Author: Chatinian Lara

ARMINFO News Agency, Armenia
October 4, 2018 Thursday
Aram I concerned about recent events in Armenia
Yerevan October 04
Marianna Mkrtchyan. The Catholicos of the Great House of Cilicia, Aram
I, is concerned about recent events in Armenia. "The Diaspora cannot
be indifferent and passive to these events, as it is an integral part
of Armenia, and it cannot be indifferent to the challenges that the
country faces," said Aram I.
According to him, the interests of the motherland should be above
personal or party benefits. The Catholicos of the Great House of
Cilicia expressed the conviction that the Motherland should be kept
away from shocks and dangers at all costs and through mutual
compromises.
Aram I also urged to abandon the current policy of intolerance and
mutual distrust, replacing it with mutual love, tolerance and respect,
and abandon the approaches that divide society into different camps.
He urged everyone to move along the path of love and law, on the basis
of mutual respect and understanding, putting the security of the
country above all.

                                        Saturday, 
Armenia, Russia Plan Joint Humanitarian Program In Syria
        • Aza Babayan
Russia -- Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian meets with Russian-Armenian 
businessmen in Moscow, 8 Sep, 2018
Armenia and Russia will soon implement a joint humanitarian program in Syria, 
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian said after meeting with Russian 
President Vladimir Putin in Moscow on September 8.
Talking to RFE/RL’s Armenian service (Azatutyun.am), the head of the Armenian 
government stressed that the program will be a completely humanitarian one and 
will not contain any military component. Pashinian gave no details of the 
program.
The Armenian prime minister also said that during his talks with the Russian 
leader they did not address Azerbaijan’s possible accession to the Collective 
Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), an issue that became a topic for 
discussions in Armenia in the wake of a relevant statement by a pro-government 
Azerbaijani lawmaker.
Ali Huseynli said in late August that Baku should “seriously consider” applying 
for membership in the CSTO, saying that would increase chances of a 
Nagorno-Karabakh settlement favorable to his country. He also said that the 
CSTO gives its member states major military and economic benefits.
If official Baku wishes to do so, “it will be clear what Armenia’s position 
will be,” said Pashinian.
Late last month acting Armenian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Anna Naghdalian 
said that “if Azerbaijan moves to become a member of the CSTO Armenia will use 
its veto power [to block its entry].”
As for military-technical cooperation with Russia, the Armenian prime minister 
said that “relevant departments will talk about concrete programs.”
Pashinian described the state of Armenian-Russian relations as “brilliant” 
after his meeting with Putin. “There are no problems in our relations in any 
direction,” he said in a Facebook post shortly after the end of the talks.
The Armenian prime minister repeated that statement at a meeting with dozens of 
ethnic Armenian businessmen in Moscow during which he urged them to make 
investments in Armenia.
Ex-Armenian PM Charged With Abuse of Power, Illegal Enterprise
        • Karine Simonian
Former Prime Minister of Armenia Hovik Abrahamian
Former Armenian Prime Minister Hovik Abrahamian has been charged with 
“exceeding official authorities” and “Illegally participating in 
entrepreneurial activity” as part of a criminal probe into a claim by an 
entrepreneur that his business was snatched from him a decade ago.
The Special Investigation Service told RFE/RL’s Armenian service (Azatutyun.am) 
on Saturday that Abrahamian was not taken into custody after pledging not to 
leave the country pending investigation.
The Investigation Committee of Armenia earlier said that Abrahamian is 
suspected of abusing his powers in 2008 by allegedly forcing a businessman to 
give up a majority stake in a mining company that later went to other people, 
including the former prime minister’s brother Henrikh Abrahamian.
Witnesses in the case, according to the report, among the people involved in 
the alleged abuse also named former police chief and current lawmaker Alik 
Sargsian, who is linked with the former ruling Republican Party of Armenia.
Today’s official information makes no mention of Abrahamian’s connection to the 
2008 post-election events.
On August 9, law-enforcement authorities launched a probe into Abrahamian’s 
possible involvement in the breakup of opposition protests staged in Yerevan 
following a disputed presidential election a decade ago.
The National Security Service then arrested Abrahamian’s brother Henrik after 
raiding a former industrial plant effectively owned by Hovik Abrahamian. It 
claimed to have found a weapons cache there and said the arsenal would be 
verified on its possible use against opposition protesters on March 1-2, 2008.
