Thursday, Purchase Of Luxury Car For Parliament Speaker Raises Eyebrows In Armenia • Naira Nalbandian Armenian Parliament Speaker Alen Simonian (file photo) A government approval of the purchase of a luxury car worth $185,000 for Parliament Speaker Alen Simonian has sparked a public outcry in Armenia, with civil activists calling it unacceptable given the current economic and financial constraints in a country hit hard by the recent war and pandemic. Simonian’s spokesperson Tsovinar Khachatrian described the approved purchase of a high-class BMW as rational in terms of both security and saving. “The need for a new car is explained by the need to provide security representation, as well as to save money, as it includes warranty service and maintenance costs,” she explained. Human rights activist Levon Barseghian, meanwhile, described the move as a “feast during the plague.” “It is absolutely incomprehensible and criminal in political terms. It is a criminal expense to make in political terms when the country has huge problems to solve,” Barseghian said. In substantiating the expense, the government said that it was considered urgent, which means it can be purchased from the official dealer – the Euromotors company, which belongs to the family of wealthy businessman Gagik Tsarukian. Most government officials and pro-government lawmakers approached by RFE/RL’s Armenian Service did not either justify or criticize the decision immediately, preferring not to comment on it. High-Tech Industry Minister Vahagn Khachatrian, however, went along with the explanation of the executive. “The car that has been in service since 2010 would definitely have been worn out during these years and would need to be replaced. It must have been an urgent issue,” he said. Parliament Speaker Simonian who is currently on an official trip abroad did not immediately comment on the decision of the government either. Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian as an oppositionist used to be very critical of large spending on cars for officials. Explanations of former officials for the spending did not differ much from the explanations provided by current authorities. Russia ‘Ready’ To Help Armenia, Turkey Normalize Relations • Lusine Musayelian Official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry Maria Zakharova (file photo) Russia is ready to promote efforts to repair relations between Armenia and Turkey, a Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman said on Thursday, confirming that Yerevan has made a request for Russia’s mediation in the mending of ties with Ankara. Maria Zakharova said during a weekly news briefing in Moscow that Russia is interested in this process and has made efforts on the normalization of Armenian-Turkish relations before. “Our country is ready to further promote this process in every possible way. The launch of this process, as we believe, would undoubtedly contribute to the improvement of the general situation in the region,” the diplomat said. Armenian Foreign Ministry spokesman Vahan Hunanian told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service earlier this week that Yerevan had informed Moscow that it was ready for normalization with Ankara without preconditions and asked for its mediation in the process. During the news briefing Zakharova also stressed that Russia is “taking all measures to restore economic ties and transport links in the region.” “We are taking all steps to establish a peaceful life and strengthen stability in the region. Special attention, of course, is now paid to the restoration and development of trade and economic ties and transport links,” the official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry said. Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian reiterated Yerevan’s readiness to normalize its relations with Ankara during an online press conference on Tuesday, but he warned that such a process cannot take place if Turkey presses conditions like Azerbaijan’s getting an exterritorial corridor to its western Nakhichevan exclave via Armenia. “We want to normalize our relations with Turkey. We cannot discuss any corridor issue. But we want to discuss opening of regional transport links,” Pashinian said. Pashinian and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan exchanged public statements in August about reciprocal “positive signals” for normalizing relations after decades of feud over historical events, including the Ottoman-era massacres of Armenians that over two dozen governments in the world recognize as the first genocide of the 20th century. In an interview with Le Figaro earlier this month Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan revealed, however, that Ankara was setting new conditions for starting a dialogue with Yerevan, including the provision of an exterritorial corridor for Azerbaijan. He told the French daily that the demand for such a corridor was out of the question. Pashinian, too, said that last year’s Russia-brokered Armenian-Azerbaijani ceasefire agreement did not envisage any exterritorial corridors. He stressed, however, that Armenia is ready to provide transit roads via its territory, which is part of the deal that stopped a 44-day war in Nagorno-Karabakh, maintaining sovereignty over them. During today’s news briefing in Moscow Zakharova was also directly asked about whether there will be customs controls on the roads that would link Azerbaijan with its Nakhichevan exclave. Zakharova replied by saying: “We see good prospects for unblocking transport links in the region, taking into account the balance of interests of all parties. We also proceed from the fact that international transportation along unblocked routes will be carried out on the basis of international agreements and national legislation of each of the parties.” Armenian Politicians ‘Alerted’ To ‘State-Sponsored’ Spyware Targeting • Artak Khulian FRANCE-ISRAEL-SECURITY-SPYWARE-PEGASUS -- This studio photographic illustration shows a smartphone with the website of Israel's NSO Group which features 'Pegasus' spyware, on display in Paris on July 21, 2021. About two dozen citizens of Armenia, including an opposition politician and a government official, have so far reported smartphone alerts about being exposed to state-sponsored hacking through Pegasus, a spyware developed by a private Israel-based firm. Armenian information security specialists say they are currently working to find out the exact scope of potential victims of spyware targeting in the country. Media expert Arthur Papian has confirmed that the spyware has so far targeted key figures both from the opposition and the government. NSO Group’s Pegasus software infects iPhones and Android devices to enable operators to extract messages, photos and emails, record calls and secretly activate microphones and cameras. “Former and current civil servants [have been targeted]. And all of them are people who know state secrets and other valuable information and have some political influence,” Papian said. Information security specialists in Armenia assume that considering this circumstance the spyware targeting may have been ordered by the authorities of either Armenia or Azerbaijan. They do not rule out the possibility that both countries’ authorities are behind the attacks. “As far as I understand, in all probability, it is NSO Group itself that targets by order, hacks phones and then provides a way to see the data, to get access to it,” Papian said. Artur Vanetsian, the leader of the opposition Pativ Unem faction in parliament, said on Wednesday that he was alerted by Apple about being targeted through Pegasus. Artur Vanetsian Vanetsian, who served as director of Armenia’s National Security Service in 2018-19, published a screenshot of the alert message warning him about a possible state-sponsored spyware targeting. The message does not mention what country’s government may have ordered that attack. On the one hand, Vanetsian claims that the current Armenian government has tried to wiretap him, and on the other hand, he does not rule out the possibility of the Azerbaijani government sponsoring the hacking attack against him. “We cannot rule out or confirm it at this moment,” he said. “A short while ago another opposition lawmaker approached me in parliament and said that he had received the same alert earlier today,” Vanetsian said. High-Tech Industry Minister Vahagn Khachaturian also confirmed to media on Thursday that he had received a similar alert from Apple. He denied that the Armenian government may be behind the spyware targeting attacks. Vahagn Khachatrian “We have assessed what happened to me as to a citizen and what happened to other people around me as an attack or attempted attack against the security of certain citizens of the Republic of Armenia or perhaps even government bodies,” the minister said. Tech giant Apple on Tuesday filed a lawsuit against NSO Group, seeking a permanent injunction to ban the Israeli company from using any Apple software, services or devices. Apple admitted that a small number of its users may have been targeted by an NSO Group exploit to install Pegasus on Apple devices. Last summer international investigative journalists found out that at least ten countries’ special services had used the Pegasus program developed by NSO Group to spy on politicians, journalists and activists. Azerbaijan is also on that list. There was no mention of Armenia at that time. Armenian Opposition Calls Border Demarcation With Azerbaijan ‘Premature’ • Anush Mkrtchian Head of the parliamentary opposition Hayastan faction Seyran Ohanian (file photo) Armenia’s parliamentary opposition has claimed that a border delimitation and demarcation process with Azerbaijan that may begin soon is “hasty and premature.” Speaking during parliamentary hearings on the matter initiated by the opposition Hayastan faction, head of the faction Seyran Ohanian insisted that there is no proper environment for starting such a process at the moment. The parliament’s opposition initiated the discussions after Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian announced last week that Armenia had accepted new proposals from Russia on the “preparatory stage” for delimitating and demarcating its Soviet-era border with Azerbaijan. The announcement was made just two days after Armenia and Azerbaijan accused each other of provoking a major border incident in which at least seven Azerbaijani and six Armenian soldiers were killed. The worst Armenian-Azerbaijani fighting since last year’s 44-day war in Nagorno-Karabakh was also stopped through Russia’s mediation. Armenia has accused Azerbaijan of occupying 41 square kilometers of its sovereign territory since May. Baku denies its troops entered Armenian territory after advancing towards the border with Armenia as a result of regaining control of territories in the Nagorno-Karabakh war. In his remarks at the hearings in parliament not attended by the pro-government majority Ohanian claimed that the “demarcation” of the borders has been done through incidents like the latest one resulting in loss of life. “In fact border demarcation is taking place unilaterally. It is being done at the cost of Armenian soldiers’ blood,” the Hayastan faction’s head claimed. “None of the representatives of the top leadership have given any explanation as to why the one-day war took place, what followed and preceded it. The fact is that we suffered casualties and had captives taken by Azerbaijan, and Azerbaijan entered the sovereign territory of Armenia. That is, a border demarcation took place at the cost of blood,” he added. Ohanian called the planned talks on border demarcation as a ‘Turkish-Azerbaijani’ trap for Yerevan and accused the Armenian government of going along with this process. He also claimed that by ceding strategic heights, roads and borderline areas the current Armenian government “has nullified the country’s security potential.” Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian is due to travel to the Russian Black Sea resort of Sochi on November 26 for talks with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev that will be hosted by Russia’s President Vladimir Putin. The issue of border delimitation and demarcation is likely to be addressed during the talks. Armenia’s opposition fears that the trilateral meeting may result in the signing of a border-related document not favorable for Armenia. During an online press conference on Tuesday Pashinian said, however, that if any document is to be signed at any upcoming meeting, it will only be about forming a commission that will deal with border delimitation and demarcation work and will not predetermine the outcome of the process itself. In his public statements Pashinian has also acknowledged the security challenges facing Armenia. Talking about the current processes around Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia Pashinian has said on several occasions that “we are going through a minefield and must be very cautious.” Some representatives of extra-parliamentary parties participating in today’s parliamentary hearings even suggested that they stay put in parliament until Pashinian returns from Sochi and presents what he discussed there. Deputy Parliament Speaker Ishkhan Saghatelian, who represents the Hayastan faction, said that the opposition was committed to continuing its struggle both in parliament and in the street. He said that now they urge the government “to refrain from any negotiations, written or oral agreements, that would violate the requirements of the Constitution of the Republic of Armenia and the collective will of the Armenian people expressed in the [1990] Declaration of Independence.” Poland Donates Over 200,000 COVID-19 Vaccines To Armenia A batch of AstraZeneca vaccines against COVID-19 arrives in Armenia from Poland. . Poland has donated a total of 201,640 doses of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine worth nearly $660,000 to Armenia as the South Caucasus country struggles with a low vaccination rate, having so far fully inoculated only about a fifth of its adult population. Poland’s embassy in Yerevan said on Thursday that the donation was made by the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs to Armenia’s Ministry of Health. According to Armenia’s Ministry of Health, a total of 1,168,501 vaccine shots have been administered in the country of about 3 million as of now. Only about 407,000 of Armenia’s residents, or some 20 percent of the country’s adult population, have been fully vaccinated so far. Armenians have until now been inoculated with vaccines developed by Russia, China, Oxford University and the Anglo-Swedish company Astra Zeneca as well as the U.S. company Moderna. After spiking in October and the first half of November, the number of daily coronavirus cases reported in Armenia began to slowly decrease in the past several days, still remaining relatively high though. The Ministry of Health reported on Thursday morning 592 new cases and 40 coronavirus-related deaths. More than 7,400 people have died in Armenia from COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic in March 2020, and over 1,400 patients with coronavirus have died from other diseases during the same period, the country’s health authorities say. During today’s session of the government Armenian Health Minister Anahit Avanesian announced the start of revaccination for citizens who were fully inoculated at least six months ago. “We follow recommendations of the World Health Organization. There is no shortage of vaccines in the country. Citizens may choose the vaccine they want,” the minister said. Vaccination in Armenia is not compulsory, but the government has introduced some administrative measures in an attempt to speed up the slow pace of its immunization campaign launched in April. From October 1, virtually all public- and private-sector employees refusing vaccination have been obliged to take coronavirus tests twice a month at their own expense. Earlier this month, the government revealed plans to make such mandatory testing weekly and introduce a mandatory health pass for entry to cultural and leisure venues. A group of opposition lawmakers is contesting the legality of mandatory COVID-19 tests for citizens in proceedings that opened at the Constitutional Court of Armenia on November 25. Armenian Yazidi Rights Activist Goes On Trial For ‘Incitement’ • Artak Khulian Yazidi human rights activist Sashik Sultanian (L) goes on trial in Armenia, . An Armenia court on November 24 opened a controversial trail against a human rights activist from the minority Yazidi community over comments he made in an interview, despite international concerns about his prosecution. Prosecutors accuse Sashik Sultanian, the head of the Yazidi Center for Human Rights, of “inciting ethnic enmity between Armenians and Yazidis,” an ancient Kurdish-speaking religious group. The probe against Sultanian was launched in October 2020, after he conducted an interview with the Yezidinews.am website in June that year. He has been restricted from leaving Armenia. In the interview, Sultanian said that Yazidis face discrimination, their rights are not protected, and they are unable to develop their culture, language, or practice their religion. He also claimed Yazidis are underrepresented in local government structures, Armenians seized Yazidi property, and the community is not allowed to develop economically. Prosecutors argue that Sultanian’s statements don’t fall under human rights advocacy and protected speech “since all allegations mentioned in the interview do not correspond to reality.” Sultanian says his comments were not directed against the Armenian people, but rather the Armenian government. The interview was deleted on the day of publication at the request of Sultanian. Several international and national human rights organizations have denounced the proceedings against Sultanian as an assault on freedom of speech that will have a chilling effect on those who stand up for minority rights. Armenian authorities have obligations to ensure human rights defenders can freely carry out their activities without any restrictions, Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights Dunja Mijatovic said in a letter to Armenia’s top prosecutor ahead the trial. “This is all the more important when such legitimate speech addresses the treatment of minorities and is aimed at protecting and promoting their rights,” she said. In June, Human Rights Watch called on Armenian authorities to drop charges against Sultanian, saying his opinions are protected free speech. UN special rapporteurs on human rights defenders, minority issues, and freedom of expression have also called on Armenian authorities to drop the case. “It is not incitement to hatred or violence to raise human rights concerns about the treatment of minorities,” the UN experts said in August. “We call on Armenia to drop these criminal charges, which appear designed simply to intimidate Mr. Sultanian and others who stand up for minority rights.” There are only an estimated 1.5 million Yazidis in the world, mostly of whom live in northern Iraq. There are smaller populations in Syria, Turkey, and in the European diaspora. There are about 40,000 Yazidis in Armenia, and they make up the largest minority group in the mono-ethnic South Caucasus country with a population of about 3 million people. The next hearing in the trial of Sultanian is scheduled for January 26. Despite refusing to generally review the measure of restraint against Sultanian, the court allowed the Yazidi activist to travel abroad from November 30 to December 8 to attend the 14th session of the UN Forum of Minority Issues in Geneva, Switzerland. Armenian FM In Phone Talks With Russian, Iranian, Israeli Counterparts Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov (combo photo, undated) Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan held separate telephone conversations with his Russian and Iranian counterparts, the ministry’s press department said late on Wednesday. During their phone conversation Mirzoyan and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov reportedly discussed issues related to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. “The importance of a comprehensive and long-term settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict through peaceful negotiations within the mandate of the OSCE Minsk Group’s co-chairmanship was emphasized,” the statement released by the Armenian Foreign Ministry said. It said that Mirzoyan presented “the situation created as a result of the recent aggression of the Azerbaijani Armed Forces against the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Armenia.” Mirzoyan reportedly stressed “the role of the Armenian-Russian allied relations in the context of efforts aimed at establishing stability in the region.” Mirzoyan and Lavrov also discussed “the process of the fulfillment of the obligations assumed by the parties as part of the trilateral statements of November 9, 2020 and January 11, 2021”, the statement added. In a separate phone conversation on Wednesday Armenia’s top diplomat reportedly discussed “regional security issues of mutual interest” with Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian. Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan (L) and Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian meet in Tehran, October 4, 2021 According to the Armenian Foreign Ministry, during the conversation Mirzoyan said that “Azerbaijan’s latest aggression against Armenia is a serious threat to efforts to establish security and stability in the region.” He said he highly appreciated Iran’s position on “the territorial integrity of Armenia and the inviolability of its borders.” The two also reportedly “exchanged views on expanding ties in the areas of trade, economy, infrastructures and energy.” “The importance of the implementation of work on the multilateral agreement on the creation of the Persian Gulf-Black Sea international transport corridor was also pointed out,” the statement of the Armenian Foreign Ministry said. The same day, according to the Armenian Foreign Ministry, Mirzoyan held a phone conversation with Foreign Minister of Israel Yair Lapid. Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan (L) and Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid (combo photo, undated) During the conversation Mirzoyan “presented the situation resulting from the recent aggression unleashed by Azerbaijan against the territorial integrity and sovereignty of the Republic of Armenia,” it said. “The interlocutors discussed the Armenian-Israeli relations and prospects of their promotion. Issues of the Armenian historical-cultural and religious heritage in the Holy Land were addressed,” the Armenian Foreign Ministry said in a statement. The Armenian foreign minister’s series of telephone talks came two days before an Armenian-Azerbaijani summit talks to be hosted by Russian President Vladimir Putin in Sochi on November 26. The Putin-hosted talks between Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev are expected to focus on issues of border delimitation and demarcation after a major escalation along the border between the two South Caucasus countries on November 16. At least seven Azerbaijani and six Armenian soldiers were killed in skirmishes that were stopped through Russia’s mediation. Yerevan says at least 32 Armenian soldiers were taken prisoner by Azerbaijan as a result of the fighting that proved to be the worst since last year’s Russia-brokered ceasefire that stopped a 44-day war in Nagorno-Karabakh in which nearly 7,000 people were killed. Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL Copyright (c) 2021 Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, Inc. 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.