Thursday,
Pashinian Urges End To Continuing Protests
Armenia - Taxi drivers block a street section near the Prime Minister's Office
in Yerevan, .
Nikol Pashinian on Thursday called for an immediate end to road closures and
other street protests which continued across Armenia even after he was elected
prime minister last week.
Groups of citizens blocked streets and highways in Yerevan and other parts of
the country and demonstrated outside government buildings in recent days. They
included Pashinian supporters demanding the resignation of Yerevan Mayor Taron
Markarian, parents of schoolchildren angry with their allegedly corrupt
principals, taxi drivers protesting against traffic fines and milk farmers
seeking higher purchasing prices from dairy companies.
Traffic through one of the city’s main thoroughfares, Arshakuniats Avenue, has
been blocked on a daily basis by dozens of other people demanding the release
of jailed members of a radical opposition group that launched a deadly attack
on a Yerevan police station in 2016. The leader of the gunmen currently
standing trial, Varuzhan Avetisian, on Wednesday blasted Pashinian’s apparent
reluctance to try to have them freed.
Pashinian, who himself organized such “civil disobedience” actions during his
successful campaign for regime change, appealed to the protesters in a Facebook
live broadcast.
“Now that there is a government in Armenia which took over with a popular
mandate and for solving the people’s problems it is not quite understandable,
to be honest, that we block roads and take other civil disobedience actions on
a daily basis,” he said. “Who are we disobeying? … Ourselves? I don’t think
it’s a right approach.”
“I am calling on everyone to stop all civil disobedience actions from 3 p.m.
today. But I’m not calling on you to go home and just sit there and come to
terms with your problems,” he said, urging disgruntled Armenians to submit
their grievances to his government in writing. The government needs time to
address them, he added.
“If I don’t enjoy the people’s trust, please let me know. If I do, then let us
turn that trust into concrete results in a normal working regime,” stressed the
former protest leader who drew huge crowds last month to force Prime Minister
and former President Serzh Sarkisian into resignation.
Pashinian also stressed that his appeal is addressed to those citizens who do
not follow the “logic of sabotage” against his cabinet which met for the first
time earlier in the day.
Armenia -- Opposition leader Levon Ter-Petrosian (C) with Nikol Pashinian (R)
and Sasun Mikaelian at Liberty Square in Yerevan, 31 May, 2011.
The video appeal came just a few hours after another ex-president, Levon
Ter-Petrosian, expressed serious concern at the protests, saying that they are
threatening to undercut Pashinian even if their participants have largely
legitimate demands. Ter-Petrosian said the street closures, blockades of
government buildings, strikes and other disruptive actions could help
Sarkisian’s Republican Party (HHK) “sabotage” the work of the new government.
“In Armenia there has emerged an extraordinary situation where the state
apparatus could simply fall apart and condemn the country to complete chaos,”
he warned in an article published on Ilur.am.
Pashinian, 42, was a prominent and influential member of Ter-Petrosian’s
opposition movement which nearly brought to the ex-president back to power in
2008. The two men fell out bitterly in 2012.
Up until last week, Ter-Petrosian seemed to have serious misgivings about
Pashinian’s rise to power. But he has since signaled support for his erstwhile
ally. On Thursday, Ter-Petrosian described the regime change in Armenia as a
“great victory” and said Pashinian has already earned a “worthy place in
Armenian history.”
Armenia Hails Free-Trade Deal Between Eurasian Union, Iran
• Sargis Harutyunyan
Armenia - A newly established free economic zone on the Armenian-Iranian border
near Meghri, 15Dec2017.
Armenia’s new government welcomed the signing on Thursday of a provisional
free-trade agreement between Iran and the Russian-led Eurasian Economic Union
(EEU), saying that it should boost Armenian-Iranian trade.
The deal signed in Kazakhstan’s capital Astana will be valid for the next three
years. It will abolish or lower import duties in Iran’s trade with Russia,
Armenia and three other ex-Soviet states making up the trade bloc. The
signatories pledged to work out a permanent free-trade arrangement during the
three-year period.
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian said the terms of the deal “fully”
reflect Armenia’s national interests. “We hope that it will stimulate our
commercial ties [with Iran,]” he told reporters. “It opens up opportunities. We
hope to utilize those opportunities in full.”
Pashinian and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani stressed the significance of the
trade accord when they spoke by phone at the weekend.
