Author: Markos Nalchajian

                                        Wednesday, 


Vanetsian Confirms Split From Opposition Coalition

        • Astghik Bedevian

Armenia - Fatherland party leader Artur Vanetsian addresses an opposition rally 
in Yerevan, May 1, 2022.


Former National Security Service (NSS) Director Artur Vanetsian has confirmed 
that his Fatherland party is parting ways with other major opposition forces 
that have been jointly trying to topple Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian with 
street protests.

Vanetsian said on Tuesday that he is resigning his parliament seat because he 
believes the National Assembly has “ceased to be an effective platform” for 
challenging the Armenian government. He also announced the breakup of 
Fatherland’s Pativ Unem alliance with former President Serzh Sarkisian’s 
Republican Party (HHK).

In an interview with Armenian Public Television aired hours later, Vanetsian 
said he is “separating” from the HHK and the main opposition Hayastan bloc 
headed by another ex-president, Robert Kocharian.

“I have my agenda and follow my agenda,” he said. “There are certain differences 
on the ways of achieving the ultimate [opposition] goal … Let me not go into 
details now. You will see my further actions.”

The HHK’s deputy chairman, Armen Ashotian, acknowledged “tactical” differences 
with Vanetsian’s party but did not elaborate on them. He stressed that the 
country’s main opposition forces still share the same “strategic goals.”

Gegham Manukian, a lawmaker representing Hayastan, said it “respects” 
Vanetsian’s decision and believes their “joint struggle” against Pashinian will 
continue. He also made clear that Kocharian’s bloc will not give up its 29 seats 
in the 107-member parliament.

Ashotian hinted that the four lawmakers affiliated with the HHK also have no 
plans to resign from the parliament.

Pativ Unem and Hayastan launched on May 1 daily demonstrations in Yerevan aimed 
at forcing Pashinian to resign. In what they called a change of tactics, 
opposition leaders announced on June 14 that they will now hold antigovernment 
rallies in Yerevan on a weekly basis. Their next rally is scheduled for Friday.



Armenian Military Silent On Soldier’s Death

        • Anush Mkrtchian

Armenia - Armenian soldiers take up positions on the border with Azerbaijan, May 
17, 2021.


Armenia’s Defense Ministry has declined so far to shed light on the latest death 
of an Armenian soldier guarding the border with Azerbaijan.

The 20-year-old conscript, Hrach Piliposian, was killed at the weekend at a 
border section in eastern Gegharkunik province in still unclear circumstances. 
His death was officially confirmed on Saturday hours after the Azerbaijani 
military reported overnight fighting with Armenian forces deployed in the area.

Local government officials in Gegharkunik said that Piliposian died as a result 
of that skirmish. The Defense Ministry in Yerevan did not confirm or deny that, 
promising on Saturday to reveal the circumstances of his death soon.

The ministry has still not given any details of the incidents. Its press service 
did not answer phone calls on Wednesday.

The soldier’s family living in a village in central Armenia has also not 
received official information about the causes and circumstances of his death. 
His uncle, Ashot Khachatrian, said that no military official has visited family 
members so far.

Armenia - Hrach Piliposian, an Armenian soldier killed on the Armenian-Azeri 
border.

He cited officers of Piliposian’s army unit as saying privately that the soldier 
was killed by enemy fire. “According to our information, he got shrapnel and 
bullet wounds,” Khachatrian told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service.

Zhanna Aleksanian, a human rights activist monitoring the armed forces, deplored 
their “suspicious” silence.

“The defense minister [Suren Papikian] does not bother to provide any 
information to the public,” said Aleksanian. “The whole [ruling] elite is silent 
along with him.”

The Defense Ministry has usually been quick to report combat deaths in the 
Armenian army ranks. Each such case is formally investigated by a corresponding 
division of the country’s Investigative Committee.

A spokesman for the committee, Vartan Tadevosian, said that it cannot comment on 
Piliposian’s death because the Defense Ministry has made no statements to that 
effect. “I don’t know what the situation is now,” he said.



Russia Unconvinced By U.S. Assurances On Karabakh

        • Naira Nalbandian

RUSSIAN -- Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova gives a press 
conference in Moscow, July 1, 2021


Russia on Wednesday dismissed a senior U.S. official’s assurances that 
Washington wants to continue to cooperate with Moscow in facilitating a 
resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Karen Donfried denied at the weekend Russian 
claims that the United States as well as France stopped that cooperation 
following the Russian invasion of Ukraine. She said that the OSCE Minsk Group 
co-headed by the three mediating powers remains a “very important format” for 
brokering an Armenian-Azerbaijani peace accord.

“France, the U.S. and Russia would continue in that format,” Donfried told 
RFE/RL’s Armenian Service.

“I would like to allow myself to doubt the sincerity of Karen Donfried's 
statement,” said Maria Zakharova, the Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman. “If 
Washington and Paris really considered the unique mediating format of the Minsk 
Group important, they would not allow themselves to neglect the mandate approved 
by all participating states.”

Zakharova claimed that the U.S. and France froze the work of the Minsk Group and 
caused it “irreparable damage” as part of their broader attempts to isolate 
Russia on the international stage.

“There is no guarantee that such irresponsible actions will not be repeated,” 
she told reporters in Moscow. “Pretending that nothing happened just won't work. 
New realities must be taken into account.”

Belgium - European Council President Charles Michel, Armenian Prime Minister 
Nikol Pashinian and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev begin a trilateral 
meeting in Brussels, April 6, 2022.

Russia has also been irked by the European Union’s separate Karabakh peace 
efforts that intensified after the outbreak of the war in Ukraine. In April, 
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov accused the EU of seeking to sideline his 
country and use the Karabakh conflict in the standoff over Ukraine.

A senior EU diplomat insisted earlier this month that the 27-nation bloc is “not 
engaged in any kind of competition” with Moscow in the Armenian-Azerbaijani 
peace process.

In recent weeks, Armenia’s leaders have called for renewed joint activities of 
U.S., Russian and French co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group. By contrast, 
Azerbaijani officials and President Ilham Aliyev in particular have repeatedly 
questioned the need for the group’s continued existence.

Lavrov is scheduled to fly to Baku on Thursday for talks with Aliyev and 
Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov.



Youth Activists Acquitted Over 2019 Attack On Government Critic

        • Naira Bulghadarian

Armenia - Video blogger Narek Malian speaks to journalists, January 28, 2020.


A court in Yerevan has acquitted Western-funded youth activists who assaulted a 
blogger highly critical of the Armenian government more than three years ago.

The outspoken video blogger, Narek Malian, was confronted by members of a youth 
group called Restart in March 2019. A video of the incident showed the Restart 
leader, Davit Petrosian, and several other men forcibly carrying him along a 
street in downtown Yerevan before being stopped by police officers.

The men said afterwards that they wanted to throw Malian into a trash container 
in response to his “slanderous” statements about Restart. As Petrosian explained 
at the time, they tried to “put the garbage in its place.”

Petrosian and five other men were detained during the incident but set free a 
few hours later. They were charged with attempted kidnapping, with prosecutors 
demanding suspended prison sentences for them during their subsequent trial.

The judge presiding over the trial, Davit Harutiunian, cleared the defendants of 
the accusation in a verdict handed down earlier this week.

Yuri Avagian, one of the defendants and Restart’s current leader, defended their 
actions, saying that they did not constitute a kidnapping attempt or even 
hooliganism and were aimed at ending the use of insults in Armenian political 
discourse. Avagian claimed that he and his comrades did not cause Malian any 
“physical or psychological” harm.

Armenia - Restart leader Davit Petrosian speaks to RFE/RL, March 11, 2019.

Malian condemned the verdict and said he will appeal it. He accused the 
presiding judge of bowing to pressure from what he called Armenian followers of 
U.S. billionaire George Soros.

“The purpose of recruiting and creating that group financed by oligarch Soros is 
to silence dissidents through violence and to impose their agenda on people 
defying their network,” he charged in a statement released on Wednesday.

Malian, who had worked as an adviser to former Armenian police chief Vladimir 
Gasparian, earlier blamed the Armenian branch of Soros’s Open Society 
Foundations (OSF) for the 2019 attack. OSF-Armenia condemned the attack and 
strongly denied any responsibility for it.

Speaking in March 2019, the then OSF-Armenia director, Larisa Minasian, 
confirmed that Restart received a $20,000 grant from her organization. But she 
insisted that the funding was only meant to support the group’s stated efforts 
to make the Yerevan State University administration more accountable to students.

Restart appears to have also received funding from the European Union. The head 
of the EU Delegation in Yerevan, Andrea Wiktorin, praised the organization in 
February this year when she addressed an event marking the fourth anniversary of 
its creation. Wiktorin said that Restart “upholds the rights of students across 
Armenia and promotes critical thinking and youth participation in policy making.”

Members of the group actively participated in the 2018 “velvet revolution” that 
brought Nikol Pashinian to power. By contrast, Malian has been very scathing 
about the dramatic regime change. He has lambasted the Armenian prime minister 
and poured scorn on his supporters on social media.


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