ARMENIAN NEWS: BREAKING NEWS 12.02.2018

President of Bulgaria Rumen Radev is on a state visit to Armenia. On Monday the Bulgarian leader visited the Armenian Genocide Memorial in Yerevan.

Radev had a tête-à-tête meeting with President Serzh Sargsyan that was followed by a joint press briefing. Rumen Radev reiterated support for the peaceful settlement of the Karabakh conflict and assured Bulgaria will provide its assistance to the peace process during its presidency of the EU Council.

Two ethnic Armenians were confirmed dead in a Russian passenger plane crash in Moscow region on Sunday. AN -148 plane crashed several minutes after leaving Moscow's Domodedovo airport with 71 people on board.

One of the victims Varsik Sevoyan, was registered in Gegharkunik province of Armenia. The woman was returning to Orsk from St. Petersburg where she came to visit her daughter, her son Aram told Russian media.

The second pilot of the plane was Sergey Ghambaryan.

The Co-Chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group urged the parties to Karabakh conflict to fulfill commitments undertaken during the recent summit in Geneva.

Summing up their visits to Baku, Yerevan and Nagorno-Karabakh, the Co-Chairs expressed deep concern over the recent loss of life on the line of contact and called upon sides to take additional steps to reduce tensions and to respect the ceasefire.

Iran is ready to sell gas to Armenia at affordable prices, Iranian ambassador said in Yerevan.

Speaking about economic relations between the countries, Seyed Kazzem Sajjadi told reporters that the Iranian side has not noticed anything tangible from Armenia’s membership in the Eurasian Union.

He assured that they are ready to launch the railroad between Armenia and Iran if Yerevan finds investors.

The matter of relief for double taxation between Armenia and the US will be discussed in March, Armenian Finance Minister Vardan Aramyan said.

Although the Armenian minister could not specify any dates for negotiations toward signing such an agreement, he said US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin had for the first time spoken positively with respect to resolving this matter between the two countries.

Germany leads the standings with three gold medals and one bronze after the Day 2 at the Winter Olympics in PyeongChang.

One of the highlights of the day was Evgenia Medvedeva’s new world record in the women’s figure skating short program.

Figure skating competitions continued on Monday with Canada winning gold in the team competitions. The Russian athletes won silver and U.S. was left with bronze.