Wednesday, January 20, 2021
Pashinian Again Faulted For Lack Of Progress On Armenian POWs
January 20, 2021
• Naira Nalbandian
• Naira Bulghadarian
Armenia -- Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian arrives for his government's
question-and-answer session in the parliament, January 20, 2021.
Opposition lawmakers continued to deplore on Wednesday Prime Minister Nikol
Pashinian’s failure to secure the release of Armenian soldiers and civilians
held by Azerbaijan more than two months after the Russian-brokered ceasefire in
Nagorno-Karabakh.
The ceasefire agreement that stopped the Armenian-Azerbaijani war on November 10
calls for the unconditional exchange of all prisoners held by the conflicting
parties.
So far 54 Armenians have been freed and returned home in prisoner exchanges
facilitated by Russia. More than 100 others remain in Azerbaijani captivity.
Pashinian discussed their fate with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev during
their January 11 talks in Moscow hosted by Russian President Vladimir Putin.
They failed to reach any agreements on the issue.
A joint statement issued by the three leaders reaffirmed instead Armenia’s and
Azerbaijan’s plans to open their border for cargo and other traffic in line with
the truce accord brokered by Putin. Armenian opposition leaders denounced
Pashinian for agreeing to that without getting Aliyev to promise to release the
remaining Armenian prisoners of war (POWs) and civilians.
Lawmakers representing the opposition Bright Armenia Party (LHK) faulted
Pashinian for their continuing imprisonment during the Armenian government’s
question-and-answer session in the parliament.
“This proves that you are unable to protect Armenia’s interests on this
important subject in Armenia-Azerbaijan negotiations. Why do you continue to
serve and why aren’t you resigning?” one of them, Gevorg Gorgisian, told the
prime minister.
“There have always been Armenian prisoners in Azerbaijan,” countered Pashinian.
“More prisoners have been returned to Armenia since November 9 than ever before.
So I wonder why this issue had not been raised in this chamber for many years.”
Arsen Gharakhanian, a 43-year-old resident of Karabakh who fought in the
six-week war, was thought to be among the POWs held in Azerbaijan. His family
recognized him in an amateur video posted by Azerbaijani social media users on
January 7.
The Armenian government used the video to ask the European Court of Human Rights
(ECHR) to issue an “interim measure” requiring Baku to provide information about
Gharakhanian’s whereabouts and guarantee his safety.
A Karabakh search-and-rescue team found Gharakhanian shot dead on January 18 in
Karabakh’s Hadrut district occupied by Azerbaijani forces as it looked for the
bodies of Armenian soldiers killed there during the recent hostilities.
“According to our information he was killed several days ago,” said Yeghishe
Kirakosian, the Armenian government’s representative to the ECHR. “That is to
say that he was killed after the [Strasbourg-based] court issued the interim
measure.”
According to Gharakhanian’s wife Varduhi, the father of four went missing in
early October. He was buried in Stepanakert on Wednesday.
Armenian Official Concerned About Coronavirus Complacency
January 20, 2021
• Satenik Hayrapetian
ARMENIA -- A police officer checks a driver's documents during a coronavirus
lockdown as a preventive measure against coronavirus disease, in Yerevan, April
2, 2020
A senior public health official predicted on Wednesday a renewed rise in
coronavirus infections in Armenia, saying that many people have again become
complacent about the disease.
“We keep reporting low [coronavirus] numbers and people think that the virus is
gone and they shouldn’t bother to take extra precautions and follow safety
rules,” said Gayane Sahakian, the deputy director of the National Center for
Disease Control and Prevention.
“We already have an increase in the virus’s reproduction rate. It will naturally
lead to an increase in cases which we will observe over the next 14 days,”
Sahakian told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service.
According to the Armenian Ministry of Health, the daily numbers of new
coronavirus cases have fallen significantly in the last two months after surging
following the outbreak of the war in Nagorno-Karabakh on September 27.
The ministry has reported an average of some 350 cases a day over the past week,
sharply down from more than 2,000 cases routinely recorded in late October and
early November. Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian seized upon this downward trend
on Tuesday to again defend his government’s response to the pandemic strongly
criticized by the Armenian opposition.
The country’s coronavirus numbers began falling in mid-November even though the
Armenian police had practically stopped fining people and businesses to enforce
anti-epidemic rules set by the government.
As the COVID-19 crisis worsened in June the government made it mandatory for
everyone to wear a mask not only in all enclosed spaces but also outdoors.
Thousands of citizens were fined 10,000 drams ($20) in the following months for
failing to comply with this requirement which remains in force.
Many Armenians no longer wear masks in public areas, including buses. In
Yerevan, anecdotal evidence suggests that they also have no trouble entering
shops and offices without masks.
“I won’t wear a mask unless I am required to because I can’t easily breathe
through it,” said one such Yerevan resident.
“The numbers have fallen and people have become complacent,” said another,
masked citizen. “This is also the result of a weaker enforcement.”
In a short statement to RFE/RL’s Armenian Service, the police confirmed that
people not wearing masks are rarely fined these days.
“In view of the existing situation, the police take a more lenient approach and
officers on duty mainly warn [citizens violating the safety rules,]” the
statement said.
Sahakian said that this leniency has also made Armenians more careless about the
pandemic, which has already killed at least 3,016 people in the country of about
3 million.
Tobacco Firm Remains Armenia’s Top Taxpayer
January 20, 2021
Armenia -- Workers at a tobacco fermentation factory in the town of Masis.
An Armenian tobacco company remained the country’s number one corporate taxpayer
last year, the State Revenue Committee (SRC) said on Wednesday.
The government agency comprising the national tax and customs services reported
that the company, Grand Tobacco, paid 50.7 billion drams ($97.5 million) in
various taxes. Excise tax on cigarettes generated two-thirds of the sum.
The national gas distribution company owned by Russia’s Gazprom giant was the
second most important contributor to the Armenian state budget, followed by the
country’s largest mining company, the Zangezur Copper-Molybdenum Combine (ZCMC).
The SRC collected 45.5 billion drams and 41.7 billion drams respectively from
these companies in 2020.
Armenia’s 20 leading businesses also include other tobacco and mining firms,
fuel importers, telecommunication operators, a supermarket chain and the
Metsamor nuclear plant. The SRC detailed their fiscal payments in a quarterly
report listing the country’s 1,000 largest corporate taxpayers.
The latter paid a combined 987.6 billion drams ($1.9 billion) in taxes in 2020,
according to the report. The figure accounted for more than 72 percent of all
taxes and other duties collected by the SRC.
Armenia - A tobacco field.
Grand Tobacco and two other local tobacco firms are part of the Grand Holding
group founded by Hrant Vartanian, a prominent businessman who died in 2014.The
conglomerate, which also comprises the country’s largest chocolate and
confectionery manufacturer, is now owned and run by Vartanian’s two sons. Much
of the tobacco used by it is grown in Armenia.
The Armenian cigarette manufacturers have rapidly expanded since 2013 on the
back of their soaring exports to the Middle East and Iraq in particular.
According to government data, Armenian exports to Iraq stood at $149 million in
January-November 2020. Cigarettes accounted for most of those exports.
Grand Tobacco became Armenia’ second largest taxpayer in 2018 and topped the tax
rankings in 2019 with 57 billion drams in total payments.
Ruling Bloc Warns Armenian Opposition Over Snap Elections
January 20, 2021
• Astghik Bedevian
Armenia -- A deputy speaker of the Armenian parliament, Alen Simonian, speaks
with journalists, January 30, 2020.
Armenia’s government could withdraw its proposal to hold fresh parliamentary
elections if opposition forces continue to demand its resignation, a close
associate of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian warned on Wednesday.
Pashinian again refused to step down and offered instead to hold such elections
late last month he faced street protests sparked by the Armenian side’s defeat
in the autumn war in Nagorno-Karabakh.
Virtually all Armenian opposition groups hold Pashinian responsible for the
outcome of the war and want him to hand over power to an interim government.
They maintain that the snap polls must be held only after his resignation.
Echoing Pashinian’s statements, a senior member of the ruling My Step bloc, Alen
Simonian, said that the fate of the current government must be decided by “the
will of the people.”
“We must ask the people, rather than buy media outlets or breed some [social
media] users to create the impression that one or another guy is bad,” he told
RFE/RL’s Armenian Service.
Armenia -- Riot police clash with opposition protesters outside the main
Armenian government building in Yerevan, December 24, 2020.
Simonian stressed that the conduct of the vote proposed by Pashinian hinges on a
broad-based political “consensus” in the country.
“I don’t rule out that in case of an [opposition] decision that there need to be
elections our faction will find a legislative solution to that issue,” he said.
“But I also don’t rule out that there will be no elections at all. If the
opposition feels that it cannot participate why should we hold the elections?”
A senior lawmaker from Bright Armenia Party (LHK), one of the two opposition
parties represented in the parliament, dismissed Simonian’s warning as
“blackmail.”
“What they are now saying is, ‘We will stay on and ruin what remains of the
country and the opposition will be responsible for that because it refuses to go
for the elections with us,’” said Gevorg Gorgisian.
“The tensions and the crisis that we have now would not end as a result of
elections organized by Nikol Pashinian,” he claimed.
Armenia -- Gevorg Gorgisian of the opposition Bright Armenia Party speaks during
a parliament session in Yerevan.
The LHK is not part of a coalition more than a dozen opposition groups that held
the anti-government protests in November and December. They include businessman
Gagik Tsarukian’s Prosperous Armenia Party, the second largest in the parliament.
Two leading members of coalition, called the Homeland Salvation Front, promised
on Friday more efforts to oust Pashinian as they began touring Armenia’s regions
in a bid to drum up greater support for their campaign.
Under the Armenian constitution, fresh elections will have to be called and held
by the current government if Pashinian resigns and the National Assembly twice
fails to elect another prime minister. The LHK has made clear that it would
nominate its top leader, Edmon Marukian, for the post of prime minister in the
event of Pashinian’s tactical resignation.
Simonian indicated that the LHK must pledge not to do that. Gorgisian scoffed at
the demand, saying Pashinian’s political team fears that pro-government
lawmakers would break ranks and vote for Marukian.
Marukian’s party controls only 17 seats in the 132-member parliament, compared
with 83 seats held by Pashinian’s My Step.
Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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