Author: Babajanian Karo

Haykakan Zhamanak: Creation of Heritage and Free Democrats parties’
alliance enters deadlock

ARMENPRESS
10:25, 7 March, 2012

The sources of the daily claim that the negotiations between the Free
Democrats and Heritage parties on forming pre-electoral alliance or
united proportional list have entered a deadlock. The paper says the
parties fail to come into agreement over certain details and recently
it has been registered that the parties may probably fail to come into
agreement. The paper says its correspondent asked Garnik Gevorgyan,
Free Democrats party representative, comment on it: “No, it is not so
as the negotiations continue. We have agreed over general principles,
there are just certain details over which the discussions continue but
to say that we have failed to come to agreement is not right as well,
just as it will not be right to say that we have come into full
agreement.” The paper says in response to the question of the daily
whether the postponement of their congress is not the testimony of the
deadlock, Gevorgyan insisted that their congress has been postponed
because of technical reasons.

Armen Ashotyan is sure – `’Anahit” Goddess to return homeland

15:30, 7 March, 2012

YEREVAN, MARCH 7, ARMENPRESS. A meeting was organized by Armenian
Youth Foundation near the Embassy of Great Britain and Northern
Ireland on March 7 to return relics of statue of goddess Anahit from
British Museum.

Armen Ashotyan, Minister of Education and Science of Armenia along
with Karen Avagyan, Coordinator of Board of Trustees of the
Foundation, handed the text of the message to return the relics to
motherland as well as the signatures of volunteers to Ambassadors
Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United Kingdom of Great
Britain and Northern Ireland to Armenia Jonathan James Aves and
Katherine Jane Leach.

Karen Avagyan told Armenpress ”the initiative belongs to the Minister
of Science and Education.”

Reportedly compatriots in Diaspora joined the event. ”The initiative
has become pan Armenian” explained Avagyan and underlined that the
choice of day was not accidental. It was dedicated to Women’s
holidays.

Ashotyan believes the process will be crowned with success if we are
persistent. There are few monuments dated Before C hrist, so the
return of remains of ”Anahit” statue is more valuable in this
context.

Youth Foundation of Armenia started signature gathering on February
20-27. Twenty thousand young people from regions and capital
participated in the initiative.

The copies of the text message and signatures will be sent to British Museum.

Translation Laboratory to open in Yerevan State Linguistic University

13:58, 7 March, 2012

YEREVAN, MARCH 7, ARMENPRESS. Translation Laboratory will open in
Yerevan State Linguistic University on March 13.

The establishment of the YSLU Translation Lab is supported by Eurasia
Partnership Foundation (EPF) Europe program, which aims to contribute
to the effective implementation of Eastern Partnership in Armenia, and
Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA) within the
frames of “Translation Lab as a Catalyst for Modernization and Reform
at YSLU” project.

The Laboratory aims at boosting the higher education reform at YSLU
via building capacities for the innovative educational cycle based on
“IT-Translation” concept.

The Lab will serve as a powerful impetus to a wide range of
transformations across disciplines, as a crucial part of the
modernization strategy of the university. It will support the academic
mobility of students and educators, internationalize higher education,
enhance the quality of education, impact the employability of
graduates, and contribute to modernizing the Armenian language social
discourse in many vital professional areas.

The guests of the opening ceremony are representatives of different
international and national organizations, professionals, professors
and students.

Facebook no longer accessible also to Armenia

arminfo
Wednesday, March 7, 17:20

Facebook social network and the website became
inaccessible to the users of the post-Soviet internet space
approximately from 9:30am to 12.00am on March 7. Russian mass media
report the mobile version of the website is still accessible via
Beeline channels. Because of the time difference, there are fewer
responses from the U.S. segment of the mobile network, but users
complain of the failure of the website and Facebook Connect service.
Specialists say the most probable reason is failure of the
server-based routing outside the CIS. So far, there are no comments by
the Facebook Management in the web.

Serzh Sargsyan held a telephone conversation with the President-elect
of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin

07.03.2012

Today, President Serzh Sargsyan held a telephone conversation with the
President-elect of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin.

The President of Armenia once again congratulated Vladimir Putin on
his election and wished him success on the high position of the
President of the Russian Federation.

The Presidents of Armenia and Russia expressed readiness to continue
efforts aimed at the development and strengthening of the
Armenian-Russian strategic partnership based on the centuries-long
friendship of the two brotherly nations.

Azerbaijan, Iran, Turkey sign Nakhchivan declaration

Wed 07 March 2012 12:16 GMT | 12:16 Local Time
[image: 82517]

The foreign ministers of Azerbaijan, Iran and Turkey have pledged to
further cooperation in a declaration signed in the Azerbaijani exclave of
Nakhchivan.

The ministers – Elmar Mammadyarov of Azerbaijan, Ali Akbar Salehi of Iran
and Ahmet Davutoglu of Turkey – first held one-to-one talks in Nakhchivan
and then met together on Wednesday.

In the declaration, adopted at the end of their talks, the ministers
express their backing for further discussions of important regional and
international issues and welcome Azerbaijan’s election as a non-permanent
member of the UN Security Council, APA reported.

They stress the the importance of solving the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict
over Nagorno-Karabakh with respect for sovereignty, territorial integrity
and international law.

The ministers agree in the declaration to hold meetings of subcommittees on
different areas of cooperation. A subcommittee on trade, industry and
investment will meet in Turkey in May, a subcommittee on transport will
meet in Azerbaijan in June, a subcommittee on energy will meet in Iran in
September and a subcommittee on tourism and culture will meet in Iran in
October.

The ministers note the potential to link the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway to
the Nakhchivan-Julfa-Tabriz railway, two routes currently under
construction.

The declaration also contains a pledge to consider easing the visa regime.

‘Very good, informative’ meeting

Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov described the meeting as
very important and effective for all three countries.

“It was a very good meeting, informative,” he told a press conference with
the two other ministers.”We covered global issues and signed the trilateral
declaration.”

Meetings in the same trilateral format will be held by the countries’
ministers of tourism and by other ministers too, Mammadyarov said.

The next meeting of the three foreign ministers will be held in the city of
Van in eastern Turkey in September.

Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu told the press conference that
today’s meeting had a positive effect on regional relations.

“Turkey, Azerbaijan and Iran have already taken significant steps towards
deepening relations. A separate meeting of businessmen from the three
countries is planned alongside the meeting of ministers in Van. Customs
procedures will be reviewed here as well,” Davutoglu said.

Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi said that the three countries
were linked by history.

“We are three states, three bodies with one spirit. This is, of course,
reflected in the agreements among all three countries. We will continue our
consultations on a regular basis,” he told the press conference.

The Iranian minister said that the three countries had a combined
population of more than 170 million which created a big market.

News.Az

Students to Pay Respects to Fallen Women Fighters

hetq
12:03, March 7, 2012

Students and teachers from the Armenia State University of Economics
are planning to visit the Yerablur Military Cemetery in Yerevan and
pay their respects to women who died fighting in the Artsakh
Liberation War.

The commemoration will take place on the eve of International Women’s
Day, celebrated on March 8.

Expert: Azerbaijan and Armenia have forces supposing that they will be
able to gain a quick victory in case of resumption of military actions

arminfo
Wednesday, March 7, 15:08

Azerbaijan and Armenia have forces who suppose that they will be able
to gain a quick victory in case of resumption of military actions,
Sabine Freizer, Director of the Europe Program of the International
Crisis Group, says in her interview to Turan. In the ICG’s report
“Armenia and Azerbaijan: Preventing War” published a year earlier
warns about possible aggravation, as both countries take part in the
arms race, use military rhetoric and there is obvious slipping in the
peace process.

She says that the armed forces of Azerbaijan number 95,000 people,
those of Armenia and Karabakh – nearly 70,000. The both sides’
arsenals are becoming more and more capable to resist a long war.
These arsenals allow reaching big populated areas, damaging the
vitally important infrastructures and the communications. For
Azerbaijan the key problem will be that the Armenian troops have
tactical advantage as they control most part of the altitudes around
Nagorno-Karabakh. Freizer thinks that any attack outside Fizouli and
Jebrail will be a difficult fight on the mountainous relief, and
Azerbaijan will need at least threefold overweight in the manpower and
arms. She does not rule out possible involvement of the regional
powers in the conflict, though Russia and Turkey are currently close
strategic allies.

According to her, Armenia will most likely try to ensure Russia’s
military intervention referring to the CSTO commitments. She says it
is hard to speak of direct military participation of Russia, however,
the agreement on the Russian military base in Gyumri was amended in
August 2010.

The document includes guarantees of security against the general
threats to Armenia’s security, though does not clearly clarify the
military obligations of Moscow in case of resumption of the Karabakh
war. On 16 Aug 2010, a day before the renewal of the Armenian-Russian
military agreement, Turkey and Azerbaijan signed an agreement on
strategic partnership and an agreement on mutual assistance, which
says that the parties shall support each other “by every possible
means” in case of a military attack or “aggression” against either of
the countries.

Freizer does not believe that the U.S. or the EU will be directly
involved in the conflict, but the resumption of military actions may
seriously undermine the interests of the U.S. and the EU in the sphere
of energy, development of the South Caucasus as an alternative source
and transit routes for import of energy resources to Europe. A
full-scale war will endanger the Caucasus corridor. About 70% of all
flights of NATO’s military aviation to the bases of Central Asia are
made via the air space of this corridor. The alternative land route to
Afghanistan also goes via Azerbaijan, Freizer says.

Armenian-Georgian commission to be formed in Georgia’s parliament

news.am
March 07, 2012 | 11:19

YEREVAN. – An Armenian National Assembly (NA) delegation, led by NA
Deputy Speaker Samvel Balasanyan, paid a working visit to Tbilisi on
Tuesday. The delegation was received by Deputy Speaker Mikheil
Machavariani of the Georgian parliament.

During the meeting, the parties expressed their readiness to make the
interparliamentary ties become more active. Samvel Balasanyan informed
his Georgian colleague about NA Commission on Armenian-Georgian
Interparliamentary Ties. In response, Mikheil Machavariani promised to
discuss, with the Georgian parliament’s speaker, the forming of such
commission in the Georgian parliament, too, and he expressed a view
that such commission will be established, Samvel Balasanyan’s staff
informed Armenian News-NEWS.am.

They also discussed other matters of bilateral interest.

`Why Do Armenia Citizens Serve in Karabakh?’ Ombudsman Unsatisfied
with Defense Ministry Response

03.07.2012 13:12 epress.am

The Armenian Human Rights Defender’s Office is currently reviewing the
case of Lena Sarukhanyan, the mother of Gyumri resident Torgom
Sarukhanyan, 22, who died on Feb. 12, 2011, from a gunshot wound he
received while serving in one of the military bases in Khojaly,
Nagorno-Karabakh. Recall, on Feb. 3, 2012, Lena wrote a letter to
Human Rights Defender Karen Andreasyan asking why citizens of Armenia
are serving in Nagorno-Karabakh.

`We received Mrs. Sarukhanyan’s initial request and immediately
submitted a request to the Ministry of Defense, but the ministry’s
response didn’t satisfy us. Consequently, we wrote a letter to the
prime minister, so that we can finally receive a satisfactory answer
that we could then pass on to Mrs. Sarukhanyan,’ Aram Vardevanyan, a
representative of the Ombudsman’s Office, informed Epress.am, not
providing further details on the Defense Ministry’s response.

Vardevanyan said that they are still waiting for the head of
government’s intervention in this case.

The Ombudsman’s Office representative also said he was surprised at
Lena Sarukhanyan’s claim that their office had spoken harshly with
her.

Note, Sarukhanyan called the office early March to find out what
happened to her application. She charges that Ashot Vardevanyan spoke
harshly with her, which he disputes.