Author: Emil Lazarian

“I should like to see any power of the world destroy this race, this small tribe of unimportant people, whose wars have all been fought and lost, whose structures have crumbled, literature is unread, music is unheard, and prayers are no more answered. Go ahead, destroy Armenia . See if you can do it. Send them into the desert without bread or water. Burn their homes and churches. Then see if they will not laugh, sing and pray again. For when two of them meet anywhere in the world, see if they will not create a New Armenia.” - WS

Spectre of 1915 Armenian genocide looms over Nagorno-Karabakh

Emil Lazarian
Radio France International
Sept 23 2023

Speaking before the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva this week, Armenia’s ambassador Andranik Hovhannisyan said that his country had previously warned of “looming ethnic cleansing” in Nagorno-Karabakh, stressing it was now “in progress”. For Armenians, the recent attacks in the enclave have brought back bitter memories of the 1915 genocide.

By:Jan van der MadeFollow

“This week has been a catastrophe for the South Caucasus,” says Lara Setrakian, president of the Yerevan-based think-tank Applied Policy Research Institute (APRI). 

“The military action and offensive against Nagorno-Karabakh have caused a devastating humanitarian crisis. You have many dead, wounded and missing. This is no way to conduct diplomacy,” she told RFI.

Talks between Armenian separatists and Azerbaijan on integrating the breakaway territory were held on Thursday, after fighters from the Nagorno-Karabakh region – home to some 120,000 ethnic Armenians – agreed to lay down their arms in a ceasefire deal.

Images distributed by Azerbaijan’s state media showed the Armenian separatist delegation sitting around a table with negotiators dispatched by Baku to resolve the decades-long dispute over the breakaway mountainous territory.

According to a dispatch by Azeri news portal Azadliq, the “anti-terrorist operation has been suspended” as long as “units of the Armenian armed forces and illegal Armenian armed units located in the Karabakh region of the Republic of Azerbaijan lay down their weapons, leave their combat positions and military posts and are completely disarmed”.

“We were hoping for peaceful and genuine negotiations between Baku and the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh … and now they are essentially being bombarded and starved into submission,” says Setrakian.

The peace talks followed “three extremely brutal days in Nagorno-Karabakh and it is simply a negotiation by force,” she added.

“People are desperate and they’re being driven out of their homes. They have no choice. So what happens next is apparently in the hands of Baku because it is willing to exert force at every turn to get what it wants.”

Following Baku’s recent claims that Nagorno-Karabakh is now fully under Azerbaijani control, many people took to the streets in the Armenian capital Yerevan earlier this week deeming the Armenian government had capitulated.

But Setrakian doesn’t agree.

“I don’t think the government of Armenia could have done more. They were negotiating in good faith. They thought that the government of Azerbaijan was serious about peace talks,” she says.

The assault, earlier this week, came as a complete surprise. “Five days before it began, the US State Department said it would be absolutely unacceptable for Azerbaijan to use force against this population.”

Despite that, there was prolonged bombardment, reports of gunfire and even ground movement of Azerbaijani troops into Nagorno-Karabakh, with dozens of people killed, hundreds wounded and thousands displaced.

Armenia’s Prime Minister, Nikol Pashinyan, “is now caught in a very bad position,” says Setrakian. “He had invested a lot in the peace process and this doesn’t convince anyone in Armenia that that was a good idea.”

Today’s situation is a replay of a conflict that goes back more than a hundred years. The enclave, with a majority Christian Armenian population, is separated from Armenia proper by high mountain ranges and only reachable via a narrow pass – the Lachin Corridor – but easily accessible from mainly Muslim Azerbaijan.

Research by scholar Arsène Saparov found that when the regions of the “South Caucasus” – Georgia, Azerbaijan and Armenia – were incorporated in the newly created USSR as “Socialist Republics” in the 1920s, the Bolsheviks just granted Nagorno-Karabakh “autonomy” instead of attaching it to Armenia to avoid antagonising Azeri sentiments.

Under Soviet rule from 1921 to 1989, the area lived in relative peace, but when the USSR started to fall apart, hostilities flared up with a brutal, six-year war starting in 1988 which cost the lives to some 25,000 people.

According to Human Rights Watch, both sides were guilty of extreme atrocities. In 1994 a stalemate resulted in a fragile peace guarded by international peacekeepers, but hostilities broke out again in 2020.

That war ended with a Moscow-brokered ceasefire. A Russian force of 1,960 military personnel and 90 armoured personnel carriers was deployed in the enclave to keep the peace, with a renewable, five-year mandate.

That deal, says Setrakian, “was essentially thrown out the window this week” by Azerbaijan, and the Russian peacekeepers were powerless.

“Since the start of the Ukraine war, Russia has simply been unable to maintain that position and unable to keep the peace,” she says. As a result of western sanctions imposed following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Moscow has become increasingly dependent on Turkey and Azerbaijan “for various economic interests and energy exports”. 

