On April 1, Nikol Pashinyan, the Prime Minister of Armenia, arrived in the Russian Federation for a working visit. He was welcomed at Moscow’s Vnukovo Airport by Mikhail Galuzin, the Deputy Foreign Minister of Russia. During his visit, a meeting was held at the Kremlin between Prime Minister Pashinyan and Vladimir Putin, the President of the Russian Federation.
President Vladimir Putin welcomed Pashinyan, noting the ongoing internal political processes in Armenia ahead of the upcoming elections. “The main thing is that these internal political processes… should not harm our relations between Russia and Armenia in any way,” Putin stated. He emphasized the historical and civilizational ties between the two countries and affirmed that Russia’s policies will always consider the interests of the Armenian people.
Putin also discussed economic relations, noting that trade turnover between the two countries totaled $6.4 billion in 2025, with agricultural exports such as vegetables, fruits, and wine accounting for $1.2 billion. He contrasted this with Armenia’s trade with Azerbaijan, which stood at $4.9 billion, highlighting the significance of Russia-Armenia economic cooperation. Key sectors, including energy and agriculture, were identified as priorities for further collaboration.
Regarding Armenia’s relations with the European Union, Putin emphasized that membership in both the EU and the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) is economically incompatible. He noted differences in standards, such as phytosanitary regulations, and stressed that cooperation with the EU requires long-term alignment efforts. On energy, he pointed out that Europe pays over $600 per 1,000 cubic meters of gas, while Russia supplies Armenia at $177.5, emphasizing the strategic advantage of this arrangement.
Putin addressed security issues, particularly concerning Karabakh, reiterating that Armenia recognized the region as part of Azerbaijan in 2022 and that CSTO intervention during the process was inappropriate. He credited Pashinyan and the Azerbaijani leadership for stabilizing the situation, noting that transport routes are being reopened. Putin also underscored the presence of over two million Armenians in Russia and highlighted the importance of their political participation during Armenian elections.
In response, Prime Minister Pashinyan expressed gratitude for the invitation and the warm reception. He described Armenia-Russia relations as “deep and dynamically developing” and noted that peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan has strengthened ties, including reopening railway connections through Azerbaijan. Pashinyan emphasized transparency in energy projects, including cooperation on new energy technologies and a potential nuclear power plant. He also acknowledged Russia’s role in facilitating the normalization of Armenia-Azerbaijan relations and praised Putin’s support throughout the process.
On domestic political matters, Pashinyan highlighted Armenia’s democratic processes, including municipal and parliamentary elections, and confirmed that only Armenian passport holders are eligible to participate. He expressed confidence that the upcoming elections will further strengthen democracy and bilateral relations with Russia.
On the same day, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexey Overchuk addressed reports of a possible transfer of the Russian concession for Armenia’s railways to Kazakhstan. Speaking to Vesti, he confirmed that Moscow had not been directly consulted on the issue. “No one is discussing the transfer of the concession with the Russian Federation… We only know about it from our colleagues in other countries,” Overchuk stated.
He also commented on Russian business sentiment toward Armenia, noting that discussions about EU accession have led to caution among Russian investors. “We’ve fallen from $12 billion to $6.4 billion in trade turnover for 2025… the talk about the European Union has caused Armenia and Russia to lose more than $5 billion combined,” Overchuk emphasized.
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Poland’s public broadcaster launches Armenian-language news service in respon
Telewizja Polska (TVP), Poland’s public broadcaster, has launched VT Hayastan News, a news service for audiences in Armenia and the Armenian community abroad, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Poland announced.
“It aims to present political, social, and economic events from the European perspective as well as strengthen Armenia’s cooperation with the European Union, particularly with Poland. The project’s mission is also to increase the public’s resilience to manipulation and information interference, and to counter disinformation targeting Armenia and its partners,” Poland’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
The Armenian language news service has been set up as part of TVP’s International Media Centre financed from public funds at the disposal of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Poland.
This is the next stage in the development of a multilingual news service intended for audiences in the Eastern Partnership countries, the ministry said.
“The launch of the service marks an expansion of VT (formerly “Vot Tak”), which, following the addition of a Romanian-language programming for Moldova in February 2026, now broadcasts content in three languages. The VT Hayastan News team is composed of Armenian journalists including Razmik Martirosyan, Harutyun Voskanyan, and Nune Gevorgian, who also represents the large Armenian diaspora. TVP’s International Media Centre expands its offering into other languages in response to the growing information pressure on the countries which cooperate with the EU under the Eastern Partnership. Next language projects are underway,” it added.
The programming will be aired on the Belsat channel, from Monday to Friday, and made available on YouTube and Facebook.
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Armenian Government Uncovers Large-Scale Import and Shadow Circulation of 113
Upon arrival at Zvartnots International Airport, the individuals were detained based on reasonable suspicion of committing a crime under the Criminal Code. They were subsequently taken to the SRC’s Investigation and Intelligence Department and formally arrested.
Additionally, investigative measures revealed that a number of individuals had repeatedly imported cash amounts ranging from 18 million to 100 million Russian rubles into Armenia.
It was determined that the imported cash was being directly supplied to certain currency exchange offices operating in Yerevan, indicating potential involvement in shadow financial circulation.
Armenian Ambassador to U.S., FCC Chairman discuss countering hybrid threats
Armenia’s Ambassador to the United States, Narek Mkrtchyan, held a meeting with Brendan Carr, Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).
During the meeting, a number of priorities in the fields of communications and security were discussed, particularly in the context of hybrid threats, countering disinformation, and related issues, the embassy said in a readout.
Ambassador Mkrtchyan emphasized the FCC’s expertise in these areas and highlighted the need for cooperation, taking into account Armenia’s potential in this sector and the priorities set for infrastructure and technological development.Opportunities for exchanging best practices in communications, conducting sectoral visits, and institutionalizing cooperation were also considered.
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Sports: Regis Le Bris hails Finn Geragusian after Armenia senior call-up
Regis Le Bris hails Finn Geragusian after Armenia senior call-up
Regis Le Bris has hailed Finn Geragusian after the Sunderland teenager received his first senior Armenia call-up.
According to Sunderland Echo, the 18-year-old forward, yet to debut for the first team, has been named in Yegishe Melikyan’s squad for friendlies against the United Arab Emirates and Belarus after standout form for the U18s and U21s.
Geragusian called the invitation an unbelievable and proud moment for him and his family, and said he looks forward to learning from new coaches and team-mates to add different attributes to his game.
Melikyan said the call is to assess him at senior level and weigh his future with the national team. He praised Geragusian’s qualities and fit, but stressed he is very young, has not played senior football and is not yet ready for Armenia.
He added the camp should ease the transition and give his development a push. With a shortage in the attacking line, he is exploring every option and is not very satisfied with the current strikers.
At club level, Geragusian travelled with the first team for FA Cup ties at Oxford United and Port Vale earlier this year, and was named on the bench for the latter. Le Bris said he is pleased with the youngster’s recent progress.
The head coach highlighted strong training impressions, noting his character, physicality and competitiveness in duels, first contacts and second balls. He views the striker as well rounded, while emphasising that experience and further improvement are still required.
This season he has 13 goals and three assists in 27 appearances across U18 and U21 competitions, and in Premier League 2 he has three goals and two assists from 10 games.
Source: Sunderland Echo
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The director of Sevan Medical Center embezzled more than 2 million drams through a fake employee
According to the criminal proceedings initiated as a result of the operative-investigative measures carried out by the RA Anti-Corruption Committee, it was proved that the director of the “Sevan Medical Center” PB company, using his official powers, committed theft of large amounts of property entrusted to him, as well as forged a document as part of the group.
In particular, it was found that the director of the above-mentioned medical center hired his close person in 2022, who, however, did not attend work at all and did not perform his work duties from the mentioned period until November 2024.
The preliminary investigation also proved that the director, with the prior agreement with the employee of the same medical center, made a false document regarding the above-mentioned person’s attendance at work, as a result of which an additional amount of AMD 2,238,745 was paid as salary from the budget of the medical center.
The director of the MC was charged under the 2nd and 3rd points of part 2 of article 256 and part 2 of article 457 of the RA Criminal Code. The ban on absence and the suspension of office were applied to him as a preventive measure. A close person of the director and an employee of the MC were charged under the 2nd and 3rd points of the 2nd part of the RA Criminal Code, Article 46-256.
During the preliminary investigation, the damage of AMD 2,238,745 caused to the state was fully recovered.
The preliminary investigation in the criminal proceedings has been completed, and the materials of the proceedings have been sent to the RA Anti-Corruption Court with an indictment.
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Asbarez: Right to Return, Right to Know, Right to Reparations
Dr. Kevork Hagopjian speaks remotely to a UN panel on Mar. 17
BY DR. KEVORK HAGOPJIAN, ESQ.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Dr. Kevork Hagopjian, Esq. made a presentation on March 17 at a United Nations panel entitled “From Displacement to Justice: Strengthening Protection, Rights and Recovery for Conflict-Affected Women and Girls.” Speaking on behalf of the Armenian Legal Center for Justice and Human Rights, Hagopjian highlighted the plight of Artsakh women who were forcibly displaced in 2023.
Below is Dr. Hagopjian’s presentation
A Legal Crisis in Plain Sight
Distinguished panelists, honored delegates,
Imagine waking up one morning to find that the legal architecture meant to protect you — international humanitarian law, CEDAW, the Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement or refugees — exists in full, on paper. And yet you are homeless. Your husband is a prisoner of war in a foreign country. You do not know whether he is alive. Your house has been destroyed, your land confiscated, and there is no court for redress.
This is not a hypothetical. This is the lived legal reality of tens of thousands of indigenous Armenian women from Nagorno-Karabakh — Artsakh — who were displaced, forcibly displaced, in September 2023. More than 150,000 ethnic Armenians fled within days. More than half of them were women and girls.
The Armenian Legal Center for Justice and Human Rights — ALC — pursues accountability for victims of this conflict through international legal mechanisms. Today I want to speak from that legal vantage point: not only to describe suffering, but to name the specific legal obligations being violated, with precise figures, and to argue that this Commission must treat access to justice not as an aspiration, but as an enforceable standard.
Three Rights, Three Failures — With Numbers
The CSW70 priority theme asks us to eliminate structural barriers to justice. Allow me to name three structural failures where international law is clear, obligations are binding, and the gap between law and reality is measurable.
The Right to Know — Missing Persons and Enforced Disappearance
Under the Geneva Conventions and their Additional Protocols, all parties to an armed conflict have a binding legal duty to search for missing persons, provide information about their fate and whereabouts, and facilitate the return of remains. When states fail this obligation, the families of missing persons — overwhelmingly mothers, wives, and daughters — suffer a continuing violation of their own rights: to family life, to be free from cruel treatment, and to an effective remedy.
Here are the numbers behind that legal failure:
429 persons still missing from the 2020 war and subsequent hostilities — ICRC tracing requests, 2020–2023
195 additional missing from the September 2023 offensive alone — International Commission on Missing Persons, September 2024
777 missing from the first Karabakh war — still unresolved after three decades — ICMP Armenia report, September 2024
That is more than 1,400 people whose fate is unknown to their families across the two Karabakh wars and the 2023 displacement. Behind each number is a mother, a wife, a daughter waiting — in some cases for thirty years. This is not a bureaucratic gap. It is a continuing legal violation, recognized as such under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the jurisprudence of the ECHR, and CEDAW General Recommendation 30.
ALC, together with partner organizations, has submitted cases before the UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances and engaged the ECHR precisely because the right to know is not a political courtesy — it is a justiciable right. When legal channels fall silent, women bear the burden alone.
POWs, Detainees, and the Weaponization of Legal Categories
International humanitarian law is clear: prisoners of war must be treated humanely, granted family contact, monitored by neutral actors, and repatriated after active hostilities. These are not aspirational standards — they are binding obligations under the Third Geneva Convention.
What has happened in practice is a systematic legal reclassification that transforms these protections into bargaining chips. Consider the trajectory of acknowledged detainees:
72 Armenians acknowledged in custody — ECHR/Committee of Ministers notification, March 2021
23 acknowledged in custody — four years later — ECHR update request, October 2025
19 confirmed held today, after the January 2026 release — post-swap baseline, January–February 2026
These declining numbers might appear to indicate progress. They do not. They reflect a deliberate legal strategy: from February 2021 onward, Azerbaijani officials publicly claimed there were “no POWs left” — reclassifying remaining Armenian detainees as criminal suspects. Criminal cases were opened against more than sixty Armenian POWs and civilians, with short and sham trials, heavy sentences, and releases tied explicitly to negotiations rather than to legal standards.
Critically for this panel: the ICRC ended its physical presence in Azerbaijan in September 2025. The one organization with a mandate to conduct confidential detention monitoring — to be the neutral actor guaranteed by IHL — is no longer there. Families of the 19 confirmed remaining detainees now have no independent monitor, no confidential channel, no eyes inside those facilities. This is the worst possible moment for the international community to look away.
The Right to Return and Reparations — Justice as a Matter of Geography
The right of displaced persons to voluntary, safe and dignified return is enshrined in the Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement and in CEDAW General Recommendation 32 on gender-responsive approaches to displacement. Housing, land and property restitution is a core component of reparations under the UN Basic Principles on the Right to a Remedy.
For Artsakh women displaced to Armenia and third countries, none of these rights have a functional mechanism attached to them. There is no restitution process, no property claims body, no international monitor with physical access to the territory.
There is also the dimension of torture and secondary victimization that the UN Committee Against Torture shadow report of March 2024 places squarely on the table: families described as ‘secondary victims,’ harmed by public humiliation videos, uncertainty, and threats. The report documents abuse from capture through transport to closed detention. Impunity for perpetrators — in some cases, their glorification — is itself a form of ongoing harm to women who wait for information.
From Documentation to Adjudication: What ALC Does
The ALC’s work proceeds from a conviction that international legal mechanisms — imperfect as they are — remain essential tools for communities who have no army, no territory, and no state resources to compel accountability. Let me describe three dimensions of our work directly relevant to this panel.
Documentation as a Legal Foundation
Legal accountability begins with evidence. ALC conducts systematic documentation of violations committed against indigenous Armenians across the 2020 war, the 2022–2023 blockade, and the September 2023 displacement. Our documentation includes survivor testimony, open-source intelligence, satellite imagery, and forensic methods recognized by international tribunals.
Trauma-informed documentation that centers the experience of women survivors is not a methodological preference — it is a legal imperative, recognized by the ICC Policy on the Crime of Genocide and its framework for gender-based crimes.
Strategic Litigation — International and Regional Courts
ALC has been engaged in supporting ECHR proceedings on behalf of Armenian POWs, civilian detainees, and displaced persons. The ECHR’s Rule 39 interim measures framework has been invoked repeatedly to seek information about detainees’ fate and to demand safeguards — because without that pressure, ‘acknowledged’ numbers would be even harder to obtain.
The UN System — Advocacy and Treaty Body Engagement
ALC engages with Universal Periodic Review submissions, Special Procedures communications, and treaty body reviews. We submitted to the UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances, highlighting how video evidence of captives in custody can coexist with official denial of their detention — a perverse but legally significant dynamic.
We have called for the CEDAW Committee to exercise its inquiry procedure under Article 8 of the Optional Protocol where there is evidence of grave or systematic violations. The Special Rapporteur on IDPs, the Working Group on Disappearances, and the Special Rapporteur on Torture all have active mandates with direct application to what is described in this room. Their engagement is not optional — it is required.
Four Calls to This Commission
This Commission has the opportunity — and the responsibility — to produce agreed conclusions that close specific accountability gaps. On behalf of ALC, we urge the following:
First: Name POW families and families of the missing explicitly.
The agreed conclusions must recognize that women who are family members of missing persons, POWs & hostages, and disappeared individuals suffer distinct, continuing violations. With over 1,400 persons missing across the Karabakh conflicts and 19 confirmed hostages still held — with no independent monitor present since ICRC’s departure in September 2025 — this Commission cannot afford generic language. States must be called upon to implement IHL obligations on missing persons and detainees as legal duties, not as political choices.
Second: Condemn the weaponization of legal categories.
The practice of reclassifying POWs and hostages as criminal suspects to extend detention and extract political concessions must be named as a violation of IHL and international human rights law. The agreed conclusions should affirm that domestic criminal proceedings cannot substitute for compliance with POW repatriation obligations under the Third Geneva Convention.
Third: Integrate the right to return into gender-responsive justice frameworks.
Displaced women’s access to justice requires legal recognition of housing, land and property rights that are independent of documentation gaps caused by the displacement itself. The agreed conclusions should call for accessible, gender-sensitive property claims mechanisms and for international support for legal aid to displaced populations.
Fourth: Address the monitoring vacuum and Call for the immediate and unconditional Release of POWs and Hostages.
The ICRC’s departure from Azerbaijan in September 2025 creates a dangerous monitoring gap. This Commission should call on states to facilitate the immediate restoration of independent detention monitoring — and on the relevant state to grant the ICRC and other neutral actors unobstructed access, as required under IHL. No monitoring means no protection. What would be even more important is to call for the immediate and unconditional release of all remaining POWs and hostages.
Justice Is Not Patience
“States are not permitted to remain passive in the face of the suffering of victims of serious violations of international law.” — Inter-American Court of Human Rights, Velásquez Rodríguez
The women of Artsakh did not choose displacement. They did not choose to have their husbands taken as prisoners of war and hostages, their names entered into a missing persons database, their properties confiscated, their right to return suspended indefinitely in the corridors of geopolitics. They chose to survive. And survival, when the legal system functions as it should, is the beginning of a claim — not the end of one.
Today, 19 men remain confirmed in Azerbaijani custody — several with life sentences handed down just weeks ago. More than 1,400 families do not know the fate of their loved ones. There is no functioning restitution mechanism for the property lost by 150,000 displaced Armenians. And the one neutral body mandated to monitor detention has been absent since September 2025.
These are not abstract legal failures. They are the daily reality of women in Armenia and in diaspora communities around the world — women who come to organizations like ours not because they believe in the perfection of international law, but because they believe that the alternative to accountability is silence, and silence is what perpetrators prefer.
ALC will continue to file cases, submit reports, document violations, and argue before every available forum until these obligations are met. We ask this Commission to share that commitment — in the agreed conclusions, in the follow-through, and in the political will to treat women’s access to justice as a non-negotiable foundation of the international order this institution was created to defend.
The women of Artsakh are here. Their cases are filed. The law is on their side. What they need is for this Commission to be on their side too.
Thank you.
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RFE/RL – Pashinian Accused Of ‘Blackmailing’ Voters Ahead Of Elections
Armenia’s parliamentary opposition has accused Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian of attempting to influence voters ahead of upcoming parliamentary elections by invoking the threat of war.
Speaking in parliament on Tuesday, opposition lawmakers described as “blackmail” recent statements by Pashinian that Armenia could face another “disastrous” war “very soon” unless his ruling Civil Contract party secures a strong majority in the June 7 vote.
“This is already a crime,” said Artsvik Minasian of the Hayastan faction. “It is a threat designed to influence people’s will, which is prohibited and is a criminally punishable act.”
Minasian called on Armenia’s prosecutor-general to open an investigation into what he described as actions undermining the country’s sovereignty. He argued that invoking the possibility of war amounts to coercion of voters.
“The free _expression_ of the will is one of the important elements of democracy,” Minasian said. “When he [Pashinian] challenges the will of the people by invoking a probable war, that is, with possible violence, he is already committing a crime against sovereignty.”
Another opposition lawmaker, Taguhi Tovmasian from the Pativ Unem faction, also condemned what she described as intimidation of voters. She said the issue should draw attention not only within Armenia but also from international organizations.
“If we were a truly democratic country, and the Central Election Commission of Armenia weren’t a subsidiary of the ruling party, but a truly independent body, it would already have been established that there is an act of violence against the will of the citizens of Armenia,” Tovmasian said. She characterized the alleged pressure as a form of blackmail.
Tovmasian said that while past electoral fraud involved ballot stuffing, the government is now influencing voters through warnings of renewed conflict. She called on international bodies to register what she described as violations of voters’ free choice.
Pashinian and his allies have rejected the criticism, saying they are making political statements that reflect what they see as realistic risks facing Armenia if opposition forces come to power.
In a live video broadcast on Sunday, Pashinian said he had previously been criticized for failing to inform the public about the real situation before the 2020 war and suggested he was now doing exactly what his opponents once faulted him for not doing.
The prime minister has accused his opponents of planning to revise the current peace with Azerbaijan if they win the elections. He specifically named political forces associated with former President Robert Kocharian, Russian-Armenian businessman Samvel Karapetian, and businessman Gagik Tsarukian.
“I want to say this very directly that [if they win] it will be a war with the loss of not only territory but also sovereignty of the Republic of Armenia,” Pashinian said last week.
Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan also warned in parliament of the risk of war if the ruling party is not reelected, citing what he described as territorial claims toward neighboring countries advocated by opposition parties.
Minasian rejected that assertion, saying the opposition is instead focused on securing international guarantees for the “safe and dignified” return of Armenians to Nagorno-Karabakh.
The Armenian government has not raised the issue of the return of more than 100,000 ethnic Armenians who fled Nagorno-Karabakh following Azerbaijan’s military recapture of the region in 2023. Pashinian has said that doing so could hinder the current peace agenda and has urged Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev not to raise the issue of ethnic Azeris who left Armenia amid tensions at the start of the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict in the late 1980s.
Opposition leaders also say they support peace but argue it should include clear security guarantees from major international actors. They have criticized the peace deal initialed by Armenia and Azerbaijan in Washington last year for lacking such guarantees.
Pashinian has dismissed those concerns, maintaining that Armenia’s primary security guarantee lies in its internationally recognized “legitimate” borders, with diplomacy and military strength serving as supporting factors.
He has also warned against trying to renegotiate the deal, arguing that any such attempt will inevitably lead to a new war.
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Armenia and Türkiye discuss university scholarships amid dynamic dialogue
Armenia and Türkiye are discussing the possibility of establishing scholarships for students from both countries at their universities amid the ongoing dynamic dialogue, Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan told lawmakers on Monday.
Speaking at the Parliamentary Committee on Foreign Affairs during a briefing on the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ 2025 report, Mirzoyan said that Armenia and Türkiye currently maintain a fairly “dynamic, active, and promising” dialogue.
Mirzoyan recalled that there are already clear agreements between Yerevan and Ankara, and both countries are moving forward with their implementation.
“Currently, the parties are even discussing the possibility of establishing scholarships for each other’s students at universities in both countries,” Mirzoyan said.
He added that numerous meetings and interactions have taken place between Armenian and Turkish officials during 2025, which indicates a dynamically progressing dialogue between the two states.
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DO NOT play on the fear of our mothers. Arman Tatoyan
March: 20, 2026
Arman Tatoyan, head of the “Wings of Unity” political initiative, writes. “Nikol Pashinyan is playing on the fear of mothers. I understand and respect the fear of our mothers. Armenian mothers have the right to be afraid.
That is why I say what I see. Nikol Pashinyan uses the fear of our mothers as an election tool.
But he does it not to protect mothers, not for the sake of our 18-19-year-old youth, but for his own reproduction. These are different things.
In fact, the real security threat exists, and its real source is not [only] the change of the prime minister, but the lack of legal guarantees, the unfulfilled decisions of international courts, the failure to follow them, as well as the agreements kept secret from one’s own citizens.
I have recorded the same thing for years as a human rights defender. fear is used to inhibit decision-making. This is not a personal, but a systemic problem.
Security is not one person and that one person’s rule. They are international mechanisms, treaties, parliamentary control, etc.
Armenia is a member of the UN International Court of Justice. The court decision is a document. I know how it works and how to get it done, but today it’s not happening.
The Armenian people do not deserve threats, but explanations. And not promises, but reasonable solutions that we will give.
We will give both explanations and solutions, not fears, but faith, relying on common sense, law, international mechanisms and the support of our friends.”
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