Author: Eduard Nalbandian

                                        Tuesday, 
Armenian Opposition Unimpressed With Moscow Summit
        • Naira Nalbandian
        • Narine Ghalechian
RUSSIA -- Russian President Vladimir Putin, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev 
and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian attend a joint press conference 
following a trilateral meeting at the Kremlin in Moscow, 
The two opposition parties represented in Armenia’s parliament claimed on 
Tuesday that Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian failed to achieve anything during 
his talks with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev hosted by Russian President 
Vladimir Putin on Monday.
They singled out Pashinian’s failure to secure the release of Armenian soldiers 
and civilians held by Azerbaijan two months after a ceasefire deal brokered by 
Putin stopped the war in Nagorno-Karabakh.
Pashinian, Putin and Aliyev met in Moscow to discuss the deal’s implementation. 
In a joint statement issued after the meeting, they said their governments will 
set up a joint “working group” that will deal with practical modalities of 
restoring transport links between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
The statement made no mention of the unconditional exchange of all prisoners 
also envisaged by the Russian-brokered deal. Pashinian confirmed that he and 
Aliyev did not reach any agreements on the issue.
“The enemy’s agenda is being fully realized while the Armenian side’s is not,” 
said Edmon Marukian, the leader of the opposition Bright Armenia Party (LHK). 
“Why? Because the symbol of our defeat [Pashinian] continues to hold talks.”
“Pashinian was taken to Moscow for doing only one thing: to sign up to the 
unblocking of transport routes and arteries vital for Azerbaijan,” agreed Naira 
Zohrabian of the Prosperous Armenia Party (BHK).
Both Marukian and Zohrabian stressed that in the run-up to the Moscow summit 
Pashinian said that the release of the Armenian prisoners of war is essential 
for opening the Armenian-Azerbaijani border for commercial traffic.
Armenia - Opposition leader Edmon Marukian speaks at a news conference, November 
19, 2020.
A senior member of the ruling My Step bloc, Ruben Rubinian, insisted that the 
joint statement issued by Aliyev, Putin and Pashinian is “beneficial for us” 
even though it makes no references to the POWs. He argued that the planned 
opening of the border will allow Armenia to have rail links with Iran and Russia.
“The Russian president backed in principle the Armenian side’s position [on the 
POWs,]” Rubinian told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service.
Pashinian thanked Putin for that support when they met separately in the Kremlin 
following Monday’s trilateral meeting. “This is the most sensitive and painful 
issue for us,” he said.
Putin stated, for his part, that the summit was “useful” despite Aliyev’s and 
Pashinian’s failure to agree on the release of the Armenian captives. “I hope 
that there will be an agreement on all problems, including the issues of 
humanitarian character,” he told the Armenian premier.
According to Yerevan-based human rights lawyers, more than 100 Armenian POWs and 
civilians remain in Azerbaijani captivity. They include 62 soldiers who were 
taken prisoner in early December when Azerbaijani forces seized the last two 
Armenian-controlled villages in Karabakh’s Hadrut district occupied by them 
during the six-week war.
In a letter to United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres publicized last 
week, Azerbaijan’s Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov branded those soldiers as 
“saboteurs” and indicated the Azerbaijani authorities’ intention to prosecute 
them on relevant charges.
The Armenian Foreign Ministry condemned Baku’s plans as a gross violation of 
international law and the Karabakh truce agreement. It accused the Azerbaijani 
side of “using Armenian prisoners of war as hostages to advance its political 
agenda.”
Wartime Security Chief Also Slams Pashinian
        • Robert Zargarian
Armenia - Mikael Hambardzumian, a senior official from the National Security 
Service, at a news conference in Yerevan, 27Nov2015.
A former official who ran Armenia’s National Security Service (NSS) during the 
recent war in Nagorno-Karabakh has hit out at Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian, 
saying that he could have stopped hostilities three weeks before the ceasefire 
brokered by Russia on November 9.
Mikael Hambardzumian was appointed as acting head of the NSS on October 8 eleven 
days after Azerbaijan launched offensive military operations in and around 
Karabakh. Pashinian replaced him by another senior NSS officer, Armen Abazian, 
one month later.
In an interview with the Fifth Channel TV station aired late on Monday, 
Hambardzumian claimed that he himself decided to leave Armenia’s most powerful 
security service because of Pashinian’s handling of the war. He singled out the 
prime minister’s failure to accept a more favorable ceasefire agreement which 
was negotiated by Russian President Vladimir Putin on October 20.
In November 17 televised remarks, Putin said that the Armenian side would have 
suffered fewer territorial losses and, in particular, retained control of the 
strategic Karabakh town of Shushi (Shusha) had Pashinian agreed to that deal 
accepted by Azerbaijan. He said he was taken aback by Pashinian’s stance.
Pashinian explained afterwards that he rejected the proposed truce because it 
called for the return of Azerbaijani refugees to Shushi. He claimed that that 
too would have restored Azerbaijani control of the town overlooking the Karabakh 
capital Stepanakert.
“I was informed about [Putin’s] proposals not by the prime minister but by my 
colleagues,” said Hambardzumian. “I obviously wondered why we are not taking 
that step and what keeps us from doing that. After all, it was the only real 
opportunity to stop the war and suffer fewer human and territorial losses.”
According to Hambardzumian, during an October 19 meeting of Armenia’s Security 
Council the chief of the Armenian army’s General Staff, General Onik Gasparian, 
warned Pashinian that the Armenian side is heading for defeat and that the war 
must be stopped as soon as possible. He said then Defense Minister Davit Tonoyan 
echoed that warning.
“Nevertheless, such a decision was not made [by Pashinian] after that,” added 
the former NSS chief.
During the six-week war Azerbaijan recaptured four of the seven districts around 
Karabakh which had been occupied by Karabakh Armenian forces in the early 1990s. 
Baku agreed to stop its military operations on November 10 in return for an 
Armenian pledge to withdraw from the three other districts.
The Armenian opposition has blamed Pashinian for the defeat and demanded his 
resignation. Opposition leaders have portrayed Putin’s revelation as further 
proof of the prime minister’s mishandling of the war that killed at least 3,300 
Armenian soldiers.
Hambardzumian added his voice to the opposition demands shortly after his 
sacking. He was also among two dozen retired NSS officers who issued in December 
a joint statement calling for Pashinian’s resignation. The prime minister has 
repeatedly refused to quit.
Armenia Plans Limited COVID-19 Vaccination
Poland -- A paramedic is vaccinated with the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus disease 
(COVID-19) vaccine at a hospital in Warsaw, December 27, 2020.
The Armenian health authorities are planning to vaccinate only 10 percent of the 
country’s population against COVID-19, a senior government official said on 
Tuesday.
Gayane Sahakian, the deputy director of the National Center for Disease Control 
and Prevention, also announced that Armenia will receive its first coronavirus 
vaccine doses before the second half of February.
“We are planning to acquire vaccines for 10 percent of the population to carry 
out at first vaccinations of only high risk groups,” Sahakian told a news 
conference.
“We are now holding negotiations on concrete time frames for their imports. We 
are confident that we will have the first imports by the end of January or the 
first half of February,” she said.
Sahakian said the talks center on possible supplies of the Russian vaccine 
Sputnik V or three other certified vaccines that have been developed by the 
Western pharmaceutical companies Pfizer, Moderna and AstraZeneca. It is still 
not clear which of them will be chosen by the Armenian government, added the 
official.
Sahakian announced in early December that the government has commissioned 
600,000 doses of coronavirus vaccines from COVAX Facility, a global partnership 
backed by the World Health Organization. She said Armenian medical and social 
workers, seniors and people suffering from chronic diseases will be the first to 
get vaccine shots free of charge.
Armenia -- Medics at the Surb Grigor Lusavorich Medical Center in Yerevan, 
Armenia's largest hospital treating COVID-19 patients, June 5, 2020.
The official did not clarify on Tuesday whether the government’s supply contract 
with COVAX, worth $6 million, remains in force. Nor did she say if the health 
authorities could vaccinate a larger proportion of the population later this 
year.
Armenia has been hit hard by the pandemic, with more than 162,000 coronavirus 
cases and at least 2,941 deaths caused by them reported by the authorities so 
far. The real number of cases is believed to be much higher.
The daily number of new infections has fallen significantly since the beginning 
of November. The Armenian Ministry of Health reported on Tuesday morning that 
355 more people have tested positive for COVID-19 in the past 24 hours, sharply 
down from more than 2,000 cases a day routinely recorded in late October and 
early November.
Sahakian acknowledged that the country’s coronavirus numbers will likely rise 
again after the New Year’s and Christmas holidays and the reopening of schools. 
But she did not predict a serious resurgence of cases.
Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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