ARMENIA IN "STABLE DEVELOPMENT PHASE" – PRESIDENT KOCHARIAN
ITAR-TASS News Agency
September 22, 2007 Saturday 1:50 AM EST
Armenia is in a phase of stable development, its president, Robert
Kocharian, said at a state reception on Friday on the occasion of
Independence Day.
"The economy is booming," he declared. "Thousands of jobs are being
created, people’s incomes have been growing tangibly, poverty is
shrinking, the quality of life is rising, thousands of citizens,
who once left Armenia in search of a chance to earn a living are
returning home, and the middle class is emerging."
"The restoration of Armenia’s statehood was an exceptional, historic
event for all Armenian people," Kocharian said. "The determination
of the Armenian people to build a free, democratic and prospering
nation was expressed in the 1991 independence referendum. Over the
16-year period that has elapsed since the nation decently coped with
quite a few tests."
The Armenian president said Yerevan was determined to continue to
help the self-proclaimed republic of Nagorno-Karabakh find its feet,
"because only full-fledged statehood will be able to give security
to the people of Karabakh."
"The presidential election in Nagorno-Karabakh demonstrated the people’
s unanimous striving for independence, faith in their own statehood
and the determination to defend it," Kocharian said.
Meanwhile, as an Armenian foreign ministry official said just recently,
"time is not ripe yet for the recognition of Nagorno-Karabakh."