Friday,
Aliyev, Pashinian Trade Barbs, Talk At Ex-Soviet Summit (UPDATED)
Turkmenistan -- Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian (L) and Azerbaijan's
President Ilham Aliyev attend a summit of the Commonwealth of Independent
States in Ashgabat, .
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian
discussed the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict after trading barbs during a summit of
former Soviet republics held in Turkmenistan’s capital Ashgabat on Friday.
Aliyev started the tense verbal exchange at a plenary session of the summit of
the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) by accusing Armenia of “glorifying
fascists.” He noted that the former Armenian government erected in Yerevan the
statue of Garegin Nzhdeh, an Armenian nationalist statesman who had fought
against the Bolsheviks and later collaborated with Nazi Germany.
Pashinian responded by accusing Aliyev of distorting the history of Armenia and
the Second World War.
“Ilham Heydarovich’s speech leaves one with a sense that [Adolf] Hitler played
a secondary role and that the Nazi movement was led by Garegin Nzhdeh,” he
said. “Yet the truth is that Garegin Nzhdeh fought against Turkish occupation
of Armenia, against the genocide of Armenians and … also commanded, together
with many Russian officers, a very important section of the frontline during
the Armenian-Turkish war in 1918.”
“I think it’s inappropriate to use this [CIS] format for distorting history and
adding some tension to the atmosphere of this important meeting,” added
Pashinian.
Despite the public recriminations, Pashinian and Aliyev spoke with each other
at a dinner in Ashgabat hosted by Turkmenistan’s President Gurbanguly
Berdymuhamedov for fellow CIS leaders later in the day.
Pashinian’s spokesman, Vladimir Karapetian, told the Armenpress news agency
that the two men discussed the Karabakh conflict and, in particular,
“possibilities of reducing tensions” and “upcoming steps” in the negotiating
process mediated by the United States, Russia and France. The conversation
lasted for about two hours, said Karapetian.
Aliyev and Pashinian held five face-to-face meetings between September 2018 and
May 2019, raising hopes for a settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.
Their first meeting was followed by a significant decrease in ceasefire
violations in the conflict zone. There have been no signs of further progress
in Armenian-Azerbaijani peace talks in the last few months.
Armenia - The statue of Garegin Nzhdeh is unveiled in Yerevan, 28May2016.
Born in the Russian Empire in 1886, Nzhdeh was one of the prominent military
leaders of an independent Armenian republic formed in 1918. In 1920, he mounted
armed resistance against the republic’s takeover by Bolshevik Russia in Syunik,
a mountainous region in southeastern Armenia.
Nzhdeh was one of several exiled Armenian leaders in Europe who pledged
allegiance to Nazi Germany in 1942 with the stated aim of saving Soviet Armenia
from a possible Turkish invasion after what they expected to be a Soviet defeat
by the Third Reich.
Nzhdeh surrendered to advancing Red Army divisions in Bulgaria in 1944 after
reportedly offering Josef Stalin to mobilize Armenians for a Soviet assault on
Turkey. In 1948, a Soviet court sentenced him to 25 years in prison on charges
that mainly stemmed from his “counterrevolutionary” activities in 1920-1921.
Speaking at the Ashgabat summit, Pashinian portrayed Nzhdeh as a victim of
Stalin’s political repressions. “Nzhdeh died in the Vladimir prison [in 1955,]”
he said. “Many prominent Soviet figures died in the Vladimir prison and [writer
Aleksandr] Solzhenitsyn was in the Gulag. Do we consider everyone imprisoned
from 1937 through the 1950s political prisoners?”
Nzhdeh was rehabilitated in Armenia after the republic’s last Communist
government was removed from power in 1990. He is widely credited with
preserving Armenian control over Syunik. He is also revered by many Armenians
as the founder of a new brand of Armenian nationalism that emerged in the 1930s.
