Armenian Equestrian Federation to cooperate with PMU
NEWS.AM
September 19
YEREVAN. – The Armenian Equestrian Federation will start cooperation
with PMA, the affiliate of France’s world-renowned PMU company which
organizes horse races.
The parties will sign the cooperation agreement on Saturday at
Armenian capital city Yerevan’s Hovik Hayrapetyan Equestrian Center.
From: Baghdasarian
BOSTON PROTESTERS: ‘WE ARE ALL GURGEN’
Posted by Nanore Barsoumian on September 18, 2012
medium 41 Boston Protesters: ‘We are all Gurgen’
A scene from the protest in Boston. (Photo by Nanore Barsoumian)
BOSTON, Mass. (A.W.)-Around 100 protesters assembled at the Boston
Common on Sept. 17, to protest the extradition of Ramil Safarov, the
Azerbaijani axe murderer, from Hungary, and his subsequent pardon by
Azerbaijani president Ilham Aliyev.
medium 2 300×200 Boston Protesters: ‘We are all Gurgen’
Protesters walk through Boston Common.(Photo by Nanore Barsoumian)
Protesters standing opposite the Massachusetts State House, waived
the Armenian flag, and held signs condemning Azerbaijan and Hungary.
One protester’s sign read, “Axe murderer on the loose… Thank Hungary
for your safety concern.” Another held a poster with the words, “We
are all Gurgen!” One woman held a small sign, “Humanity over politics.”
“Baku honors murderers!” and “Hungary has blood on its hands!”
chanted the protesters.
“We are here today as Armenian-Americans to show the world our Nation
is united under our tri-color flag… We ask Hungary to stand by
our side in this crucial time and recognize Artsakh as a sovereign
nation, and wipe its hands clean of the smeared blood,” said Antranig
Avedissian, chairman of the AYF-YOARF Greater Boston “Nejdeh” chapter,
through a megaphone.
“We stand united with Armenians from all over the world, for Gurgen
Margaryan,” he continued. “Today, I am Gurgen Margaryan; and today
we are all Gurgen Margaryan.”
Medium 5 300×200 Boston Protesters: ‘We are all Gurgen’
One protester’s sign read, “Axe murderer on the loose… Thank Hungary
for your safety concern.” (Photo by Nanore Barsoumian)
“This is wrong! How can you kill a person and return to your country as
a hero! This is a big slap in the face of Armenia,” Lilith Kibarian,
treasurer of the AGBU Young Professionals steering committee and one
of the organizers of the protest, told the Armenian Weekly.
medium pic1 300×200 Boston Protesters: ‘We are all Gurgen’
“Baku honors murderers!” and “Hungary has blood on its hands!”
chanted the protesters. (Photo by Nanore Barsoumian)
Protesters held a candlelight vigil and a moment of silence for
Margaryan, the Armenian Lieutenant who was axed to death during
his sleep by Safarov. The protest ended with a prayer, the Hayr Mer
(Our Father).
From: Baghdasarian
LITHUANIAN DEFENSE MINISTER TALKS TO HER AZERI COUNTERPART ON PARDONING AND GLORIFICATION OF MURDERER SAFAROV
arminfo
Tuesday, September 18, 19:45
During a meeting with Azerbaijani Defense Minister Safar Abiyev,
Lithuanian Defense Minister Rasa Jukneviciene said in Baku that she
considers the glorification of murderer Ramil Safarov unacceptable.
The Lithuanian media outlets report that Jukneviciene clearly expressed
Lithuania’s concern over Safarov’s pardoning. She thinks that the
murderer cannot be glorified. This undermines the atmosphere of
confidence in the region and has a negative impact on the Karabakh
peace process.
Jukneviciene also pointed out that such issues should not affect
Lithuania’s relations with the South Caucasus countries. She added
that the peace in the South Caucasus meets the interests of Lithuania.
She stressed that the dialogue on Safarov was to take place and it took
place. One should look ahead and correct the mistakes made, she said.
