Author: Felekian Ara

NKR PRESIDNET RECEIVED THE SOUTH OSSETIAN DELEGATION

ArmRadio.am
11.12.2006 18:00

December 11 NKR President Arkady Ghukasyan received members of the
delegation of the South Ossetian Republic headed by Deputy Foreign
Minister Alan Plievm, who had arrived in Nagorno Karabakh to observe
the Constitutional referendum.

Acting Press Secretary of NKR President told ArmInfo that the
guests conveyed to President Arkady Ghukasyan the congratulations
of the Ossetian President Eduard Kokoyti on the occasion of the
Constitutional referendum. During the conversation the interlocutors
attached importance to the existence of a precedent of peaceful and
civil settlement of conflicts for the resolution of issues in the
region, regional security, stability and cooperation between peoples.

ARMENIAN MINISTER HAILS COOPERATION WITH NATO

ITAR-TASS, Russia
Dec 7 2006

Yerevan, 6 December: The expansion of cooperation between Armenia
and NATO "is perforce and aimed at countering the challenges," the
secretary of the Armenian national security council under the president
and defence minister, Serzh Sarkisyan, said today at a meeting with
the head of the European Commission Delegation to Armenia, ambassador
Per Eklund.

"Mutual relations with NATO are one of the components of Armenia’s
national security," the minister said.

The defence minister believes that "the republic’s involvement in
European Neighbourhood Policy was a turning point in the relations
between Armenia and the European Union".

He also noted the importance of Armenia’s Action Plan adopted on
14 November within the framework of this policy and activity of the
commission to coordinate work with the European organizations which
is being headed by Armenian President Robert Kocharyan.

FRIENDS WITH NATO FOR RUSSIA’S SAKE?
by Karen Abramjan
Translated by A. Ignatkin

Source: Severny Kavkaz (Nalchik), No 47, November 28 – December 4, 2006, EV
Agency WPS
DEFENSE and SECURITY (Russia)
December 6, 2006 Wednesday

REGARDLESS OF THE SELF-PROCLAIMED POLICY OF EQUIDISTANCE FROM ALL
CENTERS OF POWER, YEREVAN IS ON ITS WAY TO FULL STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIP
WITH NATO; Armenia drifts in the direction of NATO.

NATO Command has planned a major strategic exercise for April 27 –
May 13, 2007. Joint Aspiration’2007 will be coordinated from the
territories of Armenia and Germany. According to Colonel Samvel Atojan,
Chief of the Directorate of Communications and Automatic Systems of the
Armenian General Staff, the exercise will be run "to maintain reliable
communications between the armies of the participants." The exercise
planning conference that took place in the middle of November, in
Yerevan, attracted more than 260 servicemen from 38 countries. Armenia
has participated in the exercises of the series since 2002, first as an
observer and as a full member afterwards. Atojan made special emphasis
on the choice of Armenia as the location of the planning conference.

Observers comment in the meantime that Yerevan’s once veiled
geopolitical flirting with the Alliance is rapidly evolving
into a devastating obsession. Regardless of the self-proclaimed
policy of "complementary" equidistance from all centers of power,
representatives of the Armenian establishment angle for what is known
as Mr. Saakashvili’s position. Namely, for full strategic partnership
with the Alliance. The only difference is that the president of
Georgia openly admits it while the Armenian authorities camouflage
their drift with not particularly convincing rhetoric on "advantages"
of the CIS Collective Security Treaty Organization. Defense Minister
Serj Sarkisjan returned from Iraq the other day and said, "I’ve always
maintained that Armenia’s membership in the CIS Collective Security
Treaty Organization and cooperation with NATO are a continuation of
our mutually complementary policy. Military-political blocs are set
up for and not against something…" This is it then.

Judging by his logic, the CIS Collective Security Treaty Organization
was established for the sake of NATO and NATO exists for the sake
of the CIS Collective Security Treaty Organization. Well, founders
of these organizations will be horrified to hear of this "NATO for
Russia’s sake" hypothesis.

Presentation of the The National Security Concept took place in the
Yerevan State University, the other day. Armenia’s strategic partner,
Russia was mentioned only on the 21st page of the document. Georgia,
the country where the Armenian population of Djavahetia is under
constant pressure, on the first. Richard Kirakosjan, an American
military expert who visited YE not long ago, said that "Armenia’s
dependence on Russia is a major obstacle preventing its integration
into European structures. Instead of emulating relations, Armenia
should become more self-sufficient." That’s what official Yerevan
has been doing.

CURRENT DEVELOPMENTS IN NEGOTIATION PROCESS DISCUSSED AT NKR SECURITY COUNCIL SITTING

Noyan Tapan
Dec 04 2006

STEPANAKERT, DECEMBER 4, NOYAN TAPAN. An extended sitting of the
NKR Security Council chaired by the NKR President Arkady Ghukasian
with the participation of government members and the heads of the
NKR National Assembly took place on December 4. At the beginning
of the sitting, A. Ghukasian heard the reports of the heads of
the respective departments on the sitiation in the contact line of
the Armenian and Azerbaijani armed forces. A. Ghukasian presented
the results of his visit to the US in November and his meetings
with religious, social-political, cultural and business circles
of the Armenian community there. The NKR President appreciated the
participation of American Armenians and the Armenians in general in
the Hayastan All-Armenian Fund’s television marathon for restoration
of the NKR’s Hadrut region. He said that the results of the money
raising and the constant interest in NKR’s revival show once again the
Armenian people’s faith and confidence in the future of Artsakh and
its people. On behalf of the Artsakh people, he expressed gratitude to
all participants of the marathon once again. Then the Security Council
discussed issues on the agenda. Those present spoke about the latest
developments of the negotiation process, discussed the process of
preparing for the referendum on the NKR Constitution and exchanged
opinions about the 2007 draft state budget of the NKR developed
by the government. After becoming acquainted with the government’s
report on the work done in the last period and the current issues,
the NKR President gave respective instructions.

WE ARE ONLY TWO WEEKS FROM AN EXISTENTIAL EXPLOSION
Martin Kettle

Guardian Unlimited, UK
Dec 2 2006

If the European Union now spurns Turkey, it will deservedly stand
accused of historic dishonesty and perfidy

Today, as in the past, Turkey embodies transcendent political
questions. Can west and east live in harmony? How can secular and
religious values best coexist? Are minorities and human rights
properly respected? This week Pope Benedict trod a more exemplary
path through these difficult issues than some had expected. Now
the European Union must do the same if it is to avoid becoming a
protectionist irrelevance and, perhaps, if it is to survive at all.

In spite of all its problems, the mutual embrace between the west
and Turkey is a great project of civilisation and law. Yet events are
pushing both sides towards an epochal confrontation at this month’s EU
summit. We are a mere two weeks away from an existential explosion
which could end with Europe defining itself as a place in which
Muslims are not welcome, and with modern Turkey turning away from
the westernising path that has been fundamental to its whole existence.

We would be crazy to allow either thing to happen.

It is futile to deny that Turkey is in its own distinct but deep sense
a part of Europe. Like Britain it is a nation of the periphery, but
there is no European network of importance – from the Champions League
and the Eurovision Song Contest to Nato and the Council of Europe –
of which Turkey is not a part. The sole exception is the EU.

Turkey first applied for associate membership as long ago as 1959. It
has been an associate since 1963. It asked for full membership in
1987. Accession negotiations finally began in 2005. Even optimists
think it unlikely Turkey will join the EU before 2015, and then only
with significant transitional arrangements. So what is this latest
crisis really about? Turkey has been consistent, patient and obliging
in its pro-European policy. Yet since 1959 it has been leapfrogged
by 21 new member states – and may yet be beaten to membership by five
others from the Balkans (two of which have large Muslim populations).

If Europe now spurns Turkey, it will deservedly stand accused of
historic dishonesty and perfidy.

None of this is to deny the challenges. Turkey would be physically
the largest nation in the EU (it is more than twice the size of
Germany). Its membership would propel the union’s borders from the
Danube almost to the Euphrates. Within a few years, Turkey would have
more people than any other EU member. Yet Turks would be among the
poorest and least skilled EU citizens. In the UN development project’s
human development index, Turkey ranks 92nd, well below every other
European nation, including Albania. Corruption remains a nationwide
blight. Measured in this way, Turkey is more a Middle Eastern nation
than a European one.

