Category: 2023

The situation since March 30 at the Tegh village section of Armenia needs a detailed examination, including evaluating our actions in terms of actions to protect that part of the state border from the beginning. This was stated by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan at Thursday’s Cabinet session of the Armenian government.

"At the same time, I must record that Azerbaijan's actions at that section are provocative and contradict the statements adopted at the meetings held on October 6, 2022 in Prague and on October 31, 2022 in Sochi.

"In terms of the political assessment of the border situation, I believe that the message disseminated by the EU the previous day, where the border line of 1991 is emphasized, is important. It’s about the administrative border that existed between the Armenian SSR and the Azerbaijan SSR, which was transformed into a state border on December 21, 1991 by the Almaty Declaration. That border line must be respected, the EU statement notes.

"It emphasizes the withdrawal of the armed forces of both sides from that border line to a safe distance as a reliable guarantee of the stability of the situation. Armenia is ready to go to such a measure along the entire border line of Armenia-Azerbaijan in 1991. We express our readiness in this regard since 2021, and such an action stems from the logic of the Prague quadrilateral and the Sochi trilateral agreements," said the Armenian PM.

He added, however, that such a solution is hindered by Azerbaijan's destructive approach.

"Azerbaijan systematically demonstrates its practice of not fulfilling the agreements reached on international platforms. This is the case with the issue of the release of [Armenian] captives, this is the case with the maintenance of the ceasefire regime and the non-use of force and the threat of force, on which the written agreement was reached on October 31, 2022 in Sochi, this is the case in the matter of the Lachin corridor’s illegal blockade, which Azerbaijan continues despite also the February 22 decision of the highest international court instance, the International Court of Justice. But in case of not fulfilling the court's decision, there are internationally defined mechanisms, and our efforts should be focused on the implementation of those mechanisms," the Armenian premier stressed.

As we reported earlier, the US Department of Commerce has imposed export restrictions on 28 legal entities from ten countries, including one company that is registered in Armenia.

According to the US Department of Commerce, the legal name of this sanctioned company from Armenia is Tako LLC, which is registered in Yerevan.

Tako LLC and the other 27 companies were placed on the US sanctions list because, according to US authorities, they continued to supply goods to Russian companies that are already on the aforesaid sanctions list.

It is also interesting that, according to the US Department of Commerce, Tako LLC underwent a name change and was previously called Taco LLC, which was under US sanctions back in September last year. Taco LLC is a partner of the Russian company Radioavtomatika (Radioautomatics) and, according to the US authorities, it provided financial and material support to this company.

In addition to Taco LLC, the Milur Electronics LLC, the Armenian subsidiary of the Russian Milandr company, was put on the US sanctions list earlier—in November of last year—with similar accusations.

New details have become known about the Azerbaijani who was found a few hours ago by the youth of Achanan village of Syunik Province, and who had crossed the border of Armenia with his friend and was being sought for three days.

It was found out that after killing the security guard of the maintenance station of the Zangezur Copper-Molybdenum Combine pipeline, this Azerbaijani had livestreamed on the smartphone of this security guard, and the respective video has already been disseminated.

At around 6:30pm on Wednesday, the police received a call from the Kapan city medical center, informing that an ambulance team was dispatched to the Zangezur Copper-Molybdenum Combine pipeline maintenance guard post in the Shgharshik-Banavan enlarged community, where they found a man's dead body.

And today, information was disseminated that the aforesaid murder was committed by the second Azerbaijani who infiltrated the settlements of the Sisian city of Armenia.

"They came through Nakhichevan, reached the mountain on the right side above Vahanavank, and the murder took place in Shgharshik settlement," said a source of 168.am.

According to this source, after committing the murder, this Azerbaijani took the smartphone of the murdered custodian of the Zangezur Copper-Molybdenum Combine, went livestream on that phone, threatened the Armenians, and left with no trouble. There are reports that he passed through Kovsakan to the Armenian territories occupied by Azerbaijan.

"I announce to the whole world. I swear in the name of the only God, in the name of the God who created us. We have come, arrived [in] Armenia. We shed the blood of Armenians. We have beheaded 400-500 Armenians. Even now we are still alive, we are not dead. God willing, we will not die. And even if we die, forgive our sins. We are not traitors to the motherland, we are the guardians of the dignity of the motherland," this Azerbaijani said in the livestream video.

It was this Azerbaijani who was caught near Kapan city a little while ago.

And Gor Abrahamyan, spokesperson of the Investigative Committee of Armenia, had written as follows on Facebook today: "At the moment, we have not received any information through investigation that the crime was committed by Azerbaijanis. If, beyond speculation, some people may have known, certain information about the perpetrators of the crime in general, then they can and are obligated to report [it] to the body conducting the proceedings."

