Author: Tambiyan Samvel

ANDRANIK MARGARIAN: RPA MUST BECOME ASSEMBLY PLACE FOR PEOPLE LED IN THE NAME OF STATE’S PROSPERING AND BY NATIONAL IDEOLOGY
Noyan Tapan
May 22 2006
ARMAVIR, MAY 22, NOYAN TAPAN. “We do not want to make the party a
school, it will become such an assembly place where people will be
who will be led in the name of the state’s prospering and by the
national ideology,” Chairman of the Republican Party of Armenia, RA
Prime Minister Andranik Margarian stated at the May 20 meeting with
RPA members at the Armavir Culture House. “Our goal is to strengthen
the party, completing our party’s rows just with such people,” he
emphasized. Andranik Margarian gave RPA membership cards to inhabitants
of Armavir newly joined the party’s rows. Republicans of the marz of
Armavir, representatives of the marz and city authorities were present
at the meeting. Mekhak Mkhitarian, a member of the “Orinats Yerkir”
(Country of Law) party, a NA Deputy was also present at the meeting.

RUSSIA IS BRINGING OUT MILITARY POSSESSIONS FROM BATUMI
Source: Vremya Novostei, 19 May, 2006
Agency WPS
DEFENSE and SECURITY (Russia)
May 22, 2006 Monday
Withdrawal of the Russian military equipment from Georgia is still
being carried out. As it was declared to “Vremya Novostei” by Second
in Command of the Group of the Russian troops in Transcaucasia,
Vladimir Kuparadze, the first in this year echelon with property of
the 12th Batumi base will come out from Georgia on the 25th of May.
On the whole, this year along this route Batumi-Gymri in Armenia,
where the 102nd Russian base is deployed, will follow seven echelons.
(…)
This year Georgia will be given five units of the Group of the Russian
troops in Transcaucasia, including two units in Adzharia (these are
the former sanatorium of the Air Defense forces in settlement of
Makhindzhauri and a town of the artillery troops in Batumi). Before
the Russian bases are finally closed, and this will be in 2008, the
Russian military men in Adzharia can use according to the agreement,
together with the Ministry of Defense of Georgia, training area
Gonio. But the Russian military men said that the Georgian side under
different pretexts doesn’t allow them to use this training area.

Agence France Presse — English
May 21, 2006 Sunday 2:08 PM GMT
Search continues for crashed Armenian plane’s flight recorders
Russian officials continued searching Sunday for the black box flight
recorders of an Armenian plane that crashed off Russia’s Black Sea
coast more than two weeks ago, but warned that they might be stuck in
the mud under the sea bed.
A submersible vessel was being used to search for the flight
recorders of the Airbus A320 that crashed on May 3, but “it is not
ruled out that they have sunk into the silt,” the ITAR-TASS news
agency quoted an official at the search headquarters as saying.
“If examination of the surface of the sea bed doesn’t yield results,
the underwater work will be reoriented to searching in the boggy
silt, which will significantly hamper the work,” the official said.
All 113 people aboard the plane died when it crashed on its approach
to the Black Sea resort of Sochi. Eighty-five of the victims were
Armenians, many of them on family visits.
The flight recorders are thought to lie at a depth of 500 metres
(1,600 feet) below the surface of the water.
Specialists from France have been called in to help with the search.
As of May 10, 51 bodies had been recovered.

Armenian-German intergovernmental consultations to be held in Yerevan

ArmRadio.am
20.05.2006 11:55
Armenian-German intergovernmental consultations of financial and
technical cooperation will take place today and tomorrow in
Yerevan. It is particularly envisaged to discuss issues of energy,
health, mortgage market and promotion of small and medium-sized
businesses.
>From the Armenian side the Intergovernmental Commission is co-chaired
by Minister of Finance and Economy Vardan Khachatryan. The German
co-chair is the Minister of Economic Cooperation and Development Rolf
Baldus.

