Tuesday, July 4, 2023
Armenia Denied EU Military Aid
Poland - Polish President Adrzej Duda meets Armenian parliament speaker Alen
Simonian, Warsaw, July 4, 2023.
The European Union has refused to provide Armenia with military aid from a
special fund designed to boost EU partners’ defense capacity, parliament speaker
Alen Simonian said on Tuesday.
Simonian complained about the rebuff as he met with Poland’s President Andrzej
Duda during a visit to Warsaw.
He told Duda that the Armenian government had requested “technical assistance”
from the European Peace Facility (EPF) which the EU created in 2021 to help
developing countries buy military equipment.
“Through that mechanism, the EU allocates aid to Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia,”
he said, according to the Armenian parliament’s press office. “Unfortunately,
Armenia’s request was rejected on the grounds of the EU’s mediation efforts in
the improvement of relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan as well as the issue
of ‘conflict sensitivity.’”
“I would like to repeat that we are talking about technical assistance aimed at
increasing [Armenia’s] defense capacity,” added Simonian.
The speaker, who is a key member of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s political
team, did not specify what kind of security aid was sought by Yerevan.
Ukraine is the main beneficiary of the EPF, having received 4.6 billion euros
($5 billion) in military aid from the EU fund since being invaded by Russia in
February 2022. As recently as on June 26, EU countries agreed to increase the
maximum size of the fund by 3.5 billion euros to 12 billion euros. The bulk of
the extra funding is expected to be channeled into the Ukrainian military.
A member of the Russian-led Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO),
Armenia is not known to have ever received major weapons from the EU or its
individual member states. Russia has long been its principal supplier of
military hardware and ammunition.
As well as criticizing the EU’s refusal to provide such aid, Simonian praised
the 27-nation bloc for deploying earlier this year 100 or so monitors along
Armenia’s volatile border with Azerbaijan.
Russia has been very critical of the deployment, saying that it is part of the
West’s efforts to drive Moscow out of the South Caucasus.
Pashinian Praises U.S. Peace Efforts
Armenia - Deputy Prime Minister Mher Grigorian speaks during an Independence Day
reception at the U.S. Embassy in Yerevan, June 29, 2023.
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian praised U.S. efforts to facilitate an
Armenian-Azerbaijani peace deal when he congratulated U.S. President Joe Biden
on America’s Independence Day on Tuesday.
“We highly appreciate the position of the United States in supporting the
territorial integrity, sovereignty and democracy of the Republic of Armenia,
which was demonstrated in practice in 2021-2022,” Pashinian said in a
congratulatory message to Biden publicized by his press office.
“We also highly appreciate the U.S. efforts to establish lasting and sustainable
peace in the South Caucasus, normalize Armenia-Azerbaijan relations, and address
the rights and security of the people of Nagorno-Karabakh,” he wrote.
Pashinian also praised the current state of U.S.-Armenian relations, saying that
they are based on “mutual trust between our governments.”
In recent months, the United States has stepped up its involvement in
negotiations on an Armenian-Azerbaijani peace treaty. The U.S. State Department
hosted two rounds of marathon talks between the Armenian and Azerbaijani foreign
ministers in early May and last week.
Later in May, Pashinian expressed readiness to recognize Azerbaijani sovereignty
over Karabakh through that treaty. His statement was hailed by a senior U.S.
official but strongly condemned by Karabakh’s leadership and the Armenian
opposition.
A few days later, the State Department welcomed Azerbaijani President Ilham
Aliyev’s offer of “amnesty” to Karabakh’s leaders conditional on their
“surrender” to Baku. The move prompted criticism from not only the authorities
in Stepanakert but also the Armenian Foreign Ministry.
A senior Karabakh lawmaker said on Monday that Karabakh’s leadership turned down
last month a U.S. offer to meet with Azerbaijani officials in a foreign country
for talks on the Armenian-populated region’s “integration” into Azerbaijan.
Washington had not reported such offers.
Man Arrested For Insulting Pashinian
• Ruzanna Stepanian
Armenia - Davit Avetisian.
The Armenian police have arrested a young man who allegedly called Prime
Minister Nikol Pashinian a “traitor” after approaching him in a public park in
Yerevan.
Pashinian was confronted by the 21-year-old man, Davit Avetisian, as he strolled
in the city center together with his family on Sunday. Avetisian was detained on
the spot and remained under arrest on Tuesday.
Armenia’s Investigative Committee said that it is conducting a criminal inquiry
into an act of “hooliganism” that took the form of verbal abuse and other
“inappropriate phrases.” It gave no other details of the incident.
Avetisian’s lawyer, Ara Papikian, said the criminal proceedings are based on a
police officer’s claim that his client described Pashinian as a “traitor” and
“scumbag.” He claimed that the police are not telling the whole truth about the
incident and that Avetisian shouted the insults while being choked by one of the
officers.
“Davit approached him not to call him a traitor,” Papikian told RFE/RL’s
Armenian Service. “He said, ‘You will answer for my fallen friend and other
guys.’ They toppled him to the ground … only then he uttered those words.”
Avetisian appeared to refer to Armenians killed during the 2020 war in
Nagorno-Karabakh. Opposition leaders and other government critics blame
Pashinian for Armenia’s defeat in the six-week war that left at least 3,800
Armenian soldiers dead. They have also denounced as treasonous his apparent
readiness to agree to the restoration of Azerbaijan’s control over Karabakh.
Alen Simonian, the Armenian parliament speaker and a close Pashinian associate,
was likewise branded a “traitor” by an opposition activist as he visited a
popular dining area of central Yerevan in April. The Canadian-Armenian activist,
Garen Megerdichian, said Simonian ordered his bodyguards to overpower him before
spitting in his face. Simonian did not deny that.
Avetisian was not formally charged with hooliganism as of Tuesday afternoon.
Under Armenian law, law-enforcement authorities must indict or free him before
Thursday.
“Insults were decriminalized in our country long ago. I think this is the reason
why they still can’t charge Davit,” said Avetisian’s lawyer.
The arrested man is a son of Varuzhan Avetisian, who led an armed group that
seized a police base in Yerevan in 2016 to demand that then President Serzh
Sarkisian free the jailed leader of their radical opposition movement and step
down.
The three dozen gunmen, who took police officers and medical personnel hostage,
laid down their weapons after a two-week standoff with security forces which
left three police officers dead. All but two of them were released from custody
shortly after Sarkisian was toppled in the 2018 “velvet revolution” led by
Pashinian.
Varuzhan Avetisian and six other key members of the group called Sasna Tsrer
were sent back to jail in May 2022 after Armenia’s Court of Cassation upheld
prison sentences handed down to them by a lower court. Avetisian received a
7-year jail term.
Reposted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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