Author: Christine Harutyunian

The rags-to-riches philanthropist
The Daily Telegraph/UK
(Filed: 20/02/2005)
The Mormon billionaire who started out selling eggs has floated his
plastics empire, but Jon Huntsman tells Sylvia Pfeifer Mammon will
still help his charitable mission
Jon Huntsman is not a conventional businessman. On the day that the
self-made billionaire took the chemicals business he founded 35 years
ago to the New York stock market, he cashed in shares worth more than
$100m. It wasn’t that he needed the money â~@~S he has no interest
in the fast cars, yachts or Palm Beach mansions that usually excite
the very rich. Huntsman just wanted to fund his charitable foundations.
Huntsman is one of America’s most successful entrepreneurs. His
rags-to-riches tale of a poor Mormon boy who built up a plastics empire
worth $12bn is the embodiment of the American dream. But Huntsman is
also a noted philanthropist.
Aside from his personal donations, the company’s policy has been to
divide every dollar of free cash flow, putting half into the business
and half into good works. To date, Huntsman has given away some $500m,
both from the company and his own resources.
However, earlier this month, that policy ended when the chemicals
group raised $1.5bn through a partial flotation. Now, Huntsman himself
must keep funding his charities, which range from the Huntsman Cancer
Institute (both his parents died of cancer) to helping Armenia.
So why did he decide to take the group public? And what made him
change his previous famous conviction that commodity businesses are
better off being private? The short answer is that the operating
environment has become more difficult.
“My view has changed dramatically . . . The energy uncertainties,
combined with the whole problems with terrorism and uncertainty in the
economic conditions throughout the world make it very difficult for
an individual to cope with the peaks and valleys that could accompany
a business the size of $12bn . . . I feel very strongly that the
best protection to our shareholders, including our family and other
shareholders, is to be a public company where we have access to equity
markets,” he says in an interview from fresh from ringing the opening
bell at the New York Stock Exchange.
“Our profits will [now] go towards paying down debt. We won’t have
the luxury to direct money towards charitable things,” he says. “I’ll
sell my own stock from time to time. . . to help continue to fund my
own charities.”
Talking to Huntsman at any length is like getting a lesson in business,
ethics and family values all at once. His philanthropic zeal dominates
his conversation. Meanwhile, the company’s annual reports are peppered
with mission statements and family photos of his wife, their nine
children and 52 grandchildren.
His one indulgence, he says, is fly fishing. Aside from that, “business
and my faith are in every way as relaxing as most men and women find
things like golf or yachting”. But it is the weekly visits to the
chemotherapy wards in his cancer hospital “to give the patients a
hug and encouragement” that really energise him, he adds.
Cynics may find such apparent saintliness from a billionaire grating,
but Huntsman sees no difficulty in reconciling faith and money.
“It’s very difficult for me to separate my family from my business,
from my faith, from our charitable work,” he says. “It’s all rolled
into one package.”
The one thing he does preach is that every man should return some
of his fortune to society. This belief no doubt has its roots in his
upbringing. He was born in Blackfoot, Idaho, in 1937, into a family
of devout Mormons. The young Huntsman won a scholarship to Wharton
Business School in Pennsylvania. On graduation, he went to work for
his uncle, selling eggs in Los Angeles â~@~S a job he has often
described as “the worst in America”.
Nevertheless, it was while doing this that he developed the world’s
first plastic egg cartons. An agreement with McDonald’s to supply the
fast-food giant with Styrofoam “clamshell” cartons led him to make a
fortune. In 1970, a couple of deals and lots of borrowed money later,
the Huntsman Corporation was born.
So how did a former egg salesman manage to build up such a huge
chemicals group? His strategy was to buy unwanted assets at distressed
prices. This was best illustrated by the $2.8bn acquisition, in 1999,
of the old chemicals empire of ICI based on Teesside.
The highly profitable deal not only doubled the group’s size but was
personally resonant for Huntsman, who can trace his family roots
back to another UK port â~@~S Liverpool. Somewhat surprisingly,
he describes the Teesside complex as “my favourite place on the
entire earth”.
However, as the acquisitions mounted so did the debt. In 2001, the
family had to sell 49 per cent of the business to Matlin Patterson,
the US venture capital firm, a decision Huntsman describes as “a very
painful experience”.
Today, the restructured Huntsman empire is a mix of commodity and
speciality chemicals. Last year the company secured a £16.5m grant
from the British government to build the world’s biggest producer of
low-density polyethylene on Teesside.
Huntsman is convinced that the chemicals industry is “headed for some
very fine years”. He argues that his company is well-placed to weather
the economic cycles since only one third of its business comes from
commodity chemicals.
Huntsman has no plans to retire yet and remains chairman of the group
after handing operational control to his son Peter in 2000. Over
the next two weeks the family will appoint an independent board of
directors â~@~S six out of the 10 board members will be non-family
â~@~S chosen from some of the best-run corporations across America.
So what advice can he give any budding entrepreneurs out there?
Unsurprisingly, he has no magic answer. Success, he notes, “is a
process that’s surprising even to the individuals involved”.
For anyone in need of more practical views, Huntsman is about to
publish a book on how to become a winner. Entitled Winners Never Cheat:
Everyday Values We Learned as Children (But May Have Forgotten),
the book aims to be a lesson in good management behaviour â~@~S
play by the rules and keep your word, for example â~@~S together
with nuggets of successful techniques.
“It’ll be a fun book,” promises Huntsman. “I think if your goal is
to become wealthy, by and large, you fail. If your goal is to try
to be fair and honest and to build a quality company, step by step,
day by day, someday eventually it evolves into an opportunity to
reach beyond your own expectations.”
–Boundary_(ID_Pe/022Rhpm3VVM9C8/gzQA)–
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

REPORT ON NAGORNY KARABAKH IN PACE AND LATER ADOPTION OF PACE
RESOLUTION DICTATED FROM WASHINGTON: RUBEN TOVMASIAN
YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 12. ARMINFO. The report of PACE Rapporteur on Nagorny
Karabakh David Atkinson and later adoption of the PACE resolution
were dictated from Washington. First Secretary of Central Committee
of the Communist Party of Armenia Ruben Tovmasian stated during the
news conference at the discussion club Azdak.
According to him, the recent events round the process of settlement of
the Karabakh problem are links of one chain – statements of Assistant
of State Secretary of the United states Elizabeth Jones, the report
and resolution of PACE, the arrival of the OSCE Monitoring mission –
all they took place by order of official Washington. The untalented
foreign political course of the incumbent authorities of Armenia
resulted in that “the ring round Armenia and Nagorny Karabakh is
being tightened”, the leader of Armenian communists stated.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

OPPOSITION EXPRESSED OPINION
A1+
08-02-2005
Today only those 20 deputies, who had something to declare were
present in the parliament session hall during the time fixed for making
announcements. The opposition deputies used their time to highlight
the necessity of the power change and mention of the failures of the
leadership in foreign policy.
Victor Dallakyan declared that our republic in on the moral decline at
present and reminded that Rome fell at the time when Caligula made his
horse a senator. Member of the Armenian People’s Party Stepan Zakaryan
stated that according to our leadership the sending of Armenian
military to Iraq was conditioned by the fact that US’s position is
rather important in the unsettled Karabakh issue. ”However we had
the chance to know US’s stand on this issue. May be one day we will
be told to quit the territories because a superstate wants so.
Aram Gaspari Sargsyan in his turn read a Justice factionâ~@~Ys
statement on the Karabakh problem settlement and called the coalition
to join it.
–Boundary_(ID_OuQPvXaUdLeGA8jPntDhfA)–
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

The Economist
Jan 27 2005
Breaking into a man’s world
Jan 27th 2005
>From The Economist print edition
Reuters
The new boss of the Sabanci group chose to wear trousers instead of
a wedding dress
TURKISH industry is dominated by two vast family businesses, both of
which have recently handed over their top jobs to a new generation of
40-somethings. The Europeanised Koc group passed the reins to Mustafa
Koc, the eldest of the chairman’s three sons, in 2003. But before
Sakip Sabanci died last year, he let it be known that he wanted
neither of his two brothers nor any of their numerous male offspring
to succeed him as head of the far more traditional Sabanci family
business. Rather, he chose his niece, Guler. It was a choice that he
had been hinting at for at least a decade.
Turks were astonished by the appointment of a woman to such a
powerful post in what remains a patriarchal society. But none was
more surprised than Ms Sabanci herself. As her uncle lay dying in an
Istanbul hospital, she recalls thinking that she would quit the
business. `I could not envisage staying on without him,’ she says.

Running a sprawling conglomerate with annual sales of $12 billion and
interests ranging from banking to cars, and from energy to food, is a
challenging task that comes at a particularly challenging time. In
December, EU leaders finally agreed to begin accession talks with
Turkey on October 3rd this year. Over the coming decade, Turkish
companies will need drastically to alter their often unorthodox
business practices if they are to thrive within the EU. Although
TUSIAD, Turkey’s powerful association of businessmen, currently
headed by one of Guler’s cousins, strongly supported the country’s
attempt to join the EU, many of its individual members fear the
abolition of protectionist policies behind which they have prospered
for decades.
