Last week, the U.S. Ambassador to OSCE Julia Finley expressed her concerns about the OSCE missionaries monitoring the 2007 Armenian parliamentary elections. Besides that, Mrs. Finley said that an Armenian official had told her “that the authorities may not want to invite OSCE monitors to monitor the elections”. Mrs. Finley said that long-term and short-term monitoring is very important for Armenia during the 2007 parliamentary elections. “We are petitioning the Armenian government to invite OSCE observers to monitor the elections”, said the Ambassador and added that the Armenian government should also send them an invitation. The head of the Armenian representation of the OSCE, Vladimir Pryakhin has already asked the NA speaker to invite OSCE observers to monitor the elections and send the invitation by the end of this year. We asked the RA president’s press-secretary, Victor Soghomonyan whether Armenia was going to invite observers or not. “There is no need to discuss that issue now. That’s the same as asking how the ballots will be printed and where the observers will monitor the elections. It’s too early to talk about that.” Victor Soghomonyan said that the OSCE observers monitored the previous elections and he doesn’t think that there will be any exceptions this time.
