Author: Yeghisabet Arthur

Stepanakert Warns of Growing Azerbaijani Troop Movement Near Artsakh

Yeghisabet Arthur
by Asbarez Staff

 

 September 5, 2023

 

in Armenia, Artsakh, Featured Story, Latest, News, Top Stories

Artsakh Defense Ministry warned of increased Azerbaijani troop movement near Artsakh on Sep. 5


The Artsakh Defense Ministry on Tuesday warned of an increase in movement and concentration of Azerbaijani military personnel and equipment near the line-of-contact with Artsakh.

The ministry said that the Artsakh Defense Army units had recorded this build-up in various areas of the line-of-contact.

It warned that Azerbaijan is preparing for another attack and during the past several days has increased its disinformation campaign of claiming attacks by Artsakh forces against Azerbaijani targets, which have been denied.

Local authorities reported that an Artsakh resident was injured on Sunday after Azerbaijani forces opened fire near a water tanker located in the village of Chankatagh in the Martakert district.

The Artsakh defense ministry said that the incident took place at 2:20 p.m. local time on Sunday, with Azerbaijani forces using small arms and grenade launchers to hit their target.

An Artsakh farmer was targeted by Azerbaijani forces, which shot at a farmer in the Sarushen village at around 10:10 a.m. local time on Monday. No injuries were reported.

Queues for bread and no formula milk: Motherhood in blockaded Nagorno-Karabakh

Yeghisabet Arthur
Open Democracy
Aug 22 2023

Three Armenian mothers tell of their struggles after eight months living under Azerbaijan’s restrictions

Lucy MartirosyanSiranush Sargsyan
, 4.45pm

Mary Grigoryan’s day starts when the electricity is switched on, so she can heat up sugarless tea for her children’s breakfast.

Energy use in the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh, which has been at the centre of a brutal tug of war between Azerbaijan and Armenia for decades, is strictly rationed, and each neighbourhood receives power according to a rota. One day it might switch on at 7am; another day it might start at 9am or 11am. The gas supply was cut months ago.

After work as a paediatric surgeon at the under-resourced and understaffed local hospital, Grigoryan searches for food on her four-kilometre walk home. The lack of fuel means there is no public transport.

Dinner usually consists of one loaf of bread after waiting hours in the queue at bakeries, sometimes even coming away empty handed. Other times, it may be an overpriced kilogramme of potatoes, tomatoes, or parts of a watermelon – if Grigoryan is lucky – to share between herself, her two children and her husband.

“Sometimes I think I’m a bad parent because I haven’t stocked up on essential products, but we also try not to fixate on it,” Grigoryan, 42, told openDemocracy. “I hold explanatory conversations with [my children], explaining that we suffer all these deprivations for the right to live in our homeland.”

According to the office of Armenia’s human rights defender, there are tens of thousands of mothers living in Nagorno-Karabakh under Azerbaijan’s eight-month blockade struggling to feed and care for their children and family, let alone themselves.

Since 12 December 2022, Azerbaijan has been blocking the Lachin corridor – the sole road left connecting ethnic Armenian residents in Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia and the rest of the world. A trilateral agreement between Moscow, Baku, and Yerevan in November 2020 stipulates that the 5km corridor should be under the control of Russian peacekeeping forces.

Azerbaijan defeated Armenia in the Second Karabakh war in 2020, and the status of Armenians living in Nagorno-Karabakh – whose borders are internationally recognised as part of Azerbaijan – was left unresolved in the Russia-brokered statement.

The crisis under the blockade escalated when the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) – the only humanitarian aid organisation in the region – said Azerbaijani authorities had stopped it transporting food and medicine through the Lachin corridor or other routes where Russian peacekeepers had been deployed. Edem Wosornu, the UN humanitarian coordinator, confirmed the claim at an emergency United Nations Security Council (UNSC) meeting requested by Armenia on 16 August.

Mary Grigoryan’s day starts when the electricity is switched on, so she can heat up sugarless tea for her children’s breakfast.

Energy use in the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh, which has been at the centre of a brutal tug of war between Azerbaijan and Armenia for decades, is strictly rationed, and each neighbourhood receives power according to a rota. One day it might switch on at 7am; another day it might start at 9am or 11am. The gas supply was cut months ago.

After work as a paediatric surgeon at the under-resourced and understaffed local hospital, Grigoryan searches for food on her four-kilometre walk home. The lack of fuel means there is no public transport.

