Month: April 2007

CIS EXECUTIVE SECRETARY WELCOMES SERZH SARKISIAN’S NEW APPOINTMENT

ARMENPRESS
Apr 05 2007

YEREVAN, APRIL 5, ARMENPRESS: The Russian executive secretary of the
Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), a loose union of former
Soviet republics, welcomed today in Yerevan president Kocharian’s
decision to appoint defense minister Serzh Sarkisian as a new prime
minister following the sudden death of Andranik Margarian, who died
on March 25.

"We are very well familiar with Serzh Sarkisian, because of his
good job and because of our constant contacts with him. We are very
positive about his new appointment and expect effective cooperation,’
Vladimir Rushailo said.

Sarkisian was appointed by Robert Kocharian to fill the vacancy late
Wednesday. By a separate decree Kocharian relieved him of defense
minister’s duties.

Under the Armenian constitution Serzh Sarkisian has 20 days to form his
cabinet and have its make-up endorsed by the president. He will have
another 20 days to submit the cabinet’s plan of actions to parliament
for approval, but in view of the fact that he will have to resign
right after the May 12 parliamentary elections, the parliament will
actually be unable to vote on it.

It also emerged today that the UK prime minister Tony Blair sent a
message to Serzh Sarkisian to congratulate him on his new tenure. The
news was announced by the British embassy in Yerevan.

INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON ARMENIA’S IT POTENTIAL HELD IN ISSY LES MOULINEAUX

Arminfo
2007-04-04 17:47:00

An international conference on Armenia’s IT potential was held in
France Apr 3.

The press service of the Foreign Ministry of Armenia reports that
attending the conference were specialists from Armenia, France, the
United States and Belgium as well as representatives of international
organizations. The Armenian delegation was led by the deputy trade
and economic development minister Tigran Davtyan. The conference
was opened by the mayor of Issy les Moulineaux Andre Santini and the
ambassador of Armenia to France Eduard Nalbandyan.

Speaking at the conference were Tigran Davtyan, the deputy director of
McKinsey Belgium, the organizer of Armenia 2020 program Pierre Gurjian,
the director of Enterprises Incubator Foundation Bagrat Yengibaryan.

The vice president of Microsoft Vahe Torossyan pointed out high
progress in Armenian IT.

The vice president of IEEE Yervand Zoryan said that Armenia has big
potential in the sphere.

Richard Bezkian (Boomerang Software), Mladen Matigas (EpygiArm),
Artak Abedi (Damaris) and Zareg Tutunjian (Sysronics) reported on
their activities in Armenia.

Almost 50 French companies took part in the conference, including
Alcatel, France Telecom, Atos Origin, Oracle.

V.RUSHAILO: THERE ARE NOT ABSOLUTELY STERILE ELECTIONS IN ANY COUNTRY OF THE WORLD

Arminfo
2007-04-05 15:18:00

There are not absolutely sterile elections in any country of the world.

There are always some technical shortcomings and problems. And it is
very important to define if these shortcomings are of the systematic
nature, and how much they affect the results of the elections, the
CIS Executive Secretary and the head of the CIS Monitoring Mission,
Vladimir Rushailo told journalists in Yerevan today.

To note, parliamentary election in Armenia will be conducted on 12 May.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

COMMANDER OF GENERAL HEADQUARTERS OF THE ARMENIAN ARMED FORCES HAS BEEN TEMPORARELY ASSIGNED THE DEFENSE MINISTER

Arminfo
2007-04-05 15:36:00

Commander of General Headquarters of the Armenian armed forces,
Gen-Col Mikael Arutyunyan has been temporarely assigned the defence
minister. As press secretary of the defence minister Col Seyran
Shaksuvaryan told ArmInfo correspondent Mikael Harutyunyan was assigned
according to the the Regulations of RA DF.

To recall, yesterday Armenian Defence Minister Serzh Sarkisyan was
appointed the prime minister by the president’s decree.

MINISTRY OF CULTURE AND TOURISM OF TURKEY INCLUDED NAKHIJEVAN, KARABAKH AND TERRITORIES UNDER ITS CONTROL IN ARMENIA’S STRUCTURE

Arminfo
2007-04-05 15:35:00

The Ministry of Culture and Tourism of Turkey has issued a disc, in
which the hymns of all the Turkic states are included. As the Trend
reports, it is indicated on the cover that Nakhijevan, Karabakh,
as well as the regions under Karabakh control are related to Armenia.

According to the source, this error was first noted in the Embassy
of Turkey in Azerbaijan. According tot their statement, such a gross
error may cause a serious diplomatic misunderstanding. The Ministry
of Culture and Tourism explained this fact by a simple misprint
and promised to correct the error. The Head of the press service
of Azerbaijani Ministry of Culture and Tourism, Intigam Gumbatov,
emphasized that the Minister Abulfas Garayev had commissioned to
examine this delicate situation seriously. An official letter will
be shortly written in view of this incident.

ARMENIA SEEKING INVESTORS FOR CONSTRUCTION OF RAILWAY TO IRAN

ARMENPRESS
Apr 04 2007

YEREVAN, APRIL 4, ARMENPRESS: Transport and communication minister
Andranik manukian said Armenia is seeking investors for construction
of a railway to connect it with neighboring Iran. He said if built
the railway would also provide Armenia with a railway communication
to the Middle East countries.

Manukian said this would make Armenia a transit railway country
for transportation of goods to Europe and Russia and an alternative
to Kars-Tbilisi-Baku railway, which Georgia, Azerbaijan and Turkey
are building. But he said construction of the railway to Iran would
require some $1 billion.

He said the tender for concessional management of the Armenian Railways
will be announced in July.

Earlier Manukian said Russian, French, Ukrainian and Kazakh companies
showed interest in the Armenian Railways. He said World Bank experts
suggest that the winner transfer $10 million as concessional payment
and pay 2 percent of its incomes to the government. He said railway
tariffs will be set by the Pubic Services Regulatory Commission and
the Railway will remain under the government’s ownership.

"In a couple of years Armenian Railways will lose its carriages and
locomotives as they are in their last days," he said.

"Armenia does not have extra $170 million to repair the railroads
and buy new carriages and this is the main reason that prompted the
decision to hand it to a confessional management,’ Manukian said.

TURKEY BLOCKS GDF TALKS IN GENOCIDE ROW

By Reuters
April 5, 09:19 BST

Turkey has suspended talks with Gaz de France over the Nabucco natural
gas pipeline project in reaction to a French bill on the mass killings
of Armenians during Ottoman rule, senior Turkish energy officials
told Reuters on Thursday.

Nabucco is a â~B¬4.6bn ($6.14bn) project to transport natural gas from
Turkey to Austria, passing through Bulgaria, Romania and Hungary. The
planned pipeline would reduce Europe’s dependency on Russian gas.

France angered Ankara last year when its national assembly passed a
bill making it a crime to deny that the mass killings of Armenians
during the fall of the Ottoman Empire amounted to genocide. The
Turkish armed forces froze bilateral ties with its NATO ally France
due to the bill.

"We will suspend partnership by Gaz de France until the French
presidential elections. We will decide according to policies to be
followed after the elections," a senior energy minister official,
who declined to be named, said.

The four other countries involved in the project, Bulgaria, Romania
and Hungary, have already approved partnership with Gaz de France in
the project, which will transmit Caspian and Iranian gas to Europe.

Bulgargaz, Transgaz from Romania, MOL of Hungary and Austria’s OMV
Gas are partners in the project in addition to Turkey’s Botas.

Negotiations with France’s Total for a stake in Nabucco collapsed
earlier this year.

Turkey, seeking European Union membership, strongly denies claims
by Armenia and its supporters that the Ottoman Empire committed a
systematic genocide against about 1.5m Armenians during World War One.

Ankara says that figure is greatly exaggerated. It says large
numbers of both Christian Armenians and Muslim Turks died because of
inter-ethnic fighting, famine and disease.

–Boundary_(ID_Oo8KiXZpJuosAMNFxLGQCg)–

Foundation for the Preservation of
Wildlife and Cultural Assets of Armenia

#5 Byron St., 375 009,
Yerevan, ARMENIA
Tel: + 374 10 529 340
Tel/Fax: +374 10 564 484
Mob: +374 93 206 248
E-mail: [email protected]

SunChild First Regional Environmental Festival in Armenia

Starting on March 31st in the Gyumri region, the volunteers of SunChild
First Regional Environmental Festival have begun the cleaning up of glass
wool garbage. Glass wool, which was once used as a building material in
temporary housings for victims of the 1988 earthquake, is a very
health-threatening product. Exposed to wind, bits and pieces of the
poisonous material have gradually polluted many areas of the city.

Currently, the SunChild volunteers have succeeded in cleaning two out of
the four areas that are on the agenda. Very encouraging is the growing
interest of different media sources for the SunChild Festival and in
particular for this glass wool garbage cleanup action. With each report
that is conducted in regards to the glass wool problem in Gyumri a very
important question is raised, why is there a need for young volunteers to
take over a task that is actually the responsibility of the city
government to solve?

It is a fact that the glass wool garbage in Gyumri causes serious health
problems for the citizens of the area; however, the ruling party in town
hall is ignoring the situation.

The city government has the key for the solution to solving the problem in
its hands. It is as simple as adding a small paragraph in the contract
agreements between the city and the private companies that buy the
barracks. Currently the private companies take away all valuable building
materials after deconstruction – except the glass wool garbage, which
remains. The city could easily enforce the private companies, by contract,
to properly dispose of the glass wool garbage. `But until now the city
government refused to take any action’, as Anna Yeghoyan, a citizen of
Gyumri and Executive director of the Gyumri based NGO `Youth for peace &
development’ (YFPD) explains. More than six months the YFPD has struggled
with the town hall’s ignorance of this very problem.

In fact, YFPD is not an organization that concentrates on environmental
issues; they are mainly dedicated to democracy building and the support of
advocacy campaigns. From their perspective, the glass wool pollution in
some areas of Gyumri is clearly a political problem, which must be solved
by means of lobbying. In this case, Anna Yeghoyan believes that SunChild
First Regional Environmental festival offers the chance that YFPD has been
looking for.

The framework of an environmental festival, such as SunChild, can be used
as an excellent platform to put the Gyumri glass-wool garbage problem on
the public in order to raise the awareness of citizens and the media. So
when some months ago Anna Yeghoyan came into touch with the organizers of
SunChild First Regional Environmental Festival, she informed them about
the glass wool problem and suggested cooperation in Gyumri.

The environmental experts of the SunChild organization team examined the
city and selected the areas where removing of the glass wool garbage was
most urgent. Although there are many locations that need removal of the
poisonous agent, the experts focused on the areas that had the highest
chance of children coming in contact with the glass wool.

In December of 2006, YFPD and SunChild organizers informed the city
government about their project. The first contacts seemed to be promising:
The representatives of city government assured the organizers that they
were ready to support the glass wool cleaning activities with everything
needed. But after several months of negotiations, the organizers of
SunChild Festival and YFPD realized that the promises made by the Gyumri
town hall were more or less worthless. From all the equipment and support
promised in the beginning, only one dustcart remained. On the cleaning
days the SunChild team is allowed to call the car when the bags with the
glass wool garbage are ready to be removed.

Finally, the whole equipment that is necessary to do the cleaning, such
as; protective masks, gloves, shovels and bags for the garbage, as well as
buses which are used to transport the volunteers to their working places
is provided by the SunChild Environmental Festival.

So in spite of the fact that the work of the festival’s volunteers will
clearly improve the living quality in Gyumri, the city government still
seems to be reluctant to take any steps towards a solution.

But YFPD and the SunChild team certainly won’t give up. Now that they have
united their efforts, they are sure: Their joint pressure, as well as, the
growing support of media and conscious citizens will finally force the
government to give up its resistance and work towards a solution.
Hopefully, in the future, no more young volunteers will have to take over
the responsibility for the disposal of poisonous material in Gyumri and
this work will be done professionally by properly equipped companies.

Eva Martirosyan
Press Coordinator

SUN CHILD Regional Environmental Festival

PRESS RELEASE
Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin, Information Services
Address:  Vagharshapat, Republic of Armenia
Contact:  Rev. Fr. Ktrij Devejian
Tel:  +374-10-517163
Fax:  +374-10-517301
E-Mail:  [email protected]
Website: 
April 5, 2007

His Holiness Karekin II Receives Students from the Hovnanian School

On April 4, His Holiness Karekin II, Supreme Patriarch and Catholicos of All
Armenians, received the graduating class of the Hovnanian School (New
Jersey, U.S.A.) in the Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin. The visit of the
eighth grade class of the Hovnanian School to Armenia and Holy Etchmiadzin
has become an annual tradition.

His Holiness extended his fatherly blessings and message to the students,
exhorting them to frequently visit their homeland, and emphasized the
significance of their visit during Holy Week and Easter.  His Holiness spoke
with the teenagers and their teachers about the importance of prayer in
their everyday lives, and encouraged them to say a prayer every time they
visit a monastery or enter a church, throughout the course of their
pilgrimage.  The Armenian Pontiff noted that by so doing, they will be
combining their prayers with the millions of prayers spoken by their
ancestors throughout history.

PRESS RELEASE
Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin, Information Services
Address:  Vagharshapat, Republic of Armenia
Contact:  Rev. Fr. Ktrij Devejian
Tel:  +374-10-517163
Fax:  +374-10-517301
E-Mail:  [email protected]
Website: 
April 5, 2007

His Holiness Karekin II Receives Foreign Minister of Russia

On April 4, Holiness Karekin II, Supreme Patriarch and Catholicos of All
Armenians, received His Excellency Sergey Lavrov, Minister of Foreign
Affairs of the Russian Federation, and His Excellency Vartan Oskanian,
Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Armenia, in the Mother See of
Holy Etchmiadzin.  The delegation was accompanied by RA Deputy Foreign
Minister Gegham Gharibjanian and the ambassadors of both countries.

His Holiness welcomed Mr. Lavrov to Armenia and the headquarters of the
Armenian Church, and spoke of the long friendship and growing ties between
the Armenian and Russian nations.  Referring to the progress and development
of economic and social cooperation between the two states, His Holiness
noted, `We are certain that the friendship between our two peoples will
continue to bear much fruit for our countries.  As the Church, we, working
together with His Holiness Alexi II, Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia,
shall make every effort to contribute to the reinforcement of our positive
relations.’

The Pontiff of All Armenians further expressed his appreciation to the
Russian state authorities for the care which is provided to the Armenian
community living in Russia, and for the participation of the Russian
Federation in the process aimed at the peaceful resolution of the Nagorno
Karabagh conflict.

Minister Lavrov thanked His Holiness for the reception and highly evaluated
the role of the Armenian and Russian Churches in society.  He stated, `We
place great importance and significance on our friendship and
collaboration.  The attention of the Armenians to Russian culture is much
appreciated and reciprocated by our people.’

Also present for the meeting was His Grace Bishop Arshak Khatchatrian,
Chancellor of the Mother See.  At the end of the meeting, the Foreign
Minister of Russia visited the museum of the Pontifical Residence and the
Mother Cathedral.