Author: Markos Nalchajian

PILGRIMAGE DEDICATED TO ARMENIAN FIRST REPUBLIC’S DAY TO BE ORGANIZED
IN SYUNIK
KAPAN, MAY 27, NOYAN TAPAN. On May 28, a pilgrimage dedicated to 87th
anniversary of the Armenian First Republic’s Day will be organized in
the marz of Syunik. About 40 thousand people from Syunik will
participate in this event symbolizing unity and solidarity. As Robert
Sargsian, the Deputy Governor of the Syunik marz informed the Noyan
Tapan correspondent, those from Sisian will gather in Zorats karer
(stones), pilgrims from Meghri and Kajaran will climb the Meghri
mountain pass, and those from Kapan will celebrate the holiday on the
territory of Vahanavan. On the same day, about 10 thousand people from
Syunik will move from Goris to Stepanakert where a khachkar
symbolizing the unity of Nagorno Karabakh and Syunik will be placed on
the 27th km of the Goris-Stepanakert highway.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

CONTRACEPTIVES KEY REASON OF GROWING CANCER RATE AMONG ARMENIAN WOMEN
YEREVAN, MAY 27. ARMINFO. Widely applied in Armenia nowadays
contraceptives are the key reason of the growing cancer rate among
Armenian women, Director of National Oncological Center of Armenia’s
Health Care Ministry, Professor Hayrapet Galstyan said at today’s
round table discussion on oncology organized on the initiative of
first lady of Armenia Bella Kocharyan.
48.7% of 6,174 cancer cases in 2004 were women against 46.2% of 4,705
cases in 1995 – a 833-time growth in a decade. 876 women proved to
have breast cancer in 2004 against 619 in 1995. Timely and regular
prophylactics is a good way to avoid cancer. Women of 20-30 should
undergo mammography once in 2-3 years, 40-year-old women once a year.
Bella Kocharyan said that the government should do its best to
preseerve women’s health – for a state is based on a family while a
family is based on a woman and her health. “Everybody knows that
Armenian women care for their husbands and children more than for
their own selves,” she said noting that the Armenian woman should
realize what important a role she plays in society and start paying
more attention to her health.

NATO SECRETARY GENERAL SEES NO MATTER OF PRINCIPLE IN WHERE
RUSSIAN MILITARY BASES WILL MOVE FROM GEORGIA
BRUSSELS, MAY 26. ARMINFO. NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop
Scheffer gives no big importance to where Russia will take its
military bases in Georgia.
The main thing is that Russia and Georgia should come to agreement
and that the bases should leave the Georgian territory. It is not
important at the current stage where they will go, Scheffer says in
an interview to the Mze TV company.
Scheffer wonders if Russia will show positive approach in the matter.
To remind, Russia is planning to take most of its Georgia-based
troops to its territory and some small part to Armenia, a
circumstance strongly vexing Azerbaijan and some Georgian experts.
Meanwhile Georgian Parliament Speaker Nino Burjanadze says that
“Georgia sees no threat from Armenia.”
Georgia and Russia have not yet agreed on the specific time of the
withdrawal. Russia wants to do it throughout 2008, Georgia wants it
to be done by the beginning of 2008 at the latest. At the current
stage it is known that the withdrawal will start from Akhalkalaki and
Russia will not pay Georgia a compensation for its bases deployment
in its territory. The sides have also agreed on creating a joint
Georgia-Russian anti-terror center headquartered in Tbilisi with
possible office in Batumi where Russia has a military base.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

13 YEAR PASSES SINCE LACHIN’S OCCUPATION BY ARMENIA
2005-05-18 09:35
Azerbaijan News Service
May 18 2005
May 18 of 1992 year marks collapse of Lachin region of Azerbaijan
which in fact ensured direct corridor between Armenia and Daqliq
Qarabaq after series of occupation pursued by the armed forces of
Armenia. Occupation of Lachin region was of great importance for
Armenia after occupation of Shusha on May 8 of the same year. Armed
forces of Armenia achieved their evil goals after fall of Lachin
region as gained took over control on the road here connecting Armenia
with Daqliq Qarabaq. Armenian leadership used this corridor to place
forces in occupied areas and supply with ammunitions. Lachin region
was established as an administrative unity in 1930 year and populated
63 thousand people in 1835 square meters area. There was a city and
122 villages in the region before occupation. Besides the region had
5 medical centers, 100 schools, 54 clubs and 88 libraries.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

ARMENIAN PARLIAMENT SPEAKER MET EU AMBASSADORS TO RA
Pan Armenian News
18.05.2005 06:55
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Today Armenian Parliament Speaker Artur Baghdasarian
met with the Ambassadors of the EU member-states to Armenia, NA Press
Service reports. During the meeting the interlocutors discussed the
process of constitutional reforms as well as the amendments to the
Election Code and the law ~SOn rallies, marches and demonstrations.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Great Neck Record, NY
May 12, 2005
Statement by U.S. Rep. Gary Ackerman: Holocaust Memorial Day
“Mr. Speaker, today is Yom Ha-Shoah, Holocaust Memorial Day, and I
rise to honor the memory of the six million Jewish souls extinguished
in the greatest act of organized depravity in history.
“There have been many barbaric regimes and there have been many other
vicious campaigns of annihilation undertaken both before and after
the Holocaust. Some even produced more victims. The Shoah, however,
is unique and is thus deserving of special attention, not because the
victims were Jews-many millions of innocent non-Jews were murdered by
the Nazis-but because the Holocaust revealed a painful and abiding
truth about humanity that remains with us. In the squalor of the
camps, in the ashes of the crematoria, and in the fires of the ovens,
it was demonstrated that the norms of civilization, the boundaries of
morality, and the protections of society and government are no more
protection than a fragile tissue of behavior, one torn aside with
shocking ease to reveal the latent bestiality in human beings.
“The imperative of Holocaust for us today, as legislators and
participants in American government is the same for all Americans
and, in truth, all humanity. That imperative is to remember. There
are many reasons why: To remember all those people murdered for the
crime of their birth and rededicate ourselves to preventing such a
crime from being repeated. To remember that bigotry and ignorance can
metastasize in politics with horrific consequences. To remember that
whole communities can be wiped out with the power of the modern state
and to recommit ourselves to the protection of the weak and
powerless. To remember all those men and women and children who were
cremated and dumped into mass graves, not just to end their lives,
but to deny their very existence.
“But most of all we must remember because it can happen again.
It is happening again. It is happening in Sudan right now, today.
Some 400,000 Sudanese have already been killed and, if today is a
typical day, 500 more will join them as the world wrings its hands
and wonders what to do. This lassitude, this fecklessness, this
disgraceful toleration of genocide is nothing new either. We saw it
when there was slaughter in Southeast Europe. And we saw it as a
genocide was perpetrated with machetes in Rwanda. And even before the
Holocaust, it happened to the Armenians and today we debate whether
it ever happened at all.
“We must remember the Holocaust because genocide is real. It is not
history, it is reality.
“Today, genocide is a reality in Sudan. Tomorrow, when Iran acquires
nuclear weapons, will we see the mullahs attempt to finish Hitler’s
barbaric work? Impossible? Incomprehensible? Sophisticated people
will ask, “Who would harness the power of a modern state to the
absurd goal of killings Jews? Who would risk their state over it?’
“We must remember. A world that doesn’t keep Auschwitz fixed in its
mind will see it rebuilt. We must remember.”
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

The New Anatolian, Turkey
April 27 2005
The Hair of Caliph Muavviye: Turkish-Israeli Ties
Ayse Karabat
There is a very old Arab story: Once Caliph Muavviye said that there
is a line like a hair between his people and himself. If the people
pull on this hair, the caliph gives some slack, and vice versa. So
this hair never breaks. In the Middle East, the expression of “the
hair of Muavviye” since then has been used to describe relations
which never come to point of breaking despite the occasional
tensions, like Turkish-Israeli ties.
For Turkey, from the very beginning the difference between the public
opinion and the “high interests” of the state plus the economic bonds
never weighed that much on Ankara-Tel Aviv relations.
Turkish-Israeli relations have always had ups and downs. But after
the Oslo agreements, bilateral relations came to the point of “the
sky is the limit,” as former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu said once. Up to now, the two countries have signed 66
agreements, and another one, foreseeing cooperation in the field of
research and development, is set to be signed.
But then again, during the former coalition government of Turkey,
when Israel started the “defensive shield” operation and reoccupied
the West Bank, the coldness started, especially when Bulent Ecevit,
then prime minister of Turkey, characterized what was going on as
“genocide”
Shortly afterwards, the war on Iraq started. Some Turks, including
some state officials, got suspicious about the designs of Israel for
the future of Iraq. The seeds of suspicions were there:
Maybe Israel wants an independent Kurdish state, maybe Israel would
like to have an alternative pipeline to Kirkuk-Yumurtalik namely,
Kirkuk-Haifa, although these suspicions were never voiced out loud.
It was also vice versa, it was never said out loud at the other side
of the Mediterranean, but a government with an Islamic drive in
Turkey might be a problem for Tel Aviv. And then the prime minister
of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, when commenting on the assassination
of the religious leader of Hamas, Sheik Ahmed Yassin, used the words
“state terror.”
This was the beginning of a new “cold cycle” of relations. But
Erdogan, who is a pragmatist, sent his four advisers to Tel Aviv and
then Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul. The death of Palestinian leader
Yasser Arafat served the interest of Ankara-Tel Aviv relations, too.
Plus, the disengagement plan of Israel and relatively smooth sailing
between Israel and Palestine laid the groundwork for the Erdogan
visit to Israel which will start next week. Israeli sources say that
Israel is ready to open a new page once more. Because Israel,
whatever the situation, needs Turkey. It needs friendly countries on
its periphery as indicated by David Ben-Gurion, the founder of
Israel.
Of course, the visit of Erdogan will be criticized among some circles
in Turkey. If it is not anti-Semitism but anti-Sharon feelings which
are really high in Turkey, especially among the supporters of the
ruling Justice and Development (AK) Party. The government will say,
“But we have very good relations with Arab countries too. Just look
what we did with Syria.” The government will also says that “our good
relations with Israel will serve the cause of peace,” which is one
hundred percent true. Erdogan will say also, “We’re friends with
Israel. Friends are obliged to tell the truth, so we criticized
Israel out of friendship.”
The difference of this visit from previous ones paid by Turkish
officials will have to do with regional issues. For example, one of
the commitments Israel might look for, regarding Iranian nuclear
power, will not be there. Instead, for the good of bilateral
relations there will be commitments, and this will be shown, as the
ministers of agriculture, defense, and energy with their wives will
accompany Mr. and Mrs. Erdogan.
Before visiting Washington, it’s always useful to get wind on your
back coming from Tel Aviv. Plus, it’s time to pay back for the help
of the Jewish lobby for their support against the Armenian “genocide”
claims.
Regardless of the political situation there are almost 2,500 Israeli
companies working in Turkey or doing business with Turkey. Not to
mention the almost 300,000 Israeli tourists coming to Turkey every
year. The trade volume, excluding military deals, reaches some $2
billion. Israel sells $700 million,and buys $1.3 billion from Turkey.
This trade volume is even bigger than the Israeli-Russian one,
despite the almost 1 million Israeli citizens of Russian origins.
This means, whatever the words, that deeds are at the core of
Turkish-Israeli relations, and yes, in the economic field the sky is
the limit and yes, the hair of Muavviye is stronger then ever,
because despite some suspicions and problems and Turkish public
opinion, it is in the form of dollars and reciprocal strategic
interests, and one cannot change this.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

International community against genocide
A1plus
| 13:21:45 | 21-04-2005 | Politics |
April 20 the UN Commission on Human Rights unanimously passed
Armenia’s resolution to the Convention on Genocide Prevention and
Condemnation. Though the Convention was adopted in 1984 the mankind
has not been freed from the evil yet. Thus, the resolution submitted
by Armenia is directed to unification of efforts of the international
community and development of mechanisms of genocide prevention.
Last year the UN Secretary General appointed Argentinean human rights
advocate Juan Mendes the Special Adviser on Genocide Prevention. To
date the Commission stresses the necessity of propaganda of genocide
prevention in accord with the Convention principles and notes that
the impunity threats with the repetition of the crime.
The main objective of the resolution is the genocide prevention as
a key instrument for regional and international peace and stability
as well as establishment of friendly relations between states.
To note, 52 countries, including the EU states are the co-authors of
the resolution.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Nagornyy Karabakh Republic [NKR] maps out five-year agricultural programme
Arminfo, Yerevan
16 Apr 05
Stepanakert, 16 April: The Ministry of Agriculture of the Nagornyy
Karabakh Republic [NKR] has prepared an agricultural sector
development programme for the period between 2006 and 2010, an
Arminfo correspondent has quoted the NKR minister of agriculture,
Vagram Bagdasaryan, as telling a news conference in Stepanakert today.
Bagdasaryan said that important components of the programme are
the development of seed growing using state-of-the-art scientific
technologies, as well as grape growing, livestock breeding, processing,
irrigation, etc.
Under the programme, the republic’s needs for meat will be fully met
by 2010 (currently the figure stands at 48 per cent).
Also, grain production is expected to increase four to five times,
while grape production is expected to reach 22,000 tonnes [presumably
per year].
[Passage omitted: other agricultural indicators]
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Financial Times – Deutschland
15. April 2005
Türkei stellt sich dem Genozid-Vorwurf widerwillig;
Premier Erdogan bietet geschichtliche Aufklärung nur bei Kooperation
Armeniens an · Türkischer Botschafter bestreitet Völkermord
AUTOR: Marina Zapf
Von Marina Zapf, Berlin
Die Türkei fordert 90 Jahre nach den Massakern an der armenischen
Minderheit im Osmanischen Reich die Regierung von Armenien auf, einer
gemeinsamen Aufarbeitung der Geschichte zuzustimmen. Premierminister
Recep Tayyip Erdogan schlug Präsident Robert Kotscharian vor, die
historischen Tatsachen durch eine gemeinsame wissenschaftliche
Untersuchung aufklären zu lassen. Die Archive beider Seiten sollten
dafür geöffnet werden.
Schon zuvor hatte die Türkei dem Nachbarn gemeinsame Forschungen
angeboten, nie aber schriftlich und mit Zustimmung des Parlaments.
Ankara reagiert damit auf wachsenden Druck aus Europa, die 1915 bis
1917 verübten Gräueltaten als Genozid anzuerkennen. Eine
entsprechende Resolution hatte das Europaparlament verabschiedet.
Kommende Woche berät der Bundestag über einen Antrag der
CDU/CSU-Fraktion, in dem der Vorwurf einer geplanten Vernichtung
enthalten ist. Der Antrag geht von 1,2 bis 1,5 Millionen Opfern von
Deportationen aus. Die Türkei weist die Zahl wie auch den Vorwurf des
Genozids zurück.
Das türkische Parlament appellierte an “ausländische Parlamente”, von
einer politischen Wertung der Geschehnisse Abstand zu nehmen. Es sei
“unpassend, sinnlos, willkürlich und ungerecht”, zu einem unter
internationalen Historikern umstrittenen Kapitel der Geschichte “aus
politischen Gründen Beschlüsse zu fassen” und “über die Richtigkeit
einer Seite zu entscheiden”. Ob Armeniens Regierung auf die
Versöhnungsgeste Erdogans reagiert, ist fraglich. Erst im Februar
hatte sie weitere Untersuchungen für unnötig erklärt. Der Botschafter
Ankaras in Berlin, Mehmet Ali Irtemcelik, erklärt dies mit der Furcht
vor unbequemen Wahrheiten. “Für die Umsetzung ist die Mitarbeit der
Regierung erforderlich”, sagte er der FTD.
“Sie wollen nicht darüber diskutieren, Historiker forschen zu lassen,
was wirklich passierte, weil sie wissen, dass die Geschichte sich
nicht so abspielte, wie sie es die Welt glauben machen wollen”, sagte
er. “Sie wissen, dass es keinen Völkermord gab.” Die Türkei werde
keine verzerrte Version der Geschichte akzeptieren. “In der Natur der
Wahrheit liegt es, dass sie sich über kurz oder lang durchsetzt”,
beharrte er. “Wir haben diesbezüglich keine Scheu. Wir sind es, die
herausfordern, damit die Wahrheit ans Licht kommt.”
Erste Versuche der gemeinsamen Aufklärung durch Vertreter staatlich
geförderter Institutionen gibt es schon. Die in Wien initiierte
“Armenisch-Türkische Plattform” geriet aber wieder ins Stocken.