Friday,
ICJ Order Says Baku Must Ensure Safety Of Armenians Who Want To Return To
Nagorno-Karabakh
The International Court of Justice (ICJ) has published a preliminary order
calling on Azerbaijan to ensure the safety of Armenians who want to return to
Nagorno-Karabakh following Azerbaijan’s lightning offensive in September that
resulted in Baku regaining control of the region.
The ICJ decision on November 17 concluded that pending a final decision in the
case, Azerbaijan must ensure that people who left Nagorno-Karabakh after
September 19 and wish to return “are able to do so in a safe, unimpeded, and
expeditious manner.”
The same applies to people who wish to depart Nagorno-Karabakh, while those who
wish to stay must remain “free from the use of force or intimidation that may
cause them to flee,” the court said in its decision, approved 13-2 by the judges.
The judges also called on Azerbaijan to “protect and preserve registration,
identity, and private property documents and records” of people in the region
and told the country to submit a report to the UN’s top court within eight weeks
on the steps taken to apply the provisional measures.
The decision is a preliminary step in a case brought by Armenia accusing
Azerbaijan of breaching an international convention against racial
discrimination linked to Nagorno-Karabakh. Azerbaijan also has brought a case
against Armenia alleging breaches of the same convention. It is likely to take
years to resolve the cases.
The Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry said Baku welcomed the court’s decision, saying
it confirms the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Azerbaijan.
“It is worth noting that the court also rejected the groundless and ridiculous
request to withdraw the personnel of all the military and law enforcement
agencies of Azerbaijan from the Karabakh region,” the Azerbaijani Foreign
Ministry said in a statement.
According to the statement, the measures mentioned by the court accept the
already declared policy of the Azerbaijani government regarding the Armenian
residents of Karabakh.
“This includes our commitment to ensure the safety and security of all
residents, regardless of national or ethnic origin,” it said.
The decision released on November 17 comes after Armenia asked The Hague-based
ICJ to order so-called provisional measures guaranteeing safety and protecting
property and identity documents.
Armenia made the request after Azerbaijan’s army routed ethnic Armenian forces
in Nagorno-Karabakh in a 24-hour campaign that began on September 19. The
region’s ethnic Armenian government agreed within days to disband itself by the
end of the year as more than 100,000 ethnic Armenians fled Nagorno-Karabakh.
The Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry’s statement reiterated the country’s position
that it did not force out any ethnic Armenians and that many left despite the
government’s call for them to stay.
Azerbaijani Deputy Foreign Minister Elnur Mammadov pledged at a hearing before
the ICJ in October that Azerbaijan would do all it could to ensure the safety
and rights of all citizens in the region.
The court said on November 17 that the pledges “are binding and create legal
obligations for Azerbaijan.”
The ICJ decision also said that Azerbaijan’s operation in Nagorno-Karabakh took
place in the context of “the long-standing exposure of the population of
Nagorno-Karabakh to a situation of vulnerability and social precariousness.”
It said the residents of Nagorno-Karabakh “have been severely impacted by the
long-lasting disruption of the connection between Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia
via the Lachin Corridor.”
Azerbaijan Urged To Return To ‘Constructive Discussions’
• Ruzanna Stepanian
Artur Hovannisian, a member of the ruling Civil Contract faction in the Armenian
parliament
Assessing negatively Baku’s decision to cancel an upcoming meeting of the
foreign ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan in Washington on November 20, the
Armenian ruling party has called on Azerbaijan to return to the field of
“constructive discussions.”
“We see a non-constructive approach, which, in turn, can cause many problems and
risks,” Artur Hovannisian, a lawmaker representing Prime Minister Nikol
Pashinian’s Civil Contract faction in the National Assembly, told RFE/RL’s
Armenian Service on Friday.
Azerbaijan canceled talks planned in Washington for November 20, complaining
about the statements of James O’Brien, a senior U.S. Department of State
official who criticized Baku during a recent congressional hearing, warning that
“nothing will be normal with Azerbaijan” after its one-day military operation
against Nagorno-Karabakh in September “until we see progress on the peace track.”
In response, Baku described this approach by the United States as “one-sided”,
warning that Washington could lose its role as a mediator.
Earlier, Azerbaijan also refused to attend meetings in Granada and Brussels that
were planned by leaders of the European Union.
The government of Armenia, however, says it still does not rule out the signing
of a peace treaty with Azerbaijan by the end of the year.
“We do not rule out anything. We are moving forward constructively with the
peace agenda, and I repeat, I also hope that with the mediation and efforts of
our international partners, it will be possible to move forward effectively and
return Azerbaijan to a constructive framework,” Hovannisian stressed.
Artur Khachatrian, a lawmaker with the opposition Hayastan faction in the
Armenian parliament, meanwhile, said that he believed that Azerbaijani President
Ilham Aliyev rejected the meetings organized first by the European Union and
then through the mediation of the United States because “Western platforms are
no longer interesting to Azerbaijan.”
Artur Khachatrian
“Baku has already got what it wanted, namely Artsakh [Nagorno-Karabakh – red.],”
he said.
“Let’s not forget that for the first time in the history of the Third Republic
of Armenia, without having any right to do that, [an Armenian leader], Nikol
Pashinian, has recognized the sovereignty of Azerbaijan over the Republic of
Artsakh on the Western platform. They got what they wanted on those platforms,
now they have nothing to get from there anymore. That’s the main reason,” the
opposition lawmaker told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service.
“What it is fraught with? A new war?” he added.
The fact that Azerbaijan has canceled three meetings in the last two months,
according to another opposition lawmaker Tigran Abrahamian, shows that Baku is
buying time, trying to understand whether it is worth taking the path of
military operations to achieve its maximum goals.
Tigran Abrahamian
“I think that a certain calculation and re-evaluation of the balance of forces
is taking place in Azerbaijan at the moment, because it is obvious that
Azerbaijan today also has territorial claims towards various settlements of the
Republic of Armenia. Recently, they have been quite actively talking about
so-called enclaves, about their demands in relation to eight villages, and maybe
at this stage Azerbaijan is trying to gain time, to assess the situation and see
whether to resort to military action in specific directions in order to achieve
its maximum goals,” Abrahamian, of the Pativ Unem faction, told RFE/RL’s
Armenian Service.
Officials in Azerbaijan routinely deny statements from the Armenian side about
Baku’s being unconstructive in the negotiations, for their part accusing Yerevan
of not willing to make headway in the peace process.
Washington Reaffirms Support For Armenia-Azerbaijan Peace Talks
Spokesperson for the U.S. Department of State Matthew Miller (file photo).
Washington has reaffirmed its support for peace talks between Azerbaijan and
Armenia after Baku pulled out of an upcoming U.S.-hosted meeting citing “biased”
remarks by a Department of State official.
During a press briefing on November 16 Matthew Miller, a spokesperson for the
U.S. Department of State, was asked to comment on Baku’s step to refuse to
participate in Washington talks planned at the level of foreign ministers.
Miller said that “we continue to support peace talks to resolve the issues
between Azerbaijan and Armenia.”
“We would encourage the two parties to engage in those talks, whether they are
here, whether they are somewhere else, and that’ll continue to be our policy,”
he added.
Speaking to members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee’s Subcommittee on
Europe as part of a hearing on “the future of Nagorno-Karabakh” on November 15,
James O’Brien, assistant secretary at the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of
European and Eurasian Affairs, said that Washington “made clear that nothing
will be normal with Azerbaijan after the events of September 19 until we see
progress on the peace track.”
The official referred to Baku’s one-day military operation in Nagorno-Karabakh
as a result of which virtually the entire local Armenian population – more than
100,000 people – fled to Armenia.
O’Brien said that Washington canceled a number of high-level visits to
Azerbaijan in response to that action and that “we don’t anticipate submitting a
waiver on Section 907 until such time that we see a real improvement.”
Section 907 of the Freedom Support Act passed along with the adoption of the
legislation in 1992 bans any kind of direct United States aid to the Azerbaijani
government. A decade later, however, U.S. lawmakers amended Section 907 to allow
presidents to repeal it annually to provide military assistance to Azerbaijan
such as for countering international terrorism and border security.
Azerbaijan on Thursday reacted angrily to the remarks by the U.S. State
Department official that its Foreign Ministry described as a blow to relations
between the two countries.
It said that Baku would, therefore, not send a delegation to Washington for
talks between the foreign ministers of Azerbaijan and Armenia around a peace
agreement that it said were planned for November 20.
Last month Azerbaijan also withdrew from at least two meetings planned by the
European Union and European leaders.
Armenia, on the country, has indicated readiness to engage in further talks with
Azerbaijan both in Brussels and Washington.
In his remarks during the congressional hearing O’Brien said that the next few
weeks will be “critical” in the context of negotiations between Armenia and
Azerbaijan.
France ‘Vigilant’ About Armenia’s 1991 Borders
French Ambassador to Armenia Olivier Decottignies on the slope of Mount Tezhkar
near the Armenian-Azerbaijani border. .
France is vigilant about the territorial integrity of Armenia and respect for
its 1991 borders, the French Embassy in Armenia said.
In a Thursday post on Facebook the embassy showed photographs of the French
ambassador to Armenia hiking in the mountains, writing: “French Ambassador
Olivier Decottignies on the slope of Mount Tezhkar, a strategic point in
Armenian territory, on the border with Azerbaijan (Nakhichevan). France is
particularly vigilant about the territorial integrity of Armenia and respect for
its 1991 borders reiterated in the Prague Declaration.”
By referring to the 1991 borders, France implies the Almaty Declaration that was
signed by Armenia, Azerbaijan and 10 other former Soviet republics in December
1991 after the collapse of the USSR.
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev
issued a joint statement following their quadrilateral meeting in Prague on
October 6, 2022 with French President Emmanuel Macron and European Council
President Charles Michel, confirming their commitment to the Charter of the
United Nations and the Alma-Ata 1991 Declaration through which both Armenia and
Azerbaijan recognize each other’s territorial integrity and sovereignty.
During his visit to Tbilisi, Georgia, last month Pashinian stressed that the key
meaning of that Alma-Ata Declaration is that the administrative borders that
existed between the republics of the Soviet Union at the moment of the USSR’s
collapse become state borders.
“We hope to sign a peace agreement with Azerbaijan in the coming months and
restore relations based on these principles,” Pashinian said.
In his public statements on several occasions Azerbaijani leader Aliyev has said
that his country has territorial claims to Armenia. But he has so far declined
to recognize the integrity of Armenian territory in numerical terms, something
that Pashinian has done repeatedly.
Pashinian has said that Azerbaijan’s narrative about what Armenia perceives as a
demand for an extraterritorial land corridor to its western exclave of
Nakhichevan and continued talk about “Western Azerbaijan”, suggesting that
Azeris who left Armenia at the start of the conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh in
the late 1980s had lived in their “historical lands,” shows that Azerbaijan is
“preparing a new war against the Republic of Armenia.”
Azerbaijan has denied any aggressive plans against Armenian territory,
condemning France for its supply of weapons to Armenia under a recent military
cooperation agreement signed between the two countries.
EU To ‘Explore Options’ For Visa Liberalization With Armenia
Peter Stano, the European Commission’s lead spokesperson for foreign affairs and
security policy (file photo).
The European Union is going to explore options for visa liberalization with
Armenia, an official in Brussels has said.
Peter Stano, the European Commission’s lead spokesperson for foreign affairs and
security policy, told Armenia’s state-run Armenpress news agency that “this
means we will start the process to see whether it’s feasible, whether it’s
possible.”
Stano said that “visa liberalization is something that is very important because
it’s tangible and visible for people.”
“There are also tasks to be fulfilled on the side of the partner country, in
this case of Armenia,” he said. “In general, for visa liberalization, there are
technical requirements that means biometric passports, for example, but also
political requirements to make sure that the political framework in the country
prevents people from misusing the asylum system. First of all, that people are
not forced to leave the country and claim asylum.”
Stano emphasized that they do not want to have a sudden increase in asylum
seekers and want to prevent the misuse of the visa-free or liberalized travel
regime.
He said that “if everything goes well, the process might bring a lot of benefits
for the Armenian citizens.”
The EU’s Foreign Affairs Council on November 13 gave the green light to the
European Commission to explore options for visa liberalization with Armenia.
The European Commission is to come up with a specific decision subject to
ratification by all members of the 27-nation bloc.
Armenia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Paruyr Hovannisian said earlier this week that
Yerevan considered it possible that negotiations on visa liberalization with the
European Union would commence “in the coming months.”
He said he considered it positive that no EU member state had opposed the start
of the process.
“It was difficult to ensure that consensus among all countries, but it was a
very positive development,” the senior Armenian diplomat said.
“We will continue to actively work with the European Union and its member states
to speed up that process as much as possible,” he added.
Back in 2016, the head of the European Union delegation to Armenia announced
that Yerevan and Brussels would achieve visa liberalization in the near future.
It is also provided for under the Comprehensive and Extended Partnership
Agreement that Armenia signed with the EU in 2017. However, no significant
progress has been made in terms of visa liberalization for Armenia since then.
Armenia To Formally Join ICC In February
Armenia has formally handed in its request to join the International Criminal
Court (ICC) and will become a member in February, The Hague-based tribunal
announced on November 17.
Yerevan last month signed the ratification of the ICC’s founding treaty also
known as the Rome Statute, recognizing the Court’s jurisdiction. Armenia says
this would allow the Court’s prosecutors to investigate alleged crimes committed
in Nagorno-Karabakh.
Baku in September retook complete control of the region after a lightning
offensive, resulting in more than 100,000 ethnic Armenians fleeing across the
border into Armenia. Yerevan has accused Baku of “ethnic cleansing” in the
region, a claim Azerbaijan strongly denies.
Risking more tensions with Russia, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian met
on November 10 with Karim Khan, the chief prosecutor of the ICC who issued an
arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin in March. The meeting took
place on the sidelines of an annual Paris Peace Forum held in the French capital.
One week after the order for Putin’s arrest over war crimes allegedly committed
by Russia in Ukraine Armenia’s Constitutional Court gave the green light for
parliamentary ratification of the Rome Statute. Despite stern warnings issued by
the Russian leadership in the following months, the National Assembly controlled
by Pashinian’s party ratified the treaty on October 3.
The move added to unprecedented tensions between the two states. Russian
officials said it will cause serious damage to Russian-Armenian relations. They
dismissed Yerevan’s assurances that the ratification does not commit it to
arresting Putin and handing him over to the ICC in the event of his visit to
Armenia.
The Armenian Foreign Ministry said earlier this month that it has proposed to
Moscow a bilateral agreement that “can dispel the concerns of the Russian
Federation.” Russian lawmakers brushed aside the proposal.
1 Killed, 3 Injured In Yerevan University Blast, Fire
An ambulance car and police work near a Yerevan State University building.
.
One person was killed and three others were injured in a blast and subsequent
fire at a Yerevan State University (YSU) building on Thursday morning, the
Armenian police, healthcare authorities and the university’s administration said.
Initially, the YSU reported only fire, saying that it began in one of the rooms
of the basement floor in Building N1. It said that the fire was extinguished and
“appropriate actions” were being taken. It said the fire was caused by a voltage
fluctuation, but did not elaborate.
The Ministry of Health, in its turn, reported that three persons were
hospitalized from the scene of the fire at one of the YSU buildings. It said all
three were getting the necessary medical care and undergoing examinations. No
other details regarding their current conditions were reported immediately. The
Ministry of Health also confirmed that one person was killed in the fire.
The Ministry of Internal Affairs later reported that an explosion took place in
the 100-square-meter basement of YSU’s chemistry department that caused a
subsequent fire.
The report said that the room where the blast occurred was intended for a
pumping station, but it also served as a dressing room for maintenance workers.
It said that next to it was a room for storage of chemicals, but there was no
fire in that room. The Ministry of Internal Affairs said that an on-site
investigation was carried out by chemists and no dangerous gases were detected
in the air.
The ministry reported that one of the employees died on the spot and three
people were taken to hospital, including one patrol service officer who was
hospitalized with symptoms of smoke inhalation and whose condition is currently
assessed as satisfactory.
The ministry said the rescue service was alerted to the incident at 9:40 am. It
said the fire in the university basement was contained at 10:11 a.m. and
extinguished at 10:23 a.m.
“Household items and wooden structures were burned in the compressor room.
Investigation is underway to find out the circumstances of the incident,” it
said.
Reposted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
Copyright (c) 2023 Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, Inc.
1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.