Fridayt, July 30, 2021
Armenia Backs Mediators’ Calls For Renewed Peace Talks
July 30, 2021
Armenia -- The U.S. and French co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group and other
diplomats meet with Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian, Yerevan, December
14, 2020.
Armenia backed on Friday international mediators’ fresh calls for the resumption
of Armenian-Azerbaijani negotiations on a “comprehensive” settlement of the
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.
The U.S., Russian and French mediators co-chairing the OSCE Minsk Group
expressed concern on Thursday over fresh fighting that broke out at some
portions of the Armenian-Azerbaijani border earlier this week.
In a joint statement, they urged Armenia and Azerbaijan to “de-escalate the
situation immediately,” avoid “provocative rhetoric and actions” and fully
comply with the Russian-brokered agreement that stopped the war in Karabakh in
November.
“The Co-Chairs reiterate the need for a negotiated, comprehensive, and
sustainable settlement of all remaining core substantive issues of the conflict
and urge the parties to return to negotiations under the auspices of the
Co-Chairs as soon as possible,” added the statement. “They reiterate their
proposal to organize direct bilateral consultations under their auspices, in
order for the sides to review and agree jointly upon a structured agenda,
reflecting their priorities, without preconditions.”
The Armenian Foreign Ministry hailed the statement. “The statement of the
Co-Chairs once again demonstrates that the key to regional peace and security is
a comprehensive and lasting settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict,” it
said.
The ministry again condemned the “infiltration of the Azerbaijani armed forces
into Armenia’s sovereign territory” in May and recent days’ “attacks on Armenian
defense positions” at contested sections of the frontier.
Baku maintains that its troops did not cross into Armenia in May and that the
latest truce violations resulted from Armenian “provocations.”
The mediators made a similar appeal to the conflicting parties in April. They
said they are ready to facilitate Armenian-Azerbaijani talks focusing on their
pre-war peace proposals.
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian cited their April statement last week when he
disputed Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev’s claim that Azerbaijan’s victory in
the six-week war put an end to the long-running dispute.
Armenian Parliament Criminalizes ‘Grave Insults’
July 30, 2021
• Tatevik Lazarian
Armenia - The outgoing Armenian parliament holds its final session in Yerevan,
July 30, 2021.
Meeting for its final session on Friday, Armenia’s outgoing parliament approved
a bill that makes it a crime to seriously insult government officials and other
public figures.
A relevant amendment to the Armenian Criminal Code drafted by pro-government
lawmakers stipulates that individuals voicing “grave insults” or offending
others’ dignity in an “extremely indecent manner” must be fined up to 500,000
drams (just over $1,000).
Such insults publicly and repeatedly directed at persons because of their
“public activities” will be punishable by fines ranging from 1 million to 3
million drams ($2,000-$6,000) and a prison sentence of up to three months.
According to the amendment, those persons include state officials, politicians,
civic activists and other public figures.
All forms of defamation and slander had been decriminalized in Armenia in 2010
during then President Serzh Sarkisian’s rule.
Vladimir Vartanian, the pro-government chairman of the parliament committee on
legal affairs and the main author of the bill, said penalties for such offenses
must be toughened now because verbal abuse in the country has since become
widespread, especially on social media.
“This bill is primarily aimed at not so much punishing individuals resorting to
grave insults as having a preventive impact and eliminating insults … from our
society,” he said.
Vartanian emphasized the fact that the parliament is amending Armenia’s current
Criminal Code which will be replaced in 2022 by a new code enacted earlier this
year. “If we manage to achieve these results during this year there will be no
need to make the same changes to the new Criminal Code,” he said.
Opposition lawmakers dismissed this explanation. One of them, Naira Zohrabian,
said that the bill is aimed at holding in check the two opposition blocs to be
represented in Armenia’s incoming parliament elected on June 20.
The blocs have a much tougher anti-government stance than the opposition
minority in the outgoing National Assembly. Their supporters believe that Prime
Minister Nikol Pashinian himself has relied heavily on “hate speech” since
coming to power in 2018.
The new parliament, also controlled by Pashinian’s political allies, is
scheduled to hold its inaugural session on Monday.
Sofia Hovsepian, another opposition deputy who defected from Pashinian’s My Step
bloc late last year, said the amendment could be used to stifle harsh criticism
of the Armenian government.
Deputy Justice Minister Kristine Grigorian assured Hovsepian that the
authorities will not be cracking down on any “discourse going slightly beyond
criticism.”
Pashinian’s political team already sparked controversy in March this year when
it pushed through the parliament a bill tripling maximum legal fines for
defamation. Armenia’s leading media associations criticized the move, saying
that it could be exploited by government officials and politicians to stifle
press freedom.
Consequently, President Armen Sarkissian refused to sign the bill into law and
asked the Constitutional Court to assess its conformity with the Armenian
constitution.
Russia Again Calls For Armenian-Azeri Border Demarcation
July 30, 2021
RUSSIA -- A sign at the main entrance to the Russian Foreign Ministry building
in Moscow, July 19, 2018.
Russia again offered on Friday to help Armenia and Azerbaijan demarcate their
border following the latest upsurge in tensions there.
“We are seriously concerned about recent armed incidents at certain sections of
the Armenian-Azerbaijani border which led to casualties,” a spokesman for the
Russian Foreign Ministry, Alexander Bikantov, said in written comments posted on
the ministry’s website.
“Unfortunately, the situation along the border remains tense,” he said. “We call
on the sides to refrain from any actions fraught with a further degradation of
the situation and to resolve problems by diplomatic-political means.”
“Russia is prepared to continue to provide necessary support for normalizing the
situation along the Armenian-Azerbaijani border through de-escalation measures
and a quick launch of joint work on delimiting and demarcating the border,”
added Bikantov.
Tensions have run over the past week at border sections separating Armenia’s
northeastern Gegharkunik province from the Kelbajar district handed back to
Azerbaijan after the autumn war in Nagorno-Karabakh. Three Armenian soldiers
were killed and four others wounded there early on Wednesday in what the
Armenian military described as a failed Azerbaijani attempt to capture one of
its border posts.
The Armenian military claimed to have shot down on Thursday night an Azerbaijani
surveillance drone in the same mountainous area. It released photographs
purportedly showing fragments of the Israeli-manufactured Aerostar unmanned
aerial vehicle lying in a field.
The Azerbaijani Defense Ministry denied the claim.
Armenia - Photographs released by the Armenian Defense Ministry purportedly show
fragments of an Azerbaijani army drone shot down in Gegharkunik province July
29, 2021.
The Defense Ministry in Yerevan also accused Azerbaijani forces of opening fire
on Friday morning at its positions outside an Armenian village bordering
Azerbaijan’s Nakhichevan exclave. It said Armenian troops returned fire.
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian said on Thursday Armenia will ask Russia to
deploy Russian border guards along the entire frontier. Russian officials
responded coolly to the idea.
Moscow already proposed in May that Yerevan and Baku set up a commission on the
delimitation and demarcation of the Armenian-Azerbaijani border. Russian Foreign
Minister Sergei Lavrov expressed his country’s readiness to participate in its
activities as a “consultant or mediator.”
The offer came days after Azerbaijani troops advanced a few kilometers into
Gegharkunik and another Armenian province, Syunik, through several sections of
the border. Pashinian said at the time that Yerevan will agree to the proposed
creation of an Armenian-Azerbaijani commission on border demarcation only if
Baku withdraws its forces from Armenian territory.
Azerbaijan has since repeatedly ruled out such a withdrawal, saying that they
took up positions on the Azerbaijani side of the frontier.
Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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