Author: Vorskanian Yeghisabet

VOLUME OF NKR EXTERNAL TURNOVER INCREASED BY 19.1%

DeFacto Agency, Armenia
March 12 2007

In 2006 the volume of the Nagorno-Karabagh Republic external turnover
increased by 19,1 %, as compared with 2005, making 64 milliards 990,
2 millions drams, or $ 158 millions 511, 4 thousand.

According to the information DE FACTO Agency received at the NKR
National Statistic Service, the volume of export had increased by
18,6 %, while the volume of import – by 19,3 %. Beginning with 2000,
the volume of external turnover has increased over 5 times.

Last year the volume of external turnover with CIS countries made 63
milliards 221, 4 millions drams / $ 154 millions 134, 8 thousands/,
or 97, 2 %, with over countries – 1 milliard 768, 9 millions drams /
$ 4 millions 376, 7 thousands/, or 2, 8%.

In 2006 the considerable part of export and import made mineral raw
materials and ready foodstuff.

SHAW: ICJ’S SERBIAN GENOCIDE VERDICT DOES NOT IMPROVE THE STANDING OF THE COURT
Selcuk GultaªLi Brussels

Today’s Zaman, Turkey
March 10 2007

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruling on Bosnia has created
waves of intense debate, not only in Bosnia and Serbia but all over
the world.

As the ICJ cleared Serbian state of genocide, both Bosnian victims
and many scholars criticized the verdict as being political.

Professor Martin Shaw of Sussex University, one of the leading
experts of the issue, has strongly condemned the decision and
accused the ICJ of "engaging in the systematic denial of the Bosnian
Genocide." Professor Shaw answered our questions:

In your article "The International Court of Justice: Serbia, Bosnia
and Genocide," posted on the opendemocracy.net Web site, you argue:
"It is not too strong to say that in this case, the International
Court of Justice has engaged in systematic denial of the Bosnian
genocide." It is quite a tough statement.

Clearly the International Court of Justice did recognize that
genocide occurred at Srebrenica and indicted Serbia with its failure
to prevent the massacre there. This is important. However, while the
court recognized that acts that could constitute genocide had been
committed by Serbian nationalists across Bosnia throughout the years
1992-1995, it produced unconvincing, inconsistent legal reasons for
saying that genocide had not generally occurred. Thus I argue that
the court denied the full scale of the Bosnian genocide — because
it recognized genocide at Srebenica, this was a partial denial of
the Bosnian genocide, but a serious failure nonetheless.

Is this verdict a purely technical one or a political one? How one
can make that distinction?

The court argued its verdict in legal terms. However, because of the
unconvincing character of its legal arguments, one is bound to ask
whether political factors influenced the verdict.

If the decision was not taken not on purely legal grounds, what are
the other considerations?

Clearly the court could have wanted to avoid a verdict that would
have provoked further political conflict inside Serbia, where the
situation is currently delicate. But we cannot be certain that this
sort of consideration influenced the verdict.

Anthony Dworkin, also writing for opendemocracy.net, has criticized
your approach and implies that genocide is something serious and
cannot be applied wherever you like. He also argues that the Serbs’
intentions regarding the Bosnians were far from clear.

I agree that genocide is a serious charge. This is why it must not
be applied lightly — nor must it be rejected or minimized without
good reason. I think the Serbian intentions to destroy the Bosnian
Muslim and Croat communities, in the areas of Bosnia-Herzegovina that
the Serbian nationalists controlled or conquered, were very clear and
consistent from the widespread policies of expulsion, murder and rape
that they adopted from 1992 onwards. And they were, and still are,
largely successful — only a small number of non-Serbs remain in the
so-called Republika Srpska inside Bosnia.

As you said in your article: "Yet in relation to the Srebrenica
massacre, the ICJ ‘sees no reason to disagree’ with the finding of
the [International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia] that
these acts constituted genocide." How can one possibly explain this?

It seems to me that this is a compromise verdict. The court upheld
the Bosnian claim that genocide was committed at Srebrenica, but in
other respects upheld the Serbian view that genocide had not been
committed. So both sides gained something.

Do you think the confidence in the court will now be in jeopardy with
the latest verdict?

This kind of verdict does not improve the standing of the court.

How do you think the verdict will contribute to the healing process
in the region?

I think the verdict will not help much since it is inconsistent and
enables both sides to stick to their original positions, saying they
have won something.

Do you think this verdict has once more punished Bosnians who were
victims and rewards the Serbian state by clearing it from the "crime
of crimes," i.e., genocide?

It is too strong to say that this has rewarded Serbia, since clearly
there are some serious indictments of it and there is more pressure to
yield Ratko Mladic to the Hague. But the Serbian state has certainly
escaped the more serious consequences that could have followed if
Bosnia’s case had been fully successful.

Have Bosnian Muslims interpreted the verdict as yet another decision of
the West against Muslims? How do you react to the Bosnians’ evaluation?

I think this is too simple. This was an international court with judges
drawn from a wide range of countries. And it does still reinforce
the prevailing view that the Serbians were the main criminals in the
Bosnian war and the Muslims the main victims.

Muslims in Europe, citing the cartoons of the Prophet of Islam
and the war in Iraq, argue that this verdict will not help in the
dialogue between civilizations. Do you think the verdict can have
such implications?

Genocide should not be an issue between civilizations. Muslims were
victims in Bosnia, but they were also victims in Iraq when Saddam’s
regimes massacred Kurds, and they are victims there today when Sunni
militias kill Shia, and Shia militias kill Sunnis. Muslims can be
perpetrators of genocide as well as victims; Christians can be victims
as well as perpetrators. From a human point of view we have to stop
all genocide — whoever commits it and whoever is the victim.

Another popular question among Muslims is if the Bosnians were
Christians and the Serbs Muslims, would the verdict be the same?

International courts and authorities often avoid recognizing genocide
whoever the victims are — look at Rwanda, where the UN turned away
from helping the Tutsis, who were mostly Christians. This weakness
of international institutions is not to do with anti-Muslim ideas.

Turkey has been accused of the Armenian "genocide" with no court
decision and you have referred to the events of 1915 as genocide in
your book "War and Genocide: Organized Killing in Modern Society?" Do
you think the court decision can create a jurisprudence for similar
cases? If Turkey goes to international arbitration, for example,
do you think it can be exonerated?

The International Court of Justice decision arose because Bosnia took
a case against Serbia to the court. In relation to the events of 1915,
no such case can now arise: this is now a matter for history rather
than law. However, just as Serbia will not be a healthy society until
it recognizes the Serbian state’s responsibility for genocide in Bosnia
and Kosovo, so Turkey will not be a healthy society until it abandons
the denial of the Ottoman genocide against the Armenians. Nearly
a century on, it should be possible for modern Turkish democracy to
fully acknowledge that this crime was committed, and to say that Turkey
today is a society in which this kind of policy will never again arise.

I don’t think I can answer your question about international
arbitration, as I don’t know enough about it. I’m not sure in any case
that the issues arising from the Armenian genocide are necessarily
issues between modern Turkey and modern Armenia, although if both sides
favored that, it could help. The ICJ decision by itself is only one
decision in the international jurisprudence of genocide, and needs
to be seen with other decisions by the tribunals and the new ICC.

Do you think it is wise to legislate laws to punish the deniers of
genocides or to legislate on historical events?

No, in general I think that it is better to deal with genocide denial
through argument and education than through law.

–Boundary_(ID_YMYzSXTIe+Nts2zLQwb26A)–

Panorama.am

17:43 10/03/2007

Artashes Geghamyan already thinks about the presidential election

Leader of the opposition party `National unity’, Artashes Geghamyan,
already will run for presidency in Armenia in 2008. During the meeting
of the active members of the party he mentioned that the thinking of
several forces regarding that whether the party will enter the
parliament, is absurd.

`I declare that the `NU’will enter the National Assembly of new
convocation with a triumph, moreover, it will triumph during both
parliamentary and presidential elections’, A. Geghamyan said.

It should be noted that the parliamentary elections in Armenia will be
conducted on May 12.

Source: Panorama.am

Agence France Presse — English
March 9, 2007 Friday 3:18 PM GMT

10th suspect charged in Turkey over murder of journalist

An Istanbul court on Friday charged a 10th suspect over the murder of
Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink, Anatolia news agency
reported.

Osman Altay had been questioned by police last week over the January
19 killing and was subsequently released by a court, but the
prosecutor in charge of the investigation appealed and secured an
arrest warrant in his name.

It was not immediately clear what charges were laid against Altay by
the court which remanded him in custody pending trial.

Police were looking for another suspect who had also been questioned
and released last week, the NTV news channel reported.

Among the 10 suspects is the alleged assailant, a 17-year-old a
jobless secondary school graduate, who, officials say, has confessed
to gunning down Dink, 52, outside the offices of his Turkish-Armenian
weekly Agos in Istanbul.

Prosecutors have yet to complete their indictment on Dink’s murder.

Dink was branded a traitor by nationalists for urging open debate on
World War I massacres of Armenians under the Ottoman Empire which he
labeled as genocide, a label that Ankara fiercely rejects.

He was given a suspended six-month sentence last year for "insulting
Turkishness" under a penal code article that has been used to
prosecute a number of intellectuals and raised alarms about freedom
of speech in Turkey.

PanARMENIAN.Net

Barrier dividing Nicosia demolished
09.03.2007 17:58 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Greek Cypriots have demolished a key section of the
barrier dividing the island’s capital city, Nicosia. The Green Line
has separated Cyprus’s Greeks from the Turkish population since 1974,
when Turkish troops occupied the north. The work in Ledra Street began
under cover of darkness and had not been publicised in advance. But
the Greek Cypriot authorities say Turkish troops must pull back before
people can cross in either direction.

Ledra Street – a pedestrianised shopping area – would be the sixth
crossing point on the divided island. The street was cordoned off to
allow heavy equipment and demolition crews to move into position. A
small crowd watched the action, applauding when work on tearing down
the barrier began. "This is a show of goodwill on our side to
contribute positively to opening Ledra Street," government spokesman
Christodoulos Pashardes told state television.

It used to be a bustling road in the heart of Nicosia’s commercial
district but for more than 40 years it has been blocked by a large
wall and a viewing platform overlooking the demilitarised strip
separating north from south. The structures have been replaced by
plastic barricades. In December the Turkish Cypriot authorities
dismantled a controversial footbridge on Ledra Street, which was built
in 2005. It had angered Greek Cypriots, who said it encroached into
the UN buffer zone separating the two sides. The Green Zone is policed
by United Nations troops, amid barbed wire and dilapidated buildings
with sand bags still sitting in the windows. Cyprus was partitioned
after a Turkish invasion in 1974, which came shortly after a Greek
Cypriot coup backed by the military junta ruling Greece at the
time. Shortly before joining the European Union in 2004 the Greek
Cypriots rejected a United Nations plan to reunify the island. First
the disused ordnance and derelict buildings will have to be made safe
and then UN forces will have to establish a checkpoint to police the
crossing, reports the BBC.

Nicosia was the only divided capital city in the world after the fall
of the Berlin Wall.

9. März 2007, Tages-Anzeiger Online
Türkischer Populist Perincek verurteilt

Das Lausanner Gericht hat sein Urteil gefällt: Perincek hat gegen das
Antirassismus-Gesetz verstossen. Der türkische Populist ist damit die
erste Person weltweit, die wegen Leugnung des Völkermordes an den
Armeniern verurteilt wird.

Das Bezirksgericht Lausanne hat den türkischen Politiker Dogu Perincek
verurteilt, weil er den Genozid an der armenischen Bevölkerung durch
die türkischen Machthaber im Jahr 1915 geleugnet hatte. «Der
Völkermord an den Armeniern ist international und in der Schweiz
anerkannt», sagte Einzelrichter Pierre-Henri Winzap. Neben dem
Nationalrat und den Kantonen Waadt und Genf betrachteten auch die
Universitäten und Schulen im Land die Massaker an den Armeniern im
zweiten Weltkrieg als Völkermord.
Dass der Bundesrat es vorziehe, zu dem Thema zu schweigen, sei wegen
dessen Sorge um die internationalen Beziehungen verständlich, sagte
Winzap weiter. Der Rassist und Nationalist Perincek habe genau gewusst,
was er tue und sei deshalb zu verurteilen. Sein Motiv sei klar
rassistisch gewesen.

Er auferlegte Perincek eine Geldstrafe von 90 Tagessätzen à 100
Franken bedingt sowie zu einer Busse von 3000 Franken. Zudem muss er die
Gerichtskosten übernehmen und der Gesellschaft Schweiz- Armenien (GSA)
einen symbolischen Betrag von 1000 Franken zahlen.

Perincek sieht sich als Rassimus-Opfer
«Das ist ein rassistisches und imperialistisches Urteil», sagte
Perincek unmittelbar nach der Verhandlung. Aber das treffe nicht ihn,
sondern das Schweizer Volk, das nicht frei über die Geschichte
sprechen dürfe, sagte Perincek weiter. Er kündigte an, das Urteil
weiter zu ziehen.
Perincek sieht sich als Opfer in einer Linie mit Galilei, Robespierre
und Marx, die ebenfalls für ihre Ideen verurteilt worden seien. Der
Richter sei nicht neutral gewesen und hasse ihn. Das Urteil sei eine
Revanche des Imperialismus und folge der Unterdrückungspolitik der USA
im mittleren Osten, sagte Perincek.

