Author: Badalian Vardan

CSTO states oppose military solution to Iranian nuclear problem

May 27, 2013 | 16:04

The member states of Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO)
said military solution to the Iranian nuke problem is unacceptable.

The joint statement adopted by CSTO foreign ministers says
introduction of unilateral sanctions against Iran is unproductive, RIA
Novosti reported.

`Confrontational scenario in the light of general instability in the
Middle East and North Africa is fraught with unpredictable
consequences for the international community. In this context, the
member states of the Collective Security Treaty Organization stand for
responsible approach and restraint, steady implementation of the
relevant resolutions of the UN Security Council on Iran,’ the
statement reads.

The statement mentions unconditional right of each party to the Treaty
on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons to develop a peaceful
program, including the right to enrichment.

News from Armenia – NEWS.am

PACE to adopt new format on Karabakh settlement – Armenian official

14:02 – 27.05.13

The Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly’s (PACE) former
Sub-Committee on Nagorno-Karabakh will be replaced by a new format,
implying a different working style rather than an organization of
individuals, says the Armenian delegation’s chief.

`I have said repeatedly that [PACE President] Jean-Claude Mignon is
searching a format towards building confidence between the [Armenian
and Azerbaijani] delegations,’ David Harutyunyan told Tert.am, adding
that he has already had several meetings with his Azerbaijani
counterpart at the Assembly.

Harutyunyan said further that extended meetings between the Armenian
and Azerbaijani delegations are also among the agenda issues.

The subcommittee on Nagorno-Karabakh officially suspended its mission
in January 2012.

Armenia considered the plan of creating such a sub-committee a Turkish
project, a fact that was persistently being denied by the Assembly’s
former Mevlut Chavushoglu (who is an ethnic Azerbaijani).

The committee’s activities met strong protests by the Armenian
delegates who were able to sigh with relief only after the Assembly
closed the chapter on its mission.

It is noteworthy that the Armenian delegation’s distrust stemmed from
the concerns that the PACE mandate might serve as a platform for the
Karabakh conflict settlement.

Asked whether there aren’t any objections to the new trend,
Harutyunyan answered in the negative. `Our objections, which really
existed, played their role,’ he noted.

Armenian News – Tert.am

Haut-Karabagh
Le groupe de Minsk veut faire avancer le processus de paix

L’Arménie et l’Azerbaïdjan devraient bientôt organiser une nouvelle
réunion au sujet du conflit du Haut-Karabakh, ont déclaré les
médiateurs internationaux à Erevan vendredi 24 mai 2013.

Les diplomates des États-Unis, de Russie et de France, co-dirigeants
du Groupe de Minsk de l’OSCE, ont rencontré le président Serge
Sarkissian et le ministre des Affaires Etrangères Edouard Nalbandian
lors d’une nouvelle visite sur la zone de conflit. Ils se sont
également entretenus avec le président azerbaïdjanais, Ilham Aliyev,
et le ministre des Affaires étrangères Elmar Mammadyarov à Bakou jeudi
23 mai 2013. « Les ministres travaillent très intensivement », a
déclaré Igor Popov, coprésident russe du groupe. « Comme vous le
savez, il y a eu une série de négociations à Paris. Nous nous sommes
ensuite rencontrés à Cracovie [le 17 mai]. Tout ce travail vise à
préparer le terrain pour une réunion entre les deux présidents. »

« Il n’y a pas encore d’accord », a déclaré Popov au service arménien
de RFE / RL (Azatutyun.am).

Aliev et Sarkissian se sont rencontrés dans la ville russe de Sotchi
en janvier 2012. Les pourparlers ont été accueillis par le président
russe Dmitri Medvedev. Aliev et Sarkissian se sont engagés à
intensifier leurs efforts pour s’entendre sur les principes
fondamentaux proposés par les médiateurs internationaux pour régler le
conflit du Haut-Karabagh.

Toutefois, les parties en conflit n’ont fait aucun progrès pour
trouver un accord de paix. Nalbandian a parlé de la possibilité d’un
sommet arméno-azerbaïdjanais lors d’une visite à Moscou le mois
dernier. Mais aucune date pour l’instant n’a été réservée.

