Representatives for ethnic Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh met Thursday with the Azerbaijan government to discuss the future of the breakaway region.

The talks in Yevlakh, Azerbaijan come a day after local fighters in Nagorno-Karabakh agreed to lay down their arms to end an offensive by Azerbaijan’s forces.

The U.N. Security Council is due to hold its own talks Thursday about the situation.

Gunfire was reported Thursday in the main city in Nagorno-Karabakh, which Armenians call Stepanakert and Azeris call Khankendi.  Ethnic Armenians accused Azerbaijan of violating the cease-fire, which Azerbaijan’s defense ministry denied.

Russia, which has peacekeepers in the region, said Thursday it had evacuated 5,000 civilians from the area.

Thousands of protesters gathered Wednesday in Yerevan, Armenia’s capital, to call on the government to protect Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh and for Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan to resign.

Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev used a televised address Wednesday to claim victory, saying Azerbaijan had restored the region’s sovereignty.

Azerbaijan said it launched its operation Tuesday in response to landmine explosions that killed four soldiers and two civilians in the region.

The Nagorno-Karabakh region is entirely within Azerbaijan but is populated largely by ethnic Armenians and had been under ethnic Armenian control since 1994.  Parts of it were reclaimed by Azerbaijan after a war in 2020.

Some information for this story provided by the Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters. 
…

Warming relations between North Korea and Russia could last as long as the war in Ukraine continues, making Pyongyang either disposable or expandable to Moscow, depending on its need for ammunition and interest in overturning the U.S.-led international order, experts said.

As U.S. President Joe Biden called on global leaders to support Ukraine at the U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un returned home after his six-day trip to Russia, during which he pledged to provide “full and unconditional support” for Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine.

Kim arrived in Pyongyang in his private train on Tuesday evening, North Korea’s state-run KCNA said the following day. His “good will visit” to Russia “opened a new chapter of the development” between the two countries, touted KCNA on Tuesday as Kim’s train crossed the border.

Using a slightly different tone from North Korea’s, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters Friday that Kim and Putin did not sign any agreements on cooperation, military or otherwise.

Putin said during his meeting with Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko on Friday that Russia does not intend to violate any sanctions on North Korea. Putin made his remarks two days after meeting with Kim.

KCNA said on Sunday that Kim discussed defense and security cooperation and exchanges with Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu in Vladivostok.

Kim’s trip included a summit with Putin at the Vostochny Cosmodrome satellite launch facility in Russia’s far eastern Amur region on Sept. 13 and inspections of fighter jets in Komsomolsk-on-Amur as well as the Pacific Fleet in Vladivostok on Saturday.

Although the specifics of possible but unsigned arms deals between Pyongyang and Moscow were not made public, world leaders gathered at the United Nations are concerned that North Korea and Russia would exchange items banned by the U.N.

In a statement issued Tuesday, the foreign ministers of the G7 countries expressed concerns over “Russia-North Korea cooperation” that “could lead to violation” of U.N. sanctions.

South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol warned in his speech before the U.N. on Wednesday that Seoul would consider any arms deals between the two nations “a direct provocation.”

North Korea needs technological help to send a spy satellite into orbit after failed attempts in May and August. But the technology used to launch satellites into orbit could be also used to enhance intercontinental ballistic missiles, which are banned by the U.N. sanctions on the North.

Russia wants to replenish its depleting stockpiles of ammunition and artillery shells to sustain its war in Ukraine. It turned to North Korea late last year for those weapons, the U.S. said, even though U.N. sanctions prohibit importing arms from Pyongyang.

Although their military needs brought Kim and Putin together, some experts say their new relationship is based on short-term transactional exchanges bound to end when their needs no longer exist.

Cho Han-Bum, a senior research fellow at the Korea Institute for National Unification, a think tank in Seoul, said the Kim-Putin bonding is a temporary alignment rooted in Russia’s need for weapons to fight in Ukraine.

“North Korea and Russian won’t be closely drawn together as they are now if Putin’s needs for the war in Ukraine are satisfied,” he said.

Won Gon Park, a professor of North Korean Studies at Ewha Womans University in Seoul, agreed.

“The relationship between North Korea and Russia is a kind of marriage of convenience rather than strategic partnership,” he said.

Putin and Kim are cooperating to evade sanctions, he added, as both countries are isolated by international and U.S.-led sanctions designating them as countries that commit illegal acts.

Russia has been heavily sanctioned by the U.S.-led coalitions since its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. North Korea has been sanctioned by multiple U.N. Security Council resolutions for testing nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles, especially since 2016.

Attempts to pass new U.N. sanctions on North Korea’s record number of missile launches last year had been blocked by Russia and China, permanent members of the Security Council.

