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Introduction
Hello, and welcome to the
Armenian News Network, Groong,
Week in Review. This week we’re going to talk about the following major topics:
●
Wait, Did Armenia Use the Iskander
to Blow Up its Relations With Russia? [RFE/RL]
[News,am]
[Tass]
[Defence-blog]
[Aysor]
●
Wait, Was There a Coup? [RFE/RL]
[Tass]
[News.am]
[EuroNews]
[BBC]
[RFE/RL]
●
The Opposition Picks up Steam [Asbarez]
[Panorama]
[News.am]
●
Wait, was The 737
Hijacked? [168]
[Panorama]
[Armenpress]
[Tert]
To talk about these issues, we have with us:
David
Davidian, who is a Lecturer at the American University
of Armenia. He has over a decade of experience in technical intelligence
analysis at major high technology firms. David was the first person to use the
internet for Armenian causes.
And
George Tabakian who is the Co-founder of Repat Armenia Foundation and Sahman NGO and Executive director
of Arar Foundation which works mainly
on projects with the Ministry of Defense
of Armenia.
Topics This Week
Wait, Did Armenia Use the Iskander to Blow Up Relations With Russia?
On Tuesday (Feb 23), Pashinyan
gave an
interview to 1in.am, a large media outlet generally espousing
anti-Russian viewpoints that is controlled by national assembly deputy Arman Babajanyan. The interview itself appears to have been an
opportunity for Pashinyan to respond to Serzh
Sargsyan’s lengthy interview of last week (which we
discussed on this podcast).
The most bombshell part of the interview was Pashinyan’s criticism of the Iskander
missile. In response to the question about Armenia’s use or non-use of Iskanders, Pashinyan asked “why
the Iskander missiles that were launched did not
explode or only exploded by 10 percent”?
Previously, several prominent officials,
including General Movses Hakobyan and Serzh Sargsyan
claimed that Armenia only used the Iskander on one
occasion and that was on the last days of the war to target areas near Shushi
as the town was in the process of being taken by Azerbaijanis.
This allegation didn’t sit well with Russia for
whom the Iskander is a weapon of national pride and
what followed was a deluge of criticism and responses from Russian sources.
●
Russian government media in general criticized
this as an attempt by Pashinyan to hurt Russia’s
international standing and Armenian-Russian relations.
●
An engineer who designed the Iskander
system directly made a statement ridiculing Pashinyan’s
claims about the effectiveness of the weapon.
●
But the surprising of all responses was Russia’s
claim,
backed up officially
by the Russian Ministry of Defense, that the
Iskanders were not used at all during the war.
How do we decipher the truth in this story in
general?
What’s the state of Armenia-Russia relations?
Given that Pashinyan’s was a pre-recorded interview
on a friendly news media (which many sources suggested involved heavy editing)
and there was no official retraction or correction, can we assume that Pashinyan had no qualms with letting a statement like this
go through and actually intended to publicize this message?
Wait, Was There a Coup?
This week, news was dominated by Pashinyan’s allegations of an attempted coup against him by
the military, specifically the Chief of Staff and top Armenian generals. Before
addressing this issue, it’s important to understand the backstory and how
exactly this development unfolded, so let me summarize the sequence of events
as we know them:
●
On Wednesday, Pashinyan
signed an order recommending dismissal General Tiran Khachatryan (First Deputy
Chief of Staff), reportedly due to the fact that he laughed
at his Iskander claim in an interview with Yerevan.Today. This
order was signed by President Armen Sarkissian promptly.
●
Apparently in response to this firing, the Chief
of Staff of Armenian Armed Forces Onik Gasparyan publicly
demanded Pashinyan’s resignation.
The statement said: “The Armenian Armed Forces have long patiently tolerated
the incumbent authorities’ ‘attacks’ aimed at discrediting the Armed Forces,
but everything has its limits…” This statement was also signed by most of the
top brass, including the commanders of all five army corps.
●
Pashinyan
responded to the statement by signing an order
to dismiss Gasparyan, qualifying Gasparyan’s actions as an attempted
military coup.
●
The Homeland Salvation Movement hailed the
military statement but we should clarify that the
statement appears to be careful to not voice support of the opposition and
instead claiming that Pashinyan’s actions endanger
the military. Edmon Marukyan’s
Bright Armenia parliamentary faction also jumped
to the defense of the military claiming the statement
doesn’t qualify as an attempted coup.
●
Unlike Tiran Khachatryan’s dismissal, President
Sarkissian refused
to sack Gasparyan claiming issues with the constitutionality of
the move. Pashinyan immediately responded by sending
that he will re-submit the recommendation and the most likely outcome of this
will be for the president to refer the issue to the constitutional court.
What are the procedural next steps in this game
of ping-pong? And what is your take on what has transpired? Does this qualify
as an attempted coup?
