Author: Kajoyan Gevork

Azerbaijan “is attempting to force the population of Nagorno Karaback to leave” through intimidation and the continuing blockade of the Lachin Corridor since December 12th last, Armenian ambassador to Ireland and the UK Varuzhan Nersesyan has said.

Mr Nersesyan, who is on a two-day visit to Dublin this week, claims Azerbaijan was carrying out “a policy of ethnic cleansing in a hidden way”.

On December 12th Azerbaijani “self-proclaimed environmentalists” began protesting on the Lachin Corridor road over what they claim is the illegal exploitation of natural resources by Armenia in the Karabakh region, he said. Mr Nersesyan also claimed Azerbaijan has been turning off gas and electricity supplies to Nagorno-Karabakh and its 120,000 population.

“The ‘protests’ are nothing short of an orchestrated stunt designed to squeeze the region’s majority Armenian population into leaving altogether, also known as ethnic cleansing,” Mr Nersesyan said.

“The blockade clearly violates the trilateral statement of November 9th, 2020, which says the Lachin Corridor shall remain under the control of Russian peacekeepers while Azerbaijan guarantees the safe movement of citizens, vehicles, and cargo.”

Nagorno-Karabakh is about 3,170 sq km in size and home to an ethnic Armenian majority supported by the Armenian government as a self-declared republic, though it is widely internationally recognised as part of Azerbaijan. The area was the subject of a war that killed tens of thousands in the 1990s and again two years ago. Negotiations have failed to produce a lasting settlement.

“Thousands of lives are in peril in Nagorno-Karabakh and the blockade of it must be lifted immediately. That’s the assessment of Amnesty International earlier this month,” said Mr Nersesyan. The population there was “on the brink of famine”, he said.

“Over 400 tonnes of goods, food and medical supplies were delivered through the Lachin Corridor on a daily basis before the blockade, which will soon be in place for three months,” he said, “while basics like fruit and vegetables have almost vanished”, and there are now “severe shortages of baby formula and medicines”.

[ ‘No-one helps us … we are on our own.’ Nagorno-Karabakh’s brutal war ]

Mr Nersesyan is in Ireland to brief the Irish people, the Government and relevant authorities about the situation but also “to deepen, enhance and develop” relationships between Ireland and Armenia, not least as a newly appointed ambassador.

Describing the Azerbaijanis behind the blockade as “self-proclaimed environmentalists”, he noted how it had been condemned at the UN last December where Ireland had called on the UN Security Council to do “everything it can to prevent another human-made catastrophe emerging on its watch” and said Azerbaijan should “immediately restore movement along the corridor”.

Unicef also said the corridor “must be reopened immediately” as “the longer the situation persists, the more children will experience the lack of basic food items”.

Last Friday vice-president of the European Commission Josep Borrell called on Azerbaijan “to take the measures that are within its jurisdiction to ensure freedom and security of movement along the corridor”. He said the EU “remains seriously concerned about the distress the ongoing restrictions to freedom of movement and to the supply of vital goods are causing for the local population”.

Mr Nersesyan recalled “the destruction and desecration of many churches” in Nagorno-Karabakh during the 2020 conflict with predominantly Muslim Azerbijan. Subsequently Armenia called on Unesco to visit the area “but Azerbijan won’t allow access”, he said.

On 30 September HELP specialised course roll-out on Key Principles on Bioethics was launched for three more groups of legal and healthcare professionals of Armenia, including the representatives from the Ministry of Health, National Institute of Health as well as medical doctors and other healthcare professionals, lawyers, and advocates.

The HELP specialised course on Key Principles on Bioethics aims at addressing the ethical issues of consent to medical intervention, the right to know one’s health data, matters related to medically assisted procreation, recourse to organ or tissue donation and transplantation, etc. All of them in certain aspects may fall into the scope of application of human rights law.

The main purpose of the course is to assist both legal and medical professionals to understand the key human rights principles in the biomedical field.

The training session was opened by Laurence Lwoff, the Head of the Human Rights and Biomedicine Division of the Council of Europe and Anna Sahakyan, the Project Officer of Council of Europe’s Department of Human Rights Education for Legal Professionals (HELP) Armenia and EAP.

Following the general presentation of the Oviedo Convention and its Additional Protocols and the work of the Council of Europe in the field of healthcare and biomedicine, the participants were introduced to the HELP programme and HELP in Armenia, as well as HELP online training platform.

Substantial presentations on international and national standards in the fields of ‘‘Transplantation of Organs and Tissues’’ and ‘‘Ethical rules for healthcare professionals’’ were made by Samvel Grigoryan, national consultant of the CoE Project on ‘’Protection of Human Rights in Biomedicine’’ and Izabel Abgaryan, the Advisor of the Rector of the Yerevan State Medical University and national consultant of the CoE Project on ‘’Protection of Human Rights in Biomedicine’’.

The HELP roll-outs will be tutored by three Armenian HELP certified tutors: Karine Abrahamyan, Laura Gasparyan and Yevgenia Muradyan. Successful participants of these training sessions will receive certificates after completion of the Course.

The HELP roll-outs were organised under the framework of the Council of Europe’s Project on ‘‘Protection of Human Rights in Biomedicine’’ in Armenia.

TBILISI, Sept 18 (Reuters) – U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Sunday strongly condemned what she said were “illegal” border attacks by Azerbaijan on Armenia, using a visit to the Russian ally to pledge American support for its sovereignty.

Pelosi cast her trip to Armenia, a sliver of land the size of U.S. state of Maryland that is wedged between Azerbaijan, Georgia, Turkey and Iran, as an attempt to strengthen support for what she cast as a beacon of democracy.

Speaking in the ancient city of Yerevan, Pelosi said her trip had significance following the “illegal and deadly attacks by Azerbaijan on Armenian territory” that triggered border clashes in which more than 200 people were killed.

“We strongly condemn those attacks,” Pelosi said beside Armenian parliamentary speaker Alen Simonyan, who last week expressed unhappiness with the response of a Russian-led military alliance to Yerevan’s request for help. read more

Pelosi, who angered China with a trip to Taiwan last month, said it was clear that the border fighting was triggered by Azeri assaults on Armenia and that the chronology of the conflict should be made clear.

The fighting “was initiated by the Azeris and there has to be recognition of that,” Pelosi said.

Pelosi’s remarks drew an unusually strong rebuke from Baku, which said she was endangering the peace in the Caucasus.

“The unsubstantiated and unfair accusations levelled by Pelosi against Azerbaijan are unacceptable,” the foreign ministry said in a statement.

“This is a serious blow to the efforts to normalize relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan,” the ministry said, casting Pelosi’s remarks as “Armenian propaganda”.

Such a definitive apportioning of blame for the conflict goes beyond what the U.S. State Department has so far said in public. Secretary of State Antony Blinken expressed concerns over the fighting and called for calm but did not assign blame.

Armenia said Azerbaijan shelled at least six Armenian settlements inside the border shortly after midnight on Sept. 13, attacking civilian and military infrastructure with drones and large calibre guns. Yerevan said it was unprovoked aggression.

Azerbaijan, backed by Turkey, rejects those claims. Baku says Armenian sabotage units tried to mine Azeri positions, prompting soldiers to respond. Armenia says that narrative is Azeri disinformation.

Russia, which repeatedly condemned Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan, considers the Caucasus as its own sphere of influence and bristles at what it casts as U.S. meddling in the region.

Moscow though, is preoccupied by the war in Ukraine which has triggered the biggest confrontation with the West since the height of the Cold War.

Russia is Armenia’s major military ally, has a military base in northern Armenia and peacekeepers along the contact line in Nagorno-Karabakh, over which Armenia and Azerbaijan fought a war in 2020.

President Vladimir Putin said on Friday that Russia had enough resources to mediate in the conflict. The latest fighting ended after a Russian-brokered ceasefire.

But after appeals for help, the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), a Russian-led military alliance of former Soviet republics that includes Armenia but not Azerbaijan, decided on Tuesday to dispatch a monitoring mission.

Armenian Parliamentary Speaker Simonyan said he was dissatisfied with the response, likening the CSTO to a pistol that did not shoot bullets.

Speaking beside Pelosi, U.S. Representative Frank Pallone said the United States wanted to do whatever it could to be more supportive of Armenia’s security.

The United States, Pelosi said, was listening to Armenia about what its defence needs were and said Washington wanted to help and support Armenia in what she cast as a global struggle between democracy and autocracy.

“We should be using our influence, our leverage showing that Armenian democracy and sovereignty is a priority,” Pelosi said. “The velvet revolution was cheered globally.”

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan rose to power in 2018 after anti-government protests referred to as Armenia’s Velvet Revolution.

Pelosi said it was interesting that Armenia was disappointed by the response from Russia.

“It is interesting that they were disappointed they got fact finders and not protection from that relationship and we’ll see what happens next,” she said.

Writing by Guy Faulconbridge, Editing by William Maclean, Emelia Sithole-Matarise and Alex Richardson

https://www.reuters.com/world/pelosi-condemns-illegal-attacks-by-azerbaijan-armenia-2022-09-18/

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