ARMENIAN NEWS: BREAKING NEWS 19.01.2018

Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan received Armenia’s Ambassador to UK Armen Sarkissian on Friday and offered him to become a candidate for the post of the president from the ruling Republican Party of Armenia.

President Sargsyan considered it desirable that the fourth president of Armenia be elected with a broad parliamentary consent.

Armen Sarkissian asked the President for some time to make a final decision in this regard.

As a result of the constitutional amendments in 2015, Armenia has passed to a parliamentary system of governance. Accordingly, the President of the country will be elected by the National Assembly, rather than by nationwide elections, for the first time.

The CoChairs of the OSCE Minsk Group issued a statement following their meeting with the Armenian and Azerbaijani foreign ministers. “The Foreign Ministers agreed in principle to the CoChairs’ revised concept paper for implementing the expansion of the Office of the Personal Representative of the OSCE ChairpersoninOffice with a view toward finalizing it as soon as possible,” the statement reads. ‎”The CoChairs indicated to the Ministers their interest in further discussing the possibility of conducting a follow up to the 2010 assessment mission to the territories affected by the conflict.” The mediators plan to travel to the region in early February.

A mother was killed and her daughter injured in a tragic car accident in Armenia's capital city. Ford hit two pedestrians in the crosswalk on Friday morning near a school. According to Mother was killed at the scene, while tenyearold girl was hospitalized.

Armenian opposition “Yelk” bloc held a march to protest against price hike. According to the bloc, price hike became more obvious from the first days of 2018 aggravating already extremely difficult social situation in the country.

A commemoration event, which is devoted to the 11th anniversary of the assassination of Istanbul Armenian journalist Hrant Dink, was held Friday outside the then office of Agos Armenian weekly of the city. The Friends of Hrant organization as well as several NGOs have organized this remembrance event.

Five new EU grant projects will be implemented in Armenia to assist civil society institutions in the country, head of EU delegation to Armenia Piotr Switalski told reporters on Friday. EU will allocate 1,742,388 euros for the implementation of these projects. He added that these projects are only a part of the ArmeniaEU cooperation within the framework of the bilateral Comprehensive and Enhanced Partnership Agreement, which was signed in November of the year past.

The saga about Henrikh Mkhitaryan’s possible move to Arsenal continues. Armenia international midfielder Henrikh Mkhitaryan arrived at Manchester United’s training ground on Friday morning. Later in the day Manchester United manager Jose Mourinho said Alexis Sanchez “is not his player” yet. “It is not done at all, so in this moment Mkhitaryan is our player, Sánchez’s an Arsenal player and with a match tomorrow I want to switch off and focus on the most important thing, which is the match.”