Author: Alex Jidarian

                                        Tuesday, 


NATO Official Hails Armenia’s ‘Foreign Policy Shift’

        • Astghik Bedevian

Georgia - Javier Colomina, the NATO secretary general’s special representative 
for the Caucasus and Central Asia.


Armenia is moving away from Russia and seeking closer links with NATO, according 
to a senior official from the U.S.-led alliance.

“Armenia has decided very clearly to make some shift in their foreign policy, to 
take some distance from Moscow,” Javier Colomina, the NATO secretary general’s 
special representative for the South Caucasus and Central Asia, told Georgian 
state television in an interview aired on Monday. “We have welcomed that.”

“Armenia’s citizens are free to make decisions and this is what they have 
decided. In my view, Armenia has already started moving closer to us,” Colomina 
said, adding that Yerevan is now asking NATO for “more cooperation and political 
dialogue.”

“We were and remain part of a security architecture which has demonstrated its 
inefficiency, and any rational sovereign state would draw conclusions from that 
and try to use new tools for ensuring its security,” Arsen Torosian, an Armenian 
lawmaker from the ruling Civil Contract party, said in this regard on Tuesday.

Torosian did not clarify whether that means Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s 
government could eventually pull Armenia out of the Russian-led Collective 
Security Treaty Organization (CSTO).

Pashinian declared in early September that his government is trying to 
“diversify our security policy” because Armenia’s long-standing heavy reliance 
on Russia has proved a “strategic mistake.” He claimed that Moscow is “unwilling 
or unable” to defend its South Caucasus ally. Russia denounced this and other 
“unfriendly steps,” accusing Pashinian of “destroying” Russian-Armenian 
relations at the behest of the West.

Despite mounting tensions between the two longtime allies, Pashinian and other 
Armenian officials insisted afterwards that they have no plans to change 
Armenia’s foreign policy “vector.” The Russian Foreign Ministry dismissed these 
assurances in late November as Pashinian boycotted a summit of the Russian-led 
Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO).

Still, Russian President Vladimir Putin downplayed the rift between Moscow and 
Yerevan earlier this month. The Russian ambassador to Armenia similarly said 
last week that the two nations remain “strategic allies.”




Parking Fees In Central Yerevan To Skyrocket

        • Narine Ghalechian

Armenia - A view of the Victory Bridge in central Yerevan, February 28, 2023.


Ignoring vehement objections from its opposition members, Yerevan’s municipal 
assembly approved on Tuesday a more than tenfold increase in car parking fees 
set for the city center.

The fixed annual price of on-street parking in the city’s central Kentron 
administrative district will jump from 12,000 drams to 160,000 drams ($400) 
starting next month. Mayor Tigran Avinian pushed the unpopular measure through 
the Council of Elders with the effective help of a notorious video blogger 
wanted by Armenian law-enforcement authorities.

The main official purpose of the measure is to reduce mounting traffic 
congestion in Kentron. The two main opposition groups represented in the council 
dismissed that rationale, saying that the municipal authorities should address a 
continuing lack of public buses in the Armenian capital before collecting much 
higher fees from motorists.

“Is our public transport fleet big enough to enable people to go to the city 
center by bus instead of paying 160,000 drams? I think the answer is obvious: 
it’s not,” said Hayk Marutian, a former mayor whose National Progress party 
finished second in recent municipal elections.

Council members representing the radical opposition bloc Mayr Hayastan, which 
came in third, were even more critical, calling the price hike a “plunder.” A 
group of its activists picketed the municipality building early in the morning 
in protest.

Armenia - Opposition members of the city council protest against a proposed suge 
in parking fees in central Yerevan, December 19, 2023.

Avinian, who is affiliated with Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s Civil Contract 
party, countered that proceeds from the much higher parking charges will finance 
the purchase of 30 new buses planned by him.

Mayr Hayastan and National Progress boycotted the beginning of the council 
session in a bid to prevent the legislative body from making a quorum and thus 
scuttle the price hike. However, councilors representing blogger Vartan 
Ghukasian’s Public Voice party did not join the boycott, allowing Civil Contract 
and its coalition partner to easily push the measure through. Some Mayr Hayastan 
councilors reacted furiously to that, accusing Ghukasian of secretly 
collaborating with the Armenian government despite his opposition rhetoric.

