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US ambassador in Baku calls for ‘internationally agreed peace deal’ over Karabakh

March 28, 2018 By administrator

US ambassador in Baku

US ambassador in Baku

The United States ambassador to Azerbaijan has called for stepping up efforts towards reaching an internationally agreed peace over Nagorno-Karabakh (Artsakh).

Speaking at an annual dinner event held by the Chamber of Commerce, Robert Cekuta called attention especially to the key principles underlying the conflict settlement plan.

“We need to know the persistent Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and the need to help realize a peaceful settlement based upon internationally agreed-upon principles,” Trend.az quotes him as saying.

According to the Azerbaijani news agency, the diplomat is completing his mission to the country.

Filed Under: Articles Tagged With: Baku, Karabakh, US Ambassador

It is time for international community to welcome Artsakh into the community of nations – John Evans

March 12, 2018 By administrator

John Evans is a former US ambassador to Armenia (2004-2006)

John Evans is a former US ambassador to Armenia (2004-2006)

In 451 AD, Armenian warriors, having just lost a fierce battle with the superior Persian Empire, retreated into the forests of Artsakh in the South Caucasus. They had lost the war, but preserved their Christian faith, and thus considered it a victory. Armenia was the first nation to embrace Christianity, in the year 301.

In 2018, a small but determined Armenian democratic republic, the Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh (or “Artsakh,” as Armenians call it) is attempting to survive, threatened by a militarily superior power that wishes to crush it. Professor Audrey Altstadt, in her recent article about Azerbaijan did not mention Nagorno-Karabakh, but perhaps ought to have, as the plight of the citizens of that unrecognized de facto state constitutes a serious violation of human rights.

This week, the democratically-elected president of Artsakh, Bako Sahakyan, will visit Washington. He will not be received by the administration, in part because the United States is silent on the question of whether Artsakh should eventually be independent of Azerbaijan, to which it was allocated by Josef Stalin in 1921. Washington does not recognize Artsakh—in fact no country yet does—but President Sahakyan’s predecessor who visited in 1999 and 2002 met with State Department officials at the working level, and there is an unofficial representative of Nagorno-Karabakh/Artsakh resident in Washington. For this visit, Sahakyan will have to be content with meetings on the Hill and a private lunch at the Center for the National Interest.

Along with France and Russia, the United States has been attempting to mediate the dispute between Azerbaijan and Nagorno-Karabakh for more than twenty years. Although the talks, sponsored by the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, have not yet produced a settlement, in the meantime the people of Karabakh have built a thriving democracy based on market principles, free and fair elections and respect for human rights. A fragile cease-fire reached in 1994 under Russian auspices was flagrantly violated in April 2016 when Azeri troops attempted to reverse the victory achieved in the early 1990s by Karabakh Armenians fighting for their right to self-determination as the Soviet Union started to collapse. Nagorno-Karabakh has never in fact been part of modern Azerbaijan except as a part of the USSR, when it was an autonomous region, with the right of secession. Nor was it a part of the short-lived Azerbaijan that briefly existed prior to the establishment of Soviet power in the South Caucasus.

The four-day war in 2016 has changed everything. It was a brutal campaign launched in the middle of the night on multiple sectors of the Line of Contact that divides the Armenian and Azeri forces. Some four hundred casualties resulted before a shaky cease-fire was restored. Azeri forces carried out multiple atrocities, cutting off the ears of an elderly Armenian couple, torturing and mutilating the bodies of Armenian soldiers, and, in at least one case, decapitating them, ISIS-style. These atrocities—some twenty-eight of them—have been documented by the Ombudsman for Artsakh and reported to the UN Commission on Human Rights. The blitzkrieg destroyed what little confidence the Armenians in Artsakh may have had in the peace talks and in Baku’s intentions toward them, which some observers say were tantamount to genocidal.

As I saw with my own eyes when I visited in July after the April 2016 war, the people and the de facto authorities of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic have built a functioning democracy despite being “unrecognized” by the world. They have demonstrated all the attributes of a state outlined in the Montevideo Convention except the last: the capacity to conduct state-to-state relations. In fact, they do have the capacity; it is only the opportunity that they have been denied. Azerbaijan punishes anyone who visits Karabakh without its consent, so the opera singer Monserrat Caballé, celebrity cook Anthony Bourdain, Washington Post columnist David Ignatius and many others are now on Baku’s “black list.” Full disclosure: I am on that list myself.

According to experts on international law who met recently in Brussels to discuss the issue, the right to self-determination trumps the principle of territorial integrity, which can be invoked only “externally,” that is, in defense of the state against external threats, but not to thwart the rights of an internal minority seeking to exercise its rights. Leaving aside the fact that Nagorno-Karabakh legally seceded from the USSR at the same time as Armenia and Azerbaijan did, there can be no doubt that the conflict with the government in Baku began as an internal one. It is also true that Armenia came to the support of its cousins in Artsakh, as did Armenians from California and around the world. And it has to be said that self-determination can sometimes be exercised within a state, as Quebec has chosen to do within Canada. But when the “parent” state employs violence against what it considers its citizens, it forfeits its right to rule over them, and there arises the question of what has been termed “remedial secession.”

As Professor Paul Williams of the American University Washington College of Law reminds us, there are some seventy active self-determination movements in today’s world. These conflicts, he points out, are “deadly, durable and destabilizing.” They tend to last, on average, about thirty years. But as another international law expert, Alfred de Zayas, points out, self-determination is a form of democracy, and ought to be viewed as a factor for long-term stability.

It is time for the international community to welcome the Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh—Artsakh—into the community of nations. As the deputy foreign minister of Artsakh, Armine Aleksanyan, put it recently at the European Parliament, “Karabakh is a country, not a conflict.” The people of Artsakh just want to live their lives in peace and freedom. Even though the status of the Republic of Artsakh has not yet been finally determined, the people of Artsakh possess, and should enjoy, the same rights as all the rest of us, and ought not to be quarantined by the rest of humanity.

Re-published from The National Interest
John Evans is a former US ambassador to Armenia (2004-2006)

Filed Under: News Tagged With: Armenia, former, john-evans, US Ambassador

ANCA urges US Ambassador to publicly support MCC grant to Armenia

February 4, 2017 By administrator

The Armenian National Committee of America urged U.S. Ambassador to Armenia Richard Mills to publicly express U.S. government’s general support for both a potential new Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) grant to Armenia and the launch of direct U.S. to Armenia flights.

The call came as a part of an open online exchange between ANCA Executive Director Aram Hamparian and Ambassador Mills.

In his early response to ANCA’s concerns, Ambassador Mills said “the first step to a MCC for Armenia is to meet‎ the MCC criteria – why we are focused on fighting corruption and building rule of law so Armenia might again qualify; big test is how free and fair April elections are conducted. Even if these steps don’t lead to a new MCC, Armenia will be far better for it.”

Commenting on calls to open direct Los-Angeles- Yerevan flights, Ambassador recalled that  the Armenian government and U.S. Embassy jointly achieved the open skies reforms that now allow Western air carriers to consider the Armenian market, and “now up to Armenian Gov’t to make the business case for scheduling air services to Armenia.”

ANCA also responded to Ambassador’s explanation that “a double tax treaty is an unnecessary diversion without a welcoming business environment in Armenia”.

“Due to the absence of such a treaty between the U.S. and Armenia, there is today no clear legal framework for investors and individuals that have business activities in both jurisdictions. This creates legal uncertainty that deters potential U.S. investors, diverts investment flows, and disadvantages American businesses,” Mr. Hamparian said.

He recalled that U.S. has double tax treaties with a number of smaller countries than Armenia, and with countries rated by Transparency International in the bottom half of its Corruption Perceptions Index.

Filed Under: Articles Tagged With: ANC, Armenia, US Ambassador

Not Welcome: Notorious Turkish Mayor of Ankara Calls for US Ambassador to Leave Turkey

January 15, 2016 By administrator

229095_newsdetailMayor of the Turkish capital of Ankara İbrahim Melih Gokcek on Friday called for US Ambassador to Turkey John Bass to leave the country, because of his position on recent detentions in the country.

ANKARA (Sputnik) — Earlier in the day, Bass voiced concerns about the detention of 14 Turkish scholars for a public denunciation of Turkish military actions against Kurdish militants. The scholars signed a petition last week calling for an end to Ankara’s violent attacks against Kurds.

“You are the wrong choice for the United States, come back to your country. It will be better if a new ambassador, knowing us, comes. When we are trying to bring the level of US-Turkish relations to the highest level, you are trying to make the Turkish nation an enemy of the United States,” Gokcek said on his Twitter account.

He added that it was not very wise advice to tolerate “terrorist attacks on Turkish police officers and soldiers.”

Turkey’s Kurdish-dominated southeast region has recently seen renewed violence between the Turkish government forces and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party since mid-summer breakdown of a two-year peace process.

Filed Under: Articles Tagged With: Ankara, mayot, US Ambassador

US Ambassador: Armenia is a wonderful country that is achieving great things

November 11, 2015 By administrator

4621260500YEREVAN. – Armenia is a wonderful country that is achieving great things, the U.S. Ambassador to Armenia Richard Mills stated in his speech at the meeting with the representatives of the American Chamber of Commerce in Armenia (AmCham) today.

“I have seen many positive changes since I first started working on Armenian issues in the 1990s, changes that have benefitted the Armenian people. But more needs to be done. I believe the four priorities I’ve identified will help the U.S. Government and people provide the people and government of Armenia with the tools and resources it needs to find Armenian solutions to the challenges it faces. We at the Embassy will be working to increase our bilateral business and trade ties,” the Ambassador said.

“We will be helping Armenians fight corruption. We will be partnering with Armenia to strengthen its democratic institutions and civil society. I promise a more robust engagement to explain the broad range of U.S. foreign policy goals. I invite you to judge the success of my ambassadorship by how strongly and faithfully we cleave to these goals,” Richard Mills concluded.

Filed Under: Articles Tagged With: Armenia, country, US Ambassador, wonderful

US Ambassador: Armenia may become model in terms of combating trafficking

October 30, 2015 By administrator

US AmbassadorYEREVAN. – Armenia may become a model for other countries in terms of the struggle against trafficking in persons, U.S. Ambassador to Armenia Richard Mills said during the meeting of the council on fight against trafficking.

The meeting was chaired by Vice Prime Minister Vache Gabrielyan with the participation of the government officials, representatives of the international and local NGOs.

Leader of the team on fight against trafficking Vahram Kazhoyan presented the work carried out during the first six months of this year.

It was noted that a program to combat trafficking in 2016-18 will be submitted to the council in the near future. Vahram Kazhoyan noted that Armenia is the only regional country that got Tier I status in the State Department report for the third consecutive year. Similar success is also reflected in the annual report of the Council of Europe’s Group of Experts on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings (GRETA)

Filed Under: Articles Tagged With: Armenia, combating, trafficking, US Ambassador

U.S. Ambassador Calls on Turkey to Be ‘Respectful’ over Genocide Centennial

February 10, 2015 By administrator

1401883246152ANKARA—In an interview on Turkish television on Feb 6, the United States’ Ambassador to Turkey, John Bass, commented on Turkey’s denial of the Armenian Genocide and the Turkish government’s decision to host commemorations of the Battle of Gallipoli on April 24, the same day that Armenians will be commemorating the centennial of the Armenian Genocide.

Speaking about the United States’ position on the Armenian Genocide, Bass said, “I cannot speak to how the events will be characterized in whatever the President or Congress chooses to say on the anniversary, but, I can tell you that our policy hasn’t changed. Our policy is that we believe that a full, frank and just acknowledgement of the facts surrounding those terrible massacres and tragedies in 1915 is in the interest of the citizens of Turkey, it is in the interest of the citizens of Armenia and it is in the interest of the descendants of people who suffered in that period.”

On U.S. participation in commemorations of the Battle of Gallipoli, Bass said, “It is too early to say how we will be represented in Gallipoli. I would say, with respect to the timing of the commemorations, you know there is so much depth of feeling and so much suffering that occurred in 1915 among many populations that, I think, from our perspective, we think that commemorations should occur in a way that allows every community that suffered to commemorate the events in a way and in a manner that is respectful of the dead and that allows them in their own ways to acknowledge that suffering and to commemorate their dead respectfully.”

Filed Under: Articles, Genocide Tagged With: armenian genocide, denial, respectful, Turkey, US Ambassador

US Ambassador Calls Special Operation of Karabakh rescue A ‘Respectful Step’

December 1, 2014 By administrator

John-HeffernYEREVAN (Mediamax)—The U.S. Ambassador to Armenia, John Heffern, on Saturday called the Artsakh Army’s special operation to retrieve the bodies of three slain pilots, whose unarmed helicopter was downed by Azeri forces, a “respectful step.”

While speaking to members of the press, Heffern said that the U.S. mission in Armenia has followed the developments around the incident very carefully and has kept in touch with Washington.

“What impressed me the most from my meeting with the Armenian Minister of Defense was the fact that he was focused on retrieval of the remains of the three killed airmen. And that’s exactly what he was able to do. I have a great respect for him for his focus on that, and for his ability to get that done,” Heffern said.

Heffern said that three days after the downing of the helicopter, Armenia’s Defense Minister Seyran Ohanian asked the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairmen to urge Azerbaijan to allow for the safe retrieval of the remains of the Armenian servicemen.

“I talked on the phone to [U.S. Co-Chair] James Warlick, later we talked to his French and Russian counterparts, and, probably the next day, the co-chairs issued a statement. I was pleased that we were able to do the specific thing that the Minister had asked us to do. I don’t know whether the co-chairs have helped with that. But we were able to do what Mr. Ohanian asked us to do,” said Heffern.

On Friday, Armenia’s President Serzh Sarkisian met with the Secretary General of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) Nikolay Bordyuzha in Yerevan, where they discussed the downing of the Artsakh Air Force helicopter and its implications.

According to Bordyuzha, the incident will be discussed during the upcoming meeting of the Collective Security Council of the CSTO in Moscow.

On Nov. 12, an unarmed Mi-24 helicopter belonging to the Artsakh Air Force was shot down by Azerbaijani armed forces while conducting an exercise flight. The area where the helicopter was shot down stayed under fire from Azerbaijani forces continuously following the downing of the aircraft. A special operation was eventually carried out to retrieve the remains of the slain pilots. The Commander of the staff was the Major Sergey Sahakyan, accompanied by Senior Lieutenant Sarkis Nazaryan and Lieutenant Azat Sahakyan.

Filed Under: Articles Tagged With: Armenia, respectful step, US Ambassador

US ambassador to Armenia congratulates Aram MP3

May 11, 2014 By administrator

Armenian Ambassador to Armenia John Heffern has congratulated Aram MP3, who represented Armenia at the Eurovision Song Contest in Denmark’s capital, Copenhagen.
US Ambasador

He left the following message on his Twitter page:

“Morning after Eurovision. Aram MP3 you had the Armenian nation and many friends and partners behind you. Thanks and congratulations!”

Filed Under: Articles, Events Tagged With: Aram MP3, US Ambassador

Armenia, US Ambassador in “Happy Yerevan” video

April 14, 2014 By administrator


April 08, 2014 | 19:05

U.S. Ambassador to Armenia John Heffern has appeared in “Happy Yerevan” video filmed by U.S. Alumni Association in Armenia.

Source: News.am

Filed Under: Articles Tagged With: Armenia, Happy Yerevan, US Ambassador

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