Category: 2021

Turkologist Varuzhan Geghamyan, co-founder of the Armenian Project NGO, says Azerbaijan’s anti-Armenian efforts do not always receive opposition from Armenia.

In a public post on Facebook, he said as an orientalist, he was invited to St. Petersburg on October 29 to participate in the 9th Eurasian Economic Perspective International Forum organized by the CIS Interparliamentary Assembly and to deliver a report.

His report on “Armenian Syunik as a window for the Eurasian Economic Union to the Middle East” was included in the thematic session of the forum “Development of International Transport Corridors in Greater Eurasia”.

“My task was to show the prospects of the North-South corridor running through Syunik and why it could be of significant importance for the whole EAEU organization as the shortest, most reliable and promising way to reach the Middle East region,” Geghamyan wrote on Facebook on Monday.

“Also, there were representatives from Azerbaijan, who diligently tried to promote the opening of the “Turkic/Zangazur corridor” through Syunik, as opposed to the North-South corridor, noting that its opening is beneficial first of all for Armenians.

“Naturally, they got the necessary counterattack from me. But it should be understood that now Azerbaijanis work on all possible platforms like this, and, unfortunately, do not always face opposition.

“As long as our state does not have a national authority, Armenia’s foreign policy should be promoted by us, the national civil society, using all available tools of public diplomacy. No one will promote our interests instead of us. And at the moment, Armenia’s interests require efforts to foil by all means the possibility of the capitulator’s granting of the corridor to the Turks and to contribute to the construction of the North-South corridor at a fast pace,” he said.

There are no positional changes on Mount Pela (Pailasar) in Syunik Province, Deputy Director of Armenia’s National Security Service (NSS) Aram Hakobyan told a briefing in the parliament on Monday.

“The commander of the border troops visited the area yesterday and answered all questions. There are no changes there,” the official said.

He also assured that the Goris-Kapan highway is “very safe”. “Yes, it is safe. I was there the day before; it is very safe. True, representatives of the neighboring state are stationed there, but Armenian citizens in general [are not stopped],” Hakobyan said.

Responding to a question about whether the Russian troops, that have allegedly left the height, provided any explanation, as well as the alerts that Armenian citizens’ cars are stopped, checked and hit by Azeris, the deputy NSS chief said: “I have no such information.”

Hakobyan snubbed other questions of reporters.

Two young men, K.S., 16, and A.P., 17, who are residents of Stepanakert, according to preliminary information, got lost in the forest belt near the village of Khnatsakh. The Crisis Management Center of Artsakh’s State Service of Emergency Situations was alerted about the incident at 8:09pm on Sunday, October 31.

The young men were athletes, who ran along a bypass road and then could not orientate themselves in the area because of fog, the State Service of Emergency Situations said in a statement.

Rescue squads and police units, led by Director of the State Service of Emergency Situations Mekhak Arzumanyan and Stepanakert Police Chief Boris Jalavyan, headed to the area to carry out search operations.

“Mobile communication was successfully established with the men at times, which was supposed to facilitate the search efforts, but because of the darkness and fog, they could not communicate their exact location,” the service said.

The search continued through the night in difficult geographical terrain, but the night searches yielded no results.

After nearly 15 hours of searching, the young men were found and brought to Stepanakert at 1:25pm on Monday.

It is also noted that their lives and health are not in danger.

Tigran Abrahamyan, an Armenian MP from the opposition With Honor faction and a member of the Standing Committee on Defense and Security, is convinced that the denial of access to the border positions for opposition lawmakers is “politically motivated”.

“While the defense minister was ‘explaining’ at a sitting held behind closed doors why I, as a member of the Standing Committee on Defense and Security, was not allowed to visit the border, it turned out that members of the committee representing the ruling faction had the opportunity to visit there last week,” Abrahamyan wrote on Facebook on Monday.

Since the minister gave explanations during a closed sitting, the MP considered it inexpedient to make the information public. He noted, however, that the “problems” mentioned by the minister imply that the “rules of the game should apply to everyone”.

“I was once again convinced that the opposition is denied access to the border, because such a political decision has been made ‘from above’,” Abrahamyan said.

The parliamentary faction of the opposition Armenia alliance on Monday held a meeting, chaired by the alliance leader, Robert Kocharyan.

They discussed the situation in the country, the activities, as well as the further strategy and tactics of the opposition faction, the bloc said in a statement.

“Issues related to the rally to be held in Liberty Square on November 9 were also discussed separately,” it noted.