Author: Hovsep Chakrian

                                        Wednesday, 

Karabakh Leader Wants Closer Ties With Russia

        • Satenik Hayrapetian

Armenia - Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian meets with Karabakh President Ara 
Harutyunian, April 8, 2021

Forging closer ties with Russia is vital for Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh given 
the outcome of last year’s with Azerbaijan, Ara Harutiunian, the Karabakh 
president, said on Wednesday.

“I see the future of Armenia and Artsakh within the framework of new and deeper 
military-political cooperation [with Russia,]” he said at a meeting in 
Stepanakert. “Together with Russia we need to confront the new situation 
because, as I said, Turkey is not going to leave the region.”

Harutiunian said that Turkey “participated in the war on the enemy’s side” and 
also recruited thousands of Syrian mercenaries for the Azerbaijani army. This 
was the main reason for Azerbaijan’s victory, he added.

The six-week hostilities stopped on November 10 after Russia brokered an 
Armenian-Azerbaijani ceasefire agreement. As part of the agreement, Moscow 
deployed around 2,000 Russian peacekeeping troops along the new 
Armenian-Azerbaijani “line of contact” and a land corridor connecting Karabakh 
to Armenia.

Russian military presence in Armenia could also increase in the coming months. 
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian and other Armenian leaders have indicated that 
they would welcome that.

“The Armenian-Russian military alliance is pivotal for ensuring the external 
security of the Republic of Armenia,” Pashinian said on April 14.

Armenian opposition groups blame Pashinian for the Armenian side’s defeat. Some 
of them have said that he would have reduced Armenian territorial losses had he 
agreed to an earlier ceasefire deal that was proposed by Russian President 
Vladimir Putin on October 19.

Harutiunian seemed to defend Pashinian against the criticism. He said that 
already in early October it was clear that the Armenian side is heading for 
defeat but that the war was not stopped then because of a lack of “consensus” 
among Armenia’s ruling and opposition forces.

“At that point they seemed to consider stopping the war treason,” he said in an 
apparent reference to the opposition.

Some opposition figures, including a representative of the former ruling 
Republican Party of Armenia, responded by accusing Harutiunian of trying to help 
Pashinian dodge responsibility for his handling of the war.



Ruling Bloc Criminalizes ‘Election Campaign Obstruction’

        • Anush Mkrtchian

Armenia -- Deputies from the ruling My Step bloc attend a session of the 
Armenian parliament, Yerevan, January 22, 2021.

One week after angry protests marred Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s visit to 
Syunik province, the Armenian parliament voted on Wednesday to criminalize 
obstruction of election campaigns.

The measure is part of a package of legal amendments which the pro-government 
majority in the National Assembly says will help to prevent serious 
irregularities in the run-up to and during snap parliamentary elections expected 
in June.

The amendments call for heavier fines and lengthier prison sentences for vote 
buying, election-related violence and disruption of the electoral process. They 
also introduce criminal liability for attempts to impede pre-election activities 
of political parties or their individual candidates.

This includes forcing people not to attend campaign rallies or agitate for a 
particular election contender. Individuals convicted of such offenses would face 
up to three years in prison.

“If anyone tries to impede an election campaign they will be subjected to 
criminal prosecution,” said Vahagn Hovakimian, a senior deputy from Pashinian’s 
My Step bloc and the main author of the bill which pro-government lawmakers 
urgently passed in the first and second readings.

The bill calls for a longer jail term (up to five years) for anyone who would 
pay voters to attend or boycott a pre-election rally.

Ani Samsonian, a deputy representing the opposition Bright Armenia Party (LHK), 
criticized the bill, saying that it could be used to penalize the opposition.

“The opposition has no levers to coerce people to make donations to its campaign 
fund,” argued Samsonian. By contrast, she said, My Step is in a position to 
pressure businesspeople to finance its election campaign.

The ruling political force pushed the bill through the parliament one week after 
Pashinian visited Syunik and faced protests by local residents blaming him for 
Armenia’s defeat in last year’s Nagorno-Karabakh which has directly affected 
their communities.

Dozens of angry men swore at the prime minister and branded him a “capitulator” 
as he walked through the provincial towns of Agarak and Meghri on April 21. 
Pashinian’s motorcade was pelted with eggs as it drove through another Syunik 
community, Goris, later that day.

Pashinian condemned the incidents as a “violation of the law” before 
law-enforcement authorities rounded up more than two dozen people and charged 
them with hooliganism and/or violent resistance to police. Armenia’s 
Investigative Committee said the “hooligan acts” were organized by 
opposition-linked local government officials the purpose of hampering 
Pashinian’s “movements and meetings with the population.”

Some critics of the Armenian government claim that Pashinian himself broke the 
law by trying to hold pre-election rallies before the official start of 
campaigning for the snap polls. They similarly accused Pashinian of illegal 
campaigning after he visited villages in two other regions and held rallies 
there late last month. The premier’s political allies deny any connection 
between those visits and the upcoming vote.

It remains to be seen whether President Armen Sarkissian will sign the latest 
bill into law. In recent weeks Sarkissian has challenged the legality of 
government-backed legislation that would tighten government control of state 
universities, give more powers to a state body overseeing the Armenian judiciary 
and triple maximum fines for defamation.



Armenia To Import More COVID-19 Vaccines

        • Narine Ghalechian

UKRAINE -- A medical worker shows a vial with the Chinese-developed CoronaVac 
vaccine against the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) at a clinic in Kyiv, April 
15, 2021

Armenia will receive soon fresh batches of coronavirus vaccines even though most 
of its residents are still in no rush to take them, a senior government official 
said on Wednesday.

Gayane Sahakian, the deputy director of the Armenian Center for Disease Control 
and Prevention, said they will be delivered by COVAX Facility, a global 
vaccine-sharing scheme supported by the World Health Organization.

Sahakian did not specify the volume of the upcoming deliveries. She said only 
that the Armenian government will import different types of vaccines, including 
the CoronaVac jab manufactured by the Chinese company Sinovac.

COVAX already airlifted 24,000 doses of AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine to 
Yerevan on March 28. Armenia also received 43,000 doses of the Russian Sputnik V 
vaccine in the following weeks.

The Armenian Ministry of Health launched its vaccination campaign on April 13, 
initially targeting only frontline workers, seniors and people suffering from 
chronic diseases.


Armenia - Gayane Sahakian, the deputy director of the Armenian Center for 
Disease Control and Prevention, at a news conference in Yerevan, 

Sahakian said just over 2,000 Armenians making up less than 0.1 percent of the 
country’s population have been vaccinated so far. She seemed to downplay the 
slow pace of the vaccination, saying that the daily number of people getting 
AstraZeneca or Sputnik V shots is growing by around 5 percent.

“No serious health problems have been registered among vaccinated people,” the 
official told a news conference.

In an apparent effort to speed up the vaccination campaign, Health Minister 
Anahit Avanesian allowed medical workers late last week to administer 
AstraZeneca shots to all people willing to take them. Avanesian said earlier 
that the use-by date of the first batch of the vaccine supplied by COVAX is May 
31.

The lack of public interest in the vaccination contrasts with a continuing high 
rate of coronavirus infections in the South Caucasus nation.

The Ministry of Health said on Wednesday morning that 808 people have tested 
positive for COVID-19 in the past day. It also reported 13 new deaths caused by 
the disease.


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