Author: Takmazian

ARMENIAN AGRICULTURE MINISTRY FOCUSES ON GRAPE GROWING

ARKA
March 19, 2008

YEREVAN, March 19. /ARKA/. Armenian Ministry of Agriculture is planning
to have 300,000 tons of annual grape harvest in five years with
26,000-28,000 hectares of vineyards, Armenian Minister of Agriculture
Davit Lokyan said presenting the draft law "On Grape-Made Alcoholic
Beverages" in the Parliament.

The Minister said they are also planning to ensure an increasing use
of Armenian grapes. "We must cut the import of foreign brandy spirits
and cultivation of phylloxera-proof grapes," Lokyan said.

The Minister also said the draft law suggests defining the specific
grades to be grown and processed in certain parts of the country,
as well as defining the vineyards allowed growing hybrids.

"Only those cognacs totally made of Armenian raw and grapes can be
called Armenian. Otherwise, the product will be called brandy rather
than cognac," Lokyan said.

220,000 tones of grapes were harvested in Armenia in 2007 against
200,000 in 2006.

RA PRESIDENT’S ANNUAL COMPETITION TO TAKE PLACE ON MAY 26 THIS YEAR

Noyan Tapan
March 19, 2008

YEREVAN, MARCH 19, NOYAN TAPAN. Hayastan All-Armenian Fund’s RA
President’s annual competition financed by the Robert Boghosian
and Sons Foundation (France) will take place on May 26. Noyan Tapan
correspondent was informed about it by Aida Khachikian, the Adviser
to the Foundation’s Executive Director. Prizes will be given in 12
nominations, culture, science, classical music, as well as to people
having made a considerable contribution to the recognition of the
Armenian Genocide. Youth prizes have been also instituted in the
spheres of painting, cinema, and literature.

The prize for considerable contribution to the recognition of the
Armenian Genocide is 10 thousand USD and the prize for winners in
other nominations is 2.5-5 thousand USD.

MUCH POSSIBILITIES TO BE USED IN RELATIONS WITH GREAT BRITAIN

Panorama.am
16:46 18/03/2008

The president of Armenia Robert Kocharyan received the Ambassador of
the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (UK).

According to the public relations department of the president’s
administration, the president congratulated the diplomat for his
new position and expressed his hope that the new ambassador will
contribute to the strengthening of the Armenia-British relations and
their development. Kocharyan said that Armenia is interested in the
relations with Great Britain regarding the bilateral relations and
the cooperation in the way to the European integration.

The president highly evaluated the project policy of the United
Kingdom to conduct some management amendments and mentioned the active
participation of the Council of Europe in some projects.

TURKEY: MYSTERIOUS CLERICAL ‘ERROR’ DELAYS MURDER TRIAL

Compass Direct News
March 18 2008
CA

Court clerks fail to forward lawyers’ request to replace ‘biased’
judges.

ISTANBUL, March 18 (Compass Direct News) – The fourth trial hearing
yesterday against the murderers of three Christians in southeast
Turkey was postponed for another month after court clerks failed to
file a request to replace judges accused of bias.

Plaintiff lawyers’ official demand to replace the presiding bench of
judges had been filed on March 1, but when the Malatya Third Criminal
Court convened yesterday it was confirmed that the request still
had not been forwarded to the higher court in Diyarbakir, which was
designated to rule on it.

Plaintiff lawyers had demanded a new set of judges at the previous
hearing on February 25, listing repeated instances of bias and
partiality that they declared were "obstructing justice" in the
high-profile murder case.

As required by Turkish court procedures, the plaintiffs then filed
their written complaint within the legal deadline of seven days, to
be sent from the state prosecutor’s office of Izmir’s 10th Criminal
Court to Diyarbakir’s Criminal Court for official review. But the
Diyarbakir court has yet to receive the complaint.

According to a report published yesterday in Malatya Haber newspaper,
the lawyers’ written complaint was faxed from Izmir on March 3 to the
Malatya criminal court, rather than to the Diyarbakir court designated
to review it. Even then, only the first page of the complaint was
faxed, not the complete document.

Dubbed "the missing fax comedy" by today’s Sabah newspaper, the
failure of the Izmir court staff to forward the complaint to the
higher court in Diyarbakir forced the Malatya tribunal to postpone
the hearing for another month, until April 14.

In doing so, the presiding judges in Malatya issued an accusation of
"criminal offense" against court clerks of the state prosecutor’s
office in Izmir, declaring that their ineptitude in processing the
legal complaint "within a reasonable time" had brought a "negative
effect" on the case.

Since the trial opened last November, only one of the five murder
suspects and two accused "accomplices" have testified in court.

Gun Charge Dropped

In another twist in the case, last week Malatya’s Second Criminal
Court acquitted prime murder suspect Emre Gunaydin on charges of
carrying and shooting a pistol fitted with blanks in an inhabited
location in Malatya on April 17, the day before he and four other
suspects attacked Zirve Publishing Co. offices.

Gunaydin, who is accused of being the ringleader of the five suspects
in the Malatya massacre, had purchased the Smith & Wesson gun on
April 16. He was detained the following day, April 17, for shooting
off the pistol in Malatya’s Pinarbasi district.

Police records indicate that Gunaydin was interrogated and released,
with the pistol confiscated by the police. But on April 18, this
same gun was found at the scene of the crime, allegedly brought there
by Gunaydin.

"The question as to how Gunaydin got this gun [back] remains
unanswered," NTV reported on its Internet website on March 13.

Gunaydin and his four cohorts, all under the age of 21, attacked the
Zirve office on April 18, 2007. After tying up and torturing Turkish
Christians Necati Aydin and Ugur Yuksel and German Christian Tilmann
Geske with knives, they slit all their throats.

In identical notes found in their pockets, the killers declared their
motives were to protect their country and their religion, Islam,
from Christian missionaries.

A new draft report last week from the European Parliament’s rapporteur
on Turkey specifically called on Turkish authorities to carry out "a
full investigation" into the Malatya murders and the assassination
of Armenian journalist Hrant Dink, as well as all other cases of
"politically or religiously motivated violence."

"Prime Minister Erdogan and his government made the commitment
that 2008 is going to be the year of reforms," Dutch rapporteur Ria
Oomen-Ruijten commented when releasing the report on March 13. "The
time has now come to make use of its strong parliamentary majority
to fulfill this commitment and accelerate the reform process."

END

*** Photos of Necati Aydin, Ugur Yuksel and Tilmann Geske are
available electronically. Contact Compass Direct News for pricing
and transmittal.

TURKEY’S CHIEF PROSECUTOR ASKS TO BAN AKP

PanARMENIAN.Net
15.03.2008 14:30 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Turkey’s chief prosecutor has asked the
Constitutional Court to ban the governing AK Party led by
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, accusing it of anti-secular
activities. Abdurrahman Yalcinkaya said he believed that there was
enough evidence to show the party had been contravening Turkey’s
secular constitution.

The AK Party, which has Islamist roots, won last year’s general
elections, so any move to close it will be extremely controversial. The
AKP is already locked in a battle with Turkey’s secular elite, backed
by the powerful military, over recent changes on the headscarf issue.

The Constitutional Court is reviewing an appeal by the main pro-secular
opposition party on the validity of parliament’s constitutional
amendments in February to allow women wear Islamic headscarves at
universities.

The AKP has argued that the headscarf ban unfairly bars large numbers
of girls from higher education in a nation where about 66% of women
wear the scarf. Many secularists in the country equate the wearing
of the headscarf with political Islam.

In a surprise announcement, Mr Yalcinkaya, the chief prosecutor
at the Court of Appeals, said he had filed a court request for the
closure of the AKP. He also revealed that the party had been under
investigation for six months.

Speaking on Turkish television later on Friday, an AKP lawmaker
said he was shocked at the news. The lawmaker said that senior party
officials and lawyers were now holding an emergency meeting in the
capital Ankara.

The AKP has its roots in an Islamist party that has been banned. But
the government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan – which is
negotiating for Turkey to join the EU – has always insisted that its
political views have changed, BBC reports.

"NKR PROBLEM IS DISREGARDED BY INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY," POLITICAL SCIENTIST LEVON MELIK-SHAHNAZARIAN SAYS

Noyan Tapan
March 14, 2008

YEREVAN, MARCH 14, NOYAN TAPAN. The fact that the State Duma of
the Russian Federation did not mention the Republic of Nagorno
Karabakh during the March 13 discussion concerning the states not
recognized by the CIS means that the Nagorno Karabakh problem is
disregarded by big states. This viewpoint was expressed by political
scientist Levon Melik-Shahnazarian at the press conference, which
was held on March 14. In his words, in order to keep this problem
in the center of attention of the international community, Armenia
should take "drastic and resolute steps" and speak with international
structures in their own language, that is to say, according to Levon
Melik-Shahnazarian, it should be consistent so as those structures
implement the resolutions passed by themselves. In addition to this,
in his conviction, a monitoring of diplomatic corpus work of Armenia
concerning the Nagorno Karabakh problem should be conducted.

The Armenian diplomacy, according to Levon Melik-Shahnazarian,
should put the stress on the fact that the Republic of Nagorno
Karabakh has come ouf of the structure of the Soviet Union and not
Azerbaijan. According to the political scientist, the Republic of
Nagorno Karabakh was within the limits of Azerbaijan in the years
of the Soviet Union, however, not in the structure of Azerbaijan:
soviet and not Azerbaijani laws were exercised in Karabakh then. The
second important fact, according to Levon Melik-Shahnazarian, is
that the Republic of Nagorno Karabakh, at present, has an elected
authority. "Artsakh is a self-contained state in economic, military
and demographical terms, in difference to Kosovo, the leader of which
is making use of the service of NATO’s troops, not having his own
military feasibilities," Levon Melik-Shahnazarian said.

Touching upon the issue of the recognition of the independence of
Kosovo by Armenia, he mentioned that, in any case, Yerevan should
take into consideration that Kosovo is a territory seized from a
people by force, as Nakhijevan from Armenians.

ROBERT KOCHARIAN RECEIVES COUNCIL OF EUROPE COMMISSIONER FOR HUMAN RIGHTS

ARMENPRESS
March 13, 2008

YEREVAN, MARCH 13, ARMENPRESS: President Robert Kocharian received
today the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights Thomas
Hammarberg.

Kocharian’s press office said the main subject of the meeting was
the post-election situation in Armenia and stemming problems.

Kocharian was quoted as saying that unfortunately "We failed to avoid
undesirable development of events and the government had to undertake
certain steps to normalize the situation."

The press office said they spoke also about the state of human
rights protection under the state of emergency and emphasized the
importance of undertaking necessary steps for the soonest regulation
of the situation.

Robert Kocharian said the situation in the capital was now calm getting
steady and due to it the provisions of the state of emergency have
been eased twice.

EXECUTION OF ORDER ALLOWING TO WEAR HEADSCARF IN UNIVERSITIES SUSPENDED

PanARMENIAN.Net
13.03.2008 14:19 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ The Council of State ordered a stay of execution
yesterday on the Higher Education Board’s (YOK) order to universities
to allow the Islamic headscarf on campuses.

YOK President Yusuf Ozcan had sent a written statement to university
rectors on Feb. 24 in which he argued that the changes to articles
10 and 42 of the Constitution were sufficient to lift the headscarf
ban in universities without further need of legal regulations. His
action was immediately brought before the Council by some academics
and university professors’ associations.

The Council of State ruled that Ozcan’s written statement counted
as a circular and ordered a stay of execution by unanimous vote. The
circular is legally flawed and the YOK president is not entitled to
pass unilateral measures, the Council said.

Some rectors backed the ruling and asked for legal action against
Ozcan himself. Inonu University rector, Professor Fatih Hilmiolu,
said an inquiry should be launched into Ozcan’s actions. Ankara
University rector, Professor Nusret Aras, stressed that Council’s
decision is an unequivocal response to claims that constitutional
changes are sufficient to allow the headscarf in universities.

The government aimed to lift the ban on the headscarf in universities
by stressing equality in utilization of public services in Article
10 of the Constitution and by adding a phrase to Article 42 which
stipulates that no ban not specifically expressed by laws can impede
the right to higher education. Discussions abounded on whether any
specific law should be promulgated to lift the ban.

An overwhelming majority of rectors persisted that the ban remained
intact, a position in stark contrast with that of Ozcan who faced

HASMIK PAPIAN’S AND AVO GUYUMJIAN’S CONCERT TO BE HELD IN LOS ANGELES

Noyan Tapan
March 13, 2008

LOS ANGELES, MARCH 13, NOYAN TAPAN – ARMENIANS TODAY. Famous opera
singer Hasmik Papian and merited pianist Avo Guyumjian, who have
settled in Vienna with their families, on April 27, will have concerts
in the hall of Los Angeles historic church of Vipiana. According
to Asparez, this event has been organized by the Infinite Echo
Entertainment.

Hasmik Papian born in Yerevan became famous thanks to the parts
of Aida, Dezdemona, and Violeta in Verdi’s operas, and in New York
Metropoliten opera in the past four years she has played the part of
Bellini’s Norma. She has performed in the world-famous halls of Scala
in Milan and Bastille in Paris and has worked with such artists as
Riccardo Muti, Valery Kerkiyev, and Placido Domingo. She also performs
works of Komitas, Mansurian, and other Armenian composers.

Avo Guyumjian devoted himself to music since early age and at the age
of 12 was the youngest student of University of Music and Peforming
Arts of Vienna. In 1981 he gained the first prize of Beethoven 6th
international contest and since that year has pleased the spectators
in different concert halls of the world from Europe to the United
States, from Canada to Japan.

At present he teaches at Vienna Music Institute.

US IMPOSES SANCTION ON ARMENIA

Azeri Press Agency
March 13 2008
Azerbaijan

Washington – APA. The U.S. Government has stopped the implementation
of a number of programs on assistance for Armenia, US Secretary of
State Condoleezza Rice said in the hearings in the House Committee
on Financial Services, APA reports.

The Secretary of State said the decision was connected with the state
of emergency in Armenia.

"State of emergency in Armenia made us stop the implementation of a
number of programs. We cannot realize the planned activities in the
state of emergency," she said.

Condoleezza Rice mentioned that assistance was also offered to Armenia
under the Millennium Challenge Account and warned against stopping
the implementation of the program.

The Secretary of State said they were working hard with Armenia to
rescind the state of emergency.

The US offers assistance to 25 countries under the Millennium Challenge
Account. $5.7mln. out of $236.5mln. assistance has already been given
to Armenia. The five-year program was launched in September, 2006.