MATCHES OF ARMENIAN FOOTBALL HIGHER LEAGUE CHAMPIONSHIP 2ND ROUND TAKE PLACE
Noyan Tapan
Apr 6, 2009
YEREVAN, APRIL 6, NOYAN TAPAN. The matches of Armenian football
higher league championship 2nd round took place on April 4-5 with
the following results: Mika – Shirak 3 to 2, Ulis – Pyunik 0 to 3,
Ararat – Kilikia 0 to 2, Banants – Gandzasar 1 to 0.
The 3rd round matches are scheduled for April 11.
KARABAKH ISSUE NOT LINKED TO NORMALIZATION OF TURKISH-ARMENIAN RELATIONS
PanARMENIAN.Net
06.04.2009 11:52 GMT+04:00
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Normalization of Armenian-Turkish relations should
have no preconditions and it is with this mutual understanding that
we have been negotiating with the Turkish side, Armenian Foreign
Minister said.
"Normalization of the relations has no linkage to the resolution of
Nagorno Karabakh problem and has never been a subject of negotiations
towards the normalization of Armenian-Turkish relations. It has been
said many times, and I want to stress it again, that the normalization
of Armenian-Turkish relations can never question the reality of
Armenian Genocide," Edward Nalbandian said, adding that dozens of
states and international organizations have recognized the Armenian
Genocide, which Armenia has welcomed.
"I believe, that the statements, which put forth preconditions for
the normalization of Armenian-Turkish relations may be regarded
as an attempt to impede the progress reached in the negotiations,"
Minister Nalbandian said, the RA MFA press office reported.
Has Baku started blackmailing Armenia?
2009-04-04 11:53:00
ArmInfo. Concerned that the Turkish government might open its border
with Armenia before reconciliation is reached, the Azerbaijani
government has signaled it might stop selling natural gas to Turkey.
The Turkish newspaper Hurriyet says, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev
told third parties that Baku would cut gas supplies to Turkey if Ankara
reaches an agreement with Yerevan before substantial progress is
underway on the Nagorno-Karabakh issue, the Hurriyet Daily News &
Economic Review has learned. As a sign of how serious it is, Azerbaijan
signed a memorandum of understanding with Russia last week for
long-term supply of gas at market prices.
The ruling Justice and Development Party, or AKP, has been the target
of severe criticism in the Azerbaijani press with commentators there
accusing the Turkish government of selling out. The Turkish Foreign
Ministry has been informed that Aliyev has told third parties that were
Turkey to open its borders to Armenia, cooperation on energy supplies
would end.
Ankara and Baku have been trying to reach an agreement over the price
of natural gas Turkey buys from Azerbaijan through the
Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum pipeline. The agreement to buy natural gas for
$120 per 1,000 cubic meters for the duration of the first year
following the opening of the pipeline has long ended and the two failed
to reach an agreement as Azerbaijan wants to sell its gas at
international market prices, which is around $350 per 1,000 cubic
meters.
Armenian president says Iran is true friend
Moscow, April 5, IRNA — Armenian President Serzh Sarksyan told IRNA on
Sunday that Iran is Armenia’s true friend and the two countries enjoy
good political relations.
President Sarksyan made the remarks in a meeting with Iran’s Minister
of Road and Transportat Hamid Behbahani who is visiting Armenia at the
invitation of the country’s Minister of Energy Armen Movsisyan.
Sarksyan referred to his upcoming visit to Iran and said he will hold
talks with his Iranian counterpart Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on the political
and economic issues and review ways to develop Tehran-Yerevan ties.
He called for building railway link between the two countries which
would lead to boost trade exchange not only between Tehran and Yerevan
but also between the regional states.
Behbahani said for his part that the two countries enjoy longstanding
friendly ties.
He conveyed President Ahmadinejad’s greetings to Sarksyan and added
that the Iranian president backs removal of any hindrance in the way of
Tehran-Yerevan cooperation.
AZERI PRES REFUSES TO ATTEND ISTANBUL MEETING OVER TURKEY – ARMENIA THAW
Hurriyet
April 3 2009
Turkey
Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev has refused to attend an
international meeting in Istanbul next week, a move that can be seen
as a protest against the prospect of the border being opened between
Armenia and Turkey, according to a report on Friday.
