Tag Archives: Armenia

Clooney lobbies Armenian genocide

APRIL 24 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Hollywood A-list actor George Clooney attended a memorial in Yerevan to mark the 101st anniversary of what Armenia describes as a genocide perpetrated by Ottoman Turks against Armenians. Turkey has denied it was a genocide and has instead said that thousands of Armenians died in fighting linked to World War I. It’s unclear, exactly, how Mr Clooney is linked to Armenia and its genocide claim.

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(News report from Issue No. 278, published on April 29 2016)

 

Armenia wants to ban Turkish goods

APRIL 27 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Armenian economy minister Artsvik Minasayan said the government is considering a ban on the import of Turkish goods, in retaliation to Turkey’s support for Azerbaijan in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. Despite the fact that both Turkey and Armenia are members of the WTO, trade bans can be implemented because, even within the WTO, Turkey does not recognise Armenia.

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(News report from Issue No. 278, published on April 29 2016)

 

Car and oil imports drop in Armenia

APRIL 19 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – A regional economic downturn has dented Armenia’s imports in 2015, data from the state Statistics Committee showed. Car imports shrank by 38% to 27,300 last year, compared to 2014. Oil imports shrank by 8%. A region-wide currency crisis has affected purchasing power in the South Caucasus and Armenia’s trade numbers reflect this.

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(News report from Issue No. 277, published on April 22 2016)

Top Armenian official resigns over offshore links

APRIL 18 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Mihran Poghosyan, formerly Armenia’s Chief Compulsory Enforcement Officer, resigned after his name appeared linked to offshore accounts that Armenian media said created a conflict of interest with government tenders.

Mr Poghosyan’s name emerged in leaked documents from the Panama- registered Mossack Fonseca law firm, linking him and his relatives to real estate, brokerage and import firms which have won government tenders. He had previously said he had dropped his businesses before joining the public service.

His resignation is unique in the region. Officials previously targeted by investigative dossiers generally managed to keep their positions.

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(News report from Issue No. 277, published on April 22 2016)

Editorial: Armenian official quits

APRIL 22 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Corporate governance and transparency activists in Central Asia and the South Caucasus have a scalp, finally.

Mihran Poghosyan was forced to resign from his post as Armenia’s Chief Compulsory Enforcement Officer after being tracked as the owner of off- shore companies that had won government tenders. This was considered a conflict of interest.

If true, the revelation, which emerged from the so-called Panama Papers leak, means that Mr Poghosyan had lied when he said that he had dropped his business interests before assuming office.

And, in a rare move for a senior official in the region, he resigned and said he will fight a legal battle in court to demonstrate his innocence.

The Panama Papers still have some distance to run and it is likely that more revelations will come out about senior officials and government leaders in the region.

What is far less likely, though, is that these revelations will trigger more resignations.

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(Editorial from Issue No. 277, published on April 22 2016)

Town ditches Kazakh President

APRIL 21 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Harich, a small village in north western Armenia, renamed a street previously dedicated to Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev, in retaliation for his perceived support for Azerbaijan over Armenia in the neighbours’ row over Nagorno-Karabakh. Earlier this month the most serious fighting in two decades broke out between Armenia-backed fighters and Azerbaijan around Nagorno-Karabakh.

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(News report from Issue No. 277, published on April 22 2016)

 

Ban Ki-moon cancels visit to Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia

APRIL 21 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon cancelled a visit to the South Caucasus this week due to an unforeseen emergency, his press service told media. The UN had planned a visit to Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia in April for Mr Ban. Analysts hoped his tour would have appeased the warring sides around Nagorno-Karabakh, a territory that both Armenia and Azerbaijan claim as their own. Instead Mr Ban planned to travel to Yemen and Syria.

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(News report from Issue No. 277, published on April 22 2016)

War and smiles in Azerbaijani-Armenian disputed territory

SHUSHI/Azerbaijan, APRIL 22 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — The high mountains, steep cliffs and green landscapes are a pleasure to the eye, but Nagorno Karabakh feels empty, quiet and sad.

From the Armenian border to Shushi, one of the disputed region’s larger towns, several ghost-like settlements hug the road.

Shushi itself is strewn with rubble but not from fighting that sparked earlier this month, the worst since a UN brokered ceasefire was imposed in 1994. This rubble was from fighting in the early 1990s when Christian Armenian-backed fighters took the town from Muslim Azerbaijani soldiers. The abandoned mosques lie testament to that.

Saro Saryan, an ethnic Armenian originally from Baku, brought out a bottle of vodka and insisted that it must be finished before morning was out. He fled Baku in 1990.

His son sat beside him, silent, eyes glued to his iPad. He was back from fighting against Azerbaijani forces.

Saryan, now flush with vodka, chipped in. “I’m extremely proud of my son for volunteering to fight on the front lines. Karabakh is a proud country and we’ll fight till the end for our historical right,” he said.

In contrast to Shushi’s emptiness, the streets of Stepanakert, the Armenian capital of Nagorno-Karabakh, are clean and filled with people. Military convoys rumble past, children ride bikes, a lady walks her dog.

The locals may flash a friendly smile but the stress of war is never far away. “Many families left Karabakh once the conflict resumed, it’s sad. But what can they do?” said 30-year-old Zara.

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(News report from Issue No. 277, published on April 22 2016)

Russia continues selling weapons to Armenia and Azerbaijan

APRIL 9 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Russia said that it will continue to sell weapons to both Armenia and Azerbaijan, Russian PM Dmitri Medvedev told Russian media, despite the worst outbreak in violence earlier this month between the two neighbours since 1994. Mr Medvedev said that if Russia stopped selling weapons to Armenia and Azerbaijan, they would simply buy them from another country which would, potentially, by more dangerous.

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(News report from Issue No. 276, published on April 15 2016)

 

Armenia brings forward nuclear power repairs

APRIL 13 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – The Armenian government said it would bring forward repair works at the Metsamor nuclear power plant in 2017 after it agreed with Georgia to increase electricity imports. Areg Galstayan, deputy energy minister, said repairs, previously scheduled for November 2017 will be carried out six months earlier, in May. By bringing the repairs forward by six months, Armenia is showing it is confident that Georgia can supplement its power supply.

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(News report from Issue No. 276, published on April 15 2016)