ITV.com, UK
Aug 2 2004
Al-Qaeda blamed for Iraq church attacks
7.05AM, Mon Aug 2 2004
Al-Qaeda is being blamed for the bombing of four churches in Baghdad
which killed at least ten worshippers.
More than 40 others were injured in the co-ordinated attacks which
the Iraqi government said were an attempt to force Christians out of
the country.
The Vatican condemned the blasts – the first attacks on churches
during the 15-month insurgency – echoing concerns among Iraqis that
they aimed to inflame religious tensions.
In the deadliest attack, a suicide car bomber drove into the car park
of a Chaldean church in southern Baghdad before detonating his
vehicle, killing at least ten people as worshippers left the
building.
The US military has warned that guerrillas opposed to the presence of
more 160,000 foreign troops may try to deepen divisions between the
country’s diverse religious communities in their campaign to
destabilise Iraq.
Vatican deputy spokesman Father Ciro Benedettini said: “It is
terrible and worrying because it is the first time that Christian
churches are being targeted in Iraq.”
An explosion at the Armenian church in Baghdad shattered stained
glass windows and hurled chunks of hot metal. Another bomb exploded
15 minutes later at a nearby Assyrian church.
US Colonel Mike Murray of the 1st Cavalry Division said at least 50
people had been wounded at the church, some seriously.
In Mosul, officials said at least one person was killed in a blast at
a church and 15 wounded.

Independent Online, South Africa
Aug 2 2004
Zarqawi blamed for Iraqi church attacks
Baghdad – Iraq’s Christian minority became the latest target of
violence in Iraq on Sunday when explosions killed at least 10 people
outside churches here and in the northern city of Mosul.
And on Monday, Iraq’s national security adviser said the attacks
carry the hallmarks of suspected al-Qaeda ally Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
“There is no shadow of a doubt that this bears the blueprint of
Zarqawi,” Mowaffaq al-Rubaie told Reuters, adding the attacks on
Sunday evening were an attempt to drive Iraq’s minority Christians
out of the country.
“Zarqawi and his extremists are basically trying to drive a wedge
between Muslims and Christians in Iraq.”
‘There is no shadow of a doubt that this bears the blueprint of
Zarqawi’
Rubaie said Iraq’s national security council would hold an emergency
meeting on Monday to discuss the blasts that hit at least five
churches, including four in Baghdad.
Six car bombs blew up in Baghdad and Mosul churches in the first
attack against Christian places of worship since US-led forces
toppled Saddam Hussein in April 2003. Fifty people were wounded.
Six people died when one of the bombs exploded inside a huge church
and seminary compound in southern Baghdad, causing massive damage,
police and medics said.
A rescue worker at the Al-Dura compound said he pulled out six dead
women and two dead children from the debris.
The bomb exploded as worshippers were leaving evening mass, an AFP
correspondent at the scene said.
‘It’s a crime. It’s Sunday, we were at mass’
A car was detonated by a suicide bomber outside an Armenian church in
Baghdad’s upmarket district of Karada, said policeman Haidar Abdul
Hussein.
Minutes later, a second car bomb exploded next to a Catholic Syriac
church.
Police reported a fourth explosion outside a Chaldean Catholic church
in the east of Baghdad.
“It’s a crime. It’s Sunday, we were at mass. There were a lot of
women and children,” said Bishop Raphael Kutami at the Syriac church
in Baghdad.
Another priest said the explosion occurred as people were leaving the
church and the number of wounded was unkown.
In Mosul, 370 kilometres north of the capital, two car bombs exploded
in the early evening outside the Mar Polis church in the central
Mohandessin neighborhood, Major Mohammed Omar Taha said.
Medics there said one person was killed and 15 were wounded in the
bombings.
In the northern oil city of Kirkuk, police said an explosion went off
in the evening in a Christian neighborhood, but there were no
casualties because most people were at church.
A Vatican spokesperson described the attacks as “terrible and very
worrying because it is the first time that Christian places of
worship have been targeted in Iraq.”
“It seems that someone wants to increase tension by trying to hit all
groups, the churches included,” said the spokesman, the Reverend Ciro
Benedettini.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Azer Tag, Azerbaijan State Info Agency
Aug 2 2004
FOREIGN MINISTER OF AZERBAIJAN MET PRESIDENT AND FOREIGN MINISTER OF
IRAN IN TEHRAN
[August 02, 2004, 11:47:05]
Visiting the Islamic Republic of Iran, foreign minister of Azerbaijan
Republic Elmar Mammadyarov met on July 31 the President of IRI Seyid
Mohammad Khatemi. ON the same day, Azerbaijani foreign minister
carried negotiations with his Iranian counterpart.
As stated, during the meetings, foreign minister of Azerbaijan noted
that national leader of Azerbaijan Heydar Aliyev paid great attention
on the Azerbaijan-Iran relations, and the reciprocal visits of the
two countries’ presidents serve development of the bilateral ties,
and that this course is successfully being continued by President
Ilham Aliyev.
Noting that he is pleased with the existing level of cooperation
between the two states in the frame of the international
organizations, Mr. Mammadyarov said that he assesses support by Iran
the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan in the Armenia-Azerbaijan,
Nagorny Karabakh conflict. The Minister stressed that preparation for
the Iranian President’s coming visit to Azerbaijan are continued.
Noting that he pays special attention to the Iranian-Azerbaijani
relations, President Seyid Mohammad Khatemi with great pleasure
reminded that President Heydar Aliyev attached particular attention
on these relations and expressed gratitude to President Ilham Aliyev
for development of these relations.
Underlining that recently he will visit the Republic of Azerbaijan,
the Iranian President said he was keen in development of the existent
relations between the two countries. Noting that he adheres peace way
settlement of the Armenia-Azerbaijan, Nagorny Karabakh conflict and
liberation of the occupied Azerbaijani territories, President of Iran
stated that his country supports territorial integrity of Azerbaijan
and that Iran would make every effort to regulate the conflict.
President Khatemi stressed the necessity of making further efforts in
realization of joint economic projects.
In the meeting with his Iranian counterpart Mr. Kamal Kharrazi,
minister of foreign affairs of Azerbaijan Elmar Mammadyarov discussed
the recent official visit of the president of IRI Seyid Mohammad
Khatemi to Azerbaijan, as well as other questions on cooperation in
political, economic, cultural and humanitarian fields. Mr. Kharrazi
stated that Iran backs participation of Azerbaijan in the project
North-South corridor project. The foreign ministers held news
conference on conclusions of the visit for the media representatives.
Foreign minister of Azerbaijan E. Mammadyarov met in Tehran the
secretary general of ECO, Mr. A. Orazbay. Discussed were issues
connected to the forthcoming ECO Summit in Dushenbe in September, as
well as issues on cooperation on transport, tariffs and power fields
among the ECO member-states.
Minister E. Mammadyarov met the staff members of Azerbaijan embassy
in Iran, updated them on the conclusions of the 27-28 July meeting
held at the Azerbaijan Foreign Ministry in Baku. He spoke of the
tasks put forward by the Country’s President Ilham Aliyev at the
meeting.
Foreign minister of Azerbaijan visited the memorial-tomb of the
leader of Islamic Revolution of Iran Imam Khomeyni and assigned a
wreath on the monument.

Los Angeles Daily News, CA
Aug 2 2004
Last-minute ante helps freshman
By Naush Boghossian
Staff Writer
GLENDALE — After years of studying, earning good grades and taking
advanced placement classes, Veronika Barsegyan got what she had been
hoping for: a big, fat letter of acceptance from UCLA.
It was followed, however, by another letter — this one explaining
that, because of funding shortages, she’d have to wait two years
before starting at the University of California, Los Angeles.
Disappointed, the 18-year-old Glendale resident enrolled in classes
at Glendale Community College.
But wait.
Barsegyan is now headed back to UCLA — the result of last week’s
state budget vote that directed $33 million back to University of
California and California State University campuses.
“I’d be more understanding if they said they couldn’t accept me
because my SAT scores weren’t high enough or my grades weren’t good
enough,” Barsegyan said. “But after you worked that hard, they tell
you you’re in, but you’re not in. And it’s hard to explain to
everyone who asks, ‘Where are you going to school?”‘
About 7,000 UC and Cal State applicants who had been redirected to
community colleges — with the understanding that they would be
guaranteed transfers to their chosen schools if they kept up their
grades — will again be offered positions at the schools.
Glendale Community College had 22 students who had indicated they
were interested in joining the guaranteed transfer program, and
Pasadena City College, 66.
“The reality is that these students had qualified by grade and by SAT
scores and … they had to redirect them despite having done
everything necessary to be admitted,” said Sen. Jack Scott,
D-Pasadena, chairman of the budget subcommittee on education that had
fought against the higher education cuts.
“We can’t deny dreams and the kind of values and upward mobility that
education gives people.”
Barsegyan — unlike the 80 percent of students who, when offered UC
redirecting, turned it down to attend other schools — chose not to
attend the private Loyola Marymount University at about $25,000 a
year because she didn’t want to go into debt.
She had already immersed herself in classes at Glendale College,
finishing summer school Thursday and planning to take classes in the
fall. Her goal was to finish up community college in one year.
“It was a dream of mine to go to UCLA, and I was kind of
disappointed. I was trying to hurry up and get there,” she said,
laughing. “It wasn’t like ‘Bummer, I’m going to GCC,’ but now I’m
really excited because it’s a completely different atmosphere there,
to experience the UCLA life.”
Barsegyan, who graduated from Rose and Alex Pilibos Armenian School
with a 3.9 grade point average and scored 1260 on her SATs, plans to
study political science and eventually apply to law school.
Her father, Apet, who had been closely monitoring the state budget
discussions, said he’s pleased that his daughter will attend the
university she was qualified to attend.
The family moved from Armenia to the United States 15 years ago, and
his children grew up knowing that education was the No. 1 priority.
“One of the goals for human beings is to lead a better life and
provide better living conditions for your children,” Apet Barsegyan
said. “In this case … even though the decision was made to cut the
financial budget to schools, people stood up to reverse it. That’s
what makes this a great country.”

Los Angeles Daily News, CA
Aug 2 2004
Christian minority targeted in Iraq
By Somini Sengupta and Ian Fisher
The New York Times
BAGHDAD, Iraq — In the first significant attacks against Iraq’s
Christian minority since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein’s
government, assailants staged a series of coordinated car bombings
Sunday evening near four churches in Baghdad and another in the
northern city of Mosul.
In Baghdad, at least 11 people, including two children, were killed
in the explosions timed to coincide with Sunday evening Mass, and at
least 20 people were injured, witnesses and hospital officials said.
One person died in the Mosul attack, and seven people were injured,
according to a U.S. military report.
At least one church, in a lively Christian enclave in the Karrada
neighborhood of downtown Baghdad, was struck as the priest was giving
Communion. Next door, a Muslim family of five was killed by the
blast, which was powerful enough to rip a row of bricks from the
building’s top floor and shatter the windows inside a courtyard well
down the block. A hospital official said a Muslim passerby also was
killed in one of the blasts.
“It is a crime,” Monsignor Raphael Kutemi said in front of the
rectory of the Syrian Catholic church, Notre Dame of Deliverance. “It
is Sunday, and we were in prayer.”
The bombings Sunday seemed to mark another turning point in the
already terrifying violence that has wracked Iraq since the U.S.-led
invasion last year.
Even in this long-secular capital city, a growing tide of Islamist
extremism since the fall of Saddam’s government has shuttered liquor
stores, often owned by Christians, and beauty salons and compelled
women and girls to cover their heads. It was not clear if the attacks
on the churches were an extension of fundamentalist fervor or a
calculated escalation by insurgents who have shown a willingness to
broaden their attacks, even on fellow Muslims, in their fight against
the U.S. presence here and the new interim Iraqi government.
A few minutes before the Syrian Catholic church was struck, another
car bomb exploded in front of the nearby Armenian church as Mass was
under way. And inside a seminary compound in the south Baghdad
neighborhood of Doura, two cars loaded with explosives blew up. A
fourth explosion was set off across town in an enclave called New
Baghdad when a car carrying explosives crashed into the car in front
of it and blew up yards from a Catholic church but in front of a
mosque.
Across Baghdad, the evening sky was laced with plumes of thick black
smoke. U.S. military helicopters hovered over the blast sites. The
smell of charred metal lingered in the air long after the fires were
extinguished and darkness fell.
About the same time Sunday evening, in Mosul, about 220 miles north
of Baghdad, parishioners were coming out of a Catholic church Mass
when a car bomb detonated. A U.S. military report said the blast was
caused by a bomb in a four-door Toyota Supra.
Meanwhile, the fate of seven foreign truck drivers taken hostage last
week remained uncertain.
