Tuesday, August 8, 2017

European Investors Renew Interest In Armenian Chemical Giant


 . Ruzanna Gishian


Armenia - The Nairit chemical plant in Yerevan.

Representatives of a Slovakian-based investment company announced on
Tuesday that they have held fresh negotiations with the Armenian
government on their proposals to revive Armenia's largest chemical
plant that was declared bankrupt late last year.

They said the company called the EU-Asia Business Finance Center still
stands ready to invest $100 million in the troubled Nairit plant
located on the southern outskirts of Yerevan.

The chemical giant manufacturing synthetic rubber employed several
thousand people in Soviet times. It has struggled to remain afloat
since the early 1990s, repeatedly changing foreign owners and
operators in murky deals overseen by successive Armenian governments.

Nairit has had only 250 or so employees since the government, which
now controls the debt-ridden plant, laid off 1,700 of its remaining
workers in January 2016. In November, a Yerevan court declared the
company bankrupt because of its failure to pay electricity bills
totaling $2.6 million.

The court ruling came shortly after EU-Asia Business Finance Center
executives led by Ashot Grigorian, the company's Armenian-born
chairman, presented Prime Minister Karen Karapetian with a plan to
reactivate the moribund factory. Karapetian effectively rejected the
plan, saying that it is not convincing enough.


Armenia - Representatives of the EU-Asia Business Finance Center
company hold a news conference in Yerevan, 8Aug2017.

Speaking at a joint news conference, Karen Israelian, Nairit's former
executive director, and two senior executives of the company
registered in the Slovak capital Bratislava revealed that they have
held more talks on the matter with Armenia's Deputy Prime Minister
Vache Gabrielian. Israelian seemed satisfied with the talks. "I
quickly understood one thing: the government wants Nairit to operate
but has no solutions," he said.

Israelian also said the European investors could relaunch
large-production operations at Nairit and create at least 1,500 jobs
there if the government grants it tax breaks and assumes the plant's
debts totaling around $100 million. They also need to audit the
company's books before making a final decision, he added.

Gary Neville, another EU-Asia Business Finance Center representative,
cautioned that Nairit's reactivation would be a "long and difficult
process." "But I hope that we will sign this week an agreement [with
the government] that will be the first step in that long process," he
said.

The government has so far made no public statements on the renewed
negotiations with the investors interested in Nairit. The latter
relies heavily on natural gas in its production operations. Karapetian
managed Armenia's gas distribution network from 2001-2010.

The World Bank argued against attempts to revive Nairit as a result of
an audit conducted last year.



Armenian Village Chief Resigns After Protests Against Gold Mining


 . Karine Simonian


Armenia - Samvel Kirakosian, the mayor of Ardvi village.

The mayor of a village in Armenia's northern Lori province has stepped
down after the local council and residents rejected an obscure
company's plans to mine gold near their community.

Many in the village of Ardvi believe that open-pit mining operations
would wreak havoc on the local ecosystem by contaminating water
sources, forests and pastures. Dozens of them blocked the entrance to
Ardvi on July 26 to disrupt a supposedly public discussion on the
controversial project mandated by Armenian law. Most members of the
village council sided with the protesters.

The little-known company called Miram has so far divulged few details
of its plans to develop a gold deposit located in the mountainous
area. It was registered in Armenia just three months ago.

Miram's shareholders included at least until this month a man linked
to Vahram Baghdasarian, the parliamentary leader of the ruling
Republican Party of Armenia (HHK). This fact has fueled media
speculation that Baghdasarian is involved in the controversial
project. The influential politician, who is a native of Lori, has not
commented on the issue yet.


Armenia - Residents of Ardvi village protest against a gold mining
project, 26 July, 2017.
Members of the Ardvi council said on Tuesday that the village mayor,
Samvel Kirakosian, tendered his resignation on the same day that the
local government body rejected his proposal to allow Miriam to conduct
a geological survey on 150 hectares of community land. They told
RFE/RL's Armenian service (Azatutyun.am) that the resignation was not
accepted by the council.

"He was probably upset with something," said Suren Veranian, one of
the council members. "We told him that we are not accepting his
resignation and the guy agreed with us, saying that he will withdraw
the resignation."

Another councilor, Vaghinak Varosian, said the village chief was "very
offended" by some locals' accusations that he is ready to "sell out
and ruin the village." He described Kirakosian as a man who "really
cares about the village."

Kirakosian, who has run Ardvi for the last seven years, refused to
comment when RFE/RL's Armenian contacted him by phone. His office was
closed on Tuesday.

The villagers insisted, meanwhile, that they will continue to strongly
oppose any gold mining in or around Ardvi.



Jailed Opposition Gunmen On Hunger Strike


 . Naira Bulghadarian


Armenia -- The Nubarashen prison in Yerevan.

Two of the arrested members of an armed opposition group that seized a
police station in Yerevan last year have been on a hunger strike for
more than two weeks.

One of them, Vartan Geravetian, started refusing food on July 21 to
demand that the Armenian authorities recognize him, his comrades as
well as their jailed sympathizers as political prisoners. He is also
demanding that he and the other gunmen kept in Yerevan's Nubarashen
prison be separated from other inmates for security reasons.

Geravetian claims that the authorities are deliberately causing
tension between the two groups of prisoners to intimidate the radical
oppositionists. The other arrested man, Tigran Manukian, joined the
hunger strike on July 24 in a show of solidarity with Geravetian.

Geravetian's lawyer, Davit Gyurjian, said on Tuesday that both men are
determined to continue the hunger strike. "I have no idea when this
hunger strike will end," he told RFE/RL's Armenian service
(Azatutyun.am).

Gyurjian expressed concern about his client's health condition, saying
that the latter has been seriously weakened by the 18-day protest.

The Armenian Justice Ministry's prison management made clear that it
will not meet any of those demands, calling them "illegal." A
department official also said that both men are now kept in special
prisons cells for hunger strikers and regularly inspected by doctors.

Gyurjian insisted that the oppositionists must at least be moved to
separate cells. "This is a very legitimate demand and it must be
fulfilled by the state," the lawyer said. "These people are citing the
kind of danger which the state is obliged to neutralize."

The gunmen seized the police base in Yerevan's Erebuni district in
July 2016 to demand that President Serzh Sarkisian free the jailed
leader of their Founding Parliament movement, Zhirayr Sefilian, and
step down. They laid down their arms after a two-week standoff with
security forces, which left three police officers dead.

A total of 32 persons went on two separate trials earlier this summer
on charges stemming from the deadly standoff.



Opposition Bloc Said To Keep Fighting For `Regime Change'


 . Hovannes Movsisian


Armenia - Former Defense Minister Seyran Ohanian (C) and former
Foreign Ministers Vartan Oskanian (L) and Raffi Hovannisian set up an
opposition alliance in Yerevan, 13Feb2017.

An aide to opposition leader Raffi Hovannisian said on Tuesday that
he, former Defense Minister Seyran Ohanian and former Foreign Minister
Vartan Oskanian will continue to jointly challenge the government
despite their alliance's poor showing in Armenia's recent
parliamentary elections.

"I will say this because I'm more or less informed. I know that both
Seyran Ohanian and Vartan Oskanian stand with Raffi Hovannisian," said
Susanna Muradian, a senior member of Hovannisian's Zharangutyun
(Heritage) party.

The three men teamed up in the run-up to the April 2 elections won by
President Serzh Sarkisian's Republican Party of Armenia
(HHK). According to the official election results, their ORO alliance
polled only 2 percent of the vote, falling well short of a 7 percent
threshold for having seats in the new National Assembly. ORO rejected
the official vote results as fraudulent but refrained from urging
supporters to take to the streets.

Ohanian stated in early June that he will not quit politics and will
remain in opposition to the Sarkisian administration. He hinted at
anti-government protests that could be organized by ORO and other
opposition groups.

Muradian said that Hovannisian and other Zharangutyun figures have
been negotiating with other opposition forces for the purpose of
holding such street protests to ensure that Sarkisian does not stay in
power after completing his final presidential term in April 2018. She
declined to give details of those negotiations.

The opposition Yelk alliance, which won 9 seats in the 105-member
parliament, has also threatened to hold rallies if Sarkisian decides
to become prime minister next year. Still, its leaders have so far
been cool towards Hovannisian's calls for an anti-government "velvet
revolution."

With the end of Sarkisian's presidency, Armenia will complete its
transition to a parliamentary system of government, meaning that its
next president will have largely ceremonial powers. Sarkisian has
still not clarified what he plans to do after April 2018.



Press Review



"Aravot" comments on President Serzh Sarkisian's weekend talks in
Tehran with Iran's President Hassan Rouhani. The two men discussed,
among other things, the creation of transport corridors that would
connect the Persian Gulf to the Black Sea via Georgia and Armenia. The
paper says that Iranian leaders have repeatedly voiced support for
this idea. "Official Tehran thereby regards Armenia as one of the
crucial elements of that corridor," it says, adding that Rouhani
reaffirmed this stance at the meeting with Sarkisian.

As "Zhoghovurd" points out, Rouhani also called for a "solely
political" resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and said
regional security and stability is essential for Iran. "A spokesman
for the Iranian Foreign Ministry made a statement on this subject
later on Sunday, saying that they are closely monitoring developments
in the region and will not allow the Karabakh conflict to affect the
security of the population of Iran's border regions [close to the
conflict zone,]" writes the paper. It criticizes pro-government
pundits in Yerevan for drawing "far-reaching conclusions" from those
statements and describing them as a stern warning to Azerbaijan.

"Zhoghovurd" cautions that Iranian leaders have repeatedly made such
statements before."So nothing extraordinary was said at the meeting
with Serzh Sarkisian," it says. "Iran is trying to display a balanced
and neutral position towards the two neighboring states in line with
its national interests and diplomatic etiquette and this euphoria is
not comprehensible."

Lragir.am reacts to the opposition Yelk alliance's plans to organize
public discussions on the wisdom of Armenia's membership in the
Russian-led Eurasian Economic Union (EEU). The pro-Western publication
says that economic arguments against that membership, made by some
Yelk leaders, are totally meaningless because "being or not being part
of the EEU is a military-political issue for Armenia." It is therefore
highly skeptical about the Yelk initiative.

(Tigran Avetisian)


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