Friday,
Armenian PM Stands By Criticism Of EU
Armenia - Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian holds a news conference in Yerevan, 20
July 2018.
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian again criticized the European Union on Friday
for not increasing its financial assistance to Armenia following mass protests
that brought him to power more than two months ago.
Pashinian said that the EU should reward the new Armenian government for
aggressively combatting corruption and launching major reforms.“I am surprised
that there are still officials in the EU who do not notice changes that have
occurred in Armenia,” he told a news conference.
Pashinian first voiced such complaints after holding talks with the two top EU
officials, European Council President Donald Tusk and European Commission
President Jean-Claude Juncker, in Brussels on July 12.
The head of the EU Delegation in Armenia, Piotr Switalski, countered on Monday
that his government needs to propose specific reform-oriented projects
requiring EU funding before demanding greater aid from the bloc. Pashinian’s
press secretary, Arman Yeghoyan, told RFE/RL’s Armenian service (Azatutyun.am)
the following day that the government is now working on such projects and will
present them soon.
Pashinian said nothing about those aid proposals when he answered a
journalist’s question about Switalski’s comments. “We have done nothing and
will do nothing for the sake of financial assistance,” he said instead. “What
we are doing is aimed at fulfilling the mandate of our people given to us, and
I want to make this very clear.”
The 43-year-old premier also stood by his earlier criticism of the EU. “For
many years, the EU said that it does business with Eastern Partnership
countries under the so-called ‘more for more’ formula and on the basis of
values known to all of us: democracy, independent judiciary, transparency, rule
of law, fight against corruption,” he said. “And before my visit to Brussels
there was a statement from the EU to the effect that the EU is going to somehow
support Armenia.
“In that context, I expressed my bewilderment [in Brussels] at the fact that
the formula put forward by the EU is not working in the EU policy. I am
bewildered by the fact that some of our EU partners … said at their meetings
with me that they expect changes in Armenia as they did before.”
“In order to set the record straight, I gave concrete examples,” Pashinian went
on. “I said that the current government did more, without spending a penny, to
combat corruption in one month than what happened during cooperation between
the EU and Armenia’s government at a cost of tens of millions of euros [in EU
funding.] I said that my government did more for having an independent judicial
system in Armenia in one week or even day than what was done as a result of
cooperation between the EU and Armenia’s former government costing tens of
millions of euros.”
The remarks came the day after a senior European Commission official, Katarina
Mathernova, arrived in Yerevan on a two-day visit which the EU Delegation
described as a “follow-up” to Pashinian’s talks with Juncker.
Switalski said on Monday that Mathernova will discuss with Armenian leaders
their “expectations and needs.” “This must be a very concrete discussion,” the
diplomat stressed, adding that the Armenian side should come up with “projects,
timelines, budgets and so on.”
The EU pledged last year to provide up to 160 million euros ($185 million) in
fresh aid to Armenia over the next three years in line with the Comprehensive
and Enhanced Partnership Agreement (CEPA) signed with the previous authorities
in Yerevan.
Russia Can Prevent Karabakh War, Says Pashinian
• Ruzanna Stepanian
• Karlen Aslanian
Nagorno-Karabakh -- An ethnic Armenian soldier stands guard at the checkpoint
near Nagorno-Karabakh's town of Martuni, April 8, 2016
Armenia expects Russia to prevent Azerbaijan from starting another war for
Nagorno-Karabakh, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian said on Friday.
“We know that our strategic partner, our centuries-old friend and our brother
Russia has all the capacity and the levers to prevent Azerbaijan from resorting
to a provocation in both the short and long terms,” he told journalists. “And I
can’t believe that Russia will not use those levers.”
Pashinian insisted in that regard that Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev will
not act on his regular threats of a military solution to the Karabakh conflict
in the absence of appropriate “geopolitical conditions.” “In any case, we must
be prepared for defending our homeland at any moment,” he said.
“The war is not over. Only its first phase has ended,” Aliyev said during a
military parade in Baku on June 26. He threatened military strikes against
“strategic” Armenian targets.
Pashinian’s remarks were construed by Stepan Grigorian, a Yerevan-based
analyst, as a “preventive” message addressed to Russia. “He is saying: ‘We know
that you are influential, so warn them,’” Grigorian told RFE/RL’s Armenian
service (Azatutyun.am).
Another analyst, Hakob Badalian, claimed that the Russians could have prevented
the April 2016 hostilities around Karabakh which nearly degenerated into an
all-out war. He said Pashinian was therefore right to send the message to them.
RUSSIA -- : Russian President Vladimir Putin (R) meets with Armenian Prime
Minister Nikol Pashinan in Moscow, June 13, 2018
Azerbaijan’s Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov and his recently appointed
Armenian counterpart, Zohrab Mnatsakanian, met in Brussels last week in a bid
to kick-start the Karabakh peace process. They began the talks in the presence
of the U.S., Russian and French mediators co-chairing the OSCE Minsk Group.
The mediators said afterwards that Mammadyarov and Mnatsakanian discussed “a
range of possible confidence-building measures” in the conflict zone. “The
Ministers agreed to meet again in the near future under the auspices of the
Co-Chairs,” they added in a joint statement.
Pashinian on Friday questioned Baku’s commitment to a peaceful settlement that
would involve mutual concessions by the warring sides. “When we get a message
that Azerbaijan is ready for a compromise we will discuss that,” he said. “And
we will discuss our limits of the compromise not at the government level but in
a nationwide format, so to speak.”
“I can rule out a resolution of the Karabakh conflict that would be
unacceptable to our people,” he added.
Pashinian again did not clarify his view on a framework peace accord that has
been advanced by United States, Russia and France for more than a decade. It
calls for a phased settlement that would start with the liberation of virtually
all seven districts around Karabakh which were fully or partly occupied by
Karabakh Armenian forces during the 1991-1994 war. In return, Karabakh’s
predominantly ethnic Armenian population would eventually determine the
territory’s internationally recognized status in a referendum.
Former President Serzh Sarkisian’s government said all along that this
compromise peace formula is largely acceptable to Yerevan.
Former Sarkisian Bodyguard Freed For Now
• Naira Bulghadarian
Armenia - President Serzh Sarkisian (L) and his chief bodyguard Vachagan
Ghazarian (R), 11 July 2015.
Armenia’s Court of Appeals on Friday ordered the release from pre-trial custody
of former President Serzh Sarkisian’s former chief bodyguard prosecuted on
corruption charges.
The officer, Vachagan Ghazarian, was detained on June 25 five days after police
raided his apartment in Yerevan and found $1.1 million and 230,000 euros
($267,000) in cash there.
The National Security Service (NSS) said Ghazarian carried a further $120,000
and 436 million drams ($900,000) in a bag when he was caught outside a
commercial bank in Yerevan. It said he claimed that he was going to give the
money to its “real owner” but refused to identify that person.
According to an NSS statement, Ghazarian was also planning to withdraw 1.5
billion drams ($3.1 million) kept by him and his wife at another Armenian bank.
He claimed that he “forgot” to add these sums to his official income
declarations, added the statement.
Such declarations are mandatory for Armenia’s high-ranking state officials and
their close relatives. Ghazarian was such an official until being sacked in
late May as first deputy head of a security agency providing bodyguards to the
country’s leaders.
Ghazarian was formally charged with illegally enriching himself and failing to
disclose his assets to a state anti-corruption body. A district court in
Yerevan allowed investigators to keep him under pre-trial arrest on June 28.
Ghazarian appealed against that ruling. The Court of Appeals ordered his
release after he offered to post a 1 billion-dram ($2.1 million) bail.
Ghazarian, who headed Sarkisian’s security detail for more than two decades, is
the first person in Armenia prosecuted on such charges. The ex-president has
still not commented on the corruption case against one of his most trusted
individuals.
Press Review
“Zhamanak” says that Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s political allies will
almost certainly win the upcoming snap municipal elections in Yerevan. “The key
question is in what format Pashinian’s team will participate in them … and who
its mayoral candidate will be,” writes the paper. It says that the team lacks
charismatic figures and other individuals capable of holding senior state
positions. Armenia’s capital should be governed by a charismatic figure like
Pashinian, it says.
“Zhoghovurd” says that some political forces have already started campaigning
for the mayoral elections even though no dates have been set for them yet.
“Some representatives of the parties making up the government are trying to
prove that they deserve to top the list of candidates for the municipal
council,” writes the paper. “And they are trying to convince not so much the
public as the leaders of their parties.” The latter, meanwhile, are in no rush
to pick mayoral candidates, it says.
“Aravot” quotes the head of the State Revenue Committee (SRC), Davit Ananian,
as saying that he must not be expected to appoint honest “angels” to key posts
in the national tax and customs service. “He is certainly right,” editorializes
the paper. “If you fire hundreds of corrupt tax inspectors and replace them by
young people you cannot guarantee that they will do a better job.” It says that
changing the country’s deeply rooted “culture of corruption” is not as easy as
it might appear.
“Hayots Ashkhar” says that fallout from a controversial exercise held by
Russian troops in an Armenian village this week is “threatening to cause a
serious crisis in Russian-Armenian relations.” “Judging from the preliminary
and obviously hasty conclusions drawn by the new authorities, they have not
decided what position they will take with regard to what happened,” writes the
paper. “The head of the National Security Service considers the incident to be
the result of negligence and sees no political implications. By contrast, the
prime minister made a strange statement that looks like an unsolvable puzzle:
‘I regard that as a provocation against Armenian-Russian relations.’” The paper
dismisses Pashinian’s claim.
(Tigran Avetisian)
Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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