Author: Baghdasarian Karlen

PRESS RELEASE March 30, 2006

Embassy of the Republic of Armenia
2225 R Street, NW, Washington, DC, 20008
Tel: 202-319-1976, x. 348; Fax: 202-319-2982
Email: [email protected] ;Web:

High Level Armenian Government Delegation Visits the United States for MCC
Signing Ceremony

A high-level delegation of the Armenian Government visited Washington, D.C.
on March 27 – 28, 2006 for the inauguration of the compact between the
Republic of Armenia and the United States through the Millennium Challenge
Corporation. The delegation, headed by Finance and Economy Minister Vardan
Khachatrian, included Foreign Minister Vartan Oskanian, Chief Economic
Adviser to the President Vahram Nercissiantz, and Ambassador Tatoul
Markarian.

The signing ceremony of the MCC-Armenia compact was held in the State
Department, in the presence of U.S. and Armenian government officials, and
leading members of the Armenian American community. Secretary of State Dr.
Condoleezza Rice, who hosted the ceremony, MCC CEO Ambassador John
Danilovich, and Minister Vartan Oskanian delivered remarks during the
ceremony. The compact, signed by Minister Khachatrian and Ambassador
Danilovich, will provide $235 million toward the economic development of the
rural regions of Armenia, including rehabilitation of the rural road network
and irrigation system.

Following the signing ceremony, Minister Oskanian had a meeting with
Secretary Rice to discuss issues of bilateral interest. He also held a
number of meetings with U.S. State Department officials on the margins of
the visit, including Assistant Secretary of State for Europe and Eurasia
Ambassador Daniel Fried, Deputy Assistant Secretary Matthew Bryza, as well
as Ambassador Steven Mann, U.S. Special Negotiator for the Nagorno Karabakh
Conflict. During these meetings, he was accompanied by Ambassador Tatoul
Markarian.

Minister Oskanian spoke on the record at the National Press Club, commenting
on the developments in Armenia and the region, including the Nagorno
Karabakh peace process and energy security issues. On the evening of March
27, Minister Oskanian addressed the participants of the Pan-Armenian
Advocacy Conference in Washington, D.C., co-hosted by the Armenian Assembly
of America, the Armenian General Benevolent Union, and the Eastern and
Western Dioceses of the Armenian Apostolic Church. On March 28, Minister
Oskanian and Ambassador Markarian visited the newly-opened premises of the
Armenian National Committee of America in Washington.

On March 28, Finance and Economy Minister Khachatrian and MCC CEO Ambassador
John Danilovich held a public outreach meeting at the U.S. Congress to
present the MCC Armenia compact. Representative Frank Pallone addressed the
public outreach meeting, extolling the MCC Compact as the latest
manifestation of strong U.S.-Armenian partnership. Representatives of NGO’s,
development organizations, and U.S. government officials attended the event.

On March 28, the Embassy of Armenia hosted a reception on the occasion of
the MCC-Armenia compact and honoring the members of the Armenian delegation
visiting Washington, D.C. The reception was attended by White House and
State Department officials, representatives of the Armenian-American
organizations, and community members.
From: Baghdasarian

AZERBAIJAN IS GRATEFUL TO TURKEY

A1+
[08:54 pm] 04 April, 2006

The Azeri position is unchangeable in the Nagorno – Kharabakh
settlement; the President of Azerbaijan Ilhalm Aliev assured the
President of Turkey Ahmed Sezar who arrived in Baku on official call.

“The matter can be solved in the realm of international norms. The
wholeness of the country must be regained, the Azeris who abandoned
Azerbaijan because of the Armenian policy must return to their
country. These principles show the reality, justice and international
norms,” said Aliev.

The Nagorno – Karabakh conflict was one of the key issues of the
Azeri and Turkish presidents’ discussion. “Turkey always supported
Azerbaijan on this score and still supports, and this assistance is
of vital importance. The Turkish position is justified and Azerbaijan
is grateful for it,” said the President of Azerbaijan.
From: Baghdasarian

DOORS ARE OPEN TO GO AND TO COME

Lragir.am
04 April 06

Speaker Arthur Baghdasaryan, the leader of the Orinats Yerkir Party
does not think that certain members will come out of the party on
the eve of the election in 2007. On April 4 Arthur Baghdasaryan
told news reporters that the Orinats Yerkir is a party of idea and
principle. Moreover, recently more people have applied for membership
to this political party, including members of parliament. The leader
of the Orinats Yerkir Party states the doors are open to those who
will deviate from the principles of the Orinats Yerkir Party or will
prefer to affiliate to another political party.
From: Baghdasarian

MP ASHOTYAN: KOSOVO MODEL CANNOT BECOME PRECEDENT FOR NK CONFLICT SETTLEMENT

DeFacto Agency, Armenia
April 3 2006

Despite numerous statements that 2006 is auspicious for the Nagorno
Karabakh conflict settlement, the problem will not be resolved
current year, Armenian MP Armen Ashotyan is quoted as saying at a
press conference April 1.

