Author: Maral Takmazian

Two Utah state lawmakers who took a paid trip to Azerbaijan recently praised the former Soviet republic’s commitment to religious freedom, echoing sentiments frequently heard in U.S. state legislatures and disputed by a half-dozen prominent watchdog organizations, reports.

Last week, Sen. Gene Davis, D-Salt Lake City, and Rep. Lynn Hemingway, D-Millcreek, read the citation in the Senate and House, respectively, before introducing Azerbaijan Consul General Nasimi Aghayev.

Azerbaijan’s government, Davis told senators, “sees diversity as one of the country’s great strengths.”

Aghayev followed by saying it was appropriate that the citation was read in Utah, “one of the most tolerant and harmonious states.”

His remarks met with applause.

But Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, International Christian Concern, the Committee to Protect Journalists, the Pew Research Center and the U.S. State Department have all called into question the policies of Azerbaijan’s government, including those related to religion.

Critics say the resource-rich nation, sandwiched between Russia and Iran and bordered on the west by longtime adversary Armenia, is more dictatorship than democracy, known for jailing activists and journalists and restricting activities of religious minorities.

Davis said he couldn’t pronounce Azerbaijan before his May 2013 visit to Baku, the nation’s capital, where he joined dozens of U.S. lawmakers at a celebration of Azerbaijan’s independence. that trips for members of Congress and their staffs were funded with money funneled to U.S.-based nonprofits by the nation’s state oil company.

Davis and Hemingway said they came away impressed with apparent progress in a region where progress is in short supply.

“All I have done is encourage religious freedom in that country,” Davis said. “Have I taken a stand on their past history? No.”

Nonetheless, a pair of Utah residents with Armenian heritage expressed strong opposition to his citation.

Former state Sen. Bill Barton, whose mother’s family is Armenian, said he thinks Hemingway and Davis, whom he considers a longtime friend, were “wined and dined” into support. Barton said he wrote in an email to several senators that “you didn’t know what was behind this, or you would not have done it.”

Salt Lake City resident Miriam McFadden, who exchanged emails with Davis about her concerns, told The Tribune she was “mortified.”

Even if its scope was narrowed to religious freedoms, she said, at a cemetery in Julfa in 2005, later found to no longer exist after the nation’s government had blocked inspection of the site.

“For us in Utah, where we claim that individual rights are so important … to endorse a country so suppressive and corrupt, it just appalled me,” McFadden said.

Davis said he has not heard of the Julfa incident.

The ANCA formally rebuked the citation. The letter’s author, Western Region executive director Elen Asatryan, said by phone this week that such legislation has become common even though “all it takes is really to just Google ‘Azerbaijan’ ” to see that the lawmakers have been duped.

Asatryan said citations like Utah’s are propaganda fodder for Azerbaijan’s highly controlled media — the Committee to Protect Journalists most recently ranked Azerbaijan as the world’s fifth-most-censored press — to burnish Aliyev’s image.

Days before Davis and Hemingway read their citation in Utah, ANCA said Idaho Rep. Thomas Dayley withdrew a similarly worded resolution because it mobilized 90 local activists to share concerns.

Baku “is expecting guarantees from the exporting country” that weapons and equipment will not be deployed along Azerbaijan’s border with Armenia or in Nagorno-Karabakh

Azerbaijan has sent a note of protests to Russian Foreign Ministry over the supply of weapons to Armenia, the country’s Foreign Ministry press service head Khikmet Gadzhiev told reporters on Wednesday, TASS reports.

The move comes after Russian side provided Armenian with a state export loan of up to $200 million for financing the delivery of Russian military products.

Gadzhiev said that supplying Armenia with weapons and military equipment “does not facilitate the settlement of the conflict” around Nagorno-Karabakh. In this respect, Baku “is expecting guarantees from the exporting country” that weapons and equipment will not be deployed along Azerbaijan’s border with Armenia or in Nagorno-Karabakh, he noted.

The voting in the Eurovision Song Contest is set to be radically transformed in 2016, according to Eurovision’s official website.

In previous years the results of the professional juries and viewers have been presented as a combined result, each accounting for 50 percent of the final score.

From 2016, the professional juries and televoters from each country will each award a separate set of points from 1 to 8, 10 and 12. This now means the top 10 countries in both the jury and televote will receive points, adding a new level of excitement for hundreds of millions of viewers in Europe and beyond.

After viewers have cast their votes by telephone, SMS or using the official app, each national spokesperson from the 43 participating countries will be called in to present the points of their professional jury. After the presentation of the scores from the juries, the televoting points from all participating countries will be combined, providing one score for each song. These televoting results will then be announced by the host, starting with the country receiving the fewest points from the public and ending with the country that received the highest number of points, building towards a guaranteed climax.

For those wanting to know how their country has voted, the televoting and jury scores from each participating country will be available after the show on Eurovision.tv.

The post-Soviet security organization, CSTO, will react to any actions causing escalation of tension at the border between Azerbaijan and Armenia, as well as in Nagorno-Karabakh, the organization's head Nikolai Borduzha said on Friday,  reports.

“The Organization has been reacting to any actions of the kind [use of military force] that affect security in the region,” he said.

At the same time, he continued, the organization is not involved in settlement of that conflict.

“We only monitor the situation, as it involves our ally – Armenia,” the official said. “CSTO’s position is quite strait – all participating countries want to have the conflict settled by only political means.”

“All countries are against escalation of the tension at the border between Armenia and Azerbaijan, against use of heavy weapons,” he added.

The Azerbaijani side used weapons of different caliber as it fired more than 1,500 shots in the direction of the Armenian positions over the weekend, the NKR Ministry of Defense reports.

The front divisions of the NKR Defense Army keep control of the situation at the frontline and resorts to retaliatory actions only in case of extreme necessity.

Georgian Defense Minister Defense Minister Tinatin Khidasheli visited Tsitsernakaberd Memorial today to pay tribute to the memory of the Armenian Genocide victims.

Relative peace was maintained at the line of contact between the armed forces of Nagorno Karabakh and Azerbaijan last night.

The rival mostly used artillery weapons in different directions of the line of contact, the NKR Ministry of Defense reported.

The front divisions of the NKR Defense Army keep full control of the situation all along the line of contact.

After more than a year without a meeting, it was important for the presidents of Azerbaijan and Armenia to talk face-to-face and clarify their positions in Bern, the US co-chair of the OSCE Minsk Group James Warlick told Trend.

The President of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan and the President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev held a summit Dec.19 in Bern under the auspices of the Co-Chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group (Ambassadors Igor Popov of the Russian Federation, James Warlick of the United States of America, and Pierre Andrieu of France).

Although the sides didn’t achieve any breakthrough in Bern, the co-chairs will aim to bring the presidents together again in 2016, Warlick said.

The sides discussed a range of issues, including violence along the line of contact and Armenia-Azerbaijan border and proposals regarding a settlement of the conflict, he said.

“In the meantime, the co-chairs will continue their work with the foreign ministers on proposals regarding a settlement, measures to reduce the risk of violence, and programs to promote dialogue between the communities of Nagorno-Karabakh,” Warlick said.

The diplomat went on to add that the position of the OSCE MG regarding the conflict hasn’t changed.

The United States fully supports the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs’ efforts to mediate a lasting settlement to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, Warlick said.

“We urge the sides to approach the upcoming summit constructively and use the opportunity to make progress towards a settlement,” he said.

Asbarez – Professor Richard G. Hovannisian of UCLA, Chapman University, and the Shoah Foundation at USC has been inducted as a Fellow of the prestigious Accademia Ambrosiana of Milan, Italy. Nominated by the Great Chancellor of the Academy, Archbishop of Milan Cardinal Angelo Scola, for having distinguished himself in the field of Armenian and Oriental Studies, Hovannisian was inducted as a lifetime fellow of the 400 year-old Academy in formal ceremonies held in the Biblioteca Ambrosiana on the evening of November 9, 2015.  His diploma was presented by Monsignor Franco Buzzi, president of the Academy.

