RFE/RL Armenian Report – 05/30/2017

                                        Tuesday, 

Tsarukian Allies Quit Parliament


 . Tatevik Lazarian


Armenia - The newly elected National Assembly holds its first sitting
in Yerevan, 18May2017.

Three members of Armenia's new parliament, who effectively revolted
against businessman Gagik Tsarukian shortly after recent elections,
have ceded their parliament seats to other members of his alliance.

The Tsarukian Bloc won 31 of the 105 seats in the new National
Assembly elected on April 2. Shortly after the vote, it submitted to
the Central Election Commission (CEC) letters of resignation
supposedly signed by 23 of its mostly successful election candidates.

Twelve of those candidates told the CEC, however, that they did not
sign the letters and would still like to become parliament
deputies. The commission handed parliamentary mandates to eight of
them.

Tsarukian said through a spokeswoman last month that that all of those
men had formally pledged ahead of the elections not to take up
parliament seats if they fail to get a particular number of votes in
various constituencies across Armenia.

In the event, three of the deputies representing the Tsarukian Bloc --
Harutyun Gharagyozian, Khachik Manukian and Artyom Tsarukian (no
relation) -- agreed to resign from the parliament. They formally
ceased to be members of the National Assembly on Tuesday.

The five other lawmakers refused to follow suit, while remaining
affiliated with the second largest parliamentary force.

Tsarukian's press secretary, Iveta Tonoyan, downplayed the three
resignations, denying that there are disagreements within the
bloc. "There were political agreements," she told reporters. "This is
a political process."

Tonoyan also did not confirm reports that Tsarukian has fallen out
with Ishkhan Zakarian, the man who managed the bloc's election
campaign and was also elected to the National Assembly. Asked to
comment on rumors that Zakarian too will resign from the parliament,
she said: "I have never heard about such an intention from Ishkhan
Zakarian."



OSCE Vows Continued Engagement In Armenia After Office Closure


 . Sargis Harutyunyan


Armenia - OSCE Secretary General Lamberto Zannier speaks at a news
conference in Yerevan, 30May2017.

The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe will continue
to promote wide-ranging reforms in Armenia despite the closure of its
Yerevan office forced by Azerbaijan, OSCE Secretary General Lamberto
Zannier said on Tuesday.

"The closure of the office does not mean that we will conclude our
cooperation with Armenia," Zannier said during a visit to
Yerevan. "There are many important issues on our agenda."

"We will therefore try to find various ways of working together and
ensuring that the closure of the office only means that one chapter of
our cooperation has been closed but other avenues of joint work have
opened up," he told a joint news conference with Foreign Minister
Edward Nalbandian.

The OSCE office has implemented projects relating, among other things,
to human rights, tax and police reforms, gender equality and press
freedom ever since it was opened in 2000. Azerbaijan vetoed late last
year a further extension of its mandate, objecting to a humanitarian
demining program sponsored by it in Armenia. It claimed that the
program could "strengthen" the Armenian military in the
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

Armenia has repeatedly shrugged off those allegations. It says that
Baku is simply keen to force the closure of the Yerevan office after
having a similar OSCE office in Baku shut down in 2015 in line with
its poor human rights record.

OSCE decisions on opening such missions and extending their activities
have to be unanimously approved by all 57 member states of the
organization.

Baku did not drop its objections even after the Armenian government
agreed in January to exclude demining from the wide range of OSCE
activities in Armenia. Its uncompromising stance prompted a stern
warning from the United States, with a senior U.S. diplomat saying in
February that the office closure would "reflect poorly on Azerbaijan."

A representative of Austria, the current holder of the OSCE
presidency, told the OSCE's Permanent Council in Vienna on May 4 that
the Azerbaijani government remains adamant in demanding the shutdown.

The issue seems to have dominated Zannier's separate meetings with
Nalbandian and President Serzh Sarkisian. The OSCE secretary general
described the talks as "useful" in a written statement issued later in
the day. "I would like to see the achievements of the Office preserved
and built upon as far as possible," he added.



Armenian-Azeri Summit `Unlikely For Now'


 . Sargis Harutyunyan


Armenia - Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian at a news conference in
Yerevan, 30May2017.

A fresh meeting of the Armenian and Azerbaijani presidents is still
not on the cards despite international mediators' efforts to
reinvigorate the Nagorno-Karabakh peace process, Foreign Minister
Edward Nalbandian indicated on Tuesday.

"Armenia has never objected to meetings at the level of [foreign]
ministers or presidents," he said. "If conditions are ripe, such
meetings are possible. But this kind of meetings, especially at the
high, presidential level, have to be properly prepared
for. Ministerial meetings are aimed at ensuring that as well."

"For the time being, we can only talk about a meeting at the
ministerial level," Nalbandian told a joint news conference with
Lamberto Zannier, the visiting secretary general of the Organization
for Security and Cooperation in Europe.

Presidents Serzh Sarkisian and Ilham Aliyev most recently met in Saint
Petersburg last July for talks hosted by their Russian counterpart
Vladimir Putin. The Karabakh peace process has remained essentially
deadlocked since then.

Richard Hoagland, the U.S. co-chair of the OSCE Minsk Group, expressed
hope in March that Nalbandian and Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar
Mammadyarov will "prepare the ground" for a fresh Aliyev-Sarkisian
encounter. The two ministers met in Moscow in late April. A Russian
Foreign Ministry statement on their talks said nothing about the
possibility of an Armenian-Azerbaijani summit.

Nalbandian also announced on Tuesday that Hoagland and his fellow
Minsk Group co-chairs from Russia and France will visit Yerevan and
Stepanakert next week.



Press Review



"Zhoghovurd" says the opposition Yerkir Tsirani party's decision to
take up its five seats in Yerevan's newly elected municipal council
means that its sessions are promising to be dramatic and heated. The
paper says that Yerkir Tsirani leader Zaruhi Postanjian's presence in
the council may have a "somewhat positive impact" on the work of the
legislature and make life harder for Mayor Taron Markarian and his
aides. But, it says, the party's decision not to boycott the council
is not consistent with its tough anti-government stance.

"Zhamanak" is highly skeptical about a new anti-corruption body that
will be set up soon by the Armenian government. The paper predicts
that the authorities will use the body to get rid of "undesirable"
officials that will fall from their grace. "In other words, what is
being created in Armenia is not a truly independent anti-corruption
body # but an institution of, so to speak, intra-governmental
inquisition," it claims. "The authorities will thus solve two
issues. On one hand, the new structure will enable them to elevate
their anti-corruption dialogue with international bodies to a new
level # On the other hand, the intra-governmental inquisition will
allow them to make the [government] system more manageable in the
current period of transition."

Interviewed by "168 Zham," Vadim Dubnov, a Russian political analyst,
plays down the significance of a recent statement by the OSCE Minsk
Group co-chairs that essentially held Azerbaijan responsible for the
latest escalation of tensions in the Karabakh conflict zone. Dubnov
argues that just a few months ago the Russian, U.S. and French
co-chairs issued another statement that was more favorable to
Azerbaijan. "I think that in or two or two weeks it will be forgotten
in both Baku and Yerevan," he says. Dubnov also believes that the
Azerbaijani leadership is presently "not quite interested in a
de-escalation of the conflict." "And I am not fully convinced that
Yerevan is interested in that," he adds.

"Chorrord Ishkhanutyun" comments on the Karabakh Armenian military's
decision to issue statements on truce violations on a weekly, rather
than daily, basis from now on. General Movses Hakobian, the chief of
the Armenian army's General Staff, is quoted as defending the decision
on security grounds. The paper dismisses this speculation, saying that
daily reports on the situation along the Karabakh "line of contact"
would not reveal any military secrets to Baku.

(Tigran Avetisian)


Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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