Author: Badalian Vardan

Karen Bekaryan hopes Armenia’s approaches will be reflected in NATO’s
final document

16:54 05.09.2014

Karen Ghazaryan
Public Radio of Armenia

The NATO Summit is special to us this time, as Armenia is represented
at the presidential level, President of the European Integration NGO,
analyst Karen Bekaryan told reporters today.

He reminded that the Armenian President did not attend the two
previous summits, as the wording on Nagorno Karabakh used in the final
document was unacceptable to Armenia. In the final document NATO was
stressing the importance of only one of the principles – the
territorial integrity. This was seen as certain violation of the
format and content of negotiations under way within the framework of
the OSCE Minsk Group.

As for Armenian President’s speech at the summit, Karen Bekaryan
stressed several essential points. “First, the President emphasized
the fact that NATO member Turkey is lobbying to ensure support for the
interests of its ally Azerbaijan,” he said.

The political scientist considers that if this time NATO resorts to
the wording of the previous years, it will encourage Azerbaijan to
become more cynical and provocative in its actions. According to him,
this will lay a huge responsibility and blame on those who adopt the
document.

“If the same formulations are used, this will devalue the meeting in
Wales and Kerry’s promises,” Bekaryan said.

The analyst hopes, but is not confident, that Armenia’s approaches
will be reflected in the document, as there is danger that interests
are starting to prevail over values.

Moscow to host Tigran Mansuryan’s concert

11:05, 5 September, 2014

YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 5, ARMENPRESS: The 75 th birthday jubilee evening of the
great Armenian composer Tigran Mansuryan will be held on September 5 at the
Rachmaninov Concert Hall of the Moscow State Conservatoire.

Tigran Mansuryan told the Armenpress correspondent that the concert will be
attended by his close friends.

“My friends want to congratulate me on my 75 th anniversary. The piano
player Alexey Lyubimov initiated this concert.

The violinist Hayk Ghazaryan, pianist Alexey Lyubimov, cellist Alexander
Rudin, violist Sergey Poltavsky and clarinetist Mikhail Beznosov will
perform during the evening”, – said Mansuryan.

Tigran Mansuryan was born in Beirut and educated in Yerevan, Armenia, where
his family had moved in 1947 and settled in Yerevan in 1956. He studied
first at the Romanos Melikian Music College under the Armenian composer
Edvard Baghdasaryan and later at the Yerevan Komitas Stat Conservatory. His
“Monodia” album was nominated for the 2005 Grammy Award for “Best
Instrumental Soloist Performance (with Orchestra)” and “Best Classical
Contemporary Composition.”

Kocharyan-Ter-Petrosyan cooperation not excluded – Narek Galstyan

14:20 / 05.09.2014

Leader of Armenian branch of Social Democrat Hnchakyan party Narek
Galstyan spoke at a news conference today about possible
inner-political developments, actions expected from the four political
forces.

“To wait something serious in the fall is not serious I think. All the
political forces are in the process of reshuffling. In reality I
expect a big clash but it will not happen now but until the
parliamentary elections,” Galstyan said.

“Not a clash of ideas will take place but a fight for chair, for
office. Oligarchy will participate in it. It is the cancer of the
nations. The expected clash will move the grounds of our state and the
expectations of the people will not be justified and a march of
disappointments will follow,” he said.
The party’s leader said some of the parliamentary, non
pro-governmental forces will serve the return of Robert Kocharyan and
it is a fact that he will return. “Kocharyan’s return is a fact and it
is also a fact that nothing good is expected with his return. When
Levon Ter-Petrosyan returned to big politics after 10 years of silence
he good or bad but presented a report to the people. Each political
figure, especially having a certain status, while speaking about his
return must be frank in his actions and tell people what he has done
and what he did not,” he said, adding that he does not exclude
Kocharyan-Ter-Petrosyan cooperation.

Armenian youth activist concerned over dangerous cult

13:55 * 05.09.14

An Armenian youth activist on Friday voiced his concerns about a
dangerous religious cult which has recently penetrated into the
country.

Sevak Hovhannisyan, a co-chair of the Armenian Youth League, said
several victims of the sect, New Way, have applied to them,
complaining about its ruinous effects on psychic health.

“One of the survivors is a relation of one of our popular singers.
[That person] has twice attempted suicide. The cult’s chiefs have not
yet been named. It isn’t registered with the Ministry of Justice; all
we know is that it was launched in Ukraine in 2010,” he noted.

Hovhannisyan said he knows that another sect, God’s Home, periodically
meets in Yerevan, attracting also children to join its assemblies.
“That’s a violation of the law. The cult meets every week, also in the
regions,” the activist warned.

Armenian News – Tert.am

FRANCE
Inauguration de la Chambre Economique Franco-Arménienne à Nice le 12
septembre 2014

L’inauguration de la Chambre Economique Franco-Arménienne de la Côte
d’Azur (CECA) aura lieu le vendredi 12 septembre 2014 à partir de
18h00 au Thétre de la Photographie et de l’Image de Nice (27
Boulevard Dubouchage)*.

La CECA a notamment pour but de fédérer les acteurs du monde
professionnel franco-arménien de la Côte d’Azur, d’améliorer le climat
dans le monde des affaires, de promouvoir l’image de marque de notre
région dans le monde, de tisser des liens avec nos homologues
d’Arménie et de la diaspora, ou toute autre action susceptible de
faire rayonner localement et à l’international ses membres par leur
métiers, leurs savoirs, leurs idées ou leurs développements.

Le 12 septembre prochain, la CECA compte sur la présence de tous les
professionnels arméno-azuréens afin de contribuer à la réussite de cet
ambitieux projet.

*Salle gracieusement mise à notre disposition par la Mairie de Nice ;
à l’issue de la présentation, un cocktail sera offert à l’ensemble des
participants.

vendredi 5 septembre 2014,
Stéphane (c)armenews.com

NATO Summit: Armenian president slams Turkish lobbying of
Karabakh-related document

ANALYSIS | 05.09.14 | 10:19

Photolure

By NAIRA HAYRUMYAN
ArmeniaNow correspondent

The NATO gathering in Newport, Wales, UK, provided another occasion
for a meeting between the presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan, Serzh
Sargsyan and Ilham Aliyev. Their meeting on the sidelines of the NATO
summit this time was organized by United States Secretary of State
John Kerry.

Sargsyan’s participation in the summit was confirmed only several
hours before his actual departure to the UK on Wednesday evening.
According to experts, Armenia’s ally Russia could not approve
Sargsyan’s trip to the summit where Russia had not been invited and
where measures were to be worked out to counter Russia’s ambitions.

However, Sargsyan was not going to participate in the actual NATO
summit, where from non-members of the Alliance only the president of
Ukraine Petro Poroshenko had been invited. The Armenian president
instead held a bilateral meeting with French President Francois
Hollande, with whom he discussed the initiative of his French
counterpart of a trilateral meeting, Sargsyan-Aliyev-Hollande. In
addition, he participated in the meeting of heads of State and
government of NATO-member States and nations involved in International
Security Assistance Forces in Afghanistan /ISAF/.

At that meeting, Sargsyan delivered a speech in which he noted that
Armenia knows all too well the price of both peace and security.
“Tomorrow in this room a document will be adopted that directly
concerns my people and peace in our region. There are two options –
either the document will adopt the language of the OSCE Minsk Group,
which is the only specialized international structure dealing with the
Nagorno-Karabakh problem … or will again succumb to lobbying by
another member state aimed at saving the face of our dictator neighbor
vis-a-vis his own people,” he said. “Believe me, that would not lead
to any positive results.”

The matter concerns the final declaration of the NATO summit. In 2010
and 2012, Sargsyan shunned attendance of the NATO summits in Lisbon
and Chicago, conditioning it by the fact that there was some wording
undesirable for the Armenian side in the final declarations. In
particular, due to the lobbying of Turkey, on the part of the Karabakh
settlement the declarations only referred to the principle of
territorial integrity, but had nothing about the principle of
self-determination of peoples.

Judging by the fact that Sargsyan agreed to go to the summit this
time, there could be some other formulations in the text of the
declaration. At least, the Armenian president may have received such
assurances from France and the United States.

Before the meeting, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan paid a
visit to Baku, where he said that together with President Aliyev he
would do everything to include the Karabakh issue in the agenda of the
NATO summit and “urge NATO to fulfill its promises.” He did not
specify what promises he meant, but it is clear that the promise to
Erdogan was to repeat the text of the previous resolution.

It is also remarkable that before the summit, a fifth American state,
California, recognized the independence of the Nagorno-Karabakh
Republic, and there are speculations that the issue of the recognition
of the Armenian Genocide is being discussed in the United States also
at the federal level.

Nevertheless, the official report on the Sargsyan-Aliyev-Kerry meeting
did not present any specific agreements.

In his statement, Secretary of State Kerry reiterated that a peaceful
settlement of the conflict has no alternative, noting the need to
avoid escalation of the situation and calling on the parties to find
mechanisms to reduce tensions and strengthen confidence-building
measures.

Kerry noted the importance of continuing negotiations within the OSCE
Minsk Group and expressed readiness to support the search for
solutions. The U.S. secretary of state, at the same time, stressed
that the political will of the sides is very important for the
peaceful settlement of the conflict.

The statement about the Minsk Group is important in the sense that on
August 10 Russian President Vladimir Putin in Sochi invited Sargsyan
and Aliyev and tried to bypass the Minsk Group in taking over the
initiative on settling the problem. This raised concerns with the
other two co-chairs of the Minsk Group, the United States and France,
that would not want to see a Karabakh settlement according to the
Russian scenario.

Trend, Azerbaijan
Sept 3 2014

Armenia, OSCE discuss situation in Nagorno-Karabakh

Yerevan hosted a meeting between Armenian Defense Minister Seyran
Ohanyan and OSCE Chairman-in-Office Personal Representative Andrzej
Kasprzyk, news.am reported with reference to the Defense Ministry.

The sides discussed the situation on the contact line of Azerbaijani
and Armenian troops and issues relating to the strengthening of mutual
trust.

The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988
when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan.

As a result of the ensuing war, in 1992 Armenian armed forces occupied
20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and
seven surrounding districts.

The two countries signed a ceasefire agreement in 1994. The co-chairs
of the OSCE Minsk Group, Russia, France and the U.S. are currently
holding peace negotiations.

Armenia has not yet implemented four U.N. Security Council resolutions
on the liberation of the Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding regions.

APA, Azerbaijan
Sept 3 2014

Recep Tayyip Erdogan: Problem between Turkey and Armenia will not be
resolved until Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict settlement
PHOTOSESSION

[ 03 September 2014 13:56 ]

“Otherwise, the situation between Turkey and Armenia will remain the same”

Baku. Ramiz Mikayiloglu – APA. Following the one-on-one meeting
between, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Turkish President
Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Baku, a meeting was held in an expanded format
with the participation of delegations, APA reports.

Extending his congratulations to Erdogan over his victory in the
presidential elections, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said that
Turkish President’s first official visit to Azerbaijan testifies to
the highest level relations between the two countries. The head of
state noted that bilateral and international issues were discussed at
the meeting. The views of the parties are the same in all issues.

Erdogan stated that the first official visits of Turkish and
Azerbaijani presidents have become a tradition, and it shows that the
relations are at highest level. He noted that a number of issues were
discussed at the meeting.

“Turkish-Azerbaijani relations will further develop in a different
form. In particular, the existing problems in the region must be
solved by joint efforts of the two countries. The problem between
Turkey and Armenia will not be resolved until Armenian-Azerbaijani
conflict settlement. Otherwise, the situation between Turkey and
Armenia will remain the same. Efforts to develop our relations will be
made resolutely in the future, as well,” Erdogan said.

Trend, Azerbaijan
Sept 4 2014

Ilham Aliyev met with French President Francois Hollande

4 September 2014, 22:49 (GMT+05:00)

President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev and President of
the French Republic Francois Hollande have met in Wales on the
sidelines of the NATO summit.

During the meeting, the sides expressed their satisfaction with the
successful development of bilateral relations between the countries.
The parties noted that there were good prospects for cooperation
between Azerbaijan and France in various fields.

During the conversation, the heads of state exchanged views on the
settlement of the Armenian-Azerbaijani Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

Institute for War and Peace Reporting, UK
IWPR Caucasus Reporting #750
Sept 4 2014

Armenia Sends Official to ErdoÄ?an Inauguration

Move seen as tentative step towards reviving diplomatic process.

By Yekaterina Poghosyan – Caucasus

The last time Armenia and Turkey started working towards a better
relationship, the attempt foundered. Now the two countries might be
about to give it another go.

Armenian foreign minister Eduard Nalbandyan went to Ankara on August
28 to attend the presidential inauguration of Recep Tayyip ErdoÄ?an,
previously Turkey’s prime minister.

Nalbandyan’s presence gave rise to talk that the reconciliation
process might be about to restart.

There are huge divides to be bridged. Above all, Armenians accuse the
modern Turkish state of ignoring a genocide of Armenians carried out
by the Ottoman authorities in 1915. Turkey acknowledges that killings
took place, but rejects the use of the term `genocide’.

In more recent history, Turkey closed its border with post-Soviet
Armenia in 1993 because of the Nagorny Karabakh conflict. The Turks
remain close allies of Azerbaijan, with which Armenia is still not at
peace.

Despite this difficult history, Ankara and Yerevan made a real effort
to seek a rapprochement some years ago. In September 2008, President
Abdullah Gül paid an unprecedented visit to Armenia for a football
match between the two national sides. In October the following year,
after a lengthy talks process, the two countries’ foreign ministers
signed accords in Zürich on restoring relations and reopening the
border. The process was led by Nalbandyan and Turkish foreign minister
Ahmet DavutoÄ?lu.

Neither country’s parliament ratified the agreements, however, and the
whole process ground to a halt. In April 2010, Armenian president
Serzh Sargsyan formally stopped the ratification process, accusing
Turkey of trying to insert new conditions, and the process ` known as
`football diplomacy’ because of Gül’s original trip ` came to an end.

When DavutoÄ?lu visited Yerevan in December 2013 ` officially for a
Black Sea regional meeting ` expectations were raised, but little came
out of his meeting with Nalbandyan. (See No Signs of Turkey-Armenia
Thaw.)

DavutoÄ?lu’s appointment as prime minister to replace ErdoÄ?an as prime
minister is seen as no bad thing among those Armenians hoping for a
resumption in talks. He and Nalbandyan know each other, and both
presided over the last set of complex negotiations.

According to Sergei Minasyan, deputy director of the Caucasus
Institute, Nalbandyan’s visit was an opportunities to renew those ties
and also to show that `despite all the difficulties in relations with
Ankara, it [Armenia] is not prepared to isolate itself.’

Whoever is in charge, though, will be hard pressed to reconcile the
two states on the genocide question.

In Ankara, Nalbandyan had a brief conversation with ErdoÄ?an after the
inauguration ceremony and handed over a formal invitation to visit
Armenia in April 2015 to attend ceremonies for the 100th anniversary
of 1915.

It is hard to say whether this will happen. For Armenians, the point
is to get the Turks to acknowledge that genocide took place.

Ahead of the 2014 commemoration, ErdoÄ?an issued a carefully-worded
statement noting that `Armenians remember the suffering experienced in
that period, just like every other citizen of the Ottoman Empire¦. The
events of the First World War are our shared pain.’ This fell well
short of what Yerevan wanted, and presidential chief of staff Vigen
Sargsyan called it as `just another, though perhaps more refined,
attempt to deny and conceal the fact of the Armenian genocide’.

`More is required from Turkey ` to acknowledge and unequivocally
condemn the crimes committed during this period,’ he said. (See also
Armenians Call on Turks to Say “Genocide”.)

Commentators in Yerevan believe Turkey is under pressure to come up
with a better formula ahead of the 100-year commemoration.

`Turkey, like Armenia, takes a fairly serious view of the 100th
anniversary of the genocide,’ Minasyan said. `It’s clear that it’s
important for Turkey to take certain measures so as to avoid being the
focus of news, political, emotional and moral pressure on the 100th
anniversary.’

The invitation to ErdoÄ?an was intended to give the Turkish leadership
`an opportunity to somehow come to terms with history and try to turn
a new page in its relationship with Armenia and with the Armenian
diaspora,’ Minasyan added.

As it embarked on a delicate diplomatic process, the Armenian
government came under fire from the nationalist Dashnaktsutyun which
denounced Nalbandyan’s presence at the Turkish leader’s inauguration,
ErdoÄ?an and his `anti-Armenian statements’, and the long-dead Zürich
accrords.

`Dashnaktsutyun repeatedly stated that Armenia must refuse to sign
these [2009] protocols. Instead, the authorities are trying to
reanimate them despite Turkey’s hostile attitude,’ party official Giro
Manoyan told the Ð?1+ news site.

Under attack, the ruling Republican Party defended the government’s actions.

According to party spokesman Eduard Sharmazanov, `By handing over the
invitation in Ankara, Armenia has proved that it will fight against
denial of the Armenian genocide, and shown that we expect the
international community and Turkey to come to terms with reality. If
he [ErdoÄ?an] comes to Armenia, it will mean he acknowledges the fact
that a crime was committed.’

Yekaterina Poghosyan is a reporter for the Mediamax news agency.