Nagorno Karabakh -=- ARTSAKH

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Armenpress.am

Nagorno-Karabakh must obtain status, direct connection with Armenia through Lachin Corridor, says NK President-elect

16:18, 9 September 2023

YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 9, ARMENPRESS. Nagorno-Karabakh (Artsakh) must receive a status and direct connection with Armenia through Lachin Corridor, President-elect Samvel Shahramanyan has said.

“Nagorno-Karabakh must receive a status, and we must have direct connection with Armenia through Lachin Corridor, while other routes could be opened, but they shouldn’t replace the corridor,” Shahramanyan said after being elected President by the parliament of Nagorno-Karabakh.

“Negotiations must take place, the format [of talks] can be both multilateral and bilateral, with guarantees from a third party, Stepanakert must be a subject in the negotiations,” Shahramanyan added.

He called for the strengthening of the statehood, domestic stability, exercising the right to self-determination of the people of Nagorno-Karabakh, improving the socio-economic situation and establishing law and order.

 

 

https://armenpress.am/eng/news/1119134.html

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Armenpress.am

EU doesn’t recognize Nagorno-Karabakh election but attaches importance to consolidation around de facto leadership

16:58, 9 September 2023

YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 9, ARMENPRESS. The European Union has announced it doesn’t recognize the presidential elections in Nagorno-Karabakh but believes “it is important for the Karabakh Armenians to consolidate around de facto leadership that is able and willing to engage in result-oriented discussions with Baku.”

The EU’s diplomatic service issued a statement after Samvel Shahramanyan was elected President of Nagorno-Karabakh on September 9.

“In view of the so-called 'presidential elections' in Khankendi/Stepanakert on 9 September 2023, the European Union reiterates that it does not recognise the constitutional and legal framework within which they have been held. At the same time, the EU believes that it is important for the Karabakh Armenians to consolidate around de facto leadership that is able and willing to engage in result-oriented discussions with Baku. The EU is committed to supporting this process,” the European Union External Action Service said.

 

 

https://armenpress.am/eng/news/1119136.html

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Armenpress.am

Russian aid to be delivered to Nagorno-Karabakh through Aghdam road, Lachin Corridor to be opened for humanitarian goods

21:10, 9 September 2023

STEPANAKERT, SEPTEMBER 9, ARMENPRESS. Nagorno-Karabakh (Artsakh) authorities announced Saturday that Russian aid will be delivered through the Aghdam road and that at the same time an agreement has been reached to restore humanitarian transit along Lachin Corridor.

“The Russian government has initiated the provision of humanitarian aid to the Republic of Artsakh, given the humanitarian crisis in Nagorno-Karabakh. The aid, which includes Russian-made essential products, has been sent to Artsakh through the Russian Red Cross by their vehicles. The authorities of the Republic of Artsakh, based on the need to mitigate the severe humanitarian problems resulting from the total blockade by Azerbaijan, have decided to allow access of the Russian goods to our republic through the town of Askeran. At the same time, an agreement has been reached to restore humanitarian shipments by the Russian peacekeepers and the International Committee of the Red Cross along Lachin Corridor,” the Nagorno-Karabakh official InfoCenter said in a statement.

 

 

https://armenpress.am/eng/news/1119143.html

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Open Letter to the Rabbinical Centre of Europe

From the International Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies (IIGHRS, A Division of the Zoryan Institute)

September 11, 2023

 

Dear Rabbinical Centre of Europe:

 

As a non-profit organization dedicated to genocide and human rights studies since 1982, the International Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies (“IIGHRS”, A Division of the Zoryan Institute) is deeply concerned about and takes great issue with the open joint letter that was released by the RCE signed by 50 senior leading European Rabbis.

 

We recognize that we are currently living in a time where antisemitism is at historically high levels. We also condemn the recent trend in which Holocaust imagery and language have been misappropriated, especially regarding the COVID-19 pandemic. We would like to point out, however, that the word “genocide”, coined by Jewish scholar Raphael Lemkin in 1943/1944, was adopted into law in 1948, many years after the Armenian Genocide and as a result of the Shoah. Article II of the 1948 Genocide Convention states:

 

Genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group, as such:

1. Killing members of the group;
2. Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
3. Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
4. Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
5. Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

Kindly note that the above definition of the crime of genocide does not include any reference to the number of people who perished, or the magnitude of suffering, but rather to the intent behind the destruction of a group. According to this definition, the Srebrenica massacres (8,000 victims), the Genocide in Rwanda (800,000 victims), the Cambodian Genocide (2 million people), the Shoah (6 million people), and the Armenian Genocide (1.5 million), are all widely understood as constituting genocide under the definition of the Genocide Convention. Applying this term to the current situation in Nagorno-Karabakh is fully in accord with the scholarly and legal understandings of genocide and in no way trivializes or diminishes the Holocaust or any other example of genocide. In fact, various legal scholars such as former prosecutor of the International Criminal Court Luis Moreno Ocampo, as well as genocide scholars have described the situation in Nagorno-Karabakh as constituting genocide. The situation there is not a simple ‘political disagreement’ as was described in your letter.

We hope that the RCE can appreciate that the phenomenon of genocide is not unique to any one group, nation, religion, or ethnicity. The attempted destruction of an entire population is a crime against all humanity and must be recognized as such no matter who the victim group may be. In our view, genocide is a shared human experience, and unfortunately, this heinous crime has impacted many groups throughout history, and continues to do so in various parts of the world today. This includes Nagorno-Karabakh, whereby a government is deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about another group’s physical destruction, which is one of the acts of genocide defined in Article II of the Convention listed above.

 

The Zoryan institute, by teaching genocide comparatively, and by recognizing the destruction, trauma and pain that this crime inflicts, seeks not to prioritize one case over another, but rather deepen our understanding about the common patterns and dynamics that allow genocide to take place and allow us to more effectively prevent future instances of genocide moving forward. Our goal is to educate and teach about genocide in order to work towards a safer and more just world.

 

We cordially invite you to better acquaint yourselves with the ongoing situation in Nagorno-Karabakh and encourage you to read the recently published edition of the Zoryan Institute academic journal, Genocide Studies International, published by the University of Toronto Press that is devoted to this particular crisis: https://www.utpjournals.press/toc/gsi/15/1.

 

We would be happy to send you a physical copy of this issue for your reference.

 

Sincerely,

The Zoryan Institute (IIGHRS) Board of Directors

Editors of Genocide Studies International

Editors of Diaspora: A Journal of Transnational Studies

Faculty Members of the Genocide and Human Rights University Program

Affiliates

Dr. Maureen Hiebert, Chair of the Zoryan Institute’s Academic Board, Associate Professor, Political Science, University of Calgary

 

Dr. Varouj Aivazian, Chair of the Zoryan Institute’s Corporate Board, Professor of Finance and Chair of the Economics Department at University of Toronto Mississauga

 

Dr. Alexander Alvarez, Vice-chair Academic Advisory Board, Zoryan Institute, Co-Editor Genocide Studies International, Professor of Criminology & Criminal Justice, Northern Arizona University

 

Dr. Rouben Adalian, Board Member of the Zoryan Institute

 

Dr. Joyce Apsel, Clinical Professor, Liberal Studies, NYU, and President of the Institute for the Study of Genocide

 

Dr. Yair Auron, Professor of Emeritus, Open in University Israel

 

Mr. Diran Avedian, President, and Founder of Lactopur Inc.

