Armenian News
Sarkisian Tells Ex-KGB To Lead Anti-Corruption Drive
By Emil Danielyan
President Serzh Sarkisian said on Thursday that Armenia's National Security Service (NSS) must be at the forefront of his administration's promised crackdown on widespread government corruption.
Sarkisian issued the order as he visited the NSS headquarters in Yerevan to discuss security challenges facing the country with senior officers of the Armenian successor to the Soviet KGB. The presidential press service released the transcript of his speech but gave no details of `views and concerns' expressed by the NSS leadership at the meeting.
Sarkisian said that the feared security agency must fight against corruption `every day, every hour.' `Of course, that is not only your job, but you must be at the forefront of this effort,' he said. `Your passivity in this area is strange to me.'
`This is the greatest danger threatening our country's progress, the biggest hurdle in our path,' he added, referring to corruption. `I am confident that you will step up your efforts in that direction.'
The administration of Armenia's former President Robert Kocharian, of which Sarkisian was a key member, pledged to combat corruption throughout its decade-long rule that came to an end last spring. It launched in 2003 a Western-backed anti-corruption program consisting of mainly legislative measures. There is little evidence that they have reduced the scale of graft, however.
The Armenian government is currently working on a new anti-corruption plan which officials say will place the emphasis on the enforcement of existing laws and, presumably, prosecution of corrupt government officials.
Sarkisian acknowledged that the virtual absence of such prosecutions has undermined public trust in the declared crackdowns on corruption. `People must see that we are not only talking but also acting,' he told the NSS leadership. `If we talk about corruption all day long and don't show persons engaged in it, then our actions will not only produce zero results but will further aggravate the situation.'
Prime Minister Tigran Sarkisian said on Wednesday that the crackdown will start from the government's tax and customs departments where corrupt practices are believed to be particularly rampant. `All factors feeding corruption lie in the sphere of tax and customs
administration,' he said.
Opposition politicians and other government critics dismiss the significance of such statements, saying that corruption is one of the pillars of Armenia's political system that has allowed Kocharian, Sarkisian and other top officials to stay in power. They also say that law-enforcement agencies and NSS in particular are themselves too corrupt to tackle the problem in earnest.
Many senior law-enforcement officials are reputed to have extensive business interests and/or sponsor businesses enjoying privileged treatment by the government. A deputy chief of the NSS, Grigor Harutiunian, was reportedly sacked by Kocharian last year after it emerged that a banana-importing company controlled by him evaded $2 million in taxes.
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Armenian Interior Troops Commander Sacked
By Emil Danielyan
President Serzh Sarkisian continued to reshuffle the higher echelon of Armenia's security apparatus on Wednesday when he dismissed the commander of national interior troops that played a major role in the suppression of post-election opposition protests in Yerevan.
Sources told RFE/RL that Sarkisian will also appoint one of his assistants, Gevorg Mherian, as deputy chief of the Armenian police. The information was not immediately confirmed by the presidential administration, though.
Announcing the personnel change, Sarkisian's office gave no reason for the sacking of Grigor Grigorian, the hitherto chief of the security force officially called Police Troops. Grigorian's
replacement, Garegin Gabrielian, is a senior army officer who headed Armenia's main military academy until now.
The presidential decree came roughly one month after the sacking of Hayk Harutiunian, chief of the national Police Service, and his first deputy, Ararat Mahtesian. Harutiunian was replaced by Alik Sargsian, a former police officer who previously served as governor of the
southern Ararat region.
Harutiunian was subsequently appointed as head of another security agency which is in charge of protecting the president of the republic and other high-ranking state officials. The State Protection Service was previously run by Grigori Sarkisian (no relation to Serzh), one
of the country's most powerful men very close to former President Robert Kocharian.
Reports in independent and opposition-linked Armenian newspapers have said the influential Prosecutor-General Aghvan Hovsepian is also likely to lose his job.
Some local commentators believe that the ongoing reshuffle is part of President Sarkisian's efforts to distance himself from key organizers of the bloody suppression of massive anti-government demonstrations staged by the Armenian opposition following last February's disputed presidential election.
At least ten people were killed and more than 100 others injured as security forces put an end to the daily protests on March 1-2. While defending the use of force in a Russian newspaper interview last week, Sarkisian said that three of the eight civilian victims died as a result of `special means' that might have been `wrongly' used by riot troops.
It was not clear if he referred to Police Troops or other security units involved in the crackdown. The two security officers killed in the clashes in still unclear circumstances served in interior troops.
According to another theory circulating in Yerevan, Sarkisian is simply cementing his grip on power by placing trusted loyalists in key security positions.
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Armenian Interior Troops Commander Sacked
By Emil Danielyan
President Serzh Sarkisian continued to reshuffle the higher echelon of Armenia's security apparatus on Wednesday when he dismissed the commander of national interior troops that played a major role in the suppression of post-election opposition protests in Yerevan.
Sources told RFE/RL that Sarkisian will also appoint one of his assistants, Gevorg Mherian, as deputy chief of the Armenian police. The information was not immediately confirmed by the presidential administration, though.
Announcing the personnel change, Sarkisian's office gave no reason for the sacking of Grigor Grigorian, the hitherto chief of the security force officially called Police Troops. Grigorian's
replacement, Garegin Gabrielian, is a senior army officer who headed Armenia's main military academy until now.
The presidential decree came roughly one month after the sacking of Hayk Harutiunian, chief of the national Police Service, and his first deputy, Ararat Mahtesian. Harutiunian was replaced by Alik Sargsian, a former police officer who previously served as governor of the
southern Ararat region.
Harutiunian was subsequently appointed as head of another security agency which is in charge of protecting the president of the republic and other high-ranking state officials. The State Protection Service was previously run by Grigori Sarkisian (no relation to Serzh), one
of the country's most powerful men very close to former President Robert Kocharian.
Reports in independent and opposition-linked Armenian newspapers have said the influential Prosecutor-General Aghvan Hovsepian is also likely to lose his job.
Some local commentators believe that the ongoing reshuffle is part of President Sarkisian's efforts to distance himself from key organizers of the bloody suppression of massive anti-government demonstrations staged by the Armenian opposition following last February's disputed presidential election.
At least ten people were killed and more than 100 others injured as security forces put an end to the daily protests on March 1-2. While defending the use of force in a Russian newspaper interview last week, Sarkisian said that three of the eight civilian victims died as a result of `special means' that might have been `wrongly' used by riot troops.
It was not clear if he referred to Police Troops or other security units involved in the crackdown. The two security officers killed in the clashes in still unclear circumstances served in interior troops.
According to another theory circulating in Yerevan, Sarkisian is simply cementing his grip on power by placing trusted loyalists in key security positions.
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Institute for War & Peace Reporting
Caucasus Reporting Service
Armenia Escapes Europe Ban
Council of Europe resolution postpones day of reckoning for Yerevan
government.
By Rita Karapetian in Yerevan (CRS No. 450, 03-Jul-08)
The Armenian opposition has criticised a decision by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, PACE, to give the government more time to meet a series of tough benchmarks for democracy.
The assembly decided to give Armenia until January next year to meet a number of criteria set following the political crisis created by a disputed presidential election in February and the bloodshed that followed it on March 1-2.
It will still face the risk of losing its voting rights in PACE if it is deemed to have failed to comply with these demands.
Armenian president Serzh Sarkisian said his country had already begun to move ahead.
`We don't need short-term solutions and formal proposals,' he said. `What is important is the foundations that are being laid down, and the decisions taken, are focused on the future.'
But former president and opposition leader Levon Ter-Petrosian was scathing about the PACE decision, saying the assembly had shirked its duty.
He described the PACE rapporteurs on Armenia, Georges Colombier and John Prescott as `defence lawyers' for the Armenian government.
`The Council of Europe has demonstrated its inability to force the authorities of Armenia to fulfil the demands of Resolution 1609 within the set time, and that is a result of the indecisiveness and lack of principles of the Council of Europe,' said Ter-Petrosian.
Resolution 1609, passed on April 17, requires Armenia `to release all persons detained on seemingly artificial and politically motivated charges', to make changes to the law on public assembly, and to hold an independent investigation into the bloodshed. It also calls for dialogue between the authorities and the opposition.
In a new resolution, numbered 1620 and passed on June 25, the assembly said, `While regretting the delay in implementing the concrete measures to comply with its demands, the Assembly acknowledges that the time given to the Armenian authorities was short.'
