Author: Vanyan Gary

                                        Monday, August 1, 2022
Fighting Reported In Karabakh
        • Nane Sahakian
ARMENIA -- An ethnic Armenian soldier stands guard flag atop a hill in 
northwestern Karabakh, November 25, 2020
Nagorno-Karabakh’s military on Monday accused Azerbaijani forces of launching 
attacks on its positions in the territory’s north and northwest.
The Karabakh Defense Army said that throughout the day its troops thwarted 
Azerbaijani “attempts to cross the line of contact.”
“The Armenian side suffered no casualties,” it said in a statement issued in the 
evening. “The situation remains tense.”
The statement added that Russian peacekeeping forces stationed in Karabakh 
received “detailed information” about the situation on the frontlines.
A Karabakh lawmaker, Artur Harutiunian, told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service shortly 
afterwards that the fighting has stopped for now. He also said that the 
Azerbaijani army did not capture any Karabakh Armenian positions.
“Everything is under the control of our armed forces,” Davit Babayan, the 
Karabakh foreign minister said, for his part.
Meanwhile, the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry categorically denied any ceasefire 
violations in or around Karabakh.
Earlier in the evening, Arayik Harutiunian, the Karabakh president, held what 
appeared to be an emergency meeting with the Defense Army commander, Kamo 
Vartanian, and other security officials.
In what may have been a related development, Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat 
Mirzoyan held a phone call with U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Karen 
Donfried. An Armenian readout of the call made no explicit mention on the 
reported escalation in Karabakh.
Donfried spoke with Mirzoyan and Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov on 
July 17 the day after their direct talks held in Tbilisi. A week later, U.S. 
Secretary of State Antony Blinken phoned the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan. 
Blinken tweeted afterwards that he sees a “historic opportunity to achieve peace 
in the region.”
Last Thursday, the Armenian side said that Azerbaijani forces opened fire at two 
villages in Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenian army positions on Armenia’s border 
with Azerbaijan. Baku denied that.
On Saturday, Azerbaijani Defense Minister Zakir Hasanov ordered his troops to be 
ready to “prevent provocation attempts by the enemy with decisive measures.” 
Some commentators in Yerevan suggested that Baku is preparing the ground for 
another escalation in the conflict zone.
The situation along the Karabakh “line of contact” had been relatively calm 
since March.
More Diaspora Activists Denied Entry To Armenia
        • Artak Khulian
Armenia - Dutch Armenian activist Massis Abrahamian and his daughter Suneh speak 
from Yerevan airport.
Two more Armenian Diaspora activists from Europe critical of Prime Minister 
Nikol Pashinian have been barred from entering Armenia.
Massis Abrahamian, a leader of the pan-Armenian Dashnaktsutyun party’s branch in 
the Netherlands, and his 23-year-old daughter Suneh arrived at Yerevan’s 
Zvartnots airport on Monday and Sunday respectively. Immigration officers there 
told them that they will be deported.
“Words cannot describe the disappointment and pain I feel for being denied my 
homeland,” Suneh Abrahamian, who too is affiliated with Dashnaktsutyun, wrote on 
Facebook before flying back to the Netherlands.
Her father was still at Zvartnots’s transit zone on Monday evening, awaiting a 
return flight to Warsaw. He said he too was not given any reason for being 
declared a persona non grata by the Armenian government.
The government declined to comment on the expulsions, referring all inquiries to 
the National Security Service (NSS). The NSS did not respond to an RFE/RL 
request for comment as of Monday evening.
Mourad Papazian, another Dashnaktsutyun activist and one of the leaders of 
France’s large Armenian community, was similarly denied entry to Armenia two 
weeks ago. The Coordination Council of Armenian Organizations of France (CCAF) 
condemned the ban.
After an eight-day silence, Pashinian’s office said that Papazian was deported 
because of organizing an angry demonstration against the Armenian prime 
minister’s June 2021 visit to France. It said the protesters threw “various 
objects” at Pashinian’s motorcade when it drove through Paris. The 
French-Armenian leader denied any involvement in that protest.
France - Mourad Papazian, a leader of the French-Armenian community, speaks at 
an Armenian genocide remembrance ceremony, April 24, 2022.
Massis Abrahamian suggested that he was not allowed to visit Armenia because of 
being one of the organizers of protests that marred Pashinian’s May 2022 trip to 
the Netherlands. Some of the Dutch-Armenian protesters chanted offensive slogans 
against the prime minister.
Abrahamian stressed that the protests were sanctioned by Dutch authorities and 
peaceful. “Every Diaspora Armenia will now be concerned about whether they will 
be allowed to enter Armenia on their arrival,” he told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service 
from the Yerevan airport.
Dashnaktsutyun’s organization in Armenia has been at the forefront of regular 
rallies launched this spring by the country’s main opposition groups trying to 
topple Pashinian. Not surprisingly, the party’s Yerevan-based leaders were quick 
to condemn the latest expulsions of their Diaspora activists.
One of them, Artsvik Minasian, accused Pashinian of seeking to silence his vocal 
critics in the worldwide Armenian Diaspora. “Even during Bolshevik rule there 
were no crackdowns on such a scale,” he claimed.
Another Dashnaktsutyun leader, Ishkhan Saghatelian, linked the travel bans with 
what he called a government crackdown on opposition activists and supporters in 
Armenia. More than a dozen of them are currently under arrest, accused of 
assaulting police officers and government supporters. The Armenian authorities 
maintain that the accusations are not politically motivated.
“Nikol is trying to switch to authoritarian rule,” Saghatelian charged in a 
Facebook post. “World history shows that at some point all populists turn into 
dictators because they can no longer cling to power through fraud and deceit.”
Armenian Politician Barred From Entering Karabakh
        • Nane Sahakian
Armenia - Raffi Hovannisian speaks at a news conference in Yerevan, 20 August 
2018.
Raffi Hovannisian, a veteran politician critical of Armenia’s government, was 
reportedly not allowed to enter Nagorno-Karabakh late on Sunday for unknown 
reasons.
Hovannisian’s Zharangutyun (Heritage) party said Russian peacekeeping soldiers 
manning a checkpoint in the Lachin corridor stopped him as he travelled to 
Stepanakert to attend his grandson’s baptism.
“Showing him an order from their commander along with an accompanying photo, the 
soldiers at the checkpoint did not give any clear reason or justification for 
the refusal but confirmed that the ban could emanate from “the highest echelon’ 
of official Yerevan,” Zharangutyun said in a statement.
It said Karabakh’s leadership was “very surprised” by the entry ban and tried in 
vain to have it lifted.
The statement quoted Hovannisian as seemingly blaming Armenian Prime Minister 
Nikol Pashinian for the ban. The U.S.-born politician, who had served as 
Armenia’s first foreign minister, pointed the finger at an unnamed “failed 
leader who must quit along with his xenophobic neighbor for the sake of real 
regional peace and security.”
The authorities in Yerevan and Stepanakert could not be reached for comment on 
Monday morning. The pro-government news website civic.am quoted a spokesperson 
for the National Security Service (NSS) as saying that Armenia’s government has 
nothing to do with the travel ban.
Armenian opposition parliamentarians likewise blamed Pashinian when they were 
barred from entering Karabakh in April on a visit which was as part of their 
campaign against far-reaching Armenian concessions to Azerbaijan.
Pashinian and the Armenian Foreign Ministry put the blame on the Russian 
peacekeepers, however, saying that their actions ran counter to the terms of the 
Russian-brokered ceasefire that stopped the Armenian-Azerbaijani war in November 
2020. Moscow rejected the criticism.
Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
Copyright (c) 2022 Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, Inc.
1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.
 

                                        Tuesday, 
Khamenei Warns Against Attempts To ‘Block’ Armenian-Iranian Border
Iran - Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei addresses university students, April 26, 2022.