Dinner usually consists of one loaf of bread after waiting hours in the queue at bakeries, sometimes even coming away empty handed. Other times, it may be an overpriced kilogramme of potatoes, tomatoes, or parts of a watermelon – if Grigoryan is lucky – to share between herself, her two children and her husband.

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“Sometimes I think I’m a bad parent because I haven’t stocked up on essential products, but we also try not to fixate on it,” Grigoryan, 42, told openDemocracy. “I hold explanatory conversations with [my children], explaining that we suffer all these deprivations for the right to live in our homeland.”

A few containers of baby formula on otherwise empty shelves in a pharmacy in Stepanakert on 29 July 2023

 | 

Siranush Sargsyan

According to the office of Armenia’s human rights defender, there are tens of thousands of mothers living in Nagorno-Karabakh under Azerbaijan’s eight-month blockade struggling to feed and care for their children and family, let alone themselves.

Since 12 December 2022, Azerbaijan has been blocking the Lachin corridor – the sole road left connecting ethnic Armenian residents in Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia and the rest of the world. A trilateral agreement between Moscow, Baku, and Yerevan in November 2020 stipulates that the 5km corridor should be under the control of Russian peacekeeping forces.

Azerbaijan defeated Armenia in the Second Karabakh war in 2020, and the status of Armenians living in Nagorno-Karabakh – whose borders are internationally recognised as part of Azerbaijan – was left unresolved in the Russia-brokered statement.

The crisis under the blockade escalated when the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) – the only humanitarian aid organisation in the region – said Azerbaijani authorities had stopped it transporting food and medicine through the Lachin corridor or other routes where Russian peacekeepers had been deployed. Edem Wosornu, the UN humanitarian coordinator, confirmed the claim at an emergency United Nations Security Council (UNSC) meeting requested by Armenia on 16 August.

Blockaded Nagorno-Karabakh is running out of food, fuel and hope
27 July 2023 | Bashir Kitachayev
Humanitarian crisis in the blockaded enclave reaches a tipping point, raising questions over West’s lack of action

Baby formula is even more important than medicine

Vardan Tadevosyan, health minister of Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh)

Although the ICRC said it was continuing to evacuate patients from Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia for treatment, “several” dialysis patients are reportedly afraid to leave their homes after Azerbaijani authorities arrested a 68-year-old ICRC patient and evacuee on 29 July, Nagorno-Karabakh’s de facto health minister Vardan Tadevosyan told openDemocracy.

“All medical institutions are experiencing drug insufficiency, estimated at lower than 50%,” the office of the Artsakh/Nagorno-Karabakh human rights ombudsman said in a tweet on 18 August. “If this situation continues, the public health of Artsakh [the Armenian name for Nagorno-Karabakh] will experience a major collapse.”

The scarcity of fuel also poses serious problems for the medical sphere, Tadevosyan said: hospitals rely on diesel to run generators during power outages, and there are fewer ambulances available. The office of Armenia’s human rights defender said in a statement last week that a pregnant woman had suffered a miscarriage after there were no ambulances available to take her to hospital. The day before, a 40-year-old man in Stepanakert, the city capital, died as a result of “chronic malnutrition, protein, and energy deficiency”, the statement continued.

Additionally, Azerbaijani border control authorities have been blocking 19 trucks sent by Armenia containing more than 350 tonnes of food, medicine, hygiene products and other essential items since 26 July, according to the Armenian deputy foreign minister.

During the UN Security Council meeting last week, Armenia’s UN representative cited an expert opinion by the former chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, saying “there is a reasonable basis to believe that a genocide is being committed” as a result of the blockade.

Azerbaijan’s representative responded by “categorically rejecting all the unfounded and groundless allegations [of a] blockade or humanitarian crisis propagated by Armenia against my country”. Baku’s ambassador, Yashhar Aliyev, accused Armenia of engaging in a “provocative and irresponsible political campaign” to undermine Azerbaijan’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.

Meanwhile the Lachin corridor, despite international pressure and a binding order in February by the International Court of Justice to open it, remains closed.

My unborn child is a victim of these harsh conditions of siege

Ruzanna*, mother in blockaded Nagorno-Karabakh

Gayane Aydinyan, a 39-year-old school teacher and mother to triplets born during the eight-month blockade, is haunted by the fear that baby formula and diapers may become impossible to find.

“I can’t sleep,” she told openDemocracy. “I live with those thoughts 24 hours a day. What will we do if their formula runs out? We can’t feed them with anything else.”

Gayane Aydinyan (far left), mother of triplets born under the blockade in Nagorno-Karabakh. 

| 

Gayane Aydinyan

Baby formula is in high demand and scarce, according to Tadevosyan, the health minister.

“[Formula] is even more important than medicine,” he said. “We are engaged in daily negotiations and continuous efforts to acquire these supplies.”

In hospitals, all surgery has stopped except life-saving operations, Tadevosyan added. And there are dire shortages of painkillers, blood pressure medication and cardiovascular drugs.

“One of the paediatric problems is the shortage of vaccines,” said Grigoryan, the paedriatric surgeon. “We are prescribing drugs that cannot be found in the hospitals.” The lack of insulin is also a major concern for child and adult patients with diabetes, said Tadevosyan, who fears children may face “significant health issues”.

As for Aydinyan’s two other children, aged 10 and 13, classes are about to start in September, despite the shortages of food, gas, and electricity.

“It’s difficult to find stationery and clothes for them,” said the history teacher, adding that sometimes she feels upset that she can’t focus on her older children as much.

“We try to be satisfied with what we have,” she said. “I don’t even think about the wishes of my older children. They help me a lot in taking care of the little ones.”

The eight-month blockade has increased levels of stress and malnutrition, leading to anaemia in more than 90% of pregnant women and a tripling of miscarriage rates, according to a statement by the Artsakh ministry of health.

Ruzanna* suffered her own miscarriage in July, seven months into the blockade. “My unborn child is a victim of these harsh conditions of siege,” she said.

She suspects the pains in her legs since her miscarriage are also linked to malnutrition and to her constant walking and standing in long lines for groceries.

Meanwhile, Ruzanna’s husband is in need of open heart surgery, but refuses to be evacuated by the ICRC. And her 15-year-old daughter hasn’t had a period in three months. Even if her menstrual cycle were to restart, there are no sanitary products available in pharmacies — people have resorted to using ripped pieces of cloth or stockings instead.

But the only place any of them could be fully examined and treated is in Yerevan – and they fear leaving their home in case they are unable to return.

“Every day it becomes increasingly challenging,” Ruzanna said. “The foremost concern is the question of security and survival.”

Editor's note: Siranush Sargsyan reported from her home in Stepanakert, Nagorno-Karabakh under the blockade. * Names have been changed for security reasons

Senior officials travel to Kapan on board new commuter flight

Yeghisabet Arthur

 13:25,

YEREVAN, AUGUST 19, ARMENPRESS. Chief of Staff of the Prime Minister’s Office Arayik Harutyunyan and Secretary of the Security Council Armen Grigoryan traveled to Syunik Province from Yerevan on a commuter flight to join locals for celebrations of Kapan Day, the government’s press service reported.

The government officials flew to Kapan from Yerevan on board the NovAir airlines Let L-410 Turbolet twin-engine plane. NovAir is launching Yerevan-Kapan flights on August 19.

In Kapan’s “Syunik” airport, Harutyunyan and Grigoryan were welcomed by the Syunik Governor Robert Ghukasyan and other officials.

They toured the Syunik airport and inspected the conditions.




Azerbaijan military assistance waiver delayed as review drags on

Yeghisabet Arthur
POLITICO
Aug 16 2023

DEFENSE

Lawmakers and Armenian groups are calling on the Biden administration to end exemptions that allow Baku to receive security assistance from the U.S.

Every year since 2002, the White House has issued a waiver to provide aid to Azerbaijan despite its campaign against Nagorno-Karabakh. | Ghulam Rasool/AFP/Getty Images

By ERIC BAZAIL-EIMIL and GABRIEL GAVIN

08/16/2023 02:12 PM EDT

The Biden administration appears to be slow-walking the renewal of a long-standing military assistance program to Azerbaijan amid growing warnings of ethnic cleansing in the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh.

Every year since 2002, the White House has issued a waiver to provide aid to Azerbaijan despite its campaign against Nagorno-Karabakh. That waiver has previously been completed before the summer, but this year it is still pending halfway through August.

Officials have offered no explanation for the delay. However, it coincides with increasing concern within the international community that Azerbaijan is responsible for a worsening humanitarian crisis in Nagorno-Karabakh. Azerbaijan has hardened its stance against the ethnic Armenian population there in recent months, blocking the entry of commercial and humanitarian vehicles and shutting off the region’s access to gas and electricity. The U.N. Security Council will consider an appeal from Armenia to respond to the worsening situation Wednesday.

The delay in issuing the authorization — called the Section 907 waiver — also comes as the Biden administration pursues a long-elusive peace agreement between the two countries, one that experts say could be close. Ending assistance to Azerbaijan could rule out Baku’s participation in future negotiations.

These competing political pressures are creating a delicate landscape in the South Caucasus for the Biden administration, which is caught in a struggle between its values and the pragmatic realities of geopolitics.

“Going ahead with the 907 waiver at this particular moment would create a political firestorm for Biden,” said Matthew Bryza, a former U.S. ambassador to Azerbaijan and Bush administration official. “But killing the 907 waiver at this delicate diplomatic juncture would seriously risk derailing a peace treaty that is closer than it has ever been.”

Spokespeople for the State Department and the National Security Council confirmed that the military assistance waiver remains under review but denied that the current state of peace talks or recent events in Nagorno-Karabakh were affecting the timeline for renewing it.

“U.S. policy on Azerbaijan has not changed,” a State Department spokesperson said, adding “The United States values its strategic partnership with Azerbaijan.” The spokesperson was granted anonymity to discuss the sensitive diplomatic issue.

Nagorno-Karabakh has been controlled by its ethnic Armenian population since a war that followed the fall of the Soviet Union in the 1990s. In 2020, Azerbaijan launched an offensive to retake swathes of territory. A Moscow-brokered ceasefire paused the fighting, yet Russian peacekeepers deployed to the region have failed to maintain the status quo.


In December, Azerbaijan took control of the Lachin Corridor — the only road linking Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia and the outside world — and prevented humanitarian supplies including food and fuel from getting through.

The Armenian government has called it an effort to carry out “ethnic cleansing” in the region, while the former chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Luis Moreno Ocampo, last week issued a report arguing that ethnic cleansing is already underway in Nagorno-Karabakh.

In an interview, Moreno Ocampo argued that if the international community fails to act, it will be “complicit in genocide.”

The U.S. and EU-brokered peace talks, meanwhile, have stalled in recent months as Azerbaijan has refused to hold mediated dialogues with leaders from Nagorno-Karabakh’s Armenian community.

Section 907 of the Freedom Support Act of 1992 bars the United States from offering assistance to Azerbaijan unless Baku takes “demonstrable steps to cease all blockades and other offensive uses of force against Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh.”

The White House first issued the assistance waiver in 2002 when Azerbaijan allowed the Bush administration to use the country’s territory as a land bridge to get troops into Afghanistan. That opened the door for wide-ranging military and security partnerships between the two countries.

Azerbaijan, a major producer of natural gas that shares a maritime and land border with Iran, has also proved to be a useful partner for the U.S. in the Middle East as a counterweight to Tehran.

Azerbaijan receives significant military and financial support from Washington. Amid growing tensions with neighboring Iran in 2018, the Trump administration stepped up funding for the country’s border guards, providing $100 million worth of equipment and other assistance, making the South Caucasus nation one of the main beneficiaries of American tax dollars in the region. During the 2020 war, more than a dozen Democrats including then-Senate Foreign Relations Committee ranking member Bob Menendez of New Jersey, wrote to the State Department urging that support be suspended.

Hikmet Hajiyev, foreign policy adviser to Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, said that efforts to restrict military support for Azerbaijan were being orchestrated by “representatives of Congress who actually represent the Armenian lobby and aren’t thinking about their own national interest.” Such actions, he added, could be “detrimental” to the efforts of the U.S. and its allies in trying to secure a lasting peace.

The Armenian embassy in Washington did not respond to requests for comment.

Armenian diaspora groups want the U.S. to halt military assistance to Azerbaijan. They argue U.S. attempts to influence Azerbaijan via Section 907 have fallen short.

Gev Iskajyan, executive director of the Armenian National Committee of America, a group that advocates on behalf of the Armenian diaspora in the United States, explained that the U.S. has previously used the waiver in order to get concessions from Azerbaijan, only to relent and grant the waiver before Baku makes any changes.

