UN-HOLY ALLIANCE – OBSERVER FROM ANKARA
By Vincent Boland
Financial Times (London, England)
October 3, 2005 Monday
London Edition 1
There can be little doubt that the stakes involved in Turkey’s quest
for EU membership are high for Erdogan and his ruling Islam-tinged
Justice and Development party.
He raised expectations very high – perhaps excessively so – in the
first two years of his administration, ahead of last December’s EU
summit at which Turkey was invited to become a member.
In doing so, some critics say, he made Turkey, and perhaps his own
political future, too dependent on the EU issue.
Still, in going out on a limb for EU entry, Erdogan has won friends
in unlikely places. When a minor court ordered the suspension of
a recent conference on the mass killings of Armenians by Ottoman
soldiers in 1915, he was quick not only to object to the verdict
(the conference went ahead a day late) but to insist that one needed
to respect opinions with which one might disagree.
The statement was welcomed by the academics attending the conference.
As members of Istanbul’s sizeable chattering class, they are not
automatic Erdogan supporters. Perhaps they recalled that he, too,
has suffered for freedom of speech: he was jailed in 1999 for reciting
a banned Islamist poem when Istanbul mayor.

FOREIGN MINISTER VARTAN OSKANIAN’S MEETINGS IN ABU DHABI
Noyan Tapan News Agency
Oct 3 2005
ABU DHABI, OCTOBER 3, NOYAN TAPAN – ARMENIANS TODAY. Minister Oskanian
visited Abu Dhabi, on the occasion of the groundbreaking of the
Armenian Embassy building in the United Arab Emirates. Large number of
representatives of the government, together with the diplomatic corps,
and members of the Armenian community from throughout the Emirates
were present.
In a brief ceremony, Minister spoke, followed by Ambassador Arshak
Poladian, and then the first stones were laid for what will be a
7,000 sq. meter building.
As Noyan Tapan was informed by the RA Foreign Minsitry’s Press and
Information Department, during his visit, the Minister also met with
Deputy Prime Minister and State Minister for External Relations,
Sheikh Hamdan Ben Zayed Al Nahanyan. The two discussed bilateral and
regional issues, including Armenia’s having provided suitable embassy
state for the Emirates, which will be opening an embassy in Yerevan.
On the second day of the visit, the Minister also met with Ahmad Bakr,
the Deputy Director of the Abu Dhabi Development Fund. The Minister
described Armenia’s economic development and prospects for growth. The
Minister returned to Yerevan late Monday.

MEETING OF COMMISSION FOR YEAR OF ARMENIA IN FRANCE TO BE HELD IN YEREVAN ON NOV. 3
ARKA News Agency, Armenia
Oct 3 2005
YEREVAN, October 3. /ARKA/. Meeting of Commission for organization
of Year of Armenia in France will be held in Yerevan on November 3,
2005, Press-Secretary of the RA Ministry of Foreign Affairs Hamlet
Gasparyan told journalists. He said that the program of events will
be developed and concretized during this meeting. The Year of Armenia
in France will be held on the initiative of the Presidents of France
and Armenia. “It will one of the largest events”, Gasparyan said.
However, he did not concretize the program of events saying that
organizational work have not been finished yet.
2006 will be the Year of Armenia in France and 2007 will be the year
of France in Armenia. A.A. -0–

RA PRESIDENT AND HEADS OF POLITICAL COALITION DISCUSS PROCESS OF CONSTITUTIONAL REFORMS
Noyan Tapan News Agency
Oct 3 2005
YEREVAN, OCTOBER 3, NOYAN TAPAN. Issues concerning the process of
the constitutional reforms and the draft on 2006 stage budget were
discussed at the September 30 working meeting of RA President Robert
Kocharian with members of the Political Council of the coalition.
As Noyan Tapan was informed by the RA President’s Press Office,
the conclusion of the working group created by the RA President
for studying problems of citizens’ saving deposits freezed at the
ArnSavingBank was discussed at the meeting and a decision was made,
within the framework of the strategic program of overcoming poverty,
to solve the problem of compensation of deposits freezed by the
ArmSavingBank of citizens involved in lists of those getting family
benefits.

ARMENIA RECEIVES INTERNATIONAL GRANT TO FIGHT AIDS
ArmInfo News Agency
Sept 30 2005
Yerevan, 30 September: Armenia has received a grant worth 4m dollars
to fight HIV/AIDS within the framework of the project of the Global
Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. The recipient of the
grant is the World Vision office in Armenia.
The grant will be used to implement the second stage of the national
programme to combat AIDS, a source in the World Vision office in
Yerevan said. In 2003-2005, the fund allocated 3.2m dollars to
implement the first stage of the project. An official ceremony to
sign the document on the allocation of the grant is scheduled for 5
October this year.
According to the republican HIV/AIDS centre, by 1 September 356
HIV-positive cases had been registered in Armenia and 92 people had
been diagnosed as having AIDS. A total of 70 people have died since
the first HIV/AIDS infected Armenian patient was registered. However,
specialists of the centre say that official figures cannot reflect
the real situation in the country, as the actual figures are 10 times
higher. Specialists of the centre believe that over 3,000 people are
HIV-positive in Armenia.

ARMENIAN PARTY LEADER BLAMES USA FOR BACKING SECTARIANISM
ArmInfo News Agency
Oct 1 2005
Yerevan, 30 September: “We have turned [Yerevan’s] Nork subdistrict
into a base for clearing the city and republic from so-called Jehovah’s
Witnesses and other sects,” the leader of the United Nation Party
[UNP], Gor Tamazyan, said at a press conference today.
He said that the UNP’s tactic of going to the country with
anti-sectarian propaganda, including among sects, has yielded
considerable results in the 1-5th subdistricts. Attempts to continue
anti-sectarian work in the 6th and 7th subdistricts have met with
stiff resistance from “Jehovah’s Witnesses”.
“It is hard to fight sects in Armenia because they receive considerable
financial support from the USA and are puppets in the hands of the US
security services,” Tamazyan said. On this basis, the United Nation
Party, acknowledging a number of positive changes in the constitutional
reforms, is against lifting the ban on double citizenship.
Unlike the chairman of the Nationalist Union, Ruben Gevorkyants,
Tamazyan says that “however good the intentions of US citizens of
Armenian origin, the Washington administration, which is hostile to
Armenia, will use them against us,” he said.

ARMENIA CHOOSES FRANCE’S AREVA TO BUILD NEW NUCLEAR WASTE FACILITY
Turkish Press
Oct 3 2005
YEREVAN – The Armenian government has chosen a subsidiary of France’s
energy group Areva to build a new 10-million-euro (12-million-dollar)
nuclear waste facility for the country’s controversial Metsamor
reactor, the Armenian energy ministry said on Monday.
Cogema Logistics, a unit of Areva, will build a second waste disposal
facility in three phases between 2007-2018, said a spokesperson at
the ministry, Lucin Arutyunian.
The European Union has asked Armenia to close the Metsamor reactor
because of safety concerns, but the power station, built in 1977,
accounts for about 40 percent of electricity production in the country.

ARMENIAN MINISTER: ARMENIAN PEOPLE CAN NOT ACCEPT SILENCE ABOUT GENOCIDE
Cyprus News Agency, Cyprus
Oct 3 2005
Nicosia, Oct 3 (CNA) – Armenian people cannot accept silence around
the Armenian genocide by the Turks, Armenian Culture and Youth Affairs
Minister Hovik Hoveyan, noted here today, adding that Turkey has
problems with its history.
Armenian Minister, on the island for an official visit, was received
today by President of the House of Representatives Demetris Christofias
and met with Director of Cypriot President’s Press Office Marios
Karoyan, to whom he expressed his willingness to further enhance the
excellent relations between Cyprus and Armenia.

ARMENIA STOPS NUCLEAR POWER PLANT FOR PLANNED REPAIRS
By Tigran Liloyan
ITAR-TASS News Agency
TASS
Yerevan, October 1
The Armenian nuclear power plant was stopped on Saturday for planned
repairs and fuel reloading that will last a month and a half.
The plant, commissioned in 1979, was stopped in 1989 after a
devastating earthquake. After modernisation in 1996 with the help of
Russian specialists, its unit No. 2 resumed operation.
The plant generates about 40 percent of all electricity in Armenia.
The European Union insists that the plant, located 40 kilometres
west of Yerevan, be closed down. However Armenian authorities say
this can be possible only if there is alternative source of energy.
The plant has been under the financial management of the United Energy
System of Russia since 2003.

ARMENIAN PARLIAMENTARIANS PROPOSE TO CREMATE DEADS
ARKA News Agency, Armenia
Oct 3 2005
YEREVAN, October 3. /ARKA/. The RA National Assembly adopted in
the first reading Law “On Organization of Burial and Operation of
Cemeteries and Crematorium”. The author of the bill is parliamentarian
Vladimir Badalyan. This law envisage alternative right for burial
through cremation. He said that alternative variant of burial is
necessary for Armenia due to the shortage of lands for cemeteries
available.
RA NA Vice-Speaker Vahan Hovhannisyan said that crematorium existed
in 3rd Millennium B.C. and their existence does not contradict with
Christian traditions.
RA NA Standing Committee on Social Affairs, Healthcare and Environment
gave positive resolution to this bill. A.A. -0–