Author: Baghdasarian Karlen

597,366 USERS CONNECTED TO GAS CONSUMPTION SYSTEM OF ARMENIA AS OF FEBRUARY 1

Noyan Tapan
Feb 5, 2010

YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 5, NOYAN TAPAN. 597,366 users were connected to
the gas consumption system of Armenia as of February 1. The number of
gas users of ArmRusgazprom CJSC grew by 1,013 in January, the press
service of the company reported.

As of February 1, 260,928 safety alarm devices were installed at
apartments and houses of gas users by the company, including 17,791
devices installed in January.
From: Baghdasarian

TURKEY TRYING HARD TO SOLVE ARMENIAN-AZERBAIJANI CONFLICT – PM

Trend
Feb 4 2010
Azerbaijan

Turkish prime minister said on Wednesday that all the countries in
its region had confidence in Turkey and Turkey tried to use such
trust for the foundation of regional peace, Anadolu Agency reported.

Speaking at a conference at the International Strategic Research
Organization (USAK) on the changing balances in the world and Turkey’s
growing global importance, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said
that all countries should be treated the same regarding the nuclear
weapons issue.

Erdogan said the notion of justice would be harmed if some countries
were warned and others were tolerated on the nuclear issue.

"If you have a nuclear weapon, you cannot tell another country not
to develop it. In order to demand such a thing, such country should
first destroy the weapons in its hand," he said.

TURKEY-EU AFFAIRS

Upon a question on the relations between Turkey and EU, Erdogan
said that he expected the Spanish rotating presidency of EU to act
differently while negotiating the chapters with Turkey.

Erdogan said Turkey was currently in a much better position than
nearly half of the EU-member states and those who assessed the issue
objectively agreed on such matter.

Regarding Turkey’s EU bid, Erdogan said the country would continue
to fulfill its responsibilities, however, the Union had certain
liabilities in Turkey’s full membership process as well.

"We expect EU to stay committed to its responsibilities," he said.

CYPRUS ISSUE

In his reply to a question on Cyprus issue, Erdogan said UN Secretary
General Ban Ki-moon’s recent visit to the office of Turkish Cypriot
President Mehmet Ali Talat seriously disturbed the Greek Cypriot party.

Noting that the UN SG had given the best reply to the stance of the
Greek Cypriot party with his visit, Erdogan said, "We will get what
we deserve sooner or later. However, this journey needs patience. We
have nothing to lose, we will win in the end".

Erdogan also said that several countries’ efforts to present the
Cyprus issue as a political obstacle before Turkey’s EU membership,
were totally wrong.

"Obstacles that are not envisaged by the acquis are put in front of
us. This is wrong in terms of the ethics of negotiation," he said.

Erdogan said that the appropriate platform for the solution of the
Cyprus issue was the UN, not the EU.

REGIONAL ISSUES

Commenting on the Palestinian conflict as well, Erdogan said such
issue laid in the center of all the regional problems, adding no
permanent peace or stability could be provided in the Middle East
unless this matter was solved.

Expressing the importance attached by Turkey to the security and
stability of the Gulf region, Erdogan said Turkey also had quite good
relations with the Black Sea countries such as Romania and Ukraine.

Pointing to Turkey’s efforts to initiate the Caucasus cooperation
process, Erdogan said, "We are trying hard to solve the problems
between Armenia and Azerbaijan, which we consider a key country in
the region.

Erdogan also called on the Minsk Group to fulfill its duties for the
solution of the matter.

MFA’S ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE

Upon a question on whether there would be any changes in the
organizational structure of the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs
(MFA), Erdogan said MFA would start recruiting ambassadors that were
not actual employees of the ministry.

"If those who are offered such positions accept, we desire to appoint
them as ambassadors in different parts of the world," he said.

Erdogan also said that Turkey would open 5 more embassies in Africa in
2010, increasing the total number of embassies in the continent to 27.
From: Baghdasarian

FIGHTING COULD FLARE BETWEEN ARMENIA AND AZERBAIJAN: U.S. OFFICIAL

news.am
Feb 3 2010
Armenia

"Fighting could flare between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the disputed
region of Nagorno-Karabakh," stated Director of U.S. National
Intelligence Dennis Blair, Taiwan News reports. According to him,
the situation in Caucasus and Balkans remains unstable.

"If Russia continues efforts to exercise influence over its former
Soviet neighbors, particularly Georgia, as another cause for concern,
it could pose a threat to relations with Washington," Blair emphasized.

"Bosnia remains divided into ethnic ministates-(Bosnia comprises
two governing entities, the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina,
and Republika Srpska with District Brcko — NEWS.am’s note), Bosnian
Serbs had been reversing some of the changes included in the accord
as part of efforts to seek more autonomy for their ministate. At the
same time the Bosnian Muslims and Croats want to abolish the country’s
division so it can progress toward EU membership," Blair outlined.
From: Baghdasarian

SERZH SARGSYAN TO VISIT GREAT BRITAIN

PanARMENIAN.Net
01.02.2010 19:36 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Armenia President Serzh Sargsyan will pay an official
visit to Great Britain on February 9 -11.

