Category: 2022

An Armenian court has extended the pre-trial arrest of public and political figure Avetik Chalabyan by 15 days, his lawyer Varazdat Harutyunyan said on Sunday.

The lawyer denounced judge Arusyak Aleksanyan’s decision as “unlawful”.

“Avetik Chalabyan is a political hostage of the current authorities, while the courts fulfil their orders,” he wrote on Facebook.

Chalabyan was arrested on May 12 for allegedly trying to pay students of the Armenian National Agrarian University to participate in anti-government protests in Yerevan. He has denied the charges as politically motivated.

The Armenian authorities’ attempts to hold snap Yerevan City Council elections have failed, Pastinfo reports, pointing to a “tough struggle” among Nikol Pashinyan's Civil Contract party members and entourage in the run-up to the next municipal elections.

“As some media reports suggest, former Deputy Prime Minister Tigran Avinyan was set to run for mayor in the snap elections, and the authorities planned to ask former and current oligarchs for help to ensure his victory. Our sources tell us that former Yerevan Mayor Gagik Beglaryan had agreed to covertly support Avinyan by securing votes for him. In addition, Samvel Aleksanyan, also known as "Lfik Samo”, was expected to join the race with [his nephew] Artak Aleksanyan, the former head of the Malatia and Sebastia administrative district, forming an alliance and running in the municipal elections. Naturally, oligarch and ruling faction MP Khachatur Sukiasyan [also known as Grzo] would not stay away from the electoral process. Incidentally, the reports have not been refuted to date,” the news outlet says.

“However, opinion polls have shown that even if such schemes are used, it would be very difficult to get 50+1 percent of the votes to install Avinyan as mayor because the approval rating of the authorities in the capital is low and Samvel Aleksanyan's influence has diminished.

Citing the findings of the polls, the Civil Contract party members persuaded Pashinyan to cancel the plan for early elections to the Yerevan City Council, fearing that this would mark the first step towards the loss of power. The Grzo-led wing of power, which [parliament speaker] Alen Simonyan is an active member of, was especially zealous in postponing the elections.

It was supposed to be like that, because Khachatur Sukiasyan, the number one oligarch in the capital, is waiting with his sleeves rolled up for the elections. The latter, according to the media reports, earlier wanted to win the mayoral race in the person of Alen Simonyan, now he personally offers his candidacy. After all, he must know that to win in Yerevan elections means to extend grip on power.

By and large, it is Sukiasyan who pulls the strings of the different wings of power today: the country’s president was his employee, the National Assembly speaker was his PR man and employee, finally, the judicial system controlled by Gagik Jhangiryan was in his pocket, but events took another turn and the number one fraudster, Gagik Jhangiryan, resigned, which significantly reduced Sukiasyan’s political reach too. But with the Yerevan municipal elections a new room opens up.

As for Avinyan, Civil Contract’s official candidate for Yerevan mayor, it seems that Jhangiryan’s method of tricks worked here too: on the one hand, someone is tricked by being declared an official candidate, on the other hand, Pashinyan and oligarchs come to the conclusion that Avinyan will not win the Yerevan elections even if Samvel Aleksanyan forms an alliance to support him… So, is Khachatur Sukiasyan left now? To make a long story short, Yerevan may find itself in the clutches of oligarchs with a wolf's hunger.

Even in your worst dreams such a scenario is impossible to imagine, but as long as Nikol is in power, “gray wolves” are also imaginable,” reads the article.

Opposition leader Ishkhan Saghatelyan, an MP from the Hayastan alliance, has dismissed Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s claims that the international community is pressuring Armenia to lower the bar on the status of Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh).

At a press conference on Monday following his four-day visit to Strasbourg, Saghatelyan said he had held meetings with two vice-presidents of the European Parliament, its co-rapporteur on Armenia as well as the heads of the friendship groups with Armenia and Artsakh.

"I have met with various officials of the European Parliament and it seems that there is no international demand to lower the bar on Artsakh’s status claimed by the Armenian authorities,” he said.

“There is a demand to establish peace, but we thoroughly explained to them that it should not be achieved at the expense of the interests of Armenia and Artsakh and imposed peace in the region cannot bring stability," the MP said.

Saghatelyan stated that the interests of Armenia and Artsakh are not properly represented in international organizations, adding European officials have no sufficient information on the situation in the region.

Also, the opposition lawmaker said he raised the issue of Armenian prisoners of war being held in Azerbaijani at all his meetings in the European Parliament. 

Lawmakers from Armenia’s ruling Civil Contract party have called a special parliament session on July 14 to debate the ouster of opposition MPs who have been boycotting parliament sessions for over two months now.

They plan to apply to the Constitutional Court to strip all deputies from the opposition Hayastan and Pativ Unem factions of their seats, except for Ishkhan Zakaryan and Taguhi Tovmasyan, lawyer Robert Hayrapetyan said in a Facebook post.

The draft decision was posted on the official website of the National Assembly but was later removed.

Tsovinar Khachatryan, the spokeswoman for the parliament speaker, told Panorama.am there is no such decision at this point.

“There are no such plans for now. It's the “for now” that matters here,” she said in response to the question whether the ruling faction MPs plan to apply to the top court.

Nikol Pashinyan on Monday held a telephone conversation with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the government’s press office reported.

Pashinyan congratulated the Turkish leader on Kurban Bayram, and the latter congratulated the Armenian prime minister on the upcoming Feast of the Transfiguration of Jesus Christ – Vardavar.

The leaders emphasized the importance they attach to the bilateral normalization process between their respective countries which will also contribute to the strengthening of peace and stability in the region.

In this context they expressed their expectation for the early implementation of the agreements reached during the meeting between the special representatives of their countries on July 1.