Category: 2023

 19:43, 3 March 2023

YEREVAN, MARCH 3, ARMENPRESS. On March 3, Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan, who is in New Delhi, had a meeting with Swedish Foreign Minister Tobias Billström within the framework of the "Raisina Dialogue" conference.

As ARMENPRESS was informed from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Minister Mirzoyan referred to the achievements in democratic reforms in Armenia and in that context emphasized the importance of continuous support of Armenia’s partners.

The parties exchanged ideas on the Armenia-EU partnership agenda. In the context of establishing stability in the region, the role of the EU's long-term civilian monitoring mission in Armenia was emphasized by both sides, the decision on the deployment of which was made in the EU Council during Sweden's presidency.

The foreign ministers also discussed issues of international and regional importance. Minister Mirzoyan presented to his colleague the latest developments in the process of normalization of relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan. Reference was made to the humanitarian situation in Nagorno-Karabakh resulted by Azerbaijan's illegal blockade of the Lachin Corridor. In this context, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Armenia emphasized the imperative to take steps towards the implementation of the decision of the International Court of Justice on the indication of provisional measures to Azerbaijan on February 22.

The interlocutors also touched on issues related to cooperation between Armenia and Sweden, emphasizing the importance of high-level mutual visits and developing cooperation in areas of mutual interest.

 20:36, 3 March 2023

YEREVAN, MARCH 3, ARMENPRESS. Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan's working visit to the Federal Republic of Germany continues. Today, the Prime Minister was hosted in the Bundestag and had a meeting with the members of the Foreign Affairs Committee headed by Chairman Michael Roth. The latter welcomed the Prime Minister and noted that the visit is a good opportunity to discuss both the Armenian-German inter-parliamentary cooperation and the processes taking place in the South Caucasus region, ARMENPRESS was informed from the Office of the Prime Minister.

Prime Minister Pashinyan made a speech, in which he specifically stated:

"Mr. Chairman,

Dear Colleagues,

I am very happy to be here and to see you, because I think there are many issues that we would like to discuss today. I hope today we will have an open and constructive discussion.

You emphasized that there is a new factor in our relations with the EU, and that factor is the monitoring mission of the EU along the Armenia-Azerbaijan border. First of all, I would like to thank the EU for taking this decision. That decision was the outcome of the quadrilateral meeting in Prague when the short-term mission arrived. After that, we applied for a long-term mission and we are grateful to the EU for making that decision.

In general, the situation remains tense, first of all due to the continuous blocking of the Lachin Corridor by Azerbaijan. Unfortunately, despite the decision of the International Court of Justice, Azerbaijan has not opened the Lachin Corridor yet. I would like to draw your attention to the fact that the decision of the ICJ has a legally binding force. I think this is a situation that should be discussed at the international level, because it is unacceptable to leave the decision of the International Court of Justice without a reaction, in particular, when the humanitarian crisis in Nagorno Karabakh continues, and an international reaction is needed.

By the way, what is very important in this context? it has been more than 80 days that the Lachin Corridor has been closed, and during this time Azerbaijan insisted that the Lachin Corridor is not closed, it is open. The decision of the International Court of Justice is very important in terms of clarifying this issue, because the court stated that the Lachine Corridor is closed and should be opened.

 

During my visit, I heard some opinions that support the idea of sending an international monitoring or fact-finding mission to Nagorno-Karabakh and the Lachine Corridor to observe the humanitarian situation and see what is happening there, because it is a crisis that could have irreversible consequences, it can grow into a humanitarian disaster. I think we should work together to prevent the situation from getting out of control.

But the most important question is why Azerbaijan is doing this. We are sure that Azerbaijan's goal is to carry out ethnic cleansing in Nagorno-Karabakh and cleans Armenians from Nagorno-Karabakh. I think the latest statement of Azerbaijani president Aliyev proves this, because Aliyev said that the Lachin Corridor is open for Armenians who want to leave Karabakh, which I think automatically means that the Lachin Corridor is closed for Armenians who live in Nagorno Karabakh and who want to live there. This is the core cause of Azerbaijan's actions.

There are concerns that this is just the beginning of escalation in Nagorno-Karabakh, perhaps along the Armenia-Azerbaijani border as well, because Azerbaijan continues to express aggressive thoughts, aggressive rhetoric. You know that last September, Azerbaijan initiated a large-scale aggression against Armenia, occupying the sovereign territories of Armenia. But, on the other hand, we reached an agreement in Prague, according to which Armenia and Azerbaijan recognize each other's territorial integrity and sovereignty, based on the Alma Ata Declaration of 1991, which means that the administrative borders of the Soviet states turn into state borders. Alma Ata's declaration was about the collapse of the Soviet Union and the creation of the Commonwealth of Independent States. 13 former Soviet states agreed that administrative borders become state borders.

By the way, we also reached an agreement in Prague that the border delimitation process between Armenia and Azerbaijan will be based on the same declaration of Alma Ata. The surprise was that after that the president of Azerbaijan announced that the delimitation should be based on historical maps. You know, it's very difficult to explain what that means. Maybe the new initiative of the president of Azerbaijan can clarify this situation, because recently we witnessed the presentation of the so-called "Western Azerbaijan" initiative, and the whole idea of this initiative is that the entire territory of the Republic of Armenia belongs to Azerbaijan, and the capital of Armenia is an Azerbaijani city.

Our assessment is that all this, the blocking of the Lachin Corridor, the so-called "Western Azerbaijan" initiative, is a preparation for a large-scale aggression against Armenia.

By the way, I would like to draw your attention to another very important situation. We had a discussion at the German Council on Foreign Relations yesterday, and some of our colleagues there used the so-called "Zangezur Corridor" term. I asked our colleagues to be careful because sometimes the same word can have different meanings in different regions and in different political and geopolitical circumstances. Usually in Europe, saying corridor, people mean routes that provide transport services with better quality, etc. But our situation is that we have a legally agreed point on the word corridor in our trilateral declaration of November 9, 2020, which put an end to the war in Nagorno-Karabakh.

So we only have one point about corridor there and that is the Lachin corridor which is currently blocked. The Lachin Corridor was established for providing connection between Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh. Lachin Corridor is not just a road, it is a security zone with a width of 5 km, and according to the relevant point of the statement, Lachin Corridor should be outside the control of Azerbaijan and should be under the control of Russian peacekeepers.

In the same declaration, we have point 9, which is about the opening of all transport and economic routes in our region. And yes, there is a point that Armenia should provide a connection between the western regions of Azerbaijan and the Autonomous Republic of Nakhichevan, but there is no point that those routes should be outside of Armenia's control. That route should operate in the context of the opening of roads and railways in our region. I must mention that Armenia is ready to open all communications even today. But every time we try to do this, Azerbaijan says that these routes should not be under the control and legislation of Armenia, which is totally unacceptable to us. Recently, the president of Azerbaijan publicly admitted that there is no point in the trilateral declaration about the so-called "Zangezur Corridor", and it was he who incorporated such that term into the context of regional communications.

The problem is how one can unilaterally incorporate something into the trilateral declaration? This is a total absurd. Thus, I would like that phrase not to be used, because it would mean support for Azerbaijan's territorial ambitions against Armenia. But, on the other hand, I once again confirm that we are ready to open. Moreover, for more than six months now, we have a draft government decision on opening three checkpoints on the Armenia-Azerbaijan border, but every time we try to adopt this decision, the Azerbaijani side makes a lot of noise, saying why they want to open a checkpoint near our borders without adjusting with us.

This is the overall situation, but I think we should focus on the peace agenda. As you know, our government has taken responsibility for the peace agenda, I am personally committed to the

peace agenda and democracy, because I believe that democracy and peace go together, and because democracy is a strategy for us, we are interested in peace so that we can ensure the continuous development of democracy, economy and freedom. This was the general assessment of the situation. I will gladly answer your questions."

Next, Prime Minister Pashinyan answered a number of questions of the members of the Bundestag.

 21:28, 3 March 2023

YEREVAN, MARCH 3, ARMENPRESS. Armenia is in a very difficult and dangerous period, maximum seriousness and flexibility are required from everyone to overcome the existing challenges, ARMENPRESS reports, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said during a meeting with representatives of the Armenian community in Germany.

"I cannot say that we have guaranteed the security of our country today, on the contrary, especially in these conditions, when geopolitical earthquakes take place. Under these conditions, we are in a very dangerous environment. But on the other hand, we also have an idea of what needs to be done in terms of managing this security environment. The peace agenda is very important for us. We understand that it is not an easy page for us. We understand that there are many risks there, we understand that peace does not depend only on us and our desire. Armenia is in a very difficult and dangerous period. We need maximum seriousness and flexibility in order to overcome the existing challenges," said the Prime Minister.

According to the Prime Minister, Armenia does not have deep economic problems, there are no problems also in terms of internal security and democracy either.

"Our problems are related to the external environment and security, and we share these concerns first of all on international platforms. In these conditions, we do not have good news, but in a bad environment, the good news is that some international attention is focused on Armenia and the region, and we should be able to use this attention to achieve lasting solutions and peace in the region, concluded Pashinyan.

 20:42, 3 March 2023

YEREVAN, MARCH 3, ARMENPRESS. Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan assesses the results of his working visit to Germany as very effective, ARMENPRESS reports, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said during a meeting with the representatives of the Armenian community in Germany.

"My visit to the Federal Republic of Germany is coming to an end, and summing it up, I must say that I consider it very productive. We had an open conversation with the Chancellor and President of the Federal Republic of Germany. The main purpose of the visit is to try to better understand the view and perception of our German partners towards the Republic of Armenia, to try to make our positions on a number of issues more understandable," Pashinyan emphasized.

In general, according to the Prime Minister, he will return from Germany with very warm impressions.

"The meetings were held in a very friendly atmosphere, including the meetings with the Bundestag's Foreign Relations Committee, the Bundestag's Germany-South Caucasus Friendship Group, and we also recently had a very warm meeting with representatives of the business community. Also, there was a good public meeting yesterday at the German Council on Foreign Relations.

In general, I have to say, I don't want to draw conclusions prematurely, but one thing is clear that when we look at the events that happened following the Lachin Corridor blockade, the resolutions of the European Council, as well as the statements of a number of our partners in the international community, there is a certain change in perception towards our views, our positions, our problems. Also, the perception of our country in the European Union has changed significantly," the Prime Minister emphasized.

 21:30, 3 March 2023

YEREVAN, MARCH 3, ARMENPRESS. The Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation has recorded 3 violations of the ceasefire regime in Martuni and Shushi regions, ARMENPRESS informs, the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation said in a message.

According to the source, based on the existing facts, the command of the Russian peacekeeping force is conducting a joint investigation with the Azerbaijani and Armenian sides.

Earlier, the Ministry of Defense of Artsakh reported that the units of Azerbaijani Armed Forces located in the occupied territories of Askeran, Martakert and Martunu regions of the Republic of Artsakh violated the ceasefire on the night of March 2 and March 2-3 by using firearms.

 17:04, 3 March 2023

YEREVAN, MARCH 3, ARMENPRESS. The "EcoCert" international organization, which exercises direct control of the largest viticulture and winemaking program in Armenia, granted the "Armenia Wine" company a license to export organic wines in the USA.

Armenia Wine company develops 11 European varieties of grapes on the total area of 75 hectares of organic vineyards.

"Armenian terroir is simply a perfect environment for organic viticulture." This statement of the company’s French chief consultant-winemaker Jean Baptiste-Sula became the beginning of the path of organic viticulture for "Armenia Wine". Today that path is an established and promising branch of viticulture in Armenia.

From the very beginning of the year, the company had one of the expected and important achievements. The vineyards of “Armenia Wine” successfully passed the new stage of European audit and also received the "USDA organic" certification from the "EcoCert" company. This certificate meets the US standards.

Organic winemaking is a dynamically developing direction in the world market. In 2022, about 1 billion bottles of organic wine were sold in the world, which is 3.6% of the world wine market. France, Spain and Italy are in the top three of the leaders of organic viticulture and winemaking.

Due to its dry climatic conditions and the large number of sunny days, the Armenian nature creates favorable conditions for the development of organic winemaking.

Exclusion of chemicals and competent use of mother nature’s resources are possible only due to the new mentality, cherished work, international standards.

This is a responsibility not only of nature, but also for the consumer’s health and the Armenian Wine traditions. The company also takes care of the natural life of the animals in the organic environment.

The wines made from the Merlot, Cabernet Franc, Cabernet Sauvignon, Tannat, Malbec, Syrah, Petit Verdot, Sauvignon Blanc, Muscat Ottonel, Colombard, Viognier grape varieties wines have already proved that they are competitive in the international market, bringing gold and silver medals from prestigious international competitions.

Thanks to Armenia Wine company,  Armenia has received a unique opportunity to present Armenian winemaking in dignity in the largest markets of the EU and the United States.

"Bione" organic wine is the first in its own video, which can already be sold in EU countries and the United States of America.