Wednesday, December 1, 2021
Russian, Armenian, Azeri Officials Hold More Talks On Transport Links
• Aza Babayan
Russia -- A Russian-Armenian-Azerbaijani working group on cross-border transport
issues meets in Moscow, January 30, 2021.
Senior Russian, Armenian and Azerbaijani officials were meeting in Moscow on
Wednesday to try to hammer out final details of an anticipated agreement on
restoring transport links between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
The meeting began less than a week after the leaders of the three states held
talks in another Russian city, Sochi. They reported further progress towards
opening the Armenian-Azerbaijani border to passenger and cargo traffic.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said a trilateral working group dealing with
the matter will meet in Moscow in the coming days to announce “decisions which
we agreed today.” He did not elaborate.
The session of the group co-headed by deputy prime ministers of Russia, Armenia
and Azerbaijan began in the afternoon and was still not over late in the evening.
“I cannot give at this point details of the agenda of the trilateral working
group,” a spokeswoman for Deputy Prime Minister Mher Grigorian said earlier in
the day.
The Russian-brokered ceasefire that stopped last year’s war in Nagorno-Karabakh
commits Armenia to opening rail and road links between Azerbaijan and its
Nakhichevan exclave. Armenia should be able, for its part, to use Azerbaijani
territory as a transit route for cargo shipments to Russia and Iran.
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has repeatedly claimed that the deal calls
for a special “corridor” that will connect Nakhichevan to the rest of Azerbaijan
via Armenia’s Syunik province. Commenting on the Sochi talks over the weekend,
he declared that the “Zangezur corridor is becoming reality.”
The Armenian Foreign Ministry effectively denied that on Tuesday. Grigorian
likewise insisted that the three leaders discussed conventional cross-border
transport links, rather than “exterritorial roads” implied by Aliyev.
Armenia Steps Up Mandatory Testing For Unvaccinated Workers
• Marine Khachatrian
Armenia - People line up outside a mobile vaccination center in Yerevan's
Liberty Square, September 24, 2021.
The government introduced on Wednesday mandatory weekly testing for all
unvaccinated workers as part of its efforts to boost Armenia’s low vaccination
rates facilitating the spread of the coronavirus.
Public and private sector employees refusing vaccination have been required to
take coronavirus tests twice a month at their own expense since October 1. They
will now have to pay for such tests every week in accordance a directive issued
by Health Minister Anahit Avanesian.
Hundreds of thousands of Armenians have gotten inoculated in the last two
months. The government hopes that the new testing requirement will encourage
many others to do the same.
Less than 20 percent of the country’s population has been vaccinated so far, a
figure reflecting widespread vaccine hesitancy.
Davit Melik-Nubarian, a public health expert, welcomed Avanesian’s directive.
But he said the authorities should find ways of motivating not only registered
workers but also many other citizens such as pensioners and self-employed
farmers.
“If we look at official statistics, [we will see that] employees, who can be
influenced by us, make up a disproportionate percentage of vaccinated people,”
Melik-Nubarian told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service.
Armenia - A man is vaccinated against coronavirus at a mobile vaccination center
in Yerevan, October 24, 2021.
The Armenian Ministry of Health is also looking forward to the introduction on
January 1 of a mandatory coronavirus health pass for entry to cultural and
leisure sites. Only those people who have been vaccinated against COVID-19 or
have had a recent negative test will be allowed to visit bars, restaurants,
theaters and other public venues.
The measure championed by Avanesian has been criticized by some restaurant
owners concerned about a loss of their revenue. They have also complained that
it is still not clear how the authorities plan to ensure compliance with the
health pass.
Melik-Nubarian questioned the authorities’ ability to enforce it. “There is
concern that it will prove impossible to verify compliance,” he said. “That
would mean that the decision remains on paper and people will hear one thing but
see another in real life.”
The daily number of officially confirmed coronavirus cases and deaths in Armenia
began falling two weeks ago after several months of steady increase that
overwhelmed the national healthcare system. The Ministry of Health recorded 502
new cases and 43 deaths on Wednesday morning.
Karabakh War Veteran Arrested On Coup Charges
• Naira Bulghadarian
Armenia -- The main entrance to National Security Service headquarters in
Yerevan.
A prominent war veteran highly critical of Armenia’s government was arrested on
Wednesday one year after being charged with plotting to assassinate Prime
Minister Nikol Pashinian.
Ashot Minasian was the commander of a volunteer militia from the southeastern
town of Sisian that took part in the 1991-1994 and 2020 wars in Nagorno-Karabakh.
Minasian and three opposition figures were detained in November 2020 amid
anti-government protests in Yerevan sparked by Armenia’s defeat in the six-week
war with Azerbaijan stopped by a Russian-brokered ceasefire.
The National Security Service (NSS) charged them with plotting to kill Pashinian
and overthrow his government. The NSS claimed to have found large quantities of
weapons and ammunition in a property belonging to Minasian.
All four men rejected the charges as politically motivated before being freed by
courts a few days later. One of them, Artur Vanetsian, headed the NSS from
2018-2019. He is now a leader of one of the two opposition groups represented in
the Armenian parliament.
Acting on prosecutors’ appeal, Armenia’s Court of Cassation ordered lower courts
in October this year to hold fresh hearings on Minasian’s pretrial detention.
A Yerevan court of first instance afterwards refused to remand him in custody.
The higher Court of Appeals overturned that ruling on Wednesday.
Minasian’s ensuing arrest was strongly condemned by opposition politicians and
other critics of Pashinian’s government. Aram Vardevanian, a lawyer and lawmaker
representing the main opposition Hayastan bloc, called it a further blow to
judicial independence in Armenia.
Earlier this year, the Armenian Ministry of Justice asked the country’s judicial
watchdog to take disciplinary action against a judge who refused to issue an
arrest warrant for Minasian in November 2020. The judge, Arman Hovannisian,
described the move as government retribution for his decision.
Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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