Month: August 2008

SETTLEMENT OF NAGORNO-KARABAKH CONFLICT SHOULD BE BASED ON STRICT MAINTENANCE OF AZERBAIJAN’S TERRITORIAL INTEGRITY

State Telegraph Agency of the Republic of Azerbaijan
July 31, 2008 Thursday

Settlement of the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh
must be based on strict maintenance of the territorial integrity
of Azerbaijan, Special Envoy of the OSCE Chairman-in-Office Heikki
Talvitie said Wednesday.

According to him, continuation of the negotiation process provides
hope for the peaceful settlement of the dispute.

POTENTIAL AGGRESSOR TO ATTACK ARMENIA
by Denis Telmanov

WPS Agency
What the Papers Say (Russia)
July 31, 2008 Thursday
Russia

THE CAUCASUS IS TO BECOME AN ARENA OF INCESSANT MILITARY EXERCISES;
The CIS Collective Security Treaty Organization is running a joint
military exercise.

Phase two of Frontier’2008, command post exercise of the CIS Collective
Security Treaty Organization, began in Moscow. Staff officers of
Organization’s defense ministers are charting an operation necessary
to defend Armenia from an aggressor. Whatever is planned at this
point will be tested in the field in the course of phases three and
four of the exercise scheduled for late August.

Senior Assistant to Organization’s Secretary General Lieutenant
General Oleg Latypov, said yesterday that the legend of the exercise
stood for an aggression against Armenia. It should be noted that
the potential aggressor bears no resemblance to NATO countries or
Armenia’s neighbors.

Actual maneuvering with live-fire exercises will take place during
the third and forth phases of the exercise on August 18-22. They will
be commanded by Armenian Defense Minister Sejran Oganjan and involve
personnel of the 102nd Russian Military Base. As a matter of fact,
units singled out for participation have been moved already to the
shooting range 40 kilometers from the capital city of Yerevan.

Council of Defense Ministers of the Organization will meet in Yerevan
to analyze the exercise and discuss what problems have cropped up.

Valery Semerikov, another secretary general’s assistant, admitted
slowness in making the decision to help an Organization member against
aggressor as one of the problems. "We’ll try to do something about
it before the Council of Defense Ministers," Semerikov said.

Along with everything else, the meeting will discuss the idea of
making Frontier exercises biannual instead of annual so as to focus
on coordination between staffs in the interims. Most members of the
Organization approve so that the next exercise will probably take
place in 2010.

This is a first Frontier exercise to be run at strategic, operational,
and tactical levels at once. Also importantly, this is a first exercise
run on the territory of the Caucasus collective security zone. Almost
4,000 servicemen from Russia, Armenia, and Tajikistan will be involved.

Frontier’2008 is to be run right in the wake of Caucasus’2008,
a major exercise of the Russian Armed Forces involving over 8,000
men. NATO will run its own exercise in Armenia between September 29
and October 21. Over 1,000 servicemen from 21 country will participate
in Cooperative Longbow/Lancer’2008.

Frontier organizers say it is fine by them. They point out that
Armenia is a sovereign country choosing its own partners to run joint
exercises with.

"As for me, I view participation of the Armenian army in a NATO
exercise as just another phase of its training. Let them learn all
they can," Semerikov said. "Life shows that we will have to face
common problems whether we want it or not. And no, we do not view
NATO as an enemy."

ISTANBUL ASKS: WHY GUNGOREN?
by Suzy Hansen

New York Observer
July 31, 2008

ISTANBUL, July 29-Two nights after devastating terrorist bombs exploded
on its popular pedestrian shopping block, the neighborhood of Gungoren
swarmed with people: old and young men repaired the shattered windows
of a clothing shop under the blank, watchful eyes of naked mannequins;
women in head scarves shared ice cream next to women in sundresses;
shop owners smoked beside their boxes of shoes for sale; a handful
of policemen clutched riot shields opposite tiny pink girls jumping
around in empty fountains.

Huge red Turkish flags hung from balconies where families drank tea;
one woman had stretched a flag across the frame from which the glass
of her window had been blown out by the bombs.

Gungoren is the kind of neighborhood I might take a foreigner to if
I wanted to say: This is Turkey. And it’s the kind of neighborhood
that would lead anyone to wonder, as one man who’d lived there for
40 years wondered to me: "Why Gungoren?"

