Author: Jagharian Tania

Present Electoral Code of Armenia ensures strong basis for holding free and
democratic election, the CIS observers think

Arminfo
2007-05-13 13:43:00

Present Electoral Code of Armenia ensures strong basis for holding
free and democratic election, the head of the CIS observers’ mission
Vladimir Rushailo said at the press-conference taken place in Yerevan,
Sunday.

Nevertheless the CIS observers think that further improvement and
specification of some norms of the EC is desirable. For instance, it
is expedient to give an opportunity of voting to the Armenian citizens
living in abroad temporarily. It is also desirable to extend the
number of people that have a right to vote out of the ballot
station. Moreover, voters staying in hospital should be given an
opportunity to vote by means of mobile election box. The CIS
observers think that the problem should be revised, according to which
election commissions should be given the right to involve a citizen,
which lives at the territory of the given ballot station but does not
have a certificate of the authorized structure or a court verdict, in
the additional list of voters on the eve of the election or at the day
of election. Separate procedures foreseen by EC (putting ballot-papers
in envelop, their stamping) delay the voting process very much, and
there is no need of them. Representatives of the political parties
when meeting the CIS observers also spoke about expediency of
improvement of some EC norms.

FORMER RA FOREIGN MINISTER ALEXANDER ARZUMANIAN ARRESTED

Noyan Tapan
May 08 2007

YEREVAN, MAY 8, NOYAN TAPAN. RA National Security Service employees
arrested on late May 7 former RA Foreign Minister Alexander Arzumanian
with the doubt on committing a crime according to Article 190 of the
RA Criminal Code (legalization of profits got in illegal ways). The
Haykakan Zhamanak (Armenian Time) daily states about it.

To recap, a criminal action was brought on May 5 against A. Arzumanian
and former RA Deputy Minister of Defence Vahan Shirkhanian. Within
the framework of the action their flats were searched on the same day.

REPUBLICANS SET TO WIN IN ARMENIA

Angus Reid Global Monitor, Canada
May 7 2007

(Angus Reid Global Monitor) – The Republican Party of Armenia (HHK)
is the country’s most popular political organization, according to
a poll by Populus released by Armenia TV. 31 per cent of respondents
would vote for the HHK in this month’s legislative election.

Prosperous Armenia (BHK) is second with 27 per cent, followed by
Rule of Law Country (OE) with 11 per cent, the Armenian Revolutionary
Federation (HHD) with eight per cent, National Unity (NU) with seven
per cent, and People’s Party of Armenia (HZhK) with five per cent.

Armenian president Robert Kocharyan was re-elected to a new four-year
term in March 2003 in an election marred by fraud allegations. On
May 12, Armenia will renew the 131-member National Assembly, and a
presidential ballot will take place in 2008.

On Apr. 4, Serge Sarkisian became Armenia’s new prime minister
following the death of Andranik Markarian. The HHK was headed by
Markarian until his death, and is now primarily led by Sarkisian.

Following his appointment to the premiership, Sarkisian declared he
would not modify the administration until after the next election,
saying, "I don’t think there need to be serious changes in the
composition of the government as it will work for almost 40 more days,
and our key task is to ensure continuity in the government’s work."

On May 4, Sarkisian said he has no problems with Kocharian, declaring,
"If I insist that our relations are excellent, one may not believe
me. But those who have been able to observe our relations are surprised
by these rumours. We have known each other for a long time and have
worked together for 26 years. Our present rapport is one of two
persons who have gone down the same path for 26 years."

Polling Data

If the election was this Sunday, how would you vote?

Republican Party of Armenia (HHK) 31%

Prosperous Armenia (BHK) 27%

Rule of Law Country (OE) 11%

Armenian Revolutionary Federation (HHD) 8%

National Unity (NU) 7%

People’s Party of Armenia (HZhK) 5%

Other parties 11%

Source: Populus / Armenia TV Methodology: Face-to-face interviews with
2,000 Armenian adults, conducted from Apr. 3 to Apr. 10, 2007. Margin
of error is 2.2 per cent.

Nagorny Karabakh Republic to hold military parade to celebrate May 9 triple
holiday

Arminfo Agency
2007-05-05 12:44:00

Military parade devoted to the Victory in Great Patriotic War, to 15th
anniversary of NKR Defense Army and to liberation of the town of
Shushi is to be held in NKR on May 9.

ArmInfo’s special correspondent to Stepanakert reports that the dress
rehearsal for the parade took place in the Revival Square in
Stepanakert on May 4. The celebrities will start on May 6 with
opening of St. Hakob Church. On May 8 awarding ceremony is scheduled
in the NKR National Assembly. On May 9, the military parade of NKR
Defense Army will take place in the Revival Square. Later, the
Governmental delegation, public representatives and foreign guests
will visit the Memorial Complex in Stepanakert. Within the frameworks
of meetings to be held in Shushi, there is a ceremonial opening of an
art school and a visit to Ghazanchetsots Church. A festive concert is
expected in the Revival Square on May 9 evening.

ATTEMPT MADE TO INTERRUPT PRESENTATION OF BOOK ON ARMENIAN GENOCIDE

Noyan Tapan
Armenians Today
May 03 2007

NEW YORK, MAY 3, NOYAN TAPAN – ARMENIANS TODAY. The presentation of
the book "The Knock at the Door" by Margaret Achemian-Ahnert took
place on May 1 in the bookstore "Barnes & Noble" in New York.

According to "The New York Times", some persons attempted to interrupt
the presentation by shouting that there was not any genocide and
distributing leaflets denying the Armenian Genocide.

The 209-page book "The Knock at the Door" tells how the mother of
the author survived the genocide during World War I and reached the US.

In the words of Ms Ahnert, she did not want "The Knock at the Door"
to become a political story. "I just tried to tell the story about
my mother and not to make a political statement," she said. "My
book is not only about the Armenian Genocide but also about how my
mother grew up and in what way the events that occured in her life
influenced me. These are memories of mother and daughter. I did not
make any historical statement."

Among the guests was Mr Robert M. Morgenthau, grandson of Henry
Morgenthau, US ambassador to the Ottoman Empire in 1913-1916.

TURKISH OFFICIAL VISITS NORTH TEXAS
By Barry Shlachter – Star-Telegram Staff Writer

Fort Worth Star Telegram, TX
May 4 2007

Murat Yalcintas, president of Istanbul’s Chamber of Commerce, says
he separates politics from business. DALLAS — Talk about difficult
timing.

Murat Yalcintas, president of Istanbul’s Chamber of Commerce, arrived
in North Texas on a trade trip just after a million angry demonstrators
filled his city’s streets to protest the candidacy of a presidential
hopeful who may or may not have an Islamic agenda.

The 42-year-old Yalcintas (pronounced YAL-chin-tash) visited Dallas
this week to meet with businesspeople who he hopes will either import
Turkish goods, ranging from furniture and marble tile to organic food,
or invest, particularly in the country’s energy sector.

In an interview, he discounted the current political turbulence while
stressing the benefits of dealing with Turkey, including relatively
low labor costs and its strategic position bridging east and west.

Then there’s the "carry trade," whereby wily businessmen borrow money
in Japan at extremely low rates, then deposit the funds in Turkey,
where banks pay far higher rates. It provides needed capital for
Turkish entrepreneurs but hurts their exports by strengthening the
Turkish lira, he said.

Q: Do the political protests — and the army’s veiled threat of
possible intervention — make your mission more challenging?

A: No. That is politics, and I am here for business. This is very, very
normal. In Chicago, there was a big demonstration over immigration,
and business continued.

Q: Why should companies in the region do business with Turkey?

A: American businesses can form joint ventures and go via Turkish
companies to Central Asian, Middle Eastern and European markets.

Small and medium-sized enterprises, both American and Turkish, lack
the resources and the strategy to go beyond borders. My chamber can
form a bridge between them.

Q: Has Turkey’s 2003 refusal to allow U.S. forces to invade Iraq from
its territory hurt bilateral ties?

A: There may be ups and downs, but the alliance has lasted since
[President] Truman, and it will last for many more years.

Q: Politics affected bu- siness when Turkey sus- pended talks with a
French firm over a pipeline in- vestment because France made denial of
the 1915 Ar- menian genocide a crime. What keeps Turkey from examining
what might have happened under the Ottoman Empire?

A: Why should we carry the burden of guilt for something we did not
do? Leave politics to politicians and history to historians. … And
if the Armenians’ claims are accepted, they will not sue Turkey for
indemnities but U.S. [insurance] companies who have done business
in Turkey.

TURKEY

Size: Slightly larger than Texas
Population: 71,158,647 (2007 estimate)
Religion: Muslim 99.8 percent (mostly Sunni)
Life expectancy: 72.9
Literacy: 86.5 percent
Government: Parliamentary democracy
Major exports: Apparel, foodstuffs, textiles, metal manufactures and
transport equipment
Major imports: Machinery, chemicals, semi-finished goods, fuels and
transport equipment
Source: CIA World Factbook

ONE YEAR AFTER THE A-320 CRASH

ArmRadio.am
03.05.2007 10:28

A year ago, on this day the greatest crash happened in the history of
Armenian aviation, taking the lives of 113 people on board. The night
of May 3rd, at about 3:15 Yerevan time A-320 Armavi Plane crashed in
Adler on its way from Yerevan to Sochi.

The disaster took the lives of all the passengers and crew. Different
versions of the crash were suggested – from terrorism to lack of fuel.

The black boxes of the crashed plane found in the bottom of the Black
Sea, were taken to Paris for technical examination.

The decoding took about two months. As a result, it was concluded
that "the plane did not crash in the air, the engines worked up until
the plane smashed into water. The fuel was enough to ensure the safe
landing of the plane.

Experts of the Interstate Aviation Committee noted that the "human
factor" was guilty. The decoding of the flight recorders confirmed
that the technical condition of the plane was proper. The version
of shortage of fuel was also rejected. Specialists say that the main
reason of the A-320 crash was "the loss of orientation in the space"
probably because of weather conditions.

FROM THE BIOGRAPHY OF NEW DEFENSE MINISTER OF ARMENIA MIKHAIL ARUTYUNYAN
Translated by Pavel Pushkin

Source: Krasnaya Zvezda, April 27, 2007, p. 3
Agency WPS
DEFENSE and SECURITY (Russia)
May 2, 2007 Wednesday

By a decree of President Robert Kocharyan, Colonel General Mikhail
Arutyunyan was appointed Defense Minister of Armenia. Before the
appointment, Arutyunyan was chief of the main staff of the Armenian
armed forces and acting Defense Minister. After the appointment of
the Defense Minister, the government of Armenia is considered to be
fully formed.

Arutyunyan was born on February 10 of 1946 in Sagiyan village of the
Shemakha District of the Azerbaijani Soviet Socialist Republic. In
1967, Arutyunyan graduated from the Baku higher military combined-arms
command school. In 1976, he graduated from the intelligence department
of the Military Academy named after Frunze.

In 1988, he graduated from the Military Academy of the General Staff of
the Armed Forces of the USSR. During his service in the Soviet Armed
Forces, he served on posts of platoon commander, company commander,
chief of staff of a mechanized infantry division, head of a department
of the staff of an army corps, deputy chief of staff of an army,
senior lecturer of the intelligence department of the Military Academy
of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the USSR.

In 1992, Arutyunyan was appointed as senior deputy chief of the main
staff of the armed forces of Armenia and director of the operational
department. Between 1992 and 1994, he was senior deputy chief of the
main staff of the armed forces of Armenia.

In 1994, he was appointed chief of the main staff of the armed forces
and Senior Deputy Defense Minister of Armenia.

ARMENIAN FOREIGN MINISTRY INQUIRING INTO DETENTION OF SEVERAL ARMENIAN CITIZENS ON ARMENIAN-GEORGIAN BORDER

Arminfo Agency
2007-05-02 17:46:00

The Foreign Ministry of Armenia is inquiring into the reported
detention of several Armenian citizens on the Armenian-Georgian border.

The acting spokesman of the FM Vladimir Karapetyan says that the
Embassy of Armenia in Georgia is in contact with the Georgian
authorities and will inform the FM as soon as it gets any news.

To remind, the Georgian mass media reports that on May 1 eight
citizens, including six Armenians were detained for trespassing the
state border of Georgia.

Border guards of the regional department "Red Bridge" detained six
persons for the attempt to cross the state border of Georgia bypassing
the control point "Sadakhlo".

During the control it turned out that only two citizens had documents.

Namely, Arkadi Gambaryan had a passport of a citizen of Armenia,
Maariya Totikashvili had the identity card of a citizen of Georgia. The
rest detained citizens of Armenia Asmik Barsegyan, Albert Banaryan,
Sevadan Lalayan and citizen of Georgia Lasha Tumanishvili are charged
with trespassing of the state border of Georgia that envisages
imprisonment from 4 to 5 years.

Criminal proceedings have been instituted against the detainees.

On May 1 Georgian border guards detained two more citizens of Armenia
– Valiko Grigoryan and Alvard Alikyan who came t o Georgia illegally
from the zone of Georgian-Ossetian conflict.

According to the detainees, they came to the territory of Georgia
without passport control via Roki tunnel and Tskhinvali region.

RA FM TOUCHED UPON SIGNIFICANCE OF EUROPEAN AND EURO-ATLANTIC STRUCTURES IN REGIONAL PROCESSES

Arminfo Agency
2007-04-30 10:22:00

The significance of the European and Euro-Atlantic structures in the
development of regional processes was touched upon by RA FM Vardan
Oskanyan in his speech at the Forum "From the Baltic to Black Sea –
New Euro-Atlantic Challenges" held in Brussels. As the Information and
Press Department of RA FM told ArmInfo, Foreign Minister of Georgia
Gela Bezhuashvili and Head of the Permanent Commission on Foreign
Relations of AR Parliament S. Seidov also participated in the Forum.

According to the message, during his speech, V. Oskanyan touched
upon some aspects of Armenia’s cooperation with the European and
Euro-Atlantic structures. He acquainted the Forum participants
with Armenia’s approach aimed at assisting to further integration
of Armenia in these structures, in which the interests of other
forces of the South Caucasian region are taken into account. He also
told about the economic progress, fixed in Armenia. Though over the
years passed after concluding the armistice and cease-fire regime,
Azerbaijan and Turkey expected that Armenia would be ruined under the
burden of poverty and economy crisis, it did not happen and will not
do. V. Oskanyan emphasized with regret that no lessons are learned from
this experience, the consequence of which are the steps, undertaken by
Turkey and Azerbaijan, to block Armenia. The evidence of this is the
recent signing of a deal at the cost of $700 mln for construction of a
new railway passing over Armenia. The new railway will not make Armenia
to yield, it will not do more harm than the blocked border. However,
the political environment will suffer. "We shall continue to advocate
the actuation of the available railway branch. We shall go farther
and will demand for Turkey to unblock the last border line with Europe
and establish normal interrelations with Armenia", V. Oskanyan said.

He also noted the discrepancies between the UN initiatives and the
officially published approaches of the GUAM member-states. Vardan
Oskanyan confirmed Armenia’s position, according to which it is
inadmissible to issue one Resolution on four conflicts which differ
from each other.