Author: Jagharian Tania

Noyan Tapan news agency, Yerevan, in Russian
17 Nov 04
Armenian companies says telecom firm’s monopoly affecting their
business
Yerevan, 17 November: As a result of changes to licence No 60 of
ArmenTel Armenian Telecom , 250 IT-telephony companies, which have
signed contracts with relevant international organizations, have
licences to operate, have borrowed loans from banks and have
encountered a financial crisis now, are losing their jobs, 10
authorized representatives of the companies providing the mentioned
services and the Labour Analysis and Research Centre public
association said at a meeting with Armenia Speaker Artur Bagdasaryan
on 16 November.
Bagdasaryan said that the government had been acting within its
power, the press service of the Armenian National Assembly told Noyan
Tapan. At the same time, he proposed studying international
experience in this type of communications and prepare a bulletin
containing legal and specialized technical information.
After that, parliamentary hearings may be organized in order to find
answers to questions of concern, to discuss issues of protecting the
interests of the companies and the high-tech sphere in Armenia and to
apply innovations in this sphere in the future, the chairman of the
National Assembly said.

Public Television of Armenia, Yerevan, in Armenian
17 Nov 04
ARMENIAN PRESIDENT LEAVES FOR GERMANY
Armenian President Robert Kocharyan left for Germany on a three-day
working visit today.
During the visit Robert Kocharyan will meet German President Horst
Koehler, Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and representatives of the
German business community.

“Richard and Tina Arola” Fund Considers Work Of Vardan Mateosian About South America
ANTELIAS, November 11 (Noyan Tapan). The jury of the “Richard and Tina
Arola” Publishing Fund established at the Mother See Church of Antelias
under the patronage of the Great Cilician House and presided over by
Catholicos of the Great Cilician House Aram I convened sittings during
the recent several months for the estimation of the published works.
According to the press divan of the Great Cilician House, members of
the editional board discussed ten works of the young Armenians of the
Diaspora by the request of the publishing house. Members of the jury
came up with reports about each of them at the last sitting. Among the
other works Vardan Mateosian’s voluminous work devoted to the history
of the colonies of South America and having documentary value was
considered as worthy of being published by members of the jury. The
volume will be released by the Antelias printing house soon.
Congratulating the prize-winner, the jury announced that the period of
the submission of the new works for 2005 has already been opened and
called on the young writers of the Diaspora to submit some atypical
literary, of church studies, philological, historical, philosophic
works in Armenian or any foreign language to the jury till January
30, 2005.
Catholicos Aram I is the Chairman of the jury, Archbishop Varuzhan
Herkelian, Archimandrite Grigor Chiftchian (secretary), doctor Zaven
Msrlian (chairman), Paruir Aghbashian and Sargis Kirakosian are
its members.

PRESS RELEASE
November 9, 2004
Embassy of the Republic of Armenia
2225 R Street, NW, Washington, DC, 20008
Tel: 202-319-1976, x. 348; Fax: 202-319-2982
Email: [email protected] ;Web:
Top Armenian Military Officer Visits the United States, Meets with
Counterparts
Armenia’s highest ranking military officer, Chief of Armed Forces
General Staff and First Deputy Defense Minister Colonel-General
Mikayel Harutyunian visited the United States on October 31-November
5, 2004, at the invitation of his U.S. counterpart, Chairman of the
Joint Chiefs of Staff General Richard B. Myers.
During his visit, Col.-Gen. Harutyunian, accompanied by Armenian Armed
Forces officers, visited the U.S. Joint Forces Command and NATO Allied
Command Transformation in Norfolk, VA, U.S. Central Command in Tampa,
FL, as well as the State of Kansas, with which Armenia has concluded
a State Partnership Program, providing for cooperation between the
Kansas National Guard and the Armed Forces of the Republic of Armenia.
The Armenian military delegation then proceeded to Washington, D.C.,
where Col.-Gen. Mikayel Harutyunian held meetings with Gen. Richard
B. Myers and other high-ranking officials at the Pentagon. The agenda
for talks included U.S.-Armenian military cooperation, peacekeeping,
and issues related to Armenia’s participation in the NATO Partnership
for Peace Program. Visiting the Arlington National Cemetery,
Col.-Gen. Harutyunian placed a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknowns on
behalf of the Armed Forces of the Republic of Armenia. The Armenian
military delegation also visited the National Defense University and
the Armenian Embassy in Washinton, D.C.
During the visit, Col.-Gen. Mikayel Harutyunian was awarded the Legion
of Merit, in recognition of establishment of a durable and constructive
relationship between the Armed Forces of the United States of America
and the Republic of Armenia, as well as of Armenia’s significant
contributions to the effectiveness of the global war on terrorism
and active cooperation in NATO Partnership for Peace Program.

