Monday, Yerevan `Unconvinced' By Russian Explanations For Arms Sales To Baku . Sargis Harutyunyan Russia -- Russian President Vladimir Putin (R) shakes hands with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev during a meeting at the Bocharov Ruchei residence in Sochi, July 21, 2017 Russia's official explanations for its large-scale arms supplies to Azerbaijan criticized by Armenia are unconvincing, a senior Armenian official said over the weekend. "In our official and unofficial contacts with our Russian partners, continuing Russian arms supplies to Azerbaijan remains the thorniest issue on the agenda of Russian-Armenian relations," said Armen Ashotian, the pro-government chairman of the Armenian parliament committee on foreign relations. "The Russian side's justifications are certainly discussed by us and they are not convincing," Ashotian told reporters. He cited Russian officials' claims that the multimillion-dollar arms sales are commercial deals that also allow Moscow to hold Baku in check and boost stability in the region. Armenia - Armen Ashotian, chairman of the parliament committee on foreign relations, speaks in Yerevan, 22Jul2017. Russia has sold around $5 billion worth of tanks, artillery systems and other weapons to Azerbaijan in line with defense contracts mostly signed in 2009-2011. The arms deliveries continued even after Armenian leaders strongly criticized them following Azerbaijan's April 2016 offensive in Nagorno-Karabakh. Late last month, a Russian cargo ship delivered a new batch of anti-tank missile systems to Baku's Caspian Sea port. And earlier this month, Azerbaijan's Defense Ministry announced that it has received hundreds of Russian thermobaric rockets for TOS-1A multiple-launch systems which it had purchased from Moscow earlier. Russian President Vladimir Putin defended the lucrative arms deals with Baku after holding talks with his Armenian counterpart Serzh Sarkisian in Moscow last August. Putin implied that oil-rich Azerbaijan could have bought offensive weapons from other nations. He also argued that Russia has long been providing substantial military aid to Armenia. Incidentally, Putin met with Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliyev in the Russian Black Sea city of Sochi on Friday. In his opening remarks at the meeting, Putin mentioned lingering tensions in the region and said he will explore with Aliyev ways of easing them. The spokesman for the ruling Republican Party of Armenia (HHK), Eduard Sharmazanov, criticized the continuing Russian arms sales to Baku on July 12. Sharmazanov made clear at the same time that they will not undermine Armenia's close military ties with Russia. Ashotian, who is also the HHK's deputy chairman, likewise argued that disagreements are inevitable even between allies like Russia and Armenia. "Armenia does not have an absolute convergence of foreign policy agendas with any country except the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic," he said. Russia has long been Armenia's principal supplier of weapons and ammunition. The Armenian military has received Russian weapons at discounted prices or even for free. Finance Minister Vartan Aramian revealed on July 16 that Armenia is discussing with Russia the possibility of obtaining another loan which it would spend on buying Russian weapons. Moscow already lent Yerevan $200 million for arms acquisitions from Russian manufacturers two years ago. Coup Suspect Denies Plotting To Kill Armenian President . Ruzanna Stepanian Armenia - Vahan Shirkhanian, a former deputy prime minister, at a news conference in Yerevan, 10Feb2012. A veteran Armenian politician arrested in late 2015 strongly denies plotting to assassinate President Serzh Sarkisian and seize power together with members of a clandestine militant group, his lawyer said on Monday. Vahan Shirkhanian, a former deputy defense minister, is one of the 20 individuals who went on trial on coup charges last December. Most of them were detained in November 2015 in a dawn raid on their hideout in Yerevan. Armenian security forces found large quantities of weapons and explosives stashed there. More than two dozen other people, among them Shirkhanian, were arrested in the following weeks. Some of them were subsequently released pending investigation. The arrested group was apparently led by Artur Vartanian, a 35-year-old obscure man who reportedly lived in Spain until his return to Armenia in April 2015. Armenia's National Security Service (NSS) claims that the core members of Vartanian's group called Hayots Vahan Gund (Armenian Shield Regiment) underwent secret military training in an Armenian village in August-September 2015. It says that Vartanian and his associates