X
    Categories: 2019

RFE/RL Armenian Report – 02/25/2019

                                        Monday, 

Babayan ‘Stripped Of Karabakh Citizenship’

        • Ruzanna Stepanian

Armenia -- Former Karabakh army commander Samvel Babayan gives an interview to 
RFE/RL, Yerevan, 17Oct2016.

Samvel Babayan, a retired general who wants to run for president of 
Nagorno-Karabakh, on Monday claimed to have been “illegally” stripped of 
Karabakh citizenship over a decade ago.

“We are going to court so that they restore it,” he told RFE/RL’s Armenian 
service.

Babayan said he only Sunday found out that he ceased to be a Karabakh citizen 
in 2006 and is therefore not eligible to run in a presidential election that 
will be held in the unrecognized republic next year. “They had no right to 
strip me [of the citizenship,]” he said, citing Karabakh laws.

The authorities in Stepanakert did not immediately confirm the information. “I 
am hearing about that for the first time,” said a senior aide to Bako Sahakian, 
the outgoing Karabakh president.

Babayan, 53, was the commander of Karabakh’s Armenian-backed army during and 
after the 1991-1994 war with Azerbaijan. He was widely regarded as the 
unrecognized republic’s most powerful man at that time.

Babayan was arrested in 2000 and subsequently sentenced to 14 years in prison 
for allegedly masterminding a botched attempt on the life of the then Karabakh 
president, Arkady Ghukasian. He was set free in 2004 and has lived in Armenia 
and Russia since then.

Babayan expressed his desire to join the Karabakh presidential race earlier 
this month. He said he will start collecting in March signatures of local 
residents in a bid to circumvent a legal provision that bars him from running 
for president.

The Karabakh constitution stipulates that only those individuals who have 
resided in Karabakh for the past 10 years can participate in the 2020 
presidential election.

Speaking from Stepanakert, Babayan also claimed that the local authorities are 
now trying to obstruct the signature collection aimed at removing that 
constitutional clause. “I wouldn’t like to see upheavals, people taking to the 
streets, fighting and so on in Karabakh … But if they go for an escalation I 
won’t back down because there is no alternative,” he warned.

Babayan is specifically protesting against rules for collecting the signatures 
which were set by the Central Election Commission in Stepanakert on February 
18. In a weekend statement, his office said those rules are unconstitutional 
and aimed at precluding his presidential bid.

Karabakh officials dismissed the claims.




Putin, Pashinian Discuss ‘Regional Problems’


RUSSIA -- Russian President Vladimir Putin (Right) meets Armenian Prime 
Minister Nikol Pashinian (Left) in the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia, 27 December 
2018

Russian President Vladimir Putin discussed with Armenian Prime Minister Nikol 
Pashinian bilateral relations and regional security during a telephone 
conversation on Monday.

The Kremlin reported that the two leaders spoke about the “development of 
Russian-Armenian cooperation as well as regional problems.” It did not 
elaborate.

Pashinian’s press office also gave no details in a virtually identical 
statement on the phone call. “The interlocutors discussed various issues on the 
agenda of Russian-Armenian allied relations,” it said.

Putin and Pashinian most recently met in Moscow on December 27. The talks 
focused, among other things, on a new price of Russian natural gas delivered to 
Armenia.

The two men held further discussions on the issue by phone in the following 
days. Russia’s Gazprom giant announced a 10 percent rise in its gas price for 
Armenia on December 31.

Immediately after those talks, Putin sent New Year greetings to Robert 
Kocharian, a former Armenian president arrested on coup charges on December 7. 
In August, he phoned Kocharian to congratulate him on his 64th birthday 
anniversary. A spokeswoman for Putin said the two men “have been maintaining 
warm relations that are not influenced by any events taking place in Armenia.”

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov had earlier denounced the prosecutions 
of Kocharian, as well as two retired Armenian generals facing the same charges. 
The authorities in Yerevan deny any political motives behind the high-profile 
criminal cases.

Pashinian did not meet with Putin when he again visited Moscow in late January. 
He was received instead by Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev. The Armenian 
leader also gave a speech at the Moscow headquarters of the Russian-led 
Eurasian Economic Union (EEU).

In its five-year policy program approved by the parliament on February 14, 
Pashinian’s government’s reaffirmed its commitment to Armenia’s continued 
membership in the EEU and “strategic alliance” with Russia. The program 
describes close military ties with Moscow an “important component” of Armenia’s 
national security doctrine.

On February 8, Armenia deployed 83 medics, demining experts and other noncombat 
military personnel to Syria. Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoygu thanked 
Yerevan for the deployment when het with his Armenia counterpart Davit Tonoyan 
in Moscow on the same day.

For their part, the Russian and Armenian foreign ministers met on February 16 
on the sidelines of an international security forum in Munich, Germany. The 
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict was reportedly high on the agenda of those talks.




Radical Group Warns Armenian Government Over Jailed Members

        • Sargis Harutyunyan

Armenia - Sasna Tsrer party leaders Zhirayr Sefiian (third from left) and 
Varuzhan Avetisian (second from left) start their election campaign in Yerevan, 
November 26, 2018.

A leader of a radical Armenian party demanded on Monday the immediate release 
of two of its members accused of murdering three police officers during a 2016 
attack on a police station in Yerevan.

Zhirayr Sefilian said the Sasna Tsrer party will “force” the authorities to 
free the two men if its demand is rejected.

The suspects, Armen Bilian and Smbat Barseghian, were part of a 31-member armed 
group that seized the police base in July 2016 to demand than President Serzh 
Sarkisian free Sefilian and step down. Sefilian had been arrested a month 
before the attack.

The gunmen laid down their weapons after a two-week standoff with security 
forces which left the three policemen dead. All them except Bilian and 
Barseghian were set free pending the outcome of their ongoing trials shortly 
after Sarkisian was toppled in last spring’s “velvet revolution.”

The two arrested men stand accused of killing the police Colonel Artur Vanoyan 
and Warrant Officers Gagik Mkrtchian and Yuri Tepanosian. They deny the 
accusations.

In a Facebook post, Sefilian condemned the authorities for keeping the “rebels” 
behind bars. “Enough is enough. If Armen Bilian and Smbat Barseghian are not 
freed, the more dignified and conscious segment of our people will force the 
recognition of the right to rebel and the release of the rebels,” warned the 
Lebanese-born nationalist activist.

Sefilian, who too was released from jail after the peaceful regime change, did 
not specify how his party would do that.


Armenia - Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian meets with relatives of police 
officers killed in a 2016 standoff with opposition gunmen, 28 June 2018.
Varuzhan Avetisian, another Sasna Tsrer leader who led the attack on the police 
station, also condemned Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s government. “Such an 
approach puts Pashinian’s government and Serzh Sarkisian’s criminal regime on 
the same subconscious plane,” he told RFE/RL’s Armenian service. “That is why 
such an approach is unacceptable.”

Avetisian seemingly ruled out an armed struggle against the current government. 
“We are certainly not talking about that. We are talking about citizens’ 
protests and other actions taken within the bounds of the law,” he said.

The stark warnings came three days after Justice Minister Artak Zeynalian 
confirmed that Avetisian and 20 other members of the armed group do not qualify 
for a general amnesty declared by the authorities in November.

Under an amnesty bill passed by the Armenian parliament, the key participants 
of the deadly attack can be pardoned only with the consent of their former 
hostages, including Valeri Osipian, the national police chief. Osipian formally 
objected to the amnesty earlier this month.

In his statement, Sefilian denounced the amnesty bill as “ludicrous” and 
likened it to a “trap.”

Reacting to the statement, the Armenian Justice Ministry said neither it nor 
any other government body is legally allowed to comment on ongoing trials or 
criminal investigations. There was no immediate reaction from Pashinian.

The prime minister lambasted the Sasna Tsrer party in the run-up to the 
December 2018 parliamentary elections. He said its members and supporters will 
“feel the taste of asphalt” if they attempt to destabilize the political 
situation in Armenia.

The warning was prompted by Sasna Tsrer leaders’ claims that the new Armenian 
parliament will have to be dissolved within two years because the country is 
now in a post-revolutionary “transitional period.” Avetisian stood by those 
statements a few days after Pashinian’s My Step bloc won the December 8 
elections by a landslide.

Sasna Tsrer got only 1.8 percent of the vote and thus failed to win any seats 
in the new National Assembly.




Ter-Petrosian Defends Pashinian


Armenia - Former President Levon Ter-Petrosian (L) and Nikol Pashinian greet 
supporters at a rally in Yerevan, May 31, 2011.

Former President Levon Ter-Petrosian has voiced support for Prime Minister 
Nikol Pashinian while strongly denying giving him guidance on the 
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and other challenges facing Armenia.

In a weekend article posted Ilur.am, Ter-Petrosian blasted what he described as 
a smear campaign waged against Pashinian by the country’s former rulers. He 
claimed that they want to restore “the kleptocratic regime” and “save from 
justice” individuals responsible for the 2008 post-election bloodshed in 
Yerevan.

“This is nothing but national treason,” he wrote. “The defeated regime has 
declared a war on the Armenian people and the government elected by them. It is 
therefore incumbent on the people to take up the gauntlet and strongly fight 
back against the anti-state forces.”

Ter-Petrosian, 74, shrugged off opposition claims that he remains Pashinian’s 
“godfather” and that the premier regularly asks him for policy advice. He said 
they last met in July 2018 and have had no direct or indirect contact since 
then.

The ex-president, who ruled Armenia from 1991-1998, also dismissed claims that 
Pashinian has embraced his conciliatory approach to resolving the 
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. He said that unlike himself and the two other former 
Armenian presidents, Pashinian has so far shed no light on his views about how 
to resolve the conflict.

“Whatever program on a Karabakh settlement Pashinian comes up with, it will be 
his own program,” he added.

Ter-Petrosian further downplayed the recent appointment of a senior member of 
his Armenian National Congress (HAK) party, Vladimir Karapetian, as Pashinian’s 
press secretary. He argued that Karapetian suspended his membership in the HAK 
before taking up the post.


Armenia - Opposition leader Nikol Pashinian addresses protesters that 
barricaded themselves in central Yerevan, 1 March 2008.

Pashinian played a prominent role in Ter-Petrosian’s opposition movement that 
nearly brought the latter back to power in a disputed presidential election 
held in February 2008. The former journalist 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. 
As recently as in February 2018, 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 welcomed the subsequent Pashinian-led protests that led to 
Sarkisian’s resignation. Ter-Petrosian and Pashinian met in July for the first 
time in years.

Senior HAK representatives also hailed criminal charges that were brought 
against former President Robert Kocharian and other former Armenian officials 
shortly after the “velvet revolution.” The charges stem from the March 2008 
breakup of the post-election protests in Yerevan which left eight protesters 
and two policemen dead.

Last week, the HAK added its voice to Pashinian’s calls for Armenians to join 
him in marking the 11th anniversary of the violence on March 1.


Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
Copyright (c) 2019 Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, Inc.
1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.
www.rferl.org


Emil Lazarian: “I should like to see any power of the world destroy this race, this small tribe of unimportant people, whose wars have all been fought and lost, whose structures have crumbled, literature is unread, music is unheard, and prayers are no more answered. Go ahead, destroy Armenia . See if you can do it. Send them into the desert without bread or water. Burn their homes and churches. Then see if they will not laugh, sing and pray again. For when two of them meet anywhere in the world, see if they will not create a New Armenia.” - WS