Author: Yeghisabet Arthur

                                        Thursday, 

Former Armenian Official ‘Seeking Political Asylum In Russia’

        • Aza Babayan

Armenia - Parliament deputy Mihran Poghosian at a session of the National 
Assembly in Yerevan, 19 May 2017.

A Russian lawyer apparently representing Mihran Poghosian, a former senior 
Armenian official facing corruption charges in Armenia, on Thursday did not 
deny reports that he has applied for political asylum in Russia.

Poghosian was arrested in the northern Russian region of Karelia late last week 
just days after being indicted by an Armenian law-enforcement body. A local 
court reportedly allowed the Russian police to hold him in detention for up to 
40 days, pending a decision on his extradition to Armenia demanded by Armenian 
prosecutors.

News reports said on Wednesday that Poghosian, who denies the corruption 
charges as politically motivated, has asked Russian authorities to grant him 
asylum.

Mikhail Yamchitsky, the head of Karelia’s bar association described by Russian 
media as Poghosian’s lawyer, refused to confirm or refute those reports. 
Speaking to RFE/RL’s Armenian service by phone, Yamchitsky said he is not 
allowed to comment on the matter.

Under Russian law, political asylum can only be granted by President Vladimir 
Putin. Russia’s Interior Ministry can recommend such decisions after consulting 
with the Foreign Ministry and the Federal Security Service.

Armenian investigators claim that the 42-year-old Poghosian embezzled at least 
64.2 million drams ($132,000) in public funds when he ran a state agency 
enforcing court rulings from 2008-2016. They also accuse him of giving 
privileged treatment to a real estate valuation firm that was contracted by the 
Service for the Mandatory Execution of Judicial Acts (SMEJA) in 2014.

The firm was allegedly a subsidiary of shadowy companies set up by Poghosian in 
Panama in 2011. Citing leaked documents widely known as the Panama Papers, an 
Armenian investigative website reported in April 2016 that Poghosian controls 
three such companies registered in the Central American state.

Poghosian dismissed the report. Nevertheless, he resigned as SMEJA chief 
shortly afterwards despite continuing to deny any wrongdoing. A year later, he 
was elected to the former Armenian parliament on the ticket of ex-President 
Serzh Sarkisian’s Republican Party.




Armenia Condemns Erdogan’s ‘Hate Speech’


Armenia -- Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian and his wife Anna Hakobian lay 
flowers at the Armenian genocide memorial in Yerevan, .

Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian has strongly condemned Turkish President Recep 
Tayyip Erdogan’s latest public denial of the 1915 Armenian genocide in the 
Ottoman Empire, saying that it amounts to “extreme hate speech.”

Erdogan again lambasted France and other nations recognizing the genocide on 
Wednesday when he spoke at a conference in Ankara apparently timed to coincide 
with the annual remembrance of some 1.5 million Ottoman Armenians who lost 
their lives during the First World War.

Erdogan claimed that Armenians themselves massacred Muslim civilians and that 
their mass deportations to the Syrian desert was “the most reasonable action 
that could be taken” by the Ottoman government. “Relocation is one thing, 
massacre is another thing,” he said.


TURKEY -- Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, accompanied by his wife Emine 
Erdogan, addresses AK Party supporters in Ankara, April 1, 2019

Pashinian reacted angrily to Erdogan’s remarks on his Twitter page. “Calling 
victims ofthe Armenian Genocide, the Ottoman Empire's entire Armenian 
population, which was sent to death marches, ‘Armenian gangs & their 
supporters’ … is not just a new high in denialism but justification of nation 
murder,” he wrote.

“Above all, doing this on April 24 is an ultimate insult to the Armenian people 
and to humanity,” the prime minister added, urging the international community 
to condemn Erdogan’s “extreme hate speech.”

Throughout his long rule, Erdogan has stuck to successive Turkish governments’ 
strong denial of a premeditated effort by the Ottoman regime of “the Young 
Turks” to exterminate the empire’s Armenian population. In April 2015, he 
likewise said that “the relocation of the Armenian population in Anatolia to 
southern lands” was a legitimate response to violence by “Armenian gangs 
provoked by various powers.”

The Turkish leader referred to the Syrian desert where hundreds of thousands of 
Armenians -- mostly women, children and elderly people -- were killed or 
starved to death. Scores of others died on their way to the Deir ez-Zor camps.


FRANCE -- French President Emmanuel Macron speaks during the annual dinner of 
the Co-ordination Council of Armenian organisations of France (CCAF), in Paris, 
February 5, 2019

In his latest speech, Erdogan lashed out at France, which officially recognized 
the genocide in 2001 and held its first "national day of commemoration of the 
Armenian genocide" on Wednesday. French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe led the 
commemorations in Paris on Wednesday, laying flowers at a monument to the 
genocide victims erected in 2003.

“France intends to contribute to the recognition of the Armenian genocide as a 
crime against humanity, against civilization,” Philippe said, according to the 
AFP news agency. “It will not be impressed by any lies, by any pressure, what 
we are looking for is historical accuracy and reconciliation.”


European Court Rules On Ter-Petrosian’s 2008 Appeal

        • Naira Nalbandian

Armenia - Former President Levon Ter-Petrosian at an election campaign rally, 
February 13, 2008.

Former Armenian authorities violated citizens’ freedom of assembly when they 
broke up post-elections demonstrations in 2008, the European Court of Human 
Rights (ECHR) said on Thursday in a ruling on an appeal lodged by former 
President Levon Ter-Petrosian.

The ECHR at the same dismissed as “manifestly ill-founded” Ter-Petrosian’s 
claim that he was illegally placed under house arrest following the forcible 
dispersal of daily protests organized by him in Yerevan’s Liberty Square.

Ter-Petrosian and his supporters rejected as fraudulent official results of the 
February 2008 presidential election which gave victory to Serzh Sarkisian. The 
ex-president was the main opposition candidate in the disputed ballot.

Security forces dispersed Ter-Petrosian’s tent camp in Liberty Square early on 
March 1, 2008. The opposition leader was forced into a car and taken to his 
Yerevan residence from the square.

Thousands of his supporters barricaded themselves elsewhere in the city center 
later on that day. Eight protesters and two police servicemen were killed in 
ensuing violent clashes that broke out there. Citing the deadly violence, the 
outgoing President Robert Kocharian declared a three-week state of emergency in 
the Armenian capital.

Ter-Petrosian appealed to the ECHR in August 2008, saying that security forces 
breached his and his supporters’ freedom of assembly and illegally deprived him 
of liberty.

Upholding its September 2018 judgment on a similar appeal lodged by one of 
Ter-Petrosian’s former associates, the ECHR ruled that the breakup of the 
Liberty Square protests did not have “sufficient justification” and involved 
“disproportionate” use of force.

It said the crackdown violated an article of the European Convention on Human 
Right guaranteeing freedom of assembly. Ter-Petrosian also did not have “an 
effective domestic remedy for his grievances,” the Strasbourg-based court added 
in a statement.

Still, the ECHR ruled that it lacks “strong and unequivocal evidence” to 
conclude that Ter-Petrosian was kept under house arrest during the state of 
emergency. “The Court found that there was insufficient substantiation for 
these complaints and that this part of the application had to be rejected as 
manifestly ill-founded,” read the statement.

Vahe Grigorian, a lawyer who had lodged Ter-Petrosian’s appeal to Strasbourg, 
welcomed the ECHR ruling. Speaking to RFE/RL’s Armenians service, Grigorian 
said it represents further proof that the use of force against protesters 
camped on Liberty Square was “totally unconstitutional and illegal.”




Press Review



“Zhoghovurd” says that Mihran Poghosian, the fugitive former head of Armenia’s 
Service for the Mandatory Execution of Judicial Acts (SMEJA), should have been 
prosecuted on corruption charges three years ago when it first emerged that he 
has secret offshore assets. The paper says this did not happen because former 
President Serzh Sarkisian did not want to “sacrifice” a key member of his 
political clan. It wonders whether Russia will now extradite Poghosian to 
Armenia or grant him political asylum.

“Poghosian thinks that he is prosecuted in Armenia for political reasons,” 
writes Lragir.am. “A Russian court allowed his 40-day arrest earlier this week 
as Armenia’s Office of the Prosecutor-General said it has presented the Russian 
side with all documents required for his extradition,” it says. “Now Russia has 
to choose between believing Armenian law-enforcement authorities and Mihran 
Poghosian.”

“Hraparak” says that Armenia must get rid of “all taboos and stereotypes” 
relating to relations with its neighbors, “discuss all problems in a free and 
uninhibited manner” and make far-reaching decisions. In this endeavor, the 
paper, says the Armenian authorities must avoid “cheap populism.” “Of course 
our people will always remember and commemorate the victims of the 1915 
genocide,” it says. “This is the whole nation’s pain and future generations too 
will carry it. But that pain must not prevent us from living, developing, 
normalizing relations with neighbors, having open borders and integrating into 
the world.”

“Haykakan Zhamanak” scoffs at supporters of the former Armenian government who 
accuse Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian of failing to fulfill many promises given 
by him during last year’s “velvet revolution.” “And they draw corresponding 
conclusions that nothing has changed in the past year or that if something has 
changed it has changed only for the worse,” writes the pro-Pashinian paper. It 
says it is “the people,” not the former regime, who must gauge the results of 
the revolution.

(Lilit Harutiunian)


Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
Copyright (c) 2019 Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, Inc.
1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.
www.rferl.org

                                        Tuesday, March 01, 2019

Minister Insists On Yerevan University Rector’s Resignation

        • Artak Khulian

Armenia - Education Minister Arayik Harutiunian (C) speaks at a cabinet meeting 
in Yerevan, .

Education Minister Arayik Harutiunian reiterated on Tuesday his demands for the 
resignation of the long-serving rector of Armenia’s largest and oldest 
university who is facing growing pressure from the government.

Harutiunian claimed that Yerevan State University (YSU) has experienced 
“regress” under Aram Simonian, the man who has run it for the last 13 years.

“I see very serious problems with [Simonian’s] tenure,” he told reporters. 
“Just look at the current state of YSU and see where YSU is headed.”

The minister spoke the day after Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian publicly 
demanded the resignation of unnamed university rectors who he said are linked 
to Armenia’s former leadership. Pashinian said they placed the universities 
under the strong influence of the former President Serzh Sarkisian’s Republican 
Party (HHK) and tried to prevent students from joining street protests that 
brought him to power last May.

Harutiunian did not deny that Pashinian’s demands were primarily addressed to 
Simonian, who remains affiliated with the HHK. He expressed confidence that 
YSU’s Board of Trustees will continue to “discuss” government efforts to oust 
the rector.

The board narrowly failed to sack Simonian when it met on February 28. Only 
half of its members are appointed by the government.

Simonian, meanwhile, again refused to comment on Pashinian’s latest remarks, 
saying that the prime minister did not name names. “I have been rector for 13 
years and various speculations have revolved around me during all this time,” 
he told journalists. “I can’t comment on every speculation.”

Simonian also declined to say whether he thinks Pashinian’s statement amounted 
to a breach of YSU’s autonomy guaranteed by Armenian law.

In a statement issued earlier this month, YSU’s Scientific Council accused 
Harutiunian and Davit Sanasarian, the head of the State Oversight Service 
(SOS), of interfering in the university’s internal affairs.

The SOS, which is subordinate to the prime minister, implicated the YSU 
administration in serious financial irregularities in December. The Armenian 
police likewise alleged last month that Simonian has embezzled YSU funds and 
engaged in other corrupt practices over the past decade.

Simonian, who has still not been formally charged with any crime, denies the 
allegations as politically motivated. He has said that he will not resign 
before serving out his current term in office in 2020.




Armenian Army Chief Touts Arms Acquisitions


Armenia - Lieutenant-General Artak Davtian, the chief of the Armenian army's 
General Staff, December 12, 2018.

Armenia has made major progress in modernizing and strengthening its armed 
forces in recent years, the country’s top army general said on Tuesday.

Lieutenant-General Artak Davtian, the chief of the army’s General Staff, touted 
ongoing efforts to provide the Armenian military with new weapons as he 
addressed the army’s top brass in Yerevan. They have produced “tangible 
results,” he said, according to the Armenian Defense Ministry.

A statement released by the ministry gave no details of the arms acquisitions 
cited by Davtian.

Russia, which has a military base in Armenia, has long been the principal 
source of those supplies, with Yerevan receiving Russian-made weapons at 
discounted prices or even for free.

Armenia and Russia reportedly signed fresh defense contracts late last month. 
They have not yet publicized financial details of the contracts or the types of 
military hardware covered by them.

Earlier in February, the Armenian military confirmed the signing of a 
Russian-Armenian contract calling for the delivery of four Sukhoi Su-30SM 
fighter jets to the Armenian Air Force. Defense Minister Davit Tonoyan said 
afterwards that Yerevan will seek to buy more such aircraft after receiving 
their first batch by “the beginning of next year.”

Moscow lent the Armenian government $200 million for Russian arms acquisitions 
in 2015. The weapons provided to the Armenian military under that deal 
included, among other things, multiple-launch rocket systems, anti-tank 
rockets, and shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles.

Yerevan secured another Russian loan, worth $100 million, for further arms 
purchases in 2017. The two sides have reportedly been discussing the 
possibility of a third Russian credit.




Kocharian Again Claims Immunity From Prosecution

        • Naira Bulghadarian

Armenia -- Former President Robert Kocharian gives an interview to Yerkir Media 
TV, Yerevan, 16Oug,2018

Former President Robert Kocharian continued to challenge his arrest in court on 
Tuesday, insisting through his lawyers that Armenia’s constitution gives him 
immunity from prosecution on charges stemming from the 2008 post-election 
violence in Yerevan.

An article of the constitution stipulates: “During the term of his or her 
powers and thereafter, the President of the Republic may not be prosecuted and 
subjected to liability for actions deriving from his or her status.”

Kocharian’s lawyers cited this clause as a district court in Yerevan began 
considering their demand to free their client and throw out the coup charges 
that were brought against him in July. One of the lawyers, Hovannes Khudoyan, 
said investigators have still not explained why they believe the clause does 
not apply to do the high-profile criminal case.

Khudoyan argued that Armenia’s Court of Appeals upheld the ex-president’s 
immunity from prosecution when it ordered his release from pre-trial custody in 
August.

Acting on prosecutors’ appeal, the higher Court of Cassation overturned that 
ruling in November, however, ordering the Court of Appeals to examine the case 
anew. The latter allowed law-enforcement authorities to press charges against 
Kocharian and again arrest him on December 7.

One of the prosecutors, Vahe Tolmazian, cited the Court of Cassation’s decision 
when he objected to Kocharian’s demands. Tolmazian also presented a large 
number of written documents in support of his objections, leading the court of 
first instance to adjourn the hearings.

Kocharian as well as three retired army generals stand accused of overthrowing 
the constitutional order in the wake of a disputed presidential election held 
in February 2008, less than two months before he completed his second and final 
presidential term. Armenia’s Special Investigative Service says that they 
illegally used the armed forces against opposition supporters who demonstrated 
in Yerevan against alleged electoral fraud.

Eight protesters and two police servicemen were killed in street clashes that 
broke out late on March 1, 2008. Kocharian declared a state of emergency in the 
Armenian capital on that night.

All four men deny the charges. Kocharian, who was also charged with bribery 
last month, has accused the current authorities and Prime Minister Nikol 
Pashinian in particular of waging a political “vendetta” against him. 
Pashinian, who was one of the main opposition speakers during the 
February-March 2008 protests, has dismissed the ex-president’s claims.




Press Review



“Zhoghovurd” comments on Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s upcoming meeting in 
Vienna with Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev which it expects to be 
“important.” The paper says that Pashinian’s previous talks with Aliyev helped 
to significantly strengthen the ceasefire regime in the Nagorno-Karabakh 
conflict zone. “So the official name and nature of their meetings do not really 
matter,” it says. “What matters is understandings reached at those meetings and 
compliance with them.”

As “Zhamanak” points out, the agreement to hold a fresh Armenian-Azerbaijani 
summit was announced by the U.S., Russian and French co-chairs of the OSCE 
Minsk Group on March 1 following their visit to Yerevan and Baku. The paper 
notes that Pashinian has since urged the mediators to clarify the essence of 
their Basic Principles of the conflict’s resolution. “Also, Yerevan has made 
clear that peace negotiations will be full-fledged only if Stepanakert also 
participates in them,” it says, adding that Baku categorically rejects this 
approach.

“Haykakan Zhamanak” says that the main line of attack against the current 
Armenian government voiced by representatives of the former ruling regime is 
that it resorts to publicity stunts instead of delivering on Pashinian’s 
repeated pledges to make things much better in the country. The pro-government 
paper dismisses their claims that “the authorities do not know what to do” and 
says that the latter are following a clear roadmap for positive change: 
eradication of corruption and large-scale tax evasion, drastic increase in 
state revenue, creation of an independent judiciary, level playing field for 
all businesses and a favorable investment climate, and downsizing of the state 
bureaucracy. These, it says, are the kind of changes which had for years been 
advocated by political opponents of the former regime.

(Lilit Harutiunian)


Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
Copyright (c) 2019 Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, Inc.
1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.
www.rferl.org