Category: 2018

                                        Friday, 
Dutch Parliament Recognizes Armenian Genocide
Netherlands -- The Dutch parliament building in The Hague.
(Reuters) - The Dutch parliament on Thursday passed a motion
recognizing as genocide the massacre of as many as 1.5 million
Armenians in 1915, although the government said it will not become
official policy of the Netherlands.
The motion, which was opposed by just three lawmakers out of 150,
risks further straining relations between The Hague and Ankara, which
have been tense since the Dutch barred a Turkish minister from
campaigning in the Netherlands last year.
"The government will not follow the judgment of the parliament,"
Foreign Minister Sigrid Kaag told Dutch television before the vote.
She urged "utmost caution when applying the term genocide to past
events". "This cabinet wants to be very careful about relations with
Turkey, which have been better," she said.
Relations between the two countries, both members of NATO, went into a
freeze last year when the Netherlands deported a Turkish minister who
had come to campaign among the Dutch Turkish minority for a
constitutional referendum in Turkey.
Turkey summoned the Dutch charge d`affaires to Ankara on Saturday to
express its unhappiness with the impending vote on Armenia. Nearly a
dozen other EU countries have passed similar resolutions. On February
5, the Netherlands said it will not attempt to appoint an ambassador
to Turkey for now.
A second motion passed on Thursday calls for a high level Dutch
government official to attend Armenia's formal genocide remembrance
day on April 24. In the past the country's Dutch ambassador has
attended.
Kaag said the government will consider how best to represent the Dutch
government at the commemoration.
Most scholars outside Turkey consider the killings were a genocide,
that is, an attempt to destroy an entire people in part or whole.
Turkey accepts that many Christian Armenians living in the Ottoman
Empire were killed during World War One, but contests the figures and
denies the killings were systematically orchestrated or constitute a
genocide.
"The politicization of 1915 events by taking them out of historical
context is unacceptable," Turkish Foreign Ministry spokesman Hami
Aksoy said in a statement before the vote.
Dutch Parliament Vote Hailed By Armenia, Condemned By Turkey
Armenia -- A woman is reflected in a display containing a banner
depicting "Tools of Genocide" forming the shape of "1915", in
reference to the year of the mass killings of Armenians by Ottoman
Turks, in Yerevan, April 22, 2015
Armenia has praised while Turkey condemned the Dutch parliament for
reaffirming its official recognition of the 1915 genocide of Armenians
in the Ottoman Empire.
The Dutch House of Representatives described the massacre of some 1.5
million Armenians by the Ottoman Turks as genocide in a resolution
overwhelmingly adopted late on Thursday. Another resolution passed by
it calls for a high level Dutch government official to attend an
official commemoration of the genocide anniversary in Armenia on April
24.
The Armenian government swiftly hailed the development. "With this
step, the parliament of the Netherlands once again reconfirmed its
commitment to universal human values and the noble cause of prevention
of genocides and crimes against humanity," Foreign Minister Edward
Nalbandian said in a statement.
Nalbandian noted that the Dutch parliament had already recognized the
Armenian genocide in 2004.
Predictably, official Ankara strongly condemned the Dutch resolutions,
calling them "baseless." "They are neither legally binding nor have
any validity," read a statement released by the Turkish Foreign
Ministry.
The statement at the same time pointed to the Dutch government's
decision to distance itself from the resolutions. Dutch Foreign
Minister Sigrid Kaag said before the vote that the government "will
not follow the judgment of the parliament."
The Turkish Foreign Ministry also summoned the Dutch charge d'affaires
in Ankara on Friday to express its unhappiness with the resolutions.
Relations between the two NATO member states began rapidly
deteriorating last year when the Netherlands deported a Turkish
minister who tried to campaign among the Dutch Turkish minority for a
constitutional referendum in Turkey. On February 5, the Netherlands
said it will not attempt to appoint an ambassador to Turkey for now.
At least 23 countries, including France and Germany, as well as most
scholars outside Turkey recognize the Armenian genocide. "The
historical record on the Armenian Genocide is unambiguous and
documented by overwhelming evidence," the International Association of
Genocide Scholars said in 2007.
Successive Turkish governments have vehemently denied a premediated
government effort to exterminate Ottoman Turkey's Armenian population
during the First World War.
Ankara reacted angrily after French President Emmanuel Macron pledged
late last month to assign an official day of commemoration for the
Armenian genocide victims. Macron also signaled support for a French
law that would criminalize public denials of the genocide.
Dashnaks Back Armenian President's Preferred Successor
 . Ruzanna Stepanian
Armenia - Presidential candidate Armen Sarkissian meets with leaders
of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation in Yerevan, 29 January 2018.
The Armenian Revolutionary Federation (Dashnaktsutyun) on Friday
formally endorsed President Serzh Sarkisian's pick for the next head
of state who will be chosen by the parliament and have largely
ceremonial powers.
Dashnaktsutyun and its senior coalition partner, the Republican Party
of Armenia (HHK), jointly nominated Armen Sarkissian for the post of
president. A relevant motion was signed by around 60 parliamentarians
representing the two parties.
Sarkissian met and addressed them earlier in the day. Aghvan
Vartanian, a Dashnaktsutyun leader, said he was impressed with the
presidential candidate's speech. Vartanian said Sarkissian's vision
for Armenia's future is "fully congruent" with his and his party's
views.
Speaking to reporters, Vartanian dismissed suggestions that
Dashnaktsutyun would have backed any other candidate handpicked by the
outgoing president.
Dashnaktsutyun is represented in the Armenian government by three
ministers. It won 7 seats in the country's 105-member parliament
elected in April 2017.
Meanwhile, the ruling HHK's parliamentary leader, Vahram Baghdasarian
announced that the National Assembly will start a plenary debate on
the next president on March 1. "In all likelihood, the vote will take
place on March 2," he said.
Armen Sarkissian, who briefly served as Armenia's prime minister in
the 1990s, will have to be backed by a three-fourths and two-thirds
majority of lawmakers in order to win in the first and second rounds
of voting respectively. A simple majority of votes is enough to win
the presidency in the third round. The HHK has such a majority.
Nevertheless, Serzh Sarkisian expressed hope last month that the
former premier will win outright in the first round. In that case, he
would need the backing of at least 79 members of the National
Assembly.
The HHK and Dashnaktsutyun control 65 seats between them. They will
therefore need the votes of businessman Gagik Tsarukian's alliance
which holds 31 seats.
The Tsarukian Bloc, which is officially in opposition to the
government, will not field its own presidential candidate. It has not
yet clarified whether its lawmakers will vote for Sarkissian.
Tsarukian Bloc Unlikely To Back Opposition Appeal To Court
 . Astghik Bedevian
Armenia - Gevorg Petrosian, a parliament deputy from the Tsarukian
Bloc, 30 November 2017.
A senior member of businessman Gagik Tsarukian's alliance said on
Friday that it is unlikely to join another opposition group in
challenging the legality of the upcoming election of Armenia's new
president.
The head of state will be chosen by the parliament, rather than
popular vote, next week in accordance with the country's amended
constitution envisaging a parliamentary system of government.
Some Armenian lawyers critical of the government say that the new
constitutional provisions on the parliament vote are supposed to take
effect only after the outgoing President Serzh Sarkisian's final term
ends on April 9. Sarkisian's successor must therefore be directly
elected by voters, they say.
But government officials and legal experts cite other constitutional
clauses. One of them stipulates that only Armenia's parliament and
local government bodies shall be elected by popular vote. Another
clause says that lawmakers can pick the next president no sooner than
40 days before the end of Sarkisian's decade-long presidency.
Some opposition groups added their voice to the critics' claims that
the upcoming parliament vote is unconstitutional. One of them, the
Yelk alliance, moved on Thursday to ask the Constitutional Court to
rule on the dispute.
Yelk, which controls nine parliament seats, needs the signatures of at
least 21 lawmakers in order to lodge an appeal to the court. It has
asked deputies from the Tsarukian Bloc, which has 31 seats, to join in
the legal action.
Gevorg Petrosian, a senior Tsarukian Bloc lawmaker, echoed the
government arguments, saying that the constitution does allow the
National Assembly to elect the president as early as next week. "You
can't literally interpret one constitutional norm while ignoring the
essence of the whole constitution," he told RFE/RL's Armenian service
(Azatutyun.am).
Petrosian, who is a lawyer by training, predicted that the Tsarukian
Bloc will turn down Yelk's request. "I will voice my opinion at [a
meeting of] our parliamentary faction and I think that the faction's
position will not differ from mine," he said.
Petrosian insisted that Yelk would stand no chance of winning the
court case. It therefore makes no sense to appeal to the country's
highest court, he said.
Gevorg Gorgisian, a parliament deputy from Yelk, disagreed. "Even if
the Tsarukian Bloc is sure that there is nothing to be disputed, there
is an issue," he said. "The Constitutional Court should express its
position and clarify how those contentious constitutional provisions
should be interpreted."
Press Review
"Zhamanak" says that although it is already obvious that Serzh
Sarkisian will become prime minister and extend his rule in April he
has still not made an official announcement to that effect. "It's not
that someone in some place does not want Serzh Sarkisian to become
prime minister," writes the paper. "The situation is totally
different. Before publicizing his final decision Serzh Sarkisian needs
to calculate the scope of responsibility stemming from that
decision. That is, what short-term and mid-term challenges and risks
will confront the prime minister to be appointed on April 17."
"Chorrord Ishkhanutyun" says that nobody will challenge Sarkisian for
the post of prime minister. "The fact is that Serzh Sarkissian is
going to be the next prime minister," writes the paper. "Not because
he is the best [candidate] in terms of professional and human
qualities but because he has for years consistently done everything to
ensure that nobody except him can aspire to the status of the number
one state figure."
"Zhoghovurd" reports on some legal experts' and opposition
politicians' claim that the next president of the republic must be
elected by popular vote, rather than the parliament, in accordance
with the Armenian constitution. Their main argument is that a
constitutional provision mandating the president's election by the
parliament has not yet taken effect. The Armenian authorities point to
other, transitional clauses in response to the critics' claims. The
paper says that the opposition Yelk alliance wants to ask the
Constitutional Court to pass judgment on the matter but lacks at least
21 signatures of parliament deputies needed for such an appeal. Yelk
has asked deputies from the Tsarukian Bloc provide the necessary
signatures.
"Haykakan Zhamanak" reports that starting from March 1 drug stores in
Armenia will not be allowed to sell some types of medication without
written prescriptions signed by doctors. The paper says that the
restriction imposed by the Armenian Health Ministry will make life
harder for residents of remote villages that do not have policlinics
or other medical institutions empowered to issue drug prescriptions.
"There are already predictions that the new rules will lead to an
increase in ambulance calls," it says. It also claims that drug prices
will rise as a result.
(Tigran Avetisian)
Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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