Friday, Armenian-Azeri Summit Set For October 16 Switzerland -- Armenian President Serzh Sarkisian (L) and his Azerbaijani counterpart Ilham Aliyev meet for talks on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict in Bern, December 19, 2015. The presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan will meet in Geneva on Monday for fresh negotiations on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, official Yerevan and Baku said on Friday. The announcements by President Serzh Sarkisian's office and the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry came one week after the U.S., Russian and French mediators' latest trip to the region. In an October 7 statement, the three co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group said Sarkisian and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev "confirmed their readiness to reengage in negotiations with the purpose of reaching a peaceful settlement to the conflict." The mediators have for months pressed for the Aliyev-Sarkisian meeting in hopes of breaking the continuing deadlock in the Karabakh peace process. The two presidents most recently met in May and June 2016 shortly after four-day deadly hostilities around Karabakh that nearly denigrated into an all-out war. They agreed to allow the OSCE to deploy more field observers in the conflict zone and investigate truce violations occurring there. They also hinted at progress towards a peaceful settlement. The peace process again stalled in the following months, however. The Azerbaijani government has since been reluctant to implement the agreed safeguards against renewed fighting, saying that they would cement the status quo. Armenia's Deputy Foreign Minister Shavarsh Kocharian sounded pessimistic about prospects for a Karabakh settlement when he spoke to reporters in Yerevan on Thursday. He said decisive progress towards an Armenian-Azerbaijani peace accord will be "impossible" as long as Baku refuses to bolster the ceasefire regime. Government Reports Major Rise In Tourist Arrivals Armenia - A general view of central Yerevan against the backdrop of Mount Ararat, 5Nov2014. The number of foreign tourists visiting Armenia rose by over 24 percent in the first half of this year, the Armenian government said on Friday. In an extensive report on its one-year activities, the government put their total number at 622,381. Tourist arrivals in the country were up by about 6 percent last year, according to separate government data. It also shows that they have grown by an average of 9 percent annually from 2012-2016. The government sought to facilitate growth of the domestic tourism industry by liberalizing in 2013 Armenia's civil aviation sector. The average cost of air travel to and from the country has fallen since then, even if some local tour operators believe that it is still not sufficiently low. Also, the Armenian authorities unilaterally scrapped visas for citizens of the European Union member states and the United States in 2012 and 2014 respectively. An agreement on visa-free travel between Armenia and Iran came into effect in August 2016. The Islamic Republic is a major source of incoming tourism to the South Caucasus country. Yerevan also lifted visa restrictions for citizens of Japan, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and three other nations in the course of this year. In another effort to boost the influx of tourists, it allowed Russian nationals in March to visit Armenia with Russian internal passports. Court Refuses To Free Jailed Oppositionist . Naira Bulghadarian Armenia - Zhirayr Sefilian, an arrested opposition figure, greets supporters during is trial in Yerevan, 13Jun2017. A court in Yerevan on Friday refused to release from custody Zhirayr Sefilian, a radical opposition figure standing trial for allegedly plotting an armed revolt against the government. The trial of Sefilian and six other men began in May almost one year after their arrest. They stand accused of forming an armed group to seize government buildings and military facilities. Sefilian was also charged with planning to provoke "mass disturbances" in Yerevan in 2015. Both he and his Founding Parliament opposition group have denied the charges as politically motivated. The high-profile trial has been regularly interrupted by disputes between the presiding judge, Tatevik Grigorian, and the defendants as well as their lawyers alleging serious violations of the due process. Sefilian has been repeatedly removed from the courtroom for contempt of court. Sefilian's lawyer, Tigran Hayrapetian, demanded at the latest court hearing that his client be set free at least until a verdict in the case. Grigorian rejected the petition. She also dismissed Hayrapetian's demand to quit the trial and let another judge take over the case. The lawyer insisted that she is not impartial and favors the prosecution. Sefilian's June 2016 arrest came less than a month before three dozen armed men mostly affiliated with Founding Parliament seized a police station in Yerevan. The gunmen demanded that President Serzh Sarkisian free their Lebanese-born leader and step down. They surrendered to law-enforcement authorities following a two-week standoff which left three police officers dead. The jailed gunmen went on two separate trials in June. Press Review "Zhamanak" says that the International Monetary Fund expects that economic growth in Armenia will be slower this year than has been forecast by the Armenian government. The paper says the IMF projection of 3.5 percent growth is more credible than the 4.3 percent rate forecast by the government because the fund the Washington-based fund has "no current political interests in our country." "Zhoghovurd" reports that Armenia has sharply increased imports of cement despite the existence of two large cement factories in the country. The paper says those imports totaled over 25,000 tons in the first half of this year, up from 6,800 tons in the same period in 2016. The cement was imported from Iran, Georgia, Russia, Germany and even Tukey. "This is hardly accidental," it says. "Engaging in manufacturing is not quite beneficial in Armenia because production costs are high." "Haykakan Zhamanak" reports that authorities in Russia are tightening controls on imports of agricultural products from Armenia, Azerbaijan and Belarus. They suspect that the three countries illegally re-export to Russia tomatoes grown in Turkey and other countries on which Moscow imposed trade embargoes. The paper notes in this regard that official Armenian statistics showed last year an enormous surge in tomato exports to Russia. It believes that the bulk of them were Turkish tomatoes. "This year the volume of tomato exports from Armenia to Russia have drastically decreased. They will probably fall further after the latest tightening [of Russian export controls,]" concludes "Haykakan Zhamanak." (Lilit Harutiunian) 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