Wednesday, 
Kocharian Operated On In Hospital
        • Robert Zargarian
Armenia -- Former President Robert Kocharian (R) talks to his lawyer Hayk 
Alumian during his trial, Yerevan, October 7, 2019.
Armenia’s jailed former President Robert Kocharian underwent surgery at a 
hospital in Yerevan on Wednesday.
The chief doctor of the Izmirlian Medical Center, Armen Charchian, told 
RFE/RL’s Armenian service that the operation was successful. For privacy 
reasons he refused to reveal the medical condition Kocharian suffered from.
Kocharian was taken to the private hospital from a prison in downtown Yerevan 
on Tuesday for the third time in just over a week. His younger son Levon 
insisted last week that the 65-year-old ex-president does not have serious 
health problems.
One of Kocharian’s lawyers, Hayk Alumian, could not say whether he will be fit 
enough to attend the next hearing of his ongoing trial scheduled for October 
15. “I think that based on the dynamics even the doctors can’t tell that at the 
moment,” said Alumian.
Alumian also said that Kocharian’s legal team has no plans yet to use the 
surgery for again demanding his release from prison.
The judge presiding over the trial, Anna Danibekian, twice refused last month 
to free the ex-president pending a verdict in the case. The defense lawyers 
accused her of acting on government orders and being biased against their 
client.
Kocharian, who was arrested again in June, stands trial on coup and corruption 
charges mostly stemming from the 2008 post-election violence in Yerevan. He 
rejects them as politically motivated.
Scrapping Of Russian-Armenian Railway Deal ‘Not On Agenda’
        • Naira Nalbandian
Armenia -- A commuter train at Yerevan's railway station, February 27, 2018.
Russian and Armenian officials are not discussing the possibility of ending 
Russian management of Armenia’s railway network, Deputy Prime Minister Mher 
Grigorian said on Wednesday.
The Russia Railways (RZD) company runs the network called South Caucasus 
Railway (SRC) in line with a 30-year management contract signed with the former 
Armenian government in 2008. The deal committed it to modernizing Armenia’s 
disused and rundown railway infrastructure with substantial capital investments.
An Armenian law-enforcement agency effectively accused SRC of 
investment-related fraud after raiding its offices and confiscating company 
documents in August 2018. Both SRC and its Russian operator denied any 
wrongdoing.
Russia’s Deputy Transport Minister Vladimir Tokarev said last month that the 
continuing criminal investigation has disrupted RZD’s operations in Armenia. He 
said the state-run company managing Russia’s vast network of railways is 
therefore considering pulling out of the 2008 deal.
RUSSIA -- A close view of a car of the first tourist train passing through 
Russia's Arctic regions to Norway as it prepares to leave St. Petersburg for a 
11-day trip with 91 passengers on board, in St. Petersburg, June 5, 2019
Tokarev and RZD’s chief executive, Oleg Belozerov, discussed the dispute with 
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian in Yerevan on Tuesday. Grigorian, who was also 
present at the meeting, insisted that “the issue of terminating the contract is 
not on the agenda” of either side at the moment.
The deputy premier said that the talks were “constructive” and focused on RZD 
investments in Armenia. “We want -- and I think this desire is reciprocal -- to 
ascertain those investment projects numerically for the coming years,” he told 
reporters.
Grigorian confirmed that the Armenian government is dissatisfied with RZD’s 
compliance with its investment commitments. “We have only two trains that look 
like transport equipment meeting European standards,” he said. “This issue was 
also discussed and our position also took the form of certain demands.”
Armenia -- Deputy Prime Minister Mher Grigorian speaks to journalists, October 
9, 2019.
According to an RZD statement, Belozerov insisted at the meeting with Pashinian 
that his company is fully complying with the terms of the 2008 deal, having 
invested almost $250 million in the Armenian railway network over the past 
decade.
“The head of RZD pointed out that the main condition for the realization of the 
project and continued modernization of the [Armenian] railway infrastructure is 
a settlement of all contentious issues in the spirit of constructive 
interaction and with the participation of Armenia’s government,” read the 
statement. It did not say whether the two sides reached any understandings to 
that effect.
A spokeswoman for Armenia’s Investigative Committee confirmed on Wednesday 
nobody has been formally charged so far as part of the fraud inquiry into SCR 
launched by it last November. Grigorian dismissed Armenian opposition claims 
that investigators are under government pressure not to indict anyone lest they 
further anger the Russians.
Pashinian Again Rules Out Asset Seizures
        • Naira Nalbandian
Armenia -- Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian (second from right) speaks at a 
business seminar in Yerevan, October 9, 2019.
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian said on Wednesday that his administration will 
avoid confiscating dubiously acquired properties and other assets belonging to 
former senior government officials.
Pashinian again insisted that there has been no such “redistribution of 
property” in Armenia since he came to power during last year’s “Velvet 
Revolution.”
“Not only I but also many others, including law-enforcement bodies, know that a 
particular property belongs to a concrete [former] high-ranking official and 
was acquired with concrete funds,” he told a business seminar in Yerevan. “And 
there is a very big temptation to tell the National Security Service (NSS) to 
find that woman [acting as a front for an ex-official] and get her to donate 
that property to the state.”
“In the political sense that could even be considered justified,” he said. “But 
while grinding our teeth, we do realize that we can’t do such things. We can’t 
because even if you confiscate a fake property everyone will think that the 
same could also happen to them.”
Pashinian did not name any former officials who allegedly enriched themselves 
while in office. He has previously implicated former Presidents Serzh Sarkisian 
and Robert Kocharian in corrupt practices.
One of Sarkisian’s brothers, Aleksandr, was charged with fraud in February 
several months after the NSS had his $30 million bank account frozen as part of 
a separate criminal inquiry. Sarkisian, who is better known as “Sashik,” 
avoided arrest after agreeing to transfer the entire sum to the state budget.
And as recently as on September 26 Pashinian’s government completed the 
nationalization of a luxury hotel handed over to it by Armen Avetisian, who had 
served as the chief of the Armenian customs service during Kocharian’s rule. 
Avetisian, who had faced corruption allegations throughout his tenure, offered 
the donation last November after the NSS moved to prosecute him for illegal 
entrepreneurship and money laundering.
Citing a sizable rise in state revenues, Pashinian reiterated on Wednesday that 
his government has made significant progress in its fight against tax evasion. 
He complained at the same time about a lack of business support for the effort. 
“Economic revolution cannot be a monologue, it has to be a dialogue,” he said.
Pashinian also said many entrepreneurs complain that despite its 
anti-corruption agenda the current government has set unclear “rules of the 
game” for them. He insisted that its rules are clear and based on three 
principles: “do not steal, be efficient and cooperate.”
Russian-Armenian Military Force Holds Fresh Drills
Armenia -- Russian and Armenian troops hold joint military exercises at the 
Bagramian training ground, October 9, 2019.
More than 1,500 Armenian and Russian soldiers simulated combat operations 
during joint military exercises in Armenia that ended on Wednesday.
The nine-day exercises held at the Bagramian training ground 50 kilometers west 
of Yerevan involved troops as well as hundreds of tanks, armored vehicles and 
artillery systems making up a joint Russian-Armenian military force. Warplanes 
and helicopter gunships also took part in them.
Under the official scenario of the war games, the participating troops repelled 
an imaginary enemy that invaded Armenia.
The final session of the drills was watched by Armenia’s Defense Minister Davit 
Tonoyan and a senior official from Russia’s Southern Military District, Major 
General Ramil Gilyazov. Gilyazov praised them, saying that the Russian-Armenian 
United Grouping of Troops successfully used new methods of combat training.
The joint unit originally set up in 2000 consists of soldiers from the Armenian 
army’s Fifth Corps and the Russian military base in Armenia. Moscow and Yerevan 
signed in November 2016 an agreement designed to upgrade its mission and 
ascertain its command-and-control structure.
Press Review
“Zhoghovurd” complains that it remains unclear why Prime Minister Nikol 
Pashinian fired the heads of Armenia’s Police and National Security Service 
(NSS) just two months after promoting them to the rank of general. “The prime 
minister’s silence on this issue is bewildering, to say the least,” writes the 
paper. “Maybe the reasons [for the sackings] are so deep that Pashinian does 
not find it expedient to disclose them.”
“Haykakan Zhamanak” dismisses a petition by sympathizers of former President 
Robert Kocharian’s describing him as a political prisoner and calling for his 
release from prison. The paper linked to Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian claims 
that Kocharian had “rigged documents and elections to become president,” 
amassed “enormous wealth” while in power and ordered a deadly crackdown on 
oppositions protesters before handing over power to his preferred successor, 
Serzh Sarkisian. It laughs off the petitioners’ claim that Kocharian’s release 
would help to “restore social solidarity.” It says there was no such solidarity 
when Kocharian ruled the country.
“Zhamanak” says that Kocharian responded to that petition with a statement 
released from prison. The paper scoffs at the statement. It also says that 
Russian President Vladimir Putin failed to live up to Kocharian supporters’ 
expectations when he attended the October 1 summit of the Eurasian Economic 
Union (EEU) summit in Yerevan. It says that even though Putin met with 
Kocharian’s wife Bella at the Russian Embassy in Yerevan Kocharian’s future was 
not on the agenda of his visit to Armenia.
“Aravot” says that the holding of the World Congress on Information Technology 
in Yerevan is an “important event” for Armenia. The paper says the forum served 
as a “platform for discussing ideas for the future.”
(Tatevik Lazarian)
Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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