Author: Antonian Lara

ARMENIA’S NONCONSTRUCTIVE POSITION DID NOT PROMOTE THE PROGRESS, ILHAM ALIYEV

news.az
Dec 25 2009
Azerbaijan

Ilham Aliyev Karabakh conflict to be settled with restoration of
Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity, President Aliyev.

President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev is confident that the Karabakh
conflict can be settled only within the framework of international
law and with restoration of the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan,
state AzTV channel reports.

"We work much to settle the Karabakh conflict and spare no effort
for it to find its solution. But the conflict can be settled only
within the framework of international norms, Azerbaijan’s territorial
integrity must be restored, Armenian occupants must withdraw from
the occupied lands and our citizens must return to their homelands",
Aliyev said in Khirdalan on Thursday.

But we do not want war, we want to go without victims, we want to
settle everything peacefully. At the same time, the Azerbaijani army
and Azerbaijani community must be ready to release the occupied lands
other than peacefully

Ilham AliyevHe said that "these are the main principles for the
conflict settlement and we are not going to disavow our position".

"Unfortunately, 2009 has not become decisive in settling the
conflict though there were great expectations about it. But Armenia’s
nonconstructive position did not promote the progress. Meanwhile,
all sides involved into the resolution of this conflict, support the
conflict settlement within the framework of territorial integrity.

Armenia also signed a political document envisioning the settlement
within the framework of the territorial integrity (of Azerbaijan)",
the head of state said.

The president added that the Azerbaijani society must be strong to
settle the conflict. "We must build a strong state and we are doing it,
we must build a strong army and today Azerbaijan is leading in all
directions in the South Caucasus. We know it and all international
organizations are aware of it", he noted.

I.Aliyev said the gap between Azerbaijan and Armenia in the sphere
of economy and in other directions is growing. "At the time when
the regional countries suffer from recession, Azerbaijan’s economy
is developed, issues on infrastructure, social issues and issues of
army building are being settled. Azerbaijan outstrips Armenia several
times in all these directions. Today the distance between Azerbaijan
and Armenia in the sphere of economy and in other spheres is growing",
the president said.

He added that the current economic and military potential of the
country help settle the conflict by way of war. "But we do not want
war, we want to go without victims, we want to settle everything
peacefully. At the same time, the Azerbaijani army and Azerbaijani
community must be ready to release the occupied lands other than
peacefully", I.Aliyev.

UAE INTENDS TO EXPAND COOPERATION WITH ARMENIA

NOYAN TAPAN
December 25, 2009
Yerevan

YEREVAN, DECEMBER 25, NOYAN TAPAN. On December 25, RA Foreign Minister
Edward Nalbandian received a delegation led by UAE’s First Deputy
Foreign Minister Tariq Al-Haidan that had arrived in Armenia to hold
the first political consultations between the RA and United Arab
Emirates Foreign Ministries.

E. Nalbandian expressed satisfaction that cooperation between Armenia
and UAE develops dynamically, and the high-level mutual visits,
UAE’s businessmen’s growing interest in Armenia are evidence of
it. Tariq Al-Haidan, in his turn, stated that UAE intends to expand
cooperation with Armenia and is already undertaking concrete steps
in that direction.

The interlocutors expressed satisfaction with the process of political
consultations held between December 24 to 25 emphasizing their
importance in the issue of deepening and expansion of cooperation
between the two countries.

According to the RA Foreign Ministry Press and Information Department,
Caucasian and Near Eastern regional problems and efforts made for
their settlement were also touched upon at the meeting.

YEREVAN CITY COUNCIL MEMBERS DISAGREE ON QUORUM

/PanARMENIAN.Net/
25.12.2009 17:37 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Head of Prosperous Armenia parliamentary group
Arman Vardanyan said Friday that most of the party’s initiatives were
approved by Yerevan city council in 2009 .

"The issue of trade decentralization in Yerevan was settled; 20
kindergartens were included in the heating project. Prosperous Armenia
parliamentary group received 147 letters from Yerevan residents,
all letters were replied," he said.

As to the work of the city council, Mr. Vardanyan said that the members
disagree on the issue of quorum. "Prosperous Armenia will initiate an
amendment, to raise the quorum from one quarter of council’s members
to one third," he said.

ALEXANDER ISKANDARYAN: WE CANNOT LIVE TINNED FOREVER

news.am
Dec 24 2009
Armenia

The Turkish Parliament is neither sure nor unlikely to ratify the
Armenian-Turkish protocols next spring, the Armenian political
scientist Alexander Iskandaryan told reporters.

The only factor that might prevent Ankara from ratifying the protocols
is the possibility of the 2011 parliamentary elections being brought
forward to 2010. As regards the Turkish leaders’ statements containing
preconditions or ultimatums, as well as the Armenian side’s statements
on the possibility of its invalidating the protocols, Iskandaryan
considers them means of political pressure. "The Armenian side tried to
show that time limits do exist, and a timeframe is of high importance
here," he said.

