Tuesday, Armenian PM Visits Iran Iran - President Hassan Rouhani meets with Armenian Prime Minister Karen Karapetian in Tehran, 10Oct2017. Prime Minister Karen Karapetian met with Iran's President Hassan Rouhani on Tuesday at the end of an official visit to Tehran that focused on ongoing efforts to expand Armenian-Iranian commercial ties. He reportedly discussed with Rouhani and other Iranian leaders the implementation of joint energy projects and ways of removing barriers to bilateral trade. "Armenia attaches great importance to its warm and friendly relations with neighboring Iran which have strong historical foundations and are based on mutual interests," Karapetian was quoted by his press office as telling Rouhani. The Iranian president reaffirmed his commitment to closer ties with Armenia. "Expansion of relations with Armenia, a friendly country and a neighbor, has been of significance for Iran," he said, according to the IRNA news agency. He said more needs to be done to utilize the economic potential of bilateral relations. Rouhani gave the same assurances to President Serzh Sarkisian when they met in Tehran the day after he was sworn in for a second term in early August. Iran - Iran's First Vice-President Eshaq Jahangiri (R) greets Armenian Prime Minister Karen Karapetian at a welcoming ceremony in Tehran, 9Oct2017. "We have no limits on cooperation with Armenia in the political, economic and cultural fields," Iran's First Vice-President Eshaq Jahagiri told reporters after holding talks with Karapetian on Monday. "We both affirmed that we are ready to enhance the volume of Armenian-Iranian relations and are determined to remove obstacles on that path," Karapetian said for his part. An Armenian government statement said the two men reviewed the ongoing construction of a new power transmission line which should significantly increase Armenian electricity exports to Iran. Supplies of Iranian natural gas to Armenia will also soar as a result.Karapetian also discussed this project at a separate meeting on Tuesday with Iran's Oil Minister Bijan Zanganeh and Energy Minister Sattar Mahmoudi. Three other Iranian ministers held separate meetings with their Armenian opposite numbers accompanying Karapetian. Also on the agenda of Karapetian's talks was the upcoming creation of a "free economic zone" near Meghri, an Armenian town on the Iranian border. Karapetian urged Iranian firms to set up shop there and gain tariff-free access to markets in Russia and other members of the Russian-led Eurasian Economic Union (EEU). They could also take advantage of Armenia's preferential trade regime with the European Union, he said. Iran has been negotiating with the EEU on a free-trade deal strongly supported by Armenia. Karapetian was reported to tell Jahangiri that Yerevan is "ready to provide necessary support" for a speedy conclusion of those talks. According to official Armenian statistics, Armenian-Iranian trade stood at a relatively modest $173.5 million in the first eight months of this year. Iran accounted for less than 5 percent of Armenia's overall foreign trade. More European Support For Judicial Reform In Armenia . Karlen Aslanian Armenia - A district court building in Yerevan, 27Jun2017. The Council of Europe launched on Tuesday a new program aimed at helping to reform Armenia's judicial system that has long been strongly influenced by the government and law-enforcement bodies. The program financed by the European Union and Britain will assist the Armenian authorities in amending the national legal framework for the judiciary in line with the country's sweeping constitutional changes that will take effect in April. The changes backed by Council of Europe experts are meant to make Armenian courts more independent. Officials from the Strasbourg-based organization said another objective of the EU-funded project is to improve the existing system of disciplinary accountability of Armenian judges. The latter rarely acquit criminal suspects or rule against the government. The head of the EU Delegation in Armenia, Piotr Switalski, urged the authorities to "ensure full independence of judiciary" as he spoke at the official launch of the project in Yerevan. He said they should rule out any pressure on the courts from the executive branch or prosecutors. Switalski also stressed the importance of "anti-corruption measures in the justice system." Human rights activists attending the event were skeptical about the authorities' stated commitment to a serious judicial reform. "We've been hearing about that since the 1990s," one of them, Avetik Ishkhanian told RFE/RL's Armenian service (Azatutyun.am). Ishkhanian said that the authorities resist judicial independence because it would endanger their hold on power. "If the judiciary is the main mechanism for guaranteeing your rule, then there will be selective justice, an atmosphere of impunity and political trials," he said. Another activist, Artur Sakunts, also said that Armenia has no independent courts as evidenced by the imprisonment of opposition figures regarded by him as political prisoners. Justice Minister Davit Harutiunian, who was also present at the event, admitted that the judicial system lacks a "sufficient degree of independence." But he insisted that the authorities are committed to reforming it. "If human rights activists start praising a country, you must leave it immediately," Harutiunian told RFE/RL's Armenian service. "Human rights activists are supposed to bring up new issues. So they are right to criticize and they should keep doing that." IMF Also Upgrades Armenian Growth Forecast Armenia - Workers at a textile factory in Yerevan, 5Oct2017. Economic growth in Armenia will be faster than expected this year even if it falls short of the Armenian government's revised projections, according to a report released by the International Monetary Fund on Tuesday. The IMF's latest World Economic Outlook predicts that the Armenian economy will grow by 3.5 percent after stagnating in 2016. The fund forecast a growth rate of around 3 percent in June. It warned of downward risks at the time, saying that increased remittances from Armenians working abroad and prices of copper, the country's number one export item, "may not endure." Most of those multimillion-dollar remittances come from migrant workers in Russia which fell into recession in 2015. Russia is also Armenia's leading trading partner. "After two years of recession, economic activity in Russia is projected to expand by 1.8 percent in 2017, helped by stabilizing oil prices, easing financial conditions, and improved confidence. Over the medium term, however, growth is expected to remain about 1.5 percent," says the latest IMF report. This might explain why it expects economic growth in Armenia to slow to 2.9 percent in 2018. The Armenian government had forecast a 3.2 percent growth rate for 2017 over a year ago. Official statistics showed the country's Gross Domestic Product increasing by around 5 percent in the first half of this year on the back of a double-digit rise in industrial output. Finance Minister Vartan Aramian said late last month that full-year growth will likely come in at 4.3 percent. In its draft state budget unveiled by Aramian last week, the government said that growth should accelerate to 4.5 percent in 2018. Press Review "Zhoghovurd" reacts to Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev's claim that Armenia has dropped its "preconditions" for the resumption of negotiations on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. The paper suggests that Aliyev referred to Yerevan's insistence on the implementation of confidence-building agreements which he reached with President Serzh Sarkisian and international mediators in Vienna and Saint Petersburg last year. This means, it claims, that Sarkisian and the Minsk Group co-chairs have stopped demanding Baku's compliance with those agreements. "Regardless of whether or not the presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan meet [later this year,] the situation of no-war-no-peace in the region will persist because the status quo is beneficial for both the conflicting parties and the mediators," Fyodor Lukyanov, a Russian political analyst, tells "168 Zham." "Also, there is still no solution acceptable to both sides. As things stand now, no resolutions of the conflict is in sight." He is therefore pessimistic about the outcome of the upcoming Aliyev-Sarkisian talks. "Zhamanak" comments on Prime Minister Karen Karapetian's official visit to Tehran which began on Monday with his meetings with Iran's Vice President Eshaq Jahangiri and parliament speaker Ali Larijani. The paper notes a lack of substance in their public statements made after the talks. "Armenian-Iranian relations continue to lack strategic projects," it says. "Haykakan Zhamanak" reports on an upsurge of exports of Armenian livestock to Iraq and Qatar observed in the last few months. Citing figures released by the Armenian Ministry of Agriculture, the paper says that Armenia exported more than 3,000 cattle and over 5,000 sheep in September alone. It says that this is why the retail price of beef in Armenia rose by around 8 percent late last month. "Given the substantial increase in export volumes, it cannot be excluded that fresh meat become will become even more expensive in Armenia," it says. (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