Nor can we dismiss Turkey’s mistreatment of minorities and abuses of
human rights. It is in denial about Armenia, has fought a brutal war
against the Kurds and remains reluctant to acknowledge its Greek and
Orthodox traditions. Last year it put the most famous Turk of our era,
the Nobel prize winner Orhan Pamuk, on trial merely for criticising
the taboo on discussing these events. Ten days ago the Gazi University
professor Atilla Yayla was dismissed for questioning the cult of Kemal
Ataturk. This week Turkey’s ardently Kemalist president, Ahmet Necdet
Sezer, vetoed a new religious freedom law.

Yet Turkey is unquestionably changing. The economy has grown by a
third in the past five years. Growth this year is at 8%. Urbanisation
is rapid, especially in Anatolia, parts of which have gone from being
like Kosovo to being like Ireland in under a generation. In October
the OECD praised Turkey for adopting far-reaching structural reforms.

The prospect of EU membership has been a catalyst for reform across
Turkish governance. Under the prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan –
who owes his power in large part to the emerging Anatolian middle class
– Turkey has taken what the BBC correspondent Chris Morris describes
as its great leap forward. In 2004, an independent commission under
Martti Ahtisaari, of the UN, concluded that reform was being carried
through with "unprecedented determination and efficiency". Ahtisaari
spoke of a "silent revolution". Under Erdogan modern Turkey is one
of the healthier men of Europe.

It may seem incredible that this sweeping transformation and radical
possibility are held hostage by the Greek Cypriot regime in Nicosia,
which uses its veto to block almost all aspects of Turkish EU entry.

Yet on one level that is why Turkey’s bid may founder in Brussels in
two weeks. Granted, Turkey is not without blame for the impasse – it
could call Nicosia’s bluff. And its pace of reform has slowed since
the disastrous decision to admit Nicosia to the EU in 2004 without a
solution of the Cyprus conflict. Even so, common sense says something
more important is in play here.

That something is political and public opinion in the many parts of
the EU that oppose Turkish membership, yet prefer to hide behind the
Cyprus dispute. Public opinion is against Turkish entry in 15 of the
EU’s 25 states. In Austria, still affecting to be traumatised by the
siege of Vienna in 1683 and where a referendum has been promised,
opinion is six-to-one against. In France, where there will also be
a vote, opponents lead by 15%. The real problem about any coming
together, in other words, does not lie in Turkey but in the EU.

The west has always been prejudiced against the Turks, said Ataturk,
adding that the Turks have always moved towards the west. Perhaps
the imminent danger to the Turkish bid is merely another swing in a
ceaseless cycle. Yet we must be clear what message the derailing of
the talks would send and what the consequences would be. As the newly
published Cambridge history of the later Ottoman Empire reminds us,
the defeat of 1683 cost the grand vizier his life and the sultan his
throne. Having staked so much on Europe, the Erdogan government would
risk being swept aside by resurgent Kemalism or resurgent Islamism,
or perhaps both. At best, Turkish reformers would fall victim to the
melancholy huzun of which Pamuk writes. At worst the country could
become fratricidally ungovernable and might look to Iran or Russia
for support.

The cost on the wider stage might even be greater. The impact in the
Muslim world – and among Europe’s own Muslims – of Europe’s symbolic
renunciation of tolerance and pluralism is hard to quantify. But we
can be sure of one thing: al-Qaida would be laughing all the way to
the terrorist training camp.

CBA HEAD: ARMENIA’S NATIONAL SECURITY STRATEGY PURSUES FORWARD-LOOKING GOALS

ARKA News Agency, Armenia
Dec 4 2006

YEREVAN, December 4. /ARKA/. Armenia’s national security strategy
pursues forward-looking goals, Tigran Sargsyan, chairman of the
Central Bank of Armenia, said Monday during the strategy discussion
in National Assembly.

"We live in fast-changing world, where challenges, risks and threats
are changing very quickly. That’s why the document has to undergo
modernization", the CBA head said.

Sargsyan said referring to the world experience, that the document
should be modernized every four or five years.

In his words, the commission members have mulled over the
U.S. intelligence open publications and its world vision for coming
20 years as well as forecast of risks and challenges connected with
Armenia.

The second level of studies was regional and the third national,
the head of the Central Bank said.

"The document has to say what we should do to resist challenges and
risks", he said.

The CBA head said financial and economic security is one of the
Strategy’s components.

He said more detailed documents would be worked out after approval
from the government.

"Working out financial security concept, we come outside Armenia’s
borders, since our financial system includes financial interests of
those economy entities functioning outside Armenia but keeping their
focus on our republic", Sargsyan said.

In his words, these entities are impacting Armenian financial system’s
stability from the outside.

The Signal
Original source:
p;story_id=34757&format=html
Film Makes Weak Case Against Gun Control
Commentary by Willy E. Gutman

On Assignment

The images are gruesome. They elicit a visceral response – part
nausea, part fascination. The atrocities they capture make us retch as
they splash the retina with an acid so corrosive and mesmerizing that
they linger in our mind’s eye long after we’ve stopped looking.

Flaunted in mercifully pithy film clips, evil in all its fulsomeness
is replayed before us. After a while, the images meld into one
swarming mass of broken bodies, blood and gore. This is the idiom of
fear, hatred, insanity and, ultimately, a testament to indifference in
the face of man’s unspeakable inhumanity to man.

Armenia, 1915-17: Nearly 2 million Armenians are massacred by the
Turks. The world looks on with brutish apathy.

The Soviet Union, 1929-45: More than 20 million perish in Stalin’s
gulags, purges and pogroms.

Hitler’s Germany and occupied Europe, 1933-45: Another 20 million –
Jews, gypsies, the physically and mentally challenged, gays,
Freemasons and political dissidents – are slaughtered.

>From 1927-49, ten million Chinese perish at the hands of a
"nationalist" regime, while at least 30 million more are decimated
between 1949 and 1976 during the Maoist "cultural revolution."

In Guatemala, some 300,000 Maya are exterminated during a 20-year
conflict engineered, funded and orchestrated by the United States. The
conflict officially ends in 1981 with a "reconciliation pact" that
whitewashes torture, mass murders and disappearances by exonerating
the criminals and denying the victims’ families any compensation.

>From 1971-79, more than 300,000 civilians are assassinated in Idi
Amin’s Uganda. Guerrilla war and human rights abuses under Milton
Obote (1980-85) claim another 100,000 lives.

Three million people, mostly intellectuals and professionals, are
butchered by Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge from 1975-79. The dead are buried
in mass graves, later to be remembered as the "killing fields." To
save ammunition, the executioners use hammers, axes, spades and bamboo
sticks.

In 1994, tribal discord based on economics rather than ethnicity fuels
the murder of nearly 1 million Tutsis by disgruntled Hutu tribesmen in
Rwanda.

One by one, the images, spasmodic and mindbending, unroll in a
paroxysm of mangled skeletal remains, bleached bones and vacant,
unblinking eyes stilled by incomprehension or death.

Indeed, "Innocents Betrayed," a 58-minute montage of history’s most
infernal moments, aptly articulates the banality of evil.

Produced by "Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership Inc."
(JPFO) and marketed as a documentary, the film deftly intertwines
actual footage with an eloquent narration formulated to associate
firearm registration and confiscation with "death by government."

While chronicling indisputable events, "Innocents Betrayed," by
tenuous twists of logic, suggests that had the victims of the above
holocausts been armed, they might have survived.

Such inference, made post priori, is fallacious in that it assumes
that one event is caused by another merely because it follows it.

Failing to consider factors such as counter evidence – think Masada,
think the Warsaw Ghetto, think Waco, Texas – the film does not
convincingly explain how people would have resisted their tormentors
had they possessed firearms.

All it does is postulate that "disarmament is necessary to make
possible the mass murder of helpless citizens" – ergo, that citizens
should resist gun control and arm themselves.

In search of a rational connection between gun ownership and
protection against the overwhelming force of barbarians, renegade
states, totalitarian regimes and capricious governments, I also read
"Death by Gun Control," co-authored by JPFO executive director Aaron
Zelman and attorney Richard W. Stevens, producers and narrators of
"Innocents Betrayed." What I found, amid a plethora of facts and
sobering statistics, was a stream of illogicality and assumptions
contrived to link gun control with subjugation by an abusive
government, in this case, hypothetically, the U.S. government.

In 73 C.E., rather than face capture by the Romans, 1,000 Jewish
rebels – men, women and children – committed suicide on their
mountaintop stronghold in Masada. There is no empirical evidence that
they could have withstood the Roman onslaught, had they been armed.

Nor would the Jews of the Warsaw Ghetto, brave and indomitable in the
face of Nazi persecution, starvation, disease and deportations have
survived had they been equipped with more weapons. During the
uprising, 13,000 ghetto residents were killed, burned alive and gassed
in bunkers. The remaining 50,000 (from a total population estimated at
half a million), were exterminated at Treblinka and other death camps.

