Lragir.am says that in their statement issued after Thursday’s meeting of the Armenian and Azerbaijani foreign ministers the U.S., Russian and French co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group again did not mention the 2016 agreements on international investigations of ceasefire violations in the Karabakh conflict zone. According to it, some observers expected Yerevan to seek to revive those agreements at the Washington meeting. “Azerbaijan is against that because it would thereby effectively recognize Artsakh’s borders,” writes the online publication. It wonders if Foreign Minister Zohrab Mnatsakanian raised the matter with his Azerbaijani counterpart Elmar Mammadyarov and the Minsk Group co-chairs in Washington. It worries that Yerevan may have again agreed to “save Ilham Aliyev’s face.”
“Aravot” cites Prosecutor-General Artur Davtian as saying during a court hearing that $18 million was transferred to the bank account of former President Robert Kocharian’s son Sedrak in 2007-2009. He was aged 26-28 at the time. “Presumably that young man did a very profitable business if he made such a huge profit,” the paper comments tartly. “He definitely did not deal in weapons or drugs to make so much money. Nor is Sedrak a shareholder in transnational corporations. We can only add that he started displaying his remarkable business acumen when his father still held the post of president of Armenia. A country where the average monthly salary did not exceed $300.”
“Zhoghovurd” comments on Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s strong praise of his government’s performance in 2018. The paper says that his statement is bound to prompt criticism from opposition figures and other critics of the government. It defends the government, pointing to official statistics which shows that the Armenian economy grew by 7.1 percent in the first quarter of this year.
(Lilit Harutiunian)
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