Author: Badalian Vardan

US REJECTS STATUS QUO IN NAGORNO-KARABAKH CONFLICT SETTLEMENT

Vestnik Kavkaza
Feb 22 2012
Russia

No changes have happened in the US policy in resolving the
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, Eric Rubin, US Assistant Secretary of
State for Europe and Asia, said, AzerTAG reports.

The US official said that Washington’s position bases on the
Helsinki act, principles of territorial unity, non-use of force and
self-determination.

He reminded that the US is one of the three co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk
Group. It wants to improve the atmosphere and make a breakthrough in
negotiations between Armenia and Azerbaijan. Thus, the US will not
take sides.

Rubin said that the Minsk Group is the only format to stimulate the
Nagorno-Karabakh peace process. The US assistant secretary of state
reminded that he expressed the point at a meeting with Azerbaijani
President Ilham Aliyev. Rubin added that the situation is risky.

GOOGLE EXPLAINS TRANSLATION GLITCH

Armenian Weekly
February 22, 2012

BOSTON, Mass. (A.W.)–Concerned internet users this week initiated
an online campaign after one activist, Lebanese-Armenian Serouj
Baghdassarian, noticed that Google’s online translation service
(translate.google.com) was mistakenly translating “ÔµÕ½ Õ½Õ”O~@Õ¸O~BÕ´
Õ¥Õ´ Õ°Õ¡ÕµÕ¥O~@Õ”Õ¶” (“I love Armenians”) to “I love Turkey.”

A screenshot of Google’s translation of ‘I love Armenians,’ which
has since been corrected.

“Google Translate is an automated system. It makes guesses based on
patterns gleaned from large bodies of human-translated text. It doesn’t
do word-by-word dictionary-style translation,” Jason Freidenfelds,
from Google’s global communications and public affairs department,
told the Armenian Weekly.

“So sometimes [the service] makes mistakes which seem obvious to a
human translator, but aren’t to our machine-learning system,” he added.

The translation was corrected by late afternoon on Feb. 19, following
a widespread report of the problem that first appeared in the Armenian
Weekly.

CASE CLOSED: HRAPARAK APOLOGIZES TO KOCHARYAN
Tatevik Shaljyan

hetq
13:12, February 23, 2012

The slander case brought by former RA President Robert Kocharyan
against the newspaper Hraparak dating back to the spring of last year
finally came to a close when the paper issued a full retraction and
apology on February 18.

Former President Kocharyan had sued the paper over articles it
published back in February and March of 2011. . He had demanded a full
retraction and 6 million AMD in compensation, of which 3 million is
for legal fees incurred.

EU AND TURKEY: TALKS LANGUISH, TRADE BOOMS
by CHRISTOPHER TORCHIA

The Associated Press
February 21, 2012 Tuesday 10:04 AM GMT

If a project has no deadline, is it really a project? What do you
call a negotiation process in which the partners can’t talk about
key issues? These are existential times for Turkey’s campaign to join
the European Union an ambitious vision that has become increasingly
ambiguous.

At a time when Greece’s survival in the eurozone is in jeopardy,
it seems academic to debate a Turkish entry to European ranks that
some Turks feel won’t happen in their lifetime, if at all. The more
pressing question is whether the suitors should, as with any soured
romance, call it quits or rekindle the flame.

When accession talks began in 2005, the idea was that Turkey’s Muslim
population would enrich the continent, culturally and economically,
with Turkey itself destined to become a European-style democracy that
could serve as an east-west bridge.

More than six years later, doubt haunts hope.

Economic troubles mean that Europe, where skepticism toward the Turkish
bid was already building, has little energy to expand, while in Turkey
reform efforts have slowed and the nation has sought to carve out a
leadership role in the Middle East.

“Without a deadline, without a final aim, there is no process,” said
Cengiz Aktar, a political science professor at Bahcesehir University
in Istanbul. “There can’t be an endless project.”

Aktar, who attended the opening of an EU information office at the
university on Friday, said it was “high time” for a reassessment of
Turkey’s bid. He rejected the argument that EU-backed reform alone
was enough, as though the journey was as good as the destination.

The debate is in limbo partly because France and Germany, which have
spoken against full Turkish membership, hold elections this year and
2013 respectively, and no bold initiatives are expected during the
political campaign season.

Even if those European heavyweights choose governments that are more
sympathetic to Turkey’s candidacy, there is no sign of progress on a
long-running dispute over EU member Cyprus, where the Greek-speaking
south observes European rules and Turkey aids and occupies the isolated
Turkish Cypriot north.

