Author: Chalian Meline

DISCUSSION OF BILL ON LOCAL SELF-GOVERNMENT AND TERRITORIAL ADMINISTRATION IN CITY OF YEREVAN CONTINUES AT RA NA

Noyan Tapan
Dec 04 2007

YEREVAN, DECEMBER 4, NOYAN TAPAN. The discussion of the bill
On Local Self-government and Territorial Administration in the
City of Yerevan and package of amendments and addenda to 21 valid
laws proceeding from it continued at the RA National Assembly on
December 4. The adoption of the bill proceeds from the requirement
of the constitutional amendments adopted two years ago. Taking into
consideration the issue’s importance, a special order of discussion
has been established, according to which proposals on the package
can be submitted until March 15, 2008.

According to the bill authored by the government, Yerevan’s council of
elders and Mayor are local self-government bodies in Yerevan. According
to the constitutional amendments, Armenia’s capital city has not a
status of a region any longer. Yerevan will have its own symbols:
a coat of arms, a flag, a hymn, as well as its own budget.

Yerevan will include 12 administrative districts as communities. They
will correspond to the borders of the current communities. Yerevan
council of elders will consist of 65 members and will be elected by
the proportional system, by parties’ lists.

In difference to the direct election of council of elders by voters,
the Mayor will be elected by an indirect election. If as a result of
the election of council of elders any party receives more than 50%
of the seats of Yerevan councillors, the person being at the top of
the list of that party’s candidates will be considered as elected
Yerevan Mayor. If no party receives more than 50% councillors’ seats,
the election of the Mayor will be reserved for the factions of the
council of elders. The candidate, who will receive the majority of
the total number of councillors’ votes, will be elected.

A person having turned 30, having RA citizenship and being a member of
Yerevan council of elders, who does not have citizenship of another
country, can be elected Yerevan Mayor. He will be elected for the
whole term of the authorities of council of elders having elected him,
for four years.

TRADE GROWS BY 7.9%, SERVICES BY 17.1% IN ARMENIA IN JANUARY-OCTOBER 2007 ON SAME PERIOD OF LAST YEAR

Noyan Tapan
Dec 04 2007

YEREVAN, DECEMBER 4, NOYAN TAPAN. In January-October 2007, trade
turnover amounted to 1 trillion 43 billion 211 million drams (about
2 bln 994.3 mln USD) in current prices in Armenia, growing by 7.9%
in comparable prices on the same period of last year.

According to the RA National Statistical Service, retail trade made
668 bln 761.2 mln drams in current prices in January-October 2007,
growing by 9.3% in comparable prices on the same period of 2006.

Services amounted to 442 bln 481.5 mln drams in current prices in
Jnauary-October 2007, increasing by 17.1% in comparable prices on
the same period of 2006.

OF TELETHON AND WATER SUPPLY IN STEPANAKERT

KarabakhOpen
04-12-2007 12:07:53

President Bako Sahakyan described his meetings in Russia, France and
the United States to prepare the annual telethon as fruitful. Bako
Sahakyan stated this in a news conference yesterday with the speaker
of parliament and the members of government.

According to the president, the meetings were at a high level,
and "our compatriots said they are ready to continue to assist in
reconstruction and development of Karabakh." Arrangements were made.

With regard to the phonethon in France the president said he got a
high assessment. According to the president, in this year’s telethon
300 thousand Euros more was raised than last year. "This year 11
thousand people took part in it. The organizers of the phonethon
in France say if the same method were used in other countries,
the number of participants would rise up to 50 thousand," President
Sahakyan said. He added that this experience could be used for more
effective activities of Armenia Foundation.

The president said during the meetings there were proposals from both
the Karabakh delegation and our compatriots abroad. These proposals,
according to the president, will be discussed on these days with
the government.

Among results Bako Sahakyan pointed to the visit of our compatriots
from Moscow to Stepanakert who will discuss the issue of water supply
in Stepanakert. The president believes that the discussion will lead
to definite solutions "and in the nearest future water supply in the
capital will be improved."

Today the fate of the dairy factory of Stepanakert will be
discussed. There is agreement that the new owners of the factory
operate it at full.

OSCE FOREIGN MINISTERS’ SUMMIT IN MADRID
By A. Haroutiunian, translated by A.M.

AZG Armenian Daily
27/11/2007

Minsk Group to Make A Statement

The 15th meeting of the Foreign Ministers of OSCE member-states is to
take place in Madrid, November 29-30. According to the preliminary
approved agenda, after the speech of the OSCE Chairman in Office,
the Secretary General will make his report, which will be followed
by the reports of the representatives of the rest of the member-states.

After the approval of preliminarily elaborated documents, an OSCE
declaration will be adopted.

Besides of the summit’s main events, a number of bilateral,
multilateral and other meetings are scheduled. It is planned that
Foreign Minister of Armenia Vardan Oskanian shall meet with the
Co-Chairs of the OSCE Minks Group and maybe also with Elmar Mamedyarov,
Foreign Minister of Azerbaijan.

The Minks Group representatives are to make a report on the
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, which is to make a prospect of the peace
negotiation process after the elections both in Armenia and Azerbaijan.

LEVON TER-PETROSIAN IS A DEAD POLITICIAN AND CANNOT BE A CANDIDATE, SAYS PARUYR HAIRIKIAN
By Nairi Muradian

AZG Armenian Daily
28/11/2007

During a meeting at the "Mirror" political club, Yerevan, head of
"National Self-Determination Union" party Paruyr Hayrikian made
comments on the on the roles and function of present Armenian statesmen
and political figures, as well as the parliamentary and forthcoming
presidential elections.

"There is no doubt that the parliamentary elections have been
‘swallowed’. The world society has admitted that the elections had
been held properly. In case such kind of elections are to be held
again and if during the parliamentary elections the Republican Party
and the ‘Prosperous Armenia’ party gained 70% of votes, this time
they shall need only 51%. The question of the venerable Candidate
is solved beforehand. We obey the Constitution, and the Constitution
reminds us of not only the problem of presidential elections, but of
elections in general.

And the issue of the elections is already solved in prospect for 5
years at least. The authority belongs to ‘Prosperous Armenia’ and
the Republican Party," said the party leader.

Referring to the candidacy of Levon Ter-Petrosian Hairikian said,
"Ter-Petrosian is just another candidate, a dead one for a sensible
elector, actually. A dead political figure cannot be a candidate. A
politician, who has been ‘dead’ for 10 years, suggests his candidacy
for the presidential chair. Electing the dead we become a dead people."

PKK LOOKS INTO RELOCATING TO KARABAKH
Ercan Yavuz

Today’s Zaman, Turkey
Nov 30 2007

The Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), faced with increasing pressure to
end its activities in northern Iraq, may be seeking to re-establish its
camps in the Armenian-controlled Nagorno-Karabakh region of Azerbaijan,
intelligence reports indicate.

After the PKK lost its support from Syria, which was confronted with
military and diplomatic pressure from Turkey in the late ’90s, the
terrorist group found a safe haven in the mountains of northern Iraq,
a region now facing a serious threat of military incursion by Turkey.

Following Turkey’s intense diplomatic efforts to find support for
its fight against terrorism, northern Iraqi leaders and the US have
recently hinted that they will be backing Turkey’s right to protect
itself from the PKK, whose members cross the border and stage
brutal attacks within Turkey. The leader of the regional Kurdish
administration in northern Iraq, Massoud Barzani, who had previously
taken little action against the PKK presence in the region, recently
vowed to make the presence of the PKK in northern Iraq "impossible"
so long as the group did not lay down its arms.

Confronted with an increasingly hostile environment, the PKK has
already begun evacuating its camps in northern Iraq, according to
recent intelligence reports from the region. PKK administrators
are now having talks with Armenia to relocate their camps to the
Armenian-controlled Nagorno-Karabakh region of Azerbaijan, intelligence
reports suggest. PKK leaders have also been talking to 12 Kurdish
villages in Armenia, located near the border with Turkey.

Nagorno-Karabakh is an enclave located in Azerbaijan that has been
under Armenian control since 1993. Since Iraq has stopped allowing
the PKK to get food and supplies in the region and has also stopped
admitting the militants into northern Iraqi hospitals, the PKK has
been trapped inside the mountainous region of northern Iraq.

Faced with this situation, the PKK administrators have decided to
move 10 of their camps from the Kandil Mountains and are in search of
a new country that will welcome them. Currently an estimated 450 PKK
leaders are believed to be hiding in northern Iraq. The intelligence
reports on the PKK’s relocation considerations came from an ex-PKK
member using the code name "Þahin" (hawk), who surrendered to Turkish
security forces after he fled the PKK’s "Carcela" camp in northern
Iraq. He said the group had evacuated most of its camps in northern
Iraq to avoid a potential military strike by Turkey.

Failed to convince Iran

The PKK initially considered moving its camps to Iran, where the camps
of its sister organization, the Party for a Free life in Kurdistan
(PJAK) are located. However, recent Iranian operations against PJAK and
improving relations between Turkey and Iran — including intelligence
sharing — forced the PKK to reconsider.

Meanwhile the government of Azerbaijan has requested detailed
information about PKK militants in its territory, since the terrorist
group has recently increased its activities on in Azeri territory.

Concerned about the fact that most PKK terrorists have Turkish
passports, which confer special access privileges in Azerbaijan,
the Azeri government has offered cooperation with Turkish security
forces. It is also preparing to pass a new law that will prevent even
sympathizers of the PKK, which it considers a terrorist organization,
from forming any associations in the country. A senior official from
the Azeri Justice Ministry was in Ankara on Nov. 28 to talk about
the details of the bill.

Plans for Þuþa, Lacin and Fuzuli

Armenia is making a special effort to settle the PKK in
Nagorno-Karabakh, alleged Mehmet Azeriturk, the secretary-general
of the Federation of Turkish-Azeri Associations, speaking to Today’s
Zaman. "Armenia is making an effort to bring PKK militants into the
cities of Þuþa, Lacin and Fuzuli, to be able to keep these cities it
has occupied." If these three cities fell under the PKK’s control,
a buffer zone would be formed between Azerbaijan and Nagorno-Karabakh,
Azeriturk warned.

Although Armenian officials deny any contacts with the terrorist PKK
organization, they say it is possible that local administrators in
Nagorno-Karabakh may have had such talks.

Hasan Sultanoðlu Zeynalov, Azerbaijan’s consul-general in Kars, eastern
Turkey, was the first to warn of the talks between Nagorno-Karabakh
administrators and the PKK. He said, "There is a single country
left in the region where the PKK could go, and that is Armenia. Our
research has led us to confirm that some PKK administrators went to
Armenia to have talks there — about which we immediately informed
the Azeri government and the Turkish government."

He said although Kurdish villages in Armenia near the border were
an option, the PKK would prefer Nagorno-Karabakh, a relatively more
remote and safe region.

–Boundary_(ID_coNBKCAc2kko7ZasbrhVOQ)–

SPAIN FOREIGN MINISTER MEETS WITH AZERBAIJANI AND ARMENIAN FOREIGN MINISTERS

TREND Information
Nov 30 2007
Azerbaijan

Spain, Madrid / Trend corr. A.Maharramli / The Foreign Minister of
Spain Miguel Angel Moratinos met with the Azerbaijani and Armenian
Foreign Ministers, Elmar Mammadyarov and Vardan Oskanian in Madrid.

The Armenian Minister reported after the meeting that the
participants of the meeting discussed principles on regulation of ten
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict submitted by the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs
in Madrid.

Oskanian did not detail the negotiation.

The conflict between the two countries of the South Caucasus began
in 1988 due to Armenian territorial claims against Azerbaijan. Since
1992, Armenian Armed Forces have occupied 20% of Azerbaijan including
the Nagorno-Karabakh region and its seven surrounding districts. In
1994, Azerbaijan and Armenia signed a ceasefire agreement at which
time the active hostilities ended. The Co-Chairs of the OSCE Minsk
Group (Russia, France, and the US) are currently holding peaceful
negotiations.

LEADER OF THE OPPOSITION ‘NEW TIMES’ PARTY: REFUSAL OF THE POLICE TO GIVE ME CERTIFICATE ABOUT PERMANENT LIVING IN ARMENIA FOR THE LAST 10 YEARS IS A POLITICAL ORDER OF THE AUTHORITIES

arminfo
2007-12-03 15:10:00

ArmInfo. "Refusal of Visa and Passport Department of the Police to
give me certificate about permanent living in Armenia for the last
10 years is a political order of the authorities", – the leader of
the New Times party Aram Karapetyan told ArmInfo correspondent when
commenting on the lawsuit filed by his complaint at the first instance
court of Center Nork-Marash districts.

Today’s sitting of the court was ceased and moved to December 4 as
the plaintiff came forward with several motions. In particular,
Aram Karapetyan asked to submit to the court a certificate from
Central Electoral Commission dated 2003 according to which he has been
permanently living in Armenia over the last ten years. This certificate
was a ground for Karapetyan to run for president in 2003. He also asked
the defendant to clarify how the Armenian Police gained a docket from
the house register of Vernardskiy avenue in Moscow. The judge Edik
Avetisyan gave a day to the defendant, Colonel Hovanes Kocharyan to
answer the question.

Aram Karapetyan was surprised how the police may answer the question
in a day. Asked by ArmInfo correspondent to comment on the fact why
he was allowed to ruin for president in 2003 and was not allowed
in 2008, Karapetyan replied: "That time I was considered a Moscow
guest actor and did not pay attention to me "allowing" me to run for
president. But at present I have become a serious threatening factor
for the authorities. I officially declare: irrespective of the fact
I an registered or not, anyway the power will be changed in February
2008. I own enough will, number of supporters and means to take people
to the streets and implement national revolution.

And the authors of the political order against me, grave-diggers of
the democratic elections will be answerable for this", – the leader
of the New Times party Aram Karapetyan said.

COMMENTARY: IS U.S. GOING FROM ENABLER TO PARTICIPANT IN KURDISH GENOCIDE?
By Nicholas Patler

HNN Huntingtonnews.net
olumns/071203-patler-columnskurdish.html
Dec 3 2007
USA

In a recent White House meeting with Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip
Erdogan, President George W. Bush promised U.S. military force to
fight the Kurdistan Workers Party, better known as the notorious PKK.

The PKK, a militant faction from the Kurdish part of Turkey located
in its impoverished southeast region, has been using the mountains
of northern Iraq to launch raids into their homeland, which has for
years endured political and military repression at the hands of Ankara.

After the latest attack last month that left twelve Turkish soldiers
dead, the Erdogan government has been threatening to chase down the PKK
by launching a military operation across the Turkish border into Iraqi
territory, sending Washington into a desperate scramble to prevent any
more warring factions from spilling into their Mesopotamian pot-o-mess,
which is already boiling over.

President Bush’s commitment to using military force against this
most recent "enemy of America," as he calls the PKK, adds a deadly
twist to previous U.S. policy supporting Turkey. Before this, the
American government just provided Turkey with the most advanced
military weaponry and training on the planet, including missiles,
bombs and tanks.

Indeed, Turkey is one of the largest recipients of U.S. military
assistance in the world, as revealed annually in the "Section 655"
reports published online by the Pentagon and State Department, using
a vast array of American made lethal toys, along with death tactics
learned from special operations forces, to commit genocide against
their Kurdish minority as Washington looks the other way.

Evidently, maintaining Turkey as a strategic U.S. airbase has been
worth the price of hundreds of thousands of murdered, displaced
and jailed Kurds and the destruction of thousands of their villages
and hamlets.

Yet as disturbing as this is, using American firepower to battle it
out with the PKK, relying on skewed Turkish intelligence to finger
"hideouts" and chasing guerilla troops throughout the Kurdish regions
of Iraq and Turkey will easily spill over into more violence and
oppression against innocent Kurdish communities.

Instead of placing the gun in the hands of the perpetrator as we have
done for years, the U.S. may very well be pulling the trigger as
war-weary troops storm villages and homes in search of these newly
branded "terrorists" and U.S. missiles obliterate PKK strongholds
that turn out to be Kurdish farming communities. And this will no
doubt embolden the Turkish military to step up its ongoing campaign
of genocide in the relatively sealed off Kurdish region.

The ill-fated message we have been sending to Ankara is the same one we
sent to Baghdad in the 1980s: as long as you appease U.S. interests,
we will not only turn a blind eye to your terror against the Kurds,
but we will give you money, weapons, diplomatic support and now direct
U.S. military force. We certainly know what Saddam Hussein did with
our help to the Kurds in Halabja and other areas of northern Iraq.

