Category: 2019

                                        Wednesday, 

Armenia, Azerbaijan Trade Barbs Over Pashinian Rhetoric


The building of Armenia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Yerevan

Official Yerevan has responded to the condemnation by Azerbaijan of Armenian 
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s statement made at an August 5 rally in 
Stepanakert that “Artsakh [Nagorno-Karabakh] is Armenia.”

In a statement released late on Tuesday, Armenia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs 
chided counterparts in Azerbaijan for “being unable to maintain norms of 
diplomatic ethics” and launching “personalized attacks”. It went on to say that 
authorities in Baku misunderstood “the context and contents” of Pashinian’s 
speech that concerned “the promotion of a pan-Armenian agenda of unity, 
solidarity, development and prosperity of Armenia, Artsakh [Nagorno-Karabakh] 
and the [Armenian] Diaspora.”

Armenian’s Foreign Ministry also accused Azerbaijan of ethnic hatred towards 
Armenians and stated that authorities in Baku “bear immediate responsibility 
for the creation of dangers to the security and existence of the people of 
Nagorno-Karabakh.”

“The Republic of Armenia remains the sole guarantor of the Karabakh people’s 
security, freedom and preservation of its inalienable human rights, including 
the right to development and self-determination,” the Armenian Ministry said, 
at the same time reaffirming Armenia’s position that the Nagorno-Karabakh 
conflict must be settled peacefully.

In condemning Pashinian’s “Artsakh [Nagorno-Karabakh] is Armenia” remark 
Azerbaijan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on August 6 that it amounted to a 
“serious blow” against the negotiation process conducted with the mediation of 
the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe’s (OSCE) Minsk Group.

“Azerbaijan will never put up with the occupation of its territories and will 
continue its efforts on their liberation and the return of forcibly displaced 
people to this land that was seized from us,” it added, as quoted by 
Azerbaijani media.

Armenia and Azerbaijan are locked in a dispute over Nagorno-Karabakh, an 
Armenian-populated region that has been de-facto independent from Baku after a 
three-year war in the early 1990s, in which an estimated 30,000 people were 
killed and hundreds of thousands were displaced.

Despite a 1994 ceasefire, loss of life has continued in the conflict zone in 
recurrent border skirmishes and sporadic fighting.

The internationally mediated peace process has so far failed to produce a 
lasting settlement of the conflict.




‘Missing Documents’ On 2008 Post-Election Crackdown ‘Retrieved’

        • Sargis Harutyunyan

Artur Vanetsian, director of the National Security Service of Armenia, August 
6, 2019

Most of the documents on the 2008 post-election crackdown that were missing 
from the National Security Service (NSS) have been retrieved and attached to 
the criminal case, the agency’s director told reporters.

Artur Vanetsian said at a press briefing on Tuesday that the retrieval of the 
documents became possible due to an internal investigation. He added that the 
files have now been referred to the Special Investigation Service that conducts 
the probe of the “March 1, 2008” case.

Asked whether any new circumstances have emerged due to the new documents 
attached to the case, Vanetsian said: “I won’t answer in detail. I’ll just say 
that yes, there were some very interesting documents that I think the body 
conducting the investigation will soon speak about.”

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian first spoke about the missing documents 
at the NSS during his press conference on May 8. He said then that “prior to 
their resignation the previous authorities destroyed some materials at the 
National Security Service.” The prime minister described it as a crime.

The documents in question concern the events in Yerevan on March 1-2, 2008 in 
which 10 people, including two security officers, were killed as authorities 
used force to quell opposition demonstrations protesting fraud in presidential 
elections.

Robert Kocharian, who was outgoing president at that time, is now in detention 
on charges stemming from his alleged role in suppressing the nonstop 
demonstrations. The former president, in particular, is accused of overthrowing 
the constitutional order by involving the army in the domestic political matter.




Armenia Mulls Introducing Compulsory Health Insurance System


A new health insurance concept will be presented for broad public discussions 
in Armenia in the coming months, the country’s health minister said on 
Wednesday.

In a Facebook post Arsen Torosian said that the introduction of the compulsory 
system will take place in the next few years.

Simultaneously, Torosian also created a poll on his Facebook account, showing 
that nearly 80 percent of its respondents positively assess the idea.

“As the poll results have been summarized, we can say that a large part of our 
society is ready to put in place a [compulsory] health insurance system, which 
will happen in the next few years. I want to say that this is a system aimed at 
providing social protection to our citizens and not a financial system like 
voluntary insurance. It will provide for the elimination of so-called 
catastrophic health expenditures for all those involved in the system, 
expenditures that in some cases have led to the impoverishment of families,” 
the minister wrote.

“With the introduction of the new system, all currently applied state 
guarantees will remain in force. In the coming months we will also present the 
concept of health insurance for a broad public discussion,” Torosian added.

Earlier, in creating the poll, Torosian said that the health insurance will 
require that every working Armenian make monthly deductions of 3-5 percent from 
his or her salary and will concern citizens of all age groups. Health insurance 
will cover the basic scope of polyclinic, emergency and hospital care and free 
home remedies for a number of illnesses, the minister added.




Kocharian Lawyers Insist On Public Trial

        • Naira Nalbandian

Lawyers of former Armenian President Robert Kocharian Aram Orbelian (center) 
and Hovhannes Khudoyan (right) at a press conference in Yerevan, August 7, 2019

Robert Kocharian’s lawyers insist that the former Armenian president charged 
with overthrowing the constitutional order in connection with the 2008 
post-election crackdown on the opposition be tried in a public process.

The team of lawyers spoke about this at a press conference on Wednesday, also 
claiming that the investigation of the case is being “artificially dragged out” 
in order to keep their client in custody for as long as possible.

Kocharian was first arrested in July 2018 and was accused of ordering the 
military to get involved in quelling opposition-led demonstrations in the wake 
of a disputed 2008 presidential election. Armenia’s constitution stipulates 
that the army be used only to defend the country against an external aggression 
and does not allow it to be used in domestic affairs.

During the past year the ex-president was twice released on bail, but both 
times prosecutors appealed the rulings at higher courts and the rulings were 
overturned, with Kocharian returned to prison.

Kocharian denies the charges and claims the case against him is politically 
motivated.

Aram Orbelian, one of Kocharian’s lawyers, told reporters today that his client 
“has in fact been imprisoned indefinitely without being able to appeal the 
decision on his detention.”

“It’s been almost a month and a half that there is no development in the case, 
no process is taking place, which is obviously a gross violation of human 
rights under the Armenian Constitution, the European Convention on Human Rights 
and the United Nations Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. In other words, 
a person cannot be imprisoned indefinitely without any judicial oversight,” 
said Orbelian.

According to the lawyer, in addition to their seven petitions to the European 
Court of Human Rights, they are also considering the possibility of applying to 
the UN Human Rights Committee and taking further steps domestically.

Lawyer Hovhannes Khudoyan stressed that Kocharian’s defense team demands that 
their client’s rights be honored and the public trial be continued.

“We insist on a public trial, regardless of the presence of the judge and the 
prosecution’s participation,” the lawyer said, without elaborating.




BBC Names Karabakh General Allegedly Involved In 2008 Crackdown In Armenia

        • Heghine Buniatian
        • Naira Nalbandian

Riot police troops in downtown Yerevan, March 1, 2008

A general of Nagorno-Karabakh’s armed forces led the operation on the 
suppression of post-election demonstrations in Armenia in 2008 and his group, 
visited by former Armenian presidents Robert Kocharian and Serzh Sarkisian, had 
expressed readiness to “shoot at people,” the BBC Russian Service writes in its 
August 7 article, citing documents of the investigation that it says it got 
“exclusive access” to.

Based on the documents, the BBC suggests that Armenian investigators think that 
fire at demonstrators was opened by a Karabakh task force led by General Samvel 
Karapetian (also known as Oganovsky), whose group was housed in the basement of 
the presidential administration.

Then outgoing President Robert Kocharian and his future successor Serzh 
Sarkisian, who served as prime minister at that time, several visited the group 
there, the BBC writes, adding that Armenian investigators are also checking the 
roles of two influential businessmen – Gagik Tsarukian and Samvel Aleksanian – 
who may have financed the Karabakh task force’s stay in Yerevan during the days 
of the demonstration.

Both Tsarukian and Aleksanian, the publication says, deny their roles in the 
2008 events.

The BBC says when interrogated as a witness in August 2018, Major-General 
Karapetian confirmed that he commanded Karabakh detachments that were deployed 
in Yerevan in 2008. The BBC says it has a copy of the protocol of the 
interrogation that lasted for four hours. At the time of the interrogation 
Karapetian served as deputy defense minister of Nagorno-Karabakh, but stepped 
down in April 2019.

“According to investigators, Karapetian formed a special group of 20 from his 
subordinates, which was housed in the basement of the presidential residence on 
Marshal Baghramyan Avenue [in Yerevan]. There, members of the group ‘were 
visited several times by President Robert Kocharian and [the president-elect] 
Prime Minister Serzh Sarkisian,’ the investigator said during the interrogation 
of Karapetian. All members of the group expressed their readiness to ‘shoot at 
people’ if there was an order, and it was this group that shot at the 
protesters on March 1, [2008] according to the investigation. During the 
interrogation, Karapetian denied all charges and stated that ‘no one gave the 
order to shoot at people.’ Similar charges against Karapetian were voiced 
during interrogations of several more witnesses. The witnesses could not 
confirm or deny information about his role in the March 1 events,” the BBC said 
in its report.

Responding to the BBC story, lawyers of Kocharian, who is currently in 
detention on charges of overthrowing the constitutional order by illegally 
involving the military in quelling the 2008 demonstrations, denied that 
materials of the case against their client contain “a single circumstance that 
would corroborate” the assumptions made in the BBC story.

“I insist that in the case presented to us there is not a single piece of 
testimony in which this circumstance is confirmed. I will tell you more – had 
there been at least one testimony corroborating this circumstance, it would 
have already been included in the indictment and published in various possible 
ways,” Kocharian’s lawyer Hovhannes Khudoyan said at a news conference in 
Yerevan on Wednesday.

Khudoyan and his colleague Aram Orbelian also insisted that none of the 
witnesses confirmed the circumstances laid out in the BBC story and that the 
assumptions are based on the questions posed to witnesses by their 
interrogators.

“The problem is not that someone confirmed it and we are saying that he was 
wrong. In fact, it has been totally refuted, at least according to the 
materials provided to us and according to the information that is known to us,” 
said Orbelian.

Ten people, including two security officers, were killed as Armenian 
authorities used force on March 1-2, 2008 to quell nonstop opposition 
demonstrations protesting against the outcome of a disputed presidential 
election.

According to the investigation, the victims died of different causes, including 
gunshot wounds, injuries from fragments of tear gas canisters and blunt objects.

Orbelian referred to this circumstance to refute the allegation that a task 
force had been employed to shoot at the crowd. He implied that if it had been 
the case, most, if not all, of the victims would have died because of gunshots.

Seda Safarian, who represents the interests of a victim in the ‘March 1’ case, 
however, told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service (Azatutyun.am) on Wednesday that there 
is testimony in the case that confirms the involvement of a Karabakh task force 
in the suppression of demonstrations in Yerevan. She also said that what was 
published by the BBC is not something new.

“In organizing all this both presidents [Nagorno-Karabakh natives Kocharian and 
Sarkisian] were not sure that Armenia-born Armenians will agree to shoot at 
Armenia-born Armenians... and both felt confident only when they deployed 
Karabakh forces in Armenia,” Safarian claimed.

In an interview with the local online publication, Tert.am, Karapetian today 
called the BBC story “a tale”.

The prosecutors in the case have refused to comment on the BBC article “lest it 
should damage the course of the investigation.”

Talking to RFE/RL’s Armenian Service (Azatutyun.am) later on Wednesday, the 
author of the BBC article, Grigor Atanesian, stressed that they would not 
publish it if they had any doubts about the veracity or origin of the document. 
He, however, refused to disclose the source of the information.




Press Review


“Zhoghovurd” describes Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s speech at a 
rally in the Nagorno-Karabakh capital of Stepanakert on August 5 as “tactically 
and strategically important.” “Pashinian’s teams should start taking immediate 
steps for the realization of the long-term goals outlined by the prime minister 
and this should become a priority agenda for each minister in the sphere he or 
she is in charge of,” the paper writes, giving some specific examples of how 
ministries should work to stimulate population growth in the country.

“Aravot” also comments on Pashinian’s vision of Armenia’s strategic goals. 
“Pashinian will not stay in the prime minister’s office until 2050 and, 
naturally, no one will be able to demand an account from him politically. But 
how to do so that the country’s next leaders take the path outlined today? It 
is very simple. It is necessary to start drafting and implementing programs 
that will not raise objections of the next government that will come to succeed 
the current one,” the daily says.

Lragir.am describes Pashinian’s speech at the rally in Stepanakert as 
“historic” and “symbolic” in a number of senses: “One of the key symbolic 
points was the farewell to the first generation of the Karabakh movement 
politically and more so functionally… The prime minister’s speech ushered in a 
change of generations for the ‘grand Armenian project’ ahead of the new stage 
of its implementation.”

(Lilit Harutiunian)


Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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