Armenian
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Hosts
Introduction
Hello, and welcome to the
Armenian News Network, Groong, Week
in Review. I’m Asbed Bedrossian and this week we’re going to talk about the
following major topics:
●
Road to Syunik Blocked and Unblocked
●
5-Year Plan Approved
●
Parliamentary Dynamics
To talk about these issues, I’m joined by:
Benyamin Poghosyan, who is the Chairman of the Yerevan based think
tank Center for Political and Economic
Strategic Studies, He was deputy director of the Institute for National
Strategic Studies at the Ministry of Defense from 2010 to 2016 and the Vice
President for Research, at the National Defense Research University from 2016
to 2019.
Topics This Week
Road to Syunik Blocked and Unblocked
Late at night on August 25, Azerbaijan blocked
the highway that links Goris to Kapan, and therefore the southern province of
Syunik to the rest of Armenia. A 21-kilometer stretch of this highway passes
through the territory of the old Soviet republic of Azerbaijan and now has gone
under Azeri control since the 44-day war. So
Azerbaijan’s forces blocked the highway along this stretch, essentially
stopping traffic and transportation between Iran and Armenia.
After 2 days of what the government called
negotiations, Azerbaijan unblocked
the highway.
The pretext for this event was that allegedly an
Azeri border guard was stabbed by Armenians.
Why did they block, and then unblock? Was this
just a show of force, or did they want something in return?
Discussion points
● Iran immediately sounded off to its
neighbors to reach a peaceful solution.
○ The deep vulnerability of Syunik, trade
with Iran, and Armenia’s ongoing state of national insecurity is a clear
concern for Iran, almost more than to the Armenian government. What is giving
this government any level of confidence in its future security, in the middle
of this geopolitical mess? How is Iran adjusting to this new, insecure
“normal”?
●
PM Pashinyan said: “reopening of the road in the Eyvazli and Chaizami sections can be a very
good symbol of regional stability”.
The Azerbaijani press picked this up right away that Pashinyan is talking in
Azeri terminology for the region.
○ How can Azerbaijan’s ability to disrupt
Armenia's economy on a whim any show of regional stability?
● Armenia’s ombudsman Tatoyan
received a stream of calls from area residents. He continues to be a highly
respected and trusted public figure. I want to note again how highly
appreciated he is.
○ Wil Tatoyan
enter politics at some point?
● In many of the videos we can see that the
region’s roads to the villages are all unpaved, in poor condition everywhere:
Shurnukh, Vorotan, everywhere. Why hasn’t this critical infrastructure to
connect the country materialized over the years?
5-Year Plan Approved
After 3 days of so-called “debate” in the
national assembly, the parliament passed the government’s 5-year plan along a
deeply partisan line vote, 70-0. Only Civil Contract MPs voted for the plan.
We’re going to talk about the events in the parliament in a moment, but for
right now let’s focus on the 5-year plan, which we also covered last week. For
the sake of brevity I won’t read all the points, but
I’ll duplicate them for our listeners in the show notes and we’ll provide the
link on our pages.
Here is the government’s 5-year
plan’s top ideas:
●
Reforming the armed forces to secure the nation
●
Active and proactive foreign policy
●
Strategic alliance with Russia and the CSTO
●
Working with the OSCE to determine a status for
Nagorno-Karabakh, that’s Artsakh
●
Opening regional infrastructures to enhance
stable regional environment
Discussion points
●
What is an “active and proactive” foreign
policy? What must happen?
●
What military reforms are crucial? Are the
high-level strategic requirements from the Defense Minister
necessary and sufficient for success?
1.
Buy modern weaponry only
2.
Grow a domestic production of modern weaponry
3.
Eliminate middlemen in the defense procurement
process, between the ministry and the vendors.
Parliamentary Dynamics
Going back to the so-called “debate” in the
parliament earlier this past week, we’ve all seen the videos and news coverage
of the scuffles breaking out over the course of two days, MPs hitting each
other, throwing bottles of water at each other, security forces dragging out MP
Anna Mkrtchyan, etc.
What were your impressions as you watched this
coverage?
Discussion points
●
There is the Interpersonal dimension to the
relationships between these MPs: it really looks like they despise each other,
and I am not optimistic about this parliament coming to compromise solutions
for the sake of the Armenian people.
○
How representative are the MPs of all of the regions of Armenia, from Lori to Syunik? Is every
community truly represented in this parliament?
○
Is there, for example, an MP who represents Spitak and looks out for its interests and its people?
●
Speaker Alen Simonyan
was shutting down MP Mkrtchyan for her statements.
○
Should the opportunity of expression allotted to
the MPs be based more on time, than the views expressed? For example, give each
MP a few minutes, and they can speak whatever they deem to be for the benefit
of the community they represent. But should they be shut down because the
speaker does not approve of their views?
●
Speaker Simonyan
blocked coverage of parliament events by the press
○
We discussed this last week as well, and all of
us on the podcast have deep concerns about stunting Armenian press from
covering the parliamentary events, regardless of what’s going on there. The
arbitrary rules are there on the pretext of security, but in reality
they protect the ruling party from inquisitive press, and erode democracy. What
do you think about these new press rules?
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
Benyamin Poghosyan, Armenia, Azerbaijan,
Georgia, South Caucasus, Turkey, Russia, Communication channels, Corridors,
Borders, Peace Negotiations, 5-year plan, Rearming, Military reform, Press
Freedoms, Politics, Military Procurement, JCPOA, United States, Iran, Iranian
Gas, LNG, Pipelines, EU, European Union,