Author: Chilingarian Babken

KARABAKH AUTHORITIES FULLY TRUST ARMENIAN LEADER – POLITICIAN

Mediamax
July 28 2009
Armenia

Yerevan, 28 July: The Nagornyy Karabakh authorities fully entrust the
negotiating process to Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan, a member
of the Pubic Council and the leader of the Christian Democratic
Party, Khosrov Harutyunyan, said after a meeting with officials and
representatives of public organizations of the NKR [Nagornyy Karabakh
Republic] in Stepanakert.

Harutyunyan pointed out today that Nagornyy Karabakh’s desire to
directly participate in the negotiations does not mean that there is
distrust towards the Armenian authorities. Harutyunyan said that in
any case, the resolution of the conflict will not come into force if
it does not suit Nagornyy Karabakh.

Speaking about the "Madrid principles", Harutyunyan noted that there is
significant progress in these principles in terms of a fair resolution
of the conflict, however, certain provisions need to be discussed.

Commenting on bellicose statements by the Azerbaijani side, Harutyunyan
said that "the Armenians in Nagornyy Karabakh are confident about their
military potential, and this is not self-confidence, but confidence
based on the facts".

FOOTBALL PLAYER YURA MOVSISYAN ANNOUNCED MLS PLAYER OF WEEK

Noyan Tapan
July 29, 2009

WASHINGTON, JULY 29, NOYAN TAPAN – ARMENIANS TODAY. Major League Soccer
announced Real Salt Lake forward Yura Movsisyan player of the week.

Movsisyan performed excellently in last Friday’s game against FC
Dallas securing his team’s victory on the second half with two goals.

The 21-year-old Armenian-born player now has six goals and is the
second on the club to Robbie Findley. Movsisyan who began his career
in 2007 in Kansas City has 13 goals in 38 games in the MLS. He will
play in Denmark in 2010.

Cbc.ca reported this.

ARMENIAN FOREIGN MINISTRY REFUTES THE REPORT ABOUT THE ARREST OF A GROUP OF LOCAL ARMENIANS IN ISTANBUL

ArmInfo
2009-07-29 19:32:00

ArmInfo. Head of the PR Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs
of Armenia Tigran Balayan has refuted the report about the arrest of
a group of local Armenians in Istanbul.

He says that investigation is underway but no people have yet been
arrested.

Meanwhile, the Turkish mass media report that a group of Istanbul
Armenians have been arrested for lending money to fishing companies
of Kumkapi area at a very high interest. The source says that the
department for combat with financial crimes has arrested 13 suspects.

Armenian National Committee – Western Region
104 North Belmont Street, Suite 200
Glendale, California 91206
Phone: 818.500.1918
Fax: 818.246.7353
[email protected]

PRESS RELEASE

April 29, 2009

Contact: Andrew Kzirian
Tel: (818) 500-1918

ANC-WR Combats Prejudice in Glendale

— Challenges Teacher for Questioning Armenian-American Patriotism

Los Angeles, CA – Below are excerpts from recent commentary pieces
published by the Glendale News Press pertaining to the Armenian Youth
Federation (AYF) of the Western United States. The ANC-WR learned that
on April 16, 2009, Dan Kimber, a teacher in the Glendale Unified
School District, authored a piece criticizing the Armenian Youth
Federation (AYF) for being `un-American’. The story can be read here:

009/04/17/columns/gnp-kimber0417.txt

Here is a relevant excerpt from Kimber’s piece:

`The whole attitude seems to me to be, in a word, un-American. (Kimber
referring to the AYF’s mission). I know that there will be many in
this community who will disagree with me, but my gut feeling – no,
make that an absolute conviction – is that the Armenian Youth
Federation, or any organization for that matter that dedicates itself
to a `stick to your own kind’ philosophy, is out of step with the
professed ideals of this country. Their ethnocentric behavior
encourages the very kind of separateness that many in our community
and in our schools are fighting against. Under the guise of cultural
integrity, national pride or whatever high-sounding phrases one might
summon, any organization that would write such a sentence displays not
only an ignorance of what this country is all about but promotes a
thinly veiled prejudice as well.’

On April 22, 2009 Vicken Sonentz-Papazian, Chairman of the Armenian
National Committee – Western Region (ANC-WR) and an AYF alumnus,
rebuked Kimber’s piece and outlined the long history of the AYF in the
United States and the roles that its alumni played at important times
in American history.

