Author: Kanayan Tamar

AMAL CLOONEY TO REPRESENT ARMENIA IN EUROPEAN COURT

Huffington Post
Dec 29 2014

Posted: 12/29/2014 11:53 am EST
By Harut Sassounian

Here is a surprising news item being disclosed in this column — Amal
Ramzi Alamuddin, wife of prominent actor and human rights activist
George Clooney, will be one of the attorneys representing Armenia
next month at the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR).

Some readers may wonder how a woman described by Elle magazine as
having “stunning looks, flirty dresses, tailored pants, colorful heels,
and gorgeous hair” is involved in such a complex legal matter?

It may be astonishing to most people that Amal Alamuddin, now Mrs.

Clooney, is much more than a pretty face! In fact, she is perfectly
qualified for this critical assignment.

Mrs. Clooney is a highly regarded attorney specializing in
international law, criminal law, human rights, and extradition. She has
been involved in several major lawsuits, such as return of the Elgin
Marbles from Great Britain to Greece, and defending Julian Assange of
WikiLeaks and former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko. She
has also worked with the Prosecutor of the UN Special Tribunal for
Lebanon, and the International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia.

Amal was born in Lebanon to a Druze father and Sunni Muslim mother in
1978. At the age of two, her family moved to the United Kingdom. She
received her law degree from New York University School of Law and
clerked at the International Court of Justice (World Court). After
returning to London in 2010, she became a barrister at the Doughty
Street Chambers. She served as advisor to Kofi Annan, UN Special Envoy
on Syria, and as Counsel to the 2013 UN Drone Inquiry team. She is
fluent in English, French and Arabic. Her marriage to George Clooney
in September 2014 made worldwide headlines.

With such impeccable credentials, Mrs. Clooney will be a great asset
to Armenia’s legal team in Strasbourg, in the appeal of Perincek vs.

Switzerland before the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human
Rights on January 28.

The case involves the conviction by Swiss courts of Dogu Perincek, a
minor Turkish political party leader, who had travelled to Switzerland
in 2005 with the explicit intent of denying the truth of the Armenian
Genocide. In 2008, Perincek appealed the Swiss ruling to the European
Court of Human Rights. A majority of five out of seven ECHR judges
ruled on Dec. 17, 2013 that Switzerland had violated Perincek’s right
to free expression.

This ruling was an unfair and unacceptable double standard, as the
court considered denial of the Jewish Holocaust a crime, but Armenian
Genocide denial an infringement on free speech. The five judges who
ruled against Switzerland made countless judgmental and factual
errors, misrepresenting Perincek’s allegations, misinterpreting
Switzerland’s laws and court rulings, lacking basic knowledge of the
Armenian Genocide, and repeatedly contradicting themselves. Two of
the seven judges disagreed with the majority’s ruling and submitted
a comprehensive 19-page report on the Armenian Genocide, siding with
the Swiss court.

On March 17, 2014, Switzerland decided to appeal the ruling to ECHR’s
17-judge Grand Chamber, to defend the integrity of its laws and the
country’s legal system. Specifically, the Swiss government challenged
the court’s decision on three grounds:

1) ECHR had never before dealt with the juridical qualification
of genocide and the scope of freedom of expression; 2) The undue
restriction of “the margin of appreciation” available to Switzerland
under ECHR’s jurisprudence; 3) The establishment of ‘artificial
distinctions’ — in the absence of an international verdict, ECHR
should have considered the Turkish Court’s 1919 guilty verdicts against
the masterminds of the Armenian Genocide as evidence related to World
Court’s jurisprudence.

Last year, when ECHR’s lower court was considering Perincek’s case,
Armenia did not participate. Turkey, however, intervened by submitting
extensive documentation questioning the veracity of the Armenian
Genocide. This time around Armenia will take part with a strong legal
team, which includes Geoffrey Robertson QC, a preeminent international
lawyer and author of the remarkable book, An Inconvenient Genocide:
Who Now Remembers the Armenians? Robertson will be joined in court by
his associate Amal Clooney, and two Armenian government representatives
Gevorg Kostanyan and Emil Babayan.

It is imperative that on the eve of the Armenian Genocide’s Centennial
in 2015, ECHR’s Grand Chamber reverse the lower court’s flawed ruling,
restoring the integrity of Swiss laws and preventing Turkey and
Perincek from exporting their genocide denialism to Europe and beyond!

