Author: Kanayan Tamar

ISRAEL AND AZERBAIJAN: GEOPOLITICAL REASONS FOR STRONGER TIES

Jerusalem Post
July 26, 2013 Friday

BYLINE: ANNA GEIFMAN AND DIMA COURSE

SECTION: FEATURES; Pg. 12

The South Caucasus region is of strategic value for Israel, due
to its geopolitical position and proximity to Iran. Azerbaijan, a
key player in the region, is a Shi’ite country that maintains close
working relations with the Jewish state. Strained relations between
Azerbaijan and Iran are an equally critical factor. Aside from the
fact that Israel is dealing with a classic situation of “the enemy
of my enemy is my friend,” it benefits from selling the Azeris’
technical services, technologies and security systems. Moreover,
Israel has always been on the lookout for a moderate Muslim partner,
a role previously filled by Turkey – and Azerbaijan can fit that role.

It is hardly accidental that President Shimon Peres, accompanied by
three ministers and representatives of 60 Israeli industrial companies,
visited Baku in 2009. Then-foreign minister Avigdor Liberman made
a trip to Azerbaijan in April 2012. His counterpart, Azeri Foreign
Minister Elmar Mammadyarov, paid a return visit to Israel in April
2013. Currently, the bilateral relationship is good, and there are
prospects for even stronger ties between the two countries.

TURMOIL IN the Middle East affects the Caspian Sea region and
simultaneously provides opportunities for Israel, whose mutual interest
with Azerbaijan is to confront an increasingly radical Islam.

Though nominally Muslim, Azerbaijan’s secular regime perceives
both Sunni and Shi’ite fundamentalists as an alarming threat. The
Sunni radicals connected to al-Qaida are willing to cooperate with
neighboring Dagestan’s terrorist underground, which is periodically
activated in the northern parts of Azerbaijan. An even greater reason
for concern is the Shi’ite radicals; they are a tool for Iran’s
Revolutionary Guards and seek radical changes in Azerbaijan, to turn
it into a pro-Iranian regime. Any contact with Israel therefore causes
anxiety in the Islamic Republic; for example, the 2009 Peres visit to
Baku led to complications between Baku and Tehran and the recalling
of the Iranian ambassador “for consultations.”

There is also strong evidence that Iran is intent on undermining
domestic stability in Azerbaijan. In October 2011, the leader of the
pro-Iranian Islamic Party of Azerbaijan Movsum Samadov and several
of his comrades were sentenced to 10-12 years in jail for attempting
to overthrow the government by terrorist means. In February 2012,
dozens of militants were arrested in a rural area near Baku. Iran also
persistently threatens its northern neighbor; shortly after Samadov’s
arrest, Iranian Chief-of-Staff Maj.-Gen. Hassan Firouzabadi promised
Azeri President Ilham Aliyev “a grim future.”

It is therefore not surprising that, according to foreign sources,
Azerbaijan is a strategic bridgehead of Western and Israeli
anti-Iranian military and intelligence efforts. Tehran is nervous
about persistent, if officially denied, rumors about Israeli military
presence in Azerbaijan as a forward base against Iran. Regardless
of the validity of these rumors, Israeli authorities appreciate the
importance of cooperation with Azerbaijan, which seeks to hold its own
under the Iranian threat. In early 2012, this collaboration yielded
valuable results: the prevention of terrorist attacks against Israeli
diplomats in Baku.

ASIDE FROM Iran, Russia is a reason that Baku and Jerusalem should
strengthen their strategic partnership. Israel is upset about Russia’s
subversive presence in the Middle East, namely its interactions with
Iran, acceptance of Hamas and persistent backing of the Syrian rebels.

Azerbaijan is also unhappy with Moscow’s support for Armenia’s
position in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. Yet, Israel may be swayed
into better relations with Russia due to potential benefits from
collaborative ventures in the technological sphere, as well as joint
fear of radical Islam; contrary to what may look like a partnership,
Russia’s relations with Iran are quite strained.

