Author: Kanayan Tamar

EUROPEAN COMMISSION PROPOSES 100 MILLION EURO MACRO-FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE TO ARMENIA

armradio.am
16.10.2009 16:36

The European Commission proposed to the Council to provide
macro-financial assistance to Armenia, in the form of a loan of up to
65 million euro and of a grant of up to 35 million euro. The assistance
will support the adjustment programme agreed by the Armenian government
with the International Monetary Fund to help the country through the
global crisis.

The Commission adopted on the 14 of October 2009 a draft decision
recommending to the Council to provide macro-financial assistance
(MFA) in the form of a loan of 65 million euro and of a grant of
35 million euro to Armenia. The assistance would be provided in
two instalments, tentatively in the first and fourth quarter of
2010. The assistance supports, and is conditional on the respect
of the adjustment programme agreed between Armenia and the IMF. It
complements the latter’s financial assistance to the country. The
European Parliament is consulted.

The proposed financing will complement the financial resources provided
by the EU, in the form of budget support programmes financed under
the European Neighborhood and Partnership Instrument.

The global economic crisis has affected Armenia since the last quarter
of 2008. As the country’s economic activity and external situation
started to deteriorate, Armenia agreed an about USD 540 million
Stand-By Arrangement programme with the IMF in March 2009. In the light
of a substantial worsening of the economic conditions, the IMF decided
in June 2009 to approve an augmentation of its resources by about
USD 250 million. Armenia’s GDP is foreseen to decrease by 15.6% in
2009, the budget deficit to reach 7.5% of GDP and the current account
deficit to reach 13.7% of GDP. A slow recovery is expected in 2010.

Other international donors like the World Bank and the Asian
Development Bank support Armenia’s economic adjustment effort along
with other bilateral donors.

MFA is an exceptional EU crisis response instrument available to
EU neighbours. It is conditional and complements assistance by the
IMF. The IMF capacity to help countries with financial difficulties
is being considerably increased by EU Member States and other IMF
members. The EU recently committed to provide 125 billion euro to the
IMF, which is 35% of the increase in the IMF’s lending capacity from
USD 250 billion to USD 750 billion.

SAMVEL FARMANYAN: "DURING VISIT TO TURKEY NO BRIEFING TOOK PLACE AND ARMENIAN PRESIDENT DID NOT MAKE ANY STATEMENT"

ARMENPRESS
Oct 15, 2009

YEREVAN, OCTOBER 15, ARMENPRESS: "During visit to Turkey no briefing
took place and Armenian president did not make any statement,"
spokesman for the Armenian president Samvel Farmanyan said today,
commenting on the information of Turkish Hurriyet as if Armenian
President Serzh Sargsyan told a reporter of CNN Turk that the
all-Armenian tour was aimed at not persuading our counterparts but
informing them about the made decision.

"And comparing the chronology it is obvious that the decision on
signing the protocols was made only after the end of six-week public
discussions, all-Armenian tour of the president and session pf the
National Security Council. Thus the mentioned publication of the
Turkish newspaper is a clear disinformation," S. Farmanyan said.

RA PRIME MINISTER TIGRAN SARGSYAN RECEIVED THE EU ADVISORY GROUP TO ARMENIA, LED BY HEAD OF EU DELEGATION IN ARMENIA, AMBASSADOR RAUL LUTZENBERGER

Wednesday, 14 October 2009

RA Prime Minister Tigran Sargsyan received the EU Advisory Group to
Armenia, led by Head of EU delegation in Armenia, Ambassador Raul
Lutzenberger.

Greeting the guests, the head of government stressed the need for
keeping in close touch with the Advisory Group (AG) enabling thus both
sides to assess progress and outline areas of future cooperation on
a regular basis.

The AG members said to be highly appreciative of the Armenian
government’s commitment to cooperation. They advised that six new
experts are scheduled to join the Group to provide consultancy in
specific areas of activity.

A special mention was made of RA Government’s anti-corruption
efforts, administrative improvements in the tax and customs spheres,
transparency-aimed actions in the system of public governance and
State procurements, as well as the passing of a law on State service.

The parties spoke about the progress in preparative work for the
signing of a free trade regime agreement, enacting simplified export
procedures, introducing the GSP+ system in Armenia. They also looked at
the possibility of strengthening the Council on Economic Competition
and the SME support centers. In this light, they made a point of
improving public debt management practices and building the capacity
of relevant units of the Ministry of Finance.

Customs-related improvements, too, were discussed at the meeting,
including the need for applying simplified clearance procedures and
providing training for customs officers. The parties also spoke about
the government’s public relations strategy.

The members of the Advisory Group outlined possibilities for expanding
the scope of their work by noting that Armenia is a worldwide leader
in this format of cooperation.

In conclusion, the Prime Minister thanked the EU Advisory Group
members for useful and badly needed consultancy.

THE ORHAN PAMUK CASE: WHO ARE THESE JUDGES?

Hurriyet Daily News
Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Judges have hurt this country too much. So have the appointed, the
so-called judges.

Owing to three military coups we have a chance to better know some
of them.

In the aftermath of the May 27, 1960 coup, the prime minister-elect
was hanged in this country. Foreign and finance ministers were hanged
too. If it was up to judges, 15 more Democrat Party, or DP, members
would have been hanged as well.

Then again, similar backward steps were taken in the period of the
March 12, 1971 coup. Deniz GezmiÅ~_, Huseyin Ä°nan and Yusuf Arslan
were hanged. Judges were so calm. They kept saying that all they did
was apply the law.

Later, we faced the Sept. 12, 1980 coup. Men in black robes this
time were much crueler. They hanged 50 young men. And of course the
courts of appeals approved the rulings. They were high courts applying
the law!

Do you remember Dogan Oz? He was one of the bravest and democratic
prosecutors. Oz dared to crack down on "counter-guerillas." He was
shot by a man in 1978. The murderer was caught; witnesses identified
him and he confessed to the crime.

The court sentenced him to death. But the case file was sent to
the Military Court of Appeals. High judges first quashed the
indictment in form. Following the prosecutor’s objection, the
file was discussed at the General Council of the Military Appeals
Court Criminal Depts. Fifteen high judges were in the courtroom,
eight of whom voted for the release of the murderer due to lack of
evidence. Seven judges voted for the punishment of the perpetrator. But
he was acquitted by the decision of the Military Court of Appeals and
by a margin of one vote. The file was later transferred to the court
having the jurisdiction over the case at the beginning. "Evidence,
witness statements, and documents in hand show the accused committed
the crime. However, we should follow the ruling of the Military Court
of Appeals and we rule for the acquittal of t decided.

I have kept wondering what kind of conscience and understanding
of law that the Military Court of Appeals has. I wonder if someone
whispered something to them since it was the coup period. Otherwise,
it is not easy to come up with such a decision.

***

I am entitled to say "I have known so many judges and prosecutors,
enough to make a general judgment about all" since I have adequate
experience in life. For instance, in the period March 12, 1971, I was
sentenced to eight years in prison for being an administrator in the
case of the Turkey Labor Party, or TIP. But I have never been a TIP
administrator. I had only attended the party convention in 1970 and
made a speech as a delegate. My speech might have been perceived as
"communism propaganda" at that time, but the court decided that I
was a party administrator. The Military Court of Appeals approved
the ruling. The translation is, I was sentenced on a baseless ground.

As I ran across the same judge in another investigation, he said,
"Oral, I did not expect the approval of the ruling on you because
you were not an administrator." I was surprised by his remark. "But
you decided so," I responded. His answer was eerier "Yes, but we kept
in mind that parts of our ruling would not be approved by the Court
of Appeals."

We are living in Turkey. The judges who sentenced the slain
Armenian-Turkish journalist Hrant Dink for belittling Turkishness
in his article criticizing the Armenian diaspora are living in this
country.

***

Some might think that similar past experiences and the understanding
nurturing those experiences are left in the history. But this
understanding still stands without any significant change. The Court
of Appeals decision about Nobel Prize winner author Orhan Pamuk is
only an example of the said understanding.

After Pamuk said: "30,000 Kurds and 1 million Armenians were killed
here. And almost no one dares to talk about," Kemal Kerincsiz and
a group of people submitted a complaint and claimed that they were
insult rejected suits filed by individuals seeking compensation
and ruled that not a particular person was referred to in Pamuk’s
remarks. The said individuals resorted to the Court of Appeals. The
court ruled in favor of them and reached a somewhat binding decision
that the lower court should change the ruling.

If there had not been status of limitations applied, not only these
people but also every single citizen of Turkey could have been able
to sue Pamuk and seek compensation. This is the situation. I am
awfully curious about the judges who reach a decision and find 71
million people eligible for compensation due to Pamuk’s assessment
on history. What a sense, what a mindset, what a law, and what a
conscience this is! I wish I can understand.

In a country where such a judgment is possible, the law has nothing
to do with the "freedom of thought" or "freedom of expression." Even
the most optimistic angle cannot explain this.

We do not deserve to live an environment ruled by arbitrary and
perplexed practices of law.

You may say, "We have seen so much of it."

But that’s enough!

* Mr. Oral Calislar is a columnist for daily Radikal in which this
piece appeared Wednesday. It was translated into English by the Daily
News staff.

WHY DID PRESIDENT SARGSYAN GO TO TURKEY? SHARMAZANOV EXPLAINS

Tert.am
15.10.09

Speaking with journalists today, Republican Party of Armenia (RPA)
press spokesperson and RPA parliamentary faction secretary Eduard
Sharmazanov responded to the question why Armenian President Serzh
Sargsyan visited Turkey when he had previously stated he would go if
the borders were open or they were on the threshold of opening.

"The signing of the Protocols allows for a positive perspective that
they will be ratified," Sharmazanov stated.

Referring to yesterday’s football match, firstly Sharmazanov noted
that the match ended the period of football diplomacy and we have
now entered a new phase of Armenian-Turkish relations. He also added
that he isn’t of the opinion that Armenian diplomacy experienced
defeat in this process; rather, he is convinced that the policy
initiated by the Armenian president over the past year has yielded
good results. Armenian diplomacy, according to him, is very well
prepared and the process in Zurich proved it.

Assessing the results of the football match, Sharamazanov said
the Armenian team had chosen correct tactics. The results would’ve
been even worse if offensive (rather than defensive) tactics were
used. Sharamazanov advised one to be realistic when evaluating the
results of the match and take into consideration that Turkey is way
ahead of Armenia in FIFA’s ratings. "There is a difference here in
the level of football," Sharmazanov noted.

SOCAR AND GAZPROM SIGNED CONTRACT ON AZERI GAS SUPPLY TO RUSSIA

PanARMENIAN.Net
14.10.2009 20:37 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Contract signing ceremony between State Oil Company
of Azerbaijan (SOCAR) and GazProm Russian Company took place at SOCAR
office. The contract stipulates for supply of 0,5 cubic meters of
gas to GazProm in 2010.

Gas price was not specified, yet, will be calculated with special
formula, as was announced at the ceremony.

The contract was signed by SOCAR President Rovnag Abdullayev on
Azerbaijan’s side and GazProm CEO Alexey Miller on Russia’s side,
novosti.az reported.

WHY WAS NALBANDYAN NOT SMILING?

hos15534.html
11:42:07 – 14/10/2009

According to the assessment of the Republican press speaker Edward
Sharmazanov, after the signing of the Armenian-Turkish protocols
the Turkish foreign minister Davutoglu was smiling form anger. If we
follow Sharmazanov’s logic, so the dark and cold face of the Armenian
foreign minister Edward Nalbandyan expressed his happiness. Moreover,
if we follow this logic, we may presume that Edward Nalbandyan seeing
that Davutoglu was smiling from anger decided that he had to have an
angry face expression to express his happiness for people thinking
like Sharmazanov not to think that he was as angry as Davutoglu. It
is not ruled out either that Davutoglu saw the darkened face from
happiness of Nalbandyan and started smiling from anger. No doubt,
Chouchner, Clinton and a little Lavrov were angry too who were smiling
like Davutoglu. And the CoE commissioner Javier Solana apparently was
in stress and wanted to feel some happiness on Nalbandyan’s cold and
dark face.

The question is that there are people looking at whose faces you are
able to understand something though wrongly, but there are others
looking at whose faces you cannot even understand anything wrongly
because their thoughts are quite understandable. In addition, within
the Armenian government, such people are the complete majority. This
is the reason why a normal and grounded explanation of their own steps
is from the sphere of fantasy for the Armenian government which is
the reason why so important situations are explained with such simple
words like if Azeris are dissatisfied so we have to be content. But if
Davutoglu is smiling from anger, Aliyev is not smiling from happiness
just like Edward Nalbandyan.

ARMENIA, RUSSIAN PRESIDENTS DISCUSSED CSTO AND CRRF

News.am
19:25 / 10/12/2009

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and his Armenian counterpart Serzh
Sargsyan met in Moscow. The Presidents discussed the development
of trade and economic collaboration, strengthening of interregional
concert, military-technical cooperation as well as the prospects on
implementation of large joint projects in energy sector.

The officials touched upon Collective Security Treaty Organization
CSTO, including the functioning of Collective Rapid Reaction Forces,
particular in the light of CRRF "Cooperation 2009" military exercises
in Kazakhstan.

In the framework of elaboration of counteractions against global
crisis and support to innovation progress, Dmitry Medvedev and Serzh
Sargsyan considered the results of October 9 CIS Summit in Chisinau
and exchanged opinions on dialogue in the frames of EurAsEC.

Photos enclosed – from RF President’s website.

SONENTZ: A ROADMAP TO A NEW ‘FINAL SOLUTION’
By Tatul Sonentz-Papazian

009/10/11/sonentz-a-road-map-to-a-new-final-soluti on/
October 11, 2009

Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians…?

-Adolf Hitler

As the whole world knows, on April 24,1915, the murderous process of
Armenocide that had started almost 50 years earlier culminated into the
horrendous bloodletting of the very first genocide of the 20th century.

Cloaked behind the dust and smoke of the Great War, after the Ottoman
Turks completed the slaughter of one and a half million Armenians,
Kemalist Turks, side-stepping the 1918 Armistice, defying and ignoring
international peace treaties and protocols, with the assistance of
several great powers devised and followed their own murderous roadmap.

Over the following three chaotic years, they succeeded to decimate
surviving Armenian communities from Smyrna to Adana, from Shushi to
Baku, and to reduce a fairly large, fledgling Armenian independent
state into a diminutive province of the Soviet Empire.

To this very day, succeeding governments of the Turkish Republic-true
heirs of that now defunct "Sick Man of Europe," the Ottoman
Empire-continue, unabated, the same policies of persecution against
Armenians, bordering on the genocidal within their own ill-gained
boundaries through institutionalized harassment and forced
assimilation.

Thus, along with a cynical denial of the Armenian Genocide, Turkey,
has chosen to perpetuate that same genocidal process which, come next
April, will complete its 95th year.

With these undeniable facts as a backdrop, the Turkish-Armenian
negotiations for the "normalization" of relations between the two
countries and the opening of borders were carried on behind a thick
veil of secrecy and misrepresentation.

Orchestrated by Switzerland-with the active participation and enormous
pressure exerted by Turkish oriented special interests in the United
States and the European Union-the Armenian side was sure to end up with
the short end of the stick. And sure enough, the resulting protocols,
drafted without the representational participation of the Armenian
people, paved the way for a "roadmap" that can lead only to the demise
of the Armenian Cause in its major aspects-namely, the recognition
of the Armenian Medz Yeghern as genocide with proper restitution,
and the rejection of the shameful and untenable terms of the Kars
Treaty, which imposes on Armenia her present boundaries with Turkey.

The political aims of the opponents of our nationhood and sovereignty
are clear and relentless. They are articulated with an ambitious
slogan: "The 21st century will be known as the Turkish Century!" This
may sound like wishful thinking, but no one can accuse it of lacking
in vision, direction, and national purpose.

Against this gauntlet, hurled at the face of our national existence,
at this critical juncture of our history, both homeland and
diaspora-lacking in unity and common purpose-are being offered,
by our own government, a policy that suggests nothing more than
"survival at whatever cost"-a call to mere existence.

The truth is that our nation, engaged in a life and death struggle
against powerful opponents needs, above all, the unity of homeland
and diaspora, gathered around a common national struggle based on
immutable historical rights. The present stance of the government in
Yerevan, alienated from its own people, now following foreign-conceived
roadmaps, has simply nowhere to go-for a call to mere existence based
on denial of history offers no direction, and no vision of any kind;
it merely perpetuates a status quo that threatens our very existence
as a viable nation.

At this juncture, now that we stand on the crossroads of history
once more, being led to the slippery road of accommodating our avowed
enemy who is knocking on the doors of Europe, begging to be admitted
in the European Union, in need of our cooperation to succeed, we must
not lay down our weapons in abject defeat. On the contrary, we must
reassess our own stance, and the true intentions of our opponents. We
must objectively evaluate the methods of reactivation of our national
cause pursued relentlessly over the last 34 eventful years, starting
with the global commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the genocide,
whose veracity is now being put to the test by protocols signed by
a misguided government of oligarchs who have, in truth, ceased to
represent the Armenian people.

Let this be a wakeup call to all Armenians around the world, to step
back from the precipice and rally around the banner of our national
struggle for justice too long denied, for a future with honor that
befits a nation that has crossed the millennia with its unique culture
and civilization.

NATO’S REGULAR WEEK TO BE HELD WITHIN FRAMEWORK OF ARMENIA-NATO IPAP

Noyan Tapan
Oct 12, 2009

YEREVAN, OCTOBER 12, NOYAN TAPAN. NATO’s regular week will be held
(for the third time) between October 12 to 16 in Armenia within the
framework of the Armenia-NATO Individual Partnership Actions Plan
(IPAP). According to the RA Foreign Ministry Press and Information
Department, visits of NATO representatives to Yerevan, an international
conference, a photo exhibition dedicated to Armenian peacekeepers,
Yerevan-Pristina TV bridge are scheduled within the framework of
the week.

NATO’s week is one of the most important event held this year by RA
within the framework of RA IPAP and pursues the goal of presenting
the main directions of Armenia-NATO cooperation, modern condition
and content of NATO’s activity to Armenia’s society.