Author: Karapet Navasardian

Azerbaijan captures 6 Armenian soldiers at the border

Karapet Navasardian
JAM News
    JAMnew, Yerevan, Baku

Six Armenian servicemen have been captured on Armenia’s border on May 27, press service of the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry and Armenian officials have confirmed. However, the Ministry of Defense of Azerbaijan claims that the incident took place in the Kelbajar region of Azerbaijan, while the Armenian Defence Ministry states that the Armenian soldiers were surrounded and captured while carrying out engineering work on the territory of Armenia.

  • What will happen next at the Armenian-Azerbaijani border?
  • Iranian FM visits Armenia, discusses Armenian-Azerbaijani border tensions, expansion of Iran’s economic presence in the country

The official statement of the Ministry of Defense of Azerbaijan reads as follows:

“On May 27, at about 3 am, a reconnaissance and sabotage group of the Armenian Armed Forces tried to cross the state border in the direction of the Yukhari Ayrim settlement of the Kelbajar region.

The enemy was noticed while attempting to place mines on the support routes leading to the positions of Azerbaijani Armed Forces on the border, and, as a result of the measures taken, 6 enemy servicemen were surrounded and captured.

In the morning, an accumulation of military equipment was noticed, including tanks of the Armenian Armed Forces near the border. As a result of the urgent operational measures, the movement of the reconnaissance- sabotage group has been stopped”.

The head of the press service of the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry Leyla Abdullayeva said on her Twitter page that Azerbaijan regards the attempted infiltration of Armenia’s reconnaissance group into the territory of Azerbaijan as a violation of the trilateral Nagorno-Karabakh agreement of November 10, 2020.

An official statement of the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry says that Armenia is pursuing a policy of deliberately increasing tension on the state border of the two countries:

“Although Azerbaijan has suffered damage from mines planted by Armenia for many years, sabotage and further attempts at mining carried out by an Armenian sabotage group on the territory of Azerbaijan may become a serious threat to the lives of Azerbaijani servicemen and civilians.

Azerbaijan is dedicated to resolving tensions on the Armenian-Azerbaijani state border by means of negotiations and supports the calls of the international community for the delimitation and demarcation of interstate borders.

Attempts to violate the state border of Azerbaijan are unacceptable. Armenia should refrain from actions aimed at increasing tension in the border area and respect the borders of the neighboring state”.

The Armenian Defense Ministry denies the reports of the attempted sabotage and states that the captured soldiers were carrying out engineering works in the Gegharkunik region of Armenia which borders Azerbaijan. The ministry said in a statement that measures are now being taken to release the captured servicemen.

The Armenian Foreign Ministry also issued a statement claiming that “Azerbaijani military units continue to carry out provocative actions” and calling for the immediate return of the captured soldiers:

“The provocative actions carried out by the military-political leadership of Azerbaijan pursue the goal of further aggravating the situation, which can seriously threaten peace and stability of the region”.

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan described the incident at the border as “the abduction of Armenian soldiers from the territory of the Republic of Armenia”:

“Our servicemen carried out work on the arrangement of the border with Azerbaijan, they were planting warning signs on the minefields, there was no sabotage. The incident took place on our territory”.

According to Pashinyan, such incidents occur because “someone wants us to come to terms with the presence of the Azerbaijani military on our territory, but this will never happen”.

PM Pashinyan believes the situation as Azerbaijan’s attempt to provoke a military conflict by all means necessary, however, Armenia will not respond to such provocations.

Head of the ruling My Step parliamentary faction Lilit Makunts also believes that the Armenian military were abducted from the territory of their own country.

She stated that the capture of the Armenian servicemen is a consequence of the delayed response of Armenia’s allies, specifically the Collective Security Treaty Organization of which Armenia is a member of and which operates under the auspices of Russia:

“In order to avoid further escalation and clashes, the security system of which Armenia is a part, those international partners who are worried about such impermissible actions in the South Caucasus, should provide clearer assessments [of the situation]”.

The Armenian authorities have turned to the Collective Security Treaty Organization to begin consultations on the provision of military assistance shortly after the events of May 12 events, when the Azerbaijani Armed Forces have advanced several kilometers deep into the territory of Armenia in the direction of the Syunik and Gegharkunik regions.

The servicemen of Azerbaijan refuse to retreat despite Armenia’s repeated calls, and the lengthy negotiations between the two countries failed to bring about any concrete results.

On May 26, Nikol Pashinyan stated that Armenia does not exclude the possibility of appealing to the UN Security Council if the CSTO mechanisms fail to resolve the tensions at the Armenian-Azerbaijani border. Pashinyan added that Armenia is not satisfied with the delays of the CSTO’s response, since the organization has not yet publicly expressed its clear position on this matter.

The Collective Security Treaty Organization is a regional organization created in 1992, immediately after the collapse of the USSR. Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Uzbekistan very soon left the ranks of the CSTO and now its only six members are Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan.

Armenpress: Azerbaijanis make calls for violence against Armenian servicemen – details from today’s incident

Karapet Navasardian

Azerbaijanis make calls for violence against Armenian servicemen – details from today’s incident

Save

Share

 20:07,

YEREVAN, MAY 25, ARMENPRESS. A criminal case has been initiated against Azerbaijan for illegally crossing the Armenian border by Azerbaijani servicemen, violating the territorial integrity of the country and killing a servicemen of the Armed Forces of Armenia, Gor Abrahamyan, advisor to the Prosecutor General of Armenia, wrote on his Facebook page.

‘’On at about 14:20 a group of armed servicemen of the Azerbaijani army illegally crossed the Armenian border in the area of Verin Shorja of Gegharkunik Province of Armenia in an act organized by their commanders and made calls for violence against the Armenian servicemen on duty in that area with an intent to violate the territorial integrity of the Republic of Armenia, demanding them to leave that area without resistance.

During the quarrel, they deliberately fired at the servicemen of the Armenian Armed Forces, as a result of which a contract serviceman of the N military unit of the Ministry of Defense of Armenia, junior sergeant G. Khurshudyan, 1989, received a gunshot wound in the abdomen. The soldier was taken to Gegharkunik garrison hospital, where his biological death was registered’’, Abrahamyan wrote.

Azerbaijani press: MFA: Azerbaijan restoring internationally-recognized borders

Karapet Navasardian
14:13 (UTC+04:00)
705

By Vafa Ismayilova

Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Leyla Abdullayeva has said that Azerbaijan is restoring its internationally recognized borders, the Foreign Ministry reported on May 20.

Abdullayeva made the remarks while commenting on an Indian Foreign Ministry spokesman’s statement on the recent developments along the Armenian-Azerbaijani border.

Internationally-recognized borders’ restoration

“Let me first underline that the key reason of the border issues between Armenia and Azerbaijan is Armenia’s illegal occupation of Azerbaijan’s territories till November 2020. Hence, it is Armenia that violated Azerbaijan’s internationally recognized borders. And now Azerbaijan is just restoring its internationally recognized borders,” Abdullayea said.

She reiterated that Azerbaijan continues its work on the border protection system within the country’s territorial integrity and this process is carried out on the basis of maps available to each of the sides that define the borderline between Armenia and Azerbaijan.

“Several disagreements occurred between the sides on border issues earlier, and all of them were settled via negotiations among the sides to the trilateral statements,” Abdullayeva said.

The spokesperson described as “quite strange” the lack of any appeal from the Indian Foreign Ministry in past 30 years calling for the withdrawal of Armenia’s occupying forces from the Azerbaijani territories.

“And [it] is now speaking about pulling back forces. Apparently, this latest statement was made without a proper thorough examination of various dimensions of this issue,” the spokesperson said.

