GEORGIAN-RUSSIAN CONFLICT IS MORE DANGEROUS THAN KARABAKH ONE: LEADER OF ARMENIAN UNITED COMMUNIST PARTY

ArmInfo News Agency, Armenia
Oct 24 2006

At a press-conference, Tuesday, Chairman of the United Communist Party
of Armenia Yuri Manoukyan said that in the heat of the Georgian-Russian
conflict, Armenia found itself in a more dangerous condition than
during the Karabakh war.

According to him, Armenians should be "quiet and far-sighted", as in
case of the Russian-Armenian relations’ aggravation, the problems
between the governments of the two countries will affect not only
energy and gas supply. "We shouldn’t forget that 37% of Armenian
citizens live on money transfers from their relatives working in
Russia. If we start conflicting with Russia, hundreds of thousands of
Armenian citizens will be deported to Armenia and we’ll be unable to
provide them with job", Manoukyan stressed. He also noted that Armenia
has made a big mistake to cross out the centuries-old friendship with
Russia in an instant. Armenia cooperates with Russia in the political
and military spheres and simply has no right to step aside, he said.

Manoukyan didn’t exclude Armenia’s possible mediation in the settlement
of the Georgian-Russian conflict. Adding that the deportation of
Georgian citizens from Russia and distortion of Georgian’s image
by Russian mass media are the result of the Georgian authorities’
short-sighted policy, Manoukyan pointed out that the Georgian
government should realize that only Georgian people suffer from
this conflict.