Month: December 2008

"ARMROSGASPROM" EXTENDS DEADLINE OF PREPAYMENT ACTION TILL FEB 1 2009

ARKA
Dec 2, 2008

YEREVAN, December 2. /ARKA/. "ArmRosgasprom" company is extending the
deadline of its Prepayment action till February 1 2009. The company
made this decision upon request of numerous subscribers, the press
service of the company reported.

The terms of the extension are as follows: citizens who will submit a
gas installation application by February 1 2009 and will pay 80% of the
amount that is set under the contract and is required for construction
and assemblage will have 40,000Drams worth prepayment remitted then.

"ArmRosgasprom" closed joint stock company was founded in 1997.

"Gasprom" open joint stock company and Armenian Ministry of Energy had
45% of the shares each with the remaining 10% belonging to "Itera". In
the scope of three planned investment stages of the project (after
purchase of additional shares of ArmRosgasprom in 2006 and 2008)
the share of "Gasprom" company in the authorized stock has increased
to 75.55%. The share of the Armenian Government is 20% and that of
"Itera" 4.44%. (1$=305.31Drams).

DEC 3-5 15% OF ARMENIAN CARD BANCOMATS IN YEREVAN WILL NOT WORK

ArmInfo
2008-12-01 21:06:00

ArmInfo. Dec 3-5 15% of Armenian Card bancomats in Yerevan will not
work because of repair.

The press service of the Central Bank reports that the list of the
bancomats that will be switched off during the period can be found
at

Customers wishing to withdraw cash can apply to Armenian Card member
banks.

As of Oct 1 2008 there were 2,458 POS-terminals and 401 bancomats in
Armenia (256 in Yerevan).

The members of Armenian Card are the Central Bank and 18 commercial
banks.

ARMENIA, BULGARIA INTERESTED IN DEEPENING INTERPARLIAMENTARY TIES

armradio.am
02.12.2008 17:15

On December 2 the President of the National Assembly of the Republic
of Armenia, Hovik Abrahamyan, received the Ambassador of the Republic
of Bulgaria to Armenia Todor Staykov.

During the meeting the interlocutors discussed issues related to
the development of interparliamentary ties. The Armenian Parliament
Speaker highly assessed the existing political dialogue, which became
the continuation of the centuries-old friendship between Armenia
and Bulgaria.

The importance of economic ties was also emphasized. It was
noted that an intergovernmental commission for trade-economic and
scientific-technical cooperation was established in February 2008 for
that purpose. Attaching great importance to the development of ties
between the parliaments of the two countries, Mr. Abrahamyan asked
to convey his invitation to the President of the National Assembly
of Bulgaria Georgy Pirinsky.

Hovik Abrahamyan stressed the importance of cooperation between the
delegations of the two countries within international structures
and the exchange of experience Bulgaria has accumulated on the way
joining the European Union.

Emphasizing the necessity of interparliamentary cooperation, the
Ambassador of Bulgaria to Armenia Todor Staykkov noted that recurrent
parliamentary elections are expected in Bulgaria in 2009.Nevertheless,
whatever political force comes to power, the development of relations=2
0 with the Armenian National Assembly will continue and an agreement
on cooperation may be signed before the elections. According to the
Ambassador’s assessment, Armenia has traditionally been a friendly
country for Bulgaria.

During the meeting reference was made to a number of regional issues
and questions of mutual interest.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

GEORGIAN EPARCHY OF THE HOLLY ARMENIAN APOSTOLIC CHURCH IS ISSUING A SPIRITUAL, CULTURAL, INFORMATION JOURNAL "NORASHEN"

"Noravank" Foundation
01 December 2008

It has been issued the periodical of spiritual, cultural, information
journal of the Georgian eparchy of the Armenian Apostolic Church
"Norashen" (2008/2 (14)).

The issue has the following columns: "Religious-moral perceptions,"
"Diocesan Herald," "Press Center," "In the Agenda: "Norashen,""
"The Guest of the journal," "Armenian communities in Georgia,"
"Favorite Armenians in Georgia," "Culture."