And during the 1993, fifty-one-day siege of the well-armed Branch
Davidian compound in Waco, after weeks of psych-war assaults, sleep
deprivation and all-night broadcasts of recordings of rabbits being
slaughtered, federal agents, backed by Army helicopters, tanks, tear
gas and flammable liquids slaughtered 74 people, among them 12
children. This colossal response to a very minimal threat suggests
that when governments are faced with small arms they will respond with
heavy artillery – perhaps even a nuclear bomb or two (think Hiroshima
and Nagasaki).

I don’t doubt the sincerity of the JPFO’s convictions. I am wary of
its conspicuously undeclared political agenda. Although Innocents
Betrayed is well worth viewing as a graphic reminder of the lunacy of
man, I found it simplistic and utopian at best, deceptive in the sham
implied altruism of its arguments and disturbing in its apocalyptic
romanticizing of gun ownership.

America has a violent and crime-ridden society, and I have yet to
determine whether the Second Amendment – as interpreted by the JPFO –
is part of the problem of part of the solution.

DVD and VHS copies of "Innocents Betrayed" and "Death by Gun Control"
can be purchased from the JFPO, P.O. Box 270143, Hartford, WI 53027,
1-800-869-1884.

Willy E. Gutman of Tehachapi is a veteran journalist on assignment in
Central America since 1991. His column reflects his own views, and not
necessarily those of The Signal.

Copyright: The Signal

PRESENTS ON THEIR WAY TO ARMENIA

The Northern Echo, UK
November 29, 2006

CHILDREN in Armenia will have a happy Christmas this year – thanks
to youngsters in Hurworth.

Pupils at Hurworth School sent 134 shoeboxes, packed with essentials
and presents, to the former soviet republic.

The collection was part of the Samaritan Shoe Box Appeal, Operation
Christmas Child, which sends the boxes to impoverished children across
the world.

Food technology teacher Rita Rees joined in the collection.

"I did a box with a toothbrush, toothpaste, soap, a doll, some crayons,
and a wooden toy.

"All the children have really enjoyed helping others at Christmas.

"We’ve had assemblies about giving, and they’ve all got involved."

The collection was organised by Clare Suddes, head of performing arts.

The Early Learning Centre, in Middlesbrough, also donated toys and
gifts to the appeal.

IRAN WILL MOST PROBABLY ASSIST STABILIZATION OF SITUATION IN IRAQ
By Petros Keshishian

AZG Armenian Daily
30/11/2006

Kofi Anan: Almost a civil war goes on in Iraq

President of Iraq Jalal Talabani arrived in Teheran on an official
visit by the invitation of President of Iran Mahmud Ahmadinejad. The
meeting was to take place two days ago, but was cancelled because of
curfew in Baghdad.

Ahmadinejad asserted that Iran is ready to do everything possible to
help Iraq. He said that progress and prosperity in Iraq will benefit
all the countries of the region. The Iranian President added that
the enemies of Iraq have bought the country to a perplexing state.

On Monday UN Secretary General Kofi Annan declared that immediate
measures must be taken in order to prevent civil war in Iraq. "In
fact it has almost started," he said.

BEAST ON THE MOON TO BE STAGED IN CHICAGO

Armenpress
Nov 29 2006

YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 29, ARMENPRESS: A theater in Chicago, USA, called
Trap Door will stage on December 10 Richard Kalinoski’s play "Beast
on the Moon," written in 1992, which has as its protagonists two 1915
Armenian genocide survivors.

The play since received great acclaim and has been staged all over
the world in regional and community theatres. Beast on the Moon is
a two-act play which depicts the lives of two Armenian genocide
survivors, beginning in 1921 when Aram Tomasian, the portrait
photographer, is 21 and his picture bride, Seta, is an orphan of 15.

This is a beautiful human drama of loyalty to one’s ancestors which
drags with it the constant reliving of a traumatic past, this is a
story of a young newly wed couple coming of age in America where hope
and self reinvention are possible.

According to Illinois state’s genocide education network, the play is
being staged to encourage genocide teaching. Last August the Illinois
State’s Assembly adopted a decision on mandatory teaching of Armenian
genocide at the state’s schools.