“Zhoghovurd” comments on Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s upcoming meeting in Vienna with Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev which it expects to be “important.” The paper says that Pashinian’s previous talks with Aliyev helped to significantly strengthen the ceasefire regime in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict zone. “So the official name and nature of their meetings do not really matter,” it says. “What matters is understandings reached at those meetings and compliance with them.”
As “Zhamanak” points out, the agreement to hold a fresh Armenian-Azerbaijani summit was announced by the U.S., Russian and French co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group on March 1 following their visit to Yerevan and Baku. The paper notes that Pashinian has since urged the mediators to clarify the essence of their Basic Principles of the conflict’s resolution. “Also, Yerevan has made clear that peace negotiations will be full-fledged only if Stepanakert also participates in them,” it says, adding that Baku categorically rejects this approach.
“Haykakan Zhamanak” says that the main line of attack against the current Armenian government voiced by representatives of the former ruling regime is that it resorts to publicity stunts instead of delivering on Pashinian’s repeated pledges to make things much better in the country. The pro-government paper dismisses their claims that “the authorities do not know what to do” and says that the latter are following a clear roadmap for positive change: eradication of corruption and large-scale tax evasion, drastic increase in state revenue, creation of an independent judiciary, level playing field for all businesses and a favorable investment climate, and downsizing of the state bureaucracy. These, it says, are the kind of changes which had for years been advocated by political opponents of the former regime.
(Lilit Harutiunian)