According to the statement of the Ministry of Defense (MOD) of Armenia, on Monday between 1am and 2am, a serviceman of the armed forces of Azerbaijan was found and detained in the territory of Armenia. There was another soldier with him, and the search for him continued for three days.

Azerbaijani media, citing the MOD of that country, had reported the disappearance of two Azerbaijani servicemen. It was said that they had gotten lost in the direction of Nakhichevan due to bad weather and low visibility.

These Azerbaijanis were in Bnunis village of Syunik Province, and they had knocked on the door of a local resident’s house. The first detained Azerbaijani was found in Ashotavan village.

Local residents told that these Azerbaijanis had knocked on the door of a local resident’s house for a long time, the landlady had opened the door, seen masked soldiers, closed the door, and called the police. The Azerbaijani, who was caught by the locals, was in civilian clothes.

Bununis and Ashotavan villages are quite far, about 20km away, from the Azerbaijani positions,.

Armenian Prime Minister Pashinyan had stated in parliament Wednesday that according to the information they have, the second Azerbaijani soldier had said in the border village not long after crossing the border that he had regretted it and wanted to return.

In an interview with the Belgian newspaper Soir, the President of the European Council, Charles Michel, explained his activeness in the process toward normalizing relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan by the fact that he does not want to allow Russia to "dominate the region."

"I prefer to be blamed for overactive activity, not inactivity," added the head of the European Council, First News Channel of Armenia reports.

Replacing the Armenian army on the border with Azerbaijan with border guard troops should be part of the final settlement. Armenian Minister of Foreign Affairs Ararat Mirzoyan stated this during Thursday’s joint news conference with visiting OSCE Chairperson-in-Office and Foreign Minister of North Macedonia, Bujar Osmani. Mirzoyan noted this when asked whether Azerbaijan was changing its army with border guards, and what was connected with the recent infiltration of the Azerbaijani military into Armenia territory.

The Armenian FM noted that in all countries the functions of border protection are assigned to border guards, and there are many differences between the training and even the equipment of the army and the border guard troops.

According to Mirzoyan, handing over border protection to border guards will considerably reduce the probability of new conflicts, including infiltration.

"This is not a new idea. We have proposed before, and now the withdrawal of [army] troops [from the border] is being discussed. I will disclose the secret. This is part of the draft peace treaty [with Azerbaijan]—at least from our side. We attach importance to the introduction of that mechanism. There is such a mechanism in some parts of the border. Experience shows that the probability of clashes in those sectors is lower," said Mirzoyan.

At the same time, however, the Armenian FM recorded the continuation of aggressive rhetoric and policy by Azerbaijan.

The Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) foreign ministry issued a comment on the visit of a delegation of TURKSOY National Commissions for UNESCO to Artsakh’s Azerbaijani-occupied city of Shushi. The comment reads as follows:

We strongly condemn the visit of the delegation of the National Commissions for UNESCO of the member states of the International Organization of Turkic Culture to the occupied Armenian city of Shushi on 8 April. It is obvious that this illegal visit, as well as holding other similar events in the occupied Armenian city of Shushi, are aimed at legitimising by Azerbaijan and its allies the results of the aggressive war unleashed by Baku in 2020 and the illegal use of force against the Republic of Artsakh and its people. We emphasise again that the city of Shushi is an integral part of Artsakh, both in the territorial, cultural, economic and historical aspects.

The visit by the National Commissions for UNESCO to Shushi looks even more blasphemous and provocative against the backdrop of the illegal blockade of Artsakh that has been going on for 4 months now, as well as the systematic destruction of Armenian religious, historical and cultural monuments and the falsification of their identity in the territories that came under the control of the Azerbaijani armed forces, including in the ancient Armenian city of Shushi, and the persistent obstruction by the Azerbaijani authorities of sending a UNESCO assessment mission to Nagorno-Karabakh to conduct an inventory and assessment of the state of cultural heritage sites.

By such actions, the Azerbaijani authorities seek to obtain from representatives of individual states and international structures tacit approval of their criminal plans to carry out ethnic cleansing aimed at leaving Artsakh without Armenians and traces of the centuries-old Armenian presence. The abuse of kinship ties between countries and peoples to falsify history and promote their own political narratives is unacceptable and does not contribute to strengthening peace and mutual understanding among peoples.

In this regard, we remind once again that the ongoing acts of vandalism and desecration by Azerbaijan against Armenian churches and other cultural and religious monuments in Artsakh, including in the occupied Armenian city of Shushi, constitute gross violations of international law, as well as the Order of the International Court of Justice of 7 December 2021 on the indication of provisional measures.