Wednesday,
Serbia Admits Arms Deals With Armenia
• Gevorg Stamboltsian
SERBIA -- Armenian President Armen Sarkisian (L) inspects the guard of honor
with Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic in Belgrade, October 4, 2019
Serbia’s government on Tuesday acknowledged that Serbian defense companies have
supplied weapons to Armenia but did not confirm Azerbaijani claims that they
included mortars.
A government-linked Azerbaijani news website, Haqqin.az, claimed on July 19 that
Serbian-made mortars as well as ammunition for them were delivered to Armenia
via Georgia recently and used in deadly clashes that broke out on the
Armenian-Azerbaijani border on July 21.
Serbia’s ambassador in Baku, Danica Veinovic, was summoned to the Azerbaijani
Foreign Ministry in connection with the report. Deputy Foreign Minister Khalaf
Khalafov was reported to tell her that the alleged arms supplies called into
question Azerbaijan’s “friendly relations” with the Balkan state.
Serbia’s outgoing Trade Minister Rasim Ljajic said in this regard that private
Serbian firms sold small quantities of light weapons to Armenia earlier this
year.
“I cannot name those companies, but according to our information, they mainly
supplied rifles and pistols to Armenia,” Serbian media quoted Ljajic as saying.
“Their combined market value is less than 1 million euros. Those weapons were
supplied in two batches, in May and June.”
Ljajic made no mention of mortars. He stressed that there are no international
sanctions or agreements that bar his country from selling weapons to Armenia.
“It is therefore hard to turn down that country’s offers to buy our weapons,”
added the Serbian minister.
Meanwhile, Georgia’s Foreign Ministry denied the alleged transit of
Armenia-bound weapons through Georgian territory. It denounced the Haqqin.az
claim as “disinformation” aimed at undermining “Georgian-Azerbaijani strategic
partnership.”
Azerbaijan itself has purchased billions of dollars worth of heavy weapons from
Russia, Israel, Turkey and other countries over the past decade in a bid to gain
a military superiority over Armenia. Yerevan has repeatedly expressed concern
over those arms deals.
Bill On Armenian Constitutional Court Takes Effect
• Artak Khulian
Armenia -- The Constitutional Court building in Yerevan, December 27, 2019.
A government-backed bill meant to complete the controversial dismissal of three
of the nine members of Armenia’s Constitutional Court came into force on
Wednesday three weeks after being passed by the parliament.
President Armen Sarkissian has pointedly declined to sign the bill into law,
leaving it to parliament speaker Ararat Mirzoyan to do that. Sarkissian has not
explained his refusal to validate the legislation strongly condemned by the
Armenian opposition.
Mirzoyan, who is a leading member of the ruling My Step bloc, signed it
immediately after the end of a three-week period given by the Armenian
constitution to the largely ceremonial head of state.
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian swiftly announced Mirzoyan’s move on his Facebook
page. “Three new Constitutional Court judges will be elected soon,” he wrote.
The National Assembly controlled by My Step passed the bill on June 30 one week
after voting to amend the constitution. The amendments require the gradual
resignation of seven members of the high court installed before April 2018.
Three of them are to resign with immediate effect. Also, Hrayr Tovmasian must
quit as court chairman but remain a judge.
Tovmasian and the ousted judges have refused to step down, saying that their
removal is illegal. They have appealed to the European Court of Human Rights
(ECHR) to have them reinstated.
Tovmasian and six other court justices have been under strong government
pressure to step down over the past year. Pashinian has accused them of
maintaining close ties to Armenia’s former government and impeding his judicial
reforms. Tovmasian and opposition figures have dismissed Pashinian’s claims and
in turn accused the prime minister of seeking to take control of the country’s
highest court.
Under Armenian law, the three new Constitutional Court members are to be
nominated by Pashinian’s government, President Sarkissian and an assembly of the
country’s judges and appointed by the parliament. The nine court justices will
then pick their new chairperson.
Justice Minister Rustam Badasian told reporters that the government has yet to
choose its candidate to fill one of the three vacancies. He said that in any
case it will nominate an “apolitical individual who can guarantee judicial
independence.”
Government Sees Greater Business Compliance With Coronavirus Safety Rules
• Robert Zargarian
Armenia -- Officials from Armenia's Health and Labor Inspectorate inspect a
supermarket in Yerevan to verify its compliance with coroanvirus safety rules,
.
The Armenian government has reported a significant decrease in the number of
local businesses failing to comply with its safety regulations aimed at
minimizing coronavirus infections in the country.
Deputy Prime Minister Tigran Avinian, who coordinates the government’s response
to the pandemic, said on Tuesday that sanitary authorities fined and/or briefly
shut down about 400 private entities for such violations during the first ten
days of this month. This is sharply down from 1,339 firms sanctioned in the same
period of June, he said.
Despite growing coronavirus cases, the government reopened virtually all sectors
of the Armenian economy in early May. It at the same time set concrete
operational rules designed to contain the spread of the virus. Shops, cafes,
restaurants, manufacturing firms and other businesses are required, among other
things, to enforce physical distancing among their employees and customers and
to make sure that the latter wear face masks.
An RFE/RL correspondent witnessed on Wednesday numerous violations of these
rules during a brief tour of small businesses across Yerevan. In particular,
many vendors in the city’s food markets pulled masks under their chins or did
not wear them at all.
“I took it off so I can talk to you,” claimed one of them.
“I put it on as soon as a customer approaches me,” said another woman selling
agricultural produce.
Armenia - Customers at a cafe in downtown Yerevan, May 14, 2020
Wearing a mask or a cloth covering mouth and nose not only in enclosed spaces
but also in the streets and all other public areas has been mandatory in Armenia
since the beginning of June. Thousands of people have been fined for not
complying with this requirement.
Almost 35,700 coronavirus cases have been registered in the country of about 3
million to date. The Armenian health authorities detected 439 of those cases as
a result of a smaller-than-usual number of coronavirus tests carried out on
Tuesday.
The Ministry of Health also reported on Wednesday morning the deaths of 18 more
people, including a 59-year-old doctor, infected with COVID-19. It said that the
virus was the main cause of 16 of those fatalities, bringing the official death
toll to 678.
According to the ministry, 217 other infected Armenians have died primarily
because of other, pre-existing diseases.
Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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