Author: Albert Nalbandian

                                        Tuesday, December 1, 2020
Armenian Troop Withdrawals Completed
        • Naira Nalbandian
NAGORNO-KARABAKH -- A truck loaded with firewood and other items is seen on a 
road in the town of Lachin (Berdzor) as smoke rises from a burning house set on 
fire by departing residents, 
Azerbaijan regained control of another distict adjacent to Nagorno-Karabakh on 
Tuesday after Armenian forces withdrew from it in line with a Russian-brokered 
ceasefire that stopped the Armenian-Azerbaijani war on November 10.
The Armenian withdrawal from the Lachin district sandwiched between Armenia and 
Karabakh completed the handover of large swathes of land to Baku envisaged by 
the ceasefire agreement.
Under the terms of the deal, Azerbaijani troops did not deploy to the district’s 
administrative center, also called Lachin, and two other villages located along 
the sole road now connecting Karabakh to Armenia. The 5-kilometer-wide corridor 
is due to be controlled by Russian peaceepers.
The Azerbaijani army recaptured four other districts around Karabakh during the 
six-week war. Baku agreed to stop its military operations in return for an 
Armenian pledge to withdraw from three other districts occupied by Karabakh 
Armenian forces in the early 1990s: Lachin, Kelbajar and Aghdam.
The Armenian side pulled out of Aghdam and Kelbajar by November 20 and November 
25 respectively. It also evacuated several thousands Karabakh Armenian settlers 
who lived in villages located there.
NAGORNO-KARABAKH -- An ethnic Armenian soldier stands guard next to 
Nagorno-Karabakh's flag atop of the hill near Charektar in at a new border with 
Kelbajar district turned over to Azerbaijan, November 25, 2020.
The Lachin district was home to a larger number of ethnic Armenian settlers. All 
of the 51 small villages located beyond the Lachin corridor were practically 
empty by Monday evening. Many of their departing residents dismantled or burned 
their houses.
Most residents of the town of Lachin and the two nearby villages located along 
the Russian-controlled corridor also appear to have left their homes. But others 
have chosen to stay put fow now, heeding appeals from local authorities.
Mushegh Alaverdian, the head of the district’s outgoing Karabakh Armenian 
administration, insisted on Tuesday that Azerbaijani troops will not be 
stationed in the three communities. He said the remaining ethnic Armenian 
settlers can therefore continue to live there.
A local resident looks at a burning house in the town of Lachin (Berdzor), 
.
“The [ceasefire] agreement makes clear that they can live here indefinitely,” 
Alaverdian told RFE/RL’s Armenaian Service. “There are no questions about the 
civilian population. There is a little uncertainty about local government bodies 
but I think that will be cleared up in the coming days.”
Alaverdian admitted that he cannot give the remaining residents “full security 
guarantees.” “I think that there will be problems and it will be dangerous,” he 
said. “At any rate, it didn’t start today and it won’t end today. We just need 
to make a choice: do we need Berdzor (the town of Lachin) and [the villages of] 
Aghavno and Sus or not?”
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said, meanwhile, that Baku intends to regain 
control of the town as well and will therefore seek the construction of a new 
Armenia-Karabakh road section bypassing it.
Armenian Ombudsman Sees Government Pressure On Courts
        • Gayane Saribekian
Armenia -- Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian chairs a meeting with senior 
law-enforcement and judicial officials, Yerevan, .
Armenia’s human rights ombudsman criticized Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian on 
Tuesday for summoning judges to a meeting with senior law-enforcement officials, 
saying that the move amounted to pressure on courts.
Pashinian met on Monday with the heads of Armenian law-enforcement agencies, 
Justice Minister Rustam Badasian as well as several senior judges and members of 
a state judicial watchdog to discuss ongoing criminal investigations into riots 
that broke out in Yerevan on November 10 following the announcement of a 
Russian-brokered ceasefire in Nagorno-Karabakh.
Pashinian seemed upset with Armenian court’s refusal to sanction the pre-trial 
arrest of many of the individuals arrested on charges of ransacking key 
government buildings and beating up parliament speaker Ararat Mirzoyan.
“Two individuals were arrested in connection with the attack on the National 
Assembly chairman, while the arrest warrant for another individual was rejected 
[by a court,]” he complained during the meeting.
“The key question is as follows: what is our evaluation and to what extent does 
this situation constitute an appropriate [judicial] reaction to the incident?” 
he said.
The prime minister’s office did not release details of Pashinian’s ensuing 
discussion with officials present at the meeting.
Opposition figures and other critics of the Armenian government deplored the 
very fact of the meeting, accusing Pashinian of pressuring judges and the 
Supreme Judicial Council (SJC) tasked with monitoring courts. Ombusdman Arman 
Tatoyan added his voice to the criticism.
Armenia -- Human Rights Defender Arman Tatoyan speaks to RFE/RL, Yerevan, March 
13, 2019.
“I consider especially unacceptable the participation of several judges and 
members of the Supreme Judicial Council in the discussion,” Tatoyan said in a 
statement. “This kind of discussions jeopardize the independence and authority 
of the judicial system.”
Vigen Kocharian, an SJC member, insisted that there was nothing wrong with his 
and his colleagues’ presence at the meeting chaired by Pashinian.
“Members of the Supreme Judicial Council have no levers to influence decisions 
made by judges in one or another criminal case,” Kocharian said, adding that the 
controversial meeting was “of general nature” and did not put judicial indepence 
at risk.
Incidentally, the chairman of the SJC, Ruben Vartazarian, was not invited to the 
meeting. Recent reports in the Armenian press have said that Vartazarian sees 
government efforts to influence the judiciary and is concerned by them.
Another Lawmaker Leaves Ruling Bloc
Armenia - Parliament deputy Gor Gevorgian.
Yet another parliament deputy left Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s My Step bloc 
on Tuesday, citing major disagreements with Armenia’s ruling political team.
The lawmaker, Gor Gevorgian, shed little light on those disagreements when he 
announced his decision on Facebook. He said only that they center on “a number 
of key and contentious issues facing the state” in the wake of the war in 
Nagorno-Karabakh.
Gevorgian also said that he will serve as an independent deputy from now on.
Four other My Step deputies quit Pashinian’s bloc just days after a 
Russian-brokered ceasefire that stopped the war on November 10 and sparked 
anti-government street protests in Yerevan. One of them, Gayane Abrahamian, 
denounced the ceasefire agreement as “disgraceful.”
Abrahamian also resigned from the Armenian parliament altogether. At least two 
of the other deputies decided to keep their parliament seats.
My Step controlled 88 seats in the 132-member National Assembly before the 
defections.
Pashinian and his political allies continue to reject calls for the Armenian 
government’s resignation made by opposition forces and public figures holding it 
responsible for significant territorial losses suffered by the Armenian side. 
The prime minister has said that he plans to “restore stability” in Armenia over 
the next few months.
Armenia To Again Reopen Schools
Armenia -- High school students in Yerevan wear face masks, September 15, 2020.
The government has decided to fully reopen Armenia’s schools that were shut down 
on October 15 due to a sharp rise in coronavirus infections.
A resurgence in officially registered COVID-19 cases began in mid-September and 
accelerated after the subsequent outbreak of the war in Nagorno-Karabakh.
The Armenian Ministry of Health routinely reported more than 2,000 cases a day 
in late October and the first half of November.
The daily number of new cases has averaged roughly 1,500 for the last two weeks. 
Ministry officials say this has somewhat eased the burden on Armenia’s hospitals 
struggling to cope with the pandemic.
The Ministry of Education ordered all schools to switch back to online classes 
after a two-week autumn holiday that began on October 15. It reopened primary 
schools across the country on November 13.
The ministry announced on Tuesday that secondary and high schools must also 
reopen their doors to students on December 7. It said that strict sanitary and 
hygienic rules, set by Health Minister Arsen Torosian for all educational 
establishments in September, will remain in place.
The rules stipulate, among other things, that there can be no more than 20 
schoolchildren in a classroom at a time and all of them must be seated apart and 
wear face masks during classes. School administrations have to provide students 
with hand sanitizers and regularly disinfect classrooms.
Also, teachers who are aged 65 and older or suffer from chronic diseases will 
still be allowed to continue working online. In addition, the rules mandate the 
closure of schools hit by coronavirus outbreaks affecting at least 10 percent of 
their students and staff.
Despite the recent weeks’ decrease in the daily number of new cases, Armenia’s 
infection rate remains high for a country of about 3 million. So does the number 
of deaths caused by COVID-19. The Ministry of Health reported on Tuesday morning 
the deaths of 46 more people infected with the disease.
The official death toll from the pandemic rose to 2,193. Health authorities say 
the figure does not include 559 deaths primarily caused by other diseases.
A Ministry of Health spokeswoman also cautioned at the weekend that the number 
of COVID-19 patients remaining in a critical or serious condition has not yet 
started falling.
At the same time, ministry data shows that more people are continuing to recover 
from COVID-19 than to contract it on a daily basis. There were 22,850 active 
coronavirus cases in Armenia as of Tuesday morning, down from 25,228 cases 
recorded on November 26.
Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
Copyright (c) 2020 Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, Inc.
1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.