Jean-Maurice Ripert, the EU’s new ambassador to Turkey, said more
joint teams would be formed to lay technical groundwork for accession
in case political conditions improve in the years ahead. He cited
40,000 student exchanges between Turkey and the EU last year, as well
as EU plans to spend 800 million euros ($1.06 billion) this year on
European development projects in Turkey.

“Don’t think that nothing is happening,” he said in a meeting with
foreign journalists. Since his January arrival, Ripert said, Turkish
officials have assured him of their commitment to joining the European
Union and voiced frustration with what they see as European opposition.

In the past decade, Turkey has evolved into a regional powerhouse
whose foreign policy remains in step with, but no longer defined by,
its allies in NATO. Europe, meanwhile, was signaling fatigue with
the idea of expansion well before it sank into recession.

“In Brussels nowadays, you hear very little talk of enlargement,”
said Sinan Ulgen, chairman of EDAM, a research center in Istanbul,
and a visiting scholar at Carnegie Europe in the Belgian capital. “The
main issue is essentially the economic crisis.”

Numbers tell the story of the failure and potential of the Turkish bid,
a legacy of Ottoman sultans who sought to upgrade their crumbling
empire with European ideas, as well as Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the
national founder who looked westward for inspiration.

Half of the three-dozen subjects, or chapters, in membership
negotiations are blocked. No new chapter has been opened since June
2010. However, Europe accounts for nearly half of Turkey’s foreign
trade, as well as about 85 percent of foreign direct investment there.

Turkey once highly anticipated the EU’s annual report on its membership
progress. Interest has dwindled. European officials have expressed
concern about minority rights, the right to a fair trial and freedom of
expression, and Turkey has slammed Greek Cypriot vetoes of negotiations
and a French bill that would criminalize denial that the mass killings
of Armenians by Ottoman Turks was a genocide.

“The Europe that is afraid of speaking and arguing has nothing to
give humanity,” Turkey’s Anadolu agency quoted Egeman Bagis, minister
for EU affairs, as saying. “But the EU that we always emphasize being
the most comprehensive peace project in the history of humanity has
to be more courageous and liberal.”

Andrew Gardner, an Amnesty International researcher, said EU-inspired
legislative reform in Turkey had resulted in fewer reported cases of
torture in police stations and prisons, but warned of a “regression
of the human rights situation” in Turkey, particularly with regard to
free expression. He also cited the negative impact of statements by
EU leaders suggesting Turkey might not be accepted as a full member
even if it fulfills human rights obligations.

Suat Kiniklioglu, a former ruling party lawmaker and director of the
Ankara-based Center for Strategic Communication, captured the ambiguity
that shrouds Turkey’s EU campaign by offering two ways to look at it.

The first: “The process is going nowhere and neither side is willing
to admit it. This is heading toward a slow death.”

The second, which he prefers: “The current impasse is actually not
that bad as Europe needs time to sort out its own problems while
Turkey will continue to grow and reform domestically at its own pace.

The negotiations can be revived any time the two sides feel they
are ready.”

Ulgen, the visiting scholar in Brussels, said a “vicious circle”
had developed, in which Turkey, once praised for its reform program,
loses enthusiasm for a process that it believes is unfair, while
Europe loses leverage over a process that some of its leaders treat
with ambivalence.

“We’re in standstill mode,” he said. According to Ulgen, Turkey and
the European Union must eventually decide what kind of a relationship
they want because: “We cannot continue to pretend anymore that the
negotiations are continuing.”

IS IRAN OPPRESSING CHRISTIANS?
By Damaris Kremida

Opposing Views

Feb 21 2012

ISTANBUL, Turkey — Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence has ordered the
last two officially registered churches holding Friday Farsi-language
services in Tehran to discontinue them.

Emmanuel Protestant Church and St. Peter’s Evangelical Church were
the last two official churches offering services on Fridays in Tehran
in Iran’s primary language, according to Middle East Concern (MEC).

Officials issued the order on Feb. 10.

Emmanuel and St. Peter’s, both Presbyterian churches, are among
Tehran’s few registered churches that mainly serve the Armenian and
Assyrian communities. The churches’ Armenian- and Assyrian- language
services are typically held on Sundays.

In 2009, authorities had ordered an Assemblies of God congregation,
Central Church of Tehran, to close its multiple Friday Farsi services.

Friday services in Tehran attracted converts to Christianity as well
as Muslims interested in Christianity, as Friday is most Iranians’
day off during the week. Authorities told the churches they can hold
the services on Sunday, a working day when most Iranians are not able
to attend.

“This decision means that there are now no Farsi-language services
on Fridays in any officially registered church in Tehran,” Middle
East Concern (MEC) stated in a mid-February report.

An Iranian Christian who requested anonymity told Compass Direct
News that government officials cannot stop the three churches from
operating because they belong to minority groups. But, the source
said, officials are doing what they can to limit both the churches
and the spread of Christianity to Farsi speakers.

“Authorities want church operations to stop, but because these
churches are established by Armenians and Assyrians and their leaders
are Armenian and Assyrian, they can’t stop them,” the source said,
“but they can stop the Farsi-speaking services.”

The source said the restrictions have cut attendance at Emmauel and
St. Peter’s by half.

The MEC report stated that “the order to stop Farsi services is
consistent with the authorities’ policy of restricting Christian
activities to these traditional communities,” indicating that Tehran is
determined to eradicate access to Christian worship for the country’s
growing number of Christian converts.

Authorities have prohibited musical worship and Bible distribution at
the Central Church of Tehran, the largest and most visible Assemblies
of God congregation in the country. Last December, officials also
enforced a policy under which only invited guests could attend Central
Church’s Christmas service.

Authorities recently have pressured leaders of Emmanuel and St.

Peter’s to turn over the national identity numbers of Christians,
the Iranian Christian source said. As a result, many Christians from
these churches as well as Central Church have lost their jobs.

“We have some people who were fired from their jobs,” the Christian
said. “The authorities pushed the bosses to fire their Christian
employees.”

The source explained that this is a new tactic by the government to
discourage Iranians from becoming Christians and to deter Christians
from being involved in church.

“‘If I have too many difficulties in my life, I won’t have time to
be involved in church, and people will see how difficult it is to be
a Christian,'” the source said of the government’s pressure. “This
is not a good face for the Christians. The others see and say, ‘Oh,
they became Christians and God stopped His blessing to them.'”

Most Iranian Christian converts attend underground house churches
that belong to various networks. For their own protection, these
Christians often do not know about other house church networks.

Authorities often detain, question and apply pressure on converts from
Islam, viewing them as elements of Western propaganda set against
the Iranian regime. As a result, the converts are forced to worship
in secret.

Also in mid-February, news surfaced of the arrest in Tehran of an
Assemblies of God leader, Masis Moussian of the Narmak AOG church.

Mohabat News reported that his arrest was a result of “waves of
anti-Christian pressures and distribution of unsubstantiated reports
by regime-supported media regarding the AOG churches of Iran.”

According to these reports, members of the AOG church in Tehran are
“extreme Christians” trying to recruit new members, and particularly
youth, across the country.

Moussian is being held at the Rajaei-Shahr prison and is not allowed
visitors. His family has not been able to obtain information on his
condition in prison.

On Feb. 8, authorities also arrested about 10 Christians who had
gathered for worship at a house in the southern city of Shiraz. A
report by Mohabat News stated that authorities mistreated the
Christians in attendance and searched the house, confiscating Bibles.

The Christians still remain in an unknown location.

The new report identified two women, three men and a teenager by their
first names. Another was identified as Mojtaba Hosseini. Authorities
had arrested Hosseini in 2008 along with eight other Christian converts
on charges of being Christians, according to Mohabat.

Among those being detained is a 17-year-old boy named Nima, along with
his mother, Fariba, and father, Homayoun. Another woman was identified
as Sharifeh, and two men were identified as Kourosh and Masoud.

Authorities searched the homes of those arrested and seized CDs,
Bibles, Christian materials, computers, fax machines and satellite
receivers, according to Mohabat.

Iran applies sharia (Islamic law), which dictates that converts from
Islam to other religions are “apostates” who can be punished by death.

Although judges rarely sentence Christians to death for leaving Islam,
one Christian, Yousef (also spelled Youcef) Nadarkhani, is appealing
such a decision in the northeastern city of Rasht.

Nadarkhani has been in prison since October 2009. A Rasht court found
him guilty of leaving Islam and handed him the death sentence in
September 2010. Remaining in prison also are Farshid Fathi in Tehran;
Farhad Sabokroh, Naser Zamen-Defzuli, Davoud Alijani and Noorollah
Qabitizade in Ahwaz; and Fariborz Arazm and Behnam Irani in Karaj.

There are an estimated 350,000 Christian converts from Islam in Iran.

“I believe 100 percent the whole movement in Iran is in God’s hand,”
the Christian source told Compass. “This pushing [of the government]
can stop the church buildings but they cannot stop the Kingdom of God.

WORLD BANK PREDICTS 4.3% GROWTH IN ARMENIA

The Messenger
Feb 21 2012
Georgia

The World Bank’s Yerevan office has predicted that the Armenian
economy will achieve 4.3% economic growth in 2012.

After the shock of 2008, Armenia’s foreign debt increased, although
recently the Armenian government has adopted procedures to monitor
and regulate the re-payment of loans. The country also had to lower
export prices to encourage economic growth.

One of the most important sources of income is remittances from the
sizeable Armenian Diaspora. Any economic difficulties in sending
countries therefore also influences Armenia’s national economy.

AZERBAIJAN WON’T ATTACK ARMENIA – EXPERT

Vestnik Kavkaza
Feb 21 2012
Russia

Azerbaijan won’t attack Armenia, Azerbaijani political analyst Fikret
Sadykhov told VK, commenting on the recent statement by the CSTO chief.

The chairman of the Collective Security Treaty Organization, Nikolay
Bordyuzha, recently said that the organization would back Armenia in
case of military aggression.

According to Professor Sadykhov, there will be no need for such
intervention as Azerbaijan has no plans to attack Armenia.

ORTHODOX CHRISTIAN LEADER URGES EQUALITY IN NEW TURKEY LAW

Agence France Presse
February 20, 2012 Monday 3:09 PM GMT

The spiritual leader of the world’s Orthodox Christians said Monday
that members of his community must not be treated as second-class
citizens in Turkey’s new constitution.

“We want the new text to represent all of us… We want nothing more
than to be equal,” Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople
said after addressing a session of parliament devoted to drawing up
a new basic law.

“We do not want to be second-class citizens. Minorities have
unfortunately fallen victim to such injustice. But this is starting
to change,” he was quoted as saying by the Anatolia news agency.

The patriarch was consulted by parliament about the role of religious
minorities in the new constitution for the Muslim majority but
secular nation.

An official from the Syriac community also addressed lawmakers and
representatives from the Armenian and Jewish communities are also
due to have their views heard.

Turkey does not recognize Bartholomew I’s title as head of the world
Orthodox Christians and considers him only the spiritual head of
Turkey’s tiny Greek Orthodox minority.

Ankara said last year it aimed to draft a new constitution by mid-2012
to replace a post-coup basic law adopted in 1980, but progress has
been slow and the new document may not emerge this year.

Today the Greek Orthodox population numbers little more than 2,500
people in Istanbul. There are also some 60,000 Armenians and 15,000
Orthodox Syrians among the minority religious groups.

The government in Turkey is headed by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip
Erdogan, leader of the Islamist-rooted Justice and Development Party
(AKP).

RUSSIA DEPLOYS S-400 AIR DEFENSE MISSILES

PanARMENIAN.Net
February 21, 2012 – 17:17 AMT

PanARMENIAN.Net – New S-400 Triumf air defense systems have been
delivered to Russia’s Western Military District and will be put
on alert duty in a month, district commander Arkady Bakhin said on
Tuesday, February 21, RIA Novosti reported.

He did not say exactly where the missiles will be stationed.

Air Force Commander Alexander Zelin previously said S-400 systems
would be deployed near Russia’s borders in 2012.

Some of them will most likely be placed in the Russian exclave of
Kaliningrad in response to the planned European missile shield,
which Moscow considers a threat to its national security.

Russia currently has two S-400 regiments protecting the airspace
around Moscow.

State-controlled arms exporter Rosoboronexport has said Russia will
not export S-400 systems before 2015 and may not start deliveries to
Belarus and Kazakhstan until after 2014.

The S-400 (SA-21 Growler) air defense system is expected to form the
cornerstone of Russia’s theater air and missile defenses by 2020.

The S-400 can engage targets at a range of up to 400 kilometers and an
altitude of 40,000-50,000 meters. The system uses an array of assets
optimized for engaging ballistic and cruise missiles.

SCIENTISTS OFFER DECLARATION ON RIGHTS OF DOLPHINS

news.am
February 21, 2012 | 17:45

Scientists and animal rights groups have developed a special
declaration on the rights of dolphins and want it to be approved at
the legislative level.

If the bill on dolphins is passed, then attacks of fishermen, as well
as keeping dolphins in zoos will be a criminal offense.

The bill says representative of cetaceans – whales, dolphins and
belugas – has the right to life and nobody has the right to own these
creatures or do something that infringes their rights, liberty or
the rules, NEWSru.com reports.

Last year Armenian environmentalists filed a lawsuit against the
Armenian Ministry of Nature Protection demanding that court should
order the ministry to conduct an inquiry into construction project
of the Yerevan dolphinarium.

The Nemo dolphinarium was opened in 2010 December in the territory
of one of the Yerevan parks. Environmentalists objected to the idea,
saying the dolphins would not survive in Armenia.