Author: Bedik Zaminian

                                        Tuesday, 
Armenian PM Visits Iran
Iran - President Hassan Rouhani meets with Armenian Prime Minister
Karen Karapetian in Tehran, 10Oct2017.
Prime Minister Karen Karapetian met with Iran's President Hassan
Rouhani on Tuesday at the end of an official visit to Tehran that
focused on ongoing efforts to expand Armenian-Iranian commercial ties.
He reportedly discussed with Rouhani and other Iranian leaders the
implementation of joint energy projects and ways of removing barriers
to bilateral trade.
"Armenia attaches great importance to its warm and friendly relations
with neighboring Iran which have strong historical foundations and are
based on mutual interests," Karapetian was quoted by his press office
as telling Rouhani.
The Iranian president reaffirmed his commitment to closer ties with
Armenia. "Expansion of relations with Armenia, a friendly country and
a neighbor, has been of significance for Iran," he said, according to
the IRNA news agency. He said more needs to be done to utilize the
economic potential of bilateral relations.
Rouhani gave the same assurances to President Serzh Sarkisian when
they met in Tehran the day after he was sworn in for a second term in
early August.
Iran - Iran's First Vice-President Eshaq Jahangiri (R) greets Armenian
Prime Minister Karen Karapetian at a welcoming ceremony in Tehran,
9Oct2017.
"We have no limits on cooperation with Armenia in the political,
economic and cultural fields," Iran's First Vice-President Eshaq
Jahagiri told reporters after holding talks with Karapetian on Monday.
"We both affirmed that we are ready to enhance the volume of
Armenian-Iranian relations and are determined to remove obstacles on
that path," Karapetian said for his part.
An Armenian government statement said the two men reviewed the ongoing
construction of a new power transmission line which should
significantly increase Armenian electricity exports to Iran. Supplies
of Iranian natural gas to Armenia will also soar as a
result.Karapetian also discussed this project at a separate meeting on
Tuesday with Iran's Oil Minister Bijan Zanganeh and Energy Minister
Sattar Mahmoudi.
Three other Iranian ministers held separate meetings with their
Armenian opposite numbers accompanying Karapetian.
Also on the agenda of Karapetian's talks was the upcoming creation of
a "free economic zone" near Meghri, an Armenian town on the Iranian
border. Karapetian urged Iranian firms to set up shop there and gain
tariff-free access to markets in Russia and other members of the
Russian-led Eurasian Economic Union (EEU). They could also take
advantage of Armenia's preferential trade regime with the European
Union, he said.
Iran has been negotiating with the EEU on a free-trade deal strongly
supported by Armenia. Karapetian was reported to tell Jahangiri that
Yerevan is "ready to provide necessary support" for a speedy
conclusion of those talks.
According to official Armenian statistics, Armenian-Iranian trade
stood at a relatively modest $173.5 million in the first eight months
of this year. Iran accounted for less than 5 percent of Armenia's
overall foreign trade.
More European Support For Judicial Reform In Armenia
 . Karlen Aslanian
Armenia - A district court building in Yerevan, 27Jun2017.
The Council of Europe launched on Tuesday a new program aimed at
helping to reform Armenia's judicial system that has long been
strongly influenced by the government and law-enforcement bodies.
The program financed by the European Union and Britain will assist the
Armenian authorities in amending the national legal framework for the
judiciary in line with the country's sweeping constitutional changes
that will take effect in April. The changes backed by Council of
Europe experts are meant to make Armenian courts more independent.
Officials from the Strasbourg-based organization said another
objective of the EU-funded project is to improve the existing system
of disciplinary accountability of Armenian judges. The latter rarely
acquit criminal suspects or rule against the government.
The head of the EU Delegation in Armenia, Piotr Switalski, urged the
authorities to "ensure full independence of judiciary" as he spoke at
the official launch of the project in Yerevan. He said they should
rule out any pressure on the courts from the executive branch or
prosecutors. Switalski also stressed the importance of
"anti-corruption measures in the justice system."
Human rights activists attending the event were skeptical about the
authorities' stated commitment to a serious judicial reform. "We've
been hearing about that since the 1990s," one of them, Avetik
Ishkhanian told RFE/RL's Armenian service (Azatutyun.am).
Ishkhanian said that the authorities resist judicial independence
because it would endanger their hold on power. "If the judiciary is
the main mechanism for guaranteeing your rule, then there will be
selective justice, an atmosphere of impunity and political trials," he
said.
Another activist, Artur Sakunts, also said that Armenia has no
independent courts as evidenced by the imprisonment of opposition
figures regarded by him as political prisoners.
Justice Minister Davit Harutiunian, who was also present at the event,
admitted that the judicial system lacks a "sufficient degree of
independence." But he insisted that the authorities are committed to
reforming it.
"If human rights activists start praising a country, you must leave it
immediately," Harutiunian told RFE/RL's Armenian service. "Human
rights activists are supposed to bring up new issues. So they are
right to criticize and they should keep doing that."
IMF Also Upgrades Armenian Growth Forecast
Armenia - Workers at a textile factory in Yerevan, 5Oct2017.
Economic growth in Armenia will be faster than expected this year even
if it falls short of the Armenian government's revised projections,
according to a report released by the International Monetary Fund on
Tuesday.
The IMF's latest World Economic Outlook predicts that the Armenian
economy will grow by 3.5 percent after stagnating in 2016.
The fund forecast a growth rate of around 3 percent in June. It warned
of downward risks at the time, saying that increased remittances from
Armenians working abroad and prices of copper, the country's number
one export item, "may not endure."
Most of those multimillion-dollar remittances come from migrant
workers in Russia which fell into recession in 2015. Russia is also
Armenia's leading trading partner.
"After two years of recession, economic activity in Russia is
projected to expand by 1.8 percent in 2017, helped by stabilizing oil
prices, easing financial conditions, and improved confidence. Over the
medium term, however, growth is expected to remain about 1.5 percent,"
says the latest IMF report. This might explain why it expects economic
growth in Armenia to slow to 2.9 percent in 2018.
The Armenian government had forecast a 3.2 percent growth rate for
2017 over a year ago. Official statistics showed the country's Gross
Domestic Product increasing by around 5 percent in the first half of
this year on the back of a double-digit rise in industrial output.
Finance Minister Vartan Aramian said late last month that full-year
growth will likely come in at 4.3 percent. In its draft state budget
unveiled by Aramian last week, the government said that growth should
accelerate to 4.5 percent in 2018.
Press Review
"Zhoghovurd" reacts to Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev's claim that
Armenia has dropped its "preconditions" for the resumption of
negotiations on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. The paper suggests that
Aliyev referred to Yerevan's insistence on the implementation of
confidence-building agreements which he reached with President Serzh
Sarkisian and international mediators in Vienna and Saint Petersburg
last year. This means, it claims, that Sarkisian and the Minsk Group
co-chairs have stopped demanding Baku's compliance with those
agreements.
"Regardless of whether or not the presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan
meet [later this year,] the situation of no-war-no-peace in the region
will persist because the status quo is beneficial for both the
conflicting parties and the mediators," Fyodor Lukyanov, a Russian
political analyst, tells "168 Zham." "Also, there is still no solution
acceptable to both sides. As things stand now, no resolutions of the
conflict is in sight." He is therefore pessimistic about the outcome
of the upcoming Aliyev-Sarkisian talks.
"Zhamanak" comments on Prime Minister Karen Karapetian's official
visit to Tehran which began on Monday with his meetings with Iran's
Vice President Eshaq Jahangiri and parliament speaker Ali
Larijani. The paper notes a lack of substance in their public
statements made after the talks. "Armenian-Iranian relations continue
to lack strategic projects," it says.
"Haykakan Zhamanak" reports on an upsurge of exports of Armenian
livestock to Iraq and Qatar observed in the last few months. Citing
figures released by the Armenian Ministry of Agriculture, the paper
says that Armenia exported more than 3,000 cattle and over 5,000 sheep
in September alone. It says that this is why the retail price of beef
in Armenia rose by around 8 percent late last month. "Given the
substantial increase in export volumes, it cannot be excluded that
fresh meat become will become even more expensive in Armenia," it
says.
(Tigran Avetisian)
Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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