Month: November 2009

EuroNews, France
Nov 28 2009

Turkey has place in a Europe of `liberté, egalité, and
fraternité’ says Pamuk

28/11 09:29 CET

He is not just the 2006 Nobel Literature Laureate.

Orhan Pamuk is also a symbol of Turkey’s struggle to be part of the EU.

In recent weeks, he has been travelling around Europe and the US to
promote his latest novel, `The Museum of Innocence’.

Yet just as he was being honoured in France, where the Season of
Turkey is underway, the Turkish High Court ruled that anybody who
`suffered mentally’ because of what Pamuk had said about the Armenian
genocide could sue him for pain and suffering.

euronews met Orhan Pamuk at Villa Gillet, in Lyon.

euronews: “The Museum of Innocence’ is your first novel after the
Nobel Prize. Did the Nobel change your life and your relationship with
your country?’

Orhan Pamuk: `The Nobel Prize did not change my life really very much.
In my country it made me a more public figure than I wanted. It made
me more political than I want to be, but this happens to everyone who
receives a Nobel Prize, I don’t think it’s particularly a Turkish
thing.’

euronews: `One of your favourite subjects is identity, the double
especially, one character reflecting itself in another one, and often
even becoming that other one. In `The White Castle’ this happens
between a Turk and a European. Does this mean that Europe and Turkey
are each other’s `Caliban mirror’, somehow?’

Orhan Pamuk: `Yeah, there were times that Europe and Turkey were more
strongly each other’s mirror image. Then as the Ottoman Empire
declined, the mirror Turkey turned out to be a sort of a segment of
Europe. But the subject of identity¦all of my novels are about
identity, perhaps, but when I began writing them, say `The White
Castle’, even the earlier novels, the identity was not a fashionable
word among academics and among journalists. But on the other hand,
since Turkey has always been troubled, the identity questions such as
`are we Oriental? are we Occidental? What are our roots?’, we are both
geographically and culturally, both in East and West, what we today
call problems of identity had all raised by the Turks, in Turkish
politics, culture, everything is based on the rhetoric of identity.’

euronews: `In `Other Colors’, you included a chapter titled `Where Is
Europe?’. In it you say among other things, speaking of a summer you
spent in Geneva: `The first time I heard church bells, I felt myself
not inside Europe, but within Christendom’. So, is Europe a Christian
club?’

Orhan Pamuk: `If Europe is a Christian club based on nationalism and
Christianity, then Turkey has no place in Europe. But if Europe is
based on liberté, egalité, fraternité, then Turkey has a place in
Europe. But then again Turkey is now in a way Europe’s mirror image.
Europe is also deciding about its identity through the question of
whether to take Turkey in or not, as well as Turkey is deciding about
its identity, whether Islam and nationalism or some other ideal should
be the defining notion of identity in Turkey.’

euronews: `So do you think there is a `No Entry’ sign on Europe’s door?’

Orhan Pamuk: `Right now unfortunately there is a little bit of a small
`No Entry’ sign in the Turkish-European relationship. In 2005 the
Turkish-European relationship looked very promising for Turkey. Then,
because of various conservatives ` say Sarkozy, Angela Merkel, Austria
` various European countries resisted Turkey while Spain, Italy,
England and some other forces in Europe wanted Turkey inside the
European Union.

Half of the European Union was opening the doors, half of them were
closing the doors and they were fighting inside the, if you call it,
club. Outside, Turks were also fighting. Some Turks, democrats,
liberals, some business circles, minorities, Kurds of Turkey, and
Turkish people, most of the Turkish people wanted to join the European
Union while some forces also unfortunately, some small part of the
Turkish army, some mafia groups who were very good at killing people,
some newspapers and media groups, and various fanatics and
ultranationalists were resisting and plotting and doing things to
block Turkey’s entry to Europe.

What’s happening, now, what I see is that since Europe and both parts
are very busy about their identities, then there is a little bit of an
intermission, stop, enthusiasm has faded away now. We don’t see a `No
Entry’ sign, but we see that¦ `well¦ maybe¦’ but it’s not time, the
door is not open yet, and I’m sad about that but I’m not going to cry,
either.’

euronews: “I read a book one day and my whole life was changed’. You
recognised it, it’s how `The New Life’ begins. Can a book actually
change somone’s life, and do you feel as a writer that you can change
something, maybe not the world, but actually make a difference
somehow?’

