Tuesday,
‘Still No Decision’ On New Armenian Constitution
• Ruzanna Stepanian
Armenia - The main government building in Yerevan's Republic Square decorated
and illuminated by Christmas lights, December 7, 2022.
Armenia’s leadership has not made a final decision on whether to try to enact
this year a new constitution sought by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian, one of
his top political allies said on Tuesday.
A national referendum is the only legal way of completely replacing the current
Armenian constitution enacted in 1995 and repeatedly amended since then.
“If I’m not mistaken, one of the opposition representatives said during an
RFE/RL program that ‘we should turn the constitutional referendum into [a
popular vote of no confidence in Pashinian,]” parliament speaker Alen Simonian
told journalists. “What constitutional referendum? Have we said that a
constitutional referendum will be held in the near future?”
“Such a change might happen in, say, 2030,” added Simonian.
Pashinian said last month that Armenia needs to adopt a new constitution
reflecting the “new geopolitical environment” in the region. Also in January,
the Armenian Ministry of Justice a presented a still unpublicized “concept” for
constitutional reform to the prime minister’s office.
Critics believe that Pashinian first and foremost wants to get rid of a preamble
to the current constitution which 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.
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said on February 1 that Armenia should remove
that reference and amend other documents “infringing on Azerbaijan’s territorial
integrity” if it wants to make peace with his country.
Armenian opposition leaders portrayed Aliyev’s statement as further proof that
Pashinian wants to change the constitution under pressure from Azerbaijan as
well as Turkey. The premier and his allies denied that.
Simonian insisted that “there is no decision” on the new constitution yet. He
claimed that the authorities simply wanted to trigger a public debate on the
idea and gauge Armenians’ reaction to it.
Ishkhan Saghatelian, a leader of the main opposition Hayastan alliance,
similarly told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service last week: “In my view, they [the
authorities] are trying to examine the public mood and they will make a final
decision only if they feel that they will succeed.”
Saghatelian said that should they decide to hold the referendum after all the
Armenian opposition “will do everything to turn it into a referendum of no
confidence in Nikol Pashinian.”
German Lawmaker Against Sanctioning Azerbaijan
• Anush Mkrtchian
Germany - Elisabeth Winkelmeier-Becker (left), a senior German parliamentarian,
talks to journalists in Yerevan, .
A senior member of Germany’s parliament on Tuesday argued against imposing
sanctions on Azerbaijan over its military offensive in Nagorno-Karabakh and what
the European Union has described as territorial claims to Armenia.
Elisabeth Winkelmeier-Becker, the chairwoman of the Bundestag’s committee on
legal affairs, insisted that European sanctions would only dent prospects for an
Armenian-Azerbaijani peace deal.
“I want to stress that the facts presented by you cannot be justified,”
Winkelmeier-Becker told reporters in Yerevan. “All that is alien to us. I come
from a country where it is impossible to imagine such a violation of human
rights, the displacement of an ethnic group.”
“At this stage of the peace process, we should act like an honest broker, a
facilitator, and I think that such a contribution to the peace process on our
part is in Armenia’s interests. Sanctions have a limited impact, and their
application at this stage could hinder the peace process,” said the lawmaker
affiliated with Germany’s main opposition Christian Democratic Union party.
Winkelmeier-Becker spoke at the end at a visit to Armenia by a German
parliamentary delegation led by her. The delegation is scheduled to visit Baku
later this week.
The EU and Germany in particular were quick to condemn Azerbaijan’s September
offensive that forced Karabakh’s practically entire population to flee to
Armenia. In an October resolution, the European Parliament accused Azerbaijan of
committing “ethnic cleaning” and called on the EU to impose sanctions on Baku.
The sanctions require the unanimous backing of all EU member states. None of
them -- including France, the main EU backer of Armenia -- has voiced support
for them. French President Emmanuel Macron said in October that punitive
measures against Baku would be counterproductive at this point.
The 27-nation bloc signaled no change in this policy even after what its foreign
policy chief, Josep Borrell, described as territorial claims to Armenia made by
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev last month.
“Any violation of Armenia’s territorial integrity would be unacceptable and will
have severe consequences for our relations with Azerbaijan,” Borrell warned on
January 22.
