PanARMENIAN.Net
Evans Will Not Be Recalled Most Likely, Armenian
Political Scientist Believes

23.03.2006 19:51 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ US Ambassador to Armenia John Evans
will not be recalled to all appearance as the American
diplomat has expressed not only his own opinion but
also that of two thirds of the House, political
scientist Levon Melik-Shahnazaryan stated in a
conversation with a PanARMENIAN.Net reporter. In his
words, the recall of an ambassador, whom Daniel Fried
called «fantastic», cannot be taken as US federal
authorities confronting congressmen’s opinion. «Thus I
suppose J. Evans will continue his service as US
Ambassador to Armenia till the end of his tenure,» the
political scientists remarked.
To remind February 19, 2005 John Evans indicated the
importance of recognition of the Armenian Genocide at
a meeting with California Armenian community members.
«I will today call it the Armenian Genocide,’ Evans
said. In the opinion of State Department officials
Evans did not have the right to make statements of the
type even in his personal capacity.

`Los Angeles Times’ turns to the issue of the Armenian Genocide
ArmRadio
23.03.2006 10:55
In its editorial under `It was a genocide’ title, the `Los Angeles
Times’ turned yesterday to the possible recall of the US Ambassador to
Armenia John Evans, reminding that he has recognized the Armenian
Genocide.
“The Department of State avoids the concept of `genocide’ not because
it does not want to argue about historic issues, but just considering
the fact of being the strategic partner of Turkey,’ the newspaper
notes.
`The time has come that we should not close our eyes on the issue and
accept the history. The Armenian case cannot be considered even
marginal. Punishing the Ambassador for telling the truth about the
events of 90 years ago would suit a monarchy using dual standards, but
not a country leading in the free world,’ the editorial of the `Los
Angeles Times continues.

Row over US ambassador’s Armenia genocide remark
The Independent – United Kingdom; Mar 23, 2006
Rupert Cornwell in Washington

Protests are growing over the possible recall of the US ambassador in
Armenia after he described the 1915 massacres of Armenians by the
Ottoman Turks as genocide. If he is recalled, it would be seen as
giving in to Turkish pressure.
Officially, John Marshall Evans remains – for the time being at least
– Washington’s man in Erevan. “Ambassador Evans is our ambassador, and
he continues … to exercise that honour and privilege,” a State
Department official said last week.
But that assurance has satisfied neither the ethnic Armenian community
in the US, nor members of Congress from southern California where the
community is centred. Their suspicion is that a successor for Mr Evans
has al ready been lined up, and he will be ordered home. Adam Schiff
and Grace Napolitano, representing districts in the Los Angeles area,
have taken up the matter with the State Department. “I expressed my
opposition to any disciplinary action being taken against the
ambassador for speaking the truth,” Mr Schiff said.
Mr Evans caused a diplomatic sensation in February 2005 when he flatly
called the massacres a genocide, during an appearance at the
University of California at Berkeley. It was “unbecoming of us as
Americans to play word games here,” he declared. “I will today call it
the Armenian genocide.”
By doing so, he became the first US official to use the loaded word in
an Armenian context. Like the Clinton administration before it, the
Bush administration has always referred to the slaughter as a massacre
or a tragedy, but not as a genocide. The circumspection is widely seen
as an effort not to upset Turkey, an important US ally in the Middle
East that shares borders with Iraq and Iran.
The stand-off follows successive efforts by Mr Schiff to introduce a
bill specifically recognising the events of 1915 as an act of genocide
– efforts that have been blocked at the White House’s behest.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Armenian minister downplays public concern at US drug report
Arminfo
22 Mar 06
Yerevan, 22 March: Armenian public concern over the International
Narcotics Control Strategy Report by the US Department of State is
groundless, Armenian Foreign Minister Vardan Oskanyan told parliament
today. He was commenting on mass media allegations that Armenian
officials are allegedly engaged in drug trafficking.
The minister said that the report says quite the opposite. In
particular, it says that “there is no ground to assume that any
Armenian official is engaged in drug trafficking”.
[Passage omitted: Reference to the report]

Karabakh talks should continue – Armenian premier
Arminfo
22 Mar 06
Yerevan, 22 March: Talks on the settlement of the Karabakh conflict
are continuing and have not reached deadlock yet, Andranik Markaryan,
Armenian prime minister and leader of the Republican Party, told
reporters today.
He said that negotiations on the Karabakh settlement should go ahead
as resumption of hostilities proceeds neither from the interests of
Armenia nor Nagornyy Karabakh. He stressed that one of the ways of
settling the Karabakh conflict is through official recognition of
Karabakh’s independence by Armenia. However, talks are under way for
the time being and it is premature to make serious analyses in that
respect, the prime minister concluded.

Armenian opposition slams Russian gas price rise
Mediamax news agency
22 Mar 06
Yerevan, 22 March: The current state of Armenian-Russian relations was
discussed at the National Press Club today.
MP Shavarsh Kocharyan from the opposition Justice bloc said that
“Armenia and Russia have lost mutual understanding”, Mediamax
reports. He said that the problem caused by Russia’s decision to raise
gas prices is not an economic issue but results from Moscow’s desire
to continue its dominance over post-Soviet countries. “In the
meantime, Armenia’s future lies in integration into European
organizations,” Kocharyan said.
“Armenian-Russian relations have been forming on the basis of legends
for a long time. It is necessary to end emotional relations and pursue
a pragmatic policy with regard to Russia,” the MP said.
The leader of the Armenian Progressive Party, Ovanes Ovanesyan,
believes that “the myth about Armenian-Russian fraternal relations has
collapsed”. “As long as Armenia and Russia do not establish healthy
economic and political relations, we shall permanently come across
what we have now,” he said.
The leader of the Democratic Party of Armenia, Aram Sarkisyan, said
that the Armenian authorities are to blame for this as they “have not
developed a doctrine for cooperation with Russia in due time”. “The
Armenian leadership has made itself dependent indefinitely by handing
over 80 per cent of Armenia’s energy system to Russia,” Sarkisyan
added.

Armenia to partly replace Russian border guards at its main
international airport
AP Worldstream; Mar 22, 2006

Armenia is to partly replace Russian border guards stationed at its
main international airport with Armenian frontier troops, a top
commander said Wednesday.
Under a bilateral accord between Moscow and the ex-Soviet Caucasus
Mountain nation, border guards under Russian command patrol the
country’s borders with Iran and Turkey and Yerevan airport. Armenian
forces guard the border with Georgia and Azerbaijan.
The commander of Armenia’s border forces, Col. Armen Abraamyan, said
that within one or two months, graduates of a training center
modernized with U.S financial help would be ready to take over
frontier duties at the airport.
Armenia, an impoverished landlocked nation, hosts a major Russian army
base and has been seen as one of Russia’s closest allies in the
region.
But plans by Russian natural gas monopoly Gazprom to double the price
that Armenia pays for gas have angered Yerevan.
Russia withdrew its border guards last year from the Central Asian
nation of Tajikistan, where they had been stationed on the Afghan
frontier since the 1991 breakup of the Soviet Union.

(Kyodo) – Selected editorial excerpts from the U.S. press:
Kyodo News Service; Mar 22, 2006

IT WAS GENOCIDE (Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles)
JOHN EVANS IS THE U.S. ambassador to Armenia, as of this writing. But
he probably won’t be for long. Evans, a career diplomat who was
selected to receive an American Foreign Service Assn. award last year
for his frank public speaking, irked his superiors at the State
Department by uttering the following words at UC Berkeley in February
2005: “I will today call it the Armenian genocide.” For that bit of
truth-telling, Evans was forced to issue a clarification, then a
correction, then to endure having his award rescinded under pressure
from his bosses, and finally to face losing his job altogether.
What happened in Armenia in 1915 is well known. The Ottoman Empire
attempted to exterminate the Armenian population through slaughter and
mass deportation. It finished half the job, killing about 1.2 million
people. Yet the State Department has long avoided the word “genocide,”
not out of any dispute over history but out of deference to Turkey,
whose membership in NATO and location between Europe and Asia make it
a strategic ally.
It is time to stop tiptoeing around this issue and to accept settled
history. Genocide, according to accepted U.N. definition, means “the
intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial
or religious group.” Armenia is not even a borderline case. Punishing
an ambassador for speaking honestly about a 90-year-old crime befits a
cynical, double-dealing monarchy, not the leader of the free world.
For Armenians who escaped the killing and came to this country,
inadequate recognition of their history is crazy-making. Rep. Adam
B. Schiff (D-Burbank), whose district includes the heart of the
Armenian diaspora, keeps introducing a bill to officially recognize
the genocide, only to see congressional leadership quash it each year,
under pressure from the State Department.
One day, the country that was founded as a direct repudiation of its
Ottoman past will face its history squarely, as part of a long-overdue
maturing process. Some day before then, we hope, the State Department
will too. (March 22)

Armenia poll show army more popular than government
Azg, Yerevan
21 Mar 06 p1

The National Statistics Service of Armenia has conducted a poll in 216
villages and 43 towns and Yerevan that showed a high level of trust in
the armed forces and church but not in the government, the Armenian
newspaper Azg reported on 21 March.
Quoting the results of the poll, the newspaper hailed the fact that 87
per cent of the respondents trust the army as “very important taking
into account the regional factor and threats issued by our
neighbours”.
The survey showed that 58 per cent of the respondents trust the
central government and 39 per cent do not; 63 per cent of the
respondents trust local authorities and 33.5 per cent do not. Azg
added that the popularity of the government has declined because of
the difficult socio-economic situation in the country.
Forty one per cent of those surveyed do not trust the justice system
as opposed to 52 per cent who do; 35,6 per cent do not trust the
police as opposed to 59 per cent who do. The newspaper said it had
expected a larger number of people to express their distrust of the
“justice and police systems that are considered the most corrupt and
discredited ones”.
Azg said that the mass media seem to be more popular than the
journalists: 75 per cent of those surveyed trust the mass media and 22
per cent do not.

RUSSIAN FRONTIER GUARDS AND MILITARY BASE CLOSELY COOPERATE IN ARMENIA
YEREVAN, MARCH 22.ARMINFO. The Russian frontier guards and military
station in Armenia closely cooperate. General Major Sergey Bondarev
said this in the interview to “Woenno-Promishlennaya Gazeta” weekly.
He said that the frontier guards should cooperate with the
administration of the military station # 102, as they are deployed in
a foreign country. Bonadrev stated that they have elaboarted relevant
programs envisaged for actions in various situations. The military men
allocate reserves, assist in construction of engineering equipment on
the borders or prepare specialists for exspecially difficult tasks.