Author: Chmshkian Vicken

                                        Friday, April 8, 2022
Court Overturns Pashinian’s Conviction In 2008 Unrest Case
        • Naira Bulghadarian
Armenia - A man walks past burned cars on a street in Yerevan where security 
forces clashed with opposition protesters, 2 March 2008.
Armenia’s Court of Cassation has absolved Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian from 
all responsibility for the 2008 post-election unrest in Yerevan that left ten 
people dead.
Pashinian played a major role in an opposition movement led by former President 
Levon Ter-Petrosian, the main opposition candidate in a hotly disputed 
presidential election.
The then 32-year-old journalist was the main speaker at an opposition rally held 
in Yerevan on March 1-2, 2008 amid vicious clashes between some protesters and 
security forces. Eight protesters and two police officers were killed in what 
was the worst street violence in Armenia’s history.
Outgoing President Robert Kocharian declared a state of emergency and ordered 
Armenian army units into the capital, accusing the Ter-Petrosian-led opposition 
of attempting to seize power.
Pashinian went into hiding but surrendered to law-enforcement authorities in 
July 2009. He was subsequently tried and sentenced to seven years in prison for 
organizing the “mass disturbances,” a charge rejected by him as politically 
motivated.
Like other Ter-Petrosian allies, Pashinian was released from jail in May 2011 
under a general amnesty declared by the former Armenian authorities.
In February this year, Armenia’s Office of the Prosecutor-General appealed to 
the Court of Cassation to overturn the guilty verdict in Pashinian’s trial and 
declare him innocent. It cited a ruling handed down by the European Court of 
Human Rights (ECHR) in January.
The Strasbourg court ruled that Armenian law-enforcement authorities had 
violated Pashinian’s freedom of speech and assembly.
The Court of Cassation, the country’s highest body of criminal justice, cleared 
Pashinian of any wrongdoing in a verdict handed down on Friday. It also 
acquitted three other former opposition activists.
Armenia - Opposition leader Nikol Pashinian addresses protesters that barricaded 
themselves in central Yerevan, 1 March 2008.
A spokesman for the prosecutors insisted in February that their decision to seek 
Pashinian’s acquittal “has nothing to do with the position occupied” by 
Pashinian at present. One of the prosecutors said on Friday that a total of 20 
individuals jailed for the 2008 unrest have had their convictions overturned in 
the last three years.
The authorities radically changed the official version of the events of March 
2008 shortly after Pashinian swept to power in May 2018. They prosecuted 
Kocharian and three other former officials on coup charges strongly denied by 
them.
A district court in Yerevan acquitted Kocharian and the other defendants in 
April 2021 after the Constitutional Court declared the coup charges 
unconstitutional.
The 67-year-old ex-president, who now leads the country’s main opposition 
alliance, has said that his prosecution is part of a “political vendetta” waged 
by Pashinian. The prime minister has denied that.
Russia Slams West’s ‘Disingenuous’ Moves On Karabakh
        • Aza Babayan
Russia - Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Armenian Foreign Minister 
Ararat Mirzoyan enter a hall during a meeting in Moscow, April 8, 2022.
Russia on Friday accused Western powers of seeking to sideline it, hijack 
Armenian-Azerbaijani peace talks and use the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict in their 
standoff with Moscow over Ukraine.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that the United States and France 
have stopped working with Russia within the framework of the OSCE Minsk Group 
that has long been co-headed by the three mediating nations.
Lavrov also hit out at the European Union, saying that it is trying to claim 
credit for Armenian-Azerbaijani agreements that were brokered by Moscow after 
the 2020 war in Nagorno-Karabakh.
“In a Russophobic frenzy, our American and French ‘partners’ … have cancelled 
the co-chairing troika of the OSCE Minsk Group,” he said after talks with 
Armenia’s visiting Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan. “They have said that they 
will not be communicating with us in this format.”
“If they are ready to sacrifice the interests -- in this case of the Armenian 
side -- of settlement in Nagorno-Karabakh and the South Caucasus as a whole, 
it’s their choice,” he told a joint news conference.
Mirzoyan questioned this claim, saying Yerevan has received “very clear signals” 
from the U.S. and France that they remain committed to the Minsk Group. “This is 
very encouraging,” he said.
Lavrov went on to lambaste European Council President Charles Michel for his 
failure to mention Russia’s role in his statement on his trilateral meeting with 
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev 
held in Brussels on Wednesday.
“This indicates what is more important for the EU leadership: to build on what 
has been achieved or to use the Karabakh theme to ‘mark’ itself along its 
Russophobic line,” he said. “This is sad. Russia will never sacrifice the 
interests of our closest allies to some geopolitical, propaganda plans or games.”
Michel said after the Brussels talks that Aliyev and Pashinian agreed to start 
drafting a comprehensive peace accord and to set up a commission tasked with 
demarcating the Armenian-Azerbaijani border. He also reaffirmed the EU’s 
readiness to facilitate the opening of transport links and other 
confidence-building measures between the two South Caucasus states.
Russia - Russian President Vladimir Putin, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev 
and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian make statements to the press after 
talks in Sochi, November 26, 2021.
Lavrov stressed that Russian President Vladimir Putin had already laid the 
groundwork for these agreements during his frequent contacts with the Armenian 
and Azerbaijani leaders. In particular, he argued that the latter pledged to 
create a commission on border demarcation at their November 2021 meeting with 
Putin held in Sochi.
“We and our colleagues confirmed today that the decision of the leaders of 
Russia, Armenia and Azerbaijan that the delimitation commission will be 
bilateral with the consultative participation of the Russian side remains in 
force,” added Lavrov.
A senior EU diplomat insisted earlier on Friday that the EU and Russian efforts 
to end the Karabakh conflict are “not mutually incompatible.”The diplomat also 
told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service that Michel gave credit to Moscow by referring to 
the Russian-brokered ceasefire that stopped the six-week war in November 2020.
Lavrov further announced that a Russian-Armenian-Azerbaijani intergovernmental 
body dealing with practical modalities of reopening regional transport links 
will meet later this month after a four-month hiatus. He said Moscow is also 
ready to help Yerevan and Baku “create conditions” for concluding the peace 
treaty.
“We talked [with Mirzoyan] in detail about how we can help our neighbors start 
this process,” he said.
In a further sign that Moscow wants to wrest back the initiative in the 
Armenian-Azerbaijani peace process, Lavrov phoned his Azerbaijani counterpart 
Jeyhun Bayramov after the talks with Mirzoyan. According to the Russian Foreign 
Ministry, they discussed the possible peace treaty, the creation of the 
commission on border demarcation and renewed activities of the 
Russian-Armenian-Azerbaijani task force.
Russia Again Not Backed By Armenia In UN Vote On Ukraine
        • Naira Nalbandian
U.S. - Ukraine's UN Ambassador Sergiy Kyslytsya speaks during a UN General 
Assembly vote on a draft resolution seeking to suspend Russia from the UN Human 
Rights Council in New York City on April 7, 2022.
Armenia has declined to vote against suspending Russia from the United Nations 
Human Rights Council over its ongoing military campaign in Ukraine.
The UN General Assembly cited reports of “gross and systematic violations and 
abuses of human rights” in Ukraine on Thursday when it made the decision by 93 
votes to 24, with 58 abstentions. Armenia and more than a dozen other nations 
did not vote at all.
Armenia was the only member of the Russian-led Collective Security Treaty 
Organization (CSTO) that did not openly oppose the decision.
Russia's deputy UN Ambassador Gennady Kuzmin described the General Assembly’s 
move as an "illegitimate and politically motivated step" before announcing that 
Russia has decided to quit the Human Rights Council altogether.
According to the Reuters news agency, Russia had warned countries that a yes 
vote or abstention will be viewed as an “unfriendly gesture” with consequences 
for bilateral ties.
The Armenian government on Friday refrained from commenting on its ambiguous 
position on the suspension of Russia’s membership in the UN body.
By contrast, opposition lawmakers criticized Yerevan’s failure to side with 
Moscow. One of them, Aram Vartevanian, argued that Russia is Armenia’s closest 
ally and the main guarantor of Nagorno-Karabakh’s security.
“As you know, we have reached a point where it is the Russian peacekeepers in 
Artsakh (Karabakh) that guarantee the security of Artsakh Armenians,” said 
Vartevanian. “So I don’t understand the reasons for Armenia’s behavior.”
Last month Armenia abstained from voting on a UN General Assembly resolution 
that deplored “in the strongest terms” Russia's invasion of Ukraine. A few days 
earlier, it voted against the effective suspension of Russia’s membership in the 
Council of Europe.
Russia has long been Armenia’s main military and political ally. The South 
Caucasus state’s dependence on Moscow for defense and security deepened further 
following the 2020 war with Azerbaijan.
EU Plans More Armenian-Azeri Talks
        • Heghine Buniatian
Belgium - European Council President Charles Michel, Armenian Prime Minister 
Nikol Pashinian and Azerbaijani President Ilham Ali start a trilateral meeting 
in Brussels, April 6, 2022.
The European Union plans to organize more negotiations between Armenia and 
Azerbaijan to follow up on understandings reached by their leaders in Brussels 
on Wednesday, according to a senior EU diplomat.
“What will actually happen very practically is that we're going to be having 
very regular meetings and a continued role of facilitation for the EU,” the 
diplomat privy to the talks told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service.
During their trilateral meeting with European Council President Charles Michel, 
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev 
decided to instruct their foreign ministers to start official negotiations on an 
Armenian-Azerbaijani peace treaty.
They also agreed to set up before the end of this month a joint commission on 
demarcating the Armenian-Azerbaijani border.
“I'm fully conscious when I say that there's not much time left,” said the 
diplomat. “I think we will need to be following up quite quickly with this. And 
I think there is an expectation that we would look to have a meeting at leaders’ 
level relatively soon to review progress and tackle any outstanding issues that 
are blocking the moves forward.”
The source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, gave no possible dates for 
the next Aliyev-Pashinian encounter.
Michel described the four-hour talks hosted by him as “productive,” saying that 
they yielded “concrete and tangible results.”
Critics in Armenia point out that the top EU official made no mention of 
Nagorno-Karabakh, let alone an agreement on its status or the Karabakh 
Armenians’ right to self-determination. They say this is a further sign that 
Pashinian is ready to agree to Azerbaijani control over the disputed territory.
Pashinian reiterated on Thursday that Baku’s proposals on the treaty, including 
a mutual recognition of each other’s territorial integrity, are acceptable to 
Yerevan. But he said the question of Karabakh’s status must also be on the 
agenda of the talks on the peace treaty.
The European diplomat suggested that this will likely be the case, pointing to 
Michel’s remark that the planned treaty “would address all necessary issues.”
“I think you can see that the phrase … ‘would address all necessary issues’ in 
the statement [by Michel] is not there by accident,” the diplomat stressed.
Pashinian has also been criticized by his domestic political opponents for 
agreeing to start the process of border demarcation without securing the 
withdrawal of Azerbaijani forces from Armenian border areas seized by them last 
year.
The Armenian government said earlier this year that the process should start 
only after a mutual withdrawal of troops from contested border areas.
“I think there's a recognition that you need a pullback on both sides of the 
border,” the EU diplomat said in this regard, adding that the demarcation 
commission is expected to also deal with “those contested areas where tension 
reduction is a priority.”
The diplomat also insisted that the EU’s growing involvement in 
Armenian-Azerbaijani negotiations is not aimed at undermining Russia’s 
significant role and presence in the Karabakh conflict zone. The official 
pointed to the Kremlin’s positive reaction to the outcome of the Brussels talks.
The diplomat said Turkey, another major regional player, is even more supportive 
of the EU mediation: “This process that we're running is very helpful for them 
because the Turks are not able or cannot have a process of normalization with 
Armenia without that being matched by a process, if you like, of normalization 
between Azerbaijan and Armenia. So there they are, in my view, mutually 
reinforcing.”
Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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