Author: Zakarian Garnik

FESTIVAL OF FILMS FOR CHILDREN IN KARABAKH

KarabakhOpen
25-10-2007 16:33:12

A festival of films for children will be held in Karabakh October 28
to 30, which has been initiated by Rolan Bikov Foundation.

The films will be projected at the Palace of Youth, hospitals and
schools in Stepanakert, in Shushi and in Gandzasar. The recent issues
of the humoristic TV magazine "Yeralash" will be demonstrated.

Directors and artists from France, Italy, Poland and Russia will
arrive in Stepanakert for the festival.

BUSH TEETERS ON TURKISH-KURD TIGHTROPE
By Jim Lobe

Asia Times Online
25Ak05.html
Oct 24 2007
Hong Kong

WASHINGTON – Spurred by the deployment of at least 100,000 troops
along Turkey’s border with Iraq, the administration of US President
George W Bush is pressing its closest clients in Iraqi Kurdistan to
crack down hard against the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which
Washington considers a terrorist organization.

Given the administration’s refusal so far to back up that pressure
with military muscle, however, it remains unclear whether its efforts
will translate into action by local Kurdish authorities, or

prevent a cross-border offensive that could throw into chaos the one
Iraqi region that has enjoyed stability since the 2003 US invasion.

The indications are that US pressure is having only a limited impact.

The PKK’s offer to observe a conditional ceasefire was dismissed both
by Ankara and officials in Washington, who noted that such declarations
had proved meaningless in the past.

And a declaration by the government of Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri
al-Maliki that it will close down all PKK offices throughout Iraq
was also considered toothless, since Iraqi troops at least nominally
under Maliki’s control are not permitted to operate in Kurdistan
where the Peshmerga, the Kurdish militia forces, are charged with
maintaining security.

"I understand there’s this commitment to shut down offices," said US
State Department spokesman Sean McCormack. "Okay, but what you need
to see are actual outputs from inputs that the Iraqi government might
make. The outputs are that you need to stop terrorist attacks; there
needs to be prevention of terrorist attacks, and you need to get to
the root cause here, and that is to stop this terrorist organization
from operating on Iraqi soil," he added.

Most analysts in Washington believe that neither Turkish Prime
Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan nor his military commanders are eager
to send their forces into Iraq to deal with the estimated 3,000 PKK
guerrillas who are thought to be based there and that diplomacy,
which has intensified dramatically over the past several days, has
at least several more days to play itself out.

Indeed, senior Turkish officials themselves have stressed they prefer
diplomatic, and, if that doesn’t work, economic pressure to persuade
Iraqi and regional authorities to move against the PKK. Kurdistan
is landlocked and its economy is heavily dependent on open borders
with Turkey, as well as Iran and Syria, both of which, with large and
restive Kurdish populations of their own, have expressed solidarity
with Ankara in recent days.

But any major new attack by Iraq-based PKK guerrillas, who killed 12
Turkish soldiers and claimed to have taken prisoner eight more over
the weekend, will likely force Erdogan to order his military to cross
the border – initially with air strikes and commandos, according to
analysts – as authorized by the Turkish Parliament last week.

"If there is another event, Erdogan and the military, despite their
reluctance to be drawn reflexively across that border, will probably
have to do something, and the options aren’t particularly good,"
according to a former US ambassador to Ankara, Mark Parris.

"I have no doubt that [US ambassador to Iraq] Ryan Crocker, [US Iraq
commander General David] Petraeus and people here are pounding on
the Iraqi leadership to get this under control," Parris added in a
teleconference on the crisis sponsored by the New York-based Council
on Foreign Relations (CFR).

At the same time, however, the administration finds its influence
over the key parties at a particularly low ebb. Anti-US sentiment in
an increasingly democratic Turkey is at an all-time high, not least
because of Washington’s refusal to date to seriously address Ankara’s
concerns about the PKK, a refusal that has fed the perception that
the US has a secret agenda to break up Iraq and create an independent
Kurdistan that will naturally act as an inspiration for Kurds in
Turkey to seek independence.

"We have just not answered the mail on this," according to Ian Lesser,
an expert at the German Marshall Fund and author of a new book on
US-Turkey relations, significantly entitled Beyond Suspicion.

"We’re seeing the result of letting this issue lie for so long,"
according to Stephen Cook, a Turkey expert at CFR, who noted that
Joseph Ralston, the special US envoy appointed by Bush last year to
deal with Turkey’s concerns, resigned recently, reportedly out of
frustration at the administration’s neglect. "The Turks have very
little trust in our ability to do anything on this issue."

