Author: Vardan Badalian

                                        Tuesday, 

Opposition Politician Goes On Trial

        • Naira Bulghadarian

Armenia - Opposition politician Vazgen Manukian attends the opening session of 
his trial in Yerevan, .


Vazgen Manukian, a veteran politician who led anti-government protests staged by 
the Armenian opposition this winter, went on trial on Tuesday, accused of 
calling for a violent overthrow of the constitutional order.

The accusation carrying up to three years in prison stems from a statement which 
Manukian made during a February 20 rally held in Yerevan by a coalition of 
opposition forces that tried to topple Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian following 
the autumn war in Nagorno-Karabakh.

“We must be ready for revolting and taking power at lightning speed,” he told 
opposition supporters. He described that as “Plan B” of the opposition campaign 
for Pashinian’s resignation involving peaceful protests.

“We will follow Plan A but must always be ready for Plan B,” said the 
75-year-old politician whom the now defunct opposition grouping nominated as an 
interim prime minister in December.

Law-enforcement authorities indicted Manukian in early March, saying that he 
publicly advocated a violent seizure of power. They refrained from arresting him 
pending investigation.


ARMENIA -- Armenian opposition leader Vazgen Manukian delivers a speech during a 
rally to demand the resignation of Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian in 
Yerevan, March 1, 2021

Manukian again dismissed the accusation at the start of his trial in Yerevan. He 
said that his February 20 statement was “much softer” than what Pashinian did 
during the recent parliamentary election campaign.

Manukian said that Pashinian has not been prosecuted for brandishing a hammer, 
threatening his political opponents and pledging to “purge” the state 
bureaucracy and wage “political vendettas” against local government officials 
supporting the opposition.

A senior prosecutor insisted last week that Pashinian did not spread hate speech 
or promise a violent crackdown on the opposition on the campaign trail. He said 
the premier used the hammer only as a metaphor for a “dictatorship of the law” 
promised by him.

Manukian said he continues to believe that Pashinian is responsible for 
Armenia’s defeat in the war and unfit to deal with lingering security challenges 
facing the country. “Everything must to be done to make Pashinian resign,” he 
told reporters.

Manukian was one of the leaders of a political movement that ended Communist 
rule in Soviet Armenia in 1990 and led the country to independence. He served as 
prime minister from 1990-1990 and defense minister from 1992-1993.



Pashinian Replacing Armenia’s Defense Minister


Armenia -- Defense Minister Vagharshak Harutiunian (R) visits a new Armenian 
army post set up in Syunik province, December 18, 2020.


Defense Minister Vagharshak Harutiunian resigned on Tuesday ahead of a 
post-election cabinet reshuffle planned by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian.

Pashinian had appointed the 65-year-old retired general as defense minister on 
November 20 in the wake of Armenia’s defeat in the six-week war with Azerbaijan.

In what appeared to be a related development, Pashinian appointed another 
general, Arshak Karapetian, as the country’s first deputy defense minister on 
Tuesday.

At least two independent media outlets have reported after the June 20 
parliamentary elections that Karapetian will likely replace Harutiunian. The 
daily Zoghovurd said on Tuesday that he will be named defense minister “several 
days later,” after Pashinian forms a new cabinet required by Armenian law.

Karapetian, 54, is a former chief of Armenian military intelligence who was 
fired in 2016 following four-day hostilities around Nagorno-Karabakh which left 
about 80 Armenian soldiers dead. Then President Serzh Sarkisian said the 
intelligence service failed to obtain “precise information” about the 
Azerbaijani offensive beforehand.

Pashinian appointed Karapetian as his national security adviser seven months 
after coming to power in May 2018. The prime minister defended the appointment, 
saying that he has found no evidence of the Armenian military’s “lack of 
intelligence data.”

Several pro-opposition publications claimed at the time that Karapetian was the 
only high-ranking army officer who agreed to testify against former President 
Robert Kocharian and thus facilitate his arrest in July 2018 on coup charges.

