As it is known the 102nd Russian military base has been deployed in Armenia’s second largest city of Gyumri since 1995. The Erebuni air base is part of Russia’s 102nd military base located in Gyumri, near Armenia’s border with Turkey.
Nevertheless, Russia supplies weapons and ammunition to our neighbours – Azerbaijan and to Turkey, and even to Iran.
In its new animated video, the Union of Informed Citizens NGO tried to figure out the purpose of the Russian troops deployed in Armenia.
Serzh Sargsyan delivered a commencement speech for class of 2016-2017 from Armenian military educational institutions, held at Sardarapat Memorial. 279 graduates became lieutenants today.
“Only the Armenian independent state could form this new group in our society. Armenian government will do everything possible to solve issues that our distinguished servicemen face,” President of Armenia said.
“Spirits of Sardarapat heroes follow us here, and we all should realize the historic responsibility of providing security for Armenia and preserving the eternal existence of our state,” Serzh Sargsyan said.
The 4rd Artsakh Wine Festival will be held in Togh village, in the area of Melik Avan’s Palace of the Hadrout region to host dozens of winemakers from Armenia and the Artsakh Republic.
As the Artsakh ministry of economy reported, wine and agricultural product fair as well as an art exhibition will be opened in the sidelines of the festival, accompanied by jazz, blues, national and modern music performances. The festival will also feature group tours and other recreational activities.
The guests of the festival will have the opportunity to taste the dishes of Artsakh cuisine. This year the festival is slated for September 16 with free of charge entrance.
The ministry details that the Artsakh Wine Festival is a major event aiming to promote adventure tourism in the country, popularize the southern tourism routes of the republic, establishing a unique platform for Armenian and Artsakh winemakers.
The festival, which is attended by around 2,000 guests annually, will bring together the best Armenian wines along with featuring the specifics of the local culture.
Sculptures by Ashot Harutyunyan will be exhibited at the Swan Lake in Yerevan, the Press Service of the Ministry of Culture of Armenia reports.
An original exhibition of works by contemporary sculptor Ashot Harutyunyan will be opened today by the initiative of “ART PR” company and with the support of the Ministry of Culture of Armenia.
“The Swan Lake is a sculpture gallery today. The permanently changing water surface is the ground for Ashot Harutyunyan’s metal sculptures. Harutyunyan has a capability of abstract thinking and is a unique artist of his kind in Armenia. Using post-Soviet industrial waste products and the metal production of today he turns them to vivid formal creations which embody his memories and aesthetic ideas. The organizers hope that their attempt to turn the Swan Lake to a sculpture gallery will be understood as an initiative which reveals the potential of the place yet unused. This is an occasion to reveal the struggling figures of today’s art. Being a unique experience this may become a traditional way of art exhibiting” Ara Haytayan, the curator of the exhibition said.
More than 20 pieces will be exhibited. The opening ceremony will take place today at 19:00 Armenia time.
According to Gayane Davtyan, the Head of the “ART PR” company, “Through these samples of contemporary sculpture we try to show how is it possible to take average public spaces out of their everyday rhythm and to move them to the realm of abstraction. Abstract art “agitates” for freedom, and the manifestation of that freedom is nothing else but a unique act of breaking stereotypes in a city environment. This exhibition lays claim to become the favorite pastime of the Yerevan residents as well as the tourists. One of the important aims of the exhibition is to help the youth to appreciate art, to appreciate the city, to show that there are other kinds of sculpture alongside the traditional monuments in Yerevan”.
Sixteen months after deadly clashes erupted in Azerbaijan’s autonomous breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh, international mediators are saying it’s time for all parties to undertake confidence-building measures to jump-start the political settlement process.
Russia led mediation to settle the four days of shelling and rocket strikes between Azerbaijan’s military and Armenian-backed separatists over Nagorno-Karabakh. The clashes were the deadliest incidents since a 1994 cease-fire established the current territorial division. The brief but intense fighting of April 2016 claimed dozens of lives.
Since then, the United States, Russia and France, which co-chair the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe’s Minsk Group for conflict mediation, have continued advocating diplomacy to secure a binding peace resolution.
Steps toward demilitarization are essential to deterring accidental flare-ups of violence between the groups, said Ambassador Richard Hoagland, U.S. co-chairman of the Minsk Group.
“When you have two armed groups facing each other in difficult terrain not very far apart, there is always the chance for some kind of accident to happen that then spirals out of control,” he recently told VOA’s Armenian and Azeri services. “I know that at this point it will be difficult to ask for total demilitarization, although that would be good, so what we have to do is to look for those things that can help to reduce the possibility of some kind of military accident that then gets out of control.”
