Sandbags and monks in khaki: Russian troops guard Armenian monastery after ceasefire

Yahoo! News
Nov 16 2020




DADIVANK, Azerbaijan (Reuters) – Soldiers unloaded sandbags and monks donned khaki vests over their cassocks on Sunday after Russian peacekeepers arrived to guard the 12th century Armenian Dadivank monastery in territory due to be ceded to Azerbaijan within days.

Russia has deployed troops as part of a Moscow-brokered ceasefire deal to end six weeks of fighting between ethnic Armenian forces and Azeri troops over the enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh and surrounding areas.

Ethnic Armenians have set fire to their homes, severed electricity cables and cut down trees before leaving the area that is to be handed over to Baku’s control.

But Father Ovanes, the superior of the monastery, said he would not leave, regardless of whether there were Russian peacekeepers stationed there to protect him.

“I was prepared and I said: I’m not getting out of here,” he told Reuters.

Azerbaijan was initially expected to take over the Kalbajar region, controlled by ethnic Armenians since the end of the first war over Nagorno-Karabakh in 1994, on Sunday.

But Baku has extended the deadline until Nov. 25, presidential administration official Hikmet Hajiyev said.

Russia’s President Vladimir Putin has told his Azeri counterpart Ilham Aliyev to take care of Christian shrines in parts of Nagorno-Karabakh that Azerbaijan gets under the deal, the Kremlin said on Saturday.

Reuters reporters saw Russian peacekeepers guarding a newly established checkpoint next to the monastery. An armoured personnel carrier was parked in front of a chapel, and troops took selfies with the clergy inside.

“We are happy that our Russian soldiers, our brothers are here to protect the border and to protect this monastery, and the monastery will bless them and protect them,” said Father Moses, a clergyman.

Peacekeepers might be allowed to remain at the monastery as a result of negotiations which are still ongoing, Father Ovanes said.

The clergy has taken down church bells and cross-stones and sent them out of the region, fearing they could be desecrated and vandalised.

The monastery overlooks a village that was burnt down and abandoned by its residents after the peace deal.

Most residents had already left the Kalbajar district by Sunday, but some Armenian soldiers stayed behind to finish demolishing the houses in another village called Knaravan.

Reuters reporters saw them taking down electricity poles, sawing them and loading them into a truck next to a school that had its windows smashed and roof torn off.

“We don’t want to leave to the enemy, to Azerbaijan, what belonged to us. We just try to keep what belonged to us,” said one of the soldiers who declined to give his name.

(Additional reporting by Nvard Hovhannisyan in Yerevan and Nailia Bagirova in Baku; Editing by Matthias Williams and Hugh Lawson)


Hundreds of Armenian Servicemen Missing After Nagorno-Karabakh War, PM Pashinyan Says

Sputnik
Nov 16 2020

by Oleg Burunov

Last week, the heads of Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Russia signed a joint declaration that put an end to the six-week conflict in the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh.

Armenia’s Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said on Monday that hundreds of Armenian servicemen remain missing as a result of the escalation of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

“We hope to find some of them alive. Yesterday, we found a wounded soldier who was previously listed as dead”, Pashinyan said during an online press conference.

He added that an exchange of prisoners will begin after the two sides wrap up the process of exchanging the bodies of all those killed in the hostilities. Pashinyan expressed hope that a day of national mourning would be declared in Armenia after completing the exchange of bodies. 

Russian Defence Ministry
In this handout video grab released by Russian Defence Ministry, Russian peacekeepers’ military equipment that is being redeployed to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict zone, is unloaded from transport aircraft at Erebuni Airport, outside Yerevan, Armenia

Armenia earlier reported the deaths of more than 2,300 of its soldiers in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict’s latest escalation, while Azerbaijan has not yet disclosed its military losses.

Pashinyan’s statement comes a few days after he agreed to withdraw Armenian forces from Nagorno-Karabakh as well as hand over a number of territories to Azerbaijan, in line with a Russia-brokered peace deal between Baku and Yerevan that took effect on 10 November.

© Sputnik / Iliya Pitalev
Ceasefire in Nagorno Karabakh: Key Points of Deal to Stop Hostilities Between Armenia and Azerbaijan

Under the accord, Azerbaijan and Armenia will stop at their current positions and exchange prisoners, and almost 2,000 Russian peacekeepers will be deployed to Nagorno-Karabakh. Russia has already sent more than 1,100 peacekeepers to the region along with 1,168 pieces of military and support equipment.

On Saturday, the commander of the Russian peacekeeping contingent, Rustam Muradov, said that Armenia and Azerbaijan are adhering to a ceasefire in Nagorno-Karabakh, and that the situation in the war-torn region is stabilising.

The decades-old conflict escalated into large-scale fighting on 27 September, when Armenia and Azerbaijan accused each other of launching artillery, missile, and air strikes in Nagorno-Karabakh, an Armenian-majority region, where tensions have persisted since 1988 and finally led to the region declaring independence amid the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991.

Between 1992 and 1994, Yerevan and Baku fought a brutal war for the territory that claimed the lives of over 30,000 people, also displacing at least 1.1 million others. Thousands more have been killed in the conflict’s frequent flare-ups since then.



Post War: Links to News Articles between Nov. 15 & 16, 2020

To Armenian News Readers:
 
In order to minimize the number of individual posts on Armenian News Website,
the links to some repetitive items from major sources are listed
below.
 
Thank you
 
———–
 
Azerbaijan extends Armenian pullout deadline from disputed area
Nov 15 2020
 
 
Armenia cedes disputed land to Azerbaijan in Karabakh peace  ..
Nov 15 2020
 
 
Ethnic Armenians Set Fire to Homes Before Handing Over Village to Azerbaijan
Nov 15 2020
 
 
Armenia Says prevented assassination attempt on PM
Nov 15 2020
 
 
Armenian opposition politician arrested over alleged prime minister assassination plot
Nov 15 2020
 
 
Assassination attempt on Pashinyan stopped – Armenian National Security
Nov 15 2020
 
 
Assassination attempt on Armenian prime minister thwarted, officials say
Nov 15 2020
 
 
 
Armenians torch their homes on land ceded to Azerbaijan
Nov 15 2020
 
 
Armenia says it prevented murder attempt on PM Nikol Pashinyan
Nov 15 2020
 
 
Armenia’s security services say they prevented ASSASSINATION attempt on PM Pashinyan
Nov 15 2020
 
 
Armenians burn their homes ahead of mass exodus
Nov 15 2020
 
 
Armenian villagers set fire to houses in Nagorno-Karabakh ahead of handover to Azerbaijan
Nov 15 2020
 
 
Armenian villagers burn houses ahead of Azerbaijan takeover
Nov 14 2020
 
 
Nagorno-Karabakh: Villagers burn their homes ahead of peace deal
Nov 14 2020
 
 
Armenians burn their homes on land to be turned over to Azerbaijan
Nov 14 2020
 
 
Armenians set homes on fire before Azeri handover
Nov 15 2020
 
 
Armenia granted more time to withdraw troops in Nagorno-Karabakh
Nov 15 2020
 
 
Armenian foreign minister resigns
Nov 16 2020
 
 
Armenia foreign minister quits as gov’t under fire over ceasefire
Nov 16 2020
 
 
Armenian foreign minister resigns after unpopular Karabakh ceasefire
Nov 16 2020
 
 
Armenian FM resigns after unpopular Karabakh ceasefire
Nov 16 2020
 
 
In Photos: Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh Burn Down Homes Ahead of Azerbaijan Handover
Nov 16 2020
 
 
Armenian foreign minister resigns amid political turmoil over Nagorno-Karabakh
Nov 16 2020
 
 
Armenian foreign minister quits after unpopular Karabakh ceasefire
Nov 16 2020
 
 
Armenia’s Foreign Minister submits resignation
Nov 16 2020
 
 
Azerbaijan delays Nagorno-Karabakh takeover, denounces fleeing Armenians for burning homes
Nov 15 2020
 
 
Live updates: Four MPs leave Armenia’s ruling bloc after PM’s controversial comments
Nov 16 2020
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Asbarez: Statement by Political Council of 17 Parties

November 16,  2020



Opposition protest at Yerevan’s Liberty Square on Nov. 11

Dear compatriots!

The authorities, which have taken the country on a defeatist path through an act of capitulation, continue to implement their treacherous agenda.

