News - Newspaper: Armenia authorities attempting to prevent opening of Russia consulate in Kapan city

Hraparak daily of the Republic of Armenia (RA) writes as follows, in part: According to some reports, the authorities are attempting to prevent the opening of the Russian consulate in Kapan [city] at any cost. Russia has had such a wish for a long time, and although the RA authorities have given permission, and head of Kapan, Gevorg Parsyan, has allocated space for the consulate, but the local [ruling] CC [i.e. the Civil Contract Party] members, naturally, at the instigation of the higher authorities, has been actively working for several months to prevent the process from happening. One of the active advocates of not opening a Russian consulate in Kapan is CC MP Marina Ghazaryan, who even launched a signature campaign to submit to the MFA on behalf of the Kapan people that they are against opening a consulate. (…). By the way, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Evgeniy Ivanov recently announced that Moscow expects to open the consulate in Kapan in the near future, without specifying a specific date. On November 2, 2023, the RF government had approved the agreement to open a consulate general in Kapan. [Armenian FM] Ararat Mirzoyan had confirmed that Moscow wants to open a consulate in Kapan, and Yerevan had given consent. Currently, there is only one consulate in Kapan, Iran's, Russia has a consulate in Armenia only in Gyumri.