Author: Kalashian Nyrie

                                        Thursday, February 3, 2022
Baku Again Rejects Armenian Proposals On Border Demarcation
        • Artak Khulian
BELGIUM -- Azerbaijani Foreign minister Ceyhun Bayramov is seen at the start of 
a EU-Azerbaijan Cooperation Council at the European Council building in 
Brussels, December 18, 2020
Azerbaijan again rejected on Thursday Armenia’s conditions for demarcating the 
long border between the two states where deadly skirmishes break out on a 
regular basis.
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian 
pledged to set up a joint commission on border delimitation and demarcation 
during a trilateral meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin held in Sochi 
last November.
The Armenian government said last month that the commission should start its 
work after a set of confidence-building measures, notably the withdrawal of 
Armenian and Azerbaijani troops from their border posts.
Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov repeated on Thursday that Baku 
wants an unconditional start of the demarcation process and that the Armenian 
proposals are therefore unacceptable to it.
“Armenia, which occupied Azerbaijani lands for 30 years, does not have a legal, 
political or moral right to set any conditions for the border demarcation,” he 
said.
Official Yerevan did not immediately react to Bayramov’s remarks. Speaking with 
journalists earlier in the day, Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan confirmed that 
Baku objects to “measures which we believe would create security mechanisms on 
the border.”
“This is an ongoing process,” Mirzoyan said, downplaying the rebuff. “It’s not 
that we proposed something once and they rejected it. There have also been 
[Azerbaijani] proposals unacceptable to us.”
Responding to Bayramov’s earlier reaction to Yerevan’s “preconditions,” the 
Armenian Foreign Ministry said on January 20 that Aliyev and Pashinian agreed on 
the mutual troop withdrawal during their follow-up negotiations held in Brussels 
in December.
Russia regularly calls for a quick start of the demarcation process, saying that 
it would minimize ceasefire violations along the Armenian-Azerbaijani border. 
The process is due to be mediated and facilitated by Russian officials.
Two senior European diplomats discussed the matter with Aliyev and Pashinian 
when they visited Baku and Yerevan last month. Toivo Klaar, the European Union’s 
special representative to the South Caucasus, described the talks as “excellent.”
Armenian Hospitals Again Under Strain As Omicron Spreads Fast
        • Robert Zargarian
Armenia -- A medical worker takes notes at the Surp Grigor Lusarovich Medical 
Center in Yerevan, the country's largest hospital treating coronavirus patients, 
June 5, 2020.
Health authorities pledged on Thursday to again boost capacity at Armenia’s 
hospitals to cope with the latest surge in coronavirus cases driven by the 
Omicron variant.
The Ministry of Health reported in the morning a new single-day record for 
cases. It said that about half of some 9,600 coronavirus tests administered in 
the country of about 3 million in the past 24 hours came back positive.
The ministry recorded only between 100 and 150 infections a day before detecting 
the first Omicron cases in early January. The highly contagious variant of the 
virus has been rapidly spreading for the last two weeks.
Citing expert analysis, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian predicted that the daily 
number of cases will keep rising for at least one more week.
“We use certain algorithms and hope that the numbers will not exceed the 
forecast maximum,” he said during a cabinet meeting. “And we are now taking 
measures in order to properly confront that wave.”
“In line with a contingency plan, our [healthcare] system is resorting to yet 
another deployment of more hospital beds,” Health Minister Anahit Avanesian said 
for her part. “The system is now working in a tense regime to properly organize 
both preventive measures and medical aid to our population.”
Officials put the number of hospitalized COVID-19 patients at 1,543. More than 
83 percent of them are not vaccinated.
Roughly one-third of the country’s population has received two doses of a 
coronavirus vaccine to date. And only about 9,000 “booster” shots were 
administered as of January 30, according to the Ministry of Health.
“The vaccination rate is certainly very low, and we must take measures to 
increase it,” said Pashinian.
The government introduced on January 22 a mandatory health pass for entry to 
cultural and leisure venues. Only those people who have been vaccinated against 
COVID-19 or have had a recent negative test are allowed to visit them.
Some restaurant owners have criticized the measure, saying that the average 
number of their customers has fallen as a result.
President-In-Waiting Vows To Cooperate With Government
        • Astghik Bedevian
Armenia - High-Tech Industry Minister Vahagn Khachatrian attends a cabinet 
meeting in Yerevan, February 3, 2022.
The ruling Civil Contract party’s presidential candidate, High-Tech Industry 
Minister Vahagn Khachatrian, said on Thursday that he will try to avoid 
conflicts with the Armenian government if he is elected by the parliament.
Khachatrian told reporters that he will strive to “find solutions through 
dialogue and discussion,” rather than confrontation. He would not say whether he 
will stand up to Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian if necessary.
Civil Contract officially nominated Khachatrian for the vacant post on Wednesday 
ten days after former President Armen Sarkissian unexpectedly announced his 
resignation, complaining about his largely ceremonial powers. The ruling party 
controls enough parliament seats to install the 62-year-old economist as the 
next president of the republic.
Pashinian said on January 24 that the new president must be in sync with his 
administration. He said there was a lack of such “political harmony” about a 
year ago when the Armenian army top brass demanded his resignation, deepening a 
political crisis resulting from Armenia’s defeat in the 2020 war in 
Nagorno-Karabakh.
The premier seemed to refer to Sarkissian’s reluctance to quickly rubber-stamp 
his decision to fire the country’s top general.
Pashinian similarly said on Thursday that the president and the government must 
share a “common strategy” and avoid “opposite movements.”
“This doesn’t mean that everyone must have the same view on every issue,” he 
said. “It means arriving at common conclusions and opinions as a result of 
discussions.”
Khachatrian faulted the former president for not always finding common ground 
with the executive and legislative branches of Armenia’s government.
Opposition politicians and other critics of the government believe that 
Sarkissian was on the contrary too subservient to Pashinian during his nearly 
four-year presidency.
Pashinian Reports More Progress Towards Rail Link With Azerbaijan
        • Sargis Harutyunyan
Armenia - A disused railway leading to Azerbaijan's Nakhichevan region.
Armenia and Azerbaijan are “very close” to implementing their Russian-brokered 
agreement to open a rail link between the two South Caucasus states, Prime 
Minister Nikol Pashinian said on Thursday.
He confirmed that this was the main theme of talks held by Russia’s Deputy Prime 
Minister Alexei Overchuk and the head of Russian Railways (RZD) state monopoly, 
Oleg Belozerov, in Yerevan on Wednesday. They met with Armenian Deputy Prime 
Minister Mher Grigorian.
“We are very close to registering the first practical results of the trilateral 
[Russian-Armenian-Azerbaijani] working group on opening regional communication 
routes,” Pashinian said, commenting on the talks at the start of a weekly 
session of his cabinet.
“We are already discussing defining technical specifications and designing and 
financing [the project] and starting construction,” he added without going into 
details.
The planned 45-kilometer railway will connect Azerbaijan to its Nakhichevan 
exclave through Armenia’s Syunik province. The Armenian government set up last 
month a task force that will coordinate its construction, which is expected to 
cost about $200 million.
The head of the task force, Artashes Tumanian, was also present at Grigorian’s 
meeting with the visiting Russian officials.
Armenia - Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexei Overchuk at a meeting with 
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian, Yerevan, November 5, 2021.
“Yesterday’s meeting was very practical indeed,” Tumanian told Pashinian. “The 
Russian side presented its vision.”
Grigorian said, for his part, that the Armenian side will closely cooperate with 
Russian Railways in implementing the railway project. He argued that the Russian 
operator manages Armenia’s railway network, called the South Caucasus Railway 
(SRC), and has ample experience in railway construction.
It remained unclear when work on the Syunik railway will start. Nor did 
Pashinian and Grigorian say whether the construction will be financed by the 
Armenian government, Russian Railways or international donors.
Neither Grigorian’s office nor the SRC could be reached for comment.
Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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