Monday,
Babayan ‘Stripped Of Karabakh Citizenship’
• Ruzanna Stepanian
Armenia -- Former Karabakh army commander Samvel Babayan gives an interview to
RFE/RL, Yerevan, 17Oct2016.
Samvel Babayan, a retired general who wants to run for president of
Nagorno-Karabakh, on Monday claimed to have been “illegally” stripped of
Karabakh citizenship over a decade ago.
“We are going to court so that they restore it,” he told RFE/RL’s Armenian
service.
Babayan said he only Sunday found out that he ceased to be a Karabakh citizen
in 2006 and is therefore not eligible to run in a presidential election that
will be held in the unrecognized republic next year. “They had no right to
strip me [of the citizenship,]” he said, citing Karabakh laws.
The authorities in Stepanakert did not immediately confirm the information. “I
am hearing about that for the first time,” said a senior aide to Bako Sahakian,
the outgoing Karabakh president.
Babayan, 53, was the commander of Karabakh’s Armenian-backed army during and
after the 1991-1994 war with Azerbaijan. He was widely regarded as the
unrecognized republic’s most powerful man at that time.
Babayan was arrested in 2000 and subsequently sentenced to 14 years in prison
for allegedly masterminding a botched attempt on the life of the then Karabakh
president, Arkady Ghukasian. He was set free in 2004 and has lived in Armenia
and Russia since then.
Babayan expressed his desire to join the Karabakh presidential race earlier
this month. He said he will start collecting in March signatures of local
residents in a bid to circumvent a legal provision that bars him from running
for president.
The Karabakh constitution stipulates that only those individuals who have
resided in Karabakh for the past 10 years can participate in the 2020
presidential election.
Speaking from Stepanakert, Babayan also claimed that the local authorities are
now trying to obstruct the signature collection aimed at removing that
constitutional clause. “I wouldn’t like to see upheavals, people taking to the
streets, fighting and so on in Karabakh … But if they go for an escalation I
won’t back down because there is no alternative,” he warned.
Babayan is specifically protesting against rules for collecting the signatures
which were set by the Central Election Commission in Stepanakert on February
18. In a weekend statement, his office said those rules are unconstitutional
and aimed at precluding his presidential bid.
Karabakh officials dismissed the claims.
Putin, Pashinian Discuss ‘Regional Problems’
RUSSIA -- Russian President Vladimir Putin (Right) meets Armenian Prime
Minister Nikol Pashinian (Left) in the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia, 27 December
2018
Russian President Vladimir Putin discussed with Armenian Prime Minister Nikol
Pashinian bilateral relations and regional security during a telephone
conversation on Monday.
The Kremlin reported that the two leaders spoke about the “development of
Russian-Armenian cooperation as well as regional problems.” It did not
elaborate.
Pashinian’s press office also gave no details in a virtually identical
statement on the phone call. “The interlocutors discussed various issues on the
agenda of Russian-Armenian allied relations,” it said.
Putin and Pashinian most recently met in Moscow on December 27. The talks
focused, among other things, on a new price of Russian natural gas delivered to
Armenia.
The two men held further discussions on the issue by phone in the following
days. Russia’s Gazprom giant announced a 10 percent rise in its gas price for
Armenia on December 31.
Immediately after those talks, Putin sent New Year greetings to Robert
Kocharian, a former Armenian president arrested on coup charges on December 7.
In August, he phoned Kocharian to congratulate him on his 64th birthday
anniversary. A spokeswoman for Putin said the two men “have been maintaining
warm relations that are not influenced by any events taking place in Armenia.”
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov had earlier denounced the prosecutions
of Kocharian, as well as two retired Armenian generals facing the same charges.
The authorities in Yerevan deny any political motives behind the high-profile
criminal cases.
Pashinian did not meet with Putin when he again visited Moscow in late January.
He was received instead by Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev. The Armenian
leader also gave a speech at the Moscow headquarters of the Russian-led
Eurasian Economic Union (EEU).
In its five-year policy program approved by the parliament on February 14,
Pashinian’s government’s reaffirmed its commitment to Armenia’s continued
membership in the EEU and “strategic alliance” with Russia. The program
describes close military ties with Moscow an “important component” of Armenia’s
national security doctrine.
On February 8, Armenia deployed 83 medics, demining experts and other noncombat
military personnel to Syria. Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoygu thanked
Yerevan for the deployment when het with his Armenia counterpart Davit Tonoyan
in Moscow on the same day.
For their part, the Russian and Armenian foreign ministers met on February 16
on the sidelines of an international security forum in Munich, Germany. The
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict was reportedly high on the agenda of those talks.
Radical Group Warns Armenian Government Over Jailed Members
• Sargis Harutyunyan
Armenia - Sasna Tsrer party leaders Zhirayr Sefiian (third from left) and
Varuzhan Avetisian (second from left) start their election campaign in Yerevan,
November 26, 2018.
A leader of a radical Armenian party demanded on Monday the immediate release
of two of its members accused of murdering three police officers during a 2016
attack on a police station in Yerevan.
Zhirayr Sefilian said the Sasna Tsrer party will “force” the authorities to
free the two men if its demand is rejected.
The suspects, Armen Bilian and Smbat Barseghian, were part of a 31-member armed
group that seized the police base in July 2016 to demand than President Serzh
Sarkisian free Sefilian and step down. Sefilian had been arrested a month
before the attack.
The gunmen laid down their weapons after a two-week standoff with security
forces which left the three policemen dead. All them except Bilian and
Barseghian were set free pending the outcome of their ongoing trials shortly
after Sarkisian was toppled in last spring’s “velvet revolution.”
The two arrested men stand accused of killing the police Colonel Artur Vanoyan
and Warrant Officers Gagik Mkrtchian and Yuri Tepanosian. They deny the
accusations.
In a Facebook post, Sefilian condemned the authorities for keeping the “rebels”
behind bars. “Enough is enough. If Armen Bilian and Smbat Barseghian are not
freed, the more dignified and conscious segment of our people will force the
recognition of the right to rebel and the release of the rebels,” warned the
Lebanese-born nationalist activist.
Sefilian, who too was released from jail after the peaceful regime change, did
not specify how his party would do that.
Armenia - Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian meets with relatives of police
officers killed in a 2016 standoff with opposition gunmen, 28 June 2018.
Varuzhan Avetisian, another Sasna Tsrer leader who led the attack on the police
station, also condemned Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s government. “Such an
approach puts Pashinian’s government and Serzh Sarkisian’s criminal regime on
the same subconscious plane,” he told RFE/RL’s Armenian service. “That is why
such an approach is unacceptable.”
Avetisian seemingly ruled out an armed struggle against the current government.
“We are certainly not talking about that. We are talking about citizens’
protests and other actions taken within the bounds of the law,” he said.
The stark warnings came three days after Justice Minister Artak Zeynalian
confirmed that Avetisian and 20 other members of the armed group do not qualify
for a general amnesty declared by the authorities in November.
Under an amnesty bill passed by the Armenian parliament, the key participants
of the deadly attack can be pardoned only with the consent of their former
hostages, including Valeri Osipian, the national police chief. Osipian formally
objected to the amnesty earlier this month.
In his statement, Sefilian denounced the amnesty bill as “ludicrous” and
likened it to a “trap.”
Reacting to the statement, the Armenian Justice Ministry said neither it nor
any other government body is legally allowed to comment on ongoing trials or
criminal investigations. There was no immediate reaction from Pashinian.
The prime minister lambasted the Sasna Tsrer party in the run-up to the
December 2018 parliamentary elections. He said its members and supporters will
“feel the taste of asphalt” if they attempt to destabilize the political
situation in Armenia.
The warning was prompted by Sasna Tsrer leaders’ claims that the new Armenian
parliament will have to be dissolved within two years because the country is
now in a post-revolutionary “transitional period.” Avetisian stood by those
statements a few days after Pashinian’s My Step bloc won the December 8
elections by a landslide.
Sasna Tsrer got only 1.8 percent of the vote and thus failed to win any seats
in the new National Assembly.
Ter-Petrosian Defends Pashinian
Armenia - Former President Levon Ter-Petrosian (L) and Nikol Pashinian greet
supporters at a rally in Yerevan, May 31, 2011.
Former President Levon Ter-Petrosian has voiced support for Prime Minister
Nikol Pashinian while strongly denying giving him guidance on the
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and other challenges facing Armenia.
In a weekend article posted Ilur.am, Ter-Petrosian blasted what he described as
a smear campaign waged against Pashinian by the country’s former rulers. He
claimed that they want to restore “the kleptocratic regime” and “save from
justice” individuals responsible for the 2008 post-election bloodshed in
Yerevan.
“This is nothing but national treason,” he wrote. “The defeated regime has
declared a war on the Armenian people and the government elected by them. It is
therefore incumbent on the people to take up the gauntlet and strongly fight
back against the anti-state forces.”
Ter-Petrosian, 74, shrugged off opposition claims that he remains Pashinian’s
“godfather” and that the premier regularly asks him for policy advice. He said
they last met in July 2018 and have had no direct or indirect contact since
then.
The ex-president, who ruled Armenia from 1991-1998, also dismissed claims that
Pashinian has embraced his conciliatory approach to resolving the
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. He said that unlike himself and the two other former
Armenian presidents, Pashinian has so far shed no light on his views about how
to resolve the conflict.
“Whatever program on a Karabakh settlement Pashinian comes up with, it will be
his own program,” he added.
Ter-Petrosian further downplayed the recent appointment of a senior member of
his Armenian National Congress (HAK) party, Vladimir Karapetian, as Pashinian’s
press secretary. He argued that Karapetian suspended his membership in the HAK
before taking up the post.
Armenia - Opposition leader Nikol Pashinian addresses protesters that
barricaded themselves in central Yerevan, 1 March 2008.
Pashinian played a prominent role in Ter-Petrosian’s opposition movement that
nearly brought the latter back to power in a disputed presidential election
held in February 2008. The former journalist was one of the most influential
speakers at the ex-president’s anti-government rallies held at the time. He
spent about two years in prison on charges stemming from a post-election
government crackdown on the Ter-Petrosian-led opposition.
Pashinian fell out with Ter-Petrosian after being released from prison in 2011.
As recently as in February 2018, the HAK’s deputy chairman, Levon Zurabian,
scoffed at Pashinian’s plans to try to stop then President Serzh Sarkisian from
extending his decade-long rule.
Even so, the HAK welcomed the subsequent Pashinian-led protests that led to
Sarkisian’s resignation. Ter-Petrosian and Pashinian met in July for the first
time in years.
Senior HAK representatives also hailed criminal charges that were brought
against former President Robert Kocharian and other former Armenian officials
shortly after the “velvet revolution.” The charges stem from the March 2008
breakup of the post-election protests in Yerevan which left eight protesters
and two policemen dead.
Last week, the HAK added its voice to Pashinian’s calls for Armenians to join
him in marking the 11th anniversary of the violence on March 1.
Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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