 

Dr. Talar Chahinian, Co-editor of Diaspora: A Journal of Transnational Studies and Lecturer in the Program for Armenian Studies at University of California Irvine

 

Dr. Doris Bergen, Chancellor Rose and Ray Wolfe Professor of Holocaust Studies, the University of Toronto

 

Dr. Bedross Der Matossian, Professor of History, the Hymen Rosenberg Professor in Judiac Studies, University of Nebraska, Lincoln

 

Mr. Federico Gaitan Hairabedian, Esq., Lawyer and President of the Luisa Hairabedian Foundation, Argentina

 

Ms. Mari Hovhannisyan, the Zoryan Institute Armenia International Foundation for Research and Development

 

Dr. Elisa von Joeden-Forgey, Endowed Chair in Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Keene State College (NH, USA)

 

Dr. Sossie Kasbarian, Co-editor of Diaspora: A Journal of Transnational Studies and Senior Lecturer in Politics, University of Stirling

 

Ms. Arsinée Khanjian, Canadian actress, director, producer, playwright, and human rights activist

 

Dr. Adam Muller, Co-Editor of Genocide Studies International and Director of the Peace and Conflict Studies Department, University of Manitoba

 

Dr. Jennifer Rich, Co-Editor of Genocide Studies International, Exec. Director of the Rowan Center for the Study of the Holocaust, Genocide, and Human Rights, Director of the MA Program in Holocaust and Genocide Education, and Associate Professor of Sociology at Rowan University

 

Dr. William Schabas, Professor of International Law at Middlesex University in London and Professor of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights at Leiden University

 

Ms. Kate Simola, the Zoryan Institute of Canada Inc.

 

Dr. Lok Siu, Professor of Ethnic Studies at UC Berkeley and Chair of the Asian American Research Centre

 

Dr. Amy Sodaro, Associate Professor and Deputy Chairperson of the Social Sciences, Human Services and Criminal Justice Department at CUNY

 

Dr. Henry Theriault, Co-Editor of Genocide Studies International, Past President of the International Association of Genocide Scholars and Associate Vice President for Academic Affairs Worcester State University

 

Dr. Alan Whitehorn, Professor Emeritus, Royal Military College of Canada

 

Dr. Andrew Woolford, Professor and Department Head, Sociology & Criminology, University of Manitoba

 

Ambassador A. Yeganian, Chair of the Zoryan Institute Armenia International Foundation for Research and Development

 

Ms. Megan Reid, Deputy Executive Director of the Zoryan Institute

 

Mr. K. M. Greg Sarkissian, Co-Founder and President of the Zoryan Institute

Zoryan Institute, a non-profit organization, serves the cause of scholarship and public awareness relating to issues of universal human rights, genocide, and diaspora-homeland relations. This is done through the systematic continued efforts of scholars and specialists using a comparative and multidisciplinary approach and in accordance with the highest academic standards.

 

To these ends the Institute undertakes and supports multi-disciplinary research, documentation, lectures, seminars, colloquia, and publications.

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Sept 11 2023

Nagorno-Karabakh blockade continues despite claims that border is now open

Routes into Azerbaijan's breakaway territory of Nagorno-Karabakh, including a key link known as the Lachin corridor, remained blocked at the weekend despite a claimed deal between the two sides on humanitarian aid deliveries.

Tensions have been rising in the region as Armenia holds military exercises with US forces, Nagorno-Karabakh elects a new leadership, and Azerbaijan builds up its forces on the border, which may have doomed the reported breakthrough on humanitarian aid shipments before it even began to be implemented.

Nagorno-Karabakh authorities have claimed a deal was struck on opening the border, but confirmation from Baku has so far been lacking.

"The authorities of the Republic of Artsakh (the self-designation of the ethnic Armenians in Karabakh), proceeding from the need to alleviate the acute humanitarian problems caused by the total blockade carried out by Azerbaijan, decided to allow the import of Russian cargoes to our republic through the town of Askeran. An agreement was reached to restore the transportation of humanitarian goods through the Lachin corridor through Russian peacekeepers and the International Committee of the Red Cross," the statement by the authorities in Nagorno-Karabakh said, according to news.am website.

Under the reported deal, Azerbaijan has agreed to allow humanitarian aid through its blockade of the Lachin corridor to Armenia so long as the Nagorno-Karabakh authorities also allow the reopening of the route into Azerbaijan via Askeran. The Askeran route would be the first time a transport link had been opened up from Azerbaijan since Nagorno-Karabakh broke away in the early 1990s, marking a symbolic victory for Baku.

However, currently, an ICRC truck is blocked near the Lachin border checkpoint on Armenian territory according to local Azerbaijani media. Baku has blocked Nagorno-Karabakh's only route to the outside world since December 2022, causing severe hardship inside the territory.

"Although the Azerbaijani side is ready to ensure its passage across the border in accordance with the legislation of the country, the Armenians do not want to accept it. Because they know that if an ICRC truck passes through the Lachin border point, at the same time another truck with food must enter along the Aghdam road. To prevent this, the Armenians do not accept cargo along the Lachin road, dooming themselves to hunger," the Azerbaijani website Report said.

A Russian Red Cross wagon is also currently halted in Barda, close to the Karabakh region, the local media reported. The truck with food and non-food items was sent in accordance with a memorandum of cooperation between the Azerbaijan Red Crescent Society and the Russian Red Cross, initiated by the Russian government, in order to meet the needs of Armenians.

https://www.intellinews.com/nagorno-karabakh-blockade-continues-despite-claims-that-border-is-now-open-292083/?source=armenia

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1945

Sept 11 2023

Anatomy Of Genocide: How The State Department Inadvertently Green-Lighted War On Armenians

By

Michael Rubin

Azerbaijan is on a war footing.

On Sept. 9, Artsakh, the Kosovo of the Caucasus, an ethnic Armenian republic also known as Nagorno-Karabakh set on land Soviet leader Joseph Stalin transferred to Azerbaijan, held presidential elections. It was the unrecognized republic’s seventh presidential election since the 1990s. But this year Azerbaijan, sensing weakness in Washington, delivered an ultimatum: elections would equal war. The oil-rich dictatorship broadcast mobilization footage to underscore its demands. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken dutifully called Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, but his words were weak, and by omission, Blinken signaled that Aliyev faced no consequences should he ignore them.

Blinken should know better. The Artsakh elections are not the first time he has faced this scenario. In November 2020, Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed launched a war of attrition to punish the Tigray region for holding its own local elections. When Blinken took office two months later, he did little other than wag his finger at Abiy. The Ethiopian leader dismissed Blinken and privately mocked him and his envoys. Hundreds of thousands of Tigrayans starved. That U.S. President Joe Biden subsequently rehabilitated Abiy signals to Aliyev and other would-be mass murderers that America’s words are empty.

Why is Aliyev so upset at the prospect of Artsakh elections? There are two reasons. Certainly, free elections in any region Azerbaijan claims are embarrassing. Freedom House ranks Azerbaijan as “not free” and labels it a “consolidated authoritarian regime.”

Put another way, the dictatorship for which some in Washington and London now shill ranks alongside China and Myanmar, and below even Russia and the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, in freedom rankings. Artsakh itself is far from perfect, but it ranks “partially free,” with better scores than Turkey, sitting more than 50 places above Azerbaijan. The notion, then, that it might elect its own government is anathema to Aliyev.

The second reason is racism. Aliyev dehumanizes Armenians in his rhetoric and his country’s schoolbooks. This is why the former International Criminal Court prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo released an open letter calling Azerbaijan’s starvation of Armenians genocide.

It is Not Just Kosovo: Law is on Artsakh’s Side

But if the world recognizes Azerbaijani sovereignty over the land on which Artsakh operates, can Azerbaijan be blamed for taking action to restore that sovereignty? Put aside the illogic of demanding residents subordinate themselves to a government that deliberately starves them. Here, there is a parallel to Darfur. The law regarding Azerbaijani sovereignty is far from cut-and-dry.

Many Americans, even within the State Department, misunderstand Washington’s historical position regarding Azerbaijan’s sovereignty over Nagorno-Karabakh. While Baku insists the United States recognizes Nagorno-Karabakh as Azerbaijani, those engaged in the issue during the George H.W. Bush administration say that such recognition was conditional on a diplomatic process and recognition of the cultural and human rights of those living in Nagorno-Karabakh. Azerbaijan now turns its back on both. As such, the United States will not necessarily continue to recognize Azerbaijani sovereignty.

