Armenian News - NEWS.am presents the daily digest of Armenia-related top news as of 04.10.21:

  • Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has arrived in the capital of Lithuania, Vilnius, on an official visit.

During the visit, the Prime Minister held meetings with the Prime Minister of Lithuania Ingrida Simonyte, President of Lithuania Gitanas Nauseda, and Speaker of the Seimas Viktorija Cmilyte-Nielsen.

During the meeting with Viktorija Cmilyte-Nielsen, she noted that Lithuania is ready to support democratic reforms in Armenia.

  • David Julius and Ardem Patapoutian jointly won the 2021 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine “for their discoveries of receptors for temperature and touch.”

The announcement was made by a panel at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm.

  • Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan’s working visit to Iran kicked off on Monday.

Mirzoyan arrived in Tehran on October 4 to hold talks with his Iranian counterpart Hossein Amirabdollahian on bilateral issues and important regional questions.

Later, the spokesman for Iran's Ministry of Foreign Affairs noted that the visit had already been scheduled and took place in line with widening bilateral relations.

Saeed Khatibzadeh also noted that Tehran has good relations both with Baku and Yerevan.

  • The Criminal Court of Appeal of Armenia on Monday denied the defense lawyer’s appeal against the decision to arrest Aghvan Hovsepyan, former Prosecutor General and former Chairman of the Investigative Committee.

According to the Special Investigation Service, Hovsepyan, 68, who held the post of Prosecutor General, then Chairman of the Investigative Committee, from 2004 to 2018, had legalized—i.e., money laundering—1,299,404,414 drams (approx. $2,632,240), participated in the management of a number of business companies, taken nearly $384,900 in bribes, and fraudulently stolen about $1,620,600 worth of property.

Aghvan Hovsepyan has been charged under several articles of the Criminal Code and is remanded in custody since September 9.

  • Yerevan gives positive signals for the settlement of the border delimitation issue, and Baku hopes for constructive development of this process, said Leyla Abdullayeva, spokeswoman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Azerbaijan.

"In general, Azerbaijan is in favor of establishing relations with all countries on the basis of respect for each other's international borders—which is our country's unchanging position," she noted.

"The process of delimitation of the borders between Azerbaijan and Armenia is a bilateral issue, and the recent positive signals from the opposite side give hope for a constructive development of this process," Abdullayeva told reporters.

According to the source, the purpose of the exercise is to develop cooperation and interaction between the armed forces of Turkey and Azerbaijan.

The Azerbaijani Ministry of Defense has not yet issued an official statement on these exercises.

  • As of Monday morning, 627 new cases of the coronavirus were confirmed in Armenia, and the total number of these cases has reached 265,317 in the country.

Also, 25 more deaths from COVID-19 were registered, making the respective total 5,397 cases.

Meanwhile, as of Sunday, a total of 517,047 inoculations against COVID-19 have been administered in Armenia, of which the first dose was 352,600, and the second dose—164,447.