In 2011, the “Center-2011” maneuvers took place in the Caspian Sea,
the largest such exercise since 2002. Some 1,000 Russian servicemen
and dozens of vessels and boats participated. Despite attempts on the
part of some commentators to explain the maneuvers as necessitated
by NATO’s presence in Afghanistan and Turkey, it appears that the
“alleged enemy” was none other than Iran, or possibly its terror
proxy, Hezbollah. A similar exercise in the Caspian Sea took place
this April. Iran could react aggressively towards Azerbaijan in the
event of a Western attack on its nuclear program. For its part, Baku is
aware that Moscow is supportive of its secular regime and is friendly
towards the Azeri position with regard to the Caspian Sea division.

There is also the issue of Nagorno-Karabakh, which is a connecting
point between Azerbaijan and Israel. For Azerbaijan, Armenia is a
bitter enemy with whom there are no serious chances for reconciliation
in the foreseeable future, especially after the Armenian defeat of
the Azeri military in 1994. As far as Israel is concerned, Armenia
is one of Iran’s closest partners; it is also probably a “loophole”
for Iran’s acquisition of prohibited weapons and technologies from
several former Soviet republics.

AMONG THE hurdles for Israeli-Azeri relations may be the “Turkish
issue.” In the past, all appeared simple, as Turkey was Azerbaijan’s
closest ally and Israel’s strategic partner. In the last few years,
however, the situation has become significantly complicated by
Turkish Islamization. Israel is currently interested in Azerbaijan’s
independence from any Turkish influence.

Israel and Azerbaijan stand to benefit greatly from even stronger
ties. From the Israeli point of view, there is serious potential for
expanding economic ties – if only because Baku sells oil to Israel
and is already a client of the Israeli hi-tech and military industries.

Israel’s drone planes are as much in demand in Azerbaijan as they are
elsewhere. Israel also sells its Azeri partner armored troop carriers,
multiple rocket launchers, Tavor rifles and ammunition.

However, since neither country has enough friends beyond its borders,
it should be clear that each partner may contribute to much-required
foreign lobbying for the sake of the other. Azerbaijan could be a
positive influence in Turkey, while Israel might prove equally helpful
in lobbying for the Azeris in the EU and the US. Though further
cooperation between Jerusalem and Baku will depend on geopolitical
developments, Israel would do well to capitalize on the opportunity.

Dr. Anna Geifman is a senior research fellow in the Department of
Political Studies at Bar-Ilan University and Professor Emerita at
Boston University.

Dima Course is a PhD candidate in political studies at Bar-Ilan
University.

This article was originally published on the Begin-Sadat Center for
Strategic Studies website.

MOUGOUCH FIELDING: BOHEMIAN MUSE AND WIDOW OF THE PAINTER ARSHILE GORKY, WHOSE WORK SHE CHAMPIONED AFTER HIS SUICIDE

The Times (London)
July 26, 2013 Friday
Edition 1; National Edition

As Arshile Gorky’s wife and muse, and for six decades his widow,
Mougouch Magruder Gorky Phillips Fielding nurtured the work and
burnished the reputation of the father of Abstract Expressionism and
the man Robert Hughes described as “a kind of Bridge of Sighs between
Surrealism and America”.

A bright, bold, patrician beauty, she had a genius for friendship,
drawing devotees from New York’s postwar Surrealists to the last
members of the Bloomsbury Group. The travel writers Patrick Leigh
Fermor, Robin Fedden and Bruce Chatwin were among her admirers. When
her daughter Antonia married Martin Amis, his friend Christopher
Hitchens summed up her provenance as “pure bohemian aristocracy”.

Agnes Magruder was the daughter of the East Coast establishment –
Washingtonian John Holmes Magruder II, a US naval attache (later
Commodore), and his Bostonian wife, Ester Hosmer. She attended
schools in Washington, The Hague and Switzerland. Aged 19, she went
to Manhattan, where she enrolled at the Art Students League before
quitting for a typing Job at a communist magazine.

In February 1941 she was introduced to Gorky by her friends Elaine and
Willem de Kooning. Tall and good-looking with an extravagant moustache,
Gorky presented himself as a Georgian prince, a nephew of Maxim Gorky,
an alumnus of Brown and a student of Kandinsky. Although she would
not know it until a decade after his death, he was, in fact, Vosdanig
Manoug Adoian, an Armenian refugee who had survived the Turkish
genocide and landed on Ellis Island in 1920. When Agnes met him, he
was eking out a living by teaching at the Grand Central School and
selling the odd painting. His work was heavily derivative, brilliantly
imitating Cezanne almost stroke for stroke, and so closely following
Picasso that he would exclaim, “If he drips, I drip”. He called Agnes
“Mougouch” – little mighty one – a name which stuck. She would say,
“When I think of Gorky, I think about my life beginning.”