Removal of snipers along both sides of the Karabakh line of contact, which separates Nagorno-Karabakh and Azerbaijan, would be a logical first step, Hoagland said.
Allowing the presence of international observers and installing new electronic equipment that traces cease-fire violations, he said, would be a second realistic benchmark to achieve.
“There is an actual document [that maps out the peace process], and it’s a very comprehensive, but there are steps and steps and steps, and stages and stages,” he told VOA. “So I would hope that in the next highest level of negotiations, the two sides will look very seriously and say even if they can’t come to a final conclusion, here are things we can accomplish.”
U.S.-Russian coordination?
Although some observers describe the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict as a rare point of shared strategic interests between the U.S. and Russia, others are skeptical.
Hoagland, however, struck an optimistic tone, saying the United States was continuing to work with Russia on this issue despite deteriorating relations between the two countries.
“I have seen absolutely no change in how we work together and how we regard each other,” he told VOA. “Just because sometimes the politicians are bumping up against each other, for us, the work continues and we do it arm in arm.
“Maybe at the top the headline news doesn’t look good, but when you get down to specific issues, specific problems to work on together, where we do cooperate, that continues and it continues today on Nagorno-Karabakh,” he added.
Although the conflict has yet to come under the focus of the President Donald Trump’s administration, former Ambassador John Herbst, director of the Atlantic Council’s Dinu Patriciu Eurasia Center, told VOA that might change in the coming six to 12 months.
While a planned U.N. General Assembly meeting between Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev may signal a loosening of tensions between the groups, Herbst said, “I still do not see any grounds for a reasonable settlement of the conflict.”
“Everyone knows that the overwhelming majority of the population of Karabakh are Armenians and they will have substantial autonomy, and this should be the basis of the settlement,” he said.
Competing interests
The main obstacle to full settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is the fact that there are too many interests involved in the problem, said analyst Michael Rubin of the American Enterprise Institute, a public policy research group.
“If the problem was only about the two countries, it would probably have been settled, but states like Russia want to maintain the conflict,” he said.
Echoing that sentiment, Anna Borshchevskaya of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy said Armenian officials have complained that a Nagorno-Karabakh settlement has been hampered by Russian arms sales to both sides.
“Russia wants to play a serious role in this conflict, and if there is no conflict, there will be no such role,” she said.
Although Russian weapons deliveries to Baku remained a contentious issue throughout Armenia’s 2017 parliamentary elections, most political forces steered clear of the topic and the question of whether Armenia is more secure with Russia as an ally.
Russia plays an important role in the region as its former imperial and Soviet-era overlord. It is also the main seller of weapons to both Armenia, a close Moscow ally, and Azerbaijan, which has developed warm relations with ethnically kin Turkey.
The Kremlin has consistently stated that it intends to continue selling arms to both camps while supporting peaceful resolution of the conflict.
On July 17, Armenia’s president called Russian arms sales to Baku “the most painful side of Armenian-Russian relations.”
Baku
Armenian political scientist Suren Sargsyan said Baku officials need to assume a more proactive role in securing the front lines, touching on Hoagland’s calls for demilitarization as an example.
“Such an agreement has been reached between the parties,” she told VOA. “But the Azerbaijani side has not taken any practical steps in that direction for a long time. That is why the negotiation process goes to a deadlock.”
Fighting between ethnic Azeris and Armenians erupted in 1991 and a cease-fire was agreed to in 1994. But Azerbaijan and Armenia regularly accuse each other of carrying out attacks around Nagorno-Karabakh and along the Azeri-Armenian border.
On July 5, an Azeri woman and child were killed and another civilian wounded by Armenian forces near the boundary with Nagorno-Karabakh, Azerbaijan’s defense ministry said Wednesday.
Sporadic exchanges of fire in the fight for control over the region — inside Azerbaijan but controlled by ethnic Armenians — have stoked fears of a wider conflict breaking out in the South Caucasus, which is crossed by oil and gas pipelines.
This story originated in VOA’s Armenian service. Some information came from Reuters.
The work aimed at extinguishing the large fire, which broke out in Armenia’s Vayots Dzor Province, is underway for already more than a day.
The Ministry of Emergency Situations informed Armenian News – NEWS.am that the work is still underway, the fire not having been put out yet. Currently, 450 to 500 hectares (ha) of grass-covered area is on fire.
As reported earlier, the minister of emergency situations is overseeing the firefighting efforts, and the minister of nature protection is also at the scene.
The Crisis Management Center had received an anonymous call, on Thursday at 6:50pm, informing that a grass-covered area was on fire nearby Artavan village in Vayots Dzor Province.
Last year the construction of a dwelling building (20 apartments altogether) began in Stepanakert in the territory of the former Karabakh Silk Complex (Gharmetakscombinat). The construction is currently underway, Panorama reports. The construction is currently underway. The apartments are intended for the officers of the Defense Forces of Artsakh.
