Category: 2022

SEPTEMBER 18, 2022 PRESS RELEASE

 Yerevan, Armenia – Speaker Nancy Pelosi delivered an address at the Cafesjian Center for the Arts to reaffirm America’s strong support for the people of Armena and for their security and democracy.  Below are the Speaker’s remarks:

Speaker Pelosi.  Thank you very much, Madam Ambassador.  Thank you for your kind introduction.  More importantly, thank you for your outstanding leadership representing the American people and our American values here in Armenia.  We wish you the very best in your next post.  But thank you for your ongoing service, a lifetime of commitment to democracy and American values.

Thank you to the journalists, activists, civil society and political leaders who are here with taking – you all are taking Armenia to a peaceful, prosperous, democratic future.  I look forward to hearing from you.

Our colleagues, Mr. Chairman, Frank Pallone, Congresswoman Madam Chair Anna Eshoo and Congresswoman Madam Chair Jackie Speier and I came here to listen and to learn.  To hear from you at every level of government and community involvement.

It’s a great honor as Speaker of the House, the highest-ranking American official to visit Armenia, to be standing here before you between the flags of our two countries.  With great pride in front of our American flag and its great partnership with the Armenian flag.  It is interesting, also, to be standing in front of this great presentation.  I told Vahagn when we were coming in that I believe it is appropriate we are here at the Cafesjian Center for the Arts, we had this discussion – because as my colleagues will tell you, I always say: ‘The arts will bring us together.’  A time where we forget our differences, we share the glory of – history of our countries, if its within a country, the art, the artists and others, maybe even journalists at that time in that final painting there.  Here, winning the war against the Persians for the democratic and Christian country that Armenia has been.  And then going way back in history, I should have started over here to the start of the alphabet.

Again, a work of art, a facilitator of writing and the arts.  But when we enjoy the arts, as we have coming in here – not completely because we haven’t seen the whole museum, but it inspires you.  It makes you laugh, it makes you cry, and you forget your differences around the arts.  Thank you, Vahagn, for your hospitality here today.

It is a particular joy to be here as we are on the verge of Armenia Independence Day, September 21st.  You know that date better than any of us.  And on behalf of the United States Congress, I want you to accept our congratulations on this special day.  We say that with great pride because for us, it’s almost like a family visit.  So blessed are all of us in our districts by so many Armenian Americans.  They, with great pride, are patriotic Americans.  Very, very proud of their Armenian heritage.  And they make that very clear to us.

And we follow Armenian challenges through their eyes, and we are very proud to finally be able to pass the resolution observing the Armenian Genocide because we, at last, have a President who would sign it.  Joe Biden has been a friend of Armenia.  We are proud that he has signed it and was an inspiration for its passage, but also that he invited the Prime Minister of Armenia to the Democracy Summit, which was a very coveted invitation.  I want you to know that.

And so we’re here, committed, just to say America is committed to Armenia’s security, democracy and we stand with Armenia in a difficult time.  It is a difficult time in the world.  We are amidst a battle between democracy and autocracy.  Armenia is a place where we can see those contrasts come into play.  Again, we come at a time – we didn’t plan trip around what happened last week, the trip was planned before that.  But it so happens that we come in time, in person — strongly condemn Azerbaijan’s recent attacks on Armenia.  Make no mistake: this assault is unacceptable and threatening prospects for the much needed peace agreement – peace process to succeed.

America is an OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chair and friend of Armenia.  The United States is committed to supporting a negotiated, comprehensive and sustainable settlement, including especially those hostilities directed towards civilians.  As the U.S. government has long made clear there can be no military solution to the conflict.  A sustained renewal of hostilities would be disastrous with more loss of life, more destruction, more refugees and with enormous cost.  The United States continues to watch the situation closely.  This is a priority for President Biden and for the Congress, who have long been committed to stability, security and peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan.

Let me just say, in that regard, that Armenia’s at the center of this debate between democracy and autocracy with its proximity to Russia, but it’s also a part of our global discussion or contrast between the two.  So we find this to be a perfect time to be here as to what is going on in Ukraine, their fight for freedom, as we advocate a peaceful resolution of what is happening here.

