Author: Manouk Vasilian

 11:33,

YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 23, ARMENPRESS. Intuitive Machines' Odysseus lander touched down on the moon Thursday after a historic, nail-biting descent following a last-minute navigation sensor malfunction, becoming the first U.S.-built spacecraft to stick a moon landing in more than 50 years and the first ever by a private company, CBS News reports.

After delaying the final descent by one orbit to press an experimental NASA navigation sensor into service — and to test hurriedly-written software patches to route its data to the lander's flight computer — Odysseus settled to a touchdown at 6:23 p.m. EST near a crater known as Malapert A some 186 miles from the south pole of the moon.

Engineers at Intuitive Machines' Nova control center in Houston expected it to take up to two minutes or so to re-establish communications after landing, but the expected signal was not immediately found.

Finally, a faint signal was picked up by a communications antenna in the United Kingdom, indicating the spacecraft had, in fact, survived the touchdown.

"What we can confirm, without a doubt, is our equipment is on the surface of the moon, and we are transmitting," Mission Director Tim Crain told the flight control team. "So congratulations, IM team! We'll see how much more we can get from that."

NASA Administrator Bill Nelson was quick to congratulate Intuitive Machines, SpaceX for the Falcon 9 rocket that launched Odysseus last week from the Kennedy Space Center, and the agency's own commercial moon program, saying they "aced the landing of a lifetime."

"Today, for the first time in more than a half century, the U..S has returned to the moon," he said. "Today, for the first time in the history of humanity, a commercial company, an American company, launched and led the voyage up there. And today is a day that shows the power and promise of NASA's commercial partnerships."

He concluded with, "What a triumph! … This feat is a giant leap forward for all of humanity."

But a detailed assessment of the health of the spacecraft and its payloads awaited analysis of telemetry. Finally, two hours after touchdown, the company reported that "after troubleshooting communications, flight controllers have confirmed Odysseus is upright and starting to send data. Right now, we are working to downlink the first images from the lunar surface."

The successful lunar landing marked the first touchdown by a U.S.-built spacecraft since the Apollo 17 mission in 1972 and the first ever by a privately-built spacecraft.

 20:01,

YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 15, ARMENPRESS.  Armenia suggests Azerbaijan accelerate the delimitation process based on the Prague agreement of October 6, 2022 and reiterates the willingness of the Republic of Armenia, reads the statement of the spokesperson of the Armenian Foreign Ministry Ani Badalyan.

"The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Azerbaijan made a comment regarding the speech made by the Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan during the Government session on February 15, in relation to which we would like to remind that on 6 October 2022 in Prague Azerbaijan and Armenia agreed in written form that they recognize each other's territorial integrity and sovereignty based on 1991 Alma-Ata declaration and that the Alma-Ata declaration will be the political basis for the process of demarcation. 

 We suggest Azerbaijan accelerate the delimitation process based on this agreement, and we reiterate the willingness of the Republic of Armenia, " Ani Badalyan said in a statement.

 17:58,

 23:58,

YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 11, ARMENPRESS. Armenia is diversifying its relations in the security sector and doesn’t reject cooperation with Russia, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said in an interview with The Telegraph.

The Armenian PM repeated that Armenia is not Russia’s ally in the Ukraine conflict.

“We have not said that we deny and reject cooperation with Russia in general and in the security sector in particular. What we have said is that we are going to diversify our relations in the security sector. What does this mean? Does this mean that we are going to break our security relationship with Russia? No, it doesn't mean that, but it means that in the field of security, we are preparing and ready, and we are discussing and working to establish relations, for example, with the European Union, which is already a reality by and large, with France, which is already a reality by and large, with the United States, which is already by and large a reality, with the Islamic Republic of Iran, which is already by and large a reality, with India, which is already by and large a reality, and with many other countries. Our security relations with the United States, or France, or India, or the European Union are not naturally directed against Russia. This is simply the consequence of the reality that the security relationships we used to have in the past do not address our security needs,” the Armenian PM said when asked to comment on his earlier statement that Armenia "cannot rely on Russia" as its defense partner anymore and whether this means that Armenia is seeking a future with NATO.