Former President Serzh Sarkisian’s Republican Party of Armenia (HHK) has
espoused his Tseghakron ideology, which puts the emphasis on armed self-defense
and self-reliance, ever since it was set up in the early 1990s.
Senior HHK representatives, who are highly critical of the current Armenian
government, were quick to praise Pashinian’s reaction to Aliyev’s remarks.
“Nikol’s response was appropriate,” the former ruling party’s deputy chairman,
Armen Ashotian, wrote on Facebook.
Former Defense Minister Not Charged Despite Criminal Case
• Naira Nalbandian
Armenia - Defense Minister Vigen Sargsian (C) visits a military base in
northern Armenia, 15 March 2018.
Vigen Sargsian, a former Armenian defense minister and the opposition
Republican Party’s top candidate in last year’s general elections, has not been
charged with abuse of power despite criminal proceedings launched against him,
his lawyer said on Friday.
The Investigative Committee claimed on September 25 that while in office
Sargsian violated government rules for the distribution of government-funded
housing to Armenian army officers and their families. It said it has
“sufficient evidence” to indict him and will send the case to another
law-enforcement body, the Special Investigative Service (SIS), for further
investigation.
Sargsian, who now lives and studies in the United States, rejected the
accusations as politically motivated.
The SIS, which is tasked with prosecuting serving and former senior officials,
reportedly clarified afterwards that no criminal charges have been formally
leveled against the former minister.
Sargsian’s lawyer, Amram Makinian, confirmed this when he spoke to RFE/RL’s
Armenian service on Friday. He said the SIS has notified him in writing that
“Mr. Sargsian is not prosecuted.”
Meanwhile, a prosecutor overseeing the controversial investigation ordered the
SIS to send the case back to the Investigative Committee. A spokeswoman for the
Office of the Prosecutor-General said the committee must take additional
“investigative and judicial actions.” She did not elaborate.
Makinian said this means that the prosecutors believe the case against his
client is seriously flawed. The lawyer insisted that the corruption allegations
made by the Investigative Committee “have nothing to do with reality.”
Armenia - Vigen Sargsian, the Republican Party's top election candidate, speaks
to reporetrs outside a polling station in Yerevan, December 9, 2018.
Sargsian, 44, worked as a top aide to former President Serzh Sarkisian before
being appointed as defense minister in October 2016. He was widely regarded as
the latter’s potential successor.
The former president was forced to resign in April 2018 amid nationwide
anti-government street protests led by Nikol Pashinian. Vigen Sargsian stepped
down immediately after Pashinian was elected prime minister in May 2018.
Sargsian was named the first deputy chairman of Serzh Sarkisian’s Republican
Party (HHK) in November and topped the party’s list of candidates in the snap
parliamentary elections held the following month. Pashinian’s My Step bloc won
the polls by a landslide, while the HHK narrowly failed to clear a 5 percent
vote threshold to enter Armenia’s new parliament.
Yerevan Ready To Accept More Armenian Refugees From Syria
• Astghik Bedevian
SYRIA -- Smoke rises over the Syrian town of Ras al-Ain,
Armenia is ready to help evacuate ethnic Armenian residents of northern Syria
affected by Turkey’s military operations conducted there, a senior official in
Yerevan said on Friday.
The Armenian government on Thursday condemned the Turkish incursion into the
area largely controlled by Kurdish militias and discussed its repercussions for
thousands of Syrian Armenians believed to live there.
Armen Grigorian, the secretary of Armenia’s Security Council, briefed lawmakers
on potential government actions at a meeting held in the National Assembly
behind the closed doors. Grigorian said afterwards that Yerevan stands ready to
take in ethnic Armenian refugees from the area attacked by Turkish troops.
“We have not yet made an official proposal,” Grigorian told reporters. “As you
know, not only is the issue at the center of the government’s attention but
also our embassy and consulate [in Syria] are in touch with leaders of the
[Armenian] community. If there is such a desire [to relocate to Armenia] we
will definitely take all measures and provide all necessary means.”
But he added that none of the local Syrian Armenians has so far expressed a
desire to take refuge in Armenia.
The precise number of Armenians remaining in Syria’s Kurdish-controlled regions
is not known. A senior Armenian Foreign Ministry official said on Thursday that
around 3,000 of them live in the northeastern town of Qamishli close to the
Turkish border.
“The only town [in northern Syria] where there are Armenians now is Qamishli,
and our focus is on it,” said Grigorian. “We are communicating with Armenians
of Qamishli and their spiritual leaders. We are trying to understand what their
needs are.”
According to government estimates, more than 22,000 Syrian Armenians have fled
to Armenia since the outbreak of the bloody conflict in Syria 2011. Some of
them have migrated to Europe and North America for mainly economic reasons.
Armenian, Uzbek Leaders In ‘Historic’ Talks
Turkmenistan -- Armenia’s Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian (L) and Uzbekistan’s
President Shavkat Mirziyoyev meet in Ashgabat, .
Armenia’s Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian Uzbekistan’s President Shavkat
Mirziyoyev met on Friday for first-ever official negotiations between the
leaders of the two former Soviet republics.
Pashinian described as “historic” the talks held on the sidelines of a
Commonwealth of Independent States summit in Turkmenistan.
“It may seem strange but the leaders of Armenia and Uzbekistan have never held
an official meeting before. This was the first such meeting,” Pashinian wrote
on his Facebook page. He said he and Mirziyoyev exchanged invitations to visit
each other’s capitals.
A Central Asian country of 31 million, Uzbekistan maintained lukewarm relations
with Armenia when it was run by strongman President Islam Karimov from 1989
until his death in 2016. The two states were only nominal allies during
Uzbekistan’s membership in the Russian-led Collective Security Treaty
Organization (CSTO) from 2006-2012.
In 2010, for example, Karimov skipped an informal CSTO summit held in Yerevan.
One month later he visited Baku and voiced support for Azerbaijan’s territorial
integrity in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev
praised Karimov’s “principled, consistent and firm position.”
An Armenian government statement said that Mirziyoyev and Pashinian agreed to
expand relations between their nations. In that regard, Mirziyoyev proposed the
creation of an Uzbek-Armenian intergovernmental commission on economic
cooperation. Pashinian welcomed the idea.
The Uzbek leader, who succeeded Karimov as president in 2016, also spoke of his
“positive impressions of the large-scale reforms going on in Armenia,”
according to the statement.
Uzbekistan is home to the largest and oldest Armenian community in Central
Asia. Between 40,000 and 70,000 Armenians are believed to live there at
present. Pashinian was reported to praise the Uzbek government’s “caring
attitude” towards them.
Press Review
Lragir.am speculates that Turkey may eventually regret its military incursion
into Syria criticized by many countries. The publication says the operation is
part of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s efforts to shore up his
domestic political positions. It says this is creating both new challenges and
opportunities for Armenia.
“Haykakan Zhamanak” comments on retired Karabakh General Vitaly Balasanian’s
latest verbal attacks on Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian. In particular,
Balasanian said earlier this week that the Sasna Tsrer party, whose members
seized a police station in Yerevan in 2016, is a terrorist organization which
is now acting as Pashinian’s “military wing.” He threatened to “physically
destroy” Sasna Tsrer if it attempts to attack “me, our people, our state,
statehood, borders and Artsakh’s authorities.” The pro-government paper says
that Balasanian presented “inaccurate facts” and drew “inaccurate conclusions”
from them and that his threats were primarily addressed to Pashinian.
“Fortunately, the dominant view in Armenia and Artsakh is that the main
guarantee of the security of the two Armenian states is our unity and any
attempt to undermine it must be prevented in the most resolute way,” the paper
goes on. This is why, it says, Armenia’s National Security Service (NSS) is
“dealing with this issue.”
(Lilit Harutiunian)
Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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