12:35,
STEPANAKERT, AUGUST 22, ARMENPRESS. The 35-year-old man in Nagorno-Karabakh who was missing since Saturday has been found alive, Nagorno-Karabakh police said Tuesday.
The man was found safe and sound in a home in Martakert city.
Other details weren’t immediately available.
The UN Security Council meets to discuss Azerbaijan's blockade of Artsakh on Aug. 16
Official Yerevan said that it anticipates that the United States will play a role in resolving the humanitarian crisis in Artsakh, stemming from Azerbaijan’s more than eight-month blockade of the Lachin Corridor
Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan told reporters on Tuesday that the U.S. can play a role in advancing a resolution by the United Nations Security Council to resolve the crisis.
Mirzoyan’s was responding to a reporter’s question about media reports suggesting that the U.S. actively obstructed the adoption of a resolution by the UN Security Council after it held an emergency session last week to discuss the Artsakh crisis.
An overwhelming majority of the countries represented last week at the UN Security Council session called on Azerbaijan to end the blockade and ensure free movement along the Lachin Corridor. However, no tangible statement or resolution emerged from the meeting aside from declarations of support for the Armenia-Azerbaijan peace talks.
The U.S. joined the European Union, France, Russia, China and other states to firmly reject the blockade.
“I have to note that the UN Security Council emergency meeting, which was convened at the request of Armenia, was open, and not only Armenians but the entire world had the opportunity to hear the positions of participating countries, including the United States,” Mirzoyan told reporters.
“In instances where the world is witnessing Azerbaijan’s policy of ethnic cleansing against the people of Nagorno-Karabakh, I don’t think the United States would want to or plans to be part or contribute to a policy of ethnic cleansing in any way or form,” added Mirzoyan. “It would be difficult to imagine that.”
“I think and I hope that the US very well realizes the extent and the alarming pace of the humanitarian crisis in Nagorno-Karabakh, and also realizes that a possible resolution in the UN Security Council would come to resolve this situation and return the parties to the negotiations agenda,” Mirzoyan said.
Armenia’s Foreign Ministry on Monday downplayed the UN Security Council’s failure to formally demand an end to Azerbaijan’s blockade of Artsakh.
Foreign Ministry spokesperson Ani Badalyan told reporters in written comments that the format of the meeting did not “presuppose the adoption” of any such document.
“Besides, only the 15 (permanent and non-permanent) members of the UN Security Council have the right to draft UN Security Council resolutions and initiate voting. Armenia, not being a member of the UN Security Council, does not have such authority,” Badalyan added.
“The discussion at the UN Security Council provides an important platform, an opportunity to focus the attention of the international community on the possible catastrophic consequences of the situation, to activate the Council’s efforts to address it and to foster their possible coordination and to outline the further steps,” explained Badalyan.
She added that the Armenian foreign ministry will continue its efforts within the UN and other arenas.
“Today, the international community, the members of the UN Security Council interested in real, lasting stability in the region must take clear steps, unite efforts in order to lead the developed understanding regarding the importance of reopening the Lachin corridor and the immediate resolution of the problem with effective use of existing mechanisms,” Badalyan said.
21:20,
YEREVAN, AUGUST 23, ARMENPRESS. Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic Jan Lipavský has expressed concern for the humanitarian situation caused by the blockade of the Lachin Corridor.
“Good call with my Armenian colleague Ararat Mirzoyan. I expressed concern for the humanitarian situation caused by the blockade of the Lachin Corridor. Safety and freedom of movement there must be guaranteed. Dialogue between the parties involved is needed,” Lipavský posted on X.
Belgium's Foreign Minister Hadja Lahbib speaks in Yerevan in Aug. 22
Hadja Lahbib, the Belgian Foreign Minister visiting Yerevan on Tuesday, called on Azerbaijan to publicly recognize Armenia’s territorial integrity and voiced her country’s official position that the eight-month-long blockade of Artsakh must end.
“Our stance is the same both in Yerevan and Baku,” Lahbib told reporters during a press conference Yerevan with his Armenian counterpart Ararat Mirzoyan, when asked about what her message will be when she visits Baku.
“Belgium is deeply concerned about the tension caused by the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. The only way out of this conflict is the negotiations process and mutual concessions. During my upcoming visit to Azerbaijan, I will tell my Azerbaijani colleague that the agreements reached as part of the meetings in 2023 under the mediation of the President of the European Council Charles Michel have recorded positive progress,” said Lahbib.
“The leaders of the two countries have reciprocally recorded each other’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. I welcome the Armenian Prime Minister’s courageous statements pertaining to the path of peace. I also reiterate that the security and rights of the population must be guaranteed,” she added.
“We have welcomed the Armenian Prime Minister’s statement on publicly recognizing Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity and we call on the Azerbaijani authorities to do the same,” she said.
“What matters most for us is to overcome this deadlock, in order for the humanitarian situation to improve and the living conditions for the Armenian population in Nagorno-Karabakh to improve. This is part of the ceasefire agreement, and we call on Armenia and Azerbaijan to return to negotiations, be it in Washington or anywhere else,” said Lahbib.
“There are plenty of high-level negotiations. What’s lacking however, is the implementation [of agreements] on the ground,” the Belgian foreign minister said.
She added that during her meeting with Mirzoyan, the two emphasized the need for the presence of experts and commissions, who “will be able to end the animosity, will give the chance for real reconciliation and trust between the two peoples so that the two peoples living on both sides of the border get the opportunity to live in peace.”
The latest Armenia-Azerbaijan talks held in Brussels showed that a peace treaty is close and therefore the leaders of both countries must do everything in order for the Armenian and Azerbaijani people to live in peaceful conditions, Lahbib said, adding that her visit is aimed at supporting and encouraging more talks.
“Belgium is deeply concerned about the humanitarian situation in Nagorno-Karabakh, and its deterioration. The restriction of movement along Lachin Corridor is having serious consequences, causing serious dangers of famine and disease. During our meeting, representatives of the ICRC also stated that the life of residents in Nagorno-Karabakh is in danger, which is naturally unacceptable. Belgium fully shares the EU’s stance that ensuring the security of the population of Karabakh and free movement in Lachin Corridor is Azerbaijan’s obligation. Belgium will continue to be guided by this approach in is diplomatic contacts,” Lahbib said.
The Belgian foreign minister reiterated that position during a meeting with Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan later on Tuesday.
Earlier that day, she also visited Dzidzernagapert Armenian Genocide Memorial Complex.
Tuesday,
Karabakh Residents Escorted To Armenia
• Robert Zargarian
• Tigran Hovsepian
Armenia - A group of Karabakh residents arrive in Armenia, .
Azerbaijan has allowed several dozen residents of Nagorno-Karabakh to travel to
Armenia for the first time since tightening its blockade of the Lachin corridor
more than two months ago.
Forty-one Karabakh-born citizens of Russia as well as students enrolled in
Armenian universities were escorted by Russian peacekeepers on Monday to an
Azerbaijani checkpoint set up in the corridor in April before entering Armenia.
Another group of Karabakh Armenians passed through the checkpoint on Tuesday.
They included the 17-year-old Knar Khachatrian, who was recently admitted to
Yerevan State University.
“I expected the process of going through the checkpoint to be more complicated,
but it was actually easy and everything went well,” she told RFE/RL’s Armenian
Service after crossing into Armenia.
Many of the travellers were approached at the checkpoint by a large number of
journalists from state-controlled Azerbaijani media that portrayed their journey
as proof of Baku’s claims that Karabakh has not been cut off from the outside
world. Karabakh authorities accused Baku of manipulating those interviews for
propaganda purposes.
“The Azerbaijani side continues to create humiliating conditions at the illegal
checkpoint located near the Hakari bridge, in addition to its illegal
surveillance of and obstacles for the citizens of Artsakh,” read a statement
released by a Karabakh agency on Monday evening.
The authorities in Stepanakert argue that Azerbaijan keeps blocking commercial
and humanitarian traffic through the sole road connecting Karabakh to Armenia.
The blockade, compounded by the disruption of Armenia’s gas and electricity
supplies to Karabakh, has led to severe shortages of food, medicine, fuel and
other essential items in the Armenian-populated region.
Baku has also periodically banned the International Committee of the Red Cross
(ICRC) from transporting critically ill Karabakh residents to Armenian
hospitals. The medical evacuations continued on Tuesday, with the ICRC escorting
seven such patients to Armenia and transferring as many others back to Karabakh.
Meanwhile, the family of a young Karabakh woman who died in an August 13 road
accident in Armenia still awaited Azerbaijani permission to repatriate her body
through the ICRC. The Red Cross said it is continuing to discuss the matter with
Baku.
Tensions Rise Again On Armenian-Azeri Border
• Nane Sahakian
Armenia - An Armenian army post on the border with Azerbaijan.
One Armenian soldier has been killed and one Azerbaijani serviceman wounded in
fresh skirmishes reported from the Armenian-Azerbaijani border.
Armenia’s Defense Ministry said late on Monday that the soldier, Vanik
Ghazarian, died at an Armenian army outpost in eastern Gegharkunik province that
came under fire from across the border.
The mayor of the nearby village of Akhparadzor told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service
that he heard the sounds of gunfire late in the afternoon. He said there were no
signs of further shooting in that border area the following morning.
The Azerbaijani military said, meanwhile, that one of its soldiers was wounded
by Armenian forces on Tuesday. It did not specify where the incident occurred
while accusing Armenia of escalating tensions along the volatile border.
The Defense Ministry in Yerevan issued on Tuesday at least three statements
denying Armenian ceasefire violations alleged by the Azerbaijani side.
Tensions at various sections of the long border have run high in recent months
despite major progress reported in Armenian-Azerbaijani talks on a bilateral
peace treaty. According to Yerevan, one of the main remaining obstacles to such
a deal is Baku’s rejection of an Armenian proposal to use Soviet-era military
maps for delimiting and demarcating the frontier.
Fresh shooting incidents were also reported from the “line of contact” in and
around Nagorno-Karabakh. The authorities in Stepanakert on Tuesday accused
Azerbaijani troops of continuing to shoot at residents of a Karabakh village
trying to harvest their wheat.
The authorities report such incidents on a regular basis. They claim Azerbaijani
is deliberately trying to disrupt agricultural activity in Karabakh in an effort
to aggravate food shortages resulting from the Azerbaijani blockade of the
Lachin corridor. Baku claims that its troops only open fire to stop Karabakh
Armenian forces from fortifying their positions.
Azerbaijan Urged To Recognize Armenia’s Borders
• Astghik Bedevian
Armenia - Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan meets his Belgian
counterpart Hadja Lahbib in Yerevan, .
Belgian Foreign Minister Hadja Lahbib urged Azerbaijan to publicly recognize
Armenia’s borders when she visited Yerevan on Tuesday.
“We have welcomed the courage of [Armenian Prime Minister] Nikol Pashinian who
publicly recognized Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity, and we call on
Azerbaijan’s leadership to do the same,” she said after talks with her Armenian
counterpart Ararat Mirzoyan.
Mirzoyan reiterated Yerevan’s claims that Baku could lay claim to Armenian
territory even after Pashinian recognized Azerbaijani sovereignty over Karabakh
earlier this year.
“So far we have not heard public statements by Azerbaijan’s leadership
recognizing the territorial integrity of Armenia,” he told a joint news
conference with Lahbib. “We heard such words only during meetings held behind
closed doors, and we are very concerned about this. This may mean that
Azerbaijan has territorial claims to Armenia.”
Pashinian suggested earlier this month that Azerbaijan is seeking to sign the
kind of peace deal with Armenia that would not preclude such claims.
Pashinian’s most recent meeting with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev was
hosted in Brussels on July 12 by Charles Michel, a former Belgian prime minister
heading the European Union’s top decision-making body. Michel said after the
meeting that the two leaders reaffirmed their earlier “understanding that
Armenia’s territory covers 29,800 square kilometers and Azerbaijan’s 86,600
square kilometers.” Aliyev has still not publicly confirmed that.
Mirzoyan said that international mediators should make sure that Baku honors
Armenian-Azerbaijani understandings brokered by them. “Not only are
understandings not being respected but we are seeing opposite processes,” he
said, pointing to the continuing Azerbaijani blockade of the Lachin corridor.
Lahbib expressed serious concern over the worsening humanitarian situation in
Karabakh, warning of the risk of famine in the Armenian-populated region. “It is
incumbent on Azerbaijan to ensure the security of Karabakh’s population and free
traffic through the Lachin corridor,” she said.
Reposted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
Copyright (c) 2023 Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, Inc.
1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.
Residents of Armenian enclave believe Azerbaijan’s plan is clear: to starve them into submission
For every meal, Hovig Asmaryan eats potatoes. “We fry them. And then we boil them,” he said. “It’s a healthy lifestyle for me and my family. We consume vegetables, walk on foot and get around by bike. But it’s by force.”
In his home city of Stepanakert a barter system has sprung up. “We have a fruit tree in the garden. I give fruit to my neighbours. They pass us carrots,” he said.
Asmaryan lives in Nagorno-Karabakh, an Armenian enclave in the territory of Azerbaijan, in the South Caucasus. It is home to about 120,000 ethnic Armenians. Supplies of basic foodstuffs, medicines and fuel used to arrive by truck, dispatched from the Armenian capital, Yerevan, a bumpy five-hour journey along the mountainous and scenic Lachin corridor. Visiting relatives took the same route.
Last December, Azerbaijan blockaded the road, in effect putting the local Armenian population under siege. Red Cross vehicles were let through, and sick patients allowed out. But in April, Baku erected a new checkpoint, and on 14 June its guards blocked the road entirely after skirmishing with their Armenian counterparts on the Hakari Bridge, which spans the international border.
As a result Nagorno-Karabakh is now experiencing acute shortages. There is little food. Also lacking are essential medicines, hygiene products and baby formula, according to the International Committee for the Red Cross. Supermarkets are empty. Public bus services have stopped because of a lack of fuel. The city’s rush hour no longer exists. Many districts are without water and electricity.
Residents say Baku’s plan is clear: to starve them into submission so that, if and when the road reopens, they leave. It is, they say, a slow-motion genocide, with hunger used as a classic weapon. Azerbaijan denies there is any blockade and says it was forced to act after environmental violations. Its lawyers dismiss Armenia’s claims as unsubstantiated and inaccurate.
The crisis, however, is real. And it is getting worse. Asmaryan said he closed down his restaurant in February after he ran out of flour and other products. He has an orchard in a village with 3,000 trees. But with no petrol available he is unable to collect the fruit, with the harvest left to rot. “This has gone on for 245 days. They are trying to make the situation worse and worse. We are not giving up,” he said.
Asmaryan took the Guardian on an afternoon video tour of Stepanakert, the capital of what Armenians call the republic of Artsakh. The Z-supermarket was locked up, its shelves empty. The market and Nostalgia shop were shut too. One store was open. But its cabinets were out of stock, with nothing to buy apart from a toy car. “They will not be satisfied until we die in the streets,” he said.
“My mother and sister have lost weight,” said Lilit Shahverdyan, an Armenian journalist based in Yerevan, whose family live in Stepanakert. “They are eating cucumber with bread for breakfast. My father stored some food before the road was closed. It isn’t going to last for ever. There is a big question as to how people will survive after summer. The mood is depressed. They are expecting something bad, hoping for the best.”
Azerbaijan – a one-party state headed by the president, Ilham Aliyev – has offered to supply the breakaway region via a crossing at the nearby Azerbaijani city of Aghdam. Shahverdyan described this as a PR move and ploy to “integrate” Nagorno-Karabakh. “The local people built barricades across the road. They don’t want to take food from Azerbaijan. They fear it will be poisoned,” she said.
The distrust on both sides is deep-rooted. After the collapse of the Russian empire in 1917, Armenia and Azerbaijan both claimed Karabakh. It broke away from Azerbaijan in a war in the early 1990s. In 2020, Azerbaijan retook territory in and around the enclave after a second war that ended in a Russia-brokered ceasefire. Armenia’s prime minister, Nikol Pashinyan, renounced claims on the Armenians of Karabakh seceding from Azerbaijan but says their rights must be protected.
After his emphatic military victory Aliyev is in no mood to compromise and “believes he is on a roll”, Thomas de Waal, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Europe thinktank, argued this week. De Waal said: “Aliyev has used both diplomacy and coercion to try to complete his agenda vis-a-vis the Armenians. Already self-confident, as a non-aligned power that deals with both Russia and the west, he feels boosted by Russia’s war in Ukraine.”
Under the 2020 ceasefire agreement, Russia is supposed to ensure road transport between Armenia and Karabakh remains open, with its peacekeepers stationed at the border. Moscow’s failure to do so is “a sign of weakness”, Alissa de Carbonnel, deputy director at the International Crisis Group’s Europe and Central Asia programme, said. She added: “Russia is distracted. This may be one of the reasons why the [second] war happened in the first place.”
The UK, US and other western countries say they are deeply concerned by the worsening situation in Karabakh. They have urged Azerbaijan to reopen the Lachin corridor and to allow through humanitarian aid. The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, is trying to mediate between Baku and Yerevan. So is the European Council president, Charles Michel, who last month held the latest round of peace talks in Brussels between Aliyev and Pashinyan.
Russia has its own separate mediation track. “It’s been disastrous because we don’t have gas. We have electricity blackouts,” Armenia’s foreign minister, Ararat Mirzoyan, said on Wednesday after discussions with his Russian opposite number, Sergei Lavrov. Mirzoyan stressed the need to avert a “humanitarian disaster” there, Russia’s Tass state news agency reported.
While some diplomatic progress has been made, Azerbaijan has so far not heeded international pleas. It regards the conflict over Karabakh as an internal matter. In a speech in May, Aliyev suggested the Armenian population should “bend their necks” and accept absorption into Azerbaijan. In practical terms, that means dissolving the Artsakh government. Baku refuses to talk to the local Karabakhis and regards them as “separatists”.
This month, the former international criminal court chief prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo described the blockade as potentially constituting a “genocide” of Karabakh Armenians and intending “to starve” them. Rodney Dixon, a lawyer appointed by Azerbaijan to give an assessment on Ocampo’s opinion, called the view “strikingly” unsubstantiated, inflammatory and inaccurate.
Farhad Mammadov, the head of Baku’s Centre for Studies of the South Caucasus thinktank, told Reuters controls on the road were necessary to prevent the transit of “arms and Armenian soldiers” to and from Karabakh. About 5,000 Armenian soldiers are stationed there. They are not a part of current negotiations. If another Azerbaijani military operation begins many will fight, in what experts say would be a virtually suicidal battle.
Asmaryan said outsiders did not really care about Karabakh’s plight, since the beleaguered region had few natural resources.
“We don’t have gold. Or oil. Or gas. We have nothing that interests the west, or the east,” he said. “The world likes to talk about human rights. But it’s all the same shit. Excuse me for saying that so bluntly.” He added: “At the end of the day we are humans too.”
Three Armenian mothers tell of their struggles after eight months living under Azerbaijan’s restrictions
Mary Grigoryan’s day starts when the electricity is switched on, so she can heat up sugarless tea for her children’s breakfast.
Energy use in the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh, which has been at the centre of a brutal tug of war between Azerbaijan and Armenia for decades, is strictly rationed, and each neighbourhood receives power according to a rota. One day it might switch on at 7am; another day it might start at 9am or 11am. The gas supply was cut months ago.
After work as a paediatric surgeon at the under-resourced and understaffed local hospital, Grigoryan searches for food on her four-kilometre walk home. The lack of fuel means there is no public transport.
Dinner usually consists of one loaf of bread after waiting hours in the queue at bakeries, sometimes even coming away empty handed. Other times, it may be an overpriced kilogramme of potatoes, tomatoes, or parts of a watermelon – if Grigoryan is lucky – to share between herself, her two children and her husband.
“Sometimes I think I’m a bad parent because I haven’t stocked up on essential products, but we also try not to fixate on it,” Grigoryan, 42, told openDemocracy. “I hold explanatory conversations with [my children], explaining that we suffer all these deprivations for the right to live in our homeland.”
According to the office of Armenia’s human rights defender, there are tens of thousands of mothers living in Nagorno-Karabakh under Azerbaijan’s eight-month blockade struggling to feed and care for their children and family, let alone themselves.
Since 12 December 2022, Azerbaijan has been blocking the Lachin corridor – the sole road left connecting ethnic Armenian residents in Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia and the rest of the world. A trilateral agreement between Moscow, Baku, and Yerevan in November 2020 stipulates that the 5km corridor should be under the control of Russian peacekeeping forces.
Azerbaijan defeated Armenia in the Second Karabakh war in 2020, and the status of Armenians living in Nagorno-Karabakh – whose borders are internationally recognised as part of Azerbaijan – was left unresolved in the Russia-brokered statement.
The crisis under the blockade escalated when the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) – the only humanitarian aid organisation in the region – said Azerbaijani authorities had stopped it transporting food and medicine through the Lachin corridor or other routes where Russian peacekeepers had been deployed. Edem Wosornu, the UN humanitarian coordinator, confirmed the claim at an emergency United Nations Security Council (UNSC) meeting requested by Armenia on 16 August.
Mary Grigoryan’s day starts when the electricity is switched on, so she can heat up sugarless tea for her children’s breakfast.
Energy use in the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh, which has been at the centre of a brutal tug of war between Azerbaijan and Armenia for decades, is strictly rationed, and each neighbourhood receives power according to a rota. One day it might switch on at 7am; another day it might start at 9am or 11am. The gas supply was cut months ago.
After work as a paediatric surgeon at the under-resourced and understaffed local hospital, Grigoryan searches for food on her four-kilometre walk home. The lack of fuel means there is no public transport.
Dinner usually consists of one loaf of bread after waiting hours in the queue at bakeries, sometimes even coming away empty handed. Other times, it may be an overpriced kilogramme of potatoes, tomatoes, or parts of a watermelon – if Grigoryan is lucky – to share between herself, her two children and her husband.
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“Sometimes I think I’m a bad parent because I haven’t stocked up on essential products, but we also try not to fixate on it,” Grigoryan, 42, told openDemocracy. “I hold explanatory conversations with [my children], explaining that we suffer all these deprivations for the right to live in our homeland.”
A few containers of baby formula on otherwise empty shelves in a pharmacy in Stepanakert on 29 July 2023
|
Siranush Sargsyan
According to the office of Armenia’s human rights defender, there are tens of thousands of mothers living in Nagorno-Karabakh under Azerbaijan’s eight-month blockade struggling to feed and care for their children and family, let alone themselves.
Since 12 December 2022, Azerbaijan has been blocking the Lachin corridor – the sole road left connecting ethnic Armenian residents in Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia and the rest of the world. A trilateral agreement between Moscow, Baku, and Yerevan in November 2020 stipulates that the 5km corridor should be under the control of Russian peacekeeping forces.
Azerbaijan defeated Armenia in the Second Karabakh war in 2020, and the status of Armenians living in Nagorno-Karabakh – whose borders are internationally recognised as part of Azerbaijan – was left unresolved in the Russia-brokered statement.
The crisis under the blockade escalated when the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) – the only humanitarian aid organisation in the region – said Azerbaijani authorities had stopped it transporting food and medicine through the Lachin corridor or other routes where Russian peacekeepers had been deployed. Edem Wosornu, the UN humanitarian coordinator, confirmed the claim at an emergency United Nations Security Council (UNSC) meeting requested by Armenia on 16 August.
Baby formula is even more important than medicine
Vardan Tadevosyan, health minister of Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh)
Although the ICRC said it was continuing to evacuate patients from Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia for treatment, “several” dialysis patients are reportedly afraid to leave their homes after Azerbaijani authorities arrested a 68-year-old ICRC patient and evacuee on 29 July, Nagorno-Karabakh’s de facto health minister Vardan Tadevosyan told openDemocracy.
“All medical institutions are experiencing drug insufficiency, estimated at lower than 50%,” the office of the Artsakh/Nagorno-Karabakh human rights ombudsman said in a tweet on 18 August. “If this situation continues, the public health of Artsakh [the Armenian name for Nagorno-Karabakh] will experience a major collapse.”
The scarcity of fuel also poses serious problems for the medical sphere, Tadevosyan said: hospitals rely on diesel to run generators during power outages, and there are fewer ambulances available. The office of Armenia’s human rights defender said in a statement last week that a pregnant woman had suffered a miscarriage after there were no ambulances available to take her to hospital. The day before, a 40-year-old man in Stepanakert, the city capital, died as a result of “chronic malnutrition, protein, and energy deficiency”, the statement continued.
Additionally, Azerbaijani border control authorities have been blocking 19 trucks sent by Armenia containing more than 350 tonnes of food, medicine, hygiene products and other essential items since 26 July, according to the Armenian deputy foreign minister.
During the UN Security Council meeting last week, Armenia’s UN representative cited an expert opinion by the former chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, saying “there is a reasonable basis to believe that a genocide is being committed” as a result of the blockade.
Azerbaijan’s representative responded by “categorically rejecting all the unfounded and groundless allegations [of a] blockade or humanitarian crisis propagated by Armenia against my country”. Baku’s ambassador, Yashhar Aliyev, accused Armenia of engaging in a “provocative and irresponsible political campaign” to undermine Azerbaijan’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.
Meanwhile the Lachin corridor, despite international pressure and a binding order in February by the International Court of Justice to open it, remains closed.
My unborn child is a victim of these harsh conditions of siege
Ruzanna*, mother in blockaded Nagorno-Karabakh
Gayane Aydinyan, a 39-year-old school teacher and mother to triplets born during the eight-month blockade, is haunted by the fear that baby formula and diapers may become impossible to find.
“I can’t sleep,” she told openDemocracy. “I live with those thoughts 24 hours a day. What will we do if their formula runs out? We can’t feed them with anything else.”
Gayane Aydinyan (far left), mother of triplets born under the blockade in Nagorno-Karabakh.
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Gayane Aydinyan
Baby formula is in high demand and scarce, according to Tadevosyan, the health minister.
“[Formula] is even more important than medicine,” he said. “We are engaged in daily negotiations and continuous efforts to acquire these supplies.”
In hospitals, all surgery has stopped except life-saving operations, Tadevosyan added. And there are dire shortages of painkillers, blood pressure medication and cardiovascular drugs.
“One of the paediatric problems is the shortage of vaccines,” said Grigoryan, the paedriatric surgeon. “We are prescribing drugs that cannot be found in the hospitals.” The lack of insulin is also a major concern for child and adult patients with diabetes, said Tadevosyan, who fears children may face “significant health issues”.
As for Aydinyan’s two other children, aged 10 and 13, classes are about to start in September, despite the shortages of food, gas, and electricity.
“It’s difficult to find stationery and clothes for them,” said the history teacher, adding that sometimes she feels upset that she can’t focus on her older children as much.
“We try to be satisfied with what we have,” she said. “I don’t even think about the wishes of my older children. They help me a lot in taking care of the little ones.”
The eight-month blockade has increased levels of stress and malnutrition, leading to anaemia in more than 90% of pregnant women and a tripling of miscarriage rates, according to a statement by the Artsakh ministry of health.
Ruzanna* suffered her own miscarriage in July, seven months into the blockade. “My unborn child is a victim of these harsh conditions of siege,” she said.
She suspects the pains in her legs since her miscarriage are also linked to malnutrition and to her constant walking and standing in long lines for groceries.
Meanwhile, Ruzanna’s husband is in need of open heart surgery, but refuses to be evacuated by the ICRC. And her 15-year-old daughter hasn’t had a period in three months. Even if her menstrual cycle were to restart, there are no sanitary products available in pharmacies — people have resorted to using ripped pieces of cloth or stockings instead.
But the only place any of them could be fully examined and treated is in Yerevan – and they fear leaving their home in case they are unable to return.
“Every day it becomes increasingly challenging,” Ruzanna said. “The foremost concern is the question of security and survival.”
Editor's note: Siranush Sargsyan reported from her home in Stepanakert, Nagorno-Karabakh under the blockade. * Names have been changed for security reasons
On 16 August, the United Nations Security Council met to discuss the situation in the Karabakh region of Azerbaijan. Armenia had requested the meeting with a hope that the world body would adopt a resolution or issue a statement aimed at exerting pressure on Azerbaijan. This has been part of wider attempts of Armenia to garner international support to its policies vis-à-vis the peace process with its neighbor, in particular, concerning the future of the Karabakh region. To the disillusionment of the Armenian side, the Security Council did not adopt any document and as such ended with no outcome expected by the initiators. This meeting and its outcome (or lack of thereof) clearly demonstrated that there are at the moment no external solutions to the local disputes between Armenians and Azerbaijanis. Both sides, but primarily, the Armenian side that still hopes for an international intervention, should draw conclusions from this event.
First and foremost, it is of utmost urgency for Baku and Karabakh Armenians to start dialogue and talk to each other. The earlier attempts for such meetings have failed due to the refusal of the Armenian side to attend. It has been unclear why the representatives of the Karabakh Armenians refused to meet the Azerbaijani representatives as previously agreed in the Yevlakh city of Azerbaijan at the last moment. In a similar way, the reasons for their rejection of the internationally-supported arrangement for opening of the Agdam-Khankandi road and intensification of the passage through the Lachin road remained unclear to many observers.
This strategy of the Armenian side has been so far counterproductive and is likely to remain ineffective due to a number of reasons. Above all, the past three years since the end of the 2020 war, along with the developments along the Lachin road over the past several months, have demonstrated that the principle of territorial integrity is considered a paramount priority today. This has gained new momentum in the context of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which constituted a flagrant violation of the latter’s territorial integrity, among other reasons, under the pretext of protecting the Russian-speaking minority. Under these circumstances, the Armenian side’s attempts to advance self-determination or remedial secession claims, with the hope of garnering international support to separate the Karabakh region from Azerbaijan’s sovereignty, are unlikely to succeed.
Baku has made it clear that it is not ready to make compromises when it comes to matters of territorial integrity and national sovereignty. The withdrawal of Armenia’s armed forces from the Karabakh region, the dissolution of the illegal armed detachments of the separatist regime, the use of the Agdam-Khankandi road for the transportation of goods to the region and the restoration of full control of Baku over this area are part of the Azerbaijani demands. President Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan has recently stated his government’s plan to give municipal rights to the Armenian community of Karabakh. Thus, no autonomy or special rights are on the table.
Even though Armenia has acknowledged Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity, including Karabakh as a part of it, it contradicts Baku’s efforts to consolidate its sovereignty over that region and hinders the process of reintegrating the area into Azerbaijan’s legal and economic framework. These conflicting strategies pursued by the Armenian government have resulted in a deadlock in the broader peace negotiations, and the prospects of overcoming this impasse in the near future are becoming increasingly more challenging.
Complicating the process even more, some international actors encourage the Armenian side to hold firmly on their uncompromising position. As the Security Council discussions demonstrated, France comes atop in this list. Supporting Armenia’s propaganda campaigns concerning the so-called “blockade” of the Karabakh region, France becomes part of the problem, rather than solution. Disregarding the fact that Azerbaijan offers alternative routes to transport food, medicine and other goods to the Karabakh region and Baku’s readiness to intensify the passage along the Lachin road, France and the like-minded international actors undermine the efforts to resolve the present disputes within the international law and as such within the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan.
Hence, it can be assumed that this support by France and others has played a significant role in the decision of the separatist regime to reject the Yevlakh meeting and the simultaneous opening of both Agdam and Lachin roads. Quite the contrary, the Security Council discussions demonstrated that the hopes of the Armenian side for an international intervention, sanctions or other forms of pressure against Azerbaijan are unrealistic. Azerbaijan’s policies concerning its own territorial integrity are based on the norms and principles of international law. Consequently, the pursuit of external solutions to the local disputes between Baku and Yerevan not only hampers the progress of the peace process but also poses the risk of undermining any remaining chance for a peace treaty in the near future.
https://moderndiplomacy.eu/2023/08/22/there-are-no-external-solutions-to-the-local-disputes-in-karabakh/
According to the ministry, packages of investment and export opportunities of Iran’s free and special economic zones with a focus on the cooperation of the two countries as well as packages of investment and tourism capacities will be presented at the forum.
Import and export companies, tour organizers, producers of home appliances, cosmetics, textiles, automotive parts, LED lamps, greenhouse and agricultural equipment and insurance companies will attend the forum.
Back in April, the Kapan Cultural Center in Syunik province in southern Armenia hosted an exhibition that showcased features of Iran's free economic zones (FEZs).
High-ranking Iranian and Armenian officials and traders attended the exhibition.
In April 2012, a memorandum of understanding (MoU) was inked between Iran’s Aras Free Economic Zone and Armenia’s Meghri Free Trade Zone.