SEPT. 20 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Armenian carrier ArmWings will start a flight connection between Yerevan and Brussels in December. ArmWings, which does not yet have a website, said tickets can now be purchased at travel agents.
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(News report from Issue No. 297, published on Sept. 23 2016)
SEPT. 22 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Azerbaijan’s foreign minister Elmar Mammadyarov said his country is ready to hold more talks with Armenia to settle the long-lasting dispute over the Nagorno-Karabakh region. Mr Mammadyarov spoke with OSCE special representative Lamberto Zannier on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York. In April, four days of fighting between Azerbaijan’s army and Armenia-backed forces punctured a fragile 1994 UN-organised ceasefire in Nagorno-Karabakh.
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(News report from Issue No. 297, published on Sept. 23 2016)
SEPT. 20 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Armenia’s President Serzh Sargsyan appointed a handful of new ministers, purging the previous government of Hovik Abrahamyan. Notably, Vardan Aramyan will be the new finance minister, Vahan Martirosyan was appointed transport and communications minister, while Ashot Manukyan will serve as energy minister. Mr Abrahamyan resigned earlier this month after a fall in the government’s popularity. He said a new government was needed.
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(News report from Issue No. 297, published on Sept. 23 2016)
SEPT. 18 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Armenia’s ruling Republican Party lost a series of local elections, a reflection, observers said, of the drop in popularity for President Serzh Sargsyan and his government.
The elections focused on voting in civil leaders in small towns and villages across Armenia.
The Central Election Commission said that 350,000 people had voted in the election, a turnout of around 50%, giving it credibility as an opinion poll on the president.
Media reports said that of the 317 local governing bodies where voting took place, the Republican Party won 161. Importantly, though, it lost control of 30 towns and villages that it had previously held.
Analysts said that this was a reflection of the lack of trust in the Republican Party which has dominated Armenian politics since 2003. The economy is stagnant and a group of gunmen captured a police triggering a two week stand-off with police.
Earlier this month Hovik Abrahamyan resigned as Armenia’s PM. He had been in the job for two years but said that a new government was needed to restore confidence in the government.
President Sargsyan quickly appointed Karen Karapetyan as the new PM. He is a former mayor of Yerevan.
Hovannes Sahakian, a Reublican Party MP, said the worse-than-expected results were attributable to some poor local politics.
“There are many problems in those three dozen communities,” he told the RFE/RL’s Armenian service. “We need to revise things, change the strategy and tactics. What happened is not a tragedy.”
President Sargsyan has not commented on the results of the elections.
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(News report from Issue No. 297, published on Sept. 23 2016)
SEPT. 20 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Arshak Grigoryan, son of an opposition mayoral candidate in Gyumri, Armenia’s second-largest city, was found dead, having apparently shot himself, at his family home. Vartevan Grigoryan, Arshak’s father, is a top opposition candidate for the mayoral elections of Oct. 2. All parties have suspended campaigning.
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(News report from Issue No. 297, published on Sept. 23 2016)
SEPT. 13 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Armenia’s President Serzh Sargsyan appointed Karen Karapetyan to the post of PM, brother of one of the richest Armenians.
A member of the Mr Sargsyan’s Republican Party, Mr Karapetyan will take over from Hovik Abrahamyan, who resigned on Sept. 8, after a steep fall in the government’s popularity over the last few months after gunmen calling for a new government captured a police station in Yerevan, triggering a two week stand- off with security forces in which three policemen died.
Mr Karapetyan is a former mayor of Yerevan and ex-chief executive of ArmRosGazprom, the Armenian subsidiary of Russia’s Gazprom. His brother is Samvel Karapetyan, owner of Tashir Group, a Russian real estate holding company that bought the electricity distributor, Electricity Networks of Armenia (ENA), last year from Russia’s Inter RAO.
Billionaire Samvel Karapetyan effectively helped out the Armenian government who needed to find a buyer for ENA quickly after Inter RAO said it wanted to sell up after a botched attempt to raise electricity prices had triggered street demonstrations.
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(News report from Issue No. 296, published on Sept. 16 2016)
SEPT. 8 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Hovik Abrahamyan resigned from his post as Armenian PM, saying that new leadership was needed to restore confidence in the government.
Local media outlets in Armenia have touted Karen Karapetyan, former mayor of Yerevan and Gazprom Armenia executive, as the potential new PM.
During his resignation speech, Mr Abrahamyan, PM since April 2014, said that Armenia needed new leadership to restore confidence.
“In order to improve the current economic and social situation, both the government and the people need to make joint efforts, and this requires new approaches and new principles,” he said.
Mr Abrahamyan may have been trying to deflect criticism from Armenia’s President Serzh Sargsyan. President since 2008, Mr Sargsyan’s popularity has fallen recently.
In July a group of gunmen calling for a new government captured a police station, triggering a two week standoff with security forces. Three policemen died during the capture of the police station and the subsequent standoff. Hundreds of protesters, supporting the gunmen clashed with police, during the standoff, highlighting the frustration with the government.
Armenia’s economy has flatlined and promised improvements in relations with neighbours have not materialised. In the summer of 2015, protesters clashed with police when the government tried to increase prices for electricity. In April, too, fighting broke out between Armenian and Azerbaijani forces over the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh.
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(News report from Issue No. 295, published on Sept. 9 2016)
SEPT. 6 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Georgia’s gas distributor said that it will cut Russian gas supplies to Armenia for one week from Sept. 7 to carry out maintenance work on a section of the pipeline that crosses the country from the Caucasus. This is the second time in two months that the pipeline has been closed for maintenance and the cuts highlight the importance of Armenia’s negotiations with Iran to boost supplies from the south.
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(News report from Issue No. 295, published on Sept. 9 2016)
AUG. 31 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — The Russian foreign ministry complained to both Armenia and the US over the brief detention of its citizen, Sergei Mironov, in Armenia at the request of the US. Mr Mironov, 30, on the US wanted list for money laundering and illegal arms export, was arrested in Armenia on Aug. 26. The Armenian court refused to bring him to trial and released him days later. On Aug. 31, Mr Mironov fled to Russia. The episode risks straining relations between Armenia and Russia.
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(News report from Issue No. 294, published on Sept. 2 2016)
AUG. 29 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — At the Olympics in Rio, Uzbekistan won four gold medals, including three in boxing. Kazakhstan once again pulled in a decent haul, winning three golds, including a first ever swimming win, five silvers and nine bronzes. Tajikistan also won its first gold medal since independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. Dilshod Nazarov won gold in the hammer, becoming an instant national hero in Tajikistan. In the South Caucasus, Azerbaijan won a gold medal in taekwondo, Georgia won golds in wrestling and weightlifting and Armenia won a wrestling gold, its first for 20 years.
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(News report from Issue No. 293, published on Aug. 29 2016)
