Author: Chatinian Lara

SAVING THE MONASTERY OF MOR GABRIEL, TO GUARANTEE A MULTICULTURAL TURKEY
by Geries Othman

AsiaNews.it
hp?l=en&art=14310&size=A
Jan 26 2009
Italy

Muslim leaders are trying to destroy it, and have sued the monastery
for alleged proselytism. A spiritual and cultural center for the
Syriac Orthodox, it still uses ancient Aramaic, the language spoken
by Jesus. During the 1960’s, at least 130,000 Syriacs lived in Tur
Abdin. Today, there are only 3,000. The minority community hopes that
the European Union will come to its defense with an appeal to Ankara.

Ankara (AsiaNews) – Demonstrations are being held in many European
countries to save the monastery of Mor Gabriel, a spiritual center
for the Syriac Orthodox community in Turkey.

Founded in 397, it is the oldest functioning Christian monastery in
the world. It is located on the plateau of Tur Abdin, "The Mountain
of the Servants of God," on the Turkish border with Iraq. The see of
the metropolitan archbishop of Tur Abdin, Mor Timotheus Samuel Aktas,
with its three monks, 14 nuns, and 35 young people who live and
study there, it is a religious and cultural point of reference for
all Syriac Orthodox Christians, who still preserve ancient Aramaic,
the language of Jesus. Every year it welcomes more than ten thousand
tourists and pilgrims, many of them Syriacs of the diaspora in Germany,
Switzerland, and Sweden.

Now, however, the future of the monastery and the Christian minority
is threatened by a series of lawsuits against the monks and the
prestigious religious institution. In August of 2008, the leaders
of three Muslim villages around the monastery accused the community
of proselytism, for having students to whom they can hand down the
Christian faith and the Aramaic language. Their case has not yet
been accepted by the Turkish court. But the village leaders are also
asking that the monastery’s land be appropriated and divided among
the villages; that a wall be knocked down that was built during the
1990’s (when the monastery was on the front of the conflict between
the Turkish army and the Kurdish communist party (PKK)). According to
the Muslim leaders, there used to be a mosque on the land where the
monastery was built. "The accusation is absurd," says David Gelen,
leader of the Aramaic Foundation, "the monastery dates from 397 A.D.,
about 200 years before the prophet Mohammed and the construction of any
mosque whatsoever. And yet the court has considered hearing the case."

Gelen says that he thinks a "campaign of intimidation" is underway
against the religious of the monastery. "Bishop, monks, and nuns,"
Gelen continues, "are always threatened in the most direct way
possible by the inhabitants of the village, and they do not dare
present themselves at trial or defend themselves in some way. So for
some time, the monks and nuns have not had the courage to leave the
confines of the property."

"In Turkey," Gelen explains, "freedom of religious expression is
guaranteed by the constitution; but those who are not recognized as
a minority do not exist, in practical terms. Now the Syriacs, unlike
the Greeks and Armenians, are not recognized as a religious minority,
although they have been living there for millennia. The purpose of
the threats and the lawsuit seems to be to repress this minority and
expel it from Turkey, as if it were a foreign object."

The Syriac community has high hopes in the European Union, which
on February 11 is supposed to address together with the Turkish
government the question of religious freedom and human rights for
the non-Muslim minorities present in the country. "We hope not only
that our rights will be recognized," David Gelen says, "but we are
convinced that for the Turkish state, the time has come to recognize,
accept, and protect the cultural multiplicity of the country, instead
of fighting it. Turkey must decide whether it wants to preserve a
1,600-year-old culture, or annihilate the last remains of a non-Muslim
tradition. What is at stake is the multiculturalism that has always
characterized this nation, since the time of the Ottoman Empire."

Since 1923, when the Turkish state was created, the Syriac Orthodox
have been dispersed in four countries: Syria, Turkey, Iraq, Iran. Yasar
Ravi, president of the Syriac Orthodox community of Antioch, notes
that the Treaty of Lausanne guaranteed certain essential freedoms
for this minority, but "things have gone differently."

Since that time, there has been a constant exodus of the community
toward central and northern Europe, especially Germany (where there are
20,000 Syriacs) and Sweden (70-80,000). In the middle of the 1960’s,
there were still about 130,000 of them in Tur Abdin; today there are
just 3,000.

