RFE/RL Armenian Service – 07/06/2023

                                        Thursday, July 6, 2023
Karabakh Rejects Azeri Demands To Disband Army
        • Ruzanna Stepanian
Nagorno Karabakh - Sergey Ghazarian, the Karabakh foreign minister.
Nagorno-Karabakh will continue to reject Azerbaijan’s demands to disband its 
armed forces, a senior Karabakh official said on Thursday.
Sergei Ghazarian, the Karabakh foreign minister, said the existence of the 
Defense Army remains essential in the face of what he described as existential 
threats to Karabakh’s ethnic Armenian population.
“Seeing how the Azerbaijani side’s aggressive actions and rhetoric are gaining 
momentum, it’s obviously not realistic to discuss the dissolution of the Defense 
Army or the state system,” Ghazarian told reporters.
In recent months, Baku has repeatedly threatened military action against 
Karabakh’s “illegal armed formations” that were supported by Armenia until the 
2020 war and significantly downsized since then. Azerbaijani President Ilham 
Aliyev said on Wednesday that they must be
“disarmed” and disbanded.
Arayik Harutiunian, the Karabakh president, said last week that this is 
Azerbaijan’s main precondition for negotiating with Stepanakert. He also 
complained that Baku is only willing to discuss the Armenian-populated region’s 
“integration” into Azerbaijan.
One of Harutiunian’s political allies told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service on Monday 
that this is the reason why Karabakh’s leaders turned down last month a U.S. 
proposal to meet with Azerbaijani officials in a neutral location for 
integration talks.
Ghazarian said, however, that they did not refuse to negotiate with Baku. He 
stressed at the same time that Stepanakert cannot negotiate “under pressure” and 
that the Azerbaijani side must first unblock emergency food supplies to Karabakh 
through the Lachin corridor.
“There can be no dialogue with preconditions,” he said. “The other side must 
demonstrate that it is ready for dialogue. But if they close the road, how can 
we be sure that they are ready for dialogue?”
Ghazarian also confirmed that Harutiunian last week appealed to Russian 
President Vladimir Putin to help lift the eight-month Azerbaijani blockade of 
Karabakh’s only land link with the outside world. He said Stepanakert 
specifically hopes that the Russian peacekeepers stationed in Karabakh will 
“make every effort” for that purpose in line with the Russian-brokered ceasefire 
that stopped the 2020 war.
Putin discussed the matter with Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian in a 
phone call on Wednesday. Harutiunian said he asked Pashinian to phone the 
Russian leader.
U.S. Envoy Clarifies Karabakh Remarks
Armenia - Newly appointed U.S. Ambassador Kristina Kvien hands her credentials 
to Armenian President Vahagn Khachaturian, February 22, 2023.
The United States is not trying to predetermine the outcome of 
Armenian-Azerbaijani peace talks with pro-Azerbaijani statements, the U.S. 
ambassador to Armenia, Kristina Kvien, insisted on Thursday.
Kvien responded to an uproar caused by her interview with Armenian Public 
Television aired on Monday. In particular, she told the state-run broadcaster 
that Nagorno-Karabakh’s ethnic Armenian population could live safely under 
Azerbaijani rule.
Armenian opposition figures as well as Karabakh’s leadership criticized the 
remarks. The Karabakh foreign ministry said on Wednesday the United States 
should refrain from “appeasing the aggressor” keen to commit “ethnic cleansing” 
in Karabakh. It also said that the U.S. and other mediating powers “must not 
predetermine the outcome” of the ongoing peace talks in the first place.
“The United States does not presuppose the outcome of negotiations on the future 
of Nagorno-Karabakh,” Kvien said in written comments to the Armenpress news 
agency.
“The question of the rights and security of the population of Nagorno-Karabakh 
is central to the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan. Ultimately ensuring 
that this population can feel secure in their homes and have their rights 
protected is the only way to guarantee a lasting settlement to a conflict that 
has lasted too long and cost too many lives,” added the diplomat.
Kvien did not say whether she believes Azerbaijan can ensure that if it regains 
full control of Karabakh.
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian has pledged to recognize Azerbaijani 
sovereignty over the Armenian-populated region through a bilateral peace treaty. 
The Armenian and Azerbaijani foreign ministers discussed the treaty in great 
detail during two rounds of marathon talks hosted by Washington in early May and 
late June. Pashinian praised the U.S. peace efforts earlier this week.
Pashinian Reaffirms Commitment To ‘Peace Agenda’
Armenia - Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian addresses the Armenian parliament, 
Yerevan, May 24, 2023.
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian said on Thursday that he will continue to push 
for a comprehensive peace accord with Azerbaijan despite what he described as 
Baku’s intention to commit “genocide” in Nagorno-Karabakh.
Pashinian again decried Azerbaijan’s continuing blockage of the Lachin corridor 
and mounting pressure on Karabakh, saying that this policy is aimed at 
“subjecting the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh to ethnic cleansing and genocide.”
“Basically, we are seeing a creeping implementation of that policy in 
Nagorno-Karabakh,” he charged during a weekly cabinet meeting in Yerevan.
Pashinian made clear that in these circumstances he will not deviate from his 
“peace agenda” denounced by his domestic political opponents as well as 
Karabakh’s leadership. Armenian opposition leaders claim that Baku was 
emboldened by his readiness to sign a peace treaty upholding Azerbaijani 
sovereignty over Karabakh. They maintain that the Karabakh Armenians will have 
to flee their homeland in that case.
“The rights and security of the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh should be 
addressed within the framework of international mechanisms for a 
Baku-Stepanakert dialogue, and a peace treaty should be signed between Armenia 
and Azerbaijan,” insisted Pashinian.
The Armenian and Azerbaijani foreign ministers reportedly narrowed their 
governments’ differences over the treaty during another round of U.S.-mediated 
negotiations held in and outside Washington last month.
Pashinian cautioned that the progress made by them was “not significant.” Still, 
he expressed hope that he and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev will build on 
that progress during their next meeting in Brussels expected later this week.
Aliyev on Wednesday demanded that Armenia withdraw “the remnants” of its troops 
from Karabakh and that the Karabakh Armenians disarm and disband their military 
forces. He also complained that Yerevan remains reluctant to open a “corridor” 
that would connect Azerbaijan to its Nakhichevan exclave through Armenian 
territory.
Pashinian rejected Aliyev’s “baseless accusations.” He reiterated that Armenia 
“has no troops in Karabakh” and that the Russian-brokered agreement that stopped 
the 2020 war calls for conventional Armenian-Azerbaijani transport links, rather 
than an extraterritorial corridor for Nakhichevan.
Armenian Hospitals Accused Of Refusing Free Healthcare
        • Narine Ghalechian
Armenia - A newly renovated ward at the Fanarjian National Center of Oncology, 
Yerevan, October 8, 2022.
Scores of Armenians eligible for free healthcare financed by the state complain 
that hospitals across the country have stopped providing such services due to an 
alleged lack of government funding.
In the absence of a national system of health insurance, successive Armenian 
governments have for decades covered the cost of some surgeries, tests and other 
medical procedures. The beneficiaries of this subsidized coverage currently 
include cancer patients and some socially vulnerable categories of the 
population.
Many such individuals have claimed in recent weeks that the mostly private 
hospitals refuse to treat them free of charge on the grounds that they have 
already run out of government funding allocated for this year.
“The hospital just told me that the money provided by the state has run out,” 
said Gevorg Safarian, a young man who was seriously wounded during the 2020 war 
in Nagorno-Karabakh. He was due to have an X-ray examination and blood test 
there.
Armine Khachatrian, a woman who recently underwent breast cancer surgery, heard 
the same explanation when she was denied a post-operative computer tomography 
scan in another Yerevan clinic. “They told me to come in the beginning of 2024,” 
she said.
Nvard Kocharian, the founder of a Yerevan-based NGO helping patients like 
Khachatrian, said that about 70 such women have asked her organization for 
financial assistance after encountering the same problem.
In an online poll organized by RFE/RL’s Armenian Service last week, more than 
700 citizens likewise claimed to have been denied free medical services on the 
same grounds.
Armenia - Health Minister Anahit Avanesian visits the Armenian company Liqvor 
producing Sputnik Light vaccine, Yerevan, December 6, 2021.
Health Minister Anahit Avanesian on Thursday categorically denied a lack of 
government funding for such services, which is due to total 118 billion drams 
($304 million) this year, up from 112 billion drams in 2022. She linked the 
problem to the recent introduction of electronic registration for the subsidized 
coverage which gives priority to patients who are in urgent need of surgery or 
other treatment.
Other citizens eligible for free healthcare must now wait their turn, Avanesian 
said, adding that she has ordered the Ministry of Health to provide additional 
funding to hospitals so that they cut their waiting lists.
“If a citizen is signed up for, say, September, their registration date will be 
brought forward and they will get a service much quicker,” she assured 
journalists.
An RFE/RL reporter posing as the mother of a chronically ill child phoned 
several hospitals to inquire about a free service. One of them said it cannot be 
provided this year while the others refused to give any information at all.
Reposted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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