Author: Kajoyan Gevork

MINSK GROUP CALLS FOR END TO NAGORNO-KARABAKH CONFLICT

Voice of America

March 22 2012

Foreign ministers from the United States, Russia and France are urging
Azerbaijan and Armenia to take steps to end the conflict over the
disputed enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary
Clinton and French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe made the call in a
statement issued Thursday to mark the 20th anniversary of the formal
request to convene a conference on the issue.

The three countries comprise the so-called Minsk Group, an
international panel trying to negotiate an end to the conflict.

Thursday’s statement calls on both sides to demonstrate the “political
will” needed to achieve a lasting and peaceful settlement.

It says people in the region have suffered most from the consequences
of war, adding that any delay in reaching a settlement will only
prolong their hardships.

Ethnic Armenian separatists in Nagorno-Karabakh, a region deep inside
Azerbaijan, declared independence from the Baku government in 1988,
triggering a six-year war that claimed 35,000 lives and left more
than 1 million people homeless.

Major fighting ended after a 1994 cease-fire, but there are frequent
reports of firefights along the border.

Repeated international efforts to broker a peace deal have failed,
and border tensions between Armenian-backed forces and Azerbaijani
troops remain high.

AN INVENTED COUNTRY, ABOUT TO FALL APART
by Geoffrey Clarfield

National Post
March 22, 2012 Thursday
Canada

Since the collapse of the Ottoman empire, Syria’s Sunnis, Alawis,
Kurds and Christians have been held together by a succession of
dictators. That will soon change

>From outside Syria, it appears that a government is waging war against
citizens who are demanding change and democracy. That is certainly how
many media outlets are reporting the ongoing violence in that country.

But as many Syrians know, this war is about something else entirely.

Something much larger.

A century ago, Syria was still part of the Ottoman Empire. Although
the administrative sub-districts of what is now called Syria changed
many times under the Turks, by the early 20th century they comprised a
number of distinct administrative units that centred around key cities,
such as Damascus and Aleppo. Beginning in 1874, they also included
the areas around Jerusalem (which had a Jewish majority). The British
called the area “the Levant.”

The area was, and still is, made up of a number of occasionally
co-operating, occasionally competing ethnic groups: Sunni Arabs,
Maronite Christians, Arabic-speaking Greek Orthodox Christians,
Aramaic-speaking Christians, Arabic-speaking Alawis, Muslim Gypsies,
Armenians, Jews, Yezidis, Kurdish-speaking Sunnis and nomadic Sunni
Bedouin – each with their own distinctive history, loyalties and
competing interests.

Until the end of the First World War, Syria was governed by Turkish
administrators appointed from Istanbul. The local elites were Sunni
Arabs who lived in the cities, but whose wealth came from rural land
holdings: Their custom was to hold their peasant villages in almost
serf-like dependency, while living in urban luxury through the wealth
extracted from agricultural estates. Beyond the relatively fertile
rainfed agriculture tended to by the Syrian peasants lay the desert,
the home of nomadic Bedouin who wandered between the settled areas
of Iraq and Syria. This was the sleepy life thrown into upheaval by
the destruction of the Ottoman empire.

After the defeat of the Ottomans by the Allies during the Second World
War, some dreamed of a grand Arab state extending from Morocco to Iraq
– or even a smaller Syrian state made up of the lands between Egypt and
Anatolian Turkey. Instead, the victorious British and French divided
up the eastern Mediterranean into two mandates. The French got what are
now Syria and Lebanon. The British got what are now Israel and Jordan.

As the Sunni Arab elites of Aleppo and Damascus clamoured for
independence from the French, they became enamored with three
overlapping ideologies. The first was that of Pan-Islam, which many
rejected because it was seen as too similar as that of the defunct
and discredited Ottoman Empire. The second was Pan Arabism, which held
that the Arab world was once one country, and was destined to become
one again. (This school of thought would survive until Nasser’s era
in the 1950s and 1960s, but no one talks about it anymore.)

The third was “Greater Syria.” This theory held that the peoples of
the eastern Mediterranean were all members of one unit – including
present-day Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Israel and southwestern Turkey.

Extreme versions of the “Greater Syria” ideology include Cyprus
and the Sinai desert. In none of these worldviews is there any room
for an independent Jewish homeland, a Christian Lebanon or, in the
maximalist cases, even a Greek Orthodox Cyprus. Un-like Pan Arabism,
the ideology of Greater Syria still has some resonance in the region.

Even Palestinian Arab nationalism is rejected by Syrian nationalists,
who have argued that Palestine is merely “southern Syria.” This also
explains why Syria has been loathe to recognize the state of Lebanon,
and why it has always been a major player in every one of Lebanon’s
civil wars, as its goal is to one day incorporate the country into
the greater Syrian whole.

The early history of the reallife Syrian state, on the other hand,
was one violent coup and counter-coup after another, creating regimes
based on the cult of personality of whichever leader happened to
be more ruthless at the time. Until the early seventies, it was the
Sunni Arabs who came out on top in these struggles. But behind the
scenes, a small nonSunni religious minority called the Alawi slowly
rose in the ranks of the Syrian armed forces – until their leader,
Hafez el-Assad, took over the state in a coup d’etat in 1970. He ruled
Syria until his death in the year 2000, whereupon his son Bashar took
over. He rules to this day.

During this time, the reins of power and the commanding heights of
the economy have come to be monopolized by the Assad family, whose
kinsmen are clustered in the Alawi areas around Latakia, on Syria’s
northwestern Mediterranean coast. In the language of international
development, Syria became a hub of “crony capitalism.” By demonizing
Israel, withholding diplomatic recognition of Lebanon until three
years ago, and supporting Pan-Islam, Pan-Arabism and Greater Syria
ideology in various combinations according to the regime’s fluctuating
propaganda needs, Assad was able to deflect attention from the fact
that Syria was governed by a small minority sect. On the world stage,
the Assads consolidated their power through military adventures and
assassination in Lebanon, a military/political/economic alliance with
the Soviet Union and then Russia, and, more recently, an alliance
with the Shia Mullahs of Iran.

The majority of Syrians are Sunni Arabs, and the Alawi comprise just
20% of the population. Yet under the iron fist of the Assads, this 20%
has usurped control of virtually 100% the country – until the uprising
that began in 2011 and persists to this day. Even if the Assad regime
falls, it will still be able to withdraw to its home area near the
northern coast and fight as a unit in a tribally based civil war,
following the model of Lebanon and, more recently, Libya.

The Alawi are an Arabic-speaking ethnic group, whose territory around
Latakia was distinct enough to have been recognized by the colonial
French authorities as an independent, ethnic homeland within their
Levantine mandate. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, neither the
Sunni religious scholars of Cairo’s Al Azhar Mosque nor the Shia
clerics of Iraq and Iran recognized the Alawi’s distinct Muslim
beliefs as being within the mainstream Islamic fold.

As Martin Kramer, an expert on the Alawi, notes, some of the
features of Alawi religious life are drawn from Shiite traditions,
and include the veneration of Ali and the 12 Imams. But in regard to
Ali, this veneration carried over into actual deification (unlike in
the mainstream Shia tradition), so that Ali was represented as an
incarnation of God. “An important sign of Alawi esoterism,” Kramer
notes, “was the absence of mosques from Alawi regions.”

As communications improved in the eastern Levant during the 19th and
20th centuries, the Alawis came under immense scrutiny by Sunni and
Shia theologians – and many concluded that they were in fact kaffirs
(unbelievers), which means a righteous Sunni theoretically can make
holy war or jihad against them. Despite the rapprochement of the Alawi
through the efforts of radical clerics such as Musa Sadr, who tried
to bring the Alawi into the formal Shia fold by sending young Alawi
to study with Shia clerics in Iran and Iraq, the Alawi are still on
the borderlands of Islamic thought. This has made the Assad regime’s
alliance with Iran touchy among doctrinaire Shia Muslims.

We should not be surprised that Syria’s Druze, Greek Orthodox and
Armenian Christians still support Assad – for this latest Syrian revolt
is largely a revolt of the masses, i.e., the Sunni majority, who have
been excluded from power for 40 years. The Druze and Christian Syrians
have seen the Arab Spring of Egypt leading to multiple attacks and
killings against Egypt’s Coptic Christians, and the ascendancy of
the (Sunni) Muslim Brotherhood theocrats. And they worry that this
template will play out in Syria as well. That is why they back Assad.

No, the Syrian uprising that we are witnessing is not one of a
military dictatorship against noble democratic activists. It is a
conflict between the religiously heterodox Alawi and the religiously
orthodox Sunni. It is also a battle of elites from different ethnic
groups and denominations who, in the Arab world, customarily use the
state as a way to enrich their own families, lineages, tribes and
religious denominations.

If and when the Sunnis retake the Syrian state, they likely will
establish a Muslim Brotherhood-dominated government, or something very
much like it, that views the Alawi as an Iranian-backed Shiite fifth
column. Syria will then tilt back into the Egyptian orbit and leave
that of Iran. We can be sure that liberal democracy and the rights of
women and religious minorities such as the Alawi, Druze and Christians
will not be high on the agenda. And once the new regime is established,
we can expect that the Pan Islamic and Greater Syria ideologies will be
dusted off, leading to as yet unknown spasms of regional instability.

In 1929 a French expert on Middle Eastern affairs by the name of
Robert de Beauplan, when contemplating the Levant, had this to say:
“The nationalists affirm the reality of the Syrian nation, but it is
a myth.” Rather, it is a nation made up of little pieces, and they
all are about to fall to the floor.

Geoffrey Clarfield is an anthropologist at large.

ARMENI NELLA LAGUNA
Gianfranco Restelli

Citta Nuova

21 marzo 2012
Italia

Una grande mostra celebra il 500° anniversario del primo libro a
stampa in lingua armena a Venezia.

“Venezia è l’unica citta d’Italia dove tutti sanno chi sono gli armeni,
avendo stabilito con questo popolo un rapporto anche di simpatia che
denota una frequentazione secolare”. A ricordarlo è Antonia Arslan,
la scrittrice padovana di origini armene resa famosa da La fattoria
delle allodole. In omaggio a questo rapporto, intensificatosi grazie
ai contatti e accordi commerciali stabiliti con l’antico Regno di
Cilicia a partire dal XII secolo, la citta lagunare ospita la più
grande rassegna finora dedicata sul nostro suolo a questo popolo:
“Armenia. Impronte di una civilta”. Mostra che è la conferma, sempre
per la Arslan, “di una maturazione della recezione in Italia della
questione armena, rispetto ad anni anche recenti”.

FOREIGN MINISTERS OF OSCE MG CALLED ON PARTIES OF NK CONFLICT TO ACCELERATE SETTLEMENT

Trend
March 22 2012
Azerbaijan

On the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the formal request to
convene a conference on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, the Foreign
Ministers of the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chair countries, call on the
sides to demonstrate the political will needed to achieve a lasting
and peaceful settlement, said in a joint statement of Russian Foreign
Minister Sergei Lavrov, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and
French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe, on March 22.

“We urge the leaders of the parties to finalize the framework agreement
and a subsequent final decision as soon as possible – on the basis of
the Helsinki Final Act, based on the principles of non-use of force
or threat, territorial integrity and self-determination and equality
of peoples, points of the Charter of the United Nations, as well as
norms and principles of international law – that will allow the region
to move beyond the status quo to a more secure and prosperous future,
” the statement said, OSCE website reported.

The peoples of the region have suffered most from the consequences of
war, and any delay in reaching a settlement will only prolong their
hardships. A new generation has come of age in the region with no
first-hand memory of Armenians and Azeris living side by side, and
prolonging these artificial divisions only deepens the wounds of war.

For this reason, we urge the leaders of the sides to prepare their
populations for peace, not war.

“How Presidents Obama, Medvedev and Sarkozy confirmed in a joint
statement in Deauville on May 24, 2011, only a negotiated settlement
can lead to peace, stability and reconciliation, and any attempt to
use force to resolve the conflict will bring instability in the region,
which suffers from uncertainty for too long,” the statement said.

Progress toward peace has been made. The joint statements of our three
Presidents at L’Aquila in 2009, Muskoka in 2010, and Deauville in 2011
outlined elements of a framework for a comprehensive peace settlement.

Recently, the January 23, 2012, joint statement in Sochi, Russia, by
Presidents Aliyev, Sargsyan, and Medvedev expressed the commitment
of the two sides to accelerate reaching agreement on the Basic
Principles. We urge the leaders of the sides to complete work as soon
as possible on the framework agreement and subsequent final settlement
– based on the Helsinki Final Act principles of non-use or threat of
force, territorial integrity, and self-determination and equal rights
of peoples; the United Nations Charter; and norms and principles of
international law – which will allow the entire region to move beyond
the status quo toward a more secure and prosperous future.”

The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988
when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. Armenian
armed forces have occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan since 1992,
including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and 7 surrounding districts.

Azerbaijan and Armenia signed a ceasefire agreement in 1994. The
co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group – Russia, France, and the U.S. –
are currently holding the peace negotiations.

Armenia has not yet implemented the U.N. Security Council’s four
resolutions on the liberation of the Nagorno-Karabakh and the
surrounding regions.

US SENATORS LAUNCH NEW ‘GENOCIDE’ BILL
by Umit Enginsoy

Hurriyet Daily News
March 22 2012
Turkey

Two influential pro-Armenian senators have formally launched a new
effort for the passage in the U.S. Senate of an “Armenian genocide”
resolution, the Armenian Assembly of America (AAA) reported late
Tuesday. Turkish Foreign Ministry officials say Turkey would do all
it could to avoid the passage of the resolution while US diplomats
telling “US would think twice at a time when it needs Turkey on Syria
and other matters”

Bob Menendez, a Democrat from New Jersey, and Mark Kirk, a Republican
from Illinois, introduced the new “Armenian genocide” resolution,
the AAA said in a statement. Senators Barbara Boxer, a Democrat from
California, Michael Bennet, a Democrat from Colorado, Carl Levin,
a Democrat from Michigan, Joe Lieberman, and Independent from
Connecticut, Jack Reed, a Democrat from Rhode Island, and Sheldon
Whitehouse, a Democrat from Rhode Island, joined as original sponsors.

Meanwhile, Turkish Foreign Ministry officials said this was a very
negative development, and Turkey would do all it could to avoid its
passage. One foreign ministry official said, “It is obvious that the
passage of this would be very negative in terms of the development
of Turkish-American ties.” One diplomatic source in Washington said
Turkey was in quite a strong position to avoid the measure again
this time. “At a time when the U.S. needs Turkey on Syria and other
matters it would think twice but it won’t be the end of the world
for the Armenians. Because they actually have in mind 2015, the 100th
anniversary of what they see as the genocide.”

US administration against the bill

“It is time for the United States to join the nineteen nations
including Belgium, Canada, France, Italy and the European Union that
have formally recognized the actions carried out by the Ottoman Empire
from 1915 to 1923 as genocide,” Senator Menendez said.

The first step for the bill is the Senate Foreign Relations Committee,
where Menendez serves as a subcommittee chairman. This committee
is chaired by Senator John Kerry, a Democrat from Massachusetts,
who has a long record in support of the U.S. Armenian cause. If the
bill passes there, it will come to a 100-member floor vote. The U.S.

President and the administration are against the passage of such
a bill.

OSCE MINSK GROUP TRIES TO PROVE NAGORNO-KARABAKH PROGRESS

Vestnik Kavkaza
March 23 2012
Russia

The commission for foreign affairs of the European Parliament has
received a document on Armenia with a proposal to replace the French
mandate in the OSCE Minsk Group with the EU mandate. The document
will be voted on at a plenary session in a month.

Alexander Iskandaryan, Director of the Yerevan Institute of the
Caucasus, is skeptical about the replacement happening. He told Vestnik
Kavkaza that the statement of foreign ministers of co-chair states of
the OSCE MG with urges for signing of a framework agreement between
sides of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is a method of work at the
group. It needs to demonstrate progress.

Vestnik Kavkaza reported that US co-chair of the OSCE Minsk Group
Robert Bradtke made a special statement on the 20th anniversary of the
organization. He said that the sides are about to settle the conflict.

Russian co-chair Igor Popov said that the process is intensive.

Discussions of the basic principles to settle the conflict will
become the basis for a peace treaty. Russia, the US and France are
the co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group. Leaders of the states said
at the G8 summit in Deauville last year that use of force may cause
confrontation and instability in the region.

YOUNG ARMENIAN FILMMAKER’S DOCUMENTARY TO BE SCREENED IN WASHINGTON

PanARMENIAN.Net
March 24, 2012 – 15:04 AMT

PanARMENIAN.Net – The Pendragwn Youth Film Festival (PYFF) returns
to the Atlas Performing Arts Center, Washington, on March 24 to give
youth aging 11 to 18 years old an outlet to hone their storytelling
and celebrate the achievements of young filmmakers on the big screen.

Fifteen short films in four categories- documentary, narrative, music
video and super short- will be screened, thehillishome.com reports.

The films are as varied as the young people who created them; some
are deeply personal, some are experimental and others simply want to
make us laugh.

Last year’s Audience Choice Award winners Luz Bauer and Sophia Pink
of Washington, D.C., have returned to this year’s festival with their
short film, Help Wanted. Their stop-motion film is a humorous take
on a mother’s overwhelming day.

More Than That, a short film made by Native American students in South
Dakota that took YouTube by storm and was featured by NPR’s Morning
Edition, aims to raise awareness about Native American stereotypes.

Corner of the World, a documentary from Armenian filmmaker, Hovan
Baghdasaryan, gives a view of daily life in Armenia from the
perspective of a young boy.

15 finalists were chosen from 75 films across 7 different countries.

The festival will also include a performance from Zip Zap Circus,
a South African based non-profit dedicated to transforming youth
through the performing arts.

The films are competing for four awards: Grand Prize, Creative Lens,
Golden Dragwn, and Audience Choice. This year’s prizes include a
two-week documentary film camp with Docs in Progress in Silver Spring,
Maryland; an editing class with Future Media Concepts in Washington,
D.C., passes to SilverDocs-AFI/Discovery Channel Documentary Film
Festival; and copyright free high definition stock footage from Footage
Firm as well as a year’s free download membership to Videoblocks.com.

ARMENIA’S NATIONAL BASKETBALL TEAM INTRODUCED

armradio.am
24.03.2012 13:08

The House of Armenia celebrated and officially introduced the
Armenian Men’s National Basketball team to the community and media on
Wednesday. The team, comprised of both Armenian-American, Armenian
national and international athletes is led by Head Coach Carl
Bardakian, a Los Angeles based and well-experienced basketball coach.

Armenia’s new National Team reflects the strong and further developing
bonds between the Republic of Armenia and Diaspora, Asbarez reported.

The men’s team is looking forward to achieving the same success which
the Armenian Women’s National Basketball team had in 2011, by winning
the silver medal in the European Championship. In order to reach their
goal of entry into the European Championships in June 2012, the men’s
team is currently accepting offers for sponsorships. The young men
chosen for the team have expressed immense passion, determination and
undoubtedly possess the talent to make it far within the International
Basketball Federation.

The official introduction of the National Team was witnessed by some
of the most prominent and successful sportsmen present and past,
who offered words of encouragement to the young men as they embark
on the European Championships this summer. Among the sportsmen and
athletic figures were Sergei Bondarenko (Ararat 73) and Vanes Norik
Martirosyan, as well as world and Olympic champions such as Vasken
Sogoyan and Arthur Akopian. On behalf of the community and Consulate,
Consul General Hovhannissian conveyed immense pride and faith in the
talents and capabilities of the men’s team.

WESTERN ARMENIAN FOLK MUSIC TO BE PRESENTED IN YEREVAN

PanARMENIAN.Net
March 24, 2012 – 11:34 AMT

PanARMENIAN.Net – Van Project musical band will perform in Yerevan~Rs
Hakob Paronyan Musical Comedy Theatre on April 2.

The concert will feature new arrangement of Western Armenian folk
music pieces (Hamshena Sharan, Malatia, Ani, songs and melodies of
Mush, Sasun, etc).

At the beginning of the concert, outcomes of activities implemented
in the framework of Van Project in 2011, as well as events planned
for 2012 will be presented.

Yerkir Union initiated and has been implementing the Van Project since
2010, aiming to study the non-material cultural heritage of Armenian
plateau and the Black Sea basin.

Key goal of the Project is the assistance in establishment and
development of trans-frontier cultural ties between Armenia~Rs
population and different ethnic groups inhabiting the Armenian plateau
and Black Sea basin.

The research group formed within Van Project had a study visit to
Hamshen, Dersim, as well as several other settlements of Western
Armenia during July 18-August 4, 2011.

The group~Rs musicians headed by Norayr Kartashyan participated in
Arguvan and Mndzour music festivals. By invitation of Hrant Dink
Foundation, the musicians participated in the annual international
Hrant Dink award ceremony in Istanbul on September 15, 2011 with a
concert performance.

Van Project is implemented with financial support of Rhône-Alpes
region in eastern France, and organization assistance of Turkey~Rs
Anadolu Kultur Foundation.

ARF UNVEILS PRE-ELECTION PLATFORM

asbarez
Thursday, March 22nd, 2012

ARF Platform

YEREVAN (ARF Press Office)-The Armenian Revolutionary Federation,
during a press conference on Wednesday, unveiled the party pre-election
platform. During the same press conference, ARF leaders also announced
the proportional list of candidates for the May 6 parliamentary
elections.

Asbarez obtained the official English translation of the platform’s
preamble, which is presented below:

The Armenian Revolutionary Federation, being a national, democratic,
socialist and revolutionary political party has always struggled
for the political, economic and socio-cultural interests of both
the individual Armenian and the entire Armenian people. The foreign
and domestic challenges facing Armenia today demand serious and
large-scale systemic changes. On that path, our priorities for
2012-2017 are the following:

Decrease Poverty By 10 Times, Form The Middle Class, Guarantee
Well-To-Do Standards Consider the minimum budget securing a living
as the poverty threshold, guarantee for each citizen the right to
an income no lower than that. Each pensioner shall receive a decent
pension, a dignified salary shall be defined for employees (with
present indexes, the average pension shall be 63.000 drams, currently
being 31.255 drams), the minimum hourly wage shall be no less than
400 dram (currently it is 196 drams); provide decent conditions to
people with disabilities.

Double the GDP, triple the State Budget, create almost two hundred
thousand new jobs; give each working-able person the opportunity
to work.

Make quality health care accessible to everyone; raise the minimum,
annual health care cost per person to 150.000 drams (currently the
financing from the budget does not exceed 21.000 drams).

Each year, provide five to six thousand families with social housing.

For the next five years, restrain the prices for natural gas,
electricity, irrigation and drinking water; for the needy, any future
change shall be correlated with their income.

In accordance to the needs of the economy, the labor market and the
science sector, the middle level professional vocational education
and higher education, as well as preschool and public education
institutions shall be totally free.

Each young person will be able to self-express, will have the
guaranteed right to quality education, to create, to work, and to
have their own business.

Allocate a monthly differentiated amount of benefits ranging from
20.000 to 60.000 drams to each child up to the age of seven, and
provide families with five or more children with free housing.

With an active demographic policy Armenia’s annual average population
shall grow by 50.000.

Direct investments towards the cultural sphere; perceive cultural
policy as a precondition for reforms in the country and for the
recovery of the moral and psychological atmosphere; expand the
presentation of Armenian culture to the world.

Form A Steadily Developing, Competitive Economy The passive reformer
state shall take responsibility for and actively participate in the
sustainable development of the country.

Violation of the right to ownership right shall be excluded; an
environment of economic free competition shall be formed.

In order to ensure equal distribution, a full-fledged system of
progressive income tax and taxing of super profits, luxury and wealth
shall be implemented (a single residence of more than 750 square
meters per family shall be progressively taxed).

Implement a monetary and budgetary policy aimed at diversification
of the economy, at economic growth and at strengthening of local
production.

Investments by Diasporan and transnational corporations shall be
attracted especially towards innovative and hi-tech production
projects.

Air-travel prices shall be reduced, which will boost tourism and will
create the conditions for affordable free movement of people.

In order to ensure the country’s food security, a comprehensive
state agricultural support program of subsidies, grants and licensing
shall be implemented, increasing the annual state budget agricultural
support to 60 billion drams (at the moment, it does not exceed the
amount of 10 billion).

The development of the regions shall be realized based on a concept
of multi-centered and even resettlement.

Economic projects shall be realized exclusively in accordance to
environmental research results and taking into account the public
interest. Residential construction will be prohibited in the center
of Yerevan, while green areas and water surfaces will be tripled.

Build A Contemporary National-Democratic State Pursue constitutional
reforms aiming at a parliamentary governance system, a new
administrative-territorial division of Armenia, the reduction of the
number of Members of Parliament, the election of regional governors,
as well as the strengthening of the judicial power’s independence.

The non-democratic system leading to the self-perpetuation of the
authorities shall be completely eradicated. An electoral system
providing the possibility to change regime/power shall be established.

An authorities-opposition political unified system shall be developed,
influential levers shall be given to the political opposition in
order to control, restrain the authorities and to engage in real
anti-corruption struggle.

Participatory and direct democracy shall be strengthened and expanded
by the state.

A transparent personnel policy, based on individual abilities and
experience, will be implemented.

Superposition of political and economic functions in state
administration or local self-administration work shall be excluded.

Establish A National-State Course Adequate To The Present Challenges In
the era of globalization and of a rapidly changing planet, the state’s
progress and development shall be realized by keeping good-neighborly
and mutually beneficial relations with all states, without conceding
and risking pan-national achievements, goals and interests.

The settlement of the Mountainous Karabakh conflict shall be realized
without retreating from the Artsakh people’s will as already expressed
by popular referenda.

Armenia’s signature shall be recalled from the Armeno-Turkish
protocols. In the process of normalizing the relations between Armenia
and Turkey, the pan-national objectives and the prospect of reinstating
the historical justice will not be sacrificed.

The realization of the political, socio-economic and cultural rights of
Javakhk will be supported by the state and the powers of all Armenians.

Considering that Nakhijevan has been annexed by Azerbaijan, it is
important to keep allow the consciousness of its Armenian belonging.

The fighting efficiency, discipline and modernity of the Armenian army,
guarantor of Armenia’s independence and security, shall be increased.

The leading principle of Armenia’s foreign policy shall be that the
state is the guarantor of the national goals not only for its citizens,
but for all Armenians. Everything should be done in order to engage
the Diaspora in the statehood process.

The Armenian Revolutionary Federation-Dashnaktsutyun is organized,
has the willpower and determination to lead our people towards a New
Armenia, a Free, Fair, Well-to-do society.

We believe in a Just State and in the creative power of the free
citizen.

This is the guarantee to building a powerful Armenia, to having a
proud citizen.

We are determined. We need your vote and confidence.