Wednesday, June 7, 2023
Armenian FM Phones New Turkish Counterpart
Turkey - New Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan stands during a press conference where
Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan announced the new cabinet, Ankara, June 3, 2023.
Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan and his newly appointed Turkish counterpart
Hakan Fidan discussed efforts to normalize Turkish-Armenian relations in a phone
call on Wednesday.
The Armenian Foreign Ministry said Mirzoyan congratulated Fidan, who had been
Turkey's intelligence chief since 2010, on the appointment.
“The sides expressed their readiness to continue working on the full
normalization of relations between the two countries,” it added in a short
statement.
No other details were reported. The Turkish Foreign Ministry did not immediately
issue a statement on the call that took place four days after Prime Minister
Nikol Pashinian attended the inauguration of Turkey’s reelected President Recep
Tayyip Erdogan in Ankara.
Mirzoyan visited Turkey and met with Fidan’s predecessor Mevlut Cavusoglu in
February in the wake of a powerful earthquake in the country’s southeast. He
said after that trip that Yerevan and Ankara agreed speed up efforts to
normalize bilateral ties.
The Turkish government has since continued to voice full support for Azerbaijan
and make the establishment of diplomatic relations with Armenia and the opening
of the Turkish-Armenian border conditional on Yerevan meeting Baku’s key demands.
Ankara reacted angrily after municipal authorities in Yerevan unveiled in late
April a monument dedicated to Armenians who had assassinated masterminds and
perpetrators of the 1915 Armenian genocide in Ottoman Turkey. It banned Armenian
airlines from flying over Turkey to third countries and threatened “new
measures” against Armenia if the monument is not removed soon.
Pashinian described the erection of the monument as a “wrong decision” when he
spoke to RFE/RL’s Armenian Service last month. Armenian opposition leaders
condemned his presence at Erdogan’s inauguration ceremony and accused him of
humiliating Armenia.
Armenia Tightens Controls On Electronics Exports To Russia
• Robert Zargarian
A silicon wafer containing chips made with IBM Corp's 2-nanometer transistor
technology, May 6, 2021.
Bowing to apparent Western pressure, Armenia’s government has moved to seriously
restrict the re-export of electronics products and components to Russia which
has skyrocketed since the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Armenia’s trade with Russia, its longtime ally and main trading partner, doubled
last year and in the first four months of this year amid a barrage of sanctions
imposed on Moscow by the United States and the European Union. This is the main
reason why the Armenian economy grew by over 12 percent in 2022.
According to Armenian government data, Armenia’s exports to Russia almost
tripled in 2022 and nearly quadrupled in January-April 2023. Goods manufactured
in third countries and re-exported by Armenian firms are believed to have
accounted for most of that gain.
They include consumer electronics as well as other hi-tech goods and components
which the Western powers believe could be used by the Russian defense industry.
The New York Times reported last fall that Armenian imports of processors and
microchips from the U.S. and the EU rose sharply in January-September 2022. As
much as 97 percent of those items were re-exported to Russia, it said.
Also, Armenian companies shipped some 53,000 smartphones to Russia in the first
half of 2022, up from only 745 in the year-earlier period.
U.S. - U.S. Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo mees Armenian Deputy Prime
Minister Mher Grigorian, Washington, April 11, 2023.
These re-exports appear to have prompted serious concern from EU and especially
U.S. officials. The latter pressed the Armenian government to comply with the
sanctions during a series of meetings held earlier this year.
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian said on May 22 that despite its “strategic”
relations with Russia Armenia “cannot afford to be placed under Western
sanctions.” “Therefore, in our relations with Russia we will act on a scale that
allows us to avoid Western sanctions,” he told a news conference.
A few days later, Pashinian’s government announced that local exporters will now
need government permission to deliver microchips, transformers, video cameras,
antennas and other electronic equipment to Russia. The Armenian Ministry of
Economy, which proposed the measure, cited the need to prevent the use of such
items by foreign defense industries.
The Moscow daily Kommersant reported on Wednesday that for the last two weeks
commercial banks in Armenia as well as Kazakhstan and Hong Kong have frequently
blocked payments for such supplies wired by Russian buyers.
The Armenian Central Bank essentially confirmed this, saying that the “terms for
foreign transactions set by all regional banks are being significantly
tightened.” It claimed that Armenian banks are doing that “on their own.”
“As part of that process, the number of refusals to carry out a certain type of
transactions may increase if commercial banks … assess those transactions as
risky,” the Central Bank said in a statement to RFE/RL’s Armenian Service.
Russia - Russian Prime Ministers Mikhail Mishustin meets his Armenian
counterpart Nikol Pashinian in Sochi, June 7, 2023.
Pashinian and his Russian counterpart Mikhail Mishustin made no mention of these
restrictions in their opening remarks at a meeting held in Sochi on Wednesday.
They praised the soaring Russian-Armenian trade.
“It is important to maintain this positive momentum and achieve new record
levels in mutual trade,” Mishustin told Pashinian.
“And this, by the way, helps the Armenian economy a lot because we are having a
very good economic activity,” Pashinian said for his part.
Armenian Official Warns Azerbaijan
• Astghik Bedevian
Armenia -- Parliament deputy Arsen Torosian.
There will be no peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan unless Baku agrees to
address “the rights and security” of Nagorno-Karabakh’s ethnic Armenian
population, a senior member of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s party said on
Wednesday.
Arsen Torosian, a former health minister who now represents the ruling Civil
Contract party in the Armenian parliament, responded to Azerbaijani Foreign
Minister Jeyhun Bayramov’s claims that Yerevan maintains military presence in
Karabakh and hampering Baku’s dialogue with the Karabakh Armenians.
Bayramov said on Tuesday that these are the main remaining obstacles to the
signing of an Armenian-Azerbaijani peace treaty. The Armenian Foreign Ministry
did not react to those claims made ahead of a new round of negotiations which
Bayramov and his Armenian counterpart Ararat Mirzoyan will start in Washington
on June 12.
Torosian brushed aside them, insisting that Armenia has no troops in Karabakh
and is on the contrary pressing for an “international mechanism” for the
dialogue between Baku and Stepanakert. He said that Armenian and Azerbaijani
sides have still not agreed on the “parameters” of that mechanism despite making
major progress towards the peace deal.
“If we, the mediators and Azerbaijan want a lasting peace, then this issue has
to be addressed,” Torosian told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service. “If the rights and
security of our compatriots are not ensured in their homeland before or after
the peace treaty, there will simply be no peace.”
Asked whether or not the planned treaty will make reference to that mechanism,
Torosian said: “I can’t answer this question. But one thing is clear: if that
issue is not addressed, then … what’s the point of signing it?”
Pashinian has made clear that Yerevan is ready to recognize Azerbaijani
sovereignty over Karabakh through the treaty. The Armenian opposition and
Karabakh’s leadership have denounced this policy change. They maintain that the
Karabakh Armenians cannot live safely under Azerbaijani rule and would leave
their homeland in that case.
Kocharian Trial Prosecutors Resign
• Naira Bulghadarian
Armenia -- Former President Robert Kocharian and three other former officials
stand trial in Yerevan, September 17, 2019.
The two lead prosecutors in the marathon trial of former President Robert
Kocharian have stepped down for unknown reasons.
Gevorg Baghdasarian and Petros Petrosian on Wednesday gave no reason for their
resignation. Baghdasarian refused to say whether they have disagreements with
Prosecutor-General Anna Vardapetian, who was installed by Prime Minister Nikol
Pashinian last September.
Baghdasarian and Petrosian have presented evidence in support of coup and
corruption charges leveled against Kocharian throughout the trial that began in
2019.
Kocharian and three other former officials were first prosecuted in connection
with the 2008 post-election unrest in Yerevan. Anna Danibekian, a district court
judge presiding over their trial, acquitted them of “overthrown of the
constitutional order” in early April 2021 ten days after Armenia’s
Constitutional Court declared these charges unconstitutional. The prosecutors’
appeals against her decision were rejected by higher courts.
Danibekian also ruled at the time that Kocharian and his former chief of staff,
Armen Gevorgian, will continue to stand trial on separate bribery charges which
they reject as politically motivated. Court hearings on that case are still
going on.
Vardapetian has not yet named the new trial prosecutors. One of Kocharian’s
lawyers, Hayk Alumian, pointed out that they will need some time to familiarize
themselves with details of the criminal case.
“That’s a great deal of work,” Alumian said, adding that the resignations could
therefore further drag out Kocharian’s trial.
Kocharian, who is highly critical of Armenia’s current leadership, was first
arrested in July 2018 shortly after the “velvet revolution” that brought
Pashinian to power. He was set free on bail in June 2020.
The 68-year-old ex-president is the top leader of the opposition Hayastan
alliance that finished second in parliamentary elections held in June 2021.
Reposted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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