11:41, 18 May, 2022
YEREVAN, MAY 18, ARMENPRESS. 277 people were detained by police as of 10:45 May 18 in the latest anti-government protests in Yerevan.
Police said the demonstrators were detained for failure to obey the lawful order of a police officer.
The opposition demonstrators resumed civil disobedience campaigns in the morning of May 18 and are blocking streets in Yerevan.
14:46,
YEREVAN, MAY 20, ARMENPRESS. United States Ambassador to Armenia Lynne Tracy commented on the actions of the Armenian police during the ongoing demonstrations in the context of police reforms.
Speaking at the Armenian Forum for Democracy, Ambassador Tracy said there are concerns, they’ve seen images on police officers using force against demonstrators.
Ambassador Tracy said these episodes must be investigated and there should be accountability. “I have noticed the government’s approach to investigate these episodes, to carry out investigations, and there is also an approach of respecting the rights of the demonstrators and the work of journalists. Of course the demonstrators also have an obligation to demonstrate peacefully that doesn’t create a chaotic situation and doesn’t violate the rights of others,” she said.
The Ambassador said that democracy is a process for ensuring progress. “People write me about police reforms and ask me ‘is this your democracy?’ No, democracy isn’t perfect, democracy is a continuous process to ensure accountability, to protect human rights, but this isn’t just one part. In case of the police, what matters is the accountability of their actions,” the ambassador said.
She added that problems concerning police conduct occur in the United States as well. She said the United States seeks to carry out reforms in the area. “Meaning, this isn’t something that happens only in Armenia. What matters is for accountability to exist in these issues,” Ambassador Tracy said.
Thursday,
EU Head To Host Another Armenian-Azeri Summit
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.
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian will fly to Brussels on Sunday for fresh talks
with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev that will be hosted by the European
Union’s top official, it was announced on Thursday.
Pashinian’s press office said he will meet with European Council President
Charles Michel separately before the trilateral talks. It gave no other details.
Michel will host the Armenian and Azerbaijan leaders for the second time in less
than two months.
He described the last Armenian-Azerbaijani summit held on April 6 as
“productive,” saying that Aliyev and Pashinian agreed to “move rapidly” towards
negotiating a comprehensive “peace treaty” between their nations.
Yerevan and Baku have still not reached agreements on the agenda and dates of
those negotiations. Nor have they started separate talks on demarcating the
Armenian-Azerbaijani border in line with other understandings reached in
Brussels.
Russia responded to the April 6 summit by accusing the West of trying to hijack
its efforts to make peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan. It has been trying to
regain the initiative in the peace process.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov held on May 12 a trilateral meeting with
his Armenian and Azerbaijani counterparts in Tajikistan. The Russian Foreign
Ministry said the three ministers “reaffirmed the commitment to strict
compliance with all provisions” of Armenian-Azerbaijani agreements brokered by
Moscow.
Pashinian’s office announced the fresh summit in Brussels amid daily opposition
demonstrations in Yerevan aimed at forcing the prime minister to resign. They
were sparked by his recent statements on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.
Speaking in the Armenian parliament on April 13, Pashinian said the
international community is pressing Armenia to scale back its demands on
Karabakh’s status and recognize Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity. He signaled
readiness to make such concessions, fuelling more opposition allegations that he
is intent on helping Baku regain full control over Karabakh.
U.S. Reaffirms Support For Prewar Karabakh Peace Formula
Armenia - U.S. Ambassador Lynne Tracy lays flowers on the graves of Armenian
soldiers killed during the 2020 war in Nagorno Karabakh and buried at the
Yerablur Military Pantheon, Yerevan, September 27, 2021.
The United States continues to stand for a “comprehensive settlement” of the
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict based on internationally recognized principles such as
self-determination of peoples, according to U.S. Ambassador to Armenia Lynne
Tracy.
“As I said earlier, we continue to believe that the key to a peaceful,
democratic, and prosperous future in the region is a negotiated, comprehensive,
and sustainable settlement of all remaining issues related to or resulting from
the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict,” Tracy told the Armenpress news agency in an
interview published on Thursday.
“Self-determination of peoples is a key, though not the only, internationally
recognized principle to achieve this goal, and, in the context of a
comprehensive settlement of the conflict, the United States … recognizes the
role of the population of Nagorno-Karabakh in deciding its future,” she said.
In her words, the other guiding principles for such a settlement are territorial
integrity of states and non-use of force.
The three principles cited by Tracy were at the heart of a framework peace deal
that was first put forward by the U.S., Russian and French co-chairs of the OSCE
Minsk Group in 2007 and repeatedly amended by them in the following decade. The
proposed deal, known as the Madrid Principles, reportedly stipulated, among
other things, that Karabakh’s predominantly Armenian population would determine
the territory’s status in a future referendum.
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has repeatedly said that Azerbaijan’s victory
in the 2020 war in Karabakh put an end to the conflict. He has demanded that
Armenia recognize Azerbaijani sovereignty over Karabakh through a bilateral
peace treaty.
By contrast, U.S. and French officials have said that the Karabakh dispute
remains unresolved.
“Indeed, it is U.S. policy that the status of Nagorno-Karabakh remains to be
resolved,” Tracy told Armenpress, repeating her earlier statements criticized by
Baku.
“We encourage further peace negotiations and stand ready to engage bilaterally
and with like-minded partners, including through our role as an OSCE Minsk Group
Co-Chair,” she said.
The envoy also emphasized that “there is no military solution to the conflict.”
Armenian Police Stop Mass Arrests Of Protesters
• Robert Zargarian
• Artak Khulian
Armenia - Police officers guard a government building during an opposition
demosntration in Yerevan, .
Riot police on Thursday refrained from mass arrests of participants of daily
opposition demonstrations in Yerevan aimed at forcing Prime Minister Nikol
Pashinian to resign.
There were also virtually no clashes between security forces and protesters
marching through various parts of the city and briefly blocking roads.
The Armenian police made a record 414 arrests on Tuesday and detained a slightly
smaller number of people on Wednesday while unblocking the streets. They said
that nobody was arrested during similar protests organized by the country’s
leading opposition groups on Thursday morning.
“There were arrests but not on the scale that we saw in the previous days,” said
Ishkhan Saghatelian, an opposition leader.
Saghatelian linked the restraint shown by security forces to a meeting which he
and several other opposition figures held with the chief of the national police,
Vahe Ghazarian, late on Wednesday. They met as thousands of opposition
demonstrators stood outside the police headquarters in the center of Yerevan.
Armenia - Police officers arrest an opposition protester in Yerevan, May 18,
2022.
Saghatelian told the crowd after the meeting that Ghazarian promised to
investigate police officers accused by the Armenian opposition of using
disproportionate force against protesters. One officer has already been
suspended and a dozen others are also facing criminal proceedings, he cited the
police chief as saying.
No policemen are understood to have been formally charged so far. One of them
was caught on camera punching a protester two weeks ago.
By contrast, law-enforcement authorities have arrested more than a dozen
opposition activists on charges stemming from the ongoing “civil disobedience”
campaign. Most of them are accused of assaulting police officers or government
supporters. The opposition rejects the accusations as politically motivated.
Baku, Yerevan Disagree On Agenda Of Peace Talks
• Heghine Buniatian
Belgium - Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan speaks to RFE/RL in
Brussels, .
Azerbaijan has not yet accepted Armenia’s counterproposals regarding the agenda
of official negotiations on a peace treaty between the two South Caucasus
states, according to Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan.
In March, Baku presented Yerevan with five elements which it wants to be at the
heart of the treaty. They include a mutual recognition of each other’s
territorial integrity.
The Armenian government said they are acceptable to it in principle but should
be complemented by other issues relating to the future of status of Karabakh and
the security of its ethnic Armenian population.
Mirzoyan reaffirmed this position on Wednesday when he visited Brussels to
co-chair, together with the European Union’s foreign policy chief, Josep
Borrell, a session of the Armenia-EU Partnership Council.
“It’s crucial and principal for us to discuss the issue of the rights and
security of Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh and, accordingly, the status of
Nagorno-Karabakh,” he told RFE/RL before the meeting. “We also think that it is
important to continue these negotiations on the peace treaty in the frames of
and according to the mandate of the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairmanship.”
“So far we haven’t heard a positive reaction from Azerbaijan to these points,”
he said. “But you know that efforts are being made to make these negotiations
possible.”
Tajikistan - The foreign ministers of Armenia, Russia and Azerbaijan meet in
Dushanbe, May 12, 2022.
Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov dismissed last week that the
document presented by Yerevan, saying that it “can’t be called proposals.”
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev
discussed the matter in detail at their April 6 talks in Brussels hosted by
European Council President Charles Michel. The latter said they agreed to “move
rapidly” towards negotiating a peace deal.
Borrell acknowledged that the two sides are “very far” from achieving that. He
said the EU stands ready to assist in the signing and implementation of such an
accord.
Belgium - EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell meets with Armenian Foreign
Minister Ararat Mirzoyan in Brussels, .
Aliyev and Pashinian also agreed to set up before the end of April a joint
commission on the delimitation and demarcation of the Armenian-Azerbaijani
border.
Mirzoyan said last week that the commission will hold its first session in
Moscow on May 16-17. The meeting did not take place, however.
The Armenian minister said on Wednesday that the two sides disagree on
unspecified “technicalities” of the commission’s work. “Hopefully in the
upcoming days and weeks we will finally have this meeting,” he added.
Aliyev claimed on Wednesday that the first meeting of the commission was
originally scheduled for April 29 but that the Armenian side cancelled it at the
last minute. He said Yerevan also turned down a “preliminary” Azerbaijani
proposal to hold the meeting on May 7-11.
Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
Copyright (c) 2022 Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, Inc.
1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.
17:49,
YEREVAN, MAY 18, ARMENPRESS. President of the Republic of Lithuania Gitanas Nausėda will pay a two-day official visit to the Republic of Armenia accompanied with his wife Diana Nausėdienė on May 19-20.
As ARMENPRESS was informed from the press service of the President’s Office, following the official welcoming ceremony scheduled on May 20 at the residence of the President of the Republic of Armenia, Presidents Vahagn Khachaturyan and Gitanas Nausėda will have a private conversation, which will be followed by an extended-format meeting with the participation of the delegations of the two countries.
Afterwards, the Presidents of Armenia and Lithuania will make a statement to the press.
The delegation led by the President of Lithuania will visit the Tsitsernakaberd Memorial to pay tribute to the memory of the Armenian Genocide victims, and will visit the Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute.
In the Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin, Gitanas Nausėda will be hosted by His Holiness Karekin II, Catholicos of All Armenians.
The delegation led by the President of Lithuania will also visit the Matenadaran, Mesrop Mashtots Institute of Ancient Manuscripts.
12:33,
YEREVAN, MAY 17, ARMENPRESS. The Armenian Ministry of Education, Science, Culture and Sport invites everyone to celebrate the International Museum Day on May 18 and the Museum Night pan-European event on May 21.
International Museum Day is an international day held annually on or around 18 May, coordinated by the International Council of Museums. The event highlights a specific theme which changes every year reflecting a relevant theme or issue facing museums internationally.
This year’s slogan of the International Museum Day is “The Power of Museums”.
125 museums of Armenia and Artsakh have joined the Museum Night event this year.
On May 18 and 21 the museums will be free of charge for all visitors.
According to the agreement, a meeting of the trilateral working group, co-chaired by the Deputy Prime Ministers of Armenia, Russia, and Azerbaijan, will be held this month.
The office of Armenian Deputy Prime Minister Mher Grigoryan noted that the exact date is being agreed.
12:54,
YEREVAN, MAY 16, ARMENPRESS. 17 new cases of COVID-19 have been confirmed in Armenia in the period from May 11 to 16, the ministry of healthcare said.
The total number of confirmed cases has reached 422,917.
8934 COVID-19 tests were conducted in one week.
Over the past week, the number of recovered patients rose by 21 (412,071 total).
No death case has been registered during the past week. The death toll stands at 8623.
11:12,
YEREVAN, MAY 13, ARMENPRESS. iGorts 2022 cohort application has come to a close, the Office of the High Commissioner for Diaspora Affairs told Armenpress.
“iGorts is a program for Armenian professionals from the Diaspora to work within Armenia’s public sector. This year, nearly 300 Diaspora Armenian professionals have sent applications from 31 countries, including Russia, the United States, Lebanon, Ukraine, Belgium, Iran, Canada, France, Germany, Belarus, Argentina, Switzerland, Norway, and Italy. In addition, applicants from the Netherlands, Jordan, Brazil, the United Arab Emirates, and New Zealand applied to the program for the first time.
The program provides an opportunity for specialists from the Diaspora to work in more than 25 departments in Armenia and Artsakh for a year, bringing their experience and knowledge, initiating new programs, and starting their careers in their Homeland. All applicants have a bachelor’s degree with at least five years of professional experience or a master’s degree (or higher) with three years of professional experience.
This year we have applicants who graduated from Harvard, Bradford University, MSU, Columbia University, and UCLA. This year the oldest applicant is 77 years old, and the average age of candidates for the program is 35 years. After the final round, 50 specialists from the Diaspora will begin their careers in Armenia in September of this year.
The government of the Republic of Armenia will offer a round-trip air ticket, a monthly stipend of 336.000 AMD AMD to cover living expenses, emergency medical insurance, and a one-year residency status fee for the participants. We would also like to mention that this will be the program’s third cohort.
Over the past two years, through the program, more than 100 specialists started their work in the public sector of Armenia and Artsakh. Fortunately, 70% of them decided to repatriate. iGorts is the only state program in the history of Armenia that invites Armenian specialists from the Diaspora to help change Armenia’s administration system using their skills”, the Office said in a statement.
11:16,
YEREVAN, MAY 14, ARMENPRESS. Embassies of 37 countries resumed their operation in the Ukrainian capital of Kiev, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky said on social media.
“37 foreign missions have already resumed their work in Kiev. I am grateful to all of them”, the Ukrainian President said, expressing confidence that other missions will be back in the capital city soon.
As negotiations between Armenia and Azerbaijan advance, the question of what will happen to their Soviet-vestige exclaves has again become a matter for dispute.
In recent days the issue has again become the subject of diplomatic jockeying. The two sides have for the most part repeated their previous, mutually incompatible positions on the issue, casting doubt on the prospects for delineation of the two countries’ border just as serious work is set to begin.
On May 5, as he was discussing Armenia’s new framework for negotiations for the first time in public, the Secretary of Armenia’s National Security Council, Armen Grigoryan brought up the issue of the exclaves, quirks of Soviet border-drawing along the Armenia-Azerbaijan border that will have to be settled along with the bigger, thornier issue of Nagorno-Karabakh.
“In general, the opposition is constantly making baseless statements, which have nothing to do with reality. The issue of exclaves has not been raised so far, as there is an exclave on both sides,” Grigoryan told reporters. “Those territories are almost equal. Neither side is saying anything on this issue, it has not been discussed yet!”
The fact that he brought up the issue during his brief on Armenia’s new six-point proposal, which has yet to be made public, led to suspicion that Grigoryan was protesting too much and that the exclaves may be part of that deal.
But his mention of the opposition appeared to be a reference to a recent protest march from one of the exclaves in question: Karki, which Armenians call Tigranashen.
Karki is one of a handful of parts of Soviet Azerbaijan that were effectively islands inside Soviet Armenia. There was one, larger corresponding exclave of Soviet Armenia, Artvashen, located inside the borders of Soviet Azerbaijan and which Azerbaijanis call Bashkand. Following the war between the two sides in the 1990s, each side occupied the exclaves that were surrounded by their territory, and the respective populations had to flee.
The views of the Armenians and Azerbaijanis displaced from the exclaves more or less mirrors that of their governments: while many Armenians from Artvashen are resigned to not going back home, many Azerbaijanis still harbor hopes of being able to return back to live in their villages.
Armenia’s political opposition has regularly accused the government of preparing to return the Azerbaijani exclaves – which happen to straddle the country’s strategic north-south highway – to Azerbaijan. In the new wave of protests that the opposition has launched against the government’s negotiations, one key event was the march to Yerevan from Karki/Tigranashen, highlighting what they claim is a government wish to hand the territory back to Azerbaijan.
“Today the most important thing is fighting against these Turkish-subject authorities and saving the homeland,” one participant in the march, Hripsimeh Arshakyan, told reporters. “Nothing is scarier than losing a homeland.”
The government denies any plan to hand over the exclaves inside Armenia; it says that it is negotiating to allow each side to keep the exclaves that they now control.
“Our hope is that the possible solution is that the exclave of Armenia is left to Azerbaijan, the exclaves of Azerbaijan, which are in the territory of Armenia, are left to Armenia,” Grigoryan said.
Grigoryan’s comments occasioned a rebuttal from Azerbaijan Deputy Foreign Minister of Azerbaijan Khalaf Khalafov, who on May 10 reiterated Azerbaijan’s position that it wants back control of its exclaves. “These territories are part of Azerbaijan. The return of these lands to Azerbaijan will be considered within the delimitation process. These issues will be resolved after discussions,” he told journalists.
Responding to Khalafov’s comments, Armenian ambassador-at-large Edmon Marukyan rolled out a new bargaining position: that Armenia has a stronger claim to Artvashen than Azerbaijan does to its exclaves.
“We’ve stated numerous times that delimitation and demarcation processes should be based on facts and documents of de jure significance. At this moment, we don’t possess any legal substantiation that any de jure Azerbaijani enclave has ever existed in the territory of Armenia,” Marukyan told reporters. “On the contrary, there are legal grounds for the village of Artsvashen belonging to Armenia. … These issues must certainly be discussed and resolved in the delimitation and demarcation process.”
A joint commission to work on delimiting the border between the two countries, which was agreed at an April meeting between the Armenian and Azerbaijani leaders, will hold its first meeting in Moscow May 16-17, Armenia Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan said.