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    Categories: 2024

RFE/RL Armenian Service – 01/19/2024

                                        Friday, 


Pashinian Wants New Constitution

        • Nane Sahakian

Armenia - Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian chairs a meeting at the Justice 
Ministry, 


Armenia must adopt a new constitution reflecting the “new geopolitical 
environment” in the region, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian said in remarks 
publicized on Friday.

“The Republic of Armenia needs a new constitution, not constitutional changes,” 
Pashinian told senior officials from the Armenian Ministry of Justice.

“We must have a constitution that will make Armenia more competitive and viable 
in the new geopolitical and regional environment,” he said.

Pashinian did not elaborate on the content of the new constitution sought by 
him, saying only that it should not change Armenia’s parliamentary system of 
government. But he emphasized the country’s “external security” and 
“internationally recognized sovereign territory” in that context.

Some Armenian analysts were quick to suggest that Pashinian is simply keen to 
fulfill more demands voiced by Azerbaijan. One of them, Tigran Grigorian, 
singled out safeguards against Armenian “revanchism” demanded by Azerbaijani 
President Ilham Aliyev in December.

A preamble to the current Armenian constitution enacted in 1995 and repeatedly 
amended afterwards makes reference to a 1990 declaration of independence adopted 
by the republic’s first post-Communist parliament. The declaration in turn 
refers to a 1989 unification act adopted by the legislative bodies of Soviet 
Armenia and the then Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast. It also called for 
international recognition of the 1915 genocide of Armenians “in Ottoman Turkey 
and Western Armenia.”

Armenia - A copy of the 1990 Declaration of Independence.

Pashinian criticized the declaration last August, saying that it fomented the 
conflicts with Azerbaijan and Turkey and is now at odds with his “peace agenda.” 
The Armenian opposition denounced that statement as pro-Turkish and 
pro-Azerbaijani.

Pashinian said that the idea of enacting a new constitution is also supported by 
“a number of our partners.” He did not name them.

Pashinian has repeatedly called for major changes to the Armenian constitution 
during his nearly six-year rule. He has made conflicting statements about which 
articles of the constitution he believes should be amended.

Two years ago, he set up a new body tasked with coordinating the constitutional 
reform process. The body now headed by Justice Minister Grigor Minasian has 
still not drafted any constitutional amendments. Minasian said on January 8 that 
it will come up with a “concept” for constitutional reform in the next few 
months.

Pashinian’s meeting with Minasian and other Ministry of Justice officials held 
on Thursday was also attended by Deputy Prime Minister Mher Grigorian. The 
latter represents Yerevan in periodical talks with Baku on the delimitation of 
the Armenian-Azerbaijani border.




Karabakh Factions Vow To Fight For ‘Collective Repatriation’

        • Shoghik Galstian

Ethnic Armenian flee Karabakh for Armenia sitting in a truck at the Lachin 
checkpoint controlled by Russian peackeepers and Azeri border guards, September 
26, 2023.


Vartan Oskanian, a former Armenian foreign minister, has announced that he will 
lead a political committee set by Nagorno-Karabakh’s main political factions 
exiled in Armenia to campaign for the “collective repatriation” of the region’s 
displaced population.

In a statement posted on Facebook on Thursday, Oskanian said the committee will 
reveal its composition and details of its activities “in the coming days.”

“The primary mission of the Committee is to advocate for and pursue the right of 
the collective repatriation of the Artsakh people with international guarantees, 
ensuring their safe, secure and dignified resettlement in their homeland,” he 
said.

“Achieving enduring peace in the region remains unattainable when a segment of 
the Armenian people is forcefully uprooted from its homeland, and a coerced 
notion of ‘peace’ is imposed upon Armenia, with the looming threat of further 
losses,” added Oskanian, who has increasingly criticized Prime Minister Nikol 
Pashinian’s policy on the Karabakh conflict in recent years.

According to Davit Galstian, a leader of Karabakh’s Justice party, the committee 
was set up by the exiled Karabakh parliament in early December.

“Since no Armenian officials raise our cause in the international arena, this is 
an opportunity to prevent the Artsakh issue from being completely forgotten,” 
Galstian told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service on Friday.

Armenia - Former Foreign Minister Vartan Oskanian speaks at a conference of his 
ORO opposition alliance in Yerevan, 25Feb2017.

Galstian said the committee led by Oskanian should engage international actors 
that have called for the Karabakh Armenians’ safe return to their depopulated 
homeland recaptured by Azerbaijan as a result of its September military 
offensive. He did not say whether it will be ready to negotiate with the 
Azerbaijani government.

Baku has denied targeting Karabakh civilians during the two-day military 
operation or forcing them to flee the region in the following days. It has 
pledged to protect the rights of local residents willing to live under 
Azerbaijani rule. Karabakh’s leaders and ordinary residents ruled out such an 
option even before their exodus.

Armenia’s ruling Civil Contract party indicated on Friday its disapproval of the 
initiative made public by Oskanian.

“I don’t believe that the repatriation is possible without a peace treaty 
[between Armenia and Azerbaijan,]” said Gevorg Papoyan, the party’s deputy 
chairman. “These are just going to be political speculations, attempts to draw 
political dividends.”

“I also won’t rule out provocations against Armenia by the fifth column,” 
Papoyan added without elaborating.

Pashinian has repeatedly indicated that the Karabakh issue is closed for his 
administration. His political allies lashed out at Samvel Shahramanian, the 
Karabakh president, late last month after he declared null and void his 
September 28 decree liquidating the self-proclaimed Nagorno-Karabakh Republic. 
Shahramanian said that he had to sign the decree in order to stop the 
Azerbaijani assault and enable the Karabakh Armenians to safely flee to Armenia.




EU Envoy Also Avoids Trip To Baku

        • Siranuysh Gevorgian

Armenia - Deputy Prime Minister Mher Grigorian (right) meets Toivo Klaar, EU 
special representative to the South Caucasus, .


Just like a U.S. envoy, the European Union’s special representative to the South 
Caucasus, Toivo Klaar, did not proceed to Baku after holding talks with senior 
Armenian officials in Yerevan on Thursday.

The Armenian-Azerbaijani peace process was the main focus of the talks. Klaar’s 
office told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service on Friday that he will not visit the 
Azerbaijani capital this time around because of the ongoing presidential 
election campaign in Azerbaijan. It downplayed this fact, saying that the 
European diplomat remains “in close touch” with Azerbaijani officials.

The U.S. envoy, Louis Bono, visited Yerevan last week to discuss continuing U.S. 
attempts to reschedule a meeting of the Armenian and Azerbaijani foreign 
ministers which U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken was due to host in 
Washington on November 20. Baku cancelled the meeting in protest against what it 
called pro-Armenian statements made by James O’Brien, the U.S. assistant 
secretary of state for Europe and Eurasia.

According to some Azerbaijani media outlets, Azerbaijani officials refused to 
receive Bono. The U.S. embassies in both South Caucasus nations did not deny the 
snub.

Also, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev twice withdrew from EU-mediated talks 
with Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian slated for October. Aliyev’s top foreign 
policy aide said afterwards that Baku and Yerevan do not need third-party 
mediation in order to negotiate a bilateral peace treaty.

Last week, Aliyev again demanded the opening an extraterritorial corridor to 
Azerbaijan’s Nakhichevan exclave through Armenia’s Syunik province and Armenian 
withdrawal from “eight Azerbaijani villages.” And he continued to dismiss 
Yerevan’s insistence on using the most recent Soviet maps to delimit the 
Armenian-Azerbaijani border. Pashinian rejected Aliyev’s demands, saying that 
they amount to territorial claims to Armenia and undermine prospects for the 
kind of peace treaty that is backed by the EU and the U.S.

Deputy Foreign Minister Vahan Kostanian complained about Aliyev’s 
“unconstructive” remarks when he met with Klaar on Thursday. According to the 
Armenian Foreign Ministry, Kostanian also accused Baku of hampering transport 
links between Armenia and Azerbaijan.



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