Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s official visit to Iran is still in progress.

On Thursday morning, Pashinyan headed from Tehran to Isfahan, together with his wife, Anna Hakobyan, and the Armenian government delegation led by him. The Armenian PM, accompanied by governor Abbas Rezaei of Isfahan Province, visited the Naqsh-e Jahan Square.

Also, Pashinyan and Hakobyan paid visits to several mosques as well as the Ali Qapu palace and the Qesarieh Grand Bazaar, and got familiarized with the history of Iranian spiritual and cultural structures.

Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan informed the representatives of the Armenian community of Tehran about Armenia’s economic projects with Iran.

The premier stated that the importance of the construction of the third power transmission line between Armenia and Iran also was noted during the talks.

“We spoke about the ways to connect the Gulf to the Black Sea,” Nikol Pashinyan added. “There is [also] a project of Turkmen [natural] gas transit via Iran to Armenia, and then to Georgia.”

Co-chair of the Congressional Armenian Caucus Frank Pallone Jr. and US Representative, Vice-Chair of the Congressional Armenian Caucus, Adam Schiff, commemorated on Wednesday Azerbaijan's anti-Armenian massacre in Sumgait.

According to Frank Pallone Jr., “for over three decades, Azerbaijan has taken steps to cover up these crimes against humanity and dismiss the atrocities at Sumgait.”

“If we do not condemn crimes against humanity and allow them to go unpunished and unrecognized we only strengthen the resolve of those seeking to perpetrate these crimes in the future. It is especially critical to consider this as we prepare to commemorate the 104th Anniversary of the Armenian Genocide in April,” he added.

According to Adam Schiff’s statement submitted to the Congressional Record, “Azerbaijani authorities made little effort to punish those responsible, instead attempting to cover up the atrocities in Sumgait to this day and denying the government role in instigating the killings. Indeed, even today, racist propaganda against Armenia and Armenians is prevalent in Azerbaijan.”

The terrible and bloody Karabakh conflict has brought death and suffering to numerous innocent people, to both Armenians and Azerbaijanis; Russia has always considered this a great tragedy, and it continues to do so, Maria Zakharova, official representative of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA), told reporters on Thursday

In Zakharova’s words, although the Russian position on the Karabakh issue is known, she stands ready to confirm it yet again.

“Our country is making considerable, very huge and decisive efforts in the [conflicting] parties’ seeking a pacific resolution to this conflict,” she noted, in particular. “You said that Russian MPs have participated there. It seems to me that, from the perspective of self-organization, it would be right to direct the question to those who have had a direct participation in that event. The [Russian] MFA hasn’t been the co-founder and co-organizer of the given event.”

Armenia’s Consulate General in Russia’s Rostov-on-Don is in contact with the local authorities after six Armenian nationals were injured in a mini bus crash, spokesperson for Armenia’s Foreign Ministry Anna Naghdalyan wrote on Facebook.

A mini bus with six people turned over in Stavropol region of Russia on Wednesday afternoon.

Two Armenian nationals have been discharged, while another two are still in hospital.

Armenian writer Yeghishe Charents’ house, which has been preserved for many years in Kars, Turkey, has been unexpectedly torn down. 

According to the rumors being spread in Kars, the nationalist mayor of the city had hurriedly ordered the flattening of this house in response to the events that had occurred in Khojaly village, in Nagorno-Karabakh (Artsakh), in February 1992. 

But in its official statement on the demolition of this house, the Kars city hall noted that, supposedly, drug addicts assembled in that house, and therefore there was a need to tear it down.