15:26,
YEREVAN, JULY 21, ARMENPRESS. The government approved new amendments in the regulations of granting exemption from military conscription, expanding the list of sports where distinguished athletes can be eligible for the deferment.
Under the new regulations, Armenian athletes winning WBC, IBF, WBO or WBA professional boxing championship titles or mixed-martial arts titles in UFC will be granted the exemption.
Political analyst Hrant Melik-Shahnazaryan has reacted to Security Council Secretary Armen Grigoryan’s statement on the “withdrawal of Armenian troops from Artsakh”.
“Due to the [2020] war, a number of Armenian army units entered Nagorno-Karabakh to help its Defense Army,” he told Armenpress on Tuesday.
“They are returning to Armenia after the establishment of the ceasefire [in November 2020]. This process is nearing completion and will end in September. As for the Defense Army, it has been in Nagorno-Karabakh and will remain there,” the security chief said.
His comments came after the meeting of the Armenian and Azerbaijani foreign ministers in Georgia on July 16.
“As far as I know, there are no Armenian army units in Artsakh, while demobilization of conscripts is not a reason to make a political statement. Thus, we can assume that the discussed issue is much more substantial than it may seem at the first glance. In this case it must be about the removal of military equipment from Artsakh,” Melik-Shahnazaryan wrote on Facebook on Tuesday.
“I am sure that by saying "units of the Armenian armed forces", the current authorities mean the military equipment in Artsakh, the withdrawal of which has long been demanded by Azerbaijan,” he added.
ArmInfo. The influence of the Russian Federation in the South Caucasus, Central Asia and Eastern Europe will sharply decrease in the foreseeable period. This is due to the intermediate Ukrainian results of the geopolitical confrontation between the Russian Federation and the collective West. Independent political analyst Saro Saroyan expressed a similar opinion to ArmInfo.
"In particular, the Russian Federation and Turkey have a very specific plan regarding the South Caucasus, namely, to finally turn the region exclusively into their zone of influence, excluding any role of the West here. It is clear that this, in turn, implies the withdrawal of the USA and the EU from the Karabakh settlement, along with the destruction of the Armenian factor in the region. However, the current course of military operations in Ukraine has completely defeated the implementation of all these agreements between Moscow and Ankara," he emphasized.
According to the analyst, as a result, Moscow was forced to reckon with the Brussels negotiation format between Armenia and Azerbaijan, as well as some other new geopolitical realities in the region, which still remains its priority zone of influence. While the beginning of the Russian-Ukrainian war was laid precisely by the 44-day war. In Saroyan's opinion, in this way, Russia tried to insure its southern borders against possible destabilization, in fact, anticipating it. And after that, try to solve its problems in Ukraine. According to him, all this was due to the impossibility for Russia to solve such problems without the consent of Turkey.
According to the analyst, over the past few hundred years, the essence of relations between the Russian and Ottoman empires, by and large, has not changed and, as before, rests on rivalry for the straits and hegemony in the Black Sea. That is why Moscow did not have the opportunity to resist the West, ensuring tectonic shifts in Ukraine, in particular on the Black Sea coast, without agreements with Ankara. And regarding Artsakh, Turkey and the Russian Federation fulfilled the agreements. However, all this did not find a continuation in the Ukrainian direction, primarily due to Moscow's inability to force Kyiv to stop the war and secure its own territorial and other acquisitions.
The Azerbaijani mass media which are subordinate to the Azerbaijani authorities, led by President Ilham Aliyev, have voiced the idea of conducting an "operation" at the zone of responsibility of Russian peacekeepers in Nagorno-Karabakh (Artsakh).
In the respective article, entitled " Zugzwang for Azerbaijan: New Special Operation or Withdrawal of Russian Troops from Karabakh," "original" ideas were also voiced along with many demands and accusations.
20:06,
YEREVAN, JULY 18, ARMENPRESS. The European Union intends to double gas supply from Azerbaijan. ARMENPRESS reports President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen, who is on a visit to Azerbaijan, wrote about this in the Twitter microblog.
"With today's agreement, we undertake to expand the Southern Gas Corridor, to double gas supplies from Azerbaijan to the EU," said Ursula von der Leyen, noting that today they are creating a basis for a new partnership in this field.
On July 18, Azerbaijan and the European Union signed a memorandum of understanding on strategic partnership in the energy sector.
