Author: Kalantarian Kevo

LARGE INFRASTRUCTURE PROJECTS MAY ACT AS CATALYST TO BOOST ARMENIAN ECONOMY: NERSES YERITSIAN

ARKA
Feb 22, 2010

YEREVAN, February 22, /ARKA/. Large infrastructure projects may act
as a catalyst to boost Armenian economy, Armenian economy minister
Nerses Yeritsian said Saturday during the 7-th international economic
forum Bridge 2010 in the resort town of Tsakhkadzor.

In his words, Armenia should substantially change the scale of its
economy and begin thinking globally,

"In this context large infrastructure projects may play as a catalyst
to enhance our economy, especially that many of them are being already
materialized, particular, I mean construction of roads, IT and energy,
including renewable and nuclear energy, projects,’ Nerses Yeritsian
said, adding that these projects costs’ are billions of USD.

Armenian government has singled out formation of regional health,
tourism, financial and education centers as priorities.

14:33 20/02/2010 >> Politics
Panorama.am

Artsakh Revival Day marked February 20

On 20 February in connection with the Artsakh Revival Day, NKR
President Bako Sahakyan partook at the meeting with the NKR National
Assembly deputies of all convocations and delivered a welcoming speech
there, the central information department of the office of the NKR
President reported.

"Many of our friends have laid down their lives for victory of these
ideas. Eternal glory and honor to them!

20 February of 1988 became the starting point of our national revival.
We stood to defend our natural right for free and independent life on
our native land, for mastering our own destiny independently and in
accordance with international norms and principles. Azerbaijan reacted
to our peaceful and just demand with cruel and bloody war, which
caused heavy human sacrifices and devastations," President’s address
reads.

B. Sahakyan highlighted that the heroic people of Artsakh together
with world spread Armenians managed to withstand all the ordeals and
chose the path of building a democratic state. For us this way has
been irreversible and final.

"We are very much confident that every problem the contemporary world
faces can be solved exclusively in civilized manner, around the
negotiation table through direct dialogue. In contrast with this the
authorities of Azerbaijan continue to wage militaristic policy keeping
their own people in a situation of permanent tensions and the danger
of war resumption. These threats are vain and inappropriate. We have a
regular and efficient army that is ready to give a fitting rebuff to
any encroachment upon the security of our state and people," President
said.

Addressing everyone present, B. Sahakyan said, the NKR National
Assembly of all convocations has played a great role in building an
independent statehood, forming state institutions and consolidating
democratic values. "Soon there will be new regular elections of the
NKR National Assembly. For our people it is a political event of
utmost importance. And we should do everything possible for these
elections as always to be carried out in correspondence with
international standards and take us a step forward Ïn the way of
building a firm and prosperous future of Artsakh," Bako Sahakyan said.

Fresno Bee, CA
Feb 21 2010

Armenian genocide resolution still alive
House committee set to vote on measure.

Posted at 10:16 PM on Saturday, Feb. 20, 2010
By Michael Doyle / Bee Washington Bureau

The latest version of an Armenian genocide resolution is on track to
win House committee approval, but its long-term prospects remain
uncertain.

On March 4, the House Foreign Affairs Committee is set to vote on a
resolution declaring that "the Armenian Genocide was conceived and
carried out by the Ottoman Empire from 1915 to 1923."

Many in the central San Joaquin Valley, and in other regions with
large Armenian-American populations, are watching closely, and in some
cases playing an active role. The House panel’s members include a
number of resolution co-sponsors, including Rep. Jim Costa, D-Fresno.

Advocates of the resolution say it’s important to account for the
Ottoman Empire killings and depredations that occurred during and
after World War I, when by estimates upward of 1.5 million Armenians
died.

"Genocide is not something that can simply be swept under the rug and
forgotten, and our nation cannot continue its policy of denial
regarding the Armenian genocide," Costa said.

Approval by the 45-member House Foreign Affairs Committee, though, is
a far cry from getting the diplomatically dicey resolution through the
full 435-member House of Representatives.

Currently, for instance, the resolution has only 137 House
co-sponsors, far short of the 218 needed for House approval. The last
time the issue arose, in 2007, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi declined to
bring the resolution to the House floor until it had the requisite 218
co-sponsors.

Opponents are bringing out their big guns, warning the resolution
would interfere with good diplomatic relations. Turkish and Armenian
negotiators last year agreed to a set of protocols designed to smooth
diplomatic relations, but the respective legislatures have not yet
formally ratified them.

"That would be jeopardized by a political act of passing this
resolution," said David Saltzman, chief counsel to the Turkish
Coalition of America.

Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu has likewise recently
denounced the resolution.

This plea of bad timing is one of the many familiar elements in the
Armenian genocide fight.

In 2007, the Bush administration successfully argued the resolution
would undermine the use of Turkish bases to resupply U.S. forces in
Iraq. In 2000, then-House Speaker Dennis Hastert killed the
resolution, citing "unusually tense" conditions in the Middle East.

High-powered lobbying is another familiar plot line.

Hastert is now registered as a lobbyist for the Turkish government.
His firm, Dickstein Shapiro, has been paid up to $45,000 a month for
its work on Turkey’s behalf, public records show. One-time House
Minority Leader Richard Gephardt is likewise a registered lobbyist for
Turkey.

Some hope the arrival of the Obama administration will shake up these
familiar faces and oft-heard arguments.

"A lot of things have changed," said Aram Hamparian, executive
director of the Armenian National Committee of America.

While they were in the Senate and campaigning, Hamparian noted,
President Barack Obama, Vice President Joe Biden and Secretary of
State Hillary Clinton all endorsed Armenian genocide recognition.

Presidents, though, often back away from their campaign-season
Armenian genocide resolution pledges. Obama avoided the term
"genocide" in his presidential Armenia proclamation in April.

6/armenian-genocide-resolution-still.html

Transitions Online , Czech Rep.
Feb 18 2010

New media breaches Azeri, Armenian information barrier

report by Onnik Krikorian

With the conflict in the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh still
unresolved, journalists and civil society activists in Armenia have
few opportunities to meet with their Azeri counterparts, and vice
versa. But increasingly, blogs and social networks offer new
possibilities for dialogue across a cease-fire line in place since
1994. Other online tools offer immediate audio and video communication
between the two countries, free from monitoring or interception. If
adopted as general practice by journalists and activists, such tools
could represent a revolution in cross-border cooperation.

For this final segment in our multimedia series on overcoming
stereotypes in the South Caucasus, I interviewed Arzu Geybullayeva, an
Azerbaijani political and regional analyst, about her work on civil
society, women’s, and cross-border issues using new media tools. It
was a rare direct conversation between Yerevan and Baku, conducted
with the voice-over-internet service Skype.

Arzu Geybullayeva with villagers in Karajala, an ethnic Azeri
community in Georgia. Photo by Onnik Krikorian.

Educated in Azerbaijan, Turkey, the United States, and the United
Kingdom, Geybullayeva worked as an Azerbaijan analyst for the
Berlin-based European Stability Initiative until December 2009. Since
then she has been a political officer with the National Democratic
Institute in Baku. She also writes for a variety of online
publications, including the recently launched Women’s Forum.

I first contacted Geybullayeva in late 2008 via her blog, Flying
Carpets and Broken Pipelines, and remained in contact through online
services such as Twitter and Facebook. We met face-to-face last
September in Telavi, Georgia, to make a presentation on new and social
media for Armenian, Azerbaijani, and Georgian youth activists. We also
visited the nearby, ethnically Azeri village of Karajala and posted
photographs, accounts, and multimedia presentations on their blogs
(see an audio slide show about it here), a trip that became the
forerunner of this project.

The podcast can be listened to on: ref HYPERLINK
" 21189-no-borders-here.html"
g/client/article/21189-no-borders-here.html

Global Post
Feb 20 2010

1919 | Emir Faisal’s party at Versailles

Blog: Mavi Boncuk

Let’s briefly point to some connections. The French help during the
Arab Revolt (using Algerian Arabs) and the occupation of Clicia (Adana
and its environs) as a follow thru on the plans of no other than
Georges Picot, the French High Commissioner in Syria and Armenia. Mavi
Boncuk

Emir Faisal’s party at Versailles, during the Paris Peace Conference
of 1919. At the center, from left to right: Rustum Haidar, Nuri
as-Said, Prince Feisal, Captain Rosario Pisani[1] (behind Feisal), T.
E. Lawrence, Feisal’s servant (name unknown), Captain Tahsin Qadri.

The Faisal-Weizmann Agreement was signed on January 3, 1919, by Emir
Faisal (son of the King of Hejaz) and Chaim Weizmann (later President
of the World Zionist Organization) as part of the Paris Peace
Conference, 1919 settling disputes stemming from World War I. It was a
short-lived agreement for Arab-Jewish cooperation on the development
of a Jewish homeland in Palestine and an Arab nation in a large part
of the Middle East. The parties committed to carrying into effect the
Balfour Declaration of 1917, in exchange for The Zionist movement
assistance of the Arab residents of Palestine and the future Arab
state to develop their natural resources and establish a growing
economy.

The peace conference results did not provide the vast Arab state that
Faisal desired mainly because the British and French had struck their
own secret Sykes-Picot Agreement of 1916 dividing the Middle East
between their own spheres of influence after the expected downfall of
the Ottoman Empire during World War I. The agreement was concluded on
16 May 1916 by the French diplomat François Georges-Picot and Briton
Mark Sykes.

[1]"… Days passed, talking politics, organization and strategy with
Feisal, while preparations for a new operation went forward. Our luck
had quickened the camp; and the mining of trains promised to become
popular, if we were able to train in the technique of the work enough
men for several parties. Captain Pisani was first volunteer. He was
the experienced commander of the French at Akaba, an active soldier
who burned for distinction – and distinctions. Feisal found me three
young Damascenes of family, who were ambitious to lead tribal
raids…The Lewis guns rattled out suddenly, three or four short
bursts: there was a yell from the Arabs, and, headed by Pisani
sounding the women’s vibrant battle-cry, they rushed in a wild torrent
for the train…Pisani superintended the carrying off or destruction
of the booty. As before, the Arabs were now merely camel-drivers,
walking behind laden pack-animals…" (T. E. Lawrence, Seven Pillars
of Wisdom BOOK FIVE CHAPTER 68)

"In order to succeed in this new undertaking, he decided to join
forces with the French Captain Rosario Pisani, a peerless fighter
whose career was closely allied to that of Colonel Brémond [*].
Lawrence and Pisani left Akaba on 26 September. They were accompanied
by nine men, two of whom were gunners of the French detachment. On the
way, Lawrence recruited 80 Bedouin and instructed Pisani in the
handling of explosives. By 3 October, the raiders had reached the
railway. Lawrence and Pisani laid a mine at kilometre 500, near Akabat
el Hejazia, but they had to wait until 5 October for a train to cross
the bridge where the charge had been laid. The mine did not explode.
Lawrence and Pisani then decided to ‘lay an electric mine made of 25
kilos of gelignite and to torpedo the train which [was to] arrive from
the south.’ Pisani continued in his report: ‘I asked Major Lawrence
for the honour of positioning myself beneath the bridge so that I
could blow up the train and take my revenge for the torpedoing of the
Caledonian." (Pisani, report no.204, 21 October 1917, SHAT, box 7 N
2138.) Source

[*] The Allied headquarters divided the Levant into four occupational
territories. Cilicia comprised the Northern Occupation Territory with
the city of Adana as its administrative center. Colonel Edouard
Bremond, whom the French government named administrator-in-chief of
Cilicia, arrived in Adana on February 1, 1919, and assumed his duties
as the head of the civil administration of the province. The cities of
Marash, Aintab, Urfa, and Kilis were not incorporated within the
jurisdiction of the French administration. Instead, they were assigned
to a newly established fifth occupational zone and put under the
command of the British Desert Mounted Corps whose administrative
center was in Aleppo.
At the time when the French civil and military administrations had
started to organize and regulate living conditions in Cilicia, Georges
Picot, the French High Commissioner in Syria and Armenia and one of
the signatories of the Sykes-Picot agreement. Source

"The head of the French Military Mission at Jidda, Colonel Bremond
(Wilson’s counterpart, but with more authority; for he was a
practising light in native warfare, a success in French Africa, and an
ex-chief of staff of a Corps on the Somme) strongly urged the landing
of Allied forces in Hejaz. To tempt us he had brought to Suez some
artillery, some machine-guns, and some cavalry and infantry, all
Algerian Moslem rank and file, with French officers. These added to
the British troops would give the force an international flavour. "
(T. E. Lawrence, Seven Pillars of Wisdom BOOK ONE CHAPTER 16)

-emir-faisals-party-at-versailles

Interfax, Russia
Feb 19 2010

Stepanakert denies Baku claims about shooting in conflict zone

YEREVAN Feb 19

The Defense Ministry of the breakaway republic of Nagorno-Karabakh has
said that allegations by the Azeri Defense Ministry concerning the
deaths of 3 Azeri soldiers by Armenian forces are not true.

"The Azeri reports about the alleged shooting and deaths of Azeri
soldiers are not true. The Nagorno-Karabakh defense army is honoring
the ceasefire," Nagorno-Karabakh Defense Ministry spokesman Col. Senor
Asratian told Interfax.

Three Azeri army servicemen were killed and another wounded as a
result of fire opened by Armenian forces, the Azeri Defense Ministry
said earlier on Friday.

IRANIAN AMBASSADOR TO ARMENIA: ROBERT KOCHARYAN PLAYS IMPORTANT PART IN DEVELOPMENT AND TIGHTENING OF ARMENIAN-IRANIAN RELATIONS

ArmInfo
2010-02-19 12:50:00

ArmInfo. Iran is in very warm relations with both the incumbent and
former president of Armenia, Ambassador of Iran to Armenia Seyed Ali
Saghaeyan said in Yerevan today when commenting on the last visit of
ex-president of Armenia Robert Kocharyan to Iran.

"The former president of Armenia R. Kocharyan played a great part
in development and tightening of the Armenian-Iranian relations. He
arrived in our country on invitation of the foreign minister and held
meetings with Manouchehr Mottaki and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad",
the Iranian diplomat said.

To recall, R. Kocharyan was in Iran on January 20-21 on a two-day
visit.

SME’S SHARE IN ARMENIA 2009 GDP DO NOT UNDERGO SUBSTANTIAL CHANGES

ARKA
Feb 20, 2010

YEREVAN, February 20. /ARKA/. In an exclusive interview with
ARKA, Ishkhan Karapetyan, executive director of Small and Medium
Entrepreneurship Development National Center Fund, said SME’s share
in the GDP in 2008 amounted to 41.7% and to 17.9% in exports.

He said figures for 2009 were being specified, however, according to
provisional data, they did not undergo substantial changes.

He said it is explained by the fact that although some sectors-
construction and mining, particularly, slashed production and sales,
some other sectors, particularly, trade and services, got some
advantages. The IT sector also reported a tangible growth. These are
the sectors in which SME companies are quite active and this is why
last year’s indicators did not change much.

"Our preliminary figures show that the SME share in the country’s
exports contracted a little, conditioned by a certain decline of
foreign trade indicator, but in absolute figures it did not,’ he said.

He cited the data of State Registrar of Enterprises, according to
which as of January 1, 2010 there were 14,326 registered economic
entities, and over 98% were SME, including 2,698 legal entities and
11,628 private entrepreneurs.

ASTANA TO OFFER NAGORNO-KARABAKH MEDIATION STRATEGY TO BAKU, YEREVAN

Interfax
Feb 18 2010
Russia

Astana will offer its proposals on settling the conflict between
Armenia and Azerbaijan over Nagorno- Karabakh, said Kazakh Foreign
Minister and OSCE Chairman-in-Office Kanat Saudabayev.

"Based on the outcomes of Kanat Saudabayev’s visit to Azerbaijan and
Armenia and his negotiations in Baku and Yerevan, Kazakhstan will
work out the further strategy of mediation between the conflicting
parties," Roman Vasilenko, the chairman of the Kazakh Foreign
Ministry’s international information committee, told journalists in
Yerevan in commenting on Saudabayev’s meeting with Armenian President
Serzh Sargsyan.

"Mr. Saudabayev said at these meetings that, based on the visits’
outcomes, Kazakhstan would try to develop a formula of its conduct
and proposals in support for the efforts that the parties involved in
the settlement of the conflict have been making for so many years,"
Vasilenko said.

Saudabayev and Sargsyan emphasized a high level of Armenia’s
cooperation with the OSCE institutions and shared confidence that
such cooperation would be stepped up in the future, Vasilenko said.

The Kazakh foreign minister is making a tour of the South Caucasus
countries as the OSCE chairman-in-office with the aim of helping
settle the conflict situations in the region.

HERITAGE PARTY BELIEVES CHANGES IN ARMENIA’S FOREIGN POLICY IMPORTANT

/PanARMENIAN.Net/
17.02.2010 17:26 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Karabakh issue can’t be resolved until it’s handled
from legal viewpoint, according to Heritage parliamentary group
secretary Larisa Alaverdyan.

At news conference in Yerevan, Mrs. Alaverdyan welcomed RA Foreign
Minister’s statement where he raised the issue of Martakert, Martuni
and Shahumyan regions. "It’s important that the Foreign Minister’s
statement will spur further actions," she said.

Referring to RA President’s speech in Chatham House, Heritage
parliamentary group secretary noted that only changes in foreign
policy of Armenia can prove its true meaning. "During his presidency,
Robert Kocharian made a brilliant speech on Artsakh in Strasburg. And
Madrid Principles were concluded after that speech," she emphasized.

Larisa Alaverdyan considers February 16 meeting between NKR President
Bako Sahakyan and OSCE Chairman a step forward towards Artsakh’s
involvement in negotiations.

Commenting on the possibility of ratification of Armenia-Turkey
Protocols in the RA NA, she noted that instead of suggesting
reservations, Heritage will submit a draft resolution on withdrawal
from Protocols’ ratification.

The conflict between Nagorno Karabakh and Azerbaijan broke out in
1988, as result of the ethnic cleansing the latter launched in the
final years of the Soviet Union. The Karabakh War was fought from
1991 (when the Nagorno Karabakh Republic was proclaimed) to 1994
(when a ceasefire was sealed by Armenia, NKR and Azerbaijan). Most
of Nagorno Karabakh and a security zone consisting of 7 regions is
now under control of NKR defense army. Armenia and Azerbaijan are
holding peace talks mediated by the OSCE Minsk Group up till now.

The Protocols aimed at normalization of bilateral ties and opening of
the border between Armenia and Turkey were signed in Zurich by Armenian
Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian and his Turkish counterpart Ahmet
Davutoglu on October 10, 2009, after a series of diplomatic talks
held through Swiss mediation.

On January 12, 2010, the Constitutional Court of the Republic of
Armenia found the protocols conformable to the country’s Organic Law.