Author: Kajoyan Gevork

Presidents of France and Azerbaijan discuss the Karabakh issue

ArmRadio.am
30.01.2007 15:00

During a meeting in Paris Presidents of France and Azerbaijan Jacques
Chirac and Ilham Aliyev discussed the current state of the
negotiations on the settlement of the Karabakh conflict. Aliyev
declared that `Armenia should end its aggressive policy, after which
the stability and more faster development of the region can be
guaranteed, the State TV of Azerbaijan reported.

President Aliyev characterized as positive the meetings of the OSCE
Minsk Group Co-Chairs with the leadership of Armenia and Azerbaijan
last week.

For his part Jacques Chirac underlined that as a Minsk Group Co-Chair
country France `uses all its influence and opportunities to establish
peace in the region as soon as possible.’ The two Presidents
exchanged views on energy projects and the situation in the South
Caucasus. The French President highly appreciated the level of
cooperation between Azerbaijan and France and said that a Year of
Azerbaiajn will be held in France. `I think that both our political
and economic relations are very effective and important,’ Chirac
underlined.

PanARMENIAN.Net

Dink’s death should be wake-up call: the last stage of genocide is denial
29.01.2007 16:15 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ `Hrant Dink, whom I met in Yerevan,
Armenia, in 2005, was a fearless fighter for truth and
human dignity. His assassination strikes a heavy blow
against Turks, Armenians and all who strive for proper
acknowledgment of the 1915 Armenian Genocide and for
reconciliation between the two nations,’ former U.S.
Ambassador to Armenia John Evans wrote in The New York
Times. `His death should be a wake-up call: the last
stage of genocide is denial,’ he underscored.

PanARMENIAN.Net

Kars-Akhalkalaki-Baku railroad project economically disadvantageous
29.01.2007 15:10 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ The Kars-Akhalkalaki-Tbilisi-Baku railway
construction project is merely political and carries no economic
benefit, RA President’s Spokesman Victor Soghomonian said in
Yerevan. In his words, the U.S. and EU refused to finance the project
rating it as unprofitable. `Nevertheless, our neighbor states wish to
implement the project and we cannot prevent it,’ Soghomonian said.

RIA Novosti, Russia
Jan 29 2007

Gazprom considers oil refinery project in Armenia near Iran
15:50 | 29/ 01/ 2007

YEREVAN, January 29 (RIA Novosti) – A spokesman for the Armenian
president confirmed that Russian energy giant Gazprom [RTS: GAZP] was
considering a project to build an oil refinery in southern Armenia
near the Iranian border.

"I can confirm that Russia’s Gazprom is considering the possibility
of building an oil refinery in Armenia," Viktor Sogomonyan said,
adding that negotiations were in the initial stage.

He said Armenian President Robert Kocharyan had discussed the project
during his visit to Russia last week. Russian President Vladimir
Putin said after the talks that Russian mobile operator VimpelCom
[RTS: VIMP], aluminum company RusAl and Gazprom would double their
investment in the Armenian economy to $1.5 billion.

Saturday, January 27, 2007
Direct Link: amp;formato=3Dhtml

UN assembly condemns Holocaust denial; Iran disassociates
The United Nations General Assembly on Friday condemned without
reservation any denial of the Holocaust, with only Iran publicly
disassociating itself from the consensus resolution which was
immediately hailed by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.
The Assembly, noting that the resolution was adopted on the eve of the
UN-designated annual International Day of Commemoration for Holocaust
victims, who also included Roma, Sinti, homosexuals and other groups,
called on all its 192 Member States `unreservedly to reject any denial
of the Holocaust as a historical event, either in full or in part, or
any activities to this end.’

Welcoming the measure, which was introduced by the United States on
behalf of 103 co-sponsors, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon issued a
statement voicing his `strong desire to see this fundamental principle
respected both in rhetoric and in practice.’

`By this action today, the General Assembly reaffirms its condemnation
of the Holocaust as a crime against humanity,’ said the body’s
president, Sheikha Haya Al Khalifa of Bahrain.

`This is a strong reminder to all that the international communityis
united in opposing all crimes against humanity,’ she said. `For the
dignity of all humanity, we must strengthen our resolve to prevent
such atrocities, whenever and wherever they might occur.’

Introducing the resolution, acting US Permanent Representative
Alejandro D. Wolff said it made clear that all people and all States
have a vital stakein a world free of genocide.

`We remember it [the Holocaust], indeed we must remember it, to ensure
that such events are never repeated,’ he stressed. `Those who would
deny the Holocaust – and, sadly, there are some who do – reveal not
only their ignorance but their moral failure as well.’

Iranian representative Hossein Gharibi, while reiterating his
country’s `unambiguous’ condemnation of genocide against any race,
dismissed the resolution as a manipulation to deflect attention from
Israel’s`atrocious’ crimes and said it should have included other
cases of genocide such as Hiroshimaand Nagasaki, where the US dropped
atomic bombs, Palestine, Rwanda and the Balkans.

`In view of the above we truly disassociate ourselves from this entire
hypocritical political exercise,’ he declared.

Israeli Ambassador Dan Gillerman said the lessons of the Holocaust are
universal, compelling all nations to recommit to preventing the
horrors of genocide. `While the nations of the world gather here to
affirm the historicity of the Holocaust with the intent of never again
allowing genocide, a Member of this Assembly is acquiring the
capabilities to carry out its own,’ he added.

`The President of Iran is in fact saying: `There really wasno
Holocaust, but just in case, we shall finish the job.”

Speaking on behalf of the European Union (EU), German Ambassador
Thomas Matussek said distortions of historical facts `are a shameful
failure of the responsibility we all share to ensure a world free from
such atrocities.’

Speaking in the name of his country, he noted that the `unprecedented
crime of the Holocaust was committed by Germans and in the name of
Germany, and from that stems our very special responsibility.’

The UN marks Holocaust Commemoration Day annually on 27 January but
because it falls on a Saturday this year, it will be observed on
Monday 29 January. In a message prepared for the occasion, Mr. Ban
calls the Holocaust `a unique and undeniable tragedy.’ The remembrance
`is an essential response to those misguided individuals who claim
that the Holocaust never happened, or has been exaggerated,’ he adds.

Tomorrow, a month-long exhibition will open in the General Assembly
Visitors’ Lobby, displaying both the plight of the Roma and Sinti
minorities in Central and Eastern Europe and paintings and sculptures
by four Holocaust survivors – Joseph Bau (deceased), Henny Trompetter
Zwecher de Brito, David Friedman (deceased) and Hanka Kornfeld-Marder.

Last month, on the day he was sworn in as the next UN
Secretary-General, Mr. Ban was asked about Iran’s conference on the
scale and nature of the slaughter of 6 million Jews. `Denying
historical facts, especially on such an important subject as the
Holocaust, is just not acceptable,’ he replied. `Nor is it acceptable
to call for the elimination of any State or people.’

In 2005, both then-Secretary-General Kofi Annan and the Security
Council condemned reported remarks by Iranian President Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad calling for Israel to be wiped off the map.

mercopress.com

Libération , France
24 janvier 2007

A Istanbul, "nous sommes tous arméniens"

DURAN Ragip

Près de 100000 personnes ont manifesté hier lors des obsèques du
journaliste Hrant Dink, tué vendredi par un jeune ultranationaliste.

Istanbul de notre correspondant

C’est une véritable marée humaine. Des dizaines de milliers de
personnes, jusqu’à 100 000, même, selon les organisateurs – des Turcs
aussi bien que des Kurdes et des Arméniens, mais se revendiquant
simplement citoyens de Turquie -, défilent, recueillies, en
brandissant des petites pancartes : "Nous sommes tous arméniens" ou
"Nous sommes tous Hrant Dink". Assassiné vendredi par un jeune
chômeur ultranationaliste, le directeur de l’hebdomadaire Agos était
l’une des grandes voix de cette communauté réduite à 60 000
personnes.

Rêve.

Depuis des années, il se battait aussi bien pour une reconnaissance
du génocide de 1915 que pour la réconciliation entre les deux
peuples. Il aura réalisé son rêve le jour de ses funérailles, qui se
sont transformées en une immense manifestation, l’une des plus
grandes des dernières décennies dans la métropole du Bosphore. Une
marche de 8 kilomètres entre le siège d’Agos et le cimetière
arménien. "Nous ne pouvons rien faire sans d’abord enquêter sur ce
qui, dans notre société, crée de tels assassins. Tu nous as quittés,
tu as quitté tes enfants, tes petits-enfants et tes amis, mais tu
n’as pas quitté ta patrie", a lancé Rakel Dink, l’épouse de la
victime, alors que le patriarche arménien de Turquie Mesrob II
affirmait son espoir de "voir d’urgence les autorités prendre des
mesures visant à éradiquer l’animosité envers les Arméniens en
Turquie, notamment dans les manuels scolaires".

"Mauvais choix".

"Ce qu’il n’a pas pu faire de son vivant, Hrant Dink l’a fait avec sa
mort", expliquait une étudiante d’origine arménienne. Il y a là, en
effet, les officiels d’Erevan, représenté par le vice-ministre
arménien des Affaires étrangères, Arman Kirakossian, alors que les
deux pays n’entretiennent pas de relations diplomatiques. Une
délégation du conseil de coordination des Arméniens de France est
venue pour la première fois officiellement. Le ministre des Affaires
étrangères Abdullah Gül représentait le gouvernement, alors que le
Premier ministre Recep Tayyip Erdogan inaugurait un tunnel en
province avec son homologue italien Romano Prodi. "Il a fait un
mauvais choix", soupire, écoeuré, un universitaire. Son épouse
renchérit : "Il pouvait faire les deux avec un hélicoptère et je sais
que cette absence est un choix politique délibéré." En ce début
d’année électorale, le leader de l’AKP (Parti de la justice et du
développement, issu du mouvement islamiste) ne tient pas à défier
ouvertement le nationalisme qui monte depuis des années dans une
opinion publique lassée notamment par les promesses non tenues des
Européens.

Sursaut.

Le choc suscité par le meurtre de Hrant Dink commence néanmoins à
faire changer les choses. Le sursaut démocratique avait commencé
juste après le crime, vendredi, quand, déjà, des milliers de Turcs
réunis spontanément devant les locaux de l’hebdomadaire Agos ont crié
: "Nous sommes tous arméniens !" Ces images sont passées en boucle
dans les journaux télévisés où, jusqu’alors, le mot arménien sonnait
surtout comme une insulte. Quelque chose bouge même dans les régions
de la province qui sont des fiefs nationalistes comme à Trabzon, le
port de la mer Noire dont est originaire le tueur présumé Ogün
Samast, 17 ans, mais aussi celui, tout aussi jeune, du prêtre italien
Andrea Santoro, assassiné il y a un an. Une centaine de personnes se
sont réunies hier matin au centre-ville, un cortège composé
essentiellement des représentants locaux des partis politiques et des
organisations de la société civile, qui s’est rendu devant l’église
catholique pour y jeter des oeillets. Eyup Asik, ancien ministre
conservateur originaire de la ville, soulignait, amer : "Si l’enquête
sur l’assassinat du père Santoro avait été bien approfondie, Hrant
Dink serait encore vivant."

Panorama.am

19:29 26/01/2007

COMPENSATION AGAINST BANK DEPOSITS RESUMES

In a few days, the depositors of the Armenian Saving Bank, will get
compensated, Astghik Minasyan, social aid department head, told
Panorama.am.

Citizens may get compensated if they are listed in family allowance
list until April 1, last year.

The state released 1 billion drams for compensation. The number of
beneficiaries totals 59500 at the moment.

