Author: Vardan Badalian

                                        Thursday, 

Yerevan Unfazed By Russia-West Tensions


        • Sargis Harutyunyan


Armenia - Deputy Foreign Minister Shavarsh Kocharian speaks to journalists in 
Yerevan 16Nov2017.

The latest upsurge in tensions between Russia and the West will not adversely 
affect Armenia’s relations with the European Union and the United States, a 
senior Armenian diplomat insisted on Thursday.

Deputy Foreign Minister Shavarsh Kocharian said he specifically expects no 
fresh hurdles to the ratification of the Comprehensive and Enhanced Partnership 
Agreement (CEPA) that was signed by Armenia and the EU last November.

The 350-page agreement highlighted Yerevan’s desire to deepen ties with the EU 
while remaining part of Russian-led alliances of ex-Soviet states, notably the 
Eurasian Economic Union (EEU). The EU’s foreign policy chief, Federica 
Mogherini, said earlier this month that those ties are now closer than ever 
before.

“The EU finds very important the fact that Armenia is the first Eurasian 
Economic Union member state which opted for such profound cooperation with the 
EU while sticking to its obligations to other integration structures,” 
Kocharian told reporters.

Kocharian claimed other some of the other EEU member states are now looking 
into the EU-Armenia dealings as a potential blueprint for their relations with 
the 28-nation bloc. He refused to name them.

The mounting Russia-West tensions stem from the recent the poisoning in Britain 
of former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal. The U.S., France and Germany 
have effectively joined Britain in blaming Russia for the military-grade nerve 
toxin attack. They have called it a clear breach of the Chemical Weapons 
Convention and international law.

Moscow has denied any involvement in the poisoning.

Kocharian also seemed optimistic that no EU member state will block or impede 
the CEPA’s implementation. “The fact that the EU signed the agreement means 
that all EU member states had fully agreed to it,” he said.

The CEPA has to be ratified by Armenia’s parliament, the EU member states and 
the European Parliament in order to fully come into force. But some of its key 
provisions can be put into practice right after the Armenian ratification 
expected next month.



No Political Prisoners In Armenia, Says Minister


        • Ruzanna Stepanian


Armenia - Justice Minister Davit Harutiunian holds a news conference in 
Yerevan, 20 February 2018.

The Armenian authorities have not arrested or imprisoned anyone for political 
reasons, Justice Minister Davit Harutiunian said on Thursday.

“I don’t agree that there are political prisoners in Armenia,” he told RFE/RL’s 
Armenian service (Azatutyun.am).

Harutiunian dismissed a list of about a dozen imprisoned individuals drawn up 
my some human rights groups and other non-governmental organizations.

“I am familiar with many such lists. I have also seen a list drawn up by an 
international organization which described Nairi Hunanian as a political 
prisoner,” he said, referring to the jailed leader of an armed group that 
assassinated Prime Minister Vazgen Sarkisian and seven other officials in the 
October 1999 attack on the Armenian parliament.

“Everything depends on standards and unfortunately the fact is that this term 
[political prisoner] is very often used for political purposes,” added the 
minister who has held senior state posts for the last two decades.

The individuals considered to be political prisoners by critics of the Armenian 
government are mostly members or supporters of fringe opposition groups. One of 
them, Zhirayr Sefilian, was sentenced this week to 10.5 years in prison on coup 
charges which he strongly denies.

The lengthy prison sentence has been condemned by Armenian civic groups and 
mainstream opposition leaders such as Nikol Pashinian, a leader of the Yelk 
alliance.

Another Yelk leader, Edmon Marukian, on Thursday commented more cautiously on 
the jail term handed to Sefilian. He said he will pass final judgment only 
after looking into the verdict handed down by a Yerevan district court. 
Marukian made clear at the same time that he believes that the verdict is 
“connected” with Sefilian’s political activities.

The head of the European Union Delegation in Yerevan, Piotr Switalski, was 
asked by reporters last September about the existence of political prisoners in 
Armenia. “The European Union does not always necessarily share the views of 
non-governmental organizations,” Switalski said. “On such issues, we are mainly 
guided by decisions made by the European Court of Human Rights. As you know, 
there are no people in Armenia who are qualified by [the Strasbourg court] as 
political prisoners.”



No One Charged In Armenian Wildfire


        • Anush Muradian


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

After a five-month investigation, Armenian law-enforcement authorities have 
decided not to prosecute anyone in connection with a massive wildfire in a 
nature reserve southeast of Yerevan.

The fire in the Khosrov Forest State Reserve erupted in August and raged for at 
least four days before being extinguished by Armenian emergency workers with 
the help of a Russian firefighting plane. It burned at least 360 of hectares of 
woodland.

Armenia’s Investigative Committee initially charged one unnamed person under an 
article of the Criminal Code dealing with serious damage caused to a forest.

A spokeswoman for the law-enforcement agency, Sona Truzian, said on Thursday 
that it has closed the criminal case for lack of any evidence of arson or human 
negligence. She said investigators concluded that last summer’s drought and 
unusually high air temperatures were the likely cause of the calamity.

Environment Protection Minister Artsvik Minasian said he has no reason to call 
their findings into question. “I have confidence in the professionalism of our 
law-enforcement bodies,” he told RFE/RL’s Armenian service (Azatutyun.am).


Armenia - Trees in the Khosrov Forest State Reserve burned by a wildfire, 
14Aug2017.

Minasian stated as recently as in October that the cause of the blaze was 
“definitely not natural.”

