Friday, Armenian Utility Said To Cut Energy Price For Poor Families • Sargis Harutyunyan Armenia - A newly refurbished energy distribution facility in Gyumri, 13Sep2014. Armenia’s national electric utility has promised a 25 percent reduction in the price of electricity supplied by it to low-income families, Energy Minister Artur Grigorian announced on Friday. Grigorian said the Electricity Networks of Armenia (ENA) operator agreed to the price cut as a result of “negotiations” held with the Armenian Ministry of Energy Infrastructures and Natural Resources. The tariff will go down “at the expense of ENA’s profits” and cost the company 2 billion drams ($4.1 million) in annual revenue, he said. Speaking after a weekly cabinet meeting in Yerevan, the minister told reporters that the discount will apply to at least 110,000 families and most probably take effect on July 1. He insisted that ENA was not pressurized by the government into cutting the tariff. The daytime electricity price for poor households is currently set at 40 drams (over 8 U.S. cents) per kilowatt/hour. It will fall to 30 drams per kilowatt/hour, according to Grigorian. ENA declined to immediately confirm this information. The utility is owned by the Tashir Group of Russian-Armenian billionaire Samvel Karapetian. Tashir seems to have significantly reduced ENA’s massive losses since purchasing the debt-ridden company from a state-run Russian energy giant, Inter RAO, in 2015. It has also pledged to make substantial capital investments in the aging power distribution network. During the cabinet meeting, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian told Grigorian to continue exploring possibilities of also cutting the electricity price for the rest of the country’s population. It currently pays almost 45 drams per kilowatt/hour. Grigorian cited “a number of risks” complicating an across-the-board price cut. In particular, he argued that the nuclear power plant at Metsamor will be brought to a halt soon for prolonged capital repairs designed to extend the life of its sole reactor. Armenia will have to rely on more expensive energy generated by natural gas during the stoppage. The energy minister also pointed out that a Russian-Armenian agreement on the price of Russian natural gas supplied to Armenia expires at the end of this year. He thus did not exclude that the gas price will be raised next year. Pashinian Calls For ‘New Impetus’ To Armenian-Iranian Ties • Emil Danielyan Armenia - Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian (R) meets with Iranian Ambassador Seyed Kazem Sajjad in Yerevan, 8 June 2018. Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian reaffirmed on Friday his government’s stated intention to maintain and even deepen Armenia’s cordial relations with neighboring Iran. “We will make utmost efforts to further develop bilateral partnership,” Pashinian told the Iranian ambassador in Yerevan, Seyed Kazem Sajjad. “We are interested in giving new impetus to Armenian-Iranian ties on the basis of mutual interests,” he said in remarks publicized by his press office. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani likewise called for closer ties between the two nations when he phoned Pashinian a week after the latter was elected Armenia’s prime minister on May 8. An official Armenian readout of the phone call said the two leaders agreed to “further deepen mutually beneficial partnership in all areas.” A statement by Pashinian’s office said the Armenian premier and Sajjad discussed the implementation of bilateral energy projects, including the ongoing construction of a new power transmission line and long-standing plans to build a hydroelectric plant on the Armenian-Iranian border. It said they also touched upon broader commercial ties, with the Iranian ambassador stressing the importance Iran’s provisional free-trade agreement with the Russian-led Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) signed last month. Pashinian was quick to hail that deal, saying that it “fully” reflects Armenia’s national interests. “We hope that it will stimulate our commercial ties [with Iran,]” he told reporters on May 17. Iran - An Iranian honor guard displays Iranian and Armenian national flags at an official ceremony in Tehran, 7 August 2017. Armenian manufacturers have long complained that the Islamic Republic’s protectionist policies severely limit their access to the Iranian market. According to official Armenian statistics, Armenian-Iranian trade stood at a modest $263 million last year. The authorities in Yerevan hope that a free economic zone created near Meghri, an Armenian town on the Iranian border, last December will also boost it significantly. The Iran-EEU deal was signed just days after the United States decided to re-impose economic sanctions on Tehran after pulling out of a 2015 international agreement on the Iranian nuclear program. Rouhani and Pashinian reportedly discussed implications of U.S. President Donald Trump’s controversial move. In its comprehensive policy program approved by the Armenian parliament on Thursday, Pashinian’s government pledged to seek the kind of “special relationship” with Iran which would be “immune to other geopolitical influences as much as possible.” The program says Armenia will at the same time seek to bolster its “friendly partnership” with the U.S. Due to the unresolved Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and the resulting closure of Armenia’s borders with Azerbaijan and Turkey, Iran has long been one of the landlocked country’s two commercial conduits to the outside world. Successive Armenian governments have therefore been keen to maintain a warm rapport with Tehran. Arrested Yerevan Protesters Set Free • Tatev Danielian Armenia - Rresidents of Sari Tagh neighborhood of Yerevan clash with riot police, 19 July 2016 Five residents of a Yerevan neighborhood who clashed with riot police during a hostage crisis in 2016 have been released from custody. The Sari Tagh neighborhood overlooks a police base in the city’s Erebuni district which was seized by radical opposition gunmen demanding the resignation of then President Serzh Sarkisian and the release of the leader of their Founding Parliament movement, Zhirayr Sefilian. Three police officers were killed before the gunmen laid down their weapons at the end of a two-week standoff with Armenian security forces. During the standoff several dozen male residents of Sari Tagh protested against a police blockage of roads leading to their blue-collar neighborhood imposed for security reasons. They also voiced support for the armed oppositionists holed up in the Erebuni police facility. The protesters clashed with police officers deployed in Sari Tagh in July 2016. Ten of them were subsequently arrested and charged with assaulting law-enforcement officers, a crime punishable by between 5 and 10 years in prison. They went on trial last year, denying any wrongdoing. A Yerevan court on Thursday agreed to free one of the defendants pending the outcome of the continuing trial. Four other defendants were set free on Friday. One of them, Harutiun Torosian, attributed their release to the recent change of government in Armenia. He also said that he will continue to plead not guilty to the accusations. Relatives and lawyers of the five other defendants hope that they too will be set free in the coming days. Ex-Aide Regrets Obama’s Failure To Recognize Armenian Genocide • Artak Hambardzumian Armenia - Samantha Power (C), the former U.S ambassador to the UN, visits the Armenian genocide memorial in Yerevan, 8 June 2018. (Photo courtesy of www.auroraprize.com) Samantha Power, a former special adviser to President Barack Obama, on Friday expressed regret at his failure to ensure an official U.S. recognition of the 1915 Armenian genocide in Ottoman Turkey during his tenure. Speaking to RFE/RL’s Armenian service (Azatutyun.am) in Yerevan, Power said Obama did not honor a key election campaign pledge because he did not want to jeopardize a rapprochement between Armenia and Turkey and feared that Ankara could obstruct U.S. efforts to defeat the Islamic State extremist group. Power, who advised Obama on foreign policy and human rights before serving as U.S. ambassador to the United States from 2013-2017, also blamed the “very volatile personality” of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Obama referred to the Armenian genocide as a “widely documented fact supported by an overwhelming body of historical evidence” when he ran for president in 2008. He said that if elected he will officially recognize the World War One-era slaughter of some 1.5 million Armenians as genocide. During that presidential race, Power famously recorded a five-minute video that urged Americans of Armenian descent to vote for Obama because of his stance on the genocide issue. “I have great regret that we did not manage to go all the way to full recognition in the way that we had promised,” Power told RFE/RL during her first-ever visit to Armenia. “I really believed going into the White House that we would.” “But in 2009, which was really the year that we would have done it right at the beginning, President Obama made clear that his view of the facts had not changed and everybody knew his view,” she said. “But he felt that the Armenian-Turkish normalization was at a very important and very fragile stage. “Then, I think, at the hundred anniversary [of the genocide in 2015,] when it would have been another opportune time to recognize, we had just been granted access to Turkish bases to fight ISIS (Islamic State).” “Turkey is a very powerful and large country that’s a NATO ally and has a lot of weight,” added the former U.S. official. “President Erdogan of course is a very volatile personality. So that also meant that some of the threats that he made were deemed more credible frankly.” Armenia - Samantha Power speaks at a panel discussion in Yerevan, 8 June 2018. Power made clear that she thinks none of these factors justified Obama’s decisions. “There is really no excuse because, as I wrote before I became a U.S. government official, there really is never a good time to do it,” she said. “There is always going to be some set of issues and equities on the other side of the argument.” Obama reportedly came very close to recognizing the genocide in an April 2015. While avoiding the politically sensitive word, he implicitly praised Pope Francis for calling the 1915 mass killings “the first genocide of the 20th century.” He also paid tribute to Henry Morgenthau, America’s World War One-era ambassador in Constantinople who tried to stop what he saw as a “campaign of race extermination.” Obama’s 2015 statement followed a reportedly heated debate within his administration. The Associated Press reported at the time that an explicit recognition of the Armenian genocide was advocated by administration officials who deal more directly with human rights issues. Power was said to be among them. Power said on Friday that the current and future U.S. administrations should follow the example of two dozen other nations and “defy the bullying that genocide deniers have done.” Asked whether she thinks President Donald Trump may do so, she said: “Trump is so volatile. Maybe we wake up one morning and there’ll be the tweet that we’ve all been waiting for: recognizing the genocide.” In any case, the former Obama administration official went on, Armenians should keep fighting for greater international recognition of the genocide. They have already made major progress in that endeavor, she said, arguing that “there is almost nobody in any doubt around the world about the events of 1915.” Power was visiting Armenia as a new member of an international committee that will select this weekend the latest winner of an annual humanitarian award created in memory of the Armenian genocide victims. The Aurora Prize for Awakening Humanity award was established in 2015 by three prominent Diaspora Armenians: philanthropists Ruben Vardanyan and Noubar Afeyan, and Vartan Gregorian, the president of the Carnegie Corporation of New York. It is designed to honor individuals around the world who risk their lives to help others. Press Review “Zhamanak” comments on Thursday’s parliament debate on the policy program of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s government submitted to the National Assembly. The paper singles out Pashinian’s remark that he is willing to delay fresh parliamentary elections by several months in order to give other political forces a better chance of doing well in them. It welcomes this stance, while saying that Armenia has already entered a pre-election period. “Zhoghovurd” notes that the debate was marred by “cruel” and “humiliating” verbal attacks on deputies from Serzh Sarkisian’s Republican Party (HHK) launched by their colleagues from Gagik Tsarukian’s alliance. “This was certainly expected,” writes the paper. “The Tsarukian Bloc had old scores to settle with a number of Republicans. And since the HHK has lost power but is continuing to mock opponents Republicans got a riposte, a fairly cruel and humiliating.” It says that as much as they are logical such manifestations are “dangerous” and must be avoided by the new government. “Hayots Ashkhar” is unimpressed with the government program, saying that it looks more like an election campaign manifesto. “The government program starts with a glorification of the ‘velvet revolution’ in Armenia and ends with a justification for fresh parliamentary elections needed for completing it,” writes the paper. “In between them there are only general slogans regarding everyone’s equality before the law, eradication of corruption, creation of necessary conditions for people’s dignified lives and other nice wishes.” “If pre-term parliamentary elections are held then a party called the HHK will not be elected to the [new] parliament,” editorializes “Aravot.” “One should therefore not make efforts to fight against a non-existent party.” The paper says Armenia’s previous ruling parties collapsed shortly after losing power and the same fate awaits the HHK. “So the danger lies not in an HHK comeback … The danger is scarier. The political force that takes over the government after the elections, be it [Pashinian’s] Civil Contract or [Tsarukian’s] BHK, must not become a new HHK in terms of its behavior and methods. At the moment there are virtually no such indications. But … there were also no such indications in 1990-1991.” (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