Author: Baben Ispiryan

Mamedov revealed that Armenia, in a significant move, has once again acknowledged the armed formations from Karabakh’s Armenians were indeed an integral part of the Armed Forces of the Republic of Armenia. Farhad Mamedov, the head of the South Caucasus Research Center, recently shed light on Armenia’s military involvement in Karabakh in a post on his Telegram channel. Mamedov revealed that Armenia, in a significant move, has once again acknowledged the armed formations from Karabakh’s Armenians were indeed an integral part of the Armed Forces of the Republic of Armenia. This revelation came to the forefront when the Prosecutor General’s Office…

South Caucasus Railway has restarted local passenger services between Gyumri, Shirakamut and Vanadzor with the launch of a trial daily train each way. The Russian Railways subsidiary operates the Armenian network under a long-term concession agreement. The 65 km route forms part of SCR’s electrified main line which runs north from Yerevan to the Georgian border south of Tbilisi through Gyumri, Vanadzor and Ayrum. Augmenting the international train between Yerevan, Tbilisi and Batumi, the local service operates daily except Wednesdays, departing from Gyumri at 07.30 and reaching Vanadzor at 08.59. The return trip leaves Vanadzor at 17.15, arriving at Gyumri at…

Various countries and international organizations have so far pledged a total of €35 million in assistance for Armenia through the ICRC to meet the needs of the forcibly displaced persons of Nagorno-Karabakh, Deputy Prime Minister Tigran Khachatryan has said. Another €35 million has already been allocated, 15 million of which will be provided as budgetary support to the Armenian government. Development agencies will direct the rest of the funds through their representations to support the forcibly displaced persons. Furthermore, over the course of the past two weeks Armenia received more than 100 tons of humanitarian aid for the forcibly displaced…

The separatist government of Nagorno-Karabakh said Thursday it will dissolve itself and the unrecognized republic will cease to exist by year’s end after a three-decade bid for independence, while Armenian officials said over half of the region’s population has already fled. The moves came after Azerbaijan carried out a lightning offensive last week to reclaim full control over the breakaway region and demanded that Armenian troops in Nagorno-Karabakh disarm and the separatist government disband. A decree signed by the region’s separatist President Samvel Shakhramanyan cited a Sept. 20 agreement to end the fighting under which Azerbaijan will allow the “free, voluntary and unhindered movement”…

TikTok’s Southeast Asian ambitions will take a major hit after Indonesia bans shopping transactions on social media apps, analysts told CNBC. On Wednesday, Indonesia set a one-week deadline for TikTok to become a standalone app, without any e-commerce feature. If TikTok does not comply, it faces the risk of closure in the country. ″[Being a standalone app] could introduce significant friction for existing TikTok users, negatively impacting user experiences,” said Jonathan Woo, senior research analyst at Phillip Securities Research. Indonesia has banned e-commerce transactions on social media platforms such as TikTok Shop and Facebook. This means that users are not allowed to buy or sell goods…

China has vowed to push its southwestern province of Yunnan as a gateway to the vast market of South and Southeast Asian nations to forge closer ties with the region and offset US-led geopolitical pressure and economic rivalry. Billed as the “pivot to South and Southeast Asia”, Yunnan has been tasked with building the “high land” of opening up, according to a statement by the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), the country’s top economic planner. It pledged to further support Yunnan, which borders three Southeast Asian neighbours – Myanmar, Vietnam and Laos – to “speed up the construction of major international…

The Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, and the Azerbaijani leader, Ilham Aliyev, have lauded Baku’s military victory in Nagorno-Karabakh as thousands of ethnic Armenians fled their homes in the breakaway region and headed to Armenia. Aliyev hosted his Turkish counterpart on Monday in the autonomous Nakhchivan exclave, a strip of Azerbaijani territory separated from the rest of the country by Armenia. Last week, Erdoğan, an ally of Aliyev who backed Azerbaijan with weaponry in the 2020 conflict, said he supported the aims of Azerbaijan’s latest military operation but had played no part in it. At a joint news conference with Aliyev, Erdoğan said:…

The US strives for Armenia to make a real decision to become its partner, as opposed to Russia. Yuri Kim, the Acting US Assistant Secretary of State for Europe and Eurasian Affairs, stated this during the hearings, at the US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, on the assessment of the crisis in Nagorno-Karabakh. Kim noted that after February 2022, all neighboring countries of Russia “sleep with one eye open,” which is logical. She expressed a view that seeing this very clear manifestation of Russia’s lack of respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of its neighbors, they are all beginning…

Azerbaijan on Monday slammed French President Emmanuel Macron for “biased” remarks on its Karabakh region, which it said “undermined” the peace process with archrival Armenia. “French President Emmanuel Macron’s biased views reiterated during the Ambassadorial Conference of August 28 undermine the peace process, while creating the wrong impression on the current situation in the region and unilaterally defending Armenia,” Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry spokesperson Aykhan Hajizada said in a statement released by the ministry. Hajizada said the opinion expressed by Macron during the conference based on allegations regarding the humanitarian situation in the region, “attests to the erroneous policy” of France.…

The UN Security Council must adopt a resolution regarding the dire situation in Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh). With this call, the members of the Batsum (Opening) initiative of Armenia staged demonstrations Tuesday in front of the embassies of France and the United Kingdom (UK), two permanent members of the UN Security Council. The members of this initiative call for a decisive resolution to be adopted, which will address a number of vital points. And the first on this list is the transfer of humanitarian aid to Nagorno-Karabakh. According to them, the second point in the aforesaid resolution should be the reopening of…