The main topics of the day in Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia, 20-24 February, 2023

● Ruben Vardanyan has been dismissed from the post of state minister of the unrecognized NKR. He stated that although he is aware of the pressure exerted from external forces to make him leave Nagorno-Karabakh, he has no intention of doing so.

● Pashinyan has discussed the situation in Nagorno-Karabakh over the phone with Putin. He noted the importance of Russia taking necessary steps to overcome the crisis in Nagorno-Karabakh. The Kremlin said that Pashinyan informed Putin about the meetings in Munich with foreign partners.

● In the coming days, a meeting is planned with the participation of Armenia and Azerbaijan in Brussels, which will be held by EU President Charles Michel. This was stated by US State Department spokesman Ned Price at his daily briefing.

● The Prime Minister of Armenia will leave for Berlin in order to undergo negotiations with Germany.

● Four foreigners have been detained in Armenia while trying to cross the border with Turkey.

● Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan, who is on a visit to Damascus, met with Syrian Foreign Minister Faisal al-Mikdad and discussed issues of cooperation with him.

● The Delegation of the European Union to Georgia: “The struggle of Ukraine is our struggle – Ukraine must win.”

● Speaker of the Georgian Parliament Shalva Papuashvili: “Georgia has never retreated and has never doubted that it supports Ukraine.”

● Minister of Defense: “20% of our country is occupied and, based on this reality, we are doing everything possible to help Ukraine.”

● A rally in support of Ukraine will be held on Rustaveli Avenue in Tbilisi at 19:00.

● “I consider it unthinkable to discuss the law on foreign agents without the main opposition party. After a decision is made on this issue, the party will return to the boycott of parliament,” Levan Bezhashvili, a member of the leading opposition National Movement party.

● President Salome Zurabishvili vetoed amendments to the law “On the National Bank”, saying that “it is not necessary, not urgent and not justified.”

● All 9 people arrested in connection with the tragedy in Vake Park remain in custody.

● Mikheil Saakashvili: “Russian” endocrinologists “have already prescribed me a cocktail of mercury and arsenic.”

● The Turkish government has limited the list and quantity of medicines to be exported. Prices have increased by 36.77% and for more than a month they have been imported at inflated prices – a statement by the Association of Pharmaceutical Companies of Georgia.

Pictured: The residence of the President of Georgia is lit up with the colours of the Ukrainian flag

● For the 75th day, the protest action of Azerbaijani activists on the Lachin road continues.

● The court extended the term of imprisonment of activist Bakhtiyar Hajiyev for another two months. His hunger strike has been going on for 47 days. Last night, US Senator, former Secretary of State and US presidential candidate Hillary Clinton made a demand to release Hajiyev.

● Negotiations between representatives of Azerbaijan and Armenia are expected in Brussels in the coming days. The meeting, which is organized by the head of the European Council Charles Michel, was announced by the representative of the US State Department, Ned Price.

● Azerbaijani football club Qarabag lost in Belgium to local Ghent in a penalty shoot-out and stopped its participation in European cups.

● The state-owned airline AZAL tried to explain the high cost of tickets for flights by rising fuel prices. “Last year alone, the cost of jet fuel on international exchanges almost quadrupled,” said Samir Rzayev, the company’s first vice president.

● The Cabinet of Ministers of Russia has submitted an agreement with Azerbaijan on pension cooperation to the State Duma for ratification. According to the agreement, when calculating a pension, Azerbaijanis will be credited with the length of service acquired while working in the Russian Federation, and Russians – acquired in Azerbaijan.

● Teacher salaries increased by 10 percent.

● “Yerevan is engaged in manipulation, distorting the essence of the negotiations” – Baku, responding to statements from the Armenian Foreign Minister. “Yerevan again demonstrates its disinterest in establishing peace in the region. Yerevan’s refusal of the checkpoint on the Lachin road shows a desire to continue its use for illegal purposes in violation of tripartite declarations,” the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

●  The Foreign Ministry, in a separate statement, approved the rejection by the International Court of Justice of two statements from Yerevan: the allegation that Azerbaijan is organising and supporting protests on the Lachin road, and the demand to “immediately restore the supply of natural gas and other utilities to Karabakh.” The claims were rejected on the basis of insufficient evidence.

● Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov will visit Azerbaijan on February 27-28. Negotiations are expected with Ilham Aliyev and Foreign Minister Jeyhyn Bayramov.

●  Baku is swimming in a dusty fog. The content of dust in the air exceeded the norm by 1.6 – 3 times. The reason is a strong wind that blew the upper dry surface of the soil.

●  A bridge connecting two regions – Goygol and Goranboy – was stolen in Azerbaijan. The detainees admitted that they were going to hand over the bridge for scrap.

● The International Court of Justice has ordered Azerbaijan to undertake measures ensuring the free movement of people and vehicles along the Lachin road – in both directions.
The head of the Armenian Foreign Ministry has welcomed the decision. The Ministry called on international partners to take effective measures to ensure that this decision is implemented by Azerbaijan.