In a separate statement, the security agency said it arrested Henrik Abrahamian 
and the property’s formal owner, Ambik Gevorgian, on suspicion of illegal arms 
possession.
In a Facebook post on September 8 the former prime minister denounced his 
prosecution describing it as a manhunt. Abrahamian said that no illegal items 
were found by law-enforcement bodies during searches at the legal address where 
he is registered and in the home where he actually lives. He claimed he did not 
have anything to do with the property where security officials found the 
weapons. “First, they publicly tried to connect that place with me and then the 
weapons found there with the March 1-2, 2008 events. It is clear that I was the 
target of this series of distortions,” he claimed.
Abrahamian linked the charges brought against him with his September 4 
interview to a local news website in which, he said, he criticized the actions 
of the authorities. “Immediately after that they pressed ungrounded charges 
against me… with the purpose of silencing any dissidence,” he claimed.
“The manhunt and pressure on free speech and dissidence that are being carried 
out by the Armenian authorities will not lead to any good place,” Abrahamian 
warned.
Abrahamian’s case is the latest in a series of prosecutions against former 
government officials launched by Armenian law-enforcement authorities in the 
wake of the April-May change of power in the South Caucasus country.
Nikol Pashinian, who came to power as prime minister in the wake of large-scale 
anti-government protests led by him, has vowed to stamp out corruption, 
monopolies and to deal with other crimes that he believes have not been 
detected under the previous governments.
As part of a reopened criminal probe into 2008 post-election violence that left 
10 people dead Armenia’s then president Robert Kocharian and several other 
former officials have already been charged with “overthrowing the 
constitutional order.”
Several members of the extended family of Serzh Sarkisian, who succeeded 
Kocharian in 2008 but was forced by the Pashinian-led movement to resign 
earlier this year, are also under investigation in connection with different 
crimes, including an attempted murder and illegal enrichment.
Abrahamian, 60, held high-ranking state posts and developed extensive business 
interests during Kocharian’s and Sarkisian’s tenures. He managed Sarkisian’s 
2008 and 2013 presidential election campaigns before being appointed as 
Armenia’s prime minister in April 2014.
Abrahamian, who also served as Armenia’s parliament speaker in 2008-2011 and 
2012-2014, fell out with Sarkisian a few months after being sacked by the 
latter as head of the government in September 2016. He left Sarkisian’s 
Republican Party of Armenia in January 2017 and has kept a low profile since 
then.
Two Armenian Children Go Into Hiding To Avoid Deportation From Netherlands
NETHERLANDS -- Two Armenian teens, Howick (right), 13, and Lili, 12, pose in 
The Hague, August 13, 2018
(RFE/RL) - Two Armenian children who were scheduled to be deported from the 
Netherlands have gone into hiding, a Dutch government spokesman said.
Justice Ministry spokesman Maarten Molenbeek said on September 8 that the 
minors, who have only been identified as Lili and Howick, went missing from the 
foster home where they were staying during the night, hours after an Amsterdam 
court rejected their final bid to stop their deportation.
The children, aged 12 and 13, came to the Netherlands with their mother in 2008.
Their asylum claim was rejected by Dutch courts that ruled Armenia is a safe 
country.
The children's mother, Armina Hambartsjumian, was deported to Armenia in 2017.
The case has attracted mass public attention, with the children appearing on 
national television to plead their case.
The children have never been to Armenia and do not speak Armenian.
Their lawyers argued unsuccessfully that their mother was unable to care for 
them properly.
Based on reporting by AFP and AP
Putin, Pashinian Meet In Moscow
Russian President Vladimir Putin meets with Armenian Prime Minister Nikol 
Pashinian in Moscow, Russia, 8 Sept. 2018
Russian President Vladimir Putin and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian 
praised the current level of relations between the two countries as they met 
for talks in Moscow on Saturday.
The Kremlin said the negotiations between the two leaders focused on “key 
questions of developing allied Russian-Armenian relations as well as 
cooperation in Eurasian territory, in particular, within the Eurasian Economic 
Union and the Collective Security Treaty Organization.”
In his remarks before the meeting Putin said that relations between Moscow and 
Yerevan “develop steadily in all directions.”
“This concerns the sphere of political relations, the military sphere, issues 
of security and economic cooperation,” the Russian leader said.
