PanARMENIAN.Net
Murders, resolution, elections and Nagorno-Karabakh –
these are the key issues of the year of 2007
The year of 2007 started with the tragic murder of
Hrant Dink, the editor-in-chief of the
Armenian-Turkish magazine in Istanbul.
27.12.2007 GMT+04:00
It is customary that at the end of the year the events
of the passing year are being reviewed, though it
should be mentioned that the year of 2007 wasn’t rich
with many significant events. The year of 2007 started
with the tragic murder of Hrant Dink, the
editor-in-chief of the Armenian-Turkish magazine in
Istanbul. And although the murderer, the 17-year-old
nationalist Ogyun Samast was arrested in some hours
after the murder, his case has still been cancelled
till February 2, 2008.
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ According to the Turkish legislation
Samast may be sentenced to imprisonment from 18 up to
24 years. The truth is though, that the lawyers of
Dink’s family do not exclude another development of
events either. It won’t be possible to completely
justify Samast, but the minimal period is definitely
secured. To sum up the issue, it must be mentioned
that 91 journalists have been killed during the year
of 2007.
On January 30 in the U.S. House of Representatives the
Congressman from the State of California Adam Schiff
drafted the bill of Resolution 106 about the
recognition of the Armenian Genocide in the Ottoman
Empire in 1915-1923. It is also mentioned in the
Resolution that the President of the USA has to use
the term `genocide’ in his annual message to the
Armenian Community in the USA on April 24. The
discussion of the Resolution gave birth to strong
criticism from the Turkish party. Ankara managed to
make the US Administration and the US Department of
State cancel the vote in the House, in spite of the
fact that on October 10 the Commission for Foreign
Affairs of the U.S. Congress approved Resolution 106
with 27 votes for to 21 against. Meanwhile it is worth
mentioning that during the hearings in the Commission
none of the Congressmen, even those who had voted
against, hesitated to qualify the mass killings in the
Ottoman Empire as genocide.
In February the Presidents of Armenia and Iran started
the gas pipeline Iran-Armenia, which became Armenia’s
second gas provider. Due to the commissioning of the
gas pipeline, the energy dependence on the Russian
branch, passing through Georgia, has decreased.
In April 15th the anniversary of the establishment of
diplomatic relations between Armenian and Russia was
celebrated. The Minister of Foreign Affairs of the
Russian Federation Sergey Lavrov visited Yerevan on
this occasion.
The Armenian parliamentary elections were held in May.
The Republican Party of Armenia with the present
Prime-Minister Serge Sargsyan at the head won in those
elections and for the first time in many years the
assessment made by the OSCE and PACE
No significant change was made regarding the issue of
the Karabakh Conflict. At OSCE summit in Madrid the
OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs submitted written proposals
on the resolution of the conflict to the Ministers of
Foreign Affairs of both countries. The Minsk Group
Co-Chair from Russia Yuri Merzlyakov believed that if
the mediators agree with the basic principles of
regulation, they can manage to draft a project of
peaceful agreement on Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict
resolution by the Presidential Election in Armenia
(February 19, 2008)
«PanARMENIAN.Net» analytical department