Author: Nalchajian Markos

TURKISH AMBASSADOR SAYS AZERI YOUTH WANTED TO FIGHT PKK

Azerbaijani news agency
March 11 2008
Azerbaijan

The newly-appointed Turkish ambassador to Azerbaijan has said that
Azerbaijani youth have recently expressed the wish to fight the PKK,
the Baku-news agency based APA reported.

APA quoted Hulusi Kilic as saying at a briefing on 11 March that
Turkish youth participated in the Karabakh war in the 1990s on the side
of Azerbaijan. He added: "Azerbaijani young people, too, appealed to
participate in fighting during recent [military] operations carried
out by the Turkish armed forces in order to destroy the PKK."

GERMAN CHANCELLOR OPPOSES GRANTING NATO MEMBERSHIP TO UKRAINE AND GEORGIA

PanARMENIAN.Net
11.03.2008 14:06 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ German Chancellor Angela Merkel signaled she
opposes granting North Atlantic Treaty Organization membership to
former Soviet republics Ukraine and Georgia.

"A country should become a NATO member not only when its temporary
political leadership is in favor but when a significant percentage
of the population supports membership," Merkel said in Berlin in
reference to Ukraine and Georgia.

"Countries that are themselves entangled in regional conflicts, can
in my opinion not become members," she added after talks with NATO
Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer.

Kyev and Tbilisi are expected to use the NATO military alliance’s April
2-4 summit in Romania to confirm that they are candidates to join the
alliance but their chances of securing a formal invitation seem remote.

Ukraine’s leaders have asked to join NATO’s Membership Action Plan, but
public opinion at home is largely against the move, the AFP reports.

Merkel’s remarks came just a few hours after Georgia’s foreign
minister, Davit Bakradze, told journalists in Tbilisi that there was
not a single NATO member-state "openly declaring its opposition to
Georgia’s NATO membership." He did, however, acknowledge that there
was no consensus within the alliance about when to extend MAP to
Georgia and Ukraine.

In Georgia, the public is largely in favor of NATO membership, but
the alliance was made uneasy by the state of emergency the government
imposed in December to end opposition protests.

Mediamax, Armenia
March 8 2008

NKR leader, OSCE envoy discuss truce violations in Karabakh

Yerevan, 8 March: The president of the Nagornyy Karabakh republic
(NKR), Bako Sahakyan, and the personal representative of the OSCE
chairman-in-office, Andrzej Kasprzyk, have discussed the situation on
the contact line between the armed forces of the NKR and Azerbaijan.

At a meeting held in Stepanakert [Xankandi] on 7 March, the sides
noted the importance of maintaining the cease-fire regime and
preventing attempts to destabilize the situation on the contact line,
the NKR president’s press service has told Mediamax.

L’Express, France
6 Mars 2008

Erevan sous pression

Makarian Christian

Les sanglantes émeutes de la capitale arménienne révèlent l’ampleur
du mécontentement dans un pays au coeur d’une zone sensible.

«Nous n’avons pas peur de ce régime de kleptocrates et de criminels.
» C’est avec une rare détermination que Levon Ter Petrossian,
aujourd’hui assigné à résidence après avoir obtenu 21,5 % des
suffrages lors de l’élection présidentielle du 19 février, persiste
et signe à l’issue des violents affrontements qui ont fait huit morts
et des dizaines de blessés, samedi 1er mars, à Erevan. La
proclamation de l’état d’urgence augure mal de la nouvelle présidence
de Serge Sarkissian.

Ce dernier, toujours Premier ministre jusqu’à sa prise officielle de
fonctions, au mois de mai, est en effet l’homme lige du président
sortant, Robert Kotcharian. Le tandem, un peu à l’image du duo
Poutine-Medvedev à Moscou, a mis le pays en coupe réglée tout en
entretenant, c’est toute la complexité de la situation, une
croissance économique très forte et en obtenant certains succès (dont
la visite de Jacques Chirac, en septembre 2006). Surtout, les chefs
de l’exécutif sont tous deux issus du Haut-Karabagh, enclave
arménienne qui s’est séparée de l’Azerbaïdjan et a proclamé
unilatéralement son indépendance. Or la guerre du Haut-Karabagh, qui
a permis aux Arméniens d’écraser l’Azerbaïdjan avec l’aide des
Russes, est le levier par lequel Moscou a réussi à installer au
pouvoir le clan guerrier des « Karabaghtsi », au détriment des «
Erevantsi ». Le résultat en est une situation conflictuelle
permanente avec le monde turc, ce qui permet aux Russes de compter
sur un allié fortement dépendant au coeur du Caucase, tandis que la
Géorgie et l’Azerbaïdjan, désormais dans l’orbite des Etats-Unis,
leur échappent. La Turquie en profite, de son côté, pour aggraver
autant qu’elle le peut l’isolement arménien. La démarche
contestataire de Levon Ter Petrossian vise à desserrer cet étau. Il
fut un président de la République contesté (de 1991 à 1998), dont le
retour prouve en tout cas que l’opposition a désormais trouvé un
leader.

MATTHEW BRYZA PREOCCUPIED WITH BREACH OF ARMISTICE ON
ARMENIAN-AZERBAIJANI BORDER LINE

YEREVAN, MARCH 7, NOYAN TAPAN. On March 6 Vardan Oskanian, the Minister
of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Armenia, received the delegation
headed by Matthew Bryza, the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State of USA.

Touching upon the recent events, which took place in Yerevan, the
interlocutors discussed the home political situation created in Armenia
and the ways for its regulation.

Minister Oskanian and Matthew Bryza also touched upon the negotiations
on the regulation of the Nagorno Karabakh problem, including the
resolution introduced by Azerbaijan in the UN General Assembly.

Then, Matthew Bryza speaking about the meetings he had in Azerbaijan,
expressed preoccupation with the recent breach of the armistice on the
Armenia-Azerbaijan, Nagorno Karabakh-Azerbaijan border line.

The sides also exchanged ideas on international developments, the
presidential campaign proceeding in the United States of America and
the Armenian-Turkish relations.

Sofia News Agency, Bulgaria
March 7 2008

Bulgaria Capital to Recognize Armenian Genocide

7 March 2008, Friday

The group of the Democrats for Strong Bulgaria (DSB) party in the
Sofia City Council tabled a report with proposals to recognize and
denounce the Armenian Genocide in the Ottoman Empire in 1915-1922.

The motives of the draft document states that 10 countries, 35 US
states, many municipal councils in Europe, a number of European
capitals, and the European Parliament had acknowledged the existence
of the Armenian Genocide.

"We suggest that Bulgaria’s capital join the cities and countries
which have denounced the genocide", the draft declares.

DSB also wants to declare April 24 Day of Remembering the Armenian
Holocaust Victims. "Many of the more than a million Armenian
expatriates found their new home in Bulgaria. The Bulgarian people
only gained from their and their descendants’ presence in its
country", the party led by former MP Ivan Kostov states.

The Bulgarian Parliament already rejected the motions made by the
Ataka and the VMRO parties to recognize the Armenian genocide. The
main opposition to them came from the ethnic Turkish Movement for
Rights and Freedoms, which is a junior partner in the governing
three-way coalition.

The motion was supported by the only MP from Sofia Mayor Boyko
Borisov’s GERB party Lachezar Ivanov. GERB has a majority in the
Sofia City Council.

esctoday.com, Netherlands
March 7 2008

Armenia: Listen to the songs online

Armenia has already chosen Sirusho to represent them in the 2008
Eurovision Song Contest this year. Now four songs have been selected
and have been released before the National final this Saturday night.

The show will be hosted by Gohar Gasparyan and Felix Khachatryan with
Andre and Hayko, the 2006 and 2007 Armenian representatives will be
performing as guest stars.

Originally, there were four songs competing for the Armenian ticket
to Belgrade but if Sirusho would have liked to have sung a 5th one,
written by herself, she would have been allowed to do so. However
only four songs have been released.

They are (in no particular order):

Strong
I Still Breathe
Qele Qele
I Can’t Control It
CLICK HERE TO VOTE FOR YOUR FAVOURITE

The show will still take place this Saturday 8th March, 2008 at 18:30
CET (21:30 local time) but will be filmed in a television studio
instead of the planned concert hall due to the state of emergency
declared in the country at this time.

TOUR OF FRIENDSHIP FROM TURKISH, ARMENIAN MUSICIANS

Hurriyet
March 6 2008
Turkey

Acclaimed Armenian "duduk" (a woodwind instrument) player Jivan
Gasparyan and Turkish folk singer Yavuz Bingol are set to take on
a tour in April to promote peace and friendship between Turkey and
Armenia. The two musicians will travel the U.S., France, Belgium,
the Netherlands, Switzerland and Italy. "We have a thousand-year-old
common history between us. We are taking on the road to tell this
friendship in our songs," Bingol said.

ARMENIAN PARLIAMENT AGREES TO SANCTION ARREST OF FOUR PARLIAMENTARIANS

Interfax News Agency
Russia & CIS
March 4, 2008
Russia

Armenian Prosecutor General Agvan Ovsepian made a request while
speaking at the National Assembly on Tuesday that parliamentarians
Myasnik Malkhasian, Sasun Mikaelian, Akop Akopian, and Khachatur
Sukiasian be deprived of parliamentary immunity and arrested, and
the parliament granted his request.

Only members of the opposition faction Heritage and a number of
independent deputies voted against giving consent to their arrest.

Akopian, Malkhasian, Mikaelian, and Sukiasian are accused of organizing
unrest in Yerevan on March 1 and 2.

"Refusing to accept the results of the February 19 elections, Levon
Ter-Petrosian [an opposition presidential candidate who lost the
elections] and his supporters took large-scale measures to arouse
mistrust in the election results among the people, call them into
question, and fuel public discontent," Ovsepian said in his report.

People speaking at opposition rallies called for civil disobedience
and the disruption of the work of government institutions and private
companies, he said.

The prosecutor insisted that the crowd led by Ter-Petrosian’s
supporters armed by firearms, batons, metal bars, and Molotov cocktails
attacked policemen during public unrest on March 1 and 2.

It was reported earlier that at least one policeman was killed and
more than 100 others received injuries of varying degrees. The windows
of the city hall and the nearby buildings were broken.

Vandals burned 63 vehicles, including an ambulance. The revolt left
8 people dead and at least 165 injured, among them more than 100
policemen and military servicemen.

THREAT IS NOT LIQUIDATED

Panorama.am
16:02 05/03/2008

Today the president of Armenia Robert Kocharyan met with the media
representatives. He said that there is no necessity to prolong or
shorten the emergency state duration. "First, before liquidating the
emergency state announcement we should feel sure that the disorder
will not be repeated. Today we are not enough sure in it as we are
unaware of some organizers’ place," said the president.

According to him, it is important to reveal the organizers, their
place. "As we are not sure that the happened disorder will not be
repeated, we have threats unsolved" said Robert Kocharyan.