Friday, March 2, 2018

New Armenian President Elected


 . Ruzanna Stepanian


Armenia - President Serzh Sarkisian (R) meets with former Prime
Minister Armen Sarkissian in Yerevan, 16 February 2017.

The Armenian parliament voted on Friday to elect Armen Sarkissian, a
former prime minister who has long resided in Britain, Armenia's new
and largely ceremonial president.

Sarkissian was nominated for the post by the outgoing President Serzh
Sarkisian (no relation) and the ruling Republican Party of Armenia
(HHK) in January. He was also endorsed by the HHK's junior coalition
partner, the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (Dashnaktsutyun), and
businessman Gagik Tsarukian's alliance, which is officially in
opposition to the government.

The opposition Yelk alliance, the fourth political group represented
in the National Assembly, has rejected Sarkissian's candidacy. Yelk,
which holds 9 seats in the 105-member parliament, has also questioned
his eligibility to serve as head of state.

Sarkissian was elected in secret ballot by 90 votes to 10. He gave a
short speech in the parliament moments after the announcement of the
vote results.

"I want to thank those who voted for me and those who voted against
me," he said. "I will invest my long experience and knowledge and my
entire energy in properly performing the duties of Armenia's president
and properly serving the Republic of Armenia, its citizens and our
people."

"And I certainly expect your and our citizens' support for and
participation in our future important victories," added the
president-elect.

Only seven Yelk deputies cast ballots on Friday, suggesting that three
other lawmakers affiliated with the HHK, Dashnaktsutyun or the
Tsarukian Bloc secretly broke ranks to vote against Serzh Sarkisian's
preferred successor. It was not clear who they are.

Yelk's parliamentary leader, Nikol Pashinian was quick to pounce on
that fact. He declared with sarcasm that there are "hidden Yelk
members" in the ruling party's ranks.

Armen Sarkissian will be sworn in on April 9 immediately after Serzh
Sarkisian completes his second and final term in office.

The outgoing president is widely expected to become prime minister
later in April. With Armenia switching to a parliamentary system of
government, he would remain the country's most powerful man in that
case.

Under sweeping constitutional changes controversially enacted by Serzh
Sarkisian, the new president of the republic will have largely
ceremonial powers. In particular, he will appoint members of the
government, Armenian ambassadors abroad and the Armenian army's top
brass. But all of those officials will have to be nominated by the
prime minister first.


Britain - Prince Charles and former Armenian Prime Minister Armen
Sarkissian at a fundraising gala in London.

Sarkissian, 64, has repeatedly stated in recent weeks that despite the
lack of executive powers he intends to play a major role in Armenia's
political and economic life. He has pledged, among other things, to
strive to heal what he sees as serious divisions existing within the
Armenian society.

A physicist and mathematician by education, Sarkissian worked at the
Cambridge University when he was appointed as newly independent
Armenia's first ambassador to the United Kingdom in 1991. He served as
prime minister for four months in 1996-1997 before being again named
ambassador in London.

His second ambassadorial stint was cut short in 1999 by then President
Robert Kocharian. Sarkissian stayed in Britain and made a fortune
there in the following decade, working as an advisor and middleman for
Western corporations doing business in the former Soviet Union. He was
appointed as Armenian ambassador to Britain for a third time in 2013.



Georgian PM Visits Armenia


 . Sargis Harutyunyan


Armenia - Armenian Prime Minister Karen Karapetian (R) and his
Georgian counterpart Giorgi Kvirikashvili are pictured after holding
talks in Yerevan, 2 March 2018.

Georgian Prime Minister Giorgi Kvirikashvili met with Armenia's
leaders on Friday during an official visit to Yerevan which focused on
economic issues, including energy and transport.

"We discussed both our bilateral relations and regional issues,"
Armenian Prime Minister Karen Karapetian said after talks with
Kvirikashvili.

"We spoke about possible areas of our cooperation," Karapetian told a
joint news briefing. "That includes the Meghri free economic zone [on
the Armenian-Iranian border.] We spoke in detail and will continue to
talk later today and agreed how we will be moving forward in the
energy and transport sectors."

"We can conclude we have emerged from the negotiations in a fairly
good mood," he added.

Kvirikashvili also mentioned the two areas of Georgian-Armenian
economic cooperation but, like Karapetian, did not give any
details. "We should utilize our economic potential and I think that
our meeting today will contribute to that," he said in his opening
remarks at the talks.

The Georgian premier met with President Serzh Sarkisian later in the
day.

An Armenian government statement on Karapetian's talks with
Kvirikashvili said the two men stressed the importance of "developing
energy cooperation in bilateral and multilateral formats." Armenia is
currently building new electricity transmission lines that will
connect it to Georgia and Iran. They are due to be completed next
year.

Kvirikashvili most probably also discussed in Yerevan the possible
opening 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. 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 a Swiss company on December 19. A senior Russian diplomat said in
January that Moscow will likely follow suit "in the coming months."

Armenian leaders have repeatedly expressed hope that the 2011
Russian-Georgian deal will be implemented.



Russia's Putin Congratulates Armenian President-Elect


Russia - President Vladimir Putin greets his Armenian counterpart
Serzh Sarkisian in Moscow, 15 November 2017.

Russian President Vladimir Putin promptly congratulated Armen
Sarkissian on being elected Armenia's new president on Friday.

In a congratulatory message reported by the Kremlin, Putin expressed
confidence that Sarkissian will contribute to a "further development"
of Russian-Armenian relations and "deepening of Eurasian integration
to the benefit of the brotherly peoples of the two countries."

Sarkissian has avoided detailed public statements on foreign policy
issues since being nominated for president by the outgoing President
Serzh Sarkisian in January. But he did stress the economic importance
of Armenia's membership in the Russian-led Eurasian Economic Union
(EEU) when he addressed the parliament on Thursday.

"Armenia joined the EEU, which is an important and significant fact
for the simple reason that a republic of three million people cannot
be of much interest to a large investor," said the 64-year-old former
scholar. Tariff-free access to the markets in Russia and other EEU
member states makes Armenia far more attractive to investors, he
added.

Sarkissian, who has lived in Britain for nearly three decades, at the
same time praised Armenia's Comprehensive and Enhanced Partnership
Agreement (CEPA) with the European Union signed in November.

Since the early 2000s the Armenian president-elect has advised major
Western corporations on doing business in Russia, Kazakhstan and other
ex-Soviet states.

Under Armenia's recently amended constitution, Sarkissian will have
largely ceremonial powers. He will be able, among other things, to
sign international treaties recommended by the Armenian government.



Government Criticized For Not Funding More IT Labs In Armenian Schools


 . Marine Khachatrian


Armenia - Schoolchildren in Yerevan participate in the annual Hour of
Code event designed to introduce them to computer programming, 10
December 2017.

An Armenian information technology (IT) association criticized the
government on Friday for not financing more engineering labs in public
schools, saying that they are essential for continued rapid growth
Armenia's IT sector.

The Union of Information Technology Enterprises (UITE) began
organizing extracurricular robotics and computer programming courses
for schoolchildren in 2008. More than 5,000 students currently study
at the UITE's Armath labs functioning in 225 schools across the
country. They are equipped with computers, robot parts and 3D printers
provided by IT firms and other private donors.

Most labs have been opened since 2014. IT instructors running 160 of
them are paid by the government. The UITE pays the wages of their
colleagues working in the other schools.

"These 65 labs are a major financial burden: around 60 million drams
($125,000) a year," the UITE chairman, Karen Vartanian, told RFE/RL's
Armenian service (Azatutyun.am). "If we keep doing that on our own we
will go bankrupt." He said in that in an effort to earn some revenue
and keep the funding them, UITE has teamed up with an Indian tech
company to open Armath labs in schools in India.


Armenia - Schoolchildren take part in a robotics contest in Yerevan,
16 April 2016.
Vartanian lambasted the Armenian government for not increasing its
funding for the Armath program which he said currently totals 120
million drams ($250,000) annually. He insisted that the labs are
helping to alleviate a shortage of skilled personnel widely seen as
the main challenge facing the Armenian tech industry.

IT is the fastest growing sector of Armenia's economy, having expanded
by over 20 percent annually in the past decade. Local subsidiaries of
several U.S. tech giants are a key component of the sector employing
about 15,000 mostly young engineers.

Industry executives and analysts say the sector would have grown even
faster had the quality of education at IT departments of Armenian
universities been adequate.


Armenia - Georgian Prime Minister Giorgi Kvirikashvili (C) visits the
Tumo Center for Creative Technologies in Yerevan, 2 March 2018.

According to the UITE, many of the students taking IT courses in the
Armath labs will be skilled enough to work for tech firms right after
finishing school. The union had originally hoped to open such labs in
all 1,400 or so Armenian schools by 2018.

Thousands of other Armenian schoolchildren are enrolled in Yerevan's
Tumo Center for Creative Technologies, mainly studying computer
programming, robotics and animation. The state-of-the-art center was
founded by U.S.-Armenian philanthropist Sam Simonian in 2011 and has
since opened several branches in other parts of the country.



Press Review



"Haykakan Zhamanak" sees a "very serious legal problem" with Armen
Sarkissian's eligibility to serve as Armenia's president. The paper
says he has failed to prove that he has not been a citizen of Britain
or any other foreign state for the past six years. It says he could
have easily dispelled all doubts by producing an official British
document confirming his claims that he gave up British citizenship in
2011.

"Ever since the coup d' tat of 1998 Armenia's presidents have been
elected with blatant violations of the constitution," writes
"Zhoghovurd." "Robert Kocharian lacked 10-year citizenship required by
the constitution as he had not permanently lived in Armenia [that
long.] The same happened in the case of Serzh Sarkisian. Under Article
78 of the constitution state all officials except the president of the
republic must be relieved of their duties when they are registered as
presidential election candidates. But contrary to this requirement,
then Prime Minister Serzh Sarkisian continued his tenure at that time
[in 2007-2008.] And now there is a problem with Armen Sarkissian."

"Chorrord Ishkhanutyun" mocks statements by senior members of the
ruling Republican Party (HHK) that Serzh Sarkisian will have to become
prime minister even against his will if the HHK leadership wants him
to. "It looks like a national front will be formed to liberate Serzh
Sarkisian from his own party's tight grp," the paper says with
sarcasm. "The party elite is forcing the poor guy to do various bad
things against his will. If we regard the party as something like a
family, we must conclude that Serzh Sarkisian is subjected to domestic
violence."

"Hraparak" says that nothing will change in Armenian politics in the
near future. "In the coming years we will be seeing the same figures
whose positions will have slightly different names but will retain the
same functions," the paper predicts grimly. "Our influence on the
formation of the country's governments has been reduced to a minimum,"
it claims.

(Hovannes Movsisian)


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