Author: Kafian Jirair

NKR PRESIDENT SIGNED DECREES ON REWARDING IN CONNECTION WITH DEFENDER’S DAY

DeFacto Agency, Armenia
Feb 20 2007

Today the Nagorno-Karabagh Republic President Arkady Ghoukassian
signed decrees on awarding orders and medals in connection with the
Day of Fatherland Defender.

According to the information DE FACTO got at the NKR President’s Press
Service, two people had been awarded the Order "Fighting Cross" of
the second degree. 196 people were awarded the Medal "For Courage",
35 of which posthumously. 238 people were awarded the Medal "For
Fighting Services".

Reuters, UK
Feb 16 2007

Berlin film festival fails to reel in the critics
By Mike Collett-White

BERLIN (Reuters) – You know it has not been a vintage Berlin film
festival when the leading contender for top prizes falls somewhere
between "average" and "good" in the critics’ ratings

As the 10-day film odyssey draws to a close with the awards on
Saturday, and with four competition entries still to be screened,
crews and critics from around the world are packing their bags and
scratching their heads to pick the highlights.

"The 57th Berlinale…might best be thought of as an average
festival," wrote A.O. Scott in the New York Times.

He goes on to say that Berlin, once a bastion of serious cinema, has
become "something bigger, more varied and perhaps less distinctive".
The festival has grown rapidly in recent years and attracts Hollywood
glamour as well as art-house films.

Critics argue that some of the best films in Berlin this year were
outside the main lineup, and wondered whether festival director
Dieter Kosslick had shied away from incendiary topics that robbed the
competition of its "Michael Moore moment".

Cannes had it in 2004 with Moore’s controversial documentary
"Fahrenheit 9/11", which went on to win the competition, while Berlin
had it last year with Michael Winterbottom’s "The Road to
Guantanamo", about the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan.

This year the same buzz may have been created by "The Lark Farm", a
drama depicting the tragedy of a family almost wiped out in the mass
killings of Armenians by Ottoman Turks in 1915.

Turkey denies allegations by Armenia and others that 1.5 million
Armenians died in systematic genocide at Turkish hands.

"The film comes at precisely the right time — after the murder of
the Armenian journalist Hrant Dink and threats against the Turkish
Nobel prize winner Orhan Pamuk," wrote Peter Zander of the German
newspaper Die Welt.

"It would have been a highlight of the Berlinale, perhaps the most
important film of the year. But it’s not in the main section. Perhaps
they wanted to avoid the big controversy. How unfortunate."

WOMEN SHINE

Among the competition films, if audience reaction at packed press
screenings was anything to go by, "Irina Palm", starring British
singer and actress Marianne Faithfull, would be the firm favourite to
win the Golden Bear for best film.

She plays a grandmother who becomes a sex worker in London’s seedy
Soho district to raise money for her grandson’s medical treatment,
and the film mixes humour with a touching tale of selfless love.

Faithfull’s was one of several standout performances by women in
Berlin this year that also included Germany’s Nina Hoss in "Yella"
and China’s Yu Nan in "Tuya’s Marriage".

French actress Marion Cotillard shone as Edith Piaf in "La Vie En
Rose", a biopic of the tragic chanteuse which provided an unusually
popular opening to the competition.

"The Counterfeiters", based on a real Nazi plot to disrupt Britain’s
wartime economy by flooding it with counterfeit banknotes made by
Jewish craftsmen in a concentration camp, gives Berlin a chance of a
home victory.

Critics liked Brazilian director Cao Hamburger’s "The Year My Parents
Went on Vacation", about the country’s military dictatorship seen
through the eyes of a boy.

Also popular was Robert De Niro’s CIA drama "The Good Shepherd", one
of several Hollywood productions already released in the United
States that used Berlin as a European launch pad.

Reviews praised French director Andre Techine’s "Witnesses", about
the start of the AIDS epidemic, and liked "Don’t Touch the Axe",
Jacques Rivette’s version of a Balzac novella.

Sharon Stone and Jennifer Lopez appeared in critical duds.

Stone starred in Ryan Eslinger’s existential tale "When a Man Falls
in the Forest", and Lopez was in Berlin with "Bodertown", a drama
based on the real-life murder of young Mexican women in a town near
the U.S. border.

(Additional reporting by Erik Kirschbaum)

Financial Mirror, Cyprus
Feb 16 2007

Cyprus to issue new preservation order on Armenian school

16/02/2007

The Cyprus government’s Town Planning Department is expected to issue
a new preservation order declaring a large part of the Melkonian
school’s estate in Nicosia as a national heritage site once again.

This has revived hopes within the Armenian community of Cyprus that
the high school and its boarding house could some day reopen to its
former glory, after these hopes were dashed when the previous order
was overturned by a Supreme Court decision in December.

News reports said that a revised preservation order will be put to
Interior Minister Neoclis Sylikiotis for approval within the next two
weeks in order to protect the two main historic buildings and the
forest planted by Genocide orphans along Limassol Avenue.

This move will effectively put an end to efforts by the
administrators of the estate, the AGBU, to develop the land
commercially, something that could only have been achieved after the
previous preservation order was overturned.

According to press reports, the new preservation order has overcome
some legal obstacles that previously allowed the court to overturn
the decision.

`We cannot allow a national treasure to be sold as easily as the
school was closed,’ said Vartkes Mahdessian, the Armenian
Representative in parliament who spearheaded a community campaign
last month to save the school from development.

`The community wants to see the school reopen some day and we are all
united in our effort,’ he said, adding that `it is unheard of in this
day and age of growing demand for quality schools, that such an
establishment was not regarded as economically viable.’

Mahdessian, the community’s Archbishop and community and political
groups representing the majority of Armenians in Cyprus, wrote to the
president of the Supreme Court, the Attorney General, the Minister of
Interior and political party leaders calling for the state to
intervene and save the school property from being sold and destroyed.
They also demanded explanations as to why the defense for the
previous preservation order failed in court.

Members of the community feared rumours of potential bidders showing
interested to buy the 125,000 sq.m. property at a fraction of the
current market value of CYP 75 mln (US$ 158 mln).

`At a time when the Melkonian would have provided shelter and
education opportunities to large numbers of Armenian students fleeing
the troubles in neighbouring Lebanon and Iraq as it has done in the
past, the school is now closed and the administrators can’t care less
about preserving Armenian education and culture, nor about the fate
of the Armenian diaspora,’ said Alumni spokesman Masis Der Partogh.

`We want the new preservation order to be issued as soon as possible
as we are aware of plans for sporting and other commercial projects
on the school’s grounds,’ he said.

`Such plans will only benefit the pockets of a greedy few,’ he added.

The community also fears that the AGBU will try to give small pockets
of the land to the government in order to secure state support for
commercial development of the rest of the property.

`If the Cyprus government or public institutions accept such offers
they would be regarded as accomplices to this national crime,’ Der
Partogh said.

PanARMENIAN.Net

Bordyuzha: Armenian army most efficient in post-soviet space
16.02.2007 17:50 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ The Armenian Army is the most
efficient one in the post-soviet space, said Secretary
Nikolay Bordyuzha, the Secretary General of the
Collective security Treaty Organization (CSTO). `I was
present at many exercises and saw the Armenian units,
which are not numerous but well trained and rallied by
a high moral spirit,’ said he. `Armenia’s
representatives in the CSTO are active and advance
plenty of various offers and initiatives,’ Bordyuzha
said, report Russian media.

PanARMENIAN.Net

German court sentences Ernst Zundel to 5 years in prison for Holocaust denial
15.02.2007 18:45 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Far-right activist Ernst Zundel was convicted of 14
counts of incitement Thursday for Holocaust denial and sentenced to
the maximum five years in prison. Zundel, 67, who was deported from
Canada in 2005, was accused of years of anti-Semitic activities,
including denying the Holocaust – a crime in Germany – in documents
and on the Internet.

Zundel and his supporters have argued that he is a peaceful campaigner
who has been denied his right to free speech. Zundel has been a
prominent white supremacist and Holocaust denier since the 1970s.
Among other ventures, he ran Samisdat Publishers, a leading
distributor of Nazi propaganda based in Canada. He also provided
content to The Zundelsite website, which has followers around the
world, hundreds of whom have protested his detention.

Zundel was born in Germany in 1939. He immigrated to Canada in 1958
and lived in Toronto and Montreal until 2001. Canadian officials
rejected his attempts to obtain citizenship in 1966 and 1994. Upon
arrival in Toronto, Zundel was arrested and held in detention until a
judge ruled in March 2005 that his activities posed a threat to
national and international security, and he was deported to Germany.

Zundel has been standing trial in Germany since November of last year
in what were, at times, raucous proceedings. In the current trial,
defence lawyer Ludwig Bock quoted from Adolf Hitler’s "Mein Kampf" and
from Nazi race laws in his closing statements last week as argued for
Zundel’s acquittal, reports canada.com.

PanARMENIAN.Net

Turkish General called on Turks in U.S. to counteract
Armenian Genocide resolution
15.02.2007 18:24 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ `I have a complaint about Turks in
U.S.,’ said in Washington General Yasar Buyukanit of
the Turkish Armed Forces, reports Hurriyet newspaper.
He addressed the Turkish community last night, chiding
them for not enough action in working for Turkey’s
interests. General Buyukanit called on Turks in the
diaspora to work harder in the face of the ongoing
push by the Armenian diaspora to have the Armenian
Genocide bill passed in the U.S. Congress. Said
Buyukanit, "Whatever happens from now afterwards is
linked to you. Don’t the people living outside the
Turkish Republic have to come together and work harder
to protect Turkey’s national interests? Now I would
like to address a complaint I have about you. If the
voice of the Turks living in the diaspora would only
rise as high as the others in the diaspora, the
Armenians’ claims of genocide would not have come out
this way, nor would Turks have to face what they do
now. Yes, please excuse me, but I have a complaint
about you. The Turkish Republic would be that much
stronger if people would gather to support the
country’s interests, rather than working against
them."

MEHMET ALI BIRAND: ARMENIAN GENOCIDE BILL WILL DISGRACE TURKEY

PanARMENIAN.Net
15.02.2007 14:45 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ "The adoption of the bill recognizing the
Armenian Genocide will mean that Turkey is disgraced and that this
is made a fact by the world’s only super power. We must prevent our
grandchildren from suffering such a shame," writes Turkish observer
Mehmet Ali Birand in the Turkish Daily News. In his words, Turkey’s
agenda next week will be dominated by the Armenian Genocide bill
in the U.S. Congress. The article tells about the "benefits" the
U.S. derives from cooperation with Turkey including contribution to
the NATO force in Afghanistan by sending soldiers, reinforcement
of the NATO force in Kosovo and substantial role in the Caucasus
(especially in the Armenian-Georgian-Azerbaijani triangle). "Both
Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul and Chief of General Staff Gen. Yaþar
Buyukanýt put this list in front of the U.S. administrators and
asked: What good will it do to risk such a vital collaboration,
such a profound relationship just to satisfy a couple of thousand
Armenians? It is really a hard choice," Birand says.

The author thinks that the Jewish lobby should use its
influence. "Drawing attention to Turkey’s direct and indirect support
to Israel’s security, Turkish authorities say, "We cannot accept our
Jewish friends’ watching the developments from afar. They need to use
their influence." Saying, "If the Jewish lobby does not oppose the
Armenian Genocide bill, they should not expect the same support from
us, a high-level government official who closely observes the process
in Washington indicated that Buyukanýt will repeat this message during
his Washington meetings," Birand continues.

"What will happen if the U.S. Congress accepts the Armenian genocide
bill? What will we lose? Will they convince us to pay compensation
or will they force us to give land?" the observer asks. "Leave the U.S.

Congress do whatever they want. But we must also know well what
awaits us at the end of the road. Let us not forget that the
passing of the bill will not mean the end of the world and that the
Turkish-U.S. relations will survive under all conditions," he resumes.

