Author: Khondkarian Raffi

ARMENIAN OPPOSITION PARTIES REFUSE TO GO TO POLLS WITHIN OLD BLOC

Arminfo
26 Feb 07

Yerevan, 26 February: "Our opposition colleagues have turned down
the proposal of the People’s Party of Armenia [PPA] to run for the
parliamentary election within the Ardarutyun [Justice] bloc formed
in 2003," PPA press secretary Ruzan Khachatryan has said.

She said that since the main negotiators in the recent consultations
were Ardarutyun bloc members, the People’s Party of Armenia proposed
keeping the same name for the new bloc after enlarging it and making
corrections in it.

"People placed trust in the Ardarutyun bloc four years ago. The
bloc had and still has a programme and a key goal – to restore
constitutional order in the country. Since the same political parties
plus the Heritage party of Raffi Hovhannisyan were involved in the
negotiations, the PPA made that proposal, which at the end of the
day was not accepted," Khachatryan said.

She, however, said that the opposition’s unification does not
necessarily imply setting up large election blocs and that this may
cover a wide range of issues from moral and tactical support to such
a crucial measure as oversight of the elections process, voting and
vote counting. "The People’s Party of Armenia backed the Alternative’s
idea to set up an election bloc based on the idea of impeaching the
head of the incumbent regime but several major opposition forces
refused to join it, which made the project lose its significance,"
Khachatryan said.

Throughout the past week, the PPA, the Heritage party, the Republic
party and the National Democratic Union held consultations on
the format of their participation in the 12 May parliamentary
election. Aram Sargsyan, the leader of the Republic party, said that
he would propose that his opposition colleagues form a broad alliance.

The council of Demirchyan’s PPA was supposed to hold a meeting
today [26 February] to pass a final decision on how the party will
participate in the parliamentary election and approve the party’s
proportional representation list. But Khachatryan said that "the
meeting will be held in a couple of days, it was delayed to have some
technical issues settled".

SHEN CONCERN BECOMES FIRST ARMENIAN NONFINANCIAL-CREDIT COMPANY TO ISSUE ITS OWN BONDS

Noyan Tapan
Feb 27 2007

YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 27, NOYAN TAPAN. Shen Concern CJSC is the first
company to issue corporate bonds after receiving a rating of the
Central Bank of Armenia (CBA). The company chairman Samvel Beglarian
noted at the February 27 press conference that since December 26, 2006
the company has issued 16,000 nominal bonds of a total of 160 mln drams
(about 445 thousand USD) with the maturity of 365 days at concessional
interest rates. According to him, the placement of bonds will be done
in more than one tranche. The first tranche of 40 mln drams has already
been placed: according to CBA Chairman Tigran Sargsian, bonds of this
amount were acquired by ArmSwissbank and put in pledge in connection
with signing repo deals with the CBA. S. Beglarian said that the
issue was a test one: Shen Concern envisages to issue greater amounts
of its own bonds starting from 2008. He considered bond placement
as an opportunity to arract "long money". It was mentioned that at
present Armenian banks cannot provide credits of over 3 mln dollars,
whereas Shen Concern is discussing the opportunity of implementing
an investment program of 9.5 mln euros with the RA Ministry of Trade
and Economic Development. S. Beglarian noted that there are plans
to reorganize Shen Concern into an open joint stock company. Shen
Concern is one of the leading companies of Armenia’s chemical and
building material sectors. Its authorized capital makes 1.5 bln
drams. 36.6% of Shen Concern’s securities belong to the European
Bank for Reconstruction and Devlopment. The company’s net profit
amounted to 272 mln 321 thousand drams in January-September 2006,
growing by 653.5% on the same period of the previous year, while its
production sales grew by 17.6%. The company’s experts explain such a
large growth of net profit by a considerable decline in the cost price
of production and the fact that Shen Concern has profit tax privileges.

UN REPRESENTATIVE MEETS OSKANYAN

Panorama.am
21:16 26/02/2007

Armenian foreign ministry press services report that Vardan Oskanyan,
minister of foreign affairs, received Kori Udovicki, Deputy UN
Secretary General.

The minister expressed gratitude for the support rendered by
UN agencies to the Armenian government, particularly in poverty
alleviation, anti-corruption, children and women rights issues.

Attaching high importance to cooperation with the Armenian authorities,
Udovicki outlined the priorities of UNDP and other regional projects.

YOUTH OLYMPIC FESTIVAL FINISHES IN JACA

JACA, FEBRUARY 23, NOYAN TAPAN. Europe Youth Winter Sports Olympic
Festival finished on February 23 in the Spanish city of Jaca. In the
February 22 figure skating free program Armine Stamboltsian took 22th
place among 29 participants and Hovhannes Mkrtchian took 9th place
among 20 participants. In 10 km free-style ski-race Aram Grigorian
took 60th place among 97 sportsmen and Hamlet Ziroyan 72th place. In
7.5 km free-style ski-race Christine Khachatrian was 43rd among 82
ladies. In the special winding descent Yuri Manukian and Misha
Ghazarian took 54th and 56th places, respectively, among 105 mountain
skiers.

ArmRadio
2007-02-23 14:06:00

Araratbank presents new plastic cards – Avtocard

In early May, Araratbank will present a new type of plastic cards –
Avtocard. "It is an automobile designed card – with many options and
bonuses in auto-services, insurance and tourism. Now the bank holds
negotiations with Georgian partners to enable the card owners to be
provided with the whole service-portfolio on Georgia’s territory
too. Especially on the Black Sea coast – as many Armenians spend their
vacation there," Ashot Osipyan, Head of Araratbank, said at the press
conference today.

