Month: December 2008

FOREIGN MINISTERS AND DEPUTY MINISTER OF FRANCE, RUSSIA AND USA SIGN JOINT DECLARATION ON NAGORNO KARABAKH

ARMENPRESS
Dec 4, 2008

YEREVAN, DECEMBER 4, ARMENPRESS: Foreign ministers and the deputy
minister of the OSCE Minsk Group’s co-chairing countries signed today
a joint declaration on the Nagorno Karabakh conflict. The declaration
runs as following, "We, the Foreign Ministers and Deputy Minister of
the OSCE Minsk Group’s Co-Chair countries – France, Russia, and the
United States – call on the parties to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict
to build on the positive momentum established during the meeting of
the Presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan in Moscow on November 2,
2008. The Moscow Declaration signed that same day opened a new and
promising phase in our shared endeavor to expand peace in the South
Caucasus. In that declaration, the Presidents reaffirm their commitment
to advancing a peaceful settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict
in the framework of the Basic Principles developed by the Minsk Group
Co-Chairs in collaboration with the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan
on the basis of their proposals advanced last year in Madrid.

We call on the parties to work with the Co-Chairs to finalize the Basic
Principles in coming months, and then begin drafting a comprehensive
peace settlement as outlined by those agreed principles. In keeping
with the Moscow Declaration, we call on the parties to work with
the Co-Chairs to develop confidence-building measures, beginning
with pulling back snipers from the Line of Contact to save lives of
innocent civilians and soldiers as our mediators already proposed to
the sides at the highest level during the last visit mid November. It
is urgent for the parties to work with each other, the Co-Chairs,
and the Personal Representative of the Chairman in Office to stabilize
the ceasefire through this and other measures. We reiterate our firm
view that there is no military solution to the conflict and call on
the parties to recommit to a peaceful resolution."

OSCE ‘INEFFICIENT’ – LAVROV

RT
December 5, 2008, 15:28

Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said the Organisation for
Security and Co-operation in Europe needs reform. The statement came
on the second day of the OSCE’s summit in Helsinki.

"The OSCE does not fulfil its main task, which is providing security,"
Lavrov said.

At the same time, he noted that Russia is against the OSCE scaling
back its activities.

Lavrov also demanded an investigation following media allegations
that monitors from the OSCE knew in advance about Georgia’s plans to
attack South Ossetia in August.

The Russian Foreign Minister urged his fellow ministers from the 52
countries in attendance to help prevent a humanitarian catastrophe
from unfolding in South Ossetia. He pointed out that Georgia has cut
off gas supplies to the newly independent state ahead of the winter.

Meanwhile, in an address to the OSCE Foreign Ministers Council, UN
Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said the United Nations and the OSCE
could reconsider their role in the Caucasus following the August
crisis in the region.

Earlier, Lavrov outlined Moscow’s proposal to draw up a new security
treaty for Europe, saying that the Georgian action showed that present
arrangements are failing.

On Friday he discussed this topic with OSCE Secretary General Marc
Perrin de Brichambaut. According to a press release published on the
R ussian Foreign Ministry’s web site "the parties have expressed
common views concerning the priority of providing security in the
Euro-Atlantic space and OSCE involvement in the implementation of
President Medvedev’s initiative concerning a new security treaty
in Europe".

The United States has stated it is premature to call a summit on
Russia’s initiative concerning a new security treaty.

The Helsinki meeting involved the foreign ministers of Armenia,
Russia, Belarus, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan.

On Thursday, the OSCE discussed other trouble hot-spots in the former
Soviet Union and, in particular, urged Azerbaijan and Armenia to
resolve their dispute in the Nagorno-Karabakh region peacefully.

RUSSIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH LEADER ALEXY II DIES

RIA Novosti
15:22 | 05/ 12/ 2008

MOSCOW, December 5 (RIA Novosti) – Patriarch Alexy II, who led the
Russian Orthodox Church for 18 years, died at the age of 79 in his
residency near the Russian capital on Friday morning, the Moscow
Patriarchy said.

A senior church official said heart failure was believed to be the
cause of death. The patriarch was known to have suffered from health
problems in recent years.

Alexy II became patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church, now the
world’s largest, in 1990, shortly before the collapse of the atheist
Soviet Union, and presided over a religious revival in Russia, with
thousands of churches and monasteries being restored and hundreds of
new ones built across the country.

Under his leadership, Russia’s last tsar, Nicholas II, and his family
shot by the Bolsheviks in 1918, were canonized as well as many New
Martyrs who suffered under communism.

Alexy II openly objected to then Pope John Paul II’s visit to Russia,
accusing the Catholic Church of attempts to poach converts in Russia
and neighboring Ukraine.

In 2007, he signed a reunification act with Metropolitan Laurus,
head of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia (ROCOR), after
almost 90 years of separation. The foreign branch broke away in 1921,
after accusing fellow clergymen in Soviet Russia of collaboration
with the country’s communist regime.

Alexy II voiced his open support for fellow Orthodox Serbs during
the Kosovo conflict and called the declaration of independence by
the Albanian province "an anti-historic event."

Alexy II also sought closer contacts with political leaders. The
country’s leadership, including Vladimir Putin and Dmitry Medvedev,
attended church ceremonies led by the patriarch in Moscow’s main
cathedral.

Following news of the death, President Medvedev postponed a visit
to Italy, due to have started on Saturday, and will return to Moscow
from India later on Friday, the Kremlin said.

"The rise of the Russian Orthodox Church, the real establishment of the
principles of freedom of conscience and faith are directly connected
with him and his name," the Kremlin quoted Medvedev as saying.

Speaking in Armenia, Prime Minister Putin said: "He was a fair man,
his death is an enormous loss, a tragic event."

In a statement on the patriarch’s death, the Vatican said Alexy
II had led the Russian church at a time of great change, and his
leadership had helped the church withstand the hardships of post-Soviet
transition.

Alexy II suffered a severe stroke in 2002. In April 2007, media
reports said he was in a Swiss clinic in a serious condition or even
dead. Church officials then confirmed the patriarch had undergone
medical treatment in Switzerland, but denied the condition was serious.

On Thursday evening, Alexy II held a church service in one of Moscow’s
central cathedrals to mark a major religious holiday.

The church’s ruling body, the Holy Synod, is due to gather for an
urgent meeting in Moscow on Saturday to pick an acting leader and
make arrangements for the funeral, Bishop Mark, deputy head of the
patriarchy’s foreign relations department said.

The patriarch, Alexei Rediger, was born on February 23, 1929, in
the Estonian capital, Tallinn, into the family of a Russian Orthodox
priest of German descent. He became a priest in 1950.

ARMENIA, TURKEY TO CONTINUE IMPROVING RELATIONS

RIA Novosti
15:05 | 05/ 12/ 2008

YEREVAN, December 5 (RIA Novosti) – Armenia and Turkey have agreed to
continue talks on improving bilateral relations, the Armenian Foreign
Ministry said in a statement on Friday.

Armenian Foreign Minister Edvard Nalbandyan met with his Turkish
counterpart Ali Babacan in Helsinki, Finland on Thursday. "Nalbandyan
and Babacan agreed to continue talks," the ministry said.

The border between Turkey and ex-Soviet Armenia has been closed since
1993 on Ankara’s initiative. Turkey says Armenia must end attempts to
have the early 29th century massacre of Armenians in Turkey recognized
as an act of genocide, and must settle its territorial dispute with
Azerbaijan over Nagorny Karabakh. Turkey supports its fellow Muslim
nation Azerbaijan in the Karabakh conflict.

Turkey says the deaths and deportations of Armenians at the end of
the Ottoman period in 1915 were caused by civil war rather than an
act of genocide. However, the majority of Western academics qualify
the massacre, which took the lives of around one-and-a-half million
Armenians, as genocide.

The issue is a controversial one in Turkey, and in 2005 the Turkish
Nobel Literature Prize winner, Orhan Pamuk, was charged with insulting
his homeland after he commented in the Swiss media that, "Thirty
thousand Kurds have been killed here, and a million Armenians. And
almost nobody dares to mention that. So I do."

The charges were later dropped after an international outcry. However,
a hate campaign which saw the writer’s book burned on the streets of
Istanbul forced the writer to flee his homeland.

