Monday,
Tsarukian Disavows Ally’s Support For Kocharian
• Ruzanna Stepanian
Armenia - Gyumri Mayor Vartan Ghukasian speaks at an event in 2012.
Gagik Tsarukian on Monday warned parliament deputies from his Prosperous
Armenia Party (BHK) against publicly expressing their personal opinions after
one of them voiced support for the indicted former President Robert Kocharian.
“I stand for freedom for Robert Kocharian,” the lawmaker, Vartan Ghukasian,
said late last week amid continuing political fallout from an Armenian court’s
May 18 decision to free the ex-president from custody.
The statement led Tsarukian to hold an emergency meeting of the BHK’s
parliamentary group, the second largest in the National Assembly.
“For that reason I held today a meeting during which I warned everyone that
nobody has the right to express their personal opinion,” the BHK leader told
reporters. BHK deputies should make public statements on various issues only if
the opposition party formulates a position on them, he said.
A senior BHK figure, Naira Zohrabian, stressed that Ghukasian’s remark does not
reflect the party line. “That is Mr. Ghukasian’s personal opinion, and I can
reaffirm today that it is not the BHK faction’s opinion,” she said.
Zohrabian also told RFE/RL’s Armenian service that Ghukasian did not attend the
faction meeting chaired by Tsarukian.
Ghukasian, 58, served as mayor of Armenia’s second largest city of Gyumri
during and after Kocharian’s 1998-2008 presidency. He strongly supported the
ex-president who was arrested last year on charges stemming from the 2008
post-election violence in Yerevan.
Armenia - Former President Robert Kocharian (second from right) and Prosperous
Armenia Party leader Gagik Tsarukian at an awards ceremony organized for
prominent Armenian athletes near Yerevan, 26Dec2013.
Tsarukian likewise had a cordial rapport with Kocharian. But both he and his
party have sought to distance themselves from the latter since last spring’s
“velvet revolution” which brought Nikol Pashinian to power. They have pointedly
declined to criticize Kocharian’s prosecution as politically motivated.
“The BHK view is that in the new Armenia political processes must not be mixed
with legal processes,” said Zohrabian. “It’s a totally legal process. We want
to be sure that there is and there will be no political pressure on legal
processes.”
Tsarukian was irked on May 29 by a reporter’s remark that Kocharian had helped
him make a big fortune. “I don’t have obligations to anyone,” he stated in that
regard.
Deadly Truce Violations Reported In Karabakh
Nagorno-Karabakh -- Ethnic Armenian soldiers walk in a trench at their position
near Nagorno-Karabakh's boundary, April 8, 2016
Armenia and Azerbaijan have accused each other of trying to torpedo peace talks
on Nagorno-Karabakh after reporting the most serious ceasefire violations in
the Karabakh conflict zone in months.
The Azerbaijani military said on Thursday one of its servicemen, was shot and
killed by enemy fire near Karabakh. The victim identified as Aqil Omarov was
reportedly a mid-ranking officer.
The Foreign Ministry in Baku seized upon the reported incident to accuse
Armenia of seeking to scuttle more high-level negotiations planned by the two
sides.
Karabakh’s Armenian-backed Defense Army insisted that its troops did not breach
the ceasefire at any section of “the line of contact.” The army reported a
sharp rise in Azerbaijani truce violations on the night from Friday to
Saturday. One of its soldiers, Sipan Melkonian, died as a result.
In a weekend statement, Armenia’s Foreign Ministry accused Azerbaijan of
deliberately “escalating the situation” and said its actions represent a
“serious setback for all the efforts taken over the past months.” The statement
also questioned Baku’s commitment to confidence-building understandings reached
by Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian and Azerbaijani President Ilham
Aliyev.
Aliyev’s and Pashinian’s first face-to-face meeting held in Tajikistan in
September was followed by a significant decrease in ceasefire violations.
The Azerbaijani side brushed aside the “emotional” and “contradictory”
statement. It said Armenian “occupation of Azerbaijani lands” is the root cause
of the Karabakh conflict and resulting casualties.
The tensions around Karabakh rose as U.S., Russian and French mediators
co-heading the OSCE Minsk Group wrapped up their latest tour of the conflict
zone with a meeting with Aliyev held in Baku. “The Co-Chairs expressed deep
concern about recent casualties and called on the parties to exercise maximum
restraint to avoid escalation,” read a joint statement released by them.
Commenting on their talks in Yerevan, Stepanakert and Baku, the mediators said
they presented the conflicting parties with “proposals for concrete next steps
in the settlement process.” “The Foreign Ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan
accepted the Co-Chairs’ proposal to meet soon under their auspices, and will
announce details at the appropriate time,” added their statement.
The date and venue of the ministers’ meeting has not been announced yet.
Judge Declines To Deal With Kocharian’s Immunity Claim
• Naira Nalbandian
Armenia -- Judge Vazgen Rshtuni holds a court hearing in Yerevan, June 3, 2019.
The chairman of Armenia’s Court of Appeals, Vazgen Rshtuni, accepted on Monday
prosecutors’ demand that he recuse himself from hearings on immunity from
prosecution claimed by former President Robert Kocharian.
Kocharian and his legal team cite an article of the Armenian constitution which
stipulates: “During the term of his or her powers and thereafter, the President
of the Republic may not be prosecuted and subjected to liability for actions
deriving from his or her status.”
Earlier this year they asked a district court in Yerevan to free the
ex-president and throw out coup charges brought against him in connection with
the 2008 post-election violence in Yerevan.
The court ruled on April 12, however, that Kocharian cannot be protected from
prosecution. It thus accepted prosecutors’ claims that the constitutional
provision does not apply to him because his actions in February-March 2008 were
illegal.
Kocharian and his lawyers appealed against that ruling before the case was
assigned to Rshtuni.
Hrach Musheghian, a senior law-enforcement official leading a probe of the 2008
violence, said last week that Rshtuni cannot be impartial because he publicly
approved of another Court of Appeals judge’s decision in August to free
Kocharian from custody and uphold his immunity from prosecution. The
prosecution backed Musheghian’s demand.
But one of Kocharian’s lawyers, Samvel Khudoyan, objected to it. “In my view,
the consideration of our appeal has nothing to do with the opinion expressed by
[Rshtuni,]” Khudoyan told RFE/RL’s Armenian service (Azatutyun.am) on Monday.
Nevertheless, Rshtuni agreed to have another judge consider and rule on the
appeal. He argued that “one of the parties to the trial lacks trust in me.”
Rshtuni also pointed to media allegations that he was instrumental in the May
18 decision by a district court judge, Davit Grigorian, to order Kocharian
released from prison pending a verdict in the high-profile case. Rshtuni, who
has strongly denied the allegations, said he wants to be exonerated by
“relevant bodies.”
Grigorian also controversially decided to suspend Kocharian’s trial which began
on May 13. He cited a “suspicion of discrepancy” between the Armenian
constitution and the charges. And he suggested that the constitution does give
the ex-president immunity from prosecution.
Parliament Panel To Investigate 2016 War In Karabakh
• Ruzanna Stepanian
Nagorno-Karabakh -- Ethnic Armenian soldiers stand next to a cannon at
artillery positions near the Nagorno-Karabakh's town of Martuni, April 7, 2016
The pro-government majority in Armenia’s National Assembly has set up an ad hoc
parliamentary commission tasked with investigating the April 2016 war in
Nagorno-Karabakh.
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian called for the creation of such a commission on
May 20 as he lambasted the Armenian judiciary and accused it of having ties
with the country’s former leadership.
Pashinian claimed that “specific forces representing the former corrupt system”
are also “using their corrupt connections to carry out false propaganda”
against him in Karabakh. He suggested that they are intent on provoking a war
with Azerbaijan, losing “some territories” to the enemy and blaming that defeat
on his government.
Pashinian did not name anyone involved in the alleged conspiracy. He announced
instead that “the time has come to form an investigative parliamentary
commission to examine circumstances of the April 2016 war and find answers to a
number of questions preoccupying us.”
Some opposition politicians and other critics of the Armenian government
denounced Pashinian’s statement, saying that the prime minister is playing the
Karabakh card for domestic political purposes.
The commission was formally set up late last week after 47 deputies
representing Pashinian’s My Step alliance signed a petition in support of its
creation. It will be headed by Andranik Kocharian, the pro-government chairman
of a standing parliament committee on defense and security, and also comprise
10 other lawmakers.
The commission, which will hold its first meeting on Tuesday, is specifically
tasked with scrutinizing the Armenian military’s response to an Azerbaijani
offensive in Karabakh that led to the four-day hostilities, which left around
80 Armenian soldiers and volunteers dead. It will not only be able to question
senior government and military officials but also have access to classified
documents.
Four of the commission members are supposed to be named by the opposition
Prosperous Armenia (BHK) and Bright Armenia (LHK) parties.
Naira Zohrabian, a senior BHK parliamentarian, hit out at the parliament
majority on Monday, saying that it did not consult with her party before
setting up the special panel.
“Nobody from My Step approached us,” Zohrabian told RFE/RL’s Armenian service.
“Moreover, we learned from the media that the investigative commission has been
created by the signatures of 47 My Step deputies. I regard this as [a
manifestation of] a non-businesslike atmosphere in the parliament.”
My Step’s parliamentary leader, Lilit Makunts, dismissed the criticism. She
said that the parliament majority has followed legal procedures and
requirements regulating the formation of such commissions.
Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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