Category: 2022

Armenia and Azerbaijan both fired toward the border between the two countries, both countries claimed over the weekend. 

The Azerbaijani Defense Ministry claimed that on Friday evening Armenian armed forces fired on Azerbaijani forces in the Kalbajar District, adding that Azerbaijani forces took “adequate retaliatory measures.”

The Armenian Defense Ministry denied the claims, calling it misinformation.

On Saturday, the Armenian Defense Ministry claimed that Azerbaijani forces fired on Armenian forces near the border, injuring an Armenian soldier. The Armenian forces carried out “retaliatory actions.”

The clashes come as Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev are set to meet in Brussels to continue peace talks on Sunday.

Two weeks ago, Armenia’s Defense Ministry claimed that Azerbaijani troops had fired at Armenian military positions and at the Sotk gold mine in eastern Armenia, injuring one miner. Azerbaijan’s Defense Ministry denied the report, calling it “false and disinformation.”

Earlier that week, the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry claimed that Armenian forces fired at Azerbaijani forces in the village of Zeylik, around 30 kilometers from the city of Ganga and nearly 40 kilometers from the border, adding that “adequate response measures” were taken by Azerbaijani forces. The Armenian Defense Ministry called the claim “misinformation.”

A week before that incident, Azerbaijan’s State Border Service claimed that a “sabotage group” of the Armenian Armed Forces attempted to infiltrate Azerbaijan and warned that it would take “more serious measures” if the incident was repeated.

In April, the Russian Defense Ministry said that Azerbaijani forces had repeatedly violated the ceasefire between Azerbaijan and Armenia in the Republic of Artsakh, a de facto republic internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan. In 2020, the area where the republic is situated was recaptured by Azerbaijan.

In March, Azerbaijani forces crossed the line of contact near the village of Parukh in the Republic of Artsakh, entering the village of Khramort. A day later, an Azerbaijani Bayraktar TB2 drone carried out strikes against forces belonging to Artsakh, killing three Armenian soldiers.

The Russian Defense Ministry issued a statement at the time saying that Azerbaijan had violated the ceasefire reached at the end of the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war by crossing the line of contact, sparking outrage from Azerbaijani officials.

On April 6, Armenia and Azerbaijan agreed to hold peace talks to address tensions over the Nagorno-Karabakh area.

In 2020, a slightly more than month-long war broke out between Azerbaijan and Armenia in the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh and nearby areas, ending with a new line of contact drawn and Russian peacekeepers deployed along the line. Sporadic clashes have been reported along the line since the war.

BRUSSELS, May 22 (Reuters) – The leaders of Azerbaijan and Armenia met on Sunday in Brussels to discuss a peace plan for Nagorno-Karabakh that has stoked a wave of protests in Yerevan over opposition claims that Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan is being too soft.

A simmering dispute over Nagorno-Karabakh between Armenia and Azerbaijan flared into a six-week war in 2020.

Azeri troops drove ethnic Armenian forces out of swathes of territory they had controlled since the 1990s in and around Nagorno-Karabakh before Russia brokered a ceasefire.

European Council President Charles Michel held bilateral talks with both Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Pashinyan before they had a trilateral meeting at which Karabakh was discussed.

Baku said Aliyev told Michel “that Azerbaijan had laid out five principles based on international law for the normalization of relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan and for the signing of a peace agreement.”

“The president expressed his hope that the process of drafting the peace agreement between the two countries would be accelerated,” the Azeri presidential office said in a statement.

Armenia’s Pashinyan discussed with Michel the situation around Nagorno-Karabakh, humanitarian issues and stressed the need to resolve them, the Armenian prime minister’s office said.

But Pashinyan is under pressure at home from opponents who say he mishandled the 2020 war and claim his recent public statements indicate he is giving up too much to Azerbaijan.

Pashinyan has faced a series of protests over recent weeks in Yerevan since he said the international community wanted Armenia to “lower the bar” on its claims to Nagorno-Karabakh.

The unrest also coincides with Russia’s war in Ukraine, which has prompted many former Soviet neighbours to reassess their own security just as Moscow is preoccupied with the biggest confrontation with the West for generations.

Anoush Baghdassarian is the recipient of the 2022 Andrew L. Kaufman Pro Bono Award. Graduating with an unprecedented 4,000 pro bono hours during her time at Harvard Law School, Baghdassarian is a stand-out student in the clinical and pro bono community, according to Harvard’s official website.

Having participated in a variety of clinics spanning international human rights to government lawyering, Baghdassarian’s résumé is a model of devotion to knowledge, advocacy, and selflessness.

The Andrew L. Kaufman Pro Bono Award is granted each year in honor of Professor Andrew Kaufman ’54, who has been instrumental in creating and supporting the Pro Bono Service Program at Harvard Law School. The award is given to a J.D. student in the graduating class who exemplifies the pro bono public spirit and an extraordinary commitment to improving and delivering high quality volunteer legal services to disadvantaged communities.

Anoush’s personal drive began long before arriving at Harvard Law; growing up, Baghdassarian’s connection to her Armenian heritage sparked her mission to address and prevent human rights violations. She founded Rerooted Archive, an archive collecting the testimonies of Syrian-Armenians to document the Armenian community of Syria before, during, and after the Syrian conflict.

“It has been a 100-year open wound that I felt so intensely that I began doing what I could to close it, and importantly, what I could to prevent other communities from suffering from the same affliction, the same impunity, the same ethical loneliness,” says Baghdassarian. “The intrinsic motivation to help heal these wounds has been my guiding star in each endeavor I have undertaken.”

After graduation, Baghdassarian will work at the International Criminal Court as a visiting professional through the support of the International Legal Studies fellowship.