In April this year, Pashinian promoted Karapetian to the post of first deputy 
chief of the Armenian army’s General Staff. The move followed an unprecedented 
statement by the army’s top brass accusing the prime minister of misrule and 
demanding his resignation.



Armenian Village Chief Wounded In Border Skirmish

        • Artak Khulian
        • Susan Badalian

Armenia - A road sign at the entrance to the border village of Yeraskh, July 20, 
2021. (Photo by Armenia's Office of the Human Rights Defender)


The mayor of an Armenian village bordering Azerbaijan’s Nakhichevan exclave was 
wounded on Monday night as a result of fresh shootouts between Armenian and 
Azerbaijani troops stationed at the border section.

The Armenian Defense Ministry has accused Azerbaijani forces of repeatedly 
firing at its border posts outside the village of Yeraskh over the past week. An 
Armenian soldier was killed in one such skirmish reported on July 14.

The ministry said that its troops deployed in the area about 70 kilometers south 
of Yerevan came under heavy gunfire on Monday evening. It said that the 
Azerbaijani side used mortars in the cross-border fighting that continued into 
the early hours of Tuesday.

No exchanges of gunfire were reported from the Yeraskh area later in the morning 
and in the afternoon.

According to a ministry spokesman, the head of the village administration, Radik 
Oghikian, was wounded while trying to extinguish a fire, apparently caused by 
gunshots, late in the evening. Oghikian was hospitalized and operated on in the 
following hours.

“He took a water pump to help put out the fire and was hit by shrapnel,” a 
Yeraskh resident told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service. “His condition is good right 
now.”

This and other villagers said they heard unusually loud gunshots overnight. They 
suggested that the Yeraskh border section saw the heaviest fighting in years.

Meanwhile, Azerbaijan’s Defense Ministry accused the Armenian side of violating 
the ceasefire and wounding an Azerbaijani army officer. Another Azerbaijani 
serviceman was reportedly wounded last week.


Armenia - Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian visits the village of Kut in 
Gegharkunik province bordering Azerbaijan, May 27, 2021.

The mayors of border villages located in two other Armenian provinces also 
reported cross-border firing on the night from Monday to Tuesday.

Nerses Shadunts, the head of a community consisting of several villages in 
southeastern Syunik province, said that Azerbaijani troops “sporadically” fired 
automatic weapons in the air for about three hours.

Sima Chitchian, who runs the border village of Kut in Gegharkunik province, 
heard similar gunfire which she said broke out late on Monday and lasted for 
more than three hours. “It was a sound of heavy weapons,” she told RFE/RL’s 
Armenian Service.

Kut is located at one of the several sections of the Armenian-Azerbaijani border 
where Azerbaijani troops reportedly advanced a few kilometers into Armenian 
territory in May.

Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian accused Baku on Saturday of planning to provoke 
“new military clashes” along the frontier and in Nagorno-Karabakh. He pointed to 
the armed incidents at the Yeraskh-Nakhichevan section.

On Monday morning, Azerbaijan’s Defense Minister Zakir Hasanov reportedly 
ordered Azerbaijani army units to thwart Armenian “provocations” on the border. 
Echoing a recent statement by Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, he said they 
must be prepared for another war with Armenia.



Armenian Opposition Bloc Avoids Boycott Of Parliament

        • Tatevik Lazarian

Armenia - Former President Robert Kocharian and senior members of his Hayastan 
(Armenia) bloc hold an election campaign rally in Yerevan's Republic Square, 
June 18, 2021.


A senior member of the main opposition Hayastan bloc confirmed on Tuesday that 
it will accept its seats in Armenia’s new parliament despite refusing to 
recognize official results of last month’s elections that gave victory to Prime 
Minister Nikol Pashinian’s party.

“Yes, we have decided to take our mandates,” Ishkhan Saghatelian told RFE/RL’s 
Armenian Service. “We will make a statement to that effect shortly.”

Hayastan and another major opposition bloc, Pativ Unem, faced calls for 
boycotting the National Assembly on a permanent basis following the June 20 
parliamentary elections which they claim were marred by serious irregularities.

