Author: Kalantarian Kevo

THE FILM ABOUT “ARMENIA” SAILER DUE TO BE READY BY LATE 2011

Mediamax
Aug 23, 2011
Armenia

Tuesday 23 August 2011 12:20The image failed to load:
Yerevan/Mediamax/. “Armenia” sailer team which has realized a world
cruise is going to shoot a film about its expedition.

The ship’s team member, cameraman Samvel Babasyan, said today that
the film will be ready by the end of 2011, Mediamax reports.

The sailer set off from Valencia on May 28, 2009 and finished the
cruise on August 5, 2011 -in the waters of the Mediterranean Sea.

Zoriy Balayan, the head of the expedition, noted that the world cruise
pursued several goals: both sports achievements and historical issues:
“We wanted to follow our Diaspora’s path”, he said.

FRENCH FM: MPS’S VISIT TO NAGORNO-KARABAKH IS NON-OFFICIAL
Trend S.Agayeva

Trend
Aug 23, 2011
Azerbaijan

The French MPs’ visit to Nagorno-Karabakh was of a non-official
character, and was performed on the personal initiative of a group of
MPs, the French Foreign Ministry said in its response to Azerbaijan’s
protest note on the French MPs’ illegal visit to the Azerbaijani
territories occupied by Armenia.

The French side has officially confirmed its position stating that
this visit is not performed upon the French National Assembly, but
upon the personal initiative of the Chairman of the French Assembly’s
defense and armed forces committee Guy Tessier.

Tessier, who led the delegation, is the mayor of the ninth and tenth
arrondissement of Marseille, which is densely populated by Armenians.

Teissier is apparently trying to score points in the run-up legislative
elections in France in 2012, Azerbaijani Ambassador to France Elchin
Amirbekov told Trend.

The Azerbaijani Embassy in Paris presented a note protesting the French
Foreign Ministry in connection with the French MPs’ illegal visit to
the Azerbaijani territories occupied by Armenia, First Secretary of
the Foreign Ministry Spokesman Elman Abdullayev told Trend.

“It is not worth waiting for other explanation. We have already
observed such a practice of visits, and probably they will continue.

France’s leadership can only express its dissatisfaction over such
visits” Amirbekov said.

“The French Foreign Ministry tried to persuade Teissier to refuse
from such visits. However, he decided to go, because the outcome of
the elections depended on the visit,” Amirbekov said referring to
the Foreign Ministry’s representatives.

“Teissier’s such a step does not mean solidarity with the separatist
Nagorno-Karabakh, about which he stated, but the importance of votes
of the Armenians, who live in his constituency,” he added.

He said the Foreign Ministry’s officials understood the Azerbaijani
side’s indignation.

“In our note, we noted that this step does not improve bilateral
relations with Paris and damages the efforts of France, as the
OSCE Minsk chair country, to settle the Armenian-Azerbaijani
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. In this regard, we expect the French
Foreign Ministry to officially respond to the note and the French
Foreign Ministry spokesman will voice Paris’s position at a briefing,
as previously,” Amirbekov said.

The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988
when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. Armenian
armed forces have occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan since 1992,
including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and 7 surrounding districts.

Azerbaijan and Armenia signed a ceasefire agreement in 1994. The
co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group – Russia, France, and the U.S. –
are currently holding the peace negotiations.

Armenia has not yet implemented the U.N. Security Council’s four
resolutions on the liberation of the Nagorno-Karabakh and the
surrounding regions.

ARMENIA PROTOCOLS ‘EXPIRE’ IN TURKISH PARLIAMENT

news.az
Aug 23, 2011
Azerbaijan

Two protocols on rapprochement between Armenia and Turkey are among
898 pieces of legislation that have fallen off the Turkish parliament’s
agenda.

The term of the protocols in the Grand National Assembly has expired,
according to Turkish newspaper Merhaba Gazetesi.

Legislation which has not been approved during the term of the National
Assembly automatically expires. The new parliament, which took office
last month, has not placed a vote on the protocols on its agenda.

Turkish law, however, does allow for a bill to be restored to the
agenda at the request of the government or members of parliament,
Anadolu news agency reported.

Turkey and Armenia signed the two protocols on normalizing relations
in October 2009, but rapprochement stalled in 2010 when both the
Turkish and Armenian parliaments refused to ratify the protocols.

On 22 April 2010 Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan suspended the
ratification process, accusing Turkey of placing conditions on
ratification.

The Turkish leadership has said several times that normalization is
possible only when Armenia withdraws its troops from the occupied
Azerbaijani land of Nagorno-Karabakh and seven surrounding districts.

Meanwhile, Armenian nationalist politician Giro Manoyan, head of the
central Hay Dat (Armenian Cause) office and a member of the Armenian
Revolutionary Federation-Dashnaktsutyun, has accused Turkey of not
taking the protocols seriously.

“The last Turkish parliament did nothing on these protocols. Turkey
strongly indicated that it was not satisfied with the normalization
of Armenian-Turkish relations without preconditions. Moreover, it
openly stated that normalization as such will not take place until
the settlement of Nagorno-Karabakh conflict,” Manoyan told News.am
on 22 August.

He accused the Turkish side of not even complying with the required
procedures on the protocols.

Manoyan said the position of the Armenian authorities was humiliating,
as they were waiting for Turkey to ratify the protocols. He said that
that Turkey would probably put the protocols back on the agenda later.

US ENVOY IN TURKEY FACES ARMENIAN PRESSURE OVER CHURCH REMARKS

Today’s Zaman

Aug 23, 2011
Turkey

Armenian clerics and US Armenian groups have been stepping up pressure
on the US ambassador to Turkey after the diplomat said most of the
Christian churches functioning prior to 1915 are still operating as
churches in Turkey.

In a written response to questions submitted to him by US Senator
Robert Menendez earlier this month, Francis Ricciardone said a majority
of Christian churches operating in the territory of present-day Turkey
prior to 1915 are still functioning today, drawing strong reactions
from Armenian groups in the US.

Last week, in a strongly worded letter to Secretary of State Hillary
Clinton, Ken Hachikian, the chairman of influential US-based Armenian
diaspora organization the Armenian National Committee of America
(ANCA), demanded a retraction, correction and apology for Ambassador
Ricciardone’s statement covering-up Ottoman and Republican Turkey’s
systematic destruction of thousands of Christian churches.

“We have been troubled by his eagerness to embrace the government
of Turkey’s false and hateful genocide denial narrative, at lengths
beyond even the Administration’s longstanding and shameful complicity
in Turkey’s denials of the Armenian Genocide,” stated Hachikian in
his August 15th letter. “His verbal and written responses to questions
during his Senate confirmation process, regarding the Armenian Genocide
and other issues, ranged from evasive to deeply offensive.”

The ANCA also encouraged “concerned citizens to contact Secretary
Clinton via the State Department Comment Line to offer their views
regarding Ambassador Ricciardone’s misstatements.”

Faced with pressure, the US envoy on Monday partially backtracked
on his earlier remarks. “With your permission, I would appreciate
the opportunity to clarify the record. The corrected text should
read as follows. Most of the Christian churches functioning prior
to 1915 are no longer operating as churches. Christian community
contacts in Turkey report that a total of 200-250 churches that
date to 1915 and before offer Christian worship services at least
once a year. Many churches do not offer services every week due to
insufficient clergy or local Christian populations. Some churches
of significance operate as museums, others have been converted into
mosques or put to other uses. Still others have fallen into disrepair
or may have been totally destroyed,” ANCA quoted him as saying in a
correction, apparently addressing Senator Menendez.

But the Armenian groups in the US say this is not enough and accuse him
of artificially inflating the number of currently operating Christian
houses of worship in Turkey.

“It took Ambassador Ricciardone, with the help of his many State
Department colleagues, over a week to submit in writing a patently
false misrepresentation about the destruction of Christian churches
in Turkey, and another 10 days and a full wave of Senate and citizen
pressure for him to finally take half a step back from the most
offensive and obviously incorrect aspects of his response,” said ANCA
Executive Director Aram Hamparian.

“He just keeps digging himself into a deeper hole as an apologist
for Ankara. His use of false figures and euphemisms to try to twist
his way out of his misrepresentation – while somehow still trying to
stick to Turkey’s genocide denial narrative – clearly confirms that
Ambassador Ricciardone is not the right representative of U.S. values
and interests in Turkey.”

Archbishop Oshagan Choloyan, Archbishop Moushegh Mardirossian and
Archbishop Khajag Barsamian each also issued powerfully worded
spiritual messages in response to the ambassador’s statement. In an
Aug. 15th statement, Archbishop Choloyan stressed that the ambassador’s
assertion was “so blatantly false that it cannot remain unchallenged.”

“NO CONNECTIONS BETWEEN DINK MURDER AND ERGENEKON”

BIAnet.org
Aug 23, 2011
Turkey

After having reviewed information from the police, the prosecutor
of the murder trial related to the assassination of Turkish-Armenian
journalist Dink apparently did not find any connections between the
Dink murder and defendants of the Ergenekon trial.