Baku Today
Nov. 5, 2004
Four Caucasus Countries’ Railway Companies to Establish a Joint Venture
Russian Transport Minister Igor Levitin said on Wednesday that Russia,
Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan are going to establish a joint venture
to restore Transcaucasian railway network.
He said the decision has been taken during the negotiations between
leaders of three republics of the region.
“Three countries’ presidents confirmed they are ready to consider the
scheme of creation of operator company proposed by the transport
ministries,” said Levitin. “We understand that signing of the agreement
between four countries is a difficult matter from political viewpoint
and we offered to create the operator company, which will manage the
traffic.”
Azerbaijan state railway refused to give any comments on the
above-mentioned statement made by Russian Minister.

RIA Novosti
November 03, 2004
RUSSIA, TRANSCAUCASIAN COUNTRIES WANT TO RESTORE RAILROAD OPERATION IN
CAUCASUS
MOSCOW, Nov 3 (RIA Novosti’s Yelena Fyodorova) – Russia, Georgia,
Armenia and Azerbaijan intend to establish an operator company to
restore and service the Transcaucasian railroad, Russian Transportation
Minister Igor Levitin said at a Wednesday press conference in Moscow.
In his words, this decision was made after the talks with the
leadership of three Transcaucasian countries. “Three presidents
confirmed their wish that transportation bodies should suggest a scheme
of an operator company’s establishment,” said Mr. Levitin.
He explained that the political decision on the restoration of a
through railway movement in the Caucasus was difficult to make now,
that’s why it was decided to start from economic issues.
“A scheme of establishing an operator company which will take up the
functions of controlling traffic was proposed,” said Mr. Levitin. He
added that open joint-stock company Russian Railways would join the new
company on the Russian part.
Mr. Levitin said that in many respects, the consent of the
Transcaucasian republics’ presidents to restoration of the through
railway movement was defined by the very important geopolitical
significance of this project. The case is that a project codenamed
Silky Way – the construction of a railway via China, Kazakhstan finally
reaching Turkey – is being realized now.
Mr. Levitin said the volume of transit on the Transcaucasian railroad
in Soviet times was up to 15 million tons of cargoes annually.
Mr. Levitin recalled that movement on the Transcaucasian railroad was
suspended in 1990 due to events in Abkhazia (a self-proclaimed republic
on Georgian territory). As a result of warfare, many sections of the
railroad were damaged, and many sections of the railway bed were not
demined.
“Georgia is to give the Russian side documents on the state of the
railroad on its territory and assess the volume of necessary investment
until the end of November,” said the Transportation minister. Only
after that will Russia make the decision to participate in the
restoration of the railroad, he emphasized.
In the minister’s opinion, the consortium which is being created will
also address the issues of restoration of destroyed sections of the
Transcaucasian railroad. The four states will support this project with
loans. Besides, a banking consortium will be created to finance the
project, said Mr. Levitin.
He said Georgia was interested in integration of a Georgian airline
with a Russian one.
The minister recalled that Aeroflot was considering the issue on the
integration with the Georgian airline.
Mr. Levitin said this issue was complicated with Georgian airlines’
debt for aeronavigation servicing in Russia’s airspace.

Economic and drug-related crimes up in Armenia
Mediamax news agency
28 Oct 04
Yerevan, 28 October: The number of registered crimes in Armenia dropped
by 4.4 per cent in nine months of 2004 compared to the same period
last year, and the number of solved crimes increased, the head of the
public relations and information department of the Armenian Police,
Lt-Col Sayat Shirinyan, said in Yerevan today.
He said that 8,098 crimes were registered in January-September 2004,
while last year the figure was 8,467. Thus, Shirinyan said that 25.5
crimes were committed per 10,000 people in Armenia, while in Moldova
this figure was 210.4, in Russia 148.7, and in Ukraine 82.9.
Especially grave crimes account for 1.6 per cent and grave crimes
for 33.6 per cent of the total number of registered crimes. A total
of 82.3 per cent of especially grave crimes and 78 per cent of grave
crimes were solved.
In nine months of 2004, 77 crimes involving the use of firearms were
registered, which is four times less than in 2003.
In the course of the fight against drug trafficking, 339 drug-related
crimes were registered in January-September 2004, which is 102 cases
more than in the same period of last year. A total of 12,782 kg of
drugs were seized.
The number of economic crimes increased almost twice.
The number of persons brought to criminal liability was 4,905,
i.e. 5.3 per cent more than in 2003; 916 criminals were convicted
for the second time.
About 1,230 persons are on the wanted list, which is 3.5 per cent
more than last year.

Azeri official sees Armenians’ possible visit as “act of sabotage”
Bilik Dunyasi news agency
27 Oct 04
Baku, 27 October: The wish of Armenian MPs to attend a NATO
Parliamentary Assembly seminar in Baku is nothing but another act of
sabotage. According to Azerbaijani Deputy Speaker Ziyafat Asgarov,
the Armenians want to come to Azerbaijan not because they would like
to attend the NATO seminar – they refused to attend the previous 57th
seminar in Macedonia. Also, Yerevan has repeatedly stated that it is
not interested in strengthening NATO’s positions in the Caucasus.
The NATO administration, in turn, understands this and intends to
improve relations with Yerevan.
According to Asgarov, despite this, it is impossible to prevent the
visit of Armenian MPs because a NATO Parliamentary Assembly rapporteur
on the South Caucasus is expected to point to the Armenian occupation
of Azerbaijani territories at the organization’s autumn session
in Italy. And if Azerbaijan blocks the arrival of Armenians again,
relations with NATO may acquire a negative undertone. As a result,
the report by the German rapporteur may be withdrawn from the session
agenda, which is not in Azerbaijan’s interests.