On the pages of this issue are presented the steps made by the Georgian
clergy for the last two decades directed at assimilating the Norashen
located Armenian Church after Saint Astvatsatsin (the Blessed Virgin
Mary) in Tbilisi, fragments from the history of the Armenian Church,
the interview with the ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary
of Czechia to Georgia and Armenia Ivan Jestrab, as well as other
materials the Armenian community is concerned and interested in.

The journal is issued in Armenian and Russian, the e-version of the
journal is available at

GUDRAT HASANQULIYEV’S PARTY: "ANY TIES BETWEEN TURKEY AND ARMENIA CONTRADICT TO AZERBAIJAN’S INTERESTS"

Today.Az
/politics/49350.html
Dec 1 2008
Azerbaijan

A regular session of the Party of the United Popular Front of
Azerbaijan was held on Monday, reports Day.Az with reference to the
press service for the party.

As is reported, the session participants discussed the sociopolitical
situation in the country.

"The session participants are resented over the fact that at a
cinema festival in Kars, held several days ago, Turkey paid a special
attention to Armenia.

The session participants consider that any ties between Turkey and
Armenia contradict to the interests of Azerbaijan.

Azerbaijan is in a state of war and it is unclear how this war will
end. Moreover, the friendly and fraternal relations with Turkey
have not been profitable for Azerbaijan in any issue. In this case,
any relations between Armenia or Turkey in any sphere must not be
recognized", says the statement.

The session participants also discussed the conduction of the session
of Supreme Medjlis on December 6. The session participants are expected
to discuss the preparation to the next municipal elections to be held
in 2009.

ALI BABAJAN: "THE SOLUTION TO NAGORNO KARABAKH CONFLICT WILL HAVE A POSITIVE INFLUENCE ON TURKEY-ARMENIA RELATIONS"

Azeri Press Agency
Dec 1 2008
Azerbaijan

Baku. Lachin Sultanova – APA. Azerbaijani and Turkish Foreign Ministers
held a meeting in Baku.

APA reports that the ministers Elmar Mammadyarov and Ali Babajan
held a briefing after the meeting.Azerbaijan’s Foreign Minister
said the meeting had focused on the bilateral relations between the
two countries, ongoing processes in the region, ways of settlement
of Nagorno Karabakh conflict, Turkey-initiated Caucasus Stability
and Cooperation Platform and energy projects with participation of
Turkey and Azerbaijan. The ministers said they had discussed the
implementation of Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway project and said the
realization of the project was of great importance to both countries.

Noting that there were problems between Azerbaijan and Armenia, Russia
and Georgia, Turkey and Armenia, Turkey’s Foreign Minister Ali Babajan
said that the problems should be solved in order to establish normal
relations in the region. Underlining the importance of solving the
conflicts through dialogue, Ali Babajan said the solution of problems
should not be left to the future generation.

"Turkey wants peace and stability in the region," he said.

Turkish Foreign Minister did not give a concrete answer to the question
"When will the borders between Armenia and Turkey be opened?" Ali
Babajan said the solution to Nagorno Karabakh conflict would have a
positive influence on Turkey-Armenia relations.

KHAZAR IBRAHIM: "AZERBAIJAN HAS NOT RECEIVED ANY OFFICIAL PROPOSAL ON THE EASTERN PARTNERSHIP INITIATIVE"

Azeri Press Agency
Dec 1 2008
Azerbaijan

Baku. Lachin Sultanova-APA. Azerbaijan has not received any official
proposal on the Eastern Partnership initiative, said Spokesman for
the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Khazar Ibrahim while responding the
question about possible negotiations with Azerbaijan on the Eastern
Partnership initiative.

The diplomat said there was some unofficial information about this
initiative, but Azerbaijan had not received any document about it.

The Eastern Partnership initiative will officially be announced on
December 3. It considers establishment of special ties with Azerbaijan,
Georgia, Ukraine, Moldova and Armenia.

The European Union is looking forward to include Belarus in this list
as well.

MAP A REMINDER OF COMPLEX HISTORY OF CAUCASUS
Scott Taylor, [email protected]

The Chronicle Herald
3425.html
Dec 1 2008
Canada

The final destination on my recent seven-country tour of the volatile
Caucasus was Baku, Azerbaijan. One of my commitments during this short
visit was to give a lecture at the Azeri Ministry of Foreign Affairs
University. About four dozen former ambassadors, faculty members and
students attended my presentation.

While it is admittedly a challenge to try to define the complex
political, strategic situation in the Caucasus to North American
readers, it is much dodgier when you attempt the same thing with an
audience of active participants from the region. Given the level of
tension between Azerbaijan and Armenia over the disputed territory of
Nagorno-Karabakh, almost every word you could utter has the potential
to be contentious.

In 1991, when Azerbaijan declared independence from the collapsing
Soviet Union, the ethnic Armenian majority in the province of
Nagorno-Karabakh held its own referendum, in which it unilaterally
declared the region to be independent from Azerbaijan.

While inter-ethnic violence had already begun to increase in this
region at an alarming rate during the late 1980s, the declared
secession of Nagorno-Karabakh sparked an all-out war between the Azeris
and Armenians. To support the ethnic Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh,
troops from the neighbouring Republic of Armenia first forced a
land corridor into the disputed province. Then, over the course of
two bloody years of combat, the Armenians captured and ethnically
cleansed seven additional Azeri provinces around Nagorno-Karabakh to
create what they call a security zone.

At the beginning of my lecture, I mentioned my travels to
Nagorno-Karabakh’s capital city, Stepanakert. As soon as I said
the word, a low grumble came from my audience, hands shot up and a
bright, young Azeri student rose to admonish me. "You mean the city
of Henkendi?" he asked.

I had to admit that I had never heard of that name; from highway signs
to maps to written accounts of the war, I had only ever seen the name
Stepanakert. "Henkendi was the old Azeri-Turkic name of the capital,
but the Soviets changed it to Stepanakert in the 1920s," I was advised.

On Azeri maps published since independence from the Soviet Union,
all place names have been replaced with the former Turkic ones. This
renaming process was also conducted by the Armenians, and, as it had
been very difficult to find accurate maps of the region in Canada,
I had acquired one in Yerevan.

This particular map had been produced in 2002 by the Armenians, and
it included a separate handy chart that listed all the former place
names juxtaposed with the current ones. Despite the catalogue of name
changes, I was still unable to correspond some of my research to a
location on the map.

Outside Baku, at a refugee camp, I had interviewed 28 Azeri survivors
of the Feb. 26, 1992, massacre in the town of Khojaly. On that fateful
night a combat force of Armenians had routed the Azeri militia and
completely cleansed the Azeri enclave of all inhabitants. In the
process, 613 Azeris were killed — mostly civilians — including 83
small children. Thousands more were injured or missing.

At the time, Human Rights Watch reported this to be "the largest
massacre to date in the conflict," and Azerbaijan subsequently declared
Feb. 26 a national day of mourning. After my lecture, I asked one of
the Azeri students to find Khojaly on my Armenian-produced map. After a
protracted, head-scratching silence, he looked up bewildered and said:
"It’s not there. They’ve simply erased it from existence."

There are always at least two sides to the history of every conflict,
but in the Caucasus that divide seems wider and deeper than most.

TURKEY-ARMENIA RELATIONS DEPEND ON AZERBAIJAN-ARMENIA TIES: TURKISH FM

Trend News Agency
Dec 1 2008
Azerbaijan

Azerbaijan, Baku, December 1/ Trend News corr S. Agayeva/ Relations
between Turkey and Armenia depend on Azerbaijan-Armenia ties, Turkish
Foreign Ministers Ali Babacan told press conference held on the results
of the talks with the Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov
in Baku.

Turkish Foreign Minister said Azerbaijan and Armenia are holding
intensive talks and possible positive result of these talks will have
an impact on the Turkish-Armenian mutual relations.

"The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is not only problem of Azerbaijan,
but also of Turkey and entire region. Since 1918, we [ Turkey] stood
by Azerbaijan and will do so in future," Babacan added.

NORMALIZATION OF TURKISH-ARMENIA RELATIONS TO HELP NAGORNO-KARABAKH

Hurriyet
Dec 1 2008
Turkey

The normalization of Turkish-Armenian relations would help to resolve
the longstanding Nagorno-Karabakh conflict between Azerbaijan and
Armenia, Turkish Foreign Minister Ali Babacan said during a visit to
Baku. (UPDATED)

"The normalization of Turkish-Armenian relations would have a positive
impact on the Azerbaijan-Armenia talks over Nagorno-Karabakh," he
was quoted by AFP as saying at a press conference following his talks
with his Azerbaijani counterpart Elmar Mammadyarov.

The Turkish foreign minister said problems should be solved through
diplomacy and peaceful means.

"Some of the territories of Azerbaijan are under the occupation of
Armenia, which is an important problem that needs to be solved,"
the Anatolian Agency quoted him as saying.

"Our goal is not to leave a problem to future generations, but to
leave a better and more prosperous Caucasus that lives in peace and
order," he said.

Babacan said that it was difficult to ensure real peace and stability
in the Caucasus as long as problems were not solved. "A real welfare
can be ensured after real peace and stability are assured," he said.

He added Turkey would always stand by Azerbaijan in the region.

Turkey and Armenia have no diplomatic ties and their border has
been closed for more than a decade over Armenia’s aggression over
Azerbaijan.

The conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia began in 1988 on Armenian
territorial claims over Azerbaijan. Since 1992 Armenian Armed Forces
have occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan including the Nagorno-Karabakh
region and its seven surrounding districts.

Some 10 percent of the Azeri population was displaced due to a
series of bloody clashes both between and within the two neighboring
countries.

In 1994, Azerbaijan and Armenia signed a ceasefire agreement at which
time the active hostilities ended. The Co-Chairs of the OSCE Minsk
Group are currently holding peaceful negotiations.

Mammadyarov told the conference that Babacan and he agreed to continue
talks on Turkey’s proposal to set up a platform on stability and
cooperation in the Caucasus.

Babacan also met Azerbaijani Parliament Speaker Oktay Esadov and
President Ilham Aliyev. He is scheduled to also have a meeting with
Prime Minister Artur Rasizade.

Babacan’s visit came amid a push by Turkey for more influence in the
volatile Caucasus region after a bloody conflict between Russia and
Georgia in August.

After the conflict, Ankara proposed creating a new forum for
cooperation in the region, which Babacan called for regional
governments to support.

"All the countries of the region must sit at the bargaining table,"
he said.

But Azerbaijani media and some officials have raised concerns that
Ankara’s recent overtures to Yerevan could see it re-open the border
and lift its embargo, easing international pressure on Armenia to give
up control of Karabakh and other territories seized from Azerbaijan,
AFP reported.

HELSINKI MEETINGS Babacan said that he would meet Azerbaijani and
Armenian foreign ministers in Helsinki at a meeting of the Organization
for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) this week.

Before his departure for Azerbaijan late Sunday, Babacan told reporters
in Ankara that he would hold talks in Azerbaijan’s capital Baku and
then proceed to Brussels for a NATO ministerial meeting.

The Turkish foreign minister said he would later travel to Finland’s
capital Helsinki for a meeting of the OSCE from Brussels.

"There is an ongoing process between Azerbaijan and Armenia. And also
there is a parallel process between Turkey and Armenia," Babacan was
quoted by Anatolian Agency as saying.

"Azeri and Armenian foreign ministers will come together on the
sidelines of an OSCE meeting together with OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs,"
he added.

"Following this meeting, I will have separate meetings with the two
ministers," he also said.

Babacan is expected to discuss crucial issues, including the
Nagorno-Karabakh issue and the normalization of relations between
Turkey and Armenia with his Azeri and Armenian counterparts.

The Turkish foreign minister also said there was no date set for a
tripartite meeting of the ministers of Turkey, Azerbaijan and Armenia.