Agence France-Presse quoted a Kenyan government official in Nairobi
as saying that all seven — three Kenyans, three Indians and an
Egyptian — had been freed. But neither the Kuwaiti company that
employed them nor the Muslim sheik who has tried to negotiate for
their release could confirm this. In fact, the sheik, Hisham
al-Dulaymi, said Sunday evening that the hostage-takers, who call
themselves the Bearers of the Black Banners, had warned him in a
letter that they were prepared to behead their captives.
Al-Dulaymi said he would not take part in any more negotiations,
saying that he believed the kidnappers would, as threatened, begin
executing hostages soon.
“They are going to carry out their threat,” he said Sunday afternoon,
showing the letter in a plain brown envelope, which he said was sent
to him by insurgents signaling that the negotiations for the
hostages’ freedom had ended in failure.
He said the hostages’ employer, Kuwait Gulf and Link Transport, had
refused to furnish what the kidnappers described as compensation
money for those killed during clashes with U.S. troops in the western
insurgency hotbed of Fallujah. He refused to specify how much the
kidnappers demanded, but it was a suggestion nonetheless of
less-than-ideological imperatives driving the hostage-taking.
Reuters, citing a Lebanese Foreign Ministry official, reported that
on Sunday Iraqi soldiers freed a Lebanese citizen who had been seized
in a separate hostage-taking. The fate of another Lebanese, taken
captive with a Syrian driver on Friday, remained unclear.
Earlier on Sunday, a suicide car bomber raced to a police station in
Mosul and blew up his vehicle, killing at least five and wounding 53,
U.S. military officials said. In Baghdad early in the morning,
another car bomb killed three and injured three others.
The Sunday strikes followed overnight clashes between U.S. troops and
insurgents in Fallujah, 35 miles west of Baghdad, in which 10 people
were killed, the U.S. military said.
The church bombings struck a singular note in the history of the
15-month insurgency. It is the first time since the March 2003
invasion that Christians, who represent less than 5 percent of the
country’s 24 million citizens, have come under fire in such a direct
way. Guerrillas have largely directed their wrath toward Iraqi
government representatives and law enforcement officials, as well as
foreign workers, translators and anyone else accused of collaborating
with the 140,000-strong U.S. troop presence here.
But the U.S.-led invasion unleashed Islamist hardliners, long
suppressed during Saddam’s rule. In Baghdad, a militia loyal to the
radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr has been blamed for many of the
attacks against the largely Christian-owned liquor stores. At the
same time, the Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi has been
accused by U.S. officials of assembling a core of Sunni Muslim
extremists, some from outside Iraq, to foment sectarian violence.
Sunday’s coordinated strikes sent shock waves among ordinary
Christians and Muslims alike.
“Never, I’m never going to church again on Sunday,” said Khawla Yawo
Odishah, who had escaped the bombing because a family medical
emergency had caused her to miss Mass.
As darkness fell, Odishah, 50, lingered across the street from the
compound of St. Peter Seminary in Doura, where two car bombs blew up,
torching several other cars and filling the night air with the heat
and stench of burning metal. This was the Mass many of her friends
usually attended, she said.
Faris Talis, a Muslim, said he was in his tire repair store Sunday
evening when the first car bomb exploded on the street, spattering
bits of glass and metal. He said he looked up to see a man, who he
believes was involved in the attack, run into the seminary’s parking
lot. Then the second blast went off inside the seminary compound. He
ran inside to help what he said were scores of injured and dead.
“I am a Muslim and I was evacuating them,” he said. “I feel terrible
about this. Whatever did this is a criminal. He doesn’t have any
mercy in his heart.”
In the seminary parking lot, about a dozen cars sat scorched and
smoking just inside the front wall, at least one tipped up on its
side. Glass, ash and car parts were strewn around the lot, about 50
yards from the main building. Heat radiated off the blackened metal,
as several men carried a blanket to one of the cars, apparently to
retrieve the body of someone who had been trapped inside.
In the Karada neighborhood in central Baghdad, worshippers had
gathered for Mass at the Armenian church, when, according to one
witness, a Volkswagen Passat pulled up and exploded. The engine flew
200 feet and landed in the street. Flames raced to the sky in front
of the church.
Minutes later, a few blocks away, a second explosion erupted in front
of the Syrian Catholic church, sending people running, engulfed in
smoke.
