Category: 2021

                                        Wednesday, August 25, 2021
Russian Official Says Armenia Signs Arms Supply Contracts In Moscow
August 25, 2021
        • Sargis Harutyunyan
Armenian Defense Minister Arshak Karapetian at an arms exhibition near Moscow, 
August 25, 2021
Armenia has signed arms supply contracts with Russian companies as part of the 
Army-2021 military-industrial exhibition in Moscow, said Dmitry Shugayev, 
director of the Russian Federal Service for Military-Technical Cooperation.
The Russian official gave no details of the deals.
“Among the countries that signed agreements are our traditional partners – 
Kazakhstan, Armenia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, and, of course, India, China, 
Myanmar,” said Shugayev, as quoted Russia’s RIA Novosti news agency.
Earlier, Alexander Mikheyev, director of the Russian arms exporting company, 
Rosoboronexport, told reporters that more than 20 deals worth more than 2 
billion Euros (about $2.4 billion) had already been concluded within the 
framework of the Army-2021 exhibition.
After attending the exhibition in Moscow on August 24 evening and meeting with 
the heads of Russian military-industrial companies, Armenian Defense Minister 
Arshak Karapetian made a remarkable statement, saying that Armenia will stop 
acquiring old types of weapons and start purchasing new, high-quality weapons.
Remarkably, two Armenian delegations visited the Moscow arms exhibition. 
According to the Defense Ministry, first, on August 22, a delegation headed by 
the minister left for the Russian capital to take part in the opening ceremonies 
for the Army-2021 exhibition and the International Army Games.
The following day, the ministry announced that a delegation headed by Deputy 
Defense Minister Karen Brutian would also take part in the Army-2021 exhibition, 
which will be open till August 28, during which he would hold meetings with 
heads of a number of large Russian companies working in the defense sphere and 
sign contracts.
“We enjoy full support. I can say that I haven’t heard a single “no” word here. 
And we will take practical steps to develop our cooperation with Russia. We plan 
to get high-quality weapons, we plan to have new weapons, we refuse to acquire 
old types of weapons, that is our policy. It is better for us to have fewer, but 
high-quality weapons to know for sure that these weapons will work,” Minister 
Karapetian said in Moscow.
According to the Defense Ministry, on August 23 in Moscow Karapetian “discussed 
the whole range of issues of Armenian-Russian military-technical cooperation 
with director of the Russian Federal Service for Military-Technical Cooperation 
Dmitry Shugayev and director of the Rosoboronexport Company Alexander Mikheyev.”
Talking to media, Karapetian said that Armenia will also seek to have its own 
weapons production and that it will receive the support in terms of opening 
joint ventures. “We will do it quickly. As a nation we should be able to produce 
our own weapons,” the Armenian defense minister said.
He said that the third task for him is to exclude intermediaries between the 
Defense Ministry and the manufacturing companies. “I think that if these three 
conditions are met, we will definitely get a new modernized army, an army 
meeting the requirements of the 21st century, and we will be able to cope with 
the dangers we face,” Karapetian stressed.
After last fall’s 44-day war against Azerbaijan in Nagorno-Karabakh, in which 
Armenia suffered a defeat, and especially after the June 20 snap parliamentary 
elections, the government led by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian has repeatedly 
announced plans to modernize the Armenian armed forces and acquire new weapons.
According to the government’s 2021-26 action plan unveiled by Pashinian last 
week, “the Armed Forces Reform Strategy is largely based on the analysis of the 
lessons learned from the 44-day war and the security environment formed after 
November 9, 2020 [when the Russian-brokered ceasefire was signed in 
Nagorno-Karabakh].”
“The government will define the main guidelines, long-term planning issues and 
resources on which the development of the defense system of the Republic of 
Armenia and the fifth generation warfare toolkit will be based. The government 
will continue the process of modernization of armaments, military equipment, 
acquisition of new types of weapons. A more targeted policy will be implemented 
in the spheres of military and military-technical cooperation with allied and 
partner countries,” the government’s action plan reads.
Still, it remains unclear what particular weapons Armenia will acquire.
The contacts of Armenian officials with representatives of major Russian arms 
industry companies come after an August 11 meeting between Armenian Defense 
Minister Karapetian and his Russian counterpart Sergey Shoygu in Moscow.
During that meeting Shoygu said that Russia will continue to help Armenia reform 
and modernize its armed forces. “We can consider that the process of arms 
supplies to Armenia has started,” the Russian defense minister said as he handed 
a dagger as a gift to his Armenian counterpart.
The announcement apparently angered Azerbaijan, which objects to Russia’s 
continuing arms supplies to Armenia.
In an interview to CNN Turk television on August 14 Azerbaijani President Ilham 
Aliyev argued that while the Armenian people and their leadership “have put up 
with the defeat” in the war, continuing to arm Armenia appears “illogical.”
“We expect that Russia will stop arming Armenia, we don’t see it at the moment,” 
Aliyev said.
Responding to Aliyev’s remarks, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria 
Zakharova said that supplying weapons to other countries was Moscow’s sovereign 
right.
At a news briefing in Moscow on August 19 she reminded that Russia, which 
deployed about 2,000 peacekeepers in Nagorno-Karabakh after the ceasefire, has 
supplied weapons not only to Armenia, its key military and political ally in the 
South Caucasus, but also to Azerbaijan.
“It is Russia’s sovereign right, and the Russian side always takes into account 
the need to maintain a balance of military power in the region,” Zakharova said.
Political analyst Ruben Mehrabian said that the 44-day war, in particular, 
showed that the Armenian army needs to be supplied with a new generation of 
weapons and that a fundamentally new management system should be put in place.
“We need a drastic change in our entire military education system, so that the 
training of personnel directly meets the requirements set to the army and 
servicemen in the future can master everything that the army will be equipped 
with,” Mehrabian said.
Armenia Reaffirms Support For UNESCO Mission In Nagorno-Karabakh
August 25, 2021
        • Artak Hambardzumian
A man lights a candle inside the war-damaged Armenian Ghazanchetsots (Holy 
Savior) Cathedral in Shushi on October 8, 2020, a month before 
Nagorno-Karabakh’s historic city was captured by advancing Azerbaijani forces.
Armenia has reaffirmed its support for a fact-finding mission of UNESCO in 
Nagorno-Karabakh in line with the 1954 Hague Convention on the Protection of 
Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict and its two protocols, an 
Armenian Foreign Ministry spokesman said on Wednesday.
While receiving newly appointed United Nations Resident Coordinator in 
Azerbaijan Vladanka Andreeva on August 24, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, 
in particular, accused Armenia of objecting to a UNESCO fact-finding mission in 
Nagorno-Karabakh.
“We can say that we had been calling them [UNESCO] for 30 years and they 
wouldn’t come. And after the war they decided to come. Therefore, we agreed to 
this and, as far as I know, the latest information was that the mission had 
already been created, but now Armenia is protesting again. That’s why the 
mission is delayed,” Aliyev said, as quoted by local media.
Armenian Foreign Ministry spokesman Vahan Hunanian told RFE/RL’s Armenian 
Service (Azatutyun) on Wednesday that the need for the immediate implementation 
of the UNESCO fact-finding mission arose after last year’s 44-day war in order 
to protect the Armenian cultural and religious heritage from the imminent danger 
of destruction in the territories that went under the control of Azerbaijan.
“Both during the hostilities and after the establishment of the ceasefire, there 
have been numerous documented cases of deliberate destruction of and vandalism 
against Armenian churches, other cultural and religious monuments by the 
Azerbaijani armed forces. Moreover, in parallel with the physical destruction of 
religious and cultural heritage sites of Artsakh [the Armenian name for 
Nagorno-Karabakh], we are witnessing unacceptable cases of falsification of 
historical facts, distortion of the identity and belonging of Armenian 
monuments, change of architectural appearance by the order of the top leadership 
of Azerbaijan,” he said.
Hunanian said that in order to cover up cultural crimes, Azerbaijan has been 
blocking the visit of UNESCO experts for some time, while accusing the 
organization of bias. Stressing that the practice of creating obstacles for the 
implementation of the mission by the Azerbaijani authorities and the 
politicization of the issue continues, the Armenian Foreign Ministry reminded 
that as early as December 2020, UNESCO’s deputy director-general for cultural 
affairs stated that Azerbaijan was not giving its consent to the mission.
“Artsakh’s endangered cultural and religious heritage urgently needs 
international attention in order to properly preserve it and prevent cases of 
vandalism. The implementation of the UNESCO mission and a comprehensive study of 
the historical and cultural heritage will contribute to the efforts to preserve 
cultural heritage in the territories under the control of Azerbaijan and prevent 
possible negative developments,” the ministry spokesman said.
Hunanian emphasized that the Armenian side is interested in the implementation 
of the mission as soon as possible and continues to make targeted efforts in 
this direction.
Pro-Government, Opposition Lawmakers Brawl In Armenian Parliament
August 25, 2021
        • Astghik Bedevian
Pro-government and opposition lawmakers threw water battles at each other during 
a brawl in the Armenian parliament on August 25, 2021
For the second day in a row security guards have been called into the Armenian 
parliament chamber as another brawl between pro-government and opposition 
lawmakers broke out during the presentation of the government’s five-year action 
plan on Wednesday.
Much of the 2021-2026 program that has been laid out in parliament by Prime 
Minister Nikol Pashinian focuses on the new government’s vision of Armenia’s 
future in new geopolitical realities in the region created after last year’s 
defeat in the war against Azerbaijan in Nagorno-Karabakh.
Hayastan and Pativ Unem, the two opposition factions represented in the 
parliament, have been critical of Pashinian and his political team, holding them 
responsible for the defeat and describing the government’s program as a pathway 
to a new “capitulation.”
Pashinian and majority lawmakers have dismissed such accusations, claiming that 
it is Pashinian’s predecessors, namely former presidents Robert Kocharian and 
Serzh Sarkisians, with whom the two opposition factions are associated, that are 
largely to blame for the defeat.
They argued that by letting them score a landslide victory in the June 20 snap 
parliament elections people vindicated Pashinian and his political team, while 
passing a guilty verdict on the former governments.
In his speech today Hayk Sargsian, a member of the ruling Civil Contract 
faction, in particular, criticized the former governments for their mishandling 
of the economy and army affairs that led to large-scale out-migration and a 
decrease in the country’s defense capabilities before the 2018 “velvet 
revolution.” He said that the new Pashinian government did not have enough time 
to redress the situation.
In an apparent reference to opposition criticism that some members of the 
current government did not serve in the army, Sargsian said that all former 
defense ministers during whose tenures people were exempted from military 
service by phone calls were “traitors.”
Sargsian’s remarks sparked a quarrel in the chamber between pro-government and 
opposition lawmakers as the main opposition Hayastan faction is led by former 
defense minister Seyran Ohanian.
As lawmakers began to throw water bottles at each other, Parliament Speaker Alen 
Simonian interrupted the session and called in security guards to restore order 
in the chamber.
Several lawmakers, including Civil Contract member Hrachya Hakobian, were 
removed from the chamber.
Hakobian later told reporters that the brawl was provoked by Ohanian, who threw 
a water bottle in the direction of Sargsian.
Ohanian did not comment immediately on the accusation. He denied any fistfights 
inside the session hall where access to media has been restricted since early 
August. Ohanian said, however, that his glasses were broken in the jostle.
Another brawl in the parliament between pro-government and opposition members 
broke out shortly after the lawmakers resumed work. It began during the speech 
of opposition Hayastan faction member Vahe Hakobian. It is seen on the video 
that parliament majority and minority deputies exchanged blows during a mass 
brawl that followed. Another break in the session was announced and security 
guards were called in. Several lawmakers were escorted out of the session hall.
The Prosecutor’s Office later said that the brawls in the Armenian parliament on 
Wednesday will become a matter for investigation.
On August 24, opposition lawmakers brawled with security guards after Parliament 
Speaker Simonian ordered that Pativ Unem faction member Anna Mkrtchian be 
deprived of the floor and removed from the chamber for insulting Prime Minister 
Pashinian.
The opposition yesterday accused Pashinian of provoking the incident with his 
encouragement of the security guards’ actions. Pashinian dismissed the 
accusation, saying that the security guards were doing their duty.
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Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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