Author: nina hovnanian

NEIL MELVIN: AZERBAIJAN’S UNILATERAL INITIATIVE ON KARABAKH IN UN MAY POTENTIALLY DESTABILIZE THE SITUATION MORE
by Oksana Musaelyan

ARMINFO
Friday, November 18, 14:47

Interview of Neil Melvin, Director of Stockholm International Peace
Research Institute with ArmInfo news agency

At the session of UN General Assembly in October of the current year
Azerbaijan was elected UN non-permanent member for 2012-2013. May it
negatively affect the Karabakh peaceful process?

We are in a fragile situation around Karabakh at the moment. The
Russian led efforts, in coordination with the Minsk Group, have failed
to achieve a breakthrough and there is no clear alternative process
to take forward the peace agenda. This has led to some expressions
of concern by the international community regarding the risk of a
return to serious violence. Azerbaijan’s position on the UN Security
Council has added a new dimension to this situation.

What new dimension do you mean?

At this point, a unilateral Azerbaijan initiative in the UN on Karabakh
is unlikely to lead to a breakthrough and might conceivably further
destabilize the situation. At the same time, the greater engagement
of a disinterested third party, such as the UN, might bring some new
dynamics to the stalled peace discussions. The Russian Federation
was uneasy about this development, as it is generally opposed to
engaging the UN in the conflicts in the post-Soviet space as Russia
risks losing its ability to shape these conflicts to its own interests.

In this context, how effective is an intermediary role of the Minsk
Group?

The Minsk process has been in operation now for many years. The
elements of a solution to the Karabakh situation have been largely
clarified through this process but there has been a failure to
achieve the necessary political agreement and trust to implement
the agreement. Part of the issue is that the Minsk process is itself
hostage to a wider set of factors, this concerns the Karabakh problem
but also the complex relationship between many of the countries
involved in the Minisk process and the South Caucasus (notably the
Russian Federation), and between countries in the Minsk group (the
tensions between Russia, the EU and the United States over Eurasia
and European security). The Minsk process has not been successful in
finding a way through this thicket of problems.

Achieving a breakthrough in the Karabakh peace process may be difficult
without the engagement of an ‘honest’ broker in the form of a country
or institution outside the region and with little direct interest in
the problems of the South Caucasus.

The authorities of Israel have recently come forward with a statement
in which they did not rule out the possibility of make preventive
strikes upon Iran in order not to let the latter get nuclear weapon .

Is it really possible and what is the destiny of the region in
that case?

A military attack on Iran would be an enormous gamble with enormous and
unpredictable regional implications. Whether a success or a failure,
the regional implications would be enormous and unpredictable –
in the Gulf, in the Middle East (through Hamas, Hizbolah) and in
Afghanistan. Given this, and the fact that we are in a presidential
election process in the United States I think it unlikely that
President Obama would support a US attack on Iran. Israel, on the other
hand, appears to be making concrete plans – at least according to press
leaks, in which case the US might be drawn into the wider conflict
that is likely to erupt following a strike. The South Caucasus is
not part of the strategic equation of the attack but conflicts have a
tendency to involve widespread destabilization, often in unpredictable
ways. Given the complex ethnic and religious intermixing between
Iran and the South Caucasus, there would, of course, be a concern
that regional instability might spread to these regions.

FRANCE’S ARTE TV CHANNEL REVEALS DICTATORSHIP IN AZERBAIJAN

PanARMENIAN.Net
November 18, 2011 – 16:52 AMT

PanARMENIAN.Net – A 23-minute report revealing corruption and
dictatorship reigning in Azerbaijan as a main hindrance on the way
to country’s development, was broadcast on France’s Arte TV channel.

As a representative of Azeri opposition told Arte TV, he was forced
to leave the country because of government-initiated repressions.

On November 9, the Bundestag Committee on Human Rights and Humanitarian
Aid passed a resolution urging Azerbaijan to observe the principles
of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental
Freedoms.

The Committee called on PACE to exert pressure on Azerbaijani
government over its hampering the activity of PACE rapporteur on
human rights Christoph Strasser.

