Category: 2023

By PanARMENIAN

Permanent Representative of Armenia to the UN, Mher Margaryan, in a letter addressed to the President of the UN Security Council, particularly stated:

“Further to the letter from the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Armenia addressed to the President of the Security Council dated 12 July 2023, I am writing in relation to the deterioration of the humanitarian situation as a result of the total blockade inflicted upon the civilian population of Nagorno-Karabakh.

“The severe shortage of essential goods, including food, medicine and fuel, has been exacerbated since June 15, 2023, when Azerbaijan fully blocked the Lachin corridor – the only road connecting Nagorno-Karabakh with Armenia and the outer world – by banning any access to Nagorno-Karabakh, even humanitarian. The continued deliberate obstruction of natural gas and electricity supply to Nagorno-Karabakh by Azerbaijan has been detrimental for the daily life of the people.

“The suspension of all humanitarian supplies coupled with the gradual utilization of limited domestic stocks, targeted shootings of agricultural areas by Azerbaijani Armed Forces, has resulted in an acute food shortage and closures of shops. Due to the lack of essential food and vitamins, approximately 2,000 pregnant women, around 30,000 children, 20,000 older persons, and 9,000 persons with disabilities are struggling to survive under conditions of malnutrition.

“People with chronic diseases, including 4,687 individuals with diabetes and 8,450 individuals with circulatory diseases, are left almost without any medicine needed. As a result of this situation there has been a recorded increase of mortality from several diseases, including cardiovascular diseases and malignant neoplasms. From January to July, compared to the same period of the previous year, the level of anemia among pregnant women under medical observation has reached around 90%. This is due to inadequate nutrition and the absence or insufficiency of appropriate medications. Moreover, the hot weather conditions and absence of sanitizers and medicine create risks of epidemics in the region.

“As a result, today the people of Nagorno-Karabakh are on the verge of a full-fledged humanitarian catastrophe.

“These actions of Azerbaijan constitute a flagrant violation not only of the Trilateral Statement of November 9, 2020 but also of international humanitarian law and are in direct breach of the Orders issued by the International Court of Justice on 22 February and 6 July 2023, according to which Azerbaijan should “take all measures to ensure unimpeded movement of persons, vehicles and cargo along the Lachin Corridor in both directions.”

“The deliberate creation of unbearable life conditions for the population is nothing but an act of mass atrocity targeting the indigenous people of Nagorno-Karabakh and forcing them to leave their homes and homeland. Such an infliction of collective punishment upon the people of Nagorno-Karabakh constitutes an existential threat to them should they be left alone vis-a-vis the Azerbaijani aggressive policy.

“Under current circumstances, the Government of Armenia requests the intervention of the UN Security Council as a principal body of safeguarding global security and preventing mass atrocities including war crimes, ethnic cleansing, crimes against humanity and genocide.

“With reference to my letter dated 13 September 2022 addressed to the President of the Security Council (S/2022/688), and in follow up to the meeting of the Security Council held on 20 December 2022, I would like to request that an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council be convened based on Article 35 (1) of the UN Charter.

“I also ask that the delegation of Armenia be allowed to participate in the Council’s meeting in accordance with the relevant provisions of the United Nations Charter and pursuant to rule 37 of the provisional rules of procedure of the Security Council.

“Please, accept, Excellency, the assurances of my highest consideration.”

https://www.eurasiareview.com/14082023-armenia-officially-requests-un-security-council-meeting/

A group of prominent Israelis, including academics, journalists, rabbis, artists, businessmen and activists, have written a letter appealing to President Isaac Herzog asking him to intervene in the humanitarian crisis unfolding in the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region between Azerbaijan and Armenia, according to Armenia’s Embassy to Israel.

The Nagorno-Karabakh region is home to around  120,000 residents, most of whom are of Armenian origin.

The region has been effectively under a siege by Azerbaijan for the past eight months, making it difficult to move essential goods such as food and medicine.

"The State of Israel has close ties with Azerbaijan, which is responsible for the situation in the region, and has the ability to promote the end of this crisis. By virtue of these ties, Israel also has a moral obligation to intervene and not stand by,” the letter to President Herzog stated.

President Herzog visited Azerbaijan earlier this year and met with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev to discuss strengthening ties between the two countries.

Azerbaijan, which borders Iran and has a Jewish population of about 20,000, maintains close strategic and economic ties with Israel.

Israel is a major exporter of arms to Azerbaijan, accounting for 69 percent of Azerbaijan’s major arms imports as of 2020, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.

After years of diplomatic dormancy, the U.S. has accelerated its efforts to facilitate a peace deal between Armenia and Azerbaijan. But short of ensuring a just peace, the only thing the Washington-backed talks appear to have produced is the emboldenment of Azerbaijan's aggression against Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh (known as Artsakh in Armenian).

After Azerbaijan abandoned decades of multilateral diplomacy to launch a devastating military assault on Artsakh in 2020, a ceasefire agreement was signed that ostensibly put an end to active hostilities. Despite this, Azerbaijan has pressed its military advantage against Armenia through the invasion and occupation of its sovereign territory and the imposition of a humanitarian blockade on the Lachin Corridor—the only humanitarian lifeline connecting Artsakh to Armenia.

For over eight months, the region's 120,000 Indigenous Armenians—who declared their independence in the early 1990s following escalating violence and ethnic cleansing by Azerbaijan—have been deprived access to food, medicine, fuel, electricity, and water in what is nothing less than genocide by attrition.

Against the backdrop of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, one might think the expansionist assault on a fledgling democracy by a corrupt authoritarian regime engaged in weaponizing food would have elicited a strong response from the international community. But the desire to maintain favorable relations with Azerbaijan given its role as a European energy partner has outweighed any purported commitment to upholding human rights—bolstering Azerbaijan's aggression.

The same week peace talks began in Washington, Baku tightened its blockade by establishing a military checkpoint at the Lachin Corridor. And when Washington-based talks resumed in June, Azerbaijan began shelling the region. In the months since, the International Committee of the Red Cross has been denied access to Karabakh—and later reported that an Armenian patient in its care had been abducted by Azerbaijani forces en route to Armenia for treatment.

This is the predictable consequence of Washington's insistence on negotiations amid Azerbaijan's blockade of Artsakh and occupation of Armenian territory. This has signaled to Baku that its strategy of coercive diplomacy is working, disincentivizing de-escalation, and forcing Armenia to negotiate with a gun to its head.

The Biden administration's approach to Azerbaijan could not stand more diametrically opposed to its strategy toward Russia's invasion of Ukraine. While Secretary of State Antony Blinken has vehemently maintained that there will be "nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine"—Washington has forced negotiations on Armenia with such recklessness that the Armenians in Artsakh have been denied a seat at the negotiating table.

Washington has also actively strengthened Azerbaijan's position by indicating support for Artsakh's integration into Azerbaijan. Given Azerbaijan's state-sponsored dehumanization of Armenians, the litany of human rights abuses perpetrated during and since the 2020 war, and its own disastrous domestic human rights record—it is impossible to imagine Armenians could ever live freely under Azerbaijan's rule.

For Azerbaijan, this disingenuous participation in negotiations has allowed it to uphold the veneer of cooperation while engaging in conduct that has immeasurably set back the prospects of a durable peace. And while Secretary Blinken and USAID Administrator Samantha Power have expressed their "deep concern for the deteriorating humanitarian conditions in Nagorno-Karabakh," Washington has refused to impose costs on Azerbaijan for its attempts to subjugate the Armenian people through starvation and force. Administrator Power, who once expressed regret for not doing more to recognize the Armenian genocide while in office, now risks being a bystander as a second Armenian genocide unfolds.

Washington isn't powerless to prevent ethnic cleansing. To deter Azerbaijan's aggression, it could enforce restrictions on security assistance to Azerbaijan pursuant to Section 907 of the FREEDOM Support Act—as then-candidate Joe Biden pledged to do while on the campaign trail. Despite this, the Biden administration has twice since waived those restrictions—as successive U.S. administrations have for the last 20 years—on the grounds that cutting military aid to Baku would undermine efforts to contain Russia and Iran.

Washington's approach to the South Caucasus has long been an afterthought of its Russia and Iran policy. The long-term ramifications of a peace that abandons a vulnerable community to the whims of their would-be oppressors is balanced against the illusory perception of Azerbaijan's support for the containment of Russia and Iran. In that calculation, Artsakh's Armenians are treated as little more than collateral damage.

But as Baku has repeatedly demonstrated, it has no qualms engaging with Moscow and Tehran at the West's expense. Azerbaijan has allowed Iranian and Russian entities to purchase major stakes in the natural gas field that supplies Europe—and recently purchased significant quantities of Russian gas to meet domestic demand amid unrealistic export commitments. Azerbaijan has effectively provided Russia and Iran a backdoor into Europe's energy market—a product of the misplaced belief that you can contain one corrupt authoritarian regime by appeasing others.

As Azerbaijan's blockade of Artsakh threatens the very existence of the region's Indigenous Armenians, it's clear the West's Faustian bargain with one of the world's most oppressive regimes has produced the very outcomes it sought to avoid. Now's the time for Secretary Blinken and Administrator Power to live up to their purported commitment to place human rights at the forefront of U.S. foreign policy, and make clear that authoritarianism will be confronted consistently—not only when convenient.

Alex Galitsky is program director of the Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA), the largest Armenian American grassroots advocacy organization in the United States.

Gev Iskajyan is executive director of the Armenian National Committee of Artsakh, and is currently based in Artsakh living under Azerbaijan's blockade.

The views expressed in this article are the writers' own.

https://www.newsweek.com/us-diplomacy-failing-armenia-opinion-1819248

ANKARA

Ankara "closely" follows the debates on the southern Caucasus’ Lachin road, understands Azerbaijan's "legitimate concerns," and expects Armenia to avoid "provocative steps," the Turkish Foreign Ministry said on Monday.

"Türkiye has been following the longstanding debates on the Lachin road closely and understands Azerbaijan's legitimate concerns on the issue.

"Unfortunately, these concerns that Azerbaijan has voiced loudly for a long time were not taken into account, and as a result, Azerbaijan took the measures it deems appropriate within the framework of its sovereign rights," the ministry said in a statement.

Azerbaijan has called on countries and international organizations that have made anti-Azerbaijani statements to respect its sovereignty and territorial integrity, especially concerning developments in Karabakh and the Lachin road, the only land route giving Armenia access to the Karabakh region.

Despite ongoing talks on a peace agreement following a war in 2020, tensions between Baku and Yerevan have risen in recent months concerning the Lachin road, as well as Azerbaijan’s establishment of a border checkpoint on the road.

There is no justification for the criticisms against Azerbaijan regarding the Lachin road, Türkiye said, as the ministry statement added that Baku is making "maximum efforts" in good faith with respect to humanitarian considerations, including medical transportation.

"Our expectation from Armenia is to avoid provocative steps, to recognize Azerbaijan's territorial integrity and sovereignty, to support the use of 'Agdam-Khankendi' and other alternative ways to meet the needs of the Armenian population in Karabakh, as well as to support efforts to reintegrate the Armenian population of Azerbaijan," the ministry said.

Türkiye believes that to ensure peace and stability in the region, the territorial integrity, sovereignty and humanitarian efforts of Azerbaijan should be supported and actions that aggravate the situation should be avoided, it added.

https://www.aa.com.tr/en/politics/turkiye-expects-armenia-to-avoid-provocative-steps-on-lachin-road/2967527