Author: Antonian Lara

YEREVAN ATTACHES IMPORTANCE TO COOPERATION WITH OPEC FUND FOR INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT

/ARKA/
July 15, 2009
YEREVAN

Yerevan attaches importance to cooperation with the OPEC Fund for
International Development, Armenian Prime Minister Tigran Sargsyan
said Tuesday at his meeting with OPEC (OFID) Director General Suleiman
Jasir Al-Herbish and other members of the delegation, the press office
of Armenian Government reports.

Henning Pedersen, the head of programs of International Fund for
Agricultural Development (IFAD), was present at the meeting as well.

Stressing the importance of cooperation with the Fund, Sargsyan
pointed out the necessity to enlarge investments in rural areas,
to intensify support for farmers.

He thinks that joint efforts are needed to develop infrastructures,
particularly energy, construction of rural roads, modernization of
irrigation and gas-supplying facilities.

The premier also singled out support for small, medium and
system-forming enterprises as well as protection of vulnerable social
strata among other focuses.

He said that despite some economic decline was recorded recently
in Armenia as a result of the global recession Al-Herbish, in his
turn, expressed appreciation of the Fund’s cooperation with Armenian
Government and hope that it would be continued, the crisis gave room
for reforms and cooperation in various areas.

MOURNING DECLARED IN ARMENIA ON 16 JULY BECAUSE OF THE AIRCRAFT CRASH IN IRAN

ArmInfo
2009-07-15 18:27:00

According to Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan’s decree, mourning
is declared in Armenia on 16 July because of the aircraft crash in
Iran on 15 July with numerous victims including Armenian citizens,
press-service of the president reported.

To recall, as deputy chairman of Armenian Civil aviation Department,
Arsen Pogosyan, said earlier, 6 Armenian citizens, 4 – passengers
and 2 members of the crew were on board of the crashed aircraft of
the Caspian Airlines company which was implementing Tehran-Yerevan
flight, Wednesday. Another 29 passengers had Armenian names, but they
were not Armenian citizens. The total of 168 people died as a result
of the crash.

Burlington Free Press
July 15, 2009

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TEHRAN, Iran – An Iranian passenger plane carrying 168 people crashed
a quarter-hour after takeoff Wednesday, smashing into a field
northwest of the capital and shattering to pieces. State television
said all on board were killed.

The impact gouged a deep trench in the dirt field, which was shown
littered with smoking wreckage in footage shown on state TV. It showed
a large chunk of a wing, but much of the wreckage appeared to be in
small pieces, and emergency workers and witnesses picked around the
shredded metal for bodies.

The Russian-made Caspian Airlines jet was heading from Tehran to the
Armenian capital Yerevan near the village of Jannatabad outside the
city of Qazvin, around 75 miles northwest of Tehran, state television
said. It crashed at about 11:30 am, 16 minutes after taking off from
Tehran’s Imam Khomeini International Airport, TV reported.

The Qazvin emergency services director Hossein Bahzadpour told the
IRNA news agency that the plane was completely destroyed and shattered
to pieces, and the wreckage was in flames. "It his highly likely that
all the passengers on the flight were killed," Bahzadpour said.

Iranian Civil Aviation Organization spokesman Reza Jafarzadeh told
state television that 153 passengers and 15 crewmembers were on
board. State TV said all were killed.

A Caspian Airlines representative told AP in Yerevan that most of the
passengers were Armenians, and that some Georgian citizens were also
on board. The representative spoke on condition of anonymity because
she was not authorized to talk to the press.

Also among the passengers were eight members of Iran’s national youth
judo team, along with two trainers and a delegation chief, who were
scheduled to train with the Armenian judo team before attending
competitions in Hungary on Aug. 6, state TV said.

Caspian Airlines is a Russian-Iranian joint venture founded in
1993. Iran has frequent plane crashes often because of bad maintenance
of its aging aircraft. Tehran blames the problem in part on
U.S. sanctions that prevent Iran from getting spare parts for some
planes. Caspian Airlines, however, uses Russian-made Tupolevs whose
maintenance would be less impaired by American sanctions.

In February 2006, a Russian-made TU-154 operated by Iran Airtour,
which is affiliated with Iran’s national carrier, crashed during
landing in Tehran, killing 29 of the 148 people on board. Another
Airtour Tupolev crashed in 2002 in the mountains of western Iran,
killing all 199 on board.

The crashes have also affected Iran’s military. In December 2005, 115
people were killed when a U.S.-made C-130 plane, crashed into a
10-story building near Tehran’s Mehrabad airport. In Nov. 2007, a
Russian-made Iranian military plane crashed shortly after takeoff
killing 36 members of the elite Revolutionary Guards.

___
AP writer Avet Demourian in Yerevan, Armenia, contributed to this report.

SERZH SARGSYAN HOSTS THE CHAIRMAN OF THE FRENCH ASSOCIATION OF FILM PRODUCERS ALAIN TERZYAN AND HIS WIFE

ARMENPRESS
July 14, 2009

YEREVAN, JULY 14, ARMENPRESS: Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan today
hosted the chairman of the French Association of Film Producers,
president of the French Film Arts Academy and "Cesar" Academy,
Administrator of Cannes film-festival Alain Terzyan and his wife.

The presidential press office told Armenpress that on the July 13
decree of the President, Alain Terzyan has been awarded with the Order
of Honor for the significant contribution in the field of film arts,
as well as for the close cultural cooperation with the homeland and
the activity promoting to the deepening of Armenian-French friendship.

Noting that Armenia is proud to have a compatriot like Alain Terzyan,
Serzh Sargsyan noted: "It is thanks to people like you that Armenia
is being more recognized throughout the world. Our aim is that our
compatriots living abroad and being a good citizens of the given
country consider Armenia as their historical homeland at the same
time".

Serzh Sargsyan welcomed the world famous film director’s participation
in the "Golden Apricot" film-festival.

"I am very glad, proud and excited that I am in Armenia – in
my historical homeland. When I made a step on the Armenian land,
I had an unusual feeling. It can understand only the Armenian, who
has dreamed of being in Armenia during his/her whole life, and that
dream has eventually come true", – Alain Terzyan said.

The French-Armenian art figure noted that he is impressed by the
"Golden Apricot" festival, which attains greater reputation year
by year.

AN OPEN LETTER TO SOCIALIST INTERNATIONAL

Today’s Zaman
July 13 2009
Turkey

Dear Members of the Ethics Committee of the Socialist International,

I am writing this open letter to invite you to examine the Republican
People’s Party’s (CHP) position and stance in respect of the Ethical
Charter of the Socialist International, observance of which is
monitored by your committee.

I would not be surprised if you had received similar letters to this
one before discussing whether the CHP can be qualified as a socialist
or social democrat party at all. In Turkey, there is a largely held
view that the CHP have never been and cannot be a socialist or a
social democrat party. By European standards it is a neo-nationalist,
right-wing party. The CHP hav done everything in its power to slow
down Turkey’s progress towards Europe, has always opposed any attempt
that will ease the constraints surrounding minorities in this country,
has fought against legal amendments that would broaden the scope of
freedom of expression and has disseminated all kinds of xenophobic
ideas within society. Not to mention its prominent role in defending,
supporting and legitimizing the guardianship of the military in Turkey.

However, recently, the party and its leadership have taken some
steps that have brought them to the edge of being a partner of a
clandestine paramilitary criminal gang, which is known as Ergenekon
(Turkish Gladio).

The leader of the CHP, Mr. Deniz Baykal, has pronounced himself as
the advocate of this criminal gang right from the beginning of the
investigation. Turkey is the only country which has not dissolved
its "shadow armies" (known as Gladio or "stay behind" structures)
which were once established in all NATO countries to fight against a
possible Soviet invasion. Because of the existent fertile ground in
two countries, namely in Italy and Turkey, these Gladio structures
have turned into huge criminal networks. In Turkey, we believe,
this "deep state network" was behind almost all social provocations,
massacres and assassinations in order to prepare society for military
coups and basically to manipulate it to maintain the guardianship of
the military over society.

The Ergenekon investigation started with the seizure of hand grenades
in 2007 in a shanty house in Istanbul. These grenades that were
taken from military compounds had the same serial numbers as ones
that were used in some terrorist attacks before. During the entire
investigation, bombs, weapons and thousands of rounds of ammunition,
most of which belonged to military units, were confiscated from the
members of these Ergenekon gangs. It was clear that these materials
were going to be used to create chaos to lead Turkey once again in
the direction of a new coup. Mr. Deniz Baykal claimed that these
bombs were buried there by the very police who unearthed them.

The Ergenekon gang has many other dimensions. In the past it carried
our many atrocities through JÄ°TEM. JÄ°TEM, the illegal extension
of the gendarmerie, was responsible for the forceful evacuation of
3,000 villages in the southeast and for 17,500 extrajudicial killings
throughout Turkey. Even children in the streets of Turkey’s Kurdish
regions knew that JÄ°TEM was kidnapping people in broad daylight
and killing them after torture. Today, the leaders and founders of
these paramilitary groups are under arrest in connection with the
Ergenekon investigation. We have prima facie evidence supporting the
fact that Ergenekon was the mastermind and orchestrated the murder of
members of religious minorities in Turkey. During the investigation,
different assassination plans against the leaders of Alevi and Armenian
communities have been revealed. Mr. Deniz Baykal turned a blind eye
to these facts and claimed that the Ergenekon investigation is just
a fabrication of the government in order to weaken Turkey’s secular
system and the military.

During the investigation at least four different military coup
plans prepared in 2004 and 2005 have been exposed with all their
details. Mr. Baykal and his party again turned a blind eye to these
plans.

In Turkey we have a peculiar military judicial system and this
system is one of the biggest obstacles before the Ergenekon case’s
progress. This military judicial system, the limits of which are
extremely and arbitrarily wide, in practice turned into a privilege
system granting impunity to military personnel. Under this system,
almost any crime committed by military personnel is tried by the
military courts.

The Turkish Parliament has recently made some amendments to narrow
down the limits of the military judiciary and allow civilian courts to
try military personnel for the crimes of forming gangs, terrorism and
crimes against the Constitution. It is obvious that this is a huge
step forward for Turkey in the direction of democratization. This
amendment will ensure that military personnel involved in gangs,
like Ergenekon, brought before justice and any attempts at military
coups can be investigated and prosecuted by civilian authorities. These
amendments were taken to the Constitutional Court for annulment by the
CHP. This should be the final step for the Socialist International to
review the membership of this political party. With this last move
the CHP has proven that it is willing to sacrifice everything for
the sake of the continuation of military guardianship in Turkey.

If, after this last step, the CHP continues to be a member of your
organization, we will start to think that the Socialist International
is not taking its own ethical rules seriously. If the CHP continues
to be a member of your organization, this will do irreversible harm
to its image in Turkey and in the world. If, however, you and the
CHP go your separate ways, there is a good chance that some real
social democrats in this party (their numbers are very limited)
may start to question their stance. If you really want to help real
social democrats in Turkey, then do not allow the CHP to pretend to
be a social democrat party with the help it’s getting from your image.

Otherwise, if you allow the CHP to continue reaping the benefits from
being a member of your organization, then please also allow right-wing
political parties in Europe, for example Jean Marie Le Pen’s Front
National party, to be a member of your organization. We know you
would not do that. So you must remove the CHP from your membership in
order to be consistent, to preserve your image, to help real social
democrats and to foster democracy in Turkey.

ARMENIAN LEADER, AZERI ENVOY TO RUSSIA DISCUSS KARABAKH CONFLICT

Public Television of Armenia
July 3 2009

[Presenter] Armenian President [Serzh] Sargsyan has received
the members of a delegation [led by the Armenian and Azerbaijani
ambassadors to Russia], noting that he is sure that the members of
the delegation are in Armenia because they have a deep realization
of their responsibilities before posterity and aspire to establish
peace and mutual understanding [in the region].

[Sargsyan speaking in Russian with Armenian voice-over] We are living
in a unique geographical region which is different form others with
its unique culture and geopolitical significance. Unfortunately, our
region is rich with unsolved problems too and only mutual trust and
cooperation atmosphere can allow us to think about better future for
our nations. In this regard, we had always been and continue to be
of #the opinion that it is possible to resolve complicated problems
through cooperation and negotiations. We have noticed an initiative
by our ambassadors in this context and welcomed it.

[Passage omitted: the importance of developing public and culture
relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan was noted at the meeting]

[Polad Bulbuloglu, Azerbaijani ambassador to Russia, speaking in
Russian with Armenian voice-over] The meeting with the Armenian
president was more constructive. He carefully listened to us
and his attitude towards an initiative by the civilian society
was comprehensible. I would like to express my gratitude to both
[Armenian and Azerbaijani] presidents for creating an opportunity
for this meeting.

[Passage omitted: the representative of the Russian president for
cultural-social issues and former Russian minister of culture,
Mikhail Shvydkoy, speaking about close relations between Armenians
and Azerbaijani in Russia]

[Armenian ambassador to Russia, Armen Smbatyan, speaking in Armenian]
We try to establish relations in culture sphere and we are succeeding
doing this. I am sure that no-one is able to eradicate a neighbouring
institution. We are neighbours and we understand that neither
Armenians, nor Azerbaijanis will leave their countries. We can or
cannot respect each other, but we are obliged to establish relations
and think about the future.

GENTLE MACROECONOMIC POLICY IN ARMENIA AMID GLOBAL CRISIS MUST BE CONTINUED

/ARKA/
July 8, 2009
YEREVAN

YEREVAN, July 8. /ARKA/. A gentle macroeconomic policy must be
continued in Armenia mid the global crisis, said RA Minister of
Economy Nerses Yeritsyan.

"Resuming the economic growth, as well as higher-quality and
diversified economic growth, must be the main aim of this policy,"
Minister Yeritsyan told reporters today, summing up the results of
the international conference "Impact of the Global Financial Crisis
on Armenia: Short- and Long-run Perspectives".

The Minister pointed out that this was one of Armenia’s major tasks
raised by international experts at the conference.

Also, "while putting out a fire," one must be sure that the country’s
social structure has not been damaged, and the progress in poverty
reduction and expansion of employment over the last 10-15 years has
not been overshadowed.

"It will be of high importance during the post-crisis growth," he said.

The Minister pointed out that the participants in the conference made
specific proposals.

Yeritsyan stressed the need for a transition from social allowances
to promoting social programs.

"As a Government member, I will be consistent in organizing discussions
of the issue for serious steps to be prepared. We need to develop
an idea of social work, find people with businesslike thinking and
assist the formation of this system," the Minister said.

"In the long run, we must be able to maintain the balance between
the debt burden and the reforms aimed to improve the resources to
pay off the debt," Yeritsyan said.

The conference was organized by the Armenian International Policy
Research Group (AIPRG). Reports were made by the leading economists of
the World Bank (WB), UN Development Program, International Monetary
Fund (IMF), OSCE and Asian Development Bank (ADB), as well as by
government representatives and businessmen.

ARMENIA NOT AGAINST TURKEY’S EU MEMBERSHIP

/PanARMENIAN.Net/
06.07.2009 19:47 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Armenia is not against Turkey’s becoming an EU
member. Acceding to the Union, Turkey will become more predictable
and secure, President Serzh Sargsyan said in Yerevan, during a joint
communique with his Cypriot Colleague Demetris Christofias. "By
Turkey’s becoming an EU member, Armenia will have a direct border
with the Union," RA President noted.

Demetris Christofias noted in his turn that his country shared
Armenia’s views on the issue, "We want to see Turkey inside
EU. Turkey’s big market is not a guarantee for EU membership. Ankara
should first of all comply with all the terms of membership and respect
European principles and values, as well as cease the occupation
of Southern part of Cyprus, open all airports and harbors," Cyprus
President said.

President of Cyprus to pay official visit to Armenia
04.07.2009 13:56 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ At the invitation of the Armenian President Serzh
Sargsyan on 6 July Cyprus President Dimitris Christofias will arrive
in Armenia on a two-day visit accompanied with his spouse.
On July 6, the official ceremony of meeting Cypros President will be
followed by the talk of Serge Sargsyan and Dimitris Christofias.
Later, the presidents will have a joint press conference.
During the visit, Dimitris Christofias will meet with Prime Minister
of Armenia Tigran Sargsyan, visit Holy Echmiadzin and meet with the
Catholicos of All Armenians Garegin II.
The President of Cyprus will visit the Museum-Institute of Armenian
Genocide and and lay a wreath at the memorial the Genocide Victims. He
will also plant trees in the Memory Garden.
Dimitris Christofias will hold a meeting with the Yerevan Mayor Gagik
Beglaryan and honorary citizens of Yerevan. The president of Cyprus
will get acquainted to the history of Armenian capital in the Museum
of Yerevan. The President and First Lady of Cyprus will visit Garni
and Geghard, the Matenadaran Institute of Ancient Manuscripts, the
press service of the RA president reports.

GOVERNMENT OF ARMENIA HAS ALREADY DECIDED HOW TO SPEND RUSSIAN CREDIT

Noyan Tapan
July 2, 2009

YEREVAN, JULY 2, NOYAN TAPAN. At the July 2 sitting, Armenian Prime
Minister Tigran Sargsyan said that about 180 billion drams of the
credit provided by Russia have been distributed in several directions,
which will have a great impact on the country’s economy. In his words,
this money has been distributed in such a way that it will be possible
to contribute to the growth of the resistive capacity of the economy
and to the repayment of credit resources. That is, this debt will grow
heavy on the state to the extent, to which these resources will be
allocated to interest-free current expenses and capital construction.

The prime minister said that 24 billion drams of the Russian credit
will be provided for restoration of the earthquake zone, money will be
also allocated to the Stabilization Fund of the Central Bank of Armenia
(CBA), and considerable funds will be given for credit extension.

T. Sargsyan underlined the extension of credit opportunities for small
and mideum business as a key goal. Money for SMEs will be distributed
through the German Armenian Fund that has proven the efficiency of
its operation and ensured the repayment of resources and jobs. The
second target is the mortgage market, and the Mortgage Fund set up
by CBA will also receive additional money. The third target is the
Small and Medium Entrepreneurship Development National Center which
has already prepared credit programs of a total of 5 billion drams
in Armenian marzes (provinces). These programs will help promote this
sector in Armenia.