Author: Andres-Papazian

Hurriyet Daily News, Turkey
Sept 1 2014

Low turnout shows Turkish expats ‘reluctant to delve into Turkey’s politics’

Barçýn Yinanç

When it comes to day-to-day politics, Turks abroad generally choose to
be active in their countries of residence rather than in Turkey, says
researcher Kerem Öktem, explaining why only 10 percent voted in the
recent presidential elections

Turkey’s diaspora policy is more inclusive than it was before 2002,
when the Justice and Development Party came to power, but it remains
exclusive to many groups, says Kerem Öktem. HÜRRÝYET photo / Selçuk
ÞAMÝLOÐLU

Turks living abroad feel empowered by a strong leader like Recep
Tayyip Erdoðan but when it comes to day to day matters they are
reluctant to be active in Turkey’s internal politics, says researcher
Kerem Öktem, discussing the low turnout among overseas Turks in the
recent presidential elections.

Turks abroad are seen by the government as an asset in their own
right, but there is also tendency to use them for internal politics,
according to Öktem, whose policy report titled “Turkey’s New Diaspora
Policy: The Challenge of Inclusivity, Outreach and Capacity” focuses
on the work of the Presidency for Turks Abroad and Related
Communities, which was established in 2010.

What distinguishes the Justice and Development Party (AKP)
government’s approach to the Turkish diaspora from its precedents?

I was born in Germany. So I also had experience of the Turkish state’s
perspective on the diaspora in the 1970s, 80s and 90s. Turks abroad,
especially in Western Europe, were seen as people who you weren’t
particularly proud of. They were guest workers, they were not very
well educated, they were seen as tarnishing the image of Turkey
abroad. The understanding of Turkey then was that Turkey is a modern
country, it’s not an Islamic country, and these people somehow spoiled
that kind of image of the modern Turkish nation.

But then I also saw how Kurds abroad were treated with extreme
suspicion by the state, of course. And then when it came to the
non-Muslim communities, the state looked at them with even more
suspicion. So generally the Turks abroad were seen as a problem.

Now the AKP, of course, comes from a very different political
tradition. They’ve been reinventing Turkey and the Turkish state, and
they’ve done this by placing much more emphasis on the common people
in this country, the culture they come from, the religious culture
they have been brought up with. In 2002, a political movement came in
that saw these people in Germany as their own. So suddenly the massive
distance that was there between Turks abroad and the Turkish state
seems to have diminished.

When you talk about the Turkish diaspora, in what sense do you use it?

I have taken the broadest definition of diaspora, meaning people who
are related to Turkey in one way or the other, either by citizenship
or by ex-citizenship. This is because a lot of Turks abroad had to
give up their citizenship, or for historical reasons, especially when
it comes to the Armenians or the Greeks, for instance.

Is this also the understanding of the state?

I don’t think the state has a clear definition of what the diaspora
means for them. If you ask Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoðlu, he would
say that everybody who feels a link to Turkey is part of Turkey’s
diaspora. When you ask the presidency, they also have that definition
up to a point, but they also work at times with Azerbaijani diaspora
organizations that would like to do anything to work against the
Armenians. So the state’s perspective has a very differentiated,
conjectural understanding of the diaspora, which changes over time but
at the moment is much more inclusive than it was in the 1990s or 80s.

Let’s elaborate the state’s approach to the diaspora.

Well actually when you look at the presidency there’s obviously a very
strong emphasis on the Turkish diaspora in Europe. These are mostly
migrant workers, the guest workers.

There is also the Turkic element in Central Asia, and then there’s
also the wider Muslim world that is very important in the
understanding of the presidency.

At one point in your research there’s also mention of Somalis.

Well now we will see much more of this because with Davutoðlu we have
a true pan-Islamist thinker and ideologue. I think this has also
shaped the presidency in many ways. There is a sense of Muslim
pan-Islamist solidarity and a sense of pan-Islamist leadership by
Turkey of the Islamic world, which I think permeates the ideology of
the presidency. So for the presidency the diaspora is a catch-all
phrase, but it has a lot to do with the projection of Turkish power.
So having a Somali in the journal (of the presidency) for instance
gives the hint that Turkey wants to be more than a nation state.

