Author: Maral Chavushian

                                        Thursday, 
Armenian Tax Agency Denies Huge Bonuses To Senior Staff
        • Nane Sahakian
Armenia - Davit Ananian, head of the State Revenue Committee, speaks to 
reporters in Yerevan, 25 October 2018.
Armenia’s State Revenue Committee (SRC) on Thursday strongly denied a media 
report that said its most-high ranking officials received huge yearend bonuses 
vastly exceeding their monthly wages.
The Yerevan.Today publication claimed that the SRC head Davit Ananian and his 
first deputy Rafik Mashadian were paid 8.6 million drams ($17,700) and 9.6 
million drams ($20,000) respectively in bonuses late last month. Two other 
senior SRC officials got roughly 6.5 million drams each, according to 
Yerevan.Today.
In a statement, the SRC said that the sums are grossly exaggerated. “There are 
no such amounts of bonuses in the SRC,” it said.
Ananian rejected the report as a “lie” when he spoke to reporters. “Such large 
amounts are just not possible,” he said.
Ananian refused to reveal how much extra pay he and other SRC officials 
received ahead of New Year’s holiday, saying that such information would 
constitute a privacy violation. He said only that the largest bonus was worth 
1.5 million drams.
According to government data, the average monthly salary in Armenia stood at 
169,000 drams ($350) as of November 2018.
The Yerevan.Today report came amid continuing media uproar over much smaller 
but still significant bonuses which three Armenian provincial governors paid 
themselves and their senior staffers.
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian and other senior government officials have 
essentially defended the payments, arguing that they have been made for many 
years and have also benefited ordinary public sector employees. Pashinian also 
complained on Wednesday that the government has trouble attracting skilled 
professionals working for private firms because public sector salaries are too 
low.
Armenian Authorities Reopen Panama Papers Probe
        • Naira Bulghadarian
Armenia - Parliament deputy Mihran Poghosian at a session of the National 
Assembly in Yerevan, 19 May 2017.
An Armenian law-enforcement agency has launched a new criminal investigation 
into a former senior official who resigned in 2016 after being accused of 
having secret offshore accounts exposed by the Panama Papers.
Citing the leaked documents, the Hetq.am investigative publication reported in 
April 2016 that Mihran Poghosian, the then head of an Armenian state body 
enforcing court rulings, controls three shadowy companies registered in Panama. 
It said Poghosian has the exclusive right to manage Swiss bank accounts of two 
of those firms.
After initial a denial of the report, Poghosian announced his resignation later 
in April 2016. But he stopped short of admitting any wrongdoing.
The Special Investigation Service (SIS) launched a criminal investigation in 
connection with the Hetq.am report shortly after the resignation. It closed the 
criminal case in January 2017, saying that it found no evidence of Poghosian’s 
involvement in “illegal entrepreneurial activity.”
Poghosian had close ties to then President Serzh Sarkisian and his Republican 
Party of Armenia (HHK). He was elected to the former Armenian parliament on the 
HHK ticket in April 2017.
A spokeswoman for the SIS, Marina Ohanjanian, told RFE/RL’s Armenian service on 
Thursday that the SIS has reopened the probe. She said investigators will again 
try to determine whether the once powerful official used his position to earn 
and hide business revenues.
Armenian media outlets had for years accused Poghosian of having extensive 
business interests. In particular, the 43-year-old was widely regarded as the 
main owner of Katrin Group, a company that enjoyed a de facto monopoly on 
banana imports to Armenia until last year’s “velvet revolution” that toppled 
Sarkisian. He always denied owning any lucrative businesses.
Shortly after the revolution the State Revenue Committee (SRC) launched a tax 
evasion inquiry into Katrin Group and three other firms linked to it. They 
promptly admitted failing to pay a total of 600 million drams ($1.2 million) in 
taxes, leading the SRC to stop the criminal proceedings.
The SRC reopened the probe a few weeks later, however, saying that it has 
discovered evidence of greater tax evasion on the part of the four business 
entities.
Bolton Voices U.S. Support For Pashinian
Armenia - U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton speaks at a news 
conference in Yerevan, 25 October 2018.
The United States regards the recent parliamentary elections in Armenia as 
democratic and supports Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s reform agenda, U.S. 
National Security Adviser John Bolton said on Thursday.
“I called Prime Minister Pashinian of Armenia yesterday to congratulate him on 
his re-appointment and applaud the Armenian people on free and fair elections 
in December,” tweeted Bolton. “The U.S. supports his efforts to secure a 
prosperous future for Armenia.”
Pashinian was quick to report the phone conversation with Bolton on his 
Facebook page. Writing from Davos, he said they “stressed the importance of 
U.S.-Armenian relations for our governments.”
Visiting Armenia in October, Bolton praised the new Armenian government’s 
stated efforts to democratize the country, combat corruption and strengthen 
broader rule of law. He also said Washington expects Pashinian to take 
“decisive steps” towards the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict’s resolution “right 
after” his widely anticipated victory in the December 9 parliamentary elections.
Bolton spoke with Pashinian by phone one day after the latter met with 
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum 
held in the Swiss resort town. The Armenian leader said Wednesday that he did 
not discuss the Karabakh issue with U.S. President Donald Trump’s key adviser.
Trump sent a congratulatory letter to Pashinian late last week. “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.”
During his visit to Yerevan, Bolton also stated that normalizing relations with 
Azerbaijan and Turkey would enable Armenia to break “historical patterns” that 
have shaped its traditional foreign policy. He further indicated that 
Washington is ready to sell Yerevan U.S. weapons and thus reduce Russia’s 
“excessive influence” on Armenia.
Russia condemned those remarks, accusing the U.S. of meddling in its South 
Caucasus ally’s internal affairs. “We expect that the current leadership of 
Armenia … will have the courage to resist the unhidden external blackmail and 
pressure,” Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin said last month.
Armenian leaders earlier played down the significance of Bolton’s statements.
European Court Reports Further Drop In Appeals From Armenia
FRANCE -- The building of the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, 
November 15, 2018
The number of appeals filed by Armenians in the European Court of Human Rights 
(ECHR) continued to fall rapidly last year, the Strasbourg-based tribunal said 
on Thursday.
“For Armenia, the number of new applications allocated to a judicial formation 
was 167, more than a two-fold decrease as compared to 356 in 2017,” the ECHR 
said in an annual report presented by its president, Guido Raimondi, at a news 
conference.
The ECHR recorded 753 lawsuits from Armenia in 2016.
Armenia fell under the European court’s jurisdiction when it joined the Council 
of Europe in 2001. Its government lost the first case in Strasbourg in 2007.
The ECHR has ruled against various Armenian government, judicial and 
law-enforcement bodies on 94 occasions since then, costing them more than $1.2 
million in damages. “The highest number of violations related to the right to a 
fair trial, and right to liberty and security,” says its report.
The ECHR handed down 15 rulings against the Armenian state in 2018, up from 11 
such judgments in 2017.
“By January 1, 2019, there were 1,901 cases pending for Armenia, a small 
increase as compared to 1,819 in 2017. Armenia has remained in the top-ten 
states by the number of pending applications,” says the report.
The large number of lawsuits reflects a lack of judicial independence and 
corruption among law-enforcement officers and judges in Armenia.
The current Armenian authorities have repeatedly pledged to address the problem 
since they came to power in a democratic revolution in May. Their critics 
claim, however, that just like their predecessors, they pressure courts to side 
with prosecutors in high-profile criminal cases. Government officials -- and 
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian in particular -- strongly deny this.
Press Review
“Hraparak” says that in “normal countries” bonuses paid to government officials 
and other public sector employees would not be as controversial as they are in 
Armenia. “But in a country where there is a lot poverty, unemployment and daily 
fight for survival such an outcry is natural,” writes the paper. “And if we 
recall that the ruling political force paved its way to power with the help of 
these poor and unemployed people it will be even more understandable why people 
[in Armenia] are outraged by those bonuses.” It says that Armenia’s current 
rulers must be prepared for public scrutiny of their questionable decisions 
because they had spent many years accusing their predecessors of plundering the 
country.
“For any reasonable person it is obvious that there is no alternative to 
negotiations in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict,” “Zhoghovurd” writes in a 
commentary on Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s latest meeting with Azerbaijani 
President Ilham Aliyev. “More precisely, the alternative is war. Any meeting or 
contact with Aliyev can only be beneficial for the negotiation process no 
matter how informal those meetings are.” The paper argues that ceasefire 
violations in the conflict zone have decreased significantly since Pashinian’s 
first meeting with Aliyev held in September.
“The latest Pashinian-Aliyev meeting held in Davos lasted for one and a half 
hours,” writes “Aravot.” “Of course it is only right that the leaders of 
Armenia and Azerbaijan do not shun each other while attending the same 
international events. But the time is now ripe for people to have a general 
idea of what the two leaders and their foreign ministers talk about. At any 
rate, it is better to meet and talk, even fruitlessly, than to shoot. One can 
assume that the leaders and foreign ministers of the two countries talk about … 
some [settlement] variants.” In this regard, the paper wonders whether 
confidence-building agreements reached by Baku and Yerevan in 2016 are still in 
force and whether the parties are now discussing a phased or a “package” peace 
deal.
(Lilit Harutiunian)
Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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