Author: Vorskanian Yeghisabet
The Violent End of Nagorno-Karabakh’s Fight for Independence
Athirty-five-year war reignited last week. Hundreds of people died. Tens of thousands may have been displaced. The world, focussed on the United Nations General Assembly and the war in Ukraine, barely noticed. On September 19th, Azerbaijan started shelling towns and military bases in Nagorno-Karabakh, an Armenian enclave that had long fought for independence. In less than a day, the self-proclaimed republic was effectively disarmed and forced to capitulate. Russian forces, ostensibly there to prevent just this kind of outcome, offered little or no resistance. The most generous reading of the situation is that they were caught unawares. The least generous is that Russia had given its approval to the attack, perhaps in exchange for maintaining a military presence in the region.
The Karabakh conflict dates back to 1988. It prefigured a dozen others that would erupt in what was then the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia. Nagorno-Karabakh was, legally, an autonomous region within Azerbaijan, a constituent republic of the U.S.S.R. As Mikhail Gorbachev’s government loosened political restrictions, Karabakh Armenians demanded the right, which they argued was guaranteed to them by the Soviet constitution, to secede from Azerbaijan and join Armenia, also a Soviet constituent republic. Moscow rejected the demand. Meanwhile, shoot-outs between ethnic Armenians and ethnic Azeris in Nagorno-Karabakh sparked violence elsewhere. In February, 1988, anti-Armenian pogroms in the Azerbaijani town of Sumgait left dozens dead. Two years later, a week of anti-Armenian violence in Baku, Azerbaijan’s historically multiethnic capital, killed dozens more. Thousands of ethnic Armenians fled Azerbaijan, where their families had lived for generations. Some left on a plane chartered by the chess champion Garry Kasparov, probably the best-known Azerbaijani Armenian, who was also leaving his motherland forever.
In 1991, the Soviet Union broke apart and each of its fifteen constituent republics became a sovereign state. For Karabakh Armenians, this meant that any legal basis for their secessionist aspirations had vanished. Nagorno-Karabakh became one of several ethnic enclaves in the post-Soviet space that was fighting for independence from the newly independent country of which they were a part—South Ossetia and Abkhazia tried to break free from Georgia, the Transnistria Region fought to separate from Moldova, Chechnya wanted out of Russia. In the early nineteen-nineties, each of these conflicts became a hot war. In every case outside its own borders, Russia supported the separatist movements—and, in most cases, used the conflicts to station its own troops in the region. Two decades later, Russia used the same playbook to foment armed conflict in eastern Ukraine.
Fighting in Nagorno-Karabakh lasted until 1994. Both sides engaged in ethnic cleansing: the deliberate displacement and killing of people based on their ethnicity. Moscow secretly supported Azerbaijan in the conflict. The war ended with a de-facto victory for the Armenians, who were able to establish self-rule on a large part of the territory they claimed, even though not a single country—not even Armenia—officially recognized the independence of Nagorno-Karabakh. Whether it was because the Armenians won, or because the conflict ended when Russia had been destabilized by its own bloody constitutional crisis, Nagorno-Karabakh was the only conflict region in the former empire where Russia did not station its troops.
For the next three decades, the political paths of Armenia and Azerbaijan, two neighbors inextricably linked by blood and war, diverged. Azerbaijan transitioned from Soviet totalitarianism to post-Soviet dictatorship, with a ruling dynasty, censorship, and widespread political repression. One of the world’s original oil powers, Azerbaijan also grew comparatively wealthy. It nurtured diplomatic, economic, and military ties with neighboring Turkey and with Israel, which views Azerbaijan as an ally in any confrontation with Azerbaijan’s next-door neighbor Iran. Armenia, at least formally, undertook a transition to democracy. That transition hit a dead end in October, 1999, when a group of gunmen burst into the parliament and assassinated nine people, including all the leaders of one of the two ruling parties. The leader of the surviving party, Robert Kocharyan, led the country for another decade, and his clan remained in power until 2018, when a peaceful revolution seemed to start a new era. The new leader of Armenia, Nikol Pashinyan, is a former journalist.
In both countries, Nagorno-Karabakh remained the focus of political life. For Azerbaijan, the pain and humiliation of the 1994 defeat formed the centerpiece of the national narrative. “Azerbaijan got its independence in parallel with the war, so Nagorno-Karabakh has played a major role in shaping Azerbaijani national identity,” Shujaat Ahmadzada, an independent Azerbaijani political scientist, told me. “There was the memory, the images of internally displaced people, adding to the narrative of having suffered injustices. And conflict is important to keeping and solidifying power.”
In Armenia, what became known as the Karabakh Clan has held power for most of the post-Soviet period. Kocharyan is a former leader of the self-proclaimed Nagorno-Karabakh Republic. Armen Martirosyan, an Armenian publisher and longtime political activist, told me that, in 2018, he had hoped that Nikol Pashinyan would finally represent a “party of peace.” But even Pashinyan, who was born in 1975, was compelled to claim that he had got his political start in Nagorno-Karabakh. “Seven out of eight of our political parties are parties of war,” Martirosyan said.
Both sides continued to arm themselves. The self-proclaimed Nagorno-Karabakh Republic formed its own armed forces, aided and supplied by Armenia. Azerbaijan imported arms from Israel. “It shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone that an oil-rich country with an authoritarian regime can put together a well-trained, cohesive army,” Alexander Cherkasov, a Russian researcher in exile who has been documenting ethnic conflicts in the region for thirty-five years, said. In 2020, Azerbaijan attacked Nagorno-Karabakh. Fighting lasted forty-four days. Thousands of people died. Azerbaijan reëstablished control over much of the self-proclaimed republic and adjacent territories. In the end, Moscow brokered a ceasefire that rested on the presence of Russian peacekeepers in Nagorno-Karabakh. The status of the self-proclaimed republic remained undecided but, for the time being, it seemed that a shrunken Nagorno-Karabakh would continue to be self-governed.
Less than fifteen months later, Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Hundreds of thousands of Russians fleeing political persecution, the draft, and Western economic sanctions flooded into Armenia. Security guarantees offered to Armenia by Russia began to seem less reliable, and the price of these guarantees seemed to rise. According to Arman Grigoryan, an Armenian-born political scientist at Lehigh University, Pashinyan launched a “grandiose project of pulling Armenia out of Russia’s orbit.” Apparently counting on Russia’s waning influence in the world and weakening interest in the region, Pashinyan dragged his feet on signing a peace treaty with Azerbaijan, at least one that involved having Russia at the table. He also did not deliver on one of the obligations Armenia had accepted as part of the 2020 ceasefire agreement: to provide Azerbaijan with an overland corridor to Nakhchivan, the country’s exclave on the other side of the Armenian border, three hundred miles from Baku. Such a corridor would, under the terms of the ceasefire agreement, be controlled by the Russian security services. Pashinyan’s reluctance was understandable, but his hope that Western support would allow him to stall indefinitely proved unfounded. Pashinyan also took a number of diplomatic—or, rather, undiplomatic—steps that galled Russia. Most recently, he asked the Armenian parliament to ratify the Rome Statute, the founding document of the International Criminal Court, which has indicted Vladimir Putin for war crimes allegedly committed against Ukraine. (Russia, like the United States, has not ratified the Rome Statute.)
Late last year, Azerbaijan started ratcheting up pressure on Nagorno-Karabakh. In December, a blockade was imposed, apparently aimed at cutting off the only supply route to the enclave. People found some ways to circumvent it, but over time the situation grew dire. Thomas de Waal, a London-based senior fellow with the Carnegie Europe Endowment for International Peace, who has been documenting the Karabakh conflict for nearly thirty years, told me that “thousands of people were without gas and there was bread rationing, down to two hundred grams a day. This and having to walk everywhere for miles, for anything. And then, out of nowhere, getting shelled.”
The shelling on September 19th was shocking, but it was by no means unexpected. Ahmadzada, the Azerbaijani researcher, told me that Azerbaijan had been pursuing what he calls a “three-‘D’ strategy”: deinternationalization, deinstitutionalization, and deterritorialization. The conflict was effectively deinternationalized when all sides agreed to a peace agreement brokered by Russia, leaving out the more conventional (and arguably more trustworthy) European or U.N. actors. Deinstitutionalization has been achieved in the latest round of fighting, with self-rule now clearly off the table. The next stage would likely be the forced exodus of Armenians from the region. This is also known as “ethnic cleansing,” a phrase that has resurfaced in reference to the Karabakh conflict.
On September 22nd, de Waal tweeted that, watching the events in Nagorno-Karabakh, he was experiencing “a disturbing déjà vu of the beginning of the Bosnia war.” Perhaps more accurately, the events are reminiscent of the 1991-94 Karabakh war, whose atrocities were overshadowed by atrocities committed in the former Yugoslavia. “And of course today we are seeing pictures of convoys on mountain roads, people having grabbed their possessions and abandoned their homes,” de Waal told me on the phone. “I am having flashbacks to the early nineteen-nineties.” At first, Armenian and Karabakh authorities talked of evacuating only the people whose homes had been destroyed in the fighting. But Armenian N.G.O.s put out the call for people experienced in building refugee camps at a large scale. The population of Nagorno-Karabakh is believed to be around a hundred and twenty thousand people, though, according to de Waal, some eighty thousand to a hundred thousand people were in the region when it was attacked. About half of them are now believed to have left their homeland.
On September 27th, Azerbaijan arrested Ruben Vardanyan, an Armenian-born entrepreneur and philanthropist who had made billions in Russia before moving to Nagorno-Karabakh to lead its government in 2022. (Vardanyan resigned his position in February, in an effort to facilitate negotiations with the Azerbaijani side.) Vardanyan, who had stayed in the region during the shelling, was apparently also trying to leave when he was detained. On September 28th, the government of the self-proclaimed republic announced its intention to disband by the end of the year.
