Tuesday, Pashinian Hails Armenia’s Growing Trade With Eurasian Union • Sargis Harutyunyan ARMENIA -- Eurasian Economic Commission Chairman Tigran Sarkisian (L) and the prime ministers of Armenia, Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan pose for a photograph in Yerevan, . Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian cited Armenia’s growing trade with Russia and other members of the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) on Tuesday as he hosted a meeting of fellow heads of government from the Russian-led trade bloc. Speaking at the meeting held in Yerevan, Pashinian also renewed his calls for the creation of a common EEU market for natural gas and oil mostly extracted in Russia. “I am happy to note that there is a growth in commercial turnover with between Armenia and the union’s [other] member states,” he said. “EEU countries’ share in Armenia’s exports reached 28.5 percent in 2018.” “[Armenian] exports to the union’s member states rose by 20 percent while overall trade by 11 percent,” he added. According to official Armenian statistics, Russia accounted for almost 97 percent of that trade, which totaled around $2 billion last year. Armenia’s exports to Russia soared by almost 20 percent, to $666.5 million. By comparison, Armenia’s trade with the European Union stood at $1.83 billion in 2018. Pashinian said that further economic integration of Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Russia requires “the creation of common oil, gas and other hydrocarbon markets.” He said the EU member states should step up their efforts to put their energy cooperation on a “non-discriminatory footing.” Pashinian made a similar point when he visited the EEU’s Moscow headquarters in January. He was understood to imply that Russian gas should be as cheap in Russia as it is in Armenia and other EEU members importing it. Belarus, which is also heavily dependent on Russian gas and oil, has long been advocating this idea. Belarusian Prime Minister Sergei Rumas complained on Tuesday about hurdles to greater commerce among the EEU member states, saying that they have become more serious of late. He seemed to allude to his country’s latest energy dispute with Russia. Nevertheless, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev declared at the Yerevan meeting that the EEU has proved to be a success since being set up five years ago. He noted ongoing efforts to make it a more effective organization. Armenian Tycoon To Remain Under Arrest • Artak Khulian Armenia -- Davit Ghazarian, the official owner of the Spayka company, talks to reporters moments after being arrested in a courtroom in Yerevan, April 8, 2019. The owner of Armenia’s largest food exporting company accused of tax evasion warned through his lawyer of “severe consequences” for the domestic economy after the Court of Appeals refused to release him from custody on Tuesday. The businessman, Davit Ghazarian, was arrested three weeks ago after the State Revenue Committee (SRC) charged that his Spayka company evaded over 7 billion drams ($14.4 million) in taxes in 2015 and early 2016. The accusations stem from large quantities of foodstuffs which were imported to Armenia by another company, Greenproduct. The SRC says that Greenproduct is controlled by Spayka and that the latter rigged its customs documents to pay fewer taxes from those imports. Ghazarian has strongly denied any ownership links to Greenproduct. He said on April 5 that the SRC moved to arrest him after he refused to pay the alleged back taxes. The Court of Appeals upheld a lower court’s April 8 decision to allow investigators to hold Ghazarian in pre-trial detention. It also rejected a separate petition to free him on bail. The tycoon’s lawyer, Arsen Sardarian, denounced the ruling as baseless. He claimed by that keeping his client in custody the authorities want to “extort” large amounts of money from Spayka. “His detention could lead to severe consequences,” said Sardarian. “That is, the company could fail to continue its operations.” Armenia - A greenhouse belonging to the Spayka company, November 13, 2018. Spayka is Armenia’s leading producer and exporter of agricultural products grown at its own greenhouses or purchased from farmers in about 80 communities across the country. The company employing about 2,000 people also owns hundreds of heavy trucks transporting those fruits and vegetables abroad and Russia in particular. In a series of statements issued earlier this month, Spayka claimed that because of Ghazarian’s arrest its mainly foreign creditors are withholding further funding for the company. It said it may therefore not be able to buy large quantities of agricultural produce from Armenian farmers this year. Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian dismissed those warnings on April 9. He said he is confident that the food giant will carry on with the wholesale purchases. The SRC chief, Davit Ananian, said afterwards that the tax collection agency is now scrutinizing Spayka’s operations in 2016-2018 and will likely impose even heavier tax penalties on the company. Echoing Spayka’s statements, Sardarian insisted that the charges are based on an arbitrary “expert evaluation” cited by the SRC. The lawyer said Ghazarian will be ready to pay up if the alleged tax evasion is proved by a more thorough audit involving “specialists trusted by him.” Spayka was already fined about 2.5 billion drams ($5 million) for profit tax evasion in July last year. Ghazarian said before his arrest that he agreed to pay the “unfounded” fine in order to have the company’s bank accounts unfrozen. Armenia - Businessman Davit Ghazarian (C) shows Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian around a newly built dairy factory of his Spayka company, Yerevan, March 26, 2019. The arrest came just two weeks after the tycoon inaugurated a new cheese factory in Yerevan built by Spayka. Pashinian was present at the opening ceremony. Spayka also planned to expand its greenhouses under a $100 million project that was due to be mostly financed by the Kazakhstan-based Eurasian Development Bank (EDB). Andrey Belyaninov, the EDB chairman, said on April 25 that the disbursement of its $67 million loan to Spayka has been put on hold because of Ghazarian’s arrest. “We can’t take such a risk if we are talking about [Spayka’s] potential bankruptcy,” Belyaninov was reported to say. Indicted Official Insists On Innocence • Naira Bulghadarian • Karine Simonian Armenia -- Davit Sanasarian speaks at a news conference in Yerevan, April 30, 2019. Davit Sanasarian, the head of an Armenian anti-graft agency facing corruption charges, continued to protest his innocence on Tuesday, accusing “counterrevolutionary” forces of seeking to discredit him. Sanasarian angrily denied media claims that the National Security Service (NSS) has a secretly filmed video of him accepting large amounts of cash from other officials. “To any media outlet, any source that will present a video of me taking a bribe I promise … to cut my hand in front of them if there is such video of bribe taking,” he told a news conference. He described the reports about the emergence of such footage as “disinformation that has a counterrevolutionary basis.” Earlier this month Sanasarian was suspended as head of the State Oversight Service (SOS) after being indicted by the NSS as part of a criminal investigation into alleged corruption practices within the government agency. The NSS arrested two other senior SOS officials in late February, saying that they attempted to cash in on government-funded supplies of medical equipment to hospitals. Sanasarian is accused of helping them enrich themselves and a private company linked to them. The NSS director, Artur Vanetsian, insisted last Friday that the accusations have been “completely substantiated by testimony given by various persons and face-to-face interrogations.” “I also call on [Vanetsian] not to talk about this subject,” scoffed Sanasarian. Both he and his lawyers again rejected the charges “fabricated.” According to the NSS, the SOS officials arbitrarily forced medical institutions to rig rules for the choice of companies supplying expensive equipment for hemodialysis, a treatment of kidney failure. The security service says they wanted to make sure that a company controlled by them wins tenders for such supplies. The dialysis equipment tenders were until recently won by a handful of private firms. Earlier in February, one of their owners accused Sanasarian of driving his Frezen company out of business. Sanasarian countered that the SOS has simply broken up Frezen’s “monopoly” on supplies to two hospitals which he said were carried out at grossly inflated prices. The SOS submitted what it called evidence of those financial irregularities to prosecutors in March. The Office of the Prosecutor-General announced earlier this week that it has launched a criminal investigation into the SOS report. It has not charged anyone yet. Sanasarian portrayed that announcement as a further indication that his agency had on the contrary fought against corrupt practices. Sanasarian, 34, is a former opposition and civic activist who had for years accused Armenia’s former leadership of corruption. He actively participated in last year’s “velvet revolution” which brought Nikol Pashinian to power. Sanasarian’s supporters, among them leaders of some Western-funded non-governmental organizations, have strongly defended him, denouncing the NSS and Vanetsian in particular. Prime Minister Pashinian hit back at the critics on April 20. He said that they place their personal relationships with Sanasarian above the rule of law. Dashnaktsutyun Slams Armenian Government • Robert Zargarian Armenia -- Ishkhan Saghatelian, the head of Dashnaktsutyun's governing body in Armenia, at a news conference in Yerevan, . The Armenian Revolutionary Federation (Dashnaktsutyun) on Tuesday strongly criticized the current authorities’ track record but said it has no plans yet to try to unseat them. In a statement adopted at a congress held in Yerevan, the opposition party’s organization in Armenia claimed that Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian and his government have failed to achieve “tangible results in any area of public life.” It accused them of lacking “strategic development programs,” pursuing an “unpredictable foreign policy,” breaching judicial independence, and systematically discrediting “traditional national, spiritual and cultural values.” “We often justify the failings and inactivity of the current authorities by comparing them with the former ones,” said Ishkhan Saghatelian, the newly elected head of Dashnaktsutyun’s governing body in Armenia. “Our people gave these authorities a strong vote of confidence and have great expectations but they are not living up to those expectations,” he told a news conference. Saghatelian made clear at the same time that his party does not have a “regime change agenda” yet. He dismissed a newspaper report which claimed that Dashnaktsutyun plans to launch an anti-government protest movement before the end of this year. Dashnaktsutyun was part of Armenia’s former government ousted during last spring’s “velvet revolution.” It received two ministerial posts in Pashinian’s first cabinet formed in May. Pashinian sacked his Dashnaktsutyun-affiliated ministers and other government officials in October, accusing their party of secretly collaborating with former President Serzh Sarkisian’s Republican Party (HHK). Dashnaktsutyun has since been increasingly critical of Pashinian’s government. The center-left nationalist party, which remains influential in the Armenian Diaspora, failed to win any seats in the Armenian parliament in snap general elections held in December. Saghatelian, who served as a regional governor from June-October 2018, said Dashnaktsutyun is now open to cooperation with any political force, including the HHK, which shares its concerns and views. “We don’t have a black list,” he said. Press Review “Zhoghovurd” notes that Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev is visiting Armenia for the first time since last spring’s “velvet revolution.” The paper suggests given the “not so smooth” state of Russian-Armenian relations Medvedev will discuss not only economic but also political issues in Yerevan. “Are the current Armenian authorities considered by Russia to be as controllable and therefore trustworthy as the former ones?” it says. “It should be noted that there is also a lack of trust towards Russia in Armenia, especially on issues where Russia plays a direct or passive role.” It says one of those issues is the criminal investigation into the March 2008 violence in Yerevan and Russian support for the arrested former President Robert Kocharian. “Zhamanak” says one of the issues on the agenda of Medvedev’s trip is the price of Russian natural gas supplied to Armenia. “The Armenian authorities want to fix a long-term price of gas so that they don’t have to negotiate every year and create tension in the economic and political life,” writes the paper. “But the Russian side is not prepared for such an agreement and the gas prices will continue to fluctuate in accordance with international market trends.” “Aravot” voices misgivings about the authorities’ decision to mark the anniversary of the “velvet revolution” with a new public holiday called Citizen’s Day. Still, the paper notes that Armenians who celebrated the holiday in the streets of Yerevan and other parts of the country on Saturday carried no “negative energy” and did not utter insults directed at the former regime. “People were simply having fun,” it says. “Just how they were having fun is another matter.” “Haykakan Zhamanak” claims that critics of the current government are now saying that “corruption is not such a bad thing” after all and can be good for state governance. The pro-government paper says this is part of their efforts to “exonerate the former authorities.” “Controlled corruption is certainly a system of governance and it could even have some short-term positive effects,” it says. “But only if there is no state and statehood.” (Anush Mkrtchian) Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL Copyright (c) 2019 Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, Inc. 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036. www.rferl.org