Wednesday, November 3, 2021
Senior U.S. Official Visits Armenia
Armenia - Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian greets U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary
of State Erika Olson at the start of their talks in Yerevan, November 3, 2021.
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian met with a visiting senior official from the U.S.
State Department on Wednesday for talks that focused on the Nagorno-Karabakh
conflict.
Erika Olson, the newly appointed deputy assistant secretary of state for
Southern Europe and the Caucasus, arrived in Yerevan on Tuesday on the first leg
of her tour of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia. The State Department said she
will “promote regional cooperation and discuss bilateral issues.”
Olson was also due to participate in Yerevan in an annual meeting of the U.S.
ambassadors to the three South Caucasus states joined by Andrew Schofer, the
U.S. co-chair of the OSCE Minsk Group, and a senior official from the U.S.
Agency for International Development. The diplomats accompanied her during her
talks with Pashinian.
An Armenian government statement on the meeting said Pashinian discussed with
the U.S. officials “processes taking place in the South Caucasus,” prospects for
a Karabakh settlement and the Minsk Group’s peace efforts.
It said he also briefed them on Russian-led efforts to forge transport links
between Armenia and Azerbaijan and facilitate a demarcation of their volatile
border.
According to the statement, Olson reaffirmed Washington’s readiness to
contribute to a “comprehensive” solution of the Karabakh conflict and help to
resolve “humanitarian issues” such as the release of Armenian prisoners still
held by Azerbaijan.
The U.S. ambassador to Armenia, Lynne Tracy, has repeatedly said that the
conflict remains unresolved after last year’s Armenian-Azerbaijani war. “We do
not see the status of Nagorno-Karabakh as having been resolved,” Tracy insisted
on September 13.
The Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry condemned those remarks. It echoed President
Ilham Aliyev’s claims that Azerbaijan’s victory in the six-week war put an end
to the conflict.
Olson met on Tuesday with Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan and Deputy Prime
Minister Mher Grigorian. The latter is a co-chairman of a
Russian-Armenian-Azerbaijani task force dealing with practical modalities of
opening the Armenian-Azerbaijani border to cargo shipments.
The government statement said that “democratic reforms” in Armenia were also on
the agenda of Pashinian’s talks with Olson. It said the prime minister praised
the United States for continuing to support those reforms.
Armenia Hopes For Iran Sanctions Relief
Iran - Foreignt Ministers Ararat Mirzoyan (left) of Armenia and Hossein
Amir-Abdolahian of Iran meet in Tehran, October 4, 2021
Armenia expressed hope on Wednesday that negotiations to revive Iran’s 2015
nuclear deal with world powers will resume soon and result in the lifting of
U.S. economic sanctions imposed on the Islamic Republic.
Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan said that would give a major boost to economic
ties between the two neighboring states.
Armenian-Iranian relations are based on “mutual trust” and both Yerevan and
Tehran are committed to deepening them in “economic, political and other
spheres,” Mirzoyan said in an interview with the Paris-based magazine Nouvelles
d’Armenie publicized by the Armenian Foreign Ministry.
Former President Donald Trump pulled the United States out of the landmark
agreement with Iran in 2018 and reimposed crippling punitive measures, despite
Tehran’s compliance with the deal that curbed its nuclear activities in exchange
for sanctions relief. In response, Tehran has gradually breached limits imposed
by the pact, including on uranium enrichment.
U.S. President Joe Biden has pledged to rejoin the deal if Iran returns to full
compliance. But six rounds of indirect negotiations in Vienna that began in
April failed to reach agreement and the talks were put on hold after Iran's
presidential election in June that brought anti-Western hard-liner Ebrahim Raisi
to power.
AUSTRIA -- European External Action Service (EEAS) Deputy Secretary General
Enrique Mora and Iranian Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Abbas Araghchi wait
for the start of talks on reviving the 2015 Iran nuclear deal in Vienna, June
20, 2021.
Tehran is expected this week to give a precise date for the resumption of talks
with the world powers, scheduled for the end of this month, according to top
Iranian nuclear negotiator Ali Bagheri. On October 30, the leaders of the United
States, Germany, France, and Britain called on Iran to return to nuclear talks
and resume compliance with the 2015 nuclear accord to prevent a "dangerous
escalation."
The U.S. sanctions have slowed or prevented the implementation of
Armenian-Iranian energy projects, notably the ongoing construction by an Iranian
firm of a third power transmission line connecting Armenia to Iran. They have
also have had a negative impact on broader commercial ties between the two
countries.
Meeting with Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian in Tajikistan on September 17, Raisi
said an Armenian-Iranian intergovernmental commission on economic cooperation
should become “more active.” The Iranian president proposed that Yerevan and
Tehran set up “specialized working groups” that would deal with obstacles to
their joint projects.
Body Of Late Armenian Politician Still Not Repatriated
• Artak Khulian
Armenia - Former Interior Minster Vano Siradeghian.
Nearly three weeks after his death, the body of Vano Siradeghian, a prominent
politician and former interior minister who fled Armenia over two decades ago,
has still not been repatriated and buried.
Siradeghian was one of the leaders of a popular movement for Armenia’s
unification with Nagorno-Karabakh who came to power in 1990. He became one of
the newly independent country’s most powerful men when serving as interior
minister in the administration of its first President Levon Ter-Petrosian from
1992-1996.
One year after Ter-Petrosian resigned in 1998, Siradeghian was charged with
ordering a string of contract killings. He strongly denied ordering those
killings, saying that the charges were fabricated as part of then President
Robert Kocharian’s efforts to neutralize his political foes.
Siradeghian fled Armenia in 2000 ahead of the Armenian parliament’s decision to
allow law-enforcement authorities to arrest him. Although the authorities had
Siradeghian placed on Interpol’s wanted list, his whereabouts always remained
unknown to the public.
The death of the 74-year-old Siradeghian was announced by his wife and son on
October 16. They did not specify its cause or reveal his last place of residence.
The Armenian government decided afterwards to form a commission that will
organize his funeral. The commission is headed by the chief of Prime Minister
Nikol Pashinian’s staff, Arayik Harutiunian, and comprises senior government
officials, a deputy chief of the Armenian police as well as Siradeghian’s son
Khachatur.
The latter told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service that his father’s body has still not
been brought back to the country. He did not give any reasons for the apparent
delay or possible dates for Siradeghian’s funeral.
Harutiunian declined to give any information when he spoke with journalists on
Wednesday.
Siradeghian lived abroad under a new and false name, according to Khachatur
Sukiasian, a wealthy businessman and pro-government parliamentarian who has long
been close to the ex-minister.
This is why, Sukiasian told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service last month, repatriating
his body is now fraught with some “difficulties.” “There are technical and legal
issues,” he said.
Throughout his exile Siradeghian continued to enjoy the strong backing of
Ter-Petrosian and members of the ex-president’s entourage. Ter-Petrosian’s
Armenian National Congress (HAK) party has urged the Armenian authorities to
allow Siradeghian’s family to bury him at the National Pantheon in Yerevan.
Pashinian Ally Set To Join Armenian Company Board
• Marine Khachatrian
Armenia - Deputy Prime Minister Tigran Avinian (left) and Defense Minister Davit
Tonoyan talk before a cabinet meeting in Yerevan, April 9, 2020.
The Armenian government said on Wednesday that it could appoint a political ally
of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian to the governing board of Armenia’s largest
mining company in which it gained a minority stake last month.
The company, Zangezur Copper-Molybdenum Combine (ZCMC), changed hands following
a government crackdown on its management and key shareholders who openly
challenged Pashinian’s administration.
Russia’s GeoProMining group announced on October 1 that it has acquired 60
percent of ZCMC and immediately “granted” a quarter of that stake to the
government. The latter therefore owns 15 percent of the mining giant located in
Kajaran, a small town in southeastern Syunik province.
GeoProMining gave no clear reason for the lavish donation. Later in October,
another Russian company, which holds a minority share in ZCMC, challenged the
legality of the takeover in an Armenian court.
Subsequent reports in the Armenian press said that Tigran Avinian, a senior
member of Pashinian’s Civil Contract party and a former deputy prime minister,
could soon become ZCMC’s new executive director.
Pashinian’s chief of staff, Arayik Harutiunian, effectively confirmed the
reporters when he spoke with journalists on Wednesday. He said Avinian deserves
the job “because he is a member of the political team and because we need people
who can best represent Armenia’s interests in that company.”
In a written “clarification” issued shortly afterwards, the government said,
however, that it is considering appointing Avinian as a member of ZCMC’s board
of directors, rather than its CEO.
Armenia - A view of ore-processing facilities of the Zangezur Copper-Molybdenum
Combine in Kajaran, August 12, 2019.
Avinian, 32, actively participated in the 2018 mass protests that brought
Pashinian to power. He was appointed as deputy prime minister shortly after the
“velvet revolution.”
Avinian resigned in August this year, saying that he objected to the ruling
party’s list of candidates for the snap parliamentary elections held in June. He
said he felt that it may be at odds with the “separation of business and
politics” championed by Pashinian’s political team. He appeared to refer to two
wealthy businessmen who were elected to the parliament on the Civil Contract
ticket.
Avinian reportedly coordinated Civil Contract’s campaign in local elections held
in several communities of Syunik on October 17.
Pashinian’s party was defeated in the most important of those communities
comprising the towns of Goris, Meghri and Agarak. Their mayors affiliated with
the main opposition Hayastan bloc were arrested in July on what they consider
politically motivated charges.
Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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