Author: Chatinian Lara

CAROLINE COCKS: I BECOME INSPIRED BY POSITIVE CHANGES IN ARTSAKH

/PanARMENIAN.Net/
08.06.2009 17:18 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ On June 8, NKR President Bako Sahakyan received a
delegation headed by British House of Lords Deputy Speaker Baroness
Caroline Cocks. The Baroness said she was inspired to see positive
changes in Artsakh during each visit. At the instance of his guests,
Bako Sahakayn introduced the current situation in Artsakh and the
prospect for the development of various spheres of economy. Parties
also focused on Karabakh settlement process. Touching upon the
international recognition of NKR state independence, President
said it was just a matter of time, and the principal mechanisms
towards achieving that end were the consistent development of the
Artsakh statehood and the strengthening of democratic values. At the
end, Bako Sahakyan expressed his gratitude to the guests for their
permanent attention and assistance to Artsakh, NKR President’s press
service reports.

HOVIK ABRAHAMYAN: "ARMENIAN-FRENCH FRIENDSHIP MAKES PROGRESS AND DEVELOPS"

National Assembly
June 8 2009
Armenia

On June 6 President of the National Assembly Mr. Hovik Abrahamyan
received the deputy of the National Assembly of France, Head of
France-Armenia Parliamentary Friendship Group Mr. Francois Rochebloine.

Welcoming the guest the President of the Armenian Parliament expressed
his condolences in connection with many victims, who died because of
the plane crash of Air France Company.

NA President highly assessed the role of the deputies of the Parliament
of France and personally Mr. Rochebloine in the development of
bilateral cooperation. Mr. H. Abrahamyan noted with satisfaction that
Aremnian-French friendship makes progress and develops.

Afterwards, at Mr. Rochebloine’s request the President of the Armenian
Parliament presented the inner-political situation of Armenia. During
the talk the sides in detail discussed the issues of Armenia and France
within the framework of the Parliamentary Assembly of Francofonie and
other international organizations. On Mr. Abrahamyan’s initiative
they also touched upon the plans of the Parliamentary Friendship
Groups of the two countries.

Chairman of the Standing Committee on Health Care, Maternity
and Childhood of the National Assembly, Head of Armenia-France
Parliamentary Friendship Group Mr. Ara Babloyan also participated in
the meeting.

AZERBAIJANI FOREIGN MINISTRY STUDIES NEWS ABOUT FRENCH PARLIAMENTARIAN’S VISIT TO NAGORNO-KARABAKH

Trend News Agency
June 8 2009
Azerbaijan

Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry is studying news about French
parliamentarian’s visit to Nagorno-Karabakh.

"The ministry is studying news about the French parliamentarian’s visit
to the occupied Nagorno-Karabakh through Azerbaijani embassy in France
and will take respective measures in case it is confirmed," Azerbaijani
Foreign Ministry official Elkhan Polukhov said to Trend News.

Member of the French parliament and chairman of the France-Armenia
friendship group Francois Roshbulan visited the so-called
Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, Armenian media quoted the "republic’s"
press service as saying.

Parliamentarians of the Nagorno-Karabakh’s national assembly are
expected to meet with the French MP and accompanying delegation –
secretary of the France-Armenia friendship group Jean Pier Delanua
and member of Council of Sen Shamon city of France Emmanuel Mandon,
Armenian media reported.

The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988
when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. Armenian armed
forces have occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan since 1992, including
the Nagorno-Karabakh region and 7 surrounding districts. Azerbaijan
and Armenia signed a ceasefire agreement in 1994. The co-chairs of
the OSCE Minsk Group – Russia, France, and the U.S. – are currently
holding the peace negotiations.

TURKISH MILITARY MILITARY WILL IMPEDE ANY POSSIBLE FORMULA IF IT DOES NOT SUIT IT

/PanARMENIAN.Net/
08.06.2009 12:03 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ The Democratic Society Party endeavors to assist in
finding a democratic solution to the Kurdish problem despite knowing
it will not be easy, says Ahmet Turk from the DTP, while adding that
top officials are scared to confront and deal with the issue. He also
says the military will impede any possible formula if it does not
suit it The powers that be in Turkey today are scared to confront
the reality of the Kurdish issue, the co-chairman of the Democratic
Society Party, or DTP, said. Ahmet Turk added that the military would
create obstacles to any proposed formula that is not to its liking.

"We can now see that 30 years of war, operations and denial politics
could not solve the problem, and the powers that be in Turkey today are
afraid to confront the reality of the Kurdish problem," Turk said at a
conference titled "Dialogue for a Solution," held at Istanbul’s Bilgi
University. "We see the chief of general staff make a statement from
Washington. He objects not to us, but to the process being undertaken,"
Turk said. "He responds to the president and prime minister by saying
it is us [the military] that matters."

"We now see that the state is beginning to realize that the Kurdish
problem cannot be solved by old methods and is being forced to confront
the issue," he said, adding that the Kurds have demands of their own
for the solution of this problem that are being expressed clearly.

"The DTP, with the support of the Kurdish population in the southeast
region, is working toward a democratic solution in Parliament," Turk
said. The outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, has also stated
that a solution through dialogue and peaceful methods is viable after
30 years of armed conflict, he said. "It is clear that there is no
project on the table despite the president saying ‘Good things will
happen’ and ‘The Kurdish problem is Turkey’s most important problem,’"
Turk said, adding that there is no plan at the moment to resolve the
problem through democratic means.

ARMENIAN CEC DEFEATS ANC’S CLAIM ON RECOGNIZING RESULTS OF ELECTION FOR YEREVAN COUNCIL OF ELDERS INVALID

ArmInfo
2009-06-08 11:52:00

ArmInfo. At June 6 extraordinary session, Central Election Committee
of Armenia defeated the claim of the Armenian National Congress on
recognizing the results of the election of Yerevan Elders invalid.

According to CEC Chairman Garegin Azaryan, the claim and the documents
provided contained no substantiations for recognition of the election
results invalid. The decision was taken with 6 votes ‘for’ and 2
‘against’.

Representative of "Heritage" party Zoya Tadevosyan and representative
of ARFD Hamlet Abrahamyan voted against this decision. Z. Tadevosyan
thinks these elections were the most discreditable in our
history. ‘Unfortunately, you cardinally changed your opinion several
days later, and you are cannot find a civil will to deny what is
called barbarism. CEC chairman said the documents submitted by ANC
were composed primarily incorrectly. ANC’s authorized representative
to CEC Patvakan Hovakimyan said the Commission did not dare to consider
each submitted appeal point by point once again.

GAZPROM-ARMENIA COOPERATION SUCCESS

ARKA
June 5, 2009

YEREVAN, June 5. /ARKA/. Alexey Miller, Gazprom Board Chairman,
believes that the Russian company’s cooperation with Armenia is
successful.

Referring to the Gazprom press service, RIA Novosti reports that the
sides agreed on a gradual transition to the European pricing system,
with preferential treatment of Armenia and simultaneous consolidation
of Gazprom’s positions on the Armenian energy market. Gazprom
plans to expand its presence in Armenia by increasing its share in
ArmRosgazprom.

The ArmRosgazprom CJSC is exclusive distributor of the Russian gas
in Armenia. The company was founded in 1997 by the Gazprom OJSC (80%)
and the RA Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources (20%).

"Our partnership involves not only the gas sector, but also the
electric energy one," Miller said.

ACCORDING TO SAMVEL FARMANIAN, FACT-FINDING COMMITTEE MEMBERS FAILED TO GET FREE OF THEIR POLITICAL AGENDA AND ACT AS REALLY INDEPENDENT EXPERTS

NOYAN TAPAN
JUNE 4, 2009
YEREVAN

YEREVAN, JUNE 4, NOYAN TAPAN. "Time showed that being nominated by
political forces, fact-finding committee members, unfortunately, failed
to get free of their political agenda and act as independent experts,
a circumstance, without which fact-finding committee’s existence
becomes problematic, which, in its turn, led to the current atmosphere
in the committee and in essence, failure of committee’s activity,"
RA President’s Spokesperson Samvel Farmanian said answering Radio
Liberty’s question.

He said that formation of an independent fact-finding committee
of experts was the manifestation of RA President’s political will
and efficient cooperation with European structures. According to
S. Farmanian, the authorities were convinced that the fact-finding
committee established outside official circles and consisting of
independent experts could meet public expectations and provide serious
assistance to the NA Ad-hoc Committee in the issue of revealing the
causes of the the 2008 March 1-2 incidents.

MOSCOW STRUGGLING TO TRANSFORM CSTO INTO A "RUSSIAN NATO"
Pavel Felgenhauer

Jamestown Foundation
he=1&tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=35085&tx_ttnew s%5BbackPid%5D=7&cHash=30c1d0ab97
June 4 2009

After the war with Georgia last August, Moscow has attempted to
transform the Russian-dominated seven-member Collective Security Treaty
Organization (CSTO) – a loose alliance that has served mostly as a
forum for security consultations – into a military organization that
might counterbalance NATO. During the Russian invasion of Georgia,
no CSTO ally provided any assistance, or recognized the independence
of the Georgian separatist regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. In
February at a summit in Moscow, the presidents of Russia, Belarus,
Armenia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan announced
the creation of a new CSTO rapid-reaction force. President Dmitry
Medvedev declared the force will be "adequate in size, effective,
armed with the most modern weapons and must be on par with NATO forces"
(EDM, February 5). It is well understood in Moscow that even a symbolic
military contribution is important politically. It is always better
to be heading a coalition of the willing, than to be a lone aggressor.

It was announced that a legally binding agreement to create the
Collective Operational Reaction Force or CORF will be signed at
the next CSTO summit in Moscow on June 14. Before that, a series of
meetings of other senior officials (defense ministers, secretaries of
the national security councils and foreign ministers) will finalize the
draft documents, prepared by the CSTO Secretariat. According to Russian
officials, establishing the CORF as well as further plans to create
a large permanent allied armed force in Central Asia will transform
the CSTO "into a NATO-like structure." The Russian foreign ministry
suggested that the permanent allied armed force in Central Asia will
defend the region from "outside aggression" and among other components
will include a fleet in the Caspian Sea (Kommersant, May 29).

This week the CSTO defense ministers’ meeting in Moscow ended
in failure – there was no agreement on the CORF. The CSTO
Secretary-General Nikolai Bordyuzha told journalists that Armenia
and Uzbekistan had blocked progress, "with Armenia demanding a more
concrete date for when the CORF will become operational." Bordyuzha
hoped that "by June 14, just before the summit, everything will be
ready for signing by the presidents" (Interfax, June 3).

The Uzbek president Islam Karimov signed the initial CORF agreement
in February with reservations, avoiding committing Uzbek forces to a
permanent structure, instead participating on a case-by-case basis
(Interfax, February 4). Apparently, Tashkent has continued to be
skeptical of the potential of the new force. Armenia also sees a
genuine external threat with an unresolved conflict with Azerbaijan
since the 1990’s over Karabakh, and an uneasy relationship with
Turkey. Armenia clearly wants a strong commitment of military aid
in a possible crisis – not an open-ended promise to intervene in
theory. The Central Asian CSTO countries including Uzbekistan,
see internal threats from Islamists and political opponents, but
no genuine external threat, at least while the U.S. and NATO remain
committed to Afghanistan and the Taliban does not move in force to
the borders of former Soviet Central Asia -as occurred in 2000.

The Russian defense ministry announced it is ready to commit the
bulk of the CORF troops – the 98th airborne division and the 31st
air-assault brigade. There are plans in Moscow to create joint Special
Forces within the CORF framework for antiterrorist operations. The
CSTO defense ministers were shown Russian-made uniforms and weapons,
which the defense ministry hopes they will purchase for their CORF
troops – standardizing their appearance and at least promoting a
display of interoperability (ITAR-TASS, June 3). Russian officials
also hope that Belarus, Kazakhstan and Tajikistan will each commit
a brigade together with special units. Kyrgyzstan will be asked to
provide a battalion. The Armenian and Uzbek commitment remains unclear
(Nezavisimaya Gazeta, June 3).

The Belarusian constitution does not allow the commitment of its
troops for combat abroad. In February Minsk angrily rebuffed Moscow,
and announced it does not plan to change its law, insisting that its
CORF contingent might only be used on Belarusian territory (Kommersant,
February 10). Recently, relations between Moscow and Minsk have become
more strained (EDM, June 2). Medvedev has described recent critical
remarks by Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenka as "unacceptable"
(Interfax, June 3). Uzbekistan is in a simmering conflict with its
CSTO neighbor Tajikistan, and has accused Kyrgyzstan of harboring
Islamist terrorists, and closed its border (EDM, May 28).

There are of course constant differences amongst NATO members, but it
is hardly the model which Medvedev had in mind, when he first announced
plans to create a Russian version of the Atlantic Alliance. There
are well-established procedures within NATO to settle differences,
but Moscow bureaucrats do not appear to have grasped the notion of
patient consensus building.

According to leaks from the CSTO secretariat in Moscow, the grand
plans of building the CORF have already been watered down. The
CORF troops will remain on national territory and under national
jurisdiction. There will be no CORF permanent joint staff or
command. The force will be assembled, a commander appointed and a staff
created whenever missions are approved by an emergency summit of the
CSTO presidents. In the latest example of Moscow-style bureaucracy,
it was proposed that the CORF commander will be appointed from the
nation on whose territory any operation is conducted (Nezavisimaya
Gazeta, June 3). The CORF appears at present to be stillborn -or
perhaps Moscow wants any plausible legal framework for possible future
intervention in neighboring states placed under the CSTO flag.

AZERBAIJANI AND ARMENIAN PRESIDENTS DISCUSS THE NAGORNO KARABAKH SOLUTION PROCESS

APA
June 4 2009
Azerbaijan

St Petersburg. R. Metleboghlu – APA. Azerbaijani and Armenian
presidents Ilham Aliyev and Serzh Sargsyan met in Baltiyskaya Zvezda
Hotel of St Petersburg, Russia.

The presidents held a tete-a-tete meeting at first and then the
OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs joined them in three-hour large meeting,
press secretary of the President Azer Gasimov told APA St Petersburg
correspondent. Gasimov said the presidents had discussed the current
state and prospects of the solution process of the Nagorno Karabakh
problem. They did not hold a press conference after the meeting.

CATALOGUE OF URARTU TIMES EXHIBITS TO BE PUBLISHED IN 2-3 YEARS

/PanARMENIAN.Net/
04.06.2009 13:26 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Erebuni Museum (Yerevan) and Hermitage (Saint
Petersburg) have agreed to issue 2 catalogues of Urartu times exhibits
kept in European museums.

"Works have been held for three months already. Over 1000 photographs
were collected. But there is still much to be done. The catalogues
will be published in 2 or 3 years," Erebuni Museum director Ashot
Piliposyan told a PanARMENIAN.Net reporter.

He also said the Russian side will cover a part of expenses.