Tuesday, July 7, 2020 Aliyev Slams Karabakh Mediators • Heghine Buniatian Azerbaijan -- President Ilham Aliyev speaks in Ganja, June 25, 2020. Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev has lambasted the U.S., Russian and French mediators trying to broker a solution to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and said the most recent Armenian-Azerbaijani talks were fruitless. In an interview with Azerbaijani television aired on Tuesday, Aliyev denounced the mediators co-chairing the OSCE Minsk Group for reiterating last week that “there is no military solution to the conflict.” “Their main point is that the problem cannot be solved militarily,” he said. “Who said that? We expect more serious, clear and targeted statements from the mediators.” “In essence, no negotiations are held right now,” claimed Aliyev. “The video conferences of the [Armenian and Azerbaijani] foreign ministers are meaningless and are only leaving the impression that the Minsk Group exists.” “As I have said before, we will not negotiate for the sake of negotiating and we want substantive negotiations without any change in their format. In that case, we will participate in them. Otherwise, I see no need for pointless negotiations.” Foreign Ministers Zohrab Mnatsakanian and Elmar Mammadyarov as well as the three mediators most recently talked via video link on June 30. They reported no progress towards a Karabakh settlement. In a joint statement issued right after the talks, the Minsk Group co-chairs said they urged the conflicting parties to “take additional steps to strengthen the ceasefire and to prepare the populations for peace.” They also said the two ministers agreed to hold another video conference in July and to meet in person “as soon as possible.” Yerevan and Baku traded bitter recriminations both before and during the latest round of peace talks. Speaking at a June 25 meeting with Azerbaijani army officers, Aliyev described Armenia’s post-Soviet history as “shameful,” saying that his country’s arch-foe was for decades ruled by “criminals and thieves.” He also said that the 2018 popular protests that brought Nikol Pashinian to power were not a democratic revolution. The Armenian Foreign Ministry hit back at Aliyev, saying that he leads one of the world’s most corrupt and repressive regimes which feels threatened by “democratic changes taking place in Armenia.” Lack Of Quorum Prevents High Court Hearing On Kocharian Case • Naira Nalbandian Armenia -- The main meeting room of the Constitutional Court, Yerevan, September 3, 2019. Armenia’s Constitutional Court did not make a quorum on Tuesday to start hearings on the legality of coup charges brought against former President Robert Kocharian. The court has been in limbo since the Armenian parliament passed late last month constitutional changes calling for the immediate dismissal of three of its nine judges. They also stipulate that Hrayr Tovmasian must quit as court chairman but remain a judge. Tovmasian and the three ousted justices have rejected the changes as unconstitutional, filing relevant appeals in the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR). In what appeared to be a related development, Tovmasian and another remaining judge, Arevik Petrosian, went on vacation last week. Consequently, the majority of the Constitutional Court members did not show up for a court session which was due to discuss the case against Kocharian along with several other issues. Kocharian is prosecuted under Article 300.1of Armenia’s Criminal Code dealing with “overthrow of the constitutional order.” The accusation rejected by him as politically motivated stems from the 2008 post-election unrest in Yerevan that left ten people dead. The current code was enacted in 2009. Kocharian’s lawyers maintain that the article in question cannot be used retroactively against him. They argue that the previous code, which was in force during the dramatic events of March 2008, had no clauses relating to “overthrow of the constitutional order” and contained instead references to “usurpation of state power.” Prosecutors say that there are no significant differences between the two definitions of a crime allegedly committed by the man who ruled Armenia from 1998-2008. Kocharian’s legal team last year asked the Constitutional Court to declare the coup charge illegal. A Yerevan judge who initially presided over the ex-president’s trial likewise asked the court to pass judgment on the legality of the accusation. The Constitutional Court in turn decided in July 2019 to request an “advisory opinion” on the matter from the ECHR as well as the Venice Commission of the Council of Europe. The Strasbourg-based court’s Grand Chamber released a lengthy and complex opinion in May, while the Venice Commission offered its assessment in June. One of the six remaining Constitutional Court judges, Vahe Grigorian, was earlier barred by his colleagues from dealing with the Kocharian case. They argued that Grigorian cannot make impartial decisions on the matter because he had represented relatives of nine of the ten people killed in March 2008. One of their current lawyers, Tigran Yegorian, demanded on Tuesday that Tovmasian and three other justices be also excluded from the high-profile case because of what he described as a conflict of interest and political bias. A lawyer representing Kocharian dismissed the demand, saying that Yegorian is not in a position to voice such demands. Another Armenian Nursing Home Hit By COVID-19 Outbreak • Satenik Kaghzvantsian • Susan Badalian Armenia -- The entrance to a nursing home in Gyumri, July 7, 2020. At least 55 elderly people living in a nursing home in Gyumri have been infected with the coronavirus following similar outbreaks of the disease reported at Armenia’s two other elderly care centers. A spokeswoman for the state-funded institution, Nune Grigorian, said on Tuesday that 37 of them have been hospitalized. “We also have 12 infected personnel, one of whom was also taken to hospital,” she told RFE/RL’s Armenian service. “The 18 other [infected residents] are asymptomatic and have been isolated along with the [infected] personnel.” Grigorian did not deny reports that one of the elderly persons has died. “We don’t yet know whether [the death] was connected with the coronavirus because the patient suffered from a severe pre-existing disease: cancer,” she said. The Gyumri nursing home has 160 residents and 66 employees looking after them. Grigorian insisted that its administration has followed anti-epidemic guidelines issued by the health authorities. Armenia has only three nursing homes where a total of 580 retirees live and receive care and, if necessary, medical assistance. All of them were placed in strict lockdown in late February even before the authorities registered the first coronavirus case in the country. One of these care centers located in Yerevan was the first to be hit by a COVID-19 outbreak in mid-May. At least ten of its residents infected with the disease reportedly died as of June 25. The Armenian Ministry of Health said on Monday that all others have already recovered and been discharged from hospital. The other care home, also located in the Armenian capital, reported two dozen infections late last month. Meanwhile, the total number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Armenia rose by 349 to 29,285 on Tuesday morning. The Ministry of Health also reported that 17 more people infected with the virus died in the past day. The ministry said COVID-19 was the primary cause of 12 of those deaths. The country’s official death toll from the epidemic thus rose to 503. Armenia Launches Production Of Kalashnikov Rifles Armenia -- A worker shows Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian a Kalashnikov AK-103 rifle assembled at the Neitron company plant in Abovian, July 7, 2020. An Armenian company has started manufacturing advanced models of Russia’s famous Kalashnikov assault rifles which are due to be supplied to Armenia’s armed forces and sold abroad. The Neitron company launched the production operations this month in line with an agreement reached by Russia’s Kalashnikov Concern and another Armenian-owned firm, Royalsys Engineering, two years ago. A follow-up deal signed by the Russian small arms manufacturer and Neitron in May this year granted the latter a 10-year license to produce Kalashnikov’s AK-103 models designed in 1994. Neitron executives told Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian on Tuesday that their company will assemble 50,000 such guns annually as they showed him around their new production facility located near Abovian, a town 15 kilometers north of Yerevan. One of those executives, Igor Gordienko, told the Sputnik news agency last month that Neitron will initially use rifle parts supplied by Kalashnikov but plans to manufacture them as well in the future. An Armenian government statement cited Pashinian as welcoming the development and saying that it was made possible by Armenia’s close military ties with Russia. The Russian ambassador in Yerevan, Sergey Kopyrkin, was among officials who accompanied the prime minister during his visit to the new Neitron plant. Armenia -- An Armenian soldier shoots a Kalashnikov rifle during a military exercise in Vayots Dzor province, April 16, 2020. According to the statement, the AK-103 rifles will be delivered not only to the Armenian army but also foreign buyers. Kalashnikov’s older AK-74 rifles and PK machine guns have long been the army’s principal light weapons. The launch of Neutron’s new production operation suggests that the Armenian Defense Ministry plans to replace all AK-74s in its arsenal with the more modern AK-103 model. The government statement also revealed that Neitron will pay $24 million to buy new Russian equipment for modernizing and expanding its separate production of Kalashnikov cartridges. In addition, it said, the company will start producing night-vision gun sights and surveillance devices for the Armenian military later this year. Kalashnikov Concern opened an official representation in Yerevan in 2014 at a ceremony attended by then Defense Minister Seyran Ohanian. The latter stressed the importance of Russian-Armenian agreements allowing Armenian and Russian defense companies to supply each other with equipment, assembly parts and other materials needed for the production, modernization and repair of various weapons. Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL Copyright (c) 2020 Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, Inc. 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.