Thursday,
Yerevan Confirms Azeri 'Discontent' With Armenian Constitution
• Shoghik Galstian
• Karlen Aslanian
Armenia - A copy of the 1990 Declaration of Independence.
Senior Armenian officials have acknowledged that Azerbaijan has objected to
Armenia’s 1990 declaration of independence which Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian
seems intent on removing from the national constitution.
Pashinian declared late last week that Armenia must adopt a constitution
reflecting the “new geopolitical environment” in the region. He emphasized that
in that context the country’s “external security” and “internationally
recognized sovereign territory”.
The preamble to the current Armenian constitution makes reference to the
declaration adopted by the republic’s first post-Communist parliament. The
declaration in turn cites a 1989 unification act adopted by the legislative
bodies of Soviet Armenia and the then Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast. It
also calls for international recognition of the 1915 genocide of Armenians “in
Ottoman Turkey and Western Armenia.”
Analysts and opposition figures believe that eliminating these references is the
main reason for the change of the constitution sought by Pashinian. The latter
also said last week that Armenia is ready to formally pledge that it will not
have any territorial claims to Azerbaijan in the future.
Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan said late on Wednesday that during peace talks
and exchanges of written proposals with Yerevan Baku described the declaration
of independence a “problem” and “presented legal questions” to the Armenian side.
“For our part, we considered their legal provisions contentious,” Mirzoyan told
RFE/RL’s Armenian Service.
“As part of the peace process, each side has noted problems in the other’s legal
framework and informed it about that, and both sides have provided relevant
clarifications,” he said. “There will definitely be such discussions.”
Mirzoyan insisted at the same time that none of the written proposals on an
Armenian-Azerbaijani peace treaty exchanged by the two sides calls for any
constitutional changes.
Opposition leaders and other critics of Pashinian say that he wants to enact a
new constitution at the behest of Azerbaijan. Five lawmakers representing the
main opposition Hayastan alliance issued on January 19 a joint statement
accusing the premier of planning to meet “another of the nonstop
Turkish-Azerbaijani demands.”
Vahagn Aleksanian, a deputy chairman of Pashinian’s Civil Contract party, denied
the opposition claims on Thursday. Still, Aleksanian said that Baku has voiced
“discontent” with the 1990 Armenian declaration and that it “could and should be
taken into account.”
“By the same token, Baku should take into account what is stated by Armenia,” he
told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service.
The Azerbaijani leadership has indicated no plans to address Armenian concerns.
Mirzoyan spoke on January 10 of “some regression” in its position on the peace
treaty. He said Baku is reluctant to explicitly recognize Armenia’s borders
through that accord.
In televised remarks aired hours later, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev
renewed his demands for Armenia to open an extraterritorial corridor to
Azerbaijan’s Nakhichevan exclave. He also demanded Armenian withdrawal from
“eight Azerbaijani villages” and again dismissed Yerevan’s insistence on using
the most recent Soviet maps to delimit the Armenian-Azerbaijani border.
Pashinian countered that Aliyev’s demands amount to territorial claims and
seriously complicate the signing of the treaty. He went to make his statements
on the new Armenian constitution and additional “guarantees” to Azerbaijan.
Armenian Court Overturns Entry Bans For Diaspora Leaders
• Artak Khulian
France - President Emmanuel Macron, Mourad Papazian (right) and other
French-Armenian leaders visit the Armenian genocide memorial, Paris.
A court in Yerevan has overturned entry bans imposed by Armenia’s government on
two Armenian Diaspora leaders from Europe highly critical of Prime Minister
Nikol Pashinian.
The two men, Mourad Papazian and Massis Abrahamian, lead the pan-Armenian
Dashnaktsutyun party’s chapters in France and the Netherlands respectively. They
were deported from Armenia on their arrival at Yerevan’s Zvartnots airport in
July 2022.
The Armenian government said afterwards that Papazian was denied entry to the
country because of organizing an angry demonstration against Pashinian’s June
2021 visit to France. It said the protesters threw “various objects” at
Pashinian’s motorcade when it drove through Paris. Papazian, who is also the
co-chairman of an umbrella structure representing France’s influential Armenian
community, denied any involvement in that protest.
The government never explained the entry bans for Abrahamian as well as at three
other Dashnaktsutyun activists.
Dashnaktsutyun, which is a key member of Armenia’s main opposition alliance,
strongly condemned the bans and accused Pashinian of seeking to silence his
vocal critics in the worldwide Armenian Diaspora.
All five blacklisted activists have challenged the authorities’ refusal to let
them visit Armenia in local courts. In separate rulings handed down in recent
days, the Administrative Court ordered the country’s National Security Service
(NSS) to remove Papazian and Abrahamian from its list of “undesirable” foreign
nationals.
The NSS declined to clarify on Thursday whether it will appeal against the
rulings. Ruben Melikian, a lawyer representing Papazian and Abrahamian,
suggested that it will likely file such appeals.
“But I still harbor small hope that the NSS will try to find a solution to this
matter after looking into it,” Melikian told a news conference.
During the court hearings, the security service did not present any grounds for
the travel bans, he said, adding that this is the reason why the Administrative
Court overturned them.
Azerbaijan Frozen Out Of PACE
France - Flags wave outside the Council of Europe building in Strasbourg, France
March 14, 2022.
The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) has effectively
suspended Azerbaijan’s membership in the Strasbourg-based legislative body,
citing, among other things, last September’s Azerbaijani military offensive in
Nagorno-Karabakh.
The PACE refused to ratify the credentials of its Azerbaijani members in a
resolution adopted late on Wednesday. It said Baku has failed to fulfill “major
commitments” to the Council of Europe and still has a poor human rights record.
The PACE also pointed to its two earlier resolutions that condemned the
Azerbaijani blockade of the Lachin corridor and the September 19-20 military
offensive that restored Azerbaijani control over Karabakh and forced the
region’s population to flee to Armenia. It said “allegations of ‘ethnic
cleansing’ cannot be unaddressed by the Assembly.”
In anticipation of that decision, Azerbaijan said earlier on Wednesday that it
will “cease its engagement with and presence at the PACE until further notice.”
The Azerbaijani parliamentary delegation in Strasbourg accused the PACE of
exhibiting “Azerbaijanophobia and Islamophobia” and creating an “unbearable
atmosphere” in the organization.
The PACE decision came two days after the European Union expressed serious
concern at what its foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, described as
territorial claims to Armenia made by Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev.
Borrell warned that any violation of Armenia’s territorial integrity would have
“severe consequences for our relations with Azerbaijan.” The Azerbaijani Foreign
Ministry rejected the warning, accusing the chief EU diplomat of “blatant
misinterpretation of facts.”
Aliyev on January 10 rejected a proposal by Armenia to use Soviet-era maps drawn
in the 1970s to delineate the Armenian-Azerbaijani border, claiming that
Azerbaijani territories had been handed to Armenia by the Soviet authorities.
Yerevan said this and other comments made by Aliyev undermined prospects for a
peace treaty between the two South Caucasus nations.
Reposted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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