Category: 2023

 11:02,

YEREVAN, MARCH 18, ARMENPRESS. A 4.8 magnitude earthquake occurred in Kahramanmaras province in the southeast of Turkey, ARMENPRESS reports, citing “RIA Novosti”, the European-Mediterranean Seismological Center (EMSC) reports.

There is no information yet on possible victims and injured.

On February 6, 7.7 and 7.6 magnitude earthquakes took place in Kahramanmaras province in the south-east of Turkey. The tremors were felt in 11 provinces of the country and neighboring states, including Syria. The Turkish authorities called the earthquake the “catastrophe of the century”, almost 48,000 people fell victim to the disaster in the country.

 11:39,

YEREVAN, MARCH 18, ARMENPRESS. The pre-election campaign for the president and the parliament started in Turkey on March 18, which will continue until May 13, when a “day of silence” will be announced.

ARMENPRESS reports, the presidential and parliamentary elections will take place on May 14. If the second round of the presidential election is necessary, it will take place on May 28.

The registration of candidates for the position of the country’s president will start on March 19 and will continue until March 23.

The incumbent President Recep Tayyip Erdogan will be nominated as a presidential candidate by the ruling “National Alliance”. His main opponent will be the leader of the opposition Republican People’s Party, Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu.

In order to win in the first round of elections, the presidential candidate must get more than 50% of the votes. Otherwise, a second round will take place, in which the two candidates who received the most votes in the first round will participate. The candidate who received the majority of votes in the second round is elected the president of Turkey for five years. The party or the alliance of parties that received more than 5% of the votes in the parliamentary elections can nominate a presidential candidate. Independent candidates must collect 100,000 signatures in their support.

The previous presidential elections were held on June 24, 2018. Erdogan won those elections with 52.6% of the votes.

 13:25,

YEREVAN, MARCH 18, ARMENPRESS. President of the National Assembly of Armenia Alen Simonyan received on March 18 Deputy Chairman of the Federation Council of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation Yuri Vorobyov, who is in Armenia to participate the 36th session of the inter-parliamentary commission on cooperation between the National Assembly of Armenia and the Russian Federal Assembly.

ARMENPRESS reports, it was recorded at the meeting that holding sessions of the inter-parliamentary commission in different regions and cities of Armenia and Russia has become a good tradition. it is a unique opportunity to get acquainted with the potential of the regions and to outline concrete steps.

The active cooperation between the legislative bodies of Armenia and Russia was particularly highlighted, the importance of holding sessions of inter-parliamentary and intergovernmental commissions was emphasized.

“I hope yesterday’s session was effective and its results will strengthen the strategic partnership and cooperation between Armenia and Russia,” said Alen Simonyan, referring to the meeting held yesterday and the signing of a memorandum of cooperation between the Tavush region of Armenia and the Krasnoyarsk region of the Russian Federation.

Regional security and other issues of mutual interest were discussed at the meeting.

Referring to the actions of official Baku, the President of the National Assembly noted. “In order to prevent the threat of a humanitarian disaster hanging over the people of Nagorno-Karabakh, in the context of the need for efforts to restore normal movement through the Lachin Corridor, I would like to specifically mention that we expect active steps and targeted statements from our international partners, and first of all, from the Russian Federation, whose peacekeeping troops are stationed in Nagorno-Karabakh.”

 14:57,

YEREVAN, MARCH 18, ARMENPRESS. Egypt and Turkey want to fully normalize relations, ARMENPRESS reports the Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry said.

“Egypt and Turkey have strong intentions to restore bilateral relations,” Shoukry said during a joint press conference with Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu in Cairo.

The Egyptian Foreign Minister added that Cairo and Ankara “have the political will to start the path of full normalization of relations” between the two countries.

 19:45,

YEREVAN, MARCH 18, ARMENPRESS. The Bulgaria-Serbia gas link will be launched on schedule in October, said caretaker Minister of Energy Rosen Hristov during the inspection of the progress of the activities for the construction of the gas interconnection near Dobroslavtsi village. According to him, the project is progressing on schedule, even slightly ahead. “We are absolutely sure that the project will be completed on time on the Bulgarian side and within the budget.” 

Minister Hristov pointed out that the capacity of the gas link is 1.8 billion cubic metres per year. A large-scale analysis of the gas market in Southeastern and Central Europe is currently being carried out with eight European countries in order for other countries to diversify their gas supplies, as Bulgaria has done, and is now ready to build an additional compressor station on the interconnector to increase its capacity to 3.2 bcm.

