Author: Kajoyan Gevork

Agence France Presse
February 5, 2013 Tuesday 2:29 PM GMT

Armenians kill two Azerbaijani soldiers near Karabakh: Baku

BAKU, Feb 05 2013

Armenian forces on Tuesday killed two Azerbaijani troops near the
breakaway Nagorny Karabakh region in the latest outbreak of violence
between the ex-Soviet enemies, Azerbaijan’s defence ministry said.

“The Azerbaijani army soldier Syanan Alizade and lieutenant Tural
Askerov have been shot dead as a result of the ceasefire violation by
the Armenian side on Tuesday,” ministry spokesman Teymur Abdullayev
told AFP.

The incident took place in Azerbaijan’s Khojavend district, near
Nagorny Karabakh, he said.

Last year 14 soldiers were reported to have died amid firefights
between Armenian and Azerbaijani troops, who are locked in a bitter
conflict over the disputed region of Nagorny Karabakh, where they
fought a war in the 1990s.

Armenia-backed separatists seized Nagorny Karabakh from Azerbaijan
during the war that left some 30,000 people dead, but despite years of
negotiations since a 1994 ceasefire, the two sides have not yet signed
a final peace deal.

Azerbaijan has threatened to take back the disputed region by force if
negotiations do not yield results, while Armenia has vowed massive
retaliation against any military action.

eg-im/sjw/gd

Interfax, Russia
February 5, 2013 Tuesday 4:13 PM MSK

76% of Armenians intend to vote in presidential election – poll

MOSCOW. Feb 5

Some 64% of Armenians are discontent with the state of home affairs,
and 57% say there has been deterioration, the Russian Public Opinion
Study Center (VTsIOM) told Interfax. It held the poll in Armenia in
view of the February 18 presidential election.

Fifty percent of the respondents said unemployment was the biggest
problem, and 31% advised the government to concentrate on the creation
of jobs.

The approval rating of Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan is 56%. The
rating is 42% for the prime minister and 37% for the whole government,
VTsIOM said.

Some 75% of 1,624 respondents polled on January 25-29 said they were
following domestic sociopolitical news. The indicator was the highest
(81%) amongst senior citizens. A quarter showed no interests (35%
amongst the young).

Ninety-five percent of the respondents said they were well aware of
the upcoming presidential election, and 4% said they had heard
something about it.

Some 76% said they intended to vote, mostly (26%) to fulfill their civil duty.

The best known candidates are Serzh Sargsyan (known to 99% of the
respondents), Raffi Hovannisian and Paruyr Hayrikyan (97%), Hrant
Bagratyan (86%) and Aram Arutyunyan (66%). Andreas Gukasyan (44%),
Arman Melikyan (43%) and Vardan Sedrakyan (42%) are less known.

Sargsyan is the leading candidate (61% of citizens are ready to cast
their vote for him). Raffi Hovannisian is the first runner-up (27%).

Other candidates have a much lower electoral rating: Hayrikyan (5%),
Bagratyan (4%), Arutyunyan (1%) and less than 1% for the others. A
quarter of voters have not made up their mind.

Some 86% of the voters who will come to polling stations are more or
less certain of their choice. Supporters of Serzh Sargsyan (94%) are
the surest of all.

Seventy-seven percent of the respondents forecasted that the election
would have one round only, and 15% acknowledged the possibility of the
second round.

If the second round is held, the respondents predict a rivalry between
Serzh Sargsyan (81%) and Raffi Hovannisian (69%). Ten percent said
Hayrikyan might take part in the second round, and 9% allowed for the
participation of Bagratyan.

Some 47% of the respondents expect Sargsyan to win a fair victory.
Twenty-eight percent think Hovannisian may be victorious. No more than
3% of the respondents expect another candidate to win.

Presidential candidate Hayrikyan was attacked on the night of January
31. He was shot in the shoulder.

Te jv

Interfax, Russia
February 5, 2013 Tuesday 5:55 PM MSK

Candidate for Iran president vows to go after “breakaway” Armenia,
Azerbaijan, Tajikistan

DUSHANBE. Feb 5

A Hezbollah leader who is running for president of Iran vowed on
Tuesday that “the lands that have broken away from Iran – Armenia,
Azerbaijan and Tajikistan” – would become part of Iran if he won
June’s presidential election, and that not “a drop of blood” would be
shed if this happened.

“Bringing back the lands that have broken away from Iran – Armenia,
Azerbaijan and Tajikistan – is one of the main platforms of my
election program,” Iranian media quoted Ayatollah Mohammad Bagher
Kharazi, leader of Hezbollah’s Iranian branch, as saying.

Kharazi did not say whether by “breakaway lands” he meant all or part
of the territory of the three countries.

“I will bring those lands back to Iran without shedding a drop of
blood,” he said.

He also promised that the West would lift all its anti-Iranian
sanctions if he became president.

Iranian law prevents incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad from
running for another term.

A senior Tajik government official has dismissed Kharazi’s words as “a
lot of election campaign populism.”

“The ideas are beautiful but they come from the world of fairytales.
Despite all of our similarities, too much draws us apart – religion,
culture, which has taken completely different routes in its
development in the two countries, economics,” the official told
Interfax on condition of anonymity. “I can’t see any chance of Iran
and Tajikistan reunifying within the next century.”

The Tajik language is a variety of Persian, and Tajik and Iranian
leaders are fond of talking about their countries’ shared language and
cultural roots but gloss over the fact that 98% of Tajiks are Sunni
Muslims and 89% of Iranians follow the Shia branch of Islam.

Iran invests in Tajikistan’s energy sector and road construction.

However, the Tajik government is in every way trying to shield its
country from Iranian cultural and religious influences.

Tajiks are prohibited from sending their children to the Iranian
Embassy school and need permission from their Education Ministry to
apply for higher education in Iran as the Tajik government seeks to
prevent its citizens from receiving religious education abroad.

as jv

Xinhua General News Service, China
January 31, 2013 Thursday 12:08 AM EST

New European Union center opens in Armenia

YEREVAN Jan. 31

A new European Union office center opened here on Thursday, the
Armenpress news agency reported.

The office will serve as an information center and become the heart of
communications between the European Union and Armenia, Trajan
Christea, head of the EU delegation in Armenia, said in the opening
ceremony.

The EU has financed more than 80 projects that are in line with the
reforms being implemented in Armenia in the sphere of human rights,
trade and economic development, migration, culture and many other
fields, Christea said.

ITAR-TASS, Russia
January 29, 2013 Tuesday 12:48 AM GMT+4

CSTO secretariat delegation to participate in events over
military-economic ties in Yerevan

MOSCOW January 29

– The establishment of the certified servicing centres for technical
maintenance and repairs of armoured combat vehicles and engineering
vehicles, the air defence systems and helicopters Mi, Russia-made
vehicles in Armenia will be discussed by the participants in a joint
meeting of Russian and Armenian national parts of the CSTO Interstate
Commission for Military-Economic Cooperation and a meeting of the
interdepartmental committee of the Republic of Armenia for the
coordination of the events, which are being fulfilled within the
Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), the CSTO Interstate
Committee for Military-Economic Cooperation and the Business Council
under the foresaid CSTO interstate commission. The possible launching
of an assembling production of vehicles on the KAMAZ platform will be
also discussed at these meetings.

The delegation of the CSTO Secretariat headed by CSTO Secretary
General Nikolai Bordyuzha, Secretary of the Armenian National Security
Council Artur Bagdasaryan and Chairman of the CSTO Interstate
Commission for Military-Economic Cooperation and State Secretary and
Russian Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade Igor Karavayev and CSTO
Deputy Secretary General Valery Semerikov will participate in these
events, which will be held in Yerevan on January 29-30, CSTO press
secretary Vladimir Zainetdinov told Itar-Tass on Monday.

Nikolai Bordyuzha will deliver a report at the meeting.

High on the agenda of a meeting of Russian and Armenian national parts
of the CSTO Interstate Commission for Military-Economic Cooperation
are also the production of the communications systems and technical
devices of new generation (complex simulators) for the training of the
staff of the Armenian law enforcement agencies.

The CSTO Secretariat and the Armenian National Security Council will
sign a memorandum on mutual understanding for the establishment of the
foundation “CSTO Academy” in Armenia

ITAR-TASS, Russia
January 28, 2013 Monday 10:32 PM GMT+4

Shoigu congratulates Sargsyan on Armenian Armed Forces’ Day

YEREVAN January 28

– Russian Defence Ministry Sergei Shoigu, who arrived in Armenia on
his first official visit in his new capacity on Monday, January 28,
congratulated the country and its President Serzh Sargsyan on the
national Armed Forces’ Day.

Shoigu and Sargsyan “stressed the importance of further strengthening
of strategic allied relations between Russia and Armenia and enhanced
bilateral military and military-technical cooperation,” the executive
office the Armenian president said.

It said this is important in dealing with existing challenges.

Shoigu and Sargsyan discussed programmes for further development of
military-to-military cooperation.

“Relations between our countries are very warm. The heads of our
states set an example for us to follow. And we should live up to this
level,” Shoigu said. “I have many friends here and I am glad to be
here.”

“Serzh Sargsyan warmly greeted the Russian defence minister and
stressed the importance of his visit on the Armenian Armed Forces’
Day,” Shoigu’s spokesperson Darya Zatulina said.

“During a warm meeting they recalled the earlier visits by the defence
minister who had done so much for Armenia after earthquakes in his
previous position,” she said.

On Tuesday morning, January 29, Shoigu is scheduled to have talks with
his Armenian counterpart Seyran Ohanyan. After the talks he will head
to Armenia’s second largest city of Gyumri where Russia’s 102nd
military base is stationed.

US Daily Review
January 28, 2013 Monday 7:25 AM EST

Azerbaijan Allows for Shooting of Civilian Aircrafts

The following article is being released by the Public Relations
Department, Consulate General of the Republic of Armenia in Los
Angeles:

The Government of Azerbaijan has recently voted to allow its air force
to shoot down civilian aircraft overflying the Republic of Artsakh.
This decision came in the wake of the announced resumption of flights
from and to Stepanakert, the capital of Artsakh (Nagorno Karabakh in
Russian).

The threat to destroy civilian aircraft with passengers aboard is a
complete aberration by standards of any civilized and respected member
of international community. However, given Azerbaijan’s track record
of respect for international law and human rights, it is quite
conceivable that the decision of the government of Azerbaijan is not
entirely declarative in its nature.

During the last days of the Soviet empire, Azerbaijani authorities
orchestrated kristallnacht-styled pogroms on its citizens of Armenian
origin – a crime that forever stained the face of Baku, Azerbaijan’s
capital and a crime yet to be repented by its perpetrators. The Azeri
government then sent warplanes to drop cluster bombs on apartment
buildings, hospitals and schools of unarmed people in Stepanakert, who
in exercise of their constitutional right, voted for
self-determination and freedom. Repelled in a humiliating defeat,
Azerbaijan imposed a tight blockade on 150,000-strong population of
Artsakh, with the hope to starve them and force to capitulate all in
vain as we know.

And then comes the act of utmost barbary: intoxicated by hate speech
towards anything Armenian, an Azeri officer beheads his sleeping
fellow Armenian classmate – both attending a NATO seminar in Budapest.
Abominable in its design and execution, this crime was subsequently
glorified by the government of Azerbaijan and the axe murderer was
honored and promoted in rank, thus leaving Artsakh and its people with
no illusions as to the ability of the modern day Azerbaijan to
maintain civilized neighborly relations or relations with anyone of
Armenian descent.

21 years into a successful nation-building existence, the Republic of
Artsakh is taking measures to re-launch air communication with Armenia
only to face more hostility and outright blackmail from Azerbaijan.
Air traffic is not an end in itself for Artsakh, although it is very
natural for all people, no matter if their country is recognized or
not, to fulfill their fundamental right for free movement. With the
resumption of civilian air traffic with Armenia, Artsakh intends to
improve the country’s accessibility to the outside world with all the
economic and humanitarian ramifications this move entails. Neither
Armenia nor Artsakh consider the re-opening of the Stepanakert airport
as an escalatory move intended to damage the negotiation process that
Azerbaijan has been consistently trying to derail. Similar to this is
the reaction of international mediators who warn Azerbaijan against
the use of force and call for a refrain in politicizing the matter.

Azerbaijan’s aggressive reactions repeat a familiar pattern, a deja
vu, by futilely attempting to prevent the people of Artsakh from
strengthening their statehood and democratic traditions. Speaking of
democratic traditions, on the other side of the world, before the
California State Senate, the Consul General of Azerbaijan just
recently referred to his country as a democracy. This came in the wake
of the latest report by Freedom House that rated Azerbaijan as ‘Not
Free,’ while classifying the Republic of Artsakh as ‘Partly Free,’
i.e. among the nations with nascent democratic traditions such as
genuinely competitive elections and participation. This ‘glitch’ is
not the only one. In yet another astonishing revelation, the Azeri
diplomats claimed that Azerbaijan- a predominantly Shiite Muslim
country – was one of the first Christian nations!

Having declared the worldwide Armenians Azerbaijan’s worst enemy,
Azerbaijan has in recent months imported its deceptive propaganda and
bellicose rhetoric to the US West Coast – home to one of the largest
Armenian Diasporas in the world. Thus far, this new effort by the
Azeri propaganda has only resulted in a number of embarrassing
situations and heavy blows to the country’s own standing, in addition
to strengthening the already overwhelming support of the global
Armenian community to the Republic of Artsakh.

There has been no response from the government of Azerbaijan.

E-voting for Armenian presidential hopefuls gets under way

20:12 – 09.02.13

Armenia’s Central Election Commission (CEC) began Saturday morning an
online voting for the candidates contesting the February 18
presidential election.

