Author: Maral Chavushian

                                        Monday, May 29, 2023
Aliyev Again Threatens Armenia, Karabakh
May 29, 2023
• Ruzanna Stepanian
Azerbaijan - President Ilham Aliyev visits Lachin, May 28, 2023.
Azerbaijan may be walking away from recent understandings reached with Armenia, 
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian suggested on Monday, reacting to Azerbaijani 
President Ilham Aliyev’s latest threats of fresh military action against Armenia 
and Nagorno-Karabakh.
Aliyev said on Sunday that apart from recognizing Azerbaijani sovereignty over 
Karabakh Yerevan must also meet a number of other conditions set by Azerbaijan. 
That includes delimiting the Armenian-Azerbaijani border on Baku’s terms and 
opening a corridor to the Nakhichevan exclave, he said.
“They must not forget that Armenian villages are visible from here,” he added 
during a visit to the border town of Lachin.
Pashinian said the threat runs counter to the mutual recognition by the two 
South Caucasus states of each other’s territorial integrity which he and Aliyev 
reaffirmed at their May 14 meeting in Brussels.
“I think that both Azerbaijan and our international partners should at least 
clarify whether that means a renunciation of the understandings reached in 
Brussels,” he told Armenian lawmakers. Armenian diplomats should “get an answer 
to this question from our partners,” he said.
Pashinian provoked a storm of criticism in Armenia and Karabakh when he 
confirmed after the Brussels summit his readiness to recognize Karabakh as part 
of Azerbaijan through a peace treaty currently discussed by Baku and Yerevan. He 
said the treaty should call for an international framework of addressing “the 
rights and security” of Karabakh’s Armenian population.
Armenia -- Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian speaks in the National Assembly, May 
29, 2023.
Aliyev appeared to again rule out any such mechanism on Sunday, saying that the 
Karabakh Armenians must dissolve their government bodies and unconditionally 
accept Azerbaijani rule.
“Everyone knows that we can carry out any [military] operation in that 
territory,” he warned. “That is why the [Karabakh] parliament must be dissolved, 
the element who calls himself the president [of Karabakh] must surrender and all 
ministers, deputies and other officials must resign. Only then can there be talk 
of amnesty.”
Arayik Harutiunian, the Karabakh president, rejected the threats on Monday. A 
spokeswoman for Harutiunian said Aliyev’s demands also mean he “recognizes the 
legitimacy and importance of our institutions.”
Aliyev already made clear in April that Baku will not hold any internationally 
mediated talks with Stepanakert. The Karabakh Armenians “will either live under 
Azerbaijani rule or leave” their homeland, he said.
Two Karabakh lawmakers said Aliyev has doubled down on such threats because of 
the far-reaching concession to Baku made by Pashinian.
Aliyev and Pashinian are scheduled to meet again on Thursday in Moldova’s 
capital Chisinau on the sidelines of a European summit. The Armenian premier 
insisted that the controversial peace treaty will not be signed during that 
meeting.
Two Armenian Soldiers Captured By Azerbaijan
May 29, 2023
• Artak Khulian
• Susan Badalian
Armenia - A purported photo of a military truck of two Armenian soldiers who 
were captureed by Azerbaijani forces late on May 26, 2023.
Two Armenian soldiers were captured by Azerbaijani forces late on Friday in what 
Armenia’s Defense Ministry described at the weekend as a cross-border incursion.
The ministry said that the soldiers, Harutiun Hovakimian and Karen Ghazarian, 
were ambushed and “kidnapped” after delivering water and food to Armenian army 
units guarding the border with Azerbaijan. It published photographs of their 
abandoned military truck found in a wooded area in in the southeastern Syunik 
province.
The Azerbaijani side claimed that Hovakimian and Ghazarian were taken prisoner 
during a sabotage attack on an Azerbaijani army outpost. It was quick to bring a 
string of criminal charges, including “terrorism,” against the servicemen.
The Defense Ministry in Yerevan rejected the claim as “disinformation.” It said 
the fact that an assault rifle belonging to one of the soldiers was found inside 
the truck only proves that they could not have carried out any armed attacks in 
Azerbaijani territory.
Armenia -- The Shikahogh forest preserve in Syunik province, September 4, 2018.
Hovakimian’s mother told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service that the 34-year-old contract 
soldier has for years been engaged in food supplies to troops manning Armenian 
border posts in Syunik’s Shikahogh forest reserve.
“He always went back and forth through that road,” she said. “He knows the road 
very well and could not have deviated a single inch from it.”
The Armenian government asked the European Court of Human Rights to order the 
Azerbaijani authorities to provide urgent information about the soldiers’ health 
and detention conditions. The Strasbourg court did not rule on the request as of 
Monday afternoon.
Hovakimian and Ghazarian were captured more than a month after two Azerbaijani 
soldiers were detained in Armenia. Baku said they strayed into Armenian 
territory from the Nakhichevan exclave due to heavy fog and demanded their 
release.
One of the Azerbaijani conscripts was charged with murdering a Syunik resident 
one day before his detention. The other was sentenced to 11.5 years in prison by 
an Armenian court on May 8.
Pashinian Congratulates Turkey’s Erdogan On Election Win
May 29, 2023
TURKEY - Supporters of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan celebrate near 
Taksim Mosque at the Taksim Square in Istanbul on the day of the presidential 
runoff vote in Istanbul, May 28, 2023.
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian rushed to congratulate Turkish President 
Recep Tayyip Erdogan on winning reelection in a weekend run-off vote.
“Congratulations to President Erdogan on his re-election,” Pashinian tweeted on 
Sunday evening shortly after the release of official election results that 
showed Erdogan winning over 52 percent of the vote.
“Looking forward to continuing working together towards full normalization of 
relations between our countries,” he wrote.
Turkey has for decades made the opening of the border and the establishment of 
diplomatic relations with Armenia conditional on an Armenian-Azerbaijani peace 
deal acceptable to Azerbaijan. Turkish leaders have repeatedly reaffirmed this 
precondition since the start of the normalization talks with Yerevan in January 
2022.
Tensions between the two neighboring states were reignited in late April after 
municipal authorities in Yerevan unveiled a monument dedicated to Armenians who 
had assassinated masterminds and perpetrators of the 1915 Armenian genocide in 
Ottoman Turkey.
Czech Republic- Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian and Turkish President 
Recep Tayyip Erdogan meet in Prague, October 6, 2022.
The Turkish government strongly condemned the move and banned Armenian airlines 
from flying over Turkey to third countries. Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu 
threatened last week “new measures” against Armenia if the monument is not 
removed soon.
Pashinian described the erection of the monument as a “wrong decision” when he 
spoke to RFE/RL’s Armenian Service earlier this month. He claimed that his 
government had nothing to do with it.
During the presidential election campaign, Erdogan and his political allies 
repeatedly touted Turkey’s decisive military assistance to Azerbaijan provided 
during the 2020 war with Armenia. They accused Erdogan’s main challenger, Kemal 
Kilicdaroglu, of opposing Ankara’s political and military alliance with Baku.
Reposted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
Copyright (c) 2023 Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, Inc.
1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.