NEWS.am digest: What Pashinyan means by ‘lowering bar’ on Nagorno-Karabakh status?

Armenian News - NEWS.am presents the daily digest of top news as of 14.04.22

PM’S SPEECH

Nikol Pashinyan's speech in the National Assembly yesterday had a shocking effect on society. If yesterday the Prime Minister's thoughts only gave rise to assumptions that the he was talking about plans to recognize Artsakh as part of Azerbaijan, this morning it became clear that those assumptions were well-founded.

One by one, the MPs approached the podium, beginning and ending their speeches by thanking Pashinyan for having the courage to raise this issue.

If yesterday it was not clear what Pashinyan meant when he said that the international community expects Armenia to lower the bar of Artsakh's status, today the deputies revealed in their speeches that lowering the bar means recognizing Artsakh as part of Azerbaijan.

This, it turns out, was the agenda of peace that the government was talking about after the end of the war.

ARTSAKH PRESIDENT

President of Artsakh Arayik Harutyunyan called an urgent working meeting on Wednesday after Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan's statement on lowering the bar on the Nagorno-Karabakh status caused serious concern among the public.

"Our society has very clear demands, which we must meet by organizing diverse discussions," the president noted.

“We understand that we should live in the neighborhood, but subordination is impossible, it is simply unacceptable. We should be guided by the option of maintaining the status quo, as the Russians say. The Russian peacekeeping forces will remain here indefinitely, as they arrived here as a guarantor of the security of the Armenian population living in Artsakh,” Harutyunyan added.

Harutyunyan also weighed in on the fate of Karabakh.

US STATE DEPT

The US Department of State published its annual 2021 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, in which the authors pointed to some human rights issues in Armenia.

In the report, the authors noted that the snap parliamentary elections in Armenia were highly polarized and marred by increasingly inflammatory rhetoric.

They also touched upon the war in Nagorno-Karabakh in 2020 and said that incidents of violence along the border during the year resulted in casualties and detentions.

GERMAN PRESIDENT IN UKRAINE

The non-reception of the German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier in Ukraine has puzzled the German government, said Chancellor Olaf Scholz.

Scholz himself is not going to leave for Kyiv yet.

The Chancellor recalled that he had been in Kyiv before the war, and during the Russian special operation he often talked on the phone with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Scholz said he can hardly find another head of state or government who has kept in touch with me on such a regular basis.

BIDEN'S STATEMENT ON GENOCIDE

The US President's statement accusing Russia of committing "genocide" in Ukraine has caused a discussion in the international press.

When U.S. President Joe Biden said that Russia's actions in Ukraine constitute genocide, he clarified this was not a legal declaration and that he would let the lawyers determine whether the term technically qualifies in this case.

He said he used "genocide" because it had become clearer that Russian President Vladimir Putin is trying to "wipe out the idea of being able to be Ukrainian."

On Wednesday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said he thinks it's "absolutely right" more people are using the word genocide to describe Russia's actions in Ukraine.

But many international experts have mixed views over whether the standard-of-proof has yet been met for genocide occurring in Ukraine, which would require evidence that Russia is intentionally trying to destroy a national group.

CIS AND US

Attempts by the United States and its allies to strengthen their position in the CIS are unacceptable for Moscow and are fraught with serious risks, said Mikhail Evdokimov, Director of the First Department of the Russian Foreign Ministry in the CIS.

"In the current situation, the mechanisms of interstate cooperation in the field of security and protection of external borders, which were formed in the CIS, are of special importance," the Russian diplomat said. Evdokimov also noted that Russia is ready to discuss with the Eurasian Union countries the issue of increasing its energy supply, if they are interested in it, adding that

The countries of the union try to abandon the American dollar in domestic trade and implement it in their national currencies. According to Evdokimov, Western countries seek to disrupt integration processes in the CIS, and to counteract this, it is necessary to adapt existing mechanisms in the field of security and coordinate work in the CIS, CSTO and Shanghai Cooperation Organization.

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