From: Baghdasarian
ARMENIAN PARTY LEADER TO “PLEDGE ALLEGIANCE” TO PRESIDENT? – NEWSPAPER
news.am
September 18, 2012 | 07:05
YEREVAN. – In August, when Armenia’s President Serzh Sargsyan found
out that National Assembly Speaker Hovik Abrahamyan had started
playing games-with Russia and the parliamentary elite that arrived in
Armenia-in connection with the Eurasian Union, Sargsyan made Abrahamyan
understand that if he continues with this, he will be dismissed once
again, and sooner than Plan A, Hraparak daily writes.
“And Plan ‘A’ envisions Hovik Abrahamyan’s dismissal and, in general,
the ruling pyramid’s complete change immediately after [next year’s]
presidential elections. Plan ‘B’ [, on the other and, envisions]
a quicker dismissal, if Abrahamyan is unable to make [Prosperous
Armenian Party leader] Gagik Tsarukyan make a statement on supporting
Serzh Sargsyan [in the elections]. But with his announcement made in
Masis [city], Tsarukyan had angered 26 Baghramian [Avenue, that is,
the Presidential Palace].
[But] Two days after the announcement, Hovik Abrahamyan was able to
set up a meeting dinner, at the garden of Gagik Tsarukyan’s home,
in Serzh Sargsyan’s honor, so that Tsarukyan would give the President
assurances on the future,” Hraparak writes.
From: Baghdasarian
BAKU’S ACTIONS FURTHER ALIENATE INTN’L COMMUNITY, ARMENIAN FM SAYS
PanARMENIAN.Net
September 18, 2012 – 16:08 AMT
PanARMENIAN.Net – Armenian Foreign Minister commented on numerous
Azeri violations of agreements and promises at a joint briefing with
UK Minister for Europe David Lidington.
To prove his point, Edward Nalbandian cited Baku’s non-fulfillment
of a deal to create a mechanism for investigation of incidents at
contact line, as agreed at a joint meeting between Armenian, Azeri
and Russian Presidents in Sochi.
The Armenian official also reminded about Baku’s attempts to undermine
Karabakh settlement, Azeri violations of ceasefire as well as release
of axe-killer Ramil Safarov.
“Baku’s actions do noting but widen the chasm between Azerbaijan and
international community,” Nalbandian stressed. Ramil Safarov, the
Azerbaijani army officer who was serving a life sentence in Hungary
for axing to death Armenian Lt. Gurgen Margaryan, was extradited to
Azerbaijan and pardoned by Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev.
Official Yerevan reacted by suspending diplomatic ties with Hungary.
Hungary, however, states that it had sent Safarov back to Azerbaijan
after receiving assurances from the Azerbaijani Justice Ministry that
Safarov’s sentence, which included the possibility of parole after
25 years, would be enforced. According to some reports, Safarov was
extradited to Azerbaijan in exchange for Azeri purchase of Hungarian
securities worth Euro 2-3 billion, an information official Budapest
denies.
From: Baghdasarian
EXPERT: PRESIDENT OF ARMENIA WILL TRY TO BRIDGE THE GAP BETWEEN PROSPEROUS ARMENIA PARTY (PAP) AND OTHER FORCES, BUT PREMIER HINDERS THE PROCESS
arminfo
Tuesday, September 18, 14:51
President of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan is trying to bridge the gap between
Prosperous Armenia Party (PAP), ARF “Dashnaktiutyun” and other forces,
but premier hinders the process, political expert Edward Bozoyan told
Arminfo correspondent when commenting on the president’s meeting in
the government on 16 September.
He also added that displeasure of the president by the activity of
the government is not new. “However taking into consideration the
forthcoming presidential election, the head of state has decided to
demonstrate that he is not going to ignore omissions and mistakes
of the government, and that he does not want to distance from the
society. Moreover, by his sharp statements Sargsyan sent a message that
he wants to bridge the gap with the rest political forces – PAP, ARFD,
But Tigran Sargsyan’s figure hinders the process”, – Bozoyan said.
From: Baghdasarian
GREAT BRITAIN VIEWS ARMENIA AS VALUABLE PARTNER – UK MINISTER FOR EUROPE
PanARMENIAN.Net
September 18, 2012 – 16:26 AMT
PanARMENIAN.Net – Great Britain views Armenia as a valuable and
long-term partner, UK Minister for Europe said.
