Author: Khoyetsian Rose

KARABAKH ISSUE DISCUSSED IN AZERBAIJAN
A1+
[03:52 pm] 24 May, 2006
Co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk group Yuri Merzlyakov, Bernard Fassier and
Steven Mann met the heads of the Foreign Ministry of Azerbaijan. The
meeting lasted 1.5 hours but no statement followed, agency “Trend”
reports.
Deputy Foreign Ministers of Russia and France and assistant of the US
State Secretary Daniel Fried also participated in the meeting. The
co-chairs will meet the President of Azerbaijan today after which
they will make a statement about the course of the settlement of the
Karabakh conflict.
The sides are to take decisive steps for the final settlement of
the conflict, but final clarification of the negotiation process
will be done at the end of the week, Daniel Fried announced. He
reminded that this is the third time he has visited Azerbaijan for
the last 6 months. “My aim is to find ways for the settlement of the
conflict. The population of the region has the right of peace.” Daniel
Fried underlined that “the states are to take steps in that direction”.
“President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliev and President of Armenia Robert
Kocharyan are able to settle the conflict peacefully,” the American
diplomat thinks.

THE RUSSIAN SIDE WORKS VERY WELL, RA AMBASSADOR TO RUSSIA CONSIDERS
ArmRadio.am
22.05.2006 15:22
The recent pessimistic statements from Russia about the search for
the black boxes of the crashed A-320 create the impression that there
isn’t the earlier interest in finding the recorders of the plane and
revealing the real reasons of the disaster. The opinion is not shared
by RA Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to Russia Armen
Smbatyan, who said in his interview to ” Radiolur” correspondent Zara
Sargsyan, “The Russian side is working very well. They apply every
effort to extract the black boxes. I’m sure that at least one of the
boxes will be lifted.”
Commander in Chief of the Air Forces of Russia Vladimir Mikhailov
declared on May 16 that the Armenian A-320 crashed because the pilots
did not consider the weather conditions.
In his words, the captain of the plane took a completely correct
decision to return to Yerevan.
“They had to return,” Vladimir Mikhailov said.
He declared also that the expenses for extracting the black boxes of
the crashed plane are not justified.
It has been a week already that we know only the scarce information
that the recorders lie 496 meters deep in the water and the distance
between the black boxes is five meters.
According to the data provided by the operative staff, RT-1000 robot
was applied, which came across “fragments resembling those of the
black boxes of the crashed A-320.” Some fragments are suck into mud,
which slows down the search works. The search works are hindered also
because of weather conditions.
Besides, the devise cannot operate long under water. The specialists
have to extract the devise from the water to clear the camera and
the searchlights of mud.
It is not known how long the search works will last. 17 days have
passed since the disaster. In 13 more days it will be useless to
speak about the extraction of the black boxes and decoding of the
information, since in a month the radio beacons stop to produce
signals.

RUSSIAN HISTORIAN: TURKEY SHOULD RECOGNIZE THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE
Yerkir
23.05.2006 15:57
YEREVAN (YERKIR) -Turkey should recognize the Armenian Genocide of
1915, as the fact is grounded by undisputable proofs, head of 19th
century department at the State Historical Museum, PhD in history
Viktor Bezotosny has told a REGNUM correspondent.
According to him, the question of recognizing the “historic truth” is
a question of time. “The whole world knows about the events of 1915
and calls them Genocide. It strange, that only one country rejects
it and tries to misinterpret and escape from historic facts.
There good and bad pages in history of any country. Well, they should
maker bold and take responsibility to tell the truth, otherwise
memory of those killed in those awful years is being defiled,” Viktor
Bezotosny is quoted as saying. The historian believes that the Armenian
Genocide of 1915 and the Holocaust are results of domestic policies
pursued by countries that committed such villainy.
It is worth mentioning, Russia recognized the Armenian Genocide
officially.
Fact of the Genocide was recognized by many countries, including
France, Uruguay, lower chamber of the Italian parliament, several
US states, parliaments of Greece, Cyprus, Argentina, Belgium, Wales,
Swiss National Council, Canadian House of Commons and Polish Seym.

IN ALL PROBABILITY, RPA AND ULP CANDIDATES TO BE NOMINATED FOR NA VACANT RULING POSTS
Noyan Tapan
Armenians Today
May 22 2006
YEREVAN, MAY 22, NOYAN TAPAN – ARMENIANS TODAY. For the present,
the National Deputy MP group is not inclined to assume any post in
the executive and legislative bodies that are or will be vacant as a
result of the Orinats Yerkir (Country of Law) Party representatives’
resignation from their posts. Group member, MP Hakob Hakobian
from Echmiadzin electoral district N 26, said this in response to
Noyan Tapan correspondent’s question. According to him, it is not
expedient to assume responsibility for the things done or not done
by their predecessors in the short period before the forthcoming
parliamentary elections. The parliamentary opposition, the Ardarutiun
(Justice) and National Unity factions, have already made decisions
not to take part in the nomination of candidacies and voting for the
vacant parliamentary posts. The two parliamentary coalition forces,
the ARF Dashnaktsutiun and the Republican Party of Armenia, as well
as the United Labor Party prefer not to disclose the agreements on
nominating candidacies for the vacant parliamentary posts for the
present motivating this by the fact that the discussions are not over
yet. According to unofficial information, an agreement has been reached
on nomination for the NA Speaker’s post: it was reserved for RPA, which
intends to nominate the candidacy of NA and party Vice-Chairman Tigran
Torosian. Recently some MPs discontent with this nomination did not
exclude that against the agreement they will nominate and will support
the candidacy of RPA faction head Galust Sahakian. But in response
to journalists’ question on May 22 G.Sahakian said that in case of
such development of the events he will withdraw his candidature.
In case of T.Torosian’s election as RA NA Speaker the post of RA NA
Vice-Speaker will also remain vacant. Besides, the parliament should
elect Chairmen of Standing Committees on Defence, National Security
and Internal Affairs, as well as on Social, Healthcare and Nature
Protection Issues. In the coming days both of these posts will be
announced vacant when the resignations of OYP members Mher Shahgeldian
and Gagik Mkheyan are considered accepted. According to our reliable
information, an agreement has been already reached on nomination of
ULP faction candidate for the post of the Chairman of NA Standing
Committee on Defence, National Security and Internal Affairs. The
candidacy of Artur Petrosian, member of the above-mentioned faction
and committee, will be nominated for this post. The ARF Dashnaktsutiun
does not aspire to the leading positions at NA and intends to remain
loyal to the agreements to be reached finally.

Journal of Turkish Weekly, Turkey
May 22 2006
What! Ten points for Armenia?
21 May 2006, Sunday
JTW Ankara
This week was such a mess and yesterday night was the crème of the
whole week. Eurovision song contest 2006 was a near-tragedy for
Turkey. Honestly, it was a tragedy. But there is a good news and a
bad one. Good news is we just gave 4 points to Greece and they gave a
miserable 3 points to us. That means we are still enemies, so my
columnist career can survive.
Bad news is, and it is really bad, we gave 10 points to Armenia. Read
it: Turkey has given 10 points to Armenia. What is happening? You
lazy Turkish viewers, learn something from the holy Armenians, don’t
you! No points to Turkey. That is the enemy spirit. Well done boys!
So how come Turks have given 10 points to their troublemaker
neighbors? Before analyzing that, I will try to find out the reasons.
First theory is, there are lots of Armenians living in Turkey, but
there are no Turks living in Armenia. In the past, two Turks to save
Armenian allegations have visited Armenia. One of them attacked, the
other one jailed. Actually they were secret Turkish agents to
manipulate the voting in Armenia. Our grand national strategy was to
accommodate them in Yerivan and let them vote for Turkey during this
year’s Eurovision final. But our plan has been disrupted by clever
and drunk Armenians.
Second one is, Armenian cell phone users can use Turkish mobile
operators, but Turkish cell phone users can not use Armenian
operators. Hmm, I have no idea about this theory, but this is the
beauty of being a journalist. If you have a reliable source, it
becomes news, if you do not have, it becomes newsiction
(news+fiction)
The third and the least likely one is, we love Armenians but they
hate us. Actually this is the opposite. Armenians need their
compassionate love for Turks to unite in the Diasporas or to
brainwash their kids with their unilateral view of the history. But
we do not need Armenians for defining our national identity. But,
they love us such that they build monuments around the world with
both our nations name on it: `Armenians & Turks’…. Not reaaally a
love…. we only have problems with the verbs on these monuments!
So, what made Turks vote for Armenia! If this was a question in the
Turkish secondary schools entrance exam, the likely answers will be :
1st, 2nd, 3rd, 1st and 3rd, none of them, all of them. The answer is
none of them.
Before writing some more nonsense about the Armenian entry, I would
like to say a few words about our song. `Superstar’, the Turkish
entry, was not really bad. But it was missing what Sebnem Paker and
Sertab Erener’s songs achieved. And that is something about Turkish
culture!. I do not expect doner&kebap and baklava there, but at least
there should be something related to Turkish music culture. We have a
rich culture and we should have made the best out of it.
Now back to subject. This year’s Armenian song and last year’s Greek
song were having more Anatolian sounds than the Turkish songs of
these years. Last year, the Greek song was popular in Turkey even
months after the Eurovision final. Don’t get surprised, if Armenian
song repeats that.
Nevertheless, there may be a political voting effect as well. In the
last three years (or more) Turkey has given at least one of its big
points to Orthodox world. The other one has gone to culturally close
friends. (Like Bosnia this year-12 points). But the
Anatolian-familiar sound was the dominant effect, I guess.
It is this familiar sound and Turkish people’s good intention -which
I lack because I was sleeping during the contest- that awarded 10
points to Armenia. Now reverse the previous sentence and it explains
the 0 points that Armenia generously gave to Turkey.
As a result, I am proud of my fellow citizens and not very proud but
fine with the Turkish song. Turks has something that most of the
world needs now. As (lazy) Turkish viewers demonstrated last night,
Turks have the positive attitude and constructive efforts that is
nearly extinct in this world. Maybe Turks are not good song writers
or performers, but still Turkish people have better intentions to
build a peaceful future for the next generations. That is what I was
proud of, this morning.

AMERICAN STYLE THE MISTERY OF OPTIMISM
Tigran Avetisian
Aravot.am
18 May 06
The US State Secretary representative Mathew Brayza speaking on
the possibilities of the NK conflict settlement in his speech in
the Congress on 16 of May declared that the parties were close to
the agreement than it was in the past. “The US positively marks the
possibilities of reaching agreement between Armenia and Russia”,
the American diplomat stressed mentioning time limits of that
optimism. That is “next some weeks”, during of which by the State
Department official’s words “the governments of both countries must
be brave and overcome discrepancies”.
Let’s record a thing; a lot of declarations of different American
officials make us change the classic meanings of some words and
expressions. The most descriptive is perhaps ”optimism”. That quality
resides at Americans and we should argue that they don’t loose their
optimism even in the most difficult situations of the life and they
always smile. It is righter; according to a lot of psychologists
optimistic mood helps to bear the difficulties. Anyway we can’t ignore
that from time to time publicly expressing ”optimism” means a/ that
word has changed its meaning and is used by other meaning, b/ there
are serious reasons for optimism about which we aren’t informed enough.
The possibility of the first version isn’t so big. So we have to
examine the second version. But in that case we face to another
American quality, pragmatism. A thing, which isn’t combined with
optimism. Or maybe Brayza combines it.
–Boundary_(ID_BRcBtp0E9Ix0hY03Cmnn9g)–

NATO SECRETARY GENERAL’S SPECIAL REPRESENTATIVE TO SOUTH CAUCASUS AND CENTRAL ASIA TO COME TO ARMENIA ON MAY 22
Author: A. Mammadov
TREND, Azerbaijan
May 19 2006
On May 22 NATO Secretary General`s Special Representative to South
Caucasus and Central Asia Robert Simmons to pay a two-day visit
to Armenia.
As “APKA” Agency was informed at the Press and Information Department
of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Armenia today,
meetings with Armenia`s President Robert Kocharyan and Prime Minister
Adranik Markaryan, the Armenian Parliament Vice Speaker Tigran
Torosyan, Deputy Foreign Minister Arman Kirakosyan and other ones
are envisaged during the visit.

UNFAVORABLE WEATHER CONDITIONS HINDER THE SEARCH WORKS IN THE BLACK SEA
ArmRadio.am
18.05.2006 16:07
Unfavorable weather conditions hinder the search works at the site of
crash of the A-320 plane, the operative staff of technical assistance
informs.
Strong wind started at night. It made hard for the RT-1000 deepwater
devise to operate at the bottom of the sea. However, attempts are
made to continue the search works.

Advancement
The newsletter of fundraising and philantropy at Boston University
06/spring/armenia/index.html
Spring 2006
Lessons in Modern Armenia
BU Alumnus’s Bequest Will Fund New Courses

He may have had a Ph.D. in English from Boston University, and have taught
English for some fifty years, but Charles Kenosian’s early days as a scholar
weren’t promising: he failed kindergarten. That really wasn’t his fault –
when he started school, he spoke only Armenian. After being held back, and
clearly learning a second language very quickly, he got a double promotion.
“He was a smart guy,” says his sister, Elisabeth Kenosian.

Kenosian had an abiding interest in his heritage, and it bothered him that
many Americans knew so little about Armenia’s history and heritage.
Kenosian, who died in January 2005, was upset that many of his students and
even some professors at Salem (Massachusetts) State College were so ignorant
about the country. “He heard an awful lot of students who thought Armenians
are Muslims,” Elisabeth reports, especially ironic because Armenia was the
first country to adopt Christianity as its state religion, in the year 301,
and has been the bastion of Christianity in that region for over 1700 years.

Kenosian’s desire that Americans – especially young people – gain a greater
understanding of Armenia will be taking the form of new courses in modern
Armenian history and literature at the College and Graduate School of Arts
and Sciences, thanks to a generous bequest from Kenosian through the Charles
and Elisabeth Kenosian Endowment Fund. Armenia’s ancient history is the
subject of programs at other universities, but the new courses are intended
to focus on events since the 1800s, when Armenia was part of the Ottoman
empire, through to its current status as a republic.

“Among the special relationships that the deanship opened for me was to have
known Charles Kenosian, a dedicated teacher and man of dignity and
distinction,” says Jeffrey Henderson, dean of Arts and Sciences. “He was a
regular supporter of arts and sciences at BU, and his generous bequest will
make a special addition to the College and Graduate School’s course
offerings directed toward an important culture in an increasingly important
part of the world.”

Kenosian wanted his legacy to “go to an academic source,” says Elisabeth,
“and BU was where his close ties were, and where he began his teaching
career.”
—
Taylor McNeil
Editor
Bostonia
Boston University
10 Lenox Street
Brookline, MA 02446
617-353-7350 (v)
617-353-6488 (f)
[email protected]

PROGRAMS OF 572 THOUSAND DOLLARS TO BE IMPLEMENTED IN 6 RURAL COMMUNITIES OF TAVUSH MARZ WITH WORLD BANK FINANCING
Noyan Tapan
May 17 2006
IJEVAN, MAY 17, NOYAN TAPAN. A program on development of rural
enterprises and small commercial agriculture has been operating in
Tavush marz since early 2006. Pavel Tsutsulian, Coordinator of the
Tavush marz assistance team, told NT correspondent that work of the
total amount of 572 thousand USD will be carried out this year in
6 rural communities of the marz: Choratan, Verin Karmiraghbyur,
Norashen, Berkaber, Barekamavan and Archis. Under the program,
11 pieces of equipment and a bus will be purchased, as well as gas
supply services will be provided for the village of Archis. 6 pieces
of agricultural machinery will be acquired for Barekamavan, 3 – for
Norashen, 4 – for Verin Karmiraghbyur, and 2 pieces of machinery
– for Choratan. A 1-km drinking water pipe and a 3.5-km drinking
water network will be constructed in the village of Berkaber. A 8-km
drinking water network will be built in Norashen, and a 4-km one – in
Verin Karmiraghbyur. Milk purchase sites will be opened for Norashen,
Choratan and Verin Karmiraghbyur communities.