KAAN SOYAK: ARMENIAN-TURKISH TRADE RELATIONS DEVELOP WELL
Pan Armenian News
07.09.2005 02:55
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Despite all the difficulties available the
Turkish-Armenian trade relations are developing well. Armenian
and Turkish businessmen cooperate at the Russian and Asian markets,
Turkish-Armenian Business Development Council head Kaan Soyak stated,
APA Azeri news agency reported. In his words, close ties have been
established between the Armenian Diaspora and Turkish business circles
recently and many representatives of the Armenian Diaspora wish to
cooperate with Turkish entrepreneurs. When commenting on the possible
change of public opinion in Turkey Kaan Soyak noted, “The Turkish
society came to know Armenia and its people in a new way. They learned
that Armenians want to leave in peace with Turkey.” In his words,
“Turks became more objective in treating the problems available
between Armenia and Azerbaijan and the erroneous policy of both
states is analyzed by the Turkish press.” “It is accepted that
Russia’s pro-Armenian line was of no benefit, he said. The Turkish
people are for fair settlement of the conflict. The economic hardship
Anatolia faces at present is caused by the blockade of the Armenian
border. Azerbaijan’s responsibility for it is equal to that Armenia
bears,” Kaan Soyak stressed.

NEW UK AMBASSADOR TO ARMENIA APPOINTED
Pan Armenian News
07.09.2005 06:45
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ As PanARMENIAN.Net came to know from the Embassy
of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Anthony
Cantor will replace Thorda Abbot-Watt, who is completing her diplomatic
mission in the RA in January 2006, at the post of the UK Ambassador
to Armenia.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

OSCE CHAIRMAN VISITING YEREVAN
Assa-Irada, Azerbaijan
Sept 7 2005
Baku, September 6, AssA-Irada — OSCE chairman-in-office, Slovenian
foreign minister Dimitrij Rupel arrived in Yerevan, Armenia from
Baku on Tuesday. Rupel will meet with Armenian President Robert
Kocharian, foreign minister Vardan Oskanian and prime minister
Andranik Margarian as well as NGO and opposition representatives,
according to Armenian press reports. The situation on the frontline,
the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict over Upper Garabagh, the current
situation in Armenia and changes to be made to the country’s
Constitution will be discussed. Head of the Armenian community of
Upper Garabagh Arkadi Gukasian arrived in Yerevan on Monday to discuss
with Rupel the Garabagh conflict and the future of Armenians in Upper
Garabagh. He also plans to convey Garabagh Armenians’ ‘concerns over
the escalating military mood in Azerbaijan’ to the OSCE chairman,
the reports said. Rupel promised during his visit to Baku that he
will raise the issue of Kocharian’s participation in the recent event
dedicated to the so-called ‘independence day’ of the Upper Garabagh
separatist regime in a meeting with the Armenian President.*

THE GOAL IS QUALITY AND EFFECTIVENESS
Svetlana Khachatryan.
Azat Artsakh Nagorno Karabakh Republic [NKR]
05 Sept 05
The first bell of the new academic year rang in the schools of the
republic on September 1st. 234 secondary schools, 8 colleges and
universities and 5 specialized secondary schools opened their doors
for 28 thousand pupils and students. This academic year will mark a
new approach to secondary education. The summer discussions held by
the Ministry of Education, Culture and Sport, which continued in the
regional meetings of teachers in August and were summed up in the
republic consultation of school directors and education officers,
came to the conclusion that today’s secondary school does not fulfill
its role. It has the least effectiveness and the lowest quality in
the last 50 years. The problem is raised on a governmental level
as well. At the republic consultation the speaker of the National
Assembly of NKR Ashot Ghulyan gave his observations about education,
based on his impressions from the work in his former position and
regarding the sphere of education as a strategic issue.
The NKR minister of defence, Lieutenant General Seyran Ohanyan
emphasized the need for close relationships between school and army,
for both work to bring up healthy and well-educated generations. No
doubt having an education system which meets the requirements of the
time depends on the financial means provided for it. In the last ten
years 45 schools were built and 47 were reconstructed in Artsakh. 50
schools have new furniture. By the state budget 2005 (for the first
time in the period of independence) 595 million drams was provided
for construction and 100 million drams for repair of schools, which
is done successfully. It is planned to finish the construction of
schools in 2009 and to increase the salary of teachers up to 100
thousand drams by 2010. The state budget for the next year provides
for increasing the salary of teachers up to 58 thousand 800 drams,
and the budget of education will be 4 billion drams. The Minister of
Education, Culture and Sport Kamo Atayan thinks that this state of
education makes us take a ret!
rospective look of the education we used to have, make a profound
analysis, study the international experience and work out a clear
strategy. It is necessary to work out an educational doctrine for the
upcoming 25-30 years. Because the NKR law on development of education
expires this year, it is possible to make the development programmes
for education for the period between 2005 and 2005 on the basis of
the primary principles of the education doctrine. A clear strategy
of education for each year will be derived from it. This approach
supposes hard effort. First of all, the entire system of education
should be involved in this. Besides, the discussion of this serious
long-term education programme must be undertaken by the first meeting
of the teachers of Artsakh. There is no way back. Further development
of our young country depends on the effective work of the education
system, the guarantor of which is the teacher. This opinion is shared
by everyone.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

PACE AD HOC KARABAKH COMMISSION TO MEET IN PARIS SEPTEMBER 12
Armenpress
Sept 7, 2005
YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 7, ARMENPRESS: Deputy parliament chairman Tigran
Torosian from the ruling Republican Party and Shavarsh Kocharian
from the opposition Ardarutyun (Justice) alliance will fly to Paris
on September 12 to participate in the second meeting of an ad hoc
committee that was set up by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council
of Europe (PACE) to monitor the process of the Nagorno-Karabakh
conflict regulation. The first meeting took place on June 23 in
Strasbourg, France.
In Paris the OSCE Minsk group cochairmen from France, USA and Russia
will present a report to Minsk group member countries on what has been
done so far to that end. The ad hoc committee is expected to submit
its first report to PACE when it convenes for its winter session in
2006 January. The report will not, however, propose conflict resolution
options but will sum up information from Minsk group member countries
about what they have done to help end the conflict.
The PACE commission includes representatives from Armenia, Azerbaijan,
Turkey, France, Germany, Italy, Russia, Sweden.

BASIN OF LAKE ARPI TO BECOME NATIONAL PARK
Armenpress
Sept 7, 2005
GYUMRI, SEPTEMBER 7, ARMENPRESS: The basin of Lake Arpi and Akhurian
River, situated in the Ashotzk mountains, close to the borders with
Turkey and Georgia, approximately 110 km northwest of the city of
Yerevan, in northwestern Armenia will be turned into a national park.
Financial aid is expected from Germany to launch the first phase of
this program that was supposed to kick off three years ago, but was
delayed due to lack of money. The project will be started next year
with support to come from the government.
Lake Arpi is a natural wetland of botanical importance, although the
water level has been raised by an artificial dam. It supports several
plant species which are rare in Armenia. The lake is fed by several
small rivers, springs and melt-water, and freezes over during the
winter months.

FINLAND PRESIDENT TO ARRIVE IN YEREVAN
Pan Armenian News
07.09.2005 06:33
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ September 26-30 President of Finland Tarja Halonen
will pay a formal visit to the South Caucasus. The visit will start
with a 2-day stay in Yerevan. September 28-29 she will be in Tbilisi
and September 29-30 she will pay a visit to Baku, Yerkir Online
reports.

HER MIDDLE EASTERN FOOD IS BIG ON FLAVOR
By T. Susan Chang, Globe Correspondent | September 7, 2005
Boston Globe, MA
Sept 7 2005
Zov: Recipes and Memories From the Heart, By Zov Karamardian, Zov’s
Publishing, 262 pp., $35
Sign up for: Globe Headlines e-mail | Breaking News Alerts Zov, of
Zov’s Bistro and the recently published “Zov: Recipes and Memories
>>From the Heart,” actually has a last name. She’s Zov Karamardian,
a chef from Orange County, Calif., who has built an institution around
affordable, accessible pan-Middle Eastern cuisine. But Zov likes to
keep things simple, on a first-name basis. Her recipes are the same,
with easy-to-find ingredients, big flavors, straightforward technique.
Karamardian, an Armenian born in Israel, is heir to the huge variety of
culinary styles that meet in the Caucasus region. Though her cooking
centers on flavors from Syria, Israel, Greece, and North Africa, she
is as likely to prepare a typical Mediterranean pasta salad as she is
the more eastern pilafs and grilled meats, with their seasonings of
sumac and Aleppo pepper. But classics like baba ghanouj, stuffed grape
leaves, tabbouleh, spanakopita, and moussaka also make appearances.
New England can match the natural abundance of the Fertile Crescent
(or southern California, for that matter) only in late summer. But when
our tomatoes, eggplants, and bell peppers are available in profusion
and the grill’s still up and running, these are the recipes you’re
looking for.
Moroccan salmon with charmoula sauce is thoroughly dredged in a bazaar
of spices; the charmoula’s liberal dose of diced tomatoes and cilantro
keeps the fish moist and bright-tasting. Rosemary-garlic chicken with
lemon gets marinated and grilled with its skin, for maximum flavor.
A massive quantity of thinly sliced onions, patiently cooked to gilded
brown shreds of sweetness, is the secret to her mujadara, or rice
pilaf with lentils and caramelized onions. Zov’s version uses a more
than generous dollop of sweet butter, which melds the flavors together
and gives depth to the onions. For vine-ripened roasted tomato-basil
soup, plum tomatoes get blasted in a 450-degree oven to concentrate
their flavor before joining a broth of aromatics and potatoes.
This is hot-weather food, so it’s no surprise that Zov’s desserts
turn toward cool, creamy comforts. Most are favorites, slightly
tailored. Jasmine rice pudding with fresh berries gets an elegant
scattering of sliced pistachios. Luscious lemon squares offer just
enough sweetness in their silken custard to get away with what would
otherwise be a withering, mouth-puckering tartness.
In other words, Zov doesn’t take any chances when it comes to flavor.
Why add just a teaspoon of lemon juice to the custard when you can
use two-thirds of a cup — and a handful of the grated rind while
you’re at it?
It’s not just the flavors that are big. You’ll need to break out your
largest pots for these recipes, none of which seem to be constructed to
serve fewer than six; eight to 10 is typical. These are party recipes,
meant to share with a big family or group of friends. A household of
only two would be dining on leftovers for a week.
“Zov” is a heavy, handsome book published outside traditional
channels. At $35, it doesn’t come cheap. Four-color photographs
fill every spread, large as life and sometimes larger. Those with a
taste for endless summer will find much to love in it; others will
thankfully browse its sunlit pages during the long season when sweet,
ripe tomatoes are just a memory.

VODKA LEMON
DVDTimes.co.uk, UK
Sept 7 2005
Vodka Lemon takes place in a Kurdish village in Armenia. It’s the dead
of winter, with temperatures twenty below zero and more. Hamo (Romen
Avinien) is a widower in his sixties, who visits his wife’s grave
and talks to her there. While there he meets Nina (Lala Sarkissian),
a widow with a daughter, and finds himself drawn to her.
It’s fair to say that examples of Armenian cinema are not thick on the
ground. In what reaches British release at least, it’s represented
almost entirely by the Canadian-based Atom Egoyan, who in films
such as Ararat has dealt with his Armenian heritage. Vodka Lemon
is very different. Hineer Saleem is an Iraqi Kurd based in Paris,
and as he makes clear in the documentary that accompanies his film,
Vodka Lemon is as much a Kurdish story. The situation in Iraq made
filming there impossible, so the story was written about the large
Kurdish population in Armenia. In terms of inspiration, this is
a world away from Egoyan’s frequently rather cerebral cinema.
Instead, Saleem aims north, aspiring to the low-key, deadpan
miserablist humour of Finnish director Aki Kaurasmaki. The result
is certainly a warm-hearted film, but to me it doesn’t equal its
inspiration. It shares its leisurely pace and poker-faced comedy with
Kaurismaki’s work, but the danger of working in a minor key is that of
slightness and inconsequentiality. And that’s where Vodka Lemon falls
down. There are certainly consolations, such as the performances and
the occasional shaft of humour. Christophe Pollock’s cinematography
makes the obviously bitterly cold settings strangely beautiful. And
the sheer novelty of seeing a film from this part of the world makes
this worth a look. The title, by the way, comes from an exchange that
Nina has with a customer at her roadside liquor store. When asked why
a drink is called vodka lemon when it tastes of almonds, she says:
“That’s Armenia!”

COURT OKS ARMENIANS’ CITIZENSHIP
By Eric Malnic, Times Staff Writer
Los Angeles Times
Sept 7 2005
The two were among five L.A.-area men convicted in 1985 in a plot to
bomb Turkish consulate offices in Philadelphia.
The U.S. citizenship of two men convicted 20 years ago in an Armenian
plot to bomb the offices of the Turkish Consulate in Philadelphia was
affirmed Tuesday as the 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruled that
the men had demonstrated their good character since 1992.
“To hold otherwise would sanction a denial of citizenship where the
applicant’s misconduct … was many years in the past, and where
a former bad record has been followed by many years of exemplary
conduct, with every evidence of reformation and good moral character,”
the court said Tuesday, citing its similar ruling in an earlier case.
Viken Hovsepian, now 45, and Viken Vasken Yacoubian, now 42, both born
in Lebanon, were among five Los Angeles-area men arrested in October
1982 on suspicion of conspiring to dynamite the consul general’s
office. The FBI said it found the makings of a bomb in a suitcase at
Boston’s Logan Airport, where one of the five was arrested.
Hovsepian, then the part owner of a gas station and a Santa Monica
resident, was identified by prosecutors as the organizer of the
scheme and “the most culpable of these five defendants.” Yacoubian,
of Glendale, was a student at UCLA.
In October 1984, Hovsepian; Yacoubian; Karnig Sarkissian, then 31, of
Anaheim; and Steven Dadaian, then 22, of Canoga Park were found guilty
by a federal judge of transporting explosives across a state line.
But U.S. District Judge Mariana R. Pfaelzer said she was impressed
with the backgrounds of the defendants and indicated she would give
serious consideration to their pasts in determining their sentences.
Pfaelzer did not say what impressed her, but defense attorneys said
they thought she was referring to familial and sociological factors
in their roles as Armenian activists.
Pfaelzer’s verdict followed a five-day trial in which the defendants
presented an insanity defense based on the history of hostility
between Turks and Armenians.
“The main defense was that they should not be found criminally
responsible because of the psychological impact of the Armenian
genocide in 1915, in which 1 1/2 million Armenians were killed by
the Turks,” said Michael Avery, Dadaian’s attorney.
On Jan. 25, 1985, Pfaelzer sentenced Hovsepian to six years in a
federal prison camp. Yacoubian was sentenced to three years.
“I have no doubt the defendants are basically of good character and
unlikely to repeat the acts,” Pfaelzer said. “Nonetheless, [the
bombing] was methodically planned. It was not amateurish. I must
incarcerate the defendants.”
The fifth defendant, Dikran Berberian of Glendale, was tried
separately. He was convicted in 1986 at age 32 of conspiracy and
transporting an explosive device. He served a 5 1/2 -year sentence
at the Terminal Island federal penitentiary.
After completing their sentences, Hovsepian and Yacoubian returned
to the Los Angeles area.
Hovsepian became “a role model amongst youth groups and student groups,
to which he frequently lectures about the counter-productiveness of
violence,” the appellate court said. “Yacoubian became the principal
of the Rose and Alex Pilibos Armenian School in 1993 … and has
become a leader in the Armenian American community.”
Both men applied for, and eventually were granted, U.S. citizenship.
But federal attorneys appealed, arguing that the men had made false
statements in their efforts to secure citizenship.
The appellate court disagreed.
“No intentionally false testimony was given,” Judge Susan P. Graber
wrote in the court’s opinion. “To the extent that any statements in
the application process were inaccurate, the inaccuracies resulted from
faulty memory, misinterpretation of a question or innocent mistake.”