Thursday,
Armenian Parliament To Probe Karabakh War
• Astghik Bedevian
Armenia - Armenian flags fly by the graves of soldiers killed during the 2020
war in Nagorno-Karabakh, January 28, 2022.
The pro-government majority in the National Assembly has initiated a
parliamentary inquiry into the Armenian authorities’ handling of the 2020 war in
Nagorno-Karabakh as well as its causes.
Opposition groups have demanded such an inquiry after a Russian-brokered
ceasefire stopped the six-week war in November 2020. Prime Minister Nikol
Pashinian’s political team has been in no rush to launch it, saying that the
matter could be politicized by its political opponents.
The ruling Civil Contract party’s parliamentary group announced on Thursday the
establishment of an ad hoc commission that will examine the causes of Armenia’s
defeat in the war, assess the Armenian government’s and military’s actions and
look into what had been done for national defense before the hostilities.
The commission will have access to classified documents and be able to interview
current and former Armenian officials.
“The mission of the commission is to give answers to questions preoccupying us
and draw up our country’s future defense strategy accordingly,” said Armen
Khachatrian, a senior pro-government parliamentarian.
The parliament majority wants to name seven of its eleven members. The four
other commission seats are offered to the two parliamentary opposition blocs
holding Pashinian primarily responsible for the outcome of the war that left at
least 3,800 Armenian soldiers dead.
Nagorno Karabakh -- An Armenian soldier fires artillery on the front line on
October 25, 2020.
One of the blocs, Pativ Unem, was quick to say that it will boycott the
commission because it will be controlled by Pashinian’s loyalists.
“Our main concern is that the authorities will try to absolve the highest
echelons of power of responsibility [for the defeat] and blame everything on the
armed forces, other structures and anyone but the top officials,” said Pativ
Unem’s Tigran Abrahamian.
The other, larger opposition force, Hayastan, did not immediately decide whether
to participate in the probe. Its parliamentary leader, former Defense Minister
Seyran Ohanian, suggested that Pashinian will use the commission to whitewash
his incompetence and mishandling of the disastrous conflict.
“We need to understand the objectives set for the investigative commission,”
Ohanian told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service. “If they just want to look into what had
been done in the past and blame everything on former authorities, that is
unacceptable to us.”
“It is the current state apparatus that’s responsible for the war and it’s clear
that this state apparatus has not investigated and evaluated itself in the past
year,” he said.
Other Hayastan figures said earlier that the commission must be headed by an
opposition lawmaker and that Civil Contract and the opposition must be equally
represented in it.
ARMENIA -- Police detain a participant of an opposition rally to demand the
resignation of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian over his handling of the 2020 war
with Azerbaijan, April 7, 2021.
The ruling party wants to not only have a majority in the commission but also
make sure that representatives of several other parties, not represented in the
parliament and largely loyal to Pashinian, also participate in the probe. Civil
Contract’s Khachatrian said the commission will decide the format of their
participation during its first meeting scheduled for Monday.
As he faced angry street protests last year, Pashinian repeatedly blamed former
Presidents Robert Kocharian and Serzh Sarkisian, who lead Hayastan and Pativ
Unem respectively, for the defeat. He denied ordering in October 2020 an
Armenian military counteroffensive in Karabakh that proved disastrous and
greatly facilitated Azerbaijan’s subsequent victory.
Pashinian has also held Sarkisian and Kocharian responsible for joint U.S.,
Russian and French peace plans which he claimed favored the Azerbaijani side.
The ex-presidents and other opposition leaders have brushed aside these claims.
Armenian Luxury Resort Sold After Nationalization
Armenia - The Golden Palace hotel complex in Tsaghkadzor.
After several failed attempts, the Armenian government has managed to find a
buyer for a luxury hotel which was handed over to it by a former senior official
three years ago.
The Golden Palace hotel located in the resort town of Tsaghkadzor used to belong
to Armen Avetisian, a former chief of the Armenian customs service, and his
family. They offered to donate it to the state in November 2018 after the
National Security Service (NSS) moved to prosecute Avetisian for illegal
entrepreneurship and money laundering. The NSS subsequently did not press
charges against him.
In late 2019, the government decided to privatize the hotel and almost 1.4
hectares of land surrounding it. Several auctions organized afterwards did not
attract any buyers willing to meet the government’s asking price initially set
at 7.5 billion drams ($15.6 million).
Minister of Territorial Administration and Infrastructures Gnel Sanosian
announced on Thursday that the expensive resort, which also had a casino, has
been finally sold to an Armenian company for 5 billion drams ($10.4 million).
The private company, Project Inter-Invest, was the sole bidder for the property,
he said.
Project Inter-Invest is involved in a wide range of business activities, notably
flour production and cargo shipments. In 2019, the government granted it tax
breaks for the import of 200 heavy trucks used by it.
Turkey To Keep Coordinating Armenian Policy With Azerbaijan
• Tatevik Sargsian
AZERBAIJAN -- Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu (left) meets with his
Azeri counterpart Ceyhun Bayramov in Baku, November 1, 2020
Turkey will continue to coordinate with Azerbaijan its ongoing attempts to
normalize relations with neighboring Armenia, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut
Cavusoglu reiterated on Thursday.
“We have not taken and will not take any steps without consulting with
Azerbaijan,” Cavusoglu told Turkish state television. “Azerbaijan too would like
us to communicate with Armenia directly, without any mediators, because some
issues require a direct dialogue.”
“This problem in the South Caucasus ended with Azerbaijan’s victory in Karabakh.
We now need peace and cooperation,” he said, adding that the outcome of the 2020
war is both a “lesson and opportunity” for Armenia.
Turkish and Armenian officials held last month the first round of negotiations
on normalizing bilateral ties. They are scheduled to meet again on February 24.
Ankara has for decades linked the establishment of diplomatic relations with
Yerevan and the opening of the Turkish-Armenian border to a resolution of the
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict acceptable to Azerbaijan.
In recent months Turkish leaders have made statements making the normalization
of Turkish-Armenian relations conditional on Armenia agreeing to open a land
corridor that would connect Azerbaijan to its Nakhichevan exclave.
Cavusoglu mentioned the so-called “Zangezur corridor” in his latest televised
remarks. He also stressed the importance of an Armenian-Azerbaijani “peace
treaty” which Baku says must commit Armenia to recognizing Azerbaijani
sovereignty over Karabakh.
Yerevan continues to insist on the Karabakh Armenians’ right to
self-determination. It has also ruled out any exterritorial corridors passing
through Armenia’s internationally recognized territory.
The Turkish-Armenian talks were on the agenda of Cavusoglu’s February 8 phone
call with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
U.S. State Department spokesman Ned Price said they discussed “additional steps
the United States could take to support these efforts.” He did not elaborate.
Commenting on the phone call, Cavusoglu said he asked Washington to encourage
Armenian-American organizations to support Ankara’s dialogue with Yerevan.
Armenian Official Rules Out Joining Russia-Belarus Union
• Sargis Harutyunyan
Armenia -- Armen Grigorian, secretary of the Security Council, speaks at a news
briefing, October 28, 2021
Armenia has no plans to join a “union state” formed by Russia and Belarus, a
senior Armenian official said on Thursday, responding to claims made by
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko.
“There is no such issue on Armenia’s agenda,” said Armen Grigorian, the
secretary of Armenia’s Security Council. “And if there is no such issue, my
position is that Armenia is a sovereign, democratic state and must remain as
such.”
In a televised interview broadcast earlier this week, Lukashenko predicted that
Moscow will cobble together a bigger “union of sovereign states” with common
defense, national security and economic systems over the next 10 to 15 years.
He said it will comprise not only Russia and Belarus but also Central Asian
states, Armenia and even Ukraine. Armenia will join the union because it “has
nowhere to go,” claimed the long-serving Belarusian strongman.
The remarks provoked a storm of criticism in the South Caucasus nation. The
Armenian Foreign Ministry on Tuesday summoned Belarus’ ambassador in Yerevan and
said Lukashenko’s claims “have nothing to do with Armenia and its foreign
policy.”
Lawmakers representing Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s Civil Contract party
attacked Lukashenko in even stronger terms. Pashinian joined in the chorus of
condemnations on Wednesday, recalling Lukashenko’s brutal crackdown on
opposition protesters following a disputed presidential election held in Belarus
in 2020.
“There were [similar] events in Armenia. But did you see me walk in the streets
with an assault rifle?” Pashinian said on the parliament floor.
Russia and Belarus signed a Union State treaty in 1999 and have been negotiating
on and off since then. So far Moscow has not publicly expressed a desire to
expand the union.
Armenia is already a member of two other Russian-led alliances of ex-Soviet
states: the Collective Security Treaty Organization and the Eurasian Economic
Union.
Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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