At the same time, Armenians are highly suspicious of Baku’s talk of “integration” of the “Artsakh” population into an Azeri-controlled Nagorno-Karabakh. “They [Azerbaijan authorities] say that they want to integrate Armenians as citizens and live in peace. But in fact, Azerbaijan has made life miserable, unliveable for Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh.

“Children are hungry, civilians have died, people are trying to evacuate, and the routes are blocked. It is a crisis, a true humanitarian crisis.

“Now if we start to see many of them going, this will be evidence of ethnic cleansing. Genocide, ethnic cleansing by some definition is happening now,” Setrakian underlines.

INTERVIEW: Lara Setrakian, President APRI Armenia in Yerevan

Now if we start to see many of them going, this will be evidence of ethnic cleansing. So in many respects, genocide, ethnic cleansing by some definition is happening now.

07:10

Interview with Lara Setrakian President APRI Armenia in Yerevan

Jan van der Made

 

In August this year, a hard-hitting “expert opinion” by former ICC Prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo, claimed that by isolating the Nagorno-Karabakh enclave and using “starvation” as a weapon, Azerbaijan may be guilty of genocide.

Quoting the UN Genocide Convention, Ocampo said that “the blockade of the Lachin Corridor by the Azerbaijani security forces impeding access to any food, medical supplies, and other essentials, should be considered a Genocide,” since Baku is “deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction”.

“Starvation as a method to destroy people was neglected by the entire international community when it was used against Armenians in 1915, Jews and Poles in 1939, Russians in Leningrad in 1941, and Cambodians in 1975-1976.

“Starvation was also used in Srebrenica in the winter of 1993-1994,” Ocampo wrote. 

Last Thursday, the Paris-based International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) said in a statement that “while a ceasefire has been concluded, FIDH remains concerned that there is a real risk of genocide of ethnic Armenians in areas coming under Azerbaijan’s effective control”.

The fact that Turkey presents itself as the main backer of Azeri aggression may strengthen painful memories of the 1915 Armenian genocide – still officially denied by Ankara – where an estimated 1.2 to 1.5 million Armenians were systematically killed by the Ottoman empire.

The events are commemorated by an impressive monument overlooking Yerevan today.

“I think this is very much the legacy of genocide that Armenians feel is being perpetuated now,” says Setrakian. 

French concerns

France houses some 750,000 members of the Armenian diaspora – the world’s third largest Armenian community after Russia and the US – and takes a special interest in the developments in Nagorno-Karabakh. At the ongoing session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, French Foreign Affairs Minister Catherine Colonna called the Nagorno-Karabakh situation “illegal, unjustifiable and unacceptable,” while French President Emmanuel Macron spoke with Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan. Late August, Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo led a group of French politicians in a humanitarian mission with the International Red Cross to the Nagorno-Karabakh border in an attempt to bring relief goods to the isolated enclave.

https://www.rfi.fr/en/international/20230923-spectre-of-1915-armenian-genocide-looms-over-nagorno-karabakh-lara-setrakian

Asbarez: Armenia Urges UN Security Council to Prevent Ethnic Cleansing in Artsakh, Deploy Peacekeepers

Emil Lazarian
by Asbarez Staff

 

 

 

in Armenia, Artsakh, Featured Story, Latest, News, Top Stories

Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan addresses the UN Security Council on Sep. 21


Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan on Thursday urged the United Nations Security Council to act and prevent ethnic cleansing in Artsakh and send UN-mandated peacekeepers there to maintain the security and stability.

Mirzoyan was speaking at a special session of the UN Security Council, which was called at the initiative of France, to address the large-scale military attack on Artsakh on Tuesday.

The majority of diplomats representing member states, including the United States, France, Germany and others, condemned Baku for its brazen attacks against the population of Artsakh and called on Baku to immediately reopen the Lachin Corridor and unlock access of humanitarian assistance to the people of Artsakh.

Also speaking that special Security Council session was the European Union’s foreign affairs chief, Josep Borrell, who warned Baku against the forced displacement of the Armenian population in Artsakh.

In his address, Mirzoyan said that the intensity and cruelty of the Azerbaijani attack against Nagorno-Karabakh makes it clear that Azerbaijan’s intention is to complete the ethnic cleansing of the Armenian population of Nagorno-Karabakh.

Below is the complete text of Mirzoyan’s statement.

[SEE VIDEO]

Mr. President,
Distinguished colleagues,

I thank the Security Council for convening this urgent meeting to discuss the security and humanitarian situation in Nagorno-Karabakh stemming from unprovoked and well-planned military attack by Azerbaijan.

