YEREVAN. – Annual banquet of the National Olympic Committee of Armenia was held Wednesday. Committee Chairman—and Prosperous Armenia Party leader—Gagik Tsarukyan, and President Serzh Sargsyan were on hand at the event, Zhamanak daily reports. 

“[Second President] Robert Kocharyan likewise had attended last year’s event, and the two presidents had received diamond chain panthers as gifts from Gagik Tsarukyan.  

[Earlier,] Zhamanak asked Kocharyan’s spokesperson Victor Soghomonyan as to whether Kocharyan was invited to the event. ‘Mr. Kocharyan is not in the country, [and] that is why he will not attend,’ he said in response.  To our clarification [request] as to whether Kocharyan received an invitation, he responded: ‘To tell you the truth, I don’t know; I haven’t asked him. I suppose he was invited, but since he is not in the country—and for a long time—, he will not attend.’   

The spokesperson did not say as to where Kocharyan has gone arguing that ‘it is a private visit,’” Zhamanak writes.