CASE ON INCIDENT IN “TRIUMPH” CAFE BROUGHT FROM PROSECUTOR’S OFFICE OF
YEREVAN TO PROSECUTOR GENERAL’S OFFICE OF RA
YEREVAN
March 22, 2004
Noyan Tapan
The examination on the case of the March 12 incident in the “Triumph”
cafe was brought from the Prosecutor’s Office of Yerevan to the
Prosecutor General’s Office of RA, the preliminary examination on the
case continues. On March 22, Gurgen Ambarian, the press secretary of
the RA Prosecutor General, said this to Noyan Tapan. A criminal case
on three articles of the RA Criminal Code, 112, 235 and 285:
“premediated infliction of serious physical injuries”, “illegal
keeping of arms”, “hooliganism,” was instituted on the fact.

A1 Plus | 21:09:15 | 22-03-2004 | Social |
MOSCOW NEEDS NO RECORDS
Today, Bruce Khlebnikov-Hatsagortsyan, 14, beat a record by pulling bus with
his long hair for three meters.{BR}
The show was staged by our compatriot Levon Manukyan who is a member of
Russian State Duma.
When Bruce was six years old, he pulled a car with his teeth, the boy’s
mother Nelli Khlebnukova says. “I realized that was God’s gift. God is
always with him, but every time I anxious about him. This is the 26th time
his success has been put in Guinness World Records”, she says.
Nelli Khlebnikova said Bruce is not going to beat records in Moscow where he
is merely being said “thank you” and nobody care of his problems.
—

Mar 22, 2004, 05:59
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Armenians and Tibetans, two peoples who “share the same fate,” banded together last Friday in a gesture of solidarity.
“The noble Tibetan people are also victims of injustice and a cultural genocide to this day, while the rest of the world looks on,” said Azad Chichmanian, a member of the Ad Hoc Armenian Committee in Support of Tibet-China Negotiations. Like Armenia, Tibet is a “small but proud nation, working hard to gain recognition for crimes against humanity,” he added.
Chichmanian said that a group of Armenians “saw an opportunity to contribute in a positive way and help.” The Ad Hoc Committee joined forces with Armenian student associations from Concordia, McGill and Université de Montréal to host an information night at UdeM.
“It means so much to the Tibetan community,” said Thubten Samdup, national president of the Canada-Tibet Committee. “It has been played up on the Tibetan radio, in the newspapers. We feel like we’re not alone.”
Addressing the small crowd, Samdup said pressuring the Prime Minister’s office to meet with His Holiness the Dalai Lama is a key issue. He will be visiting the nation’s capital on April 24, which happens to coincide with the day Armenians will be commemorating the Armenian Genocide.
The Canada-Tibet Committee is not asking the federal government to take a firm position on the matter, but simply to broker dialogue between the leaders, Samdup said.
“We’re not going to beg for a photo-op with the Dalai Lama, we want something tangible,” he explained. Human rights are the cornerstone of Canadian policy, he said, and our nation is in a unique position to take this leadership role.
For Samdup, it is a matter of preserving Tibet’s identity. “I definitely don’t want to sit back and be a witness to my culture and people being wiped out.”
Following the Canada Tibet Connittee president’s address, the Ad Hoc group encouraged audience members to sign letters for their MPs, asking them to support Canada-Tibet negotiations. “The message is, we don’t want this repeated. We’ll stand shoulder to shoulder [with Tibetans],” Viken Attarian, a member of the Armenian group, said.
As of yet, 137 of 298 members of parliament have signed on and expressed support for the initiative. Samdup contends that if a majority of representatives are sympathetic to their cause, Prime Minister Paul Martin will have to consider taking action. “If China’s going to listen to anyone, it might be Canada.”

YEREVAN, March 22 (Itar-Tass) – Russia’s foreign trade bank Vneshtorgbank (VTB) will buy a blocking stake in Armenia’s savings bank Armsberbank.
The parties are expected to sign a correspondent agreement in Yerevan on Wednesday, March 24, chairman of the Armsberbank Board Mikhail Bagdasarov told Itar-Tass on Monday.
