Author: Kanayan Tamar

PRESS RELEASE
Catholicosate of Cilicia
Communication and Information Department
Contact: V.Rev.Fr.Krikor Chiftjian, Communications Officer
Tel: (04) 410001, 410003
Fax: (04) 419724
E-mail: [email protected]
Web:
PO Box 70 317
Antelias-Lebanon
Armenian version:
IRAQI PRIMATES VISIT ANTELIAS
His Holiness Aram I met with the primates of the Armenian and Syrian
communities of Iraq in his office in Antelias on May 30. Primate of the
Diocese of the Armenian Church of Iraq Archbishop Avak Assadourian and
Primate of the Syrian Orthodox Church of Baghdad and Basra Mor Severios Hawa
discussed with the Pontiff the situation in Iraq and particularly the
difficulties the country’s Christian communities face.
The primates assured His Holiness that despite the ongoing lack of security
in Iraq, the country’s Christian communities are well organized. They
pointed out that a number of projects planned by Churches in Iraq need
overseas funding.
The Middle East Council of Churches (MECC) helps these Christian communities
to a certain extent. The Primates asked His Holiness Aram I to intervene
with the MECC for increased support taking into consideration the economic
crisis in Iraq.
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View photo here: tm#2
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The Armenian Catholicosate of Cilicia is one of the two Catholicosates of
the Armenian Orthodox Church. For detailed information about the Ecumenical
activities of the Cilician Catholicosate, you may refer to the web page of
the Catholicosate, The Cilician Catholicosate, the
administrative center of the church is located in Antelias, Lebanon.

NEW SPEAKER ELECTION DELAYED TO JUNE 1
PanARMENIAN.Net
31.05.2006 15:11 GMT+04:00
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ The election of the new Speaker of the Armenian
National Assembly will be held on Thursday Vice-speaker Tigran
Torosian told reporters today. Besides, the deputies will elect
the chairmen of permanent parliamentary commission on defense, home
affairs and national security and of the commission on social issues,
health and ecology. “The change of the terms is conditioned by the
discussion of some legislative initiatives,” he said. To remind,
May 11 Orinats Yerkir party announced the decision to secede from the
ruling coalition over discrepancies on home and foreign policy. May
29 Artur Baghdassaryan formally left the post of the parliament
Speaker. Head of the permanent parliamentary commission on defense,
home affairs and national security Mher Shahgeldian and chairman of
the commission on social issues, health and ecology Gagik Mkheyan
also handed in resignation.

