Two Azerbaijani soldiers have reportedly been killed in recent days in skirmishes with Armenian forces around Nagorno-Karabakh that appear to be continuing unabated despite international efforts to strengthen the ceasefire regime there.
The World Bank announced on Wednesday the release of a $16 million loan designed to support livestock farms in 55 impoverished mountainous villages across Armenia that live off cattle and sheep breeding.
Thousands of people defied a government ban to pour into a key Yerevan square for the first time in three years as an ongoing campaign of antigovernment protests by the main opposition Armenian National Congress (HAK) gained more momentum on Thursday.
Azerbaijan on Wednesday threatened to shoot down civilian planes that will fly to Nagorno-Karabakh’s sole airport currently undergoing reconstruction. The Karabakh Armenian leadership dismissed the threat, saying that the first commercial flights between the disputed territory and Armenia in two decades will start as planned in May.
The latest Armenian-Azerbaijani summit hosted by Russia produced encouraging signs for the resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh dispute and should bolster the shaky ceasefire regime in the conflict zone, President Serzh Sarkisian said at the weekend.
President Serzh Sarkisian told his government on Friday to adopt a more hands-on approach to economic problems, saying that is essential for speeding up GDP growth and easing hardship in Armenia.
International mediators on Wednesday expressed “deep concern” at continuing ceasefire violations reported from the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict zone and urged the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe to investigate their circumstances.
Opposition leader Levon Ter-Petrosian ramped up pressure on Armenia’s leadership on Tuesday, again rallying thousands of supporters in Yerevan and telling the authorities to hold snap elections or face a popular revolt.
A major Chinese energy company pledged on Wednesday to invest about $500 million in developing and expanding three Armenian iron mines in which it purchased a significant stake last month.
Opposition leader Levon Ter-Petrosian warned Armenia’s leadership to hold fresh elections or face the kind of unrest that has rocked Arab states as he held his largest rally since the bloody suppression of his 2008 post-election protests in Yerevan on Friday.
China regards Armenia as a “trustworthy and reliable friend” and wants to strengthen bilateral ties in all areas of mutual interest, Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi said during a visit to Yerevan on Thursday.
At least one Azerbaijani soldier was wounded on Thursday in what Nagorno-Karabakh’s ethnic Armenian army said was a botched incursion into its positions northeast of the disputed territory.
The supreme head of the Armenian Apostolic Church, Catholicos Garegin II, has urged clergymen serving in Armenian army units to help military authorities fight against non-combat deaths and other violent incidents among military personnel.
Over two dozen Iranian citizens serving prison sentences in Armenia have been sent back to Iran in what the Justice Ministry in Yerevan described on Monday as a gesture of goodwill.
International mediators called for “decisive action” to resolve the Nagorno-Karabakh dispute late on Friday after ending a fresh tour of the conflict zone with talks in Baku with President Ilham Aliyev and other senior Azerbaijani officials.
A U.S. businessman of Armenian descent who until recently worked as an adviser to Prime Minister Tigran Sarkisian was arrested on Wednesday on sex abuse charges stemming from media reports that implicated him in pedophilia.
Businessman Gagik Tsarukian sought on Wednesday to end an unfolding war of words between his Prosperous Armenia Party (HHK) and President Serzh Sarkisian’s Republican Party (HHK) that was sparked by his weekend remarks.
Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh welcomed on Monday an internationally recognized referendum in South Sudan, saying the nearly unanimous vote for its secession from the country’s north underscored peoples’ right to self-determination.
The Council of Europe’s top human rights official on Friday urged the Armenian authorities to free all opposition members remaining in prison and deplored their failure to punish anyone for the deaths of ten people in the 2008 post-election violence in Yerevan.
The owner of an Armenian TV station facing closure threatened on Wednesday to campaign for the ouster of Armenia’s leadership if it fails to meet far-reaching political and economic demands voiced by him at another rally in Yerevan.
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