Author: Kanayan Tamar

                                        Wednesday, August 25, 2021


Russian Official Says Armenia Signs Arms Supply Contracts In Moscow
August 25, 2021
        • Sargis Harutyunyan

Armenian Defense Minister Arshak Karapetian at an arms exhibition near Moscow, 
August 25, 2021


Armenia has signed arms supply contracts with Russian companies as part of the 
Army-2021 military-industrial exhibition in Moscow, said Dmitry Shugayev, 
director of the Russian Federal Service for Military-Technical Cooperation.

The Russian official gave no details of the deals.

“Among the countries that signed agreements are our traditional partners – 
Kazakhstan, Armenia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, and, of course, India, China, 
Myanmar,” said Shugayev, as quoted Russia’s RIA Novosti news agency.

Earlier, Alexander Mikheyev, director of the Russian arms exporting company, 
Rosoboronexport, told reporters that more than 20 deals worth more than 2 
billion Euros (about $2.4 billion) had already been concluded within the 
framework of the Army-2021 exhibition.

After attending the exhibition in Moscow on August 24 evening and meeting with 
the heads of Russian military-industrial companies, Armenian Defense Minister 
Arshak Karapetian made a remarkable statement, saying that Armenia will stop 
acquiring old types of weapons and start purchasing new, high-quality weapons.

Remarkably, two Armenian delegations visited the Moscow arms exhibition. 
According to the Defense Ministry, first, on August 22, a delegation headed by 
the minister left for the Russian capital to take part in the opening ceremonies 
for the Army-2021 exhibition and the International Army Games.

The following day, the ministry announced that a delegation headed by Deputy 
Defense Minister Karen Brutian would also take part in the Army-2021 exhibition, 
which will be open till August 28, during which he would hold meetings with 
heads of a number of large Russian companies working in the defense sphere and 
sign contracts.

“We enjoy full support. I can say that I haven’t heard a single “no” word here. 
And we will take practical steps to develop our cooperation with Russia. We plan 
to get high-quality weapons, we plan to have new weapons, we refuse to acquire 
old types of weapons, that is our policy. It is better for us to have fewer, but 
high-quality weapons to know for sure that these weapons will work,” Minister 
Karapetian said in Moscow.

According to the Defense Ministry, on August 23 in Moscow Karapetian “discussed 
the whole range of issues of Armenian-Russian military-technical cooperation 
with director of the Russian Federal Service for Military-Technical Cooperation 
Dmitry Shugayev and director of the Rosoboronexport Company Alexander Mikheyev.”

Talking to media, Karapetian said that Armenia will also seek to have its own 
weapons production and that it will receive the support in terms of opening 
joint ventures. “We will do it quickly. As a nation we should be able to produce 
our own weapons,” the Armenian defense minister said.

He said that the third task for him is to exclude intermediaries between the 
Defense Ministry and the manufacturing companies. “I think that if these three 
conditions are met, we will definitely get a new modernized army, an army 
meeting the requirements of the 21st century, and we will be able to cope with 
the dangers we face,” Karapetian stressed.

After last fall’s 44-day war against Azerbaijan in Nagorno-Karabakh, in which 
Armenia suffered a defeat, and especially after the June 20 snap parliamentary 
elections, the government led by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian has repeatedly 
announced plans to modernize the Armenian armed forces and acquire new weapons.

According to the government’s 2021-26 action plan unveiled by Pashinian last 
week, “the Armed Forces Reform Strategy is largely based on the analysis of the 
lessons learned from the 44-day war and the security environment formed after 
November 9, 2020 [when the Russian-brokered ceasefire was signed in 
Nagorno-Karabakh].”

“The government will define the main guidelines, long-term planning issues and 
resources on which the development of the defense system of the Republic of 
Armenia and the fifth generation warfare toolkit will be based. The government 
will continue the process of modernization of armaments, military equipment, 
acquisition of new types of weapons. A more targeted policy will be implemented 
in the spheres of military and military-technical cooperation with allied and 
partner countries,” the government’s action plan reads.

Still, it remains unclear what particular weapons Armenia will acquire.

The contacts of Armenian officials with representatives of major Russian arms 
industry companies come after an August 11 meeting between Armenian Defense 
Minister Karapetian and his Russian counterpart Sergey Shoygu in Moscow.

During that meeting Shoygu said that Russia will continue to help Armenia reform 
and modernize its armed forces. “We can consider that the process of arms 
supplies to Armenia has started,” the Russian defense minister said as he handed 
a dagger as a gift to his Armenian counterpart.

The announcement apparently angered Azerbaijan, which objects to Russia’s 
continuing arms supplies to Armenia.

In an interview to CNN Turk television on August 14 Azerbaijani President Ilham 
Aliyev argued that while the Armenian people and their leadership “have put up 
with the defeat” in the war, continuing to arm Armenia appears “illogical.”

“We expect that Russia will stop arming Armenia, we don’t see it at the moment,” 
Aliyev said.

Responding to Aliyev’s remarks, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria 
Zakharova said that supplying weapons to other countries was Moscow’s sovereign 
right.

At a news briefing in Moscow on August 19 she reminded that Russia, which 
deployed about 2,000 peacekeepers in Nagorno-Karabakh after the ceasefire, has 
supplied weapons not only to Armenia, its key military and political ally in the 
South Caucasus, but also to Azerbaijan.

“It is Russia’s sovereign right, and the Russian side always takes into account 
the need to maintain a balance of military power in the region,” Zakharova said.

Political analyst Ruben Mehrabian said that the 44-day war, in particular, 
showed that the Armenian army needs to be supplied with a new generation of 
weapons and that a fundamentally new management system should be put in place.

“We need a drastic change in our entire military education system, so that the 
training of personnel directly meets the requirements set to the army and 
servicemen in the future can master everything that the army will be equipped 
with,” Mehrabian said.



Armenia Reaffirms Support For UNESCO Mission In Nagorno-Karabakh
August 25, 2021
        • Artak Hambardzumian

A man lights a candle inside the war-damaged Armenian Ghazanchetsots (Holy 
Savior) Cathedral in Shushi on October 8, 2020, a month before 
Nagorno-Karabakh’s historic city was captured by advancing Azerbaijani forces.


Armenia has reaffirmed its support for a fact-finding mission of UNESCO in 
Nagorno-Karabakh in line with the 1954 Hague Convention on the Protection of 
Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict and its two protocols, an 
Armenian Foreign Ministry spokesman said on Wednesday.
While receiving newly appointed United Nations Resident Coordinator in 
Azerbaijan Vladanka Andreeva on August 24, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, 
in particular, accused Armenia of objecting to a UNESCO fact-finding mission in 
Nagorno-Karabakh.

“We can say that we had been calling them [UNESCO] for 30 years and they 
wouldn’t come. And after the war they decided to come. Therefore, we agreed to 
this and, as far as I know, the latest information was that the mission had 
already been created, but now Armenia is protesting again. That’s why the 
mission is delayed,” Aliyev said, as quoted by local media.

Armenian Foreign Ministry spokesman Vahan Hunanian told RFE/RL’s Armenian 
Service (Azatutyun) on Wednesday that the need for the immediate implementation 
of the UNESCO fact-finding mission arose after last year’s 44-day war in order 
to protect the Armenian cultural and religious heritage from the imminent danger 
of destruction in the territories that went under the control of Azerbaijan.

“Both during the hostilities and after the establishment of the ceasefire, there 
have been numerous documented cases of deliberate destruction of and vandalism 
against Armenian churches, other cultural and religious monuments by the 
Azerbaijani armed forces. Moreover, in parallel with the physical destruction of 
religious and cultural heritage sites of Artsakh [the Armenian name for 
Nagorno-Karabakh], we are witnessing unacceptable cases of falsification of 
historical facts, distortion of the identity and belonging of Armenian 
monuments, change of architectural appearance by the order of the top leadership 
of Azerbaijan,” he said.

Hunanian said that in order to cover up cultural crimes, Azerbaijan has been 
blocking the visit of UNESCO experts for some time, while accusing the 
organization of bias. Stressing that the practice of creating obstacles for the 
implementation of the mission by the Azerbaijani authorities and the 
politicization of the issue continues, the Armenian Foreign Ministry reminded 
that as early as December 2020, UNESCO’s deputy director-general for cultural 
affairs stated that Azerbaijan was not giving its consent to the mission.

“Artsakh’s endangered cultural and religious heritage urgently needs 
international attention in order to properly preserve it and prevent cases of 
vandalism. The implementation of the UNESCO mission and a comprehensive study of 
the historical and cultural heritage will contribute to the efforts to preserve 
cultural heritage in the territories under the control of Azerbaijan and prevent 
possible negative developments,” the ministry spokesman said.

Hunanian emphasized that the Armenian side is interested in the implementation 
of the mission as soon as possible and continues to make targeted efforts in 
this direction.



Pro-Government, Opposition Lawmakers Brawl In Armenian Parliament
August 25, 2021
        • Astghik Bedevian

Pro-government and opposition lawmakers threw water battles at each other during 
a brawl in the Armenian parliament on August 25, 2021


For the second day in a row security guards have been called into the Armenian 
parliament chamber as another brawl between pro-government and opposition 
lawmakers broke out during the presentation of the government’s five-year action 
plan on Wednesday.

Much of the 2021-2026 program that has been laid out in parliament by Prime 
Minister Nikol Pashinian focuses on the new government’s vision of Armenia’s 
future in new geopolitical realities in the region created after last year’s 
defeat in the war against Azerbaijan in Nagorno-Karabakh.

Hayastan and Pativ Unem, the two opposition factions represented in the 
parliament, have been critical of Pashinian and his political team, holding them 
responsible for the defeat and describing the government’s program as a pathway 
to a new “capitulation.”

Pashinian and majority lawmakers have dismissed such accusations, claiming that 
it is Pashinian’s predecessors, namely former presidents Robert Kocharian and 
Serzh Sarkisians, with whom the two opposition factions are associated, that are 
largely to blame for the defeat.

They argued that by letting them score a landslide victory in the June 20 snap 
parliament elections people vindicated Pashinian and his political team, while 
passing a guilty verdict on the former governments.

In his speech today Hayk Sargsian, a member of the ruling Civil Contract 
faction, in particular, criticized the former governments for their mishandling 
of the economy and army affairs that led to large-scale out-migration and a 
decrease in the country’s defense capabilities before the 2018 “velvet 
revolution.” He said that the new Pashinian government did not have enough time 
to redress the situation.

In an apparent reference to opposition criticism that some members of the 
current government did not serve in the army, Sargsian said that all former 
defense ministers during whose tenures people were exempted from military 
service by phone calls were “traitors.”

Sargsian’s remarks sparked a quarrel in the chamber between pro-government and 
opposition lawmakers as the main opposition Hayastan faction is led by former 
defense minister Seyran Ohanian.

As lawmakers began to throw water bottles at each other, Parliament Speaker Alen 
Simonian interrupted the session and called in security guards to restore order 
in the chamber.

Several lawmakers, including Civil Contract member Hrachya Hakobian, were 
removed from the chamber.

Hakobian later told reporters that the brawl was provoked by Ohanian, who threw 
a water bottle in the direction of Sargsian.

Ohanian did not comment immediately on the accusation. He denied any fistfights 
inside the session hall where access to media has been restricted since early 
August. Ohanian said, however, that his glasses were broken in the jostle.

Another brawl in the parliament between pro-government and opposition members 
broke out shortly after the lawmakers resumed work. It began during the speech 
of opposition Hayastan faction member Vahe Hakobian. It is seen on the video 
that parliament majority and minority deputies exchanged blows during a mass 
brawl that followed. Another break in the session was announced and security 
guards were called in. Several lawmakers were escorted out of the session hall.

The Prosecutor’s Office later said that the brawls in the Armenian parliament on 
Wednesday will become a matter for investigation.

On August 24, opposition lawmakers brawled with security guards after Parliament 
Speaker Simonian ordered that Pativ Unem faction member Anna Mkrtchian be 
deprived of the floor and removed from the chamber for insulting Prime Minister 
Pashinian.

The opposition yesterday accused Pashinian of provoking the incident with his 
encouragement of the security guards’ actions. Pashinian dismissed the 
accusation, saying that the security guards were doing their duty.

See videos at 

 


Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
Copyright (c) 2021 Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, Inc.
1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.
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                                        Tuesday, 

Turkish President Visits Azeri-Controlled Town In Karabakh


Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan (L) and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev 
attend a signing ceremony in Shusha, in Nagorno-Karabakh, 

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan visited on Tuesday a part of 
Nagorno-Karabakh that Azerbaijan regained control over last autumn as a result 
of a six-week war against Armenian forces.

Erdogan's visit strongly condemned by Armenia came a day after he met with U.S. 
President Joe Biden on the sidelines of a NATO summit in Brussels.

Upon his arrival in Baku Erdogan traveled to the decimated town of Fizuli to the 
southeast of Nagorno-Karabakh which Azerbaijani forces recaptured last autumn 
from ethnic Armenian forces that had controlled it since the early 1990s.

RFE/RL’s Azerbaijani Service reported that Erdogan was met in Fizuli by 
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and his wife. They then traveled into 
Azerbaijani-controlled territory within Nagorno-Karabakh to visit the strategic 
town of Shushi (Shusha).

Azerbaijani forces seized the mountain fortress town overlooking the Karabakh 
capital Stepanakert in early November just days before Russia brokered a 
ceasefire that stopped the fighting.

Erdogan was honored there with an official greeting ceremony. Afterward, he and 
Aliyev signed a document called the Shusha Declaration on Allied Relations 
between Azerbaijan and Turkey.

Turkey provided Azerbaijan with both diplomatic and military support during the 
recent conflict. Aliyev was reported to again thank Ankara for that support at a 
joint news briefing in Shushi. He described Erdogan’s visit as historic.

According to the Turkish daily Sabah, Erdogan said, for his part, that “Karabakh 
has returned to its owners” and announced plans to open a Turkish consulate in 
Shushi.

The Armenian Foreign Ministry condemned Aliyev’s and Erdogan’s visit to Shushi 
as a “provocation against regional peace and security.”

“It is noteworthy that this visit was preceded by the destruction of the 
religious, historical and cultural heritage of the forcibly displaced indigenous 
Armenian population, including the desecration of [Shushi’s] St. Holy Savior 
Ghazanchetsots Cathedral targeted by the Turkish-Azerbaijani forces during and 
after the war against Artsakh,” the ministry said in a statement.

“Restoration of the rights of the Armenians of Artsakh (Karabakh), which 
includes de-occupation of the territories of the Republic of Artsakh and safe 
return of the displaced population, is essential for overcoming the 
Turkish-Azerbaijani genocidal threat against the Armenian people,” it said.



Serzh Sarkisian Responds To Pashinian’s Threats

        • Gayane Saribekian
        • Artak Khulian

Armenia - Former President Serzh Sarkisian and other leaders of the opposition 
Pativ Unem bloc hold an election campaign meeting in Masis,.

Former President Serzh Sarkisian has condemned Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s 
threats to “hammer” political foes after Sunday’s parliamentary elections and 
warned that an opposition alliance led by him would put up a stiff resistance to 
any violence.

Campaigning in the northern Armenia city of Vanadzor on Monday, Sarkisian also 
accused Pashinian of being ready to provoke a “civil war” in order to stay in 
power.

Pashinian has brandished a hammer during his campaign rallies held in recent 
days, saying that it symbolizes a “steel mandate” which he hopes to receive from 
voters on election day.

“Right after the elections we will go after you with this mandate. Don’t tell us 
later that we didn’t warn you,” he said at one of those rallies, appealing to 
Armenia’s former leaders and other opposition forces challenging him in the 
elections.

“You see what he is holding in his hand, don’t you?” a visibly furious Sarkisian 
told supporters of the Pativ Unem bloc in Vanadzor. “I guess he wants someone to 
take it from his hand and bang it on his head so that he understands what it is.”

“I have said at one of our meetings that we must counter his ‘steel revolution’ 
with a shield made of a firmer substance and hold a truncheon in another hand so 
that we bang it on the head of anyone approaching us with a hammer,” he said. 
“There is no other option. What else can we do?”

Pashinian kept demonstrating his hammer and doubled down on his threats during a 
campaign trip to Armenia’s southeastern Syunik province on Tuesday. He 
specifically attacked the elected mayors of most Syunik towns and villages who 
demanded his resignation following Armenia’s defeat in the autumn war with 
Azerbaijan.

“With this thing we will be taking out those rusty nails, upstarts huddling in 
various municipalities from many places, including this place,” he told 
supporters rallying in the town of Sisian, also run by an anti-Pashinian mayor.


Armenia - Supporters of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian gather outside the main 
government building in Yerevan to join him on a campaign trip to Syunik 
province, .

Many of the local community heads defying the prime minister are affiliated with 
another opposition alliance led by former President Robert Kocharian. Pashinian 
was insulted and jeered by their protesting supporters when he toured Syunik in 
April.

The premier travelled to the region this time around in a motorcade of hundreds 
of cars carrying his own supporters from other parts of the country.

The blocs led by the two former presidents are among the main opposition 
election contenders trying to unseat Pashinian.

Sarkisian’s Pativ Unem consists of his Republican Party and the Fatherland Party 
of former National Security Service Director Artur Vanetsian. The latter tops 
the list of its election candidates.

The ex-president, who was toppled in the Pashinian-led “velvet revolution” in 
2018, is not among those candidates. Nevertheless, he has taken the center stage 
in Pativ Unem’s election campaign.

Unlike other major contenders, the bloc holds only indoor meetings with 
activists and supporters which are not announced beforehand. Journalists are not 
allowed to attend them and have to content themselves with video clips of those 
gatherings released by Pativ Unem.

Some of those videos have showed Sarkisian, Vanetsian and their political allies 
walking in the streets in and outside Yerevan and talking to local residents.



Armenian Central Bank Again Hikes Key Interest Rate


Armenia - Martin Galtsian, the chairman of the Central Bank of Armenia, speaks 
at a news conference in Yerevan, June 3, 2021.

The Central Bank of Armenia (CBA) raised its main interest rate on Tuesday for 
the fourth time in six months, saying that inflationary pressures on the Armenia 
economy are continuing to grow.

The CBA’s governing board set the refinancing rate at 6.5 percent, up by 0.5 
percentage points.

The minimum cost of borrowing stood at 4.25 percent when the bank began 
tightening its monetary policy in December after a major depreciation of the 
Armenian currency, the dram, followed by rising consumer prices.

In a statement explaining the latest rate hike, the CBA said that the global 
economy’s faster-than-expected recovery from the coronavirus crisis is causing 
the prices of key foodstuffs and commodities imported by Armenia to rise 
further. It said this “high inflationary environment” will persist in the months 
ahead.

The bank also reported growing consumer demand within Armenia fuelled by renewed 
economic growth, rising cash remittances from abroad and an “increase in the 
public’s inflationary expectations.” “By contrast, private investment activity 
remains weak,” it said.

According to official statistics cited by the CBA, annual inflation in the 
country reached 7.9 percent late last month, well above a 4 percent target set 
by the Armenian authorities for 2021. The CBA governor, Martin Galstian admitted 
recently that the authorities will likely fail to meet the target.

Galstian also said on June 3 that the bank will revise upwards its 1.4 percent 
economic growth forecast for 2021 made earlier this year. The CBA statement 
likewise noted Armenia’s “faster-than-anticipated recovery” from last year’s 
recession but did not specify the bank’s revised growth projections.

The Armenian government and the World Bank expect Armenia’s economy to expand by 
more than 3 percent this year after shrinking by 7.6 percent in 2020.



Armenian Ombudsman Again Slams Pashinian’s Campaign Rhetoric

Armenia - Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian brandishes a hammer at a campaign 
meeting in Sisian, a town in Syunik province, .

Armenia’s human rights defender, Arman Tatoyan, again criticized Prime Minister 
Nikol Pashinian’s fiery campaign rhetoric on Tuesday, saying that it is further 
heightening political tensions in the country.

Tatoyan described as “extremely concerning” the fact that Pashinian repeatedly 
brandished a hammer during his campaign rallies held in recent days. He also 
deplored Pashinian’s threats to “throw on the ground” and “bang against the 
wall” opposition supporters who would try to illegally influence the outcome of 
Sunday’s general elections.

“The use of phrases such as ‘make them lie on asphalt’ and ‘bang against the 
wall,’ which are addressed to a circle of unknown individuals and are extremely 
dangerous in terms of human rights, must be stopped,” the ombudsman said in a 
statement. “This unacceptable rhetoric is associated with mass violations of 
human rights.”

The hammer demonstrated by Pashinian on the campaign trail is meant to symbolize 
a popular “steel mandate” which he says he needs to continue ruling Armenia with 
a more firm hand.

“With the steel mandate we will take out all rusty nails, including in here 
Ararat [province,]” the premier told on Monday supporters rallying in Masis, a 
small town just south of Yerevan.

Pashinian doubled down on his rhetoric on Tuesday as he held campaign rallies in 
southeastern Syunik province where most town and village mayors have been openly 
defying him since Armenia’s defeat in last year’s war in Nagorno-Karabakh. He 
described them as “rusty nails” that will be taken out by his hammer after the 
elections.

“With this mandate we will break their [bank] accounts, destroy their firms and 
shove each of these criminal upstarts into holes on your behalf,” he said, 
brandishing the hammer.


Armenia - Human rights ombudsman Arman Tatoyan talks to Armenian soldiers 
deployed in Syunik province, May 14, 2021. (Photo by the Armenian Human Rights 
Defender's Office)

In Tatoyan’s words, Pashinian’s recourse to this analogy has triggered 
“dangerous discussions” on social media, with hardcore supporters and opponents 
of the current Armenian government openly threatening violent reprisals.

“Politicians regarded as candidates for the post of Armenia’s prime minister 
must be especially careful about words used by them and take into account all 
their figurative meanings,” the ombudsman stressed.

Former President Robert Kocharian and his political allies leading the 
opposition Hayastan alliance commented scathingly on Pashinian’s hammer when 
they campaigned in Masis on Tuesday.

“We are coming not to smash the hammer on their heads but to make the country 
prosperous,” Kocharian said at an indoor meeting held there.

One of his associates, Ishkhan Saghatelian, sounded less conciliatory. “On June 
20 we will wrest the hammer from his hands and you know what we will do,” he 
told local Hayastan supporters.

Tatoyan already denounced Pashinian and his rivals last week for resorting to 
inflammatory campaign rhetoric. He singled out the prime minister’s pledges to 
“purge” the state bureaucracy and wage “political vendettas” against local 
government officials supporting the Armenian opposition.


Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
Copyright (c) 2021 Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, Inc.
1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.