“Haykakan Zhamanak” says Russian President Vladimir Putin and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian mainly “ascertained their positions” on bilateral relations at their first meeting held in Sochi on Monday. “The Russian side needed to make sure that Armenia is not going to make drastic changes of its foreign policy orientation,” writes the paper. “The Armenian side had to make sure that Russia considers events taking place in Armenia to be Armenia’s internal affair. Each side had to become convinced that the other is inclined to cooperate, develop ties and so on. All the signs are that both sides got to see what they wanted to clarify.”
“Aravot” says that Pashinian and his political team now enjoy the “unconditional support” of most people in Armenia and its worldwide Diaspora. The paper says that the latest and previous regime changes in the country were “good at least in the sense that change is better than stagnation.” “New momentums, new approaches allow us to review the not-so-distant past, learn lessons and try to move forward,” it says. “This is especially true for the first (1990) and third (2018) regime changes which directly involved the society.”
“Zhoghovurd” says that a new and controversial pension system introduced by former President Serzh Sarkisian’s administration is supposed to become mandatory on July 1 for all Armenians born after 1976. The paper says that Armenia’s new Minister of Labor and Social Affairs Mane Tandilian actively campaigned against the pension reform before being elected to the Armenian parliament last year. It wonders whether Tandilian will now try to implement “what she campaigned for” or leave the new system intact.
(Lilit Harutiunian)