GEORGIAN-RUSSIAN CONFLICT IS MORE DANGEROUS THAN KARABAKH ONE: LEADER OF ARMENIAN UNITED COMMUNIST PARTY
ArmInfo News Agency, Armenia
Oct 24 2006
At a press-conference, Tuesday, Chairman of the United Communist Party
of Armenia Yuri Manoukyan said that in the heat of the Georgian-Russian
conflict, Armenia found itself in a more dangerous condition than
during the Karabakh war.
According to him, Armenians should be “quiet and far-sighted”, as in
case of the Russian-Armenian relations’ aggravation, the problems
between the governments of the two countries will affect not only
energy and gas supply. “We shouldn’t forget that 37% of Armenian
citizens live on money transfers from their relatives working in
Russia. If we start conflicting with Russia, hundreds of thousands of
Armenian citizens will be deported to Armenia and we’ll be unable to
provide them with job”, Manoukyan stressed. He also noted that Armenia
has made a big mistake to cross out the centuries-old friendship with
Russia in an instant. Armenia cooperates with Russia in the political
and military spheres and simply has no right to step aside, he said.
Manoukyan didn’t exclude Armenia’s possible mediation in the settlement
of the Georgian-Russian conflict. Adding that the deportation of
Georgian citizens from Russia and distortion of Georgian’s image
by Russian mass media are the result of the Georgian authorities’
short-sighted policy, Manoukyan pointed out that the Georgian
government should realize that only Georgian people suffer from
this conflict.

REPUBLICAN PARTY GUARANTEES PRESENCE OF OSCE OBSERVERS
Lragir, Armenia
Oct 20 2006
When Robert Kocharyan refused to receive the U.S. envoy to the OSCE
Julia Finley, suggestions were made that official Yerevan is unlikely
to invite the OSCE observers to the parliamentary election in 2007.
Considering this and the habit of the Republican Party to assert
that they will make every effort to hold free and fair elections,
we inquired from Gagik Melikyan, the secretary of the Republican
Faction hosted at the Hayeli club on October 24 if the Republican
Party guarantees that the OSCE observers will be invited to Armenia.
“By all means, certainly, and rather early,” stated the member of the
Republican Party and did not forget to emphasize that his political
party has political will to hold a fair election.

GEORGIAN CITIZENS BUY ARMENIANS PASSPORTS FOR $5,000 IN RUSSIA
ArmInfo News Agency, Armenia
Oct 24 2006
Since Russia has imposed sanctions on Georgia, about 1,000 of Georgians
have been deported from Russia.
Russian media reports that about 200 people are preparing to leave for
Georgia. Moscow City Court explained that the courts make decisions on
deportation of those citizens who violate the migration legislation of
Russia. Meanwhile, during the last two weeks, Georgians having Moscow
residency applied to local civilian registry offices to change their
surnames and even names and get more Russian ones. In connection with
the tension of Georgian-Russian relations, the citizens of Georgia who
want to illegally emigrate to Russia and get more comfortable living
conditions, acquire Armenian citizenship and replace the endings
“dze” and “shvili” in their surnames into Armenian “yan.” According
to some data, such “masking” costs $5,000.
It is noteworthy that Head of Public Relations and Press Office of
the Armenian Police Sayat Shirinyan has refuted this information. “It
is impossible for Georgian citizens to get Armenians passports,”
he said. “A Georgian citizen can acquire Armenian citizenship only
by expatriating himself from his citizenship,” he said.

TEVAN POGHOSYAN: DEFENSE REFORMS WILL MAKE THE ARMY MORE POWERFUL
Public Radio, Armenia
Oct 20 2006
The reforms envisaged by the Individual Partnership Actions Plan
(IPAP) with NATO will endorse the development of the Armenian army,
Executive Director of the Armenian Atlantic Association Tevan Poghosyan
said in an interview with Mediamax agency.
“The IPAP envisages creation of a tighter link between the army and
society, apply the mechanism of public control. In my opinion, in
the result of such changes the army will get more powerful, since
people’s faith and trust in the armed forces will increase,” Tevan
Poghosyan said.
“More coordinated and precise planning of defense expenses envisaged
by IPAP will promote the optimizing of our army, which can have only
positive impact. Thus, we can say with confidence that the reforms
envisaged are in no way directed at weakening of the army,” Tevan
Poghosyan noted.
In response to the question about the opportunities of implementing
equal defense reforms in Armenia and Azerbaijan, he noted that
“Azerbaijan has its own actions plan with NATO, which envisages
conduct of similar reforms.”
“Today we can state that a parallel process is underway in Armenia
and Azerbaijan. I think NATO will be more interested in having a
situation, where the armed forces of Armenia and Azerbaijan will be
more predictable for the alliance,” Tevan Poghosyan said.
The Executive Director of the Armenian Atlantic Association Tovmas
Poghosyan does not rule out that Armenia may become the first country
in the South Caucasus to join NATO and the European Union.
“It may seem incredible today. However, we must take into account
that both in regard to the value system and the reforms implemented
we are in a more advantageous position,” Tevan Poghosyan said.
At the same time the expert noted that he does not consider membership
to NATO as an end in itself.
It is much more important for Armenia to correspond to those values
and standards, on which NATO is built, and it will be a high assessment
itself. It will mean that we are a developed, democratic and powerful
country,” said Executive Director of the Armenian Atlantic Association.

CONDEMNING BLACK PR
Lragir, Armenia
Oct 20 2006
On October 23 the Orinats Yerkir Party released a message condemning
the black PR agains it. “Over the past month Lori Channel of Vanadzor,
Tsaig Channel of Gyumri, the channel of Martuni, and yesterday also
Hrazdan Channel broadcast reports denigrating the Orinats Yerkir Party
and the leader Arthur Baghdasaryan, carry out a black PR. In addition,
the same report is shown on different regional channels after meetings
with the members of the Orinats Yerkir Faction. All the channels
later refuse to tell the name of people who pay for these reports,”
runs the statement of the political party.
The Orinats Yerkir Party states that they are denied airtime and,
therefore, they cannot counteract to these illegal actions. “We
have learned that this has been launched by separate high-ranking
officials, who also instruct not to tell the names of people who buy
airtime. The Orinats Yerkir Party condemns the black PR against it
and urges the Attorney General to start investigation in accordance
with the law to find out the persons who denigrate the political
party and thousands of its members, and apply sanctions,” runs the
statement of the Orinats Yerkir Party.

THE MECHANICS OF BLESSING
Tigran Avetisian
Aravot, Armenia
Oct 24 2006
We should say from the beginning that what we are going to speak
about has no connection with any version of national anthem. Those
discussions have already been made, and it won’t be serious to speak
about it in the context of newest developments round the RA anthem.
We’d like to speak about the sad reality that not only political
elections are falsified. Everything is falsified in Armenia, which
has a remote connection with “election” or “contest” concepts. The
best proof of these words is the fact that Aram Khachatrian’s written
music for the ASSR epoch won in the contest. Nobody was surprised at
when the commission, which approved Tigran Mansurian’s melody suddenly,
changed its mind and “chose” Aram Khachatrian’s melody.
While it has no connection with the soundness.
There is only an answer, it isn’t interesting in our reality, and
unfortunately it has a lot of explanations. Now it isn’t essential
what the commission members got for that selection. Though it is
unpleasant to think that that the commission may vote with the same
criteria for the most valuable music of the world and for example,
Natasha Koroleva’s song.
The essential is that next important attribute of our state after
Constitution, the national anthem is devaluated. I should also
mention that I wouldn’t stand up for the anthem, which was selected
in that way.

“DAMNATION ISN’T A POLITICAL CATEGORY”
Margaret Yesayan
Aravot, Armenia
Oct 24 2006
NA vice chairman Vahan Hovhannisian reminds.
The Parliament was completely against parliamentarian Tatul
Manaserian’s legislative initiative to form a temporary commission
for discussing Armenian Genocide issues. Factually, the parliament
was against the government, too as the government approved the
parliamentarian’s proposal. But as it was found out, the government
didn’t express any positive opinion and the minister of justice had
said himself that the government was for that proposal. NA chairman
made an exclusive decision to discuss that issue out of package,
separately: “I share my partners’ anxiety that the formation of such
commission will give our neighbor countries an opportunity to say
that this parliament of Armenia does what they were proposing. It
is even written that the conception of Armenian Genocide must be
specified. What must we specify, the idea of this commission’s
formation is inadmissible for me.” The NA vice chairman noticed:
“As an experienced person I should say that the temporary commissions
aren’t so effective in our society because discrepancies inside it
become the public ownership, are reflected in the newspapers and
create an atmosphere from which we will only suffer.”
The discussion of refused law about “Higher Interest” was more
emotional. The NA chairman said in his speech that “irrespective of
anyone’s whish, the law makes us discuss this package during this
four-day sitting, we should simply improve the draft.” The government
brings a draft to the parliament for which the majority doesn’t vote.
It isn’t known yet why the government insists on the adoption of
that draft, this problem has become the part of show, and people
gathered in front of the parliament, who were exiled from their homes
on Buzand street not getting any valuable compensation for it, were
demanding from the parliamentarians not to adopt the draft. “Justice”
and OEP factions were against that draft as usual. Hovhannes Margarian
reminded that one of the exiled inhabitants damned those who exiled
them, represent the law and adopt it. Vahan Hovhannisian suggested;
“Don’t make damnation as a political category because the curse has
already been made.”
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

READ A BOOK NOT TO READ A CASE
Hakob Badalyan
Lragir, Armenia
Oct 20 2006
When the Attorney General announced to the National Assembly that he
did not have time to address the parliament earlier to indict Hakob
Hakobyan because one case followed the other, the society laughed
at this statement for a long time. But if we try to imagine this
situation, horror will replace laughter. Whenever a case is brought
against a figure of the Armenian government, an entire chain of cases
opens up, which means that the system of government is buried in
nepotism, corruption and crime. And it is not only Hakob Hakobyan’s
case that leads to such a conclusion. The case of the murder of
Shahen Hovasapyan, the chief of the department of investigations of
the State Tax Agency is vivid evidence too. After that the picture
of relations within the State Tax Agency began to outline. Nepotism,
businesses. It became clear that drivers have an important role in
the system of government, they can solve problems, act as mediators.
Of course, all this is clear to every citizen of the Republic of
Armenia, but it is not revealed that soon because the officials in
particular and the system in general tend to hide carefully this
reality to avoid public criticism and to appear law-abiding. But as
soon as they appear in a difficult situation, they prefer to reveal
phenomena, having very little in common with the law and order, which
in this case can be used as an alibi. This concerns every high-ranking
official having hundreds of charges behind their back, because they
believes that a person either lives or works as a librarian.
They were taught this when they were young, when their fathers worked
as heads of building companies, and their sons thought that if a
library were a good thing, the building company would have a library.
And the question occurs why they fear the library so much. The answer
is clear. They think that reading is a way of spending one’s free time,
and it is not a way of making money. And since they were taught to
make money out of everything, even their free time, they think that
the book is a punishment. In other words, they associate the library
with the prison, where there is nothing to do, no way of making money,
and one has but to read.
It would be worthwhile to explain to them that the book is not a
shame, and is not even dangerous for health. Only one needs to read
carefully. If you do not feel the effect after reading once, do not
worry, read twice, in a loud voice, thus the body will communicate
with the book more easily. Start with small books, three times
a day, before meals, because you lie after meals, and lying and
reading damages the eyesight. If you again do not feel the effect,
consult librarians. Do not be afraid, they are healthy people, and
most importantly, they are not vindictive and will gladly help you
to understand where you must start reading a book.
Do not be afraid if people around you laugh at you. The one laughs
who does not laugh in prison. Also do not be afraid of financial
problems. Books will cost you several thousand drams, but on the
other hand, it is not as expensive as the gifts to give each other on
birthdays, weddings and even at lunch. Therefore, the money spent on
books will not crack your budget. Even if you appear in a difficult
situation, it is possible to offer a public demand to the government
to exempt every official who spends money on two pages a month on
average from the profit tax or the water bill for a year. Thereby,
buying books will not only open up for you the aspects of life which
are not fit for chewing, but will also legalize your avoidance to pay
the profit tax and the water bill. Oh yes, only do not forget to read
the book after buying it, and for God’s sake, do not be lazy and open
the book before reading it.

ARMENIAN, AZERI FOREIGN MINISTERS TO MEET IN BRUSSELS ON 14 NOVEMBER
Regnum, Russia
Oct 24 2006
The next meeting between the Armenian and Azerbaijani foreign ministers
will take place on the sidelines of the Armenia-EU cooperation council
in Brussels on 14 November.
The meeting between the two countries’ foreign ministers, Vardan
Oskanyan and Elmar Mammadyarov, which was held in Paris on 24 October,
took place in a positive atmosphere and continued discussions on the
new principles of settling the Nagornyy Karabakh conflict proposed
by the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairmen during the Moscow meeting of the
two countries’ foreign ministers.
An agreement was reached to continue consultations between the foreign
ministers in order to clarify positions. The Armenian foreign minister
also met his French counterpart, Philippe Douste-Blazy, today.

KARABAKH TALKS KICK OFF IN PARIS – AZERI AGENCY
Turan News Agency, Azerbaijan
Oct 24 2006
Baku, 24 October: A meeting between Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar
Mammadyarov and Armenian Foreign Minister Vardan Oskanyan started in
Paris at 0900 local time (1200 Baku time) [0700 gmt].
The co-chairmen of the OSCE Minsk Group on the Karabakh settlement
are taking part in the talks as well.