Abdullayeva said that “Azerbaijan has always been calling for, and continues to call for, the full respect of sovereignty, territorial integrity and inviolability of internationally recognized borders of states. We believe that mutual respect for and strict adherence to these principles is the only way to settle any dispute and build truly good neighborly relations”.

She stressed that Azerbaijan as a current chair of the Non-Aligned Movement has made the promotion of the Bandung Principles one of the priorities of its chairmanship.

“These principles have contributed to the promotion of justice and equality in international relations and ensured respect for the norms and principles of international law. Any attempts that harm the unity within the NAM are deplorable,” she said.

Xenophobia on rise in Armenia

Abdullayeva underlined rising intolerance and xenophobia in Armenia.

“Unfortunately, we observe a dramatic rise in intolerance and xenophobia in Armenia. What is particularly troubling is that this trend is aimed not only against Azerbaijan but now covers any nation or group that would dare to express an opinion even slightly differing from an Armenian line. In this country, the Nazi collaborators are idolized and international terrorists are glorified. An incomprehensible act of vandalism was recently taken against the monument to such a world-known proponent of peace and tolerance as Mahatma Gandhi,” she said.

Abdullayeva said that such trends of extremism are dangerous and they must be addressed immediately. “Armenia must be encouraged to abandon toxic ideas of national supremacy and territorial expansion. Armenia must finally start abiding by international law and making its key principles a basis for the normalization of relations with neighboring states. Only then Armenia will start benefiting from the good neighborhood and regional cooperation,” the spokesperson said.

She stressed that Azerbaijan continues to be strongly committed to peace, security, regional development and cooperation on the basis of respect for sovereignty, territorial integrity and inviolability of internationally recognized borders.

The hostilities between Azerbaijan and Armenia resumed after that latter started firing at Azerbaijani civilians and military positions starting September 27, 2020. The war ended on November 10 with the signing of a trilateral peace deal by the Azerbaijani, Russian and Armenian leaders.

The peace agreement stipulated the return of Azerbaijan’s Armenian-occupied Kalbajar, Aghdam and Lachin regions. Before the signing of the deal, the Azerbaijani Army had liberated around 300 villages, settlements, city centres and historic Shusha city. The signed agreement obliged Armenia to withdraw its troops from the Azerbaijani lands that it has occupied since the early 1990s.

Soviet-Era Maps In Conflict With One Another Concerning Armenian-Azerbaijani Border – OpEd

Karapet Navasardian
Eurasia Review
1 Europe Opinion 
 

By Paul Goble

Soviet-era maps don’t provide a clear answer to just where the border between Armenia and Azerbaijan lies in the Syunik district which Baku refers to as Zengezur. Instead, a Soviet military map assigns territory to Azerbaijan that a Soviet topographic map says belongs to Armenia (kavkaz-uzel.eu/articles/363912/).

There haven’t been any maps prepared since 1991, and Baku and Yerevan have not held negotiations on the delimitation and demarcation of their borders because of the Qarabagh conflict. As a result, some of the supposed violations Armenia has claimed in the last week may not have looked like violations to Azerbaijani forces.

Three days ago, Yerevan said that Azerbaijani forces had penetrated its territory, but Baku responded by saying that its 250 troops were only changing their dislocation within Azerbaijani territory, a difference of opinion that appears to reflect the difference in the maps the two sides rely on.

Yerevan appealed to the Organization of the Collective Security Treaty and to Vladimir Putin for assistance in repelling what it labelled an incursion by Azerbaijan, and Armenian residents of Syunik Oblast blocked roads and demanded that Armenian officials provide the residents of border villages with guns so they could defend themselves.

The issue of the Armenian-Azerbaijani border has arisen now because as a result of last fall’s clashes, Azerbaijani forces expelled Armenian forces that had been occupying Azerbaijani territory since the mid-1990s. Now, Azerbaijani forces are up against the border. And the question is just where does that border lie.

According to Aleksey Gunya, a geographer at the St. Tikhon University of the Humanities, Armenia is in the right as far as the Black Lake is concerned. Most of it, he says, is in fact on Armenian territory. But he acknowledges that “it is difficult to define the precise borders of the two countries.”

 “This territory was not controlled by Azerbaijan until the recent war,” Gunya continues. “On the maps of the USSR General Staff of 1,000,000 to 1 the lake is shown on the territory of Azerbaijan.” But a Soviet topographic map with a scale of 100,000 to one shows 80 percent of the lake to be within the borders of Armenia.

Gunya and the Armenians naturally favor the topographic map, while Azerbaijan gives primacy to the official Soviet General Staff maps. And that is the problem. As Aleksandr Skakov, deputy director of the Moscow Institute of Oriental Studies, puts it, “there is no one Soviet map which would allow for defining the borders.”

Skakov says the two sides should begin negotiations on the border with the mediation of the Russians, but there is a problem there as well: Syunik Oblast is in the area where Russian border guards have responsibility rather than the peacekeeping troops in Qarabagh. Just who will play intermediary is thus unclear.

———————-

Paul Goble is a longtime specialist on ethnic and religious questions in Eurasia. Most recently, he was director of research and publications at the Azerbaijan Diplomatic Academy. Earlier, he served as vice dean for the social sciences and humanities at Audentes University in Tallinn and a senior research associate at the EuroCollege of the University of Tartu in Estonia. He has served in various capacities in the U.S. State Department, the Central Intelligence Agency and the International Broadcasting Bureau as well as at the Voice of America and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Mr. Goble maintains the Window on Eurasia blog and can be contacted directly at .

Harutyunyan and Shoigu discussed issues of Armenian-Russian military cooperation

Karapet Navasardian
Panorama, Armenia

Acting Defence Minister of Armenia Vagharshak Harutyunyan had a telephone conversation with the Defence Minister of the Russian Federation, General of the Army Sergei Shoigu, Ria Novosty news agency reported. 

The two ministers discussed the bilateral cooperation, issues related to the situation in the region and the  mission of the Russian peacekeeping contingent, the source said. 

Armenpress: Central Bank of Armenia: exchange rates and prices of precious metals – 11-05-21

Karapet Navasardian

Central Bank of Armenia: exchange rates and prices of precious metals – 11-05-21

Save

Share

 17:34,

YEREVAN, 11 MAY, ARMENPRESS. The Central Bank of Armenia informs “Armenpress” that today, 11 May, USD exchange rate down by 0.27 drams to 522.10 drams. EUR exchange rate down by 0.23 drams to 635.08 drams. Russian Ruble exchange rate stood at 7.06 drams. GBP exchange rate up by 1.81 drams to 737.78 drams.

The Central Bank has set the following prices for precious metals.

Gold price up by 49.53 drams to 30893.62 drams. Silver price up by 5.81 drams to 465.56 drams. Platinum price up by 375.28 drams to 21267.74 drams.

CivilNet: Azerbaijan Removes Domes of Armenian Cathedral in Shushi

Karapet Navasardian
CIVILNET.AM

04 May, 2021 10:05

  • Armenia’s Foreign Ministry has condemned the destruction of the dome of the Armenian Cathedral in Shushi by Azerbaijan. 
  • Two captured Syrian mercenaries from the Karabakh war will be tried in Armenia. 
  • The lawyers representing Armenian POWs have provided a list of servicemen and civilians that were executed by Azerbaijani soldiers. 

Saeima [Latvian Parliament] passes declaration on Armenian genocide in Ottoman Empire

Karapet Navasardian
Baltic Times
May 6 2021
  • 2021-05-06
  • LETA/TBT Staff

RIGA – The Saeima on Thursday passed a declaration on the Armenian genocide that was committed in the Ottoman Empire during World War I.

The declaration drafted by the Saeima Foreign Affairs Committee was passed after the parliament rejected a declaration proposed earlier by a group of several dozen MPs. 

In the debate about the declaration, MP Romans Naudins (National Alliance) said that parliaments should carefully weigh such declarations before adopting them because they entail certain consequences. He said that none of the declarations was discussed with historians and that they deal with matters that Latvian lawmakers have not analyzed thoroughly enough. 

Naudins called on the Saeima to vote against the declarations and to draft new one by the fall. Naudins believes that the declaration should also mention people of other ethnic backgrounds who died during these tragic events. 

At the same time, the MP urged the Armenian parliament to denounce the genocide committed against Latvians and the Soviet occupation of the Baltic states. 

MP Aleksandrs Kirsteins (National Alliance), who spoke in detail about the historic events, also called against passing the declaration, adding that he did not understand the necessity to adopt such a declaration now. 

Meanwhile, Foreign Affairs Committee chair Rihards Kols (National Alliance) informed that the Saeima committee has been debating a statement on the Armenian genocide for several 

months already and that all sides of the story have been heard in the process. 

The document says that it is important to remember the lives of people who perished in the Armenian genocide organized by Ottoman authorities – mass killings and deportations, which started on April 24, 1915 with arrests of ethnic Armenian intellectuals and activists in Constantinople (now Istanbul).

In the declaration, the Saeima denounces the crimes committed by the Ottoman Empire against Armenians – killings and forced deportations.

The Latvian parliament refers to the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (Genocide Convention) and the European Parliament’s resolution recognizing these World War I events as genocide as defined in the UN Genocide Convention.

The lawmakers underline that Latvia condemns all crimes against humanity and realizes its duty to recognize and remember these crimes to prevent their repetition in the future.

The parliament says in the document that as a result of the Ottoman authorities’ actions, many ethnic Armenians were forcibly deported to other regions of the empire, which resulted in the loss of many lives due to famine, physical violence and killings.

The Saeima underlines that Latvia honors the memory of all Armenian genocide victims and shows respect for the survivors, as well as points out that open and free discussions on historical events are indispensable for the development of a healthy and mature democracy.

The Latvian parliament calls on the international community to assess these historical events and set sights to the future, which should be built free from violence and intolerance – a future where human rights are honored and each individual can feel free, unthreatened and secure.

Russian Prosecutor General fully engaged in works aimed at returning POWs – Armenia Prosecutor General

Karapet Navasardian

Save

Share

 12:45, 7 May, 2021

YEREVAN, MAY 7, ARMENPRESS. The works aimed at returning the Armenian prisoners of war from Azerbaijan are a key part of the activity of the Office of the Prosecutor General. Russia’s Prosecutor General is also fully engaged in these processes, Armenia’s Prosecutor General Artur Davtyan told reporters in the Parliament, commenting on the question relating to the criminal case launched in the prosecution over the recent war unleashed by Azerbaijan against Artsakh.

“The works on returning the prisoners of war are the most serious part of our daily activities. Russia’s Prosecutor General is also fully engaged in this process. By using this channel, there is an opportunity to both clarify the lists, and also transform the grounded information about the torture, killings of POWs, and thus, putting a clear legal demand together with our colleague that these incidents should be followed by legal processes”, Mr. Davtyan said.

He noted that all those facts are recorded by criminal cases, and his Office shares that respective proving information with the Russian partners.

Asked whether Azerbaijani officials have been declared wanted or not, Artur Davtyan said there are “numerous persecutions”, however, he refused to talk about it publicly.

Armenia has announced that he has returned all prisoners of war and other detained persons to Azerbaijan in accordance with the All For All principle. Azerbaijan, however, hasn’t still returned all Armenian POWs, thus violating point 8 of the 2020 November 9 statement signed by the leaders of Armenia, Russia and Azerbaijan. There is factual evidence on torture, ill treatment against the Armenian POWs in Azerbaijan. 19 cases of murder of Armenian POWs have already been confirmed.

 

 Editing and Translating by Aneta Harutyunyan