With help from President Robert Kocharyan, Garnik Isagulyan has managed to form a state institute of political research, which is going to be attaché to the president and will receive governmental funding. G. Isagulyan is the head of the institute council, while someone by the name of Hovik Asryan has been appointed director. What’s interesting though, is that the institute was founded two years ago and the Armenian government had even passed a resolution on June 10, 2004. But Isagulyan found out about this just now and is speaking out two years later.
“There was a resolution for creating this kind of institute, but it took a long time before it actually became a reality. If it wasn’t for the support of the president of Armenia, I don’t think that there would be an institute,” said Isagulyan.
Besides the creation of an institute, governmental funding, with the decision of the Armenian government, Garnik Isagulyan has also been provided with a free area space-a five story building located on 44 Arshakunyats street, which will be ready within 6 months.
What is the institute going to stand for? The institute is primarily going to be held responsible for providing the president with analytic materials. The materials are going to be based on different political topics researched by experts. But, for example, the Karabagh conflict, as well as the progress of Armenia and the four neighboring countries is going to be in the center of Isagulyan’s attention. The president will have the reports and analyses on those topics on his desk every week. Besides doing research and preparing reports for the president, the institute is also going to work with the Armenian government, the Ministry of Defense and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Anyone else who wishes to have reports and/or analyses on this or that topic will have to pay the institute.
Yesterday, Isagulyan said that the institute is ready to do research and prepare analyses not only for the Armenian opposition, but also, for example, for Condalezza Rice; she and the rest simply have to pay the institute. As for now, the research on the taxpayers of 2006 will cost Robert Kocharyan 107 million AMD (according to our sources, another 60 million will be added from the president’s fund).
Isagulyan also plans on increasing the staff, making it go from 43 to 72 and have the minimum salary be 150,000 AMD. G. Isagulyan didn’t mention who the analysts were going to be yesterday, but he promised to let the public know soon. He only said that there are going to be oppositionist analysts too.
As for the reports, G. Isagulyan mentioned one flaw:
“The reports are often quite long, because the material requires a lot of research”.
And since president of Armenia Robert Kocharyan had proudly announced that he doesn’t really like to read reports during a meeting with students of the Yerevan State University, “168 Hours” asked G. Isagulyan whether or not the president would read the reports.
“The president not only reads our 100-page analyses in full detail, but also underlines the key points and takes notes. So, you should have understood what he likes to read and what he doesn’t. In fact, he likes to read a lot,” said Isagulyan.