Armenian News - NEWS.am presents the daily digest of Armenia-related top news as of 10.03.2021:

  • The two-week confrontation between the government and the armed forces entered a new phase on Wednesday. The Prime Minister's Office announced that Onik Gasparyan is legally dismissed from the post of Chief of General Staff of the Armed Forces.

The Prime Minister has already submitted a petition to the President for the appointment of the former Chief of the General Staff Artak Davtyan to that position, which the President has not yet signed.

Davtyan was relieved of the post of Chief of the General Staff for celebrating his son's wedding during the quarantine amid COVID-19 restrictions.

After that, he was appointed chairman of the Military Industry Committee but resigned after the war. And yesterday, by the decision of the Minister of Defense, he was appointed a senior officer on special assignments.

Today, the Prime Minister's statement was followed by Onik Gasparyan's statement who said that he had applied to the administrative court.

In his statement, he urged the generals, officers, and soldiers to continue their service.

After that, the leadership of the Armed Forces made a statement noting: "The command staff of the RA Armed Forces joins the message of Colonel-General Onik Gasparyan, and confirms the assessments given so far on the current situation in the republic."

President Armen Sarkissian, who did not sign the order to release Onik Gasparyan, has three days to sign the decree appointing Artak Davtyan. The decree will enter into force even if he refuses to sign it.

The Prime Minister submitted a proposal to dismiss Onik Gasparyan from the post of Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces back on February 25 as Gasparyan was among those who demanded Pashinyan's resignation.

On February 27, the Prime Minister's Office received the President's objections to the above-mentioned draft.

Armen Sarkissian said that he would not sign Onik Gasparyan's dismissal decree and would apply to the Constitutional Court to challenge the constitutionality of the law, on the basis of which the Prime Minister had submitted his proposal.

Despite the calls made by different political forces, Armen Sarkissian did not dispute the motion to dismiss Onik Gasparyan from the post in the Constitutional Court.

Some lawyers claim that the Constitution does not authorize the President or the Prime Minister, in general, to dismiss the Chief of General Staff of the Armed Forces.

  • On Tuesday evening, when it became known that that deadline for Armenia president Armen Sarkissian' to dispute Pashinyan's offer to dismiss Onik Gasparyan has expired, the opposition protest near the Armenian parliament has escalated. The opposition PM's candidate Vazgen Manukyan has called on the protesters to block all the ways to the parliament so that the MP's could not enter the building.

The police tried to put pressure on protesters that led to clashes with the protesters. However, the participants managed to close all the doors that MPs used to enter the building.

Protesters also set up tents and spend the night there.

They were called traitors all of those MPs whom they saw passing nearby. Thus, provoking s with some of the parliament members.

The main enters of the building are still being closed. The MPs are forced to enter the building with the door that is being used for the food supply.

The opposition said they are going to protest until the PM resigns, or the MPs impeach Pashinyan.

By the way, Demirchyan street of the Armenian parliament building is being closed for over ten days now.

"The situation in Armenia is the internal affair of that country. Russia is interested in resolving the situation as soon as possible," Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Andrey Rudenko told Wednesday.

"Russia hopes that the situation in Nagorno-Karabakh [(Artsakh)] will not escalate," Rudenko added.

“I must say that Turkish presses and all non-governmental organizations showed tremendous support to Azerbaijan during the war,” Aliyev said.

Turkey and Azerbaijan started having an appetite for ‘transport projects’ after the statement signed by Nikol Pashinyan on November 9 and the ‘specification’ of the Armenian-Azerbaijani border that followed. The Armenian authorities have agreed to ‘specify’ the border in Syunik Province. Moreover, the authorities aren’t refuting the existence of a certain document on Syunik Province. Simultaneously, Azerbaijan isn’t the legal successor of the Soviet Socialist Republic of Azerbaijan, but the legal successor of the Democratic Republic of Azerbaijan.

  • Congressman Brad Sherman, a senior member of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the US House of Representatives, in powerful remarks submitted to the Congressional Record, condemned the Azerbaijani massacres of Armenians in Sumgait, Kirovabad, and Baku.

"Thirty-three years ago, in the Azerbaijani town of Sumgait, peaceful Armenian residents were brutally targeted on the basis of their ethnicity and subjected to unspeakable crimes," he noted.

"Unfortunately, Azeri attacks against Armenian civilians have only continued. In its latest bout of aggression against Armenia and Artsakh in the fall of 2020, Azerbaijan carried out indiscriminate attacks against civilians," he added noting that the government of Azerbaijan must be held accountable by the international community.

Talks will be held between the Foreign Ministers of Armenia and the UAE, Ara Aivazian and Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan on Thursday.

  • As of Wednesday morning, 340 new cases of the coronavirus were confirmed in Armenia, and the total number of these cases has reached 175,538 in the country.

Also, five more deaths from COVID-19 were registered, making the respective total 3,237 cases.

The number of people who have recovered over the past one day is 163, the total respective number so far is 165,259, and the number of people currently being treated is 6,208.

“I think that we need to understand that Turkey is an important ally. Because you can just look at the map and then you see that Turkey is extremely important,” Stoltenberg said at an online event with California-based Stanford University.

In response to a question about whether Turkey should be excluded from NATO amid relations between the Turkish president and his Russian counterpart, Stoltenberg noted that Turkey “has been of great importance,” citing its geographical proximity to Iraq and Syria, the progress made in fighting the Daesh terrorist group and bases and airports there.