Armenian
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Hosts
Introduction
Hello, and welcome to the
Armenian News Network, Groong, Week
in Review. This show was recorded on Monday, October 25, 2021.
This week we’re going to talk
about the following major topics:
●
Yerevan’s “Positive Messages”?
●
Opposition Going back to Street Rallies?
●
Ruling Party Setbacks in Local Elections
●
Vano
Siradeghyan Dies
Today we have with us:
Tevan Poghosyan, who is president of the International Center
for Human Development. Mr. Poghosyan was an MP in the National Assembly between
2012 and 2017 from the Heritage party. From 1997 to 1999 he served as the
Nagorno-Karabakh Public Affairs Office Director in Washington, D.C.
Topics This Week
Yerevan’s “Positive Messages” to Baku?
On
Wednesday Armenian Deputy PM Mher Grigoryan’s team again met with senior officials from
Azerbaijan and Russia
for negotiations towards restoring their rail and road links, as stipulated in
Point 9 of the November Agreement that ended the hostilities of the 44-day war.
Grigoryan said progress was made, while
Azerbaijan’s foreign minister Jeyhun Bayramov said that there were “positive
messages” coming from Yerevan. Aliyev went further to claim that Armenia has agreed to the so-called “Zangezur
corridor”. Also Azerbaijan released five more Armenian soldiers taken prisoner during or shortly after
last year’s war in Nagorno-Karabakh.
Then, on
Friday, Oct. 22, Tatul Hakobyan (from Aliq
Media) as well as
the Russian news medium Ria Novosti reported that Aliyev and Pashinyan will
meet in Moscow on November 9, the one year anniversary of the capitulation in
Artsakh, in order to sign two new documents under the mediation of Vladimir
Putin.
According
to the reports:
● The first document will cover
delimitation and demarcation of the Armenia-Azerbaijan border. Hakobyan claims
that the delimitation and demarcation will be done based on 1920s maps.
● The second document, which Hakobyan
claims is nearly 100% agreed upon, will cover the so-called “unblocking” of
roads/corridors.
Armenia’s
government has been expressly quiet and has not responded to the press
inquiries about these statements, with the exception of stating that a meeting
with Pashinyan and Aliyev “is not being planned”. The Kremlin's Peskov also responded to the news of the possible agreement by saying:
“If such an agreement is reached, we will inform in due time”.
What’s
going on? Is there a consensus on documents to be signed on Nov. 9 or is there
more than meets the eye here?
Another
interesting twist in this puzzle was Putin’s statement at the Valdai club, indicating that Moscow holds
the key to the issue of border demarcation and delimitation and resolution of
the Artsakh conflict. Specifically, Putin made a reference to certain maps
which are held by the Russian General Staff, that detail specifics on borders
between Armenia and Azerbaijan during Soviet years.
If the
rumors about 1920s maps are correct, is this good news for Armenia? How did the
border between Soviet Armenia and Azerbaijan form during those years?
Opposition Going Back to Street Rallies?
Just prior to this weekend, the Armenia
Alliance announced that it will begin organizing street rallies to
protest against Pashinyan’s government making
additional concessions to Azerbaijan in the negotiations we mentioned earlier.
The main parliamentary opposition group said
that they believe that PM Pashinyan is ready to concede more Armenian territory,
and agree to a land corridor from Azerbaijan, through Syunik, and on to Nakhijevan. These claims are of course backed by Aliyev
himself, who insists that he will open a corridor through Armenia by force if
necessary, and by Iran, who says
that agreements envision a potential change of the border between Iran and
Armenia.
These rallies already seemed a bit too late
before the news about the potential Moscow agreement on November 9. So when the Armenia Alliance clarified the date of the first
protest as November 9th & 10th, there were widespread accusations that the
Armenian opposition seemed intent on allowing Pashinyan to sign a potentially
terrible agreement without actively trying to thwart the government. To be
fair, Ishkhan Saghatelyan in
a Facebook post later clarified that the alliance had sought
permission for the rallies nearly 10 days ago.
Is the Armenia Alliance and the opposition
acting appropriately, and are they doing everything possible to steer the
government from inappropriate concessions?
Ruling Party Setbacks in Local Elections
Last weekend on October 17 the ruling party
Civil Contract suffered election setbacks in 3 of the major towns where
elections were held: Gyumri, Goris and Meghri.
Since the election and
our podcast last weekend, the government has been rounding
up and jailing
dozens of supporters of re-elected Goris mayor Arush Arushanyan, on charges of alleged
bribery and vote-buying. Mayor Arushanyan himself
remains in jail since his arrest 3 months ago, yet he roundly defeated the
Civil Contract party by getting over 60% of the vote.
At the risk of beating a dead horse here,
because Freedom
House has already deplored PM Pashinyan’s
degradation
of democratic norms: what can we say about the state of Armenia’s
democracy, from freedom of press
reporting on the government, to freedom of expression towards government
officials, to terrorizing opposition officials and supporters, and more?
Vano
Siradeghyan Dies
On October 15 Vano
Siradeghyan passed away. He was one of the leaders of the
movement to unite Nagorno-Karabakh with Armenia in 1990 as the Soviet Union fell,
and later was a member of the Armenian National Congress (ANC) and became
minister of the interior during the tenure of first president Levon Ter-Petrosyan. He was regarded as a corrupt henchman,
and fled the country in 1999, soon after Robert Kocharyan was elected
president, and resided in exile since, as a wanted man by the Republic of
Armenia.
What is SIradeghyan’s
legacy?
Some say that were Sirdeghyan
to have returned and faced the charges, Ter-Petrosyan would have had to flee
Armenia. Why did Siradeghyan live in exile for 20 years, and never return?
Why is Pashinyan’s government arranging the funeral of a wanted fugitive today?
Wrap-up
That was our Week in Review
show, and we hope it helped you catch up with some of the issues in and around
Armenia from this past week. As always, we invite your feedback and your
suggestions. You can find us on most social media and podcast platforms, or our
website Groong.org.
Thanks to Laura Osborn for
the music on our podcasts. Don’t forget to subscribe to our channel on Youtube, Like our pages and follow us on social media. On behalf of
everyone in this episode, we wish you a good week, thanks for listening and
we’ll talk to you next week.
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Keywords
Tevan
Poghosyan, Vano Siradeghyan, Armenia, Azerbaijan,
Hayastan Alliance, Armenia Alliance, Ishkhan Saghatelyan, Syunik, Zangezur,
Corridor, South Caucasus, Turkey, Russia, Communication channels, Corridors,
Borders, Peace Negotiations, Opposition,