Month: November 2006

WILL CONSORTIUM’S CONTRIBUTION TO KARABAKH INCREASE?
Lragir, Armenia
Nov 6 2006
Catherine Barns, strategic adviser to the Consortium Initiative,
has recently met with the NKR government officials, who commended
the work of the Consortium.
The Consortium Initiative was set up three years ago to seek ways of
settlement of the Karabakh conflict. It is financed by the British
government. We have learned that the CI will work for another three
years. The CI includes four organizations, which attend to a separate
strand of work: LINKS works on the level of political dialogue,
Conciliation Resourses addresses the media, International Alert focuses
on civil society work and Catholic Relief Services addresses issues
of conflict sensitivity and grassroots engagement. We have learned
that the latter is no longer a member of the Consortium Initiative.
The presence of the Consortium would not be that tangible if other
international organizations worked in Karabakh, as well as other
places in the region. Karabakh is closed for the international
organizations. And only the Consortium Initiative has a “permit” to
work in Karabakh, though along with Azerbaijan. Thanks to the CI a
number of important projects were launched in Karabakh. Conciliation
Resources set up the Demo newspaper, which is one of the most popular
ones. A radio project is implemented, the purpose of which is to
record stories of ordinary people. Also a TV project has been launched,
documentary films are made, and a production studio was set up.
International Alert set up Resource Centers for NGOs in Yerevan,
Baku and Stepanakert, which carried out considerable “enlightenment”.
Namely, it enabled the Stepanakert center to expand its activities,
go to the regions and restore the tradition of public debates on
common problems in Karabakh.
For LINKS, it cannot be considered effective in Karabakh. At least
because the NKR members of parliament were not invited to the meetings
of the parliamentarians of Armenia and Azerbaijan organized by LINKS.
We have learned that the CI is starting to deal with a new strand –
European. Apparently, the so-called international community has decided
that the best settlement of the Karabakh conflict can be reached in
the framework of integration of the South Caucasus with Europe.
One way or another, projects are already considered which will enable
the civil society of Karabakh to become closer to the Western values.

GOVERNMENT DID NOT ORGANIZE OCTOBER 27
Lragir, Armenia
Nov 6 2006
An amazing tendency is observed among the Armenian opposition. The
people who balanced a considerable part of their political career on
the accusations against the government for October 27 are now denying
that they ever accused this government of organizing it. The first
was Aram Z. Sargsyan, Vazgen Sargsyan’s brother, who announced that
he had accused the government of failing to prevent and reveal, not
of organizing. And only a week later another similar statement was
heard November 4 from the opposition camp. This time it came from the
camp of Karen Demirchyan’s followers. The secretary of the People’s
Party Stepan Zakaryan stated November 4 that they never accused the
government of organizing but accused of failure to reveal the case.
And like Galust Sahakyan, Stepan Zakaryan thinks that it was organized
by forces from the outside. He declines to say which outside namely,
saying that there are no definite facts. He says that it is the
“outside”, which would like Armenia to lose independence, adding that
it might be favorable for all the outside forces. And the Armenian
government carried out the instruction from the outside and did
everything to hinder the revelation of the case, thinks the secretary
of the People’s Party. And since the rephrased accusations of the
opposition are already heard more frequently, the week-old observation
by Garnik Isagulyan, adviser to president becomes rather interesting
that when the government is accused of failure to prevent October 27,
first it is necessary to find out who power belonged to before that
date. Isagulyan hints that according to the statements of the same
opposition Karen Demirchyan and Vazgen Sargsyan made decisions in the
country until October 27. In other words, Isagulyan swiftly redirects
accountability for failure to prevent October 27 at the victims.
In this connection Stepan Zakaryan says that the memory of the
opposition is not bad. “Let’s remember who was in charge of security,
who the minister of security was. The minister of home affairs resigned
because he felt he was accountable,” says Stepan Zakaryan.
According to him, it was necessary to see who was in charge of what.
Besides, Stepan Sakaryan advises Garnik Isagulyan the adviser, “The
security adviser should advise Robert Kocharyan that in the current
state of security when Azerbaijan’s military budget exceeds ten
times that of Armenia, the defense minister had better do his job,”
says Stepan Zakaryan.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

