Thursday,
Court Annuls Arrest Warrant Over 2008 Crackdown
• Naira Bulghadarian
Armenia- Vahagn Harutyunian, the former head of a criminal investigation into
the 2008 post-election violence in Yerevan.
Armenia’s Court of Appeals has annulled an arrest warrant against a senior
law-enforcement official who led a criminal investigation into the 2008
post-election violence in Yerevan during former President Serzh Sarkisian’s
rule.
The official, Vahagn Harutiunian, was charged in late October with forging
factual evidence to cover up the Armenian army’s involvement in the deadly
break of opposition protests staged in the wake of a disputed presidential
election.
The Special Investigative Service (SIS) started alleging such involvement
following this spring’s mass protests that toppled Sarkisian. It now says that
Sarkisian’s outgoing predecessor, Robert Kocharian, illegally ordered army
units into the streets of Yerevan before declaring a state of emergency on
March 1, 2008.
Last week, Kocharian was arrested on charges of overthrowing Armenia’s
constitutional order. He strongly denies them.
On November 2, a district court in Yerevan allowed the SIS to arrest
Harutiunian pending investigation. The latter left Armenia for Russia in July,
ostensibly to undergo medical treatment.
The Court of Appeals overturned the district court ruling late on Wednesday. It
did not immediately publicize reasons for the decision.
Harutiunian rejected the charges leveled against him as “unfounded, illegal and
fabricated” when he spoke to RFE/RL’s Armenian service by phone on November 1.
He insisted that his team of investigators never found any evidence of illegal
actions taken by the Armenian military during the 2008 unrest.
Harutiunian’s lawyer, Mihran Poghosian, said that the SIS has failed to
substantiate the accusations. Poghosian also claimed that Armenian courts are
under “unprecedented pressure” to rubber-stamp decisions made by the SIS.
Harutiunian’s team failed to identify anyone responsible for the deaths of
eight protesters and two police servicemen in vicious clashes that broke out in
central Yerevan on March 1, 2008. Instead, its inquiry led to the arrest and
imprisonment of dozens of opposition figures involved in those protests. They
included Nikol Pashinian, who became Armenia’s prime minister after launching
another protest movement that forced Sarkisian to resign in April.
Pashinian Vows Extra Funding For Armenian Army
• Sargis Harutyunyan
Armenia - Soldiers at a military base in Tavush province, October 30, 2018.
The Armenian government is planning around $2.5 billion worth of additional
defense spending over the next five years, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian said
on Thursday.
Strengthening Armenia’s armed forces will be one of the government’s chief
priorities, Pashinian said at the first cabinet meeting held since his My Step
bloc’s landslide victory in the December 9 parliamentary elections.
“Over the next five years we must be able to invest around $2.5 billion in the
development of the armed forces,” he told ministers. “We must work very hard
towards raising that sum. I’m talking about additional funding, a part of which
should be spent on improving the economic plight of military personnel.”
Pashinian did not specify potential sources of the extra defense spending that
would be equivalent to nearly three-quarters of Armenia’s entire state budget
for next year.
Armenia - Military helicopters fly against the backdrop of Mount Ararat, May
26, 2016.
The 2019 budget calls for a 25 percent rise in military spending which would
total 309 billion drams ($638 million). The Armenian defense budget is
projected to increase by 18 percent this year, reflecting a continuing arms
race with Azerbaijan.
Pashinian did not shed light on additional arms acquisitions envisaged by him.
His government seems to be sticking to a 7-year plan to “modernize” the
Armenian military that was adopted by former President Serzh Sarkisian’s
administration in January 2018. Few details of that plan have been made public.
The premier said his government will also strive to significantly boost the
domestic defense industry. He said its “substantial development” is essential
for “turning Armenia into a hi-tech country.”
Armenian, Karabakh Leaders Meet After Spat
• Ruzanna Stepanian
• Tatevik Lazarian
Nagorno-Karabakh - Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian and Karabakh
President Bako Sahakian (third from left) visit the Line of Contact with
Azerbaijan, Septmeber 18, 2018.
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian met with Bako Sahakian, the Nagorno-Karabakh
president, in Yerevan on Thursday two weeks after accusing senior officials in
Stepanakert of “meddling” in Armenia’s parliamentary race.
One of Pashinian’s close associates, Sasun Mikaelian, caused uproar when he
stated during the election campaign that this spring’s protest movement that
brought Pashinian to power was more important than the Armenian victory in the
1991-1994 war with Azerbaijan.
Mikaelian’s remark was condemned by Armenian opposition politicians as well as
some Karabakh Armenian government and military officials. Pashinian portrayed
it a slip of the tongue, accusing the critics of misinterpreting what Mikaelian
meant to say.
The premier also hit out at the Karabakh leadership. “Sober up and mind your
business,” he said at a November 29 campaign rally. “I will certainly discuss
this with you, but only after the elections.”
Sahakian’s press office said the Karabakh leader discussed with Pashinian
“Armenia’s and Nagorno-Karabakh’s internal and foreign policies” as well as
security issues. It did not elaborate.
The Armenian government issued no statements on the meeting.
The meeting came the day after several Armenian media outlets reported that the
commander of Karabakh’s Armenian-backed army, Levon Mnatsakanian, as well as
Sahakian’s two national security aides will be relieved of their duties. The
reports linked the impending sackings to the unprecedented spat between Yerevan
and Stepanakert.
The Karabakh leadership did not confirm or refute those reports on Thursday.“If
there are such personnel changes, we will announce them,” Sahakian’s spokesman,
Davit Babayan, told RFE/RL’s Armenian service (Azatutyun.am).
“I have no such official information,” the Karabakh army spokesman, Senor
Hasratian, said, for his part.
Still No Deal On Russian Gas Price For Armenia
• Sargis Harutyunyan
Russia - Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian looks on as Russian President
Vladimir Putin speaks at a Eurasian Economic Union summit in Saint Petersburg,
December 6, 2018.
Moscow and Yerevan have still not agreed on a new price of Russian natural gas
imported by Armenia, Energy Minister Garegin Baghramian said on Thursday.
Baghramian revealed that Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian discussed the matter
with Russian President Vladimir Putin at a summit of ex-Soviet states held in
Saint Petersburg last week. They did not reach any agreements, he said.
Armenia currently pays $150 per thousand cubic meters of Russian gas in line
with a 2016 agreement that runs until the end of this month. By comparison,
Russia’s Gazprom monopoly charges European Union countries more than $200 per
thousand cubic meters.
The Armenian government and Gazprom started negotiating on a new deal this
fall. Yerevan hopes that the Russians will at least keep the current price
unchanged.
Baghramian stressed that the price will remain the same for the time being if
the two sides fail to cut a deal by December 31.
“The [2016] agreement will remain in force until the negotiations are over,” he
told reporters. “These are quite difficult and time-consuming negotiations …
The [new] price will be set only when the negotiations are over.”
Gazprom, which owns Armenia’s gas distribution network, already cut the price
from about $190 to $165 per thousand cubic meters in 2015 and on to $150 in
2016.
The network’s chief executive, Hrant Tadevosian, indicated on November 19 that
the Russian giant could raise the price soon. Tadevosian said that his company
has operated at a loss for a second consecutive year.
Press Review
“Zhamanak” says that the commander of Nagorno-Karabakh’s army, General Levon
Mnatsakanian, and two other top security officials in Stepanakert are poised to
be sacked. The paper links that to Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s angry
reaction to recent Karabakh criticism one of his close associates.
“Revolutionary shocks in Artsakh are absolutely inadmissible,” comments the
paper. “Armenia’s authorities must resist the temptation to ‘occupy,’ so to
speak, Artsakh’s leadership and instead must put the emphasis on harmonizing
the political and economic systems of the two Armenian republics. No internal
political issue warrants any questioning of Artsakh’s being a separate player.”
“Zhoghovurd” reports that Vachagan Ghazarian, Serzh Sarkisian’s former chief
bodyguard arrested recently, expressed readiness on Wednesday to donate $6
million to the state. The paper notes that Ghazarian made the offer as
investigators asked a Yerevan court to extend his pre-trial arrest. It recalls
in this regard Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s repeated pledges to recover
huge amounts of money which he believes were “stolen from the people” by the
former authorities. “That process seems to have started with the opening of
criminal cases,” it says. “Serzh Sarkisian’s brother Sashik earlier expressed
readiness to transfer $30 million kept in his frozen bank account to the
state.” Similar statements have also been by two other former senior officials
facing criminal charges.
“Past” reports on a boycott of classes staged by students and teachers at a
school in the town of Charentsavan in protest against the dismissal of its
principal. Pashinian personally travelled to Charentsavan on Wednesday to meet
with the protesters. “On the face of it, there is nothing wrong with that and
it is even nice to see the prime minister pay attention to issues raised by
people,” writes the paper. “But this raises several questions. What do the
regional governor, the minister for local government and the education minister
get paid for? If they are not able to settle a crisis at a single school why do
they keep their jobs?”
(Lilit Harutiunian)
Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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