Turkish president Abdullah Gul recently made a historic visit to
the Armenian capital of Yerevan, where he attended a 2010 World Cup
qualifier between the two countries with his Armenian counterpart,
Serzh Sarkisian.

Turkey won the match 2-0.

SERGEY MARKEDONOV: I DO NOT BELIEVE THAT OVERALL AGREEMENT ON KARABAKH IS VERY NEAR

De Facto
Dec 5, 2008

YEREVAN, 05.12.08. DE FACTO. "Lavrov’s statement on the necessity to
elaborate basic agreements on Nagorno-Karabakh issue’s settlement in
the near future blends with Moscow’s logics on strengthening positions
in Caucasus and activation of mediator’s role", a political scientist
Sergey Markedonov told Politcom.ru.

According to Sergey Markedonov, one can speak of actualization of
Russia’s efforts on Nagorno-Karabakh conflict settlement after a
five-day war, when preparation for a meeting in Moscow and then to
signing the Mayendorf Declaration on November 2, 2008, was being held.

Sergey Markedonov explains Moscow’s activation with some reasons:
"The first reason should be considered in a wider context of relations
between the West and Russia: Russia wants to show that it can not just
force to peace, as in case with Georgia, but also be an efficient
mediator and negotiator, and yet, the negotiator to be claimed by
the West.

That is the reason for Nagorno-Karabakh direction’s activation. Second,
Russia wants to use new opportunities that appeared after the five-day
war and strengthen its positions in Caucasus playing the role of a
mediator between Armenia and Azerbaijan. However, I do not believe
that the overall agreement on Nagorno-Karabakh is very near, since
conflicting parties’ stands are20far from compromise understanding".

To remind, upon completion of a meeting of MG representatives held in
Helsinki yesterday Russian FM Sergey Lavrov urged Karabakh conflict
parties to prepare basic principles of the conflict settlement and
an overall peace agreement.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

NKR PRESIDENT DISCUSSED ISSUES RELATED TO CONSTRUCTION OF NEW BUILDING OF HOSPITAL IN STEPANAKERT

De Facto
Dec 5, 2008

STEPANAKERT, 05.12.08. DE FACTO. On December 4 the Nagorno-Karabagh
Republic President Bako Sahakian held a meeting in Moscow with
entrepreneur and philanthropist Samvel Karapetian.

According to the information DE FACTO received at the Central
Department of Information of the Office of the NKR President, issues
related to the construction of the new building of the republican
hospital in capital Stepanakert had been discussed at the meeting.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

EBRD: COOPERATION WITH ARMENIA OPENS UP NEW POSSIBILITIES FOR EXPANDING JOINT ACTIONS’ SPHERE

De Facto
Dec 5, 2008

YEREVAN, 05.12.08. DE FACTO. On December 4 RA President Serzh Sargsian
received the delegation of the Board of Governors of the European
Bank for Reconstruction and Development.

The President of Armenia highly praised the activities of the EBRD
in our country, noting that the cooperation had started right after
Armenia’s independence and that in the success registered during the
last years the EBRD had undoubtedly had its share. Among the problems
facing Armenia today, President Sargsian highlighted two main issues:
consistent work toward economic development and withstanding the
global financial and economic crises, mitigating to the utmost their
consequences. In this context the President of Armenia mentioned
the necessity of engaging more resources, improving the work of the
governing bodies. He also noted that the Government envisaged the
implementation of the short-term as well as the long-term programs.

Assessing the cooperation with Armenia as efficient, the
representatives of the EBRD said that there were new possibilities
for expanding that cooperation which was a strategic objective of
the Bank. Notwithstanding difficult times they anticipate that the
Armenian economy will continue to grow.

The delegation of the Board of Governors also informed that recently
the decision had been made to raise the level of the Bank’s
engagement20 in the countries where they had already maintained
presence. According to them, the business programs related to Armenia
are rather ambitious and with this regard the approaches of the
Armenian Government and the Bank concur.

The President of Armenia also expressed wish that the Bank gets more
deeply involved and more actively participate in the different areas of
the Armenian economy, noting that it is not only about the financial
resources, even though it is an important factor: according to Serzh
Sargsian, the Bank brings along a new culture of administration which
is essential, the RA President’s Press Office reports.

RA PRIME MINISTER TIGRAN SARGSYAN RECEIVED A DELEGATION FROM THE EUROPEAN BANK FOR RECONSTRUCTION AND DEVELOPMENT

on_centre_8/official_news_en.php?&date=1228334 400
Thursday, 4th of December, 2008

RA Prime Minister Tigran Sargsyan received a delegation from the
European Bank for Reconstruction and Development consisting of head
of the EBRD Yerevan Office Michael Weinstein, a number of country
directors, Board members from the European Investment Bank and the
European Community.

Greeting the guests, the Prime Minister expressed conviction that
this visit will boost the cooperation between his government and
the Bank. According to Tigran Sargsyan, while some problems were
encountered during the implementation of a number of EBRD projects
in Armenia, nevertheless significant work has been carried out over
the recent years to strengthen and raise the quality of the ongoing
cooperation. Here, he highlighted the strengthening of interaction
with the private sector. With reference to cooperation priorities, the
head of government stressed the need for broader assistance available
to mall and medium-size enterprises, infrastructure development
(especially in the field of power engineering and road building),
the backing of the efforts for establishing free economic zones
by Zvartnotz Airport and in Gyumri town and expanding the domestic
capital market.

The EBRD Board members were briefed on Armenia’s current economic
status and the 2009 program of action, the possibilities for our
country to meet the threats coming from the global financial and
economic crisis. Tigran Sargsyan noted that the government allows
for Armenia’s competitive assets when developing and implementing the
government’s anti-crisis action plan, looks up ways for demonstrating
our country’s stability and the set of advantages offered to foreign
investors

The delegation members voiced their views on those issues raised during
the discussion and presented the Bank’s vision of its anti-crisis
strategy.

The parties also spoke about Armenia’s relations with the neighboring
States. In particular, the Prime Minister stated Armenia’s interest
in having stable and predictable neighbors and, in this context,
welcomed Turkey’s drive for contracting EU membership as the reforms
needed on this way will help this country assume more predictability
and stability. Tigran Sargsyan expressed hope that relations between
Armenia and Turkey will improve insofar as this process advances. The
Prime Minister further advised that our country maintains good
relationship with Iran and will try to keep them abreast with the
current level. Concerning the settlement of the Karabakh conflict,
the head of the Armenian government said to be hopeful that it will
be resolved through peaceful talks.

JOINT DECLARATION

Azat Artsakh Daily
05 Dec 08
Republic of Nagorno Karabakh [NKR]

We, the Foreign Ministers and Deputy Minister of the OSCE Minsk
Group’s Co-Chair countries – France, Russia, and the United States –
call on the parties to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict to build on the
positive momentum established during the meeting of the Presidents
of Armenia and Azerbaijan in Moscow on November 2, 2008. The Moscow
Declaration signed that same day opened a new and promising phase in
our shared endeavor to expand peace in the South Caucasus. In that
declaration, the Presidents reaffirm their commitment to advancing a
peaceful settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict in the framework
of the Basic Principles developed by the Minsk Group Co-Chairs
in collaboration with the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan on the
basis of their proposals advanced last year in Madrid. We call on the
parties to work with the Co-Chairs to finalize the Basic Principles in
coming months, and then begin drafting a comprehensive peace settlement
as outlined by those agreed principles. In keeping with the Moscow
Declaration, we call on the parties to work with the Co-Chairs to
develop confidence-building measures, beginning with pulling back
snipers from the Line of Cont act to save lives of innocent civilians
and soldiers as our mediators already proposed to the sides at the
highest level during the last visit mid November. It is urgent for
the parties to work with each other, the Co-Chairs, and the Personal
Representative of the Chairman in Office to stabilize the ceasefire
through this and other measures. We reiterate our firm view that there
is no military solution to the conflict and call on the parties to
recommit to a peaceful resolution.

PRESIDENT OF THE NKR HELD A MEETING IN MOSCOW WITH…

Azat Artsakh Daily
05 Dec 08
Republic of Nagorno Karabakh [NKR]

On 4 December President of the Nagorno Karabagh Republic Bako Sahakyan
held a meeting in Moscow with entrepreneur and philanthropist Samvel
Karapetyan and discussed issues related to the construction of the
new building of the republican hospital in capital Stepanakert.