The Nagorno-Karabakh independence project has ended. But, Grigoryan told me, the Azerbaijani-Armenian conflict is not over. “Azerbaijan has the military capability to take over southern Armenia, possibly on the pretext of needing a corridor to Nakhchivan.” Russia may have an interest in maintaining a military presence in the region, and further conflict could serve as the pretext. For now, the Russian media machine is working to destabilize the political situation in Armenia. Russia’s chief propagandists, at least two of whom happen to be ethnic Armenians, have blamed the defeat in Nagorno-Karabakh on Pashinyan. They have unleashed diatribes against him, employing obscene language. Under a special legal arrangement between the two countries, Russian television is widely broadcast in Armenia. “I have understood that Armenia should not insert itself in the games big countries play,” Martirosyan, the publisher, said. “Because the big ones will have a spat and kill a small country. Or at least hurt it very badly.” ♦
Ethnic Cleansing in Artsakh is Baku’s Way to Engage Armenia in Military Conflict, Warns Yerevan
Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan addresses the UN General Assembly on Sept. 23
Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan on Saturday said at the United Nations General Assembly that Azerbaijan’s ethnic cleansing of Armenians in Artsakh is part of larger plan by Baku to engage Armenia in military conflict.
“The ethnic cleansing policy against Nagorno-Karabakh is just a part of a bigger picture. In this regard we clearly see an intention to involve the Republic of Armenia in military actions thus widening the geography of hostilities into our sovereign territories,” Mirzoyan told the UN General Assembly.
He also blasted Azerbaijan for undermining every effort to achieve peace in the region through provocations and military aggression.
“We [Armenia] do not have a partner for peace but a country that openly declares that “Might has Right” and constantly uses force to disrupt the peace process,” Mirzoyan said, adding that Azerbaijan’s attack on Artsakh this was deliberately timed to coincide with the UN General Assembly, accusing Baku of scoffing at the international community.
He said the attack on Artsakh happened this week “and the timing was not accidental. It shows open disregard and defiance of Azerbaijan against the international community who gathered here in New York.”
Mirzoyan said that Baku’s message is clear: “you can talk about peace and we can go to war and you will not be able to change anything.”
Armenia’s Foreign Minister also chided the UN for continuously announcing that it cannot verify reports from the region, because its teams are not on the ground, a claim made twice in one month by UN representatives addressing Security Council sessions discussing the Artsakh crisis.
“The claims that the United Nations is not present on the ground, so has no capacity to verify the situation cannot be an excuse for inaction. The United Nations is a universal body, which should stand with the victims of mass atrocity crimes all over the world regardless of the status of territory instead of delivering dismissive statements,” said Mirzoyan.
Below is the complete text of Mirzoyan’s address to the UN General Assembly on Saturday.
[SEE VIDEO]
Honorable Mr. President,
Excellences,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
First of all, let me congratulate Mr. Dennis Francis on assuming the Presidency of the 78th session of the United Nations General Assembly.
I will not be the first and definitely not the last speaker in this august body who will identify global threats for democracies, challenges for security, violations of the principles and purposes of the UN Charter, including non-use of force and peaceful resolution of conflicts, as a main source of instability and tension in the world.
The devastating developments of the past years, which disrupted the security architecture in the world and especially in Europe, have significantly damaged multilateralism. If a couple of years ago we were contemplating the decline of multilateralism, today we see erosion of that very tenet and its foundation such as international law, human rights and cooperative security.
This is not just a theoretical inference but a reality with which the Armenian people in the South Caucasus are coping for the last three years. The repetitive aggression of Azerbaijan against the sovereign territory of the Republic of Armenia and military attacks against the people of Nagorno-Karabakh significantly disrupts peace and stability in our region, massively violates human rights and humanitarian law representing existential threat for Armenians.
My government, having a sincere belief and aspiration to establish peace and stability in our region, has made significant and duly recorded efforts to this end. Alas, we do not have a partner for peace but a country that openly declares that “Might has Right” and constantly uses force to disrupt the peace process. Literally a year ago, from this very stage the Prime Minister of Armenia presented the fact of aggression and occupation of the Republic of Armenia’s sovereign territories by neighboring Azerbaijan. Since then, the situation has deteriorated even more and today I have to present yet another very recent act of large-scale offensive, this time against the indigenous people of Nagorno-Karabakh, in blatant violation of the international law and Trilateral Statement of November 9, 2020.
It happened this week and the timing was not accidental. It shows open disregard and defiance of Azerbaijan against the international community who gathered here in New York. The message is clear: “you can talk about peace and we can go to war and you will not be able to change anything.” The 120,000 people, whose sole aspiration is to live and create in peace and dignity in their ancestral homeland and who have already been suffering under the more than 9-month blockade and siege by Azerbaijan, were subjected to military attack by tens of thousands of troops. In the course of this inhumane attack, the whole territory of Nagorno-Karabakh, Stepanakert and other towns and settlements came under intense and indiscriminate shelling with heavy weaponry such as rockets, artillery, combat UAVs, aviation, including prohibited cluster munition.
