Tuesday,
Regulators Limit Water Price Rise
Armenia -- Water meters manufactured in a local factory, Yerevan, 10Aug2018
Public utility regulators on Tuesday allowed a French company managing Armenia’s
water distribution network raise the price of drinking water in the country by
11 percent.
The price has stood at 180 drams (37 U.S. cents) per cubic meter ever since the
Veolia utility giant took over the network in 2017 after signing a 15-year
management contract with the former Armenian government.
The company’s Armenian subsidiary, Veolia Djur, requested in August this year
permission to raise it to almost 224 drams per cubic meter. It cited, among
other things, higher-than-expected inflation and the increased cost of
electricity in the country.
The Public Services Regulatory Commission (PSRC) decided to scale back the price
hike effective from January 1. It said the water tariff will remain unchanged
for low-income households and be set at just over 200 drams for other consumers.
The PSRC linked the decision to the Armenian government’s November 10 agreement
with Veolia Djur which amended some terms of the French company’s operating
license.
The government has shed little light on the agreement so far. It is not clear
whether it made financial concessions to Veolia in exchange for limiting the
price rise.
Veolia had managed the water and sewerage network of Yerevan from 2007-2016,
phasing out Soviet-era water rationing in the vast majority of city
neighborhoods.
Minister Defends COVID-19 Health Pass
• Marine Khachatrian
Armenia - Health Minister Anahit Avanesian holds a news conference in Yerevan,
.
Health Minister Anahit Avanesian defended on Tuesday the impending introduction
of a mandatory coronavirus health pass for entry to cultural and leisure venues
in Armenia.
Under a directive drafted by the Armenia Ministry of Health, starting from
January 1, only those people who have been vaccinated against COVID-19 or have
had a recent negative test will be allowed to visit bars, restaurants and other
public venues. The new requirement is part of government efforts to boost the
country’s vaccination rate, which remains one of the lowest in Europe and
Central Asia.
The measure has prompted strong criticism from some of the entities that will be
affected by it. In a statement issued on Monday, the Armenian Restaurant
Association said that many restaurants have already suffered massive losses due
to the coronavirus pandemic and would now be dealt a further financial blow.
Ruben Babayan, the director of Yerevan’s Hovannes Tumanian Puppet Theater, added
his voice to the criticism. He rebuked the government for not consulting with
the entertainment sector.
“Theaters are not the main venues for people’s gatherings,” Babayan told
RFE/RL’s Armenian Service. “A typical spectator visits a theater two or three
times a year at best, whereas many people use public transport twice a day.”
Avanesian insisted that the health pass, which is obligatory in many Western
countries, must be introduced because it will help to save lives. The minister
also claimed that the number of vaccinated Armenians is already large enough to
allow cultural and entertainment venues to avoid major losses of revenue.
According to the Ministry of Health, only some 436,400 people in the country of
about 3 million were fully vaccinated as of Sunday. Nearly 345,000 others
received one dose of a vaccine in recent weeks.
Critics also complained about a lack of clarity about how the measure will be
enforced by relevant authorities.
“What if a customer shows a fake [vaccination] certificate?” asked Arsen
Hovannisian, the founder of several restaurants in downtown Yerevan. “What will
be our responsibility?”
“Or suppose that our employee sees a [certification] document and lets a
customer in. Who will be verifying [their compliance?]”
Avanesian said in this regard that her ministry and other government agencies
are still discussing enforcement mechanisms.
Armenian Military Denies No-Shoot Orders
• Naira Nalbandian
Armenia - Soldiers and a guard dog at an Armenian army post on the border with
Azerbaijan, October 15, 2021.
A senior military official dismissed on Tuesday continuing opposition
allegations that Armenian soldiers were ordered not to open fire on Azerbaijani
troops accused by Yerevan of violating Armenia’s territorial integrity.
Azerbaijani forces reportedly advanced a few kilometers into Armenian territory
at several sections of the border between the two states in May. Despite a
resulting tense standoff with Armenian army units deployed there, there were
initially no reports of armed clashes between the two sides.
Amateur videos circulated online in the following weeks showed instead armed
Armenian and Azerbaijani soldiers coming to blows and chasing each other away
from contested border posts without firing gunshots. Prime Minister Nikol
Pashinian spoke of a series of such incidents when he addressed the Armenian
parliament later in May.
The incidents fuelled opposition claims that Armenian soldiers were ordered not
to shoot at advancing Azerbaijani forces. They were stoked by a November 14
incident in Armenia’s Syunik province where Armenian troops were reportedly
forced to vacate two border outposts without putting up any resistance.
Pashinian fired Defense Minister Arshak Karapetian the following morning.
At least 13 soldiers from both sides were killed in heavy fighting that broke
out at a nearby border section on November 16. About three dozen other Armenian
soldiers were taken prisoner as a result.
ARMENIA -- Azerbaijani (L) and Armenian checkpoints at the Sotk gold mine on the
Armenian-Azerbaijani border, Gegharkunik province, June 18, 2021
Speaking in the National Assembly on November 17, Pashinian insisted that
neither he nor any other official had ever issued no-shoot orders. He insisted
that such orders would be tantamount to high treason.
Deputy Defense Minister Arman Sargsian echoed those assurances on Tuesday during
a meeting of the parliament committee on defense and security. “No-shoot orders
were definitely not issued by any official,” he told opposition members of the
committee.
At least one of the opposition lawmakers, Gegham Manukian, remained unconvinced.
He said the fistfights on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border suggest that the
Armenian military was indeed ordered not to open fire.
Meanwhile, the Armenian Defense Ministry pointedly declined to confirm or deny
reports that Azerbaijani troops have pulled back from one of the contested
border areas occupied by them in May.
Yerevan Again Rules Out ‘Corridors’ For Azerbaijan
Russia - Russian President Vladimir Putin, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev
and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian make statements to the press after
talks in Sochi, November 26, 2021.
Armenia’s government insisted on Tuesday that it will not cede any
extraterritorial land corridors to Azerbaijan as a result of the latest talks
between the leaders of the two states hosted by Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Putin, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian and Azerbaijan’s President Ilham
Aliyev met in the Russian city of Sochi on Friday one year after a
Russian-brokered ceasefire that stopped the six-week war over Nagorno-Karabakh.
They reported further progress towards the opening of transport links between
Armenia and Azerbaijan envisaged by the ceasefire.
In particular, Putin said a trilateral task force dealing with the matter will
meet in Moscow this week to announce “decisions which we agreed today.” He did
not elaborate.
The truce accord commits Armenia to opening rail and road links between
Azerbaijan and its Nakhichevan exclave. Armenia should be able, for its part, to
use Azerbaijani territory as a transit route for cargo shipments to Russia and
Iran.
Aliyev has repeatedly claimed that the deal calls for a special “corridor” that
will connect Nakhichevan to the rest of Azerbaijan via Armenia’s Syunik
province. Commenting on the Sochi talks over the weekend, he declared that the
“Zangezur corridor is becoming reality.”
The Armenian Foreign Ministry effectively denied that on Tuesday. The ministry
spokesman, Vahan Hunanian, said a joint statement issued by Aliyev, Pashinian
and Putin at Sochi “refuted propaganda notions about a ‘corridor’ or the logic
of a corridor.”
Deputy Prime Minister Mher Grigorian, the Armenian co-chair of the
Russian-Armenian-Azerbaijani task force, likewise insisted that the three
leaders discussed conventional cross-border transport links, rather than
“exterritorial roads” implied by Aliyev.
“In case of the unblocking of roads, both the railway and highways [passing
through Armenian territory] will be under Armenia’s full jurisdiction and
control,” Grigorian told the “Hraparak” daily.
Accordingly, he said, cargo shipments to and from Nakhichevan will be subject to
Armenian customs controls and other border checks.
The assurances came amid continuing Armenian opposition allegations that
Pashinian agreed to make more concessions to Baku at the expense of Armenia’s
territorial integrity. A senior opposition lawmaker, Armen Rustamian, suggested
on Monday that Aliyev’s latest statement about the “Zangezur corridor” is the
result of his unpublicized “oral understandings” with Pashinian.
Visiting Yerevan on November 5, Russia’s Deputy Prime Minister Alexei Overchuk
said the trilateral working group has agreed that Armenia and Azerbaijan will
“retain sovereignty over roads passing through their territory.” The Russian
Foreign Ministry also reported such an agreement.
Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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