The system is designed to address the needs of the Armenian diplomats
and their families residing abroad.

The e-voting will last five days, with the results expected to go
public five hours after the process is over, CEC President Tigran
Mukuchyan told Tert.am.

The procedure allows a person to change the voting result several
times, but the software counts only the final vote.

`Because diplomats and consules, and the Armenian citizens who are
members of their families vote via the Internet, the new electronic
voting offers them a unique opportunity to access the system several
times to enable him- in case of attempt to oversee the process – to
change the vote by typing his login and password,’ Mukuchyan said.

The online voting system was launched in Armenia during the 2012
parliamentary election. The e-voter register contained 238 names then.

ARMENIA IN INTERNATIONAL AND ARMENIAN OLD MAPS, ITS GEOGRAPHY AND
CARTOGRAPHY

Published on Jan 27, 2013

Abstract: This talk will show how, during the past 2,600 years Greco-Roman,
Islamic and Western geographers, historians and cartographers saw and wrote
about Armenia and how they depicted the country in their maps. The story
will be told with maps made by the Greek, Islamic and European
cartographers.These maps form part of the World geographic and cartographic
heritage, the originals of which are kept in
various well-known libraries and museums, such as the Library of Congress,
the British Library, National Library of France, Municipal Library of
Berlin, and libraries of Bologna, Istanbul, Yerevan and many others. The
maps come to prove that, in the territory of the South Caucasus and the
Middle East, there are only two countries, Armenia and Iran that could
claim an existence of over 2,000 years and how our neighboring countries,
such as Turkey and Georgia became to be known as they are now, only after
some 2,000 years. It also confirms that the country known as the Republic
of Azerbaijan, north of the Arax River was born only in 1918, copying its
name from the Iranian north-western Province of Azerbaijan, south of the
river Arax. The Armenian language maps of 14-18th centuries will also be
discussed.

Rouben Galichian (Galchian) was born in Tabriz, Iran, to an Armenian family
who had fled Van in 1915 to escape the Genocide. They arrived in Iran via
Armenia, Georgia and France. Rouben attended school in Tehran and then
received a scholarship to study in the UK. He received his degree in
Electronics Engineering with honors, from the University of Aston,
Birmingham, in 1963. Rouben’s interest in geography and cartography peaked
in the 1970s. In 1981 he moved to London with his family, where he had
access to a huge variety of cartographic material. His first book entitled
“Historic Maps of Armenia:The Cartographic Heritage” (I. B Tauris, London &
NY, 2004) contained a collection of world maps and maps of Armenia over a
period of 2600 years, as created by various mapmakers. It became a
bestseller in its kind. The following year, an expanded version of the book
(in English, Russian and Armenian) was published in Armenia (Printinfo Art
Books, 2005). His third book, “Countries South of the Caucasus in Medieval
Maps: Armenia, Georgia and Azerbaijan” (Gomidas Institute, London, 2007),
provides more detailed cartographical and geographical information of this
area. His fourth book, “The Invention of History: Azerbaijan, Armenia, and
the Showcasing of Imaginations” (Gomidas Institute-London and Printinfo Art
Books-Yerevan, April 2009), documents the native Armenian pedigree in
Nagorno-Karabagh through the centuries as opposed to the Azerbaijani
claims. His latest book is entitled “Clash of the Histories in the South
Caucsus. Redrawing the map of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Iran”, where the
Azerbaijani falsifications, their reasoning and methods used are discussed,
and 44 old and medieval maps from all over the world are analyzed, proving
the truth about the present-day Azerbaijani falsified historiography
(Bennett & Bloom, London, 2012). All the books are available through
Amazon.com and other sources. For his charitable work done in Vanadzor,
Armenia, Rouben was presented with the “Freedom of the city of Vanadzor”
awarded in 2006. For his services to Armenian historical cartography Rouben
was awarded an Honorary Doctorate by the National Academy of Sciences of
Armenia in November of 2008. In 2009 he was the recipient of “Vazgen I”
cultural achievements medal. He is married with a son and grandchildren and
shares his time between London and Yerevan,

Armenia’s Aronian to face Carlsen, Anand, and Kramnik in Norway

February 9

YEREVAN. – Grandmaster (GM) Levon Aronian, who plays first board for
the three-time World Chess Olympiad champion Armenian national team,
will take part in a round-robin tournament to be held from May 7 to 18
in Stavanger, Norway, Armchess reports.

At the event, the Armenian GM will compete against fellow GMs Magnus
Carlsen, Viswanathan Anand, Vladimir Kramnik, Teimour Radjabov, Sergey
Karjakin, Veselin Topalov, Hikaru Nakamura, Wang Hao, and Jon Ludvig
Hammer.

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