Des sources officielles ont donné peu de détails sur les derniers
pourparlers des médiateurs à Bakou et à Erevan. Le bureau de presse de
Sarkissian a seulement indiqué que le leader arménien a discuté avec
eux des questions liées à la « phase actuelle du processus de
négociation. »

lundi 27 mai 2013,
Laetitia ©armenews.com

APA, Azerbaijan
May 27 2013

First chairman of OSCE Minsk Group: `The world community should pay
more attention to the Nagorno Karabakh conflict’
[ 27 May 2013 13:04 ]

Baku. Mubariz Aslanov – APA. Nizami Ganjavi International Center and
Club de Madrid have held several meetings in Helsinki on the outcomes
of the South Caucasus Forum held in Azerbaijan.

The State Committee on Work with Diaspora told APA that the meetings
focused on the frozen Nagorno Karabakh conflict. Former President of
Finland Tarja Halonen, first chairman of the OSCE Minsk Group,
Ambassador Heikki Talvitie stressed that the world community should
pay more attention to this conflict. As a part of the visit to
Helsinki, a meeting was held with Finnish ombudsperson for cultural
affairs Ilmi Villacís.
She is director of the Finnish Cultural Institute coordinating the
cultural projects of Finland. Nizami Ganjavi International Center and
the Finnish Cultural Institute have agreed to cooperate.

Chechen Leader Slams Killing of Tsarnaev Affiliate
Topic: Boston Marathon Explosions

Ibrahim Todashev
© Orlando County Sheriff’s Office
21:01 27/05/2013

GROZNY, May 27 (RIA Novosti) – Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov has
described the Chechen immigrant killed in the US last week by FBI
agents amid questioning over his connection to the alleged Boston
bombers as `a good guy.’

Ibragim Todashev, 27, a US green-card holder of Chechen origin, was
shot dead Wednesday when he allegedly attacked an FBI agent with a
knife during questioning at his home in Orlando, Florida. Media
reported that Todashev had verbally confessed to participating in an
unsolved 2011 triple murder in which investigators are seeking a
connection to brothers Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev, who are accused
of organizing the Boston Marathon bombings that killed three on April
15.

`I want to stress that the Tsarnaev brothers have no relation to the
Chechen republic, they are US citizens. As for Ibragim Todashev, he
was a good guy,’ Kadyrov told reporters in the Chechen capital of
Grozny.

Todashev and Tamerlan Tsarnaev, who also had Chechen roots, knew each
other through the Chechen community in Boston, where Todashev once
lived and where they went to the same gym. But Todashev was not
friends with Tsarnaev, who was killed in a shootout with police four
days after the Boston bombings, said Rene Manukyan, Todashev’s widow.

Kadyrov said Todashev’s father, Abdul-Baki Todashev, who is a
department head in the mayor’s office in Grozny, was a `decent and
educated person.’ After learning about his son’s killing, the father
said Ibragim was innocent and announced his plans to go to the US to
seek the truth.

The Chechen leader criticized US policy, describing it as `double standards.’

`When killings happen in America, the Americans start making an
international fuss about them, but when terrorist attacks happened in
Russia and innocent people died, the Americans showed no interest,’
the Chechen republic’s outspoken leader said.

Artsakh President receives French lawmakers

01:32 PM | TODAY | OFFICIAL

President of the Artsakh Republic, Bako Sahakyan, received on Monday a
group of delegates of the French National Assembly and Senate.

Mr Sahakyan characterized relationships with France as one of the most
important directions of NKR’s foreign policy, stressing the need to
maintain and deepen strong ties between the parliaments of the two
countries. Within this context, the Artsakh President stressed the
establishment of a France-Artsakh friendship group, adding that he has
great expectations from its work.

The interlocutors discussed a number of issues related to Artsakh’s
domestic and foreign policy, regional trends and the settlement of the
Azerbaijani-Karabakh conflict settlement.

Speaker of the NKR National Assembly Ashot Ghoulyan and other
officials were present at the meeting, reports the Central Information
Department of Artsakh President’s Office.

L’Yonne Républicaine, France
Mardi 21 Mai 2013
Nord Edition; Sud Edition

Der Zakarian réécrit l’Histoire

ENCART: Rappelé l’été dernier aux commandes de Nantes qui se
morfondait en L2 depuis quatre saisons, Michel Der Zakarian a de
nouveau réussi à faire remonter dans l’élite l’octuple champion de
France, vendredi à l’issue de la victoire face à Sedan (1-0).

L’entraîneur franco-arménien de 50 ans était déjà à la tête des
Canaris lors de la remontée en 2008, avant d’être débarqué après trois
journées de L1 la saison suivante.

Le grand mérite de l’ancien défenseur nantais, revenu dans la maison
jaune après une parenthèse de trois saisons à Clermont, aura été de
donner une cohésion à une équipe loin du peloton de tête les saisons
précédentes (15e en 2009-2010, 13e en 2010-2011 et 9e l’an passé).

« C’est la première saison où je m’éclate autant, où je progresse
autant. Je suis content d’avoir rencontré cet homme-là (Der Zakarian)
», déclare le milieu Lucas Deaux. « Il est franc et droit. Quand il
avait quelque chose à me dire, il me l’a dit en face. »

Der Zakarian a aussi su créer un climat apaisé autour du club,
échangeant régulièrement avec le volcanique président Waldemar Kita,
qui l’a de ce fait cette fois laissé travailler en toute tranquillité
avec un staff uni, au sein duquel le rôle du préparateur physique
Stéphane Wiertelak a été prépondérant. Kita, en retrait, n’aura
finalement élevé la voix qu’à une seule reprise, au soir de la défaite
à domicile contre Clermont (1-0), il y a deux semaines, qui aurait pu
hypothéquer les chances de montée.

Mais les Canaris ont immédiatement effacé ce faux-pas en allant
s’imposer à Caen (1-0), avec les ingrédients qui auront assaisonné
leur saison et sont imprégnés de la marque Der Zakarian.

Le FCN, pénible à jouer et au style souvent éloigné du fameux jeu à la
nantaise, n’a ainsi pas toujours séduit. Mais, très régulier puisque
sur le podium depuis la 11e journée, il s’est appuyé sur un bloc
compact physique derrière un gardien (Rémy Riou) et un axe central
Djilobodji-Cichero très sécurisants : il possède d’ailleurs la
meilleure défense de L2 (27 buts encaissés).

Today’s Zaman, Turkey
May 26 2013

An exhibition about a family forced to leave their home

26 May 2013 /RUMEYSA KIGER, Ä°STANBUL

Armen T. Marsoobian is a professor of philosophy at Southern
Connecticut State University in the US and teaches several courses
including American philosophy, aesthetics, moral philosophy and
genocide issues.

He is also a descendant of an Armenian family who lived in Anatolia
for generations but were forced to leave their home and properties or
be killed.

Ä°stanbul’s Tophane neighborhood is currently home to an archival
exhibition featuring the family history of Marsoobian’s relatives
between 1872 and 1923. Titled `Bearing Witness to the Lost History of
an Armenian Family: Through the Lens of the Dildilian Brothers,’ the
show consists of the records and photographs of the members of the
Dildilian family who documented their lives in Sivas, Merzifon and
Samsun and the surrounding areas of Anatolia in a period that was full
of suffering for Armenians.

Marsoobian’s uncles, Humayag and Ara Dildilian, tried to write down
the family’s story but they died before finishing it, and all the
documents, letters and memoirs passed down Armen; it took him 20 years
before assembling them into this exhibition.

>From shoemaking to photography

Tsolag Dildilian’s father, Krikor, was well known for the shoes he
made that were `as light as a butterfly’ in Sivas, and many prominent
figures including Governor Memduh Mehmet Pasha, who later became the
minister of the interior, bought his shoes. Tsolag, however, did not
want to continue with his father’s profession since he was passionate
about photography. Photographer Mikael Natourian from Ä°stanbul joined
Tsolag in Sivas to open a photography studio, and the two men took
turns to visit villages and towns to take photographs.

Moving to Anatolia College in Merzifon

When the studio’s fame reached the American Anatolia College in
Merzifon, they were asked to photograph students and staff. After a
while, Tsolag was asked to be the school’s official photographer and
moved to Merzifon with his family. This was a time the Armenian
communities were suffering from constant massacres in the region, but
the family was protected due to their association with the school.
Tsolag also took shots of people, places, events and rural landscapes
in Merzifon, some of which were turned into postcards. Tsolag’s
brother, Aram, who had an amputated leg, assisted him.

World War I and 1915

In 1914, there was no graduation ceremony at the school because after
the war broke out, eight Armenian and Greek members of the faculty
were drafted and the number of the students was halved. A year later,
many Anatolian Armenians were killed and their villages plundered.
Armenian soldiers in the army were disarmed and then forced to help
with road construction and transportation before being massacred, or
just left to starve or freeze. Also in Ä°stanbul, the intellectual and
political Armenian elite were arrested and then shot. After a while,
the deportation of Armenians from Anatolia began. Males were separated
and killed, and the women and children were led towards the Syrian
desert. Throughout their journey, women were raped and abducted to
become maids, or died due to starvation or disease, their bodies
dumped on roadsides and in rivers.

The Dildilian brothers were saved because state officials used them to
take photographs of prominent figures and events in Sivas and
Merzifon. One day, a military officer warned Tsolag about the danger
for his family and that same day they went to the municipality and
converted to Islam in front of the mufti.

Founding the Orphanage

After World War 1, Aram went to Samsun and was horrified by the sights
he saw: homeless orphans all around the city. He began to take
pictures of them and wrote numerous letters to people he knew to build
an orphanage for them. There were about 2,500 orphans in Merzifon at
the time. The brothers photographed them and helped to organize a
school for them.

Leaving home

In 1921 the school was shut down amid the massacres of Greeks and
Armenians in Merzifon. Aram got the assurance of the Near East Relief
officials to transport all the orphans to Greece. The Dildilians also
decided to leave their homeland on the same ship.

The exhibition features information taken from Tsolag and Aram
Dildilian’s and their niece Maritsa Der Medaksian’s journals,
photographs of family members that the brothers took in Sivas,
Merzifon, Samsun, Konya and Amasya over the years, along with memoirs
of the Anatolia College faculty and photo archives of the school.

`Bearing Witness to the Lost History of an Armenian Family’ will run
until June 8 at the Depo in Ä°stanbul’s Tophane neighborhood. For more
information, visit

Baltic News Service / – BNS
May 25, 2013 Saturday 11:53 AM EET

Estonia’s Herkel: Frozen conflicts must not be forgotten

TALLINN, May 25, BNS – The so-called frozen conflicts must not be
forgotten, the chairman of the monitoring committee of the
Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, Andres Herkel, said
at a working meeting of the committee in Tallinn on Friday.
Herkel said the handling of the subject of so-called conflict regions
tends to hit a wall because one of the parties, most often Russia, and
Armenia in the case of the Karabakh conflict, is not interested in
bringing up the subject. The monitoring committee held its last
hearing on that in 2007. Herkel said it is important however not to
let the topic pass into oblivion, spokespeople for the Estonian
parliament said.

“Forgetting and the wish to make the international community acquiesce
to the so-called new reality is the very strategy by which Russia, for
instance, is trying to get Abkhazia and South Ossetia even more under
its influence,” the Estonian MP said, recalling the words of Vladimir
Socor who has said that Russia, which was instrumental in the
emergence of the conflicts, is now seeking to take on the role of
peacekeeper and arbiter.

Herkel expressed regret that unlike the representatives of Georgia,
Armenia, Azerbaijan and Moldova, the Russian members of the committee
Leonid Slutski and Vyacheslav Fetisov were unable to attend the
Tallinn hearing. “Unfortunately this too is a sign of unwillingness to
solve these problems,” he said.

Ex-opposition candidate calls for country-wide protest against gas price hike

18:00 – 26.05.13

To impart a massive character to the civil disobedience against higher
natural gas tariffs it is necessary to join efforts and organize a big
procession across the country, says a former opposition candidate of
presidency.

Speaking to Tert.am, Arkady Ghukasyan said has joined environmental
activists to conduct a republic-wide protest against an earlier
announced plan to increase the prices for natural gas.

`The return step will be a procession across the country, a
mobilization of citizens and a civil disobedience. The route will be
determinedm but it would be logical to [head] from Yerevan to Gyumri
and later to Vanadzor and the other regions,’ he said, adding that
they are now negotiating with civil society representatives to discuss
the methods of the future struggle.

Ghukasyan noted that they have no specific timeframes, adding that
they are planning start the protest after the Public Services
Regulatory Commission makes its decision public.

Armenian News – Tert.am