"We have no territory, we are scattered throughout the world, but
we are very united thanks to our linguistic, social, and cultural
identity," Yasar Ravi continues. "As history teaches us, religion has
always had a dominant role in civilization. Ours is without doubt a
very religious people, and we are proud of speaking the language of
Jesus: the language that, in terms of its diffusion, was essentially
the English of the Middle East."

Federation of Armenian Organisations in The Netherlands (FAON)
Address: Weesperstraat 91
2574 VS The Hague, The Netherlands
Telephone: +31704490209
Email: [email protected]
Website:
Contact: M. Hakhverdian

PRESS RELEASE

Just published in Dutch: ³Armenians in the Netherlands²

The Hague, 26 January 2009 – ³Armenians in the Netherlands, An Exploring
Survey² is the title of the book, which has just been published as a result
of recent investigation on the Armenian community of the Netherlands. The
book is published by the Federation of Armenian Organisations in the
Netherlands (FAON).

For the research, which was made possible with financial support of the
Dutch government, a written sample survey has been conducted of hundreds of
Armenians selected from thousands of available addresses of Armenians living
in Holland.

The results of the research give more insight which countries the Armenians
of the Netherlands came from, and the duration of their residence.
Additionally, information has been collected on the education level of
Armenians in the country of birth and in the Netherlands, as well as their
social and economic position, particularly their labour market position.

The social cultural position, like for example language use, social
contacts, mixed marriages, religious orientation, participation to Armenian
activities etc. are also investigated. Much attention has been paid to the
calculation according to scientific methods, of the Armenian population in
the Netherlands.

In addition to the outcome of the survey, the book contains an overview of
the history of Armenia and information on the Armenian community of the
Netherlands since the 17th century.

The FAON thanks everyone, who made this survey possible.

Armenians in The Netherlands, An Exploring Survey (in Dutch)
192 pages, 12.50 euro
ISBN 978-90-9023870-8

Nezavisimaya Gazeta, Russia
Jan 21 2009

The Policy of the Siamese Twins

Article by Dmitriy Furman

We do not have separation of powers or even a diarchy. We have highly
hampered powers.

Another scandal has broken out in the European home. Everyone lives in
tranquillity in this home and everyone is friendly to some
extent. Wailing can always be heard near the eastern entrance,
however. Many people live on this side of the building, but when the
shouts are heard, everyone knows it is not Ukraine bickering with
Belarus, not Latvia fighting with Lithuania, and not even Armenia
arguing with Azerbaijan (they were at war and they still "do not say
hello to each other," but they do not start any scandals either). It
is Russia "getting up off its knees" and fighting with one of its
neighbours.

We Rail Against the Social Order

This happens for a variety of reasons – because Estonia moved the
Bronze Soldier, because we do not like Moldovan wine, because we
support the separatists in Georgia, and certainly because of the
prices of the gas we deliver and the transit fees for this gas. We are
more or less accustomed to gas controversies, but this time the
scandal acquired colossal dimensions, affected all of the people in
the building, and is being discussed in every household.

The argument that these scandals are neurotic in nature and give
Russia exactly what it does not want (the anger of its neighbours, who
dream of being less dependent on it and having less to do with it in
general, and the Western countries’ treatment of it as a "problem
state," with which "something has to be done") is self-evident. The
connection between this policy (if it can be described as such) and
the evolution of our social order is also quite obvious. On the one
hand, our order is the main cause of our isolation and the reason for
the impossibility of our integration into the alliances of the
developed democratic countries and for the danger of the expansion of
these alliances. On the other, the disappearance of the opposition in
our country and the total unanimity of our main media outlets are a
sign of the atrophy of critical thinking, which can restrain neurotic
impulses and correct behaviour. All of this is understandable, but
something else is less understandable: the reason that our conflicts
with our neighbours acquired this unprecedented intensity after Putin
left office as the president.

First, Second, Third

The fundamental outlines of our foreign policy, just as the
fundamental outlines of our sociopolitical system, took shape before
Putin took office. Putin’s personal mindset (we can recall his image
of the boy walking towards a hostile group, clutching a piece of candy
in his "sweaty fist," hoping to exchange it for something better but
knowing it might be taken away from him instead) and his professional
habits were ideally suited to our public thinking and those
established outlines. Our second president strengthened and thoroughly
developed everything that was put in place when the first president
was in office. The futility of that policy, in which we were driving
ourselves into a corner, was already fairly obvious after Putin took
office. Furthermore, there was a sense that Putin’s increasing anxiety
and irritability towards the end of his term were connected with his
vague awareness of that futility, and his decision to leave office was
due partly to his realization that the next stage of development would
require a different person, someone with a different mindset and a
different image. It was no coincidence, of course, that when Putin
named his successor, it turned out to be a man who was of the same
stature (which evidently was extremely important), but did not have
the same social origins and the same mindset. He was not as stiff, he
was not at all neurotic, and he had some righteous and liberal
tendencies. There was every reason to expect the new president to make
some "corrections" in the policy line.

In democratic systems, the opposition waits for each mistake the
government makes, exaggerates it, and strives not to be ignored. The
government, knowing that elections are on the way, strives to avoid
mistakes and has to listen to criticism and take it into
consideration. If it is unable to adjust its policy line, it ceases to
be the government and someone else makes the adjustments instead. The
system of democratic rotation is a mechanism built into the society
for the constant adjustment of the policy line and the correction of
mistakes.

This mechanism does not exist in undemocratic systems. Even in these
systems, however, the policy line is periodically adjusted. In tsarist
Russia, each new tsar made some changes in policy. The new tsar was
the new man in charge, he could look at policy from a new standpoint,
and he had no reason to stubbornly defend the obvious mistakes of his
predecessor. After all, they were not his mistakes. This also happened
in the Soviet era. As soon as Stalin died, his successors ended the
futile Korean war, and the thaw began soon afterward. Why did the
change of presidents in today’s Russia not lead to policy adjustments?
Why did it actually intensify its most dangerous aspects instead? Why
did we start moving more quickly towards an impasse instead of trying
to avoid it?

Side Effects

We have already caused ourselves colossal damage in the two conflicts
of the "early Medvedev era." As a result of the Georgian conflict,
Georgia, under any president whatsoever, will be Russia’s enemy for
many decades, and we do not have the slightest idea of what should be
done about Abkhazia and South Ossetia (which even Belarus has chosen
not to recognize). As a result of the gas conflict with Ukraine, we
not only lost our good reputation (although these fine points are no
longer relevant here), but also lost billions of dollars and will lose
tens of billions more in the future – an amount many times the sum we
ever could have gained from Ukraine. We abruptly intensified our
isolation tenfold. We strengthened the tendency towards European
integration, which is something we did not need at all, because it is
more convenient for us to take advantage of the conflicting interests
of various European countries. The gas conflict also revealed the
surprising inertia and ungainliness of our policy line. It is obvious
that the conflict did not have to happen. The agreement Putin and
Tymoshenko recently reached could have been concluded in
December. When it became completely obvious that it was time to end
the conflict, when Europe was freezing and moaning, we could have
concluded the agreement and turned the gas back on in a day or two,
but this is the third week that nothing has been done.

I think the reason for the intensification of our propensity for
conflicts and our sluggishness is the highly peculiar situation of the
tandem Putin created. Putin decided to abide by the Constitution and
give up the presidency. But he could not give up his power, as Yeltsin
did, and he chose to become the prime minister. It would have been
psychologically difficult and even dangerous for a man as young and
healthy as Putin to give up all of his power. Besides this, Putin
probably thought he could consolidate the government, help the young
president, and guarantee the continuity of policy by taking office as
the prime minister. He attained his goals, but the attainment of any
goal often has unforeseen side effects. By changing offices, Putin
created a situation hampering his friend and successor, himself, and
our entire political mechanism.

We now have a president who was chosen by his prime minister, and the
removal of this man from office would be incredibly difficult for the
president in the psychological and political sense. By the same token,
even if the prime minister regrets his choice, he has virtually no
chance (at least until 2012) of getting rid of the president he
chose. Our ruling tandem is "fused together by a single goal" and is
even something like a set of Siamese twins, and any operation to
separate the two would be extremely dangerous and frightening to both
of them and to our entire political system.

There is no doubt whatsoever that our rulers are friends and that
Putin chose a man he trusts more than anyone else as his
successor. There are certain situations that objectively breed
conflict, however, and they are stronger than we are. We must not
think, for example, that the members of the Stalinist Central
Committee Presidium "made a mistake" when they elected Khrushchev, or
that Khrushchev was a villain, planning from the very start to destroy
the people who had put their trust in him and with whom he had shared
whole barrels of wine at Stalin’s dacha. It is just that all of them
were in a situation in which conflict was inevitable, and Khrushchev’s
victory was the highly probable outcome. The same can be said of many
historical conflicts between friends and colleagues – from the
conflicts between the Roman triumvirs to Yeltsin’s conflict with
Rutskoy and Khasbulatov.

Trapped by Each Other

Putin and Medvedev are friends, but they have ended up in a situation
which is objectively uncomfortable, painful, and conflict-prone. It is
a situation in which neither can make a single move freely, because
the people around them are waiting with a sinking heart for any sign
of real or imaginary disagreements between the rulers, and any sign of
disapproval of one partner in the tandem could give rise to an
extremely painful conflict with unpredictable results and to overall
destabilization, which both men dread. Putin and Medvedev are very
different people, and there are signs of their differences of opinion,
if not disagreements. Medvedev may have said it was wrong to "create
nightmares for business" at the very time that Putin was "creating
nightmares" for Mechel, for example, and Medvedev even expressed his
dissatisfaction with the excessively bureaucratized government
recently. These statements probably were not meant to send any
particular message, however. At a time when the president’s decision
truly could have sent this kind of message, Medvedev, who obviously is
not an evil man, nevertheless did not pardon Svetlana Bakhmina.

Any attempt at the adjustment of the policy line would be extremely
difficult and dangerous in this situation. If Putin had simply gone
away, as Yeltsin did, Medvedev could have made some changes in our
policy and could have blamed various difficulties on the burdensome
legacy he had inherited, as Putin had done earlier and Yeltsin had
done before him (every president inherits a burdensome legacy). He
cannot do any of this, however, because Putin did not go away. If the
prime minister had not been Putin, Medvedev could have sent him
packing and then gone on to make some changes in policy and to blame
everything on the man he fired. But Putin cannot be removed from
office! If, on the other hand, Putin had stayed in the president’s
office, there would have been less chance of policy adjustments, but
they nevertheless would exist. It is difficult to admit one’s own
mistakes, especially for a man who only hears words of praise and
support from every direction. It is possible, however. Now there is no
possibility of this being done by Medvedev or by Putin.

The present situation is not a lawful democratic case of the
separation of powers or even a case of diarchy. This is a case of
severely hampered powers. Medvedev cannot be a normal, fully empowered
president as long as Putin is the prime minister. Putin, a man who was
just recently referred to as the national leader and whose face was on
the T-shirts handed out to Nashi members, cannot be a normal prime
minister, modestly working on the crisis-ridden economy and waiting to
be dismissed. They are fused together. Siamese twins have to
synchronize their moves. They have to move together along an appointed
route, not deviating from it in any way. It is logical that the
leading member of the tandem is Putin, if only because all of the
current conflicts are continuations of conflicts that existed when he
was the president. He has already mastered the proper reactions and he
is more familiar with our common route leading to an impasse.

The gas conflict could have been resolved quickly. If Medvedev had
done this, however, it would have signified indirect criticism of
Putin. Some people would have been certain to say that Putin raised
Russia up off its knees, but Medvedev is a weak man who makes
concessions. Others would have said that Putin led us into a blind
alley and Medvedev had led us out of it. If, on the other hand, Putin
had done this himself, it would have been an admission of his own
mistakes. Theoretically, this would have been possible for President
Putin, but it is not something Prime Minister Putin can do. As a
result, the conflict acquired unprecedented dimensions, and a problem
that could have been solved in a day at a loss of a few billion is now
taking weeks to solve at a loss of tens of billions.

Our ship of state is sailing in an unknown direction. Neither Putin
nor Medvedev knows where they are sending it. Of course, even in the
absence of a distinct route, the captain of a ship can change course
if he sees reefs. If, on the other hand, there are two captains and
they are Siamese twins, their reactions are slowed down and they lose
control of the ship. The storm of the crisis is ahead. The losses we
incurred during the gas crisis as a result of this loss of control are
only the beginning.

[translated from Russian]

SECRETARY OF ARMENIA’S NATIONAL SECURITY SERVICE INTRODUCES INFORMATION SECURITY CONCEPTUAL APPROACHES

ARKA
Jan 22, 2009

YEREVAN, January 22. /ARKA/. Secretary of Armenia’s National Security
Service Artur Baghdasaryan introduced conceptual approaches as to how
to ensure the country’s information security, the Press Secretary
of the National Security Service Gayane Gasparyan told ARKA Agency
Thursday.

The introduction was given at the first meeting of the
intergovernmental target group for development of Armenia’s information
security concept, says the report.

