Friday,
Kocharian’s Bloc Plans Anti-Government Rally
• Gayane Saribekian
Armenia - Thousands of opposition supporters led by former President Robert
Kocharian (center) and senior members of his Hayastan alliance march to the
Yerablur Militarty Pantheon in Yerevan, September 26, 2021.
The main opposition Hayastan alliance said on Friday that it will rally
supporters in Yerevan soon in an effort to thwart what it described as more
Armenian concessions to Azerbaijan planned by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian.
Senior representatives of the bloc led by former President Robert Kocharian
claimed that Pashinian is ready to cede more territory to Baku, including by
agreeing to a land corridor between the Nakhichevan exclave and western
Azerbaijan passing through Armenia’s Syunik province.
“We believe that what is happening will lead to a new capitulation agreement,”
said Ishkhan Saghatelian, a deputy parliament speaker. “Armenia will be making
new concessions. In order to prevent that, pan-Armenian forces must form a
national resistance front to show the entire world, including this government of
evil, that our people disagree with this course and are fighting against it.”
“We need to explain all this to people because [Pashinian] is continuing to fool
people [with talk of peace.] After sending people to their death [in
Nagorno-Karabakh last fall] he is now intimidating them with [warnings about]
another war,” he told reporters.
Armenia - Opposition leader Ishkhan Saghatelian attends a session of the
National Assembly after being elected one of its three deputy speakers, Yerevan,
August 6, 2021.
Saghatelian said that Hayastan is now holding consultations with other
opposition groups and will announce the date of its rally next week. He would
not say whether it will be a one-off protest or the first in a series of
anti-government rallies.
Pashinian visited the Armenian parliament on Thursday to meet with deputies
representing his Civil Contract party. According to one of those lawmakers,
Gagik Melkonian, Pashinian assured them that he is not planning any territorial
concessions to Baku.
Melkonian shrugged off the opposition allegations about such concessions, saying
that Kocharian’s bloc simply wants to seize power. He said the authorities are
not worried about Hayastan protests.
“Their place is the street,” he told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service. “Let them fight
on the street. Nobody will be standing by their side.”
Armenia - Supporters of former President Robert Kocharian and his opposition
alliance attend an election campaign rally in Yerevan's Nor Nork district, June
9, 2021.
Saghatelian confirmed that Pashinian’s removal from power remains on Hayastan’s
agenda.
Kocharian, who had ruled Armenia from 1998-2008, likewise said on October 4 that
regime change remains his and his political allies’ key goal. But he cautioned
that they must “generate” greater popular anger at the government before trying
to topple it with street protests.
“The biggest problem is that a considerable part of our people has come to terms
with this situation and voted for these ones,” Kocharian said, referring to the
ruling political team. He insisted at the same time that a politically active
minority of citizens can also pose a serious threat to Pashinian’s hold on power.
Pashinian’s Civil Contract party won Armenia’s June 20 parliamentary elections
with almost 54 percent of the vote, according to their official results.
Hayastan came in a distant second with 21 percent. Its final election campaign
rally in Yerevan drew a massive crowd.
Armenian Watchdog Alarmed By ‘Curbs On Press Freedom’
• Robert Zargarian
Armenia - Ashot Melikian, chairman of the Committee to Protect Freedom of
Speech, at a news conference in Yerevan, .
An Armenian press freedom group on Friday expressed serious concern over what it
called new restrictions on news reporting imposed by the authorities in recent
months.
“These restrictions have taken the form of legislative initiatives, rules and
regulations, and practical actions restricting journalistic activity,” said
Ashot Melikian of the Committee to Protect Freedom of Speech.
Presenting a quarterly report released by his organization, Melikian singled out
serious curbs on journalists’ freedom of movements inside the Armenian
parliament building which were imposed days after the current National Assembly
held its inaugural session on August 2.
Under the new rules introduced by parliament speaker Alen Simonian, reporters
accredited to the parliament can no longer interview deputies coming out of the
chamber or enter a section of the building housing their offices. Simonian, who
is a senior member of the ruling Civil Contract party, cited security concerns
and the need for greater media respect for parliamentarians.
Opposition lawmakers, human rights ombudsman Arman Tatoyan and Armenia’s leading
media associations rejected that explanation.
Those groups expressed outrage at Simonian’s attempts to block press coverage of
an August 11 parliament session that descended into chaos amid bitter insults
traded by pro-government and opposition deputies. Security officers entered the
press gallery overlooking the chamber and ordered journalists present there to
stop filming or photographing the ugly scenes.
Armenia - Parliament speaker Alen Simonian talks to journalists, August 25, 2021.
“It was an unprecedented and condemnable action,” Melikian told a news
conference. “Journalists must be able to show the public what kind of a National
Assembly was elected and how each deputy behaves.”
Melikian also condemned recent government-backed bills that tripled maximum
legal fines for “slander” and made it a crime to gravely insult state officials
and public figures.
“Nobody is going to defend slanderers or slander in general,” he said. “What we
emphasize is that very often strong criticism is interpreted as a grave insult.
We all know that officials and politicians regard such criticism as an insult.”
The bill on heavier defamation fines was authored by speaker Simonian. President
Armen Sarkissian refused to sign it into law in April, asking the Constitutional
Court to assess its constitutionality. The court ruled earlier this month that
the bill does not run counter to the Armenian constitution.
The Armenian authorities’ decision to criminalize slander and defamation was
strongly criticized by Freedom House late last month. The Washington-based
democracy group said it testifies to a “clear degradation of democratic norms in
Armenia, including freedom of expression.” Pro-government lawmakers rejected the
criticism.
Norway, Moderna Pledge Biggest Vaccine Donation To Armenia
Vials with a sticker reading, "COVID-19 / Coronavirus vaccine / Injection only"
and a medical syringe are seen in front of a displayed Moderna, October 31, 2020.
The Norwegian government and Moderna have pledged to give Armenia more than
620,000 doses of a coronavirus vaccine manufactured by the U.S. biotech company,
Health Minister Anahit Avanesian announced on Friday.
Avanesian said the Armenian Ministry of Health signed a “trilateral agreement”
to that effect with them on Thursday.
“Thank you the Kingdom of Norway and the Moderna company for your efforts to
overcome the pandemic,” she wrote on her Facebook page.
Avanesian said that the European Union will assist in the upcoming shipments of
Moderna’s Spikevax vaccine to Armenia. She gave no dates for their delivery.
Moderna’s co-founder and chairman, Noubar Afeyan, is an Armenian-American
billionaire businessman. Afeyan has financed various charity projects in Armenia.
Armenia -- Armenian-American businessman Noubar Afeyan speaks in Yerevan, April
24, 2019
Armenia has already received smaller quantities of vaccines donated by the
governments of France, Belgium, Lithuania, China and Russia.
Health authorities in the South Caucasus state began using earlier this month
50,000 doses of Spikevax provided by the Lithuanian government. Armenians were
previously inoculated only with Chinese and Russian vaccines as well as the
Astra Zeneca jab developed by Oxford University.
Avanesian said in July that Armenia will buy this fall 50,000 doses of Johnson &
Johnson’s single-dose vaccine and 300,000 doses of the Novavax jab. Shortly
afterwards the Armenian government allocated funds for the purchase of 300,000
doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine. None of those vaccines have been imported
yet.
Armenia - Health Minister Anahit Avanesian is vaccinated against COVID-19, April
28, 2021.
The latest donation pledge comes as the authorities in Yerevan are trying to
speed up the slow pace of vaccinations in the country of about 3 million amid
rising coronavirus cases and hospitalizations that have overwhelmed the Armenian
healthcare system.
As of October 17, just over 403,000 people there received at least one dose of a
coronavirus vaccine and only about 185,000 of them were fully vaccinated.
Starting from October 1, all Armenian workers are required to get inoculated or
take coronavirus tests twice a month at their own expense. Avanesian said last
week that the authorities could also introduce a mandatory coronavirus health
pass for entry to cultural and leisure venues.
The Ministry of Health said on Friday that 42 more Armenians have died from
COVID-19 in the past day. The ministry also reported five other deaths
indirectly caused by the disease.
Russia Indispensable For Ending Armenian-Azeri Border Dispute, Says Putin
• Nane Sahakian
Russia - President Vladimir Putin attends a session of the annual Valdai
Discussion Club in Sochi, .
Armenia and Azerbaijan cannot end their simmering border disputes without
Russian mediation and mutual concessions, according to Russia’s President
Vladimir Putin.
Putin commented on the aftermath of last year’s war in Nagorno-Karabakh and
Russian efforts to bolster a shaky peace in the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict
zone during an annual meeting of the Valdai Discussion Club on Thursday.
“The main thing now is to finally resolve the situation on the
[Armenian-Azerbaijani] border, and it’s impossible to do anything here without
Russia’s participation,” he said. “We probably don’t need anyone except Russia
and the two sides. Why? … Because the Russian army’s General Staff has maps
showing the borders that existed between Soviet republics in Soviet times.”
Tensions have run high in recent months at several sections of the long border
where Azerbaijani forces reportedly advanced a few kilometers into Armenian
territory in mid-May. Armenia has repeatedly demanded their unconditional
withdrawal. Azerbaijan maintains that its troops took up new positions on the
Azerbaijani side of the frontier.
Amenia - An Armenian soldier at a border post in Gegharkunik province, July 5,
2021.
Moscow proposed later in May that Yerevan and Baku set up a commission on border
delimitation and demarcation. It offered to act as a mediator in such talks.
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian stated at the time that the talks are conditional
on an Azerbaijani withdrawal from Armenia’s “sovereign territory.” But he
indicated in August that his government is ready to negotiate without any
preconditions.
Baku has also expressed readiness for such negotiations. They have still not
begun, however.
Putin, who brokered a ceasefire that stopped the Karabakh war last November,
said that while Soviet military maps must serve as a basis of the talks the two
conflicting sides should be ready for minor territorial swaps and other mutual
concessions.
“There are things there that also require mutual compromises,” he said.
“Something could be straightened [on the map] in some places and swapped in
others.”
Armenia - A view of an area in Armenia's Syunik province where Armenian and
Azerbaijani troops are locked in a border standoff, May 14, 2021. (Photo by the
Armenian Human Rights Defender's Office)
Pashinian has for months been facing Armenian opposition allegations that he has
secretly agreed to cede major chunks of Armenian territory to Azerbaijan. The
prime minister has categorically denied that.
Russia is already the sole international facilitator of ongoing
Armenian-Azerbaijani negotiations on opening transport links between the two
South Caucasus foes. A Russian-Armenian-Azerbaijani task force set up in January
for that purpose held a fresh meeting in Moscow earlier this week.
Putin stressed on Thursday that Moscow remains committed to a “multilateral
format” of achieving a broader normalization of Armenian-Azerbaijani relations
and a Nagorno-Karabakh settlement. He said it is now trying to step up the
mediating activities of the OSCE Minsk Group co-headed by Russia, France and the
United States.
Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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