As our delegation comes to Armenia to discuss matters of security, democracy and the economy, well-served by the presence, again, of three leaders in the Congress who have fought for issues relating to Armenia for their lifetimes in Congress and even before that.  For Anna Eshoo and Jackie Speier, it’s been since birth because they are Armenian Americans.  It’s in their DNA, but it’s also in their priorities in service to our country in the Congress.  And they have been an enormous intellectual resource to our colleagues on the subject, not only the genocide resolution but other issues that relate to Armenia, Nagorno-Karabakh and other conflicts here.  And of course, they’re all members of the Armenian Caucus.  Jackie and the Chairman Frank Pallone are Co-Chairs of the Caucus, and Frank has been blessed with a large Armenian population which has informed him from the start because I don’t remember a time – how long have you been in Congress?

Chairman Pallone.  34 years.

Speaker Pelosi.  34.  So I’ve been there 35, so I’ve observed every year of his involvement.

[Laughter]

Thank you, Frank Pallone.

Okay, and then we go on to actually what we saw today.  It was very emotional.  Especially – we came holding our heads up high, because we could come at a time when we had passed – and the President signed – the genocide – the Armenian Genocide resolution.  For a long time, we’ve been talking about it, advocating for it in our communities, in the Congress.  But now, it was done.

And to stand there before the flame, thinking a million and a half people and their families, some of them, the ancestors of so many Armenian Americans, too, that we keep hearing the story of that painful time.  We saw the memorial — it was very moving, what we saw at the museum was beautiful.  It was beautiful.

Well, we laid the wreath.  That was a cheerful occasion for all of us.  But then in the museum, we saw the names of communities that had been under assault.  We walked – we learned the horrific truth at the museum institute.  And then as we left, we walked, as we had done coming in, along the trees.  It was a source of honor to us, pride to us, that the first tree was an American tree.  I think it was the first.  The first American tree was planted by Senator Bob Dole.  We’re very proud of him, and of that, but many other trees by delegations since then.  And Frank has been – and Anna and Jackie – Congresspeople who have been here before have seen these trees grow quite rapidly.  That’s what they do.

Let me quote the words of John Paul II, who prayed before the memorial twenty years ago.  Shortly before he died.  He said, ‘Listen, oh Lord, look up the people of this land, wipe away every tear from their eyes and grant them that their agony in the 21st century will yield a harvest of life that endures forever.  We implore the healing of still open wounds.’  We implore the healing of still open wounds.  How beautiful.

To heal those still open wounds, the world must acknowledge the crime for which it was: genocide.  According to [the] 1948 UN Genocide Convention, genocide means ‘acts committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial [or] religious group.’  We must work to ensure that the truth of the genocide is never covered up.  And we must work to ensure that such atrocities do not happen again.  We must not – never forget.

That is why in 2019 House Resolution 296 — authored by the Chair of our Intelligence Committee Adam Schiff and co-sponsored by all of this – Congress committed not only to commemorating the Armenian genocide through official recognition and remembrance, but also fighting efforts to erase the history, as we reject efforts to enlist, engage and otherwise associate the United States with the denial of the Armenian Genocide, or any other genocide.  That we encourage education and public understanding of the facts of the Armenian genocide, including the relevance of the Armenian Genocide to modern day crimes against humanity.  With this resolution and the U.S. government’s formal recognition of the genocide, we commit to affirming Armenia’s history, denouncing violence and bigotry and showing that such an atrocity, again, can never happen again.

Right now, we feel the urgency of our own moral obligation to never forget, as we witness horrors being perpetrated around the globe, including hate crimes against [the] Armenian community, even in America, genocide committed against Uyghurs and all the Russians’ barbarity against the brave people of Ukraine, and Azerbaijan’s use of force in Armenia, killing over 100 Armenians and displacing thousands.  Not to mention what they are doing in Nagorna-Karabakh to people and holy sites.

During this difficult time, my message is: we must have hope.  And we can find hope in the story of Armenia, which is one of resilience and strength.  And we find hope in the arts.  Here in this room, we gather before the history of Armenia mural – history of Armenia mural, which tells the story we see, the brave warriors, again, defended a free, Christian nation and won.  The poets, painters – painters and priests, who forge an independent alphabet language and deeply cultural identity.  Okay, that’s it here.

Then, on this side, mother Armenia with her child, showing how Armenia had risen from the pain of the 20th Century into a future of hope.  The alphabet, the arts.  Freedom, future.

