Friday,
Main Opposition Bloc Backs Yerevan Mayoral Candidate
Armenia - Opposition mayoral candidate Andranik Tevanian (left) greets
supporters during a campaign rally in Yerevan, August 23, 2023.
The Hayastan alliance headed by former President Robert Kocharian on Friday
endorsed another opposition group running in the upcoming municipal elections in
Yerevan.
Hayastan had decided not join the mayoral race, with some of its representatives
citing grave security challenges facing Armenia as well as Nagorno-Karabakh.
Media reports attributed the de facto boycott to a lack of consensus within the
alliance on its potential mayoral candidate.
Andranik Tevanian, a Hayastan parliamentarian, disagreed with the boycott,
resigning from the National Assembly and setting up his own bloc called Mayr
Hayastan (Mother Armenia) to run for Yerevan mayor. The bloc’s main campaign
message is that an opposition victory in the elections scheduled for September
17 would pave the way for regime change in the country.
Hayastan’s parliamentary group discussed the vote during a meeting chaired by
Kocharian. In an ensuing statement, it said they decided to back Tevanian’s bloc
in the polls. The statement did not specify whether Kocharian or other senior
Hayastan figures will actively participate in the election campaign.
Kocharian has kept a low profile in recent months, raising questions about his
political future. The 68-year-old ex-president’s politically active son Levon
was present at Tevanian’s inaugural campaign rally held on Wednesday.
Other major mayoral candidates include Tigran Avinian, Yerevan’s deputy mayor
representing the ruling Civil Contract party, former Mayor Hayk Marutian and
former Labor Minister Mane Tandilian leading the opposition Aprelu Yerkir party.
Avinian said on Thursday that Civil Contract expects to win a majority of seats
in the city council that will appoint the next mayor of the Armenian capital.
Karabakh Leader Offers Russian-Mediated Talks With Azerbaijan
Nagorno-Karabakh - Gurgen Nersisian delivers a video address on Facebook, August
25, 2023.
Russia should be asked to organize negotiations between representatives of the
Azerbaijani government and Nagorno-Karabakh’s leadership, a senior official in
Stepanakert said on Friday.
“I believe that we should appeal to Russia, all actors taking an interest in the
situation [in and around Karabakh] with a proposal to organize a meeting with
Azerbaijan on the existing situation, security issues and the disastrous
humanitarian situation in Artsakh,” Gurgen Nersisian, the Karabakh premier, said
in a video message posted on Facebook.
“The results of that meeting should be presented to our public and appropriate
decisions should be made afterwards,” added Nersisian.
Azerbaijani officials and Karabakh representatives were reportedly due to meet
in Bulgaria’s capital Sofia in early July for talks organized by Western
mediators. Karabakh sources said it was rescheduled for August 1 but then
cancelled by the Azerbaijani side. Baku wants such negotiations to be held in
Azerbaijani proper, according to them.
A spokeswoman for Arayik Harutiunian, the Karabakh president, confirmed last
week that he accepted an Azerbaijani proposal to hold the meeting in the
Azerbaijani town of Yevlakh on August 5. She said Stepanakert cancelled it for
security reasons after Azerbaijani security forces arrested a seriously ill
Karabakh resident as he was evacuated to Armenia through the Lachin corridor.
Nersisian said the talks should take place at the Karabakh headquarters of
Russian peacekeepers or “in any other safe venue” because “nobody can guarantee
the physical security of our citizens in Azerbaijan.” They must also be held
“with the participation of a third party,” he said.
Baku maintains that the dialogue must focus on Karabakh’s “reintegration into
Azerbaijan” rejected by Stepanakert. The Karabakh leadership says it must first
and foremost address the Azerbaijani blockade of the Lachin corridor which has
caused severe shortages of food, medicine and energy in the Armenian-populated
region. It has dismissed an alternative, Azerbaijani-controlled supply route
proposed by the Azerbaijani side.
Nersisian charged that Baku’s key aim is to commit “genocide” or at least force
the Karabakh Armenians to leave their homeland.
“Therefore, claims that making concessions in response to Azerbaijan’s demands
could give us a breathing space are unserious,” he said. “They are baseless
illusions. On the contrary, they would further complicate our situation.”
France Said To Seek UN Security Council Resolution On Karabakh
• Astghik Bedevian
France - France's President Emmanuel Macron walks on the day of the annual
Bastille Day military parade on the Champs-Elysees avenue in Paris, July 14,
2023.
France is reportedly planning to propose a UN Security Council resolution
against Azerbaijan’s continuing blockade of the Lachin corridor and the
resulting humanitarian crisis in Nagorno-Karabakh.
The French daily Le Figaro reported on Wednesday that the draft resolution which
Paris is “preparing to submit” to the council is designed to help Karabakh’s
ethnic Armenian population left “on the verge of starvation.” It gave few other
details.
The French Embassy in Yerevan did not confirm or refute the report. It pointed
to French President Emmanuel Macron’s interview with another French publication,
Le Point, published earlier on Wednesday. Macron said that his government will
keep pressing for the reopening of the Lachin corridor and the resumption of
urgent relief supplies to Karabakh.
The Security Council discussed the worsening humanitarian crisis in Karabakh
last week during an emergency meeting initiated by Armenia. Although most of its
members, notably the United States, France and Russia, urged the lifting of the
Azerbaijani blockade, the Council stopped short of adopting a relevant
resolution or statement.
The U.S. on Wednesday denied claims that it is trying to prevent the key UN body
from condemning the Azerbaijani blockade. “We have not seen a draft resolution,”
the U.S. Embassy in Yerevan told the Armenpress news agency.
France, which is home to a sizable Armenian community, has been the most vocal
international critic of the eight-month Azerbaijani blockade. Baku has
repeatedly accused Macron and other French officials of siding with Armenia in
the Karabakh conflict.
CCAF, a coalition of leading Armenian Diaspora organizations in France,
announced on Thursday that the municipal administrations of Paris and several
other French cities and districts have decided to send an aid convoy to
Karabakh. It said their mayors, including Anne Hidalgo of Paris, will personally
escort on August 30 ten trucks loaded with basic necessities to an Armenian
border checkpoint adjacent to the starting point of the Lachin corridor and try
to ensure their passage to Karabakh.
Reposted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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