Author: Boshkezenian Garik

                                        Fridayt, July 30, 2021
Armenia Backs Mediators’ Calls For Renewed Peace Talks
July 30, 2021
Armenia -- The U.S. and French co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group and other 
diplomats meet with Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian, Yerevan, December 
14, 2020.
Armenia backed on Friday international mediators’ fresh calls for the resumption 
of Armenian-Azerbaijani negotiations on a “comprehensive” settlement of the 
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.
The U.S., Russian and French mediators co-chairing the OSCE Minsk Group 
expressed concern on Thursday over fresh fighting that broke out at some 
portions of the Armenian-Azerbaijani border earlier this week.
In a joint statement, they urged Armenia and Azerbaijan to “de-escalate the 
situation immediately,” avoid “provocative rhetoric and actions” and fully 
comply with the Russian-brokered agreement that stopped the war in Karabakh in 
November.
“The Co-Chairs reiterate the need for a negotiated, comprehensive, and 
sustainable settlement of all remaining core substantive issues of the conflict 
and urge the parties to return to negotiations under the auspices of the 
Co-Chairs as soon as possible,” added the statement. “They reiterate their 
proposal to organize direct bilateral consultations under their auspices, in 
order for the sides to review and agree jointly upon a structured agenda, 
reflecting their priorities, without preconditions.”
The Armenian Foreign Ministry hailed the statement. “The statement of the 
Co-Chairs once again demonstrates that the key to regional peace and security is 
a comprehensive and lasting settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict,” it 
said.
The ministry again condemned the “infiltration of the Azerbaijani armed forces 
into Armenia’s sovereign territory” in May and recent days’ “attacks on Armenian 
defense positions” at contested sections of the frontier.
Baku maintains that its troops did not cross into Armenia in May and that the 
latest truce violations resulted from Armenian “provocations.”
The mediators made a similar appeal to the conflicting parties in April. They 
said they are ready to facilitate Armenian-Azerbaijani talks focusing on their 
pre-war peace proposals.
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian cited their April statement last week when he 
disputed Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev’s claim that Azerbaijan’s victory in 
the six-week war put an end to the long-running dispute.
Armenian Parliament Criminalizes ‘Grave Insults’
July 30, 2021
        • Tatevik Lazarian
Armenia - The outgoing Armenian parliament holds its final session in Yerevan, 
July 30, 2021.
Meeting for its final session on Friday, Armenia’s outgoing parliament approved 
a bill that makes it a crime to seriously insult government officials and other 
public figures.
A relevant amendment to the Armenian Criminal Code drafted by pro-government 
lawmakers stipulates that individuals voicing “grave insults” or offending 
others’ dignity in an “extremely indecent manner” must be fined up to 500,000 
drams (just over $1,000).
Such insults publicly and repeatedly directed at persons because of their 
“public activities” will be punishable by fines ranging from 1 million to 3 
million drams ($2,000-$6,000) and a prison sentence of up to three months.
According to the amendment, those persons include state officials, politicians, 
civic activists and other public figures.
All forms of defamation and slander had been decriminalized in Armenia in 2010 
during then President Serzh Sarkisian’s rule.
Vladimir Vartanian, the pro-government chairman of the parliament committee on 
legal affairs and the main author of the bill, said penalties for such offenses 
must be toughened now because verbal abuse in the country has since become 
widespread, especially on social media.
“This bill is primarily aimed at not so much punishing individuals resorting to 
grave insults as having a preventive impact and eliminating insults … from our 
society,” he said.
Vartanian emphasized the fact that the parliament is amending Armenia’s current 
Criminal Code which will be replaced in 2022 by a new code enacted earlier this 
year. “If we manage to achieve these results during this year there will be no 
need to make the same changes to the new Criminal Code,” he said.
Opposition lawmakers dismissed this explanation. One of them, Naira Zohrabian, 
said that the bill is aimed at holding in check the two opposition blocs to be 
represented in Armenia’s incoming parliament elected on June 20.
The blocs have a much tougher anti-government stance than the opposition 
minority in the outgoing National Assembly. Their supporters believe that Prime 
Minister Nikol Pashinian himself has relied heavily on “hate speech” since 
coming to power in 2018.
The new parliament, also controlled by Pashinian’s political allies, is 
scheduled to hold its inaugural session on Monday.
Sofia Hovsepian, another opposition deputy who defected from Pashinian’s My Step 
bloc late last year, said the amendment could be used to stifle harsh criticism 
of the Armenian government.
Deputy Justice Minister Kristine Grigorian assured Hovsepian that the 
authorities will not be cracking down on any “discourse going slightly beyond 
criticism.”
Pashinian’s political team already sparked controversy in March this year when 
it pushed through the parliament a bill tripling maximum legal fines for 
defamation. Armenia’s leading media associations criticized the move, saying 
that it could be exploited by government officials and politicians to stifle 
press freedom.
Consequently, President Armen Sarkissian refused to sign the bill into law and 
asked the Constitutional Court to assess its conformity with the Armenian 
constitution.
Russia Again Calls For Armenian-Azeri Border Demarcation
July 30, 2021
RUSSIA -- A sign at the main entrance to the Russian Foreign Ministry building 
in Moscow, July 19, 2018.
Russia again offered on Friday to help Armenia and Azerbaijan demarcate their 
border following the latest upsurge in tensions there.
“We are seriously concerned about recent armed incidents at certain sections of 
the Armenian-Azerbaijani border which led to casualties,” a spokesman for the 
Russian Foreign Ministry, Alexander Bikantov, said in written comments posted on 
the ministry’s website.
“Unfortunately, the situation along the border remains tense,” he said. “We call 
on the sides to refrain from any actions fraught with a further degradation of 
the situation and to resolve problems by diplomatic-political means.”
“Russia is prepared to continue to provide necessary support for normalizing the 
situation along the Armenian-Azerbaijani border through de-escalation measures 
and a quick launch of joint work on delimiting and demarcating the border,” 
added Bikantov.
Tensions have run over the past week at border sections separating Armenia’s 
northeastern Gegharkunik province from the Kelbajar district handed back to 
Azerbaijan after the autumn war in Nagorno-Karabakh. Three Armenian soldiers 
were killed and four others wounded there early on Wednesday in what the 
Armenian military described as a failed Azerbaijani attempt to capture one of 
its border posts.
The Armenian military claimed to have shot down on Thursday night an Azerbaijani 
surveillance drone in the same mountainous area. It released photographs 
purportedly showing fragments of the Israeli-manufactured Aerostar unmanned 
aerial vehicle lying in a field.
The Azerbaijani Defense Ministry denied the claim.
Armenia - Photographs released by the Armenian Defense Ministry purportedly show 
fragments of an Azerbaijani army drone shot down in Gegharkunik province July 
29, 2021.
The Defense Ministry in Yerevan also accused Azerbaijani forces of opening fire 
on Friday morning at its positions outside an Armenian village bordering 
Azerbaijan’s Nakhichevan exclave. It said Armenian troops returned fire.
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian said on Thursday Armenia will ask Russia to 
deploy Russian border guards along the entire frontier. Russian officials 
responded coolly to the idea.
Moscow already proposed in May that Yerevan and Baku set up a commission on the 
delimitation and demarcation of the Armenian-Azerbaijani border. Russian Foreign 
Minister Sergei Lavrov expressed his country’s readiness to participate in its 
activities as a “consultant or mediator.”
The offer came days after Azerbaijani troops advanced a few kilometers into 
Gegharkunik and another Armenian province, Syunik, through several sections of 
the border. Pashinian said at the time that Yerevan will agree to the proposed 
creation of an Armenian-Azerbaijani commission on border demarcation only if 
Baku withdraws its forces from Armenian territory.
Azerbaijan has since repeatedly ruled out such a withdrawal, saying that they 
took up positions on the Azerbaijani side of the frontier.
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.
 

                                        Wednesday, June 23, 2021
Prominent Armenian Doctor Arrested For ‘Electoral Offence’
June 23, 2021
        • Naira Bulghadarian
        • Susan Badalian
Armenia - Armen Charchian, director of the Izmirlian Medical Center.
A prominent surgeon running a hospital in Yerevan and supporting an Armenian 
opposition group was arrested again on Wednesday on charges of pressuring his 
subordinates to participate in the June 20 parliamentary elections.
Professor Armen Charchian, the director of the Izmirlian Medical Center, was 
first detained last Friday after a non-governmental organization publicized a 
leaked audio recording of his meeting with hospital personnel.
