Author: Emil Lazarian

KARABAKH TELECOM PLANNING TO INVEST NEARLY $2.5MLN IN NK’S MOBILE COMMUNICATION

ARKA News Agency, Armenia
March 20 2006

STEPANAKERT, March 21. /ARKA/. Karabakh Telecom is planning to invest
nearly $2.5mln in Karabakh’s mobile communication, Nagorno-Karabakh
Republic regional Administration Minister Armo Tsaturyan said. In his
words, some AMD 60 million was invested in mobile communication area
in 2005 (about $133).

Tsaturyan said 3 new stations were added to existing 14 mobile
communication stations last year and 7 are planned to start operating
this year.

Karabakh Telecom was estimated to have 15600 subscribers in 2005.

“Work is being carried out to repair already dilapidated telephone
line”, the minister said.

“Stepanakert’s stations will be digitalized in the nearest future.

$4-5 million is needed for city line telephone communication
development”, Tsaturyan said.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

PRESS RELEASE
Catholicosate of Cilicia
Communication and Information Department
Contact: V.Rev.Fr.Krikor Chiftjian, Communications Officer
Tel: (04) 410001, 410003
Fax: (04) 419724
E-mail: [email protected]
Web:

PO Box 70 317
Antelias-Lebanon

Armenian version:

THE CHAIRMAN OF THE CHRISTIAN-MUSLIM ARAB
COMMITTEE VISITS ANTELIAS

His Holiness Aram I received the chairman of the Christian-Muslim Arab
Committee of the Middle East, Dr. Abbas Halabi, on March 19. An author and a
former judge, Dr. Halabi is a member of the Duruze community. This dialogue
committee, which was established about three years ago, includes prominent
politicians and intellectuals.

The two discussed various inter-religious issues, focusing on the need to
give new impetus to the Christian-Muslim dialogue in the Middle East.
Listening to the viewpoints of Dr. Halabi, His Holiness made several
proposals taking into consideration the unique nature of the
Christian-Muslim dialogue in the Middle East and the challenges of the
current world.

In this context His Holiness stressed the importance of direct dialogue by
Muslim structures with churches without ignoring the role of political and
community structures in this field.

Dr. Halabi then had lunch with His Holiness.

##
The Armenian Catholicosate of Cilicia is one of the two Catholicosates of
the Armenian Orthodox Church. For detailed information about the Ecumenical
activities of the Cilician Catholicosate, you may refer to the web page of
the Catholicosate, The Cilician Catholicosate, the
administrative center of the church is located in Antelias, Lebanon.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

FORUM 18 NEWS SERVICE, Oslo, Norway

The right to believe, to worship and witness
The right to change one’s belief or religion
The right to join together and express one’s belief

========================================== ======
Wednesday 22 March 2006
NAGORNO-KARABAKH: WILL IMPRISONED BAPTIST FACE NEW SENTENCE?

Fellow Baptists fear that Gagik Mirzoyan could face new charges when his
current sentence for refusing to perform military duties expires on 5
September. “All kinds of officials have told us he will be sentenced again
– and that next time the sentence will be harsher,” Baptist pastor Garnik
Abreyan told Forum 18 News Service from Stepanakert, capital of the
unrecognised republic of Nagorno-Karabakh in the South Caucasus. A
Karabakh native, Mirzoyan was imprisoned after refusing on grounds of
religious faith to swear the military oath and handle weapons when
conscripted into the army in 2004. Despite being beaten in prison in
February and sent to the punishment cells, Mirzoyan told visiting civil
society activist Albert Voskanyan that he has “no complaints” about his
current treatment. Jehovah’s Witness Areg Hovhanesyan is serving a
four-year sentence in the same prison for refusing Karabakh’s compulsory
military service.

NAGORNO-KARABAKH: WILL IMPRISONED BAPTIST FACE NEW SENTENCE?

By Felix Corley, Forum 18 News Service <;

Fellow church members of imprisoned Baptist Gagik Mirzoyan have told Forum
18 News Service that they believe recent difficulties he has experienced in
prison in the unrecognised republic of Nagorno-Karabakh in the South
Caucasus have now been resolved. But they fear he could be imprisoned
again for refusing to swear the military oath and handle weapons on
religious grounds once his current term of imprisonment expires on 5
September. “All kinds of officials have told us he will be sentenced again
– and that next time the sentence will be harsher,” Baptist pastor Garnik
Abreyan told Forum 18 from Karabakh’s capital Stepanakert on 20 March.
“We’re not lawyers, but we know that it is wrong to sentence people more
than once for the same offence.”

