Author: Baghdasarian Karlen

THOMAS DE WAAL: PUTIN IS NOT INTEND TO SPEND HIS POLITICAL ASSET ON KARABAKH

00:31 24/08/2013 ” REGION

“I do not think that the visit of Russian President Vladimir Putin
to Azerbaijan has fundamentally changed the strategic balance in the
Caucasus,” British journalist, a senior researcher on the Caucasus
at the Carnegie Endowment and author of the book “Black Garden”
Thomas de Waal stated to the Azerbaijani news agency “Vesti.az.”

He also stressed that the most important thing the Russian side
achieved was “Rosneft’s” participation in the gas project: “Though,
they have not achieved it yet.”

Besides, according to Thomas de Waal, Vladimir Putin very little
mentioned about the Karabakh conflict. “In contrast to his predecessor,
Medvedev, Putin does not seem to be enthusiastic about Karabakh and
is not intended to spend on it his political asset,” the expert said.

According to Thomas de Waal, Putin’s visit was a demonstration of
its power both for Russia and Azerbaijan. “Putin made it clear for
Washington that the United States is minor player in the Caucasus”
he concluded.

Source: Panorama.am

From: Baghdasarian

HOVANISSIAN PROMISES NEW SET OF RALLIES

Friday, August 23rd, 2013

Raffi Hovanissian at Friday’s rally in Yerevan

YEREVAN (RFE/RL)-Opposition party leader Raffi Hovannisian rallied
hundreds of supporters in Yerevan on Friday in what he called the
start of a new campaign of street protests aimed at changing Armenia’s
government.

Hovannisian said that Armenian opposition and civic groups can achieve
regime change and thereby “save our country” as early as this year if
they join forces. “We can’t carry on like this,” he said. “We all know
that separately … we won’t achieve anything. That is why I propose
that we change our approach and methodology before it’s too late.”

“We must do it together and we must do it this year,” the leader of
the Zharangutyun (Heritage) party told supporters in Yerevan’s Liberty
Square. He said this applies to not only the opposition but also youth
activists demonstrating against higher public transport prices and
university tuition fees as well as veterans of the Nagorno-Karabakh
war campaigning for pension rises.

Hovannisian, who was President Serzh Sarkisian’s main challenger
in last February’s presidential election, announced that he will
hold another rally in the square on August 29 before heading to the
northern cities of Gyumri and Vanadzor the following day. He said he
will then proceed to the southern Syunik province to campaign for a
Zharangutyun candidate running for parliament.

“By September 23 we will have a new situation in Armenia,” declared
Hovannisian.

Hovannisian already tried to bring the Sarkisian administration to
resign with street protests after the disputed presidential election,
which he says was rigged by the authorities. That campaign fizzled out
amid a lack of support shown by other opposition parties. The latter
complained that Hovannisian never came up with a clear plan of actions.

Those opposition groups made similar arguments when they responded
to Hovannisian’s invitations to join his latest “civil assembly” in
Liberty Square. None of their representatives attended Friday’s rally.

Hovannisian downplayed their absence. “My impression is that the
coming weeks and months will see a process of coordination,” he told
journalists. “I know that that will be difficult, but broadly speaking,
everyone realizes that Armenia needs big changes.”

The Armenian Revolutionary Federation (Dashnaktsutiun), another
major opposition party, on Friday likewise announced plans to try to
consolidate the opposition for a new anti-government effort. Armen
Rustamian, a Dashnaktsutiun leader, accused the authorities of leading
the country to ruin.

“If they think that they have four or five years’ time they are badly
mistaken,” Rustamian told RFE/RL’s Armenian service (Azatutyun.am).

“The trends which we can now see in the society can generate force
majeure situations. And I’m not even talking about external challengers
that are already visible.”

From: Baghdasarian

PARUYR HAYRIKYAN THINKS ARMENIAN AUTHORITIES DO NOT TAKE ENOUGH EFFORTS TO FULFILL THE KEY POINTS OF THE INDEPENDENCE DECLARATION

by Ashot Safaryan

ARMINFO
Friday, August 23, 15:13

The leader of the Union for National Self-Determination party, one of
the fighter for independence of Armenia, Paruyr Hayrikyan, said at
today’s press-conference that Armenian authorities do not take enough
efforts to fulfill the key points of the Independence Declaration.

He said that adoption of the Independence Declaration by the Supreme
Soviet of Armenia opened the way to the process of the statehood
formation, but the leaders of the state, in particular, Levon
Ter-Petrosyan and his comrades-in-arms were not ready to that and
further developments resulted in the course displacement, chosen
first. “According to the Declaration, the new and independent Armenia
was proving its adherence to the democratic traditions of the First
Republic of 1918, in particular, formation of the parliament through
the proportional electoral system , as well as adoption of the
Constitution through the Constitutional Meeting. None of them were
observed”, – Hayrikyan said.

He also added that the same vicious system was preserved up to now,
and despite point 3 of the Independence Declaration, the people of
Armenia do not own statehood. “We still do not have a strict
development strategy of Armenia as an independent state. And we do not
fully estimate the idea of independence”, – Hayrikyan thinks.

From: Baghdasarian

CHINESE ANALOGUES OF RUSSIAN “SMERCH” SYSTEMS FOR ARMENIAN ARMY: FROM WORDS TO DEEDS

by Ashot Safaryan

ARMINFO
Friday, August 23, 15:15

The latest reports of RFE/RL Armenia Service on acquisition of Chinese
AR1A multiple launch rocket systems by Armenia has evidently awakened
the local mass media, particularly anti-Russian media outlets,
giving them a fresh impetus to again call for refusal from Russian
weapons and diversification of the suppliers of up-to-date weapons
and military equipment.

Actually, Armenia buys weapons and military hardware mostly from
Russia. Representatives of the Defense Ministry and other structures
supervising the field used to say that Armenia acquires weapons from
Russia at preferential prices, but they avoid speaking of the quality
of the acquired weaponry. On the other hand, Armenia shows growing
interest in up-to-date solutions of the leading European countries in
the field. Yet in August 2012, Defense Minister Seyran Ohanyan said
after a press conference with his Italian counterpart that Armenia
is interested in Italy’s experience in the field of military industry.

Cooperation with Italy like with many other countries is promising for
Armenia. Poland, for instance, is taking more tangible but still timid
steps to enter the Armenian market. In April 2013, Poland and Armenia
signed an agreement to set up a joint venture of Lubawa Group, Poland
and Charentsavan machine- building plant, Armenia. The company LUBAWA
Armenia is expected to produce multiscale optical camouflage nets (87%
of turnover), T-72 mock-ups (10% of turnover) and tents (3% of the
turnover). These and other examples clearly demonstrate the Armenian
leadership’s efforts to certainly diversify weaponry suppliers.

Unfortunately, these efforts have not produced any tangible results in
the view of some factors. Firstly, Armenia has political dependence
on Russia and feels shortage or seeming shortage of funds. In the
meanwhile, diversification could become a serious background for not
only and not so much modernization of the armed forces, but for better
maneuvering on the foreign political arena. Concealing their concern
over delivery of Russian weapons to Azerbaijan and trying to ‘protect’
the Russians from the righteous anger, the military leadership of
Armenia are well aware that “if you say in the first chapter that
there is a rifle hanging on the wall, in the second or third chapter
it absolutely must go off.” This dramatic principle is relevant to
our neighbor as never before considering its huge military budget
that is equal to Armenia’s state budget. However, extreme dependence
on Moscow restricts Yerevan. What we can do now is to stay aside and
look at how our strategic ally equips the army of our enemy.

In the meanwhile, diversification could make those deals transparent.

It would be naïve to hope for transparent fulfillment of a
contract given the corrupt Russian military-industrial complex and
unhealthy state procurement system in Armenia full of “kickbacks and
curve-outs.” It is hardly possible to apply such methods dealing with
Western partners.

Hopefully, the Chinese AR1A multiple launch rocket systems will not
become the only example of diversification in the field. It would
be good if the country used the diversified military-industrial
complex of Israel, one of the world’s leading arms manufacturers and
exporters. Military cooperation with Israel would be quite effective
for the Armed Forces of Armenia, but it requires close political
cooperation of the countries. Such scenario seems impossible amid
deep Armenian-Iranian interaction and Israeli-Azerbaijani relations,
but in such fast-changing region where once strong allies Israel and
Turkey are now on the opposite sides of the barricades, a change of
geopolitical landmarks and preferences is just paperwork. It helps to
remember that developing relations with Iran Armenia simultaneously
receives tangible economic aid from the USA – Iran’s geopolitical
enemy number one.

Talks on inexpensive, relatively accessible Russian weapons are wide
open to criticism. Their goal is to justify the extremely inefficient
military spending. Throw a glace at the car fleet of the Defense
Ministry that consists of offroaders as big as armored vehicles,
at the luxurious offices and mansions of military officials worth
millions of dollars, to see that there is no shortage of funds.

Effective management of the budget funds and a true fight against
corruption would lay a good foundation for searching new weaponry
suppliers.

From: Baghdasarian

ARMENIAN RED CHURCH WATCHED BY MUSLIM WOMAN

15:00, 23 August, 2013

YEREVAN, AUGUST 23, ARMENPRESS: Only one of the five Armenian churches
in the Derik District of Mardin Province of Turkey has remained stable
up to now. It is the Red Church. As reported by Armenpress, quoting
the Turkish News website evrensel.net, the Church was built in 1650.

After the Armenian Genocide of 1915 the Red Church, like the other
churches, for 40 years was used by the Turkish army as a stable.

The website publishes that today only one old Armenian couple has
remained at Derik. The Church, which suffered so many disasters, is
being watched by a local 60-year-old Muslim woman Khatun Gyorunen,
who cleans the Church and accepts the pilgrims and tourists.

The Turkish News website evrensel.net states also that the Armenian
Red Church is being cared by the Muslim woman, as during the Armenian
Genocide in 1915 the local Armenians were massacred and subjected to
deportation and at present there are no Christian Armenians in the
area. A ritual procedure is held at the Church once a year by the
Armenian Patriarchate of Constantinople.

The first inhabitants of Mardin appeared there in 6500-6000 B.C. In
1914 it had 25000 mix population, 1500 of which were Armenians,
the others were Turks, Assyrians, Kurds, Arabs and others. Mardin
was ruled by Persians in 6-4 centuries. In 1104 Arkudiks became the
owners of Mardin. Till 1517, the city was under control of the ruler of
Safev – Ismail Pasha, after which the city was conquered by Ottomans
severing the vibrating history of the city. The word “merdin”, which
in Syrian legends means “fortresses”, is the root of the name of the
city. When one Byzantine general killed a priest whose name was Din,
the city started to call Mateidin, which meant – Din is killed.

From: Baghdasarian

DINK FOUNDATION HIGHLIGHTS RACISM, DISCRIMINATION IN MEDIA

13:25 23.08.13

Religious, ethnic minorities, women and Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and
Transgender (LGBT) groups are frequently targeted by the Turkish
media as objects of hate speech, discrimination and even racism,
Today’s Zaman says, citing a report by the Hrant Dink Foundation.

The report, titled “Hate Speech in the Media” released on Thursday,
includes statistics and analyses on the general media discourse
regarding minorities and other disadvantaged groups. Compiled on
data gathered by monitoring the press in the first four months of
this year, one segment of the report focuses exclusively on media
reports regarding a visit by members of the pro-Kurdish People’s
Democratic Congress (HDK) group to the Black Sea. The HDK group,
which includes members of parliament from the Peace and Democracy Party
(BDP), visited the Black Sea region as part of the ongoing negotiation
process between the government and the terrorist Kurdistan Workers’
Party (PKK) to show their support for peace.

The foundation found an increase in the number of reports targeting
minorities and disadvantaged groups in the January-March period,
in comparison with the findings of previous studies by the foundation.

However, the number of groups that are targeted by stories that can
be classified as using hate speech or discriminatory language —
and sometimes-outright insults — has decreased in comparison with
the same period of 2012.

Hate speech, the report said, has the highest occurrence rate in the
national media and columnists are the most frequent culprits. The
most frequently targeted groups are Armenians, Jews and Christians,
in that order and intensity. Turkey’s Greek and Kurdish communities
were the two other groups that were discriminated against, although
as far as figures go, the amount of stories against these two groups
is much lower than the other three.

In this period, there was an increase in the number of stories deemed
to carry anti-hate speech against Kurds, particularly those stories on
the HDK/BDP group’s visit to the Black Sea region, the anniversary of
the Khojali massacre of 1992 [in which the Armenian army killed more
than 613 Azerbaijani civilians], the death of three women affiliated
with the terrorist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in Paris in February,
and the French military campaign in Mali.

The report also detected a large number of stories that include
hate speech targeting women and LGBT individuals. Most examples in
this category were based on giving detailed physical descriptions
of the women who are the subject of the news story and most of
these stories concerned sex workers. Most stories about transgender
individuals associated these persons with crime and the uses of the
word “transvestite” was meant to sound offensive, the report said.

Armenian News – Tert.am

From: Baghdasarian

PROTESTORS DEMAND FREEDOM FOR ALL POLITICAL PRISONERS IN ARMENIA

Narek Aleksanyan

16:27, August 23, 2013

Activists converged on the Prosecutor General’s Office in Yerevan
today in a show of solidarity for Tigran Arakelyan, a young HAK
(Armenian National Congress) member sentenced to six years on charges
of hooliganism and resisting arrest dating back to a August 2011
incident with police.

The protesters, calling for the release of all political prisoners
in the country, noted that today is the 23rd anniversary of Armenia’s
declaration of Independence.

From: Baghdasarian

DEFENSE MINISTRY: ARMENIAN SOLDIER KILLED BY AZERI BULLET

13:38 23/08/2013 ” SOCIETY

According to initial reports, one Armenian soldier has been
killed and another injured by Azeri bullet today. Armenian Defense
Ministry spokesman Artsrun Hovhannisyan confirmed this information
to Panorama.am.

The information is being verified, he added.

Source: Panorama.am

From: Baghdasarian

HRAPARAK: NEWLY BUILT ARMENIAN CHURCH TO OPEN IN MOSCOW SEPT. 17

Friday,
August
23

A newly built Armenian church will be inaugurated in Moscow on
September 17. The construction of the church started in 2008. This
can be said to be the biggest project of Bishop Ezras Nersisyan,
Primate of the Diocese of New Nakhichevan and Russia, the brother of
Catholicos of All Armenians Karekin II.

According to Hraparak daily, the Armenian community of Moscow plans
to hold a grand opening ceremony, to be attended by senior Russian
officials and prominent representatives of the Armenian community.

“The Armenian community hopes Ezras Nersisyan will be promoted to
Archbishop following the realization of this project,” the paper adds.

TODAY, 09:20

Aysor.am

From: Baghdasarian

ARMENIAN CULTURE IN TURKEY: FROM THE ASHES

18:22, August 23, 2013

Turkish Armenians are beginning to celebrate-and commemorate-their past

(The following appeared in today’s The Economist)

A DAINTY silver slipper, a hand-engraved copper bowl. Silva Ozyerli,
an ethnic Armenian, runs a loving finger over these and other family
treasures strewn across her dinner table in Istanbul. They are due
to go on display at a new museum of Armenian culture in Ms Ozyerli’s
native city of Diyarbakir at the end of 2013.

The Armenian museum, the first of its kind in Anatolia, will be part of
the newly restored Surp Giragos church complex (pictured). Its aim is
to chronicle Armenian life in Diyarbakir, in Turkey’s mainly Kurdish
south-east, before 1915. That was the year when Ottoman troops and
their Kurdish accomplices began slaughtering over 1m Armenians and
other Christians across the country during what many historians say
was the first genocide of the 20th century.

Turkey denies that mass killings took place, insisting that the
Armenians had perished from hunger and disease during their forced
march to the deserts of Syria. (The Ottoman government deported the
Armenians, notionally for their safety, as the empire collapsed. Yet
thousands were massacred as they marched, and countless others
were killed before they set off.) Local school textbooks perpetuate
this myth.

Granting permission to restore Surp Giragos is seen as part of a
larger government campaign to placate diaspora Armenians, who have
been lobbying governments around the world to recognise the genocide.

When Surp Giragos reopened in 2011, after lying in ruins for more
than 20 years, it became Turkey’s first church to be revived as a
permanent place of worship.

“The museum is a way of showing that thousands of Armenians contributed
to the city’s wealth and culture,” explains Ergun Ayik of the Surp
Giragos Foundation, which runs the church. “People will look at the
photographs, the objects, and wonder where did all these people go?”

Around 2m Armenians are believed to have lived in Turkey before the
genocide. Now there are about 70,000. Survivors are scattered across
the Middle East, Europe, America and Australia. Many more converted
to Islam to carry on, but their numbers remain unknown. Osman Koker,
a Turkish historian, reckons that more than half of Diyarbakir’s
population used to be non-Muslim, mainly Armenian Orthodox, but
also Catholic, Syrian Orthodox and Jewish. “Now”, says Mr Koker,
“there is practically none.”

Yet a growing number of Turkish Armenians are reclaiming their
heritage. In 2010 hundreds flocked to the island of Akdamar in the
eastern province of Van to attend an inaugural mass at the newly
restored Church of the Holy Cross. (The church is now a museum,
but holds mass on religious holidays.) Turkey’s culture ministry
has obliged with a list of other ancient churches that it plans to
restore, says Osman Kavala, a Turkish philanthropist who is helping to
promote Turkish-Armenian reconciliation. And Armenian-language lessons,
available since last year in Diyarbakir’s historic Sur district, are
increasingly popular among Turkey’s so-called “invisible Armenians”
who had abandoned their culture in order to survive.

Abdullah Demirbas, the district’s mayor, argues that the Kurds must
also make amends for their complicity in the genocide.

Armenians applaud these efforts, even as they note a persistent
strain of Turkish nationalism that perceives non-Muslim minorities as
suspect. The government’s conversion of several Greek Orthodox churches
into mosques, together with its recent espousal of unabashedly Islamist
rhetoric, heightens some concerns that efforts to appease Armenians
are cynical and short-sighted.

But such worries were pleasantly absent during a recent afternoon
in Surp Giragos, as tourists gazed at the church’s repaired altars
and onion-domed belfry (which had been destroyed by the Ottomans in
1916 because it dwarfed surrounding minarets). The church is drawing
hundreds of people every day. “Many of them are Islamised Armenians
like me,” laughs Gafur Turkay of the Surp Giragos Foundation. “The
truth about 1915 cannot be concealed,” says Mr Ayik’s daughter Pelin.

“But as a young Armenian I don’t want to be pitied as a victim. I
am the proud torchbearer of a rich civilisation that not only has
survived but continues to thrive.”

From: Baghdasarian