Many people in Yerevan, the capital of Armenia, protested on Thursday against their Prime Minister, Nikol Pashinyan, to quit because they are upset about his government’s choice to give control of some border villages to Azerbaijan, which has been a rival to Armenia for a long time.
Armenia and Azerbaijan have fought two wars after the Soviet Union broke up, and in April, Armenia said it would give back the villages to Azerbaijan. That decision happened after Azerbaijan quickly fought a war in Nagorno-Karabakh, which is an area mostly populated by Armenians and is located in Azerbaijan. This made a lot of people go to Armenia and start protests to kick out the prime minister.
A group of people, led by a important religious leader in Armenia, walked about 100 miles from villages near the border with Azerbaijan to Yerevan. They gathered in Republic Square on Thursday.
Many videos on social media showed a lot of people holding Armenian flags and waving them. An older Armenian religious leader prayed and told the people protesting that he wanted the leader, Pashinyan, to step down within an hour. He said Pashinyan was responsible for losing Armenian land.
Archbishop Bagrat Galstanyan said protesters should peacefully disobey if Pashinyan doesn’t listen to their demands.
Pashinyan went to Moscow on Wednesday and had a discussion with Russian President Vladimir Putin because their relationship is getting worse. The meeting happened one day after Putin’s fifth term began in a fancy ceremony at the Kremlin. The Armenian leader didn’t go to the ceremony.
Putin’s representative, Dmitry Peskov, said on Thursday that he and the leaders of Armenia agreed to have Russian forces leave some areas in Armenia. This was reported by Russian state news agency Tass.
In short, Putin mentioned at the beginning of the talks that trade between the two countries is increasing, but he recognized some problems with security in the area.
Pashinyan, who went to Moscow in December, said that some problems have built up since then.
Armenia and Russia have been friends for a long time, but their relationship has been getting worse because of Azerbaijan’s recent war to take back control of the Karabakh region from ethnic Armenian separatists.
Armenian leaders said that Russian peacekeepers sent to Nagorno-Karabakh did not do enough to prevent Azerbaijan’s attack. Moscow has a military base in Armenia. They say their troops didn’t have permission to get involved and are denying the accusations.
The Kremlin is upset because Pashinyan is trying to become closer to the West and move away from alliances with Moscow.
While Pashinyan was in Moscow, Armenia’s foreign ministry said that the country will stop giving money to the Collective Security Treaty Organization, which is a security pact dominated by Russia. Armenia has stopped being a part of the group because Pashinyan wants to make stronger connections with the European Union and NATO.
Russia was upset when Armenia decided to join the International Criminal Court. This is because the Court is looking into whether or not Putin committed war crimes in Ukraine.
Moscow is worried about the Ukraine situation. They are also concerned about Yerevan moving towards the west. But they are trying to not make a big deal out of it.
Kremlin spokesman Peskov admitted on Tuesday that there are some issues in our relationship with another country, but he also said that there is a desire to keep talking and working together.
Tag: Azerbaijan
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Armenians want prime minister to step down over border village conflict with Azerbaijan
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Azerbaijan election: Monitors criticise President Ilham Aliyev after winning referendum
The fifth term of Ilham Aliyev as President of Azerbaijan has been confirmed by election officials, who reported his victory with more than 92% of the vote.
However, people from other countries say that there was no serious competition against him.
The main opposing parties did not participate in the election, and one leader from those parties said it was not a real democracy.
The vote on Wednesday was supposed to happen in 2025, but it was moved up because the government took over a area controlled by ethnic Armenian rebels.
Mr Aliyev competed with six other candidates, but none of them disagreed with his leadership.
Many people went to the streets in the capital Baku to celebrate the president being elected again.
State media said that election officials reported Mr. Aliyev got 92. 05% of the votes, with 93% of the ballots counted. About 76% of people voted.
The president usually gets more than 85% of the vote in elections, but some people say the elections are not fair.
Artur Gerasymov, who oversaw a mission for the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, said on Thursday that President Aliyev was not effectively questioned. “which led to a competition without real diversity”
President Aliyev said there will be a vote earlier than planned because more people like him after Azerbaijan’s army did well in Nagorno-Karabakh.
Azerbaijan quickly took control of the region in September, ending Armenian rule that had lasted for 30 years. This region is officially considered to be part of Azerbaijan.
Many of the 120,000 Armenian people left and went to Armenia. Some of the top leaders in the breakaway area were arrested and are being held in jail in Azerbaijan, accused of different crimes.
Mr Aliyev said the victory in Karabakh is a very important event in Azerbaijan’s history. He also said the election will start a new era because it is happening in all of Azerbaijan for the first time.
Ali Kerimali, the head of the Popular Front, a big opposition party in Azerbaijan, said that the country doesn’t have the right conditions for fair elections.
“Freedom to gather is limited, media are controlled by the government, and people who disagree with the government are being quieted,” he said.
Mr Aliyev became the leader in 2003 after his father, Heydar Aliyev, passed away. His family took control in 1993, just after Azerbaijan became free from the former Soviet Union.
Lately, Azerbaijani officials have been putting more pressure on media that is not controlled by the government, and have arrested a number of journalists who say things that are critical of them.
Azerbaijan is being criticized by Amnesty International for not allowing people to speak freely and for trying to silence those who criticize the president.
Several leaders from other countries have told Mr. Aliyev they are happy for him winning the election, including the President of Turkey, the President of China, and the President of Iran. -
Azerbaijan and Armenia to strive towards peace agreement
Armenia and Azerbaijan will work on being friendlier to each other and will trade prisoners they caught during the recent fighting in Nagorno-Karabakh.
The two neighbors have been fighting over some land for many years.
On Thursday night, both countries said they have a big opportunity for peace that they have wanted for a long time.
Both countries want to make an agreement for peace by the end of the year.
Azerbaijan quickly took control of the Nagorno-Karabakh region in September, ending Armenian rule that had been in place for 30 years. The region is officially part of Azerbaijan, according to the international community.
Most of the 120,000 Armenian people left and went to Armenia nearby.
On Thursday, two countries said they will try to sign a peace treaty that respects each other’s borders.
Baku is allowing 32 Armenian soldiers to go home, and Yerevan is letting go of two soldiers, as a sign of kindness.
Charles Michel, the President of the European Council, said that he is happy about the statement and thinks it is a big improvement in Armenia and Azerbaijan’s relationship. The United States praised a step that helps build trust.
Another action is when Armenia backed Azerbaijan’s request to host the COP29 climate summit by giving up its own candidacy. Azerbaijan said it will help Armenia join a group that talks about climate.
The two countries asked for help from other countries in their efforts.
The prime minister of Armenia and the president of Azerbaijan made a deal during their discussions.
The two leaders have met many times to talk about making things normal again with the help of the EU, the US and Russia.
Conversations had stopped recently because Azerbaijan didn’t want to take part in discussions in the US and Spain. They said they thought Western countries were unfair. The two countries started talking again in Iran at the end of October. -
Nagorno-Karabakh to cease exist after Azerbaijan’s victory in 2024
From next year, the self-declared republic of Nagorno-Karabakh will no longer exist. This is because the president made a decision to shut down all government offices after being defeated by Azerbaijan.
Last week, the Azerbaijani win caused a large number of Armenian people living in Nagorno-Karabakh to leave, and it also brought an end to many years of fighting.
President Samvel Shahramanyan’s order requires all institutions and organizations in the Republic of Artsakh, which is not recognized internationally, to shut down by the beginning of next year.
The Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh (Artsakh) has officially stopped existing, according to a statement shared on Facebook by the Artsakh government.
Shahramanyan said the decision was made because the military and political situation is currently very difficult.
Azerbaijan’s campaign went on for 24 hours, until both sides agreed to a ceasefire arranged by Russia. As part of the ceasefire, Karabakh’s armed forces were disbanded. However, the Azerbaijani president strongly emphasized that the government of Artsakh should also disband itself. The president warned that if they did not comply, the attack would persist until it was completely finished.
The decree said that Azerbaijan needs to allow the people of Nagorno-Karabakh to freely and without any problems go through the Lachin corridor with their belongings and vehicles.