Er werde seine Aussagen weiterhin machen. Wissenschaftliche
Überzeugungen könnten weder durch Drohungen oder Gefängnis
verändert werden, sagte Perincek. Vor Gericht hatte der Negationst
allerdings gesagt, dass er seine Position auch dann nicht ändern
würde, wenn eine unabhängige Expertenkommission zu einem anderen
Schluss käme als er.

Erleichterung, aber keine Freude
Perincek ist gemäss Aussagen von Vertretern der GSA die erste Person,
die wegen Leugnung des Völkermordes an den Armeniern verurteilt wurde.
Diese zeigten sich erleichtert nach dem Schuldspruch. Freude empfänden
sie aber nicht, die Ereignisse von 1915 könnten niemals dazu Anlass
geben, sagte der GSA-Co-Präsident Sarkis Shahinian.
Armenien wirft dem Osmanischen Reich als Vorläufer der Türkei vor,
in Anatolien zwischen 1915 und 1917 eineinhalb Millionen Armenier bei
Vertreibungen gezielt ermordet zu haben. Perincek hatte im Jahr 2005 in
der Schweiz mehrmals den Genozid an den Armeniern im zerfallenden
osmanischen Reich als «internationale Lüge» bezeichnet. Er war
deshalb in den Kantonen Zürich, Bern und Waadt angezeigt worden. Die
GSA war als Zivilklägerin anerkannt worden.

Factory of whey solids will be located on the Iran-Armenia border

07-03-2007 17:15:36
KarabakhOpen

In the recent meeting of the NKR National Assembly Member of
Parliament Maxim Mirzoyan raised the question of the Arvard Company’s
whey solids processing unit. The minister of territorial
administration and development of infrastructures ArmoTsatryan said
the government had given the permission to sell the factory. However,
the sale of the unique equipment underwent hard criticism in the
Karabakh media. On March 6 KarabakhOpen.com got a letter from Narineh
Aghabalyan, the vice president of Arvard, which contains the answers
to a few questions. The letter runs: `The dairy factory of Stepanakert,
by an order of the NKR government, is the property of Mr. and
Mrs. Anivyan, which means they can do with their property whatever
they wish. Over the past few years a number of companies have bid for
Vardges Anivyan’s factory’s expensive equipment for production of milk
powder because the factory did not work. However, the owner of the
factory disagreed to take the equipment away from Armenia and refused
lucrative proposals. The representative of the Ashtarak Kat Company
also proposed to buy Arvard’s equipment but there was no deal because
at the last moment the buyer stated that it cannot operate the full
capacity of the processing unit.

Specialists say 90-100 tons of milk is needed to operate the full
capacity of the unit. According to statistical data, an annual 33.3
tons of milk is produced in Karabakh. It means even if all the milk
produced in Karabakh in a year is used for producing evaporated milk
or milk powder, it will not be enough. Considering this, the owner of
the factory decided to sell the equipment to Segal-Hall, a company
registered in Armenia, which is likely to install the equipment on the
border with Iran to export milk from this country as well.

The equipment was sold for 200 thousand dollars, including 33.3
thousand dollars of the VAT was paid to the state budget of
NKR. Vardges Anivyan is likely to invest the rest in dairy business
and several other projects in Karabakh.

LE JUGE ET L’HISTORIEN, COUPLE MAUDIT DU PROCèS DU NEGATIONNISTE PERINCEK
Philippe Maspoli

24 Heures, France
07 mars 2007 mercredi
Edition La Côte

"GENOCIDE ARMENIEN – La première journee du procès du chef du Parti
des travailleurs turcs n’a pas echappe a un long debat historique.

Le Palais de justice de Montbenon barricade, les 80personnes
habilitees a entrer, dont une bonne moitie de journalistes, filtrees
sous l’oeil d’une escouade de policiers en tenue antiemeute, le passage
au detecteur de metal Tout semble reuni pour creer l’impression qu’une
première en Suisse se prepare: la condamnation, peut-etre, d’un homme
pour qui le genocide perpetre entre 1915 et 1918 par l’Empire ottoman
contre les Armeniens est un "mensonge international".

Dogu Perincek, 65ans, l’avait dit a plusieurs reprises en 2005,
notamment a Lausanne. Il l’a reaffirme hier face a Pierre-Henri Winzap,
juge unique d’un Tribunal de police qui ne peut pas infliger plus de
six mois de prison: "Je n’ai pas nie le genocide puisqu’il n’y a pas
eu de genocide. "

Lors de cette première journee d’un procès qui devrait se clore
vendredi par le jugement, les historiens se sont retrouves aux
avant-postes. Le procureur general Eric Cottier voulait eviter que
l’audience ne s’enlise dans un debat de specialistes. Mais pour
determiner si Dogu Perincek s’est montre coupable de discrimination
raciale en niant un genocide, le president veut "voir le fond",
examiner si ledit genocide, planifie, organise, est suffisamment
atteste.

