Month: November 2023

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán on Friday (3 November) congratulated Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, in his first public comments since Baku recaptured Nagorno-Karabakh from ethnic Armenian separatists.

Armenia and Azerbaijan have been locked in a decades-long conflict for control of Baku’s Armenian-populated region of Nagorno-Karabakh.

Baku took control of the mountainous region in September in a lightning 24-hour offensive that ended decades of pro-Armenian separatist rule.

“I would like to take this opportunity to wish President Aliyev every success in his work to stabilise the region, and every success in the reconstruction work in Karabakh,” said Orbán during a summit of Turkic States in the Kazakh capital Astana.

“Congratulations dear Mr. President!” he added.

The Organization of Turkic States is an intergovernmental organisation initiated by Turkey comprising countries of the same family of languages, its members being Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkey and Uzbekistan. Hungary and the internationally unrecognized North Cyprus have observer status.

The Hungarian language is part of the Finno-Ugric branch of languages, but Orbán says the country has Hun-Turkic origins.

Other leaders attending the summit have also congratulated Aliyev on this topic.

The European Union is looking to host talks between the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan to reduce tensions.

Unlike other EU members, Hungary has long cultivated a close relationship with Baku, taking Azerbaijan’s side in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

In contrast, Hungary only restored diplomatic relations with Armenia last year, after a 10-year-long break.

Yerevan severed diplomatic relations in 2012 after Budapest sent Ramil Safarov, an Azerbaijani army officer convicted of killing an Armenian soldier, back home.

Upon his return, Safarov was given a hero’s welcome, a presidential pardon and a promotion.

(Edited by Georgi Gotev)

The predominantly Muslim nation of Azerbaijan has landed on a persecution advocacy group's list of the worst countries for Christian persecution over its policies toward neighboring Armenia.

The United States-based International Christian Concern (ICC), which tracks the persecution of Christians worldwide, released its 2023 Persecutors of the Year report this week. 

The publication lists Azerbaijan among the top 10 nations hostile toward the faith. The list includes Nigeria, North Korea, India, Iran, China, Pakistan, Eritrea, Algeria and Indonesia.

Sandwiched between Turkey and Iran, Azerbaijan has warred with Armenia for decades over the Nagorno-Karabakh region, which consists of as much as a 98% majority Christian population, most of whom identify as Armenian Apostolic, according to ICC.

The two nations have entered into conflict at least twice over the last century, but following a monthslong blockade earlier this year, Azerbaijani forces commandeered Nagorno-Karabakh, a self-known to Armenians as Artsakh, in September. 

The region was previously controlled by ethnic Armenians as the unrecognized Republic of Artsakh, a de facto independent state internationally recognized as a part of Azerbaijan. 

After a six-week war with Armenia in 2020, Azerbaijan regained control of territories surrounding Nagorno-Karabakh. An armistice brokered by Russia left the region connected to Armenia only by the Lachin Corridor. Nagorno-Karabakh had been under varying degrees of blockade since December 2022 and was completely cut off from Armenian supplies in mid-June before the September offensive. 

"Azerbaijan's end game is clear: to rid its borders of Christianity either by forcing the Armenian people and their faith out of Azerbaijan or destroying the people and historical sites," the report states. 

ICC highlights the language employed toward Armenians by Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev, who "uses derogatory rhetoric, such as barbarians, rats, and vandals, to describe and dehumanize the Armenian people."

In 2012, Aliyev tweeted, "Our main enemy is the Armenian lobby."

"Armenia as a country is of no value," he tweeted "It is actually a colony, an outpost run from abroad, a territory artificially created on ancient Azerbaijani lands."

Despite the ancient heritage of Armenia as the world's first Christian nation, the report points to what it described as the international community's "ill-informed understanding of the ancient cultural heritage of Armenia."

Videos that surfaced of the 2020 conflict between the two nations showed Azerbaijani forces "intentionally destroying" Christian cultural landmarks like the centuries-old khachkars, or cross-stones, and churches such as the Ghazanchetsots Cathedral, one of the largest Armenian churches in the world.

"For most people living in the region, to be Armenian is to be Christian," the report stated. "Therefore, persecution against Armenians and Armenian residents of NK is persecution against the body of Christ."

