“Zhoghovurd” carries an editorial on the 18th anniversary of a terrorist attack on Armenia’s parliament that left Prime Minister Vazgen Sarkisian, parliament speaker Karen Demirchian and six other officials dead. “It’s a crime whose consequences have still not been overcome and whose wounds have still not healed,” writes the paper. “It’s a crime which set Armenia’s development several decade back and contributed to the establishment of dictatorship in the country.” It says it remains unclear who masterminded the October 1999 shootings.
“Haykakan Zhamanak” says the authorities claim to have averted at least three such attacks in Armenia in the last few years.“It basically means that when Serzh Sarkisian’s life and well-being was in danger the National Security Service managed to act properly, react in a timely manner, expose and prevent a crime,” comments the paper. “But when the lives of Vazgen Sarkisian, Karen Demirchian and others were in danger the NSS led by Serzh Sarkisian [in 1999] was simply inactive.”
“Zhamanak” cites reports that Belarus will supply more weapons, notably Polonez rockets with a 200-kilometer range, to Azerbaijan. The paper denounces Prime Minister Karen Karapetian for not publicly demanding explanations from his Belarusian counterpart at this week’s Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) meeting in Yerevan. It claims that Karapetian only cares about retaining his post with Russia’s help in April 2018.
“Chorrord Ishkhanutyun” reports that Archbishop Pargev Martirosian of Nagorno-Karabakh has lavished praise on Mikael Minasian, President Sarkisian’s son-in-law and Armenia’s ambassador to the Vatican, for donating several handmade Armenian carpets to Karabakh’s medieval Gandzasar monastery. He said that Minasian is introducing a “new culture” of benevolence. “It’s good that the Gandzasar monastery will have handmade Armenian carpets which are said to be worth several dozen thousands of dollars,” the paper says. “But there would really be a new culture if not only the son-in-law, the brothers or relatives of Serzh Sarkisian but also ordinary businesspeople were able to engage in charitable activities.”
(Tigran Avetisian)
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