“Chorrord Ishkhanutyun” claims that Serzh Sarkisian on Tuesday bewildered members of the Euronest Parliamentary Assembly in Yerevan when he insisted that democratic freedoms and human rights are respected by the authorities in Armenia. “They felt at one point that they are not in Yerevan but in some European country,” the opposition paper writes with sarcasm.
“Zhamanak” says that Sarkisian’s upcoming visit to Brussels will coincide with a meeting in Astana of the presidents of Russia, Kazakhstan and Belarus, the three largest members of the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU). “This coincidence is quite telling in the current geopolitical context,” says the paper. “The Eurasian Economic Union is a structure that serves as a mausoleum for Armenian statehood.” Despite Yerevan’s efforts to deepen ties with the European Union, the paper says that it will be pessimistic about the future of those relations as long as Armenia remains part of the Russian-led bloc.
“Haykakan Zhamanak” reports that Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday formally approved an agreement between the governments of Russia and Kyrgyzstan writing off the Central Asian republic’s $190 million debt to Moscow. “The thing is that until now Russia has never ceded a single cent to Armenia,” comments the paper. “This despite the fact that Russia has written off huge amounts of debt owed by many other countries … Why is this so? Maybe because Kyrgyzstan, unlike Armenia, did not decide to join the Eurasian Economic Union overnight.”
“Zhoghovurd” condemns as a “disgrace” the Russian State Duma’s refusal to observe on Tuesday a minute of silence in memory of Boris Nemtsov, a Russian opposition politician assassinated in Moscow last month. The paper says this fact exposed the “inhuman and extremely nasty face” of modern-day Russia.
(Nane Sahakian)