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.
Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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