ANDRANIK MARGARIAN LAID TO REST
ARMENPRESS
Mar 28 2007
YEREVAN, MARCH 28, ARMENPRESS: Armenians said today their last
farewell to Prime Minister Andranik Margarian, who died last Sunday
of an apparent heart failure. President Kocharian declared March 28 a
day of mourning and all flags in Armenia and its embassies abroad were
lowered and all cultural and entertainment programs were cancelled.
The coffin with Margarian’s body was taken today from his apartment
to the central office of his Republican party and then to the lobby of
the Opera and Ballet Theatre, where it was laid in state for thousands
of Armenians and representatives from many countries to pay the last
tribute to Margarian who was 56. Then the mourning procession headed
towards Komitas Pantheon where Andranik Margarian was laid to rest.
"It is a big sorrow and a big loss for Armenian people, and also for
the Greek people.. Andranik Margarian was a big friend of Greece,"
deputy foreign minister of Greece, Teodor Kasimis told Armenian
journalists after paying the last respect to Andranik Margarian at
Opera and Ballet Theater.
Mathew Bryza, the U.S. cochairman in the OSCE Minsk Group and
U.S. deputy assistant secretary of state, said it was a very sad day
today. "I had honor to known prime minister Andranik Margarian who
was a strong partner of the USA," he said.
Lithuanian nature protection minister Arunos Kunorotos said the
untimely death of Andranik Margarian is a big loss to Armenia and its
people. "We appreciate all important things we implemented together
with Armenian government headed by Andranik Margarian and hope to
continue our effective cooperation," he said.
Robert Simmons, NATO special representative for Central Asia and the
South Caucasus, said he was mourning with Armenian people the untimely
death of prime minister Margarian.
"Armenia lost its great son and I lost a good friend,’ Georgia’s
prime minister Zurab Nogaideli said.
Vladimir Rushailo, executive secretary of the CIS, representatives
from France, Canada, Turkish ambassador to Georgia and many other
foreign dignitaries visited the theater’s lobby to pay their last
respect to Andranik Margarian.
In a related news, Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov visited
today the embassy of Armenia in Moscow to convey his condolences over
Andranik Margarian’s death and made a note in the book of condolences.
Armenian ambassador Armen Smbatian said visited the embassy also
Nikolay Bordyuzha, secretary general of the Collective Security Treaty
Organization (CSTO), members of the Russian parliament and about 50
foreign ambassadors stationed in Moscow.
Smbatian said diplomats from Azerbaijani embassy in Moscow said
they would like to also visit the Armenian embassy and express their
sympathies over the death of Armenian prime minister.
Andranik Margarian was appointed Prime Minister in 2000 to bring
a degree of stability to the country after a terrorist raid on its
parliament on October 27, 1999 in which its prime minister Vazgen
Sarkisian, parliament speaker Karen Demirchian and several other top
government members were killed.
In the aftermath of the gunmen’s surrender president Robert
Kocharian appointed Vazgen’s brother, Aram, prime minister. But
Kocharian replaced him with Margarian several months later. Since
then Margarian had been the head of the government, being the longest
serving Armenian prime minister and leader of the Republican Party,
the largest grouping in the Armenian Parliament.
He was born in 1951 in Yerevan to a family of refugees from Western
Armenia, and educated at the Yerevan Polytechnic Institute, where
he qualified as a computer engineer. In 1968 he joined the illegal
National United Party, which agitated against Soviet domination
of Armenia.
In 1974 he was arrested and sentenced to two years in prison for
disseminating anti-Soviet ideas. When Armenia declared its independence
from the Soviet Union in 1991 he became a member of the new Republican
Party, and became a deputy of the national assembly in 1995.