IFC: ARMECONOMBANK: FIRST ARMENIAN BANK TO JOIN GLOBAL TRADE FINANCE PROGRAM
International Finance Corporation (IFC)
May 30 2006
The International Finance Corporation, the private sector arm of
the World Bank Group, today announced that Armeconombank will be the
first Armenian issuing bank to join IFC’s Global Trade Finance Program.
IFC has approved an uncommitted trade finance line of up to $1
million for Armeconombank to facilitate the bank’s trade finance
operations worldwide. Armeconombank is a private bank that focuses
on small and medium-size enterprises. This is IFC’s second project
with Armeconombank.
Sabrina Borlini, IFC’s trade officer for the program in Europe, said,
“The Global Trade Finance Program will help Armeconombank expand
its growing trade finance operations by providing an attractive
and flexible new product that the bank can offer to its clients. By
joining our global program, the bank will also have access to a wide
network of international corresponding banks.”
The Global Trade Finance Program supports trade with emerging
markets by supporting flows of goods and services to and from
developing countries. IFC provides guarantee coverage of bank risk in
emerging markets, allowing recipients to expand their trade finance
transactions within an extensive network of countries and banks, as
well as to enhance their trade finance service to their clients. IFC
issued the program’s first guarantee in September 2005. Since then,
IFC has issued guarantees in excess of $180 million related to more
than 245 transactions.
Edward Nassim, IFC’s Director of the Central and Eastern Europe
Department, said, “Availability of trade finance products in Armenia
is important for further development of the domestic economy. This
will allow local companies and entrepreneurs to obtain access to
financing for their trade operations and so help modernize Armenia’s
industrial base. I am very pleased that we pilot this product in
Armenia with Armeconombank, our reliable partner in other transactions
in the region.”
Armeconombank’s Chief Executive Officer, Ashot Osipyan, said, “We
highly appreciate an opportunity to continue working with IFC on
trade finance operations in Armenia. We are proud to become IFC’s
first partner bank in Armenia in the Global Trade Finance Program.
This financing will help us increase the bank’s client base and
broaden regional experience. The bank will continue focusing on trade
finance activities in the future to remain a leader in this area in
the country.”
About Armeconombank Armeconombank is one of the largest, privately
controlled banks in Armenia. It is the 5th largest bank in Armenia
in terms of assets, with 41 branches across the country and 560
employees. Today the bank focuses on serving SMEs, retail clients,
and financial institutions.
The bank had the net worth of approximately $12 million and total
assets of approximately $77 million equivalent as of the end of 2005.
About IFC The International Finance Corporation is the private sector
arm of the World Bank Group and is headquartered in Washington,
D.C. IFC coordinates its activities with the other institutions of the
World Bank Group but is legally and financially independent. Its 178
member countries provide its share capital and collectively determine
its policies.
The mission of IFC is to promote sustainable private sector investment
in developing and transition countries, helping to reduce poverty
and improve people’s lives. IFC finances private sector investments
in the developing world, mobilizes capital in the international
financial markets, helps clients improve social and environmental
sustainability, and provides technical assistance and advice to
governments and businesses. From its founding in 1956 through FY05,
IFC has committed more than $49 billion of its own funds and arranged
$24 billion in syndications for 3,319 companies in 140 developing
countries. IFC’s worldwide committed portfolio as of FY05 was $19.3
billion for its own account and $5.3 billion held for participants
in loan syndications. For more information, visit
Armenia became an IFC member in 1995. The Corporation began investing
in the country in 2000. As of May 2006, IFC has invested $9 million
in 3 projects. IFC continues to explore the investment opportunities
in partnership with strategic investors in both the financial and
real sectors of the country. In addition to the investment program,
IFC has been providing advisory services on corporate governance,
improvement of the investment climate. For more information, visit

Sergey Lavrov: Discussing the Karabakh issue at international conferences
would be effective

ArmRadio.am
30.05.2006 14:22
`Discussing the issue of accelerating the peaceful settlement of the
Karabakh conflict at international conferences would be effective,’
declared Igor Levitin, the Foreign Minister of Russia in response to
PACE Deputy from Azerbaijan, who noted that `Russia can use its
presidency over the Council of Ministers of the Council of Europe and
accelerate the settlement of the Karabakh conflict.
To remind, preceding the summer session, sitting of the PACE Bureau
and Permanent Committee was held May 29 in Moscow.
Lavrov noted that there are the decisions of the Council of Europe, UN
and OSCE on this issue; in the recent years, however, the common
opinion has been accumulated in the framework of the Minsk Group,
since the Minsk Group Co-Chairs have undertaken thorough investigation
of details. ` I can say that this process does not stop. I hope the
practice of meetings will continue,’ RF Foreign Minster said.

PanARMENIAN.Net
Jacques Chirac Going to Visit Armenia
29.05.2006 13:53 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ French President Jacques Chirac is going to visit
Armenia late September. As RA President’s Spokesman Victor Soghomonyan
told a PanARMENIAN.Net reporter, the matter concerns an intention
only. `I can neither confirm or refute the information. Mr. Chirac has
stated of the intention to pay a visit to Armenia. This is the only
information we possess,’ he said.

European Taiquando Championship to start in Bonn

ArmRadio.am
26.05.2006 11:00
European Taiquando Championship will start today in Bonn, Germany. Armenia
will be represented by Suren Sargisov (58kg), Arkadi Hakobyan (62kg), Levon
Pashabezyan (67kg) and Arman Yeremayan.

ARMENIA-NATO COOPERATION DISCUSSED BY KOCHARYAN, NATO SPECIAL ENVOY IN SOUTH CAUCASUS
ARKA News Agency, Armenia
May 25 2006
YEREVAN, May 24. /ARKA/. Armenia-NATO cooperation was discussed
Tuesday by Armenian President Robert Kocharyan and NATO Special
Envoy in South Caucasus Robert Simmons. Presidential press service
told ARKA News Agency that Simmons gave a good mark to the process
of individual partnership program IPAP implementation in Armenia
pointing out considerable progress reached for short period of time.
He stressed the importance of Armenian defense system reformation
and democracy buildup.
Kocharyan, in turn, put special emphasis on developing relations
with NATO as part of Eurointegration policy. In his words, an
inter-ministerial commission was set recently for dealing with this
process.
“We are racing against time to observe the schedule of work and are
trying to move even faster than it was initially planned to put joint
programs into reality”, Kocharyan said.

SIXTY USA CONGRESSMEN ADDRESSED STATE SECRETARY FOR EXPLANATIONS ABOUT REASON OF USA AMBASSADOR RECALL FROM ARMENIA
Yerevan, May 25. ArmInfo. Sixty American congressmen headed by Edward
Marki, the congressmen from the Chamber of Representatives, sent a
letter to the State Secretary Condoleezza Rice with request to explain
the reason of recall of the USA Ambassador John Evans from Armenia.
As ArmInfo was told in the Armenian National Committee of America,
the letter was sent after the information from the White House about
the assignment of the USA Ambassador to Tajikistan Richard Hogland
a new Ambassador of USA to Armenia. According to the information,
the Ambassador J. Evans will be dismissed after the Senate approves
Hogland’s candidacy. The source notes the resignation, presumably,
is a result of last-year remarks of the American diplomat concerning
1915 events, having been recognized by Evans as Armenian Genocide.
Sixty congressmen expressed special anxiety that J. Evan’s recall would
become an unprecedented case, undermining the USA image. “We call up
the USA Senate to hold hearings and thoroughly study the reasons for
J. Evan’s recall”, the Executive Director of ANCA Aram Gasparyan said.

RUSSIAN PM SIGNS ORDER TO PAY $3,700 TO AIR CRASH FAMILIES-1
RIA Novosti, Russia
May 25 2006
(Recasts paragraphs 2, 3, adds details after paragraph 3)
MOSCOW, May 25 (RIA Novosti) – Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov
has signed an order to pay 100,000 rubles ($3,700) to the families
of 113 people killed in a Black Sea air crash May 3, the government
said Thursday.
An Airbus owned by Armenia’s Armavia airline crashed in stormy weather
near the Russian resort of Sochi while flying from the Armenian
capital, Yerevan, on May 3.
The compensation will be paid out for all of the victims of the
disaster. The Finance Ministry will allocate the resources from
a government reserve fund during 2006, and forward them to the
administration of Krasnoyarsk Territory, where the tragedy occurred.
The recovery operation at the scene of the tragedy was officially
declared over on Wednesday, but Tatiana Anodina, head of the Interstate
Aviation Committee, said experts may face problems deciphering flight
data from the plane wreck, as the magnetic tape from its cockpit
flight recorder was seriously damaged.
She said experts might have to decipher each fragment of the tape
separately, and that this may take them longer than the 15-day
timeframe announced earlier.

EXPOSING THE MYTH OF LASTING IRANIAN-TURKISH AMITY
By Soner Cagaptay and Duden Yegenoglu
Daily Star (Lebanon)
Washington Institute for Near East Policy, DC
May 23 2006
With Iran’s nuclearization a hot button issue, analysts are asking
how Turkey, the only NATO country bordering Iran, would respond if
the United States imposed sanctions on Tehran or chose a military
option to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon. There is one
answer that American policymakers will hear in Ankara: Turkey should
not confront Iran because Turkey and Iran have been good neighbors
since the 1639 Treaty of Kasri Sirin (also called the Treaty of
Zuhab). Turkish policymakers assert that the two countries have
neither fought nor changed their mutual border since that date.
The “Myth of Kasri Sirin” suggests four centuries of amicable ties
between Turkey and Iran. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Turkey and Iran have repeatedly fought since 1639, and since the 1979
Islamic Revolution Iran has supported terror groups inside Turkey to
undermine governments there.
First, some history: The Ottoman and Iranian empires have fought
many wars since Kasri Sirin. A full-scale war broke out in 1733 when
the Persians attempted to take Baghdad from the Turks. The Persian
siege of Baghdad and the accompanying battles ended in 1746 with the
Treaty of Kurdan, signed between the new Zand Dynasty of Persia and
the Ottoman Empire.
Soon after, in 1775, the Zand Dynasty attacked the Ottoman Empire
again and captured Basra. The invasion lasted until 1821, at which
time another war started between the Ottoman Empire and the new
Qajar Dynasty of Persia. The war ended in 1823, with the First Treaty
of Erzurum.
Rivalry over Muhammarah region (Iran’s modern-day Khorramshar) deepened
the conflict between the two empires by adding a new dimension to
the conflict. Persians and Ottoman Iraqi governors clashed over its
control, bringing the two empires to the brink of war in 1840. The
British intervened, establishing a boundary commission composed
of Iranian, Turkish, British, and Russian diplomats. As a result,
the Persian and Ottoman empires signed the Second Treaty of Erzurum,
reconfiguring the Iranian-Ottoman border.
Troubles between the two countries extended well beyond the Ottoman
era. Fighting also took place across the Turkish-Iranian border during
Mustafa Kemal Ataturk’s rule in Turkey. In 1930, when some Kurds
launched a rebellion around Mount Greater Agri (Ararat) in Turkey,
Kurdish bands armed by Armenian nationalists entered Turkey across
the Iranian border to support the rebellion.
This was no small skirmish. Turkey used airplanes in a counterattack
and mobilized 15,000 troops to suppress the incursion. In the end,
the Turkish Army was able to put down the border infiltration, though
with great difficulty, and only after losing several planes. In 1931,
Ankara asked Iran for a border rectification that put Mount Lesser
Agri, the base of the 1930 incursions, inside Turkey.
Volatility along the border became an issue again when the terrorist
Kurdish Workers Party (PKK) launched a campaign against Turkey in
1984. Iran’s theocratic regime, diametrically opposed to Turkey’s
secular, pro-Western society, saw the PKK as a useful tool to wreak
havoc in Turkey. Accordingly, Tehran allowed PKK bases such as Haj
Umran, Dar Khala, Benchul, Mandali, and Sirabad in its territory. Ali
Koknar, an expert on terrorism, writes that in 1995 the PKK “maintained
about 1,200 of its members at around 50 locations in Iran.” Throughout
the 1980s and the 1990s, the PKK crossed from these bases into Turkey,
attacking the Turkish military as well as killing civilians.
Iran has supported not only the PKK but also Islamist terrorist
cells. Since the 1979 revolution, Iranian-backed cells have killed a
number of secular Turkish intellectuals and journalists considered
offensive, including theologian Bahriye Ucok, a female Islamist
modernizer, and journalist Cetin Emec.
Interestingly, Iran’s policy of war by proxy, the use of the PKK and
Islamist terrorists to undermine Turkey’s secular system, has recently
come to a strategic halt. Since the beginning of the Iraq war, Tehran
has been feeling an increase in American-imposed isolation. To break
this policy, Iran has launched a policy of courting Ankara. Iran
now aims to win the Turks’ hearts. In this regard, Tehran is taking
advantage of American inaction against the PKK’s Qandil terror enclave
in northern Iraq — a fact that is planting seeds of resentment in
Turkey toward Washington — by launching attacks against Qandil and
the very PKK camps Iran allowed in the 1990s.
While these steps are helping Tehran build a positive image in Turkey,
the fact is that Tehran is far from the benevolent neighbor the “Myth
of Kasri Sirin” implies. Turkey and Iran have fought many times since
1639, repeatedly changing their mutual border, including as recently
as 1931. Lately, Tehran has fought war by proxy against Ankara. Yet,
like all other myths, the “Myth of Kasri Sirin” satisfies a real need:
So long as the U.S. ignores Turkey’s battle against the PKK in Iraq,
the future holds out the possibility that Ankara may be closer to
Tehran than to Washington.
Soner Cagaptay is a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for
Near East Policy, an Ertegun professor at Princeton University,
and chair of the Turkey Program at the State Department’s Foreign
Service Institute. Duden Yegenoglu is a research assistant at
the Washington Institute. This commentary first appeared at
bitterlemons-international.org, an online newsletter presenting
contending views of Arab or Middle Eastern affairs.