●” No matter how tense the situation in the region is, freezing the negotiation processes is counterproductive. This just postpones the prospect of lasting peace,” said Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova. According to her, Russia is continuing to seek mutually acceptable solutions in dialogue with both Yerevan and Baku, to resume work in the Lachin corridor and improve the humanitarian situation in Nagorno-Karabakh.

● Yerevan has received confirmation that Azerbaijan is prepared to enter into dialogue with Nagorno-Karabakh. Azerbaijan voiced this at a trilateral meeting in Munich in the Pashinyan-Aliyev-Blinken format, and during a panel discussion, the Foreign Minister noted at a press conference.

● Operations of the Amulsar gold mine will resume: the Armenian government, the EDB and the Lydian Armenia company have signed a memorandum.
The Cabinet of Ministers received 12.5% of the company’s authorised capital free of charge. Lydian, during construction, will pay $7 million to nearby communities annually in a form of financial assistance.

● “We have entered the final stages of a special operation designed to eliminate me,” said Mikheil Saakashvili.

● “There were spies in our team, and they did a lot of harm to us at different times,” commented Irakli Kobakhidze, Georgian Dream chairman.

● A meeting between the President of South Ossetia Alan Gagloev and Putin was cancelled after the former tested positive for the coronavirus.

● “We are doing everything to bring those responsible for the death of Tatunashvili to justice,” said Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili. Archil Tatunashvili died in February 2018 in a pre-detention centre in Tskhinvali under dubious circumstances. After the body was handed to Georgia, experts found multiple unexplained injuries, whilst the heart, brain and other internal organs had been removed.

●A large-scale action scheduled for Friday is being discussed. Its stated goal is to express solidarity with Ukraine on the anniversary of the start of the war, protest against the anti-Western policy of the Georgian government and demonstrate the commitment of Georgia’s citizens to the European course.

●The special quarantine regime in Azerbaijan has been extended to May 1, 2023. This makes Azerbaijan the only country in the world whose land borders have remained closed for three years.

● Two activists who were detained due to their participation in a protest demanding the release of imprisoned activist Bakhtiyar Hajiyev were arrested for 30 days.

● The commander of the Georgian Defence Forces visited the military units of the commandos and the Azerbaijani Air Force. Giorgi Matiashvili got acquainted with the military equipment of the servicemen, and also watched the performances of the commandos in the training center of the military unit (pictured).

● Azerbaijan and Israel are expanding cooperation in the field of joint production of UAVs, according to the Minister of Defense Industry Madat Guliyev during a meeting with the head of the Israeli company Aeronautics as part of IDEX-2023.

● The State Housing Development Agency will build social housing in the Jabrayil region, liberated as a result of the second Karabakh war. The department has planned the construction of 22 multi-apartment residential buildings on a plot of 7.87 hectares.

●An accountant of the terrorist organization ISIS was detained by the State Security Service of Azerbaijan. He had been hiding in several different countries for a long time.

● In Azerbaijan, only one person managed to score the highest score in the entrance exam to the master’s program: graduate of the Azerbaijan State University of Economics (UNEC) Nihad Zeynalli.

● Bridges and roads on the border with Turkey are suitable for use. This was confirmed following an inspection by the Foreign Ministry.

● The Prosecutor General’s Office’s request to arrest Major General Grigory Khachaturov was rejected. Khachaturov is accused of money laundering, and legalization of illegally acquired property using his official position.

● Iran is prepared to hold a meeting of the Foreign Ministers of Russia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Turkey and Georgia in the “3 + 3” format in Tehran, Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian confirmed.

● President of the Armenian Invalid Sports Federation Sargis Stepanyan won bronze at the international para-athletics tournament in Sharjah (pictured).

● Armenia became one of the top five largest trading partners of Georgia in January this year.

● Georgian President Salome Zurabishvili and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Georgia categorically condemned the “official meeting between Lukashenko and the representative of the occupation regime of Aslan Bzhania.” Abkhazia released a comment about this meeeting and the Belarusian president also made a statement ? https://cutt.ly/i37EBer

● “We are grateful to all the Georgian citizens who support Ukraine. I bow to those Georgian warriors who are fighting side by side with Ukrainians. Those at the forefront of protecting the whole world from a terrible enemy are also protecting democracy, freedom, unity ” – Elena Shulyak.

● The highest representative of the EU on foreign policy and security issues Josep Borrell has called a pro-Russian bill on foreign agents registered in the Parliament of Georgia alarming. Meanwhile, the ruling party has announced their support of the bill. More than a hundred non -governmental and media organizations in Georgia performed joint protest, including JAMnews ? https://cutt.ly/937RnU0

●In the leading opposition party “The United National Movement”, disputes continue. Prominent party representative Khatia Dekanoidze does not agree with the chairman’s decision to leave parliament. “This is an important lever, talking about the rejection of the mandates must be stopped,” she said.

 Pictured: Georgia supports Ukraine. Jamnews/ David Pipia

● The Court of Appeals has again refused to change the measure of restraint for Bakhtiyar Hajiyev. Before the trial, six activists held a protest action to demand that Hajiyev be released. The police detained all the protesters. Subsequently, four of them were released, but two protesters spent the night at the police station and will receive a verdict today.
Hajiyev was arrested in November 2022, superficially on charges of hooliganism – but human rights activists consider his arrest politically motivated.

● Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov called his Turkish counterpart Mevlut Cavusoglu in connection with the latest earthquake in Hatay. The Ministry
of Emergency Situations of Azerbaijan stated that none of the Azerbaijani rescuers in Turkey were injured.

● The construction of a 110.4-kilometer section of the Horadiz-Agbend railway line (the starting point of the Zangezur corridor in Azerbaijan) has been completed. The longest railway bridge in Azerbaijan with a length of 418 meters and 13 spans is also being built on the section of this railway.

● The first international children’s dance festival will be held in Shusha in Karabakh on June 1. The event will be attended by children’s dance groups from Turkic-speaking countries.

● 9 women have been killed in Azerbaijan over the past 19 days. The age of the victims ranged from 14 to 50 years old, human rights activist Kamala Agazadeh told IDEX 2023.

● Parents of the servicemen who died in a barracks fire one month ago are protesting. They do not believe the official version given for the death of their children and are demanding a more comprehensive investigation into the incident.

● “The desire of the European Union and the West to gain a foothold in our allied Armenia” – official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry Maria Zakharova’s comment on the start of the work of the EU civil mission in Armenia. “Everything is being done to squeeze Russia out of the region and weaken its historic role as the main guarantor of security,” she added.

● 18 Armenian companies are taking part in the IDEX 2023 international exhibition of arms and military equipment.

● “The term “Nagorno-Karabakh” exists: under the document where it appears, you can find signature of the head of Azerbaijan” – Pashinyan and Aliyev take part in a panel discussion in Munich.

●The campaign “Read in Armenian” was held in Yerevan on Book Donation Day. People gathered together in the park, read their favourite works, and various publishing houses sold books in Armenian at a discount.

●To mark the 154th anniversary of the great Armenian writer and poet Hovhannes Tumanyan, a guard of honour took up his post at his monument in the centre of Yerevan.

● The Armenian Apostolic Church celebrated the holiday “True Maslenitsa” – Bun Barekendan. The holiday is held the day before the start of Lent and is intended to recall the bliss that Adam and Eve experienced in paradise, where they could eat all of the fruits except for the fruits of the tree of knowledge.

● PACE co-rapporteurs Kimmo Kiljunen and Borianna Aberg also visited Syunik, on the border with Azerbaijan. They recorded that the road to the unrecognized NKR was closed.

● More than 40 new species of animals have been added to the zoo in Yerevan (pictured). In total, the zoo now has 722 individuals and 145 species of animals.

● Azerbaijani rescuers continue working through the aftermath of the earthquake in Turkey. Overall, employees of the Ministry of Emergency Situations of Azerbaijan have rescued 53 people and removed 774 bodies from the rubble.

● “A normalisation of relations between Baku and Tehran will be possible after the Iranian authorities bring all those involved in the terrorist attack against the Azerbaijani embassy to justice,” the President of Azerbaijan asserted in Munich.

● Baku has offered to create a checkpoint on the Azerbaijani-Armenian border – “both at both ends of the Zangezur corridor, and on the border between Lachin and Armenia,” Aliyev suggested at talks with Pashinyan in Munich.

● The theses voiced by Aliyev during a panel discussion on security in the South Caucasus in Munich are being hotly discussed by the public:
▪️ Baku is prepared to speak with the Armenian minority in Karabakh, but only with those who were born and live there.
▪️ The new geopolitical situation has created advantages for Azerbaijan in terms of communication projects.
▪️ Some do not want to come to terms with the realities that have arisen after the second Karabakh war, but they will have to.
▪️ Baku has not allowed and will not allow external forces to interfere in the internal affairs of the country.

● Azerbaijani serviceman of the guard regiment of the penitentiary service Nurlan Madatov has shot himself in Baku, according to the military prosecutor’s office.

●Another 20 families will be resettled to the smart village of Agali in the Zangilan region by the end of February. A settlement of 200 houses was built in the village, and 66 families moved there last year.

Pictured: Ilham Aliyev with his wife Mehriban at the Munich Security Conference

● A statement about the bias of the investigation was made by the lawyers of the employees of the Greenservice company, who are involved in the case of the death of a young girl from an electric shock in a fountain in Vake Park in Tbilisi. The tragedy occurred on October 13, and a subsequent legal case was initiated against nine people.

●Saakashvili’s condition has worsened, claimed doctor Tengiz Tsuladze, at a meeting of the council created by Public Defender Tamar Gvaramadze. Yesterday, doctors visited the ex-president at the Vivamed clinic., where he is staying.

● Saakashvili’s mother Julie Alasania: “Even when he actually dies and is lying in a coffin, will the authorities say then that he is playing a role [influencing current events]?”

? Pictured is Vake Park, the site of the tragedy on October 13

What is discussed in Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia – key headlines from local media for 13-17 February, 2023.