Author: Albert Nalbandian

Photo: Sputnik/ Ramil Sitdikov

 

Russia and Armenia signed an agreement on establishing the Combined Regional Air Defense System in the Caucasian Collective Security Region on Wednesday, TASS reports.

Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu and his Armenian counterpart Seyran Ohanyan put their signatures to the document. The agreement was signed after the ministers’ bilateral meeting.

The two defense ministries also signed a cooperation plan for 2016.

Mutual cooperation plans for 2016 also were signed with other defense ministers, with whom Sergey Shoigu met in bilateral meetings – Kyrgyz General Staff Chief Colonel Zhanybek Kaparov, Tajik Defense Minister Lt. Gen. Sherali Mirzo, Azerbaijani Defense Minister Col. Gen. Zakir Gasanov and Kazakh Defense Minister Imangali Tasmagambetov. The meeting of the Russian and Azeri defense ministers was held under the closed doors.

“We have approved for 2016 a plan of work of the Defense Ministers’ Council of the CIS countries and a plan of common steps on the joint air defense system,” Shoigu said summing up the results of the meeting.

At the meeting, the ministers revised a cooperation plan for troops of the joint air defense system and the documents regulating the work of the coordination committee on the air defense issues at the CIS Defense Ministers’ Council.

A number of bilateral meetings were also held, Shoigu said. “During the talks, we discussed a broad range of issues of cooperation in the military and military-technical spheres. The plans of bilateral cooperation of the defense ministries were signed for the next year,” he said.

The participants of the meeting confirmed plans to further develop partnership based on the balance of common, regional and national interests.

Armenia positively views the results of the first year of the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) work, the country’s trade representative in the Russian Federation Karen Asoyan said at the opening ceremony of the Eurasian Economic Congress on Tuesday, TASS reports.

“In Armenia we’re thoroughly analyzing the results of our membership – both in the government and in business,” Asoyan said. “Our enterprises mainly speak about positive results. Many formalities concerning customs processing in particular, which are related to costs, are gone as the trade regime with the Union’s states, Armenia’s main partners, has become more open,” the trade representative said.

He added though that there are some issues still in place. “The mechanism of VAT recovery hasn’t been solved yet, which to some extend is restraining trade. This impacts trade (flows) from Russia to Armenia as well. Hopefully, the Eurasian Economic Commission will somehow solve the issue in the nearest future,” Asoyan said.

Among major trends he mentioned more joint ventures being created by Russian and Armenian enterprises after the country joined the bloc. “Russian tourist flow to Armenia has increased and developed,” he added.

The trade representative also noted the importance of participation of the Eurasian Economic Union in formation of the Silk Road economic belt. “It would be important to construct a railroad from Iran to Armenia and reconstruct the railroad between Armenia and Russia,” he said, adding that “this will allow creation of the shortest efficient way of supplying goods from the Persian Gulf countries to the EEU member-states.”.

Russia’s foreign minister says the next round of Syria talks expected to be held this weekend must not focus squarely on demands for Syrian President Bashar Assad’s resignation, AP reports.

Sergey Lavrov, speaking on a trip to Armenia on Monday, said some of the participants in the talks have kept pushing for Assad to step down, in what he described as a “simplistic approach.”

The first round of Vienna talks on Oct. 30 left open the thorny question of when Assad might leave power.

Lavrov said the talks should focus on reaching consensus on who should represent the Syrian opposition and who should be considered extremists. He said the Organization of Islamic Cooperation and the Arab League should be invited to join the following round of Vienna talks.

Armenia is among the top performers in Europe and Central Asia (ECA) – as it ranks 35 out of 189 economies compared to 38 in the previous year in the 2016 Doing Business Report released by the World Bank.

Armenia’s neighbors in the region are ranked as follows: Georgia – 24^th, Turkey – 55^th, Azerbaijan – 63^rd, Iran – 118^th.

Armenia’s partners in the Eurasian Economic Union Russia and Belarus are placed 51^st and 44^th respectively, Kazakhstan is 41^st, Kyrgyzstan is 67^th.

Armenia’s improvement in the ranking is largely attributable to the three reforms it implemented in the areas of Dealing with Construction Permits (DwCP), Trading across Borders and Enforcing Contracts

Armenia is among the 26 economies at the global level that implemented 3 or more reforms. That’s only 14% of economies worldwide

Armenia made a jump of nearly two points in its DTF score from DB15 to DB16. To put things in perspective, the average improvement in DTF score in ECA economies was less than 1.

Armenia made dealing with construction permits easier by exempting lower risk projects from requirements for approval of the architectural drawings by an independent expert and for technical supervision of the construction.

Armenia reduced the time and cost for documentary and border compliance for trade with the Russian Federation by joining the Eurasian Economic Union.

As a result, the time for import border compliance was reduced from approximately 50 hours to 3 hours. The ranking for Armenia on the indicator has also improved from 58 to 29.

Armenia made enforcing contracts easier through a new law requiring that cases be assigned to judges randomly, and through a fully automated system, in courts throughout the country.

Armenia sets some of best practices worldwide in Starting a Business (rank of 5 out of 189 economies), and registering property (14).

On Starting a Business, it takes only 3 days for an entrepreneur in Yerevan to incorporate – the same time as in Denmark.

On Registering Property, it takes only 7 days to register a property transfer compared to 48 days on average at the global level

There are areas for improvement in Armenia, notably in the areas of Getting Electricity (rank of 99) and Resolving Insolvency (rank of 71).

On Getting Electricity, for instance, it takes 180 days to obtain a new connection. In contrast, it takes an average of 119 days in ECA economies.

This year’s Doing Business report completes a two-year effort to expand benchmarks that measure the quality of regulation, as well as efficiency of the business regulatory framework, in order to better capture realities on the ground. For example, in addition to the steps, time and cost to build a warehouse, the Dealing with Construction Permits indicator, through its Building Quality Control index, assesses whether safety mechanisms are in place. In this area, Armenia underperforms compared to the region when it comes to good practices in construction regulation, quality controls and safety mechanisms.

The Islamic State (IS) group captured 19 of Pari Ibrahim’s female relatives when it tore through Iraq last year. Two have escaped, the rest remain in sexual slavery – or worse, Ibrahim told .

On Wednesday, she brought her message to the UN Security Council. She criticised diplomats for failing to show unity against IS atrocities and urged them to refer a case of genocide to the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague.

“For Yazidis, it is very important to secure recognition that a genocide was committed against us,” she said. “The word genocide is important, and starting an ICC case will eventually bring recognition, reparations and ensure the protection of civilians in the future.”

Ibrahim suggested a new draft resolution that would not affect Assad. It would limit the court’s jurisdiction to genocide and other crimes committed against Yazidis in Sinjar and Nineveh Plains, in northwest Iraq, from August 2014 onwards, she said.

It was not immediately clear whether any UN members back Ibrahim’s plan, but divisions in the council over Syria deepened last month with the start of Russia’s airstrike campaign against IS and other opponents of Assad’s forces in Syria.

The has published an article titled “Armenian Genocide and Beyond: The Road to Deir al-Zor,” in which author Benny Morris refers to the Armenian Genocide, the comemoration of its centennial, Turkey’s move to mark Gallipoli anniversary on April 24. Below is an excerpt form the article:

This year Turkey moved its Gallipoli anniversary commemoration, traditionally marked on April 25—the day the Allies landed on the peninsula just west of Istanbul—to April 24. April 24, of course, is the day on which Armenians around the world have traditionally commemorated the slaughter of their forefathers by the Ottoman Turkish government. That day, in 1915, the police in Constantinople rounded up some 250 Armenian leaders for deportation and death. This act was followed by systematic mass deportations and massacres.

This year was the centenary of both World War I events. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, with his wonted crudity and cynicism, moved the Gallipoli remembrance by a day in order to overshadow the Armenian commemoration and divert international attention away from the Turks’ crime against humanity, considered by most historians to be the first genocide of the twentieth century.

All Turkish governments since World War I have denied Turkish responsibility for the mass murder and, indeed, have usually denied that it actually took place, explaining that a much smaller number of Armenians had died (much, incidentally, as Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian “president,” in his PhD thesis claimed that “only” several hundred thousand Jews had died during the Holocaust). Instead, Turkish governments have claimed that the Armenians, a disloyal people, had rebelled against the country and tried to stab it in the back during the war; that the Armenian victims were the result of clashes between armed rebels and the empire’s security forces; and that, if massacres occurred, they were the doing of overzealous local officials and/or Kurdish tribesmen, rather than a product of the policy of the central government, which had merely ordered the removal of Armenians from war zones.

Few, if any, of the foreign dignitaries who attended Erdogan’s festivities at Gallipoli, including princes Charles and Harry from Great Britain and the prime ministers of Australia and New Zealand, whose troops had participated in the landings on the peninsula, were probably aware of the grim irony that undercut the Turkish celebrations.

Click for the full article.

Over 300 people gathered at Our Lady of Dolours Catholic Church Chatswood on 13 October for a service of prayer and remembrance for the 100^th Anniversary of the Armenian Genocide, reports. 

Hosted by the Catholic Diocese of Broken Bay, Bishop Peter Comensoli welcomed His Grace Bishop Haigazoun Najarian of the Armenian Apostolic Church and dignitaries and members of the Armenian community, along with Bishop Robert Rabat of the Melkite Catholic Diocese, Bishop Bill Wright of the Catholic Diocese of Maitland-Newcastle, representatives of the Greek Orthodox, Coptic Orthodox, and Uniting Churches, and other religious, ecumenical and civic leaders.

In his homily, Bishop Najarian described the history of Armenian Christians which has been one of repeated struggle under persecution and at the same time resilience forged through faith and hope. Bishop Comensoli observed the genocidal impulses of our own time that link us to the remembered events of a century ago.  Prayers were read by representatives of various Churches, with the variety of liturgical vestments and customs mingling colourfully in a vibrant ecumenical tapestry.

An Armenian choir and a Catholic choir led the congregation in song, a remembrance wreath was laid at the Paschal candle (a symbol of hope and resurrection) and a minute of silence observed. The participation of Catholic and Armenian youth was a living symbol of hope. Parishioners of Our Lady of Dolours offered warm hospitality and supper. As Parish Priest Fr Paul Finucane noted, the evening was a truly ecumenical experience of prayer and solidarity.

Among the dignitaries attending in the service were Fr Shenouda Mansour, General Secretary of the NSW Ecumenical Council; Sr Elizabeth Delaney, General-Secretary of the National Council of Churches Australia; Sr Giovanni Farquer, Sydney Archdiocesan Ecumenical Commission; Mr Peter Hamill, Director, Broken Bay Catholic Schools Office;  The Hon. David Clarke MLC, representing the NSW Minister for Multiculturalism; Councillor John Hooper, Willoughby City Council.

President Serzh Sargsyan will pay a working visit today to the Republic of Kazakhstan to participate in the session of the CIS Council of Heads of State and the Supreme Eurasian Economic Council.

Attorney and renowned human rights advocate Geoffrey Robertson, QC, will pull double-duty later in October, when he will be a featured panelist during the Armenian National Committee of America-Western Region’s Grassroots Road to Reparations panel and will also receive the ANCA-WR Advocates for Justice Award at the organization’s annual Gala Banquet.

The ANCA-WR Grassroots Conference will take place on October 23 and 24 at the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza Hotel, with the centerpiece Gala Banquet, celebrating the organization’s accomplishments on Sunday, October 25 at the grand ballroom of the same hotel.

Robertson will be joined by international legal expert Karnig Kerkonian, Esq., to discuss the issue of the Armenian Genocide in the international legal arena, as well as explore legal avenues to pursue the Armenian Cause in the post Genocide centennial phase. Kerkonian is a member of the Armenian Bar Association’s Board of Governors and currently serves as co-chair of its Armenian Rights Watch Committee. The panel, which will take place on October 24, will be co-sponsored by the Armenian Bar Association and moderated by ANCA National Board member Steven Dadaian, Esq., who has a long and impactful involvement in the ANCA family. Attorneys who attend the Road to Reparations panel are eligible to receive 1.5 hours of Continuing Legal Education general credit through the Armenian Bar Association.

Robertson is an international jurist, human rights lawyer, and academic. His latest book is An Inconvenient Genocide: Who Now Remembers the Armenians? In recent years, he has been particularly prominent in the defense of Julian Assange and WikiLeaks. He also represented author Salman Rushdie, and prosecuted General Augusto Pinochet. In 2008, the United Nations (UN) Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon appointed him as a “distinguished jurist” member of the UN’s Justice Council, which nominates and supervises UN judges. His memoir, The Justice Game, has sold more than 150,000 copies.

Robertson is a founder and joint head of Doughty Street Chambers, a prestigious law firm in England that has dealt with numerous international legal cases. Among the associates of the law firm is human rights advocate Amal Alamuddin Clooney, who along with Robertson will be recognized as a recipient of the ANCA-WR “Advocates of Justice” Award, with Robertson set to accept the award on her behalf.