RFE/RL Armenian Report – 12/22/2021

                                        Wednesday, 


Iran Reaffirms ‘Red Line’ On South Caucasus Borders


Armenia - Mahmoud Ahmadi-Bighash, a member of an Iranian parliamentary 
delegation visiting Armenia, at a meeting with Armenian lawmakers, Yerevan, 
.


Iran remains strongly opposed any redrawing of borders in the South Caucasus, an 
influential Iranian parliamentarian was reported to say during a visit to 
Armenia on Wednesday.

The conservative lawmaker, Mahmoud Ahmadi-Bighash, arrived in Yerevan earlier 
this week together with several other members of an Iranian parliamentary group 
promoting closer ties with Armenia.

They held a series of meetings with Armenian parliament deputies before being 
received by Armen Grigorian, the secretary of Armenia’s Security Council.

A statement released by the council cited Ahmadi-Bighash as saying that the 
region is very important to the Islamic Republic.

“In particular, he stressed that regional peace and stability and inviolability 
of the borders are the red lines for Iran and Tehran will not tolerate any 
territorial change in the region,” the statement said.

Other Iranian lawmakers as well as Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian 
made similar statements in early October amid Iran’s mounting tensions with 
Azerbaijan that followed Baku’s decision to levy hefty fees from Iranian trucks 
transporting goods to and from Armenia.

The vehicles use a road mostly passing through Armenia’s southeastern Syunik 
province which is sandwiched between Azerbaijan and its Nakhichevan exclave and 
also borders Iran. Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has repeatedly threatened 
to forcibly open a “corridor” to Nakhichevan, drawing strong condemnation from 
Armenia.

Mojtaba Zonnouri, a senior Iranian parliamentarian and cleric, accused Aliyev on 
October 3 of trying to “cut Iran’s access to Armenia” with the help of Turkey 
and Israel. Zonnouri was apparently among 165 members of Iran’s parliament who 
issued a joint statement warning against “any geopolitical change and alteration 
of the borders of neighbor countries.”

Armenia’s government regularly expresses readiness for conventional transport 
links with Azerbaijan. Grigorian told Ahmadi-Bighash and other visiting Iranian 
lawmakers that the Armenian government’s position “matches Iran’s foreign policy 
priorities.”

The tensions between Tehran and Baku have eased in recent weeks. 
Amir-Abdollahian visited the Azerbaijani capital on Wednesday.



Yerevan Mayor Slams Armenia’s Ruling Party Over His Ouster

        • Narine Ghalechian
        • Gayane Saribekian

Armenia - Yerevan Mayor Hayk Marutian leaves an emergency session of the 
municipal assembly before it approves a motion of no confidence in him, December 
22, 2021.


Yerevan Mayor Hayk Marutian accused Armenia’s political leaders of betraying the 
goals of the 2018 “velvet revolution” that brought them to power as he was 
ousted on Wednesday by the municipal assembly controlled by the ruling Civil 
Contract party.

He charged that Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian and his political team have 
sought to stifle dissent and enrich themselves or their cronies instead of 
tackling poverty in the country.

Marutian voiced the allegations during a session of the city council that 
approved, by 44 votes to 10, a motion of no confidence in him tabled by the 
pro-government My Step bloc. The council also elected one of his deputies, 
Hrachya Sargsian, as Yerevan’s new mayor.

The bloc controlled by Civil Contract officially announced its decision to 
replace the mayor after meeting with Pashinian on Friday. It said Marutian quit 
Civil Contract in December 2020 and is not running the Armenian capital “with 
sufficient efficiency.”

The move followed months of growing friction between Pashinian and Marutian. The 
latter actively participated in the Pashinian-led mass protests that toppled 
Armenia’s former leader, Serzh Sarkisian, in May 2018. The protests were sparked 
by Sarkisian’s attempt to prolong his decade-long rule and fuelled by popular 
discontent with widespread corruption and injustice.

Speaking shortly before the vote of no confidence, Marutian accused the ruling 
political team of having “deviated from the revolution’s values.”

“I thought that a [true] revolutionary’s supreme goal must be to improve the 
lives of other people,” he said. “In reality, as soon as they came [to power] 
they started improving their own lives, despite the fact that the country’s 
poverty rate continued to hover at around 30 percent.”


Armenia -Armen Galjian, the leader of the pro-government majority in Yerevan's 
municipal council, votes for a motion of no confidence in Mayor Hayk Marutian, 
.

The former TV comedian singled out the Pashinian government’s “secret” decisions 
to sharply raise the salaries of ministers and other senior government 
officials. He claimed that during his tenure he routinely received phone calls 
from unnamed “various officials” asking for privileged treatment of their 
cronies doing business in Yerevan. He did not name any of them.

Marutian said this was a key reason for his subsequent rift with Pashinian. “I 
didn’t expect such phone calls when I was joining the team,” he said.

“And now these people are saying that Hayk deviated from the revolution,” he 
went on. “This is said by people who at this difficult moment for the country 
are buying cars worth $200,000 and spending a whole month justifying, together 
with the entire team, that decision.”

Marutian further alleged that Armenia’s “most high-ranking officials” have 
repeatedly pressured him to fire municipal employees criticizing the government 
on social media. “I said in response: ‘My dear friends, we did the revolution so 
that people are not fired and persecuted for their views like they were in the 
past,” he said.

Senior members of the municipal council loyal to Pashinian hit back at Marutian. 
One of them, Armen Galjian, rebuked the ousted mayor for not countering what he 
called opposition attempts to stage a “counterrevolution” after Armenia’s defeat 
in last year’s war with Azerbaijan.

“Where was the Yerevan mayor during the counterrevolution?” he said. “Was he 
locked down in his office with a mask on his face or busy preparing to leave the 
party?”


Armenia - Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian (L) and his My Step bloc's mayoral 
candidate Hayk Marutian attend an election campaign rally in Yerevan, 20 
September 2018.

Galjian also said that Marutian has never told council majority leaders about 
the privileged treatment allegedly sought by senior officials.

Armenian parliament deputies representing Pashinian’s party responded to the 
accusations with harsher criticism and personal insults. Parliament speaker Alen 
Simonian, whose new expensive limousine has raised eyebrows in the country, said 
Marutian is slandering the country’s leadership to “justify his treason and 
ineptness.”

“You must instead recall the names of your more than two dozen friends whom you 
have deceived and betrayed,” Simonian wrote on Facebook.

Pashinian himself has not publicly commented on the dramatic falling-out with 
his erstwhile political ally.

The prime minister had chosen Marutian to lead My Step’s list of candidates in 
the last municipal elections held in September 2018 and won by the 
pro-government bloc. Relations between the two men deteriorated after the 2020 
war over Nagorno-Karabakh. Marutian increasingly distanced himself from 
Pashinian’s team in the following months and pointedly declined to support it 
during snap parliamentary elections held in June.

Earlier this month, the Haykakan Zhamanak daily belonging to Pashinian’s family 
alleged that Marutian has defected to the Armenian opposition and even secretly 
met with former President Robert Kocharian. The mayor categorically denied that.


Armenia - New Yerevan Mayor Hrachya Sargsian addresses the municipal council, 
.

Marutian on Wednesday defended his track record and insisted that he is still 
supported by the majority of Yerevan residents.

Most of the residents randomly interviewed by RFE/RL’s Armenian Service in the 
streets praised him. Some condemned the ruling party’s decision to replace the 
mayor.

“I am very saddened by his removal from his post because he has delivered on 
everything that he promised during the election campaign,” said one middle-aged 
woman.

Others were unimpressed with Marutian’s three-year tenure. “What has changed [in 
Yerevan?] Not much,” said a young woman.

Virtually no respondents had ever heard about Hrachya Sargsian, Yerevan’s new 
mayor. Sargsian, 36, told reporters that he is “happy with Mr. Marutian’s work” 
and plans to “complete the programs that we launched in 2018.”



Russian Official Again Discusses Armenian-Azeri Transport Links In Yerevan

        • Sargis Harutyunyan

Armenia - Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexei Overchuk at a meeting with 
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian, Yerevan, November 5, 2021.


Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexei Overchuk discussed with Prime Minister 
Nikol Pashinian ongoing efforts to restore transport links between Armenia and 
Azerbaijan during a fresh visit to Yerevan on Wednesday.

The main official purpose of the visit was to attend a regular session of a 
Russian-Armenian intergovernmental commission on economic cooperation. Overchuk 
met with Pashinian ahead of the session.

Pashinian’s press office said the two men discussed Russian-Armenian economic 
ties as well as “prospects for restoring transport links in the South Caucasus 
region.” In particular, it said, they “exchanged views” on the work of a 
Russian-Armenian-Azerbaijani working group dealing with practical modalities of 
opening the Armenian-Azerbaijani border to passenger and cargo traffic.

The working group co-headed by Overchuk and his Armenian and Azerbaijani 
opposite numbers last met in Moscow on December 1. It had been expected to 
formalize relevant understandings reached by Pashinian and Azerbaijani President 
Ilham Aliyev at their November 26 talks in Sochi hosted by Russian President 
Vladimir Putin.

The group announced no deals on the transport links, however. Armenian Deputy 
Prime Minister Mher Grigorian’s office said its meeting will “resume” in the 
coming days.

The trilateral task force has not met again since then. Grigorian on Wednesday 
attributed the delay to unspecified “issues subject to expert evaluations.”

Aliyev and Pashinian met again in Brussels last week. Speaking just before those 
talks, Aliyev said Yerevan must not control a land “corridor” that would connect 
Azerbaijan to its Nakhichevan exclave via Armenia’s Syunik province. Pashinian 
rejected the demand.

During the ensuing talks, the two leaders appear to have failed to patch up 
their differences on the status of the Armenian section of the planned 
Azerbaijan-Nakhichevan highway. But they reported further progress towards 
establishing a rail link between Nakhichevan and the rest of Azerbaijan.

Echoing Pashinian’s statements made in Brussels, Grigorian insisted that Armenia 
will retain full control over a 45-kilometer section of the railway passing 
through its territory.

“It will function as an infrastructure facility under Armenia’s jurisdiction in 
a manner defined by the law,” he told journalists.

Overchuk refused to comment on the issue after the session of the 
Russian-Armenian commission. The Russian official visited Baku and met with 
Aliyev last week.


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