Jonathan Aves, Ambassador of the United Kingdom to Armenia, talks to CivilNet on the day of Margaret Thatcher’s funeral.
British Ambassador on the Thatcher phenomenon
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Artsakh will be without gas for one week
Armenia and Azerbaijan are managing to bring their positions closer on many issues related to the opening of regional transport links, according to Armenian Deputy Prime Minister Mher Grigoryan. Armenia’s ruling Civil Contract party began the process of removing two prominent opposition deputies from their leadership posts in parliament on Tuesday for excessive absenteeism. The gas supply to Nagorno-Karabakh will be stopped from June 29 to July 5, due to technical works that need to be conducted on the pipeline.
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Yerevan, Baku agree to most of ‘Zangezur corridor,’ Russian newspaper
By Mark Dovich Armenia and Azerbaijan have nearly come to an agreement on a route connecting mainland Azerbaijan to its Nakhichevan exclave via the southernmost Armenian region of Syunik, the well-known Russian newspaper Izvestia reported Wednesday. The paper cited exclusive information from an unnamed, “high-ranking, informed source.” “Russia helped Armenia and Azerbaijan agree on a highway in the Zangezur corridor, (and) only a small section of 6 kilometers remains to be agreed upon,” Izvestia wrote, adding that the two sides had already reached a deal on a parallel rail track last fall. The source said Yerevan and Baku agreed to […]
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Ruling party begins process to remove opposition lawmakers from leadership
By Mark Dovich Armenia’s ruling Civil Contract party began the process of removing two prominent opposition leaders from their positions in parliament on Tuesday for excessive absenteeism, but decided not to dismiss them from the body entirely. If the majority of lawmakers vote in favor of the motion, Ishkhan Saghatelyan will lose his position as deputy speaker, while Vahe Hakobyan will be removed as the head of the economic affairs committee. Both Saghatelyan and Hakobyan represent the Armenia Alliance, an opposition bloc of 29 lawmakers. Civil Contract currently holds 71 out of 107 seats in the National Assembly, Armenia’s one-chamber […]
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Armenian side calls unblocking efforts ‘constructive’
By Mark Dovich Yerevan and Baku are “managing to bring their positions closer on many issues” related to reopening transport connections, said Armenian Deputy Prime Minister Mher Grigoryan in comments first published Tuesday evening by TASS, a Russian state-run news agency. Grigoryan said he considers the efforts of a joint working group to unblock transport connections, which he co-chairs alongside his Azerbaijani and Russian counterparts, to be “constructive.” He told TASS the group is making progress on “border and customs control, as well as the safe passage of citizens, vehicles, and cargo along roads and railways,” adding that “at the […]
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Aggressive rhetoric from Baku raises risk of new war, Pashinyan
By Mark Dovich Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan warned at a press conference Monday that aggressive rhetoric from Azerbaijan and its repeated attempts to place blame on Armenia for the lack of forward movement in ongoing normalization relations raise the risk of a new war in the region. In fact, Pashinyan said, Azerbaijan is the one purposefully stalling normalization talks in order to “build up legitimacy for a new war.” He specifically accused Baku of canceling high-level meetings with Armenian officials, breaking promises to return Armenian prisoners of war, and refusing to budge on efforts to delimit the border and […]
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“Azerbaijan is trying to build up legitimacy for new war,”
The next meeting of the special envoys for Armenia-Turkey normalization talks will take place on July 1 in Vienna. Azerbaijan is trying to build up legitimacy for a new war by blaming Armenia for the lack of progress in peace talks, says Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan. Armenia’s service sector, which includes retail, tourism, entertainment, and banking, grew by 24.9% between January to May 2022.
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Pashinyan says judicial recording scandal overshadows reform efforts
By Mark Dovich At a press conference Monday, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan broke his silence on the growing public outcry over a recording that appears to show a top judicial official pressuring his predecessor to resign, saying the scandal “overshadows the whole process of judicial and legal reforms.” “I always say that our biggest problem is the judicial system (and) that we don’t have any real successes here,” he added. Ruben Vardazaryan, the former head of the Supreme Judicial Council, was formally dismissed from his position last week, days after he released a recording in which Gagik Jhangiryan, at […]
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Pashinyan’s comments on Lachin corridor refocus attention on residents’ future
By Mark Dovich Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan confirmed at a press conference Monday that “in case of a change” in the route of the Lachin corridor, some Armenian communities there “will pass to Azerbaijan’s control,” refocusing attention on the still-unclear future for the region’s residents. However, he refused to go into any detail about what the handover will mean in practice, only saying that the “problems…will be solved with the help of the Artsakh (Karabakh) government.” The Lachin corridor is a strategically important strip of land surrounding a road patrolled by Russian peacekeepers that, at present, connects Armenia with […]