Author: Jilavian Emma

ARMENIA, ARTSAKH ANTI-MONOPOLY COMMITTEES SIGN COOPERATION MEMORANDUM

Panorama.am
19:31 10/10/2007

Today the Armenian economic competition committee and its Karabakhi
equivalent signed a memorandum of cooperation. This was informed by the
Armenian committee’s press secretary, Armine Utumyan. The committee’s
president, Ashot Shahnazaryan, and his counterpart from Karabakh, Vache
Adamyan, foresee by the signing of the memorandum cooperation between
the Armenian and Karabakhi committees in the sharing of information,
the realization of working processes, and working together towards
international cooperation.

They also foresee membership in international structures, and plan
to work together in solving various problems and issues, along with
conducting seminars on thematic issues.

TANCREDO CHANGES ARMENIAN STANCE
By Anne C. Mulkern

Denver Post, CO
Oct 11 2007

Washington – Rep. Tom Tancredo changed his position Wednesday on
whether the post-World War I massacre of Armenians should be called
genocide.

Tancredo, a Littleton Republican who is running for president, voted
to oppose passing a resolution out of the Foreign Relations Committee
and sending it to the House floor.

He supported the same resolution when a vote was held in committee
in 2005. Republican leadership never allowed a full House vote.

"This has got to be an issue that these two friends of ours, Turkey
and Armenia, take care of," Tancredo said.

Turkey denies the killings were genocide. The slaughter of as many
as 1.5 million Armenians occurred in what is modern-day Turkey.

Tancredo spokesman T.Q. Houlton said the position change came after
Tancredo earlier this year opposed a measure urging Japan to apologize
for its wartime enslavement of woman as sex workers.

Tancredo now opposes the Armenian genocide resolution "for
consistency," Houlton said.

"We can’t continue to go back to the dust bin of history to condemn
actions by empires that no longer even exist," Tancredo said.

Tancredo said the vote switch was not because of his presidential
run. Tancredo wasn’t influenced by President Bush asking Republicans
to oppose the measure, Houlton said.

FOR FIRST SIX MONTHS OF CURRENT YEAR NKR GDP INDEX EXCEEDS LAST YEAR’S ANALOGOUS INDEX

DeFacto Agency
Oct 10 2007
Armenia

For the first six months of the current year Nagorno-Karabakh Republic
GDP made 28,7 milliard drams, which exceeds the index of the same
period last year over 21%, NKR Minister of Finance and Economy
Spartac Tevossian stated today at the National Assembly sitting,
DE FACTO own correspondent in Stepanakert reports.

MPs also considered the statements of deputies Ara Harutyunian and
Sergey Ohanian concerning tendering deputy resignation in connection
with their appointment as NKR PM and head of Martakert regional
administration correspondingly.

NKR Parliament Speaker Ashot Gulian said in line with the NKR
Constitution and National Assembly Regulations the statements could
be complied, unless they were revoked within 15 days. Then additional
elections are to be held to substitute vacant seats at the Parliament.

The Parliament may also satisfy the statement of a deputy Rudolf
Martirosian on tendering resignation of the Chair of National Assembly
Standing Committee on Defense and Security in connection with a new
post at the NKR President’s administration, unless he reconsiders
his decision within three days.

Ashot Gulian said according to the law NKR government was to submit
its activity’s program for the Parliament’s consideration until
October 15. The program will be discussed October 16 or 17.

TWO MOSCOW REGION RESIDENTS CHARGED WITH HATE CRIME

Union of Councils for Jews in the Former Soviet Union, DC
Oct 10 2007

Two residents of the Mosow region are facing hate crimes charges
after police detained them in connection with an attack on an ethnic
Armenian, according to an October 9, 2007 report by the national
daily Gazeta. The victim of the attack, identified as a 29-year-old
resident of Likino-Dulevo, was beaten by two men who attacked him with
baseball bats while allegedly shouting racist insults. The suspects
are not in pre-trial detention, despite the severity of the crime,
but have signed written pledges not to leave town until their trial.

SWISS PARLAIMENT SPEAKER TO VISIT ARMENIA NOVEMBER 6-8

ArmRadio – Public Radio
Oct 10 2007
Armenia

October 9 Armenian Ambassador to Switzerland had a meeting with
Mrs. Christine Egerszegi-Obrist, the President of the National
Council of Switzerland, to discuss the current level of Armenian-Swiss
relations and issues connected with further interparliamentary contacts
with Armenia.

The terms of the forthcoming visit of the Swiss Parliament Speaker
to Armenia were reconfirmed. Mrs. Christine Egerszegi-Obrist will
visit Armenia November 6-8 at the invitation of RA National Assembly
Speaker Tigran Torosyan.

This will be the first visit to Armenia on the level of the
Swiss Parliament Speaker. It will become an important impetus for
reinforcement of bilateral relations, particularly parliamentary ties.

NGO’S LAUNCH SERIES OF NEWS CONFERENCES

Lragir
Oct 10 2007
Armenia

A group of Armenian NGOs advocating human rights launched a series
of news conferences on October 10 which they will hold once every two
weeks. The first in the series was held by the chair of the Regional
Development Center Amalia Kostanyan, the chair of the Helsinki
Committee Avetik Ishkhanyan and the chair of the Vanadzor office of
the Committee Arthur Sakunts.

The purpose of the news conferences is to raise the problems that exist
in the country, from army to education. In the first news conference
the speakers mentioned a number of cases of violation of human rights
which are reported by the media and are made known to the public but
do not seem to move the officials.

Avetik Ishkhanyan and Arthur Sakunts raised the issue of violation
of the rights of inmates at penitentiaries. Avetik Ishkhanyan thinks
the commissions set up at the penitentiaries should be dissolved for
they are not effective and do not protect the rights of inmates.

Arthur Sakunts told how law enforcers used violence against several
dozens of citizens of Vanadzor to get desirable evidence on the
assassination of the prosecutor of the region of Lori.

October 9, 2007

Turkey Warns United States Over Armenian Vote

By REUTERS

Filed at 6:30 p.m. ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Turkish lawmakers visited Capitol Hill on
Tuesday and their president has written to President George W. Bush,
warning of damage to bilateral ties if Congress backs a bill
recognizing the 1915 massacres of Armenians as genocide.

The House of Representatives’ Foreign Affairs Committee is to consider
the bill on genocide Wednesday. If it passes the committee, House
Speaker Nancy Pelosi could then decide to bring it to the House floor
for a vote. She has been a long-time supporter of the resolution.

The Republican president is opposed to the bill, but Congress is
dominated by Democrats, many of whom back the measure. It has 226
co-sponsors, over half the House of Representatives.

In Ankara, President Abdullah Gul’s office said in a statement: "In
his letter, our president thanked President Bush for his efforts (to
stop the bill) and drew attention to the problems it would create in
bilateral relations if it is accepted."

A senior lawmaker of Turkey’s ruling AK Party, Egemen Bagis, led a
delegation to Capitol Hill to warn that passage of the resolution
would put military cooperation with Turkey at risk and endanger U.S.
troops in Iraq.

The bulk of supplies for troops in Iraq pass via Turkey’s Incirlik
airbase. In an interview with Reuters, Bagis noted that thousands of
Turkish truck drivers, construction workers, engineers and contractors
have been risking their lives to help the U.S. effort in Iraq.

"This resolution will put your (U.S.) troops in harm’s way," he said.
"We will not be able to extend the current cooperation we are
providing to you."

"If our allies are insulting us with crimes we have not committed, we
will start questioning the merits of that endeavor," Bagis said,
speaking in English.

NATO ALLY

In addition to military cooperation, defense contracts and energy
cooperation would also be put at risk, he said.

Turkey, a NATO ally of Washington, strongly rejects the Armenian
position, backed by many Western historians and a growing number of
foreign parliaments, that up to 1.5 million Armenians suffered
genocide at the hands of Ottoman Turks during World War One.

Ankara says many Muslim Turks as well as Christian Armenians died in
inter-ethnic conflict as the Ottoman Empire collapsed.

The bill comes at a delicate time for Turkey-U.S. relations. Turkish
Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan, who telephoned Bush last week about the
Armenian resolution, was considering Tuesday whether to allow a
cross-border incursion into northern Iraq to strike Kurdish rebels
there after 15 Turkish soldiers were killed in attacks in recent days.

Washington has urged Turkey not to send troops into mainly Kurdish
northern Iraq for fear of destabilizing the country’s most peaceful
region.

Would Turkey listen to Washington’s urgings?

"Tomorrow’s vote (on the Armenian resolution) definitely will have an
effect on that," Bagis said.

Bagis said Washington should pressure the leaders of the Kurdish
region of Iraq to hand over Kurdish rebels who he said had taken
refuge there.

Source: a-armenians.html

Harman wobbles on genocide

After co-sponsoring the Armenian genocide resolution, the Westside
congresswoman now opposes it.

October 10, 2007

Rep. Jane Harman (D-Venice) is absolutely right: U.S. foreign policy
should reflect "appropriate understanding and sensitivity concerning
issues related to human rights, ethnic cleansing and genocide."
Further, the president should indeed "accurately characterize the
systematic and deliberate annihilation of 1,500,000 Armenians as
genocide." That’s why Harman is one of more than 220 members of the
House to co-sponsor a worthwhile, nonbinding resolution containing
precisely that language.

Harman is right about something else as well: Turkey is an invaluable
NATO ally and strategic partner in the always combustible Middle East.
It is arguably the most important friend both the U.S. and Israel have
in the Muslim world, and the most reliable country on Iraq’s border.
Ankara’s ongoing modernization and painstaking integration with Europe
provide a crucial example to the largely misgoverned Muslim world:
that a secular state can be the path to prosperity, not hell.

These two sets of facts, being factual, are not in conflict. Nor
should they have anything to do with one another. Yet the government
of modern Turkey has invested enormous diplomatic capital and cash in
denying the genocide committed by its forebears and warning weak-kneed
U.S. politicians — from President Bush on down — that a symbolic
vote to call the events of nine decades ago by their proper name will
create, in the words of Turkish President Abdullah Gul this week,
"serious troubles" for U.S. diplomacy.

The latest American to go wobbly is none other than the usually
steely-eyed congresswoman from L.A.’s Westside. Last week, Harman sent
a letter to Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Tom Lantos
(D-Burlingame) urging him to withdraw from consideration the very bill
that contains her signature. "Following a visit to Turkey earlier this
year," she wrote, "I have great concern that this is the wrong time
for the Congress to consider this measure. . . . We should avoid
taking steps that would embarrass or isolate the Turkish leadership."
The bill is scheduled for a committee vote today; should it pass and
reach the House floor, Harman intends to vote no.

Harman herself is not shy about using the word genocide, and defends
her flip-flop on grounds of exercising foreign policy "realism" while
hoping for eventual reconciliation between Turkey and the descendants
of those who were slaughtered. But "realism" is not respected by
denying reality, and friendship is best expressed through honesty, not
the indulgence of irrational threats.

Legislators like to congratulate themselves when they call evil by its
proper name. But the real mark of courage is speaking truth when it’s
inconvenient. The Foreign Relations Committee should pass the
recognition resolution, and Washington should rediscover the basic
fortitude to say officially what history knows to be true.

Source: la-ed-genocide10oct10,1,4246376.story?ctrack=2&amp ;cset=true

RPA FACTION MEMBER: CALLS FOR FIGHT OF IDEOLOGIES AT FORTHCOMING PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION IN ARMENIA ARE SOPHISTICATED

ArmInfo News Agency, Armenia
Oct 9 2007

ArmInfo. Member of the Republican party of Armenia parliamentary
faction Armen Ashotyan called the talks about necessity of conducting
of an ideological fight at the forthcoming 2008 presidential election
in Armenia sophisticated.

During today’s press-conference in "Tesaket" club, A. Ashotyan said
that 1990 parliamentary election and 1991 presidential election in
Armenia were ideological, in his opinion. Today, even if the Marxist
party leader David Hakopyan comes to the power as a result of the
presidential election, return to the past is impossible, therefore,
the fight at the election will be probably conducted among the
programmes of different political forces.

A. Ashotyan thinks that the main struggle at the election will be
developed among the three political forces: carrier of the conservative
ideology of the Republican party, the Armenian National Movement
party, which expresses an extremely liberal ideology, and the ARF
"Dashnaktsutyun", the brightest representative of the socialistic
direction. "I urge my counterparts to conduct a civilized competition
at the election, the "black PR" technologies color neither the power
nor the oppositional parties", the RPA faction member said.

PRESIDENT GUL SENDS BUSH A WARNING LETTER

Azeri press Agency
Oct 10 2007

President Abdullah Gul has sent US President George W. Bush a letter
on the eve of discussions of the so-called Armenian genocide bill in
the House Foreign Affairs Committee , APA’ s Turkish bureau reports.

Abdullah Gul expressed his gratitude to Bush for his efforts to block
the passage of the bill. Mentioning Yerevan’s rejection to Ankara’s
proposal on establishing joint commission of historians, Abdullah
Gul warned Washington.

The President also touched on the "serious problems" which would
emerge if the bill were to be approved and said it would harm
U.S.-Turkey ties.

The so-called Armenian genocide bill will be brought to a vote in
the House Foreign Affairs Committee today.