Author: Emma Nadirian

WATCH: Experts Testifying at Congressional Hearing on Artsakh Warn of U.S. Complicity in Genocide

Emma Nadirian
by Asbarez Staff

 

 September 6, 2023

 

in Armenia, Artsakh, Featured Main, Latest, News, Top Stories, Videos
[see video]

The Tom Lantos Congressional Human Rights Commission convened an emergency hearing on Wednesday to address the urgent humanitarian crisis in Artsakh, with expert testimony warning that the Biden Administration’s inaction in Artsakh can be deemed as the United States complicity in genocide of the Armenians.

The hearing was opened by the commission’s co-chair Rep. Christopher Cox (R-NJ), who said that the State Department and U.S. Agency for International Development were invited to participate but did not respond to the invitation.

“This hearing has two empty chairs – two – those of U.S. Department of State and USAID. I requested that both provide a witness for this hearing. Despite repeated requests by phone and email, neither responded – not even a response. Since 1995, I have chaired hundreds of hearings with State Department or USAID witnesses. This is unique, a unique case of absolute non-response,” Rep. Smith said in his opening remarks.

He repudiated the Biden Administration for ignoring numerous calls from Congressional leader to take more drastic measures to prevent a “genocide” in Artsakh, criticizing Secretary of State Antony Blinken for continuously voicing “concern” instead of taking drastic action.

Testifying at the hearing were the former prosecutor of the International Criminal Court Luis Moreno Ocapmo, whose report last month accusing Azerbaijan and its leadership of perpetrating and committing genocide against the people of Artsakh has received international attention.

Reiterating his assertions in his report, Ocampo said that the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh need the U.S. government to make “NeverAgain a reality because for the Armenians who experienced the Armenian Genocide in 1915, ‘Never Again’ is very real and a necessity.” The human rights expert was referencing a call to action to prevent genocide, one that was used by President Joe Biden in his 2021 statement recognizing the Armenian Genocide.

Ocampo presented poignant argument for the more effective action by the U.S. He said as a party of the Genocide Convention, the US has to prevent and punish it. However, he added, the will to take drastic measure must be there.

“The US is deeply involved in the negotiations. But there can be no negotiations between the genocide perpetrator and the victim. Just stop the genocide and then discuss negotiation. You cannot be involved in negotiations when President Aliyev is using genocide as a method of negotiation,” Ocampo said.

“If you know that President Aliyev is using genocide and trying to deny the genocide, the U.S.’s assistance to the denial of genocide could be considered complicity,” the former ICC Prosecutor said.

“The US President or Secretary of State can officially tell Mr. Aliyev to remove, unconditionally, the blockade of the Lachin Corridor, or we consider you responsible for genocide. That will trigger a lot of consequences,” Ocampo added.

He said that instead of condemnations and measures to stop the genocide, the U.S. continually is calling for negotiations between the people of Artsakh –the victims—and Baku –the perpetrators.

“In [Nagorno-Karabakh’s] case […] the negotiation is between a GENOCIDAIRE and his victims. You cannot [arrange] a negotiation between Hitler and the people in Auschwitz. You should stop Auschwitz, and then discuss negotiation. [The U.S.] cannot be involved in a negotiation when President Aliyev uses genocide as a method of negotiation,”

Also speaking at the hearing was David L. Phillips, an adjunct professor at Georgetown University, who concurred with Ocampo’s conclusion that a genocide in underway in Artsakh.

He pointed out that there are two succinct law in place that can compel the U.S. to take action: Section 907 of the Freedom Support Act and the Global Magnitsky Act, which authorizes the U.S. government to sanction those foreign government officials worldwide that are human rights offenders.

“Since when does the United States ask the U.N.’s permission to act? We have national legislation that gives us the tools to arrest and prosecute the perpetrators of genocide, such as the Global Magnitsky Act, or Section 907,” Phillips said, adding that the U.S. seems more interested – or taken – by Azerbaijan’s oil and gas money to take decisive action.


Asbarez: AEF Announces 2023-2024 Richard R. Tufenkian Scholarship Recipients

Emma Nadirian
by Contributor

 

 September 5, 2023

 

in Community, Latest, News, Top Stories

AEF’S 2023-2024 Richard R. Tufenkian Scholarship Recipients. From left: Ejmin Panoosian, Ani Karajayan, and Haig Emirzian


The Armenian Educational Foundation’s Board of Directors and Scholarship Committee announced the recipients of the Richard R. Tufenkian Scholarship Award for the academic year 2023-2024. This year, over 90 outstanding applications were submitted by Armenian undergraduate students enrolled in accredited colleges or universities in the United States. After careful deliberation, the committee has chosen to honor three deserving scholars with $3,000 scholarships each.

To be eligible for consideration, applicants were required to demonstrate Armenian heritage, maintain a minimum 3.0 grade point average, exhibit financial need, and display active engagement within the Armenian community. The selection process was meticulous and rigorous as the committee evaluated the multitude of applications to ultimately identify the following exceptional students who stood out among their peers.

Ejmin Panoosian is a rising sophomore at the Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University majoring in Aeronautical Science. He hails from Armenia where in 2020 he most notably served in the Army in the 44 day war. He began his college career in Armenia at the Armenian State College of Economics where he was focused on mastering complex mathematical calculations vital to the field of aviation. He has also competed globally as a musician, is a respected banker having worked at Ararat Bank in Armenia, a highly praised artist and a professional boxer. Elmin’s trajectory embodies determination, responsibility and a drive to give back.

Ani Karajayan is a rising sophomore at University of Southern California majoring in Bachelor of Science in Neuroscience program, coupled with a minor in Cinematic Studies. Originating from Los Angeles, her journey is a testament to her resolute dedication to excellence, dedicating her time to the Armenian Special Needs Community. She seeks to challenge her ability to rewire how she approaches the process of problem-solving through neuroscience. Ani’s exploration of neuroscience reflects her determination to reshape her problem-solving approach which is exemplified as a volunteer coach in the Homenetmen Hrashq program which provides the Armenian special needs community the opportunity to participate in Homenetmen’s athletic program and competition events.

Haig Emirzian is a rising junior at the Stevens Institute of Technology majoring in Cybersecurity. His enduring connection to his Armenian heritage serves as a wellspring of inspiration, and he aspires to one day pay forward the blessings he has received from his community. Haigs contribution to the Armenian community includes volunteering for COAF since 2020, going to Armenia and helping with the Health Clinic in various Armenian villages. His true passion ignited upon entering Stevens Institute of Technology. The academic environment fueled his enthusiasm, particularly in the fields of mathematics and computer science. Haig’s holistic approach to personal growth and academic excellence further enriched his journey, revealing the profound significance of striking a balance between scholastic achievements and social responsibility.

Ralph and Savey Tufenkian

The Richard R. Tufenkian Scholarship Fund was established by Ralph and Savey Tufenkian in memory of their son, Richard. Since its inception in 1991, this endowed fund, initially amounting to $230,000, has generously contributed more than $531,000 in scholarships. Presently, a total of $15,000 is awarded annually in scholarships. Additionally, five full-tuition scholarships are granted to students enrolled in public universities in Armenia.

AEF expresses deep gratitude to the Tufenkian Family for their unwavering commitment to supporting Armenians globally. Their philanthropic endeavors, unconditional love, and continued backing have significantly contributed to the education and progress of Armenian youth both within the United States and abroad.

As AEF looks forward with optimism to the future, its aspiration is to extend even greater assistance to students of Armenian descent who are pursuing higher education. Furthermore, AEF aims to persist in its mission of providing educational support to institutions in Armenia, the United States, and across the globe, having granted over 1350 scholarships during the 2023-2024 academic years.

Armenian PM: Russia isn’t defending us because we aren’t pro-Moscow enough

Emma Nadirian
The Telegraph, UK
Sept 4 2023

Nikol Pashinyan says the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine has distracted it from its peacekeeping duties

ByJames Kilner

Armenia’s prime minister has accused the Kremlin of failing to defend Armenia against Azerbaijani aggression partly because it did not back its war in Ukraine.

Nikol Pashinyan said that the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine has distracted it from its peacekeeping duties and that there is no point in striking security deals with Russia.

“Armenia’s security architecture was 99.999 per cent linked to Russia,” he told Italy’s La Repubblica newspaper. “Dependence on just one partner in security matters is a strategic mistake.”

Since a war in 2020, Russian soldiers have been deployed as peacekeepers between Azerbaijani and Armenia forces but Mr Pashinyan has accused them of being disinterested in stopping rising tension.

Armenia has traditionally maintained strong ties with the Kremlin and looked to it for military support. It hosts one of the Kremlin’s largest overseas bases.

Mr Pashinyan’s frustrations with the Kremlin are typical for leaders of ex-Soviet countries in the South Caucasus and Central Asia whose economies, militaries and societies are tightly entwined with Russia.

The Kremlin has pressured them to back its war in Ukraine and reacted with trade boycotts and threats when they haven’t.

And although Mr Pashinyan has been careful not to criticise the Kremlin’s war in Ukraine and Armenian companies have helped Russian companies skirt Western sanctions, he said this was not enough for Russia.

“In Russia, they do not consider Armenia to be pro-Russia enough because Armenia does not provide enough assistance to them in the Ukrainian issue,” he said.

Mr Pashinyan also said that the Kremlin had lost interest in the region and was planning to leave. The Kremlin has withdrawn soldiers from Armenia to deploy to Ukraine.

This year, Armenia has cut arms deals with Russia and started buying more weapons from India. It has also hinted it wants to leave the Russia-dominated CSTO security group.

 

Armenia not planning to seek NATO membership, willing to continue cooperation – Armenian Foreign Ministry

Emma Nadirian
Interfax
Sept 4 2023

YEREVAN. Sept 4 (Interfax) – Nobody in NATO has called on Armenia to join the alliance, while Yerevan stands ready to continue cooperation with the organization, Armenian Deputy Foreign Minister Vahan Kostanyan said.

“As for the partnership between Armenia and NATO, it has been implemented for quite a few years. We cooperate with NATO in various formats and are willing to continue this process,” Kostanyan told journalists on Monday.

Earlier, Gunther Fehlinger, chair of the European Committee for NATO Enlargement called on Armenia to join the alliance. “I call Armenia to join NATO, [Armenian Prime Minister] Nikol Pashinyan. Protect Armenia, President of the United States,” Fehlinger wrote on his social media account.

Commenting on this, Kostanyan said that Fehlinger is “not a NATO representative.” “He is just the leader of a non-governmental organization whose name contains the word NATO,” he said.

https://interfax.com/newsroom/top-stories/94231/

ANCA calls on Senate to block all Biden nominations to the State Department

Emma Nadirian
 ANCA ANCA News 0

WASHINGTON, D.C.—Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA) chairman Raffi Hamparian has called upon U.S. Senators to place a hold on all nominations to the State Department, blocking any new confirmations until President Biden takes decisive action to break Azerbaijan’s 260+ day blockade of Artsakh’s 120,000 indigenous Christian Armenians.

The ANCA’s call is backed up by a nationwide advocacy campaign, empowering Armenians and allied Americans from all fifty states to send letters urging their Senators to take this principled stand – in accord with U.S. interests and American values. The action portal is www.anca.org/hold.

The ANCA is asking that a hold on U.S. diplomatic nominees remain in place until the Biden administration has undertaken demonstrable steps to:

− Lead a United Nations Security Council Resolution condemning Azerbaijan’s blockade of Artsakh, sanctioning the Aliyev regime and putting in place mechanisms to open land transit via the Lachin (Berdzor) Corridor and to airlift supplies to Artsakh.

− Stop any new, current or pending U.S. military or security assistance to Azerbaijan and fully enforce Section 907 of the FREEDOM Support Act.

− Deliver emergency U.S. humanitarian assistance and longer-term development aid to the Armenian victims of Azerbaijani aggression in Nagorno Karabakh (Artsakh), including by means of a humanitarian airlift.

− Enforce statutory sanctions against Azerbaijani officials responsible for the genocidal blockade of Nagorno Karabakh.

The full text of the ANCA letter to senators is provided below.

#####

ANCA Letter to U.S. Senators Urging them to Hold Biden’s State Department Nominees

Dear Senator:

On behalf of the Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA) and our activists and coalition allies, I am writing to ask you to immediately place a hold on all State Department nominees until the Biden Administration takes decisive action to break Azerbaijan’s 260+ day genocidal blockade of Nagorno Karabakh’s (Artsakh) indigenous Christian population. To date, the State Department has manifestly failed to meaningfully confront Azerbaijan, and our Department of Defense continues aiding and abetting the military of a country starving Armenians to death. This is immoral and inconsistent with both U.S. interests and American values.

Absent urgent and immediate American leadership, Azerbaijan will complete its genocide of Nagorno Karabakh, a crime already underway according to a landmark report issued recently by Luis Moreno Ocampo, the first prosecutor of the International Criminal Court. As you know, Azerbaijan has failed to abide by the binding provisional order issued by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) that requires Azerbaijan to open the Lachin Corridor.

A hold on U.S. diplomatic nominees should remain in place until the Biden Administration has undertaken demonstrable steps to:

− Lead a United Nations Security Council Resolution condemning Azerbaijan’s blockade of Artsakh, sanctioning the Aliyev regime, and putting in place mechanisms to open land transit via the Lachin Corridor and to airlift supplies to Artsakh.

− Stop any new, current, or pending U.S. military or security assistance to Azerbaijan and fully enforce Section 907 of the FREEDOM Support Act.

− Deliver emergency U.S. humanitarian assistance and longer term development aid to the Armenian victims of Azerbaijani aggression in Nagorno Karabakh, including by means of a humanitarian airlift.

− Enforce statutory sanctions against Azerbaijani officials responsible for the genocidal blockade of Nagorno Karabakh.

Thank you, in advance, for your thoughtful consideration of the ANCA’s request that you immediately place a hold on all State Department nominees up and until that time when the Biden Administration has taken definitive and demonstrable steps to have Azerbaijan open the Lachin Corridor and avert a second Armenian Genocide.

For additional information regarding this urgent humanitarian crisis – please have your professional staff contact the ANCA’s Government Affairs Director Tereza Yerimyan at [email protected] or by phone at 323-807-4960.

Sincerely,

[signed]

Raffi Haig Hamparian
Chairman
Armenian National Committee of America

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The Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA) is the largest and most influential Armenian-American grassroots organization. Working in coordination with a network of offices, chapters and supporters throughout the United States and affiliated organizations around the world, the ANCA actively advances the concerns of the Armenian American community on a broad range of issues.


‘Time to sanction Azerbaijan,’ MEP Nathalie Loiseau

Emma Nadirian

 18:12,

YEREVAN, AUGUST 30, ARMENPRESS. Member of the European Parliament Nathalie Loiseau has called for sanctions against the government of Azerbaijan for its actions in Nagorno-Karabakh.

“There’s a humanitarian disaster in Nagorno-Karabakh,” Nathalie Loiseau, the Chair of the European Parliament’s Security and Defence Subcommittee said in a post on X. “It is time to impose sanctions against Azerbaijan,” she added, sharing a BBC article on the humanitarian crisis in Nagorno-Karabakh.

AW: Three Artsakh students arrested by Azerbaijan, charged with “violating” national flag

Emma Nadirian
 Lillian Avedian News 0

Azerbaijan’s checkpoint on the Berdzor Corridor (NKR InfoCenter, August 28)

Three young men from Artsakh arrested by Azerbaijani authorities while traveling along the Berdzor (Lachin) Corridor have been sentenced to 10 days of detention on charges of violating Azerbaijan’s national flag. 

Alen Sargsyan, Vahe Hovsepyan and Levon Grigoryan were arrested at Azerbaijan’s border checkpoint along the Berdzor Corridor. They were part of a group of 170 civilians escorted by Russian peacekeepers from Artsakh en route to Armenia. Sargsyan, Hovsepyan and Grigoryan are students of universities in Armenia who were preparing to start their fall classes. Armenia’s Foreign Ministry said that the transportation was agreed on in advance between the Azerbaijani government and the Russian peacekeeping mission.

Azerbaijani border guards assaulted Sargsyan (born 2001), striking him on the head with a gun while they detained him by force, according to an anonymous eyewitness account, causing him to lose consciousness. Five other members of the group were taken by border guards to a private room near the checkpoint for interrogation. They were asked about “sports activities, the purpose of the trip to Armenia and the economic situation in Armenia and Artsakh.” Only three of the members emerged from the room, while Hovsepyan and Grigoryan were detained along with Sargsyan.

“We have noted numerous times that the illegal checkpoint located near the Hakari bridge poses a direct and irrefutable threat to the physical existence and protection of the fundamental rights of the civilian population of Artsakh. The abduction of Vagif Khachatryan and Alen Sargsyan irrefutably proves that the so-called checkpoint has turned into a tool for serving the Azerbaijani criminal arbitrariness, through which Azerbaijanis arbitrarily kidnap and deprive civilians of their freedom,” the office of Artsakh’s Human Rights Defender said in a statement. 

Artsakh Human Rights Defender Gegham Stepanyan said that the transportation of civilians from Artsakh to Armenia should cease. He called on the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and Russian peacekeeping mission to offer security guarantees for civilians traveling along the corridor and the “immediate return of the abducted persons.”

The office of Azerbaijan’s Prosecutor General opened a criminal case against the three young men on charges of “violation of the national flag of the Republic of Azerbaijan” and “incitement of national or racial enmity.” The case refers to a video circulated online that was supposedly shared in 2021. The video depicts members of a soccer team in Artsakh walking on the Azerbaijani flag.

In what the Prosecutor General’s office called the application of the “principle of humanism,” the criminal case was terminated after they “sincerely expressed remorse for their actions and pledged not to engage in such activities in the future.” They were nonetheless sentenced to 10 days of administrative detention, after which they will be “expelled from the territory of the Republic of Azerbaijan.”

This is not the first time Azerbaijani border guards have arrested Artsakh civilians at the checkpoint. On July 29, 68-year-old Vagif Khachatryan was arrested by Azerbaijani border guards. Khachatryan suffers from heart disease and was being transferred to a hospital in Yerevan for an emergency operation. He was part of a group of patients transported by the ICRC, which had provided the Azerbaijani side with a list of patients and received its approval in advance.

Azerbaijan set up a military checkpoint along the Berdzor Corridor on April 23, 2023, placing all movement between Artsakh and Armenia completely under the control of Azerbaijani border guards. The checkpoint tightened the ongoing blockade of Artsakh, launched by Azerbaijan in December 2022.

Several dozen Armenians from Artsakh were permitted to cross the corridor for the first time in months on August 21. Russian peacekeepers escorted students enrolled in Armenian universities and Russian citizens to the Azerbaijani checkpoint.

Artsakh President Arayik Harutyunyan convened an emergency meeting with the Artsakh Security Council on the night of August 28 to discuss the incident. He informed his top aides about the “steps being taken to find out the fate of the citizens of the Artsakh Republic kidnapped by Azerbaijan today and to return them to their homeland.”

Following the late-night meeting, which lasted six hours, President Harutyunyan addressed an impromptu rally in central Stepanakert outside of the parliament building. Several hundred people gathered at nighttime on August 28 to demand that the authorities take measures to secure the release of the three young men. Harutyunyan was met with jeers during his speech, with isolated applause when he raised the issue of humanitarian aid deliveries to Artsakh amid the ongoing blockade, stating, “Only one road will be functioning: the Lachin road. We’re not going to bring in food from any other places.” 

Artsakh President Arayik Harutyunyan holds emergency meeting (NKR InfoCenter, August 28)

Azerbaijan has proposed delivering humanitarian aid to Artsakh via Aghdam. Artsakh authorities have rejected these offers, stating that they would legitimize the ongoing blockade of the Berdzor Corridor. On August 29, Azerbaijan’s Red Crescent Society sent two trucks with 40 tons of flour to Aghdam for the residents of Artsakh. 

The ongoing blockade has precipitated a humanitarian crisis in Artsakh, where supplies of food, medicine and other basic necessities have been dwindling. Azerbaijan has also closed the Berdzor Corridor to humanitarian aid since mid-June, barring the ICRC and Russian peacekeepers from delivering food and other basic goods to Artsakh from Armenia. HALO Trust, a humanitarian organization that clears landmines in conflict zones, said this week that the “humanitarian situation has escalated into an emergency.” 

“Food is in short supply and people have lost their livelihoods, leading to widespread food insecurity. And without a political resolution, this crisis will only worsen, and thousands of families will be without food or fuel for the winter,” its statement reads.

Lusine Avanesyan, spokesperson for the Artsakh president, told reporters that Artsakh would not accept aid from Azerbaijan. 

“If the Azerbaijani authorities are really interested in ending the worst humanitarian disaster and stopping genocide against the people of Artsakh, then instead of playing false philanthropy, they should stop blocking the restoration of supplies to Artsakh through the Lachin Corridor,” Avanesyan said.

An Armenian convoy carrying 400 tons of humanitarian aid intended for Artsakh’s Armenians has been stuck in Goris, a town in southern Armenia, since July 26. The aid delivery has been blocked by Azerbaijani border guards. 

A group of French politicians, including the mayor of Paris Anne Hidalgo, were blocked from delivering 10 trucks of humanitarian supplies, including baby food and electricity generators, to Artsakh on August 30. “Here at the Lachin Corridor we testify that no humanitarian aid can enter Artsakh, in total violation of human rights,” Hidalgo said.

Several European leaders, including His Serene Highness Prince Michael of Liechtenstein, have also expressed their readiness to lead a humanitarian airlift to Artsakh. This was announced by former Artsakh State Minister Ruben Vardanyan. The airlift would be “delivering food and other essentials to the local population and evacuating those whose life is endangered to safety,” including patients requiring urgent medical care. Vardanyan’s agency has called on the ICRC and World Food Program to organize the airlift. 

French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna implored Azerbaijan to reopen the Berdzor Corridor during an annual conference of French ambassadors on August 29.

“The strategy of suffocation, which aims to provoke a mass exodus of Armenians from Nagorno-Karabakh, is illegal, as the ICJ has established, and it is also immoral,” Colonna said.

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Lillian Avedian is the assistant editor of the Armenian Weekly. She reports on international women’s rights, South Caucasus politics, and diasporic identity. Her writing has also been published in the Los Angeles Review of Books, Democracy in Exile, and Girls on Key Press. She holds master’s degrees in journalism and Near Eastern studies from New York University.


Nagorno-Karabakh residents say ‘disastrous’ blockade choking supplies

Emma Nadirian
The Print
Aug 16 2023
REUTERS
03:45 pm IST
By Felix Light

TBILISI (Reuters) – Residents of Nagorno-Karabakh say it is getting harder to access food, medicines and other essential supplies as an Azerbaijani blockade of the breakaway region drags into its ninth month.

The United Nations Security Council will discuss the blockade on Wednesday, after a former International Criminal Court prosecutor this month said the blockade may amount to a “genocide” of the local Armenian population – an assertion that Azerbaijan’s lawyers said was unsubstantiated and inaccurate.

Karabakh is internationally recognised as part of Azerbaijan but its population of 120,000 is overwhelmingly ethnic Armenian and the enclave’s one remaining land link to Armenia, the Lachin corridor policed by Russian peacekeepers, was first disrupted in December.

Three residents of Karabakh said basic foodstuffs, fuel and medicine were almost exhausted.

“It’s been a very long time since I’ve eaten any dairy produce, or eggs,” Nina Shahverdyan, a 23-year-old English teacher, said in a video call with Reuters from the region’s capital, which local Armenians call Stepanakert.

“It’s been disastrous because we don’t have gas. We have electricity blackouts.”

Karabakh’s population has tightened its belt since the blockade, eating only what can be produced locally.

The residents said even food produced within Karabakh itself is delivered only sporadically to Stepanakert, as farmers lack fuel to bring their products to market.

Ani Balayan, a recent high school graduate and photographer, said she had last eaten meat around two weeks ago. She said her family was surviving on bread, alongside the tomatoes, cucumbers and watermelon still available in Stepanakert’s markets.

For some weeks, footage has shown Stepanakert’s supermarket shelves bare, with little or nothing on sale.

“I went to bed hungry for several days because I could not find bread to bring home,” said Balayan.

BREAKAWAY REGION

The crisis has highlighted how Russia, which is pre-occupied with the war in Ukraine, is struggling to project its influence in neighbouring post-Soviet states.

Karabakh was claimed by both Azerbaijan and Armenia after the fall of the Russian Empire in 1917, and broke away from Azerbaijan in a war in the early 1990s.

In 2020, Azerbaijan retook territory in and around the enclave after a second war that ended in a Russian-brokered ceasefire. The agreement required Russia to ensure that road transport between Armenia and Karabakh remained open.

Since the ceasefire, road links between Armenia and Karabakh hinged on the Lachin corridor, which was blockaded in December by Azerbaijani civilians identifying themselves as ecological activists, while Russian peacekeepers did not intervene.

In April, Azerbaijani border guards installed a checkpoint on the route, tightening the blockade.

‘GENOCIDE’?

This month, former chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court Luis Moreno Ocampo described the blockade as potentially constituting a “genocide” of Karabakh Armenians and intending “to starve” them.

Rodney Dixon, a lawyer appointed by Azerbaijan to give an assessment on Ocampo’s opinion, called the view “strikingly” unsubstantiated, inflammatory and inaccurate.

Farhad Mammadov, the head of Baku’s Centre for Strategic Studies think tank, said the blockade was imposed to prevent the transit of “arms and Armenian soldiers” to and from Karabakh.

Azerbaijan has said it is ready to open supplies to Karabakh via territory under its control, but that the separatist authorities must dissolve and integrate the region into Azerbaijan. The Armenian side has said that the blockade is aimed at forcing Karabakh into unconditional surrender to Baku.

English teacher Shahverdyan said: “They are doing so that the people become… so desperate that they just simply leave”.

However, like other Karabakh Armenians who spoke to Reuters, Shahverdyan said it had only bolstered their determination to stay in their ancestral homeland.

“How can you live under a government or people who starve you for eight months?”

(Reporting by Felix Light; editing by Guy Faulconbridge and Devika Syamnath)

Disclaimer: This report is auto generated from the Reuters news service. ThePrint holds no responsibilty for its content.

Asbarez: With Azerbaijan Kidnapping Another Artsakh Resident, Pressure Mounts for their Release

Emma Nadirian
by Asbarez Staff

 

 August 3, 2023

 

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

Vagif Khachatryan (right) and Rashid Beglaryan were kidnapped and detained by Azerbaijan this week


With a second Artsakh resident being kidnapped by Azerbaijan in one week, pressure on Baku mounted on Thursday with the European Court of Human Rights giving a one-week deadline for an official explanation.

Azerbaijani security forces on Wednesday detained 61-year-old Artsakh resident Rashid Beglaryan after they said he illegally crossed into the Lachin district for unclear reasons on Tuesday.

Artsakh authorities insisted, however, that Beglaryan walked to Lachin from the nearby village of Mets Shen, with the Artsakh prosecutor general’s office saying on Wednesday that he was “secretly kidnapped” by Azerbaijani servicemen as he walked toward Armenia through the Lachin corridor blocked by Baku. His whereabouts remain unknown, it said in a statement.

The ECHR said Azerbaijan must provide information about the person’s location, detention and health conditions and whether he received medical treatment, with the ultimate goal of return the Artsakh resident.

The International Committee of the Red Cross said on Thursday that its representatives had not visited Beglaryan in custody.

Zara Amatuny, the spokesperson for ICRC Armenia said that her office is following this most recent case and is taking relevant steps “through dialogue with the framework of the ICRC to ensure certain progress.”

Beglaryan’s came days after Azerbaijani forces kidnapped 68-year-old Vagif Khachatryan, who was being transported by the ICRC to Yerevan for emergency medical treatment. Khachatryan was abducted and transported to Baku where he was charged with “committing genocide” in 1993.

Amatuni, the ICRC Armenia spokesperson, said that a delegation from her organization visited Khachatryan on Sunday.

“Our delegates, including our doctor, visited Vagif Khachatryan in Baku in accordance with our procedures, to get information on his condition, check his state of health and review the detention conditions,” Amatuni added.

Azerbaijani authorities are planning another sham trial for Khachatryan.

Ilgar Safarov, a senior assistant Azerbaijan prosecutor told the APA news agency on Thursday that Khachatryan was examined by doctors and was provided an attorney with a translator.

“Charges against Vagif Khachatryan were announced and preliminary interrogation was held. Currently, other investigative measures are being taken in connection with him,” Safarov told APA.

Armenpress: Nagorno-Karabakh man accidentally crossed into Azeri-controlled territory after getting lost – statement

Emma Nadirian

 21:14, 1 August 2023

STEPANAKERT, AUGUST 1, ARMENPRESS. The man arrested by Azerbaijani border guards for allegedly violating the border whom Azeri authorities described as a citizen of Armenia is actually a citizen of Nagorno-Karabakh who accidentally crossed into Azeri-controlled territory after getting lost, Nagorno-Karabakh authorities said on Tuesday.
The arrested citizen, Rashid Beglaryan, born in 1962, is a local of Shushi who was displaced as a result of the 2020 war and was living in the village of Hin Shen of Shushi region, according to the official InfoCenter of Nagorno-Karabakh. According to preliminary information the man appeared under Azerbaijani control as a result of getting lost. Authorities are clarifying the circumstances.
Nagorno-Karabakh authorities said they’ve notified the Russian peacekeepers on the incident.