This atrocious large-scale offensive which claimed hundreds of lives, including of women and children, was cynically defined as a local counter terrorist operation. According to the recent information there are confirmed cases of more than 200 killed and 400 wounded, including among civilian population, women and children, also accepted by the Azerbaijani Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The fate of hundreds of people is uncertain.
As I speak today, 30 percent of the population of Nagorno-Karabakh is displaced. The entire population of Nagorno-Karabakh remains without any means of subsistence, as just limited humanitarian assistance has been able to enter into Nagorno-Karabakh. There is no food, no medicine, no shelter, no place to go, separated from their families, terrorized and scared for their lives.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
The policy and actions of Azerbaijan for the last 10 months, evidently demonstrate the pre-planned and well-orchestrated nature of this mass atrocity. On December 12, 2022, Azerbaijan blockaded the Lachin corridor – the only road, the lifeline connecting Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia and the outer world, in blatant violation of its obligations under the international humanitarian law and the Trilateral Statement of 9 November 2020. The blockade was further consolidated by the installation of illegal check-point since April 23, as well as with the complete cessation of any movement, even for humanitarian aid through the Corridor since June 15.
More than nine months-long blockade of Nagorno-Karabakh caused a severe shortage of food, medical supplies, fuel and other essential goods, almost depleting the resources necessary for the survival of the population. The blockade was accompanied by deliberate disruption of electricity and natural gas supplies, further exacerbating the situation into a full-fledged humanitarian crisis.
I would like to emphasize that on 22 February, 2023 the International Court of Justice indicated a provisional measure, according to which “Azerbaijan shall take all measures to ensure unimpeded movement of persons, vehicles and cargo along the Lachin corridor in both directions.” This order was later reconfirmed by the Court’s order of 6 July.
A number of partner states, international organizations, including UN Special Rapporteurs, the International Committee of the Red Cross, Human Rights Watch, Freedom House, Amnesty International, Transparency International had been continuously sounding an alarm about the deteriorating situation on the ground. Moreover, on August 16, during the emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council conveyed by the request of Armenia, the majority of UNSC member states expressed clear position regarding the need to unblock the Lachin corridor and halt the suffering of the people of Nagorno-Karabakh and ensure their fundamental human rights. Whereas, in response to these clear-cut calls, Azerbaijan has worsened its inhumane actions by launching this military attack against the people of Nagorno-Karabakh.
On September 21, 2023, the United Nations Security Council gathered once again to discuss the devastating situation in Nagorno-Karabakh. The majority of the UNSC members expressed their position regarding the imperative of cessation of hostilities by Azerbaijan, opening of the Lachin corridor, ensuring international humanitarian access and addressing the rights and security of the people of Nagorno-Karabakh.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
The chronology of truly devastating developments in our region come to prove that the issues cannot be addressed merely with statements and generic calls. Armenia has repeatedly warned the international community about the need for concrete and practical action, including the dispatching of a UN inter-agency needs assessment and fact-finding mission to Nagorno-Karabakh. But the international community, the United Nations failed to come to the rescue of people for the last 9 months, 285 days.
The use of starvation as a method of warfare, depriving people of their means of subsistence, obstruction and denial of humanitarian access of UN agencies, hindering the ICRC humanitarian activities, constitute early warning signs of an atrocity crime. A number of international human rights organizations, lawyers, genocide scholars, reputable independent experts, including the former ICC Prosecutor and the former Special Advisor of the UN Secretary-General on the Prevention of Genocide have already characterized the situation on the ground in Nagorno-Karabakh as a risk of genocide. Just yesterday, the Special Advisor of the UN Secretary-General on the Prevention of Genocide Alice Wairimu Nderitu stressed and I quote: “Military action can only contribute to escalate what is already a tense situation and to put the civilian population in the area at risk of violence, including risk of genocide and related atrocity crimes. All efforts need to be made to prevent violence and sustain peace,” end of quote. Let me draw your attention to the fact that after failure of preventing Genocide in Rwanda, the United Nations managed to create mechanisms for prevention, thus making the “never again” a meaningful pledge. But today we are at the brink of another failure.
The people of Nagorno-Karabakh, trapped in this inhumane blockade and hostilities inflicted by Azerbaijan and under the threat of their very existence, still hope that prevention will not remain a feature of language, but will become a line of actions.
The claims that the United Nations is not present on the ground, so has no capacity to verify the situation cannot be an excuse for inaction. The United Nations is a universal body, which should stand with the victims of mass atrocity crimes all over the world regardless of the status of territory instead of delivering dismissive statements.
We are hopeful that the international community, namely the UN will demonstrate a strong political will to condemn the resumption of hostilities and targeting of civilian settlements and infrastructure and demand full compliance with obligations under the international humanitarian law, including those related to the protection of civilians, in particular women and children, and critical civilian infrastructure․
The international community should undertake all the efforts for an immediate deployment of an interagency mission by the UN to Nagorno-Karabakh with the aim to monitor and assess the human rights, humanitarian and security situation on the ground. The unimpeded access of the UN agencies and other international organizations to Nagorno-Karabakh in line with the humanitarian principles is an imperative. In this regard we also stress the need to ensure full cooperation of the parties in good faith with the International Committee of the Red Cross to address the consequences of the military attack, including the removal and identification of the bodies, search and rescue of missing personnel and civilians, release of POWs, safe and unimpeded delivery of humanitarian assistance, in strict compliance with the international humanitarian law.
