Author: Maral Takmazian

                                        Monday, 
Yerevan `Unconvinced' By Russian Explanations For Arms Sales To Baku
 . Sargis Harutyunyan
Russia -- Russian President Vladimir Putin (R) shakes hands with
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev during a meeting at the Bocharov
Ruchei residence in Sochi, July 21, 2017
Russia's official explanations for its large-scale arms supplies to
Azerbaijan criticized by Armenia are unconvincing, a senior Armenian
official said over the weekend.
"In our official and unofficial contacts with our Russian partners,
continuing Russian arms supplies to Azerbaijan remains the thorniest
issue on the agenda of Russian-Armenian relations," said Armen
Ashotian, the pro-government chairman of the Armenian parliament
committee on foreign relations.
"The Russian side's justifications are certainly discussed by us and
they are not convincing," Ashotian told reporters. He cited Russian
officials' claims that the multimillion-dollar arms sales are
commercial deals that also allow Moscow to hold Baku in check and
boost stability in the region.
Armenia - Armen Ashotian, chairman of the parliament committee on
foreign relations, speaks in Yerevan, 22Jul2017.
Russia has sold around $5 billion worth of tanks, artillery systems
and other weapons to Azerbaijan in line with defense contracts mostly
signed in 2009-2011. The arms deliveries continued even after Armenian
leaders strongly criticized them following Azerbaijan's April 2016
offensive in Nagorno-Karabakh.
Late last month, a Russian cargo ship delivered a new batch of
anti-tank missile systems to Baku's Caspian Sea port. And earlier this
month, Azerbaijan's Defense Ministry announced that it has received
hundreds of Russian thermobaric rockets for TOS-1A multiple-launch
systems which it had purchased from Moscow earlier.
Russian President Vladimir Putin defended the lucrative arms deals
with Baku after holding talks with his Armenian counterpart Serzh
Sarkisian in Moscow last August. Putin implied that oil-rich
Azerbaijan could have bought offensive weapons from other nations. He
also argued that Russia has long been providing substantial military
aid to Armenia.
Incidentally, Putin met with Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliyev in
the Russian Black Sea city of Sochi on Friday. In his opening remarks
at the meeting, Putin mentioned lingering tensions in the region and
said he will explore with Aliyev ways of easing them.
The spokesman for the ruling Republican Party of Armenia (HHK), Eduard
Sharmazanov, criticized the continuing Russian arms sales to Baku on
July 12. Sharmazanov made clear at the same time that they will not
undermine Armenia's close military ties with Russia.
Ashotian, who is also the HHK's deputy chairman, likewise argued that
disagreements are inevitable even between allies like Russia and
Armenia. "Armenia does not have an absolute convergence of foreign
policy agendas with any country except the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic,"
he said.
Russia has long been Armenia's principal supplier of weapons and
ammunition. The Armenian military has received Russian weapons at
discounted prices or even for free.
Finance Minister Vartan Aramian revealed on July 16 that Armenia is
discussing with Russia the possibility of obtaining another loan which
it would spend on buying Russian weapons. Moscow already lent Yerevan
$200 million for arms acquisitions from Russian manufacturers two
years ago.
Coup Suspect Denies Plotting To Kill Armenian President
 . Ruzanna Stepanian
Armenia - Vahan Shirkhanian, a former deputy prime minister, at a news
conference in Yerevan, 10Feb2012.
A veteran Armenian politician arrested in late 2015 strongly denies
plotting to assassinate President Serzh Sarkisian and seize power
together with members of a clandestine militant group, his lawyer said
on Monday.
Vahan Shirkhanian, a former deputy defense minister, is one of the 20
individuals who went on trial on coup charges last December. Most of
them were detained in November 2015 in a dawn raid on their hideout in
Yerevan. Armenian security forces found large quantities of weapons
and explosives stashed there.
More than two dozen other people, among them Shirkhanian, were
arrested in the following weeks. Some of them were subsequently
released pending investigation.
