Author: Nahapetian Samvel

‘TURKEY-ARMENIA BORDER COULD BE OPENED IF KARABAKH SETTLEMENT WAS REACHED’

news.az
April 14 2010
Azerbaijan

Erdogan, Obama Turkey desired to solve the issue through a diplomatic
and democratic way.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Tuesday that the
necessary messages were given regarding the speech to be delivered by
US President Barack Obama on April 24 during his talks in Washington
D.C.

Attending the opening of an exhibition in the US capital, Erdogan
replied to questions of reporters on his talks in USA.

Upon a question on his expectations from Obama’s speech on April 24,
Erdogan said, "I delivered a statement on this issue before.

Personally, I do not expect such a thing. I believe the necessary
messages have been mutually taken".

Noting that he had a 1.5-hour meeting with Armenian President Serzh
Sargsyan the other day, Erdogan said the ongoing process between
Turkey and Armenia was on the agenda of his talks with Obama as well.

Commenting on Sargsyan’s recent remarks in which he stated that "Turkey
could not use a pre-conditioned language while talking to Armenia",
Erdogan said, "In addition to the expression ‘without pre-conditions’,
the texts signed by Turkey and Armenia in Zurich also consisted of
a very important statement, which was establishment of regional peace".

Replying to a question on whether the border pass between Turkey and
Armenia would be re-opened, Erdogan said the border gate between the
two countries had been closed due to Armenia’s invasion of Azerbaijani
territory in 1993, adding that Turkey’s border with Armenia could
be opened if a settlement was reached and peace was provided in
that region.

"Turkey does not have the intention of forcing the opposite party
to accept the records of its memory. But in the same manner, other
countries cannot force Turkey to do such a thing either," the Turkish
prime minister said.

Regarding the developments concerning Iran, Erdogan said Turkey
desired to solve the issue through a diplomatic and democratic way.

Assessing the Nuclear Security Summit as well, Erdogan said measures
to be taken against nuclear terrorism and sanctions to be imposed on
such matter were on the agenda of the gathering.

Upon completing his talks, Erdogan departed from the U.S. capital
for Turkey.

AZERBAIJAN SATISFIED WITH TURKEY’S KARABAKH POSITION

News.Az
April 13 2010
Azerbaijan

Azerbaijan’s Foreign Ministry The Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry has
reacted positively to statements by the Turkish PM following his
meeting with the Armenian president in the USA.

‘Azerbaijan is satisfied that Turkey’s position on the resolution
of the Karabakh conflict is unchanged. Baku is satisfied with the
position of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Foreign
Minister Ahmet Davutoglu,’ Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry spokesman
Elkhan Polukhov said, commenting on statements by Erdogan and Davutoglu
on the Karabakh conflict settlement.

Hurriyet newspaper said that the Turkish PM told Armenian President
Serzh Sargsyan during their meeting in Washington yesterday of
‘Ankara’s support for Azerbaijan’s position on the occupation of
Nagorno-Karabakh by Armenians’. He said Turkey would not retreat a
single step on Karabakh.

‘Erdogan said that he wanted to see definite steps by Armenia to
withdraw from occupied Karabakh and that it would not make any
concessions on this issue,’ Hurriyet reported.

Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu confirmed in an interview
with Azerbaijani news agency APA that the Karabakh conflict was a
key issue in Erdogan’s talks with Sargsyan.

AUTHORITIES SHOULD NOT ATTACH IMPORTANCE TO WHAT OPPOSITION SAYS: ARARAT ZURABYAN

Tert.am
12.04.10

The positions of the Armenian side would be a little solid,
should Yerevan have a different approach towards the Armenia-Turkey
normalization, Head of Armenian Pan-National Movement (HHSh) Party
Board, Ararat Zurabyan said at a press conference today.

In his opinion it would be correct if Armenia ratified the
Armenia-Turkey Protocols before President Serzh Sargsyan’s visit
to Washington.

"May be it would be correct to ratify the Protocols without waiting
for Turkey [to do so], showing [the world] that Turkey is destructive
and avoids ratifying the Protocols. The Armenian side would have an
advantage only in this way," said Zurabyan.

Asked whether or not the authorities would be criticized, should
they have ratified the Protocols before Turkey, Zurabyan said: "I
think that each political unit, especially the one that is ruling,
should in many cases not attach importance to what the opposition
would say. I think the authorities should take the step, if they are
sure that it is the right thing to do and that it would be beneficial
for Armenia," explained Zurabyan.

Polish President’s plane crashes in Russia

armradio.am
10.04.2010 13:37

A plane carrying Polish President Lech Kaczynski has crashed near a
Russian airport, officials say.

Russian media reported that 87 people were killed in the crash near
Smolensk, and a regional governor was quoted as saying there were no
survivors.

Polish officials said Mr Kaczynski was on board along with his wife
Maria and several senior government figures.

The Russian emergencies ministry told Itar-Tass news agency the plane
crashed at 1056 Moscow time (0656 GMT).

Ministry spokeswoman Irina Andrianova said it had been flying from
Moscow to Smolensk, but had no details on the identities of those
killed.

