Monday,
Pashinian Explains Party Ideology
• Gayane Saribekian
Armenia -- Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian and other delegates attend a congress
of the ruling Civil Contract party, Yerevan, .
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian said his Civil Contract party does not espouse
any of the traditional political ideologies as it held on Sunday its first
congress since coming to power one year ago.
“We are a party that has rejected ‘isms’ because hardened ideologies no longer
exist in the contemporary world,” Pashinian told delegates of the congress. “In
the political sense, we are not liberal, we are not centrist, we are not social
democrat; we are a civil party.”
“What does this mean?” he said. “This means that we place ourselves beyond
ideological standards and we are forming a new ideological plane which is based
on four key pillars: statehood, citizenship, national identity and personality.”
Pashinian set up Civil Contract in 2013 after splitting from former President
Levon Ter-Petrosian’s Armenian National Congress. It operated as a
non-governmental organization mostly uniting young civic activists before
becoming a full-fledged political party in 2015. Critics, notably the former
ruling Republican Party, have accused it of lacking ideological clarity.
Civil Contract served as Pashinian’s core support base during the April-May
2018 “velvet revolution” which brought the 44-year-old former journalist to
power. It is also the dominant force in a more broad-based My Step bloc which
Pashinian formed following the revolution. The bloc won 70 percent of the vote
in parliamentary elections held in December.
Despite being the party’s top leader, Pashinian has never headed it officially.
Civil Contract stuck to this tradition at its weekend congress in Yerevan which
elected the party’s new governing board. The board in turn appointed Minister
for Local Government Suren Papikian as its chairman.
Armenia -- Delegates of the ruling Civil Contract party's congress elect a new
party board in secret ballot, Yerevan, .
Among the 21 members of the board are parliament speaker Ararat Mirzoyan,
Deputy Prime Minister Tigran Avinian, the Armenian ministers of education,
health and transport as well as Pashinian’s chief of staff, Eduard Aghajanian.
Sasun Mikaelian, the ruling party’s chairman until now, unexpectedly failed to
get elected to the new board. Papikian declined to comment on speculation that
this was the result of a Civil Contract candidate’s failure to unseat the
incumbent mayor of the town of Abovian in an election held earlier this month.
Romanos Petrosian, the governor of Armenia’s central Kotayk province
encompassing Abovian, has openly complained that Mikaelian, who is influential
in the area, failed to help the candidate during the mayoral race.
Incidentally, Petrosian was elected to the board.
Mikaelian, 61, became in April the new chairman of the once powerful Yerkrapah
Union of Armenian veterans of the Nagorno-Karabakh war.
Russian Envoy Warned After Meeting With Kocharian
• Ruzanna Stepanian
Armenia- Russian Ambassador to Armenia Sergey Kopyrkin speaks at a news
conference in Yerevan, Jun 11, 2019.
Russia’s ambassador to Armenia was summoned to the Foreign Ministry in Yerevan
last week after meeting with the indicted former President Robert Kocharian, a
senior Armenian lawmaker revealed on Monday.
Ambassador Sergey Kopyrkin and Kocharian met on Thursday nearly one month after
the latter was controversially released from prison pending the outcome of his
trial. The ex-president was charged with overthrowing the constitutional order
in 2008 shortly after last year’s Armenian “velvet revolution.” He denies the
accusations as politically motivated.
The Russian Embassy in Yerevan said Kopyrkin spoke to Kocharian “within the
framework of his regular meetings with representatives of social-political and
business circles” of Armenia.
Parliament speaker Ararat Mirzoyan dismissed this explanation on Sunday when he
spoke at a congress of the ruling Civil Contract party. Mirzoyan said he does
“not welcome” the meeting because Kocharian is facing coup charges and cannot
be considered a politician in these circumstances.
The pro-government chairman of the Armenian parliament committee on foreign
relations, Ruben Rubinian, similarly described Kopyrkin’s conversation with
Kocharian as “bewildering.” Rubinian’s deputy, Hovannes Igitian, went farther,
denouncing it as “ludicrous.”
“Look, newspapers write that Kocharian is backed by Russia’s [ruling] elite,”
Igitian told RFE/RL’s Armenian service. “Kocharian’s entourage is spreading
such claims. In this context, the ambassador’s meeting was ludicrous to say the
least.”
A pro-Western opposition parliamentarian, Arman Babajanian, also deplored
Kopyrkin’s meeting with Kocharian at a session of the parliament committee
attended by Deputy Foreign Minister Grigor Hovannisian. The latter insisted
that the Russian envoy did not break the diplomatic protocol.
“The ambassador did not do anything wrong within the bounds of the diplomatic
protocol and norms,” said Hovannisian. “That [meeting] cannot be deemed
condemnable or be the subject of a special examination by our ministry.”
Rubinian announced later in the day that he has discussed the matter with
Foreign Minister Zohrab Mnatsakanian. “The minister informed me that in fact
the Russian ambassador was invited on Friday to the Foreign Ministry where a
conversation took place with the ambassador in the context of not interfering
in Armenia’s internal affairs,” he wrote on Facebook.
“Deputy Minister Hovannisian did not speak about this at the committee meeting
because at that point he did not have a permission to publicize the
information,” added the lawmaker.
Russian President Vladimir Putin (L) and Armenian President Robert Kocharian
walk at Bocharov Ruchei residence, January 24, 2007.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov denounced the prosecution of Kocharian
as well as other former Armenian officials shortly after the ex-president was
first arrested in July 2018.
Kocharian was set free in early August two weeks before Russian President Putin
telephoned him to congratulate him on his 64th birthday anniversary. A
spokesman for Putin said at the time that the two men “have been maintaining
warm relations that are not influenced by any events taking place in Armenia.”
