Month: December 2020

Minister of Defense visits Syunik Province to inspect border reinforcement work

Varazdat Torgomian

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 12:12,

YEREVAN, DECEMBER 17, ARMENPRESS. Armenian Minister of Defense Vagharshak Harutyunyan is visiting the Province of Syunik to get acquainted with the ongoing reinforcement works on the ground in the regions bordering Azerbaijan.

The Ministry of Defense said he will also get acquainted with the ongoing construction of combat positions, and the process of the military’s on-duty combat shifts.

Editing and Translating by Stepan Kocharyan

Azerbaijan and Turkey’s genocidal assault against Armenians

Vicken Chmshkian
Modern Diplomacy
Dec 16 2020
 

Azerbaijan and Turkey's genocidal assault against Armenians
 
By Uzay Bulut
 
From September 27 to November 10, the Armenian Republic of Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) in the South Caucasus was exposed to a genocidal assault at the hands of Azerbaijan and Turkey. The entire world watched while the aggressors committed many crimes and indiscriminately shelled the indigenous lands of Armenians.
 
Turkey also sent Azerbaijan mercenaries from Syria with known affiliations to Islamic radical groups. This was confirmed by a recent United Nations report, as well as by the testimonies of many Syrian mercenaries and reports by international media outlets.
 
Together with Azerbaijani military forces, they perpetrated war crimes against Armenians. They murdered civilians, injured journalists and targeted homes, forests, hospitals, churches and cultural centers, among other non-military targets. They used white phosphorus and cluster munitions in violation of international law. At least 90,000 Armenians were forced to abandon their ancestral lands in Artsakh as a result.
 
The war finally halted after 45 days as a result of the Russia-brokered agreement imposed on Armenia.
 
According to the agreement, there would be “an exchange of prisoners of war and other detained persons and bodies of the dead.” However, even after the signing of the agreement, multiple videos emerged showing Azeri military members and their partners beheading, mutilating and dismembering captured Armenian civilians and prisoners of war. These gruesome crimes were filmed and proudly posted on social media by Azerbaijani soldiers themselves.
 
On December 7, for example, Azerbaijanis uploaded yet another video of a beheading on one of their many Telegram channels. In the video, a soldier of the Azerbaijani special forces is seen beheading an elderly Armenian civilian while his fellow soldiers videotaped the war crime. The elderly Armenian man was begging for his life.
 
As these ISIS-like crimes were being committed against Armenians, Turkish and Azerbaijani soldiers participated in a military “victory parade” in Azerbaijan’s capital city of Baku on December 10. The parade, organized to celebrate the countries’ joint “military victory” over Artsakh, was attended by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev.
 
During the “victory parade,” Erdogan delivered a speech in which he praised Enver Pasha, one of the planners of Ottoman Turkey’s 1914-1923 Christian genocide, which cost the lives of around 1.5 million Armenians and at least one million Greeks and Assyrians. The Ottoman military march was also played during the event.
 
Erdogan referred to the 1918 Islamic Army of the Caucasus created by Enver Pasha and led by the Ottoman commander, Nuri Pasha. The Islamic Army of the Caucasus was responsible for the massacres to eliminate the non-Muslim population of Baku, mainly Armenians. Erdogan said:
 
“Today is the day when the souls of Nuri Pasha, Enver Pasha and the brave soldiers of the Islamic Army of the Caucasus are blessed.”
 
Erdogan also confirmed Turkey’s support for the recent Azeri assault against Armenians. According to the official website of Turkey’s Presidency, “Turkey, with all its institutions and organizations, supported Azerbaijan’s fight from the very beginning, underlined President Erdoğan, further stressing that it will continue to stand by the brotherly Azerbaijan with all its capabilities.”
 
During his speech Aliyev claimed that the Armenian capital of Yerevan, Armenia’s Lake Sevan and the Syunik (Zangezur) region in southern Armenia are “historic lands of Azerbaijan.”
 
This was not the first time Aliyev referred not only to Artsakh but also to the Republic of Armenia as “Azerbaijani lands.” In 2018, for instance, Aliyev referred to the same Armenian regions as “historic lands of Azerbaijan.” “Azerbaijanis’ return to those territories,” he added, “is our political and strategic goal, and we need to work step-by-step to get closer to it.”
 
