Friday, June 9, 2023
Putin, Pashinian Meet Again
Russia - Russian President Vladimir Putin and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol
Pashinian meet in Sochi, June 9, 2023.
Russian President Vladimir Putin met with Armenian Prime Minister Nikol
Pashinian on Friday for the second time in two weeks to discuss bilateral ties
and the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict.
The talks followed Putin’s collective meeting with the prime ministers of
several ex-Soviet states who held a regular session in the Russian city of Sochi.
“I am very pleased to have the opportunity on the sidelines of today's event to
once again talk about the current situation in bilateral terms and in regional
areas, which we spoke about in such detail at the previous meeting in Moscow,”
Putin told Pashinian in his short opening remarks.
Pashinian said, for his part, that they will discuss the “tense humanitarian
situation” in Nagorno-Karabakh resulting from Azerbaijan’s continuing blockade
of the Lachin corridor.
“By the way, I must emphasize that now food deliveries to Nagorno-Karabakh are
carried out with the help of Russian peacekeepers, and this is a limited amount
of food,” he said.
The Kremlin and the Armenian government’s press office did not report any
details of their ensuing conversation.
RUSSIA -- Russia's President Vladimir Putin (C), Armenia's Prime Minister Nikol
Pashinian (R) and Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliyev (L) meet in Moscow, May
25, 2023.
Putin held separate and trilateral meetings with Pashinian and Azerbaijani
President Ilham Aliyev in Moscow on May 25. The talks focused on the restoration
of transport links between Armenia and Azerbaijan envisaged by a
Russian-brokered agreement that stopped the 2020 war in Karabakh.
The deputy prime ministers of the three states met in Moscow on June 2 to try to
settle what Putin called “purely technical” issues hampering the opening of the
Armenian-Azerbaijani border to commercial traffic. According to an Armenian
government statement, they made “substantial progress” on the functioning of a
railway that would connect Azerbaijan to its Nakhichevan exclave through
Armenia’s Syunik province.
Aliyev and Pashinian met again in Moldova’s capital Chisinau on June 1 for
further discussions of an Armenian-Azerbaijani peace treaty sought by Baku.
European Union chief Charles Michel mediated the talks together with French
President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz.
In was announced in Chisinau that the Armenian and Azerbaijani foreign ministers
will start a new round of negotiations in Washington on June 12 in preparation
for yet another Aliyev-Pashinian encounter which Michel will host in July. The
Washington talks were delayed this week for unknown reasons.
Russia has been very critical of the Western peace efforts. In a televised
interview aired on Friday, Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Galuzin repeated
Moscow’s claims that the United States is using the Karabakh conflict to try to
drive Russia out of the South Caucasus. He also accused Washington of trying to
“subjugate Russia’s partners and allies in a neo-colonial style.”
Karabakh Official Warns Of Another Escalation
• Karlen Aslanian
A view of an Azerbaijani checkpoint recently set up at the entry of the Lachin
corridor, Nagorno-Karabakh's only land link with Armenia, by a bridge across the
Hakari river, May 2, 2023.
Azerbaijan may be preparing the ground for another upsurge in violence, a senior
Nagorno-Karabakh official said on Friday, pointing to increased ceasefire
violations reported from the Karabakh conflict zone in recent weeks.
Tensions along the Armenian-Azerbaijani border and “the line of contact” around
Karabakh have been steadily rising despite major progress reportedly made in
peace talks between Baku and Yerevan. The conflicting sides accuse each other of
violating the ceasefire on a virtually daily basis.
Baku regularly claims that Azerbaijani troops opened fire to stop Karabakh
Armenian forces from fortifying their positions. The authorities in Stepanakert
dismiss this as a smokescreen for justifying systematic Azerbaijani gunfire at
Karabakh farmers and their tractors engaged in agricultural work.
Sergei Ghazarian, the Karabakh foreign minister, said the Azerbaijani claims are
not borne out by daily news bulletins released by Russian peacekeepers in
Karabakh.
“This is just an attempt to exert pressure on the Armenian side, the Artsakh
side with such false allegations and try to use this for justifying a possible
escalation,” Ghazarian told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service.
“Unfortunately, I have to point out that the likelihood of various kinds of
tensions and escalations is quite high,” he said. “These new episodes fit into
that logic.”
Armenian officials and pundits likewise claim that Baku is ratcheting up the
tensions in a bid to clinch more Armenian concessions.
On May 28, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev threatened the Karabakh Armenians
with fresh military action. He said they must dissolve their government bodies
and unconditionally accept Azerbaijani rule.
“Everyone knows that we can carry out any [military] operation in that
territory,” Aliyev warned.
Fallen Soldier’s Mother Freed After Suspend Jail Term
• Robert Zargarian
Armenia - Gayane Hakobian is brought into a courtroom in Yerevan, June 5, 2023.
A woman accused of attempting to “kidnap” Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s son
was freed on Friday after a court in Yerevan gave her a four-year suspended
prison sentence at the end of a short trial.
