17:34,
YEREVAN, MARCH 22, ARMENPRESS. President Vahagn Khachaturyan had a meeting today with Ambassador of France to Armenia Anne Louyot, the Presidential Office said.
The French Ambassador congratulated Vahagn Khachaturyan on assuming office and reaffirmed the readiness of France to work jointly with Armenia, deepen and strengthen the bilateral relations.
The current agenda of the Armenian-French relations, as well as regional and international issues were discussed during the meeting.
18:18,
YEREVAN, MARCH 22, ARMENPRESS. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Armenia issued a statement on Azerbaijan’s actions aimed at creating a humanitarian crisis in Artsakh, noting that it considers inadmissible this outrageous policy of systematic violence against the Armenians of Artsakh, ARMENPRESS was informed from the MFA Armenia.
“With the obvious intervention of the Azerbaijani side, the supply of natural gas from Armenia to Nagorno Karabakh was again disrupted near the city of Shushi, in the area under Azerbaijani control. Thus, in the conditions of unprecedented snowfall and unprecedented cold weather, about 120,000 people of Nagorno Karabakh have been deprived of the necessary gas supply,” the statement reads.
Only a few days ago, Azerbaijan did not allow to carry out works for 8 days for repairing the gas pipeline that had crashed in the same area under unknown circumstances.
According to the MFA Armenia, in addition to its ongoing actions of exerting psychological pressure on the people of Nagorno Karabakh, preventing the entry of international humanitarian organizations into Nagorno-Karabakh, Azerbaijan deliberately disrupts the normal operation of vital infrastructure in Nagorno-Karabakh, which obviously leads to humanitarian crisis in Nagorno Karabakh. “We consider this outrageous policy of systematic violence against the Armenians of Artsakh inadmissible.
“The current situation makes urgent the clear response of the international community to prevent a humanitarian crisis, as well as the immediate and unhindered involvement of international humanitarian organizations in Nagorno Karabakh,” the Foreign Ministry of Armenia said.
18:50,
YEREVAN, 22 MARCH, ARMENPRESS. The European Union discusses the issue of imposing new sanctions on Russia on the occasion of continuation of military actions in Ukraine. As ARMENPRESS reports, according to Russian TASS, Secretary of State at the French Foreign Ministry Clément Beaune announced.
Earlier High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell had informed that the European Union is ready to impose new sanctions against Russia.
19:40,
YEREVAN, 22 MARCH, ARMENPRESS. The National Crisis Management Center received information on March 22, at 5:42 pm, that there is a bomb in the luggage of a plane conducting Moscow-Yerevan flight from Vnukovo airport. The plane landed at “Zvartnots” airport at 18:20.
As ARMENPRESS was informed from the Ministry of Emergency Situations, relevant divisions have arrived at the possible scene.
20:21,
YEREVAN, 22 MARCH, ARMENPRESS. No bomb was found on the plane conducting Moscow-Yerevan flight landing at Yerevan’s Zvartnots airport, ARMENPRESS was informed from the Ministry of Emergency Situations of Armenia.
The National Crisis Management Center received information on March 22, at 5:42 pm, that there is a bomb in the luggage of a plane conducting Moscow-Yerevan flight from Vnukovo airport. The plane landed at “Zvartnots” airport at 18:20.
As ARMENPRESS was informed from the Ministry of Emergency Situations, relevant divisions have arrived at the possible scene.
The Armenians of Ukraine’s Kramatorsk are gradually being evacuated from the city
20:41,
YEREVAN, 22 MARCH, ARMENPRESS. Armenians in the city of Kramatorsk in the Donetsk region of Ukraine are being gradually evacuated along with the rest of the population under fire, ARMENPRESS reports the representative of the Armenian community of Kramatorsk Vahe Mamikonyan told AnalitikaUA.net.
“All those representatives of the community who want to be evacuated are gradually being evacuated from the city to safer areas, but most of the community is still in the city. The authorities are making every effort to organize the evacuation,” Mamikonyan said.
Tuesday,
Yerevan Slams Baku Over ‘Humanitarian Crisis’ in Nagorno-Karabakh
• Naira Nalbandian
The Armenian Foreign Ministry building in Yerevan.
Official Yerevan has accused Baku of deliberately disrupting the normal
operation of vital infrastructure in Nagorno-Karabakh, which it said is “clearly
leading to a humanitarian crisis” in the region.
“We consider this outrageous policy of systematic violence against Armenians of
Nagorno-Karabakh to be unacceptable,” Armenia’s Foreign Ministry said in a
statement on Tuesday.
