Author: Khoyetsian Rose

ARMINFO News Agency
September 30, 2005

UNION OF GEORGIAN ARMENIANS HOSTS ACTION FOR RECOGNITION OF ARMENIAN
GENOCIDE BY TURKEY

YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 30. ARMINFO. The Union of Georgian Armenians “Nor
Serund” (“New Generation”) held an action in Tbilisi, Thursday. The
action demanded recognition of the Armenian Genocide by Turkey as a
precondition for the latter’s joining the European Union.

“Nor Serund” press-service informs ARMINFO that about 100
participants of the action carried lighted-candles in commemoration
of the Victims of the Armenian Genocide in Ottoman Turkey and notes
of gratitude in the languages of all the EU member-states, as well as
in Georgian and Armenian.

“Nor Serund” Co-Chairwoman Marie Mikoyan read out an appeal to the EU
addressed to the Head of the European Commission Mission to Georgia
Torben Holtze and handed over the letter to the local Office of the
European Commission. For conclusion, the action participants put the
posters of gratitude in front of the EU building and encircled them
with the lighted candles.

SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER, WA
Sept 30 2005

Serious, silly, spellbinding: Band knows how to ‘Mezmerize’ its fans

By GENE STOUT
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER POP MUSIC CRITIC

System of a Down — a high-decibel foursome with a devilish sense of
humor and an unlikely blend of musical styles — may be one of
today’s most successful arena-rock bands. But the Armenian American
group hasn’t forgotten its roots.

COMING UP
SYSTEM OF A DOWN, THE MARS VOLTA AND HELLA

WHAT: Rock concert
WHEN: Wednesday night at 7
WHERE: KeyArena
TICKETS: $31.50-$44 at Ticketmaster

“There’s a commonality there, a common denominator culturally,”
singer Serj Tankian said by phone en route to a show in Minneapolis.

“That’s been a strength in some ways, but it’s also an understanding
of the dynamics of music and the different beats and melodies that
wouldn’t be common to a non-Armenian.”

Tankian never planned to be in an Armenian American rock band, it
just turned out that way. He started playing with singer and
guitarist Daron Malakian in high school, and they later hooked up
with drummer John Dolmayan and bassist Shavo Odadjian. The group
signed a recording contract with Rick Rubin’s American Recordings
label in the late ’90s, and Rubin has produced their records every
since.

The group’s 2001 album, “Toxicity,” arrived just before the Sept. 11
terrorist attacks and served as a kind of soundtrack for the national
trauma.

“It was kind of luck or destiny that it ended up this way,” Tankian
said.

Currently on its first major North American tour in three years, the
band Newsweek magazine dubbed “L.A.’s Armenian Idols” performs
Wednesday night at KeyArena with The Mars Volta and Hella.

Tankian and his bandmates took time out from the tour on Tuesday to
lead a rally for the Armenian National Committee of America at the
Batavia, Ill., office of House Speaker Dennis Hastert to urge his
support of Armenian genocide legislation.

If passed, the legislation will officially recognize the genocide of
1.5 million Armenians in Turkey from 1915 to 1923.

“We want to encourage him to do the right thing and bring it to the
floor for a vote,” Tankian said. “(Hastert) has had the opportunity
to do it twice before and has not for different reasons. It’s been
five years and everyone is tired of waiting.”

The tour supports the release of the platinum-selling album,
“Mezmerize,” the first CD in a two-part set that includes a companion
album, “Hypnotize,” due in stores Nov. 17.

“Mezmerize” is a schizophrenic album that blends howling vocals and
blistering guitars with traditional Middle Eastern instrumentation
(as well as violins, cellos and violas) and barbed social commentary.
The album explores politics, Hollywood phoniness, and life and death.
It may sound like an impossible mix, but it’s provocative and
entertaining — serious and silly at the same time.

“Why don’t presidents fight the war?/ Why do they always send the
poor?” Tankian screams on the anti-war song “B.Y.O.B. (Bring Your Own
Bombs).”

For Tankian, who grew up in Lebanon, strong anti-war feelings come
naturally.

“I always say that if you come from a place where you hear bombs
dropped on a city, you’d be reluctant to drop bombs on any city,” he
said.

Pornography comes under fire in “Violent Pornography”: “It’s a
violent pornography/ Choking chicks and sodomy.” “Cigaro” is an
X-rated song that has Tankian and Malakian in a hilariously operatic
vocal duel that recalls Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody.”

“It’s probably a combination of personal and non-personal matters
that have led us to where we are musically,” Tankian said.

“I’m not comfortable with just entertaining. Although I like
entertaining, I also like bringing forward the truth of our times as
minstrels used to in the old days.”

“Mezmerize” and “Hypnotize” were recorded and mixed at the same time,
but scheduled for release six months apart.

“The packaging is designed so that when people buy the second record,
they can attach it to the first, making it a double record,” Tankian
said.

The band decided to release two discs instead of one because they had
so much good material from recording sessions.

“That doesn’t sound very modest, but that’s what it is. As we were
writing and recording, we realized that there was no way we could
decide what songs were going to be on the record,” he said.

“And we’re not fans of long, long records.”

Tankian described Rubin, a superproducer who has worked with everyone
from the Beastie Boys to Johnny Cash, as a nurturing presence in the
studio.

“He brings a lot out of you, but he doesn’t try to completely change
things. He tries to let the beast be the beast.”

OregonLive.com, OR
Sept 30 2005

Mellow metal
Friday, September 30, 2005

Heavy-metal music once was all about cutting class, chasing chicks
and getting down with Satan. In this post-millennial era, however,
decadence is out, raging against the machine is in. And nobody’s
raging as loudly as System of a Down.

The Armenian American act brings its inexplicable blend of thrash,
operatic vocals and folk music to town, touring behind its latest CD,
“Mezmerize.” A companion disc, “Hypnotize,” is due in November.
“Mezmerize” delivers the required social content (pro: justice; anti:
violent pornography) but also includes touches of surrealist humor
and jarring changes that suggest jet engines tearing themselves
apart.

Opening band Mars Volta (formerly At the Drive-In) shares System’s
fearless eclecticism but favor moments of Afro-Cuban rhythms and
horns along with the expected guitar crunch on its latest CD,
“Frances the Mute.”

So what if the dudes in Motley Cre wouldn’t consider these guys hard
rockers? As Beavis once said to Butthead, “Heavy metal has come a
long way.”

7 p.m. Thursday, Rose Garden arena; Ticketmaster; 503-224-4400. Also
appearing: Hella. — Curt Schulz Special to The Oregonian

EU enlargement

Time to talk to Turkey

Leader
Friday September 30, 2005
The Guardian

Turkey has already waited more than 40 years to join the European
mainstream, but there are still a few more tense days left before there can
be certainty that its ambition will eventually be realised.

The hope is that last-minute hitches will be resolved by EU foreign
ministers on Sunday, allowing the accession talks to begin the following
day, as promised. Since the rules require such big decisions to be agreed by
all 25 member states, Austria alone has been able to block this one,
demanding that instead of negotiating full membership like every other
country seeking to join the club, Turkey should be offered only a “special
partnership”. Ankara rejects such an approach as discriminatory. So, to
their credit, does everyone else, including the governments of France, the
Netherlands and Germany, despite the strong anti-Turkish feeling that played
a big role in the paralysing rejection of the EU constitution this summer.

Austrian opposition to Turkish membership is a toxic blend of historical
prejudice and contemporary fear, of Ottoman janissaries at the gates of
Vienna, of Habsburg nostalgia, and Muslim gastarbeiter flooding in from
deepest Anatolia. Wolfgang Schüssel, the conservative chancellor, does not
say openly that the EU is a Christian club, but has signalled that he will
only back the talks if there is a parallel launch of accession negotiations
with neighbouring – and Catholic – Croatia. That process has rightly been on
hold because of Zagreb’s failure to cooperate with the UN war crimes
tribunal. If as expected, prosecutors report cooperation has improved, then
it can resume.

Next Monday should be a big day, but even a positive result is unlikely to
end rancour over double standards. Turkey, once plagued by military coups,
torture and hyper-inflation, has met the EU’s criteria for membership –
democracy, the rule of law, human rights, protection of minorities, a market
economy and the capacity to manage competition. Even if implementation of
new laws has been patchy in Kurdish areas the very prospect of EU membership
has been a powerful spur to unprecedented reform. More will take place and
the country will become richer in the 10 or more years it will take to
complete the negotiations. Outstanding issues over Cyprus should not block
them. It is to be hoped too that calls on Turkey to recognise the Armenian
genocide of 1915 will at least promote a more mature attitude to the
country’s past. But Turkey’s secular Muslim democracy has demonstrated that
it is ready to join a tolerant, multicultural Europe. Let the final deal be
done and the talks commence.