drew up detailed plans for the seizure of the presidential administration, government, parliament, Constitutional Court and state television buildings in Yerevan. Armenia - An alleged 2015 photograph of members of an Armenian militant group arrested on coup charges. According to the indictment, Shirkhanian agreed to participate in the alleged plot and suggested that the armed group assassinate President Sarkisian, instead of focusing on the seizure of the key state buildings.The 70-year-old denies the accusations as politically motivated, according to his lawyer, Hayk Alumian. Alumian said that the criminal case against Shirkhanian is based on what he considers illegal wiretaps of his client's face-to-face conversation with Vartanian. "The content [of the conversation] is equivocal and can be interpreted in different ways," he told RFE/RL's Armenian service (Azatutyun.am). "Mr. Shirkhanian says that he had no conversations of that kind. I don't exclude that the recording was somehow doctored." The lawyer also insisted that while Shirkhanian did meet the alleged ringleader and speak with him about political issues their conversation cannot be construed as an anti-government conspiracy."Mr. Shirkhanian never took Artur Vartanian and his statements seriously," he said. Vartanian also rejects the coup charges. His lawyer, Levon Baghdasarian, did not deny last year that Vartanian set up the shadowy group and acquired firearms and explosives for it. But Baghdasarian insisted that his client never intended to seize government buildings in Yerevan. Armenia - Artur Vartanian, the main defendant in the trial of 20 people accused of plotting a coup d tat, at a courtroom in Yerevan, 17Mar2017. Shirkhanian was a prominent member of Armenia's first post-Communist government that came to power in 1990. He served as deputy defense minister before being appointed in June 1999 as deputy prime minister in the cabinet of Prime Minister Vazgen Sarkisian. Shirkhanian became particularly influential in the wake of the October 1999 armed attack on the Armenian parliament which left Vazgen Sarkisian, parliament speaker Karen Demirchian and six other officials dead. He led government factions that suspected then President Robert Kocharian of masterminding the killings and tried unsuccessfully to unseat him. Kocharian's eventual victory in the power struggle resulted in Shirkhanian's resignation in May 2000. Shirkhanian supported, as a senior member of a small opposition party, former President Levon Ter-Petrosian's failed bid to return to power in the 2008 presidential election. He split from that party in 2010. Police Accused Of Covering Up 2016 Violence Against Journalists . Artak Hambardzumian Armenia - Riot police disperse protesters in Yerevan's Sari Tagh neighborhood, 29Jul2016. Armenian press freedom groups accused law-enforcement authorities on Monday of failing to punish the individuals who attacked journalists during last summer's anti-government unrest in Yerevan. One of them, the Committee to Protect Freedom of Speech, argued that no police officer has been prosecuted in connection with the attacks that occurred during the July 2016 clashes between security forces and radical opposition supporters who rallied in support of gunmen occupying a police station in Yerevan. According to the head of the watchdog, Ashot Melikian, 27 reporters were injured at the time. At least 14 of them, including three RFE/RL reporters, were ambushed by a large group of men wielding sticks as riot police dispersed protesters in the city's Sari Tagh neighborhood overlooking the besieged police facility. Human rights activists suggested at the time that the attackers were plainclothes officers or government loyalists. President Serzh Sarkisian publicly apologized for the violence, while urging the injured reporters to "forget about those incidents." For his part, the chief of the Armenian police, Vladimir Gasparian, ordered his subordinates to identify and track down "civilians" who he claimed beat up the journalists. Armenia -- Robert Ananyan, a reporter for A1Plus.am injured during unrest in Sari Tagh, speaks to RFE/RL in hospital, 2Aug2016 Melikian said that the authorities have since pressed criminal charges only against one of the nine civilian men who they say were responsible for the violence.Seven of them have been fined and avoided prosecution, he said. "Civilians could not have done that," Melikian told RFE/RL's Armenian service (Azatutyun.am). "So we continue to insist that dozens of police officers who abused their powers must be held accountable." Arevhat Grigorian, an expert with the Yerevan Press Club, charged that the authorities are deliberately dragging out a criminal