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    Categories: 2024

RFE/RL Armenian Service – 02/06/2024

                                        Tuesday, February 6, 2024


Iran Ready To Help ‘Strengthen’ Armenia, Says Envoy


Armenia - Iranian Ambassador Mehdi Sobhani speaks to journalists, January 11, 
2024.


Iran is interested in seeing Armenia strengthen its position in the region and 
ready to provide “any assistance” for that purpose, the Iranian ambassador in 
Yerevan said on Tuesday.

Mehdi Sobhani also reaffirmed Tehran’s support for the Armenian government’s 
position on transport links with Azerbaijan.

Yerevan proposed late last year a “Crossroads of Peace” project as a blueprint 
for opening the Armenian-Azerbaijani border to travel and commerce. The project 
says that Armenia and Azerbaijan should have full control of transport 
infrastructure inside each other’s territory. Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein 
Amir-Abdollahian praised it during a December visit to the Armenian capital.

Azerbaijan effectively rejected this formula and renewed its demands for an 
extraterritorial corridor that would connect it to its Nakhichevan exclave 
through Syunik, the only Armenian region bordering Iran. Azerbaijani President 
Ilham Aliyev said in early January that people and cargo should be allowed to 
move through that corridor “without any checks.”

“We welcome and support the Crossroads of Peace project presented by Mr. 
Pashinian,” Sobhani told Armenian journalists and analysts. “That project is 
about maintaining peace and stability in the region and respecting the 
territorial integrity and sovereignty of regional countries. We consider 
Armenia’s position logical and consistent with international norms.”

“We welcome the unblocking of roads but only if that happens on the basis of the 
interests and sovereignty of the regional countries,” the envoy said in comments 
cited by the Armenpress news agency. “We support the strengthening of Armenia 
and the establishment of peace and stability. Only a balance of forces in our 
region will contribute to all that. We are ready to provide any assistance that 
Armenia will need for further development.”

Sobhani indicated Iran’s opposition to the Azerbaijani demands for the so-called 
“Zangezur corridor” backed by Turkey. The Islamic Republic will not tolerate any 
“geopolitical changes” in the South Caucasus, he said, echoing statements 
regularly made by Iranian leaders.

Kamal Kharrazi, a senior adviser to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali 
Khamenei, also made this clear when he visited Yerevan last week. Pashinian and 
Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan praised Tehran’s stance during their talks with 
Kharrazi.

Armenia’s position on the issue has been criticized by not only Azerbaijan and 
Turkey but also Russia, its longtime ally. Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei 
Lavrov complained on January 18 that Yerevan opposes Russian control of a 
prospective Syunik road and railway leading to Nakhichevan. Lavrov claimed that 
a Russian-brokered agreement that stopped the 2020 war in Nagorno-Karabakh calls 
for “neutral border and customs control” there. Armenian leaders deny this.




‘No Decision Yet’ On Armenian Independence Declaration

        • Ruzanna Stepanian
        • Karlen Aslanian

Armenia - A copy of the 1990 Declaration of Independence.


Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s political team has not yet made a final 
decision on whether to try to remove from Armenia’s constitution any reference 
to a 1990 declaration of independence resented by Azerbaijan, a senior lawmaker 
said on Tuesday.

“I want to make clear that we do not have a final conclusion,” Hayk Konjorian, 
the parliamentary leader of Pashinian’s Civil Contract party, told reporters. 
“It’s still too early to make a final conclusion and raise questions from that 
standpoint.”

Konjorian at the same time stressed: “We must not regard any text as sacrosanct.”

The declaration in turn refers to a 1989 unification act adopted by the 
legislative bodies of Soviet Armenia and the then Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous 
Oblast and calls for international recognition of the 1915 Armenian genocide. It 
is cited in a preamble to the current Armenian constitution adopted in 1995.

Pashinian again criticized the declaration last week, claiming that Armenia 
“will never have peace” with Azerbaijan as long as it is mentioned by the 
constitution. Accordingly, he defended his plans to try to enact a new 
constitution that would presumably make no such reference.

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said on February 1 that Armenia should remove 
that reference and amend other documents “infringing on Azerbaijan’s territorial 
integrity” if it wants to make peace with his country. Armenian opposition 
leaders portrayed Aliyev’s statement as further proof that Pashinian wants to 
effectively declare the 1990 declaration null and void under pressure from 
Azerbaijan as well as Turkey.

Armenia - Opposition deputy Artur Khachatrian speaks in the Armenian parliament, 
Yerevan, February 6, 2024.

“Aliyev and Pashinian almost simultaneously … presented the same demands to the 
people of Armenia,” one of them, Artur Khachatrian, told RFE/RL’s Armenian 
Service. “It is obvious that Aliyev is thus forcing Pashinian to make 
concessions.”

Konjorian denied that Pashinian wants to change the constitution at the behest 
of Aliyev. Pashinian sounded less categorical on this score in a reportedly 
pre-recorded radio interview broadcast on February 1.

Khachatrian is one of several lawmakers from the main opposition Hayastan 
alliance who have been allowed by the Armenian Foreign Ministry to see in recent 
weeks written proposals regarding an Armenian-Azerbaijani peace treaty exchanged 
by Yerevan and Baku. In a joint statement issued on February 2, the lawmakers 
insisted that the Azerbaijani terms of the treaty are extremely unfavorable for 
the Armenian side.

“I stand by our assertion that the country which presented such proposals to us 
has no desire or intention to sign a peace treaty with us,” Khachatrian insisted 
on Tuesday.

Edmon Marukian, an Armenian ambassador-at-large and political ally of Pashinian, 
likewise charged on February 2 that Baku is not serious about signing the peace 
deal. He said Aliyev’s demands for the constitutional change in Armenia amount 
to a “new precondition.”




Armenia’s Ruling Party To Plead For Release Of Tech CEO

        • Shoghik Galstian

Armenia - Speaker Alen Simonian (left) chairs a session of the Armenian 
parliament, Yerevan, February 6, 2024.


Lawmakers representing Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s Civil Contract party 
have decided to ask authorities to release the founder and two current and 
former employees of a major Armenian software company arrested last week on 
corruption charges.

Ashot Hovanesian of the U.S.-registered company Synergy International Systems, 
senior company executive Lili Mkrian and her former colleague Ani Gevorgian were 
indicted in a criminal investigation into what law-enforcement authorities call 
a fraudulent procurement tender organized by the Armenian Ministry of Economy 
last summer.

The tender was invalidated by an Armenian court shortly after being won by 
Synergy. Investigators say the ministry illegally disqualified another 
information technology firm that submitted a much smaller bid. Four ministry 
officials were also detained last week. But unlike Hovanesian, Mkrian and 
Gevorgian, they were set free or moved to house arrest in the following days.

Synergy on Monday rejected the still unpublicized accusations leveled against 
the remaining detainees and demanded their immediate release. The Armenian Union 
of Advanced Technology Enterprises (UATE) also condemned Hovanesian’s arrest 
over the weekend. It said that recent “unfounded” detentions of “business 
representatives and other prominent persons” are turning Armenia into a “risky 
country” for local and foreign tech entrepreneurs.

Hayk Konjorian, the leader of Civil Contract’s party parliamentary group, 
announced on Tuesday that it met late on Monday and decided to petition a court 
to free the Synergy executives pending investigation. He said the pro-government 
parliamentarians will guarantee the suspects’ proper behavior in writing.

Armenia - Deputies from the ruling Civil Contract party attend a session of the 
National Assembly, Yerevan, March 21, 2023.

Konjorian insisted that the decision was not ordered by or coordinated with 
Pashinian. It reflects public reactions to the arrests, rather than the fact 
that one of the suspects, Gevorgian, is the wife of parliament speaker Alen 
Simonian’s brother, he told journalists. He said the pro-government 
parliamentarians also took into account the fact that Gevorgian and Mkrian have 
young children.

One of those deputies, Emma Palian, expressed confidence that Simonian’s 
sister-in-law will be cleared of any wrongdoing.

“Knowing personally Mr. Simonian but not Ms. Gevorgian, I am sure it will emerge 
that the case is baseless and the result of a misunderstanding,” said Palian.

The speaker, who is a senior member of the ruling party, himself has not 
commented on the case so far. But he did make a point of posting on Facebook a 
photo of himself, his brother and Gevorgian right after her arrest.

The fact that one of the detainees is related to Simonian has fueled speculation 
about political motives behind the high-profile case. Some commentators claim 
that Pashinian personally sanctioned the young woman’s arrest in a bid to boost 
his falling approval ratings by showing Armenians that he is serious about 
combatting corruption. Pashinian allies have dismissed such claims.



Reposted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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