His ministry announced at the time that it has asked for and received aerial 
photographs of the Khosrov reserve that were taken by U.S. surveillance 
satellites the day after the fire broke out on August 12. It said it has 
forwarded the images to the Investigative Committee.

Hakob Sanasarian, a veteran environment protection activist, said he does not 
trust the committee’s conclusion and suspects a cover-up. Sanasarian also 
slammed the Environment Protection Ministry, saying that it was not equipped to 
contain the blaze and has failed to learn lessons.

Minasian argued that the ministry lacks funds to hire more staff for this and 
other forests. He also said it has since acquired some types of new technical 
equipment and revised its contingency plans for wildfires.

The Khosrov reserve occupies roughly 25,000 hectares of land. Around 9,000 
hectares of it are forests originally planted during the reign of a 4th century 
Armenian king, Khosrov III.



Press Review



“Zhoghovurd” claims that Prime Minister Karen Karapetian “voiced indirect 
accusations against Serzh Sarkisian” in the Armenian parliament on Wednesday by 
reiterating his belief that the continuing uncertainty about his political 
future reflects negatively on economic activity in Armenia. Karapetian thus 
again accused Sarkisian and the ruling HHK of hampering investments in the 
Armenian economy, speculates the paper.

“Haykakan Zhamanak” describes as “sensational” the release on Wednesday of 
transcripts of wiretapped phone calls that were made by radical opposition 
gunmen after they seized a police station in Yerevan’s Erebuni district in July 
2016. They were publicized by prosecutors at the trial of the leading members 
of the armed group called Sasna Tsrer. “The conversations make it clear that 
the group which seized the police base had one objective: to remove Nikol 
Pashinian from the [surrounding] area and get the people rallying there closer 
to the base,” comments the paper. It suggests that the release of this 
important information may be aimed at preventing Pashinian’s Civil Contract 
party and smaller opposition groups supportive of the jailed gunmen from 
jointly trying to topple President Sarkisian.

“These wiretaps demonstrate that Sasna Tsrer’s actions targeted not only the 
authorities but also politics as a whole,” writes “Zhamanak.” The paper too 
points to possible cooperation between Pashinian and the gunmen’s backers. “Of 
course, in Armenia’s modern history there have been quite a few cases where 
political forces that had traded accusations subsequently became allies, at 
least in the tactical sense,” it says. “But in this case we are witnessing a 
qualitatively different situation and circumstances because they are about 
accepting or not accepting politics in principle, rather than 
political-tactical differences.”

“Hraparak” sees a clear division between opposition forces trying to stop Serzh 
Sarkisian from extending his rule. Some of them, including the jailed Sasna 
Tsrer leaders, stand for an “armed tough struggle” while the others, notably 
Pashinian’s party, favor solely peaceful methods of political struggle, 
editorializes the paper. It says that even peaceful protests will not make 
Pashinian and his allies immune to arrest. “The bad thing is that in our 
country virtually all avenues of political struggle lead to prisons,” it says. 
“Things like civilized struggle, peaceful regime change and bloodless ouster of 
a failed government do not materialize here.”

(Tigran Avetisian)


Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
Copyright (c) 2018 Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, Inc.
1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.
www.rferl.org 

Please find the attached press release of the Ministry of Diaspora.

Sincerely,
Media and PR Department
(+374 10) 585601, internal 805

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Armenpress News Agency , Armenia
 Friday


Armenian-Israeli business forum to be held in near future: MPs sum up
results of Israel visit



YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 16, ARMENPRESS. The members of the Armenia-Israel
parliamentary friendship group had a lot of meetings in Israel with
quite a busy, loaded agenda, reports Armenpress.

During a four-day trip the delegation members had 15 meetings with the
representatives of the Knesset, government, business, the Armenian
community and the Patriarchate.

Gagik Minasyan, head of the friendship group, told reporters that
their visit coincided with the period when inter-power problems
emerged in Israel. During those days the bill on marking the Armenian
Genocide day was discussed at the Knesset which was submitted by
leader of the Yesh Atid party Yair Lapid.

“We met with Yair Lapid. At the meeting it was stated that the
positive solution of the issue is important not only for the Armenian
people, but also for Israel”, Gagik Minasyan said.

During the Israel visit the Armenian lawmakers also raised the issue
of the Karabakh conflict. Minasyan informed that the Israeli defense
minister sometimes expresses biased views on this issue. “We were told
that the government’s opinion will be clearly presented, and this is
not what is expressed by the defense minister. We stated that there is
the only internationally recognized body, the Minsk Group that deals
with this issue”, he said.

The Armenian parliamentarians also raised the issue of Israel’s
selling weapons to Azerbaijan. “It’s incomprehensible how Jews with
the same fate as Armenians today supply offensive weapons to a
totalitarian country the leader of which with his statements equals
with the leaders of the Nazi Germany, announcing that Yerevan, Sevan
belong to Azerbaijan. The Israeli side said they are selling weapons
to many countries of the world”, Gagik Minasyan said.

The Israeli side asked how Armenia is going to cooperate with their
country at the same time having warm relations with Iran.

“As you know, the Iran-Israel relations are tense. We stated that our
cooperation doesn’t threaten anyone’s security, our cooperation is of
peace nature. I want to add that this position was acceptable for
them”, Gagik Minasyan said.

A number of other meetings were held with different Israeli officials,
specialists.

MP Aghvan Vardanyan said Armenia and Israel have great cooperation
potential. It is planned to hold an Armenian-Israeli business forum in
the future.