Վարչապետի պաշտոնակատար Նիկոլ Փաշինյանն ընդունել է ԵԱՀԿ գործող նախագահի անձնական ներկայացուցիչ Անջեյ Կասպրչիկին:
Զրուցակիցները քննարկել են Լեռնային Ղարաբաղի հակամարտության խաղաղ կարգավորման բանակցային գործընթացին առնչվող հարցեր: Կողմերը կարևորել են փոխվստահության և խաղաղ գործընթացի համար անհրաժեշտ մթնոլորտի ձևավորմանն ուղղված քայլերի իրականացումը:
Ask the Travel + Leisure staff where we want to travel in 2019, and most of us will answer, honestly, where don’t we?
When it comes to compiling our annual year-end list of the places we’re most excited about in the coming months, narrowing down the field is easier said than done. We pore over press releases, tourism statistics, and our overflowing spreadsheets of hotel openings, restaurant debuts, and new flight routes. We consider the anecdotal evidence: Where are our friends and families going? What destinations are we seeing on Instagram? Which places seem to be part of today’s travel zeitgeist? And, as always, we turn to our network of travel experts — trusted writers, hospitality professionals, the travel advisors that make up T+L’s A-List — to see where people are actually going, and which places are the ones to watch in the coming year.
This year’s list spans the globe, from exciting southern hemisphere cities like Santiago, Chile, and Brisbane, Australia, to harder-to-reach regions like Langkawi, Malaysia and the Danish Riviera. There are the new capitals of culture — Nairobi, Kenya, home to a emergent design scene, or Panama City, with a deluge of forward-thinking restaurants and bars — and the tourism destinations that are back in fighting form after natural disasters or human conflict, including Puerto Rico, the Turquoise Coast of Turkey, Egypt, and Montecito, California. And, of course, there are the destinations that we haven’t heard much about, but certainly will soon — places like India’s remote Andaman Islands, or the art and history-filled emirate of Sharjah, in the U.A.E., or the under-the-radar wine scene in Etyek, Hungary.
After all, isn’t dreaming about places totally new to us — and seeing old favorites in a new light — why we travel in the first place?
Here are Travel + Leisure’s 50 best places to travel in 2019. If you already know where you're going in the year ahead, share your travel destination picks with us on social media with #TLBestPlaces.
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Armenia
This past spring Armenians voted in a new, more liberal government. The resulting energy has made the country all the more inviting to travelers. The Alexander, part of Marriott’s Luxury Collection, recently opened in Yerevan, giving the capital its first world-class hotel. And a number of new restaurants in the city, including Sherep, are breathing new life into Armenia’s ancient cuisine. Armenia has a famously beautiful countryside landscape, and there’s no better way to see it than on foot. The Transcaucasian Trail passes the spa town of Dilijan, the bucolic Dilijan National Park, and a pair of 10th-century Christian monasteries. —Peter Terzian
Armenian News note: the 49 other places can be read at the link: https://www.travelandleisure.com/trip-ideas/best-places-to-travel-in-2019?utm_campaign=travelandleisure_travelandleisure&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_term=69570608-FFBA-11E8-AEA7-8CBAC28169F1&utm_medium=social&fbclid=IwAR26wLzEEho2b7jJvHeD10xX3ZBmDXZcpib2_NFDDXrfg#uttarakhand-india
Armenia’s new parliament will consist of 132 lawmakers.
Speaking at the CEC session today, chairman Tigran Mukuchyan said that My Step bloc will get 88, including 4 for ethnic minorities – Russians, Yezidis, Assyrians and Kurds.
According to Electoral Code, the number of mandates of other political forces must not be less than 1/3, in this case it is to be 44.
Thus, to 10 and 7 mandates of Prosperous Armenia and Bright Armenia parties additional 16 and 11 are added.
So, the PAP will have 26 and Bright Armenia 18 mandates.
On December 11, the employees of the corresponding police department of Armenia returned from Russia to Armenia a three-month-old Armenian.
The little Ani was left in one of Novosibirsk maternity hospitals. The mother of the child applied for resignation to the maternity and left her newborn daughter.
More information is in the video.
One rare tool in diplomacy is to not let diplomats play a leading role in resolving conflicts between nations. An alternative approach, known as "track II diplomacy," entails informal contacts between individuals and groups such as academics, artists, athletes, or simply residents across a hostile border.
Such people-to-people exchanges can build up goodwill and trust. They are sometimes key in ending bullet-for-bullet exchanges.
The two Koreas are trying it. India and China, after a tense military standoff last year, are firming up plans for people-to-people contacts. Last month, 150 young people from Arab and European countries met in Qatar to find common ground on issues that divide their "civilizations."
Now Armenia is exploring whether it can resolve a territorial dispute with Azerbaijan by using a "people-oriented" approach, according to the International Crisis Group (ICG). The two former Soviet states have been at odds since a war in the early 1990s over the Nagorno-Karabakh enclave and seven surrounding districts. Official distrust is high. Compromises seem illusive.
"We can change our approach," one Armenian official told ICG. "Instead of discussing only political demands, we could begin to focus more on people and their needs, from two sides."
What's new in the conflict is that Armenia experienced a peaceful revolution last April that brought in a much more democratic government led by a journalist-turned-politician, Nikol Pashinyan.
The new prime minister is looking for creative ways to end a virtual state of war that holds back the economies of both countries. Many in his new government came out of civil society and have seen the power of grass-roots activism.
Since April, officials from both sides have made some contact. Their defense officials have restored lines of communication along the border. Their foreign ministers have met three times. But to break a diplomatic logjam, attitudes within each country need to shift.
Humanitarian gestures would help, starting with a release of prisoners or coordination on demining civilian areas near the front lines. Armenians could reach out to the Azerbaijanis displaced by the conflict.
As the long Israeli-Palestinian conflict shows, not all people-to-people contact or humanitarian gestures will lead to peace. Ethnic or religious identities that drive a conflict are not easily transcended by wider views of common interests and values. Yet the latest approach to the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict is worth watching.
Often it takes nonpolitical contact or humanitarian gestures between peoples for progress. As the late American journalist Edward R. Murrow stated, "The real link in the international exchange is the last three feet, which is bridged by personal contact, one person talking to another." By tender acts, peace can arrive from the bottom up.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 26
By Matanat Nasibova – Trend:
The permission for the "head" of the illegal separatist regime, established in the occupied Azerbaijani territories, to enter the Russian Federation is contrary to Russia's mediation as a co-chair of the OSCE Minsk Group, Fikrat Sadikhov, a well-known Azerbaijani political analyst, former diplomat, told Trend Nov. 26.
Armenian media had earlier spread information that the "head" of the separatist regime, Bako Sahakyan arrived in the Russian Federation.
Sadikhov noted that this fact negatively affects the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.
"At the same time, this contradicts the legal framework of the bilateral relations between Russia and Azerbaijan. As we know, there is a Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Security between the Russian Federation and the Republic of Azerbaijan, according to which the parties pledged not to support the separatist movements, as well as to stop the activities of individuals against the state sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity of the other party. Russia, as a supporter of the peaceful settlement of the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, should stop Bako Sahakyan's dubious visits to its territory," Sadikhov said.
Sadikhov said Sahakyan's visits to any of the countries that have pledged to carry out the mediation mission are unacceptable.
"Sahakyan's illegal visits to each of the countries co-chairing the OSCE Minsk Group are directed against the conflict's settlement since the visits violate the norms and principles of international law and at the same time question the mediation efforts of the countries involved in the negotiations," Sadikhov added.
The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result of the ensuing war, in 1992 Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts.
The 1994 ceasefire agreement was followed by peace negotiations. Armenia has not yet implemented four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding districts.
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Follow the author on Twitter: @MatanatNasibova
Stock photo via Pixabay
A Protestant church in The Hague has been conducting non-stop religious services for nearly a month to prevent an Armenian asylum-seeking family from being deported from the Netherlands.
Bethel International Church took the decision to protect the family since the police officers in the Netherlands are forbidden by law from entering places of worship while services are in progress, according to the report from Quartz website.
In order to support the church's initiative, clergy and devotees have been coming to the church from across the country.
The Tamrazyan family fled Armenia in 2009 after they were targeted for their political views and sought asylum in the Netherlands. After seven years of the application process, a judge granted asylum to the family. However, the Dutch government later overturned the decision.
The family also applied for a "children's pardon," a policy that allows refugee families with children who have resided in the Netherlands for more than five years to obtain a permit to stay, but their application was denied.
The Armenian family was living in an asylum shelter in southern Holland's Katwijk province for two years when they learned in September that their asylum status had been lifted. After the deportation order, they decided to seek shelter in a church and ended up in a Protestant congregation where they were welcomed and protected.
The church authorities said they are waiting for the Ministry of Immigration to reverse the decision.
The rise of the far-right in the Netherlands, along with the rest of Europe, has allowed for an increase in anti-immigrant and anti-minority rhetoric in Dutch politics as well as in the mainstream media.
Every year, thousands of reports of attacks targeting minority groups are documented by Dutch police. According to the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, the highest number of hate crimes in the past five years was recorded in 2014 at 5,721. Only 133, or about 2 percent, of these incidents were prosecuted. In 2017, police recorded 3,499 hate crimes, and 331, or 9 percent, were prosecuted.
YEREVAN, November 29. /ARKA/. The government of Armenia approved a draft decision today for announcing the winter conscription and demobilization of servicemen.
The acting Minister of Defense David Tonoyan said the decision determines the procedure for conscription and demobilization of privates, the organization of compulsory alternative military service, the bodies which are responsible for the conscription and the framework of their activities.
He said under the decision, the conscription is to run from December 2018 to January 2019. The conscription applies to Armenian citizens who turn 18 years old until December 31, 2018 inclusive, as well as to those whose draft deferment ends by the end of December. The manning process of the armed forces will start on January 7, he said.
Tonoyan also called on his subordinates to take a responsible approach to the conscription saying it should not be affected by the upcoming snap parliamentary elections.-0-