Meanwhile, the Russia-brokered agreement appears not to provide security for Artsakh. On December 11, Azerbaijan violated the agreement by launching an attack against Artsakh’s Hadrut district. Aliyev, however, blamed Armenia for the attacks, threatening to “break its head with an iron fist” and added, “This time, we will destroy them completely.”
 
Dr. Anahit Khosroeva, a genocide scholar and historian based in Yerevan, said:
 
“The recent Azeri attack against the villages in Hadrut breaks my trust in the agreement. Russian troops did not immediately stop the attack. People in Artsakh’s capital, Stepanakert, think that the safety of their city is at risk, as well. There is massive diplomatic uncertainty concerning the agreement. How effective it will be and how committed Russian troops will be to protecting the security of Artsakh remains to be seen.”
 
Khosroeva also criticized the dominant media narrative concerning the war against Artsakh:
 
“The international media adopted this incredibly misleading narrative which tries to put equal blame on ‘both sides’. Can they not see the difference between the perpetrator and the victim? Who started the war and who committed an ethnic cleansing campaign is obvious: Azerbaijan and Turkey. Yet, much of the international media stuck to this unethical and false narrative and whitewashed Azerbaijani crimes, which misinformed the world community and has cost so many innocent lives.
 
“For 45 days during the war, our cities were bombed incessantly. But the international community did not care. They just watched as Azerbaijan, Turkey and jihadists massacred our people. At the very least they should now try the perpetrators in international courts for their crimes.”
 
Khosroeva noted that the UN Office on Genocide Prevention and the Responsibility to Protect is clear about the definition and punishment of war crimes:
 
“The UN says that lists of war crimes can be found in both international humanitarian law and international criminal law treaties, as well as in international customary law.
 
“According to the 8th article of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, several acts constitute war crimes such as ‘willful killing; torture or inhuman treatment, including biological experiments; willfully causing great suffering, or serious injury to body or health; extensive destruction and appropriation of property, not justified by military necessity and carried out unlawfully and wantonly; compelling a prisoner of war or other protected person to serve in the forces of a hostile power; willfully depriving a prisoner of war or other protected person of the rights of fair and regular trial; unlawful deportation or transfer or unlawful confinement; and taking of hostages.’ Azerbaijan and Turkey committed all these and more against Armenians during and after the war.
 
“Given Erdogan’s statements about Enver Pasha, it seems that Erdogan pursues an annihilationist policy that aims at completing the Armenian Genocide which his Ottoman ancestors started.”
 
Journalist Lika Zakaryan was in Stepanakert during the war and reported on it daily. “During the 45-day war,” she said, “people in Artsakh expected the world to do something to stop Azerbaijan and Turkey – to take concrete actions but not to stay silent, and stop calling on ‘both sides to de-escalate.’ They waited for the world to make the perpetrator and aggressor, Azerbaijan, stop its attacks. But it never happened.”
 
Zakaryan is also concerned about the agreement:
 
“I do not think it can provide full security for Artsakh,” she said. “No peacekeepers can provide it when in some places there are only 30 meters between Artsakh and Azerbaijan. I think the biggest risk concerning the agreement is the giving of Karvachar and Lachin districts to Azerbaijan, which turns Artsakh into an enclave.
 
“Azerbaijan remains a major threat to us. People here are scared of a second Armenian genocide, an even more suffocating blockade, and a new war. And until Azerbaijan is brought to account for its war crimes, these possibilities will remain.”
 
Turkey and Azerbaijan’s genocidal assault against Armenians are mainly propelled by two reasons:
 
1) The traditional Turkish/Azeri genocidal hatred against Armenians and Christianity, and
 
2) Turkey’s goal of pan-Turkist expansionism, which Turkey also calls the “Red Apple” doctrine.
 
One month before Azerbaijan and Turkey attacked Artsakh, the Director of Communications of the Turkish presidency, FahrettinAltun, shared a video of what he called the “Red Apple” anthem on his Twitter account on August 24. He wrote:
 
“For us, the Red Apple means great and strong Turkey. It is the sacred march of our nation that made history from Manzikert to July 15. The Red Apple is a great plane tree that provides shade for the downtrodden to refresh. The Red Apple is what the entire humanity has longed for from Gibraltar to Hedjaz and from the Balkans to Asia.”
 
The video presents the Turkish military and Erdogan as heirs to the medieval Turkic Seljuk dynasty, as well as to the Ottoman Empire.
 
According to the pro-government newspaper Hürriyet:
 
“The Red Apple image, one of the most important symbols of Turkish nationalism, symbolizes a goal and purpose for Turkish states. It refers to a place to be reached, or a town to be conquered. It sometimes expresses the ideal of establishing a state, sometimes the ideal of world domination, and sometimes the ideal of Turkish unity…. Red apple is a symbol of jihad carried out especially towards Western countries during the Ottoman period.”
 
The “Red Apple” image is believed to have first emerged among the Central Asian Turks. According to the anti-government newspaper Sözcü:
 
“As a trait of the Turkish state tradition, Red Apple represents the idea that the Turkish state should rule over other states and nations across the world. After oral literature, it [i.e., the Red Apple doctrine] was first passed to written sources through the Oğuzname [the name of several documents about the myths of the Turks]. According to a Turkish tradition, which is also mentioned in the Oghuz and Göktürk [Turkic tribes in the Central Asia] inscriptions, it is believed that the Turkish khan [ruler] is the khan of not only the Turks but of the whole world and that conquests were made in accordance with this principle.
 
“They [Turks] believed that God entrusted the world sovereignty to the Turks. It is seen as a very effective motif in the state tradition of the Huns, Göktürks and Seljuks [Turkic tribes from Central Asia]. According to Oğuzhan [the king of the Turkic people in Central Asia], the sky is the tent of the state and the sun is the flag. This idea included not only Turks’ thoughts of state administration, but also the very old principles of the Turkish religion.”
 
Turkic peoples are not natives of Asia Minor or the South Caucasus. They are originally from Central Asia and invaded the region starting in the eleventh century. Armenians, however, are an indigenous people of the land and have resided there for millennia. Throughout the centuries, however, Armenians have been assaulted by Turkic peoples several times. Among the greatest of these assaults were the 1071 Seljuk Turkic invasion of the Armenian town of Manzikert in the Greek Byzantine Empire and the 1914-23 Christian genocide by Ottoman Turkey.
 
According to “Red Apple” ideology, the presence of Armenians in Artsakh and Armenia is viewed as a barrier preventing a Turkic Islamic corridor among Azerbaijan, Turkey and other Turkic Muslim countries.  Hence, Turkey and Azerbaijan appear to aim at erasing Armenia from the map. To this end, they commemorate the perpetrators of the Christian Genocide by Ottoman Turkey and claim the historically Armenian lands, including Yerevan. The Turkish government remains proud of its history, filled with many crimes against Armenians and other Christians, and thus continues committing further crimes against the descendants of the genocide survivors.  
 
However, Erdogan’s regime will not stop at Artsakh, as Turkey’s imperialist agenda does not only target Armenians. Erdogan has publicly announced his regime’s neo-Ottomanist goals for years. If Turkey and Azerbaijan achieve their expansionist goals in the South Caucasus, they will continue targeting and trying to expand their influence and even territories through parts of Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and Asia, which the Ottoman Empire occupied for centuries. Turkey already occupies northern Cyprus and northeast Syria, which the international community ignores. And reports have recently surfaced that Turkey is allegedly preparing to send jihadist fighters from eastern Syria to Jammu and Kashmir to help Pakistan.
 
The unprovoked aggression by the Turkish-Azeri armies against Armenians once again demonstrates that the Turkish state sees the Armenian Genocide as “unfinished business.” Enver Pasha, whom Erdogan praised in Baku, was one of the leaders of the Ottoman Committee of Union and Progress, also known as the “Unionists,” who planned and perpetrated the Armenian Genocide.
 
Prominent sociologist OhannesKılıçdağı noted in an article he recently penned that for both the pan-Turkist ideology represented by the Unionists and the Kemalist ideology that established Turkey, wiping out Armenia remains a goal. Kılıçdağıwrote:
 
“For both the Unionists before Kemalism and the Unionists continuing their existence under the name of Kemalism, Armenia is a ‘road accident’ or a ‘historical accident’ that should have never happened. It was the result of an unexpected ‘last minute’ resistance of the exhausted Armenians after the genocide. I think that eliminating this road accident is still alive as a target for Turkey’s military and civilian government mechanisms.”
 
Given Turkey’s and Azerbaijan’s hostile statements and murderous aggression against Armenians, it is not an overstatement to say that the security of the rest of Artsakh and Armenia is at risk. A full century after the Armenian Genocide, Armenians are still exposed to a genocidal assault by Turkey and its ally, Azerbaijan. And sadly, the world is still standing idly by.
 