Then there is the issue of self-determination. Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s May statement that “Azerbaijan’s territory includes Nagorno-Karabakh” does not end the question about Artsakh’s self-determination. Before Pashinyan’s statement, no Armenian government recognized Artsakh’s independence, so there is little new to the position. But because Artsakh is not part of modern Armenia, Pashinyan has no right to concede Nagorno-Karabakh’s residents’ right to self-determination.

Nor is Artsakh on its face illegitimate. It is neither Donetsk nor Luhansk, nor for that matter Crimea. Nagorno-Karabakh’s claim to self-determination began prior to the fall of the Soviet Union when the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast’s government first petitioned Moscow to separate from Azerbaijan. This was their right under the Constitution, and their residents chose independence in a free and fair referendum. Nor can Azerbaijan dismiss the referendum as the case of one community voting and the other boycotting. Censuses throughout the Soviet period and before show the Armenian majority. Few Azerbaijanis had deep roots in the region. Aliyev compels Azerbaijanis to resettle in the region by holding pensions and government employment hostage.

No Room for Moral Equivalence on Azerbaijani Aggression

Azerbaijan today turns morality upside down with its narrative that it is the victim of aggression. Putting aside the fact that Artsakh is an indigenous republic rather than a vestige of occupation, and that it was autonomous under the Soviet system, the Azerbaijani narrative elides important context. Against the backdrop of the Armenian Genocide, neither the Ottoman Empire’s Young Turks nor the nascent Azerbaijani state accepted Armenian statehood. Just as Turks drove Armenians out of their eastern Anatolian homelands to open the land for Turkish colonization, many Turkish chauvinists hoped to complete the process by uniting Turkey and Azerbaijan, bringing the notion of “one nation, two states” to its natural conclusion.

While the Soviet conquest temporarily put a lid on the pressure cooker, Stalin’s gerrymandering catalyzed grievance. As the Soviet Union descended into chaos, populists in Azerbaijan, including its capital Baku, staged an escalating series of pogroms against the Armenian Christian community reminiscent of those that occurred during the Armenian Genocide. Azerbaijan subsequently sought to encircle, blockade, and starve the Armenian towns and villages in Nagorno-Karabakh. It was in this context, and with the widespread recognition that Azerbaijan sought a final solution for the Armenian population, that the United States Congress included Section 907 in the Freedom Support Act banning most assistance to Azerbaijan.

After 9/11, Azerbaijan played its cards well. It offered to join the U.S. War on Terror in exchange for a waiver to Section 907. Under the terms of that waiver, the United States could assist Azerbaijan on the condition that Azerbaijan remained committed to resolving its dispute over Nagorno-Karabakh diplomatically and foreswore any effort to impose a military solution. Azerbaijan’s September 2020 attack, timed to coincide with the centenary of the Ottoman effort to invade Nagorno-Karabakh, violated Azerbaijan’s commitment and should have ended American assistance. Hakan Fidan, Turkey’s new foreign minister (and its intelligence chief at the time), has since acknowledged what the CIA and Pentagon had already learned through covert means: Turkish special forces participated in the assault.

While U.S. President Joe Biden fulfilled his campaign promise to recognize the Armenian Genocide, he soiled that recognition by allowing further military sales to Azerbaijan. This convinced Aliyev that he could get away with murder. Indeed, Azerbaijani aggression against not only Artsakh, but also Armenia proper, grew in direct proportion to Blinken and his team’s moral equivalence and inability to call out Azerbaijani aggression as the source of the problem. State Department officials from Blinken on down based their pronouncements less on moral clarity and more on “Chicken Kiev.”

There is an unfortunate irony that Biden, who promised as a candidate to stand against genocide and took A Problem from Hell author Samantha Power under his wing, now through negligence or incompetence appears to greenlight the eradication of the region’s oldest Christian community.

On a day-to-day basis, though, neither Biden nor Blinken take the lead on the Caucasus. That falls to Acting Assistant Secretary of State Yuri Kim. who most recently served as U.S. ambassador to Albania. That the current crisis accelerated under Kim’s tenure as assistant secretary is no coincidence. Within the State Department, Kim’s ambition to be ambassador to Turkey is an open secret, based partly on her comments to colleagues and to others while she was political counselor at the U.S. Embassy in Ankara. Perhaps then, some of her moral equivalence in the face of growing Turkish and Azerbaijani aggression toward Armenia and Artsakh is simply self-censorship in order to assuage those whom she hopes will be her future hosts, or perhaps her moral equivalence is simply her style. Either way, her default reaction tends to exacerbate conflict and undermine U.S. interests.

The end of her tenure in Albania should have been a red flag. In May 2023, just two days before Albania held municipal elections, Albanian forces arrested Fredi Beleri, the opposition candidate to be mayor of Himara, who hailed from Albania’s ethnic Greek minority, on unsubstantiated vote-buying charges. Beleri nevertheless won. Albanian authorities proceeded to keep Beleri in jail in a cynical attempt to keep him from being sworn in. The case has ramifications for NATO solidarity and, by extension, for American interests. Kim should have realized this, but she did not press the message with her superiors. As a result, Greece did not invite Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama to the Western Balkans Summit in Athens last month, distracting from some Ukraine conversations. Most other observers see Albania’s actions as being rooted in religious hatred. They see Albania as wrong and Beleri as the victim. Kim’s approach caused Albania to double down, putting its EU aspirations in jeopardy and undermining stability in the Western Balkans.

Back to Artsakh: As Azerbaijan mobilized forces, Kim tweeted, “We urge all sides to work together now to immediately simultaneously open Lachin and other routes to get desperately needed humanitarian supplies into Nagorno-Karabakh.”

Within the State Department, hands hit foreheads for two reasons: First, for her bizarre choice to draw equivalence between those withholding food and those starving. Azerbaijan and Artsakh are no more moral equals than the Soviets were equivalent to those they blockaded in Berlin. Second, it has been less than three years since Aliyev agreed in writing to allow aid to flow unimpeded from Armenia through Lachin and into Artsakh. Aliyev’s violation of that agreement is not up for debate. Does Kim not realize the damage she does to diplomacy by signaling that intransigence works, and agreements need not be honored?

Make no mistake: The person responsible for the starvation of Artsakh’s Armenians is not Biden, Blinken, or Kim. It is Aliyev. And, just as with Darfur, his decisions should lead him to The Hague. That said, not every dictator puts his closet desire to eliminate an ethnic group into action. They read the tea leaves to try understanding whether an outside power will care enough to act. Unfortunately, Biden, Blinken, and Kim have each repeatedly signaled disinterest. They care little about right or wrong, or about defending the liberal order.

Aliyev, like Abiy, may allow some aid trucks in and hope the spotlight moves on, but genocide in Artsakh looms. Bill Clinton apologized for doing nothing to head off Rwanda’s anti-Tutsi genocide. The Dutch government apologized for Srebrenica. Armenians do not need an apology after the fact. They need the West to show moral backbone and signal, through sanctions on Azerbaijan and direct aid to Artsakh, a red light that Aliyev would be foolish to ignore.

Now a 19FortyFive Contributing Editor, Dr. Michael Rubin is a Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI). Dr. Rubin is the author, coauthor, and coeditor of several books exploring diplomacy, Iranian history, Arab culture, Kurdish studies, and Shi’ite politics, including “Seven Pillars: What Really Causes Instability in the Middle East?” (AEI Press, 2019); “Kurdistan Rising” (AEI Press, 2016); “Dancing with the Devil: The Perils of Engaging Rogue Regimes” (Encounter Books, 2014); and “Eternal Iran: Continuity and Chaos” (Palgrave, 2005).

https://www.19fortyfive.com/2023/09/anatomy-of-genocide-how-the-state-department-inadvertently-green-lighted-war-on-armenians/

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Armenpress.am

American actor Mark Ruffalo raises awareness of Azeri genocidal blockade of Nagorno- Karabakh Armenians

12:39, 11 September 2023

YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 11, ARMENPRESS. Oscar and Emmy nominated American actor Mark Ruffalo has shared Kim Kardashian’s plea to U.S. President Joe Biden asking to stop another Armenian Genocide in Nagorno-Karabakh at the hands of the Azerbaijani government, noting that the issue doesn’t get media coverage.

“This is a serious issue that the media is not covering,” Ruffalo said on X, sharing Kim Kardashian’s post.

 

On September 8, Armenian-American reality TV star, entrepreneur Kim Kardashian and UCLA physician, Emmy-nominated film producer Eric Esrailian made a public plea to U.S. President Joe Biden, calling on him and other world leaders to stop the Armenian genocide in Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh).

In a piece published by the Rolling Stone, Kardashian and Esrailian appealed to U.S. President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Blinken, and their colleagues to take a stand immediately and pressure Azerbaijan to open the Lachin corridor without preconditions.

 

 

https://armenpress.am/eng/news/1119187.html?fbclid=IwAR1Z-EONqVvTFdoA_LKOnveAQmqOJ9X6MyDWjUA9nIV6kkXXPtQKKbys6PM

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Armenpress.am

Germany provides ICRC with additional €2 million for Nagorno-Karabakh mission

16:34, 11 September 2023

YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 11, ARMENPRESS. Germany will provide an additional €2 million to the International Committee of the Red Cross for its humanitarian mission in Nagorno-Karabakh, the German Embassy to Armenia announced on Monday.

“The humanitarian situation in Nagorno Karabakh is very tense. Germany is therefore providing the ICRC with additional 2 million euros for its life-saving work in the region. It is important that the aid arrives now, which is why we are committed to open humanitarian access,” the German embassy said in a statement posted on X.

 

 

https://armenpress.am/eng/news/1119217.html?fbclid=IwAR3-ztL1g94HzR2nsGgz2JdFeoalBM9dv1un1Vs36PI9MHH4QBsmyOtoo2w

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Armenpress.am

Russian aid delivered to Stepanakert

09:36, 12 September 2023

STEPANAKERT, SEPTEMBER 12, ARMENPRESS/ARTSAKHPRESS. A truck carrying Russian humanitarian aid for Nagorno-Karabakh has reached Stepanakert through the Akna (Aghdam)-Askeran road, ARTSAKHPRESS reported.

ARTSAKHPRESS quoted Askeran mayor Hayk Shamiryan as saying that concerned citizens who had gathered near the Tank Memorial initially protested and did not allow passage to the vehicle, but eventually agreed. The Russian Red Cross vehicle carrying the aid then reached Stepanakert with police escort.

 

 

https://armenpress.am/eng/news/1119269.html?fbclid=IwAR0gJAX1OiBT8hLZ2fwGAYBSagb0NPT7alN95fP_BcaCnOdLa0IO5fsuGxI

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Sept 12 2023

Armenia’s Existential Crisis: Understanding the Siege of Artsakh

OPINION - September 12, 2023

By Anthony Avice Du Buisson

Armenia is facing another existential crisis.

Azerbaijan is blockading the small statelet of Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh), preventing medical, fuel, and food supplies from entering the country. An emboldened Ilham Aliyev is taking advantage of this situation to stoke the flames of prejudice and push Azeri forces into Armenia proper.

The Consequences of War

The Second Nagorno-Karabakh conflict in 2020 forced Artsakh’s president, Arayik Harutyunyan, to cede large portions of territory to Azerbaijan for the first time in decades. Azeri forces, equipped with firepower and mercenaries from neighbouring Turkey, pushed deep into the statelet, taking multiple cities from Armenian forces. Azeri forces left a trail of atrocities during the month-long engagement. At the end of the war, Armenia’s “friend” Russia brokered a tenuous ceasefire agreement that left Artsakh crippled and Armenia in a state of shock.

Armenia’s prime minister, Nikol Pashinyan, called the arrangement at the time, “unbelievably painful for me and my people.” The agreement left Artsakh with four key cities and dozens of villages lost to Azeri occupation. A disinterested Putin gave the security of Armenia to the authoritarian leader of Azerbaijan and by extension Recep Tayyip Erdogan, while Armenians were left with nothing but occupation. The importance of this agreement cannot be understated because the conditions agreed therein, such as Clause 9 stating that, “all economic and transport connections in the region shall be unblocked” have yet to be honoured.

Russian peacekeepers deployed to disputed areas around Artsakh are failing to maintain the peace; Azeri forces have attacked regions such as Martuni with artillery and harassed Armenian forces to test the limits of the ceasefire. Aliyev’s forces are empowered to do this by the change in attitude of Putin. Despite Armenia being part of the CSTO (Collective Security Treaty Organisation), Putin is pivoting towards Azerbaijan in diplomatic and economic matters, while sidelining Armenia.

Pashinyan, echoing the sentiment of many Armenians that feel Russia is not taking their concerns seriously, voiced the possibility of Armenia leaving the CSTO in May. Speaking to Yerevan media and quoted by the Moscow Times, Pashinyan said that “I am not ruling out that Armenia will take a decision to withdraw from the CSTO…” The reason for the bulk of discontent with Moscow is because of a lack of action that Russian peacekeepers are taking in the emerging humanitarian crisis in Artsakh.

The Lachin Corridor Crisis

The Lachin corridor that connects Artsakh with Armenia, and the outside world has been blocked since December 12. Azeri agitators operating under the veil of eco-activists have blocked the only road into the enclave. This agitation is a deliberate provocation by the Azerbaijan government to constrain 120,000 residents in a show of force to Yerevan and Stepanakert. Azeri forces are bolstering the blockade through deployment of forces, cutting off gas supply and creating a security checkpoint to regulate traffic into the region to suffocate Artsakh. This is despite the ruling by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in the Hague to unblock the road in late February this year.

What is the justification from Baku for this?

Azerbaijan wants to reclaim control over the corridor and pressure the parties to the original agreement to acquiesce to Azerbaijan’s revanchist claims over Artsakh. This provocation is just a continuation of a series of moves that Aliyev feels empowered to make in the wake of Baku’s victory in 2020 and Moscow’s embroilment in Ukraine. It is a provocation impacting the lives of Armenians, disregarding international humanitarian norms, and showing the world the extreme nature of Azerbaijan’s war against its neighbour.

Growing Anti-Armenian Sentiment

Aliyev’s victory over Artsakh is emboldening a new wave of anti-Armenian sentiment, with the long-standing leader of Azerbaijan increasing his genocidal rhetoric against Armenians. The war had offered a new vehicle for the Azerbaijan government’s longstanding prejudice. An example of this is on full show with Baku’s “Military Trophies Park” where adults and children can walk around displays that dehumanise Armenian soldiers and include the real helmets of dead Armenians. Visitors to the museum can see the victory of Azeri soldiers over the destroyed vehicles, helmets, and equipment of Armenians in what can only be best described as a public show of jingoist hatred.

In December, during the start of the blockade, Aliyev proclaimed to the nation in a speech that, “present-day Armenia is our land” and, “When I repeatedly said this before, they tried to object and allege that I have territorial claims. I am saying this as a historical fact. If someone can substantiate a different theory, let them come forward.”

These irredentist claims set forth by Aliyev makeup the Baku government’s new, “Great Return” policy. The policy that is ongoing aims to resettle Azeri people onto Armenian land under the guise of restoring “Western Azerbaijan” to its “former” glory. Aliyev is sending thousands of Azeris to resettle Artsakh and take the homes of former Armenian residents.

Last month on a visit to the newly incorporated city of Lachin, Aliyev told residents that Armenians living in Artsakh “either…will come to us humbly, or events will develop in a different direction”. This is important to note, because Aliyev is not joking with these words and his government is enacting policies designed to change the demographics of the region—in other words, ethnic cleansing. Every action, including the blockade, is a message to Yerevan and to the people of Armenia that they are not welcome in the region.