“As to NATO, this is not an item on our agenda. In other words, we have not and are not discussing NATO membership. We do have partnership relations with NATO, and there is nothing new there. We used to have an Individual Partnership Action Plan, now that program is being reformatted into a certain partnership format that doesn't imply membership. I will also tell you something that we are at least a de jure member of the CSTO today, and I am not sure if there are discussions on that topic in general, or rather in Armenia, as to how well the alliance-based strategy corresponds to Armenia's interests, in general, in the long term,” Pashinyan added.

Asked about the Russia-Ukraine conflict, Pashinyan repeated that Armenia is not Russia’s ally in the conflict with Ukraine. “Ukraine war had just started, I believe I gave an interview to the Czech CNN and I said that we are not Russia's ally in the matter of Ukraine, and that is the reality. But I also want to say that our security cooperation with the United States or France or our other security partners is not directed against our other security partner. Another thing is that our partners may have concerns about how cooperation with others could affect their security systems. We are trying to manage this issue being as transparent as possible,” he said.

 00:37,

YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 12, ARMENPRESS. The relations between Armenia and the European Union are deepening, including under the conditions and because of the implementation of the Comprehensive and Enhanced Partnership Agreement, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said in an interview with The Telegraph’s Roland Oliphant.

“We should clarify what we mean by saying direction, because even before I became the prime minister, Armenia and the European Union had already signed the Comprehensive and Enhanced Partnership Agreement. Now that agreement is being implemented,” he said when asked if he wants to lead Armenia in the direction of the EU.

“It is obvious that the relations between Armenia and the European Union are deepening, including under the conditions and because of the implementation of the "Comprehensive and Enhanced Partnership Agreement". But, of course, on the other hand, it is obvious that the relations between Armenia and the European Union are getting closer because, according to the international community, we have visible successes in implementing democratic reforms.

"You know, this subtlety is very important for understanding our situation, the situation and many events that are unfolding in Armenia. Look, we don't turn away from anyone. We are implementing the messages received from our people. And that message is primarily about democratic reforms. And democracy, democratic reforms, the development of a democratic society are not agendas caused by certain circumstances. I have stated many times that this is a strategy for us, and in my speech in the European Parliament I stated that we will continue the implementation of these strategies, we will continue these reforms. And I said that the Republic of Armenia is ready to be as close to the European Union as the European Union deems it possible,” Pashinyan added.

 12:15, 1 February 2024

YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 1, ARMENPRESS. Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has commented on the Transparency International Corruption Perception Index (CPI) 2023 report, which shows that Armenia has stopped the regress in its score. 

“The year before we had a regress in the score of the Transparency International Corruption Perception index. We addressed this issue at the Cabinet meeting and now we can say that we have stopped the regress and we have a bit progress,” Pashinyan said Thursday at the Cabinet meeting. 

PM Pashinyan highlighted one sentence from the Transparency International report, "Despite facing challenging security threats – like many countries in the region – Armenia has the potential to navigate such difficulties and turn strong policies into better control of corruption." 

“This is a very objective sentence,” Pashinyan said.

“This means that having faced security challenges in the previous period, a context was formed that this wasn’t the most important issue, and that security issues should be dealt with. But I’d like to remind you that when we had very concrete crises in various situations, we publicly agreed that our work is to stay on track on the strategic agenda and continue the work. Unequivocally, today many countries and international organizations are taking note of the unusual manifestations of our resilience. And this is because even in 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023, our reforms agenda did not stop not for a minute. We’ve raised the level of our resilience thanks to our reforms, and we must continue that path,” Pashinyan said.

Armenia’s CPI 'score,' measured on a 100-point scale, rose from 46 to 47 in 2023.

Armenia ranks 62nd out of 180 countries and territories evaluated in the Transparency International Corruption Perception Index (CPI).

 12:07,

YEREVAN, JANUARY 29, ARMENPRESS. Minister of Defense Suren Papikyan has praised the 25-day training model for military reservists.

Speaking at the January 28 Army Day event, Papikyan said the government decided to initiate training musters for military reservists given the security situation around the country, and with the purpose of increasing the level of combat readiness of the reserve. “Despite the existing problems, we can say that the 25-day training model is a success,” he said.