President Robert Kocharian said Thursday that he will not prolong the state
of emergency in Yerevan but warned that Armenian security bodies would not
hesitate to break up more anti-government demonstrations planned by opposition
leader Levon Ter-Petrosian.

Kocharian also effectively dismissed international calls for an independent
investigation into the March 1 clashes between riot police and thousands of
Ter-Petrosian supporters demanding a re-run of the February 19 presidential
election.

The violence, which left at left at least seven opposition supporters and one
police officer dead, led to the imposition of the 20-day state of emergency. All
rallies and other public gatherings in the capital were banned as a result.

Kocharian said the Armenian authorities will not sanction rallies for “some
time” even after the expiry of emergency rule on Friday. “People who shot at
law-enforcers [on March 1] are still at large, there is no guarantee that the
same people will not try to organize various provocations or shootings at the
next rally and then blame that on the police,” he told a news conference.

The Armenian parliament approved this week a government bill that will make it
easier for the authorities to prohibit anti-government protests. They will now
be able to do that by citing threats to “state security, public order, public
health and morality” reported by the police and the National Security Service.
Ter-Petrosian has dismissed the amendments as unconstitutional.

Kocharian warned the opposition leader, who had served as Armenia’s first
president from 1991-1998, against staging unsanctioned street protests. “I
forbade the police from taking any steps [against opposition demonstrators]
before the events of March 1, but will now demand that they take strict
measures,” he said, adding that he is determined to restore stability in the
country before handing over power to Prime Minister and President-elect Serzh
Sarkisian on April 9.

Ter-Petrosian says that the authorities themselves instigated the worst street
violence in Armenia’s history by breaking up his supporters’ non-stop sit-in in
Yerevan’s Liberty Square and then firing at thousands of people who gathered
elsewhere in the city center later on March 1.

Western powers have also questioned the official version of events, with the
European Union and the Council of Europe urging the authorities in Yerevan to
agree to an “independent investigation” of the bloodshed. Thomas Hammarberg, the
Council of Europe’s commissioner for human rights, suggested last week that such
an inquiry be conducted by a special commission of prominent Armenians “trusted
by the public.”

Kocharian insisted, however, that Armenian law-enforcement bodies and the Office
of the Prosecutor-General in particular are independent and competent enough to
investigate the deadly unrest. He said they can only agree to international
experts’ involvement in their ongoing investigation that has resulted in mass
arrests of opposition leaders and activists.

Both the EU and the United States have expressed serious concern about the
unprecedented government crackdown. U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for
European and Eurasian Affairs Daniel Fried reiterated those concerns on
Thursday, saying that Armenia should "pull itself together and get back on a
democratic path."

"We welcome the lifting of the state of emergency, but there are other problems
and these need to be addressed,” Fried told RFE/RL. “People who have been
arrested for rioting and violent actions, that's one thing. But people who have
been arrested for more questionable reasons need to be let go, there needs to be
normalization, there needs to be a dialogue with the opposition.”

“Look, this is a troubling situation for all of Armenia's friends,” he said.

Kocharian effectively dismissed such calls, saying that law-enforcement
authorities have been quite lenient towards opposition protesters. He argued
that some 800 people were detained in connection with the March 1 events and
that only just over a hundred of them are currently under arrest pending trial.

Washington threatened last week to “suspend or terminate” $236.5 million in
economic assistance which it promised to provide to Armenia under its Millennium
Challenge Account (MCA) program. The money was due to be spent on the
reconstruction of Armenia’s battered rural roads and irrigation networks.

Kocharian claimed to be untroubled by the possible termination of the five-year
aid package, saying that the Armenian government will find other sources of
funding for the rural development projects, if need be. “If they make such a
decision we will look for other ways of fully implementing that program,” he
said. “I have no doubts that we will find those ways.”

Kocharian also downplayed U.S. President George W. Bush’s failure so far to
congratulate Sarkisian on his hotly disputed victory in the presidential
election. Kocharian said he himself was congratulated by Bush only after being
sworn in for a second five-year term in office in April 2003. That, he said, did
not prevent Armenia from recording higher rates of economic growth and
“cooperating effectively” with the United States in the following years. “So
maybe it’s a good sign,” he told journalists jokingly.

In fact, Bush stopped short of congratulating Kocharian on his equally
controversial reelection and cited instead serious irregularities that were
reported during the Armenian presidential election of February-March 2003. “In a
spirit of friendship, I share the disappointment of the OSCE and others who have
observed that Armenia missed an opportunity to make an example of a democratic
election,” Bush said in an April 2003 letter to Kocharian.