Monday,
Scores Arrested At Continuing Protests In Armenia
• Marine Khachatrian
Armenia - Police clash with opposition protesters outside a government buiolding
in Yerevan, .
Riot police clashed with protesters and made more than 100 arrests on Monday as
daily anti-government demonstrations organized by Armenia’s main opposition
groups entered their fifth week.
Scuffles broke out after security forces did not allow opposition lawmakers
leading hundreds of supporters to enter a government building in Yerevan that
houses four ministries. Several protesters suffered visible injuries or felt
unwell in the melee.
Others claimed to have been beaten up by police officers after being dragged
away and forced into the sprawling building.
“We didn’t do anything,” one of them, Artur Azizian told RFE/RL’s Armenian
Service. “We were handcuffed and lay on the floor, and many of the policemen
approached and hit us.”
Azizian said he was taken to hospital from a police station in Yerevan a few
hours later. He said doctors there told him that he suffered rib fractures.
Armenia - Riot police clash with protesters outside a government building in
Yerevan, .
A police statement said that three officers were also injured and required
medical aid. It put the total number of arrests at 111. It was not immediately
clear whether any of those detainees risked criminal charges.
The police also used force against some of the opposition lawmakers who wanted
to enter the building to talk to the Armenian ministries of environment, local
government, social security and health about the status of Nagorno-Karabakh
acceptable to them.
One of those lawmakers, deputy parliament speaker Ishkhan Saghatelian, condemned
the police actions but said the protest leaders are undaunted by the use of
force and will stage similar marches to other government buildings in the coming
days. He said every government member must publicly speak up on the issue raised
by the opposition.
Armenia - Police officers use force against opposition lawmaker Aghvan Vartanian
during an anti-government protest in Yerevan, .
The opposition accused Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian of helping Azerbaijan
regain full control over Karabakh when it launched the street protests in
Yerevan on May 1. It drafted late last week a parliamentary resolution that
rejects Azerbaijani control over the Armenian-populated territory and says
Pashinian’s government cannot make any territorial concessions to Baku as a
result of a planned demarcation of the Armenian-Azerbaijani border.
The two opposition alliances represented in the National Assembly challenged its
pro-government majority to dispel its concerns by voting for the resolution
during an emergency session slated for June 3.
Artur Hovannisian, a senior lawmaker from Pashinian’s Civil Contract party, made
clear on Friday it will boycott and thereby block the session. He accused the
opposition of blackmailing the country’s leadership and exploiting the Karabakh
conflict for political purposes.
Turkey’s Airspace ‘Reopened’ To Armenian Airline
Armenia - A FlyOne Armenia plane takes off from Yerevan's Zvartnots airport,
March 17, 2022.
An Armenian airline announced on Monday that Turkish authorities have allowed it
to resume regular flights to Europe through Turkey’s airspace.
The private carrier, FlyOne Armenia, cancelled the flights to Paris and another
French city, Lyon, about a month ago, saying that its aircraft were banned from
flying over Turkey without any explanation. The continuing war in Ukraine left
it without alternative, commercially viable overflight routes.
In a statement, FlyOne Armenia said both twice-weekly flight services will
resume on June 17. The company did not say whether it has taken any action in
response to the Turkish ban.
The airline earlier asked the Armenian government’s Civil Aviation Committee to
help lift the ban. Citing the absence of diplomatic relations between Armenia
and Turkey, the committee in turn appealed to the Armenian foreign ministry and
the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) to deal with the issue.
The ban did not apply to FlyOne Armenia’s Yerevan-Istanbul flights that were
launched in February following the start of Turkish-Armenian negotiations on
normalizing bilateral relations.
Turkey had banned all Armenian aircraft from its airspace in September 2020
three weeks before the outbreak of the Armenian-Azerbaijani war over
Nagorno-Karabakh. Although Armenia did not retaliate against the move, Turkish
planes reportedly stopped flying over Armenia during the six-week war.
FlyOne Armenia was set up last year by Armenian and Moldovan investors.
According to Armenian media reports, it is controlled by individuals linked to
Khachatur Sukiasian, a wealthy businessman and pro-government parliamentarian.
Sukiasian has been a vocal advocate of Armenia’s rapprochement with Turkey and
Azerbaijan.
Convicted Militants Sent Back To Jail
• Narine Ghalechian
Armenia - A general view of Erebuni police station seized by gunmen and
supporters of fringe jailed opposition leader Zhirair Sefilian, in Yerevan, July
30, 2016
Key members of an armed anti-government group that seized a police base in
Yerevan in July 2016 were sent back to jail over the weekend after Armenia’s
highest court upheld prison sentences handed down to them.
The seven men and two dozen other gunmen stormed the base to demand that then
President Serzh Sarkisian free Zhirayr Sefilian, the jailed leader of their
radical opposition movement, and step down.
The gunmen, who took police officers and medical personnel hostage, laid down
their weapons after a two-week standoff with security forces which left three
police officers dead.
All but two members of the armed group called Sasna Tsrer were released from
custody shortly after Sarkisian was toppled in the 2018 “velvet revolution” led
by Nikol Pashinian.
Armenia - The funeral in Yerevan of Yuri Tepanosian, an Armenian police officer
killed in a standoff between security forces and opposition gunmen, 1Aug2016.
The two other members remained behind bars because of facing murder charges
denied by them. A district court in Yerevan sentenced one of them to 25 years in
prison in February 2021. The other, Armen Bilian, was given the same jail term
by the Court of Appeals in December.
The court also upheld prison sentences of between six and eight years given to
the seven other defendants. They continued to deny any wrongdoing, appealing to
the Court of Cassation, Armenia’s highest body of criminal justice.
Armenia - Varuzhan Avetisian (L), the leader an armed opposition group that
seized a police station in July 2016, at the start of his trial in Yerevan,
8Jun2017.
The Court of Cassation rejected the appeals, a decision which judicial
authorities announced only after the seven men, including Sasna Tsrer leader
Varuzhan Avetisian, were arrested and transported to jail on Saturday. One of
their lawyers, Arayik Papikian, condemned the “political decision.”
Avetisian, who was sentenced to seven years in prison, has repeatedly defended
the armed attack on the police facility located in Yerevan’s southern Erebuni
district. But he has denied responsibility for the killing of the three police
officers: Colonel Artur Vanoyan and Warrant Officers Yuri Tepanosian and Gagik
Mkrtchian.
Armenia - Relatives of police officers killed in a standoff with opposition
gunmen attend a remembrance ceremony in Yerevan, 28Sep2016.
Relatives of the slain officers are also unhappy with the guilty verdicts in the
case. Tepanosian’s wife and Mkrtchian’s mother insisted on Saturday that all
members of the armed group should have been sentence to life imprisonment.
Avetisian has also faced in recent months embarrassing accusations from Bilian,
the man convicted of committing one of the three murders. Bilian claimed that
the Sasna Tsrer leader as well as Sefilian knew that he did not kill the
policeman but still helped to jail him as part of a secret deal with the
Armenian authorities.
Avetisian categorically denied the allegations, arguing that he and Sefilian are
also in opposition to the current government.
Yerevan Rejects Aliyev’s ‘False’ Claims
Armenia - The building of the Armenian Foreign Ministry.
Armenia has accused Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev of misrepresenting
understandings reached by the leaders of the two states, threatening to seize
Armenian territory and torpedoing Nagorno-Karabakh peace efforts.
Official Yerevan also linked Aliyev’s latest statements with a weekend skirmish
on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border which left one Armenian soldier dead.
The Armenian Defense Ministry said the soldier, Davit Vartanian, was fatally
wounded on Saturday when his military unit deployed in southeastern Syunik
province came under cross-border fire from nearby Azerbaijani positions. Baku
claimed that its troops did not violate the ceasefire.
The incident happened one day after Aliyev’s visit to the Zangelan district
bordering Syunik. Speaking there, Aliyev ruled out any negotiations with Armenia
on the status of Nagorno-Karabakh. He said Yerevan has agreed to exclude the
issue from the agenda of planned negotiations on an Armenian-Azerbaijani peace
treaty.
Aliyev at the same time warned the Armenian side against insisting on an
agreement on Karabakh’s status. He said Baku could respond by laying claim to
Armenian territory. In that regard, he again referred to Syunik as an “ancient
land” of Azerbaijan.
The Armenian Foreign Ministry deplored Aliyev’s “bellicose” statements and
“arbitrary and false interpretations” of his agreements reached with Prime
Minister Nikol Pashinian.
In a statement, the ministry said that “negotiations on the normalization of
relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan should be held on the basis of
proposals of both sides.”
The Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry dismissed the criticism later on Saturday. It
said Yerevan should come to terms with “new realities in the region.”
In March this year, Azerbaijan presented Armenia with five elements which it
wants to be at the heart of the peace treaty. They include a mutual recognition
of each other’s territorial integrity. Yerevan said they should be complemented
by other issues relating to Karabakh’s future status and the security of its
population.
Speaking after his latest talks with Aliyev held in Brussels on May 22,
Pashinian indicated that the two sides continue to disagree on the agenda of the
talks on the peace accord.
Aliyev on Friday also repeated his claims that he and Pashinian agreed to open a
“Zangezur corridor” that will connect Azerbaijan to its Nakhichevan exclave
through Syunik. The Armenian government denied them as well, with Foreign
Minister Ararat Mirzoyan insisting that Yerevan and Baku have been discussing
only conventional transport links.
“The existence of any corridor in the territory of Armenia is out of the
question,” Mirzoyan said in written comments. “This is not even debatable.”
Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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