Monday,
Woman Arrested For Throwing Umbrella At Pashinian
Armenia - Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian visits Vayots Dzor province, April 10,
2023.
Police in Armenia arrested a woman on Monday moments after she threw her
umbrella at Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian during his visit to southeastern
Vayots Dzor province.
The incident happened as Pashinian visited the village of Malishka and spoke to
local officials and ordinary residents.
Armenia’s Investigative Committee said that the unidentified woman approached
Pashinian and attacked him “in order to interfere with the legitimate official
activities of the prime minister.” It said nothing about her motives.
In a statement, the law-enforcement agency added that “criminal proceedings”
will likely be launched against her.
According to Armenian media outlets, the woman and her family are former
residents of the town of Lachin which was handed back to Azerbaijan last summer
following a change in the route of the land corridor connecting Armenia to
Nagorno-Karabakh.
News.am quoted the Mailshka mayor, Garik Nazarian, as saying that the family
rents a house in his village, one of the largest in the country.
The arrested woman’s husband told Aravot.am that the family’s housing issues is
not what drove her to throw the umbrella at Pashinian. “I don’t have time to
talk right now, but I’ll definitely talk later,” he said.
‘Azeri Soldier’ Detained In Armenia
• Ruzanna Stepanian
• Tigran Hovsepian
Armenia - A road sign at the entrance to the village of Bnunis, .
Armenian security forces on Monday detained one Azerbaijani man and hunted for
another, who is also thought to have crossed into Armenia for unclear reasons.
The man was apprehended in Ashotavan, a village in Syunik province situated not
far from Azerbaijan’s Nakhichevan exclave. Local residents said that he wore
civilian clothes and carried no firearms.
The Armenian Defense Ministry said the Azerbaijani claims to be a soldier. “In
his words, there was another serviceman with him, the search for whom is
continuing,” it said in a short statement.
The Azerbaijani military reported, meanwhile, that two of its soldiers serving
in Nakhichevan have done missing due to heavy fog. It did not identify them.
The Azerbaijanis were reportedly first spotted overnight in Bnunis, another
village just a few kilometers south of the Syunik town of Sisian. Several local
residents told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service that they knocked on the door of fellow
villager Shoghik Matevosian’s house.
“They didn’t talk,” said one of them. “They left when she shut the door.”
Matevosian and members of her family refused to comment.
Bnunis and Ashotavan are located about 20 kilometers from the nearest
Azerbaijani army positions on Nakhichevan’s border with Syunik. It was not clear
how they managed to cross the heavily militarized frontier and advance deep into
Armenian territory undetected. Armenia’s Defense Ministry said nothing in this
regard.
The incident left some local residents worried about their safety. They want the
police or the military to patrol their streets.
“We now always lock our gate and entrance door,” said Khachik Manucharian, a
70-year-old man living in Bnunis. “I don’t what could happen.”
Senior Armenian Official Visits Iran
• Nane Sahakian
Iran - The secretary of Iran's Security Council, Ali Shamkhani, hosts his
Armenian counterpart Armen Grigorian in Tehran, April 9, 2023.
The secretary of Armenia’s Security Council, Armen Grigorian, reportedly praised
Iran’s policy towards the South Caucasus when he visited Tehran on Sunday amid
escalating tensions between the Islamic Republic and Azerbaijan.
Grigorian’s office said that he discussed with his Iranian opposite number, Ali
Shamkhani, the “security situation in the region” and Armenian-Iranian
relations. It gave no details of their “working dinner.”
Iranian news agencies reported that Grigorian praised Iran for “promoting
regional peace and stability” and said forging closer links with Tehran is a
“top priority” for the Armenian government.
Shamkhani was reported to reaffirm Tehran’s opposition to any “geographic
change” in the region.
Iranian leaders have repeatedly made such statements in response to Azerbaijan’s
demands for an extraterritorial corridor to the Nakhichevan exclave that would
pass through Syunik, the sole Armenian province bordering Iran. They have warned
against attempts to strip the Islamic Republic of the common border and
transport links with Armenia.
Lingering tensions between Iran and Azerbaijan have flared up in recent weeks
partly due to Baku's deepening ties with Tehran's archenemy Israel, highlighted
by the opening of an Azerbaijani embassy in Tel Aviv.
Meeting with his visiting Azerbaijani counterpart Jeyhun Bayramov late last
month, Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen reportedly declared that the two
nations will form a “united front” against Iran. The Iranian Foreign Ministry
challenged Baku to explain implications of that statement.
Last week, Azerbaijani authorities expelled four Iranian Embassy employees and
arrested six men who they said are linked to Iran's secret services. They also
alleged Iranian involvement in an assassination attempt on an anti-Tehran
Azerbaijani lawmaker.
Bayramov and Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian discussed the
rising tensions in a phone call on Saturday.
Amir-Abdollahian’s deputy, Ali Bagheri Kani, visited Yerevan late last month for
what the Armenian Foreign Ministry described as “regular political
consultations” between the two neighboring states. Kani spoke out against the
presence of “external forces” in the South Caucasus.
Hakob Badalian, an Armenian political analyst, suggested on Monday that Yerevan
has intensified diplomatic contacts with Tehran and other foreign partners
lately to try to reduce heightened risks to regional security.
“I regard the interaction with Iran as one of the most important directions in
this [endeavor,]” he told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service.
Russian Envoy Downplays Rift With Armenia
• Anush Mkrtchian
Armenia - Russian Ambassador Sergei Kopyrkin (right) poses for a photograph with
Russian border guards on the Armenian-Turkish border, August 12, 2022.
Russia and Armenia will remain close allies despite unprecedented friction
between, the Russian ambassador in Yerevan, Sergei Kopyrkin, said on Monday.
“There can be differences of opinion and evaluation between us, that’s normal,”
Kopyrkin told reporters. “The volume of our relations is such that there may
arise practical issues on which the parties have differing positions. But on the
whole, I am confident that what unites us remains and will be reinforced. Our
relations were, are and will be allied.”
Those relations have deteriorated in the last several months mainly because of
what Yerevan sees as Moscow’s lack of support for its main South Caucasus ally
in the conflict with Azerbaijan.
The rift between the two nations deepened further late last month after
Armenia’s Constitutional Court gave the green light for parliamentary
ratification of the International Criminal Court’s founding treaty. The ruling
followed an arrest warrant issued by the ICC for Russian President Vladimir
Putin over war crimes allegedly committed by Russia in Ukraine.
Moscow warned on March 27 that recognition of The Hague tribunal’s jurisdiction
would have “extremely negative” consequences for Russian-Armenian relations.
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s government has since given no indications that
it will press ahead with sending the treaty to the Armenian parliament for
ratification.
Pashinian and Putin spoke by phone on Friday for the fourth time in two months.
According to the Armenian readout of the call, they discussed regional security,
bilateral ties and “other developments taking place in them.”
Pashinian phoned Putin three days after meeting in Yerevan with Alexei Overchuk,
a Russian deputy prime minister mediating negotiations on restoring transport
links between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
In Kopyrkin’s words, Pashinian and Overchuk held “constructive” talks on the
“entire complex of issues related to the region and their settlement.” The
diplomat did not elaborate.
Prosecutors Move To Indict Armenian Opposition Lawmaker
Armenia - Parliament deputies Vladimir Vardanian (left) and Mher Sahakian.
Prosecutor-General Anna Vardapetian on Monday asked the Armenian parliament for
permission to indict one of its opposition members who punched a pro-government
colleague in disputed circumstances.
The violence occurred during an ill-tempered meeting of the parliament committee
on legal affairs held on March 31. It reportedly followed a shouting match
between Vladimir Vartanian, the committee chairman, and Mher Sahakian of the
main opposition Hayastan alliance.
Sahakian was detained by police but set free three days later. He said he hit
Vartanian because the latter spoke disrespectfully and then stood up and walked
menacingly towards him. Vartanian, who represents Prime Minister Nikol
Pashinian’s Civil Contract party, denied that, saying the assault was unprovoked.
Vardapetian backed the pro-government parliamentarian’s version of events in her
letter asking the National Assembly to allow prosecutors to charge Sahakian with
two counts of “hooliganism.” The chief prosecutor, who worked as an aide to
Pashinian until last summer, stopped short of requesting a separate permission
to arrest the opposition deputy pending investigation.
The parliament controlled by Civil Contract is expected to discuss and vote on
lifting Sahakian’s immunity from prosecution on Tuesday.
Reacting to the development, Sahakian’s lawyer, Ruben Melikian, insisted that
his client threw a punch “for the purpose of necessary self-defense” and did not
commit any hooligan acts.
Another Hayastan parliamentarian, Kristine Vartanian, sarcastically “thanked”
the authorities for seeking to prosecute Sahakian.
“This will, no doubt, be a good opportunity to discuss what happened in the
National Assembly, present the truth to the public, expose the government's lies
… and burst another bubble of the ruling force,” she wrote on Facebook.
Sahakian’s swift arrest and likely prosecution sharply contrast with the
law-enforcement authorities’ response to ugly incidents involving lawmakers
affiliated with the ruling party.
One of those pro-government lawmakers, Vahagn Aleksanian, kicked Hayastan’s Vahe
Hakobian as the latter gave a speech on the parliament floor in August 2021.
Hakobian and five other opposition deputies were hit by a larger number of Civil
Contract lawmakers in an ensuing melee witnessed by Pashinian. Nobody was
prosecuted in connection with that violence.
As recently as last week, the authorities faced calls to launch criminal
investigation into parliament speaker Alen Simonian, who spat at an opposition
heckler, and other pro-government deputies, who shouted verbal abuse and threats
at an opposition candidate for the vacant post of Armenia’s human rights
defender. One of those deputies publicly pledged to “cut the tongues and ears of
anyone” who would make disparaging comments about the 2018 “velvet revolution”
that brought Pashinian to power.
The Office of the Prosecutor-General has not ordered criminal investigations
into either incident.
Reposted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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