Hayastan’s top leader, former President Robert Kocharian, indicated on June 22 
that his bloc will likely take up the 29 seats which it won, according to the 
Central Election Commission (CEC), in the 107-member National Assembly. He said 
presence in the parliament will give Hayastan “additional and substantial 
levers” to challenge Pashinian’s government.

Kocharian announced late on Monday that he himself will cede his seat to another 
Hayastan candidate. He argued, in particular, that he is a “man of the executive 
branch” and ran for the post of prime minister in the snap elections.

Pativ Unem, which is led by another ex-president, Serzh Sarkisian, is also 
expected to take up its 7 seats in the parliament. The bloc’s spokesman, Sos 
Hakobian, said it will announce its decision by Wednesday evening.

Pashinian’s Civil Contract party will control 71 parliament seats. No other 
political force will be represented in the National Assembly.

Hayastan, Pativ Unem and two smaller opposition groups challenged the official 
vote results in the Constitutional Court later in June. The court rejected over 
the weekend their demands to annul those results.


Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
Copyright (c) 2021 Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, Inc.
1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.

 

                                        Thursday, June 24, 2021

Armenian Church, Opposition Demand Doctor’s Release
June 24, 2021
        • Sargis Harutyunyan
        • Naira Bulghadarian

Armenia - Opposition supporters demonstrate outside the Office of the 
Prosecutor-General in Yerevan against criminal proceedings launched agains a 
prominent opposition-linked doctor, June 24, 2021.


Opposition supporters rallied outside state prosecutors’ headquarters in Yerevan 
on Thursday to protest against an arrest warrant issued for a prominent doctor 
accused of pressuring his subordinates to participate in the June 20 
parliamentary elections.

Professor Armen Charchian, the director of the Izmirlian Medical Center, was 
prosecuted after a non-governmental organization publicized last week a leaked 
audio recording of his meeting with hospital personnel.

Charchian, who ran for the parliament on the opposition Hayastan bloc’s ticket, 
can be heard telling them that they must vote in the snap elections or face 
“much tougher treatment” by the hospital management.

He was indicted under an article of the Criminal Code that prohibits any 
coercion of voters.

A Yerevan court allowed the Special Investigative Service (SIS) late on 
Wednesday to arrest Charchian and hold him in pre-trial detention.

It emerged afterwards that the renowned surgeon was hospitalized shortly before 
the court ruling. He was understood to remain in another Yerevan hospital on 
Thursday.


Armenia - Armen Charchian, the director of the Izmirlian Medical Center.
“Mr. Charchian has been suffering from diabetes for more than 20 years,” one of 
his lawyers, Erik Aleksanian, told reporters. “He also underwent serious heart 
surgery recently.”

Aleksanian insisted that the accusations are groundless because the leaked audio 
contains only a short excerpt from his comments made at the meeting with the 
Izmirlian Medical Center staff. He said a longer recording submitted by defense 
lawyers to the court shows that Charchian assured his staffers that he will not 
resort to “repression” against anyone refusing to go to the polls.

Charchian also told them that the Armenian Apostolic Church, which owns the 
hospital, does not want Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian to stay in power. 
Prosecutors say this amounted to ordering the hospital staff to vote against 
Pashinian’s Civil Contract party.

Aleksanian denied that. The lawyer said his client made clear at the start of 
the meeting that he is not going to agitate for or against any political group.

Meanwhile, the church’s Echmiadzin-based Mother See issued another statement on 
Thursday condemning Charchian’s “unfounded persecution” and demanding that the 
authorities revoke the arrest warrant.

“Distinguished doctor Armen Charchian has saved thousands of lives in the most 
difficult situations and is continuing, as head of the Izmirlian Medical Center, 
to wholeheartedly serve our people and fatherland,” read the statement.

Hayastan, which finished second in the elections, says that the charges leveled 
against Charchian are government retribution for his affiliation with the ruling 
party’s main election challenger.

More than a hundred members and supporters of the opposition alliance led by 
former President Robert Kocharian gathered outside the Office of the 
Prosecutor-General to demand an end to the criminal proceedings.

Hayastan and another major opposition bloc, Pativ Unem, claim that public sector 
employees openly supporting them were harassed and even fired by government 
officials in the run-up to the polls. They have also accused central and 
provincial government bodies of forcing their employees to attend the ruling 
Civil Contract party’s rallies. Civil Contract leaders deny these allegations.



Putin, Pashinian Discuss Armenian-Azeri Transport Links
June 24, 2021

RUSSIA -- Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian, Azerbaijani President Ilham 
Aliyev and Russian President Vladimir Putin (left to right) attend a trilateral 
meeting in Moscow, January 11, 2020


Russian President Vladimir Putin telephoned Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian on 
Thursday to congratulate him on his party’s victory in the Armenian 
parliamentary elections and discuss Russian-backed plans to restore transport 
links between Armenia and Azerbaijan.

The Kremlin reported that Putin “emphasized the importance of consistent 
implementation” of the Russian-brokered agreement that stopped the war in 
Nagorno-Karabakh and follow-up understandings reached by the leaders of Russia, 
Armenia and Azerbaijan in January.

“The Russian side will continue active mediation efforts to ensure stability in 
the region,” it said in a statement.

The Armenian government also said the two men discussed the implementation of 
those agreements. In that context, it said, Pashinian stressed the need for the 
release of Armenian prisoners of war and civilians still held in Azerbaijan.

Putin spoke with Pashinian one day after his phone call with Azerbaijani 
President Ilham Aliyev. According to a Kremlin statement, the call took place 
“at the initiative of the Azerbaijani side” and touched upon “practical aspects 
of the realization of the agreements” reached by Aliyev, Pashinian and Putin.

“Special attention was paid to intensifying work in a trilateral format on the 
restoration of economic links and transport routes in the South Caucasus,” added 
the statement.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and his Azerbaijani counterpart Jeyhun 
Bayramov spoke by phone earlier on Wednesday.

The agreements call for the reopening of the Armenian-Azerbaijani border for 
commercial traffic. They specifically commit Armenia to opening rail and road 
links between Nakhichevan and the rest of Azerbaijan. For its part, Armenia 
should be able to use Azerbaijani territory as a transit route for cargo 
shipments to and from Russia and Iran.

At their January 11 meeting in Moscow, Putin, Aliyev and Pashinian agreed to set 
up a trilateral working group tasked with working out practical modalities of 
establishing such transport links. The group co-headed by deputy prime ministers 
of the three states held several meetings in the following months.

The group has not met since Azerbaijani troops crossed several sections of the 
Armenian-Azerbaijani border on May 12-14, triggering a continuing military 
standoff with Armenian forces.

“Given these border incidents, I don’t think it’s possible to constructively 
work on that [Russian-Armenian-Azerbaijani] platform,” the group’s Armenian 
co-chair, Deputy Prime Minister Mher Grigorian, said recently.

Grigorian’s Azerbaijani opposite number, Shahin Mustafayev, suggested earlier 
this week that the trilateral task force will resume its activities after a new 
Armenian government is formed as a result of the June 20 elections.



Pashinian Touts Armenia’s ‘Democratic’ Elections
June 24, 2021
        • Nane Sahakian

ARMENIA -- Armenian acting Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian delivers a speech 
during a rally in central Yerevan, June 21, 2021


Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian insisted on Thursday that the weekend general 
elections in Armenia won by his party were free and fair.

“The conclusions of international and local observers and the international 
community are unequivocal: the elections were held in conformity with democratic 
standards. In effect, we set a new standard,” Pashinian said, opening a weekly 
meeting of his cabinet in Yerevan.

“When pre-term parliamentary elections were held in 2018 and the international 
community gave those elections unprecedentedly high marks … it was said at the 
time that the election outcome was obvious for everyone in advance and that the 
incumbent government did not need, so to speak, to falsify the election results. 
The outcome of the 2021 parliamentary elections was not predictable and everyone 
knew that they are probably the most unpredictable elections in the Third 
Republic’s history,” he said.

In their preliminary report released on Monday, European observers gave a 
largely positive assessment of the Armenian authorities’ handling of the snap 
elections held on Sunday. They said the vote was “competitive and generally very 
well-managed.”

Both the United States and the European Union cited the findings of the observer 
mission mostly deployed by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in 
Europe in their official reactions to the conduct of the snap polls.

The U.S. State Department urged the Armenian opposition to accept the official 
election results that gave a landslide victory to Pashinian’s Civil Contract 
party.

The two leading opposition groups that won seats in Armenia’s new parliament 
have alleged widespread irregularities, however. They are expected to ask the 
Constitutional Court overturn the official results.

Former President Robert Kocharian’s Hayastan bloc, the official runner-up in the 
polls, accused the European observers on Monday of turning a blind eye to 
violations which it said benefited the ruling party.

Armenian law-enforcement authorities have charged more than a dozen opposition 
members and supporters with trying to bribe or bully voters. No government 
officials and loyalists are known to have been prosecuted for electoral offenses 
so far.

Pashinian cited on Thursday the election-related criminal cases. “I am convinced 
that they will be properly investigated,” he said.



Opposition Party Blames Kocharian For Poor Election Showing
June 24, 2021
        • Naira Nalbandian

Armenia - Edmon Marukian, the leader of the Bright Armenia Party, speaks at an 
election campaign meeting in Yerevan, June 18, 2021.


The leader of the Bright Armenia Party (LHK), one of the two opposition groups 
represented in the outgoing Armenian parliament, on Thursday blamed former 
President Robert Kocharian for its failure to win any seats in the new National 
Assembly.

According to official results of the June 20 elections, the LHK won only 1.2 
percent of the vote, falling far short of the 5 percent legal threshold for 
entering the parliament. It had garnered 6.4 percent in the previous elections 
held in 2018.

LHK leader Edmon Marukian said his party was on course to clear the vote 
threshold until the last few days of campaigning marked by bitter recriminations 
traded by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian and two hardline opposition alliances 
led by Kocharian and another former president, Serzh Sarkisian.

Marukian claimed that many LHK sympathizers deserted his camp after Kocharian’s 
Hayastan bloc held the biggest rally of the entire election campaign in Yerevan 
on June 18. He said they felt that Kocharian’s return power is a real 
possibility and that they should prevent it by voting for Pashinian’s Civil 
Contract party.

“Our representative in Yeghegnadzor told me that people are coming to the [local 
LHK] office and saying, ‘Sorry, we planned to vote for you but after seeing that 
rally we thought that they are returning [to power] and decided to give extra 
votes to the authorities so that it doesn’t happen,” he told a news conference.


Armenia - Supporters of former President Robert Kocharian and his opposition 
alliance attend an election campaign rally in Yerevan, June 18, 2021.

The official results showed Civil Contract getting almost 54 percent of the 
vote, compared with 21 percent and 5.2 percent polled by Hayastan and 
Sarkisian’s Pativ Unem bloc respectively. Both opposition forces are expected to 
ask the Constitutional Court to overturn what they call fraudulent results.

During the 12-day election campaign, the LHK positioned itself as a viable 
alternative to Armenia’s current and former rulers. It pledged to form a 
“government of national unity” in case of making a strong showing in the polls.

“The megaphones of the current and former authorities were much stronger than 
ours,” complained Marukian. “Our voice was drowned out as a result.”

The LHK leader also accused Hayastan and Pativ Unem of helping Pashinian to stay 
in power. He said that lawmakers representing the radical opposition will be an 
easy target for the reelected prime minister.

Supporters of the two ex-presidents claim the opposite. They say that Pashinian 
will face “real opposition” in the parliament for the first time since coming to 
power more than three years ago.

Hardline critics of the Armenian government have for years questioned the LHK’s 
opposition credentials. They have accused Marukian of secretly cooperating with 
Pashinian, his erstwhile political ally.

Like other major opposition forces, Marukian’s party blamed the government for 
Armenia’s defeat in last year’s war in Nagorno-Karabakh. But it did not join 
street protests organized by them in an attempt to force Pashinian to resign.


Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
Copyright (c) 2021 Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, Inc.
1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.