Friday,
Hungary’s Deputy PM Makes Surprise Visit To Armenia
Armenia - Catholicos Garegin II meets with Hungarian Deputy Prime Minister Zsolt
Semjen in Echmiadzin, .
Hungary’s Deputy Prime Minister Zsolt Semjen joined a group of Hungarian
academics in visiting Armenia on Friday despite the virtual absence of
diplomatic relations between the two countries.
Armenia froze those relations in 2012 after the Hungarian government
controversially extradited to Azerbaijan an Azerbaijani army officer who hacked
to death a sleeping Armenian colleague in Budapest in 2004. The officer, Ramil
Safarov, whom a Hungarian court sentenced to life imprisonment in 2006, was
pardoned, rewarded and promoted by Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev on his
return to Azerbaijan.
The Hungarian government claimed to have received prior assurances by Baku that
Safarov would serve the rest of his life sentence in an Azerbaijani prison.
Yerevan dismissed that explanation. Then Armenian Foreign Minister Edward
Nalbandian alleged at the time that corruption was at the root of the
“Azerbaijani-Hungarian deal.”
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban travelled to Baku and met with Aliyev two
months before Safarov’s release.
Semjen is the first senior Hungarian official known to have visited Armenia
since then. He arrived with a delegation of officials from Hungary’s Pazmany
Peter Catholic University received by Catholicos Garegin II, the supreme head of
the Armenian Apostolic Church.
In a statement on the meeting, Garegin’s office referred to Semjen and the other
visitors as “pilgrims.” It said Garegin discussed with them “inter-church
relations,” the Hungarian university’s cooperation with Armenia’s Khachatur
Abovian State Pedagogical University and issues relating to Hungary’s small
Armenian community.
Semjen, who holds a doctoral degree from Pazmany Peter Catholic University, also
held a separate meeting with Garegin. It was not clear if the Hungarian
vice-premier will meet any Armenian government officials during the trip.
Unlike other European Union member states, Hungary has openly supported
Azerbaijan in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. The Hungarian Foreign Ministry
reaffirmed that support three days after the outbreak of the
Armenian-Azerbaijani war last September.
Visiting Baku in March this year, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto
discussed with Azerbaijani officials Hungarian companies’ participation in the
planned reconstruction of areas around Karabakh retaken by Azerbaijan during and
after the six-week war.
Armenian Official Expects Fresh Surge In COVID-19 Cases
• Marine Khachatrian
ARMENIA -- Supporters of Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian attend a rally
in the center Yerevan, June 17, 2021
Coronavirus infections in Armenia will likely soar again in the coming weeks
after falling this month to the lowest level in a year, a senior public health
official warned on Friday.
The Armenian Ministry of Health said that only 102 people tested positive for
COVID-19 in the past day, sharply down from over 1,000 cases a day repeatedly
recorded in the country of about 3 million in the first half of April.
The downward trend began in late April despite a continuing lax enforcement of
social distancing and sanitary rules imposed by the Armenian government a year
ago. It continued even after the government formally allowed people not to wear
masks outdoors. Most of them stopped doing that early this year.
The daily number of new cases reported by the Ministry of Health in the course
of this month was usually below 100.
Gayane Sahakian, the deputy head of the ministry’s Center for Disease Control
and Prevention, said it is now on course to rise again.
“While the rate of virus reproduction in the county varied from 0.3 to 0.5 three
or four weeks ago we can say now that it’s above 1,” Sahakian told a news
conference. She said Armenia should record at least 600 cases a day within weeks.
Armenia - Supporters of former President Robert Kocharian and his opposition
alliance attend an election campaign rally in Yerevan's Nor Nork district, June
9, 2021.
The country held on Sunday parliamentary elections after two weeks of intense
campaigning. Very few people wore masks or observed physical distancing during
campaign gatherings organized by numerous political groups. Some pre-election
rallies attracted tens of thousands of people.
Sahakian acknowledged that the more contagious Delta variant of COVID-19 will
also contribute to a fresh wave of infections.
The Delta variant is already prevalent in Russia, the number one source of
foreign tourists visiting Armenia.
Sahakian said the continuing lack of a popular interest in COVID-19 vaccination
also bodes ill for the epidemiological situation in the country. Only 2 percent
of its population has received a first dose of a vaccine so far, she said.
The Armenian health authorities have recorded just over 5,600
coronavirus-related deaths since the start of the pandemic.
European FMs Tour South Caucasus
• Sargis Harutyunyan
Armenia - The foreign ministers of Austria, Lithuania and Romania meet with
Armenian President Armen Sarkissian, Yerevan, .
The foreign ministers of Austria, Lithuania and Romania met with Azerbaijan’s
and Armenia’s leaders on Friday during a joint tour of the three South Caucasus
states aimed at exploring the European Union’s stronger presence in the region.
