Friday, April 29, 2022
Officer In Pashinian Motorcade Freed After Deadly Crash
April 29, 2022
• Nane Sahakian
• Marine Khachatrian
Armenia - Law-enforcement officers inspect the scene of a fatal accident caused
by a police car escorting Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian, Yerevan, April 26,
2022.
An Armenian law-enforcement agency has set free a police officer whose car hit
and killed a young woman while escorting Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s
motorcade in Yerevan earlier this week.
The 28-year-old pregnant woman, Sona Mnatsakanian, was struck by a police SUV
while crossing a street in the city center. The vehicle did not stop after the
collision that sparked more opposition calls for Pashinian’s resignation. Its
driver, Major Aram Navasardian, was arrested a few hours later.
The Investigative Committee charged Navasardian with violating traffic rules on
Friday hours before releasing him from custody. A spokesperson for the
law-enforcement agency said the officer signed a formal pledge not to leave
Armenia during the investigation.
The investigators did not identify any other suspects in the high-profile case.
Navasardian’s lawyer, Ruben Baloyan, said his client is not accused of fleeing
the scene and not helping the victim who later died from her severe injuries.
“He came back to the scene of the accident and took part in its examination,”
Baloyan told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service.
According the Investigative Committee, the traffic policeman showed up only two
hours after Tuesday’s crash.
Pashinian’s limousine and the six other cars making up his motorcade also drove
past the dying woman and did not try to help her. The prime minister has still
not publicly commented on the unprecedented accident.
The deputy chief of his staff, Taron Chakhoyan, claimed on Wednesday that the
motorcade would have caused a traffic jam and made it harder for an ambulance to
reach the victim had it stopped right after the crash.
Chakhoyan also said that “internationally accepted rules” stipulate that the
motorcades of government leaders “have no right to stop in unauthorized places.”
Narek Martirosian, a reporter with the fact-checking website fip.am, dismissed
the official’s claim. He said that both Armenian law and an international
convention on road safety signed by Armenia require everyone to stop at the
scene of an accident caused by them.
Opposition figures have been even more critical of Pashinian’s failure to halt
his motorcade. Some of them have blamed him for the woman’s death and demanded
his resignation.
The victim’s family has not publicly commented on the crash so far.
Russia’s Lavrov Offers Talks With Armenian, Azeri FMs
April 29, 2022
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov shakes hands with Armenian Foreign
Minister Ararat Mirzoyan during a joint news conference in Moscow, Russia April
8, 2022.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has offered to hold a trilateral meeting
with his Armenian and Azerbaijani counterparts next month, the Armenian Foreign
Ministry said on Friday.
The ministry said Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan accepted the proposal in a
phone call with Lavrov. Mirzoyan, Lavrov and Azerbaijan’s Jeyhun Bayramov would
hold the talks on the sidelines of a meeting of top diplomats of ex-Soviet
states that will be held in Tajikistan on May 13, it added in a statement.
The Russian Foreign Ministry did not mention the proposed talks in its readout
of the phone call. It said Lavrov discussed with Mirzoyan the creation of an
Armenian-Azerbaijani commission on demarcating the border between the two South
Caucasus states. They also “exchanged views” on an Armenian-Azerbaijani peace
treaty sought by Baku.
Mirzoyan and Bayramov discussed these issues on Monday in what was their second
phone call in two weeks. The Armenian Foreign Ministry said the two sides will
soon hold a “meeting regarding the commission” on border demarcation.
Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian
first agreed to form such a body during their trilateral meeting with Russian
President Vladimir Putin last November. However, it was not set up in the
following months.
Aliyev and Pashinian pledged to form the commission before the end of this month
when they met in Brussels on April 6 for talks in Brussels hosted by European
Council President Charles Michel. The latter said they also plan to “move
rapidly” towards negotiating the peace treaty.
Russia responded by accusing the European Union and the United States of trying
to hijack Russian efforts to broker peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan as part
of the ongoing geopolitical standoff over Ukraine.
Pashinian and Russian President Vladimir Putin reaffirmed Russia’s key role in
the peace process in a joint declaration issued after their April 19 talks
outside Moscow.
Michel phoned the Armenian and Azerbaijani leaders a few days later. He said
afterwards that the EU “remains committed to supporting Armenia and Azerbaijan
in their dialogue.”
The secretary of Armenia’s Security Council, Armen Grigorian, announced on
Friday that he will meet again with Aliyev’s top foreign policy aide, Hikmet
Hajiyev, in Brussels on May 2.
Aliyev revealed plans for such talks earlier in the day. He praised the EU’s
“honest” role in the peace process.
Armenia’s Top Court Upholds Criminalization Of Insults
April 29, 2022
• Naira Bulghadarian
• Artak Khulian
Armenia - The Constitutional Court announces its decision to reject opposition
appeals against official results of the June 20 parliamentary elections,
Yerevan, July 17, 2021.
The Constitutional Court has refused to strike down a controversial law that
made it a crime to insult Armenian officials and public figures.
The amendments to the Armenian Criminal Code passed by the country’s parliament
last summer made “grave insults” directed at individuals because of their
“public activities” an offense punishable with hefty fines or prison sentences
of up to three months. Those individuals may include government and
law-enforcement officials, politicians and other public figures.
Opposition and human rights groups have criticized the measure, calling it an
infringement of free speech. Late last year, opposition lawmakers as well as
human rights ombudsman Arman Tatoyan asked the Constitutional Court to declare
the amendments unconstitutional.
The court said on Friday that it has rejected the appeals. It is due to
publicize the full text of the decision by Tuesday.
The Office of the Prosecutor-General reported on Thursday that 51 Armenians have
been charged with defamation and hundreds of others investigated on the same
grounds since the amendments took effect in September. Six of them have already
been found guilty by courts, it said in a statement.
Many of those individuals are thought to have been prosecuted for insulting
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian.
According to the statement, the vast majority of people facing such criminal
proceedings are not politicians or journalists. The prosecutors portrayed this
as further proof that the controversial law is not meant to suppress press
freedom or political dissent.
Ashot Melikian of the Yerevan-based Committee to Protect the Free Speech
dismissed that argument.
“Freedom of speech does not just apply to mass media,” he told RFE/RL’s Armenian
Service. “It’s a much broader concept.”
Melikian again called for a repeal of the legislation that has also been
criticized by Western watchdogs such as Freedom House and Amnesty International.
Senior lawmakers representing Pashinian’s Civil Contract party have repeatedly
dismissed such calls.
All forms of slander and defamation had been decriminalized in Armenia in 2010
during former President Serzh Sarkisian’s rule.
Pashinian Meets Karabakh Leaders, Defends ‘Peace Agenda’
April 29, 2022
• Astghik Bedevian
Armenia - Prime Minister Nikol Pasinian and Karabakh President Arayik
Harutiunian arrive for a meeting in Yerevan, Aprl 29, 2022.
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian defended his conciliatory policy towards
Azerbaijan as he met with Nagorno-Karabakh’s leadership in Yerevan on Friday.
“I want to say that the agenda of peace is not an agenda of defeat,” he told
Arayik Harutiunian, the Karabakh president, and other senior Karabakh officials.
“The agenda of peace is an agenda of overcoming the horrors of war and the
difficulties that followed the war and guaranteeing the security, rights and
future of the people.”
It was Pashinian’s first face-to-face meeting with the Karabakh leaders since
his April 13 speech in the Armenian parliament which caused an outcry in Armenia
and Karabakh.
Addressing the parliament, Pashinian said that the international community is
pressing Armenia to “lower a bit the bar on the question of Nagorno-Karabakh’s
status” and recognize Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity. He signaled Yerevan’s
intention to make such concessions to Baku.
Armenian opposition leaders portrayed the speech as further proof that Pashinian
has agreed to Azerbaijani control over Karabakh.
The authorities in Stepanakert also deplored it. In a resolution, the Karabakh
parliament demanded that the Armenian authorities “abandon their current
disastrous position.”
Earlier this week, Harutiunian claimed to have received assurances from
Pashinian that Yerevan will not back any agreements on the territory’s status
unacceptable to the Karabakh Armenians.
Pashinian said in this regard on Thursday that he will not cut any peace deals
with Azerbaijan without consulting with the Karabakh leadership.
Harutiunian confirmed his support for the “agenda of peace.” But he also
stressed: “On the other hand, I want to make clear that we see no way of
deviating from our right to self-determination.”
Pashinian made no mention of that right in his opening remarks publicized by his
press office. He again did not specify Karabakh’s future status acceptable to
Yerevan. He reiterated instead that the people of Karabakh must be able to
continue to live in the disputed territory and “consider themselves Armenians.”
“This is the agenda which we must jointly advance. I am convinced that we are
moving in the right direction, and I am happy when the Artsakh authorities share
that conviction,” added the Armenian premier.
The meeting with Harutiunian and other Karabakh officials came amid intensifying
opposition demonstrations in Yerevan sparked by Pashinian’s Karabakh discourse.
Armenia’s leading opposition groups are trying to force Pashinian to resign.
Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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