Author: Felekian Ara

ARAM SARGSYAN: PERIOD OF ROBERT KOCHARYAN’S RULING IS COMPLETED FINALLY

arminfo
2008-03-24 20:32:00

ArmInfo. The time for creative work for the welfare of Armenian people
has come for the newly-elected president of Armenia, Leader of the
Democratic Party of Armenia Aram Sargsyan told ArmInfo correspondent.

According to him, the period of Robert Kocharyan’s ruling may be
considered as finally completed. "It is impossible to continue working
by the second president’s methods, as this will raise a wave of new
discontent of people", the politician noted. "If the government is
formed mechanically, as it was in the past, the society will by all
means express its discontent. The new president should form his team
from people he trusts and can work with – this is the correct principle
of formation of government", the DPA leader stressed. He added that
the coalition formed several days ago, which consists of the Republican
Party, Prosperous Armenia, Orinats Yerkir and ARF Dashnaksutyun is not
natural. "Formation of this coalition was dictated by the situation, as
these parties have different ideologies and approaches. Time will show
whether they are able to form a long-term government", Sargsyan said.

Turkish Press
March 23 2008

AK Party Has Become A Party Known Globally, Bagis
Published: 3/23/2008

ISTANBUL – Egemen Bagis, deputy chairman of the ruling Justice and
Development (AK) Party, said Saturday that the AK Party has become a
party known globally.
AK Party has become a party followed closely globally, Bagis noted.

Speaking at a meeting on AK Party’s foreign policy, Bagis indicated
that "we began walking with a leader that many defined as not
qualified enough to become a village headman. He (Recep Tayyip
Erdogan) is not merely a leader in Turkey but is among the foremost
leaders of the world. He has become a leader that many turn to for
resolving problems globally."

Turkey’s co-chairing of the Alliance of Civilizations and its status
as a country that is consulted for problems in the Middle East are
realities that every one should be proud of in Turkey, Bagis
stressed.

Touching on the Turkish economy, Bagis noted that, for the past 23
quarters, Turkish economy has been growing. "No crisis took place in
Turkey during the rule of the AK Party," Bagis indicated.

"Turkey’s Central Bank foreign exchange reserves are at 70 billion
USD. If Erdogan was to order, we would be able to pay our debt to IMF
ten times," Bagis remarked.

In regard to Armenian allegations concerning the incidents of 1915,
Bagis said that this issue has caused an headache for Turkey for
decades.

Turkey has opened all of its archives on the related period and
Erdogan made a call to Armenia to jointly study the archives, Bagis
stated.

"However, no reply came from Armenia in regard to Erdogan’s
invitation," Bagis said.

In reference to Iraq, Bagis told that Turkey has done all it can
prior to the war and after the war in Iraq.

"Turkey pays high attention to the territorial integrity of Iraq as
well as peace in this country," Bagis underlined.

Bagis stressed that the Republic of Turkey is the only country that
all nations in the Middle East have confidence in.

Egemen Bagis underscored that it was AK Party that began entry
negotiations with the European Union (EU).

"To date, there is no country that began negotiations with the EU and
never completed them. Turkey will sooner or later conclude
negotiations. The day when negotiations will be completed, Turkey
will be a different country. I look at the EU as Turkey’s dietician.
27 countries have become affluent and peaceful ones with EU’s
prescriptions," Bagis also said.

NATIONAL ASSEMBLY RATIFIES TWO INTERNATIONAL CONVENTIONS ON MARCH 20

Noyan Tapan
March 21, 2008

YEREVAN, MARCH 21, NOYAN TAPAN. The RA National Assembly on March 20
ratified the Council of Europe Convention on the Fight agaisnt Human
Trafficking signed in Warsaw on May 16, 2005, by which Armenia assumed
a number of commitments envisaging such measures as improvement of
the legislation and implementation of social and economic programs
to assist with physical, psychological and social rehabilitation of
human trafficking victims.

The National Assembly also ratified the Convention on International
Exhibitions signed in Paris on November 22, 1928, together with the
protocols amended and added later. The convention aims to regulate
the general terms of organization and management of international
exhibitions and the obligations of exhibition organizers and
participating states. 140 states have joined this convention,
which covers all international exhibitions, except for those with a
duration of less than 3 weeks, high art exhibitions and exhibitions
of commercional nature.

ARMENIA ENDS STATE OF EMERGENCY
By Matthew Collin

BBC NEWS
urope/7306859.stm
2008/03/21 07:40:48 GMT

Armenia has ended the state of emergency that was imposed in the
capital after clashes between protesters and police left eight dead.

Army vehicles began leaving Yerevan before midnight on Thursday.

The authorities have confirmed that more than 100 opposition activists
are being held on charges of causing unrest and plotting a coup.

The clashes on 1 March took place when police tried to end more than
a week of mass protests against election results.

The presidential poll gave victory to the current Prime Minister,
Serzh Sarkisian. The opposition says the results were falsified.

The number of arrests has been rising steadily throughout the month,
as the Armenian authorities round up the people they believe were
responsible for the violence.

Those detained so far include several members of parliament and a
former foreign minister. The opposition has accused the government
of trying to crush political dissent in Armenia.

Protest ban

Outgoing President Robert Kocharian has warned the opposition that
any attempts to hold unauthorised protests will not be tolerated.

A new law was passed this week giving the authorities the right to
ban demonstrations, if it is believed they will pose a threat to
public order.

But the opposition leader, Levon Ter-Petrosyan, has vowed to continue
his campaign to overturn the election results.

The opposition insists it had the right to defy what it describes as
a violation of people’s freedom and has said it will find a way to
work around the legislation.

ABRAHAMIAN TALKS ABOUT BOOK APRIL 3

Belmont Citizen-Herald
March 19 2008
MA

The National Association for Armenian Studies and Research (NAASR)
will present an illustrated lecture by Dr. Levon Abrahamian entitled
"Fighting with Memory and Monuments: Re-Shaping Post Soviet Armenian
Identity" at 8 p.m. on Thursday, April 3, at the NAASR Center, 395
Concord Ave. in Belmont.

Dr. Abrahamian is currently Visiting Professor in the Department of
Near Eastern Languages and Cultures at the University of California,
Los Angeles. He is the Head of the Department of Contemporary
Anthropological Studies at the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography
of the Academy of Sciences of Armenia. He is the author of "Armenian
Identity in a Changing World" and the co-editor of "Armenian Folk
Arts, Culture, and Identity," and has authored other books and many
articles in Armenian and English.

Beginning in the years of perestroika, the stormy process of
reevaluating traditional Soviet key events, heroes, and "gods" was
started in Armenia. By the end of perestroika and especially in the
beginning of the post-communist era, much attention was focused on
the monuments that celebrated these Soviet luminaries and landmark
events. Abrahamian will discuss the fight over these monuments and
their symbolism in post-Soviet Armenia with attention to the broader
context of other post-Soviet countries.

Naturally, the main focus of the monument-fighters was the great
"ancestors" of the Soviet regime. Monuments of Stalin had already been
removed after his death. After Stalin, Lenin remained the main focus
of the monument-fighters’ revolutionary rage. During the anti-monument
movement, sometimes a kind of reinterpretation of a monument instead
of its destruction took place, and Abrahamian will present examples.

The fight over memory and monuments also involves the process of new
remembering and new monument raising. In general, the talk will give
an outline of the landscape of monuments in Yerevan and the nature
of memory discourse in late-Soviet and post-Soviet Armenia.

Admission to the event is free (donations appreciated). The NAASR
Center is located opposite the First Armenian Church and next to the
U.S. Post Office. Ample parking is available around the building and
in adjacent areas. The lecture will begin promptly at 8 p.m.

ANNA MELIKIAN’S "NYMPH" AWARDED GRAND PRIZE

AZG Armenian Daily
19/03/2008

Culture

Russian film director Anna Melikian’s film "Nymph" was awarded the Best
Film Prize in "Sofia film fest" 12th international film festival. The
international representative jury highly appreciated Melikian’s skill
of producer, nice montage, actors’ skill, the idea and the energetics
of the film.

Earlier another Russian director Nikita Mikhalkov was awarded "Sofia
film fest" prize for the investment in the sphere of development of
cinematographic art.

SAFAR ABIYEV: "ALL TROOPS HAVE BEEN BROUGHT TO COMPLIANCE WITH NATO STANDARDS IN AZERBAIJAN"

Today
olitics/43776.html
March 17 2008
Azerbaijan

Azerbaijan’s Defense Minister Safar Abiyev has today received George
Lebel, chief of department of cooperation and regional security and
deputy chief of NATO’s international military staff.

The due announcement was made by the press service for Azerbaijan’s
Ministry of Defense.

S.Abiyev noted that currently all armed troops including land forces,
air forces, naval forces have been brought to compliance with NATO
standards.

The Minister noted that the military education of officers, as well
as all military trainings are held by these standards.

Touching upon the situation in the region, Abiyev noted that Armenia’s
non-constructive position hinders attainment of definite results in
the process of peaceful negotiation of Nagorno Karabakh conflict.

"Such situation may further increase tenseness. Azerbaijan will never
accept the occupation of its lands. We will make the occupant release
the occupied lands, even if by means of force", he said.

RUSSIAN AMBASSADOR TO AZERBAIJAN: "OSCE MINSK GROUP CO-CHAIRS REGARD THE RESOLUTION OF THE UN GENERAL ASSEMBLY AS UNFAIR"

Today
ics/43762.html
March 17 2008
Azerbaijan

"The countries, co-chairing the OSCE Minsk Group, including Russia,
occupied a stiff position on the issue of the UN resolution on
Azerbaijan".

The due announcement was made by Vasily Istratov, Russia’s ambassador
extraordinary and plenipotentiary to Azerbaijan, commenting on the
voting of the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairing countries at the UN General
Assembly on the resolution, proposed by Azerbaijan.

According to the Russian diplomat, the co-chairing countries voted
against the resolution, as they consider it to be unfair.

As has been reported previously, the delegates of the 62nd session
of the UN General Assembly adopted the resolution on Nagorno Karabakh
by 39 voting for, 7 against and 100 abstaining from voting on March 15.

Among countries, which did not support the resolution, were the
United States, France and Russia, mediating the negotiations on
Azerbaijani-Armenian conflict over Nagorno Karabakh.

PanARMENIAN.Net

Azerbaijan is in complete self-delusion, trying "to
inveigle" the UNO into the resolution of the Karabakh
Conflict

The UNO has displayed all its capacities in conflict
resolution processes in Kosovo and Middle Eastern
issues, practically having limited itself to useless
declarations.
13.03.2008 GMT+04:00

On February 26 Azerbaijan introduced the UN General Assembly the
project of the resolution on "the situation on the occupied territory
of Azerbaijan", where Azerbaijan asked to confirm its territorial
borders and rights over Nagorno-Karabakh. The voting on the resolution
is scheduled on March 14. From the point of view of Azerbaijan the set
date for the voting is very "successful", since Armenia is suffering
inner political destabilization, Russia is concerned with the issues
of the self-proclaimed CIS republics and the entire world is busy with
the situation in Kosovo.

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ According to the RA Minister of Foreign Affairs
Vartan Oskanyan, Armenia is applying diplomatic efforts to prevent
voting for this resolution. "We think that this step of Azerbaijan is
initiated by the inner political situation in Armenia. True,
Azerbaijan has all the rights to decide the date of the
voting. Unfortunately if the resolution is passed, the president-elect
of Armenia will be in a very unpleasant situation, and this will be
the sign for Azerbaijan’s intentions to change its strategy regarding
the negotiations," said Oskanyan.

Chair-countries of OSCE Minsk Group are also against the resolution on
Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict regulation, and they try to convince
Azerbaijan to cancel it. However Baku has decided to go till the end,
being well aware that the OSCE Minsk Group doesn’t approve the
resolution and in fact is extremely against changing the course of
Karabakh Conflict regulation. It is natural that the UN General
Assembly doesn’t and can’t decide anything. The UNO has displayed all
its capacities in conflict resolution processes in Kosovo and Middle
Eastern issues, practically having limited itself to useless
declarations. In this case Azerbaijan can be only satisfied with the
fact that an Islamic state somewhere in the Southeastern Asia will
vote in favor of the resolution, and that is not out of being totally
familiar with the main point of the question, but either on the bases
of pure Islamic solidarity. There is also another very important
point; Azerbaijan has lately been speculating with its oil and gas
even more. In this regard the West may promise Baku everything, but if
it manages to come to a common agreement with Russia (and most
probably this is what is going to happen), Azerbaijan may lose the
battle.

The truth is though, that this voting has one advantage for the
Armenian party as well. The more countries are aware of the conflict,
the better for us. The most important thing is that theses countries
learn not the viewpoint of Azerbaijan, but that of Armenia. So it is
necessary for Armenia to do what Azerbaijan does, which told the world
about "the Armenian atrocities on the Turkic territories".

The Armenian party thinks that this resolution put forward by
Azerbaijan for the in the UNO is not needed and is not very
timely. "It is necessary to emphasize, that the decision of the UN
General Assembly has no legal effect and is not compulsory. Azerbaijan
is well aware of this, however is still trying to continue the mission
it has started," says Vartan Oskanyan.

It is quite possible, that the resolution will be approved, and Baku
will be proud of a recurrent victory of the Azeri diplomacy. If
Azerbaijan wants to be in complete self-delusion, it has all the
rights. However things can take a different direction as well, the
world community knowing what such resolutions may lead to, will
seriously take up the issue of Nagorno-Karabakh. It is hard to say who
will benefit from this. In this regard it shouldn’t be forgotten, that
Nagorno-Karabakh, according to the editor of IWPR Tom De Vaal is not
the first priority; he is more concerned with the Middle East,
Afghanistan, Kosovo and other problems. "The West is very much
concerned with the situation in Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, and Kosovo. I
may say without any hesitation, that now the West has neither human
nor other resources to provide Karabakh’s security," he said. He also
mentioned that the renewal of the military actions from Azerbaijan
will be nothing but a disaster. "Armenia has been preparing for this
for many years, since Armenia has its plans. The diversion relating
the pipelines shouldn’t be excluded either. Even in the oil Market of
Azerbaijan there is much panic. In fact I don’t know of a war, where
it ended the way the two parties would want," said the British expert.

«PanARMENIAN.Net» analytical department

AZERBAIJANI LEADER INDICATES WILLINGNESS TO MEET WITH ARMENIAN PRESIDENT-ELECT

ARMENPRESS
March 14, 2008

YEREVAN, MARCH 14, ARMENPRESS: Azerbaijani president Ilham Aliyev
indicated today he was ready to meet with Armenian president-elect,
prime minister Serzh Sarkisian on the sidelines of a NATO summit,
scheduled for April 2-4 in Bucharest, Romania.

Novruz Mamedov, chief of international affairs division in Aliyev’s
staff, told Trend news agency that Aliyev would meet with Sarkisian
"If such a proposal comes from the OSCE Minsk Group cochairmen."

He said if Aliyev decides to participate in the summit he may consider
meeting with Armenian counterpart.

Armenia was the first on Thursday to say its newly elected president
was ready to meet his Azeri counterpart to discuss the Nagorno-Karabakh
conflict.

Armenian foreign minister Vartan Oskanian said Russia, the United
States and France — who are mediators in the conflict – were pushing
for a meeting between president-elect Serzh Sarkisian and Azeri leader
Ilham Aliyev.

"If there is such a proposal and if the Azeri side agrees to this,
then the newly elected president is ready to participate in this
meeting," Oskanian told reporters at a news briefing in Yerevan.