Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said it was obvious that businessman Samvel Karapetyan would not fulfill the obligations he had undertaken and that all those assets would be taken from him. He made the statement during a briefing with reporters while referring to his earlier remarks about Karapetyan, according to 1lurer.am.
Earlier, Pashinyan wrote: “Samvel from Kaluga urges me through his spokespeople not to be afraid. But how can I not be afraid? I am afraid that by the end of the year you will turn from a billionaire into a homeless man.”
“As for my statement, I saw that there are all kinds of interpretations. If you noticed, there is no element of threat in that statement of mine. I am not saying, ‘I promise’; I am saying, ‘I am afraid that this will happen.’ Why am I afraid? Because I think that the person you mentioned will not fulfill the promises he made to certain circles, including circles outside Armenia, which also have certain leverage over his assets, and it is obvious that he will not meet the obligations he undertook, and it is obvious that all those assets will be taken from him. I am very sorry about that, because I would not want any capital considered Armenian anywhere to be wiped out,” he said.
Asked what promises he meant, the prime minister replied that he could not present other people’s obligations.
“I am not the subject that presents other people’s promises to the public. There are subjects for that, so let them explain whom they promised what, to whom they undertook obligations, whom they assured of what, and so on. That has nothing to do with us. We are conducting our processes transparently, which again has nothing to do with this context, including the story of ENA, which has now essentially been nationalized de facto, and de jure that will also happen, but this was done, among other things, at the demand of Armenia’s consumers.
I want to remind you that I have spoken about this dozens of times, and dozens of times in working order we warned that this would not continue like this. It went on for years, and a decision was made. Now ENA is under the control of the Armenian government and the state, and it will continue to remain so. This is our plan, because there are legal procedures. So far as the part within my field of vision is concerned, I can comment that our best objective is for it to be recorded de jure as property of the Republic of Armenia, and for us to invite the most effective and most professional possible manager through an international transparent competition, so that they manage ENA in a way that protects the interests of Armenia’s consumers, rather than in a way where loans are taken from banks at interest at the expense of our consumers and distributed among relatives and friends, while inflated electricity charges are imposed even on Armenia’s military units and state bodies,” Pashinyan said.
Narek Karapetyan, a member of the council of the Strong Armenia party, responded to Pashinyan’s first statement. “This is what happens when a homeless man in spirit becomes prime minister. Is this, for example, the speech of a prime minister, people?” Karapetyan said.
