Author: Badalian Vardan

IDEA TO GRANT PRIVILEGES TO ARMENIA’S BORDER VILLAGES VERY ‘UNIQUE’ – OPINIONS

11:32 * 20.08.14

The initiative and willingness to grant privileges to the population
of Armenia’s border villages has contented the mayor of Chinari
(Tavush region) who considers the government attention to their
community quite adequate and normal.

“The prime minister visited us, together with members of parliament, so
we discussed all the problems,” Samvel Saghoyan told Tert.am addressing
the damages suffered as a result of the recent cross-border shootouts .

The proposal turned out to be a simultaneous initiative by the
executive and the six political forces represented in parliament.

Nikol Pashinyan of the opposition Armenian National Congress (ANC)
on Tuesday shared his own bill on Facebook, outlining the privileges
which he considered important for vulnerable communities.

The mayor of Chinari said that their community always faced
problems, despite the past weeks’ border escalation that affected
many households. “Those problems existed, but we have always been
under spotlight. But that’s important especially today to enable us to
strengthen and develop the villages. A person who lives in a village
has to cultivate the land and keep livestock in order to survive. And
the state gives the supply of seeds, diesel fuel and other resources.

The government’s attention to us has been great recently,” he noted.

Ruben Hakobyan, the opposition Hertiage faction’s leader who visited
Tavush with other parliament members and officials this week-end,
said he doesn’t find the initiative something new, with the political
majority’s approval of the proposed plan being the only thing that
made the idea somewhat unique.

“The situation on the border is really very tense today. We, the
representatives of the six political forces, not only visited the
defense positions but also met with the communities’ population; their
hard socio-economic conditions was not something new to us,” he noted.

Asked about the amount of the state assistance, the opposition MP said,
“In our estimation, it will make up only one percent of our shadow
economy in case the state covers the costs of textbooks, utilities
bills and the bills for irrigation water. So it is possible to solve
all the problems with as much as 2 million [US] Dollars.”

Commenting on the bill proposed by the ANC lawmaker, opposition
activist Arayik Harutyunyan said he doesn’t find it a counterbalance
to the authorities’ plan; he rather described the initiative as a
move necessitated by the circumstances.

“We started talking about it two or three months ago after we
conducted our first visit to the border communities amid the violent
bombings. This law wasn’t born yesterday or the day before yesterday;
we had been talking about it for weeks,” he said, noting that the
existing legislation does not establish a clear-cut framework of
definitions for border communities.

Harutyunyan said he expects the legal initiative to help at least help
prevent migration and increase the population in the border villages
and towns. “As we talked to the population in villages, they said that
in case such privileges are adopted they will not have to go Russia
or Kazakhstan to to do hard work. They said the biggest problem for
them is not being the at target of shootings, but rather the fact that
they do not enjoy any privileges while living in a dangerous zone,”
he said, stressing the importance of more drastic measures.

NATIONAL INTERESTS SHOULD PREVAIL OVER PRIVATE ONES – ARMENIAN ACTOR

10:36 * 19.08.14

In an interview with Tert.am, the merited Armenian cinema and
theater actor and stage producer Yervand Manartyan addressed
the recent escaltions along the Armenian-Azerbaijani border and
the Nagorno-Karabakh Contact Line, highlighting the importance of
pan-national consolidation and the ability of distinguishing between
national and private interests.

What are your concerns in terms of the foreign threats linked to the
situation in Armenia over the recent period?

Those are just routine political developments, so I do not see
anything strange. We are simply people educated in the Soviet years,
so whenever we hear anyone express his or her opinion, it seems to
us that something unusual has taken place. Such is life; nothing out
of the ordinary.

With the situation being quite tense along the border, many freedom
fighters [veterans of the Nagorno-Karabakh war] decided to go to the
frontline. Do you see any hazard about all that?

That hazard has been with us for several years now; it has to do with
our geopolitical location. Our situation is something very usual in
such a neighborhood. So what neighborhood is this? No nation around
the globe is facing a situation like this, surrounded exclusively by
[countries pursuing] contrary religious beliefs. We are a Christian
state, the south being Muslim, and the east being Muslim, and the
west being Muslim too. I cannot, of course, say anything about the
Persians, but they too pursue a different belief.

As early as at the beginning of this year, you took part in the
demonstrations of freedom fighters calling for a government change,
but they too, recently forgot about their demand. Do you think they
felt the threat to the country?

They would initially make ardent calls, but I think they sometime
lost something somewhere. There was an instant they could have been
more consistent and benefited more, but they missed the moment. Such
things happen. That’s a regular process of state building.

As for the freedom fighters, their problem is completely unrelated
to the [demand for] a government change. We very much want to get a
finalized reply, but that’s not what history proves. We want to see
problems immediately resolved, but things never go that way. Every
Armenian has his or her own problems.

The right thing is the situation we are in now. We must be able
to single out the problems which are purely national to dedicate
ourselves to their solution before switching over to private ones.

Serious problems are never solved at one blow.

What’s the national problem which you think must be distinguished
from all other problems to be properly considered?

We must be able to become a country as we are building a state. We
did not have a state for many years, and that’s the source of all
our problems. Fortune has given has a chance to create a statehood,
but that’s a problem the generations have to solve. No nation around
the globe has this kind of fate, so this is a very complicated issue.

Another problem we have is that we are very much scattered around
the world. We all the time say, ‘We are Armenian’, but an Armenian in
the United States has interests different from the Armenian in Armenia.

What is your understanding of national and private interest today?

A private interest is something all nations have. That’s the result
of everyday activity. We cannot say, for instance, that people in
Artsakh [Nagorno-Karabakh] share the same interests as those in the
Lori region are the . For me, a prevalent national interest today is
our ability to build a state. We are in that span, as we’ve never had
that to date. It is a very complicated process which goes on rather
well today. We need several generations for that. Do you want those
problems to be resolved in a matter of 20 years? That isn’t the way
things happen.

My belief is that whatever is happening today is the absolutely the
right thing; we simply have too many expectations and desires.

SARGSYAN CONGRATULATES SECOND-PLACED ARMENIAN TANK BIATHLON TEAM

YEREVAN, August 19. /ARKA/. Armenia’s president Serzh Sargsyan
extended his congrats to Armenian tank biathlon team that was the
runner-up in the international tournament in Alabino, Russia.

“We are proud of high performance you showed on the international
stage”, says the presidential statement. This achievement is an
excellent example of further improvement of professional skills,
the president said.

The Tank Biathlon tournament was held in Alabino of Russia on August
4-16 and hosted teams from some 12 countries (Russia, Angola, Armenia
Belarus, Venezuela, India, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, China, Kuwait,
Mongolia and Serbia). Over 20 states sent their observers to the
tournament. -0–

ARMENIE
La banque VTB (Arménie) propose des > à ses clients PME

La banque VTB (Arménie) propose un > à ses
clients en gestion d’entreprises dans le commerce, la construction et
la production.

Le prêt est un moyen rapide et pratique d’emprunter de l’argent de la
banque pour les projets de développement des affaires.

Le prêt est accordé aux clients dont les entreprises ont plus de 6
mois, sur la base des prêts en cours qui auront été remboursés sans
retard pendant 6 mois.

Les prêts sont consentis en dollars américains pendant 15 mois ; le
montant maximal est de 10 000 USD.

dimanche 17 août 2014,
Stéphane (c)armenews.com

REVUE DE PRESSE
Des milliers de Kurdes yézidis massacrés

Le bilan de Sinjar est terrible, après l’invasion des jihadistes de
l’Etat islamique (EI), selon les premières informations. Au moins
3.000 kurdes yézidis seraient massacrés, 5.000 autres seraient
enlevés, 300 enfants et personnes gées seraient morts de faim et de
soif dans les montagnes de Sinjar, où des dizaines des milliers de
personnes sont bloqués.

Les ennemis de l’humanité ont commis de terribles crimes après avoir
pris le contrôle de la région de Sinjar, le 3 aout. Des centaines de
milliers de yézidis, une minorité kurdophone adepte d’une religion
préislamique en partie issue du zoroastrism, ont fui la région après
l’arrivée des jihadistes et le recul des peshmergas affiliés au parti
du président kurde Massoud Barzani qui les ont laissé sans défense.
Menacés de massacres, quelque 300.000 personnes se sont refugiés dans
les montagnes de Sinjar.

Le 4 aout, les combattantes kurdes syriens, les YPG, ont réussi à
atteindre ces montagnes pour empêcher les jihadistes de commettre de
nouveaux massacres.

Prenant le contrôle des montagnes, les combattants kurdes ont commencé
à ouvrir des corridors humanitaires pour conduire les déplacés vers le
Kurdistan syrien. Le même jour, les combattants du PKK sont également
arrivés sur place depuis les montagnes du Kurdistan et ont lancé des
attaques contre l’Etat islamique.

Les efforts des combattants kurdes n’ont pas pu empêcher la mort d’au
moins 300 enfants et personnes gées à cause de manque d’eau et de
nourriture. Des milliers de personnes ont été sauvées, selon des
journalistes kurdes qui sont dans les montagnes de Sinjar.

Le bilan exact des massacres commis dans la région par des jihadistes
n’est pas connu, mais pour les témoignages et les combattants qui
mènent une guérilla pour repousser les jihadistes, au moins 3 000
yézidis ont été exécutés sommairement, 5 000 autres civils dont des
centaines de femmes ont été enlevés. Le sort des personnes enlevées
n’est pas non plus connu.

On craint que le bilan ne soit encore plus lourd. La population des
dizaines de villages de Sinjar est estimé à 500 000 personnes. Parmi
ces habitants, 300 personnes ont fui vers les montagnes de Sinjar.

Les combattants du PKK et les YPG ont pris le contrôle de plusieurs
villages depuis 4 aout, tuant des dizaines de jihadistes. Ils
continuent d’avancer afin de libérer la région. Plus de 1.000 jeunes
yezidis et des centaines d’autres kurdes ont rejoint les rangs de la
résistance pour combattre les jihadistes.

LE PKK ORGANISE LA DEFENSE DU KURDISTAN IRAKIEN

Le PKK a également envoyé des renforts à Erbil, capitale du Kurdistan
irakien, pour organiser la défense et stopper l’avancée des
jihadistes.

Une responsable du PKK, Bese Hozat, a affirmé que les attaques
jihadistes unifieront les Kurdes. “Nous vivons une période historique.
Cette guerre unifiera les Kurdes” a déclaré Bese Hozat, appelant les
jeunes à rejoindre le front !

A Makhmur, à 40 km d’Erbil, les combats ont repris le 8 aout après
l’arrivée des combattants du PKK sur le front.

A Rabia, sur la frontière avec la Syrie, les combattants kurdes
syriens mènent des opérations de “nettoyage”. La ville est déjà sous
contrôle des YPG, qui ont détruit le 7 aout quatre chars et ont tuées
au moins 24 jihadistes.

Blog de Maxime Azadi avec ActuKurde.fr

dimanche 17 août 2014,
Stéphane (c)armenews.com

TENSION NEEDS TO BE EASED AFTER ERDOGAN TAKES OFFICE

Today’s Zaman, Turkey
Aug 15 2014

GUNAY HÄ°LAL AYGUN
August 15, 2014, Friday

While the debate on the current position of President-elect and
incumbent Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan continues, the question
is also whether Erdogan will pursue his discriminative rhetoric as
Turkey’s new president.

His latest controversial remark was against Armenians and sparked
public outrage on social media. Earlier, he used similar rhetoric
about Greeks. Apart from minorities, Erdogan is also known for his
harsh statements addressing any dissenters, such as when he described
participants of the Gezi Park protest movement as “looters.” After
Erdogan won the Aug. 10 presidential election, his victory speech
was unexpectedly reconciliatory, as he promised to embrace all 77
million citizens, including those who do not support him.

In his Friday piece, Taraf daily’s Hadi Uluengin wrote that if Erdogan
as president adopts a reconciliatory discourse as he did in the first
years of his rule and embraces those who do not support him, or at
least does not suppress them, even those who oppose him might leave
aside the disputes and make peace with him. Such an attitude would not
mean ending criticizing Erdogan, but it is unquestionable that Turkey
needs urgently to ease its tension. Hence, Erdogan and his opponents
need to take friendly steps towards each other, Uluengin commented.

According to him, the discussions within the Justice and Development
Party (AK Party) about constitutional referendum, probably to be
urged by Erdogan, and a likely early parliamentary election point to
an unstable near-future for Turkey.

Haberturk daily columnist Soli Ozel wrote on Friday that it is a
setback that “the new republic of Turkey” is being founded on a
single political movement, which is Islamism. According to Ozel,
the primary reason behind this is the fact that all other political
movement in Turkey have collapsed. “These [movements] don’t have
any discourse or program to meet the demands and aspirations of
the society. It was also revealed in the latest elections that
they also don’t have the talent to mobilize [followers of] their
organizations towards a shared goal,” Ozel said. The 52 percent of
the votes that Erdogan garnered in the Aug. 10 election, he believes,
is not sufficient for the AK Party’s final target, as the policies
based on Islamism do not have any alternative model for the society
except for dominating the lives of individuals. “Turkey cannot build
a sound future if it continues to exclude a significant number of
its people,” Ozel said. The columnist pointed out that the current
regional and global conditions are different from the time the AK
Party first came to power, as people used to have high expectations
from political Islam. “It was exciting for many that a party with
Islamist roots was conducting reforms for Turkey’s accession in the
European Union,” Ozel said, adding that in the end Turkey failed to
present a role model to Middle Eastern countries.

BORDER WITH ARMENIA TO REMAIN CLOSED

Vestnik Kavkaza, Russia
Aug 15 2014

15 August 2014 – 5:26pm

The Turkish Ambassador to Azerbaijan, Ismail Alper Joshgun told
journalists that the Turkish-Armenian border will remain closed even
after the formation of the new government in Turkey.

Some foreign and local media have reported that in the anticipation
of the 100th anniversary of Armenian genocide in 2015, Turkey will
open its borders with Armenia. Diplomatic relations between the two
countries were severed in 1993.

THE ISIS RAMPAGE COULD WIPE OUT ARAMAIC, ‘THE LANGUAGE OF JESUS’

Business Insider Australia
Aug 15 2014

Peter Terlato

The ancient language of Aramaic – first spoken over 3000 years ago –
faces extinction at the hands of the Islamic State, following the
capture of Iraqi towns which represent the last major concentration
of Aramaic speakers in the world.

As ISIL (Islamic State in the Levant) continues its invasion into the
ancient heart of Christian Iraq, fears are mounting that this could
mean the end of the ‘Language of Jesus’.

Earlier this month, 200,000 Christians fled their homes on the Nineveh
plains fearing capture, torture and conversion.

A local archbishop, Joseph Thomas, has described the situation as a
“cultural and linguistic emergency”.

Here’s what Foreign Policy had to say in regards to the impending
disaster:

Nearly three millennia of continuous records exist for Aramaic; only
Chinese, Hebrew, and Greek have an equally long written legacy. For
many religions, Aramaic has had sacred or near-sacred status. It is
the presumed mother tongue of Jesus, who is reported in the Gospel of
Matthew to have said on the cross: “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?” (“My
God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”) It came to be used in the
Jewish Talmud, in the Eastern Christian churches (where it is known
as Syriac), and as the ritual and everyday language of the Mandaeans,
an ethno-religious minority in Iran and Iraq.

Though marginalized, this Aramaic-speaking world survived for over
a millennium, until the 20th century shattered what remained of it.

During World War I, as Ottoman power dissolved, Turkish nationalists
not only massacred Armenians and Greeks, but also perpetrated what
is known today as the Assyrian Genocide, slaughtering and expelling
the Christian Aramaic-speaking population of eastern Turkey. Most
survivors fled to Iran and Iraq.

Thus, until early August, the best hope for Aramaic’s survival was in
northern Iraq, in the diverse North-Eastern subgroup, with its greater
number of speakers and its roots in larger communities. The Christian
population of Iraq has been in free fall — from 1.5 million in 2003
to an estimated 350,000 to 450,000 today — but the Nineveh plains
had been spared the worst. In January, Baghdad even announced its
intention to make the region a separate province, a gesture towards
Assyrian aspirations for autonomy.

After a century of expulsions and persecutions, can spoken
Aramaic survive without its homeland on the Nineveh plains? Between
assimilation and dispersion, the challenges of maintaining the language
in diaspora will be immense, even if speakers remain in Erbil.

Globally, languages and cultures are disappearing at an unprecedented
rate — on average, the last fluent, native speaker of a language
dies every three months — but what’s happening with Aramaic is far
more unusual and terrifying: the deliberate extinction of a language
and culture, unfolding in real time.”

It was in Aramaic that the original “writing on the wall,” at the Feast
of King Belshazzar in the Book of Daniel, foretold the fall of Babylon.

Will these latest atrocities by the Islamic State foreshadow the end
of this once almost universal language?

KARABAKH: RUSSIA PARTICIPATES IN NEGOTIATIONS AS A NEUTRAL PARTY

Vestnik Kavkaza, Russia
Aug 14 2014

14 August 2014 – 4:10pm

By “Vestnik Kavkaza”

Experts had hoped that against the background of violent clashes in
the conflict zone of Nagorno-Karabakh, Russia would take the lead in
finding a solution to the conflict at the Sochi meeting of Armenian
and Azerbaijani leaders Serzh Sargsyan and Ilham Aliyev with Russian
President Vladimir Putin. As a result of the meeting, the parties
assured that they are willing to continue the negotiation process to
resolve the conflict. According to Vladimir Putin, both sides have
the goodwill for it.

The director of the SCO Business Club, Denis Tyurin, believes that
the main outcome of the Sochi summit is the fact that it prevented
an escalation of the conflict. “The outcome of the negotiations did
not become known to the public, nor the topics that were discussed,
neither questions nor conclusions have been published. Currently we
see some easing of the situation, the parties have calmed down, we
see a willingness to negotiate, a readiness to find common ground,
build bridges, possibly bypass walls and look for exits through
negotiations.”

Tyurin believes that the efforts undertaken by Russia in this
regard are not associated with traditional partner-based relations
between Armenia and Russia: “Russia is acting as a neutral party,
as an objective, outside observer, ready to consider and accept the
logic of each of the parties in order to find the most suitable, the
most accommodating solution for each of the parties. The long-term
objective of all parties, of all governments, is to increase the
well-being of the population, to increase living standards, to make
the life of people better. It is in this framework that we need to talk
about the future ways of resolving the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh.”

According to Tyurin, the fact that Azerbaijan is in a better economic
position and has larger financial resources has a positive effect on
its willingness to invest and stimulate economic activities in the
region. “I guess it makes sense to take the next step – to open up
opportunities for economic cooperation between Armenia and Azerbaijan.

Certainly there are many possibilities for that in the framework of
the single Eurasian economic space and it would be very impractical
not to use them.”

The director of the Institute of EurAsEC, Vladimir Lepekhin, is
convinced that “the main players behind the scenes who are trying to
fan the flames in the Caucasus and throughout the region have been
trying to “pump” Armenia, sponsored the opposition, raised the issue
of Nagorno-Karabakh in a way which contradicted the authorities’ line.”

According to Lepekhin, the Western countries have long been playing
against Azerbaijan: “We know that, until 2011, Azerbaijan had
the highest rates of economic growth associated with the export of
hydrocarbons. This was due to the fact that mainly foreign companies
worked in all the fields. Then, suddenly, operators of these companies
have started to reduce the production of hydrocarbons. They avoided
saying why, even though [President Ilham] Aliyev has repeatedly asked
them why it was reducing. Then the leadership of Azerbaijan started to
implement the policy of industrialization. Foreign companies came at
that time as well, invested money. Now comes a moment when Azerbaijan
is pressured.”

According to the expert, on this basis, the solution of the Karabakh
problem remains not “in the hands of some international organizations,
let alone the United States, but only in the hands of the presidents of
Azerbaijan, Armenia and Russia.” Lepekhin also emphasized the possible
role of the President of Kazakhstan in the conflict: “We have long
been suggesting the 2+2 format in addressing not only the Karabakh
problem, but relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan in general and
the stabilization of the region as a whole. According to this format,
Kazakhstan will be the guarantor of Azerbaijan’s participation in the
negotiations and Russia will be the guarantor of the participation of
Armenia. Four countries within the 2+2 format will be able to finally
solve this problem.”

APA, Azerbaijan
Aug 16 2014

Australian Azerbaijanis send open letter to pro-Armenian MP of New
South Wales State

[ 16 August 2014 11:46 ]

Baku. Rufet Ahmadzadeh – APA. Australian Azerbaijanis have sent an
open letter to MP of New South Wales State Amanda Fazio who blamed
Azerbaijan for the last tensions in Karabakh and called for sanctions
against our country.

The Azerbaijan-Australia-Turk Friendship Society reported to APA that
the society’s chairman Imadaddin Gasimov’s letter expressed
disappointment over Amanda Fazio’s untrue statement.

Mr Gasimov mentioned in the letter that Mrs Fazio’s claims are in
contrast with the position of international organizations as well:
“Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity is recognized by the UN, the
Council of Europe, the European Parliament, the OSCE and many other
international organizations. Australia is one of the countries which
recognized Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity. Your position and ideas
are far beyond from the reality. Azerbaijani territories are under
Armenia’s occupation, and Azerbaijan is currently trying to restore
its territorial integrity by peaceful means. The ceasefire regime has
been continuing in Karabakh since 1994, and Azerbaijan has relied on
the OSCE Minsk Group’s mediation about resolution of the conflict.
Inspired by the latest happenings in Ukraine, Armenian aggressors are
lately trying to shatter the ceasefire and lay fictitious claims
against Azerbaijan. We regret that you are one of those who traveled
to Karabakh without an official permission from Baku. And we’d like to
remind you that it’s disrespect to the international law”.

Note that, the parliament of Australia’s New South Wales State had
recognized the independence of the illegal Nagorno-Karabakh Republic
in 2012.