14:16,
YEREVAN, MARCH 18, ARMENPRESS. Tigran Mkrtchyan has been relieved from the position of Armenia’s Ambassador to Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia based on the decree signed by President Armen Sarkissian, the Presidential Office told Armenpress.
According to another presidential decree, Armen Martirosyan has been appointed Ambassador of Armenia to Lithuania.
The President signed the respective decrees based on the Prime Minister’s proposal.
Editing and Translating by Aneta Harutyunyan
11:58,
YEREVAN, MARCH 18, ARMENPRESS. The National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA (NCC) calls for the United States to provide urgently needed humanitarian aid for the people of Artsakh who were forced to flee their homes during the unprovoked attack by Azerbaijan and Turkey that displaced more than 50,000 ethnic Armenians in the region.
“We plead for the United States to actively negotiate the safe return of Armenian soldiers and citizens who are being held in violation of the ceasefire agreement signed on November 9, 2020. We also urge the broad recognition of the Armenian Genocide of the early 20th century by all political and faith leaders throughout the United States”, NCC said in a statement.
NCC applauded the letter signed by 101 Members of Congress that was sent to U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken and U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin to stress the importance of addressing the “ongoing humanitarian crisis in Armenia and Nagorno Karabakh (Artsakh).”
“We call on President Biden and the Secretary of State to take direct action and negotiate the release of all Armenian soldiers and civilians held by Azerbaijan. Even though the ceasefire agreement mandated that Azerbaijan must free all Armenian prisoners of war and apprehended citizens, Azerbaijan has refused to abide by the agreement. An unknown number, believed to be over 200 Armenians, continue to be held captive. Many were captured after the military hostilities ended”, the statement says.
The Council also condemned the destruction of the churches and religious monuments by Azerbaijan during the conflict.
“As Armenians continue to be displaced and killed, we call for the President to keep his pledge and formally recognize the Armenian Genocide on April 24, 2021, Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day, in order to further the US commitment to human rights”, the statement added.
Prosperous Armenia party is not planning to meet with the president of Armenia Armen Sarkissian, PAP leader Gagik Tsarukyan told the reporters today.
Asked about meeting with Nikol Pashinyan, Tsarukyan said the meeting will take place but did not mention exact date.
At the same time he stressed that the agenda of the meeting has remained unchanged – Pashinyan’s resignation and snap elections.
Asked whether in case of Pashinyan’s resignation and nomination of NA speaker Ararat Mirzoyan the PAP will vote for him, Tsarukyan said the PAP will not nominate candidate and the votes of the opposition will not be determining in this issue.
10:50,
YEREVAN, MARCH 10, ARMENPRESS. All entries to the parliament building and the Baghramyan Avenue and Demirchyan Street are blocked by the Homeland Salvation Movement’s demonstrators who are demanding the resignation of the Pashinyan Administration.
The Homeland Salvation Movement said in a statement that they intend to continue their “domestic political struggle with new momentum”.
The movement’s supporters spent the night in tents outside the parliament building.
They said they are blocking all entrances to the parliament in order not to allow any lawmaker to enter the building because they “don’t have anything to do there”.
Editing and Translating by Stepan Kocharyan
20:00, 3 March, 2021
YEREVAN, MARCH 3, ARMENPRESS. Charges have been pressed against the joint candidate for the post of Prime Minister of Armenia of the Fatherland Salvation Movement Vazgen Manukyan for public calls to usurp power and overthrow the constitutional order, head of the press service of the Investigative Committee of Armenia Rima Yeganyan told ARMENPRESS.
Yeganyan noted that Vazgen Manukyan made public calls to usurp power and overthrow the constitutional order during a rally at the Freedom Square on February 20.
Vazgen Manukyan has been notified to visit the Investigative Committee for interrogation on March 4.
TEHRAN – Javid Gallery in Tehran is currently playing host to an exhibition of paintings by a group of Iranian-Armenian artists.
Works by Marco Grigorian, Misha Shahbazian, Sirak Melkunian, Liliet Teryan and Hakup Vartanian have been selected for the exhibition entitled “Roots”.
The collection has been accumulated by art experts Sanaz Aryanfar and Kianush Motaqedi for the exhibition.
“It has been five years since I have been conducting research works on Iranian-Armenian artists, studying the influence of their art on the history of Iranian visual arts and have organized several solo and group exhibits,” Aryanfar said in a press release published on Wednesday.
“This collection features paintings by 27 artists from the first and second generations of influential artists in contemporary Iran. Some are not alive and some are not living in Iran, though,” she said.
A highlight of the showcase is a painting by Leoni Tashchian, a 94-year-old pioneer painter who has trained many artists.
“The paintings have been collected from the families of the artists, private collectors and the Ardak Manoukian Museum in Tehran,” she said.
“All the artists have had their own style of works in creating still lives and landscapes, which are the main themes of the exhibit,” she noted.
She added that she is still working on research about the careers of the artists.
“Today, all people can easily get access to all the knowledge they like, but there was a time when people had no means of communication, and traveling to other countries was not much common. The Armenians, however, had many trips to Iran where their relatives lived, bringing the new events happening in the West into the country,” she explained.
“The best example is Marco Grigorian. He was an Iranian-Armenian and American artist, a gallery owner, and a pioneer of Iranian modern art,” she remarked.
In 1955, Marco participated in the Venice Biennale for the first time. He then returned to Tehran and was appointed as the Head of the Graphic Department of the then Culture Ministry. In 1958, Marco participated as the Iranian delegate and an international jury member at the Venice Biennale. In the same year, under the auspices of the Culture Ministry, Marco organized the First Tehran Biennial, attempting to coin a modern tradition with an ethnic flavor. The establishment of the biennial, in which creative artists were recognized for their genuine and yet individualistic styles inscribed Marco’s name in the unfolding of modern Iranian art.
The exhibition will be running until March 10 at the gallery located at No.17, Yazdan Alley, Zartosht St. off Vali-e Asr Ave.
Photo: Art aficionados visit the exhibition “Roots” displaying paintings by a group of Iranian-Armenian artists at the Javid Gallery in Tehran on March 1, 2021. (Honaronline)
RM/MMS/YAW
Military intervention in politics is constituted one of the most significant threats for democracies around the world. Although many around the world forget the extent of this threat for the democratic regimes around the world, the coups and military interventions remind themselves for many through its presence.
This week is the 24th anniversary of the Feb. 28 military intervention in Turkish politics, when the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) organized a “post-modern coup” against the democratically elected Turkish government.
Later, the coup perpetrators stated that the coup was a post-modern one because the military mobilized some other institutions, including the media, against the government.
Today, this intervention is remembered as one of the darkest moments of the history of Turkish democracy. Although the generals, who organized the coup, once said that the Feb. 28 process would continue for the next “1,000 years,” the Turkish public reacted to the coup during the elections and ended the process.
In the last month alone in two different countries, we have seen military intervention in politics. In the first days of February in Myanmar, known in recent years for its egregious human rights violations against Rohingya Muslims, the military overthrew the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi.
The deposed prime minister was put on house arrest, and the military declared a yearlong state of emergency in the country.
Later the military also declared the previous election that brought Suu Kyi to power was invalid. This was not the first time the military intervened in politics in Myanmar; however, this time the intervention generated huge public reactions from the people in Myanmar.
Since the military intervention, it has been almost a month of widespread demonstrations in the country. Last weekend, these demonstrations spread to different cities across Myanmar, and different societal groups also started to join the demonstrations.
Despite the heavy-handed police response against the demonstrators, there is no sign of stopping these demonstrations.
While the discussion on the military intervention in Myanmar is still fresh in the international community, news broke that in Armenia as there was an attempt by the military to overthrow the government.
Although initially there was confusion about the developments in the country, it was soon revealed that the military in the country asked for the resignation of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian.
Pashinian made a statement through his Facebook account and said that he considers the statement of the general staff as an attempt at a military coup. He also asked his supporters to join him in the main square of the Armenian capital in order to respond to the calls from the military.
In both countries, the situation is still unstable. There is a fear of increasing military crackdown in Myanmar due to the rising number of protests in the country.
In Armenia, there is still a lot of uncertainty about the potential developments in the next few days.
However, the developments in both countries demonstrated that the coups are not a page from history. Some elements within the military continue to violate the norms of active civilian control of the military and attempt to gain control of the government by overthrowing the democratically elected governments.
The international community has so far failed to respond to these military interventions from a principled position.
In 2013, the U.S. failed to call the coup in Egypt a coup, and then-U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry called it a “restoration of democracy” by the military.
In the Myanmar coup, we again see an inconsistent attitude. This time, China and Russia blocked a U.N. resolution condemning the coup at the U.N. Security Council (UNSC).
This pattern in reaction to the coup will not bring any good for the nascent democracies and will be interpreted as a green light by some ambitious generals in the world.
If this position will continue, we will continue to see coups not as part of history but in the current news of the newspapers.
Vazgen Manukyan, the opposition Homeland Salvation Movement’s candidate for interim prime minister, believes the coming several days will be decisive in settling the ongoing developments in Armenia. Manukyan’s remarks came at the opposition rally underway in Yerevan.
“In 2018, Nikol Pashinyan interfered with the Army affairs under the guise of combatting corruption and destroyed it. The army didn’t resist that massacre, while the people applauded. The word ‘general’ became synonym to a curse, and we witnessed the outcome of this during the war. Now, the second step is being made. The dismissal of the Deputy Chief of Staff, the irritation that sparked in the army is being used against the army. The reason is that the Army is independent,” Manukyan said.
he stressed that the Army todays does not accept Nikol Pashinyan. In his words, Pashinyan resorted to a least measure to dismiss the Chief of the General Staff and if fails to remove him, he would be viewed as defeated in the eyes of all law enforcement structures. “This means, no law enforcement will obey to him which is a factual defeat for him. In case Pashinyan manages to remove the Chief of the General Staff through Constitutional Court, the Army should obviously resist. Those days will be the most decisive for Armenia,” said Manukyan.
The opposition leader added the future of their struggle is a matter of several days which may have no outcome but Pashinyan’s defeat. “We should stand strong, be patient and ready for decisive actions,” concluded Manukyan.
11:41,
YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 25, ARMENPRESS. According to the decision of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, a working group will be formed led by the defense ministry aimed at setting the timetable of the Roadmap for the Armed Forces reform concept.
“I would like to remind that point 8 of the Roadmap released by me is the following: approving Armed Forces reform program and launching the reforms. In recent months we have had intensive discussions on this topic, we have come to some preliminary conclusions and in fact we have formed an agenda on how and in which formats the Armed Forces reform should be carried out.
Today I am going to sign a decision on forming a working group led by the defense ministry which will formulate the deadline of the Roadmap for the Armed Forces reform concept. I would like to highlight that we are going to establish a closer cooperation with our number one security partner Russia in this process.
We are confident that as a result of this process our cooperation will become more effective in the security and defense fields. I hope we will implement at least most of this conceptual work before the date of summing up the Roadmap and will start in practice fulfilling the agreements reached”, the PM said at the Cabinet meeting today.
Editing and Translating by Aneta Harutyunyan
Tight security measures are taken by law enforcement in Yerevan, where the opposition activists are holding civil disobedience actions since Tuesday morning near the government building. Cameras have caught snipers deployed on the roof of the building of the government complex.
To remind, the Homeland Salvation Movement earlier called on citizens to gather in front of the 3rd government complex to prevent Pashinyan from entering the ministry. The authorities had cordoned off the area and deployed large police forces around the complex of the government buildings.
Shortly after the protest started, the police started detain the participants using force.