Regnum, Russia
June 10 2006
Ex-MP: Somebody in Russia wants to undermine friendship between
Yerevan and Moscow
`Armenia is Russia’s only partner in the South Caucasus, and certain
players in Russia want to end this friendship,’ said former Deputy of
the National Assembly, ex-Head of Armenian Security Service Gurgen
Yegiazaryan at a press briefing on June 10.
He said that crimes committed in Moscow against ethnical Armenians in
the last two years are not a result of the official Russian state
policy. `The Russian elite are not interested in the worsening
relations with Armenia, since nationally colored crimes have a
negative impact on the Russia’s own image.’ Yegiazarian argued that
if Russia’s President Vladimir Putin took timely and harsh measures
against the so-called `skinheads’ the second assassination of
ethnical Armenian Artur Sardaryan would not have happened.
Yegiazaryan is also convinced that the so-called `ethnically-based
crime’ is committed against people of the non-Russian ethnicity in
general, although its effect is especially evident in the Armenian
case. `Not a single Georgian was murdered during this period, since
relations with Georgia are bad enough even without that, so it was
not necessary,’ he contended.
On May 25, 2006 an ethnical Armenian, 19-year-old Artur Sardaryan was
slaughtered in a Moscow suburb electric train. Investigators believe
that the crime’s motive was `national hatred’. Two unidentified men
stabbed the youth in the eyes of tens of witnesses. That was not the
first murder of ethnical Armenians. On April 22, on the Moscow subway
station Pushkinskaya a 17-year-old Vigen Abramyants was stabbed by a
skinhead gang, according to numerous witnesses’ evidence. Four of his
friends were beaten, two received injuries. In this case too,
investigators presumed that the motive was ethnically based. Criminal
tracking have not yet yielded results.