Thursday, January 25, 2017

Next Armenian PM To Run National Security Body


 . Sargis Harutyunyan


Armenia - President Serzh Sarkisian holds a meeting with Prime
Minister Karen Karapetian (L) and other state officials in Yerevan,
27Oct2017.

The next Armenian prime minister will head a Security Council tasked
with formulating the country's policy on national defense, according
to a government bill approved on Thursday.

The bill drafted by the Justice Ministry stems from Armenia's
transformation into a parliamentary republic which will be completed
when President Serzh Sarkisian serves out his final term on April
9. The parliamentary system of government will make the prime
minister, not the president of the republic, the commander-in-chief of
the Armenian Armed Forces.

The bill approved by Prime Minister Karen Karapetian's cabinet
underlines the next premier's status as the country's most powerful
official. The Security Council to be chaired by them will be more
powerful than a similar presidential body currently advising Sarkisian
on national security.

It will comprise the deputy prime ministers, the ministers of defense
and foreign affairs, the heads of Armenia's police and National
Security Service and the chief of the Armenian army's General
Staff. Significantly, Armenia's next president as well the parliament
speaker and the Constitutional Court chairman will not sit on the
council.

Under the bill, the council will be empowered to determine "the main
directions of defense policy." It will act in a more advisory capacity
on broader security matters.

The Armenian parliament, which is controlled by the ruling Republican
Party (HHK), will almost certainly pass the bill before the end of
Sarkisian's decade-long presidency.

The outgoing president has still not publicly clarified whether he
will become prime minister in April. He has not ruled out such a
possibility.



Karabakh Reports Azeri Incursion Attempt


 . Naira Bulghadarian


Nagorno-Karabakh - An Armenian soldier shoots during a military
exercise, 20Nov2015.

Nagorno-Karabakh's Armenian-backed military claimed to have thwarted
an Azerbaijani commando raid on its frontline positions early on
Thursday, the first such incident reported by it in the last seven
months.

In a statement, the Defense Army said that shortly after midnight an
Azerbaijani "reconnaissance and sabotage group" was spotted by its
forces while attempting to attack one of its outposts in Karabakh's
southeastern Martuni district.

"As a result of preventive measures, the Azerbaijani special forces
were pushed back," said the statement. "According to preliminary data,
the enemy suffered casualties. Details are being clarified."

A senior aide to Bako Sahakian, the Karabakh president, said no
Karabakh Armenian soldiers were killed or wounded as a result. "No
other extraordinary incident has occurred since then," Davit Babayan
told RFE/RL's Armenian service (Azatutyun.am).

The Azerbaijani Defense Ministry was quick to deny the claim,
however. According to the APA news agency, it said that Azerbaijani
forces observed the ceasefire along the "line of contact" around
Karabakh and did not suffer any casualties there overnight.

The authorities in Stepanakert alleged the attempted Azerbaijani
attack hours before a small team of officials from the Organization
for Security and Cooperation in Europe monitored the ceasefire regime
at another section of the frontline lying just north of Karabakh. No
truce violations were reported from that area.

The longtime head of the OSCE monitoring mission, Andrzej Kasprzyk,
also took part in the regular monitoring. Kasprzyk met with Karabakh
Armenian leaders in Stepanakert earlier this week.

The Karabakh army had previously reported attempted Azerbaijani
incursions in June and February last year. At least five Azerbaijani
soldiers were shot dead in front of a Karabakh Armenian position in
the Martuni district in February 2017. They were detected by
night-vision surveillance devices before crossing the frontline.

Tensions on the frontlines eased considerably in the second half of
2017 amid the resumption of high-level Armenian-Azerbaijani peace
negotiations. Foreign Ministers Edward Nalbandian and Elmar
Mammadyarov of Azerbaijan held fresh talks in Poland as recently as on
January 18. Mammadyarov described them as "positive."

One of Nalbandian's deputies, Shavarsh Kocharian, suggested on
Thursday that the overnight incident reported by Stepanakert may be
connected with the talks. He said Baku is still reluctant to agree to
the expansion of Kasprzyk's team which is strongly advocated by
international mediators and Yerevan.



Russian Official Upbeat On Key Transport Deal With Georgia


Switzerland -- Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin speaks
to journalists in Geneva, 08Jun2010.

A high-ranking Russian diplomat has sounded optimistic about the
opening in the near future of new transport corridors between Georgia
and Russia that would facilitate cargo shipments to and from Armenia.

Most of Russian-Armenian trade is currently carried out through the
sole Russian-Georgian border crossing at Upper Lars. Traffic along
that mountainous road is frequently blocked by blizzards in winter
months.

The two other roads connecting Georgia and Russia pass through the
breakaway Georgian regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. They were
closed even before the 2008 Russian-Georgian war and Moscow's ensuing
recognition of both regions as independent states.

In 2011, Moscow and Tbilisi agreed to hire a Swiss company to operate
special customs checkpoints to be set up on the administrative
boundaries of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Despite their lingering
political disagreements, the two sides seem to have slowly but
steadily made progress towards the implementation of that
agreement. The Georgian government signed a relevant contract with the
Swiss company, SGS, on December 19.

In an interview with the Moscow daily "Kommersant" published on
Thursday, Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin said Moscow
will likely follow suit "in the coming months." "After that the
agreement will work," Karasin said. It will give "powerful impetus" to
regional trade, he said.

Karasin, who is Russia's top negotiator in regular contacts with
Georgian officials, confirmed that Armenia is keenly interested in
such an arrangement and has asked the Russians to work it out with
Georgia. "But in this case, we are talking about a purely bilateral
agreement between Russia and Georgia concluded with Swiss mediation,"
added the diplomat.

Armenian leaders have repeatedly expressed hope that the 2011
Russian-Georgian deal will be implemented. President Serzh Sarkisian
most probably discussed the matter with Georgian Prime Minister Giorgi
Kvirikashvili when he visited Tbilisi late last month.

Kvirikashvili said earlier in December that his government is ready to
allow Armenia as well as Turkey and other countries to use, in case of
a "force majeure situation," the road passing through South Ossetia.



European Court Reports Sharp Drop In Appeals From Armenia


FRANCE -- The building of the European Court of Human Rights n
Strasbourg, France, 

The number of appeals filed by Armenians in the European Court of
Human Rights (ECHR) fell by more than half last year, the
Strasbourg-based tribunal said on Thursday.

"For Armenia, 356 new applications were received by the Court, less
than 50 percent as compared to 753 new applications in 2016," the ECHR
said in an annual report presented by its president, Guido Raimondi,
at a news conference.

The sharp drop contrasts with a 19 percent rise in applications
received by the ECHR from citizens of all Council of Europe member
states. They totaled 63,350 in 2017.

Armenia fell under the European court's jurisdiction when it joined
the Council of Europe in 2001. Its government lost the first case in
Strasbourg in 2007.

The ECHR has ruled against various Armenian government, judicial and
law-enforcement bodies on 79 occasions since then, costing them about
1 million euros ($1.2 million) in damages. "The highest number of
violations related to the right to a fair trial, and right to liberty
and security," says its report.

The ECHR handed down 11 rulings against the Armenian state in
2017. "For Armenia, there are 1,819 applications pending # Armenia is
thus within the top-ten states by the number of pending applications,"
it said.

The large number of lawsuits reflects a lack of judicial independence
and widespread corruption among law-enforcement officers and judges in
Armenia. Armenian courts are still mistrusted by many citizens despite
having undergone frequent structural changes in the last two
decades. They rarely acquit criminal suspects and usually allow their
pre-trial arrests sought by prosecutors.

Armenia's former Prosecutor-General Gevorg Kostanian warned last year
that law-enforcement authorities' long-running practice of routinely
keeping suspects in custody may put them at odds with the
ECHR. Kostanian, who now represents Armenia in the ECHR, said that the
Strasbourg-based court has adopted stricter requirements for pre-trial
arrests.



Press Review



Commenting to President Serzh Sarkisian's latest trip to Strasbourg,
"Aravot" says the Council of Europe is not the best place for publicly
discussing the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. "The Council of Europe is
not a platform for resolving conflicts," writes the paper. "The
mission of that organization is to ensure consolidation and
cooperation around European values. That is not quite working out
right now, including due to the organization's internal problems # But
the main reason is that many countries, including Armenia and
Azerbaijan, start settling scores during sessions of its Parliamentary
Assembly (PACE). Of course, that is usually initiated by the
Azerbaijani delegation, which is what happened yesterday."

"Zhamanak" comments on Sarkisian's speech delivered at the PACE. "On
one hand, Sarkisian aimed covert accusations at the PACE, reminding it
of the disgrace of [Azerbaijani] caviar diplomacy and some rulings
handed by the European Courts of Human Rights having to do with the
Karabakh conflict," says the paper. At the same time, it says,
Sarkisian told the PACE that he managed to bring Armenia closer to the
European Union even after Yerevan joined the Russian-led Eurasian
Economic Union (EEU).

"Hraparak" says that Sarkisian's visit to France coincided with Prime
Minister Karen Karapetian's participation in the World Economic Forum
in Davos, Switzerland. Both men have held many meetings in the last
few days. "It's hard to tell what exactly Armenia will gain from those
meetings," comments the paper. "But at any rate, it is nice to see
that we are not a country pushed into a Caucasus impasse and burdened
by the intractable Karabakh conflict and that our leaders meet and
speak to world leaders on equal terms."

"Zhoghovurd" reports that Russia has delivered a fresh batch of
military equipment to Azerbaijan. The paper speculates that
Russian-Azerbaijani military cooperation "gained new momentum" after
Armenia signed the Comprehensive and Enhanced Partnership Agreement
(CEPA) with the EU in November. It calls the latest shipment of
Russian weapons to Baku "yet another indirect reaction to
Armenian-European cooperation" from Moscow.

(Tigran Avetisian)


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