184 COUPLES GOT 300 THOUSAND DRAMS
KarabakhOpen
20-02-2008 11:33:56
This year already 509 marriages have been registered at the registry
office of Stepanakert. Karabakh-Open.com learned from the registry
office that in January 25-30 marriages were registered a day, and in
February 10-12 marriages a day.
We learned from Artsakhbank that of 210 applications for the government
assistance of 300 thousand drams 184 have already been financed.
Bloomberg
Feb 19 2008
Armenia Elects President as Rival Warns of Protests (Update1)
By Mark Bentley
Feb. 19 (Bloomberg) — Armenians vote today in a presidential
election, with the opposition already raising concerns that the vote
may be rigged.
Former President Levon Ter-Petrosyan says his supporters will protest
on the streets of Yerevan, Armenia’s capital, if election monitors
rule that the front-runner, Prime Minister Serzh Sargsyan, won
unfairly. Ter-Petrosyan, 63, is making a return to politics in the
former Soviet republic after being ousted from power a decade ago.
“It’s a dangerous situation and unrest cannot be ruled out,” said
Larisa Minasyan, director of the Armenia branch of the Open Society
Institute, a New York-based pro-democracy body founded by billionaire
investor George Soros. “I would only hope that the political
leadership and law enforcers act responsibly.”
Sargsyan says Armenians should vote for him because of his party’s
economic achievements, which have brought growth of more than 13
percent for each of the last three years and raised living standards.
Ter-Petrosyan says the expansion has benefited the richest Armenians
most and accuses Sargsyan of failing to seek a resolution to disputes
with neighbors Azerbaijan and Turkey that curb exports from the
land-locked country.
Armenia, which lies in the southern Caucasus and became independent
from the former Soviet Union in 1991, is under pressure from the U.S.
and the European Union to strengthen its democracy at a time when it
is receiving hundred of millions of dollars in aid.
Flawed Elections
The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe and other
international observers have described each of the six elections
since 1995, except last year’s parliamentary vote, as flawed.
Sargsyan, 53, is the nominee of President Robert Kocharyan, who’s
served the maximum two five-year terms.
The OSCE has almost 400 observers in Armenia, also bordered by
Georgia and Iran, to monitor balloting by the country’s 2.3 million
voters. That’s as many as at the parliamentary election last year.
Ballot boxes will close at 8 p.m. and initial results will be
published by the election board early tomorrow.
An EU strategy paper issued last year said the 27-nation bloc
“should make democratic progress, respect of human rights and
enforcement of the rule of law a priority for future cooperation”
with Armenia.
Sargsyan has 51 percent support, according to a poll commissioned by
state-controlled Armenia Public TV and Radio, which interviewed 1,500
voters Jan. 20-29. The margin of error was 2.6 percentage points.
Assessment
Ter-Petrosyan, who, at 12 percent, was tied for second with former
parliamentary speaker Artur Baghdasaryan, 39, dismissed the survey as
“flawed.”
The leading candidate must get more than 50 percent to avoid a runoff
against the nearest challenger in two weeks.
The OSCE will give its assessment of the election tomorrow.
Ter-Petrosyan’s supporters, a coalition of more than 20 parties and
civil groups, plan a rally in the capital the same day.
“If there is fraud, then we will use our legal right to protest,”
Ter-Petrosyan told reporters at a news conference in Yerevan Feb. 17.
“There will be a struggle and it will be a struggle to the very
end.”
“There is no person in the world more interested than I in an
election free of vote-rigging,” Sargsyan said in an interview at his
office in Yerevan late yesterday. “In any case, if we were capable
of altering the outcome then we would be considered among the
greatest illusionists of all time.”
`Falsification’
Ter-Petrosyan, addressing more than 50,000 of his supporters in
Yerevan’s main square Feb. 16, called on Armenians to vote to
“reduce chances of falsification.” A rally organized by Sargsyan’s
Republican Party the next day attracted similar numbers.
The OSCE, in a report published Feb. 16, said it “continues to
receive reports of citizens being concerned about vote-buying schemes
and anxious regarding the collection of passport data and the secrecy
of the vote.” Armenia’s media had been “critical” of
Ter-Petrosyan, while “the other eight candidates were presented in a
positive or neutral manner.”
Armenia’s constitutional court dismissed a plea by Ter- Petrosyan on
Feb. 11 to postpone the election by two weeks. Biased media coverage
made “further participation in the campaign impossible,” he argued.
Ter-Petrosyan’s rivalry with Sargsyan dates back to 1998. He was
forced to step down as president when Sargsyan and Kocharyan, both
ministers in his government, objected to an OSCE peace plan to end
the dispute with Azerbaijan over the mountainous region of
Nagorno-Karabakh. Both Kocharyan and Sargsyan are from the enclave,
which is located within Azerbaijan’s borders.
Economic Embargo
The proclamation of self-rule by ethnic Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh
in 1991 sparked a three-year war between Azerbaijan and Armenia that
killed thousands. It also prompted an economic embargo on Armenia by
Azerbaijan and Turkey, crimping the country’s exports.
Ter-Petrosyan says the standoff with Azerbaijan is hindering growth,
which has come mainly from building and services. The two countries
remain officially at war. Sargsyan, seeking to stave off criticism
from Ter-Petrosyan that he is stalling talks on Nagarno-Karabakh,
said he will seek a swift resumption of negotiations if he becomes
president.
“I’m confident that the talks can resume in March,” he said. “I
can’t promise to our people that the issue will be resolved tomorrow,
but let me say that I am a staunch supporter of the peaceful
resolution of the conflict.”
Diaspora Money
Sargsyan also points to increased investment by the Armenian
diaspora, which is helping boost construction, as an example of
renewed confidence in Armenia’s political and economic future.
Yerevan’s center, once blighted by power blackouts, is now in a
building boom, while economic output per capita has more than
quadrupled in the past eight years to $3,000. The currency, the dram,
has gained 37 percent against the dollar.
Still, Sargsyan’s failure to agree on a Nagorno-Karabakh settlement
with Azerbaijan is deterring investment by U.S. and European
companies, said Gerard Libaridian, professor of modern Armenian
history at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.
“The resolution of the Karabakh dispute should be the priority for
the next president, then everything else will follow,” Libaridian
said. “A solution will open up our borders and create a larger and
more democratic environment for investors.”
To contact the reporter on this story: Mark Bentley in Yerevan,
Armenia at [email protected] .
The statement of the US Embassy in Azerbaijan
armradio.am
19.02.2008 18:02
The Press Service of the US Embassy in Azerbaijan issued a
statement, which says, in part: "The situation in Kosovo is
a special case and does not set a precedent for other regions,
including Nagorno-Karabakh." The embassy’s public affairs office
told APA that according to the statement, the unusual combination of
factors involved in Kosovo, including a specific U.N. Security Council
Resolution envisioning a status process and an extended period of
transitional U.N. administration makes the Kosovo case fundamentally
different from all other existing cases.
"Of particular importance, the situation in Kosovo is governed by the
terms of a specific resolution that was intended to help determine
Kosovo’s future status through a political process that contemplated
the possibility of independence. The United States, together with
France and Russia, is a Co-Chair of the OSCE Minsk Group, and in
that capacity has been actively involved in mediating a solution to
the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict for 11 years. Our longstanding policy
remains unchanged: the United States recognizes the sovereignty
and territorial integrity of Azerbaijan and supports a peaceful and
negotiated solution to the conflict. At the same time, we maintain
that the future status of Nagorno-Karabakh should be determined
through international negotiations.
In the wake of these latest developments in Kosovo, we call on all
members of the international community to avoid any public statements
that could undermine the chances for a peaceful, negotiated settlement
of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. Any attempt to resolve the conflict
through military force or any means other than a negotiated compromise
risks undermining peace and stability throughout the Caucasus,"
the statement reads.
PanARMENIAN.Net
Azeri jet didn’t violate Armenian border
15.02.2008 19:10 GMT+04:00
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ The Armenian Defense Ministry refuted reports on
violation of the Armenian airspace by an Azeri jet. `The information
is not true. Our anti-aircraft system prevents any violation,’ RA
Defense Minister Mikael Harutyunyan told reporters Friday.
`However, the frequency of Azeri flights grew during the past week,’
he noted.
`They do not violate our border but conduct maneuvers. Azerbaijan is
aware that Armenia possesses the best anti-aircraft system in the
region. No one can violate our border. Our military will perfectly
perform the task they are charged with,’ the Minister said, Novosti
Armenia reports.
Some Armenian media circulated information that an Azeri jet made an
attempt to violate the Armenian airspace.
Armenian President: ‘Territorial swap’ scenario has never been on the
negotiating table
2008-02-16 22:04:00
ArmInfo. The "territorial swap" scenario has never been negotiated by
the parties to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, President of Armenia
Robert Kocharyan said during his TV interview today when asked to
comment on such a statement by presidential candidate Levon
Ter-Petrossyan.
They say a bear has seven songs and all are about honey. So, our
oppositionists have seven songs and all are about Meghri. It was one of
their key topics during the presidential election 2003.
Then I explained the situation. Today, I am ready to explain it again.
Under my presidency we have received three official proposals from the
OSCE Minsk Group. The first proposal – "common state" – was made in
1998 by the then foreign minister of Russia Yevgeny Primakov; the
second – in Key West, the third – a month ago.
None of the scenarios have been considered by the National Security
Council – as Ter-Petrossyan claims – as none of them are fully
acceptable.
The idea of territorial swap was suggested by US political scientist
Paul Goble. It was just mentioned as a possible way to solve the
problem. Nobody tried to impose it on us. Nobody even tried to suggest
it officially.
We discussed this possibility with just one of the OSCE MG co-chairs.
We just tried to understand if it was acceptable and if it could help
us to move forward. If they had given positive answer, it would have
become the MG’s official proposal. But the idea was rejected by both
the Armenian and Azeri parties. The key argument of the Armenian party
was that it was not willing to lose its border with iran.
I have never seen the document Levon Ter-Petrossyan is talking about.
This document has never been mentioned after 1994 when it was discussed
by the National Security Council in the presence of Vardan Oskanyan.
And now after so many years they have remembered this subject again and
are trying to speculate on it.
In the last years we have proved that we have never considered this
possibility seriously: we have laid an Armenia-Iran gas pipeline, we
are beginning to build a water power plant, we are discussing the
possibility of building an oil refinery and a railroad. We are doing
all we can to show that we are not going to sacrifice our border with
Iran.
Yes, we did discuss this proposal but it is one of 7-8 different
proposals. Different experts suggest different scenarios. The present
proposal of the MG co-chairs is based on the right of a nation to
self-determination.
PUBLIC TELEVISION WILL CARRY OUT GOVERNMENT ORDER OF 187.7 MILLION DRAMS BUT HOW?
KarabakhOpen
14-02-2008 17:27:59
The chair of the Board of Public Television and Radio Vardges Bagiryan
has extended a proposal to the government. According to the proposal,
the government will assign 187.7 million drams in 2008 for the
production of TV and radio programs.
The size of the assignment did not arouse questions among the members
of government. Instead, a heated argument began on the programs
described in the proposal. In particular, Prosecutor General Arshavir
Baghiryan said 30 hours is too long for the Armenian Alphabet show
since the program is boring. Prime Minister Ara Harutiunyan shared
his opinion, who also said the duration of the Political Hour should
be reduced, and the duration of the Health should be increased. The
minister of social security Narine Azatyan proposed a series of
programs about social issues. Vardges Bagiryan said the list could
be modified. But how?
According to the law, the Board of the Public Television and Radio
sets the duration and list of programs. However, the regulations of
the Board do not provide for criteria for deciding the duration of
one program or another.
There are no mechanisms of measuring the rating of the programs,
no polls are conducted among viewers, no evaluations are made by
experts. No contests are held for projects that the government orders.
Most TV channels whose policy is based on public opinion set the list
of programs through these mechanisms. Usually, the Public Television
receives government order to produce and broadcast a certain series
of programs. The TV channel announces a contest of programs on the
given topic. Then the work of the journalist is measured through
polls. Thereby both the order is carried out and the viewers watch
quality programs.
In our Public Television the rating of the journalist and the program
is not used for measurement. Therefore, the government may reshape
the list of programs in one way or another, without considering how
difficult it is to create a new program and what it requires.
ACCORDING TO REFINED DATA, 2 320 375 CITIZENS CAN PARTICIPATE IN THE ELECTIONS
armradio.am
14.02.2008 17:30
According to refined data, 2 320 375 citizens of Armenia will be
able to participate in the presidential elections on February 19,
Deputy Chairman of the Central Electoral Commission (CEC) HarutÃ"un
ShahbazÃ"an stated in Yerevan today. He informed that the voters’
lists will be finally specified on February 16.
The same ballot-boxes and polling-booths used during the parliamentary
elections of 2007 will be used. Posters with the biographies of all
the 9 candidates and samples of a voting ballot will be posted in
all the 1923 polling stations.
–Boundary_(ID_8sppEaIRFTA9uwJbmg4t4w)- –
Sofia News Agency, Bulgaria
Feb 14 2008
The Wrong of the Right to be Upset
By Milena Hristova
14 February 2008, Thursday
"Florence is of Armenian origin. She is flirting a lot. During the
dances her shorts came down. I was very cooperative."
This is not the beginning of a short story, but part of the secret
file of Hristo Drumev, head of the landmark National Palace of
Culture in Sofia, "whistle-blowing" from a party at the US Embassy in
Paris. For no apparent reason, the file was stamped as highly
confidential, according to the latest revelations of the special
panel that investigates Bulgaria’s communist-era police files.
The revelation that seven deputy ministers and Bulgaria’s envoy in
NATO have been agents or collaborators of the former secret police
was hardly breaking news, but it will certainly not help the
country’s image abroad, especially given the default KGB links.
The repercussions on the domestic front will be far less impressive,
however.
"The secret police grew from a ferociously repressive body to a more
human thing in its last years," one of the custodians of the files
commented in a bid to play down the fallout from the country’s
overdue attempts to come to grips with its murky history.
Humanized or not, the trove these custodians probe is not that
tantalizing for most of it has been removed or destroyed and the
information is patchy at best. At its worst it is as informative as
the exciting excerpt above.
Apparently Bulgarians will not even be able to enjoy "the right
people have to be upset", as preached by Jan Lagos, former Interior
Minister of Czechoslovakia, when the people of Slovakia faced the
need for purification of the past.
Or the present, as in Bulgaria’s case.
Ahead of this bruising week that saw the fourth no confidence vote
against his government and unveiled agents in it, Prime Minister
Sergey Stanishev spent the weekend among friends.
He and his two coalition buddies tried to be convincing in their
insistence on the validity of the narrow basis on which they seek
re-election. They enjoyed some mutual back-patting and put forward a
handful of ambitious and controversial proposals for making Bulgaria
one of Europe’s economic tigers.
Bulgarians don’t have the right to be upset after all, right?
0396
GO ROUND MERRILY ‘CAUSE THE BALLOT BOX IS FULL
Lragir
Feb 12 2008
Armenia
Every Armenian who has at least a full secondary education and half a
higher education in political science or half a secondary education
and a full civil consciousness asks himself once in five years and
several times to others: "How will all this end up?" In an apolitical
party a few days ago I was asked a similar question. Perhaps it was
my fault because I voluntarily did not utter a word during the talk
about the political situation at home, and as a result produced the
impression of a well-aware person. It was also my fault that I did
not ask the first "how will all this end up?", and like in football,
if you do not score, they will score. And once you have produced the
impression of a well-aware person, it is pointless to make another
mistake and try to deny this impression. Therefore I tried to answer.
In fact, how will all this end? All this is the Armenian presidential
process which has been underway for several months. My answer was
short: "This time there will be no end." Or rather we will understand
at least this time that there is no end. The presidential election
2008 will be an endless process, and all the following events, be it
early or scheduled elections, referendums, revolutions, economic booms
or crises, will be the organic continuation, the second, the third,
the fourth, the fifth, the fifteenths rounds of the election, like the
year 2008 is the one thousandth, or two thousandth, or three thousand
four hundredth round of our history. And these rounds will continue
until the simple truth is understood that one cannot live waiting for
the end. It is impossible to live if most of all you want to know what
in the end will be. The end does not require responsibility, moreover,
the end frees from responsibility, you know and it is finished, and you
only wait. Meanwhile, if you are interested in the beginning, you have
to think what to do because the beginning presupposes continuation,
existence in this continuation and therefore action.
It seems that hard life has made Armenians think about the end,
and the Armenian Christian asks "how all this will end up", which
is in fact an anti-Christian question, out of despair, and hope
for consolation. It may be caused by hard life, in fact. However,
it is also possible that hard life is the consequence that everyone
is interested in the end, the end which requires no effort, as if
life is granted to wait for the end, to count the days. And once in
four or five years this calculation leads to a summary, again unable
to find out "how all this will end up". And how can they find out if
there is going to be no end, has never been and will never be?
And the candidates, the political thought will win the election, which
will be guided by this presumption, which may sound funny and silly
at first sight. And in reality this very idea wins in the elections of
all the countries, and the thought loses which perceives the notion of
election as a phenomenon to take place in a certain period of time,
as an event scheduled on September 22, May 12 or February 19. Life
cannot be divided into sectors. It should be lived at full. It is
necessary to be ready for life, for living. If you are not ready for
living and for life, it is impossible to be ready for a sector of life,
it is an illusion, self-deception.
KOCHARIAN DENIES AGREEING TO LAND SWAP WITH AZERBAIJAN
By Emil Danielyan
Radio Liberty, Czech Republic
Feb 11 2008
President Robert Kocharian has dismissed as a "cheap pre-election ploy"
his predecessor Levon Ter-Petrosian’s claims that he had agreed to a
controversial land swap with Azerbaijan that would strip Armenia of
its vital land border with Iran.
The pro-Ter-Petrosian daily "Haykakan Zhamanak" published on
Saturday what it described as the text of a Nagorno-Karabakh peace
plan drafted by international mediators and allegedly accepted by
Kocharian in 1999. Under that document, Karabakh would become an
internationally recognized part of Armenia in return for the latter
ceding its southeastern Meghri district to Azerbaijan. The remote
area borders on Iran and provides as for the shortest overland link
between Azerbaijan proper and its Nakhichevan exclave.
The alleged plan was a major theme of Ter-Petrosian’s speech at a
Saturday rally in Yerevan. The former president denounced it as a
"great conspiracy against the Republic of Armenia" and said the
loss of a common border with Iran would have disastrous consequences
for the landlocked country blockaded by neighboring Azerbaijan and
Turkey. "The document is authentic," he said.
Ter-Petrosian claimed that the late Prime Minister Vazgen Sarkisian
and parliament speaker Karen Demirchian strongly opposed the plan at a
meeting of Armenia’s National Security Council which he said took place
shortly before the October 27, 1999 armed attack on parliament in which
both of them were killed. He said law-enforcement authorities must
regard that as "one of the likely theories" of the still mysterious
assassination of the two top leaders of the the now defunct Miasnutyun
(Unity) alliance.
"I state with all responsibility that Karen Demirchian and Vazgen
Sarkisian foiled that conspiracy, that treason at the expense of
their lives," Ter-Petrosian charged, again implicating Kocharian
and his chief lieutenant, Prime Minister Serzh Sarkisian, in the
parliament shootings.
Kocharian was quick to deny the allegations through a spokesman.
Victor Soghomonian, the presidential press secretary, insisted in an
interview with the Mediamax news agency that the would-be land swap
"has never been a subject of Karabakh settlement negotiations."
"Clearly, the February 9 report is aimed at preventing discussion
of Levon Ter-Petrosian’s peculiar approaches to the conflict’s
resolution," he said.
"In short, that is a quite cheap pre-election ploy," added Soghomonian.
Other Armenian officials did say in the past, however, that the
so-called "Meghri variant" of a Karabakh settlement was put forward
by the U.S., Russian and French co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group in
1999. But they insisted that Yerevan rejected it out of hand.
Visiting Yerevan in November 2000, Steven Sestanovich, the then top
U.S. envoy to the former Soviet Union, indicated that the land swap
is still on the agenda of Armenian-Azerbaijani peace talks. "From
what I hear of public discussions that doesn’t sound like an area
where there is a lot of agreement," he told reporters at the time.
"But I think it’s an important part of discussions of this kind –
if they are undertaken in good faith and with the aim of seeking a
real solution – not to rule out any ideas."
The months leading up to the Armenian parliament massacre were marked
by a flurry of diplomatic activity over Karabakh. Kocharian and then
Azerbaijani President Heydar Aliev held three face-to-face meetings in
as many months and appeared to have made considerable progress towards
the conflict’s resolution. "I am confident that we will find a solution
to the problem, one which I will be able to announce sincerely to
our people," Kocharian said in televised remarks on October 18, 1999.
Six days earlier, Kocharian received a message from then U.S. Vice
President Al Gore which, according to his press service, welcomed
"important progress" in Karabakh talks. Gore was also cited as
urging the Armenian and Azerbaijani leaders to "complete this phase
of negotiations" before the OSCE’s November 1999 summit in Istanbul.
Another senior U.S. official, Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott
met Kocharian and Vazgen Sarkisian in Yerevan on October 27, 1999
just hours before the latter was gunned down along with Demirchian
and six other officials in the National Assembly.
Aliev and Kocharian began their series of negotiations in summer 1999
following the collapse of another Minsk Group plan that envisaged
the establishment of a loose "common state" between Karabakh and
Azerbaijan. The plan put forward in November 1998 was largely accepted
by the Armenian side but rejected by Baku.