Author: Badalian Vardan

ISRAEL FEARS COMPLETE ISOLATION
by Ulrike Putz

Spiegel Online International
September 12, 2011 Monday 6:48 PM GMT+1
Germany

SOFTENING STANCE AFTER SETBACKS

Israel’s relations with Turkey are ruined, the Palestinians plan to
seek UN recognition for their own state, the embassy in Cairo was
stormed: Jerusalem is under massive pressure. Even hard-line Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is starting to sound conciliatory.;
,1518,785845,00.html

Is Jerusalem softening its hard-line stance? After weeks of
confrontation with friend and foe alike, Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu chose unusually conciliatory words in thanking the Egyptian
government for its help during the storm by Egyptian protesters on
the Israeli embassy in Cairo on Friday night.

During the weekly cabinet meeting in Jerusalem on Sunday, Netanyahu
praised the Egyptian security forces for rescuing six Israeli
diplomats and security guards who had been under siege in the embassy
building for hours. He continued with warm words for the Egyptian
ruling military council, saying: “I am glad that there are also other
voices in Egypt and in the leadership who want to bring forward and
preserve peace.”

Earlier, the government had accused the Egyptian security forces and
the military leadership of failing to do enough to protect the Israeli
embassy staff. Over the weekend, high-ranking government officials
in Jerusalem had expressed outrage that Israel had to get United
States President Barack Obama to intervene with Cairo to trigger a
commando-rescue operation that averted a lynching of six security
guards. By Monday, though, such talk had ceased.

Serious Setbacks

If Netanyahu is now backing down, it is because the situation is
serious. Very serious. The Israelis are no strangers to crisis,
but they will remember the last few weeks for a long time. Rarely
has the Jewish state suffered so many setbacks and blows as this month:

On Sept. 1, pro-Palestinian activists in London interrupted a
performance by the Israeli Symphony Orchesta so vehemently that the
BBC had to break off its broadcast of the concert for the first time
in its history.

On Sept. 6, it became known that former US Defense Secretary Robert
Gates had described Netanyahu as “ungrateful” in a meeting of the
National Security Council. By refusing to acknowledge Israel’s growing
isolation, Netanyahu was endangering his country, Gates said. The fact
that Gates’ comments became public and weren’t contradicted by the US
government suggest that they were a semi-official message to Jerusalem.

The dispute between Turkey and Israel over Israel’s refusal to
apologize for the deaths of nine Turkish activists in a 2010 Israeli
raid on a Turkish boat carrying aid for Gaza culminated last week
when Turkey expelled the Israeli ambassador, cancelled its military
cooperation with Jerusalem and announced it would provide military
protection for Turkish ships heading to Gaza in the future. Israeli
Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman retorted that Israel would cooperate
closely in the future with Kurds and Armenians, traditional opponents
of Turkey.

The Palestinian leadership has vowed to seek full United Nations
membership for a Palestinian state in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank
at the UN General Assembly in New York on Sept. 20. Attempts by the
European Union and the US to persuade Ramallah to refrain from such
a move, by offering them the prospect of fresh peace negotiations,
have so far failed to dissuade the Palestinians.

On Friday night, thousands of demonstrators gathered in front of the
Israeli embassy in Cairo, tore a hole in the surrounding wall, stormed
part of the building and held six Israelis under siege for hours. All
embassy staff had been evacuated, and only one official was left in
the building at the time. Israeli’s most important representation in
the Arab world is effectively closed now.

Given these crises, Netanyahu is wise to try to calm the waters. For
weeks, Israeli politicians and analysts have been warning that Israel’s
hard-line stance is causing irreparable damage to its reputation
among Arabs and in the West. Criticism of the government is especially
strong in the security services: the military intelligence service,
the domestic intelligence service Shin Bet and the foreign secret
service Mossad have repeatedly called on the government in recent weeks
to resume talks with the Palestinians in order to ease tensions and
lessen international anger toward Israel, the daily Haaretz reported.

Call for Change in Policy

Defense Minister Ehud Barak, a long-time opponent of Netanyahu,
is leading calls for a change in policy. According to Haaretz ,
Barak told fellow cabinet ministers that if Israel fails to try to
move the peace process forward, it will be seen as obstructionist by
its friends in the West.

Israeli President Shimon Peres is also reported to have urged
Netanyahu to change his stance on the Palestinians, Israel’s Army
Radio reported. Peres is said to have personally called on Netanyahu
to adopt a “softer” position in the upcoming UN vote on a Palestinian
state. Israel fears a blow to its reputation if such a state were to
be recognized. It would also face possible legal consequences if a
Palestinian state were able to seek prosecutions at the International
Criminal Court more easily.

But even if Netanyahu has decided to take the wind out of the
Palestinians’ sails by making compromise offers, it’s doubtful
whether he will be able to stay the course. He leads a right-wing
coalition in which some members have already made clear they
won’t back a policy of reconciliation. Netanyahu had only just
made his comments praising Egypt when members of his cabinet began
sounding confrontational again. If the Palestinians dare to seek UN
recognition for a Palestinian state, Israel must annex the West Bank,
four ministers from various right-wing parties demanded.

TAKING ON TURKEY: ISRAEL’S ‘DANGEROUS’ GAME
By Ramzy Baroud

The Tripoli Post
September 12, 2011 Monday
Libya

The UN Palmer Report, which largely exonerated Israel for murdering
nine unarmed Turkish civilians in international waters on May 31, 2010,
seemed in some ways like the last straw. Prior to its publication,
the camel’s back had already mostly broken, and a collapse in
Turkish-Israeli ties was looming.

Turkey’s sin was seeking an apology for the killing of its citizens –
on their way to deliver essential, life-saving supplies to malnourished
and besieged Palestinians in Gaza – at the hand of Israeli army
commandos.

If the civilians had been Israelis, and the commandos part of a
Turkish force, all hell would have broken loose. Israel and the US
would have declared Turkey a pariah state. Turkey, however, merely
demanded an apology, and it was affronted further for doing so.

Of course, this is not the first time that Israel deliberately provoked
and tested Turkish patience. Israel has attempted to infiltrate
Turkey’s own political spaces by supporting its regional opponents
and arming various rebel groups with the aim of destabilizing Turkey.

Instead of acknowledging the country’s rising significance and
accommodating to the rules of the ‘new Middle East’ political game,
Israel resorted to intimidation and insults. It repeatedly placed
Turkey – a thriving democracy and a proud regional power of 80 million
– in a very sensitive standing.

However, the anti-Turkish attitude in Israel was not an outcome of
the Mavi Marmara incident last year. “The height of humiliation” is
how an Israeli newspaper described a scene in which Israel’s deputy
foreign minister Danny Ayalon summoned Turkish ambassador, Ahmet Oguz,
last January to humiliate him before Israeli media.

Oguz was reprimanded over a fictional Turkish TV show that was critical
of Israel. To ensure that the point has been successfully made, Ayalon
“urged journalists to make clear that the ambassador was seated on
a low sofa, while the Israeli officials were in much higher chairs,”
according to the BBC (January 13, 2010). Ayalon noted that is “there
is only one flag here” – the Israeli flag – and “we are not smiling”.

How did Turkey respond? A statement issued by the foreign ministry
‘invited’ their counterparts in “Israeli foreign ministry to respect
the rules of diplomatic courtesy.” Hardly outrageous.

The gist of the Turkish message that followed the murder of the Turkish
humanitarian activists a few months later was not much different. It
basically asked for an apology.

Turkey was shunned for the seemingly unreasonable demand. An unnamed
senior Israeli official explained the Israeli logic to Ynet news on
September 2, following Turkey’s decision to downgrade ties with Israel.

“Turkey is an important country in the Middle East, but an apology is
a very strategic precedent for Israel in this region,” he said. That
is true, Israel’s diplomacy is predicated on unfair trade, violent
storming of humanitarian boats, subservient activities, espionage and
much more. Indeed, an apology for the murder of Turkish’s civilians
would be a precedent.

Even after the recent publishing of Palmer Report – a contradictory
and obvious attempt at exonerating the Israeli army while implicating
Turkish humanitarian activists – Turkey acted responsibly.

But it also acted with the poise and dignity that is expected of a
democratic country expressing the wishes of the vast majority of its
people. It downgraded military, trade and other ties with Israel. Why
should Turkey share military intelligence with a country that murders
Turks, humiliates its diplomats and refuses to apologize?

Still, from Israel’s point of view, Turkey has crossed all the limits
of acceptable behaviour. “Turkish warships will escort any Turkish
aid vessels to Palestinians in the Gaza Strip,” said Turkish Prime
Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in an interview with Al Jazeera
(as quoted in The Guardian, September 8).

