Author: Varosian Antranik

WHY IS THE OSCE MINSK GROUP QUICKLY RESUMING THE TALKS?
Naira Hayrumyan

KarabakhOpen
20-03-2008 18:45:14

While through their emissaries the European and the other international
organizations are trying to pressure on Armenia where the state of
emergency is ending, the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs are trying to
"rapidly" resume the talks. Why are they in a hurry?

The OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs representing the United States, Russia
and France issued a statement on March 15 based on the results of
meetings with the foreign ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan and
reminded that the OSCE Minsk Group, Russia the United States and
France, recognize the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan and do
not recognize the independence of Karabakh, and at the same time,
they state that the status of Nagorno-Karabakh is to be an object of
talks between the sides.

In the statement the co-chairs underline the importance of resuming the
talks after the break determined by the Armenian presidential election.

Who will negotiate on behalf of the Armenian side if the tenure of
the Armenian foreign minister Vardan Oskanyan is coming to its end,
the new government has not been appointed yet, the acting president
is leaving, and the new one has not been inaugurated yet? Besides,
it is not clear yet whether Armenia will overcome this home political
crisis easily.

Logically, if the mediators really want a fair decision, they should
not make use of the opportunity and artificially accelerate the
developments.

Does it mean that the mediators are trying to coerce Armenia to agree
to an unfavorable solution? If yet, why should Armenia continue to
negotiate in this format?

The impression is that the Armenian politicians are absorbed with the
diplomatic and information components of the talks and have lost the
meaning and goal. Meanwhile, initially the goal after the cease-fire
in 1994 was the documentalization of the outcome of the war, the
signing of peace agreement, in which the capitulation of Azerbaijan
is set down. The peace agreement has not been signed yet. Not only
Azerbaijan has not admitted capitulation but also acts as a winner,
claiming not only to the territories around the former Nagorno-Karabakh
Autonomous Region but also Nagorno-Karabakh itself.

It is difficult to explain to a side viewer who is unaware of the
talks how this transformation happened. How did the loser succeed
involving the winner into a diplomatic maze, where did it lose the
real arguments?

ARMEN RUSTAMYAN: WE DO NOT THINK ABOUT PORTFOLIOS

PanARMENIAN.Net
21.03.2008 14:55 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Agreement on formation of coalition is a document
of political consent, representative of the ARFD Supreme Body Armen
Rustamyan said Friday. "We sign a political document and do not think
about the posts. We highlight coordination of political issues to
resolve the problems our country faces."

"Dashnaktsutyun has a number of goals. We should take action to
ease tensions and carry out reforms to secure stability in the
republic. These tasks urge joint work," he said, Novosti Armenia
reports.

The agreement on formation of quadripartite political coalition was
signed today by Serzh Sargsyan, chairman of the Republican Party of
Armenia, Gagik Tsarukyan, chairman of Prosperous Armenia party, Artur
Baghdassaryan, chairman of Orinats Yerkir party and Armen Rustamyan,
member of the ARF Dashnaktsutyun Supreme Body.

AZERBAIJAN HAS SET UP WAR INDUSTRY – PRESIDENT

Interfax News Agency
March 19 2008
Russia

Azerbaijan is boosting its military budget and has set up a defense
industry of its own, President Ilham Aliyev said on Wednesday.

"The situation in which we have found ourselves and the occupation
of our lands are, of course, pushing us to increasing our military
expenditure, which is what we are doing," Aliyev said in an exclusive
interview with Interfax in Baku.

"Azerbaijan’s military expenditure has grown considerably for the
past four years. It was $1 billion in 2007 and will be $1.3 billion
in 2008. But this is a provisional level, because we are planning to
increase it," he said.

However, the country’s increasing defense spending reflects the
general state of its economy, Aliyev argued.

"I must say that Azerbaijan has increased its state expenditure
tenfold for the past four years, to $12 billion in 2008 – in terms
of the consolidated budget – from $1.3 billion in 2003. And we are
planning to put a proposal before parliament this spring for revising
the budget upward. So it is not surprising that Azerbaijan’s military
expenditure is growing as well," the president said.

"Plus we are in a state of war with Armenia, and our lands are under
occupation. The negotiations we have been holding for 10 years have
been fruitless," he said.

Azerbaijan buys weapons both from Collective Security Treaty
Organization member countries and from other states, Aliyev said.

Azerbaijan also set up a defense industry "a little more than a year
ago," and since then "the country has organized the manufacture of
our own military products, which we will be building up," he said.

"Possessing unlimited financial resources today, we are in a position
to set up new industries. We are setting up a new sector in the metal
industry, in the aluminum industry. Billions of dollars will be spent
for these purposes. Similar processes have started in other sectors
as well. And we are setting up and will set up a powerful military
industrial complex that will guarantee our security," Aliyev said.