Let me close by quoting another poet, a poem was his prayer, a poet with his poem, the poet, Paruyr Sevak.  Am I saying it right?  Sevak?  Or is it Sevak?

Audience.  Sevak.

Speaker Pelosi.  Sevak.  Okay.  One of the greatest Armenian poets, whose likeness is depicted in this mural.  You got him?  Is he the one with the veil?

Man.  Right behind the priest in the white.

Speaker Pelosi.  Oh, behind the priest.  Oh, I see, I see.  Okay.  Keep your eyes on him right there.  This is what he said:

‘To my people,’ he wrote:

‘How did you manage that you, like a bee, extract nectar out of poison,

And out of bitterness, honey you even squeeze?

How did you manage to rise, after falling a thousand times?

And how did you manage to survive, after dying a thousand times?

What miracle made you not be extinguished as others before had done,

The flame never went off, but through long centuries kept on burning.’

Kept on burning.  Thank you, for this great honor of visiting your beautiful country and seeing how hopeful the flame of Armenia burns so brightly.  Let us take heed, come what His Holiness said, and what the great poet Sevak, portrayed here in this painting, has told us in poetry.  And as I said, sometimes the arts just have a way of reaching our hearts, as he did with this beautiful poem.  God bless them all, Armenia, God bless America, God bless all of you.

And now, I believe that we’re going to have some discussion among us so that I can learn from you.  I always learn more when I’m listening.  Thank you so much.

[Applause]

This week, Armenia celebrated 31 years of independence, but it also faced renewed attacks from neighboring Azerbaijan in a contested region. Armenians in the United States and politicians condemned the attacks, and called for steps to be taken against Azerbaijan.

The Eastern Prelacy of the Armenian Apostolic Church wrote an editorial condemning both Azerbaijan and Turkey for their roles in the current conflict, and historic ones, including the Armenian Genocide. The Watertown-based Armenian Weekly ran a column about the geopolitics of the conflict, saying that it goes beyond Armenia and Azerbaijan, and how it relates to the situation in Ukraine and the Russian invasion.

Massachusetts Sen. Edward J. Markey, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, today joined several Senate colleagues in calling to prevent any U.S. security assistance from going to Azerbaijan until Armenia and Azerbaijan reach a permanent, lasting resolution to ensure peace and stability in Nagorno-Karabakh. In their letter, the Senators raise strong concerns that despite statutory limitations on U.S. security assistance to the country, Azerbaijan is benefitting from security assistance as it continues to attack Armenia and ethnic Armenians.

“In light of Azerbaijan’s recent and repeated acts of aggression toward Armenia, the United States should cease providing any security assistance to Azerbaijan until Armenia and Azerbaijan reach a permanent and lasting resolution that respects the will of the people of Nagorno-Karabakh,” the Senators wrote to Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III. “This requires swift U.S. action to ensure we do not aid and abet Azerbaijan in sparking another large-scale conflagration. Azerbaijan must face the reality that there will never be a military solution that leads to peace and stability in Nagorno-Karabakh.”

Congresswoman Katherine Clark, whose district includes Watertown, released the following statement in response to Azerbaijan’s unprovoked escalation of violence against Armenia on Tuesday.

“Once again, Azerbaijan is threatening the sovereignty of Armenia and attacking its innocent people. Forty-nine lives have already been lost. Their renewed assault on Armenia is unprovoked, lethal, and directly undermines the peace process between these two nations,” Clark said. “We cannot sit on the sidelines. The State Department must help secure peace and end U.S. military aid to Azerbaijan.”

Caroline Colarusso, a Republican running against Clark in the 5th Massachusetts District, released the following statement on the attacks on Armenia.

“This week, Armenian-American voters in the 5th Congressional District have brought to my attention what is happening in Armenia. I strongly, unequivocally condemn recent unprovoked military assaults by Azerbaijan upon the people and territory of the Republic of Armenia,” Colarusso said. “If you’re a Christian in the U.S., you should be concerned. Acts of aggression have resulted in needless death, injuries, and destruction in Armenia. I call for an immediate end to U.S. military aid to Azerbaijan and their proxy, Turkey, and ask that the Biden administration, Secretary of State Blinken, and Congress immediately impose strict penalties, including economic sanctions, on Azerbaijan. It is long past due for the United States to put its foot down and stop supporting and enabling the repressive, corrupt, and aggressive regime in Baku and their Turkish patrons.”

A dozen years ago, two inventive minds got together and launched the Starmus Festival, an international celebration of science and music. Its creators, astronomer Garik Israelian and astronomer/musician Brian May, envisioned a week in which anyone could easily attend talks by some of the greatest minds on the planet, touching all the sciences, and also some good fun with rock ‘n’ roll. 

“You have to use both halves of your mind,” May, the founding guitarist of the rock group Queen, likes to say.

We have just finished the sixth incarnation of Starmus, which generally happens every other year. Our group has been to the Canary Islands, to Norway, to Switzerland, and now to Armenia, ancestral homeland of the director, Garik. Some years ago Garik and Brian initiated me into the Starmus Board, and I was somewhat astonished this year when they named me President of the Board. Along with Brian, Garik, and me, the board consists of Richard Dawkins, Emmanuelle Charpentier, Jill Tarter, Peter Gabriel, Tony Fadell, and Robert Williams.

Our plan this time carried us for a weeklong adventure to Yerevan, Armenia, the country’s capital, which boasts a population of just over a million. The country itself ranges over a mountainous area spanning about the size of the state of Maryland. Yerevan itself is one of the oldest continuously populated cities on Earth, and the country’s very old history of Christianity and early interest in science give rise to many unusual historical and archaeological sites through the region.

Yerevan’s central downtown area seems quite cosmopolitan, and you could whisk along believing you were in a section of New York, with crowds hustling along the sidewalks, shops of all kinds, and modern hotels and cafes. As soon as we soaked in the atmosphere a tad, and started our battle with jet lag, we heard news that a new feature of Starmus this time was up and running. Michael Bakich, this magazine’s contributing editor, traveled to Yerevan and ran a Starmus Astrophotography School, along with Scott Roberts, Oshin Zakarian, and Chris Go, teaching the 16 students all manner of techniques for capturing the sky on film.

As the astrophoto school wound down, the main Starmus wound up. And, as always, we discovered that despite our best intentions, the Starmus experience can be an exercise in sleep deprivation, with activities and catching-up with friends sometimes beginning in the mornings and cranking up again after the formal activities and lasting long into the night.

The opening concert on September 4 featured remarks by Garik, followed by a superb lecture on the brain and its function by Edvard Moser, Nobel-Prize-winning neuroscientist and director of the Kavli Institute for Systems Neuroscience in Trondheim. We then heard terrific music by Derek Sherinian along with Simon Phillips and Ric Fierabracci, and then additional concert tracks by Tigran Hamasyan featuring Marc Karapetian and Arthur Hnatek. It was a spectacular way to start the week.

The second day, September 5, was also a short day compared with those to come. I commenced by giving the first of four talks I would present around the city, composed of ideas from my 2020 book Galaxies, and other speakers also provided these kinds of talks. We visited some schools and special learning academies, as well as a facility or two for the public, and spread the love for Starmus and our enthusiasm for science.

The evening of that day then cranked up the momentum significantly when our arena really filled up with the main Starmus attendees, approximately 5,000, and we presented a multimedia show, talks, and concert centered on the Stephen Hawking Medals for Science Communication. Backed by a superlative group that included the great Rick Wakeman, the greatest keyboard player in the history of rock, and the Armenian Philharmonic Orchestra, we also featured tunes by Serj Tankian, and by the supergroup Sons of Apollo, consisting of Ron “Bumblefoot” Thal, Derek Sherinian, Jeff Scott Soto, Mike Portnoy, and Billy Sheehan.

The medals, in the name of our dear departed Stephen, who had been on our Starmus Board, went to Dr. Brian May, for his tireless promotion of science communication; the great Jane Goodall, the world’s leading expert on chimpanzee behavior; the accomplished science journalist Diane Ackerman, whose work has appeared in The New York Times and many other places; and the NASA Office of Outreach and Media.

A second gala night with blistering rock ‘n’ roll, amazing celebrity speeches (Jane Goodall’s remarks on life on Earth had quite a few in the audience in tears), and a general mayhem of fun, already had us a bit tired. And then the fun was really about to start.

Tuesday, September 6 saw the main Starmus talks commence in earnest. Our Board member and pal Tony Fadell, inventor of the iPod and co-inventor of the iPhone, got us started with a high-energy chat about how technologies on Earth and in space are linked. Another fellow board member and a Nobel Prize laureate, Emmanuelle Charpentier, then described to the audience her gene therapy techniques, known collectively as CRISPR technology. It is a breakthrough, on her watch, that may one day extend all of our lives.

Further, we heard a variety of talks that opened the mind to new and original lines of thinking. The former director-general of the European Space Agency, Jean-Jacques Dordain, walked us through an inventive exploration of Earth as a planet and how we humans had better pay attention to many of the things going on now with our home. The brilliant authority on artificial intelligence, Bernhard Schölkopf of the Max Planck Institute in Tübingen, delivered a fascinating “state-of-the-union” glimpse at where artificial intelligence is in our world. And to top it off, a favorite pal, London science comic David Zambuka, delivered a festive round of audience-participation skits, bolstered with a dose of magic, “Are You a Martian?”

We topped it all off with a gala dinner in the city that went well into the night.

The talks on Wednesday, September 7 took a hard turn squarely into the planets. The theme of the conference, after all, was “50 Years on Mars,” harking back to the first two successful Mars missions, the Soviet Mars 3 mission and the American Mariner 9. Lou Friedman of the Planetary Society gave us a superb overview of Mars missions from those early days up to the present. JPL’s Bethany Ehlmann provided a tour of the most important scientific discoveries achieved on the Red Planet to date. Scott Hubbard, Stanford physicist and former director of NASA’s Ames Research Center, provided a great overview of Mars exploration and where it’s going.

The afternoon sessions kept right on going with superb lectures. Our great Starmus friend Michel Mayor, Nobel Prize winner for his discovery of the first exoplanet orbiting a sunlike star, entertained us with a talk about the billions of planets inhabiting the cosmos. Taking things a step further, Lisa Kaltenegger, director of the Carl Sagan Institute at Cornell, described alien Earths to the audience, mesmerizing them with the almost limitless possibilities of what we may discover in times to come. And then our friend David Grinspoon, planetary scientist and among other things world-leading expert on Venus, issued a warning about climate catastrophes on Venus, Mars, and Earth.

It was an incredible day of dynamic talks. And it wasn’t over yet. The meaning of Starmus began to crystallize solidly: bringing incredible scientific knowledge about our world together with music, that which allows us to feel the human spirit.

To say that the concert to come that evening was a mind-blower kinda sells it a bit short. Queen’s Brian May was joined by a friend, Graham Gouldman, the co-founder, bassist, and singer of the group 10cc. Their all-star band also included Derek Sherinian, Bumblefoot Thal, Simon Phillips, and Ric Fierabracci. The band wowed the audience with Queen’s “The Show Must Go On,” 10cc’s “I’m Not in Love,” a blazing version of the classic “Smoke on the Water,” and much more. Significantly, they played a new song, “Floating in Heaven,” produced as a collaboration between Brian and Graham this year. Moreover, early in the show, the Children’s Choir of the Archdiocese of Tavish, Armenia, joined the orchestra to sing a medley of Queen songs. With a synced video of Freddie Mercury in the background, the kids knocked out songs including “We are the Champions,” leading to quite a number I saw around me tearing up.

After the show, our heads were spinning — we were at one with the cosmos. And then I was privileged to go to a late-night dinner with Brian, with Garik and family, and with our Apollo astronaut pal Charlie Duke and his lovely wife Dottie, and we talked astronomy and music and so on deep into the early morning hours. Sleep? Who needs it?

Thursday, September 8 brought new themes to the afternoon talks. Space exploration took on a more prominent role. Former NASA astronaut Jim Bagian, who is of Armenian ancestry, delivered a great talk on the medical and physiological challenges lying ahead in human space flight, particularly on long missions like going to Mars. Wu Ji, former director of the Chinese National Space Science Center, described the amazing and ambitious space program lying ahead for China. Xavier Barcons, Director General of the European Southern Observatory, laid out his thoughts on ESO’s first 60 years of discovery and what lies ahead.

The evening sessions were just as enthralling. The world’s leading expert on black holes, Caltech’s Kip Thorne, walked us through a presentation demonstrating the warped side of the universe, aided by the wonderful drawings made by his collaborator, artist Lia Halloran. Diane Ackerman, one of our Hawking Medal recipients, described for us her reflections about life on Earth and the meaning of the cosmos. Our good friend Mark Boslough, a Starmus regular and physicist at Sandia National Labs, told us about the threats by impacts from space, past and present.

