15:33, 1 June 2023

YEREVAN, JUNE 1, ARMENPRESS. Azerbaijan is spreading disinformation falsely accusing the Artsakh (Nagorno Karabakh) Defense Army of breaching the ceasefire, the Defense Ministry of Artsakh warned on June 1.

The Azerbaijani Defense Ministry’s statement accusing the Defense Army units of opening fire on June 1, around 10:00 at Azerbaijani positions deployed in the occupied territories of the Shushi region of Artsakh Republic is a usual disinformation, the Defense Ministry said in a statement.

The Artsakh military added that the Azerbaijan disinformation claiming to have disrupted engineering works in Shushi and Martuni seeks to distort reality and justify the Azeri military gunfire targeting farmers in Artsakh.

 15:55, 1 June 2023

YEREVAN, JUNE 1, ARMENPRESS. Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan participated in the second European Political Community Summit in Chisinau, Moldova on June 1.

PM Pashinyan held brief meetings with several heads of state and government in attendance. In particular, the Armenian PM talked about issues of mutual interest with Slovenian Prime Minister Robert Golob, Latvian Prime Minister Krišjānis Kariņš, UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, French President Emmanuel Macron, Prime Minister of Andorra Xavier Espot Zamora, President of Lithuania Gitanas Nausėda, Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, Prime Minister of Portugal Antonio Costa, Sweden’s Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson, President of Switzerland Alain Berset and President of the European Council Charles Michel.

The Armenian Prime Minister will have a meeting later on June 1 with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, together with the President of France, Chancellor of Germany and the President of the European Council.

 17:32, 1 June 2023

YEREVAN, 1 JUNE, ARMENPRESS. The Central Bank of Armenia informs “Armenpress” that today, 1 June, USD exchange rate up by 0.36 drams to 386.98 drams. EUR exchange rate up by 1.73 drams to 414.49 drams. Russian Ruble exchange rate up by 0.01 drams to 4.78 drams. GBP exchange rate up by 4.59 drams to 482.53 drams.

The Central Bank has set the following prices for precious metals.

Gold price up by 171.27 drams to 24440.46 drams. Silver price up by 0.27 drams to 289.33 drams.

 18:11, 1 June 2023

CHISINAU, JUNE 1, ARMENPRESS. The meeting between Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, President of the European Council Charles Michel, French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev is underway in Chisinau, Moldova.

[see video]

The meeting is taking place on the sidelines of the 2^nd European Political Community Summit.

The Armenian and Azerbaijani leaders met most recently in Russia, on May 25, and in Brussels on May 14.

 19:13, 1 June 2023

YEREVAN, June 1, ARMENPRESS. 14 patients from the "Republican Medical Center"  of Artsakh Ministry of Health, along with their companions, were transferred to Armenian specialized medical centers with the mediation and escort of the International Committee of the Red Cross, ARMENPRESS reports, the Artsakh Ministry of Health informed.

"12 medical patients, who had been taken to Armenia for treatment within the framework of the state order, returned to Artsakh with their companions.

14 children are in the neonatal and resuscitation department in "Arevik" medical unit.

At the "Republican Medical Center", 8 patients are in the intensive care unit, 5 of them are in an extremely serious condition," the Ministry said.

 19:40, 1 June 2023

YEREVAN, JUNE 1, ARMENPRESS. The five-sided meeting of Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan, President of the European Council Charles Michel, President of France Emmanuel Macron, Chancellor of Germany Olaf Scholz and President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev ended in Moldova.

The correspondent of ARMENPRESS informs, the meeting lasted about 1 and a half hours.

The meeting was held within the framework of the second summit of the European Political Community.

On the morning of June 1, the second summit of the European Political Community started in the "Mimi" Castel. This year, leaders of 47 countries were invited to the summit.

 20:14, 1 June 2023

YEREVAN, JUNE 1, ARMENPRESS. The meeting of Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and European Council President Charles Michel is planned for July 21 in Brussels, ARMENPRESS was informed from the Office of the Prime Minister.

“The five-sided meeting of the Prime Minister of Armenia, the President of France, the Chancellor of Germany, the President of the European Council and the President of Azerbaijan took place in Chișinău

The five-sided meeting of Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, European Council President Charles Michel and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev took place in Chișinău.

 During the meeting, issues related to the unblocking of regional transport and economic infrastructures, border delimitation and border security between the two countries, the agreement on the normalization of relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan, the need to address the rights and security of the people of Nagorno Karabakh, as well as POWs, missing persons and other humanitarian issues were discussed.

 On July 21, a meeting of the Prime Minister of Armenia, the President of the European Council, and the President of Azerbaijan is scheduled in Brussels”, the Prime Minister’s Office said.

 21:40, 1 June 2023

YEREVAN, JUNE 1, ARMENPRESS. Armenia and Azerbaijan, in all probability, are not opposed to the 1975 maps being used as a basis for the border delimitation works, ARMENPRESS reports, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan announced during the meeting with the Armenian community following the five-sided meeting held in Chișinău, reflecting on the results.

"In general, I should consider the discussion productive," said the Prime Minister.

Pashinyan reminded that it was agreed in Prague that Armenia and Azerbaijan should mutually recognize each other's territorial integrity based on the Almaty Declaration. The Almaty Declaration was signed in December 1991, after the collapse of the USSR. The Almaty Declaration was about countries recognizing each other's territorial integrity, the inviolability of borders within existing borders.

"We reached that agreement in Prague, and in Brussels we went one step further, we came to the understanding that Azerbaijan recognizes the territorial integrity of Armenia's 29,800 square kilometers, and Armenia recognizes the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan – 86,600 square kilometers," said the Prime Minister.

He emphasized that the understanding is that the issue of the rights and security of the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh should be discussed in the format of the Baku-Stepanakert dialogue, which should take place with international involvement, so that this agenda is not forgotten.

"Today there is one very preliminary detail that is important. Why I say very preliminary, because we need to check Azerbaijan's reaction to today's meeting. It seems that the parties are not opposed to taking the 1975 maps as a basis for further delimitation between Armenia and Azerbaijan. This means another step to reaffirm the territorial integrity of 29,800 square kilometers and 86,600 square kilometers," Pashinyan added.

 12:10, 2 June 2023

YEREVAN, JUNE 2, ARMENPRESS. Cases of sole-source contracts in the government procurement procedure have dropped as a result of the Pashinyan administration’s policies, the Minister of Finance Vahe Hovhannisyan has said.

“The decision on making sole-source contracts was being made by the [Cabinet] in the past, but now we’ve changed the procedure and the decision to make a sole-source contract is done by a given [minister] with their own responsibility. As a result of this change we have a decrease of sole-source contract cases. Given the responsibility that each [minister] bears for every single decision, we see stronger supervision for internal procedures,” the finance minister told lawmakers at a joint committee hearing in parliament.

Meanwhile, the volume of competitive bidding contracts in 2022 stood at 49,1% when the starting indicator was 34,4% and the target intended for 2024 was set at 47%. The average number of bidders in the tenders is 2,7, he said.

“We must take into consideration that when we speak about non-competitive procurement it relates mostly to the kind of services that have a single supplier, such as water, gas, electricity and so on,” Hovhannisyan added.