According to Armen Ashotyan, proposals on deployment of peacekeeping
corps in the conflict zone and staging a referendum in Nagorno
Karabakh in 15 years are illusions. “We do not know what the situation
will be in 15 years, what demographic situation will be in Nagorno
Karabakh. So, we should not hope that the question will be settled
in favor of Armenians,” the Armenian MP believes, REGNUM reports.

He noted that to settle the Nagorno Karabakh conflict several
models were proposed, in part, Nagorno Karabakh joining Azerbaijan,
its independence or joining Armenia, however, all the models are
inadmissible either for the Armenian, or the Azeri party. “The only
optimal option of the problem solution is preserving the status quo.

In this period it is necessary to increase investments in the
country, as well as increase human resources in Nagorno Karabakh,”
Armen Ashotyan believes.

The RA MP noted Kosovo model could not become a precedent for the
Nagorno Karabakh conflict settlement. “The statement of the Russian
party that Kosovo model can be precedent for settlement of ethnic
conflicts in the post-Soviet territory is disputable for the Armenian
leadership,” Armen Ashotyan believes. If Russia is an interested party
in settlement of the Ossetian, Transdnestr and Abkhaz conflicts, in
case of Karabakh conflict the Armenian people is an interested party,
he stressed.
From: Baghdasarian

OSCE OFFICE CO-HOSTS CONFERENCE ON RETURN AND REINTEGRATION OF MIGRANTS IN ARMENIA

A1+
[05:20 pm] 03 April, 2006

YEREVAN, 3 April 2006 – Support for sustainable return and
reintegration through economic development will be the focus of a
conference that opens tomorrow in Yerevan.

The two-day event, “Return and Reintegration: Meeting the Economic
Challenges of Displacement,” is organized by the OSCE Office in
Yerevan and the Danish Refugee Council, in partnership with the United
Nations. It will bring together over 150 participants, including
government officials, representatives of the micro-finance sector,
the international community, as well as NGOs.

“There is much to be done to ensure the sustainable return of migrants
and help them integrate into society,” said Blanka Hancilova, the
Office’s Democratization Officer.

“The economic factor plays a key role in this respect.

That is why we will be discussing opportunities that the micro-finance
sector may create for returnees.

This conference should help better co-ordinate the efforts of the
international community, civil society and the national authorities
to address the needs of returnees and migration-related issues in
general.”
From: Baghdasarian

MONEY LAUNDERING IN ACADEMY

Lragir.am
03 April 06

Academician Henry Nersisyan, the director of the Fundamental Scientific
Library of the National Acаdemy of Sciences, gave the first news
conference in his life on April 3 to state that his 13 accusations
against the president of the National Academy of Sciences Fadey
Sargsyan are still there, and he continues the struggle for the sake of
the academy: “We need fundamental changes. We cannot go on like this.”

Henry Nersisyan had prepared for the news conference as a scientist
would do. The speaker had 8 thick folders at hand, he distributed
30 pages of information and facts to news reporters, spoke for over
an hour, and as a scientist, only in the end did he conclude that
“the policy conducted by Fadey Sargsyan has led to a terrible
situation.” Henry Nersisyan divides his accusations into four
groups. Each accusations is based on facts.

The worst violation of the bylaws of the National Academy. The
election to the members of the Academy must be held every years, but
the elections are not held regularly. There has been no election since
2000. A general meeting should be held twice or three times a year,
but it is held only once a year. Fadey Sargsyan has set up a bureau,
which makes decisions, and these are applied without being ratified
by the presidency. Henry Nersisyan goes farther. According to him, on
March 12, 2004 Fadey Sargsyan was not reelected, because no election
was held on that day. “There were three questions on the agenda of the
annual general meeting of the National Academy of Sciences on March
12, 2004: the report of the President of the NAS Fadey Sargsyan, the
report of the Vice President Vladimir Barkhudaryan, and discussion
of the report. Later the academicians were invited to another hall
to vote. And they elected Fadey Sargsyan. The academicians were not
aware of this.”

