Category: 2023

Artsakh Human Rights Defender Gegham Stepanyan

WASHINGTON—The Armenian National Committee of America hosted a Capitol Hill briefing for Congressional offices on Wednesday, featuring a live reporting from Artsakh Human Rights Defender Gegham Stepanyan and ANC Artsakh Director Gev Iskajyan.

Stepanyan and Iskajyan provided on-the-ground updates on the impact of Azerbaijan’s 150-day blockade and escalating campaign to complete the ethnic-cleansing of Artsakh. Both highlighted the urgency of the situation facing the citizens of Artsakh, most notably the young, elderly, and infirm, resulting from the lack of gas, food, and medicine. Speakers placed special focus on the recent placement of an illegal Azerbaijani checkpoint on the only road connecting Artsakh with Armenia, which has prevented the International Red Cross from delivering supplies or transporting critically-ill patients over the past several weeks.

ANCA Government Affairs Director Tereza Yerimyan provided a Washington, DC perspective on the crisis facing Artsakh, with a focus on specific legislative and other policy-driven solutions, urging passage of the Anti-Blockade resolution (H.Res. 108) and legislation supporting Artsakh recognition (H.Res.320). Yerimyan also urged action on the Armenian Genocide Education Act (H.R.2803 and S. 1329) as an important step toward preventing future genocides. The hour-long briefing ended with a question and answer session.

Participants included dozens of legislative offices, local ANCA chapter leaders, and a broad array of ANCA coalition partners. The top-line policy issues covered during the presentation included:

• Ending U.S. military assistance to Azerbaijan
• Identifying Azerbaijan as the belligerent party
• Sending humanitarian assistance to Artsakh
• Holding Azerbaijan accountable for war crimes

The ANCA regularly connects Artsakh stakeholders with Congressional and decision-makers in the Washington, DC foreign policy community.

Armenian and Azerbaijani foreign ministers Ararat Mirzoyan (right) and Jeyhum Bayramov meet in Washington on May 1

Days after the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan are scheduled to meet in Brussels on May 14, the foreign ministers of the two countries also will hold talks in Moscow next week.

Armenia’s Foreign Ministry announced on Wednesday that foreign ministers Ararat Mirzoyan and Jeyhun Bayramov will meet in Moscow on May 19.

Next week’s meeting will mark the first time that the two foreign ministers will meet after holding four-day talks near Washington last week, hosted by Secretary of State Antony Blinken. In his public comments, Blinken said that progress for normalizing relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan was made and peace between the countries was “within reach.”

Mirzoyan, while encouraged by the Washington talks, said that “lingering differences” remained between Yerevan and Baku. Pashinyan later said those difference centered on the security and safety guarantees for Karabakh and its people, which has been exacerbated by the almost five-month-long blockade of Artsakh by Azerbaijan.

Armenia’s National Security chief Armen Grigoryan told reporters on Tuesday that there has been no progress on some of the most crucial issues in its talks with Baku.

“We have stated many times our approach regarding Artsakh, that international mechanisms should be created, Stepanakert and Baku should discuss rights and security issues,” Grigoryan said Tuesday, adding that the provisions of the November 9, 2020 agreement were being overtly and blatantly ignored.

Meanwhile, Bayramov said on Wednesday that he and Mirzoyan made progress toward a peace treaty between the Washington talks last week.

“It cannot be said that we fully reached an agreement as there are quite a lot of differences between the positions of the parties,” he told reporters. “But some points of the peace treaty were agreed upon in those negotiations. We took a step forward.”

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev in a nationally televised address from occupied Shushi on May 10

President Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan said on Wednesday that by illegally opening a checkpoint at the blockaded Lachin Corridor his government has “fully restored” Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity.

Speaking from occupied Sushi and delivering a message marking the centennial of the birth of his father, the great dictator Haydar Aliyev, Ilham Aliyev boasted that his government’s violation of international norms and practices, including the very document that carries his signature—the November 9, 2020 agreement—has yielded the fulfillment of his father’s will.

“Just like we fulfilled the will of the Great Leader, liberated our native lands, and restored our territorial integrity. We established a border checkpoint on the Azerbaijan-Armenia border on April 23, raised the Azerbaijani flag there, and fully restored our territorial integrity. Our civilian mission will continue as well, and we will honorably fulfill the mission of restoring this beautiful land,” Aliyev said in video message.

“Today, Karabakh is reviving, Zangezur is reviving, and we are building and creating in our native lands. We will successfully carry out the mission of restoring Karabakh and Zangezur,” said Aliyev, adding that already several villages and towns are under development in the disputed areas that he refers to as “Zangezur.”

Calling Azerbaijan’s army “one the strongest in the world,” Aliyev announced in his nationally televised address that the defense budget of his country will increase.

“In the matter of army building, we have always worked in a systemic way and we continue this work. After the second Karabakh war, we did not stop, on the contrary, we are moving forward. Additions will be introduced in this year’s state budget; a considerable part of additional spending will again be earmarked for defense purposes. Why? Because we must always be ready. The threats are increasing, the danger is increasing, and we must be able to overcome any threat,” Aliyev said.

“The Azerbaijani army is among the strongest armies in the world both in terms of weapons and combat readiness. Our army fought, showed its strength not in a [military] parade, but on the battlefield. This is our army. Army building is being ensured at a proper level today as well, it will be ensured from now on as well,” Aliyev emphasized.

More than $3.1 billion, or 16 percent of Azerbaijan’s state budget, is allocated for defense and national security spending.