Author: Torgomian Varazdat

Armenian PM confirms Yerevan’s commitment to peaceful settlement of Nagorno-Karabakh conflict
TREND Information, Azerbaijan
July 22, 2006
Author: Mammadov
Andronik Markaryan, Armenian Prime Minister, confirmed Yerevan’s
commitment to peaceful settlement of Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. “We
remain the adherents of peaceful settlement”, he said, speaking today
at special Õ congress of Republican Party of Armenia he is heading.
770 delegates at the congress are discussing changes in the party
charter and program.
The proposals package recently put forward by co-chairmen of OSCE
Minsk Group stipulates Armenian forces withdrawal from occupied Azeri
grounds and bringing peacemaking forces to the region, Armenian Prime
Minister said.
He highly appraised the efforts of said co-chairmen and said he
hoped that their activity would positively influence Nagorno-Karabakh
conflict settlement, ITAR-TASS reports.
–Boundary_(ID_i6YM9LJdr4Ml0MzkDsnXow)–

Robert Mardian, lawyer for President Nixon’s re-election committee, dies at 82
AP Worldstream; Jul 21, 2006
Robert Mardian, an attorney for President Richard Nixon’s re-election
committee whose conviction in the Watergate scandal was overturned,
has died. He was 82.
Mardian died of complications from lung cancer Monday at his vacation
home in Southern California, said his son Robert.
The attorney long denied helping conceal the Nixon administration’s
involvement in the break-in and attempted bugging of the Democratic
National Headquarters office at the Watergate complex.
Nixon had named him head of the Internal Security Division of the
Justice Department in 1970, but Mardian left two years later to work
for Nixon’s Committee to Re-Elect the President, known as CREEP.
He represented the committee when the Democratic National Committee
sued shortly after the 1972 break-in.
The government accused Mardian of interfering in its investigation
when he interviewed a number of key figures in the Watergate break-in,
said Arnold Rochvarg, a professor of law at the University of Baltimore
and author of the 1995 book “Watergate Victory: Mardian’s Appeal.”
“Mardian’s defense always was he was doing this as the attorney for
CREEP in the civil suit,” Rochvarg told the Los Angeles Times. “The
government’s position was he was talking to everybody as a conspirator
to obstruct justice.”
In March 1974, Mardian and six others were indicted; five went
to trial.
Mardian was charged with one count of conspiracy to obstruct justice.
During the trial, Mardian contradicted much of the testimony against
him, including witnesses who said he was key to getting the Watergate
burglars released from jail before the administration’s connections
were discovered.
Mardian, who was golfing on the West Coast when he learned of the
break-in, said that was impossible given his location and the time
difference.
In October 1976, a federal appeals court ruled Mardian should have
been tried separately. Rather than retrying Mardian, the special
prosecutor dropped the charge.
The youngest son of Armenian immigrants, Mardian was born Oct. 23,
1923, in Pasadena. His studies at University of California, Santa
Barbara were interrupted when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor and
he joined the U.S. Naval Reserve.
After the war, Mardian graduated with honors from law school at
University of Southern California and entered private practice.
Mardian served as western regional director for Sen. Barry Goldwater’s
presidential campaign in 1964 and chairman of Ronald Reagan’s advisory
committee during the 1966 California gubernatorial campaign. Two
years later, Mardian was the Western states co-chairman for Nixon’s
presidential campaign.
After Nixon’s inauguration, Mardian became general counsel to what
was then the Department of Health, Education and Welfare and was
later appointed to be executive director of the Cabinet Committee
on Education.
After leaving government work in 1972, Mardian moved to Phoenix to
join his family’s construction business. He retired in 2002.