As David Lidington stated at a joint briefing with Armenian Foreign
Minister Edward Nalbandian, London believes that any European country
meeting EU standards can join the Union.
In this context, Mr. Lidington expressed satisfaction over Armenia’s
progress in cooperation with EU and NATO, as well as Yerevan’s
assistance to peacekeeping forces in Afghanistan.
The UK official, who’s on his first visit to Armenia, noted Armenia’s
appreciation of the English language and culture.
The official also spoke of the plans to launch a trade mission in
Armenia in early 2013.
From: Baghdasarian
KARABAKH NATIONAL SOCCER TEAM TO COMPETE IN INTERNATIONAL ARENA
08:57 | 2012-09-18 | Press Review | Diaspora |
Asbarez writes that the recently formed Nagorno-Karabakh Republic
soccer team will be eligible to compete on the international arena,
reported Radio Liberty, Armenia.
The team’s coach Sarkis Aghajanyan said the Karabakh team will
be second Armenian national team after Armenia’s national soccer
team.The Karabakh team will compete within the Non-Recognized States’
Soccer Association, which was established in 2003 in Liege, Belgium
and works to organize friendly matches between non-recognized states.
The Nagorno-Karabakh Republic joined Abkhazia, South Ossetia,
Trans-Dnester, Kosovo and Tibet in this year’s competitions.
“The first match will take place on in Sukhumi, Abkhazia on September
25 and on October 22 we will host the same team in Stepanakert. This is
the beginning. This will continue until we become recognized and become
members of the European Soccer Federation (UEFA),” added Aghajanyan.
“This is one of the major steps in our post-war reality. This is
our only chance to enter the international arena and stand under our
national flag with our national anthem. This is already a different
feeling,” said Aghajanyan.
The Nagorno-Karabakh Republic soccer team is financed through the
state budget, which this year has an earmark of 70 million drams. This
amount, according to Aghajanyan, allows the team to not fall behind
on training. The team players are mainly 19- to 20-year old athletes,
who, according to the coach, lack experience.
Aghajanyan reassured, however, the people of Karabakh do not like
to lose.
“Although unrecognized, we now have a status that allows us to
compete in matches. The entire world and the UEFA will see this,”
said Aghajanyan.
Azerbaijan has impeded the participation of the Karabakh team in any
competition thus far, including one against Armenia’s national team.
Until now, the Karabakh soccer team was held hostage to Soviet
politics. In 1987, when the Karabakh movement had just started the
Kirovabad team lost to Stepanakert 3 to 1, following which clashes
took place between Armenian and Azeri team during subsequent matches.
As a result, the Soviet government mandated the Stepanakert team play
its home games in other Azeri regions.
From: Baghdasarian
RUSSIA’S CAUCASUS WAR GAMES
EurasiaNet.org
Sept 18 2012
NY
September 18, 2012 – 3:10am, by Giorgi Lomsadze
Every time Russia comes to play war in the Caucasus, a sense of alert
spreads in the neighborhood. And it does not help if the Russians are
running around with guns for two separate war games at the same time.
Azerbaijan is keeping a wary eye on its sworn enemy, Armenia,
as it hosts drills for the Collective Security Treaty Organization
(Moscow’s response to NATO), while Georgia has its vision trained on
the Caucasus-2012 training to the north.
Tbilisi is particularly uneasy to see Moscow mobilize 8,000 troops,
200 military vehicles, artillery and military vessels in the Black and
Caspian Seas and Russia’s southern Krasnodar region just as Georgia
is approaching a critical parliamentary election on October 1.
“We all remember the consequences of the 2008 drills, which were much
smaller in scale [than Caucasus 2012],” commented Georgian Foreign
Minister Grigol Vashadze. He claimed that the operations threaten the
sovereignty of the three Caucasus countries, and, at least in part,
are meant to affect their domestic politics.
NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen must have contracted
some of Georgia’s uneasiness during a recent visit to Tbilisi when
he requested Russia to clarify the goals of the large-scale exercise.
Russian commanders said that both drills are not directed at any
country in particular, but, rather, are a routine event meant to
prepare against a theoretical enemy. Commenting on the ongoing
CSTO drills, Armenian Defense Minister Seyran Ohanian said training
in Armenia, which brought together troops from Russia, Kazakhstan,
Belarus, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, is designed to create a “regional
force to neutralize a potential threat,” RFE/RL reported.
But everyone in the Caucasus knows who is whose “potential” enemy.
Azerbaijan and Armenia are now closer to renewed hostilities than ever
over Azerbaijan’s highly controversial pardon of the axe-murderer
of an Armenian soldier. And Georgia and Russia, still smarting
from their 2008 encounter, see each other in the lifetime role of
neighborhood bully.
Given that most of the participants in these games have a recent
history of armed conflict, might there be a better way to “neutralize”
potential threats than doing dry runs for war?
From: Baghdasarian
SUNSETS AND THE PRINTER OF AMMAN
Osservatorio Balcani e Caucaso
Sept 18 2012
Italy
Amman is the capital of a Country hovering between remaining
faithful to a pro-Western monarchy and the shock wave of the Arab
Spring. A community of three thousand Armenians, a small star in the
firmament of the diaspora, lives and survives the contradictions of
the Middle-East. The eleventh episode of our report “From the Caucasus
to Beirut”
‘There is a moment, just before sunset, when the sky of Baghdad turns
so red, you just have to look at it. Every day, it’s the same thing. I
was born and raised in Baghdad, but I never got used to that light”.
Sevag is dozing with his elbow on the less dusty mimeograph in his
typography. An Armenian flag is hanging still over his head, greasy
and tired. Just like him. ‘Ten years have passed, since I ran away’.
For a second, the printer’s eyes are crossed by a vital energy. ‘I
would go back just to fill my eyes with one of those sunsets. But
then…’ he dozes off again ‘I would leave again. There is no future
for us Armenians in Iraq ‘.
Jordan, a month before Christmas. The steep paths of Jabal Ashrafieh,
the ‘Panoramic Hill’, are dotted with paper wreaths and colored
lights. Door to the Southern Arabic deserts, root of the Bedouin
dynasties, Amman is the capital of a Country hovering between remaining
faithful to a pro-Western monarchy and the shock wave of the Arab
Spring. A community of three thousand Armenians, a small star in the
firmament of the diaspora, lives concentrated in the neighborhoods
where the majority of people are Christian, way up high, where the
echo of the demonstrations that fill the streets of the center every
Friday is muffled.
‘Before the Americans came, Iraq was a quiet Country’. Sevag’s
typography is open, but to get in, one needs to crouch under the
rusty shutter. ‘The early bombings were a nightmare. But we Armenians
stayed, we didn’t want to leave our homes’. Until NATO’s military
intervention, Iraq hosted a community of 25.000 Armenians, descendants
of the genocide survivors. ‘The civil war, though, did not leave
us a way out. Car bombs, attacks, abductions. When I got to Jordan,
I continued doing the only thing I knew how to do, the printer. But
business is not going well. My only hope is to get a visa for Canada’.
Out of the 2 million of Iraqi refugees to Syria and Jordan after 2003,
5.000 are Armenians. ‘It’s always like that, you see’, Sevag strokes
his stubble, ‘in war, it is the minorities who pay the highest price’.
The sky is a blinding blue. On the horizon, beyond the stretch of
houses assaulting the seven hills of Amman, the desert impends like a
sense of foreboding. A clear ocher universe, where only the Bedouins
remain standing. On the top of Jabal Ashrafieh, in the shadow of the
wall surrounding the intimacy of an Armenian church, a Christmas open
market where people keep coming and going. Hagop, former president of
the Armenian Club of Amman, welcomes a foreign reporter with respect.
‘The arrival of the Armenian refugees, almost a hundred years ago, was
a blessing for the Jordanian monarchy. Our fathers brought new trades,
technology, culture. As of today, the majority of the goldsmiths,
photographers and craftsmen in Amman are indeed Armenian’. The pledged
loyalty of the newcomers to the royal family was sealed when they
were granted citizenship, which elevated the status of a group of
refugees to that of fully-fledged members of the community.
‘During the years, the community has had highs and lows. In the ’50s,
many crossed Syria to settle in Lebanon, a Country that offered great
opportunities. At the time, it was called the Switzerland of the
Middle-East’. Twenty years later, those same families were forced by
the Lebanese civil war to return to Jordan, refugees for the second
time in two generations.
‘I remember it as if it were yesterday. Puzzled faces getting off
huge American cars with the Beirut plate, filled with suitcases. Many
left soon, for the United States, Africa or South America’. Another
migration, another brick in the multi-faceted identity of the children
of the Armenian diaspora.
The market is about to shut. While holding a cup of tea and watching
the sun getting ready to fall beyond the desert, the atmosphere in the
church courtyard becomes more intimate. ‘Syria will be a carnage, trust
me. Worse than Lebanon, worse than Iraq. There is something bigger at
stake’. As if everything that has been said up till now were only an
introduction, a formality prolog, the conversation violently veers
to the subject that hovers over this land and these people with the
weight of a bolder. ‘This time, the United States have found a truly
brilliant way to destabilize the Middle-East, they didn’t even have to
drop a single bullet. They directly armed the Syrians against their own
government. And the government is compelled to respond to the fire’.
The theory that behind the Syrian Spring lies an external interference
is common, especially among those who perceive change as a leap in
the dark, who feel vulnerable outside of the existing balance. ‘But
civilians are being massacred. A government should protect their
citizens’. Hagop responds coldly. ‘Why?’, he asks without even waiting
for an answer, ‘Did the Ottoman government defend its Armenian citizens
in 1915?’ From my journal. November 27 In the night, on the Jabal
Ashrafieh the desert wind blows ice on my face: one piece of ice for
each doubt I carry inside of me. Where is this story taking me? I
have been walking for months on the ashes of human tragedies like a
shadow going on and off stage without ever being recognized. Had it not
been for a scrupulous customs officer, today I would be in Damascus,
evoking the ghosts of someone else. How much war have my questions
gushed back? The fratricidal Iraq of the printer from Baghdad, the
schizophrenia of the ’70s Lebanon, Hagop’s cynical – though legitimate
– fear of the Arab Spring, the Syrian civil war, now just around the
corner from Damascus. To the North, beyond the point where the Milky
Way seems to blend with its own reflection, there is Syria. Looking
at this sky upside-down, the epilog is finally clear to me. This
story is coming to an end. That is where it is going to end.
Whirls of sand spin in the sky, emanating a leaden light that fades
the colors of the desert. Beyond the border, a shaking shadow: Daraa
appears as if it were floating on the horizon. The Syrian Spring burst
in the streets in early March, when a bunch of minors was arrested
for writing on a wall that the President of the Republic, Bashar
al Assad, should get out of the way. As is the case for all Syrians
accused of political crimes, the boys were clobbered. The citizens,
however, did not behave as usual. They took to the streets and set
fire to the courthouse with gasoline. The explicit act of protest
marked the start of the uprising.
This border has been shut for a few days. No one goes out, no one
comes in. Syria looks more and more like a closed sack where violence
unknown to the history of the Country is brewing. This side of the
border is equipped to host the people ready to run away, paving desert
stretches where the tent cities will be set. Bulldozers dance on the
sand like pachyderms in love. But this land was not made for common
men. Only the Bedouins can remain standing in the desert.
The plane makes sinuous acrobatics before lining up with the landing
strip in Beirut. Somewhere on the top of the mountains filling the
eyes looking over the East, one can find the only door to Syria that
is still open. Collective taxis to Damascus depart from the Port every
hour, loaded with men who are used to thinking that, for some strange
alchemy, war will not concern them. Before joining them, I absolutely
have to fulfill one last task. Amongst the rows of apple and cherry
trees in the Bekaa valley, a woman has been waiting seventy years to
see the face of her sister again. The long wait is about to end.
From: Baghdasarian