Month: October 2008

TURKEY WILL GO THROUGH GLOBAL ECONOMIC CRISIS WITH MINIMUM DAMAGE, TUZMEN

Anatolia News Agency
Oct 9 2008
Turkey

ATLANTA (A.A) -Turkish State Minister Kursad Tuzmen said Wednesday
that Turkey would go through the global economic crisis with minimum
damage based on its stock exchange and size of businesses that were
not too big.

Speaking at an NGO in Atlanta, Tuzmen stressed that Turkey must pursue
trade focusing on "high price, high quality and high technology".

"Last year, foreign capital worth 22.2 billion USD entered Turkey,"
Tuzmen said.

Touching on Turkish-US commercial relations, Tuzmen stressed that
Turkish exports to the US dropped recently as the Turkish lira gained
value and competition from the Far East increased.

"Nevertheless, Turkey and the US pursue similar ideals globally. These
are peace, democracy, freedom, welfare and the fight against terror,"
Tuzmen said.

Tuzmen inaugurated the "Year of Turkey" at the Kennesaw State
University in Atlanta.

Speaking at the ceremony, President of Kennesaw State University
Daniel Papp said that they wanted their students to get to know Turkey,
a country with which the US had close relations.

The "Year of Turkey" will be celebrated at Kennesaw State University
with various activities and it will end in May 2009.

Tuzmen later visited the headquarters of Coca Cola company in Atlanta.

In reference to Muhtar Kent, the CEO of Coca Cola, Tuzmen said that
"it is highly pleasing to see a Turk in a high position as Kent."

Kursad Tuzmen attended a dinner hosted in his honour by the US
Southeast Turkish-American Chamber of Commerce (TACC).

Answering a question at the dinner, Tuzmen stressed that unless the
issue of Upper Karabagh is resolved, Turkey will not develop commercial
relations with Armenia.

KARABAKH OFFICIAL LOOKS AT ARMENIAN PRESIDENT’S STAND ON AZERI POLICY
By Kim Gabrielyan

Azg
Oct 3 2008
Armenia

Vahram Atanesyan, the foreign affairs committee head of the Nagornyy
Karabakh parliament, has said that while saying that Azerbaijan’s
possible investment in Karabakh may add to local security, Armenian
President Serzh Sargsyan wanted to let the world verify Azerbaijan’s
tolerance and readiness to establish relations with the breakaway
region.

According to Atanesyan, Sargsyan said this because he seeks to fix
Karabakh’s position on paper as a de-facto side to the talks on its
status. Previously, Atanesyan assumed, Karabakh was a side to such
talks only because Azerbaijan was still hoping the issue would be
settled with respect to its territorial integrity. However, currently
the sides "lack tolerance", he added.

Atanesyan said that the super powers, NATO and Russia, have exhausted
their limit of mutual attacks by recognizing Kosovo and Ossetia and
Abkhazia respectively, and are trying to prove that they are able
to settle issues "by consensus" as well. Taking into account that
Azerbaijan is an important energy resource producer and distributor for
both the West and Russia, Atanesyan believes that they can be looking
for such consensus in the settlement of the Karabakh conflict. In
this context, the political initiative of the Armenian president seems
reasonable and represents a serious challenge to Azerbaijan, he added.

He said that after the Armenian president’s statement, "the ball is now
in the opponent’s field" and from now on the Karabakh negotiations will
focus on the following issue: "Whether Azerbaijan is capable of real
tolerance, is it ready to establish relations with Nagornyy Karabakh,
is it ready to accept the will of the Nagornyy Karabakh people or not"?

There is no alternative to the international recognition of Nagornyy
Karabakh’s independence, but regional instability and a threat of
resumed hostilities, which not only regional players, but also the
super powers concerned would like to avoid, Atanesyan concluded.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

ARMENIAN OFFICIAL: RAILROAD TO IRAN TO TAKE 5 YEARS TO BUILD

Prime-Tass English-language Business Newswire
October 10, 2008 Friday 12:21 PM EET
Russia

A railroad linking Armenia with Iran will take at least five years
to build, Gurgen Sargsyan, the Armenian minister of transport and
communications, told reporters late Thursday.

