Armenian News - NEWS.am presents the daily digest of Armenia-related top news as of 16.03.21:

Ter-Petrosyan demanded the PM Nikol Pashinyan's resignation.

"Thus, the only way out which will be the interests of the state, the people and the Prime Minister is, in my opinion, the immediate and voluntary resignation of the Prime Minister and perhaps temporary refuge of the Prime Minister abroad, by ensuring legal guarantees for immunity by the National Assembly," he noted.

"In this case, the duties of the Prime Minister need to be performed by a non-partisan Deputy Prime Minister who will be able to ensure the holding of fair elections through neutrality," Ter-Petrosyan added.

The ruling bloc representatives - particularly the MPs - have slammed Ter-Petrosyan's statement. They also noted that during his presidency, the elections have been falsified.

In general, society is expecting Pashinyan's resignation and snap elections.

The court informed the Committee of Ministers that 58 of the Armenians were repatriated between December 2020 and February 2021 and that seven of them were presumed dead, according to the Armenian government - however, individual applicants in six cases claim that they did not receive any evidence death of their relatives.

Of the 249 Armenians, 72 are still in Azerbaijan, and their capture and detention were recognized by the government of Azerbaijan. With regard to the remaining 112 people, the Azerbaijani government claims that they were unable to identify them among the captives.

  • The OSCE Chairperson-in-Office, Sweden’s FM Ann Linde is in Armenia.

Today she visited the MFA and held a joint conference with the Armenian FM Ara Aivazian.

During the briefing, she welcomed the establishment of a ceasefire in the Nagorno-Karabakh (Artsakh) conflict zone but expressed deep regret over the deaths and injuries.

According to her, the implementation of the provisions of the statement on the ceasefire will allow moving forward in the process to resolve the Karabakh conflict.

Armenian FM, in turn, noted that Azerbaijan and Turkey grossly violated OSCE commitments.

 "Throughout the war, Azerbaijan, with the effective assistance of Turkey, committed massive crimes: ethnic cleansing, war crimes against the Armenians of Artsakh, including against civilians, women, children, the elderly, destroyed numerous civilian and cultural heritage sites,” the FM added.

Aivazian also noted that Artsakh's status should be based on the right of Artsakh Armenians to self-determination.

  • The search operations for the bodies of the fallen servicemen resumed Tuesday in Artsakh.

A total of 1,499 bodies have been found so far as a result of the search for the bodies of servicemen killed in the recent Artsakh war.

  • As of Tuesday morning, 585 new cases of the coronavirus were confirmed in Armenia, and the total number of these cases has reached 179,287 in the country.

Also, 12 more deaths from COVID-19 were registered, making the respective total 3,277 cases.

The number of people who have recovered over the past one day is 292, the total respective number so far is 166,702.

The minister of health, Anahit Avanesyan, told reporters Tuesday that no new strains of COVID-19 have been detected in Armenia yet.

According to her, a special DNA sequencing test is conducted to detect a strain of the coronavirus, several such tests have already been conducted in the country, but no new strains of COVID-19 have been found in the samples.

Two local residents —a father and a son— have been arrested on charges of human trafficking, News Georgia reports.

The two defendants had promised well-paid jobs to three Armenian citizens in 2015 and 2016 and helped them move to Georgia.

Then they had taken these Armenian nationals to a cattle farm in a village of Ninotsminda and had taken away their documents, threatened to exact revenge upon revenge, and had forced them to work for free.

One of these Armenian citizens has managed to escape and tried to illegally cross the Armenian state border.

Defendants face from 12 to 15 years in prison.

One of the demonstrators told reporters that they could no longer live in a country whose PM was a traitor.

Shortly afterward, police arrived at the scene and cleared the avenue, moving the garbage bins to the sidewalk.

Another street has been closed with benches by the protesters.

Another group of demonstrators arrived at the public relations and information center as the people believe it is running the governmental fake accounts in social media. They threw toilet paper and vegetables toward the doors of the building.

It is over two weeks since parliament-led streets are being closed until Pashinyan's resignation.

He insisted that the alliance was an important platform for resolving disputes involving Ankara, Arab Weekly reports.

NATO foreign ministers will gather next week in Brussels for the US-backed alliance’s first face-to-face meeting involving Biden’s team.

NATO has long tried to smooth over internal disputes with Turkey — pointing to the role Ankara has played in housing millions of refugees from Syria and in fighting the Islamic State (ISIS) extremist group.

Madeline Sharafian has been nominated for an Oscar for best Animated Short Film for "Burrow."

And Sev Ohanian, one of the producers of "Judas and the Black Messiah," has been nominated for an Oscar in six categories, including Best Picture.