It resolved to send the council's human rights commissioner, Thomas Hammarberg, to Armenia to report back in September on the questions of the investigation demanded by PACE and the release of detainees.
Colombier, one of the two rapporteurs, told Radio Liberty, `Armenia is waiting for us to help it and not just condemn it. The authorities in Armenia ought to prove that Armenia is climbing out of the pit which it fell into accidentally after March 1.'
Raffi Hovannissian, leader of the Heritage Party and one of the few opposition members included in the delegation to Strasbourg, walked out of the session in protest, saying he was suspending his own cooperation with PACE, `until Armenia meets both its own and European standards.'
`Armenia has failed its democracy test,' he said. `There are still dozens of political prisoners here and they should be freed now, not next January.'
Stepan Safarian, a member of parliament from the Heritage Party, called the resolution `another plausible lie', which he said gave the impression that the Armenian government was instituting reforms when it was not actually doing so. What was needed, he said, was deep institutional reform, which the government was currently avoiding.
Alexander Iskandarian, director of the Caucasus Institute in Yerevan, said the decision to postpone a decision was not unexpected.
`PACE has no interest in subjecting Armenia to tough sanctions, as was the case previously with Belarus,' he said. `PACE is interested in getting rid of the tension and crisis in the country, and it prefers to do that sitting at the negotiation table, not in a tough confrontation.'
The authorities and pro-government parliamentarians say that they have made real progress in meeting PACE's demands. They point, for example, to a commission of enquiry formed to investigate the events of March 1-2.
Naira Zohrabian, a member of parliament with the pro-government Prosperous Armenia party said it was `unprecedented' that this commission included representatives from outside parliament.
Ter-Petrosian has refused to take part in the commission. Hovannissian, meanwhile, proposed that two members of parliament arrested after the March 1-2 trouble, Myasnik Malkhasian and Sasun Mikaelian, should be invited onto the commission - a suggestion that was turned down.
At a recent rally in Yerevan, Ter-Petrosian said his only demand for the moment was for the release of political prisoners. If that happened, he said, he was ready to enter into a dialogue with the authorities.
The prosecutor's office insists there are no political prisoners in Armenia, but Ter-Petrosian says that any members of his opposition movement now in detention were arrested on political charges.
According to chief prosecutor Aghvan Hovsepian, 46 out of the 115 people detained have been released.
The new PACE resolution is being seen as a provisional victory for President Sarkisian. The confrontation between opposition and government is likely to continue for the remainder of the year.
Harutiun Khachatrian, an analyst with Noyan Tapan news agency, said the decision would allow the president to buy more time to consolidate his power.
Levon Zurabian, a leading member of Ter-Petrosian's Popular Movement, noted that at least the resolution kept the Armenian government under PACE's supervision. with the threat of sanctions still hanging over it.
Opposition groups did have occasion to celebrate another decision coming out of Strasbourg. The European Court of Human Rights ruled on June 17 that the Armenian government had acted illegally by revoking the broadcasting license of pro-opposition television station A1+ in 2002. The government was ordered to pay a 20,000 euro fine.
Terry Davis, secretary general of the Council of Europe, welcomed the ruling as a victory for freedom of speech.
However, it is not clear if and when the station will be allowed to start broadcasting again.
One point in the PACE resolution, calling for A1+'s license to be restored, was taken out after pro-government deputies argued it was up to the national broadcasting commission to hold an open tender process for licenses.
The director of A1+, Mesrop Movsisian, told IWPR that a new range of frequencies would become available this autumn, and his company would be among the bidders.
Rita Karapetian is a journalist with the Noyan Tapan news agency in Yerevan.
Caucasus Reporting Service
Armenia Escapes Europe Ban
Council of Europe resolution postpones day of reckoning for Yerevan
government.
By Rita Karapetian in Yerevan (CRS No. 450, 03-Jul-08)
The Armenian opposition has criticised a decision by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, PACE, to give the government more time to meet a series of tough benchmarks for democracy.
The assembly decided to give Armenia until January next year to meet a number of criteria set following the political crisis created by a disputed presidential election in February and the bloodshed that followed it on March 1-2.
It will still face the risk of losing its voting rights in PACE if it is deemed to have failed to comply with these demands.
Armenian president Serzh Sarkisian said his country had already begun to move ahead.
`We don't need short-term solutions and formal proposals,' he said. `What is important is the foundations that are being laid down, and the decisions taken, are focused on the future.'
But former president and opposition leader Levon Ter-Petrosian was scathing about the PACE decision, saying the assembly had shirked its duty.
He described the PACE rapporteurs on Armenia, Georges Colombier and John Prescott as `defence lawyers' for the Armenian government.
`The Council of Europe has demonstrated its inability to force the authorities of Armenia to fulfil the demands of Resolution 1609 within the set time, and that is a result of the indecisiveness and lack of principles of the Council of Europe,' said Ter-Petrosian.
Resolution 1609, passed on April 17, requires Armenia `to release all persons detained on seemingly artificial and politically motivated charges', to make changes to the law on public assembly, and to hold an independent investigation into the bloodshed. It also calls for dialogue between the authorities and the opposition.
In a new resolution, numbered 1620 and passed on June 25, the assembly said, `While regretting the delay in implementing the concrete measures to comply with its demands, the Assembly acknowledges that the time given to the Armenian authorities was short.'
It resolved to send the council's human rights commissioner, Thomas Hammarberg, to Armenia to report back in September on the questions of the investigation demanded by PACE and the release of detainees.
Colombier, one of the two rapporteurs, told Radio Liberty, `Armenia is waiting for us to help it and not just condemn it. The authorities in Armenia ought to prove that Armenia is climbing out of the pit which it fell into accidentally after March 1.'
Raffi Hovannissian, leader of the Heritage Party and one of the few opposition members included in the delegation to Strasbourg, walked out of the session in protest, saying he was suspending his own cooperation with PACE, `until Armenia meets both its own and European standards.'
`Armenia has failed its democracy test,' he said. `There are still dozens of political prisoners here and they should be freed now, not next January.'
Stepan Safarian, a member of parliament from the Heritage Party, called the resolution `another plausible lie', which he said gave the impression that the Armenian government was instituting reforms when it was not actually doing so. What was needed, he said, was deep institutional reform, which the government was currently avoiding.
Alexander Iskandarian, director of the Caucasus Institute in Yerevan, said the decision to postpone a decision was not unexpected.
`PACE has no interest in subjecting Armenia to tough sanctions, as was the case previously with Belarus,' he said. `PACE is interested in getting rid of the tension and crisis in the country, and it prefers to do that sitting at the negotiation table, not in a tough confrontation.'
The authorities and pro-government parliamentarians say that they have made real progress in meeting PACE's demands. They point, for example, to a commission of enquiry formed to investigate the events of March 1-2.
Naira Zohrabian, a member of parliament with the pro-government Prosperous Armenia party said it was `unprecedented' that this commission included representatives from outside parliament.
Ter-Petrosian has refused to take part in the commission. Hovannissian, meanwhile, proposed that two members of parliament arrested after the March 1-2 trouble, Myasnik Malkhasian and Sasun Mikaelian, should be invited onto the commission - a suggestion that was turned down.
At a recent rally in Yerevan, Ter-Petrosian said his only demand for the moment was for the release of political prisoners. If that happened, he said, he was ready to enter into a dialogue with the authorities.
The prosecutor's office insists there are no political prisoners in Armenia, but Ter-Petrosian says that any members of his opposition movement now in detention were arrested on political charges.
According to chief prosecutor Aghvan Hovsepian, 46 out of the 115 people detained have been released.
The new PACE resolution is being seen as a provisional victory for President Sarkisian. The confrontation between opposition and government is likely to continue for the remainder of the year.
Harutiun Khachatrian, an analyst with Noyan Tapan news agency, said the decision would allow the president to buy more time to consolidate his power.
Levon Zurabian, a leading member of Ter-Petrosian's Popular Movement, noted that at least the resolution kept the Armenian government under PACE's supervision. with the threat of sanctions still hanging over it.
Opposition groups did have occasion to celebrate another decision coming out of Strasbourg. The European Court of Human Rights ruled on June 17 that the Armenian government had acted illegally by revoking the broadcasting license of pro-opposition television station A1+ in 2002. The government was ordered to pay a 20,000 euro fine.
Terry Davis, secretary general of the Council of Europe, welcomed the ruling as a victory for freedom of speech.
However, it is not clear if and when the station will be allowed to start broadcasting again.
One point in the PACE resolution, calling for A1+'s license to be restored, was taken out after pro-government deputies argued it was up to the national broadcasting commission to hold an open tender process for licenses.
The director of A1+, Mesrop Movsisian, told IWPR that a new range of frequencies would become available this autumn, and his company would be among the bidders.
Rita Karapetian is a journalist with the Noyan Tapan news agency in Yerevan.
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UNESCO LIST EXPANDING
Panorama.am
20:22 02/07/2008
UNESCO's World Heritage Committee opening in Quebec will be expanded as a new candidate is named - Tadei Armenian monastery in Iran. Inorder to be listed in UNESCO World Heritage applications from 41 countries have been included.
Remind that 851 historic-cultural values from 141 countries are listed in UNESCO's heritage. Armenian cultural values, in particular Sanahin-Haghpat, Geghardavank and Echmiatsin church complex are listed in UNESCO World Heritage.
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KARS TASTES 'CAUCASIAN CHEESE'
Turkish Daily News
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
Turkey
Caucasian cheese, produced in an effort to create a joint brand by Georgia, Turkey and Armenia, hit the markets this week. An advertisement stand, offering cheese to its Turkish customers, is
now open in the eastern city of Kars.
The idea of producing the yellow slab under the label of Caucasian cheese was taken last year in the Caucasian Economic Forum in Kars. Dairy producers from the Armenian city Gümrü and the Georgian city Ninotsminda got together with Turkish producers in Kars and discussed the project. The project was introduced by the British-based magazine the Economist as â~@~\symbolizing reconciliation between Turkey and Armenia and the entire Caucasus region.â~@~]
Turkish Ä°lhan Koçulu, Georgian Vanik Kazaryan and Armenian Artus Mıkırtçyan gathered in a hotel in Kars to launch the Caucasian cheese, daily Radikal reported. â~@~\Our goal is not to solve the problems between the governments, but rather to improve relations between the communities,â~@~] said Mıkırtçyan. â~@~\Why cheese? Because delicious cheese is produced in Georgia, Turkey and Armenia. Since cheese is the common language of these three cities, we decided to produce the Caucasian cheese label,â~@~] he said.
â~@~\Turkey and Georgia are economic partners. We believe that via this project our relations will further improve,â~@~] said Kazaryan. â~@~\We want to eliminate prejudices and prove that we can make trade. If what we do helps to solve political problems, we will be more than happy,â~@~] said Mıkırtçyan.
Turkey closed its border with Armenia in 1993 to protest the Armenian forces' occupation of the Nagorno-Karabakh region in the South Caucasus, a de facto independent republic that is officially part of Azerbaijan.
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KARS TASTES 'CAUCASIAN CHEESE'
Turkish Daily News
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
Turkey
Caucasian cheese, produced in an effort to create a joint brand by Georgia, Turkey and Armenia, hit the markets this week. An advertisement stand, offering cheese to its Turkish customers, is
now open in the eastern city of Kars.
The idea of producing the yellow slab under the label of Caucasian cheese was taken last year in the Caucasian Economic Forum in Kars. Dairy producers from the Armenian city Gümrü and the Georgian city Ninotsminda got together with Turkish producers in Kars and discussed the project. The project was introduced by the British-based magazine the Economist as â~@~\symbolizing reconciliation between Turkey and Armenia and the entire Caucasus region.â~@~]
Turkish Ä°lhan Koçulu, Georgian Vanik Kazaryan and Armenian Artus Mıkırtçyan gathered in a hotel in Kars to launch the Caucasian cheese, daily Radikal reported. â~@~\Our goal is not to solve the problems between the governments, but rather to improve relations between the communities,â~@~] said Mıkırtçyan. â~@~\Why cheese? Because delicious cheese is produced in Georgia, Turkey and Armenia. Since cheese is the common language of these three cities, we decided to produce the Caucasian cheese label,â~@~] he said.
â~@~\Turkey and Georgia are economic partners. We believe that via this project our relations will further improve,â~@~] said Kazaryan. â~@~\We want to eliminate prejudices and prove that we can make trade. If what we do helps to solve political problems, we will be more than happy,â~@~] said Mıkırtçyan.
Turkey closed its border with Armenia in 1993 to protest the Armenian forces' occupation of the Nagorno-Karabakh region in the South Caucasus, a de facto independent republic that is officially part of Azerbaijan.
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