About the author: Uzay Bulut is a Turkish journalist and political analyst formerly based in Ankara. Her writings have appeared in The Washington Times, The American Conservative, The Christian Post, The Jerusalem Post, and Al-Ahram Weekly. Her work focuses mainly on human rights, Turkish politics and history, religious minorities in the Middle East, and antisemitism.
 
 

https://moderndiplomacy.eu/2020/12/16/37624/
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Armenian President continues consultations with different political forces

Jack Hunanian

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 12:14,

YEREVAN, DECEMBER 17, ARMENPRESS. President of Armenia Armen Sarkissian continues consultations with parliamentary and extra-parliamentary forces, the Presidential Office told Armenpress.

This time the President met with chairman of the Social-Democratic Hunchakian party Radik Karapetyan, the Ramghavar party chairman Hrachya Karapetyan, president of the Green party Armenak Dovlatyan, as well as a number of other party leaders.

The meeting participants exchanged views on the current situation in the country and the ways of solving it.

The party representatives presented their views and approaches on the situation.

Editing and Translating by Aneta Harutyunyan

Russian combat engineers defuse 6,000 explosive objects in Nagorno-Karabakh – peacekeepers

Lara Antonian
TASS, Russia
Dec 17 2020
The deputy head of the Russian peacekeeping contingent’s reconciliation center said that military doctors provided assistance to 558 local residents

MOSCOW, December 17. /TASS/. Russian combat engineers have defused over 6,000 explosive objects and cleared about 200 hectares of territory in Nagorno-Karabakh, Dmitry Perepelkin, a deputy chief of the Russian peacekeeping contingent’s reconciliation center, told reporters on Thursday.

"Russian combat engineers of the Center for Humanitarian Demining have cleared 195 hectares of territory and 60 kilometers of roads from unexploded mines and shells. <…> More than 6,000 explosive objects have been detected and destroyed," Perepelkin said.

According to him, 405 buildings were also checked for unexploded ordnance. The deputy head of the center also said that military doctors provided assistance to 558 local residents, including 67 children.

"Together with employees of the International Committee of the Red Cross, we continue the exchange of the bodies of those killed between the Armenian and Azerbaijani sides, as well as the search for missing persons. To make this work more effective, the number of search groups has been increased from three to five," Perepelkin stressed. He said that the hotline for collecting data about the missing persons had received over 490 telephone calls.

Renewed clashes between Azerbaijan and Armenia erupted on September 27, with intense battles raging in the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh. The area experienced flare-ups of violence in the summer of 2014, in April 2016 and this past July.

On November 9, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan signed a joint statement on a complete ceasefire in Nagorno-Karabakh starting from November 10. Under the document, the Azerbaijani and Armenian sides stopped at the positions that they had held and Russian peacekeepers were deployed to the region. The Russian peacekeepers have set up observation posts along the engagement line in Nagorno-Karabakh and along the Lachinsky corridor that connects Armenia with the enclave to exercise control of the ceasefire observance. The peacekeeping mission’s command is stationed in Stepanakert in Nagorno-Karabakh. The situation in the area is monitored round-the-clock.



Highest authorities of Azerbaijan continue to openly preach hatred towards ethnic Armenians- Tatoyan

Adrine Hakobian

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 12:54,

YEREVAN, DECEMBER 17, ARMENPRESS. Ombudsman of Armenia Arman Tatoyan has issued a statement, noting that the highest authorities of Azerbaijan continue to openly preach hatred and animosity towards ethnic Armenians.

The statement says:

“The highest authorities of Azerbaijan continue to openly preach hatred and animosity towards ethnic Armenians:

  1. The President of Azerbaijan continues to generate hatred towards the entire Armenian people with his public speeches, to make threats against the entire population of Armenia, to make insulting and hateful expressions.
  2. In particular, during the military event held in Baku on December 10, 2020, the President of Azerbaijan delivered a public speech full of open threats of genocide addressed to the entire people of Armenia, as well as systemic hatred. During the same event, the President of Turkey had a public speech with more open threats addressed to lives of the entire people of Armenia praising the organizers and perpetrators of the Armenian Genocide.

The Human Rights Defender of Armenia has already presented the very dangerous consequences of these two speeches not only for the people of Armenia, but also for the international human rights system in his public statement of the same day.

  1. It is especially condemnable that after those speeches, the President of Azerbaijan made similar statements during the December 12, 2020 meeting with the OSCE Minsk Group France and the US Co-Chairs, i.e. not for the domestic, but for the international audience in presence of international figures.
  2. The speech of the President of Azerbaijan of December 12, 2020 is full of expressions inciting hatred and animosity towards Armenians, open threats of mass violence against Armenians.

In particular, he mentioned in the part of that speech concerning Armenia. "(…) if Armenian fascism once again raises its head, we will crush its head with an iron fist." Moreover, this was done with special reference to the speech of the President of Azerbaijan during the military event held on December 10 in the capital of Azerbaijan.

The President of Azerbaijan also stated. "We gave such a response that destroyed the Armenian army and we can even say the Armenian state (…). "We dispelled the dreams of the so-called “Artsakh” of the Armenian nationalists.".

  1. The same speech used profound expressions of ethnicity towards Armenians, including those that generated hatred on religious grounds.
  2. Afterwards, the President of Azerbaijan in his same speech of December 12, 2020 stated that open threats of his speech addressed to the entire people of Armenia should be conveyed to Armenians by the international community. And this was made in the presence of international figures and by a public speech.
  3. The rhetorics sowing hatred and animosity are clear continuation of the previous public statements and speeches of the President of Azerbaijan. For example, in one case he stated that "Armenia is a country of no value. It is actually a colony, an outpost run from abroad”. In another case, Armenians were called wild beasts and predators. At the same time, speeches of the Azerbaijanի President on Armenia and the Armenian people constantly contain words of "Armenian fascism" and it is done to insult the Armenian people and incite hatred towards Armenians among the people of Azerbaijan.
  4. Studies of Armenia’s Human Rights Defender's Office, collected evidence confirm that after such speeches of the President of Azerbaijan, the Azerbaijani mass media and social networks are filled with similar expressions of hatred and animosity not only towards the people of Armenia, but towards all Armenians in general.
  5. According to the Human Rights Defender of Armenia, these are the exact speeches that have been made over the years in Azerbaijan and by this an institutional system of propaganda of hatred and animosity towards Armenians on the basis of ethnicity, open promotion of impunity and state supported hatred at the highest level has been established.

State encouragement for killing Armenians in Azerbaijan has reached such a level that even the country's Commissioner for Human Rights (Ombudsman) has publicly stated that Ramil Safarov, who brutally killed an Armenian solider with ax during a night in a European Union member state, must become an example of patriotism for youth of Azerbaijan.

  1. Such speeches are a direct reasons for the war crimes and the crimes against humanity committed by the Azerbaijani armed forces in September-November 2020 that do not even fit into the human imagination.
  2. The expert examinations of videos of atrocities by the experts of the Human Rights Defender's Office of Armenia have confirmed that Azerbaijani soldiers use the same expressions of the President of Azerbaijan as inspiration when torturing or killing Armenian soldiers or civilians, cutting off the parts of bodies of killed Armenians.

All above mentioned is confirmed by real and concrete evidence obtained by the Human Rights Defender of Armenia.

  1. Therefore, the mentioned speeches of the President of Azerbaijan directly confirm the war crimes and atrocities committed by the Azerbaijani military forces during the wars of April 2016, September 2020-November and in other periods and still continue.

These speeches also confirm that the described actions envisaged by international criminal law are results of an organized state policy of Azerbaijan, which clearly proves the Azerbaijani policy of ethnic cleansing and genocide through terroristic methods in Artsakh.

  1. It is of particular concern for the Human Rights Defender of Armenia that the President of Azerbaijan delivered his speech full of insults and animosity towards the Armenian people in the presence of international figures on December 12, 2020, and surprisingly he has not been condemned by any of these figures or even their disagreement.
  2. The Human Rights Defender of Armenia is convinced that such indifference of the international community in response to the hatred and animosity propaganda is one of the main preconditions that has led to systematic and widespread torture and cruelties of Armenians by the Azerbaijani military in Artsakh.
  3. Such extremely dangerous phenomena must be strongly condemned by the international community.

It must be borne in mind that all the above mentioned violates basic principles of international law and undermines the entire international system of human rights and humanitarian protection.

