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Opposition Bloc Faces New Hurdle To Parliament Entry

staff — Wed, 23 May 2012 18:33:09 +0000

The main opposition Armenian National Congress (HAK) faced an unexpected obstacle to its entry into parliament on Wednesday as it emerged that most of its newly elected deputies are in legal limbo.The Central Election Commission (CEC) said that they technically remain members of Yerevan’s municipal council and therefore cannot to join the National Assembly.Under Armenian law, members of the 131-strong parliament are not allowed to hold any other positions in the executive branch and local government bodies.The HAK refused to take up its 13 seats in Yerevan’s Council of Elders in protest against the alleged falsification of municipal elections held in May 2009. According to Armen Smbatian, the CEC secretary, neither the bloc nor any of its 13 candidates elected to the council formalized that decision with written notifications that had to be sent to the Mayor’s Office.Four of those candidates also ran for the National Assembly in this month’s elections and won seats there along with three other members of the HAK. Smbatian told RFE/RL’s Armenian service (Azatutyun.am) that they cannot receive their parliamentary mandates without resigning from the Yerevan council in a manner required by law.Asked what the CEC will do if they refuse to comply with that requirement, Smbatian said, “We don’t even envisage a scenario whereby they will refuse to renounce their membership in the Yerevan Council of Elders.”The HAK said it is now assessing its options and will announce a decision within days

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Sarkisian Confronted By Displaced Yerevan Residents

staff — Wed, 23 May 2012 18:32:45 +0000

About 30 former residents of an old Yerevan neighborhood partly demolished in a government-sanctioned redevelopment project stopped President Serzh Sarkisian’s motorcade on Wednesday to protest against municipal authorities’ failure to provide them with new housing.Sarkisian was confronted by them as he left his official residence adjacent to the historic Kond district. Eyewitnesses said he got out of his limousine and talked to them for about 15 minutes.The protesters claimed to represent some 200 Kond families who were promised new homes by the government in 2007 in return for agreeing to the demolition of their mostly old and derelict houses

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U.S. ‘Still Pushing For Turkish-Armenian Normalization’

staff — Wed, 23 May 2012 18:32:30 +0000

The United States is continuing to press Turkey to unconditionally normalize its relations with Armenia, the U.S. ambassador in Yerevan, John Heffern, said on Wednesday.“We still are very hopeful that the process will resume as long as it’s not linked to any other issue,” Heffern told RFE/RL’s Armenian service (Azatutyun.am). “So we are continuing to work with Turkey and to push Turkey to do the right thing.”He seemed to refer to the ratification of two U.S.-brokered protocols that were signed by Armenia and Turkey in October 2009

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Azerbaijan Blames ‘Armenian Lobby’ For Deepening Row With Iran

staff — Wed, 23 May 2012 18:32:01 +0000

High-ranking representatives of Azerbaijan’s ruling party have blamed Armenia and the worldwide “Armenian lobby” for their country’s mounting tensions with Iran that led Tehran to withdraw its ambassador from Baku on Tuesday.The envoy was recalled “for consultations” after months of bitter recriminations traded by the two neighboring nations over alleged interference in each other’s affairs.Iran has accused fellow Shia Muslim Azerbaijan of helping Israel to assassinate Iranian nuclear scientists and facilitating possible Israeli and U.S. air strikes against the Islamic Republic’s nuclear facilities

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Baku Hails NATO Statement Denounced By Yerevan

staff — Tue, 22 May 2012 19:03:44 +0000

Azerbaijan on Tuesday welcomed a declaration adopted at the NATO summit in Chicago, saying that it endorsed Baku’s position on the unresolved Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.Elman Abdullayev, a spokesman for the Azerbaijani Foreign Minister, pointed to the declaration’s support for the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan and other former Soviet republics locked in territorial and ethnic disputes.“The fact that the statement was signed by major international players testifies to serious [NATO] support for Azerbaijan’s just cause in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict,” the Trend news agency quoted Abdullayev as saying.The NATO document made no mention of people’s self-determination with regard to the Armenian-Azerbaijani dispute, a fact denounced by Armenia.

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Dashnaktsutyun Rules Out Government Role

staff — Tue, 22 May 2012 19:03:26 +0000

The Armenian Revolutionary Federation (Dashnaktsutyun) will not join a new governing coalition that could be formed as a result of this month’s parliamentary elections, a leader of the opposition party said on Tuesday.Armen Rustamian denied media claims that President Serzh Sarkisian has held post-election talks with Dashnaktsutyun representatives and offered them to join his government.“There have been no such discussions because we have made our views clear,” Rustamian told RFE/RL’s Armenian service (Azatutyun.am). “Right after the elections we said that there is no question of joining a coalition and that the program of complete regime change remains on our agenda.”Dashnaktsutyun, which was part of the outgoing coalition government until 2009, has strongly criticized the Armenian authorities’ handling of the May 6 elections. Along with two other major political groups, it has challenged the credibility of their official results that gave a landslide victory to Sarkisian’s Republican Party of Armenia (HHK).The HHK seems ready to strike a power-sharing deal with other forces, notably the Prosperous Armenia Party (BHK), despite winning an absolute majority of seats in the new National Assembly.

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Computer Virus ‘Mastermind’ Jailed In Armenia

staff — Tue, 22 May 2012 19:03:11 +0000

A district court in Yerevan sentenced on Tuesday a Russian citizen of Armenian descent to four years in prison on charges of creating and spreading a computer virus that reportedly infected 30 million computers around the world.The 27-year-old Georgy Avanesov, the first person known to be jailed in Armenia for cyber crime, was convicted of “computer sabotage” about two years after being arrested at Yerevan’s Zvartnots airport.The arrest came shortly after authorities in the Netherlands cracked down on a hacker group that allegedly infected millions of computers worldwide with the notorious Bredolab virus that gave it access to bank account passwords and other confidential information.According to the AFP news agency, Dutch investigators said at the time that the Netherlands-based server network used by the group was capable of infecting three million computers a month and was sending an estimated 3.6 billion virus emails to users daily by the end of 2009.In their 25-page indictment read out during Avanesov’s trial, Armenian prosecutors said the young man developed the Bredolab in Armenia in March-June 2009. They said Avanesov used computer servers in Holland and France to spread the virus and attack at least 194 websites and 30 million computers by October 2010. The alleged hacking also involved a DDOS attack on the website of Kaspersky Lab, a world-famous computer security firm headquartered in Russia.During the pre-trial investigation, Avanesov reportedly admitted being the Bredolab’s author.

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Armenian Governing Parties Said To Renew Coalition Deal

staff — Tue, 22 May 2012 19:02:50 +0000

The three political parties represented in Armenia’s outgoing government will sign a new power-sharing agreement after all, one of their leading members predicted on Tuesday.“Discussions on the formation of a [new governing] coalition are taking place within the framework of Orinats Yerkir, the Republican Party (HHK) and the Prosperous Armenia Party (BHK),” said Heghine Bisharian, deputy chairwoman of the Orinats Yerkir.

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Opposition Bloc ‘Not Worried’ About Splits

staff — Tue, 22 May 2012 04:40:26 +0000

The Armenian National Congress (HAK) downplayed on Monday growing discord within its ranks that has led two political parties to split from the opposition alliance headed by former President Levon Ter-Petrosian.The Hanrapetutyun (Republic) and Liberal parties announced their decisions on Friday, citing serious disagreements with Ter-Petrosian and his inner circle. The developments followed what those parties regard as the HAK’s poor showing in the May 6 parliamentary elections.Levon Zurabian, a close Ter-Petrosian associate coordinating the bloc’s day-to-day activities, dismissed the dissenters as “opportunists” and “weak, upset and disappointed elements.”“The HAK will definitely not lose as a result of such steps because the HAK is no longer a formal alliance of more than a dozen parties as it has long been transformed into a popular movement where non-partisan members greatly outnumber party members,” Zurabian told RFE/RL’s Armenian service (Azatutyun.am).“I find it natural that some political forces that are tired and have exhausted themselves are incapable of engaging in such activities,” he said. “So in a sense, I consider this a very healthy process of renewal.”The two parties have been unhappy with the HAK’s electoral strategy

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Armenia Shuns NATO Summit Over ‘Pro-Azeri’ Declaration

staff — Tue, 22 May 2012 04:40:16 +0000

Armenia boycotted a NATO summit in Chicago at the weekend in protest against what it described as the pro-Azerbaijani wording of a declaration adopted by the leaders of the alliance’s 28 member states.The declaration mentions the unresolved conflicts in Nagorno-Karabakh as well as Georgia and Moldova in a long list of security challenges facing the West. It seems to single out territorial integrity of internationally recognized states as the guiding principle for their peaceful resolution.“We remain committed in our support of the territorial integrity, independence, and sovereignty of Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and the Republic of Moldova, and will also continue to support efforts towards a peaceful settlement of these regional conflicts, based upon these principles and the norms of international law, the United Nations Charter, and the Helsinki Final Act,” it says. x U.S

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