Other experts, however, view the war in Ukraine as unlikely to end soon and see a continuation of the Kim-Putin relationship despite differences in their trajectory of cooperation.

“Putin’s calculation is more short-term than Kim’s,” said Alexander Korolev, an expert in Russia’s foreign policy at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia.

After Putin’s weaponry needs are fulfilled, “Kim could theoretically be disposed of at some point, but the problem is that the war in Ukraine is unlikely to end soon, and even if it ends, the sanctions regime against Russia will stay for longer, which makes Putin more willing to consider longer term cooperation,” Korolev said.

He added that Kim is not essential to Putin in countering the U.S.-led international order in the long run because “China is a better partner for that.”

“Moreover, given how close North Korea is to China, closer Russia-North Korea cooperation could be a convenient and less visible way for China to support Russia when necessary,” Korolev said.

The warming Kim-Putin relationship “is also about diversifying their options, such as exchanging and securing assets that cannot be gained from Beijing – particularly ammunition and military technologies,” said Ryo Hinata-Yamaguchi, a senior nonresident fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Indo-Pacific Security Initiative at the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security.

Kim, on the other hand, might want “a longer-term partnership” as he needs “a whole range of things,” said Samuel Wells, a Cold War fellow at the Wilson Center.

But Putin is probably satisfied with short-term transactional exchanges because “the Russians don’t need that much from the North Koreans,” Wells said. “A lot of it depends on how the Ukraine war goes.”

Some expect the recent warming of Kim-Putin relations may outlast immediate needs for Russia’s war in Ukraine, evolving into strategic cooperation to overturn the U.S.-led international system, also their common goal.

“Even after the war in Ukraine, both of these countries will want to maintain this newly established allied relationship,” said Joseph DeTrani, special envoy for six-party denuclearization talks with North Korea during the George W. Bush administration.

“Both Putin and Kim want a long-term strategic partnership” to “challenge the U.S.-led international order” and each has the other to come to their aid during conflicts, he said.

Although North Korea is “a partner of convenience” for Russia, said Evan Revere, “Putin no doubt sees Pyongyang as a tactically useful partner because of its ability to challenge the U.S.-led alliance system.” Revere served as the acting secretary for East Asia and Pacific Affairs during the George W. Bush administration.

“Moscow finds the DPRK [North Korea] a ‘useful tool’ to remind the United States that, just as Washington is finding ways to hurt Russia by supporting Ukraine, Russia can threaten U.S. interests by supporting North Korea,” he added. 
…

King Charles III on Thursday follows in his mother Queen Elizabeth II’s footsteps by addressing lawmakers in the French upper chamber of parliament on the second day of a visit that has seen him urge stronger ties between the countries.

At a lavish state banquet late Wednesday, Charles issued a call for France and the UK to reinvigorate their relations, in comments echoed by French President Emmanuel Macron.

It is “incumbent upon us all to reinvigorate our friendship to ensure it is fit for the challenge of this, the 21st century,” Charles said in a toast.

Macron added that “despite Brexit… I know, your majesty, that we will continue to write part of the future of our continent together, to meet the challenges and to serve the causes we have in common.”

“Our relations have of course not always been entirely straightforward,” Charles said, in a speech in both English and accented but clearly spoken French that impressed his hosts.

But he set out an optimistic vision of the Entente Cordiale, the pact between the two neighbors forged in 1904, calling it a “sustainable alliance.”

Packed schedule

Charles’ speech at the Senate, France’s upper house of parliament, is the diplomatic high point of a more informal day. The late queen addressed the Senate in 2004 but not in the chamber itself.

He will then visit the northern Parisian suburb of Saint-Denis — home to the French national stadium used for the Rugby World Cup, and the Olympics next year — where he is expected to see residents and sports stars.

Also heading to the Ile de la Cite on the river Seine, Charles — a keen gardener who once admitted he talked to his plants — will tour a flower market named after Queen Elizabeth II on her last state visit in 2014.

From there, he will view renovation and reconstruction work at the nearby Notre-Dame Cathedral, which was partially destroyed by a devastating fire in 2019.

Nearly 1,000 people are working to restore the cathedral, that dates back to the 12th century and is considered one of the finest examples of French Gothic architecture.

Following the fire, Charles said in an emotional message to Macron that he was “utterly heartbroken,” calling Notre-Dame “one of the greatest architectural achievements of Western civilization.”

The Paris leg of the state visit wraps up with a formal farewell from Macron at the Elysee Palace.

The visit, which was rescheduled from March due to mass protests against French pension reforms, also aims to showcase Charles’s stature as a statesman just over a year after the death of Queen Elizabeth II.

The original itinerary in Paris and the southwestern city of Bordeaux is largely unchanged and is packed with ceremony and pomp in a country that abolished its monarchy in the 1789 revolution and executed its king.

Tactile friends

On Wednesday, Macron and Charles were seen chatting amicably while driving down the Champs-Elysees for talks at the Elysee Palace.

After their talks, the pair walked the short distance to the residence of the British ambassador, pausing to shake hands with well-wishers on the upscale Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honore.

The French president is known to have a strong personal rapport with Charles, with both men known for their love of books.

Macron presented Charles with a book by the 20th-century French writer Romain Gary, while he received a special edition of Voltaire’s “Lettres sur les Anglais” (“Letters on the English”).
…

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is set to meet U.S. leaders Thursday in Washington as he seeks more support for his country’s fight against a Russian invasion.

Zelenskyy is expected to meet with both Democratic and Republican congressional leaders and have talks with Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin at the Pentagon before an afternoon meeting with President Joe Biden at the White House.

The Biden administration has asked Congress to approve $24 billion in military and humanitarian aid for Ukraine.

National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby told reporters Wednesday that the funding, which includes more than $20 billion for defense, would have a “significant impact on Ukraine’s fighting” in coming months.

“It’s really important for members of Congress to be able to hear directly from the president about what he’s facing in this counteroffensive,” Kirby said, “and how he’s achieving his goals, and what he needs to continue to achieve those goals.”

Additional support for Ukraine has met resistance from some Republican lawmakers, including House Speaker Kevin McCarthy.

“Is Zelenskyy elected to Congress? Is he our president? I don’t think I have to commit anything and I think I have questions for him,” McCarthy told reporters Wednesday.  “Where’s the accountability on the money we’ve already spent? What is the plan for victory? I think that’s what the American public wants to know.”

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell said Wednesday he would make the case for “sustained support of the Ukrainian cause, not out of charity, but out of primary focus on America’s interests.”

McConnell was critical of Biden, saying he has been too timid in making the case that the United States has “a fundamental interest in Ukrainian victory and European security.”

Some information for this report came from Agence France-Presse. 
…

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy appeared before the U.N. Security Council in New York on Wednesday for the first time since Russia’s invasion to garner support for his country and accuse Russia of carrying out “a criminal and unprovoked aggression” that shatters the norms of war and the U.N. Charter.

During a somewhat contentious meeting, Zelenskyy promoted action taken, including arming Ukraine and imposing sanctions on Russia.

“Helping Ukraine with weapons in this exercise, by imposing sanctions and exerting comprehensive pressure on the aggressor, as well as voting for relevant resolutions, would mean helping to defend the U.N. Charter,” Zelenskyy said.

The council has met dozens of times and voted repeatedly since Russia invaded 19 months ago and has demanded that the Kremlin remove its troops from Ukraine, though it has been unable to take any action on the matter because Russia has a veto.

Zelenskyy urged support of the Ukrainian effort, emphasizing that his peace proposal begins with adherence to the charter that ensures the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all 193 U.N. member nations.

Prior to the meeting, there was speculation about whether Zelenskyy and Russia’s top diplomat, Sergey Lavrov, would confront one another, hold a discussion or just avoid each other. But Zelenskyy left the council soon after his address.

There were heated words exchanged, though, as the meeting kicked off before Lavrov arrived. Russian U.N. Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia protested Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama’s decision to allow Zelenskyy to speak ahead of the 15 council members. Nebenzia accused Rama — this month’s council president — of trying to reduce the meeting to “a one-man stand-up show,” asserting it would result in “nothing more than a spectacle” — a dig at Zelenskyy’s career as a comedian before being elected Ukrainian president.

Rama cited the council rule allowing a nonmember to speak first and said, “This is not a special operation by the Albanian presidency,” which prompted laughter at Russia’s claim that its offensive against Ukraine is a “special military operation.”

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres then briefed the council, noting that Russia’s invasion was “in clear violation of the United Nations Charter and international law.”

The war “is aggravating geopolitical tensions and divisions, threatening regional stability, increasing the nuclear threat and creating deep fissures in our increasingly multipolar world,” the U.N. chief said.

Guterres reiterated his condemnation of the war and called for “a just and sustainable peace in Ukraine in line with the U.N. Charter and international law — for Ukraine, for Russia and for the world.”

Zelensky’s speech came at a time when some are questioning the Ukrainian war effort. Kyiv’s counteroffensive is being met with staunch Russian defense, and cold weather soon will render some rural roads impassable.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken also addressed the Security Council on Wednesday, condemning Russia for its repeated violations of the U.N. Charter.

“Russia has shredded the major tenets of the United Nations Charter, the universal declaration of human rights, international humanitarian law, and flouted one Security Council resolution after another,” the top U.S. diplomat said.