THE ONE-SIDED RESOLUTION INTRODUCED BY AZERBAIJAN HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THE DOCUMENT ON THE BARGAINING TABLE

armradio.am
19.03.2008 17:42

Asked by "Novosti Armenia" to comment on the Azerbaijani MFA Spokesman
Khazar Ibrahim’s statements on the perspectives of the negotiation
process on the Karabakh conflict settlement in the framework of
the Minsk Group, Head of Media Relations Division of RA Ministry of
Foreign Affairs Tigran Balayan said:

"The one-sided and uncoordinated resolution introduced by Azerbaijan
is just their wish, which has nothing to do with the document on the
bargaining table. Both Azerbaijan, the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs
know it pretty well.

The international community is also well aware of it, which became
apparent from the vote at the UN General Assembly.

Perhaps, Azerbaijan expected to win unintelligible dividends with
their initiative, but it did not take place. Or they are preparing
ground for avoiding the current negotiation process of the Minsk Group,
therefore also the document on the bargaining table."

GAREGIN AZARIAN: ELECTORAL CODE IS IN NEED OF AMENDMENTS

Noyan Tapan
March 19, 2008

YEREVAN, MARCH 19, NOYAN TAPAN. The RA Central Electoral Commission
(CEC) intends to put forward a proposal on amendments in the Electoral
Code but finds it expedient to make amendments only after the elections
to local government bodies to be held in Armenia in the autumn, the
CEC chairman Geregin Azarian said at the March 18 sitting of the RA
National Assembly.

In his opinion, first of all the order of formation of electoral
commissions should be revised because the mechanism of appointing
members of electoral commissions by political forces has not proven
to be correct. "Some members of commissions rather act as empowered
persons of the parties that have appointed them so the whole work of a
commission is done by 3-5 members while the rest are busy providing
information to their parties," the CEC chairman said. Besides,
according to him, there is a need to simplify the order of summarizing
the results of a vote, particularly, by reviewing the necessity of
counting envelopes and knobs of voting papers and registering their
number. As regards the necessity of legislative regulation of surveys
conducted at polling stations, G. Azarian expressed an opinion that
organizations conducting such surveys should be registered at the
CEC in advance.

KEEPING UP WITH REFORMS THE ONLY SOLUTION
by Cem Ozdemir*

Today’s Zaman
March 18 2008
Turkey

After the workers’ uprising and its violent suppression by Soviet
tanks on June 17, 1953 in East Germany, the self-styled government
of the socialist workers’ and farmers’ state, officially the German
Democratic Republic (GDR), had to work hard to find an explanation
for the shocking events.

The GDR’s people — its own people — had turned away from the party
en masse. First, they wanted humane work conditions. Second — and
more than anything else — they wanted democracy and freedom.

At a historical meeting with the Academy of Arts and the cultural
association of the GDR, Kulturbund, the regime then had the creative
idea to call the working class uprising a "fascist motivated attempted
coup" for which the people would have fallen like "a stupid flock
of sheep."

"After the uprising of the 17th of June

The Secretary of the Writers Union

Had leaflets distributed in the Stalinallee

Stating that the people

Had thrown away the confidence of

the government

And could win it back only

By redoubled efforts. Would it not be easier

In that case for the government

To dissolve the people

And elect another?"

This poem was found later in Brecht’s literary estate and was published
for the first time in the German daily "Welt" on Dec. 9, 1959.

When I heard that Chief Prosecutor Abdurrahman Yalcýnkaya filed
a motion to disband the governing Justice and Development Party
(AK Party), I was reminded of Berthold Brecht and his relation to
the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED). Mr. Yalcýnkaya came
to my mind as a kind of modern Walter Ulbricht, the GDR’s ruler at
those times. (Officially, he was the general secretary of the SED’s
Central Committee.) Of course, officially Mr. Yalcýnkaya is state
public prosecutor of the Turkish Republic; but in fact, he is part
of a justice system that sees itself well above the ordinary and
uneducated people — a people which, if necessary, must be educated
by a strict hand and forced for its own good.

Indeed, for the reactionary parties of the Turkish state, for those in
the justice, bureaucracy and military command, the people are nothing
more than just "a stupid flock of sheep." At that time in the GDR,
those "stupid sheep" followed the Western ideals of market economy
and democracy; today in Turkey they are voting for the Democratic
Society Party (DTP) or the AK Party. Adding together the number
of these DTP and AK Party voters, the majority of people in Turkey
seem for the deep state to be just like "a stupid flock of sheep"
that has to be educated.

Even more interesting is also how the Republican People’s Party
(CHP) behaves. Right now, the CHP could have the chance to prove
itself as a democratic alternative to the AK Party by rejecting
the ban request and pointing to elections as the proper democratic
remedy. But — negative answer! That empty gap in Turkish democracy
called social democracy is still waiting to be filled. This is for
the benefit of all secular left-liberal voters, but it is also works
for the benefit of the AK Party, which would otherwise finally get
some serious competition. Such a social-democratic party would not
attack the government because it slightly changed the Foundations
Law, it would moreover criticize it for not having encouraged this
enough. Such a party would criticize the AK Party harshly for Article
301, which still remains unchanged, and it would take a decisive
stance in protecting the writers and intellectuals of Turkey —
as is common practice among social democrats around the world.

As a friend of Turkey and as one who opposes any totalitarian
dictatorship, I also want to address the AK Party: It is interesting
that it is again we, the Liberals in the West, who come to the AK
Party’s defense and who take a position against those dark powers that
try to preserve their dominance against the majority of the people
by using the false pretense of laicism. It was us, too, who defended
Prime Minister Erdoðan and President Gul after the first elections. We
came to the AK Party’s defense and explained to the world that they
were not fundamentalists. We supported them in difficult times and
excused them, in Turkey and abroad, when facing opponents of Turkey’s
EU membership. Maybe one can even go so far as to say that Turkey’s
EU accession bid would have never come so far without the Liberals in
Turkey and us, the Liberals, Social Democrats and the Greens in Europe

Though, today is also the moment to address the AK Party with some more
critical words. We don’t want a Turkey where the murder investigation
of our friend Hrant Dink, bogged down in the state mechanism, goes
without being challenged.

We don’t want a Turkey in which the criminals responsible for the
Semdinli attack are acquitted while the thorough state prosecutor is
dismissed. Also we don’t want a Turkey where the religious convictions
of our Alevi friends are not respected in schools. And a Turkey in
which the ancient history of Hasankeyf and Allianoi will drown in
the floods of some dams established for short-term profit is not a
modern Turkey.

A Turkey that finds it totally normal that migrants in Europe can
learn the Turkish language and are able watch Turkish television
and can build their mosques and cem houses over there but that, at
the same time, doesn’t allow the same rights to its own Armenian,
Assyrian, Kurdish or Circassian citizens won’t solve its problems.

Will the AK Party make the aimed constitution change again together
with the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) as it did for allowing
the headscarf at universities? Will it use the MHP again to escape
a possible party ban? Or will it show more courage and democratic
sense this time and dare use a big solution? If Turkey’s way shall
go on toward Europe, then it is time now for a new constitution,
guided by the models of European democracies.

At the beginning of the last century, when the modern Turkish Republic
emerged from the ashes of the fallen Ottoman Empire, it directed
its view westwards. Turkey took the example of its commercial laws,
its penal and civic codes from Western states — now the time has
come to develop a modern constitution of freedoms that strengthen
the individual against the state. And then, such unreasonable party
bans will finally disappear in the dustbin of history, and Turkish
democracy, the DTP, the AK Party and all other parties in Turkey will
carry out their conflicts with the sharpest sword democracy foresees
for any fight: the word!

*Foreign affairs coordinator of the Greens in the European Parliament
and a founding member of the European Council of Foreign Relations.

–Boundary_(ID_fl8YCRXFj2hj+I/snuUmIw) —

RUSSIA READY TO CONTINUE THE MEDIATING EFFORTS TOGETHER WITH THE US AND FRANCE

armradio.am
17.03.2008 12:47

Jointly with the US and France, Russia "is ready to continue the
active mediation of the OSCE Minsk group Co-Chairs," to conclude
the coordination of the basic principles of the Karabakh conflict
resolution," reads the statement on the Russian Ministry of Foreign
Affairs on the results of the voting on the Karabakh issue in the UN
General Assembly.

Thirty-nine delegations voted in favor of the resolution presented
by Azerbaijan. Seven countries voted against, 100 abstained from
voting. The OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chair countries – Russia, France and
the United States – voted against the document.

"In the joint communiqué on the motives of the voting they explained
their position with the fact that this step of the Azeri side was
one-sided, untimely and counter-productive. Many times and on different
levels the Azerbaijani side has been informed about this position,"
Russian MFA statement reads.

–Boundary_(ID_o/4wL+VbjByA/2DN+Qlo4g)–

Boston Globe, MA
March 16 2008

Diver’s hopes soar as college beckons

By Steve Crowe
Globe Correspondent / March 16, 2008
The picture has been taken. The plaque is finished.

more stories like thisThere’s just a minor formality stopping Carlin
Dacey from being inducted into Choate Rosemary Hall’s Athletics Hall
of Fame.

"You have to have graduated to be in the Hall of Fame," Choate diving
coach Ben Small said of the gifted senior.

Dacey, a West Roxbury native, signed a national letter of intent to
attend Northwestern University, where she would be diving for a
Division 1 powerhouse in the Big 10 Conference.

She went on five official recruiting trips – Columbia University,
Dartmouth College, Duke University, Northwestern, and the University
of Notre Dame – and one unofficial trip to the University of
Virginia. All the schools possess strong diving and academic
reputations. Dacey said location was the deciding factor.

"I loved Chicago," she said. "I heard they have great jazz."

Northwestern also has a great coach in Alik Sarkisian. A 13-time
Armenian national champion, Sarkisian has coached the Armenian
National Team (1991-’93), the 1996 US Olympic team in Atlanta, the
Russian National Team (1980-’90), and the US National Team in the
2003 and 2005 Pan-Am Games.

The 5-foot-6-inch Dacey broke the New England Prep School 11-dive
record in a championship format by earning 486.65 points, topping the
old record of 444. She also holds the New England Prep School
six-dive record on the 1-meter board (280.15) and the Western New
England Prep School 11-dive record on the 1-meter board (435.15).
Dacey also holds pool records at Andover (257.35), and Hopkins
(258.15).

Dacey scored a perfect 10 on a dive during the last home meet of the
2007 season. "Reverse dive pike," she recalled. She received scores
of 10, 9 1/2, and 9 1/2.

"It was amazing," she said.

Small said Dacey is the best diver in New England.

"I’ve seen a fair number of divers," said Small, a former diver at
Middlebury College now in his 12th year at Choate, in Wallingford,
Conn. "That’s the first 10 I’ve seen."

Small is fortunate to have seen Dacey at all. Dacey, also a
three-year varsity soccer player, had no interest in diving until the
age of 12; funny, since her mother, Kathy, swam at the University of
Miami, and her sister, Kendall, now a sophomore at Amherst College,
was an All-American in swimming and water polo at Choate.

"I always thought swimming was boring," Carlin Dacey said.

She did gymnastics until she was 10. Her father, Daniel, 54, who ran
track at the College of the Holy Cross, thought gymnastics was too
dangerous.

"My heart was in my mouth every time she was on the balance beam," he
said.

Dacey took up soccer and was good at it, but the travel was tough.
"We got sick of all the driving," her mother said.

That’s when Dacey began diving at the Charles River Diving Club at
Harvard University. She was a natural.

"Her gymnastics background helped out," Small said.

Dacey agrees.

"It gives you awareness in the air," she said. "Even if you get a
horrible takeoff and you feel like you’re barely spinning, your eyes
are looking and you can feel in the tuck how fast you’re going, which
helps, so you don’t smack."

Despite the success, Dacey is behind the eight ball heading to
Northwestern. Many collegiate divers have been training almost since
they were in diapers – many at Olympic facilities.

A lot of collegiate divers have lifted weights, done Pilates, and
danced – focused solely on the sport of diving.

"They have a whole program," said Dacey.

She doesn’t.

But she will this summer. Dacey is moving to New Canaan, Conn., to
train with coaches and prepare for collegiate competition. She’ll
also gain experience diving off 3- and 10-meter boards – Choate has
neither.

Weightlifting and training are going to be her only two friends after
graduation. "I’ll be training twice a day," Dacey said. "I don’t want
to go to college and not be ready for any of it."

Dacey has gone to private schools – she attended the Southfield
School in Brookline for 10 years – her entire life, which should ease
her transition a bit. Her parents said they will fly out and watch
her compete.

SARGSYAN: I CAN’T NAME ARMENIA’S NEXT PRIME MINISTER

PanARMENIAN.Net
12.03.2008 16:30 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ The name of the new Armenian Prime Minister will
be known in a month, President-elect Serzh Sargsyan said.

"I can’t say who will occupy the post, since I haven’t made a final
decision yet. I consider several candidacies," he said. "There will
be changes in the government. I don’t say that all will be dismissed
but I want to assure that I intend to realize my campaign pledges."

The RA PM also informed that the government program will include
provisions of the other candidates’ election programs. "Coalition
supposes unification of program proposals," he said, Novosti Armenia
reports.

TWO ARMENIAN BOXERS TO PERFORM IN FELIX STAMM INTERNATIONAL MEMORIAL TOURNAMENT

Noyan Tapan
March 11, 2008

YEREVAN, MARCH 11, NOYAN TAPAN. A memorial tournament of renowned
boxing coach Felix Stamm will be held on March 12-16 in the capital
city of Poland, Warsaw. Hovhannes Danielian (48 kg, Yerevan) and
Hrachya Javakhian (60 kg, Vanadzor) will represent Armenia at the
tournament.