Internal crisis in Armenia: PM, president agree on dismissing armed forces chief? 02.03.21 digest

Armenian News - NEWS.am presents the daily digest of Armenia-related top news as of 02.03.21:

DECISION

The situation is tense in Armenia as President Armen Sarkissian has received a proposal to fire the head of the country’s armed forces on Saturday, intensifying a standoff between PM Nikol Pashinyan and the army's commanders over what Pashinyan said was an attempted coup to remove him.

On Tuesday, Sarkissian decided not to sign a draft decree proposed by PM Nikol Pashinyan on dismissing Onik Gasparyan.

Pashinyan dismissed Onik Gasparyan on Thursday, but he needed the formal approval of the president. According to the constitution, Sarkissian now has two choices: either to sign the decree or to challenge it in the Constitutional Court, for which he has time until tomorrow.

Instead, President now appealed to the Constitutional Court to challenge the constitutionality of the amendments to the law on military service - the law PM based on while making his decision.

The opposition kept believing that Sarkissian would appeal to the Constitutional Court over the PM's proposal to dismiss Onik Gasparyan, however, his action caused hot disputes in social media as in such a situation Gasparyan will be dismissed automatically.

Although media reports that PM visited Sarkissian as the latter is facing health issues after contracting COVID-19, some experts believe that the sides agreed to fulfill the PM's desire and use legal manipulation to dismiss Onik Gasparyan.

Thus, experts noted that with his inaction, Sarkissian has actually 'dismissed' Gasparyan.

STATEMENT

Armenia Armed Forces' leadership has issued another statement on the current situation in Armenia.

“The leadership of the Armed Forces of Armenia reaffirms its assessment on the current situation and stresses that it remains unwavering, prudent, and persistent, regardless of the attempts to entangle the Armed Forces in political processes."

"The current situation shows that the leadership of the Armed Forces is only guided by state interest and only serves the people, governed by the norms of the Constitution and laws of the Republic of Armenia," the statement added.

MEETING

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan today invited the head of the opposition Bright Armenia party head Edmon Marukyan to a meeting to discuss all the proposals amid the internal political crisis in the country.

Edmon Marukyan told reporters in the parliament that he had agreed to the meeting.

"I suppose that we will meet tomorrow," he added.

TURKEY

A bipartisan group of over 180 US representatives called on Secretary of State Antony Blinken to "elevate human rights" in American policy towards an increasingly undemocratic and anti-American Turkey, the Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA) reported.

In a letter to Congress, lawmakers noted that “President Erdogan and his Justice and Development Party have used their nearly two decades in power to weaken Turkey’s judiciary, install political allies in key military and intelligence positions, crackdown on free speech and free press, and wrongfully imprison political opponents, journalists, and minorities."

ANCA welcomes the bipartisan Congressional letter condemning Erdogan's human rights violations.

SEARCHES

Rescue squads of the Artsakh State Service of Emergency Situations on Tuesday resumed the search for the bodies of the fallen servicemen and for the missing soldiers.

The search was suspended since February 15 at the request of the Azerbaijani side.

After the ceasefire, and as a result of the search operations since November 13, 2020, the bodies of 1,485 fallen Armenian servicemen —participants of the military operations—and civilians have been retrieved so far.

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