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was a “very bad gamble” that would boost Tehran’s leverage in the talks to salvage the nuclear deal. In those talks, Iran –which is not speaking to the US directly, but is relaying its demands through European intermediaries – is demanding Washington lift more than a thousand sanctions before it returns to JCPOA compliance.
“I assure you that in the near future more advanced uranium enrichment
centrifuges will be placed in the
Natanz facility,” Zarif told a news conference alongside his visiting Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, in Tehran.
In his televised comments, Zakani said: "Is it normal that today they reach a pit of our electricity system and take actions so that several thousand centrifuges are damaged and destroyed in one instant?"
"Should not we be sensitive over the
incident that happened, eliminating the main part of our enrichment capacities?"
Separately, the former head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organisation has disclosed that a blast and fire that occurred at the Natanz facility in July 2020 was caused by explosives hidden inside a table. Fereydun Abbasi-Davani told state TV that the perpetrators "amended the explosive [placed in the table] and sealed it, using, perhaps, resin or welding the steel".
Azerbaijan accused of fomenting ethnic hatred with display of dead Armenian soldiers’ helmets
bne IntelIiNews
Armenia on April 13 accused
its historic rival Azerbaijan of fomenting ethnic hatred by displaying helmets of Armenian soldiers killed last year during the six-week war over the Nagorno-Karabakh enclave.
At the conclusion of the war, arranged under a Moscow-brokered ceasefire, Yerevan ceded swathes of territory to Baku, which was seen in Armenia as
a national humiliation.
On April 12, Azerbaijani President
Ilham Aliyev visited a "park of trophies" showcasing military equipment seized from Armenian troops during the war. Hundreds of helmets of Armenian soldiers who had been killed were displayed in the park along with wax mannequins of Armenian troops. Since the war ended, Azerbaijani officials have persistently shown video footage online of the precision bombing of Armenian targets that took place during the conflict, leading to accusations on social media that they were guilty of posting “war porn” and not responding to their victory in a graceful manner. Much of the bombing was conducted with armed drones supplied by close ally Turkey.
The park, due to be opened to the public shortly, has sparked uproar in Armenia. The counry’s ombudsman Arman
Tatoyan was reported by AFP as saying it was "proof of genocidal policy".
"The opening of such a 'park' clearly confirms institutional hatred towards Armenians in Azerbaijan," Tatoyan was cited as saying.
"This is true fascism," 41-year-old historian Mher Barsegyan told AFP. The park "recalls evidence of Hitler's barbarism that is exhibited in museums around the world".
Political crisis
The defeat in the war caused a political crisis in Armenia, with Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian facing a series of protests from crowds not convinced by his assertion that signing the truce deal proved to be the best path forward because Azerbaijan had achieved a battlefield dominance that was poised to enable it to take control of the entirety of Nagorno-Karabakh. Pashinian eventually agreed to a snap poll that will be held in June.
Ethnic Armenian separatists declared independence for Nagorno-Karabakh
and seized control of the region in
a brutal war in the 1990s. It left tens of thousands dead and forced hundreds of thousands from their homes.
Baku and Yerevan have traded accusations of war crimes since the conflict – which had been largely dormant for decades – re-ignited last September.
Separately, Armenian police have reportedly completed their investigation into two men captured during last year’s fighting who are accused of
being mercenaries from Syria. If the police findings are approved by the prosecutor’s office, the men will
stand trial in Armenia and face a slate of criminal charges, including terrorism.
Turkey has been accused of recruiting hundreds of fighters in Syria who were then deployed to Nagorno-Karabakh as combatants fighting on the side
of Azerbaijan. Both Azerbaijan and Turkey have denied that they deployed mercenaries during the fighting.
“The opening of such a 'park' clearly confirms institutional hatred towards Armenians in Azerbaijan”
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