Tuesday, December 5, 2023


Ruling Party Completes ‘Power Grab’ In Armenian Town

        • Karine Simonian

Armenia - Ruling party and opposition figures argue during a session of the 
Alaverdi local council, December 5, 2023.


Armenia’s ruling Civil Contract party replaced the opposition mayor of a major 
community in northern Lori province by one of its members on Tuesday through a 
vote of no confidence condemned by its political opponents as illegal.

The party led by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian lost control of the community 
comprising the formerly industrial town of Alaverdi and over two dozen other 
towns and villages as a result of local elections held in September 2022. It 
fell just short of an overall majority in the 27-member local council empowered 
to appoint the community head.

The opposition Aprelu Yerkir party, which won 13 council seats, installed its 
member Arkadi Tamazian as mayor after teaming up with former President Levon 
Ter-Petrosian’s Armenian National Congress (HAK) party. The HAK controls only 
one seat.

One of the council members representing Aprelu Yerkir, Simon Zakharov, 
unexpectedly defected from Aprelu Yerkir in July. Despite denying media reports 
that he was co-opted by his 13 pro-government colleagues, Zakharov backed last 
week a Civil Contract motion to oust Tamazian.

The incumbent mayor and his supporters said the motion is illegal because 
Armenian law stipulates that no-confidence votes cannot take place more than 
once a year. They argue that Aprelu Yerkir already initiated a tactical motion 
of censure in October.

Civil Contract representatives counter that the initiative is null and void 
because the Alaverdi council did not make a quorum needed for a formal debate on 
it. They have also dismissed opposition calls for a snap local election.

Scores of riot police surrounded the Alaverdi municipality building on Tuesday 
morning as the 14 pro-government council members gathered for an emergency 
session and voted to replace Tamazian by Civil Contract’s Davit Ghumashian. The 
latter used to be affiliated with former President Serzh Sarkisian’s Republican 
Party.

Armenia - Arkadi Tamazian, May 20, 2022

Tamazian and Aprelu Yerkir’s Yerevan-based leader Mesrop Arakelian broke through 
the police cordon to enter the municipality building and condemn the vote as 
“illegal.”

“Shame on you!” the ousted mayor shouted before trading insults with Civil 
Contract figures. Police officers intervened to prevent a violent clash between 
them.

Addressing about a hundred supporters protesting outside the building, Tamazian 
said that he and his party will challenge his ouster in court. Several 
protesters were detained by the police.

Levon Zurabian, The HAK’s deputy chairman and Ter-Petrosian’s right-hand man, 
also denounced the power grab, saying that it makes mockery of government claims 
about Armenia’s democratization.

“This is Nikol Pashinian’s idea of democracy … Pashinian brags about his 
democratic achievements, but what is happening in Alaverdi testifies to the 
opposite. Elected people are pressured by police and other law-enforcement 
bodies,” Zurabian told reporters. He claimed that Pashinian’s political team 
wants to also get rid of other opposition mayors in a similar fashion.

In July, two defections allowed Pashinian’s party to unseat the opposition head 
of a local community in northwestern Shirak province encompassing the town of 
Akhurian and surrounding villages.

In local polls held across Armenia in 2022 and 2021, Civil Contract was also 
defeated in key urban communities, notably the country’s third largest city of 
Vanadzor. Some of those ballots were won by jailed or indicted figures at odds 
with the government. One of them was set free right after deciding not to become 
a town mayor.

In Vanadzor, the leader of an opposition bloc, Mamikon Aslanian, was arrested in 
December 2021 just days after winning the municipal ballot. Aslanian remains in 
detention, standing trial on corruption charges rejected by him as politically 
motivated.




EU Signals ‘Non-Lethal’ Military Aid To Armenia

        • Artak Khulian

Armenia - Defense Minister Suren Papikian (2nd from L) meets with Vassilis 
Maragos, head of the EU Delegation in Armenia, Yerevan, December 1, 2023.


The European Union is considering providing “non-lethal” military aid to 
Armenia, the head of the EU Delegation in Yerevan, Vassilis Maragos, confirmed 
on Tuesday.

Maragos said that the EU will send later this month or early next year a 
“technical mission” to Armenia that will assess the country’s security needs and 
come up with “concrete proposals” regarding such aid.

“We are going to present details in the coming weeks,” the diplomat told 
journalists. He did not specify items which the 27-nation bloc could deliver to 
the Armenian military.

The issue was apparently on the agenda of last week’s visit to Yerevan by a team 
of officials from the EU’s executive body, the European Commission, and External 
Action Service. An EU statement on their trip said they looked into 
“possibilities to deepen and strengthen EU-Armenia relations in all dimensions,” 
including defense and security.

“The EU will, for instance, further explore non-lethal support to the Armenian 
military via the European Peace Facility,” added the statement.

The facility is a special fund designed to boost EU partners’ defense capacity. 
Armenian parliament speaker Alen Simonian revealed in July that Yerevan 
requested “technical assistance” from the fund but was rebuffed by Brussels.

Earlier in November, the foreign ministers of EU member states approved a 
proposal to expand a monitoring mission deployed by the bloc along Armenia’s 
border with Azerbaijan in February. It remains unclear how many additional 
monitors will be sent to the country.

The mission currently consisting of 100 or so observers and experts was launched 
at the request of the Armenian government and with the stated aim of preventing 
or reducing ceasefire violations along the border. Maragos said that it has 
already succeeded in bolstering the ceasefire regime.

Russia, Armenia’s increasingly estranged ally, has disputed such claims made by 
other EU officials and echoed by the Armenian government. It says that the 
mission is part of broader U.S. and EU efforts to drive Moscow out of the South 
Caucasus.




Iran, India Promote New Trade Route Through Armenia

        • Tatevik Lazarian

Iran - Workers watch a ship as it sails during an inauguration ceremony of new 
equipment and infrastructure at Shahid Beheshti Port in the coastal city of 
Chabahar, February 25, 2019.


Iran’s and India’s ambassadors in Yerevan on Tuesday stressed the importance of 
Armenia’s involvement in a new transnational transport corridor planned by their 
countries.

“We believe that the communication corridor from India to the Iranian port of 
Chabahar and on to Armenia and further north, the Black Sea, is a reliable route 
for transporting goods to the north and to Europe,” the Iranian envoy, Mehdi 
Sobhani, said during an international conference in Yerevan. “The development of 
this path will protect our countries against external harm.”

India has built and operates two terminals at Chabahar to bypass Pakistan in 
cargo traffic with Iran, Afghanistan and central Asian countries. It has 
proposed the Gulf of Oman port’s inclusion in the International North-South 
Transport Corridor (INSTC) project initiated by Russia, Iran and India in 2000. 
The project calls for a 7,200-kilometer-long network of maritime and terrestrial 
routes stretching from Mumbai to Moscow.

The Armenian government suggested in 2021 that Indian companies use Chabahar for 
cargo shipments to not only Armenia but also neighboring Georgia, Russia and 
even Europe. Senior Armenian, Indian and Iranian diplomats explored the 
possibility of creating such a trade route during first-ever trilateral talks 
held in Yerevan in April this year.

Speaking at the conference organized by the Armenian government, the Indian 
ambassador to Armenia, Nilakshi Saha Sinha, welcomed the South Caucasus nation’s 
interest in the INSTC.

“We are ready to work with Armenia to understand how the country can benefit 
from the opportunities of this corridor,” she said, adding that the Indian side 
will make it easier for Armenian firms to ship cargo to and from Chabahar.

Armenia - Senior Armenian, Indian and Iranian diplomats meet in Yerevan, April 
20, 2023.

Armenia has long maintained a cordial relationship with Iran and has deepened 
its ties with India in the last few years, notably through a series of contracts 
signed with Indian arms manufacturers. New Delhi has effectively sided Armenia 
with in its ongoing border disputes with Azerbaijan. For its part, Tehran has 
repeatedly warned against attempts to strip it of the common border and 
transport links with Armenia.

Azerbaijan’s recent takeover of Nagorno-Karabakh raised more fears in Yerevan 
that Baku will also attack Armenia to open an exterritorial land corridor to its 
Nakhichevan exclave passing through Syunik, the sole Armenian province bordering 
Iran. Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi reportedly told a visiting Azerbaijani 
official in October that the so-called “Zangezur corridor” sought by Baku is 
“resolutely opposed by Iran.”

