Author: Khoyetsian Rose

 12:24, 31 March, 2022

YEREVAN, MARCH 31, ARMENPRESS. In addition to invading the area of responsibility of the Russian peacekeepers in Nagorno Karabakh, the Azerbaijani troops continue to terrorize the population of several villages in Nagorno Karabakh on a daily basis by using loudspeakers to make threats, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said at the Cabinet meeting.

“This too is happening before the eyes of the peacekeepers. [The Azerbaijani side] is telling the villagers through loudspeakers to abandon their homes or else they will be taken out by force,” Pashinyan said.

Pashinyan said that the Azerbaijani troops are even playing the Islamic Adhan on the loundspeakers at nights in the direction of the villages, whose population is Armenian Apostolic Christian.

“We certainly have great respect for the Islamic religion and civilization, but Azerbaijan’s actions against the people is violence against the freedom of conscience and religion, a means of inciting religious hatred, and after all it is offending the religious emotions of our compatriots,” Pashinyan said.

Pashinyan also addressed the Azerbaijani policy of eradicating anything Armenian from Nagorno Karabakh.

Pashinyan mentioned the infamous February 23 statement by Azerbaijan’s Minister of Culture, who set up a task force to deal with the removal of Armenian traces from spiritual monuments, which the Azeri minister falsely described as “Caucasian Albanian”. Pashinyan described this statement as Azerbaijan’s public and official launch of destruction and distortion of Armenian cultural heritage.

“And the statement of the Azerbaijani minister of culture isn’t a coincidence. On March 16, 2021, during a visit to Hadrut, the Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, speaking about the Surp Astvatsatsin Armenian Church of Tsakuri, said: ‘Just like the Armenians desecrated our mosques, they desecretated the Caucasian-Albanian temples. But we will restore. All these writings are fake, these are made afterwards’”. These actions of Azerbaijan are an overt challenge to the UN’s International Court of Justice 2021 December 7 decision on provisional measures, which clearly obliges Azerbaijan to “take all necessary measures to prevent and punish acts of vandalism and desecration affecting Armenian cultural heritage, including but not limited to churches and other places of worship, monuments, landmarks, cemeteries and artefacts.”

PM Pashinyan emphasized that all these situations must receive a proper international probe and assessment.

“We expect from the international community a targeted assessment to Azerbaijan’s actions in Nagorno Karabakh because the Armenian population in Nagorno Karabakh is being terrorized every day, literally every single day, including the gas supply cut-off terror, and its goal is to displace them from their homes and their homeland,” Pashinyan said.

 17:32,

YEREVAN, MARCH 24, ARMENPRESS. The Azerbaijani armed forces violated the line of contact in the direction of the village of Parukh in Artsakh’s Askeran region, the Artsakh authorities said.

The government of Artsakh said representatives of the Artsakh Defense Army and the Russian peacekeeping contingent in Artsakh are attempting to prevent through negotiations the further advance of the Azerbaijani troops and return them to their original positions.

As a safety precaution, women and children in the village of Khramort in Askeran region have been evacuated.

“We call on the population to remain calm, the situation is stable in all other parts of the line of contact,” the Artsakh authorities said.

 19:40,

YEREVAN, 22 MARCH, ARMENPRESS. The National Crisis Management Center received information on March 22, at 5:42 pm, that there is a bomb in the luggage of a plane conducting Moscow-Yerevan flight from Vnukovo airport. The plane landed at “Zvartnots” airport at 18:20.

As ARMENPRESS was informed from the Ministry of Emergency Situations, relevant divisions have arrived at the possible scene.

 12:15,

YEREVAN, MARCH 18, ARMENPRESS. Deputy Prime Minister of Armenia Hambardzum Matevosyan chaired today the session of the Council on fight against human trafficking and exploitation, the deputy PM’s Office said.

The deputy PM welcomed the session participants and said that Armenia has registered significant achievements in the fight against human trafficking and exploitation, which, according to him, turned into reality thanks to the efforts of the Council and the working group attached to the Council.

The deputy PM also emphasized the high level of the inter-agency cooperation as one of the guarantees for the progress in the fight against this phenomenon, as well as the efforts of Armenia’s partners – the Council of Europe, the US government and international organizations, NGOs.

“Despite the progress in the field, the challenges facing Armenia lead us to make more efforts and work more actively for improving the positions”, the deputy PM said, wishing a productive work to all the participants.

According to the agenda, Deputy Minister of Labor and Social Affairs Tatevik Stepanyan presented the activities carried out in 2021 in the fight against human trafficking and stated that all 19 actions envisaged by the 2020-2022 national program have been implemented.

Then, Head of the Migration Service of the ministry of territorial administration and infrastructure Armen Ghazaryan, who is also the secretary of the Council, presented the current challenges of the field, the actions on resisting them.

Representative of World Vision Armenia Tigran Hovhannisyan presented the goals of the program “Together Against Human Trafficking” and the activities done so far.