Author: Karabekian Emil

RUSSIA WARNS TO REACT TO U.S. MISSILE SHIELD IN CZECHIA WITH MILITARY MEANS

PanARMENIAN.Net
09.07.2008

Russia warns to retaliate by military means after a deal with the Czech
Republic brought the US missile defense system in Europe a step closer.

The threat followed quickly on from the announcement that Condoleezza
Rice signed a formal agreement with the Czech Republic to host the
radar for the controversial project.

Moscow argues that the missile shield would severely undermine the
balance of European security and regards the proposed missile shield
based in two former Communist countries as a hostile move.

"We will be forced to react not with diplomatic, but with
military-technical methods," the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a
statement. "There is no doubt that the approachment of elements of
the U.S. strategic arsenal to the Russian territory could be used to
weaken the potential of our deterrent."

The ministry did not detail what its response might entail, The
Times reports.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice signed a deal Tuesday with
her Czech counterpart, Karel Schwarzenberg, to place radar units for
the system inside the borders of the Czech Republic.

The United States is also seeking a deal with Warsaw to place
interceptor missiles in Poland as part of the system.

ARMENIAN OPPOSITION RESOLUTE TO STAGE RALLY AMID TIGHT CONTROL

Interfax news agency Russia
July 4 2008

Yerevan, 4 July: The central part of the Armenian capital is tightly
protected by the police due to the opposition’s plan to stage an
unauthorized rally, Interfax news agency has reported.

A venue where the rally is planned to take place has been fenced by
police forces since Friday morning.

A source in the law-enforcement bodies of Armenia has told Interfax
that roads leading to capital Yerevan from Armenia’s districts are
partly blocked. "Means of transports carrying more than four persons
are not allowed [to Yerevan] and the same limits are applied to
intercity public transport as well," the source has said.

Armenia’s opposition intends to stage next rally on Friday [4 July]
evening. The city mayor’s office did not authorize the rally in the
centre of Yerevan offering the opposition to rally on the territories
near Razdan and Dinamo stadiums. However, the opposition was not
satisfied with the offer.

On June 20, the opposition staged its first rally in the centre
of the city after 1 March tragic events. The authorities did not
authorize that rally either, however, they compromised as a result
of negotiations and the opposition staged its rally near Metandaran
museum – institution of ancient manuscripts.

" AZERBAIJAN’S FOREIGN POLICY FOR ARMENIAN-AZERBAIJANI CONFLICT MUST BE OFFENSIVE" – PRESIDENT

Trend News Agency
July 7 2008
Azerbaijan

Azerbaijan, Baku, 7 July / Тrend News A.Aliyev/ " Azerbaijan’s
foreign policy towards Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict must be of
offensive character," Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said at the
third meeting of the heads of Azerbaijan’s diplomatic missions abroad
on 7 July.

The conflict between the two countries of the South Caucasus began
in 1988 due to Armenian territorial claims against Azerbaijan. Since
1992, Armenian Armed Forces have occupied 20% of Azerbaijan including
the Nagorno-Karabakh region and its seven surrounding districts. In
1994, Azerbaijan and Armenia signed a ceasefire agreement at which
time the active hostilities ended. The Co-Chairs of the OSCE Minsk
Group ( Russia, France, and the US) are currently holding peaceful
negotiations.

"The key task of Azerbaijani diplomats is to inform the
international community about the truth of the Armenian-Azerbaijani
conflict. Armenia’s occupation policy must be condemned at all levels,"
stressed President.

According to President Aliyev, diplomats bear great responsibility for
fulfilment of foreign policy priorities and informing the international
community of the truth about Azerbaijan. Diplomats must closely
cooperate with state bodies of those countries in which they are
accredited and must improve their efforts to protect political and
economic interests of Azerbaijan," said President.

Azerbaijan has established diplomatic relations with 160
countries. Presently, embassies and consulates of 57 countries, as well
as a range of representation offices of international organizations,
operate in Azerbaijan.

Azerbaijan sent its diplomatic corps to 56 countries and international
organizations; 30 of Azerbaijan’s 47 embassies launched operation
in 2004-2008.

–Boundary_(ID_E1K2zpsfiMxn++4fmI1T6g) —

TIGRAN SARGSYAN: CURRENT FISCAL AND MONATRY POLCY WILL NOT SUPRESS GROWTH

NOYAN TAPAN

Ju ly 4

Interview of Armenian prime minister Tigran Sargsian with "Noyan
Tapan" agency

Mr. Prime Minister. In one of your speeches you said that in order to
curb inflation the government intends to increase budgetary revenues
and reduce expenditures. In this regard we ask you to answer the
following questions:

1. What have been the dynamics of revenues of the state budget this
year, especially in the past two months? Is there any dependence
between the dynamics of budgetary revenues and the tax and customs
administration reforms being implemented by the government?

Tigran Sargsyan: The total amount of fiscal revenues in the first
half of 2008 made 284.4 billion drams (app. 939 million U.S. dollars),
which is 36 percent more than in the same period of the last year. And
collections have been growing from month to month, whereas in January
the fiscal revenues made 39.0 billion drams, they grew to 54.6 billion
in May and 50.5 billion in June. The overall collections of the last
two months are thus 105 billion AMD, which is 27.8 billion more than
the same period a year ago.

So, revenue growth rate is maintained, and it is evidently due to
improvement in tax and custom administration. As for the dependence of
budgetary revenue dynamics on the government reforms, in our opinion,
it will have its impact. Nevertheless, it is early to translate our
assessment to the language of figures.

2. As regards expenditures, so far a prospect of their growth rather
than reduction has been seen, as three new standing committees are
being formed at the National Assembly and a new ministry – at the
government. Under such conditions, at the expense of what expense
items can the government reduce its expenditures? Is it possible
to use a restriction at the expense of investment (infrastructural)
expenditures?

Tigran Sargsyan: The expenditure restriction policy means that ?ll
other things being equal, restrictions on their growth should be used.

As for the three new standing committees to be created at the National
Assembly and a new ministry at the government, it will not be done
by means of reducing expenses in any other sphere.

It should be mentioned for comparison that according to the already
developed 2009-2011 draft medium-term expenditure program of the RA,
the growth of expenditures on state government bodies (along with
the indicated changes) makes 10.8% in conditions of 15.2% growth of
overall expenditures, while the growth of expenditures in branches
of the prioritized social sector will be noticeably greater: it will
make 22.1% in education, 21.7% in health care, and 16.3% in social
protection.

3. The above mentioned political line of the government and the
gradually tightening monetary and policy of the Central Bank of Armenia
(CBA) may have a negative impact on the economic development of the
country. By the data of May, there was almost no growth in industry
and agriculture. Does the government expect a change in GDP growth
envisaged for this year?

Tigran Sargsyan: The growth in industry and agriculture in January-May
2008 was not high, however, construction and services played a great
role in ensuring an economic growth which made 9.8% in the indicated
period. Taking into account also the fact that in Armenia, usually
only about 22% of the gross domestic product is produced in the first
five months, while the economic growth trends are accelerating by the
end of a year, the existing trends show that the 10% economic growth
level, which was envisaged for 2008 and forms the basis of the state
budget program, is within reach – taking also into consideration the
relatively restricting nature (anticipated for the second half of 2008)
of the fiscal and monetary policies.

As regards the alternative between inflation and economic growth,
it is no secret that in conditions of accelerating inflationary
rates which in turn increase the expectations of future inflation,
the long-term economic growth is virtually endangered. International
experience shows that in such a situation countries set anchoring high
inflationary expectations as a priority task, and imply restraining
fiscal and monetary policies so that they will ensure – through
achieving a macroeconomic stability – an environment necessary for
a long-term economic growth in the future. The Armenian government
and the CBA have adopted such an approach but they attach importance
to the scale of restraining policies in this issue: they should not
result in a considerable decline of GDP growth rates. In particular,
with respect to the fiscal policy, it was estimated that in 2008
the proposed inflation curbing policy will not, hinder economic
development, while freezing inflation expectations, and not to feed
inflation (and inflation expectations) with an excessive demand growth.

MINISTERIAL CONFERENCE IN TALIN, ESTONIA

Panorama.am
16:06 03/07/2008

The delegation of the ministry of Healthcare, RA, headed by Harutyun
Kushkyan, returned from Tallinn, where they took part in ministerial
conference headed under the title "Health and Welfare". Adviser of
Healthcare, Ruslana Gevorgyan, gave an interview to the journalist
of Panorama. am.

"The conference headed under the title ‘Health and Wealth’ was held
in 25-27, June in Talin, Estonia. It referred to the realization of
R8 resolution of EUR (RCSS) in 2005. Kushkyan made a speech during
the plenary session ", – said R. Gevorgyan.

According to her during the ministerial meeting ‘Health System, Health
and Wealth’ co-European charter was discussed and adopted. The process
of creation of the charter started a year ago. As the adviser notified
a group of specialists has been formed who represent territorial
countries and appointed as representatives of systemizing charter
creative work. In Armenia, according to the minister`s decree, Tatul
Hakobyan, assistant of the minister; bears the responsibility.

The members of the delegation, who left for Estonia, were Ara Babloyan,
the head of healthcare committee of NA; Gagik Sayadyan, the head of
MH administration; Vladimir Davidyanst, the head of informational
and analytical centre of National Institute of MH.

INSIDE THE SIEGE OF BETHLEHEM

Newsweek
May 20, 2002 Issue

Snipers, Militants, Vandals And Priests: Everyone Had A Story From
The Siege Of Bethlehem. Here Are The Tales Of Four.

Inside the Basilica of the Church of the Nativity, the stench of
150 unwashed human bodies mingled with the reek of fecal matter. The
halvah, cans of lentils, chocolate bars and Marlboro Lights had run
out days before, and the food stocks ransacked from the Franciscan
compound were nearly gone. Weakened men boiled soup made from the
leaves of lemon trees picked in the Greek Orthodox compound–gathered
under the menacing sight of a remote-controlled sniper rifle bolted
to the top of a crane at the edge of Manger Square.

In the southern corner of the basilica, Ibrahim Abayat paced the stone
floor, a mobile phone in his hand. Pale, plagued by migraines, hungry
and weak, Abayat was a man transformed. Gone was the confidence of the
gunman who once strutted around Bethlehem, boasting about how he’d
orchestrated the killings of Israeli settlers in the occupied West
Bank. At that time the 29-year-old leader of Bethlehem’s Aqsa Martyrs
Brigades had vowed to "go out either as a winner or a martyr." Now
Abayat was feebly pleading for exile. He would gladly move to Italy,
he told NEWSWEEK during a brief phone conversation. "They’ve got
spaghetti there, so I’ll be OK."

Moments later Abayat’s mother–sitting beside a NEWSWEEK correspondent
at her home in Bethlehem–got on the phone. "Abu Atef," she said, "may
God bless you. You haven’t received food? We hope God will send you a
table of food like they did to the prophet Moses in the desert." When
Abayat told her that his last meal had been two spoonfuls of macaroni,
eaten the previous day, she began to weep. Her son, a top figure on
Israel’s wanted list, calmed her, then begged her to let him hang
up. "I’m too weak to talk," he said.

Ibrahim Abayat’s ordeal would soon be over, and he’d neither be a
winner nor a martyr. Thirty-nine days after Israeli tanks and troops
surrounded Palestinian gunmen inside the Church of the Nativity,
the standoff at Manger Square wound to a close last Friday morning
with an emotional homecoming for some who were trapped in the church,
and indefinite exile for others. It had begun as a sideshow to Prime
Minister Ariel Sharon’s West Bank invasion in March, but the closing
act of Operation Defensive Shield became both a media extravaganza
and a powerful metaphor for the wider Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The test of wills, on one of the world’s most sacred sites, had the
feeling of a slow war of attrition. During the siege, Israeli snipers
killed eight people in and around the church, including a mentally
retarded bell ringer, and injured 22, among them an Armenian monk; an
Army spokesman claimed that all the dead men except the bell ringer
were "terrorists." Trapped between the two antagonists were the
Christian clergymen–many of them Palestinian–who had given refuge
to the gunmen and now found themselves obliged to suffer along with
them. As the siege dragged on, it seemed to capture the essence of the
Mideast struggle: a prolonged, seemingly insoluble dispute between
two stubborn and deeply distrustful enemies. Even the on-again,
off-again negotiations over the terms of the release–conducted
through intermediaries ranging from the Vatican to the CIA–spoke
volumes of the larger inability of the two sides to settle their
differences without foreign pressure and help.

Over 39 days inside the church, snipers killed, monks pleaded,
militants abused a sacred sanctuary, soldiers vandalized,
politicians threatened and cajoled, and everyone made a claim to
righteousness. This is the story of four people intimately involved
or caught up in the mayhem: Abayat, the gunman who had made it his
mission in life to kill Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank;
Mike Aviad, an Israeli reservist and son of a leading peace activist;
Father Paul Delalande, a Franciscan priest and historian, and Omar
Habib, a 16-year-old student from the Terra Santa School in Bethlehem,
who found himself caught between Israeli and Palestinian combatants as
he was trying to pick up a prescription for his diabetic mother. After
nearly 40 days of warfare, negotiation, brinkmanship and capitulation,
all four survived. At least two expected to fight again another day.

RUSSIA’S LAVROV VISITING ANKARA TO DISCUSS ARRAY OF COLLABORATIVE ACTIVITIES

Today’s Zaman
01 July 2008

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov is scheduled to arrive in
Turkey today for an official two-day visit at the invitation of his
Turkish counterpart, Foreign Minister Ali Babacan.

Lavrov will discuss Russian-Turkish cooperation within the context
of the Organization of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation (BSEC),
as well as international issues in other Black Sea formats, Russian
Foreign Ministry spokesman Andrei Nesterenko said yesterday in Moscow.

The ministers will discuss a "wide spectrum of the Russian-Turkish
cooperation, regional and international issues, including Iraqi and
Middle East settlement, the situation around the Iranian nuclear
issue, the situation in Kosovo, the Trans-Caucasus and Central Asia,
the state of affairs in Cyprus settlement, interaction in the BSEC
and other current Black Sea formats such as BLACKSEAFOR and Operation
Black Sea Harmony," Nesterenko said.

"Interaction in the gas energy sector is developing at an increasing
tempo. In the light of Turkey’s tender for the construction of
the first nuclear power plant in this country announced this year,
Russian organizations show interests in establishing cooperation in
this field," Nesterenko said.

Both Azerbaijani and Armenian media reports cited Turkish sources
as saying that settlement of Nagorno-Karabakh conflict as well as
opening of Turkey’s border with Armenia would also be on the agenda
of Lavrov’s talks in Ankara.

NATO WELCOMES ATTEMPTS FOR NORMALIZATION OF ARMENIAN-TURKISH RELATIONS

PanARMENIAN.Net
27.06.2008 15:57 GMT+04:00

NATO welcomes endeavors for normalization of the Armenian-Turkish
relations, Jean-Francois Bureau, NATO Assistant Secretary General
for Public Diplomacy, said at a meeting with students of Yerevan
State University.

"The alliance stands for cooperation between member states and other
countries," he said when commenting on Serzh Sargsyan’s intention to
invite Turkish President Andullah Gul to Armenia.

"The IPAP has a provision referring to the Armenian-Turkish
relations. Together with our Turkish counterparts we have undertake
constructive moves meant for reconciliation," commented Samvel
Lazarian, Armenia’s envoy to NATO.

The Armenian President announced his intention to invite Abdullah
Gul to Yerevan for a soccer match between the Armenian and Turkish
national teams.

ONLY DEMOCRATIC AZERBAIJAN CAN BECOME THAT NEIGHBOR WITH WHOM NKR CAN SPEAK THE SAME LANGUAGE

armradio.am
28.06.2008 12:10

Asked to comment on the thesis mentioned in PACE Resolution 1614
that sustainable democratic development will be extremely difficult
in Azerbaijan as long as the country’s territorial integrity has
not been restored, NKR Foreign Minisetr Georgy Petrosyan mentioned:
"One can achieve sustainable democratic development only when the
country itself determines its course, taking into account its own
system of values and does not seek for pretexts to be justified in
front of the international structures for non-fulfillment of its
international and legal commitments."

"Without going into details on the alleged violation of Azerbaijan’s
territorial integrity I would like to note that in contemporary
international practice we can observe cases when the country being at
war with another state or having numerous conflicts with its neighbors,
can at the same time pretend to be one of the best democratic states
like Israel, India, etc.

I wonder whether the presence of political prisoners in the country
is a result of violation of territorial integrity. Is the mass media
suppressed, are the journalists beat up for the same reason? To all
appearance, these questions are rhetorical," the Foreign Minister
stated.

According to Georgy Petrosyan, on the whole, Europe’s position on
keeping balanced attitude towards the South Caucasus countries is
understandable. "At the same time, it arouses bewilderment that
maintenance of this approach as presented by Azerbaijan passes
along the line of cornerstone priorities of the Council of Europe
on which all the European architecture – democracy, supremacy of law
are founded.

While the democracy in the NKR is a natural non-opportunistic choice
for the people of Nagorno Karabakh, which is not appreciated properly
by Europe, in Azerbaijan we observe its convulsive imitation. Within
this context, we would like to advise the Council of Europe to take
the democracy in Azerbaijan and the democratic processes taking place
as a whole in the region most seriously and with all responsibility. We
are convinced that only democratic Azerbaijan can become that neighbor
with whom the Nagorno Karabakh Republic can speak the same language."

RA PROSECUTOR GENERAL NOT GOING TO RESIGN

NOYAN TAPAN

JU NE 26

RA Prosecutor General Aghvan Hovsepian is not going to resign. Sona
Truzian, RA Prosecutor General’s Spokesperson, said during her June
26 interview to Noyan Tapan correspondent refuting the rumors about
his resignation. "Rumors of the kind are unserious talks, some forces
are just spreading invented information," she said.

It should be mentioned that Aghvan Hovsepian who was elected RA
Prosecutor General by RA National Assembly with 118 votes for in
September, 2007 and according to the Constitution, is to take his
post for 6 years’ term.