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warned against attempts to “block” 
Armenia’s border with his country when he met with Turkish President Recep 
Tayyip Erdogan in Tehran on Tuesday.
Erdogan travelled to the Iranian capital for a trilateral meeting with his 
Iranian and Russian counterparts on the conflict in Syria. The conflict was 
reportedly the main focus of his conversation with Khamenei.
Khamenei, who has the final say on key state policies, also brought up the 
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict at the meeting. According to Iranian news agencies, he 
“expressed his satisfaction with Nagorno-Karabakh’s return to Azerbaijan” as a 
result of the 2020 Armenian-Azerbaijani war.
He also said: “If there is an effort to block the border between Iran and 
Armenia, the Islamic Republic will oppose it because this border has been a 
communication route for thousands of years.”
The Russian-brokered ceasefire that stopped the war in Nagorno-Karabakh commits 
Armenia to opening rail and road links between Azerbaijan and its Nakhichevan 
exclave. Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has claimed that it calls for an 
exterritorial land corridor that would pass through Syunik, the sole Armenian 
province bordering Iran.
Iran - Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei meets with Turkish President Recep Tayyip 
Erdogan, .
Turkish leaders and Erdogan in particular regularly echo Aliyev’s demands for 
the “Zangezur corridor.”
Armenia has rejected the demands, saying that Azerbaijani citizens and cargo 
cannot be exempt from Armenian border controls.
Tehran has effectively sided with Yerevan on the issue, repeatedly voicing 
support for Armenian sovereignty over transit roads passing through Armenia. Ali 
Shamkhani, the secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, reaffirmed 
this stance during a July 7 visit to the Armenian capital.
Last October, an influential Iranian cleric accused Aliyev of trying to “cut 
Iran’s access to Armenia.”
While in Tehran, Erdogan also held separate talks with Russian President 
Vladimir Putin. The latter mentioned “the settlement of the Karabakh problem” in 
his opening remarks at the talks.
Russia deployed soldiers and border guards to Syunik during and after the 2020 
war to help the Armenian military defend the province against possible 
Azerbaijani attacks.
Visiting Yerevan last month, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov insisted 
that Armenia will control the planned road and railway that will connect 
Nakhichevan to the rest of Azerbaijan. Lavrov said the Armenian side will only 
simplify border crossing procedures.
Yerevan Reassures Baku Over Troop Withdrawal From Karabakh
        • Nane Sahakian
ARMENIA -- An Armenian soldier stands guard atop a hill near Charektar village, 
November 25, 2020
Armenia will complete the withdrawal of its troops from Nagorno-Karabakh in 
September, a senior Armenian official said on Tuesday following fresh complaints 
voiced by Azerbaijan’s leaders.
“Due to the [2020] war, a number of units of Armenia’s Armed Forces entered 
Nagorno-Karabakh to help its Defense Army,” Armen Grigorian, the secretary of 
Armenia’s Security Council, told the Armenpress news agency. “They have been 
returning to the Republic of Armenia since the ceasefire took effect [in 
November 2020.]”
“This process is close to completion and will end in September,” he said. “As 
for the Defense Army, it has been in Nagorno-Karabakh and will remain there.”
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev claimed last Friday that Armenia still has 
troops in Karabakh in breach of the ceasefire accord brokered by Russia. He said 
a senior Russian military official assured Baku early this year that the 
Armenian troop withdrawal will be completed by June.
“It’s already the middle of July and the issue has not been resolved,” 
complained Aliyev.
Azerbaijan’s Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov apparently raised the matter with 
his Armenian counterpart Ararat Mirzoyan when they met in Tbilisi on Saturday. 
According to the Foreign Ministry in Baku, Bayramov called for a full 
implementation of Armenian-Azerbaijani agreements, singling out “the withdrawal 
of Armenian forces from Azerbaijani territory.”
Domestic critics of the Armenian government deplored Grigorian’s announcement, 
saying that Yerevan is continuing to appease Baku at all costs.
“Thus the Armenian authorities are continuing to duly comply with all demands 
and preconditions of Aliyev and the Turkish authorities,” wrote Gegham Manukian, 
an opposition parliamentarian.
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s administration, Manukian claimed, has made 
clear that Karabakh will be left “unprotected.”
Grigorian downplayed security implications of the troop withdrawal, arguing that 
Karabakh will retain its armed forces and will also be protected by Russian 
peacekeeping forces deployed there following the 2020 war.
“The peacekeeping forces are of key importance in guaranteeing the security of 
Nagorno-Karabakh’s Armenians,” said the official.
Russia, Armenia ‘Tackling External Threats’
        • Sargis Harutyunyan
Armenia - Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian meets Sergei Naryshkin, head of 
Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service Sergey, Yerevan, .
Armenian and Russian security services are working together to neutralize common 
“external threats” facing their countries, the head of Russia’s Foreign 
Intelligence Service (SVR), Sergei Naryshkin, said at the end of a visit to 
Yerevan late on Monday.
Naryshkin praised the current state of Russian-Armenian relations after holding 
talks with Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian and Armen Abazian, the head of 
Armenia’s National Security Service.
“I must say that cooperation of our countries is developing positively in the 
economic, military-political and humanitarian areas,” he told Russian media 
outlets afterwards. “Interaction between special services is part of that 
cooperation, and I obviously discussed with my [Armenian] counterpart exchange 
of intelligence information, joint actions for the purpose of identifying and 
forestalling a whole range of external threats to Russia and Armenia.”
“Our consultations will continue. We are drawing up a plan of joint work for the 
coming years,” he said.
Naryshkin did not specify those threats. But he did accuse “liberal-totalitarian 
regimes in the West” of trying to destabilize various parts of the world, 
including Ukraine, to preserve what he called an “unjust” world order which is 
crumbling now.
Armenia has refrained from publicly criticizing the Russian invasion of Ukraine. 
The South Caucasus state has long maintained close military, political and 
economic ties with Russia. Its heavy dependence on Moscow for defense and 
security deepened further after the 2020 war in Nagorno-Karabakh.
Pashinian met Naryshkin three days after receiving William Burns, the director 
of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. The Armenian government reported few 
details of those talks.
The Russian intelligence chief insisted on Monday that his visit to Armenia is 
“not connected” with Burns’s surprise trip. Washington has declined to comment 
on the trip.
Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
Copyright (c) 2022 Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, Inc.
1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.
 

                                        Thursday, 
Armenian Police To Expand Public Video Surveillance
        • Sargis Harutyunyan
Armenia - A control room of the Security Dream company operating speed radars 
and cameras, Yerevan, September 5, 2014.
The Armenian government allowed the national police on Thursday to set up a 
centralized system of video surveillance designed to facilitate the fight 
against crime and improve road safety.
The new surveillance network will comprise all speed radars on Armenia’s streets 
and highways as well as separate video cameras used for collecting street 
parking fees in Yerevan, which have been operated by two private firms for 
almost a decade. It will also be connected to security cameras installed inside 
shops, restaurants, casinos and other private businesses across the country.
The chief of the Armenian police, Vahe Ghazarian, indicated that police officers 
will also view many cameras to be placed in other public areas. He did not 
specify their number or location.
Ghazarian said that the expanded surveillance system will have a “substantial 
positive impact on improving the security environment.” Law-enforcement bodies 
will be in a better position to maintain public order, prevent and solve crimes 
and hunt for fugitive criminal suspects, he told a weekly cabinet meeting in 
Yerevan chaired by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian.
Pashinian praised the police initiative. But he said nothing about the amount of 
government funding that will be provided for its realization.
Samvel Martirosian, an independent cyber security expert, cautioned that while 
the new surveillance network will likely make it easier for the police to combat 
crime it could be vulnerable to hacker attacks and information leaks. He said it 
is not clear how the government will protect citizens’ personal data and who 
exactly will have access to it.
New Armenian Army Chief Appointed
Armenia - Major-General Edward Asrian holds a news briefing, Yerevan, May 27, 
2021.
President Vahagn Khachaturian on Thursday appointed a new chief of the Armenian 
army’s General Staff handpicked by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian, filling a 
position that has been vacant for nearly five months.
The appointment of Major-General Edward Asrian was announced just over a week 
after the Armenian parliament approved a government bill that made the country’s 
top general directly subordinate to the defense minister.
The previous army chief of staff, Lieutenant-General Artak Davtian, and six 
other senior generals were sacked in February through presidential decrees also 
initiated by Pashinian.
The sackings came one year after Davtian’s predecessor, Onik Gasparian, and 40 
other high-ranking officers issued a joint statement accusing Pashinian’s 
government of incompetence and misrule and demanding its resignation.
Incidentally, Asrian was among the signatories of the February 2021 statement 
welcomed by the Armenian opposition but condemned by Pashinian as a coup attempt.
Some pro-government lawmakers have acknowledged that Pashinian’s administration 
hopes the bill passed by the National Assembly on July 7 will prevent the army 
top brass from challenging them in the future.
Under the bill criticized by the opposition, the chief of the General Staff will 
also hold the post of first deputy defense minister. But he will not perform 
ministerial duties if Defense Minister Suren Papikian is absent from the country.
Pashinian promised a major reform of the military shortly after Armenia’s defeat 
in the 2020 war with Azerbaijan. He has replaced three defense ministers since a 
Russian-brokered ceasefire stopped the six-week hostilities in November 2020.
Opposition forces blame Pashinian for the disastrous war that left at least 
3,800 Armenian soldiers dead. They also say that his administration is doing 
little to rebuild the armed forces.
Ruling Party Holds Back On Ousting Armenian Opposition From Parliament
        • Astghik Bedevian
Armenia - Riot police guard the entrance to the headquarters of the ruling Civil 
Contract party in Yerevan, June 20, 2022.
A senior member of the ruling Civil Contract party said on Thursday that it will 
not strip opposition deputies boycotting sessions of Armenia’s parliament of 
their seats for now.
The leadership of the National Assembly affiliated with the party has 
increasingly threatened in recent weeks to ask the Constitutional Court to take 
such action. It was due to discuss the matter at a meeting slated for Thursday 
evening.
“We have decided not to start such a process at this stage,” Hrachya Hakobian, a 
Civil Contract lawmaker, told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service hours before the 
scheduled meeting.
“But we don’t exclude that one day we will again discuss stripping them of their 
mandates,” he said. “I don’t exclude that the [ruling party’s parliamentary] 
faction will once again organize a discussion on this issue in September or 
October.”
Hakobian, who is also Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s brother-in-law, said the 
parliament’s pro-government majority is giving the opposition lawmakers another 
chance to return to the parliament.
Armenia - Empty seats of opposition deputies boycotting a session of parliament, 
Yerevan, June 14, 2022.
One of those lawmakers, Gegham Manukian, dismissed the explanation, saying that 
the Armenian authorities simply want to avoid another blow to their democratic 
credentials.
“I presume that some smart guy, who is definitely not a parliament deputy, told 
them, ‘Guys you are going way over the top, disgracing the country, destroying 
the last ruins of our democratic bastion,’ and that’s why they came out with 
such a statement,” he said.
The 35 members of the 107-seat parliament representing the opposition Hayastan 
and Pativ Unem alliances began the boycott in April in advance of their daily 
demonstrations demanding Pashinian’s resignation. One of their leaders made 
clear on Monday that they will continue their boycott and hold more 
antigovernment rallies in the weeks ahead.
Under Armenian law, a parliament deputy can lose their seat if they skip, for 
“non-legitimate” reasons, at least half of parliament votes during a single 
semi-annual session of the National Assembly. The final decision to that effect 
is to be made by the Constitutional Court.
The parliament’s leadership said earlier this week all 29 deputies representing 
Hayastan and four others affiliated with Pativ Unem can now be formally accused 
of absenteeism.
Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
Copyright (c) 2022 Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, Inc.
1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.