Author: Kajoyan Gevork

DEMAIN, LE CHOEUR ARMENIEN DE GEGHARD A LA CATHEDRALE SAINT-LOUIS

L’ Orient-Le Jour, Liban
Mardi 26 Fevrier 2013

Festival al-Bustan Demain, mercredi 27 fevrier, la cathedrale
Saint-Louis de Beyrouth retentira de voix angeliques.

Huit femmes composant le choeur du monastère de Geghard en Armenie
interpreteront des chants sacres, ainsi que des airs issus du
patrimoine folklorique armenien.

Fonde en 2001 par Anahit Papayan, le choeur du monastère de Geghard
(Armenie) est un ensemble vocal feminin qui regroupe huit jeunes
chanteuses sous la direction artistique du Dr Mher Navoyan.

Tous les dimanches en ce monastère, appele aussi Sainte-Lance de
Geghard et construit au XIIIe siècle, l’ensemble choral feminin
participe a la liturgie.

Sa mission consiste non seulement a diffuser la musique sacree
armenienne en Armenie et dans le reste du monde, mais aussi a faire
connaître le patrimoine musical folklorique du pays.

Ainsi, depuis 2002, le choeur effectue des tournees dans toute
l’Europe.

Il a d’abord participe au Xe Festival Kirkko Soikoon en Finlande dedie
a la culture armenienne (2005), aux festivals Musique a Saint-Leonard
de Francfort-sur-le-Main et Armenia Sacra a Erevan (2007), puis a
chante en 2009 au Festival international Musikfest de la Bachakademie
a Stuttgart.

Les concerts de l’annee 2009 ont ete dedies au 140e anniversaire de la
naissance du celèbre ecclesiastique, ethnomusicologue et compositeur
armenien Komitas.

En fevrier 2010, l’ensemble vocal a remporte le Grand Prix du concours
de musique orthodoxe Kolozhski Blagovest de Bielorussie avant de
gagner, au mois de mai de la meme annee, le Premier Prix du concours
international d’Hainouvka en Pologne.

Depuis quatre ans, ce choeur feminin organise, en collaboration avec le
Centre national de musique sacree d’Armenie, des concerts de musique
sacree et folklorique armenienne dans les eglises et monastères de
toute l’Armenie.

Ses nombreux CD ont paru en Allemagne, en Finlande et en Armenie.

CROWN PRINCE SALMAN CONGRATULATES PRESIDENT OF ARMENIA ON HIS RE-ELECTION

Saudi Press Agency (SPA)
February 26, 2013 Tuesday

Riyadh, Rabi’II 16, 1434, Feb 26, 2013, SPA — Crown Prince Salman bin
Abdulaziz Al Saud, Deputy Premier and Minister of Defense, has sent
a cable of congratulations to President Serzh Sargsian of Armenia on
his re-election as President of the Republic of Armenia.

The Crown Prince wished the President permanent good health and
happiness and the people of Armenia steady progress and prosperity.

The Crown Prince praised the relations between the two friendly
countries.

“UNPRECEDENTED WORK REGARDING SUMGAIT MASSACRE DONE SINCE 2009”

Thursday,
February 28

“Azerbaijan is the only country that openly engages in neonazi
and racist propaganda and uses misanthropic wordings contrary to
international law, when speaking about the Artsakh problem resolution
at the United Nations,” CEO of Against Legal Arbitrariness Foundation
Ms. Larisa Alkaverdian said today at the discussion dedicated to the
25th anniversary of the Sumgait massacre.

“Azerbaijan has not yet found a format that would clarify its position
on the Sumgait massacre and made this country stop the process of
glorifying murderers. Not only the international community, but also
Armenia at the state level have not given an adequate assessment of
what happened. The National Assembly has not adopted any document to
specify our legislative body’s assessment of the Sumgait massacre.

The Sumgait massacre victims and their families have no special
status. In legal parlance, they just died, whereas their families
have no social, political, and legal protection,” she noted.

According to Larisa Alaverdian, in Azerbaijan racism is encouraged
at the state level, with a whole generation being perverted, while
we still conduct a passive policy.

At the same time she stressed that since 2009 the PR and Information
Center of the President’s Administration has done unprecedented work
in this direction.

“Unprecedented work has been done, including films, new websites, and
opening archives. An unprecedented step forward has been taken in the
information policy. When a link begins functioning at the state level,
the results become obvious, but why are we 20 years late?” Ms.

Alaverdian asked.

27.02.2013, 20:45

Aysor.am

ARMENIAN EMBASSY IN GEORGIA ISSUES STATEMENT ON SUMGAIT POGROMS

February 27, 2013 – 21:43 AMT

PanARMENIAN.Net – Georgia’s Gruzia Online news agency has published
the official statement of Armenian embassy in Georgia on the 25th
anniversary of the pogroms against Armenians in Azerbaijani city
of Sumgait.

“Today, Armenia and Armenian Diaspora honor the memory of innocent
victims of Sumgait pogroms, masterminded 25 years ago.

The policy of violence and ethnic cleansing against Armenians in
Sumgait continued in Baku on Jan 13-20, 1990, with several hundred
of Armenians falling victims, despite the official Azerbaijani data
reporting only 49 victims.

25 years have already passed, but Armenian people will never forget
the victims. We are certain that sooner or later both the murderers
and rapists of innocent people and those giving them hero’s welcome
will be punished for their crimes,” the statement reads.

– See more at:

ARMENIAN GOVERNMENT TO VERIFY INFORMATION ABOUT SOME PROVINCIAL GOVERNORS’ INTERFERENCE IN ELECTORAL PROCESSES

YEREVAN, February 27. /ARKA/. Armenian Prime Minister Tigran Sargsyan,
speaking Wednesday at a regular Q&A session in the National Assembly,
said that the government will check information that some provincial
governors thanked their subordinates for ensuring a large number of
votes to President Serzh Sargsyan in the presidential election.

Nikol Pashinyan, MP from the Armenian National Congress, the bloc of
opposition parties, said he had learned from Gegharkunik province
authorities’ official website that Rafik Grigoryan, the province’s
governor, expressed gratitude to his subordinates for doing this.

The lawmaker said Ashot Ghaghramanyan, governor of Armavir province,
made a similar statement, and Ashot Ghiziryan, Shirak province
governor, resigned for failing to do the same.

“I want to shift your attention on the prohibition for city mayors and
provincial governors against campaigning for candidates or ensuring
good results to them,” Pashinyan said.

On February 22, Ashot Ghiziryan, governor of Shirak, submitted his
resignation to Tigran Sargsyan. The opposition media is full of
assumptions that the governor resigned because Raffi Hovannisian,
Serzh Sargsyan’s key rival in the presidential election, won 69.5%
of votes in Gyumri, capital city of Shirak province, while Serzh
Sargsyan scored only 27%.

The prime minister said he hasn’t heard about this before and vowed
to sort through the matter.

“I can just say that governors were vigilant and we watched carefully
to prevent abuse of administrative resource,” he said. “But if such
things happened, we will discuss them and inform you about results.”

The presidential election poll final results released by the Central
Election Commission showed that Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan
was reelected by 58.64% of votes.

The second vote-getter was Raffi Hovannisian, leader of Heritage
party, who disputes the results of the poll, is staging rallies
in Armenia’s provinces. In the last Friday, Hovannisian announced
the start of the Revolution of Greetings. -0- – See more at:

CIVILIZATIONAL ABYSS BETWEEN AZERBAIJAN AND INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY IS DEEPENING. EDWARD NALBANDIAN

18:05, 27 February, 2013

YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 27, ARMENPRESS: Minister of Foreign Affairs of
Armenian Republic Edward Nalbandian has given an exclusive interview
to the Austrian news agency. Armenpress reports the full interview.

-Mr. Minister, efforts aimed at establishment of peace between Armenia
and Azerbaijan made during years have been in vain. How one can reach
a result in those negotiations?

-Azerbaijan refuses all suggestions of Minsk group Co-Chairs, Russia,
USA and France regarding the peaceful resolution of Nagorno-Karabakh
conflict. It refuses even initiations aimed at trust strengthening,
including strengthening of ceasefire, withdrawal of snipers and
creation of investigation mechanism on the violation of ceasefire.

They have an illusion that with the help of revenues from petrol
and gas they can buy everything: friends on international arena and
beneficial resolutions for them. Why the settlement process hasn’t
succeeded till now. Because international community and Azerbaijan
speak different languages. While we have gathered in Vienna to promote
the dialogue between civilizations, civilizational abyss between
Azerbaijan and international community is deepening. Higher officials
of Azerbaijan propagate intolerance, hatred, war and proclaim racist
murderers as heroes. And what about supporters of peace and solidarity,
like in Akram Ailisli’s case, they threaten to cut off his ear.

-Doesn’t NKR issue in some point depend on such regional country as
Turkey, which has a partial position regarding the conflict?

-It does, Turkey is unilaterally advocating Azerbaijan. And naturally
it cannot have the role of mediator in this process. If Turkey has
a willing to promote peaceful settlement, it would be better, not
to intervene in this process at all. The reason that the peaceful
settlement hasn’t been reached till now is the destructive policy of
Azerbaijan. Azerbaijani side believes that use of force, military
resolution may be a possible option. Though, of course, war is not
a resolution and there is no other option but negotiating process.

-It seemed there was a tendency for the settlement of Armenian-Turkish
relations in 2009. Appropriate protocols haven’t been ratified by
Ankara. What was the reason of the failure?

-We reached an agreement. Armenian-Turkish protocols were signed in
Zurich, nevertheless, Turkish side refused to ratify and implement
those agreements. Actually, Turkey refuses the most important pacta
sund servant principle of international relations, that agreements
have to be respected. Positions of Armenia and international community
are the same-Turkey should respect agreements, ratify and implement
protocols without any preconditions.

-Why are You demanding Turkey to recognize Armenian Genocide committed
about 100 years ago?

-In this issue we are responsible to humanity, in order not to prevent
repetitions of new genocides, crimes against humanity. Genocides must
be recognized, condemned, their denial must not be tolerated. This
is the way. This is not only the issue of Armenian nation, but of
the all humankind. This is an issue of respect for fundamental human
rights and international law.

-Austria hasn’t qualified those Turkish actions as Genocide till
nowadays. Are you disappointed?

-We hope that Austria, as well as other countries of Europe and world
will recognize it.

-What about the progress over negotiations on Association Agreement
with the European Union?

-We have recorded a visible progress over negotiation on Association
Agreement, including negotiations on establishment of deep and
comprehensive free trade zone. We hope to complete negotiations
till Eastern Partnership Summit in Vilnius in November. We signed
visa facilitation regime agreement with EU on December, so that EU
citizens may visit Armenia without visa.

-According to evaluations of OSCE observers, presidential elections
of Armenia, held on February, were generally free and fair. Though
observers have pointed out some shortcomings mainly the issue of
separation of state institutions and the ruling party.

-You are right; observers have given positive evaluations to the
elections. They were unanimous that elections were an important step
forward. Suggestions on improvements of election process were also
made. We will attentively examine the proposals and will initiate
all needed steps in order to implement appropriate reforms aimed at
the improvement of electoral system.

Important reforms have been implemented in Armenia recently,
in a result of which, our country has leading positions in some
international rankings, including freedom of press, business
environment and other spheres. We are determined to continue the
reform process.

– See more at:

VICTIMS OF SUMGAIT MASSACRE COMMEMORATED IN STEPANAKERT

12:13 28.02.2013

On 28 February in connection with the 25th anniversary of the Sumgait
massacre President of the Nagorno Karabakh Republic Bako Sahakyan
accompanied by primate of the Artsakh Diocese of the Armenian Apostolic
Church Archbishop Pargev Martirossyan and top officials of the republic
visited Stepanakert Memorial Complex and laid flowers at the monument
of innocent victims, Central Information Department of the Office of
the NKR President reported.

LE TIMBRE DU 20EME JUBILE DU FONDS HAYASTAN LANCE A EREVAN

Erevan a accueilli le lancement officiel du timbre consacre au 20ème
anniversaire du Fonds Hayastan.

Un logo type a ete concu pour le timbre. À l’interieur du cercle il
y a les noms des pays, qui ont des bureaux du Fonds. Le timbre a les
couleurs du drapeau armenien.

Les programmes executes par le Fonds pendant les 20 dernières annees
sont estimes a presque 250 millions de dollars.

jeudi 28 fevrier 2013, Stephane ©armenews.com

BAGARRE A L’ASSEMBLEE NATIONALE

LCI a relaye, ce matin, l’information sur le pugilat entre Azeris
et franco-armeniens qui s’est deroule dans l’enceinte de l’Assemblee
nationale le 26 fevrier.

jeudi 28 fevrier 2013, Jean Eckian ©armenews.com

RICHARD MORNINGSTAR: “NAGORNO KARABAKH CONFLICT HAS CAUSED SUFFERING FOR ALL AZERBAIJANIS”

APA, Azerbaijan
Feb 27 2013

“The statement of the White House in itself means the statement of
President Barack Obama”

Baku. Viktoriya Dementyeva-APA. “The statement of the White House in
itself means the statement of President Barack Obama,” US Ambassador
to Azerbaijan Richard Mornigstar told journalists when asked about the
Khojaly genocide petition posted on the website of the White House,
APA reports.

Ambassador said killing of innocent civilians is inadmissible and
tragedy.

“As ambassador of the US to Azerbaijan I want to say that I know how
painful Khojaly tragedy is for the Azerbaijanis. Killing of civilians
is a terrible tragedy. This once more underlines the necessity of
making necessary efforts to solve Nagorno Karabakh conflict. Nagorno
Karabakh conflict has caused suffering for all Azerbaijanis,” he said.