They married, to her parents’ horror, in September 1941 in Nevada
before a JP, with a curtain ring from Woolworths. Mougouch moved into
his Union Square studio where they lived on 64 cents a day. With his
captivating wife by his side, Gorky’s circle expanded.

Mougouch charmed dealers and cooked deliciously for curators. The most
dramatic effect on his work was three summers spent at the Magruder
estate in Virginia. At Crooked Run Farm, with his wife and their
daughters, Maro and later Natasha, his happiness spilt into his work.

Somehow reconnecting with the country of his childhood, his pictures,
like Water of the Flowery Mill and One Year the Milkweed, came alive
in mesmeric forms, not unlike Miro but entirely his own. “Dreams
form the bristles of the artist’s brush” was how he put it. A New
York Times critic described his abstract landscapes from this time as
“bathed in autumnal Keatsian mist, their forms as pulpy and sweet as
peeled ripe fruit”.

But in 1946 their life began to unravel. A fire in Gorky’s studio
destroyed 27 paintings, some portraits of Mougouch among them, and a
lifetime of drawings and art books. Two months later he was diagnosed
with rectal cancer and had a colostomy. A burst of painting followed,
including the elegiac Charred Beloved, but he was, in turn, angry
and depressed. A desperate, bewildered Mougouch had a brief affair
with Gorky’s friend, Edward Matta Echaurren – a serial seducer. As
she recalled, “[I] ruined my life with one zip”. Soon after, Gorky
broke his neck in a car accident and his painting arm was temporarily
paralysed. Mougouch returned to a demented Gorky. When he began hanging
ropes in the garden she told their daughters he was making swings
for them. After he pushed her down the stairs, his doctor advised
she take the children away and they fled to Virginia. Days later,
on July 21, 1948, Gorky hanged himself, leaving in chalk on the box
he had stood on and kicked away, “Goodbye my loveds”.

After a decade married to another painter, the Bostonian John (Jack)
C. Phillips, with whom she had two daughters, Mougouch moved to
London. In 1961 she Joined the circle (and thus the diaries) of Frances
Partridge, the last of the Bloomsburys, and David (“Bunny”) Garnett. In
1979 she married the writer and Crete war hero Xan Fielding.

All through her life she kept the flame of Gorky alive, lending his
pictures for retrospectives and showing remarkable generosity and
honesty with biographers. Among the results were superb books by her
son-in-law, Matthew Spender, and her stepdaughter, Hayden Herrera. In
2011 she appeared with Maro and Natasha in an extraordinary film
directed by her granddaughter, Cosima Spender. Together they visited
Union Square and the places of Gorky’s birth and death. As she rolled
her own cigarettes, 90-year-old Mougouch, still strikingly handsome,
recalled in her low rich voice her life with Gorky. “He was so proud,
and high and fine-looking. And he had a mighty paintbrush. I was
smitten immediately.”

She is survived by four daughters.

Mougouch Fielding, widow of Arshile Gorky, was born on June 1, 1921.

She died on June 2, 2013, aged 92

ACTIVISTS GLAD ABOUT VICTORY, READY FOR FURTHER STRUGGLE

17:13 07.08.13

Styopa Safaryan, a member of the Barev Yerevan (Hello Yerevan) group
at Yerevan’s City Council, and activist Ani Kaguinyan believe that
although civil society succeeded in getting fares reduced to the
previous rate, struggle for higher-quality transport services must
be continued.

“I do not view it as a victory because it [Yerevan Mayor Taron
Margaryan’s decision] reads ‘suspended’,” Kaguinyan said.

With respect to the sit-down protest in front of the Yerevan
Municipality and protesters’ demands for resignations, as well as for
dismissal of Head of the Transport Department, Yerevan Municipality,
Henrik Hambartsumyan, and Director of the Yerevantrans CJSC Misak
Hambartsumyan, Kaguinyan said that she joins her “friends’ struggle.”

In his turn, Styopa Safaryan said that public protests at the fare
rise had no precedents and is evidence of favorable tendencies.

As regards the claim the Barev Yerevan group’s lodged with the court,
which demands invalidation of the Yerevan mayor’s decision, Safaryan
is sure that the administrative court will allow the claim.

ARMENIA’S POLITICAL PARTIES NEED BETTER GOVERNMENT FINANCING – ARMEN MARTIROSYAN

19:21 07.08.13

The government must allocate an equivalent of ~@60,000-70,000 to the
political parties that received 3% of votes in the parliamentary
elections, and the total amount is expected to reach ~@2m in case
desired changes take place, Vice-Chairman of the Heritage party Armen
Martirosyan told Tert.am as he commented on the bill envisaging
increased government financing of political parties, approved by
Georgia’s Parliament in its first reading.

“Government financing of political parties is generally practiced,
especially in European countries. This solves a major institutional
problem. If the government finances a political party, it becomes
independent of any other sources of financing. In Armenia’s case they
are oligarchic structures. When the government finances political
parties to citizens’ benefit, they serve the state interests rather
than oligarchic interests,” Martirosyan said.

At present, the Heritage party receives $10,000 a year from Armenia’s
government, which is not even sufficient for renting an office
in Yerevan.

“Opposition parties cannot carry out large-scale activities in
Armenia’s regions on the funds they receive from the government. So
government financing is most important – of course, not for all the
officially registered parties,” Martirosyan said.

According to him, proper government financing of political parties
results has economic benefits.

“If political parties – especially opposition ones – were financed in
Armenia, they would be able to expand their activities and supervise
the shadow economy, which would ensure better supervision over
budgetary funds and bring benefit to citizens,” Martirosyan said.

ARA PAPYAN: “THE RELATIONS WITH TURKISH ARE GETTING WORSE” (VIDEO)

[ Part 2.2: “Attached Text” ]

August 6 2013

The president of “Modus Vivendi” Center Ara Papyan, to the question
of Aravot.am whether it was not early for the condolence expressed by
Armenia’s Foreign Ministry on the occasion of Azerbaijani shepherd
killing by the Russian frontier at Turkish-Azerbaijani border,
answered,- “I do not think that we hurried, because the reaction,
in fact, was one or a day and a half later. It’s a different thing
that the Russian side gave a vague response to the first requests,
saying that the shepherd was armed and he was the first to shoot,
but the weapon was not presented. I’m still waiting for the Russian
side to present the weapon, and as long as there is no weapon,
the assertions are ungrounded. If the person is killed, naturally,
the gun must be in the territory of Armenia, he could not carry the
gun back. We did not hurry; simply we must have clearly demanded
the reaction of the Russian side, which was not done.” To the next
question whether this case will bring tension to Armenian-Turkish
relations, Papyan said: “Of course there will be tension because a
man has been killed, Turkish nationalism will use this, but I think
that this is also beneficial to other countries because it will wake
up fear in Armenians again, and I’m sure that many people will say
that relations with the Turks are getting worse. And what European
choice, because if we make a European choice, and Russians will not
defend us, the Turks we destroy us. This frame of mind instills in
the people. And who is interested in any incident or crime? This
gives rise to thinking.” To our observation that it was emphasized
that the deceased was Azerbaijani, whether it was done on purpose,
Papyan said: “Azerbaijani is a very abstract concept, I do not know
what an Azerbaijani is. Until recently Azerbaijani was the same
Turk, simply it was just the Shiite Turk, who was living in that
territory. Now, if he is a Shiite Turk, but, as I understood, was
once migrated from Azerbaijan, this is emphasized and here there is a
problem of inflaming anti-Armenian, i.e. inflaming Turks against us,
inflaming once again Azeri against us. There is a problem of putting
Armenians in a difficult situation.” 

Eva HAKOBYAN  

Read more at:

SAMVEL HARUTYUNYAN. “ARREST SURIK KHACHATRYAN, AND I WILL ATTEND THE POLICE.”