Istanbul is such a diverse and geographically enormous city that when
news breaks of a terrorist bombing, the scramble to make sense of the
act requires everyone to marshal all of their resources to find out
exactly where it happened. Phone-calling, Googling, and then arguing
over what exactly the neighborhood is.

Turks reflexively know whether any neighborhood sits on the European
side or the Asian side; I imagine that’s a genetic adaptation in this
ancient border-sentinel city.

But then come the disagreements and confusions over borders: "It’s
out by the airport." "But is it near New Bosnia?" "Close, but not
too close." "By the sea, or not by the sea?"

Last month’s attack on the U.S. consulate, recently moved to a safer
location up the Bosphorus, invited a similar response-you probably
know someone who lives near the site, but that could be quite far
away from you.

When the news identified the neighborhood of this latest attack as
"Gungoren," there are a few things I knew immediately. The bombing
wasn’t in Sultanahmet, the Old City-the peninsula home of the Aya
Sofya, the Blue Mosque, the Golden Horn, and, once upon a time,
a thousand sex slaves locked up in a palace with a view. Everyone
knows those neighborhoods.

It also can’t be anywhere near Beyoglu, the old European city; the
deluxe dance clubs of the Bosphorus; or the modern skyscrapers of
Maslak. If someone were to bomb these Istanbul commons-as al Qaida
did in 2003-where security cameras line the streets but trash cans
do not, the news would take a more sensational tone than this one
had. It was a whole different kind of bold.

This is partly why Sunday’s attack was so chilling.

The terrorists targeted a pedestrian street in a middle-class
neighborhood of no unique political or religious character. There are
no Byzantine treasures or European corporate headquarters here. Just
a civilian cross section of working, living, breathing Istanbul,
shopping before bedtime.

Pedestrian boulevards are beloved in a hilly, trafficky city of
large families and lonely migrants. In Istanbul, a pleasant, flat
place to walk is also a communal sanctuary, especially in summer,
when nighttime is a blissful reprieve from days spent cursing the sun.

The bomb exploded out of a garbage bin after 10 p.m. And killed
17 people and injured 150, thanks to a tactic the Iraq war has made
cruelly familiar: set off one bomb, draw hundreds of concerned citizens
to the scene, then set off the other. One witness caught an image of
the second bomb exploding on his cell phone.

So, who wanted to bomb Gungoren? The bombs went off the night
before the first day of a massive trial: Turkey’s top prosecutor,
with high-level support from ultra-secularists, had been trying to
shut down the AKP, the Islamic conservative ruling party, and ban
the prime minister and president from politics for five years. The
highest court here can do that, even though the AKP won 47 percent
of the vote in a democratic election. (The verdict came late this
Wednesday: The so-called Islamist government will remain in power.)

Still, the timing of the bomb raised suspicions-but only that vague
suspiciousness that always attends coincidence. Turkey doesn’t have
a strong history of radical Islam, and the AKP’s supporters aren’t
radicals anyway.

"Who does everyone think did this?" I asked my young cab driver,
who’d lived in Istanbul his whole life, on the way to Gungoren.

"Maybe Al Qaida?"

The international terrorist fraternity had been accused of the brash
attack on the U.S. Consulate.

"Could be," he said.

"Not the PKK?"

On July 29, officials fingered the PKK, the militant Kurdish
organization that has engaged in terrorist tactics for 30 years. The
PKK doesn’t have an obvious connection to the AKP trial, but it has
been taking a beating from the Turkish military in recent weeks. So
far, the PKK, who often take responsibility for their terrorist acts,
have denied Gungoren, and offered their condolences to the victims.

"Could be," he replied again.

"This is the problem when something like this happens now," said one
Turkish intellectual. "You think: ‘It could be the PKK, it could be
DHKP/C, it could be Al Qaida, it could be the "Deep State"-it could
be anyone!’"

The Deep State-or Ergenekon-is another story, and a distinctly
Turkish one.

The word "Ergenekon" refers to a Central Asian myth about the origin
of the Turkish race, and involves caves and wolves and possibly world
domination, but what’s important to know today is that "Ergenekon"
was the name chosen by a murderous gang.

At least, in Turkish, they call it a "gang," but the word carries a
different meaning than it does in English. This isn’t the Crips and
the Bloods. It also isn’t the Italian Mafia, because Turkey’s mafias
run parking lots. Ergenekon, assuming it exists, is the most powerful
gang of all, the ubergang.

Turks have been living in a state of legitimized paranoia since
January, when over 80 members of the Ergenekon gang were arrested for
trying to create an atmosphere of instability that would result in
a coup against the ruling religious government. The accused make up
the ultranationalist upper crust-retired military generals, lawyers,
academics, journalists, a university president, the head of PR for
a church.

The 2,500-page indictment against Ergenekon, which was released
this past weekend, accuses the gang of engaging in demonic terrorist
tactics: bomb prominent targets, blame left-wing or minority groups,
and stir up chaos until the army is forced to step in, shut down the
government and wipe the slate clean. That’s why subscribers to this
theory might think Ergenekon had a hand in Gungoren: maximum chaos,
minimal sense.

That’s not as far-fetched as it sounds. Every morning, Turks wake up
to terrifying headlines, newspapers filled with incredible details
about Ergenekon. Among many other things, Ergenekon supposedly kept
a to-do list including plans to kill Prime Minister Tayyip Erodgan
and Nobel Prize winner Orhan Pamuk-and anyone else who threatens the
sanctity of the secular nation or the tenets of Turkish nationalism.

One of the arrested was the lawyer, Kemal Kerincsiz, who prosecutes
writers and other liberal folks for violating the infamous
anti-free-speech law Article 301. Some link Ergenekon to the 2007
assassination of Hrant Dink, editor of the newspaper Agos and the
face of Istanbul’s Armenian community.

Could one group possibly be responsible for all these acts? It strains
credulity, and so some suspect that anti-secularist or religious
elements have engineered the Ergenekon investigation. That secularist
vs. Islamist war in Turkey you’ve been hearing about goes way beyond
head scarves.

But the point is that Turks have been living for years with the idea
that some secret force controls the fate of their nation. Here,
well before the Ergenekon case, when participating in any sort
of political conversation, it was common for Turks-all Turks, not
conspiracy theorists-to mention the "Deep State" as a legitimate
actor in the country’s problems.

For now, some Turks will be satisfied by the authorities’ prime
suspects: PKK for Gungoren, Al Qaida for the U.S. consulate. But in
this climate, the deeper Turkish response to the Gungoren tragedy
and others will remain, Who the hell knows anymore?

"Terror is terror," said one Gungoren native, sitting on a bench at
the bomb site, chain-smoking. And so living, working Istanbul learns
to live with its dangerous enemies, whoever they are.

THE ARMENIAN-ITALIAN TREAT

National Public Radio (NPR)
July 31, 2008 Thursday

Today on Hidden Kitchens, the worlds of a young Canadian immigrant, an
Italian family of pasta makers and an Armenian grandmother converged
in the story of the creation of the San Francisco treat. The Kitchen
Sisters, producers Nikki Silva and Davia Nelson, present the birth
of Rice-A-Roni.

Ms. LOIS DeDEMENICO: (Singing) Rice-A-Roni, the San Francisco Treat.

(Soundbite of laughter)

(Soundbite of music)

Ms. DeDEMENICO: I’m Lois DeDemenico. I grew up in Edmonton, Canada. I
met my husband, Tommy, in 1944 in San Francisco. His father, his
brothers and he had a pasta factory. When the war was over, there was
no place to live. All these hundreds of thousands of soldiers were
coming home. So I saw this ad that saw lady who lived alone would
like to rent out one room of her apartment, Mrs. Captanian.

I had a liking for her right away, so we moved in. Tommy would work
until what, 7:00 every night at Golden Grain Pasta Company. I was alone
a lot. I was only 18, and I was pregnant, and I had kitchen privileges.

Well, I really wasn’t much of a cook. And here was this Armenian lady,
probably about 70 at the time, making yogurt on the back of the stove
all day, every day. I didn’t even know what the word yogurt meant.

Mr. TED CAPTANIAN: My grandmother’s name was Pailadzo
Captanian. Grandma Cap was what we called her. My name is Ted
Captanian. She babysat us when were four or five years old. She
would always be wanting to cook us stuffed grape leaves, baklava and
rice pilaf.

Ms. DeDEMENICO: Pilaf, Armenian way. She taught me how to make that. We
would bring her Golden Grain vermicelli. She wanted us to break it
as small as rice if we could.

The kitchen was teeny, tiny, like a closet. But right around the
corner was a huge, big, round table, and when she rolled out her
dough for baklava, she would roll and roll until every bit of that
dining room table was covered with this sheet of phyllo dough. She
would hold up, and she would say see, Lois, you have to be able to
see through the dough.

I can remember sitting there and Mrs. Captanian telling me her life
story. She was in Armenia, 1915, 16, when the massacre happened,
which by the way, the Turkish people still don’t agree that it ever
happened. She was pregnant with one child and had two other boys.

Mr. CAPTANIAN: This is a copy of her book, her memoirs of that exodus
from Armenia. She wanted to guarantee that somebody knew what happened.

Ms. MELINE PEHLIVANIAN (Armenia and Turkey Specialist, Berlin State
Library): My name is Meline Pehlivanian, working the Berlin State
Library as the Armenia and Turkey specialist. About 15 years ago,
I found, by chance, this little book from Pailadzo Captanian.

It is a rare book. They are not so much first-hand memoirs of the
time. It was 1915. The deportation of the Armenian population of
Turkey began. Pailadzo Captanian left her two little sons with a
Greek family. She knew that it would be death for all the Armenians.

About two weeks later, the husband of Pailadzo is killed.

Mr. CAPTANIAN: Where are my two children, whom I abandoned? My heart
is breaking with longing to see them again. Alone at night, I repeat
cradle songs for their sake. And while I…

Ms. DeDEMENICO: Mrs. Captanian wrapped her feet in rags and walked
through the Middle East.

Ms. PEHLIVANIAN: There were only women, little children and old
men. They walked about 12 hours a day through mountains, and there
were no food or little food.

Mr. CAPTANIAN: Eventually, my grandmother made it to Syria, where
she gave birth to my father, after having walked for months to escape.

Ms. DeDEMENICO: I used to sit in Mrs. Captanian’s kitchen and listen
to this amazing story of this woman. When I left her apartment,
we got our own flat, and I made her Armenian pilaf a lot.

One night, my husband and his brother, Vincent, were eating pilaf in
my kitchen. Vincent looked at it, and he took it apart, and he said
you know, this would be great in a box.

Mr. DENNIS DeDEMENICO: We had a kitchen down in the plant. We would
cook the dish up, and we would taste it. I would bring home some
samples and asked my wife how she liked it.

(Soundbite of music)

Unidentified Woman: (Singing) Shake it, baby, shake it, ’cause you’ll
love the way…

Mr. DeDEMENICO: We needed a name for the product. We were saying,
well, what is the product? Rice and macaroni. Why don’t we call it
Rice-A-Roni? The name had a ring to it.

(Soundbite of television commercial)

(Soundbite of bell)

(Soundbite of music)

Unidentified Group: (Singing) Rice-A-Roni, the San Francisco treat.

Unidentified Announcer: Rice-A-Roni, the delicious break from potatoes.

Mr. DeDEMENICO: There were not very many packaged side dishes in the
market in 1955. I’d Dennis DeDemenico, son of Lois and Tom DeDemenico.

Everything was being geared towards less time in the kitchen,
dishwashers and garbage disposals. The convenience factor was
everything.

(Soundbite of music)

Mr. CAPTANIAN: When I was young, we’d see these commercials for
Rice-A-Roni. Every time we’d hear that jingle, my father would say,
you know, your grandmother gave a rice recipe to the people who
started that company. So every time you hear it, you can think of your
grandmother. To be honest, we kind of thought could that possibly be
true that this iconic American dish, could that actually be attributed
to some recipe my Armenian grandmother gave to someone years ago?

Ms. DeDEMENICO: I still make pilaf the way Mrs. Captanian taught
me. The impact she had on me and my life – I only lived there four
months, but it was four months that brought all these things together:
myself from Canada, Tommy, Italian, Mrs. Captanian, the Armenian –
all that converging in San Francisco in 1946. And out of that comes
Rice-A-Roni.

MONTAGNE: Hidden Kitchens is produced by the Kitchen Sisters and mixed
by Jim McKee. If you’re a fan of Rice-A-Roni, or even if you’re not, we
have a version of the rice pilaf recipe that started it all at npr.org.

IT’S ETHNO-METAL, BUT MORE INTIMATE
By Mark Lepage, Freelance

The Gazette
July 31, 2008 Thursday
Montreal

Scars on Broadway
Interscope/Universal
Rating 3 1/2

If someone had told you five years ago that the most significant
band in metal would be a politicized crew of porn-fan Californian
Armenians who write in mangled altered English, you’d have sent him
home to take two Ozzies and call you in the morning.

Moreover, System of a Down are not just alt-metal but ethno-metal,
super-volting the music of their Near Eastern heritage with double-time
drums and guitar for an eye-bulging sound that has become the current
dissident-metal signature. They’ve got the box office. Now come
the sequels.

