ARMENIAN NEWS: BREAKING NEWS 14.08.2018

The protesters, who had assembled in downtown Yerevan, burst into the hall where the press conference of Armenia’s second President Robert Kocharyan was about the kick off.

“We are all one of the victims of March 1; we demand to imprison Robert Kocharyan, to imprison [him] for life,” the activists stated.

Thus, the press conference was disrupted. Later on the office of the second president said the press conference will not take place and issued a statement calling activists’ actions “brutal pressure on dissent”.

Meanwhile, the attorneys of Kocharyan, who is charged with breaching Armenia’s constitutional order, are considering the chances of appealing to the Court of Cassation.

Armenia considers unacceptable all Azerbaijani attempts to redistribute military forces in the direction of Nakhichevan, spokesperson for the Armenian foreign ministry said.

She recalled that the Ministry of Defense of Armenia makes statements regarding this matter on a regular basis. “The Armed Forces of Armenia fully control the situation,” Naghdalyan stressed.

Iran commenced separate negotiations with Armenia and Azerbaijan on export of electricity to Russia, Iranian energy minister Reza Ardakanian said.

The energy ties with neighboring countries, such as Pakistan, Afghanistan, Turkmenistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Turkey and Iraq are considered as an advantage to Iran, the minister said.

A motorway bridge collapsed in the Italian city of Genoa.

According to the latest reports, 22 people were killed. The head of the local ambulance service was quoted by one source as saying there were “dozens of dead”.

At this moment, the Armenian Foreign Ministry has no information on the Russian citizenship of Yuri Khachaturov, who represents Armenia in the post of Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) Secretary General.

MFA representative said the ongoing process toward replacing the serving CSTO Secretary General was still in progress. Also, Anna Naghdalyan stressed that Armenia seeks to detach its domestic legal processes from the CSTO and to ensure the latter’s undisrupted activities.