23:44,
YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 11, ARMENPRESS. Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has described his phone call with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan as “substantial and useful.”
“The conversation with Erdogan was strictly official. I can say that the conversation was substantial and useful. There are a number of nuances, and it’s important for a constant conversation to take place around these nuances, positions and assessments,” PM Pashinyan said in an interview with Public Television on Monday.
23:36,
YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 11, ARMENPRESS. Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has said that the first phone call he had on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border tension was with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“Actually, my first phone call was with the Russian President,” Pashinyan said during an interview with Public Television when asked why he didn’t call President Putin on Saturday but instead held calls with leaders of other regional countries. “He [Putin] is certainly aware of the situation, the Lachin Corridor has been blockaded since December last year, and since then I’ve had dozens of conversations with the Russian President. Unfortunately, the situation hasn’t changed since our last conversation,” Pashinyan said.
The Armenian PM said the purpose of all phone calls was to inform his counterparts about certain nuances which they were unaware of.
On September 9, Pashinyan spoke by phone with French President Emmanuel Macron, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili, President of Iran Ebrahim Raisi and Chancellor of Germany Olaf Scholz.
09:57,
YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 12, ARMENPRESS. An Airbus A320 en route from Sochi to Omsk declared a mid-flight emergency on Tuesday morning and was redirected to an alternate airfield in Novosibirsk, but failed to reach it, RT reported citing emergency services.
The aircraft operated by Ural Airlines, with 159 passengers, including 23 children, and 6 crew members on board was forced to perform an emergency landing in a field 180km away from Novosibirsk International Airport. The incident was reportedly caused by a hydraulics malfunction, according to preliminary reports.
Early reports noted that none of the passengers or crew suffered any serious injuries. The authorities said the aircraft remained in one piece upon landing, there was no fire on board, and that everyone safely evacuated the plane using emergency slides.
The Russian aviation authorities have launched a probe into the circumstances of the incident, according to RT.
In 2019, another Ural Airlines plane performed a similar miracle landing in a cornfield near Moscow, after the airliner hit a flock of birds upon takeoff. Having no time to dump its fuel, the pilots decided to land the heavy-loaded aircraft with its wheels up, and the crew managed to safely evacuate all 226 passengers.
09:36,
STEPANAKERT, SEPTEMBER 12, ARMENPRESS/ARTSAKHPRESS. A truck carrying Russian humanitarian aid for Nagorno-Karabakh has reached Stepanakert through the Akna (Aghdam)-Askeran road, ARTSAKHPRESS reported.
ARTSAKHPRESS quoted Askeran mayor Hayk Shamiryan as saying that concerned citizens who had gathered near the Tank Memorial initially protested and did not allow passage to the vehicle, but eventually agreed. The Russian Red Cross vehicle carrying the aid then reached Stepanakert with police escort.
10:48,
YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 12, ARMENPRESS. The humanitarian aid sent to Nagorno-Karabakh by the Russian Red Cross contains essential goods of Russian production, the Nagorno-Karabakh authorities said Tuesday.
“As previously announced, the Russian government initiated the provision of humanitarian aid to the Republic of Artsakh. Today, on September 12, the humanitarian cargo entered the Republic of Artsakh through the town of Askeran, with the permission of the republic’s authorities, through the Russian Red Cross and on board the vehicles of that organization. The aid contains Russian-made essential products,” the official InfoCenter of Nagorno-Karabakh said in a statement, adding that the Nagorno-Karabakh Public Television will report more details.
10:59,
YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 12, ARMENPRESS. The U.S. is deeply concerned about the rapidly deteriorating humanitarian situation in Nagorno-Karabakh, U.S. State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said at the September 11 press briefing.
“We are deeply concerned about the rapidly deteriorating humanitarian situation in Nagorno-Karabakh. We repeat our call, as the Secretary did in a statement over the weekend, for the immediate and simultaneous opening of the Lachin and Aghdam routes to allow passage of desperately needed humanitarian supplies to the men and women and children in Nagorno-Karabakh. We urge the leaders, as the Secretary did in his calls, against taking any actions that raise tensions or distract from this goal. And I will say, in addition, we have consistently stressed this need for open – to open routes in Nagorno-Karabakh and for a dialogue between the parties. While it is important that Nagorno-Karabakh have credible representatives for this process, as we have said in the past, we do not recognize Nagorno-Karabakh as an independent and sovereign state, and therefore we do not recognize the results of those so-called presidential elections that were announced over the last few days. So, I will say that the United States will continue to strongly support efforts by Armenia and Azerbaijan to resolve outstanding issues through direct dialogue, and that’s why Secretary Blinken and Senior Advisor for Caucasus Negotiations Lou Bono have been consistently engaged, and we will stay consistently engaged on this question,” Miller said.
11:37,
YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 12, ARMENPRESS. The international community and mediators should demand from Azerbaijan to take adequate steps in response to Armenia’s steps of confidence building, Ambassador-at-Large Edmon Marukyan has said.
“The lack of confidence between Armenia and Azerbaijan is a fundamental problem and it must be solved in order to reach any meaningful results in the peace process. I can confidently state that during the last two years, the Prime Minister of Armenia has taken all possible and seemingly impossible steps to build confidence in peace talks in order to achieve long-lasting peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan,” Marukyan said in a post on X.
“In response to all those steps, Azerbaijan continued to keep prisoners of war and other civilians in its prisons, abducted new hostages from the territory of Armenia and the Lachin Corridor, did not withdraw its troops from the sovereign territories of Armenia, attacking it periodically, killing and wounding more people… keeps the communications blocked, torpedoes delimitation process of state borders, besieges and starves 120,000 people of Nagorno-Karabakh, rejects talks between Baku and Stepanakert under international mechanisms. All this has undermined and continues to damage the peace process, as well as the efforts of all mediators invested in it. Now, in addition to all of that, Azerbaijan has concentrated its troops along the contact line of Nagorno-Karabakh and the sovereign territory of Armenia, and focused all its state propaganda to war talks, threatening the fragile regional peace. In order to return the peace process to its comprehensible stage, the international community and mediators should demand from Azerbaijan to take adequate steps in response to Armenia’s steps of confidence building. As a result of this, Azerbaijan shall stop the blockade of Nagorno Karabakh, start talks with the representatives of Nagorno Karabakh within the framework of the international mechanism that will guarantee the rights and security of its people, shall withdraw its armed forces from the sovereign territory of Armenia, release all prisoners of war and other detained persons from Azerbaijani prisons, shall begin the process of delimitation and demarcation based on the map of 1975, and unblock all transport communications based on the sovereignty of the parties and national legislation. These are the minimum steps that can build confidence for bringing long-lasting peace in the region,” he added.
11:15,
YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 12, ARMENPRESS. The Armenian parliament on Tuesday ratified the Protocol N. 13 to the Council of Europe Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, Concerning the Abolition of the Death Penalty in All Circumstances.
The protocol was ratified with 87 votes in favor and 7 abstentions.
Deputy Minister of Justice Karen Karapetyan told lawmakers earlier on Monday that the protocol was signed by Armenia in 2006 but hasn’t been ratified since. “Whereas, this protocol is one of the unique international documents for which every year, as part of the universal campaign for abolition of death penalty, the Council of Europe Committee of Ministers is making written inquiries to Council of Europe member countries who haven’t ratified it, to clarify the reasons for delay,” he said.
“The ratification of the protocol is in line with Armenia’s policy as a country that is in favor of full abolition of death penalty. Moreover, death penalty is already prohibited by the Armenian constitution. The number 13 protocol is in line with the international obligations already assumed by Armenia,” Karapetyan added.
11:58,
YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 12, ARMENPRESS. The Azerbaijani authorities have generated more disinformation falsely accusing the Armenian military of opening cross-border fire, the Armenian Ministry of Defense warned Tuesday.
“The statement disseminated by the Ministry of Defense of Azerbaijan as if on September 12, from 9:45 a.m. to 10 a.m., the Armenian Armed Forces units opened fire at the Azerbaijani combat outposts in the southwestern part of the border, does not correspond to reality,” the Armenian Ministry of Defense said in a statement.
11:47,
YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 12, ARMENPRESS. U.S. Senate Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Bob Menendez warned U.S. lawmakers that Azerbaijan's blockade of Nagorno-Karabakh has all the hallmarks of genocide and pledged to hold Azerbaijan accountable.
The Senator called on the Biden Administration to enforce Section 907 and stop all security assistance to Azerbaijan. He went on to call for sanctions against the Aliyev regime for war crimes and ethnic cleansing.
"To the men organizing and carrying out this brutal campaign, we will hold you accountable for your crimes, even if it takes a lifetime – you will pay a price, you will face justice – and I certainly will not rest until you do so,” Menendez said in the U.S. Senate.
The Lachin Corridor, the only road connecting Nagorno-Karabakh, which is home to 120,000 Armenians, to Armenia and the rest of the world, has been blocked by Azerbaijan since late 2022.
The Azerbaijani blockade constitutes a gross violation of the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh ceasefire agreement, which established that the 5km-wide Lachin Corridor shall be under the control of Russian peacekeepers. Furthermore, on February 22, 2023 the United Nations’ highest court – the International Court of Justice (ICJ) – ordered Azerbaijan to “take all steps at its disposal” to ensure unimpeded movement of persons, vehicles and cargo along the Lachin Corridor in both directions. Azerbaijan has been ignoring the order ever since. The ICJ reaffirmed its order on 6 July 2023.
Azerbaijan then illegally installed a checkpoint on Lachin Corridor.
Many experts and officials have said that the Azeri actions constitute genocide.