Author: Yeghisabet Arthur

NKR MINISTRIES OF AGRICULTURE, HEALTH CARRY OUT EXPLANATORY WORK TO PREVENT BIRD FLUE
ARKA News Agency, Armenia
March 21 2006
STEPANAKERT, March 21. /ARKA/. Specialists of the NKR Ministry of
Agriculture and Ministry of Health have carried out explanatory
work in a number of villages of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic (NKR)
to prevent bid flue.
The NKR Ministry of Agriculture reports that the specialists visited
the borderline villages of Nadagis and Talysh, Martakert region,
NKR, where they carried out explanatory work and gave professional
recommendations.
The reason for the visit is the information recently reported by
Azerbaijan mass media that bird flue cases were recorded in the
Mirbashir region of Azerbaijan. After talking to local residents,
specialists found it that no mass cases of death of wild birds or
poultry have lately been recorded.

PRESS OFFICE
Armenian Holy Apostolic Church Canadian Diocese
Contact; Deacon Hagop Arslanian, Assistant to the Primate
615 Stuart Avenue, Outremont Quebec H2V 3H2
Tel; 514-276-9479, Fax; 514-276-9960
Email; [email protected]
Website; _www.armenianchurch.ca_ ()
HISTORIC MEETING WITH PRIME MINISTER STEPHEN HARPER
A Canadian Armenian delegation, led by the Primate His Eminence Bagrat
Galstanian, met with The Right Honorable Stephen Harper in his
Parliament Hill office on Tuesday March 21, 2006.
The Primate congratulated the Prime Minister on his recent election,
and thanked him for actively supporting the passage of Bill M-380 by
the Houseof Commons in 2004 which recognized the Armenian genocide. He
also presented a letter from His Holiness Karekin II, Supreme
Patriarch and Catholicos of All Armenians.
`We highly appreciate this important action’ said the Vehapar in his
letter to the Prime Minister, referring to Bill M-380, `and appeal to
youto condemn all similar atrocities throughout the world that are
directed against the wellbeing of man.’
`We look forward that during your term in office, there may be further
tangible cooperation between Canada and the Republic of Armenia,
leadingto official diplomatic representation in Yerevan’ added His
Holiness.
The Primate told Mr. Harper that he was gratified to hear the policies
of the Conservative government on social issues, and offered his
co-operation towards enhancing dialogue with Church and interfaith
community leaders in Canada.
The Prime Minister showed keen interest in all aspects of Armenian
community life, and had a cordial conversation on several topics with
the Primate and his delegation. Mr. Harper asked Bishop Galstanian to
convey his greetingsto the Catholicos of All Armenians, and to thank
His Holiness for his blessings.
Accompanying the Primate were V. Rev. Father Ararat Kaltakjian, Vicar
of the Diocese; Rev. Archpriest Zareh Zargarian, Pastor of Holy
Trinity Church in Toronto; Mr. Jack Stepanian, Chairman of the
Diocesan Council; Mr. Taro Alepian, Vice-Chairman of the Diocesan
Council; and Mr. Ara Boyadjian, Treasurer of the Diocesan Council.
At the conclusion of the meeting, Bishop Galstanian presented
Mr. Harper with a `Khatchkar’ exquisitely etched in crystal, with
twosmall vials containing earth and Holy water from Armenia.
Prior to meeting with the Prime Minister, the delegation had visited
the Armenian Embassy in Ottawa, where they were briefed by Counselor
Mikhayil Vardanian on several issues concerning Armenia, including the
situation in Karabagh.
* * *

HRAZDAN TPP PROPOSES TWOFOLD INCREASE IN TARIFF OF GENERATED ELECTRICITY
Noyan Tapan
Mar 21 2006
YEREVAN, MARCH 21, NOYAN TAPAN. The Hrazdan Thermal Power Plant
(TPP) recently submitted a bid for a twofold increase in the tariff
of generated electricity to the RA Public Services Regulatory
Commission. According to the bid, the current tariff of 11.36
drams (0.025 USD) for 1 kwh of electricity should be risen to 21.36
drams. The ground for such an increase is the rise of the gas price. To
recap, the Hrazdan TPP generates electricity by using gas. The
commission may consider the bid within 90 days, however, according
to NT’s information, the bid will be examined within the next few days.

EVENTS IN TSALKA HAVE NO ETHNIC CONTEXT
Lragir/am
20 March 06
The recent murder of an Armenian and stabbing of two Armenians in the
Georgian town of Tsalka does not have an ethnic context, assures the
Georgian ambassador to Armenia Revaz Gachecheladzeh. He announced that
the offender had been arrested and will get a punishment. However,
the breaking of windows of the university, the courthouse, the
protest actions of Armenians were also battering, said the Georgian
ambassador. “Every year 150-200 murders are reported in Georgia. The
population of Georgia is not homogeneous, and in a number of cases the
murderer and the victim have different nationalities. But this does
not mean that all these murders were committed on an ethnic ground,”
said the Georgian ambassador.

“I AM” THIRD INTERNATIONAL YOUTH FILM FESTIVAL TO BE HELD IN YEREVAN IN MAY
YEREVAN, MARCH 17, NOYAN TAPAN – ARMENIANS TODAY. The Cinematographers’
Union of Armenia will hold the “I am” international youth film
festival in May 2006 already for the third time. Up to 30 years
old young creators from Armenia, Diaspora or of foreign origin may
participate in the festival.
As the Noyan Tapan correspondent was informed from the festival
office, applicants may present for the competition films created
in 2005-2006. The works must be presented up to April 1 in VHS and
DVD formats.
The festival organization committee fixed 9 prizes: the best feature
film, best documentary, best students’ work, best operator’s work, best
director’s work, best music clip, best animation film, best advertising
clip, best video-art. All the prize-winners will get diploma and prize.

BÝA, Turkey
March 17 2006
Free Expression Falls Victim to EU Opponents
Using loosely worded laws that criminalize the denigration of the
Turkish state, conservative secular nationalists – referred to by
some as “the state within the state” – are challenging writings and
public comments on issues they dislike.
CPJ/IFEX
17/03/2006
BÝA (New York) – Nationalists opposed to Turkey’s engagement with
Europe have sought out sympathetic public prosecutors across the
country to file criminal complaints against journalists, writers and
academics who favor EU membership, a new report by the Committee to
Protect Journalists has found.
Using loosely worded laws that criminalize the denigration of the
Turkish state, its identity and its institutions, conservative secular
nationalists – referred to by some as “the state within the state” –
are challenging writings and public comments on issues they dislike,
including the Kurds, the mass killings of Armenians under the Ottoman
Empire, and the security forces, CPJ found in its special report,
“Nationalism and the Press,” released today.
Five journalists were charged in December 2005 under Article 288 of
the penal code with attempting to influence the outcome of judicial
proceedings through their writings. Four of the five were also charged
under the controversial Article 301 of the code with insulting
“Turkishness,” and if convicted could face prison terms from six
months to 10 years.
Senior Editor Robert Mahoney attended the unruly opening of the
journalists’ trial on February 7 in Istanbul where hundreds of riot
police ringed the court room and the judge adjourned the case after
two hours. He interviewed several of the journalists standing trial,
government officials and activists for the report.
Since Turkey’s penal code was overhauled in 2005, cases have been
brought against 29 journalists under Article 301, according to the
local press freedom organization Bia.
For 40 years, Turkey has been forging closer political, economic,
and social ties with Europe, writes Mahoney. But the opening last
October of formal accession negotiations with Brussels has galvanized
those who feel Turkey has gone far enough in reforming itself along
Western lines to pass the EU membership test.
The prosecution of the five journalists is scheduled to reconvene on
April 11.
–Boundary_(ID_1z27Pjr6yaQgJRNVDkz7UQ)–

