Author: Emil Karabekian

                                        Tuesday, February 8, 2022


Putin, Macron Vow More Karabakh Peace Efforts

        • Aza Babayan

Russia - Russian President Vladimir Putin and French President Emmanuel Macron 
attend a joint press conference, in Moscow, February 7, 2022.


Russian President Vladimir Putin and his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron have 
pledged to continue jointly seeking an end to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict 
through the OSCE Minsk Group co-headed by their countries and the United States.

Putin and Macron met in Moscow on late Monday for talks that focused on the 
deepening crisis over Ukraine. They said after the nearly six-hour talks that 
the Karabakh issue was also on the agenda.

“We reaffirmed the importance of the work of the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs, 
including for solving pressing humanitarian and socioeconomic issues in the 
region,” Putin told a joint news conference.

Macron likewise said Moscow and Paris are keeping up joint efforts within the 
Minsk Group framework.

Azerbaijan’s Ilham Aliyev last month mocked the U.S., Russian and French 
diplomats leading the Minsk Group and questioned the wisdom of their continued 
activities.

“They must not deal with the Karabakh conflict because that conflict has been 
resolved,” Aliyev said, again pointing to the outcome of the 2020 war with 
Armenia.

A senior Russian diplomat said a few days later that the U.S., Russian and 
French mediators should be able to resume their visits to Karabakh. Armenian 
officials backed that statement.

The U.S. ambassador in Yerevan, Lynne Tracy, insisted last week that the 
conflict remains unresolved. An Armenian government statement cited her as 
backing continued peace efforts “under the aegis of the co-chairmanship of the 
OSCE Minsk Group.”



Parliament Majority Blocks Rise In Minimum Wage

        • Anush Mkrtchian

Armenia - A session of the National Assembly, Yerevan, December 7, 2021


The Armenian parliament rejected on Tuesday an opposition proposal to increase 
the national minimum wage by about 50 percent.

A bill drafted by lawmakers from the main opposition Hayastan alliance would 
raise it from 68,000 drams ($140) to 100,000 drams per month. They say that the 
measure is needed to offset the increased cost of living which has hit Armenia’s 
low-income families particularly hard.

“The cost of the minimum consumer basket rose by 21.7 percent, to 73,400 drams, 
last year,” said Hayastan’s Aghvan Vartanian, the main author of the bill. 
"Water, gas and electricity became more expensive. Consumer prices went up by 
[an average of] 7.2 percent while food prices by 11.7 percent [in 2021.]”

The pro-government majority in the National Assembly refused to even include the 
bill on the parliament agenda. Deputies representing it said the sharp rise 
sought by the opposition would be premature. Babken Tunian, the chairman of the 
parliament committee on economic issues, said that it would reflect negatively 
on Armenian businesses and ultimately hurt the poor as well.

The minimum wage was most recently raised more than two years ago. Consumer 
prices in Armenia have risen significantly since then, largely reflecting a 
global trend.

A senior official said last November that the government is planning to 
gradually bring the minimum wage to 85,000 drams by 2026. It will “take the 
first steps” in that direction in 2023, he said.

According to the government’s Statistical Committee, the median monthly wage in 
Armenia reached 204,000 drams ($425) last year. Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian 
said last week that it has risen by about 25 percent since 2018. But he 
acknowledged that higher-than-projected inflation practically nullified the gain.



U.S. Agency ‘Deeply Concerned’ About Karabakh Churches

        • Sargis Harutyunyan

NAGORNO-KARABAKH -- A view shows Ghazanchetsots Cathedral damaged by recent 
shelling during a military conflict over the breakaway region of 
Nagorno-Karabakh, in Shushi/Shusha. October 8, 2020


A U.S. government agency has expressed serious concern over the Azerbaijani 
government’s plans to erase Armenian inscriptions from churches in areas in and 
around Nagorno-Karabakh retaken by Baku as a result of the 2020 war.

