Category: News

Russia, Armenia leaders meet in Astana
ITAR-TASS News Agency
September 16, 2004 Thursday
ASTANA, September 16 — Russian President Vladimir Putin and Armenian
President Robert Kocharyan had a working meeting on Thursday. The
two leaders discussed bilateral cooperation.
They took part in the 38th CIS summit here on Thursday. Also on
Thursday, Putin had separate talks with Georgian President Mikhail
Saakashvili and Kyrgyz President Askar Akayev.

CIS leaders hope commonwealth reforms will yield good results
By Viktoria Sokolova
ITAR-TASS News Agency
September 16, 2004 Thursday
ASTANA, September 16 — CIS leaders said Thursday they were expecting
the proposed commonwealth reforms to be effective, ensuring, among
other things, implementation of the decisions made.
Commenting at the news conference on the program of reforms, proposed
by the Kazakh president, Belarus leader Alexander Lukashenko noted
that “the CIS lags behind in its dynamics of the basic indicators
of activity.”
“The commonwealth leaders should decide within a year on the main
thing: what they want the CIS to be. Having answered this question,
it is necessary to begin reforms,” Lukashenko said.
He expressed the hope that “the overhauled CIS will be an organization
where decisions on the key issues will be made and where they will
be implemented.”
Armenian President Robert Kocharyan thinks that the main objective of
the reform is to preserve the bodies, which work, and make the rest
redundant. “I don’t doubt that the CIS has a potential,” Kocharyan
said.
“The main thing is that all the decisions we make be implemented,”
Ukrainian leader Leonid Kuchma stated.
Nursultan Nazarbayev said the CIS leaders had instructed the foreign
ministries to consider and make a final decision on the proposed
reforms within a year. The reforms then will be discussed by the
CIS leaders.
The reforms envision the setting up of the CIS Security Council
comprising the foreign ministers, the defense ministers, and the
heads of the border services and law-enforcement agencies.
The Council of foreign ministers will be preserved. It will control
the Security Council’s work.
The Security Council, to be chaired on rotational basis, will be
directly subordinate to the Council of CIS leaders.
Following CIS bodies will be dissolved: the Council of CIS defense
ministers, its secretariat, the headquarters for coordinating
military cooperation and the respective councils. In addition, the
reform proposes to eliminate the Economic Court and the Inter-State
Statistics Committee.
The CIS executive committee will cut its staff from 220 to 140. The
chairman will have two deputies, while the number of the Committee’s
departments will be reduced from nine to five.
The commonwealth will set up a council of representative under the
Security and Economic Councils at the level of ambassadors who are to
be appointed by the heads of states. It will abolish the institute
of envoys under the Economic Council and the Commission on Economic
Issues in Moscow, as well as a number of other CIS councils and bodies.
“I’d like to note,” Nazarbayev said, “that the heads of states showed
little respect for the bodies that had been set up, normally sending
to work there pensioners or people who needed to land a job. This
approach did not ensure effective work of our CIS secretariat.”
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

EU to cooperate with Russia in settling Caucasian problems
By Alan Badov
ITAR-TASS News Agency
September 16, 2004 Thursday
ROME, September 16 — The European Union is ready to cooperate with
Russia in settling problems of the Caucasus and Transcaucasia, said
in Brussels on Thursday head of the European Commission Romano Prodi
in an interview with Italian reporters on the eve of his tour of
Azerbaijan, Georgia and Armenia.
The European Union recognizes the important role Russia plays in
the Caucasus, Prodi noted. “Therefore, we should and are ready to
work together with Moscow to look for a solution of problems in the
region,” he continued. According to Prodi, the dreadful events in
Beslan have clearly shown that “instability spawns terrorism”.
Prodi will come to Baku on Thursday. During his tour of the
Transcaucasian republics, he will meet leaderships of those countries,
members of the public and religious quarters. In Prodi’s words,
links with the Transcaucasian countries are very important for the
European Union, since the region is rich in energy resources and is
located in the area of important transport routes.

