Category: 2022

YEREVAN. – Hraparak daily of Armenia writes: [Ex-President] Serzh Sargsyan’s statement the other day has increased the interest in today’s [opposition] rally [in downtown Yerevan].

On June 14, [opposition Resistance Movement coordinator] Ishkhan Saghatelyan [the National Assembly deputy speaker from the opposition “Armenia” Faction and a representative of the Supreme Body of the opposition Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF) Dashnaktsutyun Party of Armenia] will not only sum up what has been done or not done [by this movement] in the past nearly two months, but will also announce the tactics to continue the series of rallies with longer intervals. Earlier, the agreement was reached at one interval per week.

Tent protests will also be discussed; they will probably urge to remove the tents from France Square [in downtown Yerevan], proposing to continue the struggle in other ways.

[Opposition MP] Agnesa Khamoyan conveyed to us: “Wait for Ishkhan Saghatelyan’s speech on the future tactics and future steps of the [Resistance] Movement.”

Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan, who is in Qatar, gave an interview to Al Jazeera Monday, during which he touched upon the processes taking place in the South Caucasus, the Nagorno-Karabakh (Artsakh) conflict, Armenian-Turkish relations, and several other topics. Below is the text of an excerpt from this interview.

You speak in a very positive language, while Armenia’s relationship with neighboring countries is generally bad with the exception of Iran, and some are actually surprised that Iran, the Islamic Republic, stood by you in the face of Azerbaijan, the Muslim country? How do you explain this situation?

We have four neighbors, we have very good relations with two of them; I mean Georgia and Iran. Iran is a friendly country for us, which also has good relations with Azerbaijan, we do not intend not to have good relations with countries that have good relations with Azerbaijan. But now we have very close ties with Iran, by the way, we hope that by cooperating with Iran we will be able to expand our bilateral relations with Qatar as well. We are now working to develop communications between Iran and Armenia, and we are currently in the process of constructing a very strategic highway called North-South, which connects our border with Georgia to the border with Iran. We hope that as a result of this program, our economic relations with Iran will develop. By the way, the Eurasian Economic Union, I have already said that Armenia is a member of it, has a free trade agreement with Iran, which is very important in the context of our bilateral relations.

Let me to conclude this meeting with a question about your tour in the Arab region, what is your expectation from the Arabs?

I should mention that there is a very warm attitude towards the Arab world in Armenia, because we have traditional relations. Now I hope for the growth of bilateral trade between Armenia and Qatar, because there is a very positive political environment in our bilateral relations with this wonderful country.

For small countries, especially those surrounded by hostile neighbors, the key geopolitical task is to maintain their status of geopolitical actor and factor. Without this, they are doomed. Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) Foreign Minister David Babayan wrote this Tuesday on Facebook.

“Among the most important components of being geopolitical actor and factor is adherence to principles. The absence of principles and value components deprives the state and people of geopolitical autonomy and specificity. Such a state becomes a geopolitical ‘snack’ for neighbors, especially the principled and ambitious ones.

“Artsakh and Armenia are in a difficult situation, which makes the imperative of maintaining the status of geopolitical actor and factor and adherence to principles even more relevant,” Babayan added.

At Tuesday’s sitting of the National Assembly (NA) of Armenia, NA deputy speaker Ruben Rubinyan noted that the draft NA statement on Armenian-Azerbaijani and Armenian-Turkish relations, which was tabled by the opposition “Armenia” and “With Honor” Factions of the NA, shall be put to a vote.

“As the Steering Committee did not discuss the matter and did not present a conclusion, this matter must be put to a vote in order to be included in the agenda of the session,” he said.

Hayk Konjoryan, the leader of the ruling majority “Civil Contract” Faction of the NA, said that his faction will not take part in this voting.

As the opposition factions are not in attendance to this sitting, the following voting result was registered: 0 for, 0 against, 0 abstained.

On June 3, the MPs of the opposition “Armenia” and “With Honor” Factions had convened a special sitting of the NA, on the agenda of which was the draft aforesaid statement submitted by them. But the session did not take place due to the lack of a quorum as the lawmakers of the majority faction did not attend this sitting.