Of course, "with our help" is still censored-Collin Powell made sure
of that when he ripped out 8,500 pages of the U.N. Iraqi weapons
report before it went public back in 2002. But at least the killing
and disappearance of Kurds in northern Iraq slowly made it through
a blockhead press whereas the Turkish oppression of the Kurds,
documented for years, is still squelched by much of the mainstream
media in the U.S.

If all this was not bad enough, President Bush has also added an
unequivocal warning to his commitment to flush out the PKK. This
one is aimed at the U.S. Congress: do not even think of passing an
impending resolution recognizing the genocide of the Armenians at
the hands of the Turkish government during WWI.

This is not only a double whammy in sacrificing both the Kurds and
Armenians for U.S. interests in Turkey and Iraq, but, ironically,
it brings us back to where it all began. The immoral aspect of our
contemporary foreign policy was built upon the murdered corpses
and skeletons of the Armenians in the post-WWI period. Rather than
holding Turkey accountable for "crimes against humanity," where it
is estimated that over one million Armenians perished from massacres
or starvation and disease as a result of forced deportations, the
U.S. sheltered a genocidal government and muted the cries of its
victims for justice to get its foot in the Turkish oilfields.

And as we were maneuvering our way into the land of blood oil,
Turkey brazenly massacred over a hundred thousand Greeks in Smyrna
literally right in front of our eyes, destroying everything except
the Standard Oil Compound (A few years before that, they had murdered
and displaced 700,000 Greeks in the Black Sea city of Pontus, as they
would later do to the forgotten Assyrians in the Syrian province of
Hatay Alexandetta).

This set a significant moral precedent for the rest of the century in
which the thirst for global resources and power would take precedence
over any genuine concern for the peoples living in the lands we
coveted. Sadly, here at the beginning of the twenty-first century,
we still so desperately covet that Turkish real estate, that we are
willing to ignore the plight of the Kurds, wipe out a militant group
that is simply an extreme manifestation of Turkish abuse and American
neglect, and act as guardians to the enduring legacy of Turkish denial
of the Armenian genocide.

Staunton, Va. author Nicholas Patler is a biographer and historian.

On this site last April, David M. Kinchen of HNN reviewed his "Jim
Crow and the Wilson Administration: Protesting Federal Segregation
in the Early Twentieth Century," republished earlier this year in a
quality paperback edition by the University of Colorado Press.

EX-PARLIAMENT SPEAKER JOINS PRESIDENTIAL RACE
By Astghik Bedevian

Radio Liberty, Czech Rep.
Dec 3 2007

Armenia’s former parliament speaker Artur Baghdasarian has won a
unanimous approval of his political party to stand for president in
next year’s election.

During an extraordinary meeting on Monday, Orinats Yerkir confirmed
the decision of the party’s governing board to nominate their leader
as a presidential candidate in the February 19 vote.

Baghdasarian has already received proof of his 10-year citizenship
and permanent residence in Armenia from the police’s visa and passport
department. He is likely to submit documents necessary for registration
as a candidate to the Central Election Commission before the deadline
on Thursday.

Orinats Yerkir vice-chairman Heghine Bisharian, who will coordinate
Baghdasarian’s election campaign, accused the authorities of "improving
their own well-being only", as a result of which, according to her,
"people richer than the state have emerged in the country."

"It is the people’s demand to see a new kind of leader and that leader
is Artur Baghdasarian," Bisharian stated in her speech that was often
interrupted by rapturous applause of her fellow party members.

In his acceptance speech, Baghdasarian expressed his resolve to
participate in the elections in order to win.

"True, it is important to win in presidential elections, but the
victory must never be gained through mass bribing of people and
large-scale electoral crimes," Baghdasarian said.

Baghdasarian also explained why he and his party would not support
ex-president Levon Ter-Petrosian’s election bid.

"Not only because we don’t consider the country to be a gangster
state. Appreciating Ter-Petrosian’s contribution to the establishment
of our statehood, we are against his approach of totaly dismantling
of the state and legal system," he said.

In an earlier interview with RFE/RL, Baghdasarian predicted that
the election would be held in two rounds. He said that despite the
multitude of presidential candidates, the main selection would be
made only between a few of them.

"We need a legitimate president in Armenia elected neither through
labels nor barbed wires," Baghdasarian said.