YEREVAN, August 22. /ARKA/. Daniel Azatian, head of the Financial Monitoring Center (FMC) of Armenia’s Central Bank, has denied today media allegations that Armenian banks refuse to open bank accounts for Syrian Armenians who fled from the war-torn country. Speaking at a news conference Mr. Azatian said these rumors are not unfounded.

“To date, we have received only one complaint from a Syrian Armenian," he said.

Azatian said all the banks have certain requirements, and a client must undergo such procedures as customer identification and verification of identity documents, before the bank will work with him.

"If there are any problems with the documents, the bank may refuse to open an account - and it does not matter whether it is a Syrian Armenian or someone else. I think we've just become hypersensitive to issues related to Syrian Armenians ", he added.

According to the ministry of Diaspora, as of today there are 1,700 Syrian Armenians in the country as well as 400 Syrian Armenian children brought here for summer vacations, but these figures are changing weekly.

The Armenian community in Syria numbers at various estimates 80,000 people. The largest community is in Aleppo. They also live in Damascus, Latakia and other cities. -0-