Friday,
Armenian Envoy Sacked After Collapse Of Father’s Deal With Pashinian
• Satenik Kaghzvantsian
Armenia - Ambassador to Iraq Misak Balasanian.
Armenia’s ambassador to Iraq was sacked on Friday three weeks after the ruling
Civil Contract party pulled out of a power-sharing agreement in Gyumri with a
local political group unofficially led by his father.
Misak Balasanian was recalled through a presidential decree initiated by Prime
Minister Nikol Pashinian. It came less than four months after Balasanian, who
had no prior diplomatic experience, was appointed as ambassador.
The appointment was widely linked with the agreement reached following the
October 2021 municipal elections in Gyumri. Armenia’s second largest city was
run until then by Balasanian’s father Samvel, a local wealthy businessman.
Although Samvel Balasanian decided not to seek another term in office, a newly
created bloc bearing his name participated in the elections and garnered most
votes. But it fell short of a majority in the local council electing the mayor.
The Balasanian Bloc teamed up with Civil Contract, to install a relative of
Balasanian, Vardges Samsonian, as new mayor of Gyumri. In return, two Civil
Contract figures became deputy mayors. Three dozen other members of Pashinian’s
party were also given posts in the municipal administration.
All those officials stepped down after Civil Contract unexpectedly announced on
December 6 the end of the power-sharing arrangement. It said it does not want to
be part of “shady governance,” implying that Balasanian Sr. is continuing to
pull the strings in Gyumri.
Armenia -- Gyumri Mayor Samvel Balasanian speaks to journalists, April 24, 2018.
Commentators suggested that the ruling party will try to gain control of the
municipality despite holding only 11 seats in the 33-member city council. The
Balasanian Bloc indicated that it will not give up the post of mayor.
In another sign of mounting tensions between the two political forces, council
members representing Civil Contract blocked on Friday the passage of the city’s
2024 budget drafted by Mayor Samsonian. The latter rebuked them as well as
councilors from two opposition groups who also voted against the budget.
Samsonian secured the insufficient backing of the third opposition force
represented in the Gyumri legislature, the former ruling Republican Party (HHK)
to which Balasanian was allied before Pashinian’s rise to power. Knarik
Harutiunian, who leads the Civil Contract group in the council, scoffed at this
fact.
Incidentally, Iraqi President Abdullatif Jamal Rashid travelled to Gyumri on
November 23 during an official visit to Armenia. Misak Balasanian, who
accompanied him on that trip, was sacked less than two months after handing his
credentials to Rashid.
Armenian Church Facing ‘Existential Threat’ In Jerusalem
• Artak Khulian
A view of the Cows' Garden property of the Armenian Apostolic Church in
Jerusalem. (Photo by the Armenian Patriarchate of Jerusalem.)
The Jerusalem Patriarchate of the Armenian Apostolic Church claimed to be facing
an “existential threat” following a violent incident on Thursday which it
attributed to an Israeli-Australian businessman’s efforts to take over one of
its largest properties in the city.
A group of Armenian clerics and laymen were reportedly attacked by a violent mob
as they held a vigil at Jerusalem’s Cows’ Garden property currently used as a
parking lot.
The Patriarchate controversially agreed in 2021 to lease the former garden
occupying one-quarter of the Old City’s Armenian Quarter to Jewish real estate
developer Danny Rothman and his Christian Arab partner George Warwar for 99
years. Their Xana Gardens company wants to build a luxury hotel there.
The lease agreement signed by the two sides enraged the local Armenian community
and also drew strong condemnation from the Palestinian Authority and Jordan.
Patriarch Nourhan Manougian subsequently blamed the “fraudulent and deceitful”
deal on a now-defrocked priest, saying that he was misled by the latter.
Manougian’s office announced about two months ago that it has decided to scrap
the lease and asked an Israeli court to validate the decision. Armenian
clergymen and community activists began the daily vigil at the Cows’ Garden
after Xana tried to start the construction.
An Armenian flag on the building of the Armenian Patriarchate of Jerusalem,
August 30, 2021.
A mobile phone video filmed by one of the priests showed the Armenians clashing
with dozens of masked men apparently trying to drive them out of the property on
Thursday. Several of them were reportedly injured as a result.
“Fortunately, our youths present at the scene managed to resist and repel the
attackers,” Hagop Djernazian, a community activist, told RFE/RL’s Armenian
Service on Friday. He claimed that the attackers were “sent” by the real estate
developers.
“This is how the Australian-Israeli businessman Danny Rothman (Rubenstein) and
George Warwar (Hadad) react to legal procedures,” the Armenian Patriarchate said
in a statement issued the previous night.
“The Armenian Patriarchate’s existential threat is now a physical reality,” it
said, urging the international community to “help us save the Armenian Quarter
from a violent demise.”
“It is obvious that the provocateurs are once again trying to seize the ‘Cow’s
Garden’ estate through terror, threats and violent actions, violating the
procedures established by the law,” read a separate statement released by the
Armenian Apostolic Church’s Mother See in Echmiadzin, Armenia. It urged Israeli
authorities to stop the “criminal acts against the Patriarchate and the Armenian
community.”
An Armenian religious procession in the Old City of Jerusalem, June 24, 2021.
Jerusalem’s Deputy Mayor Fleur Hassan-Nahoum described Thursday’s incident as a
brawl between “some Arab Muslim men and some men from the Armenian community.”
She did not link it to the dispute over the Cows’ Garden.
“The city of Jerusalem will not tolerate any criminal activity, whether
religiously motivated or otherwise, and the police will prosecute those
responsible,” The Jerusalem Post newspaper quoted Hassan-Nahoum as saying.
Rothman and his company did not comment on the clash. The businessman did not
answer questions e-mailed by RFE/RL’s Armenian Service.
Armenia’s government also did not react to the violence as of Friday evening,
The Foreign Ministry in Yerevan expressed “deep concern” but refrained from
demanding any action by Israeli authorities after a series of fresh attacks on
Jerusalem Armenians reported a year ago and blamed on Jewish extremists.
In one of those attacks, an angry mob wreaked havoc on a restaurant located in
the Armenian Quarter. According to the restaurant owner, they shouted “Death to
Christians!” and “Death to Arabs!”
The Armenian Church has for years accused radical Jews of regularly cursing and
spitting at its clergymen in the streets of Jerusalem’s Old City. Two Israeli
soldiers were briefly detained by police in November 2022 for doing so during a
religious procession led by an Armenian archbishop.
Armenia Maintains Flight Service To Border Town Despite Security Risk
Armenia - An L-410 plane carrying Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian lands at Kapan
airport, August 17, 2023.
Regular commercial flights between Yerevan and Kapan have continued even after
Azerbaijani troops repeatedly fired at the Armenian border town’s airport four
months ago, Minister of Territorial Administration and Infrastructures Gnel
Sanosian said on Friday.
According to Armenia’s state border guard service, the small airport first came
under cross-border fire on August 18 less than 24 hours after a plane carrying
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian landed there. It said gunshots fired from
Azerbaijani army positions overlooking the facility damaged the airports roof
and one of the windows.
Another shooting incident was reported on August 19 just minutes after a plane
carrying other Armenian officials touched down on the runway. Local officials
accused Azerbaijan of trying to disrupt the first post-Soviet flight service
between Yerevan and Kapan launched by the NovAir airline on August 21.
Later in August, the Armenian government notified the International Civil
Aviation Organization (ICAO) about the shootings and asked the 193-nation body
to help prevent a repeat of such incidents. The local airport was reportedly
again hit and damaged by gunfire on September 1. But no further shooting
incidents were reported in the following months.
Sanosian told reporters that the twice-weekly service has continued since then
and will be maintained next year. He said the government has purchased more
sophisticated navigation and meteorological equipment for the Kapan airport that
will minimize flight disruptions caused by bad weather.
Armenia - Minister of Territorial Administration and Infrastructures Gnel
Sanosian holds a news conerence in Yerevan, .
NovAir uses small L-410 aircraft capable of carrying up to 17 passengers.
According to Sanosian, the private airline has carried out 22 flights since
August, transporting a total of just 189 passengers to and from Kapan. The
minister acknowledged that the lingering security risk discourages many people
from taking the 50-minute flights.
“Most of the time, the flights are not sold out,” he said. “We understand the
reason for that but will not stop the flights.”
Kapan is the administrative center of Armenia’s southeastern Syunik province
sandwiched between Azerbaijan and its Nakhichevan exclave. Baku has for years
demanded an extraterritorial corridor to Nakhichevan passing through Syunik,
which is also the sole Armenian province bordering Iran. Yerevan rejects those
demands.
Azerbaijan’s recent recapture of Nagorno-Karabakh raised more fears in Yerevan
that it could also invade Syunik to try to open the so-called “Zangezur
corridor.” Iran as well as Western powers have warned Baku against doing that.
Tehran opened a consulate in Kapan in 2022. Russia and France are expected to
follow suit in 2024.
Reposted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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