Tuesday,
EU Urges Dialogue Between Azerbaijan, Karabakh Armenians
Moldova - European Council President Charles Michel speaks in Chisinau, March
28, 2023.
European Council President Charles Michel called for “dialogue” between
Azerbaijan and Nagorno-Karabakh’s population on Tuesday two days after
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev’s fresh threats of military action against
Karabakh and Armenia.
He also urged Baku and Yerevan to “reconfirm respect for each other’s
sovereignty and territorial integrity” pledged by them during an
Armenian-Azerbaijani summit hosted by him earlier this month.
“Dialogue between Baku and Armenians living in former [Nagorno-Karabakh
Autonomous Oblast] on their rights & security is now crucial,” tweeted Michel.
“Important to refrain from maximalist positions and aim for dialogue,” he wrote.
“After more than 30 years of conflict, wounds take time to heal. Courageous
decisions are needed.”
Aliyev said on Sunday that apart from recognizing Azerbaijani sovereignty over
Karabakh Yerevan must also accept Baku’s terms for delimiting the
Armenian-Azerbaijani border and opening a corridor to the Nakhichevan exclave.
“They must not forget that Armenian villages are visible from here,” he added
during a visit to the border town of Lachin.
Aliyev also said that the Karabakh Armenians must dissolve their government
bodies and unconditionally accept Azerbaijani rule, warning that the Azerbaijani
military “can carry out any [military] operation in that territory.”
The Armenian government and Karabakh’s leadership condemned the threats.
Pashinian suggested that Aliyev may be walking away from understandings reached
by them during recent negotiations.
The Armenian Foreign Ministry said Aliyev not only threatened the Karabakh
Armenians with “ethnic cleansing” but is also “preparing the ground for another
aggressive action against Nagorno-Karabakh’s population.” It also accused him of
“casting doubt on Armenia’s independence and territorial integrity.”
Azerbaijan’s Foreign Ministry rejected the criticism on Tuesday, saying that
Yerevan is distorting Aliyev’s remarks, instead of proving its stated support
for Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity. It also stressed that Baku intends to
“take all necessary steps to reintegrate local Armenian residents.”
Ceasefire violations reported from the “line of contact” around Karabakh have
intensified in recent days. Karabakh’s army said that Azerbaijani forces fired
on its positions in the territory’s north and east on Tuesday morning. It said
one of those positions was hit by mortar fire.
Earlier in the day, Baku accused Karabakh Armenian forces of violating the
ceasefire at three sections of the “line of contact.” Stepanakert denied that.
The rising tensions come on the eve of another Aliyev-Pashinian meeting slated
for Thursday. The two leaders will meet together with Michel, French President
Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in Moldova on the sidelines of
a European summit.
Michel said that he is “looking forward” to the upcoming talks that are expected
to focus on an Armenian-Azerbaijani peace treaty.
Yerevan, Baku Set For Fresh Talks On Transport Links
• Astghik Bedevian
Russia - A Russian-Armenian-Azerbaijani working group on transport links meets
in Moscow, January 30, 2021.
Deputy Prime Minister Mher Grigorian confirmed on Tuesday that he is due to meet
with his Azerbaijani and Russian counterparts later this week for further talks
on transport links between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
The issue was apparently the main focus of the May 25 meeting in Moscow between
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev
hosted by Russian President Vladimir Putin. The latter said the Russian,
Armenian and Azerbaijani vice-premiers will try to iron out next week the
remaining “purely technical” differences between Baku and Yerevan.
The main stumbling block is the status of road and rail links between Azerbaijan
and its Nakhichevan exclave that would pass through Armenia’s Syunik province.
Yerevan has ruled out any arrangement that would compromise Armenian sovereignty
and control over those links.
“We have said countless times that this is our red line,” Grigorian told
reporters.
“We are always ready to talk about transport communication, but we are not going
to discuss [extraterritorial] corridors if that term presupposes a special
regime,” he said.
Pashinian and Aliyev openly argued about the matter during a Eurasian Economic
Union (EEU) summit held in Moscow earlier on May 25. Pashinian objected to
Aliyev’s use of the term “Zangezur corridor,” saying it runs counter to the
Russian-brokered ceasefire that stopped the 2020 war in Nagorno-Karabakh and
amounts to Azerbaijani territorial claims to Armenia.
“The word ‘corridor’ does not constitute a claim to anybody’s territory,”
countered Aliyev.
At a separate meeting with Pashinian held shortly afterwards, Putin assured the
Armenian leader that Baku unequivocally recognizes Armenian sovereignty over
Syunik and that “any dual or triple interpretation of everything related to the
possible unblocking of transport communication is baseless.”
Grigorian implied, however, that Baku has still not accepted Armenia over the
planned highway and railway to Nakhichevan.
Armenia Shows Interest In U.S. Nuclear Technology
• Nane Sahakian
Armenia - A general view of the Metsamor nuclear plant, 20May2013.
A team of Armenian officials will travel to the United States soon to explore
the possibility of building a U.S.-designed new nuclear power station in Armenia
that would replace the aging plant at Metsamor.
Metsamor’s sole functioning reactor, which generates roughly 40 percent of the
country’s electricity, went into service in 1980 and is due to be decommissioned
in 2036. The Armenian government announced in April 2022 plans to build a new
nuclear plant by that time.
The chief executive of Russia’s state nuclear company Rosatom, which has helped
to modernize Metsamor’s 420-megawatt reactor, visited Yerevan twice in the
following weeks to discuss the ambitious project with Prime Minister Nikol
Pashinian.
In May 2022, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Armenian Foreign
Minister Ararat Mirzoyan signed a memorandum of understanding on “strategic
nuclear cooperation” between their countries. A joint statement released by the
two sides said the document will lead to “stronger ties between our nuclear
experts, industries, and researchers.”
“In a number of countries, including Armenia, we are assessing the feasibility
of small modular nuclear reactors built with US technology that could facilitate
greater energy independence from both Russia and the PRC [China],” Maria Longi,
a State Department official coordinating U.S. aid to the former Soviet Union,
told a congressional hearing in Washington last week.
USA - U.S. and Armenian officials hold a session of the U.S.-Armenia Strategic
Dialogue, Washington, May 3, 2022
Pashinian confirmed afterwards that his government is “very actively
negotiating” with Russia, the U.S. and unspecified “third countries” on the
planned construction of the new plant. He said an Armenian government delegation
will visit the U.S. soon to take a close look at the small modular reactors
(SMRs) designed by local companies. He suggested that they could be more
affordable and technologically feasible for Armenia than conventional nuclear
facilities built by Russia.
“Our specialists believe that installing a [Russian] 1,000-megawatt reactor in
our energy system is questionable,” Pashinian told the Armenian parliament. “Of
course, there are also questions about the [less powerful] modular reactors, and
we have to see which option is economically more beneficial for us.”
“The Russian option now includes 1,000-megawatt and 1,200-megawatt nuclear
plants which are familiar to us,” another official told RFE/RL’s Armenian
Service on Tuesday. “But many believe 1,000 or 1,200 megawatts is too much for
our system because our total [power generating] capacity is 1,200 megawatts.”
The Russians are not offering Armenia the option of building an SMR plant, he
said.
According to Suren Bznuni, an Armenian nuclear safety expert, a traditional
nuclear plant built by Rosatom costs $6 billion, a sum exceeding the Armenian
government’s annual budget. Smaller U.S. reactors using the new technology are
much cheaper, he said.
The U.S. company NuScale Power Corp plans to build America’s first SMR plant at
the Idaho National Laboratory by 2030. The demonstration facility will consist
of six reactors with a combined capacity of 462 megawatts. The U.S. nuclear
power regulator certified the design of NuScale’s reactor in January this year.
Fugitive Former Official Implicated In Cocaine Seizure
• Naira Bulghadarian
Armenia - Parliament deputy Mihran Poghosian at a session of the National
Assembly in Yerevan, 19 May 2017.
Armenian law-enforcement authorities have charged a fugitive former senior
official of smuggling nearly one ton of cocaine confiscated by them earlier this
month.
The National Security Service (NSS) said on May 17 the cocaine was discovered in
boxes of fruit imported by an Armenian company, Mrgeni, from Ecuador via Panama,
Italy and Georgia.
Mrgeni, which specializes in banana imports, is widely linked with Mihran
Poghosian, the former head of an Armenian state body enforcing judicial acts. He
fled to Russia in 2019 shortly before being charged with embezzlement.
In a video message circulated last week, Poghosian claimed that Mrgeni employees
found the drug stashed in a consignment of bananas and had nothing to do with
the smuggling. He said that he personally informed the NSS director, Armen
Abazian, about that in a phone call that took place before the official
announcement of the drug bust.
Poghosian went on to publicize a video that purportedly shows the discovery by
workers of the cocaine at a Mrgeni warehouse in Yerevan.
The NSS refused to comment on his claims before announcing on Tuesday that
Poghosian, Mrgeni’s nominal owner Levon Atajanian, warehouse manager Samvel
Galstian and another employee have been charged with drug trafficking. It said a
prosecutor overseeing the investigation arrested Atajanian and Galstian and
issued an international arrest warrant for Poghosian.
Poghosian, who was an influential figure in Armenia’s former leadership, did not
immediately respond to the accusations. Russian authorities refused to extradite
him when he was first indicted in 2019.
The NSS did not clarify whether it is also investigating Armenian customs
officers’ failure to detect the huge amount of cocaine smuggled to the country.
Some opposition figures have speculated that Armenian government or
law-enforcement officials were also involved in the smuggling operation.
The NSS reported the seize of the cocaine one day after police in Italy
confiscated 2.7 tons of “extremely pure” cocaine which they said was destined
for Armenia. The haul was found in refrigerated banana containers shipped to the
southern Italian port of Gioia Tauro from Ecuador.
Reposted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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