Author: nina hovnanian

Friday, September 2nd, 2011 | Posted by admin

LAWSUIT AGAINST TURKEY MAY RESULT IN FAVOR OF ARMENIAN PLAINTIFFS

LOS ANGELES, CA – In light of the recent decision to return religious
institutions belonging to minority citizens of the Ottoman Empire in
Turkey, three descendants of Armenians owning property on what is now
the Incirlik Air Base in Turkey filed a lawsuit in the California
Superior Court on Dec. 15, 2010.

The suit, filed by Attorney Vartkes Yeghiayan, on behalf of Plaintiffs
Alex Bakalian, Anais Haroutunian and Rita Mahdessian, has been brought
against the government of the Republic of Turkey, the Ziraat Bank and
the Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey.

The Plaintiffs assert that four parcels of land belonging to their
grandparents, Ottoman citizens Dikran Effendi and Kalina Hatun, were
unjustly confiscated in the Incirlik district and put under the
control of the Ziraat Bank after 1915. As compensation, they are
demanding 496 dunams (496,000 square meters) of land or $63.9 million
for lands and apartments built on the lands.

A communiqué sent by the U.S. Department of State, Ministry of Foreign
Affairs, on June 20 officially urged the Republic of Turkey to defend
itself.

In the Diplomatic Note, the State Department explains, that `according
to U.S. laws you are obliged to defend yourself, since you are the
defendant in a case. Therefore, we ask you to hire an attorney in the
U.S. The U.S. is ready to help you in this regard. If you don’t send a
defense within 60 days, there is a possibility that the court might
decide against you by default.’

The Turkish government ignored the suit and failed to file an answer
resulting in a decision to be made by the court in absentia. As a
result, the compensation may amount to $100 million. In defense of the
seriousness of the issue, the Banks in the case have hired a law firm
in the U.S. to represent them. They were granted an extension to Sept.
19 to prepare for court proceeding

GROWTH OF US AND RUSSIAN INVESTMENTS OBSERVED IN ARMENIA

news.am
Sept 2 2011
Armenia

YEREVAN. – Foreign investments in Armenia made $422 in first half of
2011, says National Statistical Service.

In relation to the same period of previous year, foreign investments
grew by 28.8%, direct investments by 58.6%. Russia has the largest
share in the growth of foreign investments. In first half-year of
2011 Russian investments totaled $ 206 million, increased by 77%
and make approximately half of all investments.

The second largest investor in the economy of Armenia is France
with $ 68 million. The French invest mainly in the sphere of
telecommunications. U.S. investments reached $ 35 million, which is
the third indicator (increased 2.8 times). U.S. companies, being
mostly engaged in information technologies, directed $ 15 million
to funding of scientific researches, $ 3 million for software and
computer services.

AZERBAIJANI RULING PARTY: ARMENIA’S DESTRUCTIVE POSITION FORCES AZERBAIJAN TO USE DIPLOMATIC PRESSURE

Trend
Sept 2 2011
Azerbaijan

Armenia’s destructive position in resolving the Nagorno-Karabakh
conflict forces Azerbaijan to use other means of diplomatic pressure
on Armenia, deputy executive secretary of New Azerbaijan Party, MP
Mubariz Gurbanli said in an interview with the official website of
the ruling New Azerbaijan Party.

As a result of Armenia’s aggressive policy, Azerbaijan’s territorial
integrity has been violated. The UN Security Council adopted four
resolutions. They require the unconditional liberation of Azerbaijani
lands occupied by Armenia. But this requirement has not been fulfilled
yet, he said.

“In this regard, Azerbaijan may again appeal to the UN Security Council
with the demand to ensure the implementation of these resolutions,”
he said. “It is necessary to take the necessary actions.

First, political and economic sanctions must be imposed against
Armenia.”

Including the issue on the situation in Azerbaijan’s occupied
territories in the agenda of 66th session of the UN General Assembly
is very important for Azerbaijan to expose Armenia’s aggressive policy,
MP said.

“By continuing to wage an offensive diplomacy, Azerbaijan achieved
making decisions by the international organizations related to
the occupation of 20 percent of Azerbaijani territory by Armenia,”
he said. “Armenian propaganda can not compete with us and form a
negative opinion of us as it wanted. We have to make the aggressor
country to kneel, and Armenia will fall prostrate before Azerbaijan.”

The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988
when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. Armenian
armed forces have occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan since 1992,
including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and 7 surrounding districts.

Azerbaijan and Armenia signed a ceasefire agreement in 1994. The
co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group – Russia, France, and the U.S. –
are currently holding the peace negotiations.

Armenia has not yet implemented the U.N. Security Council’s four
resolutions on the liberation of the Nagorno-Karabakh and the
surrounding regions.

TURKEY: ARMENIAN ILLEGAL MIGRANTS PUT NATIONAL GRIEVANCES ASIDE FOR WORK
by Marianna Grigoryan and Anahit Hayrapetyan

EurasiaNet.org

Sept 2 2011
NY

Narrow, winding stairs lead up to 60-year-old housecleaner Ophelia
Hakobian’s poorly furnished room on the second floor of an apartment
building in the Istanbul district of Kumkapi. The tiny room, barely
1.5 square meters in area, contains hanging laundry, a table and
chairs and photographs of Hakobian’s son and grandchildren.

“Is this a real life I’m living? I’m living like a slave here,”
grumbled Hakobian, who migrated illegally to Istanbul from Armenia
more than a decade ago. Each morning, she starts her work at 7 am;
then comes back in the evening to sleep before starting another round
of work again.

Nearly two years after signature of the protocols intended to normalize
relations between Armenia and Turkey, bitterness between the two
neighbors remains strong, but has done little to detract thousands of
Armenians from migrating to Turkey in search of the work they cannot
find at home.

While Armenia faces an official unemployment rate of 6.6 percent
– lower than Turkey’s official rate of 9.4 percent – unofficial
unemployment estimates soar into the double digits. The country’s
economy is limping along after the 2008 financial crisis, posting
a mere 2.6 percent increase in 2010. That number pales next to the
Turkish economy’s 2010 expansion of 8.9 percent, the highest in Europe;
more moderate growth is expected for this year, however.

For Armenians struggling to make ends meet, that growth rate makes
Turkey an attractive option for employment – despite the widespread
bitterness over Ottoman Turkey’s World War I-era massacre of ethnic
Armenians and ongoing anger over Turkey’s support for Azerbaijan in the
Nagorno-Karabakh dispute. Transportation is cheap and low-paying jobs
readily available, migrants say. The existence of a local Armenian
community in Istanbul – Kumkapi traditionally had a large ethnic
Armenian population – provides another incentive.

“This is our life, full of hardships and privation, but we believe at
least that we can help our families in Armenia,” said one 62-year-old
Armenian woman from Etchmiadzin, just outside Yerevan, who moved to
Istanbul several years ago and works as a cleaner and cook for one
Turkish family. Cleaners generally earn about $500 to $1,000 per month.

She says she has already mastered Turkish and enjoys “human
communication” with her employers. “Our relations are far better
than the ones I had while working in an Armenian family” in Istanbul,
she added.

But she has kept her relatives in the dark about where she works and
what she does. Many Armenians consider it unacceptable for an Armenian
to work for a Turk, especially to clean a house. Many condemn even
those who visit Turkey, as an ongoing outcry over Armenian travel
agencies’ summer tours to Turkey illustrates.

“People have no other option; that’s why they come here,” the
Etchmiadzin woman said. “They treat me very well, and we have
no disputes on the national topic,” she said in reference to the
Ottoman-era bloodshed, viewed by most Armenians as genocide.

Exactly how many Armenians have moved to Turkey to work illegally,
however, is open to conjecture. “We have no data on the number of
Armenians who live and work in Turkey illegally because we have no
diplomatic relations with this country; this is a sphere that needs
serious research,” said Irina Davtian, head of the Armenian Migration
Agency’s Department on Migration Programs.

The agency hopes to organize a study on migration patterns from
Armenia with the help of international donors, she added.

The Turkish government in 2010 told the Istanbul-based Armenian
newspaper Agos that “approximately 22,000” Armenians were living
illegally in Istanbul, said Agos Editor-in-Chief Aris Nalci. Some
estimates put the number at closer to 25,000, he said.

A 2009 study carried out for the Eurasia Partnership Foundation
(“Identifying the State of Armenian Migrants in Turkey”) reported that
most illegal Armenian migrants in an interview pool of 150 people had
traveled to Istanbul from the northwestern Armenian region of Shirak,
site of a devastating 1988 earthquake, where unemployment runs high.

Ninety-four percent of the respondents were women employed in domestic
services jobs.

By contrast, the nine men who had accompanied these women mostly
did not work. “They come to Turkey to stay with their wives and
keep them safe,” the study reported. The migrants entered Turkey
via a multi-entry, 30-day tourist visa, available for $15 at border
crossings and airports.

Last year, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayip Erdogan threatened
to expel illegal Armenian migrants, whom he claimed number close
to 100,000. The comment was seen as linked to Armenia’s push for
recognition of Ottoman Turkey’s massacre of ethnic Armenians
as genocide, but a sign of a thaw has emerged. This year, the
children of illegal migrants will be allowed to study in Istanbul’s
Armenian-language schools, Hurriyet Daily News reported.

As with illegal migrants worldwide, these migrants’ plans to return
home often depend on their economic condition. One Armenian woman,
who has worked illegally as a housecleaner in Istanbul since 2006, said
that she and her husband, who works as a shop salesman, never discuss
returning with their two children to their hometown of Vanadzor. They
have learned Turkish and how to prepare Turkish dishes, and gained
“many” Turkish acquaintances, she said.

Chances appear low that that trend will change anytime soon. Commented
pollster Aharon Adibekian, director of the Sociometer research center:
“Despite [Turkey’s] image as ‘the enemy,’ people keep leaving [Armenia]
because . . . they have no other option.”

Editor’s Note: Marianna Grigoryan is a freelance reporter based in
Yerevan and editor of MediaLab.am. Anahit Hayrapetyan is a freelance
photojournalist also based in Yerevan.

CONGRATULATORY MESSAGE OF RA NA SPEAKER HOVIK ABRAHAMYAN ON THE OCCASION OF THE KNOWLEDGE DAY

National Assembly
Sept 1 2011
Armenia

Dear compatriots,

I congratulate you on the occasion of the Knowledge Day.

September 1 is everybody’s holiday, because the knowledge is in the
basis of each job, work and profession. This holiday, being transferred
generation by generation, maintains its vitality with this documenting
that the education and knowledge are permanent values.

We learn during our whole life, obtaining knowledge and experience,
developing our capacities, and the basis of all that is laid down at
school. In this year also numerous first class pupils will enter into
the school, the yesterday’s graduates will become first-year students.

They are obliged to write the new page of the history of our country,
turning the good-working, patient and devoted work of their teachers
and lecturers from work into deed.

Congratulating again all of you I wish you success ad happiness,
optimism and welfare.

ARMENIAN CULTURE DAYS IN STUTTGART

ARMENPRESS
20:24, 2 September, 2011

YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 2, ARMENPRESS: The Armenians in Armenia and
Diaspora will mark this year the 20th anniversary of the Republic
of Armenia. Events on the Armenian culture will be organized in
the Diaspora.

The Armenian community and the Armenian Cultural Union of Stuttgart
will organize days of the Armenian culture from September 16 to 22
in Stuttgart, capital of the state of Baden-Wurttemberg in southern
Germany. RA Ambassador to Germany Armen Martirosyan will open the
festive events, which will last seven days.

Hrach Aslanyan, head of the RA Diaspora Ministry Staff Department
of Armenian Communities to Europe, reported Armenpress that over 15
artists from Armenia will partake in the events. Robert Amirkhanyan,
composer, and Artak Movsisyan, historian, will partake as well,
and their trip will be financed by the Diaspora Ministry.

NEW FILM ON WESTERN ARMENIA TO BE SHOT IN AUSTRALIA

ARMENPRESS
15:56, 2 September, 2011

YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 2, ARMENPRESS: A new documentary, titled “Western
Armenia: Lost Homeland”, will be shot upon the initiative by the
Armenian community to Australia.

An official from the Armenian National Committee of Australia reported
Armenpress that the 120 minutes long documentary is a story of a trip
by a group of Armenians to the 12 cities of Western Armenia.

POLICE COLLECTS DATA ON THE CASE OF VAYK MATERNITY HOSPITAL

ARMENPRESS
21:37, 2 September, 2011

YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 2, ARMENPRESS: The Police’s Vayk Department
received August 31 some information, according to which Mrs. Metaksya,
54, obstetrician-gynecologist, did not perform her professional
responsibilities properly while assisting in delivery and this
affected on the health state of the newborn infant of a 20-year-old
woman in Gndevaz.

The RA Police PR and Press Department reports that data on this case
are being collected now at the Police’s Vayots Dzor Investigation
Department.

OUR “HERBS” IN KARABAKH
Naira Hayrumyan

Lragir.am News

15:50:00 – 02/09/2011

We will do everything to not only strengthen peace and security in
Artsakh but also to ensure its social-economic development, stated
Serzh Sargsyan, congratulating the Armenian nation of the 20th
anniversary of NKR’s independence.

The fact that no change regarding the settlement of the NKR issue
is expected in the nearest future is stated not only by political
scientists but also politicians. This means that the politicians will
leave Karabakh in peace for some time. On the other hand, diplomatic
passivity implies an intensification of work in other areas. It could
be a public campaign of Artsakh in the global information space but
without transformations in the republic the campaign would be dull
and may even produce the opposite effect.

The social-economic development of Artsakh is becoming a priority of
the Armenian diplomacy. Now, the form and content of the economy are
opposite: externally, Stepanakert is quite a successful and pretty
city with a lot of new buildings, a landscaped center, and some good
hotels. But it is enough to have a look at the Karabakh economy, and
it becomes clear that too little is done to ensure self-sufficiency.

Most funding is directed at supporting the exaggerated government
and salaries of military officers. Consumption in Karabakh is mainly
ensured through state and military salaries. Business and farming
have a much smaller share.

In Karabakh there are “major” business owners but most of them earn
and spend the money outside Artsakh.

The small proportion of medium-sized businesses is explained by the
fact that the country is unrecognized and the market is small. But
these arguments come to naught whenever you see that even traditional
herbs, cheese and dairy products are imported to Artsakh. There is a
large market for these products, and recognition is not necessary for
it, and it is easy to figure out why people do not want to manufacture
products that are demanded.

The point is the state policy which does not encourage the development
of business but encourages import, which is monopolized.

An economy which is declared liberal is, actually, completely
controlled by the government. There is no planning that was
characteristic of the Soviet state economy. Apparently, decisions
are not made openly, by the market and the state, but privately,
in offices, to avoid public scrutiny. And there is no control, the
Parliament is an appendage of the government, there is no independent
press, therefore first we learn that Karabakh will grow corn, and
then switch to bio fuels, then water pipes are laid out which fail
the first try-out. No one is upset, everyone claps their hands.

Let alone the territories which we used to call liberated. Alex
Kananyan, a resident of Karvachar, says no house has been built in
these territories since 2007. A few days ago, a new school building
was dedicated there. But no houses are built.

If Serzh Sargsyan’s words about economic development are based on
a political decision, then two major reforms should be carried out
in Artsakh: to create a tax free zone for freedom of doing business
and to register the liberated territories at the state cadastre. If
Serzh Sargsyan meant this, Karabakh people will only be happy.

PANORAMA.AM REPRODUIT UN ARTICLE PARU DANS LE PERIODIQUE AMERICAIN STRATFOR
[email protected]

armenews.com
vendredi 2 septembre 2011
ARMENIE

Panorama.am reproduit un article paru dans le periodique americain
Stratfor, indiquant que la Russie pourrait interrompre la production
de missiles anti-aeriens S-300 et les remplacer par des engins plus
modernes, S-400. De surcroît, d’après Stratfor, des travaux seraient
menes pour la production de missiles S-500, qui pourraient voir le
jour en 2012. D’après Stratfor, la Russie remplacerait egalement
les missiles S-300 stationnes dans les pays voisins partenaires la
Bielorussie, l’Armenie et le Kazakhstan par des nouveaux S-400.

D’après l’article, la suspension, par la Russie, de la vente des
systèmes S-300 a l’Iran ne serait pas definitive. Il n’est pas exclu,
selon Stratfor, qu’une telle transaction ait lieu par le biais d’un
pays proche de la Russie. En d’autres termes, l’auteur de l’article
de Stratfor ferait allusion a la vente de S-300 stationnes en Armenie
a l’Iran.