Author: Andres-Papazian

EDWARD NALBANDIAN: OSCE FIELD ASSESSMENT MISSION HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THE UN

“Radiolur”
04.10.2010 18:10

“There are no issues in relations with Georgia, which cannot be
settled through negotiations and meetings,” Armenian Foreign Minister
Edward Nalbandian said at a joint press conference with his Georgian
counterpart Grigol Vashadze.

The Armenian Foreign Minister noted that trade turnover between
Georgia and Armenia increased 50% in the course of the first nine
months of 2010 as compared to the same period in 2009 and there is
the possibility to increase this index by the end of the year up to
USD 200mln. He positively assessed this “positive dynamics,” adding
that this year over 300 thousand tourists from Armenia visited Georgia.

“The OSCE field assessment mission, that will arrive in the region to
carry out monitoring in the liberated territories surrounding Artsakh,
has nothing to do with the UN or the draft resolution submitted by
Azerbaijan,” Armenian Foreign Minister stated.

proposal suggested by Azerbaijan in that institution, informed the
Armenian Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian, today on the press
conference, noting that on this mission will participate one or two
experts of one of the UN institutions.

“This is the mission of the OSCE Minsk Group Co-chairs, only
representatives from UNHCR Office will accompany the mediators as
technical experts,” Minister Nalbandian said, adding that “the mission
aims to study the situation in the region.” “You know that two of the
Co-Chairs are new and they will use this opportunity to get detailed
information about the situation on those territories,” he said.

“Georgian authorities have not made any oral or written commands on
closing Upper Lars checkpoint. The closure of the checkpoint during
the recent days was due to technical problems,” Georgian Foreign
Minister Grigol Vashadze told a press conference in Yerevan today.

Armenian FM Edward Nalbandian said they had discussed the issue with
his Georgian counterpart earlier today and the latter explained the
checkpoint had been closed due to technical problems and vowed it
will open within several hours.

From: A. Papazian

The Jamestown Foundation

EURASIA DAILY MONITOR

Tuesday, September 28, 2010-Volume 7, Issue 174

US POLICY IN SOUTH CAUCASUS — THE REAL TARGET OF US AMBASSADOR’S OPPONENTS

by Vladimir Socor

Wrenching as it is to American and international audiences, the ad
hominem assault on the US Ambassador-designate to Azerbaijan during the
Senate confirmation process aims far beyond the nominee. Matthew Bryza
and his spouse are the incidental targets in this attempt to undermine
US-Azerbaijan and US-Turkey relations. The militant Armenian National
Committee of America (ANCA) has orchestrated this effort with two allied
Senators during the US mid-term election campaign.

The post of US ambassador in Baku has been vacant since July 2009.
US-based Armenian advocacy groups such as ANCA are interested in
prolonging that hiatus. They seek to affect US policy by leveraging
their capacity for obstruction. Their Congressional allies are in effect
rewarding the radical political element, closely linked with the
irredentist Dashnaktsutiun (Armenian Revolutionary Federation), within
the larger Armenian diaspora.

On September 21, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee recommended to
the full Senate to approve Bryza’s nomination. The vote was 17
in favor and two opposed, after a grueling July 22 hearing, with an
extensive follow-up of written questions and answers in the ensuing two
months. The two dissenters, Democratic Senators Barbara Boxer of
California and Robert Menendez of New Jersey, proceeded on September 22
to place a hold on the nomination, thus preventing it from reaching the
Senate floor for a confirmation vote.

The process seems blocked for months to come. Not long ago, Menendez
single-handedly blocked the Senate confirmation of the US
ambassador-designate to Armenia, career diplomat Richard Hoagland, for
two years, until the George W. Bush administration withdrew that
nomination. Menendez wanted the nominee to break with US policy and
recognize an Armenian genocide in Ottoman Turkey 1915-1918
–although such a gesture could by general reckoning gravely
damage US-Turkey relations.

Whether Senators Boxer and Menendez espouse any coherent strategic
vision regarding the South Caucasus seems doubtful in light of their
record. Their stance is primarily linked with US electoral arithmetic.
Boxer faces a tough challenge to her Senate seat this coming November in
California; whereas Menendez chairs the Democratic Party’s
Senatorial Campaign Committee, with a direct stake in the outcome of the
upcoming mid-term elections. For similar reasons, the Obama
administration seems to tolerate the blocking of its own nominee by
these Senators from its own party, presumably until after the elections.

