Bank employee shot dead
ArmRadio.am
24.03.2007 11:59
The person on duty at Gyumri branch of `Ardshininvestbank’ Arkady
Muradyan died of wounds in his breast from Makarov gun. The accident
took place at about 3 at night. A criminal case was launched at the
Public Prosecutor’s Office of Gyumri
GABRIEL SARGSIAN DEFEATED BY RUSLAN PONOMARYOV IN 5th TOUR OF SAFRA INTERNATIONAL TOURNAMENT
Noyan Tapan
Mar 22 2007
SAFRA, MARCH 22, NOYAN TAPAN. Gabriel Sargsian was defeated by Ruslan
Ponomaryov (Ukraine) in the 5th tour of internatonal chess tournament
being held in the resort city of Safra, Spain. These two chess-players
have gained 3.5 out of 5 possible points each and share 1-2nd places.
OPPOSITION ACTIVIST FIRED BY UN
By Ruben Meloyan
Radio Liberty, Czech Rep.
March 20 2007
An Armenian employee of the United Nations office in Yerevan claimed
on Tuesday to have been fired for his active involvement in a recently
formed opposition movement that launched a campaign of anti-government
demonstrations last month.
Aramazd Ghalamkarian, an information officer at the UN office, was
among a group of young Armenians who set up Aylentrank (Alternative)
movement together with some close associates of former President
Levon Ter-Petrosian late last year. Its stated aim is to not only
campaign for regime change but also present a pro-Western ideological
alternative to Armenia’s current leadership which it considers corrupt
and undemocratic.
Aylentrank has also formed a bloc called Impeachment to contest the
May 12 parliamentary elections. Ghalamkarian’s name is 15th on the
list of its election candidates.
Ghalamkarian told RFE/RL that he effectively lost his job on May 7,
two weeks after the first Aylentrank rally in Yerevan. He said UN
officials informed him that he has been put on leave of absence until
April 30, the expiry date of his current employment contract.
"It was decided that I must go on leave and after that will not have
my contract renewed," he said. "As a justification, they cited my
activities in Aylentrank. They said I breached some UN rules which
I think are somewhat ambiguous and can be interpreted in a different
way."
According to those rules, posted on a special election monitoring
website of the Armenian branch of Transparency International, U.N.
employees "shall conduct themselves at all times in a manner befitting
their status as international civil servants and shall not engage in
any activity that is incompatible with the proper discharge of their
duties." They can join a political party only if "membership does not
entail action, or an obligation to take action, by the staff member
contrary to staff regulation."
Ghalamkarian insisted that his UN superiors had never warned him
of consequences of his involvement with Aylentrank beforehand. "I
asked them to show me the limits of what I am allowed to do so that
I either don’t overstep them and remain a UN employee or consciously
resign from the UN," he said. "But I was not given such a choice."
In Ghalamkarian’s words, such a choice was given to two other local
UN staffers who were initially included on the electoral list of a
newly formed party which, unlike Aylentrank, is not in opposition
to President Robert Kocharian. He said they kept their jobs after
dropping out of the race.
The head of the UN representation in Armenia, Consuelo Vidal, and other
senior officials there could not be reached for comment on Tuesday.
ARMENIAN ECONOMY GROWS 9.4 PERCENT IN JANUARY AND FEBRUARY
ARMENPRESS
Mar 21 2007
YEREVAN, MARCH 21, ARMENPRESS: Armenia’s economic growth between
January and February 2007 stood at 9.4%, while the country’s GDP
totaled 186.8 billion drams ($519.1 million), the national statistics
service said.
For the period under review, consumer prices rose 5.1%,
year-on-year. Armenia’s industrial product prices were down 0.9%,
its volume of industrial output was 99%, while its trade totaled 199
billion drams ($552.6 million), up 51.5% compared to the same period
in 2006.
In line with Armenia’s 2007 budget, GDP growth is expected at 9%,
compared with 13.4% in 2006, and inflation at 4%.
CONGRESS DEBATES ARMENIA GENOCIDE
By Michael Scher
United Press International
March 21 2007
WASHINGTON, DC, United States (UPI) — In 1896 former U.S. Minister to
the Ottoman Empire Oscar Straus convinced President Grover Cleveland
to ignore a controversial resolution passed by both the Senate and
the House of Representatives that would have called for the Ottoman
Sultan to stop his killing of ethnic Armenians.
More than 100 years later the U.S. Congress is at a similar crossroads
on the very same issue. House and Senate Resolutions 106 call for
American foreign policy to recognize the killings of Armenians by
the former Ottoman Empire as ‘genocide.’ The Republic of Turkey is
the official successor state to the Ottoman Empire because of the
Treaty of Lausanne in 1923.
Being the official successor state is part of the reason for the
Turkish government wanting to deny that the Armenian killings were
a genocide, said Brian Kabateck, a senior partner in Kabateck,
Brown & Keller, a law firm that has represented about a half-dozen
Armenian-Americans in cases against U.S. insurance companies and
banks that have denied claims and accounts to relatives of deceased
Armenians who took out insurance and had accounts before they died in
the Armenian Genocide. Kabateck said that the Ottoman state seized
property and businesses and that Turkey would be responsible for
reparations to Armenians and the nation of Armenia if they admitted
that what the Ottoman state did was genocide.
Kabateck`s suits throw into light the fact that there are 1 million
or so Armenians living in the United States. The main sponsor of
Resolution 106 in the House is Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., whose
constituency has a large population of Armenians.
Schiff is sponsoring this legislation because he believes that the
U.S. cannot have the moral authority it`s projecting in the current
Darfur crisis without recognizing a genocide that happened 90 years
ago. He said it is important for the United States to recognize the
killings as genocide despite the fact that Turkey is a friend and
an ally.
‘More often with friends than foes you have to speak candidly,’ Schiff
said. ‘I happen to believe … that the final act of genocide is the
denial of genocide.’
In 2004 a similar resolution, also sponsored by Schiff, was met with
resistance from the Bush administration because it feared it would
damage relations with Turkey, Schiff said. Schiff said that if the
current resolution passes it will affect U.S.-Turkey relations, but he
believes the Bush administration should spend less time appealing to
Congress not to pass the resolution and work on repairing the damage
it did to relations with Turkey because of the Iraq war.
‘They keep saying now is not the time,’ Schiff said. ‘It`s been 90
years. If this is not the time, when is?’
A central tenet of this bill is to recognize that what happened was
genocide, Schiff said. This is something the Bush administration is
protesting fearing a negative impact on relations with Turkey.
However, in every letter the administration sends to Congress it
recognizes what happened was genocide, Schiff said.
Tuluy Tanc, the minister counselor at Turkey`s Embassy in Washington,
said that while this resolution will most likely not result in
restrictions on the U.S. military or hurt cooperation between Turkey
and the United States over security in Iraq, it will hurt the Turkish
people.
‘There will be a reaction and Turkey will be deeply hurt,’ Tanc said.
‘How the government will react I cannot say, but there will be feelings
of unfairness towards a friend and an ally. … This will be like a
little slap in the face.’
Tanc said that the Armenian lobby`s presentation of facts to the
U.S. Congress was one-sided and that Congress was not taking into
account the Turkish side of the story.
For instance, Tanc provided Ottoman Empire census documents that showed
there were only 1.5 million Armenians living in Turkey at the time
of the killings. Historians claim 1.5 million Armenians were killed,
which Tanc said was part of the inaccuracies in the current resolution.
Mehdi Noorbaksh, an associate professor of international affairs at
the Harrisburg University of Science and Technology in Pennsylvania,
said that if this resolution passes it will have a negative impact
on U.S.-Turkey relations.
‘It will be a disaster in a sense for Turkey,’ Noorbaksh said. ‘I
really do not think this administration is ready for a resolution
like this. … This will not help the United States.’
It will be necessary for the current Islamist government in power in
Turkey right now to react strongly to this in order to remain in power,
Noorbaksh said.
Some 20 other nations have passed resolutions similar to Resolution
106 and have gotten similar threats of dissatisfaction from Turkey,
said Aram Hamparian, executive director of the Armenian National
Committee of America. When France passed a similar resolution in 2001
it was met with a stern reaction from the Turkish government, however,
the very next year trade rose by 22 percent between France and Turkey.
The United States has a long history of weaker resolutions of the
genocide dating back to the 1980s that have not hampered relations with
Turkey, Hamparian said. In 1981 President Ronald Reagan recognized the
Armenian Genocide in a speech about the Holocaust. In 1984 Congress
passed a resolution setting April 24 as a day of remembrance of
the Armenian Genocide. In 1996 and 2004 resolutions were passed
that limited the usage of U.S. aid to Turkey that was being used to
fund the Turkish lobby in the United States. Throughout all of these
resolutions, trade with Turkey has steadily increased Hamparian said.
‘U.S. relations with Turkey will certainly endure this (resolution
106),’ Hamparian said.
Eurasia Daily Monitor
March 21, 2007 — Volume 4, Issue 56
IRAN-ARMENIA PIPELINE: CLUES TO GAZPROM’S POLICIES IN EUROPE AND ASIA
by Vladimir Socor
On March 19 Presidents Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran and Robert
Kocharian of Armenia inaugurated the operations of the Iran-Armenia gas
pipeline (Armenpress, IRNA, March 19, 20). The project had received the
Kremlin’s green light. Although its scope is modest in terms of volume and
market potential, its commissioning reflects two incipient trends of
Eurasia-wide and potentially global impact, in some ways as their harbinger:
First, Gazprom’s looming deficit of gas; and, second, Russia-Iran relations
in the context of the much-discussed `cartel for gas.’
It is unprecedented for Russia to yield a part of the gas market in a
former Soviet country to a supplier from outside Gazprom’s sphere of
influence. This policy choice to de-monopolize is almost certainly not a
willing choice. It seems to reflect calculations that Gazprom may soon be
unable to meet all of its supply commitments to internal and external
markets from the almost-stagnant production in Russia.
Thus, it may make sense for Gazprom to plan a partial retrenchment
from some of its markets, if three prerequisites exist: non-lucrative supply
contracts (low-priced gas in a small market), strong Russian influence in
that country irrespective of gas dependency, and an alternative supplier
that cannot impinge on Russian interests in that country or farther afield.
All those prerequisites exist in Armenia. In such a situation, Russia
could share that country’s market with a third country, such as Iran, whose
gas export policies it hopes — with some justification — to be able to
control in the short and medium term.
In a generally little-noted though momentous event (see EDM, March 6),
Gazprom declined to present its overdue prognosis for gas output beyond 2010
during the Russian cabinet of ministers’ March 2 session. Prime Minister
Mikhail Fradkov had to urge in front of television cameras, `The situation
should not be over-dramatized.’ That same day, Russia’s Chamber of Accounts
criticized Gazprom for under-investing in exploration, field development,
and infrastructure maintenance in Russia while over-investing in
acquisitions unrelated to production. This public turn of events seems
indirectly to confirm the forecasts made last year by Vladimir Milov, Alan
Riley, and David Clark that Gazprom faces a gap between its production and
its supply commitments after 2010.
Iran’s entry in Armenia as a gas supplier courtesy of Russia seems
also to be a harbinger of that trend. It also sheds light on Moscow’s view
of possible coordination of gas export policies with those of Iran. The
government in Tehran has not abandoned its hopes to achieve a transit route
for its gas into the South Caucasus and farther into European Union
territory, with Armenia as the first way station on that possible route.
Moscow, however, strongly opposes such a prospect.
Thus, Gazprom took major precautionary measures against an expansion
of Iran’s role and indeed against any independent Iranian gas-export policy
in Armenia or beyond. It imposed from the outset on Yerevan — against
Tehran’s will — to reduce the Iran-Armenia pipeline’s diameter from the
originally designed 1,420 millimeters (the size of major gas export
pipelines) to 700 millimeters. This measure precludes any transit of Iranian
gas to third countries through this pipeline, confining Iran to the Armenian
market.
Moreover, Kocharian agreed with Russian President Vladimir Putin last
year to hand the new pipeline’s section on Armenian territory over to
Gazprom via the ArmRosGaz company, in which Gazprom and its offshoot Itera
hold a combined 68% interest. In return for that and other property
handovers, Russia sells gas to Armenia at the deeply discounted price of
$110 per 1,000 cubic meters until 2009. Controlling the pipeline and
distribution network within the country, Moscow can exercise all but
discretionary control over the access of gas from a third-country
supplier — a situation that Moscow seeks to achieve in certain European
countries as well, albeit without price discounts.
By blocking the access of Iranian gas to Europe, the Kremlin
demonstrates its unwillingness to share European markets with Iran through a
`gas cartel’ or in any other form. However, Moscow is signaling almost as
clearly that it seeks joint-venture deals to develop Iran’s vast, untapped
gas fields and direct their output toward Asian markets, away from Europe,
where Gazprom wants to cement and expand its predominance. This strategy can
only succeed if Russia retains its present monopoly on the transit and
marketing of Central Asian gas, particularly from Turkmenistan.
Most likely, `Iranian’ gas to be supplied to Armenia will originate in
Turkmenistan for the time being. Iran imports small volumes of Turkmen gas
to supply the northern part of the country, which is distant from Iran’s
main fields. The Iran-Armenia pipeline runs for 101 kilometers in Iran from
Tabriz to the Armenian border and for another 40 kilometers in Armenia from
the border town of Meghri to Kajaran. The next planned section, to be built
by 2008-2009, should run for another 100 kilometers toward central Armenia,
there to link up with the existing distribution network, controlled by
Gazprom as well (Mediamax, Noyan Tapan, IRNA, March 19-20; see EDM, November
3, 7, 2006)
Armenia consumes approximately 1.5 billion cubic meters of gas
annually, due to increase through the country’s gasification and
electricity -generation programs. Iran is to supply some 400 million cubic
meters annually in the first stage of the project and up to 2.5 billion
cubic meters in the second stage, beyond 2010. By that time, Armenia’s
consumption will have increased significantly, even as Gazprom’s overall
capacity to meet supply commitments internally and externally is likely to
have declined.
–Vladimir Socor
TIGRAN KARAPETOVICH WILL LEAVE HOLDING
A1+
[08:25 pm] 20 March, 2007
Parties or unities taking part in the forthcoming elections have
equal rights to make use of TV or radio broadcast due to the 20th
article of RA Election Code.
To carry out any election campaign while in post or to abuse any
position during elections are prohibited in accordance with the 22nd
article of RA Election Code.
This comes to prove that Tigran Karapetyan will not be allowed to
have programs on ALM channel.
Mr. Karapetyan has informed that he would leave ALM, i.e. he is not
going to run ALM Holding. Artak Muradyan, his son-in-law is going to
take over him.
Tigran Karapetyan will keep on having programs on ALM channel after
elections, but this time as a deputy. Hå will talk on political issues
to make public the electors’ problems.
‘ I am having my last program on April 7,’ informed Naira Zohrabyan,
the author-reporter in Kentron channel. She is involved in the list
of’ Prosperous Armenia’ party. If elected, she will think over another
program. But in case the creative work is also prohibited due to the
law, she will prefer deputy work.
–Boundary_(ID_jvFWvnzVj8YVoha0nmlwIg)–
TURKS FAVOUR RELIGIOUS, ETHNIC PLURALISM: POLL
Agence France Presse — English
March 19, 2007 Monday 11:43 AM GMT
Most Turks believe the state should help preserve different religious
and ethnic groups in the face of rising nationalism, according to a
poll published Monday.
The poll by the Konda institution published in the Milliyet daily
showed that 66.4 percent believe the state should support efforts
to protect ethnic differences as opposed to 33.6 percent who say it
should not.
A total of 76.4 percent said the state should be involved in efforts
to preserve different religious groups while 23.6 percent said it
should not.
The poll, conducted among 48,000 people countrywide in October, comes
at a time of intense debate over surging nationalism following the
murder of an ethnic Armenian journalist by a suspected ultranationalist
grouping.
Turkey is home to tiny minorities of Jews, Armenians and Greeks,
as well as a sizeable Kurdish community in the southeast, where
separatist rebels have waged a bloody 22-year campaign for self-rule.
Improving the freedoms of its Kurdish and non-Muslim minorities is
one of the key elements in Turkey’s troubled accession talks with
the European Union.
Analysts say nationalist feelings are on the rise in Turkey, and
attribute this mainly to EU pressure for change.
Many Turks fear the government is making too many concessions to
Brussels and that Europeans do not really want a mainly Muslim,
relatively poor country of some 70 million people in their union.
Last year, the EU partly froze Turkey’s membership talks over its
failure to grant trade privileges to Cyprus, an EU member it does
not recognise.
ARMENIA, TURKEY WAIT WHILE US CONSIDERS RECOGNIZING GENOCIDE
By Jason Motlagh
United Press International
March 19 2007
YEREVAN, Armenia (UPI) — Inside the tomb-like confines of the Armenian
genocide museum, a haunting narrative of images and words unfolds. A
list is posted at tour’s end of Western nations that have officially
recognized the tragedy, minus one major endorsement: the United States.
U.S. lawmakers have recently introduced non-binding resolutions that
would declare up to 1.5 million Armenians victims of genocide at the
hands of Turkish forces almost a century ago. Support is reported
to be strong enough in the House to pass the measure if it goes to
a vote; the Senate introduced a similar resolution last Wednesday
with 21co-sponsors.
Historians and analysts here say recognition from Washington is long
overdue since evidence validating the case for genocide is "clear-cut,
more than factual, and very obvious." But Turkey’s priority status
as a vital strategic ally in a troublesome region stands in the way.
"Although Turkey needs the U.S. more, the U.S also needs Turkey right
now . . . so it’s not realistic to think the government will formally
acknowledge [the genocide]," Hagop Avedikian, editor of Azg newspaper,
said. He noted that every April 24, a day of observance, President Bush
"highlights the genocide and explains it without using the word."
In the past month, Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul, Chief of
the General Staff Gen. Yasar Buyukanit and a parliamentary delegation
have met with congressmen and administration officials to derail the
resolution. Gul was quoted as saying the delivery of a U.S. genocide
resolution would inflict "lasting damage" on bilateral relations.
Such statements were not lost on Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice
and Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who last week wrote a joint letter
to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and other senior members
warning against a measure they said would harm national security
interests. Articles on this Issue
Passage of the House resolution "could harm American troops in
the field, constrain our ability to supply our troops in Iraq
and Afghanistan and significantly damage our efforts to promote
reconciliation between Armenia and Turkey," the letter said according
to the Associated Press.
Assistant Secretary of State Daniel Fried has said Turkey might respond
by closing Incirlik Air Base, used for operations in nearby Iraq and
Afghanistan. Rice and Gates pointed out how the Turkish military
severed all ties with the French military and terminated defense
contracts after the French National Assembly voted last October to
criminalize denial of the genocide.
The Israeli Knesset killed a motion to discuss possible recognition
earlier this month, fearing a political crisis with Ankara.
Failure to pass the resolution would be "too bad because it could
be a very catalytic moment for rapid recognition by other states,"
Hayk Demoyan, director of the Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute, said.
U.S. backing could give Armenians leverage to press for compensation
and possible territorial claims, he added.
However, a raft of Western countries have already recognized the
genocide and made denial a punishable offense. An ethnic Turkish
politician, Dogu Perincek, received a $2,500 fine and a suspended
prison sentence from a Swiss court last Friday for calling the genocide
an "international lie" at a political rally two years ago.
The dispute is over whether hundreds of thousands of Armenians who
died between 1915-23 were part of systematic eradication campaign by
Ottoman Turkey. Armenians contend mass killings and forced deportations
amount to genocide, while the Turkish government insists the deaths
were the result of chaos amid the breakdown of the former empire.
Critics say the Turkish state’s reluctance to confront the Armenian
issue is but one facet of a broader identity crisis that is starting
to show ugly symptoms.
"Textbooks [in Turkey] have for decades placed taboos on certain
issues. To confront them would be catastrophic for the national
identity," Demoyan said.
The latest schism followed the Jan. 19 killing of Turkish-Armenian
journalist Hrant Dink in broad daylight on a heavily trafficked
Istanbul street. An unprecedented number of people, estimated at more
than 100,000, turned out in protest, chanting: "We are all Armenians."
The 17-year-old killer claimed to have shot him because "he had
insulted the Turks" and said he felt no remorse. Photographs surfaced
soon after his arrest showing the teenager posing with smiling police
officers beneath a Turkish flag.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan reportedly said the protesters
went "too far."
There are renewed fears in Armenia that the backlash from the
military-dominated state will be felt by Armenians and other ethnic
minorities in the near future. After he saw the demonstrations on TV
after Dink’s murder, Avedikian said he was afraid, along with many
of his Armenian friends in Istanbul and elsewhere, who are "convinced
Turkey will become even more radical."
Avedikian asserted that the softer line that has prevailed in recent
years may change in light of now-suspended EU accession talks.
Appeals to nationalist sentiment may also be a tactic to secure votes
in the run-up to November parliamentary elections.
"I have a lot of faith in Turkish intellectuals, but not in the army
and those connected with it," he said.
Leftist intellectuals have been hounded by Turkish prosecutors over the
past two years for alleged violations of Article 301 of the Turkish
penal code, which holds that "insulting Turkishness" is a criminal
offense. They include Dink and Nobel prize-winning author Orhan Pamuk,
who was put on trial for recognizing the genocide, though his case
was later dropped.
Pamuk emigrated to the United States after continued harassment and
death threats.
ARKA News Agency, Armenia
March 16 2007
ARMENIAN FOREIGN OFFICE READY HELP BUSINESSMEN
YEREVAN, March 15. /ARKA/. Armenia’s Foreign Office is ready to help
Armenian businessmen in resolving problems with getting entry visas,
Tigran Seyranyan, Head of the Consular Department, RA Foreign Office,
stated at a meeting with between members of the Union of
Manufacturers and Businessmen of Armenia (UMBA) and representatives
of foreign diplomatic missions to Armenia.
"The Foreign Office is ready to receive businessmen’s complaints and
resend them to the corresponding Embassies and Consular Services,"
Seyranyan said. He pointed out a number of reasons for the problems
with visas.
"The first reason is illegal migration, which acquired a large scale
especially in the 1990s," he said. Seyramyan pointed out that this
made a number of countries to take necessary preventive measures,
which improved the situation. However, some countries are still
facing this problem. "In particular, 300-400 Armenian citizens
applied for asylum in France every quarter," Seyranyan said.
According to him, the situation has improved in Germany, Switzerland
and Scandinavian countries. "For example, only one person has applied
for citizenship in Switzerland in 2007," he said.
According to Seyranyan, the question of issuing visas in a simplified
regime to businessmen and art workers was discussed at negotiations
with the European Union as part of the New Neighborhood policy. "The
Armenian sides put forward a proposal for the issue of long-term
visas to businessmen and representatives of some other groups that
are not prospective illegal migrants. However, Brussels did not
welcome the idea. In the document this issue was linked with further
readmission agreements," Seyranyan said. He added that many countries
practice this.
Seyranyan also said that the applicants sometimes have problems
because they fail to submit all the necessary documents and provide
inaccurate information.
In his turn, RA Deputy Foreign Minister Arman Kirakosyan expressed
hope that the meeting will contribute to the development of bilateral
relations. "We have positive trade and economic relations with the
countries whose representatives are present at the meeting, but we
should not be contented with the current level," Kirakosyan said. He
pointed out that the RA Foreign Office will assist in organizing
meetings like this.
Among UMBA members are the managers of about 500 Armenian companies,
which ensure about 75% of budget revenues in Armenia. UMBA Chairman
Arsen Ghazaryan said that UMBA sees a potential for expanding its
foreign economic relations with a number of countries, particularly
with Greece and Egypt. P.T. -0–