Author: Jagharian Tania

THE PRIME MINISTER LEARNED THE PLACE OF THE MUNICIPALITY
A1plus
| 15:38:06 | 18-05-2005 | Official |
RA Prime Minister Andranik Margaryan visited today the Yerevan
municipality and got acquainted with the course of the works on
the building. The Prime Minister also walked about the halls of the
Yerevan History museum, and watched the exhibits representing the
art and demographic history of the capital.
Mayor Yervand Zakharyan representing what was done and what will
be done, thanked the Prime Minister for the support. Andranik
Margaryan claimed that there will be further support from the
Government. Particularly, he found the support to the Yerevan History
Museum extremely important.

62583 PEOPLE RECEIVE SOCIAL SECURITY CARDS IN NKR AS OF MAY 1, 2005
STEPANAKERT, May 18. /ARKA/. 62583 people have received social
security cards in NKR as of May 1, 2005. As Lenston Gulyan, the NKR
Social Security Minister told ARKA News Agency, 2500 applications
for security cards were received in April and are currently being
processed. “NKR Social Security Ministry has developed and approved
the types of applications for social security cards and the order
of their completion, as well as the types of social security cards
registries, etc”, he said. According to him, the numbers of social
security cards will be introduced in information bases starting from
January 2006 followed by their application. L.V.-0–

MEETING OF AZERBAIJANI PRESIDENT ILHAM ALIYEV WITH PRESIDENT OF CZECH REPUBLIC VACLAV KLAUS
Azer Tag
[May 17, 2005, 14:55:51]
On May 17, President of the Azerbaijan Republic Ilham Aliyev met
with his Czech counterpart Vaclav Klaus. Both leaders have expressed
satisfaction with the cooperation between the two countries in
political, economic and other spheres noting the expected opening of
the Azerbaijan Embassy in Prague would promote further development of
the bilateral relations bringing them to a qualitatively new level.
In particular, the Presidents stressed the importance of enhancing
Czechia-Azerbaijan cooperation in the sphere of tourism.
President Ilham Aliyev also spoke of the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict
over Nagorno-Karabakh noting despite its hard consequences for his
country, it supports peaceful and international law-based settlement
of the problem.
Czech President Vaclav Klaus has expressed his support for the fair
stance of Azerbaijan as for the issue.
The two Presidents have also exchanged views on a number of other
issues of mutual interest.

ARMENIAN CB BOARD INVALIDATES LICENSES ISSUED TO 17 EXCHANGE OFFICES
YEREVAN, May 18. /ARKA/. For violation of Armenia’s foreign-exchange
legislations, the Board of the RA Central Bank (CBA) has invalidated
the licenses issued to 17 exchange offices, the CBA press service
reports.
Last December, the CBA started large-scale inspections at exchange
offices, being concerned over the intensification of their activities
in connection with exchange rate fluctuations. As a result, licenses
issued to 22 exchange offices in Yerevan were revoked. P.T. -0–

MPs Cautious over Proposal to Sell Farm Land Near Border
Civil Georgia, Tbilisi
2005-05-17 17:44:35
The Parliament discussed a draft law on May 17 on the privatization
of state-owned agricultural land whose approval will most likely that
be postponed by the lawmakers until delimitation of the borders with
neighboring Armenia, Azerbaijan and Russia is established.
State Minister for Economic Reforms Kakha Bendukidze presented a draft
law on the privatization of farm lands, at the parliamentary session
on May 17, which envisages the lifting of the ban on privatizing those
lands which are located within a 5-km area from the state border. The
current law on privatization bans the sell of these lands to private
owners.
Some lawmakers, including Parliamentary Chairperson Nino Burjanadze
supported the postponement of discussion of this issue.
“The fact that Georgia has not completed the border delimitation
process with all its neighboring countries [Russia, Azerbaijan,
Armenia], except Turkey, raises questions [in respect to the
privatizing of these border lands],” Nino Burjanadze said.

FRENCH ARMENIANS SUPPORTING ARMENIAN-TURKISH RECONCILIATION ORGANIZE
IN PARIS FAIR OF BOOKS BY TURKISH, ARMENIAN AND GREEK WRITERS OF
TURKEY
PARIS, MAY 13, NOYAN TAPAN. The Turkish newspaper “Miliet” reports
that these days when some developments have taken place in the
Armenian-Turkish relations, France’s Armenian circles in support of
reconciliation with Turkey decided to organize a fair in Paris to
feature works by Turkish, Armenian and Greek writers of Turkey and
present Turkey’s cultural riches. According to the newspaper “Marmara”
(Istanbul), Paris correspondent of “Miliet” pointed out that the
French government supported this program. The fair opening is
scheduled for January, 2006, at the international cultural center
“Jean Monet”. The book fair is entitled “Books and Writers from Turkey
and about Turkey”. Among the writers invited to the book fair, the
correspondent mentioned the following names: Yashar Kemal, Orhan
Pamuk, Vetat Turkali, Ylmaz Garagoyunly, Mario Levi, Izel Rosental,
Ara Gyuler, Stepanos Erasimos, Mkrtich Markosian, Sevan Nshanian,
Rober Hattechian, Bars Tughlach, Mehmed Uzun. At the same time,
“Miliets” editor Rober Hattechian said he has not recived any official
invitation.

Nagornyy Karabakh Republic [NKR] starts registration of candidates for
parliament polls
Arminfo, Yerevan
10 May 05
STEPANAKERT
Registration of candidates for deputy of the National Assembly of the
Nagornyy Karabakh Republic [NKR] started today.
Unlike the previous ones, the forthcoming elections [due in June] will
be conducted both under the first-past-the-post and proportional
representation systems (a third of the 33-seat Karabakh parliament
will be elected from party lists), our correspondent reports.
A total of 127 candidates have been nominated for the 22 seats under
the first-past-the-post system, i.e. an average of six candidates for
one seat, the NKR Central Electoral Commission [CEC] reported. Out of
the 127 candidates, 57 were nominated by parties, and 70 on civil
initiative.
[Passage omitted: minor details]
The Armenian Revolutionary Federation – Dashnaktsutyun [ARFD] and
Movement-88 are running in the elections in one bloc. Only the
Armenakan Party will not run in the elections under the proportional
representation system, it has put forward a candidate under the
first-past-the-post system.
The election campaign will start on 17 May, and the elections will be
conducted on 19 June.

A1plus
| 16:18:43 | 10-05-2005 | Politics |
CHURCH CONVERTED INTO CAFÉ, THEN INTO HOTEL
Lately the Armenian church of St. Makar situated in Northern Cyprus has been
used as a café.
Yeniduzen Turkish newspaper writes that some Dervish Sonmezler, who is the
«owner» of the cafe is going to convert it into a hotel.
The Church was founded by Copts in the 4th century. Then it passed to
Armenians and during centuries was one of the holy places for Armenians.
Being under the jurisdiction of the Antilias patriarchate, the Church
preserved ties with Holy Echmiadzin and was the beloved place of the
Armenian community before the Turks occupied Northern Cyprus.
Recently the Church has been plundered. The manuscripts and icons were sold.

Turkey firm on facing Armenian allegations
Thursday, May 5, 2005
DIPLOMACY
Ankara is not distancing itself from the idea of having officials on
a joint research committee between Turkey and Armenia
TDN Parliament Bureau
Ankara, seeking an initiative concerning Armenian genocide allegations
via a joint research committee between Ankara and Yerevan to study
tragic events that took place in Anatolia during World War I, is now
poised for a fresh attempt regarding the international dimension of
the issue.
Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul yesterday informed members of the
parliamentary committees for foreign affairs, national defense,
European Union harmonization and human rights of Turkey’s foreign
policy agenda. He emphasized that the Armenian allegations were one
of Turkey’s most important matters.
“We will start an important initiative all together with government,
opposition, parliamentary and nongovernmental organizations. There
is an international community that has accepted the so-called
Armenian genocide,” Gul told members of the committees, according to
parliamentary sources speaking to the Turkish Daily News.
Turkey categorically denies the Armenian charges alleging that 1.5
million Anatolian Armenians were killed during a genocide campaign
between 1915 and 1918, while the Armenian diaspora has unleashed
a campaign on the international community to pressure Turkey into
accepting their allegations as fact.
Turkish proposals for expert and authoritative research of the relevant
history applauded by the international community are unacceptable
to Armenians, who claim that the “genocide” is a historical fact
and see debate over the issue as anathema. Recent applause for
Ankara’s initiative came from U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of
State for European and Eurasian Affairs Laura Kennedy, who called it
“encouraging” to see a recent exchange of letters between the leaders
of both countries on how to address the killings of Armenians during
World War I.
However, Armenian President Robert Kocharian, in his reply to
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s proposal for a joint research
committee, suggested an inter-governmental commission that would be
tasked with investigating ways to normalize relations between Turkey
and Armenia.
While studies regarding the proposal of a joint committee continue
at the Turkish Foreign Ministry, diplomatic sources told the Anatolia
news agency that Ankara has not been distancing itself from the idea
of having officials in a joint commission. Such a committee would
not necessarily be formed solely by historians, Turkish officials or
Armenian officials, but historians from third countries may take part
in the committee.

International law should decide on the controversial Armenian problem
By Senem Caglayan
The New Anatolian, Turkey
May 7 2005
In recent weeks the controversial Armenian problem has cast a long
shadow over Ankara’s foreign and domestic debates, especially those
between Turkey and Armenia.
The main goal of the Armenians’ lobbying efforts is to gain political
recognition of their claims. Although they know that political
recognition of the so-called genocide claims by various states
worldwide carries no legal effect, they consider this recognition
prestigious since they attribute a symbolic meaning to the issue.
But “genocide” is an international law term, and its chargeable
offenses are presented in the 1948 United Nations International
Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.
The convention defines “genocide” as an act of partial or total
annihilation of a national, ethnic, or religious group. The convention
also says that rather than states, the persons that committed this
crime could be accused and punished. The convention can only be applied
to cases which occurred after it was put into force. Therefore,
since it was put into force in 1948, past events do not fall under
its purview and since it can only be applied to persons, not states,
it is clear that it has no force for events in the closing days of
World War I.
Therefore, in order to succeed in heading off recognition of the
Armenian claims, Ankara should carry the issue to a legal basis
instead of entering into a political debate with other states or
applying Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s suggestion of
establishing a “joint commission” of Armenian and Turkish historians
to investigate the controversial issue. There are a number of reasons
for this.
Firstly, political discussions can do nothing better than eroding
bilateral relations and escalating the tensions between Turkey and
Armenia. Secondly, even if historians of the two states were to meet,
they could neither reach a sound conclusion nor could they find
any evidence that settles the “genocide” issue one way or another,
since these historians will interpret the documents and archives
differently. We should keep in mind that perception of history varies
according to the interpretation of events by the historians.