Month: May 2021

The Republic of Armenia (RA) Human Rights Defender’s fact-finding work in Gegharkunik and Syunik Provinces have confirmed that on May 12 and 13, the Azerbaijani armed forces, being illegally in the RA sovereign territory, have threatened shepherds, the RA border residents, with weapons. Armenia’s Human Rights Defender (Ombudsman) Arman Tatoyan wrote about this on Facebook.

“In the early morning of May 12, in Syunik, in the area from the RA Sev Lake region to the village of Verishen in the Goris community, the Azerbaijani armed forces approached the village shepherd grazing animals, threatened him, and demanded—with a showing of weapon—to leave his cattle barn and pasture.

The fact-finding work of the Human Rights Defender showed that the barn of the shepherd of Verishen is located in the area of pasture constantly used by the residents of Akner, Verishen, and a number of other villages, at a depth from Sev Lake to Verishen civil settlement, and Sev Lake itself is in the RA territory.

In Gegharkunik, on the pastures—at the areas of the hills (cattle barns)—near the village of Verin Shorzha in the RA Vardenis community, on May 12, about 10 Azerbaijani armed servicemen approached the shepherd of the village of Verin Shorzha and threatened him—with showing a weapon—speaking to him in Armenian, too.

On the same day, when 6 shepherds from Vardenis and Ayrk villages were grazing their large and small cattle near the water basin near the same pasture in the RA territory, several dozen Azerbaijani armed servicemen approached them, threatened them with weapons, and gave them 5 minutes to leave; otherwise, they threatened to capture him.

On May 13, about 50 Azerbaijani servicemen similarly threatened—with weapon—the shepherd of Verin Shorzha village, and demanded that he leave; otherwise, threatening to kill or capture him.

In addition to the noted, on May 12, a shepherd from the village of Kut in Geghamasar went to a cattle barn on his hillside near the village and found armed Azerbaijani servicemen—about 50.

During the visit of the Human Rights Defender, it was found out that the pastures are provided to people on a lease with the documents of the local authorities; that is, it is about illegal deprivation of rights on a legal basis.

According to the shepherds, they can longer use the pastures. Moreover, in the village of Kut, for example, residents said they were forced to stop sending animals to the mountains.

The issue is that the Azerbaijani military is physically present in the pastures that are legally owned by the people present, and in some cases it is impossible to use them because they are under Azerbaijani target.

At the same time, the shepherds have informed that they could not even approach the pastures, as in the event of such an attempt, the Azerbaijani military open fire; this also applies to grass.

These circumstances mentioned by the pastors were confirmed by other evidence obtained by the Human Rights Defender, such as pasture use documents, local studies, relevant photographs, etc.

The RA Human Rights Defender’s fact-finding activities on May 12 and 13, 2021 prove that the Azerbaijani military, being armed, have committed criminal acts against the border residents—threatening to kill them or capture unarmed civilians, illegally demanding to leave the pastures and the cattle barns of the hills of the shepherds belonging to them by legal documents provided by the RA competent authorities.

The Azerbaijani armed forces have violated the internationally recognized rights of the RA border residents and enshrined in the RA Constitution—to life, physical and mental inviolability, property, and other vital rights. Moreover, they were wearing masks when communicating with civilians.

It is obvious that in order to protect the RA border residents from such illegal actions, a security zone should be established around Gegharkunik and Syunik along all sections of the border with Azerbaijan.

The issue is that such actions are not single. The fact-finding work of the Human Rights Defender in recent months has registered other cases of the Azerbaijani military’s violation of the rights of the shepherds who are RA border residents.

PS. This photo shows an example of a pasture being under the target of Azerbaijan," the Human Rights Defender of Armenia added.

Within the framework of meetings with area specialists, Armenia’s second President Robert Kocharyan on Tuesday met with representatives of health care, reported the office of the second president.

During the meeting, some of the questions referred to the border situation in Syunik and Gegharkunik Provinces, and Armenia's petitioning to the CSTO for help.

"You [Armenian authorities] have brought, put your position deep within, Azerbaijan has advanced, you are shouting all over the world: ‘Let Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan come, drive Azerbaijan back.’ Where are you? Why did it turn out that everyone within the CSTO has better relations with Azerbaijan—which is not a CSTO member state—than with Armenia? Should they answer this simple question or not? Why should Belarus, Kazakhstan, and other countries have better relations with Azerbaijan? Now you turn to them. Why should they protect you? You do not stand on the border, you do not defend your border, you petition to the CSTO and present it to the people as heroism that ‘I petitioned to the CSTO.’ Then? One of the main functions of the state—ensuring security—is just turning into a joke," said Kocharyan.

And with respect to the possible developments in the border crisis and the events unrolling in Syunik Province, the second President said: "Nothing is being done to strengthen the country's borders. If you have a border, you must defend [it] with your armed forces. That's why you need to understand where your positions are. During this period, our armed forces had to be given the opportunity to deploy troops with appropriate density on that border.

I believe, first of all, they will demand from us to demarcate the borders and will force to recognize those borders. They will constantly force to sign something. These are broken people, and I am sure that there will be no resistance.

Our major problem at the moment is the complete lack of new resources to resist.”

YEREVAN. – The situation after the provocations carried out by the Azerbaijani armed forces on May 12 and 13 in some border areas of Syunik and Gegharkunik Provinces of Armenia has not changed considerably as of Wednesday morning, the Defense Ministry informed Armenian News-NEWS.am.

It added that these territories, the aforesaid Azerbaijani military, as well as possible ways of securing them continue to be under the full control of the Armenian forces—in all directions of the carrying out of this provocation.

Moreover, in the previous two days, additional units of the Armenian Armed Forces were dispersed to the respective locations, completely depriving the Azerbaijanis of the opportunity to carry out any action—even in theory—, thus leaving solely the return to their starting positions as a solution that is reasonable to them this situation.

Nevertheless, negotiations on a peaceful settlement of this issue are still ongoing, and the Ministry of Defense of Armenia is full of hope that they will give the desired result, and the situation will be resolved peacefully.

At the same time, as it has already been announced, in the absence of a solution to this issue within a reasonable time, the Armed Forces of Armenian reserve the right to resolve this issue by other means, including force.