Wednesday, August 25, 2021
Russian Official Says Armenia Signs Arms Supply Contracts In Moscow
August 25, 2021
• Sargis Harutyunyan
Armenian Defense Minister Arshak Karapetian at an arms exhibition near Moscow,
August 25, 2021
Armenia has signed arms supply contracts with Russian companies as part of the
Army-2021 military-industrial exhibition in Moscow, said Dmitry Shugayev,
director of the Russian Federal Service for Military-Technical Cooperation.
The Russian official gave no details of the deals.
“Among the countries that signed agreements are our traditional partners –
Kazakhstan, Armenia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, and, of course, India, China,
Myanmar,” said Shugayev, as quoted Russia’s RIA Novosti news agency.
Earlier, Alexander Mikheyev, director of the Russian arms exporting company,
Rosoboronexport, told reporters that more than 20 deals worth more than 2
billion Euros (about $2.4 billion) had already been concluded within the
framework of the Army-2021 exhibition.
After attending the exhibition in Moscow on August 24 evening and meeting with
the heads of Russian military-industrial companies, Armenian Defense Minister
Arshak Karapetian made a remarkable statement, saying that Armenia will stop
acquiring old types of weapons and start purchasing new, high-quality weapons.
Remarkably, two Armenian delegations visited the Moscow arms exhibition.
According to the Defense Ministry, first, on August 22, a delegation headed by
the minister left for the Russian capital to take part in the opening ceremonies
for the Army-2021 exhibition and the International Army Games.
The following day, the ministry announced that a delegation headed by Deputy
Defense Minister Karen Brutian would also take part in the Army-2021 exhibition,
which will be open till August 28, during which he would hold meetings with
heads of a number of large Russian companies working in the defense sphere and
sign contracts.
“We enjoy full support. I can say that I haven’t heard a single “no” word here.
And we will take practical steps to develop our cooperation with Russia. We plan
to get high-quality weapons, we plan to have new weapons, we refuse to acquire
old types of weapons, that is our policy. It is better for us to have fewer, but
high-quality weapons to know for sure that these weapons will work,” Minister
Karapetian said in Moscow.
According to the Defense Ministry, on August 23 in Moscow Karapetian “discussed
the whole range of issues of Armenian-Russian military-technical cooperation
with director of the Russian Federal Service for Military-Technical Cooperation
Dmitry Shugayev and director of the Rosoboronexport Company Alexander Mikheyev.”
Talking to media, Karapetian said that Armenia will also seek to have its own
weapons production and that it will receive the support in terms of opening
joint ventures. “We will do it quickly. As a nation we should be able to produce
our own weapons,” the Armenian defense minister said.
He said that the third task for him is to exclude intermediaries between the
Defense Ministry and the manufacturing companies. “I think that if these three
conditions are met, we will definitely get a new modernized army, an army
meeting the requirements of the 21st century, and we will be able to cope with
the dangers we face,” Karapetian stressed.
After last fall’s 44-day war against Azerbaijan in Nagorno-Karabakh, in which
Armenia suffered a defeat, and especially after the June 20 snap parliamentary
elections, the government led by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian has repeatedly
announced plans to modernize the Armenian armed forces and acquire new weapons.
According to the government’s 2021-26 action plan unveiled by Pashinian last
week, “the Armed Forces Reform Strategy is largely based on the analysis of the
lessons learned from the 44-day war and the security environment formed after
November 9, 2020 [when the Russian-brokered ceasefire was signed in
Nagorno-Karabakh].”
“The government will define the main guidelines, long-term planning issues and
resources on which the development of the defense system of the Republic of
Armenia and the fifth generation warfare toolkit will be based. The government
will continue the process of modernization of armaments, military equipment,
acquisition of new types of weapons. A more targeted policy will be implemented
in the spheres of military and military-technical cooperation with allied and
partner countries,” the government’s action plan reads.
Still, it remains unclear what particular weapons Armenia will acquire.
The contacts of Armenian officials with representatives of major Russian arms
industry companies come after an August 11 meeting between Armenian Defense
Minister Karapetian and his Russian counterpart Sergey Shoygu in Moscow.
