PRESS REVIEW, SEPTEMBER 4, 2003

The daily Haykakan Zhamanak says Armenian foreign affairs minister Vartan Oskanian was infuriated when learning that Armenian ambassador to Canada, Ara Papian, had ordered printing postal stamps depicting his portrait, describing it as ‘provincialism.” The daily comments that Papian should have ordered depicting the portrait of president Kocharian, who, under the constitution, appoints ambassadors and maybe some time soon he might have claimed for the position of foreign affairs minister. In another story the daily Haykakan Zhamanak says that top leaders of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF) had an unplanned meeting with president Kocharian Tuesday to express their dissatisfaction that the majority of deputy-ministerial posts are held by the Republican Party of prime minister Margarian. The daily quotes an unnamed ARF official as saying that Kocharian has promised to observe the equal distribution of these posts among all components of the coalition government. A political analyst and member of Law and Unity parliamentary group Hmayak Hovhanesian tells the daily Haykakan Zhamanak that parliament chairman Arthur Baghdasarian had been informed about the plotted attack on the Armenian parliament in 1999, October 27. The analyst substantiates his theory by saying that Baghdasarian was appointed to the second highest post in the country with the heavy support of president Kocharian, “who displays a special attention to people who were in some or other way connected to those events.” He also says that Baghdasarian’s appointment fits into the geo-political theory of the attack, implicating the speaker’s close ties with France and saying that that may mean that the attack might have been plotted by France. The daily Aravot shares the concern of a dozen of non-governmental organizations which insist that the introduction of the institution of ombudsman must be put off until a package of constitutional amendments are passed, giving the right to appoint ombudsman to parliament. The daily says the ombudsman, who is to be appointed by president Kocharian for the transition period, risks to become another president-affiliated appendix, like the human rights commission, unable to challenge the head of the country. The daily Hayots Ashkhar reports that Greece’s top army general wrapped up on Wednesday a three-day official visit to Yerevan with a pledge to increase military assistance to Armenia, saying that the two countries share common geopolitical goals. “Greece will provide whatever assistance it can in order to strengthen Armenia’s armed forces,” General Georgios Antonakopoulos, chief of the Greek army staff, is quoted by it as saying. The daily Azg says that the Senate of Argentine adopted August 20 a resolution commemorating the 88-th anniversary of Armenian genocide. The resolution says that the Republic of Argentine declares its deep grief over 1.5 million of Armenians who fell victim to the genocide committed by the government of Turkey in 1915-1923. "The Republic of Argentine confirms the full value and the force of universal principles of human rights in the modern world context as a guarantee for peace and solidarity between peoples, realizing that the unpunished crimes against humanity remain an obstacle for peaceful resolution of conflicts,” it says. The daily Azg is also concerned that a Yerevan resident who is thought to possess a hand-written Armenian Bible, dated back to 1102, put it on sale in Internet asking $120,000 and though “the sale of the Bible failed, but the fact itself is alarming, when cultural values of Armenians are being attempted to sell through Internet. Certainly, everyone has the right to sell what belongs to him or her, but the point is different when it concerns the sale of medieval Armenian hand-written Bibles,” it says.