Tuesday, March 9, 2021
Opposition Protesters Blockade Parliament Building
• Gayane Saribekian
Armenia - Riot police confront opposition protesters outside the National
Assembly building in Yerevan, March 9, 2021
Angry demonstrators blocked the entrances to the parliament building in Yerevan
on Tuesday as an alliance of Armenian opposition parties tried to step up its
campaign for Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s resignation.
The Homeland Salvation Movement already set up a tent camp on nearby Marshal
Bagramian Avenue on February 25 after the Armenian military’s top brass also
demanded that Pashinian and his cabinet step down.
Leaders of the alliance told supporters to also block adjacent Demirchian
Street, from which most lawmakers enter the parliament building, after it became
clear that President Armen Sarkissian will not challenge the legality of
Pashinian’s decision to fire the country’s top army general.
Sarkissian appeared to have deliberately missed a legal deadline for asking the
Constitutional Court to declare the decision null and void.
Vazgen Manukian, a leader of the Homeland Salvation Movement, condemned
Sarkissian’s stance as he addressed supporters on Marshal Bagramian Avenue. “We
don’t have a president,” he said before telling them to march to Demirchian
Street and blockade the parliament compound.
The protesters were confronted by hundreds of riot police guarding the main
entrance to the compound. They pitched several tents at the blocked street
section later in the evening.
Several opposition lawmakers stood in between the two sides to prevent violent
clashes between them. The police clad in riot gear did not try to disperse the
crowd.
Armenia -- Opposition leader Ishkhan Saghatelian addresses protesters outside
the parliament building in Yerevan, March 9, 2021.
“Do not succumb to provocations,” Ishkhan Saghatelian, another opposition
leader, told the protesters. “None of us is going to break through the National
Assembly gate.”
“This is our civil disobedience action against this parliament,” he said. “We
believe that this parliament has nothing to do.”
The opposition alliance blames Pashinian for Armenia’s defeat in the war with
Azerbaijan stopped by a Russian-brokered ceasefire on November 10. It already
staged a series of street protests later in November and in December in a bid to
force him to resign. The alliance resumed the protests on February 20.
Pashinian has rejected the opposition demands. He offered to hold snap
parliamentary elections after the chief of the Armenian army’s General Staff and
40 other senior officers issued on February 25 a joint statement also demanding
his resignation.
The Homeland Salvation Movement says that the elections must be held by an
interim government.
Uncertainty Persists Over Armenian Army Chief
• Astghik Bedevian
Armenia -- Colonel-General Onik Gasparian (C), the chief of the Armenian army's
General Staff, meets with senior Russian military officials, Yerevan, January
25, 2021.
The status of Armenia’s top general remained uncertain on Tuesday nearly two
weeks after Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian decided to fire him in response to
demands for the government’s resignation voiced by the military’s top brass.
General Onik Gasparian, the chief of the Armenian army’s General Staff, and 40
other high-ranking officers demanded that Pashinian and his cabinet step down in
a joint statement issued on February 25. They accused the government of putting
Armenia “on the brink of collapse” after last year’s war in Nagorno-Karabakh.
Pashinian rejected the demand as a coup attempt and petitioned President Armen
Sarkissian to sign a decree relieving Gasparian of his duties.
Sarkissian refused to sign such a decree on February 27, saying that it appears
to be unconstitutional and would deepen the “unprecedented” political crisis in
the country. Pashinian criticized the refusal as “unfounded” and resent his
motion to Sarkissian in another attempt to get him to fire Gasparian.
Sarkissian again refused to sign the decree drafted by the prime minister’s
office. But he made it clear that he will not ask the Constitutional Court to
invalidate it, effectively paving the way for Gasparian’s removal.
Under Armenian law, the president can keep blocking the prime minister’s
decisions only by appealing to the court.
A spokesperson for the Constitutional Court told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service that
it received no appeals from Sarkissian as of Tuesday afternoon.
Sarkissian made no public statements on the issue despite strong pressure from
opposition leaders and other critics of Pashinian’s administration, who have
backed the military’s demands. But he did sent a written answer to one of those
critics, Ara Zohrabian, who heads the national bar association.
In his letter publicized by Zohrabian, the head of state indicated that it is
now up to Pashinian to decide General Gasparian’s future and face legal and
political consequences of that decision.
Zohrabian condemned Sarkissian’s “inactivity” when he and a group of his
supporters gathered outside the presidential palace in Yerevan earlier in the
day. He suggested that the president is facing strong pressure from Pashinian.
A close Pashinian associate, deputy parliament speaker Alen Simonian, stated,
meanwhile, Sarkissian has missed a legal deadline for challenging the legality
of Gasparian’s sacking. The general has therefore ceased to be the chief of the
General Staff, Simonian told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service.
Neither the prime minister nor the government made any statements to that
effect, however.
Gasparian also remained silent about his current status and intentions. In
another statement issued last week, the General Staff said that he can retain
his post at least until March 9.
EU ‘Ready’ For Greater Role In Karabakh Peace Efforts
• Sargis Harutyunyan
Armenia -- Andrea Wiktorin, head of the EU Delegation in Armenia, attends a
seminar in Yerevan, March 6, 2020.
The European Union stands ready to step up its involvement in international
efforts to resolve the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, the head of the EU Delegation
in Armenia, Andrea Wiktorin, said on Tuesday.
“The European Union is a reliable partner and we are supporting Armenia,”
Wiktorin told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service. “But we are also ready for greater
involvement in the conflict’s resolution.”
“This has to be discussed with the two relevant countries,” she said, referring
to Armenia and Azerbaijan.
Wiktorin did not specify just how the EU could assist in Karabakh peace efforts
more than four months after a Russian-brokered ceasefire stopped the
Armenian-Azerbaijani war.
She said that the EU’s special representative for the South Caucasus, Toivo
Klaar, tried “see what we can do to support” those efforts when he visited
Yerevan and met with Armenian officials late last month.
The diplomat stressed that the EU continues to strongly support the U.S.,
Russian and French co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group. “We are in a continuing
dialogue with them. We need a common approach,” she said.
Klaar said during his trip that the EU will continue to “work with Russia” for a
Karabakh peace despite its mounting tensions with Moscow. He praised the
Russians for brokering the ceasefire.
“The deployment of the [Russian] peacekeeping forces has helped to bring
security and that is to be welcomed,” added the envoy.
Klaar travelled to the Armenian capital ahead of the entry into force on March 1
of the Comprehensive and Enhanced Partnership Agreement (CEPA) signed by the EU
and Armenia in November 2017.
Wiktorin said that the CEPA upgraded Armenia’s relationship with the 27-nation
bloc and will “broaden the scope of our cooperation.”
UNICEF Representative To Armenia Forced Out
• Artak Khulian
Armenia - Marianne Clark-Hattingh, UNICEF's representative in Armenia.
The Armenian government has forced the United Nations children’s agency UNICEF
to recall its permanent representative in Armenia, Marianne Clark-Hattingh.
Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Anna Naghdalian said on Tuesday that the government
decided to cut short Clark-Hattingh’s tenure of because of “shortcomings in the
execution of her mandate” and her “uncooperative work style.” She did not go
into details.
“The UN Resident Coordinator [in Armenia] and UNICEF representatives have been
notified about the decision,” Naghdalian told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service.
A spokeswoman for the UNICEF office in Yerevan, Zara Sargsian, denied media
reports that Clark-Hattingh has “hastily” left Armenia. Sargsian said she
remains in the country and will continue to perform her duties until the
appointment of her replacement.
According to Sargsian, UNICEF has already named a new acting head of its Yerevan
office and is now awaiting approval by the Armenian Foreign Ministry.
The UNICEF official did not comment on reasons for the ministry’s
dissatisfaction with Clark-Hattingh. “We have always known her as a highly
competent and experienced specialist committed to her work,” she told RFE/RL’s
Armenian Service.
The UNICEF headquarters in New York did not issue any statements on the
extraordinary development.
Clark-Hattingh took over UNICEF’s Yerevan office in July 2020. She was UNICEF’s
representative in Malaysia from 2016-2020.
Before joining the UN agency over two decades ago, Clark-Hattingh had worked at
UK Aid Direct, a British government agency supporting non-governmental
organizations around the world.
Clark-Hattingh handed her credentials to Armenia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Artak
Apitonian as recently as on August 24. The Foreign Ministry reported at the time
that she and Apitonian discussed, among other things, ways of improving the
plight of Armenian children living in areas bordering Azerbaijan.
Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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