During that meeting Shoygu said that Russia will continue to help Armenia reform
and modernize its armed forces. “We can consider that the process of arms
supplies to Armenia has started,” the Russian defense minister said as he handed
a dagger as a gift to his Armenian counterpart.
The announcement apparently angered Azerbaijan, which objects to Russia’s
continuing arms supplies to Armenia.
In an interview to CNN Turk television on August 14 Azerbaijani President Ilham
Aliyev argued that while the Armenian people and their leadership “have put up
with the defeat” in the war, continuing to arm Armenia appears “illogical.”
“We expect that Russia will stop arming Armenia, we don’t see it at the moment,”
Aliyev said.
Responding to Aliyev’s remarks, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria
Zakharova said that supplying weapons to other countries was Moscow’s sovereign
right.
At a news briefing in Moscow on August 19 she reminded that Russia, which
deployed about 2,000 peacekeepers in Nagorno-Karabakh after the ceasefire, has
supplied weapons not only to Armenia, its key military and political ally in the
South Caucasus, but also to Azerbaijan.
“It is Russia’s sovereign right, and the Russian side always takes into account
the need to maintain a balance of military power in the region,” Zakharova said.
Political analyst Ruben Mehrabian said that the 44-day war, in particular,
showed that the Armenian army needs to be supplied with a new generation of
weapons and that a fundamentally new management system should be put in place.
“We need a drastic change in our entire military education system, so that the
training of personnel directly meets the requirements set to the army and
servicemen in the future can master everything that the army will be equipped
with,” Mehrabian said.
Armenia Reaffirms Support For UNESCO Mission In Nagorno-Karabakh
August 25, 2021
• Artak Hambardzumian
A man lights a candle inside the war-damaged Armenian Ghazanchetsots (Holy
Savior) Cathedral in Shushi on October 8, 2020, a month before
Nagorno-Karabakh’s historic city was captured by advancing Azerbaijani forces.
Armenia has reaffirmed its support for a fact-finding mission of UNESCO in
Nagorno-Karabakh in line with the 1954 Hague Convention on the Protection of
Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict and its two protocols, an
Armenian Foreign Ministry spokesman said on Wednesday.
While receiving newly appointed United Nations Resident Coordinator in
Azerbaijan Vladanka Andreeva on August 24, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev,
in particular, accused Armenia of objecting to a UNESCO fact-finding mission in
Nagorno-Karabakh.
“We can say that we had been calling them [UNESCO] for 30 years and they
wouldn’t come. And after the war they decided to come. Therefore, we agreed to
this and, as far as I know, the latest information was that the mission had
already been created, but now Armenia is protesting again. That’s why the
mission is delayed,” Aliyev said, as quoted by local media.
Armenian Foreign Ministry spokesman Vahan Hunanian told RFE/RL’s Armenian
Service (Azatutyun) on Wednesday that the need for the immediate implementation
of the UNESCO fact-finding mission arose after last year’s 44-day war in order
to protect the Armenian cultural and religious heritage from the imminent danger
of destruction in the territories that went under the control of Azerbaijan.
“Both during the hostilities and after the establishment of the ceasefire, there
have been numerous documented cases of deliberate destruction of and vandalism
against Armenian churches, other cultural and religious monuments by the
Azerbaijani armed forces. Moreover, in parallel with the physical destruction of
religious and cultural heritage sites of Artsakh [the Armenian name for
Nagorno-Karabakh], we are witnessing unacceptable cases of falsification of
historical facts, distortion of the identity and belonging of Armenian
monuments, change of architectural appearance by the order of the top leadership
of Azerbaijan,” he said.
Hunanian said that in order to cover up cultural crimes, Azerbaijan has been
blocking the visit of UNESCO experts for some time, while accusing the
organization of bias. Stressing that the practice of creating obstacles for the
implementation of the mission by the Azerbaijani authorities and the
politicization of the issue continues, the Armenian Foreign Ministry reminded
that as early as December 2020, UNESCO’s deputy director-general for cultural
affairs stated that Azerbaijan was not giving its consent to the mission.
“Artsakh’s endangered cultural and religious heritage urgently needs
international attention in order to properly preserve it and prevent cases of
vandalism. The implementation of the UNESCO mission and a comprehensive study of
the historical and cultural heritage will contribute to the efforts to preserve
cultural heritage in the territories under the control of Azerbaijan and prevent
possible negative developments,” the ministry spokesman said.
Hunanian emphasized that the Armenian side is interested in the implementation
of the mission as soon as possible and continues to make targeted efforts in
this direction.
Pro-Government, Opposition Lawmakers Brawl In Armenian Parliament
August 25, 2021
• Astghik Bedevian
Pro-government and opposition lawmakers threw water battles at each other during
a brawl in the Armenian parliament on August 25, 2021
For the second day in a row security guards have been called into the Armenian
parliament chamber as another brawl between pro-government and opposition
lawmakers broke out during the presentation of the government’s five-year action
plan on Wednesday.
Much of the 2021-2026 program that has been laid out in parliament by Prime
Minister Nikol Pashinian focuses on the new government’s vision of Armenia’s
future in new geopolitical realities in the region created after last year’s
defeat in the war against Azerbaijan in Nagorno-Karabakh.
Hayastan and Pativ Unem, the two opposition factions represented in the
parliament, have been critical of Pashinian and his political team, holding them
responsible for the defeat and describing the government’s program as a pathway
to a new “capitulation.”
Pashinian and majority lawmakers have dismissed such accusations, claiming that
it is Pashinian’s predecessors, namely former presidents Robert Kocharian and
Serzh Sarkisians, with whom the two opposition factions are associated, that are
largely to blame for the defeat.
They argued that by letting them score a landslide victory in the June 20 snap
parliament elections people vindicated Pashinian and his political team, while
passing a guilty verdict on the former governments.
In his speech today Hayk Sargsian, a member of the ruling Civil Contract
faction, in particular, criticized the former governments for their mishandling
of the economy and army affairs that led to large-scale out-migration and a
decrease in the country’s defense capabilities before the 2018 “velvet
revolution.” He said that the new Pashinian government did not have enough time
to redress the situation.
In an apparent reference to opposition criticism that some members of the
current government did not serve in the army, Sargsian said that all former
defense ministers during whose tenures people were exempted from military
service by phone calls were “traitors.”
Sargsian’s remarks sparked a quarrel in the chamber between pro-government and
opposition lawmakers as the main opposition Hayastan faction is led by former
defense minister Seyran Ohanian.
As lawmakers began to throw water bottles at each other, Parliament Speaker Alen
Simonian interrupted the session and called in security guards to restore order
in the chamber.
Several lawmakers, including Civil Contract member Hrachya Hakobian, were
removed from the chamber.
Hakobian later told reporters that the brawl was provoked by Ohanian, who threw
a water bottle in the direction of Sargsian.
Ohanian did not comment immediately on the accusation. He denied any fistfights
inside the session hall where access to media has been restricted since early
August. Ohanian said, however, that his glasses were broken in the jostle.
Another brawl in the parliament between pro-government and opposition members
broke out shortly after the lawmakers resumed work. It began during the speech
of opposition Hayastan faction member Vahe Hakobian. It is seen on the video
that parliament majority and minority deputies exchanged blows during a mass
brawl that followed. Another break in the session was announced and security
guards were called in. Several lawmakers were escorted out of the session hall.
The Prosecutor’s Office later said that the brawls in the Armenian parliament on
Wednesday will become a matter for investigation.
On August 24, opposition lawmakers brawled with security guards after Parliament
Speaker Simonian ordered that Pativ Unem faction member Anna Mkrtchian be
deprived of the floor and removed from the chamber for insulting Prime Minister
Pashinian.
The opposition yesterday accused Pashinian of provoking the incident with his
encouragement of the security guards’ actions. Pashinian dismissed the
accusation, saying that the security guards were doing their duty.
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