Agency WPS
What the Papers Say. Part B (Russia)
September 16, 2004, Thursday
UKRAINE, KAZAKHSTAN, AND BELARUS: PROSPECTS OF UNIFICATION WITH
RUSSIA
SOURCE: Gazeta, September 16, 2004, pp. 1-2
by Pavel Aptekar
Addressing a summit of the Eurasian Economic Community in Astana,
Kazakhstan three months ago, President Vladimir Putin said, “Wise
people of all countries, unite.”
“Chauvinism, nationalism, personal ambitions of political
decision-makers, and simple, primitive stupidity” interfere with
integration, Putin said. He avoided any sharp statements at the
United Economic Zone summit yesterday (Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, and
Kazakhstan) even though the signing of the necessary documents has
been postponed by at least a year. Putin merely reminded CIS leaders
that establishment of the united Economic Zone could bring living
standards in the involved countries up to the European level.
Observers have many more hopes for Putin’s meetings with presidents
of Armenia and Azerbaijan and the authorities of Georgia.
The political establishment of the CIS gathered in Astana yesterday.
National leaders joined prime ministers and foreign ministers. Only
Saparmurat Niyazov of Turkmenistan and President Vladimir Voronin of
Moldova were absent. Today’s agenda for the CIS summit has been
revised: given the latest events in Russia, the summit will be
centered around the problem of terrorism.
Predictably enough, Putin, Leonid Kuchma, Nursultan Nazarbayev, and
Alexander Lukashenko postponed the decision to establish of the
United Economic Zone until July 1, 2005.
All the same, summit participants are quite optimistic. Kuchma is
convinced that the future United Economic Zone should become a center
of attraction for neighboring countries. “We have everything we need
for it,” said president of Ukraine. “Political stability alone is
needed.”
“A common financial system will be installed and operational 10 to 12
years from now,” Nazarbayev of Kazakhstan promised.
President Lukashenko of Belarus hopes that the common financial
system will be working even earlier than that, “God (or Allah)
willing.”
Still, Putin painted a particularly rosy picture. “Surpassing the
level of the average citizen of Europe in the sufficiently
foreseeable future is quite within grasp,” Putin said.
The negotiating parties agreed on some new integration initiatives.
Putin, Kuchma, Nazarbayev, and Lukashenko intend to ease border
crossing procedures for citizens of the countries comprising the
United Economic Zone and instructed their governments to draft
appropriate documents. There is no saying at this point how the
future accord will concur with the recent decree of the president of
Russia on the war on terrorism. The decree demands tighter procedures
of border crossing for citizens of CIS countries.
Nazarbayev’s idea of a space corporation was approved in Astana.
Governments of the four countries comprising the United Economic Zone
have before December 15 to formulate their proposals. Construction of
the Clipper, a manned shuttle, is to become the ultimate objective of
the corporation. With a crew of six, the Clipper is expected to
replace the Soyuz rocket family. Its design by the Energy Corporation
will be Russia’s contribution. Kuchma says that the Design Bureau
Yuzhnoye and Yuzhmash factory will probably represent Ukraine in the
future corporation. Kazakhstan will provide the Baikonur, and Belarus
its “unique capacities in the sphere of optics.”
“This is going to be the first project leading to new ones in the
sphere of high-tech industry,” Nazarbayev said. Kuchma was more to
the point. “What we need is unification of specific capacities” to
enable the United Economic Zone to compete with the West in the
high-tech sphere, he said. Lukashenko was worried by the problem of
commercial competition too. “There are very many states in the World
Trade Organization whose goods are better than our counterparts in
quality and price,” he announced.
Actually, some lingering discord among participants in the future
United Economic Zone was undeniable. With a glance in Kuchma’s
direction, Lukashenko mentioned “a lack of political will” and added,
“If some country, say, Ukraine or Russia, joined the World Trade
Organization before the rest do, we can forget about the United
Economic Zone.”
Later that evening, Putin met with presidents of Azerbaijan and
Armenia Ilham Aliyev and Robert Kocharjan. Before that, Aliyev and
Kocharjan had a private conversation. Some experts tentatively assume
that the talks in Astana may provide a turning point in
Nagorno-Karabakh settlement. A lot of hopes are also placed on
Putin’s talks with President Mikhail Saakashvili of Georgia.
Translated by A. Ignatkin

The Guardian (London)
September 16, 2004
Anything goes: Wooden legs, slobs in love, Armenian menus… Alan
Plater on what makes a great jazz song
Mr Topsy-Turvy . . . Slim Gaillard, who played piano with his hands
upside-down
In 1923, at the Palais de Danse in Ladywood, Birmingham, 17-year-old
Lily Goodman from Cannon Hill broke the British record for marathon
dancing. She danced for 24 hours and five minutes, covered 68 miles,
used up two partners – Mr Harold Quiney and Mr R Webster-Grinling –
and 482 tunes. This was the inspiration for Lily’s Dancing Feat, a
swinging instrumental by reeds player Alan Barnes, which he performed
in the year 2000 as part of a Birmingham jazz festival programme. (I
introduced it: my job was to tell the stories behind the music and
divert the audience’s attention from the bar.) Another of Alan’s
pieces celebrated Peg-Leg Bates, a tap-dancer with a wooden leg, who
toured the UK in the 1950s with the Louis Armstrong All-Stars.
After hours, Alan and I discovered a mutual interest in writing songs
about unsung heroes like Lily and Peg-Leg, and places and
institutions largely neglected by the music industry. It was, as Eric
Morecambe might have said, like the moment when Gilbert met
O’Sullivan. Since then, we have celebrated fast food joints on the
A66, being in love with a slob, and the psychological complexities of
a vegan chicken.
A key element of our approach to songwriting is laughter, a quality
that doesn’t always sit comfortably in jazz clubs and concerts. The
larger-than-life exuberance of Fats Waller, Louis Armstrong and Dizzy
Gillespie, while adding enormously to the gaiety of nations, was
frequently victim of tut-tutting from some of our music’s most solemn
devotees. For years, the music of the US pianist/composer/ bandleader
Carla Bley was under-valued because of her triple error of being
political, a woman and funny.
This is odd, since jazz musicians themselves are legendary for their
relish of the comic and the absurd. The tenor player Zoot Sims, for
instance, following a US State Department tour of the Soviet Union
with the Benny Goodman band, was asked about the experience. He said:
“When you’re working for Benny, everywhere is the Soviet Union.” The
same Zoot Sims, watching the first moon landings in the back room at
Ronnie Scott’s in 1969, commented: “Imagine – we’ve got men on the
moon and I’m still playing Cherokee.”
Despite this attitude, many of the most original, inventive and witty
of performers tend to be marginalised and redirected to the cabaret
room: singer/pianists like Mose Allison, Bob Dorough, Blossom Dearie,
Dave Frishberg and our very own George Melly. The central stance is
one that Allison has defined, naturally enough, in song: “I’m another
little middle-class white boy who’s out to have some fun.” Allison
would be the first to acknowledge everyone’s debt to the great black
rhythm and blues singers like Louis Jordan and Wynonie Harris, and
the blissful surrealist Slim Gaillard, whose considerable oeuvre
includes Yep Roc Heresy, with lyrics taken from the menu of an
Armenian restaurant in New York.
In a long, colourful career, Slim invented a semi-private language
called Vout, was the centrepiece of a chapter in Jack Kerouac’s On
the Road, played Clair de Lune on the piano with his hands
upside-down and, with Down at the Station, could claim to be the only
jazz musician to contribute a genuine nursery rhyme to the children
of the world.
