Author: Badalian Vardan

JAMES WARLICK: INTERESTS OF ALL SIDES WILL NEED TO BE TAKEN INTO ACCOUNT IN KARABAKH NEGOTIATIONS

16:26 18/02/2015 ” COMMENTS

U.S. Co-Chair of the OSCE Minsk Group James Warlick gave an exclusive
interview toArtsakhpress news agency, in which he talked about
some recent statements and developments of the current phase of the
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict settlement.

The interview is exclusive also for the reason that it is the first
time when one of the Co-Chairs gives an interview to a media from
Artsakh.

– Mr. Warlick, it is a known fact that since the last year there has
been an escalation of tension along the LoC which seriously undermines
the mediation efforts of the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs. Apart from
the statements, do you see any practical mechanisms that can stabilize
the situation?

– The escalation of violence along the Line of Contact and
Armenia-Azerbaijan border over the last year undermines not only the
Co-Chairs’ mediation efforts, but also the Presidents’ commitment to
their people to resolve the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict peacefully.

There are mechanisms that can reduce the likelihood of unintended
incidents in conflict-affected areas and we support their
implementation to help stabilize the situation on the ground. The
Co-Chairs have raised several proposals with the sides and are
discussing them during our trip to the region.

– The Co-Chairs are currently in the region. Are there any concrete
proposals that are being put at the table during the meetings with
all three sides?

– First and foremost, we are talking to the sides about recent tension
and violence that threaten the region. There cannot be progress on
the diplomatic track if violence continues. We are also raising with
the sides the need to resume meetings of the Presidents, who hold the
keys to peace in their hands. Additionally, we stress the importance
of beginning comprehensive negotiations on a lasting settlement. It
is critical to have a sustained negotiating process that can lead to
a peace agreement.

– According to the Azerbaijani mass media reports, you were cited
as saying that transfer of the two Azerbaijani citizens (charged
with heavy crimes) to Azerbaijan in the spirit of the Astrakhan
Declaration would be an important humanitarian gesture that can help
reduce tensions and build trust between the sides. Do you think
that Astrakhan Declaration is applicable in relation to criminals
and that the impunity of those crimes will not further enhance the
false sense of all-permissiveness in Azerbaijan, as was the case with
Ramil Safarov?

– In the past, the sides have generally found a way to return prisoners
as a humanitarian gesture. With tensions as high as they are, such
humanitarian gestures can lead to a more positive environment for
negotiations to take place.

– Since 1997, Nagorno-Karabakh has not been direct and full-fledged
party at the negotiations. At the same time, the OSCE Minsk Group
Co-Chairs have announced on numerous occasions that the Karabakh side
will reengage in the direct negotiations soon. Don’t you think that in
the given situation the restoration of the previous trilateral format
of negotiations will be crucial in moving the negotiations forward?

– The interests of all sides will need to be taken into account in
the negotiations, as well as in a settlement to the conflict. The
first step is for the sides to express their readiness to enter into
such negotiations.

– The Azerbaijani side has announced a number of times that the OSCE
Co-Chairmanship has exhausted itself and there are disagreements among
the Co-Chairs and suggesting a change in the mediation format. Do
you agree with the above?

– As Co-Chairs, we are united in our efforts to mediate a peaceful
and lasting settlement to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. The Minsk
Group is the only mediation format accepted by the sides. We will
continue to fulfill our mandate to work towards peace as long as all
agree that our role as mediators remains useful.

– Mr. Warlick, thank you for the interview.

AFAD CAMP ALLEGEDLY BUILT ON ARMENIAN MASSACRE SITE

02.09.2015 09:47

According to a report by Fıratnews, the AFAD camp for Kobane residents
who fled ISIS and crossed the border to Suruc, is built on “Wargeha
Mezin”, the site where thousands of Armenians were massacred in 1895.

Suruc residents Bozan Demir (54), Ä°brahim Halil Kaya (58) of Armenian
origin, and Hakkı Fırat (60) of Kurdish origin claim that the AFAD
(Prime Ministry Disaster and Emergency Management Presidency) camp on
the Urfa road is built on the site where around 20 thousand Armenians
exiled from Erzurum, Erzincan, Malazgirt, Sivas, Cizre and MuÃ…~_
were brought to and massacred in 1895, during the reign of Sultan
Abdul Hamid II. Demir and Kaya, both of Armenian origin, related
what they had learned from their parents, and stated that the site
was known as “Wargeha Mezin”, adding that thousands of Armenians had
been slaughtered here.

Ä°brahim Halil Kaya, speaking of the great injustices inflicted upon
Armenians during the Ottoman period, said, “According to the stories
our parents passed on to us, in 1895, Armenians were banished from
their homes and forced upon the path of deportation. Those who manage
to survive the massacres dispersed across all corners of the world.

