Month: December 2008

GEORGIAN HISTORIAN DENIES REPORTS ON DEMOLITION OF ARMENIAN CEMETERY NEAR ST. NORASHEN CHURCH

Azeri Press Agency
Dec 17 2008
Azerbaijan

Georgia. Nizami Mammadzadeh-APA. Armenian cemetery near St. Norashen
church in Tbilisi was not destroyed, professor of Georgian Caucasian
University, doctor of history David Sandodze told APA local bureau. He
called the media reports on demolition of cemetery as a "barefaced
lie".

"The Georgian people never do it. I think it is the next game of
Armenians. Away back in 19th century Georgian writer Ilya Chavchavadze
wrote his opus "Scream of Stones" describing a real face of Armenians".

Sandodze said the Georgia people wanted The South Caucasian peoples
to live and to develop in peace. "We respect history and culture of
all peoples. False reports on the St. Norashen church showed that
there are still destabilizing forces in the Caucasus".

AZERBAIJAN DEMOCRATIC PARTY: "ARMENIA MUST APOLOGIZE TO AZERBAIJAN AND THE WHOLE WORLD"

Today.Az
itics/49625.html
Dec 17 2008
Azerbaijan

The Democratic Party of Azerbaijan has released a special statement
connected with the strengthening of relations between Turkey and
Armenia, reports Day.Az with reference to the press service for
the party.

As is reported the strengthening of relations between the countries
allows to settle the Karabakh conflict peacefully.

"In order to regain trust between the peoples and stability in
the Caucasus it is primarily necessary to establish peace in the
region. Armenia must recognize the genocide of Azerbaijanis of 1918
and genocide in Khojaly in 1991.

Moreover, it must recognize its occupation of Azerbaijani lands. Only
after it it would be possible to speak of creation of the Caucasus
Union and accession of Armenia.

Armenia must apologize to the world community and to Azerbaijan for
its actions", says the statement.

YES, BUT WHO ARE TO APOLOGIZE TO MY GRANDMOTHER AND GRANDFATHER?

ldbulletin.net/author_article_detail.php?id=1899
D ec 17 2008
Turkey

"My conscience does not accept the insensitivity showed to and the
denial of the Great Catastrophe that the Ottoman Armenians were
subjected to in 1915.

I reject this injustice and for my share, I empathize with the feelings
and pain of my Armenian brothers. I apologize to them."

This public statement, signed by about 100 liberal intellectuals and
posted on the Internet for wider involvement has, as one expects,
ushered in heated debates. This was obviously the inevitable
result. Issuing a counter-statement, more than 50 retired diplomats
argued that the intellectuals’ apology was a misguided initiative,
which is "disrespectful to our history and also to our people who lost
their lives in violent terrorist attacks during the history of the
republic and also during the last years of the Ottoman Empire." The
retired ambassadors claimed that the "forced immigration of Armenians
in 1915 gave bitter results under the conditions of war, but the
pain of the Turks is no less than the Armenians, due to the Armenian
insurgence and terrorism."

The statement noted that in terrorist acts, which resumed in 1973,
many diplomats and their relatives were killed, and asked: "Have
the people who launched the flawed campaign of apology ever thought
that the people who were killed or victimized by Armenian terrorism
throughout history also deserve an apology?" The retired diplomats
suggest that if the aim of the intellectuals’ statement is to improve
relations between Turkey and Armenia, the proper way to do this is
not to make concessions like unilateral apologies, but to mutually
recognize borders and territorial integrity. "If it is inevitable, the
pain that both sides suffered during the history should be shared,"
the retired ambassador claimed, and called on the Armenian side
to apologize.

Which of the statements is more just or more correct? Before
discussing this question, let me tell you two short stories about my
late grandparents.

It was 1915 or 1916. My grandmother was seven years old. She lived in
the village of Orduzu in the province of Malatya. She was the only
girl in a family of seven brothers, at a time when the number of
males in a family connoted the "power" of that family. Moreover, her
mother had died before she was able to have memories about her. All
the uncles of this little girl, except the oldest one, and her father
had been recruited by the army and mobilized to defend the eastern
provinces, which had been occupied by the Russians cooperating with the
Armenians. None of them came back from the war. Her oldest uncle, who
lost all of his brothers in the war and become poorer as a result of
the war, took care of her, my grandmother, but he had nothing to give
but misery to her. She was married before she was 14 years old. But
bad luck followed her. Her husband died in a work accident when she
had just given birth to their first child at a young age. Whenever my
late grandmother remembered the dramatic day when her father left or
whenever she told that sorrow that lingered in her memory and heart
like a darkest stain, she would turn into a seven-year-old orphaned
girl — even at the age of 80.

