Name	Robert Sedraki Kocharyan
Office	2nd President of Armenia
Primeminister	Armen DarbinyanVazgen SargsyanAram SargsyanAndranik MargaryanSerzh Sargsyan
Term start	4 February 1998
Term end	9 April 2008Acting until 10 April 1998
Predecessor	Levon Ter-Petrossian
Successor	Serzh Sargsyan
Order2	Prime Minister of Armenia
President2	Levon Ter-Petrossian
Term start2	20 March 1997
Term end2	10 April 1998
Predecessor2	Armen Sargsyan
Successor2	Armen Darbinyan
Order3	President of unrecognized Nagorno-Karabakh
Primeminister3	Leonard Petrosyan
Term start3	29 December 1994
Term end3	20 March 1997
Predecessor3	Garen Baburyan (Acting)
Successor3	Leonard Petrosyan (Acting)
Order4	Prime Minister of Nagorno-Karabakh
President4	Georgy Petrosyan (Acting)Garen Baburyan (Acting)
Term start4	August 1992
Term end4	29 December 1994
Predecessor4	Oleg Yessayan
Successor4	Leonard Petrosyan
Birth date
Birth place	Stepanakert, Azerbaijan SSR, Soviet Union
Spouse	Bella Kocharyan
Religion	Atheist

Robert Sedraki Kocharyan (, ) (born August 31, 1954) was the second President of Armenia, serving from 1998 till 2008. He was previously President of Nagorno-Karabakh from 1994 to 1997 and Prime Minister of Armenia from 1997 to 1998.

Biography

Robert Kocharyan was born in Stepanakert, Azerbaijan SSR. He received his secondary education there and from 1972 to 1974 served in the Soviet Army. He and his wife, Bella Kocharyan, have three children: Sedrak, Gayane, and Levon, all of whom were born in Stepanakert.

Career timeline and events during his presidency

1972-1974 – served in the Soviet Army

1975-1976 – labor activities in different enterprises in Stepanakert and Moscow

1977-1982 – electrical engineering faculty of Yerevan State Polytechnic Institute. Diploma with excellence.

1980-1981 – worked as an mechanical engineer at the electrical engineering plant in Stepanakert

1981-1985 – worked at different positions at Municipal committee in Stepanakert town committee of the Komsomol Union, including the post of assistant secretary

1986 – instructor of town committee of Stepanakert Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

1987-1989 – head of Karabakh Soviet party organization of the silk factory

19 February 1988 – leader of the Artsakh movement, which fought for secession from the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic and for later union with Armenia; member of group Krunk; led the Miatsum organization

1989-1995 – twice elected as a deputy of Supreme Council of Republic of Armenia, and member of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet

1991-1992 deputy of the Supreme Union of the unrecognized Nagorno-Karabakh Republic in its first convocation

*

Presidency

After the resignation of his predecessor Levon Ter-Petrossian, Kocharyan was elected Armenia's second President on March 30, 1998, defeating his main rival, Karen Demirchyan, in an early presidential election marred by irregularities and violations by both sides as reported by international electoral observers. Complaints included that Kocharyan had not been an Armenian citizen for ten years as required by the constitution., even though it would have been impossible for him to be a 10 year citizen of a republic that was less than 7 years old; however, the Armenian constitution recognized the Armenian SSR as it predecessor state.

During his presidency, several opposition leaders in the Armenian Parliament and the Prime Minister of Armenia were killed by gunmen in an episode known as the 1999 Armenian parliament shooting. And Kocharyan himself negotiated with terrorists to lease the MP hostages.

2003 election

The 2003 Armenian Presidential election on 19 February and 5 March 2003. No candidate received a majority in the first round of the election with the incumbent President Kocharyan winning slightly under 50% of the vote. Therefore a second round was held and Kocharyan defeated Stepan Demirchyan with official results showed him winning just over 67% of the vote.

In both rounds, electoral observers from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe reported significant amounts of electoral fraud by Demirchyan`s supporters and numerous supporters of Demirchyan were arrested before the second round took place. Demirchyan described the election as having being rigged and called on his supporters to rally against the results. Tens of thousands of Armenians protested in the days after the election against the results and called on President Kocharyan to step down.

2008 election

A presidential election was held in Armenia on 19 February 2008. The incumbent President Kocharyan, who was ineligible for a third consecutive term, backed the candidacy of Prime Minister of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan.

Following the election result, protests organized by supporters of unsuccessful candidate Levon Ter-Petrossian began in Yerevan's Freedom Square and accompanied by mass disorders. On March 1, the demonstrators were lawfully dispersed by police and military forces. 10 people was killed during skirmishes between police and aggressive crowd, and President Kocharyan declared a 20-day state of emergency. This was followed by mass arrests and purges of prominent members of the opposition who made disorders and damaged life and property of citizens, as well as a de facto ban on any further anti-government protests. Kocharyan was recognized as successful president

Foreign policy

with Armenian President Robert Kocharyan]] with Armenian President Robert Kocharyan]]

As President, Kocharyan continued to negotiate a peaceful resolution with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev on the status of Nagorno-Karabakh. Talks between Aliyev and Kocharyan were held in September 2004 in Astana, Kazakhstan, on the sidelines of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) summit. Reportedly, one of the suggestions put forward was the withdrawal of Armenian forces from the Azeri territories adjacent to Nagorno-Karabakh, and holding referendums (plebiscites) in Nagorno-Karabakh and Azerbaijan proper regarding the future status of the region. On February 10–11, 2006, Kocharyan and Aliyev met in Rambouillet, France to discuss the fundamental principles of a settlement to the conflict, including the withdrawal of troops, formation of international peace keeping troops, and the status of Nagorno-Karabakh.

During the weeks and days before the talks in France, OSCE Minsk Group co-chairmen expressed cautious optimism that some form of an agreement was possible. French President Jacques Chirac met with both leaders separately and expressed hope that the talks would be fruitful. Contrary to the initial optimism, the Rambouillet talks did not produce any agreement, with key issues such as the status of Nagorno-Karabakh and whether Armenian troops would withdraw from Kalbajar still being contentious. The next session of the talks was held in March 2006 in Washington, D.C. Later in 2006 there was a meeting of the Armenian and Azerbaijani Presidents in Minsk on 28 November and ministerial meetings were held in Moscow. "These talks did not initiate any progress, but I hope that the time for a solution will come" said Peter Semneby, EU envoy for the South Caucasus.

In September 2006, in his congratulatory message on the occasion of 15th anniversary of Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, Kocharyan said "The Karabakhi people made their historic choice, defended their national interests in the war that was forced upon them. Today, they are building a free and independent state." The accompanying message said that the duty of the Republic of Armenia and all Armenians is to contribute to the strengthening and development of Nagorno-Karabakh, as well as to the international recognition of the republic's independence.

References

External links

Official Presidential Site of Armenia

Article at armeniapedia.org

Robert Kocharyan

|- |- |-

Category:1954 births Category:Living people Category:Armenian Apostolic Christians Category:Presidents of Armenia Category:Prime Ministers of Armenia Category:Presidents of Nagorno-Karabakh Category:People from Stepanakert Category:Recipients of the Order of the White Eagle (Poland) Category:Politicians from Nagorno-Karabakh

Stepan Demirchyan () (born June 7, 1959) is an Armenian politician and son of the Communist-era Armenian leader Karen Demirchyan.

Biography

Stepan Demirchyan was born in Yerevan and received his degree from Yerevan Polytechnic Institute in 1981. He is an engineer-electrician and a PhD on Technical Sciences. From 1981 to 1986 he worked first as a skilled worker and later senior skilled worker, supervisor-probationer, head of station and then deputy head of the assembly shop in the Electrical Engines Industrial Complex under the Ministry of Electrical Technologies Industry. From 1984 to 1986 he worked as an assistant engineer in the Electrical Engines Industrial Complex. From 1986 to 1988 he worked first as a chief engineer and later as acting director in the Construction Plant of Programming Equipment under the USSR Ministry of Equipment, Automation Means and Management Systems. The next fifteen years were spent as the general director of the Mars Industrial Complex.

He was a candidate in Armenia's 2003 presidential election.

On May 25, 2003 he was elected to the National Assembly from the proportional list of the Justice Alliance and is the leader of the Justice Fraction and the People's Party of Armenia.

Demirchyan is married and has three children.

Source

http://www.parliament.am/deputies.php?sel=details&ID;=55⟨=eng

Category:1959 births Category:Living people Category:Armenian presidential candidates Category:Members of the National Assembly of Armenia Category:State Engineering University of Armenia alumni Category:People's Party of Armenia politicians

Name	Nikol PashinianՆիկոլ Փաշինյան
Birth date	June 01, 1975
Birth place	Ijevan, Armenian SSR
Occupation	editor of Haykakan Zhamanak
Ethnic	Armenian
Url	NikolPashinyan.com

Nikol Pashinian () is an Armenian journalist, publicist and senior leader of the opposition movement led by former President of Armenia, Levon Ter-Petrossian. He is the editor of Armenia’s best-selling daily newspaper critical of the government, Haykakan Zhamanak (Armenian Time). As the head editor of the Armenian daily Haikakan Zhamanak (Armenian Times) since 1999, Pashinian has been an important contributor to the discourse of the various movements that have opposed the governments of former President Robert Kocharyan and current President Serzh Sargsyan, whose presidency Pashinian and the opposition reject as illegitimate. In 2000, while he was the head editor of Haikakan Zhamanak he was convicted on charges of defamation and libel against different people.

Pashinian is the main contributor to the samizdat, and underground newspaper, called Payqar! which has developed into one of the opposition movement's more important organs.

Pashinian went into hiding shortly after the deadly unrest in Armenia following the 2008 presidential elections for which; he was wanted by the Armenian police on allegations of murder and mass disorder. In June 2009, he came out of hiding and turned himself to the police. He is now awaiting trial.

Hiding

station]] Pashinian went into hiding after the events of March 1st, 2008. Along with seven others, he is wanted by the Armenian Government for "committing premeditated actions intended to seizing of state power by force, of provocation and organization of mass disorders accompanied with murder in Yerevan."

He has continued to regularly write for his paper, claiming to be traveling around the world with a fake foreign passport.

In an interview with RFE/RL on October 16, 2008, Pashinian insisted that democratic "revolution" is the only way to effect change in Armenia and that President Sargsyan has done nothing to prove the opposite.

Assassination attempts

On November 22, 2004, at 8:40 pm, Pashinian's four-wheel drive vehicle parked just outside the Haykakan Zhamanak office in downtown Yerevan burst into flames after what the newspaper staff said was a strong explosion. Pashinian believes he stayed alive by accident, since during the last three months he has normally finished work at between 8:30 and 9 o’clock in the evening, whereas on the day of the attack he worked longer than usual. The fire completely destroyed the car's front section, including the driver's seat. After launching an inquiry, police concluded unusually quickly that the fire was caused by a "breakdown of the car battery’s wires," effectively denying that Pashinian came under attack.

Pashinian has said that the explosion was as an assassination attempt engineered by a wealthy businessman, Gagik Tsarukian. He said that Tsarukian was infuriated by a recent Haykakan Zhamanak story that accused him of illegally cutting trees to build a villa in the resort town of Tsaghkadzor.

References

External links

Official personal website Payqar official website and underground newspaper Haykakan Zhamanak website and newspaper.

Armenaker Kamilion has a substantial number of English translations of Pashinian's articles in Payqar.

Category:1975 births Category:Armenian activists Category:Armenian journalists Category:Armenian politicians Category:Living people