Thursday, September 1, 2022
More Charges Brought Against Former Karabakh Army Chief
• Anush Mkrtchian
Former Nagorno-Karabakh army commander Mikael Arzumanian.
An Armenian law-enforcement agency brought additional criminal charges against a
former commander of Nagorno-Karabakh’s army on Thursday hours after a court in
Yerevan allowed his pre-trial arrest.
Lieutenant-General Mikael Arzumanian was detained and charged with criminal
negligence immediately after entering Armenia from Karabakh earlier this week.
The Investigative Committee initially indicted Arzumanian over the capture by
Azerbaijani forces of the Karabakh town of Shushi (Shusha) which happened at the
end of the 2020 war. It claims that he failed to deploy more troops around
Shushi beforehand.
Arzumanian was appointed as commander of Karabakh’s Armenian-backed Defense Army
on October 27, 2020 less than two weeks before the fall of the strategic town.
The Investigative Committee said on Thursday that the 49-year-old general also
ordered Karabakh Armenian forces to withdraw from “strategically important”
positions retaken by them days after the war broke out on September 27, 2020. It
said that the order amounted to abuse of power.
Arzumanian’s lawyer, Yerem Sargsian, did not return phone calls throughout the
day. He reportedly said on Wednesday that his client rejects the first
accusation leveled against him.
Armenian opposition leaders have criticized Arzumanian’s arrest, saying that it
is part of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s efforts to deflect blame for the
disastrous war. They continue to hold Pashinian primarily responsible for
Armenia’s defeat.
Movses Hakobian, Armenia’s former top general, also denounced the criminal case
against Arzumanian. He implied that it is aimed at lending credence to
Pashinian’s “political statements” on the outcome of the war.
“Accusing Arzumanian is not honest, to say the least, because he took over the
army at a time when everything was already predetermined,” Hakobian told
RFE/RL’s Armenian Service. “Secondly, nobody can judge whether a commander made
a right or wrong decision in a particular situation.”
“Although I used to be Arzumanian’s superior, I wouldn’t reserve myself the
right to say whether he made the right or wrong decision at that point because
there are lots of factors that influenced it,” added the Karabakh-born general.
Arzumanian was dismissed as Karabakh army commander last year. He has worked as
an advisor to Arayik Harutiunian, the Karabakh president, since then. A
spokeswoman for Harutiunian on Tuesday described Arzumanian as “one of our best
military commanders.”
Armenian Prosecutor Favors Death Penalty For Treason
Armenia - Prosecutor-General Artur Davtian speaks at an official ceremony in
Yerevan, July 1, 2022.
Armenia’s outgoing Prosecutor-General Artur Davtian on Thursday called for
restoring the death penalty for individuals convicted of high treason in the
country.
Davtian’s office reported that he has filed a corresponding appeal to Justice
Minister Karen Andreasian, who heads a government task force on constitutional
reform.
According to the office, Davtian cited in his letter the increased number of
espionage cases investigated by Armenian law-enforcement authorities since the
2020 war with Azerbaijan. He said punishment for such crimes should be toughened
“especially against the background of existing security challenges in the
region.”
Dozens of Armenians, including military officers, have been arrested and/or
accused of spying for Azerbaijan during and after the war. None of them is known
to have been convicted by local courts so far.
Armenia agreed to abolish capital punishment when it joined the Council of
Europe over two decades ago. The ban is enshrined in Article 24 of its
constitution.
Citing research conducted by his office, Davtian claimed that Armenia has no
“direct international legal obligation” to maintain the full ban on the death
penalty. He also said various “manifestations of high treason” pose a growing
threat to national security.
Representatives and political allies of the Armenian government did not
immediately react to the appeal.
By contrast, the country’s human rights ombudswoman, Kristine Grigorian, was
quick to reject Davtian’s calls, saying that they run counter to people’s right
to life and “democratic values.” Armenian authorities should deal with high
treason through “more effective preventive measures” rather than death
sentences, she said in a statement.
Grigorian said that the constitutional reform council, of which she too is a
member, should therefore not even consider the chief prosecutor’s proposal.
The Office of the Prosecutor-General deplored the ombudswoman’s “extremely
hasty” and “superficial” comments. It said that it is ready to present more
detailed arguments in support of the idea floated by Davtian.
Davtian will complete his six-year term in office on September 15. He will be
replaced by a former aide to Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian.
Talks With Aliyev ‘Not Easy,’ Says Pashinian
• Gayane Saribekian
Belgium - Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian and Azerbaijani President
Ilham Aliyev begin talks in Brussels, .
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian described his latest talks with Azerbaijani
President Ilham Aliyev as “not easy” but gave no other details on Thursday.
“The discussion was extensive, the discussion was not easy,” he said the day
after the talks hosted by European Council President Charles Michel in Brussels.
Pashinian reaffirmed the Armenian government’s commitment to its “peace agenda”
declared after the 2020 war in Nagorno-Karabakh.
“We all need to understand that it’s not easy and simple and that possible
solutions are not obvious,” he added at the start of a weekly cabinet meeting in
Yerevan. “We need to continue our consistent work.”
Michel said late on Wednesday that Aliyev and Pashinian agreed to intensify
negotiations on an Armenian-Azerbaijani peace treaty sought by Baku. The
Armenian and Azerbaijani foreign ministers will meet in September to “work on
draft texts,” he said in a statement.
“Clearly, Azerbaijan will try to secure solutions maximally beneficial for it,”
said Vigen Khachatrian, an Armenian pro-government parliamentarian. “Our
objective is the opposite. Our aim is to guarantee the territorial integrity of
Armenia and the kind of conditions for the people of Artsakh that would not
jeopardize their life in their homeland.”
The Azerbaijani side did not publicly comment on the results of what was
Michel’s fourth trilateral meeting with the Armenian and Azerbaijani leaders in
nine months. Aliyev’s chief foreign policy aide, Hikmet Hajiyev, praised the top
European Union official’s efforts to “facilitate bilateral peace treaty talks.”
Azerbaijan wants Armenia to recognize Azerbaijani sovereignty over Karabakh
through such a treaty.
Armenian opposition leaders claimed that Wednesday’s talks in Brussels brought
Baku closer to achieving this goal.
Armenia - Opposition deputy Hayk Mamijanian attends a parliament session,
September 13, 2021.
“Every negotiation conducted by Pashinian presupposes losses,” said Hayk
Mamijanian of the opposition Pativ Unem alliance. “They could be territorial
losses or losses in terms of security guarantees.”
“The whole negotiating process bypasses the issues of Karabakh’s status,
prisoners of war and the withdrawal [of Azerbaijani forces] from Armenian
territory and is based on the logic of selling out our lands and homeland,” he
told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service.
An Armenian government statement on the Brussels talks said the return of
Armenian soldiers and civilians remaining in Azerbaijani captivity was also on
the agenda. Michel said in this regard that he “stressed to Azerbaijan the
importance of further release of Armenian detainees.”
“Having essentially accepted the enemy's latest orders, Nikol continues to talk
about the so-called peace agenda,” charged Ishkhan Saghatelian, a leader of the
other parliamentary opposition force, Hayastan.
In a Facebook post, Saghatelian urged Armenians to attend the next
anti-government rally which Hayastan and Pativ Unem will hold in Yerevan on
Friday. He said they must show Pashinian and the international community that
“the Armenian nation has not abandoned Artsakh.”
The opposition blocs launched daily street protests on May 1 two weeks after
Pashinian signaled his readiness to recognize Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity
and “lower the bar” on Karabakh’s status acceptable to the Armenian side. They
scaled back the protests six week later after failing to unseat the prime
minister.
Reposted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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