Statue of a Dictator (Aliyev Clan)

Yervant1 · September 6, 2023

Austrian lawmakers call on Azerbaijan to open Lachin Corridor in line with ICJ order

11:08, 5 September 2023

YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 3, ARMENPRESS. Two lawmakers representing the major political parties of Austria, the Greens and the Social Democratic Party of Austria (SPÖ), which comprise the ruling coalition, have called on Azerbaijan to reopen the Lachin Corridor.

Austrian Member of Parliament Ewa Ernst-Dziedzic, The Greens’ spokesperson for foreign policy, has released a statement calling on the EU and the international community to ramp up pressure.

“The escalation in the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan continues constantly. We are receiving reports of an impending famine if the situation doesn’t urgently change. Nagorno-Karabakh has been cut off of supplies for months, with devastating consequences, such as malnutrition, miscarriages, absence of medication. Now there’s an urgent need to return to dialogue between the two parties to the conflict and find a solution to swiftly mitigate the disastrous humanitarian situation,” Ewa Ernst-Dziedzic said in a statement.

She added that the EU and the international community should increase pressure and that Azerbaijan must open the Lachin Corridor in line with the ICJ ruling. “We can’t tolerate when the civil society becomes a toy for politics and starves because of political reasons. As long as this is the case, Azerbaijan should not be a trade partner for the EU,” she added.

“We can’t tolerate the explicit destruction of the Armenian population in Nagorno-Karabakh, and therefore we must use all levers to prevent it,” the Austrian lawmaker added.

"Despite the Russian aggression in Ukraine, the South Caucasus developments shouldn’t be ignored", she said.

SPÖ’s spokesperson for foreign policy, MP Petra Bayr said in a statement that the situation in Nagorno-Karabakh is disastrous and 120,000 people are cut off from the outside world by Azerbaijan. “There, near the gates of Europe, a crime against human rights is taking place,” Petra Bayr said.

Noting the ICJ ruling ordering Azerbaijan to open the Lachin Corridor, Petra Bayr said she expects that the EU will finally discuss the situation.

“The fact that responsible decision-makers in international organizations are silent is absolutely unforgivable. I expect Foreign Minister Schallenberg to address this crime in the EU and to bring it to the agenda as soon as possible. The National Council asked him to do so as early as last year.”

Bayr said she would send a parliamentary inquiry to Austrian FM Schallenberg asking him to present what measures the Austrian government has taken for opening humanitarian aid supplies through Lachin Corridor and what questions he’s raised during his meetings with his Azeri counterpart.

https://armenpress.am/eng/news/1118778.html?fbclid=IwAR17i6NXq5sRG_ATEWgHeBIIrcZ2c3oXLvIcCh9cpV9veGNzo8x_Vbzqkes

Yervant1 · September 7, 2023

If US truly wanted the Lachin corridor to open, it would have been opened by now! Politics a usual.

Armenpress.am

United States again calls for reopening of Lachin Corridor

09:54, 6 September 2023
YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 6, ARMENPRESS. The United States State Department has reiterated its call to immediately reopen the Lachin Corridor amid "deteriorating humanitarian conditions" in Nagorno-Karabakh.
The Lachin Corridor has been blocked by Azerbaijan since late 2022. The blockade has led to severe shortages of essential products such as food and medications.
A U.S. State Department spokesperson on September 5 expressed “deep concern” over the “deteriorating humanitarian conditions in Nagorno-Karabakh resulting from the continued blockage of food, medicine, and other essential goods.”
“This is something that we are going to remain deeply engaged on….We are deeply concerned about the deteriorating humanitarian conditions in Nagorno-Karabakh resulting from the continued blockage of food, medicine, and other essential goods. The U.S. has worked continuously with the sides over the past several weeks to allow humanitarian assistance to reach the population of Nagorno-Karabakh, and we reiterate our call to immediately reopen the Lachin corridor to humanitarian, commercial, and passenger traffic as well,” U.S. State Department Principal Deputy Spokesperson Vedant Patel said at a press briefing.
The U.S., among other countries, has numerously called for the reopening of the Lachin Corridor, but Azerbaijan hasn’t changed course and continues to keep the road under blockade.
Lachin Corridor is the only road connecting Nagorno-Karabakh, which is home to 120,000 Armenians, to Armenia and the rest of the world.
The Azerbaijani blockade constitutes a gross violation of the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh ceasefire agreement, which established that the 5km-wide Lachin Corridor shall be under the control of Russian peacekeepers. Furthermore, on February 22, 2023 the United Nations’ highest court – the International Court of Justice (ICJ) - ordered Azerbaijan to “take all steps at its disposal” to ensure unimpeded movement of persons, vehicles and cargo along the Lachin Corridor in both directions. Azerbaijan has been ignoring the order ever since. The ICJ reaffirmed its order on 6 July 2023.
Azerbaijan then illegally installed a checkpoint on Lachin Corridor.
Armenia has accused Azerbaijan of using the blockade to commit ethnic cleansing and genocide in Nagorno-Karabakh.
Earlier in August, former International Criminal Court prosecutor, Luis Moreno Ocampo, issued a report warning that the blockade of Nagorno-Karabakh constitutes genocide.

https://armenpress.am/eng/news/1118858.html?fbclid=IwAR0y7xItLp6yoBArfdiSKoPx3KHOk3hY4oS5lgdTVeKVbIL0MJ9SJACGwDk

Yervant1 · September 7, 2023

Armenpress.am

Lemkin Institute’s new report warns of genocide in Nagorno-Karabakh, alarming evidence Aliyev plans military assault

11:39, 6 September 2023

YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 6, ARMENPRESS. The Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention has published a new report on the risk of genocide by Azerbaijan in Artsakh (Nagorno Karabakh).

In a statement, the Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention said it has released an emergency draft of the report due to the dire circumstances of the blockade and Azerbaijan's military buildup along the borders of Artsakh and Armenia.

“The Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention hopes that this report will contribute to global resolve to protect the lives and the identity of the Armenians of Artsakh, prevent a Second Armenian Genocide, pressure Azerbaijan to accept self-determination for the people of Artsakh, and initiate a long-overdue process of transformative justice in the region that allows Armenians and Azeris to voice their historical grievances and find common ground around accountability, peace-building, and human security. The Report uses the United Nations’s Framework of Analysis for Atrocity Crimes to outline and analyze (in detail) the risk factors and indicators for atrocity crimes, with a special focus on the crime of genocide. We have chosen to focus on the crime of genocide because the evidence in this 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,” an excerpt from the executive summary of the report reads.

The institute said that the evidence presented in the report suggests that the crime of genocide may already be taking place in the form of the blockade.

“In fact, the evidence presented here suggests that the crime of genocide may already be taking place in the form of the blockade, which is both “Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group” and “[d]eliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part” (paragraphs II.b. and II.c. of the 1948 Genocide Convention). Azerbaijan’s crimes conform to Patterns 5 (Gross human rights violations + mass cultural destruction), 6 (Man-made famine/”Genocide by Attrition”), 7 (Environmental despoliation /”Ecocide” and land alienation), and 9 (Denial and/or prevention of identity) of the Lemkin Institute’s Ten Patterns of Genocide and seem to be headed towards patterns 1 (Gender-neutral mass murder characterized by gendered atrocity) and/or 2 (Mass murder of ‘battle-aged men’ + atrocities against women and children).”

“The deep imbrication of eliminationist anti-Armenian hate within the Aliyev regime and Azerbaijani institutions of government leads us to conclude that Azerbaijan is a genocidal state. This fact must be addressed before there can be any peace in the region,” it added.

The Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention warned that “there is alarming evidence that President Aliyev may be planning a military assault on Artsakh in the very near future.”

“A military assault on Artsakh could lead to the mass murder stage of genocide. It would almost assuredly result in the forced displacement of Armenians from Artsakh and the widespread commission of genocidal atrocities, reflecting those committed in the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War of 2020 and subsequent hostilities,” it said.

The Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention recommends that members of the international community, including United Nations member states with influence over Azerbaijan, undertake the following actions to prevent the starvation and forced population displacement of Armenians in Artsakh as well as any possible future genocidal assaults on the Armenians of the Republic of Armenia:

Recognize publicly the threat of genocide against Armenians in the Republics of Artsakh and Armenia that is evidenced by Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev’s statements as well as the actions of his regime.
Demand the immediate lifting of the blockade and the opening of the Lachin Corridor linking Artsakh both to Armenia and to the outside world, as stipulated in the Tripartite Ceasefire Statement of 9 November 2020 and ordered by the ICJ in February and July of 2023.
Organize an immediate humanitarian airlift to bring aid to the citizens of Artsakh while political deliberations continue.
Actively intervene to defend Artsakh against an armed attack by Azerbaijan in order to prevent a full-scale massacre against Armenians and the many other international crimes usually committed by the Aliyev regime against Armenians.
Empower and fund an independent investigative team to conduct a thorough documentation of the current situation in Artsakh, including an investigation of the atrocities committed by Azerbaijani military personnel in the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War and afterwards.
Utilize all available diplomatic measures, including sanctions and the withdrawal of foreign aid, to challenge the impunity enjoyed by the Aliyev regime in Azerbaijan.
Pressure Azerbaijan to immediately cease its threats against the people of Artsakh and Armenia and institute a domestic National Mechanism to prevent the crime of genocide as a necessary condition for any foreign aid.
Encourage the reform of the Azerbaijani education and security sectors, which are deeply tainted by genocidal Armenophobia.
Support the Armenians of Artsakh with humanitarian and economic aid, particularly funding for destroyed infrastructure, institution-building and democracy-building projects, and increased security sector capacity.
Address the long-standing and underlying core issue of the right to self-determination of the people of Artsakh as a basic principle under international law and in the recognition that, as facts on the ground prove, Armenians are unable to live under the Azerbaijani authority and power.
Recognize the decades-long efforts of the Artsakh people to establish a State according to the international requirements for statehood, which has resulted in the building of a government based on the division of powers and democratic representation.
Lay the groundwork for an eventual restorative and transformative justice process in the region to address past and current grievances and clear the path for a long-lasting peace.

https://armenpress.am/eng/news/1118863.html?fbclid=IwAR2H5pk781LD5M13Q9MUsFmiER9Hsni8vdfbzbtf4eLeTV1NJleuTu8GNkY

Yervant1 · September 7, 2023

Armenpress.am

Uruguay’s former ruling party condemns Azerbaijan’s military aggression and genocide against Nagorno-Karabakh, Armenia

13:16, 6 September 2023

YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 6, ARMENPRESS. Uruguay’s former ruling party Broad Front (FA) has condemned Azerbaijan for committing military aggression and genocide against Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) and the Republic of Armenia.

In a statement, Broad Front expressed solidarity with the people of Nagorno-Karabakh and urged the government of Uruguay to act toward a peaceful resolution.

“Broad Front condemns the military aggression and genocide based on the illegal territorial expansion carried out by force by Azerbaijan against Artsakh and the internationally recognized territory of the Republic of Armenia, in contravention of international law,” Broad Front said, endorsing former ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo’s report that the Azeri blockade of Lachin Corridor constitutes genocide, and the Declaration of the Senate of Uruguay of December 20, 2022 which called on Azerbaijan to comply with its international commitments and ensure free movement through the corridor.

Broad Front expressed solidarity with the people of Artsakh “in the face of the illegal blockade carried out by the State of Azerbaijan, which constitutes an act of flagrant violation of international humanitarian law.” It also reiterated its commitment to a peaceful solution to the conflict in line with international law and urged the government of Uruguay to act towards it, based on the foreign policy tradition of solidarity that Uruguay has had with the people of Armenia.

Lachin Corridor, the only road connecting Nagorno-Karabakh, which is home to 120,000 Armenians, to Armenia and the rest of the world, has been blocked by Azerbaijan since late 2022.

The Azerbaijani blockade constitutes a gross violation of the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh ceasefire agreement, which established that the 5km-wide Lachin Corridor shall be under the control of Russian peacekeepers. Furthermore, on February 22, 2023 the United Nations’ highest court – the International Court of Justice (ICJ) - ordered Azerbaijan to “take all steps at its disposal” to ensure unimpeded movement of persons, vehicles and cargo along the Lachin Corridor in both directions. Azerbaijan has been ignoring the order ever since. The ICJ reaffirmed its order on 6 July 2023.

Azerbaijan then illegally installed a checkpoint on Lachin Corridor.

Armenia has accused Azerbaijan of using the blockade to commit ethnic cleansing and genocide in Nagorno-Karabakh.

https://armenpress.am/eng/news/1118878.html?fbclid=IwAR2Lykw95F8ncqJxVpbS_D-R5by1azZCqjISbMD5oQIsgcLwi2JC00emRCo

Yervant1 · September 7, 2023

Armenpress.am

Azerbaijan starts contradicting itself, official’s statement falsely denying blockade exposes 'aid' was publicity stunt

15:45, 6 September 2023

YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 6, ARMENPRESS. The Azerbaijani authorities have once again falsely claimed that the Lachin Corridor is not blocked and there is no starvation in Nagorno-Karabakh, just days after the Azerbaijani authorities themselves infamously staged a publicity stunt by offering to send aid there, a move that was rejected and described in Nagorno-Karabakh as a method to subjugate them and mislead the international community.

Armenia’s Ambassador-at-Large Edmon Marukyan reacted to Hajiyev’s claims, asking why Azerbaijan was sending that “mysterious humanitarian aid” to Aghdam if it claims that there’s no blockade.

“During an interview with Arab News, Aliyev's assistant Hikmet Hajiyev said that the Lachin corridor is not blocked and there is no blockade in Nagorno Karabakh. By this, Azerbaijan wants to deceive the international community about the fact that the Lachin Corridor is illegally blocked, which has been confirmed by such renowned international organizations as Human Rights Watch, the UN Security Council and confirmed by the interim decisions of the UN International Court of Justice that the corridor is blocked and the people are starving. After all, if the Lachin Corridor is not blocked and there is no siege and hunger in Nagorno Karabakh, as Aliyev's aide claims, then why did Azerbaijan send that mysterious humanitarian aid to Aghdam?” Marukyan said in a post on X.

Lachin Corridor, the only road connecting Nagorno-Karabakh, which is home to 120,000 Armenians, to Armenia and the rest of the world, has been blocked by Azerbaijan since late 2022.

The Azerbaijani blockade constitutes a gross violation of the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh ceasefire agreement, which established that the 5km-wide Lachin Corridor shall be under the control of Russian peacekeepers. Furthermore, on February 22, 2023 the United Nations’ highest court – the International Court of Justice (ICJ) - ordered Azerbaijan to “take all steps at its disposal” to ensure unimpeded movement of persons, vehicles and cargo along the Lachin Corridor in both directions. Azerbaijan has been ignoring the order ever since. The ICJ reaffirmed its order on 6 July 2023.

Azerbaijan then illegally installed a checkpoint on Lachin Corridor.

Armenia has accused Azerbaijan of using the blockade to commit ethnic cleansing and genocide in Nagorno-Karabakh.

https://armenpress.am/eng/news/1118892.html?fbclid=IwAR2zNWTPSCz_GE0RYaLfClVRe9cjD28DHA_sEbftHvr17umGxxPLA0SM_eE

Yervant1 · September 7, 2023

More empty talk from Blinken.

Armenpress.am

United States tells Azerbaijan to reopen Lachin Corridor

20:20, 6 September 2023
YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 6, ARMENPRESS. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has again called on Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev to reopen the Lachin Corridor, the U.S. State Department announced Wednesday in a readout of the call which took place on September 1.
“Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken spoke with Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev on September 1 to express the United States’ concern over the deteriorating humanitarian situation in Nagorno-Karabakh. He reiterated our call to reopen the Lachin Corridor to humanitarian, commercial, and passenger traffic, while recognizing the importance of additional routes from Azerbaijan. The Secretary underscored the need for a dialogue and compromise and the importance of building confidence between the parties. He pledged continued U.S. support to the peace process,” the U.S. State Department said in the readout.

https://armenpress.am/eng/news/1118921.html?fbclid=IwAR1njTLk3BTolKPY85wOuxUf_j2LqTNhxiSI9BN-aFKVpjWu4LvhUUSo1Ls

Yervant1 · September 7, 2023

Armenpress.am

U.S. congressman, experts call on Biden Administration to stop genocide by Azerbaijan in Nagorno-Karabakh

22:07, 6 September 2023

YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 6, ARMENPRESS. The United States Congress Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission held a hearing on September 6 on the situation in Nagorno-Karabakh resulting from the blockade of the Lachin Corridor.

Chaired by Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ), leading international legal expert Luis Moreno Ocampo, the former Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) warned the United States is at risk of becoming complicit in an ongoing genocide in Nagorno-Karabakh, where 120,000 Armenians have been sealed off from food and medicine and are being starved to death by the government of Azerbaijan.

Azerbaijani blockade of the Lachin Corridor—the lone road from Armenia to Nagorno-Karabakh—constitutes genocide under Article II © of the Genocide Convention.

“The Biden Administration must say immediately that this is genocide—and put a stop to it,” said Rep. Smith, Co-Chair of the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission, who noted that both the US State Department and USAID did not respond to his invitation to testify at the hearing. “Delay is denial.”

“This crime—it is the crime of genocide—was planned, tested, and imposed by the government of Azerbaijan, that is to say by President Ilham Aliyev, who rules Azerbaijan as a dictator,” said Smith, who met with Aliyev twice—in 2013 and again in 2014—to discuss his human rights abuses and later authored the Azerbaijan Democracy Act in 2015, Smith’s office reported.

“The Biden Administration must wake up, recognize the absolutely grave responsibility it has here, and focus on finding and implementing a humane solution,” said Smith. “And this must mean that the blockade is lifted and the people continue to live in their ancient homeland—and not be subject to violence and threats. This situation is now a three-alarm fire.”

In addition to Ocampo’s compelling testimony, Smith’s hearing also included testimony from David Phillips, the Director of Columbia University’s Artsakh Atrocities Project and Adjunct Professor at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service.

“The language used by President Aliyev and his officials leaves no question about their genocidal intent,” said Phillips, who provided extensive evidence as part of his testimony, including a list of perpetrators who are responsible for the atrocities in Nagorno-Karabakh.

“The international community failed to sanction individuals who committed crimes after the war in 2016 and 2020,” Phillips said. “Its failure sent a message to the Government of Azerbaijan that it can act with impunity and escape repercussions for its crimes against humanity, ethnic cleansing and acts of genocide.”

Smith, who chaired a hearing on the unfolding crisis two months ago in June, said “the situation in Nagorno-Karabakh is much more desperate now, and two-and-a-half more months of inaction raises the question whether there is, within our own government, any will to help. In August, when the Security Council met in special session to discuss the crisis, neither the US nor any other member took action to refer this matter to the International Criminal Court.”

“Of course we know the Biden administration does not want this genocide to advance to a horrible consummation in the death of the people of Nagorno-Karabakh or to their ethnic cleansing, but that is exactly where events are headed,” said Smith.

“The US should openly inform the Azerbaijan government that without the immediate and unconditional removal of the Lachin Corridor blockade, the US would consider Azerbaijan to be committing genocide,” Ocampo said.

https://armenpress.am/eng/news/1118928.html?fbclid=IwAR2ZqwN8w_W3h7OIwCS1Ro13glIrjiSd-ml8fMRbxU_9zg88hqhN-GtEn5o

Yervant1 · September 7, 2023

Tyrants only understands force!

Asbarez.com

EU Leader Warns Baku that Failure to Resolve Lachin Issue May Affect Ties with Europe
by Asbarez Staff

September 6, 2023

in Armenia, Artsakh, Featured Story, Latest, News, Top Stories

EU's foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell

“The European Union will continue to influence Azerbaijan regarding the need for an urgent solution to the humanitarian situation in Nagorno-Karabakh, as failure to do so properly may have a practical impact on relations with the EU,” the bloc foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell said on Wednesday.
At the same time, Borrell emphasized that the suspension of a memorandum of understanding signed with Azerbaijan on July 18, 2022 on energy exports to the EU “is not currently being considered.”
Borrell’s statement added that the EU continues to closely monitor developments in and around the Lachin corridor and their humanitarian consequences.
Borrell also added that the “EU has repeatedly called to reopen the corridor, and now it continues to actively participate at the highest level in providing assistance to Armenia and Azerbaijan in the work toward mutually acceptable normalization of their relations.”

https://asbarez.com/eu-leader-warns-baku-that-failure-to-resolve-lachin-issue-may-affect-ties-with-europe/?fbclid=IwAR0HSCPcRu_LA7dKDmDpvBxM62Qc8osZMfS-f20NxfJSKKc33zLkCYa5ABg

Yervant1 · September 7, 2023

Are we going to hear, never again after it's too late?

Asbarez.com

WATCH: Experts Testifying at Congressional Hearing on Artsakh Warn of U.S. Complicity in Genocide
by Asbarez Staff

September 6, 2023

in Armenia, Artsakh, Featured Main, Latest, News, Top Stories, Videos

[see video]

The Tom Lantos Congressional Human Rights Commission convened an emergency hearing on Wednesday to address the urgent humanitarian crisis in Artsakh, with expert testimony warning that the Biden Administration’s inaction in Artsakh can be deemed as the United States complicity in genocide of the Armenians.
The hearing was opened by the commission’s co-chair Rep. Christopher Cox (R-NJ), who said that the State Department and U.S. Agency for International Development were invited to participate but did not respond to the invitation.
“This hearing has two empty chairs – two – those of U.S. Department of State and USAID. I requested that both provide a witness for this hearing. Despite repeated requests by phone and email, neither responded – not even a response. Since 1995, I have chaired hundreds of hearings with State Department or USAID witnesses. This is unique, a unique case of absolute non-response,” Rep. Smith said in his opening remarks.
He repudiated the Biden Administration for ignoring numerous calls from Congressional leader to take more drastic measures to prevent a “genocide” in Artsakh, criticizing Secretary of State Antony Blinken for continuously voicing “concern” instead of taking drastic action.
Testifying at the hearing were the former prosecutor of the International Criminal Court Luis Moreno Ocapmo, whose report last month accusing Azerbaijan and its leadership of perpetrating and committing genocide against the people of Artsakh has received international attention.
Reiterating his assertions in his report, Ocampo said that the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh need the U.S. government to make “NeverAgain a reality because for the Armenians who experienced the Armenian Genocide in 1915, ‘Never Again’ is very real and a necessity.” The human rights expert was referencing a call to action to prevent genocide, one that was used by President Joe Biden in his 2021 statement recognizing the Armenian Genocide.
Ocampo presented poignant argument for the more effective action by the U.S. He said as a party of the Genocide Convention, the US has to prevent and punish it. However, he added, the will to take drastic measure must be there.
“The US is deeply involved in the negotiations. But there can be no negotiations between the genocide perpetrator and the victim. Just stop the genocide and then discuss negotiation. You cannot be involved in negotiations when President Aliyev is using genocide as a method of negotiation,” Ocampo said.
“If you know that President Aliyev is using genocide and trying to deny the genocide, the U.S.’s assistance to the denial of genocide could be considered complicity,” the former ICC Prosecutor said.
“The US President or Secretary of State can officially tell Mr. Aliyev to remove, unconditionally, the blockade of the Lachin Corridor, or we consider you responsible for genocide. That will trigger a lot of consequences,” Ocampo added.
He said that instead of condemnations and measures to stop the genocide, the U.S. continually is calling for negotiations between the people of Artsakh –the victims—and Baku –the perpetrators.
“In [Nagorno-Karabakh’s] case […] the negotiation is between a GENOCIDAIRE and his victims. You cannot [arrange] a negotiation between Hitler and the people in Auschwitz. You should stop Auschwitz, and then discuss negotiation. [The U.S.] cannot be involved in a negotiation when President Aliyev uses genocide as a method of negotiation,”
Also speaking at the hearing was David L. Phillips, an adjunct professor at Georgetown University, who concurred with Ocampo’s conclusion that a genocide in underway in Artsakh.
He pointed out that there are two succinct law in place that can compel the U.S. to take action: Section 907 of the Freedom Support Act and the Global Magnitsky Act, which authorizes the U.S. government to sanction those foreign government officials worldwide that are human rights offenders.
“Since when does the United States ask the U.N.’s permission to act? We have national legislation that gives us the tools to arrest and prosecute the perpetrators of genocide, such as the Global Magnitsky Act, or Section 907,” Phillips said, adding that the U.S. seems more interested – or taken – by Azerbaijan’s oil and gas money to take decisive action.

https://asbarez.com/watch-experts-testifying-at-congressional-hearing-on-artsakh-warn-of-u-s-complicity-in-genocide/?fbclid=IwAR2zNWTPSCz_GE0RYaLfClVRe9cjD28DHA_sEbftHvr17umGxxPLA0SM_eE

Yervant1 · September 7, 2023

Blinken double talk in action.

Asbarez.com

In Calling on Aliyev to Lift Artsakh Blocakade, Blinken Backs Baku’s Alternate Road Option
by Asbarez Staff

September 6, 2023

in Armenia, Artsakh, Featured Story, Latest, News, Top Stories

Secretary of State Antony Blinken at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee session on Apr. 26

Secretary of State Antony Blinken reportedly told President Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan to reopen the Lachin Corridor while at the same time backing Azerbaijan’s dangerous proposal to deliver humanitarian assistance to Artsakh via an alternate road.
The State Department on Wednesday issued a readout of the call, which took place on Friday.
“Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken spoke with Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev on September 1 to express the United States’ concern over the deteriorating humanitarian situation in Nagorno-Karabakh. He reiterated our call to reopen the Lachin Corridor to humanitarian, commercial, and passenger traffic, while recognizing the importance of additional routes from Azerbaijan. The Secretary underscored the need for a dialogue and compromise and the importance of building confidence between the parties. He pledged continued U.S. support to the peace process,” the U.S. State Department said in the statement.
Blinken traveled to Kyiv, Ukraine on Wednesday and after meeting with the country’s leaders pledged an addition $1 billion in U.S. assistance to the Ukraine war effort, while ignoring what experts are calling a genocide in Artsakh.
While Blinken was meeting with Ukrainian officials, the Congressional Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission held an emergency hearing to address the Artsakh crisis.
Rep. Christopher Cox (R-NJ) who was chairing the meeting said the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development did not respond to invitations to send representatives to the hearing.
Testifying at the hearing was the former prosecutor general of the International Criminal Court Jose Luis Ocampo, who in a comprehensive report issued last month said that Azerbaijan and its leaders were perpetrating and committing genocide of the Armenians of Artsakh.
During Wednesday’s hearing Ocampo called into question the U.S.’s strategy of urging negotiations between Artsakh Armenians and Baku.
“In [Nagorno-Karabakh’s] case […] the negotiation is between a GENOCIDAIRE and his victims. You cannot [arrange] a negotiation between Hitler and the people in Auschwitz. You should stop Auschwitz, and then discuss negotiation. [The U.S.] cannot be involved in a negotiation when President Aliyev uses genocide as a method of negotiation,” Ocampo said.

https://asbarez.com/in-calling-on-aliyev-to-lift-artsakh-blocakade-blinken-backs-bakus-alternate-road-option/?fbclid=IwAR0VgDANiQiWonZVfzvhw7PZ76TlRIHw-AVzhGE1cU9A39OnorPJ9HdSy0U

Yervant1 · September 7, 2023

Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission Demands Aliyev Be Held Accountable For Genocidal Intent

From: Armenian Assembly <aaapress@gmail.com>
Date: Wed, 6 Sep 2023 22:01:11 -0400

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Congressional Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission held an emergency hearing on the ongoing blockade of Nagorno-Karabakh's Lachin Corridor on Wednesday, September 6, 2023, emphasizing the deteriorating conditions on the ground in Artsakh, and the ongoing humanitarian crisis, reported the Armenian Assembly of America (Assembly). Representative Christopher H. Smith (R-NJ), Co-Chair of the Commission, recommended holding Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliyev accountable for his genocidal intent, and stressed the need for new legislation, including the "Nagorno-Karabakh Human Rights Act."

The hearing featured testimony from Luis Morena Ocampo, former prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, and David L. Phillips, Adjunct Professor at Georgetown University and Director of Columbia University's Program on Human Rights and Peace-building and the Atrocities Artsakh Project. In addition, the Assembly also submitted testimony.

In his remarks, Rep. Smith noted that "120,000 ethnic Armenians have been sealed off from food and medicine and are being starved to death by the government of Azerbaijan...the starvation process has been advancing at a terrifying rate."

Rep. Christopher H. Smith (R-NJ), Co-Chair, Tom Lantos

Human Rights Commission

He underscored that Azerbaijan's illegal blockade of the Lachin Corridor is a "crime of genocide that was planned, tested and imposed by... President Aliyev, who rules Azerbaijan with an iron fist as a dictator."

Rep. Smith announced that a Nagorno-Karabakh Human Rights Act will soon be introduced in order for the Legislative and Executive branches to speak out "boldly and accurately" about the intent of genocide occurring in Artsakh.

Tracing the history of Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh back 2,000 years, he stated that Armenians have "defended and governed themselves" since their independence in 1994, with an ability to be "connected to the outside world by the Lachin Corridor, as per international agreements."

In light of its illegal and unjustified blockade of the Lachin Corridor, Rep. Smith expressed that "the government of Azerbaijan..seeks to fully integrate Nagorno-Karabakh into Azerbaijan...[which is] totally and absolutely unacceptable to achieve that through genocide."

"I respectfully urge the Administration to please wake up, recognize the absolute grave responsibility it has here and focus on finding and implementing a humane situation now and this must mean that the blockade is lifted and the people continue to live in their ancient homeland," he concluded.

Luis Morena Ocampo, former prosecutor, International Criminal Court

During his testimony, Ocampo followed up on his Expert Opinion released on August 7, 2023, where he stated that "there is a reasonable basis to believe that a Genocide is being committed against Armenians living in Nagorno-Karabakh in 2023" and emphasizing that under the Genocide Conventions all states have a "duty to prevent" genocide.

Ocampo once again emphasized that a genocide is "happening now" and clarified the misconception that genocide requires mass killings to be defined as such.

"There are different forms to committing genocide," said Ocampo. "The crime can be to create the conditions of genocide." He noted that blocking the Lachin Corridor and not allowing essential goods to reach the Armenian people is "creating the conditions of genocide under Article 2© [of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide]."

Ocampo said it was "easy" to come to a conclusion regarding genocide due to the ICC's ruling in February 2023 that Azerbaijan must open the Lachin Corridor.

"Fifteen judges on the ICC in The Hague reviewed the issue after listening to Armenia and Azerbaijan representatives and they concluded that blocking the Lachin Corridor was creating an imminent risk for the life of Armenians living in Nagorno-Karabakh," said Ocampo. "The material element of genocide was obviously there."

Ocampo emphasized that the "urgency is to prevent the harm" and stop genocide. He expressed the importance of the special hearing because the "first step is to remove the denial."

"This [hearing] could be a turning point on denial," said Ocampo, who recommended to the Commission that information is sent to the Executive Branch to indicate the urgency of the matter.

He opined that the U.S. shouldn't be involved in negotiations when "Aliyev uses genocide as a method of the negotiation," because then the U.S. can be "considered complicit."

"Stop the denial, recognize the [genocidal intent], and protect the lives of the 120,000 Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh," he concluded.

David L. Phillips, Adjunct Professor at Georgetown University, and Director of Columbia University's Program on Human Rights and Peace-building and the Atrocities Artsakh Project

In his testimony, Phillips outlined the Aliyev regime's "genocidal intent to

erase the Armenian physical, religious and cultural presence in Artsakh and eventually the current Republic of Armenia."

He highlighted Aliyev's anti-Armenian rhetoric that has focused on education, public campaigns, censorship and "other methods aimed at dehumanizing Armenian Christians" has only intensified as the government has violated cease-fires and orchestrated attacks, including on Sev Lake [black Lake] on September 13, 2022, wherein a video released in early October 2022, and verified by independent media, "showed extrajudicial killing of at least 7 Armenian military personnel who were captured as prisoners of war," said Phillips. "This extrajudicial killing was conducted when the Armenian military personnel were already bound and disarmed, and in custody of Azerbaijan."

Phillips stated that both Artsakh and Armenia are "functioning, established democracies" with permanent ties to the U.S. and that the U.S. should enforce the sanctions of Section 907 of the FREEDOM Support Act, the Humanitarian Aid Corridors Act, and the Global Magnitsky Act."

He also warned that if the situation is not "dramatically reversed soon, the U.S. and its allies should give the Armenians the means to defend themselves in exercise of the duty to prevent genocide, lest history repeat itself."

He noted that the ICC decision requires the enforcement of the opening of the Lachin Corridor, which was part of the November 2020 trilateral ceasefire agreement and called the Commission's attention to perpetrators who have "evaded sanction or any consequence to their actions, which has only enabled further atrocities and genocidal acts to continue and ask that Congress exercise its power to stop this genocide."

In his concluding thoughts, Phillips emphasized that the failure of the international community to "sanction individuals who committed crimes after the war in 2016 and 2020...allowed the Government of Azerbaijan to act with impunity and escape repercussions for its crimes against humanity, ethnic cleansing and acts of genocide."

"This signaled Azerbaijan as well as other regimes around the world that they can escape consequences for violating international humanitarian law and committing crimes against humanity."

During a brief question and answer session, Ocampo said he did not know how much longer the Armenian people in Nagorno-Karabakh can survive the blockade.

"This is a clear cut case where the responsible person is obviously, without a doubt, President Aliyev," said Ocampo. "He was personally put on notice by Secretary Blinken, by the ICC, by the UN Secretary General Guterres, and [other] global leaders he ignored while committing genocidal acts."

Adding onto Ocampo's insights, Phillips reiterated the importance of leaders enforcing existing U.S. law the Administration has at its disposal, including Section 907 of the FREEDOM Support Act and the Global Magnitsky Act, which Co-Chair Smith first introduced in the House in January 2015.

In his testimony to the Commission Hearing, the Assembly's Executive Director Bryan Ardouny stated that the Armenian people are yet again "confronted with the specter of genocide" and that the Armenian American community "sees this as a continuation of the 1915 Armenian Genocide."

"After all, it was Turkey’s Erdoğan, who fully supported Azerbaijan’s reckless war in the Fall of 2020 against Nagorno-Karabakh and who stated that 'we do not allow terrorist leftovers of the sword in our country.'"

Referencing Ocampo's Expert Opinion, Ardouny stated that it is indeed

"starvation [that] is the invisible genocide weapon,” which adds even greater urgency.

Article 2© of the Genocide Convention makes clear that starvation is an act of genocide, "deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part."

Despite its "signed commitment" of the 2020 ceasefire terms, Ardouny emphasized that "Azerbaijan seeks to starve the Armenian people and has not only denied the International Committee of the Red Cross, Armenia and France the ability to deliver humanitarian supplies along the Lachin Corridor to the people of Artsakh, but has also disrupted the electricity and gas supplies to Nagorno-Karabakh further exacerbating the crisis resulting in the death of a 40-year old individual due to starvation with many more suffering from malnutrition."

In terms of recommendations to the Administration, Ardouny highlighted the importance of enforcing Section 907 of the FREEDOM Support Act, which Congress adopted in 1992 "in a principled stand against Azerbaijani aggression" and states that U.S. funds "may not be provided to the Government of Azerbaijan until the President determines and so reports to the Congress, that the Government of Azerbaijan is taking demonstrable steps to cease all blockades and other offensive uses of force against Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh."

Ardouny emphasized that the Assembly’s position is clear in that it will "stand up for democracy and human rights and oppose genocide; end the blockade of Artsakh by imposing sanctions starting with the enforcement of Section 907 of the FREEDOM Support Act, along with the principles of the Humanitarian Aid Corridor Actm and application of the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act."

In his testimony Ardouny referenced Secretary Blinken, who noted President Biden's quote at the United Nations Security Council discussion on Famine and Conflict-Induced Global Food Insecurity, which highlighted the importance of providing food for families and children: "In every country in the world…if parents cannot feed their children, nothing else matters."

Ardouny continued: "We say, President Biden tear down this blockade. Having recognized the Armenian Genocide, it is incumbent that the Administration utilize all tools at its disposal to safeguard the Armenian people and not allow another genocide on its watch."

In addition, the principles of the Humanitarian Aid Corridor Act can also be applied, according to Ardouny, who applauded Co-Chair Smith for his leadership in introducing H.R. 942, the Humanitarian Aid Corridor Act in 1995, as well as Rep. McGovern and his efforts to strengthen the Global Magnitsky Act, introduced in the House by Co-Chair Smith in 2015. He also referred to well-documented atrocities committed by Azerbaijan via the Atrocities Artsakh Project under the leadership of Phillips, and the targeting of Armenian, cultural, and religious heritage sites by Azerbaijan that has been documented by the Caucasus Heritage Watch and condemned by the European Parliament.

In conclusion, Ardouny said he welcomed the "introduction of new mechanisms and legislation to hold human rights violators and corrupt leaders accountable, to safeguard and protect vulnerable populations, to assert America's leadership for the betterment of humanity, and uphold the fundamental principles of democracy, the right to self-determination, and the universal human rights of the people of Artsakh."

Established in 1972, the Armenian Assembly of America is the largest Washington-based nationwide organization promoting public understanding and awareness of Armenian issues. The Assembly is a non-partisan, 501©(3) tax-exempt membership organization.

###

NR# 2023-27

MosJan · September 7, 2023

Yervant1 · September 8, 2023

CNN News

Sept 6 2023

‘We are starving to death:’ Residents of Nagorno-Karabakh fear for future under blockade

By Caolán Magee, CNN

Ani Kirakosyani found out she was pregnant a month after the blockade of Nagorno-Karabakh began.

In her village of Haterk, tucked in a valley between the Caucasus hills, food supplies ran out quickly and the shops started to close, Kirakosyani told CNN. The only food available was what she could pick from her garden, mainly tomatoes and beans.

Throughout her pregnancy, Kirakosyani could not attend her hospital consultations as public transport was cancelled due to fuel shortages – instead she walked for miles to the local medical clinic, which did not have the capacity to detect early problems with her pregnancy, she said, speaking to CNN by telephone.

Kirakosyani is one of the 120,000 inhabitants of Nagorno-Karabakh – known as the Republic of Artsakh by locals – a disputed territory home to a majority ethnic Armenian population that is internationally recognized as being a part of Azerbaijan. The region has been blockaded since December 2022, when the only road connecting the landlocked region to the outside world, the Lachin corridor, was blocked by “eco-activists” backed by the Azerbaijani government, which has since installed a military checkpoint along the corridor. This prompted the International Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS) to warn of the risk of genocide against the Armenian population of Nagorno-Karabakh.

Six months into her pregnancy, Kirakosyani felt a pain in her abdomen and was taken to the hospital. On the way, the ambulance had to stop and collect six other patients, as the driver had to ration its fuel. When Kirakosyani finally arrived in hospital, she was told her pregnancy was in jeopardy and she would have to give birth three months early.

Her husband was away working with the military, and he could not get fuel to make the 100-mile car ride to support her in the hospital. She was alone when the doctors told her she had had a stillbirth brought on by malnutrition and stress, she said.

“If not for the blockade, I would be playing with my child today,” Kirakosyani told CNN.

According to statistics provided exclusively to CNN by the Ombudsman of the Artsakh Republic – a public official who monitors protection of human rights by state and local self-government bodies – the number of recorded miscarriages has increased fourfold from this time last year.

And, as shortages of food, fuel and medicines caused by the months-long blockade take an increasing toll on the region’s population, officials there have reported the first death from malnutrition on August 15, according to Gegham Stepanyan, the ombudsman of Artsakh, who CNN reached by phone.

International media have been refused entry into the territory since the blockade was imposed.

The Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission, a bipartisan US congressional body, has scheduled a Wednesday hearing on the situation in Nagorno-Karabakh.

‘The road of life’

The Lachin corridor is known locally as “the road of life,” as 90% of the food consumed in Nagorno-Karabakh previously came into the region from Armenia via that route, according to figures provided by the elected president of Nagorno-Karabakh.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), which was previously the only NGO allowed to bring humanitarian aid across the Lachin corridor, last delivered desperately needed food supplies to the region on June 14, according to an ICRC press release from August 18.

In August, UN experts urged Azerbaijan to end “the dire humanitarian crisis” in the enclave by lifting the blockade, while former International Criminal Court chief prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo said there was “reasonable basis to believe that genocide is being committed against Armenians.”

Responding to Ocampo’s comments, a lawyer hired by Azerbaijan called the claim of genocide “a groundless and very dangerous allegation.”

Artsakh President Arayik Harutyunyan, who was elected in 2020, told CNN by email: “Azerbaijan has blockaded the Republic of Artsakh with the ultimate goal of committing genocide against our people.”

Asked by CNN for comment, the Armenian government shared remarks made by Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan in a cabinet meeting, in which he said: “Azerbaijan is subjecting the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh to genocide by subjecting them to starvation.”

CNN reached out to the Azerbaijani foreign ministry for comment but has not heard back.

As food, medicine, water and fuel are prevented from entering the territory, local supplies are dwindling. According to the administration for the Artsakh Republic, dairy products, cereal, fish, chicken, cooking oil, sugar, salt, fruit and vegetables, as well as fuel and hygiene products, are unavailable inside the territory.

Max Mkhitaryan, a shopkeeper, took CNN on a video tour of his shop in the capital, Stepanakert.

He told CNN that before the blockade he had received most of his produce from Armenia. The only things now left on the shelves were packets of bread, locally produced honey, and a few bottles of vodka. With most shelves empty, he says he can now only serve one in 10 customers.

“Before I used to serve 250 customers per day – now I can barely serve my family. I only have one week left until the shop closes and I am jobless,” he told CNN.

Outside his shop, queues for bread meander through the unkempt streets. Garbage collections are regularly postponed due to fuel shortages, while in the local pharmacy, supplies are rapidly diminishing.

The fuel shortages also mean electricity is rationed, with power cuts for eight hours each day, and drinking water is no longer treated, leading to a spike in related illnesses, according to Stepanyan.

According to the enclave’s administration, 95% of residents are suffering from malnutrition and hidden hunger, a term referring to a lack of essential vitamins and minerals.

As winter beckons and the harvest season approaches without fuel to collect the crops, those trapped in Nagorno-Karabakh fear their cries are being ignored.

‘Ethnic cleansing’

Armenia and Azerbaijan have been engaged in a tug of war over the status of Nagorno-Karabakh since the collapse of the Soviet Union. This power vacuum was filled by nationalism, and violence against ethnic minorities quickly followed. Both Armenians in Azerbaijan and Azeris in Armenia claim they were ethnically cleansed, leaving sectarian scars on the minds of generations – on either side of their disputed border.

In the early 1990s, Armenian forces took control of large swaths of territory in and around Nagorno-Karabakh. Azerbaijan, backed by Turkey, in turn seized control over large parts of those territories during a six-week war in 2020 that claimed thousands of lives.

The separatist territory was left with the main city of Stepanakert and a few surrounding towns, as well as a population still reeling from the losses of the bloody 2020 conflict, which was followed by sporadic skirmishes along the border. Amid the latest flare-up of tensions, Baku claims it will fully retake and integrate the territory into Azerbaijan – while ethnic Armenians refuse to be uprooted from a region they claim is their homeland.

Ronald Suny, a professor of political science at the University of Michigan, told CNN: “Now that it has won the 2020 war with Armenia, Azerbaijan’s ultimate goal is to drive the Armenians of Artsakh out of Azerbaijan.

“Rather than use direct violence, which would incite opposition from abroad… Baku is determined to make the Armenians’ lives impossible, starve them out, and pressure them to leave,” he said.

To make matters more complicated, Azerbaijan – a one-party state headed by President Ilham Aliyev for the past two decades – has offered to supply the breakaway region via a crossing at the nearby Azerbaijani city of Aghdam.

“Given Azerbaijan’s genocidal intentions and their systematic state policy of long-standing anti-Armenian hatred, our people hold legitimate concerns about the safety of any products originating from Azerbaijan,” Harutyunyan, the elected Nagorno-Karabakh leader, told CNN

"Instead of feigning attempts to deliver humanitarian assistance, Azerbaijan must unblock the Lachin corridor,” he said.

As the blockade carries on with no end in sight, Peter Stano, an EU foreign affairs spokesperson, told CNN of his “deep concern over the serious humanitarian situation” and called for the full resumption of traffic through the Lachin corridor, including medical evacuations and humanitarian supplies.

A United States State Department spokesperson told CNN by email: “We urge the government of Azerbaijan to restore free transit of commercial, humanitarian, and private vehicles through the Lachin corridor expeditiously.”

But Harutyunyan told CNN he was “disappointed with the reactions of the EU and the US so far” and argued the “reasons behind the European and American inaction and failures are purely geopolitical.”

“These reasons include energy reliance on Azerbaijan,” he added.

According to Reuters, the European Union agreed in July 2022 to double gas imports from Azerbaijan by 2027.

Meanwhile Russia, which brokered the ceasefire in 2020, has peacekeepers along the Lachin corridor but has refrained from intervening further.

CNN has reached out to the Russian Foreign Ministry but has yet to hear back.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in a briefing on August 2 that Russia dismissed any claim of inaction against the Russian peacekeepers “as counterproductive and non-reflective of their real contribution to the effort to stabilize the situation on the ground.”

Artyom Tonoyan, a professor of global studies at Hamline University in the United States, told CNN that the Russians, who usually exert influence over the Caucasus, are “so engaged with Ukraine they do not have the willpower to mitigate the conflict.”

‘Running out of hope’

As co-ordinated international action to end the blockade appears unlikely anytime soon, the people of Nagorno-Karabakh are left focusing on short-term solutions: gathering firewood, collecting water and foraging for food.

This time last year, Anahit Gharaghazaryan, a schoolteacher and mother of three, told CNN she was preparing lessons for her pupils as they return from the summer holidays.
Next week was meant to be her five-year-old son’s first day of school. Instead, she is wondering how he will survive the winter.

According to a report given to CNN by Stepanyan, doctors consider it unacceptable for children to continue their studies after suffering malnutrition, while a lack of public transport and an inability to access stationery, books and clothing make it impossible for children to attend school this year.

At a UN Security Council meeting in August, the Deputy Foreign Minister of Armenia, Vahe Gevorgyan, warned that Azerbaijan’s blockade “has impacted 2,000 pregnant women, around 30,000 children, 20,000 older persons, and 9,000 persons with disabilities.”

“If the blockade does not end soon – more people will starve. I cannot sleep thinking about how I will feed my three sons,” Gharaghazaryan said. “We are all running out of hope. How many more people will have to die before the world takes notice?”

https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2023/09/06/europe/nagorno-karabakh-blockade-azerbaijan-armenia-intl-cmd/index.html

Yervant1 · September 8, 2023

The Indian Express

Sept 6 2023

Death by starvation: Residents of disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region face genocide

The blockade set by Azerbaijan has created a shortage of food, water, medicine and other essential items in the region with 1,20,000 inhabitants.

Published: 06th September 2023

By Rahna Mariyam

Online Desk

"People are standing in queues for hours to get minimal food rations. People are fainting in the bread queues"... these were the words of a local journalist from the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region in one of her recorded voice messages sent to the BBC last week.

In June 2023, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian accused Azerbaijan of "ethnic cleansing" with its continued blockade of the breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh region.

Azerbaijan's blockade of the only road linking Armenia to Nagorno-Karabakh has created a shortage of food, water, medicine and other essential items in the region which has 1,20,000 inhabitants.

Baku's installation of an illegal checkpoint in the Lachin Corridor and its ongoing blockade are "actions that once again substantiate our fear that Azerbaijan is conducting a policy of ethnic cleansing", PM Pashinian said in Parliament in June.

For almost two years, the focus of the entire world and its leaders has been on the Russia-Ukraine war. Almost at the same time, another country on the same continent took advantage of the situation to ethnically cleanse a community.

Azerbaijan however has claimed that it had created conditions for the safe and efficient transit of ethnic Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh through the Lachin checkpoint.

Nagorno-Karabakh, a landlocked region, is internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan but most of it is governed by the unrecognised Nagorno-Karabakh Republic (NKR) since the first Nagorno-Karabakh War.

The region has been at the centre of a decades-long conflict between the two countries which have fought two wars for control of the region -- in the 1990s and in 2020 -- that have claimed thousands of lives from both sides.

The conflict started after the fall of the Soviet Union in the '90s when both Muslim-majority Azerbaijan and Christian-majority Armenia wanted Nagorno-Karabakh whose population largely comprises ethnic-majority Armenians to be part of both republics.

The second Nagorno-Karabakh war started in 2020 after Azerbaijan launched an offensive that recaptured territory around Karabakh. Some 3,000 Azerbaijani soldiers and 4,000 Armenian soldiers were killed in six weeks of fighting.

A Russian-mediated ceasefire agreement in 2020 saw Armenia cede swathes of territories it had controlled for some three decades to Azerbaijan. As per the deal, Azerbaijan, backed by Turkey and its military, would hold on to areas of Nagorno-Karabakh that it had taken during the conflict.

Moscow also deployed peacekeepers to the Lachin corridor to ensure free passage between Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh.

Recently, Azerbaijan has been using this corridor to control and starve the people of Nagorno-Karabakh to death.

Former Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Luis Moreno Ocampo recently quoted an observation of the European Court of Human Rights and the International Criminal Court of Justice: "The 1,20,000 ethnic Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh are now entirely encircled by Azerbaijan, completely cut off from the access to the outside world."

"They are effectively under siege," he said.

CNN reported that shortages of food, fuel, and medicines caused by the months-long blockade have taken an increasing toll on the region’s population.

Gegham Stepanyan, the ombudsman of the NKR, on August 15 confirmed that officials reported the first death from malnutrition in the region.

Is it a genocide?

In a conservative sense, we describe genocide as the slaughtering of people belonging to a particular community. But according to the UN Genocide Convention, "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: (a) Killing members of the group; ( Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; © Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group."

And genocide is exactly what has been happening in Nagorno-Karabakh as found in investigations by the International Court of Justice.

The top court found the occurrence of several elements of Genocide as per the UN Genocide Convention including "deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction."

They reached the conclusion that the rights of ethnic Armenians in the Nagorno-Karabakh region are affected by the blockade of the Lachin Corridor which was put in force in December 2022.

In his report, Ocampo said, "As has happened in previous cases, Genocide, in particular, when committed by starvation, is neglected."

Lachin corridor, the only road connecting the Armenian-majority Nagorno Karabakh to the outside world, has been blockaded by Azerbaijan since December 2022 for "environmental reasons."

The corridor is important for the supply of goods like food and medicines to the breakaway region in Azerbaijan.

In February this year, the International Criminal Court of Justice ordered the Azerbaijan government to lift the blockade and allow free passage of goods and services through the corridor.

The top UN court said, "Baku (Azerbaijan) must take all measures at its disposal to ensure the unimpeded movement of persons, vehicles, and cargo along the Lachin Corridor in both directions,".

However, the Azerbaijan government responded to the order by establishing a checkpoint and blocking humanitarian aid carried by various human rights bodies including the Red Cross.

Who is responsible?

When it is established that the people of Nagorno-Karabakh are facing genocide, the next question is who is responsible? One of the most obvious reasons pointed out by multiple political analysts and lawyers like Ocampo is the President of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev, the supreme commander of these security forces in Azerbaijan.

It was under his command the Lachin Corridor was blockaded by the security border personnel of the country.

Aliyev, who accepted the Russian peacemakers after the war between Armenia and Azerbaijan in 2020 and agreed to keep the Lachin corridor open for free passage of goods and services, went back on the agreement the moment Russia invaded Ukraine.

According to Ocampo, "Instead of negotiating the autonomy of the people of Nagorno-Karabakh, he systematically took steps through a series of decisions to eliminate the Armenians living in Nagorno-Karabakh."

For starters, Aliyev allowed a civilian group to block the Lachin Corridor, which he was supposed to keep open, according to the pact after 2020.

Second, following the order from the International Court of Justice to lift the blockade, he put checkpoints in place on the border with Armenia, stopping humanitarian aid from getting to Nagorno-Karabakh.

Following global criticism of the blockade, in one of his interviews with Euronews, Azerbaijan President Aliyev justified his move, saying the blockade was to avoid the alleged smuggling of arms, gasoline and other illegal substances from Armenia as well as the alleged illegal excavation of natural resources in the region.

He further said that the checkpoint was established to implement the International Court of Justice's decision.

“Actually the International Court of Justice actually addressed its message to us to communicate with civil society activists and not to disrupt any kind of movement. And we did it. And as soon as we established a border checkpoint on our border with Armenia, which is our legitimate right…We communicated through my representative here in Shusha (a city in the disputed region) with NGOs’ representatives for them (civil society groups) to stop, and they stopped. They left. So now, freedom of movement is not blocked.”

The President also said that his motive is to put an end to separatism. Besides, he claims that "he is not organizing ethnic cleansing."

https://www.newindianexpress.com/world/2023/sep/06/death-by-starvation-residents-of-disputednagorno-karabakh-region-facegenocide-2612253.html

Yervant1 · September 8, 2023

The Christian Post

Sept 7 2023

Experts warn of 'genocidal intent' behind Azerbaijan’s blockade starving 120,000 Armenians

By Samantha Kamman, Christian Post Reporter

Experts warned a bipartisan congressional human rights commission Wednesday that the United States must be careful to avoid complicity in what they said could be an ongoing "genocide" against 120,000 Armenians living in Nagorno-Karabakh whom Azerbaijan forces have deprived of food and other crucial supplies for months.

The Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission held a hearing on the ongoing blockade of the Lachin Corridor, which connects Armenians to Artsakh, a self-declared Armenian breakaway state internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan with a predominantly Christian population.

Azerbaijan sealed off the Lachin Corridor last December after regaining control of territories surrounding Nagorno-Karabakh after a six-week war with Armenia in 2020. Armenian forces had captured the territory in a conflict that ended in 1994.

A Russia-brokered armistice left the region connected to Armenia only by the Lachin Corridor, where Russian peacekeepers were supposed to ensure free movement.

Commission co-chair Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., led the hearing, which featured expert testimony from Luis Moreno Ocampo, an Argentine lawyer who served as the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court from 2003 to 2012; and David Phillips, the director of Columbia University's Artsakh Atrocities Project and an adjunct professor at Georgetown University.

As the U.S. government conducts negotiations, Smith said U.S. Congress must determine if what is happening against the Armenians is a genocide and what the government's duty is to prevent it under the Genocide Convention, an international treaty.

Smith highlighted Ocampo's written testimony, which cautioned the U.S. for taking on a mediatory role, warning that accepting the existence of "genocide" as part of a negotiation is "complicity."

During the hearing, Smith pointed out that two empty chairs were reserved for the U.S. State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), both of which did not respond to multiple invite requests.

During his testimony, Ocampo clarified that one misconception people have is that an action must involve many deaths before it's considered genocide.

The witness noted that the Azerbaijani security forces' blockade of the Lachin Corridor impedes access to food and other essentials, arguing that the intent to starve the Armenians is a genocidal action.

"There are many different forms of genocide. One form requires zero victim," he said. "Genocide, under Article 2-C, requires just to create the conditions to destroy the people. The crime is to create the conditions and blocking the Lachin Corridor with the life system for the Nagorno-Karabakh people is exacting the conditions."

"The physical issue is intentions. Can we say President Ilham Aliyev or anyone else in the Azerbaijani state has genocidal intentions? My thing was if you follow different quotes, then something very clear, the facts speak for themselves," he added.

"In December '22, the blockade of the Lachin Corridor started by people not formally connected to the states. However, in January this year, Secretary of State [Antony] Blinken called President Aliyev, asking him to remove it. President Aliyev didn't follow the request. In February, the International Court of Justice unanimously said to President Aliyev, 'This is creating risk for life of the Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh' and ordered to open the Corridor. He did not follow. What he did instead was to create a security forces blockade."

In February, 15 judges from the International Court of Justice ordered Aliyev to remove the blockade, but the leader did not comply.

Ocampo said that Aliyev's actions send a "very clear signal" that he knows that the blockade puts lives at risk. According to Ocampo, this is a clear sign of Aliyev's genocidal intentions, as ICJ was clear about the consequences of the blockade and its impact on the Armenians.

"So when he is doing this now with security forces, obviously, he had intention to do that. That intention is confirmed because a few months later, he closed off all the traffic," Ocampo said. "For me, at this stage, there is no doubt that genocidal intentions are there."

In a report last month, Ocampo warned that there was a "reasonable basis to believe that a genocide is being committed," suggesting that starvation was being used as an "invisible genocide weapon." He called for the U.N. Security Council to intervene, which would be necessary because Azerbaijan is not a signatory to the statute that established the International Criminal Court.

Phillips agreed that Aliyev's actions could constitute genocide against the Armenians and discussed how Azerbaijan security forces are firing on Armenian farmers, shortening their food supply and terrorizing them with psychological torture.

In his testimony, Phillips argued that Aliyev has waged campaigns intended to dehumanize Armenian Christians.

Regarding the steps that the U.S. should take to prevent these atrocities, Phillips recommends enforcing the sanctions described in Section 907 of the Freedom Support Act, which restricts assistance to the government of Azerbaijan to prevent conflict with neighboring Armenia.

Phillips also cited the Global Magnitsky Act, which consists of targeted sanctions to combat human rights abuses and corruption.

On Wednesday, the U.S. Department of State announced that Blinken spoke with Aliyev about the situation in Nagorno-Karabakh earlier this month.

"[blinken] reiterated our call to reopen the Lachin Corridor to humanitarian, commercial, and passenger traffic while recognizing the importance of additional routes from Azerbaijan," the statement read. "The Secretary underscored the need for a dialogue and compromise and the importance of building confidence between the parties. He pledged continued U.S. support to the peace process."

The bipartisan Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission was established by the House of Representatives in 2008 to promote and advocate for international human rights.

https://www.christianpost.com/news/experts-warn-of-genocidal-intent-against-armenian-christians.html

Yervant1 · September 8, 2023

BREITBART

Sept 6 2023

Azerbaijan Pursues ‘Elimination of the Entire Christian Population and Its Churches’ in Nagorno-Karabakh

The congressional Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission, chaired by Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ), held a hearing Wednesday to discuss the plight of Armenian Christians trapped by an Azerbaijani blockade in the contested Nagorno-Karabakh region. The commission heard testimony from experts who said Azerbaijan’s actions clearly constituted genocide, with complicity from Turkey and the Islamist forces it has dispatched into the region.

Nagorno-Karabakh is a mountainous territory about the size of Delaware in Azerbaijan that has been inhabited by Armenians for centuries. The Azerbaijanis are mostly Muslims, while the Armenians are Christian.

The Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh fought an unsuccessful war of secession in 1994 following the collapse of the Soviet Union, then remained as a semi-autonomous colony supported by the Armenian state.

Sporadic clashes over the years erupted into a full-blown war in 2020, which concluded with a cease-fire brokered by Russia in November of that year. Azerbaijan was generally seen as victor in the conflict, as Armenia was required to hand over control over some border territories.

Fighting broke out again in late 2022 despite the presence of Russian peacekeepers. Both the Armenians and Azeris accused each other of violating cease-fire terms with unprovoked ground attacks and artillery barrages.

In December 2022, Azerbaijan began blockading a road known as the Lachin Corridor, the only land route between the Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh and the nation of Armenia. The blockade was initially launched by a group of self-professed “environmental activists” to protest illegal mining operations, but testimony at the Human Rights Commission on Wednesday made it clear they were actually agents of Azerbaijan.

Testifying before the commission on Wednesday was Luis Moreno Ocampo, a former prosecutor for the International Criminal Court (ICC) who published a report in August about the Lachin Corridor blockade. Ocampo’s report said the blockade was Azerbaijan’s attempt to use “starvation as a means of genocide.”

“There are no crematories and there are no machete attacks. Starvation is the invisible genocide weapon. Without immediate dramatic change, this group of Armenians will be destroyed in a few weeks,” Ocampo warned in August.

Ocampo explained to the Human Rights Commission that there are essentially two types of genocide: murderous violence with weapons, and deliberate efforts to create conditions that will wipe out an entire population. He said the Lachin blockade was clearly an example of the latter, as it deprives the Nagorno-Karabakh Armenians of food, gas, electricity, and medicine. The Azeris have blocked the Red Cross from reaching the Armenians, and even turned back Russian peacekeepers.

“This is an ongoing genocide. It is happening now,” he said. “There is no doubt that genocidal intentions are there.”

Ocampo rendered harsh judgment against Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliev, as did the commission’s other expert witness, Georgetown University adjunct professor David L. Philips. Both said Aliev was well aware of the humanitarian crisis created by the Lachin blockade.

“The responsible person is clearly President Aliev. No doubt, no doubt,” Ocampo said.

Philips said Aliev’s goal was “elimination of the entire Christian population and its churches.”

“There is no doubt that genocidal intentions are there,” Ocampo said.

Philips extensively quoted remarks from Aliev and his top officials that indicated their resolve to wipe out the Armenian population of Nagorno-Karabakh once and for all.

“The language used by President Aliev and his officials leaves no question of their genocidal intentions,” he said, noting that Aliev has worked to “dehumanize” the Armenians among his own people and pave the way for their destruction.

Philips added that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and some of his top officials, including Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan and Defense Minister Hulusi Akar, are “culpable” for the impending genocide because they have assisted Azerbaijani forces. Akar was succeeded as defense minister in June 2023 by Yasar Guler, who does not appear any more favorably disposed toward the Armenians.

Philips said the presence of “Turkish-backed Islamist fighters” on the battlefield of Nagorno-Karabakh was “noteworthy,” as they have contributed to starvation pressure by sniping Armenian farmers and making them afraid to bring their harvests to market. He pointed to U.N. reports that said Turkey has been helping to bring thousands of Syrian mercenaries to back up Azeri forces ever since the 2020 war broke out.

Philips said the international community has thus far allowed Aliev to act with “impunity,” even when he indulged in such a serious transgression of international norms as importing Russian gas and then re-exporting it to Europe, which banned direct imports of Russian products after the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Rep. Smith said the “record of the murderous deeds of Azerbaijan over the past 30 years is shocking,” and the U.N. has documented numerous “expressions of hatred for Armenians emanating from Aliev and other officials,” but there seems to be little enthusiasm among either the international community or U.S. officials to take decisive action.

Smith noted that U.S. officials have acknowledged the humanitarian crisis created by the Lachin blockade and called for the corridor to be reopened, but those calls have been ignored. He said the Human Rights Commission would immediately send a letter to the Biden administration urging stronger action.

“The international system is not equipped to deal with genocide,” Ocampo mused, noting that international diplomacy tends to work more slowly than hunger and sickness. He stressed that action should be taken swiftly when genocidal conditions are imposed, rather than waiting until an entire population teeters on the verge of extinction.

“The urgency is to prevent harm for these hundreds of thousands of people,” he said. “State parties should not wait for a genocide to commence. As soon as there is some warning, they should act.”

Ocampo further warned that if U.S. officials directly or indirectly help Azerbaijan deny the genocide, it could be “considered complicity.”

“If the situation is not dramatically reversed soon, the U.S. and its allies should give the Armenians the means to protect themselves,” Philips suggested.

https://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2023/09/06/azerbaijan-pursues-elimination-entire-christian-population-churches-nagorno-karabakh/

Yervant1 · September 9, 2023

The Hindu, India

Sept 8 2023

Armenia PM says Azerbaijan preparing ‘military provocation’

Tensions between Baku and Yerevan have escalated sharply in recent months, as both sides accuse the other of cross-border attacks

September 08, 2023 02:50 am | Updated 02:50 am IST - Yerevan

AFP

Armenia on September 7 accused Azerbaijan of preparing a military provocation against its forces by concentrating troops along the arch-foes' shared border and near the breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh region.

The ex-Soviet republics have been locked in a decades-long conflict over the mostly Armenian-populated region of Nagorno-Karabakh inside Azerbaijan.

Tensions between Baku and Yerevan have escalated sharply in recent months, as both sides accuse the other of cross-border attacks.

"The military-political situation in our region has seriously worsened," Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan told his cabinet meeting in Yerevan.

He said Azerbaijan is "concentrating" troops on the border and also near the mountainous Karabakh region controlled by separatists.

"Azerbaijan is demonstrating its intention to undertake a fresh military provocation against Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia," Mr. Pashinyan said.

Azerbaijan denounced the claims as "yet another false political manipulation."

"Armenia must abandon territorial claims to Azerbaijan, to end military-political provocations, and to stop creating obstacles to the peace process," its foreign ministry said in a statement.

‘Strategic mistake’

Mr. Pashinyan's claims came ahead of snap presidential elections in the separatist enclave on Saturday and days before joint drills between Armenian and U.S. peacekeeping forces hosted by Yerevan.

The Kremlin on Thursday criticised the drills, saying they would harm stability in the volatile Caucasus region that Moscow sees as its backyard.

"Without a doubt, the conduct of these kinds of exercises do not help to stabilise the situation or strengthen the atmosphere of mutual trust in the region," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

"Russia continues to fulfil its function as a guarantor of security," he added.

Yerevan has accused Baku of blockading Nagorno-Karabakh since December, spurring a humanitarian crisis in Armenian-populated towns.

Mr. Pashinyan has criticised Moscow for failing to unblock the sole road linking Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia, which is being patrolled by Russian peacekeepers.

They deployed in 2020 when Russia brokered a ceasefire ending a war between Armenia and Azerbaijan for control of the breakaway region.

Mr. Pashinyan recently said it was a "strategic mistake" for Yerevan — a traditional Moscow ally — to rely on Russia as its security guarantor.

Yerevan and Baku have fought two wars for control over the region, which is internationally recognised as part of Azerbaijan but largely populated by ethnic Armenians.

The two sides have been unable to reach a lasting peace settlement despite mediation efforts by the European Union, the United States and Russia.

https://www.thehindu.com/news/international/armenia-pm-says-azerbaijan-preparing-military-provocation/article67281451.ece

Yervant1 · September 10, 2023

Iran International

Sept 7 2023

Looming Azerbaijan-Armenia War Signals Geopolitical Shifts

Thursday, 09/07/2023

Author: Iran International Newsroom

Conflict - Military World

Renewed tensions between Azerbaijan and Armenia portend major geopolitical shifts in the region with the US edging closer to Yerevan as Russia is embroiled in Ukraine.

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan accused Azerbaijan on Thursday of building up troops along the line of contact in Nagorno-Karabakh disputed region and the Armenian-Azerbaijan border. In the past week, both Yerevan and Baku reported casualties after intense shelling near their common border.

The escalation comes amid a continuing crisis over Nagorno-Karabakh where Yerevan and local ethnic Armenian authorities accuse Baku of continuing its “illegal blockade” of the region, resulting in severe shortages of food, fuel, and medicine as well as a rationing of bread. Azerbaijan has justified its nine-month Azerbaijani blockade of the highway linking Armenia to the enclave -- internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan but populated by around 120,000 ethnic Armenians -- by saying Armenia was using the road to supply weapons to Karabakh, which Armenia denies. The critical Lachin corridor serves as the sole communication route between Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh.

Armenia's Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan attends a meeting with Russia's President Vladimir Putin and Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliyev on the sidelines of the Eurasian Economic Union summit in Moscow, Russia May 25, 2023.

Tensions are simmering as the Armenian Defense Ministry announced earlier in the month that it will hold a joint war game with NATO forces from September 11-20, dubbed Eagle Partner 2023 aimed at increasing the level of interoperability of units participating in international peacekeeping missions.

Traditionally, Armenia has leaned on Russia and Iran, both nations against any border changes between the two longtime rivals. However, Yerevan seems to have recently distanced itself from Moscow, perhaps because Russia is engrossed in its invasion of Ukraine as well as its warming ties with Turkey and Azerbaijan.

The joint drill with the United States forces can be construed as Armenia leaning towards the West to secure support in case of a looming military conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh. Pashinyan recently said that exclusive dependence on Russia does not serve Armenia's security well anymore, a statement that Moscow described as "public rhetoric bordering on rudeness".

RFE/RL’s Armenian Service reported this week that Armenia is providing humanitarian assistance to Ukraine for the first time since the Russian invasion of the country. Sources told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service that Pashinyan’s wife, Anna Hakobian, will personally hand over aid to the Ukrainian side when she flies to Kyiv to attend the annual Summit of First Ladies and Gentlemen.

Despite the small scale of the joint military exercise, Russia – which sees itself as the pre-eminent power in the South Caucasus region that was part of the Soviet Union until 1991 -- said it would be watching closely. "Of course, such news causes concern, especially in the current situation. Therefore, we will deeply analyze this news and monitor the situation," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said this week, adding, "In this situation, holding such exercises does not contribute to stabilizing the situation in any case and strengthening the atmosphere of mutual trust in the region."

Russia maintains a peacekeeping force in the region to uphold an agreement that ended a war between Armenia and Azerbaijan in 2020, the second they have fought since the Soviet collapse.

Footage on social media in recent days also showed increasing Azerbaijani military movements near the front line between the two countries. According to Crisis Watch – a global conflict tracker, several cargo aircraft have airlifted hundreds of tons of weapons including ballistic missiles from Israel and Turkey to Baku, adding that “Azerbaijan’s Air Force received a new batch of Bayraktar TB2 armed drones from Turkey in order to use them in its incoming invasion of Armenia.”

“Azerbaijan is ready for another invasion of Armenia. They are just waiting for Turkey to get Iran's permission," said military expert and author Babak Taghvaee. Iran has been deeply concerned about Azerbaijani moves to establish a corridor through Armenian territory to a piece of its territory to the west. While an Azerbaijani military threat exists to force such a corridor, Iran will lose its historic land connection with Armenia. Tensions over the transit road have led to military exercises conducted by the Iranian armed forces near the border with Azerbaijan in recent years.

Earlier in September, US Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken also spoke with Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev to express the United States’ concern over the deteriorating humanitarian situation in Nagorno-Karabakh, calling to reopen the Lachin Corridor to humanitarian, commercial, and passenger traffic. He also underscored the need for dialogue and compromise and the importance of building confidence between the parties, and pledged continued US support to the peace process.

https://www.iranintl.com/en/202309070919

Yervant1 · September 10, 2023

Armenpress.am

G20 summit: President of Argentina calls out Azerbaijan for blockading Lachin Corridor

19:41, 9 September 2023

YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 9, ARMENPRESS. President of Argentina Alberto Fernández, speaking at the G20 summit in New Delhi on Saturday, called out Azerbaijan for its “painful” blockade of the Lachin Corridor that has caused a humanitarian crisis.

“At a time when there’s war in Eastern Europe, violent conflicts are emerging, which get less public attention but are equally painful, such as the blockade of Lachin Corridor by Azerbaijan, which has caused a humanitarian crisis, aimed at punishing the Armenian people on its own territory. Argentina reiterates its commitment to multilateralism as a supreme method for international mutual-understanding,” Diario Armenia newspaper quoted Fernández as saying.

https://armenpress.am/eng/news/1119142.html

Yervant1 · September 11, 2023

POLITICO

Sept 10 2023

Azerbaijan pledges to reopen Lachin Corridor to Nagorno-Karabakh

The move comes after almost two months of near-total blockade and warnings of ‘genocide.’

BY GABRIEL GAVIN

YEREVAN, ARMENIA — AZERBAIJAN HAS AGREED TO REOPEN THE ONLY HIGHWAY LINKING ARMENIA TO THE BREAKAWAY REGION OF NAGORNO-KARABAKH PROVIDED LOCAL LEADERS ACCEPT AID FROM AZERBAIJAN AS WELL, A SENIOR AZERBAIJANI OFFICIAL TOLD POLITICO ON SATURDAY.

The news comes after authorities in the ethnic Armenian-controlled exclave — inside Azerbaijan’s internationally recognized borders — announced earlier in the day that it would accept humanitarian shipments from the Russian Red Cross via an alternative road from Aghdam, inside Azerbaijani government-held territory.

According to Hikmet Hajiyev, foreign policy adviser to Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, “Azerbaijan expressed its consent as a goodwill gesture to ensure simultaneous opening” of the so-called Lachin Corridor for ICRC cargo. The road connects the mountainous territory to Armenia. The acceptance, he said, would pave the way for a separate deal to allow passage from Armenia. “In the Lachin checkpoint, Azerbaijan’s customs and border regime must be observed,” he said.

For close to two months, aid organizations including the Red Cross have said they have been unable to transport supplies of food and fuel into Nagorno-Karabakh, despite a 2020 ceasefire agreement between the two sides guaranteeing free use of the road under the supervision of Russian peacekeepers. With essential provisions running low, local Armenians say a humanitarian crisis is already unfolding and the former chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Luis Moreno Ocampo, last month issued a report warning that a “genocide” was under way.

Both the U.S. and the EU have urged Azerbaijan to reopen the Lachin Corridor. The South Caucasus country denies it is orchestrating a blockade, and has insisted the Karabakh Armenians must accept humanitarian supplies from inside Azerbaijan.

Arayik Harutyunyan, the former de facto president of the unrecognized Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, told POLITICO in July that he would refuse to accept the supplies despite a deteriorating humanitarian situation because “Azerbaijan created this crisis and cannot be the solution to it.”

Harutyunyan, who resigned last month amid the ongoing crisis, was due to be replaced on Saturday in a presidential election. However, according to Hajiyev, the “sham elections” are a “serious setback and counterproductive” for the situation.

Instead, he reiterated a call from the Azerbaijani government for the Karabakh Armenians to lay down their arms and accept being governed as part of Azerbaijan. “It is the only way to a lasting peace where Armenian and Azerbaijani residents of Karabakh can live and coexist,” he said.

Hajiyev later clarified in a statement on social media that the Lachin Corridor would not be opened immediately, but under the terms of a deal allowing indefinite access for Azerbaijani aid from Aghdam.

