Thursday,
More Armenian POWs Freed By Azerbaijan
• Naira Bulghadarian
ARMENIA -- People stand at a Russian military plane with some of Armenian
captives upon its arrival at a military airport outside Yerevan, December 14,
2020
Azerbaijan released on Thursday five more Armenian prisoners of war (POWs) in
line with the Russian-brokered agreement that stopped the war in
Nagorno-Karabakh on November 10.
They were flown to Yerevan by a Russian plane and immediately taken to a
military hospital for examination.
A senior Karabakh official, Boris Avagian, told reporters that the five men were
among 62 Armenian soldiers who were taken prisoner in early December when the
Azerbaijani army seized the last two Armenian-controlled villages in Karabakh’s
Hadrut district occupied by it during the six-week war.
Azerbaijani officials have branded those soldiers as “saboteurs” and
“terrorists,” signaling Baku’s intention to prosecute them on relevant charges.
Yerevan has condemned those plans as a gross violation of international law and
the Karabakh ceasefire agreement.
According to Deputy Prime Minister Tigran Avinian, Azerbaijani authorities
allowed all 62 prisoners to speak with their families by phone earlier on
Thursday.
Avagian stressed the importance of the release of “the first group” of these
POWs. “This means that the process is moving forward,” he said.
The truce agreement calls for the unconditional exchange of all prisoners held
by the conflicting parties. Dozens of them were swapped in December.
The latest repatriation raised to 59 the total number of Armenian POWs and
civilians freed to date. More than 100 others are believed to remain in
Azerbaijani captivity.
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian discussed their fate with Azerbaijani President
Ilham Aliyev during their January 11 talks in Moscow hosted by Russian President
Vladimir Putin. The three leaders announced no agreements on the issue.
Foreign Minister Ara Ayvazian again demanded on Thursday the unconditional
release of the remaining Armenian prisoners.
“Azerbaijan should understand that this is a humanitarian issue and if this
issue continues to be exploited it will become problematic for Azerbaijan as
well,” Ayvazian told reporters.
Kocharian Eyes Election Victory
• Gayane Saribekian
Armenia -- Former President Robert Kocharian greets supporters during his trial,
Yerevan, February 25, 2020.
Former President Robert Kocharian has said that he and his political allies will
participate in snap parliamentary elections and win them even if they are held
by Armenia’s current government.
“We have a full toolkit and a team necessary for political struggle,” he said in
a televised interview publicized late on Wednesday.
Kocharian indicated that he continues to believe that such elections must take
place after Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s resignation and a certain “time
lag.”
“But if the authorities manage to force the elections sooner -- and they seem to
have enough votes in the parliament -- I don’t think that not participating [in
them] will be right. I think that participating will be right. Or else, we will
enable these people [in power] to reestablish their rule,” he told three media
outlets.
Pashinian expressed readiness late last month to hold fresh parliamentary
elections after weeks of street protests staged by a coalition of 17 opposition
parties blaming him for Armenia’s defeat in the autumn war with Azerbaijan. They
want him to resign and hand over power to an interim government that would
organize the polls within a year.
Armenia -- Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian talks to a wounded soldier at
a military hospital in Yerevan, .
The opposition alliance called the Homeland Salvation Front has rejected
Pashinian’s offer until now, saying that the country is not prepared for the
vote now and that the authorities would rig it. Some of its leaders have already
called for an election boycott.
Kocharian, who has backed the anti-government protests, said he shares the
opposition concerns. “But if these people [in power] do not understand that
holding elections in these conditions would be dangerous for the country and
take that step after all, I don’t think leaving them alone with the public in
the elections will be right. That is why we will participate [in the elections]
and win.”
The 66-year-old ex-president, who ruled Armenia from 1998-2008, shed no light on
the likely composition of his electoral “team.” Nor did he say if he will top
its list of election candidates and aspire to the post of prime minister.
Kocharian has been at loggerheads with Pashinian’s government ever since it took
office following the “Velvet Revolution” of April-May 2018. He was arrested in
July 2018 on coup charges rejected by him as politically motivated.
Kocharian was released on bail in June 2020 pending the outcome of his ongoing
trial. The trial resumed on January 19 nearly four months after being
effectively interrupted by the war in Nagorno-Karabakh.
Armenia -- Supporters of former President Robert Kocharian demosntrate outside a
prison in Yerevan, June 25, 2019.
Hrachya Hakobian, a pro-government lawmaker and Pashinian’s brother-in-law,
scoffed at Kocharian’s political ambitions on Thursday, saying that the
ex-president stands no chance of winning the elections. “Our people have already
seen ten years of Kocharian’s rule, the political and other murders committed
during Kocharian’s rule,” he told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service.
Hakobian said Pashinian’s My Step bloc can win the polls despite the outcome of
the war. “Whatever government was in power, this war would have taken place and
we would have lost it,” he claimed, laying the blame on the country’s former
rulers.
In his latest interview, Kocharian again harshly criticized Pashinian’s handling
of the six-week hostilities that left at least 3,500 Armenian soldiers dead. He
also accused Pashinian of severely jeopardizing Armenia’s national security and
effectively turning the country into a Russian “protectorate.”
Armenia Continues To Rise In Global Corruption Rankings
Armenia - The main Armenian government building in Yerevan, 29 March 2018.
Armenia has further improved its position in an annual survey of corruption
perceptions around the world conducted by Transparency International.
It ranked, together with Jordan and Slovakia, 60th out of 180 countries and
territories evaluated in the Berlin-based watchdog’s 2020 Corruption Perception
Index (CPI) released on Thursday.
Armenia and two other countries shared 77th place in the previous CPI released a
year ago. Transparency International assigned the South Caucasus state a CPI
“score” of 42 out of 100 at the time. The watchdog raised the score to 49 in the
latest survey.
“It is the second largest [CPI score] increase in the world after Maldives,” it
said in an explanatory note.
Armenia was 105th in the corruption perception rankings two years ago. It still
trails neighboring Georgia but is ahead of its three other neighbors:
Azerbaijan, Iran and Turkey. Georgia occupies 45th place in the 2020 CPI.
“A country to watch last year, Armenia has taken a gradual approach to reform,
resulting in steady and positive improvements in anti-corruption,” says a
Transparency International report.
“However, safeguarding judicial independence and ensuring checks and balances
remain critical first steps in its anti-corruption efforts,” it adds. “The
effectiveness of those efforts is additionally challenged by the current
political and economic crisis as a result of a recent Nagorno-Karabakh conflict
and the subsequent protests against Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian over a
ceasefire deal.”
Pashinian has repeatedly claimed to have eliminated “systemic corruption” since
coming to power in May 2018. Armenian law-enforcement authorities have launched
dozens of high-profile corruption investigations during his rule. They mostly
target former top government officials and individuals linked to them.
Earlier this month the Armenian parliament began debating a government bill that
calls for the creation of a special law-enforcement agency tasked with
investigating corruption cases. The government also plans to set up new courts
dealing only with such cases.
Armenian Church Head Insists On Pashinian’s Resignation
• Sargis Harutyunyan
Armenia -- Catholicos Garegin II visits the Yerablur Military Pantheon, Yerevan,
.
Catholicos Garegin II, the supreme head of the Armenian Apostolic Church,
reiterated on Thursday calls for Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s resignation.
“There is no change in our convictions and positions,” he told reporters when
asked about his stance on the continuing political crisis in Armenia.
In a televised address to the nation aired on December 8, Garegin said Pashinian
lacks popular trust after the “disastrous” war in Nagorno-Karabakh and should
step down to prevent violent unrest and end the “deep political crisis.” He said
he made this clear at a face-to-face meeting with the embattled premier.
Similar statements were also made by the number two figure in the church
hierarchy, the Lebanon-based Catholicos Aram I, and other top clergymen in
Armenia and its worldwide Diaspora. Some of them denounced Pashinian in
unusually strong terms.
Garegin again insisted on Thursday that the ancient church, to which the vast
majority of Armenians nominally belong, is not meddling in politics or siding
with opposition forces trying to topple the government.
“The church is guided by national and state interests, and if the church’s
position is in tune with the views of one or another political faction that must
not be construed as a church bias in favor of a particular political party. The
church is above politics,” he said.
President Armen Sarkissian and Armenian many public figures have also urged
Pashinian to step down and hand over power to an interim government. The premier
has rejected these calls while expressing readiness to hold fresh parliamentary
elections.
Garegin spoke to journalists as he visited Yerevan’s Yerablur Military Pantheon
to mark the 29th anniversary of the establishment of Armenia’s Armed Forces.
Many of at least 3,500 Armenian soldiers killed during the recent war were
buried there.
Garegin had traditionally prayed and laid flowers at Yerablur together with the
country’s political leaders. But he was conspicuously absent from a
wreath-laying ceremony led there by Pashinian this time around. The prime
minister was joined by parliament speaker Ararat Mirzoyan and several members of
his government.
Pashinian and his entourage declined to attend a Christmas mass celebrated by
Garegin at Yerevan’s St. Gregory the Illuminator’s Cathedral on January 6.
Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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