Financial breaches are greater in number. Henry Nersisyan says about
40-50 million drams out of the sum provided for the honorariums of
academicians is saved. “The government allocates for 137 people,
about 90 receive it.” Fadey Sargsyan declines to say what happens to
this 50 million, although Henry Nersisyan has inquired for a number
of times. Not having the consent and awareness of Henry Nersisyan, the
presidency of the Academy of Sciences has leased the space, belonging
to the library. It does not have such a right, for the library is
a state non-profit organization. Moreover, Henry Nersisyan does not
know where the rent for the space belonging to the organization he
heads goes. He does not know because Fadey Sargsyan would not tell him.

There are also problems connected with government funding. The
institutes with a staff of 130-135 people annually receive 40 million
drams. And the presidency of the Academy of Sciences, which is a
“managing body and does not do scientific research,” annually gets 130
million drams and additionally 40-50 million drams. Fadey Sargsyan
would not say where these additional millions go. He does not say
either where the means of the fund of the president of the Academy
of Sciences – 17.5 million drams – goes. It is obvious that these
sums are not spent for the academy. Only 30 million is allocated
for equipment and apparatus. Not a cent was added to these from the
additional funds. What is more, the library headed by Henry Nersisyan
will get less funding this year than last year. Instead, the sums
that arrive under the name “special projects” go to Fadey Sargsyan’s
friends and relatives: Vice President of the NAS Yuri Shukuryan
gets 18 million, the medical genetic center with only 16 workers,
headed by Fadey Sargsyan’s daughter Tamara, receives 35 million. All
the construction in the academy over the past 10 years was carried
out by the same company Akunkshin, no tenders were held. “Expensive
and low-quality building is carried out. There is enough ground to
suggest that money is laundered.”

–Boundary_(ID_GIf2dsmcNuCVp3UAyR1T8Q )–
From: Baghdasarian

GAME OF MUSICAL CHAIRS IN ARMENIANS SAGA
Plainly speaking MWANGI Muiruri

Kenya Times, Kenya
April 1 2006

Unless pigs have wings, all of our political parties are a big joke,
disappointing and outrightly undeserving to form any decent government
for the good of this country.

Consequently, we neither have a distinct governing party nor an agenda
driven Opposition. What we have is a distorted breed of parties in
Government and Opposition. The way it is now is that President Mwai
Kibaki is absurdly and ruling us with his whimsical appointments
in total disregard of who was given the majority mandate to be in
Government. In turn, he needlessly faces opposition from a majority
of those who were elected to be with him in Government.

Our political parties are only good at mutating like amoeba.

Evidence? President Kibaki’s men have just abandoned Narc and formed
a new outfit they have baptised Narc-Kenya. The father and mother of
all parties, Kanu, has just given birth to New Kanu. Narc is dead
and has left many orphans, while the Orange Democratic Movement,
a forum formed to crusade for the rejection of the ill-fated Draft
Constitution, has been registered as a political party in Meru. Where
does this leave the real owners and luminaries of original ODM? My
guess is that perhaps they will opt to register ODM-Party-Kenya.

While these parties are launched with a lot of fanfare, they soon
begin to fade out and get hit by wrangles before mutating. And when
an amoeba mutates in a human body, a litany of health complications
attack. One being your physique expressing that fitness characteristic
of a sickly cow.

It is sad that Kenyans are dreaming of these fragmented parties that
they so support are adequate to make their idolised men and women
ascend to state power. Raw reality is; we are helplessly sinking into
a political quagmire courtesy of the comical nature of our political
parties run by political clowns.

Kanu, Liberal Democratic Party, Ford-Kenya, Ford-P and Democratic
Party-the fair major parties in our political horizons are built on
ethnic concepts and are facing uncontrollable internal turmoil. What
their officials are currently doing is to litter the political arena
with a lot of verbal noise, pretending how united they are, yet they
are mutating amoebas.

If it is Kanu, what segment do we support? Uhuru Kenyatta’s, Nicholas
Biwott’s or the Government affiliated Njenga Karume’s faction?

LDP? Raila Odinga’s segment or that subset which pledges loyalty to
President Mwai Kibaki?

Ford-Kenya? Musikari Kombo’s segment or the Mukhisa Kituyi/Newton
Kulundu/ Moses Akaranga rebellious wing?

DP? Is it chairman-Mwai Kibaki- insisting that the party is dead while
his Secretary-General George Nyamweya insisting that it is alive,
healthy and roaring to go?

Yet, talk is rife of alliances to form formidable coalitions. Which
segment merges with which to carry the day? There are suggestions
that the taxpayer should be funding political parties. How will the
splinter groups agree on what wing of the fragments will retain the
signatory rights to the funds?

That is why most of our politicians-Kibaki among them- have resorted
to discern political parties politics in favour of ethnic politics.

The strength of this form of politics is that; while it is impossible
to impose decisions on enlightened party officials, it is very easy
to amass ethnic backing. Instead of political parties merging to
incorporate diversity of Kenyans and their diverse opinions on the
ideological realm, ethnic chiefs simply negotiate with fellow tribal
chiefs to form alliances.

The scenario now forming is Kenya investing on governments built
on tribal strengths. Woe unto you if your tribe is small! One can
argue-as a counter attack- that it is not sheep, cows and goats that
forms these ethnic groups. That at the end of the day we are talking
of people coming together in those tribal alliances that are flattered
to be a coalition. True.

But when you find these people being grouped together through
inter-tribal negotiations, we are talking of ethnicity not the core
doctrines of building ideological political parties. Since these
outfits cannot use a name of a local resident, they assume all those
funny names that hide the tribal factor in which they are founded on.

That is how they escape their real identities are supposed to be
LDP Raila or Tuju, Ford-K Musikari/Kituyi or Kulundu, Kanu Uhuru,
Kanu Biwott, DP Nyamweya and Narc-K Kibaki.

In the face of Kenyans who are notorious for grabbing the newest
and militantly presented political brand in town, these “astute”
politicians resort to sharing our political power behind our backs-in
boardrooms or restaurants where they craft mischievous Memorandums
of Understandings (MoU) they never intend to honour. They base their
sharing on the big tribes getting the lion’s share while the crumbs
go to the smaller communities. Eventually, they come out holding hands
and belting those sweet sounding tosha slogans to the gullible voters.

It is when those power deals start turning sour that you hear our
leaders tearing at each other in public. It then degenerates to
politics of deceit, hypocrisy and confrontations-like what we are
witnessing now. Unfortunately, this is the status quo that our tribal
chiefs will keep taking us through each time we near an election. The
era of un-honoured MoUs and the government of the day being under
siege from a coalition partner have just begun and not in a hurry to
leave us until when a flash of wisdom assaults voters. The amoebic
characteristics of our political parties sadly underlies the fallacy
that is our fledgling multiparty democracy.
From: Baghdasarian

PanARMENIAN.Net

NKR MFA: Karabakh Citizens Have Never Been and Will
Never Be Azerbaijani Citizens

31.03.2006 21:51 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ The Nagorno Karabakh authorities always supported
NKR participation in the negotiations without preconditions, NKR
MFA information and analytical department told PanARMENIAN.Net. when
commenting on the latest statement by the Azerbaijani FM. “Karabakh
citizens have never been and will never be citizens of Azerbaijan. The
statements by the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry are made for home
and do not reflect the real process on the Nagorno Karabakh conflict
settlement,” the NR MFA said.

To remind, Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov stated that
“official Baku is ready to hold talks with the Armenian community of
Karabakh if they admit Azerbaijani citizenship and if Armenia comes
out of the negotiation process.”
From: Baghdasarian

LEVON ARONIAN IN 10th PLACE BEFORE LAST TOUR IN “AMBER” TOURNAMENT

Noyan Tapan
Mar 30 2006

MONTE CARLO, MARCH 30, NOYAN TAPAN. The games of the penultimate,
10th tour are over in the “Amber” chess tournament being held in
Monte Carlo.

Representative of Armenia Levon Aronian competed with Indian
chess-player Vishvantan Anand and was defeated with a score of 0.5
to 1.5. The first game by the rules of “blind” chess ended with
Anand’s victory, and the second game by the rules of quick chess was
drawn. Vishvantan Anand is the only leader of the tournament. He
gained 13.5 points out of 20 possible ones. Alexander Morozevich
(Russia, 13 points) is in second place, Francisco Valekho (Spain,
11.5 points) in third palce. L.Aronian gained 8.5 points and takes
tenth place among 12 participants. In the last, 11th tour Aronian
will compete with Pyotr Svidler (Russia).
From: Baghdasarian

AZERBAIJAN SAYS SOLDIER KILLED ON ARMENIAN BORDER

Baku Today, Azerbaijan
March 30 2006

Azerbaijan accused Armenia Thursday of breaking a ceasefire and
responsibility for the death of one of its soldiers on their common
border.

“An Azeri soldier was killed during the habitual violations of the
ceasefire by the Armenian side,” the defence ministry said in Baku.

“Azerbaijan’s positions in the Tovuz region were targeted by Armenian
military units from the Berd area,” it said.

The two neighbours, which fought a war in the early 1990s over
Azerbaijan’s mostly Armenian-populated enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh,
regularly charge each other with ceasefire violations.

Azerbaijan accused Armenia on March 7 of causing the death of an
Azeri soldier in the Karabakh region. Armenia quickly denied the
charge and responded with counter-accusations that Azeri troops had
killed an Armenian soldier the previous week.
From: Baghdasarian