Local News in Brief : U.S. Group to Open Office in Armenia
An Armenian-American organization has been given permission to open an office in Yerevan, the capital of Soviet Armenia, to assist efforts in rebuilding parts of the region devastated in the December earthquake, officials said Monday.
The Armenian Assembly of America was given approval to open the office when two of its members visited their stricken ancestral homeland in December, officials of the group said in a meeting carried to its members in New York, Boston and Los Angeles by satellite television.
About 40 members of the assembly met in the Hollywood studios of KCET-TV on Monday to hear reports from officials who had visited the regions of Armenia hit hardest by the Dec. 7 quake that left about 50,000 dead and 500,000 homeless.
“We’re the first American organization to have a permanent office in Soviet Armenia,” said Los Angeles attorney Raffi Hovannisian, an official who helped negotiate the arrangement.
“An Armenian-American presence in Yerevan opens the door for long-range cooperation and assistance,” Hirair Hovnanian, a New Jersey developer who chairs the assembly, said in New York.
Officials of the assembly said their office, scheduled to open next month, will be active in arranging the exchange of technical teams that will assist Armenians with everything from sophisticated orthopedic surgery techniques to methods for constructing buildings better able to withstand severe earthquakes.
Start your day right
Sign up for Essential California for news, features and recommendations from the L.A. Times and beyond in your inbox six days a week.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.