Zelenskyy will travel to Washington to meet with President Joe Biden, where Biden is expected to announce a new military aid package for Ukraine.

Biden has been a staunch advocate of Ukraine and has asked other world leaders to stand with Kyiv to end the war.

Some members of the U.S. Republican Party have questioned the need to continue sending arms and aid totaling billions of dollars to Ukraine.

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press and Reuters.
…

Mahsa Amini, the Iranian Kurdish woman who died in custody a year ago, and billionaire Elon Musk were among a field of nominations put forward Wednesday for the EU’s top rights prize.

The European Parliament’s three biggest political groups each backed Amini as the recipient for this year’s Sakharov Prize, making her the front-runner for the award, which will be presented in December.

The legislature’s small far-right bloc was the only one to nominate Musk, the tech titan behind X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, as well as electric car company Tesla and space rocket firm SpaceX.

Other parliamentary groupings put forward activists from Afghanistan, Georgia, Nicaragua, Poland, El Salvador and the United States as their nominations.

Amini died at age 22 on September 16, 2022, while being held by Iran’s religious police for allegedly breaching the Islamic republic’s strict dress code for women.

Iranian authorities, fearing the anniversary of her death could renew widespread street protests, detained her father and warned her family not to publicly mark the occasion, rights groups said.

Security forces also blocked access to the cemetery where Amini is buried.

But Persian-language channels based outside Iran showed Iranians in major cities in the country, including Tehran, yelling anti-government slogans.

Rallies also took place around the world, including in Paris, Sydney, Toronto and New York.

Amini has become emblematic of a movement in Iran calling for “Women, Life, Freedom,” seen as the biggest challenge to the country’s clerical-run government.

The EU lawmakers’ nominations of Amini for the Sakharov Prize include the “Women, Life, Freedom” movement.

Musk was put forward by the Identity and Democracy grouping in the parliament, which counts nationalistic and extreme-right lawmakers among its members.

Musk has sought to portray himself as a champion of free speech, but has been criticized by some rights groups as permitting increased anti-Semitic rhetoric and other hate speech on X.

He also has courted controversy for allowing Donald Trump, the scandal-plagued, twice-impeached former U.S. president, and other populist figures adored by the far-right back onto X.
…

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said on Wednesday the government would not force households to take energy efficiency measures as he announced new changes to some of its commitments to tackle climate change.

He said that although the nation will continue to subsidize energy efficiency, it “will never force any household to do it.”

“The proposal to make you change your diet and harm British farmers by taxing meat or to create new taxes to discourage flying or going on holiday — I scrapped those too,” Sunak said at the press conference.

The prime minister also said there would be no ban on new oil and gas drilling in the North Sea that would leave Britain “reliant on expensive imported energy.”

Sunak also reiterated that the aim was to still meet Britain’s international commitments and hit net zero carbon emissions by 2050 despite the raft of changes to previous climate pledges.
…

Ukraine lodged a complaint this week at the World Trade Organization after several eastern European states imposed import bans on Ukrainian food products, exposing divisions in the European Union as its members try to support Kyiv in the wake of Russia’s 2022 invasion.

Hungary, Poland and Slovakia banned the import of Ukrainian grain and other food products last Friday, saying the shipments were undercutting their own farmers.

Kyiv confirmed on Monday that it had filed a complaint at the WTO.

“It is crucially important for us to prove that individual [EU] member states cannot ban imports of Ukrainian goods. That is why we are filing lawsuits against them to the WTO,” Ukraine’s economy minister, Yulia Svyrydenko, said in a statement.

The WTO is not likely to make a ruling anytime soon, according to David Kleimann, a trade expert with the Bruegel research group in Brussels, Belgium.

“The process starts with 60 days of consultations in which the parties basically have the time to come to a mutually agreeable solution to the dispute. That is not entirely unlikely given the fact that some of this is a result of election prologue in Slovakia and Poland. There might still be time in that consultation period to come to a resolution,” Kleimann told VOA. Slovakia is due to go to the polls on September 30, while Poland’s election is scheduled for October 15.

Solidarity

Ukraine’s president said it’s vital that European states reopen their export routes. “We need our neighbors to support Ukraine in times of war. Europe always wins when agreements work and promises are kept,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a televised statement Friday.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last year cut off many of Kyiv’s export routes. In July, Moscow withdrew from a Black Sea Grain Initiative — a mechanism that had allowed Ukrainian grain to be shipped onto world markets — causing global food prices to rise. The Kremlin warned that it could not guarantee the safety of merchant ships. Russian missiles have repeatedly targeted Ukrainian Black Sea ports, causing widespread damage.

The European Union offered Ukraine other land routes to allow its food products to reach global markets via member states bordering Ukraine — what the EU calls “solidarity lanes.”

Olia Tayeb Charif, head of research at the Farm Foundation, a French think tank focused on agriculture, explained that some of the food products entered the European market.

“Ukrainian wheat is among the most competitively priced in the world, alongside Russian wheat. Since the start of the conflict, 50% of Ukrainian wheat exports have arrived in Europe, whereas before the conflict it was a really small amount. So the European Union is faced with an unprecedented situation, seeing very competitive wheat arriving in these markets which was not initially intended for them. This eventuality had not really been foreseen by the European authorities,” Charif told VOA.

Farmer protests

Farmers in several neighboring European states have staged protests, claiming that Ukrainian food is being dumped on local markets. “Low-quality, cheaper products than ours are sold in the shops. We have very high costs to produce quality meat and milk. We are operating at a loss, and therefore we will give up,” Bulgarian farmer Vassil Dzhorgov told The Associated Press on Monday.

In May, the EU offered the farmers compensation and allowed five eastern European states — Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, Bulgaria and Romania — to impose temporary import bans on some Ukrainian products. When the deadline expired on September 15, the EU said there was no need to renew these measures as the market distortion caused by the influx of Ukrainian products had largely disappeared.

Hungary, Poland and Slovakia, however, imposed their own unilateral import bans. Croatia also said Tuesday it would only allow the transit of Ukrainian grain.

EU criticism

European allies strongly criticized the import restrictions.

“Ukraine is under aggressive attack by Russia. And so we need to understand that here we have to see the bigger picture and support all these solidarity lanes, and also support the possibility for Ukraine to export its grain,” Finland’s minister of agriculture, Sari Essayah, told reporters in Brussels Monday.

In the meantime, the European Commission has told Ukraine to impose so-called “voluntary export restraint” as it tries to persuade eastern European member states to remove the import bans.

“What the commission is doing here is kicking the can down the road by giving an obligation to Ukraine to limit, to manage or to channel its exports to the European Union — and at the same time waiting out the time until the elections, most particularly in Poland, and hoping that the Polish political sentiment will change after the election. This is really not a sustainable solution,” analyst David Kleimann told VOA.

European divisions

The EU is caught between the demands of its member states and the need to support Ukraine, said Olia Tayeb Charif of Farm Foundation.

“Europe is really having to play a balancing act between, on the one hand, preserving its internal cohesion — that is to say, putting in place market regulation measures which prevent these agricultural markets from being disturbed by cheaper wheat — and on the other hand, helping Ukraine by allowing the transit of these grains to reach international markets. It should also be emphasized that historically, Ukraine’s export destinations are largely Africa and the Middle East, and they are also very large customers of the European Union,” Charif told VOA.

The dispute is exposing divisions within the European Union as it tries to show unity following Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, said Kleimann.

“Single market fragmentation in in these difficult times, with the security interest of the European Union and the interest of keeping pro-Russian sentiments in check — this is pretty much a worst-case scenario,” he told VOA.
…

Russia’s President Vladimir Putin said Wednesday he accepted an invitation from his Chinese counterpart to visit China in October during the Belt and Road Summit.

Speaking after a meeting with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Moscow, Putin said Russia and China are “integrating our ideas of creating a large Eurasian space,” noting that China’s Belt and Road Initiative is a part of that.

The initiative is a huge program in which Beijing has been expanding its influence in developing regions through infrastructure projects.

Since Russia invaded Ukraine, Putin has pivoted the country toward China, selling it more energy and increasingly carrying out joint military exercises.

China adopted a neutral stance on the war in Ukraine and even denounced Western sanctions against Moscow. It also accused NATO and the United States of provoking Putin’s military action and declared last year that it had a “no-limits” friendship with Russia.

On Tuesday, senior Russian security official Nikolai Patrushev called for closer policy coordination between Moscow and Beijing to counter what he described as Western efforts to contain them as he hosted Wang Yi for security talks.

The Kremlin has continuously expressed support for Beijing as Russia and China have grown closer as their relations with the West deteriorate.

Wang arrived in Russia on Monday on a four-day visit following his talks with U.S. President Joe Biden’s national security adviser in Malta over the weekend.

Putin’s plan to visit China was initially announced in July.
…

Azerbaijan and ethnic Armenian authorities in the breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh region reached a cease-fire agreement Wednesday, a day after Azerbaijan launched what it called an “anti-terrorist” operation.

The agreement, brokered by Russian peacekeepers, calls for separatist forces to disarm and Armenian forces to withdraw from the area.

Azerbaijani authorities and representatives from the ethnic Armenians in the region are also due to hold talks Thursday in the Azerbaijani city of Yevlakh about the future of the area.

The U.N. Security Council is also due to hold an emergency meeting about the situation Thursday.

Armenian authorities said the fighting, which had continued into Wednesday, left at least 32 people dead and more than 200 injured.

The violence brought international calls for peace, including Wednesday from Russia and Pope Francis.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called for an immediate end to the fighting and for all parties to focus on efforts to bring long-term peace to the region, his spokesman said in a statement.

The U.S. State Department said Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke by telephone Tuesday with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan.

Blinken told Aliyev there is no military solution and that Azerbaijan and ethnic Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh “must resume dialogue to resolve outstanding differences.”

A statement from Aliyev’s office said the operation would stop if Armenian fighters lay down their arms.

In his call with Pashinyan, Blinken said the United States “fully supports Armenia’s sovereignty, independence, and territorial integrity,” the State Department said.

Azerbaijan said it launched its operation in response to landmine explosions that killed four soldiers and two civilians in the region.

The Nagorno-Karabakh region is entirely within Azerbaijan but is populated largely by ethnic Armenians and had been under ethnic Armenian control since 1994. Parts of it were reclaimed by Azerbaijan after a war in 2020. Russian peacekeepers were placed in the region.

Some information for this story provided by the Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters
…

The new flare-up of hostilities in the conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia in the separatist enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh is raising the possibility of geopolitical change in the region, as some in Armenian society say they feel betrayed by what they see as the inaction of Russian peacekeepers. Elizabeth Cherneff narrates this report from Ricardo Marquina in the Armenian capital, Yerevan.
…

Belarusian state media reported that 48 children from Ukraine arrived in Belarus on Tuesday from Ukrainian regions that Moscow claims it has annexed. 

The group of children came from the occupied Donetsk, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia regions. They include children from towns that were captured by the Russian army in July 2022. Those regions were illegally annexed by Moscow in December last year, but Russia doesn’t have full control over them. 

In photos published by the Belarus state news agency Belta, the children were pictured holding the red and green state flag of Belarus and reportedly thanked the Belarusian authorities, while being flanked by police and riot police. 

The removal of the children from Ukraine was organized by a Belarusian charity, supported by President Alexander Lukashenko, which has previously organized health recuperation programs for Ukrainian children in Belarus. 

“The president, despite external pressure, said this important humanitarian project should continue,” Alexei Talai, the charity’s head, said in an interview with Belta. “All the Belarusian people,” he said, want to help “children from dilapidated cities and towns in the new territories of Russia.” 

It’s not clear if the children were orphans or were removed from their parents with or without consent as Belarusian authorities didn’t provide any details about them. Belarusian officials have previously denied allegations that Belarus has helped to illegally remove children from Ukraine. 

In June, Belarusian opposition figures gave the International Criminal Court materials that they said showed more than 2,100 Ukrainian children from at least 15 Russian-occupied Ukrainian cities who were forcibly removed to Belarus with Lukashenko’s approval. 

Pavel Latushka, a former Belarusian culture minister, hopes the material will prompt the ICC to issue an arrest warrant for Lukashenko, as it did with Russian President Vladimir Putin. 

“We are seeing more and more evidence relating to the illegal transfer of Ukrainian children to Belarus and this will continue until international organizations react and stop Minsk,” Latushka said in an interview with The Associated Press. 

In March, the ICC issued arrest warrants for Putin and Russia’s children’s rights commissioner, Maria Lvova-Belova. Judges in The Hague, Netherlands, said they found “reasonable grounds to believe” the two were responsible for war crimes, including the illegal deportation and transfer of children from occupied Ukrainian regions to Russia — something an AP investigation detailed earlier this year. 

Belarus has been Moscow’s closest ally since the Russian invasion began in February 2022, when Lukashenko allowed the Kremlin to send troops and weapons into Ukraine from Belarus. Russia has also deployed tactical nuclear weapons there. 
…

At the U.N. General Assembly in New York, U.S. President Joe Biden sought to convince world leaders that his vision of American leadership and multilateral approach to foreign policy will help solve the world’s most pressing problems. He again denounced Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine as a violation of a core tenet of the U.N. Charter. VOA White House bureau chief Patsy Widakuswara has this report from New York.
…

Tourism industry watchers say one of the top overseas destinations for US travelers this summer was Britain, where Americans helped the recovery of the British tourism industry after the crisis caused by the COVID pandemic. Marcus Harton narrates this report from Umberto Aguiar in London. (Camera and Produced by Umberto Aguiar)
…

A Moscow court on Tuesday declined to hear an appeal by The Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich against a ruling that extended his pretrial detention by three months, according to Russian state media.

Gershkovich has been in detention since his arrest in March on espionage charges that he, his employer and the U.S. government vehemently deny. The U.S. government has said the journalist is wrongfully detained. 

The court decision marks the latest setback in the legal fight for the reporter, whose pretrial detention has been extended twice — the first being in May.

That pre-trial detention was supposed to expire May 29 but it was extended to August and then again to November.

With his appeal rejected, his pretrial detention will now last until at least November 30. 

No date has been set for his trial. 

Gershkovich failed in two previous appeals against his pretrial detention.

Press freedom groups have condemned the court’s latest decision.   

“The latest denial of Evan Gershkovich’s appeal is disappointing but unsurprising. Gershkovich is a Kremlin hostage, so we can’t expect any remedy to come from the Russian legal system,” Clayton Weimers, the head of Reporters Without Borders’ U.S. bureau, said in a statement.

Gershkovich appeared in public Tuesday for the first time in months at the court hearing. In photos from the courtroom, he appeared in a glass box surrounded by Russian security officials with covered faces. 

Gershkovich’s lawyers tried to challenge the extension of his pretrial detention, but the judge declined to consider their appeal, citing unspecified procedural violations. 

Wearing a yellow sweatshirt and jeans, he smiled occasionally to members of the media who were briefly allowed inside the courtroom. 

Russia’s embassy in Washington did not immediately reply to a VOA email requesting comment.

The U.S. ambassador to Russia, Lynne Tracy, was present at the hearing on Tuesday. 

“The U.S. position remains unwavering. The charges against Evan are baseless. The Russian government locked Evan up for simply doing his job. Journalism is not a crime,” Tracy told reporters outside the courthouse.

“Evan is fully aware of the gravity of his situation, yet he remains remarkably strong,” Tracy added.

The ambassador last visited Gershkovich in jail on Friday. After her visit, the U.S. Embassy in Russia said, “He remains strong and is keeping up with the news.” 

 
…

Evidence suggests a deadly explosion at a busy market in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kostiantynivka this month was caused by an errant missile fired by Ukraine, the The New York Times reported on Tuesday.

Ukraine has said the Sept. 6 blast, which killed at least 16 people, was caused by a Russian missile.

“Evidence collected and analyzed by The New York Times, including missile fragments, satellite imagery, witness accounts and social media posts, strongly suggests the catastrophic strike was the result of an errant Ukrainian air defense missile fired by a Buk launch system,” the newspaper reported.

It quoted air defense experts as saying missiles such as the one that hit Kostiantynivka can go off course for a variety of reasons, including an electronic malfunction or having a guidance fin that is damaged or sheared off during launch.

It said security camera footage showed the missile flew into Kostiantynivka from the direction of Ukrainian-held territory, not from behind Russian lines.

The New York Times also cited evidence showing that minutes before the strike, the Ukrainian military had launched two surface-to-air missiles towards the Russian front line from the town of Druzhkivka, 16 kilometers northwest of Kostiantynivka.

It quoted two witnesses who said they had seen the missiles being fired from Druzhkivka in the direction of the Russian front line around the time of the strike. One was quoted as saying the missiles went in the direction of Kostiantynivka.

The newspaper said measurements of holes caused by the explosion and fragments found at the scene were consistent with the 9M38 missile, which is fired by the mobile Buk anti-aircraft vehicle.

The Buk system is used both by Ukraine and Russia.

Reuters could not independently verify the report. A Ukrainian presidential aide did not immediately respond to requests by Reuters for comment.

The New York Times quoted a spokesperson for Ukraine’s armed forces as saying the country’s security service was investigating the incident, and under national law could not comment further.

A spokesperson for Ukraine’s military command referred Reuters to that comment cited in the New York Times story.
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Azerbaijan said on Tuesday that six of its citizens had been killed by land mines in two separate incidents in the Nagorno-Karabakh region and blamed “illegal Armenian armed groups” for laying the deadly mines.

Karabakh, internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan, has an overwhelmingly ethnic Armenian population and broke from Baku’s control in the early 1990s after a war. Azerbaijan recaptured swathes of land in and around it in a 2020 war.

Baku said four interior ministry staff had been killed when their truck was blown up by a mine near a tunnel construction site. Another mine had killed two civilians, also in a truck, it said.

There was no immediate response from the ethnic Armenians authorities in Karabakh whom Azerbaijan wants to disband to allow it to re-integrate the territory. Armenia said on Monday that accusations that its own armed forces had placed mines on Azerbaijani territory were false.

The landmine incidents occurred a day after badly needed food and medicine was delivered to Karabakh along two roads simultaneously, a step that looked like it could help ease mounting tension between Azerbaijan and Armenia.

Ties remain severely strained, however.

Azerbaijan’s defense ministry on Tuesday accused “illegal Armenian armed groups” of jamming the GPS navigation of a passenger jet flying from Tbilisi in Georgia to Baku.

Ethnic Armenians in Karabakh called the allegation “an absolute lie” designed to distract attention from what they called “the humanitarian catastrophe caused by the illegal blockade” of Karabakh by Baku.

That was a reference to months of Azerbaijani restrictions on the Lachin corridor — the only road linking Armenia with Karabakh — which had until the last few days not allowed in aid on the grounds that the route was purportedly being used for arms smuggling.

Armenia’s foreign ministry said on Monday that Azerbaijan’s diplomatic stance looked like it was preparing the ground for a military escalation.

Both sides say they remain committed to settling their differences via a peace deal.
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Italy’s government passed toughened asylum laws Monday as the country faces a surge in migrant arrivals on its southern shores.

The new measures will allow for the extended detention of migrants awaiting asylum decisions, from the current three months to an initial six months — with the possibility of an extension up to 18 months.

“That will be all the time needed not only to make the necessary assessments, but also to proceed with the repatriation of those who do not qualify for international protection,” Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said at the start of the meeting, according to Reuters. The Cabinet also approved the creation of more detention centers in remote areas.

In the past week, almost 10,000 migrants have landed on the small Italian island of Lampedusa, which has a population of 6,000 people. Most have crossed the Mediterranean Sea on small boats from Tunisia, a journey of just over 100 kilometers. Italian authorities say a further 180 migrants arrived on Monday. Conditions are dire, with migrants sleeping on the streets because the reception centers are full.

Claudine Nsoe, a 29-year-old mother of two young children from Cameroon, arrived on Lampedusa on a small boat last week, after an arduous two-day journey.

“I hope that the situation improves and that they let us leave from here, because the living conditions are not easy. We sleep in the open air, in the sun and in the cold. There is no food … and there are children,” Nsoe told Reuters.

EU plan

European Union Commission President Ursula von der Leyen joined Meloni on a visit to Lampedusa on Sunday and promised a tough response.

“We have an obligation as part of the international community. We have fulfilled it in the past, and we will do so today and in the future. But we will decide who comes to the European Union and under what circumstances, and not the smugglers and traffickers,” von der Leyen told reporters.

The EU commission president outlined a 10-point plan to try to ease the pressure on Italy, including a bigger role for the bloc’s border agency Frontex in identifying and repatriating migrants who don’t qualify for asylum.

The plan is unlikely to have a big effect, said Camino Mortera-Martinez of the Brussels-based policy group the Center for European Reform.

“When it comes to substantive points and content of things that the Commission can do — or the European Union even can do — about this problem, there is absolutely nothing new. We see von der Leyen’s 10-point plan that she offered Italy, and we see the same things that we’ve been seeing for the past 10 years,” Mortera-Martinez told VOA.

Naval mission

Italy’s prime minister said the migrants must be stopped at the source “with a European mission, including a naval one if necessary, in agreement with the North African authorities to stop the departure of the boats.”

“Assess in Africa who is or is not entitled to asylum and accept in Europe only those who actually have the right according to international conventions,” Meloni said in a televised statement on Sunday.

The European Union signed a strategic partnership with Tunisia in July worth $1.1 billion in return for a crackdown on human traffickers and tightened border controls.

Human rights concerns

Human rights groups have expressed concerns over Tunisia’s treatment of refugees and say Europe must offer a more humane response. In 2023, alone, more than 2,000 people have died attempting the crossing between North Africa and Europe, according to the United Nations.

Andrea Costa, manager of the Baobab Experience charity, which offers support to migrants in Italy, said the tightened laws will only force migrants to make riskier journeys.

“The key is to invest in reception rather than rejection. These people have set off on a very difficult and harsh journey with a high mortality rate. You don’t stop them by putting up walls. You don’t stop them by closing borders or with naval blockades. Welcoming them is the best answer you can give,” Costa told Reuters.

EU disunity

EU member states are struggling to agree on a New Pact on Migration and Asylum, which the bloc says would create a “fairer, efficient and more sustainable migration and asylum process.”

Under current EU laws, migrants must apply for asylum in the country where they first arrive, adding to the pressure on front-line states. Several Eastern European countries, such as Hungary and Poland, are refusing to accept refugee quotas to share the burden of countries like Italy.

“We are a continent united in many things. Migration is not one of them. Or if it is, it’s basically on the consensus that we have to protect the borders,” said Mortera-Martinez.

“But if we don’t agree on something beyond that, then we will basically damage our own [European Union] project and that’s going to be, in my view, particularly visible after the elections in 2024,” she said.

With those European elections scheduled for June, analysts say right-wing populist parties are looking to capitalize on voter discontent over Europe’s handling of migration.
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