Monday,
Prosecutors Challenge Kocharian’s Acquittal In Another Court
• Naira Bulghadarian
Armenia -- The Court of Appeals starts hearings on prosecutors’ demands to
overturn a lower court’s decision to throw out coup charges that were brought
against former President Robert Kocharian, .
Armenia’s Court of Appeals opened on Monday hearings on prosecutors’ demands to
overturn a lower court’s decision to throw out coup charges that were brought
against former President Robert Kocharian.
Kocharian and three other former officials were prosecuted in connection with
the 2008 post-election violence in Yerevan. Anna Danibekian, a district court
judge presiding over their trial, acquitted them in early April ten days after
the country’s Constitutional Court declared the charges unconstitutional.
The trial prosecutors appealed against the acquittal. One of them, Gevorg
Baghdasarian, said on Monday that the Court of Appeals must allow investigators
to charge the defendants with abuse of power and order Danibekian to resume the
high-profile trial.
Baghdasarian said that is also essential for protecting the rights of the
families of eight opposition protesters and two police servicemen killed in
street clashes that broke out in Yerevan in the wake of a disputed 2008
presidential election.
The vote was held less than two months before Kocharian completed his second and
final term in office.
Armenia - Former President Robert Kocharian greets supporters during an election
campaign rally in Yerevan, June 18, 2021.
Kocharian, his former chief of staff Armen Gevorgian and two retired army
generals reject the accusations leveled against them as politically motivated.
Lawyers representing them maintain that Danibekian’s decision to clear them of
the alleged “overthrow of the constitutional order” stemmed from Armenian law.
The judge also ruled on April 6 that Kocharian and Gevorgian will continue to
stand trial on bribery charges which they also strongly deny. Court hearings on
that case resumed in July.
Kocharian, who is highly critical of Armenia’s current leadership, was first
arrested in July 2018 shortly after the “velvet revolution” that brought
Pashinian to power. He was set free on bail in June 2020.
The ex-president, who will turn 67 on Tuesday, set up an opposition alliance in
May this year. It finished second in parliamentary elections held on June 20.
Armenian Pro-Government Lawmaker Encouraged By Erdogan’s Statement
• Artak Khulian
Bosnia and Herzegovina -- Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan visits
Sarajevo, August 27, 2021.
An Armenian pro-government parliamentarian on Monday hailed Turkish President
Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s stated readiness to normalize Turkey’s relations with
Armenia.
Opposition lawmakers insisted, by contrast, Ankara continues to set unacceptable
preconditions for establishing diplomatic relations with Yerevan and opening the
Turkish-Armenian border.
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian spoke on Friday of “some positive signals” sent
by Ankara of late, saying that his government is ready to reciprocate them.
Commenting on Pashinian’s remark the following day, Erdogan said regional states
should establish “good-neighborly relations” by recognizing each other’s
territorial integrity and sovereignty.
“If Yerevan is ready to move in that direction Ankara could start working on a
gradual normalization of relations with Armenia,” he reportedly told journalists.
In that context, Erdogan noted that Azerbaijan has expressed readiness to
negotiate a comprehensive “peace treaty” with Armenia after last year’s war in
Nagorno-Karabakh.
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev complained in July that Yerevan is reluctant
to sign such a treaty with Baku which would commit the two sides to recognizing
each other’s territorial integrity. This would presumably mean a formal Armenian
recognition of Azerbaijani sovereignty over Karabakh.
The Armenian government maintains that the disputed territory’s status should be
determined only through renewed peace talks mediated by the United States,
Russia and France.
Turkey's President Tayyip Erdogan and Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliyev and
their wives visit the Nagorno-Karabakh town of Shusha/Shushi, June 15, 2021.
The government did not officially react to Erdogan’s latest statement as of
Monday afternoon. Still, Maria Karapetian, a parliament deputy representing the
ruling Civil Contract party, described it as a “positive message for discussing
regional peace.”
“This is just an indirect exchange of public messages,” she told RFE/RL’s
Armenian Service.
Karapetian, who is a member of the parliament committee on foreign relations,
said Erdogan’s remarks contained no preconditions unacceptable to the Armenian
side.
Senior members of the two opposition groups represented in the Armenian
parliament claimed the opposite. They said the Turks want Yerevan to agree to
the restoration of Azerbaijani control over entire Karabakh and to stop
campaigning for greater international recognition of the 1915 Armenian genocide
in the Ottoman Empire.
“Throughout his tenure Erdogan has periodically made such statements and has
been rebuffed by the Armenian authorities and told to talk to Armenia, open the
border and normalize relations without preconditions. Now Erdogan is coming up
with a huge package of preconditions,” said Gegham Manukian of the Hayastan
alliance.
“The current authorities must categorically reject all those preconditions,” he
told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service. “But judging from their actions and constant
readiness to make concessions, I have no such hope.”
Tigran Abrahamian, a senior lawmaker from the Pativ Unem bloc, said, for his
part, that Ankara and Baku continue to coordinate their actions relating to the
Karabakh conflict. He said those include Azerbaijani cross-border incursions
into Armenian territory and Aliyev’s regular threats to forcibly open a
“corridor” connecting Azerbaijan to its Nakhichevan exclave via Armenia’s Syunik
province.
Turkey provided Azerbaijan with strong diplomatic and military support during
the six-week war stopped by a Russian-brokered ceasefire last November. It has
kept its border with Armenia closed since 1993.
Armenian Official Comments On ‘Russian Objections’ To His Ministerial Job
• Harry Tamrazian
Armenia - Acting Foreign Minister Armen Grigorian speaks at a news conference in
Yerevan, August 16, 2021.
A senior official in Yerevan has implicitly denied reports that Russia blocked
his widely anticipated appointment as Armenia’s new foreign minister.
Armen Grigorian was the secretary of the Armenian government’s Security Council
before being named first deputy foreign minister on July 14 in what some
political allies of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian described as a prelude to his
appointment as the country’s new top diplomat.
The key ministerial post remained vacant, however, even after Pashinian
handpicked in early August the 13 other members of his new cabinet formed as a
result of the June 20 parliamentary elections.
Media reports claimed that the prime minister is having second thoughts about
appointing Grigorian as foreign minister because of Russian objections.
Grigorian, 37, worked for or cooperated otherwise with Western-funded civic
groups and criticized Russia up until the 2018 “velvet revolution” that brought
Pashinian to power.
Pashinian gave the job to another ally, former parliament speaker Ararat
Mirzoyan, and sent Grigorian back to the Security Council on August 18.
In a weekend interview with RFE/RL’s Armenian Service, Grigorian insisted that
Pashinian still had no “final decision” on whom to name foreign minister when he
began effectively running the Armenian Foreign Ministry in July.
Asked whether Russia indeed thwarted his ministerial appointment, Grigorian
said: “I have worked with Moscow very productively for the last three years.”
He specifically claimed to have enjoyed a good rapport with Nikolay Patrushev,
the influential secretary of Russia’s Secretary Council.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov congratulated Mirzoyan, his new Armenian
counterpart, on August 20. The two men are scheduled to meet in Moscow on
Tuesday.
Armenia’s previous foreign minister, Ara Ayvazian, stepped down on May 27 amid
mounting tensions on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border. At a May 31 farewell
meeting with the Armenian Foreign Ministry staff, he signaled strong objections
to Pashinian’s policies on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and national security.
All of Ayvazian’s four deputies tendered their resignations in the following
days. Three of them -- Artak Apitonian, Avet Adonts and Gagik Ghalechian -- were
formally relieved of their duties on June 8.
Adonts launched a thinly veiled attack on Pashinian in an open-ad article
published by the Mediamax news agency on June 24 He said that Armenia’s and
Nagorno-Karabakh’s security is being jeopardized by “emotional and primitive
one-man governance.”
Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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