Pashinian Hopes For Progress In Armenian-Azeri Talks
• Artak Khulian
Greece - Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and his Armenian counterpart
Nikol Pashinian speak after talks in Athens, .
Just days after saying that Azerbaijan is “very likely” to invade Armenia, Prime
Minister Nikol Pashinian expressed hope on Tuesday that the foreign ministers of
the two states will make progress at their upcoming talks in Berlin.
Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan complained, meanwhile, about the
“continuous bellicose rhetoric and military escalation provoked by Azerbaijan”
as he addressed the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva. He accused Baku of making
“new territorial claims” to Armenia.
Mirzoyan and his Azerbaijani counterpart Jeyhun Bayramov are scheduled to meet
in the German capital on Wednesday and Thursday for further discussions on an
Armenian-Azerbaijani peace treaty.
“We should hope that progress will be made during that meeting,” Pashinian said
during a visit to Greece. He said he briefed Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos
Mitsotakis on “outstanding issues” in the Armenian-Azerbaijani negotiation
process.
In an interview with the France 24 TV channel aired last Friday, Pashinian said
Azerbaijan remains reluctant to recognize Armenia’s borders “without ambiguity”
and is planning military aggression against his country. The Azerbaijani Foreign
Ministry rejected the claim as “absolutely baseless.”
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said on Monday that Yerevan has no choice but
to accept his terms of a peace deal discussed by the two sides.
Aliyev and Pashinian met in Munich on February 17 for talks hosted by German
Chancellor Olaf Scholz. The latter said they “agreed to resolve open issues
without new violence.”
Armenian Speaker Blasts Russian Military Presence
• Shoghik Galstian
Armenia -- President Armen Sarkissian (second from right) visits a Russian
border guard post on Armenia's border with Turkey, July 4, 2020.
Parliament speaker Alen Simonian on Tuesday criticized Russian border guards and
military personnel deployed in Armenia, saying that they do not protect his
country against Azerbaijani attacks.
The border guards have for decades been stationed along Armenia’s borders with
Turkey and Iran as well as at Yerevan’s Zvartnots international airport. During
and after the 2020 war in Nagorno-Karabakh, they were also deployed, along with
Russian army units, to some sections of the Armenian-Azerbaijani border.
Some Armenian media outlets have reported in recent weeks that the Armenian
government now wants them to leave Zvartnots amid its mounting tensions with
Moscow. Simonian did not confirm those reports. But he did call for Russian
withdrawal from the airport.
“We will defend the borders of our country, but I’m not sure they will defend
the borders of our country,” Simonian told reporters, clearly referring to not
only the border guards but also Russian troops. “It was proved on a number of
occasions that they didn’t protect [Armenia] and even did everything to make
those borders much more vulnerable.”
Armenia - Parliament speaker Alen Simonian speaks to journalists, Yerevan,
November 28, 2023.
The controversial speaker, who is a leading member of Prime Minister Nikol
Pashinian’s political team, went on to point to the failure of Russian
peacekeeping forces to prevent or stop last September’s Azerbaijani military
offensive that forced Nagorno-Karabakh’s practically entire population to flee
to Armenia.
“What did they do in Nagorno-Karabakh? They escorted the Armenian population out
[of the region] … One day they could also escort me and you out of Zvartnots,”
he said.
Simonian’s remarks are another indication of a deepening rift between
Pashinian’s government and Moscow. Visiting Paris last week, Pashinian declared
that Armenia has effectively “frozen” its membership in the Russian-led
Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO). The Kremlin responded by
demanding official explanations from Yerevan.
Pashinian has so far stopped short of demanding the withdrawal of the Russian
troops or border guards from Armenia. His domestic critics say he will
eventually do so at the behest of Western powers locked in the geopolitical
standoff with Russia over Ukraine. While also criticizing Moscow’s actions in
the region, they say that a Russian withdrawal would only encourage Azerbaijan
and even Turkey to invade Armenia.
Armen Rustamian, a lawmaker from the main opposition Hayastan alliance,
suggested that Simonian’s calls for the removal of Russian security personnel
from the Yerevan airport are the first step towards the Armenian government
demanding an end to the Russian military presence. He warned of “destructive”
consequences of such a development.
Reposted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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