Wednesday,
Armenia, Iran Extend Energy Swap Deal
Representatives of Iran and Armenia sign an agreement extending an energy swap
scheme between the two countries until 2030. Yerevan, .
Armenia and Iran on Thursday signed an agreement to extend the term of the
“natural gas for electricity” program by four years and increase its volumes.
The new agreement was signed at Armenia’s Ministry of Territorial Administration
and Infrastructure between Aram Ghazarian, Director General of Yerevan’s Thermal
Power Plant, and Majid Chegeni, Deputy Minister of Oil of Iran and Director of
the Islamic Republic’s National Gas Company.
Armenian Minister of Economic and Technological Development Gnel Sanosian
congratulated the parties on the extension of the agreement, emphasizing that it
is “one of the best manifestations of Armenian-Iranian friendly relations.”
“The extension of the agreement is a profitable deal for both countries. With
the extension of this agreement it is possible to increase gas imports and
electricity exports, which will definitely have a positive effect on the
economic development of both countries,” he said, according to an official press
release.
Chegeni, in his turn, reportedly stressed that the new agreement will “give a
new impetus to the development of Armenian-Iranian relations.”
Since 2009, Armenia has been importing natural gas from Iran and turning it into
electricity at a local thermal power plant, supplying it back to Iran. The
surplus of electricity obtained from one cubic meter of natural gas has remained
in Armenia.
Under this scheme, the term of the agreement was to expire in 2026. With the
agreement signed today, the period has been extended until 2030. However,
specific figures regarding the volumes of supplies are not mentioned in official
reports.
Oskanian Urges Armenian PM To Renounce Prague Statement
• Ruzanna Stepanian
Former Armenian Foreign Minister Vartan Oskanian (file photo).
Former Armenian Foreign Minister Vartan Oskanian has called on Prime Minister
Nikol Pashinian to withdraw from the statement made in Prague last year, by
which Baku and Yerevan recognized each other’s territorial integrity and
sovereignty based on the declaration signed in Almaty in 1991.
In a new video on Facebook Oskanian claimed that this statement is one of the
main causes of the closure of the Lachin corridor by Azerbaijan that has put
Karabakh Armenians “on the brink of starvation.”
“Pashinian made a big mistake. Pashinian must admit he made that mistake and
correct it. Today he has the opportunity to retract that statement, just based
on today’s situation. He can clearly say that ‘I’ve tried something, but I see
that our opponent is abusing it, so I retract that statement, and today I have
the right to do that’,” Oskanian said.
The former foreign minister said he believes that the Prague statement made
following Pashinian’s quadrilateral meeting with Azerbaijani President Ilham
Aliyev, French President Emmanuel Macron and President of the European Council
Charles Michel on October 6 last year “has become a serious obstacle, because no
one can do anything to unblock the corridor.”
“Russia has already openly said it. Citing the Prague statement and Pashinian’s
signature under it that has significantly changed the entire essence of the
November 9, [2020 trilateral] statement, Russia says that today it cannot do
anything and it says it openly. The West doesn’t say it openly, but it says the
same in private meetings,” Oskanian said.
Without giving names Oskanian also claimed that “many people abroad are doing
serious work, both at the governmental and legislative levels, trying to change
the content of the negotiations, but they are facing the same wall.”
“They are told that the government of Armenia has a different approach… and that
they should rather work with their own [Armenian] government,” the former
Armenian diplomat said.
“Believe me, if there is a change in the attitude of the Armenian government
today, the attitude of the international community will change dramatically,
too,” Oskanian said.
Oskanian suggested that today it is still possible for Pashinian to go back on
his statement without provoking a war, while today’s situation, in the former
foreign minister’s view, only increases the possibility of war. “Because
Pashinian has made a lot of promises to Azerbaijan, but the signing of the
document stalls,” he said.
“I think that it will not be easy for Pashinian to sign such a document, because
its content has nothing to do with the interests of the Armenian people.
Naturally, this can be dragged out, and this is where the danger lies, and
believe me, the mediators will not be able to do anything here, because all the
time you promise something to your opponent, which you do not fulfill. That’s
why I’m just asking, I’m begging, that we change the approach, the narrative of
today’s negotiations as it contains a serious danger, and the possibility for
doing that really exists today,” Oskanian concluded.
Pashinian has repeatedly supported mutual recognition of territorial integrity
by Armenia and Azerbaijan as a way to move forward in hammering out a peace
agreement between the two South Caucasus nations. In his several public remarks
he said that Armenia was ready to recognize Azerbaijan’s Soviet-era borders if
Baku does the same in respect with the Armenian borders that existed during the
Soviet times. While this means also recognizing Nagorno-Karabakh within the
borders of Azerbaijan, the Pashinian government has insisted that an
internationally visible dialogue take place between Baku and Stepanakert on the
rights and security of Karabakh Armenians.
Earlier, Pashinian and members of his political teams also dismissed Oskanian’s
offer to lead diplomatic efforts on changing the course of the current
negotiations with Azerbaijan. In a recent speech in parliament Pashinian, in
particular, suggested that all of the steps publically proposed by the former
foreign minister to be taken to raise the issue of at least an autonomous status
for Nagorno-Karabakh have actually been taken by the current administration.
Azerbaijan Dismisses Opinion By Top International Lawyer On ‘Genocide Against
Armenians’ In Karabakh
Hikmet Hajiyev, a foreign policy advisor to Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev
(file photo)
A senior official in Baku has rejected as biased a report by a leading expert on
international criminal law who described the ongoing blockade of
Nagorno-Karabakh by Azerbaijan as a genocide.
Hikmet Hajiyev, a foreign policy advisor to Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev,
said on Thursday that the report released by the founding prosecutor of the
International Criminal Court, Luis Moreno Ocampo, earlier this week “contains
unsubstantiated allegations and accusations.”
In his 28-page expert opinion requested by Arayik Harutiunian, the ethnic
Armenian leader of Nagorno-Karabakh, Ocampo, an Argentine lawyer who served at
the Hague court in 2003-2012, assessed whether the current siege of
Nagorno-Karabakh by Azerbaijan implemented by blocking the only road of supply
from Armenia and resulting in a dramatically worsening humanitarian situation in
the region amounts to the crime of genocide.
In the document that he released from New York on August 7 Ocampo gives a
straightforward answer, stating that “there is an ongoing Genocide against
120,000 Armenians living in Nagorno-Karabakh.”
Luis Moreno Ocampo
The 71-year-old lawyer who successfully prosecuted for crimes against humanity
three heads of state, including the president of Sudan, Omar al-Bashir, says
that “the blockade of the Lachin Corridor by the Azerbaijani security forces
impeding access to any food, medical supplies, and other essentials should be
considered a Genocide under Article II, (c) of the Genocide Convention:
‘Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring
about its physical destruction.’”
“There are no crematories, and there are no machete attacks. Starvation is the
invisible Genocide weapon. Without immediate dramatic change, this group of
Armenians will be destroyed in a few weeks. Starvation as a method to destroy
people was neglected by the entire international community when it was used
against Armenians in 1915, Jews and Poles in 1939, Russians in Leningrad (now
Saint Petersburg) in 1941, and Cambodians in 1975/1976. Starvation was also
neglected when used in Srebrenica in the winter of 1993/1994,” Ocampo writes.
In his expert opinion Ocampo also refers to the analysis of the Lachin corridor
blockade given by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) at Armenia’s request.
Still in February the United Nations’ top court ordered Azerbaijan to restore
“unimpeded” traffic through the sole road connecting Nagorno-Karabakh to
Armenia. It reaffirmed its position in July, a few weeks after Baku only
tightened the de facto blockade by prohibiting all kinds of cargoes coming to
the region.
Ocampo further maintains that “there is reasonable basis to believe that
President Aliyev has Genocidal intentions.” “He has knowingly, willingly and
voluntarily blockaded the Lachin Corridor even after having been placed on
notice regarding the consequences of his actions by the ICJ’s provisional
orders,” the founding prosecutor of the International Criminal Court concludes.
Meanwhile, in rejecting the Ocampo report, Hajiyev, according to Azerbaijani
media, said: “It is biased and distorts the real situation on the ground and
represents serious factual, legal and substantive errors.” Aliyev’s aide did not
elaborate.
Nagorno-Karabakh’s leader Harutiunian on August 8 issued an urgent appeal to the
international community, asking for immediate action to lift the blockade
imposed by Azerbaijan and prevent what he called “the genocide of the people of
Nagorno-Karabakh.”
Meanwhile, in a post on Twitter today Armenia’s Ambassador-at-Large Edmon
Marukian wrote that Ocampo’s is “a solid report with facts and analyses, which
may become a future indictment against the Azerbaijani leadership.”
Officials in Baku deny blockading Nagorno-Karabakh, saying that humanitarian
supplies to the region could also be implemented through the Azeri-controlled
town of Agdam, which is situated to the east of the region and is away from
Armenia.
Despite severe shortages of food, medicines, fuel and other essentials in the
region ethnic Armenian authorities in Nagorno-Karabakh reject that offer,
fearing that it could be a prelude to the absorption of what remains of the
former autonomous oblast into Azerbaijan.
Authorities in both Yerevan and Stepanakert consider the Azerbaijani checkpoint
at the Lachin corridor illegal as they insist its violates a Moscow-brokered
2020 ceasefire agreement that places the vital route under the control of
Russian peacekeepers.
Armenia and Azerbaijan have been locked in a conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh for
decades. Some 30,000 people were killed in a war in the early 1990s that left
ethnic Armenians in control of the predominantly Armenian-populated region and
seven adjacent districts of Azerbaijan proper.
Decades of internationally mediated talks failed to result in a diplomatic
solution and the simmering conflict led to another war in 2020 in which nearly
7,000 soldiers were killed on both sides.
The 44-day war in which Azerbaijan regained all of the Armenian-controlled areas
outside of Nagorno-Karabakh as well as chunks of territory inside the Soviet-era
autonomous oblast proper ended with a Russia-brokered ceasefire under which
Moscow deployed about 2,000 troops to the region to serve as peacekeepers.
Tensions along the restive Armenian-Azerbaijani border and around
Nagorno-Karabakh leading to sporadic fighting and loss of life have persisted
despite the ceasefire and publicly stated willingness of the leaders of both
countries to work towards a negotiated peace.
Heat Wave Hits Armenian Capital, Ararat Valley
• Robert Zargarian
A view of Mount Ararat and the Ararat Plain from the center of Yerevan (file
photo).
Armenians are coping with a heat wave coming from the south as air temperatures
in parts of the country are rising to extremely high levels this week.
According to a weather forecast, lower areas of Yerevan and the rest of the
Ararat Valley in which they are situated as well as foothills of Armenia’s
southern Syunik province will see air temperatures of up to 42 degrees Celsius
in the period from August 10 to 14.
Meteorologists say the heat wave is coming from the Arabian Peninsula and along
with sweltering weather bring in its wake higher-than-normal levels of
ultraviolet radiation.
Health experts, meanwhile, advise staying hydrated and avoiding being in the sun
during the day.
“We recommend reducing caffeine-containing drinks and beverages, both hot and
cold, as much as possible, because even though they have a short-term refreshing
effect, they exhaust the body, and sugar-containing drinks make them heavier and
dehydrated,” said Nune Bakunts, deputy director of the National Disease
Prevention Center.
She also recommends that people stay in the shade as much as possible whenever
it is absolutely necessary to be outside during the day and that they wear a hat
and sunglasses. According to the specialist, oily and hard-to-digest foods
should also be avoided or at least consumed during the coolest hours of the day,
while preference should be given to vegetables and easy-to-digest food taken in
small portions.
Emergency services, meanwhile, warn that risks of fires also increase due to
high air temperatures and a prolonged period of dry weather. They caution
against starting fires in forests or throwing away burning matches or cigarettes.
According to weather forecasts, air temperatures in Yerevan and the rest of
Armenia will go down a little after August 14 but are likely to stay relatively
high for the rest of the month.
Reposted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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