Author: Maral Takmazian

                                        Monday, 

Israeli Defense Firm Accused Of Drone Attack On Armenians


Nagorno-Karabakh -- An Israel-manufactured Azerbaijani "suicide" drone
crashes in the Martakert district, 4Apr2016.

Israel's Defense Ministry claims to be investigating reports that
senior executives of an Israeli defense company struck an Armenian
military position with a "suicide" drone recently in an effort to sell
such weapons to Azerbaijan.

The Israeli daily "Maariv" reported on Sunday that representatives of
the company, Aeronautics Defense Systems, travelled to Azerbaijan over
a month ago to finalize a contract for the sale of its Orbiter 1K
unmanned aircraft capable of carrying special explosive payload.

Citing a formal complaint lodged with the ministry, the paper reported
that two Israeli drone operators rebuffed Azerbaijani officials'
demand to demonstrate the use of the deadly drone by hitting the
Armenian position in an undisclosed area with it. But other, more
senior representatives of the company agreed to launch the deadly
craft towards the target, the paper said.

One of the operators subsequently resigned from the company in
protest, while the other plans to follow suit soon, according to
"Maariv."

Reacting to the report, the Israeli Defense Ministry said: "The claim
is being examined by the relevant parties at the ministry." The
complaint was filed with the ministry's Defense Export Controls
Agency, reported another Israeli daily, "Haaretz."

Aeronautics Defense Systems, meanwhile, denied the report, saying that
"the operational action was carried out by the purchaser alone."

According to Nagorno-Karabakh's Armenian-backed Defense Army, the
Azerbaijani military most recently attacked its frontline positions
with a suicide drone on July 7. Colonel Armen Gyozalian, the commander
of an army unit stationed in northeastern Karabakh, told the "Hay
Zinvor" newspaper earlier this month that two of his soldiers were
lightly wounded in the incident. No Armenian military hardware was
damaged in that drone attack, he said.

The Azerbaijani army heavily used similar suicide drones manufactured
by another Israeli company, Israel Aerospace Industries, during the
April 2016 hostilities in Karabakh, which left at least 190 soldiers
from both sides dead. Baku had gotten hold of them as part of
multimillion-dollar defense contracts signed with the Jewish state.

The Israeli weapons sold to Azerbaijan have included not only various
types of unmanned aircraft but also air-defense systems and anti-tank
rockets. Aeronautics Defense Systems, the Oribter manufacturer,
reportedly started supplying drones to the Azerbaijani military in
2008.

Armenia has long expressed concern at the Israeli-Azerbaijani arms
deals, saying that they undermine international efforts to end the
Karabakh conflict. The Armenian Foreign Ministry on Monday reacted
cautiously to the Israeli newspaper report. "We are aware of problems
and monitoring them," a ministry spokesman told Tert.am.

The report came less than three weeks after Israeli Minister of
Regional Cooperation Tzachi Hanegbi visited Yerevan in an apparent bid
to improve his country's frosty relationship with Armenia. Hanegbi
signed a number of bilateral agreements with Armenian Foreign Minister
Edward Nalbandian and Culture Minister Armen Amirian. He also met with
Prime Minister Karen Karapetian.



Armenia Battling Wildfires


 . Ruzanna Gishian


Armenia - A wildfire in the Khosrov Forest Reserve, 14Aug2017.

Russia sent a large water-dropping aircraft to Armenia to help
authorities there contain a massive wildfire in a forest southeast of
Yerevan that raged for the third consecutive day on Monday.

The fire in the historic Khosrov Forest Reserve broke out on
Saturday. Helped by an unusually hot and dry weather, it quickly
spread to more than 200 hectares of land, threatening to engulf the
entire state-protected area encompassing 9,000 hectares of forest
founded by a 4th century Armenian king.

The Ministry for Emergency Situations scrambled to contain the blaze,
sending dozens firefighters to the area. They were joined on Monday by
over 200 Armenian army soldiers and police officers as well as
hundreds of residents of nearby villages and volunteers from other
parts of the country.

They continued to battle the fire as it burned down more trees on
Monday afternoon, sending a thick smoke billowing skyward. Ministry
officials complained that the Khosrov reserve's mountainous terrain is
making is practically impossible for them to deploy fire engines.

An Armenian military helicopter was therefore called in to join the
operation. Water dropped by it on burning trees provided insufficient,
however.


Armenia - A wildfire in the Khosrov Forest Reserve, 14Aug2017.

Emergency Situations Minister Davit Tonoyan called his Russian
counterpart Vladimir Puchkov to ask him for urgent
assistance. Tonoyan's press office announced later in the day that the
Russian Ministry for Emergency Situations will dispatch a special
plane designed for dealing with forest fires.

A statement by the office said the Ilyushin-72 plane can drop more
than 42 tons of water and protect almost 5 hectares of land against
flames during a single flight. Preparations are now underway to
ensuring necessary water supply to the plane, added the statement.

The water-dropping plane arrived at the Erebuni airbase in Yerevan at
7 around p.m. local time.

"We hope that the plane will arrive and we'll extinguish the fire with
its help," a senior official at the Armenian Rescue Service told
reporters.

"This is a disaster, this is not an ordinary fire," he said. "I've
worked in this area for many years and haven't seen a fire like this
before."

Although Armenia has been affected by an intense heatwave for the last
few weeks, law-enforcement authorities suspect that the Khosrov forest
fire was the result of human negligence. The Investigative Committee
launched a criminal inquiry under corresponding articles of the
Armenian Criminal Code.

Another massive wildfire broke out near a village in the southeastern
Vayots Dzor province last Thursday. It reportedly affected about 650
hectares of land partly covered with trees. Tonoyan's ministry
announced on Monday that the fire has finally been contained with the
help of army soldiers and policemen.



RFE/RL Reporter Harassed In Armenia


Armenia - A vanadlized car that transported an RFE/RL car to Sevan, 14
August, 2017.

A correspondent for RFE/RL's Armenian service was threatened and
chased by a man while reporting on safety standards at Armenia's
liquefied gas stations on Monday.

The furious young man turned on the reporter, Narine Ghalechian, when
she approached one such station in Sevan, a town 55 kilometers north
of Yerevan, and started filming it. He didn't explain his rage during
the incident.

"I switched off and hid the video camera to prevent him from damaging
it but kept holding the microphone in a visible way, which was enough
for him to understand that I'm a journalist, then ran away and got in
the car" Ghalechian said afterwards. "I told him not to approach me or
I will call the police, which made him even angrier.

"He reached for the car's door which I already locked. When he
realized that the door is locked he started kicking and punching it."

Ghalechian then headed to a police station and reported the incident
to senior officers there. The man was brought into the police station
for questioning later in the day.

Police officers also inspected the damaged car used by the RFE/RL
crew. They pledged to hold the violent man accountable.

Armenia's human rights ombudsman, Arman Tatoyan, was quick to express
concern at the incident. A statement by Tatoyan's office said he has
formally appealed to the Armenian police to conduct an investigation.



Russian PM Hails Rising Trade With Armenia


Kazakhstan - Prime Ministers Dmitry Medvedev of Russia (R) and Karen
Karapetian of Armenia meet in Astana, 14Aug2017.

Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev welcomed a continuing
double-digit growth of Russia's trade with Armenia when he met with
his Armenian counterpart Karen Karapetian on Monday.

The two men held talks on the sidelines of a meeting in Kazakhstan's
capital Astana of the prime ministers of Eurasian Economic Union (EEU)
member states.

"On the whole, the situation is not bad because there is an increase
in both deliveries of goods from Armenia to Russia and overall
commercial exchange between our countries," Medvedev said in his
opening remarks at the meeting. "We are continuing to coordinate our
positions on joint investment projects, on a number of areas of
economic cooperation which have emerged of late."

"So on the whole, things are going well, but this doesn't mean that we
have nothing to discuss," he added.

"I also want to discuss a number of issues, including dates for your
visit to Armenia," replied Karapetian.

Official Armenian statistics show that Russian-Armenian trade
increased by over 23.7 percent to $737.5 million in the first half of
this year. By comparison, Armenia's trade with the European Union
amounted to $677 million in the same period. It was up by 18 percent
in absolute terms.

Russia surpassed the EU as Armenia's leading trading partner after a
similar rise in bilateral trade recorded last year. Armenian exports
to Russia alone jumped by 51 percent in 2016. Officials in Yerevan
attributed that to Armenia's membership in the EEU, a Russian-led
trade bloc comprising five ex-Soviet states.

Analysts believe that a stabilization and certain strengthening of the
Russian ruble in 2016 was also a key factor. The Russian currency
weakened sharply against the U.S. dollar in 2014 and 2015 due to the
collapse of oil prices and Western economic sanctions imposed on
Moscow. As a result, Russian-Armenian trade plummeted in 2015.



Press Review



(Saturday, August 12)

"For the [Armenian] authorities, the population is a gray mass which
should be bribed, bullied and suppressed during elections so that they
can achieve their desired results," writes "Aravot." "The people then
had better not disturb the authorities for the next four or five
years. And they may not disturb. But that is not an ideal solution for
the authorities because humiliated people are not inclined to work and
create and may have a latent hatred towards those who humiliate them."

Armen Badalian, a political commentator, tells Lragir.am that
Armenia's civil society must have a staunchly pro-Western
orientation. "Russia has serious problems with civil society and you
can't build a civil society through integration into Russian
integration structures," he says.

Writing in Civilnet.am, a prominent journalist and columnist, Tatul
Hakobian, looks at opposition calls for renaming street names in
Yerevan that were named after controversial Armenian Bolshevik
leaders. He brings the example of a village in Armenia's Gegharkunik
village that was named after one of those leaders in the 1920s,
wondering whether it too should be given a new name.

(Sargis Harutyunyan)


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