A former police officer nicknamed Dog, Ghukasian emigrated to the United States 
about a decade ago. He has since attracted large audiences with his hard-hitting 
YouTube videos on political developments in Armenia spiced up with foul 
language. Earlier this year, law-enforcement authorities issued an international 
arrest warrant for Ghukasian and arrested his associates in Armenia on charges 
of blackmail, extortion and fraud.

Ghukasian’s loyalists already helped Civil Contract install Avinian as Yerevan 
mayor in October after the ruling party fell well short of a majority in the 
council in the September 17 vote. They refused to back potential opposition 
candidates for the post of mayor and blocked an opposition attempt to force a 
repeat election.




Karabakh Dissolution Decree Not Valid For Armenian Opposition

        • Ruzanna Stepanian

Armenia - Hayk Mamijanian of the opposition Pativ Unem bloc attends a session of 
parliament,September 13, 2021.


A major Armenian opposition group on Tuesday joined Nagorno-Karabakh’s president 
in saying that his September 28 decree disbanding the self-proclaimed 
Nagorno-Karabakh Republic and its government bodies is null and void.

Samvel Shahramanian sparked a storm of criticism from Armenia’s ruling Civil 
Contract party late last week when he essentially described his decree, signed 
over a week after an Azerbaijani military offensive, as unconstitutional.

Senior Civil Contract figures also said that continued activities of Karabakh 
leadership bodies would pose a threat to Armenia’s national security. Some of 
them said that would be a “time bomb” planted under the country.

“It is [Prime Minister Nikol] Pashinian and those [pro-government] parliament 
deputies who are the biggest time bomb against Armenian statehood and the future 
of Artsakh,” said Hayk Mamijanian, the parliamentary leader of the Pativ Unem 
bloc mainly comprising former President Serzh Sarkisian’s Republican Party of 
Armenia (HHK).

“Artsakh had been set up by blood, not a piece of paper, and it cannot be 
liquidated by a piece of paper,” Mamijanian told reporters. “I will refrain from 
giving Mr. Shahramanian advice. I think that we have yet to see what the Artsakh 
authorities are going to do.”

Shahramanian’s office and other exiled Karabakh bodies must continue to operate 
from Armenia, he said, adding that this would help to keep the Karabakh issue on 
the international agenda.

Pashinian indicated last week that the issue is closed for his administration. 
Pativ Unem and other opposition groups hold him responsible for Azerbaijan’s 
recapture of Karabakh. They say that Pashinian paved the way for the Azerbaijani 
offensive by recognizing Azerbaijani sovereignty over the region.




Azerbaijan Expels Two French Diplomats


Azerbaijan - The Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry bulding.


Azerbaijan announced the expulsion of two French diplomats on Tuesday after 
repeatedly accusing France of siding with Armenia in the Nagorno-Karabakh 
conflict.

The Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry said that it summoned French Ambassador Anne 
Boillon to express a “strong protest over the actions of two employees of the 
French Embassy” which are “incompatible with their diplomatic status." The two 
were ordered to leave the country within 48 hours, it said without specifying 
those actions.

There was no immediate reaction from Paris to the move, and it was not 
immediately clear what prompted it. Tensions between the two countries have 
climbed in recent years, as France has stepped up support for Armenia and 
escalated its criticism of Azerbaijan.

Like other Western powers, France condemned Baku’s September 19-20 military 
offensive in Karabakh that restored Azerbaijani control over the region and 
forced its population to flee to Armenia. Paris also initiated an emergency 
session of the UN Security Council on the situation in Karabakh.

France has also pledged to provide military aid to Armenia, citing Azerbaijani 
threats to its territorial integrity. In late October, it became the first 
Western nation to sign arms deals with Yerevan.

Baku condemned those deals in November, saying that they will “bolster Armenia’s 
military potential and its ability to carry out destructive operations in the 
region.” Armenian officials countered that these and other arms acquisitions by 
Yerevan are a response to an Azerbaijani military build-up which has continued 
even after the 2020 war in Karabakh.

Earlier in October, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev cancelled a planned 
meeting in Spain with Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian, French President 
Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and European Union Council 
President Charles. He objected to Macron’s presence at the talks.

Speaking on December 15, Aliyev said that “some political leaders in France want 
to be more Armenian than the Armenians.” He had earlier accused Paris of 
fomenting “Armenian separatism” in Karabakh.



Reposted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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