Armenian News - NEWS.am presents the daily digest of Armenia-related top news as of 29.06.21:

  • OSCE Chairperson-in-Office, Swedish FM Ann Linde has once again called on Azerbaijan to release Armenian prisoners of war, resume the talks under the auspices of the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs, and achieve a political settlement.

She reminded that in mid-June there was an agreement to return 15 Armenian prisoners of war from Azerbaijan, and Armenia provided Azerbaijan with maps aimed at facilitating the demining works. According to Mrs. Linde, this is a welcoming step aimed at strengthening trust.

“With my statement, I have called on Armenia, Azerbaijan to take a positive step by releasing all remaining detainees and resume the negotiations,” Ann Linde noted.

According to a poll conducted after the snap parliamentary elections in Armenia on June 20, a total of 35.8% of citizens had voted for the ruling Civil Contract Party, while 24.2% of the respondents voted for the "Armenia" bloc, and 6.8% for the "I Have Honor" bloc.

38.7% of the respondents unequivocally believe that the elections were fair and transparent, 20.1% answered "rather yes than no," 18.8%—"rather no than yes," 17.9%—"definitely no," and 4.5% could not respond.

  • The OSCE Chair-in-Office, Swedish Foreign Minister Ann Linde congratulated the acting PM Nikol Pashinyan on his victory in the snap parliamentary elections.

According to the final results of the vote count by the Central Election Commission, Nikol Pashinyan's Civil Contract Party got 53.91% of the votes.

"Looking forward to working with Armenian government & wish you success in continued democratic reforms. stands ready to support," Linde noted.

US President Joe Biden has also congratulated Pashinyan.

“Our partnership with Armenia is one of shared values and cooperation on democratic reform and conflict resolution—we are committed to strengthening that partnership,” Biden tweeted.

  • The "trial"—based on fake criminal cases—against 27 Armenian captives is underway in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan.

The Azerbaijani authorities are grossly violating all international law on the rights of captives, as well as the points of the trilateral agreement reached on November 9, 2020, one of these points being the return of all captives.

With the purpose of ensuring several anti-records for sound and adequate understanding of the reality, the Azerbaijani authorities continue their buffoonery and the trials against Armenian prisoners of war, but all this seems too little for the Aliyev regime’s buffoons.

According to the Azerbaijani media, lawyers have filed a motion with the court to launch a criminal case against former Armenian defense minister Davit Tonoyan and former Chief of the General Staff of the Armenian Armed Forces Onik Gasparyan and interview the defendants as witnesses.

"The convicts have declared that they agree with the motion. The state prosecutor has declared that the motion contradicts Articles 318 and 207 of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Azerbaijan, saying that “the court considers the criminal cases on the ground of the presented allegations; if during the trial the complicity of the person with the crime is established, the issue needs to be separated in a separate proceeding and considered separate from the allegation”," Azerbaijani presses added.

The parties discussed the return of refugees and temporarily displaced persons to Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding territories, in accordance with the statement on ceasefire in Nagorno-Karabakh signed on November 9, 2020, by the leaders of Armenia, Russia, and Azerbaijan.

  • As of Tuesday morning, 116 new cases of the coronavirus were confirmed in Armenia, and the total number of these cases has reached 224,967 in the country, the National Center for Disease Control and Prevention informed Armenian News-NEWS.am.

Also, four more deaths from COVID-19 were registered, making the respective total 4,514 cases.

Meanwhile, Artsakh [Nagorno-Karabakh] has confirmed three COVID-19 news cases, bringing the total number to 908.

  • The initial round of Goldmoney Asian Rapid ended with Levon Aronian’s victory. The Armenian chess grandmaster scored 10.5 points and made it to the quarter-final, exceeding Chinese Ding Liren by one point.

On the third day of the tournament, Aronian defeated Iranian Alireza Firouzja (FIDE) and Russian Daniil Dubov, tied the matches with Chinese Hou Yifan, Russian Vladislav Artemiev, and American Wesley So.

Goldmoney Asian Rapid is the seventh stage of Meltwater Champions Chess Tour organized by Magnus Carlsen. The total prize fund is $1,600,000,000, and the prize fund for Goldmoney Asian Rapid is $100,000.