LONDON, ONTARIO, Canada—Long Beach Junior Crew Men’s Varsity Rower, Charlie Josephbek, 16, sophomore at Armenian Mesrobian High School, was part of a select group of top rowers from across the nation to be invited to the 2022 U19 Men’s National Team Selection Camp this summer.
The selection camp began on June 12th and was held at the Chula Vista Elite Athlete Training Center in California. Upon completion of phase one of the training camp, Josephbek was chosen to represent the U.S. Team at CanAmMex.
The CanAmMex Regatta was held on July 8th and 9th, in London, Ontario Canada, bringing together rowers from Canada, the United States, Mexico and the Bahamas. The U.S. team earned eight gold medals and the overall points trophy at this year’s CanAmMex Regatta. Charlie Josephbek and his teammates Edward Achtner, Cole Bruen and Henry Cooper, racing in the men’s quadruple sculls, placed first. They finished with a time of 6:12.76, just over four seconds in front of Canada, winning the gold medal for Team USA.
Charlie has been rowing for Long Beach Junior Crew for the past four years along with his brothers, Andrew and Matthew. Andrew Josephbek, Mesrobian Class of ‘22, will be rowing for UCLA this Fall. Charlie and Matthew will continue rowing with the Long Beach Junior Crew Men’s Varsity Team. LBJC was established in 1986 and continues to train and inspire athletes through their competitive rowing program at Marine Stadium, home of the 1932 Olympics.
Iran state media
Aviation_Intel
The Iranian Navy has announced the introduction of what it's calling its inaugural “drone-carrier” division. A corresponding unveiling ceremony aired on Iranian state TV showing the navy launching drones from various ships and even a submarine. The display points to Iran's ongoing push to not only acquire more weaponized drone capabilities and capacity, but to deploy those systems via a diversified set of vectors — including from the sea. The new division was revealed while President Joe Biden was visiting Saudi Arabia in an effort to foster local support as tensions with Iran continue to rise just days after reports began to surface citing that Iran had offered to supply Russia with a significant amount of both armed and unarmed drones on an expedited timeline to bolster its invasion of Ukraine.
The new Iranian Navy division’s unveiling ceremony was held Friday, July 15 in international waters of the Indian Ocean with a number of high-ranking Iranian officials in attendance including Army Commander Major General Abdolrahim Mousavi. The event also seems to have doubled as a demonstration exercise, allowing the division a chance to showcase its use of ships, and submarines to deploy its locally produced drones. From the broadcasted ceremony, a Kilo-class submarine designated as Tareq, an auxiliary ship named Delvar, and the landing ship Lavan can be seen. While certain specific details about the division were not divulged, Reuters did report that Iranian state TV claimed one unnamed vessel currently carries at least 50 drones.
PressTV, which is also an Iranian state media outlet, claims that the division’s primary operations will consist of transporting and operating these various unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), which are said to be made up of combat, surveillance, and kamikaze types, although the Iranian state TV broadcast was seemingly focused on highlighting how a lot of these UAVs are kamikaze drones designed for carrying out strikes. As to the actual type of drones to be employed by the division, reports indicate that UAVs such as Pelican, Homa, Arash, Chamroosh, Jubin, Ababil-4, and Bavar-5 were all utilized during the unveiling ceremony.
Kian Sharifi, the senior journalist for BBC Monitoring, tweeted that the drone that can be seen launching from the Tareq submarine is identified as a Homa UAV. However, incredibly little is known about Homa at present aside from it being a reconnaissance UAV, and two total drones can be seen on Tareq in photos taken of the event posted by the MEHR News Agency. There’s one that actually launches from the surface and one that appears to be hovering over it.
Two Iranian drones can be seen launching from or near the submarine's dry deck. MEHR News Agency
While submarine-launched drones are becoming more commonplace, their uses are limited if the submarine has to surface to deploy them. Still, there are applications where launching them from a surfaced submarine might offer some value. Even developing the capability to transfer small items to and from a submarine via drone can be a worthwhile endeavor.
Also said to have been featured in the Iranian Navy’s “drone carrier” unveiling was the Pelican-2 drone, a vertical take-off naval UAV designed to fly horizontally as well as land and float on water in the event of an emergency. Pelican-2 was engineered to serve patrol and reconnaissance missions, with four motors that allow it to achieve vertical movement in addition to its powerful propellor used for horizontal flight. This 'hybrid' configuration is becoming more and more popular for naval applications. The Chamroosh UAV, however, is a less sophisticated drone being that the aircraft is hand-launched.
One of the Iranian drones used in the unveiling ceremony of the Iranian Navy's "drone-carrier" division. MEHR News Agency
That leaves the Arash, Jubin, Ababil-4, and Bavar-5 drones. The Arash UAV is at the very least known to be a kamikaze drone first introduced in 2020 and was recently used during an annual Iranian war game exercise in 2021. The Ababil-4 is Iran’s second-newest addition to the Ababil family of drones designed by Ghods Aviation Industries and mass-produced by Iran Aircraft Manufacturing Industries. While few technical details are known about Ababil-4, its predecessors are used primarily for surveillance operations but can also be fitted with weapons depending on the mission. At a showcasing event in April of this year, the Ababil-5 was revealed to be carrying six Almas anti-tank guided missiles and was said to be capable of carrying Ghaem-5 precision-guided munitions.
Both the Bavar-5 and the Jubin UAVs, on the other hand, are newer and details about both of the drones’ configurations do not appear to be readily available. The delta-canard configuration seen on some of these drones is nothing new as it has been used for many Iranian drone designs, and especially those provided to its proxies, for years. These drones are usually associated with long-range 'suicide' attacks and can even potentially carry anti-radiation seekers for finding and striking enemy air defense radars.
One of the Iranian drones used in the unveiling ceremony of the Iranian Navy's "drone-carrier" division. MEHR News Agency
Auxiliary-type ships that will allegedly support the Iranian Navy’s new “drone-carrier” division serve as another example of Iran developing capabilities to carry out asymmetric attacks far from its own shores. Iran is known to have used commercial ships discreetly for military purposes, which you can read more about in this past War Zone piece, and while these might not be super high-end platforms ready to face off with major navies, they definitely reflect real threats in other capacities.
The exporting of sea-launched drone capabilities to nefarious customers and especially its militant proxy forces is really a bigger issue than Iran displaying the capability itself. The fact is these drones could be launched from pretty much any ship, not just obvious 'drone carriers,' and even be employed against other ships. This can make attributing the source of attacks very challenging, as well as interdicting the launch platforms prior to deploying the drones.
One of the Iranian drones used in the unveiling ceremony of the Iranian Navy's "drone-carrier" division flying above auxiliary ship Delvar. MEHR News Agency
One of the Iranian drones used in the unveiling ceremony of the Iranian Navy's "drone-carrier" division. MEHR News Agency
That category of threats has been a growing friction point in the Middle East as of late, and The War Zone routinely highlights the fact that a low-intensity maritime drone war is already underway between Iran and Israel. Another drone event in Israel's maritime zone just occurred. The fear of proliferation of these systems, as well as cheap cruise missiles, has led to the possibility of a previously unthinkable alliance between the Arab states and Israel that could include a shared air defense network focused on early warning, tracking, and engaging these threats. The drones' small signatures and their ability to fly low, and in some cases slow, over great distances, along with their low cost, which allows for 'flocks' to be deployed against a single target area, even by non-state actors, make them an especially potent air defense challenge. The fact that they can be launched from pretty much any ship complicates things considerably. Israel is already preparing for such a contingency and the U.S. has major concerns about similar threats emanating from beyond its shores.
Meanwhile, Israel, which pioneered the 'suicide drone' concept, is also equipping its own ships with similar, albeit far more advanced systems.
One of the Iranian drones used in the unveiling ceremony of the Iranian Navy's "drone-carrier" division. MEHR News Agency
Needless to say, Iran is evidently making prominent strides in indigenous weapons and capabilities development. How exactly this equipment will be used, and by who, however, remains to be seen.
The foreign ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan met in Georgia for their first bilateral meeting since 2020 when thousands died in a conflict over control of Nagorno-Karabakh.
The meeting between Armenian foreign minister Ararat Mirzoyan and his Azerbaijani counterpart Jeyhun Bayramov in Tbilisi comes months after Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan met in Brussels.
The pair met to "advance discussions" on a peace treaty between the countries.
"This is the first meeting between the ministers, and we hope that it will bring in a result," Aliyev said on Friday.
However, the atmosphere was tense ahead of the meeting in Tbilisi, as several armed incidents have recently taken place along the border between the two countries, including a shootout on Friday night.
