Author: Jalatian Sonya

DASHNAKTSUTYUN WILL EMPLOY ALL LEGAL MEANS TO FAIL RATIFICATION

PanARMENIAN.Net
21.10.2009 16:05 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ "Opening of RA-Turkey border is implemented under
superpowers’ pressure for unhindered implementation of regional
economic projects, ARF Dashnaktsutyun Parliamentary Faction Secretary
Artyusha Shahbazyan told a news conference in Yerevan.

According to him, even upon RA-Turkey border opening, regional
programs can’t be implemented in full until NKR conflict is settled,
which is a visual proof of interconnection between RA-Turkey relations
and NKR issue.

ARFD Faction Secretary noted that NKR conflict settlement process will
intensify after Protocols’ ratification, adding that the opposition
will do its best for Constitutional court to find the documents
anti-constitutional or RA Parliament not to ratify them.

LEVON TER-PETROSYAN DISCUSSED RA -TURKISH RELATIONS WITH TINA KAIDANOW

PanARMENIAN.Net
21.10.2009 20:24 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ On October 21, RA National Congress (ANC) Leader
Levon Ter-Petrosyan met U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary in the Bureau
of European and Eurasian Affairs Tina Kaidanow and US Ambassador to
Armenia Marie Yovanovitch.

The meeting focused on recent developments in RA-Turkish relations
and NKR conflict settlement issues, ANC press service reported.

PRESS RELEASE
Catholicosate of Cilicia
Communication and Information Department
Contact: V.Rev.Fr.Krikor Chiftjian, Communications Officer
Tel: (04) 410001, 410003
Fax: (04) 419724
E- mail: [email protected]
Web:

PO Box 70 317
Antelias-Lebanon

THE POPULATION OF KESSAB RECEIVED HIS HOLINESS WITH GREAT ENTHUSIASM

On Saturday 17 October 2009, His Holiness Aram I left Latakia for Kessab to
consecrate the new Church in Karaduran. He was once again received warmly by
the local religious, political leaders and the population. In his welcome
speech, the Prelate Bishop Shahan Sarkissian said that Kessab was a special
place not only because of the peoples’ contribution to the Syrian homeland,
but also because of the significant number of young seminarians who later
served the church as Catholicos, bishops, priests or teachers. After
thanking all for their warm reception, Catholicos Aram I noted that the
predominantly Armenian region of Kessab is a living example of what a people
can achieve. He then continued: "You endured and remained on these lands for
centuries; you flourished as a community by holding to the spiritual and
cultural values of our people, and you continue to reflect your experiences
in the lives of the communities in the Armenian Diaspora.

After a special cultural evening, His Holiness Aram I was invited to a
dinner organized by the community. During dinner, His Holiness Aram I
decorated Mr. Sebouh Manjikian and made him a member of the order of
‘Knights of Cilicia’ for his contributions towards the costs of the
construction of the Church to be consecrated on Sunday.

##
View the photos here:
tos/Photos405.htm
*****
The Armenian Catholicosate of Cilicia is one of the two Catholicosates of
the Armenian Orthodox Church. For detailed information about the dioceses of
the Cilician Catholicosate, you may refer to the web page of the
Catholicosate, The Cilician
Catholicosate, the administrative center of the church is located in
Antelias, Lebanon.

ONCE OBEDIENT, ONCE UNYIELDING
James Hakobyan

hos15587.html
11:58:46 – 19/10/2009

The phone conversation of the American and Turkish presidents
which followed Serge Sargsyan’s visit to Turkey creates grounds
for interesting thoughts. The point is that in the same period the
Azerbaijani foreign minister Elmal Mamedyarov stated that the Armenian
side arouses questions in connection with the Karabakh issue which
had already been settled two-three years ago. In other words, this
means that Serge Sargsyan arouses questions settled during Robert
Kocharyan’s tenure. In other words, Serge Sargsyan comes out not to
agree with previous arrangements. And since Mamedyarov states this
with dissatisfaction, so Serge Sargsyan’s opinions are apparent
to have become stricter in this connection. The first hint in this
relation took place before Serge Sargsyan’s leaving for Turkey when
he stated in the airport before leaving for Moscow that no question
on yielding lands is discussed with Aliyev.

Naturally, the question occurs what determines Serge Sargsyan’s
becoming sharply strict if earlier he had softer opinions in this
connection than Robert Kocharyan who during the last years of
this tenure threatened Azerbaijan to even recognize the Karabakh
independence. What happened with Serge Sargsyan who signed the Moscow
declaration that he started expressing strict signs in connection with
the Karabakh issue? Is the point the Armenian and Turkish relations?

