NATONAL PROGRAM ON IMPLEMENTATION OF AGREEMENT ON PARTNERSHIP BETWEEN
EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES AND ARMENIA TO BE SUBMITTED TO GOVERNMENT TILL
OCTOBER 10
YEREVAN, July 26 (Noyan Tapan). On July 23, RA Prime Minister Andranik
Margarian convened a consultation with participation of members of the
Coordination Commission on Elaboration of the National Program on
Cooperation between the European communities and Armenia. A number of
ministries and bodies attached to the RA government, the RA National
Assembly, the RA Central Bank, the RA Central Electoral Commission,
the Commission on Coordination of Public Services, the RA National
Statistical Service, the Commission on Securities, the National
Commission on TV & Radio and the RA Civil Service Council are within
the newly established commission by the decision of the
government. According to the government’s decision, they instructed
the Coordination Commission to submit the national draft program on
implementation of the agreement on partnership signed between the
European communities and the Republic of Armenia to the government
till October 10. Stressing that the commission should carry out great
and importance work, the RA Prime Minister said that besides the
coordinating commission, which is presented on the level of ministers,
a coordinating task force consisting of Deputy Ministers, as well as
separate task forces in different spheres headed by chiefs of the
departments will be established with the purpose of the organization
of more effective and operative work. According to the RA government’s
press service, the RA Prime Minister instructed to form corresponding
task forces as soon as possible, mentioning that he will always watch
the activities of the Coordination Commission and he will periodically
convene discussions with the purpose of the reception of reports on
the work done.

ARMENIAN-GEORGIAN COMMISSION ON ECONOMIC COOPERATION OPENS ITS THIRD
MEETING
TBILISI, July 26 (Noyan Tapan). Armenian Prime Minister Andranik
Margarian paid a two-day official visit to Tbilisi July 26. The
Armenian premier and the delegation headed by him attended the opening
ceremony of the third meeting of the Armenian-Georgian
Inter-Governmental Commission on Economic Cooperation on July 26. The
RA Government’s Press Office reports to NT, Georgian Prime Minister
Zourab Zhvania stressed the importance of organizing the meeting after
a certain break. The fact that the prime ministers of the two
countries are co-chairmen of the Commission, Mr. Zhvania stated,
testifies to the serious intentions of the sides to enlarge and
develop economic cooperation. “It is impossible to imagine Georgia’s
development without the development of Armenia.
Harmonic development of the closest neighbors, including Armenia, is
priority for Georgia,” Zourab Zhvania stated. RA Premier Andranik
Margarian also emphasized in his speech that the decision to increase
the level of the inter-governmental commission proves the two
countries are serous about improving trade and economic cooperation
which is a new stimulus for the full use of the potential observed in
the sphere. He stated part of the decision adopted at the Commission’s
previous meeting were not carried out, thus the relevant ministries
and departments of the two countries must take efforts to fill in this
gap. Stressing the importance of both bilateral and multilateral trade
and economic cooperation between Armenia and Georgia, he emphasized
that Armenia is really interested in the future development and
deepening of this cooperation in two directions: East-West and
North-South. The agenda of the meeting includes around a dozen issues
among them the approval of the order of the Commission’s activity, the
process of fulfillment of the decisions adopted at the previous
meeting’s, the current state cooperation and development prospects in
the sphere of legal-contractual base, as well as trade and economic,
transport, communication, and humanitarian spheres.

ArmenPress
July 26 2004
SPECIAL TRIPS FROM AUSTRIA TO ARMENIA
YEREVAN, JULY 26, ARMENPRESS: One of the well-known Austrian
travel agencies, Vienna Mozer, in cooperation with Austrian Airlines
has organized a special trip to Armenia for about 700 Austrian
intellectuals and nature funs.
The project was launched at the beginning of July and will end in
early August. As a result, one more flight has been added to the
already functioning four Vienna-Yerevan-Vienna weekly flights. During
the trip the tourist groups will be provided an opportunity to visit
places of interest in Armenia, from Yerevan to Khor Virap,
Etchmiadzin, Ashtarak, Sevan, Dilijan, Garni-Geghard.
According to Mozer company head Fritz Mozer, this exceptional
project aims to discover Armenia for Austrian people. The fact that
700 people have expressed their interest in the trip is a good sign
that the project interests the residents of Austria and may have good
prospect to become traditional.

ArmenPress
July 26 2004
ARMENIA N PRIME MINISTER SPEAKS IN FAVOR OF REOPENING ABKHAZ SECTION
OF RAILWAY
TBILISI, JULY 26, ARMENPRESS: Restoration of railway communication
across Georgia’s breakaway region of Abkhazia topped the agenda of
Armenian-Georgian talks today in Tbilisi with participation of
Armenian prime minister Andranik Margarian and an extensive Armenian
delegation. “Armenia is greatly interested in the resumption of the
railway operation of the Abkhaz section,” Margarian told reporters
after concluding talks with his Georgian counterpart Zurab Zhvania.
He said though this issue is not linked directly to Armenian-Georgian
relations, the ongoing negotiations inspire some hopes that a certain
progress may be achieved in that direction “as Georgia has too
softened its position on this issue.”
“We hope that if not this year then some years later this problem
will be resolved,” Margarian said adding that the operating railway
is of vital importance not only for Armenia but for Georgia as well,
as deeper economic cooperation with the breakaway region may serve as
an additional resource for the peaceful settlement of the conflict.
Concerning the current level of trade and economic cooperation
with Georgia, Margarian said though its amount is growing day by day
the available potential is not used to the full extent. Overall there
are only 25 joint Armenian-Georgian ventures, which is not a good
figure, according to the prime minister, especially having in mind
traditional Georgian-Armenian ties, the huge potential of Georgian
Armenians, many of whom are engaged in businesses and serve as
government officials.
According to the Armenian prime minister, a bigger attention
should be devoted to building favorable conditions for private sector
cooperation, which he said is hampered by some security problems
Armenian businessmen run into on Georgian highways, despite a
recorded progress, following a Georgian government decision to cut
the number of road police officers.
“During our meeting with president Mikhail Saakashvili we learned
that Georgia is trying to introduce simplified customs procedures on
border with Armenia, supposed to facilitate cargo forwarding services
and if all these promises come true we may expect a great upsurge in
the volume of bilateral trade by the close of this year,” Margarian
said.
Margarian said also Armenia has proposed that a wholesale market
in Gogavan on the border, closed by Georgian authorities, reopen to
allow bordering provinces to establish contacts and start mutually
beneficial trade.
The Armenian prime minister also spoke about power supplies from
Armenia to Georgia saying Armenia’s power grid is run by private
companies which will supply as much electricity as Georgia would
request.

ArmenPress
July 26 2004
ROYAL ARMENIA ACCUSES CUSTOMS OFFICERS OF BIAS AND DISCRIMINATION
YEREVAN, JULY 26, ARMENPRESS: Chief managers of Royal Armenia
company dealing with imports of coffee to Armenia, accused today
customs officials of bias and discrimination against their company, a
practice which they said was started from 2003 spring. The managers
claimed that customs officials demand 50 and even 100 percent higher
customs fees than the real cost of the coffee suggests.
Company managers said they had asked a local court to protect them
against such treatment and despite three verdicts issued by it, which
deemed the customs officials’ treatment illegal, the practice is
going on. “We announce officially that we are not going any longer to
work according “the rules” imposed by customs officials and we have
also decided to speak out about corruption practices corroding the
customs service,” the company’s managers announced during a special
news conference.
A lawyer of the company said also that customs officers have been
refusing to let through a batch of 93 tons of coffee beans for two
weeks already forcing the company to pay $50 in penalties for each of
the five containers. The company has sent letters of complaint to the
president, prime minister, justice and foreign ministers.
Royal Armenia in which 96 percent of the capital is of
non-Armenian origin, exports 7o percent of its products and is
planning to extend the geography of its partners to CIS and Europe
countries. It brings in annually some 9,000 tons of coffee beans.

ONASA News Agency
July 25, 2004
THIS DAY IN HISTORY – JULY 25
1924 – Greece announced the deportation of 50,000 Armenians.
0326 – Constantine refused to carry out the traditional pagan
sacrifices.
1394 – Charles VI of France issued a decree for the general expulsion
of Jews from France.
1564 – Maximillian II became emperor of the Holy Roman Empire.
1587 – Japanese strong-man Hideyoshi banned Christianity in Japan and
ordered all Christians to leave.
1593 – France’s King Henry IV converted from Protestantism to Roman
Catholicism.
1759 – British forces defeated a French army at Fort Niagara in
Canada.
1799 – Napoleon Bonaparte defeated the Ottomans at Aboukir, Egypt.
1805 – Aaron Burr visited New Orleans with plans to establish a new
country, with New Orleans as the capital city.
1845 – China granted Belgium equal trading rights with Britain,
France and the United States.
1850 – In Worcester, MA, Harvard and Yale University freshmen met in
the first intercollegiate billiards match.
1850 – Gold was discovered in the Rogue River in Oregon. 1854 – The
paper collar was patented by Walter Hunt.
1861 – The Crittenden Resolution, which called for the American Civil
War to be fought to preserve the Union and not for slavery, was
passed by the U.S. Congress.
1866 – Ulysses S. Grant was named General of the Army. He was the
first American officer to hold the rank.
1868 – The U.S. Congress passed an act creating the Wyoming
Territory.
1871 – Seth Wheeler patented perforated wrapping paper. 1907 – Korea
became a protectorate of Japan.
1909 – French aviator Louis Bleriot flew across the English Channel
in a monoplane. He traveled from Calais to Dover in 37 minutes. He
was the first man to fly across the channel.
1914 – Russia declared that it would act to protect Serbian
sovereignty.
1924 – Greece announced the deportation of 50,000 Armenians.
1934 – Austrian chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss was shot and killed by
Nazis.
1939 – W2XBS TV in New York City presented the first musical comedy
seen on TV. The show was “Topsy and Eva”.
1941 – The U.S. government froze all Japanese and Chinese assets.
1943 – Italian Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini was overthrown in a
coup.
1946 – The U.S. detonated an atomic bomb at Bikini Atoll in the
Pacific. It was the first underwater test of the device.
1946 – Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis staged their first show as a team
at Club 500 in Atlantic City, NJ.
1947 – Fortune Gordien of Oslo, Norway set a world record discus
throw of 178.47 feet.
1952 – Puerto Rico became a self-governing commonwealth of the U.S.
1956 – The Italian liner Andrea Doria sank after colliding with the
Swedish ship Stockholm off the New England coast. 51 people were
killed.
1978 – Louise Joy Brown, the first test-tube baby, was born in
Oldham, England. She had been conceived through in-vitro
fertilization.
1978 – Pete Rose of the Cincinnati Red’s broke the National League
record for consecutive base hits as he got a hit in 38 straight
games.
1984 – Soviet cosmonaut Svetlana Savitskaya became the first woman to
walk in space. She was aboard the orbiting space station Salyut 7.
1987 – The Salt Lake City Trappers set a professional baseball record
as the team won its 29th game in a row.
1994 – Israel and Jordan formally ended the state of war that had
existed between them since
1948. 1997 – K.R. Narayanan became India’s president. He was the
first member of the Dalits caste to do so.
1998 – The USS Harry S. Truman was commissioned and put into service
by the U.S. Navy.
1998 – U.S. President Clinton was subpoenaed to appear before a
federal grand jury regarding the Monica Lewinsky case. The subpoena
was withdrawn when Clinton agreed to give videotaped testimony with
his lawyers present.
1999 – Lance Armstrong won the Tour de France. He was only the second
American to win the race. He won the race again in 2000.
2000 – A supersonic Concorde crashed outside Paris, France, killing
all 109 people aboard and 5 on the ground.

Turkish Probe
July 25, 2004
PM CLAIM OF FRENCH SUPPORT PREMATURE: ERDOGAN’S VISIT TO PARIS WAS
INFLATED INTO AN ULTIMATE VICTORY FOR TURKEY’S EU BID IN MEDIA AND
GOVERNMENT CIRCLES, DESPITE FRENCH LEADERS SHYING AWAY FROM PUBLICLY
VOICING SUPPORT
by ELIF UNAL ARSLAN, TDN diplomatic editor
ANKARA – Turkey, hungry to be recognized as part of Europe, was quick
to hail an official three-day visit by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip
Erdogan to Paris last week as a victory in efforts to secure French
backing for its European Union bid.
Both French President Jacques Chirac and his prime minister,
Jean-Pierre Raffarin, in meetings with Erdogan signalled no change in
their earlier position that Paris’ decision on whether or not Turkey
is ready to start accession talks would depend on a progress report
scheduled to be released by the EU Commission in October.
Erdogan, however, declared that France no longer remained “guarded”
against Turkey’s eventual entry to the European club. “What I see is
that they are no longer guarded against Turkish membership. At least
they can no longer say, ‘We are against Turkey’,” he told reporters
on his way back home Wednesday.
“France says Oui,” mass-circulation Milliyet daily screamed in its
headline on the same day. “Support for for Turkey’s EU plea in
France,” said Star newspaper on its front page. Commentaries were
talking about the close friendship between French President Chirac
and Erdogan as a key to locking up the EU door for Turkey.
These confident Turkish voices clearly sprang from a $ 1.5 billion
deal signed in Paris in the presence of Erdogan and Chirac between
Turkish Airlines (THY) and Airbus — a French-German joint venture.
The deal, criticized by some as a “bribe” to win skeptical France’s
support, was not the only carrot Erdogan had offered. He told French
businessman that Turkey was willing to cooperate with French
companies in plans to build nuclear energy plants — each of which is
estimated to cost some $ 5 billion.
His open invitation for French firms to participate in the lucrative
“Marmaray Project” designed to link Istanbul’s rail network with a
tunnel under the Bosphorus was no less attractive.
Erdogan also winked at French companies, signalling in his meetings
with French officials that they might also get favorable terms in
future Turkish defense procurement tenders aimed at acquiring new
technology for the Turkish Armed Forces.
Turkish-French ties recuperate
His offers mark a certain progress in ties between the two countries
that hit rock bottom two years ago when France, despite strong
Turkish protests, publicly recognized allegations of a so-called
Armenian genocide in 1915. Since then, France was kept out of
Turkey’s lucrative trade and military tenders.
But Erdogan’s moves do not seem to have had enough of an effect on
French leaders, who shied away from delivering support in public for
Turkey’s EU quest.
Chirac, after having lunch with the Turkish prime minister at the
Elysee Palace, requested a continuation of Turkish reforms, drawing
attention to the key report that the EU Commission is due to release.
Prime Minister Raffarin, followed Chirac’s line and reiterated that
France was awaiting the comission’s assessment on Turkey’s progress.
Turkish officials appear confident that France is unlikely to let
down an EU-aspirant country when it comes down to its economic
partnership with that country.
But Chirac has been under heavy pressure from within his own
conservative party to oppose Turkish entry to the EU. The French
president, in a attempt to ease the pressure on him, earlier said he
believed Ankara was not likely to be able to meet the bloc’s
conditions for another 10 to 15 years.
Chirac risks angering the French public if he supports opening
accession talks with Turkey. But if he opposes it, he could cause a
crisis within the EU. Britain, Greece, Germany, Italy and Spain
already back starting the talks on Turkey’s entry, which could take
up to 10 years.
The French president’s discretion has its roots in domestic political
considerations. All but one of the last 20 opinion polls on the issue
have shown 50 to 60 percent of French voters oppose Turkish entry to
the EU.
The membership of Turkey, located at the crossroads of Europe and
Asia, would stretch the EU’s borders to Syria and Iraq — a fact that
opponents say moves Europe too close to the unstable Middle East.
During Erdogan’s trip, Foreign Minister Michel Barnier said in a
radio interview that “Turkey should not expect to enter the European
Union tomorrow morning,” even if it improves its human rights record
and reforms its justice system, two key requirements.
“Turkey still has a ways to go towards becoming a social and
democratic model along the lines of the European model,” Barnier
said.
Turkey has passed sweeping democratic reforms to meet the EU’s
membership criteria, abolishing the death penalty and granting
greater cultural rights to some 10 million Kurds.
Opposition socialists in France were proud to say that they were the
only French political party backing Turkey’s accession. But French
Socialist Party Secretary-General Francois Hollande told Erdogan in
Paris that the issue of recognition by Turkey of allegations of a
so-called Armenian genocide in 1915 was a condition for its
accession.
The issue, however, is not part of the Copenhagen criteria, which
Ankara has to meet in order to get the nod to begin accession talks
with the EU.
The French socialists’ stance is something that exasperates Turkey,
which strongly denies all genocide claims and says the number of
deaths is inflated and that the victims were killed in civil unrest.

ITAR-TASS News Agency
TASS
July 25, 2004 Sunday
Georgia-Armenia intergovernmental commission to meet Mon
By Tengiz Pachkoria
TBILISI
A meeting of the Georgian-Armenian intergovernmental commission on
issues of economic cooperation will be held in the Georgian capital
on Monday.
The two countries’ Prime Ministers – Zurab Zhvania and Andranik
Margaryan will attend the meeting.
Margaryan, who arrived in Tbilisi on Sunday, said it would be the
first meeting of the commission in the past three years.
The sides, in particular, will consider issues of lowering of tariffs
for the supplies of electric power from Armenia to Georgia.
“We will consider the issue of the operation of the two countries’
energy systems, as well as the issue of supply of Georgian
electricity through Armenia to Iran in summer and Iranian electricity
transit supply to us through Armenia in winter,” Georgian Energy
Minister Nika Gilauri told reporters.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

PAP Polish Press Agency
PAP News Wire
July 25, 2004 Sunday
Poland to get 440,000 euros from European Refugee Fund
Warsaw, July 25
Poland will get 440,000 euros this year
from the European Refugee Fund to receive immigrants, their
integration and for repatriation of displaced persons, the interior
ministry reported in a statement issued to PAP.
To get the money Polish institutions and non-governmental
organisations have to cover 25 percent of an undertaking from their
own funds.
Head of the section for the European Refugee Fund Bartosz Ziolkowski
said this year the section received 507,000 euro worth of projects for
legal, medical assistance to refugees, the purchase of clothes and
footwear and assistance in repatriation.
Last year more than 6.9 thousand people applied for a
status of refugee with 82 thousand from Czechnya. the group of
applicants included also citizens of Afghanistan, Pakistan, Armenia
and India. Close to 50 percent of them were houses by refugee
centres.

Agency WPS
DEFENSE and SECURITY (Russia)
July 26, 2004, Monday
ARMENIAN MILITARY VIOLATED THE CEASEFIRE AGREEMENT AT THE
ARMENIAN-AZERBAIJANI BORDER
The press service of the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry announced that
last Thursday.
Reportedly, the incident occurred late at Wednesday night. Within an
hour – from 10.35 p.m. to 11.40 p.m. local time – the positions of
the Azerbaijani troops in Gyzylgadzhily came under fire of Armenian
military units from the Berkaber settlement. The fire on the side of
Armenia was suppressed by the response fire of Azerbaijani troops. No
kills are available among Azerbaijani military, says a report by the
Defense Ministry of Azerbaijan.
The Kazakhsky district of Azerbaijan is situated 450 kilometers to
the west from Baku and has common border with Armenia and Georgia.
Source: RIA Novosti, July 22, 2004, 16:39
Translated by Andrei Ryabochkin
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress