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 Copyright (c) 2017 Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, Inc. 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036. www.rferl.org