Friday,
Armenian, Azeri Leaders ‘Agree To Ease Tensions’
Turkmenistan -- Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian and Azerbaijani
President Ilham Aliyev attend a meeting of heads of the Commonwealth of
Independent States (CIS) in Ashgabat, October 11, 2019
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev
have promised more efforts to “prepare the populations for peace,”
international mediators said after ending a fresh tour of the Nagorno-Karabakh
conflict zone late on Thursday.
The U.S., Russian and French diplomats co-heading the OSCE Minsk Group met with
Pashinian and Aliyev during their latest trips to Yerevan, Stepanakert and Baku.
“The two leaders briefed the Co-Chairs on their recent conversation during the
CIS summit in Ashgabat and presented their ideas on how to advance the
settlement process,” read a joint statement issued by the mediators. “The
Co-Chairs welcomed the prospect of implementing specific humanitarian and
security measures to prepare the populations for peace and reduce tensions.”
The mediators shed no light on those measures. They said they urged the
conflicting parties to remove “obstacles potentially interfering with” the work
of a small OSCE mission monitoring the ceasefire regime along the Karabakh
“line of contact” and the Armenian-Azerbaijani border. They did not specify
what those obstacles are and who created them.
Armenia -- Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian (R) meets with OSCE Minsk Group
co-chairs, Yerevan, 15Oct2019.
Aliyev and Pashinian already agreed to take “a number of measures in the
humanitarian field” and help create “an environment conducive to peace” when
they met in Vienna in March. There seems to have been no further progress in
the negotiation process since then.
The two leaders publicly traded barbs during the October 11 summit of former
Soviet republics held in Turkmenistan’s capital. Still, they reportedly talked
to each other at great length at an official dinner hosted by Turkmen President
Gurbaguly Berdymuhamedov.
In their statement, the mediators also announced that the Armenian and
Azerbaijani foreign ministers “confirmed their intention to meet again under
Co-Chair auspices before the end of the year.” The Russian co-chair, Igor
Popov, said in Stepanakert on Wednesday that the talks could be held in
December.
Like Aliyev and Pashinian, the two ministers have met on a regular basis over
the past year, most recently in New York late last month. In an interview with
the Russian newspaper “Izvestia” published on Thursday, Azerbaijan’s Elmar
Mammadyarov said he is “a bit disappointed” with the results of the New York
talks.
“If we want to move forward and really want a political settlement of this
dispute then we should start … ‘substantive negotiations,’” said Mammadyarov.
He complained that the mediators believe such talks are contingent on a further
decrease in shooting incidents on the frontlines. More serious truce violations
there did not prevent Baku and Yerevan from making progress in their past
negotiations, he said.
The Armenian Foreign Ministry dismissed Mammadyarov’s criticism on Friday.
Armenian Government Denies Additional Concessions To Ryanair
• Naira Nalbandian
UKRAINE -- Passengers get off a Ryanair Boeing 737-8AS aircraft at the Boryspil
International Airport near Kyiv, September 3, 2018
Deputy Prime Minister Tigran Avinian insisted on Friday that the government did
not make far-reaching financial concessions to the Ryanair in return for the
Irish low-cost airline’s decision to launch flights to Armenia.
After months of negotiations with the government, Ryanair announced on
Wednesday that it start flying from Yerevan to Milan and Rome in January and
open two more routes next summer. The announcement was widely welcomed in
Armenia, with government officials predicting a significant drop in the cost of
air travel and major boost to the domestic tourism sector.
Ryanair’s decision is understood to be tied to government plans to exempt the
company from a fixed $21 tax levied from every air ticket sold in the country.
The tax break will also apply to any other airline that will launch flights to
new destinations from Armenia.
Some travel bloggers and public figures said that the government has also made
other, more significant concessions to Ryanair. In particular, they claimed
that it will pay for the Irish carrier’s airport ground services in Armenia
worth around $80 per passenger. Such a subsidy would presumably require
millions of dollars in annual government funding.
Avinian denied those claims. “We are not giving Ryanair any additional
privileges at taxpayers’ expense,” he told RFE/RL’s Armenian service.
Avinian said that the government is only planning some financial incentives for
airlines that will fly to Gyumri, Armenia’s second largest city whose
international airport is much smaller and more underused than Yerevan’s
Zvartnots airport. He gave few details of that “additional support.”
Ryanair is due to launch flights between Gyumri and the southern German city of
Memmingen in the summer of 2020.
The government also hopes to attract other European budget airlines, notably
Wizz Air, to Armenia. Tatevik Revazian, the head of Armenian Civil Aviation
Committee who negotiated the agreement with Ryanair, indicated on Wednesday
that it is close to reaching a similar deal with Wizz Air.
Armenian High Court Chief’s Relatives Questioned By Security Service
• Artak Khulian
Armenia -- Supporters of Constitutional Court Chairman Hrayr Tovmasian protest
outside the National Security Service headquarters in Yerevan, .
The National Security Service (NSS) interrogated Hrayr Tovmasian’s father and
two daughters on Friday one day after another law-enforcement agency launched
separate criminal proceedings against the embattled chairman of Armenia’s
Constitutional Court.
The NSS said it decided to seek “explanations” from his close relatives and
other individuals during “the preparation of materials” for a potential
investigation. It gave no other details in a short statement issued amid
opposition allegations that the Armenian government is targeting Tovmasian’s
family as part of its efforts to force him to resign.
A lawyer for the family, Hayk Sargsian, said NSS officers asked Tovmasian’s
daughters questions mainly relating to their assets, notably a car and a garage
which they received as a gift from a cousin who emigrated to the United States
in 2016.
Sargsian said they also inquired about another car which one of the young women
owned until donating it to Nagorno-Karabakh’s army around the same time.
Neither woman was asked questions about her father’s activities, he told
reporters after the interrogations.
Tovmasian’s father Vartan was questioned at the NSS headquarters in downtown
Yerevan earlier in the day. According to his lawyer, Amram Makinian, NSS
officers asked him questions about the roof of his one-story house located in a
village near Yerevan. In particular, he said, they wondered when it was
repaired and who financed that work. The 75-year-old told them that he fixed
the roof at his own expense and with the help of his neighbors, added the
lawyer.
NSS officers already visited and talked to Vartan Tovmasian at his home in the
village of Darakert on Thursday. He said they were mainly interested in the
house roof.
The NSS sent summonses to Tovmasian’s father and daughters as Armenia’s Special
Investigative Service (SIS) launched a criminal inquiry into a possible
“usurpation of power” by the Constitutional Court chairman and former senior
officials.
Such an inquiry was demanded by a lawmaker who alleged recently that Tovmasian
colluded with key members of Armenia’s former leadership to illegally become
head of the court in March 2018. The SIS has not charged anyone so far. Under
Armenian law, Tovmasian cannot be prosecuted without the consent of at least
five of the nine Constitutional Court justices.
Seven of those judges issued on Friday a joint statement saying that they are
“monitoring developments relating to Hrayr Tovmasian and members of his family
and will react if need be.”
The Constitutional Court refused to oust its chairman as recently as on
Tuesday. The Armenian parliament called for his dismissal in an October 4
appeal to the court drafted by its majority loyal to Prime Minister Nikol
Pashinian. The parliament accused Tovmasian of mishandling appeals lodged by
the arrested former President Robert Kocharian. It also cited his past
membership in the former ruling Republican Party (HHK).
Opposition politicians and other critics claim that Pashinian’s government is
now using law-enforcement bodies in its efforts to force Tovmasian to step
down. Several dozen of them, including senior HHK figures, rallied outside the
NSS building in downtown during Friday’s interrogations.
“The only state structure which more or less protects the constitution and
serves the Republic of Armenia, rather than Nikol Pashinian’s regime, is the
Constitutional Court,” claimed Eduard Sharmazanov, the HHK spokesman. “What is
happening now is [the result of] a fabricated political order.”
“It emerged yesterday that our authorities took a step, which is at odds with
not only the rule of law but also morality, in order to achieve their political
objective of getting rid of Hrayr Tovmasian,” said Ruben Melikian, a lawyer and
Karabakh’s former human rights ombudsman.
Pashinian’s political allies strongly denied, however, that Tovmasian is
persecuted for political reasons.
“I can understand representatives of the rejected [former] authorities,” said
Vahagn Hovakimian, a parliament deputy from the ruling My Step bloc. “They see
things within the bounds of their mental horizon, namely [imagine] what they
themselves had done.”
“Nobody is subjected to political persecution,” Hovakimian told RFE/RL’s
Armenian service. He argued that relatives of Armenian state officials do not
have legal immunity from prosecution.
Tovmasian himself has not yet commented on the latest developments. He claimed
on October 2 that the authorities want to force him out in order to gain
control over Armenia’s highest court.
Senior Government Official Resigns
Armenia -- Sarhat Petrosian, head of the Cadaster Committee, at a meeting in
Yerevan, October 14, 2019.
The head of a government agency regulating Armenia’s real estate market
resigned on Friday, citing policy differences and “dilettantism” of senior
officials in charge of urban development in the country.
The official, Sarhat Petrosian, is a well-known architect and public figure who
was appointed as head of the Cadaster Committee in the wake of last year’s
“Velvet Revolution” in which he actively participated. The committee maintains
a state registry of real estate and registers property deals.
“I do not agreed with our government’s policy and existing approaches in the
area of urban development which I believe encompasses the cadaster sector as
well,” Petrosian said in a statement.
“Despite the unprecedented upswing registered in the real estate market [since
the revolution] we have regressed in the area of urban development,” he said,
accusing the current and former heads of the government’s Urban Development
Committee of imitating meaningful activities.
Petrosian complained that he has had only sporadic influence on government
policies. “As head of a government agency and urban development architect by
education, I can no longer tolerate dilettantism and sectarianism bordering on
corruption,” he said.
Petrosian did not give examples of mismanagement alleged by him. He said he
will talk about concrete cases “in the future.”
The 37-year-old official also thanked Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian for
appointing him to the post and engineering last year’s “incredible change” in
Armenia.
“I continue to regard the changes of 2018 as one of the most important
achievements in the modern history of the Armenian people which must be
preserved, developed and spread so as to not allow stateless opportunists to
discredit or use them for personal welfare,” concluded the statement.
Pashinian’s office did not immediately react to the announcement of Petrosian’s
resignation.
Press Review
“Aravot” says that the Armenian authorities must not target Hrayr Tovmasian’s
family in their drive to oust the chairman of the Constitutional Court
Chairman. It says that Tovmasian for years “served” Armenia’s former
leadership, rather than “the state and the law,” and must therefore not
continue to sit on the country’s highest court. The newspaper editor believes
that his resignation is a “political and ethical” issue. “Should it also have
criminal consequences?” he writes. “I don’t know. Even if it should, only
Tovmasian, and not his father and children, must be held accountable.
Disturbing his relatives can leave the impression of psychological pressure
aimed forcing Tovmasian to step down after the Constitutional Court’s refusal
to do so.”
“Zhamanak” says that many Armenians were shocked by this week’s killing of an
on-duty police officer in Yerevan by suspected robbers. The paper says that
Tigran Arakelian’s death could spur a public debate on the role of Armenian
law-enforcement bodies and their radical reform.
“Haykakan Zhamanak” looks at the “propaganda war” which it says is waged
against the Armenian government. “One gets the impression that some invisible
hand is consistently raising tensions in Armenia-Artsakh relations,” writes the
pro-government paper. “And they do that in a quite inept fashion … They spread
false rumors that Nikol Pashinian addressed Bako Sahakian as ‘Mr. Governor’ and
try to cinch a tough reaction to that from Artsakh’s military circles. That is
to say that they are playing a very dirty game aimed at heightening tensions
between Armenia and Artsakh.” It points the finger at Armenia’s former rulers,
saying that they latter are desperate to return to power.
(Lilit Harutiunian)
Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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