Author: Toneyan Mark

EU: CONTINUING REFORMS, TURKEY CAN FIX PROGRESS BY YEAREND

PanARMENIAN.Net
25.06.2008 17:56 GMT+04:00

The European Union thinks that if Turkey continues reform it can
fix progress by the yearend, according to Krisztina Nagy, European
Commission’s spokeswoman for enlargement.

"Turkey is striding steadily toward the European Union. However,
accession to the Union is long process. Turkey has already carried
out a number of reforms, including cancellation of death penalty,
consolidation of civil control over the armed forces and introduction
of some amendments to the Constitution. Turkey also fixed progress
in securing women and children’s rights," she said.

"But there is still a great deal of work to do. Turkey should develop
its economy and demonstrate ability to carry out reforms in all fields,
what implies adoption of 80 thousand pages of EU laws and standards,"
she said, Azeri Trend news agency reports.

DASHNAKTSUTYUN RECOGNIZES NKR IN ITS FACTUAL BORDERS PLUS NORTH ARTSAKH

KarabakhOpen
25-06-2008 17:53:30

The ARF Dashnaktsutyun thinks that all the territories which are within
the borders of NKR, as well as North Artsakh occupied by Azerbaijan
are indivisible parts of NKR, and it is necessary to convey this to
the Armenians worldwide and the Armenian state, holds the editor’s
column of the Aparazh newspaper of the party (Stepanakert) which
comments on the 30th General Assembly of the ARF Dashnaktsutyun.

The decisions made during the assembly have a special focus on NKR.

According to the program which it passed, NKR is on the track for
development, and everything should be done to involve NKR in the
talks, consolidate the Armenian potential for sustaining the economic
development of NKR and support the political stance of the Armenian
sides on the international arena, as well as to solve social and
economic problems.

By the way, Kiro Manoyan, a member of the ARF Bureau, stated in
Yerevan that special focus on the population of Karabakh is needed.

PRESS RELEASE

Children of Armenia Fund (COAF) – Yerevan Office
53-55 Pavstos Buzand Street, 0010
Yerevan, Republic of Armenia
Contact: Inessa Grigoryan
Tel: (+374 10) 522076; 562068
Fax: (+374 10) 522076
E-mail: [email protected]
Web:

Children of Armenia Fund – New York Office
162 Fifth Avenue, Suite 900,
New York, NY 10010, USA
Contact: Samantha Wagar
Tel: 212 – 994 – 8234
Fax: 212 – 994 – 8299
E-mail: [email protected]
Web:

Lernagog School Children Advocate Tobacco Free Environment

June 25, 2008 Lernagog, Armavir District ¾ Following international No
Tobacco Day celebrated worldwide on May 31, the community of Lernagog
recently hosted an event in the premises of a newly renovated village
school, advocating tobacco free environment in the community and
throughout the region. Lernagog is one of six villages included in
Comprehensive Rural Development Program, initiated and implemented by
the Children of Armenia Fund (COAF) since early 2006. Other communities
constituting COAF’s Model Cluster include Argina, Dalarik, Karakert,
Miasnikian and Shenik.

The event was organized by the members of the local Youth Club on
Healthy Lifestyle in close cooperation with COAF health education team.
Through the mentioned club, which makes part of a chain of 30 clubs
operating in four villages of the Model Cluster and one neighboring
Hushakert, the local youth acquires knowledge and builds capacity on
disease prevention, healthy nutrition, physical activities and healthy
behavior. Other clubs focus on such areas of development as
agribusiness, civic education, ecology, logics and journalism/public
relations. The project is being implemented within the framework of
Creation and Development of Youth Clubs, implemented in close
partnership with Heifer International.

The participants and organizers built the first part of the event on
question and answer scheme, discussing and covering smoking and
non-smoking issues, accompanied by illustrative slides on the damages
caused by active and passive smoking, and presenting some statistics on
smokers throughout Armenia. As Karine Tonoyan, Head of Youth Club on
Healthy Lifestyle and Lernagog School Biology Teacher noted, "This event
and a number of others that we are regularly organizing is always a
great tool in raising awareness and taking responsibility towards health
issues among children, youth and adults. And from one event to another
we get more and more enthusiastic, as we find the necessary support from
our friends from COAF".

The second part of the event was dedicated to the performance, played by
the Lernagog schoolchildren themselves, with the goal of advocating
tobacco-free environment and conducting healthy lifestyle among youth
and adults. Anti-smoking commercials and ads, as well as recommendations
towards quitting smoking were widely used and advocated. Of special
importance were the stage decorations, which symbolized the Universe,
divided into two parts – smokers and non-smokers. The guests and the
local community could witness that the part engaging non-smokers was
blossoming with flowers and flourishing with sunshine, thus promising a
bright future and prosperity for its inhabitants. Meanwhile the opposite
camp remained uninhabited, with its grey and gloomy colors, arousing
sadness and bore and repelling the people to a brighter part of the
Universe.

For the past two years, apart from classes on healthy lifestyle
conducted in Lernagog and other five villages of the Model Cluster, COAF
community health education program additionally included trainings and
workshops on first aid, prevention of infectious diseases, management of
chronic health problems, prenatal care, child care, cervical and breast
cancer prevention, family planning, sexually transmitted diseases, and
family violence.

# # # #

900 THOUSAND – 1M RA CITIZENS EMIGRATE FROM ARMENIA SINCE 1992

Noyan Tapan

Ju ne 23, 2008

YEREVAN, JUNE 23, NOYAN TAPAN. The Migration Agency of the RA Ministry
of Territorial Administration has created a new Internet system with
the address. Its goal is to provide information to
RA citizens living abroad on issues they are concerned with. As Gagik
Yeganian, the Head of the Agency, said at the June 20 press conference,
people can apply to the system with issues of RA citizenship, loss
of documents, their return, compulsory military service in RA, and
other issues. Besides, according to him, system’s special online
regime gives a possibility to conduct an interview between a citizen
and a competent employee of country’s proper state body.

G. Yeganian said that 900 thousand – 1m RA citizens have emigrated from
Armenia since 1992. Nearly 70% of them have left for CIS countries,
including nearly 65% to RF.

ARMENIA JOINS ENTERPRISE EUROPE NETWORK

Noyan Tapan

Ju ne 20, 2008

YEREVAN, JUNE 20, NOYAN TAPAN. Henceforth small and medium
entrepreneurs of Armenia will have the opportunity to establish
contacts and find partners in the European market – thanks to Armenia’s
joining the Enterprise Europe Network (EEN). The official ceremony
of Armenia’s joining EEN took place at the office of the European
Commission Delegation in Armenia on June 20.

The RA minister of economy Nerses Yeritsian said that links with the
developed European market and professional advice of European experts
will open development opportunities not only for small and medium
entrepreneurs, but also for big ones. Businessmen from Yerevan and
marzes may use services of the network, which is of special importance
to those who have just started their business.

In the words of the head of the European Commission Delegation in
Armenia Raul de Luzenberger, Armenia’s joining the EEN is yet another
important step taken within the framework of the European Neighborhood
Policy and it will make the European market more accessible to
Armenian businessmen.

The director of the Small and Medium Entrepreneurship Development
National Center Armenia (SME DNC) Iskhan Karapetian said the network
will assist enterprises with business cooperation, market research
and finding potential partners, negotiating and signing agreements
on cooperation, as well as with evaluation of their capacities and
preparedness to operate in international market. According to him,
14 working groups in various sectors of economy have already been
created. It was announced that 5 proposals to make use of the network’s
services have been received, another 25 proposals are being developed.

The Enterprise Europe Network currently operates in 27 EU member
states, countries-candidates for EU membership – Turkey and Macedonia,
countries of the European economic zone Norway and Iceland, while
Israel and Switzerland joined the network in 2008.

BLOCKS OF APARTMENTS IN ASKERAN

KarabakhOpen
21-06-2008 13:32:11

Two blocks of apartments will be built in Askeran. In this connection
the government changed the temporary scheme of the use of land in
Askeran. The plot of land of 0.5 hectares owned by the local community
was sold to Artsakh Investment Fund for the construction of two blocks
of apartments for the mortgage loan policy.

By another decree of the president the former office of the Democratic
Party in Stepanakert which is 0.2 ha was transferred to the office
of the human rights defender.

MARIE YOVANOVITCH REFUSES TO CALL 1915 EVENTS GENOCIDE

arminfo
2008-06-20 12:20:00

ArmInfo. "We were troubled by Ambassador Yovanovitch’s refusal to offer
any meaningful rationale for the Administration’s ongoing complicity
in Turkey’s denials", ANCA Executive Director Aram Hamparian said.

To note, debates were held yesterday in the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee on approval of Marie Yovanovitch as U.S. Ambassadorial
nominee to Armenia. As ANCA told ArmInfo, M. Yovanovitch said in her
opening testimony: "The US government – and certainly I – acknowledges
and mourns the mass killings, ethnic cleansing and forced deportations
that devastated over one and a half million Armenians at the end of
the Ottoman Empire". Following these remarks, Sen. Menendez, who had
placed two consecutive holds on previous ambassadorial nominee Dick
Hoagland for denying the Armenian Genocide, meticulously questioned
Yovanovitch by presenting historical State Department documents
from the time of the Genocide and comparing those statements with
her opening remarks. Juxtaposing the eyewitness accounts of these
U.S. officials with the definition of the crime as outlined by the
U.N. Convention on the Punishment and Prevention of the Crime of
Genocide, Sen. Menendez asked whether the President’s annual April
24th remarks, Yovanovitch’s prepared statements, and her responses
regarding U.S. diplomatic reporting matched the U.N. Convention, to
which the U.S. is a party. Amb. Yovanovitch sidestepped this question,
stating instead that it is the President and the State Department
who set the policy of defining historic events. In her testimony,
she publicly confirmed that "It has been President Bush’s policy,
as well as that of previous presidents of both parties, not to use
that term", she said."

Sen. Menendez responded, "It is a shame that career foreign service
officers have to be brought before the Committee and find difficulty
in acknowledging historical facts, and find difficulty in acknowledging
the realities of what has been internationally recognized." He went on
to state, "And it is amazing to me that we can talk about millions,
a million and a half human beings who were slaughtered, we can
talk about those who were raped, we can talk about those who were
forcibly pushed out of their country, and we can have presidential
acknowledgements of that, but then we cannot call it what it is. It
is a ridiculous dance that the Administration is doing on the use of
the term genocide", he said.

OBAMA REAFFIRMS COMMITMENT TO ‘GENOCIDE’ RECOGNITION

Today’s Zaman
June 19 2008
Turkey

US Democratic presidential presumptive nominee Barack Obama has once
again voiced commitment to the official recognition of an alleged
genocide of Armenians in the final years of the Ottoman Empire.

In a letter sent to an influential lobbying group of the Armenian
diaspora, Obama said he shared the group’s view that Washington "must
recognize the events of 1915 to 1923, carried out by the Ottoman
Empire, as genocide."

"We must recognize this tragic reality. The Bush administration’s
refusal to do so is inexcusable, and I will continue to speak out
in an effort to move the administration to change its position,"
Obama said in the letter, addressed to Ken Hachikian, chairman of
the Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA.) The letter was
published on ANCA’s Web page on Tuesday.

"I was deeply disturbed two years ago when the US ambassador to
Armenia was fired after he used the term ‘genocide’ to describe the
mass slaughter of Armenians. In a letter to the Department of State,
I called for Secretary Rice to closely examine what I believe is an
untenable position taken by the US government. A copy of that letter is
enclosed for your review," Obama also said, referring to the fact that
back in 2006, then-US Ambassador to Armenia John Evan reportedly had
his tour of duty in Armenia cut short by the administration because,
in a social setting, he referred to the killings as "genocide."

In August the White House withdrew its nomination of a career diplomat,
Richard Hoagland, after Democratic Senator Robert Menendez held up
confirmation hearings because of his refusal to call World War I-era
killings of Armenians a genocide.

Late in March, President George W. Bush nominated another career
diplomat, Marie Yovanovitch, who is currently ambassador to the Kyrgyz
Republic, to be US ambassador to Armenia.

"The ANCA has spoken to committee members about the value of carefully
questioning Ambassador Yovanovitch on the many issues she will face as
the US envoy in Yerevan, among them the recognition of the Armenian
genocide, Turkey and Azerbaijan’s ongoing blockades of Armenia, and
the need for a balanced US role in helping forge a democratic and
peaceful resolution to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict," ANCA said in
its report on Tuesday.

Yovanovitch’s confirmation hearing before the US Senate Foreign
Relations Committee is scheduled to take place on Thursday.

TURKEY RESUMED ACCESSION TALKS WITH EU

PanARMENIAN.Net
19.06.2008

Turkey has resumed its European Union accession talks. The agenda
includes legislative issues referring to property and company
rights. The whole process will take no less than 10 years, the
RFE/RL reports.

Turkish Foreign Minister Ali Babacan claims that some states
pose artificial obstacles to the accession process. "We launched
talks on agriculture, transport, foreign policy and 15 other
directions. However, certain states hamper the process," he said.

Turkey opened accession talks with the EU in 2005 but progress has
since been very slow. In 2006 the EU suspended accession talks with
Ankara on eight chapters because of Ankara’s refusal to open its
ports and airports to traffic from Greek Cyprus. Ankara says it
is ready to open the ports and airports in return for EU steps to
ease trade restrictions on the Turkish Cypriots. The EU Commission
proposed direct trade with the Turkish Cypriots in 2004 after they
voted for a UN plan to reunite the island but the proposal, vetoed
by the Greek Cypriots, have never been approved.

ARMENIAN DEFENSE MINISTRY TO MOVE TO A NEW BUILDING ON SEPTEMBER 21, 2008

ArmInfo
2008-06-19 17:44:00

The Armenian defense ministry will move to a new building on September
21, 2008, RA Defense Minister Seyran Ohanyan told journalists,
Thursday.

He said that during the June 19 working meeting with the generals and
officers of the defense ministry, Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan
gave some instructions on completion of the ministry’s new building. To
recall, the new building in Avan community of Yerevan has been built
since spring 2005, and the construction work is completed by 95%,
the minister said. He added that at the working meeting he presented
a report on the ministry’s activity in 2007 to the RA president.