“Haykakan Zhamanak” comments on Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev’s visit to Armenia which will be followed by a meeting in Yerevan of the prime ministers of Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) member states. The paper says tartly that unlike in April 2016, Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev did not block the meeting through Kazakhstan this time around. It says that another EEU member state, Belarus, is about to sell Azerbaijan rocket systems with a firing range of up to 200 kilometers.
“168 Zham” reports that the European Union has finalized preparations for the signing of the Comprehensive and Enhanced Partnership Agreement (CEPA) with Armenia. “There are now no political obstacles from the EU side to the signing of the EU-Armenia agreement,” the paper says. It says EU officials believe that the deal will not be delayed because it is more “generous” for Armenia than the Armenian authorities originally expected. They therefore think that Yerevan will commit “political suicide” if it walks away from the CEPA at the last minute.
“Zhoghovurd” says that cars with Russian license plates remain in a privileged position in Armenia because their drivers and/or owners do not pay fines for violations of traffic rules detected by speed cameras. “Many Armenian drivers, most of them well-to-do persons or officials, replaced the Armenian license plates of their cars by Russian ones and have become a real headache for traffic,” it says. “They drive the way they want to, safe in the knowledge that they will not be fined.”
“Hraparak” says that no “high-ranking representative” of Armenia’s ruling elite attended the weekend funeral in Moscow of Levon Hayrapetian, a Russian-Armenian philanthropist and businessman who died while serving a controversial prison sentence in Russia. Only the Karabakh president, Bako Sahakian, and the head of the Russia diocese of the Armenian Apostolic Church, Archbishop Yezras Nersisian, were in attendance. “By contrast, members of the Armenian political elite love to go abroad to participate in weddings, birthday celebrations or other parties,” writes the paper. “Just recently, a large delegation travelled [to Russia] to attend the wedding of [Russian-Armenian billionaire] Samvel Karapetian’s son.” It says that President Serzh Sarkisian’s office did not even send a letter of condolences to Hayrapetian’s family.
(Tigran Avetisian)
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