The deal between the two banks will become the most advantageous for Armenia since the collapse of the Soviet Union, he said. “This is a mechanism that unites the Russian and Armenian banks that are supported by solid financial sources,” Bagdasarov said.
The deal is necessary for the development of bilateral economic relations with Russia, he said. Armenian businessmen will have an opportunity to enter the Russian market, while Russian businessmen – Armenian.
Russia’s largest companies that work in Armenia will take out loans from Armsberbank, a future VTB affiliate. “As a shareholder VTB intends to increase Armsberbank’s charter capital four or five-fold and expand its service sector,” he said.
Armsberbank will retain thirty percent of the shares and have the right to have a say in important deals. Bagdasarov expressed confidence that this formula will allow Armenia to attract large investments from Russia through VTB.

PRESS RELEASE
Armenian National Committee
San Francisco – Bay Area
51 Commonwealth Avenue
San Francisco, CA 94118
Tel: (415) 387-3433
Fax: (415) 751-0617
[email protected]
Contact: Roxanne Makasdjian (415) 641-0525
March 19, 2004
Bay Area ANC Welcomes Khandjian and Morgenthau
Actress Arsinée Khandjian and Dr. Henry Morgenthau IV discuss Hai Tad
Prof. Stephan Astourian and Prof. Armen Der Kiureghian Honored
San Francisco, March 6, 2004 — Actress Arsinée Khandjian was the special
guest at the annual Bay Area Armenian National Committee’s `Hai Tad
Evening,’ along with pediatrician Henry `Ben’ Morgenthau IV, great-grandson
of the U.S. Ambassador to Turkey in 1915. The evening also highlighted the
Bay Area ANC’s accomplishments of the past year, and honored two Bay Area
professors, Stephan Astourian and Armen Der Kiureghian as `local heroes.’
Famed Canadian-Armenian actress Arsinée Khandjian spoke about the artist’s
role in Hai Tad, the Armenian Cause. Khandjian, who has acted extensively
in feature films, on stage and television, and has received many awards,
including the Genie award (the Canadian Academy Award), used her experience
in the feature film `ARARAT,’ to speak about her role and the film’s role in
Hai Tad. She said that historically, artwork which runs counter to the
accepted political ideology is often labeled as `propaganda.’ In
discussions with her husband, film director Atom Egoyan, about how to
approach the subject of the Armenian Genocide on film, Khandjian said they
were faced with the question of `how to remember’ the story of the Genocide.
She said that for some people, merely the step of making the film was a
political act. `They felt that not only had we decided to remember the
Genocide, but we were also suggesting how to remember it,’ said Khandjian.
Khandjian said `ARARAT’ was first and foremost a work of art, but she quoted
from Egoyan words to illustrate all the issues he wanted to address in the
film. `…the screenplay had to tell the story of what happened, why it
happened, why it’s denied, why it continues to happen, and what happens when
you continue to deny.’ Khandjian said that the filmmaker did not feel the
need to prove the Genocide happened. `The only concern was to find a way to
give voice to a true history, to retrieve it from oblivion and make the
viewers ask themselves why they have never heard of it. These were the
obligations felt by the filmmaker.’
Khandjian recognized that the film `ARARAT’ has become a political
instrument, supported or rejected because of its subject matter. She said
she regarded these reactions as inevitable, but that they do `…suggest that
as artists, we, nonetheless, have to be prepared to enter into political
discourse and sometimes directly so.’
As an example, Khandjian discussed the political maneuverings surrounding
the possibility of `ARARAT’s screening in Turkey. She described how the
Turkish Minister of Culture had announced that the film would be screened in
Turkey, but that shortly after, `Turkey’s Nationalist Action Party had said
that any individual choosing to attend screenings of the film would suffer
the consequences of the decision to shame Turkey by paying dearly with his
or her life.’ This latter development (which resulted in the cancellation of
the film’s release in Turkey), was not reported in the press, while the
former announcement by the Minister of Culture had been widely reported
through the Associated Press. Khandjian saw this as yet another boost for
the deception by the Turkish government, which deserved to be exposed to the
International community.
After many attempts to capture the attention of various Armenian
organizations and individuals, Khandjian said it was only the Toronto ANC’s
Aris Babikian who took the issue on. `He was the one person who listened
carefully to what I was proposing as an opportunity and as an approach to
turn the situation around in our interest. I am thankful and humbled by his
generosity to commit the time and effort to this cause.’ Khandjian said
that after Babikian contacted every Toronto newspaper editor, journalists
began taking an interest.
Khandjian quoted Canada’s top newspaper, The Globe and Mail, which wrote
under the headline `Blocking ARARAT,’ `The movie provides a test of the
country’s political maturity at a time when Turkey is pressing to join the
European Union. Turkey is failing the test.’ Soon after, the ANCA
Washington headquarters and Western Region offices took it upon themselves
to alert the American press, said Khandjian, after which both the New York
Times and Los Angeles Times reported on the blocking of the film in Turkey.

Stressing that the purpose in making `ARARAT’ for Khandjian and Egoyan was
to explore `the very essence of what we have to carry on as an identity in
our lives,’ Khandjian recognized `the power of art to reach the heart and
the mind of humanity. If we played a role in Hai Tad, it was only because
we first and foremost believed in the need to tell our story as we know it.’
Khandjian called on Armenian institutions and artists to recognize and
validate each other’s contributions and strengthen communication between them.
Henry Morgenthau IV also addressed the crowd at `Hai Tad’ evening, saying
that his family was always around Armenians while he was growing up in
Boston. `At my Bar Mitzvah there were Armenians, and at April 24th, there
were Morgenthaus,’ said Morgenthau IV, who has earned a BS degree from Yale,
a Master’s degree in Public Policy from the University of Pennsylvania, his
medical credentials from Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York,
and is presently practicing pediatrics for the sickest children in San
Francisco hospitals. He has also produced films, campaigned for
congressional candidates and has worked in organizations promoting health
care reform and low-income housing.
Morgenthau IV spoke about the history of the Morgenthau family, which
achieved great political and financial success, after many booms and busts
in the business world. He described his great-grandfather as outwardly very
jovial and cheerful, but very disciplined in his private life. `Financial
success should not be a goal in itself,’ was one of Morgenthau’s maxims, he
said, which drove his great-grandfather’s purpose to do good in the world.
He spoke of the elder Morgenthau’s permanent legacy of adhering to
principles, which gave him the courage to stand up for the Armenians.
Speaking about his trip to Armenia with his father in April, 1999 at the
invitation of the Armenian National Institute, Morgenthau said, `It was the
spontaneous outpouring of affection from the Armenian people which still
stays with me from that trip. My father writes that he felt almost as
though he were the ambassador during that trip.’
`These experiences have instilled in me a desire to continue Ambassador
Morgenthau’s legacy…’ said Morgenthau IV. He said that if his
great-grandfather were alive today, he knows he would continue to fight for
official recognition of the Armenian Genocide, but that he would also `be
quick to recognize the vulnerability’ of Armenia at present, and would see
new opportunities for Armenia.
In his introduction to Morgenthau IV, Bay Area ANC member Mark Markarian
said that Morgenthau’s grandfather, Henry Morgenthau Jr. was U.S. Secretary
of the Treasury during WWI, during which time he worked on behalf of the
Jews facing the Holocaust. Morgenthau Jr. initiated a U.S. Treasury program
which funded Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg’s trip to Budapest, where he
saved the lives of tens of thousands of Hungarian Jews. Ironically, those
rescued Jews included Bay Area Congressman Tom Lantos, one of the most
vociferous opponents of Armenian Genocide recognition in Congress.
Honored as `local heroes’ at the event were Professor Stephan Astourian, the
Executive Director of the Armenian Studies Program at U.C. Berkeley, and
U.C. Berkeley Engineering Professor Armen Der Kiureghian. Introducing Prof.
Astourian, ANC member and U.C. Berkeley Armenian Students Association
co-president Hasmig Tatiossian introduced her professor as someone who had
helped instill in her a keen interest in Armenian history and politics.
Astourian arrived at U.C. Berkeley as a visiting professor six years ago
and was able to swiftly raise the status of Armenian Studies at the
university to a full-fledged program, integrating it into the broader
university and linking it with other departments on campus. His courses are
praised for their rigor and content, and Astourian has volunteered his time
to provide community lectures and testify before the government bodies on
issues of history and Armenian Genocide education. Tatiossian praised
Astourian on behalf of the ANC as someone whose presence, scholarship, and
service in the academic arena is making strong, enduring contributions to
the Armenian Cause.
Introducing Professor Armen Der Kiureghian, ANC member and American
University of Armenia staff member Gohar Momjian, described Der Kiureghian’s
many contributions to the Bay Area community and to Armenia. Der Kiureghian
was the initiator and founding member of the American University of Armenia,
and using his expertise in civil engineering and seismic safety, he helped
Armenia greatly after its devastating 1988 earthquake, and established AUA’s
Engineering Research Center, acquiring funding for the research work of more
than 100 scientists in Armenia. Der Kuireghian was instrumental in
establishing the Armenian Studies Program at U.C. Berkeley, and has
spearheaded efforts to prevent Armenian Genocide denial on campus. For
these major contributions and the many more ways Professor Der Kiureghian
has been involved in the preservation and vibrancy of the Armenian community
here and abroad, the Bay Area ANC presented him with its `local hero’ award.
Speaking on behalf of the Bay Area ANC, Roxanne Makasdjian outlined the
committee’s key initiatives of the past year. Describing the various
actions taken to achieve recognition of the Armenian Genocide, Makasdjian
said, `With the atmosphere of terrorism which surrounds us today, our
message becomes clearer than ever before: that when the U.S. covers up for
the faults of its friends, it is seen by the rest of the world as
hypocritical, selfish, and fraudulent – and its message of human rights,
democracy, and justice for all is looked upon as a sham, which sews hatred
and resentment among those it says it seeks to save.’ Makasdjian listed the
various Bay Area genocide resolutions the ANC helped pass, the Armenian
Genocide film screening it organized, the publicity it helped generate
around the book `Burning Tigris’ and film `ARARAT,’ relationships with local
press surrounding their coverage of the Genocide, and the progress of the
Bay Area ANC’s Genocide Education Project. Makasdjian presented the
Project’s newly published lesson plans, `Human Rights and Genocide: A Case
Study of the First Genocide of the 20th Century,’ and discussed the success
of new educational website, `TeachGenocide.org’
Makasdjian also updated those present on ANC’s local political advocacy
efforts, including its Mayoral Candidates Forum, and the committee’s
outreach to university students. She also spoke of the newest problem to
arise on the federal level – the Bush administration’s proposal to increase
military aid to Azerbaijan, giving it approximately three-times the amount
offered to Armenia. Makasdjian urged the audience to support the ANC’s
efforts to persuade Congress against making such unbalanced appropriations
which dangerously effect Armenia’s national security.
Of special note at `Hai Tad Evening’ was the attendance of former California
Supreme Court Justice Armand Arabian. Makasdjian noted that this Spring,
Arabian will be awarded the prestigious Ellis Island Medal of Honor, as
someone from an immigrant community who has achieved so much. Also
recognized for their generosity were the many Bay Area Armenian-American
community members who have contributed financially to the committee’s
ongoing activities.
###
Full Speech by Arsinée Khandjian at Bay Area ANC `Hai Tad Evening’:
PICTURE CAPTION:
Left to right: Bay Area ANC Representative Roxanne Makasdjian, Actress
Arsinée Khandjian, Professor Stephan Astourian, Dr. Henry Morgenthau IV, and
Professor Armen Der Kiureghian

Turn to 10.com, RI
March 22 2004
Former Cranston Pastor Faces Embezzlement Charges
CRANSTON, R.I. — A Cranston man faces charges he embezzled money
from his church, News Channel 10 reported.
Megerdich Megerdichian served as pastor of the Holy Cross Armenian
Apostolic Church, in Troy, N.Y., for 16 years. The congregation
removed him in 1998.
Prosecutors said he allegedly stole money and kept it in a secret
bank account.
Megerdichian has pleaded guilty to evading taxes, authorities said.

Phayul, Tibet
March 22 2004
Shoulder to shoulder Armenians and Tibetans band together in
solidarity
WTN[Monday, March 22, 2004 10:37]
By Anna Sarkissian
Armenians and Tibetans, two peoples who “share the same fate,” banded
together last Friday in a gesture of solidarity.
“The noble Tibetan people are also victims of injustice and a
cultural genocide to this day, while the rest of the world looks on,”
said Azad Chichmanian, a member of the Ad Hoc Armenian Committee in
Support of Tibet-China Negotiations. Like Armenia, Tibet is a “small
but proud nation, working hard to gain recognition for crimes against
humanity,” he added.
Chichmanian said that a group of Armenians “saw an opportunity to
contribute in a positive way and help.” The Ad Hoc Committee joined
forces with Armenian student associations from Concordia, McGill and
Université de Montréal to host an information night at UdeM.
“It means so much to the Tibetan community,” said Thubten Samdup,
national president of the Canada-Tibet Committee. “It has been played
up on the Tibetan radio, in the newspapers. We feel like we’re not
alone.”
Addressing the small crowd, Samdup said pressuring the Prime
Minister’s office to meet with His Holiness the Dalai Lama is a key
issue. He will be visiting the nation’s capital on April 24, which
happens to coincide with the day Armenians will be commemorating the
Armenian Genocide.
The Canada-Tibet Committee is not asking the federal government to
take a firm position on the matter, but simply to broker dialogue
between the leaders, Samdup said.
“We’re not going to beg for a photo-op with the Dalai Lama, we want
something tangible,” he explained. Human rights are the cornerstone
of Canadian policy, he said, and our nation is in a unique position
to take this leadership role.
For Samdup, it is a matter of preserving Tibet’s identity. “I
definitely don’t want to sit back and be a witness to my culture and
people being wiped out.”
Following the Canada Tibet Connittee president’s address, the Ad Hoc
group encouraged audience members to sign letters for their MPs,
asking them to support Canada-Tibet negotiations. “The message is, we
don’t want this repeated. We’ll stand shoulder to shoulder [with
Tibetans],” Viken Attarian, a member of the Armenian group, said.
As of yet, 137 of 298 members of parliament have signed on and
expressed support for the initiative. Samdup contends that if a
majority of representatives are sympathetic to their cause, Prime
Minister Paul Martin will have to consider taking action. “If China’s
going to listen to anyone, it might be Canada.”

Maranatha Christian Journal
March 22 2004
Scepticism And Optimism
Greet Turkmenistan Decree
( F18News) — Despite a surprise 11 March decree from Turkmenistan
President Saparmurat Niyazov lifting the requirement that a religious
community must have 500 adult citizen members before it can register,
officials have insisted that unregistered religious activity remains
illegal.
Religious believers of the many illegal faiths – including all
Protestant, Armenian Apostolic, Shia Muslim, Jewish, Hare Krishna,
Baha’i and Jehovah’s Witness communities – have been taken by
surprise by an March 11 decree from Turkmenistan’s authoritarian
president Saparmurat Niyazov allowing religious communities to gain
official registration regardless of how many members they have or
what faith they belong to.
Some have told Forum 18 News Service they are optimistic that
conditions will improve, though others – especially from groups that
have regularly suffered fines, beatings and threats – are sceptical.
Under the country’s harsh religion law, communities have previously
needed five hundred adult citizen members (a requirement almost
impossible for religious minorities to achieve), while since last
November unregistered religious activity has been a crime. The new
decree makes no mention of decriminalising unregistered religious
activity.
Bibi Agina, an official of the department that registers social
organisations at the Adalat (Justice) Ministry, told Forum 18 that
the decree does not mean that unregistered religious communities can
start to meet freely in private homes. “As before, religious
communities can only function after they get registration,” she told
Forum 18 from Ashgabad on 12 March. “The decree simply gives
religious communities like the Baptists and others the possibility to
work legally.”
Officials at the government’s Gengeshi (Council) for Religious
Affairs were, as usual, reluctant to talk, putting down the phone
when Forum 18 telephoned. Eventually Forum 18 managed to speak to
Mukhamed (who refused to give his last name), an aide to the deputy
chairman Murad Karriyev, who said the same as Agina that the decree
does not entitle unregistered religious communities to begin to
function. “They still need registration,” he insisted to Forum 18.
Radik Zakirov, a Protestant from Ashgabad, said his community is not
preparing to register under the new decree. But he believed it might
mark a change of policy. “The authorities have tried up till now to
use repressive measures and have understood this is unsuccessful,” he
told Forum 18 on March 12. “They seem now to be trying to bring
religious communities under state control – perhaps a cleverer
policy.”
One immediate welcome for the decree came from Armenia’s Ambassador
to Turkmenistan, Aram Grigorian, who has been seeking the return to
the local Armenian community of their church in the Caspian port city
of Turkmenbashi (formerly Krasnovodsk), which was confiscated during
the Soviet period. “This is a very progressive decree,” he told Forum
18 from Ashgabad on March 12. “We will try to make use of it.”
The government has not allowed any Armenian Apostolic churches to
reopen or open in Turkmenistan and, if they wish to attend services,
Armenian Apostolic believers are forced to go to the only legal
Christian denomination, the Russian Orthodox Church, although the
Armenian Church is of the Oriental family of Christian Churches, not
the Orthodox.
Vasili Kalin, chairman of the ruling council of the Jehovah’s
Witnesses in Russia, who maintains close ties with fellow believers
in Turkmenistan, was cautiously optimistic over what he regarded as
perhaps the start of a process of improvement. “We welcome the
guarantees of freedom of religion and registration in the decree,” he
told Forum 18 from St Petersburg on 12 March, “but experience teaches
us to look at what happens in practice.” Anatoly Melnik, a Jehovah’s
Witness leader from Kazakhstan with contacts in Turkmenistan, was
more pessimistic over whether the decree will improve life for their
communities, believing the decree might be simply a “propaganda
measure”.
Kalin said their communities in Turkmenistan are ready to register,
but pointed out that several Jehovah’s Witnesses remain in prison for
their faith. “It would be a good gesture that Turkmenistan is ready
to abide by its international human rights commitments if these
innocent people would be freed. We hope to see that soon.” He said
the new decree might be a signal that Turkmenistan is changing “just
as in the Soviet Union when the situation changed”. He pointed out
that moving from illegality in the Soviet Union to a position where
Jehovah’s Witnesses could register their communities took time.
One Protestant, whose church has had numerous problems from the
authorities and has to meet in secret to try to evade state control,
was sceptical about whether the decree would make a lot of
difference. “We know about the decree,” the Protestant – who
preferred not to be identified – told Forum 18. “But are we
optimistic? Not so much.”
A Christian representative outside Turkmenistan with close links in
the country told Forum 18 that “if the decree becomes a reality, it
will be good”. The representative noted that without registration the
church has faced a number of problems, including the impossibility of
acquiring property for services.
Most sceptical were leaders of unregistered Protestant churches.
Viktor Makrousov of the Pentecostal church (who had not yet seen the
decree) and Vladimir Tolmachev of Greater Grace both separately
believed the situation is unlikely to improve on the ground. “Our
main problem has not been the 500 signatures required for
registration – we could achieve that,” Tolmachev told Forum 18 from
Ashgabad on March 12. “The problem is that people signing the
registration application would get problems – they would be sacked
from their work, especially those who are ethnic Turkmens. It is a
problem of people’s safety.”
