OPINION: ARMENIA CAN PLAY IMPORTANT ROLE IN ESTABLISHING INTERNATIONAL CULTURAL DIALOGUE

ARKA
April 16, 2008

YEREVAN, April 16. /ARKA/. Armenians living abroad and trying
to preserve their national identity can play an important role in
establishing international cultural dialogue, Levon Lazarian, acting
science and education minister, said on Tuesday.

"Armenia is now embarking on establishing intercultural dialogue with
South Caucasus countries. This is quite new initiative. That's why
some specification and standards are needed", he said at the ceremony
of closing the conference on establishing dialogue in South Caucasus
and Ukraine.

Lazarian said that schools, universities and post-graduate education
will become insufficient for constantly developing and globalizing
world.

"Those countries able to reform education systems and open them to
the entire world will take advantage from it in the future", he said.

The conference was held in South Caucasus and Ukraine was held in
Yerevan on April 14 and 15 as part of Intercultural and Inter-religious
Dialogue launched in 2008 by Council of Europe and European Commission.

Yerevan Linguistic University after Valery Bryusov is responsible
for this program implementation.