Author: Torgomian Varazdat

WHOSE SIDE WILL RUSSIA TAKE IN KURDISH ISSUE?

PanARMENIAN.Net
03.11.2007 GMT+04:00

At present Turkey distances away from the USA, and Russia should
promote the process.

The fact that the Kurdistan Workers Party, according to the
U.S. Department of States, is "a common enemy for Turkey and the USA"
is already clear. What could hardly be expected was that the Kremlin
subscribed to this opinion as well. "We consider the activities of the
Kurdistan Workers Party to be terrorist attacks and we condemn them. We
think that Turkey has the right to protect itself. But we believe that
the only way to solve the problem is the dialogue. Ankara needs to
start negotiating with a number of countries supporting the Kurdistan
Workers Party", announced the Kremlin Press-Secretary Dmitry Peskov.

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ As the newspaper Hurriyat writes, for the first
time Russia officially qualified the Kurdistan Workers Party as a
terrorist organization.

In this case Russia’s position is a little strange, if we take into
account that the Kurdish separatism came into existence in 30’s,
when the Soviet Special Forces seriously took up the problems of the
Middle East.

However, Moscow strived to dispose the Kurds not against Iran, with
who the Soviet Union was in good terms in those times, but against
Iraq and Turkey, who are strategic allies of the West.

Opening the Mejlis Session in 1936, President of Turkey Mustafa Kemal
Ataturk mentioned, that among all the problems the country faces,
one of the most important one is the Kurdish problem, and called
"to put an end to it once and for all". After two years of repressive
policy regarding the Kurdish population, the Minister of Home Affairs
of Turkey Bayar announced that such a problem in the country stopped
existing.

"The history of the Turkish issue is formed in one sentence only:
Kurds have no national state. It’s a very big nation, whose population
is from 23 up to 35 million people. The Kurds realize that for the
first time over so many years they have the chance to create something
of its own. Especially in Iraq the Northern Part, populated by Kurds
and presently supported by the Americans, is de facto an independent
state. It has oil and a lot more to survive," thinks the Islam and
Middle East expert Alexei Malashenko.

>From the point of view of the Director of the Institute of Political
Research Sergey Markov presently Turkey distances from the USA
and Russia should promote this process: "Turkey is a politically
unappreciated country, and the thing is that it has always been
regarded as the puppet in the hands of the USA, and it has never been
taken into any consideration. But it’s obvious that Turkey stops being
a puppet, since it took no notice of the US request about not bombing
Iraq and not invading the country. We must repair our relations with
Turkey, and now we have the chance to noticeably improve our relations
with Turkey, integrating it into common economic area. By common
economic area we understand the countries running similar economy,
and which are deprived of the chance of being integrated into EU.

This is why we must also tell Turkey, that it should give rights to
the Kurds, and that it should show more tolerance of course. And I
think, that this is the case when one shouldn’t "strike an attitude",
but to use that chance for strengthening the influence of Russia".

It should be mentioned, that Turkey doesn’t enjoy one of its best
moments in its home policy. The power is in the hands of Islamists;
in the hands of the President, the Prime-Minister, who are opposed
by the Turkish Army. That’s why the fight against the Kurds is also
a concealed way of expression of the confrontation between secular
military men and Islamists. However, this victory may never be sealed.

Since 1984 the Kurdistan Workers Party has been fighting against
regular units of the Turkish Army and there is no end to this war. And
if Russia also gets involved, the Middle East will definitely have
a super-state, which will not listen to anyone, neither to Russia,
nor to the USA, and moreover not to EU. In future Turkey may follow
the example of the Ottoman Empire, but will have less complication
in fulfilling its plans, since the number of the Turkish nations is
growing. We only hope that the World Community will not give up to
blackmail and threats and will finally recognize Turkey the enemy of
the whole civilized world.

`POTENTIALLY ONE OF THE GREATEST PIANISTS OF THE 21ST CENTURY’GILMORE RISING STAR YEVGENY SUDBIN ALREADY HAS A STRONG CRITICAL FOLLOWING
By Elizabeth Clark

e/index.ssf?/base/features-2/1194276021228300.xml& amp;coll=7
Sunday, November 04, 2007

KALAMAZOO — Russian-born and London-based pianist Yevgeny Sudbin’s
Gilmore Rising Stars Recital Series concert at the Wellspring Theatre
next Sunday may be a bit of a misnomer.

