Author: Babken Chilingarian

                                        Tuesday, 

Tsarukian Bloc `Undecided' On Next Armenian President


 . Tatevik Lazarian


Armenia - Businessman Gagik Tsarukian speaks at an election campaign
rally in Yerevan, 28Mar2017.

A senior representative of businessman Gagik Tsarukian's alliance said
on Tuesday that it has not yet decided whom to nominate or endorse for
the post of Armenia's next president who will be elected by parliament
in March.

"The Tsarukian Bloc does not support anyone at the moment," Gevorg
Petrosian told reporters. "The issue is not on its agenda yet."

Under the Armenian constitution controversially amended in 2015, the
next head of state must be chosen one month before President Serzh
Sarkisian completes his second and final term in early April. The end
of his decade-long rule will be followed by the country's transition
to a parliamentary system of government. It means that Sarkisian's
successor will have largely ceremonial powers.

The opposition Yelk alliance announced last week that it wants to
nominate one of its senior members, Artak Zeynalian, for the job and
will try to secure the Tsarukian Bloc's backing for his candidacy.

The constitution stipulates that only those individuals who are backed
by at least 27 members of the 105-seat National Assembly can run for
president. Yelk holds only 9 parliament seats, compared with 31 seats
controlled by the Tsarukian Bloc. The latter also claims to be in
opposition to Sarkisian.

Petrosian said that Tsarukian and his political team have not yet
discussed Yelk's proposal. "Have they found out whether or not we have
our own candidate?" he said.

"If we do have a candidate the public will naturally be informed about
that," he said. "We may not have one. But just because we don't have a
candidate would not mean that we are obliged to back the Yelk
candidate."

Petrosian also pointedly declined to rule out the possibility of the
Tsarukian Bloc endorsing the presidential candidate to be fielded by
Sarkisian's ruling Republican Party of Armenia (HHK).

The HHK, which controls the parliament majority, has still not
clarified whom its wants to succeed Sarkisian as president of the
republic.

Meanwhile, one of Yelk's leaders, Aram Sargsian, insisted that his
bloc is not challenging Tsarukian to prove his opposition credentials
questioned by many Armenian commentators. "We just want to show that
we deserve to replace the authorities," he said. "As for whether or
not others are in opposition it's up to them to prove that."

Another Yelk leader, Nikol Pashinian, acknowledged last week that the
Yelk candidate is extremely unlikely to get elected. He said Yelk is
primarily keen to show many Armenians that they were wrong to vote for
the HHK in the April 2017 general elections.



NATO Official Sees No Russian Pressure On Armenia


 . Sargis Harutyunyan


Armenia - President Serzh Sarkisian meets with NATO's Deputy Secretary
General Rose Gottemoeller in Yerevan, 18Dec2017.

NATO's Deputy Secretary General Rose Gottemoeller insisted on Tuesday
that she has seen no indications that Russia has tried to prevent
Armenia from forging closer ties with NATO.

In an interview with RFE/RL's Armenian service (Azatutyun.am),
Gottemoeller also again praised the "good and appropriate level of
cooperation" between Yerevan and the U.S.-led alliance.

"I am really quite impressed with what Armenia has done over the years
in terms of partnership with NATO," she said during a visit to
Yerevan.

Gottemoeller singled out the continuing participation of some 155
Armenian soldiers in the NATO-led security missions in Afghanistan and
Kosovo. Armenia contributes more troops to those missions than any
other member of the Russian-led Collective Security Treaty
Organization (CSTO), she stressed.

The deployments in Afghanistan and Kosovo have been part of Armenia's
broader efforts to step up military cooperation with NATO -- and the
United States in particular -- while remaining allied to Russia
politically and militarily. Yerevan pledged to continue deepening ties
with NATO with a fresh Individual Partnership Action Plan (IPAP)
launched in April.

Asked whether she has felt any Russian pressure exerted on the
Armenian leadership in connection with its dealings with NATO,
Gottemoeller said: "No. That's the short answer and that's the true
answer."

Commenting on the possibility of such pressure in the future, she
said: "It's up to the Kremlin. Of course, they always have their own
opinions about things but I really think it is important to stress
that NATO is guided by decisions made by Armenia."

"There is no zero sum game there from our perspective," she added in
reference to Russia's and NATO's ties with the South Caucasus state.

But she also stressed: "It is completely up to Armenia to decide the
speed and intensity of your relationship with NATO."

Gottemoeller met with President Serzh Sarkisian, Foreign Minister
Edward Nalbandian and Defense Minister Vigen Sargsian on
Monday. Sarkisian praised the "developing" Armenia-NATO ties and
thanked the alliance for its "assistance provided to Armenia."

