Yearbook 2010
According to softwareleverage, Armenia’s conflict with Turkey over history became an international issue during the year. In February, Armenia’s parliament decided to give President Serzh Sarkisian the power to revoke the preliminary peace agreement between the countries. Turkey had not accepted the Armenian position that there was Turkish mass murder of Armenians in 1915.
According to COUNTRYAAH, Armenia has a population of 2.965 million (2019). Armenia was supported by the US House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee, which in March passed a resolution calling on the US president to recognize the genocide of the Armenians. Sweden’s parliament took after the elected people in the US, which prompted Turkey to call its ambassador from Stockholm.
The Washington and Stockholm decisions prompted the Turkish prime minister to warn that 100,000 Armenians who lacked citizenship could be expelled from Turkey. The Armenian Foreign Minister responded that the events leading up to the Armenian genocide began with such statements. In April, the Armenian government decided to suspend the reconciliation process with Turkey for the time being.
In May, parliamentary elections were held in the Armenian breakaway club Nagorno-Karabach in Azerbaijan. There was victory for the Armenian Government Coalition, which wants independence, but Nagorno-Karabach and its government are not recognized by the EU or the other international community.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev visited Armenia in August and signed an agreement that gives the Russian Federation the right to retain the military base Gjumri until 2044. Thousands of Russian soldiers are seen in Armenia as a security in view of the conflict with neighboring Azerbaijan, which Armenia fought in the war against of the 1990s.
Shortly after the agreement with the Russian Federation, minor fighting took place at Armenia’s border with Azerbaijan with killed soldiers on both sides. Later, Azerbaijan accused Armenia of ethnic cleansing in Nagorno-Karabakh, while Armenia claimed that Azerbaijan threatened regional peace.
Opposition editor Nikol Pasjinian was sentenced at the beginning of the year to seven years in prison accused of participating in and organizing the violent mass protests following the presidential election in Armenia in 2008. Pasjinian denied and later stated that he had been beaten in prison at night by masked men. Journalists and editors from a variety of Armenian media joined forces in demanding the release of Pasjinian.
- Abbreviation Finder: Check to see how the two letter abbreviation of AM stands for the country of Armenia in geography.
At the end of the year, some imprisoned opposition activists were released, but not Pasjinian.
Demography and economic geography. – State of Transcaucasia. The population of the Caucasian state marked a slight decrease between the census of 2001 (3,213,011 residents) and that of 2011 (3,018,854 residents) and stood at 2,983,900 residents, according to an estimate by UNDESA (United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs), in 2014. In the early 21st century. annual population growth was negative (−0.3), while there was a change in trend in the second half of the decade (+ 0.2%), also due to higher fertility (1.7 children per woman in 2012, compared to 1.3 in 2006). The strong migration trend of Armenians weighs negatively on the demographic balance (5.88 for every thousand residents in 2014), explained by the fact that a third of the population is under 24 years old and youth unemployment is significant (39.2% in 2012). Due to the civil war in Syria, 11,090 Syrian-Armenian refugees are hosted in Armenia. The capital Yerevan is by far the largest inhabited center, with 1,066,300 residents in 2013, while the other towns, including Abovyan and Vagharshapat, have an average of 40,000 and 20,000 residents.
Economic conditions. – The performance of the Armenian economy remains very unstable, heavily dependent on remittances from emigrants and foreign investments. Although GDP has grown steadily between 2011 and 2013 at an average of 5%, the estimate for 2014 and the foreseeable future is a contraction in growth given the poor performance of the Russian economy. Russia, in fact, is the main economic partner with which 20% of transactions take place. Most of the Armenian population remains employed in the primary sector (37.3%), although the main exports are linked to raw materials and partly to processed products. The importance of copper, gold, diamonds, steel, precious metals and liqueurs should be noted in terms of value. However, the trade balance is heavily negative, with imports accounting for about twice as many as exports. Despite this, the state budget is essentially in balance. Energy is supplied mainly through two gas pipelines, one with Russia and the other with Irān, recently built (2008).