ITAR-TASS News Agency
TASS
May 5, 2004 Wednesday

New round of consultations with Armenia opposition fixed for Thur

By Tigran Liloyan

YEREVAN

Speaker of Armenian parliament Artur Bagdasaryan on Wednesday
announced a new round of the talks with the opposition that were
disrupted a week ago.

In the statement circulated here on Wednesday, the speaker invited
the heads of parliamentary factions for political consultations on
Thursday “to discuss the political situation in the country”. He
assessed as highly important the proposal for a political dialogue
addressed to the Armenian authorities and opposition in the recent
resolution of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.
The speaker made this invitation for the reason that the readiness to
continue the talks had been expressed by the parties in the
pro-presidential coalition and by the opposition.

Similar talks were held in parliament on April 26-27 and were
disrupted on the eve of another rally of the opposition. Bagdasaryan
then expressed the conviction that the intermission in the political
consultations would enable the political forces participating in the
talks to discuss numerous proposals made during these meetings.

At the rally on Tuesday the opposition announced that there would be
no rallies nor other mass actions till May 14 and expressed the
readiness for talks with the authorities. At the same time the
opposition repeated its demand that Robert Kocharyan resign as
Armenian president.

The Armenian authorities describe the actions of the opposition as
“manifestations of political extremism”. Police dispersed the rally
of the opposition in downtown Yerevan on the night to April 13. The
opposition’s demands include the release of its arrested activists,
live time on TV and unobstructed travel of residents of Armenian
regions to Yerevan to participate in antigovernment actions.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress