ARMENIAN FOREIGN MINISTRY DENIES ZAMAN SPECULATIONS

Armenpress
Apr 25 2006

YEREVAN, APRIL 25, ARMENPRESS: Armenian foreign ministry has denied
today media reports that president Kocharian is likely to visit the
United States of America.

A spokesman for foreign ministry, Hamlet Gasparian, said it was wrong
to conclude from an interview by Armenian deputy foreign minister
Arman Kirakosian to Turkish daily Zaman that Kocharian was going to
visit Washington after Azerbaijani president Ilham Aliyev.

He said the conclusion was either a wrong translation of the interview
or a distortion of Kirakosian’s words.

Gasparian said in a last week interview with Zaman Arman Kirakosian
did not say Kocharian would visit Washington following Azeri president
Aliyev’s visit, but singling out good relations between Washington
and Yerevan did not exclude that Kocharian may visit the U.S.A. in
any time in future.

Meantime Azeri president Ilham Aliyev has left today for a four-day
official visit to Washington. In the USA he is scheduled to discuss
various issues with president George Bush, vice-president Dick Cheney,
defense secretary Rumsfeld and secretary of state Condoleezza Rice. The
outgoing US Ambassador in Baku Reno Harnish was quoted by local media
last week as saying that the Karabakh problem will be high on Aliyev’s
Washington agenda.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress