Author: Emil Lazarian

OMBUDSMAN UNHAPPY WITH UN
Lragir.am
11 May 06
The election of Azerbaijan to the newly established UN Human Rights
Council will not affect the state of human rights in Armenia, said
Ombudsman Armen Harutiunyan May 11 to the reporter of Regnum.
Nevertheless, he said the election of Azerbaijan was not desirable.
“Azerbaijan’s election is not desirable because it establishes
asymmetrical relations with Armenia and Azerbaijan. I am not
satisfied with the state of human rights in Armenia but I am also
unlikely to think that in Azerbaijan it is better,” said Armen
Harutiunyan. According to him, the presence of Azerbaijan in the
council restricts Armenia’s opportunities. “There they will have more
opportunities than Armenia to defend their subjectivity,” said the
defender of human rights. He said that the outcome of the election to
the UN Human Rights Council confirms that there was a nonobjective
approach. Armen Harutiunyan states that every election involves a
political approach as well.

WHY THEY WERE NOT DISMISSED FROM THE PARTY
Lragir.am
11 May 06
The outflow of businessmen members of parliament from the Orinats
Yerkir Party has been one of the burning issues recently. The political
party has not given an official assessment yet. We have information
that it was known inside the party that these members of parliament
would quit, however, they did not attempt to dismiss them.
An Orinats Yerkir member of parliament told our reporter that the
political council did not make such a decision, despite the demand
of the political party, not to deal a blow to these members of
parliament. “Although the decay of morality in politics led to a
great tragedy, we did not take that step,” said the OYP representative.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

LEGISLATIVE COMMISSION OF FRENCH PARLIAMENT TURNED DOWN DRAFT ON PENALTY FOR GENOCIDE DENIAL
PanARMENIAN.Net
11.05.2006 13:44 GMT+04:00
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Wednesday May 10, the Legislative Commission of
the French Parliament turned down the draft aiming at penalizing the
negation of the Armenian Genocide. This decision followed a request
of French President Jacques Chirac. The French deputies remain free
to take part in programmed work on May 18.
“We are afraid that certain deputies sacrifice the memory of the
victims of the Armenian genocide, yielding to the political and
economic pressures exerted by Turkey,” said Alexis Govciyan, chairman
of the Coordination Council of the ArmenianOrganizations of France
(CCAF).
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

EDIFICE IN PLACE OF CINEMA HOUSE WILL NOT BE HIGHER THAN BUILDINGS IN REPUBLICAN SQUARE
Armenpress
May 11 2006
YEREVAN, MAY 11, ARMENPRESS: Chief architect of Yerevan, Samvel
Danielian, told a news conference today that ‘a multi-functional’
edifice that is going to be built in place of Cinema House near what
Yerevan residents call Vernisage will not be higher than buildings
in nearby Republican Square.
He said the first 4 or 5 floors of the building will be given to the
Cinema House and the rest will house offices. According to Danielian,
the design of the future building will be approved by the municipality
only after deciding how many floors it will have and where its parking
lot will be built.
Danielian said also another ‘multi-functional’ edifice will be erected
in place of Sevan hotel in downtown Yerevan, but he added the building
will have as many floors as the hotel had.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

HRANT DINK AWARDED HENRI NANNEN PRIZE FOR PROMOTING PRESS FREEDOM
PanARMENIAN.Net
11.05.2006 12:59 GMT+04:00
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Hrant Dink, editor of the Armenian-language weekly
Agos published in Turkey, is awarded Henri Nannen Prize for promotion
of press freedom and courage. Gruner+Jahr German edition and Stern
Weekly sponsor the award. “He gives his vote to his people” was the
slogan. Hrant Dink is awarded the prize for “breaking the wall of
silence and fear in Turkey, behind which Turkish Armenians live.”
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

ARMENIAN MP URGES SPEAKER TO RESIGN
Regnum, Moscow
11 May 06
11 May: “It will be correct, if Artur Bagdasaryan (speaker of the
Armenian parliament and leader of the Orinats Yerkir [Law-Governed
Country] Party) resigns, and the party leaves the [ruling] coalition,”
the secretary of the party’s parliamentary faction, Egine Bisharyan,
told journalists today.
She said that Bagdasaryan himself and party members also agree with
this position. At the same time, she pointed out that the party is
determined to fight and regardless of whether it will be represented
by 13, seven or three MPs in parliament, it will act clearly and in
a coordinated way.
Bisharyan said that the departure of businessmen MPs from the party
is a political action undertaken from “above”.
Five businessmen MPs have left the party over the past few days.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

ARMENIAN SPEAKER UNDECIDED ON RESIGNATION – PAPER
Aykakan Zhamanak, Yerevan
11 May 06
Excerpt from Naira Zograbyan’s report in Armenian newspaper Aykakan
Zhamanak on 11 May headlined “They are intensively destroying the
Law-Governed Country Party”.
On 9 May, parliament speaker Artur Bagdasaryan did not congratulate
the people of Armenia on the occasion of Victory Day, nor did he join
[President] Robert Kocharyan and members of the government when they
laid flowers at the monument to an unknown soldier in Victory Park.
We have the impression that Bagdasaryan dodged his duties as parliament
speaker.
Rumours circulated yesterday that Artur Bagdasaryan will tender his
resignation on 22 May during the four-day sitting of parliament
and the Law-Governed Country Party [LGCP] will leave the ruling
coalition. The LGCP neither confirmed nor denied these rumours. The
deputy chairman of the party, Mger Shakhgeldyan, only said that the
party’s official position will be made public soon. Meanwhile, some
influential members of the party have left it.
[Passage omitted: list of these members]
After that, only 10 MPs [from the party] remained instead of 21.
However, this is not all of the potential of the authorities for
punishing Bagdasaryan. After removing MPs who have their own businesses
from the LGCP, they will remove MPs from the party’s political board.
Let us recall that the overall operation for the destruction of
the LGCP is guided from the president’s residence, and Kocharyan is
immediately informed if any member of the party applies for leaving
it. But nobody knows about the actual reason for Bagdasaryan’s quick
destruction. There is panic within the party. What is Bagdasaryan
going to do? According to our information, he is in panic too and
cannot make a decision. Some ministers and officials that occupy high
posts and are members of the LGCP are persuading Bagdasaryan not
to tender his resignation. The Armenian Revolutionary Federation –
Dashnaktsutyun dodges comment on the situation. The leader of the
parliamentary faction of the [ruling] Republican Party of Armenia,
Galust Saakyan, does not think that Artur Bagdasaryan will tender
his resignation, but if he does, Saakyan will respect him more.
Anyway, domestic political developments are entering an interesting
phase.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

RUSSIA: BAD WEATHER CONFIRMED AS REASON FOR ARMENIAN AIRBUS CRASH
NTV Mir, Moscow
11 May 06
A Russian aviation official has been giving details of what happened
when an Armenian Airbus crashed into the Black Sea on 2 May, the
Russian external TV service NTV Mir reported on 11 May.
The head of the air accident investigations department at the
Interstate Aviation Committee, Aleksey Morozov, said: “It has been
established that in the process of coming in to land on runway 06
for which permission had been granted – and I stress permission had
been granted – bad weather led the air traffic controller to order
the crew to halt its descent, make a right turn and gain height. The
aircraft began its right turn and ascent but then began to come down
and hit the surface of the water.”
The information comes from recordings of conversations between the crew
and air traffic control in Adler, the presenter said. In addition,
he said, a Sochi airport official has denied rumours that the air
traffic controller who was speaking to the plane had vanished. He
will be at work tomorrow and there are no complaints against him.

“BUSINESS CLASS” LEFT OEP
Anna Israelian
Aravot.am
11 May 06
As the businessmen entered into “Orinats Erkir” for insuring their
business as well as they leave the party for not threatening it.
Yesterday it became clear that those “OEP” members together with
Arthur Baghdasarian who voted against the account of the realization
of privatization of State Estate in 2001-2003 or were absent on 13 of
April don’t leave the party. And almost all deputies who abstained from
the voting /Samvel Shahgaldian, Grigor Margarian, Alexan Petrosian,
Sayad Zakharian, Arshak Mkhitarian/ have written settlements for
leaving the group without explanations. OEP deputy leader Mher
Shahgeldian didn’t interpret the circumstance that 13 deputies from
20 remained in the group. Giving the same answer to all questions;
” We’ll express our official position and approaches one of these
days”. And Hovhannes Margarian simply mentioned that “Orinats Erkir”
had 62 thousand members and it wasn’t a tragedy if 61994 remained.
Instead, the official newspaper of “Orinats Erkir” gives sharp
appraisals.
The main hero of the newspaper is the RPA group leader Galust Sahakian
where it is written; “Each negative speech pronounced by him gives
more results as everybody knows him” but it is mentioned in one of
the publications that there are people who become nervous hearing
Arthur Baghdasarian’s name and his party. First is Galust Sahakian,
that is the RPA parliamentary group leader. It is very interesting
that Galust Sahakian began speaking about “behavior”. But we can
hardly bear it when a person speaks about what he doesn’t have. But
we have always thought that a politician like him must think in first
what he speaks about. For example what Mr. Sahakian thought when he
said that the RPA was against Arthur Baghdasarian’s candidacy as the
NA chairman in 2003.”
There are affirmations that the OEP group distraction had been
coordinated by the President’s personnel, to our question whether
the RPA was interested in it Mr. Sahakian answered; “We don’t have
any connection with it and don’t welcome such demonstrations”. The
explanation of the RPA group why businessmen deputies leave the party
was the following; “I don’t think that this have connection with
business. Simply people felt themselves cheated”. We were interested
whether he had spoken to those deputies, is he sure that they feel
themselves cheated and Mr. Sahakian answered; ” It’s natural that I
have spoken as I also have friendly relations with some of them.
Thus, the OEP is the forth group by its quantity and yields as the RPA
and “People’s deputy” as well as “Justice”. Anyway its representative
can lead the parliament at request. Galust Sahakian assures that they
won’t demand Arthur Baghdasarian’s resignation; “I think we shouldn’t
change the formats and rules of the game in the half way”. But he also
mentioned if Arthur Baghdasarian “sends in his resignation I’ll respect
him more”. But OEP representatives don’t interpret the published news
that Arthur Baghdasarian was ready to take the step by which Galust
Sahakian would respect him. But the OEP deputies assured him not to
take that step. Hovhannes Margarian simply mentioned that OEP leader
doesn’t want to keep his post and authority. And Mher Shahgeldian
repeating Arthur Baghdasarian’s words said; “If we consider that
discrepancies and dissents are so much that it is impossible to work
together we can leave the coalition. This is our approach”.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

RECALLED TURKISH ENVOYS RETURN TO POST IN FRANCE, CANADA
Anatolia news agency
11 May 06
Ankara, 11 May: Turkey’s ambassadors to France and Canada returned to
their posts on Thursday after having consultations in Turkish capital
of Ankara regarding so-called Armenian genocide allegations.
Turkey’s Ambassador in Paris Osman Koruturk and Ambassador in Ottawa
Aydemir Erman arrived in Ankara at the beginning of this week to have
consultations over recent baseless Armenian genocide allegations in
these two countries.
Koruturk and Erman participated in meetings held at the Turkish Foreign
Ministry, and were received by President Ahmet Necdet Sezer and Prime
Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Canadian parliament has adopted a resolution, acknowledging the
Armenian claims, while Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper have
made remarks in which he qualified unfounded Armenian allegations as
“genocide”.
On the other hand, French parliament will debate a bill on May 18th
which makes any denial of the so-called Armenian genocide a crime.