Author: Baghdasarian Karlen

Justice Minister of Armenia calls on his Hungarian counterpart to resign

arminfo
Saturday, September 1, 13:01

Justice Minister of Armenia Hrayr Tovmasyan has responded to the
Hungarian authorities actions i.e. to extradition of Azerbaijani
criminal sentenced for life imprisonment in Hungary for vicious murder
of a sleeping Armenian officer Gurgen Margaryan.

“I am deeply disappointed and indignant at the fact of Ramil Safarov
extradition by the Hungarian Ministry for Public Administration and
Justice. Safarov committed murder – a crime condemned by the mankind
now and always,” the minister said.

European values are all-human. The 1983 Strasbourg Convention on the
Transfer of Sentenced Persons provides a possibility for a prisoner to
be extradited just on the basis of human values. However, Europe has
also other important values such as justice and inevitability of
punishment. I am sure that you should know that you have extradited a
person that committed murder for hostile reasons to the country where
he is a hero. Your should have understood that making a murderer
hero is a slap in the face of the Hungarian justice system and the
general values of Europe, which is a center of humanity where a human
being, his life, fundamental rights and freedoms are the highest
value.

Let me cast a doubt on your sincerity and do not believe that you had
enough assurances of the Azerbaijani party to transfer Safarov. You
should have demanded guarantees that the criminal would continue
serving his sentence even after extradition. And even in that case you
had no right to extradite such criminal being well aware that his deed
has made him a hero in Azerbaijan. On your place I would resign.

Nevertheless, even your resignation will not help you avoid the image
of a person that justifies a murderer. Gurgen Margaryan’s family,
the Armenian people and the progressive mankind will remember you as
such. Considering the aforementioned and basing on the statement by
President of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan, the Justice Ministry of Armenia
breaks both the bilateral relations with the Ministry for Public
Administration and Justice of Hungary and the relations within the
Council of Europe and other international organizations,” reads the
statement of the Armenian justice minister addressed to his Hungarian
counterpart Tibor Navracsics.

From: Baghdasarian

Armenian FM to meet OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs in Paris

tert.am
11:32 – 01.09.12

Armenian Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandyan is leaving for Paris,
France to meet with the co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group.

According to a press release by the Ministry, the meeting is scheduled
for Sunday, September 2.

The OSCE Minsk Group has been monitoring the peace process over
Nagorno-Karabakh since 1994. Its co-chairmanship mission is currently
represented by Ambassadors Robert Bradtke of the United States, Jaque
Faure of France and Igor Popov of Russia.

From: Baghdasarian

AZERBAIJAN PARDONS, FREES CONVICTED OFFICER

Today’s Zaman
Aug 31 2012
Turkey

An Azerbaijani military officer sentenced to life in prison in Hungary
for hacking to death an Armenian officer was sent back to his homeland
on Friday and, despite assurances, immediately pardoned and freed by
his country’s president.

Lt. Ramil Safarov was given a life sentence in 2006 by the Budapest
City Court after he confessed to killing Lt. Gurgen Markarian of
Armenia while both were in Hungary for a 2004 NATO language course.

Hungary returned the 35-year-old Safarov to Azerbaijan only after
receiving assurances from the Azerbaijani Justice Ministry that
Safarov’s sentence, which included the possibility of parole after
25 years, would be enforced.

“The Ministry of Justice of Azerbaijan has further informed the
Ministry of Public Administration and Justice of Hungary that Ramil
Sahib Safarov’s sentence will not be modified but will immediately
continue to be enforced, based on the Hungarian judgment,” the
Hungarian ministry said in a statement issued before the news of
Safarov’s release was known.

The ministry said it based its decision on the 1983 Strasbourg
Convention on the Transfer of Sentenced Persons.

In a brief statement posted in English on his website, Azerbaijani
President Ilham Aliyev decreed Friday that Safarov “should be freed
from the term of his punishment.”

Hungary’s Justice Ministry did not immediately respond to a request
for comment on Safarov’s release.

During his trial in Budapest, Safarov claimed that a long-standing
conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia was at the root of his
actions and that he used an ax to kill Markarian while the victim was
sleeping in a dormitory room after the Armenian repeatedly provoked
and ridiculed him.

The two neighboring, former Soviet republics remain at odds over
the status of Nagorno-Karabakh, an ethnic Armenian enclave within
Azerbaijan.

“My conscience was clouded as a result of the insults and humiliating
and provoking behavior, and I lost all control,” Safarov told the
court in April 2006.

Armenian-backed forces drove Azerbaijan’s army out of the ethnic
Armenian enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh in the early 1990s. A 1994
cease-fire ended the six-year war that killed 30,000 people and left
about 1 million homeless and the enclave is now under the control of
ethnic Armenians.

Safarov’s lawyers said that his parents and relatives were exiled
from Nagorno-Karabakh during the war and that two of his relatives
were killed by ethnic Armenian separatists.

From: Baghdasarian

SOCIAL-ECONOMIC PROBLEMS IN ARMENIA

Vestnik Kavkaza
Aug 31 2012
Russia

According to official data, in the first half of the year Armenia,
saw progress in several spheres of the economy. The correlation between
export and import in favor of the second has always concerned political
and expert circles. But now the authorities say about the 13% export
growth, while import pace is 6.2%. The industrial and agricultural
sectors of economy improved. The industrial growth was 13.4% in the
period from January to June; the agricultural growth – 10.2%.

Nevertheless, some important indexes do not correlate with the
general socio-economic situation presented by the government. Economic
activity is 7-8% in Armenia, but a price fall is seen at the market
of houses. The socio-economic situation improves, but prices for
apartments fall for unknown reasons. Moreover, the number of people
who take mortgage loans increases. “It is difficult to find such
imbalance – the economic growth and houses prices’ fall – in any other
country. It is nonsense, as improvement of the socio-economic situation
leads to quick increase of prices for houses,” the economic observer
of the opposition newspaper Armenian Times, Aik Gevorkian, is sure.

According to official data, in recent three years flat prices in
Yerevan decreased gradually. In 2010 1 sq. m in Yerevan cost $719,
this year the index is $638. But decrease of houses prices didn’t
lead to the growth of deals.

Moreover, Armenia still hasn’t settled such a painful economic issue
as correlation of taxes and GDP. Taxes are only 17% of GDP, while in
normal countries this index is at least 25%. The higher this index is,
the less is the share of shadow economy. In Armenia the index doesn’t
grow, thus, the shadow economy doesn’t reduce.

The other worrying tendency is veiled. In the first half of the year
the volume of electricity produced by TPP increased by 44%. The index
is possible, but only from the first sight. The fact is that the
volume of electricity produced by the hydroelectric station decreased
by 12%. It is well-known that electricity produced by TPP costs more
than electricity produced by the hydroelectric station. It means
electricity prices will grow for population.

The reasonable question is: if everything is so smooth, than why does
the migration level grow, as well as the number of the poor? According
to the migration service, 83760 people left Armenia in recent 7 months
and they didn’t come back. Last year the index was 78644 people.

In 2010-2011 106 thousand people left Armenia. If the same migration
pace continues, in 2010-2012 150 thousand people will leave Armenia.

It is 5% of the population. The poverty level increased by 12%
in comparison with 2008 in Armenia. The index is 35.8%. Therefore,
all general socio-economic problems such as unemployment, migration,
“shadow economics” growth, business monopolies are still unsettled.

From: Baghdasarian

STATEMENT BY NSC SPOKESMAN TOMMY VIETOR ON AZERBAIJAN’S DECISION TO PARDON RAMIL SAFAROV

eNews Park Forest

Aug 31 2012

President Obama is deeply concerned by today’s announcement that
the President of Azerbaijan has pardoned Ramil Safarov following
his return from Hungary. Safarov confessed to the murder of Armenian
Army officer Gurgen Margaryan in Budapest in 2004, and was serving a
life sentence in Hungary for this brutal crime. We are communicating
to Azerbaijani authorities our disappointment about the decision to
pardon Safarov. This action is contrary to ongoing efforts to reduce
regional tensions and promote reconciliation. The United States is
also requesting an explanation from Hungary regarding its decision
to transfer Safarov to Azerbaijan.

Source: whitehouse.gov

From: Baghdasarian

THE ARMENIAN COMMUNITY OF HUNGARY WARNED ARMENIAN AUTHORITIES OF THE DECISION TO EXTRADITE SAFAROV

Mediamax
Aug 31 2012
Armenia

Yerevan, August 31. /Mediamax/. On August 20, Armenian authorities
already knew about the intention of Hungarian authorities to extradite
Ramil Safarov, vice president of the Armenian National Autonomy of
Hungary, Alex Avanesyan, told Mediamax today.

“Our sources informed us that Hungary was going to extradite Ramil
Safarov to motherland. We have warned the Armenian Embassy in Hungary
and the Ministry of Diaspora about this. We did everything possible
to prevent the extradition of the assassin to Azerbaijan,” Alex
Avanesyan said.

According to him, the Armenian community of Hungary sent complaints
to the parliament and to the Ministry of Justice of Hungary against
the extradition of Ramil Safarov.

“I think the Armenian Ministry of Foreign Affairs should have reacted.

We did what we must have done but we didn’t get support,” he said,

Mediamax appealed to the Foreign Ministry asking to comment on the
statement by Alex Avanesyan.

From: Baghdasarian

TERROR IN TURKEY: WHO IS TO BLAME?

Al-Ahram Weekly
August 30, 2012
Egypt

With Syria imploding on its borders, Turkey is increasingly worried
about armed groups in the vicinity using force to press their demands,
writes Sayed Abdel-Meguid in Ankara

The past two weeks were traumatic in Turkey, where forest fires
threatened border areas, secessionists struck in some areas, and
long-dormant terrorist organisations threatened to resume their
bloody activities.

It all started with the forest fires on the borders with Syria. The
fires, close to refugee camps, triggered accusations of arson and
suspicions that agents of Bashar Al-Assad were involved. As Turkish
authorities scrambled to fight the fires, more Syrian refugees were
crossing the border, adding to the burden on humanitarian aid and
threatening a replay of the 1991 situation, when 0.5 million Iraqis
crossed the border en masse.

To make things worse, secessionists associated with the PKK, the
Kurdish Workers’ Party, may have used the turmoil on the borders to
infiltrate deep into Turkey. On the second day of the feast, a police
station in Gaziantep was blown up. The explosion took the lives of
nine people, including four children. The death toll may rise, as
other casualties are still in a critical condition.

The PKK denied any connection with the blast, but in the mind of most
Turks, it is the only group capable of such brutality. In reprisal,
a mob burned down the offices of the Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party,
closely linked to the PKK.

In another tragedy, a traffic accident led to the death of 10,
including nine military servicemen, on the Sirnak-Uludere road.

Samil Tayyar, the Justice and Development Party parliamentarian for
Gaziantep, blamed Syrian intelligence for the blast, saying that the
refugee camps in Hatay and Orfa have been infiltrated with agents of
the Syrian regime.

The government is taking a lot of heat over what many Turks consider
to be a laxity in security. Before the Gaziantep blast, warnings
were issued of an impending attack by a booby-trapped vehicle, but
no precautions were taken.

Bulent Arinc, the deputy prime minister, tried his best to calm
down critics. But throughout the media, politicians including those
associated with the government — slammed the authorities for not
taking enough action to protect the public against possible terrorist
attacks.

The situation grew particularly tense when the defunct ASALA (Armenian
Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia), mysteriously rising
from the ashes, warned that it would resume its operations unless
the government distances itself from the civil war in Syria. The
terrorist organisation, which disbanded in 1986, said that the Turkish
government should cease its support for the Free Syrian Army, which
allegedly carried out attacks against Armenians. In a statement sent
to the press, ASALA said that if the Turkish army were to conduct
any military action in Syria, the group would resume its attacks on
Turkish facilities and diplomats.

Feeling beleaguered, the Turkish government is now blaming the
Americans for failing to give it the support it needed. It is
particularly upset that armed elements apparently arriving from
northern Iraq were able to launch an attack inside its territories.

President Abdullah Gul, who had cut short a visit to Kirgizstan
because of a middle ear infection, urged Washington to do more on
the anti-terror front.

In an attempt to remedy the situation, Turkey and the US have agreed
to take extra measures to confront the PKK, Al-Qaeda and other
extremist groups. The main aim, Turkish officials say, is to prevent
extremist groups from using the political vacuum in north Syria to
their advantage.

American diplomats in Baghdad say that they intend to hold talks with
Massoud Barzani on ways to stop Kurdish secessionists from launching
operations from Iraq.

Kurdish secessionists, some say, are not only coming from Iraq,
but also from Iran. The Iranians used to cooperate with the Turks on
anti-terror matters, but their cooperation ended about 18 months ago,
when the Turks decided to install an anti-missile shield in Malataya
despite Iranian protests.

To stem further trouble on its border areas, Turkey wants the UN to
agree to a safe zone in northern Syria. If a five kilometre-deep
strip of land is declared a safe haven along the Syrian borders,
then the Turks will have less work, expense, and risk dealing with
the issue of Syrian refugees, goes the argument.

The proposal is going to be discussed soon at the UN, but may run
into Chinese and Russian opposition.

From: Baghdasarian

TURKISH OFFICIALS OPPOSE PLANNED ARMENIAN MONUMENT IN PASADENA

The Daily News of Los Angeles
August 30, 2012 Thursday

PASADENA – Turkish government representatives say a proposed Armenian
Genocide Memorial “deeply offends” the Turkish people and told city
officials use of the term genocide is one of legitimate scholarly
debate.

A visit by then-Turkish Deputy Consul General Arif Celik on Aug. 9
about a proposed Armenian monument in Memorial Park, which would be
paid for with private funds, has prompted local Armenians to condemn
Turkish meddling in city politics.

“This is completely against our city values, that a foreign government
comes and interferes in our local business,” said Khatchik “Chris”
Chahinian, chairman of the Pasadena-based Armenian Community Coalition.

“This is not an Ankara suburb. Pasadena, it’s an American city … and
Pasadena has been home to Armenians for more than 120 years.”

>From 1915 through 1923 as many as 1.5 million Armenians were slain
in what was then the Ottoman Empire. California is among more than
40 states that formally recognize the Armenian Genocide.

“Our Consulate General got in contact with Pasadena City authorities
to convey the message that the events of 1915 (are) a highly debated
issue by academics, historians and Turkish and Armenian communities,”
the Consulate General of Turkey in Los Angeles said in a statement
to the Pasadena Star-News.

It’s clear that adopting “one side’s approach and erecting a ‘genocide
memorial’ without paying attention to the other’s will actually
damage the ongoing efforts for a just solution to the issue,” the
statement said.

Pasadena city officials acknowledged Celik visited Assistant City
Manager Julie Gutierrez on Aug. 9. In the meeting Celik asked about
the process for monument approval.

While Armenian leaders have been working with officials to erect
a monument in 2015 for the 100th anniversary of the genocide, no
official project has yet been submitted to the city.

While most historians assert the mass killings of Armenians that
started in 1915 was the 20th century’s first genocide, Turkey – a
strong U.S. ally – has long denied there was a systematic campaign
by the Ottoman Turks to kill Armenians.

Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Pasadena, a lead author of the Armenian Genocide
Resolution, said historians around the world have acknowledged the
“plain facts of the Armenian genocide.”

“I’m appalled that Turkey would try to enlist the city of Pasadena in
its campaign of denial,” Schiff said. It’s “the same fable they’ve been
trying to peddle for almost a century. It continues to be a grievous
ongoing injury that Turkey will not acknowledge the Armenian Genocide.”

Former Mayor William Paparian, attorney for the Pasadena Armenian
Genocide Memorial Committee, said he considered the recent visit of
Celik to City Hall “a diplomatic intrusion by the Turkish government.”

For more than 30 years, the City Council has issued an annual
proclamation commemorating the Armenian genocide on April 24, amended
its affirmative action ordinance to make Armenian-Americans a protected
class and even has a sister city in Armenia, he said in a statement.

Since the proposed memorial will have to fulfill strict requirements
to win approval, “no foreign government should be allowed to intervene
in that process,” he said.

From: Baghdasarian

SYMBOLISM AND PRAGMATISM: ON THE RESULTS OF THE MEETING BETWEEN THE PRESIDENTS OF ARMENIA AND RUSSIA

Politkom.ru
Aug 9 2012
Russia

by Candidate of Historical Sciences Sergey Minasyan, leader of
Yerevan’s Caucasus Institute Department of Political Research

Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan paid a working visit to Moscow 8
August 2012 at the invitation of his Russian colleague Vladimir Putin.

Enhanced Coverage LinkingVladimir Putin. -Search using:Biographies
Plus NewsNews, Most Recent 60 DaysThe visit was highly symbolic
whereas its results themselves demonstrated the pragmatism of
the perception by the presidents of Armenia and Russia both of
the directly bilateral relations between the two states and of the
assessment of the large-scale geopolitical processes in the South
Caucasus and adjoining regions.

The symbolism was dictated, first and foremost, by the actual date of
the visit, evidently proposed by the Russian side for reasons that are
absolutely not coincidental. A meeting with the Armenian president
specifically on the fourth anniversary of the start of the August
“Five-Day War” between Russian and Georgia could have been dictated
by Vladimir Putin’s Enhanced Coverage LinkingVladimir Putin’s -Search
using:Biographies Plus NewsNews, Most Recent 60 Dayscharacteristic
and distinctive sense of “political humour” and could also contain
a certain, entirely unambiguous symbolism for all the countries
of the South Caucasus. After all, in the perception of the current
Kremlin boss (and not just him, furthermore), the August 2008 war
is a distinctive symbolic turning point after which the decline
in Russia’s geopolitical influence in the post-Soviet area and the
South Caucasus in particular was halted and even reversed. During
the press conference on the results of the meeting with his Armenian
colleague, Vladimir Putin Enhanced Coverage LinkingVladimir Putin
-Search using:Biographies Plus NewsNews, Most Recent 60 Dayshimself
confirmed the symbolism of the situation, delivering a series of
“revelations” which were supposed to confirm his role in particular
as prime minister in the adoption of the fateful decision on Russia’s
entry into the war with Georgia on the night of 7-8 August.

However, the aim of the two presidents’ meeting was not simply to
deliver certain messages and “synchronize watches” on a broad range
of current geopolitical and political questions. Even though it
is obvious that the situation in Syria, for example, where there
is a large Armenian community, primarily in this country’s second
most important city Aleppo, could not fail to be raised in the two
presidents’ conversation. There was also a discussion of the question
of preserving peace and stability in the Karabakh conflict zone,
prospects for the continuation of the negotiating process, and the
possibility of the contribution to this of Russia, as a co-chairman of
the Minsk OSCE group and the leading regional power. Of course, only
the two presidents themselves and their immediate circle of advisers
can know what else specifically they talked about and what they agreed
on. However, from the subsequent comments of the presidents themselves
and from media reports it is obvious that the sides managed to agree
or bring their positions closer on a quite broad range of questions
of mutual interest to relations between two strategic allies.

In particular, there was an announcement on the coordination of
the approach to the price-setting procedure for Russian gas for
Armenia for the near future. It seems that prices for Russian energy
resources will again remain comparatively favourable for Russia’s
only strategic ally in the South Caucasus. Similarly, there was an
announcement on the attainment of new accords in the military-political
and military-technical spheres including regarding the implementation
of joint military-industrial projects. Questions of mutual relations
within the framework of the CSTO were also discussed, particularly
in the light of this organization’s large-scale exercises that are
expected at the start of September on Armenia’s territory with the
participation of subunits from all the military-political bloc’s
member countries.

Pragmatism was also shown during the discussion of questions connected
with cooperation within the framework of various integration projects
in the post-Soviet area. In particular, it was announced that separate
talks will be held with all the countries belonging to the Customs
Union on the format and degree of cooperation with Armenia, which
does not have a common border with the countries in question. In fact
this means that the practical implementation of this question is being
postponed fairly indefinitely. This is all the more remarkable given
that even before the visit vague commentaries appeared in the press to
the effect that the main theme of Putin’s talks with Sargsyan would be
the question of Armenia’s participation in the Eurasian Union (Vladimir
Putin Enhanced Coverage LinkingVladimir Putin -Search using:Biographies
Plus NewsNews, Most Recent 60 Daysmade a statement on the need for
the creation of this on the basis of the Customs Union and the Single
Economic Area in one of his pre-election articles in October 2011). It
was said that Moscow could place before official Yerevan the question
of the choice between future membership of the Eurasian Union and
the continuation of the processes of cooperation with the EU in the
political, humanitarian, and economic spheres within the framework
of the European Neighbourhood and Eastern Partnership programmes.

However, at the same time the authors of publications of this kind,
evidently, had simply not take into account such an obvious fact
that the idea of the creation of such a supra-state formation on the
territory of the former USSR is still a very long way from practical
implementation and all talk of this kind at the present time is
almost of a purely theoretical or ideological character. Even the
broadest outlines of the Eurasian union (if in the future they go
beyond the bounds of the inertia of the pre-election promises of former
presidential candidate Vladimir PutinEnhanced Coverage LinkingVladimir
Putin -Search using:Biographies Plus NewsNews, Most Recent 60 Days)
are surely still unclear at the moment even to the Kremlin itself.

Furthermore, the question of Armenia’s participation in a
political-economic union of this kind given the absence of common
customs borders with any of the states potentially belonging to it is
contrary to elementary logic -it only needs a fleeting glance at the
map. Armenia is separated from the rest of the potential Eurasian Union
by Georgia and Azerbaijan, with their quite specific relations with
Moscow and Yerevan. It seems that these circumstances with a healthy
level of pragmatism are entirely obvious to the leaders of Armenia
and Russia, as the results of the 8 August visit also confirmed.

During the meeting with Vladimir Putin, Enhanced Coverage
LinkingVladimir Putin, -Search using:Biographies Plus NewsNews, Most
Recent 60 DaysSerzh Sargsyan invited his Russian colleague to pay a
state visit to Armenia at a time convenient to him. Whether Putin’s
visit to Armenia will take place in the near future, whether it will
coincide with the CSTO exercises in this republic planned for the start
of September this year, or whether it will be postponed to a later date
will largely symbolize the degree of urgency of the agreements reached
that are traditionally resolved by the political elites of Armenia
and Russia at the level of realistic, mutually beneficial pragmatism.

[Translated from Russian]

From: Baghdasarian

EU GRANTS ARMENIA, GEORGIA EUR 60 MLN EACH IN FORMAT OF EASTERN PARTNERSHIP PROGRAM

ITAR-TASS
August 28, 2012 Tuesday 07:08 PM GMT+4
Russia

The European Union has granted Armenia and Georgia 60 million euros
each in the format of the Eastern Partnership program, the European
Commission said in statements published on Tuesday.

The European Commission grants new funds for the modernisation of
Georgia’s agriculture, as well as for the establishment of institutions
responsible for the republic’s political association and economic
integration in the European Union, the document wrote.

The Commission also approved a new tranche to assist Armenia in the
judiciary reform, as well as the creation of favourable conditions
for the enhancement of bilateral relations, political association
and economic integration with the European Union.

Armenia and Georgia jointly with Azerbaijan, Belarus, Moldova and
Ukraine are included in the Eastern Partnership program, which is aimed
at the political and economic rapprochement with the European Union.

From: Baghdasarian