Minister for Economic Development Artsvik Minasian said, for his part, that the
deal also puts Armenia in a better position to serve as a transit route for
commercial operations between Iran and other EEU member states. “This is also
an opportunity to manufacture some products in the Meghri free-trade zone,” he
told RFE/RL’s Armenian service (Azatutyun.am).
The minister referred to a tax haven which was set up near Meghri, an Armenian
town on the Iranian border, last December. Businesses operating there are
exempt from virtually all types of taxes. They are allowed to engage in not
only manufacturing but also trade, cargo transport and even tourism.
Minasian’s predecessor, Suren Karayan, predicted at the time that between 50
and 70 firms will set up shop in the zone in the coming years. He said their
combined output will likely increase Armenia’s exports by around $250 million
annually.
According to official Armenian statistics, Armenian-Iranian trade stood at a
modest $263 million last year. Armenian exports to Iran accounted for only
about one-third of that turnover. Armenian manufacturers have long complained
that the Islamic Republic’sprotectionist policies severely limit their access
to the Iranian market.
The Astana agreement was signed just days after the United States decided to
re-impose economic sanctions on Tehran after controversially pulling out of a
2015 international agreement on the Iranian nuclear program.
Minasian refused to be drawn on the possible impact of the U.S. move on
Iranian-Armenian commercial ties. “We have not yet looked into that issue,” he
said.
Armenian Tax Chief Resigns
Armenia - Vartan Harutiunian, head of the State Revenue Committee, speaks at an
Armenian parliament committee in Yerevan, 27Jun2017.
In a move clearly related to regime change in Armenia, the head of the
country’s State Revenue Committee (SRC), Vartan Harutiunian, resigned on
Thursday after 18 months in office marked by improved tax collection.
The resignation was announced and accepted at a cabinet meeting in Yerevan
chaired by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian. He said Harutiunian informed him
about his decision to step down when they met the previous evening.
“We decided by mutual consent that that decision will be made at today’s
government’s meeting,” Pashinian told ministers. He thanked Harutiunian for his
work and announced that the SRC will now be run by Deputy Finance Minister
Davit Ananian.
Harutiunian is a figure very close to former Prime Minister Karen Karapetian.
In line with Karapetian’s economic reform agenda, he pledged to crack down on
widespread tax evasion and corruption among tax officials after being named to
run the SRC in October 2016.
The International Monetary Fund praised the Armenian authorities’ “efforts to
improve tax administration” already in June 2017.
The improvement was particularly visible in the Armenian customs service, which
has long been reputed to be one of the country’s most corrupt government
agencies. Import duties collected by it soared by over 23 percent last year.
The total amount of taxes and customs duties collected by the SRC rose by more
than 7 percent in 2017, helping the government to cut the state budget deficit
to 3.3 percent of GDP. The SRC reported an even faster rise in state revenue in
the first quarter of this year.
Incidentally, it was Karapetian who appointed Harutiunian’s successor, Davit
Ananian, as deputy finance minister in October 2016. According to his official
biography, Ananian, 46, worked as a tax inspector in the 1990s and ran a
private tax and accounting consultancy from 2006-2016.
Press Review
“Haykakan Zhamanak” is concerned about a continuing wave of nationwide protests
by people voicing mainly voicing socioeconomic demands. The paper suspects that
the protests are not spontaneous. It argues that Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian
has been in the job for less than two weeks and should be given much more time
to address their grievances.
“A new and dangerous tradition is taking hold in Armenia, with democracy
threatening to turn into anarchy,” writes “Zhoghovurd.” “People are now trying
to solve their problems by closing streets and thereby paralyzing traffic. They
are using the same methods that Nikol Pashinian used against the HHK and
achieved success.” The paper says these methods are no longer justified as they
could lead to “mob rule.”
“Hayots Ashkhar” also comments on the protests, saying that they will
eventually hit Pashinian “like a boomerang.” “The man chosen by the people has
fueled numerous, including obviously excessive, expectations among the people,”
writes the paper. “And so now comes the time to live up to those expectations
and make good on promises to effect radical changes in a short of period.”
“The United States is intent on working with Armenia’s new government
especially considering that Russia’s non-inference in developments has created
a chance to slightly weaken Russia’s influence in the South Caucasus,” Paul
Goble, a U.S. commentator, tells “168 Zham.”
(Tigran Avetisian)
Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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