Author: Emil Lazarian

                                        Thursday, 
Yerevan Mayor Rules Out Resignation
        • Naira Nalbandian
Armenia - Yerevan Mayor Hayk Marutian talks to journalists, 26Nov2019
Yerevan’s Mayor Hayk Marutian indicated on Thursday that he will not step down 
despite a vote of no confidence in him planned by the pro-government majority in 
the municipal assembly.
Meanwhile, the My Step bloc controlled by the ruling Civil Contract party 
officially announced its decision to oust Marutian, who fell out with Prime 
Minister Nikol Pashinian after last year’s war in Nagorno-Karabakh.
More than 40 members of the 65-seat city council have already signed up to the 
no confidence motion. Pashinian’s political allies control at least 54 seats in 
the council empowered to appoint and dismiss mayors.
Senior members of My Step met with Pashinian on Thursday evening to discuss the 
impeachment bid. In a statement issued after the meeting, they said that 
Marutian quit Civil Contract and severed ties with the council majority in 
December 2020 and is not running the Armenian capital “with sufficient 
efficiency.”
The bloc has therefore decided to replace Marutiuan by one of his deputies, 
Hrachya Sargsian, added the statement.
Marutian’s spokesman, Hakob Karapetian, said shortly before the announcement 
that the mayor “has no intention or reason to tender his resignation.”
Marutian himself did not comment on the ruling political team’s push to replace 
him. But he did thank Yerevan residents for their support in a Facebook post 
that attracted an unusually large number of “likes.”
“For my part, I will raise your spirits now,” he wrote in the morning, 
announcing his decisions to buy more commuter buses and apartment building 
elevators for Yerevan.
Armenia -- Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian meets with Yerevan Mayor Hayk 
Marutian, August 13, 2019.
Marutian, 45, is a former TV comedian who actively participated in the “velvet 
revolution” that brought Pashinian to power in May 2018. He was handpicked by 
Pashinian to lead My Step’s list of candidates in the last municipal elections 
held in September 2018 and won by the pro-government bloc.
Marutian increasingly distanced himself from Pashinian after Armenia’s defeat in 
the 2020 war with Azerbaijan. He pointedly declined to support Pashinian’s Civil 
Contract party in the run-up to snap parliamentary elections held in June.
Some council members affiliated with My Step openly disagreed with the decision 
to oust the mayor. “I don’t want to be part of that process,” one of them, 
Grigor Yeritsian, told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service.
Izabella Abgarian, a former My Step member who resigned from the council a year 
ago, denounced Marutian’s likely removal as a “blow to democracy in Armenia.”
“They not only harm Yerevan’s interests but also ignore the views of Yerevan 
residents,” said Abgarian. “No matter how much they say that people voted for 
Nikol Pashinian [in September 2018,] the list of [candidates for] the council 
was topped by Marutian. The people of Yerevan usually elect a mayor, not a 
council. Most Yerevan residents are not even familiar with the composition of 
the city council.”
Abgarian said it would be much fairer to resolve Pashinian’s dispute with 
Marutian through a snap municipal election. She suggested that the prime 
minister and his party are afraid of losing such an election after suffering 
serious setbacks in recent local polls held in other parts of Armenia.
Armenian Ombudsman Deplores Arrests Of Former POWs
Armenia - Human rights ombudsman Arman Tatoyan talks to Armenian soldiers 
deployed in Syunik province, May 14, 2021. (Photo by the Armenian Human Rights 
Defender's Office)
Armenia’s human rights ombudsman, Arman Tatoyan, criticized a law-enforcement 
agency on Thursday for arresting four Armenian soldiers who were freed and 
repatriated by Azerbaijan earlier this month.
They were among three dozen soldiers taken prisoner during the November 16 
fighting on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border which left at least 13 troops from 
both sides dead. The Armenian military said it also lost two border posts in 
what Yerevan condemned as an Azerbaijani incursion into Armenian territory.
Baku freed ten POWs on December 4. A few days later, Armenian courts allowed the 
Investigative Committee to arrest four of them on charges of violating “rules 
for performing military service.” They will face between three and seven years 
in prison if convicted.
Tatoyan said his office has interviewed the detained soldiers, looked into the 
circumstances of their capture and arrived at the conclusion that explanations 
given for their pretrial arrests are “not convincing.”
In a statement, the human rights defender linked the arrests with controversial 
statements about Armenian POWs made by senior government officials and 
pro-government lawmakers.
In particular, parliament speaker Alen Simonian was caught on camera saying 
during a recent trip to Paris that many of them “laid down their weapons and ran 
away” during fighting with Azerbaijani forces. In a secretly filmed video 
publicized on December 7, Simonian branded them deserters, sparking angry street 
protests by relatives of POWs.
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian and members of his political team did not 
publicly criticize or disavow the disparaging comments condemned by the Armenian 
opposition. Pashinian said on December 8 that law-enforcement authorities must 
investigate the circumstances in which Armenian soldiers were captured by 
Azerbaijani troops.
Armenian opposition figures and human rights lawyers have also deplored the 
ensuing arrests, saying that Azerbaijan could exploit them to further delay the 
release of dozens of other Armenian servicemen remaining in Azerbaijani 
captivity. Pashinian’s political allies have dismissed these warnings.
In a newspaper interview published earlier this week, Azerbaijani President 
Ilham Aliyev pointed to the arrests of repatriated POWs and alleged their 
mistreatment by Armenian investigators. “If we repatriate more people, they too 
will be arrested,” he said.
The four soldiers are prosecuted for allegedly trying to negotiate with, rather 
than engage, Azerbaijani troops that attacked and seized their border post on 
November 16.
Aleksan Tumasian, a lawyer representing one of the arrested men, dismissed the 
charges when he spoke with RFE/RL’s Armenian Service on Tuesday. He said that 
they repeatedly warned their senior commanders about an Azerbaijani military 
buildup in the border area but were ordered not to open fire.
Armenian opposition politicians have for months accused the government of not 
allowing army units to shoot at Azerbaijani forces attacking them at various 
sections of the border. Pashinian insisted on November 17 that neither he nor 
any other official had ever issued no-shoot orders. Deputy Defense Minister 
Arman Sargsian also denied the opposition allegations.
U.S. Concerned By Armenia-Azerbaijan Border Tensions
U.S. -- National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan speaks during the daily briefing 
in the Brady Briefing Room of the White House in Washington, June 7, 2021
U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan has expressed concern over 
“irresponsible and provocative” troop movements along the Armenian-Azerbaijani 
border where deadly fighting has frequently erupted in recent months.
Sullivan discussed the lingering border tensions with Armen Grigorian, the 
secretary of Armenia’s Security Council, at a meeting in Washington on Wednesday.
“Mr. Sullivan conveyed the commitment of the United States to peace, security, 
and prosperity in Armenia and the South Caucasus region,” said Emily Horne, the 
spokeswoman for the U.S. National Security Council.
“He expressed concern over ongoing tensions between Armenia and Azerbaijan, and 
emphasized that military movements near un-demarcated borders are irresponsible 
and provocative,” she added in a statement on the meeting.
It was not clear whether Sullivan’s criticism was addressed to Armenia or 
Azerbaijan or both countries locked in a long-running conflict.
Washington has not publicly blamed either side for the periodical skirmishes 
between Armenian and Azerbaijani forces deployed along the border.
“We urge both sides to take immediate concrete steps to reduce tensions and 
avoid further escalation,” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said following 
a November 16 flare-up of violence which left at least 13 Azerbaijani and 
Armenian soldiers dead.
The border tensions rose significantly when Azerbaijani troops reportedly 
crossed some sections of the frontier and advanced a few kilometers in May. 
Yerevan has since repeatedly urged the international community to pressure Baku 
to withdraw its troops. The Azerbaijani side denies occupying any Armenian 
territory.
According to Horne, Sullivan also welcomed the “ongoing communication” between 
Yerevan and Baku and said Washington will continue to support 
“confidence-building measures and regional reconciliation both bilaterally and 
as a Minsk Group Co-Chair.”
The Minsk Group co-headed by the U.S., Russia and France has long been trying to 
broker a solution to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.
In a joint statement issued on December 7, Blinken, Russian Foreign Minister 
Sergei Lavrov and his French counterpart Jean-Yves Le Drian said Armenia and 
Azerbaijan must not use force to resolve border disputes. They also urged both 
sides to fully comply with their agreements brokered by Moscow.
Aliyev, Pashinian Meet Again In Brussels
Armenia - French President Emmanuel Macron, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol 
Pashinian and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev meet in Brussels, December 15, 
2021.
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev 
met in Brussels on Wednesday night for the second time in two days to discuss 
ways of easing tensions between their countries.
Aliyev and Pashinian sat down with French President Emmanuel Macron following 
the European Union’s summit with five ex-Soviet states covered by its Eastern 
Partnership program. Neither side reported any details of the trilateral meeting 
as of Thursday afternoon.
“We will never abandon the Armenians,” Macron tweeted after the meeting. “We 
will always seek solutions for a lasting peace. I call for the holiday season to 
be one of humanitarian progress, one of appeasement.”
Macron telephoned Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday to discuss, among 
other issues, Moscow’s efforts to stabilize the situation in the 
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict zone. The phone call came a few hours before Aliyev 
and Pashinian held their first talks in Brussels hosted by European Council 
President Charles Michel.
Michel said that the Armenian and Azerbaijani leaders pledged to de-escalate 
tensions on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border and restore rail links between the 
two South Caucasus states during the talks that lasted for more than four hours. 
But he admitted that they failed to patch up their differences on the status of 
a highway that would connect Azerbaijan to its Nakhichevan exclave via Armenia’s 
southeastern Syunik province.
BELGIUM -- President of European Council Charles Michel hosts talks between 
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, 
Brussels, December 14, 2021.
Speaking earlier on Tuesday, Aliyev said people and cargo passing through that 
“Zangezur corridor” must be exempt from Armenian border controls. Pashinian 
rejected the demand shortly before their first Brussels meeting, saying that it 
runs counter to understandings reached by them with Russian mediation.
Pashinian said on Thursday that he and Aliyev “reaffirmed” in the Belgian 
capital their Russian-brokered agreement to launch the rail link between 
Nakhichevan and the rest of Azerbaijan. He insisted that Armenia will have full 
control over its Syunik section.
The Armenian premier announced that his government will soon start discussing 
preparations for the construction of the nearly 50-kilometer-long section. 
“Through that railway Armenia will gain access to Russia and Iran, while 
Azerbaijan will get a rail link with Nakhichevan,” he told a cabinet meeting in 
Yerevan.
Pashinian also said that he and Aliyev will continue their “contacts” to try to 
“overcome the existing disagreements.”
Addressing the Eastern Partnership summit, Aliyev described his talks with 
Pashinian as “productive and pragmatic.”
Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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