Author: Nahapetian Zhanna

Protests against Varna District Governor over Armenian Genocide Controversy

Sofia News Agency, Bulgaria
June 11 2008

About 50 persons protested Wednesday before the building of the
District Governor against his decision to contest the recognition of
the Armenian Genocide by the City Council.

On June 5, the Varna District Governor Hristo Kontrov, who is a navy
admiral from the reserve, issued an order returning for another hearing
to the City Council its decision from May 21 to establish April 24
as the day for honoring the victims of the Armenian Genocide in the
Ottoman Empire in 1915-22.

The protesters were mostly sympathizers of the nationalist party VMRO,
the Sofia Mayor’s rightist party GERB, and member of the Armenian
community in the city of Varna.

They raised slogans saying "Varna Is Not the Bosphorus" alluding to
the fact that Kontrov was appointed District Governor from the quota
of the ethnic Turkish Movement for Rights and Freedoms, which is one
of the three parties of the governing three-way coalition.

The Governor agreed to meet with representatives of the protesters
but according to the local VMRO leader Kostadin Kostadinov he had
failed to explain the reasons for contesting the decision to honor
the victims of the Armenian Genocide.

Kostadinov expressed his resent at the Governor’s actions, and sad he
was politically biased and a servant of the ethnic Turkish Movement
for Rights and Freedoms.

The VMRO members threatened they would organize a much larger and
less peaceful protest against the District Governor’s action.

Venice Commission examines the Armenian law on conducting meetings
during its 75th plenary session

Strasbourg, 11.06.2008 – The Council of Europe’s European Commission for
Democracy through Law (the "Venice Commission") will be meeting in
Venice on 13 and 14 June 2008 (Scuola Grande di San Giovanni
Evangelista).

The Commission will adopt a draft joint opinion by the Venice Commission
and OSCE/ODIHR on the amendments of 17 March 2008 to the law on
conducting meetings in Armenia.

Another important point on the agenda concerns the report on dual voting
rights for persons belonging to national minorities, an issue which was
referred to the Venice Commission by the OSCE High Commissioner on
National Minorities.

Other points submitted for adoption:
* the draft opinion on the draft amendments to the Constitution of the
Republika Srpska;
* the draft opinion on the draft Constitution of Ukraine prepared by a
group of experts headed by Mr Shapoval;
* the draft opinion on the Electoral Code of Azerbaijan;
* the draft opinion on the draft Law on the Public Prosecutor’s Service
in Moldova;

The "Guidelines on Freedom of Peaceful Assembly", prepared by the
OSCE/ODIHR Panel of experts on Freedom of Assembly in consultation with
the Venice Commission, will also be endorsed.

The Commission will hold an exchange of views with Mr Christian Strohal,
Director of the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights
and Mr Knut Vollebaek, OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities.

In addition, Mr Jan Kubis, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Slovak
Republic, will inform the Commission on the Slovak Presidency of the
Committee of Ministers (November 2007 – May 2008).

****************************************** ******************************
Israel and Tunisia recently became full members of the Venice
Commission, while the Palestinian National Authority has now a special
co-operation status.
****************************************** ******************************
All the adopted texts are public and will be available on the
Commission’s website:

Press contacts:
Monica Petrovici, External relations officer, Venice Commission, Council
of Europe, Tel. +33 (0)3 88 41 38 68, [email protected]

Estelle Steiner, Press officer, Directorate of Communication, Council of
Europe
Tel. +33 (0)3 88 41 33 35, mobile +33 (0)6 08 46 01 57,
[email protected]

Press Release
Council of Europe Press Division
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member states.

ON THE OCCASION OF RUSSIA’S NATIONAL HOLIDAY PRESIDENT SERZH SARKISIAN VISITS RUSSIA’S EMBASSY IN YEREVAN

ARMENPRESS
June 10, 2008

YEREVAN, JUNE 10, ARMENPRESS: On the occasion of Russia’s National
Holiday- State Sovereignty Day- President Serzh Sarkisian visited
today the Russian embassy in Yerevan.

The presidential press service told Armenpress that when conveying his
congratulations to the embassy personnel President Serzh Sarkisian
expressed his satisfaction over high level political dialogue and
economic interaction between the two countries.

He expressed confidence that Russian-Armenian strategic partnership
will continue to successfully develop in future too for the benefit
of both countries’ peoples.

Armenian Public TV , Armenia
June 6 2008

Armenian, Azeri presidents decide to continue Karabakh talks

[Presenter] President Serzh Sargsyan is on a working visit to Russia’s
northern capital [St Petersburg]. In St Petersburg he is attending an
informal summit of the CIS leaders and the 12th St Petersburg
International Economic Forum. Our filming crew has been accompanying
the president, and now Lusine Lazarian will present the details of
the visit over phone.