"We will be working together more closely on interoperability, defense
education and defense reform," Gottemoeller said after her talks with
Nalbandian.




First-Ever Farmer Insurance Planned In Armenia


 . Anush Muradian


Armenia - A fruit orchard in Aragatsotn province, 3Sep2014.

The Armenian government announced on Tuesday plans to start gradually
introducing next year a national system of agricultural insurance
increasingly seen as a vital necessity for struggling farmers across
the country.

Thousands of low-income villagers lose their crops each year due to
hailstorms, droughts and other natural disasters. They receive little
compensation from the cash-strapped government.

According to Deputy Agriculture Minister Armen Harutiunian, the
government will launch at the end of 2018 a pilot project that will
insure some farmers growing fruits, vegetables or cereals against one
or two types of risks. The government will subsidize insurance
premiums with a special 10 million-euro ($11.8 million) fund set up
for that purpose, he said.

Germany's state-owned development bank KfW will contribute half of
that money through a grant allocated to the Armenian Finance
Ministry. The two sides signed a relevant agreement in Yerevan on
Monday at a ceremony attended by Prime Minister Karen Karapetian.

"During the first year the [agricultural insurance] bureau will select
the main risks and the main crops for the pilot project," Harutiunian
told a news conference. "In the first phase there will be [insurance
coverage for] maybe one or two risks and several crops: vegetables or
cereals. We will test the system within that framework and see which
model works best."


Armenia -- Deputy Agriculture Minister Armen Harutiunian at a news
conference in Yerevan.
Harutiunian said that the government is inclined to prioritize
hailstorms as the number one natural risk. He also announced that the
Central Bank of Armenia, which is also involved in the effort, is
already "working with" private insurance firms. The latter are
interested in the scheme despite the high risks involved, added the
official.

Harutiunian could not say which rural areas will be first covered by
the agricultural insurance program and whether it will be mandatory or
optional for local farmers. The insurance bureau will work out these
and other details in the coming months, he explained.

Some farmers cautiously welcomed the government plans while warning
that agricultural insurance will not work if it places a heavy
financial burden on them. They also said that it must not be
mandatory.

"It all depends on the amount of premiums," Haykaz Asatrian, a grape
farmer from the southeastern Vayots Dzor province, told RFE/RL's
Armenian service (Azatutyun.am). "Right now villagers finance 90
percent of their agricultural work with loans [extended by commercial
banks.] If they had cash they would already be able to buy insurance."



Press Review



A deputy speaker of the European Parliament, Ryszard Czarnecki, tells
"168 Zham" that the European Union and Armenian may start next year an
official "dialogue" on the liberalization of the EU's visa regime for
Armenian nationals. But Czarnecki also cautions in this regard that
the Armenian government has yet to prove that it has stepped on a
"path of European integration" and can create the kind of living
standards that would discourage Armenians from illegally emigrating to
the EU. "Visa liberalization is not only a great opportunity but also
a great challenge for which a country must be prepared politically and
economically," he says.

"Zhamanak" describes NATO Deputy Secretary General Rose Gottemoeller's
visit to Yerevan as a "remarkable event," saying that it may herald a
"new level of relations" between Armenia and NATO. The paper quotes
Gottemoeller as saying on Monday that Armenia is NATO's sole partner
state that "consistently" contributes troops to the NATO-led missions
in Kosovo and Afghanistan. "Although that participation [by Armenia]
is largely symbolic it receives praise for apparently political
reasons," it says. "From that standpoint, discussions on a new,
military-technical component of the Armenia-NATO relationship probably
reflect that praise by NATO # And that means a new situation in the
region."

"Zhoghovurd" reports that the Armenian parliament will debate on
Tuesday yet another structural change of the judicial system which has
been proposed by the government. Under the government bill, s even
district courts currently operating in Yerevan will be merged into a
single Court of General Jurisdiction. "Thus Armenia's judicial system
will get a body that will have almost as many powers as Administrative
Courts do," writes the paper. It says the main official rationale for
this change is to ensure a more even distribution of criminal and
civil cases among lower-level judges in Yerevan. "But there is no word
on how the change will affect the independence of the courts and the
quality of justice," it adds.

"Haykakan Zhamanak" says that retail prices of butter and pork in
Armenia have soared by over 40 percent since the beginning of this
year. Government officials blame these price hikes on external market
factors. "But these products have been becoming cheaper around the
world for the last few months, and that does not reflect on Armenian
prices in any way," counters the paper. "The reason for that is the
absence of competition."

(Hovannes Movsisian)


Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
Copyright (c) 2017 Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, Inc.
1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.
www.rferl.org