[ Part 2.2: “Attached Text” ]

August 6 2013

“The only true thing in the police statement is that I refused to
attend the police station,”- assured co-chair of Regional Defense
Committee, mayor of Goris for the period of 1992-1994 Samvel
Harutyunyan in a interview with Aravot.am, today. To recall you
that the Police told “Pastinfo” that Samvel Harutyunyan was called
to the police regarding the statements made in the press, but he had
refused to attend. According to Samvel Harutyunyan, “In the past two
days, on April 3 and 4, I was called by Colonel Badasyan, deputy of
the Police Department to Combat Organized Crime, and invited to the
Police. When I asked why I should attend the Police, for what issue,
he motivated that with regard to the statement related to security.

He said that he has been assigned a task to meet on that issue. 
First, I would not mind meeting anyone but I would not go to the
Police just for my security. I have suggested meeting and talking in
my apartment or in any cafe. I said that I have made a lot of other
statements, which helped me to reveal numerous serious crimes of the
past 23 years made by the anti-hero of our time, the former governor
of Syunik Surik Khachatryan and his gang, and associated with all
of those things, unfortunately, up to now the Police continues to be
indifferent. The criminal inaction is still going on. It is not that I
refused attending the police station, I have said that it is amazing
that after terrifying crime in Goris, during which Avetik Budaghyan
was killed, and his brother Artak Budaghyan was seriously injured,
Surik Khachatryan was not arrested for this crime, not detained,
but he was not even involved in these criminal acts. 

I have made respective statements in connection with several dozen
crimes. A whole series of facts was published with regard to these
crimes, and so far, even a criminal case has been filed in connection
with my statements. I have said, Mr. Badasyan, finally let the police
or the prosecutor’s office initiate a criminal case, I would not only
attend the police, but I will do my best to help investigation to
completely disclose  Surik Khachatryan’s crimes.” Samvel Harutyunyan
believes that the criminal case will be filed, moreover, in case of
detaining  Surik Khachatryan and his gang, cousin Sasun Khachatryan
Khachatryan, Surik Khachatryan’s brothers, their ‘murderous sons’,
many citizens will be present and will state many other crimes
committed by them. “50 crimes presented by me, in a short period
of time, may become 500 or more. We know that, unfortunately, the
inaction by the law enforcement system against Surik Khachatryan’s
crimes is continued, they are calling me just to show that they are
doing something. This simply means an imitation and nothing more. I’m
waiting for the criminal case to be filed an hour early, a minute
early, and Surik Khachatryan will be detained, including a number of
key figures of the gang, and I will attend the police station, and
do my best. With regard to my security, I will never present before
the police for some little conversation. I think that no matter my
life is important for me, my family, my dynasty, and my friends,
much more important are the consequences of my statements.”

Hripsimeh JEBEJYAN  

Read more at:

PRESSE ARMENIENNE : REVUE DU 6 AOUT 2013

Publie le : 07-08-2013

Info Collectif VAN – – Le Collectif VAN vous
presente cette Revue de Presse parue sur le site de l’Ambassade de
France en Armenie le 6 août 2013.

Ambassade de France en Armenie

Revue de la presse armenienne du 6 août 2013

En raison de cette periode estivale, plusieurs quotidiens ont arrete
leur parution.

I. Politique interieure

1. Le sit-in devant la Mairie se poursuit depuis maintenant 11 jours/Le
thème du transport en commun continue d’alimenter l’actualite. Le
Maire d’Erevan, Taron Margarian, se dit pret a dialoguer avec les
militants, determines a camper devant la mairie jusqu’au licenciement
des fonctionnaires municipaux ayant voulu mettre en ~uvre une hausse
du tarif de base sans concertation prealable. Les protestataires n’ont
pas accepte d’interrompre leur action a compter de la decision du maire
de maintenir pour l’heure le prix du ticket a 100 drams. L’entetement
des activistes est critique par certains milieux d’opposition qui
estiment inutile toute mesure de remplacement des fonctionnaires
en poste.

II. Questions regionales

1. Un homme d’affaire d’origine armenienne a ete tue dans une localite
près de Moscou/Le motif pourrait etre ses activites professionnelles.

Jamanak rappelle que c’est le deuxième assassinat en ce mois d’août
d’un Armenien dans la region de Noguin.

2. L’offensive de Moscou contre les immigres illegaux/Selon les
medias armeniens, les autorites russes traqueraient depuis cet ete
contre les immigres, notamment d’origine caucasienne. Joghovourd et
Jamanak condamnent les pratiques particulièrement rudes et humiliantes
appliquees par la police russe a leur egard. Selon Joghovourd, la
Federation de Russie tente par la de faire comprendre aux membres
de la CEI que seule l’adhesion a l’Union douanière garantit a leurs
ressortissants un accès libre en Russie. Le journal en deduit que fort
probablement les Armeniens auront prochainement besoin d’un visa pour
venir en Russie.

3. Le nouveau copresident americain du Groupe de Minsk de l’OSCE/Se
referant au site officiel du Departement d’Etat americain, la presse
en ligne annonce que M. James Warlick a ete nomme copresident du GDM.

Il assumera ses fonctions a partir de septembre.

III. Haut Karabagh

1. Communique du Ministère de la Defense de la RA/Un soldat armenien
a ete blesse la veille par un tir ennemi dans la region du Tavouche,
rapporte le service de presse du Ministère de la Defense.

Redaction : Sonia Machinian

Retour a la rubrique

Source/Lien : Ambassade de France en Armenie

DES DETENUS LIBERES EN RAISON D’UNE VIEILLE ERREUR JURIDIQUE

JUSTICE

PARIS (France), 06 août 2013 (AFP) – Un recent arret de la Cour de
cassation pourrait entraîner la liberation de “dizaines, peut-etre
des centaines” de detenus dont les peines seraient considerees
comme prescrites, selon Le Canard enchaîne a paraître mercredi. Le
ministère de la Justice a precise mardi soir qu’après verification
de la situation dans 10 cours d’appel (sur 36), 4 personnes, sur un
total de 628 condamnations, avaient ete remises en liberte.

Dans un arret du 26 juin, la Cour de cassation, plus haute juridiction
francaise, donnait raison a un franco-armenien, condamne par contumace
en 1989, et qui souhaitait regagner la France, après la prescription
de 20 ans en matière criminelle. Il lui avait ete oppose une serie
d’actes interrompant la prescription (delai a l’issue duquel la peine
ne peut plus etre executee). Or, la liste de ceux-ci avait ete fixee
par un decret de 2004 et la Cour de cassation a tranche que cette
liste ne pouvait etre fixee que par la loi.

La liste avait depuis ete etablie par une loi en 2012, mais la Cour
de cassation a donne raison au demandeur, qui contestait la validite
des actes interruptifs opposes a sa demande de prescription. L’arret,
qu’a consulte l’AFP, prevoit ainsi “qu’en l’absence de disposition
legislative applicable au litige, anterieur a l’entree en vigueur
de la loi n° 2012-409 du 27 mars 2012, les actes preparatoires a
l’execution d’une peine n’etaient pas de nature a interrompre le
cours de sa prescription”.

Selon le Canard enchaîne, la direction des affaires criminelles et
des grâces du ministère de la Justice a en consequence dû demander
aux differentes juridictions de verifier la situation “des personnes
condamnees et ecrouees au-dela du delai de prescription de la peine”
(20 ans pour les crimes, 5 ans pour les delits).

Elle a envoye une note a tous les parquets, selon l’hebdomadaire, leur
demandant de verifier si dans ces cas les actes interruptifs pris en
compte etaient valables ou pas et indiquant que dans ce dernier cas
“il conviendra de faire proceder immediatement a la levee d’ecrou”
(liberation). Le journal cite pour la juridiction de la cour d’appel
d’Aix le nombre de 245 cas “dont la situation doit etre immediatement
verifiee”.

Dans un communique, le ministère de la Justice a confirme avoir
demande “la verification des condamnations susceptibles d’entrer
dans le champ de cette jurisprudence restrictive sur la base d’une
estimation (…) qui s’elèverait a 3.499 pour l’ensemble des ressorts”
des cours d’appel. Les condamnations concernees sont celles prononcees
avant la loi du 27 mars 2012.

“En l’etat des verifications qui sont terminees pour 10 cours d’appel
(sur 36 en France, ndlr), pour un total de 628 condamnations, 4
personnes, dont les peines delictuelles (de 4 a 10 mois pour des faits
de violences conjugales, vol aggrave et degradation, abus de confiance,
falsification de chèques et usage notamment) avaient ete ramenees a
execution, ont donc ete elargies (remises en liberte, ndlr)”, a precise
le ministère. La Chancellerie affirme que “de nouvelles instructions
ont ete donnees pour que les verifications se terminent sans delai”.

Voir le lien en bas

mercredi 7 août 2013, Ara ©armenews.com

SUICIDE OU MEURTRE ?

Armee

Un officier des forces armees du Haut-Karabagh a ete arrete après
avoir ete accuse de mauvais traitements sur un soldat retrouve mort
la semaine dernière. Arman Muradian, 20 ans, est mort d’une blessure
par balle a la poitrine près d’une base militaire du Karabagh. Les
responsables militaires ont affirme qu’il s’etait suicide. Un
porte-parole du ministère de la Defense armenien a annonce que
l’adjoint du commandant de son bataillon, le major Emil Avetisian
a ete accuse d’avoir maltraite Muradian, ce qui l’aurait conduit a
se suicider.

Le père du soldat, Hovsep Muradian, pense toutefois que l’agent a
non seulement battu mais a egalement tue son fils Arman. Citant des
informations obtenues de sources anonymes dans l’unite de l’armee,
il a affirme que Avetisian a agresse son fils et deux autres soldats
pour ne pas avoir repondu a ses appels telephoniques depuis leur
poste d’observation.

” Il a tire sur mon fils. Je le sais “, a dit le père en pleurs,
resident d’un village du centre de l’Armenie.” Il devait etre
demobilise le 28 novembre. Pourquoi un sergent qui a servi pendant
20 mois se serait suicider ? “, a-t-il demande.

Hovsep Muradian a ajoute qu’il va essayer de rencontrer le ministre
de la Defense Seyran Ohanian. Beaucoup de militaires se sont suicides
au cours des dernières annees. En outre, les groupes de defense des
droits de l’homme mettent en doute les causes officielles donnees
pour les decès de militaires hors combat. Selon eux, l’armee a cache
beaucoup de meurtres pour sauver l’honneur de certains officiers. Le
ministère de la Defense nie ces allegations.

mercredi 7 août 2013, Laetitia ©armenews.com

NO, RUSSIA ISN’T ABOUT TO “LOSE” ARMENIA

The American Conservative
Aug 6 2013

By Daniel Larison ~U August 6, 2013, 11:13 AM

Walter Russell Mead wonders if Armenia will alter its security
relationship with Russia:

This festering tension has important geopolitical implications not
just for Armenia and Russia but also for Iran. Tehran has been making
overtures toward Yerevan recently, offering to expand economic and
security ties. But if Armenia chooses to turn instead toward the EU
and the West, and away from Iran and Russia, Iran might find itself
more isolated than it already is.

This isn’t going to happen, but it’s still worth considering why it
won’t. First, the Armenian government has no desire to rupture its
relationship with Moscow, and Armenia needs Russia as a patron far
more than Russia needs Armenia. Supposing that the Armenian government
wanted to end its post-Cold War security relationship with Russia, how
would it “turn” to the West? One of many reasons that Armenia remained
in Russia’s orbit for the last two decades is that the U.S. mostly
ignored Armenia and aligned itself with Armenia’s Turkish and Azeri
neighbors after the Karabakh war. Russia and Iran have maintained
good relations with Armenia for decades, and have prevented the
country from being economically isolated, so what incentive would
Armenia have to downgrade those relationships and seek closer ties
with states that pay much more attention to Turkey and Azerbaijan?

Even if Armenia successfully joins the EU, which will presumably be
a very long process in any case, it certainly isn’t going to become
part of NATO. Armenia wouldn’t be able to join the alliance while
the dispute over Karabakh remains unresolved, and there’s no evidence
that Armenians in or out of government want to do this. Joshua Kucera
summed things up last year in a report on Armenia’s relations with
NATO and Russia:

It’s just understood that Armenia’s ties with Russia are so strong
[bold mine-DL] that a few U.S./NATO cooperation programs here and
there aren’t going to make any difference.

As angry as the Armenian public may be at the moment, most Armenians
want to maintain good relations with Russia, a majority favors joining
Russia’s customs union, and as of 2011 75% of Armenians approved of
the performance of Russia’s leadership. This is not a country that
Russia is likely to “lose” anytime in the near future.