Monday, Sarkisian Calls For Immigration, Investments From Armenian Diaspora (UPDATED) . Anush Muradian Armenia - President Serzh Sarkisian addresses the Sixth Armenia-Diaspora Conference in Yerevan, 18Sep2017. Armenia's government will encourage ethnic Armenians living abroad to relocate to their historical homeland in an effort to address its demographic problems, President Serzh Sarkisian said on Monday. Sarkisian urged Armenian Diaspora organizations to assist in that endeavor as he addressed hundreds of their representatives attending a government-organized conference in Yerevan. He also renewed his calls for greater Diaspora investments in the struggling Armenian economy. "We note that demographic trends in our country are extremely concerning and result from many objective and subjective factors of the last 25 years," he said in a long speech delivered at the Sixth Armenia-Diaspora Conference. "In the coming years, our efforts will be aimed at speeding up the natural growth of Armenia's population and substantially changing the emigration-to-immigration ratio. "We have declared that our goal is to ensure that Armenia has at least 4 million residents by 2040. Obviously we would have trouble attaining that goal only by increasing the birth rate, prolonging life expectancy and taking other steps to improve the demographic picture." The ambitious goal, he went on, also requires "achieving serious indicators of immigration into Armenia" in the next 25 years. "In my view, the realization of this objective will be the main subject of the next Armenia-Diaspora conferences," he said. "I believe that we are ripe for seriously discussing the issue of organizing repatriation," declared Sarkisian. There are an estimated 8 million to 9 million ethnic Armenians around the world. Only up to 3 million of them live in Armenia. Most of the others reside in Russia, the United States, Europe and the Middle East. Throughout Sarkisian's nearly decade-long rule, scores of Armenia's citizens have continued to leave their country for primarily economic reasons. Opposition politicians and other critics of the Armenian government blame the emigration on what they see as the Sarkisian administration's failed economic policies and unwillingness to enforce the rule of law in the country. Some participants of the forum were skeptical about Sarkisian's statement, saying that the authorities in Yerevan should ease socioeconomic hardship in Armenia and stop people leaving the country before setting such demographic targets. "I don't believe in utopias," said Stepan Hovakimian, a representative of the Armenian labor unions in Los Angeles. "I only believe in real work." "Thirty thousand Syrian Armenians came to Armenia. How many of them stayed here?" said Vasken Kasemjian, head of the Social Democrat Hnchakian Party in Britain. "There are still problems in Gyumri. More than 25 years have passed since the [1988] earthquake but there are still homeless people there." "Let them solve those problems before speaking of grandiose programs," he added. In his speech, Sarkisian again called on wealthy entrepreneurs from the Diaspora to invest in Armenia. "All necessary conditions for doing that and the right business environment have been created in Armenia," he claimed. Greater Diaspora investments in the Armenian economy have been hampered by the country's flawed business environment. While some wealthy ethnic Armenian entrepreneurs from Russia, the United States and other parts of the world have set up shop in the country, many others have been scared away by government corruption and a lack of judicial independence. Those problems are apparently not on the agenda of the Diaspora-Armenia conference that got underway on Monday.Representatives of Armenia's main opposition groups were not invited to participate in the forum. Nikol Pashinian, a leader of the opposition Yelk bloc, condemned the snub. "This and several other facts prove that the event is meant to be a PR stunt by Serzh Sarkisian," he claimed. U.S. Congressman Visits Karabakh Nagorno-Karabakh - A representative of the HALO Trust briefs U.S. congressman David Valadao (C) on its demining activities in Karabakh, 18Sep2017. (Photo by the Amenian National Committee of America.) A member of the U.S. House of Representatives visited Nagorno-Karabakh on Monday about two weeks after helping to ensure continued U.S. government funding for humanitarian demining operations conducted there by a British charity. Representatives of the HALO Trust reportedly briefed the congressman, David Valadao, on their land-clearing activities in Karabakh that began 16 years ago. The organization has since cleared around 90 percent of the territory's minefields dangerously close to civilian areas. It has destroyed more than 11,000 anti-personnel and anti-tank landmines mostly left over from the 1991-1994 Armenian-Azerbaijani war. The U.S. Congress has financed the effort as part of its direct humanitarian assistance to Karabakh allocated over strong Azerbaijani objectives. Earlier this month, the House of Representatives accepted Valadao's proposal to allocate another $1.5 million to the HALO Trust's demining program in Karabakh. The measure was also strongly backed by several other pro-Armenian lawmakers, notably Ed