RusData Dialine – Russian Press Digest
August 3, 2018 Friday
Moscow angered by Armenia's crackdown on CSTO chief
by Alexandra Geogevitch
Kommersant
The new Armenian authorities' decision to prosecute former leaders has driven a wedge into Moscow's relations with Yerevan and may set the two countries at loggerheads even more. Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan's government has launched a criminal investigation against former senior officials as part of a case into dispersing opposition protesters in March 2008.
Pashinyan, who was sent behind the bars in 2010 for organizing the riots, now demands those who also had a role in the crackdown on the protesters be held accountable: ex-President Robert Kocharyan and Secretary-General of the Collective Security Treaty Organization Yuri Khatchaturov, who was the commander of the Yerevan garrison in 2008. They have been charged with usurping power.
The prosecution of the CSTO chief has sparked Moscow's outrage as this deals a blow to the image of the Russian-led military and political bloc, sources in Russia's state bodies said. One of the sources close to the CSTO did not rule out that "the attempt to slander Khatchaturov and the entire organization has been inspired by players outside the region."
The standoff between Moscow and Yerevan may affect Russian weapons supplies to Armenia agreed earlier, according to the paper. Top managers of two Russian defense enterprises said the implementation of the second package of contracts, under a $100 mln loan to Armenia, "now remains doubtful."
Alexander Iskandaryan, Director of the Yerevan-based Caucasus Institute, has called not to link the current events in Armenia with the country's foreign policy priorities. "What is happening now in Armenia is within the logic of the Armenian domestic political process. It should be viewed in the context of relations between the new and old elites."