Between his rigorous itinerary of performances around the world and
far more than a mantle-full of awards –including the Alfred Brendel
Prize, Orpheum Public Award and the Vendome Prize to his name and
his five-year recording contract with BIS Records — the distinction
between "rising" and risen has most certainly been met.

The 27-year-old performer typed a smiley face in an e-mail interview
from London when asked whether he took umbrage at being considered a
"rising star" more than a decade into his noteworthy career.

"Not at all," he wrote. "I think you find some of the most unique
talents within the `rising stars’ category. … I am somewhat
oblivious to how people view me or my career. I was always preoccupied
discovering composers and works that would suit my musical personality
and preparing for the next concerts. The perception of others is the
last thing on my mind!"

More pressing on his mind at the time of his writing was his then
upcoming trip to Yerevan, Armenia, where he would be performing
Beethoven’s "Emperor" Piano Concerto as a "run-through" for his debut
soon with the Minnesota Orchestra. While Beethoven’s Fifth might prove
daunting for some because it is so well-known, Sudbin said he was no
more nervous about his debut with the Minnesota orchestra than any
other concert.

"I have to mention that I am nervous before every concert, no matter
how important," he wrote. "This nervousness is a positive one and
important in order to achieve some excitement in the performance. I
don’t think I can perform without being nervous at all. (Nervousness
is maybe the wrong word.

I think a type of excitement is probably more like it.) I am at a
stage now where every performance is very important and in a way each
has to be better than the previous one. Although it is impossible to
achieve it in practice, this is an ideal I strive to."

A Gramophone UK reviewer examining his performance of Medtner and
Tchaikovsky concertos said nervousness isn’t palpable in Subdin’s
performance. "There is nothing tentative about his commanding
style. …

Sudbin’s performance here fairly explodes with imagination, feeling
and desire. Here, one feels, is a pianist hungry to test himself
intellectually and emotionally as well as technically." A London Daily
Telegraph reporter hailed Sudbin as "potentially one of the greatest
pianists of the 21st century."

The program he’ll play at his Gilmore recital is prevalent on his 2007
itinerary and is full of contrasts. Sudbin writes his own program
notes and explores in great detail the composers and the pieces
in fascinating text in his show-bills for concert-goers to further
explore the pieces including Haydn, Medtner, Chopin and Scriabin.

"Both Haydn Sonatas oppose each other in character; while the B minor
one is declamatory and often full of fury, the C major is cheeky
and full of humor," Sudbin wrote. "I love Medtner’s music but the
audience sometimes finds his music hard on the first hearing. His
Sonata Reminiscenza is probably some of his most accessible works, and
I usually get positively surprised how much the audience warms to it."

Half of the program focuses on Chopin Mazurkas and what he calls
the "mystical world" of Scriabin. "I devoted a whole second half to
Scriabin because I feel one should experience how his style progresses
and his sound world changes. It is quite incredible; from innocent
romanticism (Mazurkas) and nostalgic impressionism (2nd Sonata)
his music develops into demonic outbursts of truly terrifying power
(in the 9th Sonata)."

Recital

Gilmore Rising Stars Recital Series: Yevgeny Sudbin — Solo piano
recital by 2008 Gilmore Young Artist, 7 p.m. next Sunday, Wellspring
Theater, 359 S.

Kalamazoo Mall, Kalamazoo. $22, $5 students. 342-1166.

HOW THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE CRUMBLED

RIA Novosti
16:31 | 05/ 11/ 2007

MOSCOW. (Gennady Bordyugov for RIA Novosti) – Anyone who has been
following the stormy debate brought on by the 90th anniversary of
the Great October Revolution may well wonder why its national aspects
have been forgotten.

Were they not intertwined with the social aspects?

The events that shook the world took place in the Russian Empire,
which had a very complex social-ethnic structure. And it is hard to
say whether the social or the ethnic factors played a bigger role in
those sinister events.

Take land, one of the Revolution’s key issues: Russia being a country
of peasants, the poorest social stratum of one ethnic group often
sought to seize the landed estates owned by representatives of another
ethnic group.

And in the cities, too, the youth that had migrated from the
countryside seeking to climb the social ladder often met with
resistance from other ethnic groups.

Contrary to what some politicians thought, the abdication of the Tsar
in February 1917 could not automatically solve the ethnic problem
in Russia.

There was an incredible upsurge of the national movements in Russia’s
borderlands, and they could not accept the Provisional Government’s
call for a "single and indivisible Russia". Even so, discrimination
of non-Russians was abolished, and the autonomy of Finland and the
Polish Kingdom was restored. The remaining ethnic groups were not
granted any territorial rights.

The democratic government would, of course, pay a dear price for
its failure to appreciate the magnitude of the ethnic problem. True,
in June 1917, faced with a mass movement of peasants and soldiers in
the Ukraine, the Provisional Government would delegate some of its
powers to the Central Rada and recognize the national principle as
the basis for the country’s administrative division.

The Congress of the Peoples of Russia held in Kiev in September
1917 was attended by 93 delegations representing practically all
the major ethnic and national groups with the exception of Finns and
Poles. Although the Congress pronounced itself in favor of creating
a democratic federative republic in Russia, it was clear that the
national interests were prevailing over the idea of universal unity.

Radical sentiments – what today would be called "aggressive
nationalism" – were quickly spreading within the national movements. In
the elections to the Constitutional Assembly in November 1917 the
majority of non-Russians voted for their national parties. Faced with
a choice between the Provisional Government’s commitment to the united
and indivisible Russia and the Bolsheviks’ calls for self-determination
of the peoples, along with land and peace, the non-Russian population
(about 57 percent of the total) preferred the latter. The Declaration
of the Rights of the Peoples of Russia issued on November 2(15)
1917 offered the peoples the right to self-determination, up to
secession. At the time there was no clear awareness that the Bolsheviks
put the principle of class struggle above national self-determination.

After the dissolution of the Constitutional Assembly on
January 5-6, 1918 centrifugal trends manifested themselves
with a vengeance. Finland, Estonia, Lithuania, Ukraine and the
Moldavian Republic (Bessarabia) had proclaimed independence by
February, Byelorussia in March and the Transcaucasian Federation in
April. Turkestan, Kazakhstan, Bashkiria and the North Caucasus had
proclaimed their territorial autonomy in late 1917. The disintegration
of the Empire was precipitated by an external factor. In the summer
of 1918, after the Peace of Brest and with the Civil War flaring up,
Poland, Lithuania and Ukraine acted as independent states under German
protectorate, Estonia, Latvia and most of Byelorussia were occupied by
the Germans, Finland was under German protection, Bessarabia reunited
with Romania, and Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan became independent
states after the collapse of the Transcaucasian Federation. In
the North Caucasus, Central Asia and Siberia the situation was in a
state of flux with movements for autonomy, the Bolsheviks and Russian
counter-revolutionary forces fighting it out.

Compounding the situation was the Intervention by foreign countries.

However, the break-up of the Empire was not the end of the
multinational Russian state. Suffering defeats, making concessions
and retreating, by the end of the Civil War the Bolshevik government
had nevertheless regained the lost borderlands (two decades later
the Baltic countries, Western Byelorussia and Bessarabia, though not
Poland and Finland, became parts of the U.S.S.R.).

Historians attribute the successful reintegration of the Tsarist
empire to a series of factors: the Russian nationalist and reactionary
programs of the White armies and the Interventionists; the support of
the majority of the predominantly Russian industrial proletariat and
the peasantry; the ebbing of national movements; the use of the "divide
and rule" principle capitalizing on social and ethnic hostilities,
etc. It is important to stress that "national revolutions" were not
really revolutions in their own right, most of them being variants
of peasant uprisings. In 1917 the nations and ethnic groups did not
"betray" but "fled" from the crumbling imperial centre. As soon as
the imperial centre started regaining strength, centrifugal forces
manifested themselves again.

The 90th anniversary of the October Revolution provides another
occasion to wonder whether socialism was capable of removing
national antagonisms and paving the way to a supranational world
community. Obviously, in the beginning the Bolsheviks wanted
to replace the pre-national structure of the Tsarist Empire with
proletarian internationalism. But as early as 1918 they reverted to
the Social-Revolutionaries’ principle of federalism based on the
identification of territories according to ethnic and linguistic
characteristics, which, of course, was at odds with the Communist
ideology.

The principle of self-determination of nations was superseded by the
principle of equality within the union federative state. Non-Russian
elites were involved in government, the policy of "indigenization",
i.e. increasing the share of local indigenous population in
the governing bodies, was pursued, "small" local languages were
promoted and national schools were established. All that created a
groundswell of support for the Bolsheviks on the part of the majority
of non-Russian peoples.

However, the objective processes of consolidation of nations and a
growing sense of national identity gradually came to challenge the
official policy of dismantling the national elements and strengthening
the united Soviet state. There came the purges of the late 1920s and
the "nationalities operations" of the NKVD in the late 1930s. The 1940s
saw mass deportations and the emergence of anti-Semitic trends. All
this brought brewing national conflicts to a head and radicalized
the demands of the national movements, which were emerging from the
underground. Like after the October Revolution, there began a "parade
of sovereignties’. In late 1991 the Soviet Union ceased to exist.

What lies in store for post-Soviet space? What culture of reminiscences
prevails today? Is there nostalgia for a supranational system of
political, social and cultural communications? The jubilee of the
October Revolution is a good occasion to look back on the past in
order to better understand the present.

Gennady Bordyugov is head of research projects, Russian Social Research
Association (AIRO-XXI), Member of RIA Novosti Expert Council

The opinions expressed in this article are the author’s and do not
necessarily represent those of RIA Novosti.

Rear of former ministers was weaker than that of lower-ranking
officials

Anahit Danielyan
02-11-2007 18:18:19 – KarabakhOpen

The replacements in government which are not over yet resemble `castle’
in chess because hardly any dismissed official remained jobless.
Notably, only the dismissed ministers Marat Hakobjanyan, Kamo Atayan,
Zoya Lazaryan, Robert Hairapetyan, Vasily Atajanyan and Vahram
Baghdasaryan remained without government posts. In fact, only three
remained ministers: Georgy Petrosyan, Spartak Tevosyan and Armo
Tsatryan. In addition, the latter got a promotion.

All the other dismissed officials except for Masis Mayilyan have found
their place. Some of them have been demoted, others have been promoted.
It has given rise to lots of questions among the society.

The principle of dismissing and appointing people to these positions is
not quite clear. Apparently, the people who did not perform well in
their position have been dismissed. Furthermore, appointment of the
same people to other positions means that the given sphere is not
considered as important otherwise they would not have appointed an
incompetent worker. Everything is much clear about promotion ` a person
is appointed who can put the agency in order. Or they want to thank
them for something.

Nevertheless, people are asking why the inefficient workers are
appointed to other positions. Can’t they be fired? The option of a
`secure rear’ comes to mind right away. Apparently, it is difficult to
refuse a `secure rear’.

Meanwhile, the `rear’ of the former ministers turned out to be weaker
than that of the lower-ranking officials.

A NEW DIRECTION FOR RUSSIAN-TURKISH RELATIONS
By Sergei Markedonov, Special to Russia Profile

Russia Profile, Russia
Nov 1 2007

Can Russia Find a Friend in an Historic Enemy?

It is possible that as soon as in the next few years the Republic of
Turkey will become a new important foreign policy partner for Russia.

A significant "cooling" of the U.S.-Turkish relationship due to the
U.S. military campaign in Iraq as well as different approaches to
the future of Iraqi Kurdistan, along with continued debate in the
Turkish-European relationship over Turkey’s integration into the EU,
objectively push Ankara towards Moscow.

Experts traditionally see modern Turkey as the most pro-Western state
of the Islamic world. According to Turkish political scientist Chagri
Erkhan, "there are three main directions of Turkey’s foreign policy.

They are: the relationship with the EU, the relationship with the
United States and the relationship with Israel." Since 1953, the
Republic of Turkey has been a member of NATO and the most consistent
partner of the United States. The goal of being integrated into
Europe has also united practically all of the country’s mainstream
politicians. Even the leader of the Justice and Development Party,
Recep Erdogan, who first came to power in November 2002 and who is
considered to be a "systemic Islamist," expressed his support for the
pro-European vector of Turkey’s foreign policy. As renowned Turkey
expert Igor Torbakov has noted, it was during Edrogan’s era that the
"problem of European integration significantly overshadowed all of
Turkey’s other interests, including Ankara’s geopolitical ambitions
in post-Soviet Eurasia as a whole and in the Caucasus in particular."

However, with the start of the Iraq campaign, Ankara gave up its
unconditional support for the United States by refusing to open a
"Turkish front" for military operations. The phantom of Kurdistan
was too serious an irritant for Ankara since Iraqi Kurdistan has long
been a staging ground for Kurdish separatist operations against the
Turkish authorities. Now that Iraq has turned into an untenable state,
Turkey is even more concerned for its national security.

Ankara’s relationship with Washington may be very complicated, but
its relationship with the euro-bureaucrats from Brussels is far from
simple. On one hand, the EU keeps inviting Turkey to join; on the
other, Europe keeps holding it back. The decision by the EU to accept
Greek Cyprus for membership has played a particularly negative role
in this process. Turkey supported a referendum to unify the island,
but now the Greek Cypriots have no motivation for unification; they
have already been recognized by the European community and the Turkish
Republic of Northern Cyprus has little chance of being accepted by
the international community. This situation has resulted in Turkey
moving away from its pro-European outlook. The "euro-skepticism"
of Turkey’s elite only increased after several European countries,
including France and the Netherlands, demonstrated their aversion of
a forced integration of Turkey into the EU.

Just like Ankara, Russia today has a shortage of partners. Since
the start of the Iraq war in 2003, the Kremlin has been trying to
stand up to the United States, but in an unorganized way. First,
counteracting the "threat" of color revolutions practically became
part of Russia’s official foreign policy. According to the authors of
the theory of "sovereign democracy," such revolutions are initiated
by the United States and are a threat to Russia’s influence in
the CIS. Secondly, the Kremlin is trying to find some alternative
restraints and counterweights to Washington’s hegemony. Although
the efficiency of such searches is doubtful, attempts are made with
enviable regularity: in 2003, Russia proposed the Utopian idea of
forming a Moscow-Paris-Berlin axis; then, after this flop, Russia
increased its contacts with Tehran and Beijing, looking for an "Eastern
counterweight" to Western influence. Moscow became much more vigorous
in its interactions with the Shanghai Cooperation Organization,
seeing it as a kind of "Eastern NATO." At the beginning of 2006,
Russian authorities even admitted the necessity of negotiations with
Hamas, thus destroying all positive relations with Israel.

However, both Russia and Turkey have a long journey towards
a promising bilateral relationship. In the beginning of the
1990s, Moscow and Ankara accumulated a long and serious list of
contradictions. Russia and Turkey still have different views on
the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh, during which
Turkey supported Azerbaijan. In 1993, the Armenia-Turkey border was
closed. An important role in the development of the Azeri-Turkish
relationship is played by military collaboration. Since 1996, Turkish
military advisers have worked in Azerbaijan on a regular basis;
Azerbaijani military specialists train in Turkey. At the same time,
Moscow has always emphasized the strategic nature of its relations
with Yerevan. For Ankara, the Karabakh conflict is about "Armenian
aggression," for Moscow it is an ethnic conflict that needs to be
resolved by political means.

The Russian-Turkish relationship was also significantly aggravated
by the "Chechen crisis." In 1995, a government headed by Necmettin
Erbakan, leader of the National Salvation Party, came to power
in Turkey. Erbakan and others in his party sympathized with the
Chechen separatists. Despite the fact that Erbakan’s government was
soon forced by the Turkish military to resign, a strong pro-Chechen
spirit remained in Turkish society. Organizations of the diasporas
of North Caucasian ethnicities were active in Turkish territory and
supported the separatists. In 1996, the Avrasya ferry was hijacked in
Turkey by men making pro-Chechen demands. In July 2000, Abdul Khalek
Chei, who was then the Minister of Relations with Turkic Republics,
compared Russia’s operations in the Caucasus to "Hitler’s actions
against Jews." It is important to remember, however, that there is
a Caucasian diaspora numbering 7 million people on Turkish territory.

Today many experts in both Russia and the West talk about the positive
role of "national diplomacy" and this factor has played a paramount
role in Russian-Turkish relations. The multilateral and intense
business relations between Russia and Turkey have caused Turkey to
develop a dependency on Russian money, and thus significantly adjust
its policy toward Russia. Another factor that has brought Moscow and
Ankara closer together was Russia’s refusal to support the Kurdistan
Workers Party (PKK), which is considered a terrorist organization
in Turkey and was supported by the Soviet Union. One of the problems
the two countries share is how to confront radical politicized Islam.

Although over the course of history Russia and Turkey have spent a
total of 44 years fighting 11 wars against each other, today there
is a significant rapprochement of the positions of these two rivals.

Putting this relationship to good use, however, is a completely
different question. If Russia tries to use Turkey as a "weak link" for
influencing the Western world and for correcting the Euro-dogmatism
and the extremes of the U.S. neo-con neo-imperialism, then such a
rapprochement can be seen as a positive factor. If this rapprochement
turns into real cooperation between the two countries, united by an
aversion for radical political Islam, it will also be a positive
achievement, because it will demonstrate that a country from the
Islamic East and a state with a multi-million member community of
Muslims stand together against religious extremism and terrorism. In
this case we could truly demonstrate (unlike in the case of Russia’s
friendship with Hamas) a multi-vector policy. If in the context of
this rapprochement Moscow initiates a more productive dialogue between
Turkey and Armenia, this will also become an important stabilization
factor.

However, it will be a completely different situation if Russia follows
the advice of its Eurasians and tries to draw Turkey into an axis
with Tehran. First of all, this idea will most likely be rejected by
Ankara and secondly, it would further marginalize Russia’s foreign
policy. In this case, Moscow will truly confirm its reputation as an
archaic political power that acts for only one reason: to spite the
United States.

Sergei Markedonov is the head of the Interethnic Relations Department
at the Institute of Political and Military Analysis in Moscow.

eid=International&articleid=a1193922578

GOVERNMENT MEETS PROJECTED REVENUE COLLECTION RATES

ARMENPRESS
Nov 1, 2007

YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 1, ARMENPRESS: The government collected 386.6 billion
Drams in budget revenues in the first nine months of this year and
spent 379.9 billion. Revenue collection rate was one percent higher
of projected figure, while spending was 87 percent. In annual terms,
the numbers constituted 72.3 and 65.8 percent respectively.

According to these numbers, provided by the ministry of finance and
economy, budget revenues collection rate in January-September rose
by 82 billion Drams, or 30 percent from a year before.

It said 80 percent of the growth were accounted for by taxes and dues,
5.4 billion were collected as off-budget revenues and 3.8 billion
came from capital transactions. The ministry said 3.2 billion Drams
came as official transfers.

The ministry said 84.5 percent of all budget revenues were taxes,
state dues made 4.2 percent, off-budget revenues-7.4 percent, capital
transactions-3.5 percent and official transfers 00.3 percent.

THEY’RE GIVING US BACK OUR MONEY

KarabakhOpen
31-10-2007 19:23:32

Karabakh-Open.com often asks the pensioners resting at the central
park of Stepanakert to comment on one issue or another. We also learn
a lot of interesting news there.

Today the old gentlemen were less discontent and said at last
they raise pensions by 60 percent. They said they used to discuss
pensions in terms of dreams and disappointment and did not expect the
government would raise the pensions. Nevertheless, they have reason
to be dissatisfied. "It makes no difference. They raise the pension,
but prices are also rising," said Yervand Balayan, a pensioner,
adding that they are again cheated.

Nikolay Petrosyan sitting on the same bench says it is not worthwhile
to say often in what a good country we live in, how kind our government
is, how they raised our pensions by 60 percent. "They are merely
giving back our money to us," he says.

BY 2008 DRAFT STATE BUDGET, EXPENDITURES ON EDUCATION TO MAKE 103 BILLION 684 MILLION DRAMS

Noyan Tapan
Oct 31, 2007

YEREVAN, OCTOBER 31, NOYAN TAPAN. By the 2008 draft state budget,
expenditures on the sphere of education will make 103 bln 684 mln
drams, which exceeds the 2007 index by 17 bln drams. Educational
expenditures make up 2.95% of the overall expenditures of the state
budget – against 2.82% in 2007. The RA deputy minister of finance and
economy Pavel Safarian stated this at the October 31 joint sitting
of the RA National Assembly standing committees.

According to him, the growth in financing of education is mainly
conditioned by an increase in salaries of teachers, administrative,
edication assisting and economic employees. Based on this, the average
monthly salary of a teacher of the comprehensive education system,
including additional payments, will make 89.6 thousand drams against
56.3 thousand drams in 2007.

The growth makes nearly 21%. The average monthly salary of
administrative staff (heads of schools) will make 136 thousand drams
against 76.3 thousand drams (about 230 USD) in 2007.

RA FM BRIEFED HUNGARIAN COUNTERPART ON LATEST DEVELOPMENTS WITHIN KARABAKH PROCESS

PanARMENIAN.Net
31.10.2007 14:56 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Armenia is ready to deepen relations with Hungary
in all spheres, RA Foreign Minister Vartan Oskanian said at a meeting
with his Hungarian counterpart Kinga Goncz.

Armenia is thankful to Hungary for creation conditions for development
of the Armenian community, the Minister said. He also stressed the
importance of the Armenian-Hungarian cooperation within the Armenia-EU
Action Plan.

The parties discussed economic cooperation, specifically in
pharmaceutics, information technologies and tourism. They also reached
an agreement on development of the legal basis.

The Hungarian FM presented Hungary’s stance on the Kosovo problem
while Vartan Oskanian briefed on the current stage of the Nagorno
Karabakh conflict settlement.

In the framework of the visit, Minister Oskanian gave a lecture in
the Central European University of Budapest, met with members of the
board of national autonomy of Hungarian Armenians and attended the
Hungarian parliament, the RA MFA press office reported

ARMENIAN AND GREEK AMERICANS PROTEST INTRODUCTION OF BYRD-SMITH SENATE RESOLUTION COMMENDING TURKEY

armradio.am
31.10.2007 10:10

In a move widely seen as intended to calm Turkish anger over growing
strains in its ties with the United States, Senators Robert Byrd (D-WV)
and Gordon Smith (R-OR) have introduced legislation which ignores key
points of tension in this relationship and offers unconditional praise
to Turkey and its leaders, reported the Armenian National Committee
of America (ANCA).

"The resolution introduced by Senators Smith and Byrd neither serves
US interests nor advances American values by sugar-coating Turkey’s
record or by ignoring serious tensions in the US-Turkey bilateral
relationship," said American Hellenic Institute Executive (AHI)
Director Nick Laragakis and ANCA Executive Director Aram Hamparian,
in a joint statement issued today. "Any legislation that the Foreign
Relations Committee considers on this issue should clearly and
prominently address Turkey’s threats to invade and destabilize northern
Iraq, its immoral and heavy-handed threats against the recognition
of the Armenian Genocide, military occupation of Cyprus, continued
airspace violations of Greek- sovereign airspace over the Aegean,
blockade of Armenia, mistreatment of the Kurds, and restrictions on
the religious freedom of the Ecumenical Patriarch and other Christian
leaders."

The ANCA and AHI shared their concerns regarding this legislation with
Members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. In making the case
regarding Turkey’s increasing unreliability, the ANCA also circulated
a recent Los Angeles Times opinion piece by Graham Fuller, a former
Vice-Chairman of the CIA’s National Intelligence Council, who argued
that: "Turkish-American relations have been deteriorating for years,
and the root explanation is simple and harsh: Washington’s policies
are broadly and fundamentally incompatible with Turkish foreign policy
interests in multiple arenas. No amount of diplomat-speak can conceal
or change that reality."

Introduced on October 29th, S.Res.358 begins by asserting that the
"United States and Turkey share common ideals and a clear vision for
the 21st Century, in which freedom and democracy are the foundation
of peace, prosperity and security." It concludes by thanking Prime
Minister Erdogan for "continued discussions with officials in the US
and Iraq regarding constructive stabilization efforts in northern
Iraq." The resolution makes no mention of Turkey’s controversial
relations with Hamas, its growing ties with Iran, or its refusal in
2003 to allow US troops to open a northern front in Iraq.

"It simply makes no sense to thank Turkey for ‘constructive
stabilization efforts’ in Northern Iraq while it is making cross-border
aerial and artillery assaults, amassing troops, and threatening a
full-blown invasion that may very well destabilize the region and
endanger our troops for years to come," said Hamparian. "Rather than
praising Turkey and turning a blind eye to its threats, the Congress
should urge the Administration to explore ways to free ourselves from
Turkey’s blackmail by quickly putting in place alternate, non-Turkish
routes to supply and otherwise support our regional operations."