Thursday,
Armenia Blames Azerbaijan For Deaths Of Karabakh Children
• Susan Badalian
Nagorno-Karabakh - The photos of Leo and Gita, Karabakh children found dead in
Martakert on July 8, 2023.
Armenia on Thursday blamed Azerbaijan’s blockade of Nagorno-Karabakh for last
week’s deaths of two young Karabakh children whose mother had to leave them
unattended to get some food.
The 3-year-old Leo and his 6-year sister Gita were found dead in a car in the
town of Markatert on July 8 one day after disappearing from their home in the
nearby village of Aghabekalanj.
Their single mother, Vera Narimanian, left them home alone to go to Martakert to
receive sunflower oil and sugar as humanitarian aid. They were gone after she
returned to the village about two hours later.
“I spent the whole night searching for them with the police, firefighters and
army but didn’t find them,” Narimanian told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service on
Wednesday.
“I will be devastated for the rest of my life,” she said.
The infants were caught on security cameras going to Martakert on foot late on
July 7. A town resident found them dead in his car the following morning. He
said that one of the car’s doors was not locked.
The Karabakh police suggested that Leo and Gita died in their sleep from
vehicular heatstroke. But the spokesman for another law-enforcement body
cautioned on Wednesday that this is just one of the theories considered by
investigators.
“Necessary forensic tests have been ordered … and intensive investigative work
is underway,” he said.
“The 7-month blockade of the Lachine Corridor and total siege of
Nagorno-Karabakh people is having an irreversible and devastating impact on the
lives of people: [Nagorno-Karabakh] resident children 3 y/o Leo and 6 y/o Gita
died as a consequence of the serious humanitarian situation,” tweeted Armenian
Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan. “In the 21st century. This should not be
tolerated.”
Azerbaijan tightened the blockade on June 15, completely blocking emergency
supplies of food, medicine and other essential items to Karabakh which were
carried out, in limited quantities, by Russian peacekeepers and the
International Committee of the Red Cross. It thus significantly aggravated the
shortages of basic foodstuffs in the Armenian-population rationed since January.
Officials in Stepanakert say they are especially concerned about growing child
malnutrition resulting from the blockade.
“When I tell our kids to draw anything they want, they draw fruits because they
miss them,” the director of a local kindergarten told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service
on Thursday.
Arrest Warrant Issued For Former Armenian Defense Chief
• Naira Bulghadarian
Armenia - Defense Minister Vigen Sargsian speaks during a press conference in
Yerevan, June 28, 2017.
Armenian prosecutors have issued an international arrest warrant for Vigen
Sargsian, a U.S.-based former defense minister and opposition figure facing what
he sees as politically motivated charges.
The move comes five months after he was charged with abuse of power in
connection with the distribution of government-funded housing to Armenian army
officers and their families.
The Office of the Prosecutor-General claims that in early 2018 Sargsian
illegally ordered a Defense Ministry commission to allocate 26 apartments in
Yerevan to military personnel and ministry officials who were not on an official
waiting list for those homes.
Sargsian strongly denied that right after being indicted in February. He said
that the apartments were given in accordance with rules set by the Armenian
government and based on their recipients’ “combat background and merits.” He
challenged the current government to release the list of those officers.
Sargsian, who has lived in the United States since 2019, claimed that Prime
Minister Nikol Pashinian’s administration ordered his “political persecution” to
keep him from returning to Armenia. He also complained that investigators have
not tried to question him despite knowing his phone number and e-mail address.
A prosecutor overseeing the case countered at the time that “in the materials of
the criminal case there is no information about where he lives now.”
Armenia - Vigen Sargsian, the Republican Party's top election candidate, speaks
to reporetrs outside a polling station in Yerevan, December 9, 2018.
Norayr Norikian, a lawyer representing eight other military officers who missed
out on free apartments because of the alleged wrongdoing, brushed aside the
prosecutor’s claim on Thursday.
“Vigen Sargsian periodically gives interviews, makes comments,” Norikian told
RFE/RL’s Armenian Service. “Armenian law-enforcement bodies are well aware of
his place of residence and, I think, address as well.”
The arrest warrant issued for Sargsian this week means that they have to
formally start looking for him. The criminal investigation will be suspended in
the meantime.
Sargsian, 48, served as defense minister from 2016-2018 in the administration of
President Serzh Sarkisian. The latter was forced to resign in April 2018 amid
nationwide protests led by Pashinian. Vigen Sargsian stepped down immediately
after Pashinian was elected prime minister in May 2018.
Sargsian topped the list of the former ruling Republican Party’s candidates in
snap parliamentary elections held in December 2018. According to their official
results, the party narrowly failed to clear a 5 percent vote threshold to enter
the Armenian parliament.
The prosecutors indicted Sargsian on February 8 just as the parliament allowed
them to bring separate corruption charges against Seyran Ohanian, another former
defense minister who now leads the parliamentary group of the main opposition
Hayastan alliance.
Prosecutor-General Anna Vardapetian asked the National Assembly to lift
Ohanian’s immunity from prosecution on January 20 one day after 15 Armenian
soldiers died at their makeshift barracks destroyed by a major fire. Hayastan
says that the case against Ohanian is aimed at defusing public anger over the
deaths.
Next Aliyev-Pashinian Meeting Slated For July 15
• Ruzanna Stepanian
Belgium - Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliyev, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol
Pashinian and European Council President Charles Michel pose for a picture in
Brussels, May 14, 2023.
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian expressed hope on Thursday that he and
Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev will move closer to a peace treaty between
their countries at their next meeting slated for Saturday.
“My meeting with the president of the European Union Council [Charles Michel]
and the president of Azerbaijan is scheduled to take place in Brussels on
Saturday, July 15,” Pashinian told a weekly cabinet meeting in Yerevan.
“I have confirmed my participation in the meeting and hope to make progress
towards the peace treaty during the meeting,” he said.
The Brussels meeting was originally scheduled for July 21. It is not clear why
it was brought forward.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke with Pashinian and Aliyev by phone
earlier this week. He said he told them that the United States remains committed
to facilitating an Armenian-Azerbaijani settlement.
According to the U.S. State Department spokesman, Matthew Miller, during his
call with Aliyev, Blinken stressed “the need for creativity, flexibility, and
compromise in the negotiations” and reiterated U.S. calls for the lifting of
Azerbaijan’s seven-month blockade of Nagorno-Karabakh.
Washington hosted late last month another round of peace talks between the
Armenian and Azerbaijani foreign ministers. Pashinian cautioned last week that
progress made by them was “not significant.”
“Unfortunately, the text of the peace treaty between Armenia and Azerbaijan is
not yet ready for signing,” he said.
Speaking in Baku on Tuesday, Aliyev underscored the significance of Armenia’s
recognition of Azerbaijani sovereignty over Karabakh which was declared by
Pashinian in May. “Now, however, the time has come to put those words to paper,”
he said.
Reposted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
Copyright (c) 2023 Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, Inc.
1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.
Author: Badalian Vardan
The delegation led by Alen Simonyan leaves for Paris
16:24,
YEREVAN, JULY 10, ARMENPRESS. The delegation led by the President of the National Assembly of Armenia Alen Simonyan left for Paris on a working visit on July 10-13, ARMENPRESS was informed from the National Assembly of Armenia.
The delegation also includes Vladimir Vardanyan from the “Civil Contract” faction, who is also the head of the Armenia-France friendship group, Sargis Khandanyan, Arusyak Manavazyan, Tsovinar Khachatryan, and Armen Rustamyan from “Hayastan” faction.
Luxury hotel lease angers residents in Jerusalem’s Armenian Quarter
Israel –
The developer who leased a large portion of the Armenian Quarter has presented to the Jerusalem Municipality a concept for a luxury hotel complex that would encompass 10% to 20% of Armenian land with the potential to tack on “adjacent” properties during the duration of the lease.
Details of the contract between the Armenian patriarch and Xana Gardens Ltd. were made public for the first time during the presentation on Friday of a fact-finding report by a team of international lawyers from the United States and Armenia.
Audible groans rippled through the main square of the Armenian Convent as Setrag Balian, one of the activists opposing the deal, read the report’s conclusions during a press conference. Residents lingered after the presentation to pore over the information, which included a copy of the contract that shows what appears to be an altered date.
If the lease goes through, many fear it will forever alter the Armenian and Christian presence in Jerusalem.
“I feel betrayed,” Serop Sahagian told The Media Line. “It’s against us and our interests, but this has all been done by those idiots, one of whom is called the patriarch.”
He fears the company, Xana, is a front for a Jewish organization that seeks Old City land.
“We are at a very dangerous crossroads,” Sahagian said. “I hope we can survive this. Our community activities are in real danger. We cannot have any community activities if we don’t have a parking lot – the school and our clubs will be under real pressure.”
The plan presented to City Hall calls for a sprawling luxury hotel complex, managed by the exclusive One&Only chain, between 14,000 and 16,000 square meters (3.5 to 4 acres), well beyond the 11,500 square meters mentioned in the contract. The parking lot alone is 7,000 square meters.
This would mean the eviction of residents, businesses, and the Armenians’ seminary hall.
The lease in question is a 49-year contract for the Cow’s Garden, the name for the land currently used as a parking lot for Armenian residents of the quarter. The contract allows the lessee to extend the contract for another 49 years. The Armenian Patriarchate, according to details of the contract signed by Patriarch Nourhan Manougian, an archbishop and the patriarchate’s then-real estate director, would receive an annual rent of $300,000 for the land during the duration of the lease.
The Media Line was able to view, but not copy or photograph, the documents.
Balian believes the report also offers hope in an expected legal battle to try to reverse the deal. The date on the contract appears to be altered from July 7 to July 8, 2021, to reflect the day that Xana Gardens Ltd. was incorporated in Israel. Also, the contract has three confirmed signatures on the Armenian side but only a stamp from the company without a signature or a position associated with it.
One of the signatories, now deposed priest and then-real estate director Khachik (formerly Baret) Yeretzian, told The Media Line in an interview in May that the land had been shopped around to hotel investors for decades. He said this one was the most financially beneficial for the Patriarchate.
Yeretzian brushed off comparisons to the sale of the Greek Patriarchate land including two hotels at Jaffa Gate to a Jewish land redemption group, saying that the developer, Danny Rothman (also known as Rubinstein), is not religious.
“The Greeks made the contract with Ateret Cohanim,” he said. “We did it with a secular Jew.”
Ateret Cohanim is a religious Jewish nongovernmental organization that aims to “redeem” land in the Muslim Quarter of the Old City and other predominantly Palestinian neighborhoods in East Jerusalem by reestablishing a Jewish presence in it. The organization utilizes various legal means, including buying properties directly or indirectly from Palestinian owners and seeking court orders for properties that were Jewish-owned prior to 1948. Its activities have been controversial, with critics arguing they exacerbate tensions between Israelis and Palestinians and contribute to demographic change in historically Palestinian neighborhoods.
After the controversial Armenian Quarter deal reverberated all the way to Los Angeles and Yerevan, Yeretzian was defrocked by the Armenian patriarch for “for his disloyalty and especially the series of frauds and deceptions he committed.” He said, however, that he was made a “scapegoat” by the patriarch whose signature matters more than his.
The Kingdom of Jordan and the Palestinian Authority froze their recognition of Manougian and called upon him to revoke his signature.
“Jordan and Palestine considered the land deal a threat to the status quo of occupied Jerusalem and a further attempt by Israel and Israeli settler groups to Judaize Jerusalem and change the facts on the ground,” the lawyers said in their 184-page report.
The Armenian Quarter – just one-seventh of the area of the Old City – has long been at the center of a tug-of-war between Israelis and Palestinians in final status negotiations of Jerusalem.
“A walled city of one square kilometer is a bone of contention,” said Amb. Manuel Hassassian, a veteran Palestinian diplomat, now the PA’s envoy to Denmark, who was in charge of the Jerusalem file in the 2000 Camp David negotiations. “[Palestinian] President [Yasser] Arafat did not concede [the Armenian Quarter].”
Hassassian said the Armenian Quarter was “hardest to crack” in the negotiations in 2000 because it is the bridge between the Jewish and Christian quarters. Conceding it to the Israeli side, he said, disrupts the contiguous access of the Armenians to the Christian Quarter.
Should the deal go through now, “Jerusalem is a lost cause” for Christians and Palestinians, he said.
“All the property opposite the Armenian compound will go to the Israelis and that means the end of the Armenian Quarter and an end to the final status negotiations,” he said. “This is more than a calamity to Armenians and Palestinians in Jerusalem.”
“The diverse mosaic will be gone. The population of Christian Jerusalem is jeopardized,” he added.
Manougian has not publicly commented and has refused requests to publicize the contract. Some 2,000 residents live in the quarter where Armenians have maintained a presence for 1,600 years.
Hassassian accused Israel of “trying to take over” New Gate, which provides access to the Christian Quarter, as well, with municipal investments and events in the heart of the Christian Quarter.
“Bit by bit, they want to swallow the Old City,” he said. “Since nothing was achieved at Camp David, and since we barely had negotiations since Camp David, now they use this incremental strategy until they change the nature of the Old City, which is hard to reverse.”
The number of tourists visiting Armenia in June has increased
18:45, 7 July 2023
YEREVAN, JULY 7, ARMENPRESS. The Tourism Committee has published statistical data on tourist visiting Armenia in June 2023.
“199 thousand tourists in June 2023 – the best statistical data compared to previous years (130 thousand in 2022, 154 thousand tourists in 2019).
1 million tourists visit in half a year, which is 30 percent more than in the same period of 2019″, ARMENPRESS reports, the Tourism Committee informed.
Armenia hopes for intensive development of ties with Iran
MEHR News Agency, Iran
July 3 2023
TEHRAN, Jul. 03 (MNA) – The Secretary of the Security Council of Armenia Armen Grigoryan hoped for intensive development of ties with Iran.
Armen Grigoryan made the remarks in a meeting with the outgoing Iranian ambassador to Armenia Abbas Badakhshan Zohouri.
Grigoryan thanked the Iranian ambassador for his support over the years of his tenure and wished him good luck in his future activities, Armen Press reported.
The Armenian top official attached importance to the jointly implemented work and expressed hope that bilateral relations will continue to intensively develop for the welfare of the two peoples.
The Iranian ambassador, for his part, said that the Armenian-Iranian bilateral relations are based on a rich historical-cultural past.
“The close partnership of the past years is a testament to this”, he added.
Mehdi Sobhani, the former ambassador of Tehran to Damascus, is Iran’s new ambassador to Yerevan.
SKH/PR
Nagorno-Karabakh: Azerbaijan says extra guarantees for enclave’s ethnic Armenians impossible
Reuters
Azerbaijan’s foreign minister has rejected a demand from Armenia to provide special security guarantees for some 120,000 ethnic Armenians living in the Nagorno-Karabakh enclave ahead of a new round of peace talks. Nagorno-Karabakh, internationally recognised as part of Azerbaijan, has been a source of conflict between the two Caucasus neighbours since the years leading up to the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, and between ethnic Armenians and Turkic Azeris for well over a century. After heavy fighting and a Russian-brokered ceasefire, Azerbaijan in 2020 took over areas that had been controlled by ethnic Armenians in and around the mountain enclave. The two sides have since been discussing a peace deal in which they would agree on borders, settle differences over the enclave, and unfreeze relations. In what looked like a breakthrough, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan was quoted last month as saying Armenia did recognise that Karabakh was part of Azerbaijan, but wanted Baku to provide the guarantees for its ethnic Armenian population.
In an interview with Reuters, however, Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov said such a guarantee was unnecessary, and the demand amounted to interference in Azerbaijan’s affairs. “We don’t accept such a precondition … for a number of reasons,” he said.
“The most fundamental is the following: this is an internal, sovereign issue. The Azerbaijan constitution and a number of international conventions to which Azerbaijan is party provide all the necessary conditions in order to guarantee the rights of this population.” He said ethnic Armenians could still use and be educated in their own language and preserve their culture if they integrated into Azeri society and state structures like other ethnic and religious minorities.
‘SOME PROGRESS’ Bayramov said there had been “some progress” in peace talks, and that Baku was keen to strike a deal, but also made comments that show how wide the gulf remains before he meets his Armenian counterpart for more talks in Washington next week:
“Why did it take the Armenian prime minister two-and-a-half years (since the war ended) to say he actually recognised the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Azerbaijan?” Bayramov, who was in London to attend a conference about Ukraine’s recovery, complained too about the continued presence of thousands of Armenian troops on Azeri territory.
Moscow – which has peacekeepers on the ground – and Washington and the European Union are all trying separately to help ensure lasting peace between Azerbaijan and Armenia, which have fought two wars since the early 1990s and still have sporadic firefights. Pashinyan is under pressure at home to protect the rights of the ethnic Armenians living in the enclave as Baku pushes for ethnic Armenian government and military structures to be dissolved and the population to accept Azerbaijani passports. Tensions have been raised by Baku installing a checkpoint on the Lachin Corridor – the only road that connects the enclave with Armenia – following months of disruption caused by people who called themselves Azerbaijani environmental activists.
Baku says the checkpoint is necessary to prevent the smuggling of military supplies into the enclave and illegally-mined materials out. It denies Armenian allegations that it has imposed a blockade that makes life miserable for Karabakh’s inhabitants. Ruben Vardanyan, a billionaire banker who was a top official in Karabakh’s separatist government until February, on Thursday accused Baku of trying to “ethnically cleanse” the enclave by imposing what he called a goods and energy blockade – allegations that Azerbaijan denies.
Bayramov said a peace deal was within reach if Armenia was ready to take certain steps. “If there is a will not only to make statements but do some practical steps, I think that potentially it’s possible to reach an agreement even earlier than the end of the year,” he said.
“But if there’s no real readiness … then it might be later.”
(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
https://www.devdiscourse.com/article/law-order/2498361-uk-supporting-families-of-lost-titan-submersible-crew-says-foreign-minister
Lawyer says Armenia’s CEC unlikely to reject civic initiative’s bill
Panorama
Armenia – June 12 2023
The HayaKve initiative has asked the Central Electoral Commission of Armenia (CEC) to give a green light to a bill on Artsakh and the Armenian Genocide.
Under the 2018 referendum law, a citizens’ initiative may submit a draft law to the CEC, get its approval and introduce it in the parliament after collecting 50,000 signatures.
The HayaKve initiative handed over a package of relevant documents to the Electoral Commission on Monday.
The bill seeks to make the recognition of Artsakh as a part of any other country and the renunciation of the Armenian Genocide recognition crimes against the constitutional order, lawyer Aram Orbelyan told reporters outside the CEC headquarters in Yerevan.
The CEC can reject the application only if it finds any violations after studying the documents, he said.
“A preliminary study of the documents has been carried out today, so far no obvious violations have been detected, but a detailed study is to be conducted. I don’t think the CEC is likely to reject it. The problem is to confirm it and make a formal decision,” Orbelyan added.
Turkey Ready To Open General Consulate In Nagorno-Karabakh – Erdogan
June 13 2023
Turkey is ready to open a general consulate in the city of Shusha in the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region, which could be a message to the whole world and Armenia, in particular, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Tuesday
ANKARA (UrduPoint News / Sputnik – 13th June, 2023) Turkey is ready to open a general consulate in the city of Shusha in the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region, which could be a message to the whole world and Armenia, in particular, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Tuesday.
“We are ready to open our general consulate in Shusha at any time. (Turkish Foreign Minister) Mr. Hakan (Fidan) will work on the matter without any delay. If our general consulate is opened in Shusha, it will send a message to the whole world and especially to Armenia,” Erdogan was quoted as saying by Turkish newspaper Star.
The Turkish consulate in Shusha could be the country’s third in Azerbaijan, with the two others located in the second-largest city, Ganja, as well as in Nakhchivan.
The decades-long conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh flared up again in September 2020, marking the worst escalation since the 1990s. During the fighting, Azerbaijani forces seized control of Shusha and several other areas in the region. Hostilities ended with a Russia-brokered trilateral ceasefire declaration signed in November 2020. The two former Soviet countries agreed to the deployment of Russian peacekeepers in the region. Since then, there have been occasional clashes along the border.
https://www.urdupoint.com/en/world/turkey-ready-to-open-general-consulate-in-nag-1707965.html
Armenpress: Docus offers first-of-its-kind AI-powered online health assistant
09:40,
YEREVAN, JUNE 16, ARMENPRESS. Docus, the acclaimed platform created by two Armenian experts that made headlines last year in India and has since expanded worldwide, is now offering its new product – an AI Health Assistant.
Docus is an AI-powered health platform that enables you to interact with an AI Health Assistant, generate personalized health records, and validate them with top doctors from the U.S. and Europe.
“Anyone can contact Docus AI Health Assistant, create their health records and validate them with leading doctors from the United States and Europe,” Docus CTO and co-founder Gevorg Nazaryan told ARMENPRESS. “This is a first-of-its-kind product that combines an AI-created diagnosis with validated conclusions made under human supervision,” he added.
Docus combines AI with the skills of over 300 top doctors from the U.S. and more than 15 countries in Europe.
The AI Health Assistant is available 24/7 and works by determining a diagnosis based on health-related inquiries submitted by users. It then links the potential patients with leading doctors to validate the diagnosis.
The platform uses GPT-4, OpenAI and vector databases and meets the HIPAA and GDPR data protection requirements, ensuring confidentiality and security of patients.
“It’s important to note that the information generated by the AI serves only as a general educational knowledge. Although AI won’t be able to replace doctors anytime in the nearest future, it does have the potential to significantly impact healthcare. On one hand the AI provides the patients with updated information validated on the basis of the records, and on the other hand it can help doctors in performing ordinary tasks such as analyzing the data of patients and highlighting the important results,” Nazaryan said.
The CTO claims that Docus has the potential to transform the healthcare sector and save lives.
Nazaryan described Docus’ mission to be the improvement of people’s health by combining modern technologies and leading experience.
The is available all over the world.
Karine Terteryan