In other words, the Minsk group co-chairs are possible to have
given to Serge Sargsyan their agreement to strengthen his opinions
in Karabakh issue. But in this case Serge Sargsyan comes out to
be right when stating that Karabakh is not a precondition in the
Armenian and Turkish relations. From this point, it is interesting
that Barack Obama speaking to the Turkish president underscored the
importance of continuing the normalization of the Armenian and Turkish
relations. In other words, Obama is possible to see some problems in
connection with ratifying the protocols in Turkey and hints that it
should not be failed. And the failure may happen in Turkey only if
what the Turks want in connection with Karabakh lacks. In other words,
Obama seems to be persuading Gul not to pay attention to the Karabakh
issue and to ratify the protocols.

>>From this point, much will be revealed during the visit of the
Turkish prime minister to the U.S. on October 29 sure, if by that
time the Armenian and Turkish protocols do not appear in the Turkish
parliament for ratification. Anyway, it becomes evident that the
Karabakh issue is put at some distance from the Armenian and Turkish
process.

International mediators are not ruled out to be trying to bring the
process to a crucial point to get engaged in taking the other beyond it
later. In any case, the dynamism which is expressed in the Armenian
and Turkish process seems to lack in the Karabakh issue. This of
course does not mean that the Armenian diplomacy managed to register
a big victory. Here no worth of the Armenian diplomacy exists. This
diplomacy merely gets use of the agreement of the super powers in
the Karabakh issue which is the reason why it is once obedient or
unyielding. But it itself does not know what it is in reality.

OBAMA-GUL TO DISCUSS HISTORIC PROGRESS OF ARMENIAN-TURKISH TIES

Panorama.am
11:41 19/10/2009

President Barack Obama discussed Saturday "historic progress" being
made to normalize relations between Turkey and Armenia with Turkish
President Abdullah Gul, "CNN Turk" reports. The two leaders also
spoke about "the importance of maintaining the momentum in this
important effort".

Former foes Turkey and Armenia signed historic deals last week that
were backed by world powers to end decades of hostility, establish
formal ties and open their border.

The tow have also discussed the situation in Afghanistan, Turkish
media refers to the White House as saying, as he weighs whether to
dramatically ramp up the US effort there.

BAKUR KARAPETIAN ADVISES TURKISH AND AZERBAIJANI HISTORIANS NOT TO DISTORT HISTORIES OF THEIR OWN PEOPLES

Noyan Tapan
Oct 19, 2009

YEREVAN, OCTOBER 19, NOYAN TAPAN. There have been a lot of discussions
in Azerbaijan recently regarding problems of the ethnic origin of
Turks and Azerbaijanis, their national identity and ideology, Head of
the Shushi Foundation Bakur Karapetian said at the October 19 press
conference. In his words, their claims about their ethnic origin lack
scientific validity and are unfounded. "These debates reveal that
their claims with respect to Karabakh and its historical territories,
as well as their demands for territorial integrity are groundless," he
said. B. Karapetian is going to draw the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs’
attention to the issue that the Azerbaijanis intend to populate the
liberated territories of Artsakh by refugees who are preparing for
military operations.

B. Karapetian expressed an opinion that the Turkish and Azerbaijani
historians are constantly deceiving their people and distorting their
history. He announced that he had sent an open letter to the prime
minister of Turkey and the president of Azerbaijan, advising them
not to distort the histories of their own peoples.

According to B. Karapetian, the people who have not yet discovered
their ethnic origin and have been deluded call themselves "Muslims"
to refer to their nationality. "The nomadic tribes which came to the
Kura-Arax valley from different places, particularly from Central Asia
and Crimea, in various historical periods have forced the indigenous
Armenians out from their native cradle and settled in their place. The
Turks have committed a total of 50 genocides in their territory, the
Armenian Genocide possibly being the last of them," B. Karapetian said,
adding that Mountainous Altay was the original homeland of Turks.

TURKEY, ARMENIA AND AZERBAIJAN: WHERE NEXT? – ANALYTICS

APA

Oct 19 2009
Azerbaijan

By Alexander Jackson, Caucasian Review of International Affairs
exclusively for APA

The signing of the Turkish-Armenian protocols in Geneva on October
10 was viewed as a success, with only the awkward matter of ratifying
the protocols in the parliaments preventing the opening of the ‘last
closed border in Europe’. There has been little consideration of the
implications of the protocol signing.

The Turkish-Armenian thaw has the potential to seriously disturb the
political dynamics of the South Caucasus. Both Armenian President Serzh
Sarkisian and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan have made
serious gambles on the thaw, and the consequences may be unpredictable.

President Sarkisian’s challenge is domestic. Although the diaspora
continue to oppose reconciliation, the more serious risk comes from
the political opposition: ex-President Levon Ter-Petrosian’s Armenian
National Congress (ANC), the nationalist Armenian Revolutionary
Federation (ARF), and the Heritage Party.

The opposition cannot challenge the ratification in parliament, since
the ruling coalition dominates the legislature. Any challenge would
have to be made, as so often in Armenian politics, on the streets.

Anything could happen in such a volatile context, and a violent
revolution is not unforeseeable if a cycle of escalation begins.

However, the government has calculated that the mutual distrust
between the three opposition parties will prevent them from unifying
to challenge the protocols. The ARF loathes Levon Ter-Petrosian,
who banned them in 1994 during his presidency: a speaker at a recent
ARF rally spent much of his speech attacking Mr Ter-Petrosian rather
than the government (RFE/RL, October 16). Both the ARF and Heritage
fear that Mr Ter-Petrosian’s opposition to the government is tactical.

Despite recent calls by the ANC for President Sarkisian to resign,
the other parties suspect that the ex-President supports the thaw
and simply seeks to gain power (Tert.am, October 14).

The ARF, apparently playing a long game, are not calling for the
President’s resignation – yet. They are calling for a popular movement
to develop, allying with Heritage, and are insisting that their
struggle will be fought through constitutional and legal means. This
seems to be a tactical move to prevent alienating ordinary Armenians
through revolutionary rhetoric.

Unless the ARF-Heritage movement can ally with the popular Mr
Ter-Petrosian, they will not be able to generate sufficient support
for a broad anti-government movement. Factional infighting will allow
the government to sit tight and push the protocols through parliament.

However, opposition to the protocols will grow as time passes –
and there is no guarantee that they will be ratified soon.

This is because of Turkey’s challenge: reconciling public statements
about the need for progress on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict with
its clear desire to ratify the protocols. The ruling AKP party had
apparently gambled that they could force concessions from Armenia in
the run-up to the signing ceremony. The linkage of the Turkish-Armenian
thaw and progress on Nagorno-Karabakh had been explicitly made by
the Turkish government, which insisted that one could not take place
without the other (Today.az, October 12). But time is running out,
and there has been no agreement between Azerbaijan and Armenia.

Until an agreement is made, ratifying the protocols would be seen
by Azerbaijan, and by many Turks, as a serious betrayal. Intensive
lobbying by Azerbaijani political groups in Turkey is creating serious
momentum against ratification. President Sargsyan seems to be betting
that under the pressure from the West (US President Obama already
had a lengthy phone call with President Gul and sent an invitation
to Prime Minister Erdogan to visit US on Oct. 29, Today’s Zaman)
Turkey will be obliged to ratify the protocols regardless of progress
on Nagorno-Karabakh.

Azerbaijan is making its fury increasingly clear. An ominous warning
from the Foreign Ministry that the signing "calls into question
the architecture of regional peace and security" was followed by a
statement from President Aliyev that "the war is not over yet" and
that "no problem in the region – political, diplomatic, economic,
energy, transport – can be solved without Azerbaijan’s participation"
(APA, October 17).

The significance of this statement was made clear in the same cabinet
meeting, when President Aliyev launched a scathing attack on Turkey’s
"unacceptable" price demands for the sale and transit of Azerbaijan’s
gas (RFE/RL, October 17). He said that selling gas to Turkey at a
third of the market price was illogical, and threatened to prioritise
gas sales to Russia. Just days earlier, Azerbaijan signed a deal with
Russia’s Gazprom (UPI, October 16). The contract formalised agreements
made earlier in the year and which envisions the sale of 500 million
m3 of Azerbaijan’s gas to Gazprom in 2010.

Clearly, Baku is threatening to cease cooperating with Turkey on oil
and gas transit, crippling its plans to become a regional energy hub.

