Author: Baghdasarian Karlen

HEALTHCARE AND PHARMACY EXPO 2007 EXPOSITION TO OPEN IN YEREVAN

ARKA News Agency, Armenia
June 27 2007

YEREVAN, June 27. /ARKA/. The sixth international specialized
exposition Healthcare and Pharmacy EXPO 2007 is to open on June 29
in Yerevan.

LOGOS EXPO Center says that the latest achievements will be exposed
here.

The exhibition’s main sections are clinical medicine, prophylactic
medicine, stomatology, pharmacy, diagnostics, maternity, medical and
laboratory equipment, hygiene and mineral waters.

The exhibition participants are medical centers, pharmaceutical
companies, medical equipment manufacturers and distributors.

LOGOS EXPO Center, the first exhibition company in Armenia, is the
leading organizer of national and international exhibitions.

LOGOS EXPO Center has organized over 72 specialized and international
exhibitions for six years.
From: Baghdasarian

"IF THERE IS STATE THINKING, ARMENIAN CULTURE WILL DEVELOP AND ENTER WORLD MARKET," RUBEN ANGALATIAN SAYS

Noyan Tapan
Jun 27 2007

YEREVAN, JUNE 27, NOYAN TAPAN. Culturologist Ruben Angalatian
expressed his point of view at the June 26 press conference, saying:
"Armenian culture, as well as those of different nations, are
currently in collapse." According to him, everything has turned into
show, artificial values are being appreciated and that is the reason
that the real art in Armenia goes to the background. He particularly
mentioned the fact that if Yerevan was considered to be a cultural
city in the 60s of the 20th century, the cultural life in the capital
is currently undergoing degradation.

According to R. Angalatian, if there is state thinking, then Armenian
culture will develop not only inside the borders of the country,
but it will also enter the world market. "There are such painters in
Armenia, whose works can be competitive in the world market. However,
we need financial means for that," the culturologist mentioned.

In the culturologist’s opinion, if Armenians have two great figures
in the sphere of the cinema: Pharajanov and Pheleshian, it does not
mean that the Armenian cinematography exists today. The same can
be said about the sphere of the theater. R. Angalatian believes
that only classical music and sculpture are in a good condition,
but, unfortunately, they are not appreciated either. "We have fine
sculptors, but Yerevan is full of vulgar sculptures. We also have a
fine school of composers, but the young generation is listening to
vulgar music. Serious steps should be taken in order not to lose what
we have achieved with great difficulty," R. Angalatian mentioned.
From: Baghdasarian

AZERBAIJAN TRIES TO PREVENT THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS IN NKR IN EVERY POSSIBLE WAY

ArmRadio.am
26.06.2007 17:24

Member of the Azeri delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of
the Council of Europe Ganira Pashayeva handed a document on the
coming presidential elections in NKR to PACE Committee of Ministers,
"Novosti-Azerbaijan" reports. It is noted in the document that "the
Karabakh issue remains unsettled because of the destructive position
of Armenia and this position harms the negotiation process."

It is noted also that "despite the documents adopted by the
international organizations, Armenia upholds the attempts to legalize
the occupation of Nagorno Karabakh. For this purpose in July 2007
Armenia intends to hold presidential elections in Nagorno Karabakh,
thus making the negotiation process even more complex."

"In our document we demand from PACE Committee of Ministers to
prevent these elections with every possible means of influence,"
the Azerbaijani parliamentarian noted. The document was distributed
among PACE parliamentarians.
From: Baghdasarian

KIRO MANOYAN IS NOT SATISFIED WITH ARMENIAN POLICY ON "RETURNING TERRITORIES" IN NAGOTNO KARABAKH NEGOTIATIONS

Noyan Tapan
Jun 25 2007

YEREVAN, JUNE 25, NOYAN TAPAN. Kiro Manoyan, responsible person of the
Office of Hay Dat, member of ARF Dashnaktsutiun party, predicted that
no serious changes for the better will be recorded in the negotiations
concerning the Nagorno Karabakh conflict settlement by the end of
2008 and the beginning of 2009. As he mentioned at the June 25 press
conference, the negotiators will be engaged in "other problems"
during that period and will not exert any pressure upon Armenia and
Azerbaijan, taking into consideration the fact that peace has been
preserved in Nagorno Karabakh without the presence of peacemaking
forces for already thirteen years. In K. Manoyan’s opinion, the other
reason for the delay of the negotiations is the coming presidential
elections in the four countries at once: in Armenia, Azerbaijan,
Russia, and the United States of America.

K. Manoyan believes that during that period when everybody will be busy
with personal problems, there will be only one thing for Armenia to do:
"to speed up the resettlement process of the liberated territories and
promote the agitation diplomacy" in order to introduce the Armenian
position to the world community in a more proper way. Referring to
the conversations about the returning of the liberated territories, he
declared that the ARFD is unequivocally against such a development. In
response to the question of whether he is satisfied with the current
policy of the Armenian negotiations, K. Manoyan said that he is not
satisfied with the part concerning the returning of the liberated
territories. He also added that if the ARFD representative is elected
RA President, he will never take that step.

In response to a journalist’s observation of whether there is an
apprehension that Bako Sahakian, registered as candidate for the post
of the President of Nagorno Karabakh, will not be able to govern the
country because of the fact that he is a drug-addict, K. Manoyan told
the journalist not to worry as "the Minister of Foreign Affairs of
Nagorno Karabakh is a member of the ARFD party and will protect the
interests of Karabakh."
From: Baghdasarian

GETTING IT RIGHT IN KURDISTAN
by Camille Pecastaing

The National Interest Online, DC
=14740
June 25 2007

If and when the United States withdraws its troops from Iraq, it
will have to consider the future of Kurdistan. While a partition
is officially anathema, everyone knows the link between the Kurdish
enclave in the north and the rest of Iraq is tenuous. Baghdad’s only
hope of preventing hard partition is to provide the Kurds with a path
toward the global economy. Kurds might be willing to live with the
Iraqi project if the strong federalism protecting their autonomy is
constitutionally upheld, and if-IF-the insurgency finally subsides,
giving Kurdish businesses access to Basra-Iraq’s only port. Other
than that, Iraq has nothing to offer the Kurds, who are naturally
more likely to gravitate toward Turkey or Iran. If everyone would
smarten up, Kurdistan and Turkey could be the best things to happen
to each other.

Kurdistan came into its own in 1991, when the United Nations Security
Council passed Resolution 688 to stop Baghdad’s reprisals against
Kurdish insurgents. Enforced by the United States Air Force, UNSC
688 gave Iraqi Kurds 12 years of de facto autonomy under an informal
American protectorate. Then, the 2003 regime change in Iraq forced
Kurdistan into the federal, democratic Iraq Washington was trying to
build in Mesopotamia. Kurds paid lip service to the American agenda,
and a long-time Kurdish leader assumed the Iraqi presidency. But
all the while, they have been developing regional institutions and
infrastructures at a frantic pace, a process that culminated in a
2006 transfer of power to a unified Kurdish Regional Government (KRG)
in Erbil. The Kurdistan they envision is economically market-based,
bolstered by a democratic polity, and closely allied to the United
States. It is also an independent state.

Those intentions should be clear to anyone looking at Kurdish
nation-building efforts. The realm of the Kurds (spread across Turkey,
Syria, Iraq and Iran) is partitioned by mountain ranges, and each
valley has nurtured almost its own people, speakers of dialects
that blend a folkish Kurdish language with the lingua franca of the
closest empire. The genetics mirror the linguistics. In the West,
Kurds could pass for Turks but are not really that and, in the East
they could pass for Persians but are not really that either. Kurds
are not Arab, and the Kurds of Iraq are probably the least integrated
in their host country. The chasm between Kurds and Arabs is widening,
as fewer and fewer Kurds are proficient in the language of Baghdad.

Kurdish academia is devising an all-English curriculum from primary
to tertiary education (to prevent Kurdish children from learning
Arabic), and the Kurdish script is in the process of shifting to the
Roman alphabet. Moreover, part and parcel of Kurdish identity is the
Kurdish martyrdom of the Anfal campaign: the genocide endured in the
1980s at the hands of Arabs. Asking Kurdistan to be part of Iraq is
like asking Israel to be a Polish province. For now, the Kurds will
stick with Iraq as long as this is what the United States wants and as
long as America provides security. In the long-term, all bets are off.

While no one is more vocally against Kurdish independence than Ankara,
Turkey is potentially the most promising partner for an independent
Kurdistan. Unlike Iran, Turkey is not a pariah state, but rather a
NATO member and an economic partner of the European Union.

Turkey also qualifies as an emerging economy, and while it does not
have oil, Kurdistan does and may have even more of it when a promised
referendum over the annexation of oil-rich Kirkuk to the Kurdish
Region is held. And, Turkish businessmen are already dominant among
the handful of foreign investors doing business in Kurdistan.

