Author: Kharatian Ani

ARMENIA’S FOREIGN TRADE TURNOVER WITH RUSSIA GROWS 70.3% TO $177.4MLN IN JAN-APR 2007

Arka News Agency, Armenia
June 1 2007

YEREVAN, May 31. /ARKA/. Armenia’s foreign trade turnover with Russia
grew 70.3% and made $177.4mln in January-April 2007, Armenia’s National
Statistical Service reported.

Exports from Armenia to Russia totaled $64.8mln (20% of the overall
exports from Armenia) in the period – a 2.87-time increase as compared
with January-April 2006.

Imports to Armenia produced in Russia made $112.7mln in the period
– a 38% increase. The total imports from Russia made $173.7mln (a
1.74-time increase) or 20% of the overall imports.

According to the statistics, 14.9% of the overall foreign trade
turnover of Armenia falls to the share of Russia, which is the
highest share among other countries. CIS countries provided 33.6%
of Armenia’s foreign trade turnover as compared to 29.3% in the same
period of the previous year.

The total volume of foreign trade turnover of Armenia increased 42.2%
against January-April 2006 and made $1,193.6mln. The exports totaled
$323.1mln and imports made $870.6mln in the period.

ANOTHER IRAQ WAR TO HELP THE TURKISH ISLAMISTS?
Dr. Muhammad Shamsaddin Megalommatis

American Chronicle, CA
May 31 2007

As the tension rises in the borders between Turkey and Iraq, Turkey
continues a military build up, and the pathetic Turkish premier
refuses refused to rule out action, we have to view the events in
the light of the recent internal strife that brought in Turkey the
secularist majority and establishment to a frontal opposition with
the villainous plans of the Erdogan – Gul clique.

The US needs Turkey more than Turkey needs the US

We have to add to the overall picture the recent developments between
Turkey and the US, namely the US incursion into Turkish aerospace. As a
matter of fact, the US administration has fallen victims of the most
disastrous advisers whose ability to cause unprecedented damage to
the US must be internationally recognized. If America had in Europe a
friend, an important country able to engage in a war without being
defeated within 48 hours, that country was neither pacifist and
quasi-neutralized Germany, nor pompous (and hollow) France, nor
unwarlike Italy; it was pugnacious Turkey.

Leaving aside the European weaklings, still today at a moment of an
undeniable Russian comeback, the US – all accounts made as regards
3 dozens of European states – can count only on Turkey, Poland, and
(taken as an island) the UK. This is definitely not much. At a moment
of Russian threats emanate every moment in terms of energy blackmail,
Middle Eastern confrontation involvement, support of Iran’s exploration
of its nuclear potentialities, and opposition to the US-led War against
the Islamic Terror, only a paranoid would think that America has the
slightest chance to protect its own interests from the African Atlas
to India, let alone prevail in the area, without an all-committed
alliance with Turkey.

The US needs Turkey so badly that the White House inhabitant and
his power sharing Congress and Senate opponents should compete for
Turkey’s favours, and incite Ankara to return in force from Somalia
to Caucasus and from Algeria to Iraq. Yet, demented Pelosi supports
unnecessary pro-Armenian resolutions (that concern the past, not the
present), and support is offered to the one Turk who has chances – if
ruling Turkey – to cause colossal damage to the US indispensable ally,
Islamic terrorist premier Erdogan. Even worse, the only warrantors
of Turkey’s superior military power are viewed rather inimically,
although they are politically and ideologically close the US ruling
class, and in addition are supported by an undeniably overwhelming
majority of Turks (oscillating around 70 to 75%).

The US indirect support to Erdogan is undeniable; suffice it to
read the New York Times, and you get the feeling that capital of
America is Mecca, and that Pelosi’s and Bush’s common enemy is
the Secularist Rainbow of Turkish political parties (Nationalist,
Conservative and Social-Democrat), which are expected to total 70 to
75% in the forthcoming July elections. The massive manifestations of
overwhelming popular rejection of Erdogan’s Islamist agenda did not
get adequate coverage in the US and the EU mass media, and when they
did, the reader would be maneuvered to be negatively predisposed.

Explosive situation between Turkey and the US in Iraq

However, last week two US F-16 fighter jets based in Iraq made an
incursion into Turkish airspace; anti-Erdogan and pro-secular Turkish
media interpreted the event as an attempt to intimidate Ankara into
refraining from any action inside Iraq. The US said the violation
of the airspace was "unintended" and was under investigation. Then,
the Turkish premier warned Washington there should be no repeat.

The event took place on a harassed background of Kurdish terrorist
guerilla that has long been highly and severely denounced by various
populations that inhabit along with Turks the SE provinces of Turkey.

Turkey made public the proofs of the PKK group’s involvement in the
recent suicide bombing in Ankara and in a landmine attack on troops.

The PKK has been supported and maneuvered by France since 1984,
and PKK’s demands for Kurdistan’s ‘independence’ have always met
France’s sympathies despite the outright majority of the non Kurdish
populations that the PKK claims as Kurds

Have repeatedly rejected this perspective, enjoying their status of
Turkish citizens. Turkey blames the group for 30,000 deaths since then.

With Turkey’ ongoing military campaign against the PKK in plain
action, with some of the Iraqi Kurds overtly supporting the PKK,
with the terrible oppression exercised by some tyrannical Iraqi
Kurdish groups over various Iraqi minorities in the area of Iraqi
Kurdistan (Turkmens, Aramaeans, Yazidis, Armenians, Circassians,
and others), and with the fanatic but naïve Turkish premier saying
in an interview with the private NTV news channel that Iraq, the
US and Turkey should carry out a joint operation against the PKK,
one understands the volatility of the situation. If one takes into
consideration that the US has warned Ankara that sending troops
into Iraq would complicate the situation, one can get the use of the
situation that the paranoid anti-Turkish US lobbying and the secretive,
racist, European Freemasonic lodges may attempt to make.

The forthcoming Turkish elections and the US way to help Erdogan

If we place the aforementioned within the context of the forthcoming
elections, we get a clear idea of what may soon be attempted.

As it happens, with the Turkish opposition uniformed into three
anti-Islamist parties, an ultra-nationalist (expected to gather 15 to
20%), a conservative (estimated at 10 to 15%), and a social-democratic
(projected to reach 25 to 30%), the loathsome Islamists have no chance
to achieve majority in the new parliament.

Their efforts to either elect an Islamic terrorist as president or to
modify the constitution will therefore fail, and normally a tripartite
coalition will run the country, re-launching Mustafa Kemal Ataturk’s
programs and projects. This would be disastrous for the anti-Turkish
side of the EU; they will not be in a position to demonize Turks
as Muslims (who supposedly do not drink alcohol during dinners and
lunches at Brussels) to later illustrate them as non European and
fanatic radicals. It will also be disastrous for the anti-Turkish US
lobbying because action will be drastically taken.

So, the EU and US forces that support Erdogan must act now; tomorrow
it will be very late, and they will not find an imbecile as Turkish
premier. How can they help Erdogan to win the elections he is going
to normally lose?

Turkey to annex Northern Iraq?

There is only one king maker in the world: Victory. In front of a
military victory, defeat of the PKK and the Iraqi Kurds, possible
merge with the Turkmens at Kirkuk, and even more theatrically,
eventual clash with the Americans in Northern Iraq, Erdogan would
certainly appear as the greatest man in the history of Turkey after
Ataturk. An annexation of Mosul, Arbil, Kirkuk, and Suleymaniyeh would
be presented by Erdogan as the end of the Kurdish problem, and a deal
with Iran and Russia would help him consolidate his grip in view of
the pending American departure. This would terminate the negotiations
with EU but Erdogan’s victory would mean to Americans and to lesser
extent to Europeans that their main obstacle in controlling Turkey
economically, the secular military establishment, lost the power
in Ankara. This would signal the beginning of a stronger US – EU
commitment to Kurdistan’s independence, and to Turkey’s defamation as
an Islamic extremist country whereby the Kurds ‘suffer’. Turkey’s inner
clashes, Turkey’s involvement in the deterioration of the European
states’ confrontation with their Muslim minorities, the formation
of an independent Kurdistan, the Turkish explosion in the Balkans,
and the establishment of the Russian – Turkish – Iranian alliance
would then trigger the most unbelievable political earthquake in
Europe’s History. What the apostate Freemasonic lodge was not able
to achieve during 50 long years will then be materialized within
months. The European Union they envisioned would then rise at last –
extremely different from the present one.