On November 10, Dr. Hovannisian delivered a memorable inaugural address on the significance of the centenary of the Armenian Genocide and the advances since 1915 in the historiography of the Mets Yeghern (Great Crime) and its significance in comparative perspective. Other talks on Armenian subjects during the three-day assembly were given by invited scholars Marco Bias, Raymond Kevorkian, and Aldo Ferrari. Professor Levon Chookaszian of Yerevan State University also attended as an inductee of the Academy’s Classis Orientalis.

Richard Hovannisian has authored and edited 30 books and nearly 100 articles and chapters on Armenian, Near Eastern, and Caucasian history and culture.  He is a Guggenheim fellow, a full member of the National Academy of Sciences of Armenia, and a recipient of numerous scholarly, ecclesiastic, civic, and professional awards.  He is currently collaborating with the Shoah Foundation on the integration of Armenian survivor testimony into the Foundation’s permanent holdings, while also completing work on the Armenian translation of volumes 3 and 4 of his magnus opus, The Republic of Armenia.

Armenian Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian briefed journalists on the results of the meeting between the Presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan held in Bern with the mediation of the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs.

Question: Mr. Nalbandian, what mechanisms are being elaborated?

Edward Nalbandian. About two dozen meetings on the level of Presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan, summits were held during the last seven years. Some of these meetings were very close to reaching an agreement, however, Azerbaijan has always backtracked.

Quite a long time has passed since the last summit held in Paris in October, 2014, almost a year ago, and it was very important to arrange a new meeting.

We are grateful to the Swiss authorities, which hosted this summit. We are also grateful to the Co-Chairing countries for organizing a new meeting on the level of presidents aimed at moving forward the negotiation process. In order to move this process forward such an intention should have Azerbaijan, which, in fact, not only has no such intention, but quite the contrary.

Question: What was the agenda of this meeting?

Edward Nalbandian: The agenda of this summit was dictated by the escalation of situation as a result of Azerbaijan’s provocations, gross violations of cease-fire regime. And, naturally, if the situation is so tense, the other issues are becoming secondary.

Azerbaijan cannot get rid of the delusion that it can translate the use of power, the escalation of the situation into a negotiation tool. In fact, it is their weakness. Baku wishes to compensate its insecurity in negotiations by such actions.

The strategists of Azerbaijan consider that it gives them some strength. But what has this policy given to Azerbaijan so far? It has not given, is not giving, nor of course will it give anything positive, any advantage.

Question: And in such situation is it rational to conduct negotiations?

Edward Nalbandian: There have been attitudes that because of this inadequate behavior of Azerbaijan, provocations, maybe there is no reason to continue the negotiations. And a question arises – what is the alternative to negotiations?

Armenia has been for the continuation of the negotiation process, the settlement of the issue through negotiations. And the participation of the President of our Republic in this summit proves that very fact, proves our approach that Armenia reaffirms its commitment to continue, along with the Co-Chairs, the efforts aimed at an exclusively peaceful settlement of the issue.

Question: In these conditions if there are no negotiations, will a peaceful settlement be possible?

Edward Nalbandian: If there are no negotiations, how will there be a settlement? How is peace established?

In fact, also during this meeting the sides expressed their approaches on different elements, different principles of the settlement of the issue, which they have presented. And we can reaffirm again that, unfortunately, the approaches of the sides are not close, or that they do not coincide.

However here the approaches of Azerbaijan not only do not coincide with the approaches of Armenia. We can also say that the approaches of Azerbaijan do not coincide and are not in line with the proposals of the Co-Chairing countries.

You know that there have been five statements on the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict on the level of leaders of the Co-Chairing countries. Azerbaijan by all means avoids to make any reference to those statements, which state the principles, the elements that, as mentioned by the Co-Chairs on numerous occasions, have been conceived as an integrated whole, and any attempts to select some elements over others would make it impossible to achieve a solution.

We have mentioned on numerous occasions that we are ready to continue the negotiations based on those proposals and move forward towards the settlement; Azerbaijan has not expressed yet its opinion on those statements. It only pretends that it is ready for something, but what is it ready for?

They are issuing some statements for their public opinion, and are thinking that they will be able to impress someone abroad. This is not the case at all.

In Belgrade I made a comment on the statement of the Co-Chairs, referring to it point by point. And what was the statement of the Azerbaijani side? There were no comments, because what the Co-Chairs were saying is what we are saying.

Question: Mr. Minister, what are the outcomes of today’s negotiations, is there a particular outcome, which can be considered as positive?

Edward Nalbandian: Any meeting, especially the ones on the level of the Presidents, is very important for this dialogue to continue, the negotiations to continue, because as I have already mentioned there is no alternative to it.

The more often these meetings are held, the more possible it will be to conduct discussions, maybe with small steps, but some discussions both on the pushing the peaceful settlement process of the issue on, and elaboration of mechanisms for the de-escalation of situation. Indeed, these issues have also been discussed.

You know, the Co-Chairs have also made numerous statements in that regard, on the violation of cease-fire, establishment of a mechanism for the investigation of incidents. On our side we have stated several times that we are ready to move forward towards the establishment of that mechanism. We are not only ready, but we welcomed the establishment of that mechanism. Moreover, the Co-Chairs have presented on numerous occasions the details of the establishment of that mechanism. The sides discussed it at least twice – during the two summits held in Sochi.

You can look into the joint statements of the Presidents of Armenia, Russia and Azerbaijan adopted in the result of those summits, which contain a reference to the establishment of that very mechanism. In those statements some commitments were taken, that the sides, along with the Co-Chairs, should discuss the establishment of those mechanisms.

Question: And what happened…?

Edward Nalbandian: Just after those statements Azerbaijan backtracked few times. Today we also discussed the proposal on the establishment of that mechanism. It was reaffirmed that the Armenian sides presented their positive reaction to it.

In September in New York, during the meeting of the Foreign Ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan within the framework of the UN General Assembly the Co-Chairs reaffirmed that Armenia has accepted the proposal, and they expect Azerbaijan to do the same. This issue was once again discussed during today’s meeting.

We hope that Azerbaijan will finally display another approach, because if we really wish to move the negotiation process forward, an appropriate atmosphere should be created.

Question: Mr. Minister, did the Co-Chairs sharply raise the issue of the use of tanks and heavy weaponry on the Line of Contact?

Edward Nalbandian: The Co-Chairs raised this question both today, and also in their statements. If we observe the developments since January of this year, the Co-Chairs issued targeted statements and calls, the recent one in Belgrade on the sidelines of the OSCE Ministerial Council, which is quite an important format. Every December, the Co-Chairs issue statements within that format.

In the latest statement they voiced a harsh criticism towards the use of heavy artillery and weaponry of different caliber. And it is obvious whom those statements are addressed to.

In response, Azerbaijan, in fact, slapped in the face of the Co-Chairs and moved towards the further escalation of the situation by the use of different weaponry.

This is the response of Azerbaijan to the proposals of the international community, as the Co-
Chairs have the mandate of the international community and act on their behalf.

Question: Mr. Nalbandian, it is understandable. One more question. Warlick expressed an opinion that seems there is an optimistic tendency. Do you share the optimism of the Co-Chair? And you mentioned that there were opinions that Armenia should from now on reject to negotiate. In your opinion, did those opinions increase or decrease?

QuestionI have already answered to that question: there are these attitudes, but the negotiations have no alternative. Armenia has always been and is for the settlement of the issue through negotiations. As of having positive attitude or optimism, diplomats, in general, should be optimistic, because if you are not an optimistic, you are not a diplomat.

Question: What about the toast Warlick mentioned in his tweet, actually was there a toast? Is it true?

Edward Nalbandian: I think it is something imaginary. In any case, Presidents did not toast. They conducted serious negotiations.

Thank you.