Category: 2020

                                        Tuesday, 
Azeri Drone ‘Shot Down In Karabakh’
Nagorno Karabakh -- An official photograph that purportedly shows the wreckage 
of an Azerbaijani military drone shot dow by the Karabakh Armenian army, 
September 25, 2019.
Nagorno-Karabakh’s Armenian-backed army claimed to have shot down an Azerbaijani 
military drone on Tuesday.
In a statement, the Defense Army said the Israeli-made drone was hit by one of 
its air-defense units early in the afternoon immediately after entering its 
airspace over a southern section of the Armenian-Azerbaijani “line of contact” 
around Karabakh. It promised to release photographs of the wreckage the unmanned 
aerial vehicle (UAV) “later on.”
The statement also said that Azerbaijani warplanes, combat helicopters and UAVs 
have carried out more frequent flights near the heavily fortified frontline of 
late. It claimed that Azerbaijani drones have also repeatedly attempted to cross 
into Armenian-controlled territory “for intelligence-gathering purposes” and 
urged Baku to avoid such “provocative steps.”
The Azerbaijani Defense Ministry did not immediately react to the claim.
An Israeli company, Aeronautics Defense Systems, manufactures several types of 
Orbiter UAVs, including light-weight systems designed for reconnaissance 
missions and heavier attack drones.
The Karabakh army did not specify which one of them it shot down. It had claimed 
to have destroyed an Orbiter 2 reconnaisance drone in September 2019.
According to Israeli media reports, Aeronautics was working on a potential $20 
million deal with Baku when Azerbaijani officials asked its specialists to 
demonstrate one of its “kamikaze” drones on a Karabakh Armenian army position in 
the summer of 2017. The reports said two Aeronautics employees refused to carry 
out the attack but higher-ranking executives of the company agreed to do so.
The scandal led Israeli authorities to suspend Aeronautics’ export license. But 
they lifted the ban on attack drone exports to Azerbaijan in January 2019. 
Aeronautics reportedly opened an office in Baku a few months later.
Government Vows To Repatriate More Armenians
        • Naira Nalbandian
Armenia -- Deputy Foreign Minister Avet Adonts gives a press conference in 
Yerevan.
The government will help to evacuate all Armenian nationals trying to return to 
Armenia due to the coronavirus pandemic, Deputy Foreign Minister Avet Adonts 
said on Tuesday.
“As of April 21, 1,283 citizens applied to our diplomatic missions abroad to 
return to Armenia,” Adonts told a news conference. “They are from different 
countries: the United States, Russia, Kazakhstan, Ukraine, European countries, 
Middle Eastern states and elsewhere.”
According to Adonts, about other 22,000 citizens have returned to Armenia since 
March 14. Some of them were repatriated on charter flights arranged and, in some 
cases, financed by the government.
About 1,000 Armenians were flown to Yerevan from Moscow and two other Russian 
cities on five such flights carried out by Russian airlines earlier this month. 
All of them were placed under a two-week quarantine on their arrival in the 
country.
Adonts thanked Russian-Armenian benefactors who paid for the tickets of most of 
those passengers, including women and young children, and offered free 
accommodation to other Armenians seeking repatriation.
He also said: “We have been spending quite large resources on ensuring their 
health safety after their return. I first and foremost mean the quarantine which 
is mandatory for everyone coming back to Armenia.”
Some 120 Armenians have been stuck at Moscow’s Domodedovo airport for the last 
several days, refusing temporary accommodation offers and hoping to catch the 
next emergency flight to Yerevan. Russian police forced them out of an airport 
terminal late on Monday.
Adonts urged the stranded citizens to abide by coronavirus-related restrictions 
imposed by Russian authorities and avoid gathering at the airport for now. The 
Armenian Foreign Ministry will try to evacuate them “in the coming days,” he 
said.
Foreign Minister Zohrab Mnatsakanian announced afterwards that 18 Armenian 
nationals are expected to arrive from the United Arab Emirates later on Tuesday.
Health Minister Urges More Efforts To Fight Coronavirus
        • Naira Bulghadarian
        • Karine Simonian
Armenia -- Healthcare workers are seen outside the Nork hospital in Yerevan 
which deals with most coronavirus cases in Armenia, March 20, 2020.
Health Minister Arsen Torosian called for “additional efforts” to slow the 
spread of coronavirus in Armenia on Tuesday after authorities reported the 
highest daily increase in infections in more than two weeks.
The Armenian Ministry of Health said in the morning that the number of 
coronavirus cases rose by 62, to 1,401, while 29 other persons recovered from 
COVID-19 in the past day. It also reported two more fatalities which raised the 
country’s death toll from the virus to 24.
Torosian said that official statistics for the last several days indicate a 
“steady” rate of new infections standing at 3-4 percent. “We also have 
approximately the same number of hospitalized people which varies from 700 to 
800,” he wrote on Facebook.
But the minister also said: “This means that we all must make additional efforts 
to lower the peace of the spread [of the disease] and have no right to relax and 
lose our vigilance.”
“Especially worrying are recent days’ cases [of infection] among healthcare 
workers at medical centers in Yerevan and regions,” he added. “The use of 
personal protective equipment is far more important for healthcare workers than 
for other citizens.”
Armenia -- Health Minister Arsen Torosian at a news conference in Yerevan, March 
26, 2020.
Hasmik Ghazinian, a senior doctor at Yerevan’s Nork hospital treating only 
COVID-19 patients, complained that many Armenians are not following social 
distancing rules or wearing masks or gloves when leaving their homes. She warned 
of a surge in infections in the days ahead.
“Our doctors, medical personnel are acting heroically on the frontline [of the 
fight against coronavirus,] … but the rear (other citizens) does not seem to be 
safeguarding the achievements of the frontline workers,” Ghazinian told RFE/RL’s 
Armenian service.
“I think the reason for this is that people are not taking [the epidemic] 
seriously and believe that it’s based on false information,” said Giorgi 
Kantaria, a doctor from the Surp Grigor Lusavorich hospital who is currently 
treating about 100 infected people quarantined at a Yerevan hotel.
“I want to assure them that it’s real and their help is also necessary,” said 
Kantaria. “Doctors’ help is not enough.”
Such appeals fell on deaf ears in the northern city of Vanadzor where more than 
2,000 employees of a local textile factory defied a government to return to 
their workplaces on Tuesday one month after being put on unpaid leave. Police 
officers fined several of them but had to leave the Gloria company’s premises 
after being confronted by hundreds of mostly female workers.
Armenia -- Gloria factory owner Bagrat Darbinian (L) argues with a police 
officer, Vanadzor, .
The angry women said they want the factory to immediately resume its work 
because they are no longer able to support themselves and their families. They 
claimed that they have not received financial assistance allocated by the 
Armenian government to tens of thousands of people hit hard by economic 
disruptions resulting from the epidemic.
Gloria’s owner, Bagrat Darbinian, insisted, for his part, that he did not tell 
his workers to report for work in the absence of a government permission.
The government ordered the closure of most nonessential business in the country 
as part of a nationwide lockdown imposed on March 24. It allowed some of them, 
notably construction firms, to resume their work on April 13. The permission is 
supposedly conditional on their compliance with coronavirus-related safety rules
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian announced last week plans to also reopen other 
sectors of the Armenian economy, including the textile industry, on April 20. 
However, the government appears to have delayed that decision at least until 
next week.
Armenian Church Rejects Fresh Criticism From Pashinian
Armenia - Catholicos Garegin II (C) celebrates a Christmas mass at the 
Echmiadzin cathedral of the Armenian Apostolic Church, 6 January 2015.
The Armenian Apostolic Church rebutted on Tuesday a scathing attack on its top 
clergymen launched by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian.
Pashinian on Monday listed the church among those groups -- including the former 
ruling regime, “oligarchs,” many media outlets and “some Diaspora structures” -- 
who he said are upset with his government. He claimed that the government’s 
policies are causing “very serious disappointment” among the clergy because they 
are exposing a “lack of spiritual life in Armenia.”
Pashinian also accused the church of frequently meddling in politics and 
hatching “political intrigues” instead of engaging in “activity stemming from 
the Bible and its ideology.”
The Echmiadzin-based office of the church’s supreme head, Catholicos Garegin II, 
responded by saying that it disagrees with Pashinian’s “evaluations.” But it 
said that it will not comment on them further now that the country is about to 
mark the 105th anniversary of the Armenian genocide in Ottoman Turkey.
A statement released by the Mother See of Holy Echmiadzin also cited Garegin as 
calling on all Armenians to “steer clear of discord and speculations” and 
instead ask the genocide victims for “intercession” for the sake of “overcoming 
existing challenges in national life.”
Armenia - Catholicos Garegin II meets with the Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian in 
the Mother See of Holy Echmiadzin, November 14, 2018
Tension between the ancient church and Pashinian’s political team rose 
dramatically last week after Garegin called for the release on health grounds of 
the jailed former President Robert Kocharian. The latter is standing trial on 
coup and corruption charges rejected by him as politically motivated.
Garegin said on April 14 that Kocharian and other criminal suspects “not posing 
a threat to the society” should be set free for now because they risk being 
infected with coronavirus in prison.
The remarks prompted angry reactions from Pashinian’s political allies and 
supporters. Some of them, notably deputy parliament speaker Alen Simonian, 
demanded Garegin’s resignation. Simonian also accused the Catholicos of putting 
pressure on courts.
On April 15, the National Security Service (NSS) said that it has brought fraud 
and money laundering charges against Archbishop Navasard Kchoyan, the 
controversial head of the church’s largest diocese encompassing Yerevan and 
southern Ararat province. Kchoyan denied the charges.
The Mother See urged government officials and media to respect Kchoyan’s 
presumption of innocence. It also described as “bewildering” the fact that the 
NSS announced the indictment one day after Garegin urged Kocharian’s release.
Several senior clergymen pushed back against the harsh criticism in the 
following days, accusing government loyalists of being disrespectful towards a 
religious institution to which the vast majority of Armenians nominally belong. 
They were backed by conservative groups, some mainstream opposition figures and 
other critics of the current government.
Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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