Thursday, 

U.S. General Again Visits Armenia


 . Emil Danielyan


U.S. - Armenian soldiers are trained at a Kansas National Guard
facility in Salina in July 2017.

A U.S. general overseeing the Kansas National Guard is visiting
Armenia for a third time in less than a year shortly after his troops
trained more Armenian soldiers as part of growing U.S.-Armenian
defense cooperation.

Major General Lee Tafanelli, the Kansas adjutant general, met with
Defense Minister Vigen Sargsian on Wednesday. He reportedly pledged to
continue training programs for Armenian military personnel mostly
serving in a special brigade that contributes troops to multinational
peacekeeping missions around the world.

The Armenian Peacekeeping Brigade has received considerable technical
assistance from U.S. Army Europe and the Kansas National Guard. In
particular, U.S. instructors have been training the brigade's medical
personnel and demining experts. The Armenian military inaugurated a
U.S.-sponsored paramedic school in October last year.


U.S. - Kansas National Guard officers train Armenian soldiers in July
2017.

Tafanelli's department reported earlier this week that more soldiers
of the Peacekeeping Brigade have undergone training at a Kansas
National Guard facility in Salina, a small city in the
U.S. state. "The Guardsmen and Armenian soldiers conducted training
exercises in the Humvee egress rollover trainer and in the virtual
convoy simulator," it said in a statement.

The Kansas Adjutant General's Department also released several
photographs of the joint exercises held this month.

The U.S. has also helped Armenia to recruit and train more
non-commissioned contract officers. As part of that effort, 25
Armenian army sergeants underwent further training in Kansas in August
2016.

According to the Armenian Defense Ministry, Sargsian and Tafanelli
discussed these training programs at their meeting. "The American side
expressed readiness to continue cooperation in these directions
through long-term programs," read a ministry statement.

Despite its military alliance with Russia, Armenia has deepened
defense cooperation with NATO and the United States in particular
since the early 2000s. It currently contributes troops to NATO-led
missions in Kosovo and Afghanistan and regularly participates in
multinational exercises organized by U.S. forces in
Europe. U.S. military assistance to Armenia has totaled about $50
million since 2002.


Armenia - Major General Lee Tafanelli (C), the Kansas adjutant
general, and U.S. Ambassador Richard Mills (R) at a meeting with
Armenian Defense Minister Vigen Sargsian in Yerevan, 26Jul2017.

Tafanelli said that U.S.-Armenian military ties are now "as strong as
they have ever been" during his previous visit to Yerevan in
January. "Each year continues to get better and better with the
quality of the engagements and partnership between our two countries,"
he told RFE/RL's Armenian service (Azatutyun.am).

Tafanelli as well as a deputy commander of U.S. Army Europe, Major
General John Gronski, also attended last September official ceremonies
in Armenia that marked the 25th anniversary of the country's
independence. A military parade in Yerevan was the main highlight of
those celebrations.

In addition, the Kansas National Guard has been assisting Armenia's
Ministry of Emergency Situations. Emergency Situations Minister Davit
Tonoyan praised that assistance when he met Tafanelli on Thursday. In
a statement, Tonoyan's office said the two men discussed ongoing
training courses for Armenian firefighters and rescue workers
organized by the Kansas Guard and the British military.

The ten-day courses began on July 18 at two different locations in
Armenia. The statement said Tonoyan and Tafanelli will visit both
venues on Thursday and Friday.



Still No Agreement On Next Armenian-Azeri Summit


 . Artak Hambardzumian


Russia - President Serzh Sarkisian and his Azerbaijani counterpart
Ilham Aliyev start Russian-mediated talks in St. Petersburg,
20Jun2016.

Armenia and Azerbaijan have not yet agreed on the date of a fresh
meeting of their presidents sought by international mediators, a
senior Armenian diplomat said on Thursday.

"As you know, there has been a proposal from the mediators," Deputy
Foreign Minister Shavarsh Kocharian told journalists. "The [Armenian
and Azerbaijani] foreign ministers are working in that
direction. There is no final agreement and decision yet."