Later in October, the Armenian government contracted two Iranian companies to 
upgrade a 32-kilometer section of Syunik’s main highway leading to the Iranian 
border. Iran’s Minister of Roads and Urban Development Mehrzad Bazrpash attended 
the signing of the $215 million contract in Yerevan, underscoring its 
geopolitical significance for the Islamic Republic.

Sinha said that Indian firms are also interested in “participating in 
infrastructure development projects in Armenia.”




Armenian Nuclear Plant Safe Enough, Insists IAEA Chief


Armenia - The head of the IAEA, Rafael Grossi, meets Foreign Minister Ararat 
Mirzoyan, Yerevan, October 4, 2022.


Armenia’s Metsamor nuclear plant is safe enough to continue its operations in 
the years to come, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), 
Rafael Grossi, said on Tuesday.

“The Armenian Nuclear Power Plant is following the safety recommendations and 
guidance from the IAEA,” Grossi told the Armenpress news agency. “This is very 
important. There have been important refurbishments done at the facility which 
were found to be indispensable. So we can continue operating.”

Grossi already praised those safety upgrades monitored by the IAEA when he 
visited Armenia and inspected Metsamor in October 2022. He said the UN nuclear 
watchdog will continue to “help the plant provide low-carbon energy safely and 
securely.”

Metsamor generates roughly 40 percent of Armenia’s electricity. Its sole 
functioning reactor went into service in 1980 and was due to be decommissioned 
by 2017.

Armenia’s former government decided to extend the 420-megawatt reactor’s life 
after failing to attract funding for the construction of a new and safer nuclear 
facility. In 2015, Russia allocated a $270 million loan and a $30 million grant 
to Yerevan for that purpose.

Armenia - The reactor of the Metsamor nuclear plant undergoes modernization and 
safety upgrades, August 5, 2021.

Russian and Armenian specialists essentially completed Metsamor’s modernization 
in 2021. Armenian officials now say the plant, located 35 kilometers west of 
Yerevan and just 16 kilometer from the Turkish border, can safely operate until 
2036.

In September this year, Turkey renewed its demands for the closure of Metsamor. 
The Turkish Foreign Ministry claimed that the plant is “dangerous for the whole 
region” and pledged to continue seeking its decommissioning. Armenian officials 
dismissed the demands.

Speaking to Armenpress during the COP28 conference in the United Arab Emirates, 
Grossi downplayed Ankara’s stance.

“It’s not the only case,” he said. “In some other parts of the world where 
neighbors have certain issues, countries come to me and say 'what is happening 
in my neighbor?' So we take it seriously but give answers.”

“The most important thing is that Armenia continues to work seriously with us 
and reinforces the safety of the facility, and we are very confident,” added the 
IAEA chief.



Reposted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
Copyright (c) 2023 Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, Inc.
1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.

 

                                        Monday, December 4, 2023

Armenian Parliament Majority Opposes Karabakh Ballot Initiative

        • Anush Mkrtchian
        • Shoghik Galstian

Armenia - A meeting of the parliament committee on legal affairs, Yerevan, 
December 4, 2023.


Pro-government lawmakers rejected on Monday an opposition-backed ballot 
initiative to legally ban Armenia’s leadership from recognizing Nagorno-Karabakh 
as part of Azerbaijan.

The initiative dubbed Hayakve (Armenian vote) was launched by a group of 
Armenian political activists and public figures this summer following Prime 
Minister Nikol Pashinian’s controversial pledge to recognize Azerbaijani 
sovereignty over Karabakh through an Armenian-Azerbaijani peace treaty.

The campaigners have specifically demanded two new articles of the Criminal Code 
which would make the Armenian government’s recognition of Karabakh’s 
incorporation into Azerbaijan and its refusal to seek greater international 
recognition of the 1915 Armenian genocide crimes punishable by between 10 and 15 
years in prison. They argue that this would be in line with a 1990 declaration 
of independence adopted by Armenia’s first post-Communist parliament.

Armenian law requires the parliament to discuss any initiative backed by at 
least 50,000 citizens. Hayakve has collected 58,000 signatures in support of its 
demands.

The parliament committee on legal affairs gave a negative assessment of the 
initiative at the end of a heated discussion that lasted for seven hours and 
involved bitter recriminations between its pro-government and opposition 
members. The decision means that the National Assembly controlled by Pashinian’s 
Civil Contract party is unlikely to even include the issue on the agenda of its 
plenary session on Tuesday.

Armenia - Citizens sign a petition on Nagorno-Karabakh in Yerevan, June 29, 2023.
Artsvik Minasian, a parliament deputy from the main opposition Hayastan 
alliance, accused Civil Contract of “deceiving” Armenians who voted for it in 
the June 2021 general elections. Minasian argued that in its election manifesto 
the ruling party pledged to assert the Karabakh Armenians’ right to 
self-determination.

The Armenian government stopped making references to that right on the 
international stage one year before Pashinian declared that it recognizes 
Karabakh as a part of Azerbaijan. It cited instead the need to protect the 
“rights and security” of the Karabakh Armenians through the Armenian-Azerbaijani 
peace treaty and other international mechanisms.

Pashinian’s administration appears to have stopped seeking such security 
guarantees as well after the recent Azerbaijani military offensive that restored 
Baku’s full control over Karabakh and forced its practically entire population 
to flee to Armenia.

Alen Simonian, the Armenian parliament speaker and a key Pashinian ally, said 
last week that the peace treaty should not contain any special provisions on 
Karabakh and the return of its ethnic Armenian residents.

Eduard Aghajanian, another senior Civil Contract lawmaker, backed Simonian’s 
stance on Monday, saying that the security of the Karabakh Armenians will be 
best ensured in Armenia.

“Right now it’s better to concentrate on eliminating the consequences of the 
Artsakh people’s post-traumatic stress and doing the best to establish peace,” 
Aghajanian told reporters.




Armenian Soldier Killed On Azeri Border

        • Susan Badalian

Armenia - Armenian soldiers take up positions on the border with Azerbaijan, 
August 2, 2022.


An Armenian soldier serving on the border with Azerbaijan was shot dead on 
Monday in what official Yerevan described as an Azerbaijani ceasefire violation 
aimed at torpedoing peace talks.

Armenia’s Defense Ministry said the soldier, Gerasim Arakelian, was fatally 
wounded by sniper fire at an Armenian army post near the village of Bardzruni 
bordering Azerbaijan’s Nakhichevan exclave.

The Azerbaijani Defense Ministry denied the “provocative information,” saying 
that its troops did not breach the ceasefire.

The head of the Bardzruni administration, Arsen Aleksanian, told RFE/RL’s 
Armenian Service that local residents heard the sounds of cross-border gunfire. 
Serious truce violations at that section of the Armenian-Azerbaijani border have 
been rare until now.

“We strongly condemn these actions of the Azerbaijani side aimed at provoking a 
new escalation, dragging out the peace process and bringing it to a dead end,” 
the Armenian Foreign Ministry said in a statement on the deadly incident.

The statement also said that Baku is “continuously rejecting offers from various 
international actors to continue negotiations” with Yerevan.

Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan deplored Baku’s “refusal to come to meetings 
organized by various international actors, including the U.S. and the EU” when 
he addressed last week an annual conference of the top diplomats of OSCE member 
states. His Azerbaijani counterpart Jeyhun Bayramov said Yerevan itself is 
dragging out talks on an Armenian-Azerbaijani peace treaty.

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev twice cancelled EU-mediated talks with 
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian planned for October. Bayramov similarly 
withdrew from a November 20 meeting with Mirzoyan that was due to take place in 
Washington. Baku accused the Western powers of pro-Armenian bias and proposed 
direct negotiations with Yerevan.




Armenian Official Sheds Light On ‘Weapons Not Supplied By Russia’

        • Shoghik Galstian

RUSSIA – The Pantsyr S-1 air defense missile system is seen atop the Russian 
Defense Ministry headquarters in Moscow on April 17, 2023


Russia has failed to provide Armenia with any of the weapons or other military 
equipment covered by bilateral defense contracts worth $400 million signed after 
the 2020 war in Nagorno-Karabakh, a senior Armenian official said on Monday.

Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian and his political allies have repeatedly made 
such claims over the past year amid Armenia’s worsening relations with Russia. 
But they gave no details of those contracts. The Russian government has still 
not reacted to those claims.

Armenia’s Deputy Defense Minister Hrachya Sargsyan is the first official to 
reveal the amount of money which Yerevan claims to have paid Russia’s 
state-owned arms manufacturers. But he declined to specify the types of weaponry 
that are listed in those contracts.

Sargsian said the contracts remain valid and the Armenian side still hopes the 
Russians will fulfill their obligations. “I think that the issue will be solved 
through our partnership,” he told reporters.

Pashinian said on November 24 that the two sides are discussing the matter and 
he hopes they will reach an agreement. Russia itself “needs weapons” now, he 
said, clearly alluding to its continuing war with Ukraine.

In Pashinian’s words, one of the options under consideration is for Russia to 
write off part of Armenia’s debt to it in exchange for not delivering the 
weapons in question.

Russia has long been Armenia’s principal supplier of weapons and ammunition. But 
with no end in sight to the war in Ukraine and tensions between Moscow and 
Yerevan continuing to grow, the Armenian government is increasingly looking for 
other arms suppliers.

Since September 2022 it has reportedly signed a number of defense contracts with 
India worth at least $400 million. In October this year, it also signed two arms 
deals with France.

Pashinian and members of his political team say that this is part of their 
broader efforts to “diversify” Armenia’s defense and security policy. They 
regularly accuse Moscow of not honoring its security commitments to its South 
Caucasus ally.




More French Arms Supplies To Armenia Revealed


UAE - A French ACMAT Bastion armoured personnel carrier at a defense exhibition 
in Abu Dhabi, February 25, 2015:


France will deliver a total of 50 armored personnel carriers (APCs) to Armenia 
as part of growing military ties between the two nations, according to French 
lawmakers.

The first batch of over two dozen Bastion vehicles apparently bound for Armenia 
was spotted in the Georgian port of Poti and reported by Azerbaijani media about 
a month ago. The Armenian Defense Ministry declined to explicitly confirm the 
delivery.

The APCs manufactured by the French company Arquus were not part of defense 
contracts signed by French Defense Minister Sebastien Lecornu and his Armenian 
counterpart Suren Papikian during the latter’s visit to Paris in late October.

One of those deal calls for Armenia’s purchase of three air-defense radar 
systems from the French defense group Thales. Lecornu and Papikian also signed a 
“letter of intent” on the future delivery of Mistral short-range surface-to-air 
missiles.

In a joint report on a French budgetary bill, two members of France’s Senate 
revealed that “24 Bastion-type armored vehicles … are being delivered to Armenia 
and they should be joined by 26 other vehicles of the same type currently in 
production.”

The senators, Hugues Saury and Helene Conway-Mouret, said French arms supplies 
to Armenia should not be confined to “defensive” equipment.

“This distinction between defensive and offensive weapons is not very practical 
in reality, as has been demonstrated by the war in Ukraine. Let us not repeat 
the same mistakes by belatedly delivering equipment that could be necessary 
right from the beginning,” says their report submitted to the French upper house 
of parliament late last month.

France - French Defense Minsiter Sebastien Lecornu and his Armenian counterpart 
Suren Papikian sign a memorandum of understanding in Paris, October 23, 2023.
Saury and Conway-Mouret indicated in this regard that Yerevan wants to acquire 
French artillery systems as well. Paris should therefore consider providing 
155-milimeter CAESAR self-propelled howitzers to the Armenian military, they 
said.

Azerbaijan condemned the French-Armenian arms deals earlier in November, saying 
that they will “bolster Armenia’s military potential and its ability to carry 
out destructive operations in the region.”

Armenian officials countered that Yerevan’s arms acquisitions are a response to 
an Azerbaijani military build-up which has continued even after the 2020 war in 
Nagorno-Karabakh. They argued that Azerbaijan’s military budget is three times 
bigger than Armenia’s. Israeli media reported around the same time that Baku has 
purchased more Israeli Barak air-defense systems in a deal worth as much as $1.2 
billion.

In the past several months, Azerbaijani cargo planes have reportedly carried out 
dozens of more flights to and from Israel’s only airfield through which 
explosives can be flown into and out of the country. According to the Haaretz 
daily, the frequency of such flights spiked in the run-up to Azerbaijan’s 
September 19-20 military offensive in Karabakh.



Reposted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
Copyright (c) 2023 Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, Inc.
1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.