Until the September invasion, the region had a predominantly Christian population. The 24-hour Azerbaijan September offensive killed at least 200 ethnic Armenians, including 10 civilians. Over 400 were wounded. 

Officials last month estimated more than 100,000 Armenians were forcibly displaced from the region. 

Of the displaced, roughly 32,000 have taken up accommodation offered by the Armenian government, while others chose to stay with friends or relatives in Armenia.

In October, Armenia's Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan accused Azerbaijan of "ethnic cleansing," warning that "in the coming days, there will be no Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh."

That prospect has raised international concern from organizations across the political spectrum, including the National Council of Churches (NCC), which released a statement reiterating its support for the Armenian Orthodox Church, one of the 37 member communions of the NCC.

"While genocide typically takes place methodically over months and years, the NCC believes we may indeed be witnessing a continuation of genocide against the Armenian people, one that is borne of supremacy as in other genocides, but rather than consume the perpetrators in swift and orchestrated killing, unfolds over the long term in disparate acts of ethnic cleansing," the NCC statement reads. 

"As we have noted with alarm the illegal, humanitarian blockade of the region and the destruction of critical infrastructure, and observe the steady stream of refugees flowing through a single geographic conduit to safety, can we not assume this is, in fact, what is happening?"

Between 1915 and 1923, an estimated 1.5 million Armenian Christians died after they were expelled from the Ottoman Empire, now known as Turkey. Turkey denied the existence of the Armenian Genocide, and it took over 100 years before the mass killing was finally acknowledged as a genocide by the U.S. government.

https://www.christianpost.com/news/azerbajian-lands-on-list-of-worst-christian-persecutors.html

More than 100,000 people have fled Nagorno-Karabakh on the heels of a military offensive by Azerbaijan that many international observers call a form of ethnic cleansing. An autonomous ethnic Armenian enclave within Azerbaijan, Nagorno-Karabakh is now virtually abandoned.

Azerbaijan blocked the only road between Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh to all traffic except Red Cross aid vehicles in December 2022. In June those were also barred, reportedly leading to starvation conditions. After the recent military offensive, Nagorno-Karabakh’s government agreed to dissolve after over 30 years of separatist rule and now Armenia — a country of 2.8 million — is struggling to absorb and assist the massive influx of refugees.

For Berkeley Law 3L Margarita Akopyan, an Armenian immigrant whose relatives lived in the region, the conflict hits home. When she was 6, she came to the United States from Russia, where her mother had moved for job opportunities and her father had moved as a refugee. 

Attacks in Nagorno-Karabakh in 2020 fueled Akopyan’s interest in international law. During law school she has worked with the California Asylum Representation Clinic and the Berkeley Law Afghanistan Project, and she is currently senior development editor for the Berkeley Journal of International Law.

Also a former research assistant for Dean Erwin Chemerinsky, Akopyan describes how the past conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh and the recent upheaval there has shaped her path: 

* * * * * 

Throughout high school, I knew I wanted to go to law school and become a public defender. Growing up as a low-income Armenian immigrant, I saw a need for more diversity in legal representation, especially in areas like public defense where all clients come from low-income backgrounds and many are immigrants and people of color. My goal was to provide clients with representation that could better understand both the issues they face and how to assist with those issues.

But in October 2020, during my law school application cycle, Azerbaijan, the country directly east of Armenia, launched an attack on Armenian villages in the Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) region. From 1991 to 2020 Artsakh was an autonomous region largely surrounded by Azerbaijani territory. Many of my relatives lived here. 

What became known as the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War lasted into November and resulted in the destruction of most of the Armenian villages and the death of thousands. Throughout the attack, Azerbaijan committed countless war crimes and human rights violations, including using white phosphorus (a bomb additive banned by the United Nations) and targeting hospitals.

These devastating events led me to shift focus from marginalized groups in the United States to marginalized groups internationally. By the time I arrived on campus in the fall of 2021, I had decided to use my legal education to defend the human rights of my people in Artsakh and all others being stripped of their fundamental human rights.

As I entered my 3L year, the situation in Artsakh has only worsened. In December 2022, Azerbaijan blocked the Lachin corridor, the single road connecting Artsakh to Armenia and the only access point Artsakh has to essentials like food and water. For nine months, the Artsakh population starved, lacking electricity and access to proper medicine. 