Abreyan insisted that Mirzoyan is prepared to serve in the military if he
can do so in accordance with his Christian faith without swearing the oath
and without handling weapons, but would prefer to do alternative service,
an option not currently offered in Karabakh, where two-year military
service is compulsory for all young men. “We’re prepared to serve in
hospitals even on the frontline,” Abreyan told Forum 18. “We want to show
everyone here it’s not because we’re afraid.”

Jehovah’s Witness young men – who face the same problems when called up –
have also called for the Karabakh authorities to introduce an alternative
service, for example in hospitals. One local civil society activist who
has initiated a debate on this is Albert Voskanyan, director of the Centre
for Civilian Initiatives in Stepanakert.

Lieutenant-General Seyran Ohanyan, Defence Minister of the unrecognised
republic, insisted to Forum 18 in February 2005 that those who cannot
serve in the armed forces on grounds of conscience have to be dealt with
under the law, pointing to the unresolved armed conflict with Azerbaijan
(see F18News 22 February 2005
< e_id=517>).

Mirzoyan was beaten in prison in the town of Shushi, near Stepanakert, in
February, and then on 25 February was sentenced to ten days in the prison
punishment cells for refusing to perform tasks he was assigned. It remains
unclear what duties he refused to perform and why. However, the prison
director, Artur Abramyan, told Voskanyan at the prison on 20 March that
Mirzoyan had in the end served only four days in the punishment cells.

Voskanyan told Forum 18 on 20 March that during his visit to the prison
earlier in the day he had been able to meet Mirzoyan who, he said, is now
working in the prison canteen and has “no complaints” about his current
treatment. The previous week, Mirzoyan was able to meet his mother and
sister, who noted that his face, legs and hands were swollen and bruised
and that even walking caused him pain. Voskanyan stressed to Forum 18 that
the prison authorities had previously praised Mirzoyan and imprisoned
Jehovah’s Witness conscientious objector Areg Hovhanesyan for their
“exemplary behaviour”.

No official was prepared to discuss Mirzoyan’s case with Forum 18 on 20
March. Officials at the police in Stepanakert – who still have authority
over prisons despite moves to transfer them to the authority of the
Justice Ministry – referred all enquiries to the Prosecutor’s Office. The
Stepanakert and the Karabakh prosecutor’s offices both said they were not
involved in his case. No one at Shushi prison was prepared to talk to
Forum 18.

Abreyan stressed that the Baptists want to resolve Mirzoyan’s case
amicably. “Our sole aim is to ensure that our brother is not beaten, we’re
not trying to cause trouble and make life difficult for the prison
leadership,” he told Forum 18.

Mirzoyan, who is from Mardakert in northern Karabakh and is a member of a
local congregation of the Council of Churches Baptists (who refuse on
principle to register with the state authorities in post-Soviet
countries), was called up in December 2004. He announced immediately that
he was not able to serve with weapons or swear the military oath on
grounds of religious conscience. In the wake of his conscription he was
beaten up in two different military units and served 10 days in military
prison. Although he was then allowed to serve without weapons or swearing
the oath, he was later prosecuted.

At the district court of Hadrut in south-eastern Karabakh in July 2005,
Mirzoyan was found guilty under Article 364 part 1 of the Criminal Code
(Nagorno-Karabakh has adopted Armenia’s Criminal Code), which punishes
“refusal to perform one’s military duties” with detention of up to 3
months, service in a punishment battalion of up to 2 years or imprisonment
of up to 2 years. Mirzoyan was sentenced to two years’ imprisonment, but
this was suspended and he was then sent back to his military unit.
However, in September Hadrut district court converted this into a one-year
term of imprisonment at the urging of military leaders (see F18News 5
September 2005 < 642>).

Hovhanesyan, the Jehovah’s Witness from Stepanakert also held in Shushi
prison, was sentenced in February 2005 to four years’ imprisonment for
refusing military service on grounds of religious conscience (see F18News
22 February 2005 < 517>).

Also sentenced in Karabakh in 2005 for refusing military service on
religious grounds was another Jehovah’s Witness Armen Grigoryan, an
Armenian citizen who had been illegally deported from Armenia to serve in
Karabakh against his will. Grigoryan was returned to Armenia to serve his
two year sentence (see F18News 7 July 2005
< e_id=600>). He has now been
freed.

Controversy continues over Armenia’s failure to honour its promise to the
Council of Europe to free imprisoned conscientious objectors (see F18News
22 February 2006 < 732>) and
to introduce genuinely civilian alternative service (see F18News 23
February 2006 < 733>). (END)

A printer-friendly map of the disputed enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh is
available at
< s/atlas/index.html?Parent=asia&Rootmap=azerba& gt;
within the map titled ‘Azerbaijan’.

A printer-friendly map of Armenia is available at
< s/atlas/index.html?Parent=asia&Rootmap=armeni& gt;
(END)

© Forum 18 News Service. All rights reserved. ISSN 1504-2855
You may reproduce or quote this article provided that credit is given to
F18News

Past and current Forum 18 information can be found at

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

GEORGIA TO SPEND $102 MILLION ON REHABILITATION OF ROADS IN JAVAKHETI

Armenpress
Mar 21 2006

AKHALKALAKI, MARCH 21, ARMENPRESS: An office set up by the government
of Georgian to coordinate and steer a multimillion extra USA aid
to that country released by the Millennium Challenges Corporation,
said Georgia had signed an agreement with a German Koks Konsult Gmbh
company that was chosen to prepare a feasibility study for repair of
roads in the Armenian-populated province of Samtskhe-Javakheti.

The repair of some 245 long roads will start next year and is supposed
to finish in 2010. Overall $102.2 million, out of $295 million aid,
which Georgia will receive from the Millennium Challenges Corporation,
are expected to be used for repair of roads in the region.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

ARF SAYS EMPIRIC PRO-RUSSIAN APPROACHES SURRENDER TO PRAGMATIC ONES

Armenpress
Mar 21 2006

YEREVAN, MARCH 21, ARMENPRESS: A deputy chairman of Armenian parliament
told journalists today in Yerevan last week he saw indications in
Moscow that Russia may revise its decision to double the price of
natural gas it sells to Armenia.

Vahan Hovhanessian, a deputy parliament speaker from the Armenian
Revolutionary Federation (ARF), who headed an Armenian delegation
to Moscow for a recurrent meeting of the Russian-Armenian
intergovernmental commission on economic cooperation, told a
news conference in Yerevan those indications made him ‘cautiously
optimistic’ that some mechanisms would be found to compensate the
gas price hike.

He said Armenians did not try to conceal their discontent in Moscow
over the anticipated price hike, largely expected to become effective
from April 1, when Russian Gazprom is expected to start selling gas
to Armenia at $110 per one thousand cubic meters instead of current
$56. He said Russian government officials promised to take note of
Armenian discontent. Hovhanessian argued that ’empiric pro-Russian
approaches in the Armenian political environment are yielding to
pragmatic approaches, as a result the voice of anti-Russian forces
is becoming stronger and they are becoming more influential.”

“We explained to our Russian partners that the authorities and
the opposition in Armenia are not divided into pro-Russian and
anti-Russian segments, but the prevalence of unreasonable elements
in Moscow’s policy may lead to stronger anti-Russian sentiments which
may eventually jeopardize Armenia’s national security,” he speculated.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

ARMENIAN GDP GROWS 7 PERCENT IN JANUARY AND FEBRUARY

Armenpress
Mar 21 2006

YEREVAN, MARCH 21, ARMENPRESS: Armenia’s gross GDP in the first two
months of this year amounted to 164.4 billion drams, marking a 7
percent growth from a year ago and a 27 percent growth over January,
2006.

Armenia’s national statistical committee (Armstat) said the volume
of industrial output in January and February was 89. 6 billion drams
(not counting indirect taxes). The growth rate was down 0.6 percent
from a year ago, however, in February the industrial growth rate
was up 11.3 percent over January. Armenian power plants produced
1.1 billion kilowatt/ hours electricity in the reported time, 89.2
percent of electricity amount produced a year ago.

Agricultural output in the first two months of 2006 amounted to 24.5
billion drams, a 2.2 percent growth from a year ago. Armenia’s trade
amounted to 364.6 billion drams, a 5 percent growth from a year ago.

Exports amounted to 113.4 billion drams and imports to 251.1
billion drams. The growth from a year ago was 14.2 and 5.6 percent
respectively.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

RUSSIA’S LEADERS NOT GOING TO QUARREL WITH ARMENIA

PanARMENIAN.Net
22.03.2006 01:14 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Russia is not going to upset relations with Armenia,
political scientist, publicist Leonid Radzikhovsky told journalists in
Moscow. In his words, Russia is not going to quarrel with Armenia. At
that the political scientist remarked that Armenia is an old partner
of Russia. “Armenians arouse much less national problems when living in
Russia, than Azeris, and if Russia’s foreign policy was not determined
by a vote, sympathy would be on Armenia’s side and not on that of
Azerbaijan,” Radzikhovsky underscored.

At that he remarked that in spite of it, Russian foreign policy leans
more towards economically strong Azerbaijan lately. According to
Radzikhovsky, Armenian leaders felt hurt by such tendency many times,
reports RIA Novosti.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

LAWS PASSED WITHOUT A MOMENT’S RESPITE

Panorama.am
13:08 21/03/06

Not long ago 10s of laws and agreements were passed in the NA after
10-minute voting. The laws passed were those discussed yesterday.

The convention about “Cyber Crime” was also passed.

Besides, the NA accepted the covenant about receiving just
another credit from the World Bank. To remind, the credit of 21
million USD will be lent to Armenia to overcome poverty in the
country.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

GERMAN-ARMENIAN CONSULTATION

Lragir/am
22 March 06

On March 21 a two-day consultation between the governments of Armenia
and Germany started. Minister of Finance and Economy of Armenia Vardan
Khachatryan and the envoy of the Ministry of Economic Cooperation and
Development Rolf Baldus conducted the meeting at which were present
the German Ambassador to Armenia Haike Renate Peitsch, representatives
of the Yerevan office of the European Bank for Reconstruction and
Development and the ministries of Armenia.

During the consultation the financial and technical programs
implemented in the sphere of energy, health care, environment,
infrastructures and hypothec market development were discussed.

The programs of cooperation between the Republic of Armenia and the
Federal Republic of Germany started in 1993. First mainly technical
programs were carried out, but since 1995 financial programs of
cooperation have been implemented. Since the negotiations between
the governments in 2001, regional programs have been implemented in
the framework of the Caucasian Initiative.

German-Armenian financial cooperation is centered in three main
spheres: energy, private capital, water supply and sewage. Besides,
grant projects of comparatively smaller scale are implemented in
health care and environment.

Besides bilateral programs, the regional programs of the Caucasian
Initiative have been launched, which involve financial and technical
cooperation in the three countries of the South Caucasus in the
spheres of energy and private business, management of tuberculosis,
as well as protection of biodiversities. In the framework of the
German-Armenian cooperation programs for development of hypothec
market are foreseen. Armenia has received about 185 million euros in
the framework of German-Armenian relations.

Ministry Of Economy And Finance.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

POPE: “TERRIBLE PERSECUTION” OF ARMENIANS LINGERS IN HISTORY

AsiaNews.it, Italy
March 20 2006

Receiving members of the Patriarchate of Cilicia, Benedict XVI
praised the loyalty of the Armenians to Christianity and expressed
the hope that continued division between the different Churches will
be overcome.

Vatican City (AsiaNews) – “Metz yeghèrn, the great evil”: this
is what Armenians still call the genocide they suffered in the
years of the First World War, at the hands of the then Ottoman
Empire. The phrase was repeated by Benedict XVI when he received
Nerses Bedros XIX Tarmouni, Patriarch of Cilicia for Armenians, who
was accompanied by members of the Patriarchal Synod. He talked about
the “great persecution” at the roots of the diaspora of that people,
and also about the division which persists among Armenian Christians,
expressing the hope that it will soon be overcome.

“The Armenian Church that refers to the Patriarchate of Cilicia (in
Lebanon n.d.r.), is certainly a full participant of historical events
lived by the Armenian people throughout the centuries and, especially,
of the suffering they bore in the name of the Christian faith in the
years of the terrible persecution which remains known in history by
the sadly significant name of metz yeghèrn, the great evil. How can
one not remember, in this regard, the many invitations sent by Leo
XIII to Catholics, to go to the rescue of the poverty and suffering
of the Armenian peoples?”

Benedict XVI continued: “The Armenians, who have always sought to
integrate themselves with their industriousness and dignity in the
societies where they found themselves, continue to bear witness to
their faithfulness to the Gospel still today.” This is a fidelity that
is also a “strong attachment, sometimes even to the point of martyrdom,
which your Community has always shown towards the See of Peter,
in a reciprocal and fertile relationship of faith and affection”.

A relationship that the Pope would like to see extended to other
Christian communities of Armenia, which are still divided, although
they recognize St Gregory the Illuminator as their common father
founder and even if “in recent decades all have resumed a cordial and
fruitful dialogue to the end of rediscovering their common roots. I
encourage this rediscovered fraternity and collaboration, with the
hope that new initiatives for a shared path towards full unity will
spring from this. And if historical events have seen the fragmentation
of the Armenian Church, may Divine Providence allow that one day it
will return to being united, with its hierarchy in brotherly internal
harmony and in full communion with the Bishop of Rome.”

–Boundary_(ID_KRsltsoTMXQBn5Pcd83C6Q)–

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress