Thursday,
Moscow Slams ‘Anti-Russian Campaign’ In Armenia
Russia - Russian Foreign Ministry building is seen behind a billboard showing a
tactical insignia of Russian troops in Ukraine and reading "Victory is being
Forged in Fire," Moscow, October 13, 2022.
One day after Russia’s ambassador in Yerevan was handed a rare protest note, the
Russian Foreign Ministry summoned the Armenian charge d’affaires on Wednesday to
condemn what it called anti-Russian propaganda spread by Armenia’s
government-controlled media.
The spokeswoman for the ministry, Maria Zakharova, revealed the move during a
news briefing in Moscow on Thursday. She said ministry officials protested to
the Armenian diplomat against the “unbridled anti-Russian campaign” conducted by
Armenian Public Television and other media outlets controlled by the government.
“His attention was drawn to the most odious reports directed at the Russian
leadership, Russian diplomats and peacekeepers who risk and sacrifice their
lives, including for the security of the people of Armenia,” added Zakharova.
In the last few years, Armenian Public Television has regularly interviewed and
invited politicians and commentators critical of Moscow to its political talk
shows. Their appearances in prime-time programs of the TV channel run by Prime
Minister Nikol Pashinian’s loyalists have become even more frequent lately amid
a further deterioration of Russian-Armenian relations.
For its part, Russia’s leading state broadcaster, Channel One, derided and
lambasted Pashinian during an hour-long program on Monday. It featured
pro-Kremlin panelists who denounced Pashinian’s track record and portrayed him
as a Western puppet tasked with ending Armenia’s close relationship with Russia.
The Armenian Foreign Ministry summoned the Russian ambassador on Tuesday to
protest against “offensive and absolutely unacceptable statements” made during
the program.
The unprecedented show, titled “Nikol Pashinian: a harbinger of trouble,”
highlighted the mounting tensions between Moscow and Yerevan. It fueled more
calls for the Armenian government to ban the retransmission of Channel One and
another state-controlled Russian channel.
High-Technology Minister Robert Khachatrian again did not rule out such a ban
when he spoke in the Armenian parliament on Thursday. He said the Russian
broadcasters have repeatedly violated a 2020 Russian-Armenian agreement that
allowed them to retain their slots in the national digital package accessible to
TV viewers across Armenia.
“I can’t tell you at this point what decisions and steps have been taken, but
discussions are underway,” Khachatrian said, answering a question from a
pro-government lawmaker.
Former Official Cleared Of Murder During 2008 Unrest In Yerevan
• Naira Bulghadarian
Armenia - Gegham Petrosian, a former deputy commander of interior troops.
After a more than four-year investigation, Armenian law-enforcement authorities
have dropped murder charges against a former senior police official prosecuted
over the 2008 post-election unrest in Yerevan.
It followed a disputed presidential election in which former President Levon
Ter-Petrosian was the main opposition candidate. Scores of his supporters
clashed with riot police on March 1-2, 2008 during an opposition rally in
central Yerevan led by Nikol Pashinian, then a newspaper editor. Eight
protesters and two police servicemen died in the violence that led outgoing
President Robert Kocharian to declare a state of emergency and order Armenian
army units into the capital.
Dozens of people, including Pashinian, were arrested and jailed in an ensuing
crackdown on the Ter-Petrosian-led opposition accused of plotting to overthrow
the government. Investigators completely changed the official version of events
after Pashinian swept to power in 2018.
Kocharian and about a dozen former officials were indicted in connection with
the crackdown. Some of them, including the ex-president, were acquitted by
courts while others fled Armenia.
The suspects also included Gegham Petrosian, who was a deputy commander of
Armenian interior troops during the 2008 clashes. A law-enforcement agency now
called the Anti-Corruption Committee (ACC) arrested him in June 2019 on charges
of killing one of the opposition demonstrators.
Petrosian, who denied the accusations, was set free two months later pending
investigation. The ACC chief, Sasun Khachatrian, insisted at the time that
investigators have sufficient evidence to prosecute him.
However, a prosecutor overseeing the protracted investigation cited a lack of
such evidence when he decided to clear the former officer of wrongdoing earlier
this month. The Office of the Prosecutor-General on Thursday declined to
elaborate on the decision. Khachatrian’s agency also did not comment on it.
Petrosian is the first and only person indicted in connection with the ten
deaths. Pashinian has repeatedly pledged to have those responsible for them
identified and brought to justice.
His critics have denounced relevant criminal proceedings launched during
Pashinian’s rule as politically motivated. Some of them have also accused the
premier of inciting the 2008 clashes.
Pashinian played a major role in Ter-Petrosian’s 2007-2008 opposition movement.
He fell out with the ex-president after being released from jail in 2011.
Azerbaijan ‘Not Interested’ In Corridor Through Armenia
Azerbaijan - Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev welcomes Turkish President
Tayyip Erdogan upon his arrival at Nakhichevan airport, September 25, 2023.
A senior Azerbaijani official has said that Baku is no longer in interested in a
special corridor that would connect Azerbaijan to its Nakhichevan exclave
through Armenia’s strategic Syunik province.
Since the 2020 war in Nagorno-Karabakh, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has
repeatedly demanded such a corridor and implicitly threatened to order his
troops to open it forcibly. Armenia has rejected his demands while expressing
readiness for conventional transport links between the two South Caucasus states.
Last month’s Azerbaijani military offensive in Karabakh raised more fears in
Yerevan that Baku will also attack Armenia to open the exterritorial “Zangezur
corridor.” A senior Armenian diplomat claimed on October 8 that an Azerbaijani
attack on Syunik may be “a matter of weeks.”
Aliyev’s top foreign policy aide, Hikmet Hajiyev, denied this in an interview
with Politico published late on Wednesday. He said that the corridor “has lost
its attractiveness for us” and that Baku is now planning to “do this with Iran
instead.”
“Our agenda was only about building transport linkages and connectivity through
the framework of bilateral engagement,” said Hajiyev. “If this is the case, yes,
but if not then OK. It’s still on the table but it will require from the
Armenian side to show they’re really interested in that.”
Earlier this month, Azerbaijani and Iranian officials broke ground on a new road
that will link Nakhichevan to mainland Azerbaijan via Iranian territory adjacent
to Syunik. Russia’s Deputy Prime Minister Alexei Overchuk, who has mediated
numerous Armenian-Azerbaijani talks on transport links, was reported to say on
Thursday that Baku and Tehran have also agreed to build a similar rail link
bypassing Armenia.
Iran’s Minister of Roads and Urban Development Mehrzad Bazrpash attends a
session of the Iranian parliament.
Syunik is the sole Armenian province bordering Iran. The latter has repeatedly
warned against attempts to strip it of the common border and transport links
with Armenia. The Islamic Republic views that as a serious threat to its
national security.
“We have repeatedly said that we disagree with the [idea of the] ‘Zangezur
corridor’ and we have made this clear during meetings with various Azerbaijani
officials,” Iran’s Minister of Roads and Urban Development Mehrzad Bazrpash said
during a visit to Yerevan on Monday.
Bazrpash spoke as two Iranian companies were formally contracted by the Armenian
government to rebuild a 32-kilometer section of Syunik’s main highway leading to
the Iranian border. The contracts worth $215 million underscored Tehran’s
interest in Armenia’s continued full control over Syunik.
GEORGIA - The prime ministers of Armenia, Georgia, Azerbaijan and Montenegro
attend an international forum in Tbilisi, .
Meanwhile, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian travelled to Tbilisi to
Thursday to attend and address an international conference on reviving the
ancient Silk Road. In his speech, Pashinian reaffirmed his government’s
commitment to opening the Armenian-Azerbaijani border to commerce and individual
travel.
Pashinian reaffirmed the official Armenian line that all regional countries must
exercise full control over roads and railways passing through their territory.
This means, he said, that travellers and cargo cannot be exempt from national
border controls. Baku is understood to have sought such exemptions for the
“Zangezur corridor.”
Aliyev has repeatedly described Syunik and other parts of Armenia as “historical
Azerbaijani lands.” He said last week that ethnic Azerbaijanis who used to live
there in Soviet times will eventually return “not in tanks but in cars.”
Russia Cautious On Fresh Criticism From Pashinian
Russia - Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov attends Russia-Armenia talks on the
sidelines of the Eurasian Economic Union Forum in Moscow, Russia, Thursday, May
25, 2023.
Russia reacted cautiously on Thursday to Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s fresh
claims that it has failed to protect Nagorno-Karabakh’s population against
ethnic cleansing and honor its security commitments to Armenia.
In an interview with the Wall Street Journal published on Wednesday, Pashinian
again blamed Russian peacekeepers for the mass exodus from Karabakh that
followed Azerbaijan’s September 19-20 military offensive. He said that they were
“unable or unwilling to ensure the security of the Karabakh Armenians.”
Pashinian also reiterated that contrary to its mission and statutes, the
Russian-led Collective Security Organization (CSTO) did not intervene to defend
its member state Armenia against Azerbaijani aggression in 2021 and 2022.
“We also have a bilateral security treaty with Russia and actions spelled out by
that treaty did not happen either, which also raised very serious questions
among the Armenian government and public,” he said.
This is why Yerevan is now striving to “diversify” its foreign and security
policies, added Pashinian.
Commenting on his remarks, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said: “We need to
understand exactly what Mr. Pashinyan was talking about. In conversations with
our Armenian friends, we expect to receive all the information on this matter.”
“And, of course, it is not good for Russia and Armenia to communicate through
newspapers, especially the Wall Street Journal,” Peskov told reporters.
“Therefore, we are continuing the conversation, dialogue with our Armenian
friends, and we will keep doing so. We have a very extensive agenda.”
Moscow reacted far more strongly to another newspaper interview which Pashinian
gave in early September. He told Italy’s La Repubblica daily that he wants to
“diversify our security policy” because Armenia’s long-standing heavy reliance
on Russia has proved a “strategic mistake.” The rift between Moscow and Yerevan
has deepened further since then, raising more questions about their
long-standing military, political and economic alliance.
The Armenian premier appeared to tone down his criticism of Moscow in his latest
interview. He said that Armenia has started a “dialogue” with Russia and other
CSTO allies to “try to understand the reason for this situation.” And he again
made clear that his government is not considering demanding the withdrawal of
Russian troops from Armenia even if it sees no “advantages” in their presence.
Reposted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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