OPPORTUNITIES OF GETTING CONFIDENCE FOR THE GOVERNMENT
Lragir, Armenia
Oct 30 2006
In a public poll conducted by the Gallup Institute 37 percent of
respondents think that first the government must create jobs to
enjoy the support of the society. 21 percent think that it should
enhance democracy, 18 percent point to raising salaries and pensions,
15 percent mention legitimacy of election. 7 percent think that the
government should keep their promises, 8 percent think they can get
people’s support if they make sufficient anti-corruption efforts. 4
percent of respondents think that in order to enjoy the support of
the public the government should conduct a correct policy. 3 percent
think the government should aid the homeless and the elderly people
and another 3 percent think that the taxes should be cut. 2 percent of
respondents think the government should reach unification of Armenia
and Nagorno Karabakh to get the support of the public. 17 percent of
respondents gave other answers, and 9 percent declined to answer.
At the same time, 39 percent of respondents said they are not
interested in political events, 30 percent indicated average interest,
and 31 percent said they are highly interested in politics.
The poll was conducted from July 31 to August 10. 1200 adult residents
of Armenia took part in the poll.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

SHORT POLITICAL ACTIVITY MAY OCCUR IN NOVEMBER
Lragir, Armenia
Oct 30 2006
Garnik Isagulyan, adviser to president on national security was
hosted at the Azdak Club on October 28. It should be noted that
Garnik Isagulyan’s previous news conference was at the same Azdak
Club on May 20, 2006. After a pause of five months he stated to the
public that the political situation in Armenia is calm and there is
nothing extraordinary. According to him, nothing will spark political
activity in Armenia until the election. Isagulyan forecasts a little
activity in November, which will last till New Year. “Everything is
very calm. Of course, this has its reasons, and unfortunately, this
affects the reputation of the country and generally all the processes,
and this is the fault of certain people,” says Garnik Isagulyan. He
says this is the fault of “the political organizations which have been
unable to realize over these years that the political opposition, the
political dialogue or the political debates involve definite problems,
and they stepped up their activity against definite persons.” In
speaking about this, Garnik Isagulyan says they had better go to the
regions and underpin their political party, which they failed to do.
“In this connection, it is difficult to try to establish a new
political situation based on these worn out activities in the
Republic of Armenia. I think this may produce a negative effect in
the pre-election stage and during the elections, because if there
is no fair competition, if there is no struggle, the outcome of the
elections becomes clear beforehand, and the same problems will occur
involving electoral fraud, etc,” says the adviser to Robert Kocharyan.
Naturally, he uses the phrase “worn-out activities” to describe the
activities of the political parties which criticize the government.
Meanwhile, Garnik Isagulyan avoided assessing the activities of the
pro-government political parties, meanwhile, his political party,
which is called “National Security”, could also be listed among them.
Isagulyan did not speak much about his own political party either. He
only says they will run in the parliamentary election, but he declines
to say what his political party does to improve the political
situation. Isagulyan only says that they are doing something, and
the results will become visible in the end.

THE DANGEROUS GAMES OF A NEW “TURKMENBASHI”
Haik Aramyan
Lragir, Armenia
Oct 30 2006
NKR President Arkady Ghukasyan’s statement that he is unlikely to run
a third term running not to ruin the reputation of NKR as a democratic
country, first appeared to most people as a diplomatic farce. People
who know the NKR president know that Ghukasyan started to think about
his career long ago, and the idea of prolonging his presidency has
been carried along with the incessant efforts to find an alternative
to his personality.
Arkady Ghukasyan’s personal concern can be understood. In the
current political situation it is highly difficult for any figure in
Karabakh to find a worthy place in the government of Armenia. It is
not accidental that so far these efforts have been in the trajectory
of relations with the Armenian Diaspora. They even say that the deep
conflict between Ghukasyan and Naira Melkumyan, his brother-in-arms
not long ago, now the chief executive officer of Armenia Foundation,
stems from the aspiration of both figures to the post of the chief
executive officer of the foundation.
One way or another, unfortunately for the people of Karabakh, the
question of the alternative to Arkady Ghukasyan remained up in the
air. And it is not accidental that in a very short period the NKR
government got down to the rapid adoption of the NKR Constitution.
This hastiness to appoint the day to the referendum on the
Constitution, the formal way of writing the text and the debates in
the parliament gave rise to anxiety and caused to be watchful. The
circumstance became clear that Ghukasyan has lost the hope of finding
an alternative occupation for himself and has decided to go all the
way and remain at the post of president at any price.
Realizing how complicated his plan is, considering its danger prom
the aspect of the NKR national interest, Ghukasyan decided to put
responsibility for the consequences of his unthoughtful action on the
society, and even the people of NKR. After declaring that he would
not run a third term, Ghukasyan launched the option of the “demand
of the working class” when “the masses beg Ghukasyan to remain at the
post of president and not to leave them in such a difficult time”. At
the same time, they have also thought about the ideological basis of
this “request” by circulating without excess modesty the thesis of
“the foreign political irreplaceability of Ghukasyan for Karabakh”.
This option is originally vicious considering that in the years of
Arkady Ghukasyan’s office Nagorno Karabakh appeared overboard of the
talks over settlement. Moreover, any leader who make head or tail of
international diplomacy should have realized that “turkmenbashism”
is a monstrous idea for a young and still unrecognized state.
Apparently, either Arkady Ghukasyan is unable to grasp the ABC of
diplomacy or by the end of his presidency he takes a step which is
known only to him, and he cannot state it publicly.
In this case, it is interesting to know the opinion of President
Kocharyan on the actions of his “superdiplomat” subject in Nagorno
Karabakh, when he watches him make the law comply with his own
interest. Or maybe Kocharyan personally “imposed” the right for
arbitrariness on Ghukasyan. Even though the accusations of “usurping
the talks” against the Armenian president are justified, they overlook
one circumstance: over these years Robert Kocharyan has unintentionally
“concealed” President Ghukasyan’s diplomatic nude. If someone else
was the president of NKR, Armenia and the international community
might have had a different approach to the participation of NKR in the
talks. If he has concealed over all those years, he may conceal now,
especially if there is a serious reason for it. Why, some people may
ask. For instance, in order to create a precedent of decision making,
when the presidents of Armenia and Karabakh deny responsibility for the
fate of Karabakh and make antinational decisions “under the pressure
of the people of Nagorno Karabakh.”
Today they are threatening and misleading the public, ruining the
international reputation of NKR, tomorrow they will make people accept
the “defensive decision” on the settlement. And the presidents will
say later that we didn’t want, you compelled us.

DIVERSITY’S OPPRESSIONS: WHY IRAQ HAS PROVEN TO BE SO HARD TO PACIFY
By Thomas Sowell
Opinion Journal from the Wall Street Journal Editorial Page
Oct 30 2006
Iraq is not the first war with ugly surprises and bloody setbacks.
Even World War II, idealized in retrospect as it never was at the
time–the war of “the greatest generation”–had a long series of
disasters for Americans before victory was finally achieved.
The war began for Americans with the disaster at Pearl Harbor,
followed by the tragic horror of the Bataan death march, the debacle
at the Kasserine Pass and, even on the eve of victory, being caught
completely by surprise by a devastating German counterattack that
almost succeeded at the Battle of the Bulge.
Other wars–our own and other nations’–have likewise been full of
nasty surprises and mistakes that led to bloodbaths. Nevertheless,
the Iraq war has some special lessons for our time, lessons that both
the left and the right need to acknowledge, whether or not they will.
What is it that has made Iraq so hard to pacify, even after a swift
and decisive military victory? In one word: diversity.
That word has become a sacred mantra, endlessly repeated for years on
end, without a speck of evidence being asked for or given to verify
the wonderful benefits it is assumed to produce.
Worse yet, Iraq is only the latest in a long series of catastrophes
growing out of diversity. These include “ethnic cleansing” in the
Balkans, genocide in Rwanda and the Sudan, the million lives destroyed
in intercommunal violence when India became independent in 1947 and
the even larger number of Armenians slaughtered by Turks during World
War I.
Despite much gushing about how we should “celebrate diversity,”
America’s great achievement has not been in having diversity but in
taming its dangers that have run amok in many other countries.
Americans have by no means escaped diversity’s oppressions and
violence, but we have reined them in.
Another concept whose bitter falsity has been painfully revealed in
Iraq is “nation-building.” People are not building blocks, however
much some may flatter themselves that they can arrange their fellow
human beings’ lives the way you can arrange pieces on a chess board.
The biggest and most fatuous example of nation-building occurred
right after World War I, when the allied victors dismembered the
Habsburg Empire and the Ottoman Empire. Woodrow Wilson assigned a
young Walter Lippman to sit down with maps and population statistics
and start drawing lines that would define new nations.
Iraq is one of those new nations. Like other artificial creations
in the Balkans, Africa and elsewhere, it has never had the cohesion
of nations that evolved over the centuries out of the experiences of
peoples who worked out their own modi vivendi in one way or another.
Tito’s dictatorship held Yugoslavia together, as other dictatorships
held together other peoples forced into becoming a nation by the
decisions of outsiders who drew their boundaries on maps and in some
cases–Nigeria, for example–even gave them their national name.
Even before 9/11, there were some neoconservatives who talked about
our achieving “national greatness” by creating democratic nations in
various parts of the world.
How much influence their ideas have had on the actual course
of events is probably something that will not be known in our
generation. But we can at least hope that the Iraq tragedy will
chasten the hubris behind notions of “nation-building” and chasten
also the pious dogmatism of those who hype “diversity” at every turn,
in utter disregard of its actual consequences at home or abroad. Free
societies have prerequisites, and history has not given all peoples
those prerequisites, which took centuries to evolve in the West.
However we got into Iraq, we cannot undo history–even recent
history–by simply pulling out and leaving events to take their course
in that strife-torn country. Whether or not we “stay the course,”
terrorists are certainly going to stay the course in Iraq and around
the world.
Political spin may say that Iraq has nothing to do with the war
on terror, but the terrorists themselves quite obviously believe
otherwise, as they converge on that country with lethal and suicidal
resolve.
Whether we want to or not, we cannot unilaterally end the war with
international terrorists. Giving the terrorists an epoch-making
victory in Iraq would only shift the location where we must face them
or succumb to them.
Abandoning Iraqi allies to their fate would ensure that other nations
would think twice before becoming or remaining our allies. With a
nuclear Iran looming on the horizon, we are going to need all the
allies we can get.
Mr. Sowell is the Rose and Milton Friedman Senior Fellow on Public
Policy at the Hoover Institution. He is the author, most recently,
of “Black Rednecks and White Liberals” (Encounter Books, 2005).
e.html?id=110009170

