Author: Emil Lazarian

RIA Novosti, Russia
June 30, 2004
FEDERATION COUNCIL TO DISCUSS CFE TREATY RATIFICATION ON JULY 7
MOSCOW, June 30 (RIA Novosti) – The Russian parliament’s upper
chamber will discuss the issue of the CFE (Conventional Forces In
Europe) Treaty ratification at a plenary session on July 7, said
Mikhail Margelov, chairman of the International Committee of the
Federation Council.
“Our committee will consider the document on July 5, and we will
recommend the chamber to ratify it”, he said.
The senator reminded that the Treaty provided for introduction of a
strict national and territorial restraints system specifying the
ceiling for ground armaments and equipment deployment and outlining
exact time and quantitative frames of the ceiling alteration not to
undermine the regional stability.
“It removes the threat of accumulating the potentials for large-scale
offensive operations and, in fact, neutralizes the possibility of
heavy materiel’s dangerous concentrations along Russia’s borders”,
said Mr. Margelov.
At the same time, he stressed that the Treaty ratification enables
Russia to retain its military presence in Armenia and the Ukraine.
“For Russia, the CFE Treaty ratification is very important, because
the new states’ accession to NATO changes the European military and
strategic configuration”, believes the chairman of the profile
committee. According to him, the CFE Treaty is a fundamental document
determining Russia-NATO relations.
Mr. Margelov reminded that after Russia ratify the Treaty the same
should be done by parliaments of the parties to the Treaty. “Their
decision as to the ratification will show how much they want stable
security architecture”, he emphasized.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Armenia, Canada sign accord on eliminating double taxation
Arminfo
30 Jun 04
YEREVAN
The governments of Armenia and Canada have signed an agreement on
eliminating double taxation on income and property.
The agreement was signed in Yerevan on 29 June, the Armenian Ministry
of Finance and Economy told Arminfo news agency today. The aim of the
agreement is to create a favourable taxation regime between the
countries and boost investment. Armenia has similar agreements with 25
countries, and 17 of them are effective.
We have to say that the trade turnover between Armenia and Canada is
so small that the Armenian National Statistics Service has not
included it in its annual report for 2003.

The Moscow Times
Armrosgazprom to bid for laying Iran-Armenia gas pipeline
RosBusinessConsulting. Tuesday, Jun. 29, 2004, 7:32 PM Moscow Time
The company Armrosgazprom is planning to take part in a tender on
constructing and maintaining an Iran-Armenia gas pipeline, the press service
of the company reported. The customer of the gas pipeline is the Armenian
government. A basic agreement on laying the pipeline was signed in Yerevan
(Armenia) on May 13, 2004. According to the document, the gas pipeline will
be put into operation by January 1, 2007. Armenia will get some 1.1bn cubic
meters of gas annually through this pipeline. Each country is to finance the
laying of a pipeline on its territory. Armenia is expected to spend about
$90m to $100m and Iran some $120m on constructing the pipeline.
Armrosgazprom was created in 1997 in compliance with a Russian-Armenian
government agreement and it is the exclusive wholesale buyer and supplier of
gas in Armenia. The Armenian government and Gazprom have a 45-percent stake
each in the company; Itera has a 10-percent block of shares. Armrosgazprom
owns the whole gas distributing network in the republic.

Armenia expresses interest in post-conflict Iraqi operations role
Mediamax news agency
29 Jun 04

YEREVAN
Armenia is ready to play an active role in the post-conflict
humanitarian operations in Iraq, Deputy Foreign Minister Ruben
Shugaryan announced in Yerevan today.
Mediamax news agency quoted the diplomat as explaining Yerevan’s
position both by the presence of 30,000 Armenians in Iraq and
Armenia’s state interests.
Talks on the dispatch of Armenian military doctors, drivers and
sappers to Iraq by and large have now been completed and at present
they are discussing the logistics, the Armenian deputy foreign
minister said.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

CORRECTING and REPLACING Joint Press Announcement by the Government of
the Republic of Armenia, Hellenic Telecommunications Organization and
Armenia Telephone Company – ARMENTEL
ATHENS, Greece–(BUSINESS WIRE)–06/28/2004–Please replace the
release with the following corrected version due to multiple
revisions.
The corrected release reads:
JOINT PRESS ANNOUNCEMENT BY THE GOVERNMENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF ARMENIA,
HELLENIC TELECOMMUNICATIONS ORGANIZATION AND ARMENIA TELEPHONE COMPANY
– ARMENTEL
The Government of the Republic of Armenia, Hellenic Telecommunications
Organization SA (NYSE:_OTE_ (aol://4785:OTE/) ) (ASE:_HTO_
(aol://4785:HTO/) ) and Armenia Telephone Company (ARMENTEL), jointly
announce the commencement of negotiations with a view to settling all
outstanding disputes between the parties. The Government of the
Republic of Armenia has made a decision to suspend the amendment of
License No. 60 issued to Armentel, until 28 September 2004 to
facilitate the conduct of the negotiations. The amendment of License
No. 60 relates to the granting of a second mobile telephony license
in Armenia
About OTE
OTE is a provider of public, fixed switch domestic and international
telephony services in Greece. With local, long distance and
international communications services in addition to mobile telephony,
Internet services, and high-speed data communications, OTE provides
consumers and businesses the ability to communicate globally through
its extensive network infrastructure. In addition, OTE has a number of
International investments in the South East European region and
addresses a potential customer base of 60 million people.
Listed on the Athens Stock Exchange, the company trades under the
ticker HTO as well as on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker
OTE. In the U.S., OTE’s American Depository Receipts (ADR’s)
represents 1/2 ordinary share.
Additional Information is also available on
Forward-looking statement
Any statements contained in this document that are not historical
facts are forward-looking statements as defined in the U.S. Private
Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. All forward-looking
statements are subject to various risks and uncertainties that could
cause actual results to differ materially from expectations. The
factors that could affect the Company’s future financial results are
discussed more fully in the Company’s filings with the U.S.
Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”), including the
Company’s Annual Report on Form 20-F for 2002 filed with the SEC on
June 30, 2003. OTE assumes no obligation to update information in this
release.
CONTACT:OTE Dimitris Tzelepis Head of Investor Relations, OTE Group
Tel: +30 210 611 1574 email: [email protected] or Kostas Bratsikas
Investor Relations Tel: +30 210 611 1428 email: [email protected] or
Taylor Rafferty London: +44 20 7936 0400 New York: +1 212-889-4350
email: [email protected]
SOURCE: OTE
06/28/2004 09:06 EASTERN

US president in Turkey, meets leaders of religious faiths
NTV television, Istanbul
28 Jun 04

[Announcer] US President George Bush received six religious leaders at
the Istanbul Hilton Hotel yesterday [27 June]. In a statement after
the meeting, the president said: Turkey is a secular country in its
politics and a strong country in its faiths.
After he arrived in Istanbul from Ankara, President Bush went to the
Hilton Hotel. He held a meeting of about 45 minutes with six religious
leaders, including Religious Affairs Director Ali Bardakoglu, Syriac
Orthodox Bishop Yusuf Cetin, and Chief Rabbi Ishak Haleva.
The media members were allowed in after the meeting. The president
said that he was honoured to be meeting with important personalities
from different religions. He said: Welcome. These people are the very
important leaders of the interreligious dialogue among different
faiths. Turkey is a secular country in its politics and a strong
country in its faiths, so they represent Turkey in the best way. We
had a very good meeting. I am grateful to them for giving me some of
their time and for remaining loyal to Almighty God. I thank
them. Thank you for coming.
In a statement after he left the meeting, Chief Rabbi Haleva said that
President Bush said: It is my greatest wish to see interreligious
peace and tranquillity.
Greek Orthodox Patriarch Bartholomew said, in turn, that they all
spoke one by one. He said that the opening of the Greek Orthodox
seminary in Heybeliada was also mentioned.
[Bartholomew] When we got up to leave, the honourable president told
me that he discussed this matter in Ankara, and that he was satisfied
with what was said. That is all.
[Announcer] Armenian Patriarch Mutafyan pointed out that they
discussed their unrest in connection with the violence in the Middle
East.
At his meeting with the religious leaders, President Bush was
accompanied by Condoleeza Rice, his national security adviser, and by
Secretary of State Colin Powell.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

NATO Partners Agree to Train Iraqi Troops
washingtonpost.com
Jun 28, 2004
Mike Allen

ISTANBUL, June 27 — NATO countries will set aside their objections
and agree Monday to provide emergency military training for the
interim government of Iraq, White House officials said Sunday.
Two weeks ago, President Jacques Chirac of France warned against “any
meddling by NATO in this region.” But responding to a request from
Ayad Allawi, the prime minister of the interim Iraqi government that
will assume political authority Wednesday, negotiators for the 26 NATO
countries have agreed to give the alliance a direct role in providing
military training and said they would call on members to increase
their support for the new government.
Details of the agreement, including who will be trained, where and
when, still must be worked out by the governments, officials said. But
the White House described the move as giving President Bush the
international imprimatur he had long sought for post-invasion
operations.
Bush and the other leaders of NATO countries are scheduled to finalize
the tentative training agreement Monday at the start of a two-day
summit in the largest city in Turkey, which borders Iraq. Faced with a
wave of bombings and more than 40,000 anti-Bush demonstrators, Turkish
officials deployed warships outside waterfront hotels and 23,000
police and soldiers to protect the 3,000 government officials and more
than 20,000 journalists attending the summit.
The White House views the agreement on training for Iraq, which
follows NATO’s decision to take over an international security force
in Afghanistan, as a crucial step in its effort to guide the alliance
away from its historic emphasis on the defense of its own territory
and instead toward taking the offensive against terrorism around the
world.
Bush, appearing with NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer,
said the United States was “hoping to change the mission of NATO so it
meets the threats of the 21st century, and we’re going to work
together to help make sure NATO is configured militarily to meet the
threats of the 21st century, as well.”
Bush plans to use the centerpiece address of his five-day overseas
trip to hold up the secular democracy in Turkey, NATO’s only
majority-Muslim member, as a model for Iraq and the greater Middle
East. Bush tried to make the same point by holding a meeting today
with Turkish religious leaders that included a rabbi, an Islamic
cleric and an Armenian Orthodox patriarch.
Before Allawi sent the letter, the White House received private
assurances from NATO members that his request would be granted,
according to aides traveling with Bush. The administration has had to
dramatically lower its sights, however. Earlier this month, Bush
sought foreign troops, NATO involvement and debt relief for Iraq at a
meeting of the Group of Eight leading industrialized nations in Sea
Island, Ga., but was rebuffed at various times by France, Germany and
Turkey.
Diplomats said that to win the endorsement of Germany and France, the
agreement allows for the possibility that some of the training will
take place outside Iraq. At the insistence of the Bush administration,
the operation will be a formal NATO mission rather than a project of
individual countries.
James Appathurai, the NATO spokesman, said in a telephone interview
that alliance ambassadors reached the initial agreement “without any
sort of dramatic debate” because they “share a common view that we
should assist Iraq as much and as quickly as possible so that it can
provide for its own security and so that coalition forces will not be
required.”
Bush’s national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, said from the
Turkish capital Ankara on “Fox News Sunday” that “NATO will urge that
this all happen on a very urgent basis, that this isn’t a long
planning exercise, that really they’re in a phase of looking to quick
implementation of these plans.”
Bush said Saturday during a news conference in Ireland that a
functioning Iraqi police force and military was his most important
criterion for determining that the U.S. mission in Iraq was complete,
and he suggested that robust NATO support would mean U.S. troops could
come home sooner.
Bush, who had to change his deployment plans before the war when the
Turkish parliament voted against allowing the use of its bases for a
northern front, appeared Sunday with Prime Minister Recep Tayyip
Erdogan and said he appreciated “so very much the example your country
has set on how to be a Muslim country and, at the same time, a country
which embraces democracy and rule of law and freedom.”
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, also in Istanbul, met Sunday
with the foreign and defense ministers of Iraq’s interim government.
Bush shook his head and replied “no” when asked whether the capture of
three Turkish hostages by militants in Iraq had cast a pall over the
summit. Bush did not speak at length about the hostage-taking, because
of what aides called a desire to avoid encouraging the kidnappers. But
a senior administration official who briefed reporters said Bush
expressed sympathy to Turkish officials and “made clear that this
episode demonstrates the kind of an enemy we are fighting, a
totalitarian enemy which terrorizes and seeks to export chaos to the
world, as well as chaos in Iraq.”
Rumsfeld compared the recent attacks in Iraq to the Tet offensive of
1968, a turning point in American public opinion about the Vietnam
War, when the Vietnamese communists seized cities throughout South
Vietnam. He told ABC that the insurgents had clearly studied “the idea
that if you go out and kill a lot of innocent people, even though
militarily you achieve nothing, the psychological effect through the
television, through newspapers is that they’re there, that they’re
noisy, that they’re achieving something big — which is what the
effect of Tet was.”
Washington Post Staff Writer

Poll shows Armenians want unification with Karabakh
Yerkir web site, Yerevan
26 Jun 04
A poll conducted by the Armenian Centre for National and International
Studies (ACNIS) has revealed that Armenians are ready to participate
in the defence of Karabakh if the war resumes.
Stepan Safaryan of the centre told a discussion on Friday [25 June]
that the poll, conducted among 1,950 individuals, indicates that 73
per cent of the respondents are in favour of the settlement of the
confrontation by Armenia, Karabakh and Azerbaijan. Most of the
respondents consider the Karabakh issue to be part of the Armenian
Question.
Answering “why Karabakh does not belong to Azerbaijan”, 38 per cent
said that Karabakh was annexed to Azerbaijan under the Soviets, 27.6
per cent said Armenians have been living in that region for centuries,
and 12 per cent pointed out that Armenia has won the war over
Karabakh.
As for the status of Karabakh, 59.7 per cent see Karabakh as part of
Armenia, whereas 38.6 per cent sees it as an independent state.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Tehran Times, Iran
June 28 2004
Labor Minister Calls For Bolstering Iran-Armenia Ties
TEHRAN (IRNA) — Minister of Labor and Social Affairs Safdar Hosseini
here on Sunday met with the head of the Presidential Staff of
Armenia, Artashes Toumanian, and called for bolstering of
Iran-Armenia ties.
Alluding to an upcoming visit of President Seyyed Mohammad Khatami to
Armenia, he expressed hope the fifth Iran-Armenia Joint Commission
session will be held without delay.
Hosseini referred to the several signed agreements on electricity,
energy, gas and oil between the two countries and praised the
countries’ “outstanding” bilateral cooperation. The minister of
labor, while praising the increasing volume of trade exchanges
between Tehran and Yerevan, said: “Both sides can bolster their
relations due to the existence of many potential.”
Toumanian lauded the efforts of the Iranians to bolster relations and
expressed hope these relations would serve the interests of both
countries even more.
Toumanian also said the project to construct the “Kajaran” tunnel is
one of the most viable joint projects under way and would have no
problems going into operation.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

armenianow.com
25 June 2004
>From the World Stage to Armenia: Internationally renowned quartet to perform
in Yerevan
By Gayane Abrahamyan
ArmeniaNow arts reporter After three years of effort to get them to Armenia,
the world-renowned Kronos Quartet is scheduled play in Yerevan June 29 at
Aram Khachatryan Philharmonic Hall.
As far back as 2001, the Armenian Informational Music Center has been trying
to get the quartet to Armenia. For a number of reasons, including
scheduling, and the musicians’ concern that Armenia was in an “unstable”
region, invitations have been turned down.
“We simply cannot count how many and what kind of numerous letters we have
sent to the quartet’s manager telling about Armenia and about the rich
Armenian cultural background,” says chief manager of the center Sona
Hovhannisyan.
“Only in the end of 2003 we got an answer to our letters and it seemed to be
unbelievable that their managing director Janet Cowperthwaite wrote that
‘thanks to your latest letter the musicians gave in and agreed to visit
Armenia’.”
The quartet, comprised of David Harrington on first violin, John Sherba on
second violin, Hank Dutt on viola, and Joan Jeanrenaud on cello, is known
for its experimentation and its ability to cross genres of rock, jazz and
classical music. The group, formed in San Francisco in 1973, has won
numerous international awards, including three Edison Prizes ( Netherlands),
Rolf Schock Prize in Music ( Sweden), a Grammy Award for Best Chamber Music
Performance, amongst others.
Tuesday night’s performance is part of Perspectives XXI International Music
Festival, the fifth in Yerevan.
Over the years, more than 450 pieces have been written or arranged for
Kronos. The quartet’s extensive repertoire includes Alban Berg, Alfred
Schnittke, George Crumb, Astor Piazzolla. As early as 15 years ago, the
quartet ordered a composition from Armenian composer Avet Terteryan and
within the past few years, composers Ashot Zohrabyan and Tigran Tamezyan
have written compositions performed by Kronos.
While it is not unusual for Armenia to host the occasional regionally-famous
classical musician or conductor, getting an internationally-known group is a
rarity.
“This is our cultural policy to invite music stars to Armenia,” says
director of Armenian Information Music Center composer Stepan Rostomyan. “Of
course, it is very hard. Every time it takes two-three years for
successfully finishing negotiations but Armenia with its cultural potential
and history is as good as other countries where visits of stars are a usual
and habitual thing.”
The sanctioning of Perspectives XXI identifies Armenia as a “serious country
and organization”, Rostomyan says, making it easier to negotiate with
world-class artists. During last year’s festival London Symphonietta and
Jury Bashmet performed in Yerevan.
“It would be more impressive if the festival was carried out under high
patronage of the country’s president,” Rostomyan says. “In general when such
musicians are invited to a festival then these kind of events are carried
out precisely. We haven’t gotten consent yet but we still have hope,” says
Rostomyan.
The Khachatryan hall holds 1600 seats. Ticket prices for the concert range
from $5 to $35- higher than average for Yerevan concerts, but according to
one vendor, ticket sales are high.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress