Author: Kanayan Tamar

ARMENIAN DM: NAGORNY KARABAKH WON IN WAR IMPOSED BY AZERBAIJAN
Stepanakert, May 10. ArmInfo. “I don’t agree with the view that
our victory in the war imposed by Azerbaijan was just half the
work. Victory is victory.
I think that Nagorny Karabakh was won,” Armenian Defence Minister
Serzh Sargsyan said during the May 9 celebrations in Stepanakert.
Sargsyan said that the Karabakh problem must be solved
through mutual concessions. “No peace is possible without
mutual concessions. Azerbaijan must recognize the right of the
Nagorno-Karabakh people to free life. They must understand that a
people has the right to live the way it wants,” Sargsyan said.

Ajax USA
May 9 2006
Knee surgery for Egdar Manucharyan
08 May: Edgar Manucharyan underwent knee surgery in Amsterdam on
Monday. The operation was necessary because there was a tear in his
right kneecap. The 19 year-old Armenian will need most of the summer
break for his recovery, but is expected to be fit for Ajax’s first
training of the new season on Tuesday 04 July.
Everyone at Ajax firmly believes in the talent of Edgar Manucharyan,
but the young Armenian has been very injury-prone in his first season
in the Dutch capital. Manucharyan, who can play as a ‘number 10’ but
also at every position in the forward line, joined Ajax on a try-out
in late 2004. His first appearance for Ajax-1 was in the 14 December
2004 friendly against FC Barcelona, but the unfortunate youngster
broke a metatarsal after precisely 13 minutes of action.
The club promised Manucharyan a second chance after his rehab. He got
it in April 2005, impressed the technical staff and penned a
three-year contract on 15 April 2005. In his first season as an
Ajacied Manucharyan had four official appearances in the Eredivisie
and one in the Champions League. He only had one full game: at Sparta
Rotterdam on 02 October 2005. He made an excellent impression as a
left winger, but his injuries turned out to be persistent. They
haunted him throughout the year.
July 2006 will hopefully mark the real start of Edgar Manucharyan’s
career at Ajax. (MP)
Source: Ajax.nl

CALIFORNIA PARLIAMENT PRESENTS DRAFT ON INVOLVING ARMENIAN LANGUAGE IN
EXAMS TO GET TEACHING CREDENTIAL

GLENDALE, MAY 8, NOYAN TAPAN – ARMENIANS TODAY. Saro Nazarian
(Glendale), a representative of the Armenian community of California
gave Noyan Tapan additional information concerning the draft law
presented by Dario Frommer, the California State Assembly Majority
Leader. We informed about the draft on May 2 as well. Saro Nazarian,
whose efforts greatly supported presentation of the draft, explains
that Frommer’s draft relates not to teaching the Armenian langauge at
state schools of California (Armenia is already tought in some state
schools of California cities populated with many Armenians), but to
the issue that this draft affirms involvement of the Armenian language
in the state exams called CSET held for getting a Teaching
Credential. The above-mentioned credential, that the California
Commission on Teacher Credentialing confirs, is needed for occupying a
teacher’s post at state schools of California. Without it,
educational regions may not give a job even to experienced teachers.
And one of the most important demands for getting that credential is
passing of two state exams called CBEST and CSET. The level of an
entrant’s knowlegde of English and Mathimatics is estimated by the
CBEST, and by the CSET exam, an entrant factually gets a possibility
to teach different subjects at state schools. And one of those
subjects is language. According to the CSET, the Spanish, French,
German, Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Russian and Vietnamian languages
are considered foreign languages in the sense of the state. As Saro
Nazarian emphasized in one of his articles and in letters addressed to
Sacramento officials on educational and legislative issues, the
Armenian language is not officially involved in the CSET foreign
languages’ list, while California is one of the places of the world
populated with too many Armenians, in state schools of one of biggest
educational regions of which, Los Angeles, many thousands of Armenian
pupils study. The Armenian community representative asked to do works
in the direction of involving the Armenian language in the CSET.
As a result, Deputy Dario Frommer presented the State Parliament draft
No2913 by which the Armenian language is involved in the CSET foreign
languages’ list. “By involvement of the Armenian language in the CSET
foreign languages’ list, our Claifornian Armenian young people,
particularly those pupils of Los Angeles Armenian secondary schools,
who intend to devote themselves to the teaching sphere in future, are
able from now on to seriously think about getting their Teaching
Credential with the Armenian language and becoming a teacher of the
Armenian language,” Saro Nazarian emphasized.

AREA STUDIES MUSEUM OF GEGHARKUNIK MARZ NEEDS URGENT FUNDAMENTAL
REPAIR

GAVAR, MAY 8, NOYAN TAPAN. No repair works were ever held at the
Gegharkunik marz Area Studies Museum which was founded in 1953: only
the building roof “was patched up” in 1993. But, as Byureghik Hoveyan,
the museum Director informed the Noyan Tapan correspondent, during the
rains it drips in all rooms of the museum what is negatively reflected
on exhibition models of great historic-cultural value kept in the
museum. It was also mentioned that the museum is not heated and the
sanitary system does not function. According to B.Hoveyan, two former
Ministers of Culture, Tamar Poghosian and Hovik Hoveyan, promised to
assist the museum during their visits paid to the marz. But, because
of the short terms of their officiating, those promises left
imperfect. As a result, the museum building appeared in a sad state
and needs urgent repair. “Though there are many problems, we do our
best to keep the museum models. We take care of every exhibit to pass
them to generations.” B.Hoveyan said. More than 9000 exhibits are at
preset kept and exhibited at the Gegharkunik marz Area Studies
Museum. According to the Director, the most ancient of them are of the
second century B.C. Pupils of education institutions and tourists
visiting the marz are main visitors of the museum.

TREND Information, Azerbaijan
May 6 2006
Goran Lenmarker: My report is representing facts
Source: Trend
Author: E.Huseynov
06.05.2006
Azerbaijan’s dynamical progressing can play a significant role in
various spheres, including conflicts resolution, reportedly said Goran
Lenmarker, PACE chairman’s special representative for Azeri-Armenian
conflict.
At his meeting with vice-speaker Bahar Muradova May 5 in Baku, Mr
Lenmarker highly appraised PACE’s and PA NATO’s attention to this
conflict resolution. Alongside, he assured Ms Muradova that his report
would met the reality.
In turn, Muradova said Azeri public hopes for OSCE in resolution of
the conflict.

Armenian Prime Minister: cannot speak of A-320 crash objectively
until investigation is over
Regnum, Russia
May 7 2006
Speaking of the situation that lead to the crash of the A-320 plane,
a unified objective assessment will be made, instead of several
subjective ones, Armenian Prime Minister Andranik Margaryan asserted
at a news briefing..
The Armenian Prime Minister suggested not to jump to conclusions and
wait for official results, a REGNUM correspondent reports. “We take
an active part in the investigation. Armenian defense minister is now
in Sochi, and we are thoroughly informed on the issue. Let us wait for
the official conclusions. Since it could happen that what seems obvious
is not actually true. This is a very serious issue, and I do not want
to make preliminary conclusions,” Andranik Margaryan confessed.
He thanked both the Russian and Georgian sides for the quick response
to the disaster. “France is also paying special attention to the
situation. They have sent their specialists to the plane’s crash
site. We needed data received by Georgian air traffic controllers.
Georgian authorities said they were ready to deliver the information,
and they did deliver it, for which we are grateful. As for the
participation of Georgian specialists in the investigation, that is
to be decided by the two countries,” Margaryan added.
Armenian Minister of Finance and Economy Vardan Khachatryan informed
reporters that a number of transfers have already been made to a
designated account: “There is a transfer from the Union of Armenian
Businessmen. The money will be donated to the victims’ relatives.”

KARABAKH MINISTER SAYS PEACEKEEPERS’ DEPLOYMENT “HARDLY POSSIBLE” -ARMENIAN PAPER
Aykakan Zhamanak, Yerevan
4 May 06
Text of Kristine Khanumyan’s report in Armenian newspaper Aykakan
Zhamanak on 4 May
NKR [Nagornyy Karabakh republic] foreign minister Georgiy Petrosyan’s
first interview with Karabakh’s [opposition] newspaper Demo.
“We are worried that a worsening of Iranian-American relations may
affect the Karabakh conflict, as well as the whole of the South
Caucasus. Any settlement to the Iranian problem that will involve
changing the military balance in the region is a potential danger
to the interests of all the players in the region. For this reason,
we back balanced political decisions through negotiations, decisions
which will not disturb the fragile stability and security in the
region,” Petrosyan said.
Touching on the possible deployment of peacekeepers in the region in
Iran “sauce”, he said that this seemed hardly possible. “I believe
that the military and political balance in the region, which has
been preserved since the signing of a cease-fire agreement by the
three parties to the [Nagornyy Karabakh] conflict, will prevent the
issue of peacekeepers’ deployment from being speeded up artificially,”
the minister said. He added that there were also several complicated
problems connected with the deployment of peacekeepers such as terms,
procedures, mandate, responsibility and others, which should be
resolved within the framework of settlement and agreed with all the
parties to the conflict, especially with the NKR. But the minister
said the deployment of peacekeepers could be unnecessary since there
was the self-regulating factor as the contact line, which had been
emphasized by many international experts.
Touching on the recent hearings in the NKR parliament [on the Nagornyy
Karabakh conflict settlement], Petrosyan said that the fact of holding
hearings was positive in itself but one should admit that “it is a
little bit late” to openly discuss painful problems in parliament. “I
am glad that all the political forces of the NKR had the same view in
principle on the Karabakh problem which coincides with the general
foreign policy of our state. Moreover, taking into account the
fact that the Karabakh issue is often discussed by international
organizations, it is time for the NKR parliament to intensify its
efforts taking account of the vital significance of the problem,”
Petrosyan said.

ARMENIAN ARMY OFFICIAL CRITICAL OF AZERI LEADER’S REMARKS ON IRAQ PEACEKEEPING
Azg website, Yerevan
4 May 06
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev recently said in Washington that
Azerbaijan is taking an active part in anti-terrorist operations in
Iraq while Armenia is sending only drivers there.
Armenian Deputy Defence Minister Artur Agabekyan thinks that only a
person who has no idea about military service and the importance of
transport in a conflict zone could make such a statement.
Noting that the command of the multinational division has expressed
its gratitude to Armenian servicemen for implementing their task in
Iraq, Artur Agabekyan advised Azerbaijani TV to show the valour of
their servicemen and refrain from statements against Armenia.

MOST PART OF FRUIT TREES OF LORI MARZ FROZEN
Noyan Tapan
May 02 2006
VANADZOR, MAY 2, NOYAN TAPAN. The most part of fruit trees of the
marz of Lori, especially of the region of Alaverdi, was frozen as
a consequence of hard rains of recent days. Volodia Buniatian, the
Chief of the Agriculture and Nature Protection Department of the
Lori Governor’s Office informed the Noyan Tapan correspondent about
it. According to his data, rains will continue till May 10.

TERRORIST ATTACK WAS NOT CONFIRMED
Lragir.am
03 May 06
Igor Zhukov, the head of the North Caucasian Bureau of Transport and
Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation stated that the version
of a terrorist attack on the Armenian A-320 plane, which crashed
when flying to Sochi from Yerevan in the morning of May 3 was not
confirmed. “There are several versions, it was either caused by a
mistake of the pilot, or a technical problem, or maybe the ground
services made some mistake,” announced Zhukov May 3 to news reporters.
The spokesman of the Southern Regional Agency of the Ministry of
Emergencies of Russia Oleg Grekov announced that by midday the rescuers
have already found 38 dead bodies. It is known that out of the 105
passengers 28 were citizens of Russia, there was a national of Georgia,
and a citizen of Ukraine. The rest were citizens of Armenia. By
preliminary information all the passengers died. The rescuers work in
the place of the crash but the weather is getting worse. The speed of
the wind is 10-11 mps, with fog and rain, there might be a storm. All
the small ships are to leave the place o the crash.
The press secretary of the Department of Civil Aviation Gayane Davtyan
said there is unconfirmed information that the black box of the plane
has been found. At midday on May 3 the families of the passengers of
the crashed plane left for Sochi.