Author: Hovhannisian John

MATHEMATICS PROFESSOR PREDICTS ‘BRIGHT’ OPPOSITION FUTURE FOR EX-PARLIAMENT CHAIRMAN

Armenpress
Jun 15 2006

YEREVAN, JUNE 15, ARMENPRESS: A professor of mathematics and chairman
of a tiny party predicted a dramatic change in Armenia’s opposition
landscape today saying two major opposition forces, the National
Unity of Artashes Geghamian and the People’s Party of Armenia of
Stepan Demirchian would be shoved to the background by the Orinats
Yerkir party of ex-parliament chairman Arthur Baghdasarian.

Aram Harutunian, who apart from teaching mathematics at Yerevan
University also heads a tiny party called the National Accord, argued
during a news conference that Baghdasarian’s decision to opt his party
out from the governing coalition and move to the opposition camp has
wreaked havoc to the country’s opposition forces.

The professor went on to argue that while the National Unity and
the People’s Party will continue their course of action separately
the Orinats Yerkir will transform into what he called ‘accumulation
point’ and may win over the Zharangutyun (Heritage) of ex -foreign
minister Raffi Hovhanesian and the radical Hanrapetutyun (Republic)
of Aram Sarkisian and other forces.

Harutunian said he was sure that the chairman of the Orinats Yerkir,
Arthur Baghdasarian, whom he described as ‘a skilled and seasoned
politician’ would be able to materialize this plan and welcomed the
party’s ability to purge itself from undesired elements, meaning a
mass defection of its businessmen members.

CHARGE PRESENTED AGAINST LEVON CHAKHMAKHCHYAN’S COLLEAGUES

ArmRadio.am
14.06.2006 17:55

General Prosecutor’s Office of Russia has presented a charge against
two colleagues of the member of the Federal Council of Russia Levon
Chakhmakhchyan.

"According to point 4 of the Article 159 of the Criminal Code of
Russia a charge has been presented against Chief Accountant of the
Armenian-Russian Business Cooperation Association and Assistant to
the auditor of the Counting Chamber of Russia Armen Hovhannisyan,"
Official Representative of RF General Prosecutor’s Office Natalya
Vishnyakova told "InterFax."

She informed that according to the preliminary investigation, the
arrested demanded US$1.5 million to exclude the negative information
from the report prepared in the result of audit of the Counting
Chamber.

MEETINGS OF KARABAKH CONFLICT PARTIES ESSENTIAL

PanARMENIAN.Net
13.06.2006 13:50 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ “The meetings of the parties to the Nagorno Karabakh
conflict at the level of FMs and Presidents are essential. We should
demonstrate some conduct. This is the demand of the international
community and Armenia and a part of it,” Director of the Caucasus
Media Institute (CMI), political scientist Alexander Iskandaryan
stated in an interview with PanARMENIAN.Net. It’s very important to
keep in contacts with the opposite side. The communication channel
must not be lost. As for the meeting of the Foreign Ministers, it’s
clear. There are no diplomatic relations established between Armenia
and Azerbaijan,” he remarked.

UNESCO CENSORS ARCHIVE DOCUMENTS OF OTTOMAN EMPIRE

Yerevan, JUne 12. ArmInfo. The exhibition of archive documents of
Ottoman Turkey to be held last week in Paris has been put off because
UNESCO has censored some of the documents.

Zaman reports UNESCO to ask Turkey to remove 5 and to replace 2 of 50
documents. The source says that the documents are “friendly letters”
sent by representatives of the Armenian community of Turkey to the
Turkish Sultan in 1889 and 1895. UNESCO says that these documents may
“cause the anger” of the Armenian community of France.

Other sources say that UNESCO demanded this because the documents
were obviously faked.

EX-AZERI LEADER BEGGED FOR APARTMENT
By Anatoly Medetsky
Staff Writer
Aida Sultanova

The Moscow Times, Russia
June 9 2006

The first president of independent Azerbaijan, Ayaz Mutalibov, had
to beg the Kremlin for an apartment after he fled a rebellion in 1992.

Mutalibov left Baku aboard a Russian military plane just three months
into his term. He is wanted in Azerbaijan on charges of negligence
for an Armenian attack in February 1992 that killed hundreds of
Azeris. Baku also accuses him of involvement in a coup plot in 2001.

Mutalibov, who dismissed the accusations as “political intrigue,”
said by telephone that one of the first things he did upon arriving
in Moscow was to ask the Kremlin for a home.

The Presidential Property Department provided him with a state
apartment in 1994, but he was not allowed to register there and had
to apply for a new guest visa every 45 days, Mutalibov recalled. The
government finally donated a four-room apartment to him and his family
in 1997, in the remote district of Zhulebino, where he still lives.

In 1999, then-President Boris Yeltsin granted him the status of
political refugee, and only at the end of last year did he receive
a refugee card allowing him to travel abroad, Mutalibov said.

Despite the apartment problems, Mutalibov said he remained a friend
of Russia. “We think that relations with Russia are a priority for
Azerbaijan because we are neighbors that have long lived as a single
country,” he said. “We are linked by a lot of things — for example,
the fact that about 2 million of my countrymen live here.”

During Mutalibov’s short term as president, Azerbaijan joined the
Commonwealth of Independent States, a loose group that replaced the
Soviet Union.

Mutalibov said Russia had never tried to use him to influence
Azeri politics and that he had not sought the Kremlin’s support for
his political ambitions. He heads the Social Democratic Party of
Azerbaijan, which does not have any seats in the Azeri parliament.

Still a citizen of Azerbaijan, Mutalibov said he hoped to return to
his home country.

“It is a disgrace that the first president of Azerbaijan has to live
abroad,” he said.

“HRANT MATEVOSIAN CREATED A LITERATURE THAT SHOULD BE TREATED AS A WORLD PEAK,” RUSSIAN INTELLECTUALS CONSIDER

Noyan Tapan
Jun 07 2006

YEREVAN, JUNE 7, NOYAN TAPAN. A memorial evening dedicated to great
Armenian writer Hrant Matevosian’s 70th anniversary was held at Moscow
Central House of Writers within the framework of Year of Armenia in
Russia. As Noyan Tapan correspondent was informed by David Matevosian,
Director of the Hrant Matevosian Foundation, the jubilee event was
initiated by the Armenian Embassy in Russia, Russian Federal Agency
of Culture Development, International Association of Russian Writers’
Unions, as well as RF and RA Culture Ministries.

Russian and Armenian intellectuals were also present at the
event. Mikhail Sinelnikov, Felix Kuznetsov, Sergei Shevelyov, Rustam
Ibrahimbekov, Felix Meloyan and Roman Balayan were among them. They
emphasized that H.Matevosian’s creation “unanimously obliges to
treat it as a high world peak and not to think that this literature
is comparable with the samples of the world culture.”

According to them, the generation of the 60-s has left a huge trace
in the world cultural heritage. This is the “generation of war” born
in 1920-40 – Hrant Matevosian, Sergei Parajanov, Vasili Shukshin,
Andrei Tarkovski and others.

“20-year-old young people do not know who is Hrant Matevosian, but the
public and lack of the state policy is more to blame for this,” the
intellectuals said considering important translation and publication
of Armenian and Russian writers’ works. “A Russian child should know
Hrant Matevosian, Hamo Sahian and an Armenian child Andrei Bitov,
Vasili Shukshin,” the intellectuals consider. According to them,
we should bring up our generations with this culture for the sake of
the future of our homeland.

“… Maybe today’s youngest generation, may God give them a long life,
will see the day when Hrant will be properly appreciated. What he
has done for the Armenian language can be compared only with what
Pushkin has done for the Russian language…,” Russian writer Andrei
Bitov had once said in one of his speeches.

According to the Hrant Matevosian Foundation Director, it is necessary
that Hrant Matevosian’s unpublished works be translated, published
and the works abridged in the years of the Soviet censorship be
republished. It is also time to include the writer’s works in the
school textbooks: according to David Matevosian, we cannot bring up
the generation only with H.Matevosian’s story “Green Field” included
in the textbooks of middle classes.

RUSSIA-BACKED NGO CONDUCTS POLL ON GEORGIANS’ ATTITUDE TOWARDS SAAKASHVILI

Regnum, Moscow
7 Jun 06

An opinion poll conducted by the Caucasus Institute for Democracy
[Russian non-government foundation with branches in Tbilisi, Yerevan,
Abkhaz and South Ossetian capitals] has shown that 18.99 per cent of
Georgians wholly support the [November 2003] Rose Revolution, 37.83
per cent partially support it and 35.98 per cent do not support it.

The foundation’s Tbilisi office polled a demographically representative
sample of 528 people in May 2006. Regnum has learnt that 45.83 per
cent of respondents say that their lives have changed for the worse
since the Rose Revolution, while 24.24 per cent say their lives have
improved. Furthermore, 10.41 per cent approve of the job Mikheil
Saakashvili has done as president, 13.82 per cent assess it more
positively than negatively, 23.10 per cent neutrally, 28.78 per cent
more negatively than positively, and 23.86 per cent negatively.

A total of 21.21 per cent of the respondents say that the socioeconomic
situation in Georgia has improved since Saakashvili came to power,
whereas 51.13 say it has changed for the worse.

WB APPROVES $6.25M CREDIT FOR ARMENIA UNDER GPAI

Arka News Agency, Armenia
June 5 2006

YEREVAN, June 5. /ARKA/. The World bank Armenia Country Manager
Roger Robinson said the Board of Executive Directors of the World
Bank approved $6.25 credit for Armenia under the Global Program for
Avian Influenza.

He said the program implementation will be contributed by grant
amounting to $804 thsd, provided by the Government of Japan. The
program on the whole is meant for an emergency situation in Armenia
connected with threat of avian influenza spread.

“The program contains three main components: healthcare, veterinarian
measures, informing people, as well as compensation to those small
and medium farmers of the country who can lose birds in case of threat
of the avian influenza”, Robinson emphasized.

He informed that discussion over this program lasted since the end
of 2005; the project elaboration was quick, taking into account the
situation in the region. He expressed belief that soon the program
will be approved in the RA National Assembly as well.

The terms of the credit are standard – 40-years time to run and
10-year grace period.

Since 1992 the World Bank has given Armenia credits in the amount of
$927.25 for implementation of 43 programs.

INTERNATIONAL CELLO CONTEST AFTER ARAM KHACHATURIAN OVER IN YEREVAN

PanARMENIAN.Net
06.06.2006 20:33 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ The International Cello Contest after Aram
Khachaturian held May 30-June 6 is over.

Cello players from Armenia, Georgia, Russia, the U.S., Spain, Italy,
Turkey and Mexico aged from 16 to 32 participated in the contest. The
jury headed by Tigran Mansurian (Armenia) included Medea Abrahamian
(Armenia), Wolfgang Bechter (Germany), Ivan Monigetti (Switzerland),
Vahram Sarajian (U.S.). The first place won Narek Hakhnazarian from
Armenia. Ruslan Vilenski (Latvia) and Indira Rahmatula (Turkey) shared
the second position. Tigran Muradian (Russia) and Sergey Kosemian
(Armenia) were the third. The rewarding ceremony and gala concert
will take place in the concert hall after Aram Khachaturian today.

GUAM IS FUNERAL OF ASHES OF USSR

Prime News Agency, Georgia
June 5 2006

Tbilisi. June 05 (Prime-News) – The Polish mass media terms GUAM as
a funeral service of ashes of the former USSR.

According to the June 05th issue of the Wprost newspaper, the
Kremlin lavished centres for political research regularly summon the
CIS-BI summit in Moscow and invite experts who support “pro Russian
separatism” in Moldova and Georgia.

Vitali Kinakh, Ukrainian Defence and Security Council Secretary General
terms the Commonwealth of Independent States a virtual organisation,
the newspaper says.

“The Russian Duma has not even elaborated principles of free trade
among the CIS member states. Russia has already lost Georgia, Ukraine,
Moldova and Khirgizia, as well as the Autonomous Republic of Adjara”,
the Ukrainian official said.

“Russia thinks that Georgia and Ukraine, as the western agents,
are looking for reduction of Russian influence over the post soviet
regions. Russia sees a genetically Russia phobia of the Baltic
nations and Poland as reason for revolt, as they stir actions in other
countries as well. According to Yuri Levada political centre, it was
Poland’s idea to change GUAM into the international organisation,
through initiation by Georgia and Ukraine. Besides, Romania wants
the presidents of Georgia and Ukraine to take part in resolution of
the conflict in Prednestrovie, which immediately challenges Russia,
as the latter supports independence of the breakaway republics”,
the newspaper says.

Poland also initiated creation of the Commonwealth of Democratic
Choice, which affiliated the post soviet and the Central European
countries. The organisation aims at reduction of influence of Russia.

It was a start of “the war”. In this war Russia uses ban of import
of Georgian wines and mineral waters and Ukrainian pipes as lethal
weapon. The weakest spot of GUAM is Azerbaijan, as it accounts for
energy independence,and Moscow can stir anti Azerbaijani feelings
in Armenia.

Russia also created Economic Commonwealth of Eurasia, Organisation
for Collective Security and Shanghai Cooperation Organisation to
reduce importance of GUAM, the newspaper went on.