Month: March 2007

ROBERT WEXLER: U.S. CANNOT AFFORD TO LOSE TURKEY

PanARMENIAN.Net
13.03.2007 21:00 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ "The logistic support to the U.S. soldiers in
Iraq is carried out via Turkey. We need Turkey’s support more than
we did in the past and we should not lose Turkey," Robert Wexler,
the co-chairman of the Turkish group of the Congress said.

He stressed, "The USA did not even take the first step for keeping
our promises to Turkey". Wexler noted that the Armenian Genocide bill
will not be accepted in the U.S. Congress.

FIRST TIME A TURKISH POLITICAL FIGURE DENYING THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE WAS FOUND GUILTY IN SWITZERLAND

PanARMENIAN.Net
10.03.2007 GMT+04:00

Although the Armenian Genocide is not included by the International
Court in the official list of the crimes alike, it is a historical fact
and Perincek’s announcements are considered to be mere provocation.

The Swiss court found the Turkish militant leader Dogu Perincek guilty
of denying the Armenian genocide.

Turkish Workers’ Party leader Dogu Perincek received a suspended jail
sentence of 90 days or an equivalent fine from a Lausanne Court as
well as a fine of 3,000 Swiss francs (2,500 dollars). In case of one
more denial of the Armenian Genocide Perincek may be sent to prison.

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ By the way, Perincek’s announcement, where he
called the Armenian Genocide "an international lie", may give ground
for other countries to condemn Perincek not only for racism, but for
slander as well, as the 18 countries which have officially recognized
the Armenian Genocide, can’t deny the truth. As for the references to
"the Armenian intrigues", in this case they simply do not work. And
although the Armenian Genocide is not included by the International
Court in the official list of the crimes alike, it is a historical fact
and Perincek’s announcements are considered to be mere provocation.

As the commentators state, the condemnation of the Turkish political
figure is the first case when the Switzerland’s anti-racism law has
been applied to the Armenian Genocide since 1995 when the law was
adopted in Switzerland. The most interesting thing is that the Turkish
Press "almost failed to notice" the verdict of the Lausanne Court. Only
Chihan News Agency gave some minor consideration to the case, and that
is with no commentary. A similar position is assumed by the "brotherly"
Azeri Press; however, if Ankara gives any response, the Azeri Press
will do the same. Most likely the campaign in Press will launch after
the consideration of the appeal, which Dogu Perincek is going to
file to the Strasbourg Court. Perincek says, "We will not give up,
and if needed, we will appeal to the European Court of Human Rights."

Let us remind that Turkey’s threats about appealing to the
International Court have lately become more and more frequent. Most
probably Turkey realizes that despite the Israeli and to some extent
the US support, Europeans will by all means adopt laws about the
denial of the Genocide, which are already administered in Holland
and Switzerland and soon will most probably be administered in France
as well.

Perhaps Ankara will start applying its old strategy; intimidation,
which this time will be applied against Switzerland. However,
things are a little different in this case. The number of the Turks
in Switzerland is not large; instead there are banks, where no
doubt many Turkish businessmen and political figures have personal
accounts, so it will do no good to Ankara to be in bad terms with
Switzerland. Moreover the leader of the party doesn’t enjoy supreme
authority in Turkey to have the support of the country. Perincek’s
party is too small and in addition is of radical nature, something
which Erdoghan doesn’t encourage at all.

However the incident raised a clamor which may be used for our own
benefit. The Turks themselves, though unintentionally raised the
issue of the Armenian Genocide making many people think over; maybe
the Armenians have indeed been slaughtered, otherwise Turkey wouldn’t
be so aggressive any time the word "genocide" is mentioned.

"PanARMENIAN.Net" analytical department

AZERBAIJANI INSINUATIONS: "KARABAKH – AN UNCONTROLLABLE AREA"
By Agavni Haroutiunian

AZG Armenian Daily
14/03/2007

While Armenian politicians are engaged from head to toe in preparations
to the forthcoming parliamentary elections, Azerbaijani representatives
in the PACE are trying to pass certain alterations to the Human Rights
Commission reports on Karabakh. Azerbaijani mass media says that
member of Azerbaijani delegation to the European Council Gyultekin
Gajieva claimed that Karabakh must be included in the category of such
"uncontrollable areas" as South Osetia, Abkhazia and Dnestr region.

It is noteworthy that the interest of Karabakh were advocated by
an Ukrainian deputy, who noted that Karabakh is a debatable, but
not uncontrollable territory. In any case, if the allegations of the
Azerbaijani mass media are to be believed, the report was passed with
Gajieva’s alteration.

The Armenian delegation did not take part in that sitting. According
to Artashes Geghamian’s comment on the event, the proposition of
the "Azeri lady" cannot be legitimate because of the absence of the
Armenian delegations, and therefore the rumors are nothing but a part
of Azerbaijani propaganda.

"AFTER THE MURDER OF HRANT DINK BECAME CLEAR THAT TURKEY IS NOT SO EASILY TO BE CHANGED FROM THE INSIDE"
By Ruzan Pogosian

AZG Armenian Daily
14/03/2007

Armenia’s National Interests

The project of legislation bill, providing for criminal responsibility
for denying the Armenian Genocide, will be discussed by the European
Parliament on May 19, 2007, and in case of being approved, will be
compulsory to adoption in all the European states.

This project, denied 3 years ago was once again raised by Germany,
and at present everything depends on the success of parliamentary
debates, said yesterday on a press conference Hilda Tchoboyan, head
of the European Armenian Federation. To the press conference was also
present Aram Hambarian, director executive of the "Hay Dat" commission.

Ms. Tchoboyan emphasized that an article providing for punishment
should be included in the bill, as it is in the case of the Jewish
Holocaust. The main difficulty is not about that, but in achieving
the approval of all the 27 EU member-states.

Mr. Hambarian added that their organization puts much trust in the US
Congress. Referring to the Genocide Resolution, he said he believes
that the Armenians will have the majority of the votes. He admitted
that Turkey will continue threatening and impeding the genocide
recognition process, but noticed that the last five years were enough
to be sure that Turkey’s threats never go beyond pathetic declarations.

"Armenia can never be safe until Turkey denies the Genocide. After
the murder of Hrant Dink we believe that it is hard to change Turkey
from inside.

Therefore we will cope to change Turkey’s policy of denial from
outside – with the recognition of the Genocide by the progressive
world society," said Mr. Hambarian.

US President George Bush never expresses his position about the
issue of the Armenian Genocide. He does neither deny nor accept the
deed. Every year on April 24 Bush expresses his condolences but never
uses the word "genocide". And he kicks off people recognizing the
Genocide openly, like John Evans.

Commenting on the question of assignment of a new US Ambassador
to Armenia, Hambarian said that the Senate came to conclusion that
Armenia will not accept anyone who denies the Genocide. Evans was
turned down, and so is Hogland. Time is ripe to find a new candidature
for that office

BLIX: BRITAIN EMBELLISHED IRAQ DOSSIERS
By Dan Keane, Associated Press Writer

AZG Armenian Daily
14/03/2007

The British government embellished intelligence used to justify
the decision to invade Iraq in 2003, the former U.N. chief weapons
inspector said in an interview broadcast Monday.

Hans Blix, who led the U.N. search for weapons of mass destruction
in Iraq until June 2003, said a later discredited dossier on Iraq’s
weapons programs had deliberately embellished the case for war.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s government published a dossier
before the invasion that claimed Saddam Hussein had stockpiles
of chemical and biological weapons and could deploy some within
45 minutes.

"I do think they exercised spin. They put exclamation marks instead
of question marks," Blix said in an interview with Britain’s Sky News
television broadcast Monday.

Blix said, according to excerpts released in advance, that Blair
and President Bush had "lost a lot of confidence" once failures in
intelligence were exposed.

Britain’s dossier on Iraq’s supposed possession of weapons of mass
destruction was criticized by a 2004 official inquiry into intelligence
on Iraq.

Though the inquiry’s head, Lord Butler, did not fault Blair’s
government, he criticized intelligence officials for relying in part on
"seriously flawed" or "unreliable" sources.

Butler’s review concluded that the dossier, which helped Blair win the
support of Parliament to join the U.S. in the conflict, had pushed
the government’s case to the limits of available intelligence and
left out vital caveats.

Blix said that if inspectors had been allowed to carry out inspections
"a couple of months more" intelligence officials would likely have
drawn the eventual conclusion that Iraq had no weapons stockpiles
and that their sources were providing poor quality information.

BAN ON JERMUK SALES IN USA PART OF CONSPIRACY

AZG Armenian Daily
14/03/2007

Eduard Aghajanov, an independent Armenian economist, claims that the
ban of U.S. health authorities on sales of Jermuk, Armenia’s most
famous and popular brand of mineral water is part of an economic
conspiracy, hatched to drive Armenian mineral water out of the
international market.

Last week the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) ordered all
importers of Jermuk bottled mineral water to recall the product,
which is sold in California and other Armenian-populated parts of
the United States, saying that the water is contaminated with high
levels of arsenic, which is a known cause of cancer.

FDA said that water testing revealed consistence of 500 to 600
micrograms of arsenic per liter, which exceeds the FDA standard for
quality-bottled water. No more than 10 micrograms of arsenic per
liter is allowed by the US standard.

Following the FDA warning the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA)
has also warned the public not to consume any variety of Jermuk
mineral water, imported from Armenia. The importer of Jermuk to Canada,
which has a sizeable Armenian community, is voluntarily recalling the
product. CFIA said, however, there have been no reported illnesses
associated with the products.

However the Armenian economist, Eduard Aghajanov, claimed that ‘the
plot’ against Jermuk might have been engineered by Italy, France and
Germany, world’s leading producers of mineral water in retaliation to
Jermuk’s growing popularity worldwide ‘because this is a very lucrative
business as one liter of Jermuk costs higher than one liter of petrol."

The way out, according to Aghajanov, is to develop international
brands for Armenian mineral waters, but he added this will be a time
and money-consuming process. As an option he suggested cooperation
with a famous foreign company.

REPETITION IN MCC AND LINS LISTS

A1+
[10:00 pm] 13 March, 2007

Shirak marz will be provided with about 21 million USD in the frames of
‘ Millennium Challenges Corporation.

12 million will be directed to the road repair of republic and
intercommunity importance. More than 80 communities are involved in
the project.

Levon Barseghyan, MCC project member proves that 46, 5 km road is
going to be repaired by " Lins" foundation in Shirak marz. It is
26.27 % out of 177 km roads in the region.

One of the principles of MCC is to connect the village roads to those
of republic and marz importance.

Although there village communities in the region which are not involved
in the project. ‘Tsayg’ television Gyumri.

SUCCESSFUL OPERATION

A1+
[10:21 pm] 13 March, 2007

On March 7, Armenian national team coach Yan Porterfield was operated
on in’ Gregory the Illuminator ‘ clinics.

The large intestine operation was a success. The Scot expert is in
post operation rehabilitation state. His state is considered stable.

Armenian Football federation on behalf of country fans expressed its
gratitude to the medical center.

It is still unknown when Porterfield will start the work with
the national team. To remind, the Polish national team will host
Armenian football players on March 28 in the frames of ‘Euro-2008’
try-out matches.

US STRUGGLE AGAINST ‘JERMUK’ IS ARTIFICIAL

A1+
[09:43 pm] 13 March, 2007

The guests in "Urbat" club started their meeting by drinking "jermuk"
mineral water.

The US Agency of Food and Medicine announcement had a great
repercussion among Armenian consumers. "Jermuk Group" company, as
well as "Mother Jermuk" factory together with experts gave a press
conference to satisfy public anxiety.

"Jermuk "representatives find that the announcement itself is very
suspicious and gives ground to different interpretation.

They suppose that an illegal mineral water is exported to the
USA. "The picture of the examined bottle is on the site. There is
no such brand in the Armenian market. One of the deer is missing,
which is a confusing sign,"

The companies are surprised to hear no specific company. "First of all
the agency should have discussed it with the corresponding producer,
to see whether it belonged to it or not. None of our company got
any notification."

"Jermuk Group" company has got certificates given by both EU and
Russian Federation. And the USA has been importing the mineral water
since 2000, and there have been no complaints about the brand.

As to the companies, it has some political background." Without a
special allowance the brand could never enter the market if it were
unhealthy and of low quality. Why wasn’t it banned in 2000? " Edgar
Ghazaryan mentions and adds, "This is a deliberate action towards
Armenian mineral water. It is neither the ownership of "Jermuk Group"
nor that of "Mother Jermuk"; it is RA ownership as far as it is of
mineral wealth."

Vice-head of epidemiology department of Ministry of Health, Marieta
Basilyan affirms that "There is 0.1% less arsenium in product
exported to US as compared with Armenian brand. It is strange to
believe that this quantity could result in poisoning. According to
the information provided by world health organization, no cases of
disease are reported. "

TODAY IS CHARENTS’ BIRTHDAY

A1+
[05:48 pm] 13 March, 2007

more images p> Today is the 100th anniversary of Charents. Many
students and schoolchildren have commemorated the great writer and
remembered his path.

Charents School 67 alumni put flowers on the memorial to the writer
and recited some of his poems. Besides several art figures and fans,
his daughter Anahit Charents was also present. She mentioned, "Despite
all type of mediocrity, people worshipped him which was reciprocal."

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress