Author: Arbi Tashjian

                                        Monday, 

Tsarukian Disavows Ally’s Support For Kocharian

        • Ruzanna Stepanian

Armenia - Gyumri Mayor Vartan Ghukasian speaks at an event in 2012.

Gagik Tsarukian on Monday warned parliament deputies from his Prosperous 
Armenia Party (BHK) against publicly expressing their personal opinions after 
one of them voiced support for the indicted former President Robert Kocharian.

“I stand for freedom for Robert Kocharian,” the lawmaker, Vartan Ghukasian, 
said late last week amid continuing political fallout from an Armenian court’s 
May 18 decision to free the ex-president from custody.

The statement led Tsarukian to hold an emergency meeting of the BHK’s 
parliamentary group, the second largest in the National Assembly.

“For that reason I held today a meeting during which I warned everyone that 
nobody has the right to express their personal opinion,” the BHK leader told 
reporters. BHK deputies should make public statements on various issues only if 
the opposition party formulates a position on them, he said.

A senior BHK figure, Naira Zohrabian, stressed that Ghukasian’s remark does not 
reflect the party line. “That is Mr. Ghukasian’s personal opinion, and I can 
reaffirm today that it is not the BHK faction’s opinion,” she said.

Zohrabian also told RFE/RL’s Armenian service that Ghukasian did not attend the 
faction meeting chaired by Tsarukian.

Ghukasian, 58, served as mayor of Armenia’s second largest city of Gyumri 
during and after Kocharian’s 1998-2008 presidency. He strongly supported the 
ex-president who was arrested last year on charges stemming from the 2008 
post-election violence in Yerevan.


Armenia - Former President Robert Kocharian (second from right) and Prosperous 
Armenia Party leader Gagik Tsarukian at an awards ceremony organized for 
prominent Armenian athletes near Yerevan, 26Dec2013.

Tsarukian likewise had a cordial rapport with Kocharian. But both he and his 
party have sought to distance themselves from the latter since last spring’s 
“velvet revolution” which brought Nikol Pashinian to power. They have pointedly 
declined to criticize Kocharian’s prosecution as politically motivated.

“The BHK view is that in the new Armenia political processes must not be mixed 
with legal processes,” said Zohrabian. “It’s a totally legal process. We want 
to be sure that there is and there will be no political pressure on legal 
processes.”

Tsarukian was irked on May 29 by a reporter’s remark that Kocharian had helped 
him make a big fortune. “I don’t have obligations to anyone,” he stated in that 
regard.



Deadly Truce Violations Reported In Karabakh


Nagorno-Karabakh -- Ethnic Armenian soldiers walk in a trench at their position 
near Nagorno-Karabakh's boundary, April 8, 2016

Armenia and Azerbaijan have accused each other of trying to torpedo peace talks 
on Nagorno-Karabakh after reporting the most serious ceasefire violations in 
the Karabakh conflict zone in months.

The Azerbaijani military said on Thursday one of its servicemen, was shot and 
killed by enemy fire near Karabakh. The victim identified as Aqil Omarov was 
reportedly a mid-ranking officer.

The Foreign Ministry in Baku seized upon the reported incident to accuse 
Armenia of seeking to scuttle more high-level negotiations planned by the two 
sides.

Karabakh’s Armenian-backed Defense Army insisted that its troops did not breach 
the ceasefire at any section of “the line of contact.” The army reported a 
sharp rise in Azerbaijani truce violations on the night from Friday to 
Saturday. One of its soldiers, Sipan Melkonian, died as a result.

In a weekend statement, Armenia’s Foreign Ministry accused Azerbaijan of 
deliberately “escalating the situation” and said its actions represent a 
“serious setback for all the efforts taken over the past months.” The statement 
also questioned Baku’s commitment to confidence-building understandings reached 
by Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian and Azerbaijani President Ilham 
Aliyev.

Aliyev’s and Pashinian’s first face-to-face meeting held in Tajikistan in 
September was followed by a significant decrease in ceasefire violations.

The Azerbaijani side brushed aside the “emotional” and “contradictory” 
statement. It said Armenian “occupation of Azerbaijani lands” is the root cause 
of the Karabakh conflict and resulting casualties.

The tensions around Karabakh rose as U.S., Russian and French mediators 
co-heading the OSCE Minsk Group wrapped up their latest tour of the conflict 
zone with a meeting with Aliyev held in Baku. “The Co-Chairs expressed deep 
concern about recent casualties and called on the parties to exercise maximum 
restraint to avoid escalation,” read a joint statement released by them.

Commenting on their talks in Yerevan, Stepanakert and Baku, the mediators said 
they presented the conflicting parties with “proposals for concrete next steps 
in the settlement process.” “The Foreign Ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan 
accepted the Co-Chairs’ proposal to meet soon under their auspices, and will 
announce details at the appropriate time,” added their statement.

The date and venue of the ministers’ meeting has not been announced yet.



Judge Declines To Deal With Kocharian’s Immunity Claim

        • Naira Nalbandian

Armenia -- Judge Vazgen Rshtuni holds a court hearing in Yerevan, June 3, 2019.

The chairman of Armenia’s Court of Appeals, Vazgen Rshtuni, accepted on Monday 
prosecutors’ demand that he recuse himself from hearings on immunity from 
prosecution claimed by former President Robert Kocharian.

Kocharian and his legal team cite an article of the Armenian constitution which 
stipulates: “During the term of his or her powers and thereafter, the President 
of the Republic may not be prosecuted and subjected to liability for actions 
deriving from his or her status.”

Earlier this year they asked a district court in Yerevan to free the 
ex-president and throw out coup charges brought against him in connection with 
the 2008 post-election violence in Yerevan.

The court ruled on April 12, however, that Kocharian cannot be protected from 
prosecution. It thus accepted prosecutors’ claims that the constitutional 
provision does not apply to him because his actions in February-March 2008 were 
illegal.

Kocharian and his lawyers appealed against that ruling before the case was 
assigned to Rshtuni.

Hrach Musheghian, a senior law-enforcement official leading a probe of the 2008 
violence, said last week that Rshtuni cannot be impartial because he publicly 
approved of another Court of Appeals judge’s decision in August to free 
Kocharian from custody and uphold his immunity from prosecution. The 
prosecution backed Musheghian’s demand.

But one of Kocharian’s lawyers, Samvel Khudoyan, objected to it. “In my view, 
the consideration of our appeal has nothing to do with the opinion expressed by 
[Rshtuni,]” Khudoyan told RFE/RL’s Armenian service (Azatutyun.am) on Monday.

Nevertheless, Rshtuni agreed to have another judge consider and rule on the 
appeal. He argued that “one of the parties to the trial lacks trust in me.”

Rshtuni also pointed to media allegations that he was instrumental in the May 
18 decision by a district court judge, Davit Grigorian, to order Kocharian 
released from prison pending a verdict in the high-profile case. Rshtuni, who 
has strongly denied the allegations, said he wants to be exonerated by 
“relevant bodies.”

Grigorian also controversially decided to suspend Kocharian’s trial which began 
on May 13. He cited a “suspicion of discrepancy” between the Armenian 
constitution and the charges. And he suggested that the constitution does give 
the ex-president immunity from prosecution.



Parliament Panel To Investigate 2016 War In Karabakh

        • Ruzanna Stepanian

Nagorno-Karabakh -- Ethnic Armenian soldiers stand next to a cannon at 
artillery positions near the Nagorno-Karabakh's town of Martuni, April 7, 2016

The pro-government majority in Armenia’s National Assembly has set up an ad hoc 
parliamentary commission tasked with investigating the April 2016 war in 
Nagorno-Karabakh.

Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian called for the creation of such a commission on 
May 20 as he lambasted the Armenian judiciary and accused it of having ties 
with the country’s former leadership.

Pashinian claimed that “specific forces representing the former corrupt system” 
are also “using their corrupt connections to carry out false propaganda” 
against him in Karabakh. He suggested that they are intent on provoking a war 
with Azerbaijan, losing “some territories” to the enemy and blaming that defeat 
on his government.

Pashinian did not name anyone involved in the alleged conspiracy. He announced 
instead that “the time has come to form an investigative parliamentary 
commission to examine circumstances of the April 2016 war and find answers to a 
number of questions preoccupying us.”

Some opposition politicians and other critics of the Armenian government 
denounced Pashinian’s statement, saying that the prime minister is playing the 
Karabakh card for domestic political purposes.

The commission was formally set up late last week after 47 deputies 
representing Pashinian’s My Step alliance signed a petition in support of its 
creation. It will be headed by Andranik Kocharian, the pro-government chairman 
of a standing parliament committee on defense and security, and also comprise 
10 other lawmakers.

The commission, which will hold its first meeting on Tuesday, is specifically 
tasked with scrutinizing the Armenian military’s response to an Azerbaijani 
offensive in Karabakh that led to the four-day hostilities, which left around 
80 Armenian soldiers and volunteers dead. It will not only be able to question 
senior government and military officials but also have access to classified 
documents.

Four of the commission members are supposed to be named by the opposition 
Prosperous Armenia (BHK) and Bright Armenia (LHK) parties.

Naira Zohrabian, a senior BHK parliamentarian, hit out at the parliament 
majority on Monday, saying that it did not consult with her party before 
setting up the special panel.

“Nobody from My Step approached us,” Zohrabian told RFE/RL’s Armenian service. 
“Moreover, we learned from the media that the investigative commission has been 
created by the signatures of 47 My Step deputies. I regard this as [a 
manifestation of] a non-businesslike atmosphere in the parliament.”

My Step’s parliamentary leader, Lilit Makunts, dismissed the criticism. She 
said that the parliament majority has followed legal procedures and 
requirements regulating the formation of such commissions.


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