Orhan Pamuk: `Especially in the non-Western world there is a lot of
unhappiness, economic unhappiness, political pressures, a sort of
apocalyptic expectations of millennium, revolution, utopia, then
people read books like that with a great enthusiasm that the book
gives you the key of the world and you change the world. Of course you
want to be entertained. But your radical expectation from the world is
so deep that you want the book to tell you, almost whisper to you
almost things with religious intensity.

When I was young, I read books like that. And I ethically believe that
novels should be written and read with that intensity. Whether I can
achieve it or not, that’s another problem.’

euronews: “My Name Is Red’, `The Black Book’, `The White Castle’,
`Other Colours’… One would say that your past as a painter left you
with an obsession with colours. What colour would you paint today’s
Turkey?’

Orhan Pamuk: `When I’m inside, it’s an anarchy of colours and I like
it. When I’m out, it looks like a distant mountain, like Chinese
paintings, it’s misty and you long for it, and it’s beautiful. In it,
it’s so strong, that makes you troubled, you love it, but you’re also
troubled inside. So it’s many colours, from outside it’s a beautiful
colour and you remember with nostalgia. When you’re in it, the colours
and its richness make you tired. But in every circumstance I can write
about it.’

s-place-in-a-europe-of-liberte-egalite-and-fratern ite-says-pamuk/

Globe and Mail, Canada
Nov 28 2009

Our Rwandan betrayal

Former UN general Roméo Dallaire returns to Rwanda 10 years after the
genocide. CBC Handout
Ottawa has acknowledged the Armenian genocide and apologized to native
Canadians. Will it do the same for its abandonment of the Tutsi?

Gerald Caplan
Published on Saturday, Nov. 28, 2009 11:42AM EST

.Earlier this month the RCMP arrested a 37-year old Rwandan man,
Jacques Mungwarere, in Windsor, Ont., and charged him with genocide
during the 1994 genocide of the Tutsi in his home country. Barely days
before, a Canadian court sentenced another Rwandan, Desire Munyaneza,
to life imprisonment for his role in the same genocide.

The two cases reflect a fact of Canadian life that few Canadians are
actually aware of: For the past 50 years, before, during and since the
genocide, Canada and Rwanda have been closely linked in a remarkable
number of ways. Large numbers of Rwandans have studied, lived, worked
and made lives in Canada, while countless Canadians have been
associated with Rwanda, General Romeo Dallaire being only the most
prominent.

Yet in its moment of supreme need, during the 100 days in 1994 when
the Hutu leadership organized a systematic conspiracy to annihilate
the country’s entire Tutsi population, the Canadian government largely
abandoned the Tutsi to their terrible fate. Why this happened has
never been investigated in a proper way, and one of the world’s
leading historians of the genocide, Linda Melvern of Britain, wants to
know why. So do many others of us.

Rwanda became independent of Belgian colonial rule in the early 1960s
and Canadians have been closely involved with the country ever since.
Canada was actually the most influential middle power in Rwanda until
the genocide, largely through the work of French Canadians.
Francophone officials in both Foreign Affairs and CIDA knew the
Rwandan government well and treated it well. Although few Anglophones
knew much about the tiny country, `Rwanda was considered the jewel in
the in the crown of countries receiving Canadian aid,’ according to
Professor Howard Adelman, and in fact was the highest recipient per
capita in the world of such aid.

The main university in Rwanda was founded by a Quebec priest and
funded by Canadian aid, and Canadians, many also Quebec priests,
became intimately involved in the training of Rwanda’s elite until the
very eve of the genocide.

That very closeness blinded many of those involved to the ugly truths
about president Juvénal Habyarimana and his government, which they so
lavishly praised. In reality, it was a Hutu dictatorship with the
minority Tutsi suffering grievous discrimination in every aspect of
society. As a result, most Rwandans with whom Canadian government or
church officials came into contact with would have been part of the
Hutu ruling class. It seems apparent that the Canadians who worked
with Rwanda largely accepted the racist ideology of the Hutu regime
and closed their eyes to the persecution of the Tutsi. There were
honorable exceptions, however, including prime minister Brian
Mulroney, who was critical of the president, and human-rights
advocates Ed Broadbent and William Schabas, who exposed the
government’s increasingly murderous treatment of Tutsi.

