Friday,
Armenian Government Allocates Money For Snoop Dogg Concert In Yerevan
• Marine Khachatrian
U.S. singer Snoop Dogg
The Armenian government has allocated more than $5 million for the organization
of a concert of American rapper Snoop Dogg in Yerevan.
The concert is scheduled to be held at the Hrazdan Stadium in the Armenian
capital on September 23.
Up to 25,000 people are expected to attend the event that is also hoped to bring
more tourists to the South Caucasus country.
The first announcement of a possible Snoop Dogg concert in Yerevan was made by
chief of the prime minister’s office Arayik Harutiunian in late July. A document
appeared on the Internet shortly according to which more than $23 million would
be allocated from the state budget for concert programs.
The kind of state funding sparked a public debate in Armenia, with many
challenging the wisdom of such government spending.
The government stopped short of denying that some money would be allocated to a
private company for a rapper’s concert in Yerevan, but insisted that it would
not be anywhere near the claimed amount.
Observers note that concerts and visits to Armenia in recent years by such world
stars and celebrities as American rapper 50 Cent, Armenian American musician
Serj Tankian, Armenian American reality TV star Kim Kardashian and her former
rapper souse Kanye West have helped raise the country’s international visibility
and attract a greater number of tourists immediately as well as in the longer
run.
Calvin Cordozar Broadus Jr., a 51-year-old rapper and actor professionally known
as Snoop Dogg, has sold 35 million albums worldwide since 1992, remaining one of
the world’s most popular performers during the past three decades.
Moscow Paper Reveals Russian Offer On Access To Karabakh
• Hrach Melkumian
• Ruzanna Stepanian
An Azerbaijani checkpoint at the entrance to the Lachin corridor leading from
Armenia to Nagorno-Karabakh (file photo).
Citing an unnamed state official, Russia’s leading daily, Kommersant, wrote on
Friday that Moscow had proposed ending the current situation with the blocked
access to Nagorno-Karabakh by opening both the Agdam and Lachin roads.
The paper said the arrangement that both the Azerbaijani and Karabakh sides had
almost agreed to eventually did not go through, however.
According to the official “familiar with the regional situation”, Russian
Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov proposed opening the Agdam road first, through
which Red Cross vehicles would deliver what was necessary to Nagorno-Karabakh,
and a day later, according to Moscow’s proposal, the Lachin road would be opened.
“Such an option was brought to a high level of preparation,” said the unnamed
official who spoke to Kommersant.
But, according to him, the Karabakh Armenians first set a condition that Lachin
should be opened not one day later, but simultaneously and then demanded that
Azerbaijani goods should not be delivered through Agdam. The paper writes that
then a scandal related to Azerbaijan’s detention of a Karabakh resident at a
checkpoint in the Lachin corridor on charges of war crimes allegedly committed
during the early 1990s emerged and “the compromise did not happen.”
According to the official cited by Kommersant, Moscow assesses the situation as
serious and believes that Baku is not inclined to make concessions.
“All attempts to somehow calm the situation that are being made by us, Western
and international organizations lead to nowhere. Baku is not backing down,” the
official said, adding that the Karabakh authorities are also persistent, in
particular, in rejecting the option of using the Agdam road.
According to the Russian official, though, the Agdam road will be opened in any
case.
Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov said at a meeting with the head of
the Red Cross office in Baku on July 14 that Azerbaijan does not rule out the
possibility of “providing assistance” to meet the needs of Karabakh Armenians by
using the Agdam-Stepanakert road.
One day later, on July 15, after a meeting with Armenian Prime Minister Nikol
Pashinian and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev in Brussels, President of the
European Council Charles Michel said that as well as urging Aliyev to reopen the
Lachin corridor he “noted Azerbaijan’s willingness to equally provide
humanitarian supplies via Agdam.”
“I see both options as important and encouraged the humanitarian deliveries from
both sides to ensure the needs of the population are met,” he said.
Authorities in Stepanakert strongly rejected that option, insisting that the
Agdam road cannot be an alternative to the Lachin corridor, which, they stressed
should remain solely under the control of Russian peacekeepers in accordance
with the terms of the 2020 Moscow-brokered ceasefire agreement.
Commenting on the publication in the Russian newspaper, Artur Harutiunian, a
member of Nagorno-Karabakh’s parliament, stressed that alternative options could
become a subject of discussion only after the Lachin road gets to be operated
without interruption.
“We clearly say that we have a corridor under a signed document, the Lachin
corridor, which should work without interruption. After it works without
interruption, those alternative options are already issues to be discussed,” the
region’s lawmaker told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service.
Pashinian Warns Azerbaijan Against ‘Nullifying Historic Opportunity For Peace’
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian speaks at a weekly cabinet meeting (file
photo).
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian on Friday called for the lifting of
Azerbaijan’s current blockade of Nagorno-Karabakh, warning Baku against
“nullifying a historic opportunity for establishing peace.”
Speaking about the deepening humanitarian crisis in Nagorno-Karabakh brought on
by what Yerevan views as an illegal closure by Azerbaijan of the Lachin
corridor, the only road connecting Nagorno-Karabakh with Armenia, Pashinian
stressed that the Armenian-populated region haս been deprived of any commercial
shipments since last December as well as any humanitarian supplies since the
middle of June when Baku tightened its blockade at a checkpoint installed on the
road in April.
Pashinian said that a convoy of about two dozen trucks with about 400 tons of
humanitarian supplies, including flour, pasta, cooking oil, sugar, salt,
medicines and some other basic products, that the Armenian government sent to
Nagorno-Karabakh late last month still remains stranded in Armenia’s Syunik
province not far from the Lachin corridor as Azerbaijan refuses to allow its
passage.
He said there was no explanation to Azerbaijan’s banning humanitarian supplies
to Nagorno-Karabakh “if we do not consider it within the context of Azerbaijan’s
open policy of subjecting Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh to a genocide.”
“To be more precise, the ban on the entry of humanitarian cargoes to
Nagorno-Karabakh makes more trustworthy statements about the policy being
carried out by Azerbaijan on subjecting Nagorno-Karabakh Armenians to a
genocide,” the Armenian prime minister charged.
Pashinian said that there is a growing opinion among international experts that
“Azerbaijan’s policy on causing a humanitarian crisis in Nagorno-Karabakh by its
illegal blockade of the Lachin corridor can be regarded from the point of view
of the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime
of Genocide of December 9, 1948.”
Pashinian said that the humanitarian crisis in Nagorno-Karabakh caused by
Azerbaijan’s blockade of the Lachin corridor has deepened to the extent that
“greater efforts need to be taken in the direction of providing an international
legal assessment of the created situation.” He stressed that Azerbaijan
continues to fail to comply with the order by the Criminal Court of Justice to
restore “unimpeded” traffic through the Lachin corridor that was first issued in
February and then reaffirmed in July.
“The best solution to the current situation is the removal of Azerbaijan’s
illegal blockade of the Lachin corridor and the start of a dialogue between
Stepanakert and Baku within the framework of an international mechanism,”
Pashinian said.
“The Republic of Armenia, for its part, continues to reaffirm its commitment to
the peace agenda and calls on official Baku to refrain from steps nullifying a
historic opportunity for establishing peace,” the Armenian premier underscored.
Armenia and ethnic Armenian authorities in Nagorno-Karabakh view the Azerbaijani
checkpoint in the Lachin corridor as illegal as they accuse Baku of violating a
Moscow-brokered 2020 ceasefire agreement that places the vital route under the
control of Russian peacekeepers.
Azerbaijan’s de facto blockade has resulted in severe shortages of food,
medicine, and energy supply in Nagorno-Karabakh, which is home to about 120,000
ethnic Armenians.
Azerbaijan denies blockading Nagorno-Karabakh and offers an alternative route
for supplies via the town of Agdam, which is situated east of the region and is
controlled by Baku.
Ethnic Armenian authorities in Nagorno-Karabakh reject that offer, fearing that
it could be a prelude to the region’s absorption into Azerbaijan.
Armenia and Azerbaijan have been locked in a conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh for
decades. Some 30,000 people were killed in a war in the early 1990s that left
ethnic Armenians in control of the predominantly Armenian-populated region and
seven adjacent districts of Azerbaijan proper.
Decades of internationally mediated talks failed to result in a diplomatic
solution and the simmering conflict led to another war in 2020 in which nearly
7,000 soldiers were killed on both sides.
The 44-day war in which Azerbaijan regained all of the Armenian-controlled areas
outside of Nagorno-Karabakh as well as chunks of territory inside the Soviet-era
autonomous oblast proper ended with a Russia-brokered ceasefire under which
Moscow deployed about 2,000 troops to the region to serve as peacekeepers.
Tensions along the restive Armenian-Azerbaijani border and around
Nagorno-Karabakh leading to sporadic fighting and loss of life have persisted
despite the ceasefire and publicly stated willingness of the leaders of both
countries to work towards a negotiated peace.
Armenia To Raise Lachin Corridor Closure Issue At UN Security Council
• Nane Sahakian
An Armenian truck convoy carrying humanitarian aid to Nagorno-Karabakh stranded
near the Lachin corridor as Azerbaijan does not allow it to pass through its
checkpoint. Armenia, Syunik Province, July 27, 2023.
Armenia will raise the issue of the closed Lachin corridor at the United Nations
Security Council, the country’s Ambassador-at-Large Edmon Marukian said on
August 10, adding that related work is “in progress.”
“No one can say when, on what day, but the Republic of Armenia will raise this
issue at the UN Security Council. Why do I say that work is in progress? Because
without preparatory work, at least to the extent that we can hope that we can
expect a result for us, I think it is obvious that we cannot just fire this one
shot with a blank cartridge,” Marukian said in an interview with CivilNet, a
leading local news website.
In an August 8 urgent appeal to the international community on the situation in
Nagorno-Karabakh caused by Azerbaijan’s effective blockade the region’s ethnic
Armenian leader Arayik Harutiunian also asked Yerevan to immediately make the
situation a subject of discussion at the UN Security Council.
The Armenian Foreign Ministry has not yet officially responded to the appeal.
Marukian said that Armenia is working to ensure that none of the members of the
UN Security Council, especially its five permanent members -- the United States,
Russia, China, France, and the United Kingdom -- do not interfere with the
process.
Edmon Marukian
“In this sense, I would not compare it with the previous times, because this
time we are determined to go for a resolution. We have never been after a
resolution. That is, in this sense, it is very important that thorough work be
done, and we count on a UN Security Council resolution on the Lachin corridor.
We need at least 9 “for” votes, and in this regard, I believe that serious work
has been done, is being done and still needs to be done,” Armenia’s
ambassador-at-large said.
Marukian said that Azerbaijan is taking countermeasures against Armenia’s move
at the UN Security Council.
When asked which country unambiguously supports Armenia in this matter, Marukian
said that it would be wrong to give the name of any country now. “There is a
very important circumstance here that the process of adopting a resolution at
the UN Security Council is open and public. Previous negotiations, for example,
on an application, on the application of the chairman, were a different
procedure, and they contained discussions that are not public, not visible. In
this case, you will see which country will take which position,” he said.
Government critics in Armenia point out that Azerbaijan has further toughened
its policy towards Nagorno-Karabakh Armenians after the statements of Armenian
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian following last year’s meeting in Prague where he
recognized the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan, including Nagorno-Karabakh.
However, according to Marukian, a signed document, which is the November 9, 2020
ceasefire agreement in Nagorno-Karabakh signed by the leaders of Armenian,
Azerbaijan and Russia, has a higher legal force than a political statement.
“There is a tripartite document dated November 9 [2020], the presence of which
is recognized by us, Azerbaijan and Russia, that is, this document has not been
canceled, it exists, it is in force, its architecture in relation to
Nagorno-Karabakh has not been completely canceled, on its basis the
International Court of Justice adopted its interim decision. If we read this
decision, we’ll see that it is also built on the November 9 document, and thus
the international community gives force to the November 9 document. While in
previous discussions at the UN our international partners wanted to avoid
references to the November 9 document, how are they going to avoid it now, when
the court is building its interim decision on it? This document from November 9
[2020] is a valid document, and statements are statements of a political nature.
I repeat that a document has a higher legal force,” Marukian underscored.
Armenia and ethnic Armenian authorities in Nagorno-Karabakh accuse Azerbaijan of
violating the Moscow-brokered 2020 ceasefire agreement that places the Lachin
corridor, the only road connecting Nagorno-Karabakh with Armenia, under the
control of Russian peacekeepers. They insist, therefore, that the Azerbaijani
checkpoint installed there earlier this year is illegal.
The de facto blockade imposed by Azerbaijan has resulted in severe shortages of
food, medicine, and energy supply in Nagorno-Karabakh, which is home to about
120,000 ethnic Armenians.
Azerbaijan denies blockading Nagorno-Karabakh and offers an alternative route
for supplies via the town of Agdam, which is situated east of the region and
away from Armenia and is controlled by Baku. Ethnic Armenian authorities in
Nagorno-Karabakh reject that offer, fearing that it could be a prelude to the
absorption of what remains of the former autonomous oblast into Azerbaijan.
Reposted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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