His early life – or legend, the two things being difficult to
disentangle – included time spent as a professional boxer, a
mortician and a truck-driver for bootleggers before going into
vaudeville as a tapdancing guitarist and singer. He became a handsome
young man about Hollywood (“They used to call me Dark Gable”), who in
his later years was a genial and benign presence at the Chelsea Arts
Club. Slim’s verbal gymastics concealed a serious and poetic
understanding of the music. Of the tenor player Lester Young, he once
said: “He played real quiet – like a rat walking on silk.”
Among the middle-class white kids, Dave Frishberg, an outstanding
jazz pianist by any standards, has contributed many of the definitive
songs to the canon, from I’m Hip, co-written with Dorough, a guide to
being cool in a square world, to My Attorney Bernie, a sardonic hymn
to the American legal profession:
“Bernie tells me what to do
Bernie lays it on the line
Bernie says we sue, we sue
Bernie says we sign, we sign
On the dotted line.”
Frishberg’s announcements reflect the same sweet-and-sour attitude.
“I have reached that time of life when everything gets worse,” he’ll
say, before drifting into a song bemoaning such footnotes to life as
unwanted changes to the rules of baseball. With the seriousness of a
true clown, he also wrote Dear Bix, an exquisite tribute to the great
Beiderbecke.
This isn’t, and never will be, mainstream music, but it is a lovely
tributary where writers, musicians and audiences can splash about,
irritate the grown-ups and have a lot of fun. That’s pretty much what
Alan Barnes and I have been doing this past couple of years, enabling
Liz Fletcher to sing our hymns to the unnoticed, the unwanted even
the unwashed – not to mention a tenor saxophonist who’s still playing
Cherokee.
(C) Alan Plater. His Songs for Unsung Heroes is out now on Woodville
Records. It will be presented as part of the Scarborough jazz
festival on Saturday. Box office: 01723 376774.

EU READY TO WORK WITH RUSSIA IN CAUCASUS
ANSA English Media Service
September 16, 2004
BRUSSELS
(ANSA) – BRUSSELS, September 16 – The European Union recognises the
important role of Russia in the Caucasus and the EU must be ready and
is ready to work with Moscow in finding a solution to the problems
in the area, the president of the European Commission, Romano Prodi
told Italian news agency ANSA on Thursday.
Prodi said that the terrible events in Beslan at the beginning of
the September showed that terrorism feeds on instability.
Prodi will leave on a mission to South Caucasus, where he will meet
major political leaders from the civil and religious society of
Azerbaijan, Georgia and Armenia.
Prodi’s trip, which ends on Sunday, has the objective of developing the
neighbouring policy that the EU intends to have with the countries at
the borders of the EU and in this case it would push itself further
because the area is a scene of grave turmoil. The recent history
of Azerbaijan, Armenia and Georgia is hovering between democratic
development and authoritarianism.
According to Prodi the EU can help these countries develop economically
and politically, by starting a dialogue with them, which it hopes
would be easier than what Russia and the USA can do, because they
have a more aggressive policy and stronger interests.
The president of the EC reminded that these countries have energy
products and that they are economically important because they are
situated in a strategic area. (ANSA). (MD/krc)

Azeri, Armenian leaders vow to keep up talks on envlave stand-off
Agence France Presse — English
September 16, 2004 Thursday 7:31 AM GMT
ASTANA Sept 16 — The presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan on Thursday
promised to keep up dialogue on the bitter stand-off between their
countries over the enclave of Nagorno-Karabach.
Presidents Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan and Robert Kocharian of Armenia
held more than three hours of late-night talks in the Kazakh capital
mediated by Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, but gave few clues as
to what had passed between them.
“We need time — the president of Azerbaijan knows our position
more concretely — the process is continuing in a constructive way,”
Kocharian said at a joint news conference with Aliyev.
“Further development can resolve this question — we discussed various
questions on the path to a resolution,” Aliyev said.
Aliyev had earlier stressed the importance of Thursday’s talks over
the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, which saw the two neighbours fight a
war in the early 1990s and which remains unresolved.
Aliyev has faced calls in his home country to take a bolder stand
on the Nagorno-Karabakh enclave and the thousands of Azeris who have
fled the disputed area.
