Monday, Israeli Defense Firm Accused Of Drone Attack On Armenians Nagorno-Karabakh -- An Israel-manufactured Azerbaijani "suicide" drone crashes in the Martakert district, 4Apr2016. Israel's Defense Ministry claims to be investigating reports that senior executives of an Israeli defense company struck an Armenian military position with a "suicide" drone recently in an effort to sell such weapons to Azerbaijan. The Israeli daily "Maariv" reported on Sunday that representatives of the company, Aeronautics Defense Systems, travelled to Azerbaijan over a month ago to finalize a contract for the sale of its Orbiter 1K unmanned aircraft capable of carrying special explosive payload. Citing a formal complaint lodged with the ministry, the paper reported that two Israeli drone operators rebuffed Azerbaijani officials' demand to demonstrate the use of the deadly drone by hitting the Armenian position in an undisclosed area with it. But other, more senior representatives of the company agreed to launch the deadly craft towards the target, the paper said. One of the operators subsequently resigned from the company in protest, while the other plans to follow suit soon, according to "Maariv." Reacting to the report, the Israeli Defense Ministry said: "The claim is being examined by the relevant parties at the ministry." The complaint was filed with the ministry's Defense Export Controls Agency, reported another Israeli daily, "Haaretz." Aeronautics Defense Systems, meanwhile, denied the report, saying that "the operational action was carried out by the purchaser alone." According to Nagorno-Karabakh's Armenian-backed Defense Army, the Azerbaijani military most recently attacked its frontline positions with a suicide drone on July 7. Colonel Armen Gyozalian, the commander of an army unit stationed in northeastern Karabakh, told the "Hay Zinvor" newspaper earlier this month that two of his soldiers were lightly wounded in the incident. No Armenian military hardware was damaged in that drone attack, he said. The Azerbaijani army heavily used similar suicide drones manufactured by another Israeli company, Israel Aerospace Industries, during the April 2016 hostilities in Karabakh, which left at least 190 soldiers from both sides dead. Baku had gotten hold of them as part of multimillion-dollar defense contracts signed with the Jewish state. The Israeli weapons sold to Azerbaijan have included not only various types of unmanned aircraft but also air-defense systems and anti-tank rockets. Aeronautics Defense Systems, the Oribter manufacturer, reportedly started supplying drones to the Azerbaijani military in 2008. Armenia has long expressed concern at the Israeli-Azerbaijani arms deals, saying that they undermine international efforts to end the Karabakh conflict. The Armenian Foreign Ministry on Monday reacted cautiously to the Israeli newspaper report. "We are aware of problems and monitoring them," a ministry spokesman told Tert.am. The report came less than three weeks after Israeli Minister of Regional Cooperation Tzachi Hanegbi visited Yerevan in an apparent bid to improve his country's frosty relationship with Armenia. Hanegbi signed a number of bilateral agreements with Armenian Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian and Culture Minister Armen Amirian. He also met with Prime Minister Karen Karapetian. Armenia Battling Wildfires . Ruzanna Gishian Armenia - A wildfire in the Khosrov Forest Reserve, 14Aug2017. Russia sent a large water-dropping aircraft to Armenia to help authorities there contain a massive wildfire in a forest southeast of Yerevan that raged for the third consecutive day on Monday. The fire in the historic Khosrov Forest Reserve broke out on Saturday. Helped by an unusually hot and dry weather, it quickly spread to more than 200 hectares of land, threatening to engulf the entire state-protected area encompassing 9,000 hectares of forest founded by a 4th century Armenian king. The Ministry for Emergency Situations scrambled to contain the blaze, sending dozens firefighters to the area. They were joined on Monday by over 200 Armenian army soldiers and police officers as well as hundreds of residents of nearby villages and volunteers from other parts of the country. They continued to battle the fire as it burned down more trees on Monday afternoon, sending a thick smoke billowing skyward. Ministry officials complained that the Khosrov reserve's mountainous terrain is making is practically impossible for them to deploy fire engines. An Armenian military helicopter was therefore called in to join the operation. Water dropped by it on burning trees provided insufficient, however. Armenia - A wildfire in the Khosrov Forest Reserve, 14Aug2017. Emergency Situations Minister Davit Tonoyan called his Russian counterpart Vladimir Puchkov to ask him for urgent assistance. Tonoyan's press office announced later in the day that the Russian Ministry for Emergency Situations will dispatch a special plane designed for dealing with forest fires. A statement by the office said the Ilyushin-72 plane can drop more than 42 tons of water and protect almost 5 hectares of land against flames during a single flight. Preparations are now underway to ensuring necessary water supply to the plane, added the statement. The water-dropping plane arrived at the Erebuni airbase in Yerevan at 7 around p.m. local time. "We hope that the plane will arrive and we'll extinguish the fire with its help," a senior official at the Armenian Rescue Service told reporters. "This is a disaster, this is not an ordinary fire," he said. "I've worked in this area for many years and haven't seen a fire like this before." Although Armenia has been affected by an intense heatwave for the last few weeks, law-enforcement authorities suspect that the Khosrov forest fire was the result of human negligence. The Investigative Committee launched a criminal inquiry under corresponding articles of the Armenian Criminal Code. Another massive wildfire broke out near a village in the southeastern Vayots Dzor province last Thursday. It reportedly affected about 650 hectares of land partly covered with trees. Tonoyan's ministry announced on Monday that the fire has finally been contained with the help of army soldiers and policemen. RFE/RL Reporter Harassed In Armenia Armenia - A vanadlized car that transported an RFE/RL car to Sevan, 14 August, 2017. A correspondent for RFE/RL's Armenian service was threatened and chased by a man while reporting on safety standards at Armenia's liquefied gas stations on Monday. The furious young man turned on the reporter, Narine Ghalechian, when she approached one such station in Sevan, a town 55 kilometers north of Yerevan, and started filming it. He didn't explain his rage during the incident. "I switched off and hid the video camera to prevent him from damaging it but kept holding the microphone in a visible way, which was enough for him to understand that I'm a journalist, then ran away and got in the car" Ghalechian said afterwards. "I told him not to approach me or I will call the police, which made him even angrier. "He reached for the car's door which I already locked. When he realized that the door is locked he started kicking and punching it." Ghalechian then headed to a police station and reported the incident to senior officers there. The man was brought into the police station for questioning later in the day. Police officers also inspected the damaged car used by the RFE/RL crew. They pledged to hold the violent man accountable. Armenia's human rights ombudsman, Arman Tatoyan, was quick to express concern at the incident. A statement by Tatoyan's office said he has formally appealed to the Armenian police to conduct an investigation. Russian PM Hails Rising Trade With Armenia Kazakhstan - Prime Ministers Dmitry Medvedev of Russia (R) and Karen Karapetian of Armenia meet in Astana, 14Aug2017. Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev welcomed a continuing double-digit growth of Russia's trade with Armenia when he met with his Armenian counterpart Karen Karapetian on Monday. The two men held talks on the sidelines of a meeting in Kazakhstan's capital Astana of the prime ministers of Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) member states. "On the whole, the situation is not bad because there is an increase in both deliveries of goods from Armenia to Russia and overall commercial exchange between our countries," Medvedev said in his opening remarks at the meeting. "We are continuing to coordinate our positions on joint investment projects, on a number of areas of economic cooperation which have emerged of late." "So on the whole, things are going well, but this doesn't mean that we have nothing to discuss," he added. "I also want to discuss a number of issues, including dates for your visit to Armenia," replied Karapetian. Official Armenian statistics show that Russian-Armenian trade increased by over 23.7 percent to $737.5 million in the first half of this year. By comparison, Armenia's trade with the European Union amounted to $677 million in the same period. It was up by 18 percent in absolute terms. Russia surpassed the EU as Armenia's leading trading partner after a similar rise in bilateral trade recorded last year. Armenian exports to Russia alone jumped by 51 percent in 2016. Officials in Yerevan attributed that to Armenia's membership in the EEU, a Russian-led trade bloc comprising five ex-Soviet states. Analysts believe that a stabilization and certain strengthening of the Russian ruble in 2016 was also a key factor. The Russian currency weakened sharply against the U.S. dollar in 2014 and 2015 due to the collapse of oil prices and Western economic sanctions imposed on Moscow. As a result, Russian-Armenian trade plummeted in 2015. Press Review (Saturday, August 12) "For the [Armenian] authorities, the population is a gray mass which should be bribed, bullied and suppressed during elections so that they can achieve their desired results," writes "Aravot." "The people then had better not disturb the authorities for the next four or five years. And they may not disturb. But that is not an ideal solution for the authorities because humiliated people are not inclined to work and create and may have a latent hatred towards those who humiliate them." Armen Badalian, a political commentator, tells Lragir.am that Armenia's civil society must have a staunchly pro-Western orientation. "Russia has serious problems with civil society and you can't build a civil society through integration into Russian integration structures," he says. Writing in Civilnet.am, a prominent journalist and columnist, Tatul Hakobian, looks at opposition calls for renaming street names in Yerevan that were named after controversial Armenian Bolshevik leaders. He brings the example of a village in Armenia's Gegharkunik village that was named after one of those leaders in the 1920s, wondering whether it too should be given a new name. (Sargis Harutyunyan) 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