At Thursday’s Cabinet session, the Government of Armenia approved the draft presidential decree on approving the funding agreement that was signed with the European Union (EU), and with respect to carrying out nuclear safety promotion and stress tests in the country.

The pre-evaluated total cost of this program is €6.5 million.

The said draft decree has been submitted to the President for approval.

 

All of Armenia’s actions within the framework of the CSTO are aimed at increasing the effectiveness of this organization, Anna Naghdalyan, spokesperson of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA), stated at Thursday’s press briefing.

And to the remark that it has become known that Kyrgyzstan will support Belarus’s candidate for the next Secretary General the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), Naghdalyan responded there was no final decision yet on this matter, and  therefore it was impossible to express a view on individual persons

 

Russia has smooth relations with Armenia, Russian President Vladimir Putin told reporters on Thursday.

His remark came in response to comment on how Russia will restore its policy towards Armenia after the snap elections held in December.

According to him, there is nothing to restore in Armenian-Russian relations.

ccording to him, Russia and Armenia should proceed from the realities of the current situation both in the world and region.

“And we will soon discuss it with Mr. Pashinyan, who is set to come next week,” Putin added.

 

There is great probability that there will be no Ministry of Diaspora in the new structure of the Government, acting Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan stated on Wednesday.

“Now we are in the stage of discussions and our key task is to achieve a maximally effective level of state administration, including in the relations with the Diaspora. There is the probability that we will have no Ministry of Diaspora in the new Government and that probability is rather high, but this does not mean that we will not make the connections between Armenia and Diaspora effective through other state bodies”, Pashinyan said.

 

All U.S. State Department personnel are being evacuated from Syria within 24 hours, a U.S. official told Reuters, after the White House said it had started withdrawing U.S. forces, Reuters reported.

The official said the U.S. plans to pull military forces out of the country once the final stages of the last operation against Islamic State is complete, and that the time-frame for the troop pullout is expected to be between 60 to 100 days.

The decision came after a phone call between U.S. President Donald Trump and his Turkish counterpart Tayyip Erdogan on Friday. “Everything that has followed is implementing the agreement that was made in that call,” the official said.