Tuesday, March 7, 2023
New Probe Ordered Into Deadly Crash Caused By Pashinian’s Motorcade
• Naira Bulghadarian
Armenia - Flowers, toys, and candles on a street in Yerevan where a pregnant
woman was hit and killed by a police car that led Prime Minister Nikol
Pashinian's motorcade, April 27, 2022.
Armenia’s Court of Appeals has ordered a fresh investigation into the death of a
pregnant woman who was hit last April by a police car escorting Prime Minister
Nikol Pashinian’s motorcade.
The police SUV struck the 28-year-old Sona Mnatsakanian as she crossed a street
in the center of Yerevan. It did not stop after the collision.
The vehicle’s driver, police Major Aram Navasardian, was twice arrested and
freed before going on trial in November. He pleaded not guilty to the
accusations of reckless driving and negligence leveled against him.
Mnatsakanian’s close relatives have been very critical of the pre-trial criminal
investigation into her death, alleging a cover-up. They have pointed to
investigators’ failure to prosecute any members of Pashinian’s security detail
and accused them of withholding key evidence relevant to the high-profile case.
That includes audio of radio conversations among security personnel that
escorted Pashinian on that day. The Armenian police reportedly told the
investigators that they were not recorded due to a technical malfunction. The
latter did not bother to check the veracity of the police claim, according to
Raffi Aslanian, a lawyer representing the victim’s family.
In a ruling announced this week, the Court of Appeals ordered the Investigative
Committee to properly examine the reasons for the absence of the recordings. It
said the law-enforcement agency must do more to determine whether senior
security officials in charge of Pashinian’s motorcade were also responsible for
the deadly accident that shocked many in Armenia.
The investigators and prosecutors overseeing them cleared those officials of any
wrongdoing during last year’s inquiry. Only Navasardian was indicted.
Forensic tests conducted during that probe found that the police car driven by
Navasardian raced through Yerevan at almost 109 kilometers/hour (68 miles/hour),
breaching a 100-kilometer/hour speed limit set for government motorcades. It
remains unclear whether the policeman was ordered by his superiors to ignore the
speed limit.
Under Armenian law, the prosecutors have 15 days to appeal against the court’s
decision or launch a new probe.
Pashinian’s limousine and six other cars making up his motorcade drove past the
dying woman moments after the accident. The prime minister never publicly
commented on her death.
The deputy chief of Pashinian’s staff claimed later in April that the motorcade
would have caused a traffic jam and made it harder for an ambulance to reach the
victim had it stopped right after the crash. Opposition figures and other
government critics brushed aside that explanation, blaming Pashinian for
Mnatsakanian’s death.
Azerbaijan Threatens Military Action In Karabakh
• Gayane Saribekian
Nagorno-Karabakh - Azerbaijani servicemen stand guard at a checkpoint at the
Lachin corridor blocked by Azerbaijani protesters, December 26, 2022.
The Azerbaijani military threatened to take “resolute” actions in
Nagorno-Karabakh on Tuesday two days after a shootout outside Stepanakert left
three Karabakh Armenian police officers and two Azerbaijani soldiers dead.
It also denounced Russian peacekeepers for asserting that Azerbaijani forces
were the first to open fire during Sunday’s deadly incident.
According to the authorities in Stepanakert, an Azerbaijani sabotage group
ambushed a vehicle carrying the Karabakh policemen before being repelled by
Karabakh soldiers deployed nearby.
In a statement, Azerbaijan’s Defense Ministry repeated its claims that its
soldiers came under fire as they tried to check the police van allegedly
smuggling weapons from Armenia. The Karabakh police strongly denies that, saying
that the vehicle transported only its officers and in the opposite direction.
The Azerbaijani statement accused Armenia of continuing to send military
personnel and weapons to Karabakh. Yerevan must stop doing that, it said.
“Or else, the Azerbaijani side, using all possibilities, will have to take
resolute, necessary measures to disarm and neutralize the illegal armed
formations [in Karabakh,]” added the statement.
Nagorno-Karabakh - A Karabakh police vehicle riddled with bullets, March 5, 2023.
The Armenian government has repeatedly rejected such allegations made by Baku
even before Sunday’s deadly incident condemned by it as an Azerbaijani act of
“terrorism.”
The sole highway connecting Karabakh to Armenia has been blocked by Azerbaijani
government-backed protesters for almost three months. Baku has ignored
international calls as well as a UN court order to lift the blockade.
Karabakh’s leadership has linked the weekend shootings to the March 1 meeting
between Azerbaijani officials and Karabakh representatives during which the
latter refused to discuss the Armenian-populated territory’s “integration” into
Azerbaijan. According to it, shortly after the meeting Baku threatened to take
“tougher and more drastic steps” if Stepanakert persists in opposing the
restoration of Azerbaijani rule.
Speaking at an emergency meeting on Monday, Arayik Harutiunian, the Karabakh
president, said that Baku could provoke more violence in a bid to force the
Karabakh Armenians into submission.
Meanwhile, in Yerevan, a senior opposition lawmaker, Tigran Abrahamian, said the
mounting Azerbaijani pressure is also the result of Armenian Prime Minister
Nikol Pashinian’s “chaotic” policies.
Armenia - Tigran Abrahamian, a parliament deputy from the opposition Pativ Unem
bloc, at a news conference, Yerevan, January 25, 2022.
Abrahamian accused Pashinian of reneging on his 2021 election campaign pledge to
continue championing the Karabakh Armenians’ right to self-determination.
Pashinian is now merely seeking international guarantees for “the rights and
security” of Karabakh’s population, he said, adding that Baku will not embark on
a genuine dialogue with Stepanakert.
“The Armenian authorities have misled the public, saying that there is an
opportunity for peace, a ‘peace agenda,’” Abrahamian told reporters.
“What Azerbaijan is doing now has nothing to do with Armenia’s position,”
countered Vigen Khachatrian, a senior lawmaker representing the ruling Civil
Contract party.
Khachatrian defended Pashinian’s controversial decision to separate the issue of
normalizing Armenian-Azerbaijani relations from that of Karabakh’s future.
“The only thing we should probably do [with regard to Karabakh] is to step up
the international pressure on Azerbaijan,” he said.
Away Fans Banned From Armenia-Turkey Football Games
• Robert Zargarian
ARMENIA - Turkish national football team fans watch a pre-game training session
in Yerevan on September 5, 2008.
Citing security concerns, European football’s governing body, UEFA, has banned
Turkish fans from attending an upcoming match in Yerevan between Armenia’s and
Turkey’s national soccer teams.
The two neighboring nations as well as Croatia, Wales and Latvia were drawn into
Group D of the qualifying tournament for the 2024 European Championship that
will take place in Germany.
Turkey and Armenia will start their qualifying campaigns at Yerevan’s Vazgen
Sargsian Republican Stadium on March 25.
The Football Federation of Armenia (FFA) confirmed on Tuesday that UEFA ordered
it not to sell tickets to travelling Turkish fans in order to avoid “unnecessary
tension” during the game.
For the same reason, Armenian fans will be barred from the second Euro 2024
qualifier between the two teams which will be played in Turkey in September.
An FFA spokesman told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service that UEFA imposed the bans at
its own initiative. Neither the Armenian nor the Turkish football federation had
requested such a measure, he said.
Armenia and Turkey played each other for the first time in Yerevan in 2008. That
match was attended by then Turkish President Abdullah Gul and a small number of
Turkish fans.
ARMENIA - Armenian President Serzh Sarkisian (R) meets Turkish President
Abdullah Gul (L) in Yerevan on September 6, 2008.
Gul’s landmark trip to the Armenian capital marked the beginning of a
rapprochement between the two nations that nearly led to the normalization of
their historically strained relations. Then Armenian President Serzh Sarkisian
flew to Turkey a year later to watch a second game between the two teams.
“There was strong interest in that game,” said Levon Pachajian, a former Armenia
international who played against the Turks in 2008. “A lot of journalists
arrived from Turkey.”
Pachajian approved of UEFA’s decision, arguing that Turkish-Armenian relations
are more fraught now than in 2008-2009 because of the 2020 war in
Nagorno-Karabakh during which Turkey strongly supported Azerbaijan.
“We all understand that football is an emotional sport and environment where
violence and other provocations are possible,” said the former footballer.
Ankara and Yerevan launched another, more cautious normalization process a year
ago. It has yielded few concrete results so far.
U.S. ‘Not Competing With Russia’ On Karabakh Peace
U.S. - U.S. State Department spokesperson Ned Price speaks during a briefing at
the State Department in Washington, November 2, 2022.
The United States insisted late on Monday that it is not competing with Russia
in its efforts to facilitate an Armenian-Azerbaijani settlement.
The U.S., Russia and France had for decades worked together in their capacity as
co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group dealing with the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.
That mediation format collapsed following the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Moscow and Washington have since been separately organizing Armenian-Azerbaijani
peace talks.
The Russian Foreign Ministry again charged last month that the Western powers
are trying to squeeze Moscow out of the South Caucasus as part of the
geopolitical standoff over Ukraine. It said that Armenian-Azerbaijani agreements
brokered by Moscow during and after the 2020 war in Karabakh will remain “the
key factor of stability and security in the region in the foreseeable future.”
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov called for a quicker implementation of
those agreements during separate talks with his Azerbaijani and Armenian
counterparts held last week.
India - Foreign Ministers Sergei Lavrov of Russia and Ararat Mirzoyan of Armenia
meet in New Delhi, March 3, 2023.
“We are not going to put ourselves against any other offer of mediation, and in
fact we’re not a mediator. We are a partner to the two countries,” Ned Price,
the U.S. State Department spokesman, told reporters when asked about the Russian
peace efforts.
Price said the U.S. is only trying to “help bring about additional progress in
relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan.”
“We are not doing this as a means by which to compete with Moscow,” he went on.
“We are doing this in an effort to bring about the settlement and resolution of
a longstanding dispute between these two countries, and unfortunately a dispute
that has consistently taken lives, just as it did on March 5.”
Price referred to a shooting incident that left three Karabakh Armenian police
officers and two Azerbaijani soldiers dead. According to the authorities in
Stepanakert, a vehicle carrying the policemen was ambushed by an Azerbaijani
sabotage group that was then repelled by Karabakh troops manning nearby military
posts.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken meets with Azerbaijani President Ilham
Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian at the Munich Security
Conference in Munich, February 18, 2023.
Baku has blamed the Armenian side for the incident that occurred nearly three
months after the start of the Azerbaijani blockade of Karabakh’s land link with
Armenia.
“There can be no military solution to conflict, and the use of force to resolve
disputes is never acceptable,” Price said of the shootings. “The only way to
sustain peace is at the negotiating table.”
He said that Louis Bono, Washington’s new “senior advisor for Caucasus
negotiations,” is conveying this message to Armenian and Azerbaijani leaders
during his ongoing visit to the conflict zone.
Bono was due to meet with Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian in Yerevan on Tuesday.
He held talks with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev in Baku on Monday.
Aliyev reportedly told the U.S. envoy that he is satisfied with the results of
his February 18 meeting in Munich with Pashinian organized and attended by U.S.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
Reposted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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