International mediators had been urging face-to-face meetings between
the two sides, which had faltered during the transition of power in
Azerbaijan from Aliyev’s father Heidar.
In the early 1990s ethnic Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh, a mountainous
territory wedged between Armenia and Azerbaijan, declared their
independence from Azeri rule.
A war followed in which the separatists, with help from Armenia, forced
out Azeri troops and took de facto control of the enclave. The war left
about 30,000 people dead and forced over a million to flee their homes.
Though a ceasefire was signed in 1994, the war has never been
declared over and Azerbaijan has repeatedly threatened to use force
to re-establish its control over Nagorno-Karabakh.

EU Commission chief Prodi heads to strategic Caucasus region
Agence France Presse — English
September 16, 2004 Thursday
BAKU Sept 16 — European Commission President Romano Prodi was due
to arrive in Azerbaijan Thursday at the start of a three-day visit
to the south Caucasus, a strategic region where Moscow and Washington
compete for influence.
Prodi is scheduled to have talks with officials in oil-rich Azerbaijan
before flying on to neighbouring Georgia, scene of last year’s dramatic
“rose revolution.” He will round off his tour with a visit to Armenia.
The European Union’s top official said the aim of his visit was to
promote democracy, strengthen links with the EU and help resolve
lingering conflicts in the region, which was previously part of the
Soviet Union.
“This first-ever visit by a European Commission president highlights
the EU’s interest in the region,” Prodi said ahead of the trip.
“My visit is intended to send the important message that the EU is
fully committed to supporting the Southern Caucasus countries as they
work to build stable societies based on democratic values.”
Western governemnts have a strong interest in the region, which is
set to become a crossroads for transporting oil and gas supplies
from the Caspian Sea, home to some of the world’s biggest untapped
hydrocarbon reserves.
However, Russia, the former imperial power in the region, is also a
key player.
There are three unresolved armed conflicts in the region — between
Georgia and separatists in South Ossetia and Abkazia and between
Armenia and Azerbaijan over the enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh.
Some in the region accuse Moscow of fanning the conflicts to preserve
its influence in the south Caucasus.
In June, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia were admitted to the EU’s
European Neighbourhood Policy, a scheme designed to build bridges
between the EU and the countries on its periphery.
Prodi’s term as European Commission President ends on November
1. He will be succeeded by Portuguese Prime Minister Jose Manuel
Durao Barroso.

Russias Putin rules out talks with Chechen separatists
Agence France Presse — English
September 16, 2004 Thursday
ASTANA Sept 16 — Russias President Vladimir Putin on Thursday rejected
the idea of negotiations with Chechen separatists blamed for the
Beslan school siege at a regional summit focused on anti-terrorism.
Putin said that holding talks with rebel leaders from Russia’s
breakaway republic of Chechnya would be akin to negotiating with
Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.
“Bin Laden has twice offered Europe negotiations and no one thinks
of negotiating with him. “These are people you cannot talk to,”
Putin said.
“Naturally the atrocities we encountered in Beslan gave us the complete
moral right to insist that these people who are fighting against
Russia are part of the terrorist internationale,” he told journalists.
Putin has repeatedly linked recent attacks in Russia that culminated in
the deaths of more than 330 people at a school in the town of Beslan,
near Chechnya, to international Islamic terrorism.
His critics have focused more on local causes including corruption and
the failure to seek a political solution to the more than five-year
guerrilla war in Chechnya.
The Russian leader was speaking at a meeting of heads of the
12-member Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) bloc of former
Soviet republics, in fact attended by only 10 of the countries leaders.
But despite much talk of fighting terrorism, a news conference by
the 10 exposed an array of tensions, including between Putin and the
pro-Western Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili.
Saakashvili lashed out at Putin for Moscow’s ties with two breakaway
Georgian republics, South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
“Russia can and should and should play a positive role in resolving
all post-Soviet conflicts including (in Georgia). All contacts should
be at a state level,” he said.
Georgia, which accuses Russia of encouraging separatism in its former
satellite state as a means of weakening Tbilisi, says this contradicts
Moscow’s tough stance against Chechen pro-independence rebels.
“These questions cannot be solved by double-standards,” he said.
Georgias anger at Moscows ties with Georgias break-away regions mounted
last month after Putin held talks with the self-declared prime minister
of Abkhazia ahead of controversial elections in the breakaway republic.
The spat worsened after Russia restored railway traffic between Moscow
and Abkhazia after a 12-year pause.
Putin, however, rounded on Georgia for its attempts to rein in the
renegade regions since Saakashvili came to power early this year
vowing to reunite his fractured country.
“An economic blockade, not to mention military pressure, do not result
in resolving problems,” he said.
The meeting in a vast, gilded palace newly built by Kazakh President
Nursultan Nazarbayev in Kazakhstans capital Astana ended with the
transfer to Russia of the leadership of the CIS after an 18-month
period in which Ukraine administered the group.
The strained post-meeting news conference also featured a series
of thinly veiled criticisms by Uzbekistans hardline President Islam
Karimov at Central Asian neighbours he blamed for being soft on groups
responsible for recent terror attacks in Uzbekistan that have left
dozens dead.
However Armenia and Azerbaijans presidents Robert Kocharian and Ilham
Aliyev, whose countries have been in a bitter stand-off since fighting
a war in the 1990s, took the opportunity to hold lengthy talks and
promised to keep up their dialogue.
Turkmenistan’s reclusive President Saparmurat Niyazov declined to
attend due to a prior medical appointment.
Moldovan leader Vladimir Voronin also stayed away, criticising the
body as ineffective.

ARKA News Agency
Sept 16 2004
The Head of Ra Parliament and Newly Appointed SAR Ambassador to
Armenia discuss perspectives of economic cooperation
RA Deputy Foreign Minister meets with representatives of Latvian
Defense Ministry
First meeting of Armenians of Europe to take place on Oct 18-19 in
Brussels
Political boycott cannot be considered a not valid reason by the
political structures
Armenia and Finland plan to activate cooperation in military and
economic spheres
The acknowledgement of Conversebank as the best bank in armenia by
The Banker is a serious event for the bank
*********************************************************************
THE HEAD OF RA PARLIAMENT AND NEWLY APPOINTED SAR AMBASSADOR TO
ARMENIA DISCUSS PERSPECTIVES OF ECONOMIC COOPERATION
YEREVAN, September 16. /ARKA/. The Head of RA Parliament Arthur
Baghdasarian and Newly Appointed SAR Ambassador to Armenia Ashraf
Sentso discussed perspectives of economic cooperation, RA NA told
ARKA. Special accent was made on cooperation in jewellery and tourism
spheres. Besides, the parties discussed establishment and
strengthening of bilateral political and trade relations. They
emphasized the conclusion of base agreement on friendship and
cooperation that will contribute to multilateral cooperation between
Armenia and SAR.
The Ambassador invited Baghdasarian to visit SAR. L.D. –0–
*********************************************************************
RA DEPUTY FOREIGN MINISTER MEETS WITH REPRESENTATIVES OF LATVIAN
DEFENSE MINISTRY
YEREVAN, September, 16. /ARKA/. The RA Deputy Foreign Minister Tatul
Margaryan met today with Edgar Rinkevitchs, Secretary of State of the
Ministry of Defense of Latvia and Angey Wiloumsons, Director of
Defense Policy and Planning Department of Latvian Defense Ministry.
According to the Press Service and Public Relations Department of the
RA Ministry of Foreign Affairs, during the meeting, Margaryan
presented the approaches of Armenia to regional policy, Nagorno
Karabakh conflict settlement and measures undertaken by the republic
on ensuring regional security and strengthening of mutual confidence
between its neighbors. Besides, he also acquaint the guests with
Armenia-NATO relations current stage and further cooperation
perspective
In his turn, Rinkevichs noted the opportunity of cooperation
expansion between the defense authorities of the two countries in a
number of areas. L.V..–0–
*********************************************************************
FIRST MEETING OF ARMENIANS OF EUROPE TO TAKE PLACE ON OCT 18-19 IN
BRUSSELS
YEREVAN, September 16. /ARKA/. First meeting of Armenians of Europe
will take place on Oct 18-19 in Brussels, Federation Euro-Armenienne
told ARKA. For this goal, RA Foreign Minister Vardan Oskanian will
arrive in Brussels. The meeting will create an opportunity of
dialogue between different Armenian communities, organizations and
institutes of Europe that will lead to create of joint position on
such an important issues as for example culture and language of
Armenians of Europe, the issue of Turkey joining Europe. European
experts, Europarliament deputies and representatives of
Eurocommission will also take part in the work of the meeting.
Today, more than two million Armenians live in EU countries. L.D.
–0–
*********************************************************************
POLITICAL BOYCOTT CANNOT BE CONSIDERED A NOT VALID REASON BY THE
POLITICAL STRUCTURES
YEREVAN, September, 16. /ARKA/. Political boycott cannot be
considered a not valid reason by the political structures, as stated
Gourgen Arsenyan, the leader of Unified labor Party at today’s press
conference. He added that political boycott is a common event and
occupies its special and important place in political field.
It should be reminded that on September 10, 2004, the Parliamentary
Commission on State-legal Issues of the RA NA decided to include the
issue of unacceptable absence of 26 deputies in the agenda of the RA
Parliament autumn session. The opposition deputies have been
boycotting the session of the Parliament since February 2, 2004.
L.V.–0–
*********************************************************************
ARMENIA AND FINLAND PLAN TO ACTIVATE COOPERATION IN MILITARY AND
ECONOMIC SPHERES
YEREVAN, September 16. /ARKA/. Armenia and Finland plan to activate
cooperation in military and economic spheres. It was stated during
the meeting of the Secretary of National Security Council at RA
President, RA Minister of Defense Serge Sargsian with newly appointed
Ambassador of Finland to Armenia Terji Hakkala. The parties discussed
perspectives of cooperation in the frames of NATO “Partnership for
Peace” program and peacemaking activity. Sargsian expressed
confidence that experience of Finnish military men will be useful to
Armenia. The Ambassador noted that first steps for the beginning of
military cooperation are already being made. It was noted that
Finnish specialists participated in the inspection of RA Armed Forces
with OSCE. The parties also stressed that Armenian and Finnish
peacemakers are successfully cooperating in Balcanas. L.D. –0–
*********************************************************************
THE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT OF CONVERSEBANK AS THE BEST BANK IN ARMENIA BY
THE BANKER IS A SERIOUS EVENT FOR THE BANK
YEREVAN, September 16. /ARKA/. The acknowledgement of Conversebank as
the best bank in Armenia by The Banker is a serious event for the
bank, according to the Director in Chief of the bank Smbat Nasibyan.
According to him, “it is a high appraisal of the activities of the
bank made on the base of the analysis of the speed of the development
of the bank and the implementation of technological innovations by
it”.
On September 9, 2004, The Banker, included into a group of Financial
Times, acknowledged Conversebank as the best bank in Armenia in 2004.
The bank was awarded a diploma and a prize “BRACKEN”, which was the
statuette of Drenden Bracken, the founder of the journal. British
HSBC was recognized as the best bank of 2004 in the world. Among the
Russian nominees the winner became the largest bank of the country –
Savingsbank.
All prize-winners are elected by The Banker on the basis of the
answers of the banks to the questions relating to the growth of their
capital, assets and profitability. In addition to that, they should
demonstrate the way the implementation of technologies assists them
in advancement in the market, as well as the structure and the
strategy they use to prepare for the further developments in the
market.
To remind, in 2003, HSBC Bank Armenia was acknowledged the best bank
in Armenia by The Banker. A.H. –0–
*********************************************************************
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress