Wednesday,
Armenia Marks Genocide Anniversary
Armenia -- People walk to the Tsitsernakabert memorial in Yerevan during an
annual commemoration of the 1915 Armenian genocide in Ottoman Turkey, April 24,
2019.
Tens of thousands of people marched to the Tsitsernakabert memorial in Yerevan
and laid flowers there on Wednesday as Armenia marked the 104th anniversary of
the 1915 genocide of Armenians in Ottoman Turkey.
As always, the annual procession began with a prayer service held by Catholicos
Garegin II, the supreme head of the Armenian Apostolic Church, by the eternal
fire of the hilltop memorial overlooking the city center. The ceremony was
attended by President Armen Sarkissian, Prime Minister Prime Minister Nikol and
other senior state officials.
“It is the day to recall once again the tragedy of our compatriots who had
suffered ferocities and had been expelled from the land of their ancestors … to
tell the world once again about the Genocide -- the most hideous crime against
humanity -- and to call for soberness and a fight against denial,” Sarkissian
said in a written statement issued on the occasion.
“Impunity that followed the Armenian Genocide had opened the doors for other
grave crimes against humanity and genocides: remember the Holocaust, the
tragedies in Cambodia and Rwanda,” he said.
Armenia -- Catholicos Garegin II holds a prayer service at the Tsitsernakabert
memorial in Yerevan during an annual commemoration of the 1915 Armenian
genocide in Ottoman Turkey, .
A separate statement released by Pashinian noted not only the slaughter of some
1.5 million Armenians but also the destruction of Armenian cultural heritage in
the Ottoman Empire.
“We were consistently deprived of the land on which Armenian culture and
Armenian identity were formed and developed over thousands of years,” read the
statement. “The cultural heritage that constitutes the Armenian identity --
thousands of schools, churches and monasteries -- was erased from the face of
the earth.”
Pashinian also recalled the World War One-era massacres of hundreds of
thousands of Greeks and Assyrians perpetrated by the Ottoman Turks. Armenia
officially recognized them as genocide in 2015.
Both the president and the prime minister made clear that Yerevan will continue
to seek greater international recognition of the Armenian genocide.
Turkey continues to deny a premeditated government effort to exterminate the
Armenian population of the Ottoman Empire. Its vehement denials are dismissed
by most scholars outside Turkey.
“The historical record on the Armenian Genocide is unambiguous and documented
by overwhelming evidence,” the International Association of Genocide Scholars
said in 2007.
Pope Francis and his predecessor John Paull II prayed at Tsitsernakabert when
they visited Armenia in 2016 and 2001 respectively. They both officially
recognized the genocide, as did more than two dozen nations, including France,
Germany and Russia.
Corruption Charges Against Senior Official ‘Not Fabricated’
• Gayane Saribekian
Armenia - Prosecutor-General Artur Davtian (R) addresses protesters outisde his
office in Yerevan, December 24, 2018.
Law-enforcement authorities had sufficient grounds to bring corruption charges
against the head of an Armenian anti-graft agency, Prosecutor-General Artur
Davtian insisted on Wednesday.
Davtian dismissed claims by Davit Sanasarian, the suspended head of the State
Oversight Service (SOS), that the charges were “fabricated” by the National
Security Service (NSS).
“There is no way a criminal case can be fabricated against anyone,” he told
reporters. “Forget about that word. There is no such thing.”
Davtian said the ongoing criminal investigation into alleged corrupt practices
within the SOS, a government body tasked with combatting financial
irregularities in the public sector, will be “absolutely objective and
comprehensive.”
The NSS indicted Sanasarian last week as part of that probe. It arrested two
other senior SOS officials in late February, saying that they attempted to cash
in on government-funded supplies of medical equipment to three hospitals.
Sanasarian is accused of helping them enrich themselves and a private company
linked to them.
Sanasarian, who actively participated in last year’s “velvet revolution” and
has been a political ally of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian until now, strongly
denies the accusations. The former civic activist’s lawyer, Inessa Petrosian,
has claimed that the high-profile case is based on “false testimony” given by
SOS officials against her client.
Earlier this week, Petrosian asked the Office of the Prosecutor-General to
order another law-enforcement body, the Special Investigative Service (SIS), to
take over the probe. Davtian said there are “no grounds yet” to grant the
request.
Sanasarian’s supporters, among them leaders of some Western-funded
non-governmental organizations, have defended him on social media, denouncing
the NSS and its influential director, Artur Vanetsian, in particular.
Pashinian hit back at the critics on Saturday, saying that they place their
personal relationships with Sanasarian above the rule of law. “Davit is also my
friend, but be aware that there are no untouchable persons in Armenia,” he said.
Tsarukian Denies Mixing Politics With Business
• Gayane Saribekian
Armenia - Gagik Tsarukian and other deputies of his Prosperous Armenia Party
arrive for a parliament session in Yerevan, April 8, 2019.
Prosperous Armenia Party (BHK) leader Gagik Tsarukian denied on Wednesday any
connection between his political activities and business interests, comparing
himself to U.S. President Donald Trump and Italy’s former Prime Minister Silvio
Berlusconi.
Tsarukian was accused by pro-government lawmakers of mixing politics and
business during last week’s heated debates in the Armenian parliament on a
government proposal to impose tariffs on cement imported to the country. The
tycoon and his allies said the proposed measure is not far-reaching enough to
protect domestic cement manufacturers.
The largest of them, the Ararat Tsement plant, is owned by Tsarukian. The
latter has warned that he could lay off most of its 1,100 workers unless the
tariffs also apply to Iranian clinker, a material developed before the final
stage of cement production.
Deputies from the ruling My Step bloc said Tsarukian’s position on the issue is
motivated by his personal business interests. One of them, former journalist
Hayk Gevorgian, told the tycoon to make a choice between business and politics.
“He is too little a person [to make such statements,] let him go back to
journalism,” Tsarukian said of Gevorgian. “All over the world successful
politicians are business owners,” he added, pointing to Trump and Berlusconi.
Tsarukian insisted that he is concerned about the fate of Ararat Tsement
workers, rather than his profits.
The Armenian constitution bars members of the National Assembly from engaging
in entrepreneurial activity. The BHK leader claims that he meets this
requirement because he only owns dozens of businesses and does not manage them.
The cement tax controversy came amid mounting tensions between Prime Minister
Nikol Pashinian’s My Step and the opposition BHK which has the second largest
group in the parliament. Some Tsarukian-owned businesses were raided by tax
officials shortly after the BHK leader criticized the government’s economic
policies early this month. The State Revenue Committee denied that the tax
audits are politically motivated.
Senior representatives of the two political forces traded fresh accusations on
the parliament floor on April 18. Pashinian and Tsarukian met to discuss the
cement dispute and other contentious issues later that day.
“The [economic] issues that we discussed found solutions,” Tsarukian told
reporters on Wednesday. He did not elaborate.
Tsarukian also stood by his criticism of the current government’s track record,
saying that the economic situation in Armenia has not improved since Pashinian
came to power almost a year ago. “I’m not saying there have been no changes,”
he said. “But there has been no socioeconomic change and that’s the main
problem.”
Yerevan Reports More Agreements With Russian Arms Exporter
RUSSIA -- Vehicles are parked near the office building of Rosoboronexport
company in Moscow, March 1, 2016
Armenia will continue to acquire Russian weapons “very vigorously,” Defense
Minister Davit Tonoyan said on Wednesday after holding fresh talks with the
head of Russia’s state-owned arms exporter, Rosoboronexport.
Tonoyan and Rosoboronexport’s Alexander Mikheyev met on Tuesday on the
sidelines of an international security conference held in Moscow.
“The parties reached a number of new agreements on expanding the scope of
cooperation and ensuring its continuity,” the Armenian Defense Ministry said in
a short statement on the meeting. It did not elaborate.
Tonoyan, who was appointed as defense minister in May 2018, and Mikheyev met on
at least two occasions last year. Their latest talks came two months after
Russian and Armenian officials signed fresh defense contracts in Moscow. Their
details have still not been made public.
Earlier in February, Yerevan confirmed the signing of a Russian-Armenian
contract for the purchase of four Sukhoi Su-30SM fighter jets to the Armenian
Air Force. The total cost of the deal remains unknown.
Speaking to Russian journalists on Wednesday, Tonoyan reiterated that the
multirole jets will be delivered to Armenia by the beginning of 2020. The
Armenian side has already made first payments for them, he said, according to
the TASS news agency.
The minister also reaffirmed Yerevan’s plans to buy more such Russian
warplanes. “We will be arming and rearming ourselves very vigorously,” he
added. “The purchases of Russian weaponry will continue.”
Press Review
“It’s now wrong to speak about the Armenian genocide the way Soviet Armenian
intellectuals did in the 1960s and 1970s,” writes “Aravot.” “They were
talented, patriotic people. Their task was to pass on to the next generations
the pain endured by our nation and to keep the memory of that suffering live.
We don’t have to keep that memory live as our grandchildren will know very well
what happened in the early 20th century. Our task is much more pragmatic now.”
The Armenians, the paper says, must now remember that their ancestors were not
only massacred by the Ottoman Turks but also deprived of their land and
properties. It says they must also strengthen their independent state and
instill a notion about its “eternity” in younger generations.
Lragir.am quotes President Armen Sarkissian as revealing that in April 2018 he
received dozens of phone calls from people urging him not to meet Nikol
Pashinian in Yerevan’s Republic Square. The online publication praises
Sarkissian for ignoring those appeals, saying that his open-air meeting with
Pashinian impressed many Armenians and made them feel more confident about the
future of their country. “Who made those phone calls to President Sarkissian?”
it asks. “Will he name names soon or choose to publicize that at a more
opportune moment when the new Armenia feels the need to have those names
disclosed?”
“Zhamanak” reports that a deputy chairman of the former ruling Republican Party
(HHK), Armen Ashotian, said on Tuesday that Serzh Sarkisian decided to resign
before his deputy prime minister, Karen Karapetian, met with Pashinian at a
detention center in Yerevan on April 23, 2019. Ashotian thus denied a statement
to the contrary made by parliament speaker Ararat Mirzoyan. The paper wonders
if Karapetian knew about Sarkisian’s resignation when he discussed it with
Pashinian. It speculates that Karapetian was acting on a foreign power’s orders.
(Lilit Harutiunian)
Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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