As of Sunday, despite a statement from Karabakh Armenian authorities that the deal had been done to open the Lachin Corridor, access for aid organizations and Russian peacekeepers has reportedly not yet been restored.

https://www.politico.eu/article/azerbaijan-agrees-to-reopen-lachin-corridor-to-nagorno-karabakh/

Yervant1 · September 12, 2023

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/

Yervant1 · September 12, 2023

Armenpress.am

MEP François-Xavier Bellamy hopes France will introduce UNSC resolution on Nagorno- Karabakh

15:26, 11 September 2023

BRUSSELS, SEPTEMBER 11, ARMENPRESS. Member of the European Parliament François-Xavier Bellamy is convinced that a strong package of sanctions against Azerbaijan will make its President Aliyev understand that he must stop the aggression against Armenians.

In an interview with ARMENPRESS Brussels correspondent Lilit Gasparyan, François-Xavier Bellamy, the member of the EP-Armenia Friendship Group, said that Europe must not remain silent and contradict its own principles when human lives are in danger.

He said that Aliyev needs a reality check to understand that Azerbaijan is the one who needs Europe, and not vice versa.

The MEP said EU’s policy of urging both Azerbaijan and Armenia to de-escalate instead of calling out Azerbaijan is unacceptable.

François-Xavier Bellamy , who personally visited the entrance to the blocked Lachin Corridor, blamed the impunity of the Aliyev regime on the “lack of political will.”

“It’s because of the lack of political will. Unfortunately, European countries view the situation in a very simple manner. They focus on the Ukraine war, which is certainly the main topic, they forget if we want to be consistent then we can’t not impose sanctions against the Aliyev regime, which is guilty of very serious violations of international law. In this case the humanitarian law is violated. Few months ago, I presented amendments to the European Parliament to demand sanctions against Mr. Aliyev, and it was adopted, and now we are waiting for the Commission to finally act, in order for us to be able to take measures. Human lives are in danger today. In the last few days, Armenian soldiers were killed or wounded as a result of an absolutely unprovoked aggression. I repeat, human lives are in danger, and we don’t have the right to remain silent,” the MEP said when asked why the Aliyev regime isn’t being held to account.

2022-02-francois-xavier-bellamy-yerablur

“Calling upon the both sides is unacceptable,” he said on the latest EU statement. Viewing both sides on the same level is the same as equating the aggressor, the attackers, the criminal with the victim. Just like we are able to condemn the aggression when Russia is attacking Ukraine, and we are not asking for the two sides to agree, that’s how we must clarify that there is only one perpetrator here, who is plotting and bearing the responsibility for the aggression. While on the other side there is a country and innocent people, who wants to live peacefully in its homeland,” the MEP said, adding that the reason of the EU not calling out Azerbaijan could be because some European leaders want to avoid disrupting dialogue with one of the parties while mediating.

Asked to comment on Azerbaijan snubbing any French mediation involvement because of what Baku describes is the pro-Armenian stance of Paris, the MEP said that Azerbaijan needs a reality check.

“First of all, Azerbaijan needs a reality check. Today Azerbaijan is speaking about European leaders in a way as if it’s the one controlling them. But despite what many MEPs believed, Europe doesn’t need Azerbaijan, it is Azerbaijan that needs Europe,” François-Xavier Bellamy said. He added that in case of Europe “decisively implementing the first strong package of sanctions, Mr. Aliyev will immediately understand that he must end this all.”

2023-02-francois-xavier-bellamy-syunik.j

Asked whether or not the EU labelling Azerbaijan as a “reliable” energy partner is what was viewed in Baku as a greenlight to do whatever it wants, the MEP said. “Certainly. But first of all, this is a lie. What we are buying from Azerbaijan are mostly Russian hydrocarbons, and therefore we are bypassing our own sanctions against Russia, with very concerning double standards. But first of all, the volumes supplied by Azerbaijan are very low, and these volumes will be absolutely unnecessary in the context of the upcoming growth of imports. And it is Mr. Aliyev who must be worried, who must realize that he needs Europe. But the last thing I’d want to say is that we very well see dictators like Aliyev are never satisfied with the compromises we are trying to do with them.”

“If tomorrow Azerbaijan takes Karabakh, the next step would be an attack on the territory of the Republic of Armenia, like it did several months earlier. Everyone must understand that by turning a blind eye on Azerbaijan’s action, they are giving a license and permission to advance, to kill, to violate international law.”

He added that he hopes that France will introduce a resolution in the UN Security Council.

“Yes, I hope that these initiatives will be implemented in the UNSC,” he said when asked to comment on media reports that France plans to introduce a UNSC resolution. “That’s definitely an important lever to act and also to push our American friends to make a decision on a simple and decisive common stance. I believe that important milestones are ahead. But it is horrible that this didn’t take place earlier….”

“A UNSC resolution will be needed despite the difficulties with Russia. In any case, nothing stands in Europe’s way to act now, to impose sanctions. The parliament has a clear position, now the council must be proactive, and France is asking the council for these sanctions to be imposed against the Aliyev regime,” the MEP said.

https://armenpress.am/eng/news/1119201.html?fbclid=IwAR0h6EpA8SsWG_ETinyMza4F7uwRWL3jGRXRyE31eVLLRtgQAQppOBbZFOM

Yervant1 · September 12, 2023

Armenpress.am

WATCH: Senator Menendez delivers powerful speech vowing to hold Azerbaijan accountable for genocidal NK blockade

11:47, 12 September 2023

YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 12, ARMENPRESS. U.S. Senate Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Bob Menendez warned U.S. lawmakers that Azerbaijan's blockade of Nagorno-Karabakh has all the hallmarks of genocide and pledged to hold Azerbaijan accountable.

The Senator called on the Biden Administration to enforce Section 907 and stop all security assistance to Azerbaijan. He went on to call for sanctions against the Aliyev regime for war crimes and ethnic cleansing.

"To the men organizing and carrying out this brutal campaign, we will hold you accountable for your crimes, even if it takes a lifetime – you will pay a price, you will face justice – and I certainly will not rest until you do so,” Menendez said in the U.S. Senate.

The Lachin Corridor, the only road connecting Nagorno-Karabakh, which is home to 120,000 Armenians, to Armenia and the rest of the world, has been blocked by Azerbaijan since late 2022.

The Azerbaijani blockade constitutes a gross violation of the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh ceasefire agreement, which established that the 5km-wide Lachin Corridor shall be under the control of Russian peacekeepers. Furthermore, on February 22, 2023 the United Nations’ highest court – the International Court of Justice (ICJ) - ordered Azerbaijan to “take all steps at its disposal” to ensure unimpeded movement of persons, vehicles and cargo along the Lachin Corridor in both directions. Azerbaijan has been ignoring the order ever since. The ICJ reaffirmed its order on 6 July 2023.

Azerbaijan then illegally installed a checkpoint on Lachin Corridor.

Many experts and officials have said that the Azeri actions constitute genocide.

https://armenpress.am/eng/news/1119282.html?fbclid=IwAR0rd-MYeZBBE24URYskGc91dn3w0hEw-B_LYEl6D5e_kZ62Xnp7DoEVtuw

Yervant1 · September 14, 2023

Armenpress.am

Multiple international contacts took place to ramp up pressure and prevent Azerbaijan from using force - lawmaker

11:24, 13 September 2023

YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 13, ARMENPRESS. Armenian Parliament Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Sargis Khandanyan has said that the Azeri military buildup along the border with Armenia should be treated seriously.

Speaking to reporters in parliament on September 13, MP Khandanyan said that there’ve been multiple international contacts in order to ramp up pressure on Azerbaijan to prevent a possible attack.

“The Azerbaijani buildup of troops and equipment on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border attests to the continuation of Baku’s aggressive policy, unfulfillment of its assumed obligations and another attempt to solve issues through force. This issue must be treated seriously. You know that multiple international contacts have taken place in order to increase pressure on Azerbaijan so that it doesn’t attempt to solve any issue through the use of force,” Khandanyan said.

https://armenpress.am/eng/news/1119379.html?fbclid=IwAR2DLJ3KCxY6OnIG0n6SeTmdd4bqDahqAFUr6H_7Ow5Nnx610z29js65OHQ

Yervant1 · September 14, 2023

Ha'aretz, Israel
Sept 13 2023

Azerbaijan Tests Advanced Israeli Missile, Cargo Flights Spike, as Nagorno-Karabakh Tensions Mount

Azeri cargo flights to Israeli base - used for arms exports - spike in recent weeks, as tensions with Armenia run high

Avi Scharf

Azerbaijan’s armed forces conducted large scale air defense drills, the Azeri Ministry of Defense announced on Wednesday, including live-firing of the Israeli made Barak-8 ER air defense system.

According to the statement, the Barak-8 detected and destroyed a ballistic missile “launched by an imaginary enemy.” Israel has had a strategic alliance with Azerbaijan for the past two decades, selling the large Shi’ite-majority country weapons worth billions of dollars – and in return, Azerbaijan, per sources, supplies Israel with oil and access to Iran.

According to official reports from Azerbaijan, over the years, Israel has sold it the most advanced weapons systems, including ballistic missiles, air defense and electronic warfare systems, kamikaze drones and more.

Foreign media reports indicate Azerbaijan has allowed the Mossad to set up a forward branch to monitor what is happening in Iran, Azerbaijan’s neighbor to the south, and has even prepared an airfield intended to aid Israel in the case it decides to attack Iranian nuclear sites. Reports from two years ago stated that the Mossad agents who stole the Iranian nuclear archive smuggled it to Israel via Azerbaijan.

Israel and Azerbaijan took their relationship up a level in 2011 with a huge $1.6 billion deal that included a battery of Barak missiles for intercepting aircraft and missiles, as well as Searcher and Heron drones from Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI). It was reported that near the end of the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War in 2020, a Barak battery shot down an Iskander ballistic missile launched by Armenia.

Cargo flights from Israeli base to Baku (as of March 2023). Since then 11 more have landedCredit: Photo by Yarden Antebi @ace_pio

An investigation by Haaretz in March revealed that over the past seven years, 92 cargo flights flown by Azerbaijani Silk Way Airlines have landed at the Ovda airbase, the only airfield in Israel through which explosives may be flown into and out of the country. The investigation found the number of flights spiked during periods of fighting against Armenia in Nagorno-Karabakh.

Since March, there have been 11 more Azeri flights, including 5 in the past two weeks, totaling 103 flights in 7 years. According to Reuters, tensions are running high again between Azerbaijan and Armenia, with both sides accusing each other of a military build up near their shared border and around Karabakh.

https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/security-aviation/2023-09-13/ty-article/azerbaijan-tests-israeli-missile-cargo-flights-spike-as-nagorno-karabakh-tensions-mount/0000018a-8dc7-dd09-a3ba-fde7093e0000

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