Yerevan cools Baku's passions, rekindles Ankara's: weekly review

Domestic policy

The 2^nd anniversary of the tragic events in Yerevan on March 1 is drawing nearer. According to the official information, the dispersal of the Opposition rally protesting against violations in the presidential election claimed ten lives. The Yerevan Municipality has accepted the Armenian National Congress’ (ANC) application for permission to hold a republican rally and procession in the center of Yerevan, where the tragic events occurred two years ago. The Opposition has stated that the ANC leader Levon Ter-Petrosyan will make a policy speech, which will deal with both further actions in the domestic political arena, Armenian-Turkish reconciliation and Nagorno-Karabakh peace process.

The RA Prosecutor General’s Office rejected a claim lodged by the relatives of the March 1 victims. The relatives of nine of the ten victims put their signatures to the claim. The complainants appeal against the Special Investigation Group, which did not register any progress in identifying and punishing those responsible for the death of people during the post-election processes in 2008. The RA Prosecutor General’s Office rejected the claim for “lack of grounds.”

The Prosecution was not contented with the verdict returned by the minor court of the Center and Nork Marash communities. The court sentenced one of the prominent opposition representatives, Editor-in-Chief of the Haykakan Zhamanak newspaper Nikol Pashinyan to 7 years’ imprisonment for organizing riots on March 1, 2008. The Prosecution applied to the RA Criminal Court of Appeal for a verdict of guilty on a charge of violence against a public agent. The court had returned a verdict of not guilty, but the Prosecution demands that the verdict be set aside.

The confrontation between the Sukiasyan family and Armenian law-enforcers does not seem to be over. The law-enforcers have decided to “deal with” Saribek Sukiasyan, Chairman of the Armeconombank Board of Directors. After being kept in the police department for almost three days, he was released on his own recognizance.
Late this week, a charge was brought against him. Without going into details, we would like to note that, even if Saribek Sukiasyan did commit the crime he is charged with, law-enforcers’ actions gave the Opposition grounds to claim the charges have been trumped up and the businessman is being subjected to political persecutions. The Opposition has serious grounds for the claims, as the prosperous Sukiasyan family encountered problems after the former MP, oligarch Khachatur Sukiasyan openly supported the Opposition leader Levon Ter-Petrosyan in the 2008 presidential election. After the March 1 tragic events he “was underground” for a year and a half. Later, he transferred most of his businesses to Germany, left Armenia and actually terminated his political activities. In this context, we can suppose that the authorities are now trying to oust Saribek Sukiasyan and his business from Armenia. On the other hand, we cannot deny his illegal actions as well.

This week, the Yerkparah union of volunteers has finally joined the government camp. The union’s belated congress once more showed that Yerkrtapah is actually “a throwback” in Armenia’s life, which is in the worst traditions of political culture: besides regular butchering of the literary Armenian language, the notorious General Manvel Grigoryan , who was unanimously re-elected Yerkrapah Chairman, recently went beyond all bounds and rounded on the journalists with a torrent of abusive language. In any case, the expulsion of supporters of the Opposition from the Yerkrapah leadership closed the period when the largest union of Karabakh war veterans was rumored to support the opponents of the Armenian authorities. General Grigoryan must have finally made up his mind and made a switch to the government camp. Chairman of the Republic Party, one of the ANC leaders Aram Sargsyan, made a surprisingly conciliatory speech at the Yerkrapah congress. Against all expectations of his supporters, he did not even name the active participants in the Karabakh war arrested after the post-election processes in 2008 and imprisoned since.

Nagorno-Karabakh peace process and region

Official Baku’s policy of refusing to make reciprocal concessions on the Nagorno-Karabakh peace process makes the Armenian authorities lay much heavier emphasis on the aspects that have always been center of attention.

RA Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian, who commented on his Azerbaijani counterpart’s latest statements on an urgent need for eliminating the consequences of the conflict, pointed out a number of aspects Yerevan had not by that time placed emphasis on. “As regards the elimination of the consequences, we have to consider the necessity for resolving the problems of Martakert, Martuni and Shahumyan, the regions occupied by Azerbaijanis, as well as the problem of refugees’ return to the regions. And, of course, the problem of consequences has to be resolved along with that of causes of the conflict. All the problems must be resolved by means of negotiations and mutual agreements,” Minister Nalbandian said. Thus Minister Nalbandian finally pointed out to Azerbaijan the facts of its occupation of part of the former Nagorno-Karabakh autonomous region, ethnic cleansing in the Shahumyan region of Azerbaijan. Let us hope that the Armenian authorities will continue pointing out the problems official Yerevan has so far been silent over. Otherwise, Ilham Aliyev and his clique would constantly be crying about Azerbaijani refugees that “must return to their places of residence,” without even mentioning the 200,000 Armenians that fled from “glorious and multinational Baku.”

The Armenian FM once again stated that no agreement is possible to reach without Nagorno-Karabakh’s immediate participation in the negotiations. Nalbandian stated that Azerbaijan’s objecting to Nagorno-Karabakh’s participation in the negotiations is an impediment to the peace process. “Of importance is not who sees and how he sees, but who is to decide. It is the Nagorno-Karabakh people that have to make a decision. This principle is incorporated in certain points of the Madrid documents, which were published in l'Aquila immediately after the Russia, U.S. and French Presidents made their statement. If Azerbaijan objects to this fundamental approach, it is actually impeding the settlement process,” the Minister said.

As regards Elmar Mammadyarov’s statements in response to his Armenian counterpart, one gets a mixed impression of them. Their content is, however, clear. Referring to official Baku’s consent to what is known as revised Madrid Principles, the Azeri FM once more tried to thwart the Nagorno-Karabakh peace process by setting inherently unacceptable conditions to the Armenian side. Mammadyarov stressed that official Baku agrees to the highest-level autonomy for Nagorno-Karabakh as part of Azerbaijan, with “co-existence of the Armenian and Azerbaijani communities.” The statement was actually a response to RA President Serzh Sargsyan’s speech in London. The Armenian leader flatly ruled out the possibility of Nagorno-Karabakh being part of Azerbaijan. He underlined the fact that Azerbaijan had repeatedly proved unable to guarantee the Armenian population’s security.

The following question remains: if the negotiators hold antipodal positions, what are they negotiating and what is the point of negotiations?

The international community is still making efforts aimed at a peaceful settlement of the conflict. A visit paid to the region by OSCE Chairman-in-Office, Kazakh Foreign Minister Kanat Saudabayev proved to be a significant event. His visits to Armenia and Azerbaijan produced tangible results at a joint sitting of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly Committees in Vienna, where the Kazakh FM delivered a speech. Saudabayev laid his cards on the table in Austria. As OSCE Chairman-in-Office he plans to elaborate a “roadmap” aimed at a peaceful settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. So we can witness most interesting developments in the Nagorno-Karabakh peace process soon.

This week has seen some changes in the process of ratification of the Armenian-Turkish protocols by the Armenian Parliament. As the Parliamentary Standing Committee for Foreign Relations started preliminary discussions of the documents, the ruling Republican Party of Armenia (RPA) has shown a serious change in its position. Despite earlier unequivocal statements that the Armenian Parliament would ratify the document only after the Turkish Grand National Assembly did it, RPA representatives began voicing a different opinion. Some of them are for ratifying the documents before Turkey does to show the world Armenia’s willingness to normalize its relations with Turkey. The following two reasons might account for the change in the ruling party’s position: the Armenian authorities’ decided to lay the blame for a possible failure of the Armenian-Turkish process on Ankara thereby showing the world its willingness to normalize relations without any preconditions, or they are probing into public opinion.

The two principal political forces objecting to the Armenian-Turkish protocols, Armenian Revolutionary Federation (Dashnaktsutyun) (ARFD) and Heritage Party, are continuing their desperate efforts to prevent the Parliament from ratifying the documents. The ARFD still desperately hopes to introduce reservations into the documents, while the Heritage Party promised to hold a national rally of protest. As regards the Heritage Party’s voters, they have never been “rally mongers.”

Economy and social life

This week the RA Statistical Service has published economic data for this January. The situation is a little better as compared with last January, but Armenia needs much time to overcome the crisis.

A 2.4% increase in GDP was registered in Armenia this January as compared with last January. Also, industrial output increased by 6.5%, electric energy output by 3.7%, gross agricultural output by 3.1%. It should be noted, however, that the growth was registered as compared with last January, when the crisis reached its peak in Armenia. On the other hand, the construction sector registered a 10.7% decrease.

We get quite a different picture if we compare this January with January 2008. Specifically, the GDP decreased by 60.5%, industrial output by 29%, electric energy output by 3.2%, gross agricultural output by 64.4%, and construction by 83.2%. One of the reasons for this decrease is that the economy is normally “frozen” is January, but the Government is supposed to be concerned over this in any case.

This January, Armenia’s exports increased by 1.8% whereas imports decreased by 4.4%. On the other hand, this January exports increased by 57.5%, and imports by 8.3% as compared with December 2009.

At its sitting the RA Government approved the order of appointing taxpayers and tax officers at large economic entities. The Government ordered the Head of the RA State Revenue Committee to submit a 2010 list of taxpayers that meet the relevant requirements to the Government before March 1, 2010. As regards the oligarch-businessmen, they are not at all enthusiastic about the prospective appointment of tax officers at their economic entities.

Yerevan jewelry market traders have gone on strike. They held a number of actions of protest in front of the RA Government. Their only demand is the removal of cash registers. The protestors claim the cash registers cause serious damage to their business. On January 24, RA Prime Minister Tigran Sargsyan, accompanied by a number of high-ranking officials, visited the jewelry market owned by the Vagharsh & Sons Ltd. in Khorenatsi St. to get acquainted with the traders’ working conditions and problems. The Premier held a meeting and ordered the problems to be resolved. The traders, however, say that the situation has not changed since.

Armenia is far behind its neighbors with respect to Internet availability. Internetworldstats reported that only 191,000 Internet users are registered in Armenia – 6.4% of the population. Eighteen per cent of population are Internet users in Azerbaijan, and 22% in Georgia. According to the source, over the last nine years, Internet availability showed a 536.7% decrease in Armenia, 12,275.8% in Azerbaijan and 5,020% in Georgia.

T.P.