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| December 2 |
A summit of the Organization
for Security and Cooperation in Europe's (OSCE) foreign ministers
convenes in Oslo to review the OSCE's latest peace plan seeking a
resolution to the Nagorno Karabagh conflict. Armenian Foreign Minister
Vardan Oskanian meets with the head of the U.S. OSCE delegation, Stephen
Sestanovich, and briefs the Italian and Spanish foreign ministers
on Armenia's position regarding the OSCE draft peace plan. The peace
plan calls for the formation of a "common state" comprising
Azerbaijan and Nagorno Karabagh with a degree of vague autonomy for
Karabagh and is accepted by Armenia and Nagorno Karabagh despite some
reservations. Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Tofik Zulfugarov, in an
address to the summit, formally rejects the peace plan and criticizes
the draft document for "violating Azerbaijan's sovereignty."
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| December 3 |
Speaking at the OSCE foreign
ministers' Oslo summit, OSCE Chairman-in-Office Bronislaw Geremek
calls for the speedy resumption of talks over the Nagorno Karabagh
conflict and calls on all parties to demonstrate the political resolve
and willingness to consider all legitimate interests and concerns.
Having formally rejected the OSCE's draft peace plan offering the
formation of a "common state" featuring Karabagh within
Azerbaijan proper, Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Tofik Zulfugarov reiterates
his government's preference for granting Karabagh "a high degree
of self-rule." |
| December 8 |
Armenian Foreign Minister
Vardan Oskanian calls on Azerbaijan to reconsider its position on
resuming talks over the Nagorno Karabagh conflict despite Baku's rejection
of the OSCE's "compromise variant" suggesting a "common
state" reflected in its latest draft peace plan. The Armenian
foreign minister is attending the regular meeting of the North Atlantic
Treaty Organization's (NATO) Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council in
Brussels. |
| December 10 |
Deputy Defense Minister
Colonel Vahram Khorkhoruni, a close ally of Defense Minister Vazgen
Sarkisian, is fatally shot outside of his home by unknown assailants.
A special prosecution team is formed to launch a special investigation
and a $100,000 reward is offered for information leading to a conviction
in the case.
A group of leading Armenian clergymen and members of the "Nakhichevan
Union," representing ethnic Armenians from the Azerbaijani enclave,
issues an appeal to the United Nations calling on the UN to halt the
destruction of historic Armenian religious and cultural monuments
in Nakhichevan. The Armenian government contends that Azerbaijani
residents have destroyed Armenian gravestones and monuments in the
Old Djuga cemetery near the Arax River along the Nakhichevan-Iran
border. |
| December 11 |
Following an agreement
signed in Moscow calling for a new Russian loan of $20.24 million
to finance the safety and fuel supply of the Armenian Medzamor nuclear
power plant, a shipment of much needed nuclear fuel arrives in Yerevan.
Armenian firms currently owe over $40 million in outstanding arrears
for electricity supplies from the Medzamor plant.
Opposition National Democratic Union (NDU) leader Vazgen Manukian,
a former prime minister and failed presidential candidate, addresses
his party's tenth congress and alleges that the Armenian and Nagorno
Karabagh economies are under the direct control of a small elite group
led by President Robert Kocharian |
| December 16 |
The Council of Europe's
Parliamentary Assembly convenes a special hearing on the Nagorno Karabagh
conflict in Paris after being postponed for a month after Azerbaijan's
objection to the invitation extended to a separate delegation of Karabagh
officials. The Armenian government sends a delegation led by parliamentary
speaker Khosrov Harutiunian, but Azerbaijan's parliamentary speaker
Murtuz Aleskerov announces that his government is boycotting the hearing.
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| December 17 |
Foreign Minister Vardan
Oskanian, in comments at the closing meeting of the annual European
Union (EU)-Armenia commission meeting in Yerevan, states that Armenia
will abide by its commitment to close the Medzamor nuclear power plant
by the year 2004 as long as the EU assists in developing alternative
energy sources. The Medzamor plant, which was reopened in 1995, currently
supplies the country with 35 percent of its electricity needs. The
Medzamor plant was reactivated with the assistance of the European
Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), which provided financing
of $10 million on the condition that the plant be shut down by the
year 2004. EU officials announce a new ECU 50 million ($58.8 million)
loan and grant package, bringing total EU aid to Armenia to over ECU
250 million since 1991. |
| December 18-19 |
Commenting on the latest
peace plan presented by the Organization for Security and Cooperation
in Europe (OSCE), Armenian Foreign Minister Vardan Oskanian states
that the plan represents a "big step forward" in seeking
to reach a negotiated resolution to the conflict and "is substantially
different" from the OSCE's previous peace plan. The foreign minister's
comments are directed at previous statements by Armenian opposition
figures, including former Foreign Minister Alexander Arzoumanian and
parliamentary Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Hovannes Igitian,
condemning the peace plan as being unacceptable since it contains
no significant changes or improvements compared to earlier OSCE plans.
The criticism of the two opposition figures, both of the "Hayrenik"
bloc, allied with the former ruling Armenian National Movement (ANM)
of the Ter Petrosian government, is also echoed by former parliamentary
speaker Babken Ararktsian. All claim to have seen the latest plan
although none of the document's details have yet been released. Armenian
press reports suggest that the details of the draft plan have been
leaked to the opposition by deputy Foreign Minister Shahen Karamanukian,
a former loyalist of Ter Petrosian. |
| December 20 |
Former Armenian Communist
party leader Garen Demirchian addresses the founding congress of a
local branch of his newly-created "People's Party" in Yerevan.
Demirchian criticizes the Kocharian government for "tampering"
with the results of the March 1998 presidential election, in which
he lost to Kocharian, and blames the current government's cuts in
subsidies to the country's industrial and agricultural sectors. The
People's Party calls itself a modern social-democratic party which
offers a new alternative to rebuild the country by promising to "restore
democracy." Demirchian was Armenian Communist party First Secretary
from 1974 to 1988. |
| December 21 |
A group of opposition
parliamentarians criticize the recent announcement by the national
telecommunications monopoly ArmenTel that it will soon introduce significant
price hikes for local telephone service. ArmenTel was sold to the
Greek OTE telecommunications firm for $150 million with an additional
$300 million in investment pledges in 1997 and, according to the terms
of the sale, retains the right of unilateral rate increases. Opposition
deputies also state that the government's planned price increases
for electricity, public transportation, and bread, to be introduced
next month, will hurt the neediest of the population.
Nagorno Karabagh Defense Minister Samvel Babayan addresses students
at the Yerevan State University and states that the new mediation
attempt by the OSCE's is a promising sign that real negotiations may
now be possible. Specifically, the defense minister commends the OSCE's
draft peace plan for granting "the principles of people's self-determination
and territorial integrity" equal consideration. Admitting a fundamental
difference with Armenia over the peace plan, however, Babayan states
that the Armenian government does not have a clear position regarding
the plan and complains that Karabagh "does not get a clear answer
from the Armenian authorities." Commenting on the peace process
and the subsequent concessions Stepanakert will be bound to make,
the defense minister adds that he is personally opposed to returning
Kelbajar and Lachin, two key districts captured in 1992 and 1993 which
comprise the strategic land corridor connecting Armenia to Nagorno
Karabagh. |
| December 22 |
The International Monetary
Fund (IMF) and the World Bank announce a new $124 million loan package
for assisting the Armenian government with continued economic reforms
and to aid the energy sector which will fully phase out all state
subsidies in the coming months. The aid is to also help minimize "spillover"
effects from the Russian financial crisis and to help finance the
state's budget deficit.
Nagorno Karabagh President Arkady Gukasyan meets with Armenian President
Robert Kocharian in Yerevan to brief him on the recent hearing on
the Karabagh conflict convened by the Council of Europe's Parliamentary
Assembly in Paris. The hearing, featuring delegations from Armenia
and Karabagh, but not from the boycotting Azerbaijan, reviewed the
mediation efforts of the Organization for Security and Cooperation
in Europe (OSCE) and stressed the need to continue the peace talks
among the parties. |
| December 23 |
Armenia, Bulgaria and
Georgia conclude a commercial transportation agreement which will
allow goods to be transferred from the Georgian ports of Poti and
Batumi by ferry to the Bulgarian port of Varna on the Black Sea. Armenian
Transport Minister Yervand Zakharian states that the new ferry link
will enable Armenia's cargo exports to rise by 20-30 percent in the
coming year. Iranian officials, present at the signing ceremony, add
that Iran is also interested in joining the tripartite agreement at
some later point. A similar ferry route is to be operational between
the Georgian ports and the Ukrainian Black Sea port of Ilichevsk later
this month. |
| December 24 |
Presidential Press Secretary
Vahe Gabrielian announces that the Kocharian government is planning
to convene a major conference on diaspora relations in September 1999.
President Kocharian appoints Defense Minister Vazgen Sarkisian, Foreign
Minister Vardan Oskanian, and presidential adviser and Armenian Revolutionary
Federation (ARF) leader Vahan Hovanessian to a newly-formed governmental
commission empowered to prepare the logistics for the conference.
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| December 25 |
Newly appointed Health
Minister Haik Nikoghosian promises to reform the country's health
care system, improving its services and affordability. Currently,
Armenian health care is faced with challenges of a lack of any system
of mandatory medical insurance, an 80 percent level of health services
requiring payment, and low living standards and declining income combining
to make health care virtually unaffordable to most citizens.
The California-based Armenian Technology Group (ATG) accelerates its
project to assist the local honey industry of Nagorno Karabagh with
the dispatch of technical advisers to rebuild the region's apiary
sector. According to ATG Executive Director Varoujan Der Simonian,
the project is to be completed by March and is funded by grants of
$1 million, mostly from the Save the Children Federation and the U.S.
Agency for International Development (AID). Nearly three hundred farming
households are to be targeted for special technical assistance and
ten percent of the output will be donated to hospitals, charitable
organizations and the neediest of the population throughout Nagorno
Karabagh. |
| December 26 |
Long time Armenian Revolutionary
Federation (ARF) leader Hrair Maroukhian is buried in Yerevan following
his death in Athens after suffering a long incapacitating illness
in 1995. President Kocharian and other senior government officials
join ARF leaders in honoring Maroukhian at his funeral. The ARF leader
was banned from Armenia by former President Levon Ter Petrosian in
June 1992 which was followed by an outright ban on the ARF in late
1994 and lifted by Kocharian earlier this year. |
| December 28 |
Foreign Minister Vardan
Oskanian holds a series of meetings with Russian officials during
a visit to Moscow. Meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov
and first deputy Prime Minister Vadim Gustov, Oskanian agrees to consider
a new avenue of "direct talks" on the Nagorno Karabagh conflict
with "the assistance of the Organization for Security and Cooperation
in Europe (OSCE) and with Russia's participation."
The Armenian parliament passes legislation increasing the salaries
of high-level government officials and requiring an annual declaration
of personal property and income by officials. The roughly four-fold
salary increase, raising the monthly salary to an average of 187,500
drams, about $370, applies to the president, prime minister, ministers
(full and deputy), department heads and the parliamentary leadership.
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| December 29 |
Former Yerevan Mayor and
Interior Minister under the Ter Petrosian government, Vano Siradeghian,
states in a televised interview that Armenia's top political leadership
manipulated the vote count of the September 1996 presidential election.
Siradeghian states the a decision was made in the days prior to the
election to actively ensure the election of incumbent President Levon
Ter Petrosian and to prevent a run-off election with opposition challenger
Vazgen Manukian. Siradeghian, the head of the former ruling Armenian
National Movement (ANM), adds that similar voting manipulation was
carried out by supporters of current President Robert Kocharian during
his election in March 1998.
The parliament formally adopts the government's proposed budget for
1999, which includes forecasts of economic growth of four to six percent
and a continuation of single-digit inflation. The state budget comprises
spending of 248.3 billion drams (roughly $477.5 million) and expected
revenues of 191.7 billion drams. The budget contains a deficit of
57 billion drams, representing 5.3 percent of the Gross Domestic Product
(GDP), to be wholly financed with foreign loans. Defense spending
continues to receive the most significant share of state funding,
at 40 billion drams, followed by social spending at 29.8 billion drams,
education with 25.9 billion drams and health care with 20.5 billion
drams.
Armenian government officials attend the opening of a new 13.6 kilometer
water canal supplying drinking water from the village of Artashavan
to the town of Ashtarak in the Aragatsotn district. The five month
project is funded with a government grant of 600 million drams, or
about $1.2 million. |
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