,3604,1581325,00.html

Assyrian International News Agency
Sept 29 2005

Turkey After The Armenian Genocide Conference

(AINA) — After efforts of deterrence by the executive in May and
obstruction of the 4th Istanbul Administrative Court on September
23rd, the conference entitled, ‘Ottoman Armenians in the Final Period
of the Empire: Scientific Responsibility and Problems of Democracy’
has been successfully completed on the 25th of September. The venue
of the event had to be changed from one university to the other and a
three-day conference had to be telescoped to two days. The
participants and audience had to pass through a barrier of slandering
nationalist protestors throwing eggs and tomatoes. Yet two and half
institutions deserve credit for standing behind academic autonomy,
freedom of expression and culture of deliberation. The first is the
government who spoke through the Prime Minister. His resolve dwarfed
the initial resistance of the Minister of Justice who called the
initiative “treason” and “back stabbing the nation” in May. The
second is the university as an institution who defended the rights
and liberties that make it a center and advocate of freedom. The
third institution is the media; of course some of it, which is
conscious of the fact that, this conference was not all about the
Armenian issue that needs to be discussed impartially but it is
rather a matter of democracy.

The speakers, or better deliberators, were all Turkish scholars
serving at domestic or foreign universities to avoid prejudice
against ill-willed foreigners. Among a sundry of topics some like,
‘An Identity Squeezed Between the Past and the Present’, ‘Examples of
Forgetting and Remembrance in Turkish Literature: Different Breaking
Points of Silence’, ‘The Armenian Issue and Demographic Engineering’,
‘Scenes of Conscience through a Bitter History’, ‘From Heranush to
Seher: A Story of “Salvation”‘, ‘Mother Fatma, the Child of
Deportation’ and ‘Thinking About the Stories of the Survivors of
Deportation’, suggest that the issues were not limited to just
historiography and document rattling. That has been taking place for
a long time. Both the Armenian and Turkish nationalists and ‘official
historians’ have unfortunately narrowed down the discussion of this
important matter to the acceptance or denial of “genocide”. This
radical stance has not only impoverished scholarship but has
politicized the matter forcing individuals to take sides. In this
ado, unfortunately the human side of the matter, the suffering of
real human beings, no matter who they were, has been neglected.
Indeed what we ought to start discussing is the human condition at
the turn of the last century.

A multicultural society existed with different ethnic, linguistic and
confessional groups. They were torn apart, their age-old relations
were severed, an economy was shattered, the lives of ALL were changed
irreversibly and forever. The majority of them had little to do with
the fate they were forced to live through if they had not lost their
lives in the chaos of World War One years.

I will not go on into the arguments of “clashing nationalisms”,
“securing the eastern-front where a war was waged with occupying
Russian armies” or simply, “revenge of the Turks over the Armenians
where a part of the Armenians took up arms and tried to carve out an
independent Armenia by exterminating Turks in eastern Turkey”. All of
these are parts of the wider truth. But the truth is larger than that
and larger than the lives of individuals or groups that were caught
up in the turmoil of the decade between 1910-1920. Turks were
recruited to go to the Libyan (or Tripoli) campaign in 1911 to be
followed by the Balkan War next year that ended up by loosing all of
the East European lands of the Empire in 1913. In the next year WW1
broke up that ended with the dissolution of three major empires of
the time, the Ottoman being one. During that fateful decade, Ottomans
lost 2 million soldiers. No one knows how many civilians perished
during hostilities and following forced migration, by hunger and
famine. But a rough estimate is that five million Turks or Muslims
identifying themselves as Ottoman had to migrate into present Turkey
and remaining territories. They left behind dead family members,
their property and a life that had taken root on European soil in the
past centuries.

They were frustrated, impoverished, uprooted and bitter. However,
they had come to a friendly land where they were welcome and the
government of the day compensated their loss to a certain degree.
That is why they chose to forget. Did they forgive? Obviously not.
Historical evidence shows that the ruling cadre in the last Ottoman
decade was the government of the Committee of Union and Progress,
better known as the Young Turks. The leading group, including the
dictating triumvirate, Talat, Enver and Cemal Pashas of the Young
Turks were basically of Balkan stock. When they moved the
headquarters of their semi-secret organization from Selonica to
Istanbul in 1912, they brought their feelings of loss, betrayal (by
the non-Muslim peoples of the empire who had attained their
independence through painful struggles for national liberation by
fighting against Ottoman officers and officials who were mainly
members of the Union and Progress.

We all know what “never again” means. These new rulers of the Ottoman
terrain promised the remaining lands not become a second “Macedonia”
as they called the bulk of the Balkans. They made a conscious effort
to prevent a second catastrophe by adopting the method of demographic
engineering. There were two aspects of this engineering: 1) Removal
of the Christians; 2) Mixing of the non-Turkish Muslims. The first
method was territorial; the second was demographic engineering. The
Bulgarians living in Edirne and in Thrace (European part of Turkey)
was sent to Bulgaria or exchanged with Turks who felt victimized and
wanted to go to Turkey. Deterring Greeks from remaining in Western
and Black Sea regions was realized without overt exertion of force
but with a convincing determination. The policy was to cleanse the
Aegean littoral off Greeks 50 kilometers into the heartland. This
policy reached its peak point by population exchanges with Greece in
1924.

Territorial mopping concerning the Armenians was put into effect with
the official policy of deportation. It was an announced and
acknowledged government policy of the time. However, territorial
sterility was not only directed to these largest Ottoman peoples, it
encompassed all Christian peoples, large or small including the more
peaceful Assyrians in the southeast. How could the vengeful and
wrathful Young Turks could know that by scaring off the peaceful
Christians they would allow the Kurds to have sole control of
southeast Anatolia and the ‘later Turks’ would have to put up with
the unruly behavior of the more favored Muslims?

As regards the non-Turkish Muslims, the ratio of one-to-ten or 10%
was observed when they were moved from places where they were more
crowded into wider Turkish communities where they would be a
controllable minority. This plan was put into effect and the
Armenians faced the harshest fate of all because there was no
receiving state willing to compensate for their loss like the
Bulgarians and the Greeks. From the day when Armenian deportation has
started the event is no more a political matter born out of the
exigencies and vagaries of the day and its power struggles. It is a
human condition, which imposes on all of us, on all human beings, the
responsibility to understand and to reconcile with.

The present Turkish government bears no responsibility to what the
adventurous Young Turks who led the Ottoman State into demise had
done to the peoples whom they ruled over. They did not only deport
Christian subjects, they sent armies totaling two million recruited
from among Muslims to three continents and watched them perish in
pursuit of their ambitious scheme of creating a Turanian Empire out
of Turkic peoples. They depleted the Turkish stock of the motherland
too. The conference drew attention to these (other) angles of the
last decades of the empire during which the Armenian disaster took
place. It was not particular to the Armenians. It was a human tragedy
staged by an adventurous cadre who valued their imperial design more
than human life, without distinguishing between that of their own or
others. Their Machiavellian political methods justified the means
they used for their exalted end that never succeeded but consumed the
lives of millions as well as their own.

What befalls on us is to acknowledge what happened to the Ottoman
peoples of the time and why? No nation or nationality, no adherent of
any creed can claim that those fateful years are the mark of history
that denotes only their losses and grief. This is a shared calamity
that we all lived through and bare responsibility for, some much
less, some much more. Those days are left behind, not to be forgotten
though. We must remember what has taken place; what ambitions,
policies or impossible dreams have led to such large scale suffering
then, so that we do not commit the same mistakes again. However, our
primary duty is to understand what role our forbearers played and
what we can do to ease the pain of those who still suffer today
because they feel that their wounds are psychologically bleeding.

We need a little empathy just like the former Minister of Health, Mr.
Cevdet Aykan has said in the “Memories and Witnesses” section of the
conference said: “In 1915, Tokat was a part of the Sivas Province.
According to the 1908 Sivas Population Registrar, there were 240
Muslims, 24,000 Armenians, and 14,000 Greeks in the province. The
population of Tokat at the same time was 28,000. Of this number 8,600
were Armenian and they were all living peacefully together. When the
news of deportation reached Tokat and Sivas, the Turkish and Armenian
community leaders got together and sought for a solution. The
Armenian merchants and artisans transferred their property to their
neighbors and trusted their spouses and daughters to Turkish families
with mock weddings. Those who were sent away never came back”. Mr.
Aykan has told this story as a witness and added the most honorable
statement: “I am telling these to pay back my moral debt to my
Armenian citizens”.

This sentence tells all. Now, both the Armenians and Turks must get
together not to accuse each other for the injustices of the past and
how much suffering their great parents have inflicted on the other.
Humanistic stories can be produced just s much as inhuman ones like
officers committing suicide not to carry unjust orders or neighbors
hiding forbidden citizens forsaking their own lives. No, what we
ought to discuss is how we can heel the wounds that is no body’s
monopoly. If we do not want to carry the burden of history we must
unload our feelings and expectations by cleansing our thoughts and
souls from vengeance and hatred and wish for dialogue, which we can
hopefully turn into an agenda for peaceful coexistence and mutual
history building. Can we do it? Restless minds and souls only produce
hatred and violence. Let us leave the souls of our grand parents
alone to rest in peace. They have suffered enough and they do not
want to be awakened to fight another war just because we want them on
our side.

By Dogu Ergil

COMMODITY TURNOVER BETWEEN ARMENIA AND CIS STATES INCREASED 31% WITHIN FIVE MONTHS OF 2005

Pan Armenian News
29.09.2005 04:43

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Armenian Premier Andranik Margaryan yesterday met
with CIS Executive Committee Chairman, Executive Secretary Vladimir
Rushaylo, reported the Press Service of the Armenian Government. In
the course of the meeting the parties discussed the results of the
Kazan summit of the CIS leaders. Armenia is ready to fulfill all
decisions passed by the council CIS leaders, including to make its
contribution to the reform of the CIS, A.

Margaryan remarked. The parties named economic integration, security
and stability, promotion of humanitarian cooperation as one of priority
aspects of cooperation among the CIS states. It was noted that the
commodity turnover between Armenia and the CIS countries in January-May
2005 has increased 31% as compared to the same period last year. This
was considered as evidence of Armenia’s positive participation within
the context of economic and trade cooperation. Besides, matters to
be discussed in the course of the coming session of the Council of
CIS Government Heads, as well as the forming of CIS common budget
were discussed during the meeting.

Haykakan Zhamanak, Yerevan, in Armenian
23 Sep 05, p 1

ARMENIA SHOULD SWAP OLD NUCLEAR POWER STATION FOR EU-FUNDED ONE –
PAPER

Headlined “The foreign policy issue”

A delegation headed by Armenian Deputy Foreign Minister Arman
Kirakosyan will take part in the 49th session of IAEA [the
International Atomic Energy Agency] on 26-30 September, Arka news
agency reports. Kirakosyan will deliver a report and announce that
Armenia is going to build a new nuclear station. Yesterday [21
September] we failed to get an official reaction to this information.

The Metsamor nuclear power station is the most important conundrum of
Armenian foreign policy. The position of the EU on this issue is
strict: they want the closure of our nuclear power station because
the station does not meet security standards, and for its closure,
the EU is ready to give 100m euros to Armenia for the search of
alternative power sources.

In this case, the EU supports the construction of another type of
power station. However, it is especially obvious in Armenia’s case
that our country imports energy sources mainly from abroad, a nuclear
power station may be the only alternative for the nuclear power
station.

Certainly, Armenia also imports nuclear fuel from abroad, but an
opportunity to produce cheap nuclear energy will become that “booby
prize” which Armenia will have for being out of the regional energy
projects.

A natural question arises: why should the world community be
interested in awarding Armenia the “booby prize”? The point is that
depriving Armenia of nuclear energy may hopelessly break the
correlation of forces in our region and this may cast doubt on the
prospect of establishing long-lasting stability in the South
Caucasus.

Thus Armenia should be able to persuade the EU that the closure of
the nuclear power station is not possible for 100m euros but for the
construction of a new nuclear power station, and that the fuel for
this nuclear power station should be purchased not from Russia but
Europe. This will create basis for getting rid of Russia, which is
also considered one of the important conditions of the regional
stability.

And if Arman Kirakosyan really speaks about this, we should say that
Armenia has adopted right direction in this issue. Armenia should not
declare about its decision to construct a new nuclear power station
but should start negotiations with the EU on this matter. Otherwise,
this may create serious confrontation with the West and Armenia may
find itself in the same situation as Iran or North Korea. It is
obvious that Armenia cannot carry out such a project all by itself
and only the EU or the USA may finance it.

This means that the problem of the new Armenian nuclear power station
should be turned into a mutually profitable topic of dialogue with
the West especially when the West considers Russia’s departure from
the region as a significant step, and the construction of the new
power station will be the shortest step in this direction.

Incidentally, Russia is also interested in this matter. It is
advantageous for Russia if the Armenian nuclear power station remains
in today’s situation because, given this, Russia is the only provider
of the nuclear fuel to the station. Even after the construction of
the Iran-Armenia gas pipeline, Armenia will not be able to overcome
the status of Russia’s outpost. If Russia manages to inflame conflict
between Armenia and the West over the power station, Armenia may turn
from Russia’s outpost into its vassal.

Zaman, Turkey
Sept 28 2005

EP: Negotiations may Halt if Turkey does not Recognize Greek Cypriots

By Emre Demir

The European Parliament (EP) demanded Turkey recognize South Cyprus
as soon as possible in a draft resolution issued on Tuesday.

EP publicized its “common solution proposal” resolution draft that
will be voted on Wednesday.

Negotiations can be halted, the draft underlines, if Turkey does not
recognize South Cyprus and describes Ankara’s withdrawal of troops
from the island as a “necessity.”

MEPs called Turkey to once again adopt a constructive attitude within
the framework of the Annan plan as they invited the European Council
to lift the sanctions on the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus
(TRNC).

The draft was approved by The Group of the European People’s Party
(Christian Democrats) and European Democrats in the European
Parliament (EPP/ED), Group of the Party of European Socialists (PES),
Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE), Greens,
European United Left and Nordic Left (GUE-NGL), and Union for a
Europe of Nations (UEN).

The draft demands Turkey to recognize Cypriot Greek Administration as
the sole representative of the island so that relations can be
stabilized.

When Turkey issued a declaration following the signature of the
Supplementary Protocol on July 29 and underlined not to recognize the
Greek administration in the island, the course of events followed a
rocky turn.

Turkey ‘s declaration would not settle the problems, noted in the
draft. “EP parliamentarians call Turkey and Turkish authorities to
carry on the constructive conduct so that the Cyprus problem receives
a permanent solution within the framework of the Annan plan.”

The resolution draft also stressed Turkey should lift the ban applied
on Greek Cypriot ships and planes.

MEPs called the European Council to make efforts in the direction of
lifting isolation on the TRNC and finding a consensus on the subject
aid packages.

Turkey has fulfilled all the conditions required to begin the
negotiations on October 3, the draft acknowledges, but criticizes
Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk’s prosecution for his statements on the
Armenian “genocide.”

The negotiation process will be open-ended the document wrote.

Ankara’s adaptation efforts to the acquis communautaire should not be
hindered by the decision about the permanent restrictions on Turkish
workers entering the free circulation, which was examined in the 2004
summit.

The Supplementary Protocol envisages the extension of the scope of
the Customs Union to the new members of the EU will be voted in the
European Union (EU) joint meeting to be held on Wednesday in the EP
general assembly.

EP deputies will discuss the report on Turkey. British Foreign
Secretary Jack Straw will attend the meeting in the name of the
European Council. EP President Josep Borrell said on Tuesday the EP
would take an historical decision about Turkey.

ARMENIA BECAME FULL MEMBER OF ASIAN DEVELOPMENT BANK

Pan Armenian News
27.09.2005 03:47

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ According to a release of the Asian Development
Bank Monday, Armenia has become Bank 64th member. September 20, when
the necessary procedure was approved, Armenia became a full member
of the Asian Development Bank, situated in the Philippine capital
of Manila. Armenia has got 10 thousand 557 shares of the Bank. The
Bank capital totals $51.6 billion. Founded in 1966, last year the
Asian Development Bank provided various countries with credit of $5.3
billion, as well as technical assistance of $196.6 million.

ITAR-TASS News Agency
TASS
September 23, 2005 Friday

Armenia holds no talks on gas transit to Ukraine-energy minister

By Tigran Liloyan

YEREVAN

Armenia is conducting no negotiations on the transit of Iranian gas
to Ukraine or to Europe, Energy Minister Armen Movsesian has told a
news conference.

“It is up to Iran and Ukraine to discuss such matters. As long as
there have been no negotiations on that score, discussing the
participation of other countries in such projects will make no
sense,” he said.

The gas pipeline from Iran will go operational 4-5 months earlier
than expected, by the autumn of 2006, Movsesian said. Armenia plans
to increase the pipeline’s throughput between Kadjaran-Yerevan. The
Iran-Armenia pipeline began to be laid on November 30, 2004. Under
the contract it is expected to go be commissioned by January 1, 2007.

Over a period of 20 years Iran will supply to Armenia 36 billion
cubic meters of natural gas in exchange for electricity.

Movsesian said Iran will invest 150 million dollars in the
construction of the fifth unit of the Razdan thermoelectric power
plant. When upgraded, this power unit will increase the power plant’s
capacity to 450 megawatts. The facility’s economic parameters will
then match all international standards.