Monday,
Armenian Carrier Reclaims ‘Hijacked’ Plane
• Satenik Hayrapetian
A passenger aircraft belonging to a private Armenian airline arrived in Yerevan
at the weekend two months after mysteriously disappearing and being found in
neighboring Iran.
The Boeing 737-300 leased by Fly Armenia Airways reportedly went missing on
February 20. The company said that it underwent repairs in Estonia’s capital
Tallinn and was due to proceed to Ukraine for further maintenance. It said the
plane flew instead to Varna, Bulgaria before ending up at Tehran’s Mehrabad
airport.
Armenia’s Civil Aviation Committee said in early March that it has reached a
“tentative agreement” with Iranian authorities on the plane’s return to Armenia.
It said that Iranian officials have informed their Armenian colleagues that the
plane is still malfunctioning and that Iranian aviation specialists need more
time to decide whether it can safely fly to Yerevan.
After the missing Boeing 737-300 landed at Yerevan’s Zvartnots airport Armenian
government officials and airline representatives insisted that it was hijacked.
But they refused to elaborate, saying that a criminal investigation is underway.
“Yes, they tried to hijack the plane,” said Karine Sahakian, Fly Armenia’s
deputy executive director. “A criminal case has been opened within that
framework and we have provided relevant bodies with full information.”
Sahakian said the company will publicize that information after the inquiry is
over. She assured reporters that the plane could not have been deliberately
diverted by its Armenian pilots.
“The problem was that we fell into a trap set by a criminal group,” said the
aircraft captain, Artur Harutiunian. He too refused to go into details.
“As soon as the investigation is complete we will definitely come up with a
statement,” Tatevik Revazian, the head of the Civil Aviation Committee, said,
for her part. What happened was a “crime,” she said without elaborating.
The Fly Armenia executive dismissed suggestions that the small carrier secretly
sold Boeing 737-300 to an Iranian airline in violation of U.S. sanctions that
prohibit any transfer of U.S.-made aircraft or their spare parts to Iran.
The U.S. Embassy in Yerevan has expressed concern about the plane’s
disappearance and urged the Armenian authorities to investigate it.
U.S. Hopes For Democratic Elections In Armenia
• Harry Tamrazian
Armenia -- U.S. Ambassador Lynne Tracy addresses members of the American Chamber
of Commerce in Yerevan, May 15, 2019.
The United States hopes that Armenia’s upcoming snap parliamentary elections
will be free and fair and will closely monitor them, the U.S. ambassador in
Yerevan, Lynne Tracy, said on Monday.
“This is something we will be following closely,” Tracy told RFE/RL’s Armenian
Service in an interview. “USAID (the U.S. Agency for International Development)
will be providing some technical assistance to the Central Election Commission
as well as helping with voter information.”
“What we certainly hope to see is that Armenia is able in the conduct of its
elections to meet or even exceed that very good, high bar that it set in 2018.
And we think … that’s very achievable,” she said.
The elections expected in late June are meant to end a serious political crisis
sparked by last year’s war in Nagorno-Karabakh. Opposition groups blame Prime
Minister Nikol Pashinian for Armenia’s defeat in the six-week war, having tried
to topple him with street protests. National security is therefore expected to
be the main theme of the unfolding parliamentary race.
“What I think we will see in this election is an opportunity for candidates to
talk about how they intend to help secure Armenia’s future,” said Tracy. “That’s
what a free and fair election is all about.”
Both Pashinian and most of his political opponents stand for a further deepening
of Armenia’s defense and security ties with Russia. The prime minister has
indicated his desire to see more Russian troops deployed in the country and its
southeastern Syunik province in particular.
Russia already dispatched soldiers and border guards to Syunik late last year in
addition to 2,000 Russian peacekeeping troops deployed to Karabakh.
Asked whether Washington regards increased Russian military presence as a threat
to Armenia’s sovereignty, Tracy said: “We think that while obviously Russia is a
partner for Armenia in certain spheres such as the military … it’s important
that Armenia has options and choices, has diversity in its economy, energy
spheres so that it can make the kinds of choices that are in the best interests
of Armenians.”
“There is military security but there is also other kinds of security,” she
said. “There is economic security. There is security in having strong, resilient
institutions of governance that are deeply rooted in integrity … And so these
are areas that the United States can contribute to.”
“I think it’s more concerning to see an overdependence on one particular
partner. So we think that we have a role to play here and we would like to be
able to continue working in these areas of good governance and economic growth,”
added the envoy.
Citing U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s comments made earlier this year,
Tracy also said that the Biden administration plans on “reinvigorating” U.S.
involvement in international efforts to resolve the Karabakh conflict.
“The fighting is stopped but what we see is that there are still some very
critical issues to be addressed: the status of Nagorno-Karabakh, the issues of
displaced persons,” she said. “So there are a number of issues that still very
much remain on the agenda for the United States and the other Minsk Group
co-chairs (Russia and France), and we intend to stay engaged on those issues.”
Armenia Expects ‘Actions, Not Words’ From Turkey
• Sargis Harutyunyan
Armenia - Armenian Foreign Minister Ara Ayvazyan (R) speaks at a joint news
conference with his Lithuanian counterpart Gabrielius Landsbergis, Yerevan,
.
Official Yerevan on Monday reacted cautiously to Turkey’s stated readiness to
improve relations with Armenia, saying that it must be backed up by concrete
actions.
In a weekend letter to Istanbul’s Armenian Patriarch Sahak Mashalian, Turkish
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said his administration stands ready to “develop”
Turkish-Armenian relations “on the basis of the principles of good
neighborliness and mutual respect.”
Erdogan did not specify whether Ankara still sets preconditions for establishing
diplomatic relations with Yerevan and opening the border between the two states.
“We are familiar with the Turkish president’s letter and the readiness expressed
in it,” said Foreign Minister Ara Ayvazian. “But I must say that we attach
importance not only to words but also actions.”
“There have already been similar messages [from Ankara] in the past. There was
even a signed bilateral document which never had a continuation,” he told a news
conference with Lithuania’s visiting Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis.
Ayvazian referred to the 2008 Turkish-Armenian protocols on the normalization of
bilateral ties. Erdogan’s government refused to implement them, citing the
unresolved Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.
Ankara shut down the Turkish-Armenian border in 1993 and has refused to
establish diplomatic relations with Yerevan since then out of solidarity with
Azerbaijan. It has yet to clarify whether a Karabakh settlement acceptable to
Baku remains a precondition for normalizing Turkish-Armenian relations after
last year’s war that resulted in the restoration of Azerbaijani control over all
districts around Karabakh.
During the six-week war stopped by a Russian-brokered ceasefire on November 10,
the Turks supported the Azerbaijani army with weapons and expert advice. They
also reportedly recruited thousands of Syrian mercenaries and sent them to fight
in Karabakh on the Azerbaijani side.
Armenian leaders have repeatedly described the hostilities as a
“Turkish-Azerbaijani aggression” against Armenia and Karabakh. Ayvazian said
late last month that the Turkish government must end its “hostile” policies
towards Armenia if it wants to contribute to peace and stability in the region.
Turkey - Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan speaks in Ankara, March 10, 2021.
Erdogan sent his letter to the spiritual leader of Turkey’s small Armenian
community on the 106th anniversary of the start of the Armenian genocide in the
Ottoman Empire. He again offered his condolences to the descendants of Armenians
who “died in the difficult conditions created during the First World War.”
Ankara denies a premeditated government effort to exterminate Ottoman Turkey’s
Armenian population. Erdogan has claimed that Armenians themselves massacred
Muslim civilians and that their mass deportations to the Syrian desert was “the
most reasonable action that could be taken” by the Ottoman regime of the “Young
Turks.”
U.S. President Joe Biden on Saturday officially described the 1915 mass killings
of some 1.5 million Armenians as genocide in a statement hailed by Armenia but
condemned by Turkey. The U.S. ambassador in Ankara was summoned to the Turkish
Foreign Ministry on Sunday in connection with the “unacceptable” statement.
Ayvazian reiterated Yerevan’s strong approval of Biden’s move, saying that it
will help to prevent more crimes against humanity.
Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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