After the meeting, Armenia’s foreign ministry released a statement that said the pair discussed "a wide range of issues".
"The parties discussed the implementation of the agreements reached [by the leaders of the two countries] and discussed possible future steps," the statement said.
Mirzoyan also called for the release of Armenian prisoners currently held by Azerbaijan since 2020 and an investigation into the whereabouts of missing people.
Armenia and Azerbaijan have fought in two wars since the Soviet Union collapsed.
In 2020, more than 6,500 people died in six weeks of fighting.
The conflict eventually ended after Russia brokered a ceasefire agreement under which Armenia ceded large parts of Nagorno-Karabakh — a territory nestled between the two countries — while Moscow deployed around 2,000 peacekeepers to oversee the truce.
However, Russia stepped back as the primary mediator after it invaded Ukraine in late February, and the European Union has taken over the role since.
https://www.euronews.com/2022/07/16/armenia-and-azerbaijan-foreign-ministers-hold-first-meeting-since-2020
Wednesday,
Security Service Wants Stricter Citizenship Rules For Diaspora Armenians
Armenia - The passport of a citizen of Armenia, September 18, 2014.
The National Security Service (NSS) put forward on Wednesday a bill that sets
more stringent requirements for ethnic Armenian foreign nationals seeking to
become citizens of Armenia.
The legal amendment drafted by it would make them eligible for fast-track dual
citizenship only if they have stayed in the country for at least 60 days over
the past two years.
The NSS said this would minimize applications from individuals who want Armenian
passports in order to more easily migrate to other parts of the world and/or
simply “have nothing to do with Armenianness.”
Armenia allowed dual citizenship as a result of constitutional changes enacted
in late 2005. This was supposed to strengthen the country’s links with several
million Diaspora Armenians scattered around the world. Tens of thousands of them
have received Armenian passports since then, taking advantage of a separate law
on citizenship that sets no residency requirements for them.
In a written justification of the proposed amendment posted on a government
website, the NSS said the law contradicts an article of the constitution which
stipulates that Diaspora Armenians can become dual citizens “from the moment
they settle in the Republic of Armenia.”
Citing its own “extensive research,” the NSS also argued that many of those
applicants have never or rarely visited Armenia and not relocated to their
ancestral homeland or bought real estate there after obtaining Armenian
citizenship.
Armenia -- The main entrance to the National Security Service building in
Yerevan.
The security agency, which also deals with border control, singled out ethnic
Armenians from Lebanon, Syria and other Middle Eastern countries. Some of them
have used their Armenian passports “only for being able to travel to other
states,” it said, presumably referring to their migration to the United States
and European Union nations.
The NSS bill, which should be considered by the Armenian government after a
two-week “public discussion,” follows a sharp rise in Armenian citizenship
applications recorded by immigration authorities in Yerevan since the start of
the war in Ukraine.
According to the Armenian police, 9,917 foreigners applied for Armenian
citizenship in the first half of this year, up from 3,448 such requests received
in the year-earlier period. The bulk of those applications were filed by
Diaspora Armenians.
Police officials have not named the countries whose nationals applied for
Armenian citizenship after the Russian invasion of Ukraine began on February 24.
Some Armenian media outlets reported recently that many members of Russia's
large Armenian community are now seeking Armenian passports because of the
Western sanctions imposed on Moscow.
Armenia has attracted thousands of Russian migrants in the last few months. The
vast majority of them have no Armenian roots.
Investigators Tight-Lipped On Probe Of Judicial Scandal
• Naira Bulghadarian
Armenia - Gagik Jahangirian, the acting chairman of the Supreme Judicial
Council, at a news conference in Yerevan, August 2, 2021.
An Armenian law-enforcement agency said on Wednesday that it has not yet
indicted anyone in an ongoing investigation into leaked audio that led to the
resignation of Gagik Jahangirian, the acting head of the country’s judicial
watchdog.
The Investigative Committee refused to give any other details of the
investigation launched on July 4.
Jahangirian stepped down on July 1 ten days after the release of a recording in
which he appeared to warn Ruben Vartazarian, the previous chairman of the
Supreme Judicial Council (SJC), to quit or face criminal charges.
The 14-minute recording caused uproar in Armenia, with opposition figures and
civic activists demanding that Jahangirian be not only sacked by also
prosecuted. The latter claimed that he did not blackmail Vartazarian and simply
used “psychological ploys” to engineer his resignation.
The Investigative Committee opened the criminal case under articles of the
Criminal Code dealing with abuse of power and obstruction of justice. A
spokesman for the agency declined to say whether it has questioned Jahangirian.
The investigators reportedly interrogated Vartazarian last week. He did not deny
on Wednesday media reports that he refused to give them full audio of his
February 2021 dinner meeting with Jahangirian.
Armenia - Ruben Vartazarian, head of the Supreme Judicial Council, at a news
conference in Yerevan, June 20, 2022.
The meeting took place two months before Vartazarian was controversially charged
with obstruction of justice and suspended as SJC chairman amid rising tensions
with Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian.
Vartazarian said that he secretly recorded the conversation with Jahangirian
“for self-defense.” “The atmosphere of hatred is so intense right now that I
don’t want to publicize other parts of the recording and create new tensions in
our society or problems between some individuals,” he said.
Opposition leaders and other government critics say Pashinian installed
Jahangirian as head of the body overseeing Armenian courts to curb judicial
independence. They have repeatedly accused the prime minister of seeking to
increase government influence on the courts under the guise of Western-backed
judicial reforms.
The authorities deny this, insisting that they want to strengthen the rule of
law. Pashinian admitted late last month that the scandal caused by the leaked
audio undermined the credibility of the reforms.
Armenian Tax Agency Seeks End To Banking Secrecy
• Sargis Harutyunyan
Armenia -- Rustam Badasian, head of the State Revenue Committee, speaks at a
cabinet meeting in Yerevan.
Tax authorities have called for the effective abolition of banking secrecy in
Armenia, citing the need to further complicate tax evasion.
Under a bill drafted by the State Revenue Committee (SRC) and circulated late
last week, SRC officials would no longer need permission from courts to access
information about bank accounts of individuals suspected of engaging or
assisting in tax evasion.
In an explanatory note attached to the bill, the SRC says that many Armenian
entrepreneurs divert a large part of their revenues to personal bank accounts of
their relatives or employees to pay less taxes. The practice, it says, is
commonplace in business activities such as trade in household goods, production
of precious stones and metals, information technology and tourism.
“Without keeping track of banking transactions of those individuals it is almost
impossible to detect the underreporting of revenue through such schemes,” reads
the document.
The proposed bill, which has yet to be discussed by the Armenian government, has
prompted concern from some businesspeople. They say that it would scare away
local and foreign investors.
“It may make the work of the SRC easier but it would also throw business
activity into crisis,” claimed Vahram Mirakian, the head of the Mantashiants
Business Association.
“We would have to forget about investments,” Mirakian told RFE/RL’s Armenian
Service.
The SRC on Wednesday declined to comment further on its initiative. The document
posted by it on a government website argues that in countries like France and
Germany commercial banks are legally required to share information about client
accounts with tax authorities.
Banking secrecy in Armenia was already somewhat eased in 2020. A government bill
approved by the parliament allowed tax and law-enforcement bodies to seek
financial information about not only bank clients accused of crimes but also
people linked to them.
The bill was actively promoted by Rustam Badasian, the current head of the SRC
who served as justice minister at the time. It was criticized by opposition
lawmakers and the Union of Armenian Banks.
Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
Copyright (c) 2022 Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, Inc.
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PanARMENIAN.Net - Ambassador-at-Large Edmon Marukyan considers the establishment of a Ministry of Internal Affairs important.
"By reorganizing the police into the Ministry of the Interior, we will bring it into the parliamentary field of control, like other ministries," he said on social media Wednesday, July 13.
Marukyan noted that according to the draft proposal, the Interior Ministry will unite the rescue service (now the Ministry of Emergency Situations), the police, the migration and citizenship service, and the research center. He said such a ministry existed in the past, but it was disassembled in the 2000s and taken out of parliamentary control.
"I hope that all the measures aimed at creating the Ministry of Internal Affairs will soon be implemented and the end result will be a more progressive and transparent institution," the ambassador wrote.
Minister of Justice Karen Andreasyan said earlier that the establishment of a Ministry of Internal Affairs is a very important and big step for the law enforcement system of Armenia. Andreasyan said the Ministry will not be created from scratch, but rather be built on the Ministry of Emergency Situations.