INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS NOT TO RESPOND YET LILIT POGHOSYAN

Hayots Ashkhar Daily
June 25, 2008
Armenia

As we know last week the Temporary Committee Investigating March 1-2
Developments came to a decision to involve the extra-parliamentary
forces that attained 3% and more votes during the parliamentary
elections ("United Labor Party", "National Unity" and "Nor Jamanakner")
in the works of the Committee with the right to a consultative vote.

As the Head of the Committee, Secretary of RPA Faction Samvel
Nikoyan informed during the press conference, hold after the session
"National Unity" and "United Labor Party" officially responded to the
invitation and vice Chairman of the National Unity Sargis Muradkhanyan
participated in yesterday’s session, Leader of the United Labor Party
Gurgen Arsenyan was also going to participate in the session but for
unknown reasons he was not present yesterday.

>From the ex-presidential candidates, leader of the National Democratic
Party Vazgen Manukyan accepted the proposal for cooperation and
Tigran Karapetyan expressed his negative stance, saying that his
participation in the works of the Committee is senseless until "the
main instigator of the massive disorder deigns to bring his personal
participation in the works of the Committee and pursues his "rights".

Attaching great importance to the fair examination of March 1
developments the Committee came to a decision to appeal to interested
extra-parliamentary forces and representatives of society, those
who cannot be involved in the works of the Committee. The goal is
to clarify "what questions do our people have, what issues would
they like the Committee to clarify. To spell out the agenda of those
issues the Committee will appeal to the social organizations and the
political forces to submit them in a written form."

Samvel Nikoyan appealed to the Human Rights Defender and anticipates
his assistance.

As for independent MP Lyova Khachatryan the latter withdrew his
candidacy yesterday. The reason is "the atmosphere of distrust and
hostility, towards the Committee and himself in particular, because
he is in very close relations with the Prosecutor General and people
think this will prevent him from being impartial. That is why he
came to a decision to withdraw his candidacy to contribute to the
neutralization of the negative attitude."

By the time the Parliament is on holiday, up to September L.

Khachatryan’s seat will be vacant.

Samvel Nikoyan said yesterday’s working session was marked with the
adoption of the Committee’s working regulation: "This issue has been
discussed in all the previous sessions. Each member of the Committee
has submitted his stance. Today we managed to solve that issue by
means of consensus."

We have included one expert in the Committee on contract
bases. Later we will invite other experts, by the proposal of the
extra-parliamentary opposition. "Besides the fact that L. Ter-Petrosyan
can participate in the works of the Committee by the status of a
member, he can send his expert to participate in the works. They
expressed distrust, they wanted to send Gevorik, instead we propose
them to send their expert as well," S.

Nikoyan said.

The international organizations haven’t yet responded to the appeal of
the Committee to send their experts. The responsible representative
of OSCE office particularly mentioned that they couldn’t take
swift decisions regarding procedural issues. If it turns out that
the European structures can’t send their experts because they lack
similar practice, the Committee will appeal to other international
organizations.

"And what about the participation of "Heritage" Faction? Should we
consider this topic closed?"

"No. We are waiting for the leader of "Heritage’ faction to return. The
day before, immediately after the briefing I went to see the leader of
the faction but unfortunately he had left the country. We will meet
when he returns," the Chairman of the Committee said in response to
our question.