Was an attempted coup?
--
This event was covered widely in international
media. The US government issued a carefully worded statement recommending that
the military stay out of politics. But out of all the international responses,
Turkey’s response was particularly interesting to me as it is not often that
Turkish high leadership comments on Armenian internal affairs.
This time, in the duration of 24 hours we heard
from Turkey’s foreign minister Cavusoglu, Erdogan’s spokesperson Kalin, and
finally Erdogan
himself characterized the event as an attempted
military coup and urging Armenian military to stay out of politics.
How significant are Turkey’s statements and what
is their objective here?
--
There seem to be a very small number of generals
who haven’t signed Gasparyan’s statement.
Namely:
●
Lieutenant General Andranik
Makaryan - Deputy Chief of Staff;
●
Major General Arakel
Martirosyan - Head of military intelligence department at the General Staff;
●
Major General Poghos
Poghosyan - Head of armament department at the General Staff; and
●
Lieutenant General Jalal Harutyunyan - Head of
the Armed Forces Military Oversight Department (this last position is
technically subordinate to the defense minister and not General Staff)
Who are these individuals? If Pashinyan succeeds to remove Gasparyan, do you think one of
the above will be appointed?
With the military apparently firmly positioned
against Pashinyan, there are speculations around the
loyalties of the other two power ministries, namely the police and National
Security Service.
How are the police and the NSS acting?
The Opposition Picks up Steam
The Homeland Salvation Movement protest on Feb.
20 indicated that they’re still able to bring a significant amount of people to
the streets. The language between the Vazgen
Manukyan-led coalition and the regime is gradually heating up, with MP Andranik Kocharyan openly talking about the government’s monopoly
to shoot.
This week, opposition protests continued and
seemed to get a boost from the public fight between Pashinyan
and the military. In Nikol Pashinyan’s
protest, held after the calls for resignation from Gasparyan, Nikol Pashinyan promised
an “end to velvet”.
George:
Did you attend or observe the protests? Is the opposition capable of reaching
their objectives?
It seems that this coming week the tensions will
only increase. On March 1 the Homeland Salvation Movement had announced another
protest at 4:30pm. And on Saturday, Nikol Pashinyan also announced a protest and march at around the
same time, promising this March 1st to be second in significance only to March
1, 2008. We already saw some scuffles last week when Nikol’s
crowd approached the Freedom Square where the opposition was gathered. Pashinyan’s ominous linkage of his Monday protest with 2008
evokes a lot of memories of blood spilled in the streets of Yerevan.
It seems that with the amount of advance notice
and intentions to amplify their activities, both the government and opposition
may get significant turnout. And with Pashinyan’s
intention to hold a march and a rally.
There seems to be a significant potential for
friction or even violence here. Can events develop negatively?
Wait, was The 737 Hijacked?
Earlier this last week a Fly Armenia airways
Boeing 737 flight that took off from Estonia destined for Ukraine somehow
landed in Iran, after a maintenance stop in the UAE. For a long time there was no word from the Armenian ministry on
aviation, but this was finally confirmed by a former advisor of the Prime Minister on aviation. The pilots were
not Armenian nationals, and the flight path was not officially authorized.
There are concerns that this airplane may have
been hijacked and transferred or sold to Iran, which may trigger U.S
sanctions against Armenia.
How can the government be so out of control on
such a considerable issue? What more is known?
Wrap-up
That concludes our program
for This Week in Review episode. We
hope it has helped your understanding of some of the issues from the previous
week. We look forward to your feedback, and your suggestions for issues to
cover in greater depth. Contact us on our website, at groong.org,
or on our Facebook Page “ANN - Groong”, or in our Facebook Group “Groong - Armenian News Network”.
Special
thanks to Laura Osborn for providing the music for our podcast. On behalf of
everyone in this episode, we wish you a good week. Don’t forget to subscribe to
our channels, Like our pages and follow us on social
media. Thanks for listening and we’ll talk to you next week.
Keywords
David Davidian, George Tabakian,
Iskander, 1in.am, Armenia-Russia Relations, Arman Babajanyan, Serzh Sargsyan, Movses
Hakobyan, Shushi, Attempted Coup, Tiran Khachatryan, Deputy Chief of Staff, Onik Gasparyan, general, Yerevan.Today,
Armen Sarkissian, Armed Forces, Homeland Salvation Movement, Edmon Marukyan, Bright Armenia,
Jalal Harutyunyan, Andranik Makaryan,
Arakel Martirosyan, Poghos
Poghosyan, National Security Service, NSS, Police, Vazgen
Manukyan, Andranik Kocharyan, March 1, 2008, Boeing
737, Estonia, United Arab Emirates, UAE, Iran, Sanctions, US Embassy, Airplane,
Fly Armenia Airways