Like the women of Kobanê today, the Armenian women were left in
devastation. Thousands of Armenians exiled from Cizre, Malazgirt,
MuÃ…~_ and Sivas, were massacred between Urfa and Suruc. This route
is full of their bones.”

Bozan Demir added, “In fact, ‘Wargeha Mezin’ is the first camp of the
Armenians. When the Armenians were brought here, they were brought in
separate convoys, from places with no water. Thousands of Armenians
who were brought to the village known as Xelê osî Å~_irîf were
murdered by drowning when they rushed to drink water from a reserve
kept by the villagers for cattle.”

ARMENIAN FM, US ASSISTANT SECRETARY TALK KARABAKH, UKRAINE, MIDDLE EAST

17:33, 18 Feb 2015
Siranush Ghazanchyan

Armenian Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian received Victoria Nuland,
US Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs.

Minister Nalbandian hailed the friendly partnership established
between Armenia and the United States, which has expanded over time.

He voiced hope that the bilateral cooperation would further reinforce
and deepen thanks to joint efforts.

Victoria Nuland noted, in turn, that the United States attaches great
importance to the development of cooperation with Armenia in different
fields and is willing to take efforts in that direction.

During the meeting the parties discussed the joint steps to be taken
towards expansion of bilateral relations. The political dialogue and
cooperation on the international arena were on the agenda of the talks.

Edward Nalbandian and Victoria Nuland praised the fact that the
Armenian-American cooperation embraces important fields such as
international and regional security, peacekeeping, non-proliferation
of weapons of mass destruction, fighting terrorism. The Assistant
Secretary expressed gratitude for Armenia’s active participation in
international peacekeeping missions.

Victoria Nuland emphasized Armenia’s achievements in the spheres of
democratization, reinforcement of civil society, economic reforms
and many others.

Reference was made to the perspectives of development of economic
cooperation, the implementation of joint projects, promotion of
investments.

Minister Nalbandian underlined that the US has provided considerable
support to the development of Armenia and the ongoing reforms in
the country ever since itsindependence. He noted that the assistance
programs have grown into cooperation and development programs over
time.

The parties hailed the agreement on facilitation of the visa regime
reached between the Armenian Foreign Minister and the US Secretary
of State in 2013.

The interlocutors exchanged views on urgent international issues,
namely the Ukraine crisis, the developments in the Middle East.

As for the Karabakh issue, the Armenian Foreign Minister and the
US Assistant Secretary agreed that all efforts should be taken to
solve the conflict exceptionally in a peaceful way on the basis
of the principles of international law – non-use of force or the
threat of force, territorial integrity and the right of peoples to
self-determination. Minister Nalbandian attached importance to the
US role and contribution to the process as a Minsk Group Co-Chairing
country.

Edward Nalbandian asked to convey his warm greetings to Secretary
Kerry and reiterated his invitation to the latter to visit Armenia.

EXPOSITION D’OEUVRES SUR KOMITAS A LA GALERIE NATIONALE D’ARMENIE A L’OCCASION DU 145EME ANNIVERSAIRE DU MUSICOLOGUE ARMENIEN

ART

La Galerie nationale d’Armenie a Erevan exposera du 6 mars au 15
mars des oeuvres (peintures, sculptures) dediees au grand musicologue
armenien, le père Komitas (1869-1935) a l’occasion du 145e anniversaire
de sa naissance. Cette exposition vient egalement en cette annee
du 100ème anniversaire du genocide armenien dont Komitas fut l’une
des premières victimes de la deportation du 24 avril 1915 et en fut
marque a jamais jusqu’a sa disparition vingt ans plus tard.

Anoush Hagopian, la directrice par interim de la Galerie nationale
d’Armenie a affirme que de nombreuses oeuvres representant Komitas
seront exposees a cette occasion. Les organisateurs de cette exposition
est l’Union des peintres d’Armenie. A. Hagopian a egalement affirme
que ces oeuvres dediees a Komitas seront transferees a la fin de
l’exposition vers le Musee-Institut Komitas qui vient d’etre inaugure
au centre d’Erevan.

Krikor Amirzayan

mercredi 18 fevrier 2015, Krikor Amirzayan (c)armenews.com

NEW BILLBOARDS IN BOSTON COMMEMORATE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE CENTENNIAL

15:04, 18 Feb 2015
Siranush Ghazanchyan

On Feb. 14, Peace of Art, Inc. added three new billboards in
commemoration of the centennial of the Armenian Genocide in the Boston
area. The new digital billboards are different from the others in
design but similar with concept. All the billboards commemorate the
centennial of the Armenian Genocide and pay tribute to the victims.

Two digital billboards are located in Foxboro, and the third one is
located in Peabody, Mass, Asbarez reports.

Against a black background, one billboard reads “1915-2015 the
Centennial of the Armenian Genocide.” The letters “O” and “C” in the
word “Genocide” are combined to form a red heart with a bite. The
heart symbolizes the heart of a nation, and the bite symbolizes 1.5
million innocent lives carved off a nation, whose wounds are still
bleeding through generations.

The other digital billboard reads “I Remember and I Demand 1915-2015
the Centennial of the Armenian Genocide.” The letter “O” in the word
“Genocide” is a purple forget-me-not, the official Armenian Genocide
centennial symbol. The flower has five petals which represent the five
continents where genocide survivors settled and rebuilt their lives.

Also represents the pain shared by Armenians around the world united
with their demands for recognition and justice.

“Since January 2015, Peace of Art, Inc., has displayed ten billboards
in the United States. Chicago, Seattle, Peabody, Sharon and Foxboro,
and will continue to display electronic billboards throughout the
United States during the year 2015,” said Peace of Art founding
president Daniel Varoujan Hejinian.

BORIS NAVASARDYAN. “LEVON TER-PETROSYAN’S OPEN LETTER SHOULD HAVE STARTED WITH THE PROPOSAL TO DIALOGUE.”

February 18 2015

“I expected more of the president than an article, a note. I would
have expected from the First President of what specific solutions he
sees”, said the President of the Yerevan Press Club Boris Navasardyan,
in the conversation with Aravot.am, referring to the first President
Levon Ter-Petrosyan’s open letter. In his opinion, the author of this
open letter could be a person who has a smaller impact on domestic
political developments but not the first president. “In this regard,
questions arise as to what extent it is agreed with other opposition
forces and their leaders so that the proposal that Levon Ter-Petrosyan
is ready to make to Serzh Sargsyan, if not agreed, then to the extent
it is serious. This suggests that there are questions where Levon
Ter-Petrosyan is ready to have a bipartite separate dialogue with the
government authorities, without agreeing it with the partners of the
Parliamentary Trio. Most importantly, these questions would be answered
prior to further domestic political development.” Boris Navasardyan
considers that it would be better to voice the proposal and enter
into a dialog, and then criticize the Pan Armenian Declaration. “The
criticism of the Declaration happened earlier than the proposal to
dialogue, it’s weird, because you first strongly criticize and then
offer to enter into a dialogue. Naturally, the dialogue, moreover,
the constructive dialogue becomes more difficult.

If there were ideas, thought and other opinions, the open letter should
have started from the proposal to dialogue rather than the criticism.”

Ami CHICHAKYAN

Read more at:

HRAPARAK: ARFD IS NOT GOING TO RETURN TO RULING COALITION

‘Hraparak’ paper asked the head of ARF-Dashnaktsutyun Party’s
parliamentary faction Armen Rustamyan to comment on the possibility of
ARFD Party’s return to the ruling coalition after Armenian President
Serzh Sargsyan recalled the Armenian-Turkish protocols from the
parliament.

“We have never conditioned our relations with the authorities by the
Armenian-Turkish protocols. We submitted demands of 7 points, only
one of which is related to the protocols, while the others remain on
the agenda. We repeatedly said that we will start cooperating closely
with a political force – be it the authorities or the opposition –
that will initiate a process aimed at implementation of those 7
points. We urge our colleagues to return to it,” A. Rustamyan said.

18.02.15, 12:00

GAGIK TSARUKYAN NOT ONLY POLITICAL FIGURE, BUT PERSON RESPECTING THE STATE – ARAM HARUTYUNYAN

14:30 / 18.02.2015

The situation in the country was really explosive and the interview of
second president Robert Kocharyan was really important in this regard,
leader of National Consent party Aram Harutyunyan told the reporters
on Wednesday.

“It was a really speech of the president which showed that he is not
on the side of anyone. He showed that not being on the side of the
authorities or opposition, he is just concerned with the fate of the
country and calls for calmness,” he said, adding that he does not
understand the aim of Levon Ter-Petrosyan’s letter to the president.

“I cannot say whether it was really written before the Republican
party’s Executive Body’s sitting or after the interview of Robert
Kocharyan he tried to come up with the same stance,” he said.

“The authorities are scared and stepped back, seeing the trust of the
people toward Tsarukyan. Of course there will always be kamikaze like
Ashotyan who not seeing the water yet hurry to wear swimming suits.

Such people lose in the end,” he stressed, noting that the country
really needs figures concerned with its fate.

As to Serzh Sargsyan-Gagik Tsarukyan meeting, Harutyunyan said that
even during the wars leaders of countries meet. “I do not think that
the initiator of the meeting is Gagik Tsarukyan. The important thing
here is to transfer the dispute to the political platform,” he said.

Harutyunyan stressed that the ARF-D did not have any role in the
process of reconciliation and today’s statement of Tsarukyan proved
that he is not only political figure but the one who respects the
state. “It is not Tsarukyan who must forgive the Republicans, the
people will not forgive them,” he noted. “There are few political
victims as a result of it, one of them is Ashotyan. Tsarukyan is the
winner in this situation, he is always opposition,” he said.

ARMENIA’S CONSUMER CONFIDENCE INDEX FELL BY 3 PERCENTAGE POINT IN QUARTER 4 OF 2014

YEREVAN, February 17. / ARKA /. In the 4th quarter of 2014 Armenia’s
consumer confidence index was down 3 percentage point from the previous
one standing at 41.2 after a period of protracted growth since the
beginning of the year, the Central Bank said. Compared to the 4th
quarter of 2013 it was down by 0.8 percentage points, it said.

The indicator used to assess current conditions in the 4th quarter
fell by 4.3 percentage points from the previous quarter to 30.5,
largely due to a 7.5 percentage points decrease in the index used
to assess households’ current financial status and by a 5 percentage
point drop in the indicator that assesses households in the context
of common economic conditions of the country. The index used to assess
large purchases did not change noticeably standing at 50.

According to the Central Bank, the index used to assess future
conditions fell by 1.9 percentage points from the previous quarter,
but when compared to the same quarter of 2013 it was higher by 1.8
percentage points, standing at 51.8.

The only indicator that rose was the one used to assess employment
expectations. It grew by 0.8 percentage points to 55.5. After showing
a growth in the previous quarter, the indicator that evaluates the
financial condition fell by 3.6 percentage points to 44.3. The index
assessing expectations in large household purchases decreased by 2.9
percentage points to 55.6.

The Consumer Confidence Index (CCI) is an indicator designed to measure
consumer confidence, which is defined as the degree of optimism on
the state of the economy that consumers are expressing through their
activities of savings and spending.

Since early 2005 the Central Bank of Armenia has been conducting
quarterly surveys of non-financial, financial institutions and
households to assess changes in current economic conditions compared
to the previous period, to assess the economic expectations of the
subjects under study and based on survey data to calculate and publish
composite economic indexes.

The surveys are conducted over the Internet, telephone, letter and
fax. Based on the survey results indices of business environment,
economic activity and consumer confidence are calculated on a 100-point
scale. The score above 50 shows high activity and below 50 a low
activity, and 50 a steady-state condition. -0- –

ARMENIA HALTS RATIFICATION OF PROTOCOLS ON DIPLOMATIC TIES WITH TURKEY

ITAR-TASS, Russia
February 16, 2015 Monday 08:17 PM GMT+4

YEREVAN February 16.

Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan on Monday asked the country’s
parliament speaker to withdraw from the parliament’s agenda accords
meant to restore diplomatic ties with Turkey

In a letter to Parliament Speaker Galust Sahakyan, Sargsyan said
that Armenia would not ratify the protocols on the establishment of
diplomatic relations and development of bilateral relations, earlier
submitted to Armenia’s National Assembly for ratification, because of
the “preconditions” that Turkey was putting in place before ratifying
its part of the deal.

“About six years have passed since the protocols between Armenia and
Turkey were signed,” the president said, noting Armenia’s “consistent”
efforts to bring the accords into being.

“But we must point to a lack of political will among Turkish
authorities, distortion of the letter and spirit of the protocols and
continuous attempts to lay down preconditions,” he said, adding that
ahead of the 2015 centennial commemoration of the Armenian genocide,
a policy of genocide denial and editing history “was gaining a new
momentum”.

“Therefore, I have made a decision to recall from the National
Assembly the protocols on the establishment of diplomatic relations
and development of relations between Armenia and Turkey, signed in
Zurich on October 10, 2009,” Sargsyan said.

The protocols aim to establish diplomatic ties between the countries
and re-open their common border, which has been closed since 1993.

Even though Armenia and Turkey share a 330-kilometre-long border,
the neighbours have no diplomatic ties.

Relations between the countries have been overshadowed by the mass
killing of Armenians by Ottoman Turks during World War One. Armenians
have campaigned for the killings to be recognised internationally as
an act of genocide – and more than 20 countries have done so. Turkey
admits that many Armenians were killed but says the deaths were part
of the widespread fighting that took place in World War One.

In another sign of tensions, relations have been complicated by
Turkish support for Azerbaijan in its armed conflict with Armenia
over the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh.

As preconditions for normalising bilateral relations, Ankara
urged Yerevan to stop pressing for the international recognition
of the Armenian genocide as well as to pull out its forces from
Nagorno-Karabakh.