PRESS RELEASE
The Heritage Party
Yerevan 0033, Armenia
Tel.: (+374 – 10) 58.08.77, 52.22.38
Fax: (+374 – 10) 54.38.97
Email: [email protected]; [email protected]
Website:
July 21, 2006
Heritage Headquarters Under Lock Again
Yerevan — The Service for Mandatory Execution of Judicial Acts (SMEJA)
of the Ministry of Justice, which recently became the visible servant
of the business and political interests of the ruling clan in Armenia,
this time even surpassed itself.
Today, on July 21, approximately thirty marshals from SMEJA, led
by Major Vahram Yenokian, head of SMEJA’s Central and Nork-Marash
Division, again surrounded the Heritage Party’s main office which,
based on the Court’s ruling that went into effect on July 12, had
been reopened yesterday, on July 20. Initially, the SMEJA officials
prohibited the staff from entering their office and subsequently locked
and resealed the office doors. When Heritage Chairman Raffi Hovannisian
demanded that he show a Court order or other legal warrant to that
effect, Yenokian shamelessly responded that they were carrying this
out in line with Hovannisian’s own formal request for execution of
the Court’s June 26 verdict. This demonstrated that the high-ranking
SMEJA officer interpreted that ruling in a way that was convenient for
him and those he serves. Yenokian was under strict telephonic orders
and thus was simply uncompromising. He did not even reply to Zaruhi
Postanjian, Hovannisian’s attorney, who demanded that they wait until
Judge Edward Avetisian formally elucidated his verdict pursuant to
a request for clarification officially submitted to him today.
With respect to the unlawful actions–which obviously were “directives
from above”–of the state-owned Paronian theater’s management against
the party’s main office, Judge Avetisian of the Court of First Instance
of Yerevan’s Central and Nork-Marash communities had issued on April
14 an injunction prohibiting the defendant theater from taking any
restrictive action against the office in question and the usage of
the property located in it and forwarded its ruling to SMEJA. Then,
on June 26, the same Court ruled that the forcible closure of the
Heritage office was illegal, and thus the SMEJA seals placed on the
doors of the office had effectively expired. While the Court instructed
the plaintiff to pay certain installments on the contract, it held the
defendant and its negligent conduct to be solely responsible for this
situation, thus constructively validating the five-year real-estate
lease that had been signed between Hovannisian and the government’s
agent in September 2002.
In Yenokian’s words, they were sealing the doors today since they
would soon be removing the party’s belongings from the office and
taking them to SMEJA.
The lawless lackeys wearing official uniforms for the ruling clique
should come to understand that they will be held accountable for
their flagrantly illegal acts, the sole objective of which is to
obstruct and disrupt the normal, lawful activities of any and all
political opposition.
Founded in 2002, Heritage has regional divisions throughout the
land. Its central headquarters are located at 7 Vazgen Sargsian Street,
Yerevan 0010, Armenia, with telephone contact at (374-10) 580.877,
fax at (374-10) 543.897, email at [email protected], and website at

THE LIKE TAKES THE LIKE, LOVE WILL COME LATER
Lragir.am
21 July 06
The citizens of Armenia may wonder why Andranik Margaryan and Serge
Sargsyan are gathering senior and junior officials and members of
parliament in the Republican Party and making them Republicans.
Businessmen, governors, ministers, members of parliament become
members of this political party. The answer is evident. They are made
Republicans to serve the political, which is the same as the personal
interests of Andranik Margaryan and Serge Sargsyan. It is also clear
to the first-grade children of schools, the directors and teachers
of which are “annexed” by the Republican.
But people, and especially children, who have not managed to study
the peculiarities, everyday life and relations of the Armenian elite
yet, wonder whether it is impossible that the ministers, businessmen,
senior and junior officials and members of parliament serve Andranik
Margaryan and Serge Sargsyan without becoming Republican. The question
is interesting, if not a core question. In fact, why do they order
everyone to become members of the Republican Party? Perhaps, they
are in doubt. They suspect that one day these officials, businessmen,
ministers will betray them. One day they will serve someone else than
Andranik Margaryan and Serge Sargsyan. Margaryan and Sargsyan fear
that these people will not serve them.
But does membership solve the problem of no loyalty? Andranik Margaryan
and Serge Sargsyan know that it does not. How can a person be loyal
if he has already betrayed a political party? Or how can a person be
loyal if he was forced into the Republican Party? How can a person
be loyal if he becomes member of the Republican Party to be in the
center of force? What if another center of force appears? How are they
going to keep this person in the Republican Party. These people will
betray Andranik Margaryan and Serge Sargsyan as soon as the first
opportunity arises, and they will not have any moral rights against
the betrayers. They can only use legislative bars against betrayal,
like in Russia, for instance. A member of one faction cannot go to
another faction. Russians thus tried to prevent betrayal. In Armenia
they can adopt this model. The problem is, however, that betrayal is
not an external phenomenon, it only has, but it also may not have
an external manifestation. Betrayal first occurs in one’s soul and
mind. And it is not a primitive or void philosophy to crush against
the Nzhdehian ideology of the Republican Party of Armenia.
Betrayal is a highly concrete notion. Both Andranik Margaryan and Serge
Sargsyan know this. Otherwise, how can they explain why six years
ago Andranik Margaryan demanded within a circle of other people the
resignation of Serge Sargsyan, who led the administration of someone
else, whereas now he shares his party “bed” with this man? And the
more people they admit to the part, the more the mistrust of Andranik
Margaryan and Serge Sargsyan towards these people and each other will
grow. And together they will suspect everyone, because they perfectly
know everyone, they also know each other well and they also know that
the others know them well too. A membership ticket is not a guarantee
that a parliamentarian businessman or an official who became member
of the Republican Party will remain faithful to the party. Even if
he became member of the political party voluntarily, he knew that if
he did not enter the party, he would be suspected as well.
The presumption of faithfulness is not accepted in the Armenian
elite. And by failing to join they would miss the historical chance
of betrayal. Meanwhile, they know very well that the holy of holies of
processes in Armenia is betrayal. You can do everything early or late
but you have to betray on time. Nobody is to blame. They are taught
to do so, therefore they do not trust “pupils” and call them to the
party later to be able to accuse them of betrayal of their “bosses”,
“guardians”, “teachers”. They force them into cohabitation, hoping
that love will come later.
HAKOB BADALYAN

FOREIGN MINISTERS OF ARMENIA AND BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA DISCUSS ISSUES OF
BILATERAL AND INTERNATIONAL IMPORTANCE
SARAJEVO, JULY 19, NOYAN TAPAN – ARMENIANS TODAY. RA Foreign Minister
Vartan Oskanian is in Bosnia and Herzegovina on a three-day official
visit. On July 18, he met with this country’s Foreign Minister
Mladen Ivanic.
According to the Press Service of RA Foreign Ministry, issues
of bilateral and international importance were discussed at the
meeting. It was mutually noted that relations between Armenia and
Bosnia and Herzegovina are at the stage of formation and there is
mutual interest in deepening economic cooperation, to which absence
of political disagreements between the countries contributes.
In this context the sides emphasized the necessity to create the
respective legal-contractual field between the two countries that will
promote deepening and activization of bilateral ties. The necessity to
prepare for signing some agreements being at the stage of coordination
was emphasized. They, in particular, attached importance to signing
of agreement on visits without visas for persons with diplomatic
and official passports.
The Ministers also touched upon the current situation in development
of Armenia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. Minister Ivanic presented
the course of overcoming difficulties on the way of development
of Bosnia and Herzegovina, as well as the peaceful process that
started with the Dayton agreement. The sides exchanged opinions
on the European direction of the foreign policy of their countries,
presented relations with EU and NATO.
The Ministers highlighted the necessity to cooperate within the
framework of international organizations. Expediency of holding
cultural events for the purpose of developing cooperation in the
sphere of culture was also touched upon.
The Ministers presented each other the latest events in their regions.
Minister Oskanian briefly presented the current stage of Nagorno
Karabakh settlement.
Vartan Oskanian invited his counterpart to visit Armenia at any time
convenient for him. Then a joint press conference of the two Foreign
Ministers was held.

Spanish Security Forces Bust Armenian-Bulgarian Ring for Stealing Luxury Cars
Focus, Bulgaria
July 18 2006
Madrid. Spanish security forces have busted an Armenian-Bulgarian
organized criminal group that dealt with stealing luxury cars, the
online agency La Verdad reports.
The group was working on the territory of the Spanish provinces
Valencia and Alikante and also in the region of Madrid. According to
information of police, the thefts were made on request of “customers”
of the organization. The stolen vehicles were re-sold in different
countries with faked documents. The members of the group often used
threats and aggression in their activity.
According to the agency a total of 13 people, citizens of Bulgaria
and Armenia, were held during the police operation. The exact number
of Bulgarians was not reported.

Less than 3% of Azerbaijanis buy newspapers daily
Regnum, Russia
July 18 2006
Results of poll on the media market situation were announced today,
July 18, in Baku, REGNUM correspondent reported.
According to the statement of Chairman of the Yeni Nasil (New
Generation) journalist association Arif Aliev, the poll results show
that 71% of respondents do not buy newspapers and magazines, 2.8%
buy newspapers everyday, and 17% buy them once a week. Each daily
newspaper in Azerbaijan enjoys an average of 3.5 readers.
The poll also showed that the most interesting subject for the readers
is the Nagorno Karabakh issue. Percentage of readers interested in
the political parties’ activities is very low.

BÝA, Turkey
July 17 2006
Civil Disobedience Spreads for Hrant Dink
Initiative For Freedom of Expression expand civil disobedience action
through public declaration denouncing themselves as “co-offenders” of
journalist Dink after appeals court upholds a suspended 6 month
sentence criminalizing his article in Agos weekly
BIA News Center
17/07/2006 Erol ONDEROGLU
BÝA (Istanbul) – The Initiative for Freedom of Expression has expanded
its civil disobedience action launched together with more than 20
intellectuals last March to embrace weekly Armenian Turkish Agos
newspaper Editor-in-Chief Hrant Dink whose 6 month suspended prison
sentence for an article in the paper was upheld by the Turkish Court
of Cassation last week.
Although Dink will not serve the prison sentence unless he commits
a “similar offence” within the next five years, the appeals court
verdict criminalizes opinions he expressed in his February 2004 column
in Agos on “the Armenian Identity”.
Dink was found guilty of “insulting Turkish identity” under Article
301 of the criminal code despite the prosecutor’s opinion that an
offence of that nature had not taken place.
The initiative and those involved in its civil disobedience campaign
are now collecting more signatures from those willing to denounce
themselves as co-offenders of Dink and publicly state that they too
participated in his “offence”. The public declaration will then be
published through the media in the form of advertisements.
“We declare that on behalf of freedom of expression we defend Agos
newspaper Editor-in-Chief Hrank Dink’s article which was regarded
as an offence under article 301 of the new Penal Code and that we
participate in this offence” a statement issued by the group and
circulating on the internet for more signatures says.
Already pre-signed by a number of renown Turkish intellectuals
including journalists, writers, jurists and human rights activists
involved in the campaign, the declaration demands controversial article
301 to be abolished immediately on grounds that it is an obstacle in
front of freedom of opinion and expression. .
The initiative has called on “everyone who is in an effort for the
democratization of Turkey and places importance in the freedom of
opinion and expression to undersign the text”.
As Dink’s written opinions are part of an upcoming “Freedom of
Expression Booklet” that is challengingly collecting articles that have
been made subject to thought crime prosecutions in Turkey, a large
number of signatures are expected to be collected in the expanded
phase of the campaign to publish it together with all the signatures.
RSF: We are baffled
In a separate development, the Reporters Without Borders (RSF)
has said in a statement that it “was baffled” by the appeals court
decision to uphold Dink’s sentence “for referring to the 1915 genocide
against the Armenians”.
“We are surprised by this conviction which is particularly shocking
for the entire profession,” said the press freedom organization.
“This ruling will strengthen the climate of self-censorship on subjects
which are seen as sensitive by the Turkish state.”
RSF said, “Turkey’s criminal law is among Europe’s most repressive
towards freedom of expression. It is unacceptable that criticism
of institutions or offences of opinion should be liable to prison
sentences. The criminal code, particularly Articles 301 and 125,
should be urgently amended to conform to European standards.”
It recalled that Turkey had already been condemned at least five times
by the European Court of Human Rights since the start of 2006, for its
failure to respect free expression and that Dink was further facing up
to three years in prison in connection with another trial in which he
is accused of “trying to influence the course of justice”. (EO/II/YE)
–Boundary_(ID_hieCd8t9bsai5J6EHhiSdQ) —

“I HAVE ALREADY APPLIED FOR BECOMING THE RPA MEMBER”
Aravot.am
15 July 06
Margaret Yesayan
Minister of Defense Serge Sargsian replied to “Aravot’s” questions
during the meeting with journalists
Mr. Sargsian you declared some days ago that you will speak about
your membership into any party in a week but that time has already
expired and you haven’t issued a statement, tell about your position,
future projects and whether you are going to become the RPA member.
– What does “the time has already expired” mean, have you asked me
the tenth day and I haven’t answered? I have already applied to the
council of the Republican Party for becoming the party member. – Is
it true that the PM Andranik Margarian will send in his resignation
after the coming RPA special session and Serge Sargsian will fill
the post of the Prime Minister? – This is invented news with its
implications and aims. That time will also pass, and everybody will
see that those persons neither have a political sense of smell
nor they can predict political processes in the republic for the
coming two weeks. – According to the political analyses the most
real candidate of the presidential elections in 2008 is Minister of
Defense Serge Sargsian. Are you going to nominate your candidacy and
if yes, will your political support be only the RPA or other political
powers, too? – In any case, we’ll speak about it after parliamentary
elections because if the RPA and its supporting powers don’t have a
serious presence, it will be meaningless to speak about the future
steps. When we see we have a support, if we see our people approve
our ideas, our projects, why not. – A lot of famous businessmen
don’t hide that they are going to become the RPA member because
Serge Sargsian is also going to become. Your opinion about it. –
I don’t think only businessmen will become the RPA member. It is
also a selected approach. People who intend to criticize, libel me,
they aren’t so clever writing about omissions and condemning me but
the society don’t often agree with them. Is it bad when a part of
businessmen pin their hopes on me? If there were no businessman in
this country it wouldn’t develop. The businessmen must be encouraged.
– If you become the President of the Republic in 2008 where will
Robert Kocharian be and what post will he fill? – You know very well
that I don’t like to speak with “if”. We have two years. – What do
you think about “Prosperous Armenia” party, as there are publishing
in the press that the activation of that party has been stopped and
the RPA is the reason of it. – Frankly speaking I don’t know about
it. I think the Republican shouldn’t have jealous approaches towards
any demonstration. Let me give an example from your beloved theme,
chess. The coach of our combined team Arshak Petrosian suggested after
the 5th round in Turin and everybody agreed with him as they all were
thinking in that way. Let’s not pay attention to others result, it
must be all the same for us whether Russia will win or won’t, China
will lose or won’t etc. Let’s win our 3 points, 2,5 points, 4 points
in each round and nobody can win us. We must work ourselves. The
Republican must make efforts to have a bigger base don’t looking at
others. I wish lack everybody who works.

Engineering wonder takes oil the long way round
by Oliver Poole in Ceyhan
The Daily Telegraph (LONDON)
July 14, 2006 Friday
AT 1,100 miles long, crossing mountain ranges and 1,500 waterways,
the Baku-Ceyhan pipeline has been hailed as the first engineering
wonder of the 21st century.
A decade after it was conceived it finally opened yesterday at the
eastern Turkish port of Ceyhan.
An epic feat of construction that cost pounds 2.4 billion and employed
up to 22,000 workers at a time, the pipeline will ensure that the
precious reserves of the Caspian Basin – believed to be the largest
remaining oil deposit outside the Middle East – can now be pumped to
the edge of the Mediterranean and shipped on for the European market.
Starting in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, the pipeline passes
through Tbilisi in Georgia before reaching Ceyhan, where it is
expected that a million barrels of crude oil will arrive each day
when the pipeline is working at full capacity.
Although it was two years behind schedule and pounds 600 million over
budget, the pipeline was hailed at an opening ceremony in Ceyhan
yesterday, where the presidents of the three countries were joined
by the head of BP, which leads the consortium that built and runs
the pipeline.
As the heads of state and hundreds of dignitaries watched, oil was
pumped into a tanker, the British Hawthorn, to be taken to Genoa in
Italy. Lord Browne, the chief executive of BP, described it as an
“historic achievement”.
It is certainly an impressive engineering feat. Some 150,000 pipes
were used and all were buried to avoid sabotage or theft. Each barrel
of oil takes about a year to make the journey from Azerbaijan to the
terminal in Turkey.
Its scale has more to do with geopolitical reasons than commercial
ones. A simpler route would have taken the oil from Baku through
Russia to the Baltic Sea or via Iran to the Persian Gulf. Neither
was acceptable to the United States, which insisted that “strategic
importance” had to be a priority.
Therefore the route west was chosen through “friendly” countries. It
first heads north-west as Azerbaijan is officially at war with its
western neighbour Armenia over a disputed border. Then it wiggles west
to avoid Georgian separatist movements, before taking a large detour
around Turkey’s troubled Kurdish regions in its eastern provinces
before finally going south.
The project was so politically charged that it has been alleged that
US backing for Georgian democrats in the country’s Rose Revolution
was due to the previous regime’s sudden cooling in its enthusiasm
for the project.
There was also little diplomatic support for pro-democracy activists
when Azerbaijan’s government remained in power last year after disputed
election results.
Russia was reportedly so angry at being snubbed that in 2003 it was
accused by Georgia of training ecological saboteurs to damage the
pipeline. It is also attempting to expand its existing pipeline from
the Caspian.
Michael Townshend, the executive in charge of the BP project, said
yesterday that the result had been worth the effort as its completion
would help ensure the West’s “energy security”.
“The project will export around one per cent of world oil production
so in that respect it is fairly small,” he said. “But where it becomes
important is that it is a new source of energy from a non-Opec source
and that means diversification.
“And that one per cent is 25 per cent of the expected increase in
the demand for oil over the next four years.”
A gas pipeline following an almost identical route is scheduled
to be completed by the end of this year. That will make it harder
for Russia to use its gas reserves for political leverage with its
neighbours and Europe as it did last year when it temporarily shut
off supplies to Ukraine over a pricing dispute.