Author: Hunanian Jack

                                        Tuesday, August 9, 2022
Water Operator Seeks Another Tariff Hike In Armenia
        • Sargis Harutyunyan
A sign outside the Yerevan headquarters of the Veolia Djur company (file photo).
Citing a high inflation in Armenia, the French water operator has submitted 
another bid to public utility regulators to raise the tariff, which was already 
increased last year.
Veolia Djur requests that the tariff for drinking water be set at 209 drams 
(over 50 cents) per cubic meter instead of the current tariff of 200 drams. In 
substantiating the bid, the company said that during the first six months of 
this year prices of goods and services in Armenia have increased by 8.3 percent.
Ashot Ulikhanian, head of the Public Services Regulatory Commission’s (PSRC) 
tariff policies department, told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service on Tuesday that the 
commission has 80 working days to make a decision on the company’s request and 
it will take another 30 days for the decision to be implemented. The official 
did not rule out that in order to prevent the second rise in water tariffs 
within a year the government will decide to subsidize it.
“Discussions are also needed with the government to find ways of offsetting [the 
company’s losses] in conditions of the high inflation to prevent another rise in 
water tariffs,” Ulikhanian said.
The French company managed the water and sewerage network of Yerevan for 10 
years since 2006 before taking over the national network in 2017 for a period of 
15 years. The company committed to reduce water losses, which, according to the 
PSRC, amounted to about 80 percent five years ago and now amount to about 70 
percent. Veolia Djur also undertook to invest at least 37.5 billion drams (over 
$90 million according to the current exchange rate) in the overhaul of the 
system.
Despite managing to phase out Soviet-era water rationing in most of Yerevan, the 
company has heard criticism in Armenia over the lack of 24-hour water supply in 
many areas as well as frequent emergency cutoffs, especially during hot summer 
months.
The issue of irregular water supplies in some areas like Goris and nearby 
villages have recently been raised even by the country’s ombudsperson.
Veolia Djur has not yet responded to a request by RFE/RL’s Armenian Service to 
answer this criticism and elaborate on its latest request to raise the water 
tariff.
Armenian officials have not commented on the company’s request either. Before 
the 2018 parliamentary elections Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian pledged that 
there would be no rise in water tariffs in Armenia until 2024.
After last year’s water tariff rise by 11 percent Pashinian said it was a 
necessary step to avoid a potentially much bigger increase in three years’ time.
U.S. Calls For ‘Immediate Steps’ To Reduce Tensions In Nagorno-Karabakh
        • Heghine Buniatian
Courtney E. Austrian, Chargé d’Affaires of the U.S. mission to the OSCE (file 
photo).
Washington is closely following the situation in Nagorno-Karabakh and urges 
immediate steps to reduce tensions and avoid further escalation, the United 
States mission to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) 
said on Tuesday.
In a statement delivered to the OSCE Special Permanent Council in Vienna, the 
U.S. mission’s Chargé d’Affaires Courtney E. Austrian also said that “the United 
States expresses its deep concern over the reports of intensive fighting around 
Nagorno-Karabakh, including casualties and the loss of life.”
“We are closely following the situation [in Nagorno-Karabakh] and urge immediate 
steps to reduce tensions and avoid further escalation,” Austrian said.
“As we have said many times at the Permanent Council, the United States 
emphasizes the importance of a negotiated, comprehensive, and sustainable 
settlement of all remaining issues related to or resulting from the 
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict,” she added.
The diplomat reminded that last week U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken 
personally engaged Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian and Azerbaijani 
President Ilham Aliyev “to urge de-escalation and direct contacts to reduce 
tensions.”
“The United States is ready to engage bilaterally, with like-minded partners, 
and through our role as an OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chair to facilitate dialogue 
between Armenia and Azerbaijan and help achieve a long-term political settlement 
to the conflict,” Austrian said.
At least one Azerbaijani and two ethnic Armenian soldiers were killed during the 
August 1-3 escalation in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict zone that both parties 
blamed on each other.
Azerbaijan and Armenia have been locked in a conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh for 
years.
The mostly Armenian-populated region that had the status of an autonomous oblast 
within Soviet Azerbaijan declared its independence from Baku amid a Soviet Union 
disintegration, triggering a 1992-94 war that claimed an estimated 30,000 lives 
and displaced hundreds of thousands of people.
The war ended in a Russia-brokered ceasefire, leaving Nagorno-Karabakh’s ethnic 
Armenians in control of most of the region as well as several adjacent districts 
of Azerbaijan proper.
Internationally mediated negotiations with the involvement of the OSCE Minsk 
Group -- co-chaired by the United States, Russia, and France -- failed to result 
in a resolution before another large-scale war broke out in September 2020.
The 44-day conflict that killed more than 6,500 people ended in a 
Moscow-brokered ceasefire, with Azerbaijan regaining control of all districts 
surrounding Nagorno-Karabakh as well as large swaths of territory inside the 
former autonomous oblast itself. Some 2,000 Russian peacekeepers were deployed 
in the region to oversee the truce.
Russian Border Guards Set Up Road Checkpoints In Southern Armenia
        • Artak Khulian
A view of Meghri, an Armenian town at the border with Iran (file photo).
Citing increased drug trafficking and other illegal cross-border activities, 
Russian border guards controlling Armenia’s frontier with Iran have set up 
checkpoints along several roads in the country’s southern Syunik province.
Images of such checkpoints along the road linking Meghri to other towns appeared 
on the internet earlier this week, raising speculations about possible 
preparations for the opening of transit routes for Azerbaijan via the strategic 
mountainous region.
Syunik is the Armenian province through which Azerbaijan expects to get a 
highway and railroad connection with its western exclave of Nakhichevan under 
the terms of the Russia-brokered 2020 ceasefire in Nagorno-Karabakh. Under the 
document, Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) is to ensure the security of 
traffic along the transport routes in Armenia for Azerbaijan.
Yerevan insists that it should maintain sovereignty over the roads, while Baku 
is seeking an extraterritorial status for them amounting to a corridor similar 
to the Russia-controlled Lachin corridor that connects Armenia with 
Nagorno-Karabakh.
At a government session on August 4, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian 
again implicitly rejected the corridor logic for the unblocking of regional 
transport routes, saying that Azerbaijan even today can use all parts of 
Armenia, and not only Syunik, for transit purposes in accordance with Armenian 
legislation.
“We have been saying all the while that we are ready to provide this connection 
between the western districts of Azerbaijan and Nakhichevan. We are ready to 
ensure this connection even today, but it is Azerbaijan that does not use these 
opportunities offered by us. Even today we say: come, cross the border of 
Armenia, go to Nakhichevan in the manner prescribed by the legislation of the 
Republic of Armenia,” Pashinian said.
Pashinian spoke after the latest escalation in Nagorno-Karabakh in which at 
least two Armenian and one Azerbaijani soldiers were killed in fresh fighting 
near the Lachin corridor where Russian peacekeepers are deployed under the terms 
of the 2020 ceasefire.
Amid the escalation ethnic Armenian authorities in Nagorno-Karabakh announced 
that several Armenian villages along the current corridor would be evacuated 
until September when Armenians are to start using an alternative road connecting 
Armenia and the Armenian-populated region.
Bagrat Zakarian, mayor of Meghri, told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service on Tuesday that 
the Russian checkpoints recently spotted in Syunik were actually set up several 
months ago. In total, he said, five such checkpoints were placed at roads 
leading from Meghri to several towns and villages in Syunik.
The map of Russian checkpoints along the roads in the south of Armenia.
After media reports about the installation of new Russian checkpoints near 
Meghri, the FSB Border Guards Department in Armenia explained that it was done 
in coordination with Armenian authorities to prevent illegal cross-border 
activities.
“In order to expose, prevent and thwart cases of smuggling, illegal migration 
and other offenses, in accordance with the law of the Republic of Armenia ‘On 
the State Border’ and in coordination with the Government, the National Security 
Service and other competent bodies of the Republic of Armenia, a number of 
equipped positions were formed early this year for the implementation of the 
border control service,” it said.
According to the FSB, a tense situation has been observed recently at the Meghri 
section of the Armenian-Iranian state border due to increased attempts of 
illegally smuggling drugs and psychoactive substances from Iran to Armenia. 
Moreover, according to the Russian side, violations of the border by 
representatives of extremist and terrorist groups were also recorded.
“Last year, in the area of the border guard detachment of Meghri, Russian border 
guards arrested two armed persons who had a large amount of weapons and 
ammunition with them,” the FSB said.
Armenian government officials have not yet commented on the presence of Russian 
checkpoints along the roads in Syunik.
Meanwhile, Meghri’s mayor acknowledged that the checkpoints create certain 
problems for local tourism.
“Tourists have to go through passport control procedures before they can visit 
several rural areas here,” Zakarian said.
Reposted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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