The statement followed reports by de-facto Armenian authorities in
Nagorno-Karabakh that natural gas supplies to the region had been cut by Baku in
an area where a pipeline from Armenia passes through Azerbaijani-controlled
territory.
Nagorno-Karabakh’s authorities said Azerbaijan was thus creating humanitarian
problems for the population of the region amid still freezing temperatures
despite early spring.
“The current situation necessitates a clear response from the international
community to prevent a humanitarian crisis, as well as immediate and unhindered
involvement of international humanitarian organizations in Nagorno-Karabakh,”
the Armenian Foreign Ministry added.
It said that disrupted gas supplies deprived about 120,000 people in
Nagorno-Karabakh of vital fuel in adverse weather conditions.
Gas supplies to Nagorno-Karabakh from Armenia were first disrupted on March 8
due to damage to the pipeline in Baku-controlled territory.
Stepanakert then accused Baku of not letting its maintenance workers to repair
the pipeline quickly and restore the supply of vital fuel used for heating homes
in Nagorno-Karabakh’s towns and villages as well as by bakeries and other
businesses around the region.
The issue was also reportedly discussed by Armenian officials at an
international level.
After 11 days of no gas supplies, the damaged pipeline was finally repaired on
March 18 and the flow of natural gas to Nagorno-Karabakh was restored the next
day.
But Nagorno-Karabakh’s authorities said late on March 21 that the gas delivery
was again discontinued “as a result of direct interference from the Azerbaijani
side.”
“We have sufficient grounds to assume that during the repairs of the gas
pipeline the Azerbaijani side installed a valve through which it stopped the gas
supply a few hours ago. Adverse weather conditions serve the insidious purpose
of Azerbaijan to create additional humanitarian problems for our population,
which is a crime,” Nagorno-Karabakh’s Information Headquarters said in a
statement last night.
It added that commanders of the Russian peacekeeping force deployed in
Nagorno-Karabakh had immediately been informed about the situation and that
efforts were underway to restore gas supply to the region.
Authorities of Nagorno-Karabakh urged local residents to use electricity
sparingly to avoid power outages.
Azerbaijan did not immediately comment on the situation or respond to
accusations from Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia.
Meanwhile, two opposition factions in the Armenian parliament, Hayastan and
Pativ Unem, initiated closed-door discussions today regarding the humanitarian
situation in Nagorno-Karabakh.
The ruling Civil Contract party agreed to hold the discussions, but did not take
part in the subsequent vote on an opposition-drafted resolution condemning
Baku’s “aggressive actions” against Nagorno-Karabakh that have resulted in “a
humanitarian disaster” in the region.
Leader of the party’s parliamentary faction Hayk Konjorian said that while Civil
Contract largely shares the positions expressed in the draft resolution, they
considered that “all diplomatic channels and instruments are being used now to
address these issues.”
“We think that there is a sufficient number of instruments at the moment to deal
with this issue,” he said.
Meanwhile, Armenia’s ombudsperson Kristine Grigorian and her Nagorno-Karabakh
counterpart Gegham Stepanian issued a joint statement, condemning Baku for using
gas supply as an instrument of pressure on Armenians in the region.
Nagorno-Karabakh, an autonomous region in Soviet Azerbaijan, has been claiming
its independence from Baku since the collapse of the Soviet Union and a
separatist war waged in the early 1990s that also led to ethnic Armenians’
making territorial gains inside Azerbaijan proper.
The standoff with Baku led to another war in 2020 as a result of which Baku
gained control of parts of Nagorno-Karabakh, as well as seven adjacent districts
that had been under Armenian control since 1994. Some 2,000 Russian troops were
deployed in the region to monitor the cease-fire following a Moscow-brokered
truce.
Armenians Accuse Azerbaijan Of Cutting Gas Supply To Nagorno-Karabakh
The view of the town of Stepanakert in Nagorno-Karabakh (file photo).
Ethnic Armenian authorities in Nagorno-Karabakh have accused Azerbaijan of
cutting natural gas supplies to the region and creating humanitarian problems
for its population in conditions of still freezing temperatures despite early
spring.
Gas supply to Nagorno-Karabakh from Armenia was first disrupted on March 8 due
to damage to a pipeline passing through Azerbaijan-controlled territory.
Stepanakert then accused Baku of not letting its maintenance workers to repair
the pipeline quickly and restore the supply of vital fuel used for heating homes
in Nagorno-Karabakh’s towns and villages as well as by bakeries and other
businesses around the region.
The issue was also reportedly discussed by Armenian officials at an
international level.
After 11 days of no gas supplies the damaged pipeline was finally repaired on
March 18 and the flow of natural gas to Nagorno-Karabakh was restored the next
day.
But Nagorno-Karabakh’s authorities said late on Monday that the gas delivery was
again discontinued “as a result of direct interference from the Azerbaijani
side.”
“We have sufficient grounds to assume that during the repairs of the gas
pipeline the Azerbaijani side installed a valve through which it stopped the gas
supply a few hours ago. Adverse weather conditions serve the insidious purpose
of Azerbaijan to create additional humanitarian problems for our population,
which is a crime,” Nagorno-Karabakh’s Information Headquarters said in a
statement.
It added that commanders of the Russian peacekeeping force deployed in
Nagorno-Karabakh had immediately been informed about the situation and that
efforts were underway to restore gas supply to the region.
Authorities of Nagorno-Karabakh urged local residents to use electricity
sparingly to avoid power outages.
Azerbaijan did not immediately comment on the situation or respond to
accusations from Nagorno-Karabakh.
Nagorno-Karabakh, an autonomous region in Soviet Azerbaijan, has been claiming
its independence from Baku since the collapse of the Soviet Union and a
separatist war waged in the early 1990s that also led to ethnic Armenians’
making territorial gains inside Azerbaijan proper.
The standoff with Baku led to another war in 2020 as a result of which Baku
gained control of parts of Nagorno-Karabakh, as well as seven adjacent districts
that had been under Armenian control since 1994. Some 2,000 Russian troops were
deployed in the region to monitor the cease-fire following a Moscow-brokered
truce.
Armenian Minister ‘Concerned’ Over Inflation Trends
• Narine Ghalechian
Armenia - A supermarket in Yerevan.
Armenia’s economy minister has expressed his concern over current inflation
trends, at the same time calling them a “global phenomenon.”
Talking to RFE/RL’s Armenian Service on Monday, Vahan Kerobian said that the
government is working on the creation of better conditions for the import of
certain types of goods, such as meat, sugar and rice, that he said would lead to
a certain decrease in the level of prices.
At the same time, the minister warned that a new global inflation wave is
expected this year that will also affect agricultural products.
Economy Minister Vahan Kerobian
Kerobian said that during the latest meeting of the Intergovernmental Council of
the Eurasian Economic Union, a Russia-led economic group of five post-Soviet
nations, including Armenia, a number of decisions were made and one of them
provides for the abolition of customs duties on a wide range of goods.
“This will significantly influence the cost of goods in terms of customs duties
and prices for some of them, including foodstuffs, will go down a little,”
Kerobian said.
In order to curb inflation, which stood at 6.5 percent in February, the Central
Bank of Armenia decided earlier this month to raise its benchmark interest rate
by 1.25 percentage points – to 9.25 percent.
Price increases appeared to accelerate in Armenia in March against the backdrop
of the ongoing war in Ukraine and Western sanctions imposed on Russia for
invading the country.
Citing regional and global spillovers from the Russia-Ukraine conflict, the
International Monetary Fund last week revised downwards its forecast for
Armenia’s economic growth from 4.5 percent to 1.5 percent this year.
Armenia’s Central Bank also sharply cut its initial annual GDP growth forecast
from 5.3 percent to 1.6 percent.
Still, the Armenian government expects annual inflation in Armenia to be within
the target range of 5.5 percent.
“We are very concerned about inflation trends, but one should take into account
that this is a global phenomenon,” Kerobian said.
At the same time, he said that at the moment there is a sufficient supply of
food in Armenia and that the government is doing everything possible to avoid
any disruptions of food supplies caused by the ongoing Russian-Ukrainian war.
Earlier in March there was some apparent panic buying in Armenia of foodstuffs
like flour, sugar and cooking oil. But the government urged the population not
to stock up on food staples, saying that they will not be in short supply
despite the fallout from Western sanctions against Russia.
Kerobian also said that in conditions of many Western goods no longer being
supplied to Russia, Armenian manufacturers may see a chance to expand to the
Russian market. But he warned: “Exports [to Russia] may increase, but
profitability will fall.”
Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
Copyright (c) 2022 Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, Inc.
1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.
ArmInfo. The Venice Commission welcomes the Armenian authorities’ intention to reform the judiciary. It also understands the motivation behind the preparation of the Draft Amendments, notably to free the judiciary of judges who, in the past, had committed serious human rights violations and thus undermined the general public trust in the judiciary.
The Venice Commission does not see the need for new preventive measures, as they already seem to exist in the current Judicial Code, which provides strong grounds to hold judges liable for the violation of human rights which take place in the future, according to the Joint Opinion of the Venice Commission and the CE Directorate General of Human Rights and Rule of Law.
