BERLIN-BRANDENBURG COURT BARRED TO CALL ARMENIAN GENOCIDE “A LIE”

PanARMENIAN.Net
20.03.2006 19:01 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ The court of Berlin-Brandenburg Bundesland,
Germany has decided that Turks, who stage rallies, have no right to
use posters and transparencies denying the Armenian Genocide in the
Ottoman Empire in 1915. From now on it is prohibited to call “a lie”
the Armenian Genocide in the Ottoman Empire in the territory. It
should be noted that on that very day Turks were going to hold a
demonstration in Berlin to commemorate Talaat Pasha, however, because
of the resolution adopted, police thoroughly checked all the posters
and transparencies in order to register facts of the Genocide denial.

Berlin-Brandenburg is the first in Germany and the second in Europe
region in the number of Turks. Over 1 million Turks live only in
Berlin. So, as the Armenian Turkologists note, Germany, the main
Turkey’s ally in the EU, has confirmed its position on the resolution
adopted by the Bundestag, which can bring about a chain reaction
everywhere in the EU, reported IA Regnum.

DANIEL FRIED REFERRED TO ARMENIAN GENOCIDE RECOGNITION ISSUE IN ANKARA

PanARMENIAN.Net
20.03.2006 19:16 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ “The issue of acknowledgement of the Armenian
Genocide is a complex question, which should be daringly discussed by
the two parties,” U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of
European and Eurasian Affairs Daniel Fried said during his visit to
Ankara. Following the meeting with representatives of the Ministry of
Foreign Affairs Daniel Fried declared that it is necessary to evaluate
the tragedies of the past years, since the people should think about
their future. The American diplomat underlined that “the position of
the Unites States on this issue is known. US President George Bush
will most probably make a traditional annual statement on the issue
in April.” Daniel Fried added that the issue of Washington’s demand
to open the border with Armenia was addressed during the discussions
in Ankara.

TURKEY REJECTED U.S. DEMAND TO OPEN ARMENIAN BORDER

PanARMENIAN.Net
20.03.2006 19:33 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ The Turkish government responded negatively
once again to a demand from the United States to open the Armenian
border. During his visit to Turkey U.S. Assistant Secretary of State
for the Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs Daniel Fried urged
the Turkish government to reevaluate the Armenian border. Ankara,
however, acted unenthusiastically to the issue at hand. Turkish
officials classified the “Armenian cessation of its invasion of the
Karabakh region” as one of the three requirements for the appeasement
of relations between Turkey and Armenia. Turkey is also pushing Armenia
to “disavow its allegations of the Armenian Genocide and to remove from
the Armenian constitution the anti-Turkish clauses,” reported Zaman.

BAKU ADVISES IRANIAN AMBASSADOR TO “RESTRAIN EMOTIONS”

PanARMENIAN.Net
20.03.2006 19:39 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ The Islamic Republic of Iran and Azerbaijan enjoy
friendly relations. The principles of these relations are reflected
in the documents signed by the leaders of our states and remain
unchangeable.

The statements made by the representatives of NGOs during the II
Summit of the Azerbaijanis of the world are the expression of their
personal opinion,” head of the department of press and information
policy of the Azeri MFA Tahir Taghizade stated when commenting in
the diplomatic note of the Iranian Embassy in Baku on the statements
made during the summit. When touching upon the address of Iranian
Ambassador to Azerbaijan Afshar Suleymani to the summit participants
and the Azerbaijani state Taghizade noted that emotional expressions
can damage the cooperation built on the principles of friendship
and neighborhood. “Noting the necessity of expanding bilateral ties
between our countries I state that personal opinions should not tell
on the friendly relations between Iran and Azerbaijan,” he said,
reported Day.az.

NO AD-HOC COMMITTEE WILL BE CREATED

A1+
01:58 pm 20 March, 2006

During today’s NA session 114 deputies were registered. After the NA
Speaker Arthur Baghdasaryan represented the agenda of the four-day
session, secretary of the Justice bloc fraction Viktor Dallakyan
offered to create a NA Ad-hoc committee to investigate the results
of the 2005 November 27 Referendum. He announced that the fact that
the Government has given a negative evaluation to their offer is in
itself a negative fact.

Arthur Baghdasaryan informed that he has applied to the Prosecutor’s
office and according to his information 4 criminal cases have been
aroused, so he doesn’t find it necessary to create an ad-hoc committee.

Viktor Dallakyan offer was put to voting and rejected with 20 votes
for, none against, while 27 deputies abstained from voting. Dallakyan
announced that this was a proof of the participation of the majority
in the electoral frauds. “We demand the Attorney General to come and
explain to us how the results could be summed up in 20 minutes in
an electoral area which has 2000 electors. You are participants of
the law violations”, he told the deputies. Aram Sargsyan noted that
unpunished crimes carry the danger of being repeated.

And deputy Hmayak Hovhannisyan added that the creation of the committee
would show the will of the political powers towards free elections.

A SKYSCRAPER INSTEAD OF THE CINEMA HOUSE

A1+
02:09 pm 20 March, 2006

The Yerevan mayor Yervand Zakharyan and the chief architect of the
city Samvel Danielyan will not allow a 21-storeyed building to be
built instead of the Cinema House. Samvel Danielyan announced about
it during the usual briefings in the municipality. The chief architect
of Yerevan mentioned that they have made inquiries about the resident
area of the building and the car parks.

As for the number of stores, Mr. Danielyan is not concerned in
it. According to him, the geological investigations carried out in
the area allow them to built high buildings. Nevertheless, he said
there were disagreements about the number of the stores: perhaps they
will make it 19 instead of 21.

ARONYAN WINS IN MONACO

A1+
02:25 pm 20 March, 2006

An international chess super tournament has started in Monte Carlo
where Levon Aronyan, Veselin Topalov, Vishvanatan Anand and other
Grand Masters participate.

In the tournament the masters play blindfold and rapid chess.

In the first round Aronyan played with Luuk van Veli from
Holland. Levon lost the blindfold game, but won the rapid one and
earned one point. In the second round Aronyan played with the Fide
world champion Veselin Topalov. This time Aronyan won the blindfold
game and tied the rapid one.

After the second round Levon Aronyan tops the list with 4 other players
with 2.5 points. In the third round Levon will play with Peter Leko
whom he beat in the last round of the Linares tournament.

THE HERO’S IMAGE AS THE FOUNDATION FOR UPBRINGING

Yerkir/am
March 17, 2006

On March 15, 1921 in Berlin Soghomon Tehlerian shot one of the
organizers of the Armenian Genocide, the internal affairs minister
of the Young Turks, Taleat. The fact that Tehlerian is not a murderer
cannot be questioned.

Otherwise, the German court would not have declared him innocent. The
fact that Tehlerian is a national hero cannot be questioned either.

Do we, the citizens of the XXI century Armenia need Tehlerian’s image
as the foundation for the upbringing of the young generation? Some give
a negative answer to this question. Their justification is as follows:
the fact of existence of people like Tehlerian means that an entire
nation, an entire state, has delegated its duties to one or several
persons thus depriving itself of the responsibility of development,
strengthening and self defense. They derive another thesis from this
explanation: a person like Tehlerian could be born only in the context
of the situation that existed in 1921, and one Tehlerian is more than
enough for our nation.

If the authors of this position mean that the nation and the state
should always act as a collective entity and should not rely on heroes,
then it is difficult not to agree with them. If what they want to say
is a desire that we, as a nation and a state, would not have to face
such tragic moments in our history, then again we can understand them.

But we can never accept the opinion that we don’t need the image of
individuals like Tehlerian today, that we should not use this image
as the foundation for the upbringing of Armenian citizens. And this
is why we think so.

We are right to say that Tehlerian was a phenomenon particular to
the reality of 1921. But with the same logic, Vardan Mamikonian was a
phenomenon of the reality of 451, Davit Bek, Aram Manukian, Andranik,
Dro, Nzhdeh, and all other heroes were phenomena of their particular
historic contexts.

A hero is someone whose image is not qualified by the category of time.

Otherwise, no one would remember them. Besides, had the nation failed
to put the image of Vardan Mamikonian at the foundation of upbringing
of its children, there would be no Aram Manukian, Andranik and Nzhdeh
in the centuries to come.

Had the young generations not been taught about these heroes there
would be Tehlerian, and no heroes of the Artsakh war.

After all, what Tehlerian did was not an expression of the weakness
of the state but an act of restoration of justice. Therefore, the
image of the soldier of justice must always underlie the upbringing
of our young generation if we don’t want to turn into a mechanical
collectivity of weak biological creatures.

THE AZERIS ARE BEING MISGUIDED: IT’S NECESSARY TO SHOW THEM THE RIGHT WAY

Yerkir/am
March 17, 2006

“I don’t think Armenia is making militaristic statements. On the
contrary, we are not responding properly to the militaristic rhetoric
and atmosphere that prevails in Azerbaijan today. The Azeri population
is being misguided purposefully.

They are made to think that Armenia is so weak, and our spirit is so
much broken that as soon as Azerbaijan starts military operations it
will immediately succeed in returning the territories they have lost,”
representative of ARF’ s Supreme Body Armen Rustamian stated commenting
on the recent statements made in Armenia after the Armenian president’s
statement. Continuing the rhetoric of Azerbaijan’s militaristic
statements Rustamian reminds our society that by these territories
Azerbaijan means not only the territory around Karabagh and the areas
that are currently under Armenia’s de facto control.

Azerbaijan turns out to have greater ambitions: it is planning
to invade a larger area, including Zangezur and other Armenian
territories.

“This is the atmosphere that prevails in Azerbaijan and we have
to respond to it properly. The statements we make are a means of
preventing war and not instigating it. We have to differentiate between
the statements made by Azerbaijan, statements that are directly calling
for a war. The message we want to send is that we are ready for a war,
so let’s us not be misguided and let’s not start another war,” head of
the National Assembly permanent committee on foreign relations stated.

At the same time he reminded that if today Azerbaijan is speaking
about losing 20% of its territories, there can be no guarantees
that it will not lose 40% of its territories if another war breaks
out. Rustamian believes this should be made clear since this is the
most important tool for countering Azerbaijan’s ambitions. There are
no other preventive measures that could be used against Azerbaijan.

“There are no peacekeeping forces, and by the way, the ceasefire was
signed without the assistance of the international community. The
ceasefire was established only due to the fact that the war was a
self defense of the Karabagh population, and the Azeri aggression
was stopped,” Rustamian said.

Commenting on the progress of the peace talks, Rustamian said he
believes that if the position Azerbaijan has adopted persists, the
prospects for the settlement of the conflict will be very vague. What
measures should be undertaken to ensure that we do not face a deadlock
in the future?

Rustamian believes in order to raise the efficiency of the negotiation
process it is necessary to understand the two important issues around
which mutual concessions must be made. These are the issues of security
and political status.

In addition to this, it is very important to understand that the peace
talks cannot be considered efficient as long as Nagorno Karabagh does
not participate in the negotiation process since there are issues
that are the sole prerogatives of the Nagorno Karabagh Republic.

Nagorno Karabagh Republic is a party of the conflict, and being
such, it must also be a party of the negotiations. Who has more to
do to improve this situation? “I think Azerbaijan has more to do in
this respect. The Minsk Group Co-Chairs should assess the situation
correctly and diagnose properly why the peace talks are not progressing
in an efficient manner. Each of the parties of the conflict should
be assigned with such tasks that would ensure the efficiency of the
negotiation process,” Rustamian stated.

What prospects can there be if the negotiation process faces a
deadlock? A deadlock would mean that the settlement is postponed with
all the unfavorable consequences deriving from such a development. This
will damage the prospects for regional cooperation.

Rustamian believes Armenia has long faced this situation and has been
trying to find a way out. Armenia manages to develop economically even
under the circumstances of a blockade. In the future, Armenia has
to strengthen its internal resources and strengthen the country to
make it clear for Azerbaijan that there can be no military solution
to the conflict. “Azerbaijan must understand that if the conflict
settlement is postponed the international community will recognize
Nagorno Karabagh’s de facto status.

Time will not favor any of the parties. At some period such a delay
could benefit one party, at another period the other party. And
the shifts in this balance will depend on the measures each of the
countries involved will undertake,” Rustamian said.

NEW MAGAZINE LUNCHED

Yerkir/am
March 17, 2006

The launch of the new magazine in the beginning of this year with a
little unusual name Narcissus would have gone unnoticed among the many
new publications if it wasn’t for its claim to present the literary
map and its interesting contents as well as its unique structure.

It also unites the traditional arts with the new names in the
literature.

>>From the very first issues of the magazine it is noticeable that
the magazine contains everything said above.

Thanks to the initiator of the magazine is Sona Van, the
editor-in-chief Vahan Vardanian and the editorial board, the magazine
is the type that will interest the readers. The idea was born outside
the country, in Los Angeles, where two individuals, Sona Van and Nubar
Janoyan, were ready to travel to the Homeland to add something new
to the number of existing initiatives. The prominent poet and doctor
did something that was needed and timely.