“As I have already said, there are 8-9 components in the process of settlement of the Karabakh conflict. The majority has been agreed upon. Now we can say that there only one issue left to agree upon”, said Foreign Minister of Azerbaijan Elmar Mammadyarov referring to the latest meeting between Kocharyan and Aliev.

A week before the first summit of a 26-member NATO in Riga, Georgia has been buoyed by support from the US Senate for its NATO aspirations. But questions remain as to how ready Georgia is to join the alliance.

Daniel Fried, U.S. deputy state secretary on European and Eurasian issues, noted that NATO is ready to render assistance to «the regional wholeness of Moldavia and South Caucasus countries».

“We have already seen Robert Kocharyan after his return from Minsk. He wasn’t a bit upset. That is all rumour, unverified information. He was very active and full of enthusiasm”, Armen Rustamyan, member of Dashnaktsutyun Party and chairman of the RA NA Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs informed A1+ today.

“This is a mere criminal case and it mustn’t be given political colouring”, announced Janna Kodikyan in her speech in connection with the case of Arman Babajanyan, editor of “Jamanak Yerevan” newspaper in the RA Cassation Court on Criminal and Marshal Issues.

“We don't take stakes from people under 18”- one can come across suchlike announcements in all bookmakers offices “Euro-football”, “Toto”, “Vivaro”, etc.

The National Assembly has adopted the 2007 state budget with 77 votes for and three against. Six deputies abstained from voting. The 2007 state income will be 490.2 billion AMD, whereas the expenses will be 558.7 AMD. The Deficit is 68.47 million AMD.

Referring to the Minsk meeting of Robert Kocharyan and Ilham Aliev which took place yesterday, the Azeri President announced that “the negotiations have reached the final phase”.

Defense Minister Serge Sargsyan does not consider it very likely that an agreement is being reached to return territories. As for the probability of giving Qelbajar, he said, “I have never spoken about a concrete territory. I have spoken about compromise only and about dignified. This is what is most important to me”.

Today Vazgen Manoukyan, leader of NDU, announced that it is wrong to go on compromise in connection with the Karabakh issue suggested by the Minsk group Co-Chairs, especially taking into account the fact that the Azeri side doesn’t want to compromise.

All the residents of NKR who have the right of balloting and are currently in Armenia, can participate in the Constitutional referendum of NKR in Armenia.

International Crisis Group (ICC) won't make new reports on the Karabakh issue by the turn of the year as there have been no changes in the region recently. Sabina Freiser, director of the Caucasian project of the International Crisis Group, told Azeri APA agency.

It turns out that both the authorities and the Opposition voted in favour of the Armenian residents during the hearings of the draft law on «Alienation of Property for State and Public Needs».

“An interesting tendency is evident in Armenia; everything connected with Europe is blackened on the eve of elections” said Karen Bekaryan, head of “Euro-integration” NGO during the seminar titled “The Policy of European Neighbourhood: Armenian Action Plan”.

“None of the Armenian residents believes that the upcoming elections will be free, fair and transparent as nothing has changed. The situation is the same; no one has been punished; the confidence towards the authorities was not regained”, Vazgen Manoukyan, leader of National Democratic Union, announced in Pastark Club today.

"Alternative" Initiative has released an announcement which says, “The Acting authorities of the Republic of Armenia came to power in 1998 via power seizure. Then they implemented the Parliament carnage of October 27, 1999 and finally ended their state revolution by the so-called “Constitutional Referendum” held on November 27, 2005. Thus, they eliminated the last guarantees for the protection...

“With the Constitutional Referendum the authorities tried to prove once more that they are the owners of the country”, said leader of the New Times party Aram Karapetyan in the National Press Club exactly a year after the referendum. He noted today that the Armenian nation made sure once more that it is impossible to change the authorities by the simple way – throwing a ballot into the ballot box.

«Shame on you», «Leave, traitors»... These were what the victims of «state needs», the former residents of the center of the city said while walking from the Parliament building to the Constitutional Court where the participants of the civic disobedience movement were waiting for them. By the way, the participants of the protest action carried brooms which have already become their symbol.

The group “Civic disobedience” has organized a protest action opposite the Constitutional Court.

Political leaders in Abkhazia view the prospect of Georgia entering NATO with deep anxiety, with government officials saying such a move would be a grave threat to their own hopes of achieving independence, and warning that it could spur them to move even closer to Russia.

Although Azerbaijan is moving closer towards NATO, it remains shy of talking about full membership of the alliance, apparently out of concern about the geopolitical implications of such a commitment.

Former officer of the RF Federal Security Service Alexander Litvinenko died last night in a hospital in London where he went on November 17. The doctors never found out what he had been poisoned with.

«When a child I couldn't understand how could a few Turks displace over 10 000 Armenians and murder them. But today, I already understand it. Nowadays we counter the same phenomenon», announced Arkadi Karapetyan, president of «Erkrapah» Union during the first conference of Civil Disobedience Movement.

Regardless of the fact that Ilham Aliev agreed to meet with his Armenian counterpart Robert Kocharyan on the Karabakh conflict peaceful settlement, today he made the following announcement, «It is impossible to grant the NKR the status of an independent country».