Kocharian, who ruled Armenia from 1998-2008, described the phone call as a show
of “serious support” for him.
The ex-president was again arrested in December. Three weeks later, he received
New Year greetings from Putin.
Kocharian, his former chief of staff Armen Gevorgian and two retired generals
went on trial last month. The judge presiding over the trial, Davit Grigorian,
ordered Kocharian released from jail five days later. The decision was strongly
condemned by Pashinian’s political allies and supporters.
Diaspora Commissioner Buoyed By Status, Powers
• Harry Tamrazian
ARMENIA -- Zareh Sinanyan pictured in Yerevan on May 9, 2018.
Zareh Sinanyan, Armenia’s newly appointed commissioner general of Diaspora
affairs, has insisted that his office has a higher status than the Ministry of
Diaspora abolished by the Armenian government earlier this year.
Sinanyan and his office will be tasked with coordinating Armenia’s relations
with its worldwide Diaspora, a function which was performed by the ministry.
Some Diaspora figures have expressed concern at the Armenian government’s
decision to close the ministry, saying that it could hurt Armenia-Diaspora ties.
Sinanyan sought to allay those concerns in a weekend interview with RFE/RL’s
Armenian service. “The office [of commissioner] will have a much higher status,
it is directly subordinate to the prime minister, it is part of the prime
minister’s office,” he told “The prime minister [Nikol Pashinian] is thus
showing the Diaspora just how important the Diaspora is for the Republic of
Armenia and the prime minister.”
“The Ministry of Diaspora carried the old reputation and therefore had to be
rebranded a little,” said Sinanyan. “I will make every effort to ensure that my
office works with great efficiency.”
“Honestly, at first I will concentrate on Russia a little because it has a very
large [Armenian] community, it’s very important and it’s also our strategic
ally,” added the Armenian-born U.S. national.
Sinanyan, 43, is a former mayor of Glendale, a city in Los Angeles County with
a sizable ethnic Armenian population. A vocal critic of Armenia’s former
government, he strongly supported last year’s “velvet revolution” which brought
Pashinian to power.
Some of Pashinian’s political opponents have criticized his choice of the
commissioner of Diaspora affairs, saying that Sinanyan’s American citizenship
will make it hard for him work with the Armenian communities in Russia and Iran.
“If they are worried about Russia, I must say that I am very fluent in Russian
and very familiar with Russian culture because I grew up under the Soviet
system at a time when Russian culture was more present in Armenia.”
The official said he also sees no serious obstacles to his dealings with
Diaspora structures in Iran. “We should be very careful not to breach any laws
and create any problems for Armenia and our community,” he said.
Speaking to RFE/RL’s Armenian service a year ago, Sinanyan suggested that many
Diaspora Armenians will be ready to move to their ancestral homeland after the
revolution. He claimed on Sunday that such “repatriation” to Armenia has
already begun from western parts of the United States, which are home to
hundreds of thousands of Armenian Americans.
“I’m saying this not because I know of people moving here with their families
but because I know statistical data,” said Sinanyan. “For example, if you talk
to cargo firms operating both in Yerevan and there, [they will say that] that
there has been a sharp rise in cargo shipments for families relocating to
Armenia. People really have high hopes for today’s Armenia and see themselves
as actors in the building of the new Armenia.”
Armenian Judicial Watchdog Hamstrung By Resignations
• Astghik Bedevian
Armenia -- The main meeting room of the Supreme Judicial Council, Yerevan,
April 10, 2019.
The Supreme Judicial Council (SJC), a state body overseeing Armenia’s courts,
has been effectively paralyzed by the resignations of five of its nine members.
The resignations began after Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian appealed to
supporters on May 19 to block the entrances to all court buildings in the
country. The appeal came the day after a Yerevan court ordered former President
Robert Kocharian released from jail pending the outcome of his trial on coup
and corruption charges. The court’s decision angered many allies and supporters
of Pashinian.
The SJC chairman, Gagik Harutiunian, was the first to step down on May 24. He
cited “ongoing developments relating to the judicial authority” and his
“concerns expressed in that regard.” Harutiunian’s temporary replacement,
Gevorg Danielian, quit on June 7.
Three other members of the SJC followed suit last week. Two of those
resignations were formally accepted on Monday.
“Starting from today, the Supreme Judicial Council cannot make decisions
because of the lack of a quorum,” Hayk Hovannisian, one of the body’s four
remaining members told RFE/RL’s Armenian service.
“In order to make decisions, we need the presence of either a simple majority
[of SJC members] or a two-thirds majority for cases such as taking disciplinary
action [against judges,]” explained Hovannisian. “We can’t make a quorum in
both cases.”
“But there are still four of us and we must report for work and coordinate
sectoral activities of the judicial department,” he said, adding that he has no
plans yet to step down.
Armenia -- Supporters of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian block the entrance to a
district court in Yerevan, May 20, 2019.
Under Armenian law, the SJC has wide-ranging powers, including the right to
nominate judges appointed by the president of the republic. It can also
sanction and even terminate judges.
The SJC is supposed to have 10 members. Half of them are appointed by the
Armenian parliament while the other half are chosen by the country’s judges.
The parliament’s pro-government majority has nominated only one member of the
council so far. The National Assembly is expected to appoint him later this
week.
Speaking at a May 20 meeting with senior state officials, Pashinian said that
Armenian courts remain linked to “the former corrupt system” and distrusted by
the population. He announced plans for a mandatory “vetting” of all judges.
Hovannisian disputed claims that the SJC, which was formed shortly before last
year’s “velvet revolution,” also lacks popular trust. “The public is much
broader than speeches delivered by a few parliament deputies,” he said.
Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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