As a member of the Council of Europe, Azerbaijan must fulfill its
obligations, the Committee said.

The Azerbaijani authorities reject existence of political prisoners
and deny rapporteur Strasser’s entry to the country. However, according
to human rights organizations, there are up to 70 political prisoners
in Azerbaijan.

JUPPE CONSIDERS DAVOTOGLU’S IDEA OF DISCUSSING ARMENIAN GENOCIDE ISSUE IN A JOINT COMMISSION UNSUCCESSFUL

ARMENPRESS
NOVEMBER 18, 2011
YEREVAN

YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 18, ARMENPRESS: Foreign Ministers of France and
Turkey Alain Juppe and Ahmed Davutoglu discussed issues concerning the
Armenian Genocide. Armenpress reports, citing the Turkish mass media,
that the Turkish FM hinted a regular time at Turkey’s wish to discuss
the genocide issue in the historians commission. In response to this,
the French FM reversed, noting, “The 1915 events are a very sensitive
question both for Armenians and Turks. That is why I would not go to
that unsuccessful idea of discussing that issue in a joint commission.”

To remind, during his visit to Armenia French President Nicolas
Sarkozy promised that if Turkey does not recognize the fact of the
Armenian Genocide by the end of the year, the French parliament will
adopt the bill criminalizing the genocide denial.

NAIRA ZOHRABYAN CONDEMNS INCIDENT CONNECTED WITH SYUNIK GOVERNOR

ARMENPRESS
NOVEMBER 18, 2011
YEREVAN

Parliamentarian of the Prosperous Armenia party Naira Zohrabyan
condemned the incident connected with the governor of the Syunik
region Suren Khachatryan who beat businesswoman Silva Hambartsumyan. A
criminal case has been opened.

At a NA briefing November 18 Zohrabyan said it is an inadmissible
way of solving problems.

SPREAD SOLD AS BUTTER

Story from Lragir.am News:

Published: 16:30:34 – 18/11/2011

On November 21, the National Competitiveness Committee of Armenia
will release the results of administrative proceedings launched in
the markets of butter and spread.

A number of breaches have been revealed in the documents of companies
engaged in import and sale of butter. The Committee initiated testing
of butter examples taken from a number of markets.

During the upcoming session, the results and the names of the
fraudsters will be revealed. The point is about importers and local
producers.

DASHNAKTSUTYUN MP FINDS ‘TERRIBLE THINGS’ IN 2012 BUDGET

epress.am
11.18.2011

The Armenian Revolutionary Federation (Dashnaktsutyun, or ARF-D)
opposes the 2012 state budget because it not only does not address
the main challenges facing the country, but also contains socially
unacceptable proposals, said ARF-D MP Artsvik Minasyan during a press
briefing in parliament today.

“In demographic terms, a terrible thing has been registered the budget
[by those very same] political forces [from who can be heard] such
rhetoric as if child delivery became free of charge because of their
behavior or they come short of saying that the Armenian people are
having babies because of them. As a result of such approaches, in
the 2012 draft budget we have regression in the matter of births. If
this system was so effective, then why has Armenian society decided
not to have children to a great extent, or have less children than
in the previous period?” asked Minasyan.

Weighing in on accusations against his party, the Dashnak MP said
that individual representatives of the political majority are trying
to express their lack of knowledge, saying that Dashnaktsutyun is
guided by populist approaches.

“A person either has to at least not understand what he’s talking about
or understanding, put himself in the place of another phenomenon or
another creature to make such a statement,” he said. According to him,
today’s government and the political majority have not fulfilled their
pre-elections promises and thus, “Now who from them is more populist?”

Agence France Presse
Nov 19 2011

Sniper ‘kills Armenian soldier in Karabakh’
(AFP) – 11 hours ago

YEREVAN – An Armenian soldier was shot dead by an Azerbaijani sniper
on the frontline in the disputed region of Nagorny Karabakh on
Saturday, the separatist Karabakh defence ministry said.

“Nineteen-year-old conscript Aren Simonian died because of enemy
sniper fire,” the ministry said in a brief statement.

The conscript’s death brings the reported total of soldiers killed to
20 this year amid regular exchanges of gunfire between Azerbaijani and
Armenian troops along the volatile Karabakh ceasefire line.

Armenian separatists backed by Yerevan seized the disputed region from
Azerbaijan in a war in the 1990s that left some 30,000 dead, and
despite years of negotiations since the 1994 ceasefire, the two sides
have not yet signed a final peace deal.

Azerbaijan has repeatedly threatened to use force to win back Karabakh
if internationally mediated talks fail to yield satisfactory results,
while Yerevan has warned of large-scale retaliation if Baku launches
any military action.

Artsakh Republic President visited the Holy Martyrs Armenian school of New York

(Noyan Tapan – 19.11.2011)

On 18 November Artsakh Republic President Bako Sahakyan visited the
Holy Martyrs Armenian school of New York and partook at a solemn event
dedicated to the 20th anniversary of NKR’s independence.

President Sahakyan called national upbringing of the rising generation
among the most important issues the Diaspora faces, qualifying it a
task of pan-Armenian significance. Within this context Bako Sahakyan
rated high the role played by the Holy Martyrs School in preserving
Armenian national identity.

Head of the Artsakh Diocese of the Armenian Apostolic Church
Archbishop Pargev Martirosyan, head of the central information
department of the office of the Artsakh Republic President David
Babayan, NKR permanent representative to USA and Canada Robert
Avetisyan and members of the Armenian community partook at the event,
the Central Information Department of the Office of the Artsakh
Republic President informs.

Kessab Roots: A Survivor’s Story

Sat, Nov 19 2011
By: Lalai Manjikian

As a Diasporan Armenian connected to Armenia, as well as historical
Armenia (currently in Turkey), part of the multitude of attachments I
carry is with Kessab, a region and a town located in the northwestern
part of Syria, on the Mediterranean Sea, at the Turkish border.
Apparently, it has been inhabited by Armenians since the 11thcentury,
going back to the Cilician Armenian Kingdom.

Weekly columnist Lalai Manjikian with her grandmother.
Kessab remains a predominantly Armenian enclave to this day. A drive
down a narrow, winding road through towering mountains eventually
leads to my father’s village Karadouran, located directly on the
Mediterranean Sea. The untamed, mountainous backdrop is now being
populated with modern condo developments alongside ancient stone
houses. The most valuable resource in the area is the fertile land,
and villagers subsisted mainly by selling their harvest, initially
with non-mechanized and rudimentary processes.

Karadouran is where my grandmother, Kalila Yaralian-Manjikian, lived
until she quietly passed away last week at the age of 104.

I was fortunate enough to have visited her – to have heard her wisdom,
laughed with her, answered her questions, heard her answer the
questions I had about her life, hugged her, and experienced her sense
of humor and inquisitive mind first hand. The last time I saw her was
during her 100th birthday celebration in October 2007. I was in the
presence of a century lived, and Kalil Nene inspired me with her
strength and resilience.

She was unquestionably the doyenne of the village. Visitors, friends,
and family, from near and far, would always make the mandatory stop to
see Kalil Nene, to receive her blessings, to answer her inquisitive
questions of what they were up to and where they were in their
life – and this, until her very last days. Even filmmakers, who for some
reason stopped in this remote area, were taken by her degree of
lucidity and her life trajectory, as they sought to preserve her and
her words on film.

When I last saw her, I was amazed by how `with it,’ self-sufficient,
and mobile she was at 100. Her level of awareness, her intact memory
that recalled the finest of details, her sharp, inquisitive mind, and
her wit, were remarkable. At times, she had critical words to offer;
at other times, she was very categorical about what she wanted. Most
of the time, she would voice her opinion and would then let it go with
a simple `Eh, took keedek’ (as you wish, or, you know best). She
always knew the whereabouts and status of everyone in the village, and
those who had left and were abroad.

Named after the Biblical Galilee (the Armenian variant of her name was
Kalila), Kalil Nene was born in 1907 in the village of Karadouran,
near the town of Kessab. My grandmother was one when the Adana
massacres were carried out by the Turkish authorities. Along with her
immediate family and many of the other villagers, she fled Karadouran
for a brief time. Upon their return to Kessab, and as soon as they had
rebuilt what had been pillaged, in 1915 the Armenian population of
Kessab was once again confronted with displacement, alongside the
massive deportation orchestrated by the Ottoman Turks who forcefully
removed the Armenian population from eastern Turkey. My grandmother’s
family, along with the rest of the Armenians of Karadouran, made their
way to Damascus on foot. After a short rest, the caravan of the
displaced headed towards Jordan, to the Salt and Mahas regions. In
Mahas, Kalil Nene’s father passed away.

In 1918, when the British army entered Jerusalem, her family moved
there. She bore a tattoo with a cross and the year 1918 as a memento
from her time in Jerusalem.

Her family moved yet again, this time by train, to Port Said, in
Egypt. A number of other Armenian inhabitants of Kessab from various
regions, as well as some from Musa Dagh, where established there. It
is in Port Said where Kalil Nene learned the Armenian alphabet.

After World War I, at the beginning of 1919, the Armenians residing in
Port Said began to resettle in other regions or returned home. Kalil
Nene’s family was taken by train to Aleppo, Syria, where horse wagons
took them to the region of Antioch. From there, they made their way
back to Kessab, and then to Karadouran on foot. The Armenian
population of Kessab that survived the mass killings and deportations
was able to begin rebuilding their destroyed homes and villages.

Kalil Nene married my grandfather, Hovsep Manjikian, in 1927 and they
had three children. In addition to her motherly responsibilities, she
worked hard with her husband in all the demanding village tasks.

When Kalil Nene turned 100 years old, one of her grandchildren asked
her, What is the secret to living so long? She simply replied, `Lead a
clean life.’ There is a multitude of ways one can interpret her
statement.

During her 100th birthday celebration, she refused everyone’s help in
getting to the party: On her own, she went down the 10 stairs from
where she lived with my aunt, then walked quite a distance from the
car to get to the `honor table’ at the birthday venue, a restaurant at
the edge of the Mediterranean. We all watched as she took one solid
step after another, with her two wooden canes.

She was a long-standing member of the Armenian Relief Society – a member
for 80 years – as well as a supporter of Armenian schools in the Kessab
region. She even attended the opening of the new school building
recently and contributed to the project.

How did she live such a long and healthy life? Perhaps it was the
clean air, her genetic make-up, the arduous physical labour in the
village for years, or the fact that she was a strict vegetarian and
preferred to eat grains, such as bulgur and lentils, that granted her
a long life. Maybe a bit of all of that, combined with her overall
positive and healthy outlook on life and her sense of humor.

Although twice forcefully displaced, Kalil Nene had returned to her
ancestral land. She was born and raised there, she tirelessly worked
the land there, and she passed away there peacefully after living a
healthy life for more than a century, only to be buried in the land
she laboured so hard on. Life came full circle for her, as it will for
all of us. Yet, living within a diasporic reality, to be born, raised,
to work and die on one’s ancestral land, close to one’s roots, is a
rare gift.

Guinea, Tanzania citizens accused of money embezzlement in Armenia

November 19, 2011 – 17:27 AMT

PanARMENIAN.Net – A criminal case is launched against citizens of
Guinea and Tanzania for embezzlement of large sums of money and
legalization of criminally obtained profits.

Citizen of Guinea A.K. reached a preliminary agreement with the
citizen of Tanzania R. on illegal sale of airline tickets, and payment
for tickets with other people’s bank accounts through fake bank cards.

After investigation A.K. turned out to have been involved in similar
illegal deeds in Tanzania. Coming to Armenia he started illegal sale
of airline tickets to embezzle the money received.

To conceal the crime and evade responsibility, A.K. through internet
provided R. with personal information of those who had purchased
airline tickets. The latter, in turn, mad electronic payment of the
tickets through fake bank cards issued on the names of third parties.

The case was submitted to the National Security Service of Armenia for
preliminary investigation.