At the same time, Turkish diplomacy continued to offer a window of
opportunity to detain further escalation. “Our embassy in Israel is
open, and the Israeli embassy in Ankara is open.

The relations would return to the old days if Israel apologizes and
accepts to pay compensation,” said Huseyin Celik, seputy chairman of
the ruling Justice and Development party (according to The Guardian,
September 8.)

Since an apology is a ‘precedent’, Israel responded in the only way
it knows how. An accusatory campaign was launched against Turkey with
outlandish insinuations and direct threats.

“This is part of the Islamisation spreading there, and we must
recognize it,” said the senior official to Ynet. The leading Israeli
news source also published a column by one Ron Ben-Yishai, calling
the Turkish Prime Minister a “short-tempered thug.”

In ‘Turkey no great power,’ Yishai accused the country of failing on
most fronts. “Turkey under Erdogan’s leadership is neither a reliable
ally nor a credible rival,” he charged.

These views are hardly marginal, and were matched by specific threats
by Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman. “We’ll exact a price
from Erdogan that will prove to him that messing with Israel doesn’t
pay off,” Lieberman reportedly said.

More specifically, he “urge(d) all Israeli military veterans to
refrain from traveling to Turkey and facilitate cooperation with the
Armenians – Turkey’s historic rivals.” He said he also plans to meet
with the Turkish rebel group PKK to “cooperate with them and boost
them in every possible area,” according to UPI, September 9.

Per this logic, demanding an apology for murder equals a thuggish act,
while stirring regional instability and admitting to supporting armed
militias is an acceptable diplomatic manoeuvre.

Turkey had no other option but to escalate before an obstinate ‘ally.’
And considering the latter’s existing isolation in the region – and
the growing anti-Israeli sentiment in Egypt and elsewhere – it is
likely that Israel, not Turkey, will lose out in this political tussle.

Even the US, Israel’s ‘unconditional’ ally, seems to recognize the
dangerous game being played by Israel and its rightwing government
of Benjamin Netanyahu.

Recently revealed comments made by then US secretary of defence
Robert Gates indicate that Americans are simply fed up with supporting
Israel’s ‘dangerous’ policies, while ‘receive(ing) nothing in return’
(Bloomberg, September 5).

It is these very dangerous policies that guide Israel’s brewing
conflict with Turkey amid complete lack of political wisdom in Tel
Aviv. But if extreme militancy was not enough to intimidate or weaken
the resolve of a tiny and besieged place like Gaza, why should it
work against a great and rising power like Turkey?

Rational thinking in Netanyahu’s government might also be an acceptable
precedent.

Ramzy Baroud is an internationally-syndicated
columnist and the editor of PalestineChronicle.com. His latest book
is My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza’s Untold Story (Pluto Press,
London)

URUGUAY’S MFA: URUGUAY HONORS PRINCIPLES OF INTERNATIONAL LAW AND TERRITORIAL INTEGRITY OF AZERBAIJAN

State Telegraph Agency of the Republic of Azerbaijan
September 11, 2011 Sunday

Making attempts to give out the desired for the reality, the Armenian
mass media have once again distorted the information to deceive the
international community.

As earlier reported, the Armenian mass media have disseminated
information that at the meeting initiated by the Armenian “Ay Dat”
Committee in the South America and the Uruguay-Armenia parliamentary
group dedicated to the Armenian-Uruguayan relations, the Minister
of Foreign Affairs of Uruguay Luis Almagro, speaking about the
Nagorno Karabakh conflict, has allegedly supported recognition of
the separatist regime of Nagorno Karabakh.

“The embassy of Azerbaijan in Buenos Aires has already contacted
the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Uruguay. In conversation with the
ambassador of Azerbaijan in Buenos Aires Mammad Ahmedzade, the deputy
minister of foreign affairs of Uruguay Roberto Karreras has underlined
that his country honors the principles of international law and backs
territorial integrity of Azerbaijan and mediation activity of the OSCA
Minsk group”, press service of the Foreign Ministry of Azerbaijan said.

The embassy of Azerbaijan in Buenos Aires continues to study the case.

‘AZERBAIJAN SUPPORTS PEACEFUL SETTLEMENT OF NAGORNO-KARABAKH CONFLICT’

Today
Sept 12 2011
Azerbaijan

“Azerbaijan supports peaceful settlement of the Nagorno Karabakh
conflict,” member of the Azerbaijan parliament, Milli Majlis, Sevinj
Fataliyeva said at a “roundtable” meeting on “The ways of resolution
of the Nagorno-Karabakh issue: its influence on the region and society”
held in Krynica, Poland as part of the 21st Economic Forum.

Fataliyeva noted notwithstanding the ceasefire regime Armenian snipers
kill not only soldiers, but also civilians, including children. She
noted “President Ilham Aliyev had reiterated Azerbaijan`s territorial
integrity could never be a subject to discussions. All the people of
Azerbaijan totally share the Head of State` opinion.”

Fataliyeva also said Azerbaijan was successfully integrating into
Europe, and expanding its relations with the EU year after year.

KARABAKH CONFLICT CAUSE FOR SERIOUS CONCERN – SWEDISH MINISTER

news.az
Sept 12 2011
Azerbaijan

News.Az reprints from APA the interview with Swedish Foreign Minister
Carl Bildt.

This year you paid first official visit to Azerbaijan. How do you
estimate the results of the visit, and what are the prospects of
development bilateral relations between Sweden and Azerbaijan?

The visit provided an excellent opportunity for me to engage with
Azeri partners in a dialogue on a broad set of issues, both bilateral
and pertaining to the to EU agenda. One important message from the
Azeri side was their continued commitment to internal reform and
integration with the EU. We also talked about the need for Azerbaijan
to step up its efforts in the fields of human rights, democracy and
good governance.

I reminded the Azerbaijani Government of the importance of the
upcoming Eurovision Song Contest in this respect. In the coming year
the European audience, and especially the younger generation, will pay
much more attention to Azerbaijan, and the clear expectation will be
that Azerbaijan lives up to the high European standards in respecting
the fundamental rights of its citizens. I had the opportunity to
reiterate these points in talks also with representatives of civil
society and the political opposition.

As far as the bilateral agenda is concerned, there is a great potential
for increased cooperation. Our trade and commercial links should be
developed further. During my visit, I also took good note of a strong
wish to work together in the education sector, something that has
already resulted in a visit of a Ministerial delegation to Sweden.

With our common history linked to the BraNobel heritage, we have a firm
basis for developing our bilateral ties. Incidentally, the Eurovision
Song Contest is a good illustration of successful Azerbaijani-Swedish
cooperation!

How does Sweden assess the ongoing developments on Nagorno-Karabakh
conflict in the region? Do you believe that there were sufficient
efforts to advance the peace process although the negotiations went
into deadlock?

Clearly, the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is a cause for serious concern,
with implications not only for the two countries involved, but for the
entire region and the international community. We must all encourage
Azerbaijan and Armenia to find a peaceful solution, and Sweden supports
the efforts of the Minsk Group. But it is fundamental to point out
that peace cannot be achieved in the negotiating rooms only.

The two parties will have to refrain from aggressive rhetoric and
instead build support for peace among their populations. The EU must
support the process and demonstrate to the peoples in the region that
there are important gains to be made from pursuing a peaceful path.

How do you evaluate the economic cooperation of Azerbaijan and the
European market? What is the most attractive for Swedish investors
in Azerbaijani market?

There is scope for increased economic cooperation between EU and AZ,
also to encompass other sectors than energy. The accession of AZ
to the WTO and a free trade agreement with the EU could facilitate
closer cooperation.

A growing interest in Azerbaijan among Swedish investors can be
discerned. As of today, only a few Swedish enterprises are present in
the market. TeliaSonera and Ericsson are some examples. Sweden hopes
to develop closer business relations with Azerbaijan. We are planning
for a visit of a Swedish trade delegation before the end of the year.

Since the energy sector is of prime importance to the Azeri economy,
there is great scope for cooperation in green energy technology,
energy efficiency and renewables.

What is your opinion on promotion of the “Eastern Partnership” program,
considering that Sweden was one of the initiators of it?

The Eastern Partnership aims to strengthen and deepen contacts
and cooperation with the six Eastern European countries, including
Azerbaijan. The EaP – with EU integration at the core – is a clear
expression of solidarity and long-term engagement from the EU’s side.

Moreover, the EaP has helped mobilize attention to the Eastern
neighborhood amongst EU’s 27 member states. With the EaP, the EU as a
whole has renewed its focus on Eastern Europe and has rallied around
an ambitious agenda for the countries in question.

