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    Categories: 2023

RFE/RL Armenian Service – 10/20/2023

                                        Friday, 


Torture Allegations Against Armenia’s Top Investigator ‘Still Probed’

        • Naira Bulghadarian

Armenia - The head of the Investigative Committee, Argishti Kyaramian, speaks 
during a cabinet meeting in Yerevan, January 19, 2023.


The National Security Service (NSS) is still investigating allegations that the 
head of another Armenian law-enforcement agency personally tortured four 
criminal suspects during a separate inquiry, prosecutors said on Friday.

One of those suspects, Tigran Arakelian, publicly accused Argishti Kyaramian, 
who runs the Investigative Committee, and the chief of the committee’s Yerevan 
division, Azat Gevorgian, of beating him up in the latter’s office during his 
initial, brief detention in June.

Kyaramian dismissed the“baseless” allegations before prosecutors ordered the NSS 
to investigate them. His investigators brought more charges against Arakelian 
and arrested him in July. It emerged around the same time the three other 
suspects also claimed to have been ill-treated by Kyaramian in custody.

The Office of the Prosecutor-General said on Friday that the four-month NSS 
probe is still not over. It did not explain why the security service is taking 
so long to assess the veracity of the torture allegations.

Zhanna Aleksanian, a human rights activist, believes that the NSS and the 
prosecutors were never serious about finding out the truth.

“The NSS knows all too well that it needs the green light [from Armenia’s 
political leadership] to open a case against Kyaramian,” Aleksanian told 
RFE/RL’s Armenian Service. “There is just no way they could state that he 
tortured those people.”

Kyaramian, 32, is widely regarded as one of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s 
trusted lieutenants, having held five high-level positions in the Armenian 
security apparatus and government since 2018.

All four arrested men are accused of blackmailing state officials and other 
individuals on orders issued by Vartan Ghukasian, a controversial video blogger 
thought to be based in the United States. The Investigative Committee charged 
Ghukasian with extortion, calls for violence and contempt of court before a 
Yerevan court issued in May an international arrest warrant for him. The blogger 
nicknamed Dog denies the accusations.




Armenia Coy About Joining Multilateral Talks On Caucasus Peace


Armenia - The main government building in Yerevan's Republic Square decorated 
and illuminated by Christmas lights, December 7, 2022.


Armenia is considering an Iranian invitation to a meeting of the foreign 
ministers of the three South Caucasus states as well Iran, Russia and Turkey, a 
senior Armenian official said on Friday.

The multilateral talks would be held within the framework of the so-called 
“Consultative Regional Platform 3+3.” Deputy foreign ministers of all regional 
states except Georgia formally created it at a December 2021 meeting in Moscow.

Georgia said at the time that it will not join the cooperation framework because 
of its long-running conflict with Russia. No further meetings are known to have 
been held in that format since then.

Some regional players, notably Iran, sought to revive the format after last 
month’s Azerbaijani takeover of Nagorno-Karabakh. Iranian Foreign Minister 
Hossein Amir-Abdollahian told a visiting senior Armenian official early this 
month that it could be an effective mechanism for addressing security challenges 
in the region. Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev predicted afterwards that the 
six nations will hold more multilateral talks.

The Azerbaijani news agency Trend reported on Thursday that their foreign 
ministers, including Armenia’s Ararat Mirzoyan, will meet in Tehran soon. The 
Armenian Foreign Ministry did not confirm its participation. According to Deputy 
Foreign Minister Vahan Kostanian, the Armenian government has not yet decided 
whether to attend the meeting.

Amid its deepening rift with Moscow, Yerevan now appears to be putting the 
emphasis on Western mediation of the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict. Prime 
Minister Nikol Pashinian expressed hope earlier this week that he and Aliyev 
will meet in Brussels again and finalize a bilateral peace treaty before the end 
of this year.

Russia claims that the main goal of the U.S. and European Union peace efforts is 
to drive it out of the South Caucasus. Iran also opposes the West’s involvement 
in regional affairs.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov spoke with his Azerbaijani counterpart 
Jeyhun Bayramov by phone on Friday. According to a Russian readout of the call, 
they discussed, among other things, their countries’ “approaches to the 
activities of the Consultative Regional Platform 3+3.”




Karabakh Leader Faces Protests In Yerevan

        • Susan Badalian

Armenia - Samvel Shahramanian, the Karabakh president, addresses protesters 
outside the Karabakh mission in Yerevan, .


Samvel Shahramanian, the exiled president of Nagorno-Karabakh, appeared to 
backtrack on his decision to dissolve the unrecognized republic as he was 
confronted by angry Karabakh refugees in Yerevan on Friday.

More than a hundred of them gathered outside Karabakh’s permanent representation 
to Armenia in the morning to demand answers on Azerbaijan’s September 19-20 
military offensive that allowed Baku to regain control over the region and 
caused the mass exodus of its ethnic Armenian population.

The mainly male protests also sought explanations for Shahramanian’s September 
28 decree which said that the self-proclaimed Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, set up 
in September 1991, will cease to exist on January 1.

“No document can dissolve the republic created by the people,” Shahramanian told 
the angry crowd when he emerged from the building. “I am going to publicly 
explain this soon.”

Shahramanian said he signed the decree to stop the hostilities and enable the 
Karabakh Armenians to safely flee their homeland.

“We saved the lives of our guys, we saved the lives of our civilian population 
which was in danger. Had the war been stopped an hour later, they would have 
entered the city [of Stepanakert] and slaughtered people,” the Karabakh leader 
added in his first public comments made since the Azerbaijani assault.

The protesters were unconvinced. Some of them broke into the building shortly 
afterwards, forcing Shahramanian to meet with them. The meeting did not satisfy 
them either.

Armenia - Protesters storm the Karabakh mission in Yerevan, .
Shahramanian again emerged from his office early in the afternoon, condemning 
the protesters’ “provocations” and urging them to disperse. The crowd did not 
heed the appeal, continuing to block an adjacent street.

Some protesters stopped and vandalized a car that drove out of the Karabakh 
mission’s compound later in the afternoon. They also brawled with people, 
presumably Karabakh officials, sitting in the black SUV.

The chief of Shahramanian’s staff was reportedly injured in the violence. A 
spokesman for the Armenian Interior Ministry said that four men were detained on 
the spot.

Some Armenian opposition figures were quick to accuse Prime Minister Nikol 
Pashinian of organizing the protest through other Karabakh leaders loyal to him. 
They said Pashinian, who faced mass protests in Yerevan late last month, is thus 
trying to deflect the blame for the fall of Karabakh. Pashinian’s political 
allies have openly blamed the region’s current leadership, backed by the 
Armenian opposition, for the Azerbaijani takeover of Karabakh and its almost 
full depopulation.

Shahramanian was elected president by Karabakh lawmakers mostly critical of 
Pashinian just ten days before the Azerbaijani offensive. His predecessor Arayik 
Harutiunian, who was arrested by Azerbaijan after the assault, was thought to be 
more loyal to Pashinian.

According to Armenian press reports, Shahramanian has tried in vain to meet with 
Pashinian since joining more than 100,000 Karabakh Armenians in taking refuge in 
Armenia.




EU Said To Expand Border Monitoring Mission In Armenia

        • Heghine Buniatian

Armenia - European Union monitors patrol Armenia's border with Azerbaijan.


The European Union is planning to expand its monitoring mission deployed along 
Armenia’s border with Azerbaijan in February, a senior European official said on 
Friday.

The diplomat told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service that the EU will likely approve the 
expansion in the coming weeks. He could not say how many additional monitors are 
due to be sent to Armenia.

The mission currently consisting of 100 or so observers and experts was launched 
at the request of the Armenian government and with the stated aim of preventing 
or reducing ceasefire violations along the border. Russia, Armenia’s 
increasingly estranged ally, has opposed it from the outset, saying that it is 
part of broader U.S. and European Union efforts to drive Moscow out of the South 
Caucasus.

The Azerbaijani takeover of Nagorno-Karabakh has raised more fears in Yerevan 
that Azerbaijan will invade Armenia to open a land corridor to its Nakhichevan 
exclave. Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian urged Western powers to prevent Baku 
from “provoking a new war in the region” when he addressed the European 
Parliament on Tuesday.

“We have made it very clear to President Aliyev and Azerbaijani representatives 
that we are very concerned by any attempt to infringe on Armenia’s sovereignty 
and territorial integrity,” said the diplomat. “This is something that we take 
seriously.”

In his words, the EU is committed to “helping to strengthen Armenia” in addition 
to continuing its efforts to broker a peace treaty between Armenia and 
Azerbaijan.

The Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict is on the agenda of a meeting in Luxemburg of 
the foreign ministers of EU member states scheduled for Monday. It will be 
chaired by EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell.



Reposted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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Emil Lazarian: “I should like to see any power of the world destroy this race, this small tribe of unimportant people, whose wars have all been fought and lost, whose structures have crumbled, literature is unread, music is unheard, and prayers are no more answered. Go ahead, destroy Armenia . See if you can do it. Send them into the desert without bread or water. Burn their homes and churches. Then see if they will not laugh, sing and pray again. For when two of them meet anywhere in the world, see if they will not create a New Armenia.” - WS