Author: Antonian Lara

Armenian ice dancers gained the permit to partake in the final

Armradio.am
23.03.2007 11:29

Gaining 44.86 points for the `original dance,’ Armenian ice dancers
Anastasia Grebyonkina and Vazgen Azroyan occupied the 21st position at
the World Figure Skating Championship held in Tokyo (Japan).

Albena Denkova ` Maxim Stavitski ice dancing pair of Bulgaria became
the winner with 32.10 points.

Thus, Armenian figure skaters solved their primary task: they attained
the permit to participate in the final.

NUMBER OF INITIAL CASES OF DISEASE WITH TUBERCULOSIS DECREASES 19% IN ARMENIA

Noyan Tapan
Mar 22 2007

YEREVAN, MARCH 22, NOYAN TAPAN. March 24 is the international
day of struggle against tuberculosis. This year slogan of it is
"Tuberculosis Anywhere Means Everywhere." About 2 mln people die and
about 9 mln people are infected with tuberculosis in the world every
year. As Tatev Kostanian, the deputy head of the "National Program on
Struggle against Tuberculosis" informed the Noyan Tapan correspondent,
5673 patients (6455 in 2006) with tuberculosis are registered in
Armenia. 91 from them are below 14 years old children. In her words,
the number of newly found out patients decreased 19% in 2006, as if
compared with the previous year. This number made 1613. T. Kostanian
also stated that the number of cases of death from that desease also
decreased. So, 167 cases of death were registered in 2005, 153 cases
were registered in 2006.

KARABAKH CONFLICT A FAR CRY FROM SETTLEMENT – OSKANIAN

ITAR-TASS, Russia
March 21 2007

YEREVAN, March 21 (Itar-Tass) – The Armenian Foreign Minister,
Vartan Oskanian, stated here on Wednesday that the sides involved
in the Karabakh conflict were "still a far cry from any agreement,
which was borne out by the outcome of the recent Geneva meeting of
the foreign ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan".

"This was quite a complicated and difficult meeting, and no progress
was achieved. However, there was no regress, too. Differences on
many problems have still not been smoothed out," Oskanian told a news
conference in the Armenian capital.

The ministers will continue their talks to pave the way to a new
meeting of the presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan, which is to
be held after the parliamentary elections in Armenia, scheduled for
May 12, the foreign minister stated. He is sure that "the sooner the
Karabakh conflict is settled, the better for everybody".

According to Oskanian, he was not attaching any particular importance
to the official statements of the Azerbaijan side. "The principal
milestones for us are the negotiations and the document discussed
at the talks, as well as the Azerbaijan statements, made at the
negotiations, which differ very much from the public pronouncements
of the Azeri side," he stressed.

At the bedrock of the document now discussed and of the draft
principles of Karabakh settlement "is a formula of which the Armenian
side could previously only dream", the minister noted.

"All the documents, which the co-chairmen had tabled up to 1998, began
with a preamble, stressing the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan,"
Oskanian recalled.

After 1998 (when President Robert Kocharian came to power – Itar-Tass),
the essence of the document was altered to stipulate the right of
the Nagorny Karabakh people to self-determination, which is to be
decided by a national referendum, the minister acknowledged.

"The legal foundations of Nagorny Karabakh’s independence are solid,"
the Armenian foreign minister underscored. "Karabakh has never been
a component part of the independent Azerbaijan," he added.

ARMENIAN FM: BAN OF JERMUK IN THE US WAS NOT A POLITICAL ACTION

Arminfo
2007-03-21 22:43:00

Armenian FM Vardan Oskanyan does not think that the ban of Jermuk
mineral water in the US and some other countries had any political
implications.

During a press-conference today Oskanyan said that there is no
connection between the ban and the recent report of the US State
Department that mentioned Karabakh as a territory occupied by Armenia.

To remind, recently the US and a number of other countries banned the
sale of Jermuk because of high content of arsenic and ammonium. A
number of political experts, mostly in Russia, believe that the US
is just pressuring Armenia.

ASPHALT LAYING WORK TO BE DONE IN 132 YEREVAN STREETS THIS YEAR

Noyan Tapan
Mar 19 2007

YEREVAN, MARCH 19, NOYAN TAPAN. Asphalt laying work and repairs of
manholes and breast-walls have already started in Yerevan. Deputy
Mayor of Yerevan Vano Vardanian said at the March 19 press conference
that it is envisaged to lay 400 thousand square meters of 132 city
streets with asphalt by late 2007, for which 2.3 bln drams (about
6.3 mln USD) was allocated. Breast-walls in 6 Yerevan streets will
be repaired with 227 mln drams.

Speaking about sanitary cleaning work, V. Vardanian noted that a city
subbotnik and tree planting will be held in April. It was mentioned
that this work has already begun in some communities. According to the
deputy mayor, the number of rubbish bins in Yerevan will be increased
by about a thousand.

In his words, serious work will be done concerning housing resources
and condominiums. Now the experience of various countries in this
sector is being studied. V. Vardanian said that today activities
of 515 condominiums of the city are not efficient. He noted that
new governance methods will allow to make the work of condominiums
more active.

Panorama.am

18:48 17/03/2007

ARONYAN IN MONACO SUPER TOURNAMENT

Today, super chess tournament will kick off in Monaco with the
participation of best chess player. Levon Aronyan, famous Armenian
chess player, participates, too. He will compete with Vishvanatan
Anand, Indian by nationality, Vladimir Kramnik, Alexander Morozevich,
Pioter Svidler, Russians by nationality, Vasili Ivanchuk, a Ukrainian,
Peter Leko, Hungarian, Boris Gelfand, from Israel, Teimur Rajabov, an
Azerbaijani, Magnus Kalsen, a Norwegian, Liuk van Veli, a Dutch and
Fransisko Valiekho from Spain.

The tournament will end on March 29. The total fund of the tournament
is 216 thousand euro.

Source: Panorama.am

The New Anatolian, Turkey
March 17 2007

‘Turkey could close Incirlik base’

The New Anatolian with agencies / Washington

17 March 2007

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U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Daniel Fried warned Congress
yesterday against passing a resolution supporting Armenian claims of
genocide, saying the move could result in Turkey closing the Incirlik
Air Base used by the U.S. military

A bill on the so-called Armenian genocide was introduced in the U.S
Senate on Thursday. The bill was drawn up by Democrat Richard Durbin
and Republican John Essington. Senators John Kerry, Edward Kennedy
and Joe Lieberman also signed the bill. It is interesting that
supporters of the bill including presidential candidates Hillary
Clinton, Barak Obama and Joseph Bidenin have not signed the bill this
time. A total of 21 out of 100 senators have declared their support
for the bill.

The bill was submitted to the House of the Representatives on Jan. 30

U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Daniel Fried told a hearing of a
House Foreign Affairs subcommittee on Europe that Turkish officials
have informed the U.S. that approval of the resolution could lead to
a shutdown of the base or a restriction on U.S. overflight privileges
granted by Turkey.

He also said the U.S. has been informed that Ankara would respond
with "extreme emotion" if the Armenian resolution were approved.

Turkey provides vital support to U.S. military operations. Incirlik
Air Force Base, a major base in southern Turkey, has been used by the
U.S. to launch operations into Iraq and Afghanistan and was a center
for U.S. fighters that enforced the "no-fly zones" which kept the
Iraqi air force bottled up after the 1991 Gulf War.

He added the U.S. fear was that "passage of any such resolution would
close minds and harden hearts."

At the same time, Daniel Fried has described the events that happened
in 1915 during the Ottoman Empire as a massacre.

Robert Wexler, chair of the Europe Subcommittee and the U.S.-Turkey
Friendship group also underlined that anti-American mood has
increased in Turkey and if the genocide draft is adopted U.S.
opposition would increase.

Joseph Ralston, the U.S. special envoy for countering the terrorist
Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and Daniel Fata, a Pentagon
representative said that cold relations with Turkey would affect U.S.
operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"This is an incredibly sensitive issue inside Turkey, and what we are
trying to encourage the Turks to have is meaningful reform of their
dealings with Armenia," said Ralston

In joint identical letters to the speaker of the House of
Representatives and two other senior members, Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Robert Gates said the
resolution also could inflict significant damage on U.S. efforts to
reconcile the long-standing dispute between the West Asian neighbors.

In the letters, Rice and Gates drew attention to the consequences of
French Parliament’s passing genocide bill that made it crime to deny
Armenian genocide claims.

"Turkey cut off all relations with France, including the military
sphere and refused military contracts under discussion due to the
adoption of that resolution. The resolution could inflict significant
damage on the U.S. soldiers located in the region and create problems
for the divisions deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan and inflict
significant damage on U.S. efforts to reconcile the long-standing
dispute between Turkey and Armenia," they said.

The appeals went to Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and
Representatives John Boehner, leader of the House’s Republican
minority, and Tom Lantos, the Democrat who chairs the House Committee
on Foreign Affairs

Turkey strongly opposes the claims that its predecessor state, the
Ottoman government, caused the Armenian deaths in a planned genocide.
The Turkish government has said the toll is wildly inflated and that
Armenians were killed or displaced in civil unrest during the
empire’s collapse and conditions of World War I. Ankara’s proposal to
Yerevan to set up a joint commission of historians to study the
disputed events is still awaiting a positive response from the
Armenian side. After French lawmakers voted last October to make it a
crime to deny that the claims were genocide, Turkey said it would
suspend military relations with France.

Baku Sun, Azerbaijan
March 16 2007

Rice, Gates: `genocide’ bill may damage US security

By William C.Mann

WASHINGTON – The U.S. secretaries of state and defense contend that
the security of the United States is at risk from proposed
legislation that would declare Armenians victims of a genocide on
Turkish soil almost a century ago. In joint identical letters to the
speaker of the House of Representatives and two other senior members,
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Robert
Gates said the resolution also could inflict significant damage on
U.S. efforts to reconcile the long-standing dispute between the West
Asian neighbors.

The appeals went to Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi; Rep. John
Boehner, leader of the House’s Republican minority; and Rep. Tom
Lantos, the Democrat who chairs the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

`This is an incredibly sensitive issue inside Turkey, and what we are
trying to encourage the Turks to have is meaningful reform of their
dealings with Armenia,’ retired U.S. Air Force Gen. Joseph Ralston,
former Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, told The Associated Press
in an interview Wednesday. `It has huge ramifications for the foreign
policy of this country.’ The Associated Press obtained a copy of one
of the letters Wednesday. It was dated March 7, two days after
Armenian Foreign Minister Vardan Oskanian was in Washington to visit
Rice and said afterward that `Turkish lobbying at a government level’
threatened to scuttle the resolution.

A Democratic aide said Pelosi, who controls the House agenda, has no
plan to bring the proposal before the House soon. The aide spoke
anonymously because final plans have not been approved. A
congressional staff aide, also speaking without attribution, said it
is understood that Lantos, whose committee would deal with the
resolution, was awaiting word from Pelosi. Both the speaker and
Lantos have been supporters of the legislation. The dispute involves
the alleged deaths of hundreds of thousands of Armenians during the
waning years of the Ottoman Empire, the predecessor of the Turkish
state. Armenian advocates contend they died in an organized genocide;
the Turks say they were victims of widespread chaos and governmental
breakdown as the 600-year-old empire collapsed in the years before
Turkey was born in 1923. The bipartisan resolution was introduced on
Jan. 30. Passage of the resolution would harm `U.S. efforts to
promote reconciliation between Turkey and Armenia and to advance
recognition by Turkey of the tragic events that occurred to ethnic
Armenians under the Ottoman Empire,’ the letters said. They said the
United States is encouraging `our friends in Turkey to re-examine
their past with honesty and to reconcile with Armenia, as well as
security and stability in the broader Middle East and Europe.’

Rice and Gates reminded the lawmakers of repercussions from a vote in
the French National Assembly last October to criminalize denial of
Armenian genocide. `The Turkish military cut all contacts with the
French military and terminated defense contracts under negotiation,’
the letters said. Similar reaction against passage of the House
resolution `could harm American troops in the field, constrain our
ability to supply our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan and
significantly damage our efforts to promote reconciliation between
Armenia and Turkey at a key turning point in their relations.’

Turkey has NATO’s second-largest army. The U.S. Air Force has a major
base in southern Turkey near Iraq, which it has used for operations
in the Afghanistan and Iraq wars. Between the Persian Gulf War in
1991 and the Iraq war, warplanes from Incirlik Air Base enforced a
flight ban in Northern Iraq against the Iraqi air force.

Today, Azerbaijan
March 16 2007

Turkey’s National Security Council official: "We do have evidence
against Armenians’ claims"

16 March 2007 [13:02] – Today.Az

"In 1919, the Ottoman government requested Switzerland, Sweden,
Denmark, the Netherlands and Spain-countries that did not take part
in the World War I to investigate the claims on so called Armenian
genocide," Turkey’s National Security Council department chief Gursel
Demirok said.

He told the APA Turkey bureau that the Ottoman’s appeal to neutral
countries has been found from the archives and made public.

"At the same time another document that I found from English archives
proves that England was against the establishment of a commission
composed of these five countries to investigate groundless genocide
claims. Now I ask these states – Why did not you reply the request of
the Ottoman empire? The realities of that period are quite different.
I was born in Gazientep, the French dressed Armenian soldiers their
uniforms and made them attack on Turkish soldiers during the World
War. Our family was also subject to genocide committed by Armenian
soldiers in French uniform. I call for Armenians to give up their
malice. Every nation should posses its own culture and traditions.
Ethnic identity cannot be preserved though malice" Mr.Demirok
underlined.

Gursel Demirok said that the Armenian lobby in the west tries to
oppress Turkey.

"Our archives are open to Armenians. We call them to come and
investigate them. But they refuse to see and hear the truth. We do
have evidence against their claims. A lot of evidences prove who is
murderer. I have found some documents in the archived of the German
empire that appraise the governors of the Ottoman Empire – Enver
Pasha, Telet Pasha, Midhet Pasha. Armenians committed genocide in the
Azerbaijani town of Khojaly, in 1992. They cast aspersions on other
countries to cover up their crimes," he concluded.

URL:

FOREIGN MINISTRY THE NEW BATTLEGROUND BETWEEN GOVERNMENT AND ESTABLISHMENT
Lale Sariibrahimoglu

Today’s Zaman, Turkey
March 15 2007

President Ahmet Necdet Sezer’s refusal to sign a decree envisaging the
appointment of five deputy undersecretaries for the Foreign Ministry,
the first of its kind in the history of the republic as described by
the daily newspaper Hurriyet in its March 14 edition, has revealed an
ongoing battle at the Foreign Ministry between the political leadership
and the establishment. President Sezer, regarded as the mouthpiece
of the establishment that prefers to rule the nation independent
of the political leadership, has returned to parliament numerous
decrees envisaging the appointments of top bureaucrats. He has also
vetoed, sometimes rightly, various laws passed by the parliament —
all mainly on grounds that the Islam-based conservative Justice and
Development Party (AK Party) sought to seriously infringe on the
secular character of the nation through the appointments of top and
lower-level bureaucrats.

The problem with Sezer’s policy is the double standard that lies
behind his attitude. To start with, since the establishment of the
Turkish Republic by Ataturk 84 years ago, the Turkish bureaucracy has
always turned into a battlefield between the different ideologies,
from the left to the right, depending on what type of coalition or
single party governments then ruled the nation.

There has been no objective criteria applied to the appointment of
bureaucrats who have mostly fallen victim to the ill-defined policies
of the then ruling political leadership. Due to the absence of a
fully established rule of law in Turkey, sometimes bureaucrats not
affiliated with any party view can find themselves being linked to
a certain ideology through rumors instead of objective criteria that
should dictate their appointments.

It is also true that in Western democracies the winning party or the
parties setting up the government would choose to work with bureaucrats
they feel are close to their own ideologies. But in Turkey, we have
always witnessed a massive shakeup in public institutions from top
to bottom with every new government, resulting with the danger of
creating bureaucrats who could only keep their positions if they were
loyal to government policies they sometimes did not agree with.

Those who have been resisting AK Party appointments thus pursue a
double standard with the sometimes unnecessary fear that the Turkish
secular order would receive a serious blow with certain appointments.

Such resistance damages the credibility of the resistors because the
same voices criticizing AK Party appointment policies have remained
relatively indifferent when in the past governments close to their
ideologies made appointments that, for example, resulted in the
ministry of education and ministry of culture being staffed with
either ultranationalists or extreme conservatives — appointments
that contributed to ultranationalism in society sometimes turning
into violent nationalism. This was the case with the slaying of
Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink in January this year.

President Sezer’s rejection of a decree envisaging the appointment of
five Foreign Ministry deputy undersecretaries is significant because it
reveals that the ongoing battle between the establishment the current
government over the appointment of top level bureaucrats has spread
to the foreign ministry, an institution regarded as the closest to
the status quo.

The current names appointed as deputy under-secretaries mark
a rejuvenation drive by the government at the ministry to create
a team of top diplomats who would be much more loyal to the ruling
government than the older diplomats who are part of the establishment,
says a senior Turkish diplomatic source.

But in my opinion this rejuvenation drive by the government is
positive in the sense that those top but young diplomats would act
in a more realistic manner toward world affairs. I myself know in
person a majority of the five deputy undersecretaries that Sezer
rejected by not signing the appointment decree. They are intelligent
and sophisticated enough to inject energy into the ministry which
has not done much in the past in taking initiatives to help the
government in its efforts to pursue a proactive stance in solving
Turkey’s chronic foreign policy problems.

As a long time journalist dealing with diplomacy and defense I
believe that the new deputy under-secretaries, who now must remain as
acting deputy under-secretaries in the absence of Sezer’s approval,
will contribute positively to the government’s efforts to settle the
country’s chronic foreign policy issues; issues that the status quo
preferred not to solve, thereby putting too heavy a burden on the
citizens of this country.