Category: 2021

 10:19,

YEREVAN, DECEMBER 16, ARMENPRESS. President of Cyprus Nicos Anastasiades has expressed his country’s unconditional support to Armenia during the meeting with Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan in Brussels on the sidelines of the Eastern Partnership Summit.

“I had a friendly meeting with Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, expressing the unconditional support of Cyprus to Armenia and the Armenian people. Our countries have close relations, in which the role of the Armenian community of Cyprus is undeniable”, the Cypriot President said on Twitter.

The officials also discussed the further development of the cooperation between Armenia and Cyprus in political, economic and humanitarian spheres.

 11:07,

YEREVAN, DECEMBER 15, ARMENPRESS. 180 new cases of COVID-19 have been confirmed in Armenia in the past 24 hours, bringing the total number of confirmed cases to 343,157, the ministry of healthcare reports.

7571 COVID-19 tests were conducted on December 15.

470 patients have recovered in one day. The total number of recoveries has reached 327,029.

The death toll has risen to 7874 (18 death cases have been registered in the past one day).

The number of active cases is 6767.

 11:33,

YEREVAN, DECEMBER 16, ARMENPRESS. During the Brussels meeting, the Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev reaffirmed the agreement and decision on constructing the Yeraskh-Julfa-Ordubad-Meghri-Horadiz railway.

Speaking at the December 16 Cabinet meeting, the Armenian Prime Minister said that this agreement was reached as a result of the discussions of the trilateral (Armenia, Russia, Azerbaijan) task force dealing with the opening of regional connections.

PM Pashinyan reminded that the agreement was recorded in the November 26 Sochi meeting mediated by Russian President Vladimir Putin, and that this was recorded during the Brussels meeting mediated by the President of the European Council Charles Michel.

“I am underscoring that the railway will function in accordance to internationally accepted border and customs regulations on reciprocal principle, under the sovereignty and jurisdiction of the countries. With this railway Armenia will receive access to the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Russian Federation, while Azerbaijan will receive railway access to Nakhijevan,” Prime Minister Pashinyan said.

Pashinyan highlighted that if Armenia succeeds in starting some dialogue with Turkey and if the opening of border and connections is successfully achieved then this project could become more major, reminding the Yeraskh-Gyumri-Kars railway.

“Of course, before the construction itself there’s a lot to be done, to develop, announce tenders, to reach agreements. Of course, a part of this work is already done, but now we must solve this objective with practical and daily work. Certainly, we will hold narrow-format consultations in the next days to further specify our ideas, the timeframes and the roadmap. Our intention and desire is to have this railway as soon as possible. I wouldn’t want to overestimate the importance of this agreement and project, but on the other hand I don’t want to underestimate it: this is an important agreement, which, I certainly hope we will implement accurately, and which will significantly change the region’s economic, investment, political and security environment, and we must soon focus on solving this issue as well,” Pashinyan said.

 11:34,

YEREVAN, DECEMBER 16, ARMENPRESS. Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev have agreed to continue the contacts.

“An agreement has been reached with the President of Azerbaijan to continue the contacts on our agenda issues, by trying to form and formulate common views and approaches. In other words, to agree over and overcome the disagreements that exist”, the Armenian PM said at the Cabinet meeting today.

Pashinyan and Aliyev met in Brussels on December 14 at the mediation of the President of the European Council Charles Michel on the sidelines of the Eastern Partnership Summit. Another meeting was held also on December 15 at the initiative of French President Emmanuel Macron.

 12:00,

YEREVAN, DECEMBER 16, ARMENPRESS. The Armenian Parliament convened an extraordinary meeting today at the initiative of the government.

13 issues are on the agenda of the session.

The lawmakers will debate the bills on making changes and amendments to the Law on General Education, the Representative of Armenia to the European Court of Human Rights, the Civil Code, etc.

 12:04,

YEREVAN, DECEMBER 16, ARMENPRESS. President Armen Sarkissian held a meeting today with Ambassador of the People’s Republic of China to Armenia Fan Yong, the Presidential Office reports.

