October 12-19

Հայացք Երևանից 19 October 2019

Weekly update

Parliamentary hearings on The Constitutional Law on Parties: Existing Problems and the Framework of Amendments kicked off in the Armenian parliament. The hearing was initiated by the Armenian parliament speaker Ararat Mirzoyan. In addition to the MPs, the hearings are attended by representatives of various NGOs operating in Armenia reported News.am.

The EU countries have condemned Turkey’s operation in Syria, the European Council said in a statement released after the first day of the summit in Brussels, TASS reported. “The EU condemns Turkey’s unilateral military action in North East Syria which causes unacceptable human suffering, undermines the fight against Da’esh and threatens heavily European security,” the European Council said adding that “the European Council notes tonight’s US-Turkey announcement on a pause for all military operations.”

The British government announced two months ago that Alan Gogbashian will replace Judith Farnworth, a fellow diplomat who has served as British ambassador in Yerevan for the last four years. The announcement was welcomed by many in Armenia and its worldwide Diaspora. The government has unexpectedly rescinded its recent decision to appoint an ethnic Armenian diplomat as the United Kingdom’s new ambassador to Armenia informed The Armenian Mirror-Spectator.

President of Armenia Armen Sarkissian attended the gala dinner of the “Global Innovation Forum 2019: Transforming Intelligence” organized by the Foundation for Armenian Science and Technology (FAST) in Yerevan, the President’s Office told Armenpress.

The event was being held on the sidelines of the Aurora Forum. President Sarkissian thanked the founders of the Aurora Humanitarian Initiative – Vartan Gregorian, Noubar Afeyan and Ruben Vardanyan, for their investment in Armenia’s science, technologies, innovation and charity fields. Talking about the Forum and the activity of the FAST, the President considered it as a path to the future.

Speaking at the 7th summit of the Turkic Council in Baku earlier this week, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan again decried Armenian “occupation” of Karabakh and other “ancient lands” of Azerbaijan. “We will do our best to ensure the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan,” he was reported to say. For his part, Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev described Armenia’s southeastern Syunik province, also known as Zangezur, as “historically Azerbaijani” territory. Aliyev claimed at the summit that its “transfer to Armenia had led to a geographic separation of the Turkic world.”

According to Azatutyun the Armenian Foreign Ministry condemned Aliyev’s “pan-Turkist” statement as a further manifestation of Azerbaijani territorial claims to Armenia. “Azerbaijan’s and Turkey’s distorted perceptions of and approaches to regional security based on racism and discrimination hinder peaceful resolution of conflicts and contribute to instability in and outside the region,” the ministry spokeswoman, Anna Naghdalian, said in written comments.

Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan received the Co-Chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group - Igor Popov of the Russian Federation, Stéphane Visconti of France and Andrew Schofer of the United States of America, as well as the Personal Representative of the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office Andrzej Kasprzyk, the PM’s Office told Armenpress.

The Armenian PM and the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs discussed the peaceful settlement process of the Nagorno Karabakh conflict. In the context of strengthening trust between the parties, the meeting participants highlighted the importance of taking actions to strengthen the ceasefire regime. The officials also touched upon the necessity to prepare populations to peace and the steps directed for this purpose.

Georgia’s new Prime Minister Giorgi Gakharia praised Armenia for recognizing Georgian sovereignty over two breakaway regions during his first official visit to Yerevan on Tuesday reported Azatutyun. “Armenia supports us on the question of our territorial integrity, which is very important for us and for which we are grateful,” Gakharia said after talks with his Armenian counterpart Nikol Pashinian.

President Donald Trump imposed sanctions on Turkey on Monday and demanded the NATO ally stop a military incursion in northeast Syria that is rapidly reshaping the battlefield of the world’s deadliest ongoing war, - Reuters reported. Trump, who gave what critics say was a de facto green light for Turkey’s assault by ordering U.S. forces away from the conflict area, requested the ceasefire in a call with President Tayyip Erdogan. The move was quickly criticized as too little, too late by the top Democrat in Congress. “His announcement of a package of sanctions against Turkey falls very short of reversing that humanitarian disaster,” said U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

On the other side, Reuters pointed that Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov said on Monday that Russia wanted Turkey to ensure its military incursion into northern Syria was proportionate with the situation. Ushakov said the main thing for Moscow was that Turkey’s offensive - which targets Syrian Kurdish militia seen by Ankara as aligned with Kurdish separatists in Turkey - not harm efforts to find a political solution to Syria’s eight-year-old war. “On Monday, Russian-backed Syrian government forces wasted no time in taking advantage of an abrupt U.S. retreat from Syria after the Turkish incursion, deploying deep inside Kurdish-held territory south of the Turkish frontier,” – mentioned Reuters.

Members of the Constitutional Court on Monday rejected lawmakers’ calls for the dismissal of its chairman, Hrayr Tovmasian, who is increasingly at loggerheads with Armenia’s political leadership. The Armenian parliament appealed to the court on October 4 with a resolution drafted by its pro-government majority and endorsed by Justice Minister Rustam Badasian informed Azatutyun.

It denounced, among other things, Tovmasian’s handling of appeals against the legality of coup charges brought against the arrested former President Robert Kocharian. The resolution also said that Tovmasian cannot make impartial decisions on this case because of his past membership in the former ruling Republican Party of Armenia (HHK).