Istanbul – BÄ°A News Center23 August 2011, Tuesday According to
various Turkish dailies and news sources, Hikmet Usta, the prosecutor
in charge of the Hrant Dink murder trial, did not find any connections
between the journalist murder and the Ergenekon trial. Usta reached
this conclusion after having obtained information from the police. On
the other hand, Fırat News Agency quoted an unidentified witness as
saying “The Istanbul Police brought Ogün Samast to Samsun”.

Samast was sentenced to imprisonment of almost 23 years this July for
the killing of Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink on 19 January
2007. The Dink family lawyers initially requested the acquisition of
the Ergenekon case file in 2009. Ergenekon is a clandestine terrorist
organization charged with various crimes against non-Muslim minorities
staged for the ultimate purpose of triggering a military coup.

Special Authority Public Prosecutor Usta had asked the Istanbul police
in writing whether there were any connections between the defendants
of the Dink murder trial and the Ergenekon case. Usta reportedly
received a negative answer and is going to include that into his final
plea. As reported by Helin Å~^ahin from Star newspapers and several
other media outlets, in Usta’s opinion the Dink murder was not part
of the Ergenekon actions since he did not find concrete documents or
connections. The prosecutor’s final plea is expected for the coming
hearing of the Dink murder trial on 25 October.

The Istanbul Police stated that Ergenekon defendants talked on the
phone to some members of the ‘Alperen Ocakları’ in Trabzon. The
‘Alperen’ group follows a synthesis between nationalism and Islamism.

Brigadier General Veli Küçük, lawyers Kemal Kerinçsiz and Levent
Temiz, ret. Colonel Levent GöktaÅ~_, Commander Erbay Ã~GolakoÄ~_lu
and ret.

Captain Muzaffer Tekin were alleged to have connections to the
defendants of the Dink case. However, the Istanbul Police pointed out
that no direct telephone conversations had been registered between
these Ergenekon defendants and the people involved in the Dink murder.

It was emphasized in the police report that not all transcriptions of
the telephone conversations could be acquired. It was also highlighted
that looking backwards the contents of the phone talks could not
be determined. The Dink assassination was seen as an “operation”
of the Cage Action Plan, a coup plan supposedly worked out by the
Naval Forces targeting Non-Muslims. Furthermore it was said that the
journalist’s name was included on the death lists in the documents
of the Sledgehammer trial related to a coup allegedly plotted by the
Armed Forces.

“He came with plainclothes policemen” At the same time, a senior
military official from the Samsun Provincial Gendarmerie Command who
preferred to remain anonymous apparently made the following statement
to Fırat News Agency: “When Ogün Samast got on the bus after the
murder, plainclothes police officers were sitting in front, behind
and next to him. His every step was followed from Istanbul onwards”.

The witness recalled that Ogün’s bus to Trabzon stopped at the new
bus station of Samsun (Black Sea coast) on the way and added that the
security of the area of the bus station lies within the responsibility
of the Provincial Gendarmerie Command since it is located outside
the city. “When the bus had stopped and opened the doors, personnel
from the Samsun Provincial Gendarmerie Command entered the bus and
arrested the person on subject from the spot. They knew which seat
he had taken” the witness said.

According to the statement of the witness, the Istanbul Police did
not arrest Samast in order not to take over the responsibility for the
murder. Instead, they wanted him to go to Samsun under surveillance,
the witness claimed.

YOUNG MEN DESECRATED ARMENIAN CHURCH IN GEORGIA APPREHENDED

news.am
Aug 23, 2011
Armenia

TBILISI. – Two young men, who, according to the Georgian Diocese of
the Armenian Apostolic Church entered the Armenian Church of St.

Etchmiadzin in Tbilisi on August 19, and while drunk, permitted
themselves an aggressive and disrespectful behavior towards the church,
are apprehended.

Georgia Police instituted a criminal case but did not specify
particular article, says Georgia online.

Bishop Vazgen Mirzakhanyan said that currently they are waiting
for results.

“Frankly, we do not advocate that young people are tried. Perhaps
there is no need for this. Just let them get the punishment, which
will be a lesson for others,” he said.

DELEGATION OF RUSSIAN ARMED FORCES ARRIVES IN ARMENIA

news.am
Aug 23, 2011
Armenia

YEREVAN.- The delegation of the Russian armed forces headed by
Major-General A. Rogovoy has arrived in Armenia to take part in
negotiations of the working groups of two countries’ general staffs
scheduled for August 23-27.

During the visit the sides will discuss issues concerning specification
of documents of the joint groups of the Armenian-Russian armed
forces. Among the key topics are strategic planning, creation of
automated system control of the forces, and automation system of
air defense troops, ministry’s press service informed Armenian
News-NEWS.am.

EX-PRESIDENT OF GEORGIA SAYS ARMENIAN LOBBY NOT INVOLVED IN HANDING POWER TO SAAKASHVILI

news.am
Aug 23, 2011
Armenia

Former Georgian President Eduard Shivarnadze called “nonsense” rumors
saying he handed over power to Mikhail Saakashvili as a result of
conspiracy with Armenian lobby in 2003.

“It is nonsense,” he said in an interview with Georgian Asaval-Dasavali
newspaper.

He agreed that Georgian resorts are full of “Armenians and Turks”,
Georgia Online reported. However, Shivarnadze failed to confirm that
Armenian lobby patronizes Mikhail Saakashvili.

“My cooperation with Armenia and Azerbaijan was built on real
friendship and good neighborly relations. Heydar Aliyev and Karen
Demirchyan [leaders of Azerbaijan and Armenia in Soviet times] were
my personal friends,” he emphasized.

AZERBAIJAN ENLARGES “BLACK LIST”

news.am
Aug 23, 2011
Armenia

Azerbaijani Embassy in Paris has filed a note of protest to French
foreign ministry regarding the visit of French MPs to Nagorno-Karabakh.

Representative of Azerbaijani foreign office Elman Abdullayev said
members of the French parliament will be included in a “black list”,
local press reported.

French MPs Guy Teissier, Jacques Remiller, Georges Colombier and
Valerie Boyer visited Nagorno-Karabakh.

OSCE: ARMENIA SOFTENING LAW ON RELIGIONS

United Press International

Aug 23, 2011

YEREVAN, Armenia, Aug. 23 (UPI) — European officials say they’re
working with Armenia to amend a draft law governing religious groups
to better protect the human rights of minorities.

Rights advocates, the Office of Security and Cooperation in Europe,
the U.S. State Department, the Council of Europe and others have
consistently criticized the proposed Armenian Law on Freedom of
Conscience and Religious Freedoms since it was first offered in 2009.

Critics contend it would cement the dominant position of the Armenian
Apostolic Church as the de facto official religion of the country and
impose onerous requirements on other religious groups, which would only
be authorized “on the basis of an expert opinion of its religiousness.”

The vaguely worded law calls for the doctrine of groups seeking legal
status to come under strict review before licenses could be granted,
while proselytizing, or “soul hunting,” would be criminalized, the
Norwegian human rights organization Forum 18 has said.

Human rights advocates are opposed to the law’s demand that groups
defined as Christians profess “the belief in Jesus Christ as God
and Savior and an acceptance of the Holy Trinity” as a prerequisite
for registering. This, they say, would ensure the Armenian Church’s
favored position at the expense of persecuted minorities such as the
Jehovah’s Witnesses.

OSCE officials sponsored a forum in Yerevan Friday that included
“60 representatives of religious organizations and communities, the
National Assembly, civil society and international organizations,”
and focused on new amendments drafted by Armenia’s Justice Ministry.

The amendments were meant to bring some of the more controversial
aspects of the draft law into conformity with the European Convention
on Human Rights, to which Yerevan is a signatory.

The changes seek to better define what activities constitute illegal
proselytism and to soften registration requirements for religious
organizations as well spelling out their rights and liabilities,
the OSCE said.

“The discussion enabled all parties concerned with this law to discuss
its provisions and present their suggestions,” Ambassador Sergey
Kapinos, head of the OSCE Office in Yerevan, said in a statement.

The Council of Europe’s Venice Commission and the OSCE’s Office for
Democratic Institutions and Human Rights have reviewed and criticized
previous versions of the Law on Freedom of Conscience and Religious
Freedoms, and will do again with the latest amendments, Kapinos said.

Armenian First Deputy Minister of Justice Grigor Muradyan said Friday
the proposed changes be presented and discussed at the 2012 spring
session of the country’s National Assembly, the Armenian news agency
Mediamax reported.

Before then, however, the amended version of the law will be submitted
to Venice Commission for a critique, with the opinion due two months
later.

The human rights group Helsinki Civil Assembly said the amendments
don’t do enough to protect religious minorities from persecution.

“This draft law is meant for combating religious organizations,”
Artur Sakunts of the group told Mediamax, saying the Armenian Church
wouldn’t be subjected to the same criteria as minority groups.

But Michael Achapayan, head of the Shirakskaya Eparchy of the Armenian
Apostolic Church, also said he was against the new amendments, telling
News Armenia they give too much encouragement to religious minority
groups that “try to weaken the bases and foundations of the church.”