Azerbaijan must finally adhere to its legally binding obligations and ensure freedom of movement of persons, vehicles and cargo, along the Lachin corridor, in line with the ICJ orders.
We firmly believe that relevant mechanisms must be introduced to ensure the return of persons displaced in the course of the recent military attack, as well as persons and refugees displaced as a result of 2020 war, to their homes in the territory of Nagorno-Karabakh and adjacent regions under the monitoring and control of the UN relevant agencies, as it was foreseen in the Trilateral Statement of November 9, 2020.
A sustainable and viable international mechanism for preventing the ethnic cleansing of the indigenous population of Nagorno-Karabakh and for ensuring dialogue between representatives of Nagorno-Karabakh and official Baku to address the issues related to rights and security of the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh is an imperative. Furthermore, excluding punitive actions against Nagorno-Karabakh’s political and military representatives and personnel should be guaranteed.
We also believe that the international community must demand the exit of any Azerbaijani military and law-enforcement bodies from all civilian settlements in Nagorno-Karabakh to exclude panic, provocations and escalation, endangering civilian population and create a possibility for a United Nations-mandated Peacekeeping Force to keep stability and security in Nagorno-Karabakh.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
The ethnic cleansing policy against Nagorno-Karabakh is just a part of a bigger picture. In this regard we clearly see an intention to involve the Republic of Armenia in military actions thus widening the geography of hostilities into our sovereign territories.
The unwillingness of Azerbaijan to genuinely and constructively engage in the peace process with Armenia, including to recognize the territorial integrity of the Republic of Armenia, withdraw its Armed forces from the occupied territories of Armenia, delimitate the Armenian-Azerbaijani interstate borders based on the latest available maps from 1975 corresponding with Almaty 1991 declaration, create a demilitarized zone along the interstate border, clearly illustrates the mentioned intentions.
Likewise, Azerbaijan has a hidden agenda when it comes to unblocking regional transport and economic communications. As a landlocked country, Armenia is vitally interested in implementation of the agreement on the unblocking of all the regional communications on the basis of sovereignty, national jurisdiction, equality and reciprocity. Armenia is a long-standing advocate of the inclusive and equitable transport connectivity with the view to promote trade, cooperation and people-to-people contacts, whereas our neighbors continue to impose the three decades-long blockade of Armenia, as part of its well-established policy of economic coercion of my country. The so-called “corridor” logic promoted by Baku and their hidden and open sponsors is aimed at undermining the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Armenia and justifying its territorial claims. The narrative generated by them along with the use of force by Azerbaijan both against the Republic of Armenia and the people of Nagorno-Karabakh shows that forcefully imposing on Armenia an extraterritorial corridor, a corridor that will pass through the territory of Armenia but will be out of our control can be the next target. This is unacceptable for us and should be unacceptable for the international community.
Mr. President,
Despite all the challenges Armenia continues to engage in the negotiations to achieve normalization of relations and establishment of lasting peace in the region and supports the efforts of the international partners to this end. Respect for territorial integrity and sovereignty within the internationally recognized borders, addressing the underlying causes of the conflict, namely the rights and security of the people of Nagorno-Karabakh are the foundation of a lasting peace.
In the end, let me state that the people of Armenia will firmly stand for our sovereignty, independence and democracy and will overcome the hybrid-war unleashed against us.
I thank you.
Russian peacekeepers, ICRC deliver humanitarian aid to Nagorno-Karabakh
00:33,
YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 24, ARMENPRESS. Russian peacekeepers have supplied approximately 150 tons of humanitarian goods (flour, salt, cooking oil, yeast, food rations) to Nagorno-Karabakh (Artsakh) through the Goris-Stepanakert highway, the Nagorno-Karabakh InfoCenter said in a statement.
It added that an additional 65 tons of flour has been delivered to Nagorno-Karabakh by the International Committee of the Red Cross, again through the Goris-Stepanakert road.
AW: In search of fog: the story of a displaced theater from Shushi
I met the actors of the Puppet Theater of Shushi in a quiet corner of Gyumri, Armenia’s second-largest city, three years after they fled the war in Artsakh. It was their first attempt to get out of forced inactivity. For four months, their colleagues, fellow actors in the theater, had been under blockade in Artsakh, or Nagorno-Karabakh. The only road that was meant to reunite them is still closed today.
Those who remained in Armenia decided to continue their work. Yet the staff of the theater changes. In contrast to their earlier, large team, only two enthusiastic women, Ashken and Lilith, were left in charge of arranging performances.
Since the war, the theater has not charged for tickets, providing free entry to all. The performers work other jobs to earn money, such as hairdressing, working abroad and performing at private events.
They call themselves a “wandering theater,” but emphasize that they still belong to Shushi. They described Shushi as a city of white-walled buildings and constant fog, reminiscent of Eden. One of these women said that without fog, she feels like she can’t breathe. I recalled cities in Armenia that are also foggy, like Sevan and Dilijan, but she was indifferent.
Father and daughter watching their mother’s performance with Mt. Ararat in the background. Preparing to perform “The Three Little Pigs.” Ironically, the story of the pigs is similar to the story of the actors themselves – in both, they lose their homes. Ashken keeps the puppets in the closet of her new home, leaving little room for clothes. The entire theater fits into different corners of her house. A view from the window of one of the kindergartens, where the theater had a touring performance. Performing in this hall reminded the actors of their theater in Shushi. Every time they remember Shushi, they do so with smiles and bliss. “Look! These walls! Shushi was like this!” they said. (First spectators and magical walls) Lilith is a poet who used to write scripts for the theater. Since half of the theater’s actors are under blockade in Artsakh, she has taken on an acting role, playing the wolf. (Anxiety before the play) Magic beyond the curtains David smokes a cigarette and exhales the smoke to “burn” one of the houses of the little pigs.
David is not a member of the theater anymore, but he voluntarily assists the theater during its performances. The theater achieves its big desires through humble means. Gayane has been involved in theater from a young age. Since the war, she has practiced carpet weaving. She is not a member of the Puppet Theater anymore, but she volunteers as an actor to support her colleagues. (Waiting for her part) Children go through different reactions while watching the performance: surprise, fear of the wolf, sympathy for the pigs, uncontrollable laughter and desire to warn the pigs to beware of the wolf. Lilith puts on a tough, masculine voice to perform as the wolf. Children applaud the actors. Argine is a professional actress. She wears a t-shirt featuring the “tatik-papik” (or grandma-grandpa) sculpture, one of the primary symbols of the Armenian heritage of Artsakh. Her husband and daughter are her devoted audience. Since the property of the theater remained in Shushi, the performers made new puppets from dough and pieces of cloth. “The theater does not have a home. It is a wandering one, but the property is located in Gyumri,” the actors say, remaining loyal to their former place of residence, from which they were displaced. Vahagn, a former member of the theater, works as a hairdresser to take care of his family while voluntarily assisting the theater.
Armenia denies Azerbaijan’s charge its troops opened fire as tensions flare
TBILISI, Sept 9 (Reuters) – Azerbaijan said on Saturday that Armenian forces had fired on its troops overnight, and that Azerbaijan army units took “retaliatory measures”, in an incident denied by Armenia.
The claim and counter-claim came against the backdrop of rising tensions between the two countries, which have fought two wars over the Armenian-populated enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh in the past three decades, and a flurry of calls to foreign leaders by Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan.
Azerbaijan’s defence ministry said Armenian units opened small arms fire on Azerbaijani soldiers in Sadarak in the north of Nakhchivan, an exclave of Azerbaijan that borders Armenia, Turkey and Iran.
The ministry’s statement did not say if there had been any casualties. Armenia’s defence ministry denied that its forces had opened fire on Azerbaijani positions.
The Armenian government said Pashinyan held phone conversations on Saturday with the leaders of France, Germany, neighbouring Iran and Georgia, and with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken. Azerbaijan said its foreign minister discussed the situation with a senior U.S. State Department official, Yuri Kim.
Pashinyan said in the calls that tensions were rising on the border and Azerbaijan was concentrating troops there and around Nagorno-Karabakh, his government said. Baku has denied this, while accusing Armenia of doing the same thing.
Pashinyan said he was ready to hold an urgent meeting with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev to defuse tensions, the government said. But Hikmet Hajiyev, foreign policy adviser to Aliyev, told Reuters that Baku had received no such offer.
Azerbaijan meanwhile denounced the holding on Saturday of a presidential election in Nagorno-Karabakh, a territory that is internationally recognised as part of Azerbaijan but is populated by about 120,000 ethnic Armenians.
Nagorno-Karabakh established de facto independence in a war in the early 1990s after the collapse of the Soviet Union, but Azerbaijan recaptured significant amounts of territory in its most recent war with Armenia, in 2020.
Azerbaijan has cut off the road that links Armenia to Karabakh for the past nine months, except for urgent medical cases, leading to shortages of basic supplies, including bread.
It has accused Armenia of using the corridor to smuggle weapons, and of rejecting an offer to reopen the road simultaneously with another route into Karabakh.
On Saturday, Karabakh’s separatist parliament elected Samvel Shahramanyan, a military officer and former head of the territory’s security service, as its new president, after the previous incumbent resigned earlier this month.
In a speech to parliament, Shahramanyan called for direct negotiations with Azerbaijan, and for transport links to Armenia to be restored.
Azerbaijan’s foreign ministry called the ethnic Armenian leadership of Karabakh a “puppet separatist regime” and in a statement said the vote was illegal.
“The only way to achieve peace and stability in the region is the unconditional and complete withdrawal of the Armenian armed forces from the Karabakh region of Azerbaijan and the disbandment of the puppet regime,” the statement said.
