Tuesday, October 5, 2021
Lithuania Donates More Coronavirus Vaccines To Armenia
• Marine Khachatrian
A vial labeled "Moderna coronavirus disease (COVID-19) vaccine" placed on
displayed Moderna logo, March 24, 2021.
Armenia received on Tuesday another batch of coronavirus vaccines donated to it
by Lithuania.
The 50,000 doses of the Spikevax jab manufactured by the U.S. company Moderna
were delivered to Yerevan’s Zvartnots airport and handed over to the Armenian
Ministry of Health. The ministry thanked the Lithuanian government in a
statement that announcement the shipment.
The Baltic state already provided 25,000 doses of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine
to Armenia in early September.
The Moderna shots donated by it are the first American vaccines that will be
used in Armenia. Gayane Sahakian, the deputy director of the Armenian Center for
Disease Control and Prevention, said they will be distributed to all policlinics
and other vaccination centers across the country and made available the
population by the end of this week.
Armenians have until now been inoculated with vaccines developed by Russia,
China as well as Oxford University and the Anglo-Swedish company Astra Zeneca.
Health Minister Anahit Avanesian said in July that Armenia will receive this
fall 50,000 doses of Johnson & Johnson’s single-dose vaccine and 300,000 doses
of the Novavax jab. Shortly afterwards the Armenian government allocated funds
for the purchase of 300,000 doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine. None of those
vaccines have been imported yet, however.
“We will have Pfizer vaccines, but I don’t know when,” Sahakian told RFE/RL’s
Armenian Service.
According to the Ministry of Health, just over 517,000 vaccine shots were
administered in the country of about 3 million as of October 4. Only about
165,000 of its residents were fully vaccinated.
The government has taken administrative measures to try to accelerate the slow
pace of its immunization campaign launched in April. A recent directive signed
by Avanesian obligates virtually all public and private sector employees
refusing vaccination to take coronavirus tests twice a month at their own
expense. The requirement took effect on October 1.
The daily number of officially confirmed coronavirus cases in Armenia has slowly
but steadily increased since June. The Ministry of Health reported on Tuesday
morning 891 new cases and 24 coronavirus-related deaths.
Opposition Lawmaker Challenges Travel Ban
• Marine Khachatrian
Armenian - Armen Gevorgian, a former senior aide to ex-President Robert
Kocharian, speaks to journalists in a court building in Yerevan, January 29,
2019.
A senior opposition lawmaker standing trial on what he sees as politically
motivated charges on Tuesday again asked a court in Yerevan to allow him to
attend sessions of the Council of Europe’s Parliamentary Assembly (PACE) in
Strasbourg.
Armen Gevorgian is the sole full-fledged opposition member of the Armenian
parliament’s delegation in the PACE. He is affiliated with the Hayastan alliance
led by former President Robert Kocharian.
Kocharian and Gevorgian face bribery charges, strongly denied by them, in an
ongoing trial that began more than two years ago. They both were banned from
leaving Armenia without the court’s permission.
Anna Danibekian, the judge presiding over the trial, refused last month to let
Gevorgian participate in the PACE’s autumn session held on September 27-30. Two
other opposition lawmakers, who have the status of “substitutes” in the 8-member
delegation in the Strasbourg-based assembly, boycotted the session out of
solidarity with him.
During the latest court hearing on the high-profile case, Gevorgian’s lawyer,
Lusine Sahakian, petitioned Danibekian to lift the travel ban, saying that it is
unjustified. The trial prosecutors objected to the request.
The judge did not grant it while leaving open the possibility of allowing
Gevorgian to travel abroad later on. She said she will consider such permissions
on a case-by-case basis.
Gevorgian, 48, is also the chairman of the Armenian parliament’s standing
committee on “regional and Eurasian integration.” He was an influential aide to
Kocharian when the latter ruled the country from 1998-2008. Gevorgian also
served as deputy prime minister from 2008-2014 in the administration of then
President Serzh Sarkisian.
Earlier in September, Danibekian refused to allow Kocharian to visit Moscow at
the invitation of Russia’s ruling party. Hayastan condemned her decision, saying
that it was made under strong government pressure.
The judge had repeatedly given Kocharian permission to travel to Moscow before
the June 20 parliamentary elections in which the ex-president’s bloc finished
second.
Iran Offers To Help Armenia Build Bypass Roads
• Naira Nalbandian
An Azerbaijani checkpoint set up at on the main road conneting Armeia to Iran,
September 14, 2021
Iran is ready to help Armenia build highways connecting the two neighboring
states and bypassing Azerbaijani-controlled territory, a senior Iranian
government official said during a visit to Yerevan on Tuesday.
Deputy Minister of Roads and Urban Development Kheirollah Khademi said Armenian
roads leading to the Iranian border are of strategic importance to his country.
An official Iranian delegation headed by him arrived in Yerevan on Monday amid
continuing disruptions in cargo traffic between Armenia and Iran resulting from
an Azerbaijani roadblock set up on September 12 on the main highway connecting
them.
Khademi said the purpose of the trip is to discuss with Armenian officials the
transport hurdles and the ongoing reconstruction of an alternative road which
also passes through Armenia’s Syunik province bordering Iran and Azerbaijan.
“We are negotiating with the Armenian side so that cargo and passenger traffic
through that road gets on track as soon as possible,” he told the YouTube
channel Armenia-Iran Friendship.
“We are ready to assist Armenia in the construction of the new road,” he said.
“Iran is ready to share its technical and engineering capacity with Armenia.”
The Islamic Republic, Khademi went on, can also provide similar support for the
Armenian government’s plans to build or refurbish other Syunik roads leading to
the Iranian border.
“Armenia is also building the North-South highway which starts from the Iranian
borders and stretches to the Georgian border … We are ready to cooperate with
Armenia on that as well. Iran has extensive experience in road construction, and
our contractors are ready to share their experience with Armenia,” he said.
Armenia -- A road in the Syunik province, September 3, 2018.
The official Iranian IRNA news agency reported that Khademi’s delegation will
explore in Armenia Iran’s possible involvement in the bypass road construction.
It said the Syunik roads also connect the Islamic Republic with Russia and
Europe.
The delegation flew to Yerevan as the Armenian and Iranian foreign ministers met
in Tehran for talks that focused on transport issues. Echoing statements by
other Armenian officials, Foreign Minister Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan
assured his Iranian counterpart Hossein Amir-Abdollahian that work on the
alternative Syunik road will be completed before the end of this year.
Azerbaijan gained control over a 21-kilometer section of the existing main
Armenia-Iran highway last December following an Armenian troop withdrawal from
border areas along Syunik. Azerbaijani officers deployed there began taxing on
September 12 Iranian trucks delivering goods to and from Armenia. Many truck
drivers have refused to pay the “road tax” reportedly worth $130 per trip.
Tensions between Tehran and Baku have risen since then, with the Iranian
military starting large-scale exercises along the Islamic Republic’s border with
Azerbaijan last week. Iranian officials have accused Baku of harboring Middle
Eastern “terrorists” as well as Israeli security personnel in the area.
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev denied the accusations on Monday.
Earlier on Monday, a senior Iranian parliamentarian reportedly accused Aliyev of
trying to “cut Iran’s access to Armenia” with the help of Turkey and Israel.
Iran already offered to help Armenia upgrade its strategic highways in Syunik
months before the latest crisis. The two governments set up this summer a joint
working group tasked with looking into Iranian companies’ possible participation
in the multimillion-dollar transport projects planned by Yerevan.
Armenian Opposition Demands Parliament Debate On Azeri Roadblock
• Anush Mkrtchian
Armenia - Anna Grigorian, a Syunik-based deputy from the opposition Hayastan
bloc, speaks at a session of the National Assembly, Yerevan, October 5, 2021.
Opposition lawmakers continued to push on Tuesday for an urgent session of the
Armenian parliament on serious disruptions in Armenia’s trade with neighboring
Iran resulting from a roadblock set up by Azerbaijan last month.
The opposition Hayastan and Pativ Unem blocs demanded such a discussion
immediately after Azerbaijani authorities began levying hefty duties from
Iranian vehicles passing through an Azerbaijani-controlled section of the main
highway connecting Armenia and Iran.
Parliament speaker Alen Simonian accepted the demand, saying that Armenia’s
defense minister, National Security Service (NSS) and other officials will soon
brief the National Assembly on Yerevan’s response to Baku’s actions. The
discussion has still not taken place, however.
Representatives of the two parliamentary opposition forces reminded the
pro-government majority of Simonian’s promise as the parliament was about to
discuss other matters on Tuesday morning. They said transport links with Iran
are vital for Armenia’s national security.
Deputy speaker Ruben Rubinian, who presided over the session, countered that
Simonian is currently visiting Russia and urged the opposition to wait until he
returns to Armenia.
Opposition deputies again condemned Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s government
for handing over a 21-kilometer section of the highway passing through Armenia’s
southeastern Syunik province to Azerbaijan shortly after a Russian-brokered
ceasefire stopped the war in Nagorno-Karabakh last November.
Pashinian said at the time that the road section is located on the Azerbaijani
side of Armenia’s Soviet-era border with Azerbaijan, a claim disputed by his
political opponents. He has also claimed that Armenia’s former leaders
challenging him now themselves recognized that border with a law enacted in 2010.
The Azerbaijani roadblock and its resulting negative impact on cargo traffic
between Armenia and Iran was high on the agenda of talks held by the foreign
ministers of the two states in Tehran on Monday.
Armenia’s Ararat Mirzoyan briefed his Iranian counterpart Hossein
Amir-Abdollahian on the ongoing reconstruction of an alternative road in Syunik
that will allow Iranian trucks to bypass the Azerbaijani checkpoint. He said it
will be completed soon.
Amir-Abdollahian seemed satisfied with these assurances when he spoke at a joint
news briefing held after the talks.
Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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