  1. Impunity creates new atrocities and torture.
  2. The international community and particularly international organizations with mandates to protect human rights must prove that they are dedicated to their titles and missions that they still adhere to the international rules they have established.
  3. The reason for this statement of the Human Rights Defender of Armenia on the mentioned extremely dangerous phenomena for human rights is related to the necessity to document, analyze and to submit to the international community the gross violations of right to life, property and other rights of Armenians grossly violated by the Azerbaijani armed forces.

This is due to the fact that these violations have long-term or lifelong negative consequences for their victims (lifelong disability, physical and mental suffering of victims of torture and their families, etc.)”.

Armenia’s borders strong and controlled by Armed Forces – Minister

Arsine Chaltikian
Public Radio of Armenia
Dec 17 2020

Armenia’s Defense Minister Vagharshak Harutyunyan is in Syunik Province, where troops are being deployed along the entire border of the Republics of Armenia, Deputy Prime Minister Tigran Avinyan said at the government sitting today.

He said the Ministry of Defense will provide further details on the work being carried out.

Minister of Territorial Administration Suren Papikyan said, in turn, that he regularly contacts colleagues in Syunik.

“According to the information I have received, at this point the troops are being deployed along the entire border. To prevent various interpretations and misinformation, it should be noted that the borders of the Republic of Armenia are strong and controlled by the Armed Forces,” the Minister said.

Armenian government approves more relief programs for Artsakh citizens

Vardan Badalian

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 12:58,

YEREVAN, DECEMBER 17, ARMENPRESS. The Armenian government approved on December 17 more relief programs to support the affected citizens of Artsakh.

Citizens who were displaced as a result of the war and are now living in Armenia, and are unemployed, will be enabled to work paid social jobs for a three-month period. Their salaries will comprise 8000 drams a day.

Citizens of Artsakh who were living in the areas that were lost during the war and who are currently living in Armenia will be offered to undergo internships as part of an employment assistance program. Unemployed citizens participating in the internships will receive 100,000 drams a month for three months.

Another approved project increases the compensation to troops who were wounded in action with an additional 200,000 drams per month for half a year.

Editing and Translating by Stepan Kocharyan

Bodies of 41 more troops found in Fizuli and Jabrayil sections – Artsakh State Emergency Service

Vardan Badalian

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 13:49,

STEPANAKERT, DECEMBER 17, ARMENPRESS. Bodies of 41 more Armenians servicemen have been found during the search operations in Fizuli and Jabrayil sections, the Artsakh State Emergency Service told Armenpress.

“So far, a total of 933 dead servicemen have been found. Today 5 search groups continue operations in three directions – Jabrayil, Fizuli and Hadrut. Families of missing servicemen and persons who are familiar with the location of military operations also participate in the search operations”, representative of the Artsakh State Emergency Service Hunan Tadevosyan said.

Editing and Translating by Aneta Harutyunyan

Russian border guards to be deployed in some sections of Armenian-Azerbaijani border

Andranik Taslakhchian
Public Radio of Armenia

Dec 17 2020

On a visit to Syunik province, Minister of Defense Vagharshak Harutyunyan held a working consultation featuring the commander of the military unit, the governor of Syunik and the commander of the territorial subdivision of the border troops of the National Security Service.

Issues related to the demarcation of Armenian-Azerbaijani border, deployment of the army units and the deployment of border troops in the newly formed areas were discussed during the meeting.

The Defense Minister gave instructions to the high-ranking officers participating in the border talks on the deployment of troops, establishment of security checkpoints, and the process of building new units.

The commander of the military unit and the governor of Syunik, presented the works carried out in some disputed areas, and stressed that the border discussions between the parties continue.

Vagharshak Harutyunyan also met with the officers of the Russian peacekeeping contingent, spoke about the control of the Goris-Stepanakert road, the program of deployment of Russian border guards on the border between Armenia and Azerbaijan, as well as the search for missing persons.



Putin’s annual news conference likely to last about 3-4 hours

Ophelia Vardapetian

 

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 14:10,

YEREVAN, DECEMBER 17, ARMENPRESS. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s annual news conference is likely to last for about 3 to 4 hours, his press secretary, Dmitry Peskov said before the event on Thursday, reports TASS.

“We expect it to be between 3 and 4 hours”, Peskov said noting that the format of a video conference is more complex than live talk, so it is hard to predict how long the news conference could take.