Tuesday,
Pashinian Meets Ter-Petrosian
Armenia - Former President Levon Ter-Petrosian (L) and Nikol Pashinian greet
supporters in Yerevan's Liberty Square, 31 May 2011.
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian and former President Levon Ter-Petrosian have
met for the first time in years to discuss challenges facing Armenia.
In a statement posted on its Facebook page on Tuesday, the Armenian government
said the meeting took place in Pashinian’s state-owned residence in Yerevan on
Monday.
“The first president [Ter-Petrosian] expressed his views regarding ways of
overcoming a number of challenges facing Armenia,” it said. “Issues pertaining
to foreign policy and the Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) conflict were discussed.”
“The meeting took place at Levon Ter-Petrosian’s initiative,” it added.
No further details were reported. Ter-Petrosian’s office issued no statements
on the meeting as of Tuesday afternoon.
Pashinian played a prominent role in Ter-Petrosian’s broad-based opposition
movement that nearly brought the latter back to power in a disputed
presidential election held in February 2008. Pashinian was one of the most
influential speakers at the ex-president’s anti-government rallies held at the
time. He spent about two years in prison on charges stemming from a
post-election government crackdown on the Ter-Petrosian-led opposition.
Pashinian fell out with Ter-Petrosian after being released from prison in 2011.
Accordingly, his relationship with Ter-Petrosian’s Armenian National Congress
(HAK) opposition party became very strained. As recently as in February, the
HAK’s deputy chairman, Levon Zurabian, scoffed at Pashinian’s plans to try to
stop then President Serzh Sarkisian from extending his decade-long rule.
Even so, the HAK voiced support for the Pashinian-led movement as it gained
momentum in mid-April. It demanded Pashinian’s immediate release when he was
detained on April 22, the day before Sarkisian decided to resign as prime
minister.
Ter-Petrosian, 73, issued different written statements during the unprecedented
mass protests that practically paralyzed the country in late April and early
May. The day before Pashinian was elected prime minister on May 8, he warned
the protest leaders against taking “unconstitutional steps.”
But on May 17, Ter-Petrosian, who served as Armenia’s first president from
1991-1998, expressed serious concern at street closures, blockades of
government buildings, strikes and other disruptive actions which continued even
after the dramatic regime change. He said they could help Sarkisian’s
Republican Party (HHK) “sabotage” the work of Pashinian’s government.
Serzh Sarkisian’s Fugitive Nephew Set To Face More Charges
• Naira Bulghadarian
Armenia - An armed officer of the National Security Service guards an entrance
to the Yerevan house of former President Serzh Sarkisian's brother Aleksandr
searched by investigators, 4 July 2018.
Law-enforcement authorities have moved to bring more criminal charges against a
nephew of former President Serzh Sarkisian who apparently fled Armenia late
last month.
The National Security Service (NSS) issued an arrest warrant for Narek
Sarkisian after searching his family’s house in downtown Yerevan and other
properties earlier this month. It claimed that he asked one of his friends in
June to hide his illegally owned guns, cocaine and other drugs in a safer
place. The NSS released a video showing two suitcases purportedly filled with
those items.
According to the NSS, Narek flew to Moscow on June 22 together with his
bodyguard, Artem Poghosian, who was also wanted by the investigators. Poghosian
returned to Yerevan and turned himself in on July 10.
Narek’s younger brother Hayk was arrested and charged with attempted murder and
illegal arms possession last week. The two men’s controversial father Aleksandr
is a younger brother of former President Sarkisian. He was briefly detained
during the NSS raid on his luxury residence.
Armenia -- Narek Sarkisian, a nephew of former President Serzh Sarkisian.
The Armenian police said on Monday that Narek Sarkisian, 31, is now also
suspected of kidnapping a man last August with the help of his bodyguard and
other individuals. It said that Narek threatened to shoot the 49-year-old man
before beating him up and burning “various parts of his body” with a lighter.
The man was freed only after promising not to open a nightclub in Yerevan,
according to a police statement.
A spokeswoman for Armenia’s Prosecutor-General Artur Davtian told RFE/RL’s
Armenian service on Tuesday that his office has instructed the NSS to conduct a
kidnapping and assault investigation targeting Narek. The NSS did not
immediately comment on the new probe ordered by prosecutors.
Also facing prosecution is the ex-president’s second brother, Levon Sarkisian.
He and his daughter were charged with “illegal enrichment” after tax inspectors
discovered in late June that they hold millions of dollars in undeclared
deposits at an Armenian bank.
A Yerevan court issued an arrest warrant for Levon Sarkisian early this month.
He has still not been arrested, however, suggesting that he too fled the
country.
Serzh Sarkisian, who governed Armenia from 2008-20018, has not yet publicly
commented on the highly embarrassing criminal proceedings launched against his
close relatives.
Yerevan ‘Working’ On Aid Proposals To EU
• Sargis Harutyunyan
Belgium - European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker and Armenia's Prime
Minister Nikol Pashinian meet in Brussels,12 July, 2018.
The Armenian government will make soon detailed proposals designed to convince
the European Union to significantly increase its economic assistance to
Armenia, a spokesman for Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian said on Tuesday.
Pashinian criticized the EU for not promising additional aid to Yerevan when he
ended a two-day visit to Brussels last week. The head of the EU Delegation in
Armenia, Piotr Switalski, countered on Monday that his government needs to
first come up with specific reform-oriented projects requiring EU funding.
Pashinian’s press secretary, Arman Yeghoyan, told RFE/RL’s Armenian service
(Azatutyun.am) that the government is now working on such projects.
“Those proposals are being worked out and I can say in general terms that they
will mainly relate to the development of Armenia’s public infrastructures and
institutional reforms … We are going to present clear programs,” he said.
Yeghoyan did not specify the amount of extra EU aid that will be requested by
the new authorities in Yerevan. “We are talking about a fairly solid sum, but I
can’t give a concrete figure,” he said.
Stepan Grigorian, a Yerevan-based political analyst, claimed that Pashinian’s
government will be seeking as much as 1 billion euros ($1.17 billion) in EU
funding.
The EU pledged last year to provide up to 160 million euros ($185 million) in
fresh aid to Armenia over the next three years in line with the Comprehensive
and Enhanced Partnership Agreement (CEPA) signed with the previous Armenian
government.
Switalski announced that a senior official from the European Commission, the
EU’s executive body, will visit Yerevan later this week to discuss with
Armenian leaders their “expectations and needs.” “This must be a very concrete
discussion,” the diplomat stressed.
Stepan Safarian, another pro-Western analyst, was very skeptical about
Armenia’s ability to attract large-scale EU aid without a change of its
geopolitical orientation. “It is not realistic to expect the kind huge of
assistance which the EU has been providing to Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine in
return for their complete Europeanization,” he said. “Armenia must not have
such expectations.”
Ever since he swept to power in a wave of mass protests in May, Pashinian has
repeatedly ruled out a change of his country’s geopolitical orientation. While
voicing support for closer ties with the EU as well as the United States, he
has pledged to keep it primarily allied to Russia.
Press Review
“Zhamanak” comments on European Union Ambassador Piotr Switalski’s response to
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s criticism of the EU. “Ambassador Switalski
says that they expect changes, new ideas from Armenia’s new government,” writes
the paper. “The ambassador’s remarks are certainly appropriate. Armenia needs
to make more substantive proposals to Brussels about what kind of assistance it
expects, in what form and on what scale. It is not yet clear whether Nikol
Pashinian presented such things during his visit to Brussels.” Pashinian should
clarify that, it says.
A Georgian analyst, Gela Vasadze, tells “168 Zham” that Yerevan would be wrong
to think that the EU will give it more aid “just because regime change occurred
here.” “We already went through that,” he says. “After that Georgia had to
spend a lot of time proving its European course … The EU needs neither Georgia
nor Armenia. We need the EU. We must prove that we are worthy of their
standards.”
“Our young rulers need to realize that they are no longer activists and none of
their steps and statements goes unnoticed,” writes “Hraparak.” The paper cites
controversy caused by Deputy Prime Minister Ararat Mirzoyan’s spokesman Karpis
Pashoyan, who questioned motives of Armenian soldiers killed in the 2016 war in
Karabakh. It also says: “While opposition politician Nikol Pashinian was free
to lambaste the Europeans and the Russians and tell bitter truths about their
hypocritical policies, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s slight discontent with
the EU’s perceived failure to properly finance reforms in Armenia could cause
an international scandal and prompt a tough reaction from the EU.”
“Zhoghovurd” comments on the launch of a criminal investigation into an
Armenian parliament deputy and a village mayor suspected of handing out vote
bribes in last year’s general elections. The paper claims that tens of
thousands of other people in Armenia can also be prosecuted on such charges
given the scale of chronic vote buying in the country.
(Tigran Avetisian)
Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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