AIR FRANCE AND ARMENIA’S ARMAVIA SIGN CODE SHARING PACT
Wall Street Journal
Sept 4 2009
PARIS (Dow Jones)–Air France, which is part of the Air France-KLM
(AF.FR) group, Friday said it has signed a commercial cooperation
agreement with the Republic of Armenia’s national airline Armavia.
MAIN FACTS:
– Starting Sept 7, Air France and Armavia will commercialize four
weekly code-share flights between Paris and Yerevan in Armenia and
five between Yerevan and Paris. .
ARMENIA: FUGITIVE BUSINESSMAN COMES IN FROM THE COLD
Marianna Grigoryan
EURASIA INSIGHT
ticles/eav090309a.shtml
9/03/09
One of Armenia’s most prominent entrepreneurs, who also happens to be
a major supporter of opposition leader Levon Ter-Petrosian, is now
in custody after spending more than a year in hiding. The fugitive
businessman, Khachatur Sukiasian, has expressed a desire to clear
his name of charges that he helped instigate political violence in
March 2008.
Sukiasian, who is also a member of parliament, surrendered to
authorities on September 2. He had been wanted by police since March 4,
2008, when authorities issued a warrant for his arrest in connection
with his alleged involvement in post-presidential election political
violence. [For background see Eurasia Insight archive]. At least
10 people died during the street fighting in early March 2008. [For
background see the Eurasia Insight archive].
It is expected that Sukiasian will now face trial on charges that he
organized "mass disorder." If convicted, he could face up to 10 years
in prison. Sukiasian is not covered under an amnesty adopted by the
Armenian parliament in June. That measure gave opposition suspects
until July 31 to surrender.
In a statement issued in early July, Sukiasian insisted that he had
"committed no crime." He went on to say that he would vigorously
contest the charges against him. "I’m ready to consistently fight
for restoration of the rights and freedoms of myself and my people
and I believe justice will finally triumph," the statement said.
Until 2007, when he became active in opposition political causes,
Sukiasian was considered one of the most influential entrepreneurs
in Armenia. He led a conglomerate known as the SIL group, which
encompassed a wide variety of businesses, including a pizza parlor
chain, a tobacco distributorship, an insurance agency and a mineral
water bottling plant. Sukiasian built his commercial empire from
scratch during the early years of Armenia’s post-Soviet existence,
a time when Ter-Petrosian was the country’s president.
Starting in the fall of 2007, Sukiasian’s business empire became
embroiled in a variety of tax disputes with the government. "They
[authorities] have been trying to paralyze the work of the whole [SIL]
concern," said Anna Lazarian, a spokeswoman for the conglomerate. "And
it’s continuing right up to today."
Attention in the continuing tax dispute centers on the Bjni mineral
water plant. After being subjected to numerous audits and environmental
inspections, the plant was declared bankrupt in late 2008 and auctioned
by the government after SIL could not, or would not, pay roughly
$14 million in fines. The government’s actions prompted SIL to sue
the state in the European Court of Human Rights. Ara Zohrabyan, an
attorney representing the Bjni plant, said SIL was seeking roughly $300
million in damages, adding that the case could take years to resolve.
Stepan Safaryan, a prominent figure in the opposition Heritage
Party described the criminal case against Sukiasian as "political
punishment." The cases against him and his business empire are designed
to have a chilling effect on other entrepreneurs who might want to
support opposition parties.
"He is not an accidental target," Safaryan said, referring to
Sukiasian.
Editor’s Note: Marianna Grigoryan is a freelance journalist based
in Yerevan.
ARMENIAN CAUCUS VOICES CONCERNS OVER ARMENIA-TURKEY PROTOCOLS
armradio.am
04.09.2009 10:37
The Co-Chairmen of the Congressional Caucus on Armenian Issues,
Representatives Frank Pallone (D-NJ) and Mark Kirk (R-IL) expressed
reservations regarding Turkey’s willingness to cooperate in the
implementation of its agreements under a set of recently signed
protocols on the normalization of Turkey-Armenia relations, reported
the Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA).
In a public statement, the two legislators called into question several
points related to the protocols, including Turkey’s pattern of using
its ongoing dialogue with Armenia as a "stall tactic" to delay the
lifting of its illegal 16-year blockade of Armenia. The Co-Chairman
also noted their concern regarding Turkey’s efforts to impose
preconditions, stressing that: "Normalization of relations should
take place without preconditions." In a rebuke to the "historical
commission" long advanced by Turkey, they set forth their view that:
"Any attempt to include a review of historical fact, such as the
Armenian Genocide, or to include the ongoing Nagorno Karabakh peace
process into these negotiations stands in direct opposition to the
intent of these talks."
The leaders of the Armenian Caucus closed their statement by expressing
their hope that, "Turkey, by lifting its illegal blockade, will
open the door to normalized relations between Yerevan and Ankara,
and a new era of Armenia-Turkey relations based on truth, justice,
peace and cooperation."
Earlier this week, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), the lead author of the
Armenian Genocide Resolution, expressed "serious concerns about some
provisions of the protocols," stating that: "In particular, I was
deeply disappointed to see that the protocols call for the creation of
an historical commission to review the events of 1915-23. This is a
thoroughly discredited idea; there is no dispute among scholars that
the Armenian people were the subject of genocide during the waning
days of the Ottoman Empire and an historical commission is another
effort to obfuscate the truth."
Rep. Schiff went on to state that: "True reconciliation between the
Armenian and Turkish peoples will occur when Turkey acknowledges the
genocide that was committed by the Ottoman Empire against Armenians
from 1915 – 1923."
NOVRUZ MAMMADOV SHOCKED
ArmInfo
2009-09-04 12:39:00
ArmInfo. The head of International Relations Department under
Azerbaijani president Novruz Mammadov is shocked with the article in
the Turkish ‘Bu gun’ newspaper.
As APA reported, Mammadov said: ‘Disinformation about Azerbaijan
published in Turkish newspaper shocked me. It is very sensitive
moment. We expressed our position on the processes of normalization
of Turkish-Armenian relations. But Turkish newspaper ‘Bu gun’ spread
absurd reports’ and added it was impossible to understand reason and
goals of this article.
‘It is not exception that there are some forces in Turkey and
other countries, which try to cool Turkish-Azerbaijani relations and
strategic partnership. I see it in Russia’s Regnum agency. It is clear
that who owns this agency and what goals they follow. Regnum’s odious
owner intends to put the region against Azerbaijan in his articles
and thinks that he serves Russian interests with that. But this person
is mistaken’, – Mammadov said.
Mammadov noted that ‘Bu gun’ newspaper reported that Azerbaijani
president broke his visit to Georgia and return to the country to call
emergency meeting of the parliament when reports about the protocols
between Turkey and Armenia were spread. ‘What does it mean? Who dares
to write this?
They said that Turkey and Armenia signed a protocol and Azerbaijan was
shocked and accused Turkey in betrayal and etc. It is not true. Such
lies negatively impact on the public communities in both Turkey and
Azerbaijan. Today I talked with Turkish ambassador Hulusi Kilic.
The ambassador told me "take no note of it". Azerbaijan and Turkey have
long history of friendship, brotherhood and strategic partnership. It
can not be hurt by any Regnum’s reports. But Turkish media’s reports
hurt me’.
Mammadov said ‘Bu gun’ newspaper reported that Azerbaijani
parliamentarians visited Turkey regarding the last developments. ‘The
visit was planned two months ago. I send a message to Azerbaijani
and Turkish communities not to believe to such lying and slandering
reports’. Turkish newspaper ‘Bu gun’ published an article today that
protocols between Turkey and Armenia shocked Azerbaijan and President
Ilham Aliyev called an emergency meeting of the parliament.
ARMENIAN BOXER TSOLAK ANANIKYAN IN STUBBORN STRUGGLE GIVES WAY TO SLOVAKIA REPRESENTATIVE
/PanARMENIAN.Net/
04.09.2009 15:33 GMT+04:00
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ The third day of the World Boxing Championship
taking place in Milan, was not very successful for the Armenian team:
out of three Armenian boxers, two representatives of the Armenian
national team were defeated. First, Samvel Matevosyan (69 kg)
lost to Albanian boxer Jetmir Kuci with the 4:10 score. The silver
medalist of the European Championship-2008 Tsolak Ananikyan (91 kg)
in a bitter struggle gave way to the Slovakian boxer Sandro Dirnfeld
with the 10:11 score.
Azat Hovhannisyan (57 kg) won a victory over the representative of
Venezuela, Hector Mansania. The battle ended with the score 24:7. Thus
Azat Hovhannisyan became the 6th representative of the Armenian team,
reached 1/16 finals. Prior to him, Derenik Gizhlaryan (w/c 51 kg),
Edward Hambardzumyan (64 kg), Garnik Harutyunyan (54 kg), Andranik
Hakobyan (75 kg) and Hrachik Javakhyan (60 kg) received the right to
take part in 1/16 finals.
Today in 1/16 finals Hrachik Javakhyan meet with Brazilian Everton
Lopez, Hambardzsumyan fight with the representative of Turkey Onur
Sipal and Gizhlaryan meet with his compatriot from Russia Misha Aloyan.
SHAKESPEARE INTERNATIONAL THEATER FESTIVAL TO BE HELD IN YEREVAN
Aysor
Sept 4 2009
Armenia
The Mayor of Yerevan, the head of the committee of Vagram Papazyan’s
Shakespeare International Theater Festival, Gagik Beglaryan met the
members of committee to discuss organizational issues.
Note that Shakespeare International Theater Festival will be held in
Yerevan on September, 7-20.
More than 150 theatricals and guests from around the world, including
the chair of the Union of Theater Workers Alexander Kalyagin from
Russia, the theatre expert Irina Brook from France, the director of
Gdansk Shakespeare Festival Anzhi Zhirovski from Poland, – the press
office of the municipality of Yerevan reports.
TWO AZERI MINISTERS VISIT ARMENIA AHEAD OF JUDO COMPETITION
Turan News Agency
Sept 2 2009
Azerbaijan
Baku, 2 September: A delegation lead by Youth and Sports Minister
Azad Rahimov and Labour Minister Fuzuli Alakbarov, who is also the
head of the National Judo Federation, are in Armenia to discuss the
participation of Azerbaijani judo wrestlers in the European Youth
Championship in Yerevan on 11-13 September.
The press service of the Youth and Sports Minister told the Turan news
agency that representatives of Azerbaijan, Armenia, the European Judo
Federation, and the Executive Committee of the Olympic Committee
signed an agreement on security guarantees for the Azerbaijani
sportsmen participating in the championship.
The conditions include the presence of the Azerbaijani flag together
with those of other participating countries and the raising of the
flag if [an Azerbaijani sportsman] wins first place. Moreover, they
also envisage creating conditions for journalists, free access to
the Internet and other matters.
GEOFFREY MICHAEL GOSHGARIAN WINS PEN CLUB AWARD FOR AN ENGLISH TRANSLATION OF HAGOP OSHAGAN’S "REMNANTS"
AZG DAILY
03-09-2009
Culture
Geoffrey Michael Goshgarian’s English version of an extract from Hagop
Oshagan’s The Remnants was one of eight translations honored with a
PEN Club translation fund award at a ceremony in New York on May 19,
reporter.am reported.
Mr. Goshgarian, a freelance translator, was educated at Yale and
UCLA. He has to his credit sixteen book-length translations from
French and German, including Louis Althusser’s writings. He is the
author of To Kiss the Chastening Rod.
Mr. Goshgarian began englishing Oshagan’s 1,500-page novel cycle in
the 1990s. His translation of part of the first novel in the cycle
was originally intended for inclusion in a projected multivolume work
on modern Armenian literature by Marc Nichanian, then professor of
Armenian studies at New York’s Columbia University.
The translation was "consigned to limbo," Mr. Goshgarian told the
Reporter, "when, after publishing the first volume^A in the series in
English with Gomidas Press, Professor Nichanian unexpectedly decided to
produce the rest of his study in his native French." [An excerpt from
Mr. Goshgarian’s work in that first volume appeared in the Reporter’s
editorial for April 18, "Remembering the Cilician massacres of 1909."]
"Except for a short passage published in Ararat in 1998 and another
released by the online journal Words without Borders in December of
last year," he added, "my translation [of Oshagan] would probably
still be moldering in the same closet in which reams of Armenian prose
and poetry that I’ve translated have been languishing for more than
a decade if Nanor Kebranian and Taline Voskeritchian hadn’t taken an
interest in it last year."
Ms. Kebranian, a native of the Armenian village of Anjar, Lebanon,
who was educated in the United States and Britain, is currently writing
her doctoral dissertation at Oxford University on Oshagan and Armenian
pe al literature, while teaching Armenian literature – including
a course on Oshagan – at Columbia. Ms. Voskeritchian, a native of
Jerusalem and Oshagan’s granddaughter, is a literary translator in
her own right who also teaches writing at Boston University.
"On Nanor and Taline’s urging and with their very considerable help,"
Mr. Goshgarian said, "I submitted an extract from The Remnants to the
PEN Club, which, in coordination with Columbia’s Literary Translation
Center, has since 2003 been promoting what it considers to be competent
English translations of first-rate works of literature by awarding
grants to their translators. The fact that Oshagan’s text has been
singled out for an award means that I can now translate enough of it
to bring an English translation of at least one novel in the cycle
into the realm of possibility."
While the $3,000 PEN award cannot cover the costs of translating a
full-length work of fiction, it often attracts publishers or sponsors
who can. It remains to be seen whether a major Anglo-American trade
publisher or university press will now take the risk of putting out
an English version of a work by a novelist who is virtually unknown to
Anglophone readers and wrote in an "exotic" language such as Armenian.
Considered the foremost Armenian novelist by many Armenian literary
critics in the diaspora, Oshagan (1883-1948) is also a chronicler of
Ottoman Armenia’s modern political, social, and literary history. His
life’s story reflects the tragedy of his people.
Born and raised in Bursa, a predominantly Turkish city with a big
Armenian population located not far from Istanbul, he worked, before
the first World War, as a teacher in various Armenian schools in
nearby villages, including his parents’ native Sölöz, one of the
many Armenian-speaking villages in the Bursa region founded in the
late sixteenth century by settlers from the Armenian provinces.
In the same period, in 1902, he had a run-in with the Ottoman
authorities that led to a short stint in the Bursa prison. He made
h y debut shortly before the war, joining four of his peers – Daniel
Varoujan, Gosdan Zaryan, Aharon and Kegham Parseghian – in founding the
short-lived literary journal Mehyan [Pagan Temple] in Constantinople.
He managed to elude the April 1915 roundup of prominent Armenians
in the Ottoman capital that marked the beginning of the Genocide,
and lived underground there through the war; arrested by the Ottoman
authorities on at least seven different occasions, he managed to
escape each time.
While the experiences of these years go altogether unmentioned in
his work, including his autobiographical writing, it is not hard to
measure their impact on him from his wife’s accounts of his nightmares
and panic-stricken cries and friends’ remarks about the tears and
even paralysis that mere mention of that period brought on in him.
In the last year of the war, Oshagan escaped to Bulgaria, returning to
Allied-controlled Istanbul at war’s end to teach in various Armenian
schools until 1924. He left Turkey for good in that year to spend the
last 25 years of his life teaching Armenian literature in diaspora
communities in Cyprus and Palestine. He died suddenly during a visit
to Aleppo in 1948, on the eve of a planned pilgrimage to the killing
fields near Der Zor.
US ARMENIANS INSIST ON ‘GENOCIDE RECOGNITION’
Hurriyet Daily News
rmenians-insist-on-genocide-recognition-2009-09-03
Sept 3 2009
Turkey
As Turkey and Armenia step up efforts to normalize their relations,
two top U.S. Armenian groups said forcing Turkey to accept what they
called the "Armenian genocide" remained their top-priority objective.
Turkey and Armenia jointly announced Aug. 31 that they would work
to sign a document to formally establish diplomatic ties within six
weeks. They also pledged to work toward other aspects of normalization,
including reopening the land border.
The radical Armenian National Committee of America, or ANCA,
qualified the move as a Turkish effort to gain time to avoid "genocide
recognition," while the more moderate Armenian Assembly of America,
or AAA, said it supported normalization between Armenia and Turkey
but that "genocide recognition" was still a top issue.
Turkey recognized Armenia’s independence in 1991, but has refused to
set up diplomatic relations in protest of Armenia’s aggression in a
war with Azerbaijan, Ankara’s close friend and ally. Turkey closed
its land border with Armenia in 1993.
Armenians qualify World War I-era killings of their kinsmen in the
Ottoman Empire as genocide. Turkey rejects the term, saying both
Armenians and Muslims were killed in ethnic strife during the last
years of the Ottoman Empire.
Ankara and Yerevan first said in April that they had launched a
normalization process, backed by the United States.
But ANCA said in a statement on Wednesday that the latest move by
Turkey and Armenia was meant to serve only Turkish interests.
Radical Armenians criticize ‘Turkish tactic’
"This provision, a tactic long pursued by Ankara to cast doubt
on the historical record of the Armenian genocide, is intended to
serve Turkey’s drive to roll back the growing tide of international
recognition of this crime against humanity," said Aram Hamparian,
ANCA’s executive director, according to the statement.
"There can be no enduring relationship between Armenia and Turkey
that is not built upon the foundation of Turkey’s acceptance of a
true and just resolution of this crime," he said.
Hamparian’s remarks were conveyed to the members of the U.S. Congress,
the statement said.
The AAA said it "supports normalization of relations between Armenia
and Turkey" but that this should be done without Turkish precondition.
In a written statement, the AAA said it urged "President [Barack]
Obama and the U.S. Congress to unequivocally affirm the Armenian
genocide. In so doing, the United States will honor a proud chapter
in U.S. history in helping to save the survivors of the first genocide
of the 20th century."
"We recall Turkey’s ample track record of unfulfilled promises. As
such, many remain skeptical as prior governments of Armenia had also
offered to normalize relations with Turkey without preconditions only
to be rebuffed," it said.
ONLY OPENING BORDER WITH ARMENIA WILL NOT STIMULATE ECONOMY
armradio.am
03.09.2009 15:35
Turkey and Armenia’s efforts to reconcile their differences will
relieve some tension in the Caucasus, but a boom in trade from
reopening the border can only take place if Azerbaijan is included in
the equation and that is dependant on unraveling the Nagorno-Karabakh
problem, according to Turkish leaders, Hurriyet Daily News reports.
Despite the historic step taken by Turkey and Armenia, local
businessmen and experts warn that only a comprehensive solution that
includes Azerbaijan could boost economic and trade opportunities for
the region.
"It is quite important to find a parallel solution for the
Azerbaijan-Armenian track. We actually think Turkish-Armenian
reconciliation will accelerate the Nagorno-Karabakh solution,"
Kaan Soyak, co-chairman of the Turkish-Armenian Business Development
Council, or TABDC, said Wednesday in an interview with the Hurriyet
Daily News & Economic Review.
The normalization process is expected to have an enormous impact
on trade between the border towns of the two countries. Igdır,
which is linked to Armenia through the border gate Alican, is one of
them. "The border trade has become the main actor of the local economy
as livestock and agriculture production decreased," Kamil Arslan,
president of Igdır Industry and Trade Chamber told the Daily News
on Wednesday.
0D The exclusion of Azerbaijan from the peace process would be the
worst scenario for local tradesmen, according to Arslan. Pointing
out that many local businessmen have deals in autonomous Azeri areas
such as Nahchivan, Arslan said: "In such a case they might lose their
current market."
"It takes 10 to 12 days to send our goods to Azerbaijan and
Turkmenistan through Georgia. However, it will only take four hours
to export through Armenia. That’s why we insist on a comprehensive
solution that includes the Azerbaijanis."
He advocated Armenia had no promising potential, saying: "Trade only
with Armenia will not be profitable. It doesn’t have medium or large
industry. Its economy is weak with no significant production. We
already sell our goods to them thanks to our dealers across the
country."
"But if a transit corridor linking Igdır to Baku is opened, then
our trade volume will be doubled" he said.