Thursday, September 7, 2023
Prosecutors Drop Case Concerning Ex-President Sarkisian’s Foreign Trips
• Naira Bulghadarian
Armenia - Former President Serzh Sarkisian and his supporters visit the Komitas
Pantheon in Yerevan, March 25, 2022.
Former President Serzh Sarkisian has been cleared of any wrongdoing following a
more than yearlong investigation into the legality of his private trips to
Germany taken during his rule, it emerged on Thursday.
The Yerevan-based Union of Informed Citizens (UIC) said two years ago that
Sarkisian used a government plane to travel to the German resort town of
Baden-Baden on at least 16 occasions from 2008 through 2017. In a written
complaint submitted to state prosecutors, the non-governmental organization
claimed that the flights were financed by taxpayers’ money illegally and without
any justification.
The prosecutors ordered the Special Investigative Service (SIS) to look into the
claims. The SIS opened in October 2021 a criminal case in connection with what
it called a possible abuse of power. It said some of Sarkisian’s flights to
Germany appear to have been carried out in breach of official rules and
procedures for the use of the government jet.
A lawyer for Sarkisian, Amram Makinian, has dismissed the investigation as a
publicity stunt organized by the current Armenian government. He has said that
the UIC’s allegations are based on inaccurate information provided by the
government’s Civil Aviation Committee.
The Office of the Prosecutor-General said on Thursday that the law-enforcement
body, which is now called the Anti-Corruption Committee (ACC), found no evidence
in support of the allegations during the probe that lasted for over 18 months.
The criminal case against the 69-year-old ex-president was therefore closed, the
office told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service. The UIC leader, Daniel Ioannisian,
criticized the decision.
Sarkisian, who co-heads one of the opposition groups represented in Armenia’s
current parliament, admitted earlier in 2021 spending vacations in Baden-Baden.
But he flatly denied allegations that he visited the world-famous German resort
for gambling purposes. Sarkisian’s political allies have repeatedly accused
law-enforcement authorities of targeting him and his relatives on government
orders.
Karabakh Youths Freed By Azerbaijan
Azerbaijan - Three Karabakh Armenian men are pictured after being arrested at
the Azerbaijani checkpoint in the Lachin corridor on August 28, ,2023.
Three residents of Nagorno-Karabakh were set free and handed over to Armenia on
Thursday ten days after being arrested at the Azerbaijani checkpoint in the
Lachin corridor.
The young men were taken into Azerbaijani custody as they and dozens of other
Karabakh Armenians travelled to Armenia in a convoy of vehicles escorted by
Russian peacekeepers. Karabakh’s leadership and the Armenian government strongly
condemned the arrests.
The Azerbaijani authorities said the three detainees aged between 20 and 22 are
members of a Karabakh football team that had “disrespected” the Azerbaijani
national flag in a 2021 video posted on social media. They were placed under a
ten-day administrative arrest as a result.
Armenia’s National Security Service reported that Alen Sargsian, Vahe Hovsepian
and Levon Grigorian were handed over to its border guards deployed the near the
Azerbaijani checkpoint. The office of Karabakh’s human rights defender said it
will talk to them to find out more details of their “kidnapping” and their
treatment by Azerbaijani authorities.
Another Karabakh man, Vagif Khachatrian, was arrested at the Azerbaijani
checkpoint in late July while being evacuated by the International Committee of
the Red Cross (ICRC) to Armenia. The 68-year-old was taken Baku to stand trial
on charges of killing and deporting Karabakh’s ethnic Azerbaijani residents in
December 1991, at the start of the first Armenian-Azerbaijani war.
Karabakh’s leadership rejected the “false” accusations and demanded
Khachatrian’s immediate release. The Armenian Foreign Ministry likewise
condemned Khachatrian’s arrest as a “blatant violation of international
humanitarian law” and a “war crime.”
Russia Steps Up Criticism Of U.S.-Armenian Drills
• Gevorg Stamboltsian
• Ruzanna Stepanian
Russia - A view of the Kremlin, Moscow, April 20, 2020.
Russia continued to criticize on Thursday Armenia’s decision to host a joint
U.S.-Armenian military exercise later this month.
The Eagle Partner 2023 exercise, scheduled for September 11-20, will reportedly
involve 85 U.S. and 175 Armenian soldiers. According to the Armenian Defense
Ministry, they will simulate a joint peacekeeping operation in an imaginary
conflict zone.
“Holding such exercises in the current situation does not contribute to the
strengthening of stability and the atmosphere of trust in the region,” Kremlin
spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.
The planned drills were also criticized by three Russian deputy foreign
ministers. One of them, Mikhail Galuzin, claimed that the drills are part of
NATO’s efforts to lure Russia’s ex-Soviet neighbors into its “vicious zone of
influence.”
“It is natural that we draw the attention of our partners to the fact that
rapprochement with NATO would hardly have any positive results in terms of
ensuring their own security", Galuzin told the official TASS news agency. "I am
sure that the Armenian people, the Armenian public understand everything very
well and will draw the right conclusions corresponding to Armenia's long-term
security.”
Another vice-minister, Sergei Ryabkov, said Armenia should instead participate
in joint exercises with Russia and other allies making up the Russian-led
Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO).
Early this year, Yerevan cancelled a CSTO exercise which it was due to host this
fall, underscoring its unhappiness with what Armenian leaders see as a lack of
Russian and CSTO support for Armenia in the conflict with Azerbaijan.
The discontent is the main reason for growing tensions between Moscow and
Yerevan. Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian stoked them last week when he declared
that his government is trying to “diversify our security policy” because
Armenia’s reliance on Russia for defense and security has proved a “strategic
mistake.” Pashinian also suggested that Russia will eventually “leave” Armenia
and the South Caucasus in general. Moscow denounced his statements.
Armenian Deputy Foreign Minister Paruyr Hovannisian downplayed the deepening
rift between the two allied countries.
“We always have differences with all partners,” Hovannisian told journalists.
“This doesn’t mean that they can be construed as tensions.”
For his part, Sargis Khandanian, the pro-government chairman of the Armenian
parliament committee on foreign relations, defended Yerevan’s “sovereign
decision” to host the joint drills with U.S. troops. “I think this [Russian
criticism] is also a reaction to and a result of the deepening U.S.-Armenian
relations,” he said.
Pashinian Asks World Powers To Prevent ‘New Azerbaijani Attack’
• Astghik Bedevian
Armenia - Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian speaks during a cabinet meeting in
Yerevan, September 7, 2023.
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian pleaded with the international community on
Thursday to intervene to thwart what he described as Azerbaijan’s plans to
launch a new military attack on Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh.
Echoing statements by other Armenian officials, Pashinian said that Azerbaijani
troops have been massing along the Armenian-Azerbaijani border and the
Nagorno-Karabakh “line of contact.” He said Baku is thus “demonstrating its
intention to launch a new military provocation.”
“I think the situation is such that the international community, UN Security
Council member states should take very serious measures to prevent a new
explosion in our region,” he added during a cabinet meeting in Yerevan.
The secretary of Armenia’s Security Council, Armen Grigorian, made the same
appeal when he met with the Yerevan-based ambassadors of foreign countries on
Wednesday.
The Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry was quick to deny Pashinian’s claims and blame
Armenia for rising tensions in the conflict zone. It said that Yerevan should
end its “military-political provocations,” drop “territorial claims” to
Azerbaijan and stop hampering the signing of an Armenian-Azerbaijani treaty.
Pashinian insisted that Armenia stands ready to sign such a treaty. He also
reaffirmed his commitment to Armenian-Azerbaijani understandings brokered by
Russia and the European Union.
Pashinian pledged in May to recognize Azerbaijani sovereignty over Karabakh,
drawing condemnation from Karabakh’s leadership and the Armenian opposition. He
complained afterwards that Baku is seeking the kind of peace deal that would not
prevent it from laying claim to Armenian territory.
Pashinian on Thursday did not specifically request military assistance from
Russia, Armenia’s increasingly estranged ally. The Armenian government has
repeatedly accused Moscow and the Russian-led Collective Security Treaty
Organization (CSTO) of ignoring such requests made during the September 2022
large-scale fighting on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border.
Tensions between Yerevan and Moscow have deepened since then. They escalated
further last week after Pashinian said that his administration is trying to
“diversify our security policy” because the Russians are “unwilling or unable”
to defend Armenia
Reposted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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