While the UN General Assembly’s session is underway and all the members of international community are gathered here to look for ways to maintain peace and security worldwide, while we all speak about the imperative to condemn use of force, prevent further loss of human lives caused by man-made disasters, while each of us comes here to contribute to peace, in our region in South Caucasus on 19th September Azerbaijan unleashed yet another large-scale offensive against the people of Nagorno-Karabakh, in blatant violation of the international law and Trilateral Statement of November 9, 2020. Literally the whole territory of Nagorno-Karabakh, Stepanakert and other cities and settlements came under intense and indiscriminate shelling with use of missiles, heavy artillery, combat UAVs and aviation, including prohibited cluster munition. The intensity and cruelty of the offensive makes it clear that the intention is to finalize ethnic cleansing of the Armenian population of Nagorno-Karabakh. 

Outcomes of this large-scale military operation clearly reveal their atrocious nature. Yet they are very preliminary as due to the targeted attacks against critical infrastructure, such as electricity stations, telephone cables and  stations and internet equipment, the population is completely cut-off from each other and is deprived of the possibility to present the real-time situation on the ground. Also, Azerbaijani troops control main roads in Nagorno-Karabakh which makes it impossible to visit and get information on the ground. 

For the time being there are confirmed cases of more than 200 killed and 400 wounded, including among civilian population, women and children, also accepted today by the
Azerbaijani Ministry of Foreign Affairs. More than ten thousand persons became forcibly displaced, including women, children, and elderly, who stay in the open air, without food and other means for subsistence. Thousands of families have been separated. Add to this around twenty thousand displaced persons from the 2020 war to see that there are enormous humanitarian needs on the ground.

People are still starving due to the severe shortages of food imposed by the ongoing 10-month blockade.

The healthcare system has been paralyzed. Hospitals have no electricity and are in a critical shortage of medicine. People are deprived of the opportunity to receive even first aid. Without fuel, ambulances cannot operate to take the wounded to hospitals.

The images coming from Nagorno-Karabakh are truly shocking: women, children, elderly people left without shelter and food, moms desperately trying to find their lost children, wives crying from fear that Azerbaijan may imprison their husbands. It’s hard to believe that all this is happening not a hundred years ago but today in front of the international community in the 21st century. The social media is full of Armenians from Nagorno-Karabakh searching for their children or relatives. The children that suddenly appeared to stay in shelters or even streets continue crying and asking their parents to take them home, refusing to recognize that they do not have a home anymore. During the shelling an eight-year boy has gone missing in one of the settlements of Nagorno-Karabakh, his brother ten years old was killed and his body has not been even possible to take out from the village. The other brother was injured. These are only examples of numerous cases. In the eyes of Azerbaijan these children are terrorists, and Azerbaijan’s actions, missiles, armored vehicles, artillery and UAVs were directed against those children, their parents and grandparents. 

The Azerbaijani social media segment is full of calls to find the missing children and women, to rape them, dismember and feed them to dogs. Azerbaijani users are sharing the profiles of Armenian women from Nagorno-Karabakh on social media making biddings on who will get those women to rape, when they are taken under Azerbaijani custody.

Colleagues, 
This was feasible, the clear signs were there. We have been alarming for a long time now. The international community refused to take it seriously enough. 

The current aggression came as a culmination of a 10-months-long blockade of the Lachin corridor and forced starvation imposed on the people of Nagorno-Karabakh. Severe shortage of food, medicine, fuel, natural gas, electricity and other essential goods had already brought the vulnerable people of Nagorno-Karabakh to the brink of humanitarian catastrophe. One should be naive to think that this was not precisely thought through ever since or even before the institutionalization of the inhumane blockade with the aim of bringing down the will and ability of the people of Nagorno-Karabakh to resist and maintain their lives and livelihood in their ancestral homeland. The Azerbaijani aggression that unfolded with explicit barbarity and deliberate targeting of civilian populations and infrastructure was the final act of this tragedy aimed at the forced exodus of the people of Nagorno-Karabakh.

  • When the International Court of Justice on February 22 and July 6, 2023, adopted legally binding orders and they were disrespected by Azerbaijan- this Council as an august body meant to ensure the implementation of ICJ orders failed to react adequately,
  • When Azerbaijan blocked the Lachin cCorridor and we called for urgent meeting of the UNSC in December 2022 – this Council failed to react adequately, 
  • When in April Azerbaijan installed illegal check-point in the Lachin cCorridor and later started to kidnap people, including ones under the protection of international humanitarian law,- international community failed to undertake adequate measures,
  • When Armenia called again for another UNSC urgent session in August 2023 – warning about the fragile security and humanitarian situation and calling the Council to use its toolbox to address all the issues and not let people of Nagorno-Karabakh behind, this Council failed to react adequately,

During the days prior to September 19’s Azerbaijani aggression when Armenia was raising alarm about feasible use of force by Azerbaijan and seeking for concrete measures and actions to prevent this scenario – international community reacted to our warning with skepticism.

Now when Azerbaijan has already restarted to use force against the people of Nagorno-Karabakh, when these this people are forcefully deported from their houses and are at danger to be forcefully deported from their homeland, when many who have been defending their families and their right to live in freedom and dignity in their homeland for the last 30 years are at danger of mass arrests and prosecution, when we have a situation where there is not an intent any more, but clear and irrefutable evidences of policy of ethnic cleansing and mass atrocities – the Security Council of the United Nations must act.

