RFE/RL Armenian Report – 12/24/2018

                                        Monday, 

Pashinian Reaffirms Commitment To Closer Ties With Iran

        • Karine Simonian

Armenia - Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian inspects a car assembled by an 
Armenian-Iranian joint venture in Vanadzor, December 22, 2018.

Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian has reaffirmed his government’s intention to 
deepen Armenia’s relations with neighboring Iran despite U.S. economic 
sanctions re-imposed on the Islamic Republic.

“We intend to deepen not only economic but also political relations with Iran. 
All prerequisites for that exist in Armenia,” he told reporters during a 
weekend visit to Vanadzor.

Pashinian spoke while attending the official opening of an Armenian-Iranian 
joint venture that will manufacture pressurized gas cylinders in Armenia’s 
third largest city.

Top executives of the Iranian company Rad Sane and its Armenian partners that 
have built the plant also announced other investment projects when they met 
with Pashinian before the ceremony. In particular, they are planning to 
assemble Iranian-designed cars in Armenia.

“Our cars could enter the Armenian market already in March,” said Arayik 
Asrian, a co-owner of the new plant.

“I said during our conversation that we are very interested in having new 
investments flow in from Iran and more Iranian tourists visit Armenia,” 
stressed Pashinian.

The Armenian leader already pledged last month to “develop relations with Iran 
very intensively.” He said the United States “understands our situation and 
policy.”

Earlier in November, a team of officials from the U.S. state and treasury 
departments visited Yerevan to explain the sanctions Armenia’s government and 
private sector. Iran was also high on the agenda of U.S. National Security 
Adviser John Bolton’s October trip to Armenia.

Bolton said he hold Pashinian that Washington will enforce the sanctions “very 
vigorously.” Commercial and other traffic through the Armenian-Iranian border 
is therefore “going to be a significant issue,” he said.

Pashinian said his government is doing its best to minimize the negative impact 
of the sanctions on Iranians doing business in Armenia. He again acknowledged 
that in the last few months Armenian commercial banks have closed the accounts 
of Iranian citizens living in the country.

Pashinian insisted that the U.S. administration “has no problem” with 
law-abiding Iranian nationals having bank accounts in Armenia. Armenian banks, 
he said, are simply afraid of being blacklisted by Washington.

“Some banks have already realized that there won’t be problems with the 
accounts of private individuals [from Iran] who have not been sanctioned,” he 
went on. “This is not a state problem but we are now very closely cooperating, 
discussing and talking to solve that problem.”




Prosecutors Move To Arrest Ex-General Again

        • Anush Muradian

Armenia - Prosecutor-General Artur Davtian (R) addresses protesters outisde his 
office in Yerevan, .

Prosecutor-General Artur Davtian said on Monday that his office will appeal 
against an Armenian court’s to decision to release Manvel Grigorian, a retired 
army general prosecuted on corruption charges, from custody on bail.

The district court in Yerevan ordered Grigorian’s release on health grounds on 
Friday. The 62-year-old suffers from a number of serious illnesses, reportedly 
including cancer.

The court order provoked angry protests in the town of Echmiadzin, Grigorian’s 
place of residence until his arrest in June. Hundreds of local residents 
blocked a nearby highway over the weekend.

Several dozen people gathered outside the prosecutors’ headquarters in Yerevan 
on Monday, demanding Grigorian’s renewed arrest. Davtian addressed the crowd, 
saying that his office will ask the Court of Appeals to overturn the lower 
court ruling. The appeal will be filed by the end of the day, he said.

Davtian insisted that Grigorian’s illnesses are “not incompatible with 
incarceration.” The once powerful general should be kept behind bars because he 
could obstruct justice if he remains at large, added Armenia’s chief prosecutor

Davtian also told the protesters: “I want you to understand one thing: these 
are legal processes, the court is independent, and any pressure on the court is 
unacceptable.”

Grigorian was arrested when security forces raided his properties in and around 
Echmiadzin. They found many weapons, ammunition, medication and field rations 
for soldiers provided by the Armenian Defense Ministry. They also discovered 
canned food and several vehicles donated by Armenians at one of Grigorian’s 
mansions.

Grigorian, who served as deputy defense minister from 2000-2008, denies the 
accusations of illegal arms possession and embezzlement leveled against him.




Armenian Government To Scrap Five Ministries

        • Naira Nalbandian

Armenian - Protesting employees of the Armenian ministrties of Diaspora and 
culture hand a petition to an official from Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian's 
staff, Yerevan, December 21, 2018.

The number of government ministries in Armenia is due to be slashed to 12 from 
17 in line with Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s pledges to downsize the state 
bureaucracy.

A relevant bill publicized by the Armenian government would also abolish the 
post of first deputy prime minister introduced shortly before this spring’s 
“velvet revolution.” Pashinian would have only two deputies after forming a new 
cabinet next month.

Armenia’s newly elected parliament controlled by Pashinian’s My Step alliance 
will likely pass the bill. The National Assembly is expected to hold its first 
session on January 14.

The bill calls for abolishing the Ministry of Diaspora and merging four other 
ministries with different agencies.

In particular, the ministries of agriculture and economic development would be 
turned into a single ministry, as would the ministries of education, culture, 
and sports and youth affairs. A similar merger of the ministries of energy and 
local government would lead to the creation of a new Ministry of Territorial 
Administration and Infrastructures.


Armenia - Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian holds a cabinet meeting in Yerevan, 18 
October 2018.

The Ministry of Transport and Communications would be renamed and presumably 
expanded into a new agency called the Ministry of Technologies and Defense 
Industry.

The government has not yet specified how many of its employees will be laid off 
as a result of the planned restructuring. Nor is it clear how much budgetary 
money it expects to save.

Hundreds of employees of the ministries of culture and Diaspora demonstrated in 
Yerevan on Friday in protest against the impending closure of their agencies. 
They denounced the government plans as hasty and ill-thought-out. They also 
faulted Pashinian and his young political team for not consulting with civil 
servants.

Pashinian defended the plans on Saturday. He argued that he has repeatedly said 
since coming to power in May that the state bureaucracy is bloated and 
inefficient. He said My Step’s landslide victory in the December 9 general 
elections means that he has a mandate to shrink it.

“The common practice around the world is for 9 to 11 employees to have one 
leader,” Pashinian told reporters. “In our state bureaucracy there is one 
leader per 3.5 workers.”

Some analysts question the wisdom of reducing the number of government 
ministries. Serob Antinian, a public administration expert, said on Monday that 
the new “super-ministries” would actually slow down the work of the state 
apparatus.


Armenia - Serob Antinian (L), a public administration expert, speaks at a news 
conference in Yerevan, .

“If we unite ministries it will mean that while a minister has until now taken 
one or two days to sign a state document because of busyness they would take 
ten days after that [restructuring,]” Antinian told a news conference.

The planned downsizing was also criticized as “arbitrary” by the Armenian 
Revolutionary Federation (Dashnaktsutyun), which had two ministerial posts in 
Pashinian’s government until recently. In a statement, the opposition party 
warned of “very serious consequences” of the measure.

Artur Khachatrian, a Dashnaktsutyun leader who served as agriculture minister 
from May through October this year, was especially critical of the proposed 
merger of the ministries of agriculture and economy.

“I think that the Ministry of Agriculture should have on the contrary been 
strengthened,” Khachatrian told RFE/RL’s Armenian service. “After all, 
agriculture accounts for about 15 percent of our Gross Domestic Product. 
Another 10 percent of GDP comes from food processing.”




Press Review



(Saturday, December 22)

“Zhoghovurd” says that disagreements between Armenia and other members of the 
Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) over the choice of the next 
secretary general of the Russian-led alliance seem to be deepening. The paper 
reports that Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has signed a draft CSTO 
decision to appoint a senior Belarusian official, Stanislav Zas, to the vacant 
post. “Presumably Armenia will veto Zas’s appointment if Belarus insists on its 
desire,” it says. It quotes Zas as implying on Friday that his appointment does 
not necessarily require unanimity by all CSTO member states.

“It is already clear that important developments on the Nagorno-Karabakh issue 
are expected next year,” writes “Aravot.” “We must again stress that no 
Armenian leader has deliberately taken or will take any steps that would put 
Armenia and Artsakh (Karabakh) in danger. We, the citizens, have to try to get 
answers to a number of important questions.” One of those questions, the paper 
says, is whether international mediators are currently making any peace 
proposals that do not call for Armenian withdrawal from five districts around 
Karabakh. “Does Azerbaijan agree to such a solution extremely favorable to us?” 
it goes on. But if the mediators are pressing for major Armenian territorial 
concessions to Azerbaijan then Armenians must know what they would gain in 
return, according to the paper. “If that only includes a lifting of the 
blockade and an uncertain promise of some unclear referendum then that is 
certainly not good enough,” it says.

“Hraparak” reports on the resignation of the director of the Armenian Public 
Radio, Mark Grigorian, which was demanded by some employees of the state-run 
broadcaster. The paper says other radio workers believe that Grigorian should 
not have quit so easily. “They believe that this resignation was orchestrated 
by the head of the Public Television and Radio, Ruben Jaghinian,” it says.

(Tatev Danielian)

 
Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.
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Emil Lazarian

“I should like to see any power of the world destroy this race, this small tribe of unimportant people, whose wars have all been fought and lost, whose structures have crumbled, literature is unread, music is unheard, and prayers are no more answered. Go ahead, destroy Armenia . See if you can do it. Send them into the desert without bread or water. Burn their homes and churches. Then see if they will not laugh, sing and pray again. For when two of them meet anywhere in the world, see if they will not create a New Armenia.” - WS