Wednesday,
New Armenian Justice Minister Appointed
• Naira Nalbandian
Armenia -- Rustam Badasian, deputy head of the State Revenue Committee, at a
news conference in Yerevan, March 11, 2019.
A 28-year-old lawyer working for the Armenian government was appointed as the
country’s new justice minister on Wednesday.
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian handpicked Rustam Badasian for the post nearly
two weeks after the resignation of the previous minister, Artak Zeynalian.
Badasian’s appointment was formalized by President Armen Sarkissian.
Badasian has until now served as deputy head of the State Revenue Committee
comprising the national tax and customs services. He took up that position
following last year’s “velvet revolution” which brought Pashinian to power.
Pashinian hired Badasian as his lawyer after being detained on April 22, 2018
during mass protests against Armenia’s longtime leader Serzh Sarkisian’s
attempt to extend his rule. Pashinian was freed the following day just hours
before the announcement of Sarkisian’s resignation.
Badasian had worked for private law firms from 2014-2018, specializing in
business law and tax affairs in particular.
Armenia - Justice Minister Artak Zeynalian attends a meeting of the Armenian
parliament committee on human rights, Yerevan, February 22, 2019.
Zeynalian, the former justice minister, is a prominent politician and former
civil rights campaigner. He tendered his resignation on June 7 after one year
in office. He has still not given a clear reason for the move.
In televised remarks aired last week, Pashinian hinted that the resignation
resulted from his policy differences with Zeynalian. But he did not shed light
on them.
“The government is a live organism and tasks set for the government change over
time,” the prime minister told the Shant TV channel. “Not only tasks but also
the surrounding environment change. There arises a need to make personnel
changes.”
Zeynalian’s resignation came just over two weeks after the start of sweeping
judicial reforms announced by Pashinian. That announcement in turn followed a
Yerevan court’s controversial decision to release Robert Kocharian, a former
Armenia president and Pashinian’s bitter foe facing grave criminal charges,
from prison.
Bolton To Meet Armenian, Azeri FMs
U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton talks to reporters at the White
House in Washington, U.S., May 1, 2019.
U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton has announced that he will meet with
the foreign ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan who are due to hold fresh talks
on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict in Washington on Thursday.
Foreign Ministers Zohrab Mnatsakanian and Elmar Mammadyarov scheduled the talks
last week following an upsurge in skirmishes along the Armenian-Azerbaijani
“line of contact” around Karabakh. The tensions there escalated in late May
after several months of relative calm on the frontlines.
Mnatsakanian flew to Washington earlier this week. He held there on Tuesday
what the Armenian Foreign Ministry called a “preparatory meeting” with the
U.S., Russian and French diplomats co-heading the OSCE Minsk Group. Andrzej
Kasprzyk, the longtime head of a small OSCE team monitoring the ceasefire
regime in the conflict zone, was also in attendance.
“Looking forward to meetings later this week with the Foreign Minister of
Armenia and the Foreign Minister of Azerbaijan, to encourage continued dialogue
between them,” Bolton tweeted later on Tuesday.
“The United States stands ready to assist in advancing the cause of peace in
the region,” he added.
It was not clear whether Bolton will meet with Mnatsakanian and Mammadyarov
separately or in a trilateral format. The two ministers met in Moscow on April
15 in the presence of their Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov.
Armenia - Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian (R) meets with U.S. National Security
Adviser John Bolton in Yerevan, 25 October 2018.
Bolton stressed the importance of the conflict’s resolution when he visited
Armenia and Azerbaijan in October. Speaking in Yerevan, he said Washington
expects Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian to take “decisive steps” towards a
Karabakh settlement “right after” his widely anticipated victory in the
December 2018 parliamentary elections.
Pashinian spoke with Bolton by phone in January one day after meeting with
Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev in Davos, Switzerland. He said afterwards
that he did not discuss the Karabakh conflict with the U.S. official.
Prosecutors Insist On Kocharian’s Renewed Arrest
• Naira Bulghadarian
Armenia -- The Court of Appeals holds a hearing on the criminal case against
former President Robert Kocharian, Yerevan, .
Prosecutor-General Artur Davtian on Wednesday urged Armenia’s Court of Appeals
to allow investigators to again arrest former President Robert Kocharian
accused of overthrowing the constitutional order while in power.
Davtian also condemned as “illegal and unfounded” a lower court’s May 18
decision to release Kocharian from custody pending the outcome of his trial. He
said the ex-president could obstruct the trial and a continuing separate
investigation into the 2008 post-election violence in Yerevan.
“We believe that that decision must be overturned,” Davtian said during a court
hearing.
The district court in Yerevan also decided last month to suspend the trial and
request an important clarification from the Constitutional Court. It cited a
“suspicion of discrepancy” between the Armenian constitution and coup charges
brought against Kocharian.
The prosecutors appealed against both decisions denounced by many supporters of
the current Armenian government.
The Court of Appeals opened hearings on the matter on June 12. Kocharian’s
lawyers have since repeatedly demanded that the presiding judge, Armen
Danielian, recuse himself from the high-profile case. They say that he is
notorious for siding with law-enforcement agencies.
A lawyer representing the families of anti-government protesters killed in
Yerevan in March 2008 also demanded last week that the case be assigned to
another Court of Appeals judge. Danielian has rejected those demands.
Armenia -- Former President Robert Kocharian talks to his lawyers during a
Court of Appeals hearing, Yerevan, June 14, 2019.
Davtian on Wednesday also accused Kocharian of threatening Danielian last week.
The chief prosecutor seemed to refer to the ex-president’s remark that the
judge must refrain from dealing with the case because all officials involved in
it will eventually be “held accountable for their deeds.”
The coup charges stem from the March 2008 clashes between security forces and
opposition supporters demanding the rerun of a disputed presidential election.
The violence broke out less than two months before Kocharian completed his
second presidential term and handed over power to Serzh Sarkisian, his
preferred successor.
Earlier this year, Kocharian was also charged with bribe-taking. He denies all
accusations leveled against him as politically motivated.
Tsarukian Ignores Another Summons For Interrogation
• Ruzanna Stepanian
Armenia -- Prosperous Armenia Party leader Gagik Tsarukian (L) attends a
parliament session in Yerevan, .
Prosperous Armenia Party (BHK) leader Gagik Tsarukian has ignored a second
summons from law-enforcement officials investigating an arson attack reported
ahead of a mayoral election in the town of Abovian.
Armenia’s Investigative Committee said on Wednesday that Tsarukian failed to
show up for an interrogation scheduled for Tuesday evening without any
explanation.
A spokeswoman for the committee, Naira Harutiunian, warned that the
law-enforcement agency is legally empowered to detain and question him as a
witness. But she would not say whether it will exercise that right.
“I don’t want to rush and say at the moment whether or not the investigating
body will detain Mr. Tsarukian,” Harutiunian told RFE/RL’s Armenian service.
“But I will note that [such a detention] does not run counter to the law.”
Tsarukian, meanwhile, raged at an RFE/RL correspondent who wondered if he is
worried about the possibility of being forcibly taken to the Investigative
Committee for questioning. “You are saying silly things,” he told her.
Asked whether he finds it silly to comply with the law, the BHK leader replied:
“You yourself go and comply with the law with your family. Tsarukian carries
out everything one by one.”
Tsarukian said he did not visit the investigators because he had his lawyers
send them a written explanation relating to the attack reported one day before
Abovian’s BHK-backed incumbent Mayor Vahan Gevorgian defeated Grigor Gulian,
his challenger representing the ruling Civil Contract party.
The car and apartment door of Gulian’s election campaign manager, Vahan
Saribekian, were set on fire. Saribekian blamed the BHK for the attack.
Tsarukian’s party denied any responsibility for it.
Echoing his previous statements, Tsarukian suggested on Wednesday that the
incident was a staged-managed “show” aimed at “casting a shadow over the
election.”
Press Review
“Haykakan Zhamanak” scoffs at opposition criticism of the fact that Russia’s
ambassador in Yerevan, Sergey Kopyrkin, was summoned to the Armenian Foreign
Ministry after meeting with former President Robert Kocharian last week. “There
is no doubt that a meeting between Kocharian and any other foreign ambassador
based in Armenia would have prompted the same response,” writes the
pro-government paper. “But Russian-Armenian relations are special. So are our
society’s attitudes towards Russia. Therefore any move by that country’s
ambassador draws much greater attention here, and they certainly know this very
well in Russia. They also probably know our public’s attitude towards
Kocharian.” The fact that Kopyrkin chose to meet Kocharian in these
circumstances means that there is a “more serious subtext” behind Moscow’s
actions, according to the paper.
“Zhoghovurd” reports that the chairman of the Armenian parliament committee on
economic issues, Babken Tunian, on Tuesday accused unnamed senior government
officials and civil servants of “creating problems” for investors in Armenia.
“They may not return phone calls, delay the provision of documents needed by
investors and the like,” Tunian is cited as saying. The paper expresses serious
concern over this statement, warning of negative consequences for the Armenian
economy. It urges those officials to “sober up.”
Lragir.am reacts to reports that U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton
will be personally involved in the upcoming Armenian-Azerbaijani peace talks in
Washington. The publication says this is significant because “Bolton is
regarded as the main architect of U.S. President Donald Trump’s policy on Iran,
which means that the U.S. views the issue of regional security in that context.”
“Aravot” says that Kocharian’s and Serzh Sarkisian’s associates are waging
public relations campaigns against the current government. “Their criticism is
sometimes valid,” editorializes. “But they also spread ludicrous gossips every
now and then.” It is confident that their dreams about eventually regaining
power “will never come true.” “Why is the ruling political force spending time
on something which will never happen?" it asks.
(Lilit Harutiunian)
Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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