Azerbaijan Reports Attack on its Troops in Nagorno-Karabakh

Civilian Azerbaijani soldiers recruited for duty at a military training and deployment center near the city of Ganja, Azerbaijan Oct. 23, 2020. (Reuters)
Civilian Azerbaijani soldiers recruited for duty at a military training and deployment center near the city of Ganja, Azerbaijan Oct. 23, 2020. (Reuters)
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Azerbaijan Reports Attack on its Troops in Nagorno-Karabakh

Civilian Azerbaijani soldiers recruited for duty at a military training and deployment center near the city of Ganja, Azerbaijan Oct. 23, 2020. (Reuters)
Civilian Azerbaijani soldiers recruited for duty at a military training and deployment center near the city of Ganja, Azerbaijan Oct. 23, 2020. (Reuters)

Azerbaijan's Defense Ministry said Monday its army units have been attacked by “an illegal Armenian armed group” in Nagorno-Karabakh, killing one Azerbaijani serviceman and wounding another.

The ministry said the attack took place in the south of Nagorno-Karabakh on Sunday afternoon and was thwarted, leaving all six attackers dead.

The Nagorno-Karabakh military dismissed the statement as “misinformation” and a “propaganda provocation,” saying that the territory's army was “strictly observing” the ceasefire. Earlier on Monday the Armenian Defense Ministry also denied media reports of fighting in the south of Nagorno-Karabakh.

Nagorno-Karabakh lies within Azerbaijan but was under the control of ethnic Armenian forces backed by Armenia since a separatist war there ended in 1994. That war left Nagorno-Karabakh itself and substantial surrounding territory in Armenian hands.

Heavy fighting erupted in late September in the biggest escalation of the decades-old conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan, killing more than 5,600 people on both sides. A Russian-brokered peace deal that saw Azerbaijan reclaim much of the separatist region along with surrounding areas ended six weeks of fierce fighting on Nov. 10.

On Dec. 12, Armenia and Azerbaijan reported new clashes in the south of Nagorno-Karabakh, accusing each other of breaching the ceasefire. Russian peacekeepers deployed to monitor the peace deal also reported a violation at the time, but didn't assign blame.



ICC Opens Inquiry into Hungary for Failing to Arrest Netanyahu

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán welcomes Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Budapest earlier this month. (AFP)
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán welcomes Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Budapest earlier this month. (AFP)
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ICC Opens Inquiry into Hungary for Failing to Arrest Netanyahu

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán welcomes Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Budapest earlier this month. (AFP)
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán welcomes Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Budapest earlier this month. (AFP)

Judges at the International Criminal Court want Hungary to explain why it failed to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu when he visited Budapest earlier this month.

In a filing released late Wednesday, The Hague-based court initiated non-compliance proceedings against Hungary after the country gave Netanyahu a red carpet welcome despite an ICC arrest warrant for crimes against humanity in connection with the war in Gaza.

During the visit, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán announced his country would quit the court, claiming on state radio that the ICC was “no longer an impartial court, not a court of law, but a political court.”

The Hungarian leader, regarded by critics as an autocrat and the EU’s most intransigent spoiler in the bloc’s decision-making, defended his decision to not arrest Netanyahu.

“We signed an international treaty, but we never took all the steps that would otherwise have made it enforceable in Hungary,” Orbán said at the time, referring to the fact that Hungary’s parliament never promulgated the court’s statute into Hungarian law.

Judges at the ICC have previously dismissed similar arguments.

The ICC and other international organizations have criticized Hungary’s defiance of the warrant against Netanyahu. Days before his arrival, the president of the court’s oversight body wrote to the government in Hungary reminding it of its “specific obligation to comply with requests from the court for arrest and surrender.”

A spokesperson for the ICC declined to comment on the non-compliance proceedings.

Hungary’s decision to leave the ICC, a process that will take at least a year to complete, will make it the sole non-signatory within the 27-member European Union. With 125 current signatory countries, only the Philippines and Burundi have ever withdrawn from the court as Hungary intends.

Hungary has until May 23 to submit evidence in its defense.