Despite accepting all demands of the Azerbaijani side in order to stop the bloodshed and ongoing talks today, the people of Nagorno-Karabakh were again subjected to attacks using different caliber weapons and mortars, thus forcing the civilians once again to seek shelter in the basements. We believe such attacks and further persecutions will continue unless there is a clear international action. 

By the way, regarding the mentioned demands, I would like to state very clearly and unequivocally that the Republic of Armenia was not part of those discussions and we resolutely reiterate that the claims and references to the presence of any military personnel of the Armed Forces of the Republic of Armenia in Nagorno-Karabakh do not correspond to reality. 
In this attempt we clearly see the intention of some actors to involve the Republic of Armenia in military actions thus transferring the hostilities into our sovereign territories. The position of Armenia firmly remains the same: we should establish peaceful relations based on mutual recognition of sovereignty and territorial integrity, which certainly cannot be anyhow misinterpreted and used as a license for mass atrocities, including ethnic cleansings in Nagorno-Karabakh. The rights and security of the Armenian people of Nagorno-Karabakh must be properly addressed and internationally guaranteed.

There is also another very important aspect regarding the parties involved. As I noted some of you in your statements still make general calls to the sides of conflict. This approach and this terminology are not relevant any more. There are no more sides of the conflict but perpetrators and victims. There is no more conflict but a real danger of atrocity crime. Is it still possible to prevent it now? We are here because we believe so. Because we still believe in humanity, in international law and in the ability of the Security Council to act decisively when lives of thousands are at stake.

Mr. President, 
Against this backdrop, time and again, I appeal to the Security Council to demonstrate its credibility and reputation by undertaking the following urgent measures:

  • To condemn the resumption of hostilities and targeting of civilian settlements and infrastructure,
  • To demand full compliance with obligations under the international humanitarian law, including those related to the protection of civilians, in particular women and children, and critical civilian infrastructure;
  • To immediately deploy an interagency mission by the UN to Nagorno-Karabakh with the aim to monitor and assess the human rights, humanitarian and security situation.
  • To ensure unimpeded access of the UN agencies and other international organizations to Nagorno-Karabakh in line with the humanitarian principles.
  • To ensure full cooperation of the parties in good faith with the International Committee of the Red Cross to address the consequences of the military actions, including the removal and identification of the bodies, search and rescue of personnel missing in action, release of POWs, safe and unimpeded delivery of humanitarian assistance, in strict compliance with the international humanitarian law. 
  • To ensure the return of persons displaced in the course of the recent aggression, as well as persons and refugees displaced as a result of 2020 war, to their homes in the territory of Nagorno- Karabakh and adjacent regions under the monitoring and control of the UN relevant agencies, as it was foreseen in the Trilateral Statement of November 9, 2020.
  • To ensure immediate restoration of vital supplies, including food, medicine, fuel, gas and electricity.
  • To demand the immediate restoration of freedom and security of movement of persons, vehicles and cargo, along the Lachin corridor, in line with the ICJ orders.
  • To ensure a sustainable international mechanism of dialogue between representatives of Nagorno-Karabakh and official Baku to address the issues related to rights and security of the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh.
  • To demand exit of any Azerbaijani military and law-enforcement bodies from all civilian settlements in Nagorno-Karabakh NK to exclude panic, provocations and escalation, endangering civilian population until the results of the negotiations.
  • To exclude punitive action against Nagorno-Karabakh NK political and military representatives and personnel.
  • Create a possibility for a United Nations-mandated Peacekeeping Force to keep stability and security in Nagorno- Karabakh.

Finally, 
Mr. President,
Dear colleagues,

Let me mention that today we celebrate the Day of Independence of the Republic of Armenia and let me congratulate my compatriots on this very important and symbolic occasion. 

And I thank you.”

Opinion Call what is happening in Nagorno-Karabakh by its proper name

Emil Lazarian
Washington Post
Sept 22 2023

By Luis Moreno Ocampo



Luis Moreno Ocampo was the first chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court. He was also a national prosecutor in Argentina in the 1985 case against the military junta.


In 2021, President Biden recognized the 1915 removal of Armenians from their lands in Anatolia, in today’s Turkey, as genocide. The United States had been silent on the issue for more than a century, and its silence had grievous consequences.

Today, Armenians need global leaders, including Biden, to stop a new genocide — one that started this past winter and is now evolving into a more brutal phase.

On Tuesday, after a months-long blockade and military buildup along the border of the Armenian-majority enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh in Azerbaijan, Azerbaijan’s military launched an attack. Within a day, Azerbaijani forces quickly overwhelmed local defenses, killing more than 200 people, including civilians. In short order, a shaky cease-fire was announced.


In return for stopping the bombing, Azerbaijan demanded the surrender of Nagorno-Karabakh’s top leaders and the disarmament of all the armed forces of the Karabakh authorities.

As Azerbaijan’s victory became more apparent, scores of Nagorno-Karabakh’s Armenian civilians gathered around the airport in Stepanakert (the enclave’s biggest city) looking to flee their ancestral lands.

They have every right to fear the next steps Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev might take. Since December 2022, Azerbaijan has blocked the Lachin Corridor, the only connection between Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh. On Feb. 22, the International Court of Justice, after hearing arguments from both sides, ruled that the blockade produced a “real and imminent risk” to the “health and life” of Nagorno-Karabakh’s Armenian population.


Rather than comply with the court’s binding order to end the blockade, Azerbaijan security forces doubled down in June, sealing off the enclave entirely, preventing even the transfer of food, medical supplies and other essentials. Since then, Aliyev has repeatedly ignored calls from the U.N. secretary-general and the U.S. secretary of state to comply with the court’s ruling. He correctly understood that Azerbaijan would bear no serious costs from the international community for its actions.

Azerbaijan’s defiance is ominous. In international law, the Genocide Convention of 1948 makes it clear that one way to commit the crime is by “deliberately inflicting on [a] group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part” (Article II c). By blocking the Lachin Corridor, Aliyev turned Nagorno-Karabakh into a vast concentration camp for 120,000 Armenians. This week’s military intervention added killing (Article II a) and causing serious bodily and mental harm (Article II b) to the ledger.

What happens next? Because Nagorno-Karabakh authorities surrendered, the international community has urged Aliyev to guarantee the full rights of his Armenian citizens in the enclave. Aliyev’s government has said it is not committing ethnic cleansing and assured the world that “reintegration” will bring prosperity to the region.

But this rhetoric rings hollow given what has already been done. And Azerbaijan’s ambitions extend beyond Nagorno-Karabakh. Since 2010, Aliyev has regularly talked about Armenia itself as “Western Azerbaijan,” echoing long-standing Azerbaijani claims that Armenia as a whole is an illegitimate state. As recently as December, he said that “present-day Armenia is our land.”

The world must call the crime by its proper name. Resistance to using the term “genocide” has been a long-standing problem in international affairs. In April 1994, most U.N. Security Council members refused to label the mass killings in Rwanda as genocide. Little has changed in 30 years.

The last time the U.N. Security Council discussed the situation in Nagorno-Karabakh, Aliyev’s blockade was repeatedly called a “humanitarian situation,” and continued negotiations were proposed. One is reminded of the heroic intervention by the Czech ambassador, Karel Kovanda, during the U.N. debates on Rwanda: When most leaders backed negotiating a truce, he likened the idea to “persuading Hitler to reach a ceasefire with the Jews.”


Today, as always, geopolitics explain the world’s reticence. Azerbaijan is an ally with the West against Iran; it provides energy to Europe and it spends millions on sophisticated Israeli weapons. But such exigencies must not get in the way of the world’s responsibility to stop what is happening before its very eyes: the Armenian genocide of 2023.

Biden did the right thing in 2021. Today, he needs to help prevent history from repeating itself.

Rep. Pallone Introduces Bipartisan Legislation To Protect & Provide Humanitarian Assistance to the Armenian People

Emil Lazarian

Washington, D.C. – Today, Congressman Frank Pallone, Jr (D-NJ) introduced bipartisan legislation with Reps. David Valadao (R-CA) and Adam Schiff (D-CA) to protect Armenians and provide humanitarian assistance to Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh in response to the brutal and unjust actions taken by the Government of Azerbaijan, reported the Armenian Assembly of America (Assembly).

The Bill, “Supporting Armenians Against Azerbaijani Aggression Act of 2023,” covers a spectrum of pertinent and swift actions that can be taken by the Administration in the aftermath of Azerbaijan’s illegal and unprovoked attacks on the Armenian people of Nagorno-Karabakh, from calling on Azerbaijan to open the Lachin Corridor to providing humanitarian assistance to imposing sanctions to ceasing waivers of Section 907 of the FREEDOM Support Act, as well as appropriating funding for future partnerships between the U.S. and Armenia.

“President Aliyev’s genocidal campaign against the Armenian people of Artsakh has gone on too long, and it is past time the United States takes meaningful action to halt it. This legislation takes a major first step in addressing the atrocities committed by his regime and holding him and his cronies accountable for the death and destruction they have wrought. It would also provide the Armenian people impacted by the conflict with the assistance and security they need to live safely in their ancient homelands without fear of reprisal from the Azerbaijani government,” stated Congressman Pallone.

The Assembly’s Congressional Relations Director Mariam Khaloyan stated: “Since he has taken a page out of Putin’s playbook in Ukraine, Aliyev too must be held accountable for his ongoing targeting of civilians in Artsakh. We urge the Administration to sanction Azerbaijan for its genocidal actions.”
The Bill further calls for $30 million to “provide humanitarian assistance to groups in Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh impacted by the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh War, Azerbaijan’s September 2022 attack on Armenia, and Azerbaijan’s blockade of the Lachin Corridor.”
The Bill also contains language to provide $10 million in Foreign Military Financing assistance to Armenia to “support Armenia’s independence, joint training and exercises with the U.S., and train Armenian forces for future international peacekeeping operations.”
Imposing sanctions on Azerbaijan regarding the Aliyev regime’s clear attempts at ethnic cleansing in Nagorno-Karabakh is also specified, as well as the government’s “operations that instigated the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh War; attacks on Armenia in September 2022; the blockade of the Lachin Corridor beginning in December 2022; attacks on Nagorno-Karabakh in September 2023.”
Finally, the Bill highlights the importance of protecting the rights of the Armenian people in Nagorno-Karabakh and requests that the Secretary of State “shall submit to the appropriate congressional committees a detailed strategy to ensure the durable security for the people of Nagorno-Karabakh” that incorporates the “rights and security of the people of Nagorno-Karabakh” as well as the “establishment of accountability measures to ensure the rights and security of the population of Nagorno-Karabakh in the event that the governments of Armenia and Azerbaijan reach a peace agreement” as well as “support for the protection of Armenian cultural heritage sites in Nagorno-Karabakh.”


Established in 1972, the Armenian Assembly of America is the largest Washington-based nationwide organization promoting public understanding and awareness of Armenian issues. The Assembly is a non-partisan, 501(c)(3) tax-exempt membership organization.


###


NR# 2023-32


Armenpress: Armenia’s Malkhas Amoyan takes Paris 2024 quota after winning bronze at World Wrestling Championships

Emil Lazarian

 21:41,

YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 22, ARMENPRESS. Armenian wrestler Malkhas Amoyan won bronze in the Men’s Greco-Roman 77 kg division at the 2023 World Wrestling Championships in Belgrade, Serbia by defeating 9:7 Kazakhstan’s Demeu Zhadrayev.

With this victory, Amoyan qualified for the 2024 Summer Olympics.

Amoyan won gold at the 2021 world championships and is a two-time European champion.

Sending UN peacekeeping mission to Nagorno-Karabakh can only be decided by UNSC – Stéphane Dujarric

Emil Lazarian

 21:52,

YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 22, ARMENPRESS. A UN Peacekeeping Mission can be sent to Nagorno-Karabakh only by the decision of the UN Security Council, UN Secretary General’s spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric has said, according to TASS news agency.

“Decisions about any peacekeeping mission are made by the UN Security Council,” he added.

On September 21, during the UNSC meeting on Nagorno-Karabakh, Armenia called for the deployment of UN-mandated peacekeepers to Nagorno-Karabakh.




Former ICC chief prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo calls on Biden to help prevent new Armenian genocide

Emil Lazarian

 12:50,

YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 23, ARMENPRESS. Former ICC chief prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo, in an Op-Ed published by the Washington Post, has warned that Azerbaijan’s ambitions extend beyond Nagorno-Karabakh and the world has the responsibility to stop what is happening before its very eyes: the Armenian genocide of 2023.

Below is the full Op-Ed published by the Washington Post.

“In 2021, President Biden recognized the 1915 removal of Armenians from their lands in Anatolia, in today’s Turkey, as genocide. The United States had been silent on the issue for more than a century, and its silence had grievous consequences.

“Today, Armenians need global leaders, including Biden, to stop a new genocide — one that started this past winter and is now evolving into a more brutal phase.

“On Tuesday, after a months-long blockade and military buildup along the border of the Armenian-majority enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh in Azerbaijan, Azerbaijan’s military launched an attack. Within a day, Azerbaijani forces quickly overwhelmed local defenses, killing more than 200 people, including civilians. In short order, a shaky cease-fire was announced.

“In return for stopping the bombing, Azerbaijan demanded the surrender of Nagorno-Karabakh’s top leaders and the disarmament of all the armed forces of the Karabakh authorities.

“As Azerbaijan’s victory became more apparent, scores of Nagorno-Karabakh’s Armenian civilians gathered around the airport in Stepanakert (the enclave’s biggest city) looking to flee their ancestral lands.

“They have every right to fear the next steps Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev might take. Since December 2022, Azerbaijan has blocked the Lachin Corridor, the only connection between Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh. On Feb. 22, the International Court of Justice, after hearing arguments from both sides, ruled that the blockade produced a “real and imminent risk” to the “health and life” of Nagorno-Karabakh’s Armenian population.

“Rather than comply with the court’s binding order to end the blockade, Azerbaijan security forces doubled down in June, sealing off the enclave entirely, preventing even the transfer of food, medical supplies and other essentials. Since then, Aliyev has repeatedly ignored calls from the U.N. secretary-general and the U.S. secretary of state to comply with the court’s ruling. He correctly understood that Azerbaijan would bear no serious costs from the international community for its actions.

