Monday,
Pashinian Reaffirms Commitment To Closer Ties With Iran
• Karine Simonian
Armenia - Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian inspects a car assembled by an
Armenian-Iranian joint venture in Vanadzor, December 22, 2018.
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian has reaffirmed his government’s intention to
deepen Armenia’s relations with neighboring Iran despite U.S. economic
sanctions re-imposed on the Islamic Republic.
“We intend to deepen not only economic but also political relations with Iran.
All prerequisites for that exist in Armenia,” he told reporters during a
weekend visit to Vanadzor.
Pashinian spoke while attending the official opening of an Armenian-Iranian
joint venture that will manufacture pressurized gas cylinders in Armenia’s
third largest city.
Top executives of the Iranian company Rad Sane and its Armenian partners that
have built the plant also announced other investment projects when they met
with Pashinian before the ceremony. In particular, they are planning to
assemble Iranian-designed cars in Armenia.
“Our cars could enter the Armenian market already in March,” said Arayik
Asrian, a co-owner of the new plant.
“I said during our conversation that we are very interested in having new
investments flow in from Iran and more Iranian tourists visit Armenia,”
stressed Pashinian.
The Armenian leader already pledged last month to “develop relations with Iran
very intensively.” He said the United States “understands our situation and
policy.”
Earlier in November, a team of officials from the U.S. state and treasury
departments visited Yerevan to explain the sanctions Armenia’s government and
private sector. Iran was also high on the agenda of U.S. National Security
Adviser John Bolton’s October trip to Armenia.
Bolton said he hold Pashinian that Washington will enforce the sanctions “very
vigorously.” Commercial and other traffic through the Armenian-Iranian border
is therefore “going to be a significant issue,” he said.
Pashinian said his government is doing its best to minimize the negative impact
of the sanctions on Iranians doing business in Armenia. He again acknowledged
that in the last few months Armenian commercial banks have closed the accounts
of Iranian citizens living in the country.
Pashinian insisted that the U.S. administration “has no problem” with
law-abiding Iranian nationals having bank accounts in Armenia. Armenian banks,
he said, are simply afraid of being blacklisted by Washington.
“Some banks have already realized that there won’t be problems with the
accounts of private individuals [from Iran] who have not been sanctioned,” he
went on. “This is not a state problem but we are now very closely cooperating,
discussing and talking to solve that problem.”
Prosecutors Move To Arrest Ex-General Again
• Anush Muradian
Armenia - Prosecutor-General Artur Davtian (R) addresses protesters outisde his
office in Yerevan, .
Prosecutor-General Artur Davtian said on Monday that his office will appeal
against an Armenian court’s to decision to release Manvel Grigorian, a retired
army general prosecuted on corruption charges, from custody on bail.
The district court in Yerevan ordered Grigorian’s release on health grounds on
Friday. The 62-year-old suffers from a number of serious illnesses, reportedly
including cancer.
The court order provoked angry protests in the town of Echmiadzin, Grigorian’s
place of residence until his arrest in June. Hundreds of local residents
blocked a nearby highway over the weekend.
Several dozen people gathered outside the prosecutors’ headquarters in Yerevan
on Monday, demanding Grigorian’s renewed arrest. Davtian addressed the crowd,
saying that his office will ask the Court of Appeals to overturn the lower
court ruling. The appeal will be filed by the end of the day, he said.
Davtian insisted that Grigorian’s illnesses are “not incompatible with
incarceration.” The once powerful general should be kept behind bars because he
could obstruct justice if he remains at large, added Armenia’s chief prosecutor
Davtian also told the protesters: “I want you to understand one thing: these
are legal processes, the court is independent, and any pressure on the court is
unacceptable.”
Grigorian was arrested when security forces raided his properties in and around
Echmiadzin. They found many weapons, ammunition, medication and field rations
for soldiers provided by the Armenian Defense Ministry. They also discovered
canned food and several vehicles donated by Armenians at one of Grigorian’s
mansions.
Grigorian, who served as deputy defense minister from 2000-2008, denies the
accusations of illegal arms possession and embezzlement leveled against him.
Armenian Government To Scrap Five Ministries
• Naira Nalbandian
Armenian - Protesting employees of the Armenian ministrties of Diaspora and
culture hand a petition to an official from Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian's
staff, Yerevan, December 21, 2018.
The number of government ministries in Armenia is due to be slashed to 12 from
17 in line with Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s pledges to downsize the state
bureaucracy.