As the Ministry of Urban Development of Artsakh reports, the 2 floors of the seven-storey building will be underground. The rest will be overground and dwelling. The majority of the apartments will have 2 or 3 rooms. The walls of the 4th floor are currently in construction.
Parallel to this, construction of another building in the neighborhood is in preparation. The other building will be constructed according to the same design. After the building completion the territory will be improved, a playground will be constructed.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Aug. 8
Trend:
Tovuz District Prosecutor’s Office has opened criminal case under the articles 116.0.10 (violation of the international humanitarian law during armed conflicts, with attacks on civilians or individuals not participating in fights), 29, 120.2.7 (attempt of intentional killing of two or more persons) of the Criminal Justice Code of Azerbaijan over the shrapnel wounds of thirteen-year-old resident of Garalar village of Azerbaijan’s Tovuz district Ramil Yusibov. Investigation is underway, said the press service of the Prosecutor General’s Office of Azerbaijan, Aug. 8.
The message said that Armenian Armed Forces located in Azerbaijan’s occupied territories, grossly violating the requirements of international humanitarian law, have continued their provocative actions once again and using large-caliber guns shelled the frontline positions of Azerbaijani Armed Forces, as well as the territories inhabited by civilian population.
On Aug. 7, at about 20:00 (GMT + 4 hours), Armenian military units, dislocated on the occupied Azerbaijani territories, using large-caliber guns shelled the Garalar village of Tovuz district, thus conducting another provocation aimed at the intentional slaughter of civilians.
As a result, Ramil Yusibov, while returning from grass mowing, received shrapnel wounds and in serious condition was taken to hospital.
The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result of the ensuing war, in 1992 Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts.
The 1994 ceasefire agreement was followed by peace negotiations. Armenia has not yet implemented four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding districts.
Distinguished folk music and dance ensembles from Europe and South Caucasus are converging to Georgia’s Black Sea coast to showcase their countries’ rich cultural heritage at the Black Sea International Folk Festival launching today.
Spain’s celebrated flamenco dancer Fuensanta La Moneta, recipient of multiple awards for best performance of the famed dance, will go under the spotlight at Black Sea Arena in a high point of the festival.
Widely praised ever since her maiden performance at Madrid’s Sala Suristan at age 16, she has appeared in some of the most prestigious flamenco venues and festivals.
Born in Granada, La Moneta has been awarded the Premio Flamenco Hoy for best dancer by the Spanish Association of Journalists in 2010.
Her 2011 appearance at the El Taranto of Almeria club was selected as the best flamenco show of the year in the Andalusian city.
La Moneta will be joined on the festival roster by Armenia’s Masounk ensemble, established in 1986 by ethnologist and choreographer Rudik Haroyan.
Currently led by directors Lusine Mkrtchyan and Hayarpi Ananyan, the band is known for re-enacting national rituals and games beside music and dance performances.
Festival stages in Batumi and Shekvetili will also feature folk ensemble Dolina Popradu, founded in 1965 by locals of the Poprad river valley in southern Poland.
The ensemble features artists playing on violin and bass and involves a repertoire of folk dances from the region performed in national costumes.
More bands and artists from Italy, Ukraine, Turkey and hosts Georgia will complete the line-up for the event in seaside city Batumi and resort town Shekvetili from August 31-September 2.
Giorgi Donadze, director of festival organisers the Folklore State Centre of Georgia, told local reporters selection of participating ensembles had been done with “great attention”.
Established with the current structure in 2005, the folklore centre also hosts the Sairme Music Festival, another event of folk music performances in Georgia.
The Black Sea International Folk Festival will run in frame of , a year-long program of festivals, exhibitions and performances throughout Georgia.
14:05 • 24.07.17
The plan to launch a free trade zone on the Armenian-Iranian border with Iran border will be a mutually advantageous project potentially increasing trade turnover, an expert in Iranian studies said today, sharing his positive expectations of the idea.
Speaking at a news conference, Armen Israelyan also highlighted the economic benefits of the Meghri-Norduz joint customs checkpoint plan which he said is aimed at boosting longer-term partnerships, particularly for the operation of a road corridor connecting the Persian Gulf with the Black Sea. He added that they intend to attract also investors through the project.
“The bill has been several times debated in the Iranian parliament, and was approved just a few days ago. The agreement applies to both transit transportation of flight and the increase in bilateral trade turnover, as well as the transit delivery of energy resources,” Israelyan said.
To speed up the customs procedures, the expert proposed creating a joint working group to deal with the existing problems.
He added that the two countries have also expressed committment to facilitate information exchange in dealing with smuggling cases.