Gayane Hakobian, whose son Zhora Martirosian was killed during the 2020 war in
Nagorno-Karabakh, walked free because of pleading guilty to the accusation
strongly denied by her until then. She avoided talking to the press after the
announcement of the guilty verdict. The final session of the trial took place
behind the closed doors.
The lawyers who represented Hakobian for the last two weeks said earlier in the
day that she has fired them because of disagreeing with their defense tactic.
They did not deny that she struck a deal with prosecutors.
“There is a conflict between Mrs. Gayane’s and our positions,” one of the
lawyers, Hovsep Sargsian, told reporters. “We planned on continuing our defense
aimed at her acquittal, but Mrs. Gayane is of a different opinion now.”
Hakobian already replaced other lawyers who represented her right after her
arrest on May 17, which sparked angry protests by several dozen other parents of
fallen soldiers and hundreds of their sympathizers. That move fueled speculation
that she is cooperating with what the protesters condemned as a politically
motivated investigation into her argument with Ashot Pashinian.
Armenia - People demonstrate outside a court in Yerevan during a hearing on
Gayane Hakobian's pre-trial arrest, 20 May, 2023.
Armenia’s Investigative Committee charged Hakobian with tricking the prime
minister’s son into getting in her car and trying to drive him to the Yerablur
Military Pantheon where her son was buried along with hundreds of other soldiers
killed in action. Pashinian Jr. jumped out of the car on their way to Yerablur.
The grief-stricken woman insisted at the start of her trial on June 5 that Ashot
Pashinian was not forced into her and that she only wanted to talk to him at
Yerablur.
The high-profile trial began hours after the Court of Appeals moved Hakobian to
house arrest. The lower court judge presiding over the trial promptly issued a
new arrest warrant demanded by the prosecutors and Ashot Pashinian. The latter
told the judge that she committed a “grave crime” and must remain behind bars.
Armenian opposition leaders and other critics of the government claim that Nikol
Pashinian ordered Hakobian’s arrest in a bid to muzzle the families of deceased
soldiers who have staged demonstrations over the past year to demand his
prosecution on war-related charges. Hakobian actively participated in them.
The prime minister triggered the regular demonstrations in April 2022 when he
responded to continuing opposition criticism of his handling of the disastrous
war with Azerbaijan. He said he “could have averted the war, as a result of
which we would have had the same situation, but of course without the
casualties.” The soldiers’ families say Pashinian thus publicly admitted
sacrificing the lives of at least 3,800 Armenian soldiers killed during the
six-week war.
Key Opposition Groups Still Undecided On Yerevan Elections
• Astghik Bedevian
Armenia - Senor lawmakers from the opposition Hayastan and Pativ Unem alliances
talk during a parliament session in Yerevan, August 24, 2021.
Armenia’s two leading opposition forces said on Friday that they have still not
decided whether to run in municipal elections in Yerevan tentatively slated for
September 17.
Residents of the Armenian capital will to go the polls to elect a new municipal
assembly that will in turn appoint the city’s mayor.
The last mayor, Hrachya Sargsian, stepped down on March 17 after only 15 months
in office. Yerevan has since been effectively run by Tigran Avinian, a deputy
mayor nominated by the ruling Civil Contract party for the vacant post.
Avinian has kept a high profile for the last three months, chairing meetings
with municipal officials, issuing instructions to them and talking to ordinary
citizens. Critics accuse him of abusing his position to prematurely conduct his
election campaign. The 34-year-old vice-mayor allied to Prime Minister Nikol
Pashinian has dismissed these claims.
Armenia - Former Deputy Prime Minister Tigran Avinian attends a session of
Yerevan's municipal assembly, September 23, 2022.
“Convincing the people of Yerevan that you really deserve [to become mayor] is a
very difficult task,” he told reporters last month.
It remains unclear whether Avinian and the ruling party will be challenged by
any of the two opposition alliances represented in the Armenian parliament.
Senior members of the Hayastan and Pativ Unem alliances told RFE/RL’s Armenian
Service that they have not even discussed their participation in the polls so
far.
Avinian would also face a serious challenge from Hayk Marutian, whom Pashinian’s
political team had installed as mayor after winning the overwhelming majority of
seats in the city council in 2018. The council ousted Marutian in December 2021
after he fell out with the prime minister.
Armenia - A screenshot of a September 2022 video ad of former Yerevan Mayor Hayk
Marutian's upcoming monodrama.
During his ouster Marutian accused Armenia’s current leaders of betraying the
goals of the 2018 “velvet revolution” that brought them to power. The former TV
comedian, who appears to remain popular with many Yerevan voters, has not yet
announced plans to join the mayoral race.
About a dozen other figures mostly representing fringe parties are expected to
enter the fray. One of those parties, Aprelu Yerkir, is reportedly sponsored by
Ruben Vardanyan, a wealthy businessman and philanthropist who moved to
Nagorno-Karabakh last September.
Earlier this week, Aprelu Yerkir nominated Mane Tandilian, its chairwoman and a
former labor minister in Pashinian’s government, as its mayoral candidate.
Tandilian claimed that she is aiming for “resounding victory” in the municipal
elections which she said would amount to a vote of no confidence in Pashinian’s
administration.
Reposted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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