Author: Garnik Tadevosian

Armenpress News Agency , Armenia
 Thursday


Baroness Caroline Cox addresses video message praising Armen
Sargsyan's nomination for president



YEREVAN, JANUARY 25, ARMENPRESS. Baroness Caroline Cox, member of the
UK’s House of Lords, has addressed a video message welcoming the
nomination of Armenia’s Ambassador to the UK Armen Sargsyan as the
presidential candidate by the Republican Party.

In the message, she said she will be delighted to see Armen Sargsyan
in the post of president of Armenia.

"I just heard the excellent news that the present Ambassador of
Armenia to UK Armen Sargsyan has been invited to stand for the
presidency of the Republic of Armenia. I am absolutely delighted, I've
known Mr. Sargsyan for many many years, since he was Prime Minister of
Armenia, he has been three times the Ambassador of Armenia in the
United Kingdom. So he brings wonderful knowledge and experience to
offer, in terms of his diplomatic skills and his many many other areas
of expertise and relationships", she said.

                                        Monday, January 22, 2017

Opposition Bloc Rejects Presidential Candidate Favored By Sarkisian


 . Ruzanna Stepanian


Armenia - Edmon Marukian (L) and Nikol Pashinian, leaders of the
opposition Yelk alliance, address supporters rallying in Yerevan,
19Jan2018.

Lawmakers representing the opposition Yelk alliance said on Monday
that they will vote against former Prime Minister Armen Sarkissian if
he agrees to run for president as a candidate of the ruling Republican
Party of Armenia (HHK).

"We will talk to Armen Sarkissian but the Yelk faction [in the
parliament] will vote against his candidacy," one of them, Ararat
Mirzoyan, told reporters.

The Armenian parliament is due to elect a new and less powerful
president of the republic by March 10. President Serzh Sarkisian
offered Sarkissian on Friday to become the ruling party's presidential
candidate.

Sarkissian, who currently serves as Armenia's ambassador to Britain,
said he needs "some time" to decide whether to accept the offer. He
said he will hold consultations with major political and civic groups
before making the decision.

It is not clear when those talks will get underway. The Armenpress
news agency reported that Sarkissian flew back to London over the
weekend and will return to Armenia by the end of this week.

"I think that when it receives such a proposal the Yelk faction will
definitely meet with the presidential candidate to hear [his views,]
discuss some issues and even voice concerns," said Mirzoyan. "But I am
almost certain that that meeting will not reflect on the Yelk vote."

"After all, Armen Sarkissian is a Republican Party candidate and that
is a quite telling fact in itself," he added.

Yelk announced late last year its desire to nominate its own
presidential candidate, Artak Zeynalian. But in order to formally do
that, it needs the backing of at least 27 members of Armenia's
105-seat parliament.

The bloc holds only nine seats in the National Assembly. It has tried
in vain to get the second largest parliamentary force, the Tsarukian
Bloc, to provide the remaining 18 signatures needed for putting
Zeynalian's name on the ballot.

Another Yelk deputy, Gevorg Gorgisian, challenged the ruling HHK to
help register Zeynalian as a candidate, saying that would make the
upcoming presidential vote competitive and more legitimate. "Otherwise
it will be an election without an alternative, without a dialogue and
without a debate, which will run counter to democracy" he said.

The HHK's parliamentary leader, Vahram Baghdasarian, scoffed at the
idea. "You won't find such a precedent in any country of the world,"
he told a news conference.

Under the Armenian constitution, a presidential candidate has to be
backed by a three-fourths and two-thirds majority of lawmakers in
order to win in the first and second rounds of voting respectively. A
simple majority of votes is enough to win the presidency in the third
round. The HHK has such a majority.

Nevertheless, President Sarkisian expressed hope on Friday that Armen
Sarkissian will win outright in the first round. In that case, the
former premier would need the backing of at least 79 members of the
105-seat parliament.

The HHK and its junior coalition partner, the Armenian Revolutionary
Federation (Dashnaktsutyun), control 65 seats between them. They will
therefore need the backing of the Tsarukian Bloc which holds 31
seats. The bloc's leader, Gagik Tsarukian, has not ruled out the
possibility of supporting an HHK presidential candidate.



Fuel Prices In Armenia Rise Further


 . Anush Muradian


Armenia -- A petrol station in Yerevan, 22Jan2018

The prices of gasoline and diesel fuel in Armenia have risen further
despite President Serzh Sarkisian's calls for possible "drastic
measures" against a handful of companies importing fuel.

One liter of gasoline cost at least 440 drams (90 U.S. cents) at
filling stations across Yerevan on Monday, up by 10 drams from the end
of last week. The price stood at 390 drams per liter in early
December. Fuel companies have raised it for three times since then.

The most significant price rise followed the entry into force on
January 1 of new legislation mandating higher excise duties on fuel,
alcohol and tobacco. The prices of pressurized natural gas, used by
most vehicles in the country, as well as some essential foodstuffs
have also gone up in recent months, prompting strong criticism of the
Armenian government from opposition politicians and many ordinary
citizens.

Sarkisian expressed concern over the price hikes at an emergency
meeting with senior government and Central Bank officials held on
January 10. He said the government should look into the situation in
the domestic fuel market and decide whether it warrants "drastic
measures" by the State Commission on the Protection of Economic
Competition (SCPEC).

The bulk of fuel is currently imported to Armenia by two companies,
Flash and CPS. At least one of them is owned by individuals close to
the ruling establishment. Both companies declined to comment on the
latest price rises.

An SCPEC official told RFE/RL's Armenian service (Azatutyun.am) that
the anti-trust body will again "monitor" the fuel market to decide
whether the importers have abused their dominant positions in the
lucrative business.

Echoing statements by Prime Minister Karen Karapetian, a leading
member of the ruling Republican Party (HHK), Vahram Baghdasarian,
insisted on Monday fuel prices in Armenia are still lower than in
neighboring Georgia. "The current petrol price is congruent with the
international market," he claimed.

A senior member of the opposition Yelk alliance, meanwhile, decried
the latest price hikes. "What excuses will they come up with now?"
Gevorg Gorgisian said of the authorities.

Opposition politicians have long held the authorities and President
Sarkisian in particular responsible for the existence of de facto fuel
monopolies. Government officials have denied, however, that any sector
of the Armenian economy is monopolized.



Babayan Appeals Against Guilty Verdict


 . Karlen Aslanian


Armenia - Samvel Babayan (R), Nagorno-Karabakh's former military
leader, stands trial in Yerevan, 20Nov2017.

Samvel Babayan, a retired army general recently convicted of illegal
arms acquisition and money laundering, insisted on his innocence as
Armenia's Court of Appeals opened hearings in the high-profile case on
Monday.

A district court in Yerevan sentenced Babayan to six years in prisons
in November at the end of a four-month trial that also involved six
other defendants. Two of them were sentenced to three and two years'
imprisonment, while the four others received suspended jail terms.

Babayan was arrested in March 2017 after Armenia's National Security
Service (NSS) claimed to have confiscated a surface-to-air rocket
system smuggled to the country. The arrest came about two weeks before
Armenia's last parliamentary elections. Babayan was unofficially
affiliated with the ORO alliance led by former Defense Minister Seyran
Ohanian and two other opposition politicians. ORO condemned the
criminal case as politically motivated.


Armenia - Former Defense Minister Seyran Ohanian (second from right)
and other leaders of the ORO opposition bloc hold a campaign rally in
Yerevan, 11Mar2017.

Babayan has repeatedly denied prosecutors' claims that he promised to
pay other defendants, notably his longtime associate Sanasar
Gabrielian, $50,000 for the delivery of the shoulder-fired Igla
rocket. Gabrielian, who received the three-year prison sentence,
insisted during the trial that it was he who commissioned the
confiscated Igla. He claimed that he wanted to donate the launcher
along with its shoulder-fired rockets to Nagorno-Karabakh's army.

Both defendants appealed against the guilty verdict handed down by the
lower court. Speaking at the start of Court of Appeals hearings,
Babayan accused a trial prosecutor of deliberately omitting key facts
which he said prove his and Gabrielian's innocence. The court rejected
his demand for the prosecutor, Aram Aramian, to be barred from the
case.

Gabrielian charged, meanwhile, that he and the once powerful general
were jailed for their involvement in ORO's activities.

Law-enforcement authorities deny any political motives behind the
case. But they have still not explained why Babayan would seek to get
hold of the rocket designed to shoot down planes and helicopters.

Late last month, law-enforcement authorities in Georgia extradited to
Armenia an Armenian man accused of providing the sophisticated weapon
to Babayan. The 40-year-old Robert Aghvanian was detained in Tbilisi
just days after Babayan's controversial arrest.

Babayan, 52, led Karabakh's Armenian-backed army from 1993-1999 and
was widely regarded as the unrecognized republic's most powerful man
at that time. He was arrested in 2000 and subsequently sentenced to 14
years in prison for allegedly masterminding a botched attempt on the
life of the then Karabakh president, Arkady Ghukasian. He was set free
in 2004.

Babayan criticized the current authorities in Yerevan and Stepanakert
after returning to Armenia in May 2016 from Russia where he lived for
five years in what appeared to be self-imposed exile.



Armenian PM Courts Swiss Investors


Switzerland - Armenian Prime Minister Karen Karapetian addresses Swiss
businesspeople in Zurich, 22Jan2018.

Prime Minister Karen Karapetian urged Swiss businesspeople to invest
in Armenia when he visited Switzerland on Monday following a drastic
increase in trade between the two countries recorded last year.

Karapetian addressed them in Zurich at the start of his first trip to
a European country in his capacity as prime minister. He will also
attend the annual World Economic Forum that will get underway in the
Swiss resort town of Davos on Tuesday.

An Armenian government statement said he will hold "a number of
bilateral and multilateral meetings" on the sidelines of the forum. It
gave no details.

"My message to you today is clear and straightforward," Karapetian
declared at a dinner meeting in Zurich organized by the Swiss-Armenian
Chamber of Commerce. "Come and do business in Armenia, come and invest
in Armenia. It is a worthy place for investing and doing business."

"We have undertaken significant reforms in every aspect of our
country," he said in what was apparently his first-ever speech
delivered in English.

Karapetian touted his government's efforts to improve Armenia's
investment climate and attract more foreign investment. He said that
they are already producing concrete results, pointing to official
statistics which shows that the Armenian economy grew by about 7
percent last year.

The premier also cited Armenian government data indicating that
Swiss-Armenian trade tripled in 2017. According to the National
Statistical Service (NSS), it totaled almost $316 million in
January-November 2017, making Switzerland Armenia's third largest
trading partner after Russia and China.

Significantly, Armenian exports to Switzerland accounted for
three-quarters of that figure. They include watches and watch parts
manufactured by plants belonging to Swish entrepreneurs of Armenian
descent. It is not yet clear what exactly caused those exports to more
than triple in the eleven-month period.

Karapetian encouraged Swiss companies to invest in a wide range of
Armenian sectors, including energy, mining, jewelry and
agribusiness. He said that they would gain tariff-free access to
Russia's market thanks to Armenia's membership in the Eurasian
Economic Union (EEU). He also called for Swiss investments in a free
economic zone which was set up on Armenia's border with Iran last
month.



Press Review



(Saturday, January 20)

Political analyst Alexander Iskandarian tells "Haykakan Zhamanak" that
the nomination of former Prime Minister Armen Sarkissian for the post
of Armenia's president should go down well with most Armenians not
least because he is widely regarded as an outsider. Iskandarian also
says that the continuing uncertainty about who will be Armenia's prime
minister after April 9 is natural. "If [the prime minister's] name is
announced now that person will simply be `savaged' before April," he
says. "They would start circulating compromising information and
launch smear campaigns. Serzh Sarkisian will therefore keep up the
suspense almost until the last minute."

"Zhamanak" describes the choice of Armen Sarkissian as "yet another
artificial life support for the authorities." "The nomination of Armen
Sarkissian's candidacy suggests that Serzh Sarkisian has no real
desire to reform the system and once again connects it to artificial
life support," writes the paper. It argues that for the first time
ever a president of Armenia has been "effectively appointed by one
man." The paper is also confident that parliament deputies from the
Tsarukian Bloc will also vote for Sarkissian despite its nominally
opposition status and frequent criticism of the government's economic
policies.

"Aravot" carries an editorial on Friday's demonstration in Yerevan
against recent price rises which was organized by the opposition Yelk
alliance. "If hundreds of thousands of people are unhappy [with the
government] why don't they take to the streets when a political group
stages a protest against price hikes?" asks the paper. "The easiest
thing to do is to accuse that political group, Yelk, of being not
popular or sincere enough. But such accusations are usually made by
the authorities or those oppositionists who are definitely less
popular and, more importantly, less sincere than Yelk." The paper
believes that Armenians' lack of civic consciousness is a more
important reason for the relatively poor turnout at the Yelk rally.

(Tatev Danielian)


Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
Copyright (c) 2018 Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, Inc.
1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.
www.rferl.org

Armenpress News Agency , Armenia
 Saturday


NK conflict must be settled based on Artsakh self-determination right
– Nalbandian



YEREVAN, DECEMBER 30, ARMENPRESS. The significant difference of
Armenia’s and Azerbaijan’s approaches in the NK conflict settlement
issue is that Azerbaijan attempts to present some made up proposals,
as if made by the Co-Chairs, present some made up negotiations
processes, which are false, Armenian FM Edward Nalbandian said in an
interview.

“The NK conflict settlement process, surely you know, is a long
lasting process. Why can’t we reach some results, I said this in my
speech in the OSCE ministerial council in Vienna and I put forward 9
reasons. Those 9 reasons are those obstacles, which Azerbaijan is
putting forward for many years, and due to these very obstacles it
isn’t possible to advance. The difference between us and Azerbaijan,
the significant difference lies in the very thing that Azerbaijan is
attempting to present some made up proposals, as if made by the
Co-Chairs, present come made up negotiations processes which are
false, because the statement made at the three co-chairing countries’
ministerial level during the Vienna summit – by Lavrov, Tillerson and
the French delegation head, once again reaffirmed that no, there are
specific proposals, principles, which are the basis of this
negotiations process”, the minister said.

Asked how can the tension be eased in the line of contact, the
minister said: “This was talked about and we had agreed during the
Vienna and St. Petersburg summits. And you know very well, and not
only you but everyone, that Azerbaijan was doing everything to pretend
that there are no agreements, was taking every step to fail these
agreements from realizing, and it even was saying that as if Armenia
had put forward pre-conditions. This was very far from the truth, and
the latest statement of the co-chairs proves this, that no, all
agreements must be implemented. But not only this. Let me open a bit
the bracket. I asked my colleague, I said ok, the presidents agreed to
take additional steps for minimizing the tension. Can Azerbaijan today
reaffirm the commitment for the 1994-1995 trilateral, termless
ceasefire agreement? And this isn’t only our demand. This is the urge
which the co-chairing countries voice for many years. You know, both
Armenia and Karabakh have always said that yes, they are committed to
this agreement, while Azerbaijan is doing everything to step back from
this agreement. If Azerbaijan is unable to reaffirm its commitment for
the implementation of the ceasefire agreement, how can we speak about
minimizing tension in the line of contact, about true, significant
minimization”.

Nalbandian stressed that it’s about intensifying the negotiations.

Nalbandian mentioned the principles brought forward by the co-chairing
countries.

“We are committed to reach settlement based on those principles. Those
three principles are: territorial integrity, the equality and self
determination right of peoples and non use of force or the threat of
force. And I asked my colleague, whether or not today he is willing to
reaffirm commitment for these principles, because there was a time
when Azerbaijan agreed to them. During the 2009 OSCE ministerial
council in Athens, Azerbaijan factually agreed, and we made a
five-sided statement – the FMs of Armenia and Azerbaijan with the
co-chairing countries, where these very principles were written.
During the latest Vienna meeting Azerbaijan was once again unable to
reaffirm commitment. And what happened? The co-chairing countries once
again reaffirmed in their statement, yes, the international
community’s approach is that settlement must be based on the
fundamental principles of these three international rights, which
Armenia has for numerous times supported and supported settlement
based on these principles. “

The FM also stressed that a provision cannot be singled out from the
proposed settlement document, like Azerbaijan is doing. According to
him, it is a packaged proposal, and here there is the main proposal-
the final status of NK, which must be decided based on the
self-determination right of the people of NK.

“This self-determination must be realized through the free expression
of will, which must have international legal binding force, binding
for Azerbaijan also”, he said.

Nalbandian stressed that the NK conflict doesn’t get a solution
because Azerbaijan opposed not Armenia’s approach, but opposes the
stance of the international community.