Author: Kalashian Nyrie

Libération, France
4 Septembre 2008

Diplomatie du football entre la Turquie et l’Arménie

M.S.
QUOTIDIEN : vendredi 5 septembre 2008

Si l’opposition kémaliste dénonce «un déplacement qui n’a pas lieu
d’être», la plupart des journaux turcs et des capitales européennes
saluent «la visite historique», même de quelques heures. Abdullah Gül
sera le premier chef d’Etat turc à se rendre en Arménie à l’invitation de
son homologue, Serge Sarkissian, pour assister samedi au match de football
Arménie-Turquie de qualification pour le Mondial 2010. Les deux pays n’ont
pas de relations diplomatiques même si la Turquie a reconnu cette
ex-République soviétique devenue indépendante en 1991. En outre la Turquie
a fermé sa frontière avec ce pays en 1993 sur fond de crise dans le
Haut-Karabagh, enclave arménienne en Azerbaïdjan qui par les armes s’était
rattachée à la mère patrie au début des années 90. Le contentieux le
plus lourd reste le génocide des Arméniens de l’Empire ottoman entre 1915
et 1917 qui a fait 1,5 million de morts. Ankara parle de 500 000 morts dans
des massacres des deux côtés.

MILLENNIUM CHALLENGE BENEFICIARIES TO BE ELECTED IN SEP 27

ARKA
September 5, 2008

YEREVAN, September 5. /ARKA/. Millennium Challenge Armenia (MCA) will
hold new elections of the Stakeholders’ Committee on September 27,
reported Ara Hovsepyan, MCA executive director.

The 15 members of the committee will be elected by a secret ballot. The
term of office of the acting SC will end on September 29.

Farmers, NGO representatives and all the interested parties approved
today the SC election procedure, Hovsepyan said.

"The Millennium Challenge Program enjoys popularity, being a unique
and highly effective grant program," he was quoted saying.

The mission of SC is to protect the interests of beneficiaries and
make their own suggestions to program implementation.

Launched on September 29, 2006, MCA signed a five-year, $235mln compact
with the Government of Armenia. The document focuses on rural poverty
reduction and sustainable increase in the economic performance of
the agricultural sector.

TURKISH-ARMENIAN SOCCER DIPLOMACY
Ralph Boulton

Reuters
Sept 5 2008
UK

Following the national soccer team to a foreign country is usually a
safe enough bet for any national leader. Photographs of the president
or premier smiling and waving, the local colour, the national flags
all play well at home; a few platitudes to charm the local press and
a handshake. Simple, harmless political fun.

When Turkish President Abdullah Gul visits Yerevan this weekend for
Turkey’s World Cup qualifier against Armenia, however, there will be
nothing simple about it.

For the two countries, divided over a wartime slaughter that occurred
early in the last century, it will be a historic moment, fraught
with perils.

For many Armenians, Gul’s presence will be an act of sheer effrontery
by a state they accuse of an act of genocide against the Armenian
people; an act of savagery by the old, collapsing Ottoman Empire for
which they demand an apology and redress.

For many nationalist Turks, his unprecedented venture, the first
visit to Armenia by a Turkish leader, borders on betrayal of their
country which they say committed no genocide. Hundreds of thousands,
Turks and Armenians alike, they argue, died in the fierce fighting
that consumed the region. Opposition leader Deniz Baykal gave a taste
of that mood, remarking sarcastically that Gul should lay a wreath
at the Yerevan genocide monument.

Recklesness or statesmanship? Whichever it is, if it is either, it is
arguably an act of political courage — as was the invitation issued
by Armenian President Serzh Sarksyan. Gul might have left well alone
as generations of Turkish leaders have done before him. Few in Turkey
or Armenia, would have raised an eyebrow.

There may well be anti-Turkish demonstrations in Yerevan and rumblings
at home. Gul, a naturally mild-mannered man, must watch his words
and his body language. Maybe soccer diplomacy could break the ice
between Armenia and Turkey in the same way ping-pong diplomacy launched
relations between the United States and Communist China.

Gul’s visit to Armenia is the latest in a string of Turkish foreign
policy interventions around his country’s troubled border areas,
involving Syria, Iran, Israel, Iraq and more recently Georgia. Gul
and Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan might be seen as pandering to a
foreign policy fantasy nurtured by Washington and Brussels of a Turkey
building bridges between the West and the Arab world, helping secure
the energy routes of the Caucasus and healing the wound of Cyprus;
but Ankara is pursuing its own vested interests. While the Turkish
economy may prosper in Istanbul or central Anatolia, the country’s
east remains steeped in poverty.

Why? Look around.

Eastern Turkey is caught, effectively, in a dead end, surrounded
by closed or virtually closed borders and weak neighbouring
economies. Armenia is one such neighbour, but an important one.

A landlocked country still emerging from the ruins of the Soviet
Union, Armenia also suffers from a closed border with its huge
western neighbour.

The argument about whether or not the events of the last century were
an act of systematic killing, a genocide, will continue with a passion.

The idea that governments write history or interpret it is not one
that sits easily with me. I’ve lived in countries where the history
books are written by the government or the Party.

The Turks have compromised themselves over decades on this count
by prosecuting historians or journalists who dare to entertain the
question of whether there was genocide; but things in Turkey are
changing. The country is opening, if not quickly enough for some.

Armenians might argue that the killing in what is today eastern Turkey
is not history but very much a modern event for families driven into
exile and living with the consequences. Some of those exile families,
from Paris to Los Angeles, are among the most vocal proponents of
diplomatic action against Turkey.

Soccer matches can be emotional occasions. Turkish and Armenian
colours will vie for attention. Hopefully, the emotion this time will
be confined largely to the action on the pitch, but politics will
be foremost in many people’s minds, within and beyond the borders of
Turkey and Armenia.

A risky and courageous political act by Gul or a move long overdue
for both Turkey and Armenia? Much depends on what comes after the
final whistle. Both sides are showing good will. The Armenians, for
instance, are removing from the emblems on their kit the image of
Mount Ararat, a mountain now in Turkey but closely linked to Armenian
culture and history.

As Turkish national coach Fatih Terim said on Tuesday, the team is
going to Yervan ‘to play a game and not to fight a war’.

RUSSIAN SECURITY COUNCIL: ECONOMIC COMPONENT CONTRIBUTES TO SITUATION IN SOUTH OSSETIA

ARKA
Sep 4, 2008

YEREVAN, September 4. /ARKA/. Economic component has also contributed
to the situation in South Ossetia, Secretary of Russia’s Security
Council Nikolay Patrushev said.

Northern Caucasus and Central Asia are rich with carbohydrates, oil
and gas and the USA wishes to have access to them, Patrushev said
after the meeting of Committee of CSTO (Collective Security Treaty
Organization) security councils in Yerevan.

Apart from production, gas and oil need to be transported and for
this appropriate regimes are required in the region’s countries,
Patrushev said. "We remember how Saakashvili was brought to power. It
has nothing to do with democracy," Patrushev said.

"We have never denied the territorial integrity principle, but the
forms and methods it is achieved by may differ. A war against people
living on a territory, in South Ossetia in particular, genocide of
the people are inadmissible," Patrushev said.

THE NAGORNO-KARABAKH CONFLICT CAN ONLY BE RESOLVED BY A PEACEFULMETHOD, SAID ARMENIAN PRIME MINISTER TIGRAN SARGSYAN IN STEPANAKERT ON TUESDAY

Interfax
Sept 2 2008
Russia

The recent events in South Caucasus have clearly demonstrated that
there is no military solution to regional conflicts, he said.

The Nagorno-Karabakh problem must be resolved solely through peace
talks, said Sargsyan, who chairs the Armenian governmental delegation,
which arrived in Stepanakert to attend the festivities on the occasion
of the 17th anniversary of the self-proclaimed Nagorno-Karabakh
Republic (NKR).

For his part, Armenian Defense Minister Seyran Ohanyan called
for further reinforcement of the NKR Defense Army because this is
required by the current geopolitical processes and the recent events
in the region.

As regards the military operations in Georgia, the minister said
that, unlike in other conflicts, the situation in Nagorno-Karabakh
is different, because it has a capable army and a deep defense.

The NKR Defense Army has proved on many occasions that it is prepared
for any provocation from the enemy and is capable of providing security
for the republic, said the Armenian defense minister.

ARMENIAN AND RUSSIAN PRESIDENTS EXPLORE RAILWAY LINKS VIA IRAN
by Natalia Leshchenko

World Market Research Centre
Global Insight
September 3, 2008

Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan is visiting his Russian counterpart
Dmitry Medvedev to discuss bilateral relations in the minds of the
Russia-Georgia crisis. The military hostilities gave a new lease of
life to the Iran-Armenia railway project. First introduced in 2006,
it was dismissed over the high estimated cost, $1US.5 billion, but
is back on the table now as diplomatic relations between Russia and
Georgia are cut off. The chance of bypassing Georgia for Russia’s gas
deliveries to Armenia is small at the moment, with the possibility
of building an Iran-Armenia gas pipeline branch only mentioned. The
price for gas deliveries over 2009-2011, was not discussed, according
to Medvedev’s aide.

Significance:Armenia has felt the effects of the military operation
in Georgia this August, particularly in the form of fuel shortages,
and its president, only elected this year and still facing street
opposition, is keen to assure economic stability and prosperity in the
country as a bedrock of his authority. Russian railway monopoly RZhD
already owns Armenia’s railway network as an affiliate company, and
is most likely to take charge of the Iran-Armenia railway, although a
source of funds would have to be found for such a costly project. One
may also wonder if the need to bypass Georgia for Russia-Armenia trade
may be pertinent and long-term enough to justify an expensive railway.

Review: Ararat: In Search of the Mythical Mountain

Sunday Telegraph/UK
by Frank Westerman
31/08/2008

Jeremy Seal follows one man and his Noah complex up Mount Ararat

A perilous ducking, though not quite of the biblical proportions his
title suggests, opens Frank Westerman’s memorably enquiring but wayward
memoir-cum-travelogue. Westerman recalls a July day in 1976 when melt
waters released from a dam in the Austrian Alps engulfed the ‘wadeable
stream’ where he was playing. That famously dry summer thus proved
torrential for the holidaying Dutch boy, if only temporarily. Washing
up unharmed in the back eddy of an inlet, he sensed Deliverance and so
thanked ‘God the Father for having heard my cry above the roaring
waters’. It is this Noah complex, as it might be called, and the
scientific values he comes to espouse in its place that Westerman’s
highly personal, occasionally brilliant narrative sets out to explore.

The adult Westerman sees science as ‘a vaccine against believing’. He
has given up prayer and resigned his membership of the Dutch Reformed
Church. He wonders at his own grandfather holding the creationist line
that the Earth is 6,000 years old – roughly a millionth, incidentally,
of current scientific estimates. Even so, he never forgets the story of
Noah and how the Ark was left on top of Mount Ararat when the flood
receded, nor that the tale transfixed him back in the days of Sunday
school. After a visit to Armenia in 1999, he decides ‘to climb biblical
Ararat and walk its highest ice fields’.

advertisement
The Armenian holy mountain just inside Eastern Turkey thus looms large
as Westerman’s spiritual and physical object, though it is less clear
what the author expects from the experience of climbing it. He talks of
putting ‘to the test my own resolve as a non-believer’, as if exposing
himself to holy places might still stir him to faith, but goes on to
dismiss the explanation as naive. While waiting for a clearer motive to
come along, Westerman focuses on a mountain richer in devotional,
scientific, geo-political and cultural significance than perhaps any
other.

Westerman takes in the Armenian church, a potted history of Ararat
mountaineering, and fundamentalist ‘Arkeologists’ (Ark searchers) such
as the former astronaut Jim Irwin. Sorties into the realms of
vulcanology and seismology (Ararat is highly earthquake-prone) entail
visits to, among others, a former geology professor, an exiled Armenian
academic and even the author’s atheist publisher. Westerman proves a
perceptive, passionate writer, with a line in memorable observations.
He describes the current rise of religion and the fear of modern-day
parents that they might lose children to it, ‘the way our parents 25
years ago could lose us to the squatters’ or punk scene’.

He also pens excellent discursive sections, notably on the 19th-century
discovery of Assyrian flood accounts which were inscribed on clay
tablets several centuries before the Old Testament was written, a fact
that causes him to dismiss the Bible as ‘one long act of plagiarism’.
There is a fine description of a low-tide walk on the Wadden shallows,
a kind of Dutch Morecambe Bay which Westerman presents as physical
preparation for the mountain climb.

It is characteristic of his narrative voice, candid to the point of
transparency, that he should allow his actual, symbolic intentions to
show through. ‘You want to defy the water. For your story,’ his wife
tells him.

Westerman clearly likes to range widely; the problem is his book’s
200-odd pages can feel uncomfortably crowded. Mount Ararat jostles for
space with the various memoir strands, including a whimsical one that
concerns Westerman’s young daughter. His journey to the base of the
mountain brings in the Armenian genocide, Ataturk, the Kurdish
insurgency and Orhan Pamuk (Westerman passes through the gloomy town of
Kars where the Turkish author’s Nobel-Prize winning novel Snow is set).
Less excusable are a number of dull inclusions, not least an ongoing
account of the bureaucracy entailed in securing a climbing visa, which
only add to the impression of a book so swollen with uneven content as
to burst its narrative banks.

The further surprise, given what gets in, is what stays out of Ararat.
Fans of mountaineering accounts should be advised that Westerman’s
actual climb occupies only the last 15 pages. Nor does Westerman do
more than touch upon resonant fears of the floods which rising sea
levels may cause. From a Dutchman, this feels like an omission.

Today’s Zaman, Turkey
Sept 1 2008

Turkish delegation to visit Armenia for Caucasus talks

A Turkish Foreign Ministry delegation will visit Yerevan this week to
discuss a proposed platform for the troubled Caucasus, Foreign
Minister Ali Babacan announced yesterday.

Babacan, speaking at a joint press conference with his Georgian
counterpart, Eka Tkeshelashvili in Ä°stanbul, said the
delegation will present Turkish ideas concerning the Caucasus
Stability and Cooperation Platform, proposed by Turkey as a mechanism
to develop conflict resolution methods among the Caucasus
countries. The proposed platform is planned to be made up of Turkey,
Russia, Georgia, Azerbaijan and Armenia.

"Next week, a delegation from the ministry will go to Yerevan. They
will discuss this issue ahead of a possible visit by our president to
Armenia," Babacan said, referring to a visit President Abdullah
Gül is expected to make to Yerevan at the invitation of his
Armenian counterpart, Serzh Sarksyan, to watch a World Cup qualifying
game between the national teams of the two countries on Saturday.

"We will present our views concerning the Caucasus platform to our
counterparts in Yerevan." The visit of the Turkish diplomats to
Yerevan marks a turning point in Turkey-Armenia relations, frozen
since 1993 following Armenian occupation of a chunk of Azerbaijani
territory over a dispute in the Nagorno-Karabakh region. Turkey was
one of the first countries to recognize Armenia as an independent
state following the collapse of the Soviet Union, but they have no
formal ties. The Foreign Ministry recently confirmed that there have
been contacts between diplomats of the two countries in a third
country.

The question of how to establish contact between the estranged
neighbors Turkey and Armenia is just one of the obstacles that the
proposed Caucasus platform faces. Azerbaijan is unlikely to warm to
any sort of cooperation or contact with Armenia due to the continued
occupation of Nagorno-Karabakh. Georgia, for its part, refuses any
contact with Russia unless Russian forces withdraw from Georgia.

Tkeshelashvili reiterated in Ä°stanbul that what Russia must do
now is to withdraw from Georgian territory and fully implement a
cease-fire agreement. After that Georgia can begin assessing proposals
for contacts with Russia in a multilateral setting, she said. Russia,
she said, should see that it cannot act the way it used to in the
past.

She said Russia declared part of Georgian territory as independent
states, referring to South Ossetia and Abkhazia, which Russia
recognized last month, and called for joint effort to reverse Russia’s
"expansionist" policies.

Babacan admitted there were problems in implementing the Caucasus
platform, which calls for regional conflict resolution mechanisms and
broader economic cooperation among the five countries
involved. "People are wondering when we can officially start
this. This will happen when the conditions are ripe," he said. "Every
country has their stances and concerns. We will talk about
these. There will be intense diplomacy traffic. When the guns are
silenced, it’s time for diplomacy."

Analysts say with so many issues of dispute among the five countries,
the idea to bring them around the same table to discuss disputes could
be mere wishful thinking. But contacts have been intense since Prime
Minister Recep Tayyip ErdoÄ?an announced the
proposal. ErdoÄ?an has visited Moscow, Tbilisi and Baku to
discuss the proposal. The Azerbaijani foreign minister had talks in
Ankara on Friday and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov is
expected to arrive in Ä°stanbul today for talks on Tuesday.

"We need to shape the future of the Caucasus together," Babacan
said. "It is a time when we need to take brave steps to prevent the
regional tension from turning into global turmoil. Channels of
dialogue must be kept open," he added.

Azerbaijan worries

Analysts warn that contacts with Armenia could offend Azerbaijan,
Turkey’s regional ally which also shares close ethnic and linguistic
ties. Babacan assured his Azerbaijani counterpart, Elmar Mammadyarov,
on Friday that Turkey was a strategic partner of Azerbaijan in all
areas but signs of tension were visible during the one-day visit. The
two ministers gave a very brief press statement after their talks and
Mammadyarov said before meeting Babacan that his country would
consider "profitability" concerning a Russian proposal to buy
Azerbaijani oil, a move that would undermine a US-backed pipeline to
transfer Caspian oil to Europe via Turkey.

The government’s apparent plans to initiate dialogue with Armenia are
receiving criticism at home as well. Main opposition Republican
People’s Party (CHP) leader Deniz Baykal told reporters yesterday that
the government was trying to reverse the official policy without
Armenia meeting any of the conditions requested by Turkey for
normalization of ties.

He warned against alienating Azerbaijan, saying this country is of
vital importance for Turkey in many respects. "I want the government
to refrain from taking any step that would harm Azerbaijan," he said
and added that he would rather go to Baku than to Yerevan to watch the
World Cup game.

RUSSIAN CARRIERS USING AZERI SPACE TO FLY TO ARMENIA DUE TO GEORGIAN CRISIS

Haykakan Zhamanak
Aug 28 2008

Armenia

"Over Azerbaijan"

It emerged yesterday [27 August] that over the past 20 days, Russian
air companies have been carrying out flights from Russian cities to
Armenia via the Azerbaijani air space and not via Georgia as usual.

The spokeswoman for the Armenian Civil Aviation Department, Gayane
Davtyan, confirmed to our correspondent the change of route from
Russian cities to Armenia. She said that air companies choose
their routes on their own and that it is not dangerous to fly over
Azerbaijan.

Russia’s Aerflot representative in Armenia, Tigran Nersisyants,
told our correspondent that back on 8 August, one day after the
Russian-Georgian confrontation began, the Russian agency for air
transportation sent a letter to their air companies recommending that
beginning 9 August they "should not carry out flights over Georgia
and temporarily use other routes, taking into account the current
limitations.

WILL CUSTODY BE PROLONGED?

A1+
[07:39 pm] 27 August, 2008

"The Court of General Jurisdiction of Kentron and Nork-Marash
districts will hear the case of Armenian MPs Miasnik Malkhassian
and Hakob Hakobian on August 27," Melanya Aroustamian, Advocate of
Myasnik Malkhassian and Hakob Hakobian, informed A1+.

Note, the special investigation body had petitioned the court to
prolong their custody for another two months.

Melanya Aroustamian also presents the interests of Melik Grigorian,
the family driver of Hakob Hakobian. She says Grigorian’s detention
has been disputed at the Appellate Court.

Melik Grigorian is charged with violence against a government
official. He was found guilty and sentenced to 6 months’ imprisonment.

It is still unknown when the Appellate Court will hear the
claim. Nevertheless, Melik Grigorian will be released on September 12.

The case of Mushegh Saghatelian arrested in the morning of March 1
was sent to the RoA Criminal Court.

Mushegh Saghatelian is charged under Article 316 of the RoA CC
(violence against a government representative and appliance of cold
weapon).