Eurasianet

Iranians have been flooding into Armenia to get COVID vaccines, causing Tehran to complain and Yerevan to tighten the rules.

Many in the territory blame the rising numbers of coronavirus cases on the authorities’ decision to open up to Russian tourists.

The territory's public health officials have warned against opening up to tourism, and the arrival of tourists has coincided with a spike in the number of COVID-19 cases.

As coronavirus cripples the territory’s tourism season and Russia has stopped sending aid, Abkhazia faces a 10 percent GDP decline this year.

Armed forces on both sides appear not to have made many concessions to the need to social distance, but diplomats have held their first videoconference as part of the ongoing peace negotiations.

The isolation of Abkhazia, South Ossetia, and Nagorno-Karabakh have served them well as the disease spreads all around them.

Armenia went farther than most of Iran’s neighbors, closing its border for two weeks. Azerbaijan, meanwhile, was the only country to have not closed its border with Iran at all.