Wednesday,
Pashinian Sees ‘External Threats’ To Democracy In Armenia
• Artak Khulian
Armenia - Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian addresses a conference in Yerevan, May
31, 2023.
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian spoke on Wednesday of “external threats” facing
democracy in Armenia which he claims to have established during his rule.
“I want to point out that there is no internal threat to democracy in Armenia …
All potential threats to democracy in Armenia are external, and these threats
are, of course, well-known and visible to everyone,” he said during a “forum for
democracy” organized in Yerevan by a local civic group and the U.S. watchdog
Freedom House.
Pashinian did not name foreign countries which he thinks pose such threats. He
pointed instead to the “thickest question” preoccupying the domestic public: “Is
democracy also capable of ensuring security?”
“We do believe in a positive answer to this question but it has yet to be
proved,” he told the conference held in the conspicuous absence of Armenian
opposition leaders and other well-known critics of Pashinian.
The latter accuse the prime minister of tolerating no dissent, jailing his
political opponents and curbing judicial independence.
Armenia - Security officers remove opposition deputy Gegham Manukian from the
parliament podium, Օctober 26, 2021
Pashinian insisted that democracy is “Armenia’s main brand and our conviction
and strategy.” He argued, in particular, that elections held on his watch were
not marred by reports of serious fraud.
According to Freedom House’s latest Nations in Transit survey of former
Communist countries released last week, Armenia remains a “hybrid regime” and
has yet to become an established or even “semi-consolidated” democracy five
years after the “velvet revolution” that brought Pashinian to power.
Still, Freedom House concluded that Armenia “continued to make democratic gains
in 2022.”
“The potential for deterioration remains, however, as evidenced by arrests of
opposition candidates before local elections last August,” cautioned its annual
report. “With its dependence on authoritarian Russia for military protection
against Azerbaijan, its openly hostile and equally authoritarian neighbor,
Armenia’s democratic project faces uniquely powerful headwinds.”
Armenian Gold Mine Closed 'Due To Azeri Gunfire’
Armenia - Gold mines at Sotk.
The Russian owner of Armenia’s largest gold mine has indicated that it will not
restart open-pit operations there because of continuing cross-border fire from
nearby Azerbaijani army positions.
The Sotk mine, which employs more than 700 people and is located on the volatile
border with Azerbaijan, has stood idle since an upsurge in skirmishes between
Armenian and Azerbaijani forces in mid-April. Its employees say that they have
repeatedly come under fire and been evacuated after trying to return to work.
Fighting at that section of the Armenian-Azerbaijani border escalated on May
11-12, involving exchanges of artillery fire and resulting in several casualties
from both sides.
“The situation of constant danger for the employees of the enterprise persists
for more than a month,” read a statement released by the mine operator, GPM
Gold, late on Tuesday. “As a consequence, further work of the Sotk open pit has
become impossible due to circumstances beyond the Company's control.”
The subsidiary of Russia’s GeoProMining group added that it has therefore
decided to “stop the operation of the open-pit mine” and put its workers on
unpaid leave.
Hovannes Harutiunian, an Armenian deputy minister of local government and
infrastructures, predicted GPM Gold’s decision earlier this month. Harutiunian
told lawmakers in Yerevan that the company plans to switch to underground mining
due to the periodical border clashes and Azerbaijani gunfire targeting its
open-pit facilities.
The GPM Gold statement said nothing about that, however. Nor did it shed light
on the uncertain future of GeoProMining’s gold smelter located in Ararat, a town
50 kilometers south of Yerevan.
The company already lost control over a large part of the mountainous area’s
gold deposits following the 2020 war in Nagorno-Karabakh and the resulting
Armenian withdrawal from the Kelbajar district bordering Sotk. This appears to
explain why total taxes paid by it plummeted from 20.8 billion drams ($53
million) in 2021 to just 3.2 billion drams in 2022.
U.S. Hails Aliyev’s ‘Amnesty’ Offer To Karabakh Leaders
U.S. - The State Department building in Washington, January 26, 2017.
The United States has welcomed Azerbaijani President Aliyev’s stated readiness
to grant “amnesty” to Nagorno-Karabakh’s ethnic Armenian leaders if they resign
and “surrender” to Baku.
Aliyev made the offer on Sunday while again telling the Karabakh Armenians to
unconditionally accept Azerbaijani rule and threatening to take military action
against them as well as Armenia.
“Everyone knows that we can carry out any [military] operation in that territory
[Karabakh,]” he warned. “That is why the [Karabakh] parliament must be
dissolved, the element who calls himself the president [of Karabakh] must
surrender and all ministers, deputies and other officials must resign. Only then
can there be talk of amnesty.”
The Armenian government and Karabakh’s leadership condemned the threats. The
Armenian Foreign Ministry said Aliyev not only threatened the Karabakh Armenians
with “ethnic cleansing” but is also “preparing the ground for another aggressive
action against Nagorno-Karabakh’s population.”
“We recently expressed appreciation for Prime Minister Pashinian’s commitment to
peace, and we welcome President Aliyev’s recent remarks on consideration of
amnesty,” the U.S. State Department spokesman, Matthew Miller, said in a
statement issued late on Tuesday.
Miller at the same time stressed: “Aggressive rhetoric can only perpetuate the
violence of the past; constructive dialogue -- both public and private -- can
create peace, opportunity, and hope.”
The Armenian Foreign Ministry expressed dismay at the U.S. reaction on
Wednesday, insisting that Aliyev’s remarks “contained clear threats” to
Armenia’s territorial integrity and the security of Karabakh’s population.
Washington “should react appropriately to such statements,” said a ministry
spokeswoman.
Aliyev made the threats ahead of his fresh meeting Prime Minister Nikol
Pashinian scheduled for Thursday. The two leaders will meet together with
European Union chief Charles Michel, French President Emmanuel Macron and German
Chancellor Olaf Scholz on the sidelines of a European summit in Moldova.
Aliyev and Pashinian apparently made significant progress towards an
Armenian-Azerbaijani peace treaty during their May 14 meeting in Brussels hosted
by Michel. Pashinian confirmed afterwards that he is ready to recognize
Azerbaijani sovereignty over Karabakh.
Pashinian’s stance was hailed by a senior U.S. official but condemned by the
Armenian opposition and Karabakh’s leadership. Karabakh’s parliament said on May
22 that any peace deal ignoring the Karabakh Armenians’ right to
self-determination would be “null and void” for Stepanakert.
The U.S. had backed that right through peace plans jointly drafted with Russia
and France before the 2020 Armenian-Azerbaijani war.
Reposted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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