WHAT HAPPENED TO 116-YEAR-OLD GRANDPA
Hakob Badalyan
Lragir, Armenia
Nov 6 2006
It remained unclear for the society why the leader of the United
Javakheti Alliance Vahagn Chakhalyan was arrested. There is only
one tangible thing about this arrest – the scandal. Perhaps it is
difficult to suggest that the Armenian government is fond of scandals,
or needs scandals. Therefore, one does not need a special abilities
to understand that the arrest had another, a tacit reason.
Certainly, the official reason should also be taken into account:
illegal crossing of the border of Armenia. But the fact that the
Armenian and Georgian border is still being defined makes this
reason definitely illogical, for it is impossible to cross, legally
or illegally, something that does not exist. This shows once again
that in order to understand Chakhalyan’s case it is necessary to
consider all the developments in turn.
First, before the local election in Javakheti the defense minister of
Armenia, the foreign minister of Armenia and the foreign minister of
Georgia Gela Bejuashvili visiting Armenia secretly had a dinner at
the Parvana Restaurant. The minister of defense Serge Sargsyan had
organized this dinner. It is interesting that the foreign minister
of Armenia was a guest. In other words, his participation was the
decision of Serge Sargsyan, in other words, he could have not invited
Vardan Oskanyan and could have dined with Bejuashvili alone.
Meanwhile, Serge Sargsyan invited him.
Serge Sargsyan could have not invited Vardan Oskanyan, and perhaps he
had better not invited him, because Vardan Oskanyan revealed the level
of engagement of Serge Sargsyan in the Armenian-Georgian relation on
the eve of the local election in Javakheti by revealing the information
on the dinner, and making this private meal the property of the public.
>>From the point of view of civil consciousness Oskanyan was right –
the behavior of government officials should be public except their
private life. However, most probably Vardan Oskanyan was thinking
about his own political fate rather than the civil society. His
revelation probably had two purposes. First, he needed to show that
the subordination is broken in Armenia, namely the defense minister
deals with the foreign minister of the neighboring country, when
the foreign ministry of his own country is an officially operating
agency with its separate line in the state budget. Besides, Oskanyan
was evidently likely to get rid of the status of a participant of a
confidential meeting. Definitely, Vardan Oskanyan was aware of the
things discussed at dinner if, of course, besides the dinner he also
participated in the talk. Consequently, by revealing this meeting
the minister of foreign affairs got rid of responsibility for any
arrangement made during this meeting, even in terms of participation.
The same is with Vardan Oskanyan’s further standpoint on Vahagn
Chakhalyan’s activities. In fact, a foreign citizen is arrested in
Armenia, who is Armenian, meanwhile the foreign minister announces
that he knows very little about this incident because “he was not in
the city”. He might as well have said that the battery of his mobile
was low.
It is also interesting that the political force (the official name
is Armenian Revolutionary Federation), which would declare Javakheti
part of Armenia if it could, also kept silent when Chakhalyan was
arrested. It is amazing why this force did not stand up against
the arrest of a person which had merely gone from one part of
the homeland to the other. On the other hand, this can have its
explanation if we remember the young Republican Armen Ashotyan advise
the 116-year-old “grandpa” that the ARF Dashnaktsutyun had better
mind its own business. Although it is a revolutionary approach for
the traditional Armenian thought when a young men advises an elderly
gentlemen, the ARF took this advice with the revolutionarism typical
of it. Why should they care about Vahagn Chakhalyan if he got his 30
percent in Javakheti, whereas Dashnakstutyun is unable to settle the
problem of at least half of it, 15 percent in the next parliament in
the homeland? At first sight, these two questions may seem to have no
relation, and it seems possible to attend to their own 15 percent and
Chakhalyan’s question. But not only there is no love at first sight
but also politics. And Dashnaktsutyun has been watshing politics for
over a century now and surely knows some ways that it does not attend
to both questions at the same time.
Garnik Isagulyan, who had given a news conference only three days
before Chakhalyan was released, also knew something. The adviser
to Robert Kocharyan stated that Chakhalyan would be set free and
everyone would be happy. This is the case when the court of law is
to make a decision. Consequently, the decision had been made earlier
and on a quite different level. And if the decision on releasing
was made earlier and on a different, non-judicial level, it is quite
probable that the decision on arresting also had a formal relation to
the judicial system, in other words, it was made on a quite different
level. The problem is whether the decision on arresting and later the
decision on releasing were made on the same level. Only then can we
say whether these decisions were complementary or one made a knight’s
move, the other took away the rook.