NKR PAVILION WORKED TILL END OF MOSCOW EXHIBITION
DeFacto Agency, Armenia
May 19 2006
As it has already been informed, a group of Azeris held a protest
rally at the exposition of the Nagorno Karabakh Republic during
the International Tourist Exhibition titled “Tourism and Rest 2006”
conducted in the Moscow Exhibition Centre “Gostiniy Dvor” requiring
forbidding the NKR presentation.
While commenting on the incident at the DE FACTO Information-Analytics
Agency’s request, Director of the Karabakh agency for development
of tourism Sergey Shahverdyan stated it was a provocation. He said
about 15 young men dressed in shirts with inscriptions “Stop Armenian
Aggression” picketed the NKR pavilion raising the Azeri national
flags and chanting anti Armenian slogans.
Sergey Shahverdyan highly estimated the measures undertaken by the
exhibition’s organizers, having noted “they did not surrender to
intimidation and did not suspend the presentation”. He mentioned with
satisfaction that despite the Azeris’ demands the Karabakh pavilion
was not closed and worked till the end of the exhibition. According to
Sergey Shahverdyan, “the Azeris’ trick became a peculiar publicity of
the Karabakh exposition, as it drew more visitors”. On the outcomes
of the exhibition the NKR participants received the organizers’
diploma. Sergey Shahverdyan stated 40 countries and 80 regions
of Russia had participated in the exhibition and stressed the NKR
participation in such a representative exhibition was of extreme
importance. In his words, “not production, but the country is
advertised” at the exhibitions of the kind. Director of the Karabakh
agency for development of tourism added the Nagorno Karabakh would
take part in the Moscow International Tourist Exhibition in 2007.

JACQUES GUYON: ENCORE UNE LOI QUI FAIT UNE HISTOIRE
Charente Libre
18 mai 2006
Une fois encore, les historiens se retrouvent en butte a cette
tentation qu’ont les parlementaires de vouloir instaurer une histoire
officielle, erigee en verite intangible et a laquelle on ne peut que
se soumettre.
Et voila a nouveau les historiens remontes comme des pendules
contre les parlementaires ! Hier c’etait contre ceux de l’UMP qui
avaient vote la loi finalement ravalee sur l’aspect positif de la
colonisation. Aujourd’hui, c’est contre des deputes socialistes qui ont
pris l’initiative de deposer une proposition de loi visant a instituer
des sanctions penales contre la negation du genocide armenien.
Une fois encore, les historiens se retrouvent en butte a cette
tentation qu’ont ces temps-ci les parlementaires de vouloir instaurer
une histoire officielle, erigee en verite intangible et a laquelle
on ne peut que se soumettre au risque de sanctions penales. Cette
tentation très totalitaire – l’histoire officielle a de tout temps ete
l’apanage des dictatures – se pare une fois encore de plus ou moins
bons sentiments. Il s’agirait de lutter contre le negationnisme. Sauf
que ce negationnisme-la vient d’abord, et depuis 1918, du gouvernement
turc. Sauf que si on entend depuis quelques semaines les menaces
de retorsion economique d’Ankara, personne ne peut imaginer une
seconde que c’est cette loi qui va lui faire changer sa lecture
de l’histoire. Si ce pays reconnaît les massacres de centaines de
milliers d’Armeniens, il refute le terme de genocide.
Dès lors, on imagine mal qu’un jour la justice francaise condamne
(comme le prevoit le texte depose ce matin a l’Assemblee) le Premier
ministre turc, Recep Erdogan, a un an de prison et 45 000 euros
d’amende… Par contre, la loi du 29 janvier 2001 par laquelle l’Etat
francais (comme ensuite le Parlement europeen) a reconnu ces massacres
comme le premier genocide du XXe siècle, est largement suffisante pour
amener Ankara a plus de realisme: il suffit de lier l’adhesion de ce
pays a l’UE a cette condition. Il est d’ailleurs piquant que ce soit
du parti socialiste, qui pourtant milite pour l’entree de la Turquie,
que vienne cette initiative… Pour ce qui est des profanations
de monuments armeniens ou autres actes inadmissibles commis sur
le sol francais, il existe un arsenal juridique suffisant pour les
sanctionner sans qu’une nouvelle loi vienne epaissir notre maquis
juridique. Dès lors, on ne peut que s’etonner de cette initiative
parlementaire qui ne fait qu’en rajouter a la judiciarisation
actuelle et ne peut qu’encourager la victimisation galopante et les
surenchères communautaires. A moins precisement que les voix de la
forte communaute armenienne de France aient un tout autre echo a la
veille des elections de 2007. Si cette loi etait votee, nul doute que
les historiens de demain y verraient comme une loi… de circonstances.
–Boundary_(ID_4+7U6byb9QwuA2a77bb vWQ)–

DISASTER-HIT ARMENIAN CARRIER REPLACES DOOMED AIRBUS PLANES
Agence France Presse — English
May 18, 2006 Thursday 11:18 AM GMT
Armenian airline Armavia, which lost two of its Airbus planes in
accidents this month, took delivery of a replacement aircraft on
Thursday and was due to acquire another shortly, its press department
said.
One of Armavia’s doomed planes plunged into the Black Sea off Russia
for reasons that are still unclear, killing 113 people. The other
was destroyed in a fire at Brussels airport.
Thursday’s acquisition is a nearly new Airbus 319, manufactured in
2004, which has seen one year of service in the United States. It
arrived at Yerevan airport from Mexico, where it had been serviced,
the company said.
Armavia is due to take delivery of an Airbus 320 soon.
The remainder of its fleet consists of two other Airbus 319s, another
Airbus 320 and two Russian Yak 42s.

COURSES OF INTERNATIONAL IDEA IN ARMENIA TO START IN JANUARY 2007
Noyan Tapan
May 16 2006
YEREVAN, MAY 16, NOYAN TAPAN. On May 16, the Central Electoral
Commission (CEC) and the International Institute of Democracy and
Elections Assistance (International IDEA) signed an agreement on
mutual understanding on the program “Development of Stable Democracy
in Armenia: Improvement of Skills of Electoral Administration
and Political Participation”. As Noyan Tapan was informed by CEC
Spokesperson Tsovinar Khachatrian, under the above-mentioned program
it is planned to organize courses for those studying the electoral
administration. The courses will be organized on the basis of the
methodological materials of BRIDGE worked out jointly with the
International IDEA, Australian Central Electoral Commission and
UN. The program lasts 2 years including January 2007. In total, the
program amounts to 385414 euros. According to the agreement on mutual
understanding, the financing is to be implemented by the International
IDEA. According to Tsovinar Khachatrian, the implementation of the
program in the South Caucasus was initiated in 2003. In 2005 the
program was implemented in Georgia. In Armenia the courses will start
in 2007 January. The bids for participation in the courses will be
accepted in October of the current year.

QUESTION OF SPEAKER REMAINED
Lragir.am
16 May 06
The Republican Party seems to have decided to agree tacitly to home
political processes. The leaders of this party except Galust Sahakyan
decline to express their opinion on the fate of the coalition,
the vacant offices of Orinats Yerkir and the likely candidates
of the new speaker of the National Assembly. Several days ago, on
the day when Arthur Baghdasaryan announced about his resignation,
Prime Minister Andranik Margaryan, always ready for contacts with
press, managed to evade news reporters waiting for him at the State
Engineering University of Armenia. Several days later, at another
educational institution, Yerevan State University, Deputy Speaker
Tigran Torosyan gave a rather long and far-reaching reply to the
question of possibility of his nomination.
“The National Assembly still has a speaker, and when his place becomes
vacant, we can consider candidacies. Now there is no need for this,”
said the Republican deputy speaker. Tigran Torosyan gave a similarly
meaningful answer to the question if it would not be worth leaving the
position of the speaker of the National Assembly to maintain parity,
considering that the government is led by the Republican. “If there
is a vacancy, we will discuss different issues. Today the speaker of
the National Assembly is in office,” said Tigran Torosyan.
His answers to the other questions about the standpoint of the
Republican on the current situation and possible steps were no less
interesting. “I want to repeat for the third time that we will discuss
it when there is a vacant position. I repeat for the fourth time,”
said Tigran Torosyan. Well, maybe he doubts that the speaker of the
National Assembly will quit, and the position will remain vacant. “I
have to repeat for the fifth time,” said Tigran Torosyan and smiled.

OSCE MINSK GROUP CO-CHAIRS TO VISIT ARMENIA LATE IN MAY
ArmRadio.am
16.05.2006 13:00
May 25-26 OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs Yuri Merzlyakov, Steven Mann and
Bernard Fassier are scheduled to visit Armenia. RA Foreign Minister
Vardan Oskanyan told the journalists today that the Co-Chairs have
already presented their suggestions to the parties.
It will become possible to turn to the Azeri attitude in Strasburg
during the meeting of Armenian and Azeri Foreign Ministers.
In Vardan Oskanyan’s words, it is impossible to have a definite
position on any document, because of the situation and the complexity
of the issue.
“Anything put on the table has both positive and negative sides,
and these should be adjusted in the result of negotiations. If it is
possible, we’ll try to bring the positions closer,” the Minister noted.
In case the Strasburg meeting and the visit of the Co-Chairs succeed,
and progress is achieved, it is possible that the Presidents may meet
in the months to come. According to Vardan Oskanyan, we should wait
for the next opportunity.
“The process of settlement of the Karabakh conflict proceeds
normally. We should continue working and have as a target the rapid
resolution of the issue,” RA foreign Minister noted.