The Armenian President and the Chinese Ambassador exchanged ideas about the agenda of the bilateral relations, the prospective cooperation directions and the opportunities of deepening the partnership in different fields.

Regional security and stability-related issues were also touched upon.

 12:54,

YEREVAN, DECEMBER 16, ARMENPRESS. Minister of Economy Vahan Kerobyan revealed estimated costs of the construction of the Yeraskh-Julfa-Ordubad-Meghri-Horadiz railway.

Speaking to reporters after the Cabinet meeting, he said that some nuances must be taken into account, ranging from the timeframes up to the specific parts where the railway will be constructed.

“I know that very little money is required for repairing the passing from Armenia to Iran near Yeraskh. It’s just about a few hundred meters of renovation here. The second more major investment is the restoration of the railway in Meghri, which is rather costly because the past railway has been entirely dismantled and turned into a automobile road. I think we don’t have a concrete project here and we don’t have an approximate estimate. I think the issue can be solved for around 200 million dollars. While the construction of the railway from the Armenian border to Horadiz will require more major investments. The investments here are greater, it will take more than a billion dollars,” Kerobyan said.

 13:00,

YEREVAN, DECEMBER 16, ARMENPRESS. The government is very concerned by the current level of inflation in Armenia and is trying to find tools to curb it, Minister of Economy Vahan Kerobyan told reporters after the Cabinet meeting today.

“Both in the domestic market and with the partners of the Eurasian Economic Union we are trying to find tools in order to be able to curb inflation. The EAEU has set privileged customs tariff quotas for certain goods, and it will allow the inflation to be restrained in case of these products”, the minister.

He informed that the works continue with the Central Bank and the Competition Protection Commission in order to curb inflation with the use of existing tools.

“I would like to state that we have a real economic growth this year, which is much higher than expected, and this allows to say that our citizens live better even under such a high inflation than one or two years ago”, the minister said.

American-Armenian lawyer Anna Astvatsaturian Turcotte elected Westbrook City Council president

 13:26,

YEREVAN, DECEMBER 16, ARMENPRESS. The Westbrook City Council made local history last week in unanimously selecting American-Armenian writer, lawyer, lecturer and human rights advocate Anna Astvatsaturian Turcotte as its president, the first refugee and by all accounts the first woman to fill that role, Portland Press Herald reports.

“As a council, we had decided we wanted a woman. We wanted someone to represent those constituents who haven’t had that representation. I look forward to being the facilitator of the discussions,” she said. “One of my major goals is to work more closely with the schools on budgets, so we aren’t surprised when we see it.”

A lawyer specializing in international law, Turcotte has long been involved in advocacy work around her birth city of Baku, Azerbaijan. Turcotte’s Armenian family fled Azerbaijan when she was a child because of attacks on Armenians there. The family spent three years in Armenia before moving to the United States.

After graduating from the University of Maine School of Law in 2003, Turcotte worked as a clerk at the International Criminal Court in the Netherlands. In 2012, she published “Nowhere, the Story of Exile,” a collection of her diary entries as a child fleeing from her homes.

Her political career in Maine began to take shape in 2013 when she successfully worked to get the Legislature to officially recognize the Artsakh Republic.

 13:47,

YEREVAN, DECEMBER 16, ARMENPRESS. President of Armenia Armen Sarkissian sent a congratulatory letter to President of Kazakhstan Kassym-Jomart Tokayev on the 30th anniversary of independence, the Armenian President’s Office said.

“During the years of independence Kazakhstan has registered a significant progress in political and socio-economic sectors, by ensuring the growth of the welfare of citizens.

The cooperation between Yerevan and Nur-Sultan has a big potential for further expansion. Armenia highly appreciates your significant contribution to the development of the cooperation between the two countries.

I am convinced that the Armenian-Kazakh inter-state relations will continue to develop in accordance with the long-term traditions of mutual support and friendship between the two peoples”, the letter reads.