RUSSIAN POLITICIAN SAYS EMERGENCY RULE JUSTIFIED IN YEREVAN

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

The decree issued by Armenian President Robert Kocharian introducing
emergency rule following mass protests by the opposition is absolutely
lawful, said Alexei Ostrovsky, the chairman of the State Duma’s
Committee on CIS and Ethnic Russians.

"The outgoing, but still incumbent, Armenian president, as the
guarantor of the Constitution, has every right to impose a state of
emergency, given the critical situation the capital was in because
of mass opposition protests," Ostrovsky told Interfax.

This situation is first and foremost the responsibility of opposition
leaders, he said. "Regrettably, very often certain politicians from
the opposition, who are not thinking about the consequences of such
mass and violent protests, want to use people in order to achieve
their own political goals, despite there being every possibility to
challenge the election results in a civilized manner; by going to a
court," Ostrovsky said.