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
=================================================
Tuesday 26 October 2004
TURKMENISTAN: CONTINUED ISOLATION OF RELIGIOUS BELIEVERS
Turkmenistan has, as part of an apparent policy of keeping religious
believers isolated, denied permission for a group of Seventh Day Adventists
to visit the country, Forum 18 News Service has learnt, despite the fact
that their invitation came from Turkmenistan’s registered Adventist church.
Other religious communities facing obstacles in visiting co-religionists
include Jehovah’s Witnesses, Hare Krishna devotees, ethnic Uzbek Muslims,
and the Armenian Apostolic Church. The head of Uzbekistan’s Bible Society
has also been denied entry, as was the United Nations special rapporteur on
freedom of religion or belief. The only religious community to have
unimpeded travel to Turkmenistan is the Russian Orthodox Church.
TURKMENISTAN: CONTINUED ISOLATION OF RELIGIOUS BELIEVERS
By Igor Rotar, Forum 18 News Service, and
Felix Corley, Forum 18 News Service
Turkmenistan’s Foreign Ministry has refused permission for a group of five
leading Seventh Day Adventists to visit the country in December, despite
the fact that their invitation came from Turkmenistan’s registered
Adventist church, Forum 18 News Service has learned. The group had intended
to meet officially with the staff of the government’s Gengeshi (Council)
for Religious Affairs in the capital Ashgabad and to familiarise themselves
with the work of the Church in the country, which received registration
again in June after a seven and a half year break. Also barred from
visiting Turkmenistan is the head of the Bible Society from neighbouring
Uzbekistan, whose fourth successive application was rejected in
mid-September. Jehovah’s Witnesses and Hare Krishna devotees have had many
visa denials over the past few years.
Officials at Turkmenistan’s foreign ministry have declined to explain why
foreign religious representatives are being denied visas. Reached by
telephone on 25 October, one official even told Forum 18 that the number of
the ministry press office is a secret and that he had no right to give it
out. Agdylek Jumaniyazova, third secretary in the ministry’s consular
section, told Forum 18 from Ashgabad the same day that she had “no
right to comment on visa refusals”. Asked whether it is harder for
religious figures to get visas than it is for other individuals, she said
she did not know.
The Adventists launched the application process at the beginning of August
for the five hoped-for visitors – Rubin Ott, head of the Church in
Central Asia, and his wife, Viktor Vitko and Valeri Ivanov from Moscow, and
John Graz, the Washington-based general secretary of the International
Religious Liberty Association. Although all the required documents were
presented, when church members went to the reception desk at the foreign
ministry in mid-September to collect the permissions they were told
verbally that this had not been granted. “No explanation was
given,” Adventist sources told Forum 18.
“This means that although we are registered as a religious
organisation and our statute specifically allows us to invite foreign
visitors, we don’t have the right to invite people in practice,”
Adventists in Turkmenistan told Forum 18. “We are upset, as
registration means nothing.” They point out that their congregations
in Turkmenistan are part of a worldwide Church and it is “only
natural” that leaders and fellow Church members should visit and learn
about Church life in the country.
Adventists have also been denied permission to worship, despite the
much-trumpeted “liberalisation” of Turkmenistan’s religious
policy (see F18News 4 October 2004
).
Local Adventists also asked the Gengeshi about how they should go about the
invitations. One of the deputy chairmen, Murad Karriyev, told them that
they need permission from the Gengeshi and instructed them to request such
permission in writing. “We wrote and got no reply,” Adventists
told Forum 18. “Karriyev told them that permission could take six
months to come through as it was not he who decided.”
Turkmenistan’s Adventist church does not know whether it will ever be able
to invite fellow-Adventists from abroad. “We have the foreign ministry
on one side insisting that it is their decision, while on the other the
Gengeshi insists they decide. But neither gives permission.”
The head of the Uzbek Bible Society, Sergei Mitin, told Forum 18 in the
Uzbek capital Tashkent on 15 October that the rejection of his visa
application was the fourth since 2000 and, as on the previous occasions,
the Turkmen Foreign Ministry gave him no reason for the refusal.
He said that on each occasion he had arranged an invitation as a private
individual through a commercial tourist company, but had indicated on the
application form his job as head of the Bible Society. He said one of his
main aims was to meet officials of the Gengeshi in Ashgabad to discuss the
return of 1,500 booklets belonging to the Uzbek Bible Society confiscated
by the Turkmen authorities in 1999.
The Turkmen Foreign Ministry has also denied visas to Hare Krishna
followers and Jehovah’s Witnesses from other Central Asian republics,
Anatoli Melnik, leader of the ruling council of Jehovah’s Witnesses in
Kazakhstan, and Andrei Gorkovy (Achuta garaji-das) of the Society for
Krishna Consciousness in Uzbekistan told Forum 18 on 21 October.
Both the Jehovah’s Witnesses and the Krishna devotees tried to obtain
Turkmen visas as private individuals because their religious communities
were unregistered in Turkmenistan and therefore could not send them an
invitation. Given the lack of success of Turkmenistan’s Adventist church in
inviting foreign leaders, it seems unlikely that even with the registration
it gained earlier this year that the Hare Krishna community will be
successful in inviting devotees from abroad.
Foreign religious representatives occasionally manage to obtain a Turkmen
visa in spite of this, but only if the Turkmen authorities fail to
establish that the foreigner is coming to make contact with
fellow-believers. Uzbek Krishna devotee Aleksandr Prinkur lived and
preached in Turkmenistan for several years in the 1990s before being
deported and his name is well known to the Turkmen special services. But
his two recent applications for a Turkmen visa have been refused. After
returning from visits to Turkmenistan, Jehovah’s Witness Anatoli Melnik
gave several interviews to journalists about the infringement of Jehovah’s
Witnesses’ rights in the country. He was refused a visa last year, as was
Fedor Jitnikov, another leader of the Jehovah’s Witnesses in Kazakhstan.
Interestingly, Uzbek Muslims have no contact with their fellow-believers in
Turkmenistan. Abdurazak Yunusov, an adviser to Uzbekistan’s chief mufti,
told Forum 18 on 22 October in Tashkent that contact with Turkmen Muslims
ceased when Turkmenistan became independent, although Turkmenistan has a
large ethnic Uzbek minority which traditionally had close links with
Uzbekistan. “No-one invites us there, so we do not apply for Turkmen
visas,” Yunusov declared. “Why should we go there if no-one is
expecting us?” The Turkmen authorities have been placing obstacles in
the way of such contacts (see F18News 4 March 2004
).
It is notable that no foreign Islamic religious dignitaries attended the
opening of the largest mosque in Central Asia on 22 October, an enormous
personal project of President Saparmurat Niyazov in his home village, which
can accommodate 10,000 worshippers. Niyazov was reported by Radio Free
Europe/Radio Liberty as saying then that “We keep religion pure and we
will not use it for political purposes, nor will we allow anyone else to
use religion for their personal ambition.”
Although it does not have registration in Turkmenistan, the Armenian
Apostolic Church was occasionally able to send one of its priests, Fr Vram
Ghazarian, who is based in the Uzbek city of Samarkand. However on his last
visit in December 1999, at the invitation of the Armenian embassy in
Ashgabad, he held services only on Armenian diplomatic territory. Forum 18
was unable to reach Fr Ghazarian on 21 and 22 October to find out if he has
tried to visit Turkmenistan more recently.
The only faith whose representatives travel unimpeded to Turkmenistan to
meet fellow believers is the Russian Orthodox Church, which has always had
registration in Turkmenistan. “The bishop of the Central Asia diocese
and accompanying members of his delegation travel to Turkmenistan whenever
necessary,” Fr Nikolai Rybchinsky, archpriest for the Central Asian
diocese, told Forum 18 on 21 October in Tashkent. “Such visits take
place at least once a year, and sometimes more often. We have no difficulty
in obtaining Turkmen visas.”
Even United Nations (UN) officials have been denied entry to the country.
The previous UN special rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief
Abdelfattah Amor applied to visit Turkmenistan in 2003, but the government
failed to respond with an invitation, as the current rapporteur Asma
Jahangir noted in her report to the UN General Assembly on 16 September
2004.
For more background, see Forum 18’s Turkmenistan religious freedom survey
at
A printer-friendly map of Turkmenistan is available at
s/index.html?Parent=asia&Rootmap=turkme
(END)

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MINISTRY OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS OF THE REPUBLIC OF ARMENIA
PRESS AND INFORMATION DEPARTMENT
375010 Telephone: +3741. 544041 ext 202
Fax: +3741. .562543
Email: [email protected]:
The official visit of Foreign Minister Oskanian to Italy
Today, in course of his official visit to Italy, Minister Oskanian had
meetings with municipal authorities and business circles of Venice. The
General Secretary of the Venice Trade Chamber, Romano Tiotso, and local
businessmen received the minister. The talks were held about the necessity
of starting Armenian-Italian relations at the regional level.
Both sides marked the close historical ties and traditions between Venice
and Armenia, in which the role of the Mkhitarians’ Unity is significant in
our days. The two sides also underlined the importance of bilateral
cooperation in the sphere of small and medium-size business. In this field,
winemaking, agricultural production, tourism, and light industry were
considered as the most viable arenas.
The two sides agreed to arrange mutual visits of business groups, exchange
of experts, and business forums, in order to elaborate concrete programs of
cooperation. Minister Oskanian then met with local press.
In the afternoon, a meeting was held with the municipal authorities. In the
course of the meeting, Minister Oskanian expressed his gratitude to the
municipal authorities for their care for the Mkhitarians’ Unity, which held
a crucial role in maintaining the Armenian institutions of S. Ghazar island.