Author: Kajoyan Gevork

Co-chairs are discussing with Armenian and Azerbaijani authorities the
process of implementation of Sochi declaration

12:28, 12 May, 2012

YEREVAN, MAY 12, ARMENPRESS: OSCE Minsk group Co-Chairs during their
regional visit discuss with authorities of Armenia and Azerbaijan the
process of implementation of Sochi declaration. About this told
Armenpress American Co-Chair of OSCE Minsk group Robert Bradtke after
the meeting with Armenian Foreign affairs minister Edward Nalbandyan.

“Our visit has just started, we have already held meetings with
Foreign affairs minister, today later we will meet the President, than
will leave for Baku” mentioned Co-Chair.

Reverberating to tension in Armenian-Azerbaijani border Bradtke called
the declaration of Co-Chairs in Dublin, in which they had criticized
the incidents in border.

The Co-Chair also mentioned that they would make declaration after the visit.

Azerbaijanis’ operations will not yield them any benefit – Armenian MOD

news.am
May 12, 2012 | 05:46

YEREVAN. – In an interview with Armenian News-NEWS.am, Armenia’s
Defense Minister Seyran Ohanyan corroborated that the three Armenian
conscripts, who had received gunshot wounds at Armenia’s
Movses-Aygepar road section in the late evening hours of April 26, had
died as a result of an Azerbaijani diversion operation.

`They [i.e., the Azerbaijanis] showed yet again that they have
violated numerous times the principles around which we have reached
agreements, specifically the principle of non-use of force. But these
activities of theirs will never yield any benefit, because we only see
the negotiation process in our relations,’ Ohanyan noted.

In the Minister’s words, the negotiation process must be conducted
solely under peaceful conditions, without the use of force, and by
making use of today’s international standards for conflict resolution.

As Armenian News-NEWS.am informed earlier, an Azerbaijani diversion
group had fired shots at a VAZ 2107, at Armenia’s Movses-Aygepar road
section on April 26. There were four Armenian military servicemen in
the vehicle, and three of them had died as a result.

ANALYSTS: FRENCH ELECTION COULD BOOST TURKEY’S EU BID

Journal of Turkish Weekly
May 10 2012

With Sarkozy gone, Turkey-France relations have a chance to improve.

With the victory of socialist Francois Hollande over incumbent Nicolas
Sarkozy in Sunday’s presidential elections, there are expectations
that a new page could open in Turkey’s troubled relationship with
the France — and hence the EU.

Under Hollande, who staked his election bid on an anti-austerity
platform, analysts expect France to adopt a friendlier stance towards
Turkey, as the new president struggles with the urgency of the eurozone
crisis and domestic reforms.

Commenting on the election results during an official visit to the
Slovenian capital, Ljubljana, on Monday (May 7th), Turkey’s Prime
Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan aknowledged that dialogue with the
Socialists would be easier because they have traditionally supported
Turkey’s EU bid.

“Following the election of Francois Hollande, the Turkish government
now hopes that relations between Paris and Ankara can be more
constructive and that talks on Turkey’s rapprochement with the EU
will progress,” the prime minister was quoted as saying by Slovenian
news agency STA.

Relations between Ankara and Paris deteriorated sharply during
Sarkozy’s presidency as his anti-Turkey populism was often perceived as
anti-Muslim in Turkey. When a Sarkozy-backed draft Armenian genocide
bill was passed earlier this year by the lower and upper houses of
the French Parliament, relations hit new lows.

The draft bill, which many in Ankara considered as pre-election
posturing to attract the Armenia diaspora vote, was ultimately ruled
unconstitutional, but the episode caused severe damage to bilateral
relations.

Hollande has promised to repair ties with Turkey. The Socialist’s
promise to lift France’s 2007 veto over five blocked EU chapters
that could bring Turkey closer to the EU is likely to win them fans
in Ankara.

But as Didier Billion, a Turkey expert from the Paris-based Institute
of International and Strategic Relations, notes, Hollande has close
links with the Armenian political party Dashnaktsutyun.

“Francois Hollande intends to make the genocide bill constitutional,
and this is not pre-election posturing, but rather a position of
principle,” Billion told SES Turkiye.

As a result, Billion says that as long as the genocide bill issue is
on the agenda, relations would remain tense, despite the more open
policy towards Turkey’s EU accession.

Cengiz Aktar, an EU expert from Istanbul’s Bahcesehir University,
says the socialists should reformulate French policy concerning the
genocide issue, especially since Dashnaktsutyun doesn’t represent
all Armenians living in France.

When formulating French policy on the genocide issue, the socialists
should “consider all possible political and economic repercussions,”
he warns.

As Europe struggles to contain the eurozone crisis and create growth,
economics and trade interests may ultimately trump the genocide issue,
while a French government supportive of Turkey’s EU bid could help
to smooth over past differences.

“Economic relations between the two countries generate jobs in France.

As a rapidly growing G20 economy, Turkey has a significant trade
deficit vis-a-vis France and French companies operating in Turkey
have always been profitable, even in times of global crisis,” Bahadir
Kaleagasi, the international co-ordinator and European representative
of the Turkish Industry and Business Association (TUSIAD), told
SES Turkiye.

Kaleagasi also says that deeper co-operation between Paris and Ankara
could “reactivate the EU’s transformational power on Turkey” in the
field of democratic reforms. “Therefore, a new era of win-win-win is
possible for France, Turkey and the EU,” he said.

For Ozdem Sanberk, a veteran Turkish diplomat, Turkey needs to work
wıth France on establishing a common vision for Europe — something
which he says is currently lacking — rather than limiting relations
to narrow issues at the bilateral level.

“Such a convergent strategic vision will create a broad area of
interests for the both countries to interact, and as long as this space
does not narrow, any challenges concerning the Armenian issue will
take only a limited and small space within it,” he told SES Turkiye.

“As long as these two countries opt for a global vision for their
relations, this subject will not have any great capability to shape
and determine the path of the relations,” he concluded.

Thursday, 10 May 2012

Setimes Turkiye

SERJ TANKIAN ON BEING ECLECTIC, GROWING UP IN LEBANON AND HIS RELATIONSHIP WITH HEAVY METAL
Vahan Stepanian

AOL Music
May 10, 2012 Thursday 5:45 PM EST

“2011 was the busiest year of my life so far, but also the most
rewarding,” Serj Tankian tells Noisecreep. He isn’t kidding. The
firebrand vocalist might be turning 45 this August, but his work
schedule would overwhelm most musicians half his age. Besides
self-producing his stellar Harakiri solo album (out July 10), Tankian
saw his rock musical, Prometheus Bound, which he composed all of the
music for, open at the Oberon Theater at Harvard in Boston to rave
reviews. 2011 also saw him release his second poetry book (Glaring
Through Oblivion), tour with System of a Down, and perform in his
birthplace of Lebanon with the Lebanese National Symphony Orchestra.

But Tankian wasn’t done yet. When he returned to the U.S., he finished
writing four albums: a jazz record, an electronic record he wrote with
his friend Jimmy Urine of Mindless Self Indulgence, a full classical
symphony called Orca, and the material for Harakiri.

Noisecreep asked Tankian how he manages to do it all without his body
shutting down: “Well, the first off, I don’t have any kids, so that
helps [laughs]. I know if I did have a family, I would spend less
time travelling which took a lot of my time up last year. I think
it’s also about planning to do multiple projects and not expecting
them all to fall during the same period of time. Because if they do
all happen at the same time, you’re like, ‘Oh, shit! What do I do
now?’ It’s overwhelming,” says the singer.

Tankian tells us that the eclecticism of his artistic choices is borne
out of artistic necessity: “I just can’t see myself ever sticking to
one kind of music, or art form. It’s exciting to work on different
styles of music because they allow me to express myself in such
different ways. The way I can project a certain kind of vulnerability
– an almost sadness – in a small section of a symphonic piece is
something that I could never do on a rock record. At the same time,
the bombastic nature of rock and metal music allows me to get other
emotions across in a way that classical or opera music could never do.”

Watch Serj Tankian’s “Figure It Out” Lyric Video

Although Harakiri will definitely appeal to the fans that discovered
Tankian through his work as the frontman for System of a Down, the
album offers a wider scope of musical textures that even non-metal
and hard rock fans could sink their teeth into. With that in mind,
Noisecreep asked the singer what his relationship with metal and hard
rock is at this point in his life: “I actually didn’t grow up on that
kind of music. The first type of music I was exposed to was cultural
Armenian music. My parents were both in this cultural institution
where my mom would dance and my dad would sing. I was also exposed to
Arabic music as a child and French music because we lived in Lebanon
and that used to be an old French colony.

“When we moved to the States in the ’70s, I started listening to
the Bee Gees and a lot of the disco stuff you heard on the radio at
the time. I also remember playing a lot of soul music too. When the
’80s came around, I really got into the goth and punk scenes. I didn’t
get into heavy metal till the late ’80s, early ’90s. Daron (Malakian,
guitarist of System of a Down) is a lifelong metal fan. He loved KISS,
and bands like that, growing up. I have never considered myself a
metal guy. In the last five years or so, the music I’ve gotten into
the most is probably classical, well, not Beethoven and stuff like
that, but soundtracks. I love getting in my car and driving around
with a film score on. It just amps me up! I start feeling like I’m
actually in the movie.” Knowing Tankian, we wouldn’t be surprised if
he did end up in the movie.

Leo Patrone Serj Tankian’s third solo album, Harakiri, will be out
on July 10 via Reprise Records/Serjical Strike and can be pre-ordered
at this link.

Pick up his new “Figure It Out” single over at iTunes.

Follow @Noisecreep on Twitter | Like Us on Facebook | Sign Up for
Our Newsletter Download Serj Tankian Songs | Buy Serj Tankian Albums
Source: Noisecreep author: Carlos Ramirez

ARMENIAN SHOE FACTORY COOPERATING WITH ADIDAS ENTERS RUSSIA

Vestnik Kavkaza
May 10 2012
Russia

The Factory of Sports Shoes Yegvarda Company will partly move to
Russia. On May 10, the Armenian government prolonged the temporary
export regime for the company until March 16, 2015, News.am reports.

The company purchased equipment to produce 600,000 pairs of shoes in
1988, cooperating with Adidas.

It used materials of Bayer (Germany). The company suffered from lack
of sales, because the population preferred cheaper footwear from
abroad after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

The company started production in Obninsk (Russia). Some machines
were brought there in 2011.

SARKISIAN PARTY SEES SUPPORT

St.Petersburg Times

May 10 2012
Russia

YEREVAN, Armenia – President Serge Sarkisian’s party has won a majority
of seats in a parliamentary election that international observers said
Monday was competitive and peaceful, but undermined by organizational
problems and some interference by political parties.

The elections were seen as a test of Sarkisian’s support ahead of
next year’s presidential election in which he is expected to seek a
second term.

The results showed the president’s Republican Party won at least 68
of the parliament’s 131 seats. In the outgoing parliament, the party
was a few seats shy of a majority and formed a coalition with the
Prosperous Armenia party, which finished second in Sunday’s election.

“Armenia deserves recognition for its electoral reforms and its
open and peaceful campaign environment, but, in this race, several
stakeholders too often failed to comply with the law and election
commissions too often failed to enforce it,” said Francois-Xavier de
Donnea, a member of the Belgian parliament who headed the observer
mission from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.

The OSCE urged the Armenian government to address the problems before
the presidential election.

The opposition Armenian National Congress, led by former President
Levon Ter-Petrosian, finished a distant third but did well enough
to enter parliament for the first time. The party will get up to
eight seats.

Ter-Petrosian has not yet said whether he will accept the results of
the parliamentary election or call his supporters out onto the street.

Following the February 2008 presidential election, his supporters
rallied in Yerevan, claiming the vote won by Sarkisian was flawed. The
protests turned violent in early March, when clashes with police left
10 people dead and more than 250 injured.

Sarkisian’s government has close ties both with Russia, which has a
military base in Armenia, and the West, in part because of its large
diaspora. Millions of Armenians live abroad, with the largest numbers
in Russia, the United States, Georgia and France.

Armenia has tense relations with neighboring Turkey and Azerbaijan,
and its borders with both countries remain closed.

STRIKER TO SET UP TENT TOMORROW

10:22 pm | Today | Social

Artavazd Vardanyan, who has declared a hunger strike in front of the
Central Electoral Commission, made another attempt to set up a tent
at 17:30, but wasn’t allowed once again.

“It’s illegal to set up a tent. It disturbs passers-by. You can
only set up a tent after receiving the municipality’s permission,”
said the lieutenant supervising the area and didn’t mention which
law prohibited that.

The police officers left after a couple of minutes, but the entire
area was under surveillance. Later, an ambulance arrived, followed by
a representative of the Ombudsman’s Office, which tried to convince
the police that the citizen had the right to declare a hunger strike
in a tent.

However, that was in vain. After talking to the Ombudsman’s
representative, Artavazd Vardanyan decided to set up the tent tomorrow
at 12:00.

Member of the “Defending Teghut” initiative Gevorg Safaryan came to
support the striker.

We remind that through this the Sardarapat Movement’s supporter is
protesting to say that elections don’t change anything in Armenia.

Statement of the RA Police

In the last couple of days, different presses have been touching upon
Artavazd Vardanyan’s hunger strike and have been mentioning that the
RA Police prohibit him from setting up a tent in front of the Central
Electoral Commission.

For a long time now, the topic of police not allowing tents has been
used to suspect police actions, but the police have given several
corroborated clarifications regarding the legal grounds for setting up
tents during such events and have sent them to the Ombudsman’s Office.

We think the issue needs to be fully clarified and call on refraining
from using the strategy of criticizing the police for no reason.

“WASHINGTON WILL AGAIN ATTEMPT TO HELP TURKS AND ARMENIANS,” THE AMERICAN EXPERTS SAY

13:03 . 10/05

The Foreign Relations Council, which is one of the reputable
organizations in the United States, has issued a rather extensive,
96-page report entitled “U.S.-Turkey Relations: New Partnership”.

Radio Station Liberty informs that the report on the Armenian Cause
states that because of the efforts of the Armenian community in
America to persuade the US Congress and administration to recognize
the 1915 massacres as Genocide often brings about tension in US-Turkey
bilateral relations.

In the proposals section of the report it is stated that the United
States shouldn’t view its relations with Turkey in a narrow prism of
special issues, be it relations with Armenia, Israel or NATO.

“The United States has moral interest in working with all sides to
clarify the ongoing issue with Armenia and the 1915 massacres, but
U.S.-Turkey partnership is much broader than the Armenian tragedy,
the difficult state of Turkish-Israeli affairs or the false discussions
on Turkey’s position in the West,” is stated in the report.

The coinciding military interests and the huge potential of US-Turkey
cooperation must not suffer because of special political interests,
experts think.

At the same time, the authors mention that the official Washington
must make another attempt to help the Turks and Armenians move forward
with the Turkey-Armenia Protocols , which were signed in 2009 and gave
the opportunity to normalize relations between the two countries. The
change of the status-quo might improve Ankara’s relations with Yerevan,
which in its turn will debilitate the tension between Turkey and the
U.S. due to the Armenian Cause and will help pave the way for Turkey
to become a leader in the Caucasus-something that Turkey wants,”
as stated in the report.

Experts say that will also ameliorate the atmosphere for the
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict resolution and that the United States should
actively promote that kind of a resolution. According to the source,
the investigative group including 23 famous experts is led by former
U.S. Secretary of State Madlen Albright.

PRIEST: RELIGIOUS SECTS CONSTITUTE A DANGER TO NATIONAL SECURITY OF ARMENIA

arminfo
Thursday, May 10, 19:05

Religious sects have been constituting a danger to the national
security of Armenia, Priest of St.Sarkis church of the Nor
Nork district of Yerevan, Karapet Karapetyan, said at today’s
press-conference.

“The religious sects have already become the reason of sharing
our states to parts. We should fight them by all our forces”, –
Karapetyan said.

For his part, the leader of the Centre for aid and rehabilitation of
victims of destructive cults, Aleksandr Amaryan, added that religious
sects intruded Armenia after the Spitak earthquake in 1988, and used
physical pressure upon the people.

“Not religious ideas but power and business are on the basis of
religious sects”, – Amaryan said and added that the society should
not fight the people which joined sects, but by all means protect
the people from them and do everything possible so that members of
sects start confessing Christianity.

MEDIA MONITORING OF ELECTION COVERAGE SHOWS NEGATIVE MENTIONS PREVAILED IN PRINT MEDIA

Panorama.am
10/05/2012

The monitoring of Armenian print media coverage of parliamentary
elections indicated that Armenian print media showed much interest in
the electoral process. In some cases, there was unbalanced, subjective
and selective media coverage of events, Executive Director of Armenian
Public Relations Association (APRA) Tatevik Pirumyan told a news
conference in Yerevan.

APRA conducted monitoring of Armenian print media coverage of
parliamentary elections within the framework of an EU-funded project on
supporting democratic elections in Armenia implemented by OSCE Office
in Yerevan. The monitoring kicked off on March 12. 16 local newspapers
with a circulation of 3000 and above were monitored for 2.5 months
(Irates de Facto, Azg, Iravunk, Hayots Ashkhar, Haykakan Zhamanak,
Yerkir, Zhamanak, Zhoghovurd, Chorrord Inknishkhanutyun, Hraparak,
168 Zham, Aravot, Hayatsk, Orakarg, Golos Armeniii, Novoye Vremya).

According to APRA expert Armen Minasyan, the share of media coverage of
the electoral process was 38.3 percent. At the same time, the expert
noted that media had campaigning rather than informative function in
elections campaign period.

The monitoring revealed that negative titles prevailed in the
monitored print media, with too many comments by authors, according
to Minasyan. Besides, there were too many negative mentions:
pro-government papers negatively referred to opposition parties and
vice versa. As for Heritage, both pro-government and pro-opposition
papers had mostly negative mentions of the party, the expert said.

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