Monday,
Trump Congratulates Pashinian, Urges Karabakh Peace
Belgium - U.S. President Donald Trump and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol
Pashinian talk during a NATO summit in Brussels, 11 July 2018.
U.S. President Donald Trump stressed the importance of resolving the
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict when he congratulated Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian
on winning Armenia’s recent parliamentary elections.
“Congratulations on your appointment as Prime Minister of Armenia and your
coalition’s success in the December 9, 2018 parliamentary elections,” Trump
said in a letter made public by Pashinian’s press office at the weekend.
“The United States supports a prosperous, democratic Armenia at peace with its
neighbors,” he wrote. “Together, we can make progress on deepening trade
between our countries, strengthening global security, and combating corruption.”
“A peaceful solution to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict will help these efforts,”
added Trump.
Visiting Yerevan in October, Trump’s national security adviser, John Bolton,
said Washington expects Pashinian to take “decisive steps” towards a Karabakh
settlement after his widely anticipated victory in the snap elections.
Pashinian should have a “very strong mandate” to reach a compromise peace deal
with Azerbaijan, Bolton said after talks with the Armenian leader.
Pashinian’s My Step bloc won as much as 70 percent of the vote in the
elections. The U.S. Embassy in Armenia was quick to praise the conduct of the
vote, echoing its positive assessment by European observers.
The U.S. has long been spearheading, together with Russia and France,
international efforts to end the Karabakh conflict. Diplomats from the three
world powers co-heading the OSCE Minsk Group have organized and attended four
meetings of the Armenian and Azerbaijani foreign ministers in the last six
months.
The mediators seemed encouraged by the most recent of those meetings which took
place in Paris on January 16. In a joint statement, they said Foreign Ministers
Zohrab Mnatsakanian and Elmar Mammadyarov “agreed upon the necessity of taking
concrete measures to prepare the populations for peace.”
The Minsk Group co-chairs also said that they will visit the region soon to
meet with Pashinian and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev.
Aliyev and Pashinian spoke to each other for the first time on the sidelines of
a summit of former Soviet republics held in Tajikistan in September. There has
been a significant decrease in ceasefire violations around Karabakh and along
the Armenian-Azerbaijani border since then.
The two leaders talked again during another ex-Soviet summit that took place in
Russia in early December. Aliyev said afterwards that the year 2019 will see a
“new impetus” to the Karabakh peace process.
Most Armenian Ministers Reappointed
• Naira Bulghadarian
Armenia - Ministers at a cabinet meeting in Yerevan, January 17, 2019.
The Armenian ministers of defense, finance and foreign affairs as well as eight
other members of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s cabinet have been formally
reappointed to their posts.
President Armen Sarkissian signed relevant decrees on Saturday more than one
month after Pashinian’s My Step bloc swept to a landslide victory in
parliamentary elections that completed last spring’s “velvet revolution” in
Armenia.
In another decree, Sarkissian appointed Zaruhi Batoyan as minister of labor and
social affairs. She has served as a deputy minister in the same agency until
now.
Batoyan, 39, is the first new minister in Pashinian’s post-election cabinet.
She is also its sole female member so far.
Armenia - Zaruhi Batoyan, the newly appointed minister of labor and social
affairs.
The cabinet members who have kept their jobs also include senior My Step
figures such as Education Minister Arayik Harutiunian and Local Government
Minister Suren Papikian as well as Justice Minister Artak Zeynalian. The latter
is a leading member of a pro-Western bloc that challenged My Step in the
December 9 elections.
The reappointed Defense Minister Davit Tonoyan, Finance Minister Atom
Janjughazian and Foreign Minister Zohrab Mnatsakanian are technocrats not
affiliated with any party or bloc.
Two of Armenia’s three deputy prime minister, Tigran Avinian and Mher
Grigorian, were reappointed last Wednesday.
Pashinian indicated on Thursday he has still not made a final decision on the
structure of his government. He said he will therefore name only two-thirds of
his ministers for the time being.
In a live Facebook address aired the following day, the premier reaffirmed his
intention to reduce the number of government ministries, saying that will make
the executive branch more efficient and less susceptible to corruption. He
specifically defended the widely anticipated closure of the Diaspora Ministry
and the Culture Ministry’s merger with the Education Ministry.
Ever since he came to power in May Pashinian has repeatedly pledged to downsize
the state bureaucracy, saying that it is bloated and inefficient.
A tentative government bill circulated last month calls for reducing the number
of ministries from 17 to 12. It sparked street protests in December by hundreds
of Diaspora and culture ministry employees fearing a loss of their jobs.
Some public administration experts question the wisdom of having fewer
government ministries. They say that the new “super ministries” would only slow
down the work of the state apparatus.
Armenia - Bright Armenia party leader Edmon Marukian speaks at an election
campaign rally in Masis, November 28, 2018.
Also, some opposition groups, notably the Bright Armenia Party (LHK), have
criticized Pashinian’s apparent reluctance to curtail his sweeping executive
powers inherited from the country’s former leaders. The controversial bill
would keep Armenia’s police, National Security Service (NSS) and tax and
customs services accountable to the prime minister, rather than his cabinet or
the parliament.
These agencies were directly controlled by the presidents of the republic under
the previous, presidential system of government. Former President Serzh
Sarkisian made sure that they will be subordinate to the prime minister when he
enacted controversial constitutional changes that turned Armenia into a
parliamentary republic.
Sarkisian planned to stay in power as prime minister after serving out his
second presidential term in April 2018. Pashinian, Edmon Marukian and other
leaders of the now defunct Yelk alliance accused him of introducing a “super
prime-ministerial” system of government with the aim of maintaining a tight
grip on power.
Marukian, who leads the LHK, again demanded last week that the police, the NSS
and the State Revenue Committee (SRC) be turned into ministries. “Public
attention is focused on the Diaspora and culture ministries but the key thing
here is the police, the NSS and the tax collection body, which must be placed
under a parliamentary oversight,” he told reporters.
Provincial Governors Under Fire Over Bonuses
• Ruzanna Stepanian
Armenia - Garik Sargsian, the mayor of Nor Kyank village, April 14, 2017.
Opposition lawmakers condemned on Monday Armenian provincial governors for
paying themselves and their staffers lavish yearend bonuses.
The governors of at least three provinces -- Ararat, Armavir and Syunik --
reportedly received financial rewards equivalent to their monthly salaries.
They all have been in office for less than a year.
According to the Hetq.am investigative publication, Ararat’s Garik Sargsian
paid himself an extra 690,000 drams ($1,420) late last month. He earns 660,000
drams per month.
A member of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s Civil Contract party, Sargsian was
the mayor of a village in Ararat before being appointed as regional governor in
June. He famously claimed to have sold a car belonging to the village
administration to save local funds and used a bicycle to ride to work.
Representatives of the two opposition parties represented in the Armenian
parliament denounced the bonuses as unethical and profligate.
“This is unacceptable to us,” said Ani Samsonian of the Bright Armenia Party.
“I think that after this outcry the governors should reconsider their
approaches because paying such lavish bonuses from the state budget … is
inadmissible.”
Sergey Bagratian, a Prosperous Armenia Party deputy who had served as a
governor, said while the bonuses are not illegal it is morally wrong for the
governors to reward themselves.
“Only the lowest echelons [of provincial administrations,] whose salaries are
low, should get bonuses,” Bagratian told RFE/RL’s Armenian service. “I never
rewarded myself.”
Lena Nazarian, a deputy parliament speaker representing Pashinian’s My Step
alliance, also disapproved of the governors’ decisions. She said that they
should have been “more modest in paying themselves bonuses.”
But Lilit Makunts, the leader of My Step’s parliamentary faction, was less
categorical. “If the law allows that, does not forbid that, I can’t speak out
against it,” she told reporters.
Still, Makunts said the parliament majority should discuss the issue and
consider legally restricting the governors’ ability to get extra pay at will.
Minister for Local Government Suren Papikian, who supervises the provincial
administrations, also defended the governors when he spoke to RFE/RL’s Armenian
service later on Monday. He said that the bonuses are one way to partly offset
a big pay gap between public and private sector employees.
“Once a year a governor can be rewarded with a relevant government body’s
permission,” he said.
Papikian at the same time criticized Sargsian, the Ararat governor, for getting
a bonus exceeding his monthly salary. “I had a phone conversation in connection
with that and I think that the relevant government body will take steps or at
least give explanations,” added the minister.
Moscow, Baku Spar Over Azeri Travel Ban For Armenians
AZERBAIJAN -- Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov (R) and Azerbaijani
Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov attend a ceremony in Baku, November 20, 2017
A diplomatic spat between Russia and Azerbaijan intensified over the weekend,
with Baku continuing to refuse to allow Russian citizens of Armenian descent to
visit the South Caucasus country.
The Azerbaijani government has long maintained a travel ban for not only
Armenia’s citizens but also ethnic Armenians from other countries because of
the unresolved Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. It considers any Armenian presence on
Azerbaijani soil a security risk.
On January 11, Russia renewed its demands for the lifting of the ban for its
ethnic Armenian citizens. The Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, Maria
Zakharova, said the “blatant violation” of their rights is “incompatible with
friendly ties between the two countries.”
Azerbaijan’s Foreign Ministry rejected Zakharova’s remarks as “provocative” and
“anti-Azerbaijani.” The ministry defended the travel ban, blaming it on
Armenia’s “policy of aggression against Azerbaijan.”
The Azerbaijani ambassador in Moscow, Polad Bulbuloglu, claimed, for his part,
that ethnic Armenians are not allowed into his country for the sake of their
own security.
The Russian Foreign Ministry condemned the Azerbaijani statements as “going
beyond the bounds of diplomatic propriety.” “Depending on a meaningful reaction
of the Azerbaijani side, we will decide our further steps,” it warned in a
statement issued on Friday.
Baku remained defiant, saying that the Russian statement amounts to an
ultimatum and contradicts “the basis of strategic relations between Azerbaijan
and Russia.”
According to Zakharova, there were at least 16 cases of Russian nationals
denied entry to Azerbaijan “on ethnic grounds” in 2018. The most recent of them
was reported late last month. Kristina Gevorkyan, an ethnic Armenian holder of
a Russian passport, said that she was held in detention at Baku’s Heydar Aliyev
international airport for 13 hours before being deported to Russia.
Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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