In statements, both Ukraine and Baku’s traditional ally Turkey condemned the election, and expressed support for Azerbaijan’s claim to Karabakh. The European Union said it did not recognise the election, but that Karabakh residents should “consolidate around the de facto leadership” in talks with Baku.
Russia has had peacekeepers in Karabakh since 2020 but Armenia has voiced frustration at what it sees as their ineffectiveness, blaming Russia’s preoccupation with Ukraine.
In the capitals of both Armenia and Azerbaijan, residents told Reuters they feared a new war between the two countries.
“We will probably have martyrs again,” said Mansura Lahicova, a woman in the Azerbaijani capital Baku. “I have two sons who have reached military age. I hope it will be a victory and that everything calms down.”
In Armenia’s capital Yerevan, a local resident who gave his name as Hayk accused Azerbaijan of wanting to start another war.
“I hope this does not happen, but if it does, all of us, all friends and brothers, are ready to go to war. Last time we buried our friends, now it’s our turn.”
Writing by Mark Trevelyan and Felix Light Editing by Ros Russell
Erdogan Says Will Speak With Armenian PM On Karabakh Election
- FROM AFP NEWS
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Sunday that he would hold talks with Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan as tensions mount between Armenia and Ankara’s ally Azerbaijan.
Turkey has already condemned the election of a new president in Azerbaijan’s separatist Armenian-populated region of Nagorno-Karabakh on Saturday.
Lawmakers in Nagorno-Karabakh’s parliament elected the head of the security council in the separatist government, Samvel Shahramanyan, by 22 votes to one.
Turkey has previously said it “does not recognise this illegitimate election which constitutes a violation of Azerbaijan’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.”
Speaking after the close of the G20 summit in New Delhi, Erdogan said: “I will have a telephone conversation, probably tomorrow, with Mr Pashinyan. What has been done in Karabakh is not appropriate. We cannot accept this”.
Armenia and Azerbaijan have traded accusations of cross-border attacks in recent months, and Armenia has warned of the risk of a fresh conflict, saying Azerbaijan was massing troops on the countries’ shared border and near Nagorno-Karabakh.
Azerbaijan’s Armenian-populated enclave was at the centre of two wars between the Caucasus neighbours.
Six weeks of fighting in autumn 2020 ended with a Russian-brokered ceasefire that saw Armenia cede swathes of territory it had controlled for decades.
Tensions have risen again, with Yerevan accusing Baku of creating a humanitarian crisis by blocking traffic through the Lachin corridor — the only road linking Armenia to Armenian-populated Karabakh.
The two sides have been unable to reach a lasting peace settlement despite mediation efforts by the European Union, the United States and Russia.
Next week, Armenia will host joint military drills with US forces, the latest sign of the ex-Soviet republic’s drift from its traditional ally Russia.
Paris mayor escorts humanitarian cargo bound for Karabakh
Anne Hidalgo, Mayor of Paris, posted a photo taken in Armenia and made a respective note on X—former Twitter.
“[I am] in Armenia with the elected officials of Paris and other communities. 120,000 Armenians of Artsakh [(Nagorno-Karabakh)], including 30,000 children, have been isolated, starving, and deprived of everything for nine months. Due to this humanitarian catastrophe, we are providing them with emergency aid. There is little time left,” Hidalgo wrote.
The Armenian government has sent 361 tons of humanitarian aid to Nagorno-Karabakh, but the convoy of trucks carrying this aid has been waiting at the entrance to the Lachin corridor since July 26 because Azerbaijan is blocking their entry into Nagorno-Karabakh.
The first truck with humanitarian aid from France had joined the aforesaid convoy on August 9.
The mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, arrived in Armenia Wednesday to visit the starting point of the Lachin corridor, and to accompany the convoy with humanitarian cargo from France.
AW: ANC of Rhode Island meets with Congressman Seth Magaziner regarding the crisis in Artsakh
ANC-RI members met with Congressman Seth Magaziner to discuss the crisis in Artsakh. Pictured from l. to r.: ANC-RI chair Steve Elmasian, Steve Mesrobian, Congressman Magaziner, Ani Haroian, Berge Zobian and Harout Tashian
WARWICK, R.I.—Six members of the Armenian National Committee of Rhode Island (ANC-RI) met with U.S. Congressman Seth Magaziner (D-RI-2) in his Warwick office on the morning of August 24.
The freshman representative is a member of the Congressional Caucus on Armenian Issues and has proven during his short term in office to be a strong ally and friend to his Armenian constituents in Rhode Island.
ANC-RI chair Steve Elmasian began the meeting by thanking Rep. Magaziner for his readiness to meet and discuss the worsening crisis in Artsakh.
ANC-RI member Steve Mesrobian thanked Rep. Magaziner for being a co-sponsor on all three current ANCA-backed House resolutions:
- H.Res.108 – Condemning Azerbaijan’s blockade of the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh (Artsakh) and ongoing human rights violations.
- H.Res.320 – Recognizing the Republic of Artsakh’s independence and condemning Azerbaijan’s continued aggression against Armenia and Artsakh.
