NO CURFEW FOR YEREVAN – PRESIDENT

Interfax News Agency
Russia & CIS
March 2, 2008 Sunday
Russia

Although the situation is becoming dangerous in Yerevan, the
authorities will not turn to a curfew, Armenian President Robert
Kocharian has said.

"It was my duty as the guarantor of the Constitution to make
such a decision. By all accounts, the certain concessions made
were misinterpreted by one of the presidential candidates. What is
going on now is a political process. Shots were fired at police,
and weapons and grenades, we had been talking about, were used,"
Kocharian said at a news conference early on Sunday after he signed
a decree ordering a state of emergency in Yerevan.

Eight police officers, including a regiment commander, were seriously
wounded, he said. "I have no information about fatalities," he added.

Kocharian said he had signed the decree "when reports arrived about
eight wounded police officers and the use of firearms against law
enforcement personnel."

"I am calling on citizens to demonstrate restraint and understanding,
to respect the law, and to help restore law and order," Kocharian said.

"But it would be unwise to turn to a curfew in a city with a population
of over a million," he said. "Therefore, we have chosen measures that
will bring the least inconvenience to those who are not involved in
the disturbances," he said.

The rally has moved to other districts of Yerevan and "has disappeared
from the political field," he said.

"We must and we can guarantee citizens’ security. But we must,
naturally, resort to rigorous measures, when weapons are turned against
the state. Those who fired shots at police did so from behind cars
and behind the backs of protestors, who were not armed. They hoped
for fatalities," Kocharian said.

"Seeing that the protest wave was subsiding, Levon Ter-Petrosian
provoked the situation. He did so, because all candidates, except
him, had responded to Prime Minister Serzh Sargsyan’s proposal. This
must have incited Ter-Petrosian to turn to provocations. Of course,
there are people in his electorate, who had joined him for ideological
reasons.

But some won’t stop at anything – whether looting, or shooting at
policemen," he said.

They are people without an ideology, who can be easily manipulated
and provoked, he said. "We hoped they would not step into lawlessness.

They did," the Armenian president said.