YEREVAN, JUNE 13, ARMENPRESS. Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan is demanding ex-President Robert Kocharyan to pay 650,000 drams ($1350) in court costs after the parties reached a settlement in a defamation suit.

Kocharyan had sued Pashinyan for a 2018 statement claiming that the PM publicly defamed him. However the former president dropped the suit after Pashinyan said the statement didn’t personally target him. The parties were not personally in court today on June 13th.

Pashinyan’s attorney Gevorg Gyozalyan told reporters his client’s only source of income is the salary and that the premier has spent 650,000 drams on legal services during the lawsuit.

“I believe in order for such ungrounded suits to be prevented in the future against my client, indeed we will be coherent in order for this issue to be solved and those who will file an ungrounded suit against my client will have to pay for it,” Gyozalyan said.

However, Kocharyan’s lawyer Hayk Alumyan said the amount is “unreasonable”, and even claimed that factually court proceedings didn’t even take place, referring to the brief duration.

The court will deliver a ruling over the matter on June 24th.

Edited and translated by Stepan Kocharyan