Wednesday,
Pashinian Meets Armenian Army Top Brass
Armenia - Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian meets with the Armenian military's top
brass, .
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian met with the Armenian military’s top brass on
Wednesday two weeks after it accused him of misrule and demanded his resignation.
The meeting came just hours after Pashinian completed the sacking of
Colonel-General Onik Gasparian, the chief of the army’s General Staff.
Gasparian condemned his removal as “unconstitutional” and said he will challenge
it in court. The army top brass issued, meanwhile, a separate statement that
voiced support for the general and reiterated its demands for the prime
minister’s resignation.
In his opening remarks at the meeting, Pashinian made no explicit mention of
those demands rejected by him as a coup attempt. He indicated that he has no
plans to fire other top military commanders.
“I believe that together we will manage to overcome this crisis and our state
and armed forces will emerge stronger from this crisis,” Pashinian said.
“I want to ask everyone present here to continue their military service as
generals, officers of the armed forces and as pillars of the structure serving
as the guarantor of Armenia’s security and territorial integrity,” he said.
“I trust in you and believe that you have served the country in good faith. I
want to repeat that your services are worthy of highest marks and that this
evaluation cannot vanish under any circumstances.”
Pashinian went on to promise to have a “more detailed conversation” with the
generals after President Armen Sarkissian approves his pick for the new chief of
the General Staff, Lieutenant-General Artak Davtian.
“In this situation, unity is the most important thing needed by Armenia and its
people,” added the embattled premier.
Pashinian’s office did not divulge other details of the meeting held amid
continuing opposition demonstrations in Yerevan aimed at forcing him to resign
over his handling of last year’s war with Azerbaijan.
The Homeland Salvation Movement, an opposition alliance staging the protests,
has hailed the military’s February 25 statement demanding Pashinian’s
resignation.
Sarkissian Offers To Host Talks Between Government, Opposition
• Artak Khulian
Armenia -- Riot police are seen outside the Armenian parliament building in
Yerevan during opposition protests, .
President Armen Sarkissian offered on Wednesday to host talks between Prime
Minister Nikol Pashinian and opposition leaders aimed at ending the political
crisis in Armenia.
Sarkissian said that the continuing crisis triggered by the autumn war in
Nagorno-Karabakh is fraught with “unpredictable and irreversible consequences”
for the country and requires an urgent solution.
In a statement, Sarkissian invited Pashinian, representatives of the three
political forces represented in the Armenian parliament as well as the leaders
of the opposition Homeland Salvation Movement to meet at the presidential palace
in Yerevan for that purpose on Saturday. They should try to find “mutually
acceptable ways of overcoming the crisis, he said.
“I reaffirm my belief that negotiations and dialogue are the only way to settle
differences,” added the president.
The offer came one day after Sarkissian paved the way for the sacking of Onik
Gasparian, Armenia’s top army general who has demanded, along with 40 other
high-ranking officers, Pashinian’s resignation. The president pointedly declined
to ask the Constitutional Court to rule on the legality on Pashinian’s decision
to fire Gasparian.
The Homeland Salvation Movement reacted furiously to Sarkissian’s stance,
accusing him of acting on the embattled prime minister’s orders. One of the
leaders of the opposition alliance, Vazgen Manukian, branded the president a
“rich tourist” who does not care about Armenia’s future.
Another opposition leader, Ishkhan Saghatelian, scoffed at Sarkissian’s offer of
crisis talks. “They [Sarkissian and Pashinian] did their dirty deed and are now
asking for some meetings?” he told reporters.
Saghatelian said that the alliance uniting more than a dozen opposition parties
should only discuss a “roadmap for Pashinian’s resignation.”
The alliance has been trying to unseat Pashinian with street protests launched
after the Armenian side’s defeat in the war with Azerbaijan stopped by a
Russian-brokered ceasefire on November 10.
Its supporters continued to blockade the parliament building in Yerevan on
Wednesday. They again marched through the city center to reiterate the
opposition demands for Pashinian’s resignation.
Sarkissian too urged Pashinian to resign and hand over power to an interim
government late last year. The premier has rejected such calls.
Armenian Schools To Stay Open Despite COVID-19 Resurgence
• Narine Ghalechian
Armenia - Children play basketball at a school in the town of Gavar, March 9,
2021.
Armenia’s government has no plans to again shut down schools despite a renewed
increase in coronavirus cases in the country, a senior official said on
Wednesday.
The Armenian Ministry of Health reported in the morning that 340 more people
have tested positive for COVID-19 in the past 24 hours, significantly up from
the daily number of new cases officially confirmed in early and mid-February.
The ministry also recorded five more fatalities caused by the disease, bringing
to 3,237 the official death toll in the county of about 3 million. The figure
does not include the deaths of 834 other people infected with the coronavirus.
According to the ministry, they were primarily caused by other diseases.
Romela Abovian, a senior official from the ministry’s National Center for
Disease Control and Prevention, said that the daily number of COVID-19
infections has nearly doubled in the last two weeks.
Abovian warned that more than 3,000 new cases will be registered in the next few
days unless “appropriate measures” are taken to make Armenians again wear masks
in public, observe social distancing and stick to other safety rules set by the
government.
“If things continue like this we could be faced with a serious problem,” she
told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service.
Health Minister Anahit Avanesian likewise expressed concern last week about the
resurgence of the respiratory disease. She said health authorities have to set
up more hospital beds for COVID-19 patients.
According to Abovian, over 90 percent of about 1,000 such beds currently
available at hospitals across the country are already occupied by patients. More
than 550 of them are in a severe or critical condition, added the official.
Deputy Education Minister Zhanna Andreasian said, meanwhile, that government
officials have already discussed implications of the worsening epidemiological
situation for Armenian schools.
“We had a discussion in the government with our colleagues from the Ministry of
Health,” said Andreasian. “The issue of switching all schools back to online
classes was not discussed. There is no such decision.”
“We just need to again strictly follow the existing simple rules: wear masks,
frequently wash hands,” she said.
Andreasian also stressed the need to comply with the Ministry of Health’s safety
protocols for schools introduced last year.
The government most recently shut down the schools on October 15 following a
surge in coronavirus cases. It reopened all of them by December 7.
Armenian Military Stands By Fired Commander
ARMENIA -- Armenian Chief of General Staff Onik Gasparian
The Armenian military reaffirmed its calls for the government’s resignation on
Wednesday as the chief of its General Staff, Colonel-General Onik Gasparian,
pledged to challenge in court Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s decision to sack
him.
Gasparian indicated at the same time that he will step aside and not hold on to
his post until a court ruling on his “unconstitutional” dismissal.
Pashinian petitioned President Armen Sarkissian to relieve Gasparian of his
duties on February 25 immediately after Armenia’s top general and 40 other
high-ranking officers issued a joint statement demanding the government’s
resignation. He rejected the demand as a coup attempt.
Sarkissian refused to sign a relevant decree on February 27, saying that it
appears to be unconstitutional and would deepen the “unprecedented” political
crisis in the country. Pashinian resent his motion to Sarkissian in another
attempt to get him to fire Gasparian.
The president again refused to sign the decree drafted by the prime minister’s
office. But he decided not to ask the Constitutional Court to invalidate it,
effectively paving the way for Gasparian’s removal.
Citing Sarkissian’s failure to appeal to the court, the Armenian government
stated on Wednesday morning that Gasparian has automatically ceased to be the
chief of the General Staff.
The defiant general issued a statement early in the afternoon describing the
government statement and “the entire process of my dismissal” as
unconstitutional. He said it shows that only Pashinian’s resignation and the
holding of snap parliamentary elections can end the political crisis in the
country.
Gasparian made clear that he will not continue to perform his duties and has
instead asked the Administrative Court to reinstate him as army chief. “I will
continue my service to the homeland and the Armenian people in another
capacity,” he said.
Gasparian went on to urge Armenian military personnel to “continue your selfless
and patriotic service.”
In a separate statement released shortly afterwards, the military’s top brass
reaffirmed support for Gasparian and said it stands by its earlier “evaluations
of the existing situation in the country.”
“There is only one solution to the situation and it is mentioned in
[Gasparian’s] appeal,” read the statement.
Meanwhile, Pashinian moved to replace Gasparian by another general, Artak
Davtian. President Sarkissian did not immediately sign a relevant decree
requested by the prime minister.
Davtian already served as chief of the General Staff from May 2018 to June 2020.
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.