16:40,
YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 28, ARMENPRESS.Stepanakert Branch of Converse Bank will reopen on 30.11.2020. The Branch will render comprehensive services to the customers on a regular basis from Monday to Friday, 9:30-17:00.
Converse Bank is a financial institution offering comprehensive banking services. The Bank is managed by Eduardo Eurnekian Group.
17:54,
YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 28, ARMENPRESS. 4 Azerbaijani citizens have been killed in an anti-tank landmine explosion in Fizuli, one of the regions in Nagorno Karabakh that came under Azerbaijani control, the Azeri prosecution said.
According to unconfirmed media reports the victims are journalist Zibeyda Adilzade, an editor at a newspaper, and her family members, namely her father, uncle and another relative.
They were traveling in a Toyota vehicle when the blast occurred.
Editing and Translating by Stepan Kocharyan
Four Azerbaijani civilians died Saturday after their car hit a landmine planted by retreating Armenian soldiers in Nagorno-Karabakh region, Azerbaijan’s prosecutor general said.
The incident occurred in a village in Fizuli district, a statement said.
“The mine was planted by the Armenian armed forces during their retreat,” the statement said, adding that it was an anti-tank mine.
The statement called the incident a “new type of provocation” from Armenia.
Running along the border with Iran, Fizuli was among the districts occupied by Armenian fighters in a 1990s war that saw separatists declare “independence” over the Nagorno-Karabakh region and several surrounding territories.
Azerbaijan recaptured Fizuli in renewed clashes over Karbakh that started in late September and continued for six weeks.
The ex-Soviet rivals signed a Moscow-brokered peace deal on Nov. 9, ending weeks of heavy fighting and documenting that Armenia will surrender to Baku several territories that were occupied for more than three decades.
Bright Armenia faction head Edmon Marukyan said after his application sent to Russia’s president he discussed the issue with human rights activist Artak Zeynalyan.
“As a result of discussion a new proposal was born,” Marukyan wrote on Facebook.
“So, stemming from the created really critical situation we propose to create trilateral commission consisting of representatives of Russia, Armenia and Azerbaijan which will without impediments visit the prisoners of war kept in two parties, will prevent the possible bad attitude toward them, will specify their number, the real place they are being kept in and the conditions,” Marukyan wrote, adding that the commission should be created as soon as possible for the sake of defense of prisoners of war and their immediate return to their families.
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Deputy Minister of Health Lena Nanushyan had a meeting with the members of the UK Emergency Medical Team to discuss medical and organizational issues related to their activities in Armenia.
It should be noted that the team is in Armenia in response to a request to the WHO for assistance with the WHO’s ability to manage severe, extremely severe cases of COVID-19 and will stay here for 5 weeks. The team aims to assist the Armenian Ministry of Health in strengthening and developing the capacity of health services to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“From the first day of the pandemic, our government has been doing every possible thing to overcome the coronavirus disease, to provide medical centers with the necessary human resources, equipment and medicines,” said the deputy minister, adding that international cooperation in this area is very important.
The group of medical staff and international experts will conduct trainings and exchange experiences within the framework of its mission. The UK Government’s Emergency Medical Team will assist the Ministry of Health of Armenia in strengthening and developing the capacity of health services under COVID-19.
Lena Nanushyan thanked the members of the medical team for their readiness to stand by the Armenian doctors, to work together, and expressed hope that the cooperation would be continuous.
After the handover of Artsakh regions to Azerbaijan, 6 out of 7 rural settlements in the enlarged Tegh community of Armenia’s Syunik Province are becoming bordering areas. Currently, construction work and fortification of positions are underway in these areas.
“The people, along with units of the Defense Army, are trying to reinforce their positions so that we can stand firm on our land. It is our sacred duty to keep our defensive positions intact. How else? If we sit idly by, who will defend our posts?” head of the community Nerses Shadunts said in an interview to Panorama.am.
According to him, all residents have joined their efforts to defend their posts.
Tegh community is home to 5,600 people. Its total administrative area comprises 15,000 hectares. The community head gave his assurances that despite the existing problems, no one wants to leave their homes.
The residents of community are mainly engaged in animal husbandry. To graze animals, the inhabitants of Tegh used to reach the Jebrayil district in Artsakh.
“We used to raise 60,000 sheep in a community, where are we going to keep them now? In the five-year economic development plan, we have outlined risk points in case of territorial changes. And that is what has already happened. The pastures which were used for grazing of our animals are now under their [Azerbaijani] control,” Shadunts said.
But the problem has already been resolved, the community head said, adding people have sold 70% of their livestock. There are no other pasture lands in the community, he said.
“Our people did not save up fodder, they thought that they would continue to raise livestock on pastures. Nothing was predicted. People are not to blame for this,” he said.
Shadunts called for new proposals and strategy with a focus on greenhouses.
“We need to come up with something else, specialists and institutions should start working on it. We have nowhere to go from our lands. In fact, we have no such intention,” Shadunts said.
No new program has yet been discussed with state structures, he added.
Serj Tankian continues to closely follow the events unfolding around Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) and Armenia.
This time, the renowned American Armenian singer, composer, and lead singer of System Of a Down reflected on the issue of Syrian mercenaries.
“The constant presence of these mercenaries will destabilize the Azeri-Iran border and the Azeri-Armenia one. Russia needs to tell Turkey to take out its trash,” Tankian wrote on Twitter.
Elementary textbooks, laminated posters of equations, and photos of smiling students are scattered on the wooden floor of a primary school of an Armenian community in a remote hamlet of the Kelbajar region.