Dialogue difficile

L’historien est-il un bon temoin pour le juge? On peut en douter a
l’ecoute de certains dialogues. Morceau choisi avec Justin McCarthy,
un historien americain de l’Universite de Louisville (Kentucky),
qui nie le genocide armenien. "Etes-vous sûr que le genocide n’a pas
existe?" "Comme c’est compris par les gens, il n’a pas existe. C’est
un mot pas precis". "Est-ce un mensonge de dire qu’il a existe?"

"Non, c’est une erreur. " "Connaissez-vous la definition du
genocide?" "J’en connais de nombreuses. Si on prend celle des Nations
Unies, il n’y a pas une guerre sans genocide. "

L’ecrivain francais Jean-Michel Thibaux a pris la nationalite turque
lorsque l’Assemblee nationale a reconnu le genocide armenien. "Les
deportations sont des crimes contre l’humanite. Mais, qu’il y ait
eu 1 ou 1,5million de morts, je bute sur la notion de genocide,
car il manque la planification et l’organisation", affirme-t-il. Ce
temoin doit admettre avoir ete sollicite par le ministre des Affaires
etrangères turc.

En debut de soiree, le specialiste francais Yves Ternon, cite a
la barre par l’Association Suisse-Armenie, plaignante, affirme que
"les deportations forment la methode meme du genocide. Un genocide a
forcement lieu dans le contexte d’une guerre. C’est la brutalisation
de la societe. " Les thèses negationnistes entendues en audience sont,
selon lui, liees au "negationnisme d’Etat" regnant en Turquie.

L’Association Suisse-Armenie se refuse a tout commentaire avant le
jugement. Pour Me Laurent Moreillon, avocat de Dogu Perincek, cette
affaire finira a la Cour europeenne de Strasbourg, quel que soit le
verdict: "Deux genocides sont reconnus par les instances judiciaires
internationales, celui perpetre par les nazis contre les juifs et les
massacres commis par les Serbes a Srebrenica. Moi aussi, humainement,
j’ai toujours parle du genocide armenien. Mais la, on est dans un
contexte penal. "

–Boundary_(ID_CNTpsI3cgQcEIvBIx+tqfA)–

IRINA TO ASK FOR MONEY ON MARCH 8

A1+
[03:06 pm] 07 March, 2007

Every day one can see 57-year-old Irina vagabonding in the streets
of Yerevan begging for money. She claims she can hardly pay the
electricity bill and the house rent with the money she gets.

"live on 800 AMD. I eat nothing but macaroni and potatoes. Once a
Russian resident gave me 100 rubbles.

I decided to buy meat but no sooner had I got home than my neighbor
informed me that my light was disconnected. I had to pay the bill
with the money," she tells.

Irina lives in a hostel in Shengavit District. She has neither
relatives nor children. It is already 15 years her husband has been
in custody. Irina avoided answering the reason for his arrest; she
only justified him saying, "My husband was innocent. I don’t even
know whether he is alive or dead. I haven’t seen him for five years,
as I have had no means to visit him."

In 1988 the spouses immigrated to Armenia. "We had better stay in
Baku. We had jobs there and could suffice our bare necessities",
says Irina.

In answer to our question which candidate she would vote for during
the upcoming elections, she said, "I cannot vote as I am not a
RA citizen." "It is all the same to me. No matter who is elected,
he won’t better my conditions. Tomorrow is a holiday. People will
celebrate March 8. Everybody will get presents and have parties except
me. I shall wander in the streets asking for money as usual".

To note, she looks older because of the deep wrinkles and grey hair.

ROMANIAN AMBASSADOR HANDED HER CREDENTIALS TO PRESIDENT KOCHARYAN

armradio.am
06.03.2007 14:32

The newly appointed Ambassador of Romania Mrs. Crina Rodica Prunariu
handed her credentials to President Robert Kocharyan.

Congratulating the diplomat on appointment, the President expressed
confidence that her activity will be beneficial for the further
development of relations between the two countries.

Robert Kocharyan assessed the Armenian-Romanian political dialogue as
rather active and dynamic. Underlining the importance of expansion of
collaboration especially after Romania’s accession to the European
Union, the President said sufficient contractual-legal bases exist
for it.

Robert Kocharyan stressed the importance of the cooperation between
the two countries also in the context of European integration policy
and noted that the European neighborhood Policy provides serious
perspectives for cooperation.