PRIME MINISTER SARKISIAN BRUSHES ASIDE FEARS OF IMMINENT DESTABILIZATION

Armenpress
Apr 13 2007

YEREVAN, APRIL 13, ARMENPRESS: Prime minister Serzh Sarkisian has
brushed aside today fears of imminent political destabilization,
saying law-enforcement agencies wield sufficient resources to prevent
any such attempt.

These fears have been prompted by the assassination attempt on the
mayor of Armenia’s second largest town of Gyumri and two successive
attacks yesterday morning on offices of the Prosperous Armenia party.

Mayor of Gyumri, Vartan Ghukasian, was seriously wounded and three of
his bodyguards were killed when their motorcade came under fire about
30 kilometers west of Yerevan on April 2 and two Yerevan offices of
the Prosperous Armenia Party were ripped through by explosions early
Thursday morning.

The attacks against party offices were condemned promptly by president
Robert Kocharian as an attempt to destabilize the political situation
in the country ahead of next month’s parliamentary elections.

Serzh Sarkisian was attending today a ceremony of handing the first
of 10 computers to the Arabkir Passport Department of Police, which is
part of a project implemented by International Foundation for Electoral
Systems (IFES) and funded by the United States government. The project
will install 45 specially-designed computers in passport offices around
the country over the next month to give voters immediate access to
their voter registry records.

Speaking to journalists after the ceremony Serzh Sarkisian said
no country is immune from crimes and the immediate function
of law-enforcement bodies is to detect and punish culprits. He
declined to link the assassination attempt on the Gyumri mayor with
election-induced processes, saying the answer should be given by
law-enforcement bodies.

Likewise he declined to give his assessment of the two explosions
that hit the offices of the Prosperous Armenia.

"I do not want to voice my opinions because I would not like to
impose them on police officers. When the masterminds and executors
are revealed, then we shall give our assessments," he said.