11:35,
YEREVAN, DECEMBER 25, ARMENPRESS. 90,5% of health workers in Armenia are vaccinated against COVID-19, according to the National Center for Disease Control and Prevention (NCDC).
NCDC Director of the Department of Epidemiology of Infectious and Non-Infectious Diseases Romella Abovyan told reporters that between 2020 March and December 2021 a total of 7481 health workers were infected with COVID-19 (2297 doctors, 3238 nurses, 893 midwives and 1053 other specialists).
PanARMENIAN.Net – Yerevan is interested in signing a peace treaty with Baku and starting negotiations, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan told a virtual press conference on Friday, December 24.
“We are, of course, interested in signing a peace treaty and starting negotiations on it,” Pashinyan said.
The Armenian PM also recalled the agenda for talks proposed by the co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group, one of the points of which was the peaceful and comprehensive settlement.
“We haven’t refused to talk on the topic, and we are not going to,” he added.
Also Friday, Pashinyan said he will hold an unofficial meeting Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev at an informal CIS summit to be held in Saint Petersburg on December 28.
Nikol Pashinyan is carrying out the duties of the anti-Armenian propaganda teams in Azerbaijan for free, MP Tigran Abrahamyan from the opposition With Honor faction said on Saturday, referring to Pashinyan’s news conference held on Friday.
“The Azerbaijani groups engaged in anti-Armenian propaganda have probably already been dissolved. What is the point of keeping inactive groups if there is no shortage of people doing the same work for them for free at the expense of the Armenian budget? Pashinyan’s press conference yesterday came to confirm it,” he wrote on Facebook.
“In any direction in which Azerbaijanis have worked to inflict damage to the Republic of Armenia, the processes are now proceeding without their active participation, from the destruction of systems to propaganda.
“Incidentally, Pashinyan does not even try to deny my claims, he just presents it all through a remix of emotions and manipulations,” Abrahamyan stated.
Military expert Vahagn Saroyan reacted to Nikol Pashinyan’s statement on the release of two Azerbaijani captives without preconditions.
“The exchange of prisoners of war (POWs) and hostages is a common phenomenon in international practice. When asked what the two recently captured Azeri servicemen were returned for, Nikol Pashinyan says they were repatriated “without preconditions”, adding that he does not want to give the impression that Armenia is engaged in ‘bargaining’,” the expert wrote on Facebook on Saturday.
“If we remove the populism, it means that there was no appropriate force and will to hold them or swap them for Armenian prisoners. Expressing their own fears under the guise of humanism is a common practice of the current authorities. If this is true, demand that our POWs and hostages be returned without preconditions! Isn’t the return of our captives in exchange for minefield maps a bargain by the same logic?” he said.
The authorities of Armenia have decided to smoothen relations with Turkey after being defeated in the war. They say unblocking of Armenia will be to the country’s benefit. This is what Spokesman of the Republican Party of Armenia, former Deputy Speaker of the National Assembly Eduard Sharmazanov told reporters today.
Sharmazanov also stated that after all this, the authorities still allow themselves to mock people who have an understanding of geography.
“They [the authorities] say the Meghri-Horadiz railway will link Armenia to Russia. Take a look at the map once and for all — How many kilometers is Meghri far from Yerevan? How many kilometers is Horadiz far from Meghri and from Baku? After all, there is an Ijevan-Kazakh railway. If you’re thinking about cargo transportation, launch the Ijevan-Kazakh railway. Why are you making Armenian taxpayers pay an additional $200,000,000? Is it to make the Turkish dream come true? They also say this railway will make it possible to travel to Iran. Armenia had communication with Iran. Who asked you [the authorities] to transfer a section of the Goris-Kapan motorway to the Turks?” Sharmazanov complained.
Today there is a lot of commotion in Armenia with regard to the special envoy who will support Armenia’s position in the negotiations with Turkey. Nevertheless, if the Prime Minister of Armenia is Nikol Pashinyan, it doesn’t matter who will participate in the negotiations and who will represent our country at all. This is what Spokesperson of the Republican Party of Armenia, former Deputy Speaker of the National Assembly Eduard Sharmazanov told reporters.
According to the member of the political opposition, in any case, the envoy needs to lead and advance Pashinyan’s policy.
“In the document, which is currently the foundation for the negotiations, the words “Armenian Genocide” will be brought into compliance with the text of the position that the President of Turkey had previously expressed. It’s unequivocally clear what this document will contain. The document will also state the requirements for the establishment of diplomatic relations, as well as ambiguous statements on the Armenian Genocide. “They killed both the Armenians and the Turks. This is our shared pain” – this is what Erdogan says. They will say something in general and then say “See? Erdogan says this is our shared pain”. Then, an average Turkish official will probably visit Tsitsernakaberd Armenian Genocide Memorial Complex and lay flowers, after which these authorities will go and lay flowers at the tomb of Kemal Ataturk, and the ‘brotherhood’ will begin,” Sharmazanov said.
Sharmazanov emphasized that with this policy, the incumbent authorities of Armenia are destroying the whole struggle for the Armenian Cause, creating a barrier between the Armenian Diaspora and its historic homeland.
If safety is not ensured for cargo transportation, there won’t be cargo transportation, and if Armenian cargo can’t pass through the territory of Azerbaijan, Azerbaijani cargo also can’t pass through the territory of Armenia. This is what Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan said during his online press conference today.
“Obviously, when we discuss these issues, we take into consideration the fact that there needs to be cargo transportation. Imagine how illogical it would be, if Armenia suddenly opened a route and it wasn’t used,” he said, adding that there are talks about construction of the Azerbaijan-Nakhchivan railway costing approximately $200,000,000, which is very close.
Asked if it is likely that the negotiations will lead to the signing of a peace treaty, Pashinyan said the following: “Of course, Armenia is interested in the signing of a peace treaty and the start of talks over the signing of that treaty. If Armenia has declared that it wants to open an era of peace, it would be illogical, if Armenia said it doesn’t want to hear anything about a peace treaty. If we succeed in creating a model of peace that will be favorable for both sides, perhaps there will be an opportunity to understand each other’s viewpoints and form a new scheme,” he said.
According to Pashinyan, in Sochi and Brussels, there were such preconditions, but the events that took place after the meeting in Sochi put the talks in jeopardy. “Fortunately, there were no such events after the meeting in Brussels, and I hope we can move forward. I returned from the meeting in Sochi with a feeling of satisfaction, and I talked about that during a briefing. However, there were statements that made me think that something was misunderstood. In Brussels, there was tension in the beginning of the meeting, but during the meeting, we tried to understand each other’s viewpoints when we saw that it was entering a deadlock. There were practical issues, and I saw opportunities for solutions,” he emphasized.
When Russian peacekeeping forces arrived at Dadivank on November 13, 2020 the abbot of the monastery, Fr. Hovhannes, announced that he and the other clergymen would remain there. “The monastery belongs to us, we can’t leave. During this war our people have lost their loved ones, villages, homes, everything. They reject to lose Dadivank. We must stay here and pray for the protection of our monastery and the whole country,” Fr. Hovhannes, with a long grey beard and a silver crucifix around his neck, said.
“Not only is the monastery holy, like any house of God, it’s also a symbol of our Armenian identity as Christians that stretches back two millenniums,” Fr. Hovhannes says. It is an outstanding point of the Armenian pride to have been perhaps the first Christian country, even earlier than Romans, and is said that this heritage comes from this monastery specifically. Dadivank was founded in the 1st century by St. Dadi, a disciple of Thaddeus, the Apostle who spread the Christian faith to the region. It has persisted through Mongol, Persian, as well as the two more recent Azerbaijani-Armenian wars over Nagorno-Karabakh. When asked whether Fr. Hovhannes planned to organize the return of the precious carved crosses to the city of Yerevan, the capital of Armenia, he answered: “Who am I to remove stones that have been here for over 800 years.”
Currently, the clergymen of the monastery are in complete isolation. There are a large number of Azerbaijani servicemen on all sides of Dadivank. “Despite all this, there is absolutely no fear. The monastery complex is on its feet, nothing has happened to it, we are here at the cost of our lives, trying to not let the enemy touch it or destroy it”, Fr. Atanas said, completing Fr. Hovhannes thoughts.
Armenian people all over the world are extremely concerned about the fate of this unique heritage, despite assurances from the Azerbaijani officials who promise to preserve the historical and spiritual places. “I don’t trust the Azerbaijanis and their Turkish supporters. History shows that every bite they take just makes them hungrier. This is who our enemy is, and that’s why we can never trust them,” Fr. Hovhannes concluded. Meanwhile surrounded by high mountains, dense forests, and gorges, Dadivank monastery remains as one of the unique and wonderful places of the region and can be truly considered the heart of the Caucasus.
09:18, 21 December, 2021
YEREVAN, DECEMBER 21, ARMENPRESS. The Office of the High Commissioner for Diaspora Affairs of Armenia is launching a Center for Integration of Repatriates to make the government support for repatriates more coordinated and broader.
“Repatriation is a very important strategic point for the government,” the head of the program in charge of setting up the center Margarita Baghdasaryan told ARMENPRESS.
“Now, when moving to Armenia repatriates face a number of issues relating to various issues, such as paperwork and general integration. Our office is dealing with these issues now as well. We have a dedicated department working with repatriates every day. We realized that this work ought to be done more coordinated and on a broader scale and we came up with the idea of creating the Center for Integration of Repatriates, the mission of which will include encouraging repatriation and helping the persons going through this process to receive support from the very beginning to the completion,” Baghdasaryan said.
Being a repatriate herself, Margarita Baghdasaryan returned to Armenia from the United States. She says she didn’t face any major issues because she was born in Armenia and was familiar with the environment, the traditions and public trends. But despite this, she experienced certain difficulties.
“It was difficult for me too, I had to understand how the healthcare system was working, there were issues with paperwork such as stamps in the passport or bureaucratic issues. Imagine the difficulties facing the repatriates who’ve never lived in Armenia before, who don’t have any friends or family here. We are trying to address all these issues in a coordinated manner,” she said.
The center will also digitize repatriation data to analyze the information.
Baghdasaryan says there are thousands of people who are considering repatriation to Armenia. “There is a lot of interest, and we don’t want to miss this. Now, there is a lot of interest from Lebanon, from Russia, France and the United States. Recently we started receiving inquiries from the Armenian community of Argentina.”
Preliminary timeframes of the center’s opening is in mid-2022.
13:07, 21 December, 2021
YEREVAN, DECEMBER 21, ARMENPRESS. “Muratsan” University Hospital has been equipped with the modern medical equipment: mobile X-ray machine, neonatal therapeutic hypothermia and artificial respiratory devices, neonatal intensive care unit (NICU), infant radiant warmer, electroencephalography monitoring system.
To enable the high level care and treatment of newborns in the pediatric intensive care unit of the hospital, benefactor Karen Vardanyan donated new 11 Japanese and European modern life-saving medical equipment.
The total budget of the program is 100 million drams.
[see video]