The arrested group was apparently led by Artur Vartanian, a
35-year-old obscure man who reportedly lived in Spain until his return
to Armenia in April 2015.
Armenia's National Security Service (NSS) claims that the core members
of Vartanian's group called Hayots Vahan Gund (Armenian Shield
Regiment) underwent secret military training in an Armenian village in
August-September 2015. It says that Vartanian and his associates drew
up detailed plans for the seizure of the presidential administration,
government, parliament, Constitutional Court and state television
buildings in Yerevan.
Armenia - An alleged 2015 photograph of members of an Armenian
militant group arrested on coup charges.
According to the indictment, Shirkhanian agreed to participate in the
alleged plot and suggested that the armed group assassinate President
Sarkisian, instead of focusing on the seizure of the key state
buildings.The 70-year-old denies the accusations as politically
motivated, according to his lawyer, Hayk Alumian.
Alumian said that the criminal case against Shirkhanian is based on
what he considers illegal wiretaps of his client's face-to-face
conversation with Vartanian. "The content [of the conversation] is
equivocal and can be interpreted in different ways," he told RFE/RL's
Armenian service (Azatutyun.am). "Mr. Shirkhanian says that he had no
conversations of that kind. I don't exclude that the recording was
somehow doctored."
The lawyer also insisted that while Shirkhanian did meet the alleged
ringleader and speak with him about political issues their
conversation cannot be construed as an anti-government
conspiracy."Mr. Shirkhanian never took Artur Vartanian and his
statements seriously," he said.
Vartanian also rejects the coup charges. His lawyer, Levon
Baghdasarian, did not deny last year that Vartanian set up the shadowy
group and acquired firearms and explosives for it. But Baghdasarian
insisted that his client never intended to seize government buildings
in Yerevan.
Armenia - Artur Vartanian, the main defendant in the trial of 20
people accused of plotting a coup d tat, at a courtroom in Yerevan,
17Mar2017.
Shirkhanian was a prominent member of Armenia's first post-Communist
government that came to power in 1990. He served as deputy defense
minister before being appointed in June 1999 as deputy prime minister
in the cabinet of Prime Minister Vazgen Sarkisian.
Shirkhanian became particularly influential in the wake of the October
1999 armed attack on the Armenian parliament which left Vazgen
Sarkisian, parliament speaker Karen Demirchian and six other officials
dead. He led government factions that suspected then President Robert
Kocharian of masterminding the killings and tried unsuccessfully to
unseat him. Kocharian's eventual victory in the power struggle
resulted in Shirkhanian's resignation in May 2000.
Shirkhanian supported, as a senior member of a small opposition party,
former President Levon Ter-Petrosian's failed bid to return to power
in the 2008 presidential election. He split from that party in 2010.
Police Accused Of Covering Up 2016 Violence Against Journalists
 . Artak Hambardzumian
Armenia - Riot police disperse protesters in Yerevan's Sari Tagh
neighborhood, 29Jul2016.
Armenian press freedom groups accused law-enforcement authorities on
Monday of failing to punish the individuals who attacked journalists
during last summer's anti-government unrest in Yerevan.
One of them, the Committee to Protect Freedom of Speech, argued that
no police officer has been prosecuted in connection with the attacks
that occurred during the July 2016 clashes between security forces and
radical opposition supporters who rallied in support of gunmen
occupying a police station in Yerevan. According to the head of the
watchdog, Ashot Melikian, 27 reporters were injured at the time.
At least 14 of them, including three RFE/RL reporters, were ambushed
by a large group of men wielding sticks as riot police dispersed
protesters in the city's Sari Tagh neighborhood overlooking the
besieged police facility. Human rights activists suggested at the time
that the attackers were plainclothes officers or government loyalists.
President Serzh Sarkisian publicly apologized for the violence, while
urging the injured reporters to "forget about those incidents." For
his part, the chief of the Armenian police, Vladimir Gasparian,
ordered his subordinates to identify and track down "civilians" who he
claimed beat up the journalists.
Armenia -- Robert Ananyan, a reporter for A1Plus.am injured during
unrest in Sari Tagh, speaks to RFE/RL in hospital, 2Aug2016
Melikian said that the authorities have since pressed criminal charges
only against one of the nine civilian men who they say were
responsible for the violence.Seven of them have been fined and avoided
prosecution, he said.
"Civilians could not have done that," Melikian told RFE/RL's Armenian
service (Azatutyun.am). "So we continue to insist that dozens of
police officers who abused their powers must be held accountable."
Arevhat Grigorian, an expert with the Yerevan Press Club, charged that
the authorities are deliberately dragging out a criminal investigation
into the Sari Tagh violence to make the journalists and their
employers lose interest in the case.
Marut Vanian was one of the several reporters who were seriously
injured in Sari Tagh on July 29, 2016 and required
hospitalization. Vanian has still not fully recovered from his
injuries. Nor has he been compensated for two cameras which he says
were smashed by the men who beat him up.
"Nobody has been identified and I don't expect that something real
will be done about [the violence,]" said Vanian.
Sarkisian To Visit Iran For Presidential Inauguration
Armenia - Iranian President Hassan Rouhani meets with his Armenian
counterpart Serzh Sarkisian at the start of an official visit to
Yerevan, 21Dec2016.
President Serzh Sarkisian will fly to Tehran on August 5 to attend the
inauguration ceremony of his recently reelected Iranian counterpart,
Hassan Rouhani, it was announced on Monday.
Rouhani will be sworn in for a second term more than two months after
winning Iran's presidential election. An Iranian Foreign Ministry
spokesman said on Monday that "many" foreign leaders and dignitaries
are due to attend the ceremony.
Sarkisian expressed confidence that "traditionally warm and friendly
Armenian-Iranian relations will continue to develop and strengthen in
all areas" when he congratulated Rouhani on his reelection in May. The
Armenian leader was also present at Rouhani's first inauguration in
August 2013.
Armenia has long maintained close relations with Iran, one of the
landlocked South Caucasus state's two commercial conduits to the
outside world. Rouhani underscored that rapport when he paid an
official visit to Yerevan last December. He said Iran will increase
exports of natural gas to Armenia and deepen broader economic ties
with its Christian neighbor.
Armenia plans to launch a "free economic zone" near its border with
Iran before the end of this year.
After talks with Sarkisian, the Iranian president also called for a
peaceful settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. Sarkisian, for
his part, again praised Tehran's "balanced" stance on the unresolved
conflict.
Press Review
(Saturday, July 22)
"Hraparak" reports that Hrachya Harutiunian, an Armenian truck driver
who caused a deadly traffic accident in Russia in 2013, has been
handed over to Armenia to serve the rest of his almost 7-year prison
sentence there. Harutiunian's degrading treatment by Russian
authorities after his arrest caused street protests in Yerevan at the
time. "The Russian authorities drew some conclusions from those
protests," says the paper. "But the process of his extradition has
taken longer than expected."
"Aravot" comments on Armenian government plans to introduce fines for
people dropping cigarette butts in the streets. The paper wonders how
the fines will be enforced. "Will a police officer be monitoring every
smoker, waiting until they finish smoking, and, depending on where
they drop the cigarette butt, deciding whether or not to fine them?"
it says. "But the idea itself is certainly good." Accordingly, the
paper hits out at political and civic activists who are already
decrying the government plans.
"Hayots Ashkhar" continues to discuss the uproar that was caused by
Russian State Duma speaker Vyacheslav Volodin's calls for Armenia to
adopt Russian as a second official language. "In recent days, so much
has been said and written in our country about the incident that
occurred at the meeting [in Moscow] between the heads of Russia's and
Armenia's legislatures that one has the impression that nothing new
can be said on the subject," writes the paper. It downplays the
significance of Volodin's comments, saying that Moscow had also made
similar suggestions to other member states of the Russian-led Eurasian
Economic Union (EEU). The "artificial rumpus" caused by them in
Armenia is therefore unjustified, it says.
"After all, the Armenian side officially responded [to Volodin] in an
appropriate manner. Further discussions would have made sense only if
there had been serious disagreements and different views [on the
language issue] within Armenia," argues "Hayots Ashkhar."
Citing an Armenian lawyer, "Haykakan Zhamanak" says that of all 47
member states of the Council of Europe, the European Court of Human
Rights has received the largest per-capita number of lawsuits from
Armenia. The paper says the lawyer, Vahe Grigorian, believes that this
fact speaks volumes about a lack of public trust in the Armenian
judiciary.
(Tigran Avetisian)
Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
Copyright (c) 2017 Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, Inc.
1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.
www.rferl.org

APA, Azerbaijan
June 23 2017
Azerbaijan president calls to sanction Armenia
[Armenian News note: the below is translated from the Russian edition of APA]
23 June: "Azerbaijan's position on regulating the Armenian-Azerbaijani
conflict over [Azerbaijan's breakaway] Nagorno-Karabakh is clear to
society. We have voiced our position on a number of occasions. This
conflict must be solved within the context of territorial integrity of
our country on the basis of the norms and principles of international
law. There is no other alternative. Nagorno-Karabakh is Azerbaijan's
indigenous territory. Our people have lived on the territory for
centuries. All place-names and historic monuments [there] reflect
Azerbaijan's history."
According to the Apa [news agency], this is what Azerbaijani President
Ilham Aliyev said at the opening ceremony of the plant of revolving
grenade fitting elements in [the city of] Shirvan.
The head of state emphasised that international community also
recognised Nagorno-Karabakh as an integral part of Azerbaijan.
"All leading international organisations have made decisions on the
issue, adopting resolutions, according to which the Armenian Armed
Forces ought to immediately and unconditionally leave the occupied
territories. However, Armenia chooses not to implement them.
Regrettably, no serious measures have been used against this country.
International sanctions should have been imposed on Armenia long ago.
The thing is that this country occupied the territory of another
country in the 21st century, carrying out genocide of its people,
destroying all its historic monuments. The ruined village of Cocuq
Marcanli is a clear example of this. The situation is similar in all
occupied territories.
"International law strengthens our position, which is historically
correct. The so-called referendum, which was recently held in
Nagorno-Karabakh, failed to receive recognition by any international
structure, neighbour countries, the EU, or the OSCE Minsk Group
co-chair countries. In other words, choosing not to recognise the
referendum, all international structures and countries once again
confirmed that Nagorno-Karabakh is Azerbaijan's territory.
International community does not recognise the fictitious separatist
regime of the junta and it will never do so. Therefore, historic
justice and international law are on our side and our political weight
is certainly incomparably greater than that of Armenia. In other
words, all these factors strengthen our position. Certainly, the
Azerbaijani state should further strengthen its position and it is
strengthening its principled position. Once again, I would like to
reiterate that we live in conditions of war. Our people will never
accept the existing situation.
"We will never allow the creation of a second Armenian state on our
historic territories. We are going to restore our territorial
integrity. Recent developments and strengthening of our country offer
us greater opportunities for settling the issue.
"Indeed, to achieve our goal, we need to become even stronger. At
present, the factor of power is playing a leading role all over the
world, which is unfortunate. Indeed, international law is also
extremely important, as it creates a legal basis for the conflict.
However, it is the factor of power that plays the main role. We see
that in different parts of the world, international law is offended
and treaded down, being interpreted differently. Using the factor of
power makes it possible to change the real situation. This is not our
choice. However, we, too, live in the real world. We need to be strong
to achieve our goal. Work is being carried out in this direction," the
president emphasised.