Aliyev’s words are disrespectful towards Armenian people and CIS heads of state – PM Pashinyan
12:54, 11 October, 2019
YEREVAN, OCTOBER 11, ARMENPRESS. Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan reacted to the speech of Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev at the session of the CIS Council of Heads of State in Ashgabat.
Pashinyan stated that Aliyev’s remarks contain attempts to distort the history.
“Unfortunately, we saw such attempts in the remarks of Ilham Aliyev. Listening to his assessments on Garegin Nzhdeh, frankly I remembered the Kidnapping, Caucasian Style film where there is a talk about the ruins of an ancient castle, and question is asked “so what, have I also destroyed the church?” There is an impression from Aliyev’s statement that in general Hitler played a secondary role in that war, and the leader of the Nazi movement was Garegin Nzhdeh. But the reality is that Garegin Nzhdeh was fighting against Armenia’s Turkish occupation, against the genocide of Armenians which was organized by Turks”, Pashinyan said, once again emphasizing the importance of knowing the objective assessment of the history.
“It is stated that Garegin Nzhdeh has died in the Vladimir Prison. Many Soviet figures have died in the Vladimir Prison, and so what, all those who were convicted in the 1937-1950s, should be considered as people’s enemies? And if that is so, many famous figures were convicted and spent the last days of their life in prison. But this doesn’t mean that we must accept this as a fact. And I consider it inappropriate to use this format to distort the history, create some tension during this very important session”, the Armenian PM said.
Pashinyan noted that the Armenian government pays special attention to the war veterans, just few months before the social fees provided to all veterans of the Great Patriotic War doubled.
“From the Declaration we will sign today I would like to highlight the parts which emphasize the necessity to make joint efforts to restore the broad international dialogue aimed at strengthening the international security, opposing the dividing lines, the actions leading to formation of mistrust, tension. And I also believe that during such format summits we should do everything possible not to increase the tension between our peoples, our countries, but quite the contrary, to be able to find ways for dialogue, compromise, mutual trust and respect. I think the words of the Azerbaijani President are first of all disrespectful for the Armenian people. And I also believe that his words are disrespectful towards the leaders of the countries and the peoples they represent here”, Nikol Pashinyan said.
The Armenian PM once again thanked the Turkmen leadership for the successful chairmanship in the CIS and expressed hope that the joint efforts aimed at improving and strengthening the multilateral cooperation within the CIS will continue. He also reaffirmed Armenia’s readiness to provide support to the Uzbek partners during the 2020 chairmanship in CIS.
Edited and translated by Aneta Harutyunyan
Pashinyan explains choice of book as gift to Putin
20:04,
YEREVAN, OCTOBER 11, ARMENPRESS. Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has explained why he has chosen V. Kazimirov’s Peace to Karabakh as a gift to President of Russia Vladimir Putin.
“Since it has become a subject of discussions, let me explain: I gifted Russian President Vladimir Putin the OSCE MG former Russian co-chair Vladimir Kazimirov’s Peace to Karabakh book.
The book isn’t “pro-Armenian”.
It’s just that in 1992-1996 Kazimirov dealt with the Karabakh issue, made great efforts for the signing of the 1994 ceasefire agreement and in his book he is telling as a witness about a number of important nuances of the Karabakh conflict, which regrettably have been forgotten.
And after all, the book has a wonderful title: “Peace to Karabakh”,” the Armenian PM wrote on Facebook.
Edited and translated by Stepan Kocharyan
Wednesday,
Kocharian Operated On In Hospital
• Robert Zargarian
Armenia -- Former President Robert Kocharian (R) talks to his lawyer Hayk
Alumian during his trial, Yerevan, October 7, 2019.
Armenia’s jailed former President Robert Kocharian underwent surgery at a
hospital in Yerevan on Wednesday.
The chief doctor of the Izmirlian Medical Center, Armen Charchian, told
RFE/RL’s Armenian service that the operation was successful. For privacy
reasons he refused to reveal the medical condition Kocharian suffered from.
Kocharian was taken to the private hospital from a prison in downtown Yerevan
on Tuesday for the third time in just over a week. His younger son Levon
insisted last week that the 65-year-old ex-president does not have serious
health problems.
One of Kocharian’s lawyers, Hayk Alumian, could not say whether he will be fit
enough to attend the next hearing of his ongoing trial scheduled for October
15. “I think that based on the dynamics even the doctors can’t tell that at the
moment,” said Alumian.
Alumian also said that Kocharian’s legal team has no plans yet to use the
surgery for again demanding his release from prison.
The judge presiding over the trial, Anna Danibekian, twice refused last month
to free the ex-president pending a verdict in the case. The defense lawyers
accused her of acting on government orders and being biased against their
client.
Kocharian, who was arrested again in June, stands trial on coup and corruption
charges mostly stemming from the 2008 post-election violence in Yerevan. He
rejects them as politically motivated.
Scrapping Of Russian-Armenian Railway Deal ‘Not On Agenda’
• Naira Nalbandian
Armenia -- A commuter train at Yerevan's railway station, February 27, 2018.
Russian and Armenian officials are not discussing the possibility of ending
Russian management of Armenia’s railway network, Deputy Prime Minister Mher
Grigorian said on Wednesday.
The Russia Railways (RZD) company runs the network called South Caucasus
Railway (SRC) in line with a 30-year management contract signed with the former
Armenian government in 2008. The deal committed it to modernizing Armenia’s
disused and rundown railway infrastructure with substantial capital investments.
An Armenian law-enforcement agency effectively accused SRC of
investment-related fraud after raiding its offices and confiscating company
documents in August 2018. Both SRC and its Russian operator denied any
wrongdoing.
Russia’s Deputy Transport Minister Vladimir Tokarev said last month that the
continuing criminal investigation has disrupted RZD’s operations in Armenia. He
said the state-run company managing Russia’s vast network of railways is
therefore considering pulling out of the 2008 deal.
RUSSIA -- A close view of a car of the first tourist train passing through
Russia's Arctic regions to Norway as it prepares to leave St. Petersburg for a
11-day trip with 91 passengers on board, in St. Petersburg, June 5, 2019
Tokarev and RZD’s chief executive, Oleg Belozerov, discussed the dispute with
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian in Yerevan on Tuesday. Grigorian, who was also
present at the meeting, insisted that “the issue of terminating the contract is
not on the agenda” of either side at the moment.
The deputy premier said that the talks were “constructive” and focused on RZD
investments in Armenia. “We want -- and I think this desire is reciprocal -- to
ascertain those investment projects numerically for the coming years,” he told
reporters.
Grigorian confirmed that the Armenian government is dissatisfied with RZD’s
compliance with its investment commitments. “We have only two trains that look
like transport equipment meeting European standards,” he said. “This issue was
also discussed and our position also took the form of certain demands.”
Armenia -- Deputy Prime Minister Mher Grigorian speaks to journalists, October
9, 2019.
According to an RZD statement, Belozerov insisted at the meeting with Pashinian
that his company is fully complying with the terms of the 2008 deal, having
invested almost $250 million in the Armenian railway network over the past
decade.
“The head of RZD pointed out that the main condition for the realization of the
project and continued modernization of the [Armenian] railway infrastructure is
a settlement of all contentious issues in the spirit of constructive
interaction and with the participation of Armenia’s government,” read the
statement. It did not say whether the two sides reached any understandings to
that effect.
A spokeswoman for Armenia’s Investigative Committee confirmed on Wednesday
nobody has been formally charged so far as part of the fraud inquiry into SCR
launched by it last November. Grigorian dismissed Armenian opposition claims
that investigators are under government pressure not to indict anyone lest they
further anger the Russians.
Pashinian Again Rules Out Asset Seizures
• Naira Nalbandian
Armenia -- Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian (second from right) speaks at a
business seminar in Yerevan, October 9, 2019.
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian said on Wednesday that his administration will
avoid confiscating dubiously acquired properties and other assets belonging to
former senior government officials.
Pashinian again insisted that there has been no such “redistribution of
property” in Armenia since he came to power during last year’s “Velvet
Revolution.”
“Not only I but also many others, including law-enforcement bodies, know that a
particular property belongs to a concrete [former] high-ranking official and
was acquired with concrete funds,” he told a business seminar in Yerevan. “And
there is a very big temptation to tell the National Security Service (NSS) to
find that woman [acting as a front for an ex-official] and get her to donate
that property to the state.”
“In the political sense that could even be considered justified,” he said. “But
while grinding our teeth, we do realize that we can’t do such things. We can’t
because even if you confiscate a fake property everyone will think that the
same could also happen to them.”
Pashinian did not name any former officials who allegedly enriched themselves
while in office. He has previously implicated former Presidents Serzh Sarkisian
and Robert Kocharian in corrupt practices.
One of Sarkisian’s brothers, Aleksandr, was charged with fraud in February
several months after the NSS had his $30 million bank account frozen as part of
a separate criminal inquiry. Sarkisian, who is better known as “Sashik,”
avoided arrest after agreeing to transfer the entire sum to the state budget.
And as recently as on September 26 Pashinian’s government completed the
nationalization of a luxury hotel handed over to it by Armen Avetisian, who had
served as the chief of the Armenian customs service during Kocharian’s rule.
Avetisian, who had faced corruption allegations throughout his tenure, offered
the donation last November after the NSS moved to prosecute him for illegal
entrepreneurship and money laundering.
Citing a sizable rise in state revenues, Pashinian reiterated on Wednesday that
his government has made significant progress in its fight against tax evasion.
He complained at the same time about a lack of business support for the effort.
“Economic revolution cannot be a monologue, it has to be a dialogue,” he said.
Pashinian also said many entrepreneurs complain that despite its
anti-corruption agenda the current government has set unclear “rules of the
game” for them. He insisted that its rules are clear and based on three
principles: “do not steal, be efficient and cooperate.”
Russian-Armenian Military Force Holds Fresh Drills
Armenia -- Russian and Armenian troops hold joint military exercises at the
Bagramian training ground, October 9, 2019.
More than 1,500 Armenian and Russian soldiers simulated combat operations
during joint military exercises in Armenia that ended on Wednesday.
The nine-day exercises held at the Bagramian training ground 50 kilometers west
of Yerevan involved troops as well as hundreds of tanks, armored vehicles and
artillery systems making up a joint Russian-Armenian military force. Warplanes
and helicopter gunships also took part in them.
Under the official scenario of the war games, the participating troops repelled
an imaginary enemy that invaded Armenia.
The final session of the drills was watched by Armenia’s Defense Minister Davit
Tonoyan and a senior official from Russia’s Southern Military District, Major
General Ramil Gilyazov. Gilyazov praised them, saying that the Russian-Armenian
United Grouping of Troops successfully used new methods of combat training.
The joint unit originally set up in 2000 consists of soldiers from the Armenian
army’s Fifth Corps and the Russian military base in Armenia. Moscow and Yerevan
signed in November 2016 an agreement designed to upgrade its mission and
ascertain its command-and-control structure.
Press Review
“Zhoghovurd” complains that it remains unclear why Prime Minister Nikol
Pashinian fired the heads of Armenia’s Police and National Security Service
(NSS) just two months after promoting them to the rank of general. “The prime
minister’s silence on this issue is bewildering, to say the least,” writes the
paper. “Maybe the reasons [for the sackings] are so deep that Pashinian does
not find it expedient to disclose them.”
“Haykakan Zhamanak” dismisses a petition by sympathizers of former President
Robert Kocharian’s describing him as a political prisoner and calling for his
release from prison. The paper linked to Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian claims
that Kocharian had “rigged documents and elections to become president,”
amassed “enormous wealth” while in power and ordered a deadly crackdown on
oppositions protesters before handing over power to his preferred successor,
Serzh Sarkisian. It laughs off the petitioners’ claim that Kocharian’s release
would help to “restore social solidarity.” It says there was no such solidarity
when Kocharian ruled the country.
“Zhamanak” says that Kocharian responded to that petition with a statement
released from prison. The paper scoffs at the statement. It also says that
Russian President Vladimir Putin failed to live up to Kocharian supporters’
expectations when he attended the October 1 summit of the Eurasian Economic
Union (EEU) summit in Yerevan. It says that even though Putin met with
Kocharian’s wife Bella at the Russian Embassy in Yerevan Kocharian’s future was
not on the agenda of his visit to Armenia.
“Aravot” says that the holding of the World Congress on Information Technology
in Yerevan is an “important event” for Armenia. The paper says the forum served
as a “platform for discussing ideas for the future.”
(Tatevik Lazarian)
Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
Copyright (c) 2019 Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, Inc.
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www.rferl.org
On October 3, the Armenian Center for Strategic and National Studies (SCSAR), the Armenian arm of international and public analysis, celebrated its 25th anniversary with an official reception at its office.
Ambassadors, honored guests of world fame, local and international analysts, current and former employees of the Center, representatives of the press and civil society gathered to speak their hearts to this scientific research center, which has provided impeccable service to Armenian democracy for a quarter of a century, to promote the establishment of universal policies, to ensure the free competition of ideas and ideas, and to replenish the personnel arsenal of expert-researchers.
Raffi K. Hovhannisyan, the founder-navigator of this “mother vessel” that has become a forge of thought and the first minister of foreign affairs of the Republic, greeted the gathered and all-time supporters of the center, including mentioning the brilliant intellectual Tigran Hayrapetyan, who stood at the beginnings of RAHAP.
– he said – 25 years ago, and during all these years, under the most difficult circumstances, the RAHAP introduced national and international expert markers, relic by relic, bringing to the arena internal and external in-depth observations in line with the imperative of the day and the century. As a pioneer and the first independent “think tank” among us, the RAHAP has firmly registered our diaspora nation on the map of global geopolitics.
On the occasion of the memorable anniversary, RAHAP issued special profilebriefly covering the most important milestones and lasting pages of his biography of his quarter-century path, full of ups and downs, but without grass. And these are the multi-thematic volumes of political analyzes and comments, monographs, local and international forums on the most current issues in the field of political science, sociological researches and public interest discussions of their results, training courses for young experts and a number of other directions.
The Armenian Center for Strategic and National Studies is a leading analytical institution operating in Yerevan. As a non-profit institution, it is committed to multidisciplinary, professional research and analysis, seeks to raise the level of national discourse and expand civic engagement in the policy-making process, promoting more comprehensive public knowledge.
Being founded in 1994 According to Raffi Hovhannisyan, the first minister of foreign affairs of the Republic of Armenia, over the years, RAHAP has gained a significant reputation as a primary source for expert analysis of a wide range of national and international policy issues. A brilliant constellation of domestic political scientists, expert-analysts, as well as public-political and state figures passed through the strategist.
Yerevan awards Honorary Citizen title to Hermitage Museum Director Mikhail Piotrovsky
11:50, 8 October, 2019
YEREVAN, OCTOBER 8, ARMENPRESS. The City of Yerevan has awarded the title of Honorary Citizen of Yerevan to Mikhail Piotrovsky, the Director of the Hermitage Museum (St. Petersburg, Russia).
The decision on awarding the title was approved today at a City Council session with 47 members voting in favor. Only 1 councilmember voted against and another one abstained.
Piotrovsky was awarded for “significant contribution in the development of Armenian culture, outstanding merit in preservation of global cultural values and many years of fruitful activities”.
The Yerevan City Council’s Committee of Culture, Education and Social Affairs had earlier also approved the decision.
Edited and translated by Stepan Kocharyan
The appearance of the drone caused a delay to the game, as well as unnerving some Qarabag supporters.
Officials paused the game when the drone appeared over the pitch and sent both teams to the dressing rooms. Fans of the home team stormed the pitch, in spite of security which struggled to contain the Azerbaijani supporters.
Shortly after the match, the separatist group “First Armenian Front /FAF ultras/” published an image on Facebook explaining the origins of the action. According to the group, “the action was led by the young people of Belgium thanks to Spartak J”.
Minister of Sport Dan Kersch presented his apologies in the name of the government for this provocation. Although the match was interrupted, play resumed after almost 20 minutes.
Police also reported that a number of cars had been broken into during the match, in a car park near the stadium.
The Leader of the Liberal Party of Canada, Justin Trudeau, today issued the following statement on Armenia’s Independence Day.
The Leader of the Liberal Party of Canada, Justin Trudeau, today issued the following statement on Armenia’s Independence Day:
“Today, we join Armenian communities across Canada and around the world to celebrate the anniversary of Armenia’s independence.
Canada and Armenia are bound by shared values of justice, democracy, and freedom, as well as our work together in international organizations like La Francophonie.
Last year, I had the chance to visit Armenia and meet with Prime Minister Pashinyan to discuss further strengthening our bilateral relationship through travel, tourism, and trade. The visit shone a light on the close ties between Canadians and Armenians – ties that are at the heart of our relationship.
In Canada, we know that diversity is our strength, and every day, the 60,000-strong Armenian Canadian community contributes to our country’s success. When Armenian Canadians welcomed thousands of Syrian refugees, they showed the way forward with compassion and generosity. We share a commitment to the successful settlement and integration of all newcomers.
On behalf of our family, Sophie and I wish a happy Armenian Independence Day to everyone celebrating.”
“Resolute steps towards a state of law” – PM’s spokesperson on Jhangiryan’s exoneration
16:04,
YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 19, ARMENPRESS. Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s spokesperson Vladimir Karapetyan has commented on the exoneration by a court of former Deputy Prosecutor General Gagik Jhangiryan and emphasized that the government is making resolute steps towards a state of law.
Speaking to reporters after the Cabinet meeting Karapetyan highlighted the importance of the event.
“This exoneration must be continuous. We have numerous cases when both the former authorities and to say the least the judiciary functioning under it had acted very unfairly. This can be a very good example for people who are zealous and will struggle for the restoration of their rights. This is also in the interests of our state. You remember very well how this incident took place: Gagik Jhangiryan and his brother’s car was stopped, and 20 soldiers carried out an arrest operation. The charges, as far as I recall, were that Jhangiryan and his then-ill brother resisted and battered police officers. Meaning these were obvious illegal actions by the law enforcement, and I am very happy that this chapter in history is being gradually covered and one day will be closed in a fairly manner,” Karapetyan said.
Asked if potentially Nikol Pashinyan himself can appeal to a court for exoneration for his 2010 conviction over the 2008 unrest, Karapetyan said that the PM is seemingly held back in this matter and is waiting for other examples to take place in order for the potential move not to be viewed as any kind of pressure or guidance by others. “He will join in the end or at some phase. I think exonerations must definitely happen,” Karapetyan said.
Jhangiryan appealed to a court of cassation on July 16th, 2019 requesting for his 2008 conviction of a three-year prison sentence to be exonerated. On September 18th he was exonerated.
Edited and translated by Stepan Kocharyan
A protocol on the implementation of the EU-Armenia readmission agreement was signed in Germany on Tuesday
The agreement was signed between the Armenian and German government on the sideline of a working visit of Armenian Foreign Ministry’s Secretary General Vahagn Melikyan to the country, the ministry’s press service reported.
Armenia and the EU signed the agreement on visa facilitation on December 17, 2012 and the agreement on readmission was signed on April 19, 2013. Both agreements came into force on January 1, 2014. Two joint committees have been set up to monitor the implementation of the agreements.