According to him, a reopened border means both ample opportunities
and serious challenges for Armenia. Among them is, particularly,
the country’s capability to cope with a possible inflow of migrant
workers and compete with a large market. However, Iskandaryan said,
Armenia must be ready for that, as "we cannot live tinned forever."

AS ALWAYS THE AZERBAIJANIS ARE FALSIFYING

25.12. 09

Recently the recurrent Azerbaijani "movie" about Khojaly appeared
in the Internet. Here the "hospitable and peaceful" Azerbaijanis are
telling about the "tragedy" of Khojaly. In this recurrent Azerbaijani
"movie", which is based on obvious falsehood, there are several
distorted facts and untrue information. The quotations from Zori
Balayan’s book are obscene lies. Some months ago Zori Balayan himself
made an announcement about this, stating that he has never written
a book like that.

It is stated in the "movie" that the residents, who had fled from
Khojaly, were shot near the Armenian Nakhijevanik village. This
fact also does not meet the reality, because in February, 1992 the
village of Nakhijevanik, which is situated around Aghdam, was not
under the Armenian Armed Forces. The "movie" ends with a touching,
heart-breaking music and with the photos of these so called victims and
witnesses of the occurrence. It takes only 1-2 minutes to learn that
one is a photo of a wounded Armenian child, which has been published
in the 5th of December, 1991 issue of the "Ð~ZомÑ~A&#xD 0;¾Ð¼Ð¾Ð"Ð µÑ~F
Ð~ZÑ~CзÐ& #xB1;аÑ~Aа" ("Komsomolets Kuzbasa") newspaper. And the article
was titled "Ð"оÐ"Ð&# xB3;аÑ~O доÑ~@оР³Ð° в ЭÑ~@ÐºÐµÑ ~G" ("The long
way to Erkech"). The electronic version of the abovementioned article
can be found on the following website:

It only remains to advise the staff of the Azerbaijani agitprop to be
more attentive and make such falsifications, which are not so obvious
and so easy-to-uncover.

RA MoD Department of Information and Public Affairs

PROTEST ATTEMPTED OUTSIDE US EMBASSY IN AZERBAIJAN

news.az
Dec 22 2009
Azerbaijan

USA flag A group of members of Muasir Musavat Party attempted to
picket outside the US embassy in Azerbaijan.

The party’s press service told. The picketers protested against
the allocation of $8 million by the U.S. Congress to the separatist
Nagorno Karabakh Republic.

The police prevented the picket and several members of the party were
taken to Nasimi district police office.

They gave explanation and were released.

FORMER U.S. HOUSE SPEAKER ACCUSED OF SPENDING TAX DOLLARS LOBBYING FOR TURKEY

Tert.am
14:47 ~U 22.12.09

Former U.S. House Speaker Dennis Hastert serves as a foreign agent
for the Turkish government to lobby against the Armenian Genocide
Resolution while spending over $40,000 a month of U.S. taxpayers’
money on office space, staff, cell phones and a leased SUV, reports
Politico, a political journalism organization based in Arlington,
Virginia, and disseminated by the Armenian Council of America.

In 2005, allegations arose that Hastert may have been previously the
recipient of tens of thousands of dollars of secret payments from
Turkish officials in exchange for political favors and information.

"As an American tax payer and descendent of Armenian Genocide
survivors and victims, I find it highly repugnant and despicable on
many levels that my tax dollars are possibly funding a Turkish lobbyist
who works feverishly to deny the historical tragedy of my ancestors,"
stated Vasken Khodanian, Chair of the Armenian Council of America.

THE NKR MINISTRY OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS ADDRESSED A LETTER TO THE OSCE CHAIRPERSON-IN-OFFICE

Ministry of Foreign Affairs
2009-12-22 17:14
Nagorno-Karabakh Republic

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Nagorno Karabakh Republic
addressed a letter to the OSCE CiO George Papandreou in connection
with an incident on the Line of Contact between the armed forces of
NKR and Azerbaijan on December 20, 2009.

The letter, in particular, reads that on December 20 of this year
a woman was shot dead from the Azerbaijani positions in the Aghdam
direction of the Contact Line, as she was moving ahead towards a
military outpost of the NKR Defense Army.

"It is not the first time that local residents, forcibly settled in
frontier areas and used for military purposes, are trying to come
over to the Nagorno Karabakh side due to intolerable conditions", –
the letter says.

The NKR Ministry of Foreign Affairs called the attention of the Office
of the Personal Representative of the Chairman-in-Office to the fact
that the specified incident had occurred as a result of violation of
the cease-fire by the Azerbaijani party, while servicemen of the NKR
Defense Army tried to undertake all possible measures to prevent the
tragic death of the elderly woman.

A copy of the letter was sent to the Personal Representative of
the OSCE Chairman-in-Office, Ambassador Andrzej Kasprzyk and the
OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs, Ambassadors Yury Merzlyakov of Russia,
Bernard Fassier of France, and Robert Bradtke of the United States.

SCHIFF RESPONDS TO LETTER FROM LEADING TURKISH-AMERICAN INTEREST GROUPS BY CALLING FOR HOUSE PASSAGE OF ARMENIAN GENOCIDE RESOLUTION

Yerkir
21.12.2009 12:47
Yerevan

Yerevan (Yerkir) – Yesterday, Congressman Adam Schiff sent a response
letter to Gunay Evinch of the Assembly of Turkish American Associations
and Kaya Boztepe of the Federation of Turkish American Associations
regarding the necessity to pass the House Armenian Genocide Resolution
(H. Res. 252). Mr. Evinch and Mr. Boztepe recently wrote to Congressman
Schiff asking that he withdraw his Armenian Genocide Resolution in
light of the recently signed Turkey – Armenian Protocols.

The protocols call for a commission to review the historical dimensions
of the enmity between Armenia and Turkey. In response, Congressman
Schiff states it is imperative that the Congress pass the Genocide
Resolution to prevent Armenia from being forced to accept an historical
whitewash in order advance relations with Turkey.

"In recent months, some, including some in our own government
have suggested that the commission is not intended as a vehicle to
review the history of the Armenian Genocide. Your letter honestly
characterizes it as a vehicle to continue Ankara’s decades of
denial, supporting my own interpretation of the Protocols’ commission
provision," Congressman Schiff wrote in his letter. "The best way to
ensure that the truth about the Armenian Genocide is recognized is
for the United States Congress to act to commemorate the victims now,
while a handful of survivors are still with us."

ARMENIAN GROUP BLASTS US FOR ‘GENOCIDE RECOGNITION FAILURE’

Hurriyet Daily News
Dec 21 2009
Turkey

The ANCA’s strong criticism of Washington came nearly a few days after
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, right, and U.S. President Barack
Obama met at the White House.

The largest and most radical Armenian-American group has criticized
the United States of failing to formally recognize the World War
I-era killings of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire as "genocide."

"It is truly astonishing that the United States has … pursued
a policy of complicity in Turkey’s state-sponsored denial of the
Armenian genocide and has even gone to the lengths of assisting Turkey
in covering up a crime," said Kate Nahapetian, government affairs
director of the Armenian National Committee of America, or ANCA.

Nahapetian’s remarks came in written testimony she submitted to the
U.S. Senate’s Judiciary Subcommittee on Human Rights and the Law for
a hearing titled "The Law of the Land: U.S. Implementation of Human
Rights Treaties" late last week.

"Turkey’s success in silencing one of the most powerful countries in
the world on one of the best documented cases of genocide emboldens
other states to commit genocide and undermines the ability of the U.S.

and the international community to prevent crimes against humanity,"
Nahapetian said, according to an ANCA statement.

She urged the U.S. administration and Congress to reverse this
situation.

The ANCA’s strong criticism of Washington came nearly a few days
after Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and U.S. President Barack
Obama met at the White House. Their agenda included Turkey’s relations
with Armenia.

Reconciliation process

The Turkish and Armenian foreign ministers met Oct. 10 and signed a
set of agreements under which Ankara and Yerevan would reestablish
diplomatic relations and reopen their land border.

Obama, who as a candidate pledged to recognize the Armenian killings
as "genocide," during last year’s election campaign, reversed his
position as president this year and fully backed the Ankara-Yerevan
normalization process, saying he would refrain from any move that
would jeopardize this process.

Presently, two identical "genocide recognition" resolutions introduced
by pro-Armenian lawmakers are pending in the Senate and the House
of Representatives, the upper and lower chambers of Congress,
respectively.

Analysts suggest that as long as the Turkey-Armenia normalization
process remains on track, chances for congressional adoption of these
resolutions remain slim.

However, there are signs that the reconciliation process is facing
obstacles on both sides. The Turkey-Armenia accord of Oct. 10 needs to
be ratified by the parliaments of both countries before implementation,
and there is no indication of when the two nations may bring the deal
to their respective parliaments.

The problem that lies at the root of the problem is the unresolved
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan, Turkey’s
close ally.

Turkey first wants to see progress toward the solution of the
Nagorno-Karabakh dispute before opening its border with Armenia. And
according to Turkey, Armenia is hinting no sign of this.

Nagorno-Karabakh, a mostly Armenian-populated enclave inside Azerbaijan
as well as other parts of Azerbaijan proper, have been under Armenian
occupation since a war in the early 1990s. As a result of this war,
Turkey has kept the land border with Armenia closed since 1993.