Category: 2022

                                        Wednesday, July 7, 2022


Putin, Pashinian Again Discuss Armenian-Azeri Talks


Russia - Russian President Vladimir Putin meets with Armenian Prime Minister 
Nikol Pashinian in his Novo-Ogaryovo residence outside Moscow, April 19, 2022.


Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian phoned Russian President Vladimir Putin on 
Wednesday to discuss the implementation of Armenian-Azerbaijani agreements 
brokered by Russia.

The Kremlin said that the two leaders focused on “issues of ensuring security on 
the Armenian-Azerbaijani border and the restoration of economic, transport and 
logistics ties in the South Caucasus.”

The Armenian government’s press office similarly reported that Putin and 
Pashinian spoke about continuing efforts to demarcate the Armenian-Azerbaijani 
border and open it to travel and cargo shipments. It said they specifically 
discussed the work of a recently formed Armenian-Azerbaijani commission on the 
border demarcation.

The commission held its first meeting at a border section on May 24. Its second 
session is due to be held in Russia. No date has been set for it yet.

Moscow has been more actively involved in separate negotiations on 
Armenian-Azerbaijani transport links. A Russian-Armenian-Azerbaijani commission 
dealing with the matter met in Moscow and Saint Petersburg last month.

The Armenian co-chair of the commission, Deputy Prime Minister Mher Grigorian, 
said on June 28 that Baku and Yerevan have narrowed their differences on “border 
and customs control as well as safe passage of citizens, vehicles and cargo 
through roads and railways in Armenia and Azerbaijan.”

By contrast, Pashinian said on June 27 that Baku has rejected a draft agreement 
on the construction of a railway that will connect Azerbaijan to its Nakhichevan 
exclave through Armenia.

“The draft document was presented by the Russian co-chair of the trilateral 
commission, Deputy Prime Minister Alexei Overchuk,” he said.

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has repeatedly demanded an exterritorial 
“corridor” for Nakhichevan that would exempt travellers and cargo from Armenian 
border controls. Yerevan has rejected these demands, saying that they run 
counter to the Russian-brokered agreements.

Aliyev and Putin met on June 29 on the sidelines of a summit of Caspian states 
held in Turkmenistan.



Armenian Government Denies Targeting Oppositionists In Enlistment Drive

        • Astghik Bedevian

Armenia - Young men drafted for compulsory military service are seen at a 
recruitment center in Yerevan, June 28, 2022.


Defense Minister Suren Papikian said on Wednesday that he did not order the 
Armenian military to draft opposition activists in a bid to weaken continuing 
antigovernment demonstrations in Yerevan.

Armenia’s government approved on June 23 a three-month call-up of more than 
1,440 army reservists which will start on August 1. It cited the need to 
reinforce the armed forces with skilled and combat-ready personnel.

Representatives of the main opposition Hayastan alliance said late last week 
that scores of its male members and supporters have since received military 
call-up papers. They said that the authorities are thus trying to punish active 
participants of the regular rallies and discourage other Armenians from joining 
more street protests planned for the coming weeks.

Speaking in the Armenian parliament, Papikian complained that Seyran Ohanian, a 
former defense minister who now leads Hayastan’s parliamentary group, has phoned 
the military’s top enlistment officer to demand an end to the alleged mass 
recruitment of opposition youths.

Armenia - Opposition supporters demonstrate in Yerevan, May 4, 2022.
“Are you citizens of the Republic of Armenia or not?” a visibly irritated 
Papikian said, appealing to the opposition. “Did the defense minister order 
that? Even if such things have happened in the past, they are not happening on 
our watch.”

“Secondly, next time do not reserve the right to call military officials or make 
covert appeals to them because such calls can lead to legal liability,” he 
warned.

The Armenian military has not been accused in the past of trying to draft 
opposition members or supporters en masse for political reasons.

Ohanian dismissed Papikian’s criticism, saying that Armenian law allows 
parliament deputies to demand explanations from state officials both orally and 
in writing. He said he simply asked the country’s chief military commissar to 
clarify whether he really ordered his subordinates to target oppositionists.

“Military mobilization cannot be selective,” Ohanian told RFE/RL’s Armenian 
Service.

The retired general also pointed to what he regards as an illegal instruction 
which a senior pro-government lawmaker publicly issued on May 5 five days after 
the Armenian opposition began daily street protests aimed at toppling Prime 
Minister Nikol Pashinian.

Armenia - Opposition leader Seyran Ohanian speaks to journalists, December 17, 
2021

Andranik Kocharian, the chairman of the Armenian parliament committee on defense 
and security, suggested that many of the protesters detained by riot police 
evade compulsory military service or periodical call-ups of army reservists. 
Speaking at a committee meeting in Yerevan, Kocharian said law-enforcement 
agencies should “collect personal data of these citizens and pass them on to the 
Armenian Defense Ministry.”

High-ranking police and military officials attending the meeting backed the idea 
condemned by human rights activists.

“What legal norms are they talking about?” said Ohanian. “People who committed 
crimes during their military service are talking about that. They had better do 
their job.”

The opposition leader apparently referred to Papikian’s criminal record 
disclosed by an Armenian newspaper in early 2020.

The Hraparak daily reported that Papikian, who served as a minister for local 
government at the time, had been sentenced to more than 2 years in prison in 
2006 for stabbing his commander during compulsory military service. It said that 
he was released from prison a year later.

Papikian, who is a senior member of the ruling Civil Contract party, admitted 
the criminal conviction while condemning the newspaper report as an intrusion 
into his personal life.



Parliament Approves Tighter Government Control Of Army Top Brass

        • Astghik Bedevian

Armenia - General Kamo Kochunts (left), acting army chief of staff, greets 
Defense Minister Suren Papikian at the start of a meeting in Yerevan, June 28, 
2022.


The National Assembly approved on Wednesday a government proposal to make 
Armenia’s top military general directly subordinate to the defense minister.

“The armed forces must report to the defense minister and the 
commander-in-chief,” Defense Minister Suren Papikian told pro-government 
lawmakers before they passed corresponding amendments to an Armenian law on 
national defense.

Under those amendments, the chief of the Armenian army’s General Staff will also 
automatically hold the post of first deputy defense minister. But he will not 
perform ministerial duties if the minister is absent from the country.

Papikian said that this will make the military’s command and control structure 
“smoother” and more “vertical.” He said the country’s leadership wants to “learn 
lessons” from unspecified “bitter experience.”

The last chief of the General Staff, Artak Davtian, and six other senior 
generals were sacked in February through presidential decrees initiated by Prime 
Minister Nikol Pashinian. The latter has still not handpicked a new army chief, 
prompting serious concern from the Armenian opposition.

The generals’ sackings came one year after Davtian’s predecessor, Onik 
Gasparian, and four dozen other high-ranking officers accused Pashinian’s 
government of incompetence and misrule and demanded its resignation. The 
unprecedented demand was welcomed by the opposition but condemned as a coup 
attempt by Pashinian.

Armenia -- Colonel-General Onik Gasparian (C), the chief of the Armenian army's 
General Staff, meets with senior Russian military officials, Yerevan, January 
25, 2021.

Armen Khachatrian, a senior parliamentarian representing the ruling Civil 
Contract party, acknowledged that the authorities hope the structural change 
will prevent the army top brass from challenging them in the future.

Opposition lawmakers believe that this is the main purpose of the government 
bill approved by the parliament in the first reading.

“They are solving a purely internal political issue,” said Tigran Abrahamian of 
the opposition Pativ Unem bloc. “They think that they will thereby ensure tight 
control over the military which will preclude any political statements or 
actions by generals.”

“But they are not really solving the issue because the chief of the General 
Staff was already subordinate to the defense minister, not to mention his 
subordination to the prime minister,” he told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service.

Abrahamian accused Pashinian’s government of “politicizing” the top military 
post.

Pashinian promised a major reform of the military shortly after Armenia’s defeat 
in the 2020 war with Azerbaijan. He has replaced three defense ministers since a 
Russian-brokered ceasefire stopped the six-week hostilities in November 2020.

Opposition forces blame Pashinian for the disastrous war that left at least 
3,800 Armenian soldiers dead. They also say that his administration is doing 
little to rebuild the armed forces.


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