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

Conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia | Info

Emil Lazarian

Azerbaijan said today it had established a checkpoint on the only land route to the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region, a move that was followed by claims of shelling on the border by Azerbaijani and Armenian forces.

Nagorno-Karabakh is internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan, but its 120,000 residents are predominantly ethnic Armenians and the region broke away from Baku in a war in the early 1990s.

Azerbaijan said it had set up a checkpoint on the road leading to Karabakh, a step it said was essential because it believed Armenia was using the road to transport weapons.

Azerbaijan “took appropriate measures to establish control at the starting point of the route,” the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said.

Armenia said the checkpoint at the Hakari Bridge in the Lachin Corridor was a gross violation of the 2020 ceasefire agreement that ended that year’s war.

(SRNA)

OSCE Minsk Group Co-chairs do not communicate with each other

Emil Lazarian

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 18:54,

YEREVAN, APRIL 21, ARMENPRESS. OSCE Minsk co-chairs do not communicate with each other, ARMENPRESS reports, Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan said in his final speech during the discussion of the report on the progress and results of the implementation of the Government Action Plan (2021-2026) for 2022 in the National Assembly, referring to the opposition's observations over negotiations under the co-chairmanship of the OSCE Minsk Group.

"The OSCE Minsk co-chairs do not communicate with each other. They say: "I will not talk to him, I will not sit at the same table." Please, tell the Armenian authorities how to force the co-chair countries of the OSCE Minsk Group to sit together at the same table," Pashinyan said.

Azerbaijan’s Case at International Court of Justice Halted after Armenia Objects

Emil Lazarian
by Asbarez Staff

 

 

 

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

The International Criminal Court is headquartered in The Hague


The International Court of Justice on Friday halted hearings in a case brought by Azerbaijan against Armenia, after Armenia’s legal representatives presented objections.

Armenia’s representative on international legal matters, Yeghishe Kirakosyan said that Armenia objected to all provisions of the case brought by Azerbaijan against Armenia in the case known as the “Application of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination.”

“It was reasoned that most of the claims set forth in Azerbaijan’s lawsuit are outside the court’s jurisdiction and inadmissible,” Kirakosyan explained in a statement.

On February 22, the ICJ granted Armenia’s request for an interim measure that obligated Azerbaijan to ensure uninterrupted movement of citizens, vehicles, and goods in both directions through the Lachin corridor until the final decision on the “Armenia v. Azerbaijan” claim is rendered. Azerbaijan has not complied with this decision, despite calls on Baku by various countries, including the United States, to adhere with the decision.

RFE/RL Armenian Report – 04/21/2023

Emil Lazarian 
                                        Friday, 


Armenian Border Area ‘Still Occupied By Azeri Troops’

        • Ruzanna Stepanian

A new Azerbaijani army position outside the Armenian village of Tegh, March 31, 
2023.


Residents of an Armenian border village insisted on Friday that contrary to 
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s upbeat statements Azerbaijani troops have not 
withdrawn from any of their community lands occupied three weeks ago.

Azerbaijani army units redeployed on March 30 to more parts of the Lachin 
district sandwiched between Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh, completing a change in 
the route of the Lachin corridor which began last August. Armenia’s National 
Security Service (NSS) said hours later that they advanced up to 300 meters into 
Armenian territory at five border locations adjacent to the village of Tegh.

Local government officials and farmers said Tegh lost a large part of its 
agricultural land and pastures. Some of them said that the Azerbaijani military 
made bigger territorial gains than is admitted by official Yerevan. They 
dismissed the NSS’s April 1 claims that the situation in that border area 
“improved significantly” as a result of negotiations held by Armenian and 
Azerbaijani officials.

Tensions there escalated on April 11 into a skirmish between Armenian and 
Azerbaijani forces which left at least seven soldiers from both sides dead.

“The Azerbaijanis haven’t retreated a single inch from Tegh’s lands,” one local 
resident told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service on Friday. “They are continuing 
fortification works.”

He was perplexed by Pashinian’s comments made on Thursday. The prime minister 
told reporters that the “problematic section” of the Armenian-Azerbaijani border 
around Tegh was 5 kilometers long and that the Armenian and Azerbaijani sides 
“ascertained” 1.4 kilometers of it after the deadly fighting.

“That means Armenian border guards are deployed at a certain distance from that 
border and Azerbaijani border guards are deployed at a certain distance from 
that border,” he said.

Pashinian did not clarify whether the Azerbaijani troops withdrew from that 
1.4-kilometer stretch or whether Yerevan does not consider it Armenian territory 
anymore as a result of the unofficial border delimitation.

“Again, they haven’t retreated a single inch,” countered the Tegh farmer, who 
did not want to be identified. “What has been ascertained?”

Tegh residents are still awaiting concrete actions by the Armenian government, 
he said, warning that their patience is running out.

The governor of Armenia’s Syunik province encompassing Tegh said earlier this 
week that the government will compensate villagers for the loss of their land 
holdings and main source of income.

The Armenian opposition blames Pashinian for the fresh territorial gains made by 
Azerbaijan. Opposition leaders say he should have ordered the Armenian army or 
border guards to take up positions along the Armenian side of the Tegh border 
section ahead of the Azerbaijani advance.




Armenia To Introduce Voluntary Military Service For Women

        • Susan Badalian

Armenia - Female military personnel.


The Armenian government announced on Friday plans to introduce voluntary 
military service for women.

A relevant bill approved by the government is part of its declared defense 
reforms and a gradual transition to a “professional army” promised by Prime 
Minister Nikol Pashinian.

Under the bill drafted by the Armenian Defense Ministry, the six-month service 
will become obligatory for young women once they are formally drafted by the 
country’s armed forces.

They will serve in military training units for six months and then have the 
option of becoming contract soldiers eligible for combat duty. Also, every 
female conscript will be paid 1 million drams ($2,600) after completing the 
service.

“It will be a normal service, not a stroll through barracks,” Pashinian said 
during a cabinet meeting in Yerevan.

The bill will likely be approved by the Armenian parliament. In that case, the 
military will be able to start enlisting women for the six-month duty already 
this fall.

The Armenian army already has female soldiers and officers within its ranks. 
Their current number is not revealed by the Defense Ministry.

It stood at over 1,400 in 2013 when Armenia’s two military academies began 
admitting women as cadets. The vast majority of the female personnel held 
clerical positions in the Defense Ministry, army detachments and other military 
structures.

There was also a growing number of women performing combat roles. They 
participated in the 2020 war in Nagorno-Karabakh and subsequent fighting on 
Armenia’s border with Azerbaijan. Five Armenian women were killed during last 
September’s large-scale border clashes.




Opposition Lawmaker Risks Losing Parliament Post

        • Gayane Saribekian

Armenia - Taguhi Tovmasian, chairwoman of the parliament committee on human 
rights, speaks during a news conference, October 10, 2022.


Nearly three dozen lawmakers from the ruling Civil Contract party have moved to 
dismiss their opposition colleague Taguhi Tovmasian as chairwoman of the 
Armenian parliament’s standing committee on human rights.

Tovmasian was forcibly removed, together with several other opposition deputies, 
from the parliament’s main auditorium on Thursday after occupying its rostrum in 
protest against Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s latest statements on the 
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. She condemned the use of force, ordered by speaker 
Alen Simonian, as illegal.

Hovik Aghazarian, a controversial Civil Contract deputy, announced shortly after 
the incident that he is collecting signatures in support of stripping Tovmasian 
of her post. At least 28 other pro-government parliamentarians signed the 
initiative by Friday afternoon.

The ruling party’s parliamentary group is expected meet in the coming days to 
decide whether to oust Tovmasian.

The official rationale for the proposed dismissal is not Thursday’s incident but 
the April 4 meeting of the parliament committee on human rights which discussed 
two candidates for the then vacant post of Armenia’s human rights defender.

The meeting chaired by Tovmasian was marred by verbal abuse and threats shouted 
by some Civil Contract deputies at the candidate nominated by the Armenian 
opposition. One of those deputies publicly pledged to “cut the tongues and ears 
of anyone” who would make disparaging comments about the 2018 “velvet 
revolution” that brought Pashinian to power.

Despite a resulting uproar, law-enforcement authorities declined to investigate 
the threats. Nor did Pashinian’s party take any disciplinary action against its 
lawmakers involved in the ugly scenes.

The party is now considering instead ousting Tovmasian, who is affiliated with 
the opposition Pativ Unem bloc. Aghazarian blamed her for the chaotic committee 
meeting, saying that she should have interrupted it.

Tovmasian countered that she did so after the unusually aggressive behavior of 
Aghazarian’s pro-government colleagues. “There are no grounds for discussing my 
dismissal,” she said, accusing the authorities of putting “political pressure” 
on her.

Tovmasian, who is a former journalist and newspaper editor, is the last 
remaining oppositionist holding a leadership position in the National Assembly.

One of the parliament’s three deputy speakers, Ishkhan Saghatelian, and the 
chairman of the parliament committee on economic affairs, Vahe Hovsepian, were 
ousted last July after weeks of anti-government protests organized by their 
Hayastan alliance and Pativ Unem. Another Hayastan deputy, Armen Gevorgian, 
immediately resigned as chairman of a committee dealing with “Eurasian 
integration” in protest. Tovmasian pointedly declined to follow suit.


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.

Federal and State Parliamentarians to Join Australian National Armenian Genocide Commemoration at Chatswood Concourse

Emil Lazarian
Friday,

SYDNEY: The National Armenian Genocide Commemoration Evening on Monday 24th April 2023 – which will honour the 108th anniversary of the 1.5 million Armenians, as well as the 1 million Assyrians and Greeks, who were massacred by Ottoman Turkey in 1915 – will feature strong representation from Federal and New South Wales parliamentarians, reported the Armenian National Committee of Australia (ANC-AU). 

Federal Parliamentarians, Jerome Laxale MP – Member for Bennelong and Chair of the Australia-Armenia Inter-Parliamentary Union; Paul Fletcher MP – Member for Bradfield and Vice Chair of the Australia-Armenia Inter-Parliamentary Union and Kylea Tink MP – Member for North Sydney will lead the list of Federal representatives at the commemoration.

Laxale and Tink will be attending their first National Commemoration as Federal Members of Parliament since their election to the House of Representatives in May 2022.

Steve Kamper MP – Member for Rockdale and NSW Minister for Multiculturalism – will attend his first National Armenian Genocide Commemorative event, and will be joined by NSW state parliamentary colleagues, including Hugh McDermott MP – State Member for Prospect; Tim James MP – State Member for Willoughby, Mark Coure MP – State Member for Oatley, Jordan Lane MP – State Member for Ryde, Matt Cross MP – State Member for Davidson and Michael Regan MP – State Member for Wakehurst.

There will be several elected officials from the Willoughby, Ryde, Northern Beaches and Fairfield local governments also in attendance, led by the Mayor of the City of Willoughby, Tanya Taylor and Mayor of the City of Ryde, Armenian-Australian Sarkis Yedelian OAM.

“Many of our political guests will be joining us for the first time for an in-person commemoration to honour our fallen ancestors and pay tribute to their memory. It is an honour to have them join us for such a solemn occasion marked on the calendar of all Armenian-Australians,” said Kolokossian.

Middle East studies historian Dr. Ümit Kurt, who is an ethnically Kurdish citizen of Turkey, will keynote the first in-person National Armenian Genocide Commemoration evening since the Covid pandemic.

Dr. Kurt, is a historian of the modern Middle East. His research is on the social, cultural, and economic history of the late Ottoman Empire and the early Turkish Republic in the 19th and 20th centuries, with a special focus on the Armenian Genocide and dispossession of Ottoman Armenians at large, imperial interests, ethnic politics, forced migrations and infrastructural transformations.

Dr. Kurt completed his dissertation in the Department of History at Clark University in the United States in 2016. He has since held several postdoctoral positions at the Centre for Middle Eastern Studies at Harvard University, and the Polonsky Academy in the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute, and worked as a Visiting Assistant Professor in Armenian Studies Program at California State University (CSU) in Fresno. 

Currently, Dr. Kurt is an Assistant Professor in the School of Humanities, Creative Industries and Social Sciences (History) at the University of Newcastle, Australia. He has also been serving as a Vice Executive Secretary for the International Network of Genocide Scholars (INoGS) since March 2020, and is the author of several books, including "The Armenians of Aintab: The Economics of Genocide in an Ottoman Province" and “Antep 1915: Genocide and Perpetrators” (2018).

He is also the co-author of “The Spirit of the Laws: The Plunder of Wealth in the Armenian Genocide” (Berghahn, 2017), the co-editor of "Armenians and Kurds in the Late Ottoman Empire" (The Press at California State University, Fresno, 2020), "The Committee of Union and Progress: Founders, Ideology, and Structure" (The Press at California State University, Fresno, 2021), and "The State of the Art of the Early Turkish Republic Period: Historiography, Sources and Future Directions" (The Press at California State University, Fresno, 2022).

The event is organised by the Armenian Genocide Commemorative Committee, under the auspices of His Eminence Archbishop Haigazoun Najarian, the Armenian Apostolic Church, the Armenian Catholic Church, and the Armenian Evangelical Church.

The member organisations of the Armenian Genocide Commemorative Committee are the Social Democrat Hunchakian Party, the Armenian Revolutionary Federation, the Armenian Democratic Liberal Party, the Armenian General Benevolent Union, the Armenian Missionary Association of Australia, Hamazkaine, Nor Serount, Homenetmen, Tekeyan, Armenian Relief Society, Dkhrouni, AGBU Youth and the Armenian Youth Federation.

https://www.anc.org.au/news/Media-Releases/MONDAY-24-APRIL–Federal-and-State-Parliamentarians-to-Join-Australian-National-Armenian-Genocide-Commemoration-at-Chatswood-Concourse

Biden Must Go Beyond A Cut-And-Paste Job On Armenian Genocide Recognition

Emil Lazarian
1945

Genocide happens most easily in darkness. If Biden truly understands the lessons of the Armenian Genocide, on Monday, when the White House releases its annual declaration, he will call out those who would continue the genocide through a deliberate campaign of starvation, harassment, incitement and murder.

By Michael Rubin
On April 24, Armenians will commemorate the 108th anniversary of the genocide they suffered in the last years of the Ottoman Empire. Turkey still denies the genocide was deliberate; many Turkish nationalists question if it occurred at all.

For too long in Washington, promises to affirm the Armenian Genocide were akin to promises to move the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem: Every major candidate made them, but none followed through. Donald Trump disrupted that pattern with regard to Jerusalem. Rather than undermine peace, it catalyzed it. Joe Biden did the same with Armenian Genocide. He not only promised as a candidate but also followed through. On April 24, 2021, he stated clearly, “We remember the lives of all those who died in the Ottoman-era Armenian genocide and recommit ourselves to preventing such an atrocity from ever again occurring.” Today, not only the White House, but also the Senate and House of Representatives, all 50 states, and the District of Columbia officially recognize the Genocide.

Despite Turkey’s bluster, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan did nothing. He showed himself to be a paper tiger. Biden and many other world leaders showed that truth trumped spin and propaganda. Unfortunately, Secretary of State Antony Blinken tarnished Biden’s moral clarity. Without forewarning Congress, whom he had briefed just days earlier on the Armenian issue, he quietly decided to waive Section 907, which enforced a weapons embargo on Azerbaijan. That section of the Freedom Support Act ties military assistance to Azerbaijan to its commitment to solve its dispute with Armenia through diplomacy alone. Blinken simply ignored the facts not only that Azerbaijan’s surprise attack had killed thousands, but also that Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev openly declared he sought to take his conquests further.

In April 2022, Biden issued another statement about the Armenian Genocide on Armenian Remembrance Day. It was a good declaration and addressed all the key points. “As we reflect on the Armenian genocide, we renew our pledge to remain vigilant against the corrosive influence of hate in all its forms. We recommit ourselves to speaking out and stopping atrocities that leave lasting scars on the world,” he said. Once again, the State Department waived Section 907.

As White House speechwriters craft a statement for Monday, Biden must go further. For five months, Azerbaijani militias have blockaded the only route into Artsakh, the Armenian-governed enclave in Nagorno-Karabakh. Earlier this week, Aliyev called for population transfer of the region’s 115,000 remaining Armenians. He has cut off food, water, and gas. Genocide looms.

Blinken and the State Department meanwhile wring their hands and counsel against holding Aliyev accountable for his crimes. After all, Blinken tells Congressmen privately, the United States needs Azerbaijan’s compliance for anti-Iran operations. What Blinken fails to understand is that keeping Iran in check is an Azerbaijani interest. That Aliyev extorts Blinken for something Azerbaijan would do anyway humiliates Washington. Regardless, a millennia-old Armenian community should not die as a concession to the dictator.

Genocide happens most easily in darkness. If Biden truly understands the lessons of the Armenian Genocide, on Monday, when the White House releases its annual declaration, he will call out those who would continue the genocide through a deliberate campaign of starvation, harassment, incitement and murder. He will not simply cut-and-paste from his previous two declarations. There is nothing cheaper and more morally corrupt than condemning a genocide from a century ago while enabling its continuance today.

Now a 1945 Contributing Editor, Dr. Michael Rubin is a Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI). Dr. Rubin is the author, coauthor, and coeditor of several books exploring diplomacy, Iranian history, Arab culture, Kurdish studies, and Shi’ite politics, including “Seven Pillars: What Really Causes Instability in the Middle East?” (AEI Press, 2019); “Kurdistan Rising” (AEI Press, 2016); “Dancing with the Devil: The Perils of Engaging Rogue Regimes” (Encounter Books, 2014); and “Eternal Iran: Continuity and Chaos” (Palgrave, 2005).

Pashinyan leaves government building amid protest

Emil Lazarian
Panorama
Armenia –

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan left the government office amid a protest staged by the parents of soldiers killed in a military barracks fire in January.

They started the protest outside the government building in central Yerevan on Thursday morning, accusing Armenia’s authorities of trying to cover up the soldiers’ deaths. The protesters demanded a meeting with Pashinyan and Defense Minister Suren Papikyan.

Fifteen Armenian servicemen were killed and three others were severely injured following a major fire that broke out in the barracks of an engineer and sapper company in a military unit in Azat, a village in Armenia's eastern Gegharkunik Province, on January 19.

Pashinyan and Papikyan announced shortly after the deadly incident that the fire was sparked by an officer who poured gasoline into a woodstove in violation of the fire safety rules.

The victims’ families distrust the criminal investigation into the incident, claiming their sons were deliberately killed.

Pashinyan has said he will not meet with the soldiers’ parents until the ongoing probe is completed.

“Nikol fled from the other side,” one of the protesting mothers said. “He will have to run away from the Armenian people all his life. The people made a big mistake by electing him.”

Armen Khachatryan, head of the Information and Public Relations Department at the Prime Minister's Office, confirmed to Panorama.am that Pashinyan had left the government building.

"The prime minister is currently in the National Assembly," he said.

Denmark, Netherlands to donate 14 Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine

Emil Lazarian

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 14:18,

YEREVAN, APRIL 20, ARMENPRESS. Denmark and the Netherlands will jointly donate 14 Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine, the two countries said on Thursday.

The Leopard 2A4 tanks, which will be bought from a third party and refurbished, are expected to be delivered in the first quarter of 2024, Reuters reported citing a joint statement from the two countries.

"It is absolutely crucial for the hope of a peaceful and secure Europe that we do not let the Ukrainians fight the battle alone," Denmark's acting Defence Minister Troels Lund Poulsen said.

In February, Denmark, Germany and the Netherlands also announced they will pool resources to restore at least 100 old Leopard 1 tanks from industry stocks and supply them to Ukraine this year and next.

Russia earlier warned that it will treat arms shipments to Ukraine from NATO countries as “legitimate targets” for military action.

Azerbaijani military opens gunfire at farmers in Nagorno Karabakh

Emil Lazarian

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 15:25,

YEREVAN, APRIL 20, ARMENPRESS. Azerbaijani troops opened fire at several Armenian farmers working in the agricultural fields in Nagorno Karabakh around 12:00, April 18, the Nagorno Karabakh authorities announced.

The shooting happened in the Aknaghbyur village.

The Azerbaijani troops used various caliber small arms in the shooting.

The farmers stopped the agricultural work.

The Ministry of Internal Affairs of Nagorno Karabakh said they notified the Russian peacekeepers on the shooting.

No injuries were reported.

Armenian SPRING PR and British Finanser to Collaborate

Emil Lazarian

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 13:11,

YEREVAN, APRIL 21, ARMENPRESS. The Finanser and SPRING PR have entered into a long-term agreement to showcase the latest digital transformation trends and best practices in the region. By promoting innovation and technology across various sectors of the digital economy, the companies aim to foster a competitive environment and support its growth.

Chris Skinner's second visit to the region is scheduled for this autumn. As per the agreements, SPRING PR will fully coordinate these efforts. In Yerevan and various countries across the region, Skinner will lead closed-format masterclasses for medium and large enterprises, as well as for government institutions involved in digital transformation initiatives.

 "Observing SPRING PR's expertise, we opted to expand our collaboration by signing an exclusive, long-term contract. Soon, we'll be hosting a workshop in Georgia, where there is significant interest. Together with SPRING PR, we plan to hold numerous events in the region, including masterclasses," said Fintech and Digital Transformation Expert Chris Skinner.

The inaugural Doing Digital Forum in Yerevan on April 5 attracted over 1,000 attendees from numerous countries, featuring specialists from Georgia, the USA, Brazil, France, the UAE, the UK, Singapore, and more. Chris Skinner deemed his visit to Armenia a success.

In recognition of Chris Skinner's influence in the digital transformation field and the global popularity of his books, SPRING PR will translate and publish one of his works.

Tatevik Simonyan emphasized that the Doing Digital Platform will introduce new formats throughout the year. The annual Doing Digital Forum is expected to grow even larger. Simonyan highlighted SPRING PR's continued efforts to position Armenia as an innovative hub, thereby contributing to the nation's digital economy development and enhancing its global competitiveness.