OPEN BORDERS ASSUMES DIRECT CONTACTS BETWEEN PEOPLES
Lragir, Armenia
Nov 6 2006
Minister Oskanian Comments on Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul’s
Recent Remarks
We remain amazed that a letter sent by President Kocharian to Prime
Minister Erdogan in April 2005 remains ignored, simply because the
Turkish authorities did not like the response contained therein,
and do not wish to broaden the scope of discussion beyond history.
President Kocharian clearly said to Prime Minister Erdogan that the
“suggestion to address the past cannot be effective if it deflects
from addressing the present and the future. In order to engage in
a useful dialog, we need to create the appropriate and conducive
political environment. It is the responsibility of governments to
develop bilateral relations and we do not have the right to delegate
that responsibility to historians. That is why we have proposed
and propose again that, without pre-conditions, we establish normal
relations between our two countries.”
In that context, President Kocharian said, “an intergovernmental
commission can meet to discuss any and all outstanding issues between
our two nations, with the aim of resolving them and coming to an
understanding.”
Foreign Minister Gul’s recent comments to RadioLiberty, insisting that
the existence of flights between Armenia and Turkey, and of Armenian
citizens in Turkey, is evidence that ‘the borders are essentially open’
is disingenuous. First, the number of Armenians from Armenia living
and working in Turkey do not approach the numbers he claims. Second,
open borders assumes direct contacts between peoples, unobstructed
relations across the border and a functioning transport infrastructure.
We stand by our response which we consider to be a positive one and
we wonder whether the Turkish insistence on a historical commission
is genuine. After all, we have in fact agreed to discussions on all
issues, in the context of open borders.
Further, so long as Article 301 which criminalizes mere discussion
of the genocide topic remains on the books in Turkey, an invitation
to open dialogue cannot be taken seriously. Finally, outside Turkey,
scholars – Armenians, Turks and others – have studied these issues
and have reached their own independent conclusions. The most notable
among these is the May 2006 letter to Prime Minister Erdogan by the
International Assn of Genocide Scholars wherein they collectively and
unanimously affirmed the fact of the Genocide and called on the Turkish
government to acknowledge the responsibility of a previous government.
In light of these complex realities, we can only repeat our readiness
to enter into dialogue and normal relations with our neighbor.

FESTIVAL OF AMERICAN AND ARMENIAN MUSIC IS HELD IN YEREVAN
Public Radio, Armenia
Nov 6 2006
US composer Laura Kaminsky, Armenian composer-pianist Artur Avanesov,
and Armenian pianist Margarit Sargsyan are presenting three concerts
in Armenia in cooperation with Komitas State Conservatory of Music.
This celebration of contemporary American and Armenian music was
supported by a grant from CEC ArtsLink. The first concert will be
held at Naregatsi Art Institute on November 6, and the second two
will be held at Komitas Chamber Music Hall on November 7 and 8.
Laura Kaminsky has a longstanding connection to Armenia dating back
to 1996 when she worked with two talented young Armenian musicians in
Poland and throughout central Europe. In 2002, Ms. Kaminsky visited
Yerevan for the first time to perform a concert at the invitation of
the Society of Composers and Musicologists. Ms. Kaminsky’s relationship
with Armenian composers endured, and led to her organizing this
November’s concert series with her Armenian colleagues.
Laura Kaminsky is Dean of the Conservatory of Music at Purchase
College/SUNY. Previously, she served as Chair of the Department of
Music at Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle, Washington. She is
also co-founder and Artistic Director of Musicians Accord, a new music
collective based in New York and dedicated to 20th and 21st century
chamber music. Composer Laura Kaminsky’s works have been performed
throughout the United States and abroad, including in Eastern Europe,
Latin America, and West Africa.
From: Baghdasarian

TURKISH PRIME MINISTER ACCUSES THE EU OF CREATING ADDITIONAL OBSTACLES
Public Radio, Armenia
Nov 6 2006
Turkish Prime Minister Rejeb Tayyib Erdogan ha accused the European
Union of “creating additional obstacles on the way of Turkey’s
accession into the united Europe.” This was the reaction of the Prime
Minister to the draft report of the European Commission to be issued
next week, “Trend” agency reports.
The document questions Ankara’s accession to the EU. According to the
document, the pace of reforms in the country has considerably slowed
down. Besides, it is noted that Turkey’s has registered no progress
in normalization of relations with Cyprus, the Southern part of which
is already in the EU, while the Northern one is still under Turkish
blockade. Turkey has not opened its ports and air space for Cyprus.
Finland, which is currently presiding over the European Union,
continues searching for ways out of the “Cyprus deadlock,” which is
one of the main obstacles on Turkey’s way to the European Union.

ARMENIAN AND FRENCH WEBSITES ATTACKED BY HACKERS
Public Radio, Armenia
Nov 6 2006
After having attacked many French websites (approximately 900), hackers
of Turkish origin pirated the symbolic website
to protest against the positive vote of the member of the French
Parliament penalizing the negation of Armenian Genocide. The hacker,
called “Ejder” modified the site in question to place there the
picture of the father founder of modern Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk,
on bottom of the Turkish flag and the national anthem. Besides,
a banner on which is written in French: “Turkey never made genocide
on its history” was placed on the Guide of Istanbul online.

KOCHARIAN STARTS KAZAKHSTAN VISIT
Radio Liberty, Czech Rep.
Nov 6 2006
Armenia and Kazakhstan are aspiring to build deeper relations in
the trade and economic spheres, the two nations’ leaders said after
negotiations on Monday.
Armenia’s President Robert Kocharian, who is on a two-day official
visit to Kazakhstan at the invitation of the country’s President
Nursultan Nazarbayev, and his Kazakh counterpart gave a press
conference in Astana after their meeting earlier today.
Kocharian emphasized the positive dynamics in bilateral relations,
the high level of political dialogue existing between the two countries
and good cooperation within international organizations.
He regretted Armenia’s insignificant amount of trade and economic
cooperation with Kazakhstan, a country that he called ‘an undoubted
leader of the Central Asian region’.
“The economic component is the weakest in our cooperation despite
the advanced reforms we have both in Kazakhstan and Armenia and
their consonance, which is a good basis first of all for economic
cooperation,” Kocharian underscored.
The Armenian leader expressed a hope that the agreements signed
in Astana will help both counties’ business elites to develop more
active cooperation.
Kocharian welcomed the closer attention of Kazakhstan’s business
circles to Armenia and their serious presence in the South Caucasus.
He hoped that in the time to come this presence will have a greater
impact on Armenia than it does today.
For his part, Nazarbayev expressed his satisfaction with the
negotiations he had with his Armenian counterpart.
“We have confirmed the aspiration of our states to further deepen our
relations through increasing trade and raising our relations to a new
level. These relations will also be promoted by increased trade and
closer economic links allowing Kazakhstani companies and capital to
work in Armenia without fear,” Nazarbayev stressed.
During their meeting the sides also discussed contacts in the
humanitarian sphere and exchanged information on the ongoing reforms
in their countries.
Kocharian briefed Nazarbayev on the situation around the
Nagorno-Karabakh settlement. “I want to reiterate our commitment
to a peaceful settlement of this conflict,” Kocharian said at the
news conference.
He invited Nazarbayev to pay a return official visit to Armenia next
year ‘in order to summarize the results of the annual work of the
Armenian-Kazakhstani intergovernmental commission.’

BREAKDOWN OVER THE BOSPHORUS
Ian Traynor
The Guardian, UK
Nov 6 2006
To bring Turkey in would be a heroic move by Europe. To reject it
could be construed as a concession to fear and pessimism.
About Webfeeds November 6, 2006 05:42 PM | Printable version To let
Turkey into the European Union? One helluva problem, no doubt about
it. And keeping the Turks out? An even bigger problem, perhaps?
Damned if you do and damned if you don’t.
The bad-tempered sparring that has characterised the EU’s negotiations
with Ankara since Brussels gave the go-ahead for membership talks
last year is shifting into a more perilous phase, propelled by quite
separate dynamics on both sides.
In Europe a panoply of diffuse factors are combining to wreck Turkey’s
chances. Islamophobia, European dilemmas over how to integrate or
exclude the growing Muslim minorities in their societies, paralysis
and indecision among EU political elites about how to revive the
European project, “expansion fatigue” as the EU grows to encompass 27
countries. There is a broad mood of drift, clueless and helpless. At
a time like this, who needs or wants Turkey?
On the other side of the Bosphorus, the grievances are great and
growing. A big proud nation is being antagonised and humiliated on
an almost weekly basis. Prickly to a fault, Turkey is less inclined
to do the EU’s bidding the more it is ordered to.
This week the European Commission will take Ankara to task on a whole
host of issues. A couple of weeks ago it was the French parliament
sitting in judgment of Turkish history, seeking to criminalise denial
of the Turks “genocide” of the Armenians in 1915.
The Brussels report card on Wednesday goes much further than a
ticking off or “could do much better”. The class teacher in Brussels
is severely reprimanding the Turks for lagging behind on everything
from military interference in politics to free speech curbs to
women’s rights to corruption and police brutality. And then there’s
Cyprus. Turkey? Not very European at all, concludes the report card.
When the report goes to the head teacher at an EU summit in December,
the pupil, if not expelled from school, may find himself suspended
from class. And if that happens, the damage could be immense.
Turkey is already in an election season. A new president has to be
voted on by next May and parliamentary elections held by the end of
next year. Nationalism, militant secularism, and moderate Islamism are
all forces on the rise and being played out as the prime minister,
Recep Tayyip Erdogan, struggles to keep Turkey’s European vocation
alive.
The constant hectoring tone from the EU hardly helps him.
Recalcitrance in response to the routine criticisms, particularly from
France, Germany, and Austria, also make it difficult and politically
risky for Mr Erdogan to equate Turkey’s modernisation with its
“Europeanisation.” Both sides are digging in their heels.
There is no denying the scale of the problem, the dilemma, or the
opportunity. Although it cannot happen for at least a decade, for
the EU to let Turkey join would be a mammoth step. The country of
more than 70 million would be bigger than Germany by the time of
entry, meaning that a Muslim country would instantly become the EU’s
biggest. For the Vatican and for the Christian democrats of Europe
(and not a few social democrats as well) this is a leap too far,
hence the current unsuccessful attempt by centre-right governments in
Europe to try to get the EU commission to define the EU’s “absorption
capacity” – in plain English, Europe’s territorial limits.
Furthermore, under the new voting system likely to be revived at
some stage despite the moribund condition of the EU’s constitution,
Germany’s status as the EU’s biggest member is recognised by giving
it enhanced voting clout. If fairness were to prevail, Turkey would
automatically have the biggest say in EU councils. And, with the
biggest Nato army this side of the Atlantic, Turkey would also
instantly become Europe’s foremost military.
Again, if fairness were to prevail, Turkey’s size and relative poverty
would entitle it to a huge share of EU funds such as to make current
squabbling over budgets and farm subsidies seem paltry. A great unsung
success of the EU over the years has been the smooth redistribution of
wealth to, say, Greece, Spain, Portugal, Ireland, and now to eastern
and central Europe. Will the generosity extend to Turkey?
If these are just a few of the major problems of letting Turkey in,
what about keeping it out? Europe would willy-nilly be confirmed as
a Christian bastion of anti-Muslim prejudice. It would demonstrate
it is not up to seizing the grand, historic, strategic opportunity
of integrating and consolidating a large Muslim democracy.
There would inevitably be hell to pay. Geographically and historically,
Turkey is a pivotal power, straddling and connecting Europe and the
Middle East. Rejection would tip Turkey towards the Middle East,
push Turkey away from the west and towards authoritarian historical
enemies such as Russia and Iran, vindicate “clash of civilisation”
pessimists, strengthen anti-democratic Islamists and nationalists. To
bring Turkey in would be an uncharacteristically heroic move by Europe,
ringing with promise, opportunity, and optimism. To reject it could
be construed as cowardice, a concession to fear and pessimism. Either
way, the choices, still a long way off, are damnably hard.
But if not dishonest, there is something fundamentally depressing
about the Turkey-EU negotiations which, only a year after the formal
go-ahead for the talks, have degenerated into a dialogue of the deaf
and look to be heading towards breakdown.
The Turks have an uncanny aptitude for shooting themselves in the
foot, arming their critics and opponents whether by putting their most
celebrated writer (as well as many others) on trial for speaking his
mind or charging dozens of ethnic Kurdish mayors with offences for
asking Denmark to keep a Kurdish TV station on the air. And in Europe,
governments and leading politicians repeatedly state that Turkey will
never join. They then devise mechanisms to ensure that Turkey is kept
out just after those same governments and leaders at a European summit
have launched negotiations designed to bring Turkey in.
Rather than a courtship that is looking forward to a happy wedding,
the relationship over the past year has been more like grumpy divorce
proceedings, with the estranged partners making peremptory demands
of one another and always looking to blame the other. It is a strange
way to prepare for a marriage.
_traynor/2006/11/breakdown_over_the_bosphorus.html

ANNUAL DEFENSE EXPENSES TO MAKE UP 3.5% OF ARMENIA’S GDP
Regnum News Agency, Russia
Nov 6 2006
“The budgetary allocations for defense are enough to keep our army
efficient,” Armenian Defense Minister Serzh Sargsyan told journalists
after the Nov 6 budgetary hearings in the parliament. The annual
defense expenses will make up 3.5% of the GDP, i.e. the defense
expenses will directly depend on the economic growth.
Sargsyan said that 48% of the defense allocations will be spent on
the wages. He said that next year the average salary of an Armenian
officer will be 165,000 AMD (almost $450).
Commenting on the Azerbaijani authorities’ statement that Azerbaijan’s
defense budget is much bigger than Armenia’s one, Sargsyan said that
$1bln cannot be compared with $300mln, “but if we spend the money
effectively, we will attain a lot.” Sargsyan said that next year the
Government will buy new equipment for the army.
To note, the draft budget 2007 allocates over 100.4bln AMD for defense,
of which 97bln AMD for military needs. 27mln AMD will be spent on
the organization of the alternative service.