Category: 2022

ArmInfo.The Resistance Movement held a protest in front of the EU Delegation to Armenia, in Yerevan. 

The protesters were holding a big poster with the pictures of Head of  the EU Delegation to Armenia, Ambassador Andrea Wiktorin and the  former head of the Judicial Council of Armenia Gagik Jhangiryan.  The  protesters were also holding the photos of the Armenian servicemen  who are in captivity in Azerbaijan now. They were chanting "Armenia  without Nikol!"

One of the Resistance Movement leaders Aram Vardevanyan stated that  the poster is not a mere coincident:  it was Gagik Jhangiryan who was  behind the judicial reforms and arbitrary actions in the judicial  system, with Ms Wiktorin's tacit consent. In particular, she has no  so far voiced her opinion on the scandalous audio record of Mr  Jhangiryan's talk with the dismissed head of the Supreme Judicial  Council Ruben Vardazaryan. 

The opposition MP is indignant at the fact the EU Delegation is not  responding to the lawlessness inside Armenia and disregarding the  processes along the Armenian-Azerbaijani border. 

"Over a year and a half our nationals in captivity in Azerbaijan have  been tortured in Baku prisons. Does not Europe have anything to say?  Are these the values you are advocating? And what about human rights  and freedoms?" Mr Vardevanyan said. 

The opposition MP Gegham Manukyan drew the participants' attention to  the fact that the EU ambassador is silently witnessing human rights  violations in Armenia – political persecutions, "violence against  courts." 

ArmInfo.Negotiating the unblocking of transport communications, Ankara actually does not have such a goal at all. Turkologist Hakob Chakryan expressed this opinion to  ArmInfo.

"Even if these communications are eventually unblocked, this will not  benefit Armenia, which at best will get access to Azerbaijan and  beyond, but first of all Turkey, which will get direct access to  Central Asia, where it has long aspired to be 

But at the same time, according to the expert, the three well-known  Turkish preconditions of 30 years ago are fully preserved. During  these three decades, governments have changed in Turkey, but the  demands to refuse recognition of the Genocide, to force the people of  Artsakh to recognize the authority of Baku and their own borders also  remained. Only the formulations has changed, but the hostile policy  towards Armenia has remained," he said.  

On July 1, during the fourth meeting of the special representatives  of Armenia and Turkey – Ruben Rubinyan and Serdar Kilic in Vienna,  the parties agreed to open the land border for third-country  nationals and decided to start the necessary processes in this  direction. An agreement was also reached to establish Armenia-Turkey  air cargo transportation as soon as possible. In addition, other  possible measures were discussed to achieve the main goal, that is   the final settlement of relations without preconditions. Since  December last year, Vice Speaker of the Armenian Parliament Ruben  Rubinyan and former Turkish Ambassador to the United States Serdar  Kilic have held three more rounds of talks:  one in Moscow and two -  in Vienna.

Chakryan explains the absence of preconditions for Yerevan on the  part of Ankara in the ongoing negotiations on normalization with  Turkey's international obligations. Which does not at all prevent  Ankara from putting forward the same preconditions in the form of  periodic calls to Yerevan "to take a prudent position, from which the  entire region will benefit."

In reality, with such talk about peace and regional stability,  Turkey, according to the Turkologist, is only trying to indirectly  get involved in the process of normalizing relations between Armenia  and Azerbaijan.  The expert considers such a prospect completely  unacceptable, considering that the processes between Armenia, on the  one hand, and Turkey and Azerbaijan, on the other hand, should go  exclusively in parallel, without any contact. First of all, due to  the fact that before the signing of the peace treaty, Azerbaijan must  withdraw its troops from the territory of Armenia and return the  Armenian prisoners of war," the Turkologist summed up. 

ArmInfo.The leadership of Azerbaijan will comply with the judicial acts adopted by the ECHR and the International Court of Justice of the Hague only in the event of  a threat of application and the very application of political  sanctions. An expert in the field of international law, lawyer Ara  Ghazaryan, expressed a similar opinion to ArmInfo.

"Legal processes in these courts against Azerbaijan in order to  return Armenian prisoners of war to their homeland are ongoing. The  ECHR and the Hague court have already adopted interim decisions.  However, as a rule, their implementation requires a lot of time,  which is often measured even in years. It is impossible to do it  without legal processes, but it also makes no sense to pin hopes for  the return of our guys exclusively with them," he stressed.

According to official data, 38 Armenian servicemen are still being  held in Azerbaijani captivity. However, according to human rights  activists, in reality their number is much higher. Azerbaijan,  however, hides the real number of illegally detained Armenian  citizens.

Meanwhile, the lawyer believes that from a military-political point  of view, the process of returning Armenian citizens held captive by  Azerbaijan has reached a dead end. First of all, due to the fact that  Baku uses the issue of prisoners of war as a political lever to  extract concessions from Yerevan. According to Ghazaryan, Baku can be  forced to retreat from this position only by international sanctions.  Since in the conditions of their absence, Azerbaijan has considerable  opportunities for maneuvering in order to avoid the return of  Armenian prisoners of war.

At the same time, the lawyer noted that, if the judges of the ECHR or  the Hague Court would be willing they  may well force Baku to return  the Armenian prisoners to their homeland. According to him, this may  take place if the courts not only record in their verdict the fact of  a violation of human rights,  in this case, the rights of Armenian  prisoners of war by Azerbaijan, but also instruct this violation to  be immediately eliminated. Ghazaryan noted that international courts  take such steps very rarely.

"One way or another, the trials of Armenian prisoners in Baku are  false from the legal point of view and fabricated from beginning to  end. If only because they are accompanied by numerous violations of  human rights. The very fact of the absence of a public trial already  calls into question the entire legitimacy of trials against our guys.  Not to mention everything else. But Azerbaijan continues to break  this tragicomedy, using, among other things, its own political  resources. Thus, the effectiveness of legal processes in the cases of  our prisoners of war largely depends on political processes,"  Ghazaryan summed up.