Armenia - Deputy Foreign Minister Shavarsh Kocharian, 27July, 2017.

The U.S., Russian and French co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group
continued to press for such a summit when they met with Foreign
Ministers Edward Nalbandian and Elmar Mammadyarov in Brussels on July
11. In a joint statement issued after the talks, they said Nalbandian
and Mammadyarov agreed to meet again in September for further
discussions on the issue.

In a televised interview aired on July 16, President Serzh Sarkisian
said a "preliminary agreement" on his face-to-face talks with
Azerbaijan's Ilham was reached during the co-chairs' tour of the
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict zone last month. "My expectations from the
meeting are not big, but that meeting could take place this autumn,"
he told the Armenia TV station.

The two presidents most recently met in May and June last year shortly
after four-day deadly hostilities around Karabakh. They agreed to
allow the OSCE to deploy more field observers in the conflict zone and
investigate truce violations occurring there.

The Azerbaijani government has since been reluctant to implement these
safeguards, however, saying that they would cement the status quo in
the absence of progress in Armenian-Azerbaijani peace talks. The
Armenian leadership insists, meanwhile, on an unconditional
implementation of the confidence-building measures that were agreed by
Aliyev and Sarkisian.

Sarkisian claimed on July 16 that Baku is now refusing to seek a
Karabakh settlement based on the so-called Madrid Principles that have
been advanced by the mediating powers for the past decade.

The proposed framework peace accord calls for a gradual resolution of
the Karabakh dispute that would start with a gradual liberation of
virtually all seven districts around Karabakh that were fully or
partly occupied by Karabakh Armenian forces in 1992-1993. In return,
Karabakh's predominantly ethnic Armenian population would determine
the territory's internationally recognized status in a future
referendum.



Government OKs Major Borrowing By Armenian Electric Utility


 . Tatevik Lazarian


Armenia - A newly refurbished energy distribution facility in Gyumri,
13Sep2014.

Armenia's government on Thursday allowed the national power
distribution network to borrow $160 million from foreign banks for
further cutting its losses and modernizing its aging facilities.

The private owner of the Electric Networks of Armenia (ENA) utility
needed government permission to offer 70 percent of its stock as a
collateral for the two equal loans to be provided by the European Bank
for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and the Asian Development
Bank (ABA).

Prime Minister Karen Karapetian's cabinet authorized the transaction
on the condition that should the ENA default on the loan repayments
the banks will not be able to sell the ENA shares to other investors
without the Armenian authorities' consent.

The Manila-based ABA announced the impeding disbursement of its $80
million credit to the ENA early this month. It said the money will
help the company cut electricity distribution losses from around 10
percent in 2016 to around 8 percent by 2021. This will be achieved by
"rehabilitating, reinforcing, and augmenting the distribution network,
connecting new customers and introducing international standards of
management and automated control system," the ABA said in a statement.

The ENA had incurred mounting losses since 2010, despite repeated
increases in electricity prices approved by Armenian state
regulators. The company had $220 million in outstanding debts to
Armenian power plants and commercial banks when it was acquired by the
Tashir Group of the Russian-Armenian billionaire Samvel Karapetian
from Inter RAO, a state-run Russian energy giant, in October
2015. Karapetian pledged to make the troubled utility "much better
under our management."

The most recent electricity price hike announced by Armenia's Public
Services Regulatory Commission (PSRC) in June 2015 sparked two-week
demonstrations in Yerevan. While defending the tariff rise, the
government officials acknowledged that the power grids have been
mismanaged by the Russians.

Artak Manukian, a Yerevan-based economist, was skeptical about the
rationale for the new loans sought by the ENA. He said that the loans
could be misused because the company has been notorious for a lack of
transparency.

"But formally we have no grounds to prove that and have to accept for
now the explanations presented by the company," Manukian told RFE/RL's
Armenian service (Azatutyun.am).



U.S. Lawmaker Seeks IT Education Grant For Armenia


U.S. -- Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), ranking member of the House Permanent
Select Committee on Intelligence, speaks during a discussion at the
Washington Post office building, in Washington, June 7, 2017

A leading pro-Armenian U.S. congressman has called for
multimillion-dollar U.S. funding for public schools in Armenia which
would ultimately benefit the country's burgeoning information
technology (IT) industry.

Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the U.S. House Intelligence
Committee, said the U.S. government should allocate such assistance
under its Millennium Challenge Account (MCA) program designed to
foster reforms in developing nations.

Armenia qualified for the aid scheme shortly after Washington launched
it in 2006, receiving over $170 million for the rehabilitation of
rural irrigation networks. The Armenian government tried in vain to
secure more MCA funding after the irrigation upgrades were completed
in 2011.

Last year, the Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA) started
lobbying the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), a U.S. government
agency running the program, to support science, technology,
engineering and math (STEM) education in Armenia with a grant worth at
least $100 million. The advocacy group's chairman, Raffi Hamparian,
said the money would "add new energy" to the Armenian IT sector,
reduce poverty and strengthen U.S.-Armenian relations.

Schiff, whose California constituency is home to the largest
population of ethnic Armenians in the United States, voiced support
for the ANCA efforts on Thursday. "I believe the time is right for a
new [MCC] compact, focusing on STEM education to help Armenia take the
next step towards sustainable economic growth and a growing middle
class," an ANCA statement quoted him as saying.

Schiff said that in recent weeks he spoken with ANCA leaders as well
as Armenian Embassy officials in Washington about "how to move forward
on this important project." "I look forward to continuing to work
closely with all of the stakeholders to ensure Armenia receives every
consideration," he added.


Armenia - Students at the newly opened Gyumri branch of the Tumo
Center for Creative Technologies, 25May2015. (Photo courtesy of
Tumo.org)

IT is already the fastest-growing sector of the Armenian economy,
having expanded by over 20 percent annually in the past decade. The
sector employing about 15,000 people is dominated by local
subsidiaries of several U.S. tech giants.

Industry executives say a lack of skilled personnel has hampered an
even more rapid growth. They have long complained about the inadequate
professional level of many graduates of IT departments of Armenia
universities.

An Armenian IT association has been trying to address this problem
with extracurricular robotics classes organized by it in more than 100
public schools across the country since 2008. The effort has attracted
only limited financial assistance from local and foreign donors so
far.

Thousands of other Armenian schoolchildren are enrolled in Yerevan's
Tumo Center for Creative Technologies, mainly studying computer
programming, robotics and animation. The state-of-the-art center was
founded by U.S.-Armenian philanthropist Sam Simonian in 2011 and has
since opened several branches in other parts of the country.



Press Review



"Aravot" reacts to a scandalous revelation that the press secretaries
of several Armenian government agencies discussed in a closed Facebook
group the possibility of blacklisting some journalists disliked by
them. The paper says that although relations between government
spokespersons and reporters have never been perfect it is totally
wrong to penalize the latter for critical reports about relevant
government agencies. "A civil servant must stay away from such
emotions and provide their services to all beneficiaries, regardless
of their political views and their attitudes towards a particular
agency and its head," it says in an editorial.

"The spokespersons' talk of blacklists is disgraceful," Ashot
Melikian, chairman of the Committee to Protect Freedom of Speech,
tells "Hraparak." "I think that if they have really done such a thing
they must be held accountable. All of them. If they didn't like a
particular report they should have exercised their right to respond
[to a corresponding media outlet,] rather than have a grudge and draw
up a so-called blacklist. I consider that unprofessional." Melikian
also reminds those officials that under an Armenian freedom of
information law they must answer journalists' questions within five
days. "So these discriminatory attitudes towards media outlets are
simply unacceptable and run counter to spokespersons' duties," he
adds.

"Hayots Ashkhar" criticizes the Armenian government's plans to cut the
share of its spending on education in the country's Gross Domestic
Product in the coming years. "We believe that such cost saving is
extremely worrying," comments the paper. "International experience
clearly proves that education spending cuts could be disastrous for
any country # and that only rising human capital can guarantee future
development. There can be nothing worse for Armenia's future than a
reduction in education spending."

(Tigran Avetisian)


Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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