This led the government to propose reconstruction of the Armenian Atomic Power Station at Metsamor, which was closed after the 1988 earthquake because of its location in an earthquake-prone area and which had the same safety problems as reactors listed as dangerous in Bulgaria, Russia, and Slovakia.

Ter-Petrosyan had been elected head of government in 1990, when the National Democratic Union party defeated the Armenian Communist Party.

Following the assassination in Parliament of Prime Minister Vazgen Sargsyan and parliament Speaker Karen Demirchyan and six other officials, on 27 October 1999, a period of political instability ensued during which an opposition headed by elements of the former Armenian National Movement government attempted unsuccessfully to force Kocharyan to resign.

A new party, the Republic Party, is headed by ex-Prime Minister Aram Sargsyan, brother of Vazgen Sargsyan, and has become the primary voice of the opposition, which also includes the Armenian Communist Party, the National Unity party of Artashes Geghamyan, and elements of the former Ter-Petrosyan government.

All churches apart from the Armenian Apostolic Church must register with the government, and proselytizing was forbidden by law, though since 1997 the government has pursued more moderate policies.

New sectors, such as precious stone processing and jewelry making and communication technologyArmentel ( left fromt the USSR era ), which is not even owned by the government or Armenian investors.

This was owing to bad weather, a lack of a government stimulus package, and the continuing effects of decreased agricultural subsidies by the Armenian government ( per WTO requirements ).

The Armenian government receives foreign aid from the government of the United States through the United States Agency for International Development and the Millennium Challenge Corporation.

With the Armenian government needing more anti-crisis loans from the World Bank and other foreign donors, the debt-to-GDP ratio is expected to exceed 40 percent in 2010.

The official warned that the debt servicing payments of the Armenian government will surge by 2013 and absorb " quite significant part of tax revenues.

As of October 2008, the Armenian government is considering implementing an ambitious project to build a railway to Iran.

The Armenian government collected 383. 5 billion drams ($ 1. 26 billion ) in various taxes in the first nine months of 2008 ( a 33. 2 percent increase from the same period last year ).

In August 2002, the Armenian government sold an 80 percent stake in the Armenian Electricity Network ( AEN ) to Midland Resources, a British offshore-registered firm which is said to have close Russian connections.

In September 2002, the Armenian government handed over Armenia ’ s largest cement factory to the Russian ITERA gas exporter in payment for its $ 10 million debt for past gas deliveries.

In January 2003, the Armenian government and United Company RUSAL signed an investment cooperation agreement, under which United Company RUSAL ( which already owned a 76 % stake ) acquired the Armenian government's remaining 26 % share of RUSAL ARMENAL aluminum foil mill, giving RUSAL 100 % ownership of RUSAL ARMENAL.

On November 1, 2006, the Armenian government handed de facto control of the Iran-Armenia gas pipeline to Russian company Gazprom and increased Gazprom's stake in the Russian-Armenian company ArmRosGazprom from 45 % to 58 % by approving an additional issue of shares worth $ 119 million.

This left the Armenian government with a 32 % stake in ArmRosGazprom.

Critics of the Kocharian government say that the Armenian administration never considered alternative ways of settling the Russian debts.

Political observers say that Armenia's economic cooperation with Russia has been one of the least transparent areas of the Armenian government ’ s work.

According to the head of the Armenian Central Bank ’ s ( CBA ) department for financial system policies and analyses ( Vahe Vardanyan ) Armenian banks have no large asset concentrations in foreign markets, particularly in capital markets.

* A. Terian, Patriotism And Piety In Armenian Christianity: The Early Panegyrics On Saint Gregory, St Vladimir ’ s Seminary Press, 2005

This friction has been due to disputes including the self annexation of the Hatay Province to Turkey in 1939, water disputes resulting from the Southeastern Anatolia Project, and Syria ’ s support for the outlawed Kurdistan Worker's Party ( PKK ) and the Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia ( ASALA ), but relations have improved greatly since October 1998 ; when PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan was expelled by Syrian authorities.

In 1209, the brothers Mkhargrdzeli laid waste to Ardabil – according to the Georgian and Armenian annals – as a revenge for the local Muslim ruler's attack on Ani and his massacre of the city ’ s Christian population.

Because it was more homogeneous and more developed than the original tribes to the north of the Kura, the Armenian element took over Caucasian Albania ’ s political life and was progressively able to impose its language and culture.

In the 5th century, Armenia ’ s foremost early medieval historian Movses Khorenatsi ( Մովսես Խորենացի ) testifies that the population of Artsakh and Utik spoke Armenian, with the River Kura, in his words, marking the “ boundary of Armenian speech ” (… զեզերս հայկական խօսիցս ).

This text, written in Old Armenian, in essence represents the history of Armenia ’ s provinces of Artsakh and Utik.

Kaghankatvatsi and another Armenian author, Kirakos Gandzaketsi, confirm Arran ’ s belonging to Hayk ’ s blood line by calling Arranshahiks “ a Haykazian dynasty .”

In Movses Kaghankatvatsi ’ s “ History ” and in the historical text of the Armenian early medieval author Agathangelos, the Kingdom of Aghvank ’ s feudal system, including its political terminology, was Armenian.

First names of most rulers, commoners and clergy in Movses Kaghankatvatsi ’ s “ History …” are uniquely Armenian.

Movses Kaghankatvatsi ’ s “ History ” describes Armenian influence on the Church of Aghvank, whose jurisdiction extended from Artsakh and Utik to regions to the north of the River Kura, in the territories of the “ original ,” “ pre-Armenian ” Caucasian Albania.

A key revisionist method used by Azerbaijani scholars mentioned by Victor Schnirelmann and others was ” re-publishing of ancient and medieval sources, where the term “ Armenian state ” was routinely and systematically removed and replaced with “ Albanian state .” American author George Bournoutian gives examples of how that was done by Ziya Bunyadov, vice-chairman of Azerbaijani Academy of Sciences, who earned the nickname of “ Azerbaijan ’ s foremost Armenophobe .”

Armenian memorial stone crosses known as “ khachkars ” on the territory of Azerbaijan were regularly misrepresented as “ Caucasian Albanian ” both before and after Azerbaijan ’ s independence.

Azerbaijanis erased Armenian inscriptions on the church ’ s walls, which led to by an official complaint by Norwegian foreign ministry.

Tiberius was unable to respond as the Persian Sassanid Emperor Khosrau I struck at the Empire ’ s Armenian provinces in 576, sacking Melitene and Sebastea.

The Qanun ( Persian: qānūn ; Greek: κανονάκι, plural κανονάκια ; Armenian: քանոն k ’ anon ; Arabic: qānūn, plural qawānīn ; Azerbaijani and Turkish: kanun ; qanún or kanun ) is a string instrument found in the 10th century in Farab in Iran.

On February 21, 2009 International Mother Language Day has been marked with the publication of a new edition of the " Atlas of the World ’ s Languages in Danger " by UNESCO where the Western Armenian language in Turkey is defined as a definitely endangered language.

The single stated goal of the " Armenian Compact " is " the reduction of rural poverty through a sustainable increase in the economic performance of the agricultural sector.

Peres stated: " We reject attempts to create a similarity between the Holocaust and the Armenian allegations.

Archimandrite Minas Tigranian, after completing his secret mission to Persian Armenia ordered by the Russian Tsar Peter the Great stated in a report dated March 14, 1717 that the patriarch of the Gandzasar Monastery, in Nagorno Karabakh, had under his authority 900 Armenian villages.

It stated, in addition, that " Despite their tolerance toward minority religious groups traditional to the country — including Catholics, Armenian Apostolic Christians, Jews, and Muslims — citizens remain very apprehensive about Protestants and other nontraditional religions, which they see as taking advantage of the populace's economic hardship by gaining membership through handing out economic assistance to converts.

The 7th-century Armenian linguist and grammarian Stephanos Syunetsi stated in his work that Armenians of Artsakh had their own dialect, and encouraged his readers to learn it.

In December 2005, an Azerbaijani official stated in a BBC interview that Armenians “ never lived in Nakhchivan, which has been Azerbaijani land from time immemorial, and that's why there are no Armenian cemeteries and monuments and have never been any .” Adam T. Smith, an anthropologist and associate professor of anthropology at the University of Chicago, called the removal of the khachkars " a shameful episode in humanity's relation to its past, a deplorable act on the part of the government of Azerbaijan which requires both explanation and repair.

The rites treated in this code, unless otherwise stated, are those that arise from the Alexandrian, Antiochene, Armenian, Chaldean and Constantinopolitan traditions " ( canon 28 ) When speaking of the Eastern Catholic Churches, the 1983 Latin Code of Canon Law uses the terms " ritual Church " or " ritual Church sui iuris " ( canons 111 and 112 ), and also speaks of " a subject of an Eastern rite " ( canon 1015 § 2 ), " Ordinaries of another rite " ( canon 450 § 1 ), " the faithful of a specific rite " ( canon 476 ), etc.

The stated intention of ASALA was " to compel the Turkish Government to acknowledge publicly its responsibility for the Armenian Genocide in 1915, pay reparations, and cede territory for an Armenian homeland ".

Memorial, the Moscow-based human rights group, stated in their report that the mass killing of civilians in Khojaly could not be justified under any circumstances and that actions of Armenian militants were in gross violation of a number of basic international human rights conventions.

Hancock has stated that he does not believe the Armenian Genocide actually happened, describing it as a " so-called genocide " based on " dubious historical " claims ; in March 2010, he said: " Armenia is like a headless chicken that runs around in circles.

As stated by Hitler in his Armenian quote, units were sent: "... with orders for them to send to death mercilessly and without compassion, men, women, and children of Polish race and language.

A report which was published by the Committee on Foreign Affairs contained a statement by Bryan Ardouny, Executive Director of the Armenian Assembly of America, who stated that " The Azerbaijani government has also consistently failed to condemn Safarov, an Azeri military officer who in 2003 brutally murdered an Armenian participant at a NATO Partnership for Peace military training exercise in Budapest, Hungary.

* 50px OSCE Minsk Group: The OSCE Minsk Group ( composed of negotiators from the US, Russia and France to encourage a peaceful, negotiated resolution to the conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia over Nagorno-Karabakh ) stated that Azerbaijan's pardoning of a military officer who murdered an Armenian officer has harmed attempts to establish peace between the countries.

He was born either an Armenian, Albanian or a Greek in a small town called Ağırnas near the city of Kayseri in Anatolia ( as stated in an order by Sultan Selim II ).

Levon Ter-Petrossian soon after his release was elected chairman of the anti-communist opposition Pan-Armenian National Movement, and later stated that it was in 1989 that he first began to consider the idea of complete Armenian independence from the USSR.

Although the safety of American citizens, mostly Christian missionaries and Jews, was a major concern in the Ottoman Empire early in his ambassadorship, Morgenthau stated that the one issue he was most preoccupied was the Armenian Question.

This explanation however is widely disputed, among others, the executive director of Human Rights Watch has stated that: “ we place direct responsibility for the civilian deaths with Karabakh Armenian forces.

The report of Memorial stated that the Armenian side claimed that a free corridor was provided for fleeing civilians.

Yet Memorial stated that the declared granting of the " free corridor " for escape of civilian population from Khojaly could be considered either as deliberate actions of the officials of Nagorno-Karabakh Armenians aimed at cleansing the town of its population, or as an admission by Armenian leaders of their inability to provide on the territory controlled by them the protection of human rights of the civilian population regardless of ethnic identity.

Memorial, the Moscow-based human rights group, stated in their report that the mass killing of civilians in Khojaly could not be justified under any circumstances and that actions of Armenian militants were in gross violation of a number of basic international human rights conventions.

However, Human Rights Watch also made clear, that all sides have committed violations of the rules of war and added that “ both sides shelled each other's cities and towns and committed atrocities .“ Estimating the number of the civilians killed in the massacre, Human Rights Watch stated that " there are no exact figures for the number of Azeri civilians killed because Karabakh Armenian forces gained control of the area after the massacre ".

The notable Russian historian Karamzin, along with Armenian and Muslim chroniclers, stated that they were hostile to one another because of tensions between religions.