RFE/RL Armenian Report – 08/21/2019

                                        Wednesday, 

Ryanair Confirms Plans To Fly To Armenia


IRELAND-- A Ryanair Boeing 737 landing at Dublin Airport, September 28, 2017.

A senior executive of Ryanair on Wednesday reportedly confirmed the Irish 
budget airline’s plans to launch regular flights between Europe and Armenia.

Ryanair’s chief commercial officer, David O’Brien, and director of route 
development, Kate Sherry, discussed the matter with Prime Minister Nikol 
Pashinian during a visit to Yerevan.

An Armenian government statement cited O’Brien as telling Pashinian that 
Ryanair “intends to enter the Armenian aviation market soon” and is now 
negotiating with Armenia’s civil aviation authority and main airport operator 
for that purpose. He presented concrete flights planned by the airline and its 
“tariff policy” for them, said the statement.


Armenia -- Senior Ryanair executives, David O'Brien (R) and Kate Sherry, meet 
with Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian, Yerevan, .

Pashinian welcomed those plans, saying that Ryanair flights to and from Armenia 
would benefit the country’s tourism industry. He expressed hope that the two 
sides will work out a “concrete variant of mutually beneficial cooperation.”

O’Brien and Sherry held a separate dinner meeting on Tuesday with Deputy Prime 
Minister Tigran Avinian and Tatevik Revazian, the head of the Armenian 
government’s Civil Aviation Committee. Revazian negotiated with Ryanair 
representatives in Dublin early this year before announcing in March that the 
Irish carrier is planning to fly to Armenia.

Revazian, who was also present at Pashinian’s meeting the visiting Ryanair 
executives, announced in July that Ryanair as well as another Western low-cost 
airline, Wizz Air, are ready to launch flight services next year if they are 
granted financial concessions.


Armenia -- Tatevik Revazian, head of the Civil Aviation Committee, at a news 
conference in Yerevan, July 15, 2019.

She said the Civil Aviation Committee is already drafting a bill that would 
exempt them from a fixed $21 tax levied from every air ticket sold in the 
country. The government agency also hopes to convince an Argentine company 
managing Yerevan’s Zvartnots airport to offer them discounts for airport ground 
services, she added.

The cost of air travel to and from Armenia has already decreased since the 
liberalization in 2013 of the domestic civil aviation sector. This has 
contributed to a steady growth of the country’s international air traffic. The 
total number of passengers processed by the international airports in Yerevan 
and Gyumri rose by around 10 percent in the first half of this year.



Karabakh, OSCE Officials Discuss Fate Of Armenian POW In Azerbaijan

        • Marine Khachatrian

Nagorno Karabakh - Bako Sahakian (R), president of Nagorno Karabakh, meets with 
Andrzej Kasprzyk, personal representative of the OSCE chairperson-in-office, in 
Stepanakert, March 7, 2018.

Nagorno-Karabakh’s leaders have discussed with a senior official from the 
Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe the fate of an Armenian 
soldier who was taken prisoner by Azerbaijani forces last week.

The 19-year-old conscript, Arayik Ghazarian, was detained on August 12 after 
crossing the Armenian-Azerbaijani “line of contact” around Karabakh in still 
unclear circumstances.

The Azerbaijani military said Ghazarian claimed to have deserted his unit 
because of being systematically mistreated by his comrades. Armenia’s Defense 
Minister Davit Tonoyan denied that, saying that that the soldier probably 
strayed into Azerbaijani-controlled territory by accident.

Nagorno-Karabakh’s president, foreign minister and top military commander 
raised the issue with Andrzej Kasprzyk, the longtime head of a small OSCE 
mission monitoring the ceasefire regime in the Karabakh conflict zone, in 
separate meetings held in Stepanakert on Tuesday.

“I can’t go into details but all issues were discussed,” said Davit Babayan, a 
spokesman for President Bako Sahakian. “These are both humanitarian and 
political issues and they just had to be discussed. Of course, we are first and 
foremost interested in the fate of our compatriot.”