The national security concept and the program of Collective
Security Council for 2009 envisage development of such a concept to
facilitate formation of an information security system in Armenia
and ensure information exchange within the Collective Security Treaty
Organization.

The target group members exchanged views on the document, improvement
of the respective legislation, as well as on the threats to the
country’s information security.

Baghdasaryan assigned to the group members to submit their comments on
the draft concept. After the official views of all involved agencies
are received, the Council will get mass media outlets and the civil
society involved in the concept development process, he said.

MEHTI MEHTIYEV: "SUPPLIES OF RUSSIAN MILITARY HARDWARE TO ARMENIA REALLY TOOK PLACE"

Today.Az
Jan 22 2009
Azerbaijan

"As is known, there is no smoke without fire that the supplies of
Russian military hardware in the amount of $800,000,000 to Armenia,
spoken of by Azerbaijani mass media, really took place", said famous
military expert Mehti Mehtiyev.

He noted that Russia is currently not ready to disavow this
information, basing on the standard Russian "perhaps" and hoping that
this information will not be revealed.

"The information came out that Russia, which is one of the OSCE MG
co-chairs, had to search ways to justify itself. It did not cope with
the task well. First of all, the response took 9 days. Second, the
very form of the response, filled with ultimatum lexicology and such
common phrases as "Russian side considers that the issue, raised in the
mentioned note of the Foreign Ministry of Azerbaijan is exhausted" and
"the said publication is a disinformation of anti-Russian nature",
does not prove the sincerity of Russia’s position and creates an
opinion that we are facing the attempt to hide the reason.

And the current statement of the Russian Foreign Ministry is an obliged
step aimed to help this country preserve its image. In this connection,
it should be reminded that in 1996 Russia also supplied Armenia with
arms in the amount of over $1 bln and at that time official Moscow
also rebutted this information", said Mehtiyev.

In other words, according to the military expert, every time Russia
sees that Azerbaijan allocates funds for strengthening its army,
it also supplies Armenia with arms free of charge.

"But I am confident that even if there were such supplies from Russian
side, Armenia will not be able to reach the level of armed preparedness
of the Azerbaijani army", concluded Mehtiyev.

INSTITUTE FUNDS

Calcutta Telegraph
p/calcutta/story_10422842.jsp
Jan 22 2009
India

Armenian Church Society on Wednesday donated Rs 2 crore to the
Institute of Neuroscience, Calcutta, to come up at Mullickbazar,
following a request for financial help from the Calcutta Municipal
Corporation. Sunil Sobti and Susan Reuben of the society handed over
the money to the municipal commissioner.

ORGANIC SCRAPS HAVE NO "LANDING"

A1+
[12:21 pm] 22 January, 2009

The junkyard of Giumri is making its way to residential areas and it
is full of everything besides daily garbage. The organic scraps are
thrown in the junkyard. The presence of organic scraps in the junkyard
may lead to possible negative consequences. The local correspondents
know about this, but they haven’t paid attention to this for years.

The maternal ward, oncology hospital and morgue of Gyumri are the main
medical institutions where there is organic waste. Hospital workers
weren’t able to say how many scraps are thrown on a daily basis. They
said that it depends on the number and type of operations. It is not
hard to imagine how much waste the three medical institutions throw
away all together. The city has not had any crematories since Soviet
times and the issue remains to date.

There is no state approach or plan. As a result, each hospital is in
charge of the scraps and must eliminate them and hospitals have found
a solution to their problems by throwing the scraps in the junkyard.

Everybody avoids talking about the organic scraps. The head of the
oncology hospital refused to comment. There are a lot of operations
and scraps, but this subject is closed. None of the hospitals knows
how to get rid of the scraps, but they have to be burnt under high
temperature.

Three years ago, it was decided that each hospital must have its
crematory and that it will receive government-funding. When the law
on "Funerals and Exploitation of Cemeteries and Morgues" went into
effect on January 1, 2006, it was decided to save the money based
on the argument that there would be no difference between morgues
and crematories. If we believe the higher and lower instance courts,
the morgue should have been built in Giumri since 2008.

Why was it postponed? What happened to the funds? Perhaps the only
person to answer these and other questions avoids the topic. This
is a closed subject for the head of the health department and the
hospital must think about the issue of scraps.

