Trend News Agency (Baku, Azerbaijan) August 1, 2018 Wednesday BRIEF: President Aliyev: Azerbaijan to continue policy of Armenia's isolation Aug. 01--Azerbaijan will continue to pursue the policy of isolation and, by using all means, will further shake Armenia, President Ilham Aliyev said. President Aliyev made the remarks in Baku Aug. 1 at a ceremony to give out apartments and cars to the people disabled in the Karabakh war, Great Patriotic War, the Chernobyl disabled, and families of martyrs. "If the Armenian leadership continues to drag out negotiations, we will continue to pursue our policy of isolation and, by using all means, will further shake Armenia," the president said. President Aliyev stressed that Azerbaijan also played a significant role in the collapse of the criminal junta regime in Armenia.
Category: 2018
Azerbaijani Press: Baku urges OSCE states to demand Armenia withdraw occupation troops
Trend News Agency (Baku, Azerbaijan) August 1, 2018 Wednesday Baku urges OSCE states to demand Armenia withdraw occupation troops Aug. 01--On the occasion of the 43rd anniversary of the Helsinki Final Act, Azerbaijan urges all OSCE Member States to demand in a firm and unequivocal manner from Armenia to comply with its obligations under the Helsinki Final Act and other international legal instruments, cease use of force against Azerbaijan and withdraw its troops from the occupied territories of Azerbaijan, spokesman of the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry Hikmet Hajiyev said in a statement Aug. 1. "Helsinki Final Act was adopted on August 1, 1975 within the Conference for Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE). Helsinki Final Act established 10 fundamental principles (the 'Decalogue') governing especially the behavior of states towards each other and served for maintenance of peace and security in Europe. In January 1992, the Republic of Azerbaijan joined CSCE. Since then Azerbaijan remains fully committed to its obligations under the Helsinki Final Act," the statement says. It is also noted in the statement that the principle of the non-use of force in the Helsinki Final Act implies a prohibition on the acquisition of territory by force. "In the Helsinki Final Act, the principle of the non-use of force is explicitly linked to the inadmissibility of changing the boundaries of states through violent means and implies a prohibition on the acquisition of territory by force. For this very purpose, the Helsinki Final Act expanded Article 2(4) of the UN Charter and codified the territorial integrity, the inviolability of frontiers and the non-use of force as separate principles to emphasize the norm of territorial integrity. These principles were reaffirmed in the Helsinki Final Act in a way to emphasize that they are consequential principles generated by the foundational norm of territorial integrity," Hajiyev said. He noted that as the OSCE member state, the Republic of Armenia in blatant violation of its commitments under the Helsinki Final Act, by use of force occupied Nagorno-Karabakh and seven adjacent regions of Azerbaijan. "Armenia conducted notorious ethnic cleansing against Azerbaijani civilian population in the seized lands. Illegal presence of armed forces of Armenia in the occupied territories of Azerbaijan is the continuation of Armenia's use of force and threat of force policy against Azerbaijan. In order to disguise its illegal actions, especially use of force and threat of force against territorial integrity and sovereignty of Azerbaijan, attempts of annexation of Azerbaijan's occupied territories and forceful expulsion of civilian Azerbaijani population from their native lands, Armenia by all means tries to distort the principles of equal rights and self-determination enshrined in Helsinki Final Act," the statement reads. Hajiyev noted that as established in the relevant OSCE document of 1995, Helsinki Final Act along with the United Nations Security Council Resolutions constitute the basis of OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs' mandate. "In accordance with the principles of Helsinki Final Act, Azerbaijan will ensure its territorial integrity and sovereignty within its internationally recognized borders," Hajiyev said. The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result of the ensuing war, in 1992 Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts. The 1994 ceasefire agreement was followed by peace negotiations. Armenia has not yet implemented four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding districts.
Azerbaijani Press: Armenia should show constructivism at upcoming talks in New York
AzerNews, Azerbaijan
Aug 2 2018
Armenia should show constructivism at upcoming talks in New York
By Rashid Shirinov
Armenia should take advantage of another chance provided by Azerbaijan and show appropriate constructivism during the negotiations on the settlement of the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, a well-known Turkish expert, professor Togrul Ismayil told Day.Az on August 1.
He was commenting on the news about the next meeting of the Azerbaijani and Armenian foreign ministers scheduled to be held on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York in September.
The expert positively assessed this and noted the importance of the upcoming meeting of the Azerbaijani and Armenian officials.
“I support a peaceful way of resolving this problem within the rules and norms of international law. Armenia, having occupied the territory of a foreign state, clearly violated the norms of international law, and still refuses to comply with the UN Security Council resolutions, which is not acceptable for Azerbaijan,” Ismayil stressed.
The expert added that Yerevan should realize the deplorable situation in which Armenia has been staying for many years.
“Pashinyan’s government must seriously realize that by continuing the aggression against Azerbaijan, Armenia itself loses in all aspects and deprives itself of the last chance to get out of the economic and political impasse,” Ismayil mentioned.
Because of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, Armenia has no economic relations and transport links with Azerbaijan and Turkey. Thus, Armenia has turned into the black sheep of the region. The economy of the country remains critical, demonstrating incredibly low indexes every year.
Armenia broke out a lengthy war against Azerbaijan by laying territorial claims on the country. Since a war in the early 1990s, Armenian armed forces have occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan’s territory, including Nagorno-Karabakh and seven surrounding regions. More than 20,000 Azerbaijanis were killed and over 1 million were displaced as a result of the large-scale hostilities.
To this day, Armenia has not implemented four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh and surrounding regions.
Azerbaijani Press: Yerevan’s controversial statements complicate settlement of Karabakh conflict: expert
Trend, Azerbaijan
Aug 2 2018
2 August 2018 18:11 (UTC+04:00)
Baku, Azerbaijan, Aug. 2
By Matanat Nasibova – Trend:
Yerevan’s contradictory statements on the Karabakh conflict’s settlement do not give grounds to say that the meeting of the foreign ministers of Azerbaijan and Armenia will be easy and will solve many issues, Azerbaijani political scientist, Professor of the West Caspian University Fikret Sadikhov told Trend, commenting on the upcoming meeting of the FMs on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York.
The government of Armenia aims at bringing Karabakh separatists to the negotiation process, and at the same time Yerevan is talking about peace and making unclear statements about resolution of the conflict, the political scientist said.
“In addition, we should not forget that this is not a special meeting organized within the Minsk Group – it is held on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, where many meetings, unfortunately, are of formal nature very often. But I think that the meeting with the Armenian foreign minister gives us another opportunity to deliver to the Armenian side our principled and clear position based on the norms and principles of international law to resolve the long-term conflict. The Armenian side should understand that the Armenian soldier has nothing to do in the occupied Azerbaijani territories. And there can be no agreement while Armenian servicemen are in the territory of Azerbaijan. I think our minister will deliver this position of the Azerbaijani side at the professional level so that Yerevan has a full and final understanding of what the Azerbaijani side demands,” he said.
The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result of the ensuing war, in 1992 Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts.
The 1994 ceasefire agreement was followed by peace negotiations. Armenia has not yet implemented four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding districts.
Forty-eight U.S. Representatives call for Trump-Pashinyan meeting
Public Radio of Armenia
Aug 1 2018
11:20, 01 Aug 2018
A bipartisan letter – spearheaded by the Armenian Caucus, backed by the bipartisan leaders of the U.S. House Foreign Affairs and Intelligence Committees, and signed by 48 U.S. Representatives – was sent today calling on President Trump to meet with Armenia’s new Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, as part of a larger effort to both broaden and deepen U.S.-Armenian dialogue and bilateral cooperation, reported the Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA).
“We want to thank the leaders of the Congressional Caucus on Armenian Issues and all those who joined with them in signing this bipartisan appeal – notably the leaders of the U.S. House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Chairman Ed Royce and Ranking Member Eliot Engel, and also Chairman Devin Nunes and Ranking Member Adam Schiff of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence,” said Aram Hamparian, ANCA’s Executive Director. “We join with our legislative friends in promoting high-level dialogue and concrete cooperation across a broad set of bilateral priorities, with a special focus on the growth of mutually-beneficial U.S.-Armenia economic relations.”