The 18-page documents reads, in particular that “By letter of 16 December 2021, Mr Karen Andreasyan, Minister of Justice of Armenia, requested an opinion from the Venice Commission on the draft Laws on making amendments to the Constitutional Law on the Judicial Code and to the Constitutional Law on the Constitutional Court.”
The full version of the document is available here:
ArmInfo.The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Artsakh issued a statement in connection with the termination of gas supply. As the pres service of the Artsakh MFA reports, the statement reads, in part:
“In the evening of March 21, the Azerbaijani authorities again disrupted the gas supply to Artsakh, depriving its population of an important heating resource in extremely cold weather conditions. Azerbaijan’s behavior is humanitarian terrorism. It grossly violates the human rights, the norms and principles of international humanitarian law and does not fit into the norms of morality in any way. This heinous act is another demonstration of hatred and nationalism. The Foreign Ministry of the Republic of Artsakh strongly condemns the policy of Azerbaijan and appeals to the international community with an urgent request to give an adequate assessment of the situation. Azerbaijan’s misanthropic steps cannot affect the will and determination of the people of Artsakh. We will continue to live and create in our historical homeland, develop and strengthen our independent statehood,” they concluded.
It should be noted that late on the evening of March 21, it became known that the Azerbaijani side had cut off the gas supply to Artsakh. ” As a result of the direct intervention of the Azerbaijani side, the gas supply to the Artsakh Republic was again disrupted. We have sufficient grounds to claim that during the repair works of the gas pipeline exploded on March 8, the Azerbaijani side installed a valve, through which it disrupted the gas supply hours ago.
Azerbaijan uses the unfavorable weather conditions to create additional humanitarian problems for our population and makes a criminal action. The command of the Russian peacekeeping force stationed in Artsakh was immediately informed about the situation, together with which the Artsakh authorities are making appropriate efforts to restore gas supply. At the same time, we urge citizens to use electricity as sparingly as possible to avoid possible power outages,” the Artsakh Information Headquarters said in a statement.
ArmInfo.The geopolitical games in the South Caucasus are now being held with the involvement of Ukraine as well. And the main players, the centers of power and the countries of the region themselves, continue to play, maneuver and try to get preferences, each in their own field and within their own capabilities. Head of Caucasus Department of the CIS Institute, Military Expert Vladimir Evseev, expressed a similar opinion to ArmInfo.
“Baku, in particular, periodically tries to pedal and aggravate the situation with the deployment of the Russian peacekeeping contingent in Karabakh. Knowing full well that their deployment in itself guarantees the preservation of the unrecognized republic, Azerbaijan is extremely interested in their speedy withdrawal. We also understand that the allied Russia’s relations with Azerbaijan do not at all rule out the existence of significant problems,” he said.
In this light, the expert highlighted the provision of assistance to Ukraine by certain individuals from the administration of Ilham Aliyev. Noting Aliyev’s desire to put pressure on the Russian Federation at this very moment, when Moscow is busy with Ukraine, as quite understandable, Evseev stressed that Aliyev’s behavior cannot lead to any radical changes. The expert is convinced that Russia’s position is unchanged – peacekeepers will be in Artsakh as long as there are Armenians there. Commenting on another Caucasian case – the intensification of the process of normalizing relations between Armenia and Turkey, Evseev assumed that Ankara’s activity in relations with Yerevan may be due to its dissatisfaction with the agreement on allied cooperation signed by Azerbaijan and the Russian Federation. According to him, it is Baku’s attempts to balance between Moscow and Ankara that are the main motivator for the latter’s attempts to become more active in the Armenian direction. Of course, along the way, trying to weaken the military presence of the Russian Federation in the region, in particular, to remove from Armenia the 102nd RMB in Gyumri established to restrain Turkey.
“At the same time, I personally do not see any prospects for a real normalization of relations between Armenia and Turkey, the establishment of diplomatic relations, the opening of borders. Turkey’s hostile attitude towards Armenia will not disappear. Accordingly, everything that is happening today is nothing more than a forced imitation, just a process in which each of the players pursues hisher own goals. It should also be noted that, for example, the supply of Turkish weapons to Kiev can seriously affect its relations with Moscow. In particular, becoming the cause of a new round of tension in regions of mutual interest for Moscow and Ankara,” he stressed.
Commenting on the position of Armenia, Evseev characterized the prospect of Armenia’s movement to the West as an alternative to allied relations with the Russian Federation as extremely doubtful. In this light, he gave the example of Ukraine “abandoned by the Americans”, forced to try to cope with the situation solely on its own. According to the expert, the example of Ukraine for Armenia indicates only one thing: the United States and Europe will definitely not fight for Armenia and Armenians.