RFE/RL Armenian Report – 07/28/2022

                                        Thursday, 


Freed Oppositionist’s Brother Quits Armenian Central Bank


Armenia -- The Central Bank building in Yerevan.


A senior official from Armenia’s Central Bank announced his resignation on 
Thursday the day after prosecutors refrained from trying to extend the detention 
of his brother and opposition figure Avetik Chalabian.

Chalabian was released from prison late on Wednesday more than two months after 
being arrested on what he calls trumped-up charges resulting from his political 
activities.

Chalabian’s younger brother Ara has until now headed the Central Bank’s 
Department of Corporate Services and Development. Armenian news websites claimed 
earlier this month that the Central Bank governor, Martin Galstian, has told him 
to step down, citing an order from Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian.

An article subsequently posted on Hetq.am said the brothers’ father made the 
same allegation in a private conversation. It said Galstian told Ara Chalabian 
that he himself will have to resign if the latter refuses to quit.

The Central Bank’s press service did not confirm or refute those reports when it 
was contacted by RFE/RL’s Armenian earlier this week. Pashinian’s office has 
declined to comment on them.

Armenia - Central Bank governor Martin Galstian.

Ara Chalabian gave no reasons for his resignation when he announced it on 
Facebook.

“Starting today, I am no longer working at the Central Bank of Armenia, where I 
have been for quite a time, received and given back a lot,” he wrote. “I 
celebrate the freedom in my life and will conquer the world, as one of my good 
colleagues likes to say.”

Avetik Chalabian made no explicit mention of his brother’s exit from the bank in 
a Facebook post made two hours later. He said only that the Armenian authorities 
“will try to continue their campaign against me and members of my family” who 
already “have borne the brunt” of it.

Chalabian was set free immediately after the expiry of the maximum period of his 
arrest. Prosecutors did not ask a court to extend it.

Chalabian, who leads a small opposition party, was arrested on May 13 on charges 
of trying to pay university students to participate in daily anti-government 
demonstrations in Yerevan. The 49-year-old rejects the charges as government 
retribution for his active participation in the protests aimed at forcing 
Pashinian to resign. The prosecutors deny any political motives.



Baku Accused Of Truce Violations In Karabakh, On Armenian Border

        • Naira Nalbandian

Nagorno-Karabakh - A house window in the village of Karmir Shuka piereced by 
bullets, Juy 28, 2022.


Azerbaijani forces opened fire at two villages in Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenian 
army positions on Armenia’s border with Azerbaijan, authorities in Yerevan and 
Stepanakert said on Thursday.

The Azerbaijani Defense Ministry was quick to deny violating the ceasefire 
regime and accuse the Armenian side of spreading “disinformation.”

According to Karabakh officials, the Armenian-populated villages of Karmir Shuka 
and Taghavard came under “intense” Azerbaijani gunfire that lasted for 20 
minutes. None of their residents was injured as a result.

Karabakh’s human rights ombudsman, Gegham Stepanian, said the small arms fire 
damaged a house in Karmir Shuka. He released a photograph of one of its windows 
pierced by two bullets.

“There is no gunfire at the moment and the villagers are going about their 
business,” a spokesman for the Karabakh interior ministry said, adding that 
Russian peacekeepers in Karabakh have been informed about the incident.

A Taghavard resident, Sergei Gevorgian, confirmed the reported shooting. “Nobody 
has left the village. We are already used [to such incidents,]” he told RFE/RL’s 
Armenian Service.

It was the first serious armed incident reported in Karabakh since March.

Nagorno Karabakh - A road sign outside the village of Taghavard, March 30, 2022.

Armenia’s Defense Ministry reported, meanwhile, an Azerbaijani truce violation 
at one section of the Armenian-Azerbaijani border. Armenian troops guarding the 
border section returned fire, it said, adding that none of them was hurt in the 
skirmish.

The shootings incidents were reported amid what a senior Armenian lawmaker 
described earlier this week as preparations for another meeting of Armenian 
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken held phone calls with both leaders on 
Monday. Blinken tweeted afterwards that he sees a “historic opportunity to 
achieve peace in the region.”

Tigran Grigorian, an Armenian political analyst, suggested that the reported 
truce violations signify the Azerbaijani leadership’s dissatisfaction with the 
current state of the peace process. He said Baku may be trying to ratchet up 
tensions in the Karabakh conflict zone in a bid to “clinch diplomatic-political 
concessions from Armenia.”



UN Official Removes Tweet On Visit To Armenian Genocide Memorial

        • Artak Khulian

Armenia - UN General Assembly President Abdulla Shahid (right) visits the 
Armenian genocide memorial in Yerevan, .


UN General Assembly President Abdulla Shahid has deleted a tweet about his visit 
to the Armenian genocide memorial in Yerevan condemned by Turkey.

Shahid, who is also the foreign minister of Maldives, arrived in Armenia on 
Tuesday on a three-day trip involving talks with the country’s president, 
foreign minister and senior lawmakers.

On Wednesday, he visited the Tsitsernakabert memorial to some 1.5 million 
Armenians massacred by the Ottoman Turks during the First World War. He also 
toured the adjacent Museum-Institute of the Armenian Genocide.

“Laid a wreath at the Memorial to the Victims of Armenian Genocide,” Shahid 
tweeted afterwards. “Special thanks to Museum-Institute Director Harutyun 
Marutian & Hasmik Martirosian for a tour of the Museum.”

The post was removed several hours later. Shahid on Thursday refused to comment 
on that.

Reacting to his tweet, the Turkish Foreign Ministry charged on Wednesday that 
Shahid’s trip to Armenia was “exploited with the purpose of exposing one-sided 
Armenian claims” about the events of 1915.

“Mr. Shahid, who assumes the Presidency of the UN General Assembly, would have 
been expected to act in a fair and impartial manner, to be more careful and 
responsible in this regard,” said in a statement.

The Armenian government did not respond to Ankara as of Thursday afternoon.

Shahid met with Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan earlier in the day. The two men 
also attended and addressed a graduation ceremony held at the Armenian Foreign 
Ministry’s Diplomatic School.

The Armenian genocide has been recognized by the governments and/or parliaments 
of more than two dozen nations, including France, Germany, Russia and the United 
States.

Turkey has for decades denied a premeditated government effort to exterminate 
the Ottoman Empire’s Armenian population. The vehement Turkish denials are 
dismissed by most scholars outside Turkey.



Vanadzor Election Winner Transferred From Prison To Hospital

        • Naira Bulghadarian

Armenia - Former Vanadzor Mayor Mamikon Aslanian stands trial, June 10, 2022.


A former Armenian mayor arrested after defeating the ruling Civil Contract in a 
local election in Vanadzor last December has been hospitalized following a 
reported deterioration of his health.

Mamikon Aslanian, who ran Armenia’s third largest city from 2016-2021, was 
transferred from prison to a medical center in Yerevan on Wednesday after what 
one of his lawyers described as “drastic fluctuations” of his blood pressure.

“Medical examinations [of his condition] have been going on since yesterday,” 
the lawyer, Yervand Varosian, told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service on Thursday.

Varosian said his client’s health problems have been aggravated by his 
seven-month imprisonment strongly condemned by the Armenian opposition.

An opposition bloc led by Aslanian essentially won a municipal election in 
Vanadzor with about 39 percent of the vote. Civil Contract finished second with 
25 percent in what was the most serious of setbacks suffered by Prime Minister 
Nikol Pashinian’s party in nationwide local polls held on December 5.

Armenia - The building of the Vanadzor municipality, December 13, 2021.

Aslanian was thus well-placed to regain his post. But he was arrested on 
December 15, with law-enforcement authorities saying that he illegally 
privatized municipal land during his five-year tenure.

The 48-year-old ex-mayor insisted that the charges leveled against him are 
politically motivated when he went on trial on June 10.

His lawyers petitioned a Vanadzor judge presiding over the trial to release him 
from custody pending a verdict in the case. The judge refused to do that, saying 
that Aslanian could pressure witnesses in the case if set free.

Varosian brushed aside the explanation, arguing that the criminal case is based 
on purported documentary evidence submitted by prosecutors. “So it doesn’t 
really matter what testimony witnesses will or will not give in the court,” he 
said.

Armenia - Opposition supporters hold pictures of former Vanadzor Mayor Mamikon 
Aslanian and other arrested opposition members during a demonstration in 
Yerevan, December 17, 2021.

Aslanian’s supporters as well as opposition figures in Yerevan claim that 
Pashinian ordered the ex-mayor’s arrest and prosecution to make sure that the 
Vanadzor municipality remains under his control. The prime minister, they say, 
thus effectively overturned the local election results.

Vanadzor’s new municipal council has still not been able to meet and elect the 
city’s new mayor. Armenia’s Administrative Council has banned the council from 
holding sessions, citing an appeal against the election results lodged by 
another pro-government party, Bright Armenia.

The ban remains in force even though the appeal was rejected by two other courts 
earlier this year. Bright Armenia, which fared poorly in the December polls, 
appealed to the higher Court of Cassation. The court has still not ruled on the 
complaint.


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

“I should like to see any power of the world destroy this race, this small tribe of unimportant people, whose wars have all been fought and lost, whose structures have crumbled, literature is unread, music is unheard, and prayers are no more answered. Go ahead, destroy Armenia . See if you can do it. Send them into the desert without bread or water. Burn their homes and churches. Then see if they will not laugh, sing and pray again. For when two of them meet anywhere in the world, see if they will not create a New Armenia.” - WS