Tuesday, Armenian Government Cuts Major Reproductive Health Program . Narine Ghalechian Armenia - Inside the Erebuni hospital in Yerevan Couples with infertility in Armenia will not be able to benefit from a major state-funded reproductive health program next year after the government has excluded it from the 2018 state budget, casting doubts on its cost efficiency. Artificial fertility is an expensive medical treatment and procedure that most families in Armenia cannot afford. In 2015, the government decided to help couples who cannot conceive a child otherwise by covering the costs of the treatment. Initially, 35 couples were chosen as beneficiaries of the program and 50 million drams (over $100,000) were earmarked to finance it. Speaking during budget discussions in the National Assembly last week, Health Minister Levon Altunian suggested that on the average 12 million drams (some $25,000) were spent for one child that was eventually born under that program. "We have numerous other programs that are more effective for infertility treatment and these programs are now being considered," the minister said. Another reason for the suspension of the program, according to the official, is difficulties in objectively assessing the couples that really need it. "As soon as we can apply some principles of an objective approach, we will think about restarting this program," Altunian promised. In response to an RFE/RL Armenian Service inquiry the Armenian Ministry of Health said that in the period of 2016-2017, eight children were born under the state-assisted program of artificial fertilization. Another woman who has benefited from the program is currently pregnant. Data received from three Yerevan hospitals involved in the program shows, however, that during the same period 37 children were born under the program in question. A 38-year-old woman from Tavush in northeastern Armenia is one of the beneficiaries of the program. The woman who asked RFE/RL not to disclose her name five months ago gave birth to a child conceived through an extracorporeal fertilization technique. She says before that she spent years for treatment during which she had to frequently travel capital Yerevan. She says her family could not afford artificial fertilization and so she turned to a relevant state program that covered the costs. "After receiving the treatment I went through an extracorporeal fertilization procedure and now we have a baby," she says. In one of his recent policy speeches Armenian President Serzh Sarkisian called for an increase in the country's population from the current 3 million to 4 million people by 2040. According to opposition lawmaker Nikol Pashinian, cutting finances for programs like artificial fertilization does not contribute to the cause. "Instead of cutting this spending, the government should quadruple it," he said during recent budget discussions in parliament. Healthcare manager Arsen Torosian considers it a disaster that drastic spending cuts are planned for the sector in next year's state budget. "The entire state budget will be reduced by 14 billion drams (about $29 million), of which a 5.9-billion-dram cut is foreseen for the healthcare sector alone. It's like healthcare is an orphan," he commented. Armenia Supports Continued Talks On Karabakh Settlement . Sargis Harutyunyan Armenia - Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Armenian Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian during a joint press conference in Yerevan, 21Nov, 2017 Despite Azerbaijan's unconstructive position, negotiations on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict settlement should be continued, Armenian Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian said during a joint press conference with his visiting Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov in Yerevan on Tuesday. "Armenia is willing to continue with the Co-Chairs, in a constructive manner, meetings at the level of foreign ministers and presidents," Nalbandian stressed following talks with Lavrov in the Armenian capital. "We have never refused to meet at the level of ministers or presidents," he added. Lavrov arrived in Yerevan on Monday for talks with Nalbandian and Armenian President Serzh Sarkisian focused on bilateral relations as well as the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict settlement. The top Russian diplomat visited Baku on November 19-20 where he also discussed the conflict settlement with the Azerbaijani leadership. Speaking in Yerevan, Lavrov reiterated that all elements of the settlement are on the table. "There are all elements for a resolution of this problem. These elements are summarized in numerous documents that since 2007, 2009 and 2011 have been deposited with the OSCE secretary general. Thus they are fixed as the co-chairs' proposals, they are still fully on the table and the only thing that I would like to underline, like I did in Baku, is that these elements have been formed into one package and it is very difficult to take one, two or three of them and say: let's come to an agreement based on them. Because in that case their balancing elements will be left out and there will be no result that all of us expect," Lavrov said. According to the Russian foreign minister, it is important that the presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan spoke positively about their last month's meeting in Geneva, Switzerland, organized by the OSCE Minsk Group that Russia chairs jointly with the United States and France. "It is very important that this positive attitude should help us move forward in essence. The co-chairs are engaged in this. We, along with Washington and Paris, will analyze where we have reached, will try to make some active efforts to reach a settlement," Lavrov said. "I won't be too optimistic, it's a challenging task, and the whole experience of our negotiations comes to prove that they will not end quickly," the top Russian diplomat concluded. Armenia/Russia - Armenian President Serzh Sarkisian receives Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, Yerevan,21Nov,2017 Later on Tuesday Lavrov was received by Armenian President Serzh Sarkisian. According to the press service of the Armenian president, the meeting focused on bilateral relations that Sarkisian described as "genuinely allied". Lavrov also reportedly praised the current level of Russian-Armenian relations and briefed Sarkisian on his talks with Armenian Foreign Minister Nalbandian during which, he said, they "reviewed all directions of our alliance and strategic partnership." Opposition Member Installed As First Deputy Mayor In Vanadzor After Power-Sharing Deal . Nare Stepanian Armenia - Arkady Peleshian, newly elected First Deputy Mayor of Vanadzor, 21Nov, 2017 An opposition party representative has been elected first deputy mayor of Vanadzor after his faction struck a controversial deal with the ruling Republican Party of Armenia (HHK) to end a stymie in the work of a local municipal council boycotted by its majority opposition groups. Following an offer from Vanadzor mayor Mamikon Aslanian representing the HHK, the leader of the five-member faction of the Armenian Revival party Arkady Peleshian agreed to sign a cooperation deal to share "responsibility for the work" of the city's legislature. The move changed the balance of forces in the 33-seat municipal council of Armenia's third largest city in favor of the HHK and its junior coalition partner, Dashnaktsutyun, which together with Armenian Revival unanimously elected Peleshian first deputy mayor with 20 votes. As a result of the October 2016 elections in Vanadzor the HHK and Dashnaktsutyun were a minority in the legislature, but they managed to install their candidate Aslanian as mayor of Vanadzor despite the agreement among three opposition parties, Bright Armenia, Prosperous Armenia and Armenian Revival, to have another candidate elected. Aslanian then received 19 council votes cast in secret ballot, meaning that four opposition councilors secretly broke the ranks amid allegations of pressure put on the opposition parties. Since that ballot all 18 opposition councilors have been boycotting sessions of the Vanadzor legislature. But despite the lack of quorum, the 15 other, pro-government councilors have held sessions of the council and adopted decisions on its behalf since March. The Vanadzor municipality has insisted that those decisions are valid, citing an article of Armenia's Law on Local Government. By its November 10 ruling Armenia's Constitutional Court, however, backed the opposition claim that the article is unconstitutional and effectively gave until March 31, 2018 to redress the situation. Edmon Marukian, an opposition lawmaker and leader of the Bright Armenia party, said the only way to comply with the Court's ruling was holding new elections in the city, since the Court has effectively recognized that the municipal council has not functioned for as long as a year. The opposition Yelk alliance in the Armenian parliament, of which Marukian is a senior member, on Monday called on the central government to terminate the powers of the Vanadzor municipal council and appoint early elections. "Now, in fact, the government will show how far it respects the decision of the Constitutional Court," he said. Pashinian called the deal reached between the pro-government forces in the Vanadzor municipal council and Armenian Revival "an ineffective attempt to revive a dead body." He also claimed that the signing of the deal has exposed the force that ensured an HHK candidate's victory in Vanadzor's controversial mayoral election in October 2016. Armenian Revival denies breaking ranks in the vote a year ago. Meanwhile, HHK parliamentary faction leader Vahram Baghdasarian said on Monday that there is no need to turn to the government over the situation in Vanadzor. He expressed an opinion that sessions of the city's municipal council were held in accordance with the law. "It is another question that [the Constitutional Court ruling] mentions a contradiction between the Law on Local Government and the Constitution. By March 31, this law should be brought in conformity with the Constitution," he said, stressing that he sees no reasons for holding pre-term elections in Vanadzor. Armenian Ruling Party Rebuffs Russian Propagandist TV Channel . Ruzanna Stepanian Armenia - Eduard Sharmazanov, a spokesman for the ruling Republican Party of Armenia, giving a news conference in Yerevan against the background of HHK banners, 15Feb2017. Armenia's ruling party has dismissed as "ridiculous and ignorant" a claim made by a Russian propagandist television channel that accused the South Caucasus nation's government elites of glorifying Nazism. Zvezda TV, which is known to be the propagandist arm of Russia's Ministry of Defense, last week aired a program in which it, in particular, compared the logo of the Republican Party of Armenia's (HHK) to the emblem of the Third Reich and Armenian military commander and thinker Garegin Nzhdeh, whose ideology the HHK espouses, to World War II-era Ukrainian nationalist leader Stepan Bandera, claiming that "Armenia's ruling elites glorify Nazi collaborators." The program, in particular, referred to the fact that a statue to Nzhdeh was recently unveiled in the center of the Armenian capital, Yerevan. "Garegin Nzhdeh is one of the greatest heroes of the Armenian nation and monuments to him should be erected not only in Yerevan, but also in different parts of Armenia," HHK spokesman Eduard Sharmazanov, who is also a deputy speaker of the Armenian parliament, told RFE/RL's Armenian Service (Azatutyun.am) on Tuesday. "Armenia is a sovereign country and will decide itself whose monuments to erect," Sharmazanov added. Sharmazanov described comparisons of the HHK's logo to a Nazi emblem as "ridiculous and political blind", at the same time downplaying the fact that Zvezda is a television channel patronized by the Russian Ministry of Defense. Armenia already heard serious allegations related to Nzhdeh from official Moscow shortly after a monument to Nzhdeh was inaugurated in Yerevan in May 2016 in a ceremony attended by President Serzh Sarkisian and other senior officials affiliated with the ruling party. "We cannot understand why that statue was placed," Zakharova said then, stressing that the Russian government is strongly opposed to "any revival, glorification or other manifestations of Nazism, neo-Nazism and extremism." Armenia - The statue of Garegin Nzhdeh in Yerevan Born in the Russian Empire in 1886, Nzhdeh was one of the prominent military leaders of a short-lived independent Armenian republic formed in 1918. In 1920, he mounted armed resistance against the republic's takeover by Bolshevik Russia in Zangezur, a mountainous region in what is now southeastern Armenia. Nzhdeh and his supporters ended the resistance and fled to neighboring Persia in July 1921 after receiving assurances that the region will not be incorporated into Soviet Azerbaijan. Nzhdeh was one of several exiled Armenian leaders who pledged allegiance to Nazi Germany in 1942 with the stated aim of saving Soviet Armenia from a possible Turkish invasion after what they expected to be a Soviet defeat by the Third Reich. Nzhdeh surrendered to advancing Red Army divisions in Bulgaria in 1944 after reportedly offering Josef Stalin to mobilize Armenians for a Soviet assault on Turkey. In 1948, a Soviet court sentenced him to 25 years in prison on charges that mainly stemmed from his "counterrevolutionary" activities in 1920-1921. Nzhdeh was rehabilitated in Armenia after the republic's last Communist government was removed from power in 1990. He is widely credited with preserving Armenian control over Zangezur. He is also revered by many Armenians as the founder of a new brand of Armenian nationalism that emerged in the 1930s. The HHK has espoused Nzhdeh's Tseghakron ideology, which puts the emphasis on armed self-defense and self-reliance, ever since it was set up in the early 1990s. The HHK's current coalition partner, the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (Dashnaktsutyun), which is one of the oldest Armenian political parties, also espouses Nzhdeh's teachings. Senior HHK figures rejected the Russian criticism back in 2016, downplaying Nzhdeh's collaboration with Nazi Germany and insisting that he is an Armenian national hero. The Russian Foreign Ministry later softened its stance on the matter, with its spokesperson Zakharova saying that the Armenian authorities' decision to place Garegin Nzhdeh's statue in the center of Yerevan was "Armenia's internal affair." In lambasting "certain ruling elites" in Armenia, Russia's Zvezda TV specifically pointed to a new accord that Armenia plans to sign with the European Union at the Eastern Partnership Summit in Brussels on November 24. HHK spokesman Sharmazanov has refused to be drawn on whether the kind of program on Russian TV may indicate some dissatisfaction existing among the Russian leadership regarding Yerevan's planned deal with the EU. Officials in Armenia have repeatedly stated that their relations with Brussels do not affect Yerevan's allied relations with Moscow or jeopardize the South Caucasus nation's membership in the Russian-led trade bloc. Later on Tuesday Sharmazanov said that Zvezda TV had sent an official letter to the Armenian side admitting that "incorrect statements were made" in its program. Press Review Armenian newspapers focus on the visit of Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to Baku and Yerevan. "Zhamanak" comments on Lavrov's statements made in the Azerbaijani capital ahead of his visit to Armenia: "In Baku Lavrov made a number of remarkable and significant statements, saying that in the Karabakh settlement issue Moscow has the same position as Washington and Paris. In practical terms this means that Russia tells Azerbaijan to have no expectations. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan talked about this earlier when after returning from his talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Sochi he told reporters that he had raised the issue of [Azerbaijan] regaining five districts [surrounding Nagorno-Karabakh], but the Russian president, while agreeing with this option, did not express a hope that it was possible." "Haykakan Zhamanak" considers Lavrov's visit to Armenia in the context of Yerevan's upcoming signing of a new accord with the European Union. "On November 14, [Armenian President] Serzh Sarkisian was on a visit to Moscow where he held a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin. According to experts, the visit could be connected with the planned signing of a new EU-Armenia accord and Sarkisian was to understand Russia's attitude towards this circumstance. It is difficult to say what Putin said to Sarkisian, but a repeat of the 2013 about-face has not taken place yet# Three days before the planned signing, however, pressure on Armenia is growing as Russia's foreign minister is visiting Yerevan." Talking to "168 Zham", Russian political analyst Vadim Dubnov insists that Russia and its allies in the Eurasian Economic Union do not consider the expected EU-Armenia accord to be a challenge like it was in 2013 when Armenia was going to initial an association agreement with the EU of a totally different quality. (Tigran Avetisian) Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL Copyright (c) 2017 Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, Inc. 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036. www.rferl.org