SUMMARY OF FIVE YEARS

Azat Artsakh – Nagorno Karabakh Republic [NKR]
16 May 05

On the eve of the parliamentary election the faction “Democracy” or
“Democratic Liberal Union”, holding the majority in the parliament,
presented a summary of its five years activity. In the press conference
on May 14 the vice chairman of the faction “Democracy” (known as
Democratic Liberal Union), the chairman of the NA standing committee
of foreign relations Vahram Atanessian presented the work done in
five years to the journalists. The faction goes in for the rule of
law, promotion of democratic processes, building of a civil society,
economic progress in the country, tax and loan reforms. In order
to achieve these objectives the parliamentary faction endorsed the
policy of the president and the government of the republic. According
to V. Atanessian, they do not regret. Moreover, they are proud for
considerable social and economic progress was achieved owing to their
political support. Particularly, in the past five years the NKR state
budget almost doubled, the country’s own income increased three times.
“This shows that the executive power of our republic has adopted
the line of establishing a self-sufficient economy through use of
the country’s inner potential, which fully reflects the interests
of our state and people,” said the vice chairman of the faction.
Mentioning the rise in salary of budget-financed institutions,
retirement pension and social security payments, V. Atanessian,
nevertheless, said that the faction does not consider that all the
issues in the country have been solved and that there are no social
problems. “We can see the current difficulties better than any other
political force, however, unlike others, we do not want to distract
people with populist calls, we prefer to promote steady growth in
the country, for only through continuousness can we achieve good
results.” V. Atanessian also focused on the legislative activity of
the faction directed at democratization of the home political life
of NKR. It was pointed out that in 2001 the political government
of the republic decided on upgrading the NKR legislation for it to
correspond to the European standards, starting from its important
role for the international recognition of NKR. The Democratic Liberal
Union undertook a series of important legislative projects which were
adopted and brought in effect. Among them was the law on television and
radio by which the NKR public television and radio were established
and operate. The NKR law on the mass media was adopted. Besides,
the faction undertook the law on freedom of information which,
according to V. Atanessian, became subject of long fruitless debates
in press. Besides, according to him, the faction paid great attention
to the protection of human rights. The law on the defender of human
rights was undertaken by the faction. “Certainly, I do not think that
our work is perfect, and the faction shares this opinion too. More
exactly, we did not manage to do everything but this is normal. We
may have made mistakes and had imperfections, however, if one works,
one makes mistakes too,” said the vice chairman of the faction. He said
he was hopeful that the political force which will hold the majority in
the next parliament will recognize as the positive, so as the negative
aspects of activity of the faction, and will carry on the policy of
improvement of the legislation launched by them, filling the gaps and
correcting the mistakes for the sake of development of NKR and for
the sake of our common aim to build a free, democratic, independent
and sovereign state and achieve its international recognition. In
the end Vahram Atanessian answered the questions of journalists.

LAURA GRIGORIAN. 19-05-2005