Monday,
Gas Supply To Karabakh Blocked Again
• Ruzanna Stepanian
• Nane Sahakian
Nagorno-Karabakh - Schoolchildren warm themselves around a stove in the
classroom in Stepanakert, December 15, 2022.
Azerbaijan offered to hold more talks with Nagorno-Karabakh’s representatives on
Monday three days after reportedly again blocking Armenia’s supplies of natural
gas to Karabakh.
The flow of gas through a pipeline passing through Azerbaijani-controlled
territory stopped late on Friday nearly three months after Azerbaijani
government-backed protesters blocked Karabakh’s sole land link with Armenia and
the outside world.
The gas supply has been regularly disrupted during the blockade, adding to
shortages of energy, good, medicine and other essential items experienced by
Karabakh’s population. Armenia’s electricity supplies to Karabakh were similarly
cut off by Baku on January 10, leading to daily power cuts there. They have
still not been restored.
Arayik Harutiunian, the Karabakh president, held on Sunday an emergency meeting
with other officials in Stepanakert to discuss his administration’s response to
the latest disruption.
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev’s office said on Monday that it is inviting
“representatives of Karabakh’s Armenian community” to visit Baku for further
talks on Karabakh’s “reintegration” into Azerbaijan and “infrastructure
projects.” The authorities in Stepanakert did not immediately respond to the
move.
Azerbaijani and Karabakh officials already met at the headquarters of Russian
peacekeepers near Stepanakert on March 1. The two sides gave differing accounts
of the agenda and purpose of the meeting.
Karabakh’s leadership said its participants discussed the restoration of
“unimpeded” traffic thorough the Lachin corridor and Armenia’s energy supplies
to the Armenian-populated region.
An official Azerbaijani readout of the talks said, however, that they focused on
the Karabakh Armenians’ “integration into Azerbaijan.”
Harutiunian insisted afterwards that his representatives refused to engage in
such a discussion. He said Baku responded by threatening to take “tougher and
more drastic steps” if Stepanakert persists in opposing the restoration of
Azerbaijani rule.
The Karabakh leader linked that to the March 5 shootout that left three Karabakh
police officers and two Azerbaijani soldiers dead. He warned the Karabakh
Armenians to brace themselves for more Azerbaijani “provocations.”
Meanwhile, Aliyev’s chief foreign policy aide, Hikmet Hajiyev, made clear on
Monday that Baku continues to oppose the creation of an “international
mechanism” for its dialogue with Stepanakert which is sought by Yerevan.
“There is no question of creating any international mechanism to discuss the
rights and security of the Karabakh Armenians,” he told report.az. “We have
never agreed to this.”
Hajiyev said the issue is Azerbaijan’s internal affair and Baku is not willing
to discuss it with Yerevan or any other third party.
The Azerbaijani official responded to comments made by the secretary of
Armenia’s Security Council, Armen Grigorian, in a March 10 interview with
RFE/RL’s Armenian Service.
Grigorian said, among other things, that Armenia will not sign a peace treaty
with Azerbaijan without negotiating security guarantees for Karabakh. Such
guarantees, he said, could include the establishment of a “demilitarized zone”
around Karabakh or “international presence” there.
Putin, Pashinian Discuss Escalating Tensions In Karabakh
Armenia - Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian and Russian President Vladimir
Putin attend a CSTO summit in Yerevan, November 23, 2022.
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian again telephoned Russian President Vladimir Putin
on Monday after Azerbaijan renewed its threats to launch fresh military
operations in Nagorno-Karabakh.
Azerbaijan accused Armenia at the weekend of continuing to send military
personnel and weapons to Karabakh with the help of Russian peacekeepers deployed
there. Yerevan was quick to deny that.
Meeting with the Azerbaijani army top brass in Baku on Saturday, Defense
Minister Zakir Hasanov said his troops must be prepared to take “preventive” and
“resolute” actions to thwart Armenian “provocations.”
