Friday, Ruling Party Sets High Growth Targets For Armenian Government (UPDATED) . Sargis Harutyunyan . Artak Hambardzumian Armenia - President Serzh Sarkisian and Prime Minister Karen Karapetian head to a cabinet meeting in Yerevan, 6Oct2016. Acting on a recent speech by President Serzh Sarkisian, the leadership of his Republican Party (HHK) has told Prime Minister Karen Karapetian's government to ensure that Armenia's economy grows by 5 percent annually. The HHK's governing board headed by Sarkisian met late on Thursday to discuss the government's new policy program that will be debated by the Armenian parliament soon. The document has not been made public yet. According to the HHK spokesman, Eduard Sharmazanov, the board "proposed" that the government commit itself to achieving faster growth and meeting other ambitious socioeconomic targets set by Sarkisian in his May 18 address to the newly elected National Assembly. "In the course of 2016-2040 we must ensure an average annual GDP growth of around 5 percent," the president declared in that extensive speech. He said this should result in a more than fivefold increase in Armenia's GDP that was worth less than $11 billion last year. This requires, among other things, a further improvement of the country's business environment, he said. Karapetian's cabinet expects economic growth to accelerate to at least 3.2 percent this year. It has forecast slightly higher growth rates for 2018 and 2019. "The indicators [demanded by the HHK] are quite ambitious but we are not afraid of setting higher targets," Finance Minister Vartan Aramian said on Friday. "In his speech, the president set the bar high for the government and we must attain it." "We need faster economic growth in order to solve socioeconomic problems more easily," he told a news conference. "Ambition means efforts. Time will tell whether we will succeed." In Aramian's words, the government thinks that economic growth will be stimulated by its structural reforms, greater foreign and domestic investments, and a continued rise in exports. Growth reached 6.5 percent in the first quarter of this year, the minister said. Sharmazanov would not say whether the government will have to resign if growth falls short of the 5 percent target. "I don't answer questions with `ifs,'" he told reporters. "I'm just telling you that we are optimistic. We think that with joint efforts we need to ensure that the current government and the political majority # achieve within five years the positive targets that were set." "Under the current constitution, this government will have to resign one year later. What kind of a [new] government will be formed? We'll talk about that in 2018," he said. Sharmazanov referred to the April 2018 end of Sarkisian's final presidential term, which will be followed by Armenia's transition to a parliamentary system of government. Sarkisian has yet to clarify whether he plans to become prime minister, replace Karapetian by someone else or keep him in office. The premier has repeatedly indicated his desire to retain his post. Armenian Leaders Laud Russia's Gazprom Armenia - Prime Minister Karen Karapetian (L) and Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller visit the site of a children's educational and sporting complex constructed by Gazprom in Yerevan, 16Jun2017. President Serzh Sarkisian and Prime Minister Karen Karapetian praised Gazprom's strong presence in Armenia's energy sector when they met with the chief executive of the Russian gas monopoly in Yerevan on Friday. Alexei Miller, Gazprom's Kremlin-linked boss, held separate meetings with the two leaders during his latest visit to Armenia, the second in eight months. Official Armenian sources said they discussed the Russian giant's continued operations in the country but gave few details. Sarkisian was quoted by his press office as commending Gazprom's contribution to the "dynamic development and strengthening" of Russian-Armenian relations. He also praised its track record in Armenia, which buys more than 80 percent of its natural gas from the Russian giant. Karapetian described Gazprom as a "reliable partner" that has contributed to his country's "energy security." According to an Armenian government statement, he discussed with Miller the company's ongoing "investment projects" in Armenia. In particular, the statement said, Gazprom plans to upgrade an underground gas storage facility located just north of Yerevan and build new gas distribution pipelines in the country by 2019. The state-run Russian company is the sole owner of the Armenian gas distribution network. Karapetian was that network's chief executive from 2001-2010. He lived and worked in Russia from 2011-2016, holding senior executive positions in local Gazprom subsidiaries. Shortly after being appointed as Armenian prime minister last September, Karapetian used his Gazprom connections to secure a sizable reduction in domestic gas prices. Miller previously visited Yerevan in October. In a recent radio interview, Karapetian insisted that his Gazprom background does not mean he is dependent on or linked to Russia's government. "On the contrary, it can help us find solutions in certain difficult situations," he said. Armenian opposition figures and pundits have long expressed concern at the country's heavy dependence on Russia for energy resources. 3 Armenian Soldiers Killed In Karabakh Nagorno-Karabakh -- An Armenian soldier of the self-proclaimed republic of Nagorno-Karabagh runs in trenches at the frontline on the border with Azerbaijan, 25Oct2012 Three Armenian soldiers were killed on "the line of contact" around Nagorno-Karabakh on Friday in what the Karabakh Armenian military called a ceasefire violation by Azerbaijan. Karabakh's Defense Army said the three conscripts -- Arayik Matinian, Vigen Petrosian and Vartan Sargsian -- died after Azerbaijani forces fired anti-tank grenades at one of its frontline positions east of the disputed territory. "An investigation is underway to clarify details of the incident," it said in a short statement. The Azerbaijani Defense Ministry did not immediately react to the report. The ministry said on Friday morning one of its soldiers was shot dead by the Armenian side. It did not specify where the conscript died. Azerbaijani media reported later in the day that another Azerbaijani serviceman, a 26-year-old contract soldier, was also killed in action. The Defense Ministry in Baku did not confirm the information. The combat deaths come just days after the U.S., Russian and French co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group visited Armenia and Karabakh for further talks on ways of reviving the Armenian-Azerbaijani peace process. They will travel to Baku this weekend or early next week. In their most recent joint statement released on May 18, the mediators urged the conflicting parties to "take all necessary measures to prevent any further escalation in the conflict zone." Radical Oppositionist Slams Government `Clients' . Ruzanna Stepanian Armenia -- Zaruhi Postanjian, leader of the Yerkir Tsirani opposition party, speaks to RFE/RL in Yerevan, . Zaruhi Postanjian, an outspoken opposition politician, lashed out at the opposition Yelk alliance on Friday, saying that it was created by the Armenian authorities to weaken their genuine political opponents. "It's obvious from their political positions that they cannot be in opposition because those positions match the current illegitimate regime's positions," Postanjian told RFE/RL's Armenian service (Azatutyun.am). In particular, she pointed to Yelk's failure to voice support for jailed opposition gunmen who seized a police station in Yerevan last year and its refusal to boycott this week's inauguration of the city's reelected pro-government mayor, Taron Markarian. One of Yelk's leaders, Edmon Marukian, disapproved of the deadly attack and pointedly declined to describe the gunmen as political prisoners late last week, saying that their actions had "elements of a crime." By contrast, Postanjian and other radical opposition strongly support the gunmen. Yerkir Tsirani, Yelk and the ruling Republican Party of Armenia (HHK) are the only political groups that ran in last month's municipal elections and won seats in the city council. The HHK won the May 14 vote by a landslide. Yelk holds 14 seats in the 65-member council, compared with 5 seats won by Yerkir Tsirani. Postanjian ruled out any cooperation between council members representing her party and the bloc co-headed by Marukian, Nikol Pashinian and Aram Sarkisian. She dismissed Yelk as President Serzh Sarkisian's "clients." Davit Khazhakian, the young leader of the Yelk faction in the Yerevan council, shrugged off Postanjian's allegations, saying that she "lost her parliament seat along with political common sense." "You can always find political clowns in a society," Khazhakian said. Hardline groups such as Yerkir Tsirani will inevitably marginalize themselves and leave the political arena, he said. Yelk finished third in Armenia's recent parliamentary elections, winning 9 seats in the 131-member National Assembly. Postanjian's party was set up in March and did not run for the parliament. Press Review "Zhoghovurd" comments on European Union Ambassador Piotr Switalski's calls for changing the composition of Armenia's Central Election Commission (CEC) and the Armenian government's angry reaction to his statement. The paper says that both the EU and the United States have spent heavily on the proper conduct of Armenian elections and therefore have "every right to monitor and express opinions on the extent to which their funding served its purpose." It says that if the authorities really think that Switalski is meddling in Armenia's internal affairs they should not have "begged" the EU for money ahead of the recent parliamentary elections in the first place. Lragir.am speculates that Switalski's comments have to do not so much with the elections as their aftermath and, in particular, "the process of changing the intra-government status quo." "This is what worries the Armenian authorities," writes the online publication. "It has called into question their plans and scenarios." "Haykakan Zhamanak" reports that Prime Minister Karen Karapetian and his cabinet have received high marks from the leadership of the ruling Republican Party of Armenia (HHK) for their new policy program that will be debated by the National Assembly soon. The paper notes that the HHK set ambitious macroeconomic targets for the government at a meeting of its leadership held on Thursday. "The problem is that several governments have been changed in Armenia in the last five years," it says. "All of them were formed by the HHK. This government is also the HHK's. And totally different indicators have been registered in the last five years." "Hraparak" writes that the number and professional level of young people graduating from Armenian universities each "do not correspond to real demand." "Every year we produced hundreds of journalists, philologists, economists, international relations specialists, who did not find jobs before getting retrained or leaving the country," writes the paper. It notes with satisfaction that the number of applications for university programs on international relations, economics, chemistry, biology and physics has gone down significantly this year. By contrast, it says, there is a sizable rise in young Armenians seeking to become information technology specialists. (Tigran Avetisian) Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL Copyright (c) 2017 Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, Inc. 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036. www.rferl.org