ARMENIAN PARLIAMENT SPEAKER REAFFIRMS YEREVAN WISH TO JOIN EU
ITAR-TASS, Russia
June 14 2006
YEREVAN, June 13 (Itar-Tass) — Armenian Parliament Speaker Tigran
Torosian reaffirmed the wish of Yerevan to become a European Union
member on Tuesday.
“The accession to the European Union is a foreign political priority
of Armenia,” he said at a meeting with a delegation of the NATO
Parliamentary Assembly. “As for NATO, Armenia has not declared its
wish to become a member of the alliance. Some EU member countries
are not affiliated to NATO, and this is absolutely normal,” he said.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

AT THE NA SITTING
National Assembly of RA, Armenia
June 14 2006
On June 12 the MPs approved by voting the agenda of June 12-14 sittings
and the NA decision on making amendments to the sittings’ agenda.
The drafts presented by the “Ardarutiun” faction on the establishment
of the NA Ad-hoc Committee on Studying the Violations during the
Referendum on November 27, 2005 on the RA Constitutional Amendments and
on Establsihment of the NA Ad-hoc Committee on Studying the Violations
during the RA State Elections in 2003 were rejected by voting.
Due to a lack of quorum, the session drafts and sitting agenda drafts
included in the first part were not adopted.
The MPs continued the debates on Report of the RA Civil Service
Council Activity, interrupted at previous sitting.
Rafik Petrosyan, Chairman of the NA Standing Committee on State-Legal
Affairs, highly evaluating the work of the Council, noted that though
the Council’s fundamental rights are fixed in the Fundamental Law
related to Civil Service, the Council didn’t enforce it and didn’t
present the analytical report.
The RA President’s proposals submitted by the RA President Assistant
Gevorg Mheryan on Making Amendments and Addendum to the RA Criminal
Executive Code and on Making Amendment to the RA Criminal Procedure
Code were also debated.
Rafik Petrosyan, Chairman of the NA Standing Committee on State-Legal
Affairs informed that the misunderstanding took place: instead of
the option, debated and voted in the Parliament, on the fault of the
Government representative the previous option of the draft was sent
to the President. According to the evaluation of Gurgen Arsenyan,
Head of ULP faction, it is not misunderstanding, but the falsification
took place. Mr. Arsenyan blamed their faction as well, as political
power assumed over a political responsibility.
The NA President T. Torosyan informed that the assignment had already
been given to the staff: to create mechanisms to avoid similar
situations, which afterwards must be fixed in the regulation.
The MPs debated Agreement on International Automobile Communication
signed between the Government of the Republic of Armenia and the
Government of the Republic of Georgia.
All speakers highlighted the presented Agreement not only in the
sphere of strengthening of good-neighborliness with Georgia, but from
the economic and political point.
Tigran Sargsyan, Chairman of the Central Bank, presented the RA
Central Bank 2005 Annual report.
The debate of this issue will resume on June 13 sitting.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

WHAT TURKS ARE WATCHING
By Richard Morgan
Slate
Jun e 14 2006
A new wave of anti-American pop culture.
Allies aren’t supposed to behave like this. In Turkey-a stable
secular Muslim democracy that’s practically European-the country’s
biggest-budget-ever movie, Valley of the Wolves: Iraq, is preparing to
hit shelves on DVD and is scheduled for a U.S. theatrical release this
summer. Based on a television series that has been a record-breaking
hit for four seasons, it’s a military thriller about an elite
Turkish intelligence officer who near-single-handedly smites a group
of reckless U.S. soldiers who make Abu Ghraib look like a Sunday
picnic. The film, which received some press coverage in the States,
is only part of a wave of anti-American pop culture that’s sweeping
the country.
Valley of the Wolves: Iraq starts off factually enough, with a
depiction of a July 4, 2003, incident in which around 100 soldiers
from the U.S. Army’s 173rd Airborne Brigade stormed the barracks
of a Turkish special forces office in Iraq, arresting 11 Turks who
allegedly were planning to assassinate the Kurdish governor of the
oil-rich city of Kirkuk. The Americans not only handcuffed the Turks
but also forced hoods over their heads and held them in custody for
more than two days. The U.S. government later apologized, explaining
that its soldiers couldn’t tell the difference between Turks and Iraqi
insurgents because the Turks were not in uniform. Turkey didn’t buy
it, and this blockbuster is the payback.
As the flick takes a sharp turn toward fiction, one of the 11 Turks
in the 2003 debacle commits suicide to regain his warrior honor. His
suicide note is sent to Polat Alemdar, the Turkish intelligence
officer who stars in the Valley of the Wolves television show.
Alemdar heads to Iraq to find U.S. Special Forces Cmdr. Sam William
Marshall (played by Billy Zane), who, in his role as a self-described
“peacekeeper of God,” is busy leading a massacre of machine-gun fire
on unsuspecting civilians at an Iraqi wedding. Survivors are sent to a
facility where a Jewish-American doctor (played by Gary Busey) pulls
out human hearts with Mengelian apathy and sells them to aristocrats
in London, New York, and Tel Aviv. When one of the American soldiers
expresses concern that a truckful of Iraqi civilians are packed in too
tight to breathe, a fellow soldier stops the car and bullet-soaks the
trailer and its human cargo. “I was making sure they could breathe,”
he quips, pointing to the holes in the truck.
The snide James Bond tone isn’t totally out of place. This is, after
all, a movie, where the American soldiers-in their black tank tops
and cutoff khakis-look more like characters from video games like
Street Fighter. And the dialogue is cartoonish, Western capitalist
chest-thumping. In one scene, Alemdar asks Marshall: “Isn’t the boss
of American soldiers the American capitalism?” Marshall counters: “The
United States has been paying for your nation for the past 50 years. We
send you the elastic for your panties. Why can’t you produce anything?”
Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, recently called
the film “pure fiction.” But when Turkey’s speaker of parliament,
Bulent Arinc, attended a premiere of the movie in Ankara, he said it
was “a great film that will go down in history.” When asked whether
the movie meshed well with reality, Arinc told Anatolia, the state
news agency: “Yes, exactly.”
Naysayers and diplomats can say that Valley of the Wolves: Iraq is
just one film, but it’s also part of a larger pop-culture trend that
has taken root ever since the United States invaded Iraq in 2003,
a hugely unpopular war in Turkey, which borders Iraq. All last year
Turkish bookstores were hard-pressed to keep the best-selling novel
Metal Storm on shelves. The novel, written like one of Tom Clancy’s
international potboilers, depicts a U.S. invasion of Turkey in March
2007. Condoleezza Rice and Donald Rumsfeld are characters, although
the U.S. president is a nameless, nap-loving warmonger who defers
most of his decision-making to fellow members of Skull and Bones. In
the book, whose title is America’s name for its invasion, the U.S.
military swiftly bombs then overtakes Ankara and Istanbul (the U.S.
president, who is also deeply evangelical, aims to restore Istanbul
to its Christian Byzantine glory). It’s like a nightmare version of
Operation Iraqi Freedom.
The Americans’ motive is Uncle Sam’s lust for the country’s rich
borax supply (Turkey is home to 60 percent of the world’s borax, a
mineral used in weapons, radiation shields, and space technology). In
the second phase of its invasion, Operation Sèvres (named after the
World War I treaty in which the West gutted the Ottoman Empire),
the United States creates a Kurdish state and lets longtime Turkish
enemies Greece and Armenia ravage what’s left of the country. A
lone Turkish secret agent counters by stealing a nuclear weapon and
vaporizing Washington. First published in December 2004, the book
has surpassed 150,000 copies sold-unheard of in Turkey. “This novel
is not just another conspiracy theory; it’s a possibility theory,”
Orkun Ucar, one of the book’s authors, told Al Jazeera.
This wave of anti-American Turkish pop culture is so widespread
that it has been the sole topic of its own Senate foreign relations
committee hearing; Turkey is, after all, a key NATO ally. But if the
senators aren’t interested in reading Metal Storm, watching Valley
of the Wolves: Iraq, or listening to the Turkish rock group Duman
(sample lyrics: “What kind of excuse is this? You’re after oil again”)
here’s a simpler explanation of what’s going on in Turkey: It’s not
all that dissimilar to what’s going on in the United States.
Anti-Turkish pop-culture references turn up in, for example, episodes
of 24, which started last season with a Turkish national kidnapping
the secretary of defense; or The West Wing, in which an international
incident centered upon Turkey’s beheading of a woman accused of having
sex with her fiance. (Turkey, one group pointed out, doesn’t have a
death penalty anymore and hasn’t executed anyone since 1984.)
Or maybe the memories go back further than that. During a recent
vacation to Istanbul, I did hear one complaint more than a few times,
a long-lingering wound to their national pride: the hugely popular 1978
American film Midnight Express, which was nominated for six Oscars and
won one for its writing. In it, Billy Hayes, an American tourist jailed
for smuggling hashish, tells a Turkish court, “For a nation of pigs,
it sure seems funny that you don’t eat them! Jesus Christ forgave the
bastards, but I can’t! I hate! I hate you! I hate your nation! And I
hate your people! And I fuck your sons and daughters because they’re
pigs! You’re all pigs!” So perhaps one good movie deserves another.
Not that all this is about visceral bitterness; culture-especially
pop-is by nature a knot of influences with everything becoming a
fad sooner or later. “For years, we, the people of this area, Turks,
Arabs, Iranians, Russians, or people further away, such as Vietnamese
and Chinese, were always characterized as bad in Hollywood movies,”
Bahadir Ozdener, one of the writers for Valley of the Wolves: Iraq,
told me. “We are accustomed to this, we do not show any social
reactions to this, and we just watch them as movies and place them
in our movie archives. We think that democratic societies should get
accustomed to being shown as bad people because of what they have
done.” Widespread Turkish antagonism toward America may just be a
bit of nationalist whimsy, the way Americans occasionally haze their
French allies. It’s not like we actually despise the French … oui?
Richard Morgan is a freelance writer in New York and a contributing
editor at Topic magazine.
–Boundary_(ID_wEfJvbPXAFWgh3HMqL5xnA)- –

PACE COMMITTEE CONDEMNED ARMENIAN WAR AGAINST AZERBAIJAN
Democratic Azerbaijan
Ïðaâî Âûaîða, Azerbaijan
June 13 2006
On June 9 the regular session of the Committee for Environment,
Agriculture and Regional Affairs of the Parliamentary Assembly of
the Council of Europe was held in Paris. Rafael Huseynov, member of
Azerbaijani delegation to PACE, MP attended the session.
The session was focused on a number of urgent problems and discussed
the report entitled Prevention of Forest Fires in Europe. The report
was prepared by Inaki Tueka, a MP from Spain.
Concerning the report R. Huseynov told: Forests are called ‘lungs’
of nature. Their preservation is the preservation of our today and
our future, and also a work on behalf of our health. Already for 15
years Armenia is keeping 20% Azerbaijani lands under occupation. In
spite of that Armenia has occupied the lands 15 years ago, throughout
this period Armenia is waging regular ecology war against Azerbaijan.
The forests, flora and fauna in occupied territories of Azerbaijan are
being exterminated, and nuclear wastes are being buried in non-control
lands. All that is extremely dangerous phenomenon.
But one more act of vandalism committed by Armenia in occupied
territories several days ago is directly linked with the problem,
which is discussing at the session and challenge serious concern.
Armenians arrange large-scale fires in some villages of the occupied
Aghdam situated beyond the bounds of Nagorno-Garabagh. These fires
lead to annihilation not only of forests and plants but productive
topsoil, and also extermination of flora and fauna in these lands
not only today but further.
On the other hand, the explosion of mines laid by Armenian armed
forces in the territories wherein fires occur, terrified the people
living in neighbor villages.
Council of Europe should not be indifferent to this point. Fires,
including forest fires – are always tragedy and it is always
dangerous. Usually, these months CE is discussing fires occurring in
European forests, as a result of disasters. But it is very terrible
when the people themselves make fires. Armenia made particularly
such fires in occupied territories of Azerbaijan. As these lands are
out of control of Azerbaijan as well as international organizations,
nobody address that. Council of Europe should immediately address this
point and undertake measures for prevention of this fact of vandalism
committed by Armenia, damaging serious damnification to Azerbaijan’s
nature and environment of the adjacent frontier region.
Summarizing discussion results, Walter Schmidt, Committee Chairman,
a MP from Sweden, told that he felt concern with Azerbaijan and
expressed an absolute concern and underlined as necessity to discuss
this point in upcoming PACE session.
–Boundary_(ID_k7l1u+JFYLBmnYbVz5+zRg)–

MPS: MICHUKI IS TO BLAME
Story By Odhiambo Orlale And Owino Opondo
Daily Nation, Kenya
June 14 2006
MPs turned the heat yesterday on security minister John Michuki,
calling for his sacking over the Artur brothers saga.
Speaking in Parliament, the MPs accused Mr Michuki of embarrassing
the President and the country over the Armenians’ saga.
Mr Michuki
Also in focus was Immigration minister Gideon Konchellah who the MPs
said should step aside.
Mr Kirugi M’mukindia the MP for Central Imenti, who is a former
Cabinet minister, said he was ashamed to be a Kenyan. “I stand in
this House ashamed. I never knew I would see a day when Michuki would
crawl before foreigners.”
The Narc MP said it was a shame that the Government which had tackled
the menace of Mungiki, matatu and cattle rustlers decisively, was
unable tame the controversial Armenians.
“I join my colleagues in saying the whole House has been let down by
gun-running, money-laundering foreigners as the Government watches
helplessly.”
He challenged the Government to tell Kenyans why it was unable to tame
the deported Armenians who he said were threatening national security,
yet it had been disarming armed cattle rustlers, dealing with Mungiki
and matatu operators. Mr M’mukindia accused the Government of hiding
something about the Armenians.
“The time has come for the House to be told the truth. The time
has also come to say enough is enough,” he said. Mr M’mukindia also
asked why the Criminal Investigations Department boss and other civil
servants were suspended while the real godfathers were left alone.
On his part, Mr Charles Kilonzo of Yatta, claimed that the force was
as divided as the Cabinet over the Armenians saga.
The Narc MP accused Mr Michuki of protecting the Armenians for sinister
reasons, and said he should step aside or be sacked.
Asked the Yatta MP: “The President has a lot of work to do at State
House, and he should start sacking tainted ministers one after another
every day to show them who is in charge.”
Mr Kilonzo asked what was so special about the daughter of Narc
activist, Ms Winnie Wangui, and what her role was in the saga.
“What is so special about Wangui, who is just a mere junior civil
servant? Why did they get police escort even to dance at Carnivore
using GK vehicles,” the Narc MP said.
The Yatta MP said that three Cabinet ministers, Mr Michuki, Mr
Konchellah and Mr Kivutha Kibwana (the Environment), had supported
the two foreigners to the hilt early this year when Langata MP,
Mr Raila Odinga, accused them of being mercenaries.
Mr Kilonzo demanded to be told if it was true that guns used by the
presidential escort were found in possession of the Armenians.
Leader of the Official Opposition Uhuru Kenyatta sought government
assurance on the country’s security.
Mr Kenyatta said Kenyans wanted to be assured by the Government that
national security had not collapsed.
“Kenyans are as perplexed as MPs. Who were those foreigners who
entered a high security area and threatened public servants with
guns?” he asked.
Mr Kenyatta said that an ordinary Kenyan could have been killed for
breaching security and peace at the country’s main airport.
Then he put a number of questions to the Government. He wanted to
be told the connection between the raid on the Standard newspaper
offices in March and the goods recovered from the Runda residence of
the two Armenian brothers, Artur Margarian and Artur Sargsyan.
“Police got jackets and hoods with QRU (Quick Response Unit) emblems,
similar to those we saw on TV during the Standard raid. Can the
Government explain the link,” he asked.
Buoyed by calls of “Shame! Shame” by MPs from both sides of the House,
Mr Kenyatta added: “How did the two Armenians, two private foreigners,
get weapons that belong to the security agency”?
He said that the Arturs debacle had cast questions on the validity of
Kenyan travelling documents, and asked to be told how the Armenians
acquired vehicle registration numbers.
Mr Kenyatta, who is also the Kanu chairman also wanted to know who
accredited the Armenians as deputy police commissioners. What happened
at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport, he warned, could persuade
foreign tourists to avoid the route and the country at large, leading
to hefty losses in foreign currency.

IN TURKEY LANDS ARE PURCHASED BY FOREIGNERS, RAHSAN ECEVIT
Anatolian Times, Turkey
June 14 2006
ANKARA – “Lands are purchased by foreigners rapidly following
permission by (Turkish) authorities,” Rahsan Ecevit, wife of former
PM Bulent Ecevit affirmed on Tuesday.
Speaking to reporters at a press conference, Rahsan Ecevit said 272,5
million square meters of land and property were purchased by 52,818
foreigners before April 15th, 2005.
“Apart from those, Turkish citizens and companies purchased lands and
areas rich in mineral ore on behalf of foreigners,” Ecevit defended,
adding that, “Greek and Armenian lobbies are behind the purchase of
territories in Turkey”.
Rahsan Ecevit said Turkish farmers could not produce and forced to sell
their lands because of decisions made for the sake of EU membership.”
Ecevit said Jews living in the United States purchased (in the past)
lands in Palestine for years and said “this is Israel (of today)”.
“Israel is getting prepared to play the same trick in GAP region
(southeastern Turkey) today. It has been stated that Israelis did not
purchase any land in the GAP region, but the web page of the Title &
Deeds DG and Government Office, where cadastral records are kept,
were blackened out” Ms. Ecevit reaffirmed.
“Israelis purchased most of this land through Turkish citizens of
Jewish origin ,” Rahsan Ecevit said, indicating “sale of lands also
covers regions with strategic importance. For instance Israelis
purchased 4,000 ha. of land near Konya Military Airport.”

WAGING PEACE: ECUMENICAL ADVOCACY DAYS
Matt Horton
Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, DC
June 13 2006
Elenora Giddings Ivory, director of the Washington, DC office of the
Presbyterian Church USA (Staff Photo M. Horton).
THOUSANDS OF FAITH-based activists from around the country gathered in
Crystal City, Virginia from March 10 to 13 to discuss and lobby for
social justice. The Saturday conference program featured in-depth
discussion in area- and issue-specific tracks, including Africa,
Asia Pacific, Eco-Justice, Global Security and the Nuclear Weapons
Danger, Jubilee/Economic Justice, Latin America, USA/Domestic and
the Middle East.
The Middle East track, coordinated by Churches for Middle East Peace
(CMEP), featured 10 panel discussions, including “Israeli Political
Culture and Dynamics”; “Jerusalem-Core of the Conflict and Key to
Peace”; “Palestinian Political and Cultural Dynamics”; “Iraq: What
do the Warriors Think?”; “Reconstruction: The Key to True Security”;
“In Search of the Rule of Law in Iraq”; and “Iraqis Speak.”
“What’s Really Going on in Iraq” featured Iraq-born Washington, DC
businessman and political activist Andy Shallal and Chris Toensing,
executive director of the Middle East Research and Information Project
(MERIP), who gave what panel moderator Simone Campbell, national
coordinator of NETWORK: A National Catholic Social Justice Lobby,
described as “candid and disturbing accounts” of life in Iraq.
“Educating Local Congregations About Bethlehem and the Wall” featured
Charles Lutz, CMEP’s Grassroots Advocacy Project Director in Minnesota,
co-author of Christians and a Land Called Holy, and a participant
in the International Solidarity Movement’s 2002 Olive Harvest
Campaign. Peter Nagle, founder of the Friends of Bethlehem ministry,
screened his film, “Sacred Space Denied: Bethlehem and the Wall.”
“Hopes and Fears of Middle East Christians” featured Bishop Vicken
Aykazian, representative of the Armenian Orthodox Church on the CMEP
board and president-elect of the National Council of Churches. “There
will never be peace in the Middle East unless there is a solution
to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,” Bishop Aykazian said. “That
conflict is the root of every problem.”
Painting a bleak future for Christians in Palestine, the bishop noted
that “in 1926, 56 percent of the population [in historic Palestine]
were Christians, now it’s less than 3 percent.” Christian Palestinians
have traditionally had greater options for immigration to the West,
he explained, and because of this, “you cannot stop [Christian
immigration] unless you give them freedom and the guarantee of a
safe life.”
This situation, he warned, is also bad for Christians throughout the
Arab world, including in Iraq. Bishop Aykazian recalled that, at the
recent World Council of Churches summit in Porto Alegre, Brazil, the
Iraqi delegation challenged the American delegation on the occupation,
stating, “Our life is like hell. What have you done to us?”
Regarding the historic Armenian populations in the Arab world and
refugees from the 1915 Armenian Genocide who found asylum in Arab
Muslim countries, “where they felt at home,” the bishop cited similar
drastically decreasing numbers. “In 1967, there were 45,000 Armenians
in Palestine,” he said. “Now we have fewer than 3,000. We had 50,000
in Iraq. Today I don’t think we have more than 5,000.”
In between the day’s tracked portions, denominations met together
for lunch. The Presbyterian lunch was coordinated by Elenora
Giddings Ivory, Catherine Gordon, and Carolynn B. Race of the
Washington office. Rev. Jean Marie Peacock, vice moderator of the
216th Presbyterian General Assembly and pastor of the Lake View
Presbyterian Church in Louisiana, told her lunchtime audience about
the ongoing struggle to rebuild after Hurricane Katrina. Rev. Carol
Wickersham of Beloit, Wisconsin spoke about No To Torture, a group
formed following the Abu Ghraib abuses, and likened the social justice
commitment of the PCUSA to Daniel fighting the many-headed dragon. “All
the people in this room are engaged in the same struggle,” she said,
“whether we are fighting one head or another.”
The Program continued Sunday, training participants to lobby their
elected representatives, with Monday spent on Capitol Hill.
For more information about Ecumenical Advocacy Days, visit their Web
site, <;, or call conference coordinator Michael Neuroth at (202) 230-2276. For more information about Churches for Middle East Peace, visit <;. es/May-June_2006/0605060.html

FM MEETS WITH DELEGATION OF FM OF SOUTH AFRICA
AzerTag, Azerbaijan
June 13 2006
Azeri Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov met with visiting delegation
of the South African Foreign Ministry’s Department of Central and East
Asia led by the country’s Ambassador to Kazakhstan Bhekizizwe Gila,
according to the press service of the Azerbaijan’s Foreign Ministry.
The Ambassador said that the main goal of the visit is to explore
ways of boosting relations between the two countries.
The Azeri Minister pointed out great potential for cooperation in
various areas between Azerbaijan and South Africa, which he said is
one of the leading countries in the United Nations system.
The sides agreed on organizing reciprocal visits and meetings of
businessmen and relevant authorities of the two countries to improve
their ties in the fields of politics, economy, tourism and etc.
Mr. Mammadyarov answered a wide range of questions covering political,
social and economic situation in Azerbaijan, the country’s relationship
with other nations of the region, and other topics.
He said Azerbaijan is an initiator of the large scaled energy and
transport projects, and is experiencing rapid economic development
with 26 percent GDP and 47 percent industrial production growth.
Touching on the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh,
Elmar Mammadyarov said Armenia occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan’s
territory, and conducted ethnic cleansing here. He noted that
Azerbaijan supports peaceful solution to the conflict adding that
Armenia must release the occupied territories and Azerbaijani refugees
and internally displaces persons return to their home lands,” he said.
The parties also discussed a wide range of other issues of mutual
interest.

KENYA INVESTIGATES AIRPORT SECURITY BREACH
Voice of America
June 13 2006
Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki has ordered an inquiry into a major
security breach at his country’s main airport.
Mr. Kibaki ordered the investigation Tuesday, one day after suspending
the country’s chief police investigator, Joseph Kamau, and 10 other
officials.
The breach involved two Armenian men who drew pistols on customs
officials when asked to open their luggage at the airport last
Thursday.
The men, known as the Artur brothers, were deported without being
charged, prompting accusations that they had government protection.
Opposition lawmakers say the Armenians led a controversial police
raid on Kenya’s Standard Media Group in March.
The British government has issued a protest note demanding an
explanation for the airport incident. Britain says it has concerns
about the airport’s security.

TEHRAN NOT INFORMED ABOUT GAZPROM’S WILLINGNESS TO PARTICIPATE IN IRAN-ARMENIA PIPELINE CONSTRUCTION
Regnum, Russia
June 13 2006
No changes had been made in Armenian-Iranian agreement on the
Iran-Armenia pipeline construction, Iranian Vice-Ambassador to Armenia
Ali Akbar Jokar stated during a news conference on June 13.
According to him, making of changes is conditioned by all parties’
agreement. “We are not informed about a wish of the Russian side to
participate in the pipeline construction. Information, that Russian
Gazprom has received Iran-Armenia pipeline’s section, is not confirmed
during Armenian top-level officials too,” the vice-ambassador stated.
Also, Ali Akbar Jokar stated that the pipeline is constructed within
the schedule – “the pipeline will be put into operation on the target
date.” “Iran assumed obligations to supply gas to Armenia and it will
keep its word,” Jokar concluded.
It is worth reminding that earlier Gazprom Deputy CEO Alexander
Ryazanov stated that Gazprom would solve question of its participation
in Iran-Armenia pipeline construction by the end of 2006. According
to him, there was agreement between the company and the Armenian
energy ministry, but it had frame character and did not consider
details. Ryazanov informed that working group was established to
discuss questions, connected with list of energy objects, which
would enter into the project later, as well as with scheme of gas
processing. Intergovernmental agreement would also be needed for
Gazprom’s participation in Iran-Armenia pipeline’s construction.
It is worth reminding that pipeline’s 40-km long Megri-Kajaran
section is constructed due to $30 mln Iranian credit. The pipeline’s
construction is to be finished till 1 January 2007. At the first stage,
Iran will supply into Armenia 1.1 bln cubic meters of gas annually,
and since 2019 – 2.3 bln cubic meters of gas annually.
After the pipeline’s construction will be finished, it will be
connected up to ArmRosgazprom gas-main system.