Friday,
Armenian Banks Block Russian Cards After New U.S. Sanctions
• Sargis Harutyunyan
Russia - The logo of MIR payment system is on display at the St. Petersburg
International Economic Forum (SPIEF) in Saint Petersburg, June 2, 2021.
Some of Armenia’s commercial banks have stopped processing payments via Russia’s
Mir cards following additional U.S. sanctions imposed on Russia earlier this
month.
The Mir cards issued by the Russian central bank’s National Card Payment System
(NSPK) became an alternative for Russian travellers in March after Visa and
MasterCard shut off their Russian networks over Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.
The U.S. Treasury Department announced sanctions against NSPK Chief Executive
Vladimir Komlev on September 15. The Financial Times daily reported that
Washington is pressuring Turkey as well as the countries of the South Caucasus,
Central Asia and the Persian Gulf to block the Russian payment system on their
territory.
Two Turkish banks suspended use of Mir a few days later. Uzbekistan’s national
UZCARD system followed suit on Friday.
It emerged that at least several of the two dozen banks operating in Armenia
have also halted use of the Russian cards. None of them agreed to comment on
their decision.
The development will first and foremost affect Russian tourists visiting Armenia
as well as many of the thousands of Russians who have relocated to the country
since the start of the war in Ukraine on February 24.
Armenia - Russian national Artur Asafyev tries to retrieve cash from an ATM
machine in Yerevan,
One of those migrants, journalist Artur Astafyev, on Friday tried unsuccessfully
to retrieve cash from ATM machines operated by two local banks.
“I was previously able to take cash from any [Armenian] bank, converting rubles
to drams,” he told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service.
Astafyev was still able to use his Mir card for buying things from one Yerevan
store. Its POS terminal is connected to one of at least two other Armenian banks
that said they are continuing to accept Mir.
One of those banks, VTB Armenia, is a subsidiary of Russia’s second largest
bank, VTB.
The Central Bank of Armenia (CBA) insisted, meanwhile, that it has not issued
any orders or guidance to local banks regarding Mir.
“Armenia’s commercial banks manage their risks, including those related to
sanctions, on their own,” the CBA said in a statement to RFE/RL’s Armenian
Service.
Central Bank data shows that Mir accounted for 17.4 percent of $4.3 billion
worth of card transitions processed in Armenia in the first half of this year.
Russian-Armenian trade soared by 42 percent, to $1.6 billion, during the same
period despite the Western economic sanctions against Moscow. Russia thus
reinforced its status as Armenia’s leading trading partner.
Pashinian Ally Appointed As Yerevan Vice-Mayor
• Narine Ghalechian
Armenia - Former Deputy Prime Minister Tigran Avinian attends a session of
Yerevan's municipal assembly, .
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s Civil Contract party on Friday took another
step towards installing one of its senior members, Tigran Avinian, as the next
mayor of Yerevan.
The municipal assembly controlled by the party appointed Avinian as one of the
city’s five deputy mayors.
Avinian, 33, actively participated in the 2018 mass protests that brought
Pashinian to power. He was named Armenia’s deputy prime minister shortly after
the “velvet revolution.”
Avinian resigned in August 2021, saying that he objected to the ruling party’s
list of candidates for snap parliamentary elections held in June. Nevertheless,
he remained a member of Pashinian’s political team.
Early this year, Civil Contract announced that Avinian will be its mayoral
candidate in the next municipal elections due in 2023. The announcement came
shortly after former Yerevan Mayor Hayk Marutian was ousted by the city council
after falling out with Pashinian.
The council voted to elect Avinian as vice-mayor on Friday. Analysts believe
that the move is aimed at boosting his and Civil Contract’s chances in the next
municipal polls.
In his new capacity, Avinian will, among other things, oversee the
administrations of Yerevan’s districts and liaise with the central government.
Speaking to journalists, he insisted that he will concentrate on “the
vice-mayor’s duties,” rather than the mayoral race.
“I will be working to achieve results,” he said. “I don’t want to think about
other things at this stage.”
Armenia - A screenshot of a video ad of former Yerevan Mayor Hayk Marutian's
upcoming monodrama.
None of Armenia’s major opposition groups have fielded mayoral candidates so
far. Marutian, who was a TV comedian before becoming Yerevan mayor in October
2018, has also not said whether he will participate in the polls.
Earlier this month, the popular ex-mayor stoked speculation about his plans to
regain his post when he scheduled a satirical monodrama which he was due to play
in the country’s leading theater. Tickets for the first performances of the play
titled “The Mayor” were sold out within hours.
A few days later, the Armenian police reportedly recommended that Marutian be
prosecuted for illegally allocating land to a Yerevan restaurant in 2019.
Critics said the authorities are thus trying to prevent Marutian from joining
the mayoral race.
Armenia Again Warns Of ‘New Azeri Aggression’
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian addresses a session of the UN General
Assembly, New York, .
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian accused Azerbaijan late on Thursday of planning
to occupy more Armenian territory while reaffirming his readiness to sign a
comprehensive Armenian-Azerbaijani peace deal.
Addressing the UN General Assembly in New York, Pashinian insisted that last
week’s large-scale border clashes between Armenian and Azerbaijani forces
amounted to military aggression against Armenia.
“In the wake of this attack, the official narrative and other sources of
information suggest that Azerbaijan intends to occupy more territories of
Armenia, which must be prevented,” he said in a speech. “I want to stress that
the risk of new aggression by Azerbaijan remains very high, especially given
that every day Azerbaijan violates the ceasefire and the number of causalities
and those injured could change any moment.”
Baku blames Yerevan for the worst escalation of the conflict since the 2020 war
in Nagorno-Karabakh. Earlier this week, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev
accused the Armenian side of dragging its feet over the signing of a peace
treaty sought by him and the demarcation of the Armenian-Azerbaijani border. He
said the treaty should call for mutual recognition of each other’s territory
integrity.
Pashinian asserted that Azerbaijan is seeking the kind of accord that would not
prevent it from claiming or trying to occupy more Armenian territory.
Armenia -A house in the border village of Sotk destroyed by Azerbaijani
shelling, .
“Could you show a map of Armenia that you recognize or are ready to recognize as
the Republic of Armenia?” he asked, appealing to Aliyev. He cited Aliyev’s
repeated claims that much of modern-day Armenia is “historical Azerbaijani
lands.”
“If Azerbaijan recognizes territorial integrity of Armenia, not theoretically
but concretely -- I mean the integrity of our internationally recognized
territory of 29.800 square kilometers -- it will mean that we can sign a peace
treaty mutually recognizing each other’s territorial integrity,” Pashinian went
on. “Otherwise, we would have a phantom peace treaty and after that Azerbaijan
will use the border delimitation process for new territorial claims and
occupation.”
Pashinian made similar comments in the Armenian parliament on September 14
nearly two days after the outbreak of the latest border clashes. He said nothing
about the status of Nagorno-Karabakh or the security of its ethnic Armenian
population.
His statement fueled rumors that the Armenian government will unconditionally
accept Baku’s terms of the treaty, including recognition of Azerbaijani
sovereignty over Karabakh. Thousands of angry people rallied outside the
parliament building in Yerevan in the following hours to demand Pashinian’s
removal from power. The prime minister assured them that his comments were
misunderstood and that “no document is about to be signed.”
UN - Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian meets with Iran's President Ebrahim Raisi in
New York, .
In his UN speech, Pashinian made no explicit mention of the Karabakh Armenians’
right to self-determination that had long been championed by Armenia.
Also, Pashinian appeared to hit out at Russia and the Russian-led Collective
Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) over what Yerevan sees as their lack of
support for Armenia. In particular, he said, “some of our international partners
are silent” about the Azerbaijani “aggression.”
By contrast, the Armenian leader praised U.S. and Iranian reactions to the
hostilities when he held earlier on Thursday separate talks with Iran’s
President Ebrahim Raisi and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on the
sidelines of the annual session of the UN General Assembly.
Raisi was cited by his office as reiterating that Iran strongly opposes any
attempts to strip it of its “strategic” and “historical” border with Armenia. He
clearly alluded to Azerbaijani demands for an exterritorial corridor connecting
Azerbaijan to its Nakhichevan exclave.
Pashinian repeated in his speech that Yerevan is only ready to open conventional
transport links for Nakhichevan that would be under the “sovereign control of
Armenia.”
Former Armenian Presidents Hold Crisis Talks
Armenia - Former Presidents Serzh Sarkissian, Robert Kocharian and Levon
Ter-Petrosian.
Former Presidents Levon Ter-Petrosian, Robert Kocharian and Serzh Sarkisian met
late on Thursday to discuss grave security challenges facing Armenia.
The meeting was hosted by Catholicos Garegin II, the supreme head of the
Armenian Apostolic Church, at his headquarters in Echmiadzin. Two former
presidents of Nagorno-Karabakh, Bako Sahakian and Arkadi Ghukasian, also
attended it.
In a statement, the church’s Mother See said that the participants of the
meeting discussed “the situation in Armenia.”
“It was decided to continue meetings,” the statement said without giving details.
None of the ex-presidents or their offices made public statements immediately
after their rare trilateral encounter.
Ishkhan Saghatelian, an opposition leader, called for such crisis talks on
September 13 the day after Azerbaijani forces reportedly attacked various
sections of Armenia’s border with Azerbaijan. He said Ter-Petrosian, Kocharian
and Sarkisian as well as Garegin and other “influential figures” should jointly
explore ways of “getting the country out of this situation.”
Saghatelian is a leading member of the main opposition Hayastan alliance headed
by Kocharian.
Ter-Petrosian held a separate meeting with Garegin on September 18. He received
Arayik Harutiunian, the current Karabakh president, in his Yerevan residence two
days later.
Ter-Petrosian, Kocharian and Sarkisian, who have long had uneasy relations with
each other, previously met in October 2020 during the Armenian-Azerbaijani war
in Karabakh. They discussed jointly seeking greater international -- and in
particular Russian -- support for Armenia. The initiative did not translate into
concrete action because of what they described as a lack of cooperation by Prime
Minister Nikol Pashinian.
Also, in the run-up to the June 2021 parliamentary elections, Ter-Petrosian
proposed that the three ex-presidents set up an electoral alliance to oust
Pashinian and then immediately retire from politics. Kocharian reportedly
rejected the idea.
Reposted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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