Month: November 2006

6TH SHIFT OF ARMENIAN PEACEKEEPERS LEAVING FOR KOSOVO
Public Radio, Armenia
Nov 15 2006
The 6th shift of Armenian peacekeepers is leaving for Kosovo today
to carry out peacekeeping mission. The division is comprised of 34
servicemen. Armenian peacekeepers carry out their mission within the
Multinational division for the period of six months.
Yesterday the festive seeing-off ceremony was held in the capital
regiment of Yerevan. RA Deputy Defense Minister Arthur Aghabekyan
wished good luck to the servicemen.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

SERGE SARGSYAN MET WITH HIS IRAQI COUNTERPART
Public Radio, Armenia
Nov 15 2006
In the framework of the official visit to Iraq, RA Defense Minister
Serge Sargsyan met with the Defense Minister of Iraq, Major-General
Abdul Al Obeydi Mohamed Jasim. During the meeting reference was made
to the domestic situation in Iraq, security issues in Iraq and the
region as a whole. The parties discussed also questions related to
the security of the Armenian community in Iraq.
The same day Serge Sargsyan met with the Commander of the Multinational
Forces, General of the US Armed Forces George Casey.
The parties discussed a broad circle of questions connected with
the operative situation in Iraq and the future strategy of the
Multinational Forces.
After the official meetings RA Defense Minister visited the place
of location of the Armenian division. He talked with officers and
soldiers carrying out peacekeeping mission in Iraq and familiarized
with the conditions of their service.

PRESIDENT KOCHARYAN LEAVING FOR GERMANY
Public Radio, Armenia
Nov 15 2006
November 15 RA President Robert Kocharyan will leave for Berlin on a
two-day official visit. This is the President’s second visit to the
Federal Republic of Germany. The President will have meetings with
the Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany Angela Merkel,
Bundestag President Norbert Lamert and the Mayor of Berlin Klaus
Voverayt. Robert Kocharyan and the President of Bundestag will
attend the official ceremony of opening the new RA Embassy building
in Berlin. President Kocharyan will speak at the largest and most
influential political fund of German – the Bertelsmann.
The Armenian President’s visit falls in a very important period of
time. In the first half of 2007 Germany will undertake Presidency of
the European Union and the G8, and in fact it will be in the center
of attention of international politics.

LEVON ANANIAN: ORDER OF ARMENIANS’ MURDER IS CARRIED OUT IN RUSSIA
Noyan Tapan News Agency, Armenia
Nov 15 2006
YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 15, NOYAN TAPAN – ARMENIANS TODAY. “Cases of
violences and murders committed against Armenians in Russia became
more frequent, but we are not informed in Armenia about all murders,”
Levon Ananian, the Chairman of the Writers’ Union of Armenia expressed
such an opinion at November 15 press conference held at the “Hayeli”
club. In his words, the circumstance that “we, Armenians, started to
involuntary conciliate with those murders, is also sorrowful.”
In L.Ananian’s opinion, there are two motives for killing Armenians.
The first is, in his opinion, the one that the society of Russia
suffers from xenophobia, and the second is that an order for
Armenians’ murder is carried out in Russia. “Russia completely
rules over the army of skinheads. Those are completely ruled over
as when the issue relates to Tajiks, Azeris, they are able to find
the criminal during two hours. Those are simple Muslim forecities,
and an Azerbaijani-Turkish handwriting is noticed here,” L.Ananian
mentioned. In the speaker’s words, events taking place in Russia remain
unresponded both by Armenian authorities and by Armenian Embassy to
Russia, and intellectuals.
In words of artist Henrik Igitian, one must first of all know for
whom is the murder of Armenians advantageous, and at what extent is
that process headed by the Russian authorities?
Hranush Kharatian, the Chief of the RA National Minorities and
Religious Issues Department attached to Government, is sure that the
cases taking place in Russia are actions addressed against Armenians.
In H.Kharatian’s words, the Russian authorities are wonderfully
concious of what happens. “They understand weakness of Armenia and our
people as well as the country’s dependence on them, keeping silence,
passing around or delaying, explain phenomena of racialism as a
criminal, hooliganism crime,” H.Kharatian emphasized.

REGULAR FLIGHTS TO BE IMPLEMENTED FROM ARMENIA TO UNITED STATES
Noyan Tapan News Agency, Armenia
Nov 15 2006
YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 15, NOYAN TAPAN. An agreement “On Security in Civil
Aviation Sphere” will soon be signed between the governments of the
Republic of Armenia and the United States of America. As Gayane
Davtian, the Press Secretary of the RA Civil Aviation Department
General Chief informed the Noyan Tapan correspondent, the security
agreement will give possibility to aircompanies implementing
transportations to fulfill regular flights towards the United States.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

ACCORDING TO “ENI SHAFAQ”, TURKEY PRESENTS ONE-SIDED DOCUMENTS ABOUT GENOCIDE
Noyan Tapan News Agency, Armenia
Nov 15 2006
ISTANBUL, NOVEMBER 15, NOYAN TAPAN – ARMENIANS TODAY. In connection
with the Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s proposal to
the Turkish president to create a commission to examine issues of the
Armenian Genocide, the newspaper “Eni Shafaq” proposes the Turkish
authorities to look into their own archives.
Particularly, the article notes that there are some documents showing
that a deportation rather than genocide took place in 1915. “On
the other hand, there were several hundred thousands of missing
ordnary people (even a million) who had not participated in a war
or uprising. Nobody speaks about documents related to them. We
cannot convince anybody by presenting such one-sided documents,”
the newspaper writes.
“If we cannot open our archives containing such documents, if we only
open archives to our advantage, we can never be convincing in this
problem. On the contrary, we continue to act in this way,” is said
in the article.
According to the article, recently the Turkish General Staff presented
original documents and photos about the 1915 deportation in the
military museum of Harbie. However, the one-sided approach again
prevailed here, that is, the archives are used in an advantageous way.
“One asks a question: do these archives contain a document about
the deportation and massacres aganist Armenians? If there are
such documents, why they are not presented and handed to the prime
minister?” the article’s author writes, adding that there is a need
to think about using more reasonable and serious methods.

VARTAN OSKANIAN: COMMON VERGES OF CONSENT STARTED TO COME IN SIGHT DURING BRUSSELS MEETING
Noyan Tapan News Agency, Armenia
Nov 15 2006
BRUSSELS, NOVEMBER 15, NOYAN TAPAN. In the words of Armenian Foreign
Minister Vartan Oskanian, “there were moderate expectations” from the
Brussels meeting with Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadiarov.
“I would not say that even if these moderate expectations were
fulfilled completely, nevertheless, I can say that a little progress
was registered,” the Armenian Foreign Minister said in his interview
to radio Liberty after the November 14 meeting.
In his words, the negotiations should be continued, as common verges
of consent seemed to come in sight during this meeting around proposals
and thoughts discussed at the Moscow and Paris meetings. “I cannot say
that this was a complete consent, but some verges started to show up.”
Vartan Oskanian considered it interesting that the OSCE Minsk Group
Co-chairmen “after hearing all this informed us that they have made
a decision to propose the Presidents to have a meeting during the CIS
summit at the end of this month.” “Maybe they have seen some positive
moments in our today’s discussions and proceeding from this, made a
decision to invite the Presidents to such a meeting,” V.Oskanian said.
In the Foreign Minister’s words, the Presidents will decide whether
to accept the invitation to this meeting or not. “That’s why the
Co-chairmen will visit the region soon, during the coming week:
they will be in Yerevan on November 21,” he said.
The Minister assured that expression of people’s will in Nagorno
Karabakh remains the principle of negotiations for Armenia. “This
is one of the pivotal issues and indeed this is a necessity for the
Armenian side,” V.Oskanian said. “Be it through a referendum or in
another way, the self-determination right of the Nagorno Karabakh
people should be stipulated by this document that should serve as a
means of solution. So, this issue remains on the agenda.”
In response to the question, was any compromise or softening
noticeable in Azerbaijan’s position during the meeting or at the
negotiations preceding it, the Minister said: “I can say the following:
the atmosphere was rather positive, it was a constructive meeting,
rather a serious discussion developed, thoughts were voiced.”
“I cannot say that there are any concrete agreements, but in the
“footnote” of the discussions it was felt that there was some
similarity of approaches,” Vartan Oskanian said. “You can consider
this a flexible approach or a compromise, I do not want to qualify
this in any way, I can only register that many common verges of
consent seemed to have come in sight during this meeting.”
Estimating the Armenian Action Plan signed the same day within the
framework of the European Union New Neighborhood Policy, the Minister
emphasized that “by adopting this document Armenia established new
relations from qualitative point of view with the European Union.”
“This opens serious prospects for us to integrate into these structures
for even more, to deepen our relations,” Vartan Oskanian said. “This
program has a duration of five years, a serious financial support,
is target and indeed, if it is implemented rightly, Armenia can make
a great use of it.”
“I have repeatedly said that if we are able to completely fulfil the
opportunities given by this program, in five years Armenia can be
a different state in political and economic respect,” the Minister
said and emphasized that indeed we should pursue its fulfilment.
Touching upon the forthcoming parliamentary and presidential elections
in Armenia, Vartan Oskanian said: “Today one of the pivotal issues
raised during the Armenia-European Union Cooperation Council meeting
is also the coming elections. At any bilateral meeting I have had
during the recent months one of the pivotal issues on the agenda was
our forthcoming elections. Our elections are so much spoken about
that indeed this does not permit us to be mistaken this time.”
In the Armenian Foreign Minister’s words, attention, interest in the
elections is too big: “And the losses we can have are also so big
that indeed we should seriously think to do so with the whole nation,
all political forces as to be able to indeed hold different elections
from the qualitative point of view.”
“Armenia’s further development, stipulation of our democratic
institutions, implementation of programs greatly and considerably
depend on the forthcoming two elections in Armenia, parliamentary and
presidential,” the head of the Armenian foreign political department
concluded.

AT THAT TIME SERGE SARGSYAN COULD NOT EVEN THINK
Lragir, Armenia
Nov 15 2006
“… I did not start considering compromise in 2001, I have been
considering it since the early 1990s. I considered compromise when
I persuaded our squads, our guys that it is necessary to destroy
a number of emplacements and the security area never intended to
enlarge the territory of Armenia and Karabakh.” This is a passage
from the address of the defense minister of Karabakh during the
hearings on the Karabakh issue at the National Assembly of Armenia,
when he answered the questions of the participants of the hearings.
Did Serge Sargsyan speak about compromise, in other words, the return
of the liberated territories in the early 90s, during the war when
battles for these territories were going on? On November 15 this
question was asked to Arkady Karapetyan, former commander of the
Karabakh war at the Hayeli Club, who was one of the persons who made
decisions on the military actions.
“If you told a soldier they were going to take something to return
later, he would not fight. He is not a fool. He lives once and he
would not want to die for something which would be returned later by
someone else. This is very simple. As to us, the leaders, the fighers,
and so on, this did not occur to anyone,” says Arkady Karapetyan. He
says the territories were liberated because they belonged to us, and
the Armenian soldiers fought with this idea in their minds, unlike
the Azerbaijanis, who started living in these teritories in the 1940s,
therefore they fled during the war because they thought this territory
did not belong to them, says the leader of the Yerkrapahs of Karabakh.
Arkady Karapetyan says he is unaware of Serge Sargsyan’s likelihood
regarding the compromise “as long ago as in the 90s”. “At that time,
they did not think about these things, they did what they were told
to do from somewhere else. Now he has started thinking in retrospect
what he was doing. At that time he could not say such a thing. At that
time he was too little to say such things,” stated Arkady Karapetyan.

NOT GOING TO BAKU IS THE COMPROMISE, GOOD GOVERNANCE IS THE RESOLUTION
Lragir, Armenia
Nov 15 2006
The Brotherhood of the Liberation War Council of Commanders made
a statement November 15 calling all the classes of the society to
join the Movement of Civil Disobedience to overcome the danger to
the future of the state not to lose the victory in the Karabakh war
and the statehood. The head of the Yerkrapah Union Arkady Karapetyan,
who was one of the commanders of the Karabakh force during the war,
read the statement at the Hayeli Club. The call for civil disobedience
is not related to the election, but the goal is change of power in
Armenia. “If people disobey now, and disobedience means that you do
not recognize that this man is your president, it means you are ready
to do everything. You can say hey, go away, let one of us replace
you who will prove that they deserve to rule, to be our leader with
the life he lives, morality, abilities,” says Arkady Karapetyan. The
former commanders of the war in Artsakh forming the Brotherhood
of the Liberation War are worried by the likelihood to return the
liberated territories the minister of foreign affairs, the minster
of defense and the president display. “If Serge announces that this
is a security area, we have to bargain, and so on, and so forth, they
have been carrying on with this for two-three years. Not once or twice.
They instill in people’s consciousness that it is not ours, it has
been occupied. The word “occupied” already means that it is not ours,”
says Arkady Karapetyan. He says Aghdam is our homeland, and all the
other liberated territories.
Arkady Karapetyan says the population of Karabakh does not accept
any approach involving return of the territories but they are trying
to create an atmosphere there as well. However, the leader of the
yerkrapahs of Karabakh says these attempts may lead to terrible
consequences, including shots. Arkady Karapetyan says it does not
mean that a civil war may start. “What civil war can there be? The
question of several people will be settled,” says Arkady Karapetyan.
He has his proposal regarding the compromise. If the Armenians stopped
and did not occupy Baku, it is already a compromise, thinks Arkady
Karapetyan. He says it does not mean that they are militaristic. “A
normal person, who saw the war, does not want war.
The war is a terrible thing, I do not want. I lost people in that war,”
says Arkady Karapetyan.
He emphasizes that the call for civil disobedience is not only for the
territories but also for the state of the country. “Today, according
to their indexes, an Armenian family has 1.6 child. In other words,
the nation is dying, the nation is dying due to this policy. So what do
territories mean, what does the state mean, what does Armenia mean and
what does Karabakh mean? The land is yours if you can keep it. When
you lead your nation to this state, the land is not yours. And they
are demolishing the nation. When the nation is demolished, how can
it keep the land, preserve its values? And if we have no values,
we cannot preserve anything,” says Arkady Karapetyan.
Therefore, he states that the key to the Karabakh issue and the
resolution of the national and public problems is building a normal
state, which is worth something, which has something to say.
“Six or seven years ago an American ethnographer came and asked how we
imagine the resolution of the Karabakh conlfict. He said if the problem
is solved, the blockade will be lifted, and so on. I told him that the
settlement of the Karabakh issue is not related to the blockade, and we
are not in a blockade. There was a blockade in Japan, in Israel, it was
really tough, but these states, Japan, for instance, prospers. He said
Japan has friends with powerful economies. You answered your question,
I said. I said you need us because we live in this part of the Earth
and because we are Armenians. We are not Iranians, although we have
a common root, we are not Russians, although we want to be close to
Russia. We are not Turks, we are not Georgians, therefore you need
us. He said you are right,” tells Arkady Karapetyan presenting his
idea of the settlement of the issue through this story. He clarifies
that the problem of Armenia is not Karabakh but bad leaders.

ARF WERE PARTY OF WORD, THE LAW WOULD NOT BE ADOPTED
Lragir, Armenia
Nov 15 2006
The odissey of the bill on expropriation that set out in summer
ended, and on November 15 the parliament majority gave 67 votes for
the bill. Three members of parliament from the ARF Dashnaktsutyun
abstained, the opposition did not vote. If the ARF Dashnaktsutiun
remained faithful to its statement and did not vote, the bill would
not be adopted because there would be less then 66 votes. From
the majority only Speaker Tigran Torosyan came off clear. After
cancelling the voting to the bill yesterday he has gone away today,
and the meeting was chaired by Vahan Hovanisyan, who was one of the
members of the ARFD who voted.
In order to adopt this bill the Republicans had declared
“mobilization”. There were members of parliament who come to the
National Assembly once a year. Member of Parliament Samvel Alexanyan
entered the hall of the parliament after the voting. You are late,
several members of parliament said. One could notice the Republican
members of parlaiment first enter the office of the faction under
the surveillance of the leader of the faction Galust Sahakyan before
entering the hall. Therefore, it was natural that the people gathered
near the National Assembly swore at him more than at the others.
Unlike the previous days, this time the policemen did not allow the
victims of public needs to go near the gate of the National Assembly.
Then the policemen yielded, however. The demonstrators remembered
how “Galust had robbed the school”. Then they remembered and shared
information about the son of which member of parliament had broken
the law and got away with it.