Tag Archives: Armenia

Armenia to set up new ministry

NOV. 7 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Armenia plans to re-establish its Interior Ministry ahead of joining the Russia-led Eurasian Economic Union.

PM Hovik Abrahamian said that several ministries would be merged together to create an Interior Ministry, which was abandoned in 2002.

“Nineteen ministries is too many for Armenia,” the official Armenpress news agency quoted Mr Abrahamian as saying. “In the future we will turn the Ministry of Emergency Situations and the Ministry of Local Government into the Ministry of Internal Affairs as it is the case in many European countries.”

In the former Soviet space the Interior Ministry is one of the more powerful government institutions. It has its own army and is tasked with imposing internal security and order. In 2002, Armenia disbanded the Interior Ministry and handed these pseudo military powers to the police force. This will now revert back to the Interior Ministry.

Armenia is joining the Eurasian Economic Union in the New Year, a group that already includes Belarus and Kazakhstan alongside Russia. Kyrgyzstan is also intending to join.

All these countries have a strong Interior Ministry. It’s likely that joining the Eurasian Economic Union and re-establishing the Interior Ministry in Armenia are linked.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 208, published on Nov.12 2014)

Armenia to go to Baku Games

NOV. 5 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – In a sign of improving Azerbaijani- Armenian relations, Armenia said that it would send a team to participate at the inaugural European Games in Baku next year. Armenia and Azerbaijan are arch enemies and have disputed the region of Nagorno-Karabakh since the early 1990s.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 208, published on Nov.12 2014)

Armenia opens embassy in Stockholm

NOV. 25 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – During a visit to Sweden by Armenian foreign minister Edward Nalbandalian, Armenia opened an embassy in Stockholm. Armenia has been looking to open more embassies abroad to both boost its support base and lobby for allies to back it with its dispute with Azerbaijan over the region of Nagorno-Karabakh.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 210, published on Nov. 26 2014)

Georgia and Armenia build power line

NOV. 5 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Armenia and Georgia are building a €300m electrical line between the two countries, Armenian energy minister Ara Simonyan told a cabinet meeting. The power line will improve the Georgian and Armenian electricity grid and help solidify the countries’ trade relations.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 207, published on Nov. 5 2014)

EU aid still flowing to Armenia

NOV. 4 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Although Armenia has agreed to join the Russia-led Eurasian Economic Union, currently called the Customs Union, in 2015, the EU approved a 140m – 170m euros tranche of aid. The aid will be used to bolster the private sector, the justice sector and reform government institutions.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 207, published on Nov. 5 2014)

Armenian airline cancels flights

OCT. 30 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Air Armenia, the only Armenian-owned passenger airline, suspended all passenger flights until at least Dec. 20 because of financial problems.

Privately owned, Air Armenia has been flying to Russia and a handful of other destinations for a year. It was set up as a freight airline in 2003 but branched into passenger flights after the collapse of Armavia in 2013.

Air Armenia’s financial problems highlight just how difficult the business environment in Armenia is currently.

Armenia has been hard hit by the financial problems facing Russia, its main ally and sponsor. Remittances from workers in Russia have dried up as has financial support and investment. Economic growth rates have been slashed, currency warnings have been put out and inflation is creeping up. These are difficult times for Armenian businesses, more so in the aviation sector.

It looks increasingly likely that Armenians will now be without a national airline.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 207, published on Nov. 5 2014)

Armenia’s President says talks useful

OCT. 27 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Armenia’s president, Serzh Sargsyan, described talks with his Azerbaijani counterpart Ilham Aliyev over the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh as “constructive, useful and sincere”, media reported.This is the most upbeat assessment of the talks hosted by French president Francois Hollande.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 206, published on Oct. 29 2014)

Armenia denies Crimea flight

OCT. 27 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Armenia has denied that it has given permission for a commercial flight between Yerevan and Simferopol, the capital of Crimea.

As reported by the Bulletin last week, Grozny Avia, a Chechen airline, has floated plans to fly between the two cities twice a week. If the flight route did materialise it would be the first air route into Crimea, other than from Russia, since Russian forces annexed the Ukrainian province earlier this year.

News of the planned flight angered the Ukrainian government. It has also been suggested that Armenia had been coaxed into allowing the flight to appease Russia. Armenia needs Russian economic support to keep its finances in order and Russian military support to balance the threat posed by Azerbaijan which wants to re-take the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh from Armenia-back rebels.

But Armenia’s civil aviation authority has said that an earlier statement from Crimea’s transport minister about the planned flight was simply wrong.

“The Head Department of Civil Aviation did not receive, and therefore has not examine, a bid for operation of direct flights from Yerevan to Simferopol,” media quoted spokesman Ruben Grdzelyan as saying.

This is not a categorical no, then. It does suggest that this issue may have further to run.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 206, published on Oct. 29 2014)

EU wants better Armenia-Turkey ties

OCT. 22 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – The EU is strongly in favour of improved ties between Armenia and Turkey, media quoted a member of the EU delegation to Ankara, Bela Szombati, as saying. Armenia-Turkey ties are strained because of a row over the alleged genocide in eastern Turkey towards the end of the First World War.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 206, published on Oct. 29 2014)

Azerbaijan and Armenia to talk Nagorno-Karabakh

OCT. 27 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – The presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan met to discuss the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh in talks mediated by French president Francois Hollande.

The official outcome of the talks — agreeing to more talks — may appear inconsequential but meetings between President Serzh Sargyan of Armenia and President Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan are rare.

“Status quo is not sustainable,” Mr Hollande’s office said after the meeting. “(Azerbaijan and Armenia) have agreed to continue the dialogue, in particular with a new meeting in September 2015 in the margins of the United Nations General Assembly in New York.”

Nagorno-Karabakh has been described as one of the world’s most dangerous frozen conflicts. Armenia and Azerbaijan fought over the region in the early 1990s and only a shaky 1994 UN-brokered ceasefire keeps the two- sides apart. Recently, though, there has been an increase in the amount of fighting around Nagorno-Karabakh.

Armenia-back rebels now control the region but there is a constant background noise of sabre rattling. Azerbaijan has been re-arming its military, buying top-of-the-range kit from Israel. Armenia has quietly been rehousing Armenians chased out of Syria in Nagorno-Karabakh.

This was the second meeting this year between Mr Aliyev and Mr Sargsyan. Russia’s president Vladimir Putin hosted a meeting in August.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 206, published on Oct. 29 2014)