I Will Not Be Apologizing: A Service Investigation Launched Against the Deputy Mayor of Avan

The Deputy Mayor of Avan, Nerses Poghosyan, who has found himself at the center of yet another scandal, is now subject to a service investigation initiated by Yerevan Mayor Hayk Marutyan.

It should be noted that earlier, Nerses Poghosyan made inappropriate remarks on his Facebook page about former Minister of Justice and former Deputy Speaker of the National Assembly Arpine Hovhannisyan. His post caused a significant uproar in the social media space, after which he removed the post from his Facebook page.

In an interview with NEWS.am, the deputy mayor refused to comment on why he deleted his post, stating, "I will only say, no, I am not planning to apologize."

In a conversation with the media, the head of the Avan administrative district, Ara Danielyan, mentioned that the service investigation began this morning: "You will be informed about the results very soon. Starting this morning, the Monitoring Department of the Municipality is conducting a service investigation. This investigation was assigned by the mayor."

When asked whether he plans to dismiss his deputy, Danielyan replied, "I will not answer that now; I will respond after the completion of the service investigation."

Regarding how he interprets his deputy's behavior, Danielyan responded, "I consider that a rude behavior. How can such behavior be deemed acceptable?"

In an interview with us, the spokesperson for the Yerevan municipality, Hakob Karapetyan, stated that the appointment and dismissal of deputy heads of administrative districts falls under the authority of the district head. "In other words, it is within the district head's jurisdiction to make decisions regarding appointments, dismissals, penalties, and disciplinary proceedings," said Karapetyan.

When asked how the city government reacts to such behavior from its representatives, the spokesperson replied, "The city government considers the use of aggressive language in public discourse, the spread of personal insults, especially hate speech, in public debates unacceptable, regardless of who applies it; it is utterly intolerable."

It is worth recalling that last year, the deputy mayor was also involved in a scandal with MP Gevorg Petrosyan.