A relevant bill publicized by the Armenian government would also abolish the
post of first deputy prime minister introduced shortly before this spring’s
“velvet revolution.” Pashinian would have only two deputies after forming a new
cabinet next month.
Armenia’s newly elected parliament controlled by Pashinian’s My Step alliance
will likely pass the bill. The National Assembly is expected to hold its first
session on January 14.
The bill calls for abolishing the Ministry of Diaspora and merging four other
ministries with different agencies.
In particular, the ministries of agriculture and economic development would be
turned into a single ministry, as would the ministries of education, culture,
and sports and youth affairs. A similar merger of the ministries of energy and
local government would lead to the creation of a new Ministry of Territorial
Administration and Infrastructures.
Armenia - Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian holds a cabinet meeting in Yerevan, 18
October 2018.
The Ministry of Transport and Communications would be renamed and presumably
expanded into a new agency called the Ministry of Technologies and Defense
Industry.
The government has not yet specified how many of its employees will be laid off
as a result of the planned restructuring. Nor is it clear how much budgetary
money it expects to save.
Hundreds of employees of the ministries of culture and Diaspora demonstrated in
Yerevan on Friday in protest against the impending closure of their agencies.
They denounced the government plans as hasty and ill-thought-out. They also
faulted Pashinian and his young political team for not consulting with civil
servants.
Pashinian defended the plans on Saturday. He argued that he has repeatedly said
since coming to power in May that the state bureaucracy is bloated and
inefficient. He said My Step’s landslide victory in the December 9 general
elections means that he has a mandate to shrink it.
“The common practice around the world is for 9 to 11 employees to have one
leader,” Pashinian told reporters. “In our state bureaucracy there is one
leader per 3.5 workers.”
Some analysts question the wisdom of reducing the number of government
ministries. Serob Antinian, a public administration expert, said on Monday that
the new “super-ministries” would actually slow down the work of the state
apparatus.
Armenia - Serob Antinian (L), a public administration expert, speaks at a news
conference in Yerevan, .
“If we unite ministries it will mean that while a minister has until now taken
one or two days to sign a state document because of busyness they would take
ten days after that [restructuring,]” Antinian told a news conference.
The planned downsizing was also criticized as “arbitrary” by the Armenian
Revolutionary Federation (Dashnaktsutyun), which had two ministerial posts in
Pashinian’s government until recently. In a statement, the opposition party
warned of “very serious consequences” of the measure.
Artur Khachatrian, a Dashnaktsutyun leader who served as agriculture minister
from May through October this year, was especially critical of the proposed
merger of the ministries of agriculture and economy.
“I think that the Ministry of Agriculture should have on the contrary been
strengthened,” Khachatrian told RFE/RL’s Armenian service. “After all,
agriculture accounts for about 15 percent of our Gross Domestic Product.
Another 10 percent of GDP comes from food processing.”
Press Review
(Saturday, December 22)
“Zhoghovurd” says that disagreements between Armenia and other members of the
Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) over the choice of the next
secretary general of the Russian-led alliance seem to be deepening. The paper
reports that Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has signed a draft CSTO
decision to appoint a senior Belarusian official, Stanislav Zas, to the vacant
post. “Presumably Armenia will veto Zas’s appointment if Belarus insists on its
desire,” it says. It quotes Zas as implying on Friday that his appointment does
not necessarily require unanimity by all CSTO member states.
“It is already clear that important developments on the Nagorno-Karabakh issue
are expected next year,” writes “Aravot.” “We must again stress that no
Armenian leader has deliberately taken or will take any steps that would put
Armenia and Artsakh (Karabakh) in danger. We, the citizens, have to try to get
answers to a number of important questions.” One of those questions, the paper
says, is whether international mediators are currently making any peace
proposals that do not call for Armenian withdrawal from five districts around
Karabakh. “Does Azerbaijan agree to such a solution extremely favorable to us?”
it goes on. But if the mediators are pressing for major Armenian territorial
concessions to Azerbaijan then Armenians must know what they would gain in
return, according to the paper. “If that only includes a lifting of the
blockade and an uncertain promise of some unclear referendum then that is
certainly not good enough,” it says.
“Hraparak” reports on the resignation of the director of the Armenian Public
Radio, Mark Grigorian, which was demanded by some employees of the state-run
broadcaster. The paper says other radio workers believe that Grigorian should
not have quit so easily. “They believe that this resignation was orchestrated
by the head of the Public Television and Radio, Ruben Jaghinian,” it says.
(Tatev Danielian)
Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
Copyright (c) 2018 Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, Inc.
1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.
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