Author: Kajoyan Gevork

HRAYR KARAPETIAN ENTERS RACE WITH ‘TWENTY YEARS IN POLITICS’ SLOGAN

Yerkir
04.04.2007 15:08

YEREVAN (YERKIR) – Hrayr Karapetian, the leader of the Armenian
Revolutionary Federation faction in National Assembly, told a news
conference today that he is entering the parliamentary race with a
slogan "Twenty years in politics."

"All the forces that until now were training, should now show what
they can do for the Armenian people to get orientated and elect the
force that will be leading it for the next five years.

We have a historic chance to conduct fair election that will be
different from all previous ones. There are all prerequisites for that,
and if international bodies conclude that the election was not fair,
Armenia will find itself in a very tough position in the Artsakh
isse and the Millennium Challenge Account because this program
will be implemented only if free and fair election is conducted,"
Karapetian said. "The party interests should not be put above the
national interests."

He said that the ARF will do everything to ensure democratic election.

"Everybody says this, even those who are engaged in using illegal
methods, and who from the very beginning distort the idea of fair
elections," he said.

He was asked if it is true that the ARF is taking passports from
people, and for example, a family in Davtashen district of Yerevan
has been paid $200 to vote for the party.

"It is a lie," Karapetian said. "People do not understand that no
matter how much money they are paid, they still can vote for whomever
they want, no one can control the voting."

He also spoke of the negative things happening in constituency 4 where
he is running under the single-mandate system. "I am not against
signing a memorandum of understating between the candidates. From
day one I have said that I will fight those negative things. I have
facts that passports were taken from people. My method is campaigning,
I have no other methods."

He also warned against election fraud saying that tougher punishment
is envisaged in the Criminal Code for riggers.

POSSIBLE ARMENIAN PRESIDENTIAL HOPEFUL BECOMES NEW PM
By Hasmik Lazarian

Reuters AlertNet, UK
April 4 2007

YEREVAN, April 4 (Reuters) – Armenian President Robert Kocharyan on
Wednesday appointed Serzh Sarksyan as the Caucasus nation’s new prime
minister and he is now expected by many to run for president in next
year’s election.

Sarksyan’s name was put forward by the Republican Party, the biggest
group in parliament, after consultations with other parties this
week. The previous prime minister, Andranik Margaryan, died from a
heart attack on March 25.

Sarksyan’s cabinet will work until May 12 when Armenia, a nation of 3
million people, will elect a new parliament in a vote planned before
Margaryan died.

He may be re-elected prime minister after the election in which the
Republican Party, which holds a majority in parliament with its allies,
is expected to perform well.

But many believe his ambitions extend beyond the post of prime
minister since he has said he might run for president next year after
Kocharyan’s second — and last — five-year term in office expires.

The mood of many voters may be influenced by the fact that like
Kocharyan, Sarksyan also comes from the Nagorno-Karabakh area which
Christian Armenia annexed from Muslim Azerbaijan in a bloody conflict.

Kocharyan and Sarksyan held top posts in Karabakh during the war with
Azerbaijan that claimed more than 35,000 lives before a 1994 truce.

Sarksyan has been decorated with a top Armenian military order.

Armenia, bordered by Azerbaijan, Turkey, Georgia and Iran, relies
heavily on financial and moral support from a huge diaspora in Russia,
Western Europe and the United States.

Kocharyan relieved Sarksyan, acting leader of the Republican Party,
of his other posts of defence minister and secretary of the president’s
security council which he had held since 2000.

MOSCOW EXPECTS DEMOCRATIC ELECTIONS IN ARMENIA

PanARMENIAN.Net
03.04.2007 13:29 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Russia expects that parliamentarian elections in
Armenia will be held in accordance with democratic norms, official
representative of Russian MFA Mikhail Kaminin stated. He said Moscow
expects that parliamentarian elections in Armenia will be held on a
high organizational level. "We wish to hear estimation of the situation
in the current electoral campaign of Armenia. Russia will assist the
process of elections by sending to Yerevan Russian observers from
CIS and OSCE," the Russian diplomat stressed, RIA "Novosti" reports.

MILITARY OPERATIONS AGAINST IRAN NOT EXCLUDED

PanARMENIAN.Net
02.04.2007 16:17 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ The U.S.-Iran relations aren’t subject to
logic. They are often guided by psychology but not by politics,
Alexander Iskandaryan, Director of the Caucasus Media Institute,
told a PanARMENIAN.Net reporter. "U.S. foreign policy is dependent
on the domestic situation. It’s hard to foretell anything under such
circumstances. I can’t exclude possibility of military operations
against Iran but I don’t think it will happen," he underscored.

Debka.com says the strike will be delivered on April 6 night. The
attack is slated to last for 12 hours, from 4 am until 4 pm local
time. In the course of the attack, code named Operation Bite, about 20
targets are marked for bombing; the list includes uranium enrichment
facilities, research centers, and laboratories.

HOPES FADING FOR KARABAKH PEACE
Ali Verdiyev

Baku Sun, Azerbaijan
April 2 2007

BAKU – Hopes for a peaceful solution to the conflict between
neighboring Azerbaijan and Armenia over the disputed Azerbaijani
region of Nagorno-Karabakh are fading away, as peace talks brokered by
international mediators continue to produce anything but a long-awaited
breakthrough to resolve the almost 20-year conflict.

This time, the Azerbaijani and Armenian foreign ministers, Elmar
Mammadyarov and Vardan Oskanyan, met in Geneva to discuss a peace plan
prepared by the OSCE Minsk Group, a team of mediators set up to deal
with the conflict. But the two failed to make progress in the talks,
official statements from both sides say.

"Elmar Mammadyarov and Vardan Oskanyan are expected to meet in April.

This was agreed during the meeting of the Azerbaijani and Armenian
foreign ministers in Geneva," the press secretary of the Azerbaijani
Foreign Ministry, Khazar Ibrahim, told local news agency Trend in
a statement which, in delicate diplomatic language, means that no
progress was made in the latest meeting of the ministers. The two
men focused on a possible meeting of the Azerbaijani and Armenian
presidents, but there should be a "solid basis" for the meeting of
the presidents, which is not there now, Ibrahim stressed.

However, the Armenian side was much more forthcoming about the meeting
in Geneva. "Despite the preparatory work the peace talks for the
settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict progress slowly," Armenian
Foreign Minister Vardan Oskanyan stated. "The Geneva meeting proved
again that there are discrepancies between us that are difficult to
overcome. In this context the meeting was very difficult. We agreed
to meet again in April. We may manage to come to agreement and it
will be clear when the presidents meet. Of course, this meeting will
take place after the parliamentary elections in Armenia," Oskanyan
told journalists in Yerevan.

Experts say that there is hardly likely to be any progress in the
peace talks until the parliamentary elections in Armenia in May this
year. Yerevan has taken a timeout to make sure that the elections
are conducted without any domestic political ferment. Any agreement
or decision on Karabakh may actually stir emotions and feelings
in Armenia, as much as in Azerbaijan, in the run-up to the crucial
elections.

The ministers met with the participation of the Russian, French and
US co-chairmen of the OSCE Minsk Group – Yuriy Merzlyakov, Bernard
Fassier and Matthew Bryza, as well as the personal envoy of the OSCE
chairman-in-office, Andrzej Kasprzik. The peace plan supported by
the OSCE Minsk Group reportedly contains the basic principles for
a settlement of the conflict. These principles envision two major
initiatives – the withdrawal of Armenian forces from the Azerbaijani
districts around Nagorno-Karabakh and the determination of an interim
status for the self-proclaimed republic before a referendum on the
final status of the territory, the Russian co-chairman of the Minsk
Group, Yuriy Merzlyakov, said.

Armenia occupied Nagorno-Karabakh and seven surrounding districts of
Azerbaijan in the 1992-1994 war. It now demands that one of these
districts, Lachin, be used as a corridor to connect the separatist
region with Armenia.

The status of the separatist Azerbaijani enclave seems to have been
the bone of contention in the peace talks over the past decade.

Armenia insists that the status should be determined in a referendum
to be held among the population of the so-called Nagorno-Karabakh
republic, but Baku is sensitive about this idea and demands
unconditional withdrawal of the Armenian armed forces from the
occupied Azerbaijani districts. In the meantime, Azerbaijanis are
still uncompromising when it comes to the Karabakh issue, which they
see as a matter of national pride and honor.

A recent public survey held among 1,000 Azerbaijanis in 15 districts
and 12 towns showed that 59.4 per cent of the respondents do not
accept any compromises on the Karabakh conflict, political analyst
Rasim Musabayov told a news conference in Baku.

Only 11.5 per cent of the respondents supported the granting of
cultural self-administration and local government opportunities to
Nagorno-Karabakh, while 9.5 per cent agreed to a self-administration
model similar to that of Azerbaijan’s autonomous region of Nakhchivan.

Further, 11.1 per cent said that the status of Nagorno-Karabakh could
be determined through a referendum on condition that Azerbaijan’s
internally displaced persons return to their native lands.

Nevertheless, the bulk of respondents were pessimistic about the
prospects for settlement of the conflict, as 46.7 per cent said that
the "neither peace no war" situation will continue. While 38.4 per
cent of the respondents said that there will be progress towards
a peaceful resolution of the conflict, 12.7 per cent believe that
military hostilities will resume.

Thus, the public feelings in Azerbaijan, a country which has lost
control over nearly one-fifth of its territory and has now about a
million refugees and IDPs, following Armenia’s military aggression, and
the whims of Armenia, which is interested in preserving the status-quo,
leave little hope that the conflict will be resolved peacefully and
in the soonest time possible. Yet there are opportunities that require
a constructive position, first of all from Armenia.

DEMONSTRATION OF PROTEST AGAINST OPENING OF AKHTAMAR SURB KHACH CHURCH

ISTANBUL, APRIL 2, NOYAN TAPAN – ARMENIANS TODAY. A scanty group
organized an anti-Armenian demonstration at 10:00 by local time,
before the opening ceremony of the Akhtamar Surb Khach (Saint Cross)
church, at the Gevash port from where ships left for the Akhatamar
church. Yonal Cavusogli, Tukbeddin Yilmaz, Nedim Aysun and Svad Sayic,
Chairmen of Van branches of four different trade-unions were the
organizers. The demonstrators had in their hands Turkish flags,
Ataturk’s portraits as well as posters on which the following was
written "The Turkish people is noble people. It committed no
Genocide."

According to "Marmara," heads of the demonstration of protest against
opening of the church were arrested and moved to the Gevash Police.

PRESS OFFICE
Diocese of the Armenian Church of Canada
615 Stuart Avenue, Outremont-Quebec H2V 3H2
Contact: Deacon Hagop Arslanian,
Tel: 514-276-9479
Fax: 514-276-9960
Email: [email protected]
Web:

Sat, Mar 31 2007

Christian Education Center
Prayer of the Week
"This day the creatures leap for joy;
they bless the Lord and rejoice,
Heaven and Earth in company dance and clap their hands.
This day on Mount Zion
the nard has spread its fragrance,
the rose is aglow with diverse hues,
in crimson, red, and violet…"
(Palm Sunday Ode)
30 Mar 2007
Read More …

Bible Reading of the Week
The Triumphal Entry

As they approached Jerusalem and came to Bethphage on the Mount of Olives,
Jesus sent two disciples, saying to them, "Go to the village ahead of you,
and at once you will find a donkey tied there, with her colt by her. Untie
them and bring them to me. If anyone says anything to you, tell him that
the Lord needs them, and he will send them right away."
30 Mar 2007
Read More …

Holy Etchmiadzin Did Not Send Delegation to Aghtamar

An invitation to participate in the opening ceremonies of the Church of
the Holy Cross on the island of Aghtamar (Lake Van), scheduled for March
29, from Governor of Van Mehmet Niyazi Tanilir addressed to His Holiness
Karekin II, Supreme Patriarch and Catholicos of All Armenians, was
received in the Mother See via the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the
Republic of Armenia.
31 Mar 2007 by Press Office
Read More …

New Grand Sacristan Appointed for Holy Etchmiadzin

His Grace Bishop Ararat Kaltakjian has been appointed as Grand Sacristan
(Lousararabed) of the Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin by the Pontifical
directive of His Holiness Karekin II, Supreme Patriarch, and Catholicos of
All Armenians. Bishop Ararat will continue to serve concurrently as dean
of the monasteries of the Mother See.
31 Mar 2007 by Press Office
Read More …

Primate will visit the Armenian Embassy in Ottawa

On Tuesday, April 3, 2007, His Eminence Bishop Bagrat Galstanian will
visit the Embassy of the Republic of Armenia in Ottawa to convey the
condolences of the Diocese of the Armenian Church. The clergy and parish
council members of Saint Gregory the Illuminator Armenian Cathedral and
Holy Cross Armenian Church of Laval will accompany His Eminence.
31 Mar 2007 by Press Office
Read More …

THIS SUNDAY Official Launching of Family Support Services Hay Doun

The official launch and opening of the office of the Family Support
Services Hay Doun and the Blessing of the Board members will take place on
Sunday, April 1, 2007, following the Divine Liturgy celebration, at the
Diocesan Headquarters of the Armenian Church in Montreal. We invite our
faithful to attend this significant event and pray for the success of the
mission of HAY DOUN.
31 Mar 2007 by Press Office
Read More …

Holy Trinity Armenian Church General Meeting (Mona Selyan)

The Holy Trinity Armenian Church 84th Annual Parish Assembly was called to
order at 2:30 pm on Sunday, March 18, 2007. Members of the Women’s Guild
had prepared light refreshments for the membership so that the meeting
could take place after Divine Liturgy, and were on hand to offer coffee
and beverages during the entire meeting.
31 Mar 2007 by Press Office
Read More …

Divine Liturgy Celebration and Annual General Assembly in Ottawa

On Sunday March 25, 2007, Rev. Fr. Myron Sarkissian, celebrated Holy
Divine Liturgy in Ottawa. In his message, Der Hayr greeted the faithful
and prayed that the Almighty God may "grant them health and courage to
better serve the Church of God." During his address, Father Myron spoke
about the nature and the structure of the Church.
31 Mar 2007 by Press Office
Read More …

ACYOC Annual Assembly and Sports Weekend 2007

This year, ACYOC Golden Horseshoe (Mississauga/Oakville) will be hosting
the annual ACYOC sports weekend on Friday, June 29th to Sunday, July 1st.
31 Mar 2007 by Press Office
Read More …

Support CYMA 2007 on Palm Sunday

PALM SUNDAY

Blessing and procession of children and youth

HOLY DIVINE LITURGY

Sunday, April 1st, 2007 @ 10:30am

31 Mar 2007 by Press Office
Read More …

Ararat Summer Youth Camp 2007

Join us this summer for another
"Experience to Remember"
at Ararat Summer Youth Camp.

See our flyer for further details.
31 Mar 2007 by Press Office
Read More …

"A Musical Journey to Armenia" enchanted the audience! (S.K.)

March 11, 2007 will remain a memorable day for the Armenian Community of
Montreal. A capacity crowd was on hand at the prestigious Claude-Champagne
Hall to witness an unprecedented concert dedicated to the centennial
anniversary celebration of the Armenian General Benevolent Union. In her
opening remarks Dr. Rita Kuyumjian, chairperson of the Montreal Chapter,
stressed AGBU’s relentless contribution to the educational and cultural
development throughout the world.
31 Mar 2007 by Press Office
Read More …

©2004 Diocese of the Armenian Church of Canada. All rights reserved.
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ST. THADDEUS TO BE REGISTERED ON UNESCO LIST

PRESS TV, Iran
March 29 2007

The Church of Saint Thaddaeus, known also as the Black Church (Ghara
Kelisa), in the Iranian province of West Azerbaijan is to be registered
on UNESCO’s List of World Heritage Sites in 2008.

In making the announcement the deputy head of Iran’s Cultural Heritage,
Tourism and Handicrafts Organization said Iranian officials have done
their best to present a complete file of the ancient church to UNESCO.

If the file was incomplete, UNESCO officials would have informed us
up to now, Seyyed Taha Hashemi added.

Iran’s most interesting and notable Armenian monument, the Black
Church is located near one of the districts of Maku, a town in the
northwest of Iran.

One of the 12 Apostles of Jesus Christ, Thaddeus was martyred while
spreading the Gospel to this part of the country in the first century.

Some 300 years after his death, the locals constructed the church to
commemorate the apostle.

Not much appears to remain of the original church, which was restored
in the 1329 after an earthquake destroyed the structure in 1319.

Most of the present structure dates back to the 17th century when
the Qajar prince Abbas Mirza renovated and repaired the structure.

These additions are from carved sandstone. The earliest parts are of
black and white stone.

Numerous pilgrims from all over the world gather at the church each
year for the traditional feast-day of St. Thaddeus.

TURKEY CARRIES OUT THREATS TO WASHINGTON?

PanARMENIAN.Net
28.03.2007 16:25 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Turkey refused to allow the U.S. aircraft to
exercise night training flights over its territory from the Incirlik
air base. "Turkey rates the request of the U.S. command as not
corresponding to the agreements signed with the United States,"
reports CNN-Turk with a reference to its own sources.

Besides, such requests go beyond the agreement on joint defense.

Incirlik was formed in 1954 nearby the city of Adana after
conclusion of an agreement on joint defense between Ankara and
Washington. According to the agreement signed in 1980, the primary
unit stationed here is the 39th Air Base Wing.

It was earlier reported that in case the U.S. Congress passes the
resolution calling for the recognition of the Armenian Genocide,
Turkey may impose limitation on the U.S. use of the air base.

WORLD DOES NOT THINK HOLOCAUST WAS A UNIQUE EXAMPLE OF GENOCIDE

PanARMENIAN.Net
27.03.2007 15:09 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ "The world community does not think that the
Holocaust was a unique example of genocide, Jews themselves are sure in
it. They consider themselves as a nation chosen by God and state that
nobody besides themselves has undergone extermination," Chairman of
the European Armenian Federation Hilda Tchoboyan told at the interview
to PanARMENIAN.Net. She said, it is an ultimately wrong introduction
of problem. "Jewish communities of Europe have begun to approach to
this understanding. They excellently realize that if an estimation was
given to the Armenian Genocide in due time, the Holocaust may happen,
but not in such scales," the EAFJD Chairman underscored.