Please find attached an invitation for a reception at the Consulate
General of Armenia on October 27th.
--
Sincerely,
Varazdat Pahlavuni
Counselor
Consulate General of the Republic of Armenia in Los Angeles
346 North Central Avenue, Glendale, CA 91203
Tel: 1(818) 265-5900
Fax: 1(818) 265-3800
MINSK, 15 October (BelTA) – Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan reaffirms its country’s readiness to begin demarcation and delimitation of the border with Azerbaijan as he addressed the web-based CIS summit on 15 October, BelTA has learned.
“Demarcation and delimitation of the border between Armenia and Azerbaijan is crucial to achieving lasting peace. We are ready to start this process. In this regard, we also hope for the support of Russia and our other international partners. An appropriate atmosphere is very important for overcoming the existing obstacles,” Nikol Pashinyan said.
In that regard, he made a number of specific proposals.
He also noted that the signing of a peace treaty between Armenia and Azerbaijan is the key matter, and therefore it is important to continue the negotiation process in this regard. “We consider it important to restore the negotiation process within the framework of the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairmanship. In their statements over the last month, the co-chairs repeatedly noted the need to resume the peace process to resolve the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict,” Nikol Pashinyan said.
The Armenian prime minister also praised the meetings between the Armenian and Azerbaijani ministers of foreign affairs in New York on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly and also in Minsk on 14 October with the mediation of the Russian minister of foreign affairs. “The upcoming visit of the co-chairpersons to the region and their visit to Nagorno-Karabakh will be an important event,” he added.
Nikol Pashinyan reiterated that his country is ready to work in all the suggested areas. “We are convinced that the implementation of all these tasks will ensure substantial progress in creating conditions for a lasting and durable peace in our region,” the prime minister stressed.
He said that he did not consider the CIS summit platform to be a convenient place for looking into the shared history of Armenia and Azerbaijan. The countries are now conducting such proceedings as part of their lawsuits in the international court in The Hague.
Responding to Nikol Pashinyan’s words, Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko, who is presiding at the event, said: “Thank you, you are absolutely right. The CIS is not a platform to consider individual issues. We do not have such powers and functions. However, we are grateful that you and Ilham Heydarovich [Aliyev, President of Azerbaijan] have informed the heads of state on the situation in your region. Our friends, both Azerbaijanis and Armenians, live there. We will certainly keep this information in mind while setting the agendas in our countries.
YEREVAN, October 13. /TASS/. OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs, France, Russia and the US have been working with Armenia and Azerbaijan to sign a long-term agreement on the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, Ambassador of France to Armenia, Ann Luyo reported.
“I can assure you that we have been working with our Russian and American partners on the process of signing a long-term agreement over Karabakh,” she said.
Replying to the question of whether it is necessary to expect an acceleration of the work of the OSCE Minsk Group, the ambassador said that “the meeting of foreign ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan in New York demonstrates that intermediaries have started working actively.” “I think that Yerevan and Baku should move forward,” she added.
Intense clashes between Azerbaijan and Armenia erupted on September 27, 2020, with fierce battles raging in the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh. On November 9, 2020, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan signed a joint statement on a complete ceasefire in Nagorno-Karabakh. According to the document, the Azerbaijani and Armenian sides maintained the positions that they had held, while several regions came under Baku’s control and Russian peacekeepers were deployed along the contact line and the Lachin corridor. On January 11, leaders of Russia, Armenia and Azerbaijan agreed to establish a working group at the level of deputy prime ministers of the three countries, focused on promoting transport and economic ties in the region.
The arms supplies to Azerbaijan from different countries have intensified recently due to the post-war situation, Armenian security expert Tigran Abrahamyan, a lawmaker from the opposition With Honor faction, said on Saturday.
“The point is that regardless of the outcome of the war, Azerbaijan has lost a large amount of ammunition, equipment and technical means, while the recovery process could not be completed so quickly,” the MP wrote on Facebook.
In his words, Azerbaijan has reached new military-technical cooperation agreements with a number of countries since last December to replenish its arsenal.
“At this stage, the haste is connected with the sharp deterioration in relations with Iran, but the so-called remilitarization of Azerbaijan also poses a direct threat to Armenia,” Abrahamyan said.
“While Azerbaijan is intensively arming itself, the Armenian authorities are obsessed with false ideas of building a dialogue with Turkey and Azerbaijan.
“It seems to them that the war is over and the demands of Azerbaijan and Turkey have been fully met. In fact, the pressures and levers of influence on Armenia are increasing, which will create a new set of problems for us,” he noted.
11:38, 8 October, 2021
YEREVAN, OCTOBER 8, ARMENPRESS. The two opposition blocs of the Armenian parliament – Hayastan and Pativ Unem – have applied to the Constitutional Court to dispute the constitutionality of the government-backed community enlargement bill passed by parliament on September 24.
Hayastan MP Artsvik Minasyan said they’ve formally submitted the application with the required 1/5th of lawmakers.
Minasyan also accused President Armen Sarkissian for signing the bill into law, describing the move “unconstitutional”.
The new law will merge 441 communities into 37 enlarged communities. The government says that the current administrative divisions hinder community development, especially in cases of communities which have a population below 3000. But opposition lawmakers say the community enlargement is politically motivated and the incumbent authorities seek to strengthen their positions in all territories.
The bill was adopted by parliament on September 27 with only the ruling party taking part in the voting. The opposition blocs boycotted the vote.
Editing and Translating by Stepan Kocharyan
MINSK, 8 October (BelTA) – Belarusian Minister of Foreign Affairs Vladimir Makei met with Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Armenia Armen Ghevondyan, BelTA learned from the press service of the Belarusian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
The parties discussed important issues related to the development of bilateral Belarusian-Armenian relations, interaction between Minsk and Yerevan in international arena and within integration structures, progress in the implementation of a number of joint projects.
The delegation of the Armenian Ministry of Foreign Affairs led by Armen Ghevondyan took part in the ministerial consultations of the two countries. The Belarusian delegation was headed by First Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Belarus Aleksandr Guryanov. The parties considered the whole range of Belarus-Armenia cooperation and outlined the key areas of its intensification. Special attention was paid to the cooperation between the parties in the integration structures (EAEU, CIS, and CSTO) and international platforms (UN and OSCE).
The parties praised the state of Belarus-Armenia dialogue in bilateral and multilateral formats, confirmed their intention to support its development through the ministries of foreign affairs of the two countries, and discussed practical aspects of the forthcoming joint events at different levels.
A protocol on expanding the Belarus-Armenia intergovernmental agreement on visa-free travels of citizens and an intergovernmental agreement on readmission were signed on the sidelines of the consultations.
The hearings on the claim on violations of the “International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination” lodged by Armenia against Azerbaijan will be held on October 14 and 15; and on the similar claim of Azerbaijan against Armenia – on October 18 and 19, the UN International Court of Justice has informed.
The “Caucasian Knot” has reported that Armenia had lodged a complaint to the UN Court, claiming that for decades Azerbaijan had been subjecting Armenia to racial discrimination, including, among other things, mass killings and torture of prisoners of war (POWs). On September 23, Azerbaijan lodged a counterclaim to the same court, asking to bring the neighbouring state to justice. The counterclaim states that Armenia is systematically violating the above UN Convention.
The UN International Court of Justice has appointed a hearing on Armenia’s claim, which demands to introduce temporary interim measures against Azerbaijan, for October 14-15, says a message posted on the court’s website today.
The hearing of the similar Azerbaijan’s claims against Armenia is scheduled for October 18-19, says the message.
“Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the hearings will be held in a hybrid format. Some judges will participate in person, others – by a video link,” the press service of the UN Court has explained, adding that representatives of the parties will also be able to take part in the hearings either in person or in the online mode.
This article was originally published on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’ on October 2, 2021 at 00:29 am MSK. To access the full text of the article, click here.
Author: Armine Martirosyan; Source: CK correspondent
Source:
© Caucasian Knot
© Shutterstock
The Group of States against Corruption (GRECO) of the Council of Europe has made public today its Interim Compliance Report of Fourth Evaluation Round on Armenia (on Corruption prevention in respect of members of parliament, judges and prosecutors), adopted by GRECO at its 88th Plenary Meeting (Strasbourg, 20-22 September 2021).
More information:
Thursday,
Tigran Zakaryan, CONTRIBUTOR
Armenian analysts have responded with caution to apparent overtures between Yerevan and Ankara over a possible détente between the two countries.
Both Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan have repeatedly hinted in recent weeks that they were prepared to begin talks on repairing bilateral relations.
The two countries have never established diplomatic ties and their shared border has been closed since the early 1990s. Relations further deteriorated last year over the 44-day Nagorony Karabakh war, in which Turkish military support for Azerbaijan may have played a decisive role in its victory.
However, last month Erdogan said that Turkey was willing to open talks towards normalising ties if Armenia also “declares its readiness to move in this direction”. He has also raised the prospect of creating a regional platform that would help establish links from Turkey’s Igdir to Azerbaijan, possibly via a rail route through Armenia.
In turn, Pashinyan told a September 8 cabinet meeting said that Erdogan’s remarks presented “an opportunity to discuss normalisation of Armenia-Turkey relations and de-blockade the Armenia-Turkey railroad and [other] communications. We are ready for such discussions”.
Pashinyan added that global players including Russia, US, EU, China and India would welcome such a move.
Oppositions figures have expressed scepticism about Pashinyan’s approach. Lawmaker Hayk Mamijanyan, of the Pativ Unem (I Have Honour) faction, said that Ankara’s lack of extensive preconditions made him question whether Turkey might have already have received some kind of assurances. Critics have previously accused Pashinyan of covert negotiations to end the Karabakh war, in which Azerbaijan took control of extensive territory previously controlled by Armenia.
Mamijanyan said that Pashinyan should “seek to dispel such doubts, or else [it means] he once again has decided to strike some sort of a backdoor deal”.
However CCA lawmaker Eduard Aghajanyan, who heads parliament’s foreign relations committee, dismissed suggestions of any back door negotiations.
He said that progress could not be made without separating Armenia’ relations with Turkey from those with Azerbaijan.
“We want Turkey to realise – and we ourselves need to do it too – that Azerbaijan and Turkey are totally different entities and individual players in the region, whose interests are not necessarily identical,” Aghajanyan said.
Eric Hacopian, a contributor to Civilnet media, noted that successive governments in Armenia had supported the idea of normalising relations with Turkey without achieving any kind of breakthrough. He said that Baku’s opposition may play a part in this stalemate.
“Azerbaijan thinks they can impose their will or get the worst for us-best possible for them deal and any kind of a Turkish rapprochement with Armenia actually would weaken the case,” Hacopian said.
He added, however, that domestic Turkish considerations might derail any fresh efforts to start talks, given that the National Movement Party (MHP) – part of Turkey’s ruling coalition – would likely oppose better relations with Armenia.
As a result, Erdogan would be reluctant to press forward with any dialogue as he will need MHP support in the upcoming 2023 elections.
“His [Erdogan’s] words are meaningless, only his actions matter,” Hacopian continued. “I do not see anything changing on the primary relationship between those two countries until the fall of the Erdogan regime.”
However, historian Hrant Ter-Abrahamyan said that the very fact of holding talks with Turkey was in itself significant, even though it was important to have realistic expectations about what could be achieved.
“There is a lot to talk about with Turkey and it is expected that Armenian society cannot have a positive attitude towards that state – that is quite natural for understandable reasons – but we need to be pragmatic,” he said. “If Armenia and Turkey have something to give and receive, if they expect something from us – and it is through a dialogue that such a thing can be revealed – then we should follow that path. We needed to have it done earlier.”
Ara Sahakyan of the opposition Hayrenik (Homeland) party, said that although Armenian-Turkish relations needed to be slowly normalised, the internal politics of both countries did not currently support this.
“It needs to be done slowly, stage by stage,” he said. “The authorities need to understand that succeeding in laying the foundations of Armenian-Turkish relations would be an achievement by itself. But it will take more than one generation to achieve that. Such matters are not resolved by an [Armenian] government which has 53 per cent of votes, but rather by large coalitions.”
This publication was prepared under the “Amplify, Verify, Engage (AVE) Project” implemented with the financial support of the Foreign Ministry of Norway.