On the wall hang colorful pencil doodles of houses and animals. Through the window, flames overtake a house next door that is slowly burning to the ground. A woman looking around the school, who doesn’t give her name, explains why properties all along the surrounding valley are on fire.
“We saw some videos of Azerbaijanis entering the houses of Armenians and started ruining everything inside, that’s why they are burning houses, not to let that happen,” she says. “Some people are even removing their family’s gravestones from the cemeteries because we don’t know what they will do with them.”
In recent days, videos have been circulating on social media that claim to show Azerbaijani troops vandalizing an Armenian cemetery in the Kelbajar region.
Related: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Russia sign deal to end fighting in Nagorno-Karabakh
On Wednesday, the region — under Armenian occupation since 1994 — was transferred to Azerbaijan under the terms of a Moscow-brokered ceasefire agreement to end the six-week war that has killed dozens of civilians and thousands of soldiers. As they left, Armenians who lived there destroyed their own homes rather than hand them over to Azerbaijan.
Many have nowhere to go. Neighboring Armenia’s economy was struggling even before the ravages of war and pandemic — so once they flee, they’re largely on their own.
When war erupted in and around the Nagorno-Karabakh region on September 27, many ethnic Armenians fled their homes without time to take their possessions.
Off a dusty road in Kelbajar, Hrant Davoyan, the founder of the Hrant’s Ark Foundation, opens a rear door to a van full of squirming puppies at his nonprofit pet sanctuary.
“We’re here to rescue every dog and cat we see that was abandoned by the people that had to flee,” Davoyan says. “We’ll take them to shelters and try to put them up for adoption. We’ve already had some offers by Armenians living in the US.”
A house set on fire by departing Armenians in the region of Kelbajar.
All around Kelbajar, Armenians could be seen salvaging anything of value before the region was returned to Azerbaijan. People stripped floorboards, removed roof tiles and cut down trees. Some demobilized soldiers even shot at electricity pylons to bring down the cables.
The region has a tragic history. During the first Karabakh war in the late eighties, Azerbaijanis living in Kelbajar and other regions surrounding Nagorno-Karabakh were driven from their homes by the hundreds of thousands. After winning that conflict in 1994, the Armenian government gave some of the land to Armenian refugees who had fled from elsewhere in Azerbaijan.
Alec Davisian, a musician, was one of the recipients. He stands next to his house for the last time, his car stuffed with furniture, a mattress, paintings and vines from his garden. After fleeing Azerbaijan proper in 1988, he resettled in Kelbajar in the early 2000s. Now, at 46 years old, war has forced him to move again. Despite this, he doesn’t mind who lives there after him, even the supposed enemy.
“I’m not burning my house. I built it with my own hands, and I don’t want to ruin it,” he says, shrugging. “Let it be. Turk or Azeri, I don’t care who will live here, I’m leaving.”
Several miles away, perched in a valley surrounded by mountains that are crowned by wisps of clouds, sits the Dadivank monastery. Built between the 9th and 13th centuries, the site is the burial place of ancient saints and is adorned by medieval frescoes and crosses. It’s one of the most significant symbols of Armenian Christian heritage. In recent weeks, Armenians have been flocking here to light candles and attend services, heartbroken that they are losing full control of the complex.
The mood is somber. Armenian families huddle around, lighting candles and receiving blessings from hooded priests.
Related: Armenians mobilize to support troops in Karabakh war, as ceasefires fail
Armen Minasian’s uncle fought in Shushi during the first Karabakh war. Three decades later, Minasian, a student living in New York but vacationing in the Caucasus, found himself in that same city on the day war erupted. Minasian, 21, lets out a long sigh.
“I came to say goodbye to Dadivank and say goodbye to Kelbajar,” Minasian says. “This is the second region we are going to give to Azerbaijan, and it’s very sad,” he adds, referring to the order of territories being transferred under the new peace deal.
Until this latest war, Armenia occupied seven other regions around Nagorno-Karabakh, including Kelbajar. During the recent fighting, Azerbaijan reconquered four of them. The peace deal stipulates that Armenia withdraw its forces and hand back the remaining three by various deadlines. Agdam on Nov. 20, Kelbajar on Nov. 25, and Lachin on Dec. 1.
Armenian worshippers light candles inside the Dadivank Monastery.
Under the terms of the Moscow-brokered accord, Russian peacekeepers currently are stationed at Dadivank and will patrol the line of contact between the two countries.
It appears that the priests will be allowed to remain in the monastery, meaning that Armenians may still be able to visit. Tanks and armored personnel carriers line the entrance.
During much of the Soviet era, Muslim Azerbaijanis and Christian Armenians lived alongside each other in relative peace. Ever since its fall, both sides have vandalised each other’s religious sites.
Olga Gambaryan, a Russian from Moscow, came with her Armenian husband and two young children months before war broke out to start a new life in Armenia.
“I don’t know what we’ll do now,” says Gambaryan, 28. “It’s painful looking at this monastery. After the genocide, so much Armenian history was destroyed in Turkey and now we worry it can happen here.”
“It’s painful looking at this monastery. After the genocide, so much Armenian history was destroyed in Turkey and now we worry it can happen here.”
Olga Gambaryan, new resident, Kelbajar
As dusk descends, Russian soldiers bring boxes of tinned food and pasta to the monastery.
Father Hovhannes Hovhannisyan, the abbot of Dadivank, has become a celebrity in Armenia after he was photographed during the war wielding a rifle. Hovhannisyan, wearing a camouflage jacket over his cassocks, poses for selfies with departing visitors.
“I wanted to show that I can save my church with the cross, or with the gun,” he says, proudly. “It’s my right and my duty, and I’ll be staying.”
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