Saturday,
Armenian Opposition Leader Again Arrested
Armenia -- Former National Security Service Director Artur Vanetsian addresses
opposition protesters in Yerevan, November 11, 2020.
Artur Vanetsian, a former National Security Service (NSS) director leading an
opposition party, was arrested on Saturday on suspicion of plotting to
assassinate Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian and overthrow Armenia’s government.
The NSS also arrested several other individuals who it said were also involved
in the alleged conspiracy. They included Vahram Baghdasarian, a senior member of
the former ruling Republican Party of Armenia (HHK).
In a statement, the NSS claimed to have found large quantities of weapons in a
property belonging to another arrested suspect. It said the weapons were due to
be used for murdering Pashinian and seizing power.
Vanetsian’s lawyer Lusine Sahakian and Hayrenik (Fatherland) party condemned his
arrest as politically motivated. Hayrenik said it is part of the Armenian
authorities’ efforts to quell opposition protests against a Russian-mediated
ceasefire agreement that stopped the Armenian-Azerbaijani war in
Nagorno-Karabakh.
Hayrenik is one of 17 Armenian opposition groups that launched the protests and
demanded Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s resignation immediately after the
truce went into force on November 10. They accuse Pashinian of capitulating to
Azerbaijan and committing high treason.
The authorities say that the protests are illegal, citing martial law declared
by them following the outbreak of the war on September 27.
Vanetsian and a dozen other opposition leaders were detained on November 11 for
organizing the protests. Armenian courts freed virtually all of them two days
later.
Vanetsian, 40, was appointed as head of the NSS immediately the 2018 “Velvet
Revolution” that brought Pashinian to power. He quickly became an influential
member of Pashinian’s entourage, overseeing high-profile corruption
investigations initiated by Armenia’s new leadership.
Vanetsian resigned in September 2019 after falling out with the prime minister.
He has since repeatedly accused Pashinian of incompetence and misrule, prompting
angry responses from the premier and his political allies.
First Refugees Return To Karabakh
• Gayane Saribekian
Armenia - Ethnic Armenian refugees board a bus in Yerevan that will transport
them back to Nagorno-Karabakh, .
First groups of ethnic Armenian refugees returned to Nagorno-Karabakh on
Saturday four days after a Russian-brokered ceasefire agreement stopped the
Armenian-Azerbaijani war.
According to authorities in Stepanakert, the six-week war displaced at least
90,000 Karabakh Armenian civilians making up around 60 percent of the
territory’s population. Most of them took refuge in Armenia.
The authorities urged the refugees to return home immediately after the entry
into force of the truce. The Karabakh president, Ara Harutiunian, assured them
that the impending deployment of about 2,000 Russian peacekeepers in and around
Karabakh will serve as an additional guarantee of their security.
Harutiunian also said that his administration will act quickly to restore many
homes and public infrastructures damaged during the fierce fighting.
On Friday Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian met with senior Armenian government
officials to discuss further aid programs for the Karabakh refugees.
“Our priority is to have them receive that aid in Artsakh (Karabakh),” Pashinian
said in his opening remarks at the meeting. “That is to say that it must be a
program that will contribute to the return of our compatriots to Artsakh.”
Yerevan Mayor Hayk Marutian met, meanwhile, with Harutiunian in Stepanakert. It
was announced afterwards that Yerevan’s municipal administration will provide
buses that will transport refugees from the Armenian capital to Karabakh free of
charge on a daily basis.
Nagorno Karabakh -- An unexploded Smerch rocket sticks out of the ground after a
shelling attack in Stepanakert, October 9, 2020.
About 200 refugees were bused to Stepanakert on Saturday. Among them was Tatevik
Hovakimian, a resident of the Karabakh capital whose home was seriously damaged
by Azerbaijani shelling.
“Never mind, we will somehow get by,” Hovakimian told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service.
“The main thing is to return home, to be in our land. We are used to
difficulties. We will overcome this one as well.”
“Whether or not it’s dangerous, we must go back, we have no other option,” said
Inna Sarukhanian, another Stepanakert resident.
Arevik Abrahamian, another Karabakh Armenian woman, likewise chose to return to
Askeran, a small town 10 kilometers east of Stepanakert, despite being wary of
lingering security risks. “It’s dangerous, but where else could we live if we
don’t go back?” she said.
Bodies Of Armenian, Azeri Soldiers Recovered
NAGORNO-KARABAKH -- Military vehicles of the Russian peacekeeping forces drive
along a road past a burnt tank near Shusha (Shushi),
The parties to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict have reportedly begun recovering
and exchanging the bodies of their soldiers killed during the
Armenian-Azerbaijani war stopped by a Russian-mediated ceasefire.
Ara Harutiunian, the Karabakh president, announced the start of the process late
on Friday. He said it is being conducted with the help of representatives of the
International Committee of the Red Cross (IRC) and Russian peacekeeping forces
deployed in and around Karabakh.
The Armenian Defense Ministry confirmed the information in a short statement
released on Saturday.
The mutual handover of soldiers killed in action is envisaged by the
Armenian-Azerbaijani ceasefire agreement which was brokered by Russia and went
into force on November 10. The deal halted the six-week war that left thousands
of people dead and tens of thousands of others.
Armenia’s Health Ministry indicated on Saturday that at least 2,300 Armenian and
Karabakh Armenian combatants have died during the war. A ministry spokeswoman,
Alina Nikoghosian, said the figure does not include dead soldiers whose bodies
remain in Azerbaijani-controlled territory. Their total number is not yet known,
she said.
The Armenian military has so far reported and identified about 1,400 combat
casualties within its ranks.
Azerbaijan has still not disclosed the number of its soldiers killed during the
war.
Russian Border Guards Expand Presence In Armenia
• Armen Koloyan
Armenia -- Russian border guards take part in a ceremony in Yerevan to mark the
70th anniversary of Soviet victory over Nazi Germany, May 9, 2015.
Russia has announced that its border guard service has set up five new posts
along Armenia’s borders with Azerbaijan and Iran due to the war in
Nagorno-Karabakh.
“All necessary measures have been taken and agreed with border services of
Armenia, and we have come into contact with Azerbaijani border guards,”
Alexander Bortnikov, the head of Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB), told
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday during a video conference on the
situation in the Karabakh conflict zone.
“We have established necessary relations, are exchanging information, and the
border guards are serving in a regime of [Armenian] state border protection,” he
said.
According to Bortnikov, two of the Russian outposts have been established on
Armenia’s border Iran while the three others are located along the
Armenian-Azerbaijani frontier. One of them is close to the so-called Lachin
corridor that will serve as the sole overland link between Armenia and Karabakh
as a result of a Russian-brokered truce agreement that stopped the war on
November 10.
Under that agreement, around 2,000 Russian army soldiers will be deployed in the
corridor and the Armenian-Azerbaijani “line of contact” in and around Karabakh.
Putin discussed the deal’s implementation with Bortnikov as well as Russia’s
Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Minister of
Emergency Situations Yevgeny Zinichev.
Russian border guards, which are part of the FSB, have until now been deployed
only along Armenia’s borders with Iran and Turkey.
Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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