Author: Mary Lazarian

                                        Friday, 
Opposition Alliance Vows More Efforts To Topple Pashinian
        • Satenik Kaghzvantsian
ARMENIA - Opposition demonstrators react while listening to a speaker during a 
rally to pressure Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan to resign in Yerevan, 
December 22, 2020
Opposition leaders promised on Friday more efforts to force Prime Minister Nikol 
Pashinian to resign as they began touring Armenia’s regions in a bid to drum up 
greater support for their campaign.
The two leaders representing a coalition of more than a dozen opposition parties 
met hundreds of supporters in Gyumri at the start of the tour. They admitted 
that protests staged by their Homeland Salvation Front following the 
Russian-brokered ceasefire in Nagorno-Karabakh failed to attract large crowds.
“I thought that that there are one million people in Yerevan and they all will 
take to the streets because they were humiliated, but people were so depressed 
and aggrieved … I know many people who cry at home but don’t bother to come out. 
We have a lot to do about that,” said Vazgen Manukian, a veteran politician who 
has been nominated by the opposition alliance to serve as a caretaker prime 
minister.
“Many people sitting at home are urging us to act more resolutely,” complained 
Ishkhan Saghatelian of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (Dashnaktsutyun), a 
key member of the alliance.
“People must take to the streets, organize themselves and oust this government. 
There is no other option,” he said, adding that the alliance will also keep 
pressing pro-government lawmakers to stop supporting Pashinian.
Armenia - Opposition leaders Vazgen Manukian and Ishkhan Saghatelian meet with 
supporters in Gyumri, .
“That Nikol will leave is a fact … He won’t avoid that. The question is when he 
will do that,” claimed Saghatelian.
The parties making up the alliance as well as other opposition groups hold 
Pashinian responsible for Armenia’s defeat in the recent war in Karabakh and 
want him to hand over power to an interim government that would hold snap 
parliamentary elections by the end of this year.
The prime minister has rejected the opposition demands backed by President Armen 
Sarkissian. He has dismissed the street protests against his rule as an “elite 
revolt” not backed by most Armenians.
A group of Pashinian supporters blocked a highway outside Gyumri in a bid to bar 
Manukian, Saghatelian and other opposition figures from entering Armenia’s 
second largest city. Police intervened to unblock the road.
Manukian, who had served as the country’s prime minister and defense minister in 
the early 1990s, labeled the protesters as “tramps” hired by Pashinian’s My Step 
bloc for cash.
Russian Security Council Discusses Armenian-Azeri Summit
Russia -- Russian President Vladimir Putin holds a video conference with members 
of Russia's Security Council, .
President Vladimir Putin on Friday discussed with Russia’s top government and 
security officials the latest talks between the leaders of Armenia and 
Azerbaijan which he hosted earlier this week.
The Kremlin said Putin briefed members of his Security Council on the results of 
the January 11 talks held two months after he brokered a ceasefire agreement 
that stopped the war in Nagorno-Karabakh.
“Pressing issues of the Russian state’s internal and foreign policies were also 
discussed,” it added in a short statement.
The statement gave no other details of Putin’s video conference with Russia’s 
Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin, defense, foreign and interior ministers, other 
top security officials and the speakers of both houses of the Russian parliament.
Putin, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian and Azerbaijani President Ilham 
Aliyev announced after their trilateral meeting that their governments will set 
up a joint “working group” that will deal with practical modalities of restoring 
transport links between Armenia and Azerbaijan. The Russian leader said that 
“will benefit both the Armenian and Azerbaijani peoples and the region as a 
whole.”
Pashinian and Aliyev failed to reach agreement on the release of more than a 
hundred Armenian prisoners of war and civilians remaining in Azerbaijani 
captivity. Yerevan says that Baku’s reluctance to free them runs counter to the 
truce accord brokered by Putin and calls into question the planned reopening of 
the Armenian-Azerbaijani border for commerce.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and his Azerbaijani counterpart Jeyhun 
Bayramov discussed the issue in a phone call on Friday. Lavrov spoke with 
Armenian Foreign Minister Ara Ayvazian by phone on Wednesday.
Another Provincial Governor Resigns
        • Satenik Kaghzvantsian
Armenia -- Tigran Petrosian, the newly appointed governor of Shirak region, 
holds a news conference in Gyumri, February 7, 2019
The governor of Armenia’s northwestern Shirak province, Tigran Petrosian, 
tendered his resignation on Friday after almost two years in office.
Petrosian gave no reasons for the move. Officials in the provincial 
administration said he will not comment before the resignation is accepted by 
the Armenian government.
Petrosian, 41, has governed Shirak since February 2019. He is not affiliated 
with any political party.
The government replaced three other provincial governors following a 
Russian-brokered Armenian-Azerbaijani agreement that stopped the war in 
Nagorno-Karabakh on November 10. Two of them are senior members of Prime 
Minister Nikol Pashinian’s Civil Contract party who were told to resign.
The third, non-partisan governor, Hunan Poghosian, appeared to have quit at his 
own initiative. Poghosian ran southeastern Syunik province directly affected by 
the war.
The Armenian side’s defeat in the war sparked opposition protests and growing 
calls for Pashinian’s resignation. The prime minister has refused to step down, 
pledging instead to reshuffle his cabinet and offering to hold snap 
parliamentary elections. He replaced six government ministers in late November 
and early December.
Parliament Panel To Probe Government’s Response To COVID-19
ARMENIA -- A woman wearing a face mask walks is seen against the backdrop of the 
main government building in Yerevan, June 2, 2020.
The pro-government majority in the National Assembly has given the green light 
to a parliamentary inquiry into the Armenian government’s response to the 
coronavirus pandemic demanded by the opposition.
The two parliamentary opposition parties, Prosperous Armenia (BHK) and Bright 
Armenia (LHK), called for such an inquiry in June as they accused the government 
of mishandling the coronavirus crisis.
Senior lawmakers representing Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s My Step bloc 
initially opposed the move, defending the authorities’ response to the pandemic. 
But they reluctantly agreed afterwards to the creation of an ad hoc 
parliamentary commission tasked with assessing the effectiveness of government 
efforts to contain the spread of COVID-19.
Arkadi Khachatrian, a senior LHK parliamentarian, announced late on Thursday 
that parliament speaker Ararat Mirzoyan has formally approved the commission’s 
composition and thus paved the way for the start of its activities.
“The date and time of the first meeting of the investigative commission will be 
announced in the coming days,” Khachatrian wrote on Facebook.
Although the commission will be headed by Khachatrian, eight of its twelve 
members have been appointed by My Step. Khachatrian expressed hope that its 
findings will be “objective and comprehensive” and will answer all “questions 
preoccupying the public.”
Armenia has been hit hard by the pandemic, with nearly 164,000 coronavirus cases 
officially confirmed in the country of about 3 million so far. The real number 
of cases is believed to be much higher.
The Armenian Ministry of Health reported on Friday that 11 more people have died 
from COVID-19 in the past 24 hours, bringing the official death toll to 2,974. 
The figure does not include the deaths of 726 other Armenians infected with the 
virus. According to the ministry, they were primarily caused by other diseases.
The authorities largely stopped fining people and businesses to enforce their 
anti-epidemic rules following the September 27 outbreak of the war in 
Nagorno-Karabakh. The daily number of new COVID-19 infections reported by them 
grew rapidly as a result. But it has fallen significantly since mid-November.
Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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