ArmenPress
Nov. 4, 2004
OSCE DID NOT SEND A LETTER TO KOCHARIAN, PRESIDENTIAL SPOKESMAN SAYS
YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 4, ARMENPRESS: A spokesman for Armenian president
denied today allegations by a local daily Haykakan Zhamanak, which
claimed in its November 3 issue that the Vienna-based Secretariat of
the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) sent
separate letters to the presidents of Armenia and several other CIS
countries, who signed under a statement last June that was criticizing
the OSCE for double standards which it uses when assessing democratic
processes in the former Soviet and Western countries.
The Armenian daily alleged that the OSCE letter told president
Kocharian that it was appalled by defense minister Serzh Sarkisian’s
last year’s remarks in the wake of presidential election that Armenians
and Europeans have different mentality and different ideas of
democracy.
“I would like to disillusion the daily’s correspondent, as no such
letter was ever sent to president Kocharian,” the spokesman, Ashot
Kocharian, told Armenpress today. “Unfortunately, this was just another
misinformation, spread by this newspaper,” he said.