21:29, 9 February, 2021
YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 9, ARMENPRESS. Another 5 Armenian POWs returned from Baku. Mane Gevorgyan, the press secretary to the Prime Minister of Armenia, told ARMENPRESS that they POWs returned by the mediation of the Russian side.
The airplane carrying the POWs has landed at Yerevan’s Erebuni airplane.
Yerevan Mayor has no plans to resign
20:56, 9 February, 2021
YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 9, ARMENPRESS. Yerevan Mayor Hayk Marutyan has no plans to resign, ARMENPRESS reports Marutyan said at the City Council session, answering the question of a Council member from ‘’Prosperous Armenia’’ Party, who asked to comment on the rumors that he will soon resign to be appointed Ambassador of Armenia to the Czech Republic.
‘’I do not resign. Before mentioning the Czech Republic, there were rumors about my expected appointment as an Ambassador of the USA’’, Marutyan said, adding that he has made some promises to the people and as long as all the promises are not fulfilled, he will continue working.
✓Working group meets to discuss unblocking transport links between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
✓CivilNet’s team visits Nagorno-Karabakh’s Nerkin Khndzoresk.
✓The AGBU announces a new grant programme for young Armenians.
On February 9, a Russian military plane took one Azerbaijani to Baku and brought five more Armenian prisoners of war to Yerevan, Sputnik Armenii reports. According to the list published by 168.am, two of the prisoners were known to have been captured since October 12, three other names may not have been published before.
The bulk of Armenian prisoners being now held in Azerbaijan were captured in mid-December, after the November 10 cease-fire. Azerbaijani president Ilham Aliyev has previously called them “terrorists” and refused to hand them over. The Azerbaijani civilian exchanged was detained prior to the war, for illegally crossing into Armenia.
The day before, Russia’s ambassador in Armenia Sergey Kopyrkin promised to secure the release of Armenian prisoners and said that president Vladimir Putin was personally involved in the effort.
The release came as the Armenian government stopped deploying conscripted Armenian soldiers into Artsakh, in line with Aliyev’s demands. In the past, conscripts in Armenia would be posted to various locations throughout the Republics of Armenia and Artsakh, on the basis of a lottery. As Sputnik Armenii reported, during the military draft now underway, Artsakh locations have been removed from the lottery options.
Aside from the five just released, Azerbaijan may be holding as many as 223 other Armenian military prisoners and civilian hostages, including women. This is according to Siranush Sahakyan, the lawyer working on behalf of the prisoners’ families.
However, it remains unclear how many of these 223 individuals taken prisoner remain alive as there have also been reports of widespread torture and execution of Armenian prisoners, both during and after the war. Azerbaijani officials acknowledged holding about 60 Armenian prisoners, not counting the ten released in the last two weeks.
In early January, an Azerbaijani official noted that Armenia was holding two Azerbaijani civilians. Both were detained for illegally crossing into Armenia in the spring of 2020. One of them was released on January 28, and the second on February 9. Armenia is also holding two Turkish Syrian mercenaries captured in Artsakh during the war, but Armenian officials have so far refused to use them for exchanges and Azerbaijan refuses to acknowledge their existence.
Turkey provided a special quote within the scope of Turkey Scholarships for the children of killed Azerbaijani soldiers, the head of the Presidency of Turks Abroad and Related Communities (YTB), announced Saturday.
Releasing a video statement on his Twitter account, Abdullah Eren expressed that for this year, Turkey Scholarships will provide a quote for the Azerbaijani children whose fathers were killed while fighting against the Armenian forces in the recent Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. His announcement received a major positive response, as Eren reiterated that Turkey fully supports Azerbaijan in its education sector, among others. Eren also underlined that thousands of successful international students get the opportunity to study in Turkey thanks to this scholarship.
The last application date for the Turkey Scholarship is on Feb. 20, 2021.
The YTB oversees Turkey Scholarships, a comprehensive grant program for international students from around the world. The program aims to enhance Turkey's relations with other countries in the fields of higher education and culture. The scholarship program was launched in 2012, and the YTB received 146,600 applications, a record number, from 167 countries back in 2019.
February 9, 2021
Senators Ron Wyden (left) and Marco Rubio
WASHINGTON—Senators Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) today urged the new Biden administration to press the Turkish government to improve its human rights record, which includes an increasingly authoritarian crackdown on dissent both domestically and abroad.
The bipartisan letter signed by more than 50 other senators cited Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan for marginalizing domestic opposition, silencing or coopting critical media outlets, purging independent judges and replacing them with party loyalists, and jailing scores of journalists.
“President Erdogan’s foreign policy has also grown more belligerent and combative over time. In recent years, he brazenly attacked U.S.-backed Kurds fighting ISIS in Syria, he purchased Russian air defense systems despite warnings that they were incompatible with U.S. technology, and he encouraged Azerbaijan to use violence to settle a territorial dispute with Armenia,” the senators wrote. “President Erdogan has also attempted to pressure the U.S. and other countries into extraditing Turkish nationals, whom he blames for the failed coup in 2016. The Erdogan government has sought to silence critics in the United States like Enes Kanter, an NBA player and human rights advocate, by going after his family in Turkey and placing an INTERPOL red notice on him.”
“We join with more than half the U.S. Senate – representing hundreds of millions of Americans – in calling for a principled policy of serious, sustained pressure against Turkey’s abuse and aggression,” said Aram Hamparian, Executive Director of the Armenian National Committee of America. “Special thanks to Senators Ron Wyden and Marco Rubio for leading this powerful bipartisan initiative.”
The senators note that the United States has a significant opportunity to influence Turkey’s troubling human rights record because it’s an important ally in a key region of the world.
“We believe that the United States must hold allies and partners to a higher standard and speak frankly with them about issues of human rights and democratic backsliding,” the senators wrote. “We urge you to emphasize to President Erdogan and his administration that they should immediately end their crackdown on dissent at home and abroad, release political prisoners and prisoners of conscience, and reverse their authoritarian course.”
The letter led by Wyden and Rubio was also signed by U.S. Sens. Charles Schumer (D-NY), John Thune (R-SD), Richard Durbin (D-IL), Roger Wicker (R-MS), Patrick Leahy (D-VT), Thom Tillis (R-NC), Benjamin Cardin (D-MD), Ben Sasse (R-NE), Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), John Boozman (R-AR), Tom Carper (D-DE), Chuck Grassley (R-IA), Sherrod Brown (D-OH), John Cornyn (R-TX), Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), Joni Ernst (R-IA), Patty Murray (D-WA), James Lankford (R-OK), Brian Schatz (D-HI), Kevin Cramer (R-ND), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-MS), Maggie Hassan (D-NH), Mike Rounds (R-SD), Cory Booker (D-NJ), Susan Collins (R-ME), Ed Markey (D-MA), Mike Braun (R-IN), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Bill Cassidy (R-LA), Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), Todd Young (R-IN), Mark Warner (D-VA), Mitt Romney (R-UT), Jeff Merkley (D-OR), John Kennedy (R-LA), Robert Casey (D-PA), Jerry Moran (R-KS), Martin Heinrich (D-NM), Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ), Jon Tester (D-MT), Chris Coons (D-DE), Michael Bennet (D-CO), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), Tammy Duckworth (D-IL), Mazie Hirono (D-HI), Jacky Rosen (D-NV), Tim Kaine (D-VA), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), Tina Smith (D-MN) and Joe Manchin (D-WV).
February 9, 2021
ANCA-WR Board of Directors meets with Rep. Brad Sherman.
The Armenian National Committee of America-Western Region Board of Directors, regional and national staff, as well as local ANCA chapter leaders held a productive meeting on Monday with Rep. Brad Sherman (D-CA-30).
ANCA-WR representatives briefed Congressman Sherman on the latest developments in the region following the Turkish-Azerbaijani aggression and 44-day war waged against Artsakh and Armenia with the assistance of terrorist mercenaries from Syria. Chief among the topics discussed were the issues relating to the deployment of immediate U.S. humanitarian aid to Armenia and Artsakh, strict enforcement of Section 907 of the Freedom Support Act as well as sanctions and other punitive measures against Turkish and Azerbaijani regimes, and the immediate return of Armenian POWs still in Azerbaijani captivity.
“Rep. Sherman has been a champion of Armenian-American policy priorities throughout his quarter century service in the U.S. Congress,” remarked ANCA-WR Chair Nora Hovsepian, Esq. “We are grateful for the many years of friendship that our community and our organization have enjoyed with the Congressman and look forward to working together to meet today’s pressing challenges posed by Turkey and Azerbaijan to the U.S. national interests in the South Caucasus as well as further developing the U.S.-Armenia strategic partnership.”
Year after year, Rep. Sherman has consistently received an “A+” rating from the ANCA and was the 2016 recipient of the ANCA-WR Advocate for Justice award. A member of the Congressional Armenian Caucus, Rep. Sherman has advocated for accountability for Azerbaijan and Turkey, recognition of the Armenian Genocide, recognition of Artsakh, and increased aid to Armenia, Artsakh, and Javakhk.
The Armenian National Committee of America – Western Region is the largest and most influential nonpartisan Armenian American grassroots advocacy organization in the Western United States. Working in coordination with a network of offices, chapters, and supporters throughout the Western United States and affiliated organizations around the country, the ANCA-WR advances the concerns of the Armenian American community on a broad range of issues in pursuit of the Armenian Cause.
Tuesday,
Civic Groups Deplore Pashinian’s Reluctance To Hold Snap Elections
• Gayane Saribekian
Armenia -- Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian (C) talks to deputies from hs My Step
bloc during a parliament session, Yerevan, September 16, 2020.
Civic groups and activists strongly criticized Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s
administration on Tuesday for deciding not to hold fresh parliamentary elections
to end the continuing political crisis in Armenia.
In a joint statement, ten Western-funded non-governmental organizations insisted
that such elections are “the only way to overcome the current crisis of trust”
in the Armenian government.
They charged that Pashinian and his team “place partisan interests above public
ones” and are therefore no different from the country’s former leadership
toppled in the “Velvet Revolution” of April-May 2018.
“A considerable part of the public has no confidence in the current authorities’
ability to not only cope with external and internal challenges brought about by
the war [in Nagorno-Karabakh] but also guarantee Armenia’s peaceful
development,” said the NGOs that had strongly supported the Pashinian-led
revolution.
Pashinian expressed readiness in late December to hold snap elections in the
coming months following opposition protests sparked by Armenia’s defeat in the
six-week war. Opposition forces have since continued to demand that the prime
minister hand over power to a new and interim government that would hold the
elections within a year.
In a weekend statement, Pashinian and his My Step bloc said they see no need for
snap polls now because of the opposition’s stance and what they described as a
lack of popular “demand.”
A leading member of the bloc, Alen Simonian, defended the apparent U-turn and
blamed the opposition for it on Tuesday.
“My Step could not hold elections arbitrarily. When the opposition demands
elections we will discuss that,” Simonian told reporters.
The NGO statement dismissed that explanation. “The claim that there is no
broad-based public support for pre-term elections is as manipulative as the
parliamentary and extra-parliamentary opposition’s claim that elections
organized by the current government will definitely be rigged,” it said.
Nina Karapetiants, a civil rights activist, likewise said that Pashinian and his
allies are using the opposition stance as an excuse not to dissolve the current
parliament controlled by them.
“They just realized that they would not get the votes that they got [in the last
elections] … I’m sure that the current authorities would not get even a quarter
of those votes,” Karapetiants told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service.
Pashinian’s bloc garnered over 70 percent of the vote in the elections held in
December 2018.
New Head Of Armenian High Court Elected
• Tatevik Lazarian
Armenia - Judge Lilit Tadevosian addresses parliament before being elected as
new head of Armenia's Court of Cassation, February 9, 2021.
The Armenian parliament elected on Tuesday a 42-year-old senior judge and former
prosecutor as head of the Court of Cassation, the country’s highest body of
criminal and administrative justice.
The new court chairwoman, Lilit Tadevosian, was backed by 102 members of the
132-seat National Assembly, among them opposition parliamentarians. Her
predecessor, Yervand Khundkarian, became a member of Armenia’s Constitutional
Court in September.
Tadevosian was nominated for the vacant post by the Supreme Judicial Council
(SJC), an independent body monitoring Armenian courts.
Tadevosian worked as a prosecutor before taking the bench in 2012. In 2016, then
President Serzh Sarkisian appointed her as a Court of Cassation judge. She
became the head of the court’s Criminal Chamber in 2018.
Tadevosian emphasized the importance of judicial independence when she addressed
lawmakers before they voted in secret ballot to install her as court chairwoman.
“Independence and autonomy are inalienable characteristics of the judiciary to
which all branches of government and all strata of the society must contribute,”
she said.
Tadevosian was pressed by several pro-government lawmakers to comment on
Armenian judges’ systematic refusal to allow the pre-trial arrests of opposition
figures and other activists trying to topple Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s
government over its handling of the recent war with Azerbaijan. She pointedly
declined to criticize those judges.
“If I don’t avoid, as you put it, answering your questions today I will have to
avoid administering justice on those cases tomorrow,” explained Tadevosian.
“That’s not what I am standing here for. Justice will not be administered here.”
Lilit Makunts, the parliamentary leader of Pashinian’s My Step bloc, hailed her
stance.
Tadevosian also drew praise from Edmon Marukian, the leader of the opposition
Bright Armenia Party, for not “commenting on political processes from the number
one podium.”
Vladimir Vartanian, the chairman of the parliament committee on legal affairs,
stressed the fact that Tadevosian will be the first woman to head an Armenian
high court. “If we want revolutionary changes we must take this fact into
account as well,” he said.
Kocharian Wants Deeper ‘Integration’ With Russia
• Naira Nalbandian
Armenia -- Members of a newly created movement seeking Armenia's closer ties
with Russia rally in Yerevan, February 6, 2021.
Former President Robert Kocharian has again called for Armenia’s deeper
“integration” with Russia in remarks publicized during his latest visit to
Moscow.
“We need to speak of serious integration,” Kocharian told the Russian Sputnik
news agency in an interview published over the weekend. “A regionalization of
the world is underway. Global processes are giving way to some regional
integration processes.”
“In this regard, I believe that Armenia should very seriously think about deeper
interaction with Russia. A much deeper one that exists now,” he said without
elaborating.
Kocharian already made a case for closer ties with Russia in early December. He
insisted that only Moscow can help Armenia rebuild its armed forces and confront
new security challenges in the aftermath of the war in Nagorno-Karabakh.
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian announced on New Year’s Eve plans to further
deepen the Russian-Armenian relationship, saying that his country needs “new
security guarantees” now. Pashinian reaffirmed those plans at a January 11
meeting in Moscow with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Russia -- Russian President Vladimir Putin meets with Armenian Prime Minister
Nikol Pashinian, Moscow, January 11, 2021.
Similar statements have also been made by other Armenian politicians. Edmon
Marukian, who leads one of the two opposition parties represented in the
Armenian parliament, called in late December for the opening of a second Russian
military base in the South Caucasus state.
On February 6 a group of fringe parties and politicians held in Yerevan the
founding congress of a new movement that will campaign for a “new union” of
Armenia and Russia.
Commenting on these developments, Hakob Badalian, a political analyst, suggested
that Armenian political actors are increasingly vying for Moscow’s support in
their domestic political struggle. He noted a lack of specifics in their
pro-Russian discourse.
“One gets the impression that they are offering their services to Russia,”
Badalian told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service. “Namely, [they are competing to
demonstrate] who will better serve Russia and who will offer Armenia’s deeper
subordination to Russia, and in return for that expect Russian support in terms
of solving Armenia’s political issues.”
Badalian said that Kocharian is particularly keen to secure such support for his
bid to return to power. He said Russian influence in Armenia has grown
significantly since the Karabakh war and Moscow is not averse to expanding it
further.
Armenian Tech Sector Keeps Growing Despite Recession
• Sargis Harutyunyan
Armenia -- Young people at the annual Digitec Expo exhibition in Yerevan,
October 6, 2018.
Armenia’s technology sector continued to grow rapidly last year despite a
recession primarily caused by the coronavirus pandemic, Minister of High-Tech
Industry Hakob Arshakian said on Tuesday.
“The combined turnover of [tech] companies rose by 20.6 percent to about 198
billion drams ($380 million),” Arshakian told a news conference.
“Please note that this includes only high-tech industry companies and doesn’t
include telecom operators,” he said.
The total number of such firms reached 1,228 in 2020, Arshakian went on. The
number of their officially registered employees jumped by 22 percent to 18,747,
he said.
Many of them work for local subsidiaries of U.S. tech giants like Synopsys,
National Instruments, Mentor Graphics and VMware. A growing number of other
information technology (IT) engineers are employed by Armenian startups and
other homegrown firms.
In Arshakian’s words, 192 new IT firms qualified last year for tax breaks that
were first introduced by Armenia’s former government in 2015. Local startups
also attracted $50 million in mostly foreign investments, added the minister.
Armenia -- Minister of High-Tech Industry Hakob Arshakian speaks at a news
conference, February 9, 2021.
The official figures cited by him contrast sharply with the country’s overall
macroeconomic performance. The Armenian economy contracted by an estimated 8
percent in 2020 mainly because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The six-week war in
Nagorno-Karabakh, which broke out in late September, also contributed to the
significant decline in economic activity.
The Armenian tech industry dominated by software companies appears to be the
only sector of the domestic economy practically unaffected by the recession. It
has been growing at double-digit annual rates for more than a decade.
According to Arshakian, the sector’s average monthly wage rose from almost
544,000 drams in 2019 to over 580,000 drams ($1,113) in 2020. The nationwide
average wage stood at less than 190,000 drams.
Despite their continuing rapid growth, local IT companies generated less than 3
percent of the Armenian government’s 2020 tax revenues. Arshakian said the total
amount of taxes paid by them exceeded 41 billion drams. Armenia’s largest mining
company, the Zangezur Copper-Molybdenum Combine (ZCMC), contributed roughly the
same sum to the state budget.
Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
Copyright (c) 2021 Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, Inc.
1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.
Visitors to Armenian-controlled Nagorno-Karabakh now have to get Russian permission ahead of time.
The territory’s de facto ministry of foreign affairs announced new entry regulations for foreigners on February 8, and one of the provisions was that Russian peacekeeping forces will examine applications “for security purposes” before they are approved.
It’s not clear what prompted the new regulation, which the de facto authorities say had already been in effect before being announced. The day before, a gadfly source claimed that a group of French journalists and activists had been turned away at the de facto Armenia-Karabakh border, and that it was because the Armenian government had made a secret agreement with Azerbaijan allowing Baku to control who enters Karabakh.
Karabakh’s de facto foreign minister David Babayan denied the reports about Azerbaijani control, claiming that the new border regulations were necessary because of the presence of foreign fighters in Azerbaijan proper. “The fact that a large number of mercenary terrorists recruited to fight against Artsakh [an alternate Armenian name for Karabakh] still remain in Azerbaijan forces us to improve the procedure of registering those entering Artsakh,” he said in an interview with Armenian Public Radio, without elaborating on the (improbable) connection.
“We have established close cooperation with the Russian peacekeepers because they are among the key role-players in maintaining peace and stability,” he added.
A spokesperson for Karabakh’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not respond to a query from Eurasianet for comment. Anush Ghavalyan, a former adviser to the head of the territory’s parliament, said she thought the new rule was appropriate. “There is a new reality in Karabakh,” she told Eurasianet. “Given that our security now depends also on Russian peacekeepers, I think the regulation fully fits this reality.”
The question of who can and can’t enter Karabakh – which is internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan but which has been controlled by Armenian forces since the first war between the two sides in the 1990s – has long been a deeply sensitive one for both sides. Azerbaijan has for years tried to force foreigners going to Karabakh to ask for Baku’s permission first, and maintains a “blacklist” of many who refuse, denying them entry to Azerbaijan proper on the grounds that they illegally entered Azerbaijan. (A spokesperson for Azerbaijan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not respond to a query from Eurasianet.)
The Armenian-controlled government in Karabakh, meanwhile, has jealously guarded its sovereignty and maintains its own informal blacklist of foreign would-be visitors it deems too solicitous of Baku’s demands.
Last year’s war, which resulted in Azerbaijan taking back much of the territory it lost in the first war, has altered the calculations of both sides.
Azerbaijan has become more assertive in trying to exercise its sovereignty over its territory. It has begun to complain more loudly about visits by Armenian officials to the territory, and has put up conspicuous border signs in territory that it again controls on the border with Armenia. Azerbaijan recently has tightened requirements for Armenian churchgoers to visit the Dadivank Monastery in Kelbajar, territory bordering Karabakh that Azerbaijan took back in last year’s war.
The Armenians of Karabakh, meanwhile, have been increasingly turning to Russia, which maintains a 2,000-strong peacekeeping force along the new line of control in the region. There is regular talk about Armenians of Karabakh getting Russian passports, under the reasoning that Russia would then be more inclined to step in if Azerbaijan tried to take control of the remaining parts of Karabakh.
The head of Karabakh’s national security council, Vitaliy Balasanyan, said “it wasn’t excluded” that Karabakh residents would soon get Russian passports. Babayan, also asked about the possibility, answered by noting that Russia recently liberalized its passport requirements and so “it’s easier to get Russian citizenship whether you live in Stepanakert, Gyumri, Tbilisi or Kazakhstan.”
in
For Maral Najarian, moving to Armenia was supposed to be a dream come true.
The 49-year-old Lebanese-Armenian moved last August from economically shattered Lebanon, hoping to find a better future and financial stability in a place she felt an attachment to.
But on arrival to Yerevan, Armenian authorities encouraged her to sign up to a settlement programme in the disputed area of Nagorno-Karabakh, which soon after she set up home there became embroiled in a ferocious six-week conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
Both sides agreed to a Russian-brokered ceasefire on 10 November – but that same day, Najarian and family friend Viken Euljekian went missing on their way out of Nagorno-Karabakh.
Three months later, her siblings both in Beirut and Yerevan suspect she’s in an Azerbaijani prison and fear for her life – as they accuse authorities both in Lebanon and Armenia of not doing enough to help get her released.