And then we had a really wonderful experience. Many Starmus participants traveled a considerable distance outside Yerevan to the site of Garni Temple, a 1,900-year-old Greco-Roman structure, where we had a magnificent star party. Good pal Scott Roberts, CEO of Explore Scientific, brought a dozen large telescopes to Armenia for the event, and we had happy crowds spying the Moon, Jupiter, Saturn, and a few deep-sky objects, some getting their first-ever look through a telescope.

Exhausted, we had no choice but to carry on. On Friday I had the good fortune to serve as host for the day on the main stage, a role that my colleague Michael Bakich also played on a couple other days. The Festival’s final day began with a bang, with another old friend, and one of the remaining men who has walked on the Moon. Charlie Duke described his adventures on the lunar surface as part of the Apollo 16 mission, and recounted his much-celebrated role as CAPCOM of Apollo 11 as well. He is a national treasure, and so much fun. Astronaut and engineer George Nield told us about the future of space tourism, which is exploding in momentum and capabilities. The great visual effects supervisor Paul Franklin, a multiple Emmy winner, then delivered a highly entertaining talk about visual effects and the sciences. And Tony Donne, CEO of EuroFusion, described “Fusion: Creating a Star on Earth.”

And we finished with some memorable moments. Another Starmus regular and one of our heroes, Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield, enthralled the audience with his “Astronaut’s Guide to Walking in Space.” His energy and enthusiasm are impossible not to be moved by. Leon Stok, an engineer at IBM, looked us into the future by detailing recent advances in quantum computing.

Once again, Garik Israelian had pulled off the impossible. We were covered with incredible memories of great, eye-opening talks, superb musical moments that seemed like dreams, and new acquaintances and friendships that seemed as though they gave us new visions of the cosmos.

I certainly would have gotten nowhere with all I had to do, with the press conferences, hosting, talks off-site, backstage craziness, and everything else, without the assistance of the volunteer who drew my assignment, Sama Shamyar. I ended up giving multiple talks at various schools around the Yerevan area, sometimes accompanied by Michael Bakich and Scott Hubbard, as well as holding an initial press conference about the Festival and a press conference with Garik Israelian and Jim Bagian at Yerevan State University. Several of us also appeared before the Armenian Parliament to update the government on the Starmus plans. Whew.

Starmus left its 5,000 attendees pretty happy and looking forward to infinite possibilities of the future. We will have to see where Starmus goes next, and when we can make it happen. But one thing is for sure: Starmus will carry on, and will celebrate the marriage of science and music once again.

Armenia's defence ministry on Friday accused Azerbaijan's armed forces of opening fire on Armenian positions, in violation of a ceasefire agreement, the ministry said in a post on social media.

"On September 23, at 0740 (0340 GMT), units of the Azerbaijani armed forces again violated the ceasefire regime by firing from different positions against Armenian combat positions located in the eastern area of

the Armenian-Azerbaijani border," the ministry said in a post on Facebook on Friday.

Armenia said it had opened retaliatory fire and reported no losses among its service personnel.

There was no immediate comment from Azerbaijan on the claims. Earlier this week Baku accused Armenia of staging "provocations" along the shared border by firing mortars and grenades at its forces.

Fighting between the two sides erupted earlier this month in clashes that left almost 200 soldiers dead – the bloodiest confrontation since a six-week war between the two ex-Soviet countries in 2020.

The fighting is linked to decades-old hostilities over control of the Nagorno-Karabakh region, internationally recognised as part of Azerbaijan but until 2020 largely controlled by the majority ethnic Armenian population.

Armenia said Azerbaijan attacked its territory and seized settlements inside its borders, beyond the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region. Azerbaijan said it as responding to "provocations" from the Armenian side.

Russia is a military ally of Armenia though also tries to maintain friendly relations with Azerbaijan and has resisted Yerevan's calls to trigger a mutual self-defence clause. Baku is backed militarily, financially and politically by Turkey.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

https://www.business-standard.com/article/international/armenia-accuses-azerbaijan-s-armed-forces-of-violating-ceasefire-agreement-122092300424_1.html

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