Yet despite the close ties between the two countries, the Canadian
government ` by 1994 under Jean Chrétien ` refused to answer the pleas
of its own soldier, General Dallaire, for substantially more troops
once the genocide erupted, nor did it react to the crisis by urging
the United Nations to intervene more forcefully. The Canadian
government knew perfectly well what was happening. It had Dallaire. It
had General Maurice Baril heading up the military component of the UN
Department of Peacekeeping Operations in New York. It had James
Orbinski running the Médecins Sans Frontières mission in the heart of
the killings. It had deputy defence minister Robert Fowler strongly
urging greater Canadian intervention. Yet except for some minor (if
important) logistic help to Dallaire’s military mission, Ottawa did
little.

Why? Fifteen years later, we still don’t know. Linda Melvern reminds
us of several harsh truths in the newly published, revised version of
her classic study A People Betrayed: The role of the West in Rwanda’s
genocide. There is no question of the reality of the genocide (despite
a growing chorus of deniers); almost a million Tutsi were mercilessly
slaughtered. Rwanda was abandoned by virtually all the players who
should have intervened, and who are therefore responsible in part for
that slaughter. Most of those players still refuse to acknowledge
their role or seek to account for them.

We’re talking here of France and the Roman Catholic Church, both
actively complicit in enabling the genocide, the United States,
Britain, Belgium, the UN Secretariat, the UN Security Council, the
Organization of African Unity, and, yes, Canada. Of these, only the
United Nations, Belgium and the OAU have commissioned proper studies,
all of which came down harshly on their sponsors. (I wrote the OAU’s
report.)

>From France: a refusal to acknowledge a jot of responsibility and a
whitewashing study. From the Church: no acceptance of responsibility,
no apology, no investigation of itself. From Washington: dishonest
apologies and no investigation. From Canada: silence.

Melvern is tireless in demanding from each of those who either
betrayed or abandoned Rwanda that they must set up a serious
independent commission to investigate the role each country or
institution played. The government of Stephen Harper has formally
acknowledged the reality of the Turkish genocide against the Armenians
in 1915, and has apologized to both Chinese-Canadians and native
Canadians for injustices against them perpetrated by the Canadian
governments of their time. Maybe they will continue this admirable
record by allowing the truth of our abandonment of Rwanda to be
discovered.

s/politics/our-rwandan-betrayal/article1381438/

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

news.am, Armenia
Nov 28 2009

Surb Khach Monastery to become museum specimen

17:09 / 11/28/2009Armenian Surb Khach Monastery will become a section
of Crimean Ethnographic Museum since December 1, 2009. Such statement
was made by Anatoliy Hrytsenko, the Speaker of Crimean Verkhovna Rada,
Analitika.at.ua e-source informs.

NEWS.am intends to get official comments on the matter from Catholicos
of All Armenians Karekin II.

Armenian Surb Khach Monastery (Holy Cross) is a national monument,
which was a center of pilgrimage and spiritual attraction for ages. A
number of Armenian cultural workers lived and worked here at different
times.

Serzh Sargsyan was on a visit to Ukraine in 2008 to participate in
celebration of Surb Khach Monastery 650th anniversary. In the frames
of his visit he also met with his Ukrainian counterpart Viktor
Yushchenko.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

news.am, Armenia
Nov 28 2009

Bogdan Klich: Armenia-NATO dialogue to benefit from Armenia-Turkey
normalization

18:11 / 11/28/2009Poland is closing following the Armenian-Turkish
dialogue and believes that the normalization of Armenian-Turkish
relations will only contribute to the settlement of conflicts in the
South Caucasus, Bogdan Klich, Polish Minister of Defense, told
reporters.

According to him, it will certainly play a positive role in the
Armenia-NATO dialogue. He stressed that NATO is not an aggressive
alliance.

It is a defense pact, which is assuming more `out of pact’
commitments, Klich said. He also stated that the Armenia-NATO
consultations meet both sides’ interests.

Jerusalem Post
nov 28 2009

Metro Views: Honoring the Morgenthaus
By MARILYN HENRY

‘I find that so long as you render service – no matter where and how –
all men speak the same tongue, and hearts beat the same." So said
Henry Morgenthau Sr. in 1916, his third year as US ambassador to the
Ottoman Empire.

In a brief time as President Woodrow Wilson’s envoy, he had indeed
rendered service, providing succor and sounding alarms that firmly
established his place in Jewish history and made him a hero to
Armenians.

Deeply affected by the dire poverty of the Jews in Palestine,
Morgenthau in 1914 cabled his friend Jacob Schiff in New York:
"Palestinian Jews facing terrible crisis belligerent countries
stopping their assistance serious destruction threatens thriving
colonies fifty thousand dollars needed."

It was no small amount in those days, but Schiff quickly raised the
funds for a relief project that evolved into the Joint Distribution
Committee.

The next year, fearful of the fate of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire,
he cabled Washington, reporting that "from harrowing reports of eye
witnesses it appears that a campaign of race extermination is in
progress." To this day, Henry Morgenthau Sr. is revered by Armenians
for alerting the world to the Armenian genocide.

These cables are among the documents, memorabilia, photographs and
films in a new exhibit "The Morgenthaus: A Legacy of Service" at the
Museum of Jewish Heritage in New York. The exhibit, which opened this
month in lower Manhattan and runs through 2010, covers the public and
communal service of three generations of Morgenthaus: Henry Sr., Henry
Jr. and Robert.

Henry Jr. was president Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Treasury secretary
during the Depression, and helped prepare the economy for World War
II.

He still held that post in January 1944 – the Jew on the president’s
cabinet at the most frightening moment in modern Jewish history – when
his office took a remarkable step. It challenged the US State
Department for failing to rescue European Jews. His staff wrote a
report "on the acquiescence of this government in the murder of Jews."
Morgenthau edited the title, calling it a "personal report to the
president," but he did not mince words with Roosevelt, whom he had
first met as a neighbor in upstate New York.

"One of the greatest crimes in history, the slaughter of the Jewish
people in Europe, is continuing unabated," he wrote. He assailed the
"utter failure of certain officials in our State Department ¦ to take
any effective action to prevent the extermination of the Jews in
German-controlled Europe."

Only days after receiving the report, Roosevelt signed Executive Order
9417, creating the War Refugee Board. Many argue that the board, which
saved some 200,000 European Jews, did too little too late. But
Roosevelt’s tarnished record during the Holocaust and that of his
administration only enhance, rather than diminish, the significance of
the actions taken by Morgenthau, who later was an energetic
fund-raiser for Jewish and Israeli causes. (The moshav Tal Shahar was
founded in 1948 and named after him; "Morgenthau" translates from the
German to "morning dew.")

"What I want is intelligence and courage – courage first and
intelligence second," Henry Jr. once said. He had them. His son Robert
has been the Manhattan district attorney for more than a generation.
(The fictional Adam Schiff, the original district attorney on the
television program Law & Order, was reportedly modeled on Morgenthau.)
His office has been famous not only for its cases, but for the
attorneys and judges who cut their lawyerly teeth there. Most
recently, that attention focused on the newest Supreme Court justice,
Sonia Sotomayor, who joined Morgenthau’s staff in 1979, when she was
25.

A handwritten note from Sotomayor is on exhibit: "Bob – Few can say
they have a friend and mentor like you. I was blessed the day we met.
Thank you for all your support. Sonia" Now 90, the district attorney
is retiring after some 35 years as the city’s prosecutor. With his
retirement, this "Morgenthau century" of prominent public service [by
the family] will end.

HENRY SR. WAS born in 1856 in Mannheim, Germany; his family came to
New York a decade later. He had a career in law and real estate before
he was tapped by Wilson. "I had to wait until I was 55 to earn enough
money to afford to go into public service," Henry Sr. told his
grandson. "You don’t have that excuse." Robert got the message. In
addition to his very public role as district attorney, Robert has been
actively involved in charitable and civic institutions, such as the
Police Athletic League, whose activities include day care, summer
camp, employment and sports programs for New York City’s children and
youth.

He also is chairman of the Museum of Jewish Heritage, whose
exhibitions are notable, in part, for the wide-ranging and
thought-provoking public and educational programming that accompanies
them.

Morgenthau’s relationship to the museum seems coincidental to the
exhibit; the family’s century of public service merits it. And despite
an exhibit that features its chairman’s family, the museum does not
blindly glorify or whitewash the Morgenthaus’ history. For instance,
in its summary of Henry Sr.’s 1919 official "commission to Poland" to
investigate reports of atrocities against Jews, the exhibit
acknowledges that Morgenthau "minimized blame" due the Polish
government for the mistreatment of Jews, for which he was strongly
criticized. Yet he was profoundly moved by what he witnessed in
Poland. "This was the first time I ever completely realized what the
collective grief of a persecuted people was like," he said.

"The Morgenthaus: A Legacy of Service" is intended not only as a look
back at one family’s three generations of public service, but to
promote it as well.

The exhibit (which has material online at )
urges people to become involved with such causes such as food banks,
genocide intervention and Jewish service corps. As he walked through
the exhibition with reporters earlier this month, pausing at artifacts
and photos, Robert Morgenthau said: "I hope it will encourage people
to be involved with public service."

lite?cid=1259243025483&pagename=JPost%2FJPArti cle%2FShowFull

Iranian play `Gauntlet’ to go on stage in Armenia

Tehran Times Art Desk

TEHRAN ` The Iranian play `Gauntlet’ by director Alireza Asadi will go
on stage in Armenia on December 4, 5 and 6.

The play was written by Mehdi Nasiri, a Ph.D. student of art in
Armenia, and was previously staged in Iran under the title of `The
Votes’.

`Gauntlet’ was the top selected play at the Isar Playwriting contest
and was also honored at the 11th edition of the Resistance Theater
Festival, the Persian service of Fars reported on Saturday.

The play features the life of an Iranian-Armenian journalist whose
life is mingled with fears and doubts. The journalist returns home
after months of captivity in a village in the Kurdish region during
the Iran-Iraq war and encounters his wife’s and her family’s
insistence on leaving the country to go to Armenia.

Cosponsored by Iran’s Cultural Office in Armenia and Iran’s Martyrs
Foundation, `Gauntlet’ will go on stage with slight changes in the
text and performance style compared to its previous performance under
the title of `The Votes’.

Institute for War & Peace Reporting IWPR, UK
Nov 27 2009

ARMENIA SURPRISED BY ANTI-RUSSIAN AGITATION

Emails and text messages seek to spark campaign over military bases.

By Naira Melkumyan in Yerevan

A burst of anti-Russian emails and text messages, supposedly sent from
an Armenian activist group, has left Armenians baffled as to who’s
behind it and what their motives are.

The emails and text messages originate from an organisation calling
itself Hayastanci: Anti-Russia, and thousands of Armenians have
received them.

`I got an email with the subject It linked to
various anti-Russian materials saying that the presence of a Russian
military base in Armenia takes away our sovereignty and makes it
impossible for Armenia to enter other alliances and groups, like the
European Union,’ said Vardan Papikian, a Yerevan resident and one of
the many contacted by the group.

`After that I received a text message from my mobile operator with a
request that I forward a message with the address of the anti-Russian
site to my friends.’

Russia has kept a military base in Armenia since 1995, when it was
founded on the site of a previous Soviet installation, and it has been
a key link in Russia’s defensive chain since Georgia forced it to
close its bases there. Armenian politicians are close to their Russian
counterparts, and the anti-Russian agitation was greeted with
bemusement in a country used to friendship with Moscow.

A spokesman for Russian-owned VivaCell-MTS, the mobile company via
which the text messages were sent, said it had no connection to the
agitation and that anyone with internet access could send text
messages that appear to come from the provider.

`The client thinks the message is from the mobile operator, but in
fact the company could not use the network for such purposes,’ said
Vahe Isahakian.

Internet security experts said it was easy to register a website on
the .org domain, and that it could be very hard to discover the site’s
real owner.

`The site is registered to one Gurgen Pinosian, but the registration
information is obviously false. For example, the address is listed
with the non-existent address Hakarusastyan Street, 1,’ said an
Armenian computer security blogger called Rafael.

IWPR managed to communicate with Armen Ghazarian, the head of the
movement, via email, but he declined to comment on his motives. He
said he was currently in Georgia but intended to return in the near
future.

`I don’t consider it sensible to reply to your questions at the moment
or to tell you the number of direct participants in our movement in
Yerevan. They have been ordered not to take action at the moment,
since the regime has ordered a campaign against our movement,’ he
said.

`I can say only that our movement is not organised enough at the
moment. However, we have many members and supporters. Since 2002, the
regime’s security services have detained me and my relatives several
times in Yerevan. The serious persecution of me and our movement began
in 2007, and we could not even hold a press conference.’

In the absence of further information, Armenians were reduced to
speculating as to why such a site, aimed at spoiling relations between
Armenia and its closest ally, should appear now.

Apart from Russia’s military base, Moscow has significant economic
ties to Armenia. Both of the Armenian mobile companies ` VivaCell-MTS
and Armentel ` are owned by Russian companies, while other major
assets, such as 80 per cent of the energy network and the country’s
nuclear power plant, are also Russian-controlled.

Samvel Martirosian, an expert in information security, said the new
campaign could be connected to Azerbaijan since it also appeared to be
aiming to separate Armenians in Armenia from their ethnic kin in
Nagorny Karabakh, which has broken free of Baku’s control.

`When you are talking about the internet it is hard to know who is
really behind something. I am 90 per cent sure this is Azerbaijani
propaganda, an attempt to put pressure on Armenians via Armenians,’ he
said.

He also pointed out that since the middle of the summer, hacker
attacks on Armenian government websites had intensified and become
more ambitious.

Sergei Shakariants, a political commentator, linked the site to
Georgia as well. He said the campaign could be part of an intensifying
battle for influence in the South Caucasus, where Turkey is also
seeking to gain sway via a peace process with Armenia.

`There is a group of paid agitators who earn their wages by such
operations, including over the internet, which contain anti-Russian
propaganda characteristic of Georgia and Azerbaijan. In our region the
battle for influence is intensifying, and the last redoubt of
non-anti-Russian feeling is Armenia,’ he said.

But other experts pointed to a simpler cause. They speculated that the
rise in Russian racist violence, which is often targeted against
Armenians and other people from the Caucasus, who typically have
darker skin and hair than ethnic Russians, could have angered some
Armenian web-users.

According to the Russian human rights group the Centre for Information
and Analysis, SOVA, 109 foreigners were murdered in Russia in 2008,
including 25 from the Caucasus. So far in 2009, 49 foreigners have
been murdered, including 11 from the Caucasus.

`We can speculate that there is circular xenophobia, which consists
of, for example, Armenian citizens becoming victims of racist
aggression in Russia. On returning to Armenia, they employ their
nationalist aggression against Russians, Russian-speakers or Russia in
general,’ said Galina Kozhevnikova, SOVA’s vice-president.

Ara Saghatelian, director of the Armenian president’s information
centre, said the authorities were monitoring the internet and forcing
sites to remove harmful material. He said that in the last two months,
YouTube had taken down around 1,300 videos deemed to be anti-Armenian.

`We are watching those measures initiated specifically by our
well-known neighbouring country and which are aimed against the
informational interests of Armenia, and we are taking steps to oppose
those measures,’ he said.

Naira Melkumyan is a freelance journalist in Yerevan and a member of
IWPR’s Cross Caucasus Journalism Network.

FFA to hold workshops for school physical trainers
28.11.2009 15:20 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ The Football Federation of Armenia (FFA) will hold a
series of workshops for physical trainers of 900 Armenian schools, the
FFA said on its website. FFA instructors will familiarize the trainers
with `Football’ manual and conduct practicals.

YSU to host exhibition dedicated to Berlin Wall fall 20th anniversary
28.11.2009 15:32 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ On November 30, Yerevan State University (YSU) will
host an exhibition dedicated to Berlin Wall fall 20th anniversary.

The exhibition, organized by German Embassy in Armenia in
collaboration with YSU, will present 20 posters featuring numerous
photos on the fall of Berlin Wall.

Exhibition opening will be attended by German Ambassador to Armenia,
Hans-Jochen Schmidt and Deputy Foreign Minister, Karine Kazinyan.

Following the exhibition, representatives of French, UK, Russian and
US Embassies in RA will hold a discussion on the role of each country
in Berlin Wall fall.

Aram Safaryan: Armenia should achieve national unity
28.11.2009 15:39 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Armenian people should achieve national unity to
ensure a sustainable development of the country and confront external
challenges, according to Aram Safaryan, member of Prosperous Armenia
parliamentary group.

"Constructive dialogue should be established between opposition and
authorities,’ he told the 12th Congress of the Republican Party of
Armenia.

`Prosperous Armenia party and the Republican Party of Armenia have
been allies since 2007. And their cooperation will be further
strengthened,’ he said.