Tuesday,
Parliament Leaders To Discuss Ousting Opposition Lawmakers
• Astghik Bedevian
Armenia - Karabakh flags on empty seats of opposition lawmakers boycotting a
session of the Armenian parliament, Yerevan, May 25, 2022.
The leadership of Armenia’s parliament is due to meet later this week to decide
whether to try to strip dozens of opposition deputies boycotting parliament
sessions of their seats.
The 35 lawmakers representing the opposition Hayastan and Pativ Unem alliances
began the boycott in April in advance of their daily demonstrations demanding
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s resignation.
Under Armenian law, a lawmaker can lose their seat if they skip, for
“non-legitimate” reasons, at least half of parliament votes during a single
semi-annual session of the National Assembly. The final decision to that effect
is to be made by the Constitutional Court at the initiative of the parliament’s
leadership or at least one-fifth of the deputies.
According to the parliament administration, all 29 deputies representing
Hayastan and four others affiliated with Pativ Unem can now be formally accused
of absenteeism.
Opposition sources said that the National Assembly Council consisting of speaker
Alen Simonian, his two deputies and chairpersons of the parliament’s standing
committees will discuss a possible appeal to the court at a meeting slated for
Thursday.
Armenia - Speaker Alen Simonian chairs a session of the National Assembly, May
3, 2022.
Simonian on Tuesday described the proceedings as “pleasant.” But neither he nor
other senior pro-government parliamentarians clarified whether they will push
for their opposition colleagues’ ouster from the parliament.
“I will express my opinion when we make or do not make a corresponding
decision,” deputy speaker Ruben Rubinian told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service.
Artur Hovannisian, the secretary of the ruling Civil Contract party’s
parliamentary group, likewise declined to reveal his position on the matter. He
instead again denounced the continuing opposition boycott.
Hovannisian also said that even if the parliament’s leadership allied to
Pashinian decides not to appeal to the Constitutional Court this time around it
may do so this fall.
Hayk Mamijanian, Pativ Unem’s new parliamentary leader, dismissed these threats
as a “disgrace” and “political farce.”
Armenia - Opposition deputies arrive for a scheduled session of the National
Assembly boycotted and thwarted by its pro-government majority, Yerevan,
February 23, 2022.
“For me it’s more important that our actions be patriotic and effective in the
eyes of citizens who voted or didn’t vote for us,” he told RFE/RL’s Armenian
Service. “I don’t really care if Civil Contract starts or doesn’t start such a
process.”
Opposition boycotts of parliament sessions have not been uncommon in Armenia in
the past. No opposition lawmaker was stripped of their seat because of that.
Hayastan’s Ishkhan Saghatelian made clear on Monday that the two opposition
forces will continue their boycott and hold more antigovernment rallies in the
weeks ahead. “Our agenda is in the streets,” he said.
Earlier this month, the ruling party ousted Saghatelian and another opposition
leader, Vahe Hakobian, as the parliament’s deputy speaker and chairman of its
economic committee respectively. Virtually all other opposition deputies holding
leadership positions in the National Assembly resigned in protest.
Armenian Government Revives Plans To Create Interior Ministry
• Gayane Saribekian
Armenia - Riot police guard the building of the Armenian prime minister's office
during a cabinet meeting in Yerevan, May 13, 2022.
The Armenian government indicated on Tuesday that it is pressing ahead with its
plans to set up a ministry of interior as part of a major structural reform of
the national police and two other agencies.
Armenia had an interior ministry until former President Robert Kocharian
abolished it and turned the police into a separate structure subordinate to him
two decades ago. The police have reported to the prime minister since
Kocharian’s successor, Serzh Sarkisian, completed the country’s transition to a
parliamentary system of government in 2018.
The Armenian Ministry of Justice recommended the re-establishment of the
interior ministry headed by a full-fledged cabinet member in a three-year
strategy of police reforms proposed to the government two years ago. Prime
Minister Nikol Pashinian signaled his approval of the idea in February 2021 but
did not move to put it into practice in the following months.
The ministry revived the idea recently, prompting a parliamentary hearing on a
corresponding bill drafted by it. Justice Minister Karen Andreasian said the
bill will likely be sent to the National Assembly for debate in September.
“We will merge three major services -- the Police, the Rescue Service and
Migration Service -- under the umbrella of the new Ministry of Internal
Affairs,” one of Andreasian’s deputies, Arpine Sargsian, told the hearing
organized by the parliament committee on defense and security.
Armenia -- Riot police guard a court building in Yerevan during the trial of
former President Robert Kocharian and three other former officials, May 13, 2020.
The committee chairman, Andranik Kocharian, backed the proposed merger, saying
that it would increase “democratic oversight” of the Armenian police.
“By creating the interior ministry we will not only make the [law-enforcement]
body more accountable but also contribute to the transparency of its work,” he
said.
Pashinian faced opposition calls to turn the police as well as the National
Security Service (NSS) into ministries accountable to the parliament shortly
after he swept to power in May 2018. He opposed such a change until 2021.
Hovannes Kocharian (no relation to Andranik), a former senior police official,
cautioned during the hearing that the structural change alone would not lead to
greater accountability. He argued that the police were “mired in political and
economic processes” and faced “allegations of partisanship” when they were part
of an interior ministry in the 1990s.
“The only way to neutralize these risks is to strike the right balance,
delineate functions and put in place adequate oversight mechanisms,” he said.
Armenia Expects Turkey To Honor Initial Agreements
• Karlen Aslanian
Turkey -- A Turkish army watch tower on the border with Armenia, in Akyaka,
April 15, 2009
A senior Armenian official expressed hope on Tuesday that Turkey will implement
“in the coming months” the first agreements reached during ongoing negotiations
on normalizing Turkish-Armenian relations.
Meeting in Vienna on July 1, special envoys of the two neighboring states agreed
to open the Turkish-Armenian border to citizens of third countries and to allow
mutual cargo shipments by air. The Turkish and Armenian foreign ministries said
this will be done “at the earliest date possible.”
Deputy parliament speaker Ruben Rubinian, the Armenian negotiator, said the
implementation of the agreements depends on “the political will of Turkey” which
has for decades kept the border closed and refused to establish diplomatic
relations with Armenia.
“In such complicated processes, one of the most important things is to quickly
implement the first agreements,” Rubinian told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service. “If
they are quickly implemented it greatly helps to reinforce trust. If they are
not, it on the contrary undermines that trust. I hope that these agreements will
be implemented very quickly.”
“I think it will be logical if that happens in the coming months,” he said when
asked about time frames acceptable to the Armenian side. “The agreements are
fixed at the political level. Representatives of relevant [Armenian and Turkish]
agencies must now work on technical details.”
That joint work should get underway “soon,” added Rubinian.
Armenia - Deputy speaker Ruben Rubinian at a session of the Armenian parliament
in Yerevan, October 5, 2021.
In a further sign of Turkish-Armenian rapprochement, Armenian Prime Minister
Nikol Pashinian and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan held their first-ever
phone conversation on Monday. Their press offices released virtually identical
statements on the call saying that the two leaders stressed “the importance of
the bilateral process of normalizing relations between their countries.”
In Rubinian’s words, there are no plans yet to organize a face-to-face meeting
between Erdogan and Pashinian.
Ankara and Yerevan came close to normalizing their relations in 2009 when their
foreign ministers signed two relevant protocols in Zurich, Switzerland.
Erdogan’s administration subsequently linked their ratification by the Turkish
parliament to a resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict acceptable to
Azerbaijan.
Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu has repeatedly said that his
government coordinates the ongoing Turkish-Armenian dialogue with Baku. Armenian
leaders have said, for their part, that they want an unconditional normalization
of Turkish-Armenian ties.
Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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