Sabanci Holding went through a big restructuring of its operations
before Turkey signed a customs union with the EU in 1996. The process
was designed to prepare it for global competition. Ms Sabanci says
that the EU straitjacket can only benefit honest Turkish businesses.
For a start, it will help constrain the country’s vast black economy
(estimated at anything up to 50% of GDP), making competition for
companies like Sabanci `much fairer’. More companies will be
compelled to pay taxes and follow health and safety regulations.
The EU’s decision to start accession talks is also expected to
enthuse foreign investors for a country that they have to date
noticeably shunned because of decades of chronically high inflation,
political instability and massive corruption. That gloomy image is
slowly being altered under the group of mild Islamists who have been
running Turkey for the past two years. And slowly the world is
noticing.
This newly stable environment has prompted Ms Sabanci to look for new
alliances with foreign partners, a strategy that the group excels at.
She herself masterminded its first joint-venture, with DuPont in
1987, setting up a $100m nylon-yarn producer in the port city of
Izmit. The group’s joint-venture with Toyota, which the Japanese car
manufacturer is said to be well pleased with, was launched in 1994 as
a platform for exporting Corollas to the rest of Europe. Last year it
captured 6.7% of the highly competitive local car market.
Ms Sabanci says acquisitions are also on the cards. They may include
Telsim, Turkey’s number-two mobile-phone operator. It was taken over
by the government after its owners, the Uzan family, stole billions
from their foreign partners, Motorola and Nokia, and the company was
forced into bankruptcy.
Behind her unconventional lifestyle – she lives alone and mixes with
painters and popstars – lies a tough, conservative businesswoman who
takes only carefully calculated risks; one reason, say her business
associates, why her uncle anointed her as his successor. Some of her
male cousins were so offended that one of them, Demir Sabanci, is
rumoured to have sold all his shares in the company last month,
because he could not stomach being bossed by a woman.
>From sharecropper to shareowner
Ms Sabanci’s first brush with industry was at the age of three, when
her grandfather Haci Omer, a rags-to-riches former cotton
sharecropper in the southern province of Adana, took her to the
family’s textile factory there. Ms Sabanci’s parents divorced when
she was eight and left her in the care of her grandfather. `He always
told me that one day I would wear trousers, drive a car and work in
the factory.’
And that is what she did: her career began 27 years ago at the
family’s tyre factory in Izmit. She resisted her grandmother’s
unrelenting demands to `see me in a wedding dress’ choosing, as she
puts it, `my work instead.’ When not working she keeps an eye on the
wine she launched in 1999, under the label `G’, the same year she
launched what she calls `my big baby’: Sabanci University. The
university has matured rather better than the wines – it is already
counted among Turkey’s best privately-owned colleges. Some 40% of its
students are offered free tuition, subsidised by the $20m a year that
the university gets from the Sabanci group.
`Tough’ and `unpretentious’ are the words that employees most
frequently use to describe Ms Sabanci, a reformed chain smoker with a
gravelly Janis Joplin-like voice. Her toughness came to the fore
recently when she withstood pressure from the state to fire Halil
Berktay, an eminent Ottoman historian at the university. He had dared
to suggest that Turkey’s Armenian minority may have been slaughtered
in large numbers by Ottoman forces during the first world war.
Her late uncle similarly angered the authorities when he called for
more rights for Turkey’s Kurdish minority. `His greatest lesson to
me,’ says Ms Sabanci, `was to be a free thinker, to be tolerant,
honest and fair.’ Those who know her say it is a lesson that she has
learnt well.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Russia remained top priority in Armenian foreign policy in 2004, ministry
says
Arminfo
12 Jan 05
YEREVAN
The development and expansion of relations with the Russian Federation
continued to be the highest priority in Armenia’s foreign policy in
2004, says the Armenian Foreign Ministry’s report on the results of
last year.
The document says that Armenian-Russian cooperation developed and
expanded in the military-political, trade, economic and humanitarian
spheres last year, and within the CIS and the Collective Security
Treaty Organization.
Top-level meetings were held as part of three working visits of the
Armenian president to Russia, an official visit of Armenian Prime
Minister Andranik Markaryan, and visits to Armenia by the chairmen of
both houses of the Russian parliament, Sergey Mironov and Boris
Gryzlov. Armenian Foreign Minister Vardan Oskanyan paid an official
visit to Moscow in July. During the negotiations held the sides spoke
about bilateral cooperation at the international level and ways of
resolving the Nagornyy Karabakh problem.
Issues of economic partnership were discussed at a meeting of the
Armenian-Russian intergovernmental commission at the end of the
year. In an effort to expand the economic partnership between legal
entities and individuals of the two countries, an Armenian-Russian
association of business cooperation was set up and over 100 companies
from both countries have already joined it.
A wide range of military and military-economic issues was discussed
during a visit to Armenia by Russian Defence Minister Sergey Ivanov
and during the first meeting of the Armenian-Russian intergovernmental
commission for military and technical cooperation in September.
As part of a cooperation programme between the two countries’ culture
ministries, days of Russian culture were held in Armenia in April
2004, while a week of Armenian films was held in Moscow in March. The
agreement was reached to declare 2005 the year of Russia in Armenia
and 2006 the year of Armenia in Russia.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Agence France Presse — English
January 9, 2005 Sunday 3:35 PM GMT
Seven Ukrainian troops, Kazakh dead in Iraqi accident: ministry
KIEV Jan 9
Seven Ukrainian soldiers and one Kazakh died in Iraq Sunday after a
bomb they were about to defuse went off accidentally, Ukraine’s
defense ministry said.
Another seven Ukrainian and four Kazakh troops were injured as a
result of the accident, which occurred at 12:05 pm in Iraq’s central
Wasit region, where Ukrainian and Kazakh troops serve under Polish
control, it said in a statement.
It said the explosion occurred after a team of Kazakh sappers and
their Ukrainian backup had brought back for defusion some 35 aerial
bombs that Iraqi police had found stashed near the central military
base of As Suwayrah.
“After they were loaded off, there occurred an explosion of a large
magnitude, the reasons for which are still being investigated,” the
statement said.
“As a result of the blast, seven Ukrainian soldiers were killed and
seven received injuries of varying degrees. One Kazakh soldier was
killed and four Kazakh troops were injured,” it said.
The injured were given first aid in the Ukrainian camp and then
rushed to a military hospital in Baghdad by helicopter, the statement
said.
“The defense ministry expresses its deepest condolences to the
relatives and close ones of the soldiers killed,” it said.
Outgoing President Leonid Kuchma has also sent condolences to the
families of those killed, according to a statement by the presidency.
In Warsaw a Polish military official said the soldiers had died as
they were trying to deactivate a bomb.
“An aerial bomb found during mine-clearing operations in the area
exploded accidentally when the soldiers were about to make it safe,”
Polish military spokesman Colonel Zdzieslaw Gnatowski told AFP.
On the orders of the Polish commander of the multinational division
of which the Ukrainians and Kazakhs are members, General Andrzej
Ekiert, the mine-clearing operation was halted to investigate the
exact causes of the incident, Colonel Gnatowski said.
Polish Defense Minister Jerzy Szmajdzinski and Polish chief of staff
General Czeslaw Piatas expressed their sympathy to the families of
the victims as well as to the governments in Kiev and Almaty, an
official statement released in Warsaw said.
More than 1,600 Ukrainian troops have been deployed since August 2003
in Iraq’s Wasit region where US-led coalition forces are under Polish
command.
Prior to Sunday’s deaths, Ukraine has lost nine of its troops, with
another 20 injured.
In the heat of Ukraine’s election saga in December, the Kiev
parliament approved a resolution that demanded outgoing President
Leonid Kuchma withdraw Ukrainian soldiers from Iraq.
Western-leaning Viktor Yushchenko, who won a rerun presidential
election to succeed Kuchma, has also come out in favor of a quick
withdrawal of Ukrainian troops.
After the January 30 elections in Iraq, the 5,500-strong Polish force
will include troops from 15 countries.
The countries contributing are Armenia, Bulgaria, Denmark,
Kazakhstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Mongolia, the Netherlands, Norway,
Romania, Salvador, Slovakia, Ukraine and the United States.
Poland has lost 13 soldiers and four civilians since the beginning of
the US-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Zaman, Turkey
Jan 1 2005
Brussels Waits ‘Turkish Issue’
EU Capital in Noel ‘Laze’ to Wake up by Turkey File
Brussels, the capital of European Union (EU), attracted attention
throughout the year, with this years frenzy peaking during the
December 17th summit. Then, the action stopped, hitting rock bottom
for the “Noel laze”.
The EU will wake up from its hibernation in the first week of
January. Traditionally, EU leaders go to their home countries after
the December summit for Christmas and vacation a while. Not only the
leaders, but also the citizens of the world’s richest clubs, go south
for the Noel holiday. This is the reason why more than 4,000 EU
citizens are still missing in South Asia.
In addition to Christmas, the EU also hibernates in August. Brussels
is dead during the month of August and the second half of December.
While it is torture to find a parking spot when the EU is in session,
we now have more than enough space around the EU building to park.
Brussels is a phantom city now. The staff still on duty for the
holidays operates the largest bureaucratic machine in the world while
its in hibernation.
While it was a county in Europe prior to the establishment of the
European Economic Community (EEC), Brussels has since transformed
into one of the two most important capitals in the world. Everyone in
the city knows that if the EU did not exist, Belgium would hardly be
a spot on the map. Perhaps, the bureaucrats in Brussels do not want
to wake up from this long winter sleep because as soon as they wake
up, they will find a huge dossier on Turkey. This file does not
resemble at all those for the other candidate countries. Turkey’s
file requires hard work and “creative solutions”.
Relaxation emerged in Brussels when the EU leaders said, “We’ll reach
decisions on Turkey by considering 2004 Progress Report” at the
Copenhagen summit in 2002… Turkey’s process has been clarified a bit
and taken out of a situation where arbitrary decisions could play a
role.
Since 2002, “Eurobureaucrats” have known that the most critical
decision reached by EU will be on Turkey. In the second half of 2004
in particular, a well-defined Turkey wind blew in the Union and
Turkey was discussed from the earth to the sky.
The Progress Report that was awaited with anticipation was finally
released on October 6 along with its recommendations. The Report laid
down such a conclusion that everyone interpreted it as his wish.
While those who supported “privileged partnership” found satisfactory
sentences in the report, those who feared the Turkish labor force
were satisfied when they saw permanent restrictions. When Ankara,
without discussing the report thoroughly, found it “balanced”, the
owner and the guardian of the report, Enlargement Commissioner Gunter
Verheugen, handed over his duty in peace.
With the October 6th report, the EU signaled that they would treat
Turkey differently than the other candidate countries. Ankara’s
“balanced” judgment was made with the expectation that its mistakes
would be corrected at the December 16-17 summit, when the final
decision was due. Ankara found a conditional and heavy report before
it in the summit. Both Ankara and EU, which will begin membership
negotiations with this report, prepare for 2005. Everyone knows in
Brussels that if the negotiations begin on October 3, the European
public opinion will discuss Turkey, Islam and the history of Turks,
for decades. Members who do not want Turkey’s accession will demand
that Ankara recognizes an “Armenian Genocide”.
2005 will be a Cyprus year again
The agenda to accelerate with the new boss of the Enlargement Olli
Rehn’s Turkey visit in February, will speed up with the preparations
of a new Accession Partnership Document and a negotiation frame. The
EU will determine the negotiation position and lay out short, medium
and long-term priorities. The negotiations, normally handled with 31
parties, could possibly rise to 39-40 parties with Turkey.
Most important, in order for all these preparations to have meaning,
the Cyprus issue will have to be resolved because the EU set a de
facto recognition of the Cyprus Greek Community as condition to start
membership negotiations on October 3. Since there is the possibility
that the Greeks will wake up on the morning of October 4 with the
demand “recognize us”, Ankara knows well that without a solution to
the issue, it cannot proceed in the negotiations because the Greeks
having veto power. And that makes 2005 a year for Cyprus again. Soon,
we will be witnesses to new initiatives regarding Cyprus.
In short, October 3 will be as important as December 17, 2004 for
Turkey.
01.01.2005
Selcuk Gultasli, Zaman, Brussels
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Journal of Turkish Weekly, Turkey
Dec 27 2004
Armenia Increases Military Spending 35 %
Despite of the Social and Economic Problems Armenia Increases
Military Spending 35 Percent in 2005
Jan Soykok (JTW), 27 December 2004
According to Arminfo News Agency (Yerevan, Armenia) the Armenian
National Assembly made a decision to increase military spending more
than 35 per cent in the Armenian state budget of 2005. Military
spending envisaged by the final version of the 2005 draft budget
amounts to 127m dollars, Armenian Security Council Secretary and
Defence Minister Serzh Sarkisyan has told journalists.
Armenia has suffered from economic and social catastrophes since the
independence. Armenian forces occupied about 20 percent of
neighboring Azerbaijan, and Armenia does not recognize neighboring
Turkey’s national borders. Armenian groups also encourage irredentist
movements among the Armenians in Georgia and Russian Federation.
Armenian economy is depend on foreign aids from the United States and
the European Union. The Armenian diaspora also send significant
amounts. Armenian politicians accuse Turkey and Azerbaijan for the
economic problems. However Dr. Nilgun Gulcan from ISRO says `Armenian
Government curtails the real problem by abusing problems between
Armenia and Turkey.’
`Armenian people suffer from corruption and economic shortages while
the Government spends sources for imagined enemies. The decision to
increase military spending will definitely not help to ease Armenia’s
social problems. Moreover, the decision will not help stability and
peace in the region. Armenian increase in military budget will
possibly cause new increases in Azerbaijan’s and Georgia’s military
spendings. Armenia should not waste the American and European aids in
‘playing war games” added Gulcan.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

PRESS RELEASE
Gomidas Institute (UK)
42 Blythe Road
London W14 0HA
England
Email: [email protected]
14 December 2004
Contact Person: Roland Mnatsakanyan
Armenian Genocide Books Donated to U.S. Congressmen
WASHINGTON, DC – In anticipation of the commemoration of the 90th
anniversary of the Armenian Genocide and the consideration of the
Genocide Resolution by the incoming 109th Congress, the Gomidas
Institute has donated 500 copies of its latest publication, United
States Official Records on the Armenian Genocide 1915-17, to members
of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives.
This initiative was taken at the request of a generous benefactor, and
made possible through the support of the Congressional Caucus on
Armenian Issues, as well as the Armenian National Committee in
Washington D.C.
“With the publication of this volume, the Gomidas Institute has, once
again, provided a vital resource for all those working to overcome the
Turkish government’s shameful campaign to pressure the United States
into complicity in Turkey’s denial of the Armenian Genocide,” said
ANCA Executive Director Aram Hamparian. “The comprehensive and
compelling evidence assembled in this book establishes the
U.S. response to the Armenian Genocide as a critical milestone in
American history – one that Turkey should not be allowed to erase.”
United States Official Records on the Armenian Genocide 1915-17 was
published by the Gomidas Institute and is the latest book in a growing
body of vital sources on the Armenian Genocide. The Institute is at
the cutting edge of such work, which is utilized by students, scholars
and journalists today.
This book will soon be joined by its sister publication, United States
Diplomacy on the Bosphorus: The Diaries of Ambassador Morgenthau
1913-1916. These two works are an invaluable record of the Armenian
Genocide in all its complexities, and they show how much the United
States government knew about the Armenian Genocide as early as the
summer of 1915. For more information please contact
[email protected]
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

El Mundo
December 26, 2004
El Parlamento de Armenia aprueba el envio de tropas no combatientes.
ANA MKRTCHAN. Efe/EL MUNDO
Armenia. El Parlamento aprueba el envio de tropas no combatientes a
Irak
EREVAN (ARMENIA).- El Parlamento de Armenia aprobo por mayoria el
envio de tropas no combatientes a Irak, a pesar de la ferrea
oposicion de la influyente diaspora, los intelectuales y su vecino
del norte, Rusia.
“Las tropas seran de pacificacion y partiran en el plazo de un mes y
medio, con la mision de permanecer en Irak durante un ano”, aseguro
Artur Agabekian, viceministro de Defensa. El contingente, cuyo grueso
estara formado por las fuerzas de pacificacion armenias desplegadas
en Kosovo, estara integrado por 10 zapadores, tres medicos y 30
conductores.
De esta forma, Armenia se suma a otros tres antiguos miembros de la
Union Sovietica que tambien tienen tropas en Irak supeditadas al
mando polaco y desplegadas al sur de Bagdad: Ucrania, Georgia y
Azerbaiyan.
El proyecto fue aprobado el viernes por la noche por la Asamblea
Nacional con 91 votos a favor y 23 en contra en una sesion
parlamentaria celebrada a puerta cerrada y tras siete horas de
acalorados debates.
Los miembros del bloque opositor Justicia y la fraccion parlamentaria
del partido oficialista Dashnaktsutiun, que representa a la diaspora
tanto en el exilio como en Armenia, votaron en contra del envio de
las tropas.
El ministro de Defensa, Serzh Sarkisyan, matizo que Erevan impondra
como condiciones que el contingente armenio tome parte solo en
actividades defensivas y humanitarias, y no participe en operaciones
con fuerzas azerbaiyanas.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress