Friday,
Moscow Marks Karabakh Truce Anniversary
• Aza Babayan
RUSSIA -- A view of the Russian Foreign Ministry building in Moscow, April 6,
2018
Armenia and Azerbaijan are committed to peacefully resolving the
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, Russia’s Foreign Ministry said on Friday in a
statement on the 25th anniversary of a Russian-brokered ceasefire agreement
that stopped the Armenian-Azerbaijani war.
The agreement took effect on May 12, 1994 after being signed by the Armenian
and Azerbaijani defense ministers and the commander of Karabakh’s
Armenian-backed army. Hundreds of soldiers from both sides have been killed
since then in ceasefire violations that have intensified in the last several
years. But these periodic skirmishes along the “line of contact” around
Karabakh and the Armenian-Azerbaijani border have not escalated into another
all-out war so far.
“The May 12 agreement remains the basis for maintaining the ceasefire regime,”
read the Russian Foreign Ministry statement.
Nagorno-Karabakh -- Karabakh Armenian fighters rest near a battlefield in May
1992.
The statement said that more “time is required” for the conflicting parties to
reach a mutually acceptable peace deal. “We see the readiness of the parties to
continue joint efforts at achieving a lasting peace,” it added, pointing to a
recent series of high-level Armenian-Azerbaijani negotiations.
The ministry said Moscow will carry on with its “active assistance” to the
negotiating process within the framework of the OSCE Minsk Group co-chaired by
Russia, the United States and France.
Truce violations in the conflict zone have decreased significantly since
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev
met for the first time in September. Pashinian and Aliyev held more
face-to-face talks in the following months, most recently in Vienna on March 29.
RUSSIA -- (L-E) Armenian Foreign Minister Zohrab Mnatsakanian, Russian Foreign
Minister Sergei Lavrov and Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov meet
in Moscow, April 15, 2019
The foreign ministers of Armenia, Azerbaijan as well as Russia met in Moscow on
April 15. Azerbaijan’s Elmar Mammadyarov said afterwards that they discussed,
among other things, a 2016 Russian plant to resolve the Karabakh conflict.
Russia’s Sergey Lavrov effectively confirmed this.
The Armenian Foreign Ministry insisted, however, that “no negotiations on any
plan are underway at present.”
The Russian peace plan has still not been made public. Lavrov said only that it
is in tune with the basic principles of a Karabakh settlement which have
repeatedly been laid out by the U.S., Russian and French mediators in recent
years.
In a March 9 statement, the mediators reiterated that “any fair and lasting
settlement” must involve “return of the territories surrounding
Nagorno-Karabakh to Azerbaijani control; an interim status for Nagorno-Karabakh
providing guarantees for security and self-governance; a corridor linking
Armenia to Nagorno-Karabakh; future determination of the final legal status of
Nagorno-Karabakh through a legally binding expression of will.”
EU ‘Considering’ Large-Scale Aid To Armenia
• Harry Tamrazian
Armenia -- Piotr Switalski, head of the EU Delegation to Armenia, at a news
conference in Yerevan, February 26, 2019.
The European Union is prepared in principle to finance “very costly”
infrastructure projects proposed by the Armenian government, the head of the EU
Delegation in Yerevan, Piotr Switalski, said on Friday.
Switalski confirmed that Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian requested EU funding
for the construction of highways, hydroelectric plants and other infrastructure
in Armenia when he visited Brussels in early March.
“Some of these priority projects are very important for Armenia but very costly
and very complicated, including the continuation of the North-South corridor,
building a highway to the Iranian border, which, as you can imagine, amounts to
hundreds of millions of euros,” he told RFE/RL’s Armenian service. “But we are
very seriously considering how best to implement these projects.”
Speaking on March 7, two days after returning from Brussels, Pashinian said the
EU is ready to allocate funding for his “mega projects” provided that they are
co-financed by the Armenian government. To that end, he said, the government
needs to significantly improve tax collection and/or obtain more foreign loans.
Pashinian added that he will discuss the matter with relevant government bodies
and the Central Bank of Armenia (CBA) in the coming weeks to see whether the
country could manage a higher public debt. The Armenian debt passed the $7
billion mark last year.
“As your prime minister said after his conversations in Brussels, it is
impossible to expect the EU providing such big grants to cover all the costs,”
said Switalski. “We have to find a possibility of cheap loans to be matched
with grants and to find the best financing formula. But we are in a very
constructive mood.”
The diplomat stressed that his staff is already “devoting a lot of time and
energy to talks with Armenian counterparts” on the issue.
BELGIUM -- Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian (L) and the President of the
European Council Donald Tusk arrive for a joint statement to the media
following their meeting in Brussels, March 5, 2019
European Council President Donald Tusk praised the Pashinian government’s
ambitious reform agenda when he spoke to reporters after his March 5 talks with
the Armenian premier. Tusk said the EU is ready to support it with “enhanced
technical and financial assistance.”
Switalski was also full of praise for the current authorities in Yerevan that
came to power in last year’s “velvet revolution. “I believe that during these
12 months Armenia has changed,” he said. “There are undeniable gains and
successes.”
In particular, the EU envoy pointed to the authorities’ efforts to root out
corruption and strengthen the rule of law. “Armenians have become equal facing
the law,” he said. “There is no impunity. There are no groups, no individuals
who could feel that they are in a special status, protected from the workings
of the legal mechanism.”
Parliamentary Opposition Sees No Cooperation With Kocharian
• Astghik Bedevian
Armenia - Deputies from the Prosperous Armenia Party attend a parliament
session in Yerevan, March 5, 2019.
The two opposition parties represented in Armenia’s parliament said on Friday
that they have no plans to join forces with former President Robert Kocharian
in challenging the current government.
Kocharian, who was arrested in December on coup charges, predicted the
emergence of a new and “powerful” opposition force in the country in written
comments to the Reuters news agency published on Wednesday. He said he will be
personally involved in the emerging opposition but did not elaborate. Nor did
the ex-president clarify who else could join it.
Gevorg Gorgisian, a leader of the opposition Bright Armenia Party (LHK), ruled
out the possibility of any cooperation with Kocharian. “I also exclude that he
will manage to form an opposition front that could become a serious factor in
the Armenian political scene,” Gorgisian told RFE/RL’s Armenian service.
“Kocharian no doubt has financial and other resources accumulated over time by
various means, which in theory could have an impact,” he said. “But our society
doesn’t have a short memory and shouldn’t be underestimated. Everyone remembers
the country’s losses suffered during the Republican Party’s rule and the
criminal-oligarchic system which we had to deal with on a daily basis.”
A senior representative of the other parliamentary opposition force, the
Prosperous Armenia Party (BHK), said it has received no cooperation proposals
from Kocharian and has different priorities. Mikael Melkumian also stressed
that the BHK supported last year’s “velvet revolution” which toppled Republican
Party (HHK) leader Serzh Sarkisian’s government.
“It doesn’t mean that we agree with everything that’s happening now,” Melkumian
said, citing government policies opposed by the BHK.
The BHK’s founding leader, businessman Gagik Tsarukian, became one of Armenia’s
richest men and developed close ties with Kocharian during the latter’s
1998-2008 rule. At least until 2015, Tsarukian’s party was regarded by some
observers as a Kocharian’s support base.
Melkumian made clear that unlike Kocharian, the BHK sees no political motives
behind the criminal charges brought against the ex-president.
Kocharian’s arrest and prosecution has been condemned by two other opposition
parties not represented in the current parliament: the former ruling HHK and
the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (Dashnaktsutyun). The HHK spokesman,
Eduard Sharmazanov, renewed on Friday his party’s calls for Kocharian’s
immediate release from jail.
Sharmazanov did not exclude the HHK’s cooperation with Kocharian. “The
Republican Party is prepared to cooperate with all those political forces whose
political agenda will match our agenda,” he said.
A Dashnaktsutyun leader, Ishkhan Saghatelian, sounded more ambiguous on this
score. “We haven’t had discussions with anyone,” he said. “It makes no sense to
talk now about what could happen later on.”
Press Review
“Aravot” disapproves of deputy parliament speaker Alen Simonian’s remark that
Robert Kocharian and Serzh Sarkisian should not be referred to as former
presidents because “they had never been elected president.” The paper says that
if one is to believe Simonian “Armenia did not have a president for 20 years
and the individuals who signed international treaties, ratified laws and signed
decrees were in fact not presidents.” “The history of the state is a continuous
process,” it says. “There cannot be ‘white spots’ here.”
“Hraparak” comments on Thursday’s celebrations in Nagorno-Karabakh of the 27th
anniversary of the capture of Shushi, saying that they amounted to a “show of
national unity” as they were attended by current and former government leaders,
party members and non-partisan individuals. “One thing is clear,” writes the
paper. “The ideas of homeland and victory unite people and make them forget
their disagreements and differences. There is a good reason why in times of
adversity the nation closes the ranks and defends its land and right to live
there. The Armenian people have repeatedly proved that.”
Lragir.am reports that the European Union and its partner states involved in
the Eastern Partnership program will hold a summit in Brussels on May 24. Prime
Minister Nikol Pashinian and Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev will also
attend it. “Nikol Pashinian said yesterday that an official meeting [with
Aliyev] is not planned but that he won’t mind talking and discussing the
situation if there is an opportunity,” writes the publication. “One of the
topics [of such a conversation] is renewed tensions on the borders, even though
Pashinian does not consider that a destabilization.” It also hopes that
Pashinian will continue to press the EU to avoid any pro-Azerbaijani references
in the text of an upcoming agreement with Azerbaijan.
(Lilit Harutiunian)
Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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