According to his press office, Masis Mayilian, the Karabakh foreign minister, 
and Kasprzyk talked about “possibilities of repatriating” Ghazarian. The issue 
was also on the agenda of Kasprzyk’s meeting with General Karen Abrahamian, the 
commander of Karabakh’s Armenian-backed army.

On Monday, the Azerbaijani authorities allowed representatives of the 
International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to visit the soldier in 
custody. An ICRC spokeswoman in Yerevan, Zara Amatuni, told RFE/RL’s Armenian 
service that they spoke to Ghazarian and inquired about his health and 
detention conditions. Amatuni said the ICRC is also ready to help the prisoner 
of war communicate with his family in Armenia.



Investigators Stand By Corruption Charges Against Armenian Official

        • Naira Bulghadarian

Armenia -- Davit Sanasarian, head of the State Oversight Service, attends a 
cabinet meeting in Yerevan, April 18, 2019.

Armenia’s National Security Service (NSS) has completed a criminal 
investigation that led to corruption charges brought against a senior 
government official who actively participated in last year’s “Velvet 
Revolution.”

The NSS indicted Davit Sanasarian, the head of the State Oversight Service 
(SOS), in April while investigating alleged corrupt practices within the 
anti-corruption government agency. It arrested two other senior SOS officials 
in February, saying that they attempted to cash in on government-funded 
supplies of medical equipment to three hospitals.

Sanasarian was charged with abusing his powers to help his subordinates enrich 
themselves and a private company linked to them. The official, who was 
suspended as SOS chief as a result, has repeatedly rejected the accusations as 
“fabricated.”

Sanasarian’s lawyer, Inessa Petrosian, told RFE/RL’s Armenian service on 
Wednesday that the NSS probe is over. She said that the investigators 
essentially stand by the accusations of abuse of power leveled against her 
client.

Sanasarian and the two other SOS officials will go on trial if the indictments 
are formally endorsed by prosecutors.

Sanasarian, 35, is a former opposition and civic activist who had for years 
accused Armenia’s former leaders of corruption. He was actively involved in 
last year’s revolution which succeeded in large measure because of widespread 
popular frustration with graft.

Sanasarian’s supporters, among them leaders of some Western-funded 
non-governmental organizations, have strongly defended him, denouncing the NSS 
and Vanetsian in particular. Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian hit back at the 
critics in April. He said that they place their personal relationships with 
Sanasarian above the rule of law.



Press Review


“Hraparak” says that Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s plans to allow the 
relaunch of the Amulsar gold mining project mark his firs unpopular decision 
made in office. The paper says that Pashinian is thus ignoring vehement 
objections from environmental and other groups that helped him to come to power 
in May 2018. “This can be described as the first rift between those who blocked 
streets [during the “Velvet Revolution”] and those who came to power,” it says. 
“In this case, the choice was made [by Pashinian] in favor of business and 
investments. This is the first serious test for the authorities and Nikol 
Pashinian in particular.”

“Aravot” deplores the “hypocrisy” of individuals involved in the controversy 
surrounding the Amulsar project. The paper specifically hits out at those 
residents of a village close to Amulsar who had willingly sold their 
agricultural land plots to the project operator, the Lydian International 
company, at high prices but are now protesting against gold mining in the area. 
“The locals who did business with Lydian were happy with the sums paid to them 
and used that money to buy homes and cars in Yerevan,” editorializes the paper. 
“Now many of them have become enthusiastic ecologists … If you are so patriotic 
you should not have sold your lands in the first place.”

Lragir.am complains that Pashinian’s “historic” speech delivered in Stepanakert 
early this month has already been forgotten and offset by other developments. 
The publication claims that the speech was first “shattered” by a scandalous 
media report about the alleged involvement of a Karabakh general in the 2008 
crackdown on opposition protesters in Yerevan. It says Pashinian’s detractors 
dealt further blows to important statements made by him in the Karabakh capital.

(Lilit Harutiunian)


Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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