Thursday, Israel Accuses Drone Maker Of Bombing Armenian Soldiers, At Baku's Request Nagorno-Karabakh -- Smoke from fire rises above the ground in Martakert district, after an Israeli-made Azerbaijani "suicide" drone was shot down by the Karabakh army, 4 April 2016. Israel has accused an Israeli drone maker of bombing ethnic Armenian soldiers in Nagorno-Karabakh at the request of Azerbaijani clients during a sales demonstration, government and local media reported. The accusation by Israel’s Justice Ministry on Wednesday did not specifically mention Azerbaijan or Nagorno-Karabakh in its statement. But Israeli media said a complaint filed with the Defense Ministry, which promoted an investigation, made it clear that Azerbaijani officials and Armenian soldiers were involved. The Defense Ministry complaint was leaked to the Maariv newspaper, which first reported the incident in August 2017. It was unclear who exactly filed the complaint. In its statement on August 29, the Israeli Justice Ministry said it plans to indict the chief executive, deputy CEO, and other officials and employees of Aeronautics Defense Systems for the incident, which it said occurred earlier in 2017. "Aeronautics and 10 of its employees were informed that they were set to be charged, pending a hearing," the Justice Ministry said, according to The Times of Israel. The Aeronautics team is suspected of "fraudulently obtaining something under aggravated circumstances," along with violations of Israel's security export control law, the newspaper reported. In response, the Yavneh-based firm said it is “convinced that after we first present our position at the hearing, the State Prosecutor’s Office will reach an informed decision that there is no reason to put the company or any of its officers in court and will order the case closed.” An official at Azerbaijan’s embassy in Washington declined to comment to RFE/RL on an Israeli legal proceeding, saying he did not want to interfere in another country’s internal matters. The Maariv and Times of Israel reports said Aeronautics officials in 2017 were working on a potential $20 million deal with Baku, when Azerbaijani officials asked them to demonstrate their Orbiter 1K armed drone on Armenian soldiers. The reports said two employees refused to carry out the attack before two higher-ranking executives eventually agreed to do it. They said the drone did not directly hit their targets, but two soldiers were injured in the attack. Israel suspended Aeronautics' export license after the complaint was filed with the Defense Ministry, the report said. According to Karabakh’s Armenian-backed Defense Army, the Azerbaijani military most recently attacked its frontline positions with a suicide drone on July 7, 2017. The commander of an army unit stationed in northeastern Karabakh said that two of his soldiers were lightly wounded in the incident. The Azerbaijani army heavily used similar suicide drones manufactured by another Israeli company during the April 2016 hostilities in Karabakh. Baku had bought the Harop drones as part of multimillion-dollar defense contracts signed with Israeli arms manufacturers. Armenia has long expressed concern at the Israeli-Azerbaijani arms deals, saying that they undermine international efforts to end the Karabakh conflict. The drone scandal was exposed by the Israeli paper more than two weeks after Israeli Minister of Regional Cooperation Tzachi Hanegbi visited Yerevan in an apparent bid to improve his country’s frosty relationship with Armenia. Hanegbi met with then Prime Minister Karen Karapetian and other senior Armenian officials in late July 2017. Armenia Explores Arms Deals With India • Sargis Harutyunyan Pinaka Missile system Armenia is exploring the possibility of buying rocket systems and other weapons manufactured by India for its armed forces, the Defense Ministry said on Wednesday. “A group of our military officials, who are India at the moment, are looking into Indian weapons and several of them are of interest to us,” the ministry spokesman, Artsrun Hovannisian, told RFE/RL’s Armenian service. “The Indian defense industry has quite interesting solutions on various offensive and defensive weapons which interest us,” he said. “But I can’t speak of any concrete projects or agreements right now.” The Times of India daily last week quoted a senior executive of an Indian defense firm as saying that the Armenian military is showing an interest in the Pinaka multiple-launch rocket systems manufactured by it. “We carried out extensive firing trials for their delegation last month at Pokhran in Rajasthan,” said KM Rajan of the Defense Research and Development Organization. “The results were excellent.” Hovannisian said in this regard that Pinaka, which has a firing range up to 75 kilometers, does not represent Armenia’s “sole and greatest interest” in Indian weapons. But he did not elaborate. Another Armenian Defense Ministry delegation visited India and toured a number of Indian defense enterprises in May 2017. The ministry said it discussed with Indian officials “mutually beneficial variants of developing cooperation in this direction.” The Indian ambassador in Yerevan, Yogeshwar Shangwan, said afterwards that his country is ready to deepen relations with “friendly” Armenia “in all areas.” “Even in the area of defense, we are open to cooperation with Armenia,” he told RFE/RL’s Armenian service in June 2017. India - Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi meets with Armenian President Serzh Sarkisian in New Delhi, 3Nov2017. India’s arch-foe Pakistan staunchly supports Azerbaijan in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, refusing to not only establish diplomatic relations with Armenia but also formally recognize the latter as an independent state. Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said after October 2016 talks in Baku with then Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif that the two Muslim nations will step up bilateral defense cooperation. Russia has been by far the most important supplier of weapons and other military hardware to the Armenian army. Hovannisian said Yerevan now wants to somewhat diversify its arms procurements. “Of course we seek to work with a single supplier in order to facilitate the process of delivery, maintenance and training [of military personnel,]” said the official. “But there are weapons that should be acquired from other states because opportunities are numerous. And India, by the way, is one of those countries which have made huge progress in this area in the last 15-20 years.” Turkish American Lobbyist Arrested In Armenia • Emil Danielyan Armenia - Turkish American activist Kemal Oksuz is questioned by Armenian police, . The former head of a Turkish American lobbying group that had cooperated with Azerbaijan’s government has been detained in Armenia on an arrest warrant issued by U.S. law-enforcement authorities. Kemal (Kevin) Oksuz used to run the Texas-based Turquoise Council of Americans and Eurasians as well as the Assembly of the Friends of Azerbaijan. The two groups came under scrutiny after organizing in 2013 an all-expenses-paid visit to Azerbaijan by 10 members and 32 staffers of the U.S. Congress. The Washington Post reported in 2015 that the trip was secretly funded by Azerbaijan’s state-owned oil company SOCAR in violation of U.S. congressional rules. Citing a confidential report by the U.S. Office of Congressional Ethics, the paper said that through the groups headed by Oksuz SOCAR spent $750,000 for that purpose. The report led the Ethics Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives to launch an inquiry. Oksuz reportedly refused to testify in the probe. The Armenian police revealed on Thursday that Oksuz subsequently moved to Armenia and set up a company there. In a statement, the police said that U.S. law-enforcement authorities issued an international arrest warrant for him on August 23. The American citizen of Turkish descent is wanted in the United States for lying to the House Ethics Committee about foreign funding received by his organizations, the statement said, adding that he was arrested in Yerevan on Wednesday. The police also released a short video of Oksuz’s first interrogation. Oksuz was shown admitting that SOCAR, which is closely linked to the Azerbaijani government, covered the travel expenses of the U.S. officials and gave them expensive gifts in 2013. “That may have been corruption, I don’t know,” he said. It was not clear why he decided to relocate to Armenia, a country that has strained relations with both Turkey and Azerbaijan. Oksuz admitted that just like other Turkish American activists he had lobbied the Congress against recognizing the 1915 Armenian genocide in Ottoman Turkey. “The Armenian Diaspora [in the United States] is strong and does a good job,” he told the police. “The Azerbaijani lobby is nothing. They only spend money on lobbying but achieve nothing.” Reporting on Oksuz’s arrest, the pro-government Turkish newspaper “Sabah” referred to him as a “high-ranking” loyalist of Fethullah Gulen, a U.S.-based Turkish cleric facing coup charges in Turkey. The paper also called his Turquoise Council of Americans a “Gulenist umbrella organization.” Thousands of Gulen supporters have been jailed in Turkey since a failed 2016 coup against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Government Seeks To Criminalize Vote Buying In Armenia • Anush Muradian Armenia - A polling station in Yerevan, 2Apr2017. The Armenian government moved on Thursday to make it a criminal offense to buy or sell votes in elections held in the country. Armenia’s existing legislation already bans parties and individual candidates from handing out or promising cash, other material benefits and services to voters during election campaigns. The practice is punishable only by fines. Draft amendments to the Armenian Criminal Code approved by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s cabinet call for prison sentences for anyone buying or attempting to buy votes. What is more, they stipulate that Armenians selling their votes will also face imprisonment. But such voters will avoid prosecution if they confess to taking vote bribes within three days after an election, according to the government bill which is expected to be debated by the Armenian parliament next week. Vote buying was widespread in just about every major election held in Armenia in the last two decades. Former President Serzh Sarkisian’s Republican Party of Armenia (HHK) was accused by its opponents and media of heavily relying on the practice in the last parliamentary polls held in April 2017.Observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe said that they were marred by “many credible reports” of vote buying. Speaking at a cabinet meeting, Pashinian said the bill, if passed by the parliament, will help to significantly improve the conduct of future Armenian elections, including municipal polls in Yerevan slated for September 23. Press Review “Zhamanak” reports that Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s Civil Contract party has teamed up with his other supporters to run in next month’s municipal elections in Yerevan. The paper notes that it will be the first ballot held after the recent “velvet revolution” in Armenia and it could prove the most democratic in the country’s history. It says at the same time that with Pashinian remaining very popular the elections will hardly be competitive. “Zhoghovurd” says that Vahram Baghdasarian, a senior lawmaker from the Republican Party of Armenia (HHK), was right to say on Wednesday that the HHK would not have avoided mass anti-government protests last spring even if it had not installed Serzh Sarkisian as prime minister. The paper says that the HHK had long retained power through vote rigging and repression. “So it is natural that anyone nominated by the HHK for the post of prime minister would have met with public resistance,” it says. “Aravot” reports that residents of seven villages in northwestern Armenia blocked a major highway to protest against their incorporation into a single community. “This is a highly sensitive issue,” writes the paper. “Many arguments are made for and against such a [community] consolidation. It is hard to tell whether not the protesters’ demands are justified.” The paper complains about offensive comments on social media about the protests. (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