In a statement released after the meeting, the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry
demanded that “illegal Armenian armed units” be disarmed and removed from
Karabakh. It said the Russian peacekeepers must help Baku achieve that objective.
The Azerbaijani military already threatened to “disarm and neutralize” Karabakh
Armenian forces on March 7 two days after a shootout outside Stepanakert left
three Karabakh Armenian police officers and two Azerbaijani soldiers dead. It
claimed that its soldiers came under fire as they tried to check a Karabakh
police vehicle allegedly smuggling weapons from Armenia.
The Armenian side strongly denied that, saying that the vehicle transported only
policemen and was ambushed by Azerbaijani special forces. Yerevan accused Baku
on March 8 of preparing the ground for another attack on Karabakh.
The Armenian government’s press office reported that Pashinian raised with Putin
the March 5 shootings and their “consequences” during what was their third phone
conversation in 41 days.
“In the context of overcoming the crisis in Karabakh, the Armenian prime
minister prioritized a targeted response by the Russian Federation,” it said in
a statement. It did not elaborate.
According to the Kremlin’s readout of the call, Putin “emphasized the need to
resolve all emerging issues in a constructive manner, in close contact and
interaction of the parties with Russian peacekeepers.”
The Russian Foreign Ministry last week criticized “bellicose rhetoric” on the
Karabakh conflict and urged both sides to “strictly” comply with their
Russian-brokered agreements.
Moscow has still not publicly reacted to the Azerbaijani allegations that the
Russian peacekeepers escorted Armenian military convoys in Karabakh.
Yerevan Vice-Mayor Arrested
• Narine Ghalechian
Armenia - Gevorg Simonian, a deputy mayor of Yrevan.
A former deputy health minister currently serving as vice-mayor of Yerevan was
arrested over the weekend on charges stemming from what an Armenian
law-enforcement agency called misuse of government funds provided for the fight
against COVID-19.
Gevorg Simonian was remanded in pre-trial custody after investigators searched
his office and rounded up a dozen medical workers on Friday. One of them, Babken
Shahumian, runs a private clinic in Yerevan that has treated thousands of
COVID-19 patients.
The Anti-Corruption Committee (ACC) claimed that the Medline Medical Center
rigged records of its medical services to defraud the government of 119 million
drams ($305,000) in 2020 and 2021. It said that Simonian did not properly
monitor the use of the government funds allocated to the clinic because of his
close personal relationship with Shahumian.
Simonian and Shahumian denied any wrongdoing. Nevertheless, a Yerevan court
allowed the ACC to hold them in detention pending investigation.
The criminal case is based in large measure on a report leased by the Armenian
parliament’s Audit Chamber last year. It suggested that officials from the
Ministry of Health embezzled and/or wasted some of the 26 billion drams ($66
million) in emergency government funding allocated following the onset of the
coronavirus pandemic.
In particular, the chamber said, the ministry inflated the number of
hospitalized COVID-19 patients and channeled 900 million drams into hospitals
that did not treat people infected with the respiratory disease. It also
questioned the integrity of relevant state procurements, saying that many of
them were administered without tenders.
Armenia -- Health Minister Arsen Torosian speaks at a cabinet meeting in
Yerevan, June 11, 2020.
The alleged abuses were committed during former Health Minister Arsen Torosian’s
tenure. Torosian, who is now a parliament deputy representing the ruling Civil
Contract party, rejected the Audit Chamber report as untrue and misleading.
In a lengthy Facebook post, Torosian decried the “fictitious” accusations
leveled against his former deputy. The former minister also pointed out that
investigators have still not questioned him despite the fact he is the one who
“issued those orders” which landed Simonian in jail.
Torosian was sacked by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian in January 2021.
Throughout his tenure he was criticized not only by opposition groups but also
some pro-government parliamentarians.
The criticism intensified during the pandemic which hit Armenia hard. Torosian
repeatedly defended his and other government officials’ response to the
unprecedented health crisis.
Reposted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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