Monday, April 6, 2020
Armenians Repatriated From Russia, Quarantined
• Aza Babayan
Russia -- Russian police officers patrol on the nearly-deserted Red Square in
Moscow, April 6, 2020
The Russian government has waived its ban on commercial flights abroad to allow
at least 400 citizens of Armenia to return home from Russia because of the
coronavirus epidemic.
It suspended all flights in and out of Russia on April 3 to try to stem the
spread of coronavirus. The decision left hundreds of Armenians stranded at
Moscow’s Domodedovo international airport.
At the request of the Armenian Embassy in Russia, Moscow allowed a Russian
airline, Red Wings, to transport 222 of them to Yerevan on Monday. They all were
placed in quarantine by Armenian health authorities immediately after arriving
at Yerevan’s Zvartnots airport.
The Armenian Ministry of Emergency Situations released a short video that showed
officials clad in protective gear escorting the evacuees to buses that took them
to two hotels where they will stay for at least two weeks.
Deputy Prime Minister Tigran Avinian announced afterwards that the Russian
government has allowed Red Wings to carry out a second Moscow-Yerevan flight.
The flight is scheduled for Tuesday, the Armenian Foreign Ministry said later in
the evening.
Most of the evacuees are understood to have been selected by the Armenian
Embassy. According to Ambassador Vartan Toghanian, priority was given to transit
passengers from other Russian cities and people travelling with young children
or lacking money to stay in Russia.
Toghanian told RFE/RL’s Armenian service on Sunday that a total of about 3,000
Armenian nationals have asked the embassy to help them return to Armenia. “There
are two categories of people willing to return: those who are ready to pay and
to go to Armenia and those who are unable do to that because of financial or
other problems,” he said.
The envoy said the Armenian mission in Moscow is now looking into ways of
helping the latter category. “First of all, we will try to accommodate them in
several hotels outside Moscow,” he said, adding that other stranded Armenians
will likewise be offered free but temporary accommodation in two cities in
southern Russia.
Russia is home to hundreds of thousands of Armenian migrant workers. Many of
them now risk losing their jobs due to coronavirus-related lockdowns ordered by
authorities in various parts of the country.
According to Armenia’s Labor and Health Inspectorate, almost 12,000 people have
returned to Armenia from “countries in the high-risk zone” and been ordered to
self-isolate since March 19.
Food Exports From Armenia Restricted
• Robert Zargarian
Russia - A shopper holds a buckwheat packet at a Moscow supermarker, March 20,
2020.
The Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) has temporarily banned exports of key
foodstuffs from its member states, including Armenia, to other countries, a
senior Armenian official confirmed on Monday.
Deputy Economy Minister Varos Simonian said the Russian-led trade bloc’s
executive body, the Eurasian Economic Commission, has initiated the three-month
ban in response to the coronavirus pandemic. The ban will not apply to
humanitarian aid that might be provided by Russia, Belarus, Armenia, Kazakhstan
or Kyrgyzstan, he said.
The foodstuffs in question include various cereals, soya beans, sunflower seeds,
onions and garlics. Unlike Russia, Armenia is not a major exporter of these
products.
The Eurasian Economic Commission explained on its website that the export
restrictions are meant to “provide the population with sufficient quantities of
such products during an escalation of the sanitary-epidemiological situation.”
The Moscow-based commission at the same time decided last week to temporarily
lift import duties on foodstuffs imported by the EEU member states.
“We are talking, for example, about potatoes, onions, garlics, carrots and a
number of other products,” Simonian told a news conference. “Their imports to
the EEU area will be taxed at zero rates.”
This is aimed at preventing major increases in food prices in Russia and the
four other ex-Soviet states.
The prices of flour, sugar, butter and cooking oil sold in Yerevan supermarkets
and smaller stores have already risen in recent days.
Gegham Gevorgian, the head of Armenia’s State Commission for the Protection of
Economic Competition (SCPEC), blamed this on a coronavirus-related weakening of
the national currency, the dram, which began last month.
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian echoed this explanation when he answered
questions from Facebook users later in the day. “I must point out that some of
these price hikes may be connected with exchange rate fluctuations,” he said.
Runner-Up Calls For Karabakh Election Boycott
• Ruzanna Stepanian
Nagorno-Karabakh -- Masis Mayilian speaks to RFE/RL, Stepanakert, February 22,
2020.
Citing the coronavirus pandemic, the candidate who finished second in the first
round of Nagorno-Karabakh’s presidential election has called on supporters to
boycott a runoff vote scheduled for April 14.
Masis Mayilian has at the same time refrained from withdrawing from the race.
Official results of the March 31 election showed Ara Harutiunian, a wealthy
businessman and Karabakh’s former prime minister, winning over 49 percent of the
vote. Mayilian garnered 26.4 percent, meaning that the ballot has to go into a
runoff.
The vote went ahead despite serious concerns about the spread of coronavirus in
Karabakh. Mayilian and several other presidential candidates demanded its
postponement during the election campaign. The authorities in Stepanakert
countered that precautionary measures taken by them helped to prevent any
coronavirus cases in Karabakh so far.
In a weekend statement, Mayilian, who is also Karabakh outgoing foreign
minister, said his supporters should stay away from polling stations on April 14
because of the “growing danger of coronavirus.”
He also criticized the authorities’ handling of the polls, saying it was “very
far” from Karabakh residents’ expectations of democratization. He cited in that
regard the findings of election observers from Armenia that reported voter
irregularities.
Still, Mayilian “took note” of the official results and stopped short of
explicitly rejecting them as fraudulent.
The election runner-up has avoided any contacts with the media since March 31.
He did not answer phone calls from RFE/RL’s Armenian service on Monday.
The chairwoman of Karabakh’s Central Election Commission (CEC), Srbuhi
Arzumanian, said it has received no formal notifications from Mayilian about his
withdrawal from the race. This means, she said, that his name will be on the
ballot on April 14.
Nagorno Karabakh - Voting is underway in the presidential and parliamentary
election in Nagorno Karabakh, Stepanakert,31Mar,2020
Meanwhile, Harutiunian signaled support for the holding of the second round.
“There are only several days to go [before the runoff,] and we should … finish
the elections,” he told RFE/RL’s Armenian service from Stepanakert.
Asked whether he is urging supporters to again go to the polls, Harutiunian
said: “Let the CEC announce the final results [of the first round] first and I
will appeal to my compatriots after that.”
Karabakh Armenians also elected on March 31 their new parliament. Harutiunian’s
Free Fatherland party won more than 40 percent of those votes and will have the
largest number of parliament seats.
Azerbaijan strongly condemned the Karabakh elections, saying that they run
counter to Azerbaijani and international law. It also said that that the
Armenian-populated territory, which broke away from Azerbaijani rule in 1991, is
governed by an “illegal regime installed by Armenia.”
U.S., Russian and French diplomats co-heading the OSCE Minsk Group stressed, for
their part, that Karabakh is not recognized as an independent state by the
international community and that “the so-called general elections” cannot
predetermine the outcome of Armenian-Azerbaijani peace talks mediated by them.
By contrast, Armenia defended the holding of the elections marke by high voter
turnout. Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian described the polls as democratic and
said they could facilitate a resolution of the Karabakh conflict.
Putin, Pashinian Discuss Russian Gas Price For Armenia
Turkmenistan -- Russian President Vladimir Putin and Armenian Prime Minister
Nikol Pashinian speak during a summit of ex-Soviet states in Ashgabat, October
11, 2019.
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian telephoned Russia’s President Vladimir Putin on
Monday to discuss the price of Russian natural gas for Armenia which Yerevan
hopes will be cut due to economic fallout from the coronavirus pandemic.
“The sides discussed issues related to natural gas supplies to Armenia,” read an
Armenian government statement. It gave no details of the discussion.
A Kremlin readout of the phone call did not explicitly mention the gas issue. It
said instead that the two leaders talked about their government’s efforts to
stem the spread of coronavirus and that Pashinian thanked Putin for “assistance
provided by the Russian side.”
According to the Armenian statement, Pashinian was appreciative of Moscow’s
decision to allow continued cargo shipments between the two countries despite
the coronavirus-related closure of Russia’s borders.
Pashinian spoke to Putin one week after his government effectively asked
Russia’s Gazprom monopoly to cut the price of its gas imported by Armenia. In a
letter to Gazprom Chairman Alexei Miller, Deputy Prime Minister Mher Grigorian
argued that international oil prices, which greatly determine the cost of
natural gas, have fallen sharply over the past month.
Gazprom executives and Russian government officials have not yet publicly
commented on new tariff negotiations requested by Yerevan.
The Armenian government appears to hope that a price cut will at least offset a
major rise in domestic gas prices for households and businesses, which was
formally requested by Armenia’s Gazprom-owned national gas distribution network
on April 1.
The retail prices have remained unchanged since Gazprom raised its wholesale
tariff for Armenia from $150 to $165 per thousand cubic meters in January 2019.
This has translated into additional losses for the Gazprom Armenia network.
Pashinian also discussed the matter by phone on March 31 with President
Aleksandr Lukashenko of Belarus, which is also heavily dependent on Russian gas.
According to Lukashenko’s press office, the two men agreed that the current gas
prices set for their countries are “inflated” and “do not correspond to
international levels.”
In televised remarks aired over the weekend, Lukashenko claimed that because of
the collapse in oil prices Belarus is now paying more for Russian gas than
European Union member states.
Pashinian ‘Encouraged’ By Armenia’s Latest Coronavirus Numbers
Armenia -- Masked pedestrians on the streets of Yerevan, March 17, 2020.
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian on Monday reported a significant drop in new
cases of coronavirus in Armenia and said his government will consider easing a
nationwide lockdown if a downward trend continues in the coming days.
Pashinian said that only 11 more people tested positive for the virus in the
past 24 hours, the lowest daily increase in more than two weeks which brought
the total number of COVID-19 cases in the country to 833.
“Today’s figures are encouraging for us,” said in a video address to the nation
livestreamed on Facebook. “We can’t be certain because we have to also look at
tomorrow’s figures. But if hopes raised by these figures materialize … they
should inspire all of us to remain maximally disciplined and comply with
restrictions for one more week.”
“And if our theory materializes, it will mean that starting from next Monday we
will be able to think about easing the [quarantine] regime,” added the premier.
Armenia had only 249 confirmed coronavirus cases when its government issued
stay-at-home orders and forced the closure of nonessential businesses on March
24. The number of infections continued to rise by over 10 percent per day in the
following days, leading the authorities to impose more transport restrictions.
In particular, they suspended public transport in Yerevan and restricted travel
between the Armenian capital and the rest of the country. Official statistics
show that the daily infection rate began falling on April 3.
Pashinian also reported that another person died from COVID-19 late on Sunday,
raising to 8 Armenia’s death toll from the virus. The premier said the
68-year-old man also suffered from diabetes and other pre-existing diseases.
According to the Armenian Ministry of Health, five other infected people
recovered from coronavirus in the past day. The total number of such recoveries
thus rose to 62.
Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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