Armenian News - NEWS.am presents the daily digest of Armenia-related top news as of 24.09.21:

• Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and his French counterpart Jean-Yves Le Drian expressed a mutual commitment to work to stabilize the situation in Nagorno-Karabakh.

Their meeting took place on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly.

"Mutual disposition was expressed for further work in stabilizing the situation in Nagorno-Karabakh, primarily in the format of the OSCE Minsk Group," the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

The two also noted they are ready to contribute to the establishment of peace in Afghanistan.

• The opposition "Armenia" and "With Honor" Factions of Armenia have boycotted Friday’s special session of the National Assembly (NA).

There was only one matter on the agenda of this session: the package of bills on amendments and addenda to the Law on Administrative-Territorial Division and related laws.

The package proposed by the government envisages another enlargement of the country’s communities.

• During his visit to the US, President of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdogan touched upon the situation created in the South Caucasus.

“We have an option for cooperation that we refer to as the platform of five or six. Currently, we are receiving positive messages from Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan in regard to this platform. In this context, we envisage taking certain steps,” Erdogan stated.

According to him, this issue will be among the issues that he plans to discuss during his meeting with President of Russia Vladimir Putin.

• According to the decision of the relevant state commission of Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh), a minute of silence will be observed in Artsakh at 11 am on September 27, in memory of the casualties of the 44-day war unleashed by Azerbaijan last fall.

And at 10:30 am on the same day, requiem services will be offered in all functioning churches of Artsakh—and for the peace of the souls of the heroes who died for the defense of the Motherland, the Artsakh President's Office informed Armenian News-NEWS.am.

• As of Friday morning, 906 new cases of the coronavirus were confirmed in Armenia, and the total number of these cases has reached 256,554 in the country.

Also, 16 more deaths from COVID-19 were registered, making the respective total 5,216 cases.

According to the health ministry, at the moment, there are 2,156 beds in 18 medical centers for the treatment of patients with COVID-19, and 2,006 of them are occupied.

"About 85% percent of our bed capacity is already used, which currently serves to treat COVID patients," Minister of Health, Anahit Avanesyan noted.