Tuesday,
Blinken, Pashinian Discuss Armenian-Azeri Talks
U.S. - U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Armenia's Prime Minister Nikol
Pashinian meet on the sidelines of a UN General Assembly session, New York,
September 22, ,2022.
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian discussed with U.S. Secretary of State Antony
Blinken Armenia’s peace talks with Azerbaijan and Baku’s continuing blockade of
Nagorno-Karabakh in a phone call on Tuesday.
“The interlocutors reviewed the situation in the region, ongoing negotiations on
the peace treaty between Armenia and Azerbaijan, necessary steps to ensure the
rights and security of the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh, including the need for
a Baku-Stepanakert dialogue with international involvement,” the Armenian
government’s press office said in a statement on the call.
“Prime Minister Pashinian referred to the deepening humanitarian crisis in
Nagorno-Karabakh resulting from Azerbaijan's illegal blockade of the Lachin
Corridor and steps necessary for overcoming it,” it added without elaborating.
Blinken and the U.S. State Department did not immediately issue statements on
the conversation. It took place five days after U.S. National Security Adviser
Jake Sullivan met with Armen Grigorian, the secretary of Armenia’s Security
Council, in Washington. Sullivan did not comment on that meeting.
Both Blinken and Sullivan held late last month trilateral meetings with the
Armenian and Azerbaijani foreign ministers during their fresh round of
U.S.-mediated peace talks focusing on the Armenian-Azerbaijani peace treaty.
Blinken said on June 29 that despite “further progress” made by the two
ministers “there remains hard work to be done to try to reach a final agreement.”
Speaking in Baku on Tuesday, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev stressed the
importance of Armenia’s recognition of Azerbaijani sovereignty over
Nagorno-Karabakh which was declared by Pashinian in May.
“Now, however, the time has come to put those words to paper,” Aliyev said,
referring to the peace deal currently discussed by Baku and Yerevan.
Opposition Lawmaker Ousted From Armenian Parliament Post
• Ruzanna Stepanian
Armenia - A session of the National Assembly, Yerevan, .
The Armenian opposition accused Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian of dealing
another blow to pluralism and democracy on Tuesday after his party ousted the
last remaining opposition head of a standing parliament committee.
Lawmakers representing the Civil Contract party voted to dismiss Taguhi
Tovmasian as chairwoman of the National Assembly’s committee on human rights
after a brief session. The vote was boycotted by their colleagues from the
opposition Hayastan and Pativ Unem alliances.
Civil Contract’s Hovik Aghazarian was the only parliament deputy who spoke
during the session. He repeated the ruling party’s complaints that Tovmasian did
not attend most meetings of the Armenian parliament’s leadership and did not
stop “hate speech” when her committee discussed on April 4 candidacies for the
then vacant post of the state human rights defender.
Edgar Ghazarian, the opposition candidate for the post, enraged pro-government
lawmakers with his claim that the 2018 “velvet revolution” that brought
Pashinian to power was in fact a “Turkish-Azerbaijani revolution.” They shouted
abuse and threats at Ghazarian during the meeting chaired by Tovmasian.
One of those lawmakers, Artur Hovannisian, pledged to “cut the tongues and ears
of anyone” who would make disparaging comments about the regime change.
Pashinian’s party did not criticize his behavior.
Tovmasian, who is affiliated with Pativ Unem, insisted that she did nothing
wrong on April 4. In a written statement, she also argued that the parliamentary
statutes did not require her to attend meetings of the National Assembly’s
Council consisting of speaker Alen Simonian, his deputies as well as the
committee chairpersons.
Tovmasian again claimed that Pashinian personally ordered his loyalists to strip
her of the parliamentary post in retaliation against her defection from his
political team following Armenia’s defeat in the 2020 war with Azerbaijan.
“As you can see, any dissent in Armenia is strangled by imprisonment and
dismissal,” added the former journalist and newspaper editor.
Armenia - Taguhi Tovmasian (right) and other deputies from Pativ Unem bloc
attend a parliamernt session, September 14, 2021.
Pativ Unem voiced strong support for Tovmasian, saying that she acted
professionally on April 4 in the face of her pro-government colleagues’
“hooligan behavior.” The official grounds for her dismissal are “completely
baseless and illegal,” the opposition bloc charged in a statement.
Hayastan also condemned Tovmasian’s dismissal. “The government cannot put a
straitjacket on the opposition; that means totalitarianism, dictatorship,
tyranny,” said one of its senior parliamentarians, Artsvik Minasian.
Armenian law reserves a number of leadership positions in the parliament for the
opposition minority. Tovmasian’s ouster left the opposition without any such
posts.
Hayastan’s Ishkhan Saghatelian and Vahe Hakobian were ousted as deputy speaker
and chairman of the parliament committee on economic affairs respectively in
July 2022 after weeks of anti-government protests organized by Hayastan and
Pativ Unem. Another Hayastan deputy, Armen Gevorgian, immediately resigned as
chairman of a committee on “Eurasian integration” in protest.
Both opposition blocs made clear on Tuesday that they will not nominate a new
head of the human rights committee. Civil Contract likewise said that it will
not install Tovmasian’s successor.
Nevertheless, the ruling party will effectively gain control of her post even in
the absence of a new committee chair. In line with the parliamentary statutes,
the human rights panel will be run, in an acting capacity, by Rustam Bakoyan,
its deputy chairman affiliated with Civil Contract.
Last year, Bakoyan’s former wife accused him of systematically beating her,
publicizing purported photographs of injuries sustained by her. Bakoyan, who
denied the allegations, was not prosecuted or even censured by Pashinian’s party.
Government Vows To Tackle ‘Police Violence Against Lawyers’
• Naira Bulghadarian
Armenia - Interior Minister Vahe Ghazarian speaks in the parliament, Yerevan,
March 1, 2023.
Armenia’s Interior Ministry and national bar association agreed on Tuesday to
set up a joint working group tasked with protecting lawyers against violent
police actions.
The agreement was announced after hundreds of lawyers again went on a one-day
strike and marched to the ministry headquarters in Yerevan to show support for
their colleagues allegedly beaten up by police officers.
Interior Minister Vahe Ghazarian received the leaders of the Armenian Chamber of
Advocates, which organized the protest. One of them, Ara Zohrabian, was
satisfied with the meeting that lasted for less than an hour.
Zohrabian said they received assurances that “there will no such instances
involving lawyers anymore.” Lawyers assaulted by police officers will now be
able to swiftly appeal to the joint commission that will comprise three Interior
Ministry officials and three lawyers, he told journalists.
Neither Ghazarian nor the ministry’s press office made any statements to that
effect immediately after the meeting.
The protests began late last month after one attorney, Karen Alaverdian, claimed
to have been subjected to “undue physical force” while trying to stop several
policemen kicking and punching his client at a Yerevan police station.
Armenia - Lawyers protest outside the Interior Ministry in Yerevan, July 11,
2023.
Armenia’s Investigative Committee denied the allegations on June 13, saying that
Alaverdian himself shoved and even hit the officers in a bid to free the
criminal suspect. The law-enforcement agency charged him with “hooliganism” and
obstruction of legitimate police actions. The Chamber of Advocates voiced
support for Alaverdian and demanded a proper investigation into the incident.
Alaverdian revealed on Tuesday that two senior officers working at the police
department of Yerevan’s central administrative district have been indicted by
another law-enforcement body, the National Security Service (NSS), and suspended
as a result. He welcomed the development.
Two other lawyers claimed to have been ill-treated at another Yerevan police
station in February while representing a teenage criminal suspect. Their
allegations were likewise denied by the Armenian police and the Investigative
Committee.
The protesting lawyers say that the national police chief, Karlen Hovannisian,
is personally responsible for the alleged violence. More than 500 of them have
signed a petition demanding his dismissal.
According to Zohrabian, Hovannisian also attended the interior minister’s
meeting with the Chamber of Advocates leadership. The latter insisted on
Hovannisian’s resignation during and after the meeting.
Azerbaijan Again Blocks Medical Evacuations From Karabakh
• Artak Khulian
Armenia - A Red Cross vehicle is seen in Syunik province, June 1, 2023.
Azerbaijan has again banned the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC)
from evacuating seriously ill persons from Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia.
Azerbaijan’s state border guard service said on Tuesday that it made the
decision because Karabakh residents returning home from Armenia repeatedly tried
last week to “smuggle” cigarettes, mobile phone screens, gasoline and other
items. The ICRC failed to stop such “illegal actions,” it said, adding that the
Azerbaijani checkpoint controversially set up in the Lachin corridor in April
will remain completely closed until the end of its inquiry into the alleged
smuggling attempts.
The ICRC has transported hundreds of Karabakh patients to Armenian hospitals
since Baku blocked last December commercial traffic through Karabakh’s sole land
link with Armenia. Only Red Cross vehicles as well as convoys of Russian
peacekeepers were able to pass through the road.
The ICRC said later on Tuesday that four of its hired drivers “tried to
transport some commercial goods in their own vehicles which were temporarily
displaying the ICRC emblem.”
“These individuals were not ICRC staff members and their service contracts were
immediately terminated by the ICRC,” it added in a statement.
"Our work along the Lachin corridor is always strictly humanitarian. This
essential work, which has allowed more than 600 patients to be evacuated for
medical care and for medical supplies, food, baby formula and other essentials
to reach health care facilities and families, must be allowed to continue.”
Baku already blocked the medical evacuations in late April and on June 15. They
most recently resumed on June 25.
Karabakh’s leadership did not immediately react to the latest Azerbaijani ban.
The Armenian Foreign Ministry expressed concern about it, saying that “more
international efforts and actions are needed to lift the 7-month blockade of
Nagorno-Karabakh.”
“It is obvious that Azerbaijan is simply looking for excuses to finally close
the only way through which medicines and other medical supplies were brought to
Karabakh,” Artur Harutiunian, a senior Karabakh lawmaker, told RFE/RL’s Armenian
Service.
Harutiunian argued that family members accompanying Karabakh patients on their
way back from Armenia did not try to smuggle weapons or drugs. He said they only
carried things that are running out in Karabakh due to the Azerbaijani blockade.
Baku further tightened the blockade on June 15, banning the Russian peacekeepers
from shipping limited amounts of food to Karabakh. It has also been blocking
Armenia’s electricity and gas supplies to the Armenian-populated region.
Reposted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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