- H.R.2803 – Providing funding for Armenian Genocide education.
Mesrobian reviewed the rapidly deteriorating situation in Artsakh with the congressman and his district director, Christa Thompson, and asked for the congressman’s help to reach out to both U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and USAID chair Samantha Power to fast track emergency humanitarian aid to the besieged Armenian population of Artsakh.
Rep. Magaziner was very aware of the situation and eager to help, repeatedly asking what more he can do to help the citizens of Artsakh.
Congressman Magaziner agreed to speak to the chairs of the Armenian Caucus to request a letter to Blinken and Power as well as to ask the House of Representative leadership for an update on the three open ANCA-backed resolutions.
Turkish Press: What makes the Lachin Corridor the focal point of conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia?
The Corridor, a critical “humanitarian” link between Armenia and the enclave of Karabakh within Azerbaijan, is the focal point of the recent escalation of tension between the neighbours, since the December 2022.
Recent allegations by France and the European Union that Azerbaijan has blockaded Karabakh, which lies within Azerbaijan, has put the spotlight on the Lachin Corridor.
The corridor, a mountainous road that passes through Azerbaijan, connecting the enclave of Karabakh with Azerbaijan’s neighbour Armenia, was designated a “humanitarian corridor” by the United Nations (UN) since December 2022, when Russia brokered an armistice to end the second Karabakh War.
In the 2020 war that lasted 44 days, Azerbaijan liberated the Lachin region, along with eight other contiguous regions including Karabakh, from 28 years of occupation by Armenia.
Recent escalations, though, have led to accusations by Armenia and the West, which the Azerbaijani authorities claim are baseless.
Illegal mining by Armenia
On December 12, 2022, tensions escalated between Azerbaijan and Armenia after Azerbaijani environmentalists and volunteers organised a protest regarding the Lachin road, chanting against the illegal exploitation of natural mineral resources by Armenia in the Karabakh region, and using the Corridor to transport these to Armenia.
The only access to these mineral resources — especially the Kyzylbulag gold mine and Demirli copper-molybdenum mine — is possible via the Lachin road, which the protesters demanded requires constant monitoring.
A day before the protests began, Azerbaijan sent a diplomatic note to Russia, expressing its concerns over the illegal exploitation of mineral deposits in the region.
Armenia claims the road has been closed down due to these protests, and describes the effect on Karabakh as a “humanitarian crisis.”
Azerbaijan dismisses these claims, saying vehicles carrying humanitarian aid belonging to the Red Cross and the Russian peacekeeping contingent continue to pass through the Corridor, as they have been doing since the implementation of the Tripartite Declaration signed between Azerbaijan, Russia and Armenia after the 2020 war.
Checkpoint to monitor illegal weapons supply
But that is not all. According to a statement of Azerbaijan’s mission to NATO, more than 2,700 landmines of Armenian origin were detected in the region at the time, and had been transported by Armenia through the corridor.
Azerbaijan also says that Armenia is illegally supplying weapons and manpower to Armenian separatists using the corridor. It says these military supplies are meant for the purpose of constructing military infrastructure and arming Armenian separatists in Karabakh.
Taking note of these security threats, Azerbaijan on April 23 established a checkpoint on the corridor, to eliminate the passage of separatists and weapons, and to monitor all transfers through the corridor, barring humanitarian aid and civilians.
The move was supported by Türkiye on the grounds that it is Azerbaijan’s sovereign right, and important for its territorial integrity. Under the deal brokered by Russia, once the checkpoint was built, Azerbaijan guaranteed the use of the corridor by Armenian civilians living in Karabakh, while regulating the passage of vehicles and cargo.
Temporary suspension of movement
That ended on July 11, when Azerbaijan temporarily suspended all movement on the corridor, after a consignment of mobile phones smuggled from Armenia to Karabakh in Red Cross vehicles was caught.
Azerbaijan declared that it would henceforth also monitor humanitarian aid agencies to prevent the transfer of unauthorised goods using the latter’s vehicles. It led to the current round of tensions, with France joining Armenia in claiming there is a humanitarian crisis in Karabakh as a result of the “blockade” of the Lachin Corridor.
The Azerbaijani foreign ministry has rejected the allegation that the corridor had been “blockaded”.
“It is absurd to portray as a ‘blockade’, the Azerbaijani activity on the Lachin border checkpoint, which has been established in accordance with our obligation to guarantee the safety of citizens, vehicles and cargo on the Lachin road, as well as to prevent the misuse of the Lachin road by Armenia for military and illegal economic purposes,” the ministry said.
Azerbaijani and Turkish authorities have both expressed the need for Armenia and Azerbaijan to conclude the ongoing peace talks between them as soon as possible, saying the south Caucasus region — which is rich in natural resources — is strategically important to the former and any violation of the region threatens its sovereignty.
Hence, Azerbaijan insists that the monitoring of flows and transport through the Zangezur and Lachin corridors is important for its territorial integrity.
What makes the Lachin Corridor the focal point of conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia? (trtworld.com)