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    Categories: 2020

RFE/RL Armenian Report – 09/02/2020

                                        Wednesday, September 2, 2020

Former Police Chief’s Properties Investigated

        • Narine Ghalechian

Armenia - Vladimir Gasparian (L), the chief of the Armenian police, argues with 
a protester in Yerevan, 26Jun2015.

Law-enforcement authorities have launched a criminal investigation into a luxury 
compound belonging to Vladimir Gasparian, a former chief of the Armenian police.

The Investigative Committee said on Wednesday that the properties located on the 
northern shore of Lake Sevan may have been built and officially registered in 
violation of Armenian laws strictly regulating construction in the 
environmentally sensitive area.

In a statement, the law-enforcement body said a government agency registered the 
entire compound in January 2018 despite suspicions that some of its 14 houses 
and other structures had been built illegally. It said the registration was 
controversially recommended by the leadership of the state-run Sevan National 
Park (SNP).

Vahe Gulanian, who ran the SNP at the time, categorically denied breaking any 
laws or government regulations when he spoke to RFE/RL’s Armenian service. He 
described the Investigative Committee statement as “flawed.”

The statement said that the Investigative Committee is conducting a criminal 
investigation into forgery and failure to prevent illegal construction and 
seizure of public land. It has not charged anyone so far.

A spokeswoman for the committee said investigators have not questioned Gasparian 
as part of the inquiry.

A lawyer for Gasparian, Tigran Atanesian, scoffed at the probe in a short 
Facebook post. “Don’t you know other heroes?” wrote Atanesian.

According to the Investigative Committee statement, the criminal case was opened 
as a result of an ongoing separate investigation into Gasparian’s threats voiced 
against RFE/RL reporters last month. The former police chief accosted and 
threatened them with violence as they filmed his compound while collecting 
material about illegally built villas along the Sevan coastline.

Obstruction of news reporting and other journalistic work is a criminal offense 
in Armenia.

Gasparian headed the national police service from 2011 to 2018. He was sacked 
immediately after the “Velvet Revolution” of April-May 2018 that toppled the 
country previous government.

In September 2018, Gasparian was charged with abusing his powers to benefit 
people working for former President Serzh Sarkisian’s brothers. He denies the 
accusations.



Yerevan Slams Turkey's Ban On German Military Flights To Armenia


Germany -- The Airbus A310 of the Federal German Air Force named Theodor Heuss 
at the military section of Tegel Airport in Berlin, 24Jun2011

The Armenian Foreign Ministry confirmed on Wednesday reports that Turkey has 
refused to allow a German military transport aircraft to fly over its airspace 
en route to Armenia.

The plane was due to pick up Armenian soldiers and transport them to Germany for 
further training preceding their deployment in Afghanistan.

Some 120 Armenian servicemen serve in Afghanistan under German command as part 
of a NATO-led multinational force. The Armenian military rotates them on a 
regular basis.

The German magazine “Der Spiegel” reported on Friday that the Airbus 310 
aircraft of the German Air Force was on its way to Yerevan in late July when 
Turkish air traffic controllers unexpectedly refused, without any explanation, 
to give it overflight permission. The plane had to return to a German military 
airfield as a result, it said, adding that the Armenian soldiers were flown to 
Germany over Russia’s airspace in mid-August.

“As far as I know, the Defense Ministry did not refute that information,” said 
Anna Naghdalian, the spokeswoman for the Armenian Foreign Ministry.

“It is condemnable that Turkey now also obstructs NATO-led and UN-led 
peacekeeping operations based on its anti-Armenian positions,” Naghdalian told 
reporters. “We have raised this issue with our international partners through 
diplomatic channels.”


Armenia -- A German army general gives medals to Armenian soldiers serving in 
Afghanistan.

Ankara has not denied the “Der Spiegel” report. According to the report, the 
German military, the Bundeswehr, regards the Turkish move as a “deliberate 
provocation” by a NATO member state.

The German plane was reportedly not allowed to fly over Turkish territory just 
days after the outbreak of heavy fighting on Armenia’s border with Azerbaijan, 
Turkey’s closest regional ally. Ankara blamed Yerevan for the weeklong 
hostilities, which left 17 soldiers dead, and voiced support for Baku in 
unusually strong terms.

The Armenian government responded by accusing the Turks of trying to destabilize 
the region, undercutting international efforts to resolve the Nagorno-Karabakh 
conflict and posing a serious security threat to Armenia.



Karabakh Leader Sees No Peace Deal With Azerbaijan


Nagorno Karabakh -- Karabakh President Ara Harutiunian airs a live video message 
on Facebook, Stepanakert, May 29, 2020

The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is unlikely to be fully resolved in the 
foreseeable future, Ara Harutiunian, the Karabakh president, said on Wednesday.

“The likelihood of resolving this problem within decades is very low,” 
Harutiunian told a news conference in Stepanakert. “We don’t see that happening.”

“That is why through strengthening our army we should force the enemy to reckon 
with the Armenian force of Artsakh (Karabakh) and maintain the status quo until 
major geopolitical developments that could lead to some temporary or rather 
partial resolution of the Karabakh conflict,” he said. “A full resolution is not 
possible.”

The Karabakh leader said that the international community has already brokered 
such an interim solution to the conflict in Kosovo, an Albanian-populated former 
province of Serbia recognized as an independent state by most Western nations.

Harutiunian spoke to reporters on the 19th anniversary of Karabakh’s declaration 
of independence from Soviet Azerbaijan which came just four months before the 
breakup of the Soviet Union and was followed by a bloody Armenian-Azerbaijani 
war for the territory.

Azerbaijan never recognized the legality of that declaration. It continues to 
consider Karabakh an internationally recognized part of Azerbaijan occupied by 
Armenia.

Harutiunian’s remarks came amid efforts by international mediators -- and Russia 
in particular -- to revive the Karabakh peace process following the recent heavy 
fighting at a volatile section of the border between Armenia and Azerbaijan.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Tuesday that both Yerevan and 
Baku now seem interested in further easing tensions and resuming peace talks 
mediated by the U.S., Russian and French co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group. He 
stressed that the talks should continue to focus on a framework peace accord 
which was first put forward by the mediators in 2007 and has been repeatedly 
modified since then.

The mediators’ so-called Madrid Principles call for a phased settlement that 
would start with Armenian withdrawal from virtually all seven districts in 
Azerbaijan proper fully or partly controlled by Karabakh Armenian forces. In 
return, Karabakh’s predominantly Armenian population would be able to determine 
the dispute region’s internationally recognized status in a future referendum.



Red Cross Still Seeking Access To Armenian POW In Azerbaijan

        • Robert Zargarian

Armenia - The Armenian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, Anna Naghdalian, at a news 
briefing in Yerevan, December 20, 2018.

Representatives of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) have 
still not been able to visit an Armenian army officer who was captured by 
Azerbaijani troops late last month, officials in Yerevan said on Wednesday.

A spokeswoman for the ICRC office in Yerevan, Zara Amatuni, told RFE/RL’s 
Armenian service that the ICRC is continuing its “dialogue” with relevant 
Armenian and Azerbaijani authorities regarding the officer, Gurgen Alaverdian. 
She would not say when the Azerbaijani side could allow ICRC representatives in 
Baku to meet and speak with Alaverdian.

The Armenian Foreign Ministry also reported continuing efforts to arrange such a 
visit. “Given the sensitivity of the issue I won’t give other details,” said the 
ministry spokeswoman, Anna Naghdalian.

The Azerbaijani military claims that Alaverdian was taken prisoner during a 
failed Armenian commando raid on one of its frontline positions north of 
Nagorno-Karabakh. The Armenian Defense Ministry strongly denies this, saying 
that Alaverdian simply lost his way on August 22 due to poor weather.

Yerevan has said that Baku’s treatment of the Armenian serviceman constitutes a 
serious violation of the 1949 Geneva Convention on prisoners of war. It has 
specifically decried an Azerbaijani Defense Ministry vide shows the serviceman 
saying in broken Armenian that he led a special army unit that planned to carry 
out “sabotage” attacks in Azerbaijan. It says he was clearly forced to read out 
a written text badly translated into Armenian.

The Azerbaijani authorities brought a string of criminal charges against 
Alaverdian following the release of the video last week.

Naghdalian deplored this and other “trumped-up” criminal cases brought against 
Armenian citizens held in Azerbaijani captivity.

“I want point out in this regard that two citizens of Azerbaijan have crossed 
into Armenia in the course of this year alone,” she told a news conference. 
“Unlike Azerbaijan, Armenia has not prosecuted them or portrayed them as 
prisoners of war and fully respects their dignity and human rights.”


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