Armenian News - NEWS.am presents the daily digest of Armenia-related top news as of 03.03.2021:

• The Homeland Salvation Movement—which demands the resignation of Armenia’s Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan — commenced a rally Wednesday outside the National Assembly (NA) building.

There was a large number of police troops inside the parliament's building, including near the entrance to ensure entry of PM Nikol Pashinyan into the National Assembly. Pashinyan came to the building accompanied by dozens of security officers and cars.

The police set up a barricade on the street at the side entrance to the legislature. They also have formed a human chain near the gates of the NA building.

Snipers have been stationed inside the parliament's building as well.

During the parliament's meeting, Pashinyan answered no questions of deputies, leaving this to Vice PM Tigran Avinyan.

• President of Armenia Armen Sarkissian has earlier issued a statement stating that he hasn’t signed the decree on dismissing Onik Gasparyan, but hasn’t applied to the Constitutional Court with the request to determine the constitutionality of the decree either.

Today the leadership of the opposition Homeland Salvation Movement had a meeting with Armen Sarkissian and urged him to apply to the Constitutional Court in regard to this issue.

Pashinyan has reportedly instructed to launch a criminal case to detain Onik Gasparyan.

Meanwhile, later Wednesday, Sarkissian had a meeting with Onik Gasparyan and noted that the Armed Forces must always be under all Armenians’ care and that he will continue to keep the army and its problems in his focus.

• The Artsakh [Nagorno-Karabakh] rescue teams on Wednesday resumed searching for the bodies of the fallen servicemen, as well as for the missing in the Hadrut region and in the southern part of Kashatagh region, which is now out of Artsakh's jurisdiction.

A total of 1,486 bodies have been found so far.

• After the 44-day Artsakh war in 2020, a total of 15,792.1 hectares out of 27,133.1 hectares of arable land in the Martuni region have fallen under Azerbaijani control, Martuni’s Amaras daily reported.

Besides, 578 cattle, 872 small cattle, and 820 pigs died, as well as 792 cattle and 565 small cattle went missing in the Martuni region following the war.

• The Armenian parliament has adopted a draft statement condemning Azerbaijan's policy of obstructing and unnecessarily delaying the repatriation of POWs and captive civilians.

In turn, Zareh Sinanyan, the High Commissioner for Diaspora Affairs of Armenia told Russia's RIA Novosti that Azerbaijan detains more than 100 Armenian citizens, and the delay in resolving this issue delays the start of a dialogue between Yerevan and Baku.

• Freedom House published its annual Freedom in the World 2021 report, touching upon the post-war events in Armenia over the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

According to the report, Armenia scored 55 points out of 100 and is among the partially free countries.

According to the authors of the report, the Karabakh war has strengthened the authoritarian rule of Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, but this conflict threatens to destabilize the position of the Armenian government.

The report also notes that the surrender of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan in the war caused a violent reaction among some opponents, who stormed parliament in November and attacked the speaker.

"Such disorder threatens the country’s hard-won progress," the authors added.

• Two Azerbaijanis are wanted on suspicion of murdering an Armenian man named Artur Sarukhanov in Russia.

According to Russian media, the wanted are Georgian citizens Mussa and Sanan Hasanov.

Earlier, a criminal case has been filed over the murder of this 22-year-old man and the attempted murder of his 31-year-old acquaintance.

• As of Wednesday morning, 360 COVID-19 new cases were confirmed in Armenia, and the total number of these cases has reached 172,816 in the country.

Also, two more deaths from COVID-19 were reported, making the respective total 3,202 cases.

The number of people who have recovered is 163,906, and the number of people currently being treated is 4,889.

Meanwhile, 2,526 COVID-19 tests were conducted in Armenia over the past day, while 739,116 such tests have been performed to date.