Azerbaijan will allow aid into Karabakh from Armenia if aid from its side is let in, official says

Antranik Varosian
Sept 8 2023
Reuters

Azerbaijan is ready to allow Red Cross aid from Armenia into the ethnic Armenian Nagorno-Karabakh enclave if Red Crescent aid from Azerbaijan is let in at the same time, Hikmet Hajiyev, foreign policy adviser to President Ilham Aliyev, told Reuters. Nagorno-Karabakh, internationally recognised as part of Azerbaijan but run by ethnic Armenian authorities, is at the centre of a rancorous stand-off, with Azerbaijan restricting movement along the only road to it from Armenia to thwart what it says is arms smuggling.

Armenia says what it calls a blockade of the “Lachin corridor”, known as “the road of life” by ethnic Armenians in Karabakh, has caused acute shortages of food, medicines and other essentials. Baku says it has let the Red Cross evacuate people to Armenia for medical treatment and that its own information shows there is no shortage of basic food staples, but it has not allowed food and other supplies in for some time.

Hajiyev said in an interview on Thursday that Azerbaijan was now ready to let the Red Cross bring in humanitarian aid on condition that the Red Crescent also be allowed to bring in aid, on a different road from Azerbaijan. He said the two roads – the Lachin corridor and the Aghdam road – could be opened to aid simultaneously as part of a pilot scheme that could defuse tensions and spur long-running peace talks between Baku and Yerevan.

The idea had been discussed in a phone call between President Aliyev and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Sept. 1, he said. “There was a suggestion for the simultaneous opening of the roads and Azerbaijan agreed and immediately agreed,” said Hajiyev, saying that part of the Aghdam road had been obstructed with concrete blocks by Karabakh’s ethnic Armenian authorities.

“Now one week has passed since the telephone call with Secretary Blinken and there is no movement.” Yuri Kim, acting assistant secretary of state for the United States, spoke on Thursday of “progress toward immediately & simultaneously opening Lachin and other routes to get humanitarian supplies into Nagorno-Karabakh”.

“Opening routes and direct talks are key to resolving outstanding issues,” Kim said on X. Ruben Vardanyan, a billionaire banker who was a top official in Karabakh’s ethnic Armenian administration until February, said Azerbaijan was wrong to try to attach preconditions to allowing aid to pass through the Lachin corridor.

Vardanyan, who has accused Baku of trying to “ethnically cleanse” the enclave by choking off supplies to it – something it denies – said a Russian-brokered 2020 ceasefire deal signed by Azerbaijan after a short war was meant to ensure that the Lachin corridor remained open to Armenia. “Their President signed a trilateral ceasefire statement on November 9th (2020) and took responsibility for providing a corridor for uninterrupted connection,” Vardanyan said on X on Wednesday.

“However, they now refuse to implement that commitment and are attempting to impose new preconditions for opening the Lachin Corridor.”

https://www.devdiscourse.com/article/health/2586636-azerbaijan-will-allow-aid-into-karabakh-from-armenia-if-aid-from-its-side-is-let-in-official-says

Armenians alarmed by reports of Azerbaijani military buildup

Antonian Lara
Eurasianet
Sept 8 2023
Lilit Shahverdyan Sep 8, 2023

Over the past few days, footage has circulated across Azerbaijani social media appearing to show increased movement of Azerbaijani troops around Nagorno-Karabakh and along the border with Armenia. 

Military shipments from Israel to Azerbaijan appear to have increased simultaneously, raising fears among Armenians of another impending attack from Azerbaijan. 

At a government session on September 7, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan pointed to these developments and said that “the military and political situation in our region has been significantly aggravated over the past week.”

“The rhetoric of anti-Armenian hatred has intensified in the Azerbaijani press and propaganda platforms. The policy of encroachment on the sovereign territory of Armenia continues,” he added.

The military buildup has triggered particular alarm in Nagorno-Karabakh, an Armenian-populated territory internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan. The region has effectively been under Azerbaijani blockade since December, and the blockade has been particularly intense since mid-June. 

Armenian and Karabakhi officials have long spoken about Azerbaijani designs to ethnically cleanse the region using force if necessary. 

“It is obvious that Azerbaijan is preparing military operations, and simultaneously trying to exert psychological pressure on the governments and peoples of the Republics of Artsakh and Armenia, as well as to gauge the reaction of the Armenian parties and regional and global actors,” wrote Artak Beglaryan, a former senior Karabakh official. (Artsakh is an alternative Armenian name for Nagorno-Karabakh.)

In case of an offensive in Nagorno-Karabakh, the local forces are unlikely to be able to mount much of a resistance given Azerbaijan’s numerical and power dominance over the roughly 120,000 Karabakhis.

There have been numerous clashes since Azerbaijan’s victory in the 2020 Second Karabakh War, both in and around Nagorno-Karabakh and on the border between Azerbaijan and the Republic of Armenia. Several of the latter have resulted in Azerbaijani troops taking up positions inside Armenia. 

Several previous escalations were preceded by Azerbaijani media reports about “revenge operations” or claims of Armenian forces preparing to stage acts of “provocation.”

This time, Azerbaijani media is mirroring Armenian allegations. State channel AzTV suggested that Armenian reports of Azerbaijani military buildup and the Armenian defense minister’s cancellation of a planned trip abroad are signs that Yerevan is laying the groundwork for its own escalation.

And Azerbaijan’s Foreign Ministry characterized Pashinyan’s warnings as “an integral part of Armenia’s false political manipulation.” 

The EU’s civilian monitoring mission deployed on the Armenian side of the border has reported to Brussels its concerns over “rising tensions and shootings in the border regions of Armenia and Azerbaijan” and stepped up its patrols. It has not sought to blame either side for the current spike in tension, though.

The current reports of Azerbaijani military buildup come on the heels of an Azerbaijani attack on September 1 near the Armenian border town of Sotk that left three Armenian soldiers dead. 

Five days after that, Armenia announced it would hold the Eagle Partner military exercises jointly with the United States on September 11-20. The Defense Ministry said the purpose of the drills was to prepare Armenian forces for international peacekeeping missions.

The US has become a key player in the Armenian-Azerbaijani peace processes since the 2020 war, overseeing an Azerbaijan-Armenia peace process together with the EU. 

A separate negotiating track is managed by Russia, which has maintained a 2,000-strong peacekeeping presence in Nagorno-Karabakh since the end of the war. 

Russia is also Armenia’s traditional military and economic strategic partner, but Armenian leaders are more and more openly questioning the efficacy of the alliance given Moscow’s refusal to help it against Azerbaijani incursions and the peacekeepers’ alleged failure to protect the Armenians of Karabakh. 

While prospects for peace seem bleaker than ever, the Armenian prime minister reiterated in his September 7 remarks that he was ready to sign a peace treaty with Azerbaijan and end the decades of hostility between the neighboring countries. 

The Israel factor

Israel is one of Azerbaijan’s strategic allies and key weapons suppliers.

In March 2023 Israel’s Haaretz newspaper published a report detailing the extent of the Israel-Azerbaijan military partnership. It found that 92 military cargo jet flights took place between Ovda, a military air base in southern Israel, and airports in Azerbaijan between 2016 and the time of publication. 

The Armenian investigative outlet Hetq has been monitoring flights between Ovda and Azerbaijan since then. It recently found that one particular Azerbaijani Silk Road Airlines plane landed at Ovda and returned to Azerbaijan four times between August 15 and September 2. On two of these return flights, it landed in Ganja, a city close to Nagorno-Karabakh. 

Haaretz’s article noted that over the years intensified Ovda-Azerbaijan flights coincided with periods of fighting in Nagorno-Karabakh, including the April 2016 escalation, the 2020 war, and several post-war escalations.

Elsewhere, a post on the site formerly known as Twitter by Turkish nationalist politician Sinan Ogan is being seen by Armenians as another ominous signal from a strategic partner of Baku’s. 

It features an image of Ogan with the words “Khankendi is the Turkish world’s pride” alongside an upside-down A, which is a symbol painted on Azerbaijani military vehicles. (Khankandi is the Azerbaijani name for Nagorno-Karabakh’s de facto capital Stepanakert.)

Ogan, who is of Azerbaijani origin, placed third in the Turkish presidential election in May 23 and threw his support behind the incumbent and ultimate victor Recep Tayyip Erdogan in the second round. 

Heydar Isayev contributed reporting. 

Lilit Shahverdyan is a journalist based in Stepanakert. 

U.S. bishops’ international committee chairman calls for end to Nagorno-Karabakh blockade

Elizabeth Jabejian
Detroit Catholic
Sept 8 2023
GINA CHRISTIAN

Sep 8, 2023

(OSV News) — Bishop David J. Malloy of Rockford, chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on International Justice and Peace, called for a peaceful end to the months-long blockade of Nagorno-Karabakh that has left some 120,000 ethnic Armenian Christians at risk of what experts are calling “genocide by starvation.”

“We continue to pray for an end to the conflict and this growing humanitarian crisis,” Bishop Malloy said in a Sept. 7 statement. “The Holy Father’s two apostolic visits to the South Caucasus in 2016 and his more recent appeal earlier this year for ‘the serious humanitarian situation in the Lachin Corridor’ reflects our strong hope for a resolution.”

For the past nine months, Azerbaijan has closed the only road leading from Armenia to Nagorno-Karabakh (known in Armenian by its ancient name, Artsakh), a historic Armenian enclave located in southwestern Azerbaijan and internationally recognized as part of that nation.

The blockade of the three-mile (five-kilometer) Lachin Corridor, which connects the roughly 1,970 square mile enclave to Armenia, has deprived residents of food, baby formula, oil, medication, hygienic products and fuel — even as a convoy of trucks with an estimated 400 tons of aid is stalled at the single Azerbaijani checkpoint. Attempts by the International Red Cross to deliver aid have been rebuffed.

Bishop Malloy said that Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin’s visit to both Armenia and Azerbaijan in July “serves as witness to the Holy See’s efforts in seeking peace.

“With the continued impasse of this conflict and the mounting consequences of this blockade, let us all be of one mind and one accord in our prayers for those suffering from this conflict — to see this impending humanitarian catastrophe averted and to see this conflict ultimately resolved through peaceful means,” said Bishop Malloy.

The bishop’s comments follow a Sept. 6 emergency hearing of the bipartisan Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission in Congress.

“It’s now a three-alarm fire that’s getting worse by the moment,” said Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., who chaired the meeting and is a longstanding Catholic human rights champion.

David L. Phillips, an adjunct professor at Georgetown University and director of Columbia University’s Artsakh Atrocities Project testified before the commission that his project has collected “information on Azerbaijan’s systematic effort to drive Armenians from their homeland through killings, ethnic cleansing and deportations,” thereby constituting “crimes against humanity.”

In 2020, Azerbaijan went to war with Armenia over the enclave in which 3,000 Azerbaijani and 4,000 Armenian soldiers were killed. The conflict had been preceded by a 1992-1994 struggle between Armenia and Azerbaijan for control of the region, which had declared its independence from the former Soviet Union in 1991. Some 30,000 were killed and more than 1 million displaced in that conflict. Russia brokered a 1994 ceasefire, and in a 2017 referendum, voters approved a new constitution and a change in name to the Republic of Artsakh (although “Nagorno Karabakh Republic” also remains an official name).

Philips said Azerbaijan’s blockade of the Lachin Corridor ultimately “constitutes a second Armenian genocide,” referencing the 1915-1916 slaughter and starvation of up to 1.2 million Armenians under the Ottoman Empire. He also noted Azerbaijan’s refusal to comply with a February 2022 order by the International Court of Justice to ensure “unimpeded movement of persons, vehicles and cargo along the Lachin Corridor in both directions,” as well as calls from “international leaders such as the U.N. Secretary General, the U.S. Secretary of State, and the President of France” to abide by the order.

Bishop Mikael A. Mouradian of the California-based Armenian Catholic Eparchy of Our Lady of Nareg told OSV News Sept. 6 that Congress “should without any delay put up a bipartisan human rights act.”

The bishop said that without a law in place he feared another Armenian genocide “is inevitable if things continue like they are now.”

Smith, who criticized U.S. inaction on the Azerbaijani blockade, plans to introduce a new bill, the “Nagorno-Karabakh Human Rights Act”, for Congress to take action.

https://www.detroitcatholic.com/news/u-s-bishops-international-committee-chairman-calls-for-end-to-nagorno-karabakh-blockade

Russia protests to Armenia over comments by speaker of Armenian parliament

Emil Lazarian
Sept 8 2023
Reuters 

Russia on Friday summoned the Armenian ambassador to protest grievances including comments made by the speaker of the Armenian parliament about Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova, the ministry said in a statement.

The statement also criticised what it said were a number of “unfriendly moves” by Armenia, including planned joint exercises with the U.S. and humanitarian aid shipments to Ukraine.

https://www.devdiscourse.com/article/law-order/2586724-russia-protests-to-armenia-over-comments-by-speaker-of-armenian-parliament

Rabbis protest Armenian usage of the Holocaust as a foreign propaganda tool

Ara Felekian
i24, Israel
Sept 8 2023

Ariel Kogan

A group of 50 leading European rabbis sign a joint letter condemning the Armenian leadership for using Holocaust rhetoric in a campaign against Azerbaijan

Protests erupted this week across the European Union, the United States, and Muslim countries against the constant use of the Holocaust as a propaganda tool by the Armenian government. 

A group of 50 leading European rabbis (RCE) signed a joint letter on Wednesday condemning the Armenian leadership for using Holocaust rhetoric in a campaign against its neighbor, Azerbaijan.

“Expressions such as ‘ghetto,’ ‘genocide,’ ‘Holocaust,’ and others are… inappropriate to be part of the jargon used in any kind of political disagreement,” read the rabbis’ letter addressed to Armenia’s Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and President Vahagn Garniki Khachaturyan.

This joint letter by European rabbis was in response to an article written by Rabbi Zamir Isayev, head of the Sepharadi-Georgian community in Baku. He cited shocking examples of Armenian officials’ use of terms such as “Holocaust” and “ghetto,” and who published a video comparing Nazi atrocities to the current social media photos of Armenians in the separatist enclave in Azerbaijani Karabakh.

Rabbi Isayev explained to i24NEWS how the ethnic Armenians are “claiming that they are ‘dying like Jews in the ghettos from starvation.’” 

But the Rabbi said, “They also post Instagram stories of weddings with huge cakes, seek to hire extra staff for restaurants, and advertise discounted shish-kebabs.”

“Officials in the enclave, who have blocked the road used by the Azerbaijani government to bring all the necessary products, claim that it is better to die than to accept ‘Hitler’s handouts’,” Rabbi Isayev continued, adding that Armenian claims of “famine” in the enclave echo the “Palestinian genocide” narrative of which Israel is falsely accused.

Isayev, who is an Israeli citizen and served in the IDF, noted that “Iran has been pushing the ‘genocide’ theme with all its might, spreading lies and fabricated images, accusing us of ‘starving millions of Palestinians in Gaza.'” 

“The Iranians have gone to international organizations with delusional demands for sanctions on Israel, which has fought such lies for decades, publishing photos of the gap in the quality of life in between the majority of the population in Gaza and its wealthy local leadership. Today, Azerbaijan is in the exact same situation: not a single piece of unbiased media emerges from the enclave. Social media, though, reveals a completely different picture.” 

Isayev’s article received the support of 30 rabbis around the world, including Rabbi Aryeh Ralbag, head of the Union of Orthodox Rabbis of the United States and Canada; Rabbi Abraham Weill of Strasbourg and the Rhineland in France; Rabbi of the Caucasian community in the world Yaniv Naftaliev; Rabbi of Poland Mordechai Schudrich; Chief Rabbi of the Jewish Community of Vienna Jaron Engelmayer; Rabbi Eliyahu Hamara, founder of the Latin American Rabbinical Conference and president of the Argentine Israelite Mutual Association (AMIA); Zsolt Balla, the state Rabbi of Saxony and Federal Military Rabbi of Bundeswehr; Chief Rabbi at Geneva Izhak Dayan; Senior Rabbi of the S&P Sephardi Community of the UK Joseph Dweck; Chief Rabbi of Belgium Avraham Gigi, and many others.

Two more letters condemning the use of the Holocaust by Armenian officials were written by rabbis from Muslim countries and the American “Israel Heritage Foundation,” established by Holocaust survivors.

It should be noted that 500 rabbis from the EU are planning to visit Baku in November 2023 for the biennial congress of the Conference of European Rabbis, which will be held at the invitation of Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, who will act as the honorary host.

Azerbaijan is now considered a key ally of Israel in the fight against Iran. It has no history of anti-Semitism, and for nearly a millennium Azerbaijanis have protected their Jewish community. At least twice it hosted tens of thousands of Jewish refugees – during the pogroms in the Pale of Settlement and the Holocaust.

https://www.i24news.tv/en/news/analysis-opinion/1694183792-rabbis-protest-armenian-usage-of-the-holocaust-as-a-foreign-propaganda-tool

"There is a risk of internal clashes": on elections in unrecognized NKR

Kalashian Nyrie
POLITICO
Sept 8 2023
BY GABRIEL GAVIN
SEPTEMBER 8, 2023 7:46 PM 

YEREVAN, Armenia — Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has hauled in Armenia’s ambassador for a dressing down over what it says amount to a string of hostile steps that have seen the country, formally an ally of Moscow, distance itself from the Kremlin in recent days.

In a statement on Friday evening, officials said Vagharshak Harutyunyan had been called in for “difficult” talks after Armenia signed off on the “transfer of humanitarian aid to Kyiv’s Nazi regime.”

Yerevan announced earlier this week it would provide humanitarian assistance to Ukraine as Russia steps up its strikes against infrastructure and civilian targets, while Anna Hakobyan, the wife of Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, made an official visit to the country in a rare show of support.

At the same time, Armenia — which is a member of the Moscow-led CSTO defense pact — recalled its envoy to the military bloc on Tuesday. In another decision condemned by Moscow’s spurned foreign ministry, Armenia said on Wednesday it would host joint military exercises with U.S. soldiers next week.

The move came days after Pashinyan told Italian newspaper La Repubblica that “our dependence on Russia for security was a mistake” amid escalating tensions with neighboring Azerbaijan. The CSTO has previously refused requests from Yerevan for support, despite pleas from the country’s government.

In June, Pashinyan indicated a growing rift between his country and Moscow, saying “We are not Russia’s ally in the war with Ukraine. And our feeling from that war, from that conflict, is anxiety because it directly affects all our relationships.”

At the same time, Armenia has been accused of becoming a hub for the re-export of restricted goods to Russia since the start of the war in Ukraine. However, in an interview with POLITICO in June, Deputy Foreign Minister Mnatsakan Safaryan insisted it was working with both the U.S. and the EU to close existing loopholes.

Armenia and Azerbaijan are at odds over the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh, inside Azerbaijan’s internationally-recognized borders but controlled by its ethnic Armenian population.

In the wake of a brief but bloody war in 2020, Azerbaijan has taken over control of entry and exit to the region, and aid organizations say they are unable to deliver supplies of food and fuel, warning a humanitarian crisis is now unfolding. Azerbaijan denies the claims, insisting local Armenians must lay down their weapons and submit to being governed as part of the country.

Armenia to conduct military exercises with US amid growing tensions with Russia

Parkev Tvankchian
FOX NEWS
Sept 8 2023
Associated Press

Armenia announced Wednesday that its forces will hold military exercises this month with the United States as tensions rose with longtime ally Russia.

Armenia’s Defense Ministry said the exercises that begin Monday are aimed at preparing units for international peacekeeping operations.

U.S. Army Europe and Africa Command said in a release Thursday that about 85 U.S. soldiers will participate in the exercises along with about 175 Armenian soldiers.

