X
    Categories: 2023

RFE/RL Armenian Service – 10/26/2023

                                        Thursday, 


Moscow Slams ‘Anti-Russian Campaign’ In Armenia


Russia - Russian Foreign Ministry building is seen behind a billboard showing a 
tactical insignia of Russian troops in Ukraine and reading "Victory is being 
Forged in Fire," Moscow, October 13, 2022.


One day after Russia’s ambassador in Yerevan was handed a rare protest note, the 
Russian Foreign Ministry summoned the Armenian charge d’affaires on Wednesday to 
condemn what it called anti-Russian propaganda spread by Armenia’s 
government-controlled media.

The spokeswoman for the ministry, Maria Zakharova, revealed the move during a 
news briefing in Moscow on Thursday. She said ministry officials protested to 
the Armenian diplomat against the “unbridled anti-Russian campaign” conducted by 
Armenian Public Television and other media outlets controlled by the government.

“His attention was drawn to the most odious reports directed at the Russian 
leadership, Russian diplomats and peacekeepers who risk and sacrifice their 
lives, including for the security of the people of Armenia,” added Zakharova.

In the last few years, Armenian Public Television has regularly interviewed and 
invited politicians and commentators critical of Moscow to its political talk 
shows. Their appearances in prime-time programs of the TV channel run by Prime 
Minister Nikol Pashinian’s loyalists have become even more frequent lately amid 
a further deterioration of Russian-Armenian relations.

For its part, Russia’s leading state broadcaster, Channel One, derided and 
lambasted Pashinian during an hour-long program on Monday. It featured 
pro-Kremlin panelists who denounced Pashinian’s track record and portrayed him 
as a Western puppet tasked with ending Armenia’s close relationship with Russia.

The Armenian Foreign Ministry summoned the Russian ambassador on Tuesday to 
protest against “offensive and absolutely unacceptable statements” made during 
the program.

The unprecedented show, titled “Nikol Pashinian: a harbinger of trouble,” 
highlighted the mounting tensions between Moscow and Yerevan. It fueled more 
calls for the Armenian government to ban the retransmission of Channel One and 
another state-controlled Russian channel.

High-Technology Minister Robert Khachatrian again did not rule out such a ban 
when he spoke in the Armenian parliament on Thursday. He said the Russian 
broadcasters have repeatedly violated a 2020 Russian-Armenian agreement that 
allowed them to retain their slots in the national digital package accessible to 
TV viewers across Armenia.

“I can’t tell you at this point what decisions and steps have been taken, but 
discussions are underway,” Khachatrian said, answering a question from a 
pro-government lawmaker.




Former Official Cleared Of Murder During 2008 Unrest In Yerevan

        • Naira Bulghadarian

Armenia - Gegham Petrosian, a former deputy commander of interior troops.


After a more than four-year investigation, Armenian law-enforcement authorities 
have dropped murder charges against a former senior police official prosecuted 
over the 2008 post-election unrest in Yerevan.

It followed a disputed presidential election in which former President Levon 
Ter-Petrosian was the main opposition candidate. Scores of his supporters 
clashed with riot police on March 1-2, 2008 during an opposition rally in 
central Yerevan led by Nikol Pashinian, then a newspaper editor. Eight 
protesters and two police servicemen died in the violence that led outgoing 
President Robert Kocharian to declare a state of emergency and order Armenian 
army units into the capital.

Dozens of people, including Pashinian, were arrested and jailed in an ensuing 
crackdown on the Ter-Petrosian-led opposition accused of plotting to overthrow 
the government. Investigators completely changed the official version of events 
after Pashinian swept to power in 2018.

Kocharian and about a dozen former officials were indicted in connection with 
the crackdown. Some of them, including the ex-president, were acquitted by 
courts while others fled Armenia.

The suspects also included Gegham Petrosian, who was a deputy commander of 
Armenian interior troops during the 2008 clashes. A law-enforcement agency now 
called the Anti-Corruption Committee (ACC) arrested him in June 2019 on charges 
of killing one of the opposition demonstrators.

Petrosian, who denied the accusations, was set free two months later pending 
investigation. The ACC chief, Sasun Khachatrian, insisted at the time that 
investigators have sufficient evidence to prosecute him.

However, a prosecutor overseeing the protracted investigation cited a lack of 
such evidence when he decided to clear the former officer of wrongdoing earlier 
this month. The Office of the Prosecutor-General on Thursday declined to 
elaborate on the decision. Khachatrian’s agency also did not comment on it.

Petrosian is the first and only person indicted in connection with the ten 
deaths. Pashinian has repeatedly pledged to have those responsible for them 
identified and brought to justice.

His critics have denounced relevant criminal proceedings launched during 
Pashinian’s rule as politically motivated. Some of them have also accused the 
premier of inciting the 2008 clashes.

Pashinian played a major role in Ter-Petrosian’s 2007-2008 opposition movement. 
He fell out with the ex-president after being released from jail in 2011.




Azerbaijan ‘Not Interested’ In Corridor Through Armenia


Azerbaijan - Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev welcomes Turkish President 
Tayyip Erdogan upon his arrival at Nakhichevan airport, September 25, 2023.


A senior Azerbaijani official has said that Baku is no longer in interested in a 
special corridor that would connect Azerbaijan to its Nakhichevan exclave 
through Armenia’s strategic Syunik province.

Since the 2020 war in Nagorno-Karabakh, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has 
repeatedly demanded such a corridor and implicitly threatened to order his 
troops to open it forcibly. Armenia has rejected his demands while expressing 
readiness for conventional transport links between the two South Caucasus states.

Last month’s Azerbaijani military offensive in Karabakh raised more fears in 
Yerevan that Baku will also attack Armenia to open the exterritorial “Zangezur 
corridor.” A senior Armenian diplomat claimed on October 8 that an Azerbaijani 
attack on Syunik may be “a matter of weeks.”

Aliyev’s top foreign policy aide, Hikmet Hajiyev, denied this in an interview 
with Politico published late on Wednesday. He said that the corridor “has lost 
its attractiveness for us” and that Baku is now planning to “do this with Iran 
instead.”

“Our agenda was only about building transport linkages and connectivity through 
the framework of bilateral engagement,” said Hajiyev. “If this is the case, yes, 
but if not then OK. It’s still on the table but it will require from the 
Armenian side to show they’re really interested in that.”

Earlier this month, Azerbaijani and Iranian officials broke ground on a new road 
that will link Nakhichevan to mainland Azerbaijan via Iranian territory adjacent 
to Syunik. Russia’s Deputy Prime Minister Alexei Overchuk, who has mediated 
numerous Armenian-Azerbaijani talks on transport links, was reported to say on 
Thursday that Baku and Tehran have also agreed to build a similar rail link 
bypassing Armenia.

Iran’s Minister of Roads and Urban Development Mehrzad Bazrpash attends a 
session of the Iranian parliament.

Syunik is the sole Armenian province bordering Iran. The latter has repeatedly 
warned against attempts to strip it of the common border and transport links 
with Armenia. The Islamic Republic views that as a serious threat to its 
national security.

“We have repeatedly said that we disagree with the [idea of the] ‘Zangezur 
corridor’ and we have made this clear during meetings with various Azerbaijani 
officials,” Iran’s Minister of Roads and Urban Development Mehrzad Bazrpash said 
during a visit to Yerevan on Monday.

Bazrpash spoke as two Iranian companies were formally contracted by the Armenian 
government to rebuild a 32-kilometer section of Syunik’s main highway leading to 
the Iranian border. The contracts worth $215 million underscored Tehran’s 
interest in Armenia’s continued full control over Syunik.

GEORGIA - The prime ministers of Armenia, Georgia, Azerbaijan and Montenegro 
attend an international forum in Tbilisi, .

Meanwhile, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian travelled to Tbilisi to 
Thursday to attend and address an international conference on reviving the 
ancient Silk Road. In his speech, Pashinian reaffirmed his government’s 
commitment to opening the Armenian-Azerbaijani border to commerce and individual 
travel.

Pashinian reaffirmed the official Armenian line that all regional countries must 
exercise full control over roads and railways passing through their territory. 
This means, he said, that travellers and cargo cannot be exempt from national 
border controls. Baku is understood to have sought such exemptions for the 
“Zangezur corridor.”

Aliyev has repeatedly described Syunik and other parts of Armenia as “historical 
Azerbaijani lands.” He said last week that ethnic Azerbaijanis who used to live 
there in Soviet times will eventually return “not in tanks but in cars.”




Russia Cautious On Fresh Criticism From Pashinian



Russia - Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov attends Russia-Armenia talks on the 
sidelines of the Eurasian Economic Union Forum in Moscow, Russia, Thursday, May 
25, 2023.


Russia reacted cautiously on Thursday to Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s fresh 
claims that it has failed to protect Nagorno-Karabakh’s population against 
ethnic cleansing and honor its security commitments to Armenia.

In an interview with the Wall Street Journal published on Wednesday, Pashinian 
again blamed Russian peacekeepers for the mass exodus from Karabakh that 
followed Azerbaijan’s September 19-20 military offensive. He said that they were 
“unable or unwilling to ensure the security of the Karabakh Armenians.”

Pashinian also reiterated that contrary to its mission and statutes, the 
Russian-led Collective Security Organization (CSTO) did not intervene to defend 
its member state Armenia against Azerbaijani aggression in 2021 and 2022.

“We also have a bilateral security treaty with Russia and actions spelled out by 
that treaty did not happen either, which also raised very serious questions 
among the Armenian government and public,” he said.

This is why Yerevan is now striving to “diversify” its foreign and security 
policies, added Pashinian.

Commenting on his remarks, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said: “We need to 
understand exactly what Mr. Pashinyan was talking about. In conversations with 
our Armenian friends, we expect to receive all the information on this matter.”

“And, of course, it is not good for Russia and Armenia to communicate through 
newspapers, especially the Wall Street Journal,” Peskov told reporters. 
“Therefore, we are continuing the conversation, dialogue with our Armenian 
friends, and we will keep doing so. We have a very extensive agenda.”

Moscow reacted far more strongly to another newspaper interview which Pashinian 
gave in early September. He told Italy’s La Repubblica daily that he wants to 
“diversify our security policy” because Armenia’s long-standing heavy reliance 
on Russia has proved a “strategic mistake.” The rift between Moscow and Yerevan 
has deepened further since then, raising more questions about their 
long-standing military, political and economic alliance.

The Armenian premier appeared to tone down his criticism of Moscow in his latest 
interview. He said that Armenia has started a “dialogue” with Russia and other 
CSTO allies to “try to understand the reason for this situation.” And he again 
made clear that his government is not considering demanding the withdrawal of 
Russian troops from Armenia even if it sees no “advantages” in their presence.



Reposted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
Copyright (c) 2023 Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, Inc.
1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.

 
Emma Nadirian: