Scores of troops, tanks, artillery systems and other military hardware paraded across Stepanakert on May 9 in one of the largest ever displays of Nagorno-Karabakh’s military power.
Watch the full slide-show here.
Armenian Ciber Army hacks over 20 Azerbaijani sites to mark the 8-year anniversary of officer Guren Margaryan's murder
Armenian Ciber Army hacks over 20 Azerbaijani sites to mark the 8-year anniversary of the Armenian officer Gurgen Margaryan’s murder in Budapest. Continue reading
Atlas of Nagorno-Karabakh Republic (NKR) from Wikipedia
Intensified skirmishes between Azerbaijan’s armed forces and Nagorno-Karabakh Defence Army pose a serous risk of spilling into a full-scale armed conflict, as nationalists in Azerbaijan exploit the Karabakh issue for political gains ahead of parliamentary elections. Continue reading
Tagged Armenia, Azerbaijan, Conflict, Nagorno-Karabakh, South Caucasus, Soviet Union, War
Once a thriving city of more than 40.000 souls with its own airfield, capital of Agdam region, today Agdam is the consummated portrait of the devastation brought about by the Nagorno Karabakh war, it was invaded by the Armenian self-defense forces in July 1993, following the battle of Aghdam.
Click to see the full photoreport from Hadrut
Walking around Hadrut it is easy to forget, that you’re just a view miles away from hostile Azerbaijan – the place is an amazingly regular, yet a charming little Armenian town.
Hamburg (dpa) – Words instead of weapons. Harmony instead of strife. The European Council wants to prohibit war and to that end sponsors an annual youth camp where representatives of rival groups meet and sit at a single table. Continue reading
French President Nicolas Sarkozy, left, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, center, and U.S. President Barack Obama clap after a commemoration ceremony at the G8 summit in L'Aquila, Italy on Friday, July 10, 2009. AP Photo: Michel Euler
HUNTSVILLE, Ontario, June 26 (Reuters) – The United States, France and Russia on Saturday pledged to support Armenia and Azerbaijan as they try to agree basic principles for settling a dispute over Azerbaijan’s breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh region.
At least six soldiers, four of whom Armenians, have been killed as fighting continued in Karabakh over the weekend. Continue reading
Next OSCE Minsk Group US Co-Chairman Robert A. Bradtke, Photo via RFE/RL
Everyone’s ‘favorite’ OSCE Minsk Group co-chairman Mathew Bryza will probably stop revealing to the media details of Karabakh regulation process, only to come out the next day to say he was misquoted and misunderstood again. Robert A. Bradtke will replace Bryza on that post. The official State Department Statement says:
Posted in Armenia
Tagged Armenia, Azerbaijan, Conflict, Karabakh, Minsk group, Nagorno-Karabakh, Negotiations, News, OSCE
The Roki Tunnel, which links Russia and South Ossetia in Georgia. When Russian forces moved through the tunnel into Georgia at the war’s start is in dispute.
By C.J. CHIVERS
Published: September 15, 2008 in the New York Times
The New York Times carries an article about new evidence, which Georgia is trying to present as solid proof, that the Georgia-Russian war was in fact started by Russians. Georgia has provided intercepts of phone calls along with English translations to the New York Times, claiming, that it is sufficiant evidence.
The Georgian intelligence service has recorded several phone calls on August 7 and 8, which according to them, prove, that Russia had started moving its armed forces into the territory of South Ossetia via the Roki Tunnel before Georgian shelling of South Ossetia.
By Russian accounts, the war began at 11:30 that night, when President Mikheil Saakashvili of Georgia ordered an attack on Russian positions in Tskhinvali. Russian combat units crossed the border into South Ossetia only later, Russia has said.
By Russian accounts, the war began at 11:30 that night, when President Mikheil Saakashvili of Georgia ordered an attack on Russian positions in Tskhinvali. Russian combat units crossed the border into South Ossetia only later, Russia has said.Russia has not disputed the veracity of the phone calls, which were apparently made by Ossetian border guards on a private Georgian cellphone network. “Listen, has the armor arrived or what?” a supervisor at the South Ossetian border guard headquarters asked a guard at the tunnel with the surname Gassiev, according to a call that Georgia and the cellphone provider said was intercepted at 3:52 a.m. on Aug. 7.
“The armor and people,” the guard replied. Asked if they had gone through, he said, “Yes, 20 minutes ago; when I called you, they had already arrived.”
Shota Utiashvili, the director of the intelligence analysis team at Georgia’s Interior Ministry, said the calls pointed to a Russian incursion. “This whole conflict has been overshadowed by the debate over who started this war,” he said. “These intercepted recordings show that Russia moved first and that we were defending ourselves.”
The recordings, however, do not explicitly describe the quantity of armor or indicate that Russian forces were engaged in fighting at that time.
Competing Accounts
Gen. Lt. Nikolai Uvarov of Russia, a former United Nations military attaché, who served as a Defense Ministry spokesman during the war, insisted that Georgia’s attack surprised Russia and that its leaders scrambled to respond while Russian peacekeeping forces were under fire. He said President Dmitri A. Medvedev had been on a cruise on the Volga River. Mr. Putin was at the Olympics in Beijing.
“The minister of defense, by the way, was on vacation in the Black Sea somewhere,” he said. “We never expected them to launch an attack.”
Make sure to read the full article for more. My opinion? Georgia is just trying to save their face, and the calls might well be fabricated. Even if they aren’t – they don’t prove anything.