The questions to Bryza thus far have been answered to the apparent
satisfaction of all but these two committee members. The hostile
questions have generally echoed ANCA’s prosecutorial press
releases; and were then played up again by the same organization to its
own voting-bloc constituency (ANCA media releases, September 13, 14, 21,
22).

For example, the nominee has been criticized for failing to condemn
Azerbaijani positions or endorse Armenian positions, in his role as
co-chairman of the tripartite mediating group (Russia-US-France) on the
Karabakh conflict. Such criticism, however, ignores a mediator’s
obligation to remain impartial as long as the negotiating process
continues; lest his mission (and, thus, the status of the US as
mediator) be disqualified. Bryza has also been aggressively confronted
with criticism of two US Administrations’ decisions since 2002
to waive (suspend for one year at a time) Section 907 of the
`Freedom Support Act,’ which places significant
constraints on US government-to-government relations with Azerbaijan
(`Ambassadorial Vacancy Disables US Policy in Azerbaijan and
Beyond,’ EDM, September 28).

His detractors have wrongly accused the nominee of maintaining relations
one-sidedly with Azeri and Turkish officials. The decade-long record
shows, however, that Bryza has carefully cultivated equidistant
relations with Baku and Ankara as well as Yerevan, being equally welcome
in the three capitals, and also in Tbilisi. Few US officials in any
region of the world, and none in this region, enjoy comparable access at
the highest levels of all the governments involved, and the insights
based on such access. As the confirmation process moved into high gear,
a US-based Greek Cypriot advocacy group joined ANCA in opposing
Bryza’s nomination. The Cyprus Action Network of America (media
release, September 13) accuses Bryza of supporting the then-UN Secretary
General Kofi Annan’s 2007 proposals to resolve the Cyprus
conflict and overcome the island’s division. In this case as
well, the nominee had represented the US government’s policy.

Bryza’s spouse, the scholar Zeyno Baran, has been accused during
the confirmation process over her Turkish origin and supposed
`official connections’ in that country; whereas in
reality, Baran’s published work has criticized what she regards
as flaws in the post-2002 Turkish government’s policies. It is
unprecedented in US politics to attack a public official with reference
to the spouse’s origin, membership in editorial boards of
journals, past work on energy policy (a topic on which Baran’s
work is consistent with US and EU declared energy policies), and even
over their wedding.

One influential US editorial page has listed Boxer sarcastically as a
Senator from Armenia (`Barbara Boxer, D –
Armenia,’ The Wall Street Journal, September 20) for blocking
the Bryza nomination. However, the government of Armenia has not joined
this battle at all. Yerevan has worked reasonably well with Bryza in his
previous capacities as US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State and
co-chair of the mediating group in the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict.

In the US Armenian diaspora, the mainstream American Assembly of America
(AAA) has also stopped short of opposing Bryza’s nomination.
While promoting Armenian interests against Azerbaijan during the
confirmation process as always, the AAA did not attack the nomination,
and refrained from welcoming the hold on it. Instead, the AAA found
significant points of agreement in the US position on the Karabakh
conflict, as represented by Bryza under top-level State Department
instructions, both before and during the confirmation process (AAA media
release, September 22).

By seeking to block and derail this nomination, ANCA and its supporters
are actually attempting to change US policy on the South Caucasus, in
line with ANCA’s uncompromising nationalist politics. They have
targeted Bryza precisely for representing US policy loyally and
impartially, during more than ten years of work on the South Caucasus.

— Vladimir Socor

From: A. Papazian

Criminal case initiated on deliberate and fictitious bankruptcy

A1Plus.am
01 0ct 2010

The State Interests Protection Department of the RA General
Prosecutor’s Office has initiated a criminal case on deliberate and
fictitious bankruptcy committed by the head of the “Haykartat” Ltd.

By examining the materials prepared by the Investigation Department of
the RA State Revenue Committee it has turned out that the tax
obligation of the “Haykartat” Ltd. to the State Budget was 244 951 300
drams included the fines and penalties based on the decision of the RA
Administrative Court made on December 25, 2008 which the head and
founder of the company A. Ajamoghlyan didn’t pay and applied to the
Court to declare the company bankrupt.

On February 2, 2009 the RA Southern Civil Court declared the company
bankrupt. On July 30, 2009 the process of bankruptcy was completed and
the company liquidated.
During the investigation the head of the company has stated that he
didn’t fulfill about 250 million tax obligations in 2007 which brought
the company to liquidation.

Based on the explanation given by A. Ajamoghlyan on July 15, 2010 the
investigation body made a decision on refusing the launch of the
criminal case for there was a lack of formal elements of crime.

However the decision was made ignoring a number of documents and in
particular the Court didn’t consider the fact that in 2006-2009 the
“Haykartat” Ltd. implemented building works of about 380 million drams
for the RA Ministry of Defense. A. Ajamoghlyan cashed a considerable
sum of the money and didn’t fulfill his tax obligations.
Besides by coming to a prior agreement with his uncle M. Grigoryan who
was the founder of “Haykmikh” Ltd., in 2007-2008 A. Ajamoghlyan used
false documents and registered his own personal lot, private house and
bread and woodwork shops in his uncle’s name in order to avoid
property obligation. Then on January 22, 2009 he applied to the Court
with the claim to declare his company bankrupt though there was a lack
of bankruptcy elements.

However not completing the bankruptcy process of the “Haykartat” Ltd
A. Ajamoghlyan registered the shares of the “Haykmikh” Ltd. in his
name and continued the building works of the RA Ministry of Defense.

The bankruptcy manager Kh. Nazaryan didn’t mention the reasons of
bankruptcy and the elements of deliberate bankruptcy in the analyses
of the debtor’s financial condition in the process of bankruptcy as a
result of which a damage of 244 951 300 drams was caused to the State.

Taking into consideration the fact that the materials were prepared
incompletely it has been decided to abolish the decision on initiating
a criminal case made on July 15, 2010 and to initiate a criminal case
according to the RA Criminal Code Articles 193, 38-193, 194, 214 part
2 and 325 part 2. The criminal case has been sent to the General
Investigation Department of the RA Police to carry out the preliminary
investigation of the case.

From: A. Papazian

`IT IS TIME FOR THE LEFT HAND TO BE ACTIVE TOO’

Azat Artsakh Daily
01 Oct 2010
Republic of Nagorno Karabakh [NKR]

In his interview to journalists, Vladimir Movsisyan, first, informed
about his meeting with the NKR Prime Minister and Minister of
Agriculture held on the previous day, at which they discussed the
future development of the agrarian sector, in particular, the issues
of running intensive agricultural activity in the conditions of scarce
resources. V. Movsisyan informed that the NKR land stock exceeded the
resources for their cultivation, noting, at the same time, the reason
of this – we have conducted agricultural works with the left hand for
20 years, defending our homeland with the right hand. But, it is time
for the left hand to be active too in order we can develop the
agricultural sphere with poor manpower (as they are also involved in
other spheres). Referring to the physiocrats, according to which land
is the mother of wealth and labor is its father (by the way, V.
Movsisyan gave, September 7, 2010, an interview to Azat Artsakh
newspaper on these issues), he considers that the wealth’s mother,
that is land, is available, and we should work that it can bear
fruits, otherwise, land becomes simply ground. V. Movsisyan
appreciated the creation of Farmers’ Union in Artsakh. It was agreed
with the NKR Prime Minister that Mr. Movsisyan would arrive in
Karabakh at least once a quarter to jointly discuss the tasks. Having
multi-year agricultural experience, V. Movsisyan considers it
unnecessary to run counter to the world agriculture. Despite our
respect for our forefathers’ tools – spade, scythe, pitchfork, and
others – their time, however, has passed, and we should use modern
technologies, especially refusing of monoculture, i.e. cereals cannot
be sowed in the same place for many years, as rich harvest is
impossible in these conditions, even if the best-quality seeds and
high technologies for cultivation are used. V. Movsisyan believes that
village shouldn’t be separated from agriculture. God forbid that a
calamity occurs, what villages can defend themselves better – those
populated or empty? It’s clear that nobody will defend an empty
village with similar patriotism. Discussions will also take place in
this direction during the future joint works. V. Movsisyan was pleased
to know that the Stepanakert airport would soon start operating. He
shares the NKR President’s belief that others’ opinion should be
ignored. Azerbaijan will, surely, start speaking of this. Mr.
Movsisyan considers it idle talks, «They will speak, and we’ll fly. We
are independent, and if anybody doesn’t believe in this, it is his
defect», he said, urging to make our own cause, keeping step with the
world. The third issue, which worries V.Movsisyan, like the NKR
President, is that if we have no engineering structures, houses, i.e.
we’ll not live on our lands, so we can hardly convince anybody that
these are our historical territories. He thinks there are certain
issues to be resolved in this sphere. V. Movsisyan doesn’t consider
himself a man of rosy dreams who believes in tomorrow’s brightness,
but he is convinced that whatever our way is, the first steps must be
made, as the way starts just with the first steps. «We have made the
first steps today, having agreed that we’ll come here to share our
experience with you and to support you. But, we’ll not take a passive
position, as we are far from passivity. We’ll work with the people to
achieve our goals step by step», he said, addressing the Artsakh
people with the words of poet Hovy Hovhannisyan: «You have endured
much, endure a little more, my dear brother». Mr. Movsisyan is sure
that whatever the situation is, belief, strong will, persistence, and
devotion to the homeland will won.

Svetlana Khachatrian

From: A. Papazian

`To See Ani’, a new film about medieval Armenian capital

By Times.am at 2 October, 2010, 4:10 pm

AZD Production has launched the production of `To See Ani’
documentary, an emotive story based on documentary materials. The film
is dedicated to the medieval and exclusively charming Armenian
capital, the motherland of churches Ani.

The film guarantees an effect of presence for the audience, gives a
detailed and full image of the present condition of Ani, Panorama.am
reports.

Ani is presented not only as an architectural monument but also as an
alive city, a cradle of Armenian special civilization.

The authors of `To See Ani’ documentary are Marina Karapetyan and Mher
Davoyan. The producer of the film is Hayk Harutyunyan.

/Times.am/

From: A. Papazian

ianyan magazine
Oct 2 2010

Impressions of the Armenians of Anatolia

Opinion ‘ By Adam Blumenfeld on October 2, 2010 9:30 am

To many Diaspora Armenians, the idea of Armenians living within the
borders of the Turkish Republic varies from being an irrelevant
factoid to a shocking revelation. The contemporary Armenian national
identity is disproportionately shaped by the genocide of 1915,
epitomized at one extreme by the fiery rhetoric of the contemporary
Dashnak movement, intent on reclaiming land it views as rightfully
Armenian. And yet, paradoxically, little thought is given to the
Armenians already living on that very land.

One day I happened upon a discussion of reparations for the Armenian
genocide online. A group of nationalistic young Armenians were trying
to work out just how much the Armenian state would receive when the
Turks inevitably capitulated to the overwhelming international
consensus that they must repay the Armenians for their crimes with
great swathes of land. The discussion was concluded (for no one saw
fit to respond) by a lone Turkish Armenian:

`I don’t know if Armenians outside Turkey just ever considered how
their hostile actions may result here for us. I believe past is past
and want to live in a stable country which I was born to and grew
up!!!What is the land to do with genocide, that’s why Turkey will
never accept it, because they know that you want the genocide accepted
only for the land. Who’s gone is gone, so who will live in the lands
after Turks move again millions out of their home. Also, how can you
ask for a land, which was never officially ours. There are still many
of us living in different countries, so why not break up from U.S and
make a free Armenian State there??’

Whether this perspective was seen as invalid, unrepresentative, or
alien to the nationalistic Armenian readers is as irrelevant to me as
how nationalistic Turks view Turkey’s various `traitors’. What is
relevant to me is that the Armenians in Turkey be given a voice
divorced from the bravado of the two competing nationalisms that each
seek (in their own ways) to appropriate them for their own devices.

I cannot profess any special insight into the psyche, or any such
exhaustive knowledge, of the Armenians living in Turkey. Indeed, my
primary goal here is to dispel the myth of such a monolithic entity as
`the Armenians’ (an entity no more meaningful than `the Turks’). One
might view this as a starting place, both for my own desire to write
about Anatolian people and for the Armenian reader’s journey to
understanding the Anatolia that continued to grow after their
ancestors were forced to leave it. Even my own modest experience with
and research on contemporary Anatolians (both `Turk’ and `Armenian’)
have aroused the curiosity of several Diaspora Armenian acquaintances.
I can only hope to arouse such curiosity further. I can only hope that
one day Istanbul is viewed as being as representative of the Armenian
Diaspora as Beirut, Paris or Glendale.

The last time I was privileged enough to appear on Comrade Liana’s
site, I was in Turkey, where I will no doubt have returned by next
April 24. In the interim I have visited the ruins of Ani and looked
across the border at Armenia. I have seen no new Armenian films and
spoken to only one non-American Armenian (he is Lebanese, and a
Dashnak).

It is with such dizzying credentials that I seek to outline for you
what I know about Armenians in Turkey.

The Armenians of Istanbul, like the Jews of New York, are
disproportionately successful and famous, due to their community
cohesion and concentration within Turkey’s cultural and economic
centre. They are able to boast such impressive figures as Hrant Dink,
Onno Tunç, Nubar Terziyan, Hayko Cepkin, and Matild Manukyan (I also
wish to express my deepest gratitude toward Sevan NiÅ?anyan, whose
excellent etymological dictionary I find myself using weekly). There
are also political parallels with American Jewry: They are
disproportionately left-wing in their voting patterns, but are by no
means exclusively committed to the left. Indeed, right-wing Kemalism
seems to be a comfortable choice for more affluent Armenian voters.
The community is proud of its Caucasian roots even as it holds an
important place in modern Republican Turkish society. There are those
who desire nothing more than to be viewed as respectable Christian
citizens of a Turkish state, and those who crave more public
recognition of their distinctive identity, even calling for a secular
representative of Turkish Armenians alongside the various religious
leaders. There are even those who have forged a connection to the
Kurdish people, having assimilated linguistically with them in the
years after the genocide, all the while retaining their Christian
faith. Hrant Dink’s widow, Rakel Dink, belongs to such a clan. There
are those for whom, like a growing number of their Muslim compatriots,
the European Union is a meaningless entity, and those who see it as
presenting a path forward for the sort of Turkey they believe in.

But while the scattered remains of Anatolian Armenian-ness have
flocked to Istanbul, there is still one other (admittedly tiny)
concentration of Armenians in Turkey: Vakıflı.

During the Armenian Genocide, many Armenians took refuge in the
predominantly-Arab southern regions of what would later become Syria.
The populace of these regions was less than sympathetic to the Young
Turk government, and has generally viewed the Armenians and their
plight with sympathy. The French later occupied Syria, including the
disputed Hatay province, which was eventually ceded to the young
Turkish Republic by the French (a move whose legality is still
disputed by the Syrian government). Rather than live under Turkish
rule, most of the Armenians of Hatay moved across the border to
French-occupied Syria, where they live to this day.

But one village chose to remain, making it the only Christian Armenian
village in Turkey. This village is known as Vakıflı in Turkish, or
Õ?Õ¡Ö?Õ¨Ö? in Armenian. Like most Turkish citizens living far from an
important hub like Istanbul or Izmir, the Armenians of Vakıflı are
often drawn toward these urban areas for work, but this village still
remains for its younger generations to return to during the summers, a
tiny testament to the post-nation-statist possibilities for the
region.

From: A. Papazian

news.am, Armenia
Oct 2 2010

Sabah: Armenia-Turkey crucial meeting to be held on December 1

October 02, 2010 | 13:22

Turkey again tries to speculate the Armenia-Turkey Protocols and shift
world’s to its preconditions, as the first anniversary of the
Armenia-Turkey Protocols gets closer.

In this regard, the two Turkish major dailies have already launched a
media agitation. Particularly, the Sabah newspaper writes the OSCE
Summit of Heads of State, to be held in Astana on December 1, is of
great significance for Armenia-Turkey rapprochement. `If the Armenian
president confirms his participation in the summit, the normalization
process, initiated by football diplomacy, will rise to a new level,’
the source says.

Referring to its unidentified sources, Turkish Haberturk reports Swiss
Foreign Ministry held telephone conversations with representatives of
Armenian and Turkish Foreign Offices, to learn the sides’ sentiments
towards the normalization process.

According to the source, Turkish Foreign Ministry said Turkey is ready
to continue the reconciliation process.

`It became clear in the conversation with Swiss Foreign Office that
they had a telephone conversation with the Armenian side as well. The
conversations were aimed to test the two sides’ sentiments. However,
atmosphere of mutual trust has not yet been created for real contacts.
Armenia halted the normalization process and should revive it itself.
We intend to establish good neighborly relations with Armenia. Our
doors are always open for good intentions,’ an unidentified diplomatic
source told Haberturk.

From: A. Papazian

Panorama, Armenia
Oct 2 2010

“To See Ani” documentary on medieval Armenian capital

AZD Production has launched the production of `To See Ani’
documentary, an emotive story based on documentary materials and
dedicated to the medieval and exclusively fascinating Armenian
capital.

The film guarantees an effect of presence for the audience, gives a
detailed and full image of the present condition of Ani. Ani is
presented not only as an architectural monument but also as an alive
city, a cradle of Armenian special civilization. The authors of `To
See Ani’ documentary are Marina Karapetyan and Mher Davoyan. The
producer of the film is Hayk Harutyunyan.

From: A. Papazian

Al-Arabiya, UAE
Oct 2 2010

Muslim prayer at cathedral seen as political provocation

Armenia church slams Turks’ prayer at holy site

YEREVAN/ ISTANBUL (Agencies)

Armenia’s Apostolic Church on Saturday condemned a ceremony where
hundreds of Turkish nationalists held prayers at the ruins of an
ancient Armenian cathedral in eastern Turkey.

The ceremony on Friday, organized by the Nationalist Action Party
(MHP), Turkey’s second largest opposition force, was widely seen as a
response to a landmark service that Armenians held last month in the
same region.

“We learned with indignation that, with permission from Turkish
authorities, members of the Nationalist Action Party organized Muslim
prayers at the Armenian Christian church in Ani,” the Holy See of
Etchmiadzin, the seat of the Armenian church, said in a statement.

“This step was a political provocation that bears no relation to
spiritual feelings or to religious freedom or rights,” it said.

“The Holy Etchmiadzin condemns such actions, which sow intolerance and
hatred towards Armenians.”

Tensions between Turkey and Armenia have risen after a landmark deal
signed last year to establish diplomatic ties and reopen their border
fell apart amid lingering mistrust. Armenia announced in April it had
halted the ratification process of the deal.

Friday’s ceremony was held at the decaying 11th-century cathedral at
Ani, an uninhabited archaeological site, which was once the capital of
a medieval Armenian kingdom, in the province of Kars, at the Armenian
border.

The ceremony followed a landmark September 19 service at a historic
Armenian church in Van province, which Ankara opened to prayers in a
gesture of good will, hoping to defuse tensions in the troubled peace
efforts with Armenia.

The government had hailed that service as a sign of growing religious
tolerance in the predominantly Muslim country as it seeks membership
of the European Union.

The Armenian church also boycotted that ceremony after Turkey’s
failure to install a cross on the church dome sparked Armenian
criticism that the mass was a Turkish publicity stunt.

It was the first service at the edifice since Armenians were effaced
from the region under the Ottoman Empire during World War I, falling
victim to mass killings and deportations, which they describe as
genocide.

Following the church service, the opposition Nationalist Movement
Party (MHP) obtained permission from the Culture Ministry to hold
prayers in the Cathedral converted into a mosque by Seljuk Sultan Alp
Arslan when he conquered the region in 1064.

“I think it is important to at least remember the mosque where Sultan
Alp Arslan prayed when he entered these lands,” MHP Kars deputy Gurcan
Dagdas told a Turkish broadcaster this week.

From: A. Papazian

Aysor, Armenia
Oct 2 2010

A. Saghatelyan: We see development in cooperation

`Problems of Security and Information Cooperation in South Caucasus’
international conference hosted by Yerevan adopted a Declaration of
Information Cooperation and Interaction, Ara Saghatelyan, Director of
Information and PR Center of Armenian President’s Administration, told
a news conference today.

In the declaration participants of the conference express readiness to
take concrete steps towards information integration, to coordinate
their efforts for exchanging information and implementing integration
media projects that would interest societies in our region.

A. Saghatelyan stressed that the declaration does not imply that any
of the parties does not see in itself inner power for information
counteraction. `All subjects have sufficient mechanisms for it.’

According to Saghatelyan, participants of the conference believe that
the times of information counteraction have passed.

`The point is that we see development in cooperation,’ A. Saghatelyan said.

According to Alan Kasayev, Head of the CIS and Baltic countries
editorial office of RIA Novosti, the conference was very efficient and
gave an opportunity to voice different opinions.

`The document does not address acute issues, yet it is important that
the Russian, Armenian and Georgian parties decided that it is time for
real joint information projects aimed at strengthening
regional security.’

According to Anton Laskhishvili, editor-in-chief of the Free Georgia
newspaper, it is the only place to gather together and to discuss very
serious problems which mostly relate to restoration of information
field’s unity.

`Dialogue is the only possibility for jointly improving and
strengthening relations between our countries.’

From: A. Papazian