Monday, 

Karapetian Denies Discord With President


 . Narine Ghalechian


Armenia - Prime Minister Karen Karapetian visits the Ararat province,
22Mar2017.

Prime Minister Karen Karapetian dismissed on Monday lingering
speculation about his mounting tensions with President Serzh
Sarkisian, saying that their relationship is "very good, respectful
and businesslike."

"That's not true," he told reporters when asked about his alleged
discord with Sarkisian.

Accordingly, Karapetian made clear that he does not intend to
resign. He also stood by his previous statements indicating that he
would like to retain his post after the president serves out his final
term in April next year.

"Nothing has changed # My previous answers haven't changed," the
premier said after attending, together with Sarkisian and other top
state officials, the inauguration of Yerevan's newly reelected Mayor
Taron Markarian.

A number of Armenian media outlets and commentators have speculated in
recent weeks that Sarkisian plans to become prime minister or replace
Karapetian by someone else in April 2018. Some of them have claimed
that Karapetian will resign or be sacked before that time because of
his worsening relationship with the president. The Yerevan daily
"Zhoghovurd" reported on June 6 that Karapetian has already twice
tendered his resignation and that Sarkisian has refused to accept it.

The president dismissed those rumors later on June 6. "The prime
minister has no reason to resign," Sarkisian said in rare comments to
Armenian journalists. "Periodical reports about alleged differences or
a confrontation are untrue."

Sarkisian appointed Karapetian as prime minister in September last
year with the stated aim of improving the socioeconomic situation in
Armenia through more radical reforms. The 53-year-old former business
executive has since repeatedly pledged to create a level playing field
for all businesses, combat corruption and tax evasion, and attract
large-scale investments in the Armenian economy.



Yerevan's Reelected Mayor Inaugurated


 . Narine Ghalechian


Armenia - Yerevan Mayor Taron Markarian (R) is congratulated by
President Serzh Sarkisian after being sworn in for another term,
12Jun2017.

Yerevan's Mayor Taron Markarian was sworn in for another four-year
term on Monday one month after leading the ruling Republican Party of
Armenia (HHK) to a landslide victory in municipal elections.

Markarian, in office since 2011, vowed to "honestly and diligently
perform the mayor's duties" at an inauguration ceremony attended by
President Serzh Sarkisian, Prime Minister Karen Karapetian and other
top officials.

According to the official results of the May 14 elections, the HHK won
more than 70 percent of the vote that gave it 46 of the 65 seats in
the municipal council empowered to appoint the city's mayors. The
opposition Yelk alliance finished second with 14 council seats.

A more radical opposition group, the Yerkir Tsirani party, gained the
remaining 5 seats. It decided not to boycott sessions of the Yerevan
council after accusing the HHK of buying votes and resorting to other
serious irregularities. The Central Election Commission (CEC) rejected
last month Yerkir Tsirani's demands to annul the official vote
results.

Unlike their Yerkir Tsirani colleagues, the 14 council members
representing Yelk chose to attend Markarian's inauguration. But they
demonstratively refused to stand up when Sarkisian entered a
conference hall where the city council holds its sessions.

In a speech at the ceremony, Sarkisian gave a largely positive
assessment of the 38-year-old mayor's track record, while urging him
to do more to address Yerevan's lingering problems and a lack of
adequate public transportation in particular.

"You must work day and night in order to increase Yerevan residents'
respect and trust towards you, maintain you position as the most
popular political figure in Yerevan, get even more votes in the next
elections and continue to run Yerevan," the president said.

Markarian's late father Andranik served as Armenia's prime minister
from 2000-2007. The inauguration ceremony coincided with Andranik
Markarian's 66th birthday anniversary.



Mediators Visit Armenia, Karabakh


Armenia - President Serzh Sarkisian meets with the co-chairs of the
OSCE Minsk Group in Yerevan, 10Jun2017.

U.S., Russian and French diplomats co-heading the OSCE Minsk Group
have met with Armenia's and Nagorno-Karabakh's leaders as part of
their continuing efforts to relaunch Armenian-Azerbaijani peace talks.

The three mediators met with President Serzh Sarkisian and Foreign
Minister Edward Nalbandian in Yerevan on Saturday at the start of
their latest tour of the Karabakh conflict zone. They then proceeded
to Stepanakert for similar talks with Bako Sahakian, the Karabakh
president, that were held on Monday. They are expected to travel to
Baku later this week or early next.

The envoys gave few details of their talks when they spoke to
reporters in the Karabakh capital. "France, the United States and
Russia are making every effort to achieve progress on this issue,"
Stephane Visconti, the Minsk Group's French co-chair, was reported to
say.

Neither the mediators nor official Armenian sources specified whether
they pressed for the conduct of high-level Armenian-Azerbaijani
negotiations. Visconti's American opposite number, Richard Hoagland,
expressed hope in March that Nalbandian and Azerbaijani Foreign
Minister Elmar Mammadyarov will "prepare the ground" for a meeting of
their presidents.

The two ministers reported no agreements to that effect after they
last met in Moscow in April. Nalbandian said on May 30 that an
Armenian-Azerbaijani summit is unlikely to be organized "for the time
being."

Presidents Serzh Sarkisian and Ilham Aliyev most recently met in
Vienna and Saint Petersburg in May and June last year. The Karabakh
peace process has been essentially deadlocked since then.

Meeting with Visconti, Hoagland and Russia's Igor Popov on Saturday,
Nalbandian accused Baku of continuing to ignore their calls for the
conflicting parties to comply with confidence-building agreements that
were reached by Aliyev and Sarkisian last year. According to the
Armenian Foreign Ministry, he said the mediators should take "concrete
actions" in order to "rein in this unconstructive and provocative
policy by Azerbaijan."

Sahakian likewise accused Baku of continuing ceasefire violations
along the Karabakh "line of contact" when met with the co-chairs in
Stepanakert. The spokesman for the Karabakh leader, Davit Babayan, was
quoted by Artsakhpress.am as stressing the importance of bolstering
the ceasefire regime.

Babayan also said that the warring sides still have a "long way to go"
to resolve the conflict. Their positions on a peaceful settlement are
"almost diametrically opposite," he said.



Mainstream Oppositionist Critical Of Attack On Yerevan Police Base


 . Karlen Aslanian
 . Sargis Harutyunyan


Armenia - Opposition politician Edmon Marukian speaks to RFE/RL's
Armenian service, Yerevan, 12Jun2017

Armed members of an Armenian fringe opposition group broke the law
when they seized a police station in Yerevan last summer, a leader of
the opposition Yelk alliance insisted over the weekend.

Edmon Marukian pointedly declined to describe as political prisoners
the gunmen who were arrested following a two-week standoff with
security forces which left three Armenian police officers dead.

The gunmen stormed the police compound in Yerevan's southern Erebuni
district and took several police officers hostage on July 17,
2016. They demanded President Serzh Sarkisian's resignation and the
release of Zhirayr Sefilian, the jailed leader of their Founding
Parliament movement.

The authorities rejected those demands before forcing the armed group
to lay down its weapons and surrender. The group's most important
members went on trial last week, facing a range of serious criminal
charges. Two of them also stand accused of murdering the
policemen. All of the defendants reject the accusations as politically
motivated.


Armenia -- An armed man speaks to the press after pro-opposition
gunmen locked in a week-long hostage standoff with Armenian
authorities released the final four police officers held captive in
Yerevan, July 23, 2016

n an interview with RFE/RL's Armenian service (Azatutyun.am), Marukian
said he cannot refer to them as political prisoners because their
actions involved an "illegal arms circulation" and resulted in
casualties. "If I, for example, pick a gun and walk to RFE/RL for an
interview but get arrested on the street, could we claim that Edmon
Marukian is a political prisoner?" he said.

Accordingly, the U.S.-educated lawyer asserted that the attack on the
Erebuni police facility had "elements of a crime." "If we say that
there was no such thing, that they did nothing wrong # that would mean
[going to] the other extreme," he said. "If people armed with assault
rifles seize a [police] regiment, can I really say that it's OK and
there are no elements of crime in their actions?"

Marukian's Yelk finished third in Armenia's recent parliamentary
elections. Nikol Pashinian, another leader of the bloc formed in
December, criticized the gunmen during the Erebuni standoff.


Armenia - Relatives of police officers killed in a standoff with
opposition gunmen attend a remembrance ceremony in Yerevan, 28Sep2016.

The gunmen, who referred to themselves as Sasna Tsrer (Baredevils of
Sasun), won the backing of other prominent opposition figures, notably
former Foreign Ministers Vartan Oskanian and Raffi Hovannisian as well
as Zaruhi Postanjian.

Postanjian, who set up a radical opposition party earlier this year,
stood by her view that the jailed gunmen are political prisoners. "As
a lawyer, I insist that there were no elements of crime in their
actions because they willingly came out of [the besieged compound] and
laid down their arms," she said.

Both the United States and the European Union condemned the deadly
attack last July. "We obviously condemn strongly the use of violence
to effect political change in Armenia or anywhere," a U.S. State
Department spokesman said at the time. "We stress that the use of
force to achieve political change is unacceptable," the EU Delegation
in Yerevan said for its part.



Press Review



(Saturday, June 10)

"Haykakan Zhamanak" reports on what it sees as widespread violations
of traffic and parking rules in and outside Yerevan by the owners of
cars carrying Russian license plates. "All you have to do to realize
that is to walk around Yerevan's center in evening hours and see how
such cars are parked on second lanes and violate all possible traffic
rules," writes the paper. It also carries photographs of several such
cars parked at unauthorized locations near Yerevan's Zvartnots
international airport.

Speaking to "168 Zham," Naira Zohrabian, a senior representative of
Gagik Tsarukian's political alliance, notes with satisfaction that the
alliance and the opposition Yelk bloc will have some say in the
upcoming formation of a new anti-corruption body. She argues that the
government and the ruling Republican Party of Armenia (HHK) were
initially not willing to make any concessions to the parliamentary
opposition when they first submitted a corresponding bill to the
parliament. "Of course this is not enough, but this is the minimum
that we could get today," says Zohrabian.

"One gets the impression that the authorities have suddenly woken up
and discovered that there is corruption in the country," writes
"Hraparak." "Some evade taxes, others abuse their positions or carry
out illegal imports, and the authorities horrified by that are hastily
trying to enforce the law in the country." The paper downplays recent
prosecutions on corruption charges of several judges and prosecutors,
saying that they are not high-ranking enough. It says that if the
authorities were really committed to combatting corruption they would
have sacked the mayor of the Armenian town of Hrazdan whose underage
son ran over and killed a pedestrian while driving a local government
car last week.

"An escalation is not a war," Sergey Markedonov, a Russian political
analyst, tells "Aravot," commenting on the Nagorno-Karabakh
conflict. "There have always been and there will be escalations when,
for example the [OSCE Minsk Group] co-chairs visit the region or when
there are important negotiations. War, on the other hand, presupposes
serious military-political changes, serious casualties."

(Tigran Avetisian)


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