Friday, August 16, 2019

Red Cross Seeking Access To Armenian POW In Azerbaijan
August 16, 2019
        • Artak Khulian

Switzerland -- Peter Maurer, President of the International Committee of the 
Red Cross (ICRC), at a news conference in Geneva, 07Sep2012

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said on Friday that its 
representatives are trying to visit an Armenian soldier who was taken prisoner 
by Azerbaijani forces near Nagorno-Karabakh this week.

The 19-year-old conscript, Arayik Ghazarian, was detained on Monday after 
crossing the Armenian-Azerbaijani “line of contact” around Karabakh in still 
unclear circumstances.

The Azerbaijani military said Ghazarian claimed to have deserted his unit 
because of being systematically mistreated by his comrades. Armenia’s Defense 
Minister Davit Tonoyan denied that, saying that that the soldier probably 
strayed into Azerbaijani-controlled territory by accident.

Armenia’s Investigative Committee launched a criminal inquiry into both 
desertion and hazing in connection with the incident. No servicemen of 
Ghazarian’s unit have been charged or detained so far, according to the 
law-enforcement body

The Armenian side also asked the ICRC to help free and repatriate Ghazarian. 
The ICRC responded by requesting permission to visit the Armenian prisoner of 
war in custody.

A spokeswoman for the IRCR office in Yerevan Zara Amatuni, said the Red Cross 
has not yet been granted access to him. “ICRC representatives’ dialogue with 
representatives of relevant authorities with regard to visiting that person is 
continuing at the moment,” she told RFE/RL’s Armenian. “The process is still in 
progress.”

The Turan news agency reported that Azerbaijan’s human rights ombudsman has met 
with Ghazarian and that the latter did not complain about his detention 
conditions or treatment by Azerbaijani authorities.



Kocharian’s Trial ‘Not Obstructed By Judicial Authorities’
August 16, 2019
        • Naira Nalbandian

Armenia -- Former President Robert Kocharian speaks during his trial in 
Yerevan, May 16, 2019.

A senior judicial official insisted on Friday that the Armenian authorities are 
not deliberately dragging out the stalled trial of former President Robert 
Kocharian to prevent his release from jail.

The trial began on May 13, with Kocharian facing accusations of bribery and a 
violent overthrow of the constitutional order strongly denied by him. A few 
days later, a Yerevan district court judge presiding over it, Davit Grigorian, 
ordered the ex-president freed from custody and suspended court hearings on the 
case, questioning the legality of the charges.

Prosecutors appealed against both decisions strongly condemned by political 
allies and supporters of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian. Armenia’s Court of 
Appeals overturned them on June 25, leading Kocharian’s lawyers to appeal to 
the higher Court of Cassation.

Grigorian was charged with forgery and suspended in late July. Lawyers for the 
judge suggested that the charge was brought against him in retaliation against 
his handling of the Kocharian case.

The high-profile trial, which must now be held by another judge, has still not 
resumed. Kocharian’s lawyers claim that the authorities are “artificially” 
delaying it as part of their efforts to keep the ex-president under arrest as 
long as possible.

The head of Armenia’s Judicial Department, Karen Poladian, dismissed those 
claims. “Many people accuse the judicial system,” he told reporters. “I think 
that they do so for certain purposes.”

Poladian argued that Kocharian’s legal team itself sent the case to the Court 
of Cassation. “Until the of Court Cassation hands down a final ruling the court 
of first instance cannot hold hearings on the case,” he told reporters.

Poladian said the Court of Cassation will send next week a copy of the case 
back to the Yerevan court so that it can be assigned to another judge. The 
latter will then decide when the trial can resume, added the official.

One of Kocharian’s lawyers, Aram Orbelian, insisted, however, that the trial 
should have resumed shortly after the Court of Appeals ruling that led to his 
client’s renewed arrest. “The court of first instance has no legal grounds to 
refrain from holding hearings on the case,” Orbelian told RFE/RL’s Armenian 
service.

The coup charges, which have also been leveled against two retired army 
generals, stem from the 2008 post-election violence in Yerevan which left eight 
anti-government protesters and two police servicemen dead. Prosecutors claim 
that Kocharian illegally ordered Armenian army units to break up street 
protests against alleged fraud in a presidential election.

Kocharian, who ruled the country from 1998-2008, rejects the accusations as 
politically motivated. The indicted generals also deny them.



Housing Prices In Yerevan Rise
August 16, 2019

Armenia - New apartment blocks are constructed in Yerevan, 4Apr2015.

Housing prices in Yerevan have increased by almost 10 percent in the past year, 
an Armenian government agency said on Friday.

The Cadaster Committee also reported an even sharper rise in the number of real 
estate transactions in Armenia. It said it registered over 16,000 such deals 
last month, up by 17 percent from July 2018.

This may well explain a 9.8 percent year-on-year rise in the average cost of 
Yerevan apartments recorded in July this year. The committee gave no such 
figure for other parts of the country where housing prices have always been 
much lower than in the Armenian capital.

Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian was quick to seize upon these numbers, 
portraying them as a further indication of public confidence in his government 
and Armenia’s future. According to Pashinian, the domestic housing market was 
stagnant before the 2018 “Velvet Revolution” as many Armenians had trouble 
finding buyers for their homes due to a high rate of emigration from the 
country.

“Now the opposite process is underway: buyers are many and sellers few,” 
Pashinian wrote on his Facebook page.

Pashinian also said that the overall volume of mortgage lending in Armenia more 
than doubled in the first half of 2019. “This is a record figure for at least 
the past decade,” he said.

Increased remittances from Armenians working abroad may have also contributed 
to the higher real estate prices. According to the Armenian Central Bank, they 
rose by 13 percent, to $705 million, in January-May 2019.

Also, economic growth in the country appears to have accelerated in the first 
half of this year after slowing down to 5.2 percent last year. The Armenian 
economy expanded by 7.5 percent in 2017.



Press Review
August 16, 2019

1in.am pounces on a remark by former President Robert Kocharian’s lawyer Samvel 
Khudoyan that “liberated lands” around Nagorno-Karabakh are not an integral 
part of the unrecognized Artsakh Republic and that Kocharian therefore cannot 
be faulted for bringing troops to Yerevan from those areas in February-March 
2008. The publication highly critical of Kocharian says that the lawyer must 
have coordinated with the ex-president before making such a “statement 
endangering national security.” “Such statements can periodically be heard from 
Baku which questions Artsakh’s borders,” it says.

Lragir.am reports that campaigning has officially began for upcoming local 
elections in Karabakh. “The candidates for the post of Stepanakert mayor are 
already known,” writes the publication. “The election campaign is drastically 
different from all previous campaigns with the absence of the government 
factor. People in Stepanakert, who are accustomed to one or another influential 
government figure being behind a candidate, had been at pains to find out whom 
Bako Sahakian and others support. But it then emerged that a revolution of 
sorts occurred in Artsakh. The authorities there were not toppled. They were 
simply forced to give up their political monopoly … These are ideal conditions 
for elections which will be held in the absence of a political monopoly for the 
first time in many years.”

“Aravot” comments on the worsening situation with garbage collection in 
Yerevan. The paper claims that the problem results from last year’s “change of 
the [government] systems.” “The old system was based on an informal circulation 
of cash and possible gaps [in its functioning] were closed through shadowy 
deals,” editorializes the paper. “Now everything must be open and transparent, 
and this will cause problems for some time.” It goes on to urge the Yerevan 
municipality to embark on a “comprehensive program of garbage collection” that 
will address all aspects of waste management in the Armenian capital.

(Lilit Harutiunian)


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