Tuesday,
New Armenia-Karabakh Road Opens
A section of a new road connecting Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia.
A new road connecting Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia was opened to traffic late on
Tuesday four days after Armenian withdrawal from the nearby Lachin corridor.
The five-kilometer-wide Lachin corridor became Karabakh’s sole overland link to
Armenia following the 2020 war with Azerbaijan. Armenian forces pulled out of
the rest of the wider Lachin district under the terms of the Russian-brokered
ceasefire that stopped the six-week hostilities.
The truce accord called for the construction by 2024 of a new Armenia-Karabakh
highway that will bypass the town of Lachin and two Armenian-populated villages
located within the corridor protected by Russian peacekeeping troops.
Bowing to strong Azerbaijani pressure, the Armenian side agreed earlier this
month to evacuate them by August 25 and start using a new bypass road
constructed by Azerbaijan about a dozen kilometers south of that area.
Azerbaijani troops entered those settlements on August 26 following the
evacuation of their last ethnic Armenian residents.
Russian peacekeepers stayed on to guarantee the safety of vehicles travelling
between Armenia and Karabakh. The Lachin corridor was officially shut down on
Tuesday evening.
A view of the village of Aghano in the Lachin corridor, April 16, 2022.
Karabakh’s top leaders were reportedly the first to inspect and use the new
highway leading to Armenia.
“The Russian peacekeepers have already deployed there and will control the safe
passage of citizens,” the Karabakh police said in a statement issued earlier in
the day.
The Karabakh leaders arrived in an Armenian border village through a 5-kilometer
road that links up to the highway built by the Azerbaijani side. The temporary
road will function until Armenia builds its section of the new corridor.
Government officials in Yerevan have said that work on that section will be
completed by next spring.
The authorities in Stepanakert revealed the Azerbaijani demands to switch to the
new corridor as they accused Azerbaijani forces of attacking Karabakh Armenian
army positions in early August. At least one Azerbaijani and two Karabakh
Armenian soldiers were killed in the fighting.
Yerevan initially rejected Baku’s demands as “not legitimate,” arguing that the
truce accord gave Russia, Azerbaijan and Armenia three years to work out a joint
“plan” for the construction of the new Armenia-Karabakh road. The Azerbaijani
Foreign Ministry said, however, that the three sides agreed on the “route” of
the new corridor early this year.
Baku, Yerevan Hold More Talks On Border Demarcation
• Astghik Bedevian
Armenia - A view of an area in Armenia's Syunik province where Armenian and
Azerbaijani troops are locked in a border standoff, May 14, 2021. (Photo by the
Armenian Human Rights Defender's Office)
Senior Armenian and Azerbaijani government officials met in Moscow on Tuesday
for the second round of negotiations on demarcating the long and heavily
militarized border between the two states.
The officials make up an Armenian-Azerbaijani commission formed for that purpose
in May. The commission is co-headed by Deputy Prime Minister Mher Grigorian and
his Azerbaijani counterpart Shahin Mustafayev.
“The parties discussed organizational and procedural issues, exchanged detailed
views on regulations for joint activities of the commissions and further work,”
the Armenian Foreign Ministry said in a statement. It gave no other details of
the meeting which was also attended by Russian officials led by Deputy Prime
Minister Alexei Overchuk.
The Russian Foreign Ministry reported, for its part, that the meeting took place
“with the advisory assistance of Russia.”
“The Russian delegation expressed its readiness to continue to provide advisory
and technical assistance in the negotiations between the delegations of
Azerbaijan and Armenia on the delimitation of the state border between the two
countries,” it said.
Overchuk, Grigorian and Mustafayev also co-chair a Russian-Armenian-Azerbaijani
working group dealing with practical modalities of opening transport links
between Armenia and Azerbaijan. The group was set up shortly after the
Russian-brokered ceasefire that stopped the war in Nagorno-Karabakh in November
2020.
Deputy Prime Ministers Mher Grigorian (left) of Armenia, Alexei Overchuk
(center) of Russia and Shahin Mustafaev of Azerbaijan.
The demarcation process is meant to end long-running border disputes and
skirmishes between Armenian and Azerbaijani forces that have broken out
regularly throughout the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.
The Armenian government insisted until this spring that the delimitation and
demarcation of the border should begin after a set of confidence-building
measures, notably the withdrawal of Armenian and Azerbaijani troops from their
border posts. Baku rejected that demand.
Vigen Khachatrian, an Armenian pro-government parliamentarian, said on Tuesday
that Yerevan was right to start the demarcation talks despite Baku’s stance.
“I think that this is going to be a very long process,” Khachatrian told
RFE/RL’s Armenian Service. “There will be enough time to discuss [the troop
withdrawal.] This is a very delicate issue and we should avoid preconditions.”
But Tigran Abrahamian, a senior opposition lawmaker, reiterated Armenian
opposition concerns over the outcome of the process. He claimed that Prime
Minister Nikol Pashinian may agree to cede large chunks of Armenian territory to
Azerbaijan.
“This haste is certainly not in Armenia’s interests because due to this
government Armenia is currently not in a position to secure favorable terms for
itself,” said Abrahamian.
EU’s Michel Phones Armenian, Azeri Leaders Ahead Of Summit
• Lusine Musayelian
Belgium - European Council President Charles Michel, Armenian Prime Minister
Nikol Pashinian and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev begin a trilateral
meeting in Brussels, April 6, 2022.
European Council President Charles Michel spoke with the leaders of Armenia and
Azerbaijan by phone on Tuesday one day before holding another trilateral meeting
with them in Brussels.
Michel, who heads the European Union’s top decision-making body, reported the
“preparatory calls” on his Twitter page. He gave no details of the conversations.
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev’s office said he discussed with Michel the
agenda of the Brussels talks slated for Wednesday. For its part, the Armenian
government said Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian and the EU leader expressed hope
that the talks will be productive.
The previous meetings of the three men took place in April and May. Michel
reported major progress after them. In particular, he said on May 23 that Aliyev
and Pashinian agreed to “advance discussions” on a comprehensive peace treaty
between their countries.
Aliyev’s chief foreign policy aide, Hikmet Hajiyev, said over the weekend that
the upcoming summit should result in the formation of a working group tasked
with drafting the Armenian-Azerbaijani peace treaty. Pashinian’s office did not
confirm or deny that.
Baku wants the treaty to uphold Azerbaijani sovereignty over Karabakh. Yerevan
has said, for its part, that such a document should address the disputed
territory’s status.
Hundreds Of Armenians Still Missing After 2020 Karabakh War
Armenia - Kristine Grigorian addresses the National Assembly shorly before being
elected Armenia's new human rights defender, Yerevan, January 24, 2022.
More than 300 Armenian soldiers and civilians remain unaccounted for after the
war in Nagorno-Karabakh, Armenia’s human rights ombudswoman, Kristine Grigorian,
said on Tuesday.
“According to data presented by the International Committee of the Red Cross in
August 2022, 303 persons are still considered missing as a result of the 44-day
war in 2020,” Grigorian said in a statement marking the International Day of the
Disappeared.
The figure presumably includes ethnic Armenian residents of Karabakh. About two
dozen local civilians were listed as missing as of September 2021. According to
the authorities in Stepanakert, most of them lived in Karabakh towns and
villages captured by Azerbaijani forces during the six-week hostilities stopped
by a Russian-brokered ceasefire in November 2020.
“The lack of cooperation by Azerbaijani authorities makes it impossible to
accurately estimate the number of missing persons, obtain credible information
about their fate or whereabouts, and ascertain whether they are still alive,”
read a separate statement released by the Armenian Foreign Ministry on the
occasion.
Grigorian similarly accused Baku of providing “distorted or no information at
all on the prisoners of war, civilian captives, and missing persons” in breach
of international humanitarian law.
Armenian soldiers are thought to make up a majority of the missing persons. Baku
has acknowledged holding only 39 prisoners of war and civilian captives.
Human rights lawyers in Yerevan say they have documentary evidence suggesting
that at least 80 other Armenians were also captured during the war. The Foreign
Ministry statement described the Armenian prisoners as hostages.
According to the International Committee of the Red Cross, as many as 4,900
people from both conflicting sides have been missing since the start of the
first Armenian-Azerbaijani war in 1991.
Reposted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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