Wednesday,
Pashinian Accused Of Accepting Azeri Demands For New Armenian Constitution
• Shoghik Galstian
• Ruzanna Stepanian
RUSSIA - Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliyev (L) and Armenia's Prime Minister
Nikol Pashinian attend a an informal CIS summit in St. Petersburg, December 26,
2022.
Opposition leaders and other critics of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian claim
that he is seeking to enact a new constitution for Armenia at the behest of
Azerbaijan.
Pashinian declared late last week that Armenia must adopt a constitution
reflecting the “new geopolitical environment” in the region. He emphasized that
in that context the country’s “external security” and “internationally
recognized sovereign territory”.
Critics were quick to assert that he wants to get rid of a preamble to the
current Armenian constitution enacted in 1995. The preamble makes an indirect
reference to a 1989 declaration on Armenia’s unification with Nagorno-Karabakh
and calls for international recognition of the 1915 Armenian genocide in Ottoman
Turkey.
Five lawmakers representing the main opposition Hayastan alliance issued on
January 19 a joint statement accusing Pashinian of “preparing the ground for
meeting another of the nonstop Turkish-Azerbaijani demands.”
One of those deputies, Gegham Manukian, insisted on Tuesday that the main
purpose of the planned constitutional change is to remove the preamble in
question. Pashinian’s initiative would thus “tear down the pillars of modern
Armenian statehood,” Manukian told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service.
Tatevik Hayrapetian, an expert on Azerbaijan and a former parliamentarian
critical of the Armenian government, echoed those claims on Wednesday.
Hayrapetian pointed out that Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev openly demanded
constitutional changes from Yerevan in 2021. Baku, she said, now wants to make
sure that “in the future Armenia will refrain from claiming its rights to
Nagorno-Karabakh under any government.”
Armenia - Tatevik Hayrapetian attends a session of parliament, April 30, 2019.
Aliyev said in early December that an Armenian-Azerbaijani peace treaty would
not be enough to preclude another war between the two countries. He said
Azerbaijan also needs safeguards against Armenian “revanchism.”
Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan acknowledged on Tuesday that Baku voiced
objections to the Armenian constitution during peace talks with Yerevan. But he
downplayed this fact, saying that the Armenian side also has a problem with some
provisions of Azerbaijan’s constitution.
“To say that the Armenia-Azerbaijan settlement process is the reason for the
change of the constitution would be a gross exaggeration,” Mirzoyan told a news
conference.
Mirzoyan, who is a leading member of Pashinian’s Civil Contract party, noted at
the same time that the existing constitution inevitably has an impact on
Armenian foreign policy.
The plans for the new Armenian constitution were announced after Pashinian and
Mirzoyan complained about a toughening of Baku’s position on the peace treaty
discussed by the two sides.
Manukian and three other opposition lawmakers were recently allowed by the
Armenian Foreign Ministry to read recent Azerbaijani proposals regarding the
treaty. They said afterwards that Aliyev is seeking the kind of agreement that
would leave the door open to future territorial claims to Armenia.
“It is very obvious that the points and provisions contained in that document
are directly related to the demand for the change of the constitution,” said
Manukian.
340 Security Cameras Installed In Armenian Parliament
• Shoghik Galstian
Armenia - Security cameras are seen in the parliament building in Yerevan,
.
The Armenian authorities have increased to almost 340 the number of security
cameras installed inside the parliament building in Yerevan, stoking opposition
lawmakers’ concerns about government surveillance of their work.
Commenting on the measure, the press office of Armenia’s parliament said on
Wednesday that some of the additional 120 cameras were placed in the building’s
basement and storage rooms while others replaced older cameras installed over a
decade ago. It insisted that this was done for solely security reasons.
“I counted six cameras in one small corridor, but I’m not sure I saw all of
them,” said Taguhi Tovmasian, an opposition parliamentarian.
Tovmasian expressed serious concern over the “unprecedented” measure and brushed
aside her pro-government colleagues’ periodical references to a 1999 terrorist
attack on the parliament that left eight senior officials dead.
Armenia - Security cameras are seen in the parliament building in Yerevan,
.
“Many years have passed since that day,” she told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service.
“There were multiple parliaments formed after that and none of them operated in
the kind of atmosphere of fear that has been created by the current authorities.
They are scared of everything and everyone.”
Tovmasian was particularly concerned that the cameras may be used for recording
National Assembly members’ and staffers’ sensitive conversations and movements.
The parliamentary press office said in this regard that although the cameras
have audio capabilities they only record images. Opposition deputies were
unconvinced by these assurances.
One of them, Artur Khachatrian, argued that an allegedly doctored footage of
last April’s violent argument between two of his colleagues representing rival
political forces was leaked to a newspaper belonging to Prime Minister Nikol
Pashinian’s family.
Deputies from Pashinian’s Civil Contract party dismissed the opposition
concerns. As one of them, Alkhas Ghazarian, put it, “This is done for everyone.
This is what democracy is all about.”
Armenia - Security officers remove opposition deputy Gegham Manukian from the
parliament podium, Օctober 26, 2021.
Security in and around the Armenian parliament compound was further tightened
after the ruling party’s victory in the June 2021 snap elections. In particular,
scores of officers of the State Protection Service (SPS), an agency tasked with
providing bodyguards to Armenia’s top officials, were deployed inside the
chamber.
On a number of occasions, the parliament’s pro-government leadership ordered SPS
officers clad in camouflage uniforms to use force against opposition deputies.
One of those deputies, Gegham Manukian, was dragged away from the parliament
podium as he lambasted a Civil Contract colleague in October 2021.
Manukian was accused of breaching “ethnical rules” during his speech. The two
opposition blocs represented in the parliament charged, for their part, that
Pashinian’s administration has illegally restricted free speech on the
parliament floor for the first time in Armenia’s post-Soviet history.
Turkey-Armenia Normalization Process Still On Hold
• Nane Sahakian
Turkey - Foreign Ministers Mevlut Cavusoglu of Turkey and Ararat Mirzoyan of
Armenia meet in Ankara, February 15, 2023.
Turkey is still not taking any steps to implement interim normalization
agreements reached with Armenia in 2022, Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan said
on Tuesday.
One of those agreements calls for the opening of the Turkish-Armenia border for
holders of Armenian or Turkish diplomatic passport as well as citizens of third
countries. Another agreement reached by Turkish and Armenian negotiators
envisaged air freight traffic between the two neighboring nations. There have
been no signs of its implementation, even though the Turkish government
officially allowed cargo shipments by air to and from Armenia in January 2023.
“The Armenian side is ready for a quick opening of that border both in the
political sense and in terms of infrastructure,” Mirzoyan told a news
conference. “The only missing component is the decision of the Turkish side.”
“As we can see, either tangible steps in this directions have not been taken or
there is no end result,” he said.
The Armenian Foreign Ministry told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service last week that no
fresh negotiations are planned between Ankara and Yerevan.
Mirzoyan sounded optimistic about prospects for the normalization of
Turkish-Armenian relations as recently as in early November, two weeks after
meeting with Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan in Tehran. “We may have some
good news on this front in the near future,” he told Armenian lawmakers.
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian similarly expressed hope at the time that the
border agreement will be implemented soon.
Pashinian attended Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s inauguration in
June. His domestic critics denounced the move, saying that Ankara will not
unconditionally normalize Turkish-Armenian relations even after his unilateral
concessions.
Speaking at a November summit of the leaders of Turkic states in Kazakhstan,
Erdogan again demanded that Armenia open an extraterritorial corridor to
Azerbaijan’s Nakhichevan exclave. He said the corridor sought by Baku is
important also because it would link Turkey to Central Asia which he described
as “our ancestral homeland.” Ankara set this as a key precondition when it
started normalization talks with Yerevan in early 2022.
Bagrat Estukian, an editor of the Istanbul-based Turkish-Armenian newspaper
Agos, insisted on Wednesday that Erdogan is unlikely to change his policy on
Armenia anytime soon.
Record-Low Unemployment Recorded In Armenia
• Robert Zargarian
Armenia - A job fair in Yerevan organized for refugees from Nagorno-Karabakh,
October 31, 2024.
Amid continuing economic growth, unemployment in Armenia fell to around 11
percent in 2023, the lowest rate registered in many years, according to official
statistics.
It was down from 13 percent reported by the Armenian government in 2022 and 18.2
percent in 2020.
“I don’t remember Armenia ever having such a low unemployment rate,” Finance
Minister Vahe Hovannisian said recently.
The South Caucasus country of less than 3 million has for decades suffered from
high unemployment that has caused hundreds of thousands of its citizens to
emigrate to Russia, the United States and other nations. The Armenian economy
has grown at relatively robust rates during most of the past decade, translating
into new jobs and higher incomes.
Some economists believe that the real unemployment rate is higher than what is
shown by government data. But they do not deny that it has fallen in the past
decade.
Government officials admit, for their part, that a considerable percentage of
the country’s workforce remains jobless for various reasons.
“We have a large army of young people who do not work or study and are not
integrated into the labor market,” Ruben Sargsian, a deputy minister of labor
and social affairs, told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service in late December.
“We have a large population, including women in the age range of 30-40, who do
not integrate into the labor market or have difficulties with integration. We
have a large number of beneficiaries who receive benefits while being able to
work but not working for whatever reason,” Sargsian said, adding that the
government needs to do a better job of helping such people find work.
Anecdotal evidence suggests that job vacancies in Armenia and especially Yerevan
are at a record high these days. However, most of these are menial jobs which
Armenians are now less willing to do than they were in the past and which
increasingly attract migrants from low-income foreign countries, notably India.
According to various estimates, between 15,000 and 30,000 Indians have moved to
Armenia in the last few years.
Reposted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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