Tuesday, Armenian Opposition Unimpressed With Moscow Summit • Naira Nalbandian • Narine Ghalechian RUSSIA -- Russian President Vladimir Putin, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian attend a joint press conference following a trilateral meeting at the Kremlin in Moscow, The two opposition parties represented in Armenia’s parliament claimed on Tuesday that Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian failed to achieve anything during his talks with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev hosted by Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday. They singled out Pashinian’s failure to secure the release of Armenian soldiers and civilians held by Azerbaijan two months after a ceasefire deal brokered by Putin stopped the war in Nagorno-Karabakh. Pashinian, Putin and Aliyev met in Moscow to discuss the deal’s implementation. In a joint statement issued after the meeting, they said their governments will set up a joint “working group” that will deal with practical modalities of restoring transport links between Armenia and Azerbaijan. The statement made no mention of the unconditional exchange of all prisoners also envisaged by the Russian-brokered deal. Pashinian confirmed that he and Aliyev did not reach any agreements on the issue. “The enemy’s agenda is being fully realized while the Armenian side’s is not,” said Edmon Marukian, the leader of the opposition Bright Armenia Party (LHK). “Why? Because the symbol of our defeat [Pashinian] continues to hold talks.” “Pashinian was taken to Moscow for doing only one thing: to sign up to the unblocking of transport routes and arteries vital for Azerbaijan,” agreed Naira Zohrabian of the Prosperous Armenia Party (BHK). Both Marukian and Zohrabian stressed that in the run-up to the Moscow summit Pashinian said that the release of the Armenian prisoners of war is essential for opening the Armenian-Azerbaijani border for commercial traffic. Armenia - Opposition leader Edmon Marukian speaks at a news conference, November 19, 2020. A senior member of the ruling My Step bloc, Ruben Rubinian, insisted that the joint statement issued by Aliyev, Putin and Pashinian is “beneficial for us” even though it makes no references to the POWs. He argued that the planned opening of the border will allow Armenia to have rail links with Iran and Russia. “The Russian president backed in principle the Armenian side’s position [on the POWs,]” Rubinian told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service. Pashinian thanked Putin for that support when they met separately in the Kremlin following Monday’s trilateral meeting. “This is the most sensitive and painful issue for us,” he said. Putin stated, for his part, that the summit was “useful” despite Aliyev’s and Pashinian’s failure to agree on the release of the Armenian captives. “I hope that there will be an agreement on all problems, including the issues of humanitarian character,” he told the Armenian premier. According to Yerevan-based human rights lawyers, more than 100 Armenian POWs and civilians remain in Azerbaijani captivity. They include 62 soldiers who were taken prisoner in early December when Azerbaijani forces seized the last two Armenian-controlled villages in Karabakh’s Hadrut district occupied by them during the six-week war. In a letter to United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres publicized last week, Azerbaijan’s Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov branded those soldiers as “saboteurs” and indicated the Azerbaijani authorities’ intention to prosecute them on relevant charges. The Armenian Foreign Ministry condemned Baku’s plans as a gross violation of international law and the Karabakh truce agreement. It accused the Azerbaijani side of “using Armenian prisoners of war as hostages to advance its political agenda.” Wartime Security Chief Also Slams Pashinian • Robert Zargarian Armenia - Mikael Hambardzumian, a senior official from the National Security Service, at a news conference in Yerevan, 27Nov2015. A former official who ran Armenia’s National Security Service (NSS) during the recent war in Nagorno-Karabakh has hit out at Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian, saying that he could have stopped hostilities three weeks before the ceasefire brokered by Russia on November 9. Mikael Hambardzumian was appointed as acting head of the NSS on October 8 eleven days after Azerbaijan launched offensive military operations in and around Karabakh. Pashinian replaced him by another senior NSS officer, Armen Abazian, one month later. In an interview with the Fifth Channel TV station aired late on Monday, Hambardzumian claimed that he himself decided to leave Armenia’s most powerful security service because of Pashinian’s handling of the war. He singled out the prime minister’s failure to accept a more favorable ceasefire agreement which was negotiated by Russian President Vladimir Putin on October 20. In November 17 televised remarks, Putin said that the Armenian side would have suffered fewer territorial losses and, in particular, retained control of the strategic Karabakh town of Shushi (Shusha) had Pashinian agreed to that deal accepted by Azerbaijan. He said he was taken aback by Pashinian’s stance. Pashinian explained afterwards that he rejected the proposed truce because it called for the return of Azerbaijani refugees to Shushi. He claimed that that too would have restored Azerbaijani control of the town overlooking the Karabakh capital Stepanakert. “I was informed about [Putin’s] proposals not by the prime minister but by my colleagues,” said Hambardzumian. “I obviously wondered why we are not taking that step and what keeps us from doing that. After all, it was the only real opportunity to stop the war and suffer fewer human and territorial losses.” According to Hambardzumian, during an October 19 meeting of Armenia’s Security Council the chief of the Armenian army’s General Staff, General Onik Gasparian, warned Pashinian that the Armenian side is heading for defeat and that the war must be stopped as soon as possible. He said then Defense Minister Davit Tonoyan echoed that warning. “Nevertheless, such a decision was not made [by Pashinian] after that,” added the former NSS chief. During the six-week war Azerbaijan recaptured four of the seven districts around Karabakh which had been occupied by Karabakh Armenian forces in the early 1990s. Baku agreed to stop its military operations on November 10 in return for an Armenian pledge to withdraw from the three other districts. The Armenian opposition has blamed Pashinian for the defeat and demanded his resignation. Opposition leaders have portrayed Putin’s revelation as further proof of the prime minister’s mishandling of the war that killed at least 3,300 Armenian soldiers. Hambardzumian added his voice to the opposition demands shortly after his sacking. He was also among two dozen retired NSS officers who issued in December a joint statement calling for Pashinian’s resignation. The prime minister has repeatedly refused to quit. Armenia Plans Limited COVID-19 Vaccination Poland -- A paramedic is vaccinated with the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus disease (COVID-19) vaccine at a hospital in Warsaw, December 27, 2020. The Armenian health authorities are planning to vaccinate only 10 percent of the country’s population against COVID-19, a senior government official said on Tuesday. Gayane Sahakian, the deputy director of the National Center for Disease Control and Prevention, also announced that Armenia will receive its first coronavirus vaccine doses before the second half of February. “We are planning to acquire vaccines for 10 percent of the population to carry out at first vaccinations of only high risk groups,” Sahakian told a news conference. “We are now holding negotiations on concrete time frames for their imports. We are confident that we will have the first imports by the end of January or the first half of February,” she said. Sahakian said the talks center on possible supplies of the Russian vaccine Sputnik V or three other certified vaccines that have been developed by the Western pharmaceutical companies Pfizer, Moderna and AstraZeneca. It is still not clear which of them will be chosen by the Armenian government, added the official. Sahakian announced in early December that the government has commissioned 600,000 doses of coronavirus vaccines from COVAX Facility, a global partnership backed by the World Health Organization. She said Armenian medical and social workers, seniors and people suffering from chronic diseases will be the first to get vaccine shots free of charge. Armenia -- Medics at the Surb Grigor Lusavorich Medical Center in Yerevan, Armenia's largest hospital treating COVID-19 patients, June 5, 2020. The official did not clarify on Tuesday whether the government’s supply contract with COVAX, worth $6 million, remains in force. Nor did she say if the health authorities could vaccinate a larger proportion of the population later this year. Armenia has been hit hard by the pandemic, with more than 162,000 coronavirus cases and at least 2,941 deaths caused by them reported by the authorities so far. The real number of cases is believed to be much higher. The daily number of new infections has fallen significantly since the beginning of November. The Armenian Ministry of Health reported on Tuesday morning that 355 more people have tested positive for COVID-19 in the past 24 hours, sharply down from more than 2,000 cases a day routinely recorded in late October and early November. Sahakian acknowledged that the country’s coronavirus numbers will likely rise again after the New Year’s and Christmas holidays and the reopening of schools. But she did not predict a serious resurgence of cases. Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL Copyright (c) 2021 Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, Inc. 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.