ARMENIA’S PRIORITY IS ECONOMY, SAYS NEW PREMIER

Turkish Daily News
April 11 2007

Armenia’s priority is economic development, not human rights
improvements, the country’s new prime minister said in an interview
with The Financial Times on Monday.

"Jobs are more important than rights," said Serge Sargysan, who was
promoted to premiership last Wednesday, after the death of the late
prime minister Andranik Margaryan from a heart attack last month. "It
is hard to talk about democratic and human rights when you need to
solve the social and economic needs of the population," he said to
the Financial Times during a visit to Brussels.

A third of the 3 million-strong population of Armenia lives below
the poverty line. Sargysan said the Armenian diaspora should get more
involved in the country, reminding that only 1 percent of investment
came from them.

Sargysan named another priority as concluding a peace treaty with
Azerbaijan, which lost Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia in 1994, after a
three-year war.

"Turkey – which has been offered talks without conditions – has
shown no willingness to compromise" on the Nagorno-Karabagh issue,
claimed the article.

Sargysan added that Armenia would remain friendly to Russia and would
not support a United States military base in the region.