Month: October 2008

RUBEN SAFRASTYAN: THE MINSK GROUP TREMAINS THE BEST FORMAT FOR NEGOTIATIONS

armradio.am
01.10.2008 17:59

During the Georgian conflict the Armenian diplomacy managed to be
on the height, preserving its role of an ally for Russia, the ties
with Georgia, the friendly relations with the UN and Europe. Armenia
did not only manage to formulae its national and state interests,
but also make those understandable for Russia, Georgia and the US,
Director of the Oriental Studies Institute of the National Academy of
Sciences Ruben Safrastyan told a press conference today. According to
him, Armenia proved that it’s committed to the strategic partnership
with Russia, and the Russian Federation does not conceal that the
importance of Armenia is growing.

According to Ruben Safrastyan the recent harsh statements of Turkey’s
President Abdullah Gul on the opening of the Armenian-Turkish border
are Turkey’s diplomatic tricks. For the first time in the recent years
Turkey is somewhat interested in continuing the negotiations, first of
all aspiring to get Armenia’s consent on participation in the Caucasus
Platform. Armenia’s having positive attitude is important for Turkey.

Armenia has two trump cards to resist the demands of the Turkish
diplomacy: Armenia can suspend the talks at any point, which is
not favorable to Turkey and Armenia can disagree with the platform,
thus making Turkey’s initiative senseless.

=0 D According to the Turkologist, Turkey will continue posing its
demands to Armenia: refusal from the policy of recognition of the
Armenian Genocide, unilateral concessions on the Karabakh issue and
recognition of territorial integrity with reconfirmation of the Kars
Agreement. However, according to Ruben Safrastyan, Armenia will make
no concessions.

Ruben Safrastyan noted also that the Minsk Group maintains its role
as the best format for resolving the Karabakh conflict, and Turkey’s
efforts to act as mediator have no future.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

ANDREY ARESHEV: PRO-AMERICAN GEORGIA IS WEAK LINK IN CAUCASUS COMMUNICATION PROJECTS

PanARMENIAN.Net
01.10.2008 15:50 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ As result of the war it unleashed, Georgia is
losing infrastructure projects one after another, according to a
Russian expert.

"Pro-American Georgia is a weak link in Caucasus communication
projects. It’s quite natural that Armenia can replace it," Andrey
Areshev, expert at Strategic Culture Foundation, told a PanARMENIAN.Net
reporter.

"The Kars-Akhalkalaki-Baku track will not be a success, since overseas
transport is considerably cheaper. Finally, there is Transsib, an
overland corridor from China to Europe, there is Gyumri-Kars line
and there are Poti and Batumi ports," he emphasized.

"The incumbent Georgian authorities as if do everything in their
power to exhaust poor economic possibilities of the country. It’s
not surprising that Kazakhstan has cancelled a number of projects in
Georgia. It rejected construction of a terminal for cereal storage in
Poti. Before, Kazmunaigas Corporation decided not to build a refinery
in Batumi. Under the circumstances’ Armenia’s regional significance
is growing. Thus, hearsay about Turkey’s doubts is grounded. Political
and economically insufficient projects may be wrapped up," the Russian
expert said.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

TURKEY GAINED MORE THAN ARMENIA FROM GUL’S VISIT TO YEREVAN

PanARMENIAN.Net
01.10.2008 16:01 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ The arrival of Turkish President Abdullah Gul
in Yerevan was symbolic, Armenian ex-Foreign Minister and head of
Civilitas Foundation Vartan Oskanian told a news conference today.

"It’s worth mentioning that Turkey gained more than Armenia from
Gul’s visit to Yerevan. Actually, it posed as a regional leader,
capable to resolve conflicts in the South Caucasus. However, Turkey
by no means can be a mediator in the Nagorno Karabakh process, since
it is a party concerned. I think Armenia will never accept Turkey as
an intermediary," he said.

As to the possibility of opening of the Armenian-Turkish border,
Mr Oskanian said, "It will be a victory of Turkish diplomacy but
opening of the border presupposes a number of conditions Armenia will
never accept, specifically the Armenian Genocide issue and Nagorno
Karabakh. The talk about formation of a commission of historians
is beneath criticism. Armenian people will never renounce their
principles."

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

LAVROV TO DISCUSS ARMENIA-RUSSIA COOPERATION FOR CAUCASUS SECURITY

PanARMENIAN.Net
01.10.2008 16:09 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ During a visit to Armenia, Russian Foreign Minister
Sergei Lavrov and his Armenian counterpart Edward Nalbandian will
consider the Armenia-Russia cooperation to ensure security in the
Caucasus.

The Ministers will also discuss the situation that emerged due
to irresponsible actions of the Georgian leadership, said Andrey
Nesterenko, a spokesman for the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

"The top diplomats will touch on cooperation within CIS and CSTO
as well as within international structures, including the UN,
CoE and OSCE. The Russian-Armenian economic relations will also be
in focus. As to the Nagorno Karabakh problem, Russia will support
any solution acceptable for all parties to conflict. Armenians and
Azerbaijanis are responsible for the conflict resolution while Russia
is ready to stand as guarantor of their agreement," he said, the RF
MFA press office reported.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

NKR PEOPLE’S RIGHT TO SELF-DETERMINATION FIXED IN OSCE MG MADRID DOCUMENT

PanARMENIAN.Net
01.10.2008 16:19 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Armenia should announce that it will not
recognize Nagorno Karabakh as long as the Madrid proposals of the
OSCE Minsk Group Co-chairs mention of the NKR people’s right to
self-determination, Armenian ex-Foreign Minister Vartan Oskanian told
a news conference today.

This provision is fixed in the document on the table, so Armenia
doesn’t need to hurry with recognition, according to him.

"And last but not least, no one should forget that the people of
Nagorno Karabakh asserted their right to self-determination in a
war launched by Azerbaijan. To prevent ethnic cleansing the people
of Karabakh had to defend their territorial integrity," Oskanian
emphasized.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

ARMENIA’S ANNUAL DIGITEC IT EXPO TO ENTER INTERNATIONAL ARENA

ARKA
Oct 1, 2008

YEREVAN, October 1. /ARKA/. Armenia’s DigiTec annual IT expo has fair
chances to become an international event, said Bagrat Yengibaryan,
director of the Enterprise Incubator Foundation (EIF).

"The exhibition helps understand latest trends of IT and high-tech
industries, guiding foreign companies in Armenia’s market", the EIF
Director said.

He underlined the interest of Russian and Iranian companies in the
expo, saying DigiTec can become a regional project.

The two-day IT expo will kick off in Yerevan on October 3.

Numerous workshops, including DigiTec-Start Up forum and DigiLive
seminar, will take place as part of the expo.

The organizers say 50 IT companies will showcase their products. Some
12,000 people are expected to visit the expo this year against 8,000
in 2007.

Among the participants are leading IT companies, including Cornet.am,
Smart Systems, U Com, IU Networks, ADS, MCS Caucasus, National
Instruments, HI End Center, Scancode, Altacode, Norq, CHS Verisel
Service, Unicomp, Virage Logic, Softline, Apaga Technologies, Microsoft
RA, T Helper, Synergy, Apple Centre, Paradigma Armenia, Instigate,
Firm Alpha, Sourcio, Spyur, Enterprise Incubator Foundation (EIF)
and others.

The organizers of the exhibition are UITE and EIF.

The event is sponsored by Microsoft Armenia and Virage Logic.

The expo will be covered by ARKA20News Agency, Panorama Information
Portal, Shant TV, Yerkir Meida, Kentorn TV, as well as a number of
local newspapers.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

ARMAVIA EYES 13% PASSENGER GROWTH BY END-2008

ARKA
Oct 1, 2008

YEREVAN, October 1. /ARKA/. Armenia’s national air carrier Armavia
plans to boost passenger traffic by 13% after it opens five new
flights, reported Mikhail Baghdasarov, president of the company.

"This is a considerable growth, taking into account that airlines
across the world have been hard hit by reducing passenger traffic,"
he said Tuesday during the celebration of the Aviation Day.

Last year Armavia’s passenger traffic reached 572,300 (21% year-on-year
increase).

Earlier this year, the air carrier planned a 20% growth, but the
record-high fuel prices hit the global aviation market.

According to Baghdasarov, Armavia carried 480,000 passengers in
January-September, recording a 12.9% year-on-year rise.

The president of the company believes 2009 will also be a successful
business year for Armavia, taking into account downtrend fuel prices.

This will result in reduction of ticket prices. Baghdasarov said.

Armavia will have a fleet of 16-17 aircrafts soon and will carry
out flights to the United States, China, India, the United Kingdom,
Italy and Spain.

The air carrier currently offers flights to the CIS, Russia, Middle
East and Europe.

The company currently operates 9 aircrafts, including tow A 319
airbuses, two A320 airbuses, one Boeing 737, one CRJ 100, one YAK 42,
one Tu-134 and one IL-86.

RUSSIA WANTS TO REVIVE KARABAKH PEACE PROCESSES OUTSIDE THE FRAMEWORK OF EXISTING MECHANISMS

PanARMENIAN.Net
01.10.2008 18:21 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ The South Ossetian crisis will not constitute a
precedent, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told the Federation
Council’s Foreign Affairs Committee on September 18. "We will continue
to responsibly fulfill our mediation mission in the negotiation process
and peacemaking that fully applies to the conflicts of Transdniester
and Nagorno Karabakh," he said, Eurasianet reports.

The signal the Kremlin wants to send is that "it is not restoring
its empire and that it is ready to reconcile warring parties while
playing a leading role in the process," wrote Sergei Markedonov of
the Moscow-based Institute for Political and Military Analysis in
the September 16 issue of Russia’s "Kommersant" daily.

Russia has been expending a lot of energy since the August crisis to
revive the Transdniester and Nagorno Karabakh peace processes outside
the framework of the existing international settlement mechanisms.

Concerning Karabakh, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev met twice in
September with his Armenian counterpart Serzh Sargsyan and once with
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev. "It seems to us that there is now
a good basis for a resolution of the conflict, which would fit with
the interests of all states and would be based on the principles of
international law," Aliyev said after his meeting with Medvedev on
September 16. He did not elaborate.

Russian diplomats are now trying to arrange a Sargsyan-Aliyev meeting
that would be hosted by Medvedev.

In its peacemaking efforts, Moscow has found unexpected support from
Turkey. In the midst of the August Georgian-Russian crisis, Turkish
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan proposed launching a Caucasus
Stability and Cooperation Platform (KIIP), modeled on the 1999
Stability Pact for South Eastern Europe. In Erdogan’s view, the KIIP
should bring together five regional states – Russia, Turkey, Armenia,
Azerbaijan, and Turkey – with a view to acting as a comprehensive
conflict prevention mechanism, as well as an instrument to foster
confidence, democracy and economic prosperity in the Caucasus.

With the exception of Georgia, all regional countries have welcomed
the Turkish initiative, and Russia has offered to help get the project
off the ground.

There is also an element of suspicion in Yerevan. Armenian opposition
leaders in particular see Turkey’s proposed KIIP as an attempt to
supplant the OSCE’s Minsk Group as the chief mediator in the Karabakh
peace process. President Sargsyan’s administration has dismissed
those concerns, insisting that it intends to keep on working with
the Minsk Group, of which the United States, France and Russia serve
as co-chairs.

In a commentary published September 24 in the International Herald
Tribune, Turkey’s Foreign Minister Ali Babacan – whose country is a
member of the OSCE Minsk Group – said the KIIP was "not designed as
an alternative to any institution, mechanism, or any international
organization that deals with the problems of the Caucasus." What
Ankara is offering, he said, is "an additional platform to facilitate
communication between countries of the region, a framework to develop
stability, confidence and cooperation, a forum for dialogue."

Not everyone agrees with that view, however.

For Sinan Ogan, the chair of the Ankara-based TURKSAM think tank,
the existing international mechanism has demonstrated its inability
to solve the Karabakh conflict. "Therefore," he wrote in Turkey’s
Today’s Zaman daily, "one may expect the dissolution of the OSCE Minsk
Group in the days ahead and its replacement with a new mechanism to
be generated within the framework of the [KIIP]."

INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON VENTURE CAPITAL TO TAKE PLACE IN YEREVAN ON OCTOBER 17

ARKA
Oct 1, 2008

YEREVAN, October 1. /ARKA/. An international conference on venture
capital will take place in Yerevan on October 17, reported Bagrat
Yengibaryan, director of the Enterprise Incubator Foundation (EIF).

The workshop aims at introducing IT cooperation projects to overseas
investors and interested parties.

U.S. and European investors, as well as 13 local companies will
participate in the conference. A small IT exhibition will be organized
as part of the event.

The participants to the meeting will sum up the results of a grant
program promoting the private sector-science cooperation.

"The authors of the three best research projects will be awarded
$10,000 and future investors will have an opportunity to study these
projects," Yengibaryan said.

According to the EIF Director’s estimates, some $10mln is necessary
to boost Armenia’s IT sector. He stressed the importance of attracting
venture capital for local IT market.

The RA Government plans to attract some $700mln for the IT sector in
ten years.

The organizers of the conference are EIF, the U.S. Civil Research
Development Fund and the RA Ministry of Economy. The event is part
of the Science and Technology Entrepreneurship Program.

END OF THE UNIPOLAR WORLD?

PanARMENIAN.Net
30.09.2008 GMT+04:00

US ambitions multiplied at Russia’s weakening and at "colour
revolutions" resulted for America in fatal perception of
self-exclusiveness.

Rejecting a $700 billion bailout package meant to save the financial
market the US Congress made another step towards driving the unipolar
world into the grave. Judging from the dramatic course of events
the USA is losing its status of a superpower in the financial world,
and, consequently, its political authority. The current situation is
compared to the Great Depression of 1929, when stock markets plummeted,
and ruined bankers jumped out of the skyscraper windows as Don Corleone
would put it "after lack of imagination".

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ The House of Representatives rejected the "Emergency
Economic Stabilization Act of 2008" with 207 pro and 226 con votes, the
Republicans voting mainly for and the Democrats against it. According
to the Press-Secretary of the White House Tony Fratto on the eve of
the polls George Bush had himself phoned the members of the House of
Representatives trying to talk them into supporting the bill. However,
most of the lawmakers took into account the fact that many Americans
regard the Wall Street rescue plan as an attempt to save bankers at
the expense of common people. The congressmen have to act with great
caution in order not to ruin their reputation among the electorate,
for besides Presidential Elections there will also be held legislative
elections in November.

As EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson said on Monday, "
U.S. lawmakers have taken leave of their senses by rejecting a
$700 billion financial bailout plan. I hope that in Europe we will
not see politicians and parliamentarians replicating the sort of
irresponsibility and political partisanship that we have seen in
Washington ," Mandelson said in an interview with the BBC. In his
words a broader international response to the global financial crisis
was needed. The EU’s executive Commission would propose measures to
reinforce cooperation among regulators, bankers and governments and
to clarify the role of credit rating agencies. By the way the news
entailed serious consequences – collapse of stock indices, first in
the United States , then in other world trade areas.

Meanwhile the global financial crisis leads to new structural changes
in the world banking system. The other day the biggest American bank
"Citigroup" declared about its purchase of the US bank "Wachovia"
(the sixth in size); Belgium , the Netherlands and Luxemburg partially
took over the struggling bank "Fortis" after the collapse of its
shares. Earlier the British government had nationalized mortgage lender
"Bradford & Bingley".

Great Depression of 1929, which ended only in the second half of
1930s, affected not only more or less developed countries of the
West, but spread all over the other states as well. Industrial
cities suffered most of all and construction almost ceased in a
number of states. Because of the cutback in effective demand, prices
of agricultural products fell 40-60%. And the world became unipolar
then: the USSR was on the way to development and European countries
had not yet recovered from the World War I. Years later the "New Deal"
of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the World War II and the USSR growth made
the world bipolar. The situation carried on until the USSR breakdown,
and it seemed nothing could "promise" the current collapse. However, US
ambitions multiplied at Russia ‘s weakening and at "colour revolutions"
resulted for America in fatal perception of self-exclusiveness.

The crisis is not a novelty however; it broke out still at the time
of President George Bush Senior, when the latter "liberated" Kuwait
from the Army of Saddam Hussein. Then came the turn of the Iraqi
Dictator himself, not to mention the division of Yugoslavia and the
war in Afghanistan . In fact, Washington cut down the branches on
which its economy stood: energy resources from the Near East and
drugs from Afghanistan . It is already a widely known secret that a
great amount of opium is imported into the United States . All that
the present Administration did was directed to controlling the energy
resources and drugs. To be more exact, it aimed at the growth of oil
and pharmaceutical corporations. And everything seemed to be quiet
until the beginning of 2008, when the country went into an economic
recession. The country was struck by mortgage crisis and banks closed
one after another. Saakashvili’s intrusion into South Ossetia and
his infamous defeat speeded up the process. Actually the Georgian
President made the world realize that the neocon policy towards the
post-Soviet republics and towards the whole world had been erroneous.

According to Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim, the world’s second
richest man, no country in the world can protect itself against the
current economic crisis. "The crisis will affect the whole world. The
situation is so complex and serious that it can affect the economy of
every country," said Slim, who has an estimated capital of $60 billion.

What worries the Mexican magnate most of all is the risk that the
financial crisis may find a passage from the bank level and mortgage
crediting into the sector of real economy. Slim considers that American
authorities are already late in taking measures for softening the
crisis consequences.

Let us assume that the new US President will take up a "New Deal"
too. But will he be potent enough to put it into practice like
Roosevelt did?