Who is SOAD? With singer Serj Tankian the first member to establish
a solo career, guitarist Daron Malakian (and drummer John Dolmayan)
make their own case in side project Scars on Broadway. Given Malakian
writes the SOAD music, they have a clear edge.

Now this is metal, and so before a volley of deranged critical praise
obliterates our context, let’s remember theirs: Malakian reassured SOAD
fans that the band wasn’t breaking up, simply releasing solo albums
"like Kiss did." This terrifying promise – the rock version of a Habs
GM promising to revive the Damphousse era – might have rendered SOB
DOA in this precinct. Instead, SOB turns out to be SOAD on E, more
intimate and less angular.

But, certainly, recognizable. With his inherent (and probably
Armenian-folk-meets-Wings) melodic sense, Malakian both expands
his regular band’s sonic palette while remaining true to its
identity. Thus, there is ample denunciation of sleaze culture and
"Turkish lies", even as his riffs revel in the former (not the
latter). At the risk of harping on Malakian’s heritage, it does
separate him from, say, Fred Durst (remember?). While not out to prove
the metal cred, half of these songs are riff-based, but the range,
from keyboards to balladry, makes it unlike anything it will outsell
this week. This praise comes despite a strong and sane desire never
to hear the song Chemicals again.

ARMENIA: ON PER CAPITA STRONG ALCOHOL CONSUMPTION

Express.am
July 31, 2008 Thursday

According to the Union of Armenian Winemakers, per capita brandy
consumption in Armenia amounts to 3 litres per annum, wine consumption
to 1 litre per annum, and vodka consumption to 8 litres per annum.

ARMENIA: KNAUF OPENS KNAUF ARMENIA OFFICE IN YEREVAN

Esmerk
Express.am
July 31, 2008 Thursday

Knauf International has opened its Knauf Armenia office in Yerevan
to expand in Armenian construction market. Before that the company,
which is almost a monopoly supplier of gypsum board in Armenia,
distributed its products via dealers including R&V Comfort, Fil
and Annashen. Knauf sales volume in the country totaled about 1.2mn
panels in 2007. The company plans to boost sales to 1.8mn panels in
2008 and expand assortment offering exterior materials with cement,
particularly, aquapanels.

ARMENIA: VOLUME OF WINE GRAPE INCREASES

Esmerk
Express.am
July 31, 2008 Thursday

According to the Armenian Association of Winemakers, the country
produced 144,000 tons of wine grape in 2007 compared to 106,000 in
2006. Yerevan Brandy Factory (YBF) accounted for 20.1% of all grapes
(26.4% in 2006), Yerevan Ararat Brandy, Wine, Vodka Factory for 14.5%
(14.2%). Proshyansk Brandy Plant, Artashat VinKon and Vagarshapat
wine and brandy producer accounted for 6-8% of the total volume
each. 85% of Armenian grapes is used for brandy production, 15%
for wine production. 90% of Armenian wines are semi-sweet and sweet
wines. Vedi Alco and Proshyansk Brandy Plant produce 3mn bottles a
year each, Maran company 30-40,000 bottles a year.

RA PRIME MINISTER AWARED JEWISH COMMUNITY OF ARMENIA SOCIETY

RIA Oreanda
Economic News
July 31, 2008 Thursday
Russia

Yerevan. ">OREANDA-NEWS . July 31, 2008. For significant contribution
to the cause of strengthening and developing Armenian-Jewish relations,
under a decree signed by RA Prime Minister Tigran Sargsyan, "Jewish
Community of Armenia" civil society organization chairwoman Rima
Varzhapetyan has been awarded RA Prime Minister’s commemorative medal.

Today at the Office of Government, the Prime Minister handed in
the medal to Mrs. Varzhapetyan and expressed appreciation of those
active efforts exerted towards organizing and consolidating the
local Jewish community which is a minority group in our country, as
well as for the activities aimed at addressing community concerns,
upholding cooperation with Armenian authorities and strengthening
the Armenian-Jewish relationship.

"We can see very well and welcome your dedication to this noble
cause," Tigran Sargsyan said and asked about the problems faced by
the community and the future plans of the organization.

The chairwoman of "Jewish Community of Armenia" CSO thanked the
Prime Minister for his thoughtfulness of her endeavors and the
attention given to Armenia’s Jewish community. She said this is an
occasion to shape a better image of Armenia worldwide and speak of
the Armenian-Jewish friendship: "What has been done is the outcome
of sincere devotion, and I am prepared to redouble my efforts to
this end. Armenia is well placed to become a powerful and prosperous
country. I am confident that our joint efforts will help achieve
this target," Rima Varzhapetyan said and thanked the Government for
the allocation of AMD 21 million in 2007 to rehabilitate a Jewish
historical monument dating back to XIV-XVII B.C., as situated in
Yeghegis village of Vayots Dzor marz of Armenia.

ARMENIAN OPPOSITION LEADER URGES GOVERNMENT TO RELEASE "POLITICAL PRISONERS"
by Anna Israelyan

Aravot
July 29 2008
Armenia

"It is too early to talk about candidacy"

Heritage party still undecided on joining opposition National Congress

The chairperson of the board of the Heritage party, Anahit Bakhshyan,
has announced recently that [party leader] Raffi Hovhannisyan will
be their candidate in the next presidential election. When asked by
Aravot whether he will propose his candidacy in the next presidential
election, the leader of the [opposition] People’s Party of Armenia,
Stepan Demirchyan, replied: "I have not been thinking about my
participation in the future election. I believe that generally it is
the wrong time to talk about it." We reminded him that the [opposition]
Armenian National Congress plans to demand an extraordinary election
if its demands [the major one being release of "political prisoners"]
are not met, and Demirchyan answered: "We will talk when the election
is held."

[Correspondent] How do you evaluate the arguments voiced by the
Heritage Party for not joining the Armenian National Congress
yet, which said that neither programme details or procedures or
decision-making mechanism became clear in the talks with the initiators
of [the congress]. So how do other parties make such a responsible
decision, when the content of the major document is unclear?

[Demirchyan] Heritage’s position is very understandable. I treat
this position normally. Of course, there are issues that need to be
clarified – starting from the decision-making mechanism.

[Passage omitted: Demirchyan reiterates his opinion that parties that
would make up the congress will continue to be independent entities
and the congress will act as a coordinating body]

National Congress to unite parties with different concepts

[Correspondent] Partners of the People’s Party of Armenia of the recent
period, back when they opposed the Justice alliance [an opposition
alliance formed ahead of the 2003 presidential election] often put
forward accusations that forces with opposing concepts were united
in this alliance. The [opposition] Alternative [initiative] stressed
initially that those were united around the [election] manifesto on
a common ground. However, we should reply that then they went exactly
the same way, like different, even conceptually opposing forces.

[Demirchyan] The observation is correct. I am happy that our
opponents understand with time that we were right. Yes, when the
talk is about the country’s democratization and establishment of
constitutional order – efforts need to be joined, irrespective of
conceptual differences. At present the parties in the [opposition]
Popular Movement have disagreements, but they have put those aside to
solve important issues like at that time [of the Justice alliance]. At
the same time, we attach great importance to mergers and enlargement
of parties on conceptual grounds.

Guided by principle of peaceful struggle

[Correspondent] There was a time when your current partners also
criticized you for a lack of resolve. [Former President] Levon
Ter-Petrosyan also announces reaching a change of power without
assaulting buildings, using peaceful methods.

[Demirchyan] Resolve is often mistaken for boasting in our
reality. Resolve is not saying big words and making pompous statements.

[Passage omitted: Demirchyan speaks more about people making pompous
statements]

[Demirchyan] Starting from the beginning we were guided by the
principle of peaceful struggle. Now the opposition has also adopted
this principle and so has Levon Ter-Petrosyan who came to a meeting
at the People’s Party of Armenia and said that he would go exclusively
the constitutional way.

[Correspondent] The stronger the opposition, the more the government
has to reckon with its demands. In your opinion, taking into
consideration the current condition of the Popular Movement, does the
wish of the authorities to carry out the demands of the opposition
grow or diminish?

"Political prisoners" should be released

[Demirchyan] When they say that the opposition makes the government go
for some steps, reforms – there is a truth in this. Of course, today
we still see no real steps taken and political persecutions of people
are continuing. The government should realize that the issue cannot be
settled by playing for time. If they think that the people will get
tired of fighting, this is not true. Irrespective of this heat, of
the hot summer, the sit-in protest in Northern Avenue [in the centre
of Yerevan] is continuing. They should realize this and take real
steps. It is obvious that the fist step in this regard is release of
political prisoners. [President] Serzh Sargsyan said that how could he
release all [imprisoned people] by one phone call? However, in essence
they were imprisoned "by one phone call". The quicker the government
settles this issue, the more it will contribute to easing the tension.