RFE/RL Armenian Report – 05/04/2022

                                        Wednesday, May 4, 2022
Families Of Fallen Soldiers Insist On Pashinian’s Prosecution
        • Susan Badalian
Armenia -- The parents of soldiers killed in the 2020 Karabakh war protest 
outside the Office of the Prosecutor-General, Yerevan, May 4, 2022.
The parents of Armenian soldiers killed in the 2020 war in Nagorno-Karabakh 
again rallied outside prosecutors’ headquarters in Yerevan on Wednesday to 
demand criminal charges against Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian.
Their protests were sparked by Pashinian’s remarks made on April 13 in response 
to continuing opposition criticism of his handling of the devastating war that 
left at least 3,825 Armenian soldiers dead.
“They say now, ‘Could they have averted the war?’” Pashinian told the 
parliament. “They could have averted the war, as a result of which we would have 
had the same situation, but of course without the casualties.”
The parents and other relatives of several dozen fallen soldiers say Pashinian 
thus publicly admitted deliberately sacrificing thousands of lives. They 
submitted a relevant “crime report” to Armenia’s Office of the 
Prosecutor-General on April 18.
The office instructed another law-enforcement agency, the Anti-Corruption 
Committee, to look into the report and decide whether it warrants a formal 
criminal investigation into the prime minister.
According to a spokesman for Prosecutor-General Artur Davtian, the committee 
delayed the decision until obtaining more “factual information and evidence” 
regarding the case.
“It’s a ploy for not addressing the issue anymore,” Ara Zohrabian, a lawyer 
representing the protesting families, said during their rally held outside 
Davtian’s office.
Armenia - A woman visits the graves of an Armenian soldier killed in the 2020 
war in Nagorno-Karabakh and buried in the Yerablur Military Pantheon in Yerevan, 
September 27, 2021.
“Our most important demand -- namely, to charge Pashinian with mass murder and 
arrest him -- has not yet been fulfilled,” said Naira Melikian, whose son Hayk 
was killed during the six-week war stopped by a Russian-brokered ceasefire in 
November 2020.
Tigran Marukhian, the father of an officer who also died in action, said the 
grief-stricken families will continue to demand Pashinian’s prosecution.
“This wound will not heal,” he told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service. “But we will 
always cry out and say that all the guilty must be brought to account.”
Virtually all opposition groups hold Pashinian responsible for Armenia’s defeat 
in the war with Azerbaijan. For his part, Pashinian has put the blame on former 
Presidents Robert Kocharian and Serzh Sarkisian, who now lead two of those 
groups.
Kocharian ruled Armenia from 1998-2008, while Sarkisian, his successor, lost 
power more than two years before the outbreak of the hostilities.
Pashinian Rejects Resignation Calls
        • Naira Nalbandian
        • Gayane Saribekian
Armenia - Riot police confront opposition protesters outside the parliament 
building in Yerevan, May 4, 2022.
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian rejected opposition demands for his resignation 
and again blamed Armenia’s former leaders for the 2020 war in Nagorno-Karabakh 
on Wednesday amid continuing anti-government protests in Yerevan.
Pashinian said the Armenian opposition is trying in vain to replicate the 
“velvet revolution” that brought him to power in 2018.
“They think that if they repeat everything, do things the same way, mimic, they 
will succeed,” he said during his government’s question-and-answer session in 
the Armenian parliament.
Opposition supporters again blocked streets and marched through various parts of 
Yerevan before converging on its France Square, the epicenter of the daily 
protests, early in the afternoon. Thousands of demonstrators then headed to the 
parliament compound where Pashinian answered questions from lawmakers.
Scores of riot police were deployed around the walled compound to keep the 
protesters from approaching the main entrance to the National Assembly. Heeding 
repeated appeals from opposition leaders, the crowd did not attempt to break 
through the police cordon during an hour-long standoff with the security forces.
Citing “credible information,” Armenia’s National Security Service (NSS) claimed 
earlier in the day that organizers of the protests are planning to seize the 
parliament. Opposition leaders shrugged off the claim.
“They are intimidating citizens with false claims so that citizens do not 
express their civic position,” one of them, Gegham Manukian, told RFE/RL’s 
Armenian Service.
Armenia - Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian speaks in the parliament, Yerevan, May 
4, 2022.
Manukian and other deputies representing the opposition Hayastan and Pativ 
alliances went into the parliament building to attend the government’s 
question-and-answer session. In a statement read out on behalf of them, 
Hayastan’s Armen Rustamian reiterated the opposition demands for Pashinian’s 
resignation.
Rustamian charged that the prime minister mishandled peace talks with Azerbaijan 
and “brought war and defeat upon us” in 2020. He also accused Pashinian of 
breaking 2021 election campaign promises, including a pledge to assert the 
Karabakh Armenians’ right to self-determination.
Pashinian is now prepared to help Azerbaijan regain full control over Karabakh, 
Rustamian said, reiterating allegations that are at the heart of the ongoing 
opposition campaign to topple the government.
“Nikol Pashinian is not legitimate, does not have a mandate to lead our country 
to new concessions and must resign,” added the opposition leader.
Pashinian responded by again saying that Karabakh peace talks were botched by 
former President Serzh Sarkisian.
“It was Serzh Sarkisian who spoke about the war from this podium by saying that 
‘we must no longer hope that Azerbaijan will not try to resolve the Karabakh 
problem through war,’” he said.
Armenia - Opposition lawmakers demand Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian's 
resignation during his government's question-and-answer session in the 
parliament, Yerevan, May 4, 2022.
“If you think that you can justify the disasters brought by you upon this 
country by putting the blame on the former authorities, you are mistaken,” 
Rustamian shot back before he and other opposition deputies walked out in 
protest.
Some of those lawmakers chanted “Armenia without Nikol!” as they left the 
chamber. Their colleagues from the ruling Civil Contract party applauded them 
mockingly.
Ishkhan Saghatelian, another opposition leader who led the crowd outside the 
parliament building, said the protests will continue unabated.
“We will keep chasing him until he quits,” Saghatelian told the protesters after 
Pashinian left the heavily guarded building.
Armenia Reports Spike In Citizenship Requests
Armenia - The passport of a citizen of Armenia, September 18, 2014.
The number of foreigners applying for Armenian citizenship has more than tripled 
since the start of the war in Ukraine, according to immigration authorities in 
Yerevan.
Ara Fidanian, a deputy chief of the Armenian police, told lawmakers on Tuesday 
that the authorities received 3,278 citizenship requests from February 24 
through April 20, compared with 941 such applications filed in the same period 
of last year.
The number of applications totaled 8,591 in the whole of 2021, said Fidanian. 
The bulk of them were submitted by ethnic Armenian citizens of other countries. 
Under Armenian law, they are eligible for fast-track dual citizenship.
Other foreigners must live in the South Caucasus country for at least three 
years before they can become its citizens.
Fidanian did not name the countries whose nationals applied for Armenian 
citizenship after the Russian invasion of Ukraine began on February 24.
Armenia has not reported a massive influx of ethnic Armenian refugees from 
Ukraine. The Armenian community in Ukraine had at least 100,000 members before 
the war.
In the last two months, Armenia has attracted instead thousands of Russian 
migrants. Most of them are young professionals who are thought to have left 
Russia for primarily economic reasons.
Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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