Aliyev has refused to accept an invitation to attend the Istanbul
meeting of the Alliance of Civilizations initiative aimed at fostering
dialogue between the West and Muslim countries, Azeri News Agency
APA reported.
Several leaders, including U.S. President Barack Obama, will attend
the summit co-chaired by Turkey and Spain on April 6-7.
The report said the refusal may also be connected with Aliyev’s work
schedule, adding it is likely that Ankara’s refusal to take a stance
on reports regarding the reopening of the borders between Turkey and
Armenia may be the main reason.
The rumors surrounding Aliyev’s decision followed a report in the
Wall Street Journal suggesting that Turkey and Armenia have agreed
to open formal talks on a number of issues, including opening their
joint border, in a step towards the normalization of relations.
Turkey and Armenia have no diplomatic relations and their border
has been closed for more than a decade over Armenia’s invasion of
20 percent territory of Azerbaijan – a frozen conflict legacy of the
Soviet Union called Nagorno-Karabakh.
Both countries have however been engaged in a normalization process
since Turkish President Abdullah Gul paid a landmark visit to Yerevan
last year to watch a World Cup qualifying football match between the
countries national teams.
Azeri officials had already expressed concerns over the prospect of the
border being reopened and some media reports suggested that Baku might
even go one step further in halting the sale of natural gas to Turkey.
Azeri officials say that opening the border before the withdrawal
of Armenian troops from the occupied territories of Azerbaijan would
run counter to country’s national interests.
CONSULTATIONS BETWEEN RA AND NKR FOREIGN MINISTRIES HELD ON APRIL 3
Noyan Tapan
Apr 3, 2009
YEREVAN, APRIL 3, NOYAN TAPAN. Regular consultations between the RA
and NKR Foreign Ministries were held on April 3 at the RA Foreign
Ministry. They started with the participation of RA Foreign Minister
Edward Nalbandian and NKR Foreign Minister Georgy Petrosian.
According to the report of the RA Foreign Ministry Press and
Information Department, issues regarding cooperation between the two
Foreign Ministries and coordination of their work were discussed at
the meeting. The consultation participants exchanged thoughts about
the Nagorno Karabakh settlement negotiations process.
ARMENIAN FOOTBALL FEDERATION: HOW IT HAPPENED
Panorama.am
12:44 02/04/2009
Estonian mass media said on 1 April that the President of Estonian
Football Federation Ayvar Pochlakov accused Armenian Football
Federation of threatening him. The executive director of Armenian
Football Federation Armen Minasyan gave official statement in
this regard. "It is difficult to imagine that the President of
Estonian Football Federation could make such announcement. We have
always had good relations with this federation," is written in the
official statement. According to the executive director of Armenian
Football Federation as soon as Armenian team entered the stadium to
make their trainings a man shouting and smearing them attacked on
the footballers. Later they found out that it was the President of
Estonian Football Federation Mr. Pochlakov. Rouben Hayrapetyan the
President of Armenian Football Federation managed to calm him down
and the team was taken out of the stadium. Armen Minasyan says that
their Estonian colleagues were feeling shame for their President’s
approach and asked to forgive them for such unpleasant situation.
ARMENIA’S HUMAN RIGHTS DEFENDER WILL VISIT THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
armradio.am
02.04.2009 18:12
Mr. Armen Harutyunyan, the Human Rights Defender of the Republic
of Armenia since 2007, will be visiting the City of Ann Arbor and
the University of Michigan Armenian Studies Program on April 9 and
10. Mr. Harutyunyan is on a US State Department sponsored tour of the
United States and will be having meetings related to human rights on
the international, national, and local level in three other cities
as well.
Mr. Harutyunyan has extensive experience in the development of human
rights laws in Armenia and intensive training in European universities
on the subject.
While in Michigan, Mr. Harutyunyan will be hosted by the International
Center of the University of Michigan. The program for his first
day in Ann Arbor has been set by the Armenian Studies Program of
the University.
On April 9 Mr. Harutyunyan will first meet the Armenian Studies
faculty, followed by a luncheon meeting with faculty from the Center
for International and Comparative Studies, which has a strong program
in human rights; the Center for Russian and East European Studies; the
Center for Middle Eastern and North African Studies; the Center for
European Studies; the Ford School of Public Policy, and the Michigan
Law School.
Mr. Harutyunyan will deliver a public lecture in the Koessler Room
of the Michigan League on human r ights issues in Armenia and the
South Caucasus.
"This is a rare opportunity," stated Prof. Gerard Libaridian, Director
of the Armenian Studies Program at the University of Michigan, "to
hear directly from the Human Rights Defender of Armenia regarding the
human rights situation in Armenia and develop a constructive dialog
with him worldwide."
APRIL MEANS BLOOD IN THE SPRINGTIME
by NP Editor Heidi Kingstone
National Post
comment/archive/2009/04/02/heidi-kingstone-blood-i n-april.aspx
April 2 2009
Canada
At the Kigali Memorial Centre on the outskirts of the Rwandan capital,
258,000 people are buried, their bodies having been exhumed and
re-interred on the site. Overlooking the city you see that Rwanda
really is the land of a 1,000 hills, mille collines, undulating,
green, lush, verdant, a country recovering from madness. You can’t
go to Kigali without visiting at least one genocide memorial; what
happened 15 years ago this April was too monstrous.
Rwanda’s holocaust started on the evening of April 6th, 1994. The
frenzy continued all night and into the next day, April 7th, as it
happens my birthday. Adolf Hitler’s birthday is less than two weeks
later, though several decades and a previous century earlier than
mine – April 20th, 1889 – a terrifying thought.
At approximately 8:20 pm on April 6, 1994, the plane carrying Rwandan
President Juvénal Habyarimana, Rwandan Armed Forces (FAR) Chief of
Staff Deogratias Nsabimana, and other prominent figures was shot down
as it approached Kigali International Airport.
During that night and through to the morning of April 7, General
Roméo Dallaire, then commander of UNAMIR, frantically engaged in
dialogue with the Forces Armées Rwandaises. UNAMIR served as the
military and legal force behind the Prime Minister of Rwanda. Ten blue
helmets guarded Premier Agathe Uwiringiyimana. Their murder in Kigali
on April 7, 1994, precipitated the withdrawal of Belgian troops and
later of other foreign troops.
That unleashed 100 days where Hutu hordes massacred Tutsis and moderate
Hutus. Between 800,000 and one million people died. Using clubs and
machetes up to 10,000 Rwandans were killed each day. People would pay
for their murderers to despatch them swiftly rather then have them
hack off an arm, only to return later in order to hack off another
limb, until death finally came, slowly, and more, as we know.
I mention April because that month kept coming up as I toured room
after room in the genocide museum. One by one, 20th century genocides,
like the stacks of the bodies of their victims, piled up. The killing
fields of Cambodia began when the Khmer Rouge took power on April
17, 1975.
The third Anfal campaign, which took place between April 7-20, 1988,
continued the genocide of the Kurds by Saddam Hussein’s government. It
was in northern Iraq where "Chemical" Ali Hassan al-Majid used mustard
gas and chemical weapons.
April 24th is the day commemorated worldwide by Armenians as Genocide
Memorial Day. In 1915 hundreds of Armenian leaders were murdered in
Istanbul after being summoned and gathered.
The Siege of Sarajevo began on April 5th 1992, continuing until
February 29, 1996. Muslim forces responded to three nights of heavy
shelling by launching a counter-offensive to break the nine-week
Serbian siege.
In Israel, and in Jewish communities around the world, Holocaust
Memorial Day, Yom Ha’Shoah, follows the Jewish calendar but usually
falls in April, marking the Warsaw ghetto uprising. The heroic uprising
began on April 19th 1943 but the destruction of the ghetto signalled
the end of hope and the end stage of the final solution of the Jews
of Europe.
The UK celebrates HMD, commemorating the Holocaust and other genocides,
on January 27, the day Auschwitz was liberated by the Soviets, but
when former Prime Minister Tony Blair was trying to determine the
appropriate date, the Aegis Trust, a British NGO that campaigns against
genocide, suggested April. "Aside from being close to Yom Hashoah,
April 15th 1945 was the date Bergen-Belsen was liberated by British
troops and so there was resonance with that period of history with
many families of veterans as well as survivors. We noted it would
have brought HMD it into a month when other genocides were marked
and we were curious why so many dates associated with genocide fell
in April" says chief executive James Smith, "However other countries
in Europe already marked January 27th and as Holocaust Memorial Day
is more of an educational event, January was favoured as there are
no holidays and pupils would not be so close to writing exams."
The Rwandan genocide began when school was out for Easter, and
children were back in their villages with their families. This would
have made it easier for the perpetrators to kill entire families
of Tutsis and moderate Hutus, who were identified and betrayed by
neighbours. Logistically it was not so convenient as April is also the
wettest month. That also made it a bad time of year for the victims
who were running or hiding. The plan to shoot down the President’s
plane, if there was one, would not have been planned strategically,
but linked to the timing of the Arusha Peace Process talks taking
place in neighbouring Tanzania.
What is it about April that makes it, as T.S. Eliot wrote in The Waste
Land, the cruellest month? Had all these people actually read Eliot
and taken him at his word? Why is there a genocidal spring clean in
April? Is it when testosterone levels soar?
In China the symbolic ploughing of the earth by the emperor and
princes of the blood takes place in their third month, which frequently
corresponds to our April. The "days of April" (journées d’avril) is
a name appropriated in French history to a series of insurrections at
Lyons, Paris and elsewhere, against the government of Louis Philippe
in 1834, which led to violent repressive measures, and to a famous
trial known as the procès d’avril.
There may be no explanation other than man’s continued barbarity or
the positioning of the planets. More likely it is the randomness and
coincidence of history.
THE MILITARY BALANCE OF POWER IN THE SOUTH CAUCAS
A1+
07:45 pm | April 01, 2009
Politics
The Armenian Center for National and International Studies (ACNIS)
convened a special roundtable seminar discussion to present a new
special publication entitled, "The Military Balance of Power in the
South Caucasus."
Welcoming the participants and attendees, ACNIS Director Richard
Giragosian explained that the new ACNIS report, the second in a
series of ACNIS Policy Briefs, examines recent shifts in the military
and security situation in the region, including a specific focus on
developments since the August 2008 war in Georgia. He further noted
that the report includes an assessment of the current state of the
Azerbaijani military, and an analysis of the implications for the
security of Armenia and Nagorno Karabagh.
Giragosian noted that "nearly eight months after a brief, but deadly,
war in Georgia in August 2008, the outlook for security and stability
in the South Caucasus remains far from certain," and that the war
"had dramatically altered the geopolitical landscape of the region,
consolidating a clear reassertion of Russian power and influence
and forcibly ‘resolving’ two of the region’s three formerly ‘frozen’
conflicts." He also stressed that "the Georgian war raised new doubts
over Georgia’s strategic role as the regional ‘center of gravity’
for the West and effectively ended Georgia’s hopes to join the NATO
alliance."
"But most importantly," he argued, "was the fact that the August 2008
war further demonstrated a dramatic shift in the region’s delicate
balance of power, which has already reconfigured the threat perception
and military posture of the region." More specifically, Giragosian
asserted that "although it is now clear that the shifting military
balance of power remains one of the most crucial considerations for
regional security and stability, the real imperatives are internal
in nature and depend far more on institutional legitimacy, the rule
of law and good governance, and on local economics and politics than
grand geopolitics."
For his part, ACNIS Director of Administration Dr. Karapet Kalenchian
presented an assessment of the "Political Military Problems of the
South Caucasus Region." He emphasized that "the regional neighbors have
huge armies, whereas the regional countries possess armed forces that
can withstand only one another, and, objectively speaking, they can
not stand against the military potential of the neighboring countries."
Therefore, Kalenchian argued, the political component of stability
assumes a pivotal role in terms of the security of the regional
countries. "In other words, the armed forces in the region cannot be
self-sufficient factors in the security of those countries. And after
the events that occurred in Georgia last August, Azerbaijan would
hardly carry out any military operation against Nagorno Karabagh
without the consent of Turkey, Russia, the United States, England,
and France, which are those countries that have huge interests in the
South Caucasus region. Also, we must not exclude Iran. And even if
Azerbaijan receives that consent, it will need to think considerably
before taking any military action. The Georgian incident is always
evident for all," Kalenchian stated.