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HOUSES OF WORSHIP

Religious Compromise

An Armenian church in Turkey is restored thanks to a little give and take.

BY RICHARD MINITER

Friday, June 1, 2007 12:01 a.m.

VAN, Turkey–Our story starts with a small sandstone 10th-century
Armenian church, on an uninhabited rock less than 500 yards wide, in a
remote Turkish lake that changes colors like moods and sometimes
bubbles like soda. If you had seen the ruins of it, as I did in 2000,
you might cry. Its roof was gone. Its bas-reliefs, chiseled by master
carvers a millennium ago, of Adam and Eve, of saints and kings, were
wearing away in the wind. It was an empty husk that had not heard a
Mass in more than 90 years.

In March, after years of painstaking restoration, Turkey reopened the
church as a museum. Among the ambassadors and visitors at the opening
ceremonies, I roamed the grounds. The building is now magnificent. Its
roof is restored and its reliefs cleaned.

The Church of the Holy Cross is one of the holiest sites for Armenian
Christians, who once made up one-third of the population around
Van. They were driven out by the Ottomans in 1915, when some were
suspected of supporting Russia-backed terrorist attacks. During World
War I, the Ottomans were allied with Germany and Austria, fighting
Russia, Britain and France. While most Turkish historians concede
there was a massacre of Armenians (while pointing out that Armenians
slaughtered Turks from 1890 to 1915 and that most Armenians were
relocated, not slain), they hesitate to call it genocide. The
Armenians do not hesitate–and sometimes compare it to the
Holocaust. The Armenian Diaspora has emerged as a real political force
in Western Europe, complicating Turkey’s plans to join the European
Union.

The re-opening of the church was a peace offering by the AKP, Turkey’s
Islam-oriented ruling party, but all did not run smoothly at
first. After spending millions on the structure, the Turkish
government refused to restore the stone cross on the steeple. Turkish
journalists were quick to criticize. Ultimately, common sense
prevailed.

"I cannot say we will have the stone-cross back there tomorrow, but I
do not see any problem in that," Culture Minister Attilla Koc said. He
wanted time for an "academic council" to consider the issue. Mr. Koc’s
answer might not sound "revolutionary" to our ears, but Turkish News
columnist Yusuf Kanli declared it so. Many Christian churches have
been waiting for decades for permission to restore their churches at
their own expense.

At the opening of the Church of the Holy Cross, I met George Kumar,
bishop of Turkey’s some 20,000 remaining Roman Catholics. He said that
five churches in Istanbul alone are still awaiting approval to be
repaired. "I wish they would let us restore all of the churches," he
said softly, but he doesn’t want to push. "We will wait and pray."

Nor did Armenian Christians who attended the opening ceremonies
complain. They told me that they were there for history and for
peace. Of course, the Turks would buy a lot of goodwill by lifting
restrictions on repairing churches. Many Turkish politicians (even
members of the AKP) see it this way. But Egemen Bagis, the prime
minister’s foreign policy adviser and a member of Parliament, says
that "Turkey is a democracy, not a sultanate." Rebuilding churches
here is like building mosques in America and Europe, controversial
among ordinary citizens. Still, the blind machinery of the law lets
mosques go up in Boston, Chicago and the rural plains of
Virginia. Italy and Spain have seen some of the world’s largest
mosques change their skylines.

Mr. Bagis stresses religious tolerance. "In my neighborhood in
Istanbul, there are Christians, Muslims and Jews living
side-by-side. My children have Christian and Jewish friends." He is
right. That is the way forward.

So far, everyone has acted with admirable restraint. The Armenian
Patriarch, who spoke at the opening ceremonies, asked only if a Mass
could be celebrated in the church once a year. The culture minister
may let a cross grace the roof. Some 3,000 people have visited the
church since its re-opening earlier this spring. Turkey’s critics
focus on its Ottoman past and, more recently, its Islam-oriented
ruling party. They miss the spirit of compromise that prevails in the
republic. It is this spirit that unites Turkey with the West and
separates it from its Middle East neighbors. A difference made
manifest by a small church in Van.

Mr. Miniter is the Washington editor of PajamasMedia.com and a fellow
at the Hudson Institute.

Copyright © 2007 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

PUNISHMENT FOR PEOPLE WHO DON’T DESERVE IT
Joan Smith

The Independent – United Kingdom
Published: May 31, 2007

All over the world, repressive regimes are doing their best to
prevent the free exchange of ideas. They threaten, imprison and murder
journalists, authors and academics, and if they can’t do it themselves
they get their proxies to do it, which is what probably lies behind
the unsolved murder of the journalist Anna Politkovskaya in Moscow
last autumn. Three months later, the Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant
Dink was assassinated in Istanbul, and shortly after my old friend
Orhan Pamuk went into temporary exile, driven out of his own country
by death threats and a failed prosecution for supposedly insulting
Turkish identity.

These are dark times for those of us who believe that the free exchange
of ideas is a prerequisite of democracy, so my heart sinks whenever I
see misguided people urging cultural or academic boycotts of countries
whose governments they dislike. The ANC did it during the apartheid
years in South Africa, urging not just an economic and sporting boycott
but a cultural one as well, leading to an absurd situation where the
London production of a play by an author who opposed the regime was
threatened with a demonstration by anti-apartheid pickets. I was young
and naive at the time, so naturally I refused a request from a South
African women’s magazine which wanted to serialise my first novel,
only realising afterwards that the regime was no doubt perfectly
content at the prospect of a left-wing, feminist writer indulging
in self-censorship.

Twenty years later, the question of an academic boycott of Israel is
having a similar effect, dividing opponents of the current government
in that country. In Bournemouth yesterday, British academics ignored a
plea from Sally Hunt, general secretary of the University and College
Union (UCU), not to back calls for a boycott, reigniting arguments
which have been causing heated and sometimes bad-tempered debates
among British academics for the past five years.

The idea of a boycott returned to the agenda this week when delegates
from Brighton University and the University of East London urged
the conference to condemn the "complicity of Israeli academia in the
occupation of Palestine" and demanded a "comprehensive and consistent
international boycott of all Israeli academic institutions". Yesterday
Ms Hunt argued against the motion, suggesting that the supporters of
a boycott were out of step with the rest of the union. "Most want to
retain dialogue with trade unionists on all sides – not just those we
agree with," she said. She pointed out that this is the UCU’s approach
in Zimbabwe and Colombia, two regimes with at least as poor a human
rights record as Israel’s in the Occupied Territories.

Ms Hunt lost the vote but her position is absolutely right, and I
say this as someone who believes that the policies of the present
Israeli government towards Palestine and Lebanon are bullying,
counter-productive and a violation of human rights. It is obvious
to all but the most deluded Zionist that Israel will never live in
peace until it returns to its 1967 borders and allows the Palestinians
to share the economic prosperity enjoyed by most of Israel’s Jewish
population; the Israeli government also needs to abandon the fantasy
that it can defeat Hizbollah militarily, a conclusion that leading
Israeli politicians are still resisting in spite of the utter failure
last summer of their invasion of Lebanon, which caused terrible
civilian casualties and the widespread destruction of Lebanese
infrastructure.

As a result, Hizbollah’s domestic popularity has soared, entrenching
the Islamist organisation even deeper in a country which desperately
needs secular politics and producing quite the opposite effect to what
was intended; some commentators even argue that Tony Blair’s shameful
reluctance to call for a swift ceasefire made his departure from office
this summer inevitable, once again demonstrating the capacity of the
Arab-Israeli conflict to have an impact outside the Middle East. Indeed
I suspect it is the Israeli government’s stubborn refusal to listen
to a torrent of criticism from European politicians and human rights
organisations which lies behind the calls for an academic boycott,
and as a symptom of frustration it is just about comprehensible.

Frustration is closely linked to feelings of impotence, however, and
impotence rarely produces good politics. The principles at stake here
don’t apply only to Israel, even though it is more often the focus
of debates about academic boycotts than regimes elsewhere which are
as bad or worse; Putin’s Russia, for example, which is fast becoming
a rogue state that has no respect for the law and subjects the few
brave people who openly defy the government to relentless harassment
and threats. If academic boycotts really were an effective means
of shaming governments and changing policy, UCU delegates would be
threatening to withdraw co-operation from Russian universities –
and from academic institutions in countries which have fallen under
the influence of political Islam.

No matter how much I dislike the current Israeli government, I know
it isn’t Iran or Saudi Arabia, and it certainly doesn’t speak for
every single one of its citizens; it isn’t even Venezuela, where the
government is closing down TV stations. If individual academics in
Israel are slanting their research to suit the government, I have
no problem with the idea that their bias should be challenged and
exposed, but academic institutions should not be made a scapegoat
for government policies. On the contrary, boycotting them isolates
and undermines the very people the rest of us most need to engage with.

If the boycott is put into practice as now appears likely, it will
have a disastrous effect on individual careers and the exchanging
and challenging of ideas which is at the heart of academic freedom;
British academics will be urged not to attend conferences at
Israeli universities or invite Israeli colleagues to this country,
while some British academics might refuse to peer-review articles
for academic journals. You can call this a boycott, and produce all
sorts of justifications, but what it really amounts to is collective
punishment of Israeli academics, some of whom actively oppose their
government’s policy, and a form of censorship.

I have spent too much time observing the dire effects of censorship,
as carried out by authoritarian regimes and religious extremists,
to start recommending it as a means of effecting political change,
even to well-meaning people who can’t think of anything else to
do. If you believe in universal human rights, for the Palestinians
in the Occupied Territories or anybody else, the way to bring about
change is to identify and support those who agree with you and work
on changing the minds of those who don’t. Leave censorship to the
Putins and Mugabes and Chavezes, who already do it much too well.

WRONGDOERS WERE NOT PUNISHED

Lragir.am
31-05-2007 16:36:38

The chair of the Regional Development Center – Transparency
International Armenia NGO stated May 31 that the imperfections of the
legislations fostered electoral fraud on May 12, ARKA reported. Amalia
Kostanyan thinks the improvement of the electoral legislation is
welcome but not sufficient. A program is needed which will enable
punishing falsifiers, and since there is no such program, there is
no need to expect progress in the elections.

Amalia Kostanyan thinks hidden advertisement gives rise to major
problems.

She points to the use of the administrative resource, as well as the
attempts to use the celebration of the 15th anniversary of the army
for the propaganda of the Republican Party.

According to the NGO, the Republican Party spent 79.1 million
drams on the election campaign, Bargavach Hayastan spent 129.6
million. Meanwhile, according to the Armenian Electoral Code, the
highest sum to be spent on election campaign is 60 million drams.

According to the organization, there were breaches in the pre-election
period, during the voting and in the post-election period. Meanwhile,
the wrongdoers were not punished, and there is an atmosphere of fear,
Amalia Kostanyan says.

ARMENIA TO HAVE PEACEKEEPING BRIGADE BY 2011, GENERAL SAYS

Mediamax news agency
29 May 07

Yerevan, 29 May: The Armenian peacekeeping battalion, which was
formed in 2001, has proved that Armenian can be not only a consumer
of security but also contribute to international peacekeeping
operations, Maj-Gen Mikayel Melkonyan, the head of the Defence
Ministry’s department for international military cooperation and
defence programmes, has said.

He made the remarks today [29 May] when speaking at a news conference
dedicated to international Peacekeepers’ Day, marked on 29 May,
at the NATO Information Centre in Yerevan.

He said that currently, the seventh and fifth batches of Armenian
peacekeepers are serving in Kosovo and Iraq respectively.

Melkonyan said that the formation of "an effective peacekeeping
battalion within a short period of time would not be possible without
the support of our partners – Greece, the USA and Britain".

He said that the peacekeeping battalions will be transformed into
a brigade by 2011-12. Under the Individual Partnership Actions Plan
(IPAP) between Armenia and NATO, the brigade’s formation was scheduled
for 2015 but "we think that the process will be finished by 2011-12",
he said.

Melkonyan said that not only quantity-wise but also qualitative and
functional changes will be made when transforming the battalion into
a brigade and that the formation of the brigade will expand Armenia’s
opportunities to participate in international operations. Melkonyan
said that the number of peacekeepers will increase four to five times.

"It will be the most elite unit of the Armenian Armed Forces,
comprising professional and experienced servicemen," he said.

FOUR COUNTRIES APPLY TO PARTICIPATE IN JULFALAKYAN CHAMPIONSHIP

ArmRadio.am
30.05.2007 12:55

Four countries have submitted applications to participate in the
international Greek-Roman Style Wrestling Championship after Olympic
Champion Levon Julfalakyan to be held June 2-4 in Yerevan.

Levon Julfalakyan told Armenpress that Russia will present 3
teams. Iran, France and Georgia will also participate in the
tournament.

NKR PRESIDENT SIGNED A DECREE

Azat Artsakh Daily, Republic of Nagorno Karabakh [NKR]
30 May 07

President Arkady Ghukasian signed a decree on May 25. By this decree
the president conferred the rank of Lieutenant General to Major
General Movses Hakobian, the minister of defense of NKR, the acting
press secretary of the NKR President reported.

A CALL TO G8

ArmRadio.am
30.05.2007 17:41

14 activists of the "Greenpeace" international environmental
organization placed a poster on the top of Mount Ararat, calling on
the G8 leaders to undertake measures to save the globe’s climate.

"G8: It is the point from where there is no return: Immediately save
the climate," reads the poster on the height of 5 137 meters.

"If G8 leaders do not start acting immediately, it will be late
tomorrow, and the climate changes can be irreversible. We still
have time to save billions of lives and the environment from floods,
draughts and natural disasters," the representative of "Greenpeace"
declared.

On May 31 "Greenpeace" activists intend to open the model Noah’s
Ark on the height of 2.5 kilometers to call the attention of the G8
leaders to the issue of global warming.

YOUNG ROWERS OF ARMENIA PARTICIPATE IN COMPETITIONS IN MEMORY OF OLYMPIC CHAMPION VICTOR KRATASYUK HELD IN GEORGIAN CITY OF POTY

Noyan Tapan
May 29 2007

YEREVAN, MAY 29, NOYAN TAPAN. The traditional international kayak and
canoe competitions in memory of the Olympic champion Victor Kratasyuk
took place in the Georgian city of Poti on May 25-28. Armenia was
represented by 10 sportsmen.

In the competition of junior kayak rowers, Movses Grigorian took
first place both in one-seat kayak, and two-set one (together with
Artur Hovhannisian).

Vahan Aghajanian was in first place in the canoe competition. All of
them competed at the 200-meter distance.

In the youth competition (500 meters), Suren Harutyunian and Donara
Aivazian were announced the winners. Donara Aivazian also took first
place in a two-seat boat together with Narine Karapetian.

Members of the Armenian national kayak team Aram Andreasian and Gevorg
Asmarian will leave for Moscow on May 30 in order to participate in
the open championship of Russia.