“As regards the exercise, certainly, the news raises alarm, especially in today’s circumstances,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said after the announcement.

The training will be at Zar and Armavir Training Areas near Yerevan and run through Sept. 20, the U.S. said.

Col. Martin O’Donnell, spokesman for the U.S. command, said the exercise “is a vital opportunity for our soldiers from our two nations to build new relationships at the tactical level and to increase interoperability for peacekeeping operations.

The U.S. troops will include soldiers from the 1st Brigade, 101st Airborne Division and soldiers from the Kansas National Guard. That Guard unit has had a state partnership with Armenia since 2003.

Landlocked Armenia has close military ties with Russia, including hosting a Russian military base and participating in the Moscow-led Collective Security Treaty Organization alliance.

However, Armenia has become increasingly disillusioned with Russia since the 2020 war with Azerbaijan. The armistice that ended the war called for a Russian peacekeeping force to ensure passage on the road leading from Armenia to the Nagorno-Karabakh ethnic Armenian enclave within Azerbaijan.

But Azerbaijan has blocked that road, called the Lachin Corridor, since late December and Armenia repeatedly has complained that Russian peacekeepers are doing nothing to open it. The road’s blockage has led to significant food shortages in Nagorno-Karabakh.

Armenia this year refused to allow CSTO exercises on its territory and it declined to send troops to current bloc exercises in Belarus.

https://www.foxnews.com/world/armenia-conduct-military-exercises-us-amid-growing-tensions-russia

Pro-Russian blogger, Sputnik journalist detained in Armenia

Kalantarian Kevo
UKRINFORM, Ukraine
Sept 8 2023


08.09.2023 08:41

Pro-Russian blogger Mika Badalyan and Sputnik Armenia journalist Ashot Gevorkyan were apprehended in Armenia on suspicion of illegal arms trafficking.

This was reported by the spokesman for the Investigative Committee, Gor Abraamyan, Ukrinform wrote with reference to Radio Svoboda.

The spokesman specified Badalyan and Gevorkyan were detained in the Syunik region on September 6 and 7. In total, seven persons were taken into custody in the case of illegal arms trafficking.

The Russian Embassy in Armenia is yet to clarify the circumstances of the incident and is monitoring the developments, as per reports.

The state-owned Russian media group Rossiya Segodnya, of which Sputnik Armenia is part, also reported that it is monitoring Gevorkyan’s detention and “expects compliance with all procedural norms.”

“Possible provocations aimed at undermining the friendship between the fraternal peoples of Russia and Armenia must be stopped immediately,” the company said in a statement.

Earlier, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan of Armenia criticized the Russian peacekeeping contingent in Nagorno-Karabakh, stating that it is not fulfilling its task, and also stated that Armenia’s dependence on only one country, namely Russia, was a “strategic mistake”. According to the politician, Russia itself is leaving the South Caucasus. He emphasized that none of the Western powers that Russia is talking about are pushing Yerevan to break with Moscow.

As reported earlier, the USA and Armenia will conduct joint military exercises.

https://www.ukrinform.net/amp/rubric-society/3758526-prorussian-blogger-sputnik-journalist-detained-in-armenia.html 

Russia issues ‘harsh’ protest to Armenia over range of ‘unfriendly’ actions

Emil Lazarian
Reuters
Sept 8 2023

Sept 8 (Reuters) – Russia on Friday summoned the Armenian ambassador for a “harsh” protest about a list of what it termed “unfriendly steps”, the latest sign of strain between Moscow and the small ex-Soviet republic in a region Russia considers its back yard.

In a statement, the Russian Foreign Ministry listed these as Yerevan’s decisions to sign up to the International Criminal Court and to host a military exercise with the United States, as well as a visit to Ukraine by the Armenian prime minister’s wife to deliver humanitarian aid.

The ministry said a “harsh representation” had been made to the ambassador, Vagharshak Harutyunyan, also complaining of “offensive statements” allegedly made by Alen Simonyan, chair of the Armenian National Assembly, about ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova.

Armenia, which hosts a Russian military base and relies almost entirely on Russia for its defence supplies, has complained bitterly in recent months that Russian peacekeepers have failed to end an Azerbaijani blockade of supplies to Nagorno-Karabakh, an ethnic Armenian enclave within Azerbaijan.

It has also openly questioned whether to remain in the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), a Russia-led military alliance of six former Soviet republics.

Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said in an interview published on Sunday that Armenia’s policy of relying solely on Russia to guarantee its security was a strategic mistake.

He said Moscow, distracted by its war with Ukraine, had been unable to deliver and was winding down its role in the South Caucasus.

Moscow responded by insisting that it intended to remain the principal guarantor of security in the Caucasus, which also includes Azerbaijan and Georgia.

Armenia and Azerbaijan accused each other on Thursday of moving troops close to their joint border as tensions over the future of the Nagorno-Karabakh enclave rose.

A foreign policy adviser to Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev told Reuters his country was ready to allow Red Cross aid from Armenia into Nagorno-Karabakh if Red Crescent aid from Azerbaijan was let in at the same time.

The ICC issued an arrest warrant in March for Russian President Vladimir Putin, accusing him of war crimes in Ukraine.

The Kremlin has dismissed the idea that Russia’s actions in Ukraine could be war crimes and noted that Russia does not recognise the court.

Reporting by Reuters; writing by Kevin Liffey; editing by William Maclean and Mark Heinrich

Kim Kardashian calls on Biden to stop the next Armenian genocide

Albert Nalbandian
The Hill
Sept 8 2023
BY JUDY KURTZ – 09/08/23 3:50 PM ET

Kim Kardashian is making a public plea to President Biden, calling on him and other world leaders to “stop the Armenian genocide.”

In an opinion piece published Friday in Rolling Stone, the Hulu reality TV star and Eric Esrailian, a physician and producer, write to Biden, “We are Armenian. We are the descendants of Armenian Genocide survivors, and we do not want to be talking about the recognition or commemoration of yet another genocide in the future.”

The pair described neighboring Azerbaijan’s government as using “starvation as a weapon against the Armenian population” by blockading “the only lifeline between the indigenous Christian Armenians of Artsakh (also known as Nagorno-Karabakh) and the rest of the world.”

“Regional peace should not involve sacrificing the sovereignty of the Armenians in Artsakh, but regardless of what anyone believes about our opinion, it is clear that this ruthless blockade has crossed all red lines of human rights and humanitarian law,” the two wrote in their public letter.

“Blocking human rights groups, such as the International Committee of the Red Cross, and the hateful rhetoric accompanying the blockade are signs of genocidal intent,” wrote Esrailian and Kardashian, who’s of Armenian descent on her late father’s side.

Supporters of “this starvation,” Kardashian and Esrailian said, “use coordinated social media campaigns to pretend that a blockade is not taking place. This dystopian propaganda may be absurd to those with knowledge, but the defenders of these human rights abuses are trying to confuse people given everything else happening in the world.”

The two called on Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and other officials to “take a stand immediately.”

“Through economic sanctions, cutting off foreign aid to Azerbaijan, boycotting international events in Azerbaijan (such as concerts and sporting events like soccer and Formula 1), and through proceedings in international courts, we can collectively achieve results, but this process has been too slow and time is running out,” they said.

“They must pressure Azerbaijan to open the corridor without preconditions.”

It’s not the first time that Kardashian has appealed to the White House about Armenia. In 2015, the 42-year-old criminal justice advocate urged then-President Obama to use the word “genocide” to describe the massacre of 1.5 million Armenians in 1915. Five years later, in 2020, she pushed then-President Trump to do more to support Armenia during a period of intense fighting with Azerbaijan.

In her letter with Esrailian, Kardashian vowed to use her voice to “amplify the truth.”

“We are just two people. We have been working behind the scenes to support our Armenian brothers and sisters, but this diplomatic approach has not yielded meaningful results,” they said.

“This crisis will clearly not be remedied by individuals, but we will continue to do what we can to use whatever influence we have.”

https://thehill.com/blogs/in-the-know/4194610-kim-kardashian-calls-on-biden-to-stop-the-next-armenian-genocide/