The cosigners of the Congressional letter to the President include (in alphabetical order): Representatives Karen Bass (D-CA), Gus Bilirakis (R-FL), Robert Brady (D-PA), Michael Capuano (D-MA), Salud Carbajal (D-CA), Judy Chu (D-CA), David Cicilline (D-RI), Katherine Clark (D-MA), Mike Coffman (R-CO), Jim Costa (D-CA), Ted Deutch (D-FL), Eliot Engel (D-NY), Anna Eshoo (D-CA), Adriano Espaillat (D-NY), Jenniffer Gonzalez-Colon (R-PR), Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ), Joe Kennedy (D-MA), Peter King (R-NY), James Langevin (D-RI), Brenda Lawrence (D-MI), Barbara Lee (D-CA), Daniel Lipinski (D-IL), Zoe Lofgren (D-CA), Nita Lowey (D-NY), Carolyn Maloney (D-NY), Sean Patrick Maloney (D-NY), Betty McCollum (D-MN), James McGovern (D-MA), Grace Meng (D-NY), Seth Moulton (D-MA), Grace Napolitano (D-CA), Devin Nunes (R-CA), Frank Pallone (D-NJ), Ted Poe (R-TX), Kathleen Rice (D-NY), Edward Royce (R-CA), Linda Sanchez (D-CA), John Sarbanes (D-MD), Adam Schiff (D-CA), Brad Schneider (D-IL), Brad Sherman (D-CA), Albio Sires (D-NJ), Jackie Speier (D-CA), Tom Suozzi (D-NY), Dina Titus (D-NV), Norma Torres (D-CA), David Trott (R-MI), and David Valadao (R-CA).
The ANCA’s U.S.-Armenia economic policy priorities include 1) a $140 million MCC Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Math grant for Armenia’s public schools, 2) a modern Tax Treaty to eliminate double taxation and promote financial transparency, 3) a Social Security Agreement to protect benefits earned by people who divide their careers between the U.S. and Armenia, 4) non-stop commercial and cargo flights from Los Angeles to Yerevan, and 5) maximizing the effectiveness of the existing Trade and Investment Framework Agreement Council and the U.S.-Armenia Economic Task Force.
The ANCA is also working with Armenian Caucus leadership and Congressional appropriators to expand FY2019 economic, military and refugee assistance to Armenia and demining, rehabilitation and peacekeeping assistance for Artsakh.
In a “Dear Colleague” letter to their Congressional colleagues, the Congressional Armenian Caucus Co-Chairs Frank Pallone (D-NJ), Jackie Speier (D-CA), Dave Trott (R-MI), and David Valadao (R-CA) and Vice-Chairs Gus Bilirakis (R-FL) and Adam Schiff (D-CA), wrote, “since being elected into office by Parliament, Prime Minister Pashinyan has committed himself to advancing Armenian issues both domestically and internationally and has stated his intent to deepen ties with the United States. Without question, a conversation between President Trump and Prime Minister Pashinyan emphasizing economic development, security and democracy is critical for a strong pivot towards a strategic partnership between our countries.”
Armenian premier wants to discuss his 100 days in office
ARKA, Armenia
Aug 1 2018
Agrian agriculture software company expanding operations in Armenia
PanArmenian, Armenia
Aug 1 2018
August 1, 2018 – 17:47 AMT
PanARMENIAN.Net – A little over two hours from Silicon Valley is one of the world’s most productive agricultural regions, California’s Central Valley. It’s the place Armenian-American entrepreneur Nishan Majarian was born and raised, and Agrian, the software company he co-founded in 2004, in a way embodies it, where the worlds of agriculture and technology collide, PrecisionAg.com says.
“Ag was and remains to this day the last great fragmented supply chain,” Majarian says, just having returned from a trip to his ancestral Armenia, where Agrian is expanding operations. “At the end of day, growers are really the ones that suffer from that. That’s our focus, is to streamline. You can’t streamline a process if it’s still on paper.”
Today, Agrian boasts the largest manufacturer indemnified crop protection database with over 11,000 products supported by more than 350 manufacturers. Through one integrated platform, it simplifies the five pillars of modern farming: precision, agronomy, sustainability, analytics, and compliance.
The company started as a cloud-based record-keeping system to help those in the western United States navigate the ever-growing regulatory requirements, and quickly expanded its digital capabilities to include a platform approach to help agronomists, growers, and food processors work collaboratively within one system to accomplish many tasks including food company reporting, crop planning, scouting, imagery, soil and tissue sampling, logged and wireless data transfer, variable rate, and nutrient management to create a record of each crop in every market whether in specialty fruit crops, cereal grains or oil seeds.
