RFE/RL Armenian Report – 01/25/2022

                                        Tuesday, January 25, 2022


Corruption Survey Finds No Further Progress In Armenia
January 25, 2022
        • Nane Sahakian

Germany -- Microphone cables dangle over a logo of Transparency International 
(TI) during a press conference in Berlin, 23Sep2008


Armenia has practically not improved its position in an annual survey of 
corruption perceptions around the world conducted by Transparency International.

It ranks, together with Greece, Jordan and Namibia, 58th out of 180 countries 
and territories evaluated in the Berlin-based watchdog’s 2021 Corruption 
Perception Index (CPI) presented on Tuesday.

Armenia and two other countries shared 60th place in the previous CPI released a 
year ago. Transparency International assigned the South Caucasus state a CPI 
“score” of 49 out of 100 at the time.

The watchdog kept the score, which is above the global average of 43, unchanged 
in the latest survey.

“Following the 2018 Velvet Revolution, Armenia initially made both significant 
democratic improvements and positive strides against corruption, climbing 15 
points on the CPI over the last decade,” it said in a report. “But despite 
progress, in 2021 promised anti-corruption and judicial reforms stalled in the 
wake of the political and economic crisis triggered by the pandemic and renewed 
conflict in the Nagorno-Karabakh region.”

“No progress was registered in 2021,” agreed Varuzhan Hoktanian, the programs 
director at Transparency International’s Armenian affiliate.

“I don’t yet see serious economic, political or social reforms,” he said. “That 
is why we have this situation.”

Armenia was 105th in the rankings three years ago. A Transparency International 
report released in January 2021 hailed “steady and positive improvements in 
anti-corruption” achieved there since the 2018 regime change.


Armenia - Varuzhan Hoktanian of the Armenian branch of Transparency 
International at a news conference in Yerevan, 15Mar2017.

Hoktanian suggested that the major change in corruption perceptions reflected 
post-revolution optimism that reigned in the country in 2018-2019.

“People expected things to get better,” Hoktanian told a news conference. “That 
is why the CPI went up. Now that period [of euphoria] is over, and both 
businesspeople and local and international experts are starting to perceive the 
situation with corruption through more concrete facts.”

“Secondly, you may recall that some serious steps were taken [by the 
authorities] in 2018 and 2019,” he said. “Whether that was good or bad is a 
different question.”

Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian has repeatedly claimed to have eliminated 
“systemic corruption” since coming to power in May 2018. Armenian 
law-enforcement authorities have launched dozens of high-profile corruption 
investigations during his rule. They have mostly targeted former top government 
officials and individuals linked to them.

The authorities set up last year a special law-enforcement agency tasked with 
investigating corruption cases. They are also forming new courts that will deal 
only with such cases.

Critics say that Pashinian uses corruption inquiries to crack down on his 
political opponents. They also claim that some members of his entourage are busy 
enriching themselves or their cronies.

Companies owned by or linked otherwise to at least three senior Armenian 
officials, including Pashinian’s deputy chief of staff, won dozens of government 
contracts in 2021, raising suspicions of a conflict of interest and even 
corruption. Pashinian insisted last month that they did not exploit their 
government connections to win tenders for road construction and procurements.



Armenian President Faces Fraud Probe After Resignation
January 25, 2022
        • Naira Nalbandian

Armenia - New Armenian President Armen Sarkissian arrives for his inauguration 
ceremony in Yerevan, 9 April 2018.


Two days after President Armen Sarkissian’s surprise resignation, Armenia’s main 
security agency was instructed to look into a media report alleging that he was 
not eligible to serve as head of state because of concealing a foreign 
citizenship.

Sarkissian, in office since 2018, announced his resignation in a written 
statement released late on Sunday. He attributed the move to the fact that the 
Armenian constitution gives the president of the republic mainly ceremonial 
powers.

Hetq.am, an independent investigative publication, claimed on Monday that 
Sarkissian stepped down because it emerged that he violated a constitutional 
provision stipulating that the president must have been a citizen of only 
Armenia for at least six years preceding their election by the parliament.

The publication said that an ongoing investigation conducted by it jointly with 
the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), an international 
watchdog, has revealed that Sarkissian was a citizen of the Caribbean island 
country of Saint Kitts and Nevis “not long before being elected president in 
March 2018.”

It said that in written comments to Hetq.am Sarkissian asserted that he had 
automatically gained that citizenship in return for investing in a local hotel a 
decade ago. He said he instructed his lawyers to hand back his passport to 
authorities in Saint Kitts and Nevis shortly before being appointed as Armenia’s 
ambassador to Britain in 2013.

According to the report, Sarkissian claimed to have discovered in 2017 that the 
lawyers failed to fulfill his wish. He said he then made sure he does not have 
that citizenship anymore.


Armenia - President Serzh Sarkisian (R) meets with Armenian Ambassador to 
Britain Armen Sarkissian in Yerevan, 19Jan2018.

Hetq.am noted that Sarkissian answered its questions during a visit to the 
United Arab Emirates which he wrapped up on January 18.

The presidential press office announced at the end of the trip that Sarkissian 
is going on a “short vacation” to undergo a “necessary medical examination.” He 
is believed to have flown to another foreign country without returning to 
Armenia.

The office did not comment on the report on Tuesday.

A spokesman for Armenian prosecutors told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service that they 
have told the National Security Service (NSS) to “verify” the information 
contained in the report. He said this will be done “within the framework” of a 
criminal case opened by prosecutors last May.

That inquiry was launched following renewed allegations that Sarkissian, who 
lived in the United Kingdom for nearly three decades before returning to Armenia 
in 2018, remained a British national after 2011. Law-enforcement authorities 
have still not released any details of the probe.

The 68-year-old president has insisted all along that he renounced his British 
citizenship in 2011.



Pashinian Again Accused Of Making Pro-Azeri Statements
January 25, 2022
        • Sargis Harutyunyan

Armenia - Tigran Abrahamian, a parliament deputy from the opposition Pativ Unem 
bloc, at a news conference, Yerevan, January 25, 2022.


Representatives of Armenia’s two leading opposition forces have accused Prime 
Minister Nikol Pashinian of again signaling his readiness to help Azerbaijan 
regain full control over Nagorno-Karabakh.

In a televised interview aired late on Monday, Pashinian was asked to comment on 
the possibility of Armenian recognition of Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity 
through a “peace treaty” sought by Baku.

He responded by claiming that Armenia already did so when it signed and ratified 
in 1992 a treaty on the creation of the post-Soviet Commonwealth of Independent 
States (CIS).

“Armenia and Azerbaijan de jure recognized in 1992 the inviolability of borders 
and [each other’s] territorial integrity within the bounds of borders existing 
in the CIS,” he said.

Pashinian also argued that territorial integrity of states has been one of the 
main elements of peace plans on Karabakh jointly drawn up by the U.S., Russian 
and French mediators.


Armenia - Gegham Manukian of the opposition Hayastan alliance speaks during a 
paliament session in Yerevan, October 27, 2021

Lawmakers representing the main opposition Hayastan alliance were quick to 
portray the remarks as further proof of Pashinian’s readiness to end Armenian 
control over Karabakh. One of them, Gegham Manukian, accused him of echoing 
“Azerbaijani arguments” in the conflict.

“According to him, Karabakh is Azerbaijan. Period,” another Hayastan deputy, 
Andranik Tevanian, wrote on Facebook.

Tigran Abrahamian of the Pativ Unem bloc, the other parliamentary opposition 
force, added his voice to these allegations on Tuesday.

“Nikol Pashinian is trying to substantiate Artsakh’s being Azerbaijani 
territory,” he told a news conference.

Abrahamian also argued that the so-called Madrid Principles of a Karabakh 
settlement, which were first put forward by the mediating powers in 2007, 
include not only territorial integrity but also people’s right to 
self-determination.


Armenia - Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian meets with Karabakh President Arayik 
Harutyuanian, Yerevan, January 24, 2022.

Various versions of that peace plan stipulated that Karabakh’s predominantly 
Armenian population would be able to determine the disputed territory’s 
internationally recognized status in a future referendum.

Pashinian has repeatedly criticized the proposed peace deal since Armenia’s 
defeat in the 2020 war with Azerbaijan. He claimed late last month that they 
envisaged the eventual restoration of Azerbaijani control over Karabakh. He also 
declared that “Artsakh (Karabakh) could not have ended up being completely 
Armenian.”

Those remarks were condemned by the Armenian opposition as well as Karabakh’s 
leadership. The latter openly accused Pashinian of making statements playing 
into Baku’s hands.

In a January 2021 article, Pashinian likewise said that the U.S., Russian and 
French co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group sought a “surrender of lands” to 
Azerbaijan and offered the Armenian side nothing in return. The then Russian 
co-chair of the group, Igor Popov, bluntly denied the claim.


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