Link: 23/opinion/community_commentaries/gnp-comment0423. txt

Relevant excerpts from Sonentz-Papazian’s piece are below:

`As an alumnus of the Armenian Youth Federation, I read with a sense
of great consternation Dan Kimber’s woefully misplaced commentary
piece, (`Greet melting pot with open arms,’ Friday) which completely
mischaracterizes the origins and purpose of the organization.’

`In 1933, when Njdeh turned his attention from fighting successive
campaigns against the Turkish and then communist invaders to saving a
desperate and scattered nation, half of which was held captive under
Soviet rule, the other half attempting to deal with the trauma of
annihilation, the assimilation of Armenian youth truly represented a
step closer to extinction. That same year, in 1933, it was Njdeh that
nurtured and advised one founding member, Col. Harry Sachaklian. A
decade later Sachaklian took the lessons he learned, under the
tutelage of Njdeh and as a member of the Armenian Youth Federation
when he served with distinction as a military aide to then-Gen. Dwight
Eisenhower, the Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in Europe.’

On April 23, 2009, Kimber apologized to the AYF for his previous
remarks and elaborated on his position.

Link: 24/columns/gnp-kimber0424.txt

Relevant excerpts from Kimber’s response:

`And now about last week’s column. I received more than 50 responses
from the good people in our community, more than any column I have
written in the past six years. The subject was assimilation, and the
object was a sentence that I came across in writing a student
recommendation that read like a mission statement from the Armenian
Youth Federation. I have since learned, and probably should have
researched before I wrote the article, that the federation has done a
world of good for more than 70 years and did not deserve this slap for
one (however misguided) sentence. My apologies to the Armenian Youth
Federation.’

The Armenian National Committee – Western Region is the largest and
most influential Armenian American grassroots advocacy organization in
the Western United States. Working in coordination with a network of
offices, chapters, and supporters throughout the Western United States
and affiliated organizations around the country, the ANC-WR promotes
awareness of the Armenian American community on a broad range of
issues.

USAN SENDS LETTER TO PRESIDENT OBAMA REGARDING NAGORNO-KARABAKH CONFLICT

State Telegraph Agency of the Republic of Azerbaijan
July 26, 2009 Sunday

In light of a flurry of activity regarding the peaceful settlement of
the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict – a region of Azerbaijan occupied
by Armenia – with statements and phone calls by President
Obama, statements by the Presidents of Russia and France, OSCE
Chairwoman-in-Office and OSCE Minsk Group co-chairmen, as well as
aggressive and unhelpful rhetoric emanating from the radical Armenian
groups in U.S. and abroad, the Board of Directors of the U.S. Azeris
Network (USAN) has sent a letter to President Obama yesterday.

We present abriged version of the letter.

With foreign policy and relations with the world taking a center
stage, particularly with the Eurasian region and Muslim world in
special focus, we welcome your active engagement to settle the
Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh (NK) conflict, to depoliticize
the Armenian claims against Turkey, and to engage Turkey more in the
Caucasus peace process, as well as increase trade, economic and other
relations between the regional nations.

As Azerbaijani-Americans, we greatly appreciate your joint declaration
with Presidents of France and Russia, your phone calls about NK
conflict with President Aliyev and President Gul, the reinvigorated
work of the OSCE Minsk Group of which U.S. is a co-chair, the more
equitable and fair foreign assistance FY2010 requests in line with
previous years requests. We urge you, Vice President Biden, Secretary
Clinton and your Administration to step up such positive efforts in
the future, as well as visiting the U.S. strategic ally Azerbaijan
to witness the challenges and effects of the occupation of 16% of
Azerbaijan and displacement of some 12% of its population by Armenia.

Our key aspiration is the liberation of all occupied Azerbaijani lands
through the peaceful resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict on
the basis of Azerbaijan`s territorial integrity. We believe that one
of our most important objectives as a community of people tracing
their heritage to the land of Azerbaijan is to educate our government
and lawmakers to assist in enhancement of the bilateral ties between
Azerbaijan and the United States. Azerbaijani-Americans support
the long-term strategic allied relations between the United States
and Azerbaijan, and we fully encourage the development of bilateral
cooperation between America and all Turkic nations.

Hence, we welcome your positive steps in resolving the NK conflict,
and offer you our full support in light of relentless criticism from
ultranationalist and maximalist Armenian special interest groups that
have built their entire raison d`etre on creating and perpetuating
only negativism, hatemongering and intimidation.

With this said, we want to remind that it is Armenia that is occupying
Azerbaijan for almost two decades now, not the other way around, and it
is Armenia that caused almost a million Azerbaijani refugees and IDPs,
and according to U.S. Government, committed crimes against humanity in
Azerbaijan, such as the largest war crime in the region, the Khojaly
Massacre in 1992. Armenia`s creation of a straw-man in the form of
the so-called Nagorno-Karabakh Republic (NKR), an entity recognized
by no one, including its own creator, is especially unhelpful to the
peace process and causes nothing but irritation and tensions in the
region. With multiple U.S. Government statements clearly calling
a spade a spade, and with the U.N. Security Council adopting four
resolutions calling for the immediate withdrawal of Armenian military
forces from Azerbaijan, to restore the territorial integrity and
sovereignty of Azerbaijan and the well-being of its people, these
are not concessions as the Armenian side improperly labels them,
but necessary preconditions of the international law and the will of
the people all around Armenia, to restore justice and fairness.

It should be further stressed once again, that we all fully and
unequivocally support the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan. No
question about it, NK has to remain part of Azerbaijan. Meanwhile,
we also recognize the other Helsinki Final Act principles of equal
rights and self-determination of peoples, which are envisioned within
the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan, and have been agreed to by
the Armenian President in Moscow last year.

KARABAKH DEFENSE MINISTER: WE MAY HAVE TO GO ON THE OFFENSIVE

WPS Agency
DEFENSE and SECURITY (Russia)
July 27, 2009 Monday
Russia

Defense minister of Nagorno-Karabakh lt. gen. Movses Akopyan said
Karabakh army had made some advances in the northern direction the
previous year. "If we feel the need to consolidate our position
in, say, Agdam district, we will do so, strictly for the defense
purposes. We have no others. We might have to go on the offensive,
if we have to", said Akopyan. He said in case there were renewed
hostilities with Azerbaijan, Karabakh army would do everything possible
to force Azerbaijan to negotiate. The minister said there were plans
to liberate parts of Shaumyan and Martunin districts occupied by
Azerbaijan, in case of a war.

According to the defense minister, the world crisis had not affected
the Karabakh army. Pay to the services had been increased. When asked
about Karabakh not being party to the negotiations, he said it was
a sign, in his opinion, that there was a long way to go to achieve
Karabakh settlement. "Everybody understands it is not possible to solve
the Karabakh problem unless the voice of the Karabakh people be heard",
said Akopyan. He said it was ill-advised to discuss "any concessions
unless Karabakh were invited to take part in the negotiations".

RUSSIAN EXPERT: OPENING OF ARMENIA-TURKEY BORDER TO MAKE ARMENIAN EXPORTS CHEAPER

Today.Az
s/54099.html
July 24 2009
Azerbaijan

Opening of the Armenia-Turkey border will reduce cost of Armenian
exports specifically that of mining products, Transition Economies
Institute expert Lev Freinkman said.

"Opening of Armenia-Turkey border will have more positive impact
rather than negative," he said.

The expert said one of the possible advantages is that it will make
exports specifically that of the mining goods cheaper and will open
Turkey’s market for Armenian electricity and building materials.

"Turkey has larger, competitive and attractive market," the expert
said.

There are also two disadvantages for the Armenian market from the
opening of the border. First, agriculture in Armenia’s agriculture
faces hard times because of the blockade which could end as soon as
transport becomes cheaper.

Secondly, there is a risk that the government "will be so pleased
at opening of the border that it will not think about other things",
he said.

At the same time Freinkman is confident that opening the border is
not the solution to all problems of the Armenian economy.

"Railways and open borders are not enough without de-monopolization
of economy and addressing high cost of doing business in Armenia,"
he said.

ARMENIA APPOINTS NEW AMBASSADORS TO EGYPT AND ITALY

armradio.am
23.07.2009 13:28

On July 22 President Serzh Sargsyan signed a decree on releasing
Ruben Karapetyan from the duties of the Ambassador Extraordinary
and Plenipotentiary of the Republic of Armenia to the Arab Republic
of Egypt.

Ruben Karapetyan was appointed Armenia’s Ambassador Extraordinary
and Plenipotentiary to the Republic of Italy (seat in Rome).

According to another presidential decree, Armen Melkonyan was appointed
Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Republic of
Armenia to the Arab Republic of Egypt.

ANCA’S STATEMENT

A1+
23 July 2009

The Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA) issued the following
statement in regard to the Nagorno Karabakh peace process:

On the occasion of the July 17-18 meetings of the Presidents of
Armenia and Azerbaijan in Moscow, in regard to the Nagorno Karabakh
peace process, under the auspices of the Organization for Security
and Cooperation in Europe Minsk Group (OSCE), the ANCA reiterates its
long-standing position that any resolution must be acceptable to the
people of both Armenia and Nagorno Karabakh.

The meetings follow the joint declaration by the presidents of the
United States, France and Russia on July 10, at the recent Group of
Eight conference in Italy, in which the presidents instructed the
‘mediators to present to the Presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan an
updated version of the Madrid Document of November 2007, the Co-Chairs’
last articulation of the Basic Principles,’ and urged the parties to
‘resolve the few remaining differences….’

The issues are complex and will require time to reach a solution that
is acceptable to all parties, and most specifically to the citizens
of the Nagorno Karabakh Republic. Throughout the ongoing negotiation
process, and again on July 16, the Armenian Government has stated that
no agreement can be reached without the concurrence of the government
and citizens of Nagorno Karabakh. We fully endorse that policy and urge
the Minsk Group Co-Chairs to ensure that the government of Nagorno
Karabakh joins the negotiation process as soon as possible. We note
that the OSCE Co-Chairs have repeatedly, and as recently as July 8,
called for the inclusion of Nagorno Karabakh.

We urge the United States, in particular, to ensure the fulfillment
of President Barack Obama’s campaign pledge ‘to work for a lasting
and durable settlement of the Nagorno Karabakh conflict that is
agreeable to all parties, and based upon America’s founding commitment
to the principles of democracy and self determination.’ The ANCA
also recalls the leadership of the United States Senate and the
passage of S.J. Res. 178 in 1989, which expressed U.S. support
for ‘the fundamental rights and the aspirations of the people of
Nagorno-Karabagh.’ Moreover, the ANCA strongly supports the fundamental
rights of the people of Nagorno Karabakh, and its independence from
foreign rule and oppression. To that end, we support the efforts of
the governments of Nagorno Karabakh and Armenia.

For more than two decades the ANCA has committed its resources to
the pursuit of the just cause of the Armenian people of Nagorno
Karabakh. We have played an instrumental role in Congress, from
the Senate adoption of S.J. Res. 178, to the enactment of Section
907 of the FREEDOM Support Act, which prohibits U.S. assistance to
Azerbaijan until its dual blockades of Armenia and Nagorno Karabakh
are lifted. We will continue to strongly support maximum assistance and
aid to Nagorno Karabakh to further promote its democratic development
and overcome the consequences of Azerbaijan’s aggression.

Therefore, we call upon the presidents of the United States, France
and Russia, whose nations collectively serve as the OSCE’s Minsk
Group co-chairs, to denounce Azerbaijan’s ongoing war rhetoric and its
threats for a resumption of military action. A new war will not only
undermine the peace process, but will also lead to the destabilization
of the South Caucasus.

The ANCA stands united with all Armenians to protect the freedom and
security of the Nagorno Karabakh people in the face of these most
serious external threats. The suffering endured and the sacrifices
made by Armenians since the Armenian Genocide deserves nothing less.

KARABAKH WAITING FOR "UPDATED PRINCIPLES"
Siranush Muradyan

"Radiolur"
23.07.2009 17:48

The Madrid Principles include six points, none of which is
pro-Armenian, political scientist Levon Shirinyan told a press
conference today.

"Which one of the principles is pro-Armenian: the return of
territories, creation of a small corridor, or a different one?"

"It’s necessary to refuse from illusions," the political scientist
declared. "It’s often said that the issue cannot be solved without
the concurrence of the people of Karabakh. It can well be solved as
it happened in 1923," Levon Shirinyan said.

Spokesman for NKR President, political scientist David Babayn said
speaking about the Madrid Principles today is not very correct, because
today many speak about "updated principles," and we still have to wait
for their clarification. He is assured that there is contradiction
with the basic OSCE document, because Karabakh does not participate
in the negotiations today. "However, it’s good that negotiations are
under way, although without the participation of Nagorno Karabakh."

Levon Shirinyan assessed the publicized Madrid Principles as simply a
response to the shaky global policy, where the relations between the
United States and China are aggravating. To reinforce their positions,
the Presidents of the two countries seek Russia’s partner ship,
while Russia is constantly eluding.