The project is being managed the same way as the construction of the Greece-Bulgaria interconnector, which has made it possible to catch up with the backlog. “All structures are working closely and we exchange information on a regular basis, so we are not only controlling but also supporting the process,” Minister Hristov added. He pointed out that there are currently no concerns about the completion of the project. The gas link will allow the flow to be reversed, i.e. Bulgaria can also buy gas from Serbia. However, the minister clarified that the interconnector is mainly planned to be used in the Bulgaria-Serbia direction, as the Serbian side is still dependent on Russian gas and they have reserved capacity at the Alexandroupolis terminal that Bulgaria is building. “This possibility of reverse supplies gives us an additional security in case we need to supply gas from Central Europe,” Rosen Hristov explained.

The construction of the interconnector was launched on February 1. The pipe will be almost 170 kilometres long, 62 kilometres of which are on the territory of Bulgaria. The interconnector starts from Novi Iskar and will connect to the Serbian gas pipeline network at the city of Nis.

 21:18,

YEREVAN, MARCH 18, ARMENPRESS. The Foreign Ministry of Armenia responded to the statements made by Azerbaijani president Ilham Aliyev on March 18.

ARMENPRESS reports, the statement of the MFA Armenia reads as follows,

“There will be no peace treaty” – this is a quote from the speech of the president of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev on .

Aliyev made this statement in the Talish village of Nagorno-Karabakh, which was depopulated as a result of the 44-day war.

In Talish, as well as in other regions depopulated as a result of the 44-day war, Azerbaijan is openly implementing resettlement programs in an attempt to eliminate the Armenian trace from the territories of Nagorno-Karabakh that have passed under its control. At the beginning of the 90s, Shahumyan region, Getashen sub-region, and other settlements with a large Armenian population also suffered a similar fate.

The above-mentioned actions of Azerbaijan are in direct contradiction to point 7 of the trilateral declaration of November 9, 2020, according to which internally displaced persons and refugees return to the Nagorno-Karabakh territory and adjacent regions under the supervision of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

With the policy of illegal resettlement and the practice of terrorizing the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh, official Baku is doing everything to make the fulfillment of the above-mentioned provision of the trilateral declaration impossible.

Azerbaijan is doing everything to make peace in the region impossible. The leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan adopted statements on October 6, 2022 in Prague and on October 31 in Sochi, according to which Armenia and Azerbaijan recognize each other’s territorial integrity and sovereignty based on the UN Charter and the Alma-Ata Declaration of 1991, and the delimitation process between the two countries should take place exclusively on this basis. Despite this, on March 18, the president of Azerbaijan again announced that the border delimitation should take place under the conditions set by Azerbaijan and has been continuously talking about some kind of historical maps for a long time.

Azerbaijan not only keeps under occupation the sovereign territories of the Republic of Armenia illegally seized on May 12 and November 17, 2021, and September 2022, but also introduced the so-called “Western Azerbaijan” discourse and declares practically the entire territory of the Republic of Armenia an Azerbaijani territory.

This is an open _expression_ of aspirations towards practically the entire sovereign territory of the Republic of Armenia. Azerbaijan also threatens Armenia if the latter does not submit to these aspirations.

Azerbaijan continues the gross violations of the trilateral and quadrilateral declarations adopted in various formats, and in practice there is not a single provision of these declarations that Azerbaijan has not violated, starting with the illegal closure of the Lachin Corridor, and continuing to keep Armenian prisoners, hostages, and other detained persons in illegal detention until today, and ending with obstructing the opening of regional communications with groundless “corridor” talk.

Moreover, the president of Azerbaijan has violated the commitment he made on February 18, 2023, which is about discussing the issue of the rights and guarantees with the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh.

Just a few weeks after that announcement, Azerbaijan announced that it is planning to discuss the issue of “integration of the Armenians of Karabakh”, while the statements made in Talish, the illegal blockade of the Lachin Corridor, the terrorist attack on March 5 prove that Azerbaijan intends to resolve the issue of the assimilation of the Armenians of Nagorno Karabakh at minimum, and Armenia’s alarms about official Baku’s preparations to subject the Nagorno-Karabakh Armenians to genocide should not be ignored by the international community.

In the discourse of the latest period, Azerbaijan found a new accusation against the Republic of Armenia, accusing it of being mono-ethnic and trying to create the impression that, unlike Armenia, Azerbaijan is a multi-ethnic country. According to the Constitution of the Republic of Armenia, 4 national minorities have a mandate in the highest legislative power of the country, while there is nothing like that in Azerbaijan, which considers itself multinational.

The assessment of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Armenia is unequivocal. With its aggressive rhetoric and actions, Azerbaijan sees preparations to subject the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh to genocide and launch a renewed aggression against Armenia.

In the existing situation, it is necessary to launch the international mechanisms for the prevention of genocides, send an international fact-finding mission to the Lachin Corridor and Nagorno-Karabakh, as well as to directly condemn Azerbaijan’s aggressive actions and policies. At the same time, the Republic of Armenia expresses its commitment to the peace agenda on the basis of the trilateral statements of November 9, 2020, January 11, 2021, October 31, 2022 and the quadrilateral statement of October 6, 2022″.