The ministers arrived in Yerevan after holding talks with Azerbaijani President
Ilham Aliyev and Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov in Baku. They were due to
proceed to Georgia later in the day.
The EU said earlier this week that the visit “mandated” by its foreign and
security policy chief, Josep Borrell, “will highlight the importance that the
European Union attaches to its bilateral relations with these countries.”
“The visit signals the EU’s readiness to support broader cooperation both with
and between the South Caucasus countries, including through the opportunities
available under the Eastern Partnership,” it said in a statement announcing the
trip.
The top diplomats of the three EU member states will also “underscore the EU’s
determination to promote and actively support sustainable and comprehensive
conflict settlement efforts,” added the statement.
Austrian Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg made the same point in written
comments to RFE/RL’s Armenian Service.
“We have seen how quickly seemingly frozen conflicts can erupt again,” he said
in a clear reference to last year’s war in Nagorno-Karabakh. “The EU is
determined to promote a durable and comprehensive settlement of the conflict, in
close cooperation with all our partners, including the OSCE.”
Austrian Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg addresses the media during a
Government meeting in Krems, Austria January 29, 2020.
In that regard, Schallenberg welcomed the recent release of 15 Armenian soldiers
who were taken prisoner during the war. Baku freed them after receiving more
information from Armenia about minefields around Nagorno-Karabakh.
Schallenberg praised the Armenian authorities for “successfully conducting
parliamentary elections” described by European observers as largely democratic.
“I think this is an opportunity to move forward,” he said.
Commenting on the EU’s relations with Armenia, the Austrian minister pointed to
their Comprehensive and Enhanced Partnership Agreement (CEPA) which entered into
force in March.
The 350-page agreement commits the Armenian authorities to carrying out
political reforms that will democratize the country’s political system and boost
human rights protection. They must also gradually “approximate” Armenian
economic laws and regulations to those of the EU.
“It will take some time to adopt all necessary legislative measures and even
more to fully implement them,” said Schallenberg. “But the first step has been
taken.”
Schallenberg also described Austria’s bilateral relations with Armenia as
“excellent.” “We are gradually strengthening our presence in the country,” he
said.
Armenia’s Ruling Party Outspends Election Rivals
• Naira Bulghadarian
Armenia - Campaign posters of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian's Civil Contract
party are displayed during a pre-election rally in Echmiadzin, June 7, 2021.
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s Civil Contract party raised and spent more
money during Armenia’s parliamentary election campaign than any of its
opposition challengers, official records show.
According to its financial report submitted to the Central Election Commission
(CEC), Civil Contract attracted at least 453 million drams ($910,000) in
donations in the run-up to the June 20 elections.
The ruling party, which won the snap elections with almost 54 percent of the
vote, claimed to have spent 369 million drams on its election campaign. It said
most of that money was used for TV and radio ads as well as billboards, booklets
and other campaign materials.
Former President Robert Kocharian’s opposition Hayastan alliance, the official
runner-up in the polls, reported a total of 308 million drams in donations to
its election fund and put its campaign expenditures at 244 million drams.
The opposition Pativ Unem bloc, the third political force that won seats in
Armenia’s new parliament, claimed to have raised 217 million drams and spent 199
million drams. The bloc is led by another ex-president, Serzh Sarkisian.
All three political groups relied heavily on television stations owned by
individuals linked to their leaders. Even so, they channeled a large part of
their campaign spending into ads aired by two other, more popular private TV
networks, according to the CEC.
The 22 other parties and blocs that participated in the elections declared
smaller amounts of campaign spending. None of them will be represented in the
new National Assembly.
Armenia - A woman walks past a campaign billboard of the opposition Hayastan
alliance in Yerevan, May 25, 2021.
During the campaign Pashinian portrayed Kocharian, Sarkisian and their
associates as corrupt individuals who had enriched themselves while in power. He
claimed that they are spending money “stolen from the people.”
For their part, the two opposition forces accused Pashinian’s party of illegally
using public funds and other resources for electoral purposes. They also pointed
to the presence of several wealthy businessmen among Civil Contract’s election
candidates. One of those businessmen led a small pro-government party in the
2000s when Armenia was ruled by Kocharian.
Armenian law stipulates that a party or bloc cannot spend more than 500 million
drams on its election campaign. It also bans political donations from private
firms and other legal entities.
“While campaign finance regulation is detailed, a number of shortcomings allow
for the circumvention of legal provisions,” an election observation mission
mostly deployed in Armenia by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in
Europe (OSCE) said in a report released on Monday.
The report argued that “the legal definition of campaign expenditures does not
cover organizational expenses, such as costs for office space, transportation,
communications, and campaign staff, leaving the opportunity for contestants to
use these expenses as a means to circumvent spending limits.”
Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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