The government, which is in a state of apparent distress, is not only trying to divert the public’s attention from its treasonous actions, but is also laying the groundwork to ban opposition parties, by using autocratic means that violate the principles of the rule of law and democracy.

With the obvious intention of sowing negative perceptions in the people and shirking accountability for their own actions, a fiendish plot has been concocted claiming that members of certain opposition forces were plotting Pashinyan’s assassination. On November 14 the leader of the Homeland party, Major General Arthur Vanetsyan, was illegally arrested on that charge. Vahram Baghdasaryan, the former head of the Republican Party of Armenia parliamentary faction, Ashot Minasyan, a decorated colonel of the Armed Forces who was awarded the Combat Cross and who fought in three Artsakh wars and is the commander of the Sisian brigade, and Ashot Avagyan, a member of the same detachment and an ARF intellectual were also arrested on the same charges.

Illegal criminal persecutions are intensifying, as a result of which a large army of political prisoners is forming.

We have repeatedly emphasized that in our fight against the treasonous authorities that we are guided by the Constitution and rule of law, unlike the ruling party and the groups that support it. By projecting its sick behavior on its opponents, the government is making futile attempts to intimidate people without realizing that for every illegally imprisoned patriot, there are dozens of devoted activists waiting in the wings.

Dear compatriots, we call on you to raise your voice in defense of the political prisoners and to come together and immediately get rid of Pashinyan’s catastrophic regime through provisions laid out in the Constitution.

Our fight for the salvation of the homeland continues.

11/15/20
Political Council of 17 [Opposition] Parties

The announcement is open for others to join.

Turkey seeks approval to deploy peacekeepers in Azerbaijan

Al-Jazeera
Nov 16 2020

Russia, which is deploying troops to Nagorno-Karabakh to oversee the peace deal, previously said Turkish troops would not be joining them.

Turkey’s government has submitted a motion to parliament, seeking its approval to deploy peacekeepers to monitor a ceasefire agreement between Azerbaijan and Armenia, the state-run news agency reported.

Turkey, which threw its weight behind its ally Azerbaijan in the conflict, has been engaged in talks with Russia for a role in monitoring the ceasefire that ended six weeks of intense fighting between Azerbaijan and Armenia over the Nagorno-Karabakh region.

Russian and Turkish defence ministers signed a memorandum last week to create a joint monitoring centre in Azerbaijan.

The bill submitted to the parliament on Monday requests a one-year mandate to send Turkish peacekeepers, adding that President Recep Tayyip Erdogan would determine the number of troops to be sent.

The motion is expected to be debated in the coming days. It states that civilian personnel could also be deployed as part of the peacekeeping mission.

“It has been assessed that for the Turkish Armed Forces personnel … to take part in the Joint Center which Turkey and Russia will form together, will be beneficial for the peace and welfare of the region’s people and is necessary from the point of our national interests,” state-run Anadolu Agency wrote, quoting the motion.

Russian officials have said that Ankara’s involvement will be limited to the work of the monitoring centre on Azerbaijani soil, and Turkish peacekeepers would not go to Nagorno-Karabakh.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said the centre will operate remotely, using drones and other technical means to monitor possible violations.

Russia, which negotiated the ceasefire, is sending about 2,000 peacekeeping troops under a five-year mandate.

Nagorno-Karabakh lies within Azerbaijan but has been under the control of ethnic Armenian forces backed by Armenia since a war there ended in 1994.

In a separate development, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan – who signed the deal with Azerbaijan, fuelling rage in his country – called on Monday for a halt to violence after reports of an attempt on his life.

After the deal was announced, thousands of protesters took to the streets of the Armenian capital Yerevan, calling Pashinyan a “traitor” and demanding his resignation. Protesters also stormed government buildings.

“Today I clearly stated that violence or the provoking of violence (especially armed violence) cannot in any way be a means of action for the government,” Pashinyan said on Facebook.

Pashinyan said he expected the opposition to also declare that it did not back “any violent action”.

Authorities on Saturday said they had thwarted a plot to assassinate the prime minister and arrested opposition leader Artur Vanetsyan, the former head of Armenia’s security services.

Vanetsyan, leader of the centre-right “Homeland” party, was released on Sunday after a court ruled that his detention lacked legal grounds.

A dozen opposition leaders were detained last week for inciting riots but were also released by courts.

SOURCE : NEWS AGENCIES


Surrender of Karvachar Delayed for 10 Days as Residents Burn Homes Before Evacuating from Artsakh

November 16,  2020



The hand over of Artsakh’s Karvachar (Kelbajar) region to Azerbaijan, which was scheduled for Sunday, has been delayed for 10 more days.

Karvachar was the first of several territories to be surrendered to Azerbaijan as part of the “end of war” agreements signed by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and the presidents of Russia and Azerbaijan. That agreement also stipulates the surrender of Shushi.

The delay was attributed to the lack of capacity of the roads leading to Armenia from the region.

Many Artsakh residents, who have been forced to leave their homes because of surrender of territories to Azerbaijan as stipulated in the “end of war” agreement, have chosen to burn or destroy their homes rather than leave them to Azerbaijanis who might settle there.

In the Kashatagh Region of Artsakh, as well as, residents are burning their houses and leaving.

After taking down the pictures of Armenian heroes from the walls of Erkej secondary school, its students spray painted notes—addressing Azerbaijanis—on the interior and exterior walls.

Aghdam is scheduled to be handed over on November 20.

A caravan of cars was spotted making its way along the Berdzor (Lachin) corridor headed toward Armenia, as another caravan of Russian peacekeepers was entering Artsakh.

Foreign Minister Zohrab Mnatsakanyan Resigns

November 16,  2020



Foreign Minister Zohrab Mnatsakanyan resigns

Armenia’s Foreign Minister  Zohrab Mnatsakanyan has tendered his resignation, the foreign ministry spokesperson Anna Naghdalyan said, posting a photo of the letter addressed to Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan.

Speaking in parliament, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said on Monday that it was his decision to dismiss Mnatsakanyan from office.

Mnatsakanyan’s letter of resignation

Armenpress: 150 bodies retrieved from outskirts of Shushi, hundreds still missing – Artsakh president says

150 bodies retrieved from outskirts of Shushi, hundreds still missing – Artsakh president says

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 09:03,

STEPANAKERT, NOVEMBER 16, ARMENPRESS. The bodies of around 150 Armenian troops were retrieved from the outskirts of Shushi, President of Artsakh Arayik Harutyunyan said, adding that hundreds of bodies are still on the battlefields.

“Today is another difficult day for me, indeed, although we were able to save a part of our Fatherland and thousands of lives, we’ve had major human and territorial losses, and the 150 bodies of Armenian servicemen – each of them the light of one home and the entire Fatherland – retrieved from the outskirts of Shushi these days once again proves this. Hundreds of bodies are still on the battlefields, keeping their families and the entire nation in uncertainty and pain. During these days, I am providing much time to the families of the victims and those missing, comforting their pain and jointly searching for our fallen brothers,” Harutyunyan said in a statement on social media.

Harutyunyan highlighted the need for quickly increasing the security guarantees of the country and dealing with the post-war restoration of Artsakh and the Armenian people.

“Certainly there are other difficult external and domestic challenges, however I am most concerned with the serious threats disrupting [Armenia’s] domestic stability and solidarity,” he said.

The President called for national and state solidarity and unity and expressed serious concern over the “violence-based and intolerance trends” in Armenia.

President Harutyunyan called on all forces involved in the domestic processes to settle disagreements through civilized dialogue and in accordance the constitution to avoid potential shocks which “could become the gravedigger of the Armenian statehood.” He said he is activating political consultations with all political parties and figures to discuss the post-war restoration, reforms of public administration and other important issues of the pan-Armenian agenda.

Editing and Translating by Stepan Kocharyan

Second group of refugees escorted by Russian peacekeepers returns to Stepanakert

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 10:08,

YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 16, ARMENPRESS. Russian peacekeepers have accompanied the second group of refugees back to Stepanakert City, the Russian Defense Ministry said.

475 people returned to the capital of Artsakh on board 19 buses. The convoy left Yerevan and was escorted by the Russian peacekeepers and military police, who ensured their security at the line of contact. 

Earlier a group of 250 evacuated citizens of Artsakh had returned to Stepanakert.

Editing and Translating by Stepan Kocharyan