–Boundary_(ID_mKOfGs+Mp/YnsKU+g9u2dA)–

MORE THAN 300 REPRESENTATIVES OF 7 COUNTRIES TO TAKE PART IN BRIDGE
2007 INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC FORUM

YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 15, NOYAN TAPAN. More than 300 representatives of
private companies, departments, chambers of commerce and industry and
business unions of Armenia, Germany, Kazakhstan, Poland, Russia,
Romania and Ukraine will take part in the Bridge (Kamurj) 2007 fourth
international economic forum to be held on February 16-19 in
Tsakhkadzor. The forum will have the title "Economic Integration in
Conditions of Globalization." As NT was informed from forum’s
organizer, Master Center of International Integration Support, issues
relating to development of economic, social and political relations
will be also discussed at the roundtables and section sittings to be
held within the framework of the forum.

The Bridge 2007’s co-organizer is the Union of Manufacturers and
Businessmen (Employers) of Armenia (UMB(E)A). The business forum will
he held with the official support of RA Ministry of Trade and Economic
Development, RA Foreign Ministry and Central Bank of Armenia.

ARMENIA OUTRAN AZERBAIJAN?
by R. Orudzhev
Translated by Pavel Pushkin

Source: Echo (Baku), February 10, 2007, p. EV
Agency WPS
DEFENSE and SECURITY (Russia)
February 14, 2007 Wednesday

Observers in Azerbaijan have differing opinions about adoption of
the national security strategy by Yerevan

AZERBAIJANI EXPERTS COMMENT ON ADOPTION OF A NATIONAL SECURITY STRATEGY
BY ARMENIA; This week, President of Armenia, Robert Kocharyan, signed a
decree approving the national security council of Armenia. The Armenian
parliament has already passed the document and henceforth it can be
considered in effect. This is sad but true, in the sense that Armenia
has managed to beat Azerbaijan in a document vital for the defense of
the state. Just a few years ago, the Azerbaijani President instructed
a number of agencies to organize a joint commission and to develop
a national security concept and a military doctrine of Azerbaijan.

This week, President of Armenia, Robert Kocharyan, signed a decree
approving the national security council of Armenia. The Armenian
parliament has already passed the document and henceforth it can be
considered in effect.

This is sad but true, in the sense that Armenia has managed to beat
Azerbaijan in a document vital for the defense of the state. Just
a few years ago, the Azerbaijani President instructed a number of
agencies to organize a joint commission and to develop a national
security concept and a military doctrine of Azerbaijan

In his comments, Zakhid Orudzh, member of the permanent parliamentary
defense and national security commission, said first of all that
"Azerbaijan has the law "On national security." It describes many
provisions related to strategy and it is possible to say that this
is a counterpart of a national security concept. I can also say that
in some countries this basic document is called on the parliamentary
level a "concept" or "strategy" and in some countries it receives
the form of a legislative act. When this document is called a law it
does not look as impressive as, for example, strategy. In reality,
the efforts dedicated by specialists of the Azerbaijani state power
bodies of creation of the law "On national security" enable us to
say that, according to its importance, this document is mofd than a
"concept" passed by Armenia or any other country. We enacted our law
back in 2004. I know that Russia is currently renovating its relevant
documents and calls it a "concept," too. It is possible to say that
Armenia has taken this activeness of the Russian party as an example
and has decided to announce the creation of its own "strategy" on
the basis of this development."

According to the expert, this circumstance is directly connected
with Russian troops stationed in Armenia and that all armament and
technologies used in the Armenian army have a Russian origin. Orudzh
adds, "At any rate, I do not think that our position in the region
or in the world has been somehow shaken due to the appearance of a
"strategy" in Armenia. Moreover, it does not influence the real
state of affairs with regard to a possibility of providing national
security in Armenia and Azerbaijan. I think it is impossible to draw
such conclusions on the basis of any documents. Along with this,
it is clear that we should work on new projects in the development
of documents dealing with national security. National security is
simply a specific area where novelties of various kinds can appear
almost daily. For example, the US makes serious amendments to its
military doctrine and national security concept almost monthly."

Along with this, Orudzh says that, of course, Americans leave the
basic provisions of these documents untouched. He adds, "I believe
that Azerbaijan should follow the example of America and should
renovate its national security strategy. We also need to adopt a
military doctrine of our own. Moreover, at various meetings related
to cooperation between NATO and Azerbaijan, Azerbaijani officials
announced frequently and openly that work on our national concept
and doctrine was already accomplished. That is why we need to
coordinate separate provisions of the developed documents with a
number of agencies as soon as possible in the political, diplomatic
and economic sense and to propose them for consideration to parliament.

In general, I think that by its actions, Armenia has not outrun
Azerbaijan in security provisions and from the standpoint of the
capabilities our country remains far ahead."

Independent military expert Uzeir Dzhafarov says that "as in many
other aspects, we lag behind in the adoption of a national security
concept and a military doctrine. Back in 2003, when I served for a
military research center in the Defense Ministry, the doctrine was
being prepared. Four years have passed since then. Recently, Ziyafet
Askerov, chair of the parliamentary defense and national security
commission, announced that Azerbaijan would adopt its doctrine in
2008. This is no good! The will of the authorities should be manifested
at this point but I do not see such a wish yet."

Anatolian Times, Turkey
Feb 9 2007

The U.S. Might Discuss A Cross-border Op With Turkey
BY ASLI AYDINBAS
SABAH- The US administration, which is preparing to receive Chief of
General Staff Gen. Yasar Buyukanit close on the heels of Foreign
Minister Abdullah Gul, has given signals that it’s ready to discuss a
cross-border operation in northern Iraq against the terrorist PKK. A
high-ranking official from the Bush administration, which has put the
brakes on cross-border ops in recent years, told Sabah that everybody
understood Turkey’s concerns and that now certain figures in the
administration see this request favorably. The official said that the
Bush people might discuss the request for an operation on the
condition that it’s `limited and definite.’ He said that some in the
administration were open to discussing it, but they should firstly
consider all other alternatives. He added that the territory was very
rough and it wasn’t clear what would be found across the border.
American sources are ready to discuss a limited and definite
operation against PKK leaders using civilian and military officials
from Turkey, instead of a military operation using a large number of
soldiers. However, the sources who spoke to Sabah said that US
Special Envoy for countering terrorism Joseph Ralston’s recent visit
and the contacts held by the chief of General Staff had both been
successful. `Firstly, let’s talk about other alternatives,’ one
added. `There’s sympathy for Turkey’s position, but there are also
certain efforts to find a scapegoat in the PKK issue. Yes, the PKK is
a large problem for Turkey, but the issue doesn’t end with it.’

The US administration says that the civilian and military sectors in
Turkey neglected to try non-military methods against the PKK and also
stresses that terrorism is a multidimensional problem with military,
economic and social aspects. Officials also emphasize that the recent
rise of nationalism in Turkey and the election-year atmosphere
brought the military alternative to the forefront and that there have
been no concrete steps to solve the Kurdish issue since Prime
Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s landmark 2005 speech in Diyarbakir
and that the issue has been stuck between civilian and military
leaders.

But the US administration, now welcoming a cross-border op against
PKK leaders more than in recent years, is only concerned with
conventions. Washington is concerned that if the Turkish Armed Forces
(TSK) enters northern Iraq during hot pursuit or under an air
operation, neighboring countries such as Iran and Syria will assert
their own right to hot pursuit. The high-ranking official asked Sabah
how neighboring countries can be prevented from crossing the border
if Turkey enters Iraq. Also, the US government believes passage of
the Armenian resolution would make a cross-border op more likely. The
strong support received by the US Congress for the resolution spurred
the State Department, White House and Pentagon to prepare efforts to
head it off. US officials say that even a debate of the resolution on
the US House of Representatives floor would damage Turkish-American
relations and end Washington’s power to deter a cross-border
operation.