investigation into the Sari Tagh violence to make the journalists and their employers lose interest in the case. Marut Vanian was one of the several reporters who were seriously injured in Sari Tagh on July 29, 2016 and required hospitalization. Vanian has still not fully recovered from his injuries. Nor has he been compensated for two cameras which he says were smashed by the men who beat him up. "Nobody has been identified and I don't expect that something real will be done about [the violence,]" said Vanian. Sarkisian To Visit Iran For Presidential Inauguration Armenia - Iranian President Hassan Rouhani meets with his Armenian counterpart Serzh Sarkisian at the start of an official visit to Yerevan, 21Dec2016. President Serzh Sarkisian will fly to Tehran on August 5 to attend the inauguration ceremony of his recently reelected Iranian counterpart, Hassan Rouhani, it was announced on Monday. Rouhani will be sworn in for a second term more than two months after winning Iran's presidential election. An Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman said on Monday that "many" foreign leaders and dignitaries are due to attend the ceremony. Sarkisian expressed confidence that "traditionally warm and friendly Armenian-Iranian relations will continue to develop and strengthen in all areas" when he congratulated Rouhani on his reelection in May. The Armenian leader was also present at Rouhani's first inauguration in August 2013. Armenia has long maintained close relations with Iran, one of the landlocked South Caucasus state's two commercial conduits to the outside world. Rouhani underscored that rapport when he paid an official visit to Yerevan last December. He said Iran will increase exports of natural gas to Armenia and deepen broader economic ties with its Christian neighbor. Armenia plans to launch a "free economic zone" near its border with Iran before the end of this year. After talks with Sarkisian, the Iranian president also called for a peaceful settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. Sarkisian, for his part, again praised Tehran's "balanced" stance on the unresolved conflict. Press Review (Saturday, July 22) "Hraparak" reports that Hrachya Harutiunian, an Armenian truck driver who caused a deadly traffic accident in Russia in 2013, has been handed over to Armenia to serve the rest of his almost 7-year prison sentence there. Harutiunian's degrading treatment by Russian authorities after his arrest caused street protests in Yerevan at the time. "The Russian authorities drew some conclusions from those protests," says the paper. "But the process of his extradition has taken longer than expected." "Aravot" comments on Armenian government plans to introduce fines for people dropping cigarette butts in the streets. The paper wonders how the fines will be enforced. "Will a police officer be monitoring every smoker, waiting until they finish smoking, and, depending on where they drop the cigarette butt, deciding whether or not to fine them?" it says. "But the idea itself is certainly good." Accordingly, the paper hits out at political and civic activists who are already decrying the government plans. "Hayots Ashkhar" continues to discuss the uproar that was caused by Russian State Duma speaker Vyacheslav Volodin's calls for Armenia to adopt Russian as a second official language. "In recent days, so much has been said and written in our country about the incident that occurred at the meeting [in Moscow] between the heads of Russia's and Armenia's legislatures that one has the impression that nothing new can be said on the subject," writes the paper. It downplays the significance of Volodin's comments, saying that Moscow had also made similar suggestions to other member states of the Russian-led Eurasian Economic Union (EEU). The "artificial rumpus" caused by them in Armenia is therefore unjustified, it says. "After all, the Armenian side officially responded [to Volodin] in an appropriate manner. Further discussions would have made sense only if there had been serious disagreements and different views [on the language issue] within Armenia," argues "Hayots Ashkhar." Citing an Armenian lawyer, "Haykakan Zhamanak" says that of all 47 member states of the Council of Europe, the European Court of Human Rights has received the largest per-capita number of lawsuits from Armenia. The paper says the lawyer, Vahe Grigorian, believes that this fact speaks volumes about a lack of public trust in the Armenian judiciary. (Tigran Avetisian) Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL Copyright (c) 2017 Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, Inc. 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036. www.rferl.org