Category: 2019

There is need to seriously think about protecting labor rights in Armenia, PM says

Garik Boshkezenian
News.am, Armenia
Feb 15 2019
There is need to seriously think about protecting labor rights in Armenia, PM says There is need to seriously think about protecting labor rights in Armenia, PM says

15:01, 15.02.2019

YEREVAN. – We need to have a summed up idea regarding all vacancies existing in the republic, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan noted at Friday’s Cabinet session of the Government of Armenia.

“We don’t need only a number, but number, address, salary [of these vacancies],” Pashinyan said. “And this information as to where there is what workplace, with what salary, should be accessible to the public.”

Also, the PM stressed that there is a need to seriously think about protecting labor rights in Armenia.

Armenian government’s grounding of rejection of bill lacks any humane motivation: Naira Zohrabyan

Emil Lazarian
Aysor, Armenia
Feb 15 2019

Chairperson of the NA’s Human Rights and Public Affairs Standing Committee Naira Zohrabyan expressed regret that the government gave a negative conclusion to the bill authored by her which offers calculating one pre-trial detention day as 1,5. She said she had some expectations that the executive would reject her proposal.

“Such like bill has been earlier submitted by MP Edmon Marukyan but was rejected. Rejection of my bill was expected too. Of course, the groundings of the government are not acceptable for me, as having worked as a journalist for quite a long time and having covered the sector for quite a long time, I know what is going on in cells for preliminary detention,” she told Aysor.am.

“About 23-25 people are being kept in cells intended for 7-8 people. People are sleeping in turns, which is an additional punishment for the detainees. We offer to display a humanitarian step and consider one detention day as 1,5 day,” Zohrabyan said.

She stressed that the government’s comments that the courts will be overloaded if the bill is approved are ungrounded.

“You have seen on the eve that relatives of hundred convicts and detainees came to the NA yard to meet me. I am being informed that the convicts are planning to declare mass hunger strike, but I have urged them not to undertake such desperate steps hoping that my bill would have been approved today,” she said.

Zohrabyan said her last hope is for the bill to receive the positive conclusion of the State-Legal Committee and they will have an opportunity to discuss it at the parliament.

“If not, my authorities as a chairperson of the Human Rights and Public Affairs Standing Committee and a lawmaker will end,” Zohrabyan stressed.

The MP also added that there is no humane motivation in the grounding of the government for which she regrets.
 

Armenian army equipped with new drones of local production

Emma Jilavian
News.am, Armenia
Feb 15 2019
Armenian army equipped with new drones of local production Armenian army equipped with new drones of local production

15:28, 15.02.2019
                  

YEREVAN. – The Armenian armed forces are equipped with new Armenia-produced drones.

According to information obtained by Armenian News-NEWS.am, another stage of supplying the military units with improved ARMI-55M drones is underway.

The upgraded aircraft has extensive capabilities for piloting and reconnaissance. During one flight,  UAV can cover a distance of 400–500 kilometers. The maximum range of communication with the operator is 100 kilometers. If need be, reconnaissance can be conducted in the depths of the enemy’s territory 150–200 kilometers far.

The development of new generation drones, including weapon-equipped drones, has started. 

Armen Sarkissian: The new world reserves an important role for Armenia

Jirair Kafian
MediaMax, Armenia
Feb 15 2019
 
 
 
Armen Sarkissian: The new world reserves an important role for Armenia
 
Yereva/Mediamax/. Armenian President Armen Sarkissian believes that the new world reserves an important role for Armenia to play.
 
“We are a small, but global, close-knit nation indeed – a nation that placed a special value on education for centuries. We are the people who lived at the crossroads of different civilizations, cultures and religions and managed to keep on living. That is also an important quality in the 21st century,” the President said during his visit to Heidelberg University.
 
He added that “we have a brilliant opportunity to build a new country in the new world, based on the power of science, the discoveries and innovations, and the quality education”.
 
 “The new Armenia of this new world offers many ways for us to work with Germany, Heidelberg in particular. Our collaboration should focus on the future, new technologies and technological education,” said President Sarkissian.
 

Armenia adopts plan for “economic revolution”

Anna Tamamian
Eurasianet.org
Feb 15 2019



Ani Mejlumyan Feb 15, 2019

   Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan defends his government's five-year economic plan in parliament on February 13. The plan eventually passed but without opposition support. (photo: parliament.am)

The Armenian parliament has adopted a five-year plan that the government proposed to fix Armenia’s economy, the country’s most pressing problem. But the plan was subject to broad criticism and passed without support of the two opposition parties in parliament.

“The economic revolution has begun,” said Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, presenting the program in parliament on February 12. “I am announcing the start of the nationwide economic revolution in the Republic of Armenia. The Armenian people won in the fight against corruption, impunity and clan management, and the Armenian people will win in the fight against poverty and unemployment.”

The 62-page government plan promises a “significant decrease” of the severe poverty in Armenia and a “significant decrease in unemployment by 2023.” Very small businesses would be exempt from taxes; public sector salaries would be increased. The plan gave a few specific targets: that GDP would increase by five percent a year, exports would be increased to over 40 percent of GDP by 2024, and solar energy would make up 10 percent of the country’s total consumption by 2022.

Many, though, criticized the plan for being generous with words but stingy with details.

“For me, this [the plan] is a conversation between the prime minister and the citizens, or the prime minister’s message to the government, but not a measurable program to which the government can be held accountable,” said Mane Tandilyan, an MP from Bright Armenia, during a February 14 parliament session.

Others criticized the plan for being insufficiently ambitious. “This plan is not revolutionary,” Gagik Tsarukyan, the head of the Prosperous Armenia party, told journalists. “If it doesn’t change, we can’t vote for it.” He allowed, though, that: “I don’t deny that there are two or three provisions which will create positive changes in people’s lives.”

MPs from the ruling “My Step” alliance defended the lack of specificity and modesty. Babken Tunyan, chairman of the parliament’s Economic Affairs Committee, said that the government could have picked a higher target than five percent GDP growth. "On the other hand, it is better to target less, but to achieve more,” he said.

And Pashinyan said the numbers will depend on the Armenian people themselves. “The numerical parameters of the economic revolution actually depend on how many Armenian citizens will respond to our call to become an activist of the economic revolution and how many will decide to take advantage of the opportunities of the same revolutionary platform,” he said while presenting the program in parliament.

Pashinyan’s emphasis on people’s responsibility for fixing the economy, including a statement that “poverty is in people’s minds,” raised some hackles.

Edmon Marukyan, the head of Bright Armenia said that was a means of dodging responsibility. “In the 90s, when I was a child, the only one responsible for our poverty was [the country’s first post-Soviet president] Levon Ter-Petrosyan,” Marukyan said during a February 14 session debating the plan. “Then, when we lived in poverty again, it was [second president] Robert Kocharyan. In 2018, of course, it was Serzh Sargsyan. And now a revolution occurs, and the leader declares that poverty is in people’s minds. Remove it from your minds and the economy will grow. Great, but then it’s not clear why the three previous leaders were responsible for our poverty, if the fourth one isn’t.”

On February 14, the plan was adopted with an 82-37 vote. While it wasn’t disclosed how individual MPs voted, the numbers suggest that all or nearly all My Step MPs voted for the plan, while the opposition parties didn’t.

Ani Mejlumyan is a reporter based in Yerevan. Sign up for Eurasianet's free weekly newsletter.

Newspaper: Russia’s Putin made alternative offer to Armenia’s Pashinyan

Talar Tumanian
News.am, Armenia
Feb 15 2019
Newspaper: Russia’s Putin made alternative offer to Armenia’s Pashinyan Newspaper: Russia’s Putin made alternative offer to Armenia’s Pashinyan

10:38, 15.02.2019
                  

YEREVAN. – Armenia’s recently sending a humanitarian contingent to Syria has caused quite a stir in the press and social media, according to Past (Fact) newspaper.

“A question rises among the public as to why all of a sudden the Armenian side entered into that ‘topic.’ According to the information to Past daily, this way, Prime Minister [Nikol] Pashinyan is trying to gain Russia’s favor and prevent Azerbaijan’s entry into CSTO.

“According to our source, after Pashinyan’s election as Prime Minister, RF [Russian Federation] President Vladimir Putin ‘put’ this matter ‘before’ him [Pashinyan] in Moscow, hinting that he [Putin] is not against seeing Azerbaijan in CSTO, but as an alternative option, proposing [Pashinyan] to show some activeness in Syria,” Past wrote.

Submission – Turkey’s Islamized Armenians – Do They Matter to You? An Interview with Raffi Bedrosyan

Jhanna Virabian
https://massispost.com/2019/02/turkeys-islamized-armenians-do-they-matter-to-you-an-interview-with-raffi-bedrosyan/
Turkey’s Islamized Armenians – Do They Matter to You? An Interview with Raffi Bedrosyan
By Anoush Melkonian, London (14 Feb. 2019)
Do Turkey’s Hidden or Islamized Armenians matter to you? They do to Raffi Bedrosyan, an intrepid Canadian-Armenian, who spent over a decade championing the rights of these little known, and much misunderstood, Armenians. His foray was chronicled in several dozen articles which are now included in a full length book, disclosing details of his tumultuous journey. Congratulations Mr. Bedrosyan on your new book, Trauma and Resilience: Armenians in Turkey – Hidden, Not Hidden and No Longer Hidden.
Q. How did you embark on your journey to discover Turkey’s Islamised Armenians?
A. It was Hrant Dink who triggered my interest in the hidden Armenians. He was obsessed with them, kept on saying: ‘We always talk about the dead and the gone after 1915, it is time to start talking about the living and the remaining’. In conversations with him, when I asked: ‘How do you know they are hidden Armenians?’, his response really got to me as he said: ‘I know them from their eyes, and they know that I know’. Then, when I got involved with the reconstruction of the Diyarbakir Sourp Giragos Church, I saw hundreds of hidden Armenians with my own eyes, and I did connect with them. I decided that the existence of large numbers of hidden Armenians is a reality which must be shared with other Armenians in Armenia and the Diaspora.
Q. Did you have any ethical guidelines as when you started probing the issue of Islamised Armenians?
A. In my opinion, if someone has an ethnic origin as Armenian, regardless of religion as Christian, Moslem, agnostic, or atheist, that person is Armenian. People may choose or change their religion, but they have no choice to choose their own ethnic origins, and if they have decided to return to their original roots, language and culture, no one has the right to prevent it, or pass judgment against it. I would, therefore, welcome those Islamised Armenians who wished to return to their Armenian roots and identity, regardless of their religion. We must remember that these people are making a conscious decision to come out as Armenians, despite all the dangers and risks of losing their livelihood, facing discrimination and threats from their friends, neighbours and even their own family members.
Q. You have written around 50 articles on Turkey’s Islamised Armenians. What kind of feedback did you get from your Armenian readers?
A. Many readers are surprised when they find out about this new reality of hidden Armenians. Their feedback is mostly positive, and they are moved reading the incredible survival stories or the desire to return to Armenian roots, but there is also suspicion that the hidden Armenians are not real Armenians, or should not be accepted as real Armenians until and unless they renounce Islam and convert to Christianity.
Q. What has been the reaction of Turks to your work?
A. Apart from the normally negative reaction of the majority of Turks who are conditioned by the denialist version of state history, there were surprisingly large numbers of Turkish readers who were thankful to hear about new facts about Armenians, or hidden Armenians, especially well known Turkish artists, authors, architects or politicians who turned out to be Armenians. I also received many many confidential letters from Turks who opened up to me to reveal their hidden Armenian identities.
Q. How have you changed in the course of your journey? Did you re-examine some of your own thoughts?
A. My first contact with the hidden Armenians was limited to the Diyarbakir area, triggered by the Sourp Giragos Church reconstruction. But soon after the opening of the church, my first concert there and a few articles that I wrote related to these events, hundreds of hidden Armenians started contacting me from various other regions of Turkey. It was such a revelation to realize that the hidden Armenians are spread across east, southeast and northeast Turkey in large numbers, as well as in major cities in the west. I decided it was not enough just to write about the hidden Armenians, but we must plan to help the ones who wish to return to their roots. I started by helping organize Armenian language classes in Diyarbakir, Dersim and Istanbul. Then came the planning of trips to Armenia, in cooperation with the Armenian Ministry of Diaspora. As these activities and my articles describing these activities became well known, more and more hidden Armenians from different regions started ‘coming out’, establishing contacts with me, but more importantly with one another across Turkey. I decided to formalize our activities by naming the initiative ‘Project Rebirth’, which established a vast network of hidden Armenians, providing interaction, communication and support among the hidden Armenians.
Q. You have not been back to Diyarbakir since the fighting in the region in 2015. Do you have any plans to go back soon?
A. Unfortunately, the clashes between the Turkish state and Kurdish militants drastically affected the entire population in the east and southeast Turkey, including the hidden Armenians. Thousands of buildings and entire neighbourhoods were destroyed, several buildings were seized and expropriated by the Turkish state, including the Diyarbakir Sourp Giragos Church and all the properties belonging to the Church Foundation. The beautifully reconstructed church was converted to military headquarters for the state security forces, resulting in much damage and plunder of the church. Thankfully, the Church Foundation officials were able to overturn the expropriation legislation, and we are hopeful that in the very near future, the government will restart the repair of the church at its expense. I am not planning to go back to Turkey until peace and democracy is restored.
Q. What is the status of the city now and its hidden and not-so-hidden Armenians?
A. Diyarbakir is still a city under siege. Certain neighbourhoods are no-entry zones, including the area around Sourp Giragos Church. The hidden and not so hidden Armenians have suffered along with the rest of the local population. Some have lost their homes, others have lost their jobs. It is impossible under these circumstances to think of any Armenian social activities, language classes or trips to Armenia, as people are back into survival mode. Instead of organizing such activities, Project Rebirth now provides a support mechanism arranging for relocations, contacts or legal help.
Q. What do you hope to do next?
A. Although conditions are not favourable at present, my hope is to be able to restart our work with the hidden Armenians, to help those who wish to return to their Armenian roots, language, culture, or in some cases, to Christianity. I know many hidden Armenians also have the same hopes, as they still keep on learning the Armenian language online in their homes, keep in touch with one another across many regions of Turkey, marry one another, give Armenian names to their newborn, and travel overseas to get baptized. I fully expect the Sourp Giragos Church to be repaired in the near future, where the hidden Armenians again will gather for monthly breakfast meetings, concerts, language classes, social events, baptisms and weddings. I also expect to resume our trips for the hidden Armenians from various regions of Turkey to Armenia, bringing back hope for dialogue between Turks and Armenians, based on historic facts towards a peaceful future.
Raffi Bedrosyan, Trauma and Resilience: Armenians in Turkey – Hidden, Not Hidden and No Longer Hidden, with introductions by Fethiye Çetin and Taner Akçam, London: Gomidas Institute, 2019, xx + 226 pages, maps, photos. ISBN 978-1-909382-46-6, paperback, Price: UK£20.00 / US$25.00 / CAN$35.00. For more information, see . To order, just send your request with your mailing address to [email protected].

