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 Copyright (c) 2018 Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, Inc. 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036. www.rferl.org