“They dangle the waiver in front of [Azerbaijan], but at the last minute it’s always given,” Iskajyan said. “That strategy hasn’t been working.”

“There is a growing awareness on Capitol Hill that U.S. military support for Azerbaijan is enabling Aliyev to commit war crimes and human rights abuses against Armenians,” said Tim Jemal, president of the Global ARM advocacy group, which has been meeting with D.C. politicians as part of a push for sanctions. “There must be consequences for Azerbaijan’s bad behavior.”

A number of lawmakers on Capitol Hill want to see the waiver eliminated. “There is no justifiable reason to continue this waiver,” Rep. Gus Bilirakis (R-Fla.), the Republican co-chair of the Congressional Armenian Caucus said in a statement Monday, noting that Azerbaijan has used military equipment obtained from the U.S. against the residents of Nagorno-Karabakh.

“We have to be tougher with Aliyev if we want a peace deal,” said Rep. Frank Pallone (D-N.J.). “What we’ve done so far hasn’t done anything to help a peace agreement, so getting tougher is more likely to achieve a good end.”

Eric Bazail-Eimil reported from Washington. Gabriel Gavin reported from Yerevan, Armenia.


https://www.politico.com/news/2023/08/16/azerbaijan-military-assistance-waiver-00111472

Equating Lachin Corridor to Other Routes is ‘Unacceptable,’ Says Artsakh Foreign Minister

Yeghisabet Arthur
by Asbarez Staff

 

 

 

in Armenia, Artsakh, Featured Main, Latest, News, Top Stories

Sergey Ghazaryan is Artsakh's foreign minister


Equating the importance of the Lachin Corridor to any alternative route, such the road connecting Aghdam to Stepanakert is “unacceptable,” Artsakh Foreign Minister Sergey Ghazaryan said Thursday.

Ghazaryan was commenting on the special session of the United Nations Security Council of Wednesday, during which several country representatives said that other alternatives should be considered when speaking about providing humanitarian assistance to Artsakh.

The proposal to utilize the Aghdam-Stepanakert highway is a scheme being advanced by Baku that completely cuts off Armenia from Artsakh as Azerbaijan continues to blockade the Lachin Corridor.

“We are concerned that some countries attempted to equate the Lachin Corridor and other transport routes. This goes against the parameters enshrined in the trilateral statement of November 9, 2020,” Ghazaryan said Thursday during a virtual press conference held with Armenia and non-Armenian media.

Ghazaryan said that using the Aghdam-Stepanakert road for humanitarian assistance will “legitimize Azerbaijan’s blockade of the Lachin corridor.” He added that Azerbaijan has created this situation and the international community should see through Baku’s attempts to come off as “humanitarian” and find it unacceptable.

He voiced gratitude to representatives of countries who clearly articulated Azerbaijan’s actions and the Lachin Corridor blockade, saying that UN Security Council members have the tools to prevent Azerbaijan’s genocidal policy.

Ghazaryan said that imposing sanction and other diplomatic measures are within the purview of the UN Security Council member states.

Artsakh’s foreign minister also discussed the issue of dialogue between Stepanakert and Baku, saying that such discussions must take place within the accepted norms and through international mechanisms to ensure that they comply with international law.

Armenian military releases video debunking Azerbaijani fake news on sabotage infiltration attempt

Yeghisabet Arthur

 16:04,

YEREVAN, AUGUST 16, ARMENPRESS. The Armenian Ministry of Defense has released a video showing the moment when Azerbaijani troops approached a lost Armenian reservist to detain him, debunking Baku's false accusations of sabotage. 

[SEE VIDEO]

The reservist, identified by his initials G.V., went AWOL and got lost in the terrain before accidentally crossing into Azerbaijan. But Azerbaijan falsely accused Armenia of attempting what it described as a “sabotage infiltration attempt.” This was denied by the Armenian authorities.

“The Ministry of Defense of the Republic of Armenia presents video footage showing how a group of servicemen of the Azerbaijani armed forces approaches the reservist G. V., who appeared on the Azerbaijani side in yet unclarified circumstances, first, talks to, then apprehends him and takes by car to an unknown direction,” the Armenian Ministry of Defense said in a statement. “This video footage refutes the falsehood of the MoD of Azerbaijan as if the group of the Armed Forces of Armenia attempted a sabotage infiltration in the eastern part of the frontier zone, whose "actions were stopped by shooting." All the circumstances of G.V. disorienting in the terrain and appearing on the Azerbaijani side are being investigated,” the ministry added.

Azerbaijan targets Armenian military positions in Gegharkunik in latest cross-border shooting

Yeghisabet Arthur

 10:25,

YEREVAN, AUGUST 12, ARMENPRESS. The Azerbaijani military opened gunfire Friday evening at Armenian border positions near the village of Verin Shorzha in Gegharkunik Province, the Ministry of Defense of Armenia said in a statement.

“On August 11, from 9:25 p.m. to 10:25 p.m., Azerbaijani AF units opened fire against the Armenian combat outposts in the vicinity of Verin Shorzha,” the ministry said.

Maryland Legislators Boast of Securing Taxpayer Funding for Hostile Turkish Regime Institution

Yeghisabet Arthur
Focus on Western Islamism
Aug 9 2023
BySam Westrop
August 9, 2023

Several Islamist institutions in Maryland, including the overseas arm of the Turkish regime’s religious directorate, are to receive hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars, as part of the Department of Homeland Security’s $2 billion dollar Nonprofit Security Grant Program.

On August 4, a delegation of Democrat Party Senators and Congressmen, led by Senator Chris Van Hollen, announced the provision of over $15 million of “preparedness grants to strengthen security at houses of worship in Maryland,” and provided a full list of the recipients and awarded amounts.

While most of the grants will benefit ordinary mosques, churches and other religious organizations, some of the money is benefiting institutions accused of radical ties. Most notably, the funding includes two grants to Maryland’s Turkish American Community Center, totaling almost $300,000.

Some of the funding announced by Senator Van Hollen
and other federal legislators from Maryland

The Turkish American Community Center is better known as the Diyanet, an enormous Islamic center comprising a mosque, school and other facilities, built just a few miles outside of Washington D.C.

The Diyanet in Maryland is an office of the Diyanet in Türkiye, which is the regime’s Directorate of Religious Affairs.

Critics argue that these regime arms are used to control and propagate Turkish regime Islamism, and even to spy on Turkish dissidents and critics of President Erdoğan.

Built with Turkish government monies, the center in Maryland was opened by Erdoğan himself in 2016, and has since served as an important staging ground for domestic Islamist influence operations in the nation’s capital.

Georgetown academic Ahmet Yayla concludes that, around the world, Diyanet religious sermons serve to advance Turkish foreign policy and Turkish Islamism, with Diyanet officials declaring Turkish military actions “as the highest level of jihad.”

The regime uses the Diyanet to bend American Islam to its will. Following the purported coup attempt in 2016, Turkish government officials visited the Diyanet in Maryland to “brief [American] Muslim leaders” on the regime’s questionable narrative about the coup. These “Muslim leaders,” who seemingly attended without question, were all top officials of prominent American Islamist organizations.

The Diyanet regularly runs events with extremist preachers. One such speaker is Mufti Hussein Kamani, invited to address the institution in February 2021.

Kamani, an imam from the hardline Deobandi sect, is among the most extreme preachers in the United States. In a talk hosted elsewhere, titled “Sex, Masturbation and Islam,” Kamani explained that Muslim men may fulfill any sexual desires “with a female slave that belongs to him.”

Those who commit adultery or have sex outside of marriage, Kamani has declared, must be “stoned to death.” And when Muslim husbands are learning to “train their wives,” beating them, Kamani concedes, should only be a “last measure.”

FWI has contacted Senator Van Hollen’s office, to ask if legislators were aware of the Diyanet’s extremist activities, and if official outposts of unfriendly foreign governments should be provided with taxpayers’ money. Any response will be appended to this coverage.

The selection of some other recipients for federal funding is also sparking concern. The Islamic Society of Baltimore, for instance, will receive $150,000, despite its well-documented extremist past.

The mosque’s former imam, Mohammad Adam el-Sheikh, served as an official of a designated Al-Qaeda funding charity. As uncovered by the Investigative Project on Terrorism, former webpages for the mosque openly praised the “jihad” in Chechnya, and promoted Salafi-jihadist figures such as Abdullah Azzam.

In recent years, the Islamic Society of Baltimore has continued to promote extremist speakers, even inviting hardline clerics, such as Mufti Hussein Kamani, to address students at its full-time school.