Անթիլիաս – Նոր Հրատարակութիւն

Zhanna Nahapetian
Armenian Catholicosate of Cilicia
Communication and Information Department
PO Box : 70 317 Antelias – LEBANON
Tel: (+961-4) 410 001 / 3
Fax: (+961-4) 419724
E-mail: [email protected]

Նոր Հրատարակութիւն

«ՆՈՐ ՀՈՐԻԶՈՆՆԵՐՈՒ ԴԻՄԱՑ». ՀԵՂԻՆԱԿ՝ Ն.Ս.Օ.Տ.Տ. ԱՐԱՄ Ա. ԿԱԹՈՂԻԿՈՍ


Վերջին օրերուն լոյս տեսաւ Ն.Ս.Օ.Տ.Տ. Արամ Ա. Վեհափառ Հայրապետին «Նոր Հորիզոններու Դիմաց» հատորը։ Ան կը պարունակէ ութ տարիներու ընթացքին Վեհափառ Հայրապետին պատգամներէն ու գրութիւններէն հատուածներ, որոնք կը շօշափեն մեր եկեղեցւոյ, ազգին, հայրենիքին, Սփիւռքին ու ազգային պահանջատիրութեան հետ աղերս ունեցող խնդիրներ։
—


Communication & Information Department

Ghana’s Ambassador Present Credentials To Armenian President

Hovik Karapetian
Modern Ghana
Feb 16 2019


By Modern Ghana

The newly appointed Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Republic of Ghana to the Republic of Armenia, Dr Lesley Akyaa Opoku Ware, has presented her credentials to the President of Armenia, Armen Sarkissian in Yerevan, capital of Armenia.

Sarkissian congratulated and wished success to the newly appointed Ambassador and expressed confidence that she would use her huge experience to develop the relations between the two countries.

He said Armenia attaches great importance to the development of the relations with African countries, including the revitalization of the relations with the Republic of Ghana.

Sarkissian and Opoku Ware spoke broadly about the opportunities for a mutually beneficial cooperation in different areas and the necessity to raise the level of mutual recognizability.

Both have identified, among perspective areas, Agriculture, Information Technology and Education where the two countries have potential for deepening bilateral cooperation.

They also agreed to maintain close contacts, promote political dialogue, conduct consultations between the foreign ministries; and the two countries will provide a firm working basis for mutual cooperation.

On her turn, Opoku-Ware said her office would work towards strengthening the relationship between Armenia and Ghana; and strive to realize the full potential for multifaceted economic collaboration.

Dr Lesley Akyaa Opoku Ware is resident in Moscow.

—GNA

FMs of Armenia and Sudan discuss prospects for boosting bilateral agenda

Emil Lazarian
News.am, Armenia
Feb 16 2019
FMs of Armenia and Sudan discuss prospects for boosting bilateral agenda FMs of Armenia and Sudan discuss prospects for boosting bilateral agenda

21:45, 16.02.2019
                  

Armenian Foreign Minister Zohrab Mnatsakanyan met with Sudanese Foreign Minister Ibrahim Ghandour during the Munich Security Conference in Germany.

The foreign ministers of both countries exchanged views on the prospects for the development and boosting of the bilateral agenda. Among the priority directions, the Armenian Foreign Minister noted the sphere of creative education, innovations and high technologies, stressing Armenia’s readiness to initiate programs aimed at sharing experience.

The interlocutors emphasized importance of the role of small, but active Armenian community in strengthening of the bilateral agenda. 

The head of the Armenian Foreign Ministry noted that the expansion of relations between Armenia and African continent states is one of the most important priorities of the country's foreign policy, and the Armenian side is ready to take practical steps in this direction in order to develop and deepen multi-sectoral cooperation.

The interlocutors also touched upon the prospects for cooperation within the framework of international organizations.

Touching upon the settlement of the Karabakh conflict, Zohrab Mnatsakanyan reaffirmed Armenia’s commitment to an exclusively peaceful settlement of the conflict through the mediation of the OSCE Minsk Group.