Friday,
Syrian Parliament Recognizes Armenian Genocide
Syria -- Members of the People's Assembly adopt a resolution recognizing the
Armenian genocide in Ottoman Turkey, Damascus, .
In a move welcomed by Armenia, Syria’s parliament has voted to recognize the
1915 Armenian genocide in Ottoman Turkey following the latest upsurge in
tensions between Damascus and Ankara.
“The parliament ... condemns and recognizes the genocide committed against the
Armenians by the Ottoman state at the start of the twentieth century,” reads the
resolution adopted by it on Thursday.
The resolution followed deadly clashes between Syrian and Turkish troops in
Syria’s northwestern region of Idlib. The Turkish military has sent
reinforcements to the jihadist-dominated area after an offensive launched by
Syria’s Russian-backed army.
The Syrian parliament speaker, Hammouda Sabbagh, condemned the Turkish
“aggression” as the legislature fully controlled by Syria’s ruling regime
unanimously passed the Armenian genocide resolution.
“We are currently living through a Turkish aggression that relies on the same
hateful Ottoman thinking” as "the crimes carried out by [Turkish President Recep
Tayyip] Erdogan's forefathers against the Armenian people", Sabbagh said,
according to the AFP news agency.
SYRIA -- Turkish military convoy drives through the village of Binnish, in Idlib
province, February 8, 2020
The Turkish government, which vehemently denies a systematic government effort
to exterminate the Ottoman Empire’s Armenian population, condemned the
resolution, saying that it reflects the “hypocrisy of a regime which has
indulged in every kind of carnage towards its own people.”
Predictably, the genocide resolution was hailed by Armenia.
“The genocide … a significant part of which was perpetrated in the territory of
Syria under the rule of the Ottoman Empire, is part of the common historical
memory of the Armenian and Syrian peoples,” the Armenian Foreign Ministry said
in a statement.
“The Syrian people … were among the first to lend a helping hand to the victims
of the genocide. Thousands of survivors found a new homeland in Syria,
establishing one of the most flourishing Armenian communities and contributing
to Syria’s progress,” added the statement.
Many of an estimated 1.5 million victims of the World War One-era genocide were
killed on their way to a vast desert in what is now eastern Syria. Many other
Armenians were starved to death after reaching the desert on foot.
Syria - Syrian Armenian pilgrims at the Armenian genocide memorial in Deir
ez-Zor, 25Apr2009.
A genocide memorial in the area contained some of the remains of the victims and
served as a pilgrimage site for Syria's Armenians before it was bombed by
jihadists in 2014. Visiting the site in 2010, then-Armenian President Serzh
Sarkisian said it is to Armenians what Auschwitz is to the Jews.
While helping descendants of survivors of those death camps become a thriving
community in Syria, the Syrian government for decades avoided recognizing the
1915 mass killings and deportations as genocide. Syrian President Bashar
al-Assad pointedly declined to visit a genocide memorial in Yerevan during an
official trip to Armenia in 2009. Assad had a warm rapport with Erdogan at the
time.
The situation changed dramatically after the outbreak of the Syrian conflict in
2011 and ensuing deterioration of Ankara’s relations with the Syrian regime. In
March 2015, the Syrian parliament held a special a session to mark the 100th
anniversary of the Armenian genocide. Two months later Assad drew parallels
between the Ottoman Turks who massacred Armenians and Islamist rebels in Syria
who he said are sponsored by Ankara.
More Arrests Made In Armenian Bribery Case
• Artak Khulian
Armenia -- The main entrance ot the National Security Service building, Yerevan,
December 14, 2019.
The National Security Service (NSS) said on Friday that it has indicted six more
people in an ongoing criminal investigation into a senior Armenian government
official arrested on corruption charges last week.
The NSS did not identify any of those suspects or specify the accusations
leveled against them. It said only that three of them have been remanded in
pre-trial custody.
Vahagn Vermishian, the head of the Armenian government’s Urban Development
Committee, and two other individuals were arrested on February 5. One of them, a
former senior law-enforcement, was released on bail at the weekend.
In a February 5 statement, the NSS said Vermishian has admitted receiving five
bribes, worth between 1 million drams ($2,100) and 2.5 million drams each, from
private construction firms that were given privileged treatment by various
government bodies in return. It said that the kickbacks were channeled into an
architectural firm which the official had set up and registered in a friend’s
name.
Vermishian’s lawyer, Mushegh Arakelian, said on Monday, however, that his client
denies taking the alleged bribes. The denial did not prevent a court in Yerevan
from allowing investigators to hold him in detention.
Vermishian has headed the government agency since March 2019 and has not been
formally relieved of his duties yet. He is the third senior member of Prime
Minister Nikol Pashinian’s government prosecuted on corruption charges. The two
other suspects worked as deputy ministers of education and health.
Vermishian, 55, served as the chief architect of Russia’s Oryol region from
2014-2017. He reportedly resigned amid protests sparked by his plans to renovate
the regional capital’s historic center.
Court Again Refuses To Stop Corruption Trial Of Senior Armenian Official
• Naira Bulghadarian
Armenia - Davit Sanasarian, the head of the State Overisght Service, speaks to
journalists in Yerevan, June 21, 2018.
A court in Yerevan on Friday refused to throw out corruption charges brought
against a senior government official who actively participated in Armenia’s
“Velvet Revolution.”
The court dismissed defense lawyers’ claims that the National Security Service
(NSS) has no right to prosecute Davit Sanasarian because under Armenian law
senior officials can only be investigated by another law-enforcement agency.
Sanasarian’s lawyers earlier petitioned the court to suspend his trial and ask
Armenia’s Constitutional Court to rule on the legality of the high-profile
criminal case. The presiding judge, Davit Balayan, rejected that demand.
Sanasarian was suspended as head of the State Oversight Service (SOS) after
being indicted last April in a criminal investigation into alleged corrupt
practices within the anti-corruption government agency.
The NSS arrested two other senior SOS officials in February 2019, saying that
they attempted to cash in on government-funded supplies of medical equipment to
state-run hospitals. They were subsequently set free after pleading guilty to
the accusations.
Sanasarian was charged with abusing his powers to help the two men, who are also
on trial, enrich themselves and a private company linked to them. He strongly
denies the charges.
The trial prosecutor, Gevorg Sargsian, said during Friday’s court hearing that
Sanasarian knew that the company in question, Zorashen, is controlled by one of
the two other defendants, Samvel Adian, and is planning to import expensive
equipment for hemodialysis, a treatment of kidney failure. Sanasarian and Adian
abused their position to make sure that two hospitals buy such equipment from
Zorashen, according to the indictment read out by Sargsian.
Sanasarian insisted that he was not aware of that. He said Adian had assured him
that he is not linked to the supplier.
Sanasarian, 35, is a former opposition and civic activist who had for years
accused Armenia’s former leaders of corruption. He was actively involved in the
2018 revolution.
Sanasarian’s supporters, among them leaders of some Western-funded civic groups,
have voiced support for him and denounced the NSS. Prime Minister Nikol
Pashinian hit back at the critics last year. He said that they place their
personal relationships with Sanasarian above the rule of law.
More Armenian Opposition Parties To Shun Constitutional Referendum
• Artak Khulian
• Naira Nalbandian
Armenia -- Prosperous Armenia Party leader Gagik Tsarukian speaks to reporters,
Yerevan, February 11, 2020.
Businessman Gagik Tsarukian’s Prosperous Armenia Party (BHK) on Friday
questioned the legality of an upcoming referendum on constitutional changes
sought by the country’s leadership and said it will avoid any involvement in the
process.
Former President Serzh Sarkisian’s Republican Party of Armenia (HHK) likewise
announced that it will not actively campaign against the proposed changes
despite considering them “unconstitutional” and “undemocratic.”
The draft amendments to the Armenian constitution call for the dismissal of
seven of the nine members of the current Constitutional Court accused by Prime
Minister Nikol Pashinian of being linked to the country’s “corrupt former
regime.” The Armenian parliament controlled by Pashinian’s My Step bloc decided
last week to put them on a referendum amid serious procedural violations alleged
by opposition lawmakers. Some of them said the amendments also run counter to
other articles of the constitution.
The BHK, which has the second largest group in the parliament, said after a
meeting of its governing body that the government push to replace the high court
judges is “questionable in terms of legality.” In a statement, it said
Tsarukian’s party will therefore “not participate in the process of holding a
referendum on the constitutional changes.”
“It is evident that right from the beginning of the process the authorities
moved the issue from the legal to political plane, turning it into a destructive
black-and-white confrontation,” said the statement. “For the BHK, the practice
of spreading divisions within the society and building barricades has always
been unacceptable.”
Armenia -- Deputies from the opposition Bright Armenia Party attend a parliament
session in Yerevan, January 20, 2020.
The Bright Armenia Party (LHK), the second opposition force represented in the
current parliament, went farther earlier this week, calling the referendum
scheduled for April 5 “completely illegal.” But it too decided not to officially
campaign for a “No” vote.
The former ruling HHK, which has repeatedly voiced support for Constitutional
Court Chairman Hrayr Tovmasian and the six other judges, branded the upcoming
vote “unconstitutional, anti-legal and undemocratic.”
“The sole purpose of this adventure is to form a rubber-stamp Constitutional
Court,” read a statement released by the HHK leadership on Friday. It said the
party will not join in the referendum campaign.
Alen Simonian, a senior member of Pashinian’s bloc, shrugged off the HHK’s
decision, saying that Sarkisian’s party is not a major political force anymore.
He also claimed: “It’s clear that some forces are trying and will try to
sabotage the referendum process openly or in a covert way.”
Speaking during a working visit to Germany on Thursday, Pashinian defended his
administration’s efforts to replace the Constitutional Court judges. In a fresh
jibe at Tovmasian, he charged that Armenia’s high court has been “occupied” and
turned into a partisan structure. “We cannot tolerate this situation,” he said.
“[Pashinian’s] statement has nothing to do with reality,” countered LHK leader
Edmon Marukian. “I don’t think that people in Germany are not aware of that.”
Marukian also dismissed Pashinian’s claim that the Constitutional Court is
obstructing “institutional reforms” planned by his government. “Give me an
example of a single reform that has been scuttled by the court,” he told
reporters. “There is no reform.”
Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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