Author: Kanayan Tamar

ARMENIAN DELEGATION TO ATTEND EURONEST PA IN BAKU

Vestnik Kavkaza
March 20 2012
Russia

An Armenian delegation plans to attend a plenary session of the
Euronest Parliamentary Assembly in Baku in early April, MP of the
Republican Party Artak Zakaryan said today, Aysor reports.

The composition of the delegation has not been named yet. Zakaryan
reminds that each delegation consists of 10 people. The Armenian
delegation will be appointed tomorrow, he said.

He assured that Vaan Ovannisyan will head the delegation to Baku.

Zakaryan said that he will also be part of the delegation to present
a report on social issues.

CAPITOL HILL ARMENIAN GENOCIDE OBSERVANCE SET FOR APRIL 25

ASBAREZ
Tuesday, March 20th, 2012

Representatives Adam Schiff (D-CA) and Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) with
Yeretsgeen Sirarpi Khoyan at the 2011 Capitol Hill Commemoration of
the Armenian Genocide.

Eastern Prelate Archbishop Oshagan Choloyan to offer the morning
prayer in the Senate earlier that day

WASHINGTON~WArmenian American organizations, in conjunction with
the Congressional Caucus on Armenian Issues, and with support of
the Embassy of the Republic of Armenia and the Office of the Nagorno
Karabakh Republic, will host the annual Capitol Hill Observance of
the Armenian Genocide in the historic Senate Kennedy Caucus Room on
April 25th, reported the Armenian National Committee of America.

The Master of Ceremonies will be Glendale City Clerk Ardashes
Kassakhian. Armenian Americans and anti-genocide advocates from across
the United States are invited to join Senators and Representatives
in marking this solemn occasion, and reaffirming the commitment of
the American people to a truthful and just resolution of this crime.

Earlier that day, Eastern US Prelate Archbishop Oshagan Choloyan has
been invited to offer the morning prayer on the Senate floor. The
Archbishop~Rs invocation will be broadcast on C-Span 2 and streamed
online on cspan.org as well as senate.gov. In 2010, Archbishop Choloyan
offered the morning prayer in the U.S. House of Representatives at
the request of Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) and the invitation of the
House Chaplain.

Two pieces of legislation have recently been introduced in the U.S.

Senate related to the Armenian Genocide. The first, the Armenian
Genocide Resolution, S.Res.399, offered by Senators Robert Menendez
(D-NJ) and Mark Kirk (R-IL), calls upon the U.S. government to properly
recognize the Armenian Genocide and to use the lessons of this atrocity
to prevent future crimes against humanity. The second, the Return of
Churches resolution, S.Res.392, introduced by Senators Scott Brown
(R-MA), Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), and Mark Kirk calls upon Turkey to
return stolen Christian church properties to their rightful owners.

The Senate Kennedy Caucus Room is located in the Russell Senate Office
Building Room 325, located on Constitution Avenue, between Delaware
Ave, NE and 1st Street NE. The closest metro station is Union Station
(Red Line). Limited pay hourly parking is available at the Union
Station parking structure. Contact the ANCA at [email protected] with
any questions.

Visit the Capitol Hill Observance Facebook page.

EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT DRAFTS DOCUMENT ON EU-ARMENIA ASSOCIATION AGREEMENT

news.am
March 20, 2012 | 19:55

European Parliament’s Committee on Foreign Affairs starts a three-day
session on Tuesday.

The issues related to the South Caucasus are included in the agenda.

During the Thursday meeting the European lawmakers will have to
approve two recommendation documents on the South Caucasus.

In particular, there is recommendation on the negotiations of the
EU-Armenia and EU-Azerbaijan Association Agreements.

The draft bill on Armenia was introduced by Polish rapporteur Tomasz
Piotr Poreba.

One of the points says if concluded, the agreement applies to the
whole territory of Armenia.

Another provision says the EU will support the efforts of the Minsk
Group and “clear the way for the implementation of confidence-building
measures, as the Presidents of both Azerbaijan and Armenia have
agreed.”

The document emphasise the need for a sustainable economy, including
through the promotion of renewable energy sources.

It calls to ensure that the development of the energy sector is
carried out in accordance with the EU’s environmental standards,
particularly in the nuclear sector, noting that the situation of the
Medzamor nuclear power plant remains a topic of major concern and
that a specific date for its decommissioning should be set.

PROSECUTION DEMANDS TEN YEARS’ IMPRISONMENT FOR ZARAKOLU

18:37 . 20/03

Turkish writer, publicist Ragip Zarakolu and professor Bushra Ersanili
may be sentenced to long terms of imprisonment. Both of them were
arrested in the case of Kurdistan Communities Union.

Prosecutor in the case Adnan Cime has submitted an indictment of
2,400 pages to Istanbul’s 15th Court of Severe Crimes. According to
the indictment, the former member of the Constitutional Committee and
member of Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party Bushra Ersanili, who is
accused of having led a terrorist organization, may be sentenced to 15
years’ imprisonment, while Zarakolu may face 10 years’ imprisonment
on a charge of supporting the terrorist organization. The court is
expected to publish its verdict on this issue in near future.

In total, the indictment refers to 147 of 193 people who were arrested
in the case of the Kurdistan Communities Union.

To note, Zarakolu has serious health problems. His wife Aisha Zarakolu,
who was arrested together with her husband for the work done to
publish books on Armenian history and the Genocide, got cancer in
custody and died shortly after she came out of prison.

ARFD HAS A GOAL TO COMPLETELY CHANGE POWER IN ARMENIA

arminfo
Wednesday, March 21, 19:22

ARF Dashnaktsoutyun Party will take part in the parliamentary election
to completely change the power in the country, Armen Rustamyan,
representative of the ARFD Supreme Body, said at a press conference on
Wednesday. In case the present regime remains at power, the citizens
will continue estranging themselves from the state. “ARFD has clear
goals and tasks – to restore the democratic, legal and social state.

And our election program aims to attain this goal”, he said.

For his part, Head of ARFD Party faction Vahan Hovhannisyan said
that the people intending to give their votes for ARFD realized long
ago that the promises of the authorities are not worth trusting. He
thinks that the pre-election fight will be strong. The authorities
felt danger and did their best to adopt the bill determining the
legal regime of the state of emergency, which empowers the President
of Armenia to introduce a state of emergency at his sole discretion
and use army detachments in case of states of emergency.

To recall, the National Assembly of Armenia approved on Wednesday the
third and final reading of the bill determining the legal regime of
the state of emergency.

To note, ARFD Party published its proportional list for the upcoming
parliamentary elections on Wednesday. Vahan Hovhannisyan, a member of
the ARFD Bureau, Head of the party’s faction in the parliament, heads
the list comprising 85 people in total. The second position belongs
to Head of the Parliamentary Commission for Foreign Affairs Armen
Rustamyan, then goes Secretary of the faction Artyusha Shahbazyan.

Abe Foxman Epitomizes the Failure of Jewish Leadership
By Pamela Geller

March 21, 2012

We saw the lengths to which the left will go to demonize and destroy
its opponents this week, when in the New York Jewish Week on March
16, Abraham Foxman charged that I am “in many ways no better than
Farrakhan or Buchanan.” I am proud of my work as a patriot and a
passionate Zionist; to be compared to Jew-haters by a man who styles
himself a leader of the Jews is abominable.

Foxman charged me with bigotry for my work with Stop Islamization of
America, a program of my organization, the American Freedom Defense
Initiative. So now defending free society from an ideology that makes
war against free speech and equal rights for women and non-Muslims is
“bigotry.” Defending Jews from an ideology that features a more deeply
ingrained and violent anti-Semitism than any other in the world is
“hatred.”

We have seen the likes of Abe Foxman before in Jewish history: the
reviled traitor among us — Dathan in The Ten Commandments. The idea
that this greasy quisling still leads the Anti-Defamation League is
a stunning indictment of the failure of Jewish lay leadership. Worse
still, a Jewish press is publishing this collaborator. I called
Gary Rosenblatt, the editor of Jewish Week, several times over the
last few days, but he was always (surprise!) on the other line when
I called. He did finally agree to print a letter from me, but he
refused to give me the space he eagerly gave to Foxman to defame me.

The capacity for humiliating, destructive behavior from Abe Foxman
(and those Jews who fund the Anti-Defamation League) continues to
astound and repel proud Jews across the world.

Foxman’s record of poisonous activity that is ultimately harmful to
the Jewish community is longstanding. His denial of the Armenian
genocide is monstrous. If we as a people cannot stand with other
victims of genocide, then who can? Here is a man who refuses to
call the Armenian genocide of two million Christians a genocide,
but who expects the Holocaust to be considered as such. What’s the
difference? And if he can dismiss that genocide, what differentiates
him from, say, an Ahmadinejad, who denies the Holocaust? Foxman went
so far as to fire an ADL regional director for disagreeing with him
over the Armenian genocide.

Foxman has defended Barack Obama’s egregious betrayal of Israel,
saying, in the teeth of all the evidence, “I don’t see this as
the president throwing Israel under the bus.” He has (only once)
acknowledged that “the greatest threat to the Jewish people and
the highest priority for the ADL was that which came from Islamic
extremists.” However, he has issued thousands of press releases over
the last seventeen years, and less than three percent of them have
had anything to do with the Islamic jihad or Islamic anti-Semitism.

Once, in 2010, Foxman showed that he still had some remnants of
a conscience and the courage to do the right thing when he voiced
opposition to the Ground Zero mosque. But immediately after that,
he began prostrating himself in front of any mosque or madman who
would listen, trying to make amends. He even launched the “Interfaith
Coalition on Mosques” in September 2010; its objective is to fight
for monster-mosque construction rights. What’s wrong with this?

Imagine an “Islamic Coalition to Build Synagogues in Muslim Countries,”
or the “Islamic Coalition of Muslims to Build Coptic Christian Churches
in Egypt,” or the “Islamic Coalition to Build Hindu Temples in India,
Kashmir, and Pakistan.” (OK, you can stop laughing now.)

Foxman is building coalitions to construct mega-mosques that will
almost certainly teach the most vile anti-Semitism on the planet today,
as do 80% of mosques in America. Foxman also came out in support of the
Islamic school in Brooklyn whose principal was forced to resign because
of her involvement in anti-Semitic “Intifada NYC” t-shirts (see here).

Foxman demonizes proud Jews who love Israel and fight for freedom,
while he kowtows to the Islamic jihad. And Jewish Week happily serves
it up to its subscribers.

Our Jewish leadership has failed us miserably. Foxman must go.

Pamela Geller is the publisher of AtlasShrugs.com and the author of
the WND Books title Stop the Islamization of America: A Practical
Guide to the Resistance.

CLOSER TO WHAT?
HAKOB BADALYAN

Story from Lragir.am News:

Published: 16:44:29 – 21/03/2012

In an interview with the European service of Radio RFE/RL on the
20th anniversary of the OSCE, and evaluating the OSCE Minsk Group
which has been mediating the process of settlement of the Karabakh
conflict for two decades, the American co-chair Robert Bradtke said
the sides are closer to a settlement than twenty years ago.

Bradtke spoke about the settlement options, the territory for status
mechanism, the return of refugees and displaced persons, etc, the
unacceptability of the status quo, but the assessment that the sides
are now closer to settlement than twenty years ago may have a very
interesting context.

What is our understanding of settlement? In the long run, the
activities of the Minsk Group revealed that there is no other
settlement of the Karabakh conflict than the results established
through the war and laid down in the truce in 1994. Another option,
if the rational climate is maintained, is possible by way of violating
the presumption of good sense and bordering with the presumption of
insanity. Only a misunderstanding of national security, regional and
global challenges, or simply historical fear and ensuing mental and
moral inhibitions will have Armenia agree to the options proposed by
the international mediators.

These options do not ensure settlement and lasting peace because
strategically they will violate the balance between Armenia and
Azerbaijan and the system of their establishment as political subjects,
giving Azerbaijan an advantage.

There is no objective and reliable guarantee in global politics that
Azerbaijan~Rs advantage will not transform to a moral right to use
force, and in the history of politics there is no case when such
advantage did not transform into such a right.

Hence, by breaking the balance and giving Azerbaijan real advantage,
leaving this balance to rely on guarantees of mostly unreal
international law, such resolution of the process of settlement will
solve no essential issue in the region but will pose threat to the
security of Armenia and Karabakh and their economic and political
modernization.

The Armenian people solved an essential issue in the region by winning
the war in Karabakh and balancing the South Caucasian area, making
this area more favorable and reliable for the effective work of the
great powers and centers of global politics.

Hence, the resolution should be viewed from this standpoint, at least
from the Armenian angle, and the Armenian approach must be promoted
at this angle from the process of settlement and the stance of the
mediators.

In this meaning, the comment of the American co-chair of the OSCE
Minsk Group that the sides are closer to the settlement than 20
years ago and the sides are closer than they think must be evaluated
by the Armenians from this standpoint. The sides are closer to the
settlement because as time passes and the outcome of the war remains
unchanged, there is a growing probability that the final result will
be conciliation with the reality.

However, the problem is that Armenia, like Azerbaijan, cannot accept
the reality. Armenia is not taking the essential steps required from
it: constitutional order, fair governance, human rights and freedoms.

This is what Armenia needs to do to make its important contribution
to the global reconciliation. Meanwhile, Armenia is dominated by a
different understanding. From time to time the Western diplomats try
to check the degree of growth or maturity of the 20-year-old state
and society, and the best indicator thereof is the statements on
reconciliation and closeness of the settlement of the Karabakh issue.

After all, after over two decades of efforts the Western political
and expert sets are increasingly thinking that the key premise for
the only rational and optimal settlement of the Karabakh issue ~V
acknowledgement of the reality ~V is to mature national and civil
thinking and the crisp and clear formulation of the national interest
based on the economic, political and strategic evaluation of the
status quo.

However, the reaction of different public and political layers of
Armenia to these statements indicating the level of this reality which,
if summarized, will sound like ~Ssee that we are rights when we say the
world wants reconciliation based on compromise~T prompts to the Western
politicians that after the mature step of winning the war the growth
of this state and society has slowed down and is behind the time,
clearing the path for the progress of historical and psychological
complexes and stereotypes.

ARMENIA’S CEC DECLINES KHACHATUR SUKIASYAN’S APPLICATION

ARMENPRESS
21 March, 2012
YEREVAN

YEREVAN, MARCH 21, ARMENPRESS. The Central Electoral Commission
declined the application of citizen Khachatur Sukiasyan. At the sitting
the chairman of the CEC Tigran Mukuchyan said all the members of the
Commission have got acquainted with the Sukiasyan”s application.

Khachatur Sukiasyan presented to the CEC an application on March 17
not to take into consideration the application of the police visa
and passport department and register him as an MP. According to the
police”s passport and visa department during the passed five years
Khachatur Sukiasian was not living in Armenia 10 months 20 days.

Khachatur Sukiasyan”s brother Saribek Sukiasyan has self-nominated
in N electoral district where his brother wanted to be nominated.

TAX EVADERS TO BE BANNED FROM FREE ECONOMIC ZONES IN ARMENIA

PanARMENIAN.Net
March 21, 2012 – 12:17 AMT

PanARMENIAN.Net – Like all other governments, Armenian authorities
aim to establish free economic zones in the country to boost economic
growth through increased export, creation of new jobs and promotion
of investments.

Hovhannes Avetisyan, head of the investment policy department of
Armenia’s Economy Ministry took part in the discussion on “Prospects
of creation free economic zones (FEZ) in Armenia and their potential
impact on IT industry”on March 21 in Yerevan.

He said the government has set a tough tender for FEZ organization.

With regard to this, Avetisyan reminded that the Armenian government
approved on February 2, 2012 the project on FEZ creation on the
territory of Mars plant and Yerevan scientific and research institute
of mathematical machines, as well as the bid by Sitronics JSC for
FEZ organization.

“The government will not permit tax evader companies’ entry to FEZ;
only companies able to ensure growth and development will be allowed
in,” Avetisyan emphasized.

The ministerial official also added that a document will be signed
with Sitronics company within a month, according to which the company
commits to undertake FEZ organization during six months, following
which its official launch will be announced.

“All procedures are being accomplished in line with the timescale,
and there are no concerns over possible cancellation of the law on FEZ
due to a failure to launch within one year after it became effective,”
he said.

The initial stage of the project envisages investments worth USD 10
million; also, new jobs will be created.

On December 28, 2011 Armenian Minister of Economy Yerevan chaired the
first meeting of the intergovernmental committee on formation of free
economic zones.

On June 21, 2011 Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan signed the “law
on free economic zones” aimed at settlement of export problems and
creation of favorable conditions for export-oriented enterprises.

Coming years envisage formation of 2-3 free economic zones in agro and
industrial fields at Zvartnots Airport and Mars plant respectively,
with negotiations currently in progress with jewellers.

THE FIRST FREE ECONOMIC ZONE TO BE LAUNCHED IN ARMENIA THIS YEAR
Hasmik Dilanyan

“Radiolur”
21.03.2012 15:01

The first free economic zone will be launched in Armenia in 2012,
Head of the Investment Policy Department of the Ministry of Economy
Hovhannes Avetisyan told a press conference today.

“There are no deviations from the schedule,” he said, adding that
a corresponding agreement will be signed with the Sytronics Armenia
Company within a month, after which it will have six month to prepare
the infrastructures envisaged by the business plan.

According to Bagrat Yengibaryan, Director of the Enterprise
Incubator Foundation, creation of free economic zones will raise
the competitiveness of the Armenian IT production in the world,
since what’s important is not just the quality and price, but also
the facilitation of import and export procedures.

Only companies, which achieve serious progress in the given field,
will be allowed to the free economic zone, Hovhannes Avetisyan said,
adding that it will be closed for companies, which aim at evade taxes.

Armenia’s IT sector is insufficiently informed about the
technology-oriented free economic zone, said Karen Vardanyan, Executive
Director of the Union of Information Technology Enterprises.

According to him, the Armenian IT companies do not precisely know
how they can enter this free economic zone.