Wednesday, Pashinian, Aliyev To Meet Again In Brussels • Heghine Buniatian Belgium - European Council President Charles Michel meets with Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliev, Brussels, December 14, 2021. European Council President Charles Michel will host fresh talks between the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan in Brussels next week, it was announced on Wednesday. A spokesman for Michel gave no details of the agenda of his trilateral meeting with Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian and President Ilham Aliyev, saying only that it is scheduled for April 6. A senior European diplomat, who asked not to be identified, told RFE/RL that the three men will review recent developments in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict zone and continue discussions on achieving regional peace and stability. They will specifically focus on practical modalities of opening transport links between Armenia and Azerbaijan, said the diplomat. Michel and French President Emmanuel Macron held a virtual meeting with Aliyev and Pashinian on February 4. The video conference came about two months after Pashinian’s two face-to-face talks with Aliyev which were separately hosted by Macron and Michel in Brussels. The fresh meeting of the Armenian and Azerbaijani leaders was announced two days after Armenia offered to “immediately” start negotiations with Azerbaijan on a bilateral peace treaty sought by Baku. The offer in turn followed deadly fighting in Karabakh sparked by an Azerbaijani incursion into a local village and surrounding territory. The Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday that Baku is prepared for such negotiations but expects the Armenian side to take unspecified “concrete steps” first. It said the Armenian-Azerbaijani peace deal must be based on five elements that were presented by it to Yerevan on March 10. Those include, among other things, a mutual commitment to recognize each other’s territorial integrity. Freed Mayor Allowed To Run Armenian Town For Now • Naira Nalbandian Armenia - Goris Mayor Arush Arushanian speaks with journalists after his release from custody, March 28, 2022. Prosecutors confirmed on Wednesday that the opposition-linked mayor of the southeastern Armenian town of Goris can continue to perform his duties for now despite a court ruling that bars him from holding public office. Arush Arushanian received a suspended six-month prison sentence and was set free on Monday nine months after being arrested on a string of charges strongly denied by him. Arushanian was acquitted of vote buying but found guilty of assault and abuse of power at the end of a four-month trial. A court in Goris also ruled that he cannot hold any local government posts for the next five years. Arushanian’s lawyers said that he will appeal against the verdict. They insisted that the 31-year-old can continue to serve as Goris mayor pending a higher court’s ruling on the appeal. A spokesman for Armenia’s Office of the Prosecutor-General, Gor Abrahamian, confirmed that. “There are no obstacles right now given the fact that the judicial act has not yet taken effect,” he told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service. Arushanian returned to work hours after walking free in the courtroom. A statement posted on the website of the Goris municipality said that he will chair a session of the municipal council scheduled for April 5. The council elected last October is empowered to appoint and dismiss the head of the local community comprising Goris and surrounding villages. An opposition bloc led by Arushanian controls 13 of the 21 seats in the council. It will therefore be in a position to install another mayor if Arushanian’s removal from office is upheld by higher courts. Arushanian was one of the four heads of major communities of Syunik province who were arrested shortly after the June 2021 parliamentary elections on various charges rejected by them as politically motivated. They all demanded Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s resignation before joining the main opposition Hayastan alliance set up by former President Robert Kocharian in the run-up to the snap polls. Armenian Central Bank Sees Serious Fallout From Ukraine War • Robert Zargarian Armenia - Export-bound brandy stored at a distillery in Yerevan. Armenian economic growth will slow down considerably and inflation will remain high this year due to knock-on effects of Western sanctions imposed on Russia over its invasion of Ukraine, according to the Central Bank of Armenia (CBA). In a report released this week, the CBA said that the country’s economy now faces “high uncertainty and significant risks.” It predicted sizable drops in Armenian exports to Russia and multimillion-dollar remittances from Armenians working there. Russia is Armenia’s number one trading partner and export market, with bilateral trade totaling $2.6 billion last year. The Russian ruble has depreciated sharply since the start of the assault on Ukraine on February 24. The CBA report says that Russian-owned companies operating in Armenia will experience major “difficulties and disruptions” because of the crippling sanctions against Russia. One such company, the Teghut mining giant, suspended operations on March 14. It employs 1,100 people and was Armenia’s tenth largest corporate taxpayer in 2021. Armenia - A newly constructed ore-processing plant at the Teghut copper mine, 20Dec2014. The CBA already cut its economic growth forecast for 2022 from 5.3 percent to 1.6 percent in mid-March. A senior official from the International Monetary Fund forecast a virtually identical growth rate. The CBA also raised its benchmark interest rate by 1.25 percentage points, citing increased inflationary pressures on the Armenian economy. “A high inflationary environment is expected to persist in the months to come,” reads the bank’s latest report. Food prices in the country went up by an average of almost 13 percent last year, reflecting a global trend. Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian warned on March 3 that fallout from the conflict in Ukraine will push them up further. Armenia imports a large part of its wheat, cooking oil and other basic foodstuffs from Russia. Many of its citizens are already struggling to cope with the increased cost of living. “What should pensioners do?” said one middle-aged woman in Yerevan. “Things are getting worse by the day.” Armenian Judge’s Arrest Extended • Marine Khachatrian Armenia-Judge Boris Bakhshiyan,undated An Armenian court has extended by one month the pre-trial arrest of a judge prosecuted on what he sees as politically motivated charges. Boris Bakhshiyan was taken into custody on February 7 two weeks after granting bail to a jailed opposition figure. He rejects accusations leveled against him as government retribution for that decision. The accusations stem from another decision which Bakhshiyan made during an ongoing trial presided over by him. Prosecutors claim that the 36-year-old judge illegally ordered the arrest of one of the defendants in that trial. The Supreme Judicial Council (SJC), a state body overseeing Armenian courts, allowed Bakhshiyan’s arrest despite an uproar from many lawyers and the leadership of Armenia’s Union of Judges. Bakhshiyan’s lawyer, Arsen Sardarian, told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service on Wednesday that a Yerevan court has agreed to allow investigators to hold his client in detention for one more month, until May 7. In recent months, opposition groups, legal experts and some judges have repeatedly accused the Armenian government of seeking to increase its influence on courts under the guise of judicial reforms. The authorities deny this, insisting that the reforms are aimed at increasing judicial independence. Armenia’s parliament controlled by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s party approved in February legislation that made it easier for law-enforcement authorities to indict and arrest judges. Armenian Ministry Raided In Corruption Probe • Marine Khachatrian Armenia - The building of the Armenian Ministry of Emergency Situations, Yerevan. Law-enforcement officers have raided the Armenian Ministry of Emergency Situations as part of an apparent investigation into corruption. The officers of the Anti-Corruption Committee (ACC) and the National Security Service (NSS) jointly searched at least one office at the ministry headquarters in Yerevan on Monday. It remains unclear whether anyone was arrested or charged as a result. Neither law-enforcement agency has commented on the extraordinary operation so far. The ACC said on Wednesday that it will make an official statement soon. A spokeswoman for the ministry told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service that the investigators searched the office of Ashot Hakobian, an adviser to Minister of Emergency Situations Andranik Piloyan. Hakobian did not report for work on Wednesday despite not being on vacation, she said without commenting further. Piloyan went on a two-week vacation hours after the raid. He was reportedly questioned by the ACC on Tuesday. The minister has still not publicly commented on the corruption probe. Piloyan is a retired army general who participated in the 2020 war with Azerbaijan. During the six-week hostilities, he received Armenia’s highest state award, the title of National Hero, for leading what Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian called a successful Armenian counteroffensive southwest of Nagorno-Karabakh. The award proved highly controversial seeing as Azerbaijani forces continued their advance in that area in the following days. Pashinian went on to appoint Piloyan as minister in November 2020 less than two weeks after a Russian-brokered ceasefire that stopped the devastating war. The Ministry of Emergency Situations will be run by Piloyan’s first deputy, Armen Pambukhchian, for now. Pambukhchian is a member of the ruling Civil Contract party. Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL Copyright (c) 2022 Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, Inc. 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.