President of Armenia confirms readiness of country to render
humanitarian aid to Georgia
2008-08-16 11:59:00
ArmInfo. President of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan had a phone talk with his
Georgian counterpart overnight.
S. Sargsyan once more expressed his condolences for the victims in
South Ossetia and confirmed Armenia’s readiness to send humanitarian
aid to the people.
Receb Tayyip Erdogan: ‘We wish for soonest solution to Nagorno Karabakh
conflict’
2008-08-16 11:58:00
ArmInfo. Next week Turkish Foreign Minister Ali Babacan will discuss
initiative of the platform of security and cooperation in the South
Caucasus with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov, Turkish Prime
Minister Receb Tayyip Erdogan told reporters at the press conference in
Bodrum, Turkey, APA reports.
Erdogan said he wished for Azerbaijan and Armenia to participate in the
newly-established union. "We want to see Azerbaijan in the new
platform. Armenia can contribute to the peace and stability in the
region by joining this platform". Speaking about the Nagorno Karabakh
settlement process Erdogan said they wished for this conflict to be
solved in a short time. "Despite efforts of OSCE Minsk Group, this
conflict has continued for almost 13 years and there has been no result
yet. We wished for soonest solution to this conflict".
Armeconombank expects third $0.7 million tranche under EBRD mortgage
lending program
2008-08-15 21:42:00
ArmInfo. Armeconombank expects another third tranche for $700,000 under
European Bank for Reconstruction and Development within the coming two
weeks. Vice Chairman Armeconombank Board Hayk Lazarian told ArmInfo.
He said under the given 5-year program worth $2 million that was signed
at the end of 2006, the bank received $1 mln last year and $300,000 in
the current year. He said $1.575 mln were used from the funds under the
program.
Armeconombank is involved also in the KfW Development of Sustainable
Market for Housing Finance alongside with 8 local commerce banks.
Ranking of Armenian Commerce Banks prepared by Agency of Rating
Marketing Information (ArmInfo) says the mortgage lending in the
banking system of Armenia as of July 1 2008 achieved 73 bln drams or
$241 mln growing by 35% over the first half of 2008 and almost doubling
per year. Armeconombank ensured the mortgage portfolio by 2.5 bln drams
or $8.1 mln (the 9th position in the banking system). The bank ensured
21% annual growth of the indicator. All the 22 commerce banks in
Armenia are engaged in mortgage lending.
Ardshininvestbank, Bank ACBA-Credit Agricole and HSBC Bank Armenia top
three leaders by net profit for 1st half of 2008 in Armenia
2008-08-15 14:16:00
ArmInfo. Ardshininvestbank, Bank ACBA-Credit Agricole and HSBC Bank
Armenia are top three leaders by net profit for the 1st half of 2008 in
the Armenian banking system – 2.5 bln drams ($8.2 mln), 2.1 bln drams
($6.9 mln) and 1.7 bln drams ($5.6 mln), respectively. Converse Bank
ranks the 4th by 1.3 bln drams net profit ($4.3 mln), and Unibank the
5th – 1.2 bln dram ($4 mln).
Ranking of Armenian Commerce Banks prepared by Agency of Rating
Marketing Information (ArmInfo) says Prometey Bank is the leader by ROA
– 2.8%. Bank ACBA-Credit Agricole goes the second by 2.5%, Mellat Bank
the third by 2.5%, Ardshininvestbank the fourth by 2.4% and Unibank the
fifth by 2.4%. Unibank is the leader by ROE – 15.2%, HSBC Bank Armenia
is in the 2nd position by 14.6% and Ardshininvestbank is in the 3rd
position by 13.9%, Converse Bank is in the 4th position by 11% and Bank
ACBA-Credit Agricole is in the 5th position by 9.6%.
Total retained profit of Armenia’s banking system for the 1st half of
2008 amounted to 12 bln drams ($39.7 mln). The growth as compared to
the same periods of 2007 and 2004 was 18.7% and almost trice. By the
balance sheets of 22 operative banks, 19 banks completed the first half
of 2008 with 13.3 bln drams summary profit. Three banks: BTA InvetBank,
ProCreditBank and Byblos Bank Armenia completed the first half of 2008
with 1.3 bln drams summary loss. ProCreditBank entered the banking
market of Armenia in early February 2008.
Total capital of the banking system of Armenia for the 1t half of 2008
was up 15%. The growth as against the same period of 2007 and 2004 was
42.2% and almost 4 times respectively. The indicator reached 198.9 bln
dram ($657.5 mln). The indicator grew mainly due to the growth of the
authorized capital by 43% to 131.7 bln drams ($435 mln), as well as due
to the increase of profits. Anelik Bank is the leader by the
replenishment of the authorized capital – over 7 times to 5.3 bln drams
($17.5 mln). The bank raised the indicator in the third quarter of 2007
without involving new shareholders and again in the second quarter of
2008 (10.42%) also without involving shareholders. Areximbank took the
second position by almost trice annual growth of authorized capital to
8.5 bln drams ($28.1 mln) and occurred in the top five of leaders.
Ameriabank (the former Armimpexbank) is in the third position with
21.7% annual growth of authorized capital to the 6th position with 6.4
bln drams ($21.2 mln). Ardshininvestbank is the leader by authorized
capital – 15.5 bln drams ($51.3 mln). The annual growth of the
indicator was 62.6%. In general, 9 banks replenished their authorized
capitals as compared to the first half of 2007, the remaining 12 banks
left it unchanged (exclusive of ProCreditBank). Only 6 banks ensured
the growth of authorized capital for the first half of 2008, Areximbank
and Ameriabank are leaders. The indicator of the remaining banks was
left unchanged.
There are 22 operating commerce banks in Armenia including ProCredit
bank that entered the banking market at the end of 2007 and launched
activity in early February 2008.
Irish passport-holders play waiting game in Armenia
The Irish Times
Saturday, August 16, 2008
EIGHT Irish passport-holders are nervously waiting in a hotel in the
Armenian capital of Yerevan before deciding whether to return to
Georgia.
The group, mainly Georgians with Irish passports and some Irish
nationals, were among 50 people evacuated via the Armenian border at
Gugeti when fighting broke out in South Ossetia.
Kerryman Dr Mike McCarthy, who runs the International Medical Support
Services (IMSS) clinic from Tbilisi, assisted in evacuating the Irish
and Georgian passport-holders by helping with transport and logistics
through the eastern side of Georgia to Armenia.
"The people evacuated were going to come back, but the reports about
renegade Ossetian militia looting near the capital have spooked them.
"Most of the other Irish and passport-holders have made their way back
to Ireland or gone on holiday," said Dr McCarthy.
His wife’s Georgian family mostly live in the bombed port of Poti and
have been affected.
"Her cousin was killed and another cousin was badly injured when the
Russian attack helicopters bombed Poti. She hasn’t been able to reach
her father since the first bombs fell a week ago."
Telephone and mobile communication in Georgia has been difficult. Dr
McCarthy’s wife Nina, who is seven months pregnant, was supposed to go
to Ireland for the birth but will not move until she
hears news of her
father.
Dr McCarthy’s IMSS clinic, which employs expatriate and
internationally-trained Georgian doctors to service foreign embassies
and the oil and gas industries, has been providing help to the
capital’s overwhelmed hospitals.
"We have appealed directly to the Americans here and Micheál Martin to
provide aid and basic medicine," said Dr McCarthy, who first came to
Georgia 11 years ago to work on a major oil project.
"Poti is bombed back to the last decade, Gori is flattened and life in
Tbilisi remains okay. All just as the economy was outperforming India;
it has now been blown to bits," said the doctor, who has had to cut his
20 medical staff to a skeleton crew of eight.
Fellow Irishman Jeffrey Kent runs a contracting firm in Georgia which
drills for gold and copper on behalf of a Russian company, and had to
evacuate his Romanian drillers via Armenia.
He said: "I had to get the Romanian guys evacuated last Friday by
crossing the border into Armenia. As they were passing a military
airfield at Marneuli near the border some Russian Mig planes just
dropped in and bombed the runway. They were only 300m from the
explosions and did not get injured, but they were very traumatised.
They are in Romania now and do not want to come back." Originally from
Terryglass, Co Tipperary, Mr Kent is a contractor for a Russian miner
in the town of Kazreti, about a 90-minute drive20from Tbilisi.
"I will stay here and work from here until things settle down. My only
concern is if the locals take it out on the Russian company."
Panorama.am
16:53 16/08/2008
Serzh Sargsyan Had a Phone Conversation with Saakashvili
Serzh Sargsyan had a telephone conversation with Georgian president
Mikhail Saakashvili on August 15.
According to the press bureau of the president, S.Sargsyan has sent
his condolences concerned with the recent events in Georgia which
caused death of hundreds of people. S.Sargsyan restated Armenia’s
willingness to provide necessary humanitarian support to those
suffered during the South Ossetia conflict.
Source: Panorama.am
Panorama.am
17:35 16/08/2008
`A SONG TO HAMSHEN’: NOW IN VIDEO VERSION
Grigor Mazlumyan, Armenian author from Sochi, has recently published
his collection of works titled `A Song to Hamshen’. Now, all the works
from this collection are supposed to have a video version and composed
by the original author. `Yerkramas’ reports, that it was the first
paper to publish the `Songs to Hamshen’ in Russian.
The `Song to Hamshen’ counts 30 works in Russian and Armenian
languages. The author, Grigor Mazlumyan has become member of the Union
of Armenian writers in 2007.
Note that now in Sochi and other nearby Black Sea resorts there are
many Armenians – who came there from Hamshen, a Western Armenian town,
now in Turkey. There are some Armenians in Hamshen too but they have
been Islamized. Living close to the Turkish-Russian border the
Hamshen Armenians managed to escape to Russia by sea during the
Armenian genocide in 1915; moreover, they fought back against the
perpetrators.
It’s difficult to cite any numerical data on those
massacred. According to an Armenian priest who witnessed the 1895
massacres and who was instructed by Turks to bury the bodies of the
victims, he himself didn’t know the numbers. This data is perhaps
preserved in the Turkish archives.
Source: Panorama.am
Panorama.am
18:01 16/08/2008
In Qutaisi Goods’ Vehicles Can’t Move on
The shipping companies refuse to transfer goods to Armenia through
several Georgian towns, an Armenian businessman told Panorama.am by
the phone. The goods were transported to Qutaisi from Turkey, and now
the shipping companies reject to advance the lorries to Gori, because
the situation there is not stable.
The press secretary of the Ministry of Transport and Commubications
Sussanna Tonoyan says, that now "We don’t have any problems with our
shipment in Poti. However we will find out correct information about
the goods from Turkey stored in Georgian reservoirs and will make an
official declaration concerning this problem".
Source: Panorama.am
Hürriyet, Turkey
Saturday, August 16, 2008 16:24
Turkey-sponsored Caucasian union to start as an economic partnership
Turkey has mapped out the details of the proposed Caucasian union and
plans to launch the association on the basis of the economic
partnership.
Turkey had proposed the formation of a Caucasian union after the
clashes erupted between Georgia and Russia. Turkey, as a neighboring
country of the region, has close interest in the Caucasus in its
efforts to ensure energy supply safety.
Ankara had stepped in to resolve the conflict with Prime Minister
Tayyip Erdogan and Foreign Minister Ali Babacan had visited both
Moscow and Tbilisi.
Turkey’s proposal to establish a Caucasian union was widely
accepted. The union, called by Turkey as "Caucasus Stability and
Partnership Platform", is envisaged to bring Turkey, Armenia, Georgia,
Azerbaijan and Russia under the same roof.
Sources from Turkish foreign ministry told local media the union is
planned to have common security and executive bodies, and would be
similar to the neighboring countries of Iraq but in a more complex
structure. The works on the unions would start next week.
TOUGH TASK
Although the idea was widely accepted, there is a tough task ahead of
Turkey as almost every country, who would take part in this
establishment, has bilateral conflicts.
Turkey hopes this union would contribute to the strengthening of the
relations between Ankara and Yerevan as well as the resolution of the
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.
TURKEY-ARMENIA: Turkey is among the first countries that recognized
Armenia when it declared its independency. However there is no
diplomatic relations between two countries, as Armenia presses the
international community to admit the so-called "genocide" claims
instead of accepting Turkey’s call to investigate the allegations, and
its invasion of 20 percent of Azerbaijani territory despite
U.N. Security Council resolutions on the issue.
AZERBAIJAN-ARMENIA: Nagorno Karabakh is a region of Azerbaijan which
has been under the occupation of Armenia since the war broke out
between the two states in 1988-1994. In 1988 when the disputed
region’s Armenian-dominated governing council voted to secede from
Azerbijan, it set of a series of bloody clashes both between and
within the two neighboring countries. Some 10 percent of the Azeri
population was displaced.
GEORGIA-RUSSIA: Russia was deeply involved at many levels in the
conflicts in Georgia’s breakaway regions South Ossetia and Abkhazia,
and in 1993 Ajarian leaders also declared Russia the protector of
their national interests. Clashes erupted between two countries last
week after Georgian forces held a military operation in the South
Ossetia.
Today.Az, Azerbaijan
Vladimir Sokor: "Conflict resolution will never be possible, if it
depends on Russia. There will only be an official or unofficial
annexation of the territory to Russia"
16 August 2008 [12:10] – Today.Az
Day.Az interview with Vladimir Sokor, US political scientist, senior
research officer of Jamestown’s Foundation (US).
– Separate leaders of the western countries start to toughen their
criticism of Russia for the military aggression against Georgia. Can
any means of pressure on Moscow be applied in this case and how can it
occur?
– It is a difficult question as the West lacks economic means of
pressure on Moscow. Russia has an advantage for the first time in its
history. This has never occurred in the Russian history. West’s
economic means are now too limited.
This means that resistance should be conducted on the political
level. For example, the European Union should stop talks with Russia
on strategic partnership and non-visa regime.
Moreover, NATO members and even countries, which want to join this
organization, should change their priorities and focus on the defense
of the national territory against Russian aggression.
The best divisions of the Georgian army, which were in Iraq and fought
on the US side, did not participate in the defense of their own
country. Moreover, under US recommendations, most countries created
military divisions for participating in the peacekeeping activity or
anti-terror operation beyond their own borders , including in Iraq,
Afghanistan and the Balkans. But it turned out that the defense of
one’s own country should be the primary thing.
– Which conclusions should Azerbaijan draw from the events in South
Ossetia?
– The first conclusion for Azerbaijan is that Washington today remains
even a greater strategic partner and ally for Baku. Certainly, the
United States should perceive it correctly. The United States, which
reacted to the events in Georgia so late and passively, should realize
that the main geopolitical game today is for the Black Sea and Caspian
regions.
Russia has undertaken this operation in Georgia, realizing that there
is no rival to its policy in the Caucasus, as the United States is
busy in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as with the Iran problem. These
three conflicts weaken the United States.
Washington has chosen wrong priorities. I think in fact, the leaders
of all the countries, locating between the eastern borders of the
European Union and NATO and the Caspian Sea, should tell the United
States that the priority it has chosen are erroneous and that the
destiny of the Euroatlantic community, US strategic position in the
world and stability of the North Atlantic alliance depends on its
policy in this area. Here the correlation of powers in the modern
world will be defined. Independence and security of these countries
and export of energy sources via these countries from the Caspian
basin to Europe should become the main priorities of the US
policy. Yet this understanding is now weak or completely absent in
Washington.
– Can the Russian peacekeeping mission be spoken of following the
events in Georgia, especially in the resolution of the conflicts in
the South Caucasus?
– By the events in Georgia, Russia has made a sort of a revolution in
the issue of peacekeeping. It showed the ability to hold military
actions of any scale and in any place under pretense of peacekeeping.
The peacekeeping mission of Russia has always been an absolute
lie. Russia participated in the very beginning of conflicts in
Georgia, Moldova and Azerbaijan as a party and held these wars. Russia
and Armenia are the direct initiators and the participants of war in
Karabakh.
Thus, to speak of the Russian peacekeeping and Russia’s role as a
mediator in the conflict resolution is merely ridiculous, which is
proven by the experience of the last 15 years.
– Does it mean that the conflicts, which involve Russia as a mediator,
will never be settled?
– Yes, the resolution of the conflict will never be possible if it
depends on Russia. There will only be an official or unofficial
annexation of the territory by Russia.
– Can the South Ossetian script repeat in Nagorno Karabakh?
– The situation with the settlement of Nagorno Karabakh conflict
differs from what is now going on in Georgia for the number of
aspects. Nagorno Karabakh does not border on Russia and Moscow does
not raise the issue of "Russian citizens", "compatriots" and so on and
the most important is that there are no Russian servicemen in Nagorno
Karabakh. I would like to note that this occurred owing to the
principal position of Azerbaijani diplomat Araz Azimov, who in 1994
made a categorical statement against displacement of the peacekeepers
of the "third countries", in other words, Russian peacekeepers in
Nagorno Karabakh.
– One of the main objects, subjected to Russia’s attack during war
against Georgia, became the BTC pipeline. Does it pose a threat to the
future of the regional energy projects?
– Following the incident in Turkey and the attack of Russian aviation
to the BTC pipeline, distrust emerged about the security of this
pipeline, which has never occurred so far. After it, Georgia, BP,
SOCAR and other companies suspended operation of export terminals in
Batumi and Poti and even partially in Supsa. The absence of
significant reservoirs means suspension of oil exports, which in turn
imply losses for the companies, the state budget of Azerbaijan and
Georgia and transit countries. It also caused distrust of investors,
who see that security of export pipelines in Turkey and Georgia is not
too strong and may stop financing transit projects with participation
of these countries.
Russia seems to try to redirect export of Caspian energy source from
West to North, to Russia, which is one of the consequences of war in
Georgia, which is weakening the position of all Caspian states,
transit countries and European states. It proves once again that
Russia is by no means West’s partner. The recent events in Georgia
damaged illusions of the United States and Europe regarding Russia.
/Day.Az/