Friday,
Armenian Church Warns Against ‘Humiliating’ Concessions To Baku
Armenia - Catholicos Garegin II holds a religious ceremony on an open-air altar
in Echmiadzin, April 14, 2022.
The Armenian Apostolic Church on Friday warned Armenia’s political leadership
against compromising on Nagorno-Karabakh’s right to self-determination in peace
talks with Azerbaijan.
The church’s Supreme Spiritual Council headed by Catholicos Garegin II said it
must not make such concessions “regardless of existing pressures and external
threats.”
“Peace cannot be established through the humiliation of national dignity, amid
incessant encroachments on the territorial integrity of our state, the presence
of prisoners of war, and Azerbaijan’s constant threats and propaganda of
anti-Armenianism,” the council said after a three-day meeting held at the
church’s Mother See in Echmiadzin.
It said the Armenian authorities must make sure that the Karabakh Armenians
right to self-determination does not become “a subject of bargaining” in the
negotiating process.
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian and other senior officials have not stated
publicly whether they will bring up the principle of self-determination of
peoples, long championed by Armenia, in planned negotiations on a comprehensive
peace treaty with Azerbaijan. They have said only that the talks should address
the questions of Karabakh’s status and the security of its population.
Speaking in the Armenian parliament on April 13, 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 hinted at his readiness to make such concessions, drawing strong
criticism from his political opponents and Karabakh’s leadership.
Armenia - Opposition supporters march through Republic Square in Yerevan, May
17, 2022.
Armenian opposition leaders charged that Pashinian has agreed to Azerbaijani
control over the disputed territory. They went on to launch on May 1 daily
street protests in Yerevan aimed at forcing him to step down.
The church council, which also comprises prominent laymen, expressed concern at
“internal political developments” in Armenia. It urged all sides to display
mutual “tolerance” and avoid violence and “disproportionate use of force.”
The ancient church, to which the vast majority of Armenians nominally belong,
enjoyed strong government support until the 2018 “velvet revolution” that
brought Pashinian to power. The prime minister’s frosty relationship with
Garegin has increasingly deteriorated since then.
Pashinian openly attacked the church when he campaigned for the June 2021
parliamentary elections. He said “corrupt clergymen” are part of Armenia’s
traditional political, intellectual and spiritual elites that “did everything”
to prevent the 2018 regime change. Garegin’s office rejected the accusations.
Turkey Worried About Opposition Pressure On Armenian PM
• Tatevik Sargsian
Uruguay - Turkey's Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu makes a hand gesture
associated with a Turkish ultranationalist group to Armenians protesting against
his visit to Montevideo, April 23, 2022.
Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu has signaled concerns about ongoing
street protests against Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s conciliatory policy on
Azerbaijan, saying that the United States and other foreign partners should
increase their support for his government.
“We can see that the Armenian authorities are under pressure from radical forces
at home and the [Armenian] Diaspora abroad,” Cavusoglu told Azerbaijani
journalists on Thursday. “We have told [U.S. Secretary of State] Antony Blinken
and our other partners that Armenia needs to be encouraged more on this issue.”
Blinken praised “the courage and the flexibility” demonstrated by Pashinian
after holding talks with Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan in Washington on May 2.
Armenia’s leading opposition forces launched daily demonstrations in Yerevan on
May 1, accusing Pashinian of planning to cede Karabakh to Azerbaijan.
Pashinian fuelled such allegations after his April 6 meeting with Azerbaijani
President Ilham Aliyev held in Brussels. Speaking in the Armenian parliament on
April 13, he said the international community wants Armenia to scale back its
demands on the status of Nagorno-Karabakh and sign a corresponding peace treaty
with Azerbaijan.
Cavusoglu mentioned the treaty, saying that Ankara looks forward negotiations on
it planned by Armenia and Azerbaijan. He also noted that Baku supports
Turkish-Armenian talks on normalizing bilateral relations which were launched in
January.
Armenian opposition leaders have voiced serious concerns over the normalization
talks as well. They say that Pashinian is ready to accept Turkish preconditions
relating to not only the Karabakh conflict but also the 1915 Armenian genocide
in Ottoman Turkey.
Pashinian Touts ‘Armenian Democracy’ Amid Continuing Protests
• Artak Khulian
• Robert Zargarian
Armenia - Opposition supporters demonstrate outside the venue of the Democracy
Forum attended by Armenian officials and Western diplomats, Yerevan, May 20,
2022.
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian again claimed to have turned Armenia into an
established democracy on Friday as the country's main opposition groups
continued daily demonstrations demanding his resignation.
“Our task today is to prove that democracy can ensure the internal and external
security of our country,” Pashinian told a “forum for democracy” in Yerevan
attended by Armenian government officials, pro-government lawmakers, civic
activists and Western diplomats.
“We have fought for the establishment of democracy in Armenia and we have
accomplished our mission, even though we have not completed our mission,” he
said in a speech. “In order to strengthen democracy, it is now very important to
rally around another mission: we must bring peace to Armenia just like we have
brought democracy to Armenia. One can hardly exist without the other.”
Pashinian alluded to his conciliatory policy on Azerbaijan and Turkey which
triggered the opposition protests three weeks ago.
The prime minister said last month that the international community is pressing
Armenia to “lower the bar” on the status of Nagorno-Karabakh and recognize
Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity. He signaled readiness to make such
concessions, stoking opposition allegations that he has agreed to help Baku
regain full control over Karabakh.
Armenia - Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian addresses the Armenian Forum for
Demoracy, .
The forum took place in a Yerevan hotel guarded by scores of riot police and
other security forces. Hundreds of people led by opposition parliamentarians
rallied outside the building.
Some of those lawmakers tried to enter the hotel’s main conference room to take
part in the forum but were stopped by Pashinian’s bodyguards. One of them, Agnes
Khamoyan, said this made mockery of the declared purpose of the gathering.
Other lawmakers again hit out at the U.S. ambassador to Armenia, Lynne Tracy,
who effectively welcomed earlier this week the outcome of last year’s
parliamentary elections won by Pashinian’s party.
In an interview with the Armenpress news agency, Tracy said Armenians
“recommitted themselves” to democratic values during the snap polls. Ishkhan
Saghatelian, the main speaker at the ongoing opposition protests, responded by
accusing the United States and other Western powers of turning a blind eye to
government pressure on the Armenian judiciary, the existence of “dozens of
political prisoners” and other human rights abuses in the country.
“With you silence, you are contributing to dictatorship in Armenia,” Saghatelian
charged on Wednesday.
Armenia - Riot police guard the venue of the Armenian Forum for Democracy,
Yerevan, .
Speaking at Friday’s conference, Tracy expressed concern over what she described
as disproportionate of use of force by the Armenian police against protesters.
She suggested that Pashinian’s government is “taking heed of the need to
investigate” the police actions.
The U.S. envoy said at the same time that the protests should be peaceful and
not create “chaos” in the streets.
The police arrested hundreds of protesters in Yerevan earlier this week.
Virtually all of them were set free a few hours later.
Still, law-enforcement authorities are pressing criminal charges against more
than a dozen opposition activists and supporters arrested since the start of the
“civil disobedience” campaign on May 1. Most of them are accused of assaulting
police officers or government supporters. The opposition rejects the accusations
as politically motivated.
Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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