Armenian News - NEWS.am presents a daily digest of Armenia related top news as of 19.06.2020:

·       Armenia confirmed Friday 459 COVID-19 new cases, bringing the total number to 19,157.

The total number of tests conducted so far is 91,943. Also, 10,462 people are currently being treated.

According to the latest data, 8,266 people have recovered.

In total, 319 patients—an increase by 10 in the past day—have died.

·       The COVID-19 death toll has exceeded 456 thousand globally, while the number of cases is over 8,5 million.

According to worldometers.info/coronavirus/, over 4,5 million patients have already recovered.

The US leads in terms of the total number of cases, leaving behind Brazil, Russia, India, and the UK.

Armenia ranks 49th in this regard. However, the republic is 13th in the number of cases per million inhabitants.

·       A joint meeting of the Security Councils of Armenia and Artsakh was held Friday in Yerevan.

The meeting was chaired by Armenia's PM Nikol Pashinyan and Artsakh President Arayik Haroutyunyan.

Heads of the Armenia and Artsakh parliaments, Ararat Mirzoyan and Artur Tovmasyan, respectively, were also in attendance.

As PM Pashinyan noted, "the Karabakh peace process is not concert by order with one or two intermissions."

"By not accepting my proposal, the President of Azerbaijan does not accept any possibility of compromise at all," he added. "With such approaches, we cannot expect real progress in the negotiation process, especially when they are accompanied by threats of war or direct or indirect territorial or historical demands against the Armenian people."

·       The Council of Europe Venice Commission’s advisory opinion—based on the petition by the Constitutional Court of Armenia—on the constitutionality of Article 300.1 of the Criminal Code of Armenia, was made public Thursday evening.

A briefing by Kocharyan's attorneys Hovhannes Khudoyan and Aram Vardevanyan took place in Yerevan Friday, during which the lawyers answered questions about the decision of the Criminal Court of Appeal to release Kocharyan on bail and the aforesaid advisory opinion of the Venice Commission.

According to Aram Vardevanyan, "the wording of Article 300.1 of the Criminal Code is incomprehensible to the Venice Commission."

·       The court hearing over the petition to arrest opposition Prosperous Armenia Party (PAP) leader, and business tycoon Gagik Tsarukyan ended on Friday, and the decision will be announced this Sunday.

The National Security Service has charged Gagik Tsarukyan of vote buying, but Tsarukyan does not accept this accusation and says it as a fabricated case.

As Tsarukyan noted on Thursday, "120 investigators have been involved in this case over the past two days."

"There was nobody who could say I had anything to do with electoral bribes," he added.