Sargsyan said earlier that the cost of the construction could amount
from U.S. $1.5 billion to $2 billion.

The railroad, which is still in the planning phase, will give Armenia
an alternative export route by rail besides the current one to Georgia.

FRANCE TELECOM TO INVEST 200 MLN EUROS IN ARMENIAN OPS

Prime-Tass English-language Business Newswire
October 10, 2008 Friday 6:05 PM EET
Russia

France Telecom, which recently won a tender for a mobile license in
Armenia, plans to invest up to 200 million euros to establish a mobile
network in the country, France Telecom representative Jean-Michel
Serre said Friday.

France Telecom plans to register a local company under the Orange
brand within the coming weeks, Serre said without specifying the
timeline for the network’s commercial launch.

Orange, a key brand of France Telecom, obtained the license for both
GSM and third generation (3G) mobile services in Armenia, having
offered the highest bid of 51.5 million euros at a tender.

ARMENIA POSTS DEEP CURRENT-ACCOUNT DEFICIT IN H1
By Venla Sipila

World Markets Research Centre
Global Insight
October 10, 2008

According to latest balance-of-payments data from the Armenian National
Statistical service, the current-account deficit in the first half of
the year measured $542US.7 million, ARKA News reports. This level marks
a widening of 2.2% in year-on-year (y/y) comparison, while presenting
12.6% as a share of the GDP for the period, which follows a ratio of
7.9% in the first half of last year. Specifically, the trade deficit
on a balance-of-payments basis over January-June reached around
$1US.1 billion, more than doubling in annual comparison. Meanwhile,
the service trade deficit stood at $130US.4 million, also somewhat
widening year-on-year (y/y). Conversely, the current transfers balance
posted an increasing surplus of $449US.5 million, while the income
balance surplus registered $208US.3 million, more than doubling y/y.

Significance: The deep goods trade imbalance continues to drive
Armenia’s weak current-account position. The deep deficit on the
current account leaves Armenia very vulnerable to external shocks,
as it is very dependent on private transfers. On the other hand,
FDI inflows have recently financed a large part of the gap, thus
suppressing Armenia’s need to considerably increase its external
borrowing. In addition, its relatively solid reform progress has
secured it unproblematic access to concessionary credits. Thus, debt
servicing is not likely to pose any difficulties for the sovereign in
the medium term. However, in order to achieve continued improvement
in its sovereign creditworthiness in the medium-to-long term, and
given its still weak export earnings capacity, it is important that
Armenia makes further progress with economic restructuring.

ARMENIAN OFFICIAL, US ENVOY DISCUSS COOPERATION

Armenian Public TV
October 10, 2008 Friday

National Security Council Secretary Artur Baghdasaryan and US
ambassador Marie Yovanovitch have discussed Armenian-US foreign
policy issues this time. Yovanovitch attached great importance to
the further development of regional cooperation and strengthening of
democratic reforms.

FORMER PREMIER SAYS GLOBAL FINANCIAL CRISIS YET TO HIT ARMENIA

Aravot
Oct 10 2008
Armenia

A former Armenian prime minister has dismissed the Armenian
authorities’ optimism that the global financial crisis will not affect
the Armenian economy, predicting that the crisis is going to hit the
county hard in two to three months.

Speaking at a news conference on 9 October, Hrant Bagratyan,
an economist by training, said that the Armenian authorities’
statements that the crisis would not affect the Armenian economy
were not serious and absurd, the pro-opposition newspaper Aravot
reported on 10 October. It is also quite likely that the incumbent
prime minister and members of his cabinet "don’t really understand
the link between the American crisis and our country", he added.

"The Russian VTB bank, which has a branch in Armenia] has a liquidity
problem, oil and gas prices are going down [on the world market],
and the prices for copper and molybdenum have sunk catastrophically,"
Bagratyan said. "The British government is trying to bail out the
HSBC. Now they [the Armenian government] are going to say that this
bank has nothing to do with us either."

Speaking on the possibility of opening the Armenian-Turkish border,
Bagratyan said he favoured the opening "but it should not be linked
to the Karabakh issue".

"I can see no economic threats," he said. "At first, there will be
something similar to what happened in 1991-92, when cheap Iranian
goods flooded Armenia. Some short-term shocks might happen, but in a
year or so, we’ll see that our development opportunities are bigger. I
am sure we have relative advantages over our nomad neighbours."

He also slammed President Serzh Sargsyan for not mentioning the
tragic consequences of the 1-2 March unrest in Yerevan in his recent
address to nation. "If there are casualties, there are killers. It
was a shame not to speak about it," Bagratyan said.

At a separate news conference on the same day, another economic expert
and former member of the Armenian parliament, Tatul Manaseryan, said
the global financial crisis had had almost no effect on the Armenian
economy. "The Armenian market is very small, so it cannot sustain
serious damages," Aravot quoted him as saying.

KARABAKH STATUS KEY ISSUE IN CONFLICT SETTLEMENT – ARMENIAN FM

Armenian Public TV
October 10, 2008 Friday

[Presenter] Armenian Foreign Minister Edvard Nalbandyan is in Bishkek
too. Yesterday, he participated in the meeting of the CIS foreign
ministers. Today, he met his Azerbaijani and Russian counterparts.

Speaking to Armenian journalists, Nalbandyan said that details of
the Karabakh conflict settlement were discussed under the [OSCE]
Minsk Group’s Madrid principles. Commenting on the fact that the
meeting was held before the Azerbaijani presidential election and
its possible impact on the negotiations process, Nalbandyan said that
the negotiations would enter a more active phase after the election
[due on 15 October] and that there would be a possibility to hold a
new meeting.

[Armenian Foreign Minister Edvard Nalbandyan, speaking to journalists]
As for the statements that key issues in the Karabakh settlement
have already been agreed upon, I said this before and I would like
to reiterate that the status of Karabakh is the key issue in the
Karabakh conflict settlement that should be settled through a free
expression of the Karabakh people’s will. If opinions are voiced that
the key issues have been settled, then one may conclude that there
is an understanding on this issue.

[Question] Mr Nalbandyan, some analysts say that Armenia is not in
a favourable position at this stage of the negotiations.

[Nalbandyan] I don’t think that those are analyses; they look more
like sick imagination.

AZERBAIJAN KEEN TO SEE ARMENIA PROSPEROUS – DIPLOMAT

Azad Azarbaycan TV
October 11, 2008 Saturday
Azerbaijan

Azerbaijan is interested in Armenia’s prosperity. If Armenia makes
correction to its own policies and becomes a responsible actor in
international relations, then it may ensure its own prosperity,
the spokesman of the Azerbaijan’s Foreign Ministry, Xazar Ibrahim said.

Commenting on Armenian Foreign Minister Edvard Nalbandyan’s opinion
that Nagornyy Karabakh’s status should be determined by the people
of Nagornyy Karabakh, Xazar Ibrahim said that there are no people of
Nagornyy Karabakh.

"There are no people of Nagornyy Karabakh. The international community
may get confused if we refer to the region or town population within
a country as people. Therefore, it will be useful if Mr Nalbandyan
clarifies his words, because such things neither correspond to
international law nor to negotiation process," Ibrahim said.

CORRIDOR TO KARABAKH COMPLICATES CONFLICT RESOLUTION – US DIPLOMAT

Azad Azarbaycan TV
October 11, 2008 Saturday
Azerbaijan

The issue of the Lacin corridor that unites Nagornyy Karabakh with
Armenia via Azerbaijan’s Lacin District is the most complicated matter
that hinders achievement of peace between Azerbaijan and Armenia
over Nagornyy Karabakh conflict. The US Deputy Assistant Secretary
of State for European and Eurasian Affairs and the US co-chairman of
the OSCE Minsk Group, Matthew Bryza, has said Azad Azarbaycan TV.

"The OSCE Minsk Group has greatly contributed to finding a common
ground between the Presidents of Azerbaijan and Armenia with regards
to the principles presented by the co-chairs. These principles are
reflected in the summary document of the agreed solution, however,
an agreement has not been reached on some points, the most complicated
of which is the Lacin corridor. All the three co-chairs believe that
as soon as an agreement is reached on Lacin corridor, it will be
possible to agree on other points as well", Bryza said.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress