PRESS REVIEW, JANUARY 23, 2004

The daily Haykakan Zhamanak claims quoting, as it says, “a well-informed source” that despite vigorous efforts of Armenian diplomacy, neither president Kocharian nor Armenia were invited to participate in the World Economic Forum in Swiss Davos. The daily maintains that the reason is the lack of top foreign officials willing to contact with Armenian leader. In another story the daily Haykakan Zhamanak says that the Armenian authorities controversial decision to raise transmission charges for Armenian electricity supplies to Georgia may have been induced also by political motivation, coming in the wake of establishment in Georgia of a government that is not favored by Russia. The daily Haykakan Zhamanak also says that addressing a party meeting in Yerevan, one of the country’s opposition figures, Artashes Geghamian, said that there should be no haste in trying to change power in Armenia, as it can harm not only the opposition’s plans, but also the people in general. “The Armenian opposition must initiate regime change prudently so that our conscience remains in peace tomorrow and the day after,” Geghamian said. In an interview to daily Aravot Bagrat Yesayan, an aide to president Kocharian on anti-corruption issues, does not agree with several top Armenian officials who claim that there is no corruption in their ministries, and says that the concern that corruption has penetrated into all public sector areas is reflected in the government plan of actions to combat it which says that corruption jeopardizes the country’s national security. The weekly Iravunk quotes an unnamed source in the Yerevan municipality as saying that the terminal of the last tram route in Yerevan that was closed earlier this week will be obtained by parliament chairman Arthur Baghdasarian who will open a new mini-bus route instead, one of the most lucrative businesses in Armenia. The daily Hayastani Hanrapetutyun says that the Armenian government announced on Thursday an approximately 25 percent increase in modest cash benefits paid to some 140,000 families that are considered to live below the official poverty line, which will now get an average of 9,400 drams ($16.6) a month. Andranik Mihranian, a Moscow-based political analysts of Armenian origin and a member of the Turkish-Armenian Reconciliation Commission (TARC) tells the daily Azg that chances for holding a TARC meeting in Yerevan are few, due to the strong opposition from some Armenian nationalistic forces, which present the Armenian commissioners of TARC as “traitors and tool in the hand of the USA.”. The weekly Iravunk says that an Armenian opposition lawmaker was detained in the United States last week as a result of an apparent dispute with his U.S.-based former wife over their 17-year-old son. Manaserian of the Ardarutyun (Justice) bloc was taken into custody at the Washington airport on January 15 and has since been kept in an immigration jail in the U.S. state of Virginia. Manaserian and his ex-wife moved to the U.S. in 1992 before getting divorced several years later. He returned to Armenia in 1997 with his son aged 13 at the time. An economist by training, he has since been active in Armenian politics, winning a parliament seat on the Ardarutyun ticket last May.