Thursday,
Prosecutors Seek Pashinian’s Acquittal In 2008 Unrest Case
• Naira Nalbandian
Armenia - A man walks past burned cars on a street in Yerevan where security
forces clashed with opposition protesters, 2 March 2008.
Prosecutors have asked Armenia’s Court of Cassation to absolve Prime Minister
Nikol Pashinian from all responsibility for the 2008 post-election unrest in
Yerevan that left ten people dead.
Pashinian played a major role in an opposition movement led by former President
Levon Ter-Petrosian, the main opposition candidate in a hotly disputed
presidential election.
The then 32-year-old journalist was the main speaker at an opposition rally held
in Yerevan on March 1-2, 2008 amid vicious clashes between some protesters and
security forces. Eight protesters and two police officers were killed in what
was the worst street violence in Armenia’s history.
Outgoing President Robert Kocharian declared a state of emergency and ordered
Armenian army units into the capital, accusing the Ter-Petrosian-led opposition
of attempting to seize power.
Pashinian went into hiding but surrendered to law-enforcement authorities in
July 2009. He was subsequently tried and sentenced to seven years in prison for
organizing the “mass disturbances,” a charge rejected by him as politically
motivated.
Like other Ter-Petrosian allies, Pashinian was released from jail in May 2011
under a general amnesty declared by the former Armenian authorities.
Armenia - Opposition leader Nikol Pashinian addresses protesters that barricaded
themselves in central Yerevan, 1 March 2008.
A spokesman for Armenia’s Office of the Prosecutor-General confirmed on Thursday
that it has appealed to the Court of Cassation to overturn the guilty verdict in
Pashinian’s trial and declare him innocent.
The official, Gor Abrahamian, insisted that the move “has nothing to do with the
position occupied” by Pashinian at present. He said it is based on a ruling
handed down by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) last month.
The Strasbourg court ruled that Armenian law-enforcement authorities had
violated Pashinian’s freedom of speech and assembly.
The authorities radically changed the official version of the events of March
2008 shortly after Pashinian swept to power in May 2018. They prosecuted
Kocharian and three other former officials on coup charges strongly denied by
them.
Kocharian was first arrested in July 2018. He was then twice freed and twice
rearrested before Armenia’s Court of Appeals released him on bail in June 2020.
A district court in Yerevan acquitted Kocharian and the other defendants in
April 2021 after the Constitutional Court declared the coup charges
unconstitutional.
The 67-year-old ex-president has said that his prosecution is part of a
“political vendetta” waged by Pashinian. The prime minister has denied that.
Yerevan Seeks Railway Accord With Baku
• Karine Simonian
Armenia - A disused railway leading to Azerbaijan's Nakhichevan region.
Official Yerevan said on Thursday that it needs to sign a legally binding
agreement with Baku before it can start building a railway that will connect
Azerbaijan with its Nakhichevan exclave.
The Armenian government set up last month a task force that will coordinate
construction of the 45-kilometer railway estimated to cost about $200 million.
The move followed verbal understandings reached by Prime Minister Pashinian and
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev late last year.
Speaking at a weekly session of his cabinet, Pashinian reiterated on Thursday
that the Armenian side is already gearing up for the construction.
“Although technical and design works have already started, we hope that the
understandings reached will soon be registered in the form of a document so that
a de jure process also unfolds in full swing,” he said.
Deputy Prime Minister Mher Grigorian, who represents Armenia in Russian-mediated
talks on transport links with Azerbaijan, defended this position.
“Before we can launch such a project there needs to be a written agreement to
that effect because it requires substantial investments,” he told RFE/RL’s
Armenian Service.
Grigorian discussed the matter with Russia’s Deputy Prime Minister Alexei
Overchuk and the head of Russian Railways (RZD) state monopoly, Oleg Belozerov,
when they visited Yerevan two weeks ago. He gave no details of the talks, saying
only that the Russian and Armenian governments are closely cooperating.
RZD runs Armenia’s railway network, called South Caucasus Railway (SCR), in line
with a 30-year management contract signed with the former Armenian government in
2008. Grigorian indicated that the Azerbaijan-Nakhichevan rail link passing
through Armenia’s Syunik province will also be managed by SCR.
Kocharian Deplores Armenia’s ‘Pro-Turkish Drift’
• Nane Sahakian
Armenia - Former President Robert Kocharian speaks at a news conference in
Yerevan, .
Armenia’s political leadership is succumbing to “the Turkish-Azerbaijani threat”
instead of strengthening the armed forces and deepening military ties with
Russia, former President Robert Kocharian said on Thursday.
Kocharian, who leads the main opposition Hayastan alliance, accused the
authorities of being ready to increase “Turkish influence” at the expense of
“Russian presence” in the country.
“More than one year has passed since the war [in Nagorno-Karabakh] but during
this time almost nothing has been done to restore our army’s combat readiness
and weaponry,” he told a news conference.
In these circumstances, he said, Russia has become the only real guarantor of
Armenia’s national security.
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian pledged to deepen military ties with Moscow and
embark on “large-scale defense reforms” following Armenia’s defeat in the
six-year war stopped by a Russian-brokered truce in November 2020. Russian
Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu promised continued military aid to Yerevan in
August.
Kocharian insisted that only Moscow can help Armenia rebuild its army and
develop a “new military-industrial complex.”
“We need to understand to what extent Russia is prepared for such assistance and
cooperation with Armenia. I believe that is possible but also doubt that there
are such signals or requests from our side,” he said.
The ex-president claimed that Pashinian has different geopolitical priorities
now, pointing to ongoing talks on normalizing Turkish-Armenian relations.
“Turkey will cease to regard us as an obstacle to its [regional] programs only
if it gains total influence on our political processes and policies,” he said.
“This means that Turkey must also have dominant positions in our economy and
strong influence on our political elite.
“When could this happen? When the Russian presence here starts coming to an end
and being replaced with Turkish influence.”
Kocharian’s bloc and other opposition groups have expressed serious concern over
the Turkish-Armenian talks, saying that Yerevan is ready to make unilateral
concessions to Ankara. Pashinian’s government insists that it continues to stand
for an unconditional normalization of bilateral ties.
Russia as well as the United States and the European Union have publicly
welcomed the Turkish-Armenian dialogue. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov
again discussed it with his Armenian counterpart Ararat Mirzoyan in a phone call
on Tuesday.
Armenia Pressing Ahead With Road Upgrades In Strategic Region
• Sargis Harutyunyan
Armenia - Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian chairs a cabinet meeting in Yerevan,
.
The Armenian government on Thursday took the first step towards attracting
potential contractors for the multimillion-dollar construction of a new highway
in Armenia’s southeastern Syunik province bordering Iran.
The 60-kilometer highway is to connect the provincial towns of Sisian and
Kajaran. It will significantly shorten travel time between Armenia and Iran and
bypass Armenian-Azerbaijani border areas.
Armenia lost control over a 21-kilometer stretch of an existing Syunik road
leading to the Iranian border after a controversial troop withdrawal ordered by
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian following the 2020 war in Nagorno-Karabakh.
Yerevan had to hastily finish work on a 70-kilometer bypass road late last year.
Pashinian has acknowledged that it is not convenient enough for heavy trucks and
needs further upgrades.
The bypass road will presumably overlap the Sisian-Kajaran highway. According to
Minister for Territorial Administration and Infrastructures Gnel Sanosian, the
mountainous highway will include as many as 27 bridges and five tunnels with a
combined length of 12 kilometers.
“We will do everything to get large international companies seriously interested
[in the project,]” Sanosian told a weekly cabinet meeting in Yerevan.
Pashinian announced at the meeting that his government has formally initiated a
“prequalification” of prospective bidders that will be shortlisted for an
international tender for the project.
“We hope that by the end of the year we will have [selected] a company that will
carry out that work,” he said.
Pashinian also said that the 60-kilometer highway will cost Armenia “several
hundred million dollars.” Neither he nor other government members specified the
sources of funding for the project.
The government is understood to expect Western donors, notably the European
Union, to foot the bill. The EU expressed readiness last year to provide up to
600 million euros ($680 million) in grants, loans and loan guarantees for road
construction in Armenia.
Pashinian suggested on Thursday that the Kajaran-Sisian highway will link up
with another planned road in Syunik that would connect Azerbaijan with its
Nakhichevan exclave.
Yerevan and Baku disagree on the status of that road link. Azerbaijani President
Ilham Aliyev has repeatedly demanded an exterritorial land corridor passing
through Syunik.
The Armenian side rejects these demands, saying that Azerbaijani freight cannot
be exempt from Armenian border controls. Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi appeared
to back Yerevan’s stance during a January 3 phone call with Pashinian.
The Iranian ambassador in Yerevan, Abbas Badakhshan Zohouri, said later in
January that Syunik must remain a key route for cargo shipments between Armenia
and Iran even after the anticipated launch of Armenian-Azerbaijani transport
links. The Iranian side is therefore looking forward to further highway upgrades
in the strategic Armenian region, he said.
Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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