Armenian News - NEWS.am presents the daily digest of Armenia-related top news as of 27.12.21:

  • The second president of Armenia, leader of the opposition "Armenia" Bloc Robert Kocharyan held a year-end press conference on Monday.

During the briefing, he referred to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and noted that "we lost control not only over those 40 - 45 km but over ten times larger areas."

"In the field of security, I consider it a complete failure for Armenia, as no issue has improved this year," he noted.

"Loss of territories. Authorities also acknowledge that more than 40 square kilometers are under the adversary’s control. But in reality, we do not control much larger areas," the second president added.

According to Kocharyan, this year the Armenian side has lost the opportunity to use the most important roads.

"We have had about 36 casualties, 30 wounded, and more than 30 new prisoners of war over the course of this year.

He said that nothing was done last year to restore the army's armament as well.

  • Artsakh parliament and president as well as Artsakh and Armenian human rights chiefs criticized distorted formulations of Armenian PM Nikol Pashinyan on the Nagorno-Karabakh situation.

During an online interview on Friday, Pashinyan said in particular that a disaster had occurred in the negotiation process in 2016. In January of that year, the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs handed over a package of proposals, in which, although it was indicated that there is a parliament, a judiciary, etc. in Nagorno-Karabakh, the issue of clarifying the intermediate status was transferred to the UN Security Council. This meant that, according to the proposals, the solution to the issue that was previously within the framework of the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairmanship was transferred to the UN Security Council. This meant that the NKR was part of Azerbaijan.

The prime minister also argued in an interview that the territory of the former Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Region was not considered as an exclusively Armenian territorial union at any stage of the negotiations. According to the prime minister, in the talks it was recorded that the Azerbaijani population also lived in Nagorno-Karabakh, and the protection of their interests was on the agenda of the negotiations.

  • The first meeting of the representatives of Armenia and Turkey on the normalization of relations will take place in Moscow, said Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, RIA Novosti reports.

“Special envoys for normalization with Armenia have been appointed. The first meeting will be in Moscow. We hope that Armenia will act within the framework of international law,” Cavusoglu told journalists in Ankara.

The minister also said that the first Istanbul-Yerevan flight will take place in the coming days.

  • The Collective Security Treaty Organization is concerned about the continuing instability on the border between Armenia and Azerbaijan, said CSTO boss Stanislav Zas.

"For obvious reasons, we are primarily concerned about the growing crisis phenomena on the borders of the CSTO member states."

According to him, the organization closely monitors the development of the situation in the South Caucasus and is in constant contact with the Armenian side. The Secretary General recalled that he returned from Yerevan a few days ago, where he thoroughly discussed the current situation with the leadership of Armenia.

  • Azerbaijan will file two more claims against Armenia in international arbitration, Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov said.

"In 2021, interstate lawsuits between Azerbaijan and Armenia took place for the first time. Work in this direction has already begun, during this year Azerbaijan filed a lawsuit against Armenia to the European Court of Human Rights, at the same time, within the framework of the 1965 Convention on the Elimination of Any Forms of Racial Discrimination - to the UN International Court of Justice," Bayramov said.

  • As of Monday morning, 59 new cases of the coronavirus were confirmed in Armenia, and the total number of these cases has reached 344,540 in the country, Armenian News-NEWS.am has learned from the National Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

Also, seven more deaths from COVID-19 were registered, making the respective total 7,950 cases.