Tuesday,
NATO Official Hails Armenia’s ‘Foreign Policy Shift’
• Astghik Bedevian
Georgia - Javier Colomina, the NATO secretary general’s special representative
for the Caucasus and Central Asia.
Armenia is moving away from Russia and seeking closer links with NATO, according
to a senior official from the U.S.-led alliance.
“Armenia has decided very clearly to make some shift in their foreign policy, to
take some distance from Moscow,” Javier Colomina, the NATO secretary general’s
special representative for the South Caucasus and Central Asia, told Georgian
state television in an interview aired on Monday. “We have welcomed that.”
“Armenia’s citizens are free to make decisions and this is what they have
decided. In my view, Armenia has already started moving closer to us,” Colomina
said, adding that Yerevan is now asking NATO for “more cooperation and political
dialogue.”
“We were and remain part of a security architecture which has demonstrated its
inefficiency, and any rational sovereign state would draw conclusions from that
and try to use new tools for ensuring its security,” Arsen Torosian, an Armenian
lawmaker from the ruling Civil Contract party, said in this regard on Tuesday.
Torosian did not clarify whether that means Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s
government could eventually pull Armenia out of the Russian-led Collective
Security Treaty Organization (CSTO).
Pashinian declared in early September that his government is trying to
“diversify our security policy” because Armenia’s long-standing heavy reliance
on Russia has proved a “strategic mistake.” He claimed that Moscow is “unwilling
or unable” to defend its South Caucasus ally. Russia denounced this and other
“unfriendly steps,” accusing Pashinian of “destroying” Russian-Armenian
relations at the behest of the West.
Despite mounting tensions between the two longtime allies, Pashinian and other
Armenian officials insisted afterwards that they have no plans to change
Armenia’s foreign policy “vector.” The Russian Foreign Ministry dismissed these
assurances in late November as Pashinian boycotted a summit of the Russian-led
Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO).
Still, Russian President Vladimir Putin downplayed the rift between Moscow and
Yerevan earlier this month. The Russian ambassador to Armenia similarly said
last week that the two nations remain “strategic allies.”
Parking Fees In Central Yerevan To Skyrocket
• Narine Ghalechian
Armenia - A view of the Victory Bridge in central Yerevan, February 28, 2023.
Ignoring vehement objections from its opposition members, Yerevan’s municipal
assembly approved on Tuesday a more than tenfold increase in car parking fees
set for the city center.
The fixed annual price of on-street parking in the city’s central Kentron
administrative district will jump from 12,000 drams to 160,000 drams ($400)
starting next month. Mayor Tigran Avinian pushed the unpopular measure through
the Council of Elders with the effective help of a notorious video blogger
wanted by Armenian law-enforcement authorities.
The main official purpose of the measure is to reduce mounting traffic
congestion in Kentron. The two main opposition groups represented in the council
dismissed that rationale, saying that the municipal authorities should address a
continuing lack of public buses in the Armenian capital before collecting much
higher fees from motorists.
“Is our public transport fleet big enough to enable people to go to the city
center by bus instead of paying 160,000 drams? I think the answer is obvious:
it’s not,” said Hayk Marutian, a former mayor whose National Progress party
finished second in recent municipal elections.
Council members representing the radical opposition bloc Mayr Hayastan, which
came in third, were even more critical, calling the price hike a “plunder.” A
group of its activists picketed the municipality building early in the morning
in protest.
Armenia - Opposition members of the city council protest against a proposed suge
in parking fees in central Yerevan, December 19, 2023.
Avinian, who is affiliated with Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s Civil Contract
party, countered that proceeds from the much higher parking charges will finance
the purchase of 30 new buses planned by him.
Mayr Hayastan and National Progress boycotted the beginning of the council
session in a bid to prevent the legislative body from making a quorum and thus
scuttle the price hike. However, councilors representing blogger Vartan
Ghukasian’s Public Voice party did not join the boycott, allowing Civil Contract
and its coalition partner to easily push the measure through. Some Mayr Hayastan
councilors reacted furiously to that, accusing Ghukasian of secretly
collaborating with the Armenian government despite his opposition rhetoric.
A former police officer nicknamed Dog, Ghukasian emigrated to the United States
about a decade ago. He has since attracted large audiences with his hard-hitting
YouTube videos on political developments in Armenia spiced up with foul
language. Earlier this year, law-enforcement authorities issued an international
arrest warrant for Ghukasian and arrested his associates in Armenia on charges
of blackmail, extortion and fraud.
Ghukasian’s loyalists already helped Civil Contract install Avinian as Yerevan
mayor in October after the ruling party fell well short of a majority in the
council in the September 17 vote. They refused to back potential opposition
candidates for the post of mayor and blocked an opposition attempt to force a
repeat election.
Karabakh Dissolution Decree Not Valid For Armenian Opposition
• Ruzanna Stepanian
Armenia - Hayk Mamijanian of the opposition Pativ Unem bloc attends a session of
parliament,September 13, 2021.
A major Armenian opposition group on Tuesday joined Nagorno-Karabakh’s president
in saying that his September 28 decree disbanding the self-proclaimed
Nagorno-Karabakh Republic and its government bodies is null and void.
Samvel Shahramanian sparked a storm of criticism from Armenia’s ruling Civil
Contract party late last week when he essentially described his decree, signed
over a week after an Azerbaijani military offensive, as unconstitutional.
Senior Civil Contract figures also said that continued activities of Karabakh
leadership bodies would pose a threat to Armenia’s national security. Some of
them said that would be a “time bomb” planted under the country.
“It is [Prime Minister Nikol] Pashinian and those [pro-government] parliament
deputies who are the biggest time bomb against Armenian statehood and the future
of Artsakh,” said Hayk Mamijanian, the parliamentary leader of the Pativ Unem
bloc mainly comprising former President Serzh Sarkisian’s Republican Party of
Armenia (HHK).
“Artsakh had been set up by blood, not a piece of paper, and it cannot be
liquidated by a piece of paper,” Mamijanian told reporters. “I will refrain from
giving Mr. Shahramanian advice. I think that we have yet to see what the Artsakh
authorities are going to do.”
Shahramanian’s office and other exiled Karabakh bodies must continue to operate
from Armenia, he said, adding that this would help to keep the Karabakh issue on
the international agenda.
Pashinian indicated last week that the issue is closed for his administration.
Pativ Unem and other opposition groups hold him responsible for Azerbaijan’s
recapture of Karabakh. They say that Pashinian paved the way for the Azerbaijani
offensive by recognizing Azerbaijani sovereignty over the region.
Azerbaijan Expels Two French Diplomats
Azerbaijan - The Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry bulding.
Azerbaijan announced the expulsion of two French diplomats on Tuesday after
repeatedly accusing France of siding with Armenia in the Nagorno-Karabakh
conflict.
The Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry said that it summoned French Ambassador Anne
Boillon to express a “strong protest over the actions of two employees of the
French Embassy” which are “incompatible with their diplomatic status." The two
were ordered to leave the country within 48 hours, it said without specifying
those actions.
There was no immediate reaction from Paris to the move, and it was not
immediately clear what prompted it. Tensions between the two countries have
climbed in recent years, as France has stepped up support for Armenia and
escalated its criticism of Azerbaijan.
Like other Western powers, France condemned Baku’s September 19-20 military
offensive in Karabakh that restored Azerbaijani control over the region and
forced its population to flee to Armenia. Paris also initiated an emergency
session of the UN Security Council on the situation in Karabakh.
France has also pledged to provide military aid to Armenia, citing Azerbaijani
threats to its territorial integrity. In late October, it became the first
Western nation to sign arms deals with Yerevan.
Baku condemned those deals in November, saying that they will “bolster Armenia’s
military potential and its ability to carry out destructive operations in the
region.” Armenian officials countered that these and other arms acquisitions by
Yerevan are a response to an Azerbaijani military build-up which has continued
even after the 2020 war in Karabakh.
Earlier in October, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev cancelled a planned
meeting in Spain with Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian, French President
Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and European Union Council
President Charles. He objected to Macron’s presence at the talks.
Speaking on December 15, Aliyev said that “some political leaders in France want
to be more Armenian than the Armenians.” He had earlier accused Paris of
fomenting “Armenian separatism” in Karabakh.
Reposted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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