from the hostilities which left Armenia badly bruised militarily and diplomatically.
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan – re-elected with a landslide last June despite the crushing military defeat but watchful of nationalists in his own camp — has in the past month made what appeared to be overtures to open new communications links.
But there were caveats.
His rejection of Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev’s proposal to reopen the “Zangezur” link, a rail route between Azerbaijan and its exclave of Nakhchivan – passing through Armenian territory — and on to Turkey made the appeals non-starters at the negotiating table.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Azerbaijan’s strategic and military backer in last year’s lightning war, was perhaps the most forthright in rejecting them.
Erdogan disclosed that Pashinyan had offered to meet him as part of the Armenian prime minister’s proposal to build relations and end more than a century of enmity with the Turkish state. He ruled out any meeting until Pashinyan gave ground on that thorniest of issues – the reopening of Zangezur transit pathway closed since 1993.
“On the one hand, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan says he opposes opening the Zangezur corridor. On the other hand, he says he wants to meet me,” Erdogan told reporters. “This gives pause for reflection. If you want to meet…you have to take certain steps…Opening the the Zangezur corridor would remove a problem in the relations between Azerbaijan and Armenia.”
Pashinyan rejects any notion of reopening the route – and especially any reference to it as a “corridor” that he says implies special international status.
“It is very much in our interest to open up communications as this offers the opportunity to overcome the blockade imposed on us for more than 25 years,” Pashinyan said in a public appeal to visiting Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexei Overchuk. “It is very important for us to secure rail links at long last with Russia to open new opportunities for developing our economy.”
ARMENIAN “NO” TO CORRIDORS
But Pashinyan, looking over his shoulder at nationalists decrying last year’s “defeat” on the battlefield, made clear he ruled out any reopening of Zangezur.
“Armenia is ready to reopen regional communications with Azerbaijan, but cannot offer a corridor to Nakhchivan…through its own territory,” he said last month. “Armenia has never discussed and will not discuss any questions about the logic of corridors. By making declarations about corridors, Azerbaijan is seeing to destroy the process of opening regional communications.”
Russia oversaw the armistice that ended the hostilities in November last year and maintains “peacekeepers” in the region. After his talks last month, Overchuk acknowledged a lack of progress on the issue.
“We don’t have corridors on the working group agenda,” Overchuk told reporters. “The parties aim to unblock transport and economic ties in the region. Unblocking, building and restoring transport communications will create new opportunities for expanding and increasing trade.”
Azerbaijan’s Aliyev, has shown considerable impatience in recent months with Armenia over the blocked transit routes, slow progress in demarcating the border inherited from Soviet times and efforts to determine the location of land mines left by Armenian forces as they retreated in last year’s fighting.
AZERBAIJANI RESTRAINT
But Aliyev was restrained, even conciliatory, in trying to persuade Yerevan to agree to the transit route.
“Regional transport projects play an important role in long-term development, providing stability and reducing the risk of war to zero. All countries in the region come out winners from them,” he said. “Azerbaijan would be linked with Nakhchivan and Turkey. And at the same time Russia could open the rail link to Armenia.”
Aliyev’s foreign minister, Jeyhun Bayramov, drove home the point.
“A new Zangezur transport corridor would link not only Azerbaijan and Turkey but would provide a link between Azerbaijan and Nakhchivan, subject to a blockade for 30 years,” he said. “And, in addition, it would boost transport and trade links with the region as a whole.”
Last year’s hostilities resulted in Azerbaijan recouping areas held without concessions for three decades by Armenian forces and ethnically cleansed of their Azeri residents.
EU SAID TO FAVOUR CORRIDOR
Aliyev has said that the European Union supports the reopening of the Zangezur link – including during lengthy discussions with Charles Michel, President of the European Council, over the course of two visits to the region in recent months.
The armistice, however shaky, remains in place after Azerbaijan’s recapture of large swathes of territory.
Pashinyan has, in contrast, lobbied for progress in ensuring passage along the Lachin corridor – now controlled by Russian peacekeepers – providing a link between Armenia and the territory known as Nagorno-Karabakh under Soviet rule.
Nagorno-Karabakh was the focus of the original war between Armenia and Azerbaijan in the immediate aftermath of the 1991 Soviet collapse – more than 30,000 people were killed.
Populated mainly by ethnic Armenians but part of Soviet Azerbaijan since the 1920s, Armenian forces went far beyond the borders of the territory to seize seven adjacent regions of Azerbaijan. Azeris were ethnically cleansed and towns systematically looted.
It is believed 30,000 Armenians still live in the region, mainly in the region’s administrative centre, Stepanakert. Aliyev has declared the issue closed with the recapture of the territory and has effectively said that Nagorno-Karabakh is a Soviet entity that has ceased to exist.
Sep 24, 2021
Garnik Cholakyan, 19, becomes weightlifting champion of Europe
17:41, 27 September, 2021
YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 27, ARMENPRESS. The European Under-20 and Under-23 Weightlifting Championships have started in Rovaniemi, Finland. Garnik Cholakyan became the European Under-20 Weightlifting Champion.
ARMENPRESS reports the 19-year-old weightlifter representing Armenia won the gold medal in the weight category up to 55 kg, lifting 230 kg (100 + 130) and defeating two Turkish rivals.
Armenian soldier wounded by Azerbaijani shooting
16:36, 28 September, 2021
YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 28, ARMENPRESS. An Armenian serviceman was wounded by Azerbaijani shooting around 11:30, September 28, the Ministry of Defense said.
Private Garnik Abrahamyan, a conscripted serviceman of the Armenian Armed Forces suffered a gunshot wound to the arm when the Azerbaijani military fired at his military position near the village of Kut in Gegharkunik province, near the border with Azerbaijan.
The Ministry of Defense said the soldier’s wounds are non-life threatening.
Editing and Translating by Stepan Kocharyan
Ilham Aliev voices claims against Russian peacekeepers and mediators
Caucasian Knot, EU
Sept 27 2021
Russian peacekeepers let foreigners enter Nagorno-Karabakh, despite the ban imposed by the authorities of Azerbaijan, the President of Azerbaijan has claimed in his interview to the “Anadol” agency.
In the interview posted today on the website of the Turkish “Anadolu” agency Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliev states that Baku assesses positively the presence of Russian peacekeepers in Nagorno-Karabakh, although the Azerbaijani authorities have a number of complaints about their activities.
According to Ilham Aliev, the Russian peacekeepers do not prevent foreign citizens from entering the region, despite the ban imposed by the Azerbaijani authorities. The politician points out that issue has been repeatedly raised in negotiations with the Russian side, but the problem has been not resolved. “Because Karabakh is our territory. No foreign citizens or vehicles can enter these areas without our permission,” Ilham Aliev said.
Meanwhile, he has emphasized that such illegal raids are registered extremely rarely and that Moscow fully recognizes the Baku’s rights to those lands.
This article was originally published on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’ on September 27, 2021 at 06:54 pm MSK. To access the full text of the article, click here.
Author: The Caucasian Knot;
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Pashinyan honors 2020 Artsakh War victims in Yerablur
10:12,
YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 27, ARMENPRESS. Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan visited on September 27 the Yerablur Military Pantheon to pay tribute to the memory of the victims of the 44-Day War, the PM’s Office reports.
September 27 marks the 1st anniversary of the 44-Day War unleashed by Azerbaijan against Artsakh. Despite the statement on the ceasefire signed on November 9, Azerbaijan still refuses to return all Armenian captives.
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Editing and Translating by Aneta Harutyunyan
Central Bank of Armenia: exchange rates and prices of precious metals – 23-09-21
17:37,
YEREVAN, 23 SEPTEMBER, ARMENPRESS. The Central Bank of Armenia informs “Armenpress” that today, 23 September, USD exchange rate down by 0.48 drams to 483.75 drams. EUR exchange rate down by 0.90 drams to 567.05 drams. Russian Ruble exchange rate up by 0.01 drams to 6.66 drams. GBP exchange rate up by 1.33 drams to 661.53 drams.
The Central Bank has set the following prices for precious metals.
Gold price down by 43.72 drams to 27581.55 drams. Silver price up by 2.46 drams to 353.6 drams. Platinum price up by 794.31 drams to 15366.29 drams.