Former Soviet territory has hope for recognition
Abkhazia is cut off and struggling
By Tom Parfitt, Globe Correspondent | March 17, 2006
Boston Globe, MA
March 17 2006
SUKHUM, Abkhazia — At first glance the tiny self-declared republic
of Abkhazia on the eastern coast of the Black Sea is an earthly
paradise. For decades its palm trees, warm scented air, and long
beaches drew thousands of holidaymakers from across the Soviet Union.
Joseph Stalin and Nikita Khrushchev relaxed on its shores.
Even today, it is famed for its gentle climate, its mandarin oranges,
and its sweeping boughs of yellow mimosa blossom. But look closer,
and there are signs of an uglier past.
Side streets in the seaside capital, Sukhum, are dominated by the
gutted remains of smoke-blackened houses, choked with weeds. In the
countryside not far away, whole settlements stand in silent desolation,
abandoned in a furious war that raged here in the Caucasus more than
a decade ago.
The conflict flared up in August 1992 when the armed forces of
Georgia attacked Abkhazia, a region within Georgia’s territory that
had declared its intent to break away from the country after the
Soviet collapse. Since 1931, when Stalin began a forced colonization
of the region by Georgians, Abkhazians had nursed a desire to wrest
back total control of the territory.
In late 1993, after a year of fighting and atrocities on both sides,
the Abkhazians drove out their enemies — including thousands of
Georgian civilians who were by then a majority of the population —
and declared independence.
Ever since, this scrap of land, home to about 200,000 people, has
led a lonely existence, cut off by an embargo and unrecognized by
any country in the world.
”In the last 13 years, Abkhazia has formed a state with its own
institutions, authorities, army, and democratic development,” said its
de facto president, Sergei Bagapsh, in an interview at his offices
in downtown Sukhum. ”But the world ignores us when we have every
right to gain international recognition.”
Despite its frustration, Abkhazia is one of a posse of unrecognized
former Soviet territories that are now champing at the bit because
of a far-off event in the heart of Europe.
Last month, face-to-face talks between delegations from Kosovo and
Serbia finally began in Vienna. The UN-brokered negotiations will
decide the future of Kosovo, the ethnic Albanian province of Serbia
that has been under UN protection since NATO air strikes forced Serb
troops out in 1999.
European diplomats indicate that Kosovo has a chance to gain full
independence and recognition by the international community later
this year.
That suggestion has prompted a wave of hope for similar recognition in
self-declared territories like Abkhazia and South Ossetia, Georgia’s
other breakaway region, as well as the republic of Trans-Dniester in
Moldova, and the disputed district of Nagorno Karabakh, an Armenian
enclave in Azerbaijan.
Bagapsh predicted Abkhazia’s independence will be recognized ”within
three days” if Kosovo is granted status as a country.
President Vladimir Putin of Russia threw his weight behind Abkhazia’s
cause at the end of January when he said Kosovan independence would
set a precedent.
”We need universal principles to find a fair solution to these
problems,” Putin said in his annual news conference. ”If people
believe that Kosovo can be granted full independence, why then should
we deny it to Abkhazia and South Ossetia?” he asked.
Russia’s support for the Abkhazians, an ethnic group that believes
God entrusted their territory to them for protection, has been key.
Moscow, keen to keep neighboring Georgia weak and hoping to slow
the region’s drift toward the West, supported the Abkhazians in the
1992-1993 war with weapons and air strikes. Thousands of irregulars
from Abkhazia’s ”brother nations” in the Russian North Caucasus
republics — including Chechens and Cossacks — also streamed across
the border to fight Georgia.
But Abkhazia’s victory came at a price. Georgia accused it of ethnic
cleansing and severed all trade. Many buildings were destroyed, and
the republic is desperately poor. Sukhum has no functioning airport,
receives little direct bilateral aid, and its coast is cut off by
Georgian ships. Its critics say it is a haven for organized crime,
which is hard to verify. And its only link is with Russia, which
buys its oranges and sends a trickle of tourists to the republic’s
crumbling resorts.
UN-led talks between Georgia and Abkhazia have borne little fruit
since the end of the armed conflict.
But Foreign Minister Sergei Shamba of Abkhazia said there is hope
that independence for Kosovo will set a vital benchmark that could
alter the course of his stranded republic.
”The international community needs to face up to the fact
that obstacles put in front of people and their aspirations to
self-determination only lead to bloodshed,” he said. ”In that sense,
Kosovo could become a kind of marker that determines a new world
attitude towards these issues.”
At Shamba’s cramped three-room foreign ministry, officials are
following every squeak and whisper of the Kosovo negotiations, which
are due to resume today.
Developments in Serbia are complicated by an increasingly fragile
local situation. Georgia is fed up with what it perceives as Moscow’s
meddling in its internal affairs, and the parliament in Tbilisi,
the capital, is gearing up for a vote in July, when it is expected
to demand the withdrawal of Russian peacekeeping forces that separate
Georgian and Abkhaz troops along the cease-fire line.
While any parliamentary vote will not be binding, President Mikhail
Saakashvili of Georgia is facing growing pressure from nationalists
to rein in his rebellious breakaway republics and rid the country of
foreign interference.
The country’s military budget is rising rapidly, with the United
States providing vital training and equipment.
Officially, the United States is neutral in the conflict, but
representatives of the Abkhazian foreign ministry who returned last
month from a USAID-funded trip to Washington said administration
officials urged them to accept broad autonomy within Georgia rather
than push for independent status.
Viktor Tvanba, an Abkhaz veteran of the 1992 conflict who lives
in Sukhum, said the withdrawal of Russian troops would lead to a
region-wide conflagration.
”The Georgians will surely attack us and then we’ll unleash such a
furious response that we’ll drive them all the way back to Tbilisi,”
the 56-year-old said. ”Any less would be an insult to our dead
relatives.”
As in Kosovo, every call to arms is accompanied by claims to historical
precedence on the territory, which are disputed by historians on
both sides.
The fate of the southern Gali region of Abkhazia where Georgians
dominate remains a major sticking point.
Interethnic strife has led to scores of deaths in the area since
the war, and most refugees who fled during the conflict have been
prevented from returning to claim their property and livelihoods.

Fifty House members call to maintain military aid parity to Armenia and Azerbaijan
17.03.2006 15:01
YEREVAN (YERKIR) – Congressmen Frank Pallone (D-NJ) and George
Radanovich (R-CA) were joined by forty-eight of their House colleagues
on March 16 in urging the leadership of the House Foreign Operations
Subcommittee to support pro-Armenian provisions in the fiscal year
2007 foreign aid bill, reported the Armenian National Committee of
America (ANCA).
Members of Congress cosigned a letter, addressed to the panel’s
Chairman Jim Kolbe (R-AZ) and Ranking Member Nita Lowey (D-NY), which
would strengthen the hand of pro-Armenian members of the Subcommittee,
most notably Armenian Caucus Co-Chairman Joe Knollenberg, Steve Rothman
(D-NJ), Mark Kirk (R-IL), and John Sweeney (R-NY). Rep. Sweeney, who
joined the panel last year, is one of only two Members of Congress
of Armenian heritage.
The letter notes that members of Congress are “deeply troubled”
that the Administration’s request for military aid for Azerbaijan is
considerably higher then the request for Armenia.
By signing the letter, legislators will add their voice to the effort
to ensure that the agreement struck in 2001 between the White House
and Congress to keep aid levels to these two countries equal is fully
respected. In addition, the letter calls for a hard earmark of at
least $75 million for Armenia, a one-year $5 million allocation for
Nagorno Karabagh, and the preservation of Section 907 of the Freedom
Support Act.

PUNISHING A CRIMINAL AND MURDERER IS NO CRIME
By Tamar Minasian
AZG Armenian Daily #048
17/03/2006
On March 15, we celebrated the 85th anniversary of Tallat Pasha
assassination, who was one of masterminds and accomplisher of
the Armenian Genocide. On this occasion, the youth branch of ARF
Dashnaktsiutiun held a rally in front of the monument to Soghomon
Tehlerian, the assassin of Tallat. Armen Rustamian, member of ARFD
Supreme Body, stated that the events of the past helped us preserve
our national dignity. He added that we strengthened the spirit of
our people in the fair struggle against our enemies. Rustamian is
confident that many new generations of Armenians will be educated on
the example of Soghomon Tehlerian.
He added that punishing the murderer is no crime.
Rustamian stated that the Turks learnt no lesson from the history
and still try to make falsifications and deny the reality.
The members of Dshnaktsiutiun’s youth branch said that there are
still young people that follow the path of Tehlerian. 17 years old
Dvin who came to Armenia from Canada said that the patriotic feeling
of the Armenians from Diaspora differ from those who live in Armenia.
“There they feel patriotism mixed with homesickness, while in
Armenia patriotism means to preserve and develop the motherland,”
he said. “Tehlerian was 25 when he killed Tallat. He should be a
lofty ideal for us, as he could show to the world that we will not
be silent,” Dvin underscored.

AZERI POLICE PREVENTS PROTEST DURING ARRIVAL OF ARMENIANS IN BAKU
Baku Today, Azerbaijan
March 16 2006
Police prevented a protest from occurring today at 14:00 in front of
the “Park Inn” Hotel during the arrival of the Armenian delegation
participating in an OSCE conference.
Active members of the Karabakh Liberation Organization (KLO) attempted
to protest, Akif Nagi, KLO’s leader, told TURAN. Several members
of the KLO managed to enter the hotel, but police then caught them,
and did not allow the others to enter the hotel. The detained were
taken to the 39th police department and were it was said they would
be released only after the Armenian delegation leaves Baku.
The conference is about the increase of transport safety in the OSCE
zone. The Armenian delegation consisting of three people is led by
the Deputy Transport Minister of Armenia, Vagan Badalian.