“Hraparak” reports that President Serzh Sarkisian again skirted questions about his political future when he met with participants of a pro-government youth camp in Tsaghkadzor at the weekend. “His remarks gave participants the impression that Sarkisian is not going to leave the big arena [in April 2018,]” says the paper.
As Lragir.am points out, Sarkisian also said in Tsaghkadzor he and Russian President Vladimir Putin did not quite discuss the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict -- including the issue of deploying an international peacekeeping force in the conflict zone -- when they met in Sochi last week. “It would be surprising or unexpected if the Karabakh issue really did not feature large at the Sarkisian-Putin meeting,” comments the online publication. “On the other hand, what was there to be discussed? Practically nothing. The co-chair countries (Russia, the United States and France) probably realized that long ago. Nothing important is possible in the Karabakh settlement process in the foreseeable future.” It claims that the mediating powers’ key objective now is to prevent a sharp escalation of the conflict.
Fresh data released by the Central Bank of Armenia (CBA) leads “Haykakan Zhamanak” to claim that “astronomical sums of money” were spent in the country during the parliamentary and municipal elections held in April and May. The paper points to an 11 percent rise in remittances to Armenia recorded by the CBA in the first half of this year. It alleges that vote buying by the ruling Republican Party of Armenia (HHK) was one of the main reasons for the increase.
(Lilit Harutiunian)
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