The EaP has firmly placed the Eastern partners at the top of the EU
agenda – and rightly so. With the EaP, the countries in question are
offered greater political and economic integration with the EU. In
return, the countries must adhere to the values that underpin the
European cooperation and progress on internal reforms. The up-coming
second Eastern Partnership Summit on 29-30 November in Warsaw will
be a good opportunity to take stock of progress made so far, and to
set new policy goals for the future.

RUSSIAN ASTRAKHAN AND ARMENIAN ABOVYAN GETTING SISTER-CITIES STATUS

news.am
Sept 12 2011
Armenia

YEREVAN. – The “Armenia’s Youth Government” NGO plans to turn Russian
Astrakhan and Armenian Abovyan into sister-cities.

The NGO is in Astrakhan by the invitation of youth government of
Astrakhan region.

The visit is taking place within the framework of CIS countries’
agreement made during “Tsakhkadzor 2011” Youth Forum. A memorandum is
signed for the cooperation between Armenian and Russian Astrakhan’s
youth governments, which will allow creating basis for youth politics,
culture, social and economic development in Astrakhan. Russian
parliament supports this initiative, informed “Volga Caspian”
news agency.

ISRAEL NEEDS A NEW KURDISH POLICY
Evelyn Gordon

Commentary
Sept 12 2011

Israel quite properly moved quickly to quash reports that in response
to worsening ties with Turkey, it planned to start helping the PKK.

Jerusalem has tried for years to persuade the world there’s no such
thing as a “good” terrorist organization, and adopting a pet terrorist
group of its own would completely destroy this argument.

Moreover, Turkey would justifiably consider it an act of war, just
as Israel does when other countries arm Hamas or Hezbollah, and the
last thing Israel needs is for its cold war with Turkey to degenerate
into a hot war.

But there’s no reason whatsoever for Israel not to launch a diplomatic
campaign on behalf of the Kurds, focusing on both their justified
demand for independence and Ankara’s gross human rights violations
against Kurds in both Turkey and Iraq (where Turkey frequently bombs
Kurdish areas). It should also start lobbying for international
recognition of the Armenian genocide, and urge American Jewish
organizations to do so as well.

For years, the alliance with Turkey confronted Israel with an
uncomfortable choice between morality and realpolitik. It was always
problematic for a country founded by survivors of history’s worst
genocide to tacitly acquiesce in denying another people’s genocide,
especially since the world’s indifference to the Armenian genocide
is thought to have encouraged Hitler’s (correct) belief that he
could massacre Jews with impunity. It was also problematic for a
country founded on a stateless, persecuted people’s yearning for a
home of their own to tacitly acquiesce in the suppression of another
stateless, persecuted people’s identical yearning -especially after
Israel began supporting the Palestinians’ demand for statehood, which
is incomparably less justified than that of the Kurds. (Unlike Kurds,
Palestinians are ethnically and linguistically indistinguishable from
their Arab neighbors, and have suffered far less: For instance, they
were never barred from using their own language, as Turkey’s Kurds
were, and many fewer have been killed). One can question whether
Jerusalem was right to have made these compromises, but successive
governments all concluded that given Israel’s nasty neighborhood,
the benefits of the Turkish alliance were too great to forgo.

Now, however, this alliance is dead, and it is unlikely ever to revive:
Ankara’s state-sponsored anti-Semitism (see here, here, or here,
for instance) is indoctrinating young Turks to loathe Israel, while
the Turkish opposition’s main gripe against the government’s Israel
policy seems to be that it isn’t anti-Israel enough. After a UN inquiry
largely exculpated Israel’s raid on last year’s flotilla to Gaza, for
instance, the opposition lambasted the government for enabling such a
“pro-Israeli” report and for not suspending all trade with Israel.

So, for the first time in decades, morality and realpolitik align
rather than conflict: By doing what is right on the Kurdish and
Armenian issues, not only would Israel not lose anything, but it would
bolster its own deterrence by showing Turkey cannot wage diplomatic
warfare against it with impunity. In short, it’s a win-win situation.

All that’s needed is for Israel’s government to finally face the fact
the Turkish alliance is history.

HOW SARGSYAN’S ‘GREATEST PR MISTAKE’ GAVE TER-PETROSSIAN’S CAMPAIGN ‘MUCH-NEEDED’ BOOST

ArmeniaDiaspora.com
Sept 12 2011

Epress.am — Ex-president Levon Ter-Petrossian (LTP) and
president-elect Prime Minister Serzh Sargsyan held competing rallies
blocks away from each other in downtown Yerevan the afternoon of Feb.

26, 2008, writes then US Charges d’Affaires in Yerevan Joseph
Pennington in a Feb. 28, 2008 confidential embassy cable recently
made public by WikiLeaks.

“While Sargsyan’s first post-election rally drew approximately 60,000
to 70,000 bussed-in supporters, LTP’s seventh post-election rally in
as many days drew 85,000 to 100,000, his largest so far. Thousands
of Sargsyan participants later defected to LTP’s rally up the street,
where they were rapturously received with chants of “Unite, Unite.”

Some of the bussed-in Sargsyan supporters who joined the LTP rally
appeared visibly dazed by the magnitude of LTP’s support, which,
because of a virtual media blackout, has been grossly misportrayed
by national media.

“Supporters at Sargsyan’s rally appeared to be mainly middle-aged
men and women, with virtually no youth in sight. Banners at the
rally showed people had come from the outlying regions of Yerevan,
though one group Emboffs [embassy officials or officers] spoke with
had come all the way from Javakheti, Georgia. In a scene reminiscent
of mass mobilizations during the Soviet era, banner slogans read
‘Farmers for Serzh,’ ‘Doctors for Serzh,’ and even ‘Tuberculosis
Polyclinic Employees for Serzh.’

“People whom Emboffs surveyed at the rally responded differently on
the reason for their attendance, depending on how Emboffs identified
themselves (either from the US Embassy or simply from America).

People who knew they were talking to diplomats said they came willingly
to the rally, ‘to defend their vote’ for Sargsyan and paid their
own way to Yerevan. One group of women told Emboffs ‘to mind their
own business’ when asked why they came to the rally, barking at the
female FSN translator, ‘Why did YOU come?’ On the other hand, most
men and women who were speaking to Americans said they were obliged
to attend the rally by their supervisors and had been bussed to the
event,” writes Pennington.

The US diplomat then notes that embassy officials timed the departure
of participants at Sargsyan’s rally once he concluded his 30-minute
speech:

“Within the space of eight minutes, approximately 95 percent of the
approximately 60,000-70,000 crowd bolted the rain-drizzled square
for their waiting buses and rides home. Only 2,000 held on in the
drizzling rain, kept there by popular Armenian pop stars who took the
stage after the Prime Minister. A bemused bystander approached Emboffs,
and when Emboff asked him why he was grinning, he incredulously noted,
‘Did you see that – how fast everyone left the square?'”

As for Ter-Petrossian’s rally, Pennington notes this was by
the strongest yet – exceeding his Feb. 17 pre-election rally at
Liberty (Freedom) Square. In terms of demographics, Pennington
cites embassy officials who say they noticed a “greater number of
people” from the regions, from both southern and northern Armenia,
and noticeably younger demographic, but with many middle-aged people
also participating.

Prior to the rally, embassy officials visited two university campuses
to investigate reports of riot police being stationed outside to
deter student participation in Ter-Petrossian’s rally.

“Both campuses had approximately 10-20 riot and regular police outside,
with numerous police vehicles parked in the street. When queried by
Emboffs at Yerevan State University’s (YSU) main campus why they
were there, police – including ranking officers – refused to make
a statement, walked away from Emboffs, and acted as if nobody had
addressed them. A police officer at a YSU affiliate down the street
said they had been dispatched to “preserve order.” A student at
the scene said police had arrived the day before, had engaged with
students and told them not to attend the rally, but were overall
non-aggressive,” reads the cable.

Several businessmen participating in Ter-Petrossian’s rally who were
members of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation-Dashnaktsutyun (ARF-D)
told embassy officials that the “‘dirty’ presidential election was to
blame for the protest. They also said they thought the OSCE’s quick
rush to recognize the election results had contributed to people’s
dissatisfaction with the situation, and actually contributed to the
ongoing protests.”

