Author: Chalian Meline

Azeri troops must pull back from Armenian sovereign territory before delimitation and demarcation begins – Yerevan says

Chalian Meline

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 13:39,

YEREVAN, MAY 19, ARMENPRESS. In response to Russia’s proposal to launch delimitation and demarcation works, Armenia has emphasized the necessity of the Azeri troops withdrawing from Armenian sovereign territory before starting that work, and then only the conditions will be created for such discussions, the Secretary of the Security Council of Armenia Armen Grigoryan told ARMENPRESS when asked to present Armenia’s position on Russia’s proposal to start the delimitation and demarcation work between Armenia and Azerbaijan.

“We highly appreciate the Russian side’s efforts for contributing to the resolution of the situation, by expressing readiness to continue close cooperation, at the same time we underscore that the complete preservation of territorial integiry cannot be subject of discussion for the Republic of Armenia. We note that the Azerbaijani side’s latest actions are explicitly aimed at not implementing its own obligations assumed under the 2020 November 9 and 2021 January 11 statements by the leaders of Armenia, Russia and Azerbaijan,” he added.

Editing and Translating by Stepan Kocharyan

Armenia’s Bold New Step: Improving Road Safety for Even the Youngest Armenians

Chalian Meline

World Bank Armenia

Road crashes are a “silent pandemic” that kill more than 1 million people globally every year, with a particularly devastating impact on the younger generation. Data from the World Health Organization show that every eight minutes, a child dies in a car crash somewhere around the world. In fact, traffic collision injuries are the leading cause of death and disability among children and young people aged 5–25 years.

Although safer road infrastructure and more secure vehicles can go a long way toward tackling the road safety crisis, they are just one part of the equation. Education is also critical, especially for children and youth, and basic safety skills training should be provided as early in life as possible. No child should die or be seriously injured while they walk, play, cycle, or go to school.  

Armenia is no exception when it comes to road safety concerns. With a population of around 3 million, it has a high road fatality rate of 9.4 deaths per 100,000 people, and children are especially vulnerable. In 2019, road crash fatalities were more than double the European Union (EU) average, and the socioeconomic costs of road crashes are estimated at 5.7 percent of Armenia’s GDP (World Bank 2019), a loss the country cannot afford.

Road Crash Fatalities per 100,000 Population, Eastern Partnership vs European Union Countries, 2019

Source: OECD data, EaP statistics.

Children face specific road safety risks due to their small size, slower reflexes, poor assessment of road conditions, reduced visibility, and other physical and cognitive limitations. As in many other countries, most of Armenia’s road infrastructure was not designed to address these risk factors or accommodate the mobility needs of children, leaving them particularly exposed to vehicular traffic.

The Government of Armenia and the World Bank are currently working to change the status quo through the Bank-financed Armenia Lifeline Road Network Improvement Project (LRNIP), which supports the rehabilitation and upgrading of 395 kilometers of critical rural roads across the country. Implemented by the Ministry of Territorial Administration and Infrastructure jointly with the Roads Department, the project includes a number of measures to enhance road safety.

For example, an innovative “safe village” concept, a combination of road safety engineering improvements near the village school, is being piloted. This involves the construction of specific traffic safety features, including road humps and raised pedestrian crossings, footways, railings/fences, bus bays, and the installation of appropriate traffic signs and markings. The project also introduces mandatory road safety training for school-aged children living in the communities benefiting from the road upgrades.

The training includes meetings with teachers, school principals, parents, and community representatives to demonstrate the appropriate methods for educating children of all ages on road safety and to underscore the frequency with which those trainings should be conducted. In this way, teachers can educate children by providing the life-saving messages and skills from a young age.

 

Armavir province, in the Secondary school of Getashen, Armenia.

 

As of today, 23 community schools have benefited from the road safety program, and roughly 900 pupils have received training in the central regions of Kotayk and Ararat. In total, children from 85 Armenian communities will be trained under the project. The engagement approach is to use age-appropriate interactive education tools; for example, high school students are taking interactive tests on their cell phones, while children at the elementary level gain knowledge through fun interactive games and colorful booklets.   

“Children’s knowledge and experience about the principles of road safety are better strengthened through such practical and interactive exercises and materials,” said Anna Gorgyan, a teacher at Karenis Secondary School in the Kotayk region. Ms. Gorgyan mentions that even though the rehabilitation works have included the installation of new road signs, drivers and pedestrians in the village do not always pay attention to them. The trainings have helped change the way people think and behave by creating a culture of strict adherence to traffic rules from an early age.

Varazdat Avetisyan, a third grader at Karenis school, smiles: “I didn’t know that in the late hours, when it is dark outside, pedestrians should try to wear light-colored clothing so that they are visible to drivers while crossing the road. And that headphones should be removed when crossing the road so as not to get distracted.”

Road safety skills are best learned outdoors, in a real traffic environment. Children learn by experience, and adult interaction is an important part of that process. As children walk, they ask questions about roads, signs, traffic, and how and where to cross the road. An educated child brings the knowledge back home and may teach friends about road safety issues.

As part of this commitment to safety, the project team has also been working to implement enhanced people-centered design features along targeted roads and is collaborating with traffic police to enhance crash data systems in the country.

While Armenia works toward a resilient recovery from the recent war and ongoing pandemic, it is essential that it continue to embrace new opportunities. Addressing road fatalities and providing safer mobility for all citizens, particularly children, is one bold way to ensure a brighter future for the country.

As of today, 23 community schools have benefited from the road safety program, and roughly 900 pupils have received training in the central regions of Kotayk and Ararat. In total, children from 85 Armenian communities will be trained under the project. The engagement approach is to use age-appropriate interactive education tools; for example, high school students are taking interactive tests on their cell phones, while children at the elementary level gain knowledge through fun interactive games and colorful booklets.   

“Children’s knowledge and experience about the principles of road safety are better strengthened through such practical and interactive exercises and materials,” said Anna Gorgyan, a teacher at Karenis Secondary School in the Kotayk region. Ms. Gorgyan mentions that even though the rehabilitation works have included the installation of new road signs, drivers and pedestrians in the village do not always pay attention to them. The trainings have helped change the way people think and behave by creating a culture of strict adherence to traffic rules from an early age.

Varazdat Avetisyan, a third grader at Karenis school, smiles: “I didn’t know that in the late hours, when it is dark outside, pedestrians should try to wear light-colored clothing so that they are visible to drivers while crossing the road. And that headphones should be removed when crossing the road so as not to get distracted.”

Road safety skills are best learned outdoors, in a real traffic environment. Children learn by experience, and adult interaction is an important part of that process. As children walk, they ask questions about roads, signs, traffic, and how and where to cross the road. An educated child brings the knowledge back home and may teach friends about road safety issues.

As part of this commitment to safety, the project team has also been working to implement enhanced people-centered design features along targeted roads and is collaborating with traffic police to enhance crash data systems in the country.

While Armenia works toward a resilient recovery from the recent war and ongoing pandemic, it is essential that it continue to embrace new opportunities. Addressing road fatalities and providing safer mobility for all citizens, particularly children, is one bold way to ensure a brighter future for the country.

  

Over 610 Palestinians injured in clashes with Israeli police in East Jerusalem

Chalian Meline

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 10:05,

YEREVAN, MAY 11, ARMENPRESS. The number of Palestinians injured in clashes with Israeli law enforcers in East Jerusalem exceeded 610, TASS reports citing Palestinian daily Al-Quds.

“At least 612 Palestinians sustained injuries in the course of the day in the area of Temple Mount and the Old City of Jerusalem”, the daily cited its source as saying.

Al-Quds reported earlier that the violence erupted on Monday after Israeli police entered Al-Aqsa Mosque in the Old City of Jerusalem and used rubber bullets, tear gas and stun grenades against people inside the building. Hundreds of Palestinians were reported to be injured in the following clashes with the Israeli police force in East Jerusalem.

Shortly before midnight, Israeli media sources reported that Palestinian militants fired about 150 rockets into the territory of Israel and dozens of them were intercepted by air defense systems. Israel launched in return missile attacks against Palestinian militants on the territory of Gaza.

ECHR Grand Chamber to examine cases filed by Armenia, Azerbaijan against each other

Chalian Meline

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 19:37,

YEREVAN, MAY 12, ARMENPRESS. The ECHR Grand Chamber has accepted for consideration the complaints of Armenia and Azerbaijan against each other on charges of violations of the European Convention on Human Rights, ARMENPRESS was informed from the website of the ECHR.

It’s mentioned that the complaints are mainly about the recent military operations between Armenia and Azerbaijan and contain complaints about widespread violations of the Convention, including attacks against civilians, civilian and public property, mistreatment against soldiers and civilians, hostage taking and forceful eviction of citizens from territories affected by the military operations.

Armenia submitted the complaint against Azerbaijan on September 27, 2020, while Azerbaijan did that on October 27, 2020.

Following the November 9, 2020 trilateral declaration signed by Armenia, Russia and Azerbaijan, Armenia returned all Azerbaijani war prisoners, including 2 charged for killing a minor, but Azerbaijn has failed to respect the agreement so far. There are also documented proofs about torturing Armenian POWs by the Azerbaijani side. 19 cases of killing Armenian POWs by Azerbaijan have been confirmed.


Shushi liberation operation in 1st Artsakh war was approved by ex-President Sargsyan

Chalian Meline
News.am, Armenia
May 8 2021
12:59, 08.05.2021

The liberation of the ancient cultural and political center of Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh), the Armenian fortress city of Shushi, on May 8-9, 1992, brought a radical breakthrough in the Artsakh liberation war; this is stated by the office of the third President of Armenia, Serzh Sargsyan.

“And it is considered a brilliant and very important military-political event of the Armenian art of war in the history of the national-liberation struggle of the Artsakh Armenians at the end of the 20th century. Serzh Sargsyan has approved the operation, which was named ‘Wedding in the Mountains,'” the respective statement also said.

Private meeting of Armenian, Russian FMs kicks off in Yerevan

Chalian Meline

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 10:42, 6 May, 2021

YEREVAN, MAY 6, ARMENPRESS. The private meeting of Armenia’s caretaker foreign minister Ara Aivazian and Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov kicked off in the Armenian foreign ministry on May 6, the Armenian MFA spokesperson said on Facebook.

Russian FM Sergei Lavrov has arrived in Armenia on May 5 on a two-day visit.

He is scheduled to meet with Armenia’s caretaker prime minister Nikol Pashinyan on May 6.

Lavrov will also pay a working visit to Baku on May 9-10.

 

Editing and Translating by Aneta Harutyunyan

Biden’s Armenian genocide call nudges Turkey toward China, Russia

Chalian Meline
Nikkei Asia
April 27 2021

Moscow and Beijing keen to step into vacuum as US switches focus to human rights

WASHINGTON/ISTANBUL — U.S. President Joe Biden on Saturday described the massacre of Armenians, which began in 1915 under the Ottoman Empire, in present-day Turkey, as “genocide.”

Turkey, a long-standing U.S. ally, has vehemently opposed that characterization. Biden’s statement appears likely to shake up diplomacy for powers active in the region, including Russia and China.

As the Ottoman Empire neared its end, Christian Armenians in Turkey faced growing persecution. On April 24, 1915, Armenian intellectuals and community leaders were arrested, accused of spying for Imperial Russia, which was Turkey’s enemy in World War I. Many Armenians living in what today is eastern Turkey were forcibly relocated from an area near the Russian border to Syria and subjected to harsh treatment.

Armenians say about 1.5 million of their kindred were killed by around 2017, but Turkey has refused to acknowledge the deaths as a systematic genocide of a specific ethnic group, arguing there were victims on both sides as a result of fighting between Turks and Armenians.

In Saturday’s statement, on the anniversary of the massacre, Biden said: “One and a half million Armenians were deported, massacred, or marched to their deaths in a campaign of extermination.” Previous U.S. presidents have released annual statements commemorating the victims, but Saturday’s statement was the first in four decades to use the word “genocide” in reference to those events. Ronald Reagan also used “genocide” in the first year of his tenure.

It seems unlikely that the U.S. will take overtly hostile action, such as sanctions as the massacre took place more than a century ago. But Turkey has objected vociferously, with the Foreign Ministry saying in a statement, “We reject and denounce in the strongest terms the statement.”

A key factor in Biden’s decision to release the statement, over the objections of its NATO ally Turkey, was a push by members of his administration to place greater emphasis on human rights in U.S. foreign policy. Soner Cagaptay, of The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said officials in the Defense Department sought to dissuade Biden from making the statement, in view of U.S. strategic relations with Turkey, but Soner believes their influence has waned.

Former U.S. President Barack Obama pledged to recognize the massacre of Armenians as genocide during the 2008 presidential campaign, but shelved the issue throughout his eight-year tenure. Biden made the same pledge in his campaign in 2020 and has honored it early in his administration.

Human rights are a pillar of Democrat Biden’s foreign policy. In February, U.S. intelligence officials concluded that Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman ordered the killing of a Saudi journalist, reversing the policy of the Donald Trump administration, which sought to give Saudi Arabia the benefit of the doubt. That report, and the statement on the Armenian massacre, reflects the growing influence of liberals in the Democratic Party, who are strongly advocating for a sharper focus on human rights.

On the issue of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Biden has decided to resume funding for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, which the Trump administration had suspended. Israel is opposed and U.S.-Israel ties, which were warm under Trump, have cooled greatly.

The increased distance between the U.S. and its traditional allies in the Middle East highlights the decline of U.S. involvement in Middle Eastern affairs.

The Incirlik Air Base in southern Turkey has been used by the U.S. forces to stage attacks on the Islamic State group, but Turkey’s strategic importance may be fading for U.S. after Islamic State’s demise. The U.S. is believed to have nuclear weapons deployed in Turkey, assuming their potential use against Iran, but the Biden administration is engaged in dialogue with Iran.

The U.S. recognition of the Armenian genocide may push Turkey into Russia’s arms. Turkey bought Russian-made S400 surface-to-air missiles in 2019 and is proceeding additional purchases. Washington is strongly opposed to Turkey’s moves to strengthen military cooperation with Russia, which NATO treats as a potential adversary. If Turkey completes deployment of the missiles, further sanctions against it may follow.

In March, Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi toured six Middle Eastern countries, including Turkey and Saudi Arabia, demonstrating Beijing’s desire to deepen ties with the region. China appears interested in taking advantage of the U.S. pullback from the Middle East.

Biden last Friday had his first online meeting with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The U.S. president is believed to have notified his counterpart in advance about his intention to recognize the atrocity against Armenians as genocide and to have explained his reasoning, a move that suggests he was trying to tamp down Turkish objections. The two leaders have agreed to meet in Brussels in June, when a NATO summit meeting is scheduled.


 

Armenian election campaign begins to take shape

Chalian Meline
EurasiaNet.org
Ani Mejlumyan Apr 29, 2021 

Armenia’s election campaign isn’t supposed to start until June. But politicians and parties have already been lining up to make their case to a skeptical electorate, still shocked from last year’s defeat in the war against Azerbaijan and distrustful of the country’s political class.

Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan resigned on April 25 but remained in the post as acting premier, a formal step required by the constitution to trigger elections. The election is scheduled for June 20, and while the law restricts political campaigns to a 12-day period before the vote, Pashinyan and his ruling My Step alliance have already been actively – if technically informally – running.

In recent weeks Pashinyan has been touring Armenia in what many see as de facto campaign events. The crowds he is attracting, though, are far smaller than those he could gather before the war, and a far cry from the rallies he would hold – sometimes topping 100,000 people – in the protest campaign that swept him to power in 2018’s “Velvet Revolution.”

The crowds these days also are more hostile. On April 21 he visited the southern region of Syunik, which since the war has been the most tense part of Armenia due to the new proximity of Azerbaijani troops. He was greeted by angry protesters blaming him for the loss in the war, chanting “Nikol – traitor!” and shouting obscenities. Several were detained.

In his public appearances now Pashinyan is escorted by dozens, at times hundreds of police officers. His events are no longer livestreamed, and critics accuse his team of selectively editing videos to show cheering crowds.

Others condemn him for making campaign-style promises as he travels around the country: to raise salaries, to invest in roads and regional economic projects.

“We do see early signs that the government is preparing to rely on the advantages of incumbency, in other words administrative resources that are in the hands of the current government,” Richard Giragosian, the head of the Yerevan think tank Regional Studies Center, told Eurasianet. He noted that the head of the Central Electoral Commission, Tigran Mukuchyan, has been in his role since 2011. “All he knows is how to deliver tainted elections,” Giragosian said.

The opposition, meanwhile, has been relatively disorganized, with all sides attacking the government for losing the war but offering little concrete as an alternative. Many parties remain undecided about how they will participate.

The two opposition parties currently in parliament, Bright Armenia and Prosperous Armenia, both have said they will take part without joining larger blocs.

The former ruling Republican Party of Armenia has yet to decide whether it will run. “Perhaps the RPA will participate in this political struggle to some extent. This struggle will not take place without us,” deputy leader Armen Ashotyan told Sputnik Armenia on April 25.

The Armenian Revolutionary Federation – Dashnaktsutyun, which has been part of several ruling coalitions in the past, has said it intends to participate but hasn’t decided yet whether to run alone or as part of a bloc. The important thing, senior party member Bagrat Yesayan told a press conference, is that Pashinyan is defeated. “All political parties who are not indifferent to the fate of this country should sign an agreement that they won’t cooperate with My Step and declare that an independent investigation should be carried out into the causes and consequences of the war,” he said. “There will be two sides [in the election] – those who sign the agreement and those who don’t.”

Many in Yerevan believe that if Dashnaktsutyun joins a coalition it will be with Hayrenik, a new party created by Pashinyan’s first director of the National Security Service, Artur Vanetsyan, and former president Robert Kocharyan as candidate for prime minister.

In an April 5 interview with Russian journalist Vladimir Pozner, Kocharyan said he would likely run as the head of an alliance of two parties, which he did not name.

Soon after last year’s defeat in the war, a coalition of 17 parties (including the Republicans, Prosperous Armenia, and Dashnaktsutyun) banded together to organize street protests demanding that Pashinyan step down. They brought forward a former prime minister, Vazgen Manukyan, as their candidate to replace Pashinyan but Manukyan now says he won’t run.

The National Armenian Congress, headed by former president and Pashinyan mentor Levon Ter-Petrossian, also has yet to confirm its participation. But Ter-Petrossian has become sharply critical of Pashinyan, and recently said the decision to call early elections without leaving office was unconstitutional.

The nationalist, pro-Western and anti-Russian Sasna Tsrer party has said it is forming an alliance with smaller parties of a similar ideology, called National Democratic Pole.

“Dear people, you have to finally understand that the authorities are offering us fake elections, to drown in the Turkish sea or the Russian swamp,” one party member, Garegin Chugazyan, told an April 16 demonstration in Yerevan. “They want to cut down the tree of our statehood with a Turkish axe or a Russian saw, and only your participation in the resistance movement can put a stop to it.”

Voters surveyed by Eurasianet say they are uninspired by their options.

“I might not vote, I don’t see any proper candidate,” said Husik Zakaryan, a bookseller in Yerevan’s central Vernissage market. “If it’s going to be the politicians we know, it’s better to not participate. The war has changed so much and people have lost hope.”

Grigor, a painter at the Vernissage who declined to give his last name, said the challenge was to choose “between the bad and the worst.” Pashinyan is “the worst, he is a doormat,” he said. “A lot of people say it’s better for Nikol to stay than for the former authorities to come. Even my daughter says that, and she doesn’t even remember those times. But the former authorities didn’t kill 5,000 young men in the war. That’s the difference.”

Giragosian, the analyst, said the elections are necessary following the extended political crisis caused by defeat in the war. “The good news is that, given the lingering political crisis that has been exacerbated by war, COVID, and vendetta politics by the prime minister, the decision to call elections is an important legal, constitutional way to begin to resolve and manage this political crisis or polarization,” he said.

But he said the vote itself is not going to deliver much for Armenians.

“There is little choice in terms of policies but rather a contest of personalities,” he said. “We see a very low level of political discourse without any real debate about critical national issues. The government is still in a state of denial, failing to adjust to the new reality. The ordinary voter demands much more but unfortunately will be given much less.”

Ani Mejlumyan is a reporter based in Yerevan.

Pashinyan can’t be interim PM, eight parties claim

Chalian Meline
Panorama, Armenia

Eight Armenian political parties released a statement stating that Nikol Pashinyan cannot serve as caretaker prime minister. The full text of the statement is provided below.

“On April 25, Nikol Pashinyan resigned, but the claims in the resignation, in violation of all legal and political grounds, were an ultimatum for political forces and citizens of Armenia since he stated that he will continue to serve as interim prime minister of Armenia and only in this case will he agree to hold snap parliamentary elections.

We declare and warn:

A. Nikol Pashinyan must leave PM’s office so that he doesn’t have any opportunity to make the state and administrative forces and institutions serve for his regeneration, otherwise, his actions will be considered seizure of power.

B ․ Pashinyan’s further tenure as acting prime minister will pose a direct threat to the law and order during the upcoming elections, as a result of which we will have a weak and puppet parliament and government with low legitimacy.

C. The formation of a parliament with low legitimacy will directly lead to internal political and civil clashes and disintegration of the Republic of Armenia.

The signatories are:

PARUYR HAYRIKYAN (Union for National Self-Determination)
ARTUR BALOYAN (Justice Party)
NARINE DILBARYAN (Heritage Party)
PETROS MAKEYAN (Democratic Homeland Party)
ANDRIAS GHUKASYAN (Armenian Constructive Party)
GARNIK MARGARYAN (Homeland and Honor Party)
ARTYOM KHACHIKYAN (Hayk (Haykazunner) Party)
MIKAYEL HAYRAPETYAN (Conservative Party)”

According to Constitution Pashinyan obliged to continue fulfilling duties of PM – Caretaker Justice Minister clarifies

Chalian Meline

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 10:03,

YEREVAN, APRIL 29, ARMENPRESS. Caretaker Justice Minister of Armenia Rustam Badasyan answered to the questions of ARMENPRESS regarding whether Nikol Pashinyan can be considered as caretaker prime minister after resigning from the position and is there a legal opportunity for replacement?

-Mr. Badasyan, after the resignation of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan aimed at triggering snap parliamentary elections, the discourse whether he can continue serving as caretaker PM or not still continues. After all, is there a concrete response to this question?

Of course, there is, but the discourse is highly artificial. After resigning the prime minister, as well as the other members of the Cabinet continue fulfilling their duties before the formation of a new Cabinet. In particular, according to Article 158 of the Constitution of Armenia, the government is submitting its resignation to the President also when the prime minister resigns. According to that same Article, the Cabinet members continue fulfilling their duties before the formation of a new Cabinet. And the composition of the Cabinet members is defined already by Article 147 according to which the government is composed of the prime minister, deputy prime ministers and ministers.

-Different parallels are drawn between the resignation cases of Serzh Sargsyan and Nikol Pashinyan in 2018. Is there a difference between these two resignation processes?

-Look. On April 23, 2018, a decision was adopted by the government according to which the government, based on the respective regulations of the Law on Composition and Activity of Government and the resignation of Prime Minister Serzh Sargsyan, decided to state the impossibility of Serzh Sargsyan’s fulfilling his powers.

At that moment, in the absence of incumbent prime minister and the impossibility of fulfillment of powers, according to the government’s decision defining the procedure of replacement of PM, Serzh Sargsyan has been replaced by first deputy prime minister Karen Karapetyan because of the impossibility of the fulfillment of duties by the PM. In other words, leaving aside the grounds of impossibility, in this case the issue of applicability or non-applicability, it has been, in fact, stated by the decision of the previous government that PM’s resignation doesn’t exclude him from fulfilling his duties, and a necessary act is needed to replace Serzh Sargsyan with Karen Karapetyan.

Moreover, when Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan resigned on October 16, 2018, he continued fulfilling his duties before the formation of a new government in 2019.

In other words, not only the aforementioned Articles of the Constitution clearly define this issue, but also there has never been another perception over this matter.

-Let’s imagine that the PM doesn’t continue fulfilling his duties after resignation. In that case is there a legal opportunity for replacement?

-Thank you for a good question. Let’s imagine that the PM should not continue fulfilling his duties after his resignation, until the new Cabinet is formed, in that case where is his replacement procedure? Such a procedure, moreover, should have been defined exclusively by the Constitution, because, in fact, we are talking about the constitutional security component. According to the decision of the government as I mentioned above, there are replacement procedures for the PM only in the cases of the absence of the PM and the impossibility of fulfilling duties by him, but none of this includes the case of resignation of the PM.

Those people, who claim that only the prime minister cannot continue fulfill the duties of the PM before the formation of a new Cabinet, in fact, claim that Armenia must not have a head of an executive branch before the formation of a new Cabinet, and I think that we all understand the absurdity of such claim.

 

 

Editing and Translating by Aneta Harutyunyan