This could also be a fatal blow to the Nabucco project to bring
Eurasian gas to the heart of Europe. Bypassing Turkey, Azerbaijan
could send its gas to Russia, to Georgia’s Black Sea ports (and on
to Europe), or to Iran, as was contemplated by President Aliyev in
the same meeting. Any or all of these options would reduce the need
for Nabucco.

More significantly, they would reduce Azerbaijan’s ties to the West.

The Georgian option, the only route which would continue to link Baku
with Europe, is impractical and costly. Sending gas to either Russia
or Iran would tie Azerbaijan into a close relationship with those
states. In particular, Moscow would be eager to reassert influence
in the South Caucasus as its alliance with Yerevan loses focus. The
EU, and the US, would lose traction in Azerbaijan even as they gain
it in Armenia. For the purposes of energy security and geopolitics,
this would be a questionable trade.

The next few months will be fraught with difficulties, as regional
states attempt to untangle the Caucasian knot. If Turkey ratifies the
protocols without progress on Nagorno-Karabakh, Azerbaijan will almost
certainly suspend their alliance. Military tensions between Armenia
and Azerbaijan will rise. Nabucco will become even less likely and
Western influence in the Caspian region will decrease even further.

Netherlands to host Armenian film festival
17.10.2009 16:31 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ On October 22-November 4, Hague will host a
retrospective presentation of Armenian films on the occasion of the
25th anniversary of Abovian Armenian Cultural Association.

Dutch audience will have the chance to watch Color of Pomegranate by
Sergei Parajanov, Border by Harutyun Khachatryan, Calendar by Atom
Egoyan and Komitas by Don Askarian.

Festival program will include the best classical and experimental
documentaries and live action films by directors from Armenia and
Diaspora, organization’s press centre reported to PanARMENIAN.Net.

The Armenian Cinema Festival has been made possible by National Cinema
Center of Armenia and Golden Apricot International Film Festival.

TIGRAN SARKISYAN: DENIAL OF THE FACT OF ARMENIAN GENOCIDE BY TURKEY WILL CREATE OBSTACLES IN THE MATTER OF DEVELOPMENT RELATIONS WITH IT

ArmInfo
2009-10-16 15:22:00

ArmInfo. The relations between Armenia and Turkey are not conditioned
only by opening of the border, they are more complicated. First, it
is regarding the moral-psychological and culturological relations,
where we Armenians and the Turks have complexes. This is conditioned
by several objective reasons, and first of all, by the problem of
Armenian genocide, Armenian Prime Minister Tigran Sarkisyan said in
an interview with Armenian 4th TV channel.

He also added it is very much difficult to come out of that surface
when the point is about the Armenian-Turkish relations. feel that
burden. Naturally, denial of the fact of the Armenian genocide by
Turkey creates obstacle in the matter of developing relations with it’,
– Armenian premier said. ‘In the moral-psychological and culturological
sense, our goal is to reach justice. According to this postulate, our
actual purpose is not recognition of the Armenian genocide by different
countries of the world. Just Turkey has to recognize this fact. It is
another sense. But in the 21-st century we have to think not only in
this sense, but also in the political one, as we already present an
independent state, we have an obligation against 3 million population,
and we are obliged to conduct such a wisdom policy which will lead to
enhancing our state and to ensuring favorable life of our citizens. In
this sense we also have problems according to which settlement of
our relations with neighbours – Azerbaijan and Turkey will become
a problem number one on the agenda of the political field.In the
political field we have come forward with a brave initiative – to start
a dialogue with Turkey, to regulate our bilateral relations, as it is
stemming from the interests of both countries. If in the political
field we manage to gain success, it will help to reach success in
the moral-psychological and culturological field’, – Sarkisyan said.

AZERI PRESIDENT CALLED ON ARMY TO BE ON ALERT

PanARMENIAN.Net
16.10.2009 11:31 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Azeri President Ilham Aliyev Commander-in-Chief of
country’s armed forces, has called on Azerbaijani army to be on the
alert. Azeri leader believes that war is not yet over, and Azerbaijani
army should be "ready to return its lands" at any moment.

"Conflict is not settled yet. We are trying to resolve it through
negotiations. However, we firmly stick to our stance: conflict should
be resolved based on Azebaijan’s territorial integrity; Armenia’s armed
forces must be deployed from all territories, and our compatriots
should return to their homes. We do not consider any other approach
beyond these frameworks, and Azerbaijan has several times voiced its
position on the issue." Azerbaijan will continue accumulating military
power, even though that may require huge expenses, Bakililar.AZ quotes
Azeri leader as saying.