Maryland Legislators Boast of Securing Taxpayer Funding for Hostile Turkish Regime Institution

Pashinyan extends condolences to Georgian counterpart after deadly landslide in Racha

Yeghisabet Arthur

 18:00, 4 August 2023

YEREVAN, AUGUST 4, ARMENPRESS. Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has offered condolences to his Georgian counterpart Irakli Garibashvili on the deadly landslide in the region of Racha.

“I am deeply shocked by the deadly and devastating disaster in Georgia’s Racha region. On behalf of the people and government of Armenia, I express condolences and support to you and the brotherly people of Georgia. I wish resilience to the families and friends of the victims, and speedy recovery to those injured. We share the deep sorrow of the brotherly Georgian people at this difficult time,” Pashinyan said in a telegram sent to Garibashvili.

Azerbaijan arrests Nagorno-Karabakh resident for ‘illegal border crossing’

Yeghisabet Arthur
Aug 2 2023
 2 August 2023

ByAni AvetisyanandIsmi Aghayev

Azerbaijan has arrested a 55-year-old resident of Nagorno-Karabakh near the Lachin Corridor checkpoint, accusing him of attempting to illegally cross into Armenia.

Rashid Begleryan was detained by Azerbaijani border guards on Tuesday.

Azerbaijani authorities have accused Begleryan of attempting to cross illegally from Azerbaijan into Armenia.

The authorities in Stepanakert stated that Beglaryan was under the influence of alcohol and lost his way near the village of Hin Shen, close to the Lachin checkpoint, accidentally crossing the line of contact into Azerbaijani government-controlled territory. 

According to Nagorno-Karabakh’s Mayor of Shushi (Shusha) in-exile, Beglaryan had lived in Shusha before Azerbaijan took control of the city in 2020, at which point he moved to the village of Khndzoristan in eastern Nagorno-Karabakh.

Beglaryan’s son told RFE/RL that he did not know why his father got to Hin Shen, and that they had not been living with him. 

Beglaryan is the second resident of Nagorno-Karabakh to be detained by Azerbaijan in less than a week. On 30 July, Vagif Khachatryan was arrested while trying to cross the Lachin checkpoint with the Red Cross to undergo heart surgery in Armenia. Azerbaijan accused him of war crimes committed during the First Nagorno-Karabakh War. 

Representatives of the Red Cross met with Khachatryan following his arrest. 

On Tuesday, the European Court of Human Rights demanded that Azerbaijan provide information about his whereabouts and details about his health by 8 August, following an appeal from Armenia. 

Yerevan has called the arrest of Khachatryan a war crime. 

News of the arrests came as food and medical shortages in blockade-struck Nagorno-Karabakh deepen.

The Armenian government has attempted to send 400 tonnes of humanitarian aid to the region via the Lachin corridor, however, Baku has so far refused to allow the convoy to pass. The lorries have stood near the Lachin checkpoint for the past week.

Azerbaijan has suggested that supplies instead be delivered through the Aghdam-Stepanakert road, a proposal rejected by Yerevan and Stepanakert. Officials and civil society groups have accused Azerbaijan of using the route as a way to keep the Lachin Corridor closed.

While the EU has backed the idea of using the Aghdam road for humanitarian purposes, it also stated that the road cannot be an ‘alternative’ to the Lachin Corridor, which is the only road connecting the Armenian population of Nagorno-Karabakh with Armenia. 

In an interview with Euronews on Tuesday, Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev took a threatening tone, insisting the Armenians of Nagrono-Karabakh must integrate into Azerbaijan.

‘Armenians of Karabakh should understand that they will live a normal life as a part of the Azerbaijani society with security guarantees, their rights, including education, culture, religion, and municipal rights’, Aliyev said. ‘They will stop being hostages of manipulation.’

‘They should also understand that they will not continue to count us out. If they do, if they continue to act like we don’t exist, or if they live in a fictional country with a “president”, “ministers”, “parliamentarians”, the situation they are in today will not change in their favour’, he said.

 For ease of reading, we choose not to use qualifiers such as ‘de facto’, ‘unrecognised’, or ‘partially recognised’ when discussing institutions or political positions within Abkhazia, Nagorno-Karabakh, and South Ossetia. This does not imply a position on their status.

https://oc-media.org/azerbaijan-arrests-nagorno-karabakh-resident-for-illegal-border-crossing/