Sydney Morning Herald, Australia
Feb. 24, 2008

Armenia head threatens action
February 24, 2008 – 7:52AM

Armenia’s president has won the support of top security and army
chiefs for tough action against opposition supporters protesting this
week’s election, which they say was rigged.

Crowds of opposition supporters gathered for a fourth straight day in
the capital’s central Freedom Square, demanding authorities annul the
results of the February 19 presidential election won by Prime
Minister Serzh Sarksyan.

Sarksyan, who is 53 and is an ally of incumbent president Robert
Kocharyan, won nearly 53 per cent of the vote compared with 21.5 per
cent for his nearest rival, former president Levon Ter-Petrosyan,
according to official results.

Ter-Petrosyan’s supporters say the election was rigged and charge
ballot stuffing and intimidation.

Saturday’s rally in the Caucasus mountains country, which lasted
about five hours and was attended by about 35,000 people, was the
largest opposition protest since the election.

"Robert Kocharyan characterised the events taking place in Armenia as
an attempt to seize power by illegal means," the presidential press
service said in a statement issued after Kocharyan met top police
officers.

"Our actions will be resolute and tough; they will be directed
towards safeguarding stability and the country’s constitutional
order," the statement quoted Kocharyan as saying.

Kocharyan then met the chiefs of the army and national security
service. "The nation’s stability should in no case become a
bargaining chip," he told senior security officials.

Ter-Petrosyan shrugged off the threats.

"Our struggle will continue as before, by lawful means," he told
Reuters. "Our rallies will go on, just as well as marches and
picketing. They (the authorities) themselves are the ones who
violated the country’s constitutional order."

"Levon is the president!" chanted the rally. "Victory!" and "We will
fight till the end," shouted the protesters.

An opposition tent camp will continue its night vigil in central
Yerevan.

Armenia, an ancient Christian nation of 3.2 million, lies in a region
emerging as a key route for pumping Caspian Sea oil and gas to world
markets, although Armenia has no pipelines of its own.

Western election monitors said the ballot was broadly in line with
the country’s international commitments but further improvements were
necessary.

Kocharyan and Sarksyan are both natives of Nagorno-Karabakh, a region
over which Armenia and neighbouring Azerbaijan fought a war in the
1990s. Some analysts say still-unresolved conflict could flare again
into violence.

Turkey closed its border with Armenia and froze diplomatic relations
in solidarity with Turkic-speaking Azerbaijan.

Relations with Ankara are also complicated by the massacre of
Armenians by Ottoman Turks during World War I, viewed by Yerevan as
genocide, a charge Turkey strongly denies.

Turkey congratulated Sarksyan on his election win and said it hoped
for better ties with the Christian neighbour.