Friday,
Armenian Border Area ‘Still Occupied By Azeri Troops’
• Ruzanna Stepanian
A new Azerbaijani army position outside the Armenian village of Tegh, March 31,
2023.
Residents of an Armenian border village insisted on Friday that contrary to
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s upbeat statements Azerbaijani troops have not
withdrawn from any of their community lands occupied three weeks ago.
Azerbaijani army units redeployed on March 30 to more parts of the Lachin
district sandwiched between Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh, completing a change in
the route of the Lachin corridor which began last August. Armenia’s National
Security Service (NSS) said hours later that they advanced up to 300 meters into
Armenian territory at five border locations adjacent to the village of Tegh.
Local government officials and farmers said Tegh lost a large part of its
agricultural land and pastures. Some of them said that the Azerbaijani military
made bigger territorial gains than is admitted by official Yerevan. They
dismissed the NSS’s April 1 claims that the situation in that border area
“improved significantly” as a result of negotiations held by Armenian and
Azerbaijani officials.
Tensions there escalated on April 11 into a skirmish between Armenian and
Azerbaijani forces which left at least seven soldiers from both sides dead.
“The Azerbaijanis haven’t retreated a single inch from Tegh’s lands,” one local
resident told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service on Friday. “They are continuing
fortification works.”
He was perplexed by Pashinian’s comments made on Thursday. The prime minister
told reporters that the “problematic section” of the Armenian-Azerbaijani border
around Tegh was 5 kilometers long and that the Armenian and Azerbaijani sides
“ascertained” 1.4 kilometers of it after the deadly fighting.
“That means Armenian border guards are deployed at a certain distance from that
border and Azerbaijani border guards are deployed at a certain distance from
that border,” he said.
Pashinian did not clarify whether the Azerbaijani troops withdrew from that
1.4-kilometer stretch or whether Yerevan does not consider it Armenian territory
anymore as a result of the unofficial border delimitation.
“Again, they haven’t retreated a single inch,” countered the Tegh farmer, who
did not want to be identified. “What has been ascertained?”
Tegh residents are still awaiting concrete actions by the Armenian government,
he said, warning that their patience is running out.
The governor of Armenia’s Syunik province encompassing Tegh said earlier this
week that the government will compensate villagers for the loss of their land
holdings and main source of income.
The Armenian opposition blames Pashinian for the fresh territorial gains made by
Azerbaijan. Opposition leaders say he should have ordered the Armenian army or
border guards to take up positions along the Armenian side of the Tegh border
section ahead of the Azerbaijani advance.
Armenia To Introduce Voluntary Military Service For Women
• Susan Badalian
Armenia - Female military personnel.
The Armenian government announced on Friday plans to introduce voluntary
military service for women.
A relevant bill approved by the government is part of its declared defense
reforms and a gradual transition to a “professional army” promised by Prime
Minister Nikol Pashinian.
Under the bill drafted by the Armenian Defense Ministry, the six-month service
will become obligatory for young women once they are formally drafted by the
country’s armed forces.
They will serve in military training units for six months and then have the
option of becoming contract soldiers eligible for combat duty. Also, every
female conscript will be paid 1 million drams ($2,600) after completing the
service.
“It will be a normal service, not a stroll through barracks,” Pashinian said
during a cabinet meeting in Yerevan.
The bill will likely be approved by the Armenian parliament. In that case, the
military will be able to start enlisting women for the six-month duty already
this fall.
The Armenian army already has female soldiers and officers within its ranks.
Their current number is not revealed by the Defense Ministry.
It stood at over 1,400 in 2013 when Armenia’s two military academies began
admitting women as cadets. The vast majority of the female personnel held
clerical positions in the Defense Ministry, army detachments and other military
structures.
There was also a growing number of women performing combat roles. They
participated in the 2020 war in Nagorno-Karabakh and subsequent fighting on
Armenia’s border with Azerbaijan. Five Armenian women were killed during last
September’s large-scale border clashes.
Opposition Lawmaker Risks Losing Parliament Post
• Gayane Saribekian
Armenia - Taguhi Tovmasian, chairwoman of the parliament committee on human
rights, speaks during a news conference, October 10, 2022.
Nearly three dozen lawmakers from the ruling Civil Contract party have moved to
dismiss their opposition colleague Taguhi Tovmasian as chairwoman of the
Armenian parliament’s standing committee on human rights.
Tovmasian was forcibly removed, together with several other opposition deputies,
from the parliament’s main auditorium on Thursday after occupying its rostrum in
protest against Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s latest statements on the
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. She condemned the use of force, ordered by speaker
Alen Simonian, as illegal.
Hovik Aghazarian, a controversial Civil Contract deputy, announced shortly after
the incident that he is collecting signatures in support of stripping Tovmasian
of her post. At least 28 other pro-government parliamentarians signed the
initiative by Friday afternoon.
The ruling party’s parliamentary group is expected meet in the coming days to
decide whether to oust Tovmasian.
The official rationale for the proposed dismissal is not Thursday’s incident but
the April 4 meeting of the parliament committee on human rights which discussed
two candidates for the then vacant post of Armenia’s human rights defender.
The meeting chaired by Tovmasian was marred by verbal abuse and threats shouted
by some Civil Contract deputies at the candidate nominated by the Armenian
opposition. One of those deputies publicly pledged to “cut the tongues and ears
of anyone” who would make disparaging comments about the 2018 “velvet
revolution” that brought Pashinian to power.
Despite a resulting uproar, law-enforcement authorities declined to investigate
the threats. Nor did Pashinian’s party take any disciplinary action against its
lawmakers involved in the ugly scenes.
The party is now considering instead ousting Tovmasian, who is affiliated with
the opposition Pativ Unem bloc. Aghazarian blamed her for the chaotic committee
meeting, saying that she should have interrupted it.
Tovmasian countered that she did so after the unusually aggressive behavior of
Aghazarian’s pro-government colleagues. “There are no grounds for discussing my
dismissal,” she said, accusing the authorities of putting “political pressure”
on her.
Tovmasian, who is a former journalist and newspaper editor, is the last
remaining oppositionist holding a leadership position in the National Assembly.
One of the parliament’s three deputy speakers, Ishkhan Saghatelian, and the
chairman of the parliament committee on economic affairs, Vahe Hovsepian, were
ousted last July after weeks of anti-government protests organized by their
Hayastan alliance and Pativ Unem. Another Hayastan deputy, Armen Gevorgian,
immediately resigned as chairman of a committee dealing with “Eurasian
integration” in protest. Tovmasian pointedly declined to follow suit.
Reposted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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