22:45,
YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 22, ARMENPRESS. Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan spoke by phone on Friday with Chancellor of Germany Olaf Scholz. The Prime Minister’s Office said PM Pashinyan and Chancellor Scholz discussed the military-political situation around Nagorno-Karabakh and the steps aimed at overcoming it.
The need for guarantees ensuring the security and rights of the people of Nagorno-Karabakh was underscored. The Armenia-Germany cooperation agenda was also discussed.
A senior UN official told the Security Council on Thursday that the wellbeing of civilians caught up in the long-running conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan should be the “overriding priority” following renewed fighting.
Miroslav Jenča told ambassadors that Azerbaijan had announced, in their words, “local counter-terrorism activities in the Karabakh economic region” two days ago, in response to the tragic deaths of two civilians and four police officers in incidents that allegedly involved landmines placed by the Armenian military.
He noted that Azerbaijan had notified the Russian peacekeeping force in the region, of its activities in a bid to “prevent large scale provocations” by Armenian troops and “ensure their withdrawal and the restoration of the constitutional order” within internationally recognized Azerbaijani territory.
Mr. Jenča lamented that following a “serious escalation in military operations” across the Line of Contact between the two forces, civilian casualties had been reported, as well as thousands evacuated within the flashpoint region.
He stressed that the UN has no observers in the region and was unable to verify the “various claims and allegations.”
The UN has supported the full implementation of a 9 November 2020 Trilateral Statement by the leaders of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Russia, following the ceasefire of that year, together with efforts to reduce tensions and advance the normalization of relations between Baku and Yerevan.
Mr. Jenča told the Council that in light of the 2020 Statement, Secretary-General António Guterres urges all concerned to “strictly observe” the ceasefire and continue to abide by their obligations relating to international humanitarian and human rights law.
He reminded ambassadors that in recent months the freedom of movement of local civilians and humanitarian access along the Lachin Corridor and Aghdam road, “have been major sources of tension and sharp exchanges”.
“The Secretary-General remains deeply concerned about the impact of the escalation on the fragile humanitarian situation and calls on the parties to urgently facilitate unimpeded access” of relief to all civilians, Mr. Jenča added.
He said the uptick in violence in recent days should be viewed within a “broader pattern of ceasefire violations which have continued to persist.”
Assistant Secretary-General Jenča noted Wednesday’s announcement of a cessation of hostilities, cautioning that the situation on the ground remains fluid.
“We also understand that, in a positive step, representatives of the local population and the Government of Azerbaijan met earlier today for an initial exchange.”
He called for a “credible and durable” end to the fighting. “Any renewed escalation would lead to further loss of life and human suffering and further set back internationally supported peace efforts.”
Protection of civilians including their basic human rights “must be the overriding priority.”
The only sustainable way forward, he said, was through genuine dialogue between Azerbaijan and representatives of the region, “together with full engagement in the normalization process”.
WASHINGTON – This week, U.S. Senator Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, delivered remarks on the Senate floor on the ongoing ethnic cleansing in Nagorno-Karabakh, calling on the United States and the international community to respond and hold President Aliyev and his regime accountable for their actions in the region, which bear the hallmarks of genocide.
“Of course, to be an honest broker means we need to tell the truth about Azerbaijan’s atrocities,” Chairman Menendez said. “We need to call out those individuals perpetrating this campaign of ethnic cleansing. We need to target them—including President Aliyev—with sanctions. We need to be cutting off their access to the wealth and oil money they have stashed away at financial institutions around the world, to their yachts and mansions across Europe. The evidence is there and we must preserve it so that Aliyev can be held accountable for these atrocities.”
A copy of Chairman Menendez’s speech, as delivered, has been provided below.
“Mr. President, I rise to speak about a horrific set of events that are taking place in a part of the world that we could do something about.
In this photo, this dead man’s body is completely emaciated. The skin, tight over his bones, barely covers his skeleton. Bruises and scars stretch across his chest. This is not a victim at the side of the road during the Ottoman Turk’s Armenian Genocide. It is not a Holocaust survivor laying on the ground as allies liberated Buchenwald. It is not a human carcass left in the wake of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, or the Hutu in Rwanda or Serbian forces in Bosnia. Mr. President, it is from the Human Rights Defender's Office in Nagorno-Karabakh. And it is from August. Only weeks ago.
Because Mr. President, right now—as you sit there in the dais, and I stand here in the chamber—the Aliyev government in Azerbaijan is carrying out a campaign of heinous atrocities that bear the hallmarks of genocide against the Armenians in Artsakh. They have purposefully and viciously trapped an estimated 100,000 to 120,000 Christian Armenians in the Karabakh Mountains. There is only one road out connecting Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia for people, food, medicine, and basic supplies, and the Azerbaijanis have blocked it since December of last year.
Despite some reports yesterday, no aid has moved. They have tried to deny their role but make no mistake, the Azerbaijani government is now wholeheartedly embracing this brutal blockade, denying the Armenian community food and fuel and medicine.
Aliyev and his regime are trying to starve these people into death or into political submission.
‘There are no crematories and there are no machete attacks,’ wrote the former prosecutor at the International Criminal Court, Luis Moreno Ocampo, in a recent report. But he said, ‘starvation is the invisible genocide weapon. Without immediate dramatic change, this group of Armenians will be destroyed in a few weeks.’ This group of Armenians – talking about over 100,000 – will be destroyed in a few weeks. Not my observations, the observations of the former prosecutor of the International Criminal Court.
In Artsakh, the shelves of stores are empty. Children wait in lines for the chance of finding bread to feed their grandparents who are too weak to leave the house. There is no gas for ambulances. According to the head doctor at one maternity hospital, miscarriages have nearly tripled. And the BBC reports that one in three deaths in Nagorno-Karabakh is from malnutrition.
For months, Azerbaijan was just doing the bare minimum—allowing the International Committee of the Red Cross limited access. But in July, Aliyev blocked even the Red Cross. And in complete defiance of the Geneva Conventions, Azerbaijan detained medical patients the Red Cross was transporting through the corridor.
This is not only outrageous at face value but an insult to the international community and a threat to brave Red Cross workers around the world. In addition to arresting sick and elderly residents—a few weeks ago—Azerbaijan also detained university students who were trying to go to Armenia to start the school year.
Azerbaijan’s foreign ministry says there is nothing to worry about. These concerns are just the result of, ‘propaganda and political manipulations spread by Armenia.’
Really? You’re blaming Armenia for this? That is a flat out lie. It was Azerbaijan—with Turkish backing—that launched the war in 2020. A war that uprooted close to 100,000 Armenians from their homes in Nagorno-Karabakh. A war that killed 6,500 people. Now Aliyev blocks the Lachin Corridor and says ‘I’m not organizing ethnic cleansing.’
The same Azerbaijani President has also threatened to ‘chase away’ Armenian separatists ‘like dogs.’ Whose government issued a commemorative postage stamp showing a worker in hazmat gear spraying disinfectant on the region. We have seen and heard this kind of propaganda throughout history. It is the work of a regime intent on destroying and erasing this ancient Armenian community’s history in Nagorno-Karabakh.
But Mr. President—right now—the United States is failing. The United States is not meeting the humanitarian needs or publicly putting enough pressure on Aliyev to stop this campaign of ethnic cleansing. And I sincerely hope the State Department is not considering renewing the 907 waiver, which allows for security assistance to go to Azerbaijan. I don’t know how the United States can justify spending any kind of support—security or otherwise—to the regime in Baku.
We’ve seen a video of Azerbaijani forces killing unarmed Armenian soldiers in cold-blood.
We have reports of Azerbaijani soldiers sexually assaulting and mutilating an Armenian female soldier. So to send them assistance makes a mockery of the FREEDOM Support Act. Section 907 of this act is meant to ban security assistance to Azerbaijan until it is ‘Taking demonstrable steps to cease all blockades and other offensive uses of force against Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh.’
But still, the Department of State has waived section 907 over and over and over again. Suffice it to say, I am strongly opposed to having any aid go to a fighting force known for war crimes and the violation of human rights. I understand the dynamics of the broader region are complicated, but our fundamental principles underlying security assistance should not be.
When the United States untethers our security assistance from human rights and American values to focus on short-term tactical military assistance, it not only damages long-term American national security interests, it flies in the face of our duty to honor the victims and survivors of the Armenian Genocide and our duty to ensure history does not repeat itself. We cannot look away from a systematic attempt to eradicate and erase an entire people from the face of the earth.
In 2021, as my colleagues witnessed here on the Senate Floor, I was overcome with emotion to see President Biden join us in recognizing—for the first time by an American president—the Armenian Genocide. More than a century ago, Ottoman Turks perpetrated a systematic campaign to exterminate the Armenian populations. Through killings, through forced deportation, and yes, through starvation.
What the Turks did is an irrefutable, historical fact. The recognition of this fact was a huge step forward and I am proud to have played a role in that effort. Proud that I spoke up even as many American leaders stayed silent. Proud that I pressured State Department nominees and officials to acknowledge this historical reality. Proud that I introduced or co-sponsored resolutions recognizing the Armenian Genocide since before I came to the Senate in 2006. But Mr. President, make no mistake—fighting the denial of Armenian Genocide is not only about the past. It is also about the present.
That is why I’m calling on Aliyev to immediately release the Armenian prisoners of war. It is why I have been working on legislation to address the current humanitarian crisis in Artsakh. And it is why—when USAID Administrator Power came before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee earlier this year—I pushed her to get humanitarian assistance to the people of Nagorno-Karabakh.
I believe that the United States can—and must—play an active role in addressing this conflict. Because the so-called Russian ‘peacekeepers’ who have supposedly been enforcing a ceasefire following Azerbaijan’s 2020 invasion have been—to no one’s surprise—wholly ineffective. As Azerbaijani forces began an incursion in September 2022, these Russian forces stood idly by. Moscow will no doubt seek to exploit any instability to its advantage, but they have also proved their lack of worth. Which is all the more reason that the United States must continue to play role.
We have been facilitating talks between Armenia and Azerbaijan, but we need to change our approach. We cannot continue to simply ‘facilitate’ talks. We have a responsibility to mediate, to pursue a meaningful—enforceable—agreement with the guaranteed rights, security, and dignity of Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh as a central tenet. We must also encourage and—if necessary—broker direct discussions between political leaders in Stepanakert and Baku.
Of course, to be an honest broker means we need to tell the truth about Azerbaijan’s atrocities. We need to call out those individuals perpetrating this campaign of ethnic cleansing. We need to target them—including President Aliyev—with sanctions. We need to be cutting off their access to the wealth and oil money they have stashed away at financial institutions around the world, to their yachts and mansions across Europe.
The evidence is there and we must preserve it so that Aliyev can be held accountable for these atrocities. I have called on the United States Ambassador to the United Nations to introduce a resolution at the UN Security Council enforcing an end to Aliyev’s blockade. I am pleased to see that Secretary Blinken is personally engaging in the crisis now, but the message must be crystal clear. At the same time, the EU needs to step up too.
I was pleased to see High Representative Borell’s statement in July that the EU is ‘deeply concerned about the serious humanitarian [situation]’ in Nagorno-Karabakh… but I hope that actions accompany those words. Instead of just taking Azerbaijani gas and praising the country as a ‘crucial energy partner,’ they must also bring pressure to end the blockade.
How many leaders have somberly promised to learn history’s lessons and prevent future genocides? How many people have come to the floor of the Senate and said, ‘Never, never, again.’ How many people will have to die of starvation before we act? With Aliyev potentially moving troops along the border, we cannot say we didn’t see it coming.
This time must be different. In the past, plans to carry out genocide were clouded by distance or geography. But this time, we know. We know Aliyev is doing it right now, and we must not only hold him accountable for his actions, we must stop him from succeeding in erasing this Armenian community.We must stop him from starving these Armenians to death….or imposing political control by opening only the Agdam Corridor. This is not a substitution for opening the Lachin Corridor. It is not upholding the commitments of the 2020 agreement. Using basic humanitarian, food, and medical supplies as a political weapon is not acceptable.
And we have the power to do it—if we act now. Given the chance, who here among us would not go back and stop the Turks from rounding up the first Armenians victims of the genocide who were hung in the streets of Istanbul? Or the Serb forces who gave Bosnian Muslims a 24-hour ultimatum to surrender? Or the Rwandan radio broadcasts inciting violence?
Unlike those crimes of the past, we are living on the brink, right now. And so to the Biden administration, I would say, now is the time to step up and protect this vulnerable population. To the international community, now is the time to work together to bring pressure to stop this tragedy from unfolding in front of our eyes. And to the Armenian people, trapped in this blockade, with no food, know that you have friends and allies, here in the United States Senate and around the world, who will not rest until you are safe and secure. Hang on, hang on.
And to the men organizing and carrying out this brutal campaign, we will hold you accountable for your crimes, even if it takes a life time.
You will pay a price.
You will face justice.
And I certainly will not rest until you do so.”
https://www.foreign.senate.gov/press/dem/release/chairman-menendez-delivers-floor-speech-urging-action-to-prevent-genocide-in-nagorno-karabakh
Azerbaijan has amassed its troops on the border with Armenia and the demarcation line with Nagorno-Karabakh, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan told a Cabinet meeting. He has described the situation as explosive.
“In the past week, the military-political situation in our region has deteriorated. This is because, in the past few days, Azerbaijan has been amassing troops along the line of engagement in Nagorno-Karabakh and on the border between Armenia and Azerbaijan. Anti-Armenian rhetoric and hate speech have intensified in the Azerbaijani press and on propaganda platforms,” the Armenian premier said.
Pashinyan urged the international community and UN Security Council member countries to take serious steps to prevent another explosion of tensions in the region.
“Armenia is ready and willing to sign a peace agreement with Azerbaijan and we reiterate our commitment to the global agenda on the basis of agreements [signed] in Brussels and Prague as well as the tripartite agreement (between the leaders of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Russia),” he added.
Russia announced on Thursday it was working with both Armenia and Azerbaijan in its role as a security guarantor in the south Caucasus.
Moscow has maintained peacekeepers in the region since a 2020 war in which Azerbaijan seized back significant amounts of territory it had lost to Armenian forces in the 1990s after the break-up of the Soviet Union.
YEREVAN, September 7. /TASS/. Azerbaijan has amassed its troops on the border with Armenia and the demarcation line with Nagorno-Karabakh, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan told a Cabinet meeting as he described the situation as explosive.
"In the past week, the military-political situation in our region has deteriorated. This is because, in the past few days, Azerbaijan has been amassing troops along the line of engagement in Nagorno-Karabakh and on the border between Armenia and Azerbaijan. Anti-Armenian rhetoric and hate speech have intensified in the Azerbaijani press and on propaganda platforms," the Armenian premier said.
Pashinyan urged the international community and UN Security Council member countries to take serious steps to prevent another explosion of tensions in the region. "Armenia is ready and willing to sign a peace agreement with Azerbaijan and we reiterate our commitment to the global agenda on the basis of agreements [signed] in Brussels and Prague as well as the tripartite agreement (between the leaders of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Russia – TASS)," he added.
15:27, 2 September 2023
YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 2, ARMENPRESS. The Azerbaijani defense ministry has again falsely accused the Armenian military of opening gunfire at Azerbaijani outposts.
In a statement, the Armenian defense ministry said the Azeri accusations are disinformation.
“The release of Azerbaijani MoD as if on September 2, at around 12:58 p.m., the Armenian Armed Forces opened fire against the Azerbaijani combat outposts located in the southwestern part of the frontier zone, is another disinformation,” the Armenian defense ministry said on Facebook.
19:49,
YEREVAN, AUGUST 30, ARMENPRESS. German lawmaker, Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee of the Bundestag (German parliament) Michael Roth has called out Azerbaijan for jeopardizing the peace process with Armenia and causing a humanitarian disaster in Nagorno-Karabakh.
“There’s a real danger of a humanitarian disaster and ethnic cleansing in Nagorno-Karabakh. Azerbaijan is thus jeopardizing the fragile Armenia-Azerbaijan peace process and security in South Caucasus. The EU and Germany must not remain silent. Azerbaijan must immediately lift the blockade. We need a CoE fact-finding mission in Nagorno-Karabakh. The EU mission in Armenia (EUMA) must be enhanced and cover also Azerbaijan’s state territory,” Roth said in a post on X.
Azerbaijan’s checkpoint on the Berdzor Corridor (NKR InfoCenter, August 28)
Three young men from Artsakh arrested by Azerbaijani authorities while traveling along the Berdzor (Lachin) Corridor have been sentenced to 10 days of detention on charges of violating Azerbaijan’s national flag.
Alen Sargsyan, Vahe Hovsepyan and Levon Grigoryan were arrested at Azerbaijan’s border checkpoint along the Berdzor Corridor. They were part of a group of 170 civilians escorted by Russian peacekeepers from Artsakh en route to Armenia. Sargsyan, Hovsepyan and Grigoryan are students of universities in Armenia who were preparing to start their fall classes. Armenia’s Foreign Ministry said that the transportation was agreed on in advance between the Azerbaijani government and the Russian peacekeeping mission.
Azerbaijani border guards assaulted Sargsyan (born 2001), striking him on the head with a gun while they detained him by force, according to an anonymous eyewitness account, causing him to lose consciousness. Five other members of the group were taken by border guards to a private room near the checkpoint for interrogation. They were asked about “sports activities, the purpose of the trip to Armenia and the economic situation in Armenia and Artsakh.” Only three of the members emerged from the room, while Hovsepyan and Grigoryan were detained along with Sargsyan.
“We have noted numerous times that the illegal checkpoint located near the Hakari bridge poses a direct and irrefutable threat to the physical existence and protection of the fundamental rights of the civilian population of Artsakh. The abduction of Vagif Khachatryan and Alen Sargsyan irrefutably proves that the so-called checkpoint has turned into a tool for serving the Azerbaijani criminal arbitrariness, through which Azerbaijanis arbitrarily kidnap and deprive civilians of their freedom,” the office of Artsakh’s Human Rights Defender said in a statement.
Artsakh Human Rights Defender Gegham Stepanyan said that the transportation of civilians from Artsakh to Armenia should cease. He called on the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and Russian peacekeeping mission to offer security guarantees for civilians traveling along the corridor and the “immediate return of the abducted persons.”
The office of Azerbaijan’s Prosecutor General opened a criminal case against the three young men on charges of “violation of the national flag of the Republic of Azerbaijan” and “incitement of national or racial enmity.” The case refers to a video circulated online that was supposedly shared in 2021. The video depicts members of a soccer team in Artsakh walking on the Azerbaijani flag.
In what the Prosecutor General’s office called the application of the “principle of humanism,” the criminal case was terminated after they “sincerely expressed remorse for their actions and pledged not to engage in such activities in the future.” They were nonetheless sentenced to 10 days of administrative detention, after which they will be “expelled from the territory of the Republic of Azerbaijan.”
This is not the first time Azerbaijani border guards have arrested Artsakh civilians at the checkpoint. On July 29, 68-year-old Vagif Khachatryan was arrested by Azerbaijani border guards. Khachatryan suffers from heart disease and was being transferred to a hospital in Yerevan for an emergency operation. He was part of a group of patients transported by the ICRC, which had provided the Azerbaijani side with a list of patients and received its approval in advance.
Azerbaijan set up a military checkpoint along the Berdzor Corridor on April 23, 2023, placing all movement between Artsakh and Armenia completely under the control of Azerbaijani border guards. The checkpoint tightened the ongoing blockade of Artsakh, launched by Azerbaijan in December 2022.
Several dozen Armenians from Artsakh were permitted to cross the corridor for the first time in months on August 21. Russian peacekeepers escorted students enrolled in Armenian universities and Russian citizens to the Azerbaijani checkpoint.
Artsakh President Arayik Harutyunyan convened an emergency meeting with the Artsakh Security Council on the night of August 28 to discuss the incident. He informed his top aides about the “steps being taken to find out the fate of the citizens of the Artsakh Republic kidnapped by Azerbaijan today and to return them to their homeland.”
Following the late-night meeting, which lasted six hours, President Harutyunyan addressed an impromptu rally in central Stepanakert outside of the parliament building. Several hundred people gathered at nighttime on August 28 to demand that the authorities take measures to secure the release of the three young men. Harutyunyan was met with jeers during his speech, with isolated applause when he raised the issue of humanitarian aid deliveries to Artsakh amid the ongoing blockade, stating, “Only one road will be functioning: the Lachin road. We’re not going to bring in food from any other places.”
Artsakh President Arayik Harutyunyan holds emergency meeting (NKR InfoCenter, August 28)
Azerbaijan has proposed delivering humanitarian aid to Artsakh via Aghdam. Artsakh authorities have rejected these offers, stating that they would legitimize the ongoing blockade of the Berdzor Corridor. On August 29, Azerbaijan’s Red Crescent Society sent two trucks with 40 tons of flour to Aghdam for the residents of Artsakh.
The ongoing blockade has precipitated a humanitarian crisis in Artsakh, where supplies of food, medicine and other basic necessities have been dwindling. Azerbaijan has also closed the Berdzor Corridor to humanitarian aid since mid-June, barring the ICRC and Russian peacekeepers from delivering food and other basic goods to Artsakh from Armenia. HALO Trust, a humanitarian organization that clears landmines in conflict zones, said this week that the “humanitarian situation has escalated into an emergency.”
“Food is in short supply and people have lost their livelihoods, leading to widespread food insecurity. And without a political resolution, this crisis will only worsen, and thousands of families will be without food or fuel for the winter,” its statement reads.
Lusine Avanesyan, spokesperson for the Artsakh president, told reporters that Artsakh would not accept aid from Azerbaijan.
“If the Azerbaijani authorities are really interested in ending the worst humanitarian disaster and stopping genocide against the people of Artsakh, then instead of playing false philanthropy, they should stop blocking the restoration of supplies to Artsakh through the Lachin Corridor,” Avanesyan said.
An Armenian convoy carrying 400 tons of humanitarian aid intended for Artsakh’s Armenians has been stuck in Goris, a town in southern Armenia, since July 26. The aid delivery has been blocked by Azerbaijani border guards.
A group of French politicians, including the mayor of Paris Anne Hidalgo, were blocked from delivering 10 trucks of humanitarian supplies, including baby food and electricity generators, to Artsakh on August 30. “Here at the Lachin Corridor we testify that no humanitarian aid can enter Artsakh, in total violation of human rights,” Hidalgo said.
Several European leaders, including His Serene Highness Prince Michael of Liechtenstein, have also expressed their readiness to lead a humanitarian airlift to Artsakh. This was announced by former Artsakh State Minister Ruben Vardanyan. The airlift would be “delivering food and other essentials to the local population and evacuating those whose life is endangered to safety,” including patients requiring urgent medical care. Vardanyan’s agency has called on the ICRC and World Food Program to organize the airlift.
French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna implored Azerbaijan to reopen the Berdzor Corridor during an annual conference of French ambassadors on August 29.
“The strategy of suffocation, which aims to provoke a mass exodus of Armenians from Nagorno-Karabakh, is illegal, as the ICJ has established, and it is also immoral,” Colonna said.
10:28,
YEREVAN, AUGUST 29, ARMENPRESS. On August 28, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Armenia Ararat Mirzoyan had a meeting with Tanja Fajon, Vice-President and Minister of Foreign Affairs of Slovenia. The meeting took place on the sidelines of the Bled Strategic Forum in Slovenia.
During the meeting, the interlocutors touched upon the issues of bilateral cooperation between Armenia and Slovenia, ongoing programs, expressing willingness to take steps to activate bilateral political dialogue.
Referring to the damages in Slovenia resulting from the floods – the worst natural disaster since the country gained independence, Minister Mirzoyan expressed Armenia's solidarity with the people of Slovenia and expressed readiness to provide support in overcoming the consequences of the natural disaster. He emphasized the importance of adequate response and steps to address natural and man-made disasters.
Views were also exchanged on the Armenia-EU partnership and cooperation within international organizations.
Regional security issues were also on the agenda of the meeting of the Foreign Ministers of Armenia and Slovenia.
Ararat Mirzoyan briefed his counterpart on the deepening humanitarian crisis in Nagorno-Karabakh resulting from Azerbaijan's illegal blockade of the Lachin corridor and stressed that Azerbaijan's policy of keeping 120,000 people under actual siege, aimed at ethnically cleansing the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh, should not be tolerated in the 21st century.
Minister Mirzoyan emphasized the imperative to implement legally binding Orders of the UN International Court of Justice of February 22 and July 6, 2023, immediately lift the blockade of the Lachin corridor, and prevent the imminent humanitarian catastrophe in Nagorno-Karabakh. The importance of targeted calls and steps from international partners, including the EU and its member states, was emphasized.
11:55,
YEREVAN, AUGUST 25, ARMENPRESS. Ambassador Andrzej Kasprzyk, the Personal Representative of the OSCE Chairman-in-Office has visited the entrance of the Lachin Corridor in the village of Kornidzor in Armenia’s Syunik Province to become acquainted with the situation around the corridor and brief the OSCE Chairman-in-Office.
Ambassador Andrzej Kasprzyk told reporters that he’s visiting the entrance of the Lachin Corridor at the instruction of Chairperson-in-Office of the OSCE Bujar Osmani.
“A press release was issued about this. I’m instructed to visit the adjacent regions of the Lachin Corridor, get acquainted with the situation and report to him. I’ve had many meetings yesterday, and today as you can see I am here, I will return to report on the situation,” Kasprzyk said.
Kasprzyk met with Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan on August 22.