Source: Panorama.am

Today’s Zaman, Turkey
Jan 25 2007

Gül admits article 301 problematic

Foreign Minister Abdullah Gül acknowledged yesterday that changes in
a penal code article were necessary, the strongest sign yet from the
government that the law, criticized by the European Union for
restricting freedoms, could be amended.
`We know that there are some problems with Article 301,’ Gül told
reporters before departing for an international donors conference on
Lebanon in Paris. `We see that changes in the article are necessary.’
Article 301 of the Turkish Penal Code (TCK) is once again under
the spotlight after the murder of Hrant Dink, a Turkish-Armenian
journalist who had been tried and sentenced to a six-month suspended
imprisonment for `insulting Turkishness’ under the law.

The suspected murderer, 17-year-old Ogün Samast, reportedly told the
police that he had killed Dink because he had said `Turkish blood is
dirty.’
The government has dragged its feet on changing the law, requesting
more time to see how it is implemented and saying that no one, in the
end, has been sent to jail under Article 301. But Dink, in his last
column for his Turkish-Armenian newspaper, Agos, wrote that
imprisonment was not the only punishment that a person could suffer,
complaining that he had come to be known as a person convicted of
insulting Turkishness.
Justice Minister Cemil Çiçek, one of the most reluctant figures
within the government to change the law, said on Tuesday that
possible amendments should be discussed at a later stage, after Dink
was buried.
Dink’s funeral on Tuesday drew up to 100,000 people. Some
participants carried banners reading `Murderer 301.’
`We want free expression of thoughts that do not contain any
incitement to violence,’ Gül told reporters. `We don’t want anyone to
go to jail because of expressing his or her views.’ He added that the
government was in touch with nongovernmental organizations to obtain
their proposals on how Article 301 should change.

Bahçeli: Nationalism under attack
The funeral of Dink, who was shot three times in the neck on Friday
in front of his newspaper office, was widely seen as a call for
reconciliation between Turks and Armenians, with participants
carrying identical black-and-white banners reading `We are all Hrant
Dink’ and `We are all Armenians.’
In another sign that the funeral could lead to the improvement of
relations between Turkey and Armenia, the government invited members
of the Armenian diaspora and Armenian religious leaders to the
funeral.
Devlet Bahçeli, leader of the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP),
criticized mourners for carrying banners reading `We are all
Armenians’ and complained there was a `purposeful lynching campaign’
against the state and Turkish nationalism.
`It has become a tradition to declare the state guilty after every
incident taking place in this country and start a campaign aimed at
eroding trust in the state,’ Bahçeli said.
Bahçeli also lashed out at the Turkish Industrialists and
Businessmen’s Association (TÜSİAD), Turkey’s leading business
group, for calling for education in languages other than Turkish and
measures to allow political parties to do politics on ethnic lines in
a recent study.
According to Bahçeli, this puts TÜSİAD on the same page with the
outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). `This shows TÜSİAD
supports the PKK’s politicization project,’ he said.

Armenia says soldier killed by Azerbaijani sniper at border
The Associated PressPublished: January 22, 2007

International Herald Tribune, France
Jan 22 2007

YEREVAN, Armenia: The Armenian Defense Ministry said one of its
soldiers was shot and killed Monday by an Azerbaijan sniper at the
countries’ border, but Azerbaijan denied it.

The Armenian soldier was serving near the village of Berd, about 210
kilometers (130 miles) northeast of the capital Yerevan, when he was
shot in the head, a Defense Ministry statement said. He died en route
to a hospital, it said.

Azerbaijani military spokesman Ramiz Melikov said Azerbaijani forces
had not violated a 1994 cease-fire, unlike, he said, Armenia.

"Having occupied our lands, they have begun an undeclared war against
the Azerbaijani people and are trying to blame us," Melikov told The
Associated Press.

On Friday, Azerbaijani officials accused Armenian forces of killing
an Azerbaijani soldier near Nagorno-Karabakh – a disputed mountainous
territory inside Azerbaijan that is controlled by Karabakh and Armenian
forces, along with some surrounding areas.

