2018 was the year of stability and execution of global economic projects for Azerbaijan, the deputy of the Milli Mejlis, Asim Mollazade, the deputy director of the Trend international agency Arzu Nagiyev and the economist Rovshan Ibrahimov told in an interview with Vestnik Kavkaza.
The succession of development of Azerbaijan in 2018 was primarily indicated by Asim Mollazade. "It is important that stability is maintained in Azerbaijan, the economy grows. The republic implements a significant number of strategic programs that will further enlarge the country's welfare. At the same time, the main thing for us is still the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, the liberation of the occupied territories of Azerbaijan. We hope that the international organizations will help Azerbaijan to ensure peace, stability in the region, and the conflict will be resolved, "he said.
"The main result of both domestic and foreign policy of Azerbaijan is its stability. Azerbaijan’s foreign policy strategy is to maintain the mutually beneficial relations at the partnership level. Azerbaijan seeks to achieve similar relations not only with its neighbors but also with all major centers of power," the deputy of Milli Majlis said.
"In 2018, all strategic economic programs were executed according to plans – this is the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars transport corridor, which Azerbaijan created to link the East and the West, and the launch of the TANAP pipeline in Turkey, an essential part of the important Azerbaijani project ‘Southern Gas Corridor’. The work on the final part of the SGC -TAP pipeline continues. We hope that the next year the project of the International Transport Corridor ‘North-South’ will be completed. In general, this year was successful for the strategic Azerbaijani projects, and we look forward to the development of these achievements in the near future", Asim Mollazade concluded.
Arzu Nagiyev agreed that 2018 was a good year for Azerbaijan. “Undoubtedly, the biggest problem – the unresolved Nagorno-Karabakh conflict – has not gone away, and yet, diplomatically, Azerbaijan has achieved certain results in this direction. Azerbaijan also managed to eliminate all the slightest security threats during the year, despite the interference of external forces to the internal affairs of the republic. In general, in all directions, 2018 was a good year for Azerbaijan, and now we expect 2019 to be the culmination of the process of solving the Nagorno-Karabakh problem when both the OSCE Minsk Group and the occupiers finally move from the declarative statements to the concrete actions. These are the expectations of the Azerbaijani people, and what was started in 2018 will be the basis for the further implementation of the state reforms, "he said.
"With regard to the foreign policy agenda, the 6th Global Forum, a meeting of the NATO and Russian generals were held in Azerbaijan, which demonstrates Baku’s perception as an effective platform for the international dialogue at the world level. A very important event is the adoption of the Convention on the Status of the Caspian Sea, "the deputy director general of the Trend International Agency said.
"Our non-oil sector began to develop actively, including tourism. Many reforms were carried out in agriculture, long-term business contracts were concluded with many foreign countries, including European ones. Finally, we completed several mega-projects – the Trans-Anatolian TANAP pipeline was launched,’’ Arzu Nagiyev added.
Rovshan Ibragimov specified exactly what reforms of the non-oil sector were especially important. "The greatest importance was given to such sectors as agricultural, transport and petrochemical. It is worth noting that in all these sectors, the new enterprises were initiated and projects were started, some of them have already been completed. We will see the results of these investments in the coming years. The new tax code was approved at the end of 2018, which will also contribute to the development of the non-oil sector of the economy. These two factors are very significant in order to have a completely stable economic situation in the country, "he said.
"Azerbaijan also hosted a number of major international conferences, including the Baku Humanitarian Forum. The year was quite intensive at the bilateral level – for the first time Azerbaijan was visited by German chancellor and Italian president with official visits, which shows an increase in the importance of Azerbaijan in the international arena. Azerbaijan became a platform for negotiations between the highest command of NATO and Russia, which has become a tradition and once again confirmed the status of Azerbaijan as a neutral state and a country that can be trusted ", Rovshan Ibrahimov added.
President Armen Sarkissian sent a congratulatory message on the occasion of New Year and Holy Christmas holidays.
“Dear Citizens of the Republic of Armenia,
Dear Compatriots all over the world,
Year 2018 has been a year of great changes, challenges, expectations, and anticipations.
We have witnessed the best qualities of our nation – unity, togetherness, high moral and civic spirit.
Very soon, we will have a new parliament and a new government.
Their success will depend greatly on the citizens of Armenia. Their success will be conditioned by the support of the citizens, as well as by your active participation in the social, political, economic, and cultural life.
Armenia can truly become one of the brightest spots on earth in the areas of innovative ideas, culture, science, economy, and others.
However, the path will not be easy.
There will be difficulties, often conditioned by the factors beyond our control, including the geopolitical realities.
I wish you all alertness, composure, reasonable thinking, responsibility, and tolerance.
These are the keys for success.
Security and sovereignty of Armenia and Artsakh, just and fair resolution of the Artsakh problem will continue to occupy the pivotal place in our lives.
We are living with a deep understanding that regardless of the place we were born, we all have one Homeland.
The Homeland should be made prosperous through our joint efforts – through the united efforts of Armenia, Artsakh, and Spyurk.
We need to take care of the pillars of our national identity – our culture, education, spiritual, and familial values.
The role of our Holy Church in this is critical.
We need to be more considerate towards our historical and national heritage, our nature, rural areas, towns and cities, our country in general.
Fellow citizens,
At this moment, I am with all of you in spirit and my mind, I am standing by you, by the troops and officers on the border, by the ambulances and doctors on call in hospitals, policemen carrying out their duties, firemen, bakers, taxi drivers, villagers and workers, scientists, and artists, all of you.
I am especially concerned with the families which hardly make ends meet. With those who have no housing yet, those who live in border areas, I am concerned with wounded and sick. I wish you all relief and respite.
Let the new year open doors of success for all of you.
Let every citizen of Armenia feel the positive spirit of changes.
We all ought to be guided by this motto: “If others can, we can too, if no one succeeded yet, we will be the first.”
I wish our Fatherland peace, our families – health, success, prosperity, and happiness, to children I wish laughter and vigor, to eldertly – dignified rest.
Let in the new year all of you, your families and friends, every citizen of Armenia, every Armenian anywhere in the world be able to dream and see it come true.
Happy New Year!”
On December 7, 1988 a devastating earthquake hit the then-USSR state of Armenia, killing more than 25,000 people. Five days later, Belfast firefighter Paul Burns found himself in the Armenian city of Spitak as one of the first western aid volunteers to arrive behind the Iron Curtain as the Cold War drew to a close.
It was the era of Mikhail Gorbachev, glasnost and perestroika, and for the first time the Soviet Union reached out to the rest of the world for help.
At the time, Paul was divisional officer with the Lancashire Fire Service, and he spent two weeks in the devastated country leading the UK response.
During his career Paul was called on to fly out to crisis zones all around the globe; his first was a major earthquake in Italy in 1980, and he was also working amid the aftermath of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing in the USA which killed 168 people.
Now back home in Northern Ireland – he lives in Groomsport – and reflecting on his career, he says that it was the Armenian earthquake that made the most lasting impression. Indeed, earlier this month Paul felt compelled to return to Spitak and see what changes the intervening 30 years had wrought on the city.
"I'm an old man now but I promised myself I would go back," he says. "The earthquake had obliterated the place. The people found it quite extraordinary that we would come from the West into Soviet territory to give aid. They just couldn't comprehend that. We were, they were told, the enemy. But that drove us forward. We were doing something extraordinary at the end of the Cold War.
"Politically, it was important. This was our meagre contribution.
"When I arrived in the city of Spitak there were no buildings left, just rubble as far as the eye could see. There was the beauty of the mountains, the sun glinting on the snow, but when you cast your eyes down you'd see this horrible picture of fires and smoke rising, some people picking around here and there to find memorabilia from families and homes, a sense of aimlessness. There seemed no future."
In a city swelled by 10,000 refugees amid civil unrest rife across the Soviet Union to more 35,000 inhabitants, more than half the residents were killed in the earthquake.
Paul recalls: "Women and men would regularly come up to me and produce photographs of their family. They would tug at my uniform and I knew they wanted me to come. They would bring me to somewhere that was absolutely flat and point to where their family was. A lot of the time there was simply nothing that could be done.
"You were praying for the retrieval of someone alive, not for the glory of it but simply because of what a miracle would do for a family somewhere. But it was a recovery operation. In those temperatures you would freeze to death. From a practical point of view all we could do was retrieve bodies."
One incident in particular has stayed with Paul.
"There was a man who'd been working in his butcher's shop," he recalls. "We found him entombed in very heavy concrete columns. The family were insistent, no matter what, that we were to recover as much of the remains as possible. I gave orders that the man was to be retrieved in as dignified a manner as possible, but in the end that wasn't possible. His remains had to be removed in large parts and that's an extraordinary thing to have to do. I'd never done it in my career before and never have since. The job of removing that man was horrific."
That gruesome task fell to fellow firefighter Reggie Berry (now 69) who accompanied Paul back to Spitak on the 30th anniversary.
Mr Berry told a BBC Radio 4 documentary: "I remember what I did and excuse me for speaking bluntly, we simply couldn't get his lower body out. I cut him in half at the waist with a shovel. His relatives were extremely grateful as all they wanted was to give him a Christian burial. People were coming over and shaking our hands, thanking us. But all I could think was I've just cut your grandfather in half with a shovel."
Paul continues: "We were all agreed that, particularly as it was Christmas time, if we could simply return a loved one there could be no finer work than that."
But the conditions Paul was working in during his two weeks in Spitak were almost impossible.
"I'd already been to an earthquake in Italy and was one of the few officers in the UK with experience. It's something I'd always taken a great interest in. So when I got a call from the leader of Lancashire Council, now Dame Louise Ellman MP, I said yes. I've always lived my life thinking the chance of adventure was not something to turn away from. It was a very quick response, particularly to go the 10,000 miles into the Soviet Union at that time."
Paul started his firefighting life in Lisburn as a raw recruit in 1961, moving on to Chichester Street in Belfast where he spent five years. His family were originally from the Falls Road area of Belfast but had relocated to Lurgan after the Blitz during the Second World War. Paul was one of only a handful of Catholic boys in the Fire Service when he joined.
"That was never something that bothered me," he says. "There are much more important things in life than where you're from. Humanity was my focus, and rescuing humanity became my skill.
"Some might remember my family, they ran a shipping fleet and brought tug boats to Belfast long before the Titanic."
After marrying a Lancastrian girl, sadly now passed away, he headed off to the north of England where he brought up his family – a son now living in Florida and a daughter in the RAF; he takes great pride in being a grandfather of five – and rapidly rose through the ranks of the service. But nothing had prepared him for what awaited in Armenia.
"I learnt a lot of the craft in Belfast during those early years from guys who deserve a lot more credit for the role they fulfilled. I'd always been interested in rapid response and I had my experience in Italy but the Soviet Union was something entirely different.
"It was astounding. There had been four colossal quakes within a minute of each other and you can still see the uplift of the land, about a metre and a half. That's an astonishing amount. The buildings had simply toppled into one another, then there'd been liquification of the earth – that's when the quake is so violent it releases the moisture in the soil and causes landslides.
"As it happened during daylight hours, I knew everyone would have been out and about and knew where people would most likely have been. That's important when locating potential survivors. But we arrived five days later, too late for too many.
"I remember walking down towards the town centre in two feet of snow. It was -25C. I paused for a moment in the early morning. There was a beautiful red blush of sunrise on the mountains around me. But below there was rubble. The snow was brown as storage tanks of molasses had burst across the town. It was a horrific scene. Way beyond anything Hollywood movies had created.
"A cardinal rule for rescue services is that you don't become a casualty yourself, but we were working in an unstable landscape. There were more than 200 after-quakes. The Soviet army were all around us and for the first few days we were stopped everywhere we went and asked to show our papers. Eventually they got to know us and we were free to go about our jobs, but it was a scary place to be.
"You really don't know until much later what the impact on the individual is. There's a real mental and emotional exhaustion that sets in. You can see it in a person. I saw it in many I worked with and that's why I made the decision to head home for Christmas Day. I knew some of the people returning with me would never be the same after the brutality they witnessed, but we were there to provide some human warmth and that's what mattered."
Paul was back in Spitak 18 months later on another humanitarian mission – this time to deliver and build three new homes which had been bought by the Armenian community of Manchester, and he made further trips in the 1990s, until his retirement in 1997.
On returning this month Paul was greeted by Armenian President Armen Sarkissian, who told him: "The United Kingdom provided great assistance by sending rescuers. These are actions which Armenia will never forget."
President Sarkissian also presented Paul with an Armenian memorial coin and added: "What he did for Armenia during those difficult days will never be forgotten."
Paul says: "I look around now and I see new buildings, low-rise residential places, none of them more than five floors. Lessons have been learned, but the town is a lot smaller than it was."
Though many of the buildings may be new, Paul was amazed to see the temporary homes that he had built 28 years ago were still standing.
"They were flat pack timber homes, completely glazed, sectionalised and kitted out inside," he explains. "They were advanced for the time and were built in 14 days back in 1989, but they were only supposed to be temporary.
"The community in Spitak presented them to three school teachers as they value education so highly, but today 500 families are still essentially homeless in the town. On the one hand you're happy that what you created is still standing, but on the other you'd like to see that the town and the community have moved on.
"The spectre of the earthquake is never far away. The town hasn't changed as much as I would have liked to have seen it do so. People are still struggling in the post-Soviet era 30 years down the line."
Despite the disappointment, Paul's visit gifted him an uplifting moment in the shape of resident Hamlet Dilbaryan (80). The former school worker, who lives in a metal ship container, and has done since the 1988 earthquake, came out to give Paul a warm greeting.
Clearly moved by the encounter, Paul says: "He lost his mother, wife, daughter and son in the earthquake. From his metal box he looks out through barred windows over the last remaining pile of rubble, the site of the old school where 14 children were killed that day. But he told me there are many other families worse off than him, families looking after the disabled with nowhere to live who deserve a house before him. After 30 years, there's a man who has the dignity to say that he doesn't want to ask for assistance; he is an extraordinary, courageous man.
"We came here as human beings, 10,000 miles at short notice to a people we could hardly identify with. They needed assistance from the world and the world sent the likes of me. That was the greatest privilege."
Belfast Telegraph
https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/life/features/thirty-years-ago-veteran-ni-firefighter-paul-burns-was-battling-to-find-survivors-of-armenias-earthquake-in-temperatures-of-minus-25-now-hes-made-an-emotional-return-visit-to-the-scene-of-a-disaster-hell-never-forget-37663616.html
Employees of Armenia's Ministry of Culture and Ministry of Diaspora have started a labor strike this morning. They are protesting the republic's acting Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s intention to dissolve these two ministries.
As a result of reorganization of the Armenian government structure, the number of ministries is expected to be reduced from 17 to 12.
The demonstrators noted that if there are too many ministries in Armenia, let them study and try to resolve this problem, but this has nothing to do with the main functions of the Ministry of Culture.
Employees of the Ministry of Diaspora noted that the dissolution of their ministry was a wrong decision, and that the respective view of the Armenian diaspora was not considered when making this decision.
Employees of the ministries, who were demonstrating outside their ministries’ building for an hour, marched to the government building to hand over a letter addressed to acting Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan to a government representative.
"We ask that a response be given by Monday morning. We demand a meeting with the Prime Minister. If our request is not considered, we are ready to go on labor strike; we’ll do a sit-in, too," News,am cited the letter as saying.
The writer, journalist, Vesti FM radio station host Armen Gasparyan, speaking with Vestnik Kavkaza, noted that liquidation of Mindiaspora has political reasons. "Not all representatives of the diaspora in the world supported the events, which took place in Armenia in April-June. Most likely, Pashinyan understands that there is a very serious political danger: much depends on the diaspora's views on events in the republic, and from this point he simply doesn’t need the Ministry of Diaspora. One can expect that there will be a structure subordinated to him personally or through the government apparatus, which will be engaged in building the necessary ties and disposing of possible negative statements. There is tough situation for Pashinyan: he was striving to power with the slogan of the political monopoly elimination, but eventually created his own monopoly, which caused unpleasant questions from the Diaspora," he explained.
The unification of the Ministry of Culture with the Ministry of Sport and the Ministry of Education and Science can be explained only by an attempt to save money. “I don’t see any advantages here, because these are three completely different spheres. In this case, Pashinyan turns out to be a hostage of the promises he made – that it is necessary to lower the number of bureaucrats. Obviously, it’s much easier to unite culture, sport and education, rather than the ministries of economy, defense and internal affairs, But still it’s difficult to understand what this will lead to. Pashinyan received absolute power, so let's see how his election statements will be implemented. Being an opposition is one thing, but leading the republic in a very difficult foreign policy situation is quite another," Armen Gasparyan stressed.
What did the foreign ministers agree on?
The Minister of Foreign Affairs of Azerbaijan recently made a statement in which he said that Armenia and Azerbaijan reached an understanding in the Karabakh negotiation process. This has become the topic of wide-spread discussion in Armenia, with pundits and social media users wondering what the minister had in mind.
Elmar Mammadyarov, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Azerbaijan, said at a meeting with the Acting Foreign Minister of Armenia, Zohrab Mnatsakanyan, which was held in Milan on 5 December, that an understanding on the settlement of the Karabakh conflict had been reached:
“I think that at the last meeting in Milan with my Armenian counterpart, we reached an understanding for the first time in a long time.”
Elmar Mammadyarov also stated that the next meeting would take place in January 2019.
“Most of the time we are devoted to finding ways to resolve the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. This will be the main task next year. The main goal is to achieve tangible results.”
Armenian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Anna Naghdalyan said a joint statement had been made by the heads of the foreign ministries of Armenia and Azerbaijan and the heads of the delegations of the OSCE Minsk Group co-chair countries.
The most important aspects of the statement include:
Some social media users suggested that Yerevan and Baku had reached an agreement on the Karabakh settlement issue itself.
One Armenian Facebook user wrote:
“We cannot possibly give away any of our territories. Not a centimetre.”
Another added:
“Perhaps Azerbaijan will recognize the independence of Karabakh and in return demand that the areas around Karabakh be given away. What will our answer be? I am sure that Pashinyan has nothing to hide from his people.”
The chairman of the Yerevan Press Club, Boris Navasardyan, says that the aim of Mammadyarov’s statement was to put pressure on the Armenian side:
“I don’t think that Azerbaijan can expect drastic changes in the Karabakh issue from the Armenian authorities because our position is clear: we will talk about the problem when Azerbaijan is ready for it, but they are not ready yet. The only sharp change in this matter would be the resumption of military conflict. But there are no prerequisites for the solution nor are there mutual concessions.”
JAMnews’ political analyst in Baku, Shahin Rzayev, says that in Azerbaijan, Mammadyarov’s statement would not have garnered attention had it not been for the resonance it had in the Armenian media:
“This was just another meeting, another statement – there have been more than 100 of them in the last 25 years. Where is the news? The news is that, perhaps for the first time, the Azerbaijani side threw something of a curve ball by reporting first on the achieved results, even if these results are only ‘mutual understanding’. The Azerbaijani media learned the details of the talks from the press secretary of the Armenian Foreign Ministry, and our foreign ministry reacted to the already published news at best the next day.
“However, our minister was the first to announce the information. This is of course very commendable, but it remains unknown what happened there. I do not think that in such a short time something serious could have happened. Societies in Azerbaijan and Armenia are not ready to make any compromises or decisions. So, let’s not exaggerate the meaning of Mammadyarov’s words.”
Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko (left) with Armenian Acting Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan in Astana on Nov. 8, 2018
President of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko revealed that in 2016 he and President Vladimir Putin of Russia proposed to then Armenian President Serzh Sarkisian to “surrender five regions” to Azerbaijan, saying Sarkisian refused.
“Putin and I suggested surrendering five regions to Azerbaijan,” said Lukashenko during a briefing with Russian press on Friday. The Belarus leader said that the proposal was made to Sarkisian during the 2016 CSTO Summit that was held in Yerevan.
According to Lukashenko, Sarkisian said at the time that “if he were to surrender those territories, Azerbaijan would cut off all roads and would occupy [all of] Karabakh.”
“Putin and I promised,” Lukashenko said “we would deploy our troops and we would not allow that to happen. He rejected the offer.”
Lukashenko also revealed details about a gas pipeline that he said Baku wanted to go through Armenia and Georgia. The Belarus leader claimed that he held discussions with former president Sarkisian and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev regarding this matter.
“They [Azerbaijan] were building a pipeline. I think it was a gas pipeline that was bypassing Armenia,” Lukashenko said, claiming that Aliyev had asked him to speak to Sarkisian, who was president at the time, in order to get permission for the gas pipeline to pass through Armenia.
“I visited Armenia to speak to Serzh Sarkisian and convey the message. He rejected it,” Lukashenko said.
The Balarus president complained to reporters that the Russian press, in general, did not cover issues related to his country objectively.
He cited an example from last week’s CIS and EEU summits in St. Petersburg, where he spoke to reporters and told them about a discussion at the EEU Summit that “got so heated there that we had to apologize to one another.”
Lukashenko said that the Russian press depicted the incident in a manner that suggested he had to apologize to Putin for started the conversation.
“I would find it below my dignity to apologize for it. I have apologized to Nikol [Pashinyan] for attacking him for various reasons. Putin apologized to everyone. It was a mess. Nazarbayev began apologizing. And this really happened, we were apologizing to one another at this session,” said Lukashenko who blamed the Russian press for spreading false information.
Presumably, Lukashenko’s apologized to Acting Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan for asserting that the next CSTO Secretary-General should be from Belarus, after Yuri Khachaturov resigned due to a criminal case pending against him in Armenia.
This year has been a time of remarkable change in Armenia, the U.S. State Department said in a press release on the early elections of parliament that were held on December 9.
“The United States congratulates the people of Armenia on the conduct of their December 9 parliamentary elections. We welcome the assessment by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe’s (OSCE) Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights that Armenia’s parliamentary elections were competitive and that candidates were able to campaign freely. The United States concurs with the OSCE’s preliminary conclusions that the elections process enjoyed broad public trust and respected fundamental freedoms. We encourage the authorities to address OSCE and Venice Commission recommendations for future elections.
This year has been a time of remarkable change in Armenia. For 27 years, the United States has sought to support the development of democratic processes and institutions in Armenia, and we will continue to do so. We look forward to working with the new Armenian Parliament and Government to deepen our bilateral partnership and cooperation to strengthen the rule of law and democratic institutions, combat corruption, promote trade and investment, and safeguard regional and global security”, deputy spokesperson of the Department of State Robert J. Palladino said in the press release.
Caretaker Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s My Step Alliance won a landslide victory in the general election with 70,43 %.
Two other parties, Prosperous Armenia (BHK) and Luminous Armenia (LHK), were also elected to parliament with 8,27% and 6,37% votes respectively.
The former ruling party, the Republican Party (HHK), failed to garner the minimum required votes to pass to parliament.
Governor Jeff Colyer spoke Friday at an event commemorating the 30th anniversary of the Spitak Earthquake in Armenia, a disaster Gov. Colyer assisted with as a medical first responder in 1988. Gov. Colyer was sent to Armenia by then President Ronald Reagan after the earthquake hit. He was one of the first medical responders to arrive in the country after the 6.8 magnitude earthquake destroyed Spitak within 30 seconds, killing 25,000 people and injuring nearly 140,000 people.
"The disaster I saw 30 years ago was tragic, and through the tragedy the Armenian nation showed courage and resilience," said Governor Jeff Colyer, M.D. "Many lives were lost, and many other lives were changed that day. It is important that as humanitarians we always answer the call for help when others need it."
Kansas Adjutant General Maj. Gen. Lee Tafanelli also attended the commemoration with Gov. Colyer. Kansas and Armenia first established a bilateral affairs agreement in June 2003. Fifteen years later, the partnership continues to foster strong relations between the United States and the Republic of Armenia. Kansas and Armenia enjoy an enduring relationship built upon mutual understanding, trust and genuine friendships shared across and throughout our forces. Collaborative efforts between Kansas and Armenia have paved the way for the modernization of the Armenian Armed Forces in the areas of defense reform, enhanced interoperability, defense education reform and civil emergency planning.
"These types of partnerships are critical to international security cooperation," said Tafanelli. "The United States is most successful when it partners with friends and allies to achieve mutual security goals. Armenian peacekeepers have trained alongside Kansas Guardsmen as a result of the State Partnership Program, and many other enduring relationships have been developed benefiting both Armenia and the United States."
Pictures from the anniversary event can be found online at the following news links:
https://news.am/eng/news/485019.html
https://www.mediamax.am/en/news/society/31474/