Category: 2021

A footage showing an act of vandalism by Azerbaijanis is circulating in social media. The video shows how Azeris are pulling down a Christian cross installed in Karvachar mountains in Artsakh with a military truck. 

“Another ‘positive’ message from the Azerbaijani side. While the Armenian authorities speak of friendship with Azerbaijan, the latters show to what extend they are ready for the friendship. The enemy took down the cross installed in Artsakh. The cross is presumably placed in Qarvachar region in Artsakh,” Yerkir Media reported, sharing the video. 

Taguhi Tovmasyan, an Armenian lawmaker representing the opposition With Honor faction, says she stands ready to step down as an MP at any moment.

“I am ready to resign my parliamentary mandate immediately. I have expressed a clear stance on this issue from the very first days of my parliamentary activity. Either the mandate should serve the state interests of the country or it makes no sense to hold it,” she wrote on Facebook on Friday.

“Today, when I have not succeeded in making the borders of my country more secure with the mandate entrusted to me, when I have not been able to neutralize the threats facing my homeland with this mandate, and the country keeps shrinking, I am ready to give it up at any moment.

“But even then, my efforts in this regard will not abate: I will be as consistent as I have been for the past three years,” Tovmasyan said.

Secretary of Armenia’s Security Council Armen Grigoryan said there was an agreement with Azerbaijan to use the Goris-Kapan highway section until the construction of the bypass road was completed.

“There was an agreement with Azerbaijan for Armenia to use the Goris-Kapan road section until the bypass road was ready,” he said in an interview to the Public TV Company host Petros Ghazaryan on Thursday.

Earlier on Wednesday, Grigoryan said that Azerbaijan would set up customs checkpoints along the Goris-Kapan road section from midnight.

According to the security chief, Armenian citizens used this road until yesterday.

“Starting from the midnight of November 11, we can also use it. However, we have an alternative road, which is renovated and fully passable,” he said.

Referring to the opposition claims that the news on Azeri checkpoints came immediately after the Armenian authorities announced that the bypass road was ready, he said. “There was a preliminary agreement with Azerbaijan.”

Asked why Azerbaijan was installing customs checkpoints when no border delimitation and demarcation work had been carried out, Grigoryan noted: “We acted within the logic of common sense. There are maps. The deviation will be just a few hundred meters.”

The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict cannot be resolved by force, Armenia’s Deputy Prime Minister Mher Grigoryan said at an online meeting of the Council of CIS Heads of Government on Friday, responding to the Azerbaijani prime minister’s remarks.

Addressing the meeting, Azerbaijani Prime Minister Ali Asadov reiterated that the “Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is a thing of the past, and currently there are two economic regions in Azerbaijan – Karabakh and East Zangezur.”

“The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict cannot be resolved by force. The settlement of the conflict can only be achieved through peaceful negotiations, exclusively under the mandate of the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairmanship,” Grigoryan stressed.

He called on Azerbaijan to abandon aggressive rhetoric and hostile actions to achieve peaceful development in the region.

MP Tigran Abrahamyan from the opposition With Honor faction says the Armenian authorities are trying to hide the truth, pushing the key issues to the background and focusing on the secondary ones.

Speaking at a news conference on Friday, he blamed the authorities for the failure to deal with the security issues and respond to Azerbaijan’s audacious actions.

His comments came after the news on the installation of Azeri checkpoints on the Goris-Kapan road section from Thursday midnight.

“The authorities say, ‘we have built a bypass road, it is a really good road and is of higher quality than the one where Azerbaijan has wedged in, it is safer and meets international standards.’ But what does the quality of the road have to do with what we are talking about? Apart from invading different parts of the Republic of Armenia and taking control of our important infrastructures, Azerbaijani forces pose a serious threat to our settlements,” the lawmaker stated.

Tigran Abrahamyan stressed that instead of preventing the Azerbaijani aggression or minimizing the security threats, the authorities are trying to legitimize the Azerbaijani provocations by claiming that the actions of Azerbaijan stem from the realities emerged after the war and are in accordance with the Soviet maps.

“The Armenian authorities have undertaken the role that Azerbaijan was supposed to play, i.e. they justify, legitimize Azerbaijan’s steps, further narrowing down our negotiation opportunities,” Abrahamyan said.