Press Conference Speech
1st GSM Call in Nagorno
Karabakh
(12 February 2002)
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We, Karabakh
Telecom, would first of all like to salute with great
admiration the courageous, resistant and defiant country
"Karabakh" and its people "the Karabakhis" whom we appreciate, respect,
value and accept as culture, as society, as tradition, and as
habits and customs.
And, yes it is
true that "In the everlasting mountains of Karabakh, for
thousands of years in ancient and present history, the
Armenian people stood the oppression and atrocity of nomadic
tribes and nations, preserving their Armenian culture, and defending their national identity and
existence." |
Believing in the
above, the unprecedented support of Karabakh's President HE Mr.
Arkadi Ghoukasyan, Prime Minister HE Mr. Anushavan Danielyan, Council of
Ministers, the National Assembly and of Armenia's President HE Mr.
Robert Kocherian, Prime Minister HE Mr. Andranik Markaryan, Minister
of Communication HE Mr. Andranik Manukyan and Council of Ministers,
are the reason why we are gathered here today. Let us give them all
a big salute as well.
Dears, many of you are wondering about
who we are. Well, I tell you this:
We are Lebanese and we
come from Lebanon the second homeland of the Armenian
people. |
We have more
than seven years of experience in the
field of telecom in numerous countries and not only in Lebanon. We
did not come to Karabakh to learn telephony in
Karabakh, rather we came to
Karabakh to put our professional technical
know how into the telecom sector. We
came to Karabakh in order to
establish a first class telecom company that would
outstand through the quality
performance of its network and services the performance
of many telecom companies by using the most recent available
technology that would be run and operated initially by the
most skilled professional staff who are also to train the
Karabakhis on how to run and operate this network. |
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Karabakh Telecom
will not only introduce the Mobile
telephone network but it would develop the Fixed telephony
network and introduce many other telecom networks like
Internet, paging, audio, video, fax and many others as well,
in order to have a complete telecom network covering the whole
of Nagorno Karabakh throughout.
Many of you would definitely
ask that what be in it for us? Nagorno Karabakh is
considered a risky zone and unknown
internationally. |
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Accordingly, I would like to stress that we
came here and performed many deep studies, and getting to know
the encouraging tax system of the country and feeling as well
as living its secure environment (no criminals nor mafias)
where the government is watching all around the clock to
maintain such an environment, and having a strong and reliable
banking sector that would contribute an added value to
developing our business, and last but not least we found that
over the last two years that the economic/business laws were
always modified to adopt to the new business market mentality
which predict a promising and safe economy to investors who
are willing to invest in Karabakh, a market that is more
attracting then many other
acknowledged countries' markets. That is why we are here.
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We
are here to have a business but within normal and reasonable
returns, and that is why we would be having such low tariffs.
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In addition, we came here,
sharing the main concern between us and the President as well
as the
Prime Minister, to contribute "big time"
to the undergoing re-development of your country, and to
provide a way or a bridge to link the people of Karabakh with
each other in Armenia and everywhere in the world and make
them "Always at
Reach", a slogan which
Karabakh Telecom
has adopted and which we
promise to implement.
Based on the above, I would also like to
stress, that the Armenians in the diaspora are very much concerned about
Karabakh and about supporting
Karabakh by any means available,
and particularly the Lebanese Armenians who look at Karabakh
as a Caucasus castle like the castle of Anjar in
Lebanon, the symbol of the strong Armenian
existence and survival in Lebanon and particularly in Zahle,
and this Caucasus castle should
always remain strong and grow
even stronger, and Karabakh Telecom
is another way to
reflect their concern in supporting you
and
in contributing to the economic growth of your country, and at the same
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time by making your President's as
well as Prime Minister's goal come true, and
that is to have Karabakhis
outside return
to Karabakh to work and participate all in this economic
re-development.
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I would like also to add something personal
here. Knowing that this business which we are trying to get
going is good to Karabakh, I being an Armenian myself wouldn't
be here today as General Manager to Karabakh Telecom, and
to prove you this, I have brought my wife and daughter with me
to live here and stay in Karabakh, where later on I would be
sending my daughter to a school in
Karabakh.
Dears,
together, today, Tuesday 12-Feb-2002, is a
historic day for Karabakh, we launch the first GSM call, and also together we
launch an era of cooperation and support between Lebanon and
Karabakh, an era that we believe should witness a rapid
development of the Nagorno Karabakh's telecom sector in specific and
economy in general.
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Let us all as people, as government and as
Karabakh Telecom, join our hands, and let us look ahead to a
better prosperous future, and let us all participate in up-keeping
and upholding the rock of ancient times, the country of pre-historic
kings and legends, the magic mountains of the Caucase, your homeland country,
Artsakh.
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Finally, I would like to
thank all above-mentioned governmental bodies
again, in addition to our Investor and
Chairman Mr. Pierre Fattouch, our management in
Lebanon with its great support and my colleagues who
always backed me up and part of whom fulfilled their
mission and went back home, and all who cooperated and
would cooperate in the future, and forgive me if I
forgot somebody or missed to mention anyone, and
to stress that it is through their efforts,
support and back up we successfully passed
through all the hardships and obstacles that were
implanted and lobbied on our road by those who do not wish for Karabakh to develop
and
prosper, and
because of the before-mentioned unprecedented support we quickened
the process of making today a reality.
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