Wednesday,
Yerevan Mayor’s Office Blocked By Opposition Protesters
• Narine Ghalechian
Armenia - Opposition supporters block the main entrance to the Yerevan mayor's
office, .
Armenian opposition leaders and their supporters blocked the building of the
Yerevan mayor’s office on Wednesday as they continued their daily rallies
demanding Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s resignation.
The building’s four entrances remained blocked for more than an hour, preventing
municipal administration staff from leaving it. Riot police repeatedly warned
the protesters that the blockade is illegal but did not try to disperse them.
Ishkhan Saghatelian, the main speaker at the more than weeklong protests,
dismissed the warnings, saying Pashinian used the same tactic when he swept to
power in 2018. He accused the municipal administration of intimidating its
employees sympathizing with the Armenian opposition.
Saghatelian promised more such blockades after the crowd marched to the city’s
France Square, the scene of an opposition tent camp set up on May 1. Speaking at
a late-night rally held there, he said the opposition will disrupt the work of
central and local government bodies in a bid to create “diarchy” in the country.
Saghatelian said the organizers of the “civil disobedience” campaign also hope
to attract bigger crowds in the coming days. “We must increase the number of our
actions and their participants,” he told the crowd.
Earlier in day, the opposition organized several simultaneous processions of
cars that drove slowly through various parts of Yerevan to try to drum up
greater popular support for the campaign.
Pashinian, who is accused by Armenia’s leading opposition forces of planning to
make sweeping concessions to Azerbaijan, has rejected demands for his
resignation.
Armenian Airline Banned From Turkish Airspace
• Sargis Harutyunyan
• Tatevik Sargsian
Armenia - A FlyOne Armenia plane takes off from Yerevan's Zvartnots airport,
March 17, 2022.
Turkey has banned an Armenian airline from flying to and from Europe through its
airspace.
The private carrier, FlyOne Armenia, reported the ban earlier this week. It said
it has cancelled its regular flights to Paris and another French city, Lyon, as
a result.
The Turkish civil aviation authority gave no reason for the ban. It has yet to
respond to a request for comment filed by RFE/RL’s Armenian Service.
Stepan Payaslian, a senior official from the Armenian government’s Civil
Aviation Committee, said on Wednesday that FlyOne Armenia appealed to it for
help.
He said the committee could not directly contact the authorities in Ankara
because of the absence of diplomatic relations between Armenia and Turkey. It
therefore forwarded the airline’s request to the Armenian ministries of foreign
affairs and infrastructures as well as the International Civil Aviation
Organization (ICAO), added Payaslian.
“We have not yet received a reply,” Payaslian told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service.
The official said that the Turkish ban is “incomprehensible” given the fact that
FlyOne Armenia is still allowed to fly to Istanbul.
FlyOne Armenia and a private Turkish carrier launched Yerevan-Istanbul flights
in February following the start of Turkish-Armenian negotiations on normalizing
relations between the two neighboring states. Turkish officials touted that as a
major step towards the normalization.
Turkey had banned all Armenian aircraft from its airspace in September 2020
three weeks before the outbreak of the Armenian-Azerbaijani war over
Nagorno-Karabakh. Although Armenia did not retaliate against the move, Turkish
planes reportedly stopped flying over Armenia during the six-week war.
FlyOne Armenia was set up last year by Armenian and Moldovan investors.
According to Armenian media reports, it is controlled by individuals linked to
Khachatur Sukiasian, a wealthy businessman and lawmaker representing Armenia’s
ruling Civil Contract party.
Sukiasian has been a vocal advocate of Armenia’s rapprochement with Turkey and
Azerbaijan.
Pashinian Touts Armenia’s ‘Balanced’ Foreign Policy
Netherlands - Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian speaks at Clingendael
Institute in The Hague, .
Armenia will continue to seek simultaneously good relations with Russia and the
West despite their intensifying standoff over Ukraine, Prime Minister Nikol
Pashinian indicated during an official visit to the Netherlands on Wednesday.
Speaking at a Dutch think-tank, Clingendael Institute, Pashinian said Russia
remains Armenia’s “strategic ally.” He stressed at the same time that his
government is deepening ties with the European Union because “the EU is
Armenia’s main partner in the sphere of democratic reforms.”
“The world order is changing before our eyes, and nobody knows what it will look
like in the end,” Pashinian said, clearly alluding to the war in Ukraine. “For
countries like Armenia, these are the most dangerous times. This must be noted
and understood.”
“It is not easy for us to pursue a balanced [foreign] policy but we are doing
everything to succeed in that endeavor,” he added, according to the Armenpress
news agency.
Armenia, which is a member of Russian-led military and trade blocs and hosts
Russian troops on its soil, has refrained from condemning Russia’s invasion of
Ukraine, let alone joining Western sanctions imposed on Moscow.
Pashinian and Russian President Vladimir Putin pledged to strengthen political,
economic and security ties between their countries when they met outside Moscow
last month. Pashinian spoke of “common challenges” facing Armenia and Russia at
a separate meeting with Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin.
Armenia Scraps COVID-19 Health Pass
Armenia -- Customers at a cafe in Yerevan, May 4, 2020.
Amid record-low coronavirus cases in Armenia, health authorities in Yerevan have
formally abolished a mandatory health pass for entry to cultural and leisure
venues which has been barely enforced in recent months.
The Armenian government introduced the measure on January 22 during an
Omicron-driven wave of coronavirus infections. Only those people who have been
vaccinated against COVID-19 or have had a recent negative test were supposedly
allowed to visit bars, restaurants, museums, theaters or other public venues.
The measure proved ineffectual, however, as most restaurants, bars and other
private entities stopped requiring visitors to produce evidence of their
vaccination or a negative test result one or two weeks after its introduction.
Very few of them were fined for their non-compliance.
Nevertheless, the country’s COVID-19 infection rate has steadily and
significantly declined in the last three months. The Armenian Ministry of Health
has reported an average of several cases a day this month, sharply down from a
record high of 4,500 cases registered on February 2.
The ministry announced on Wednesday that the health pass will no longer be in
force starting from Thursday because of the “relatively stable epidemiological
situation.”
The ministry earlier scrapped a mandatory testing requirement for travellers
entering Armenia.
The Armenian authorities have recorded more than 10,300 coronavirus-related
deaths since the start of the pandemic. Less than half of the country’s
population has been vaccinated against the disease.
Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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