Monday,
Karabakh Running Out Of Food, Medicine
• Susan Badalian
• Narine Ghalechian
Nagorno-Karabakh - Empty shelves at a supermarket in Stepanakert, January 17,
2023.
Residents of Nagorno-Karabakh struggled with worsening shortages of food and
medicine on Monday four days after Azerbaijan completely blocked relief supplies
to the Armenian-populated region.
Many essential items had already been in short supply since Baku blocked last
December commercial traffic through the sole road connecting Karabakh to
Armenia. Only vehicles escorted by the Russian peacekeeping forces and the
International Committee of the Red Cross have been able to pass through the
Lachin corridor for the last seven months.
The movement of these humanitarian convoys was halted on Thursday following a
shootout near an Azerbaijani checkpoint controversially set up in the corridor
in late April.
Armenia’s National Security Service (NSS) said that its border guards stopped a
group of Azerbaijani servicemen manning the checkpoint from advancing into
Armenian territory and placing an Azerbaijani flag there. The Azerbaijani
Foreign Ministry insisted that they did not cross into Armenia while attempting
to hoist the flag on a bridge located right next to the checkpoint.
Health authorities in Stepanakert said on Monday that local hospitals have
suspended non-urgent surgeries due to a resulting shortage of drugs and other
medical supplies. According to them, a total of 175 critically ill Karabakh
patients and their family members are now awaiting evacuation to hospitals in
Armenia.
Such evacuations were for months carried out by the ICRC. They too stopped on
Thursday.
“We are monitoring the situation and remain in touch with all decision-makers,”
Eteri Musayelian, an ICRC spokeswoman in Stepanakert, told RFE/RL’s Armenian
Service. “We hope to resume our work as soon as the situation allows.”
Also, locals said that shops in and outside Stepanakert are running out of
imported foodstuffs such as flour, cooking oil and sugar that have been rationed
by the authorities since February.
“We have ration coupons but there is little we can buy with them now,”
complained Arega Ishkhanian, a Stepanakert resident. She also spoke of an
increasingly “visible” shortage of fruit and vegetables.
Artak Beglarian, a Karabakh official, warned at the weekend that Karabakh will
run out of some types of food and medicine within several days if the relief
supplies are not restored.
“There is already an acute shortage of quite a few items: medicines, some
foodstuffs, gasoline and diesel fuel,” he said.
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian on Friday condemned the complete
blockage of humanitarian traffic through the Lachin corridor, accusing
Azerbaijan of continuing its “policy of ethnic cleansing in Nagorno-Karabakh.”
The Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry rejected the accusation. It said Baku will do
everything to “integrate” the Karabakh Armenians into Azerbaijan’s “political,
legal and socioeconomic frameworks.”
Russia Plans Consulate In Strategic Armenian Region
• Ruzanna Stepanian
Armenia - A view of Kajaran, a town in Syunik province.
Russia is planning to open a consulate in Armenia’s southeastern Syunik province
bordering Iran and Azerbaijan, a senior Armenian official confirmed on Monday.
“We welcome our international partners’ desire and interest to have diplomatic
presence in Syunik in order to be able to better familiarize themselves with the
situation on the ground,” Deputy Foreign Minister Vahan Kostanian told reporters.
A senior official from the Russian Foreign Minister, Sergei Paltov, announced
those plans late last month, saying that Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian
discussed and welcomed them during his May 25 meeting with Russian President
Vladimir Putin held in Moscow.
Paltov described the planned opening of the Russian consulate as a “very
important step” when he visited Syunik’s capital Kapan together with other
Russian officials late last week. He said the mission will provide consular
services to about a thousand Russian nationals currently based in Syunik.
The bulk of them are soldiers and border guards who were deployed by Moscow
during and after the 2020 war in Nagorno-Karabakh. The deployment was aimed at
helping the Armenian military defend the strategic region against possible
Azerbaijani attacks.
Armenia - Russian Ambassador Sergey Kopyrkin talks to Russian soldiers during a
visit to Syunik, June 3, 2021.
“The presence of our diplomats along with our border guards and military
personnel in [the Syunik towns of] of Sisian and Goris as well as Russian
entities will be an additional insurance net,” the Sputnik news agency quoted
Paltov as saying during a meeting with the provincial governor, Robert Ghukasian.
In his words, Russian diplomats could be stationed in Kapan this fall even
before the official opening of the consulate.
Syunik is Armenia’s sole region bordering Iran. Azerbaijani leaders have been
demanding that Yerevan open a special corridor connecting Azerbaijan to its
Nakhichevan exclave through Syunik. The Armenian side says it can only agree to
conventional transport links between the two South Caucasus states.
Iran is also strongly opposed to an extraterritorial corridor for Nakhichevan.
It has repeatedly warned Baku against attempting to strip the Islamic Republic
of the common border and transport links with Armenia. Iranian Foreign Minister
Hossein Amir-Abdollahian reiterated that “red line” when he visited Armenia last
October to inaugurate the Iranian consulate in Kapan.
Russian Official Details Hurdles To Armenian-Azeri Transport Links
• Karlen Aslanian
• Lilit Harutiunian
• Ruzanna Stepanian
Armenia - Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian meets Russia's Deputy Prime Minister
Alexei Overchuk, Yerevan, June 14, 2023.
Russia’s Deputy Prime Minister Alexei Overchuk has shed light on remaining
differences between Armenia and Azerbaijan that hamper the opening of their
border to commercial traffic.
Meeting in Moscow earlier this month, Overchuk and his Armenian and Azerbaijani
counterparts reportedly made major progress on the functioning of a railway that
would connect Azerbaijan to its Nakhichevan exclave through Armenia’s Syunik
province. For its part, Armenia would be able to use the railway for cargo
shipments to and from Russia or Iran.
“A draft document has been formed and almost completely agreed at our level,
although the main issue -- how ordinary Azerbaijanis and Armenians will interact
with each other when crossing the border -- still needs to be worked on,”
Overchuk told the TASS news agency in an interview published on Monday.
He said the agreement must regulate all aspects of ensuring the security of
Azerbaijanis entering Armenia and vice versa so that “nothing bad will happen to
these people on the territory of the other country.”
Overchuk said that he held a detailed discussion with Prime Minister Nikol
Pashinian on the matter after the Moscow meeting. “Much was clarified, and
something still remains and requires further discussion with the Azerbaijani
side,” he added without elaborating.
Azerbaijan’s Deputy Prime Minister Shahin Mustafayev claimed last week that
Russian border guards will oversee “unfettered” transport links between
Nakhichevan and western Azerbaijan passing through Armenia’s Syunik province.
The office of Armenian Deputy Prime Minister Mher Grigorian insisted, however,
that he and Mustafayev reached no such agreement during their trilateral talks
with Overchuk. It said that under the terms of the Russian-brokered agreement
that stopped the 2020 war in Nagorno-Karabakh the planned road and rail links
will be under full Armenian control.
Article 9 of the ceasefire agreement stipulates that the Russian border guards
stationed in Armenia will “control” the transit of people, vehicles and goods
between Nakhichevan and the rest of Azerbaijan.
According to Armenia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Vahan Kostanian, this means that
the Russians will largely “monitor” the commercial traffic, rather than escort
it, let alone be involved in border controls.
Pashinian and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev openly argued about the matter
during a Eurasian Economic Union summit held in Moscow on May 25. Pashinian
objected to Aliyev’s use of the term “Zangezur corridor,” saying that amounts to
Azerbaijani territorial claims to Armenia.
“The word ‘corridor’ does not constitute a claim to anybody’s territory,”
countered Aliyev.
Overchuk reiterated that the deal discussed by the three sides would commit Baku
to recognizing Armenian sovereignty over the transit routes.
“None of the parties questions the fact that individual sections of this road
will be under the jurisdiction of the country on whose territory they are
located,” he said. “Thus, in relation to this road, Azerbaijani legislation will
be applied in Azerbaijan and Armenian legislation in Armenia.”
Reposted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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