In his concluding comments, Pennington notes that if Sargsyan’s
goal was to “offset” the ongoing Ter-Petrossian rallies with “a show
of force of his own, he outright failed. In fact, it appears he did
himself more ill than good, giving LTP and their diehard 30,000 cadre a
new influx of thousands of jaded, would-be Sargsyan supporters bussed
into Yerevan by the ruling regime itself. Where previous LTP rallies
appeared to be stagnating in terms of number of supporters, today’s
lopsided duel with Sargsyan’s contrived event appears to have given
the LTP campaign a much-needed infusion of energy, regional support,
and new credibility with the Armenian street. It remains to be seen,
though, how LTP will exploit this showdown, and how Sargsyan will
react to arguably the greatest PR mistake of the increasingly tense
post-election period. Within a matter of hours, today’s dueling rallies
visibly jeopardized Sargsyan’s cultivated image of invincibility.”

Article source:

La Montagne, France
Lundi 5 Septembre 2011
Edition Vichy

Un concert arménien de haute qualité

VICHY; MAYET-DE-MONTAGNE – Chtel-Montagne

ENCART: Un concert arménien de haute qualité. Organisé par
l’association Sauvegarde Patrimoniale de Chtel-Montagne, le concert
arménien, donné en l’église romane, a ravi le public. « Garni », un
quintet de qualité, a prouvé que les frontières de la langue
n’existent pas en musique. La première partie du concert a été
consacrée aux chants religieux accompagnant traditionnellement la
liturgie. Puis les choristes ont offert un moment de mélancolie avec
des chants plus folkloriques de leur Arménie natale. Ces chants
accompagnent généralement les fêtes familiales, les baptêmes et les
fêtes de village. Le groupe, avec une prestation de haut niveau de
plus de deux heures, a recueilli des applaudissements mérités.

Un concert arménien de haute qualité.

EFE Newswire – Relevantes de LatinoAmerica
Viernes 09 de septiembre 2011

Uruguay apuesta por la independencia o unión con Armenia de Nagorno Karabaj

Montevideo, 9 sep (EFE).- El Gobierno uruguayo trabaja para impulsar
una política de estado en materia de relaciones exteriores que
defienda la independencia efectiva de la región de Nagorno Karabaj o
su incorporación a Armenia, según manifestó hoy el canciller uruguayo
Luis Almagro.

El ministro expresó esta visión sobre el futuro del territorio que
forma parte en la actualidad de Azerbaiyán en el marco del seminario
“Oportunidades y Desafíos de la Relación Bilateral Armenia-Uruguay”
que se desarrolló en la capital uruguaya.

“Nosotros personalmente entendemos que Nagorno Karabaj es y está
íntimamente ligado a Armenia. A su población Armenia, y que o su
independencia o su ligazón a Armenia en el futuro es el mejor camino
para Nagorno Karabaj”, dijo el canciller.

Así, el ministro indicó que ahora el Gobierno está “buscando los
consensos, y vamos a seguir buscando los consensos nacionales para
tomar una decisión de estado al respecto”.

“Esta es una definición fuerte, que obviamente va a pegar por ahí,
como tantas otras que hemos tomado antes, pero estén seguros de
nuestras convicciones y de esta amistad (con Armenia) basada en
principios”, indicó el canciller.

Nagorno Karabaj es una región de Azerbaiyán poblada en su mayoría por
armenios que se declararon independientes del Gobierno de Bakú tras la
desaparición de la Unión Soviética en 1991.

Almagro justificó esta intención en que la relación mantenida entre
Uruguay y Armenia se basa fundamentalmente en los “principios” y en
que el pueblo uruguayo es “extremadamente simpatizante de la causa
armenia”, que los “conmueve como pocas en el mundo”.

“Nuestra simpatía viene de ese dolor y esa lucha que dio el pueblo
armenio, cómo logró afirmarse a través de los años, como no pudo ser
doblegado, como logró ser cada vez más fuerte aún en la adversidad”,
añadió.

En ese sentido, el canciller señaló que si bien las relaciones
internacionales “están basadas muchas veces en intereses y no tanto en
principios”, Uruguay afirma y reafirma “su relación inquebrantable con
Armenia”.

En Uruguay vive una importante colonia de descendientes de emigrantes
armenios, que mantienen varias iglesias y escuelas en las que se
estudia la lengua y la cultura de sus antepasados.

El seminario también contó con la participación del vicepresidente de
Uruguay, Danilo Astori, quien consideró el evento como “un paso más en
la búsqueda de posibilidades de profundización de los lazos de
cooperación y amistad entre Uruguay y Armenia”. EFE