Monday, 


Scores Arrested At Continuing Protests In Armenia

        • Marine Khachatrian

Armenia - Police clash with opposition protesters outside a government buiolding 
in Yerevan, .


Riot police clashed with protesters and made more than 100 arrests on Monday as 
daily anti-government demonstrations organized by Armenia’s main opposition 
groups entered their fifth week.

Scuffles broke out after security forces did not allow opposition lawmakers 
leading hundreds of supporters to enter a government building in Yerevan that 
houses four ministries. Several protesters suffered visible injuries or felt 
unwell in the melee.

Others claimed to have been beaten up by police officers after being dragged 
away and forced into the sprawling building.

“We didn’t do anything,” one of them, Artur Azizian told RFE/RL’s Armenian 
Service. “We were handcuffed and lay on the floor, and many of the policemen 
approached and hit us.”

Azizian said he was taken to hospital from a police station in Yerevan a few 
hours later. He said doctors there told him that he suffered rib fractures.

Armenia - Riot police clash with protesters outside a government building in 
Yerevan, .

A police statement said that three officers were also injured and required 
medical aid. It put the total number of arrests at 111. It was not immediately 
clear whether any of those detainees risked criminal charges.

The police also used force against some of the opposition lawmakers who wanted 
to enter the building to talk to the Armenian ministries of environment, local 
government, social security and health about the status of Nagorno-Karabakh 
acceptable to them.

One of those lawmakers, deputy parliament speaker Ishkhan Saghatelian, condemned 
the police actions but said the protest leaders are undaunted by the use of 
force and will stage similar marches to other government buildings in the coming 
days. He said every government member must publicly speak up on the issue raised 
by the opposition.

Armenia - Police officers use force against opposition lawmaker Aghvan Vartanian 
during an anti-government protest in Yerevan, .

The opposition accused Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian of helping Azerbaijan 
regain full control over Karabakh when it launched the street protests in 
Yerevan on May 1. It drafted late last week a parliamentary resolution that 
rejects Azerbaijani control over the Armenian-populated territory and says 
Pashinian’s government cannot make any territorial concessions to Baku as a 
result of a planned demarcation of the Armenian-Azerbaijani border.

The two opposition alliances represented in the National Assembly challenged its 
pro-government majority to dispel its concerns by voting for the resolution 
during an emergency session slated for June 3.

Artur Hovannisian, a senior lawmaker from Pashinian’s Civil Contract party, made 
clear on Friday it will boycott and thereby block the session. He accused the 
opposition of blackmailing the country’s leadership and exploiting the Karabakh 
conflict for political purposes.



Turkey’s Airspace ‘Reopened’ To Armenian Airline


Armenia - A FlyOne Armenia plane takes off from Yerevan's Zvartnots airport, 
March 17, 2022.


An Armenian airline announced on Monday that Turkish authorities have allowed it 
to resume regular flights to Europe through Turkey’s airspace.

The private carrier, FlyOne Armenia, cancelled the flights to Paris and another 
French city, Lyon, about a month ago, saying that its aircraft were banned from 
flying over Turkey without any explanation. The continuing war in Ukraine left 
it without alternative, commercially viable overflight routes.

In a statement, FlyOne Armenia said both twice-weekly flight services will 
resume on June 17. The company did not say whether it has taken any action in 
response to the Turkish ban.

The airline earlier asked the Armenian government’s Civil Aviation Committee to 
help lift the ban. Citing the absence of diplomatic relations between Armenia 
and Turkey, the committee in turn appealed to the Armenian foreign ministry and 
the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) to deal with the issue.

The ban did not apply to FlyOne Armenia’s Yerevan-Istanbul flights that were 
launched in February following the start of Turkish-Armenian negotiations on 
normalizing bilateral relations.

Turkey had banned all Armenian aircraft from its airspace in September 2020 
three weeks before the outbreak of the Armenian-Azerbaijani war over 
Nagorno-Karabakh. Although Armenia did not retaliate against the move, Turkish 
planes reportedly stopped flying over Armenia during the six-week war.

FlyOne Armenia was set up last year by Armenian and Moldovan investors. 
According to Armenian media reports, it is controlled by individuals linked to 
Khachatur Sukiasian, a wealthy businessman and pro-government parliamentarian.

Sukiasian has been a vocal advocate of Armenia’s rapprochement with Turkey and 
Azerbaijan.



Convicted Militants Sent Back To Jail

        • Narine Ghalechian

Armenia - A general view of Erebuni police station seized by gunmen and 
supporters of fringe jailed opposition leader Zhirair Sefilian, in Yerevan, July 
30, 2016


Key members of an armed anti-government group that seized a police base in 
Yerevan in July 2016 were sent back to jail over the weekend after Armenia’s 
highest court upheld prison sentences handed down to them.

The seven men and two dozen other gunmen stormed the base to demand that then 
President Serzh Sarkisian free Zhirayr Sefilian, the jailed leader of their 
radical opposition movement, and step down.

The gunmen, who took police officers and medical personnel hostage, laid down 
their weapons after a two-week standoff with security forces which left three 
police officers dead.

All but two members of the armed group called Sasna Tsrer were released from 
custody shortly after Sarkisian was toppled in the 2018 “velvet revolution” led 
by Nikol Pashinian.

Armenia - The funeral in Yerevan of Yuri Tepanosian, an Armenian police officer 
killed in a standoff between security forces and opposition gunmen, 1Aug2016.

The two other members remained behind bars because of facing murder charges 
denied by them. A district court in Yerevan sentenced one of them to 25 years in 
prison in February 2021. The other, Armen Bilian, was given the same jail term 
by the Court of Appeals in December.

The court also upheld prison sentences of between six and eight years given to 
the seven other defendants. They continued to deny any wrongdoing, appealing to 
the Court of Cassation, Armenia’s highest body of criminal justice.

Armenia - Varuzhan Avetisian (L), the leader an armed opposition group that 
seized a police station in July 2016, at the start of his trial in Yerevan, 
8Jun2017.

The Court of Cassation rejected the appeals, a decision which judicial 
authorities announced only after the seven men, including Sasna Tsrer leader 
Varuzhan Avetisian, were arrested and transported to jail on Saturday. One of 
their lawyers, Arayik Papikian, condemned the “political decision.”

Avetisian, who was sentenced to seven years in prison, has repeatedly defended 
the armed attack on the police facility located in Yerevan’s southern Erebuni 
district. But he has denied responsibility for the killing of the three police 
officers: Colonel Artur Vanoyan and Warrant Officers Yuri Tepanosian and Gagik 
Mkrtchian.

Armenia - Relatives of police officers killed in a standoff with opposition 
gunmen attend a remembrance ceremony in Yerevan, 28Sep2016.

Relatives of the slain officers are also unhappy with the guilty verdicts in the 
case. Tepanosian’s wife and Mkrtchian’s mother insisted on Saturday that all 
members of the armed group should have been sentence to life imprisonment.

Avetisian has also faced in recent months embarrassing accusations from Bilian, 
the man convicted of committing one of the three murders. Bilian claimed that 
the Sasna Tsrer leader as well as Sefilian knew that he did not kill the 
policeman but still helped to jail him as part of a secret deal with the 
Armenian authorities.

Avetisian categorically denied the allegations, arguing that he and Sefilian are 
also in opposition to the current government.



Yerevan Rejects Aliyev’s ‘False’ Claims


Armenia - The building of the Armenian Foreign Ministry.


Armenia has accused Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev of misrepresenting 
understandings reached by the leaders of the two states, threatening to seize 
Armenian territory and torpedoing Nagorno-Karabakh peace efforts.

Official Yerevan also linked Aliyev’s latest statements with a weekend skirmish 
on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border which left one Armenian soldier dead.

The Armenian Defense Ministry said the soldier, Davit Vartanian, was fatally 
wounded on Saturday when his military unit deployed in southeastern Syunik 
province came under cross-border fire from nearby Azerbaijani positions. Baku 
claimed that its troops did not violate the ceasefire.

The incident happened one day after Aliyev’s visit to the Zangelan district 
bordering Syunik. Speaking there, Aliyev ruled out any negotiations with Armenia 
on the status of Nagorno-Karabakh. He said Yerevan has agreed to exclude the 
issue from the agenda of planned negotiations on an Armenian-Azerbaijani peace 
treaty.

Aliyev at the same time warned the Armenian side against insisting on an 
agreement on Karabakh’s status. He said Baku could respond by laying claim to 
Armenian territory. In that regard, he again referred to Syunik as an “ancient 
land” of Azerbaijan.

The Armenian Foreign Ministry deplored Aliyev’s “bellicose” statements and 
“arbitrary and false interpretations” of his agreements reached with Prime 
Minister Nikol Pashinian.

In a statement, the ministry said that “negotiations on the normalization of 
relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan should be held on the basis of 
proposals of both sides.”

The Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry dismissed the criticism later on Saturday. It 
said Yerevan should come to terms with “new realities in the region.”

In March this year, Azerbaijan presented Armenia with five elements which it 
wants to be at the heart of the peace treaty. They include a mutual recognition 
of each other’s territorial integrity. Yerevan said they should be complemented 
by other issues relating to Karabakh’s future status and the security of its 
population.

Speaking after his latest talks with Aliyev held in Brussels on May 22, 
Pashinian indicated that the two sides continue to disagree on the agenda of the 
talks on the peace accord.

Aliyev on Friday also repeated his claims that he and Pashinian agreed to open a 
“Zangezur corridor” that will connect Azerbaijan to its Nakhichevan exclave 
through Syunik. The Armenian government denied them as well, with Foreign 
Minister Ararat Mirzoyan insisting that Yerevan and Baku have been discussing 
only conventional transport links.

“The existence of any corridor in the territory of Armenia is out of the 
question,” Mirzoyan said in written comments. “This is not even debatable.”


Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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