So the aim goes beyond reaching out to Turks living abroad.

You can think of these as concentric circles, in the center you have
the aim to improve the quality of life and empower your citizens
abroad, give them opportunities, make sure that they don’t lose their
connection to the homeland, etc. In the second concentric circle you
have these larger aims of how Turkey wants to see itself and that’s
part of its diaspora policy. You have pan-Islamic ideas, “let’s reach
out to the Islamic world, let’s appear as a leader there,” and there’s
also a neo-Ottoman understanding and a strong showing in the Balkans.
The third circle, I think, is more about day-to-day politics. The
presidency played a central role in the mobilization of voters for the
Aug. 10 presidential elections. It played a major role in organizing
events at which Recep Tayyip Erdoðan spoke.

So you have the most legitimate aim in the center; then you have this
slightly fuzzy, unclear, slightly problematic ideological complex; and
then you have these day-to-day politics, which we saw in the
presidential election.

The diaspora is also increasingly becoming more of a part of foreign policy.

It’s part of a larger understanding of Turkey’s foreign policy as a
much more constructive undertaking. This includes soft power. The
diaspora policy becomes part of this, let’s say, imaginative foreign
policy, which brings a lot of different aspects together. But while it
is imaginative it also takes on a lot of risks.

It is a bit of a fantasy, because it is trying to be everything.

All of these are very ambitious policies, so in that respect it’s a
fantasy. But at the same time it’s also a very imaginative view of
different foreign policy tools. It’s forward-looking and, actually, it
is what countries like the United States do. But in Turkey we see that
there’s a big mismatch between the means and the goals, both in the
foreign policy in general and in the diaspora policy part of this.

Can you elaborate on that?

The Turkish government is trying to do a lot of things for a lot of
people, and some of those things might not agree with each other. You
include the Armenians and the Greeks as part of our diaspora, but at
the same time you collaborate with Azerbaijan, working against the
Armenians.

So how are you going to square the circle? You have this imperial
understanding of basically almost everything is our diaspora, but then
when you want to bring it down to policies, it’s almost impossible.
Sometimes it’s even counterproductive because you have to work with
groups that have little to say to each other. This is a big risk, but
at the same time it’s also a great opportunity. If Turkey had a truly
inclusive diaspora policy, it could really change relations between
Turks, Kurds and Armenians, and it could contribute to a more peaceful
relationship between those groups both in the countries where they
live and in Turkey.

You have defined the ideology of the presidency as socially
conservative, religiously Muslim, culturally nostalgic, ethnically
cosmopolitan and potentially post-nationalist.

I asked all these people working in the presidency: How can you be
both pan-Islamist and pan-Turanist and believe in citizenship rights?
These are all different traditions that don’t really overlap. One of
the leaders there said, “Well this is also about emotions, and if
people feel emotionally tied to Turkey then that’s enough for us.” But
you cannot quantify that, what is that? It is part of Turkey’s foreign
policy and it reflects the weaknesses of that foreign policy. The
diaspora policy is too ambitious, it is trying too many things.

So we need a more focused diaspora policy.

Right now the goals are all very mixed. It goes without saying that
citizens in Western Europe are the most important part, but then again
our understanding of citizenship has changed in Turkey. Citizenship
now is defined by being a pious Sunni Muslim. Historically it was
defined, in the words of academic Baskýn Oran, as “Secular Hanefi
Sunni Muslim Turk” Now that has changed, it can include Kurds, but it
excludes Alevis and secular Turks. They feel quite excluded by the
presidency’s policies.

To wrap up, let’s start with the positive aspect of Turkey’s diaspora policy.

The positive side is that people abroad who have ties with Turkey are
seen as an asset. This is potentially empowering. For someone who has
been living in Germany, who hasn’t had many opportunities and who has
experienced serious racism in European immigrant receiving countries,
it makes a big difference if you feel like your country of origin
stands behind you. It makes a big difference in people’s
self-understanding as well. Having the feeling that Turkey is behind
them makes them more confident, which overall is a good thing.

Secondly, having Turkish cultural centers and programs to organize
Turks abroad in principle is a very good idea, as long as it is
inclusive. I also think the idea of not looking at Turks through a
strict ethnic perspective, which was there at the foundation of the
Turkish Republic, actually also engages with non-Muslim communities.
This has great potential if it’s used well.

So Turkey’s diaspora policy is more inclusive than it was before 2002,
but it’s also still exclusive to many other groups.

Which brings us to the challenges.

The negatives are also many, as are the risks. As we saw in the
presidential elections, there is a tendency to use Turks living abroad
for internal politics because there are many Turks in Western Europe.
Still, the participation rate among Turks abroad was very low. This
shows that Turks feel empowered by a strong leader like Erdoðan, but
when it comes to day-to-day politics they generally choose to be
active in their countries of residence rather than in Turkey. That’s
why they had a participation rate of only 10 percent.

So you don’t ascribe the low participation rate to technical difficulties.

No, because especially the presidency tried very hard to push this
forward. And that’s the danger: When you look to Turks abroad as a
political mass that you can manipulate for your own interest – such as
to get Erdoðan elected, or to further Turkish national interests
abroad – then you also bring these people into disrepute with their
countries of residence.

Who is Kerem Öktem

Kerem Öktem is Mercator-IPC fellow at Sabancý University’s Istanbul
Policy Center, and Research Fellow at Oxford University’s European
Studies Centre. His main interests lie in the connection between
domestic politics and foreign policy, nationalism, the politics of
ethnic, religious, and sexual minorities and social movements in
Turkey.

He completed his PhD at the School of Geography, Oxford, in 2006, with
a thesis on “nation-building in Turkey as a socio-spatial project”
(Geographies of Nationalism). Preceding his doctoral studies, he
obtained a M.St. in Modern Middle Eastern Studies at the Faculty for
Oriental Studies at Oxford in 2001, where he also teaches as an
Associate Faculty Member. Before his residence in Oxford, he studied
and worked in Germany in the field of urban studies.

This September, he will assume the professorial Chair for Southeast
European and Turkish Studies at the University of Graz, Austria.

From: A. Papazian

Today’s Zaman, Turkey
Sept 1 2014

For `The Cut’ director Akın, art is worth dying for

Turkish-German filmmaker Fatih Akın said that `art is worth dying for’
when asked about death threats he received recently from
ultranationalist groups for his newest film `The Cut,’ which premiered
on Sunday in competition at this year’s Venice Film Festival.

Speaking at a press conference in Venice before his film’s hotly
anticipated premiere, Akın told reporters that he received hate mail
and threats on Twitter from an ultranationalist, pan-Turkist
periodical after the Turkish-Armenian newspaper Agos published an
interview with him on July 30 about his new film, which focuses on the
plight of Ottoman Armenians who were uprooted from their villages
during World War I and sent on death marches into the desert or
conscripted into forced labor gangs.

The last in what Akın calls his `Love, Death and the Devil’ trilogy,
`The Cut’ follows the fictional story of an Armenian blacksmith named
Nazaret Manoogian, who is separated from his wife and twin daughters
during atrocities against Ottoman Armenians in 1915 and later, after
the Ottomans’ defeat in the war, sets out on a journey around the
world to find them.

`Art is worth dying for,’ Akın said during Sunday’s press conference,
adding: `I spent the past seven or eight years preparing myself for
all the controversy this film would stir and I’m now ready to face it.
All I can say is that I did receive threats but I really don’t want to
dwell on this matter,’ the DoÄ?an news agency reported.

Following its Venice premiere, `The Cut’ is slated for an October
release in Germany. A Turkish theatrical release date has yet to be
announced for the film.

Creating empathy on the screen

But as the threats he received even before the film’s world premiere
prove, the film might bring more controversy for Akın after its
Turkish release. So, he conceded, `One trick I used was I took the
genocide on the Native Americans and used it just as a snap of an
idea, you know, so that even people who deny the fact of the genocide
of the Armenians can identify themselves with the hero in that moment,
to reflect about it later,’ Reuters reported.

Akın was referring to a scene in which Nazaret, who ends up working on
a railroad construction crew in North Dakota, is brutally beaten with
a shovel when he intervenes to stop one of the workers raping a Native
American woman.

Co-written by Akın and Mardik Martin and shot on a budget of 15
million euros, `The Cut’ stars French-Algerian heartthrob Tahar Rahim
as Nazaret, who travels from Aleppo to Havana and then to North Dakota
in search of his missing girls.

The character in the film does not just take a physical journey
though, Akın said. There is a `spiritual part to it as well. Tahar
Rahim’s character gradually loses his faith but later on he discovers
a different kind of spiritualism. I have been on a spiritual quest
myself [at some point in my life], and that led me to create the
character Nazaret,’ Akın said.

Akın’s co-scriptwriter Martin was also in attendance at the press
conference, along with cast members Rahim, Lara Heller, Hindi Zahra,
Makram Khoury and Simon Abkarian.

`The film that Fatih made is the film that Armenians have been waiting
for,’ Abkarian said at the press conference. `It took time. The first
generation had to survive, the second generation had to live and the
third generation had to react and claim what we had to claim, which is
the recognition of the genocide, most of it. And I think that one film
is never enough to tell such a story, we have to make more.’

Critical reception for `The Cut’ was lukewarm, with Variety’s Jay
Weissberg calling it a drama that `had all the makings of a majestic
adventure picture, yet falters with its pedestrian script and
mise-en-scène’ while The Hollywood Reporter called it `an ambitious
but only intermittently stirring historical epic.’

The Guardian’s Peter Bradshaw said Akın’s story was compassionately
handled, but the film lacked the subtlety of the director’s earlier,
non-English language work.

`A big, ambitious, continent-spanning piece of work, concerned to show
the Armenian horror was absorbed into the bloodstream of
immigrant-descended population in the United States, but it is a
little simplistic emotionally, especially in its latter half,’
Bradshaw wrote.

Hard-hitting global issues on big screen in Venice

The Venice Film Festival has earned a reputation over the decades for
tackling controversial political and social issues head on, and this
year has been no exception. Other festival films that touch upon such
issues include a documentary, `The Look of Silence,’ about massacres
in Indonesia in the mid-1960s where death squads killed as many as 1.5
million people in purges following a failed communist coup. The
Iranian film `Ghesseha’ (Tales) looks at hardships of life in Tehran
that its director, Rakhshan Bani-Etemad, said are in part the result
of harsh international sanctions. `Loin des Hommes’ (Far from Men) is
set at the beginning of the Algerian war against French colonial rule
in the 1950s and stars Viggo Mortensen as a former major in the French
army who is teaching in a school in a remote part of the Atlas
Mountains. He is forced into a life-or-death desert trek with an Arab
villager, played by Reda Kateb, that makes them overcome cultural
distrust and learn to rely on one another. Mortensen said he thought
it was the most powerful, and even subversive, film about the Algerian
conflict since Gillo Pontecorvo’s famous `The Battle of Algiers’ of
1966. `There’s nothing nowadays more subversive than loving and
showing compassion and meeting in the middle,’ Mortensen said. `It
seems so difficult for people to do, more and more, so I think it’s
very subversive in that sense.’ Venice Reuters

From: A. Papazian

Wall Street Journal, NY
Sept 1 2014

A Christian Prisoner in Iran

Pastor Farshid Fathi shares a cell with common criminals.

Iran’s leaders are preparing for another visit to New York this month
for the U.N. General Assembly, but many of their citizens aren’t going
anywhere as they languish in the regime’s prisons for political
crimes. One notable case is Farshid Fathi, an evangelical Christian
pastor who this week will spend his 35th birthday in jail.

The intelligence ministry arrested Pastor Fathi in December 2010. The
father of two then spent a year in solitary and semi-solitary
confinement in Evin prison’s Ward 209, reserved for political cases.
There he was interrogated for hours on end and subjected to
psychological abuse, according to an Iranian Christian convert who has
also spent time in prison for his beliefs, currently resides in the
country and is familiar with Pastor Fathi’s case.

A Tehran revolutionary court in February 2012 convicted Pastor Fathi
of acting against national security and sentenced him to six years
including time served. More recently he has been transferred to Rajai
Shahr prison on the outskirts of Tehran, where he is sharing a cell
with addicts and other common criminals who routinely harass and
threaten him. When he inquired about the reason for this latest
transfer, the pastor was told that it was because he sang Christian
hymns.

The Iranian regime knows the political value of punishment and
humiliation all-too well, and in Pastor Fathi’s case his harsh
imprisonment is meant to send a message to his followers. Iran’s
traditional Christian communities, such as Orthodox Armenians and
Assyrians, are protected under the Islamic Republic’s constitution as
so-called People of the Book. Their daily lives are subject to various
legal restrictions, however. Their schools and church activities are
closely watched, and they can’t lead most public institutions.

Converts to Christianity receive harsher treatment since Tehran’s
authoritarians won’t tolerate Shiites leaving the official religion.
Apostasy is punishable by death under Shariah law, and
Persian-language Bibles are banned (though contraband editions can be
purchased in some bookstores). Yet the Internet has made it
increasingly difficult for Tehran to root out evangelical
Christianity, and the movement by some estimates claims up to 500,000
Iranian believers.

Islamic State fighters in Syria and Iraq have recently given the world
a display of brutal vigilantism against minority religions. Pastor
Fathi’s case is a reminder that persecution also is conducted by
long-established states, a truth to keep in mind as the world’s
leaders sit down to tea with Iran’s dictators.

From: A. Papazian

i24 News, Israel
Sept 1 2014

Israeli drone in Iran: fact or fiction?

Security expert says features of the drone Iran claimed it shot down
are not compatible with its alleged model

Did Iran really shoot down a drone sent by Israel last month to spy on
its nuclear facilities?

Patrick Megahan, a research analyst of the militaryedge.org website at
the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told the Jerusalem Post
that the images published by Iran of the downed UAV could indicate
they were faked.

For one, the remnants do not match those of any known Israeli UAV, said Megahan.

“There is a clear hole at the tip of the nose” on the drone that Iran
claimed it shot down, but “the Hermes 450 has a smooth nose with some
kind of rectangular openings on the top and bottom, which are absent
on this drone,” Megahan told The Post.

In fact, the aircraft that Iran claims to have shot down “actually
resembles an Iranian developed Shahed 129 drone more than any known
Israeli one,” added Megahan.

Second, the military research analyst points out that Iran’s claim
that the drone was on its way to the Natanz uranium enrichment plant
is dubious, since it is almost 1,600 kilometers from Israel and well
out of the range of both the Hermes 180 and 450.

“There is speculation that it could be a an Azeri owned Hermes drone,
but again, Natanz is too far from Azerbaijan for those models to
reach, loiter overtop to collect intelligence, and then return,” he
said.

Third, Megahan says that Israel has larger, more capable drones like
the Heron TP, which “would be better suited for this type of
operation.”

Members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard claimed the downed drone had a
range of 800 kms and is radar evading, but neither of the Hermes
models in Israel’s arsenal has such a capability, he told The Post.

Iranian officials published a video clip of the downed drone that
appeared to show that it was a Hermes 450. Iran said the aircraft had
taken off from a country on its northern border, although stopped
short of identifying which of the three possible countries — Armenia,
Azerbaijan or Turkmenistan- it was referring to.

Tehran announced that it would “accelerate” arming Palestinians in the
occupied West Bank in retaliation for Israel deploying the spy drone
over Iran.

“We will accelerate the arming of the West Bank and we reserve the
right to give any response,” said General Amir-Ali Hajizadeh,
commander of aerial forces of Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards.

From: A. Papazian

Armenia needs to maintain its sovereignty inside Customs Union (video)

19:34 | September 1,2014 | Politics

The announcement of Nursultan Nazarbayev, President of Kazakhstan, a
founding member of the Customs Union, reflects a healthy way of
thinking of a leader who puts his country’s interests above everything
else, Secretary of the Heritage party said on Monday.

Tevan Poghosyan calls on Armenian authorities to follow suit. “Armenia
should understand its interests, avoid becoming a tool on the path to
the Customs Union and defending the interests of other countries,” he
said.

Nursultan Nazarbayev announced that if the provisions of the CU
agreement are not met, Kazakhstan may suspend its membership.

“Astana will never be included in the list of organizations that pose
a threat to Kazakhstan’s independence. Nazarbayev made the statement
after Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that Nursultan
Nazarbayev had done an incredible thing by creating a state in a
territory that had never had a state before. “Kazakhs never had any
statehood, he has created it,” said Putin.”

Tevan Poghosyan says Putin’s statement was not accidental and believes
that the reasons for the announcement will be clear in the near
future. He thinks that Armenia should not interfere in the relations
of Russia and Kazakhstan; Armenia can only follow developments.

“Let us not forget that Kazakhstan is a country that is more concerned
about the interests of our enemy, Azerbaijan, than those of Armenia,”
he stressed.

Asked whether Armenia might be subjected to similar pressure, Mr
Poghosyan said there has been such a case when they threatened to
close Upper Lars. The Heritage representative reminds that Armenia
needs to maintain its sovereignty inside the CU. “Sovereignty allows
you to determine your own destiny and solve your problems by
yourself,” he said.

Earlier on Monday, Vladimir Putin ordered to sign the Treaty of
Accession of the Republic of Armenia to the Treaty on the Eurasian
Economic Union.

From: A. Papazian

Azerbaijani side was hiding the fact of detaining Armenian?

20:02, 01.09.2014

Azerbaijan’s authorities said a citizen of Armenia has been taken
captive. The reports were spread by Azerbaijani media on August 26,
but the official confirmation came on Monday.

“Ananyan crossed the border in the direction of Kemerli village of
Gazakh Region and was detained by the servicemen of one of military
units of Azerbaijani armed forces,” the official statement reads.

Azerbaijani officials say Armenian citizen crossed the border because
of being dissatisfied with the social conditions.

“The detained citizen of Armenia is currently under medical
supervision, and he is treated in accordance with the rules defined by
the international law,” Azerbaijan’s Defense Ministry said.

The Armenian side is verifying the message and is clarifying the
identity of a man.

However, the report by the Azerbaijani media and Defense Ministry
contain apparent inconsistencies. The detainee was presented as “a
saboteur” in Azerbaijani media and now appeared to be “a disappointed”
citizen. The media said an Armenian man came to the village, spent 20
minutes there and was taken away by the military. The official
statement said that he was detained by the military.

Ananyan spent a week in captivity, and the Azerbaijani state agencies
were silent. Therefore, the Azerbaijani authorities tried to hide the
fact of taking a captive.

There are examples when Azerbaijani were dentying the fact of stay of
Armenians on their territory, so as not to let the International
Committee of the Red Cross visit the captive.

Resident of Chinari village Karen Petrosyan was immediately declared
“a saboteur” on August 7, and on the next day they reported about the
death of a prisoner.

From: A. Papazian

Karabakh In Next NATO Summit

Naira Hayrumyan, Political Commentator
Comments – 01 September 2014, 18:09

NATO summits called twice a year are an important platform for the
future world order which is determined by the security system. Now the
only real security system in the world is NATO and the latter’s
attitude to different processes and developments often has a
significant role in their developments.

The Armenian president attended the NATO summit in April 2008 in
Bucharest. It was immediately after Serzh Sargsyan’s inauguration, on
the wave of “foreign political initiative and activeness”.

Then everything changed, initiative diminished, dependence increased.
Armenia started implementing its policy agreeing it with Russia which
was slowly but steadily moving along the path of confrontation with
NATO. Though NATO-Russia relations were maintained, this year the
Russian minister of defense Sergey Shoygu declared NATO a threat to
Russia’s security.

Serzh Sargsyan refused to attend the NATO summits, 2010 in Lisbon and
2012 in Chicago. Sargsyan did not go to Lisbon referring to the
unacceptable wording in the draft declaration on South Caucasian
conflicts.

“A reference to only one principle proclaimed by the OSCE may be a
negative signal and create additional obstacles to the process of
negotiations over the Karabakh settlement, especially against the
background of unprecedented growth of Azerbaijan’s military spending
and anti-Armenian statements by its government,” it was announced
then.

Almost the same wording was used to not attend the summit in Chicago
in 2012. The decision to not take part in the summit was made due to
disagreement to the draft declaration of the alliance on the
resolution of regional conflicts which is unacceptable for Armenia.

The next summit will take place on September 4-5 in Wales. Armenia has
not published the members of the delegation, and it is not ruled out
that Yerevan will not attend the summit at all. Although, the U.K.
Ambassador to Great Britain Katherine Leach has expressed hope that
Armenia will be represented at the level of the president.

It is not known whether the draft resolution of the summit is ready or
not and what wording on the Karabakh issue it contains. Will NATO
change its attitude to the Karabakh settlement? So far NATO insisted
on territorial integrity, and it will most probably continue,
especially in relation to Ukraine. Will there be other wording on the
Karabakh conflict?

Political scientists say the relations between Armenia and the West
would not be normalized because the West does not give Armenia
guarantees of security and does not display approaches that stem from
the interests of Armenia.

Recently the West and Kaabakh have been demonstrating a more priority
approach to the Karabakh settlement.

It is possible to mentioned the establishment of parliamentary and
other relations between some EU member states, the recognition of
independence of Artsakh by five U.S. states, as well as direct
accusations against Azerbaijan regarding recent escalation in
Karabakh.

Is all this sufficient to consider security guarantees? It is
interesting to know whether Turkey will allow such wording on Karabakh
in the NATO concluding resolution that is favorable for Armenia.

From: A. Papazian

French lawmaker: Confidence in Karabakh is growing

14:37, 01.09.2014

Continuing efforts of Nagorno-Karabakh, restraint in overcoming
difficulties and caution towards unstable neighborhood have
increasingly improved the credibility of Nagorno-Karabakh, French MP
François Rochebloine said.

“Thanks to the constant efforts of successive governments of your
young republic, a new generation of Karabakhi people can yield the
fruits of peace and live safely,” Rochebloine said in his message on
the anniversary of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic.

Rochebloine, head of Armenia-France parliamentary friendship group,
said the evidence of growing international confidence in
Nagorno-Karabakh is adoption of the resolution by California Senate.

He wished that Karabakh could keep the way of the political, economic
and social development by strengthening the international recognition
of NKR and ensuring the well-being of the country.

From: A. Papazian

Armenia’s consumer prices rise 0.7 percent in August

YEREVAN, September 1. /ARKA/. Consumer prices rose by 0.7% in Armenia
in August compared to the month before, ArmStat reported.

The increase was mainly caused by 2.2% rise in prices for services,
according to the report.

Prices for foodstuffs (including alcohol and tobacco) hiked by 1.1% in
the period, nonfood prices dropped by 0.3%.

The year-on-year consumer price index was 100.8% in August. Price
index was 100.3% for foods (including alcohol and tobacco), 100.7% for
nonfoods and 101.8% for services.

The 2014 budget projection for inflation is 4% (±1.5%). -0–

From: A. Papazian

Premier explains why Russia PM’s Armenia visit is canceled

12:21, 01.09.2014

Russian Federation Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev will not visit
Armenia on September 8 and 9, since the discussion of Armenia’s
Eurasian Economic Union (EaEU) accession-related matters has been
transferred to the presidents’ domain, and it will be discussed at the
meeting of the EaEU member states (Russia, Kazakhstan, and Belarus),
which will be held on October 10 in Belarusian capital city Minsk.

Armenian Prime Minister Hovik Abrahamyan told the abovementioned to
several reporters on Monday.

“There was an agreement that the PMs [of the EaEU member states] would
visit Armenia and we would carry out that function. [But] now, it has
been transferred to the presidents’ domain.

“As you know, [Kazakhstan President Nursultan] Nazarbayev announced
that the presidents will assemble on October 10 in Minsk,” the Armenia
PM said.

From: A. Papazian