Safaa Michael, who was at the service, heard the first explosion.
When the second blast came, “all the glass fell down over our heads.”
There were blood stains on his temple.
The church went suddenly dark. The explosion had cut the electricity.
Zaid Gazee Al-Janabi, 30, a security guard and a Muslim who lives
down the street, watched the bomb blow off the roof of a house next
to the church. He pulled five bodies, including those of two
children, from the ground floor. They were Muslims. They were his
friends.
Fadel Aziz, 38, a Christian businessman who lives on the block, said
he watched as the car exploded in front of him. Glass shattered along
the block and a hunk of blackened metal careened into his yard. “It
was very big,” he said. He said he saw six or seven injured, and
helped two of them into his house. Like many others, he blamed the
carnage on foreigners.
“We have lived with Muslims for thousands of years,” he said.
“Nothing like this ever happened before. They cannot be Iraqis. They
came to make trouble in the country.”

Interfax
Aug 2 2004
Armenian budget surplus 1% of GDP in H1
Yerevan. (Interfax) – The budget surplus in Armenia in the first half
of 2004 amounted to 5.96 million dram or 1% of GDP, a source in the
republic’s Finance and Economics Ministry told Interfax.
Budget revenue in January-June this year amounted to 126.766 billion
dram (21.1% of GDP), with expenditure of 120.8 billion dram (20.1% of
GDP).
Armenian GDP in January-June 2004 increased 9.1% year-on-year to
600.04 billion dram.
The republic’s budget for 2004 was confirmed with a deficit of 42.9
billion dram or 2.53% of GDP. Revenue is planned at 274.1 billion
dram, with expenditure of 317 billion dram.
The official exchange rate on July 30 was 519.07 dram to the dollar.

Ekklesia, UK
Aug 2 2004
Christians respond to church bombings in Iraq
Middle Eastern church leaders have condemned attacks on Iraqi
churches and called for solidarity following bombings at churches
yesterday.
According to some news reports, at least 11 people were killed and
dozens injured as bombs exploded at four churches – two of them
Syrian and two, Armenian Orthodox – and a monastery.
Two churches in the Karada District in central Baghdad were bombed.
Local reports there said that two or four people were killed and
several injured when a car bomb exploded outside the Syrian Catholic
Church. The reports also said that several people were injured in a
similar car bomb attack on the nearby Armenian Catholic Church. Two
churches in the Al Dura suburb of southern Baghdad, and a church in
Mosul in northern Iraq, were apparently attacked at the same time.
The attacks mark the first time Iraqi churches have been targeted in
this way.
Members of Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) in Iraq, Sheila
Provencher and Greg Rollins, were worshipping at St Raphael’s
Catholic Church when the first bomb exploded at 6:25 pm at the
Armenian church about a quarter mile away from them. At that moment
in the service, there had been a time of silence, and the priest then
continued with the next words of the regular liturgy, “Lamb of God,
who takes away the sins of the world, have mercy on us.”
Two other CPT members Peggy Gish and Doug Pritchard were worshipping
at St Yousef’s Chaldean Church in the same neighbourhood as the
Armenian and Syrian churches. Gish said, “When I heard the first
explosion, I wondered if it was
an attack on a church, and I prayed immediately for whoever might
have been involved.” As people were leaving the service at 6:50 pm,
the second blast occurred at the Syrian church three blocks away.
Parishioners were quickly hurried out of the area by the Chaldean
church’s security staff who then blocked off the road.
While walking away from the church, Gish and Pritchard asked worried
residents for details. One family pulled them inside their home and
shared their recent experiences.
The young woman of the family wept and said, “My father was killed
recently because he sold alcohol. Because of that, I was too afraid
to go to my church today. Now it has been bombed. I don’t know if my
friends there are alive or dead. Saddam was a killer. Now there are
many Saddams.”
Speaking today at the World Council of Churches (WCC) Faith and Order
plenary commission meeting in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, bishop Nareg
Alemezian of the Armenian Apostolic Church (Catholicosate of Cilicia)
said: “This is the first time Christian churches have been targeted.
We condemn this attack and we are very concerned about it.”
Metropolitan Dr Mar Gregorios Yohanna Ibrahim, from the Syrian
Orthodox Church of Antioch, urged Christians and Muslims to work
together for peace. “Solidarity is very important, both inside and
outside the region, both among Christians and between Christians and
Muslims,” he said.
Gregorios stressed that “the WCC and others should encourage anything
that brings Christians and Muslims together, not only in theological
dialogue but also in the dialogue of life and work.”
“I address my appeal to the Arab world, which can support any plan
for peace, and also to the Iraqi people themselves – if they are not
in solidarity, how then can they solve these problems?” he asked.
Alemezian called on international and local people to work for peace.
“This is not just a problem for Syrians and Armenians,” he said. “The
situation in Iraq is not isolated. It is related to the general
political situation in the world.
“We have a conflict, and we have to solve it – the US, the UN, all
parties involved in the creation of this situation, but also local
people and faith communities.”
Both leaders stressed the good relations between Christians and
Muslims in Iraq prior to the bombings.
“Christians are an integral part of the society they are living in,
they are not newcomers, they are not there for any superficial
reason,” said Alemezian. “Middle Eastern Christians are the people of
the land where Christ was born,” he added.
They both stressed the dangers posed by pressure on the nearly
1million Iraqi Christians leading to increased emigration.
“The diminishing number of Christians in Iraq is a terrible thing,”
said Gregorios. “The same picture is replicated in other countries
like Turkey, Iran, and Palestine. We are losing our people.”
Could a situation arise, they said, where there were no Christians in
the Middle East and no Muslims in the West? This would be “dangerous
for everybody,” said Metropolitan Gregorios. “This is very important.
It’s not good for humanity.”
So far, no one has claimed responsibility for these coordinated
attacks.

Interfax
Aug 2 2004
Armenian nuclear power station to close July 31 for repairs
Yerevan. (Interfax) – Unit two at the Armenian nuclear power plant
will be shut down at midnight local time for repairs and nuclear fuel
loading.
At 1:25 a.m., on Friday, one of two turbo generators was stopped and
the other will be stopped on July 31, the plant’s general director,
Garik Markosian, told Interfax.
Reactor repairs at unit two will take 65 days. Nuclear fuel will be
completely unloaded and the condition of the reactor’s metal body
will be checked. Skoda of the Czech Republic will carry out the work.
Management company Inter RAO UES has already delivered 100 nuclear
fuel cassettes to the plant for $12 million, Markosian said.
The power plant produced 1.66 billion kilowatt hours of electricity
from January 1 to July 29 2004. It sold 1.51 billion kilowatt hours.

Interfax
Aug 2 2004
World Bank extends Armenia $34.3 mln for three programs
Yerevan. (Interfax) – The Armenian government and World Bank signed
three credit programs on Friday for an overall $34.3 million.
At a briefing after the signing, Finance and Economics Minister
Vardan Khachatrian said that $10.15 million will be used in
overhauling the state management system for the country and $19
million for modernizing its healthcare system. The other credit of
$5.15 will be used to finance the social security sphere.
The credits will be extended on easy International Development
Association terms for 40 years at an annual rate of 0.75% with a
ten-year grace period.
Khachatrian said the World Bank is the first to allocate money for
the reformation of Armenia’s state management sector. The funds are
slated for introducing an electronic digital signature system, which
will improve the state management system’s operation and the
transparency of its actions.
The healthcare credit money will be used to overhaul medical
institutions, buy new equipment, retrain doctors and develop the
institution of family doctors. An additional $1.25 million grant will
be attached to this credit.

UEFA.com
Aug 2 2004
Casoni to lead Armenia
Monday, 2 August 2004
Former France defender Bernard Casoni has been named as the new coach
of Armenia and will lead the team during their 2006 FIFA World Cup
qualifying campaign.
Ambitious for future
The 42-year-old will have a tough task as Armenia are in Group 1
alongside the Czech Republic, Netherlands, Romania, Finland, Andorra
and F.Y.R. Macedonia, with their opening match a trip to the latter
nation on 18 August. While a place in Germany in two years may not be
a realistic goal, Casoni said: “I’ll help Armenian football to grow.”
Pardo to assist
Bernard Pardo, another former international, will assist Casoni, who
was capped 30 times by Les Bleus. During his playing days, Casoni won
the UEFA Champions League with Olympique de Marseille in 1993 and
went on to coach the side between 1999 and 2000. He has also worked
in Tunisia with Etoile Sportive du Sahel and his hometown club AS
Cannes.