WHAT TO EXPECT FROM THE ARMENIAN DRAM IN 2015

Lragir.am
Business – 29 December 2014, 12:59

Haypost and Russian Post signed an agreement to implement “Forsage”
money transfer system between Armenia and Russia

Chart A

1 / 6

It is important to understand where the Armenian economy is headed
and what is going to be the effect on the Armenian economy due to the
sanctions imposed on Russia. Intelligently predicting the economy
will help to get better prepared for what is coming and hopefully
find ways to minimize the impact.

To evaluate possible movements of the Armenian Dram, unfortunately
we need to look closely at the Russian Ruble since historically the
Dram has closely followed the Ruble.

To understand correctly where the Russian Ruble is headed, we have
a perfect historical model that is not usually available to us in a
lot of cases. The Russian economy in many ways is very similar to the
Iranian economy in that the Iranian economy is heavily dependent on
oil. To make it a more usable model, interestingly enough it has gone
through the similar US and European Union sanctions as the Russian
economy is going through now.

Chart A

As the 5 year IRR (Iranian Rial) devaluation Chart (Chart A)
is showing, the IRR devaluated at around 150% during the peak of
sanctions against the Dollar; however at the same time lower oil
prices in 2014 are not showing Russian Ruble like devaluation due to
lower oil prices, which somewhat proves that primarily the sanctions
(and not oil prices) are the cause of the current Ruble devaluation.

Furthermore below is the chart comparing IRR to the Ruble.

Chart B

It is clear that the IRR regained its pre-sanction levels compared
to the Ruble, and is now trading even lower than the pre-sanctions era.

Basically Chart B is showing that after sanctions against Russia,
Iranian IRR and RUB reached pre-sanction level, oil prices being
the same for both countries, the chart is showing that the sanctions
(and not the oil prices) are the main cause of Ruble devaluation.

Chart C

To estimate the Russian Ruble devaluation, we can use Iranian analogy
to estimate where the Russian Ruble will end up. The Iranian Rial
jumped up to 150% in the midst of US and EU sanctions against Iran,
where the Russian Ruble’s initial jump was 185%. Even if after a few
days by drastically increasing interest rates to 17% in Russia, the
Ruble settled at 104% devaluation, which seems to be not the natural
devaluation equilibrium of the Ruble. It will be very interesting to
follow the next few weeks of developments of the exchange rate of
the Ruble against the dollar; if devaluation continues despite the
drastic measures, the Ruble will end up at around 150% devaluation
or about 70 Rubles per dollar, or even higher. It is costing too much
for Russia to keep the Ruble in the current levels; it would have been
wiser for Russia to let the dollar reach its natural 150% devaluated
level. From there on the devaluation would have continued at about 20%
for the next year reaching to around 85 Rubles per dollar. However
with decision to raise the interest rates and slow down the economy,
hoping that the oil prices will bounce back in the next 3 to 6 months,
Russia is taking a huge gamble in putting its economy in an extremely
and potentially unrecoverable state. The outlook of higher oil prices
is at best murky. The survey of 30 economists and analysts projected
Brent to average $74.00 a barrel next year and $80.30 in 2016. The
forecast for 2015 is $8.50 below the average projection in the previous
Reuters poll. The November poll number was down $11.20 from October,
marking the biggest downgrade in average forecasts since the 2008
economic downturn. With these numbers, Russia will most probably
default on its loans and the downgrade of Russian credit rating seems
to be highly possible.

Chart D

If Russia did not take drastic measures of spending reserves and
increasing the interest rate, we would have seen a devaluation curve
as shown in Chart D which is very similar to the IRR devaluation of
Chart A, ranging around 85 Rubles per Dollar exchange rate. Even with
the drastic measures, Russia is only postponing the devaluation of
the dollar, and we will most probably see the RUB following one of
the curves (A, B, C) in Chart D in the next 3 to 6 months to reach
its natural levels.

At the same time, with simple Chart analysis, it is noticeable that
stress levels are much higher on the Ruble than IRR. As is evident from
the yellow lines at the top of Chart E and blue lines on the bottom,
both the IRR and Ruble had similar devaluation correlations before
the sanctions kicked in against both countries. However, as it is
evident in the case of IRR at the top of Chart E, if the IRR moved
vertically to its devaluation level, the Ruble is fighting back with
steep upwards curve (shown in red lines in Chart E). Even with chart
analysis, it seems that the Ruble situation is much more critical and
if the Ruble will not be able to break out from this steep upward
movement within the next few months, we might see an unpredictably
high devaluation of the Ruble.

Chart E

If pre-sanction periods for both the RUB and IRR were devaluating at
a similar rate and the sanctions caused a somewhat similar jump in
devaluation with the only difference being that Iran did not fight
the devaluation while Russia is unwisely fighting by depleting its
economy from reserves and stagnating the economy. It is also safe
to assume that after the initial jump corrects itself at the 150%
level, the further devaluation of the Ruble will continue at the
same post-sanction levels of about 20% reaching around 170-180%
devaluation compared to pre-sanction periods.

Historically, the Armenian Dram has closely followed the Russian Ruble,
as seen on Chart F. At the current state, the Dram is 30% higher
compared to the Ruble, which is temporary, since Armenia has also
joined the EEU (Eurasian Economic Union) and the close relationship
between Ruble and Dram is going to be more correlated than ever.

Chart F

Taking that into consideration with the current Ruble levels, the
Armenian Dram should be at around 580 Drams per dollar, however the
Armenian economy is not as closely integrated with other countries,
and temporarily the Armenian government is able to keep the Dram from
devaluation. However it will take a very short time, in the next 3 to
4 weeks, where we will see the Dram reaching the 580 per dollar level.

Furthermore, closely following the Russian Ruble, in the next 3 to
6 months, the Russian Ruble reaching 85+/- 5 level, the Armenian
dram will reach 900+/- 50 level. This analysis assumes somewhat
flat or slightly improved oil prices in the market, in the case that
oil prices go slightly downwards or even stay at the current levels
for more than 12 months, we might see the Ruble reaching 120 per US
Dollar levels, in which case Dram levels of 1200 per Dollar is not
a farfetched prediction, if Armenia is not able to break away from
the EEU and continue to suffer from the indirect sanctions.

Aram Ter-Martirosyan

Geopolitical Club, Armenian Desk

EDUARD SHARMAZANOV: SOCIAL AND POLITICAL LIFE WILL BE DIFFERENT WITHOUT VAHAN HOVHANNISYAN

10:46 | December 29,2014 | Politics

Deputy Speaker of the Armenian National Assembly, Spokesman for
the ruling Republican Party of Armenia, Eduard Sharmazanov, has
expressed his sorrow for the death of ARF-Dashnaktsutyun member
Vahan Hovhannisyn.

It was a bad day for all of us. Though we all knew that Vahan had
health problems, we hoped till the last moment that he would recover
from the illness. It was a heavy loss for all us; we have lost our
friend, a senior colleague from whom we had learnt a lot of things. We
have lost one of the brightest figures in the political arena, a key
figure in the Armenian political system.

Armenia’s social and political life will be different without Vahan
Hovhannisyan because he was a great patriot and professional, a
friendly person and a great politician and a man who served as an
example for the youth.

I am experiencing a lot of pain and I believe that all our colleagues
who knew Vahan Hovhannisyan feel deep regret about his death.

God rest his soul and give us wisdom to be able to create the Armenia
that Vahan had longed for,” said Eduard Sharmazanov.

Vahan Hovhannisyan, a senior member of the Armenian Revolutionary
Federation-Dashnaktsutyun, Armenia’s Ambassador to Germany, died on
December 28 after a long disease.

LES GROUPES D’OPPOSITION REJETENT L’AVERTISSEMENT DU CHEF DU NSS

ARMENIE

Les membres de l’opposition en Armenie ont repousse les declarations
du directeur du Service national de securite (NSS) Gorik Hakobyan qui
a mis en garde contre les appels > pour renverser
l’ordre constitutionnel et que toute action sera empechee.

Le porte-parole du PAP Tigran Urikhanyan a refuse de commenter
directement les declarations de Gorik Hakobyan.

“Nous avons notre ligne politique, nos actions”, a declare Urikhanyan
ArmeniaNow.

Pendant ce temps le vice-president du Parti de Heritage Armen
Martirosyan a dit que la declaration faite par le chef du NSS prouve
que la situation du gouvernement est tellement grave que meme le chef
du NSS doit faire de tels enonces.

“Je traite de cela très normalement, dans notre histoire moderne, il
n’existe aucun precedent d’une telle situation, mais je ne vois pas
de situation extraordinaire ici, parce que nos employes des services
de securite vivent avec le meme mode de vie que la majorite de nos
citoyens et ils savent quelle horreur est notre la vie de citoyens
“, a declare Armen Martirosyan.

Quant a la diaspora, Armen Martirosyan pense que le gouvernement
considère la diaspora comme un simple bailleur de fonds, mais
l’opposition n’est pas de cet avis.

“Si nous joignons tous la lutte, les forces de l’ordre vont egalement
nous soutenir, par ailleurs, la politique du gouvernement a l’egard
de notre diaspora, qui, comme vous pouvez le voir, ne fait plus
aucun investissement en Armenie, meme lors du dernier telethon de
charite seulement 12 millions ont ete amasses, ce qui est très peu,
et ceci est leur attitude a l’egard de notre gouvernement ” a declare
le representant du Parti Heritage ajoutant que cette > peut etre resolue que par un changement de gouvernement,
y compris par un rebellion, ce qui est aussi un moyen mentionne dans la
Declaration des Nations Unies dont l’Armenie est egalement signataire.

Varuzhan Avetisyan, un porte-parole pour le groupe d’opposition
pre-Parlement (plusieurs membres du groupe ont recemment ete battus par
des inconnus, les voitures d’un certain nombre d’autres ont ete soumis
a des incendies volontaires), a declare a ArmeniaNow qu’ils ne sont
pas surpris de la declaration du chef du NSS et qu’ils poursuivront
leur travail actif.

“ce qui est fait aujourd’hui par le regime, par Gorik Hakobyan et
sa structure est une trahison nationale et un crime d’Etat. Nous
devons comprendre que notre pays est occupe et nous devons le liberer,
naturellement, nous ne voulons pas que la force soit utilisee et nous
essayons de faire tout ce qui est du point de vue juridique formel
en utilisant des methodes de desobeissance civile, et cela a ete des
le debut etiquete comme des methodes violentes par Hakobyan, mais il
doit se rapporter cela a lui-meme, c’est lui-meme et l’organisation
criminelle appelee le regime dont il est membre qui utilisent des
methodes violentes et la force pour usurper le pouvoir, ce qu’ils
ont deja fait plusieurs fois en Armenie “, a declare Avetisyan.

GOHAR ABRAHAMYAN

ArmeniaNow

lundi 29 decembre 2014, Stephane (c)armenews.com

REVUE DE PRESSE
D’origine arménienne, Safinaz est la nouvelle star de la danse du
ventre dans le monde arabe

Les danseuses du ventre résistent en Egypte. Malgré le raidissement
des moeurs et le changement des modes, ces poétesses du déhanchement
continuent de pratiquer leur art. Concurrence oblige, elles n’hésitent
pas à se crêper le chignon.

En savoir plus sur

dimanche 28 décembre 2014,
Stéphane (c)armenews.com

SPORTS
Les 10 meilleurs sportifs d’Arménie-2014 reçurent des récompenses par
le Comité National Olympique arménien

Au complexe > (Pharaon) près d’Abovian, le 27 décembre s’est
déroulée une cérémonie organise par le Comité National Olympique
arménien pour honorer les 10 meilleurs sportifs d’Arménie. Artur
Aleksanyan (champion du monde de lutte gréco-romaine et champion
d’Europe) reconnu comme le

APA, Azerbaijan
Dec 27 2014

Turkey, Armenia can take symbolic steps in 2015: PM adviser

[ 26 December 2014 12:39 ]

Baku. Zumrud Pashayeva – APA. Turkey and Armenia should not expect to
resolve a long-running dispute over the mass killing of Armenians in
World War I on the 100th anniversary of the tragedy in 2015, top
adviser to the Turkish prime minister Etyen Mahcupyan told AFP in an
interview, APA reports citing Global Post.

Etyen Mahcupyan, who is himself a member of Turkey’s Armenian
minority, said 2015 would be a “tough year” because of the 100th
anniversary of the “Armenian genocide”.

“I believe symbolic steps could be taken this year and a more
emotional relationship could be established,” said Mahcupyan.

NPR National Public Radio, USA
Dec 27 2014

Author Explores Armenian Genocide ‘Obsession’ And Turkish Denial

December 27, 2014 7:43 AM ET

Writer Meline Toumani grew up in a tight-knit Armenian community in
New Jersey. There, identity centered on commemorating the mass
killings of Armenians by Ottoman Turks during World War I, a history
that’s resulted in tense relations between Armenians and Turks to this
day.

In her new book, There Was and There Was Not, Toumani recounts her
attempts to understand Turkey and the Turkish people — people she was
always taught were her bitter enemy. She also explores what she calls
the Armenian community’s “obsession” with genocide recognition, which
she herself harbored.

“There would be moments where I felt almost embarrassed by a certain
deep-seated prejudice in me,” Toumani tells NPR’s Eric Westervelt.
“For example, if a friend comes back from vacation in Turkey and
they’re talking about it and I’m kind of bristling or brooding and
just waiting for that to be over because I know that I can’t say what
I feel — which is, you know, ‘I would never go to Turkey. The Turks,
you know, killed the Armenians in 1915.'”

Interview Highlights
On why she decided to move to Turkey, a sort of forbidden place for Armenians

I’d have these feelings rise up in me and they didn’t fit anymore in
the life that I had created, which was otherwise very progressive and
intellectually oriented. And that was when I decided I kind of need to
explore this. And through a series of events, it entered my mind that
exploring it would mean going to Turkey, talking to Turks; not to try
to take seriously the Turkish version of the history of the genocide,
but just to understand how does it happen that another group of people
have learned this history in a completely different way leading to a
completely different conclusion? And is there any way that we can
connect if I find the right way to talk about it, or the right way to
listen about it?

On being attacked on Armenian-American news sites for taking on this project

It’s actually surprisingly painful given that I’ve just written a book
that describes the kinds of attitudes that lead to that kind of
criticism. … I knew that there would be people who would feel that
way, and yet part of what my book is about is this incredible tension
between belonging to a community and trying to individuate from it.

And it’s sad for me to see that some people are so threatened that
they’re not even willing to engage, because most of the people
publishing those attacks haven’t read the book. In fact, one of them
celebrates the fact that he hasn’t read it and in the same breath
calls for a boycott.

On how people in Turkey reacted when they learned she was Armenian

I was perhaps recklessly optimistic in thinking that things wouldn’t
be quite as bad in Turkey regarding the Armenian issue as I had been
taught to believe. … In some ways, they were even worse. The thing
that shocked me the most was the fact that on a daily basis, you know
and this is over the course of two and a half years of living there,
people would find out that I was Armenian and sometimes the reaction
would be so blunt: “Well, I guess you came here to prove that there
was a genocide. I want you to know that I don’t believe that that’s
what happened.” Or something like that. And those moments were really
jarring and made it very difficult for me to ever really relax. There
was a lot of stress in my daily life.

And I want to be clear, of course, that I also had the opposite
reactions, you know. There was a young man who I met outside of a
restaurant with some friends, just totally at random on a Saturday
night, and when he found out I was Armenian he put his hand over his
heart and he said, “I want to welcome you back to your country and I
want to apologize on behalf of the Turkish nation.”

So I would have every manner of reaction, but to be honest, most of
the reactions ranged from pretending I hadn’t said anything at all to
saying something sort of blunt and harsh.

On where relations between Turks and Armenians stand today

It was a few years ago already that I left Turkey. And in the time
since then, there have been some big changes. For example, on April
24, 2014 — which was the 99th-year commemoration of the Armenian
genocide — in Istanbul you had several events commemorating the
genocide openly and without any kind of the contorted language that
you might have had in the past.

Also [Turkish President Recep Tayyip] Erdogan made a statement that
was very much falling short but at the same time really breaking new
ground in acknowledging that something tragic had happened to the
Armenians. And although he, you know, was very careful not to call it
a genocide and to say everyone suffered and to use a lot of the same
rhetoric that he has always used, I consider it a major step.

Read and excerpt of “There Was and There Wasn’t” at

Eurasia Review
December 26, 2014 Friday

Armenia: Out Of The Game – OpEd

By Fuad Huseinzadeh

In the recent years there have emerged three very promising platforms
of trilateral cooperation in the Black Sea-Caspian Sea region that
consist in the following partnerships: Azerbaijan-Turkey-Georgia,
Azerbaijan-Turkey-Iran and Azerbaijan-Turkey-Turkmenistan.

For Azerbaijan, developing relations with foreign partners at
bilateral and trilateral levels coincides with Baku’s official posture
and its foreign policy strategy of non-alignment to any particular
bloc. It was not by any coincidence that Azerbaijani President Ilham
Aliyev, speaking at an official reception to mark the Republic Day on
May 28, noted the great importance of all these formats of trilateral
interactions: “These formats have a very great significance for
regional security and cooperation and safeguarding our political and
economic interests. We shall, of course, continue these tripartite
meetings in the future, which have already become regular” the head of
state commented.

In this regard it is notable the latest trilateral meeting of the
Foreign Ministers of Azerbaijan, Turkey and Georgia – Elmar
Mammadyarov, Mevlut Cavusoglu and Tamar Beruchashvili – which took
place in the Turkish city of Kars. The Kars Declaration was the crown
of the meeting, which was the fourth one held in this format. In the
declaration, the foreign ministers said that the three countries had
the same views regarding principles of their cooperation and the
future of the region.

According to the document, the foreign ministers stressed the
importance of trilateral cooperation in the region in accordance with
the documents adopted earlier – the Trabzon declaration of June 8,
2012, the Batumi joint communique of March 28, 2013 and the Ganja
statement of February 19, 2014.

The ministers pointed out the importance of implementing joint
projects in energy and transportation, in particular the
Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway project and the TANAP gas project, stressed
the importance of the Trilateral Sectorial Cooperation Action Plan for
2013-15 as an effective means of political dialogue, and stated the
need to continue meetings in this format and to expand trilateral
cooperation in other areas, including international organizations.

Along with this, the political component of this trio seems no less
significant, given the geopolitical situation in neighboring
countries.

The developments in Ukraine or, to be precise, the ambiguous
interpretations by some countries of the territorial integrity of this
country, have clearly left an imprint on the final document adopted as
a result of the meeting in Kars. “Azerbaijan, Turkey and Georgia have
reaffirmed their firm support for one another’s territorial integrity
and sovereignty and in this regard they have once again called for a
speedy settlement of the Nagorny Karabakh conflict in Azerbaijan and
the conflict in Georgia’s Abkhazia and Tskhinval (South Ossetia)
regions in accordance with fundamental principles and norms of
international law, in particular on the basis of respect for
sovereignty, territorial integrity and inviolability of
internationally recognized borders of states,” the declaration
stresses.

At their final news conference, the foreign ministers stated in unison
that they were confident that the transport and energy projects
Baku-Tbilisi-Kars, Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan, Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum, and
Southern Gas Corridor will give an impetus to the implementation of
new economic projects in Europe and Asia. However, regional security
gained a greater emphasis once again. Elmar Mammadyarov said that
Armenia’s aggressive policy against Azerbaijan threatens peace and
development in the region. It was noted that this policy by Armenia is
contrary to international legal norms. Noting that all conflicts in
the world are a crime against humanity, Mevlut Cavusoglu said that
Turkey will continue with its efforts to establish peace between
countries and peoples.

Stressing the great importance of the three parties’ participation in
international organizations and regional integration projects,
Minister Tamar Beruchashvili said that the trilateral relationship
will continue to meet the interests of our countries and peoples.

However, subsequent statements by the foreign ministers are
noteworthy. Tamar Beruchashvili said that every country can take part
in regional projects if it recognizes, first of all, the territorial
integrity of a neighboring state and renounces all acts of violence.
In turn, the Turkish minister was more specific in identifying the
listeners of those statements. Cavusoglu said that as long as Armenian
armed forces do not leave Azerbaijan’s land, that country will remain
out of regional projects. “We support the territorial integrity of
Azerbaijan and Georgia. We hope that Armenia would respect the borders
of neighboring states and becomes a nation like one of ours. In that
case, the missing link will be where it belongs,” Turkish media quoted
Cavusoglu as saying.

In the meantime, “the missing link”, as the saying goes, does not care
a straw. Just like previously, Yerevan continues to be concerned not
about real things, the socio-economic situation in the country that
seems to be worsening further and, as a consequence, mass migration,
but the same mythical benchmarks as before – international recognition
of the 1915 “genocide” and “re-creation of the Great Armenia”.
Armenia, the indefatigable neighbor of Azerbaijan, Turkey and Georgia
not only rejects the calls for good neighborly relations in return to
non-aggression but also continues to lay territorial claims on them
and tries to impose on them something they did not do.

There is only one thing that this policy promises Armenia – an
increasingly deeper immersion into crisis and isolation in the region.
The geopolitical state of affairs in the region, which has until
recently suited Armenia, is going to change, and not in favor of
Armenia.

Azerbaijan is increasingly stepping up its cooperation with Turkey.
Last week, the head of the public and political department within the
Azerbaijani Presidential Administration, Ali Hasanov, said that Baku
should create a single political block with Ankara. He said Turkey is
now one of the world’s 20 largest economies, and Azerbaijan is also
steadily moving towards high economic indicators.

But while for Armenia the strengthening of allied relations between
its two sworn enemies is not a big surprise, the increasingly
worsening relationship between Russia and the West, and Iran’s
rapprochement with Azerbaijan are fraught for Armenia including the
loss of its most important allies in the region. The recent visit by
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani to Baku confirmed the determination
of the sides to eliminate former problems and to clarify everything,
and the Russian president’s visit to Turkey and agreements reached
during the visit to strengthen bilateral relations against the
backdrop of the confrontation between Moscow and the West have even
allowed some observers to predict the creation of a new geopolitical
axis – Azerbaijan-Turkey-Russia.

“The Russia-Turkish agreements may seriously change the geopolitical
architecture, primarily in the South Caucasus. In this regard, a new
line of cooperation between Turkey-Azerbaijan-Russia – is possible,
which in the long term may be expanded to include Iran, especially
given Moscow’s attempts to increase its presence in India,” stated for
R+ magazine, Nadana Friedrichson, a political analyst with EurAsEC
Institute.

Thus, while Armenia is a hostage to important processes running around
it but without any of its involvement, Azerbaijan and also Turkey and
Georgia are not only depending on a geopolitical agenda but are also
actively shaping it.

Kars is actually a very symbolic place for the history of the
relationship between Turkey and the South Caucasus countries. We
should recall that the Treaty of Kars on friendship between the
Azerbaijani, Armenian and Georgian SSRs on one side and Turkey on the
other was signed in this city in 1921. The document extended to the
trans-Caucasus soviet republics the main provisions of the Treaty of
Moscow. The Treaty of Moscow provided for establishment of trade
relations and regulation of financial and economic issues. The Treaty
of Kars added several provisions to the Moscow Treaty – on
facilitation of border crossing by residents of the border zone and on
giving them the right to use pastures located on the other side of the
border. The Treaty of Kars effectively helped remove friction between
Turkey and the trans-Caucasus soviet republics. However, the
present-day Republic of Armenia does not recognize the treaty because
it assigned to Turkey the cities of Kars and Ardahan, which Armenians
covet, as well as the Mount Agridag which they call Ararat.

History, as we know, does not repeat itself. And almost a century
after the treaty was signed, the region’s future is being decided
without Armenia’s involvement.

The post Armenia: Out Of The Game – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

Karabakh ex-soldier flees to Azerbaijan to escape trial

16:24, 27.12.2014

Nagorno-Karabakh Republic Defense Army (NKR DA) conscript Arsen
Baghdasaryan, whom the Azerbaijan Armed Forces had allegedly taken
captive during an incident, was not actually taken captive, but he had
escaped being tried at court.

Armenian News-NEWS.am has learned that a criminal case was instituted
against this young man, and the respective trial was scheduled for no
later than next week.

According to information, now the ex-soldier had stood out by his
disorderly conduct during military service, and this had led to the
filing of a criminal lawsuit against him.

It was reported that Baghdasaryan was captured on Friday. And the NKR
MOD press service had issued a statement refuting the Azerbaijani
allegations of an incident.

“As for Arsen Baghdasaryan being taken captive [by Azerbaijan], the DA
[hereby] informs that, being a contract military serviceman of the
Defense Army, this person has voluntarily deserted, on a regular
basis, the place his permanent [military] deployment, for which he was
temporarily expelled from [military] service,” the statement also
read.

Armenia News – NEWS.am