Smolensk regional governor Sergei Antufiev told Russian TV that no-one
had survived.
"As it was preparing for landing, the Polish president’s aircraft did
not make it to the landing strip," he said.

"According to preliminary reports, it got caught up in the tops of
trees, fell to the ground and broke up into pieces. There are no
survivors in that crash.

ARFD parliamentarian: At the upcoming meeting with Serzh Sargsyan the
Turkish party will try to hold ratification of the Protocols on agenda

2010-04-09 15:52:00

ArmInfo. At the upcoming meeting with Serzh Sargsyan the Turkish
party will try to hold ratification of the Protocols on agenda,
Artsvik Minasyan, parliamentarian from ARFD, said at parliamentary
briefings on Friday.

He said the Turkish party will also try to feel the possibility of any
breakthroughs in linking the Armenian- Turkish and the Karabakh
processes. It is important for Ankara to find out also the US policy
towards Turkey in the light of the upcoming parliamentary elections in
Turkey, he said. President of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan and President of
Georgia Mikheil Saakashvili will represent the South Caucasus at the
Global Nuclear Summit on April 12-13 in Washington. President of
Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev has not been invited to the Summit. President
of Armenia has already agreed to meet with Erdogan.

To recall, Armenia and Turkey signed the "Protocol on the
establishment of diplomatic relations" and the "Protocol on the
development of bilateral relations" in Zurich on October 10. To come
into effect the protocols must be ratified by the Parliaments on each
side.

OUR HOLOCAUST, BUT NOT OURS ONLY

Huffington Post
r-holocaust-but-not-our_b_528796.html
April 7 2010

This coming Sunday evening in Israel and around the Jewish world,
is the Holocaust Remembrance Day (in Hebrew, ‘Yom Ha’Shoah’). It
is a well-known, accepted and respected reality amongst the Jewish
people that the horrors of World War II and the atrocities against
the Jewish people are a national tragedy. Few, however, are aware that
this national tragedy became a de facto national strategy, as well.

A few years ago I addressed this concept in my book titled, The
Holocaust is Over; We Must Rise From its Ashes (Palgrave Macmillan
2008). In the book I argued that we must always remember the victims,
their hopes, prayers and legacies, but we should never allow ourselves
to live, or get permanently stuck, in that traumatic past. I fully
believe that we have to think about our today and tomorrow differently
than this terrible past. Therefore, I offered a new national strategy
in which we, as a people, can and must move from trauma to trust. Many
were incapable of listening to me and to such ideas and rejected it
outright, while others embraced it with enthusiasm. Of those who
accepted my proposal were my teachers and mentors; my children. I
would like to share with you several passages from the book that were
inspired by their wisdom. I hope to convey through these excerpts the
origin of my proposed strategy and the importance of implementing it
today for ourselves and for our future generations:

"I look at the photos that my children send me from their travels
around the world. I try to perceive the faraway landscapes from their
vantage point and to share their experience through the images. They
travel not only to distance themselves from the impure experiences
of an army, war, occupation, corruption and cynicism, but also in
search of other landscapes, spiritual ones. The new spirituality that
is revealed to them is contained in their letters home. We miss you,
Dad, we long and yearn to be with you, but we find here what we don’t
have at home. We love and want to love even more. We, the generation
of the new age, are open to and enriched by meetings and encounters
with whatever is different from us. We are not threatened and do not
keep to ourselves; on the contrary. My children, our children, seek
an encounter with worlds that have not been tainted with the bloody
Shoah. They search for a spirituality that is based on dialogue, not
trauma. They seek the calm of Buddhist countries and want to bring it
back home with them to put us all on a softer course of life that is
accepting and containing, not hostile, suspicious, sharp-edged and
rejects all. They are children who touch the spiritual even though
they are not religious…"

"The new paradigms that originated from the Shoah must be sensitive
and directed toward the creation of a better human and better humanity,
toward people and cultures that will never again produce slaughterers
like the Nazis and will not allow victimization. One law will be
in the land for the persecuted of the entire world, whatever group:
Armenian, Gypsy, Jew, homosexual, migrant, or a refugee from Rwanda,
Cambodia, or Palestine. The new theology, especially the Jewish one,
must break out of the boundaries of the old faith and make the faith in
the human, God’s creation, a tenet of its legacy and traditions, as a
mandatory basis for a dialogue between the believers of all faiths…"

‘Two people emerged from Auschwitz,’ wrote Professor Yehuda Elkana,
a wise man, a Shoah survivor, and an early mentor to me, ‘a minority
that claims ‘this will never happen again,’ and a frightened majority
that claims: ‘this will never happen to us again.’"

During this sad and moving weekend, when I will think about my dear
ones, the innocents who were perished at the hands of the Nazis, I
will be comforted by the wisdom of my children and my teachers. And
again, as in previous years, I will renew my vow: Never Again! Not
just for us — the Jews — only, but for all of humanity. "For this
is the whole duty of man" (Ecclesiastes, Ch. 12 v.13).

KARABAKH TO BE DISCUSSED AT OSCE PA SPRING SESSION

news.az
April 8 2010
Azerbaijan

Deputy speaker of Azerbaijani parliament has commented on the topics to
be discussed at the spring session of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly.

During all sessions of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly, the Azerbaijani
representatives are raising the issue of the occupational policy of
Armenia. The aim is to expose the occupational policy of Armenia and
present the truth to the world community. News service for the ruling
party of Azerbaijan reports that the due statement was made by Bahar
Muradova, chief of the Azerbaijani delegation in the OSCE Parliamentary
Assembly and deputy chairman of Milli Medjlis (Azerbaijani parliament).

According to Muradova, the spring session of the organization will
raise the Karabakh issue. "The problems of the region are discussed at
the OSCE session. In this sense, the Karabakh problem may be discussed
at the next session", she said.

The session of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly will be held in Almaty
on May 13-17.

NIKOLAI UREKI: "NATO STANDS FOR PEACEFUL SOLUTION TO THE NAGORNO-KARABAKH CONFLICT WITH THE ASSISTANCE OF THE OSCE"

APA
April 9 2010
Azerbaijan

Baku. Viktoriya Dementyeva-APA. "NATO stands for peaceful solution
to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict with the assistance of the OSCE."

Romanian ambassador to Azerbaijan Nikolai Ureki said, APA reports. The
ambassador noted that the conflict is affecting the region as a whole:
"Any conflict – this disaster, so NATO stands only for the peaceful
resolution of this conflict. The Alliance does not intervene directly
in the negotiations process, as they are conducted within the framework
of the OSCE Minsk Group ".

Ureki added that NATO cooperates both Azerbaijan and Armenia with
balanced policy, as both countries are the partner countries of
the Alliance.

Note that, the Romanian Embassy in Azerbaijan performs the function
of coordinating NATO’s embassy in Azerbaijan.

MHP REITERATES OPPOSITION TO REFORM PACKAGE

Today’s Zaman
April 7 2010
Turkey

Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) leader Devlet Bahceli has criticized
the ruling Justice and Development Party’s (AK Party) constitutional
reform package, stating once again that his party will not support it.

Speaking to members of his party during the MHP’s parliamentary group
meeting yesterday, Bahceli said the AK Party has "forgotten" about the
MHP for the past two-and-a-half years and has sometimes even been "put
down." He stated that his party has been calling for constitutional
change for years. However, he said they were against the AK Party’s
proposed package, noting that de-militarizing a constitution cannot
only be possible by having civilians redraft it. "The 1982 Constitution
was prepared by a commission of civilians appointed by the military."

He said the current reform package waiting for a vote in Parliament
was being forced on the country by the AK Party. He also claimed
that the AK Party had withdrawn the package two days ago due to
controversy surrounding the existence of Parliament Speaker Mehmet
Å~^ahin’s signature among the signatures under the proposal.

Bahceli claimed that those deputies whose signatures appear on the
proposal do not know that their signatures are there. "This will be
remembered as an unprecedented scandal in the history of the republic."

Bahceli also criticized the AK Party’s foreign policy, particularly
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s decision to pay an official
visit to the US, where a resolution recognizing the 1915 killings of
Anatolian Armenians as genocide was passed by the US House Committee
on Foreign Affairs not long ago. He said Erdogan’s initial reaction
to the genocide resolution had been welcomed, but the government has
been quick to backpedal on that stance. He accused the AK Party of
acting as a regional agent for global powers.

Meanwhile, a former MHP deputy, Orhan Bıcakcıoglu, who is still
a member of that party, said the right move would be to back the
constitutional reform package. "If I was in Parliament as a MHP deputy,
I would vote in favor of the package. I will vote yes if there is a
referendum on it," he told Karadeniz’den, a local newspaper in the
Black Sea region. He said the package was not an AK Party project,
noting that any party would have done it. "It just happened to occur
under their term," he said.

ARMENIA TO GET 157.3 MILLION EURO WITHIN ENPI

PanARMENIAN.Net –
April 6, 2010 – 14:58 AMT 09:58 GMT

EU Commissioner for Enlargement and European Neighborhood Policy Stefan
Fule and RA Minister of Economy Nerses Yeritsyan signed a Memorandum
of Understanding regarding the National Indicative Program 2011-2013
for Armenia.

On March 2, 2010, the European Commission based on bilateral
negotiations with the Republic of Armenia adopted the National
Indicative Program 2011-2013, which foresees an indicative allocation
of 157.3 million euro from the European Partnership and Neighborhood
Instrument (ENPI). This includes a minimum of 32 million euro earmarked
for the Comprehensive Institution Building program and a minimum
of 7 million euro reserved for the Cohesion Policy. The assistance
will focus on three priority areas – democratic structures and good
governance; trade and investment, regulatory alignment and reform;
Socio-economic reform and sustainable development.

The principle objective of the EU-Armenia cooperation is to develop
an increasingly close relationship between the EU and Armenia, going
beyond past levels of cooperation to deeper political cooperation
and gradual integration.