PUBLIC APOLOGY WILL INEVITABLY LEAD TO TURKEY COMING TO GRIPS WITH ITS GENOCIDAL PAST

PanARMENIAN.Net
20.01.2009 16:30 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ The Armenian Assembly of America (Assembly)
marked the 2nd anniversary of Hrant Dink murder, the Assembly told
PanARMENIAN.Net.

"On the 2nd anniversary of Hrant Dink’s assassination, as we pause
to reflect on his life and untimely death, his legacy lives on in
Turkey," said Assembly Executive Director Bryan Ardouny. In December
of last year intellectuals in Turkey asked their fellow citizens to
sign a petition apologizing to their ‘Armenian brothers and sisters’
for the ‘denial of the Great Catastrophe that the Ottoman Armenians
were subjected to in 1915.

"With this petition, its 27,775 signatures, and the millions
around the world that call for Turkey to lift its ban on truth, an
irrevocable trend continues towards global recognition of the Armenian
Genocide. This public apology is a first step in that direction and
will inevitably lead to Turkey coming to grips with its genocidal
past," added Ardouny.

In the weeks following Dink’s assassination, then-Senator Joseph
Biden, Jr. (D-DE), introduced a resolution in the U.S. Senate, which
was passed by the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. S.Res. 65
condemned the murder of Hrant Dink as "a shameful act of cowardice
perpetrated with contempt for law, justice and decency" and urged
the Government of Turkey to repeal Article 301 and "work diligently
to foster a more open intellectual environment in the country that
is conducive to the free exchange of ideas."

Biden commented, "Hrant Dink was a man of strong conviction who wanted,
above all, to foster greater understanding and respect between Turks
and Armenians. His assassination is one more tragic reminder of why
Turkey needs to reform its laws and allow for an open discussion of
events surrounding the Armenian Genocide. It should never be a crime
to speak the truth."

In the two years since Dink was murdered by a Turkish ultranationalist,
Turkey has still failed to adopt standards and practices that would
reverse the prevalence of intolerance, repression and prejudice which
led to the assassination. Arat Dink, the son of Hrant Dink, was also
convicted under Article 301 for characterizing the 1915 killings of
Armenians as genocide.

JHANGIRYAN’S CASE WASN’T SUSPENDED

A1+
[06:36 pm] 20 January, 2009

Judge of the Yerevan Criminal Court Mnatsakan Martirosyan suspended
the trial for Vardan Jhangiryan’s case. Vardan Jhangiryan, who is
charged with violence against a state official, wasn’t able to come
to the trial today either.

The defendant’s attorneys presented a doctor’s note proving that
Vardan Jhangiryan has serious health problems and needs to stay in
bed and intermediated to suspend the case until their client would
be able to come to the trials.

After discussing the intermediation in the consultation room for more
than half an hour, Mnatsakan Martirosyan rejected it based on the
reason that the doctor’s note can’t serve as a basis for suspending
the case.

Vardan Jhangiryan, brother of former Deputy Prosecutor General
Gagik Jhangiryan, suffers from spinal tuberculosis. His situation
got worse after he was beaten, shot and arrested on February 23 at
the Argavand intersection.

The next trial will take place on February 11 at 11 a.m.

BAKO SAHAKIAN: SHAHUMIAN REGION IS A SACRED PLACE FOR WHOLE ARMENIAN PEOPLE

Noyan Tapan

Jan 19, 2009

YEREVAN, JANUARY 19, NOYAN TAPAN. NKR President Bako Sahakian
accompanied by Prime Minister Ara Haroutiunian on December 17 visited
the Shahumian region and met with the RA governmental delegation led
by Prime Minister Tigran Sargsian arriving there the same day.

They visited Shahumian region’s various populated areas, where
issues regarding region’s current socio-economic condition and
development prospects, as well as further deepening and expansion
of contacts between NKR regions and RA regions were discussed during
their meetings with the population. A special attention was paid to
problems of infrastructures development, in particular, the issue of
building Getavan-Sotk highway.

During his meeting with the population B. Sahakian emphasized that
the Shahumian region is a sacred place for the whole Armenian people
adding that in that context the problem of region’s development is
of special importance and is always in the focus of NKR authorities’
attention. He also said that it is envisaged implementing a number
of complex programs there, which will have a perceptible impact on
region’s general development.

As Noyan Tapan was informed by the General Information Department of
NKR President’s Staff, during the visit the NKR President and RA Prime
Minister were accompanied by the two Armenian states’ Defence, Urban
Development and Transport Ministers, other high-ranking officials.