A. Osipyan said that the bank intends to be unique in its own way.
Mortgaging, consumer and business crediting programs will be set out
soon. The bank provides a special export-crediting program with quite
low interest rates. To prevent from the possible currency risks,
forward contracts for export will be available from March 2007. "We
believe that forwards will protect the clients’ interests and will fix
the rates for exporters," he said. A. Osipyan added that the bank has
big ambitions as the assets and capital grow. The bank will be open
and plans to conduct stocks emission. Work on it has started.

ARMENIAN GENOCIDE RESOLUTION IS UNDER CONSIDERATION OF HOUSE COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS

Arminfo
2007-02-22 13:36:00

The resolution is now before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs,
whose chairman, Rep. Tom Lantos of California, has supported the
Armenian genocide resolution in recent sessions, though he opposed
it in the past.

Turkey was so alarmed by a proposed House resolution calling the
mass slaughter of Armenians by Turks during World War I a "genocide"
that it dispatched its foreign minister to persuade American Jewish
leaders to lobby against it. At a suite at the Willard Hotel in
Washington on February 5, Abdullah Gul met with representatives
of the Anti-Defamation League, American Jewish Committee, American
Jewish Congress, American Israel Public Affairs Committee, Friends
of Lubavitch, Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs, and
United Jewish Communities.

According to one participant in the meeting, the Turkish foreign
minister "made a hard sell," against House resolution 106, whose short
title is "Affirmation of the United States Record on the Armenian
Genocide Resolution." This participant, who asked not to be named,
said Mr. Gul appealed to the assembled Jewish representatives by noting
the singularity of the German genocide against the Jews and warning
that the House resolution, if passed, would rupture American-Turkish
relations.

The Turks have reason to be worried. Although the resolution has
faced opposition from the House leadership in previous congressional
sessions, the current speaker of the House, Rep. Nancy Pelosi of
California, is said to support it. Indeed, Ms. Pelosi has supported
similar resolutions in the past.

ARMENIAN AMBASSADOR TO GERMANY BELIEVES THAT THERE ARE UNUSED OPPORTUNITIES IN THE ARMENIAN-GERMAN ECONOMIC COOPERATION

MediaMax, Armenia
Feb 21 2007

Yerevan, February 21 /Mediamax/. The Chairmanship of Germany in
the European Union can play a positive role in the Armenian-German
political cooperation.

Mediamax reports that the Armenian Ambassador to Germany Karine
Kazinian said this in the "Friday" press club today. According to
him, during the period of Armenia’s independence the volume of German
investments in the Armenian economy made over 200mln euro; and the
annual trade turnover between the two countries reaches 400mln euro.

At the same time, the Ambassador thinks that the given indices are
not high, taking into consideration Germany’s potential.

Karine Kazinian stressed that there are unused opportunities from
the point of view of mutually beneficial cooperation in the sphere
of chemical industry, mechanical engineering and etc.

The Ambassador informed that officially there are 30 thousand Armenians
residing in Germany.

GEORGIA, ARMENIA DISCUSS BORDER DELIMITATION

Civil Georgia, Georgia
Civil.ge ()
Feb 21 2007

21 February 2007 – Georgian Deputy Foreign Minister Giorgi Manjgaladze
met with an Armenian delegation led by Deputy Foreign Minister Gegam
Garibjanyan in Tbilisi on February 20 to discuss border delimitation
issues.

According to the Georgian Foreign Ministry, the sides agreed on several
sections of the Georgian-Armenian border. However, no details of the
agreement are reported.

The two countries have already made some progress in delimiting the
110-kilometer long Georgian-Armenian border.

Later on the same day the Armenian Deputy Foreign Minister met with
Georgian Foreign Minister Gela Bezhuashvili to discuss bilateral
relations between Armenia and Georgia.

ADOPTION OF ARMENIAN GENOCIDE RESOLUTION BY GERMANY IS ADVANCE

PanARMENIAN.Net
21.02.2007 18:08 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ The adoption of the Armenian Genocide resolution by
Germany in 2005 is a great advance, RA Ambassador to Germany Karine
Ghazinyan told a news conference in Yerevan. According to her,
it’s extremely hard to pass such a resolution in state where the
Turkish Diaspora is the most numerous and the Armenian community is
not influential.

Ghazinyan remarked that importance of the resolution is not diminished
by the absence of term "genocide".

"The document maintains the word "extermination" what is semantically
identical with genocide," she said.

July 16, 2005 the German Bundestag unanimously passed a resolution
titled "The Day of Commemoration of Armenians on the Occasion of the
90th Anniversary of 1915, April 24 Massacre: Germany Should Contribute
to Reconciliation between Armenians and Turks."

ACCORDING TO HAYRIKIAN’S ESTIMATION, PARLIAMENTARY ELECTIONS ARE ALREADY COMPLETED IN ARMENIA

Noyan Tapan
Feb 20 2007

YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 20, NOYAN TAPAN. "The parliamentary elections are
already completed in Armenia," Paruyr Hayrikian, the Chairman of the
National Self-Determination Union finds. He stated at the February 20
press conference that there are two forces in the political field of
Armenia in the case of participation of which "the elections will be
falsified as they present financial resources instead of presenting
an idea."

P.Hayrikian did not exclude that the National Self-Determination
Union will not at all participate in the elections, and P.Hayrikian
was against nominating his candidature by the majoritarian electoral
system. However, in the case of participation in the elections, the
National Self-Determination Union will not stay alone. In P.Hayrikian’s
words, negotiations are carried out in that direction with different
political forces.

P.Hayrikian did not exclude creation of a joint front to boycott
the elections. In his words, the effective variant of a boycott is
unification of healthy political forces.