The time of the second story, too, should be about the same. This time,
the place is a village in Bingöl province. This village suffered a
tragedy in which Armenians indiscriminately killed many people. The
people who survived the massacre fled to western parts of Anatolia
on foot and in convoys. A five- or six-year-old boy whose relatives
had all been killed by Armenians managed to find a place in one of
these convoys. Without any relatives or guardians, this little boy
was transferred from one convoy to another until he came to one of the
mountainous villages of Malatya. He managed to survive with help from
other people. As he grew stronger, he started to work for villagers
to earn his living. He finally arrived in my grandmother’s village,
where a relatively rich villager for whom he was working helped him
marry my grandmother, who was a widow with a child at that time. My
late grandfather, who died before my grandmother, was always searching
for any trace of his family past. When he eventually learned that
one of his cousins was living in the Karakocan district of Elazıg,
I saw that he was so happy, as if he felt he had been reborn at the
age of 70. I cannot find the words to describe how that little girl,
who had grown considerably older when she met my grandfather and
her children, reconnected my grandfather with all his past and the
relatives he had lost.

Such great sorrows that I, personally, would never want to experience
are the things people tend to forget. But, whatever advancements it
makes, humanity always lives side by side with history. The important
thing is to accept that history with its good and bad memories. Today,
some people have apologized for all the pains of the years of mutual
wars as if they had been suffered only by one side. To say that one
is sorry shows, of course, wisdom. Can an irrelevant apology not be
construed as nothing but done out of inferiority complex. If they
feel the urge to apologize for something, then they should say that
they apologize for their apparent lack of knowledge of history.

Everyone suffered their share of the sorrows of World War I. Neither
Armenians, Turks or Kurds can claim to have suffered more or less. If
an apology should be made for these sorrows, then it should be made
mutually and simultaneously by everyone involved. Moreover, if the
Turks had intended to commit systematic genocide on the Armenian
people, they would have done it easily at the time when their power
was at its peak. If, as claimed, there was a systematic genocide,
why the Ottomans chose to do it at the time they were at their weakest
needs some explanation.

People who have even a bit of respect for history would accept that
neither mutual tragedies suffered in conflict nor forced immigration
would be accepted as genocide or ethnic cleansing. What happened
is nothing but mutual fighting with its ensuing pain. The forced
immigration was nothing but the unsuccessful transfer of Armenian
citizens who cooperated with Russians to another area of the Ottoman
Empire. Some understand this forced immigration as an expulsion of
Armenians out of the country. But, at that time, Syria was no different
than Anatolia in terms of being part of Ottoman territory. Moreover,
Armenians in western provinces were not forced to emigrate.

Now that a rush of apologies has started, I think that I, too, deserve
to receive an apology for the Armenian massacres which orphaned my
grandmother and grandfather at an early age.

–Boundary_(ID_IpUL4sQrJBDx3LFta4ii0A)–

CHARISMATIC ARMENIAN PRINCE POWERS FEROCIOUS ‘NUTCRACKER’ ON TV

Bloomberg
Dec 17 2008

Interview by Stephen West

Dec. 17 (Bloomberg) — When the dancer Davit Karapetyan makes his
entrance in San Francisco Ballet’s production of "Nutcracker" (airing
on PBS tonight at 8 p.m. New York time), he can hardly see a thing.

Bearing down on his muscular shoulders is an 8-pound head piece made
of molded plastic, mesh and fake fur on a wire frame.

"Oh my god, it’s pretty heavy, it’s huge," Karapetyan said with a laugh
over a lunch of grilled fish near the company’s rehearsal hall. "The
visibility is very little. You can barely see."

Karapetyan must wear the mask — complete with nut-cracking teeth,
tapered military hat and flame-red beard — during the first act’s
pitched battle between the toy soldiers, led by Karapetyan’s Nutcracker
Prince, and an opposing army of mice, led by the fierce Mouse King,
who sports an ermine-trimmed purple velvet frock coat, gold crown,
sharp claws and long, lethal- looking teeth on his own head-like mask.

Both armies are made up of child dancers, which presents its own
challenge, Karapetyan said.

"There’s lots of lights, and a lot of kids running from this side to
the other," he explained. "And at the same time you have this sword,
and when you start fighting you have to be careful. You don’t want
to hit anybody."

Sugar Plum Fairy

Karapetyan gets to show more of himself when he dances with the
Sugar Plum Fairy (portrayed by his real-life girlfriend, Vanessa
Zahorian) and in the second act’s elegant Grand Pas de Deux with
Maria Kochetkova.

The production, choreographed by the company’s artistic director,
Helgi Tomasson, was first performed in 2004. It features more than 170
lavish costumes designed by Martin Pakledinaz and an imaginative set
by Michael Yeargan that starts with a toy shop and the parlor of a San
Francisco Victorian house and morphs into the dreamlike settings of
the second act, with its Spanish, Arabian, Chinese and Russian dances.

Karapetyan, 27, joined the company four years ago from the Zurich
Ballet. Growing up in Yerevan, Armenia, he didn’t start out to be a
dancer. Out of costume he looks like a college student in blue jeans,
gray sweater and jogging shoes.

Family of Dancers

"When I was young, I never liked ballet," he said. "All my family
are professional dancers — my father, my mother, my sister, she
has her own school in Armenia. They started in ballet but changed
to Armenian folk dancing because they could travel and they had a
good choreographer.

"So I did sports — martial arts, swimming, diving, all kinds of
sports. I was lucky. I was a very active boy."

His parents’ attempts to interest him in dance finally paid off when
he was 12.

"They told me one more time to go to the school, for folk dancing. I
liked it. And then I started watching the ballet classes and I saw
these guys doing all of these amazing jumps and turns. I starting
trying to do whatever they were doing."

Switching to ballet was "the hardest thing I ever did," he
recalled. "After two years I went to a competition in St. Petersburg
and didn’t win anything, but it opened my eyes. I came back a different
person. I worked harder and I started to get leading roles."

By 16, he was off to dance school in Zurich, where he joined the
professional ballet company a year later.

Looking for Change

After six years in Switzerland, he was ready for a more challenging
repertory. In 2004, he traveled to San Francisco for a four-day visit.

"Helgi saw me and offered me a contract for 2005," he recalled.

In San Francisco, besides the Nutcracker Prince, Karapetyan now takes
such leading-man roles as Prince Siegfried in "Swan Lake" and Prince
Desire in "The Sleeping Beauty," both choreographed by Tomasson. He
has also earned acclaim for his work in such modern ballets as George
Balanchine’s "Divertimento No. 15" and Jerome Robbins’s "Fancy Free."

"San Francisco was a big change," he said. "I was rehearsing in about
five ballets, working with different partners. It was tough for the
first couple of weeks, catching up with them."

Since coming to America, he’s taken up photography and, lately,
acting classes. To relax, Karapetyan heads to nearby Napa Valley
to decompress.

"It’s my favorite place," he said, "because it reminds me of Europe
and I like the wine."

Karapetyan next performs live in "Nutcracker" tomorrow night at
San Francisco’s War Memorial Opera House, 301 Van Ness Ave. The
production runs through Dec. 28. Information: +1-415-865-2000;

(Stephe n West writes for Bloomberg News. The opinions expressed are
his own.)

To contact the writer on the story: Stephen West in San Francisco
at [email protected].

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

ARMENIAN FOUNDATIONS WIN CASE AT EUROPEAN COURT

Today’s Zaman
Dec 17 2008
Turkey

The European Court of Human Rights yesterday announced its ruling
that Turkey violated the property rights of two Armenian charitable
foundations by seizing immovable property belonging to the foundations.

At the Strasbourg-based court, the applicants — Samatya Surp Kevork
Ermeni Kilisesi, Mektebi ve Mezarlıgı Vakfı Yönetim Kurulu
(The Board of Governors of the Samatya Surp Kevork Armenian Church,
School and Cemetery) and Yedikule Surp Pırgic Ermeni Hastanesi
Vakfı (The Foundation for the Armenian Hospital in Yedikule) —
complained that previous decisions by Turkish courts had deprived
them of property that they had acquired through donations, as Turkish
courts had ruled that their charters did not give them the right to
acquire immovable property.

The court ruled that Turkey had violated Article 1 of Protocol No. 1
of the European Convention on Human Rights, which regulates the
protection of property. It refused to review the complaints under
Article 6, which covers the right to a fair hearing, and Article 14
of the convention, which prohibits discrimination.

Turkey is now required to return the immovable property in question to
the Samatya Surp Kevork Armenian Church, School and Cemetery in three
months or pay 600,000 euros in compensation. The court judges also
agreed that Turkey must pay 275,000 euros to the Foundation for the
Armenian Hospital in Yedikule in compensation for the seized property.

The judgment is expected to set a precedent for other possible
cases against Turkey which are concerned with the property rights of
non-Muslim foundations. Nationalist critics say non-Muslim foundations
should not be allowed to acquire immovable property while the European
Union, which Turkey aspires to join, urges Ankara to lift restrictions
on the property rights of these foundations.

In February, the Turkish Parliament adopted a new law on charitable
foundations that was mostly welcomed by the European Commission and
the European Parliament. In a report released in March, the European
Parliament, however, stated that the new law should be analyzed by
the European Commission as to whether it is being implemented in line
with the case law of the European Court of Human Rights.

Both Armenian foundations were established by Imperial Decree in
1832 under the Ottoman Empire and are recognized in Turkish law. The
European Court of Human Rights said their charter complies with the
provisions of the Lausanne Treaty affording protection to foundations
that provide public services for religious minorities.

Turkey has the right to appeal the judgment at the Grand Chamber of
the European Court of Human Rights. In a 2007 decision, the court
announced that Turkey and the Foundation for the Yedikule Armenian
Hospital had reached a friendly settlement in a similar case filed
by the Armenian foundation.

–Boundary_(ID_5D6ODkkV8s2HsEIGRoDRYQ )–

RETIRED DIPLOMATS AGAINST INTELLECTUALS’ APOLOGY

Today’s Zaman
Dec 17 2008
Turkey

Deniz BölukbaÅ~_ı claims that in Turkey there is an Armenian lobby
and a campaign of apology forms a part of their objectives.

A group of retired Turkish ambassadors signed a declaration on Monday
urging intellectuals Baskın Oran, Ahmet İnsel and Ali Bayramoglu,
who had recently launched a campaign to apologize for the Ottoman
killings of Armenians in 1915, "not to be a part of an insidious plan
against Turkish national interests."

Recently, some Turkish intellectuals began to collect signatures for
a statement that contained a personal apology for the events of 1915,
which the Armenian claims of genocide are based on.

"My conscience does not accept the insensitivity showed to and the
denial of the Great Catastrophe that Ottoman Armenians were subjected
to in 1915. I reject this injustice and for my part, I empathize with
the feelings and pain of my Armenian brothers. I apologize to them,"
the intellectuals’ statement said.

But the group of retired diplomats, which includes former Foreign
Ministry undersecretaries Korkmaz Haktanır, Å~^ukru Elekdag and
Onur Oymen, in a counter-declaration stressed that the move was a
"disrespectful act toward Turkish history and its martyrs."

"Such a wrong and unilateral initiative is disrespectful to our
history and also to our people who lost their lives in violent
terrorist attacks during the history of the republic and during the
last years of the Ottoman Empire," the declaration stated.

The diplomats’ declaration made a point of mentioning the Armenian
Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia (ASALA) in which 70 people,
including five ambassadors, four consul generals and 34 public workers,
lost their lives and 574 people were wounded.

It further claimed that "concessions such as unilateral apologies"
do not serve the aim of improving relations between Armenia and Turkey.

"If the aim is to improve relations between Turkey and Armenia and
come closer, the proper way to do this is not to make concessions
such as unilateral apologies, but to mutually recognize borders and
territorial integrity and it will be inevitable that we will share the
pain that both sides suffered during history," the declaration claimed,
and added, "Otherwise unilateral acts like apologizing will be wrong,
against the facts of history and will have grave consequences."

The diplomats underlined that the forced immigration of Armenians in
1915 had "bitter results" under war conditions, "but the pain of the
Turks were no less than that of the Armenians due to the Armenian
insurgency and terrorism," the diplomats claimed.

"First of all, Armenians who have killed innocent Turkish diplomats,
public servants and their families in the recent past should apologize
to the Turkish nation. These killers are still alive and unpunished
as they have been protected by Armenia and some other countries,"
the declaration noted.

The diplomats also claimed that the apology was the second phase of
a plan, the first phase of which was to influence world opinion with
terrorist attacks. They claimed that they are aware of the third phase
of plan, which is to demand compensation and make territorial claims.

The other diplomats who signed the declaration include former Foreign
Ministry spokesmen Necati Utkan and Omer Akbel. It was also signed
by former Ambassadors Akın Alp Tuna, Ertugrul Cıragan, Onur Oymen,
Candan Azer and Gun Gur, together with some others.

The retired Ambassadors are supported by Oktay Vural, the deputy
chairman of the parliamentary group of the Nationalist Movement Party
(MHP), who said the retired ambassadors had done the right thing but
interestingly the Foreign Ministry had kept quiet.

Former ambassador and now-MHP deputy Deniz BölukbaÅ~_ı claimed that
in Turkey there is an Armenian lobby and a campaign of apology forms
a part of their objectives.

"Who is apologizing for who? If there is anyone who should apologize,
it should be the intellectuals and Armenians. They should apologize
to the thousands of Anatolian people who suffered the Armenian
atrocities. Are these intellectuals apologizing to the Armenian
terrorists who killed Turkish diplomats and are still living in
Armenia?" BölukbaÅ~_ı asked.

–Boundary_(ID_BCjhXpspq5+QXzMdJcdADA)–

TEARING AWAY AT HISTORICAL TABOO

Hurriyet
Dec 17 2008
Turkey

ISTANBUL – An online petition apologizing for the 1915 incidents in
the Ottoman Empire and a counterstatement from retired ambassadors
show that Turkey is more freely and openly discussing the issue,
suggesting the country is coming closer to breaking a long-held taboo
on the subject

A healthy, mature mentality surfaces in Turkey as former Turkish
ambassadors issue a statement Monday criticizing an initiative to
apologize for 1915 incidents at the hands of the Ottomans.

The online apology, co-written by about 200 intellectuals, opened for
signature Monday and had been signed by more than 6,000 people as of
yesterday. The nature of the debate shows progress in the country’s
ability to discuss the highly sensitive issue.

The apology by the group of prominent academics, journalists, writers
and artists Ä~^ which avoided using the contentious term "genocide" in
the apology, using the less explosive "Great Catastrophe" instead Ä~^
met with a counterstatement from retired ambassadors who argued that
the apology is wrong and against Turkey’s national interests. Apart
from individual reactions from politicians, the statement of the former
ambassadors was the most visible reaction to the initiative, certainly
a clear sign that society is coming closer to breaking a long-held
taboo against acknowledging Turkish culpability for the deaths.

Mensur Akgun, an academic from Istanbul’s Kultur University, told
the Hurriyet Daily News & Economic Review the initiative was a first
for Turkey, where for the first time a group of people showed they
felt responsible for this tragedy. "In a country, where people are
killed for solely being Armenian, this initiative constitutes a
mental breakthrough," he said. The crucial point is the timing of
the initiative; three years ago such a campaign would most likely
have created a public outcry. In fact, in 2005 a crisis erupted when
a group of lawyers made a legal plea to prevent a conference on the
Ottoman Armenians to be held in a state university.

Professor Ahmet Evin from Sabancı University, who is one of the
signatories, said the apology was an opportunity for individuals and
civil society to express their view, an opportunity that would not come
from political channels. "I see the possibility of rapprochement. This
campaign gathers those favoring reconciliation and it would relieve
Turkey of pressure from Armenian lobbies in the international
arena. There is no other ulterior motive or agenda," he said.

Hugh Pope, Turkey’s director of the International Crisis Group,
said the campaign and the ambassadors’ statement showed there were a
lot of different viewpoints in Turkey. "The discussion is becoming
freer. Before, people only talked about what happened and how to
define it. Now we see a more civilized discussion," he said.

Akgun said the way was paved for such an initiative by President
Abdullah Gul’s visit to Yerevan and the Ergenekon investigation,
in which people have been detained for alleged participation in
a plot to overthrow the government. President of the International
Strategic Research Organization, or USAK, Sedat Laciner said, however,
the timing of the campaign would undermine the dialogue between the
two countries. "We are in a historical period. Both countries are in
a hustle to make big steps out of small steps to establish diplomatic
relations. However, such a move would increase tensions in Turkey,
while strengthening the hand of radicals in Armenia," he said.

The counterstatement issued by more than 50 retired diplomats said
the apology was wrong since it would be followed by territorial and
compensatory demands. Akgun, however, objected to this, saying that
according to the 1948 Genocide Convention, signatory countries could
not be accused of genocide. The diplomats’ statement also emphasized
that the apology did not mention the death of the Turks during the
1914-15 events, therefore was unbalanced. Retired Ambassador Ä°nal
Batu agreed that the academicians’ statement was unbalanced. "Hundreds
of thousands of Ottoman citizens of Kurdish and Turkish origin were
also killed. They should have expressed deep sorrow, not apology,
for both massacres," Batu said.

But the counterstatement is also far from perfect, as it fails to
provide an adequate alternative to Turkey’s policy on the matter,
according to Batu.

–Boundary_(ID_3udc9NASvp9K933dAh5TSQ)–

TURKEY SAYS ARMENIAN CAMPAIGNS WITHIN FREEDOM OF SPEECH

Dec 17 2008
Turkey

Turkish Foreign Affairs’ spokesman Ozuergin said both campaigns were
privately initiated noting that they did not inspire nor would react
to both campaigns.

Turkish Foreign Affairs’ spokesman Burak Ozugergin said Wednesday that
the apology campaign for 1915 incidents and the following counter
campaign launched by retired diplomats, should be viewed within the
scope of freedom of speech.

Commenting on the issue at a press briefing at the Turkish Foreign
Ministry in Ankara, Ozuergin said both campaigns were privately
initiated noting that they did not inspire nor would react to both
campaigns.

Ozugergin said Turkey’s stance on the 1915 incidents was well known
by everybody noting that all kinds of topics ought to be able to be
discussed freely in Turkey.

"However our foreign policy is not fragile to shift as a result of
daily debates. We will continue to act on principles," said Ozugergin.

Ozuergin said Turkish Foreign Affairs was an institution who
gave many victims to terror (Armenian) pointing out that the very
hall where the press briefing was held, was named after Taha Carim
(Turkey’s ambassador to Vatican City, who was assassinated by Armenian
terrorists) .

"So this issue is very delicate for us," said Ozugergin.

TURKISH PM SAYS DOES NOT SUPPORT ARMENIAN APOLOGY CAMPAIGN

Dec 17 2008
Turkey

PM Erdogan criticised a public apology by some 200 Turkish
intellectuals and academics for Armenian allegations over World
War One.

Turkish Premier Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Wednesday that he did not
accept or support the campaign recently launched by a group of Turkish
intellectuals and academicians aiming to apologize to Armenians for
the incidents of 1915.

The Internet campaign coincides with a diplomatic rapprochement
between Turkey and Armenia to end almost 100 years of hostility.

"They might have committed such a crime themselves, as they
are apologizing now. Republic of Turkey does not have such a
concern. One can apologize if there is a crime necessitating such
an apology. Neither my country, nor my nation has such concerns,"
Erdogan said, replying to questions following his meeting with
Bulgarian President Georgi Parvanov in Istanbul.

Turkey accepts that many Armenians were killed during the waning
years of the Ottoman state, but strongly denies Armenian claims it
was genocide, saying that Armenians also killed Muslim Turks.

The apology describes the events as a great catastrophe.

Erdogan said that it was unacceptable to support such a campaign just
because it was launched by intellectuals. "I personally do not accept,
support or participate in this campaign," he said.

Erdogan also said that he could not understand the approach of the
intellectuals, adding that such kind of initiatives could only create
chaos and destroy peace. "I find it unreasonable to apologize when
there is no reason," he said.

Organisers said the initiative, posted on the Internet along with a
non-binding petition to gather signatures, was meant to allow Turks
to offer a personal apology and to end an official silence.

President Abdullah Gul became the first Turkish leader to visit
Armenia in September as Turkey has sought to improve ties. Several
meetings between Turkish and Armenian officials have followed and
the two countries have expressed hopes of restoring full diplomatic
relations soon.

HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSIONER OF THE COUNCIL OF EUROPE NOT TO TAKE PART IN TODAY’S SESSION OF PACE MONITORING COMMISSION

Trend
Dec 17 2008
Azerbaijan

In all probability Human Rights Commissioner of the Council of Europe
Thomas Hammarberg will not to take part in today’s session of PACE
Monitoring Commission and present the report regarding the domestic
political situation in Armenia, the head of the standing parliamentary
commission on the state and legal issues, the leader of the Armenian
delegation to PACE David Harutyunyan told Radio Liberty.

He also added that John Prescott and George Colombier, co-rapporteurs
of the PACE Monitoring Commission may present the report of the human
rights commissioner.

As press-secretary of the Commissioner of the Council of Europe
Stefano Montanari told Radio Liberty, Thomas Hammarberg will not
take part in today’s session of the Monitoring Commission, as he is
leaving for Belgium, reported ArmInfo.