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                                        Friday, March 01, 2019

Aliyev, Pashinian To Meet Again
March 01, 2019

Switzerland - Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian (L) and Azerbaijan's 
President Ilham Aliyev meet in Davos, January 22, 2019.

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev 
have agreed to meet soon for further talks on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, 
international mediators said on Friday.

The U.S., Russian and French diplomats co-heading the OSCE Minsk Group made the 
announcement in a joint statement issued more than a week after they held talks 
with Pashinian and Aliyev in Yerevan and Baku. They said they discussed 
“preparations for a meeting of the leaders in the near future, including 
possible topics for discussion.”

“The leaders accepted the Minsk Group Co-Chairs’ proposal to meet soon under 
their auspices,” added the statement. It gave no dates.

Pashinian’s most recent meeting with Aliyev took place on January 22 on the 
sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. It came a week 
after fresh negotiations held by the Armenian and Azerbaijani foreign ministers 
in Paris. According to the mediators, the ministers acknowledged the need for 
“taking concrete measures to prepare the populations for peace.”


Armenia -- Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian (R) meets with the co-chairs of the 
OSCE Minsk Group in Yerevan, February 20, 2019.

Visiting neighboring Iran this week, Pashinian announced that another 
Armenian-Azerbaijani summit will likely be held “soon.” “In essence, it is 
going to be a meeting without an agenda,” he told members of the Armenian 
community of Tehran.

Pashinian sounded pessimistic about chances of decisive progress towards a 
Karabakh settlement. He again declared that he cannot “speak on behalf of 
Karabakh” in the negotiating process.

The Armenian leader also said that Azerbaijan, not Armenia, must be the first 
to tell the international community whether it is prepared for a compromise 
peace accord because it regularly threatens a military solution to the Karabakh 
conflict.

In what may have been a related development, the influential head of Armenia’s 
National Security Service (NSS), Artur Vanetsian, seemed to rule out on 
Thursday major concessions to Baku.

Vanetsian made a point of travelling, together with Karabakh President Bako 
Sahakian, to a formerly Azerbaijani-populated area south of Karabakh. He 
attended a meeting of Karabakh officials that discussed their plans to build a 
new settlement and cultivate more agricultural land in the area bordering Iran.

“As a result of implementing this project we will send a clear message to the 
Armenian people and the outside world to the effect that we do not intend to 
give back a single inch of land,” Vanetsian said at that meeting.

Pashinian similarly stated on January 30 that the Armenian side will not agree 
to make territorial concessions Azerbaijan in return for mere peace in the 
region. “We can’t even discuss the lands-for-peace formula,” he said.

The Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry criticized those remarks, saying that 
“withdrawal of Armenian troops from the occupied Azerbaijani territories” has 
long been at the heart of the peace process mediated by the United States, 
Russia and France.

Over the past decade, the mediating powers have advanced a framework accord 
calling for the liberation of virtually all districts around Karabakh that were 
occupied by Karabakh Armenian forces during the 1991-1994 war. In return, 
Karabakh’s predominantly Armenian population would determine the disputed 
territory’s internationally recognized status in a future referendum.




Ex-Mayor Freed After Hefty Payment
March 01, 2019

Armenia -The Investigative Committee headquarters in Yerevan.

The former longtime mayor of the Armenian town of Hrazdan has been released 
from custody after agreeing to return over 102 million drams ($210,000) in 
public funds which he had allegedly embezzled while in office.

Aram Danielian was arrested on Tuesday in connection with what law-enforcement 
authorities described as misuse of land and property taxes collected by the 
Hrazdan municipality in 2015-2018. The former head of a municipality division 
tasked with tax collection was also arrested on suspicion of embezzling the 
money.

Through his lawyer, Danielian denied any wrongdoing on Wednesday. The lawyer, 
Aleksandr Sirunian, said his client could only be faulted for allowing other 
local officials to waste or pocket the collected taxes.

Armenia’s Investigative Committee announced on Friday that Danielian “accepted 
his guilt,” “recovered the 102.2 million-dram damage inflicted on the state,” 
and was set free as a result of that on Thursday. “The investigation is 
continuing,” it said in a statement.

The law-enforcement agency did not specify whether it will bring criminal 
charges against the other suspect.

A member of former President Serzh Sarkisian’s Republican Party, Danielian ran 
the town located 45 kilometers north of Yerevan for over 15 years. He resigned 
in July two months after Sarkisian was ousted from power during the “velvet 
revolution” led by Nikol Pashinian, Armenia’s current prime minister.




Thousands Mark 2008 Violence Anniversary In Yerevan
March 01, 2019
        • Karlen Aslanian

Armenia - Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian leads a demonstration on the 11th 
anniversary of deadly post-election violence in Yerevan, March 1, 2019.

Thousands of people led by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian marched through 
central Yerevan on Friday to mark the 11th anniversary of the breakup of 
post-election protests in Armenia’s capital which left ten people dead.

The crowd silently walked from the city’s Liberty Square to the site of violent 
clashes between security forces and opposition protests which broke out on 
March 1, 2008. Pashinian laid flowers there, as did many other demonstrators.

“Today, on March 1, 2019, I want to make it clear that the return to the past 
is impossible in our country,” Pashinian declared in an address to the nation 
aired earlier in the day. “Armenia will not return to corruption, political 
persecutions, political violence and abuse.”

Pashinian urged Armenians to join him in paying respects to the victims of the 
worst street violence in Armenia’s history and “all political killings” 
committed since the country’s independence.

The 2008 unrest resulted from a disputed presidential election which formalized 
the handover of power from outgoing President Robert Kocharian to his preferred 
successor, Serzh Sarkisian. The main opposition presidential candidate, Levon 
Ter-Petrosian, refused to concede defeat, alleging serious fraud.


Armenia - Thousands of people mark the 11th anniversary of deadly post-election 
violence in Yerevan, March 1, 2019.

Ter-Petrosian supporters held nonstop rallies in Liberty Square until they were 
forcibly dispersed by riot police early on March 1, 2008. Thousands of them 
gathered and barricaded themselves elsewhere in the city center later on that 
day. Pashinian, then a newspaper editor, was among Ter-Petrosian associates who 
addressed them there.

Eight protesters and two policemen died in ensuing clashes. Citing the 
violence, Kocharian declared a state of emergency and ordered army units into 
Yerevan late on March 1, 2008.

The former Armenian authorities accused the Ter-Petrosian-led opposition of 
organizing the “mass disturbances” in a bid to seize power. Dozens of 
Ter-Petrosian allies, including Pashinian, were jailed on charges strongly 
denied by them.

Armenia’s Special Investigative Service (SIS) completely changed the official 
version of events shortly last spring’s “velvet revolution” which brought 
Pashinian to power. It now says that Kocharian illegally used the military 
against the protesters.

Kocharian was arrested in December five months after being charged with 
overthrowing the constitutional order. The ex-president denies the accusations 
as politically motivated, alleging a “vendetta” waged by Pashinian.

The SIS has also indicted but not arrested three retired Armenian generals. 
They and Kocharian could go on trial already this spring.


Armenia - A police officer lays flowers at an unofficial memorial to the 
victims of the 2008 post-election violence in Yerevan, March 1, 2019.

In his statement, Pashinian condemned the former regime for using “illegal 
force” against the protesters but did not mention Kocharian or any other 
suspects by name. He read out the names of the ten victims of the bloodshed 
instead. “The shots fired on the victims of March 1 were targeted at each of 
us,” he said.

Ter-Petrosian’s Armenian National Congress (HAK), from which Pashinian split in 
2013, welcomed the premier’s decision to organize Friday’s march. The party’s 
deputy chairman, Levon Zurabian, and other senior members participated in it. 
But Ter-Petrosian himself did not show up.

Zurabian hailed the criminal charges brought against Kocharian and the 
generals. “Everything is clear,” he told reporters. “The constitutional order 
was overthrown and the army was used against the people.”

Unlike the HAK, the two opposition parties represented in the current Armenian 
parliament, Prosperous Armenia (BHK) and Bright Armenia (LHK), declined to join 
the Pashinian-led demonstration. Some of their senior representatives accused 
the premier of using the unrest anniversary for political purposes.

The BHK and LHK leaders laid flowers at an unofficial memorial to the March 
2008 victims earlier on Friday.




Press Review
March 01, 2019


“Zhoghovurd” carries a commentary on the 11th anniversary of the 2008 
post-election violence in Yerevan. The paper says that Armenia’s former 
authorities “did everything to cover up” the use of lethal force against 
opposition protesters and its consequences, blaming the bloodshed on Levon 
Ter-Petrosian and his associates. It welcomes a renewed and very different 
investigation into those tragic events which began after last year’s “velvet 
revolution.” “It is imperative to clear up all circumstances and hold the 
guilty accountable,” it says. “And this must be done in a way that will leave 
no doubts about the impartiality of judges and investigators [dealing with the 
case.]”

“Aravot” disagrees with those who say that the March 2008 tragedy in Yerevan 
must not be “politicized.” “That tragedy was a direct consequence of political 
events and, more precisely, rigged elections,” argues the paper. Having said 
that, it goes on, all political forces must acknowledge that “the practice of 
falsifying elections began in 1995” and that “the electoral process was 
accompanied by violence from that moment on.” “It’s just that [former President 
Robert] Kocharian went beyond all limits with his trademark brutality and 
vengefulness,” it says.

Lragir.am comments on Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s latest statements on the 
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. Visiting Iran, Pashinian said that Armenia will 
continue to seek international recognition of Karabakh’s right to 
self-determination and its greater role in Armenian-Azerbaijani peace talks. A 
senior aide to Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev responded by ruling out any 
change in the current negotiating format. The online publication sees “two ways 
out of this situation.” “Either the negotiations will be frozen until the 
parties change their motivation or one of them will blink and cannons will 
start firing,” it says.

(Lilit Harutiunian)

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