As the 2007 parliamentary elections approach, life is anything but dull in Armenia. However, few locals will welcome further speculation that the powerful Defense Minister Serzh Sarkisyan will once again lend his support to the ruling Republican Party of the Armenian Prime Minister Andranik Markarian.

In the 2003 parliamentary elections, Sarkisyan did the same, but what makes this rumor all the more concerning for most in Armenia is the belief that Kocharian will pass on power to his trusted lieutenant when steps down from the presidency in 2008. RFE/RL has more.

Reports in the Armenian press this week said the far-reaching move will be announced at an HHK congress scheduled for July 22. Unnamed Republican sources were cited as claiming that Sarkisian will co-chair the party and top its list of candidates for next year’s parliamentary elections.

“I am not familiar with such statements,” Sarkisian told reporters. “There may be such opinions. I think everything will be clear in the next seven or ten days.”

[…]

Sarkisian, who had already participated in the last parliamentary elections on the HHK ticket, promised earlier to name the party with which he will contest the 2007 polls at the beginning of this year. However, he has repeatedly delayed announcement of that decision, prompting speculation that he is having second thoughts about forming a long-term political alliance with Armenia’s largest and most influential governing faction.

A number of senior central and local government officials as well as wealthy businessmen have joined the HHK in recent days, suggesting that the powerful defense chief has already made up his mind. The Yerevan newspaper “168 Zham” reported on Thursday that a recently formed party reputedly sponsored by Prosecutor-General Aghvan Hovsepian will soon merge with the HHK in a further boost to its electoral chances.

In related news, another former resident of the disputed mainly Armenian inhabited territory of Nagorno Karabakh is also eyeing up his chances in next year’s parliamentary elections. Theoretically, I suppose the former Karabakh Defense Minister Samuel Babayan isn’t eligible to run for the Armenian National Assembly, but that doesn’t seem to matter too much as we’ve seen before. Anyway, RFE/RL has more on Babayan’s political ambitions.

Samvel Babayan, the once powerful ex-commander of Nagorno-Karabakh’s army, said on Friday he is confident that his Dashink (Alliance) party will win seats in Armenia’s parliament in next year’s elections. Babayan also warned that he and his loyalists would not hesitate to use force against those who would try to steal votes from Dashink.

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“We will resort to all legitimate and illegitimate steps if illegal actions are carried out against us by the government or the opposition,” he added without going into details.

Babayan, who commanded the Karabakh army from 1993-1999, held the founding congress of his party last November just over a year after his unexpected release prison. The 39-year-old retired general was serving a 14-year prison sentence in Karabakh for allegedly masterminding a botched March 2000 attempt on the life of the disputed region’s president, Arkady Ghukasian. He never pleaded guilty to the charges.

Political observers have suggested differing explanations for his liberation. Some have speculated that Babayan was set free in return for agreeing to secretly cooperate with President Robert Kocharian and his likely successor, Defense Minister Serzh Sarkisian. All three men come from Karabakh and led the Armenian-controlled territory during its successful war with Azerbaijan.

[…]

Babayan has repeatedly denied such speculation and insists that his party has a neutral stance on the Armenian authorities. He predicted on Friday that the country’s main pro-government factions will likely join forces to contest the 2007 elections. “The authorities need to act in a single team because for them divisions will be tantamount to defeat,” he said.

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Babayan further disagreed with those who believe that the Armenian opposition stands no chance of unseating the country’s current leadership. “They have that power,” he said. “The results of the 2003 elections show that about 70 percent of the public do not vote for government forces.”

And while we’re on the subject of Karabakh and the 2007 parliamentary elections, some local analysts suspect that the two hottest topics in Armenian circles today are related. RFE/RL’s Press Review is particular interesting in this regard. Now we know the full details of the current proposed framework deal on Karabakh, some suspect that it is being used to pressurize Yerevan in particular.

“Haykakan Zhamanak” claims that the disclosed peace plan leaves the Armenian authorities vulnerable to domestic accusations of a Karabakh sellout. It says the Armenian public will be furious with Kocharian’s readiness to pullout of most of the Armenian-controlled Azerbaijani territories. “Thus, Robert Kocharian is faced with a clear choice: either he states before the Saint Petersburg summit of the G8 countries, i.e. July 15, that he is ready to sign the framework agreement signed by the co-chairs, or the international community will use its resources to remove Kocharian from power,” speculates the paper.

Interestingly, the issue of frozen conflicts in the former Soviet Union is also on the agenda of the G8, the group of eight leading industrialized nations in the world.

A statement by the G8 ministers following talks Thursday in Moscow stressed the need to draft the main principles to solve the conflict peacefully so that agreement could be reached in 2006, and urged Azerbaijan and Armenia to display political will and reach an agreement on the issue this year, while preparing their nations for peace and not for war.

Yet, according to statements from the Foreign Ministry of the Republic of Armenia, the current framework peace agreement is “largely acceptable” to Yerevan, so the stumbling block still appears to be Azerbaijan.

Foreign Minister Vartan Oskanian has reaffirmed Armenia’s overall acceptance of the international mediators’ most recent proposal to end the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, which calls for a self-determination referendum on the disputed territory’s status.

“This not a perfect document. For anyone,” Oskanian said in a written interview with the official Armenpress news agency released late Thursday. “However, there are enough solid and balanced provisions, with the right trade-offs on the main issues – status, territories and security – that we are prepared to continue to negotiate on the basis of these principles.”

Oskanian said the content of the peace plan put forward by the OSCE Minsk Group is at odds with Azerbaijani leaders’ continuing rejection, in public, of any settlement that does not restore Azerbaijan’s control over Karabakh. “In today’s context, Azerbaijan’s rhetoric about autonomy and desperate calls for militarization surprise us,” he said, urging Baku to embrace the proposed deal.

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According to Oskanian, the peace plan makes it clear that there must be “a corridor linking Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia.” “For Armenia, it’s very clear that this corridor must have the same status as Nagorno-Karabakh,” he said, in an apparent reference to Lachin.

“For Armenia, this also is clear: based on security concerns, Kelbajar can be returned only after the referendum is conducted and the final status of Nagorno-Karabakh is determined. Azerbaijan’s position is different on Kelbajar,” added Oskanian.

Kelbajar was reportedly a key sticking point that precluded the signing of a framework peace accord by Aliev and Kocharian at their two-day talks outside Paris in February.

No doubt there will be more interesting developments in the coming days, weeks and months.