Author: Andres-Papazian

INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE PLANNED IN KARABAKH IS POSTPONED

news.am
May 2 2011
Armenia

International conference held within the framework of Women for Peace
program is postponed, Rimma Arakelyan, head of Council of relatives
of missing servicemen (participants of Karabakh war) told Armenian
News-NEWS.am. The reasons are not reported.

The conference scheduled for May 5 had to take place in
Nagorno-Karabakh. Belgian senator Dominique Tilmans heads the program.

Earlier Azerbaijani participant Tanzila Rustamhanli rejected an
invitation under the pressure of Azerbaijani authorities.

Several meetings have already been held. However, the Azerbaijani side
hampers any attempts to cooperate within the framework of the program.

Armenia’s representative Rimma Arakelyan failed to attend the meeting
held in Baku last December due to Azerbaijani side’s failure to
confirm security guarantees on time.

Another meeting is scheduled for late May in Tbilisi.

From: A. Papazian

TIGRAN GHARAMIAN CHAMPION OF THE OPEN IN LILLE

Panorama
May 2 2011
Armenia

Armenian GM Tigran Gharamian appeared with 100% performance in the
open which was held in Lille, France, and was awarded the champion’s
title having recorded no loss during the tournament. “Armchess.am”
informs that Tigran Gharamian scored 7 points out of 9.

GM Oleg Korneev (Russia), IM Yannick Gozzoli (France) and GM Nikita
Maiorov (Belarus) scored as many points as Gharamian, however, they
were behind the Armenian chess player in the tie-break.

From: A. Papazian

LEVON ARONYAN IS THE 3RD IN FICE RATING LIST

Panorama
May 2 2011
Armenia

FIDE has published the FIDE Rating List by 1st May 2011. World champion
Viswanathan Anand leads the Top 100 Players’ list. Magnus Carlsen comes
the second (2815) and Armenian GM Levon Aronyan follows him (2808).

Russian representative, world former champion Vladimir Kramnik stands
the fourth (2785) and Ukrainian Vassily Ivanchuk occupies the fifth
horizontal (2776).

Armenian GM Sergey Movsisyan is the 35th (2705), Vladimir Akobian is
the 71st (2670) and Gabriel Sargsyan is the 79th (2663).

From: A. Papazian

VILLAGERS, ECOLOGISTS AGAINST NEW FACILITY

New Europe

May 2 2011

The illegal construction of an ore-processing facility by Russian
company has triggered strong reactions from environment protection
groups and residents of a village in the northeastern Gegharkunik
province, Armenia Liberty.org reported.

According to ecologists and villagers, the Armenian subsidiary of the
Russian industrial group GeoProMining (GPM) is exploiting Armenia’s
largest gold mines by building this facility.

The environmentalists claim that this facility would create havoc on
the mountainous village of Sotk and nearby Lake Sevan., which play
a vital role in the country’s entire ecosystem.

The area around Sotk has substantial gold deposits that are controlled
by an Armenian subsidiary of GPM.

From: A. Papazian

TURKISH PM IN CHASE OF VOTES – ARMENIAN EXPERT

news.am
May 2 2011
Armenia

YEREVAN. – Prime Minister of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdogan is trying
to gain votes of ethnic Azerbaijanis, residents of Kars, ahead of
parliamentary elections.

This is the reason the monument to Armenia-Turkey friendship was
demolished, expert in Turkish studies Ruben Melkonyan said at a press
conference on Monday.

“With approaching election nationalist rhetoric becomes stronger.

Demolition of the monument will definitely help gain votes of the
local Azerbaijanis,” he said.

According to him, dismantlement of the monument reflects current state
of Armenia-Turkey relations: all “angles of contact” which could be
the basis for normalization are destroyed.

As Armenian News-NEWS.am reported earlier, during his visit to Kars,
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan called the monument to
Armenia-Turkey friendship “monstrous” and ordered to demolish it.

Former Mayor of Kars Naif Alibeyoglu always stood for the opening
of the Armenia-Turkey border without any preconditions and for this
purpose organized a collection of signature in Kars. On his initiative,
a large monument was put to represent the Armenian-Turkish friendship
and peace. However, Alibeyoglu was defeated in the mayoral elections
in 2009. The unfinished monument was put near the old Armenian district
of Kars.

From: A. Papazian

THE SUKHOI SUPERJET 100 AIRPLANE LANDED IN VENICE FOR THE FIRST TIME

AVIONEWS

May 2 2011

(WAPA) – The Sukhoi Superjet 100, flight U8-123, landed in Venice, at
“Marco Polo” airport, at 1:18 pm of yesterday, from Yerevan, Armenia,
after approximately 4 flight hours.

For the first time the regional jet Sukhoi Superjet 100 (SSJ-100),
developed by Sukhoi Civil Aircraft in partnership with Alenia
Aeronautica (Finmeccanica Group), arrives in Venice. Namely the Sukhoi
Superjet 100 opens weekly flights of Armenian national carrier Armavia
to Venice.

The SSJ-100 was delivered to Armavia on April 19, 2011 during a
ceremony at Zvartnots airport. The aircraft was put into commercial
operation within unprecedentedly short time after delivery, having
started service on April 20 with flights Erevan-Moscow-Erevan.

The aircraft received the name after the first cosmonaut “Yuri Gagarin”
and the tail number EK 95015.

The Sukhoi Superjet 100 has accumulated 24 flights in routes
like Yerevan-Athens-Yerevan, Yerevan- Donetsk-Yerevan,
Yerevan-Aleppo-Yerevan, Yerevan-Tehran-Yerevan, Yerevan- Tel
Aviv-Yerevan and Yerevan-Simferopol-Yerevan, scoring approx. 50
flight hours.

The SSJ-100 Entry Into Service opens a new stage of the Program:
the beginning of commercial operation and full-scale serial production.

The second aircraft will join Armavia fleet in June 2011.

There are currently 17 aircraft are in serial production at various
stages of completion, including 6 in the final assembly shop. This year
Sukhoi Civil Aircraft Company plans to deliver 13 aircraft in total.

Mr. Carlo Logli, Chief Executive Officer of SuperJet International,
was on board of the SSJ-100. Upon his arrival in Venice he stated: “It
was a great satisfaction flying on board of the Sukhoi Superjet 100.

The aircraft is superior for the comfort delivered to its passengers,
for the larger cabin, wider seating and more spacious overhead bins.

We are pleased to see the SSJ-100 landing at Marco Polo runway,
next to the headquarters of SuperJet International. Venice, in fact,
is the delivery center for the western Customers. We expect the first
delivery to the Mexican airline Interjet for the second half of 2012.

SuperJet International, responsible for the after-sales support,
is actively working in order to provide Armavia with a reliable
and high-quality after-sales support. At the same time, SuperJet
International is providing Armavia with Flight Crew, Cabin Crew and
Maintenance staff Training Courses” concluded Mr. Logli.

The Sukhoi Superjet 100 is definitely the first production aircraft
of modern Russia, created in partnership with world-wide aerospace
leaders. The SSJ-100 represents a state-of-the-art aircraft in the
100-seat aircraft segment because of its outstanding characteristics in
terms of quality, comfort and operational costs, the industry declares.

From: A. Papazian

ARMENIA-TURKEY RAPPROCHEMENT OUT OF QUESTION WITHOUT KARABAKH CONFLICT RESOLUTION-TURKISH PM

news.am
May 2 2011
Armenia

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has recently made a
statement on Armenia-Turkey Protocols on the eve of parliamentary
elections in the country. Erdogan overtly declared about preconditions
to Armenia-Turkey normalization.

The Turkish PM touched upon problems related to Armenia and Karabakh in
Igdir, mainly populated with Azerbaijanis. In his speech he stressed
that Nakhchivan and Karabakh are Turkey’s problems too, Milliyet
newspaper reports.

“I reiterate my position that Armenia-Turkey rapprochement is out of
the question without Karabakh conflict resolution. We took sides with
Azerbaijan and will go on doing so. Nobody must expect anything from
us. We gave an adequate response to Armenian MPs at the Parliamentary
Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) too,” Erdogan noted.

From: A. Papazian

ARMENIAN ARCHIVE DIGITALIZATION MIGHT NOT SHED LIGHT ON 1915, SCHOLARS SAY

Hurriyet

May 2 2011
Turkey

Armenia’s National Archives will begin posting hundreds of thousands
of documents online this month, yet some researches have cautioned
against optimists who say the primary sources will shed light on the
events of 1915.

“Armenia was not a center of anything in 1915,” historian Ara Sarafyan,
the director of the London-based Gomidas Institute, recently told the
Hurriyet Daily News & Economic Review. “The administrative center of
the Russian military and civil governments was in Tbilisi.

That is the place to look for original records. Armenia has bits
and pieces but I doubt members of the Turkish Historical Society
[which hotly disputes Armenian genocide claims] even know where to
begin looking.”

Nonetheless, Amatuni Virabyan, the director of the National Archives
of Armenia, said the documents will include many from 1915 – the year
in which Armenians claim the Ottomans committed a genocide against
their kin during World War I.

“The biggest reason we are transferring our archive to digital format
is to present it to the attention of international researchers; the
complete collection will be online by 2015,” said Virabyan, adding
that their archives were already open to anyone, including a number
of researchers who have already come to visit from Turkey.

Kemal Cicek, an expert on the Armenian Desk of the state-established
Turkish Historical Society, said Turkish historians and researchers
were working on the Armenian archives but added that the documents
there contained little information about 1915.

“It is not important that Armenia has opened their archives. The
documents they have are not originals but copies brought from Russia.

Let the Tashnak archives at the Jerusalem Patriarchate and Boston be
opened. The mentioned archives will reveal the cooperation Tashnaks
had with Great Britain, the United States and other allies [during
World War I],” he said in reference to Turkish claims that rebel
Ottoman Armenians were colluding with the empire’s war-time enemies.

Sarafyan also suggested 1915-related material was to be found in
Jerusalem. “Armenian archives related to the genocide issue are in
Jerusalem. It is where a great deal of the Istanbul Patriarchate’s
records can also be found today regarding the genocide issue. These
materials have been cited by some Armenian historians who had
privileged access to these records in the past. They are therefore
relevant because of their actual content and the fact they have
already been cited by some authors.”

The Gomidas Institute academic also suggested Armenian scholars conduct
research at important Turkish archives such as the military archives
or the Prime Ministry Ottoman Archives.

“Who in Armenia [has worked on] those archives? I am not aware
of anyone from Armenia working in Turkey. If you want to see good
research on the genocide issue based on the Prime Ministry archives,
look at the work of Hilmar Kaiser, Fuat Dundar or Ugur Ungör. Frankly,
the level of scholarship on the Armenian genocide is very poor in
Armenia,” said Sarafyan, who has been working at the State Archives
of the Turkish Prime Ministry.

‘Boston archives limited’

But Sarafyan also disputed Cicek’s assertion that the Boston archives
could shed light on genocide claims.

“The Boston materials are archives of the Armenian Revolutionary
Federation, or ARF. Turkish historians who claim they are relevant
to 1915 are fishing,” he said. “They do not know what is in there,
but it suits them to make such claims. ARF archives in Boston are
limited in terms of the information on 1915. Their organization in
the Ottoman Empire was paralyzed by the Ottoman government, who also
had informants within Armenian ranks. However it would be good to
see what these archives hold.”

The Zoryan Institute collected the private papers of people related
to the events of 1915 in Boston in the 1980s, said Sarafyan.

“A lot of people gave Zoryan their private papers but they have been
kept under lock and key. As a historian and an Armenian, I have always
stated the inaccessibility of these records, especially as they have
been collected from private individuals, is a disgrace,” he said.

The National Archives of Armenia can be viewed online starting in
May at

From: A. Papazian

ARMENIANS TO RALLY IN NYC TO MARK MASSACRE ANNIVERSARY

Bend Bulletin

May 2 2011

By Bulletin wire reports

Published: May 01. 2011 4:00AM PST Members of New Jersey’s sizable
Armenian community are expected to turn out in droves today for a
ceremony in Times Square commemorating the 96th anniversary of the
massacre of more than 1 million Armenians in what is now Turkey during
World War I.

The killings were carried out by the Ottoman Empire. The Republic of
Turkey, the successor state of the empire, has steadfastly denied the
word “genocide” is an accurate description of the events. Armenians
say their ancestors were rounded up and brutally forced into exile
in what today is Syria. Many died along the way.

In the U.S., a powerful Armenian community centered in Los Angeles has
been pressing for years for Congress to condemn the Armenian massacre.

Turkey, which cut military ties to France over a similar action,
has reacted with angry threats. A bill to that effect nearly passed
in the fall of 2007, gaining a majority of co-sponsors and passing
a committee vote. But the Bush administration, noting that Turkey is
a critical ally pressed for the bill to be withdrawn, and it was.

From: A. Papazian

REMEMBERING THE GENOCIDE
Kris Craig

Providence Journal

May 2 2011
RI

Carrying a wreath, Christina Zaroogian and Vanessa Ghazarian lead
the opening procession to the Armenian Martyrs’ Memorial at the North
Burial Ground in Providence on Sunday. More than 300 people assembled
to once again pay tribute to the 1.5 million Armenian “martyrs” who
suffered and died in what has been called the Armenian genocide of
1915. Those who attended ranged from toddlers to people in their 90s,
as well as clergy and politicians. Providence’s three Armenian churches
performed a prayer service complete with the singing of hymns and a
laying of wreaths at the monument to those who were massacred.

The ceremony came a week after the 96th anniversary of the date
when the Turkish Ottoman Empire began its years-long effort, during
World War I, to deport and eliminate the Armenian minority from
their ancestral homeland. The genocide began on April 24, 1915,
the day that Ottoman authorities rounded up and arrested about 250
Armenian intellectuals and community leaders in Constantinople. The
guest speaker at the annual remembrance ceremony was Peter Kougasian,
veteran assistant district attorney in New York City.

From: A. Papazian