ARMENIAN DIASPORA IN UKRAINE TO BACK PM VIKTOR YANUKOVICH
Today, Azerbaijan
Sept 25 2006
Members of Armenian community in Ukraine held a meeting in Kyiv
organized by the Union of Ukrainian Armenians.
The meeting participants strongly criticized President Viktor
Yushchenko’s policy to expand integration into NATO, APA reports.
Never Mkhitaryan, who is involved in Ukrainian political life,
said Armenians should make their efforts to support Prime Minister
Viktor Yanukovich. He said there will be a chance during the expected
political crisis in Ukraine to remove “orange” supporters from power,
and Armenians should take an active part in this process.
Mkhitaryan brought attention to Yanukovich’s special attitude to
Armenia, his conferment “Restoration of Armenia” medal and finally,
his being supported by Russia.
The similar meeting was held in Simferopol by Armenian community of the
Crimea. The participants stressed that Ukrainian “orange” government
could not achieve progress in the country and also failed to care about
Armenians. They arrived at a common conclusion that the authorities
failing to be ally of Russia cannot meet Armenians’ demands.
The community chief Frunze Mardoyan expressed dissatisfaction with
Yushshenko’s support for Azerbaijan reminding Armenian parliament’s
vice-speaker Vagan Ovannisyan’s “Ukraine was presented with the Crimea
by Khrushov as Azerbaijan was presented with Nakhchivan and Garabagh
by Stalin. Yushchenko might turn out to consider even some parts of
Kazakhstan and Iran as Azerbaijani territories”.
URL:

HSBC BANKING GROUP INTENDS TO ENLARGE ITS ACTIVITIES IN ARMENIA
Arka News Agency, Armenia
Sept 25 2006
YEREVAN, September 25. /ARKA/. HSBC banking group intends to enlarge
its activities in Armenia, Stephen Green, the group chief executive,
said Saturday as he met Armenian President Robert Kocharyan in Yerevan,
the president’s press office reports.
The presidential press office also quoted Kocharyan as saying that
HSBC’s credit portfolio started playing a major part in Armenia’s
economy.
HSBC activities were discussed at the meeting as well as prospects
for the bank involvement in Armenia’s insurance market.
HSBC Bank Armenia, whose parent bank is HSBC Bank plc, was registered
on September 25, 1995.
HSBC Bank plc, a branch of HSBC Holdings plc, possesses 70% of HSBC
Bank Armenia shares, and 30% belong to overseas Armenian investors.
Balance profit of HSBC Bank Armenia totaled AMD 4.6 billion by June
30, 2006 and profit for Jan-June 2006 made 1.5 billion. The bank’s
statutory fund is AMD 2.4, assets are AMD 71.5 billion and total
capital is AMD 7.3 billion. Aggregate credit portfolio of HSBC Bank
Armenia was AMD 22.9 billion by June 30, 2006.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

2ND EXHIBITION “PANARMENIAN EXPO-2006” OPENED IN ARMENIA
Arka News Agency, Armenia
Sept 25 2006
YEREVAN, September 25. /ARKA/. The 2nd exhibition “PanArmenian
Expo-2006” has been opened in Armenia.
Speaking at the opening ceremony, RA Minister of Trade and Economic
Development Karen Chshmarityan stated that the exhibition, which
has been opened on the occasion of the 15th anniversary of Armenia’s
independence, is different from the last exhibition due to a larger
number of participants and products.
“The exhibition presents the most important sector of Armenia’s
economy, including information technologies,” the Minister said.
Chairman of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Armenia Martin
Sargsyan said that the “PanArmenian Expo-2006” exhibition is evidence
of obvious progress in democratic and economic reforms. He also
pointed out that 80 small and medium businesses established over the
last three years are taking part in the exhibition.
Sargsyan added that the exhibition has no counterparts. He said that
the exhibition is for the first time being relayed on Internet in an
on-line regime.
About 250 organizations are taking part in the 2nd exhibition
“PanArmenian Expo-2006”, 90% of them being small and medium
businesses. About 160 companies took part in the 1st exhibition. It
was visisted by over 20,000 people.

PRESENTATION OF DILI FARMING HELD IN DILIJAN
Arka News Agency, Armenia
Sept 25 2006
YEREVAN, September 25. /ARKA/. Presentation of Dili farming was held
in Dilijan (Armenia), which intends to develop production of famous
sorts of Mozzarella and Mozzarella-Pizza cheeses.
“In the nearest future the farming will be producing Mozzarella and
Mozzarella-Pizza cheeses, besides that the Dili already produces
traditional Armenian cheeses”, head of the enterprise Ashot Tamrazyan
informed during the presentation.
At the same time he said that the price of the Armenian Mozzarella
would be lower than that of the Italian one.
Tamrazyan emphasized that the farming was unique in a meaning that it
was the only farming with so called “close circle” in the country,
where the whole process – beginning with cattle farming and ending
with the final product -processing of milk and diary farming, was
carried out on the spot.
Besides that, thanks to the modern equipment and technologies human
factor is reduced to minimum on the stage of production.
In addition, Tamrazyan said that 120 cows of special breed were
imported to Armenia from Germany, which may become a good stimulus
for the development of agriculture in Armenia.
He informed, “We have agreed with our German colleagues that all
cows will stay in the farm and their posterity will be distributed
all over the country”.
“That is, we mean exchange of experience, which is for sure useful
for everybody” he said.
Tamrazyan also emphasized that the farming had been set as an object
to export its production to other countries already in the nearest
future. “USD Two million was invested in the farming, and Italian
professionals help the local specialists”, he explained. The RA Prime
Minister Andranik Margaryan, Minister of Agriculture David Lokyan,
Minister of Environment Protection Vardan Ayvazyan, Governor of
Tavush region Armen Gularyan and Mayor of Dilijan Armen Santroyan
were present at the presentation.

70% OF MEMORY CIRCUITS FOR CELLULAR TELEPHONES DESIGNED IN ARMENIA
Arka News Agency, Armenia
Sept 25 2006
YEREVAN, September 25. /ARKA/. 70% of memory circuits for cellular
telephones are designed in Armenia, Director General of Synopsys
Armenia Hovik Musaelyan told a press conference.
According to him, chips for satellites and space equipment are designed
in Armenia as well.
Musaelyan expressed regret over the fact that local profitable
production of these chips is yet impossible in Armenia.
Armenia’s IT sector comprises 100 companies, 30% of them shared in by
foreign capital. A total of 5,000 people are employed in this sphere.
From: Baghdasarian

ARMENIAN SOLDIER ‘KILLED BY AZERI SNIPER’
Radio Liberty, Czech Rep.
Sept 25 2006
The Armenian Defense Ministry said Monday that an Azerbaijani sniper
had killed an Armenian soldier.
Warrant officer Garnik Melian was fatally shot in the chest Saturday
near the Armenian city of Ijevan in what the ministry called an
Azerbaijani cease-fire violation.
The two countries are at odds over the status of Nagorno-Karabakh, an
ethnic Armenian territory inside Azerbaijan. A cease-fire agreement was
reached in 1994 after six years of fighting, and the territory is now
under the control of ethnic Armenians, whose troops face Azerbaijani
forces across a half-mile-wide (kilometer-wide) no man’s land.
Clashes break out sporadically along the tense border, and the
countries’ presidents have traded increasingly bellicose statements.

ANTI-TERRORISM DRILLS AT ARMENIA NPP SET FOR ACTIVE PHASE
RIA Novosti, Russia
Sept 25 2006
MOSCOW, September 25 (RIA Novosti) – A joint command and staff
anti-terrorism exercise at nuclear power facilities in southwest
Armenia will enter its active phase September 26, military officials
said Monday.
The Russian-Armenian exercise, Anti-Terror-2006, which started at a
nuclear plant in the city of Metsamor September 15 and will last until
September 29, aims to practice coordination of law enforcement agencies
in the event of a terrorist attack on vital infrastructure facilities.
“In the second stage of the exercise, the anti-terrorism task groups of
the Armenian and Russian security services will set up a headquarters
to organize and conduct a joint operation to release hostages and
eliminate terrorists at the Metsamor NPP,” said Colonel General Boris
Mylnikov, head of the Anti-Terrorist Center of the Commonwealth of
Independent States, a loose union of 11 former Soviet republics.
He said representatives of the CIS, the United States, France, Germany,
the United Kingdom, Greece, and anti-terrorist committees of the UN
Security Council, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in
Europe and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization had been invited to
the exercise as observers.

PRESS RELEASE
Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Armenia
Contact: Information Desk
Tel: (374-10) 52-35-31
Email: [email protected]
Web:
Statement by H. E. Vartan Oskanian
Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Armenia
61st Session of the UN General Assembly
New York
September 25, 2007

Madame President,

It is a pleasure to congratulate you and to wish you a year that is
relatively free of crises and catastrophes. In other words, a year not like
the one we¹ve just had during which my good friend Ian Eliasson successfully
navigated through troubled waters.

The year of turmoil, as he called it, included conflicts, as well as
man-made and natural disasters that required our collective response. These
challenges to our united will are becoming more numerous, more dangerous and
more complex.

Of all the events last year, the one which stood out most tragically was the
war in Lebanon. There I believe we lost a great deal of credibility in the
eyes of the peoples of the world who had a right to expect that political
expediency would not prevail. We watched with great disappointment and
dismay the political bickering within the Security Council and the
reluctance to bring about an immediate ceasefire, even as the bombs were
being dropped indiscriminately. When any world body or power loses moral
authority, the effectiveness to undertake challenges which require
collective response is undermined.

In other areas, a united international community has succeeded. It has
played a supportive role in the civilized process which brought Montenegro
to this day and this body. Together, we created and empowered the
Peacebuilding Commission and the Human Rights Council – two bodies which
hold great promise in delivering deeper and more purposeful engagement by a
world community committed to building peace and protecting human rights.

The most insipid and threatening challenges in the world remain those of
poverty and hopelessness. When the world¹s leaders met six years ago, they
decided that the UN was the ideal mechanism to confront the social ills
facing our societies, they publicly accepted their combined responsibility
in achieving accelerated and more even social and economic development. They
said to the world that, together, we will channel international processes
and multinational resources to tackle the most basic human needs. Thus, they
placed the principle and potential of united action on the judgment block.
Six years later, the world continues to watch in earnest to see if
individual and regional interests can be rallied in striving for the common
good.

Madame President,

We are faced with the same challenges, locally. In Armenia, we are
encouraged and rewarded by our extensive reforms. These reforms are
irreversible and already showing remarkable results. We are going to move
now to second generation reforms in order to continue to register the
successes of the last half decade: legislative and administrative strides
forward, an open, liberal economy, double-digit growth.

Encouraged by our own successes, this year we have determined to build on
our course of economic recovery and target rural poverty. We are reminded of
the remarkable promise made to the victims of global poverty in 2000: ³To
free our fellow men, women and children from the abject and dehumanizing
conditions of extreme poverty.² To do this at home, we will leverage the
philanthropy of international organizations and friendly governments with
the traditional generosity of our Diaspora to build and repair
infrastructure, which is essential to facilitate and enable economic
development.

But infrastructure alone does not reduce poverty and remove unjust
inequalities. Creating economic opportunities, teaching the necessary skills
– these are essential to erase the deep development disparities that exist
today between cities and rural areas.

Madame President, we will begin in our border communities, because unlike
other countries, where borders are points of interaction and activity,
Armenia¹s borders to the east and the west remain closed. As a result,
regional economic development suffers.

