Wednesday, April 29, 2020
Azeri Mortar Fire Reported In Karabakh
April 29, 2020
Nagorno-Karabakh -- Karabakh Armenian soldiers fire a mortar during a military
exercise, April 22, 2020.
Nagorno-Karabakh’s Armenian-backed army said on Wednesday that Azerbaijani
forces have fired mortars on its frontline positions for the first time in
almost a year.
In a statement, the Defense Army said that the shelling did not hurt any of its
soldiers and stopped after its troops returned fire. It did not specify whether
they also used mortars in response.
“It has to be noted that this is the first instance of the Azerbaijani army’s
use of mortars against Armenian positions since June 2019,” the statement said,
adding that “the situation on the frontline is calm at the moment.”
Azerbaijan’s Defense Ministry did not immediately comment on the claim. It said
earlier in the day that Armenian troops continued to violate the ceasefire along
the Armenian-Azerbaijani border and the Karabakh “line of contact” with small
arms in the past 24 hours.
Nagorno-Karabakh -- An official photograph that purportedly shows the wreckage
of an Israeli-made Azerbaijani military drone shot down on April 21, 2020.
The Karabakh Armenian army claimed to have shot down an Azerbaijani military
drone just hours before the Armenian and Azerbaijani foreign ministers as well
as international mediators held a video conference April 21. In a joint
statement, Foreign Ministers Zohrab Mnatsakanian and Elmar Mammadyarov pledged
to continue looking for ways to resolve the Karabakh conflict despite the
coronavirus pandemic.
According to the statement, during the conference the U.S., Russian and French
mediators co-heading the Minsk Group renewed their calls for the conflicting
parties to “strictly” observe the ceasefire and “avoid provocative actions in
the current environment.”
Truce violations in the conflict zone have decreased significantly since Prime
Minister Nikol Pashinian and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev met for the
first time in September 2018. The two leaders and their foreign ministers have
held regular talks since then.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on April 21 that the two sides have
been “actively discussing” a peace plan which he presented to Mnatsakanian and
Mammadyarov at a trilateral meeting held in Moscow a year ago. Lavrov said the
plan calls for a phased settlement that would start with Armenian withdrawal
from “several districts around Karabakh.”
Mnatsakanian implicitly denied this. He said that for the last two years Baku
and Yerevan have only exchanged views on “some elements” of a possible peace
deal.
By contrast, Mammadyarov echoed Lavrov’s claims when he spoke to journalists in
Baku on Tuesday.
Textile Plants Allowed To Resume Work Despite COVID-19 Fears
April 29, 2020
• Karine Simonian
Armenia -- Gloria factory owner Bagrat Darbinian (L) and his employees argue
with a police officer, Vanadzor, April 21, 2020.
The Armenian government has allowed two textile plants employing about 3,000
people to resume their operations suspended last month due to the coronavirus
outbreak.
The permissions given on Tuesday to the Gloria and Sarton companies based in the
northern city of Vanadzor are conditional on their compliance with anti-epidemic
measures required by a government body enforcing the coronavirus-related state
of emergency in Armenia.
With some 2,600 workers, Gloria is the country’s largest textile factory. Its
owner, Bagrat Darbinian, said on Wednesday that he has pledged to have its
premises disinfected twice a day and to provide all workers with hand
sanitizers, medical masks and rubber gloves. Darbinian said company buses
transporting his employees to work and back home will also be disinfected on a
daily basis.
Some of those workers interviewed by RFE/RL’s Armenian service said, however,
that they cannot wear masks and gloves all day long and will frequently wash
their hands and avoid physical contact with each other instead.
Despite the continuing spread of the virus, the government has gradually
reopened various sectors of the Armenian economy in the last two weeks. Prime
Minister Nikol Pashinian said on April 12 that the domestic textile industry
should also be able to restart its activities despite being “the main driving
force” of coronavirus cases recorded in the country at that point.
Armenia -- Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian (C) visits new textile factories
opened by businessman Samvel Aleksanian (R), Yerevan, November 1, 2019.
Hundreds of such cases originated in one textile factory located in Yerevan.