The Fear of Genocide

The Armenian people suffered one of the greatest genocides in history. What they see happening in Artsakh is an occupying power that threatens to erase the Armenian identity.

“We are not speaking about political or inter-ethnic conflict, we are talking about ongoing process of genocide, and not just its preparation.” Pashinyan told AFP in a recent interview in July, referring to the situation in Artsakh.

The prime minister is not exaggerating the situation with this hyperbolic phrasing. Officials from the International Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS) are noting that the actions of the Azeri government with its rhetoric, blockade and atrocities towards Armenians are “significant genocide risk factors.” It is not an exaggeration then to state that the actions of the Azeri government are deepening this concern.

People are rallying to speak out against the blockade in the streets of Stepanakert left unoccupied by Azerbaijan. Loved ones in neighbouring Armenia are showing an outcry of support for those facing starvation in the fledgling republic. I spoke with Ani Poghosyan, an Armenian Human Rights advocate and producer who has long been following this situation from its onset. I asked her what she would like the world to know about what is going on…

“The disregard of Artsakh and Armenia is very shortsighted.” She went on to say: “It’s terribly shocking and heartbreaking just how lonely and abandoned Armenians are in their fight against a dictatorship the brutality of which at times far exceeds that of Russia. If we as a global community are to stand for what is right (just as we are rightfully doing so for Ukraine), then we should be very straightforward and bold in the pushback against the dictatorship of Baku. Abandoning of principles for shortsighted interests is like opening Pandora’s box.”

Ani’s concerns represent the concerns of many Armenians trapped in Artsakh and those in neighbouring Armenia including those in the international diasporas abroad. Armenians are doing their part to raise awareness of a critical situation developing in their homeland. Armenian National Committee of America is just one organisation amongst many that is currently providing members of Congress and public officials information on the situation in Artsakh.

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee’s Robert Menendez is one official that is vocal about the situation in the region. Speaking about the blocking of International Committee for the Red Cross (ICRC) aid workers to the Lachin Corridor by Azeri troops, Menendez said the following:

“More than 7 months into Azerbaijan’s blockade, the time is now for the US & its allies to exert pressure on Aliyev. Lives hang in the Balance.”

Menendez’s sentiment reflects growing concern within Congress of the need for action against the Azeri government for this affront to international norms and violation of human rights.

What Should Be Done?

The current situation in Artsakh is at a critical juncture.

Tens of thousands of people are cut off from aid. International aid organisations such as the ICRC are unable to move through the Lachin corridor. Requests from legal bodies like the ICJ and European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) to unblock the passage are being ignored by Azeri authorities. Armenian interlocutors in Yerevan and Stepanakert are left now with little option but public appeal.

There are still options available to the international community to stop the situation from escalating. These actions are complicated to enact but involve measures that aim to open the corridor and address the situation directly.

Artsakh is still not recognised as an independent polity by the international community. The non-recognition of Artsakh is used to bar the government in Stepanakert from negotiations over the Nagorno-Karabakh. Appealing to the United Nations General Assembly or more importantly the Security Council to recognise a viable way forward to acknowledge the self-determination of the people of Artsakh and arrange a formal treaty to protect those people’s rights. If this is not possible to do, then an action in remedial secession should be supported.

Remedial secession refers to the act of a region, territory or aspiring state seeking unilateral secession from a parent state in response to grievous human rights abuses or systemic discrimination to its population. It is a controversial position to support since it directly challenges the principle of territorial integrity of the parent state, but if negotiations and other peaceful measures are not sought, then remedial secession may become a viable last resort option. The most notable case of this was when Kosovo enacted remedial secession to separate from Serbia.

Another argument is to set up a demilitarised zone in the Lachin corridor. A demilitarised zone that is observed by a concert of international observers beside Russian peacekeepers, so France, Germany, and other EU states or alternatively the US, would help maintain a semblance of order in the area and allow for the free movement of people in and out of the zone. International peacekeepers that are not direct party to the ceasefire accords will get push back from Russia and Azerbaijan, which is why that pushing such measures through the UNSC or European Parliament should be considered.

A more poignant consideration is pressuring Azerbaijan to stop through the imposition of targeted sanctions on the Azerbaijan government and defence sector can limit Azeri forces. The United States and EU have a variety of sanctions available to utilise in applying pressure to the government, such as the Magnitsky sanctions, CAATSA sanctions (for Russian weapon procurement) and other similar policies (a reversal of the waiver on Section 907 of the US Freedom Act should also be considered). What the aim should be with any form of targeted sanction is to prevent the Azerbaijan government from pursuing hardline policies against Armenians.

International observers can do their part to raise awareness on the situation unfolding in Artsakh. Petitioning local congress and parliamentary officials to voice up about this situation is something that readers can practically do. The Azerbaijan government is deathly afraid of international attention on this issue. It works within its own country to suppress vocal criticism. If there is enough pressure, then it cannot suppress discontent on an international level.

A Warning from History

Aliyev’s government is determined to maintain a strong hold of Artsakh. This determination mirror’s the passion of Slobodan Milosevic’s government in keeping Kosovo within Serbia. Kosovars during the conflict in the Balkans fought extensively to free themselves from the oppression of Milosevic’s regime. NATO even intervened in the late 1990s to avert genocide with an eleven-week bombing campaign. This campaign forced Milosevic to the negotiating table.

The war in Kosovo provides a historical warning of what can happen if the situation is allowed to escalate to the point of no return. There are other historical tragedies that can be evoked, but the point is clear that the crisis in Artsakh needs immediate resolution.

The views expressed in this article belong to the authors alone and do not necessarily reflect those of Geopoliticalmonitor.com.

https://www.geopoliticalmonitor.com/armenias-existential-crisis-understanding-the-siege-of-artsakh/

[Yervant1]

Sept 11 2023

Rabbis’ Refusal to Consider Renewed Armenian Genocide Shameful

By Michael Rubin

AEIdeas

September 11, 2023

“Expressions such as ‘ghetto’, ‘genocide’, ‘holocaust’ and others are . . . inappropriate to be part of the jargon used in any kind of political disagreement,” the Rabbinical Center of Europe declared on September 6. The statement by 50 rabbis condemning Armenia for raising alarm about the ongoing atrocity in Artsakh left many scratching their heads for three reasons.

First, many Jews had never heard of the “Rabbinical Center of Europe.” The group is real but represents mostly a Hasidic subsection of Europe’s Jewish community. Second, the group’s posturing is devoid of research. The rabbis did not visit Armenia let alone Artsakh, the self-governing republic that Nagorno-Karabakh’s residents established as the Soviet Union collapsed. Finally, the rabbis seem aloof to how Azerbaijan use their statement to deflect from ongoing slaughter.

Indeed, the rabbis’ statement appears a vestige of the past: For decades, various Jewish organizations opposed recognition of the Armenian Genocide because they believed acknowledgement of genocide pre-Holocaust would diminish the uniqueness of the Nazi slaughter of six million Jews. Prominent Jewish or Israel-interest groups like the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), American Jewish Committee, and Anti-Defamation League quietly interceded with congressmen to derail Armenian Genocide resolutions long before any vote in Congress, until, in 2007, seven Jewish Democrats broke with precedent to vote in favor of the resolution.

That same year, the Anti-Defamation League fired New England Regional director Andrew Tarsy after the New England branch recognized the Armenian Genocide, but National chairman Abe Foxman rehired him the next day after a national uproar. Many within the Jewish community came to recognize that the Armenian Genocide and the Holocaust could be both unique and share common traits. Past persecution need not pit Jews and Armenians against each other, or force either into denial. Organizations like the Rabbinical Center of Europe are right to educate about and preserve remembrance of the Holocaust, but they are ignorant in their knowledge about the Armenian Genocide.

They also appear cowardly. While the Jewish community in Armenia grows, both Azerbaijan and Turkey hemorrhage Jews. Dictatorships in both countries like to trot out Jewish representatives in a museumification of the Jewish community, but numbers do not lie. Azerbaijan’s Jewish community, around 40,000 strong at independence, has declined more than 75 percent since.

The frequent Azerbaijani narrative of Armenian collaboration with Nazi Germany is also cynical. True, some Armenians cast their lot with Nazis not out of antagonism toward Jews but more to undermine the Soviet Union. Today, Diary of Anne Frank populates children’s libraries and Armenians shelter Jews fleeing oppression in Russia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, and Iran. Heightening such cynicism is Azerbaijan’s unwillingness to address its own World War II-era history of Nazi collaboration and the slaughter of Polish Jews by the Azerbaijani Legion. Cynicism is especially rife when Azerbaijan host foreign rabbis. President Ilham Aliyev ignores his own father’s history suppressing Jews both as KGB chief for Azerbaijan and as a politburo member under Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev.

Rabbis should prize knowledge rather than base their statement in ignorance. They may assume comparison to ghettoes is facile, but how do they know it is not? Azerbaijan has locked its Armenians in Artsakh by blockading the region, often arresting those who seek to depart. People starve. If Artsakh is like a World War II-era ghetto, then what would that make the rabbis’ denialism? At best, they become like Franklin Roosevelt who turned his back on the reality of the Holocaust; at worst, they become useful idiots for the perpetrators.

As for genocide, what other term might the rabbis suggest for the eradication not only of a people but also any physical evidence of their existence? There was a reason why Adolf Hitler cited the Armenian Genocide as inspiration. Can current events be decontextualized from the eradication of more than one million Armenians, an event Aliyev and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan mock and deny?

The Rabbinical Center of Europe has embarrassed itself. Rather than make empty statements, perhaps the rabbis should try to visit Artsakh. Let us hope the Armenian Genocide Museum and the Artsakh government invite them. If Azerbaijan prevents them from visiting Stepanakert, perhaps the rabbis might ask why.

Learn more: Silence Is Never the Answer When Hostages Are Taken | Good Luck with That Grand Strategy | China Preaching Autocracy to Africans Shouldn’t Surprise, but It Won’t Work | The US Should Reflag Islands in the South China Sea

https://www.aei.org/foreign-and-defense-policy/rabbis-refusal-to-consider-renewed-armenian-genocide-shameful/

[Yervant1]

Armenpress.am

EU reiterates "strong belief" that Lachin corridor must be unblocked

11:48, 13 September 2023

YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 13, ARMENPRESS. The EU has reiterated its "strong belief" that the Lachin corridor must be unblocked in line with past agreements and the ICJ Order.

In a September 12 statement by the spokesperson of Charles Michel, President of the European Council, the EU said it noted the passage of a Russian humanitarian delivery via the Ağdam-Askeran route and said that “the opening of the Agdam-Askeran route today is an important step that should facilitate the reopening also of the Lachin corridor.”

Below is the full statement.

“In line with elements and proposals outlined publicly in our statement on September 1st, 2023, President Michel continued to be closely engaged in advancing those and other approaches, with a primary focus on de-escalation of tensions and the humanitarian situation facing the Karabakh Armenians.

“In particular, President Michel has been engaged in intense contacts over the past few days, both with Armenia’s Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev during telephone conversations on September 9, 2023, but also with President of Türkiye Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on the margins of the G20 New Delhi summit on September 10, 2023.

“These efforts, supported by daily interaction of his office and EUSR Toivo Klaar with Baku, Yerevan and representatives of Karabakh Armenians, have been aimed at de-escalation of tensions and working out a solution for unblocking humanitarian access to Karabakh Armenians.

“In this context, we note the passage today of a Russian humanitarian delivery via the Ağdam-Askeran route. We understand all the sensitivities associated with this development; it is our expectation that it will create a momentum for the resumption of regular humanitarian deliveries to the local population.

“The situation on the ground is deteriorating quickly. It is vital to ensure essential products are supplied to Karabakh Armenians. The opening of the Agdam-Askeran route today is an important step that should facilitate the reopening also of the Lachin corridor. We call on all stakeholders to show responsibility and flexibility in ensuring that both the Lachin and the Agdam-Askeran route will be used.

“This difficult situation on the ground has lasted for too long; it is now important to find sustainable and mutually acceptable solutions to ensure humanitarian access, also ahead of the autumn and winter seasons.

“We reiterate our strong belief that the Lachin corridor must be unblocked, in line with past agreements and the ICJ Order, and underline our belief in the usefulness also of other supply routes, for the benefit of the local population.

“The EU expects that today’s developments will be followed by more concrete steps in the coming days and weeks, also regarding the dialogue between Baku and Karabakh Armenians on their rights and security, reconciliation efforts and the overall Armenia-Azerbaijan peace process.”

 

 

https://armenpress.am/eng/news/1119384.html?fbclid=IwAR3sEYSNfKv5_WKwz0V3A1YKb455Ln7wat9rTFy7nswBpVgBIVW9qLJkj7k

[Yervant1]

Armenpress.am

“Armenian people in Artsakh are suffering,” Uruguay’s Defense Minister at UN Peacekeeping Operations conference

12:00, 13 September 2023

YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 13, ARMENPRESS. Uruguay’s Defense Minister Javier García, speaking at the Latin American and Caribbean Conference on UN Peacekeeping Operations in Buenos Aires, warned that the Armenian people in Artsakh are suffering due to a humanitarian crisis resulting from the blockade of the Lachin Corridor.

“We cannot turn a blind eye when the Armenian people in Artsakh are suffering from a humanitarian crisis as a result of human rights violations after the closure of Lachin corridor. If this continent of peace, which unites us and which we accept, is truly a continent with a calling of a leader, then it can’t not condemn the encroachments on peace and human rights that have been taking place since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, as well as the human rights violations the consequences of which the Armenian people are bearing,” Diario Armenia newspaper quoted Garcia as saying.

 

 

https://armenpress.am/eng/news/1119385.html?fbclid=IwAR1pcDRFvOBY-xuEOS2pvUjvsxpwRftxtbNrQS2UN5RJHLfMZXj-ixr5TCM

[Yervant1]

barnabasaid

Sept 13 2023

Editorial: New Armenian Genocide “May Already Be Taking Place”

September 13, 2023

A new Armenian Genocide “may already be taking place” in Nagorno-Karabakh. That’s the view expressed in an emergency report published by the Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention on September 5.

The report “points to the existence of several serious red flags for genocide, typical genocidal patterns, and evidence of the special intent to commit that crime.”

Nagorno-Karabakh is an Armenian Christian region that, owing to a quirk of history, lies within the borders of Muslim-majority Azerbaijan.

The area has been populated by Armenians (who accepted Christianity in 301 AD) for at least 2,500 years. Under Soviet rule it was governed as an independent oblast within the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic, and was incorporated into the Republic of Azerbaijan at the dissolution of the USSR.

Nagorno-Karabakh has been under siege for nine months, beginning on December 12, 2022, with Azerbaijan blockading the Lachin Corridor – the only land route between Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia. Church leaders have warned that “mass starvation is likely in the coming months.”

The Lemkin report argues that this “illegal blockade of the Lachin Corridor […] is a deliberately targeted effort to inflict conditions of life calculated to bring about the destruction of [Nagorno-Karabakh’s] Armenians – which may constitute the crime of genocide according to the United Nation’s Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide of 1948.”

Warning of Genocide No Exaggeration

The warnings of genocide from the Lemkin Institute and other observers are not overblown rhetoric.

A century ago several thousand Nagorno-Karabakh Armenians were among the 3.75 million Armenian, Assyrian, Syriac and Greek Christians who were systematically exterminated in a 30-year campaign waged by the Turkic rulers of the Ottoman Empire from 1893 to 1923.

The anti-Armenian attitudes that shaped the Armenian Genocide are, says the Lemkin report, still prevalent today.