Ankara reads the shifting winds of Kurdish nationalism with
apprehension. Its concern may be justified, but its response, inspired
by a prickly and reactionary nationalism, is inappropriate.

The current troop buildup at the border of Iraqi Kurdistan is not the
way of the 21st century, and crushing the nationalist aspirations
of Iraqi Kurds will only exacerbate ethnic tensions within Turkey
itself. What Ankara may never understand is that an independent
Kurdistan would relieve, rather than increase, Kurdish nationalist
pressure in Turkey. Kurds seeking a deep cultural experience would
only have to cross the border and withdraw to Erbil or Sulaimani.

Inversely, claustrophobic Kurds longing for a cosmopolitan metropolis
(and there are plenty) could join the cohort of their co-nationals
already in Istanbul, Zurich or Munich, confident that their identity
was sovereign and represented in a corner of the world’s map. As for
the area of Turkish Kurdistan, it would be a halfway house, a mixed
human buffer between Turks and free Kurds.

The necessity of a human buffer is a lost lesson of the nationalist
age. Patriotism inspires seizing the biggest possible piece of the pie,
one that encompasses the entire nation and leaves no one out.

But a smaller state surrounded by large populations of co-nationals
is better shielded from immigration and more ethnically stable. By
definition, a larger state would be more mixed and porous. In its
current incarnation, Iraqi Kurdistan already has to accommodate small
historical minorities of Turkmens and Assyrians. Reversing Saddam’s
Arabization program and expatriating Sunni Arabs from Kirkuk-in
anticipation of the referendum scheduled for December 2007-has been
a tall order for the KRG. Annexing the mixed areas of Mosul, a large
Ottoman city and historical home of an urban Kurdish community, would
mean absorbing many Arabs and would be as detrimental to the cause of
Kurdish nationalism as the Six-Day War was to Zionism. An expansion
of Kurdistan beyond the borders of Iraq into Turkey or Syria is an
imaginary threat.

Iraqi Kurds have all the reasons in the world to be impatient with
Turkey, and one understands why the KRG would look the other way when
Congra-Gel fighters-ex-Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) partisans-regroup
in the Qandil mountain area in northwest Iraq to mount operations
against Turkey. The Kurdish issue resonates across the region in a new
way, as Kurdish militias, who often fought one another in the past,
are becoming less parochial. The two main Kurdish factions in Iraq,
the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) and the Kurdistan Democratic
Party (KDP), have made a historic rapprochement (although much remains
to be done). And the new incarnation of the PKK, which traditionally
recruited Turkish Kurds, also attracts young fighters from Syria
where the Asad regime is now facing a Kurdish political awakening.

Ultimately, the realization of Kurdistan’s economic potential depends
on foreign investment. The region has untapped oil and gas reserves,
effective security, modern infrastructures, an investment-friendly
legal environment-allowing foreign ownership of corporations and real
property-and a secular outlook hospitable to foreigners. But all that
potential is compromised as long as Kurdish trade remains hostage to
the whims of Iranian and Turkish authorities. The local needs for
electricity cannot be met by a few hydroelectric dams, and Turkey
and Iran refuse to trade electricity. The few border crossings of
Kurdistan are made up of an endless line of trucks, which limits the
amount of gasoline imported and creates acute shortages. The wait for
subsidized gasoline at gas stations takes hours, even days, and Kurds
have to turn to the ubiquitous black market that sells poor quality
gasoline smuggled over the mountains in cheap plastic containers. In
the meantime, Baghdad (and Ankara, and Tehran) are making sure that
Kurdistan doesn’t develop the capacity to refine the oil it produces,
maintaining the regional dependency.

The emergence of a viable, independent and successful Kurdistan would
benefit Turkey. But Ankara may not understand that. Few countries
have Turkey’s ability to consistently shoot themselves in the foot.

The anachronistic denial of the Armenian genocide, the constitutional
harassment of Justice and Development Party (AKP) and Prime Minister
Recep Erdogan (the only Turkish politician of any value since Turgut
Ozal), the lingering Cyprus fiasco, the botched accession negotiations
process with the EU; all testify to Turkey’s lack of political vision
and maturity, both of which Kurdistan will have to overcome.

Camille Pecastaing is an assistant professor in Middle East Studies
at the Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International
Studies (SAIS) in Washington, DC.

More National Interest online coverage of Turkey and Kurdistan:

"Talking Turkey", by Marisa Morrison

"Kurdistandoff", by Henri Barkey

"Turkey-Kurdistan Update", by Wolfango Piccoli
From: Baghdasarian

FREEDOM HOUSE CONSIDERS ARMENIAN MASS MEDIA NON-FREE

ARKA News Agency, Armenia
June 25 2007

YEREVAN, June 25. /ARKA/. Freedom House international human rights
organization placed Armenia in the list of the countries with non-free
mass media outlets in its regular report.

Armenian mass media have been considered "non-free" since 2003 when
"A1+" independent TV company was deprived of the air on the eve of
parliamentary and presidential elections in the country, "Svoboda"
radio station reported.

According to the report, apart from Armenia nine of 12 CIS member
countries also have "non-free" mass media outlets.

These countries do not provide the fundamental guarantees and
protection for mass media outlets in legal, political and economic
spheres that is a basis for open and independent journalism, the
report says.
From: Baghdasarian

GUAM ADVOCATES INTERESTS OF PRESIDENTS BUT NOT THE WILL OF PEOPLE

PanARMENIAN.Net
22.06.2007 17:31 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ "The developments within GUAM may be described as
advocacy of interests of the Presidents of the member countries but
not of the will of the people," said Natalya Vitrenko, the chairperson
of the Progressive Socialist Party of Ukraine.

"As to Ukraine, President Victor Yushchenko pursues a tough
anti-Russian policy within the GUAM – the policy of formation of
peacekeeping contingents – although our people did not endow the
President, parliament or government with such an authority," she said.

By outcomes of the referendum of December 1,1991, Ukraine is an
off-bloc state. "Consequently, our people did not empower anyone to
draw Ukraine into NATO. Our people want to live in peace with Georgia,
Azerbaijan and Moldova," Vitrenko said, Novosti Azerbaijan reports.
From: Baghdasarian

CONSTRUCTIVE PROPOSAL OF YEZIDI TO GEORGE BUSH

A1+
[07:02 pm] 19 June, 2007

Aziz Tamoyan, the President of the National Union of Yezidi in Armenia
made a rather constructive proposal to George Bush. The US Embassy
in Armenia informed that his letter was translated and sent to George
Bush but no answer was received yet.

The leader of Yezidi Union proposes George Bush: "Coming out of the
interests of Yezidi nation living in Iraq, the National Union of Yezidi
finds that a state should be founded in the Northern part of Iraq and
named Yezidistan. The state may be under the US auspices and serve
as an administrative territory for the US. Otherwise, the nation may
become extinct". To the question of A1+ whether Mr Tamoyan offered
the territory of Iraq, he answered: "We think of Yezidi nation and
we offer the territory where Yezidi lived for 5 thousand years. That
is a holly place for us".

Aziz Tamoyan assured that his proposal was agreed with all leaders
of Yezidi communities in the world. He keeps in touch with them on
the phone. Recently, Yezidi in Iraq called him and said that their
situation was worsening.

Aziz Tamoyan considers himself "president of the whole Yezidi nation
in the world". He intends to travel around the world in the countries
where Yezidi live.

In his opinion, what happened to Armenians in 1915 is expecting Yezidi
people living in the Northern part of Iraq. Aziz Tamoyan said that
Yezidi in all parts of the world are going to organize demonstrations.
From: Baghdasarian

Tiraspol Times & Weekly Review, Moldova
June 17 2007

Nagorno-Karabakh joins Transdniester, Abkhazia and S.Ossetia in call
for peace

Four unrecognized countries have taken a united stand on settling
conflicts without the use of violence. Transdniester, Abkhazia, South
Ossetia and Nagorno-Karabakh signed a joint appeal for peaceful
settlement on conflicts involving their territories. An earlier
appeal to the United Nations did not include Nagorno-Karabakh.

By Times staff, 17/Jun/2007

The Nagorno-Karabakh Republic (NKR) joined PMR and two other
unrecognized states in a call for non-violent conflict
resolutionTIRASPOL (Tiraspol Times) – The foreign ministries of four
unrecognized countries – the Transdniester Republic, Abkhazia, South
Ossetia and Nagorno-Karabakh – signed the a joint declaration on
principles for peaceful and just settlement of their territorial
conflicts with Moldova, Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan,
respectively.

Its text was circulated on Sunday by the Foreign Ministry of
Transdniester (officially Pridnestrovskaia Moldavskaia Respublica, or
PMR, but also known under names such as Transnistria or
Trans-Dnestr).

Key to the document is the appeal that conflicts should be settled
only by peaceful political means on the basis of respect for the
views of all the sides of a conflict, taking into account the right
of peoples to self-determination.

It condemns the use of any forms of pressure at negotiations, be it
open violence – such as military action – or covert violence,
including dis-information wars, economic blockades and sanctions,
diplomatic isolation and other measures which result in unfair
pressure on the weaker side of the negotiations.

Message to Moldova: Respect int’l law
In addition to their appeal for non-violence and a democratic status
settlement, the four foreign ministers agreed to set up international
guarantee systems of a post-conflict settlement. Such international
involvement would include outside guarantees of the observance of
international law and economic guarantees, as well as guarantees of
their peoples’ security and observance of human rights by all sides
to the conflicts.

The document concludes by expressing the conviction that `respect of
these principles by all subjects of the international community,
including Azerbaijan, Georgia and Moldova, will create adequate
prerequisites for the earliest and just settlement of conflicts and
will be a common contribution to strengthening of international
stability and protection of human rights’.

Following the signing of the document, Transdniester Foreign Minister
Valeri Litskai said that eventual independence of Kosovo would create
a precedent for his own country, taking into account the maturity of
Transdniester’s statehood and its government institutions.

` – We are 17 years old, while Kosovo is only seven. Kosovars are a
long way from international democratic standards so far,’ said PMR’s
Valeri Litskai.

The other three signatories to the document are also older than
Kosovo, being each 15 or 16 years old. Of the four, Pridnestrovie
(Transdniester) was the first to declare inpendence: It did so in
1990, one year before the Republic of Moldova became an independent
country. Although Transdniester was legally a part of the former
Moldavian SSR within the Soviet Union, Transdniester has never
legally been a part of the new Republic of Moldova following the fall
of the Soviet Union.

Newcomer: Nagorno-Karabakh
The signature of Nagorno-Karabakh on the declaration is a departure
from recent policy.

Nagorno-Karabakh differs from other "frozen conflicts" in the
ex-Soviet Union in that it has repeatedly received funding from the
United States Congress. Throughout the 1990s, NKR’s independence
leaders collaborated with other unrecognized countries but at the
advice of American consultants, they withdrew their close ties.
Washington felt that it was not beneficial for NKR to be lumped with
Abkhazia and Pridnestrovie (Transdniester), and the "handlers" held
out the promise of quick international independence recognition if
Nagorno-Karabakh would seek its own way.

No such promise materialized, and Nagorno-Karabakh is now again
inching closer to the other unrecognized countries in the region.

Discussions are underway for Nagorno-Karabakh to join the Community
for Democracy and Human Rights, an international governmental
organization founded by the three other unrecognized countries on the
post-Soviet space. NKR currently participates with observer sates,
but the Secretary-General of the group’s Interparliamentary Assembly
says that this is likely to change.

` – The full membership of the Parliament of Nagorno Karabakh in the
Assembly as well as the membership of other partially recognized
states is under discussion," said Grigory Marakutsa, an ethnic
Moldovan from Pridnestrovie (Transdniester) who was formerly Speaker
of the PMR Parliament. (With information from Itar-Tass)

From: Baghdasarian

AMERICAN-ARMENIAN EXPERT NAMES PEOPLE WHO MAY CONTRIBUTE TO ARMENIA’S DEVELOPMENT

Panorama.am
17:35 13/06/2007

American-Armenian expert Richard Giragosyan has unique interpretation
of the Armenian achievements of May 12 elections. In his words,
"Armenia needs institutional democratization." As a person not very
close to internal political situation, Giragosyan named people
who may be able to contribute to change and democratization. The
expert named at least three, Davit Harutunyan, Arthur Aghabekyan
and Nerses Yeritsyan. Giragosyan said the reforms launched by
Davit Harutunian during his tenure in executive make one believe
that he may have better opportunities to take "bright steps" in
the parliament. Arthur Aghabekyan, a resigned general, "may take
strong steps in defense budget, NATO and Collective Security Act,"
Giragosyan said. The third person is the newly appointed minister
of trade and economic development, Nerses Yeritsian. Giragosyan said
"bravo!" to the appointment believing that Yeritsyan may contribute
to the development of the Armenian economy. "Army is not as important
for Armenia as economy," Giragosyan said.
From: Baghdasarian