But with Turkey, it is more than our economies that suffer. It is the
dialogue between our two peoples that suffers. Turkey¹s insistence on
keeping the border closed, on continuing to prevent direct contact and
communication, freezes the memories of yesterday instead of creating new
experiences to forge the memories of tomorrow. We continue to remain hopeful
that Turkey will see that blocking relations until there is harmony and
reciprocal understanding is really not a policy. On the contrary, it¹s an
avoidance of a responsible policy to forge forward with regional cooperation
at a time and in a region with growing global significance.

Madame President, let me take a minute to reflect on Kosovo, as so many have
done. We follow the Kosovo self-determination process very closely. We
ourselves strongly support the process of self-determination for the
population of Nagorno Karabakh. Yet, we don¹t draw parallels between these
two or with any other conflicts. We believe that conflicts are all different
and each must be decided on its own merits. While we do not look at the
outcome of Kosovo as a precedent, on the other hand, a Kosovo decision
cannot and should not result in the creation of obstacles to
self-determination for others in order to pre-empt the accusation of
precedence. Such a reverse reaction – to prevent or pre-empt others from
achieving well-earned self-determination – is unacceptable.

Efforts to do just that – by elevating territorial integrity above all other
principles – are already underway, especially in this chamber. But this
contradicts the lessons of history. There is a reason that the Helsinki
Final Act enshrines self-determination as an equal principle. In
international relations, just as in human relations, there are no absolute
rights. There are also responsibilities. A state must earn the right to lead
and govern. States have the responsibility to protect their citizens. A
people choose the government which represents them.

The people of Nagorno Karabakh chose long ago not to be represented by the
government of Azerbaijan. They were the victims of state violence, they
defended themselves, and succeeded against great odds, only to hear the
state cry foul and claim sovereignty and territorial integrity.

But the government of Azerbaijan has lost the moral right to even suggest
providing for their security and their future, let alone to talk of custody
of the people of Nagorno Karabakh.

Azerbaijan did not behave responsibly or morally with the people of Nagorno
Karabakh, who it considered to be its own citizens. They sanctioned
massacres in urban areas, far from Nagorno Karabakh; they bombed and
displaced more than 300,000 Armenians; they unleashed the military; and
after they lost the war and accepted a ceasefire, they proceeded to destroy
all traces of Armenians on their territories.

In the most cynical expression of such irresponsibility, this last December,
a decade after the fighting had stopped, they completed the final
destruction and removal of thousands of massive hand-sculpted cross-stones –
medieval Armenian tombstones elaborately carved and decorated.

Such destruction, in an area with no Armenians, at a distance from Nagorno
Karabakh and any conflict areas, is a callous demonstration that
Azerbaijan’s attitude toward tolerance, human values, cultural treasures,
cooperation or even peace, has not changed.

One cannot blame us for thinking that Azerbaijan is not ready or interested
in a negotiated peace. Yet, having rejected the other two compromise
solutions that have been proposed over the last 8 years, they do not want to
be accused of rejecting the peace plan on the table today. Therefore, they
are using every means available – from state violence to international
maneuvers – to try to bring the Armenians to do the rejecting.

But Armenia is on record: we have agreed to each of the basic principles in
the document that¹s on the table today. Yet, in order to give this or any
document a chance, Azerbaijan can¹t think, or pretend to think, that there
is still a military option. There isn¹t. The military option is a tried and
failed option. Compromise and realism are the only real options.

The path that Nagorno Karabakh has chosen for itself over these two decades
is irreversible. It succeeded in ensuring its self-defense, it proceeded to
set up self-governance mechanisms, and it controls its borders and its
economy. Formalizing this process is a necessary step toward stability in
our region. Dismissing, as Azerbaijan does, all that¹s happened in the last
20 years and petulantly insisting that things must return to the way they
were, is not just unrealistic, but disingenuous.

Madame President, Nagorno Karabakh is not a cause. It is a place, an ancient
place, a beautiful garden, with people who have earned the right to live in
peace and without fear. We ask for nothing more. We expect nothing less.

[Zoryan note: The following article was translated from Turkish by the
Zoryan Institute, which does not necessarily agree with nor endorse
the contents of the article.]
“LET US MEET WITH THE ZORYAN INSTITUTE”
by Özdemir Ince
Hurriyet, September 24, 2006
They all want to make me puke – Article 301 of the Penal Code, the trial of
Elif Shafak, the defense, the prosecutor, the people who express opinions on
the trial, all of them.
My poor Turkey, my poor bleeding country!
How come the Justice Ministry of this government does not prepare an
Implementation Guideline for Article 301, even though they do everything in
order to paralyze the Revolutionary Laws?
How come the EU and the mouthpieces of the European Parliament do not want
an Implementation Guide for Article 301 but insist on the outright abolition
of this Article? And our government keeps on insisting that they won’t
abolish it. I think there is a pre-meditated cooperation here.
The ones that really make me puke are our human rights defenders, democracy
apostles and their followers… This group, which neglects criticizing the
current AKP government but instead targets the Republic when it comes to
Article 301, labels as Fascist and Kemalist all supporters of the Republic
and its reforms.
There is also the group that really went to extremes like the SS as court
reporters in the name of nationalism and patriotism. They are also the
natural actors in this carnival!
When I was thinking and getting distressed about all this, I learned from
Ruhat Mengi’s editorial (Vatan newspaper, 20.09.06) that Article 301
defendant Elif Shafak had said: “When I went to the US, the Zoryan Institute
educated me, and I solved the Genocide problem.” I had read something about
this elsewhere, but I had forgotten. I always get stressed when I see the
name of the instigator Zoryan Institute. Since this institute showed the
true path to Elif Shafak, let me give you some facts about it:
The Zoryan Institute (the Zoryan Institute for Contemporary Research and
Documentation) was founded in 1982 in Cambridge, Massachusetts in the US.
There is also a Canadian Zoryan Institute (The Zoryan Institute of Canada),
founded in 1984.
These two institutes form an academic centre to do research, archive and
distribute information and documents about the recent history of the
Armenians.
The activities of the Zoryan Institute are grouped into three areas:
Genocide project, Diaspora project, Armenia project. To this end, the
Institute supports multi-disciplinary academic research, documentation,
conferences and publications. This is what it is in appearance…
As a first service, in 1984 the Zoryan Institute contributed as a sponsor of
the Armenian Genocide Court, which was known by the term “Permanent
Peoples.”
According to its internet website, the Zoryan Institute prepared a
convincing report in 1999 about the Armenian Genocide as requested by the
Canadian Parliamentary sub-committee. As you know, the Canadian Parliament
accepted the Armenian genocide, based on this report.
Again in 1999, the US House of Representatives requested the Zoryan
Institute to prepare a report deflating the statements of the Turkish
Ambassador in Washington, who had denied the Armenian genocide.
Taner Akçam’s books spewing hatred toward Turkey are among the most
important publications of the Institute. As I had written before, aren’t
there other publishers who would publish Taner Akçam? And this is the kind
of organization that trains Elif Shafak on how to write novels.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

[Zoryna note: The following article was translated from Turkish by the
Zoryan Institute, which does not necessarily agree with nor endorse
the contents of the article.]
“Easy Fame!”
By Ruhat Mengi
Vatan, September 20, 2006
Orhan Pamuk was able to have his name heard and have supporters in Europe,
when he made an international statement about a subject that he did not know
nor researched, even though this subject was critically important for
Turkey.
Elif Shafak, on the other hand, became famous when she was taken to court
about her book in which it was explained that “Turks butchered the Armenians
like lambs,” and when she said that ‘When I came to the US, the Zoryan
Institute educated me, I solved the Genocide problem.”
Even the TUSIAD intervened on behalf of this woman, stating that “but the EU
is really watching this trial.”
You see how easy it is to become famous?
As Serdar Ortac’s song says, “if you can really move it like a belly dancer,
if your spine is flexible enough to distort the history even if detrimental
to your country, if you can defend positions similar to those of the
Armenian Diaspora by ignoring the true history, and if you can forget the
murdered Turkish diplomats years after these events, it is so easy.”