Author: Emil Lazarian

                                        Friday, January 5, 2024


Baku Again Demands ‘Corridor’ Through Armenia

        • Heghine Buniatian

AZERBAIJAN -- Hikmet Hajiyev, the head of the Foreign Policy Affairs Department 
of Azerbaijan's Presidential Administration, gives a press briefing in Baku, 
February 26, 2021


Azerbaijan has renewed its demands for Armenia to open an extraterritorial 
corridor to its Nakhichevan exclave.

A senior aide to Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev claimed that Yerevan has an 
“obligation” to do so under the terms of the Russian-brokered ceasefire that 
stopped the 2020 Armenian-Azerbaijani war.

The truce accord commits Armenia to opening rail and road links between 
Nakhichevan and the rest of Azerbaijan. It says that Russian border guards will 
“control” the movement of people, vehicles and goods. The transport links would 
presumably pass through Syunik, the sole Armenian province bordering Iran.

The Armenian government has rejected Baku’s demands, saying that Azerbaijani 
passengers and cargo cannot be exempt from Armenian border controls. It insists 
on conventional transport links between the two South Caucasus states.

Iran also strongly opposes the so-called “Zangezur corridor” sought by Aliyev. 
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi reaffirmed Tehran’s stance when he met with a 
visiting Azerbaijani official in October. Aliyev’s top foreign policy adviser, 
Hikmet Hajiyev, said later in October that the corridor “has lost its 
attractiveness for us” and that Baku is now planning to “do this with Iran 
instead.”

But in an interview with Germany’s Berliner Zeitung newspaper published on 
Thursday, Hajiyev said that the planned construction of a new road as well as a 
railway connecting Azerbaijan to Nakhichevan via Iran does not mean that Baku 
has abandoned the idea of the corridor passing through Armenia.

“The route through Armenia is Yerevan’s obligation which they must fulfill,” he 
said.

Hajiyev confirmed that Baku wants to make sure that Azerbaijani people and 
cargos travelling to and from Nakhichevan are not checked by Armenian border 
guards or customs officers.

Aliyev has implicitly threatened to open the corridor by force, prompting stern 
warnings from Iran. His renewed demands for the corridor follow what Armenian 
and Azerbaijani officials call major progress made in talks on a bilateral peace 
treaty.

Armenian opposition leaders dismiss Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s regular 
assurances that the treaty will preclude another war with Azerbaijan. They also 
say that he is willing to make disproportionate concessions to Baku and get very 
little in return, a claim denied by Pashinian and his political allies.

The main purpose of the 2020 ceasefire cited by Hajiyev was to stop fighting in 
Karabakh and prevent new hostilities. The deal led to the deployment of Russian 
peacekeepers in Karabakh and gave them control over the Lachin corridor 
connecting the region to Armenia.

Azerbaijan disrupted commercial and humanitarian traffic through the corridor in 
December 2022 and set up a checkpoint there in April 2023 in breach of the 
ceasefire. It went on to launch a military offensive in Karabakh in September 
2022, forcing the region’s practically entire population to flee to Armenia.




At Least 223 Karabakh Armenians Killed During Azeri Offensive


Nagorno-Karabakh - A residential area in Stepanakert damaged by Azerbaijani 
shelling, September 19, 2023.


At least 198 soldiers and 25 civilian residents of Nagorno-Karabakh were killed 
during last September’s Azerbaijani military offensive that enabled Baku to 
recapture the region, according to a senior Armenian official.

Five children were among the casualties, Argishti Kyaramian, the head of 
Armenia’s Investigative Committee, told Armenian Public Television late on 
Thursday. He said that five other civilians and 15 Karabakh Armenian soldiers 
went missing during the 24-hour hostilities that broke out on September 19.

The Azerbaijani Defense Ministry has acknowledged around 200 combat deaths among 
its military personnel involved in the operation. Its troops greatly outnumbered 
and outgunned Karabakh’s small army that received no military support from 
Armenia. Karabakh’s leadership agreed to disband the Defense Army in return for 
Baku stopping the assault and allowing the region’s ethnic Armenian residents to 
flee to Armenia.

More than 100,000 Karabakh Armenians, the region’s virtually entire remaining 
population, left their homeland in the space of a week. The hundreds of cars, 
buses and trucks carrying them caused a massive traffic jam on a 50-kilometer 
road leading to Armenia.

It reportedly took most refugees at least 30 hours to reach the Armenian border. 
According to the Investigative Committee, 64 of them died during the arduous 
journey due to a lack of medicine, medical aid and food.

A satellite image shows a long traffic jam of vehicles along the Lachin corridor 
as ethnic Armenians flee from the Nagorno-Karabakh.

The exodus began amid chaotic scenes inside Karabakh blamed for a massive 
explosion and fire at a fuel depot outside Stepanakert on September 25. The 
blast left at least 218 people dead. Videos posted on social media showed 
hundreds of cars parked near the depot, waiting to fuel up and head to Armenia.

The Armenian authorities maintain that Karabakh’s depopulation is the result of 
“ethnic cleansing” carried out by Azerbaijan. In October, Armenia’s human rights 
ombudswoman, Anahit Manasian, accused Azerbaijani troops of committing war 
crimes during the assault.

“There are many bodies, including of civilians, transported from 
Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia that carry signs of torture and/or mutilation,” 
Manasian told reporters.

Baku denies forcing Karabakh residents to flee their homes and says the 
Azerbaijani army did not target civilians during its offensive condemned by the 
United States and the European Union.




U.S. Peace Efforts ‘Not Thwarted By Russia’

        • Anush Mkrtchian

U.S. - State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller speaks during a news 
briefing in Washington, July 18, 2023.


Russia is not torpedoing U.S. efforts to broker an Armenian-Azerbaijani peace 
accord despite being strongly opposed to them, the U.S. State Department 
insisted on Thursday.

Moscow has repeatedly claimed that the United States and the European Union are 
seeking to drive it out of the South Caucasus, rather than end the 
Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict.

In early December, the Russian Foreign Ministry also rebuked Armenia for 
ignoring recent Russian offers to organize more peace talks with Azerbaijan. It 
warned that Yerevan’s current preference of Western mediation may spell more 
trouble for the Armenian people.

“Russia does not in any way prevent us from conducting the important diplomatic 
efforts we think are necessary for Armenia and Azerbaijan, and we will continue 
to pursue them,” Matthew Miller, the State Department spokesman, told a news 
briefing in Washington.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken had been scheduled to host the Armenian 
and Azerbaijani foreign ministers in Washington on November 20 for further 
negotiations on a peace treaty between the two South Caucasus nations. Baku 
cancelled the meeting in protest against what it called pro-Armenian statements 
made by James O’Brien, the U.S. assistant secretary of state for Europe and 
Eurasia.

O’Brien visited Baku afterwards in what appears to have been a failed bid to 
convince the Azerbaijani leadership to reschedule the cancelled meeting. Miller 
indicated that no new date has been agreed for it yet.

“We’ll have an announcement to make when we have a meeting scheduled,” he said.

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev’s top foreign policy aide, Hikmet Hajiyev, 
said on December 19 that Washington must reconsider its “one-sided approach” to 
the conflict before it can mediate more peace talks.

On December 28, Azerbaijan’s Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov revealed that Baku 
has proposed that he and his Armenian counterpart Ararat Mirzoyan hold direct 
talks at the Armenian-Azerbaijani border. The Armenian government has still not 
publicly responded to the offer.

In an interview with the German newspaper Berliner Zeitung published on 
Thursday, Hajiyev said Baku and Yerevan do not need third-party mediation in 
order to negotiate the peace treaty. “We are not against honest mediation in 
principle but prefer direct discussions,” he said.

Armenian analysts have suggested that Baku does not want Western mediation 
anymore because it is reluctant to sign the kind of agreement that would commit 
it to explicitly recognizing Armenia’s borders and thus preclude Azerbaijani 
territorial claims.

Yerevan has said, at least until now, that the two sides should use Soviet 
military maps printed in the 1970s as a basis for recognizing each other’s 
territorial integrity and delimiting the Armenian-Azerbaijani border. Its 
position has been backed by the EU but rejected by the Azerbaijani side.



Reposted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
Copyright (c) 2024 Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, Inc.
1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.

 

                                        Thursday, January 4, 2024


Armenian Officials Sacked Over Substandard Construction Work

        • Karine Simonian

Armenia - Prime Minsiter Nikol Pashinian inspects a newly renovated school gym 
in Lori province, January 3, 2024.


Two senior Armenian officials were sacked on Thursday one day after Prime 
Minister Nikol Pashinian witnessed the poor quality of construction financed by 
his government during a visit to northern Lori province.

Pashinian inspected several schools and other facilities refurbished in local 
rural communities during the trip designed to showcase the government’s 
nationwide infrastructure projects. He was left fuming after noticing many flaws 
in their design and construction overseen by the Armenian government’s Urban 
Development Committee and the provincial administration.

Pashinian seemed particularly upset with what looked like substandard equipment 
and furniture supplied to a newly renovated school gym in one of the Lori 
villages.

“To summarize things briefly, I am very, terribly unhappy, and I will not 
tolerate such a thing,” a government video of the trip showed him telling 
officials accompanying him.

The government announced the dismissal of the head of the Urban Development 
Committee, Armen Ghularian, and Lori Governor Aram Khachatrian as Pashinian 
chaired its weekly meeting in Yerevan the following morning.

The premier spent 16 minutes sharing his impressions of what he saw in Lori and 
complaining about what he called a “deeply entrenched” culture of inadequate 
government-funded construction in Armenia.

“You touch a [school] hanger and it falls down, water drips everywhere you go, 
not to mention the fact that for five months I didn’t manage to convince I don’t 
know whom not to put transparent glass in toilets,” he said.

Armenia - Lori Governor Aram Khachatrian (left) and Armen Ghularian, head of the 
Urban Development Committee.

“We no longer need officials who raise issues, we need officials who solve 
issues,” added Pashinian.

Pashinian pledged to solve this and other problems, blamed by him on government 
corruption, when he swept to power nearly six years ago. He has since claimed to 
have eliminated “systemic corruption” in the country. His critics have dismissed 
the claims.

There are growing questions about integrity in public procurement in Armenia. 
This is one of the reasons why Transparency International downgraded the 
country’s position in its annual survey of corruption perceptions around the 
world released a year ago.

Most of the construction projects in Lori inspected by Pashinian were 
implemented by a company contracted by the Urban Development Committee. The 
company called T-Construction could not be reached for comment.

Khachatrian, the sacked provincial governor, is also a senior member of 
Pashinian’s Civil Contract party. He told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service that he 
himself decided to resign right after Pashinian’s visit.




Armenian Government Reports Further Rise In Tax Revenue


Armenia -- The entrance to the State Revenue Committee headquarters in Yerevan, 
November 29, 2018.


The Armenian government’s tax revenue rose by over 15 percent in 2023 amid 
continuing robust economic growth, the head of the State Revenue Committee 
(SRC), Rustam Badasian, said on Thursday.

Badasian told reporters that his agency collected a total of 2.22 trillion drams 
($5.5 billion) in various taxes and duties. He said this was first and foremost 
the result of its continued crackdown on tax evasion.

The SRC was also helped by the overall macroeconomic situation in Armenia. The 
country’s Gross Domestic Product was on course to grow by 7-8 percent last year.

The Armenian economy expanded even faster, by 12 percent, in 2022 mainly because 
of a surge in cash inflows from Russia resulting from Western sanctions against 
Moscow. The government’s tax revenue jumped by 21 percent at the time.

The 2024 state budget approved by the Armenian parliament last month commits the 
SRC to collecting 2.61 trillion drams in taxes. The figure would be equivalent 
to almost 25 percent of GDP, Finance Minister Vahe Hovannisian told lawmakers.

It will not be enough to fully cover a 23 percent surge in government spending 
this year projected at 3.2 trillion drams ($7.9 billion). The budget deficit 
should therefore widen to 4.6 percent of GDP this year, according to government 
projections.

The International Monetary Fund praised the Armenian authorities for planning to 
further improve tax collection when it approved a “precautionary” loan worth 
$170 million to them in December 2022.



Reposted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
Copyright (c) 2024 Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, Inc.
1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.