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    Categories: 2021

RFE/RL Armenian Report – 07/30/2021

                                        Fridayt, July 30, 2021


Armenia Backs Mediators’ Calls For Renewed Peace Talks
July 30, 2021

Armenia -- The U.S. and French co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group and other 
diplomats meet with Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian, Yerevan, December 
14, 2020.


Armenia backed on Friday international mediators’ fresh calls for the resumption 
of Armenian-Azerbaijani negotiations on a “comprehensive” settlement of the 
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

The U.S., Russian and French mediators co-chairing the OSCE Minsk Group 
expressed concern on Thursday over fresh fighting that broke out at some 
portions of the Armenian-Azerbaijani border earlier this week.

In a joint statement, they urged Armenia and Azerbaijan to “de-escalate the 
situation immediately,” avoid “provocative rhetoric and actions” and fully 
comply with the Russian-brokered agreement that stopped the war in Karabakh in 
November.

“The Co-Chairs reiterate the need for a negotiated, comprehensive, and 
sustainable settlement of all remaining core substantive issues of the conflict 
and urge the parties to return to negotiations under the auspices of the 
Co-Chairs as soon as possible,” added the statement. “They reiterate their 
proposal to organize direct bilateral consultations under their auspices, in 
order for the sides to review and agree jointly upon a structured agenda, 
reflecting their priorities, without preconditions.”

The Armenian Foreign Ministry hailed the statement. “The statement of the 
Co-Chairs once again demonstrates that the key to regional peace and security is 
a comprehensive and lasting settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict,” it 
said.

The ministry again condemned the “infiltration of the Azerbaijani armed forces 
into Armenia’s sovereign territory” in May and recent days’ “attacks on Armenian 
defense positions” at contested sections of the frontier.

Baku maintains that its troops did not cross into Armenia in May and that the 
latest truce violations resulted from Armenian “provocations.”

The mediators made a similar appeal to the conflicting parties in April. They 
said they are ready to facilitate Armenian-Azerbaijani talks focusing on their 
pre-war peace proposals.

Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian cited their April statement last week when he 
disputed Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev’s claim that Azerbaijan’s victory in 
the six-week war put an end to the long-running dispute.



Armenian Parliament Criminalizes ‘Grave Insults’
July 30, 2021
        • Tatevik Lazarian

Armenia - The outgoing Armenian parliament holds its final session in Yerevan, 
July 30, 2021.


Meeting for its final session on Friday, Armenia’s outgoing parliament approved 
a bill that makes it a crime to seriously insult government officials and other 
public figures.

A relevant amendment to the Armenian Criminal Code drafted by pro-government 
lawmakers stipulates that individuals voicing “grave insults” or offending 
others’ dignity in an “extremely indecent manner” must be fined up to 500,000 
drams (just over $1,000).

Such insults publicly and repeatedly directed at persons because of their 
“public activities” will be punishable by fines ranging from 1 million to 3 
million drams ($2,000-$6,000) and a prison sentence of up to three months.

According to the amendment, those persons include state officials, politicians, 
civic activists and other public figures.

All forms of defamation and slander had been decriminalized in Armenia in 2010 
during then President Serzh Sarkisian’s rule.

Vladimir Vartanian, the pro-government chairman of the parliament committee on 
legal affairs and the main author of the bill, said penalties for such offenses 
must be toughened now because verbal abuse in the country has since become 
widespread, especially on social media.

“This bill is primarily aimed at not so much punishing individuals resorting to 
grave insults as having a preventive impact and eliminating insults … from our 
society,” he said.

Vartanian emphasized the fact that the parliament is amending Armenia’s current 
Criminal Code which will be replaced in 2022 by a new code enacted earlier this 
year. “If we manage to achieve these results during this year there will be no 
need to make the same changes to the new Criminal Code,” he said.

Opposition lawmakers dismissed this explanation. One of them, Naira Zohrabian, 
said that the bill is aimed at holding in check the two opposition blocs to be 
represented in Armenia’s incoming parliament elected on June 20.

The blocs have a much tougher anti-government stance than the opposition 
minority in the outgoing National Assembly. Their supporters believe that Prime 
Minister Nikol Pashinian himself has relied heavily on “hate speech” since 
coming to power in 2018.

The new parliament, also controlled by Pashinian’s political allies, is 
scheduled to hold its inaugural session on Monday.

Sofia Hovsepian, another opposition deputy who defected from Pashinian’s My Step 
bloc late last year, said the amendment could be used to stifle harsh criticism 
of the Armenian government.

Deputy Justice Minister Kristine Grigorian assured Hovsepian that the 
authorities will not be cracking down on any “discourse going slightly beyond 
criticism.”

Pashinian’s political team already sparked controversy in March this year when 
it pushed through the parliament a bill tripling maximum legal fines for 
defamation. Armenia’s leading media associations criticized the move, saying 
that it could be exploited by government officials and politicians to stifle 
press freedom.

Consequently, President Armen Sarkissian refused to sign the bill into law and 
asked the Constitutional Court to assess its conformity with the Armenian 
constitution.



Russia Again Calls For Armenian-Azeri Border Demarcation
July 30, 2021

RUSSIA -- A sign at the main entrance to the Russian Foreign Ministry building 
in Moscow, July 19, 2018.


Russia again offered on Friday to help Armenia and Azerbaijan demarcate their 
border following the latest upsurge in tensions there.

“We are seriously concerned about recent armed incidents at certain sections of 
the Armenian-Azerbaijani border which led to casualties,” a spokesman for the 
Russian Foreign Ministry, Alexander Bikantov, said in written comments posted on 
the ministry’s website.

“Unfortunately, the situation along the border remains tense,” he said. “We call 
on the sides to refrain from any actions fraught with a further degradation of 
the situation and to resolve problems by diplomatic-political means.”

“Russia is prepared to continue to provide necessary support for normalizing the 
situation along the Armenian-Azerbaijani border through de-escalation measures 
and a quick launch of joint work on delimiting and demarcating the border,” 
added Bikantov.

Tensions have run over the past week at border sections separating Armenia’s 
northeastern Gegharkunik province from the Kelbajar district handed back to 
Azerbaijan after the autumn war in Nagorno-Karabakh. Three Armenian soldiers 
were killed and four others wounded there early on Wednesday in what the 
Armenian military described as a failed Azerbaijani attempt to capture one of 
its border posts.

The Armenian military claimed to have shot down on Thursday night an Azerbaijani 
surveillance drone in the same mountainous area. It released photographs 
purportedly showing fragments of the Israeli-manufactured Aerostar unmanned 
aerial vehicle lying in a field.

The Azerbaijani Defense Ministry denied the claim.


Armenia - Photographs released by the Armenian Defense Ministry purportedly show 
fragments of an Azerbaijani army drone shot down in Gegharkunik province July 
29, 2021.

The Defense Ministry in Yerevan also accused Azerbaijani forces of opening fire 
on Friday morning at its positions outside an Armenian village bordering 
Azerbaijan’s Nakhichevan exclave. It said Armenian troops returned fire.

Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian said on Thursday Armenia will ask Russia to 
deploy Russian border guards along the entire frontier. Russian officials 
responded coolly to the idea.

Moscow already proposed in May that Yerevan and Baku set up a commission on the 
delimitation and demarcation of the Armenian-Azerbaijani border. Russian Foreign 
Minister Sergei Lavrov expressed his country’s readiness to participate in its 
activities as a “consultant or mediator.”

The offer came days after Azerbaijani troops advanced a few kilometers into 
Gegharkunik and another Armenian province, Syunik, through several sections of 
the border. Pashinian said at the time that Yerevan will agree to the proposed 
creation of an Armenian-Azerbaijani commission on border demarcation only if 
Baku withdraws its forces from Armenian territory.

Azerbaijan has since repeatedly ruled out such a withdrawal, saying that they 
took up positions on the Azerbaijani side of the frontier.


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