Three generations of the same Armenian Christian family living under a makeshift shelter in the Syrian desert in 1915, having been forced from their homes during the Armenian Genocide [image credit: Armenian National Institute]

The Azerbaijani invasion of Nagorno-Karabakh in September 2020 was characterized by many war crimes and human rights abuses, which were, argues the Lemkin Report, “reminiscent of the violence of the Armenian Genocide.”

The report also notes an ongoing Azerbaijani military build-up, which suggests the possibility of a further invasion of Nagorno-Karabakh that “could lead to the mass murder stage of genocide,” both in Nagorno-Karabakh itself and more widely in the South Caucasus region.

The stage is now set for a second Armenian Genocide. It is up to the international community to act swiftly to prevent such an atrocity.

https://www.barnabasaid.org/us/news/editorial-new-armenian-genocide-may-already-be-taking-place/

[MosJan]

[Yervant1]

Armenpress.am

Baroness Caroline Cox to present special report on Lachin Corridor, Nagorno-Karabakh in House of Lords

16:12, 15 September 2023

YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 14, ARMENPRESS. UK House of Lords member Baroness Caroline Cox, who is currently on a visit in Armenia, has visited the entrance to the blockaded Lachin Corridor and witnessed the stranded humanitarian aid convoy which is unable to deliver essential supplies to Nagorno-Karabakh due to the Azeri blockade.

Speaking at a press conference on September 15, Cox said she also visited Armenian troops in Syunik Province and observed the areas where the Azerbaijani military has been deployed since its invasion into the territory of Armenia.

Speaking about the dire humanitarian situation in Nagorno-Karabakh resulting from the blockade, Baroness Cox said that the indigenous Armenian population of Nagorno-Karabakh (Artsakh) is facing the threat of ethnic and religious cleansing.

International President of Christian Solidarity International (CSI) John Eibner was also delivering a press briefing.

Cox and Eibner said they were disappointed with the efforts of the international community, including the UK, to prevent the possible devastating developments in Nagorno-Karabakh. They called for sanctions to be imposed against the political leadership of Azerbaijan.

Cox said she will organize a discussion and deliver a special report on the situation in Lachin Corridor and Nagorno-Karabakh in the House of Lords upon her return to the UK.

[see video]

 

 

https://armenpress.am/eng/news/1119592.html?fbclid=IwAR2MyJfIJuc5sAoeGqhqk6ihq68y40Ln_mqjBT4X1cVmwzyAO5gAaoIKiiE

[Yervant1]

Armenpress.am

Nagorno-Karabakh accepts offer on simultaneously opening Aghdam route and Lachin Corridor for humanitarian goods

15:46, 17 September 2023

YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 17, ARMENPRESS. Nagorno-Karabakh authorities have agreed to the proposal on simultaneously carrying out humanitarian shipments by ICRC vehicles along Lachin Corridor and the Aghdam route, the Nagorno-Karabakh official InfoCenter reported.

“The crisis resulting from the Azerbaijani blockade of Artsakh is deteriorating day by day. The government is organizing the process of obtaining grain and supplying flour to bread bakeries in scarce conditions, and unfortunately, it’s not always possible to ensure the 200 gram of bread envisaged daily for every citizen by the ration stamp system. Taking into consideration the deteriorating disaster and security situation in the country, the authorities of the Republic of Artsakh have made a decision to accept the joint proposal of the International Committee of the Red Cross Stepanakert office and the Russian peacekeeping contingent’s command on simultaneous shipment of humanitarian goods along the Berdzor [Lachin] corridor through the Goris-Stepanakert highway and the Akna [Aghdam]-Stepanakert road by ICRC vehicles (goods of foreign origin).

"Organizing this process is necessary both for eliminating the threats facing the lives and health of our citizens, as well as for ensuring the future transport of humanitarian goods along Berdzor corridor,” the Nagorno-Karabakh InfoCenter said in a statement.

 

 

https://armenpress.am/eng/news/1119716.html?fbclid=IwAR00yeopdMPv2YzHyTFFTUwE3ppsRMV1u2iW7YmjvoN5ruBtzPZVYNkZRCw

[Yervant1]

Armenpress.am

ICRC delivers humanitarian aid to Nagorno-Karabakh via Lachin Corridor and Aghdam road

10:04, 18 September 2023

YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 18, ARMENPRESS. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) on Monday is bringing shipments of wheat flour and essential medical items to people in need in Nagorno-Karabakh via the Lachin Corridor and the Aghdam road.

The shipments were made possible “as a result of persistent diplomatic efforts to find a humanitarian consensus between the decision-makers,” the ICRC said in a statement.

"We are extremely relieved that many people reliant on humanitarian aid will finally receive much needed support in the coming days," said Ariane Bauer, ICRC's regional director for Europe and Central Asia. "Health structures are lacking medical supplies. People are queuing hours for bread. They urgently need sustained relief through regular humanitarian shipments. This consensus has allowed our teams to resume this life-saving work."

The ICRC said it has been in talks over the last weeks with decision-makers about options to get aid into the area via different routes, including both the Lachin Corridor and Aghdam road. Monday's operation included two trucks which simultaneously delivered goods via both the Lachin Corridor and Aghdam road.

“I hope that this consensus allows for our strictly humanitarian convoys to resume not just today but in the weeks to come so that we can regularly get aid to those who need it. Our aim is to reach those most in need of assistance in line with our fundamental principles of neutrality, impartiality, and independence,” said Ariane Bauer, ICRC's regional director for Europe and Central Asia.

 

 

https://armenpress.am/eng/news/1119748.html?fbclid=IwAR1RE4CrKqtZLWVS_APZcrns1KlEWFlUsD1FRo8nUlSjW0m3MSzsu6MgfPU

[Yervant1]

Armenpress.am

More humanitarian aid planned for Nagorno-Karabakh from Rostov, Russia

11:15, 18 September 2023

YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 18, ARMENPRESS. The ICRC will deliver more humanitarian aid to Nagorno-Karabakh from Russia’s Rostov, the Nagorno-Karabakh official InfoCenter reported.

“On September 18, in accordance with the agreement reached with the International Committee of the Red Cross Stepanakert office and the command of the Russian peacekeeping contingent in Artsakh, approximately 23 tons of flour of Armenian production was delivered to Stepanakert along the Goris-Stepanakert highway through Berdzor [Lachin] corridor, and medical and personal hygiene products of Russian and Swiss production were delivered along the Akna [Aghdam]-Stepanakert road, which will be handed over to the respective ministries to be used as needed after passing an analysis. We are also informing that another delivery of goods is planned to take place from the Russian city of Rostov in a few days in the same directions, by ICRC vehicles,” the InfoCenter said in a statement.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) on Monday delivered supplies of wheat flour and essential medical items to the people in Nagorno-Karabakh via the Lachin Corridor and the Aghdam road.

 

 

https://armenpress.am/eng/news/1119752.html?fbclid=IwAR3QNHfUfYcoHBJv1INtdAWzdy3S8V-nrsBZts213nSO5aeUxIZPE6nd6VI

[Yervant1]

EU calls on Azerbaijan to stop military activities in Karabakh

Story by Reuters •1h

B

RUSSELS (Reuters) - The EU condemned on Tuesday the military escalation in Karabakh and called on Azerbaijan to stop its current military activities, the EU's foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said in a statement.

"There is an urgent need to return to dialogue between Baku and Karabakh Armenians. This military escalation should not be used as a pretext to force the exodus of the local population", he said.

He added that the EU remained fully engaged in facilitating the dialogue between Azerbaijan and Armenia.

Azerbaijan on Tuesday launched "anti-terrorist activities" in the Nagorno-Karabakh region, saying its aim was to restore constitutional order and drive out what it called Armenian military formations there.

(Reporting by Bart Meijer, Charlotte Van Campenhout; Editing by Alex Richardson)

[Yervant1]

Azerbaijan launches operation against Armenian forces in Nagorno-Karabakh

Story by By Tim Lister, Gianluca Mezzofiore, Christian Edwards, Anna Chernova and Nick Paton Walsh, CNN • of genocide, is moving towards the physical destruction of the civilian population and the destruction of civilian objects.”

CNN has been unable to verify the claims of either side in the conflict.

Earlier this month, Pashinyan said Azerbaijan had concentrated troops on the border with Armenia and the dividing line with Nagorno-Karabakh, and warned of a possible escalation.

“Over the past week, the military-political situation in our region has deteriorated significantly,” Pashinyan said. “The reason is that Azerbaijan has been accumulating troops along the contact line of Nagorno-Karabakh and the Armenian-Azerbaijani border for several days now.”

The previous war, which ended in a crushing defeat for the de-facto Nagorno-Karabakh state backed by Armenia’s government, lasted 44 days. Russia, a long-term ally of Armenia, but which has also recently strengthened ties with Azerbaijan, helped end the war by negotiating a ceasefire.

The deal provided for around 2,000 Russian peacekeepers to deploy to Nagorno-Karabakh to guard the Lachin corridor.

The Russian Foreign Ministry said it was deeply alarmed by the sharp escalation in the region.

“(The) Russian side urges the conflicting parties to stop the bloodshed, immediately cease hostilities and return to the path of political and diplomatic settlement,” foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Tuesday.

“In the current situation, the Russian peacekeeping contingent continues to fulfill its tasks…The command of the Russian peacekeeping contingent is in constant contact with representatives of the Armenians of Karabakh and the Azerbaijani authorities with the aim of a ceasefire and a return to the implementation of the mentioned trilateral agreements at the highest level.”

This is a developing story. More to follow.

For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com

 

[Yervant1]

Azerbaijan launches military action in Karabakh 'to disarm Armenians'

Story by Reuters •1h

B

AKU (Reuters) -Azerbaijan launched military action in the Nagorno-Karabakh region, a step that could presage a new war in the volatile area but which Baku said was necessary to restore constitutional order and drive out Armenian military formations.

Karabakh is internationally recognised as Azerbaijani territory but part of it is run by breakaway ethnic Armenian authorities who say the area is their ancestral homeland. It has been at the centre of two wars - the latest in 2020 - since the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union.Loud and repeated shelling was audible from social media footage filmed in Stepanakert, the capital of Karabakh, called Khankendi by Azerbaijan, on Tuesday.

The Karabakh separatist human rights ombudsman, Gegham Stepanyan, said the civilian population had sustained "multiple casualties" as a result of strikes by Azerbaijan's military. Reuters could not immediately verify his assertion.

In a statement announcing its operation, Azerbaijan's defence ministry spoke of its intention to "disarm and secure the withdrawal of formations of Armenia’s armed forces from our territories, (and) neutralise their military infrastructure".

It said it was only targeting legitimate military targets using "high-precision weapons" and not civilians as part of what it called a drive to "restore the constitutional order of the Republic of Azerbaijan".

Civilians were free to leave by humanitarian corridors, it added, including one to Armenia.

Ethnic Armenian forces in Karabakh said Azerbaijani forces were trying to break through their defences after heavy shelling, but that they were holding the line for now.

Armenia, which had been holding peace talks with Azerbaijan, including on questions about Karabakh's future, condemned what it called Baku's "full-scale aggression" against the people of Nagorno-Karabakh and accused Azerbaijan of shelling towns and villages.

"Driven by a sense of impunity, Azerbaijan has openly claimed responsibility for the aggression," Armenia's foreign ministry said in a statement.

Reuters could not immediately verify battlefield assertions from either side.

APPEAL FOR HELP

Armenia, which says its armed forces are not in Karabakh and that the situation on its own border with Azerbaijan is stable, called on members of the U.N. Security Council to help and for Russian peacekeepers on the ground to intervene.

Russia, which brokered a fragile ceasefire after the war in 2020 which saw Azerbaijan recapture swathes of land in and around Karabakh that it had lost in an earlier conflict in the 1990s, called for all sides to stop fighting.

Armenia has accused Moscow of being too distracted by its own war in Ukraine to protect its own security and has accused Russian peacekeepers in Karabakh of failing to do their job.

Speaking inside Karabakh with artillery rumbling in the background, Ruben Vardanyan, a banker who was a top official in Karabakh's ethnic Armenian administration until February, appealed for Armenia to recognise Karabakh's self-declared independence from Azerbaijan.

He also called on the international community to impose sanctions on Baku.

"A really serious situation has unfolded here," Vardanyan said on Telegram. "Azerbaijan has started a full-scale military operation against 120,000 inhabitants, of which 30,000 are children, pregnant women and old people," he said.

The Armenian government held a security council meeting to discuss the situation as people gathered in the government district in Yerevan, the Armenian capital, to demand the authorities take action.

Baku announced its operation after complaining that six of its citizens had been killed by land mines in two separate incidents, something it blamed on "illegal Armenian armed groups." Armenia said the claims were false.

The escalation occurred a day after badly needed food and medicine was delivered to Karabakh along two roads simultaneously, a step that looked like it could help defuse mounting tension between Azerbaijan and Armenia.

Until the last few days, Baku had imposed sweeping restrictions on the Lachin corridor - the only road linking Armenia with Karabakh - and had blocked aid on the grounds that the route was purportedly being used for arms smuggling.

Yerevan had said that Baku's actions had caused a humanitarian catastrophe, something Azerbaijan denied, and were illegal.

Armenia's foreign ministry had said on Monday that Azerbaijan's diplomatic stance looked like it was preparing the ground for some kind of military action.

(Reporting by ReutersWriting by Andrew OsbornEditing by)

[Yervant1]

Azerbaijan announces an 'anti-terrorist operation' targeting Armenian positions in Nagorno-Karabakh

Story by The Canadian Press •3h

Y

EREVAN, Armenia (AP) — Azerbaijan on Tuesday began what it called an “anti-terrorist operation” targeting Armenian military positions in the Nagorno-Karabakh region and officials in that region said there was heavy artillery firing around its capital.

The Azerbaijani defense ministry announced the start of the operation hours after four soldiers and two civilians died in landmine explosions in the Nagorno-Karabakh region.

The ministry did not immediately give details, but said “positions on the front line and in-depth, long-term firing points of the formations of Armenia’s armed forces, as well as combat assets and military facilities are incapacitated using high-precision weapons.”

The Azerbaijani statement said, “Only legitimate military targets are being incapacitated.”

But ethnic Armenian officials in Nagorno-Karabakh said in a statement that the region's capital Stepanakert and other villages were “under intense shelling.”

The reports raised concerns that a full-scale war over the region could resume between Azerbaijan and Armenia, which fought heavily for six weeks in 2020.

Earlier Tuesday, Azerbaijan said six people were killed in two separate explosions in the region that is partly under the control of ethnic Armenian forces.

A statement from Azerbaijan's interior ministry, state security service and prosecutor-general said two employees of the highway department died before dawn when their vehicle was blown up by a mine and that a truckload of soldiers responding to the incident hit another mine, killing four.

Nagorno-Karabakh and sizable surrounding territories were under ethnic Armenian control since the 1994 end of a separatist war, but Azerbaijan regained the territories and parts of Nagorno-Karabakh itself in a six-week war in 2020. That war ended with an armistice that placed a Russian peacekeeper contingent in Nagorno-Karabakh.

However, Azerbaijan alleges that Armenia has smuggled in weapons since then. The claims led to a blockade of the road connecting Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia, causing severe food and medicine shortages in the region.

Red Cross shipments of flour and medical supplies reached Nagorno-Karabakh on Monday, but local officials said road connections to the region were not fully open.

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Jim Heintz in Tallinn, Estonia, and Aida Sultanova in London contributed to this story.

Avet Demourian, The Associated Press

[Yervant1]

All these articles legitimize, the azeri lies! They were getting ready for this with fake reports of incidents in order to fool the biased media. It's pure and simple, one word GENOCIDE is happening and the so called free world is cheering on with their indifference because of oil and gas interests.

[MosJan]