At the same time, Ankara enjoys considerable leverage over the US both
as a key North Atlantic Treaty Organization partner that contributes
1,000 troops to the alliance’s forces in Afghanistan and as the host
of Incirlik air base, a major logistical hub for US forces in Iraq.

Hints by Turkish officials that Ankara would restrict access to
the base after a key Congressional committee approved a non-binding
resolution on the "genocide" of up to 1.5 million Armenians in the
last days of the Ottoman Empire spurred an all-out lobbying effort
by the administration and the Pentagon, in particular, to persuade
lawmakers to drop the matter.

Washington similarly finds its leverage over Iraqi Kurds limited, not
least because it has all but ruled out deploying already-stretched
US troops from central and southern Iraq to the north’s mountain
redoubts where the PKK guerrillas are based, and because the PKK is
believed to have strong popular support in Kurdistan.

"US action against the PKK could be as destabilizing as a Turkish
incursion," according to Parris, who also noted that US strategy for
building an Iraqi army capable of assuming much of the security burden
that has been shouldered by US troops has come to depend mainly on
the supply of Peshmerga recruits by the Kurdistan authorities.

The authorities may be seeking to exact a high price for cracking down
on the PKK; namely, the holding of a referendum in oil-rich Kirkuk on
its absorption by Kurdistan, a step that the Turks have long warned
against and one that could provoke a broader military intervention.

On this issue, US diplomacy until now has been more activist than
on the PKK. It has successfully delayed the holding of such a
referendum, which was mandated to take place this year by the 2005
constitution, until at least next year. Washington is concerned
that the referendum could spark major ethnic violence in the region,
as well as intervention by Turkey.

ISRAEL LOBBY MAY BE SOURCE OF ARMENIAN GENOCIDE RESOLUTION
by Wayne Madsen

OpEdNews, PA

/articles/opedne_wayne_ma_071023_israel_lobby_may_ be_.htm
Oct 23 2007

October 22, 2007 — Israel Lobby accused of being behind Armenian
genocide resolution

Experts on U.S.-Turkish relations in Washington report that the
recent deterioration in relations between Washington and Ankara are
primarily due to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC)
and Turkey’s other erstwhile friends, including the Anti-Defamation
League (ADL), pulling support for their former allies in Turkey because
of increasingly closer Turkish relations with both Syria and Iran —
two countries that are being targeted by the neocon cells operating
in Vice President Dick Cheney’s office and among Kadima and Likud
circles in Jerusalem.

In fact, Turkey, Syria, and Iran are cooperating in battling PKK forces
on their respective territories. Israel’s Mossad has re-established
close links with the Kurds in the region. It appears that Israel
is willing to sacrifice its past close relations with Turkey in its
support for the Kurds and creating tension between the non-Arab powers
in the region — Iran, Turkey, and the Kurds. The election of Turkish
Islamist-oriented Abdullah Gul as President of a secular-oriented
Turkey was a green light for AIPAC, the ADL, and the neocons and
other right-wing networks in Washington to turn up the heat on Ankara.

The subsequent threat by Turkey to deploy troops into northern Iraq
to go after Kurdish guerrillas, some of whom are reportedly backed by
the Mossad and U.S. paramilitary private security forces, was enough
to cause the Israel Lobby to break their historic links to the Turks.

Adding to the anger of the Israel Lobby was the recent natural gas
deal inked between Syria, Iran, and Turkey. Iran will provide Syria
with Iranian gas via Turkish pipelines.

Turkish sources are reporting that the Mossad and CIA are providing
direct support to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), a Kurdish group
outlawed in Turkey and designated a terrorist organization by the
United States.

Tensions along the Turkish-Iraq border grew more inflamed on October
21 after PKK guerrillas killed at least 12 Turkish troops in an attack
carried out on Turkish soil.

In July, Turkish authorities seized automatic weapons of U.S. origin
from captured members of the PKK. After Defense and State Department
investigations of weapons smuggling to the PKK, the Justice Department
began investigating Kenneth W. Cashwell and William Ellsworth "Max"
Grumiaux, two former Blackwater USA employees, for trafficking in
the interstate and foreign commerce of stolen firearms.

Eventually, Cashwell and Grumiaux pleaded guilty to possession of
the stolen firearms and began cooperating with the government in
its investigation of smuggling to the PKK via the Kurdistan Regional
Government (KRG).

The Charlotte News and Observer reported that the federal probe
involves the possibility that Blackwater smuggled automatic weapons
and other military hardware to Iraq that potentially ended up in the
hands of the KRG and then the PKK.

The Pentagon is investigating the loss of some 190,000 U.S. small arms
in Iraq. Blackwater has denied any role in weapons smuggling in Iraq.

WMR has also learned that some of Blackwater’s top officials maintain
close links to the Israeli military and security communities as well as
to a shadowy network of right-wing Republican weapons manufacturers,
law firms, lobbyists, and arms exporters in the Washington, DC area,
including individuals linked to white supremacist organizations.

Turkey blames Israel for the passage by the House International
Relations Committee of the Armenian genocide resolution. Turkish
Foreign Minister Ali Babacan reportedly told Israeli President
Shimon Peres earlier this month that since Israel ultimately controls
Jewish-American organizations like the ADL, Turkey held Israel partly
responsible for the passage of the Armenian genocide resolution largely
thanks to the support of the ADL and AIPAC and one of their biggest
champions on Capitol Hill, House International Relations Committee
Chairman Tom Lantos.

It was only after Turkey’s own sizable lobbying machine in Washington
forced President George W. Bush, Defense Secretary Robert Gates,
and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice — and behind the scenes
George H. W. Bush National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft, the head
of the American Turkish Council — to exert pressure on the House,
did leading Democrats succeed in killing the Armenian resolution.

However, that put Cheney and his neocon cabal on the defensive. They
were more than willing to sacrifice U.S. relations with Turkey to bring
about a "final solution" for the Iranians, Syrians, Palestinians,
Turks, or anyone else that stood in the way of the ultimate aims of
the neocons: a Western-Islamic "Clash of Civilizations" and iron-fisted
U.S. control of Middle East energy resources.

It also appears certain that the Israeli attack on a alleged Syrian
nuclear facility, said to have been built with the aid of North Korean
and Iranian specialists, was designed to scuttle back channel attempts
by Turkey to help negotiate a peace agreement between Israel and
Syria. The Israeli Likud Party and its allies in Washington, primarily
in Cheney’s office and at two problematic think tanks in Washington
that act as Likud fronts — the American Enterprise Institute (AEI)
and the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP) — want no
part of an Israeli-Syrian peace agreement of any form of detente.

On October 21, Cheney launched a verbal barrage against Iran and Syria
at a meeting of WINEP held at suburban Virginia’s exclusive country
club venue, the Landsdowne Conference Center. Cheney’s remarks were
hailed by Clinton Middle East envoy and WINEP director, Dennis Ross,
strongly rumored to be a top contender for a major foreign policy
slot in a Hillary Clinton administration.

The Israeli spin that Israeli military planes attacked the Syrian
facility via Turkish airspace was a not-so-veiled warning to Ankara
that Israel looked with disfavor the Turkish-Syrian rapprochement.

The Israeli attack on the Syrian "facility" is now being spun by
the neocon media, primarily the Jerusalem Post and ABC News, as a
commando raid supported by an Israeli "mole" inside the Syrian nuclear
establishment. Most of the reports from the neocons about a Syrian
"nuclear facility" are no more believable than the reports of Saddam
Hussein possessing weapons of mass destruction.

LAW-ENFORCERS ANNOUNCE HUNT FOR DEPUTY CUSTOMS HOUSE CHIEF

ARMENPRESS
Oct 23, 2007

YEREVAN, OCTOBER 23, ARMENPRESS: Armenian law-enforcement agencies have
announced a nation-wide hunt for a deputy chief of a customs office
in Gugark region, Lori province, who is suspected of soliciting an
‘extremely large bribe."

Sona Truzian, a spokeswoman for the office of prosecutor-general,
said the man, A. Ghulian, worked at Bagratashen customs house on the
border with Georgia.

She said prosecutors have found that A. Ghulian accepted a $.5,250
in bribe from two businessmen in return for registering a huge batch
of perfumes imported from Italy by a company as perfumes imported by
an individual entrepreneurs.

She said A Ghulian is accused on several counts of the criminal code
and a local court has issued an arrest warrant for the man who is on
the run.

AHMADINEJAD CUTS SHORT AN OFFICIAL VISIT TO YEREVAN

Deutsche Presse-Agentur
Oct 23 2007
Germany

Moscow – Called back by ‘internal problems’ in Iran, President Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad cut short an official visit to neighbouring Armenia,
presidential spokesman Viktor Sogomonyan told Deutsche Presse-Agentur
dpa in Yevran Tuesday.

Ahmadinejad left the Armenian capital for Tehran several hours before
the end of his two-day visit, said Sogomonyan, a spokesman for the
Armenian president.

He blamed the day’s cancelled programme on unforeseen circumstances
in Iran, without offering further details.

The Iranian leader was set to visit a memorial to the over 1 million
victims of the 1915 Armenian genocide and Yevran’s blue mosque.

Later, he had planned to give a speech at the Armenian parliament.

ONESIDEZERO’S GUITARIST COMMENTS ON BUSH

Metal Underground, MD
m?newsid=29812
Oct 23 2007

Los Angeles based ONESIDEZERO guitarist, Levon Sultanian, has
commented on the Bush administration’s recommendation to Congress to
reject legislation that would declare the World War I-era killings
of hundreds of thousands of Armenians as genocide.

"Genocide still exists. We saw it in Rwanda (1994) and we see it in
Darfur today. The only thing worse is when a mass killing of a nation
is NOT RECOGNIZED as a GENOCIDE, like the Armenian Genocide," says
Sultanian. "The Bush Administration is worried that the passing of the
Armenian Resolution and recognizing the mass killings in 1915 of 1.5
million Armenians will badly damage the American-Turkish relations
and U.S. interests in the Middle East (Iraq and Afghanistan). How
distorted is our government’s priorities? Are financial stakes more
important than recognizing and acknowledging injustice against
humanity? The Armenian Genocide happened; it is a reality in the
history of mankind. Honest Turks like Orhan Pamuk, Nobel Peace Prize
winner, acknowledge the Armenian Genocide and had the balls to ask
that all Turks accept this dark historic reality."

SINGLE GAFFE CAN DERAIL A MESSAGE
By Mike Soraghan

The Hill, DC
Oct 23 2007

Last week’s vote on overriding President Bush’s children’s health
insurance veto should have been a brief respite from a pretty tough
week for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).

After being forced to back away from votes on Armenian genocide and
intelligence surveillance law, she could watch Republicans stick with
an unpopular president on an unpopular position.

But when Rep. Pete Stark (D-Calif.) fired off a comment about troops
being sent to Iraq "to get their heads blown off for the president’s
amusement," Pelosi saw her message machine hop the rails.

It’s a situation that’s played itself out with surprising regularity –
usually on YouTube – since Democrats took over earlier this year.

There was House Appropriations Committee Chairman Dave Obey’s
(D-Wis.) dressing-down of a Marine Corps mom about war funding,
shouting in a Rayburn Building hallway about "idiot liberals." Obey
later apologized.

Then Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.) threatened the spending earmarks of
a member who questioned the millions Murtha was sending to a drug
intelligence center in his district. Murtha later apologized.

Then Republicans succeeded in getting floor votes on whether Democratic
lawmakers would publicly condemn an ad by the liberal group MoveOn.org
calling Gen. David Petraeus "General Betray Us."

Republicans gleefully posted these moments on YouTube and each was
relentlessly flogged by the Republican leadership through websites,
e-mails and media appearances.

For example, when Republican Conference Chairman Adam Putnam (R-Fla.)
lined up on CNN with House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-S.C.) on
healthcare, Putnam changed the topic to whether Clyburn should
apologize for Stark.

"The Republican leadership has been very clever," said John Feehery, a
regular contributor to The Hill’s Pundits Blog who was a communications
aide to Republican leaders while they were in power.

"They’ve drawn Nancy Pelosi into these debates by demanding that
she apologize."

Republicans have had their moments, too. Rep. Jean Schmidt (R-Ohio)
attracted widespread criticism for suggesting that Murtha was a
coward during a 2005 floor debate on the Iraq war. And earlier
that year, then-Rep. John Hostettler (R-Ind.) called Democrats
anti-Christian. Both comments were "taken down," or stripped from
the record.

This year, right-wing talk show host Rush Limbaugh found himself
backpedaling after calling veterans "phony soldiers" for criticizing
the Iraq war. Limbaugh said his comments were misconstrued and that
Democrats were playing political games.

By contrast, House Democrats haven’t scheduled votes on resolutions
condemning Limbaugh’s remarks.

"I would like to see us try to restrain ourselves in condemning through
resolutions all of that with which we disagree," House Majority
Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said at the time, though he also said,
"What’s good for the goose is good for the gander."

Some liberals agree that Republicans have traditionally done a better
job of exploiting such missteps than Democrats. Republicans have
a top-down oriented culture that allows them to strike fast, said
Eric Burns of the liberal group Media Matters, while the Democrats’
consensus culture slows things down.

"Conservatives wrote the book on how to exploit these moments for
political gain," said Burns, whose group specializes in discrediting
conservative propaganda. "Democrats just don’t believe that’s what
Congress should be used for. There’s a principle behind it."

Pelosi spokesman Nadeam Elshami explains the differences between the
parties differently.

"Republicans don’t let facts get in the way of their message,"
Elshami said. "But as hard as they try, the fact remains that they
are in the minority because they didn’t listen to the American people,
while the new-direction Congress has passed into law major bills that
will improve the lives of everyday Americans."

In the instance of the Stark comment, Burns said, "The fact that
[Republicans] weren’t able to keep it going for four or five days
indicates it wasn’t really working out for them."

Pelosi herself appears to have put the issue to rest with a late
Friday statement calling Stark’s statements "inappropriate" and a
distraction from the healthcare debate.

Pelosi’s comment was milder than a statement Hoyer issued around the
same time Friday in response to a question from CNN, saying he was
"hopeful that [Stark] will express his regrets to the president and
to our men and women in uniform."

To Republicans, that illustrated the delicate balance Pelosi had to
find between tamping down the problem while not infuriating the liberal
netroots, who had widely praised Stark for his red-meat comments.

"She has a real challenge," said Feehery. "She has to decide how mad
she’ll make the liberal left."

And asking the volatile Stark to apologize can be dangerous in
itself. Stark once apologized for mocking then-Rep. J.C. Watts
(R-Okla.) as a family-values Republican with illegitimate children.

But his statement made clear he was sorry only that he misstated
the number.

Stark has not responded to Pelosi’s statement, nor did his spokesman
return calls seeking comment. But in a statement issued Thursday in
response to the Republican criticism, he showed no signs of backing
down.

Instead, he called opponents of children’s healthcare "chickenhawks,"
a term often applied to avid supporters of the war who avoided military
service. And he said it was Boehner who should apologize for opposing
the children’s healthcare bill.

ARMENIAN PRIME MINISTER HOPES FOR PASSAGE OF U.S. CONGRESSIONAL GENOCIDE RESOLUTION

International Herald Tribune, France
The Associated Press
Oct 23 2007

WASHINGTON: Armenia’s prime minister said that he hopes that the
U.S. Congress will pass a resolution declaring the World War I-era
killings of Armenians a genocide, but that his country is not lobbying
on the issue.

Serge Sarkisian said that he has had other issues including economic
and security cooperation to discuss with U.S. officials in meetings
that began last week. He said that Armenia has tried to stay out of
a U.S. political debate.

Turkey has lobbied intensively against the resolution, while
Armenian-American groups have pressed for its passage.

The resolution did not come up in talks last week with U.S. officials
including Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Robert
Gates or in a meeting with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid,
Sarkisian said. After a meeting with Secretary of State Condoleezza
Rice on Tuesday, the State Department said that the two had discussed a
joint economic task force aimed in part at monitoring economic reform
in Armenia.

Sarkisian said that he believes that the resolution is being held up in
Congress because of Turkish pressure not because there is disagreement
in the House of Representatives over whether a genocide took place.

"So there is nothing to discuss," he said in an interview at the
Armenian embassy. "We are convinced that the genocide occurred and
that the sooner the Turks admit this, the better for both the Armenians
and the Turks."

Sarkisian’s trip comes at a time that relations between Washington
and Ankara have reached a recent low, as Turkey has protested the
congressional foray into a sensitive historical matter.

At issue is the killing of up to 1.5 million Armenians by Ottoman
Turks around the time of World War I, which many genocide scholars
consider the first genocide of the 20th century. Turkey denies that the
deaths constituted genocide, contending the toll has been inflated,
and those killed were victims of civil war and unrest that killed
Muslims as well as the overwhelmingly Christian Armenians.

The resolution was approved by a House committee earlier this month,
but appears stalled by an erosion of support. Some lawmakers have
removed their names from the sponsorship of the measure amid concern
that Turkey could retaliate by cutting off important supply routes
to Iraq or by withdrawing lucrative business deals.

Turkey has also said that passage of the resolution would undermine
hopes of improving relations with Armenia. Turkey closed its border
with Armenia in 1993 during a war between Armenia and Azerbaijan,
a Muslim ally of Ankara. The countries currently have no diplomatic
relations.

"I don’t understand what the Turks are saying," Sarkisian said. "We
have no relations now. We cannot harm something that is non existent."

But Sarkisian said that resolving the historical dispute over the
killings of Armenians should not hold up efforts to restore relations.

"It is not a precondition for re-establishing relations between the
two states," he said.

He said that he expected to discuss with Rice efforts to resolve the
conflict with Azerbaijan over the Nagorno-Karabakh region. The area
been controlled by Armenian and ethnic Armenian forces since a shaky
1994 cease-fire ended one of the bloodiest conflicts that followed
the collapse of the Soviet Union.

IRANIAN PRESIDENT TO SPEAK AT ARMENIAN PARLIAMENT

ARKA News Agency
Oct 22 2007
Armenia

YEREVAN, October 22. /ARKA/. Iranian President Mahmud Akhmadinejad
is to arrive for a two-day official visit to Armenia on October 22.

The same day, the Iranian President is to hold a private meeting with
RA President Robert Kocharyan, which is to be followed by a meeting
of the two countries’ official delegations.

The RA presidential press service reports that the sides will sign
documents on bilateral cooperation. The Armenian and Iranian leaders
are to hold a joint news conference.

President Akhmadinejad is also to hold a meeting with Speaker of
the Armenian parliament Tigran Torosyan and make a speech at the
Armenian Parliament.

The Iranian leader is to visit the Memorial to the victims of the
Armenian Genocide, institute-Museum of the Armenian Genocide and
the Blue Mosque in Yerevan. He is also scheduled to meet with the
teaching staff and students of Yerevan State University as well as
with representatives of the Iranian community in Armenia.

The Iranian delegation is to leave Yerevan on October 23.

ARMENIANS CROSS GENRES: THE MASSIVE KOHAR SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA AND CHOIR SPELLS ENJOYMENT
Don Heckman, Special to The Times

Los Angeles Times
October 22, 2007 Monday

It was apparent, even before a single member of the Kohar
Symphony Orchestra and Choir arrived onstage Thursday at the Gibson
Amphitheatre, that a special event was about to take place. The front
edge of the stage was covered with a colorful garland of flowers,
two pillars spelled out the word "Kohar" and the stage was set for
a full orchestra and a large choir.

Despite the setting, the first performer — Hamlet Tchobanian — was
neither a musician nor a singer but a mime. His arrival announced
by a loud cymbal crash, he lurked across the stage in classic,
white-faced, Marcel Marceau fashion. Opening a pair of illusory gates,
he majestically introduced the 130-plus members of the Armenian Kohar
Symphony and Choir.

Led by artistic director Sebouh Abkarian, his long white hair waving
dramatically with each thrust of his baton, the Kohar players offered
a buoyant waltz to begin a long, stirring evening of Armenian-tinged
music. Here, as in many of the pieces to follow, Kohar’s sound and
style often had the lightweight but entertaining quality of a summer
pops orchestra.

But Kohar crossed genres far more freely than the average pops
ensemble. Gagik Malkasian’s virtuosic duduk playing and the busy
fingers of kanoun artist Anahid Valesian added Armenian authenticity.

Classically oriented pieces were delivered in well-crafted fashion,
and Kohar went so far as to open the second half with a surprisingly
swinging number titled "Tetmajazz."

As the mime-introduced opening implied, however, a Kohar performance
is more spectacle than concert. Most of the music was vocal, sung by
soloists whose styles ranged from big-voiced operatic to international
lounge. In most cases, the singers’ numbers were enhanced by the
engaging presence of eight female dancers led by the gorgeously
lithe Sousana Mikayelian. Letters from the Armenian alphabet were
spotlighted across the ceilings and walls, and the program climaxed
with a burst of golden streamers flying out into the audience.

Much of the second half of the concert, in fact, was strongly oriented
toward the predominantly Armenian crowd. Spirited patriotic songs, pop
tunes and familiar traditional numbers drew an escalating response —
hand-clapping, sing-alongs and enthusiastic shouts.

Kohar was founded in 1997 by Harout Khatchadourian and his brothers,
who entirely sustain the ensemble and its concerts. Named in honor
of their mother, Kohar, the founders’ goal with the ensemble is the
"aim of reviving and promulgating the Armenian alphabet and culture."

Kohar did that and more Thursday, positioning the capacity of Armenian
music to reach out stylistically while retaining its rich creative
identity.