Author: Antonian Lara

‘RECONCILIATION MONUMENT’ UNDER CONSTRUCTION IN TURKEY

AzerNews Weekly
Dec 3 2008
Azerbaijan

A "monument of reconciliation" with Armenians is being built in
Turkey`s historic city of Gars, located on the border between the
two countries.

The resumption of construction on the site, which had been suspended
by the Turkish government several times, was made possible due to
the efforts by pro-Armenian forces.

Construction work on the monument, being built by architect Mehmet
Aksoy, is close to completion. The 32-meter monument shows a hand being
extended to Armenia and other elements signifying reconciliation. This
monument, to be Turkey`s tallest, will be seen from Armenia as well.

Gars, with 70% of its population being Azerbaijani Turks, is considered
a key in forging relations with Armenia. Considering that there are
plenty of forces in the city seeking rapprochement with this country,
the role played by Gars on this issue is tremendous. Supporters of
restoring and developing relations between Turkey and Armenia are
included among the city`s authorities. The public relations efforts
and petitioning campaign, previously conducted by the head of the
Gars municipality, Naif Alibayoglu, calls for the launching of
diplomatic relations and opening the border with Armenia. Moreover,
Gars has become a stage for political games during an event held under
the name, "The Festival of Caucasus Cultures." Along with Armenian
musicians, area politicians and businessmen attended the event and
participated in programs such as "Public Diplomacy." Currently, this
policy is being pursued with more ease. The Turkish government`s recent
gestures toward Armenia have further encouraged the Gars municipality
to restore ties with the neighboring country, which have been marred
by historical tensions.

Although Ankara has made it clear that restoring diplomatic ties
and opening up the border is possible only after Yerevan complies
with verifiable pre-conditions, Gars has apparently outlined its own
political course in this regard.

Armenia and Turkey maintain no diplomatic ties and the border between
the two countries has been closed since 1993 on Ankara`s insistence,
due to Armenia`s occupation of Azerbaijani territories and Armenian
claims that huge numbers of their countrymen were killed by the
Ottoman Empire during World War I. However, relations between the
two countries have recently begun to improve. Following secret talks
in July between Turkish and Armenian diplomats in Bern, Turkish and
Armenian leaders attended a 2010 World Cup qualifying soccer match
together in Yerevan early in September when Abdullah Gul became the
first Turkish leader to visit Armenia. Further, Armenian Foreign
Minister Eduard Nalbandian visited Turkey on November 24 where they
discussed ways of normalizing relations between Ankara and Yerevan.

ARMENIA SEEKS FINANCES FOR REALIZATION OF YEREVAN-BATUMI HIGHWAY PROJECT

TREND
Dec 9 2008
Azerbaijan

Georgia, Tbilisi, 9 Dec / Trend News corr N. Kirtzkhalia / Armenia is
working hard to attract funds for the construction of Batumi-Yerevan
highway. Tigran Sarkisyan, prime minister of Armenia, said in Tbilisi
at the joint news conference with his Georgian counterpart Grigol
Mgaloblishvili on 9 Dec.Ã~B

Georgian and Armenian presidents reached an agreement on the
construction of the highway several months ago. This decision provoked
negative reaction of the Georgian experts which consider that this will
cause the armenization of the South regions of Georgia and will play
a role of the Rock tunnel through which the Russian forces entered
Tskhinvali in August.Ã~B Ã~B Ã~B Ã~B

Sarkisyan said the agreement has already been reached with Eurasia
fund. The fund is ready to allocate the certain amount of money for
the realization of the project. ââ~B¬Å~[Armenian fully supports
the construction of the current highway and we expect the soonest
realization of the project,ââ~B¬Å¥ Sarkisyan said. Georgian also
makes efforts on the realization of the project and now seeks for the
supplementary financial funds for the construction of the highway,
Mgaloblishvili said.Ã~B

–Boundary_(ID_+X3mCI64wcaAWmExR9oi Ww)–

GUL TO ASK ISRAEL TO HELP PREVENT ARMENIAN GENOCIDE RECOGNITION BY OBAMA

PanARMENIAN.Net
09.12.2008 18:48 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Turkish president Abdullah Gul will meet with
his Israeli counterpart Shimon Peres to discuss advancing the
Turkey-mediated negotiations between Israel and Syria, a senior
Turkish official told Haaretz.

This will be Gul’s first visit as president, though he came here
three times in his previous role as foreign minister.

The two leaders will also discuss the Iranian nuclear threat, an issue
on which they disagreed sharply when Peres visited Ankara last year.

Another issue on Gul’s agenda will be the Armenian Genocide. The
Turkish president is expected to ask Israel to use its influence
in Washington to try to prevent recognition of the Genocide by
U.S. President-elect Barack Obama, Hurriyet daily reports

RUSSIA GRATEFUL THAT ARMENIAN PEOPLE LOVINGLY PRESERVE MEMORY OF SOLIDARITY

PanARMENIAN.Net
08.12.2008 16:53 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Russian President Dmitry Medvedev sent a message to
participants in the ceremony of unveiling a memorial to the victims
of the 1988 earthquake in Armenia and the heroic work of the rescuers,
the Kremlin’s press office reports.

Mr Medvedev said, in particular, in his message:

"On this day of the twentieth anniversary of the earthquake in Armenia
we bow our heads in memory of the thousands of victims this natural
disaster caused. It is with great respect and gratitude that we
remember the courage of the rescue workers, who answered the call
for help, and the labor of those who rebuilt normal life in the
disaster zone.

This great tragedy left no one indifferent. The sincere feelings
of all those who came to help Armenia remains a shining example of
solidarity and effective interethnic and international cooperation
in natural disaster relief efforts.

Russia came immediately to Armenia’s aid at this difficult hour and
made its contribution to the rescue operations and reconstruction
work. We are grateful that the Armenian people lovingly preserve the
memory of this solidarity."

TURKISH FOREIGN MINISTER MEETS ARMENIAN, AZERBAIJANI COUNTERPARTS

Anadolu Agency
Dec 4 2008
Turkey

HELSINKI (A.A) -04.12.2008 -Turkish Foreign Minister Ali Babacan
separately met Armenian Foreign Minister Eduard Nalbandian and
Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov in Helsinki on Thursday.

Babacan is currently in Helsinki to attend the 16th Ministerial Council
Meeting of the Organization for the Security and Cooperation in Europe
(OSCE).

Foreign ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan met on Wednesday with
Russian, French and US executives, the co-chairmen of OSCE Minsk
group. Babacan’s talks with the Azerbaijani and Armenian foreign
ministers assessed the results of this meeting.

OSCE Minsk group assumes a mediating role in talks aiming to achieve
a peaceful solution to the problem about Upper Karabakh.

TURKISH FM SAYS OSCE DECISION CAN SOLVE KARABAKH DISPUTE

Dec 6 2008
Turkey

Turkish Foreign Minister Ali Babacan participated in the 16th
Ministerial Council Meeting of OSCE in the Finnish capital of Helsinki.

Turkish Foreign Minister Ali Babacan participated in the 16th
Ministerial Council Meeting of the Organization for the Security and
Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) in the Finnish capital of Helsinki.

Earlier, Babacan visited the Azerbaijani capital of Baku and the
Belgian capital of Brussels.

Babacan expressed hope that Afghanistan, Pakistan and India would
establish a sincere atmosphere of cooperation and be successful
against that common enemy (terrorism).

The Turkish foreign minister said that the main issue discussed at
the council meeting was the general security policies in Europe after
the recent crisis in the Caucasus, and participants mainly debated
new proposals of the Russian Federation.

Babacan said that he had a meeting with his Armenian and Azerbaijani
counterparts on the sidelines of the OSCE summit, in which they made
a decision to work on a lasting peace agreement between Azerbaijan
and Armenia.

"I see this decision as an important one made to solve the Upper
Karabakh dispute," he told reporters.

Babacan said representatives of five countries including Turkey,
Georgia, Azerbaijan Russia and Armenia that were expected to set up
the Caucasus Stability & Cooperation Platform, also met in Helsinki
and exchanged views on the goals, principles, and mechanisms of
the platform.

Babacan also said that he debated general developments in the Caucasus
and Upper Karabakh dispute during his visit to Baku and Caucasian
issues, Russia-NATO relationship, Georgia-Ukraine committees, and the
situation in Afghanistan and Kosovo in the NATO meeting in Brussels.

Talking about the trilateral summit taking place among Afghanistan,
Pakistan and Turkey in Istanbul, Babacan said that it was an important
summit to establish solidarity and dialogue between Afghanistan
and Pakistan.

Babacan said that Uzbek general Rashid Dostum would be with his family
in Turkey and how long he would stay in Turkey was his own decision.

Also talking about elections to be held in Afghanistan in 2009,
Babacan said that problems could more easily be solved in that country
if people participated more in political system.

Babacan reaffirmed Turkey’s commitment to do everything in its power
to help restore peace and order in Afghanistan.

December 7, 2008
Op-Ed Columnist

A Killer Without Borders
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF

/07kristof.html

YEREVAN, Armenia

As if you didn’t have enough to worry about … consider the deadly,
infectious and highly portable disease sitting in the lungs of a
charming young man here, Garik Hakobyan. In effect, he’s a time bomb.

Mr. Hakobyan, 34, an artist, carries an ailment that stars in the
nightmares of public health experts – XDR-TB, the scariest form of
tuberculosis. It doesn’t respond to conventional treatments and is
often incurable.

XDR-TB could spread to your neighborhood because it isn’t being
aggressively addressed now, before it rages out of control. It’s being
nurtured by global complacency.

When doctors here in Armenia said they would introduce me to XDR
patients, I figured we would all be swathed in protective clothing and
chat in muffled voices in a secure ward of a hospital. Instead, they
simply led me outside to a public park, where Mr. Hakobyan sat on a
bench with me.

"It’s pretty safe outside, because his coughs are dispersed," one
doctor explained, "but you wouldn’t want to be in a room or vehicle
with him." Then I asked Mr. Hakobyan how he had gotten to the park.

"A public bus," he said.

He saw my look and added: "I have to take buses. I don’t have my own
Lincoln Continental." To his great credit, Mr. Hakobyan is trying to
minimize his contact with others and doesn’t date, but he inevitably
ends up mixing with people.

Afterward, I asked one of his doctors if Mr. Hakobyan could have
spread his lethal infection to other bus passengers. "Yes," she said
thoughtfully. "There was one study that found that a single TB patient
can infect 14 other people in the course of a single bus ride."

Americans don’t think much about TB, just as we didn’t think much of
AIDS in the 1980s. But drug-resistant TB is spreading – half a million
cases a year already – and in a world connected by jet planes and
constant flows of migrants and tourists, the risk is that our myopia
will catch up with us.

Barack Obama’s administration should ensure it isn’t complacent about
TB in the way that Ronald Reagan was about AIDS. Reagan didn’t let the
word AIDS pass his lips publicly until he was into his second term,
and this inattention allowed the disease to spread far more than
necessary. That’s not a mistake the Obama administration should make
with tuberculosis.

One-third of the world’s population is infected with TB, and some 1.5
million people die annually of it. That’s more than die of malaria or
any infectious disease save AIDS.

"TB is a huge problem," said Tadataka Yamada, president of global
health programs for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. "It’s a
problem that in some ways has been suppressed. We often don’t talk
about it."

Ineffective treatment has led to multi-drug resistant forms, or
MDR-TB. Scarier still is XDR-TB, which stands for extensively drug
resistant TB. That is what Mr. Hakobyan has. There were only 83 cases
of XDR-TB reported in the United States from 1993 to 2007, but it
could strike with a vengeance.

"We always think we live in a protected world because of modern
medicines and the like," Dr. Yamada said. "But if we get a big problem
with XDR, we could be in a situation like we had in the 19th century
when we didn’t have good treatments."

If we were facing an equivalent military threat capable of killing
untold numbers of Americans, there might be presidential commissions
and tens of billions of dollars in appropriations, not to mention
magazine cover stories. But with public health threats, we all drop
the ball.

Because of this complacency about TB, there hasn’t been enough
investment in treatments and diagnostics, although some new medication
is on the horizon.

"Amazingly, the most widely used TB diagnostic is a 19th-century one,
and it’s as lousy as you might imagine," said Dr. Paul Farmer, the
Harvard public health expert whose Partners in Health organization was
among the first to call attention to the dangers of drug-resistant TB.

In Armenia, the only program for drug-resistant TB, overseen by
Doctors Without Borders, can accept only 15 percent of the patients
who need it. And the drugs often are unable to help them.

"After two years of treatment with toxic drugs, less than half of such
chronic TB patients are cured, and that’s very demoralizing," noted
Stobdan Kalon, the medical coordinator for Doctors Without Borders
here. And anyone who thinks that drug-resistant TB will stay in places
like Armenia is in denial. If it isn’t defused, Mr. Hakobyan’s XDR
time bomb could send shrapnel flying into your neighborhood.

I invite you to comment on this column on my blog
, and join me on Facebook at

20 YEARS LATER

Hayots Ashkhar Daily
04 Dec 08
Armenia

According to the studies of "Arevamanuk" social-psychological
fund, even 20 years after the earthquake the people of Gyumry need
psychological help. The survey demonstrates that 75% of the population
remembers the earthquake with terror, for 91% the human losses is
the worst consequence of the disaster, around 70% are still hopeless,
depressed and have feeling that they have been punished.

It is noteworthy that this opinion was expressed by those who have
seen the disaster and those who were born later.

The 87% of the surveyed believed no progress is recorded in any
sphere, after the disaster. According to the polled they haven’t
overcome the social, economic and psychological problems. Only 3%
expressed optimism regarding the future.

PRESIDENT SARGSYAN MEETS ABSOLUTE WORLD CHAMPION VIK DARCHINYAN

armradio.am
04.12.2008 14:57

President Serzh Sargsyan today received the absolute lightweight
boxing champion Vik Darchinyan, President’s Press Office reported.

Congratulating the sportsman on achieving the absolute champion’s
title, the President stated that "any victory on the international
arena in the fields of sport and culture and others brings a great
fame to our state and people and makes every Armenian feel proud."

For his part, Vik Darchinyan congratulated the President on the
success of the Armenian chess team and informed that he has arrived
in Armenia to participate in the arrangements dedicated to the 20th
anniversary of the 1988 earthquake.

The absolute world champion presented his future programs to the
president and informed that his next fight will, most probably,
take place on February 7, 2009.

RA MFA: NO DECLARATION ON KARABAKH TO BE SIGNED IN HELSINKI

PanARMENIAN.Net
03.12.2008 13:59 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ The Armenian Foreign Ministry refuted Azeri media
reports that a declaration on the Nagorno Karabakh conflict will
be signed during the Ministerial Council summit due in Helsinki
December 4-5.

There won’t be any declaration signed in Helsinki, Tigran Balayan,
head of the RA MFA media relations division, told a PanARMENIAN.Net
reporter.

Armenian Foreign Minister will hold separate with his Turkish and Azeri
counterparts but the format of the meeting has not been defined yet,
he said.