Armenia performs “preventive actions” after Azerbaijani attack

May 18, 2017 By administrator

The Armenian leaders of Nagorno-Karabakh state that their army has carried out “preventive actions” at the line of contact with the Azerbaijani armed forces in retaliation for the attacks launched by Baku against some Armenian defense facilities earlier this week.

“In response to the activity of the enemy on the line of contact on the night of 16 to 17 May, the units of the Army of the Defense took preventive measures,” revealed the Ministry of Defense of Nagorno-Karabakh in a press release issued yesterday.

The ministry also published a video showing the destruction of some Azerbaijani positions, including a command post and a military vehicle.

The Azerbaijani Ministry of Defense claimed that the Armenian armed forces had opened fire on Azerbaijani troops’ positions and areas near the front line. He added that the Armenian forces also used military drones but could not inflict any damage “because of their low quality”.

“The armed forces of Azerbaijan have not suffered any human or material loss,” said the Azerbaijani army.

On Monday, Azerbaijan said its army had destroyed an Osa air defense system, adding that its deployment near the line of control was a “provocation” and a threat to Azerbaijani aircraft.

Armenia and Karabakh confirmed the Azerbaijani firings, but assured that they had caused only insignificant damage to the military equipment and caused no deaths.

These latest incidents in Karabakh are occurring as tension increases in the area under Armenian control.

Armenian armed forces and the Azerbaijani armed forces clashed in April 2016 in what was called the “Four Day War”.

International diplomatic efforts to resolve the conflict over the past 25 years have made little progress.

Thursday, May 18, 2017,
Claire © armenews.com

Terrorist State of Azerbaijan fires from guided missile towards Karabakh military objective

May 15, 2017 By administrator

Azerbaijani armed forces on Monday, May 15, at around 4:30pm initiated provocations along the Artsakh (Nagorno Karabakh) border, using a guided missile to open fire towards a Karabakh army military objective.

According to the Artsakh army, “one unit of military equipment was partially damaged.”

In a statement, the Karabakh Defense Army said it has sustained no manpower losses in the attack.

“We declare that the Azerbaijani armed forces’ provocations will not go unanswered, with Baku set to bear the whole responsibility of the consequences,” the statement said.

According to some Azerbaijani media reports, an Osa missile system has been damaged.

National Interest: Armenia bought the Iskander to restrain Baku’s aggression

May 5, 2017 By administrator

armenianIn an article published on The National Interest, Armenian political analyst Areg Galstyan suggests that the country has acquired Iskander missiles from Russia as a system for restraining Azerbaijan’s aggressive plans.

Written to address a number of misconceptions contained in a recently published feature on the Washington Post, the article clarifies that Nagorno Karabakh is the historical territory of the Armenian people, which was transferred to Soviet Azerbaijan, created by the Bolshevik government for political purposes.

“The Soviet Union was striving for territorial expansion against Iran; creating a republic with the name Azerbaijan, Moscow expressed its claims to the Iranian provinces of East and West Azerbaijan. Thus, transfer of the Armenian territories of Nagorno Karabakh and Nakhichevan to Azerbaijan was based on pragmatic geopolitical calculations by the Soviet leadership,” Galstyan says.

“If we carefully analyze Azerbaijan’s aggressive rhetoric, coupled with systematic violation of the ceasefire and diversionary actions against the civilian population, we can understand why Armenia purchased the Iskander system from Russia. Iskander systems are viewed by official Yerevan not as an element of intimidation, but as a system for restraining the aggressive plans of Baku.”

Azerbaijan on April 2, 2016 launched a large-scale military offensive against Karabakh, which claimed hundreds of lives on both sides. Top Armenian and Azerbaijani defense officials reached an agreement on the cessation of hostilities on April 5 in Moscow.

Four Iskander systems have been delivered to Armenia and displayed for the first time at the military parade marking the 25th anniversary of the country’s independence.

Reporters Without Borders, Online censorship rounds off Aliyev’s control of Azerbaijani media

May 4, 2017 By administrator

Reporters Without Borders famous organization has slammed the Azerbaijani authorities regarding the blocking of independent news websites in the country.

The source notes that the Azerbaijani authorities have blocked five leading independent news websites in the country for the past five weeks – newspaper Azadlig, Meydan TV and Turan TV, the programme Azerbaycan Saati and Radio Azadlig.

Recent legislative amendments gave the government the power to block any website “posing a danger to the state or society.” Ordered by the Ministry of Transport, Communications and High Technology, this “preventive” blocking requires subsequent approval by a court – a formality in a country where the justice system acts as the executive’s armed wing.

“By blocking five leading news websites, President Ilham Aliyev’s government is demolishing all the remaining vestiges of media freedom in Azerbaijan,” said Johann Bihr, the head of RSF’s Eastern Europe and Central Asia desk.

“The persecution of the government’s critics continues to intensify online, offline and even among exiles. The international community must finally end the government’s impunity and hold it to account for its systematic violations of the European Convention on Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights,” the representative of the Reporters Without Borders notes.

Azadlig newspaper was forced to stop producing a print edition under pressure from the authorities in September 2016. The newspaper’s financial director, Faiq Amirov, has for the past eight months been in prison.

Several members of Azadlig’s staff , have been forced to flee the country in recent months to escape a similar fate.

Reporters Without Borders reminds that Azerbaijan is ranked 162nd out of 180 countries in RSF’s 2017 World Press Freedom Index and Aliyev, whose powers were reinforced by a referendum last September, is on RSF’s list of press freedom predators.

Terrorist State of Azerbaijan government seeks order to permanently block news websites

April 28, 2017 By administrator

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev

New York, April 28, 2017—The Azerbaijani government should immediately stop trying to permanently block access to five independent media outlets’ websites and should instead lift a decree that has rendered them currently inaccessible, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. A district court in the capital Baku yesterday began hearing a government lawsuit that seeks to compel internet service providers (ISPs) to block access to the sites, adjourning until May 1, according to media reports.

The lawsuit, filed by the Azerbaijani Ministry of Transport, Communications, and High Technology, asks the court to order ISPs to make permanent the censorship of the websites of the independent newspaper Azadliq, the Berlin-based, online news agency Meydan TV, the Azerbaijani service of the U.S.-government-funded broadcaster Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), and online video channels Azerbaycan Saati and Turan TV, according to media reports.

Elchin Sadygov, a lawyer for Meydan TV, told CPJ that Azerbaijani ISPs have blocked access to the five websites since March 27 by decree of Minister of Transport, Communications, and High Technology Ramin Quluzade. The ministry’s lawsuit seeks to make that censorship permanent on the grounds that the websites threaten the national security of Azerbaijan, Sadygov said.

“If five news websites can threaten Azerbaijan’s national security, as the government claims, Azerbaijanis and the rest of the world should be deeply concerned by the country’s fragility,” CPJ Europe and Central Asia Program Coordinator Nina Ognianova said. “The Azerbaijani government should immediately stop censoring these important sources of news and analysis, and should instead lift all restrictions on news in Azerbaijan.”

Sadygov told CPJ that a court ruling in favor of the government would set a “very dangerous precedent.”

“If the court rules in favor of the government’s demand—and that is very likely—it will allow the government to prosecute all independent journalists, saying they pose a threat to national security.”

RFE/RL President Thomas Kent called the ministry’s lawsuit an attempt at “blatant censorship.” According to the broadcaster, moves to block RFE/RL’s Azerbaijani website come after it published investigative reports about financial activities linked to members of President Ilham Aliyev’s family and inner circle. The broadcaster’s Baku bureau was forced to close in May 2015 following a December 2014 police raid. One of Azerbaijan’s leading investigative journalists, Khadija Ismayilova, who was also the station’s Baku bureau chief, was jailed from December 2014 through May 2016 for her critical reporting.

PACE and Azerbaijan: 56 NGOs appeal to investigate corruption allegations against MPs

April 23, 2017 By administrator

The Eastern Partnership Civil Society Forum, together with other 55 prominent human rights and civil society organizations, has jointly signed an appeal to conduct a thorough and fair investigation on the corruption claims, related to the work of PACE on Azerbaijan, the Forum said in a released statement on Friday.

According to the source, the concern mainly stems from a recent report European Stability Initiative (ESI) issued in December 2016, denouncing the bribes offered by representatives of the Azerbaijani government to several PACE members in order to influence their work.

Recently, the PACE Secretary General Wojciech Sawicki presented to the Assembly Bureau a draft proposal suggesting possible ways to conduct an external and independent investigation. This, however, was not favourably welcomed and no agreement was reached on its implementation.
Also, according to the press office of the PACE, the Assembly President Pedro Agramunt commented that the Sawicki report was not admissible in the suggested draft, while denying the contribution of civil society organisations in the process.

The inappropriate conduct of PACE members had already been pointed out during the January PACE session by Mehman Huseynov – the chairman of Azerbaijani NGO the Institute for Reporters Freedom and Safety -, who is now facing serious consequences for speaking up about corruption among PACE members.

For the above-mentioned reasons, the group of civil society organisations calls for a fair, accurate and independent investigation on such matters. More specifically, the appeal is directed to the PACE Bureau, requesting a plenary debate of the Sawicki proposal at the next PACE session (24th-28th April) and a system of civil society supervision, to ensure impartiality.

The statement also urges all members of the Assembly to support an appropriate investigation and therefore to sign the Declaration on the Parliamentary Assembly Integrity introduced in January 2017, as well as the Secretary General of the Council of Europe to make a very strong statement against corruption in the Parliamentary Assembly and, more broadly, in the Council of Europe.

Fresh claims of Azerbaijan vote-rigging at European human rights body – The Gurdian

April 20, 2017 By administrator

One of Europe’s oldest human rights bodies is being urged to set up a far-reaching anti-corruption investigation next week, amid fresh allegations of vote rigging that have put its credibility on the line, the Guardian reports.
Two people with high-level experience of the Council of Europe’s parliamentary assembly (PACE) have told the Guardian they believe its members have been offered bribes for votes by Azerbaijan. The 324-member body is made up of delegates from national parliaments who meet four times a year in Strasbourg.
Arif Mammadov, a former Azerbaijani diplomat turned dissident, alleged that a member of the oil-rich country’s delegation at the Council of Europe had €30m (£25m) to spend on lobbying its institutions, including the Council of Europe assembly.
“Everyone” in the Azerbaijani delegation had heard of this number, although “it was never written down”, he told the Guardian. “It was said this money was to bribe members of the delegations and PACE generally.”
Tobias Billström, a Swedish delegate to the assembly and former justice minister, said “very credible members” had told him they had been offered bribes to vote in a certain way. He is one of 64 parliamentarians to have signed a resolution calling for an independent investigation into “serious and credible allegations of grave misconduct” centred on an Azerbaijani vote.

Allegations of “caviar diplomacy” have swirled around the Council of Europe’s parliamentary assembly for years, with Azerbaijan accused of offering cash and luxury gifts in exchange for favourable votes.
The claims were first laid out in a 2012 report by the European Stability Initiative thinktank, but have gathered momentum since Italian prosecutors began investigating a former chair of the centre-right group, Italian deputy Luca Volontè.
Volontè is accused of accepting €2.39m in bribes from Azerbaijan in exchange for supporting its government in the Council of Europe. He faces a trial for money laundering, and Milan’s public prosecutor is appealing a decision to drop a corruption charge against him. He has always denied any wrongdoing.

No historical evidence on state named Azerbaijan in the north of Araks, Iranian military says

April 8, 2017 By administrator

“There is no historical evidence on a state called ‘Azerbaijan’ in the north of Araks,” Foreign high-ranking military of the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Mansour Haghighatpour said according to the report of Iranian news agency Azariha.org.

As the Iranian source notes, Mansour Haghighatpour, turning to the expediency of recognizing the independence of Azerbaijan by Iran after the collapse of the Soviet Union, has particularly noted: “The history provides no evidence on a country named Azerbaijan in the territory lying to the north of Araks. Azerbaijan (Atropatene) is situated in the region lying to the south of Araks with Arran and Shirvan Khanate situating in the north.”

Haghighatpour went on adding: “Certainly during the Soviet period the region was mentioned with a fake name. I think due to Iran’s caring and friendly attitude Tehran refrained from raising an issue over the name of the newly independent state that was fighting a war with Armenia.”

Unwilling to reach negotiated peace, Azerbaijan intentionally escalates tension on frontline – Artsakh Foreign Ministry

April 5, 2017 By administrator

^{Official press release by the Nagorno-Karabakh (Artsakh) Ministry of Foreign Affairs}
Today marks exactly one year since the end of military aggression unleashed by Azerbaijan against Artsakh with a view to resolving the Azerbaijani-Karabakh conflict by force. On the night of 1 to 2 April 2016, in flagrant violation of the ceasefire, the Azerbaijani armed forces launched a large-scale offensive along the entire border using heavy equipment, artillery and aviation. Only after suffering heavy losses in manpower and military equipment, on 5 April 2016, Azerbaijan was forced to ask for a cessation of hostilities with the mediation of Russia.

The April aggression of Azerbaijan against Artsakh, which was accompanied by numerous violations of international humanitarian law and war crimes, has become a serious challenge to regional peace and security and has caused great damage to the negotiation process for the settlement of the Azerbaijani-Karabakh conflict within the framework of the mediation efforts of the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs.
During the year that has passed since the end of the hostilities on 5 April 2016, the Co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group have been making efforts to ensure conditions for a full restoration of the negotiation process.
The Republic of Artsakh has been consistently supporting the statements of the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs on the need for the full implementation of the ceasefire agreement of 12 May 1994, practical application of the provisions of the agreement of 6 February 1995 on strengthening the ceasefire regime, as well as implementation of the agreements reached in Vienna (16 May 2016) and in St. Petersburg (20 June, 2016) on introduction of a mechanism for investigating incidents and increasing the capacity of the Personal Representative of the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office.
Azerbaijan not only rejects these proposals, but also disrupts any initiative aimed at excluding the possibility of resumption of hostilities. Moreover, throughout this time Azerbaijan has been sparing no effort to transfer the logic of confrontation to the spheres of economy, culture and even human contacts.
While demonstrating complete unwillingness to reach a negotiated peace settlement, the Azerbaijani authorities threaten to unleash another war. By consistently increasing the tension on the Line of Contact between the armed forces of Artsakh and Azerbaijan and continuing the policy of confrontation and hostility. Baku deliberately deepens the mistrust between the parties and tries to make the process of peaceful settlement of the Azerbaijani-Karabakh conflict a hostage of its destructive policy and maximalist demands.

Baku will lose more land in new Karabakh war: Russia ex-spy chief

March 18, 2017 By administrator

The desire to settle the Nagorno Karabakh (Artsakh) conflict by force or a new war will not yield any result, except the complication of the issue and possible loss of more territories for Azerbaijan, Russia’s former intelligence chief said, according to Haqqin.az.

Vyacheslav Trubnikov, a journalist, political scientist, spy and a diplomat, has worked as the director of Foreign Intelligence Service and a first deputy of foreign minister of Russia. Also, in the 1990s he was the Russian co-chair of the OSCE Minsk Group, tasked with the peaceful settlement of the conflict.

Russia will go to great lengths to ensure that hostilities don’t resume under any circumstances, he said.

“This, after all, is a matter of national security, and we won’t allow a new round of conflict. As an OSCE Minsk Group co-chairing country, we will seek options for its settlement,” Trubnikov said.

According to the diplomat, no pressure on either side will give any results.

The Armenian side now has more advantages than Azerbaijan, Trubnikov said, citing control over Karabakh and the safe zone surrounding it.

“Armenia will play its trump cards to the maximum in the negotiation process, while pressure could yield the opposite effect. Therefore, it is necessary to patiently convince the parties to work towards a peaceful solution to the problem,” he said.

Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan and Azeri leader Ilham Aliyev met on June 20 in Saint Petersburg to address the conflict, with Russian President Vladimir Putin mediating the talks. The Armenian and Azerbaijani presidents confirmed their commitment to the implementation of agreements reached at a Vienna-hosted meeting on May 16. To that end, they agreed to increase the number of international observers in the Karabakh conflict zone. Also, they expressed satisfaction that the ceasefire was now holding. Prior to that, a meeting between both leaders was organized on May 16 in Vienna, with top diplomats from the Minsk Group co-chairing countries hosting the summit.