[Correspondent speaking over phone; no video] The first meeting
between the Armenian and the Azerbaijani president finished about an
hour ago, it lasted a little more than an hour, and was followed by a
media briefing of the foreign ministers of the two countries.

The meeting was a familiarizing and the first one, but in general,
according to the foreign ministers of the two countries, it was
constructive.

The Armenian foreign minister said that the presidents had
familiarized themselves with the approaches of the sides and assigned
the foreign ministers to continue the negotiations within the format
of the OSCE Minsk Group. Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar
Mammadyarov said that a decision had been made and that the OSCE
co-chairs would visit the region in the near future. The dates are
being negotiated at the moment and will be published soon, he said. We
must think about how we can bring the approaches of the sides closer,
the Azerbaijani foreign minister said. I’d like to add that according
to the foreign ministers, the Madrid proposals were not discussed as
part of the presidents’ meeting since the sides have their own
approaches to them, which still need to be discussed.

Answering to a question of a Radio Liberty journalist as to whether
the Azerbaijani side has changed its mind to raise the issue of the
Nagornyy Karabakh conflict at other international organizations,
viewing the future of the negotiation process within the OSCE format,
the Azerbaijani foreign minister said that there is the Minsk format
and that it will have a continuation. The Armenian foreign minister
added that the negotiations process will continue and the first
Sargsyan-Aliyev meeting does not mean that the process will start from
scratch.

The evaluations of the OSCE mediators regarding the first meeting, in
general, coincided with one another. The US co-chair said it was a
successful and familiarizing meeting, the presidents were in quite a
high mood and the sides are ready to continue the negotiations
process. The OSCE mediators will need to additionally develop the
proposals on the negotiating table and to bring those closer to the
approaches of the two sides. The co-chairs said that they are ready to
carefully listen to any proposal of the sides and to discuss all the
approaches together.

This is it for the moment. Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan will meet
Russian President Dmitriy Medvedev in the second half of the day.

NOVRUZ MAMMADOV: "THERE IS A NEED FOR THE MEETING OF AZERBAIJANI AND ARMENIAN PRESIDENTS"

Azeri Press Agency
June 5 2008
Azerbaijan

Baku. Lachin Sultanova-APA. "Azerbaijan is making efforts to extend
the relations with all CIS member states, except Armenia", chief of
international affairs department of Presidential Executive Office
Novruz Mammadov told APA.

The department chief said there were some initiatives, conceptions and
plans to extend the relations and noted that the meetings regulating
the bilateral relations would be held within the framework of the
International Economic Forum in St. Petersburg and informal summit
of CIS heads of states.

Asked about the format of the meeting of Azerbaijani and Armenian
presidents Ilham Aliyev and Serzh Sarkisian and whether Dmitry Medvedev
would attend the meeting the department chief said it would be the
first meeting after the election of Armenian president and there was
a need for the meeting. He said he did not have exact information
about the format of the meeting.

"It is very important for Azerbaijani President to know whether
Armenian president indeed has some constructive position and views on
the settlement of the conflict and competence to solve the problem. The
recent developments, killing of people, arrests, situation in the
country, closure of media outlet after the elections show that there
is a separation in Armenian society and a part of the population
does not trust in Serzh Sarkisian. After the crisis, it has become
more difficult for Armenian president to solve the conflict. In this
respect, this meeting will be a meeting of familiarization for us,
it will be an opportunity to study the situation", he said.

Taking a stance on establishment of the institute of coordinators
on the level of deputy prime ministers within the framework of CIS,
Novruz Mammadov underlined that it would be possible to speak about
the goals and duties of the institute only after it was established.

AZERBAIJAN TO BUY UAVS TO WATCH OCCUPIED AREAS

Day.az website
June 4 2008
Azerbaijan

4 June: The Azerbaijani Defence Ministry intends to buy 10 Hermes 450
multipurpose unmanned reconnaissance planes from the Israeli Silver
Arrow company.

The GPSearch.org website that posted the report quotes a source in
the Azerbaijani Defence Ministry. According to the website’s source,
"the purchased unmanned planes will be used to watch Armenian-occupied
lands".

"When choosing the hardware, we ensured that it is ‘invisible’ for
the enemy’s air defence system," the source said.

AZERBAIJAN’S POSTURE – AN ORDINARY BLACKMAIL
Vardan Grigoryan

Hayots Ashkhar Daily
Published on June 04, 2008
Armenia

Without any option to refuse negotiations

Prior to the high-level meeting between the Armenian and Azeri leaders,
the senior representatives of both countries’ Foreign Ministries
continue their active communication with the mediator countries,
introducing their attitudes through various statements and proposals.

It’s obvious that during the whole process of the presidential
elections and post-electoral developments of Armenia, the official
Baku carried out large-scale work on the international arena towards
strengthening its positions on the Karabakh issue.

Even different representatives of the Armenian authorities have
mentioned in their statements many times that the Armenian diplomacy
has been experiencing a certain lack of initiatives and ideas during
the recent years.

Azerbaijan is step by step trying to extract the mediators’ consent
for negotiating the return of not only the liberated territories
but also Nagorno Karabakh; however, it confronts the international
community’s resistance, at least for the time being.

On June 3, Azerbaijani Deputy Foreign Minister Vagif Sadikhov
announced that the international community wanted to achieve the
solution of the Karabakh issue through bilateral negotiations rather
than principles. "We do really have principles, but we don’t want to
use them while assessing the current situation; we just suggest that
you forget about them and achieve an agreement on your own."

But because Baku is unready for mutual concessions through
negotiations, it has recently started to make threats that it may
resume the military operations and thus bring the international
community face to face with the "accomplished fact".

The recent concerns expressed by a number of European Foreign Ministers
with regard to resuming the military operations testify to Azerbaijan’s
obvious blackmail policy. After meeting his Armenian counterpart,
Russian Foreign Minister S. Lavrov recently rejected the possibility
of such blackmail, "There is no military solution to the Karabakh
conflict which began twenty years ago."

This was immediately followed by the response of Khazar Ibrahim,
Spokesman of the Foreign Ministry of Azerbaijan, "If Sergey Lavrov
makes such statements, then Russia has to demand that the Armenian
forces be immediately withdrawn from the occupied territories of
Azerbaijan."

Touching upon Azerbaijan’s expectations from the meeting of the
two countries’ Foreign Ministers, Kh. Ibrahim added, "We want to
know whether or not Armenia is ready for settling the conflict in a
peaceful manner. If we see that the Armenian party is not going to
do anything in that direction, the negotiations will become pointless."

Does this mean that during the upcoming negotiations Azerbaijan
is going to guide itself by the maximalistic principle which says
"either return everything or declare a war"? We believe not, because
the political scientists of both countries are already making sincere
confessions that the attitude adopted by the official Baku may be
characterized as "balancing on the boundary of breaching the rules
of the game".

So, while Azerbaijan is trying to resort to total blackmail in an
attempt of threatening the international community to resume the
Karabakh War, the Armenian party still continues to guide itself by
the necessity of implementing the basic principles introduced by the
mediators on November 29, 2007. Statements in this regard have been
made several times by Armenian Foreign Minister Eduard Nalbandyan,
both during the meeting with his counterpart in Moscow and after
returning to Yerevan.

Thus, during he meeting of the two countries’ Presidents, the Armenian
party will be required to solve two problems closely connected with
each other:

First: to resist the obvious and at the same time false blackmail
of Azerbaijan and make it clear that by sitting around the table of
negotiations, Baku "does not do favor" to anyone, including Armenia; it
just accepts the absence of an alternative to the peaceful settlement
of the Karabakh conflict.

Second: If Azerbaijan is trying in this way to review the document
submitted by the mediators in Madrid on November 29, 2007, Armenia
has one option for opposing Azerbaijan’s primitive trick, i.e. to
initiate talks with Nagorno Karabakh.

In case of ignoring the proposals clearly defined by the international
community, Azerbaijan will have to choose between negotiating with
Karabakh and resuming the war – prospects for which the country is
unprepared for the time being.

PRESS RELEASE
OSCE Office in Yerevan
Mrs. Gohar Avagyan
Senior Press and Public Information Assistant
Tel: (374 10) 541062-65, ext. 108, cel. (374 91) 436389
Fax: (374 10) 541061
Email: [email protected]

89 Terian Str.
0009 Yerevan
Republic of Armenia

OSCE Yerevan Office marks Children’s Day with multicultural concert

YEREVAN, 1 June 2008 – Song and dance groups belonging to the
Assyrian, Belarussian, Georgian, Greek, Yezidi, Jewish, Kurdish,
Russian and Ukrainian minority communities of Armenia performed at a
concert in Yerevan today.

The event to mark International Children’s Day was organized by the
Georgian charity `Iveria’ with support from the OSCE Office in
Yerevan.

`Today’s concert is a good example of how to promote tolerance, mutual
respect and understanding, and to develop a cultural dialogue and
communication between the different national communities living in
Armenia,’ said Silvia Pogolsa, a Human Rights Officer at the OSCE
Office.

Svetlana Namchevadze, the President of `Iveria’, added: `This concert
was a good opportunity to focus on the rights of children. The event
also helped enhance the capacity of the national minority
representatives living in Armenia in preserving their culture and
identity.’

From: "Katia M. Peltekian" <[email protected]>
Subject: Regulation of NK Conflict Not First Priority for Armenian President

Trend News Agency, Azerbaijan
May 30 2008

Regulation of Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict is Not First Priority for
Armenian President – Expert
30.05.08 10:32

Azerbaijan, Baku, 29 May / Trend News corr. M.Aliyev / For now the
regulation of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is not the first priority
for the new elected President of Armenia, Serzh Sargsyan, Thomas de
Vaal, a political scientist and author of the well-known book -Black
garden: Azerbaijan and Armenia -between peace and war’, believes.

`The Armenian President is in the difficult political state after the
disputable presidential elections and bloodshed happened in Armenia on
1 March and tries to approve the legitimacy of his position before the
population,’ de Vaal told to TrendNews via e-mail from London on 29
May.

The conflict between the two countries of South Caucasus began in 1988
due to territorial claims by Armenia against Azerbaijan. Armenia has
occupied 20% of the Azerbaijani land including the Nagorno-Karabakh
region and its seven surrounding Districts. Since 1992, these
territories have been under the occupation of the Armenian Forces. In
1994, Azerbaijan and Armenia signed a ceasefire agreement at which
time the active hostilities ended. The Co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk
Group ( Russia, France and USA) are currently holding peaceful
negotiations.

The first meeting between the Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and
Armenian’s Serzh Sargsyan is scheduled for 6 June within the framework
of the informal summit of the CIS member-countries.

Thomas de Vaal believes that neither Washington nor Moscow do not see
to solve the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict as the priority in Caucasus
yet. `The leaders of the both countries will prolong the time and will
make serious compromises,’ de Vaal said.

According to de Vaal, the perspectives for the private cooperation
between Ilham Aliyev and Serzh Sargsyan will be better than with
Robert Kocharian.

However, the current circumstances dictate that the negotiation
process is in the deadlock. `It is difficult to imagine that currently
Azerbaijan dissociates from the `main principles’ that was discussed
in 2007. However, Armenians say that no negotiations can be held
around the document, which says the territorial integrity’.

In the end of 2007, the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs for the first time
gave the document `Main principles’ to solve the Nagorno-Karabakh
conflict to Azerbaijan and Armenia.

Thomas de Vaal has commented the will of Armenians of Karabakh to join
the negotiation process. `Unfortunately, the issue regarding
participation of Karabakh residents in the negotiation process is
politicized. It is said in Yerevan that the conflict is conflict
between the Karabakh Armenians and Baku, and Armenia was just an
interested side is not right. From the other side, the position of
Baku that the conflict goes on between Baku and Yerevan is also
wrong,’ de Vaal said.

JUSTICE MINISTER OF ARMENIA MAKES SOME REMARKS ON EXTRAORDINARY REPORT BY ARMENIAN OMBUDSMAN

arminfo
2008-05-29 14:53:00

ArmInfo. Justice Minister of Armenia Gevorg Danielyan made a number
of remarks on the extraordinary report by Ombudsman Armen Haroutiunyn
on post-election processes in the country.

Thus, the minister remarked that the report does not mention its
specific legal basis. The minister said that in conformity with the Law
on Ombudsman the latter has a right to make an extraordinary report in
case of cross violation of human rights. In this connection, he was
to mention the specific ground for publication of the report. ‘The
content and the scheme of the report aim to analyze the pre- and
post-election developments in Armenia. In the meanwhile, the analysis
of the presidential election cannot be a juridical basis for such
report since it is a topic for political research>, the minister
said. He believes the report ‘overloaded’ with discourses not within
competence of the human rights defender, in particular, the part in
the report that tries to explain the inexpediency of the criticism
at the first president Levon Ter-Petorsyan. ‘To put it shortly, the
considerable part of the report is devoted to grounding the political
stance saying that ‘the authorities chose the wrong and futureless
tactics in their campaign>>, G. Danielyan said.

To recall, Armenian Ombudsman Armen Harutiunyan came out with
a suggestion that an independent commission should be set up to
investigate the March 1 events.

On April 25, when presenting an extraordinary report on the situation
before and after presidential election in Armenia, Harutiunyan made a
number of proposals aimed to stabilize the domestic political state in
the country. In particular, he suggests that the Electoral Code should
be reformed: the system of formation of electoral commissions, count
of votes, etc. should be reconsidered. According to the Ombudsman,
it is necessary to take steps to consolidate freedom of speech. This
concerns creation of conditions for formation of pluralism and
objectivity of e-media, as well as equal participation of oppositional
and pro-governmental forces in the process of formation of bodies
regulating the activity of television and radio.

Harutyunyan said that the draft laws which ungroundedly restrict
human rights and freedoms (for instance, the recent amendments to
the RA Law on rallies, demonstrations and processions) should be
excluded. He also suggested setting up an independent commission
with international experts to investigate the March 1 events. He
pointed out the necessity of fight against the oligarchic system
of governing. Liquidation of monopolies will contribute to this,
he added. "The most dangerous and short-sighted thing in the current
situation is imitation of reforms", Harutyunyan said.