Niyazov’s decree, reported on state television on 11 March and
published in Russian on the pro-government website turkmenistan.ru,
claims that the country “carries out fully” its commitments under the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on
Civil and Political Rights and the Declaration on the Elimination of
All Forms of Intolerance and of Discrimination Based on Religion or
Belief “while securing the harmony of the religious confessions
functioning in Turkmenistan”. In reality, the government has
flagrantly violated these international commitments amid the heaviest
controls on religious life of all the former Soviet republics.
The decree sets out three provisions:
“1. To secure the registration on the territory of Turkmenistan of
religious organisations and groups in accordance with
generally-accepted international norms and procedures.
“2. To register on the territory of Turkmenistan according to
established procedure religious groups of citizens independently of
their number, faith and religion.
“3. The Adalat Ministry of Turkmenistan is to put into effect the
current decree from the day of its publication.”
The decree was published at the same time as a decree ordering the
lifting of exit controls on Turkmenistan’s citizens. Both this and
the denial of religious freedom have been heavily criticised by
foreign governments and human rights activists. Religious believers
within the country are generally too frightened to speak out openly
against the restrictions on their religious activity.

Interfax
March 22 2004
Armenia-Iran pipeline may be extended to Ukraine, EU
Yerevan. (Interfax) – The Iran-Armenia gas pipeline, for which a
construction agreement should be signed in the near future, may be
extended through Georgia to Ukraine and on to the European Union,
Armenian Energy Minister Armen Movsisyan told Interfax.
He said that the possibility has not been ruled out of laying a
pipeline from Iran through Armenia and Georgia an onwards along the
Black Sea bed to Ukraine. “After the Blue Stream project, the
construction of long marine pipelines is no longer a fantasy,” the
minister said
He said that the supply of gas from Iran to the Ukrainian and
European markets is in line with these countries’ plans to find
access to alternative natural gas supplies.
Iran, Turkmenistan and, above all, the European Union, wants this.
Europe hopes to build a pipeline to its territory through Armenia,
with Iranian and Turkmenistani gas. But this will involve serious and
long negotiations, involving other countries that now receive Russian
gas,” Movsisyan said.
In 2000 the institute VNIPITransgaz developed a feasibility study for
the Iran-Armenia-Georgia-Ukraine-Europe gas pipeline, with an
underwater section of 550 km from the Georgian port of Supsa to the
Crimean city of Feodosia. The Ukrainian Fuel and Energy Ministry
estimated the cost of the project at $5 billion, with gas supply
volume of 60 billion cubic meters per annum, including 10 bcm for
Ukraine.
Armenian Finance and Economics Minister Vardan Khachatryan said
earlier that construction of the Iran-Armenia gas pipeline might
begin by the end of 2003 and be completed within one to two years.
Armenia and Iran signed an intergovernmental agreement in 1995
establishing the route of the pipeline, which stretches 114 km,
including 41 km in Armenia and 100 km in Iran. The agreement also
sets the price for gas to be transported through the pipeline at $84
per 1,000. The cost of the project is estimated at $120 million.
The Iran-Armenia gas pipeline has been on the drawing board since
1992. In addition to the two main participants in the project, other
interested parties include Russia, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, countries
in the European Union, and China. The European Bank for
Reconstruction and Development has said that it is ready to finance
the project.

Interfax
March 22 2004
Armenian GDP up 7.3% in Jan-Feb
Yerevan. (Interfax) – Armenian GDP increased 7.3% to 134.043 million
dram in January-February 2004, a source in the National Statistics
Service told Interfax.
Industrial production fell 5.5% year-on-year in the same period.
Armenia’s foreign trade deficit in the first two months amounted to
$79.8 million. Exports amounted to $84.8 million, with imports of
$164.6 million. Foreign trade turnover amounted to $249.4 million.
GDP in Armenia in 2003 increased 13.9% to 1.618 trillion dram, with
industrial production up 14.9% to 425.3 billion dram.
The official exchange rate on March 19 was 562.67 dram to the dollar.