ILHAM ALIYEV: AZERBAIJAN NO TO MAKE CONCESSIONS WITH RESPECT TO ITS TERRITORIAL INTEGRITY
ArmInfo News Agency, Armenia
Oct 30 2006
The negotiation process for the Karabakh conflict settlement passes
now in a so-called Prague format which may enable its peaceful
resolution, the President of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev, said in an
interview to the some Mass Media, accredited in Russia, the “Trend”
Azeri Agency reports.
According to I. Aliyev, it is difficult to say in advance about
the future of the negotiation process as the negotiations have been
lasting for 10 years with no result. The reason for this, according
to Aliyev, is a “”non-constructive position of Armenia which violates
the international legal norms”. “The position of Azerbaijan rests
upon the international norms and principles, recognized by the world
community. The territorial integrity of Azerbaijan is not a subject
of negotiations. Armenia has to release the Azerbaijan’s territories
without delay and unconditionally which is prescribed by four
resolutions of the UN Security Council. This is the basic principle
Azerbaijan follows unconditionally, while the position of Armenia
is based upon its wishes, expectations and dreams. It thinks that
only a foreign support gives it a ground to think about separation
from the Azerbaijan’s structure and joining of Karabakh lands to
Armenia, which it occupied as a result of temporary advantage during
operations. This will not happen. Therefore, the Armenian authorities
have to understand that Azerbaijan will not make any concessions with
respect to its territorial integrity”, I. Aliyev said.
According to him, Azerbaijan has already suggested all it may go to
make. There is a positive world practice with respect to autonomies.
Availability of the issue of national minorities does not mean
withdrawal from the structure of one state and creation of another
state. “It is difficult to say in advance what will happen in case
of futility of negotiations. At least, if this round of negotiations
ends without any results, Azerbaijan will revise its strategy and
tactics without fail”, I. Aliyev said.

WINERIES OF ARMENIA INCREASED PURCHASE OF GRAPES IN 2006 BY 10,9%
ArmInfo News Agency, Armenia
Oct 30 2006
The wineries of Armenia have increased the volumes of grapes purchase
in 2006 by 10,9% to 106,055 thsd tons against the last year’s 95,592
thsd tons, the Head of the Department of Crop Production of RA Ministry
of Agriculture, Garnik Petrossyan, told ArmInfo correspondent.
According to him, the growth of purchases is conditioned on a
favourable harvest of grapes this year, as well as on extension of
the Armenian wineries’ foreign markets. The leader for purchases is
the Yerevan Brandy Company, to the share of which fell 28 thsd tons of
grapes. The next are the Yerevan “Ararat” winery, which has purchased
15,048 thsd tons of grapes, the Proshyan winery, 6,250 thsd tons,
the Armavir “MAP” winery, 6,030 thsd tons and other wineries.
The average purchase price for 1 kg of grapes in 2006 varied within
130-145 drams and has not nearly changed as compared with 2005, G.
Petrossyan said. He added that, according to on-line data, the harvest
of grapes in 2006 made up 175 thsd tons against 164 thsd tons in 2005.

HEAD OF DEPARTMENT OF EUROPEAN UNION OF RA FM IS APPOINTED CONSUL GENERAL OF ARMENIA TO LOS ANGELES
ArmInfo News Agency, Armenia
Oct 30 2006
By the order of RA FM, Vardan Oskanyan, the Head of the Department of
the European Union of RA Foreign Ministry, Armen Liloyan, is appointed
today to the post of the Consul General to Los Angeles.
As ArmInfo was told in the RA FM’s press-service, Armen Liloyan was
born in 1971 in Yerevan. He has graduated from the Yerevan State
University, the Faculty of Oriental Studies. He received the master’s
degree in the London Academy. A. Liloyan has been working in the
system of Armenia’s Foreign Ministry since 1995. He had been working
in the diplomatic mission to Great Britain in 1998-2002. A. Liloyan
heads the Department of the European Union since 2002.

FUTURE LAW ON DUAL CITIZENSHIP OF ARMENIA MUST TAKE INTO ACCOUNT ALL ISSUES TO INEVITABLY ORIGINATE WITH ITS ADOPTION
ArmInfo News Agency, Armenia
Oct 30 2006
The future law on dual citizenship of Armenia must take into account
all the issues that will inevitably originate with its adoption, said
Narine Soghomonyan, the RA Constitutional Court Staff Chief Expert,
at a seminar at the Congress Hotel, Monday. The seminar was entitled
“Migration and Dual Citizenship Problems In the Light Of Integration
Processes.” The seminar was organized by the public organization
“European Organization” with support of the Friedrich Ebert Fund.
She said the most liberal legislation on dual citizenship is
in Czechia, Finland and Macedonia. As regards Armenia, it should
determine the citizenship of two or more countries can acquire the
citizens of Armenia; what rights and obligations the dual citizenship
grants etc.. Under International Conventions on Dual Citizenship,
which Armenia has not joined so far, the Armenians residing in foreign
states must have a right to Armenian citizenship, while persons of
other nationalities can be granted Armenian citizenship only for great
services to Armenia. As regards the right to vote or to be elected,
the first one is granted to all the citizens of Armenia, the second
must apply only to those having permanent residence of Armenia. The
taxes are paid in the country where the citizen of Armenia has more
property. As regards the most acute problem for Armenia, the army
service, a citizen of Armenia serves in the army in the country he
permanently resides in, the expert said.
Regarding the possibility of acquiring the citizenship of more then
two countries by Armenian citizens, Narine Soghomonyan thinks it
inadmissible as it will lead to numerous problems in Armenia. Anyway,
in November 2005, the ban on dual citizenship in the Armenian
Constitution was abolished. Now, it is legislators who are to elaborate
mechanism of acquisition of dual citizenship and settle all the other
problems, she said.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

YOUNG ARMENIAN BEAUTY MARIAM MELYAN TOOK THIRD HONORABLE PLACE IN INTERNATIONAL BEAUTY CONTEST MISS EUROPE-JUNIOR 2006
ArmInfo News Agency, Armenia
Oct 30 2006
A young Armenian beauty, Mariam Melyan, has taken the third honorable
place in the International Contest of Beauty and Art of Communication
“Miss Europe- Junior 2006”.
The title Miss Europe-Junior 2006 was conferred on the girl from
Slovakia, Nikoletta Koshova, the beauty from Bulgaria, Galina Demireva,
has taken the first place and the Russian beauty, Marina Noskova,
– the second place. Girls at the age of 15-20 participated in the
Contest. The requirements to girls included ability to communicate
in English, knowledge of Internet an computer. From CIS countries,
besides Armenia, the young beauties from Russia, Ukraine and Belarus,
Great Britain, France, Turkey, Rumania, Finland, Hungary and other
countries participated in the Contest. As a result of Contest, girls
from nine countries have passed to the super-final.

FRANCE KEEPS ON HOLDING EVENTS WITHIN THE FRAMEWORK OF ARMENIA’S YEAR
ArmInfo News Agency, Armenia
Oct 30 2006
The press-service of the Armenian Foreign Ministry told the ArmInfo
News Agency that a number of French cities have started activities
within the framework of Armenia’s Year in France.
On October 26, Armenian Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary
to France Edvard Nalbandyan and Mayor of Nice, Senator Jacques Peyrat
made the festive opening of Armenia’s Year in Nice. Activities
in this city will be held during the whole year, covering various
spheres of culture: music, fine arts, choreography, etc. After the
ceremony of opening, the Armenian Ambassador and the Mayor of Nice
gave a press-conference, presenting the program of events to the mass
media representatives.
On October 27, an exhibition entitled “The Treasures of Armenia” was
organized in the city of Vanda. Edvard Nalbandyan was pleased that
Armenia’s Year in France involves not only the Armenian community,
but also the whole population. To note, the program provides for 500
events in 125 cities of France.