Thursday,
Former Security Chief’s Death ‘Still Investigated’
• Sargis Harutyunyan
Armenia - Georgi Kutoyan, the newly appointed director of the National Security
Service, February 12, 2016.
Investigators believe that Georgi Kutoyan, a former head of Armenia’s National
Security Service (NSS) found dead one year ago, committed suicide, a senior
law-enforcement official said on Thursday.
“It has been corroborated, through not only investigative actions but also
forensic tests, that it was a suicide,” Artur Melikian, the deputy head of the
Investigative Committee, told reporters.
Nevertheless, Melikian said, a criminal investigation into his death is
continuing.
The 38-year-old Kutoyan, who ran the NSS during the final years of former
President Serzh Sarkisian’s rule, was found shot to death on January 17, 2020 at
a Yerevan apartment belonging to the family. The Investigative Committee opened
at the time a criminal case under an article of the Armenian Criminal Code
dealing with suicides “induced” by others.
The law-enforcement agency said earlier this month that the probe has been
suspended because investigators have not identified anyone who might have driven
Kutoyan to kill himself.
Melikian insisted, however, that the probe is still not over even though “we
have no suspects or accused individuals.”
“We do not maintain that [Kutoyan] was driven to the suicide,” he explained. “We
only say that the investigation was launched into an induced suicide because we
could not characterize the case under a different article at that moment.”
Kutoyan was appointed as director of Armenia’s most powerful security agency in
February 2016. Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian sacked him in May 2018 immediately
after coming to power in the “Velvet Revolution” that toppled Sarkisian.
Government Vows Aid Program For Disabled War Veterans
• Narine Ghalechian
• Marine Khachatrian
Armenia - A cabinet meeting in Yerevan, .
The Armenian government on Thursday pledged to provide demobilized soldiers
maimed during the recent war in Nagorno-Karabakh with modern prosthetics and
help them find jobs and receive higher education.
Labor and Social Affairs Minister Mesrop Arakelian said the government will set
up a commission of local and, if necessary, foreign prosthetic experts that will
assess the individual needs of every disabled war veteran.
All veterans will be eligible for receiving, free of charge, artificial limbs
recommended by the commission, Arakelian said during a weekly cabinet meeting in
Yerevan. The government will pay for even the most expensive prostheses, he said.
Arakelian added that the government is also ready to provide financial
assistance to local firms that can manufacture prosthetic hands, feet and other
body parts meeting modern standards.
“We are also going to solve [prosthetic] servicing issues … I think that this
will also be included in the aid program,” said Deputy Prime Minister Tigran
Avinian.
According to Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian, the program will cover employment
and educational issues as well.
“For our disabled compatriots, we must also provide adequate professional
retraining or assist in their education,” Pashinian told his ministers.
Minister of High-Tech Industry Hakob Arshakian announced in that regard that his
ministry and private tech companies will help interested veterans find jobs in
Armenia’s information technology (IT) sector. They are planning to organize free
training courses for that purpose, he said.
“Thousands of people will get a chance to receive IT education,” said Arshakian.
The officials did not specify the number of Armenian soldiers who became
disabled during the six-week hostilities and now need prosthetics.
The authorities have also not yet released the precise numbers of soldiers
killed and wounded in action.
Avinian told the Armenian parliament on Wednesday that the bodies of 3,439
soldiers and volunteer fighters have been recovered from Karabakh frontlines so
far. He said 766 of them have still not been identified and DNA tests are
carried out for that purpose.
Karabakh Armenian search teams are continuing to look for the bodies of dead
soldiers in former battlefields in and around Karabakh. Avinian suggested that
the total number of Armenian combat deaths will not exceed 4,000.
The vice-premier dismissed opposition criticism of the continuing lack of full
information about war casualties. He said the Armenian Defense Ministry will
provide such information in a report to be released soon.
The ministry has so far published the names of 1,898 Armenian soldiers killed
during the war stopped by a Russian-brokered ceasefire on November 10.
Pashinian’s Resignation Still Nonnegotiable For Armenian Opposition
• Naira Nalbandian
Armenia -- Edmon Marukian (L), the leader of the opposition Bright Armenia
Party, talks to senior pro-government lawmakers on the parliament floor,
Yerevan, January 18, 2021.
The two opposition parties represented in Armenia’s parliament continued to
dismiss on Thursday Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s offers to hold fresh
parliamentary elections, reiterating that he must resign and hand over power to
an interim government.
“We haven’t changed our position that [Pashinian’s] resignation must happen
without preconditions,” said Mikael Melkumian of the Prosperous Armenia Party
(BHK). “The parliament must have a chance to elect a new prime minister who will
stabilize the situation for some time, for up to one year … and we will hold the
elections in that case.”
“Holding such elections in this situation one or two months later would be
fraught with very serious dangers,” Melkumian told a news conference.
The BHK is a key member of an alliance of 17 opposition parties that staged late
last year street protests in a bid to force Pashinian to resign. They blame him
for Armenia’s defeat in the autumn war in Nagorno-Karabakh.
The Bright Armenia Party (LHK), the second parliamentary opposition force, is
not part of the alliance called the Homeland Salvation Front. But the LHK too
insists on Pashinian’s resignation, having nominated its leader Edmon Marukian
as an interim prime minister.
Pashinian has rejected the opposition demands and offered to hold snap elections
instead.
Armenia -- Mikael Melkumian, a senior member of the opposition Prosperous
Armenia Party, speaks at a news conference in Yerevan, .
Under the Armenian constitution, such a vote can take place only if Pashinian
resigns and the National Assembly twice fails to elect another prime minister.
The ruling My Step bloc controls at least 82 seats in the 132-member parliament
and should in theory be able to easily prevent the election of another premier.
Deputy Prime Minister Tigran Avinian revealed on Wednesday, however, that My
Step has offered the BHK and the LHK to sign a “memorandum” on snap polls that
would commit the parliamentary opposition to not fielding prime-ministerial
candidates in the event of Pashinian’s tactical resignation.
Marukian rejected the proposed deal. The LHK leader suggested that it was put
forward because Pashinian and his entourage fear that pro-government lawmakers
would break ranks and vote to elect him prime minister.
“If they are not sure about [the loyalty of] their 82 deputies and think that I
may get elected if I run, then it’s a different subject for discussion and let’s
discuss it,” Marukian told reporters.
Five lawmakers have defected from the parliament’s pro-government majority since
a Russian-brokered ceasefire agreement stopped the war on November 10. One of
them publicly demanded Pashinian’s resignation earlier this week.
Speaking in the parliament on Wednesday, Pashinian said vaguely that his
political team “will formulate an appropriate position” if the opposition forces
continue to reject its proposals to resolve the political crisis in the country.
He did not elaborate.
Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
Copyright (c) 2021 Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, Inc.
1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.