Author: Basmajian Ani

IRANIAN PRESIDENTIAL CONTENDER: ACTIVE IRANIAN FOREIGN DIPLOMACY COULD GUARANTEE A SIGNIFICANT BREAKTHROUGH IN THE NAGORNO-KARABAKH CONFLICT SETTLEMENT

ArmInfo
2009-06-08 12:05:00

ArmInfo. Iranian presidential contender Mohsen Rezaei thinks an active
Iranian foreign diplomacy could guarantee a significant breakthrough
in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict settlement.

As the Iranian media report, Mohsen Rezaei said in a campaign speech
on Saturday in Tabriz that the Iranian foreign policy in the region
must be strengthened. If so it could ward off regional disputes and
ongoing wrangling.

Rezaei said that if elected president, he will promote a diplomacy
rooted in peace and amicability vis-a- vis regional crises and seek
to bridge divisions among regional states so that they will pin their
hopes on Tehran as a mediator rather than Washington.

ARMENIA: APPLICANTS PROTEST AGAINST CENTRALIZED ENTRANCE EXAMS

/PanARMENIAN.Net/
05.06.2009 20:16 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Dozens of applicant have today organized protest
near RA Education Ministry’s Evaluation and Testing Centre to
voice their disapproval of centralized entrance exams in Armenian
language. Applicants mostly complain that tests contain a lot
of ambiguities and are artificially complicated, one of protest
participants told a PanARMENIAN.Net correspondent. "Besides," the
applicant noted "we encountered problems not included in examination
program." In response to such complaints, Evaluation and Testing
Centre informed applicants of their right to have their exam results
reconsidered by Review Committee.

VOTE RESULTS IN 3 YEREVAN PRECINCTS ANNULLED

esults-in-3-yerevan-precincts-annulled/
Jun 4th, 2009

YEREVAN (RFE/RL)-Electoral authorities in Armenia have invalidated
the official results of Sunday’s municipal elections in three Yerevan
precincts and asked prosecutors to investigate what they said was
serious fraud committed there.

All of those polling stations are located in Yerevan’s Malatia-Sebastia
district, from which the Armenian opposition, mass media and
independent observers reported the largest number of irregularities
on election day.

The decision to invalidate the polls held there was made late Wednesday
by two district election commissions covering Malatia-Sebastia. The
Central Election Commission (CEC) said on Thursday that it sent
the ballots, vote protocols and other documents from the precincts
to the MalaOffice of the Prosecutor-General, asking it to open a
criminal case.

The development means that elections in the three polling stations may
have to be re-run, something which would delay the announcement of
the final vote results by the CEC. Still, repeat polls would hardly
have a major impact on the CEC’s preliminary vote tally that gave a
landslide victory to President Serzh Sarkisian’s Republican Party of
Armenia. The Armenian opposition has rejected it as fraudulent.

The Special Investigative Service (SIS), a law-enforcement agency
subordinated to the prosecutors, has already launched criminal
proceedings into fraud reported by Armenian media in seven other
Malatia-Sebastia polling stations. A member of one of those precinct
commissions and another local resident supporting the Republican
Party were arrested by the SIS on Tuesday on charges of stuffing
"fake ballots" marked for the ruling party.

The SIS also supervised on Thursday recounts in two other
Malatia-Sebastia precincts conducted by CEC representatives. In one
of them, a sack of cast ballots, supposedly sealed and signed by
precinct commission members, was found to have been tampered with.

Malatia-Sebastia has been a major trouble spot in various elections
held in Armenia over the past decade. Samvel Aleksanian, one of the
country’s wealthiest men holding sway in the area, has been widely
linked with voter intimidation, vote buying and other irregularities
reported there. Aleksanian is also known as a longtime backer of
President Sarkisian and the Republican Party.

ISSUE OF TEKHUT COPPER AND MOLYBDENUM DEPOSIT’S EXPLOITATION TO BE RAISED AT PACE SUMMER SESSION

ArmInfo
2009-06-03 13:56:00

ArmInfo. Zaruhi Postanjyan, a parliamentarian from Heritage opposition
party, is going to raise the issue of exploitation of Tekhut copper
and molybdenum deposit at PACE Summer Session. The parliamentarian
expressed such an intention at Friday Club, Wednesday.

She fully shares the decision of Armenian ecologists to settle
the problem at the court. ‘Being aware of the imperfect judicial
system in our country, we have hired the best lawyer’, she
said. The parliamentarian believes that negligence of violations
of the legislation may lead to new violations, for instance, in
development of uranium deposits. ‘The government’s approval of Tekhut
project is a display of unserious attitude to Armenia’s future’, she
said. Z. Postanjyan highlighted that the proceeds from exploitation of
the deposit are miserable and will not make up even 1 percent of the
budget. So, the stress put on opening of 1500 jobs is not a convincing
reason for development of Tekhut deposits. There are already 20 tailing
dumps in Armenia and Tekhut deposit will be the largest one. Besides
ecologic risks, this project will require big funds from the state
budget every year, she said. As regards the $280 million credit the
VTB Bank is going to provide to ACP for implementation of the project,
such a step will negatively affect the bank’s reputation, she said.

GAGIK BEGLARYAN – YEREVAN’S NEXT MAYOR

200 9/06/01 | 09:31

Important Society

According to preliminary results issued by the Central Electoral
Committee this morning the vote in yesterday’s municipal elections
breaks down as follows:

Republican Party of Armenia – 47.39%

Prosperous Party of Armenia – 22.71%

HAK (Armenian National Congress) – 17.41

This signifies that Gagik Beglaryan will become the uncontested new
mayor of Yerevan.

The other parties in the race failed to meet the minimum vote count
of 7%.

Orinats Party (Rule of Law) – 5.22% ARF – 4.65% People’s Party –
2.14% Socialist-Workers Party – .49%

ACCORDING TO YEREVAN COUNCIL OF ELDERS ELECTIONS PRELIMINARY RESULTS, RPA, BH AND ANC OVERCOME MINIMUM BARRIER

Noyan Tapan
June 1, 2009

YEREVAN, JUNE 1, NOYAN TAPAN. The RA Central Electoral Commission,
on June 1, summed up the preliminary results of Yerevan Council of
Elders elections held the day before taking as a basis the voting
results at polling stations. 7 out of 8 CEC members signed the
protocol. Zoya Tadevosian representing Zharangutiun refused to sign it.

According to the protocol, 412 464 voters took part in voting at all
439 polling stations. The total number of valid ballot papers is 401
310, 10 493 ballot papers were invalidated. The number of inaccuracies
is 2 104.

The Republican Party of Armenia received 190 171 votes, the Bargavach
Hayastan party 91 141 votes, the Armenian National Congress bloc 69
871 votes, the Orinats Yerkir 20 959 votes, the ARFD 18 648 votes,
the People’s Party 8 569 votes, the Labor Socialist Party of Armenia
1 951 votes.

CEC will finally sum up the May 31 elections by June 7.

The mandates of 65 elders will be distributed among electoral rolls
of political forces overcoming the minimum barrier established by
the Electoral Code, according to the number of ballot papers voted
for each of them. The parties, the ballot papers voted for each will
make at least 7% of the sum of the total number of valid ballot papers
and number of inaccuracies will receive a mandate, and if a bloc ran
for the elections, the minimum barrier for it makes 9%.

According to the preliminary election results, RPA, BH and ANC overcome
the minimum barrier. RPA received 47.3%, BH 22.7%, ANC 17.4%, OYP 5.2%,
ARFD 4.7%, PP 2.2%, LSPA 0.5% votes.

Interfax, Russia
May 29 2009

Karabakh mediators expect progress from next Aliyev-Sargsyan meeting

BAKU May 29

The co-chairmen of the OSCE (Organization for Security and Cooperation
in Europe) Minsk Group hope significant progress will be reached in
the Karabakh settlement process at the upcoming talks between Azeri
President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan in
St. Petersburg on June 4.

"The goal of our visit is to continue preparations for the presidents’
meeting in St. Petersburg on June 4," French co-chairman Bernard
Fassier told journalists in Baku. Fassier said he was attaching
particular importance to the St. Petersburg meeting.

"One should understand that the St. Petersburg meeting will be this
year’s fifth, which already means something. There is some
progress. Not everything is being solved in one meeting," the diplomat
said.

The two countries’ leaders acted constructively, said U.S. co-
chairman Matthew Bryza, commenting on the recent meeting between the
Azeri and Armenian presidents in Prague.

The presidents took the negotiations very seriously, he said.

From the diplomatic point of view, the Azeri president is waging a
cultural war, and we hope to see a turning point in St. Petersburg,
Bryza said. As for Novruz Mamedov, head of foreign relations in the
Azeri presidential administration, who said that no progress was
reached in Prague, this person did not attend the Prague meeting, plus
he is allowed to have his own opinion, Bryza said.

GEORGIA RUINS RELATIONS WITH TURKEY OVER ITALIAN CLOTHES

PRAVDA
May 28 2009
Russia

The Georgian government aggravated relations with neighbors. Until
recently Turkey was the only Georgia friendly border state. However,
Saakashvili Government "corrected this omission" and threatened with
sanctions to Turkish companies engaged in business with Abkhazia.

Georgia spoiled relations with the last friendly neighbor –
Turkey. Georgia does not recognize Abkhazia and South Ossetia. She
accuses Russia of the aggression, committed by Georgia itself. Georgia
has some discord with Azerbaijan and Armenia rooted mainly in the
problems with Armenian and Azeri nationals living in Georgia. In case
of Armenia, the situation is worsening by the fact that Georgia once
and again threatened to cut gas supplies to this country.

Now it is Turkey . Apparently the Turks and the Georgians have nothing
to quarrel about. Today Turkey is not pursuing its former aggressive
politics in the Caucasus and does not aspire to expand its influence
to Georgia. But strange as it may seem, the conflict is initiated
in Tbilisi.

On May 2 Turkish paper The Hurriyet published an article saying that
the Turkish branch of Italy’s Benetton company, one of the world’s
fashion brands, is planning to open stores in Sukhumi, the capital
of Abkhazia. The publication was followed by the angry response from
Tbilisi . Georgia demanded explanation from Turkey.

Georgian Foreign Minister Grigol Vashadze made an official
statement. "Tbilisi requests the Turkish Benetton representation
to act in the framework of Georgian law. Georgia is not against the
activity of any commercial firm or company on Georgian territory in
case this activity is in compliance with the Georgian law for the
occupied territories. Before starting its work in Georgia and on the
occupied territories, Benetton should have been officially registered
possessing the tax code, paying taxes and acting on the permission
of Tbilisi authorities. If any company is not in compliance with the
rules or violates them, legal and economic consequences will follow,"
the minister said.

But that was not the end of the story: Mr. Ertan Tezgor, Turkish
Ambassador was requested to submit official explanations in regard
with the plans of Turkey’s Benetton Branch to open its premises in
Abkhazia territory. Imagine the astonishment of the Turkish ambassador
on hearing the pretensions more so that he was not in a position to
represent a private company.

It is worth to recollect that the present aggravation between Georgia
and Turkey was first noted in April 2009 when Georgian border guards
detained several Turkish ships in neutral waters. Those ships were
carrying construction materials, fuel and different commodities
including pork to Abkhazia. Thus on May 5 they stopped "Denfa Demet",
on 24 May – "PUR NAVOLOK" freighter and the "New Star" – on May 30.

In connection with the incidents Mr. Zaur Ardzinba, Director, "Abkhaz
Merchant Marine Shipping Company" said: "Georgian border guards behave
like Somali pirates in the Aden Gulf".

AMBASSADOR OF BENIN HANDS HIS CREDENTIALS TO RA PRESIDENT

Noyan Tapan
May 27, 2009

YEREVAN, MAY 27, NOYAN TAPAN. On May 27, newly appointed Ambassador
of Benin to Armenia Ayi Visinto d’Almeida (residence Moscow) handed
his credentials to RA President Serzh Sargsyan.

According to the report of the RA President’s Press Office,
congratulating the Ambassador on the occasion of assuming his post,
S. Sargsyan expressed the hope that the accreditation of the first
Ambassador of Benin in Armenia will contribute to development of
relations between the two countries.

During the talk the two sides attached importance to cooperation
between Armenia and Benin within the framework of various structures.

SHAVARSH KOCHARIAN POSITIVELY ASSESSES ARMENIAN-GEORGIAN ACTIVE AND REGULAR POLITICAL DIALOGUE

Noyan Tapan
May 25, 2009

YEREVAN, MAY 25, NOYAN TAPAN. RA Deputy Foreign Minister Shavarsh
Kocharian, on May 25, met with Georgian Deputy Foreign Minister
David Jalaghania, who heads the working group that arrived in
Yerevan to carry on negotiations on Armenian-Georgian border’s
demarcation. S. Kocharian positively assessed Armenian-Georgian active
and regular political dialogue and mentioned that it is a firm basis
for deepening mutually beneficial relations.

According to the RA Foreign Ministry Press and Information Department,
the Deputy Ministers had a detailed conversation on further development
of bilateral political, economic, and cultural cooperation, discussed
issues regarding Armenian-Georgian border’s demarcation.