Armenian newly elected deputies will receive their mandates on January 10, representative of the Armenian Central Electoral Commission (CEC) said.
The 7th convocation NA will have 132 MPs, among them 88 lawmakers from My Step bloc, 26 deputies from the Prosperous Armenia Party, and 18 MPs from the Bright Armenia Party.
The first session of the newly elected National Assembly will take place on January 14 at 10am, said CEC Chair Tigran Mukuchyan following the CEC special session.
A total of 18 MPs from Nikol Pashinyan-headed “My Step” bloc abandoned their mandates, including Pashinyan, a number of members of the Cabinet, governors, as well as two deputies from the Bright Armenia party.
A brawl that ended in a killing of a Kazakh young man made headlines in Armenia and Kazakhstan after a video showed hundreds of Kazakhs taking to the streets to express their anger over and accusing the representatives of the Armenian community of Kazakhstan for what occurred.
The police detained three men, among them two ethnic Armenians Torgom Malkhasyan and Sokhak Malkhasyan, as well as Qayir Nadirbekov, in connection with this murder. An arrest warrant was announced for another ethnic Armenian Narek Gururyan. He later issued a message expressing willingness to surrender to the police.
The incident was discussed during phone conversations between the Armenian and Kazakh officials, including the acting foreign minister Zohrab Mnatsakanyan and his Kazakh counterpart Beibut Atamkulov.
The OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs have made a proposal to convene a foreign ministers’ meeting in January, spokeswoman for Armenian MFA Anna Naghdalyan said.
“The statement on the meeting will be made in accordance with the agreed procedure,” she added.
The last time when Armenia’s Acting FM Zohrab Mnatsakanyan met with Azerbaijan’s FM Elmar Mammadyarov was on December 5, 2018 in Milan, Italy.
Armenia will be starting 2019 with a new United States ambassador after the Senate on Wednesday confirmed Lynne Tracy to the posting.
"Like so many others, I was heartened to see a peaceful transition of power. Armenia still has work ahead, however, to cement the gains of the past six months," U.S. Ambassadorial to Armenia Lynne M. Tracy noted during a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing a couple of weeks ago.
