Armenian News -NEWS.am presents the daily digest of Armenia-related top news as of 09.12.2020:

•             The Movement for Homeland Salvation launched Wednesday its rally demanding the resignation of PM Nikol Pashinyan near the National Assembly.

Today citizens continued to carry out acts of civil disobedience. Citizens also held awareness-raising demonstrations in Yerevan, after which they marched towards the National Assembly. The same acts have been taking place yesterday while over 100 people have been taken to the police stations.

Today, police had lined up a large number of troops near the National Assembly hours before the rally. The building was surrounded by police officers.

Meanwhile, Armenia's Pashinyan took part in the parliament session. A question-and-answer session with government officials began as part of the subsequent sessions of the Armenian parliament.

During the meeting, the Armenian PM was given a piece of paper with a request to write a letter of resignation.

•             Armenian PM Nikol Pashinyan spoke about the statement he signed during the parliament's session on Wednesday.

According to him, "there are no obstacles to studying the legal basis of these circumstances."

Pashinyan added that, regardless of all these processes, it is important that the people of Armenia do not lose the right to form power and free expression of will.

He also noted that processes in the direction of bringing to criminal responsibility for the cruel treatment of the Armenian and Artsakh citizens by the Azerbaijani servicemen are underway.

Deputy PM Tigran Avninyan, in turn, added that talks between Armenia and Azerbaijan on the demarcation of the state border may take place before the end of this year. According to him, an interdepartmental group is engaged in this issue.

•             Representatives of the Bright Armenia opposition party and the Movement for Homeland Salvation met late in the evening yesterday.

Bright Armenia Party Edmon Marukyan and the Movement’s candidate for Prime Minister Vazgen Manukyan were present.

•             My Step faction MP Aram Khachatryan has resigned from the Armenian parliament.

According to him, he will continue his work in the executive branch.

"Resigning from the mandate is connected solely for the purpose of continuing my work in the executive branch," he noted.

Yerevan vice mayor Tigran Virabyan has also submitted a resignation.

According to Virabyan's FB post, he is resigning as intends to change his job.

•             The Senate of Canada rejected the resolution on the Artsakh independence recognition, Senator Leo Housakos tweeted.

"They have been abandoned by Justin Trudeau, who once again favours a tyrant. And sadder still that Trudeau’s Senators chose to play politics and turned their backs on the Armenian community," he added.

•             Russia has banned the import of tomatoes and peppers into Russia from the Armenian province since December 14.

The Russian side has discovered products with the pepino mosaic virus.

Contaminated vegetables were received from the Armavir province of Armenia.

Russia has also banned the import of tomatoes and apples from Azerbaijan.

•             Armenian ex-National Security Service chief Artur Vanetsyan will not be arrested.

The Criminal Court of Appeal of Armenia, under the chairmanship of Rubik Mkhitaryan, rejected the appeal of the Prosecutor General’s Office against the decision to reject the motion to select arrest as a pre-trial measure against him.

•             The Constitutional Court of Armenia appointed the consideration of the appeal of the second President Robert Kocharyan on determining the issue of compliance with Article for March 23, 2021, the Constitutional Court of Armenia said in a statement.

•             Moody's, the authoritative international rating agency, within the framework of its current procedures, reaffirmed the Ba2 rating of the Electric Networks of Armenia.

The rating is unprecedented both in Armenia and in the region and is one point higher than the sovereign rating given to Armenia - Ba3.

•             The US is concerned about Turkey's role in the recent Nagorno-Karabakh war.

Acting Assistant Secretary of State in the US Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs Philip Reeker also noted that OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs are planning to visit Baku and Yerevan over the weekend to discuss the resumption of the peace process of the Karabakh conflict settlement.

•             The two Syrian hired terrorists arrested in Armenia are not prisoners of war, they cannot be surrendered or exchanged, the Investigative Committee of Armenia representative told Armenpress.

They participated in the war unleashed by Azerbaijan against Karabakh and were arrested by the defense army. Amid the discussion of the 'all for all' principle of exchange of prisoners, the impossibility of transferring mercenary terrorists puts an end to the revision of the assumptions about their exchange.