RFE/RL Armenian Report – 02/06/2019

                                        Wednesday, February 06, 2019

Former Army Chief Wants To Run For Karabakh President
February 06, 2019
        • Ruzanna Stepanian

Armenia - Samvel Babayan, a retired army general, is greeted by supporters in 
Yerevan after being released from prison, 15 June 2018.

Samvel Babayan, Nagorno-Karabakh’s former military leader, has expressed his 
desire to run in a presidential election that will be held in the 
Armenian-populated territory next year.

In an interview with RFE/RL’s Armenian service, Babayan said he will start 
collecting next month signatures of local residents in a bid to circumvent a 
legal provision that bars him from running for Karabakh president.

“I realize that I still have a role to play there,” he said. “I’m not finished 
and will try to do everything to be of use [to Karabakh.]”

Babayan, 53, was the commander of Karabakh’s Armenian-backed army during and 
after the 1991-1994 war with Azerbaijan. He was widely regarded as the 
unrecognized republic’s most powerful man at that time.

Babayan was arrested in 2000 and subsequently sentenced to 14 years in prison 
for allegedly masterminding a botched attempt on the life of the then Karabakh 
president, Arkady Ghukasian. He was set free in 2004.

Babayan lived in Russia for five years before returning to Armenia in 2016. He 
was again arrested in Yerevan in March 2017 on charges of illegal arms 
acquisition and money laundering which he strongly denied.

The arrest came about two weeks before Armenian parliamentary elections. 
Babayan unofficially coordinated the election campaign of an opposition 
alliance challenging then Armenian President Serzh Sarkisian.

A Yerevan court sentenced the once powerful general to six years in prison in 
November 2017. Armenia’s Court of Cassation overturned the verdict in June 
2018, ordering Babayan’s release from prison. The decision came more than a 
month after Sarkisian was overthrown in a popular uprising led by Nikol 
Pashinian, the current Armenian prime minister.

Around the same time Bako Sahakian, Karabakh’s president, announced that he 
will not seek reelection when his current term in office ends in 2020. Sahakian 
has been in power since 2007.

Under Karabakh law, only those individuals who have resided in Karabakh for the 
past 10 years can participate in the 2020 presidential election. Babayan does 
not meet that requirement.

Citing another legal provision, the former strongman said that he can overcome 
that hurdle if his presidential candidacy is backed by thousands of Karabakh 
Armenians. “We will start the signature collection in March and then see if the 
authorities comply with or ignore what the constitution stipulates,” he said.

Asked whether he thinks the current Karabakh leadership will let him enter the 
presidential race, Babayan said: “At my penultimate meeting with Bako Sahakian, 
I said: ‘Let’s draw a line and forget everything: all the conflicts and 
problems.’ It seemed to me that they must realize that Armenia and Karabakh are 
now in such a difficult situation that it makes no sense to keep having 
grudges, settling scores or feuding with one or another person.”



Armenian Police Chief Objects To Amnesty For Radical Group
February 06, 2019
        • Ruzanna Stepanian

Armenia - Valeri Osipian (R), the chief of the Armenian police, arrives in a 
courtroom in Yerevan, February 6, 2019.

The chief of the Armenian police, Valeri Osipian, on Wednesday spoke out 
against pardoning members of a radical group who stormed a police base in 
Yerevan and held him and several other officers hostage in 2016.

The three dozen gunmen demanded that then President Serzh Sarkisian free the 
jailed leader of their Founding Parliament movement, Zhirayr Sefilian, and step 
down. They laid down their weapons after a two-week standoff with security 
forces which left three police officers dead.

Shortly after Sarkisian resigned in April 2018 amid peaceful mass protests, all 
but two members of the group calling itself Sasna Tsrer were set free pending 
the outcome of their trials. The two defendants remaining behind bars stand 
accused of murdering Colonel Artur Vanoyan and Warrant Officers Gagik Mkrtchian 
and Yuri Tepanosian.

Last fall the new Armenian authorities declared a general amnesty applying to 
hundreds of convicts and criminal suspects, including the Sasna Tsrer members. 
A relevant law passed by the Armenian parliament made clear, however, that the 
latter can be pardoned only with the consent of their former hostages and other 
victims of the deadly attack.

Osipian made clear that he is not giving his consent to the amnesty for Sasna 
Tsrer as he testified at an ongoing trial of the group’s members. “I lost 
comrades,” he told the presiding judge. “Had I not lost comrades my position 
may have been different. I think that everyone must be subjected to a 
punishment defined by the law.”

“There was a crime and everyone involved in it must bear responsibility,” 
Osipian insisted when he spoke to reporters in the courtroom.


Armenia - The funeral in Yerevan of Yuri Tepanosian, an Armenian police officer 
killed in a standoff between security forces and opposition gunmen, 1Aug2016.

Osipian was a deputy chief of Yerevan’s police department when the police base 
located in the city’s southern Erebuni district was seized by Sasna Tsrer in 
July 2016. He went into the sprawling compound shortly after the pre-dawn 
attack. He and the other policemen taken hostage there were released a few days 
later.

In his court testimony, Osipian said that he was beaten up by several gunmen 
while being captured by them. He claimed that they also threatened to kill him 
if he refused to tell police forces to join Sasna Tsrer.

Together with Sefilian, the freed leaders and members of the armed formed last 
year a political party also called Sasna Tsrer. It was one of the 11 groups 
that ran in parliamentary elections held in Armenia on December 9. According to 
the official election results, Sasna Tsrer won only 1.8 percent of the vote and 
thus failed to win any seats in the new parliament.



Armenian Government Unveils Economic Growth Targets
February 06, 2019

Armenia - Workers at a tech company based in the Engineering City just outside 
Yerevan, August 22, 2018.

Armenia’s economy should grow by at least 5 percent annually and thereby 
“substantially” cut poverty in the country, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s 
government said in its five-year policy program unveiled on Wednesday.

The 70-page program laying out the government’s priorities and policies was 
made public two months after Pashinian’s My Step alliance won snap 
parliamentary elections by a landslide. Speaking at a cabinet meeting in 
Yerevan, the premier said it will undergo minor “editorial” changes before 
being submitted to the Armenian parliament by the end of this week.

The document’s almost certain approval by the National Assembly will amount to 
a vote of confidence in the government. My Step holds a two-thirds majority in 
the parliament.

The program declares the government’s commitment to a “competitive and 
inclusive economy” primarily driven by hi-tech industries. It says the 
government will strive for this by significantly improving tax administration, 
easing business regulations, guaranteeing fair competition, attracting foreign 
investment and stimulating exports and innovation.

This, the document adds, should translate into an average GDP growth rate of at 
least 5 percent in 2019-2023. “At the same time, a considerably larger number 
of citizens should participate in economic development, and economic output 
created as a result of their work should be distributed more evenly,” it says.

Armenia’s former government set practically the same growth targets in its last 
five-year program drawn up in 2017. It pledged to reduce the official poverty 
rate, which stands at around 30 percent, by 12 percentage points by 2022.

Pashinian’s government is likewise promising “substantial” reductions in the 
poverty and unemployment rates. But it has set no specific targets.

Also, both the current and former government programs describe a steady and 
rapid increase in Armenian exports as the main engine of faster GDP growth.

Ever since he swept to power in May 2018, Pashinian has repeatedly promised to 
carry out an “economic revolution” that will significantly improve the lives of 
ordinary Armenians. He has said his government has already succeeded in 
practically eradicating corruption and breaking up economic monopolies that 
have long hampered the country’s development.

According to official statistics, Armenian economy grew by 7.5 percent in 2017. 
It was on course to expand by roughly 5.3 percent in 2018.

According to the latest World Bank projections, Armenian growth will slow to 
4.3 percent in 2019 and accelerate slightly in the following years.



April 24 Declared Commemoration Day Of Armenian Genocide In France
February 06, 2019

France - French President Emmanuel Macron speaks during the Co-ordination 
Council of Armenian Organisations of France (CCAF) annual dinner in Paris, 
February 5, 2019.

French President Emmanuel Macron has declared April 24 as a day for the 
commemoration in France of the 1915 genocide of Armenians in Ottoman Turkey.

Macron announced the move late on Tuesday at an annual dinner of the 
Coordination Council of Armenian Organizations in France (CCAF). The Reuters 
news agency quoted him as saying that France was among the first nations to 
denounce “the murderous hunt of the Armenian people in the Ottoman Empire.”

“France is, first and foremost, a country that knows how to look history in the 
face,” he said, according to the France24 TV channel.

France officially recognized the World War One-era slaughter of some 1.5 
million Armenians as genocide with a law passed by its parliament 2001. It is 
home to an estimated 500,000 ethnic Armenians, most of them descendants of 
survivors of the genocide.

Macron spoke of his “admiration” for the French-Armenian community and visited 
the Armenian genocide memorial in Paris when he ran for president in 2017. The 
CCAF, which is an umbrella structure uniting the leading French-Armenian 
organizations, endorsed his presidential candidacy.

Turkey strongly condemned Macron’s decision on Wednesday. According to the 
Associated Press, a spokesman for Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said 
Macron tried to "save the day" and make political gains in the face of 
"political problems in his own country.”


Press Review
February 06, 2019


“Zhoghovurd” says all eyes are now on a policy program of Prime Minister Nikol 
Pashinian’s government that will be unveiled this week. The paper says this is 
so because public expectations from the government are much greater than from 
the previous Armenian cabinets. It claims that the latter came up with nicely 
written programs that were rarely put into practice. “Pashinian’s government 
came to power as a result of a popular movement,” says the paper sympathetic to 
it. “The people’s expectations and requirements from the government are 
therefore great.”

“Zhamanak” says that Nagorno-Karabakh’s former military leader, Samvel Babayan, 
has effectively announced his return to active politics and, in particular, his 
intention to run in next year’s Karabakh presidential election. “It is clear to 
everyone that Armenia’s and Karabakh’s internal political realities are 
interconnected,” comments the paper. “It just could not have been otherwise. In 
essence, it’s impossible to return to active Karabakh politics without also 
becoming active in Armenia’s political domain as well.” It says that Babayan’s 
political comeback will have important implications for both Karabakh and 
Armenia.

“Aravot” seems skeptical about a recent series of high-level 
Armenian-Azerbaijani negotiations that have fuelled renewed speculation about 
progress towards the resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. “The Armenian 
prime minister has made important and correct emphases: the lands-for-status 
formula will not be discussed,” writes the paper. “We need to take the next 
step and say what the Armenian side thinks should be discussed: Karabakh’s 
internationally recognized independence and reunification with Armenia. We 
should counter [Azerbaijani] maximalism with our own maximalism.”

(Lilit Harutiunian)


Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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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