February 22, 2023
The International Court of Justice on Wednesday rejected a request by Azerbaijan, which wanted it to order Armenia to stop allegedly planting landmines in a disputed area.
A treaty under which Azerbaijan filed its complaint does not "plausibly imposes any obligation on Armenia to take measures to enable Azerbaijan to undertake demining or to cease and desist from planting landmines", said presiding judge Joan Donoghue.
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The United Nations’ highest court has ordered Azerbaijan to “take all steps at its disposal” to allow free movement of traffic along the only road between Armenia and the ethnic Armenian Nagorno-Karabakh region in Azerbaijan
THE HAGUE, Netherlands – The United Nations' highest court ordered Azerbaijan on Wednesday to “take all steps at its disposal” to allow free movement of traffic along the only road between Armenia and the ethnic Armenian Nagorno-Karabakh region in Azerbaijan that has been blocked by protesters in a move that has further fueled tensions between the two countries.
The legally binding 13-2 ruling by the International Court of Justice results from the latest legal skirmishes in a long-running feud between Armenia and Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh. Each country filed a case with the court accusing the other of breaching a convention aimed at stamping out racial discrimination.
Wednesday's ruling on the blocked road known as the Lachin Corridor came just over two years after the neighboring nations ended a war in Nagorno-Karabakh that killed about 6,800 soldiers and displaced around 90,000 civilians.
The remote and rugged region is within Azerbaijan but had been under the control of ethnic Armenian forces backed by Armenia since the end of a separatist war in 1994.
A cease-fire brokered by Russia ended the 2020 war and granted Azerbaijan control over parts of Nagorno-Karabakh as well as adjacent land occupied by Armenians. Russia sent a peacekeeping force of 2,000 troops to maintain order, including controlling the Lachin Corridor.
Armenia’s lawyers said during court hearings last month that the roadblock set up late last year by protesters claiming to be environmental activists was part of an Azerbaijani campaign the Armenians labeled “ethnic cleansing.”
International Court of Justice President Joan E. Donoghue said the evidence presented by Armenia established that the blockade “has impeded the transfer of persons of Armenian national and ethnic origin hospitalized in Nagorno-Karabakh to medical facilities in Armenia for urgent medical care."
It also interrupted supplies to Nagorno-Karabakh of “essential goods causing shortages of food, medicine and other lifesaving medical supplies,” Donoghue said.
In their majority decision, the court's judges ordered Azerbaijan to “take all measures at its disposal to ensure unimpeded movement of persons, vehicles and cargo along the Lachin Corridor in both directions.”
In a statement, Azerbaijan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the court's ruling “took note of Azerbaijan’s representation that Azerbaijan has and undertakes to continue to take all steps within its power and at its disposal to guarantee safe movement along the Lachin road.”
The statement said Azerbaijan "will continue to uphold the rights of all people under international law and to hold Armenia to account for its ongoing and historic grave violations of human rights.”
The court, in its ruling, said that Armenia's request for judges to order Azerbaijan to “cease its orchestration and support" of the protests on the Lachin Corridor was "not warranted.”
The judges rejected Armenia's request for an order for Azerbaijan not to block gas supplies to Nagorno-Karabakh, saying that Armenian lawyers did not provide enough evidence to back their claim that Azerbaijan was disrupting the supply.
The judges also declined a request by Azerbaijan for an order to stop or prevent Armenia from laying landmines and booby traps in areas of the region to which Azerbaijani citizens are to return.
The world court ordered both nations a little over a year ago to prevent discrimination against one another’s citizens in the aftermath of the war and to not further aggravate the conflict.
The International Court of Justice (ICJ) on Wednesday ordered Azerbaijan to end its blockade in the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region.
The court reached the legally binding ruling after a 13-2 vote.
Since mid-December, a group of Azerbaijanis have blocked the Lachin corridor, which is the only road into Nagorno-Karabakh from Armenia. The group cited illegal mining causing environmental damage as the reason for its protest blocking access to the region.
The two countries in the Caucasus fought over the disputed region in the 1990s and again in 2020. Following the latter of the two wars, a Russian-brokered truce saw Armenia cede territories to Azerbaijan.
Earlier this month, Armenia offered a peace plan to Azerbaijan, aiming to definitively resolve the territorial dispute.
"Azerbaijan shall, pending the final decision in this case… take all measures at its disposal to ensure unimpeded movement of persons, vehicles and cargo along the Lachin corridor in both directions," presiding judge Joan Donoghue said.
"The disruption on the Lachin Corridor has impeded the transfer of persons of Armenian national and ethnic origin," she said.
Donoghue said that there had been "shortages of food, medicine and other life-saving medical supplies" in Nagorno-Karabakh due to the roadblock. She added that there was a "risk that irreparable prejudice will be caused."
The court also pointed to a 2021 ruling in which UN judges ordered both states to do everything possible not to escalate the conflict.
Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan said Yerevan welcomed the ruling that "Azerbaijan must take all measures to end its blockade and ensure unimpeded movement of persons."
"We are also pleased to see truth prevail as the Court rejected in full Azerbaijan's counter request."
Armenia last month told the court that some 120,000 people had been running short of food, medicine and fuel due to the blockade, adding that people could not be transported to area hospitals.
Yerevan also accused Azerbaijan of committing "ethnic cleansing" in Nagorno-Karabakh.
Baku denied the allegations and filed a counter-claim against Yerevan, accusing Armenia of laying landmines and "murdering and maiming Azerbaijanis." In its Wednesday ruling, the ICJ said that Baku did not show that the landmines specifically targeted Azerbaijanis.
sdi/sms (AP, AFP, Reuters, dpa)
The World Court ordered Azerbaijan on Wednesday to ensure free movement through the Lachin corridor to and from the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh, as an intermediate step in ongoing legal disputes with neighbouring Armenia.
The Lachin corridor, the only land route giving Armenia direct access to Nagorno-Karabakh, has been blocked since Dec. 12, when protesters claiming to be environmental activists stopped traffic by setting up tents.
Armenia last month told judges at the World Court, formally known as the International Court of Justice, that neighbouring Azerbaijan’s blockade was designed to allow “ethnic cleansing“, a claim rejected by Baku.
Armenia’s foreign ministry welcomed the court’s decision and called on the international community to ensure Azerbaijan immediately implemented the ruling.
“Armenia will closely monitor the situation and inform the court of any violations by Azerbaijan,” it said in a statement.
Nagorno-Karabakh is internationally recognised as part of Azerbaijan, but its 120,000 inhabitants are predominantly ethnic Armenians and it broke away from Baku in the first of several wars in the early 1990s.
The court said on Wednesday it had evidence that traffic through the corridor was still disrupted, causing “shortages of food, medicines and other lifesaving medical supplies”, and depriving Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh of critical medical care.
It therefore ordered Azerbaijan to “take all measures at its disposal to ensure the unimpeded movement of persons, vehicles and cargo along the Lachin corridor in both directions.”
Azerbaijan has denied any blockade, saying the activists are staging a legitimate protest against what it characterised as illegal mining activity.
The country’s ministry of Foreign Affairs in a statement said it would “continue to uphold the rights of all people under international law and to hold Armenia to account for its ongoing and historic grave violations of human rights”.
The court rejected a plea for provisional measures by Azerbaijan that would order Armenia to help remove land mines from areas it previously controlled, and to stop planting explosive devices which prevent Azeri nationals from returning to their former homes.
It also rejected pleas by Armenia to order Azerbaijan to stop alleged orchestration of protests and disruption of natural gas flows to Nagorno-Karabakh.
The court instead referred to the emergency measures it had issued in the tit-for-tat cases brought by the feuding South Caucasus neighbours in 2021, which ordered both countries to not do anything that would make the conflict worse and to prevent the incitement of racial hatred against each others’ nationals.
The World Court in The Hague is the UN court for resolving disputes between countries.
Its rulings are binding, but it has no direct means of enforcing them.
https://cyprus-mail.com/2023/02/22/world-court-orders-azerbaijan-to-ensure-free-movement-to-nagorno-karabakh/
Yerevan believes that negotiations with Baku on the regulation of the Lachin corridor, the only road connecting Armenia with Nagorno-Karabakh, are unacceptable as the current trilateral agreements of November 2020 have already settled the issue, Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan said on Wednesday .
YEREVAN (UrduPoint / Sputnik News – February 22, 2023) Yerevan believes that negotiations with Baku on the regulation of the Lachin corridor, the only road connecting Armenia with Nagorno-Karabakh, are unacceptable as the current trilateral agreements of November 2020 are already settled the issue. . , Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan said on Wednesday.
On February 18, after the trilateral meeting with Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Munich, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev told journalists that Baku offered to establish checkpoints at both ends of the Zangezur corridor � negotiated between Yerevan and Baku to connect the western regions of Azerbaijan and the Nakhichevan Autonomous Republic � and on the border between the Lachin area and Armenia. -
“A similar idea was voiced to establish checkpoints on the Armenian border and in the area where the Lachin corridor starts. But our answer is unequivocal and was already announced shortly after the siege of the Lachin corridor: the regulation of the Lachin corridor is being discussed . and secured by signatures, including those of the Azerbaijani president I am talking about the document November 9, 2020. The resumption of negotiations on the regulation of the Lachin corridor, by force or threat of force is unacceptable to us and cannot be is an acceptable answer,” said Mirzoyan in a joint press conference with the Luxembourg Foreign Minister, Jean Asselborn.
Mirzoyan noted that there is an “expectation from Azerbaijan” to open the Lachin corridor in exchange for a similar corridor.
However, according to the Armenian minister, even before the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh escalated in the fall of 2020, the Lachin corridor was treated as a humanitarian corridor throughout the negotiation process, given that “Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh were surrounded by Azerbaijan and is the only road that connects them to Armenia and the world.”
“I mean, the corridor has been important since the beginning. In terms of unblocking the transport communications in the region, our position remains the same and constructive. We can unblock them quickly if we ensure that all communications, including railways, operate within the region. the sovereignty of the countries where they pass,” Mirzoyan added.
Since December 12, the Lachin corridor, which runs through the Lachin district of Azerbaijan to connect Armenia to the Nagorno-Karabakh enclave, has been blocked by a group of people from Azerbaijan described by Baku as environmental activists protesting alleged illegal Armenian mining in the area.
Pashinyan has repeatedly said that the blockade of the corridor violates the cease-fire declaration arranged by Russia between Armenia and Azerbaijan in 2020. The document delegated control of the Lachin corridor to Russian peacekeepers deployed in Nagorno-Karabakh. At the end of December 2022, Pashinyan claimed that the peacekeepers did not fulfill their obligations, a claim denied by Moscow.
09:39, 23 February 2023
YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 23, ARMENPRESS. Armenian Minister of Foreign Affairs Ararat Mirzoyan will travel to Syria on February 23 to supervise the delivery of the third batch of Armenian humanitarian aid to help in the earthquake response efforts.
During the visit, FM Mirzoyan is scheduled to have a meeting with the President of Syria Bashar al-Assad and Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad, the foreign ministry said in a press release.
10:00, 23 February 2023
YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 23, ARMENPRESS. Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan will also travel to Aleppo after meeting with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad in Damascus during his trip to quake-hit Syria, ARMENPRESS correspondent reports.
The Armenian Foreign Minister is visiting Syria to supervise the delivery of the third batch of the Armenian humanitarian aid for the regions affected in the earthquake.
11:47, 23 February 2023
YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 23, ARMENPRESS. The delegation led by Foreign Minister of Armenia Ararat Mirzoyan arrived in Syria, ARMENPRESS correspondent reports.
FM Mirzoyan was welcomed at the Damascus airport by Syrian Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad.
FM Mirzoyan and FM Mekdad are now holding a meeting.
The Armenian FM is scheduled to have a meeting with the President of Syria Bashar al-Assad.
He will then travel to Aleppo to supervise the delivery of the third batch of humanitarian aid.
10:33, 23 February 2023
YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 23, ARMENPRESS. Three Armenian developers teamed up to create BLiiNK – an AI-powered app designed to help people to improve eye health, correct sitting posture and boost productivity while working at a computer.
BLiiNK is the brainchild of Nairi Baghdasaryan, a nuclear engineer who started experiencing trouble with his eyesight when he was working as a data scientist, spending long hours at a computer. Developers Artashes Baghdasaryan and Artur Hovhannisyan joined him in realizing the idea of BLiiNK.
“BLiiNK is an AI-powered app designed to help people who use a computer to avoid problems with eye health and posture. We’ve designed a notification system which will make the working hours healthier and more productive,” Nairi Baghdasaryan told ARMENPRESS in an interview.
Baghdasaryan, a nuclear engineer by profession, earned his second PhD in Poland and returned to Armenia in 2020 a month before the war began. He started to learn programming and eventually began working as a data scientist for various companies. He started experiencing problems with his vision in 3-4 years. “My doctor said I need less screen time, and that I have to use artificial tear eye drops, but I was always forgetting to use them. That’s when I came up with the idea of BLiiNK. Artashes and Artur joined me, and as developers they understood the importance of the issue. My research showed that people blink nearly three times less while using a computer. The same goes for maintaining posture. By the way, posture impacts vision as well: a poor posture can lead to problems with vision, and it also affects the hormone levels and can lead to a number of other health issues,” Nairi Baghdasaryan said.
“I realized that the computer itself can remind the user to blink and maintain correct posture, which will eventually become a habit,” he added.
Once BLiiNK detects less blinking rate or incorrect sitting position, a notification will appear on the screen. Once you correct yourself or blink, the notification will disappear , and no mouse click is needed.
BLiiNK received investments from the FAST angle investor network, and a grant from GIZ after completing the Hero House Armenia Startup Academy accelerator program. Furthermore, BLiiNK got 10,000,000 drams under the Idea to Business project from the Ministry of High Tech Industry and then won a 3000-dollar prize at the SSS Holidays Vizag INDIA, getting ranked 1st in the Idea Stage category.
The co-founders are now developing a Mac OS version. They plan to enter the international market as well, namely the US, Canada, India and UK.
Currently, BLiiNK is available for Windows but the developers also plan to launch a mobile version of the app, designed not only to prevent vision and posture problems but a broad range of other health issues.
Karine Terteryan