Wednesday, Armenia Ready For Renewed Talks With Azerbaijan • Sargis Harutyunyan Armenia - Armenian Foreign Ministry spokesman Tigran Balayan at a news briefing in Yerevan, . Armenia stands ready to resume peace talks with Azerbaijan without preconditions after its new Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s calls for Nagorno-Karabakh’s direct involvement in them, the Foreign Ministry in Yerevan said on Tuesday. “It’s not that we are refusing negotiations,” the ministry spokesman, Tigran Balayan, told reporters. “As a guarantor of Karabakh’s security, Armenia will continue negotiations and say at the same time that Artsakh’s direct participation in them is a necessary condition for achieving a lasting and balanced peace.” During a May 9 visit to Stepanakert, Pashinian criticized Baku’s refusal to directly negotiate with Karabakh’s ethnic Armenian leadership. “This negotiation format cannot be considered full-fledged until one of the parties to the conflict, the leadership of Artsakh (Karabakh), participates in it,” he said. The Azerbaijani government rejected Pashinian’s calls, accusing Yerevan of creating an additional hurdle to reviving the peace process. Balayan insisted that the premier’s statement is not a precondition for Yerevan’s renewed contacts with Baku.“Our insistence on Artsakh’s participation [in Armenian-Azerbaijani talks] is not something new,” he said. “We have for years said and will continue to say that. It’s just that the realities have now changed … which presupposes Artsakh’s greater involvement in the negotiation process.” “Karabakh is involved in negotiations in one way or another … The problem is that Azerbaijan has for years refused to directly negotiate with Karabakh,” added the official. Balayan also said that the U.S., Russian and French mediators co-heading the OSCE Minsk Group may visit Yerevan next month for what will be their first meeting with Pashinian. The mediators met with Azerbaijan’s Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov in Paris on May 15. In a joint statement, they said they discussed with him “modalities for moving the peace process forward.” “Minister Mammadyarov expressed Azerbaijan's readiness to resume active negotiations as soon as possible,” read the statement. “The Co-Chairs expect to meet with the new Armenian leadership in June.” Deputy PM Vague On Possible Election Dates • Karlen Aslanian Armenia - First Deputy Prime Minister Ararat Mirzoyan speaks at a cabinet meeting in Yerevan, . First Deputy Prime Minister Ararat Mirzoyan on Tuesday refused to speculate about possible dates for fresh parliamentary elections sought by Armenia’s new government. “I won’t give any dates now,” he told RFE/RL’s Armenian service (Azatutyun.am). “We have said that we are going to prepare the country for pre-term elections. Pre-term elections are one of our priorities.” “But we have to prepare for that,” Mirzoyan said, citing the need to enact the kind of amendments to the Armenian Electoral Code that would facilitate the proper conduct of the vote. “We are working day and night to put those conditions in place as soon as possible because we realize that having a new political picture in the parliament through elections must be the final episode of the systemic change,” he said, referring to the Pashinian-led popular uprising that has led to regime change in the country. Pashinian and his political allies control a minority of seats in the current National Assembly. The parliament majority remains loyal to former President Serzh Sarkisian and his Republican Party of Armenia (HHK). The latter is therefore in a position to block the holding of snap elections. Pashinian said last week that he thinks the polls will be held this year. Mirzoyan was more cautious on that score. “We are now consulting with many experts in order to understand when we may be … sufficiently prepared for [the elections,]” said the vice-premier. “Different views [on election time frames] are being voiced: from six month to one year. But we obviously have deadlines and those elections must not be held in two years’ time.” New Armenian Government To Continue IMF-Backed Reforms Armenia - Finance Minister Atom Janjughazian (R) meets with Yulia Ustyugova, the IMF's resident representative to Armenia, in Yerevan, . Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s cabinet will carry on with structural reforms that were launched by the previous Armenian government and approved by the International Monetary Fund, Finance Minister Atom Janjughazian said on Tuesday. Janjughazian met with the head of the IMF office in Yerevan, Yulia Ustyugova, for the first time since being appointed as minister ten days ago. The Armenian Finance Ministry said they reviewed ongoing IMF-approved programs relating to taxation and state budgeting policy. “Atom Janjughazian assured her that the government of Armenia is committed to bringing all joint programs and initiatives to a logical conclusion,” read a ministry statement. “The minister highly appraised continuing cooperation with the International Monetary Fund and stressed the importance of expanding and strengthening it.” The IMF has praised the previous government’s efforts to strengthen fiscal discipline through sizable increases in tax revenue and budgetary cost saving. Armenia’s state budget deficit shrank from at least 5.2 percent of GDP in 2016 to 3.3 percent in 2017, according to the Finance Ministry. A senior IMF official, Hossein Samiei, indicated the fund’s readiness to allocate a fresh loan to Armenia at the end of a two-week visit to Yerevan in late March. Samiei met with then Prime Minister Karen Karapetian, Janjughazian’s predecessor Vartan Aramian and other senior Armenian officials. An IMF statement said they held “productive discussions” on the government’s economic policies. Janjughazian, 47, is one of the most experienced technocratic members of the new Armenian cabinet. He served as a deputy finance minister and head of the Armenian state treasury for nearly two decades preceding his ministerial appointment. Pashinian’s cabinet is expected to submit a comprehensive policy program to the parliament next month. So far it has signaled no plans to revise the state budget for this year which was drafted by Karapetian’s government. Jailed Oppositionists Warn Pashinian Armenia - Varuzhan Avetisian (L), the leader an armed opposition group that seized a police station in July 2016, at the start of his trial in Yerevan, 8Jun2017. The jailed leaders of a radical opposition group on Tuesday urged Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian to ensure the quick release of their supporters who stormed a police station in 2016, warning that their continued imprisonment could have “severe consequences” for Armenia. In an open letter, Zhirayr Sefilian and Varuzhan Avetisian criticized Pashinian for his reluctance to pressurize courts and law-enforcement bodies into freeing these and other “political prisoners.” “So far one has been left with the impression that you have washed your hands and are urging the political prisoners and other citizens to count on a miraculous spiritual and moral transformation of criminal prosecutors and judges,” they said. Sefilian is the top leader of the Founding Parliament movement who was arrested in June 2016 and subsequently sentenced to 10.5 years in prison for plotting an armed revolt against the government, a charge he strongly denies. Sefilian’s arrest came less than a month before three dozen Founding Parliament members led by Avetisian seized a police base in Yerevan to demand his release and then President Serzh Sarkisian’s resignation. The armed group calling itself Sasna Tsrer laid down its weapons after a two-week standoff with security forces, which left three police officers dead. Its members are currently standing three separate trials. Armenia - Opposition leader Zhirayr Sefilian waves to supporters at the end of his trial in Yerevan, 20 March 2018. Pashinian pledged to seek the release of all “political prisoners” immediately after he swept to power in a democratic revolution earlier this month. But he made clear that he will use solely legal mechanisms for that purpose. Pashinian has publicly listed Sefilian but not Avetisian and other jailed gunmen among the individuals who he believes were jailed for political reasons. He said last week that the Sasna Tsrer case is “a bit different” because of the three police casualties. He said it will be resolved as a result of public “discussions” that must involve relatives of the three slain policemen. Avetisian condemned Pashinian’s remarks as “buffoonery” and “false humanism” on May 16. He again strongly defended the 2016 attack, saying that casualties are inevitable during such “rebellions.” “If the political prisoners, including the Sasna Tsrer members, remain in jail, that will be fraught with severe consequences for our country and the revolution,” Avetisian and Sefilian warned in their letter to Pashinian. “Of course, it is good that you reject in principle ‘telephone’ justice,” they said. “But the supremacy of law has a value and meaning only if it serves the supremacy of rights. Therefore, while rejecting that illegal option of direct control, you can and must use all available legitimate levers of indirect leadership to change the atmosphere in the prosecutor’s office and courts … and guarantee fair decisions by them.” The 2016 attack on the Yerevan police base was condemned by the United States and the European Union. “We abhor the actions of Sasna Tsrer and others who use violence or who threaten to harm others to serve their political agenda,” Richard Mills, the U.S. ambassador to Armenia, said as recently as in March. Press Review “Zhamanak” describes as unprecedented the weekend pledge by the new head of Armenia’s National Security Service (NSS), Artur Vanetsian, to expose and hold accountable individuals who have embezzled large amounts of public funds. “They have spoken about fighting corruption for many years, including at the highest [government] level,” writes the paper. “But never before has an NSS chief announced very concrete revelations and given very clear timelines. On the other hand, such statements should not come as a surprise because there has been a revolution in Armenia.” “Haykakan Zhamanak” says that the Armenian government is supposed to complete on July 1 the gradual introduction of a new and controversial pension system which began four years ago. The paper notes that the new Labor and Social Affairs Minister Mande Tandilian was one of the leaders of a pressure group that campaigned against the pension reform from the outset. It believes that the new system is essential for Armenia given its aging and shrinking population. “The question is whether it must be optional or mandatory and where and how payments to pension funds must be accumulated,” it says. “Aravot” says Tandilian now realizes that “state interests require the introduction of that system in one way or another.” The paper says her apparent change of heart on the issue is “very natural” and reflects “the new government’s sense of responsibility.” Interviewed by “168 Zham,” Vladimir Yevseyev, a Russian military analyst, comments on Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev’s threats to strike “any military target” in Armenia from Azerbaijan’s Nakhichevan exclave. “This is what the joint Russian-Armenian military contingent was set up for: to secure that section of the [Armenian-Azerbaijani] border and deter Turkey, which has gained a foothold in Nakhichevan,” he says. “I can say for certain that given the existing Russian-Turkish relations it is hard to imagine threats to Armenia emanating from this border section because any provocation against Armenia would be regarded as a move against Russia.” (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