Wednesday,
Armenian Deputy Speaker Unfazed By Impending Ouster
• Astghik Bedevian
Armenia - Ishkhan Saghatelian (second from right) and other opposition lawmakers
lead an anti-government rally in Yerevan, May 18, 2022.
Ishkhan Saghatelian, a deputy speaker of the Armenian parliament, on Wednesday
shrugged off the ruling Civil Contract party’s decision to strip him and another
opposition leader of their parliamentary posts.
Saghatelian also made clear that the main opposition Hayastan alliance, of which
he is a senior member, have no plans yet to end a more than two-month boycott of
sessions of the National Assembly and its standing committees.
“We will go back to the parliament only with our agenda,” he told RFE/RL’s
Armenian Service.
Hayastan and the second parliamentary opposition force, Pativ Unem, began the
boycott in April in advance of their daily demonstrations demanding Prime
Minister Nikol Pashinian’s resignation. They decided to scale back the protests
earlier this month after failing to topple Pashinian.
Armenia - Opposition supporters demonstrate in France Square, Yerevan, May 3,
2022.
Leaders of the parliament’s pro-government majority have threatened to strip
lawmakers representing Hayastan and Pativ Unem of their parliament seats for
absenteeism. They announced no decisions to that effect after a meeting of Civil
Contract’s parliamentary group held on Tuesday.
The group said instead that it will oust Saghatelian and Hayastan’s Vahe
Hakobian as deputy speaker and chairman of the parliament committee on economic
issues respectively.
Artur Hovannisian, a senior Civil Contract parliamentarian, told RFE/RL’s
Armenian Service on Wednesday that the two oppositionists will be formally
relieved of their duties by September. He said they themselves stopped
performing those duties.
“We have seen either an empty chair or a silent Ishkhan Saghatelian sitting on
it,” said Hovannisian. “Such a deputy speaker hampers our work with his
inactivity.”
Armenia - Former President Robert Kocharian (center), Ishkhan Saghatelian
(right) and Vahe Hakobian at an election campaign rally in Yerevan, June 18,
2021.
“They work against the Republic of Armenia,” Saghatelian shot back. “If I have
managed to impede their work, then that’s wonderful. They must expect more
severe blows soon.”
“Civil Contract must not talk about things like professional skills, experience
or knowledge,” he went on. “They are so far from these things. Since their
lifetime aim was to grab state posts they think that they can hurt me or my
colleagues in this way. They don’t understand that it’s so secondary to us right
now.”
The opposition forces accuse Pashinian of planning to make sweeping concessions
to Azerbaijan that would place Nagorno-Karabakh under Azerbaijani control and
jeopardize the very existence of Armenia. They are scheduled to hold another
antigovernment rally in Yerevan on Friday.
Pashinian Aide Elected Armenia’s Chief Prosecutor
• Anush Mkrtchian
Armenia - Anna Vardapetian addresses parliament before being elected as
Armenia's next prosecutor-general, Yerevan, .
The National Assembly voted on Wednesday to appoint an aide to Prime Minister
Nikol Pashinian as Armenia’s next chief prosecutor.
The current prosecutor-general, Artur Davtian, will complete his six-year term
in office on September 15. He was appointed in 2016 by the country’s former
parliament dominated by then President Serzh Sarkisian’s loyalists.
Pashinian and his political allies, who control the current parliament, decided
not to appoint Davtian for a second term.
Their pick for the post, Anna Vardapetian, served as a deputy minister of
justice in 2019 and became Pashinian’s assistant on legal affairs in March 2020.
She was elected by 70 members of the 107-seat parliament. They all represent
Pashinian’s Civil Contract party.
Speaking on the parliament floor before the vote, Vardapetian, pledged to ensure
proper oversight of law-enforcement agencies combatting and investigating
crimes. She said she will tackle favoritism within those agencies as well as
what she called excessive delays in criminal investigations and a broader “lack
of justice” in the country.
“If the prosecutor is consistent about a criminal case, the citizen will not
come to the gates of the government or the National Assembly to demand a [fair]
investigation of their case,” she said.
Armenia -- Businessman Ruben Hayrapetian speaks to journalists after being
released by police, Yerevan, February 4, 2020.
Vartanian, 36, herself was accused of breaking the law last year after an
Armenian media outlet published purported evidence of her interference in a
criminal investigation into a fugitive businessman critical of Pashinian’s
government.
The online publication, 168.am, posted what it described as screenshots of an
e-mail sent by Vardapetian to a senior law-enforcement officer leading the
investigation. The letter contained instructions regarding businessman Ruben
Hayrapetian’s indictment.
Hayrapetian’s lawyers seized upon the report, saying that Vardapetian committed
a crime and must be prosecuted. The Office of the Prosecutor-General cleared
Pashinian’s aide of any wrongdoing, however, saying that she advised, rather
than pressured, the investigator.
Vardapetian, who has never worked as a prosecutor before, did not comment on the
scandal when she addressed the National Assembly on Wednesday. And she again
declined to talk to reporters.
Nor did any of the pro-government lawmakers ask Vardapetian to comment on the
scandal. Their opposition colleagues did not participate in the election of the
new prosecutor-general because of a continuing opposition boycott of the
parliament’s sessions.
Armenian Official Sees Progress In Talks On Transport Links With Azerbaijan
• Naira Nalbandian
Armenia -- Deputy Prime Minister Mher Grigorian at a news conference in Yerevan,
March 30, 2020.
Armenia and Azerbaijan have narrowed their differences on planned transport
links between the two countries during ongoing negotiations mediated by Russia,
according to Deputy Prime Minister Mher Grigorian.
A Russian-Armenian-Azerbaijani commission dealing with the matter met twice in
Russia earlier this month after a six-month hiatus.
Grigorian, who co-chairs the commission along with his Azerbaijani and Russian
counterparts, described its activities as “constructive” in an interview with
Russia’s TASS news agency published late on Tuesday.
“It’s certainly difficult work but I must note that the parties manage to bring
closer their positions on many issues of border and customs control as well as
safe passage of citizens, vehicles and cargo through roads and railways in the
territory of Armenia and Azerbaijan,” he said.
Grigorian added that “expert subgroups” formed by the three governments are
continuing to work on practical modalities of the transport links envisaged by
the Russian-brokered ceasefire that stopped the 2020 war in Nagorno-Karabakh. He
did not say when Baku and Yerevan could reach a final agreement.
Grigorian’s remarks contrasted with what Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian said
during a virtual news conference on Monday. He claimed that Baku has rejected a
draft agreement on the construction of a railway that will connect Azerbaijan to
its Nakhichevan exclave through Armenia.
“The draft document was presented by the Russian co-chair of the trilateral
commission, Deputy Prime Minister Alexei Overchuk,” he said. “The Armenian side
expressed readiness to sign the document while the Azerbaijani side refused that
agreement.”
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has repeatedly demanded an exterritorial
“corridor” for Nakhichevan that would exempt travellers and cargo from Armenian
border controls. On June 16, Aliyev implicitly threatened to resort to military
action if the Armenian side continues to oppose such an overland link.
Armenian leaders maintain that Armenian-Azerbaijani agreements brokered by
Russia and the European Union call for only conventional transport links between
the two South Caucasus states.
Visiting Yerevan on June 9, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov insisted that
Armenia will control the planned road and railway that will connect Nakhichevan
to the rest of Azerbaijan. Lavrov said the Armenian side will only simplify
border crossing procedures. Baku, Moscow and Yerevan are now finalizing a deal
on such a border control regime, he said.
The most recent meeting of the Russian-Armenian-Azerbaijani commission took
place in Saint Petersburg on June 20.
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.