Azerbaijan’s Culture Minister Anar Kerimov said on February 3 that he has set up 
a working group tasked with removing “false” Armenian traces from churches which 
he claimed had been built by Caucasian Albania, an ancient kingdom that covered 
much of modern-day Azerbaijan’s territory.

Armenia strongly condemned the development on Tuesday, saying that it is part of 
Baku’s attempts to “illegally appropriate” Armenian cultural and religious 
heritage.

“It once again demonstrates the fact that the cases of vandalism and destruction 
of Armenian historical, cultural and religious heritage in Nagorno-Karabakh 
during the 44-day war and the following period are deliberate and pre-planned, 
and are part of a policy of depriving Nagorno-Karabakh of its indigenous 
Armenian population,” said Vahan Hunanian, the Armenian Foreign Ministry 
spokesman.

Hunanian accused Azerbaijan of defying the International Court of Justice (ICJ), 
which ordered it last December to “prevent and punish acts of vandalism and 
desecration affecting Armenian cultural heritage.” He also called for an 
“immediate intervention” by UNESCO, another United Nations body.


The head of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, Nadine 
Maenza, echoed the Armenian concerns on the federal government agency’s Twitter 
page.

“We are deeply concerned by Azerbaijan's plans to remove Armenian Apostolic 
inscriptions from churches,” she said. “We urge the government to preserve and 
protect places of worship and other religious and cultural sites.”

Over the past year Armenian officials have accused the Azerbaijani authorities 
of systematically desecrating or destroying Armenian monuments in Karabakh. 
According to them, at least two churches have been torn down since a 
Russian-brokered ceasefire stopped the six-week war in November 2020.

They have also accused Baku of vandalizing Karabakh’s Holy Savior Cathedral 
located in the Azerbaijani-controlled town of Shushi (Shusha). The 19th century 
Armenian church was stripped of its conical domes and covered in scaffolding a 
year ago. Azerbaijani officials said it will undergo a major reconstruction.

The Shushi cathedral was twice hit by long-range Azerbaijani missiles during the 
war.


An armored personnel carrier of the Russian peacekeeping forces is seen near 
Dadivank Monastery, November 24, 2020.

There are also lingering concerns about the fate of the medieval Dadivank 
monastery located in the Kelbajar district just west of Karabakh.

Although the district was handed over to Azerbaijan shortly after the 2020 
truce, Russian peacekeeping forces set up a permanent post at Dadivank to 
protect Armenian clergymen remaining there. For almost a year, the Azerbaijani 
side has not allowed the peacekeepers also escort Karabakh Armenian worshippers 
to the monastery for religious ceremonies.

Baku claims that Dadivank and just about every other church in the region is 
“Albanian.” Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev underlined this decades-long 
policy in March 2021 when he visited a medieval Armenian church in Karabakh’s 
southern Hadrut district captured by the Azerbaijani army.

“All these inscriptions are fake, they were added later,” Aliyev claimed there.

Bishop Vrtanes Abrahamian, the head of the Artsakh (Karabakh) Diocese of the 
Armenian Apostolic Church, complained on Tuesday that for all their public 
statements the Armenian authorities remain “passive” in the face of what he too 
sees as Azerbaijani efforts to erase Armenian traces.

“They only talk and don’t act,” Abrahamian told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service.



Armenia Rounds On Belarus Leader

        • Astghik Bedevian

BELARUS - President Alexander Lukashenko delivers his annual address to the 
nation and the National Assembly in Minsk, January 28, 2022.


Armenia on Tuesday shrugged off Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko’s 
claims that it will have no choice but to join a Russian-led “union state” of 
former Soviet republics.

In a televised interview with a pro-Kremlin Russian journalist broadcast on 
Monday, Lukashenko predicted that Moscow will cobble together a “union of 
sovereign states” with common defense, national security and economic systems 
over the next 10 to 15 years. He said it will compromise not only Russia and 
Belarus but also Central Asian states, Armenia and even Ukraine.

“Armenia has nowhere [else] to go,” claimed the long-serving Belarusian 
strongman. “Do you think anyone needs them?”

“They have already seen that. Nikol Vovaevich [Pashinian] has seen that,” he 
added in reference to the Armenian prime minister.

Pashinian’s government hit back at Lukashenko through the Armenian Foreign 
Ministry and pro-government parliamentarians.


Kazakhstan - Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko (L) and Armenian Prime 
Minister Nikol Pashinian talk during a CSTO summit in Astana, November 8, 2018.

“We believe that the Belarusian president’s peculiar geopolitical analyses aim 
to first and foremost serve his domestic political agenda and have nothing to do 
with Armenia and its foreign policy,” the ministry spokesman, Vahan Hunanian, 
said in written comments to the press.

Lawmakers representing Pashinian’s Civil Contract party went further, launching 
scathing attacks on Lukashenko on the Armenian parliament floor.

“The leader of a partner state has no right to express such thoughts about 
another partner state,” one of them, Vagharshak Hakobian, said.

Another Civil Contract deputy, Hovik Aghazarian, accused Lukashenko of “doing 
the Russian authorities and Russian statehood a disservice.”

Aghazarian also said: “Before making statements, Lukashenko had better inspect 
the airport of [the Belarusian capital] Minsk, which looks more like a pigsty.”

Russia and Belarus signed a Union State treaty in 1999 and have been negotiating 
on and off since then.

Lukashenko for years resisted much closer integration between the two nations 
envisaged by the treaty. But the authoritarian president has grown more 
supportive of the project since Moscow helped him stay in power following a 
disputed 2020 presidential election and his ensuing crackdown on dissent which 
led to more Western sanctions against Belarus.


Russia – Russian President Vladimir Putin and Belarusian President Alexander 
Lukashenko attend a news conference in Moscow, September 9, 2021

Artur Khachatrian, a lawmaker from the main opposition Hayastan alliance, said 
the Armenian authorities have only themselves to blame for Lukashenko’s 
“unacceptable” remarks. He said they have become too reliant on Russia in 
dealing with serious security challenges facing Armenia after the 2020 war in 
Nagorno-Karabakh.

“The government deliberately lowered the degree of this country’s sovereignty, 
and of course Lukashenko and others will not hesitate to take advantage of 
that,” charged Khachatrian.

Lukashenko, who has a warm rapport with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, has 
repeatedly raised eyebrows in Yerevan in the past with pro-Azerbaijani 
statements on the Karabakh conflict and arms supplies to Baku. In 2018, he also 
questioned Armenia’s role in the Collective Security Treaty Organization after 
Armenian law-enforcement authorities indicted Yuri Khachaturov, the then 
secretary general of the Russian-led military alliance.


Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
Copyright (c) 2022 Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, Inc.
1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.

 

                                        Wednesday, January 26, 2022


Ethics Inquiry Sought Against Pro-Government Lawmaker
January 26, 2022
        • Gayane Saribekian

Armenia - Vahagn Aleksanian, a parliament deputy from the ruling Civil Contract 
party, at a news briefing in Yerevan, October 8, 2021.


The opposition Pativ Unem bloc said on Wednesday that it will demand a 
parliamentary ethics inquiry into a pro-government lawmaker who branded 
journalists critical of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian as “prostitutes.”

The controversial lawmaker, Vahagn Aleksanian, lashed out at Armenian TV 
channels in a speech delivered on the parliament floor last week. He claimed 
that almost all of them have been disseminating “hate speech” against Pashinian 
and his family members since Armenia’s defeat in the 2020 war with Azerbaijan.

“They are not journalists, they are verbal prostitutes,” Aleksanian said, 
drawing strong condemnation from opposition lawmakers and Armenia’s leading 
press freedom groups.

More than a dozen such organizations issued a joint statement last Friday 
demanding that the ruling Civil Contract party public denounce Aleksanian’s 
insults. They warned that failure to do so would mean that Pashinian’s political 
team approves and encourages such rhetoric.

Pashinian, who himself is a former journalist and newspaper editor, defended on 
Monday his loyalist’s scandalous comments.

“If I was still a journalist … and first and foremost honesty served my 
profession, I would not attribute those comments to myself,” he told Armenian 
state television.

The media associations also called on the Armenian parliament to form an ad hoc 
ethics commission that would investigate and evaluate Aleksanian’s conduct.

Pativ Unem’s Taguhi Tovmasian, who chairs the parliament’s standing committee on 
human rights, said that her opposition bloc will propose a relevant decision to 
the National Assembly in the coming days.

The decision must be backed by the parliament majority representing Civil 
Contract. Lawmakers from Pashinian’s party declined to comment on the opposition 
initiative.

Pointing to Pashinian’s remarks, Tovmasian suggested that Civil Contract is 
unlikely to agree to the ethics inquiry. “But we should try,” she said.

“After Pashinian’s words, I can say for certain that the ruling force will not 
agree to set up the ethics commission,” said Gegham Manukian of the opposition 
Hayastan alliance.

In the course of last year Armenian media watchdogs repeatedly accused 
Pashinian’s administration of seeking to curb press freedom in the country. In 
particular, they denounced government-backed bills that tripled maximum legal 
fines for “slander” and made it a crime to gravely insult state officials and 
public figures.



EU Envoy Hails Pashinian’s ‘Positive’ Comments On Azerbaijan
January 26, 2022
        • Siranuysh Gevorgian
        • Naira Nalbandian

Armenia - Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian meets the representative of the French 
Presidency to the Council of the European Union, Isabelle Dumont, and the EU's 
special representative to the South Caucasus Toivo Klaar, January 21, 2022.


A senior European Union diplomat on Wednesday praised Prime Minister Nikol 
Pashinian for sticking to conciliatory rhetoric and stressing the importance of 
normalizing Armenia’s relations with Azerbaijan.

Toivo Klaar, the EU’s special representative for the South Caucasus, reacted to 
Pashinian’s televised interview aired on Monday.

“I was pleased to see several positive and forward-looking remarks in the 
interview given by Prime Minister Pashinian on January 24, 2022, in particular 
on his vision for the future of the region, normalization of relations between 
neighbors and conflict-related rhetoric of the 1990s,” Klaar told RFE/RL’s 
Armenian Service.

“A lot more needs to be done by the sides when it comes to dealing with the past 
and the legacy of conflict,” he said in written comments. “This is indeed a long 
but certainly a crucial process that needs to involve the societies on both 
sides.”

In his interview, Pashinian avoided condemning Azerbaijani President Ilham 
Aliyev’s bellicose statements directed at Armenia and claims that Azerbaijan’s 
victory in the 2020 war put an end to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and that 
Yerevan and other parts of the country are “historical Azerbaijani lands.”

Pashinian drew parallels between Aliyev’s aggressive rhetoric and statements 
made by politicians in Armenia and Karabakh after the Armenian victory in the 
first Karabakh war.

“Statements frequently voiced from Azerbaijan mirror statements that were made 
in Armenia after 1994 … Those statements [by Aliyev] contain a certain element 
of revenge and we must take this into account,” he said.

Pashinian also reaffirmed strong support for opening transport links between 
Armenia and Azerbaijan. They will contribute to regional peace and earn Armenia 
economic benefits, he said.

Klaar and a senior French diplomat visited Baku and Yerevan last week to discuss 
with the Armenian and Azerbaijani leaders ongoing efforts to de-escalate 
tensions along the Armenian-Azerbaijani border.

The EU envoy reiterated on Wednesday that he is satisfied with the results of 
the talks. But he did not go into details.

“Our discussions last week were positive and we are looking forward to 
continuing our engagement with the sides to help them build a safe, stable and 
prosperous South Caucasus,” he said.



Armenian Government Downplays Gas Price Hike
January 26, 2022
        • Robert Zargarian

Armenia -- A gas distribution facility.


The Armenian government has sought to justify a widely anticipated increase in 
the retail prices of natural gas in the country.

The government said on Wednesday that the prices should not go up again for the 
next ten years if they are raised soon by public utility regulators.

The Public Services Regulatory Commission (PSRC) signaled a price rise before it 
was formally requested this month by Armenia’s Russian-owned gas distribution 
network. The PSRC said that gas mostly imported from Russia could become more 
expensive for Armenian households on April 1.

In a December statement, the PSRC cited the need to repay $270 million in loans 
used for the recently completed modernization of the Metsamor nuclear plant. It 
also pointed to Armenia’s contractual obligation to enable Gazprom to recoup 
investments made in a large thermal-power plant located in the central town of 
Hrazdan.

The regulatory body revealed that the Armenian and Russian governments have 
reached an agreement that commits Yerevan to providing the Hrazdan plant with 
$31.8 million annually for the next ten years.


Armenia - The Public Services Regulatory Commission meets in Yerevan. November 
20, 2019.

In written comments sent to RFE/RL’s Armenian Service, the government said that 
the deal -- and the promised subsidy in particular -- will become null and void 
if the Gazprom Armenia operator or its parent company seeks further price hikes 
by 2032.

The PSRC already raised the prices of electricity and drinking water last month 
following a highest inflation in many years recorded in the country. Analysts 
say that the upcoming gas price hike will further increase the cost of living 
and hit vulnerable groups of the population especially hard.

In its latest application to the PSRC, Gazprom Armenia requested, among other 
things, an end to a more than 30 percent price discount enjoyed by low-income 
families. Government officials have promised, however, that the preferential 
tariff for the poor will remain the same.

Babken Pipoyan, who leads a consumer rights group, argued that even if the 
authorities honor that pledge they cannot prevent knock-on effects on the cost 
of other essential products.

“You can’t raise the gas price for bread producers and expect the prices of 
bread to stay unchanged,” he said. “You can’t raise the gas price for greenhouse 
owners and expect no impact on the prices of agricultural products.”

International gas prices have skyrocketed over the past year. They are now much 
higher than Russia’s existing wholesale tariff for Armenia set at $165 per 
thousand cubic meters.



Pashinian Again Infected With Coronavirus
January 26, 2022

Armenia - Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian is vaccinated against the coronavirus, 
Yerevan, May 3, 2021.


Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian has tested positive for the coronavirus for the 
second time in 20 months, his office said on Wednesday.

The office said that Pashinian has gone into self-isolation and is not showing 
any symptoms of COVID-19. He will therefore work from home for now, it added in 
a statement.

Pashinian and members of his family were already infected with the coronavirus 
in June 2020. He announced their recovery from the disease a week later. During 
that weeklong self-isolation, Pashinian held daily news briefings with other 
officials outside his residence.

The prime minister claimed to have again gone into coronavirus-related 
self-isolation in January last year when he commented through a spokeswoman on 
his failure to attend an Armenian Christmas mass in Yerevan.

It was not clear whether he took a coronavirus test at the time. Pashinian, his 
wife and elder children were vaccinated against COVID-19 later in 2021.

Pashinian’s latest positive test result was announced amid an upsurge in 
coronavirus cases blamed by Armenian officials on the Omicron variant of the 
virus.


Armenia - Pedestrians wear mandatory face masks in Yerevan, November 2, 2021.

The Ministry of Health said on Wednesday that 1,931 new cases were registered in 
the country of about 3 million in the past 24 hours. It reported only 100-150 
cases a day in late December and early this month.

The ministry hopes to contain the latest wave of COVID-19 infections by stepping 
up its vaccination campaign. Less than a third of Armenia’s population has been 
fully vaccinated so far.

The Armenian government introduced on January 22 a mandatory coronavirus health 
pass for entry to cultural and leisure venues. Only those people who have been 
inoculated against COVID-19 or have had a recent negative test are now allowed 
to visit them.

Entities failing to ensure their visitors’ compliance with the requirement risk 
initial fines ranging from 100,000 to 300,000 drams ($210-$630).



Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
Copyright (c) 2022 Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, Inc.
1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.