ArmInfo.Turkey contributes to the normalization process between Armenia and Azerbaijan, OSCE Secretary General Helga Schmid said, www.azerbaycan24.com reports.
Schmid said that Turkey's contributions to the normalization process between Armenia and Azerbaijan and working with interested parties are very important for the OSCE.
A soldier of the Artsakh Defense Army
Artsakh insists that it has no plans to disband the republic’s Defense Army, as both Yerevan and Stepanakert announced that no troops of Armenia’s Armed Forces remain in Artsakh, reported Azatutyun’s Armenian Service on Wednesday.
Official Baku continues to demand the withdrawal of the Armenian armed forces from Karabakh, most recently when Azerbaijan’s Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov made statements that suggested he was referring to the Artsakh Defense Ministry.
The Ministry of Defense is one of the 11 ministries of Artsakh. The commander of the Armed Forces is the head of the military department.
“Disbanding the Defense Army is tantamount to treason,” Seyran Hayrapetyan, the Chairman of the Defense and Security Affairs Committee of the Artsakh National, told Azatutyun, adding that such a step would usher in another “1915 for the people of Artsakh abandoning the Defense Army can bring a new year 1915 for the people of Artsakh, as well as through future developments for all of Armenia.”
Artur Harutyunyan, the leader of the ruling “Free Homeland-Civil United Alliance” faction also insisted that Artsakh is not going to give up its Self Defense Army.
When making demands on Armenia to withdraw its troops from Artsakh, Baku regularity invokes the November 9, 2020 agreement.
Hayrutyunyan contends that Azerbaijan also has not fulfilled the provisions of the same agreement, as it continues to violate the ceasefire and has been holding Armenian prisoners of war captive.
“Regarding the withdrawal of the armed forces, it is written [in the Nov. 9 agreemen] that the Armenian armed forces will withdrawn simultaneously with the deployment of the Russian peacekeeping contingent,” explained Harutyunyan
“After the war, there will no new conscription from Armenia, and the one that existed before, is no longer there. If we are talking about the self-defense forces or the Defense Army, of course, the Republic of Artsakh cannot remain without its self-defense forces. According to the UN Charter, the people of Artsakh have the right to organize self-defense,” added Harutyunyan.
At the last session of the government, the Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan first announced that there are no Armenian soldiers in Nagorno-Karabakh, and also expressed his opinion about the demands from Baku for the withdrawal of the Artsakh Armed Forces.
“If the peacekeeping troops of the Russian Federation and Azerbaijan guarantee the integrity of the contact line, I think the Nagorno-Karabakh Defense Army will not need to be on combat duty. Such a need has arisen only after Azerbaijan refused to sign the mandate for the peacekeepers and continuously violates the provisions of the November 9, 2020 declaration, including the ceasing all military operations, which is the essence of the aforementioned document,” Pashinyan told his cabinet last week.
Responding to Pashinyan’s statement, Hayrapetyan, the parliament defense committee chairman, said that it would be great if Azerbaijan can guarantee the integrity and safety of the line of contact, but he is sure that Azerbaijan will not do that.
“If anyone is delusional to believe that Azerbaijan changed and is pursuing peace, I will say that it is not so, and we’ve seen this several times during these two years,” Hayrapetyan said, who called for reforms in Artsakh’s defense apparatus given Azerbaijan’s continued aggression in Artsakh. He did not rule out that there might be title change to that sector, but insisted that the duties and responsibilities would still remain the defense of Artsakh and its people.
“The name is not so important. In the early 1990s, there were self-defense forces. This did not prevent our heroes from liberating our historical homeland,” said Hayrapetyan.
The lawmaker was asked about the military mobilization announced last week by Artsakh President Arayik Harutyunyan, after two soldiers of the Artsakh Defense Army were killed and another 19 were wounded after Azerbaijani attacks of Berdzor. Harutyunyan lifted the mobilization order on Wednesday.
The chairman of the parliament’s Defense Committee did not want to assess the decision, merely saying that “if he [Artsakh president] signed the order, then it should have been signed.”
However, he did voice dissatisfaction with the processes taking place by the authorities of Armenia and Artsakh.
“The Armenian authorities’ silent agreement, or should I say indifference and weakness, as well as measures implemented in the Republic of Artsakh, are worrisome, because the enemy continues to make demand after demand. By giving up, we will be giving up everything,” Hayrapetyan said.
Baku: Azerbaijan and Armenia have blamed each other of violating their ceasefire agreement and launching provocation in the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region.
“The illegal Armenian detachments in the territory of Azerbaijan, where the peacekeeping contingent of the Russian Federation is temporarily deployed, fired intensively on the positions of the Azerbaijani Army in the direction of the Lachin region,” Xinhua news agency quoted the Foreign Ministry in Baku as saying on Wednesday.
It added that one Azerbaijani serviceman was killed.
Meanwhile, the Foreign Ministry in Yerevan said in a statement that Azerbaijani forces “once again violating the November 9, 2020, Trilateral Statement of the leaders of Armenia, Russia and Azerbaijan on the cessation of hostilities in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict zone, launched aggression in the area of responsibility of the Russian peacekeeping contingent, resulting in casualties and wounded ones”.
Armenia and Azerbaijan have been at loggerheads over the mountainous region of Nagorno-Karabakh since 1988.
Peace talks have been held since 1994, when a ceasefire was agreed, but there have been sporadic minor clashes since then.
A new round of armed conflict broke out along the contact line on September 27, 2020, before Russia brokered a ceasefire on November 9 of that year.
On November 26, 2021, Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan met Russian President Vladimir Putin in Sochi, where they agreed on creating mechanisms for demarcation and delimitation of the border between the two nations.
During their previous meeting last April, Aliyev and Pashinyan launched a peace treaty process mediated by the European Union, and they agreed to establish border commissions to work on the border delimitation issue.
11:28, 4 August 2022
YEREVAN, AUGUST 4, ARMENPRESS. The developments taking place in Nagorno Karabakh these days and the events that have taken place before are bringing about issues of systemic nature, PM Pashinyan said in remarks at the Cabinet meeting.
“I’ve numerously said that the presence and activity of the Russian peacekeeping contingent in Nagorno Karabakh is a key factor for ensuring the security of the Armenians of Artsakh, and we highly appreciate Russia’s efforts in ensuring security and stability in our region. A number of developments in Nagorno Karabakh that took place since November 2020, including the latest developments, raise issues among the Armenian society about the content and nature of the peacekeeping operation in Nagorno Karabakh. The December 11, 2020 capture of the villages of Khtsaberd and Hin Tagher and Armenian servicemen by Azerbaijan in the presence and connivance of Russian peacekeepers, the March 24, 2022 capture of the village of Parukh in NK again in the presence of Russian peacekeepers, the continuous and increasing ceasefire violations along the line of contact, the cases of physical and psychological terror against Armenians of NK in the presence of peacekeepers are simply unacceptable. In this context, it is becoming highly necessary to clarify the details of the peacekeeping operation in NK. This was needed from the beginning, parallel with the deployment of the Russian peacekeeping contingent in NK. But we must admit that Azerbaijan obstructed this process by refusing to sign the mandate of the activities of the peacekeeping contingent in NK, whereas Armenia signed it in November of 2020 itself, and we expect this bilateral-format signed mandate to function fully,” Pashinyan said.
13:15, 4 August 2022
YEREVAN, AUGUST 4, ARMENPRESS. Individuals and organizations from around the world are joining forces to help strengthen and develop Armenia and Artsakh within the framework of Armenians Forward Together Forum 2022, the second All-Armenian Collaboration Forum in Yerevan.
The three-day Forum has been organized by volunteers living in the United States, Canada and Armenia whose purpose is to create opportunities for the collaboration of organizations and individuals.
“People, who want to cooperate, present their ideas and find people, who could help develop ideas not only financially, but also with their knowledge and efforts, have gathered here. There are projects both at a level of an idea and those that are already being implemented”, Hripsime Mkrtchyan, Assistant-Professor at the American University of Armenia, researcher at the Alikhanyan National Science Laboratory, said.
The Forum aims at gathering people with the same interests and projects in one place, enabling them to talk, know each other, collaborate and create new opportunities.
Armine Karapetyan from San Francisco, representing Publicis Groupe, said that the idea of holding this Forum came after the 44-Day Artsakh War. “We wanted to invest our strength and knowledge in order to be able to organize something that will help both Armenia and Artsakh”, she said.
On the first day of the Forum, on August 4th, 19 different organizations and initiatives were presented. In the next two days 14 seminars will be held during which educational, cultural heritage preservation, crisis management, cancer research and other projects will be discussed. The Office of the State Minister of Artsakh, the Office of the High Commissioner for Diaspora Affairs of Armenia, LeranmingMission, RepatArmenia and other organizations have also contributed to the organization of the Forum.
“Our primary goal was to help children of families displaced from Artsakh who were deprived of education that days. We are now assisting the schools of Syunik [province], we are opening computer laboratories in schools, provide notebooks by which teachers from US are holding online classes”, Alina Vehuni, representing California-based Hye Hopes, said during the Forum. The company Hye Hopes has been founded after the 44-Day war unleashed by Azerbaijan against Artsakh. It has already opened laboratories in Kapan, Verishen, Meghri, and will soon open in schools of Sisian and Goris. The company is teaching different subjects, such as robotics, programming, leadership, English. “We want to establish cooperation with the organizations that are operating in education sector”, she said, commenting on their participation in the Forum.
US Secretary of State Antony Brinken met with Armenian Prime Minister Nicole Pashinyan and Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev on Friday (local time), calling for de-escalation in and around Nagorno-Karabakh. “Secretary of State Antony J. Brinken met with Armenian Prime Minister Nicole Pashinyan today. Blinken urged direct dialogue between Armenia and Azerbaijan to resolve issues related to or resulting from the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.
Blinken also spoke with Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev. Minister Brinken called for de-escalation and urged direct dialogue between Azerbaijan and Armenia to resolve the issue. Azerbaijani forces recently broke a ceasefire in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict zone in the Saribaba highlands, according to the Russian Defense Ministry. Nagorno-Karabakh gained independence from Azerbaijan with Armenian support after a bloody post-Soviet conflict in the early 1990s.
In 2020, Azerbaijan and Armenia waged war in the region, and Baku managed to regain some of its separatist-held territory. Under the terms of the ensuing ceasefire, Russian peacekeepers were deployed to protect the remaining separatist-held territory. Both sides have accused each other of transgressions, and violence has escalated recently. “The situation in the contingent’s area of responsibility is deteriorating.
In the area of the Salibaba highlands, the ceasefire was broken by the Azerbaijani army,” the Russian Defense Ministry said. “The command of the Russian peacekeepers, together with representatives from the Azerbaijani and Armenian sides, is taking steps to stabilize the situation,” she added. Azerbaijani forces seized several heights in Nagorno-Karabakh on Wednesday, said Defense Ministry spokesman Sputnik.
According to the ministry, Armenian soldiers carried out acts of sabotage against the Azerbaijani army in violation of the trilateral agreement between Baku, Yerevan and Moscow. “Several heights in Karabakh have been brought under control as a result of response operations carried out by units of the Azerbaijan Army,” the agency said.
News Summary:
The situation on the contact line between Artsakh and Azerbaijan was relatively stable overnight and as of Saturday morning despite some tension, the Artsakh Defense Ministry said in a statement.
“In some sections of the line of contact the Azerbaijani armed forces violated the ceasefire regime by using firearms of different calibers. The Armenian side had no losses,” the ministry said.
“With the mediation of the Russian peacekeeping contingent, efforts continue to prevent further escalation of tension and stabilize the situation,” reads the statement.
Yesterday, Gudrat Hasanguliyev, a deputy of the National Assembly of Azerbaijan confessed about the Azerbaijani state policy aimed at the ethnic cleansing of the population of Nagorno-Karabakh.
In particular, he stated that “Armenia should put an end to its territorial ambitions towards Azerbaijan and stop supporting the bloody separatism of Karabakh. Until this is not done, we should not recognize their (the population of Nagorno-Karabakh) right to life in peace”. Subsequently, the deputy stated that under the current situation, it is not possible for Armenians to live in Azerbaijan.
Another deputy, Fazil Mustafaev, echoing his colleague, also has directly threatened the physical existence of the population of Nagorno-Karabakh.
In reality, the examples and proves of the Azerbaijani policy of ethnic hatred and ethnic cleansing of Armenians are numerous, however, it is striking that the high-level officials representing the Azerbaijani leadership are making these announcements in the context of the provocations carried out by their armed forces in recent days, as a result of which two Armenian servicemen were killed and 19 others were injured.
It is a fact the right to life of the peaceful population of Nagorno-Karabakh is not guaranteed, and the Azerbaijani official is directly confirming that.
I have shared this information with my international interlocutors, as well as with the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD), which in the coming days will review Azerbaijan's periodic report on the implementation of the UN International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination.
12:59, 3 August 2022
YEREVAN, AUGUST 3, ARMENPRESS. Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan held a meeting with the new World Health Organization (WHO) Representative to Armenia Jihane Tawilah on the occasion of the presentation of credentials.
FM Mirzoyan praised the WHO activities in Armenia and thanked for the organization’s support in the COVID-19 response and overcoming the consequences of the pandemic, the foreign ministry said in a press release.
Views were exchanged over the ongoing healthcare reforms in Armenia and cooperation with the WHO in this regard. FM Mirzoyan underscored that the Armenian Government is taking concrete steps in the direction of continuously improving the quality of life in Armenia, including in the direction of increasing the quality of healthcare.
During the meeting FM Mirzoyan also presented to Jihane Tawilah the humanitarian challenges caused by the 44-day war, namely attaching importance to the involvement of international specialized organizations in the context of solving healthcare issues.