In early June, the compliance system Agrian built passed one billion accumulative, treated, compliance- checked acres, Majarian says.
As agronomy, precision ag, and compliance continue to merge, Agrian, at its core, aims to be a one-stop platform for growers, farming operations, agronomists, and retailers for all crops, in all markets. Its work in both broadacre and specialty crop worlds give the company a unique perspective, he explains.
“You see all these silos breaking down. What does the grower need? What does the agronomist in the field need? They just need a simple, consistent platform by which to manage all of these things. So they don’t do compliance in one tool and agronomy in another tool, and precision ag in a different tool. They’ve got a tool that provides that with them a work flow that addresses all of these needs. That’s what we focus on,” he says.
“A lot of people like to talk about your competitor – this company, that company. The reality is, our greatest competitor, even to this day, is paper. Growers in many cases don’t want or don’t feel the need to document. That is changing rapidly since we started Agrian, but in our early days it was definitely paper and in many markets, it still is paper,” Majarian says. He backtracks: “I shouldn’t say paper is the only threat. The other threat is fragmentation of point solutions.
“Where we see precision ag going is an explosion of more data streams, more information, and that’s going to be hard for a lot of operations to manage without a platform to consume that … Once there is the new, next generation of autonomous devices and robots – once we get there, that mechanization wave will explode the amount of data and the complexity of precision ag. It’s going to be exciting, but there’s going to be more data to manage and more complexity in the process.
“Agronomy, compliance, precision ag – all of these different capabilities are merging together and the complexity of our markets, liability, compliance globally, are growing and irreversible trends. All of these streams are merging together,” he says. “Operators aren’t going to be able to work in a vacuum, and not embrace modern tech or modern capabilities and operate efficiently in the future.”
Lavrov about Kocharyan detention: Russia concerned over things in Armenia
ARKA, Armenia
Aug 1 2018
Moscow warns Armenia against ‘political’ crackdown on old elite
Agence France Presse Tuesday 7:10 PM GMT Moscow warns Armenia against 'political' crackdown on old elite Moscow, Russia's foreign minister on Tuesday warned Armenia's new leadership not to make "political" moves against pro-Moscow former elites who are currently being targeted in an anti-corruption crackdown. The remarks came after former president Robert Kocharyan was charged with tipping a 2008 election in favour of his pro-Moscow successor. "The events of the last few days...contradict the recent declarations of the new Armenian leadership that it was not planning to pursue its predecessors on political grounds," Sergei Lavrov said in comments carried by Russian news agencies. "Moscow, as an ally of Yerevan, has always had an interest in the stability of the Armenian state and therefore what is happening there must be of concern to us," he said, adding he was hoping for "constructive" developments. Lavrov's declaration is the first outward sign of tension between Russia and Armenia since opposition campaigner Nikol Pashinyan swept to power in the ex-Soviet nation in May on the back of popular protests. He launched a campaign to stamp out graft, which has already seen the arrest of a number of top officials. Unlike the leaders of earlier popular movements in ex-Soviet Georgia and Ukraine, Pashinyan has tried to maintain good ties with Moscow. Yuri Khachaturov, the Armenian secretary general of the Collective Security Treaty Organization -- a military alliance led by Moscow -- has also been charged in the case that saw the arrest of Kocharyan. gmo-tm/nla
Yerevan: Azerbaijan does not allow OSCE monitoring in Nakhijevan direction
Arminfo, Armenia
Aug 1 2018
Yerevan: Azerbaijan does not allow OSCE monitoring in Nakhijevan direction
Yerevan July 31
Yerevan July 31
Tatevik Shahunyan. Azerbaijan does not allow organizing OSCE monitoring in Nakhijevan direction, Armenian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Tigran Balayan stated this at a press conference.
Balayan also complained that for more than two weeks Baku has not allowed representatives of the International Committee of the Red Cross to meet captured RA citizen Karen Ghazaryan, who suffers from a psychological disorder. “It has been already two weeks there is no information about Karen Ghazaryan, a citizen of Armenia who was captured by Azerbaijani side, Azerbaijan harshly violates the Geneva Conventions, preventing the ICRC representatives from visiting the captive,” Balayan said.