Charchian, who ran for the parliament on the opposition Hayastan bloc’s ticket, 
can be heard telling them that they must vote in the snap elections. “After the 
elections I will take voter lists and see who went to the polls and who didn’t,” 
he warns.
A Yerevan court freed Charchian from custody on Saturday before he was formally 
charged under a Criminal Code article carrying between four and seven years in 
prison. The court allowed the Special Investigative Service (SIS) on Wednesday 
to arrest and hold him in detention pending investigation.
A lawyer for Charchian, Erik Andreasian, said he will appeal against the 
decision. “Mr. Charchian is subjected to political persecution,” he told 
reporters.
Hayastan, which is led by former President Robert Kocharian, has also condemned 
the criminal proceedings as politically motivated.
Speaking after a court hearing on Tuesday, Charchian insisted that he did not 
coerce the medics to participate in the elections and vote for Hayastan. He also 
denied threatening to fire them.
Charchian claimed that he only warned his staffers that they should no longer 
count on their and their relatives’ preferential medical treatment at the 
Izmirlian Medical Center if they do not heed his appeal.
Prosecutors maintain, however, that his remarks amounted to election-related 
pressure and coercion prohibited by Armenian law.
In the leaked audio, Charchian also stresses the fact that the Armenian 
Apostolic Church, which owns the hospital, does not want Prime Minister Nikol 
Pashinian to stay in power.
“I’m not telling you to vote for this or that candidate. The position of the 
Mother See [of the church] is that one must not vote for the current 
authorities,” he says.
The office of Catholicos Garegin II, the supreme head of the church, deplored 
Charchian’s first detention and demanded his release. It did not immediately 
react to the last court decision.
According Armenia’s Office of the Prosecutor-General, law-enforcement 
authorities have so far brought election-related criminal charges against 16 
individuals, among them 7 election candidates.
Virtually all of them are opposition members and supporters accused of trying to 
buy votes. They are mostly affiliated with the Pativ Unem alliance co-headed by 
former President Serzh Sarkisian and former National Security Service Director 
Artur Vanetsian.
“If their guilt is proven during the investigations in a credible manner I will 
accept those results,” Vanetsian said on Wednesday. “If the opposite is proven I 
will say this is another case of the authorities persecuting us.”
No government officials and loyalists are known to have been arrested or 
indicted so far.
The Pativ Unem and Hayastan blocs claim that public sector employees openly 
supporting them have been harassed and even fired by government officials in the 
run-up to the elections. They have also accused central and provincial 
government bodies of forcing their employees to attend the ruling Civil Contract 
party’s rallies.
 Pro-Opposition Village Chief ‘Beaten Up For Refusing To Resign’
June 23, 2021
        • Karine Simonian
Armenia - Aram Khachatrian, the governor of Lori province, May 1, 2021
The mayor of a large village in Armenia’s northern Lori province supporting the 
main opposition Hayastan alliance claimed to have been beaten up on Tuesday 
after rejecting the provincial governor’s demands to step down.
Arsen Titanian said on Wednesday that Lori Governor Aram Khachatrian told him to 
tender his resignation during a tense meeting held in the provincial capital 
Vanadzor. He said he was assaulted by about a dozen other men moments after 
leaving Khachatrian’s office in the provincial administration building.
Titanian said he suffered several injuries to his face and head. “I have a 
headache right now,” he told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service by phone.
It also emerged that unknown individuals broke overnight into a shop in the 
village of Odzun belonging to Titanian’s sister and stole cigarettes and other 
products kept there. The intruders smashed the shop’s door.
Police officers from the nearby town of Alaverdi arrived at the crime scene on 
Wednesday. They said they will look into a possible connection between the 
robbery and the alleged assault on the long-serving village chief.
Governor Khachatrian, who is affiliated with Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s 
Civil Contract party, admitted summoning Titanian to his office but denied 
demanding his resignation or ordering his beating.
“We may have raised our voices but that was not a reason for complaining to the 
police,” he told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service.
The alleged assault was first reported by Hayastan representatives late on 
Tuesday. They said Titanian was threatened and pressured by the governor because 
of having backed Hayastan in the June 20 parliamentary elections.
The office of Armenia’s human rights ombudsman, Arman Tatoyan, said shortly 
afterwards that it contacted Titanian and was told that he is reporting the 
incident to police. It pledged to “send a note” to the Office of the 
Prosecutor-General the following morning.
A spokesman for Prosecutor-General Artur Davtian said, meanwhile, that he has 
already ordered a formal criminal investigation into the alleged beating.
With a population of more than 5,000, Odzun is one of the country’s largest 
rural communities. Titanian has run the village since 2008.
The 51-year-old mayor made clear that he still intends to complete his fourth 
term in office next year. He admitted being a Hayastan supporter but insisted 
that he did not campaign for the opposition bloc led by former President Robert 
Kocharian in the run-up to the elections won by Pashinian’s party.
Several local residents interviewed by RFE/RL’s Armenian Service said Titanian 
never pressured them to vote for Hayastan. “We voted for our preferred man on 
our own,” said one woman.
Civil Contract won 2,230 votes in Odzun, compared with only 376 votes cast for 
Kocharian’s bloc.
A spokesman for Hayastan, Aram Vardevanian, claimed that many other local 
community heads supporting the bloc have also come under strong government 
pressure to resign in the wake of the elections.
“If the authorities do not put an end to this practice they will trigger a new 
political crisis,” he warned in a statement.
Hayastan finished second in the snap polls, according to official vote results 
rejected by it as fraudulent.
Many of the local officials affiliated with it run towns and villages in 
southeastern Syunik province. They demanded Pashinian’s resignation shortly 
after Armenia’s defeat in the autumn war with Azerbaijan. At least three of them 
were prosecuted on different charges in the following months.
Some Pashinian associates demanded the resignation of the pro-opposition Syunik 
mayors immediately after Civil Contract’s election victory.
Kocharian predicted on Tuesday morning that the authorities will crack down on 
these and other mayors allied to him in the coming weeks.
During the 12-day election campaign Pashinian pledged to wage “political 
vendettas” against local government officials linked to the opposition.
Opposition Bloc ‘Undecided’ On Parliament Seats
June 23, 2021
        • Sargis Harutyunyan
Armenia -- Former NSS chief Artur Vanetsian (L) and former President Serzh 
Sarkisian at the official ceremony of the establishment of their Pativ Unem 
alliance, May 15, 2021.
An opposition alliance co-headed by former President Serzh Sarkisian and Artur 
Vanetsian said on Wednesday that it has not yet decided whether to take up its 
parliament seats won in the weekend elections described by it as fraudulent.
According to the official election results, the Pativ Unem alliance finished a 
distant third with 5.23 percent of the vote.
It should get 7 parliament seats despite failing to clear a 7 percent vote 
threshold to enter the National Assembly. Under the Armenian constitution, at 
least three political forces must be represented in the parliament.
Both Pativ Unem and former President Robert Kocharian’s Hayastan bloc, the 
official runner-up in the snap elections, have accused the authorities of 
rigging the vote to keep Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian in power. Pashinian and 
his Civil Contract party deny the accusations.
Kocharian said on Tuesday that Hayastan will likely accept its 29 parliament 
seats despite planning to ask the Constitutional Court to overturn the election 
results.
Vanetsian said Pativ Unem is also intent on appealing to the court but has not 
yet made a final decision on a parliament boycott demanded by some opposition 
supporters.
“Right now we are collecting [evidence of] all violations that occurred during 
the elections and considering appealing to the Constitutional Court with other 
forces,” he told a news conference. “Only after the Constitutional Court’s 
decision will we make a decision on whether or not we accept the election 
results … and whether or not we will go to the parliament.”
“If the alliance decides to take up its mandates I will not leave my team alone 
and will go to the parliament so that we continue our struggle,” said the former 
director of Armenia’s National Security Service.
Vanetsian implied he personally thinks that Pativ Unem should join the new 
parliament. “The parliament will operate even if don’t take our mandates,” he 
said.
Pativ Unem was formed one month before the June 20 elections by Vanetsian’s 
Fatherland party and Sarkisian’s former ruling Republican Party (HHK). Both 
parties were key members of a coalition of opposition forces which tried to 
force Pashinian to resign over his handling of the autumn war in 
Nagorno-Karabakh.
Vanetsian, 42, was appointed as head of the NSS immediately the 2018 “Velvet 
Revolution” that toppled Sarkisian and brought Pashinian to power. He quickly 
became an influential member of Pashinian’s entourage, overseeing high-profile 
corruption investigations into former government officials and Sarkisian’s 
relatives. He fell out with Pashinian and resigned in September 2019.
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.