Six years of fighting over Nagorno-Karabakh ended in a shaky cease-fire
in 1994, with 30,000 people killed and about 1 million driven from
their homes.

Gunfire breaks out regularly along the border between the two ex-Soviet
countries and in the regions near Nagorno-Karabakh.

Repeated efforts by international mediators, including the Organization
for Security and Cooperation in Europe,to resolve the territory’s
status have failed, and the lack of resolution has tied up development
in the strategic and energy-rich South Caucasus region.

In Baku, Azerbaijan, before a meeting between the country’s foreign
minister and an OSCE envoy, President Ilham Aliev again accused
Armenia of dragging out negotiations over Nagorno-Karabakh.

"Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity was not, is not and will never
be a subject for discussions," he said in televised comments.

"Azerbaijan is trying to decide this problem on the basis of the
norms of international law."

Le Temps, Suisse
22 janvier 2007

"Nous sommes tous des Armeniens";
TURQUIE. La presse turque condamne l’assassinat de Hrant Dink, dont
le meurtrier a ete arrete.

L’arrestation a ete rapide. Trente-deux heures après l’assassinat de
Hrant Dink, journaliste d’origine armenienne, la police turque a
interpelle samedi soir un jeune homme de 17ans, sans emploi,
originaire de Trabzon – la où il y a un an a ete assassine un pretre
catholique – en possession de l’arme du crime. Denonce par son père,
il aurait avoue dès le premier interrogatoire et declare ne pas
regretter son geste. Un geste motive par des propos attribues a Hrant
Dink, et qualifiant le sang turc d’impur.

Au patriarcat armenien, la nouvelle de cette arrestation n’a pas
attenue la peine liee au meurtre de Hrant Dink. "Cette arrestation
n’est pas importante", estime Artin Yaman, 57ans. "Ce jeune n’a pas
pu agir seul. Ceux qui se cachent derrière ce meurtre n’ont pas
encore ete arretes. Le seront-ils jamais? Je ne le crois pas.
L’essentiel n’est pas d’arreter les coupables mais de changer les
mentalites." Groupes ultranationalistes, influence islamiste, liens
politico-mafieux, ce cordonnier a la retraite se fait peu d’illusions
sur la volonte de la justice turque a demasquer les "forces" qui se
cacheraient derrière cet assassinat "politique".

La seule chose positive constatee par Artin Yaman est le soutien,
quasi unanime et sans precedent, de la population turque, des medias
et des hommes politiques a leurs "frères" armeniens. Le slogan "Nous
sommes tous Armeniens" est repris en boucle par la foule qui continue
de venir deposer des fleurs devant les locaux d’Agos. "J’ai grandi
avec des Armeniens mais je me demande ce que nous allons pouvoir
laisser a nos enfants. Aujourd’hui, j’ai mal et j’ai honte", confesse
une jeune femme venue se recueillir.

Dans ce contexte de quasi-union sacree, les prises de position de
Hrant Dink sur le genocide ne sont pas abordees, laissant planer un
doute sur la solidite de cet unanimisme. "Qui vivra verra!" soupire
l’un des Armeniens charges de l’accueil des paroissiens au
patriarcat. Artin Yaman, lui, n’y croit pas. "Nous allons continuer a
dire bonjour a nos voisins musulmans mais, encore plus qu’avant, nous
allons nous taire. En chacun d’entre nous se trouve un Hrant Dink,
mais un Hrant Dink qui garde ses idees pour lui."

Le decouragement se ressent aussi auprès d’Etyen Mahcupyan, ami de
Hrant Dink et comme lui journaliste engage d’origine armenienne. "Si
dans ce pays l’identite de la majorite tend vers la violence, si les
depositaires de cette terre ne veulent meme pas faire vivre les
colombes de leur jardin, alors nous avons affaire a une maladie. La
Turquie est malade", ecrivait-il hier dans le journal Zaman.

–Boundary_(ID_dHaWNj2Bvtb8BnLOhKI8PA)–