Monday, November 6, 2023
Armenian Government Vows To Pay Karabakh Pensions
• Robert Zargarian
• Susan Badalian
Armenia - A refugee from Karabakh shows his Armenian passport during a protest
outside the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs, Yerevan, November 6, 2023.
In an apparent about-face, the Armenian government has assured refugees from
Nagorno-Karabakh that it will pay pensions and other benefits received by them
until their exodus to Armenia.
The government was reluctant to do so until now, saying that all refugees will
only receive 50,000 drams ($125) each in November and December in addition to
100,000 drams given to them in October.
Some senior officials indicated that Karabakh pensioners, retired military and
security personnel as well as other relevant categories will be eligible for
monthly benefits only if they apply for and receive Armenian citizenship.
Armenian opposition figures and other critics condemned that stance.
The government sparked another controversy last month when it decided to grant
the Karabakh Armenians “temporary protection” formalizing their status of
refugees. It thus made clear that it does not consider them citizens of Armenia
despite the fact that virtually all of them hold Armenian passports. Government
officials described their passports as mere “travel documents,” a claim disputed
by some legal experts.
Over a hundred refugees, many of them retired soldiers and officers, protested
outside the Armenian Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs on Monday. Deputy
Labor Minister Davit Khachatrian received their representatives.
“He assured us that everyone will get their pensions,” one of them, Armen
Petrosian, said after the meeting. “Civilian pensioners will get them [for the
period starting] from October 26, while the military personnel after changes are
made to the law.”
“He also said that an [official] announcement will be made on Thursday,” added
Petrosian.
Khachatrian made this clear when he spoke to RFE/RL’s Armenian Service over the
weekend.
“We are doing everything to make sure that [the refugees] start getting their
pensions along with everybody else at the beginning of December,” said the
official.
Kocharian’s Son Freed After Taking Up Parliament Seat
• Anush Mkrtchian
Armenia - Former President Robert Kocharian's son Levon, February 18, 2020.
Former President Robert Kocharian’s younger son arrested during recent
anti-government protests in Yerevan was released from custody on Monday after
taking up a vacant parliament seat reserved for the main opposition Hayastan
alliance.
Levon Kocharian was dragged away by riot police on September 22 as thousands of
protesters demanded Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s resignation following the
Azerbaijani military offensive that restored Baku’s control over
Nagorno-Karabakh and forced its ethnic Armenian residents to flee to Armenia.
He is among the more than four dozen Armenians accused of assaulting police
officers or throwing various objects at them during the largely peaceful
demonstrations. Most of them remain in custody, facing what they and the
Armenian opposition call politically motivated charges.
Kocharian Jr. also strongly denies the accusations leveled against him. He
maintains that he himself was beaten up by several officers inside a police car.
Although their violent actions were caught on camera, Armenian courts have
refused to free him pending investigation.
Hayastan, which is headed by Robert Kocharian, appears to have decided to secure
Levon’s release by bringing him to the parliament and giving him immunity from
prosecution. Like his father, he was on its list of candidates in the 2021
general elections.
Armen Charchian, a parliament deputy representing the opposition bloc, resigned
from the National Assembly late last month. Three other Hayastan members who
were next in line to succeed Charchian refused to take up his seat, giving
different reasons. They thus cleared the way for the ex-president’s son.
With Armenian law stipulating that a parliamentarian cannot be charged and
arrested without the parliament’s consent, investigators had no choice but to
free him for now. The Office of the Prosecutor-General declined to clarify
whether it will request such permission.
Levon Kocharian insisted that the criminal case against him is “nonsense” when
he spoke to journalists outside Yerevan’s Nubarashen prison. He called for the
immediate release of the other protesters regarded by Hayastan and some human
rights activists as political prisoners.
“I am one of them and hope that they too will be free soon,” he said.
Four of them, including a 16-year-old boy, were arrested just over a week ago.
They all are natives of Karabakh who took refuge in Armenia following the 2020
war.
Pro-Western Group Denies Role In Armenian ‘Coup Plot’
• Naira Bulghadarian
Armenia - Zhirayr Sefilian speaks during a rally in Yerevan, February 26, 2021
A political group increasingly critical of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian on
Monday strongly denied any involvement in what Armenian authorities call a
botched conspiracy to seize government buildings and “disrupt the work of
government bodies.”
Armenia’s National Security Service (NSS) announced last week the arrests of
five persons accused of hatching the alleged plot. It said that they planned to
set off an explosion and assassinate an unnamed “civilian” but gave no other
details.
The NSS claimed to have found and confiscated not only weapons and ammunition
but also handwritten texts detailing the planned “terrorist attacks.” A
purported screenshot of one such document released by it calls for attracting
members of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), a pro-Western fringe group
led by Zhirayr Sefilian, a prominent nationalist figure. He was questioned as a
“witness” in the case on Monday.
“The investigator’s questions were mainly about whether the NDA can be connected
with such a thing,” Sefilian told a news conference later in the day. He said
any he denied any involvement.
Sefilian said that he knows personally two of the arrested men. But he refused
to identify them, saying only that they are not affiliated with the NDU despite
having had recent “contacts” with the group over its declared attempts to oust
Pashinian. Sefilian also questioned the credibility of the accusations brought
against them.
“The National Democratic Alliance declares that it has nothing to do with the
‘newly discovered terrorists,’” read a separate statement released by the group.
The statement claimed that Pashinian’s government is deliberately “casting a
shadow of suspicion on the NDA” in a bid to prevent it from challenging another
“capitulation treaty with Azerbaijan” planned by him. It also said that despite
getting Armenia “out of Russian control” Pashinian is not bringing the country
closer to the West.
“The NDA will continue its public political struggle against Nikol’s defeatism,
including but not limited to all legal forms of civil disobedience, direct
democracy and peaceful insurrection,” concluded the statement.
Sefilian and other NDA figures have close ties to the jailed leaders of an armed
group that stormed an Armenian police base in 2016 to demand that then President
Serzh Sarkisian release Sefilian from jail and step down.
The three dozen gunmen, who took police officers and medical personnel hostage,
laid down their weapons after a two-week standoff with security forces which
left three police officers dead. All but two of them were released from custody
shortly after Sarkisian was toppled in the 2018 “velvet revolution” led by
Pashinian. The seven key members of the group called Sasna Tsrer were sent back
to jail in May 2022.
Armenian Army Chief Tours U.S. Military Facilities In Europe
Germany - Steven Basham (R), deputy head of U.S. European Command (EUCOM), meets
Armenian army chief Eduard Asrian in Stuttgart, November 3, 2023. (Photo by
EUCOM)
Armenia’s top general has visited the U.S. military headquarters and two
training centers in Europe, underscoring Yerevan’s efforts to deepen defense
ties with the United States resented by Russia.
Lieutenant-General Eduard Asrian, the chief of the Armenian army’s General
Staff, met with Lieutenant General Steven Basham, the deputy head of U.S.
European Command (EUCOM), at the EUCOM headquarters in the German city of
Stuttgart on Friday. They discussed “Armenia’s security environment, defense
reforms and the defense cooperation with the United States,” read an EUCOM
statement released afterwards.
“This was a milestone event as we deliberately and incrementally develop our
defense relationship,” it quoted Basham as saying.
“The Armenian armed forces are currently undergoing significant reforms and
transformation and we are interested in receiving support and learning about the
best practices from our partners, and especially the United States.” Asrian said
for his part.
According to the Armenian Defense Ministry, Basham expressed the U.S.’s
readiness to help the South Caucasus nation “professionalize” its armed forces,
modernize their command-and-control structures and train military personnel on a
larger scale. There was no word on potential U.S. arms supplies.
Asrian visited the U.S. military’s Joint Multinational Readiness Center and
Non-Commissioned Officer Academy in Germany before his talks with Basham.
Armenia - U.S. and Armenian troops start a joint exercise at the Zar training
ground near Yerevan, September 11, 2023.
His trip came less than two months after Armenia hosted a U.S.-Armenian military
exercise criticized by Russia as well as neighboring Iran. Asrian and Armenian
Defense Minister Suren Papikian watched the exercise together with two U.S.
generals.
The drills added to the Armenian government’s unprecedented tensions with
Moscow, its longtime ally. The Russian Foreign Ministry listed them Yerevan’s
“unfriendly” actions in a note of protest handed to the Armenian ambassador in
Moscow on September 8.
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian insisted late last month that his government is
determined to “diversify” Armenia’s foreign and security policies because the
Russians have failed to honor their security commitments to his country. But he
again made clear that it 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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