In September 2023, Azerbaijan launched another full-scale attack on Artsakh that caused almost the entire population to become refugees, fleeing to Armenia. Today, almost no Armenians remain in Artsakh, and the Republic of Artsakh is set to be dissolved.

As I’ve watched the international community fail to intervene to stop Azerbaijan’s campaign of ethnic cleansing, I find myself about to graduate law school — with the place I entered law school to defend on the brink of dissolution.

Berkeley Law has given me the opportunity to learn about these different struggles for autonomy and human rights around the world, and to spread awareness to my classmates and professors about the struggle of the Armenian people. 

During my time at Berkeley Law, I have participated in the Berkeley Afghanistan Project and the California Asylum Representation Clinic, where I assisted survivors of human rights violations in navigating the asylum process. During my first summer, I worked at the American Bar Association Immigration Justice Project, where I was able to use my Russian language skills to speak with asylum seekers in their native tongue. 

I am also on the boards of the Berkeley Journal of International Law, where I curated and edited articles regarding international law, and the Middle Eastern and North African Law Students Association, where I can provide Armenian representation and help educate fellow students on struggles that are unique to the Armenian community. 

In the next month, I will be meeting with Armenian prelaw students from UC Berkeley and UCLA to help them navigate the law school process and encourage them to apply to Berkeley Law in hopes of increasing Armenian representation on campus. I am excited at the prospect of increasing Armenian representation not just on campus, but also in the legal community.

https://www.law.berkeley.edu/article/events-in-nagorno-karabakh-sharpen-international-focus-for-margarita-akopyan/

Paruyr Hovhannisian, Armenian Deputy Foreign Minister, commented on Russia's dissatisfaction with Yerevan's participation in the Ukrainian Peace Formula summit in Malta.

Source: European Pravda with reference to News.am

Details: Hovhannisian said the Russian Federation incorrectly qualified the meeting in Malta between Armen Grigoryan, Secretary of the Security Council of Armenia, and Andrii Yermak, Head of the Ukrainian President's Office.

Quote: "This platform is a platform for secretaries of security councils. I wouldn’t say that it was devoted to the issue of Ukraine, there was a broader agenda. I think that this description does not correspond to reality."

Background:

• Maria Zakharova, the Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, said that Moscow considers Armenia's participation in the summit on the Ukrainian Peace Formula in Malta to be a "demonstrative anti-Russian gesture".

• The third meeting on the Ukrainian Peace Formula in Malta, which occurred on 28-29 October, focused on questions of nuclear, food and energy security, as well as the release of prisoners and deportees and the restoration of the territorial integrity of Ukraine.

• The meeting was attended personally or remotely by representatives of 66 countries – over 20 more than in the previous meeting in Saudi Arabia. Armenia took part in the meeting for the first time. However, China did not participate.

• In September of this year, Armenia handed over humanitarian aid to Ukraine for the first time – it was brought during the visit of Nikol Pashinyan, the Armenia Prime Minister's wife.

• Subsequently, Pashinyan and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy met for the first time on the sidelines of the European political community summit in Granada in early October.

A partnership between Valley Children’s Hospital and an Armenian hospital will advance the level of care provided to women and children in that country.

Valley Children’s CEO Todd Suntrapak Thursday signed an agreement with the CEO of Wigmore Women’s & Children’s Hospital, Dr. Zaven Koloyan, for an ongoing exchange of medical professionals.

The union will bring doctors from Armenia to the Valley’s biggest pediatric hospital to train and send local doctors, nurses, and medical staff to Armenia to help develop operations in Yerevan, Armenia’s capital.

“The ultimate goal of this collaboration is for Wigmore Hospital to become the standard of care within Armenia and potentially other countries in that region,” said Dr. Varoujan Altebarmakian, retired Fresno physician and program advisor for Wigmore Hospital.

In 2016, when Koloyan was doing his residency in what is considered one of Yerevan’s best hospitals, he witnessed “Soviet-style management, poor infrastructure, poor economics and very low level of education.”

“But the main trouble for me is there was no other place to go because it was the best hospital,” Koloyan said.

Koloyan decided to start a new hospital to provide pediatric care.

Founders reached out to Altebarmakian to take on an advisory role at the hospital which he was told would “change the culture of health care delivery systems in that country.”

Wigmore Hospital opened in December 2022. But to advance care, Altebarmakian said they needed a partner in the U.S. That’s when they turned to Valley Children’s Hospital.

“After a few years of working on the organizational structure and the leadership roles, we realized that we needed a partner outside Armenia to train the leaders and also the physicians in Armenia,” Altebarmakian said.

https://gvwire.com/2023/11/03/valley-childrens-hospital-partnership-sends-fresno-doctors-nurses-to-armenia/

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Nov 4, 2023 / 07:00 am

The little-known but decadeslong conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan erupted anew on Sept. 19, resulting in hundreds killed and a massive refugee crisis from the contested enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh.

Lyudmila Melquomyan, 47, who is among the more than 100,000 Christian Armenians who fled their ancestral homeland after Azerbaijian launched an offensive, recently shared her harrowing experiences with CNA.

“Nobody wants to leave his homeland, but we had to in order to save the lives of our children, to protect them from war, starvation, and further atrocities of Azeris,” Melquomyan told CNA.

Melquomyan was born in the city of Hadrut and had lived in Nagorno-Karabakh her entire life until last month when, she said, “the whole population was forced to leave, escaping the genocide of Azerbaijan.”

The crisis centers on the region of Nagorno-Karabakh, also known by its ancient name of Artsakh. Though internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan, Nagorno-Karabakh was primarily made up of Armenian Christians who claimed self-sovereignty under the auspices of the “Republic of Artsakh.”

Their bid for independence came to an abrupt end, however, when the Azeri government launched a short but intense military campaign on Sept. 19. The assault ended with more than 200 Armenians dead and a mass exodus out of Nagorno-Karabakh.

Azerbaijan launched its offensive on Nagorno-Karabakh after a more than nine-month-long blockade of the region in which the delivery of all food, medical supplies, fuel, and humanitarian aid were severely restricted. By the time Azeri forces moved to wrest control of the region, the Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh were already critically low on food, supplies, and necessities like electricity and heating. 

On the morning of Sept. 19, “when all the people were at offices and children at schools,” Melquomyan said, the Azeri military began launching artillery and mortar strikes on both military and civilian positions. 

“When the missiles were being fired my 17-year-old daughter was awfully scared and began to cry,” Melquomyan said. “My younger son behaved like a brave man; he didn’t show his fear. As for me, I was afraid for my kids’ lives, not for me.” 

Melquomyan feared especially for the life of her eldest son, who was a soldier in the Artsakh military.  

The breakaway region’s Artsakh Defense Forces fought back, but vastly outgunned and without any outside support, the Armenians were forced to surrender just one day after the start of the offensive. 

“Our hungry but brave soldiers fought as much as they could,” she explained, “but without armament, without [the] support of Armenia, left alone … many people were killed or injured, even civilians.”  

According to Melquomyan, many Artsakhis, including a 15-year-old relative of her husband’s, are still missing. 

Though the Azeri government promised to integrate ethnic Armenians into the country, widespread fears of more violence, reprisals, and religious and cultural persecution led to a massive exodus. 

In the days that followed, videos on social media showed miles-long lines of cars filled with Armenians attempting to leave their homeland to escape Azeri rule. 

Melquomyan said that people began fleeing just five days after the Azeri offensive, on Sept. 24. 

With her family, Melquomyan also fled, leaving her home for the very last time at noon on Sept. 25.

“It was a terrible way with long miles [of] traffic jam, without food and water, sadness in our hearts, tears, homesickness,” she said. 

Though the journey to Armenia proper would typically take only six hours, Melquomyan said that it took her family some 36 hours to get out. All the while, she feared that somewhere along the way Azeri authorities would stop and arrest them. 

“When driving out of Artsakh I was also afraid that they would stop and arrest my eldest son (he was driving the car) and maybe me too,” she explained. “My daughter was terribly scared and pale, she was always saying: ‘It’s hot, open the window,’ though it was quite cool in the car, she was short of air.” 

While over 100,000 Artsakhis successfully escaped into Armenia, not everyone was able to get out. The Azeri government has arrested several high-ranking Artsakh officials and at least one Artsakhi civilian, charging them with war crimes and treason. 

Additionally, some 68 Armenians, including women and children, were killed and hundreds more were injured when a gasoline tank exploded beside the highway leading out of Nagorno-Karabakh’s capital city, Stepanakert.