Monday, September 4, 2023
Karabakh To Ration Bread Due To Blockade
Nagorno-Karabakh - People line up outside a bakery in Stepanakert.
Authorities in Nagorno-Karabakh have decided to ration bread in the capital
Stepanakert to cope with a serious shortage of flour resulting from Azerbaijan’s
nine-month blockade of the Lachin corridor.
They began handing out Monday ration stamps to residents of the town which is
home to roughly half of Karabakh’s estimated population of 120,000. Starting
from Tuesday, every Stepanakert resident will be able to buy only half a loaf of
bread weighing 200 grams.
Bread has become an even more important staple food in Stepanakert and other
Karabakh towns since Azerbaijan tightened the blockade in mid-June by halting
all relief supplies to the Armenian-populated region carried out by Russian
peacekeepers and the International Committee of the Red Cross. Local food stores
have run out of most other basic foodstuffs rationed since January.
The bread shortage worsened at the end of August, with locals spending more
hours waiting in lines to buy up to two loaves per person from bakeries.
Karabakh’s Agricultural Support Fund again urged local farmers at the weekend to
sell off their wheat stocks and thus help alleviate the deficit. The fund set a
higher price -- 250 drams per kilogram (65 U.S. cents) -- and offered other
incentives in hopes of buying more wheat grown by them.
By comparison, the market-based wholesale price of wheat in Armenia currently
stands at less than 100 drams per kilogram.
“Dear farmers, please … sell the stored wheat to the fund so that we can
together overcome the existing crisis as soon as possible,” the public agency
said in a statement. “The struggle is not only war, this is also a struggle from
which we can emerge victorious only thanks to our unity.”
The humanitarian crisis has prompted serious concern from the United States, the
European Union and other international actors. As well as insisting on the
immediate reopening of the Lachin corridor, the Western powers have implicitly
urged Karabakh to agree to another, Azerbaijani-controlled supply route sought
by Baku.
Most Karabakh Armenians appear to remain strongly opposed to that route. Scores
of them have been blocking a road leading to the Azerbaijani town of Aghdam to
prevent two Azerbaijani trucks loaded with 40 tons of flour from entering
Karabakh. They as well as the authorities in Stepanakert believe that the
proposed aid is a publicity stunt aimed at legitimizing the blockade and helping
Azerbaijan regain full control over Karabakh.
Tensions Mount Between Russia, Armenia
Russia - Russian President Vladimir Putin meets with Armenian Prime Minister
Nikol Pashinian in his Novo-Ogaryovo residence outside Moscow, April 19, 2022.
Russia denounced on Monday Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s fresh criticism of
Russian peacekeepers in Nagorno-Karabakh and his claims that Moscow is
“unwilling or unable” to defend Armenia and may eventually leave the South
Caucasus.
Highlighting unprecedented tensions between the two allied countries, a Russian
official warned Yerevan against helping the West “squeeze Russia out” of the
region.
In an interview with Italy’s La Repubblica daily publicized by his press office
over the weekend, Pashinian declared that his government is trying to “diversify
our security policy” because Armenia’s long-standing heavy reliance on Russia
has proved a “strategic mistake.”
“Armenia’s security architecture, including the logic of weapons and ammunition
acquisition, has been connected to Russia by 99,999 percent,” he said. “But now
that Russia itself needs weapons and munitions [amid the war in Ukraine] it is
obvious that in this situation the Russian Federation could not provide for
Armenia's security needs even if it wanted to.”
“The Russian Federation has been in our region, the South Caucasus, for quite a
long time. But we have seen situations when the Russian Federation simply left
the South Caucasus in one day, one month or one year,” he went on, apparently
referring to the 1917 collapse of the Russian Empire.
“There are processes that, of course, lead one to think that the same scenario
could be repeated and that one day we will simply wake up and see that Russia is
not here,” added Pashinian.
Russia hit back at Pashinian, with an unnamed “diplomatic source” in Moscow
calling Pashinian’s comments “unacceptable.”
“In fact, they are trying to artificially squeeze Russia out of the South
Caucasus, using Yerevan as a means of achieving this goal,” the source told the
official TASS news agency. “As Armenia’s closest neighbor and friend, Russia,
does not intend to leave the region. However, this should be a two-way street:
Armenia should also not become a weapon for the West to squeeze out Russia.”
Pashinian also slammed the Russian peacekeeping forces for their failure to
reopen the Lachin corridor, Nagorno-Karabakh’s sole land link with Armenia,
blocked by Azerbaijan last December. The blockade, he said, means the
peacekeepers are “not fulfilling their mission” defined by the Russian-brokered
agreement that stopped the 2020 war in Karabakh.
The Russian source cited by TASS rejected Pashinian’s “baseless attacks” on the
peacekeepers. He said that the Armenian premier’s controversial recognition of
Azerbaijani sovereignty over Karabakh “made the work of the Russian peacekeeping
contingent as difficult as possible.”
The Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, Maria Zakharova, likewise charged on
August 30 that Pashinian’s far-reaching concession to Baku paved the way for the
Azerbaijani blockade and the resulting humanitarian crisis in Karabakh. Her
Armenian opposite number dismissed the claim and cited a long list of Armenian
grievances against Moscow.
The rift between Moscow and Yerevan has deepened over the past year, fueling
speculation about a pro-Western shift in Armenia’s traditional geopolitical
orientation. Some of Pashinian’s political allies and Western-funded civic
groups have welcomed such a prospect. By contrast, Armenia’s main opposition
groups are seriously concerned about it, arguing that the West is not ready to
give Armenia security guarantees or significant military aid.
Armenian Airport Again ‘Struck By Azeri Gunfire’
• Ruzanna Stepanian
Armenia - An L-410 plane carrying Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian lands at Kapan
airport, August 17, 2023.
Azerbaijani troops have reportedly opened fire at the civilian airport of Kapan
for the third time since the recent start of commercial flights between the
Armenian border town and Yerevan.
Armenia’s Investigative Committee confirmed on Monday reports that the small
airport’s walls and windows were damaged by several gunshots fired early on
September 1. The committee said it is conducting a criminal investigation into
attempted murder and damage to property motivated by “ethnic hatred.”
“According to preliminary data, the gunshots were fired from
Azerbaijani-controlled territory,” the spokesman for the law-enforcement agency,
Gor Abrahamian, told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service.
Armenia’s state border guard service said earlier that the Kapan airport first
came under cross-border fire on August 18 less than 24 hours after a plane
carrying Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian landed there. According to it, three
gunshots were fired from Azerbaijani army positions overlooking the facility,
damaging its roof and one of the windows.
Another shooting incident was reported on August 19 just minutes after a plane
carrying other senior officials from Yerevan touched down on the runway. Local
officials accused Azerbaijan of trying to disrupt the first post-Soviet flight
service between Yerevan and Kapan launched by the NovAir airline on August 21.
Later in August, the Armenian government notified the International Civil
Aviation Organization (ICAO) about the shootings and asked the 193-nation body
to help prevent a repeat of such incidents.
A spokeswoman for a Yerevan-based ticketing agency representing NovAir said that
the airline continued its twice-weekly flights to and from Kapan, most recently
on Monday, following the latest gunfire. The private carrier uses small L-410
aircraft capable of carrying up to 17 passengers.
Thousands Rally In Yerevan For Karabakh
Armenia - Opposition supporters rally in Yerevan, September 2, 2023.
The Armenian opposition rallied thousands of supporters in Yerevan at the
weekend to show support for Nagorno-Karabakh’s population blockaded by
Azerbaijan and demand Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s resignation.
The rally organized by the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (Dashnaktsutyun)
and joined by other major opposition parties as well as former Presidents Serzh
Sarkisian and Robert Kocharian was timed to coincide with the 32nd anniversary
of the proclamation of the unrecognized Nagorno-Karabakh Republic. It came amid
a worsening humanitarian crisis in the Armenian-populated region resulting from
the nearly nine-month Azerbaijani blockade of the Lachin corridor.
“Today the heroic people of Artsakh are putting up unprecedented resistance,”
Dashnaktsutyun leader Ishkhan Saghatelian told the crowd rallying in Yerevan’s
Liberty Square. “The Armenian mother, with her hungry child in her arms, refuses
the food offered by the enemy and declares that this struggle is a struggle for
identity, for dignity, for living in the native land and for self-determination.”
Echoing Russian Foreign Ministry statements, Saghatelian claimed that Pashinian
paved the way for the blockade with his recognition of Azerbaijani sovereignty
over Karabakh. Pashinian has no popular mandate to make such a concession to
Baku, he said, branding the Armenian premier as a European Union “puppet.”
Armenia - Opposition leader Ishkhan Saghatelian speaks during a rally in
Yerevan, September 2, 2023.
“All mediating countries and international organizations should bear in mind
that the person with whom they are negotiating today and who speaks on behalf of
Armenia does not represent the Armenian people and any agreement reached with
him is null and void,” added Saghatelian.
Saghatelian went on to promise renewed opposition protests aimed at scuttling a
“treasonous” peace deal with Azerbaijan and removing Pashinian from power. “Our
next meeting will not come too late,” he told the demonstrators without giving
any dates.
Armenia’s main opposition groups jointly staged daily protests in Yerevan in May
and June 2022 after Pashinian signaled readiness to “lower the bar” on
Karabakh’s status acceptable to his government. They claim to have delayed a
“capitulation agreement” with Baku despite failing to topple him.
Dashnaktsutyun vowed to launch another protest movement after Pashinian
explicitly recognized Karabakh as part of Azerbaijan in May this year.
Saghatelian spoke on Saturday of “active discussions taking place in the
opposition camp” for that purpose.
Reposted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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