A meeting between Armenian leader and political authorities is
scheduled, diplomatic sources told PanARMENIAN.Net.

Presidential spokesman Samvel Farmanyan neither confirmed nor denied
the information in a conversation with PanARMENIAN.Net reporter.
From: Baghdasarian

WAR IS POSSIBLE

Lragir.am
02/02/10

The possibility of war in the Karabakh conflict is big because
the geopolitical balance is changing in favor of Azerbaijan and the
tensions connected with a military solution keeps increasing. This is
the opinion of the coordinator of the HAK Levon Zurabyan who agreed
with the prediction of the American Stratford analytic center that
the Karabakh conflict is possible to come out of control and to become
a third world war.

Levon Zurabyan thinks this big possibility is determined by the
activities of the current regime as they undertake concessions which
are a result of changed geopolitical balance. According to him,
from the point of military, economic and other resources, Azerbaijan
is stronger than Armenia. The best achievement of the tenure of the
first president was that we were able to hold a victory over a rival
which was much stronger. But the image changed after Ter-Petrosyan’s
resignation, says Levon Zurabyan.
From: Baghdasarian

VASILIY ATAJANYAN APPOINTED NKR DEPUTY FOREIGN MINISTER

News.am
13:58 / 02/01/2010

February 1, the President of Nagorno-Karabakh Republic Bako Sahakyan
signed a decree on appointment of Vasiliy Atajanyan as NKR Deputy
Foreign Minister, NKR President Office Central Information Department
informed NEWS.am.

Vasiliy Atajanyan was born July 29, 1947. Earlier, Atajanyan held a
post of deputy foreign minister. He also was a chairman of the standing
committee on foreign affairs, inter-parliamentary relations and
information at NKR National Assembly, NKR Minister of Social Security.
From: Baghdasarian

Today’s Zaman

01 February 2010, Monday

Poyrazköy munitions targeted admirals, claims indictment

An indictment on a subversive naval forces plot against two admirals
claims that a weapons cache buried in Ä°stanbul’s Poyrazköy
neighborhood would be used to assassinate the admirals.

The indictment was forwarded to the Ä°stanbul 12th High Criminal Court
last week. It concerns an ongoing probe into an alleged plot to
assassinate admirals at the Naval Forces Command. In July of last
year, seven naval lieutenants were arrested on charges of plotting to
kill two admirals, Metin Ataç and EÅ?ref UÄ?ur YiÄ?it.

According to the indictment, the munitions discovered during police
excavations in Poyrazköy would be used by a junta nested within the
Naval Forces Command, under the leadership of retired Col. Levent
GöktaÅ?, to assassinate the admirals. The munitions were discovered on
land owned by the Ä°stek Foundation in April 2009. They are covered in
a separate indictment which demands life sentences for five naval
officers and lengthy prison terms for another 11 naval officers. The
officers are accused of `membership in an illegal organization’ and
`attempting to destroy Parliament and the government.’ They are
accused of working to foment chaos in the country through violent acts
to help overthrow the Justice and Development Party (AK Party)
government.

The indictment into the assassination plot accuses 19 suspects, nine
of whom are already under arrest. The suspects are accused of
`membership in a terrorist organization’ and `illegal possession of
explosives.’

The new document claims that the officers hoped to use the munitions
buried underground in Poyrazköy in the planned assassination of the
two admirals. Among a long list of munitions are hand grenades, light
anti-tank weapons (LAWs), rocket launchers, Kalashnikov rifles,
assault rifles, thousands of bullets and various other explosives.

The document also recalled a series of planned attacks against
individuals, included in the Poyrazköy indictment.

Agos staff wants to become co-plaintiff in Poyrazköy case

In the meantime, the staff of the Turkish-Armenian biweekly Agos
newspaper has appealed to the Ä°stanbul 12th High Criminal Court to
become co-plaintiffs in the case against the Poyrazköy defendants.

According to the Poyrazköy indictment, subscribers to the
Turkish-Armenian biweekly Agos newspaper were to be posted on a number
of Web sites in line with the Cage plan. Agos Editor-in-Chief Etyen
Mahçupyan said they were working on becoming co-plaintiffs in the
Poyrazköy case. The former editor-in-chief of the newspaper, Hrant
Dink, was killed by an ultranationalist Turkish teenager in 2007.

01 February 2010, Monday
Ä°STANBUL BÃ`Å?RA ERDAL
From: Baghdasarian

Jordan Times
1 February 2010

Defeating the geopolitical mindset

Through the Wall of Fire: Armenia-Iraq-Palestine – From Wrath to Reconciliation

Muriel Mirak-Weissbach

Frankfurt/Main: edition fischer, 2009

Pp. 380

The parents of Muriel Mirak-Weissbach were both orphaned in the
Armenian genocide of 1915. This set her on a path of discovering how
to survive war and genocide, and go beyond to work for a better world
where peace and social justice would preclude such atrocities. Her
book is the culmination of insight gained from years of journalistic
work and organising support for war victims.

The title, `Through the Wall of Fire’, refers to an episode in Dante’s
`Divine Comedy’. Only by putting aside his fears and self-obsession,
and reaching out to the other, can the pilgrim pass through the `Wall
of Fire’ to enter Paradise. It is Mirak-Weissbach’s belief that a
similar process is required to solve the conflicts of Armenia, Iraq,
Palestine and elsewhere. The fact that her own parents, along with
thousands of Armenian children, were saved by ordinary Turkish
citizens led her to reject the concept of collective guilt, and seek
the real causes of war and genocide in `the geopolitical mind, a mode
of thinking which disposes of peoples and nations as mere objects’, in
its pursuit of wealth and power. (p. 15)

Mirak-Weissbach writes extremely well and her account of events
leading up to the Armenian genocide is fascinating. She combines the
machinations of the Great Powers on the eve of World War I, the rise
of the Young Turks and their relations with some Zionist leaders, such
as Vladimir Jabotinsky, with a focus on how these events impacted on
ordinary people, especially children. She also focuses on children in
the sections on Iraq and Palestine, for as she says: `It is only by
grasping the deep psychological impact on the children that others may
understand how prejudices, hatred, and the thirst for revenge can be
passed on from generation to generation, until it may appear that no
solution is in sight.’ (pp. 9-10)

This vantage point seems relevant to the Armenian-Turkish conflict
where the author sees hope for reconciliation due to the regional
shift that occurred after Georgia’s 2008 move into South Ossetia, and
Ankara’s subsequent initiative to encourage cooperation between
Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Turkey and Russia. `But this will
require that both sides go through the Wall of Fire’, and `strive to
overcome the bitterness, fears, and, yes, deeply engrained hatred,
that the events of 1915 engendered’. (pp. 90-91)

Despite its desirability, Mirak-Weissbach’s concept of reconciliation
seems less applicable in Iraq and Palestine where war and ethnic
cleansing are not historical events but ongoing. For the Palestinians,
it is not a question of hatred being passed on from generation to
generation, but of daily siege and attacks that keep the conflict
boiling, as the book describes very accurately.

Nonetheless, the sections on Iraq and Palestine are very informative.
The author is merciless in exposing the US and Israeli governments’
false justifications for their genocidal policies. Particularly
interesting is the account of how massive airlifts of humanitarian aid
to Iraq were organised in the wake of the 1991 war, and how injured
Iraqi children were sent to receive medical aid abroad. This was no
small feat for the citizens’ movement initiated by the author that
managed to overcome numerous restrictions imposed by the US, UK and UN
sanctions regime, as well as a host of unexpected logistical problems.
The author’s narration of the suffering of individual Iraqi families
restores humanity to the statistics, while the Iraqi children sent
abroad for medical treatment `turned out to be the most effective
ambassadors for their nation’, charming hospital staff in Germany and
America alike. (p. 144) Moreover, this is one of few books published
in English that evaluates Iraqi officials according to their actual
performance instead of dismissing them out-of-hand with stereotyped
labels.

The strength of the section on Palestine lies in its economic
analysis. According to Mirak-Weissman, the Oslo process failed because
`it did not suit the tastes of powerful financial and political
interests situated in the US, UK and Israel, who militantly opposed
the birth of a sovereign Palestinian state with a thriving, advanced
industrial economy’. She shows in detail how funding was engineered
via the World Bank so as to make Palestinians `agree to work as slave
labour in South African-style Bantustans’. (p. 219) In the ensuing
situation, new outbreaks of violence were inevitable.

This is an outstanding book for the author’s ability to combine
personal narrative with political analysis, to bring out previously
unnoticed historical facts, and show the way forward to a better
future.

Sally Bland
1 February 2010
From: Baghdasarian

Hatis’ Bojana Vulic Returns to Hometown Belgrade

Tert.am
12:09 – 30.01.10

Hatis Yerevan women’s basketball team player Bojana Vulic left for her
hometown of Belgrade yesterday. Beginning from February, Vulic will be
playing for Bosnia’s Selik team. In the summer, Vulic will return to
Armenia and continue playing for Hatis.

While playing for Hatis, Vulic participated in all 8 matches for the
EuroCup Women championship and scored 126 goals (averaging 15.8).

One of the team’s star players, Vulic said that she would really like
to return to playing for Hatis and to participate in the next round of
the EuroCup women tournament.

`I will miss Armenia,’ she said, `I will most definitely return.’
From: Baghdasarian

UK WELCOMES THE EFFORTS OF ARMENIA, TURKEY TO ESTABLISH RELATIONS

armradio.am
29.01.2010 11:52

Armenian Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian had a meeting with UK
Minister for Europe Chris Bryant. The interlocutors discussed a wide
range of bilateral, regional and international issues. Reference was
made to Armenia-EU cooperation.

The interlocutors underlined the importance of high-level visits for
promotion of bilateral cooperation. They appreciated the conduct of
regular political consultations between the Foreign Ministries of
the two countries.

Edward Nalbandian and Chris Bryant touched upon the latest developments
in the Karabakh conflict settlement process and the processes under
way in Northern Ireland.

Minister Bryant welcomed the efforts towards establishment of relations
between Armenia and Turkey.
From: Baghdasarian