“Azerbaijan’s defiance is ominous. In international law, the Genocide Convention of 1948 makes it clear that one way to commit the crime is by “deliberately inflicting on [a] group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part” (Article II c). By blocking the Lachin Corridor, Aliyev turned Nagorno-Karabakh into a vast concentration camp for 120,000 Armenians. This week’s military intervention added killing (Article II a) and causing serious bodily and mental harm (Article II b) to the ledger.

“What happens next? Because Nagorno-Karabakh authorities surrendered, the international community has urged Aliyev to guarantee the full rights of his Armenian citizens in the enclave. Aliyev’s government has said it is not committing ethnic cleansing and assured the world that “reintegration” will bring prosperity to the region.

“But this rhetoric rings hollow given what has already been done. And Azerbaijan’s ambitions extend beyond Nagorno-Karabakh. Since 2010, Aliyev has regularly talked about Armenia itself as “Western Azerbaijan,” echoing long-standing Azerbaijani claims that Armenia as a whole is an illegitimate state. As recently as December, he said that “present-day Armenia is our land.”

“The world must call the crime by its proper name. Resistance to using the term “genocide” has been a long-standing problem in international affairs. In April 1994, most U.N. Security Council members refused to label the mass killings in Rwanda as genocide. Little has changed in 30 years.

“The last time the U.N. Security Council discussed the situation in Nagorno-Karabakh, Aliyev’s blockade was repeatedly called a “humanitarian situation,” and continued negotiations were proposed. One is reminded of the heroic intervention by the Czech ambassador, Karel Kovanda, during the U.N. debates on Rwanda: When most leaders backed negotiating a truce, he likened the idea to “persuading Hitler to reach a ceasefire with the Jews.”

“Today, as always, geopolitics explain the world’s reticence. Azerbaijan is an ally with the West against Iran; it provides energy to Europe and it spends millions on sophisticated Israeli weapons. But such exigencies must not get in the way of the world’s responsibility to stop what is happening before its very eyes: the Armenian genocide of 2023.

“Biden did the right thing in 2021. Today, he needs to help prevent history from repeating itself.”

Armenia-Azerbaijan: UN calls for ‘credible and durable’ end to fighting in flashpoint region

Emil Lazarian
Sept 21 2023

A senior UN official told the Security Council on Thursday that the wellbeing of civilians caught up in the long-running conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan should be the “overriding priority” following renewed fighting.

Miroslav Jenča told ambassadors that Azerbaijan had announced, in their words, “local counter-terrorism activities in the Karabakh economic region” two days ago, in response to the tragic deaths of two civilians and four police officers in incidents that allegedly involved landmines placed by the Armenian military.

He noted that Azerbaijan had notified the Russian peacekeeping force in the region, of its activities in a bid to “prevent large scale provocations” by Armenian troops and “ensure their withdrawal and the restoration of the constitutional order” within internationally recognized Azerbaijani territory.

Mr. Jenča lamented that following a “serious escalation in military operations” across the Line of Contact between the two forces, civilian casualties had been reported, as well as thousands evacuated within the flashpoint region.

He stressed that the UN has no observers in the region and was unable to verify the “various claims and allegations.”

The UN has supported the full implementation of a 9 November 2020 Trilateral Statement by the leaders of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Russia, following the ceasefire of that year, together with efforts to reduce tensions and advance the normalization of relations between Baku and Yerevan.

Mr. Jenča told the Council that in light of the 2020 Statement, Secretary-General António Guterres urges all concerned to “strictly observe” the ceasefire and continue to abide by their obligations relating to international humanitarian and human rights law.

He reminded ambassadors that in recent months the freedom of movement of local civilians and humanitarian access along the Lachin Corridor and Aghdam road, “have been major sources of tension and sharp exchanges”.

“The Secretary-General remains deeply concerned about the impact of the escalation on the fragile humanitarian situation and calls on the parties to urgently facilitate unimpeded access” of relief to all civilians, Mr. Jenča added.

He said the uptick in violence in recent days should be viewed within a “broader pattern of ceasefire violations which have continued to persist.”

Assistant Secretary-General Jenča noted Wednesday’s announcement of a cessation of hostilities, cautioning that the situation on the ground remains fluid.

“We also understand that, in a positive step, representatives of the local population and the Government of Azerbaijan met earlier today for an initial exchange.”

He called for a “credible and durable” end to the fighting. “Any renewed escalation would lead to further loss of life and human suffering and further set back internationally supported peace efforts.”

Protection of civilians including their basic human rights “must be the overriding priority.”

The only sustainable way forward, he said, was through genuine dialogue between Azerbaijan and representatives of the region, “together with full engagement in the normalization process”.

Holy Etchmiadzin Postpones Muron Blessing Formerly Planned for Oct. 1 (Message of the Primate)

Emil Lazarian


HEADLINE:

 

The Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin has announced that the Blessing of the Holy Muron ceremony, planned to take place on October 1, has been postponed. Instead on that date, the Mother See will lead worldwide Armenian churches in a pan-national Prayer for Artsakh.