Putin singled out Russian energy supplies to Armenia, stressing that Yerevan 
receives Russian natural gas “at the lowest prices Gazprom sells gas in the 
world – $150 per 1,000 cubic meters.”
Pashinian, for his part, stressed the fact that he was having his third meeting 
with Putin within a space of just four months. “I think that such frequency 
emphasizes the special nature of relations between our countries, let me say 
also the special nature of our personal relations,” the Armenian leader said.
“Despite certain pessimism that is present both in the Armenian and Russian 
press and in social media, I think that our relations develop in a fairly 
dynamic way, very naturally. And I think our top objective is to try to use the 
whole potential in developing our relations.”
Still, Pashinian acknowledged the existence of ‘some questions’ that need to be 
discussed by the two countries. “God save us from a situation where we would 
have no questions in our relations, because that would mean we have no 
relations at all. I can say with certainty that we have no issues in our 
relations that can’t be solved, and today, of course, we are going to discuss a 
wide range of issues,” he said.
“I am sure that these issues will be solved, and we will be guided by respect 
of interests in our allied relations, respect for the interests of our 
countries, respect for the sovereignty of our countries and the principle of 
non-interference in each other’s internal affairs,” Pashinian underscored.
After the end of his meeting with Putin Pashinian wrote in a Facebook post: 
“We’ve had a productive conversation as a result of which we can state that 
Armenian-Russian relations are brilliant. There are no problems in our 
relations in any direction.”
The Armenian prime minister’s talks in Moscow come after a strong Russian 
reaction to Yerevan’s prosecution of a number of former government officials, 
including ex-President Robert Kocharian and ex-deputy Defense Minister Yuri 
Khachaturov, who currently chairs the Collective Security Treaty Organization 
(CSTO), a Russian-led defense pact of six former Soviet countries, including 
Armenia.
Both Kocharian and Khachaturov are accused of breaching the constitutional 
order during a deadly postelection crackdown in 2008. After charging 
Khachaturov Armenia also initiated a procedure to recall him from the top CSTO 
post.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov twice publicly denounced the 
prosecutions of former officials in Yerevan, arguing that they ran counter to 
the new Armenian leadership’s earlier pledges not to “persecute its 
predecessors for political reasons.”
And on August 31, the Kremlin reported a phone conversation between Putin and 
Kocharian during which the Russian leader congratulated the former Armenian 
president on his birthday – a rare event in state diplomacy that some analysts 
took as a sign of Moscow’s backing for Kocharian, who recently announced his 
return to active politics.
In his public statements Pashinian downplayed the significance of political 
implications behind Putin’s congratulations to Kocharian.
Press Review
The editor of “Aravot” expects that two issues are going to feature prominently 
during the Moscow talks between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Armenian 
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian – the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and the 
relations between the two countries after the revolution in Armenia: “Russia 
should understand that it is pointless to talk about serious discussions [on 
Nagorno-Karabakh] until Pashinian gets a majority in parliament. As for the 
second issue, I think that the Armenian prime minister will speak from the 
positions of [Russian] non-interference in our internal affairs. This is, of 
course, a correct position. Furthermore, this is the only position that a 
leader enjoying the support of a majority of Armenians can have. But there are 
diplomatic subtleties that may have a great importance. For example, Armenia 
could have recalled Yuri Khachaturov from the post of secretary-general of the 
[Russian-dominated] Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) and 
suggested another candidate before prosecuting the general. It seems to be a 
little thing, but not paying attention to such little things may prove damaging 
to the cause.”
“Zoghovurd” presents opinions from an article from the EADaily (Eurasian News) 
website headlined “Three Friendly Pieces of Advice To Pashinian Ahead of His 
Visit to Russia.” The article suggests that Putin has chosen to bet on former 
Armenian President Robert Kocharian [to return to power] and refuses to see 
Pashinian as Armenia’s leader in the long run. “Tensions in [Yerevan’s] 
relations with Moscow are strictly counter-indicative,” the article says, 
noting that in Moscow “no one wants to tolerate the mistakes of the new 
Armenian government for a long time.” In this sense the publication advises 
that Pashinian be “careful in taking any step that immediately has to do with 
Russian interests, as well as Russian interests within the CSTO and the 
Eurasian Economic Union.”
(Tatev Danielian)
Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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