OSCE OFFICE IN YEREVAN SUMMARIZES RESULTS OF ITS 10-YEAR ACTIVITIES

Noyan Tapan
March 15, 2010

YEREVAN, MARCH 15, NOYAN TAPAN. The March 15 meeting of the OSCE
Yerevan Office Head, Ambassador Sergey Kapinos with reporters was
dedicated to the 10-year activities of the Office. He stated that
the OSCE Yerevan Office assists Armenia with fulfillment of the
obligations the country assumed within the framework of the OSCE,
as well as promotes cooperation of Armenia on the OSCE territory –
through collaboration with all state and non-state institutions of
Armenia. It was with the assistance of OSCE that the Electoral and
Judicial Codes of Armenia and a number of laws, including the RA law
on freedom of conscience and religion and the RA law on freedom of
assembly and mass events, have been developed. In the opinion of S.

Kapinos, the last of the indicated laws is much more modern than the
similar laws of several other transitional countries.

He said that last year the Office implemented 53 projects, including
military-political, environmental, economic programs and projects
related to human rights, democracy and efficient state governance.

According to him, considerable success has been achieved in police
reforms and military-political programs on democratic control of the
parliament and civil society over the armed forces.

In the economic sphere, the activities of the OSCE Yerevan Office are
aimed first of all at developing small and medium entrepreneurship,
creating a competitive environment, and assisting the development
of marzes (regions). In this connection S. Kapinos underlined
the importance of establishing the OSCE Office in Syunik in 2006:
it became an experimental field for preparing a number of projects
which will be used later in other marzes of Armenia, including the
project on creation of three centers on women’s employment. As regards
emvironmental protection, a monitoring activity on purity of water
in the South Caucasus was implemented. The project on disposal of
the Nubarashen cemetery is now being examined. S. Kapinos explained
that landslides in the cemetery area may cause dangerous leakages
and contaminate the underground water with toxic substances.

S. Kapinos said that the OSCE Yerevan Office had assisted Armenia in
establishing the institution of ombudsman which now has authority in
Armenia. Yet he expressed concern about court practice, saying that
there are serious problems there and it is necessary to pay attention
first of all to the judicial system. As for the freedom of press, S.

Kapinos pointed out the necessity to improve the legislation on the
sphere, in particilar to pass a law on the freedom of information.

The OSCE Yerevan Office head considered Armenia’s achievements in
the fight against human trafficking as "great". In his words, the
implementation of the anti-corruption strategic program will depend
on the efficiency of reforms in the police, the judiciary, and some
other spheres.