Pashinyan Tolerates Business Founded by Adviser to Deputy Prime Minister Tigran Avinyan's Brother: Sarhat Petrosyan

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan is tolerating a thriving business established by the brother of Deputy Prime Minister Tigran Avinyan's advisor, Avetik Eloyan, in the spring of 2019. This was stated by Sarhat Petrosyan, the former head of the Real Estate Cadastre Committee, on his Facebook page.

“If you are engaged in business while holding a public office, that is also corruption in the same way, with the same meaning…,” he remarked. “Do you think corruption is some big beast? This is corruption…,” Petrosyan continued, quoting Pashinyan’s statements from 2014 regarding the businesses of those in high public office.

In 2019, however, Pashinyan appears to tolerate the thriving business established by Avetik Eloyan's brother, which Eloyan confidently declared during an H1 TV interview: “It’s absolutely false, I am not the owner of anything; in fact, he is probably referring to my brother, who is also an architect… My brother has a company, and I assume he is talking about that…”

“Of course, I wouldn’t have revisited this issue if the AM legal firm hadn’t posted another announcement regarding the lawsuit against me on their official website yesterday. Honestly, I don't understand their enthusiasm (furthermore, I also noticed paid advertisements about this information on Facebook), given that the court has already returned the claim for the second time due to incompleteness, and now the lawyer of this firm is again waiting for the decision to accept the claim into proceedings.

“I can only speculate that this fuss around the ‘lawsuit’ serves only propaganda purposes, and Avetik is well aware of the implications of the judicial process for him. As before, I will lovingly disclose the ‘adventures’ of the Eloyan family business during the legal process. Moreover, this will be supplemented by the gaps and new findings allowed during the incomplete investigation conducted by the police.

“Meanwhile, I urge the authorities to truly understand what the high cost they are paying for Avetik Eloyan is, and which, if I am not mistaken, led to the early dismissal of the former Chairman of the Urban Development Committee for failing to carry out work. And what is the cost that allows the entire professional community to conclude that the corruption of architect-bureaucrats will be tolerated by the current authorities,” he noted.