Friday, 

Tycoon Expanding Presence In Armenian Energy Sector


 . Emil Danielyan


Armenia - President Serzh Sarkisian (L) and Russian-Armenian
businessman Samvel Karapetian (R) inaugurate an energy lab at the
National Polytechnic University in Yerevan, 5Jun2017.

The government plans to authorize a company belonging to Samvel
Karapetian, a Russian-Armenian billionaire, to manage Armenia's
state-owned electricity transmission network for at least five years.

The deal tentatively approved by the government on Thursday will
further expand Karapetian's presence in the Armenian energy sector.

The Armenian-born tycoon already owns the country's national electric
utility and largest thermal power plant. Also, business entities
controlled by him intend to build two major hydroelectric plants.

Speaking at a weekly cabinet meeting in Yerevan, Deputy Minister for
Energy Infrastructures Vartan Gevorgian said the planned deal will
make the energy sector more efficient by "synchronizing" Armenia's
power transmission and distribution networks. He said Karapetian's
Tashir Kapital company based in Russia will also attract significant
capital investments in the High-Voltage Electric Networks (BETs) and
"optimize" its operational expenditures.

A separate government statement clarified that Tashir Kapital will
obtain large-scale loans that will be spent on refurbishing
electricity transmission lines and substations and building new BETs
facilities. In particular, it said, the new operator will complete the
ongoing construction of a new high-voltage line that will connect
Armenia to Georgia.


Armenia - An electricity distribution facility.

Gevorgian made clear that the signing of the management contract is
conditional on Tashir Kapital submitting a plan of concrete actions
and investment commitments by the end of this year. "The agreement
will come into effect only after the trust management program is
approved by the government," he said, according to the Arka news
agency.

The development comes nearly two years after Karapetian's Tashir
purchased the debt-ridden Electric Networks of Armenia (ENA) utility
and a large power plant in the Armenian town of Hrazdan from Inter
RAO, a state-run Russian energy company.The new owner claims to have
already cut ENA's massive losses.

Another company owned Karapetian as well as an investment fund which
he and other wealthy Russian businessmen of Armenian descent set up
recently are due to start building soon a 76-megawatt hydroelectric in
Armenia's northern Lori province. The government gave the green light
to the $150 million project on August 10.

The fund, called the Investors Club of Armenia (ICA), also plans to at
least partly finance the planned construction of a 100-megawatt
hydroelectric plant on the Arax river marking Armenia's border with
Iran. The Armenian and Iranian governments have long been trying to
implement the project.

Karapetian is increasingly involved in Armenia's energy sector amid
the declining presence there of state-owned Russian energy
giants. With the 2015 sale of ENA and the Hrazdan plant, Inter RAO
essentially pulled out of the country. Another Russian company,
RusHydro, reaffirmed in June its intention to sell off Armenia's
second most important hydroelectric complex belonging to it.

RusHydro's withdrawal would leave only one Kremlin-controlled company,
Gazprom, owning a power-generating facility in Armenia. Gazprom is
also the country's principal supplier of natural gas.


Armenia - Prime Minister Karen Karapetian (R) and Russian-Armenian
businessman Samvel Karapetian announce the creation of a
Russian-Armenian investment fund in Yerevan, 25Mar2017.

Karapetian, 52, was born and raised in Armenia. He moved to Russia in
the early 1990s, making a huge fortune there in the next two
decades. His Tashir Group conglomerate comprises over a hundred firms
engaged in construction, manufacturing, retail trade and other
services. With total assets estimated by the "Forbes" magazine at
$3.5billion, he is most probably the richest ethnic Armenian in the
world.

The Russian-Armenian tycoon is widely regarded as a figure close to
Prime Minister Karen Karapetian (no relation). The latter lived in
Russia and held senior positions in Gazprom subsidiaries before
President Serzh Sarkisian appointed him to his current post last
September.

Samvel Karapetian and three dozen Russian-Armenian entrepreneurs
issued a joint statement when Karen Karapetian paid an official visit
to Moscow in January. They voiced "full support" for "profound
reforms" promised by the premier and expressed readiness to
"participate in business projects with the Armenian government."



U.S. Hails Armenian Participation In NATO Drills


 . Sargis Harutyunyan


Georgia -- U.S. Vice President Mike Pence addresses servicemen
participating in the joint multinational military exercise 'Noble
Partner 2017' at an airbase outside Tbilisi on August 1, 2017.

A senior U.S. diplomat praised the Armenian military on Friday for
participating in the latest NATO-led military exercises held in
neighboring Georgia, calling that a "great example of Armenia's
ability to balance its interests."

"Armenia should be very proud," Richard Mills, the U.S. ambassador in
Yerevan, told RFE/RL's Armenian service (Azatutyun.am). "It was the
only [Collective Security Treaty Organization] member in this
exercise."

"And it contributed a very important component to this military
exercise with the medical units that supported all the other nations
that participated," he said. "That helped the Armenian military, that
helped this exercise and, I think, it helped security in Europe
overall."

The two-week drills, which began in late July, involved about 2,800
soldiers from the United States, Georgia, Britain, Germany, Turkey,
Ukraine, Slovenia and Armenia. U.S. Vice President Mike Pence visited
the participating troops during an August 1 trip to Georgia.

The participation of around 30 Armenian soldiers in the drills
codenamed "Noble Partner" underscored Armenia's policy of
complementing a military alliance with Russia with closer security
ties to the West.


Armenia -- U.S Ambassador Richard Mills speaks to RFE/RL, 25Aug2017

"Armenia does a good job of balancing its relationships with all its
neighbors," said Mills. "That includes Russia, that includes Iran, and
that includes the United States and the European Union."

"The goal for our Armenian friends, for the Armenian government is to
make sure that Armenia can make its own sovereign decisions about what
path it should choose, what economic and political models it follows,"
Mills went on. "And we want to help give Armenia the tools to continue
making sovereign choices and to make sure that it's not overly
influenced or forced by others to follow certain paths that perhaps
Armenia doesn't want to follow."

Armenia has deepened defense cooperation with the U.S. and other NATO
member states since the early 2000s. It currently contributes more
than 100 troops to NATO-led missions in Kosovo and Afghanistan and
regularly participates in multinational exercises organized by the
U.S. military.

Those troops are part of the Armenian army's Peacekeeping Brigade that
has received considerable U.S. assistance. A U.S.-funded renovation of
the brigade's main training center began as recently as in March.

Mills stressed that U.S.-Armenian military has had a "much broader"
scope. In his words, the United States has provided almost $50 million
worth of military equipment and trained over 200 Armenian military
personnel since 2002.


Armenia - Armenian Defense Minister Vigen Sargsian (second from
right), U.S. Ambassador Richard Mills (right) inaugurate the start of
the revonation of the Zar Military Training Facility, 3Mar2017.

The envoy also revealed that the U.S. offered to help Armenia last
year to "learn lessons" from the April 2016 fighting in
Nagorno-Karabakh. The four-day hostilities left at least 190 Armenian
and Azerbaijani soldiers dead and nearly escalated into an all-out
war. They were halted by a Russian-mediated agreement.

"After the tragic fighting in April [2016] we approached our friends
in the [Armenian] Ministry of Defense to talk to them about the
lessons learned from that in terms of the military structure, mission
command, communication # whether we could provide some assistance and
how the U.S. military does its after-action reports.

"The answer was that the ministry would be very interested in
that. That was a program we had in place. But I think that it became a
little bit of higher priority after the April events."

Mills added that the commander of U.S. Army Europe, Lieutenant General
Ben Hodges, personally discussed the issue with Armenia's top military
officials when he visited Yerevan in May 2016.

The diplomat further made clear that while Washington is committed to
Armenia's security it will continue to avoid selling offensive weapons
to any of the parties to the Karabakh conflict. "I think that is one
area where we differ from Russia," he said.

The U.S., Russia and France have long been jointly spearheading
international efforts to end the Karabakh conflict.



Mass Shooting Suspect Tracked Down By Armenian Police


Armenia - Forensic experts inspect a dining hall in the village of
Shamiram where four men were killed and seven others wounded,
1Aug2017.

Police tracked down and arrested on Friday a man accused of killing
four people and wounding seven others in an Armenian village almost a
month ago.

The 50-year-old suspect, Telman Kalashian, allegedly went on a
shooting spree on August 1 as several hundred men gathered in
Shamiram, a village about 50 kilometers west of Yerevan, to mark a
Yazidi religious feast. Law-enforcement authorities say he fled the
scene with the help of his uncle. The latter was arrested on August 2.

Kalashian, who lived in another village also mostly populated by
ethnic Yazidis, remained on the run for more than three weeks. An
Armenian police spokesman said he was caught in his home province,
Armavir, but gave no details of his arrest.

Another law-enforcement body, the Investigative Committee, formally
charged Kalashian with several counts of murder later in the day. It
was not immediately clear whether he confessed to the killings.

In a statement, the Investigative Committee said the root cause of
shooting was $75,000 which Kalashian lent in 2013 to five other
Armenian-born men, all of them brothers, who lived and worked in
Russia. It said the Khudoyan brothers subsequently paid back only
$45,000, leading Kalashian's to press their relatives and friends in
Armenia to help him get back the rest of the sum.

According to the statement, the suspect traded insults with one of
those friends, German Kyaramian, by phone hours before heading to
Shamiram and opening fire inside a village dining hall.

Aziz Tamoyan, a leader of Armenia's Yazidi community, also attributed
the mass shooting to money owed to Kalashian when he spoke to
journalists in Yerevan on August 2.



Press Review



"Zhoghovurd" comments on Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov's
visit to Armenia and talks held with President Serzh Sarkisian. The
paper scoffs at Sarkisian's remark that he is "very buoyed" by
Berdimuhamedov's desire to implement large-scale economic projects
with Armenia. It says that trade between the two countries is
minuscule and there have been no Turkmen investments in the Armenian
economy in recent years.

"Hraparak" is unconvinced by government assurances that the outgoing
U.S. co-chair of the OSCE Minsk Group, Richard, Hoagland, did not
reveal anything new when it published the six main elements of a
framework peace accord on Karabakh put forward by the American,
Russian and French mediators. The paper alleges that Foreign Minister
Edward Nalbandian's reaction to the document means that the
authorities are "alarmed" by possible public reactions to Armenian
concessions sought by the mediators.

Arman Melikian, a former Karabakh foreign minister, tells "Aravot"
that Hoagland's statement corresponds to "the letter and the spirit"
of the so-called Madrid Principles of the conflict's resolution which
were first proposed to the parties in 2007. He speculates that the
U.S. diplomat is "protecting" the Armenian side against a much less
favorable peace deal.

"Haykakan Zhamanak" reports that Armenian exports of tomatoes to
Russia fell by about 40 percent in the first half of this year. The
paper claims that Armenia simply stopped re-exporting Turkish tomatoes
to Russia in that period.

(Tigran Avetisian)

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