Author: Jagharian Tania

ISRIA , DC
June 7 2008

Armenia: Prime Minister Tigran Sargsyan visited the RA State Customs
Committee by the Government and introduced to SCC staff newly
appointed head of the Committee Gagik Khachatryan

The Prime Minister said in particular:

"You very well know him, the skilled expert who keeps track of the
situation and, to our belief, is the one to provide for effective
operations of the customs service, program performance and, on the
other hand, to carry out such reforms as will ensure that customs
services are competitive in the Republic of Armenia and live up to the
best of global experience, are acceptable to those citizens and
businessmen who make customs payments, the charges on this
administration are minimal and fail to create obstacles to business
and, on the contrary, promote entrepreneurship in our country. It is
not a secret that this is a major problem in the Republic of
Armenia. We are a small country and the volume of imports and exports
grow every year. This means that from year to year the work of the
customs service should vary and comprise such potential to provide for
the delivery of high-quality services. The future of our economic
system is dependant on the efficiency of your work and the quality of
your services. We have no alternatives: the quality of customs
services should be the best in the region and meet the best global
experience. And this will be brought about through your hard work. We
are convinced the Mr. Khachatryan closely follows the developments in
this field, and is in a position to carry out the needed reforms. You
are on the first line of our front, and your work accounts for the
attitude of domestic tax-payers to our State because due to those
difficulties which first of all face the authorities and the State, we
lose in the trust of our citizens which is extremely dangerous. I want
you to realize this responsibility as your success will be the success
of our State.

I want to congratulate Mr. Khachatryan and assure you that he will get
every possible backing from us in order we manage to address this
important task through joint efforts and are proud of having built up
the most effective customs service in the region. And this has to be a
reality obvious to everybody and our people, first of all. I
congratulate Mr. Khachatryan and, at the same time, I have the honor
of introducing to you his newly appointed assistant ? Mr. Artak
Shaboyan. Mr. Shaboyan is young, but he has quite a long experience in
this area, he is a scientist, senior lecturer at the French University
of Armenia and the Economic University. For many years now, he has
worked in the Central Bank, has supervising skills and experience in
macroeconomic analysis and knowledge, and, from this point of view, I
feel that that potential which he has is crucial for the realization
of reforms in the customs sphere. He is well-known both in Armenia and
with the international structures which keep inviting him to attend
different missions, to deliver lectures and to introduce practical
functions in various transitional economies. This means that this
potential will be for us extremely useful during the implementation of
drastic reforms. Also, it seems extremely important for us that those
concepts which are already submitted by Mr. Khachatryan and concern
steps on reforming customs service, its structure, it is extremely
important that tax and customs reforms are carried out in parallel and
that there was a constructive cooperation.

I want to draw your attention to one more circumstance, namely those
allegations that are frequently heard about civil servants accusing
them of direct involvement in business, protectionism and so on. This
is of course a major concern for us and it is not a secret that there
are such rumors about Mr. Khachatryan, the staff of the customs
service, tax officers in a sense that they use the public office to
promote their private affairs. Such behavior on the part of our
officials is unacceptable to us. At the same time, we seek to protect
fair-minded and honest officials, publicity being the only way to it.

You may know that a key point of our reforms is the introduction in
the Republic of Armenia of the institute of conflict of
interest. Yesterday, as the World Bank presented those analytical
materials concerning our country and the areas of cooperation, it was
noted that the introduction of the institute of conflict of interest
in the Republic of Armenia will be high on the government’s reform
agenda. Objectively, all of us have relatives and persons related to
us who are engaged in business. This is inevitable, though the problem
consists in that the individuals closely related to us should be in
the center of our attention and, first of all, they should have a
confidence-building reputation by paying taxes punctually instead of
evading them. It is understood that Mr. Khachatryan and many of you
have relatives in the sphere of business. First of all, you must be
exacting toward your relatives if we want the customs service to enjoy
the confidence of our people. We shall introduce this institute and we
shall start from the tax and customs services as they, on the one
hand, will create a corresponding atmosphere which will help your
activity and, on the other hand, will be free to carry out these
reforms with more determination. Once again, I congratulate
Mr. Khachatryan and Mr. Shaboyan on appointment and wish them fruitful
work."

CTED/D/2008/JUNE_13/diplo_07june2008_25.htm

origi nal source
tre_8/official_news_en.php?&date=1212606000

World Market Research Center
Global Insight
June 6, 2008

EU Contemplates Free-Trade Deal with Armenia

by: Natalia Leshchenko

Deputy head of the European Commission’s Directorate-General for
External Relations, Hugues Mingarelli, said during a visit to the
Armenian capital, Yerevan, that the European Union (EU) plans to open
negotiations on a free-trade agreement with the country soon. The
issue was discussed with Armenia’s Prime Minister Tigran Sarkisian,
Finance Minister Tigran Davtian, and Foreign Minister Eduard
Nalbandian. No indication of the date was given, however, and judging
by previous experience, the process is likely to take many months, if
not years.

Significance:The introduction of such a regime would allow Armenian
goods easier access to the EU market and would be welcomed by Armenian
producers, especially given that the two large neighbouring markets,
Azerbaijan and Turkey, are closed to them over political
disputes. According to official Armenian statistics quoted by Agence
France-Presse (AFP), EU member states accounted for 39% of the
country’s external trade in the first four months of this year. The
total value of the Armenia-EU commercial exchange rose by 35% to
almost $597US million in this period. In strengthening ties with
Armenia, the EU is seeking to augment its position in the Caucasus. EU
assistance to Armenia totalled more than 400 million euro ($620US
million) from 1992 to 2006. In 2007, the EU adopted a 21-million-euro
aid package to the country, and by the time of Mingarelli’s visit had
released a first instalment of a 16-million-euro grant designed to
help fight youth unemployment through educational reform. The other
CIS countries currently preparing for free-trade regime talks with the
EU are Ukraine and Moldova.

FRAMEWORK AGREEMENT ON GARABAGH CONFLICT SETTLEMENT TO BE SIGNED BETWEEN AZERBAIJAN AND ARMENIA UNTIL LATE 2008

Azerbaijan Business Center
June 4 2008
Azerbaijan

Baku, Fineko/abc.az. Ilham Aliyev and Serj Sarkisyan, the presidents of
Azerbaijan and Armenia respectively, will conduct their first meeting
on June 6 within the XII Economic Forum in St. Petersburg (Russia).

Today at XV Caspian Oil&Gas Conference Mathew Brioza, state secretary
deputy assistant for Europe & Eurasia and US co-chair of the OSCE Minsk
Group, said that 2008 is of principal significance for settlement of
Nagorno Garabagh conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan.

"On Friday the two countries’ leaders will have a meeting in
St. Petersburg.

Presently speech is not about search of compromise, but about a
framework agreement on conflict settlement. The agreement can be
signed until the end of 2008," Mr. Briza said.

The Garabagh conflict began in 1988 from separatist movement in
Armenia.

More than 30,000 people dies and up to 1 million Azerbaijanians
became refugees for period of hostilities. Armenia occupied 20% of
Azerbaijani territory (the whole Nagorno Garabagh and 7 adjoining
regions) and created puppet regime there.

U.S: TURKEY NEEDS PLAN B IF CONGRESS PASSES ARMENIAN GENOCIDE RESOLUTION

PanARMENIAN.Net
04.06.2008 16:17 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Turkey needs a plan B in the likelihood the
U.S. Congress passes a resolution endorsing Armenian Genocide under
a new administration, said campaign advisers for the presidential
candidates of both American political parties.

Richard Burt, campaign advisor to Republican nominee John McCain,
and Philip Gordon, campaign advisor to likely Democratic nominee
Barack Obama, discussed the implications of a Republican or Democratic
victory for Turkish-American relations at a panel organized by the
Turkish Industrialists’ and Businessmen’s Association (TUSIAD) and
the Brookings Institute.

U.S. Sen. Barack Obama, the Democratic Party’s top presidential
candidate, has pledged to recognize the World War I-era killings of
Armenians in the Ottoman Empire as Genocide if elected president,
as does his competitor Hillary Clinton.

Though not excluding a possibility of a change of heart, given that
politicians act differently in practice than they claim in their
election campaigns, Gordon advised the Turkish government to have a
plan B on the Genocide Resolution issue. Marc Parris, a former American
ambassador to Ankara, argued that Democrats will become stronger in
Congress and said the Turkish government should be prepared.

Whereas Burt argued that both Democrats and Republicans see Turkey as
a traditional ally, Gordon said the new administration will have to
devise a new policy on Turkey and cannot afford to continue overlooking
Turkey in favor of other priorities, the Turkish Daily News reports.

ERNEKIAN PRESENTS HIS PROGRAMS

A1+
[03:22 pm] 04 June, 2008

On June 4 Serzh Sarkissian received famous Argentinean Armenian
businessman, President of the "Armenian International Airport"
Company Eduardo Ernekian.

Eduardo Ernekian is confident that under Serzh Sarkissian’s leadership
Armenia will keep boosting and the President will manage to solve
the main problems facing the country.

Noting that his success is largely associated with the success of
everyone, the President said: "The success of your activity is a
component of the common success.

If we have normal results in the economy, we shall manage to allocate
greater means to solving the social issues ad reinforcing security."

Eduardo Ernekian concisely presented their investment programs in
different spheres. He attached special importance to the filed of
agriculture, where they invest great efforts and means. The businessman
informed also that the large-scale program of development of the
centre of the capital.

737 STUDENTS IN THE FIRST INTEGRATED EXAM

KarabakhOpen
03-06-2008 12:11:48

On June 2 the students of schools of Karabakh took the integrated
exam in Armenian grammar and literature. The exam was held at School
N2 of Stepanakert where all the students of Karabakh tok the exam.

The director of the Center of Assessment and Testing Yuri Karamyan
said in an interview with Karabakh-Open.com 737 students took the
exam. According to him, 9 students did not show up.

By the way, this year the students will take the integrated exam in
foreign languages and math.

TURKEY NEEDS A PLAN B IN THE LIKELIHOOD THE U.S. CONGRESS PASSES A RESOLUTION ENDORSING ARMENIANS CLAIMS OF GENOCIDE

arminfo
2008-06-04 16:00:00

ArmInfo. Turkey needs a plan B in the likelihood the U.S. Congress
passes a resolution endorsing Armenians claims of genocide under
a new administration, said campaign advisers for the presidential
candidates of both American political parties.

As Turkish Daily News reports, Richard Burt, campaign advisor to
Republican nominee John McCain, and Philip Gordon, campaign advisor
to likely Democratic nominee Barack Obama, discussed the implications
of a Republican or Democratic victory for Turkish-American relations
at a panel organized by the Turkish Industrialists’ and Businessmen’s
Association and the Brookings Institute.

The source recalls, U.S. Sen. Barack Obama, the Democratic Party’s
top presidential candidate, has pledged to recognize the World War
I-era killings of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire as "genocide"
if elected president.

MEHMET YILMAZ: TURKEY’S RULING AKP’S NEW STRATEGY TO SURVIVE

Hurriye
June 5 2008
Turkey

The statements of Turkey’s Foreign Minister Ali Babacan saying that
the county’s "Muslim majority also faces problems regarding their
religious freedom," is a not a simple slip of the tongue.

On the contrary it is the result of a deliberate political move.

This is also the reason for the prime minister’s obvious support for
him regarding the issue.

This situation reveals the natural outcome of the administration’s
lack of governing skills after its election success.

Most supporters of the ruling AKP are disappointed that the promises
made during the victory speeches on election night are not being kept.

The ruling AKP was again unsuccessful in managing the process after
the closure case was filed against them and this too resulted in a
decline in the power of the government in the eyes of voters.

As a matter of fact, the latest research study confirms this argument.

People generally tend to identify more with the sides of a society,
a community or a group that is "thought to be under attack".

The sense of the "oppression" becomes the common denominator of those
who think they share a common identity.

And it is the mission of the "struggling leaders" to channel "the
anger" of these groups towards a common target.

And those who believe they are "oppressed," firmly clamp in place
around these leaders.

This is the strategy developed by the ruling AKP in order to survive
the ongoing political situation it faces.

And in order to implement this strategy, they invented the line:
"Muslims in Turkey do not have religious freedom".

On Tuesday, Nationalist Movement Party’s (MHP) leader Devlet Bahceli
called on the prime minister to explain "Which religious freedoms
can Muslims are not able to practice".

He is not likely to receive a response from the prime minister because
it is a very difficult diagnosis to be supported in Turkey.

This statement said in an outright attempt to form a solid connection
for those "victims"; not to expose that religious freedoms in Turkey
are hindered.

My dream for Turkey, by Boris’s great-grandfather
Norman Stone
Wednesday, 23rd April 2008
Norman Stone on the dramatic life and death of Ali Kemal, one-time
interior minister of Turkey and our mayoral candidate’s forebear

Boris Johnson is one eighth Turkish. His great-grandfather (there is, if
you abstract the fez and the moustache, a family resemblance) was a
well-known writer, Ali Kemal (1868-1922) who came, because of his
politics, to a tragic end. He knew England very well, and when the
British occupied Constantinople for four years at the end of the first
world war, he collaborated with them. They had left the Sultan on his
throne, and there was a puppet government which controlled a few
back-streets. Poor Ali Kemal made the awful mistake of becoming its
minister of the interior for some three months. As happens with
collaborationist regimes, he quarrelled with his colleagues (there is a
very funny scene of this sort, about Vichy France, in Céline’s D’un
chteau l’autre, where Alphonse de Chteaubriant ends up throwing
the crockery). Then he spent his time on journalism, and taught at the
university: he knew a great deal about literature. But a nationalist
resistance built up in the interior (based on Ankara) and when, late in
1922, it triumphed, Ali Kemal did not leave.

It was crazy: the Sultan himself was smuggled out in a British ambulance
to Malta, and the Ottoman dynasty was thrown to the four winds. History
does not reveal the reasons for Ali Kemal’s staying. At any rate he was
picked up, while being shaved at the Grand Cercle d’Orient in the
European city – it was the Levantines’ club, and only Turks of a high
rank were admitted – and put on a train for trial in Ankara. His captor,
Nurettin Pasha, had lost his two sons in the war, and had gone a little
mad. Somehow, he allowed a mob to take Ali Kemal off the train at Izmit,
the old Nicomedia, and they lynched him. The episode is written up in
Louis de Bernières’s Birds Without Wings.

That book is a homage to the Turkey that might have been, with Greeks
and Armenians taking their place. Ali Kemal thought that that should
have happened. That was why he supported the British, in whom he put his
faith. But at the time Lloyd George was really after the partition of
Turkey: Greater Greece, Greater Armenia, even an Anglo-Kurdistan, with
bits and pieces for the French and the Italians. There would have been a
rump Turkey, run by a puppet Sultan. Ali Kemal was the puppet of a
puppet. Everyone, including himself, let him down. The story ends, none
the less, with some uplift. He had had two wives, one British – hence
the Boris connection – and, after her death from childbirth, one
Turkish. Boris (and his father, Stanley Johnson) has done him proud. On
the Turkish side, there was a boy, Zeki Kuneralp, who was very bright
and needed a state scholarship. Kemal Atatürk, the chief target of Ali
Kemal’s journalistic attacks, was by then the Turkish equivalent of de
Gaulle. He said: give that boy the money. Zeki’s son is now a chief
negotiator on the subject Turkey-in-Europe. Another son is a leading
publisher.

Curiously enough, Ali Kemal wrote a book, predicting what would happen
to his progeny. It is called Fetret, meaning ‘interregnum’, and the word
itself has some significance. In 1402, the first Turkish (or, more
accurately, Ottoman: ‘Turk’ until the 20th century was a word used by
foreigners) state was overthrown by Tamerlane, and for three decades
there was in effect a war of succession, between men who identified with
the east and men who identified with the west; that war, in various
forms, has gone on to this day. You could have used that word to
describe the Ottoman empire of the later 19th century and this is
reflected in the architecture. The Sultans had given up the old Topkapi
Palace, and moved to the Dolmabahce Palace on the Bosphorus, over which
the spirit of Queen Victoria hovered. Old Stambul had become a museum
piece, and even then a chief building in it – now a school – was the
Caisse de la Dette Ottomane, the headquarters of foreign money-men who
were collecting the debts from charges on the railways or the customs.
The heart of town was the European quarter, Pera, with the Cercle
d’Orient where Ali Kemal was finally caught. Now, what was a bright
young Turk to make of all this?

In 1840, there had been some hope. At the time of the Crimean war, even
Karl Marx applied himself to learning Ottoman Turkish, because he
thought that ‘the Asiatic Mode of Production’ would adapt to capitalism
in a modernising Turkey (or Egypt). But by 1870, the debts had gone up
and up, and by 1890 more or less everyone was writing off the Ottoman
empire as yet another derelict non-European concern – what was soon to
be called ‘the Third World’. Not just the Greeks but now also the
Armenians, who had been called ‘the most loyal’ of the Sultan’s
Christian subjects, were falling prey to separatist nationalism. Sultan
Abdul Hamit reigned for 30 years and reckoned that modernisation could
happen, provided politics did not get in the way. He practised a sort of
absolutism, but promoted schools to train his officials, whether
civilian or military. These schools in effect produced an opposition to
him, of young men who spoke good French and who knew something about
Europe. Ali Kemal was one of these, dreaming of a liberal and European
Turkey. Most of his peers – they can loosely be called ‘Young Turks’ –
were meritocrats, often from the southern Balkans, but Ali Kemal was
socially a cut above them, the son of the head of a guild, living in
quite grand circumstances in a villa above the castle of Rumeli. As
such, he must have had some private money, because he spent much of his
time abroad, and married an Anglo-Swiss wife, Winifred Brun, in 1903.
She died, leaving two children, in 1910, and, when the radical Young
Turks were briefly out of power in 1911-12, he went back to Istanbul,
marrying again.

Then the Young Turks, led by the formidable and ruthless Enver Pasha,
came to power again, and took Turkey into the first world war. Ali Kemal
sat it out, disapprovingly, in Bournemouth, and the two English children
were brought up by their grandmother in a village near London. Fetret is
a book dreaming of the Turkey that his little son will one day see. It
is liberal, modelled on England. It has room, and more than room, for
Christian minorities, but it is Turkish. It is Muslim, but the Islam is
generous and tolerant. It adheres to its own identity, especially
linguistic, but the young must learn French, because French literature
is far ahead of any other.

Ali Kemal (incidentally a pseudonym: he was originally called ‘Ali
Riza’, after one of the very first, tentative, Turkish nationalists)
apparently belongs quite high up the tree in Turkish literature. I have
to say ‘apparently’ because he wrote in Ottoman Turkish, and that is a
very far cry from the modern language: my copy of Fetret has a small
dictionary at the back, translating the old (Arabic and Persian) words
for today’s readers. When Kemal Atatürk took over, he changed the
script, and drastically modernised the language; and in the Sixties it
was even mutilated (there is a superb book on this by Geoffrey Lewis, A
Catastrophic Success). Turks disagree quite violently as to the language
reform: slavish imitation of the West, or Turkey’s ticket to the modern
world? Ali Kemal, who read and wrote very widely, was clearly in two
minds. He was quite right to disapprove of the Young Turks’ taking
Turkey into the first world war. That produced endless disasters,
including the loss of a quarter of the population – Turkish, Greek,
Armenian and Kurdish.

Ali Kemal hoped that the British would pick up the pieces and realise
his ambitions. His timing was quite wrong; and he ought to have gone
with the people who joined Kemal Atatürk in the depths of Anatolia.
But he was a decent man, living a lonely life as an exiled litterateur,
speaking broken English to a small son who must have seen him as a sort
of Martian, and dreaming that one day the little boy would see a
different Turkey. And lo and behold.

The Spectator, 22 Old Queen Street, London, SW1H 9HP. All Articles and
Content Copyright ©2007 by The Spectator (1828) Ltd. All Rights

SUMMER SCHOOL: PROFESSORS FROM LITHUANIA AND HUNGARIA

Panorama.am
21:05 02/06/2008

"Education Threefold System in the Frameworks of Bologna Activities"
summer school opening ceremony took place in Yerevan State
University. Summer school is organized by Scientific-Educational
Center of National Development NGO and Yerevan State University.

It will last till 2-14 June.

Representatives from Yerevan different universities and Academy of
National Sciences as well as 5 participants are invited from Russia,
Ukraine, Serbia and Bulgaria.

The project is supported by Open Society Institute.

According to the deputy director of the institute the summer school
is aimed to improve the level of education and to the exchange of
experience.