Royce, the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. "It is a grave reality that families in Nagorno Karabakh live under the very real threat of landmine accidents each and every day," Valadao said on September 7. "However, with the funding secured in my amendment, I am optimistic significant strides will be made to ensure the region is landmine free by 2020." A Republican from California, Valadao is a member of the congressional Armenian Caucasus. His constituency is home to a large number of Armenian Americans. The congressman travelled to Karabakh together with Raffi Hamparian, the chairman of the Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA), a Washington-based lobbying group. An ANCA statement said Valadao will join five other U.S. lawmakers on Thursday in attending official ceremonies in Yerevan to mark the 26th anniversary of Armenia's independence. Anti-Government Activist Again On Hunger Strike In Jail . Sisak Gabrielian Armenia - Hayk Kyureghian is overpowered by police officers after firing gunshots outside a court in Yerevan, 12Jun2014. A maverick activist controversially jailed in Armenia has again gone on hunger strike in an apparent show of defiance against the authorities. The 33-year-old man, Hayk Kyureghian, was arrested in June 2014 and sentenced the following year to 9 years in prison for firing gunshots to protest against the trial of 14 other activists that staged a violent anti-government demonstration in Yerevan. Kyureghian fired from an air pistol towards police officers guarding a court building in Yerevan after expressing indignation at what he saw as an unfair trial of those men. He was overpowered and detained by the policemen. The Armenian police said afterwards that the gunfire left several officers lightly injured. The harsh punishment handed to Kyureghian was denounced as unfair and politically motivated by his family, friends and human rights activists. He has repeatedly gone on hunger strikes since his arrest. Kyureghian again began refusing food in his Armavir prison cell on September 13. Nikol Pashinian, a leader of the mainstream opposition Yelk alliance, said after visiting the activist on Monday that his latest protest is timed to coincide with Armenia's approaching independence anniversary. Kyureghian described the hunger strike as "resistance against enemies of our independence," Pashinian wrote on his Facebook page. Gor Ghlechian, a spokesman for a Justice Ministry division managing Armenia's prisons, said Kyureghian was moved to a special cell immediately after notifying the prison administration about the hunger strike. He gave no reason for the protest, Ghlechian told RFE/RL's Armenian service (Azatutyun.am). Kyureghian'stwo brothers were among three dozen members and supporters of a fringe opposition group that seized a police station in Yerevan in July 2015. The gunmen laid down their arms after a two-week standoff with security forces which left three police officers dead. They went on two separate trials in June. Press Review (Saturday, September 16) "It is nave, to say the least, to think that if Serzh Sarkisian does not become prime minister [in April] the [government] system will face a collapse and the opposition will be able to step in," writes "Zhamanak." "On the contrary, the fact that the opposition is again targeting a single person means that basically the opposition itself does not know what to do and is again doing something that will at best leave it with an illusion of victory." "Zhoghovurd" says that a series of shootings that outraged many in Armenia in recent weeks were mainly revenge killings. The paper says many are now also wondering whether Armenian law-enforcement bodies were really unable to disarm those criminal groups beforehand. "If they were not, then this is a tragedy for any state," it says. "It would mean that there is no law-enforcement system as such. And if the law-enforcers do control the situation and do not even try to take away illegal weapons from criminal elements then it's a tragedy too." "Haykakan Zhamanak" claims that such criminal groups have a government "license" to act with impunity. "In return for that, they assume one key obligation: to earn the [ruling] HHK votes during the elections," writes the paper. "That is also an additional source of revenue. The center provides large sums of money for the distribution of vote bribes. Part of it does not get distributed and is channeled into new villas and expensive cars for local chieftains." The paper likens such individuals to "gladiators whose only aim is to stay alive." "Hraparak" speculates that European Union officials are now somewhat worried that Armenia may not sign the Comprehensive and Enhanced Partnership Agreement (CEPA) with the EU as planed in November. "The fact that Armenia dropped out of a [U.S.-led] military exercise in Georgia at the last minute created fertile ground for those worries," the paper says. Armenian pundits, meanwhile, are confident that Yerevan will not walk away from the deal with the EU this time around. (Tigran Avetisian) Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL Copyright (c) 2017 Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, Inc. 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036. www.rferl.org