Thursday,
Yerevan Officials Arrested In Corruption Inquiry
• Tatevik Lazarian
Armenia -- NSS officers confiscate documents from Yerevan's municipal
administration bulding, .
Two senior local government officials in Yerevan were arrested on Thursday as
the National Security Service (NSS) continued a criminal investigation into a
municipal fund overseen by Mayor Taron Markarian.
The arrested officials are Ashot Ghazarian, the executive director of the
Yerevan Fund, and Khachatur Kirakosian, the deputy head of the city’s
Davitashen district.
The NSS would not say whether criminal charges have already been levelled
against them. “An investigation is underway and further information will be
provided,” a spokesman for the law-enforcement agency, Samson Galtsian, told
RFE/RL’s Armenian service (Azatutyun.am).
The arrests were made the day after NSS officers searched the offices of the
Yerevan Fund located in the main municipal administration building. They
confiscated many documents kept there.
An ensuing NSS statement said two individuals were recently forced to make
hefty payments to the Yerevan Fund in return for receiving construction permits
from the municipality. It said a part of the “large amounts” of cash paid by
them was pocketed by corrupt officials.
Mayor Markarian is the chairman of the fund’s board of trustees. His deputies
as well as other senior municipal officials also sit on the board.
Markarian’s spokesman, Artur Gevorgian, downplayed this fact following the NSS
raid.
“I have not spoken with the mayor on this subject,” Galstian said on Thursday,
commenting on the arrests. “In any case, the mayor has always stood for
objective investigations and non-interference in the actions of law-enforcement
bodies.”
Markarian came under pressure to step down after mass protests brought down in
late April Armenia’s former government headed by Serzh Sarkisian. He is a
senior member of Sarkisian’s Republican Party of Armenia (HHK). The protest
leader, Nikol Pashinian, took over as the country’s new prime minister on May 8.
Even before the change of government, senior members of Pashinian’s Civil
Contract party alleged that the municipal administration may be extorting
illegal payments to the Yerevan Fund in return for various services provided to
businesses or citizens. Two of them sued the fund in March after it refused to
disclose its donors.
Mediators Discuss High-Level Armenian-Azeri Talks
• Heghine Buniatian
• Ruzanna Stepanian
Armenia - President Armen Sarkissian (R) meets with the co-chairs of the OSCE
Minsk Group in Yerevan, .
Ending their latest visit to Yerevan on Thursday, international mediators
indicated their intention to organize a meeting of Armenia’s and Azerbaijan’s
foreign ministers soon.
The U.S., Russian and French co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group visited the
Armenian capital for the first time since the recent change of the country’s
government resulting from mass protests. They met with Prime Minister Nikol
Pashinian and other Armenian leaders during the two-day trip.
“The Co-Chairs and the Armenian officials reviewed the status of negotiations
and discussed next steps to move the process forward, including a ministerial
meeting in the near future,” they said in a joint statement. “They also
exchanged views on the current situation on the Armenia-Azerbaijan border and
the line of contact, underscoring the importance of maintaining a constructive
environment.”
“Armenian officials expressed their support for the work of the OSCE Minsk
Group Co-Chairs and … their willingness to continue working productively under
the auspices of the Co-Chairs,” added the statement.
Official Armenian statements on the talks did not mention the possibility of
what would be the first meeting between Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar
Mammadyarov and his recently appointed Armenian counterpart, Zohrab
Mnatsakanian. Pashinian’s press office said he discussed with the mediators
ways of creating “a favorable atmosphere for advancing the negotiation process.”
The mediators met with Mammadyarov in Paris on May 15. In a joint statement
they said he “expressed Azerbaijan's readiness to resume active negotiations as
soon as possible.”
Meanwhile, Karabakh’s ethnic Armenian leadership claimed on Thursday Azerbaijan
is continuing to mass troops near “the line of contact” east of Karabakh.
“Since April there has been a buildup of their troops practically along the
entire border,” said Davit Babayan, a spokesman for Karabakh President Bako
Sahakian. “They have deployed there army units that had been permanently
stationed deeper inside Azerbaijan. And in recent days movements of those units
have intensified.”
Babayan told RFE/RL’s Armenian service (Azatutyun.am) that Karabakh’s Defense
Army is closely monitoring the troop movements and taking other “appropriate
steps.”
The army released on Tuesday short video clips purportedly showing the
Azerbaijani troop buildup at some sections of the frontline.
Eurasian Union Good For Armenian Economy, Says Russian PM
Russia - Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev and his Armenian counterpart
Nikol Pashinian meet in Moscow, 14 Jun 2018.
Membership in the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) is one of the factors behind
economic growth in Armenia, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said on
Thursday during talks with his visiting Armenian counterpart Nikol Pashinian.
“On the whole our relations are developing steadily and dynamically,” Medvedev
told Pashinian at the start of their meeting in Moscow. “This is also connected
with the fact that your country’s economic development figures have been rather
good lately. Our economy is also developing.”
“This is the result, among other things, of work done within the framework of
the Eurasian Economic Union,” he said.
Russia’s President Vladimir Putin also said Armenia’s economy has benefited
from being part of the Russian-led trade bloc when he met with Pashinian on
Wednesday. Putin pointed to rising Armenian agricultural exports to Russia.
Pashinian criticized Armenia’s accession to the EEU and even called for its
withdrawal from the bloc as recently as last November. He was an opposition
parliamentarian at the time.
Pashinian made clear that he will not pull his country out of the EEU or the
Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) after a protest movement led by
him brought down the previous Armenian government in late April.
Pashinian told Medvedev that his government is keen to make Armenia’s
membership in the EEU “more effective.” “We are certainly ready to work in this
direction,” he said.
“I think that everything in our relations is now developing very positively …
We have many common interests,” added the Armenian premier.
According to official statistics, the Armenian economy grew by 7.5 percent last
year and this growth continued practically unabated in the first quarter of
this year.
Russia remained Armenia’s number one trading partner in 2017, accounting for
about 27 percent of its foreign trade. Armenian exports to Russia rose by
almost 45 percent to more than $541 million.
Press Review
“Zhamanak” says Russian President Vladimir Putin did not invite Prime Minister
Nikol Pashinian to pay an official visit to Russia when they met in Moscow on
Wednesday. Putin extended such an invitation to Azerbaijani President Ilham
Aliyev at their meeting held earlier in the day. “The lack of specifics in
these circumstances seems to suggest that Putin is still exploring and that for
him his relationship with Nikol Pashinian has not yet reached a point that
would warrant an official visit,” speculates the paper.
“Hraparak” comments on the release from prison of Zhirayr Sefilian, the leader
of the Founding Parliament movement who was convicted earlier this year of
plotting an armed revolt against Serzh Sarkisian’s government. The paper says
this was clearly made possible by the recent democratic revolution in Armenia.
It says judges dealing with the Sefilian case simply sought to please the new
government, rather than administer justice.
“Zhoghovurd” reports that the Armenian Revolutionary Federation
(Dashnaktsutyun) has voiced its opposition to Pashinian’s decision to complete
an unpopular pension reform that was launched by Sarkisian’s government in
2014. Artsvik Minasian, a government minister affiliated with Dashnaktsutyun,
was told off by Pashinian after voicing serious misgivings about the reform
earlier this week. Dashnaktsutyun leaders are now defending Minasian, saying
that their party will fight to ensure that the new pension system is not
mandatory for Armenians born after 1973. “Dashnaktsutyun will certainly try to
pretend to be a principled political force which continues to oppose the
mandatory pension system while being part of the government,” comments the
paper.
(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