 

Diocesan Primate Fr. Mesrop Parsamyan informed the faithful of the Eastern Diocese of the decision in a message of September 22. Despite the postponement of the Muron Blessing service, the Episcopal Ordination services on October 8–where Fr. Mesrop will be consecrated as a bishop of the church–will go forward as planned. The service in New York welcoming the newly ordained Bishop Mesrop back to the Eastern Diocese will also proceed as planned on October 14.

 

Read Fr. Mesrop’s message to the public below.

 

* * *

 

A Message from Our Primate, Fr. Mesrop Parsamyan

 

Dear Faithful:

 

These are hard days for all Armenians: a time of heartache, deep reflection, and earnest prayer over Artsakh. The mood of our people, in our homeland and around the world, is somber—and naturally that sensibility will affect our national observances planned for the coming days.

 

I am writing to inform the faithful of the Eastern Diocese that the Blessing of the Holy Muron—the grand ecclesiastical celebration scheduled to take place on October 1, 2023, at the Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin—has now been postponed, and will not be going forward as planned.

 

This decision was made by our church’s Supreme Spiritual Council, during a meeting on September 22, presided over by His Holiness Karekin II, the Supreme Patriarch and Catholicos of All Armenians. The determination was prompted by the circumstances now surrounding Artsakh. A new date for the blessing ceremonies has not been announced.

 

Instead, a different service will be held at Holy Etchmiadzin on Sunday, October 1: a pan-national Prayer for Artsakh, which will be offered as part of the Divine Liturgy at the Mother See, and in Armenian churches throughout the world on that day. Additional information on this service will be shared with parishes as it becomes available.

 

Finally, with great humility, I want to inform our faithful that the Episcopal Ordinations scheduled for Saturday, October 8, will indeed go forward as planned. I am already deeply grateful for the honor His Holiness Karekin II will confer on me and my brother clergymen on that day—and to receive this precious sacrament at such a critical time in our history leaves me profoundly moved in my heart and spirit.

 

In our own Diocese, my first Episcopal Divine Liturgy in New York’s St. Vartan Cathedral will also go forward as planned, on the morning of Saturday, October 14. I take this opportunity to renew my invitation to all our people across this blessed Diocese to join us in prayer, with a spirit of Christian Hope, on that day.

 

To close, let me repeat what I told worshippers last night, during a united prayer gathering at St. Vartan Cathedral, presided over by myself and my Brother in Christ Archbishop Anoushavan Tanielian. I observed that at this point in time, we cannot predict what the outcome of this week’s developments will be. But one thing is very clear to me: That in the days and weeks to come, our people in Artsakh are going to need our support more than ever before—and that we must stand united, as Armenians, to help in any way we can. It will take great spiritual reserves to undertake the task before us. But our Lord Jesus Christ has given the Armenian people such strength in the past—and He will do so again. It is to Him, above all, that we must open our hearts, and ask for his help and blessing.

 

In the days and weeks to come, please keep these calls to united effort in your heart. And please continue to pray for the Lord’s protection over our brave Armenian sisters and brothers in Artsakh.

 

Prayerfully

 

Fr. Mesrop Parsamyan
Primate

 

 

—9/22/23

 

# # #

Turkish Press: UN affirms respect to Azerbaijan’s sovereignty amid illegal Karabakh vote

Emil Lazarian
Daily Sabah, Turkey
Sept 13 2023

The United Nations reaffirmed that the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Azerbaijan should be respected as Armenians in Karabakh, recaptured from Armenia in a 2020 war, recently went to polls to install their own leaders, to the chagrin of Baku.

Answering questions at a news conference at the U.N. headquarters in New York on Tuesday, the U.N. Spokesperson Stephane Dujarric reminded of U.N. Security Council resolutions on the issue affirming the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Azerbaijan and urged “full respect” to both. “The Secretary-General urges Armenia and Azerbaijan to intensify efforts towards the long-term normalization of relations for the benefit of peace and security in the region,” he added.

On Saturday, separatist Armenians in the Karabakh region of Azerbaijan held self-proclaimed elections to choose a new separatist president. This move was not recognized by many countries, including Azerbaijan, Türkiye, the United States and the United Kingdom, as well as the European Union.

Relations between Azerbaijan and Armenia have been tense since 1991 when the Armenian military occupied Nagorno-Karabakh, a territory internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan, and seven adjacent regions. In the fall of 2020, Azerbaijan liberated several cities, villages, and settlements from Armenian occupation during 44 days of clashes. The war ended with a Russia-brokered peace agreement.

Despite ongoing talks over a long-term peace agreement, tensions between Azerbaijan and Armenia rose in recent months over the Lachin road, the only land route giving Armenia access to the Karabakh region, where Azerbaijan established a border checkpoint in April on the grounds of preventing the illegal transport of military arms and equipment to the region.

https://www.dailysabah.com/politics/un-affirms-respect-to-azerbaijans-sovereignty-amid-illegal-karabakh-vote/news