Month: November 2006

FRANCE IS NOT WELCOMED IN TURKISH DEFENCE FAIR
Journal of Turkish Weekly, Turkey
Nov 20 2006
* Turkish Defense Minister’s words prompt French official to leave
salon
ANKARA – Turkish Defense Minister Vecdi Gonul, speaking at the opening
of the 8th Defense Industry Trade Fair, reportedly provoked French
Military Attache Lieutenant Jean Claude Gaey to leave the salon where
Gonul was speaking.
The French Military Attache Gaey was reportedly reacting in anger to
words spoken by Gonul which appeared to cast doubt on whether French
military officers had been invited to the trade fair:
“We were all upset by the parliamentary approval of the Amernian
bill in France. But we will of course continue our relations with
France in NATO and on other international platforms. We will come
together at other meetings too. The French Defense Minister is a
valuable government member. But the French Defense Minister has not
been formally invited here. We sent invitations to other countries.”
When a reported noted afterwards to Minister Gonul that the official
list of invitees included the French Defense Minister, Gonul responded
“I don’t know about the list you are holding; but when looked at the
list of people sitting to watch the cinevision, I was relieved not
to see the French in row 21. We don’t want to do the wrong thing.”
French Attache Gaey commented to reporters after leaving the salon
in the wake of Gonul’s speech: “An invitation came to me from the
retired General who heads the Turkish Armed Forces Foundation. But
after hearing the minister’s words, I realized that staying here for
meetings was useless. Which is why I am leaving.”
Earlier this week, Turkish General Ilker Basbug of the Turkish
Land Force asserted during celebrations for the founding of Turkish
Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) that for now, Turkish and French
formal military relations had been “shelved.”
Turkey has been decreasing the level of the relations with France at
all sectors. Turkish consumer unions started to boycott the French
companies. Turkish media reported that France has prefered the
Armenians instead of Turkey.

BASKET OF GOODS BY ARF DASHNAKTSUTYUN
Lragir, Armenia
Nov 20 2006
Four ARF Dashanktsutyun members of parliament (Levon Mkrtichyan,
Hrair Karapetyan, Vahan Hovanisyan, Armen Rustamyan) drafted a bill
on the list and structure of the basket of goods in April but the
parliament has not discussed it yet. The discussion is postponed at
the request of the authors. Which is the lower standard of living as
defined by the ARF Dashnaktsutyun?
The ARF Dashnaktsutyun proposes 23 food products, 8 non-food products,
and 5-8 services. The ARF included bread, flour, noodles, cereal,
dairy products, vegetables, meat, etc. By the way, in the ARF model
of the basket of goods there is only an annual 36-39 kg of beef and
12-18 kg of fish. No pork, no chicken, no other kinds of meat.
The ARF Dashnaktsutyun prefers apples to all the other fruits. In the
basket of goods, there is no juice, lemonade or water. Drink water
from the faucet.
Of course, the ARF has included clothes and shoes in the basket.
Meanwhile, you cannot buy furniture or electric appliances. If yours is
the minimum basket of goods, you have to live on what you already have.
The authors of the project propose postponing the discussion of the
bill, on the one hand, and on the other hand, they propose starting
to apply the law on January 1, 2007.
This is only one side of the issue, however. According to different
estimations, the basket of goods costs an annual 30-35 thousand drams,
meanwhile, the minimum pension is three times less, 12 thousand
drams. The minimum salary is 15 thousand drams, and it is possible
that in 2007 it will become 20 thousand.

ARA ABRAHAMYAN IS FOLLOWING ATTENTIVELY
Lragir, Armenia
Nov 20 2006
The chair of the Murmansk branch of the Union of Armenians of Russia
killed on Thursday had great connections with Armenia, stated Ara
Abrahamyan, the chair of the Union of Armenians of Russia on November
20. The murder is in the focus of attention of Ara Abrahamyan, he had
a talk with the prosecutor, and arranged to meet with the officers
investigating the case every ten days. Today he says it is early to
express an opinion but he thinks that it was not a racial murder but
involved a clash of business interests. By the way, Arthur Harutiunyan
was said to own 70 percent of stocks of one of the Murmansk-based
banks. He ran realty and entertainment businesses.

COMPLEMENTARISM: NEXT STOPOVER IN ECUATORIAL GUINEA
James Badalyan
Lragir, Armenia
Nov 20 2006
While the Armenian government has remembered about the Strategy of
National Security and is hopeful to have this bill adopted in the
pre-election fuss, events are underway in the world which can make any
document redundant for Armenia, for the simple reason that they can
make Armenia generally redundant. This opinion may sound exaggerated,
but now even the smallest geopolitical event threatens Armenia,
and disappointment is becoming a usual thing.
The U.S. Senate adopted a bill on November 17, which supports the
membership of Georgia, Albania, Croatia and Macedonia to NATO. It is
interesting that support is not words but finance. The four countries
will get 20 million dollars for the development of security in the
process of membership to the NATO, and the greater share, 10 million
goes to Georgia.
It is so unfair. One guarantees the victory of the Democrats in the
Senate and others adopt a bill. Instead of adopting the first bill
on the Genocide of the Armenians who made so much effort durig the
election, the U.S. Senate again went in for defending the interests
of their country.
Ingratutude is striking. But it would be too good if we sustained a
moral defeat only. The problem is that the bill adopted by the Senate
disappoints not only the Armenian lobby in the United States but
also the entire political establishment of Armenia. This expression
is, of course, a complement for the community who sustain their
families rather than the state. But the problem is that in forgetting
about their own state, they were energetically teaching a lesson to
Sahakashvili saying that the United States would not support them in
the conflict with Russia.
Meanwhile, the bill adopted by the Senate is evidence to the
opposite. Of course, it does not mean that Georgia will be accepted
to NATO in the assembly of NATO on November 28 and 29. On the other
hand, however, the bill of the U.S. Senate will evidently support
Sahakashvili, both morally and financially, even if the Senate meant
to harm the Russians rather than to support Georgia, who were much
happier about the reelection of Kokoyti and the outcome of the
referendum on independence than the Ossetians.
However, it was a bad surprise for Armenia, which keeps saying that the
separate membership of the South Caucasus to NATO could be a serious
threat for the stable and peaceful development of the region, because
the presence of two security systems, NATO and the Organization of the
Collective Security Pact in the same region is impossible. It becomes
clear from the decision of the Senate that the vision of Armenia again
does not overlap with the logic of the geopolitical developments. And
this is threatened by an essential consequence. The point is that the
more the prospect of Georgia’s membership is becoming real, the more
independent and unrestrained this country’s relations with Russia will
be. In that case, they will start thinking in Russia that chauvinism
will no longer be instrumental in the relations with Georgia. In
that case, either Russia has to have no relations with Georgia or
should build a horizontal rather than vertical relation. The second
option is possible, because the first means for Russia to leave the
Caucasus, even if the Russian dominance is sustained in Abkhazia and
South Ossetia.
Russia does not need these territories as such, and Putin has announced
about this. These are attractive with their present status, as a tool
in the relations with Georgia. In other words, Russia, nevertheless,
needs the relation with Georgia, even more than Georgia needs this
relation. The problem is that Russia cannot turn its economic
dominance in Armenia into a real factor if it is not present in
Georgia. Consequently, the Kremlin will eventually agree to this
proposal to have at least economic presence in Georgia. And the
quality of the Russian-Georgian relation actually deprives Armenia
of the last chance of Armenia to be useful, or at least handy in any
matter in the region.

THE PRESIDENT OF AN ESTABLISHED STATE AND THE DEFENSE MINISTER OF A FAILURE STATE
Hakob Badalyan
Lragir, Armenia
Nov 20 2006
On November 17, while discussing the Strategy of National Security
with the scientists at the National Academy of Sciences, the defense
minister of Armenia, the secretary of the Council of National
Security Serge Sargsyan made several statements which contradict to
the statements of the president of Armenia.
Serge Sargsyan stated that he disagrees that Armenia is an established
state. He this disagreed with the scientists who proposed including
the fact of being established in the Strategy. “Perhaps I will be the
happiest person in the world when already the entire society and also
the world rather than individuals state that the Republic of Armenia
is an established state,” Serge Sargsyan announced. As a point of
view, his words are not strange, and even if we go deeper into it,
we will find out that the defense minister is right, and Armenia
is far from being an established state. After all, this is also the
state built by Serge Sargsyan, and he surely knows what kind of state
he was building. But the problem is the state, the defense minister
considers a failure state, whereas the president considers it as an
established state.
“Armenia is a country with sustainable development… The Diaspora has
had an invaluable contribution to the establishment of the state,”
this is an extract from the address of the president on the 15th
anniversary of the independence of Armenia. It becomes clear from
Robert Kocharyan’s words that the president considers Armenia as an
established state, otherwise he would not describe the contribution
of the Diaspora to having an established state as invaluable. In
addition, the president emphasizes the role of the Diaspora in the
Present Perfect Tense, and since the defense minister used to study
philology at the university, he cannot have difficulty perceiving.
Even if one is not a philologist, it is evident that the president of
Armenia and the defense minister have a major controversy regarding
governance in the state they are ruling. And the issue is a core one.
The problem is the problems the state is facing. An established
state has other problems than a failure state. And the difference
between the problems gives rise to a difference in their solution and
approaches to governance in general. Consequently, if the two persons
in charge of the security of the state have such opposite opinions,
it is at least strange what problems each of them is attending to.
The logic is that public officials with different ideas and
consequently different approaches should be unable to work together
in the top government for many years. It means that either Robert
Kocharyan fails to implement his ideas in government or Serge
Sargsyan. Or if they have been working together and without complaining
from each other for so many years, it is interesting to know what
brings them together. If they have different ideas on the state,
perhaps they shared personal problems. In the long run, the problems
connected with the future of the state did not hinder Serge Sargsyan
and Robert Kocharyan to work together because they did not try to
understand these problems and solve them because otherwise they would
have realized the major difference in their ideas. It means that the
formula of their work is to consider state inferior to their private
life. In terms of the private life, Robert Kocharyan and Serge Sargsyan
have perhaps pursued the same problem – to remain in power for life.
In this respect, it is interesting that in September Robert
Kocharyan awarded Serge Sargsyan and said, “Therefore, stressing the
reinforcement of the statehood, we have to mention the persons who
have their personal contribution to the establishment of the Armenian
statehood…” Serge Sargsyan was awarded for contributing to the
established state. Meanwhile, considering that the defense minister
considers the state as a failure state, the president awarded him for
something he did not do. Even if we suppose that Robert Kocharyan
thinks otherwise, it’s all the same – Serge Sargsyan should have
rejected the award and say he cannot be awarded for something he did
not do. If neither Robert Kocharyan, not Serge Sargsyan acted so,
it means the award was given for something else than state building.

YERKRAMAS NEWSPAPER GIVEN GOLD MEDAL FOR THE SAKE OF HUMANITY ON OCCASION OF ITS 10th ANNIVERSARY
Noyan Tapan News Agency, Armenia
Nov 20 2006
YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 20, NOYAN TAPAN. The 10th anniversary of the
Yerkramas newspaper of Armenians of Russia was marked on 2006 November
15 with a festive concert. The event was opened with speeches of
official guests who congratulated the newspaper’s editorial staff
and its readers on the occasion of the jubilee. In particular,
a representatie of the Embassy of Republic of Armenia to Russian
Federation read the greeting message of Ambassador of RA to RF, Armen
Smbatian to the newspaper, that read: “Ten years ago you started a
project that you realize with obstinacy deserving respect.
You managed to gather a team of co-thinkers and many interested and
attentive readers… Today the Yerkramas newspaper has obtained an
individual face, has determined its position, worked out its style.
It has also managed to become not only an objective mirror of life
of Armenian community of Russia, but also an arena for dialogue for
representatives of various nationalities, ages and religions.”
In connection with the jubilee, RA Minister of Education and Science
Levon Mkrtchian, RA Consul General to RF South Federal Okrug Ararat
Gomtsian, President of Society of Friendship and Cooperation with RA
Viktor Krivoruckov, Chairman of public movement For Self-Governance
of Workers, President of Association of Russian-Armenian Business
Cooperation Levon Chakhmakhchian and others also addressed written
congratulations to the Yerkramas newspaper of Armenians of Russia.
On behalf of the Elite of the World International Charity Fund of
World Humanity (President of the Fund is count Peter Sheremetev),
the editorial staff of Yerkramas received a gold medal For the Sake
of Humanity given to juridical persons and organizations having made
a considerable contribution to life to the advantage of the society
and having created a publicly useful work, as an expression of honor
and gratitude by the people. Yerkramas newspaper’s editor-in-chief
Tigran Tavadian on behalf of the International Armenian Cossack Union
(ataman Major-General Sergei Madatian) was also awarded order For H®nor
and Loyalty named after Lieutenant-General, prince Valerian Madatov,
hero of Patriotic War of 1812.
–Boundary_(ID_00akSwT0d7n7GCkrkq3ZKw)–

ARA ABRAHAMIAN: ARMENIA SHOULD COOPERATE WITH DIFFERENT COUNTRIES, BUT NOT AT THE EXPENSE OF RUSSIA
Noyan Tapan News Agency, Armenia
Nov 20 2006
YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 20, NOYAN TAPAN. There is no problem of political
or economic character in relations between Armenia and Russia. Ara
Abrahamian, Chairman of the Union of Armenians in Russia, Chairman of
the World Armenian Congress (WAC), said this at the November 20 meeting
with journalists at the Union of Writers of Armenia. In his words,
“Armenia should cooperate with different countries of the world, but
not at the expense of Russia, not to the detriment of its relations
with Russia.” According to A.Abrahamian’s observations, the West
wishes to create an atmosphere to contribute to “Armenia’s stepping
back from Russia.” “We should realize, whether it proceeds from our
interests to step back from Russia,” he declared. In A.Abrahamian’s
words, to break off contacts is easy, but to establish is difficult
and before renouncing Russia it is necessary to discuss the new
partners’ proposals.
Commenting upon the fact of Armenians’ murders committed lately
in Russia, A.Abrahamian said that they do not have an emphasized
anti-Armenian character: “They kill Armenians not for their
national belonging, but due to the color of their hair and other
circumstances.” He assured that five minutes after each incident he
is informed about the details, discusses the formed situation with
Armenian lawyers, gets in touch with representatives of law enforcement
bodies and tries to draw their special attention to the incident.
Touching upon the murder of Artur Haroutiunian, Head of the Union
of Armenians in Murmansk, A.Abrahamian said that it is still early
to draw a conclusion and they should wait until the law enforcement
bodies disclose those guilty. He did not exclude that the murder can
be connected with A.Haroutiunian’s business activity.

ARMENIAN DELEGATION NOT TO PARTICIPATE IN BSEC PARLIAMENTARY ASSEMBLY IN BAKU ON NOVEMBER 22-23
Noyan Tapan News Agency, Armenia
Nov 20 2006
YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 20, NOYAN TAPAN. The Armenian delegation will not
participate in the 28th session of the Parliamentary Assembly of the
Black Sea Economic Cooperation Organization (BSEC) in Baku on November
22-23. The reason is that no guarantees of the delegation members’
security have been provided.
According to Gagik Minasian, the head of the Armenian delegation, the
Chairman of the RA National Assembly Standing Committee of Financial,
Credit, Budgetary and Economic Isuues, he applied officially to the
Azerbaijani side in anticipation of guarantees but his application
remained unanswered. G. Minasian had to apply to the International
Secretariate of the PA BSEC, whose headquarters are in Istanbul. He
received official informatiom from the Secretary General Alexey
Kudryavtsev that the Azerbaijani authotities have not responded to
his verbal and written applications.

2 FOREIGN CITIZENS GET STATUS OF REFUGEES IN ARMENIA IN JANUARY-OCTOBER, 2006
Noyan Tapan News Agency, Armenia
Nov 20 2006
YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 20, NOYAN TAPAN. The Department on Asking Refuge of
the Migration Agency of the staff of the RA Ministry of Territorial
Administration got in January-October of 2006 529 applications from
foreign citizens, including 512 ones for temporary refuge, and 16 ones
for getting status of refugees. As the Noyan Tapan correspondent was
informed by Ruzanna Petrosian, the Deputy Chief of the department,
269 people from those asking for temporary refuge were citizens of
Lebanon, 176 were from Iraq, 67 were citizens of Israel.
All the applicants for getting temporary refuge, who are in Armenia,
got the right of refuge for 1 year term.
2 people, from Turkey and Iran, were given status of refugees.
R.Petrosian mentioned that rest of applications are still at the age
of discussion.

NKR’S ACHIEVEMENTS WOULD BE IMPOSSIBLE WITHOUT DIASPORA’S ASSISTANCE, ARKADY GHOUKASSIAN EMPHASIZES
Noyan Tapan News Agency, Armenia
Nov 20 2006
SANTA ANA, NOVEMBER 20, NOYAN TAPAN – ARMENIANS TODAY. A reception in
honor of Nagorno Karabakh President Arkady Ghoukassian was organized
last week in the U.S. city of Santa Ana (state of California).
NKR President expressed gratitude to his American compatriots for their
assistance of many years to Artsakh in the issue of its socio-economic,
cultural and spiritual development. The President emphasized that
Nagorno Karabakh’s achievements would be impossible without this
assistance, be it during operations or at present, in the period of
NKR post-war restoration. The meeting participants expressed readiness
to continue providing assistance to the republic by implementation of
various development programs there. They also emphasized extension
of Spyurk’s active participation in the fund-raising to be held on
November 23 in U.S., which is aimed at further development of Nagorno
Karabakh, in particular, Hadrut region.
As Noyan Tapan was informed from the Press Service under NKR President,
well-known benefactors Kosti and Marian Shirvanians, Ralph and Savi
Tufenkians, Hakob and Mina Shirvanians, Vardges and Mary Najarians,
Vahe and Veronik Karapetians, Roger and Elen Hovhannisians, Hakob
Baghdasarian and others took part in the reception. Consul General
of Armenia to Los Angeles, Armen Liloyan also took part in the event.
Prospects of Nagorno Karabakh’s all-round development and
Armenian Diaspora’s role in this issue were discussed during
Arkady Ghoukassian’s meetings with such influential persons, as
Doctor Artur Mesropian, Albert Bojayian and Harry Turpanjian in Los
Angeles. In particular, the issue of introducing the practice of
early cardiologial diagnostics in NKR was discussed in the talk with
Mr Turpanjain. The NKR President also met with heads and activists
of the Armenian Assembly of America (AAA) Los Angeles Office. Issues
relating to Nagorno Karabakh settlement, as well as Nagorno Karabakh
socio-economic development, republic’s further democratization were
discussed at the meeting.