Health authorities believe that its workers were infected by a visiting Italian
specialist in early March.
Following Pashinian’s statement, the government task force set concrete social
distancing rules and other precautions for the export-oriented sector. Darbinian
claimed that those requirements are too strict as Gloria’s employees defied the
government ban and returned to their workplaces on April 21.
The mostly female workers said they want the factory to immediately resume its
work because they cannot support themselves and their families after the
month-long lockdown. Authorities shut it down again the following day.
Darbinian told his protesting workers at the time that they should not be afraid
of contracting COVID-19, the potentially deadly respiratory disease caused by
the virus. “If we get infected, we’ll recover,” he said. “There are 2,600 people
here, and [the disease] is so widespread that someone may catch it.”
“Neither I nor anybody else can give you guarantees. So you must be prepared for
that,” added the company’s owner.
Pashinian announced on Tuesday that his government is planning to reopen all
remaining businesses, including cafes and restaurants, within the next 10 days.
Meanwhile, the Armenian Ministry of Health reported 65 new coronavirus cases on
Wednesday morning. The total number of people who have tested positive for the
virus in Armenia thus reached 1,932. Thirty of them have died from the disease
so far, according to the ministry.
Speaking to RFE/RL’s Armenian service on Sunday, Health Minister Arsen Torosian
warned that due to the daily number of new infections the authorities will soon
be unable to hospitalize or isolate most infected people.
Armenian Hospital Attacked After Deadly Shootout
April 29, 2020
• Naira Nalbandian
Armenia -- A view of the town of Gavar.
Armenian law-enforcement bodies made at least 15 arrests on Wednesday after an
angry mob stormed a provincial hospital guarded by police and tried to kill its
patients hospitalized as a result of a shootout that left two people dead and
several others wounded.
They also beefed up security in Gavar, the administrative center of Armenia’s
eastern Gegharkunik province and the scene of the gun battle that broke out on
Tuesday evening for still unclear reasons.
The deadly clash reportedly involved two groups of armed men living in Gavar and
the nearby village of Noratus. Two of them were shot dead while six others
seriously wounded and rushed to a Gavar hospital.
Three hours later, the hospital was attacked by several hundred friends and
relatives of the two murdered men, local officials said. The attackers, most of
them reported to be Noratus residents, broke through a police cordon and burst
into the building, smashing its doors, windows and even an inner wall.
According to Armenia’s Investigative Committee, they stabbed two of the wounded
individuals and another man who they believed were responsible for the killings.
A senior hospital doctor, Aram Avetisian, told RFE/RL’s Armenian service that
the attackers linked to “one of the rival sides” left the medical facility after
finding “the persons they were looking for.” The latter suffered severe stab
wounds and were taken to Yerevan in a critical condition, said Avetisian.
In a statement, the Investigative Committee said that 15 persons were arrested
on suspicion of participating in the “mass disturbances.” It said
law-enforcement authorities are now trying to identify more participants of the
violent incidents in Gavar.
Armenia - Gnel Sanosian, the governor of Gegharkunik province, speaks to RFE/RL,
Gavar, April 29, 2020.
The Gegharkunik governor, Gnel Sanosian, spoke of “quite a large number” arrests
already made by investigators but gave no numbers. “The process is continuing,”
he said, noting that the attack was caught on the local hospital’s security
cameras.
Sanosian said that the Armenian police have sent reinforcements to Gavar and
Noratus to prevent fresh violence there. “The police fully control the situation
in the town, around the hospital and, of course, in Noratus,” he told RFE/RL’s
Armenian service.
Critics of the Armenian government pounced on the fact that the hospital was
seized by the mob despite being guarded by armed police officers and the arrival
in Gavar of the national police chief, Arman Sargsian. They portrayed this as a
gross security failure highlighting Armenia’s rising crime rate. Some of them
also demanded Sargsian’s resignation.
Sanosian dismissed the criticism, saying that the policemen deployed in the
hospital were greatly outnumbered by the attackers. The provincial governor
estimated the number of the attackers at around 500.
“There were several hundred of them,” Avetisian, the hospital doctor, said for
his part.
Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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