Nagorno-Karabakh is a region that is part of Azerbaijan, but it has been running its own government independently for many years. After a sudden and quick attack by Azerbaijan, where at least 200 people died and many more were hurt, the government in Baku stated that they have regained control of the area. This seems to have put an end to a conflict that has been going on for over a hundred years.
Azerbaijan has always been clear that the Armenian people living there had to decide between staying and becoming citizens of Azerbaijan or leaving. Most people have decided to leave their family home instead of being ruled by Baku.
In the past week, more than half of the people in Nagorno-Karabakh have moved to Armenia. This happened because Azerbaijan opened the Lachin corridor, which is the only road connecting Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia. This allowed the people to leave.
Around 60,000 people have entered Armenia from the border by Thursday morning. Many of them were in a very bad condition, as mentioned by Samantha Power, who works for the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). She visited the town of Kornidzor on Tuesday.
Nagorno-Karabakh has been cut off from the outside world for 10 months because Azerbaijan-backed activists created a military checkpoint on the Lachin corridor. They have stopped the import of food, medicine, and fuel to the country. CNN interviewed people who live in Stepanakert, the main city of the region, before the attack. These residents shared that they had to spend a lot of time waiting in a queue every day just to get their daily amount of bread.
Power said on Tuesday that the recent military attacks have made a very bad situation even worse. Doctors at the scene reported that many of the people who had arrived were extremely hungry and malnourished. -
Nagorno-Karabakh: Azerbaijan detains former leader of Karabakh
Ruben Vardanyan, a businessman who led the separatist government for a few months, was one of the thousands attempting to leave.
About 50,000 Armenian people have left Nagorno-Karabakh because Azerbaijan took control of it last week.
Mrs Vardanyan asked for help to make sure her husband is released safely.
“Veronika Zonabend said that Ruben supported the people of Arsakh during a 10-month blockade and shared in their fight for survival. ”
Azerbaijan’s border service stated that he had been brought to the main city, Baku, and given to other government organizations.
On Tuesday, many Armenians had to go through tough inspections by Azerbaijani border control when they crossed the border.
The government of Azerbaijan is searching for suspects who committed “war crimes” and they plan to forgive Armenian fighters who surrender their weapons in Karabakh.
“They said that the people who did bad things during the Karabakh wars should be given to us. ”
Nagorno-Karabakh is a region that is considered to be a part of Azerbaijan. However, it has been under the control of ethnic Armenians for the past thirty years.
Worries about more violence arose when Azerbaijan successfully blocked an important road into the area in December 2022.
On 20 September, a ceasefire stopped fighting for 24 hours. Azerbaijan and Karabakh leaders are discussing how to incorporate the enclave into Azerbaijan.
However, a lot of the area’s 120,000 Armenians are worried that they don’t have a future in Nagorno-Karabakh. The leader of Armenia said that people from different ethnic groups were being expelled from the area, which is a very serious and harmful thing.
The leaders of Karabakh said that at least 200 people died in the fighting last week, while Azerbaijan announced on Wednesday that 192 of their soldiers were killed.
There have been traffic jams on the road from Karabakh to Armenia for several days. A group from the BBC saw families squeezed into cars, with trunks overflowing and lots of belongings piled up on roof racks.
Western governments want Azerbaijan to let international observers go to Karabakh to watch how they treat the people who live there.
Germany has recently joined the calls for “transparency”, according to Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock.
She said on X, previously known as Twitter, that if Azerbaijan allows international observers, it would show that they are serious about their promises to protect and take care of the people in Nagorno-Karabakh.
On Tuesday, the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken asked Azerbaijan’s President, Ilham Aliyev, to ensure that civilians are kept safe and have the freedom to move without any conditions. He also said that it is important for humanitarian aid to be allowed into Nagorno-Karabakh without any obstacles.
The UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres, also asked both groups to treat human rights with care and respect. -
Nagorno-Karabakh humanitarian aid delivered
Officials said that on Saturday, a Red Cross group delivered essential supplies to Nagorno-Karabakh. This was the first delivery of aid since Azerbaijan’s attack ended with a ceasefire facilitated by Russia.
The group of vehicles carried about 70,000 kilograms of supplies like wheat flour, salt, dried yeast, and sunflower oil for people in need. The information was shared by the International Committee of the Red Cross on X (previously called Twitter).
The help was taken through the Lachin corridor, which is the only road that connects Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh, according to the ICRC.
Since December 2022, Azerbaijan has blocked the road, so now people and businesses can’t use it.
The ICRC said that they helped 17 injured people escape from the fighting. They also gave medicine and bags for bodies to help the people in need.
The ICRC said that because there are many people in need, they are sending more people there who specialize in health, forensics, protection, and cleaning up weapons.
Nagorno-Karabakh, also called Artsakh by Armenians, is an area in the Caucasus Mountains that is surrounded by Azerbaijan.
Nagorno-Karabakh is considered part of Azerbaijan by many countries, but it has about 120,000 Armenians living there who make up most of the population and don’t agree with Azerbaijani control.
It has led to a lot of fighting between Armenia and Azerbaijan for the past 30 years.
Even though there are Russian peacekeepers in the area, there has been a lot of tension in the region for many months.
In December, soldiers from Azerbaijan closed off the Lachin corridor, which is the only road that connects Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia. This blockade stopped the delivery of food to the approximately 120,000 people living there.
Over 200 people died and more than 400 others were injured in a military operation led by Azerbaijan this week. The defense ministry of Azerbaijan declared it as an “anti-terror” campaign in the area.
Russia has sent 50 tons of help, including food and basic things that people need, to Stepanakert. Stepanakert is the capital of the region. This news was reported by the Russian state news agency RIA Novosti on Saturday.
US Senator Gary Peters, who is currently in Armenia leading a group of American lawmakers, said he saw the blockade at the Lachin corridor along with the US ambassador to Armenia Kristina Kvien and the governor of Armenia’s Syunik province, Robert Ghukasyan.
On Saturday, Peters spoke to reporters and said that he has spoken to many people who are very worried about their family members and what happened to them.
“They are aware that they have been going through a hard time for several months due to the blockade. They have been facing shortages of food, medical supplies, and basic fuel,” he explained. “It’s a really bad situation based on what I’ve heard, and I’m really worried. ” -
Azerbaijan launches counter offensive attack on Karabakh
Azerbaijan’s military is conducting “anti-terror” operations in parts of Nagorno-Karabakh that are controlled by Armenia.
For many months, there has been a lot of conflict and disagreement about a region called the ethnic-Armenian enclave. This region is officially considered a part of Azerbaijan by the global community.
Loud noise from air raid sirens and exploding bombs could be heard in the largest city of Karabakh.
Eleven people from Azerbaijan, including both police officers and regular citizens, have died in a mine explosion and another separate incident.
Officials in the breakaway region’s defense department mentioned that the Azerbaijani military broke the ceasefire by launching missile and artillery attacks all along the contact line. Other representatives from Karabakh talked about a big and intense military attack.
The countries Azerbaijan and Armenia have fought two times over Nagorno-Karabakh. The first time was in the early 1990s when the Soviet Union collapsed, and the second time was in 2020.
Three years ago, Azerbaijan took back areas in and around Karabakh from Armenia that were under Armenian control since 1994.
Since December, Azerbaijan has blocked the only way into the enclave from Armenia, called the Lachin Corridor, and it has been successful.
On Tuesday, the Defense Ministry in Baku accused Armenian forces of continuously attacking its army positions and mentioned that it retaliated by carrying out smaller operations to fight against terrorists locally. To remove weapons and make sure Armenia’s armed forces leave our land safely.
It said it was not trying to hurt innocent people or buildings where regular people live. It claimed that it only attacked specific military targets using very accurate weapons.
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan spoke on TV and said his military was not involved. He accused Azerbaijan of attacking to get rid of the Armenian people in Karabakh.
On Tuesday, people in the city of Khankendi, also known as Stepanakert, could hear the loud noise of artillery and gunfire.
Around 120,000 Armenians live in the hilly area.
Journalist Siranush Sargsyan said that the city’s residential areas were hit, including a building next to hers.
The ombudsman responsible for protecting people’s rights in Karabakh said that two ordinary people, one of whom was a child, were killed, and some other children were hurt.
Authorities in Armenia stated that as of 2:00 PM local time (10:00 AM GMT), the condition on the country’s borders was “quite steady”.
Russia’s foreign ministry said they were only given a few minutes’ notice about the attack from Azerbaijan, and they’ve asked both countries to follow the ceasefire agreement made after the 2020 war. Toivo Klaar, who represents the EU in a specific area, said it is really important that the fighting stops right away.
The ceasefire that ended the war six weeks ago in 2020 was becoming more and more uncertain in the past few months.
On Tuesday, Laurence Broers, who is an expert on the South Caucasus region, said that the Armenian people in Karabakh were made weaker because of the blockade. He also mentioned that the Azerbaijan operation seems to be focused on taking back the entire Armenian-populated region of Karabakh.
Hikmet Hajiyev, who helps the President of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev, suggested that the ethnic-Armenian administration that wants to separate should end itself.
Around 3,000 Russian peacekeepers were sent to observe the ceasefire in 2020, but Russia’s focus has shifted to their complete invasion of Ukraine.
The leader of Armenia recently said that Russia was leaving the area without much planning or warning. Azerbaijan and Turkey have been strong allies and have stood by each other.
Azerbaijan said they are not increasing the number of soldiers in the area. On Monday, the International Committee of the Red Cross was given permission to bring help to Karabakh using two routes. One route is through the Lachin Corridor from Armenia, and the other is through Azerbaijan’s Aghdam road.
People were hoping that tensions would calm down, but then officials from Azerbaijan said that six individuals died, including four police officers, when their vehicle hit a landmine in the Khojavand area. This area was taken back by Azerbaijan during the war in 2020.
The military department showed pictures of the wrecked car, but Armenian officials in Karabakh said it was Azerbaijan’s military that broke the ceasefire. -
Azerbaijan arrests five people accused of spying for Iran
Baku says the five Azerbaijani nationals had been gathering information about the military and its drones.
Azerbaijan has arrested five of its nationals for spying for Iran after a rise in tensions between the neighbours, which regard each other with mutual suspicion.
The announcement of the arrests came on Monday after Baku and Tehran accused each other last week of hostile rhetoric.
Baku’s security services said the arrests were made as part of “measures aimed at countering intelligence-disruptive activities carried out by Iranian secret services against Azerbaijan”.
It said the five people had been gathering information about the military, including the procurement of Israeli and Turkish drones and the country’s energy infrastructure.
Earlier this month, the Baku authorities arrested 17 men they said belonged to an “illegal armed group set up by Iran on Azerbaijani territory”.
‘Threatening rhetoric’
On Friday, Azerbaijan summoned the Iranian ambassador to complain about “threatening rhetoric” coming from Tehran.
The day before, the Iranian foreign ministry had handed Azerbaijan’s envoy a note of protest over “anti-Iran” comments by Baku officials.
Iran, home to millions of ethnic Azerbaijanis, has long accused its smaller northern neighbour of fuelling separatist sentiment on its territory.
Baku has also been angered by its ambitions to set up a transport link along the Armenian-Iranian border, which would connect mainland Azerbaijan to its exclave of Nakhichevan and Turkey.
Baku wants to limit Armenian jurisdiction over the so-called Zangezur land corridor, a project that would end its dependence on Iran for access to the Nakhichevan exclave.
The exclave is separated from Azerbaijan by the Armenian region of Zangezur.
The issue has emerged as the primary sticking point between Azerbaijan and Armenia, who fought two wars – in the 1990s and in 2020 – over the contested Nagorno-Karabakh region to the east of Zangezur.
“Iran will not permit the blockage of its connection route with Armenia,” Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said in October.
He said that “to secure that objective”, Iran had staged large-scale military drills in October on its border with Azerbaijan.
Relations between Baku and Tehran have been traditionally sour, as Turkic-speaking Azerbaijan is a close ally of Iran’s rival Turkey.
Iran is also suspicious of Azerbaijan’s military cooperation with Israel – a significant arms supplier to Baku – saying Tel-Aviv could potentially use Azerbaijani territory as a bridgehead against Iran.
Source: Aljazeera.com