Author: Baghdasarian Karlen

SCR DIRECTOR GENERAL AWARDED FORMER HEAD OF “BANK VTB (ARMENIA)” FOR HIS CONTRIBUTION OF DEVELOPMENT OF RUSSIAN BUSINESS IN ARMENIA

/ARKA/
FEBRUARY 15, 2012
YEREVAN

YEREVAN, February 14. /ARKA/. By the decree of former CEO of
“South-Caucasian Railways” (SCR) Shevket Shaydullin, former General
Director-Chairman of Board of Directorate of “Bank VTB (Armenia)
Valeri Ovsyannikov was awarded an honored certificate, press-service
of SCR informed on Tuesday.

Ovsyannikov was awarded a certificate for his large contribution in
the development of interstate relations and Russian business in the
Republic of Armenia.

During the awarding ceremony Shaydullin thanked Ovsyannikov for
fruitful cooperation, as well as joint work in the financial market
and strengthening of Armenian-Russian business relations.

Valeri Ovsyannikov was appointed on the post of General
Director-Chairman of Board of Directorate of “Bank VTB (Armenia)
in March 2007.

During his management was carried out a serious work on modernization
of the “Armenian” daughter of VTB and its transformation into a modern
universal bank. The branch network of the Bank was also optimized and
radically changed (over 100 branches throughout the territory of the
country inherited to the Bank VTB by “Armsavingsbank”).

During the last four years of its activity, assets of the “Bank VTB
(Armenia) increased 2.6 times and by the end of December 2011 made
179.1 billion drams, liabilities increased 3.1 times – to more than
152 billion drams, and the capital increased 1.5 times to 30.5 billion
drams. Profit of the Bank in 2011 exceeded 4.5 billion drams which
is 5.7 times more than the indicator in 2007.

The Bank actively participated in very important social events in
Armenia, also under the auspices of the Embassy of Russian Federation
in Armenia, targeted at the support of Russian language, culture and
art. The Bank traditionally provides sponsorship and charity support
to orphanages, Russian Theater and Russian school in Yerevan. The
sport team of the Bank has achieved success many times in all the
Spartakiads of VTB Group.

CJSC “South-Caucasus Railway” is a 100% subsidiary of OJSC “Russian
Railways” implementing concession management of CJSC “Armenian
Railways” according to the Concession Agreement signed on February 13,
2008. Term of the concession is 30 years with the right of extension
for another 10 years.

From: Baghdasarian

AZNAVOUR REVIENS SUR SES DECLARATIONS
Jean Eckian

armenews
mardi 14 fevrier 2012

Dimanche 12 fevrier, dans l’emission de Catherine Ceylac The ou
Cafe, sur France 2, le comedien Charles Berling qui avait souhaite
auparavant pouvoir rencontrer un jour Charles Aznavour, a eu la grande
surprise de le voir apparaître alors qu’il ne s’y attendait pas. Venu
pour parler de sa nouvelle carrière de chanteur, a l’occasion de la
sortie de son premier album “Jeune chanteur”, il a pu echanger en
toute liberte avec l’icône francaise sur le metier.

Vers la fin de l’emission, Catherine Ceylac a alors interroge Aznavour
sur ses prises de position relatives au negationnisme et au genocide
des Armeniens. Dans son intervention, Charles Aznavour, commence par
dire qu’il “n’etait pas favorable au depart” pour la loi penalisant la
negation du genocide des Armeniens. Puis precisant, il indique que non,
ce n’est pas qu’il n’y etait pas favorable, citant l’article qu’il
avait ecrit dans les Nouvelles d’Armenie Magazine, dans lequel il
explique qu’a son avis, “Nous, la diaspora nous pourrions abandonner
[ndlr :le mot genocide] pour que ca se passe très bien.”

Puis il enchaîne :

“Si vous n’aimez pas le mot genocide, trouvez celui qu’il faut pour
qu’on s’arrange. Et puis, n’ayez pas peur. Nous ne voulons pas les
territoires. La France est tranquille maintenant. L’Allemagne ne lui
demande pas l’Alsace et la Lorraine. J’ai ete très loin dans ce que
je disais. je me suis mis a dos pas mal d’Armeniens en racontant
des chose pareilles. Quand ils [les autorites turques] n’ont pas
repondu a ca ! Parce qu’ils lisent tout ! Alors la j’ai envoye une
belle lettre pour feliciter le President Sarkozy. Et puis je suis
revenu en arrière. Ils ne veulent pas aller de l’avant, alors moi je
reviens en arrière. Un jour où l’autre il faudra qu’ils se decident
a accepter que ca a existe quand-meme.”

From: Baghdasarian

BAKOU REMET EN CAUSE LE ROLE DE LA FRANCE DANS LE GROUPE DE MINSK
Gari

armenews
mardi 14 fevrier 2012

Pour Bakou, la France n’est plus en mesure d’assumer le rôle de
mediateur par essence neutre dans le processus de règlement du
conflit du Haut Karabagh, du fait de son soutien juge inconditionnel
a l’Armenie. Avec le recent vote du Senat francais sanctionnant le
negationnisme des genocides, dont le genocide armenien, percu comme
une insulte a son allie turc, la France a confirme ce soutien aux yeux
des responsables azeris, qui mettent desormais ouvertement en cause
sa competence a assumer la copresidence du Groupe de Minsk de l’OSCE
en charge du règlement conflit du Karabagh, aux côtes des Etats-Unis
et de la Russie, cette dernière etant, faut-il le rappeler, le ”
partenaire strategique ” de l’Armenie plus encore que de l’Azerbaïdjan,
puisqu’elle y entretient une importante base militaire.

C’est en substance ce qu’a declare le ministre des affaires etrangères
de l’Azerbaïdjan Elmar Mammadyarov, qui a fait savoir le vendredi 10
fevrier que si la France continuait a apporter son soutien a l’Armenie,
son appartenance meme au Groupe de Minsk de l’OSCE “perdrait tout
son sens”.

Dans un entretien accorde au journal turc ABHaber, M. Mammadyarov a
indique que ” la France peut soutenir l’Armenie, mais elle ne peut
dans le meme temps pretendre a vouloir jouer un rôle dans le cadre
de l’OSCE “. Le ministre a reitere les diatribes de Bakou contre
l’Armenie accusee d’occuper 20 % du territoire de l’Azerbaïdjan, en
soulignant que si la France adoptait definitivement la loi penalisant
les negationnistes du ” pretendu genocide armenien “, alors il faudra
bien aussi qu’elle prenne franchement position sur la question de ces
” teritoires occupes “.

“Les Armeniens ont perpetre un genocide a Khojalou et dans les
territoires azeris occupes … La France doit aussi prendre en compte
les crimes de l’Armenie”, a martele M.Mammadyarov, dans une allusion
a l’une des pages sombres de la guerre qui a oppose les Armeniens
aux Azeris de 1991 a 1994.

En 1992, lors de la liberation de Chouchi d’où les forces azeries
pilonnaient Stepanakert et les autres localites armeniennes, les
combattants armeniens avaient aussi pu s’emparer de la localite
strategique de Khodjalou, abritant le seul aerodrome du Karabagh,
aux abords de Stepanakert.

Plus de 200 Azeris, dont nombre de civils, auraient ete tues a
Khodjalou, un massacre voire un genocide selon le discours officiel
de Bakou, qui prend bien garde de ne pas evoquer la serie de pogromes
et de massacres, qui de fevrier 1988 a Soumgaït jusqu’en 1990 a Bakou,
ont vide l’Azerbaïdjan du demi million d’Armeniens qui y habitaient.

Les Armeniens ont toujours nie une telle lecture des evenements,
rejetant sur les Azeris la responsabilite des morts de Khodjalou, qui
auraient ete pris entre les feux armeniens et azeris alors que l’armee
armenienne avait degage un corridor pour permettre aux habitants azeris
de quitter la localite et de se refugier derrière les lignes azeries.

From: Baghdasarian

TURKEY’S FAMOUS ROCK SINGER FACED DIFFICULTIES ON REVEALING HIS ARMENIAN IDENTITY (VIDEO)

news.am
February 14, 2012 | 00:10

ISTANBUL. – Turkey’s famous rock singer Yasar Kurt, revealing his
Armenian identity at the age of 40, told what was the surrounding’s
response after knowing the truth.

He told that everything was confused after revealing his Armenian
origin.

“I was excited for 1.5 years and got very angry. Why it happened so?

Why I was unaware?” Kurt said.

According to him, the elder relatives accepted his Armenian origin
news normal, while the younger ones stricter. There were even people
who told him to go to Armenia, which disclosed the real face of
those people.

The singer was born in Istanbul and started to learn Armenian on
knowing his real identity. Armenian News-NEWS.am presents Nefrete
Kine KarÅ~_ı (I could not put up with) the joint song by Yasar Kurt
and Arto Tunjboyajian.

From: Baghdasarian

TURKEY HALTS PARACHUTE TENDER TO FRENCH FIRM

Hurriyet
Feb 13 2012
Turkey

Turkey’s civil aviation association has decided not to buy French
parachutes.

The Turkish Aviation Board (THK) has suspended a parachute tender,
awarded to a French company, the head of THK Osman Yıldırım
said Feb. 11.

“We launched a tender to purchase 150 parachutes some time ago, and
a French company won the tender, but we suspended the tender after
the French Senate adopted a resolution on the denial of Armenian
allegations regarding the incidents of 1915,” Yıldırım told an
Anatolia news agency reporter.

Yıldırım said THK would make public the result of the 500,000 Euro
tender if France took a step backward.

The French Senate adopted a law that penalizes the denial of Armenian
allegations regarding the 1915 incidents during the Ottoman Empire
period. Under the law, anyone who denies the Armenian allegations
may be sentenced to one year in prison and a 45,000 euro fine.

On Feb. 7, 77 French senators and 65 parliamentarians applied to
the French Constitutional Council to annul the law. The council is
expected to announce its decision within one month.

From: Baghdasarian

VIOLIST KIM KASHKASHIAN IN PEAK FORM

Philadelphia Inquirer

Feb 13 2012

by David Patrick Stearns, Inquirer Classical Music Critic

The music world is crawling with hot young violists (Maxim Rysanov,
Lawrence Power, and David Aaron Carpenter) but they all have a ways
to go before they’re as interesting as Kim Kashkashian. At age 59,
she is playing in peak form, and more than most, expanding the
viola repertoire in numerous directions. But rather than probing
some meditative new works by Baltic Republic composers or exploring
her Armenian roots, Kashkashian played nothing but her own Schumann
adaptations Friday at her Philadelphia Chamber Music Society recital.

Why not?

Adagio and Allegro Op. 70, Funf Stucke im Volkston Op. 102,
Fantasiestucke, Op. 73 were refitted with success. Violin Sonata in D
minor Op. 121 was not – an enterprise that told you a lot about what
was right with the other transcriptions and why such things aren’t
widely attempted.

Though the sonata was composed in 1851 and only two years after the
rest of the works on the program (all were written within weeks of
one another in 1849), it is from a different creative period: The
composer was knocking out works faster (and perhaps more carelessly)
than before, often spending little more than a week on each one,
almost as if he knew that, amid encroaching mental illness, his
creative days were numbered.

The sonata’s third movement is among the composer’s most original,
with an Italianate melody that’s plucked out of the instrument with
charmingly rustic effect, in what feels like Schumann’s answer to the
Act II serenade in Mozart’s Don Giovanni. But the final movement shows
the composer at his most obsessive, with a five-note motif arriving
somewhere about 50 times in less than eight minutes. Much of the rest
feels dense to the point of claustrophobia.

Without the brighter sound of the violin, such passages became
murkier. Accompanist Robert D. Levin seemed to compensate by bringing
a Bachlike sense of definition to the piano part, but the effect felt
relentless in stretches where the music so energetically goes nowhere.

Elsewhere, the recital was fairly magical – and attracted a full house
at the American Philosophical Society – if only because Kashkashian
was so immersed in the music’s world that it did not really matter
what instrument she was playing. Schumann’s songful brand of lyricism
emerged as if she was drawing on some secret text as the inspiration
for her color and phrasing. And that is important, since all of the
1849 works are considered to be minor, but through Kashkashian’s
depth of empathy and Levin’s sense of what the music needed, seemed
as major as can be.

In the Adagio and Allegro, pianist Levin produced some mesmerizing
colors I had not previously heard from him. And in the opening of Funf
Stucke, Kashkashian’s vibrant viola tone was such a pleasure, the music
seemed made for her. So it seemed, too, in the encore, a transcription
of the song “Widmung” with its famously soaring melody – that was much
needed after going ’round in circles with the sonata. No surprise that
in this transcription, the words were not missed. That is the highest
compliment to be paid – when a transcription feels thoroughly right
and not secondhand. Then again, the skill of the transcription is,
in this case, inseparable from the charisma of the performers.

From: Baghdasarian

ANAHIT BAKHSHYAN TO RUN IN ELECTIONS BY MAJORITY SYSTEM

Panorama.am
14/02/2012

Member of Heritage parliamentary faction Anahit Bakhshyan is going
to run for a parliamentary seat by the majority system, Bakhshyan
told a Panorama.am reporter.

“I have decided to run in the elections in Shengavit district where I
had been a school headmaster for years,” said Mrs Bakhshyan. “I am not
afraid of competition, society knows me well, and I am confident that
they also know everybody who will compete with me in that electoral
district.”

From: Baghdasarian

RULING COALITION MEMBER PAP TO GET MORE SEATS IF MEDIA AND FINANCIAL LEVERAGE USED CORRECTLY

news.am
February 14, 2012 | 14:00

YEREVAN. – Ruling coalition member Prosperous Armenia Party (PAP) will
get more mandates if it uses media and financial leverage correctly,
expert Karen Kocharyan told the journalists on Tuesday. In that
case PAP will be a serious opponent for the other coalition member
Republican Party of Armenia (RPA).

“The party has serious media resources throughout the state. However,
it has a problem with staff and ideology. Naira Zohrabyan has become
the only PAP public figure,” the expert said.

According to an expert on election technologies Armen Badalyan,
PAP’s achievement is its leader Gagik Tsarukyan, his image of a
philanthropist. As a matter of fact, party itself does not deal with
philanthropic activities but only the foundation.

From: Baghdasarian

TURKISH COURT ACQUITS ANOTHER DEFENDANT IN DINK MURDER CASE

PanARMENIAN.Net
February 14, 2012 – 14:46 AMT

PanARMENIAN.Net – A court has acquitted CoÅ~_kun Ä°gci, one of
19 defendants in the murder case of Hrant Dink, the founder and
former editor-in-chief of the Armenian-Turkish Agos weekly who
was assassinated in 2007 in front of his office in Istanbul, after
forgetting to include him in the final verdict in January, Today’s
Zaman reported.

Ä°gci, who presumably called on Yasin Hayal to buy a gun with which
to shoot Dink, was accidentally left out of the final verdict and
the judge issued a ruling separately for him on Monday, Feb 13.

On Sept 19, 2011, the prosecution recommended his acquittal on the
grounds that “there was no substantial evidence to suggest he took
part in the crime.”

Ä°gci’s lawyer said at the court on Monday that his client has no
ties to the murder except for being the uncle of Hayal, one of the
main suspects.

Ä°gci said at the court that he had informed gendarmerie intelligence
officers in Trabzon that a plan to assassinate Dink was in place four
months prior to the murder.

“I am not guilty. The people I reported about were tried in Trabzon and
they were punished because they neglected their duties. Those people
are Col. Ali Oz, Capt. Metin Yıldız, non-commissioned officer Orhan
Å~^imÅ~_ek and Sgt. Veysel Å~^ahin,” he said.

When a judge at the court asked Ä°gci if he had been in contact with
those four people, Ä°gci replied that he had contacted Å~^imÅ~_ek
and Å~^ahin.

The Istanbul 14th High Criminal Court issued its ruling on Jan 17
in the 25th hearing of the case. Hayal and Erhan Tuncel, the main
suspects, who were accused of being instigators, and all other
suspects, were cleared of charges of membership in a terrorist
organization.

The prosecutor and the Dink family’s lawyers accused them of acting
under the orders of a clandestine criminal network suspected of having
ties with senior state officials and military and police officers.

The court handed down a life sentence to Hayal, while Tuncel was given
10 years and six months in prison for his involvement in the bombing
of a McDonald’s restaurant in 2004. Gunman Ogun Samast was sentenced
last July to nearly 23 years in prison by a separate juvenile court.

Tuncel was released.

From: Baghdasarian

TURKEY JUDGES NOT IMPARTIAL, SAYS ARRESTED PUBLISHER’S LAWYER. APPLIES TO ECHR

epress.am
02.14.2012

Arrested publisher Ragıp Zarakolu’s lawyers have filed a suit at the
European Court of Human Rights to challenge the prosecutor’s orders
that led to his arrest on Nov. 1, 2011, as part of the Kurdistan
Communities Union (KCK) trials.

“[The KCK probe] is a politically [motivated] case filed by the AKP
[Justice and Development Party] government, and the combination of
the prosecutors’ and judges’ lack of independence and impartiality
makes it difficult for a just and lawful verdict to be reached,”
Zarakolu’s lawyer Ozcan Kılıc told the Hurriyet Daily News.

The suit filed at the European court pertains to such matters as
treatment in detention, the legal and material basis for the arrest
and access to case files and evidence, rather than the trial process
itself, in accordance with the requirements prescribed in the fifth
article of the European Convention on Human Rights, which established
the court, according to Kılıc.

“The KCK trial is going to be the case with the largest number of
suspects in Istanbul since the military coup of 1980. It is still
too early to comment on the course of the trial,” Kılıc said.

Tuncay Ozkan, another suspect in the ongoing Ergenekon trials,
had already applied to the European court last week on the grounds
that his right to a fair trial had been violated and that he had
been detained for an extensive period. The European court, however,
rejected his complaint regarding the right to a fair trial but gave an
interim decision addressing claims regarding the period of his arrest,
indicating that the charge would be examined later.

“We are going to cite as the preamble our inability to access the
documents and information in the file due to the ‘order of secrecy,’
the basing of the evidence and the accusations on [slippery] facts,
the refusal of objections to the arrest without citing any serious
and reasonable justification and the fact that no suit has yet been
filed despite the passage of more than three months,” Kılıc said.

Cem Halavurt, one of the lawyers in the high-profile case of Hrant
Dink, a Turkish journalist of Armenian origin murdered in 2007,
also said the European court’s ruling on Ozkan did not constitute a
precedent because the court examines each file separately.

Domestic judiciary processes have to be completely exhausted before
a file can be brought before the European court. Some 180 suspects
will stand trial in the KCK probe, including Zarakolu, who continues
to remain behind bars at a high-security prison in the northwestern
province of Kocaeli.

From: Baghdasarian