Tuesday, December 5, 2023
Ruling Party Completes ‘Power Grab’ In Armenian Town
• Karine Simonian
Armenia - Ruling party and opposition figures argue during a session of the
Alaverdi local council, December 5, 2023.
Armenia’s ruling Civil Contract party replaced the opposition mayor of a major
community in northern Lori province by one of its members on Tuesday through a
vote of no confidence condemned by its political opponents as illegal.
The party led by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian lost control of the community
comprising the formerly industrial town of Alaverdi and over two dozen other
towns and villages as a result of local elections held in September 2022. It
fell just short of an overall majority in the 27-member local council empowered
to appoint the community head.
The opposition Aprelu Yerkir party, which won 13 council seats, installed its
member Arkadi Tamazian as mayor after teaming up with former President Levon
Ter-Petrosian’s Armenian National Congress (HAK) party. The HAK controls only
one seat.
One of the council members representing Aprelu Yerkir, Simon Zakharov,
unexpectedly defected from Aprelu Yerkir in July. Despite denying media reports
that he was co-opted by his 13 pro-government colleagues, Zakharov backed last
week a Civil Contract motion to oust Tamazian.
The incumbent mayor and his supporters said the motion is illegal because
Armenian law stipulates that no-confidence votes cannot take place more than
once a year. They argue that Aprelu Yerkir already initiated a tactical motion
of censure in October.
Civil Contract representatives counter that the initiative is null and void
because the Alaverdi council did not make a quorum needed for a formal debate on
it. They have also dismissed opposition calls for a snap local election.
Scores of riot police surrounded the Alaverdi municipality building on Tuesday
morning as the 14 pro-government council members gathered for an emergency
session and voted to replace Tamazian by Civil Contract’s Davit Ghumashian. The
latter used to be affiliated with former President Serzh Sarkisian’s Republican
Party.
Armenia - Arkadi Tamazian, May 20, 2022
Tamazian and Aprelu Yerkir’s Yerevan-based leader Mesrop Arakelian broke through
the police cordon to enter the municipality building and condemn the vote as
“illegal.”
“Shame on you!” the ousted mayor shouted before trading insults with Civil
Contract figures. Police officers intervened to prevent a violent clash between
them.
Addressing about a hundred supporters protesting outside the building, Tamazian
said that he and his party will challenge his ouster in court. Several
protesters were detained by the police.
Levon Zurabian, The HAK’s deputy chairman and Ter-Petrosian’s right-hand man,
also denounced the power grab, saying that it makes mockery of government claims
about Armenia’s democratization.
“This is Nikol Pashinian’s idea of democracy … Pashinian brags about his
democratic achievements, but what is happening in Alaverdi testifies to the
opposite. Elected people are pressured by police and other law-enforcement
bodies,” Zurabian told reporters. He claimed that Pashinian’s political team
wants to also get rid of other opposition mayors in a similar fashion.
In July, two defections allowed Pashinian’s party to unseat the opposition head
of a local community in northwestern Shirak province encompassing the town of
Akhurian and surrounding villages.
In local polls held across Armenia in 2022 and 2021, Civil Contract was also
defeated in key urban communities, notably the country’s third largest city of
Vanadzor. Some of those ballots were won by jailed or indicted figures at odds
with the government. One of them was set free right after deciding not to become
a town mayor.
In Vanadzor, the leader of an opposition bloc, Mamikon Aslanian, was arrested in
December 2021 just days after winning the municipal ballot. Aslanian remains in
detention, standing trial on corruption charges rejected by him as politically
motivated.
EU Signals ‘Non-Lethal’ Military Aid To Armenia
• Artak Khulian
Armenia - Defense Minister Suren Papikian (2nd from L) meets with Vassilis
Maragos, head of the EU Delegation in Armenia, Yerevan, December 1, 2023.
The European Union is considering providing “non-lethal” military aid to
Armenia, the head of the EU Delegation in Yerevan, Vassilis Maragos, confirmed
on Tuesday.
Maragos said that the EU will send later this month or early next year a
“technical mission” to Armenia that will assess the country’s security needs and
come up with “concrete proposals” regarding such aid.
“We are going to present details in the coming weeks,” the diplomat told
journalists. He did not specify items which the 27-nation bloc could deliver to
the Armenian military.
The issue was apparently on the agenda of last week’s visit to Yerevan by a team
of officials from the EU’s executive body, the European Commission, and External
Action Service. An EU statement on their trip said they looked into
“possibilities to deepen and strengthen EU-Armenia relations in all dimensions,”
including defense and security.
“The EU will, for instance, further explore non-lethal support to the Armenian
military via the European Peace Facility,” added the statement.
The facility is a special fund designed to boost EU partners’ defense capacity.
Armenian parliament speaker Alen Simonian revealed in July that Yerevan
requested “technical assistance” from the fund but was rebuffed by Brussels.
Earlier in November, the foreign ministers of EU member states approved a
proposal to expand a monitoring mission deployed by the bloc along Armenia’s
border with Azerbaijan in February. It remains unclear how many additional
monitors will be sent to the country.
The mission currently consisting of 100 or so observers and experts was launched
at the request of the Armenian government and with the stated aim of preventing
or reducing ceasefire violations along the border. Maragos said that it has
already succeeded in bolstering the ceasefire regime.
Russia, Armenia’s increasingly estranged ally, has disputed such claims made by
other EU officials and echoed by the Armenian government. It says that the
mission is part of broader U.S. and EU efforts to drive Moscow out of the South
Caucasus.
Iran, India Promote New Trade Route Through Armenia
• Tatevik Lazarian
Iran - Workers watch a ship as it sails during an inauguration ceremony of new
equipment and infrastructure at Shahid Beheshti Port in the coastal city of
Chabahar, February 25, 2019.
Iran’s and India’s ambassadors in Yerevan on Tuesday stressed the importance of
Armenia’s involvement in a new transnational transport corridor planned by their
countries.
“We believe that the communication corridor from India to the Iranian port of
Chabahar and on to Armenia and further north, the Black Sea, is a reliable route
for transporting goods to the north and to Europe,” the Iranian envoy, Mehdi
Sobhani, said during an international conference in Yerevan. “The development of
this path will protect our countries against external harm.”
India has built and operates two terminals at Chabahar to bypass Pakistan in
cargo traffic with Iran, Afghanistan and central Asian countries. It has
proposed the Gulf of Oman port’s inclusion in the International North-South
Transport Corridor (INSTC) project initiated by Russia, Iran and India in 2000.
The project calls for a 7,200-kilometer-long network of maritime and terrestrial
routes stretching from Mumbai to Moscow.
The Armenian government suggested in 2021 that Indian companies use Chabahar for
cargo shipments to not only Armenia but also neighboring Georgia, Russia and
even Europe. Senior Armenian, Indian and Iranian diplomats explored the
possibility of creating such a trade route during first-ever trilateral talks
held in Yerevan in April this year.
Speaking at the conference organized by the Armenian government, the Indian
ambassador to Armenia, Nilakshi Saha Sinha, welcomed the South Caucasus nation’s
interest in the INSTC.
“We are ready to work with Armenia to understand how the country can benefit
from the opportunities of this corridor,” she said, adding that the Indian side
will make it easier for Armenian firms to ship cargo to and from Chabahar.
Armenia - Senior Armenian, Indian and Iranian diplomats meet in Yerevan, April
20, 2023.
Armenia has long maintained a cordial relationship with Iran and has deepened
its ties with India in the last few years, notably through a series of contracts
signed with Indian arms manufacturers. New Delhi has effectively sided Armenia
with in its ongoing border disputes with Azerbaijan. For its part, Tehran has
repeatedly warned against attempts to strip it of the common border and
transport links with Armenia.
Azerbaijan’s recent takeover of Nagorno-Karabakh raised more fears in Yerevan
that Baku will also attack Armenia to open an exterritorial land corridor to its
Nakhichevan exclave passing through Syunik, the sole Armenian province bordering
Iran. Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi reportedly told a visiting Azerbaijani
official in October that the so-called “Zangezur corridor” sought by Baku is
“resolutely opposed by Iran.”
Later in October, the Armenian government contracted two Iranian companies to
upgrade a 32-kilometer section of Syunik’s main highway leading to the Iranian
border. Iran’s Minister of Roads and Urban Development Mehrzad Bazrpash attended
the signing of the $215 million contract in Yerevan, underscoring its
geopolitical significance for the Islamic Republic.
Sinha said that Indian firms are also interested in “participating in
infrastructure development projects in Armenia.”
Armenian Nuclear Plant Safe Enough, Insists IAEA Chief
Armenia - The head of the IAEA, Rafael Grossi, meets Foreign Minister Ararat
Mirzoyan, Yerevan, October 4, 2022.
Armenia’s Metsamor nuclear plant is safe enough to continue its operations in
the years to come, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA),
Rafael Grossi, said on Tuesday.
“The Armenian Nuclear Power Plant is following the safety recommendations and
guidance from the IAEA,” Grossi told the Armenpress news agency. “This is very
important. There have been important refurbishments done at the facility which
were found to be indispensable. So we can continue operating.”
Grossi already praised those safety upgrades monitored by the IAEA when he
visited Armenia and inspected Metsamor in October 2022. He said the UN nuclear
watchdog will continue to “help the plant provide low-carbon energy safely and
securely.”
Metsamor generates roughly 40 percent of Armenia’s electricity. Its sole
functioning reactor went into service in 1980 and was due to be decommissioned
by 2017.
Armenia’s former government decided to extend the 420-megawatt reactor’s life
after failing to attract funding for the construction of a new and safer nuclear
facility. In 2015, Russia allocated a $270 million loan and a $30 million grant
to Yerevan for that purpose.
Armenia - The reactor of the Metsamor nuclear plant undergoes modernization and
safety upgrades, August 5, 2021.
Russian and Armenian specialists essentially completed Metsamor’s modernization
in 2021. Armenian officials now say the plant, located 35 kilometers west of
Yerevan and just 16 kilometer from the Turkish border, can safely operate until
2036.
In September this year, Turkey renewed its demands for the closure of Metsamor.
The Turkish Foreign Ministry claimed that the plant is “dangerous for the whole
region” and pledged to continue seeking its decommissioning. Armenian officials
dismissed the demands.
Speaking to Armenpress during the COP28 conference in the United Arab Emirates,
Grossi downplayed Ankara’s stance.
“It’s not the only case,” he said. “In some other parts of the world where
neighbors have certain issues, countries come to me and say 'what is happening
in my neighbor?' So we take it seriously but give answers.”
“The most important thing is that Armenia continues to work seriously with us
and reinforces the safety of the facility, and we are very confident,” added the
IAEA chief.
Reposted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
Copyright (c) 2023 Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, Inc.
1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.