Author: Nalbandian Eduard

It’s Very Nice that Armenia Remembers Me: Hatis’ Star Bojana Vulic

16:12 – 26.03.10

Serbian national Bojana Vulic, captain of Yerevan’s Hatis basketball
team, signed a short-term contract with Bosnian basketball team Selik
in January, but is currently in Belgrade and plays for Radivo Korats.
Local Armenian sports news site Armsport.am had a moment to catch up
with Vulic and interview her.

Bojana, why did you leave Selik?
The reason I left was the financial crisis in the team. At first
everything was all right. I had gotten used to the town of Zenitsa.
There were also players there whom I had warm relations with, and I
didn’t feel like a stranger in that team. But gradually everything
worsened because the players weren’t paid. I had to leave.

Now you play in Radivo Korats. What would you say about the new club?
Recently the Serbian Basketball Super League ended and we came in 3rd
place. I was in the main team and participated in a few matches.
Bronze medals were not bad results for us, though the team has bigger
potential. Now we’re fighting for the Serbian cup.

It recently became known that Hatis’ previous opponents – Russia’s
Nadezhda and Greece’s Athinaikos – will compete in the 2009-2010
European Cup.
I follow the EuroCup [Women] closely and I must say that those teams
reached the final without any difficulty. What can I say? We weren’t
as lucky in the draw. But on the other hand, it’s good that our
opponents went that far. That shows that Hatis is a good team and can
fight for more serious results in other draws. As for what concerns
the final match, I think the Greeks will win.

You said in January that you will return to Hatis in the summer.
Yes, I will. Let’s wait a few more months.

Do you keep in contact with Armenia?
Yes, I keep contact with friends and acquaintances through the
internet. It’s very nice that Armenia remembers me.

Tert.am

SWEDISH MP: VICTIMS OF THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE HAD WAITED FOR OUR RECOGNITION FOR 95 YEARS

ArmInfo
2010-03-24 16:33:00

ArmInfo. The actual decision to recognize the Armenian Genocide was
passed during a congress of Swedish Social Democratic Party last year
when the party decided to review its policy, says Peter Weiderud,
member of Swedish Rikstag (Parliament), representative of Christian
Democratic Party (part of Social Democratic Party).

To remind, the resolution recognizing the Armenian Genocide adopted
by Rikstag Mar 11 has been initiated by Social Democratic Party. This
problem had been discussed in Sweden for a whole decade. In June 2009
Christian Democratic Party decided to recognize the Armenian Genocide
and had examined all the arguments adduced by its opponents.

Weiderud says that one of the key counter-arguments was that the events
of 1915 had not been sufficiently examined. The opponents doubted if
the massacres of 1915 could actually be termed as a genocide according
the convention of 1948. The party analyzed this argument and found
out that there were enough proofs that it was a genocide. Most of
the experts and even some of the Turkish researchers were of the
same opinion.

Thus, the party found enough grounds for recognizing the Armenian
Genocide.

The next argument of the opponents was the Convention on the Prevention
and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide could not be applied to
events that took place before 1948. But since all the political
forces of Sweden were unanimous that Holocaust, which took place
before 1948, was a genocide, this argument could not be an obstacle
to the recognition of the Armenian Genocide.

The opponents also said that it was the business of historians rather
than MPs. The party found out that there were enough historical
materials for recognizing the events as a genocide. Parliament does
not write down history but it can give an assessment on the basis of
historical facts.

One more argument was that it was not right time for giving the
green light to the resolution as its adoption might create additional
problems. Some people said that this might damage the Armenian-Turkish
rapprochement process. But the party believes that the more people wait
the worse. In case of Sweden Genocide victims had waited for 95 years.

INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY CLEARLY FAVORS STATUS QUO IN KARABAGH – ANALYST

news.az, Azerbaijan
March 25 2010

Helge Blakkisrud News.Az interviews Helge Blakkisrud, Visiting Scholar,
Institute for Slavic, East European and Eurasian Studies, University
of California, Berkeley.

There is an opinion that the West after the war between Russia
and Georgia recognize already that the CIS as the area of Russia’s
influence. Do you believe with this?

No, the West will not officially accept the concept of exclusive
spheres of interests in the post-Soviet area.

Is competition between Russia and the West in the post-soviet area
the good for regional countries because it breaks Russia’s monopoly
or it makes more difficult the settlement of regional problems?

I would warn against depicting this as a ‘zero sum game’: what is ‘won’
by the West is not necessarily ‘lost’ by Russia. Such an understanding
is frequently implicit in Russian foreign policy, but should not form
the basis for our understanding of the processes currently taking
place in the post-Soviet area. In addition, it is misleading to
depict ‘the West’ as a unitary actor. The West is a conglomerate of
different states and organizations pursuing different agendas. This
is also the case in its approach to the post-Soviet space. To take
but one example, one can look at the internal discussions in NATO
about Georgian membership in this organization.

Do you think that the Karabagh settlement problem is the matter of
near or far future?

No, I do not see any quick solutions to the stalemate surrounding
the future status of Nagorno-Karabakh. The (partial) international
recognition of Kosovo caused some expectations about breaking the
long-lasting stalemates in the so-called frozen conflicts in Eurasia
(besides Nagorno-Karabakh, these include South Ossetia, Abkhazia
and Transnistria), but this window of opportunity was closed by the
2008 war in Georgia. Currently, both Baku and Stepanakert base their
strategy on an understanding of time working in their favor. As times
goes by, Azerbaijani authorities are getting less worried about the
Kosovo precedent being replicated in the South Caucasus and thus
less willing to consider a compromise, whereas the authorities in
Stepanakert believe that the longer they hold on to their de facto
independence, the harder it will be for Azerbaijani authorities to
reintegrate the territory.

Why the international community is not paying much attention to
this conflict?

The 1994 ceasefire transformed the Karabakh war into a frozen
conflict. Whereas the Minsk process so far has not produced concrete
results, this process is still going on. And in the meantime the
international community clearly favors status quo. The conflict has
also been overshadowed by other, more pressing conflicts, such as
the wars in Chechnya and Georgia.

Do you think real a new war between Azerbaijan and Armenia as it was
between Georgia and Russia in 2008?

I hope the war in Georgia, which in the end resulted in Tbilisi
losing any immediate hope of reintegrating the breakaway regions,
has demonstrated that a military approach to solving the so-called
frozen conflicts may easily backfire.

Aliyah Fridman News.Az

UN ENFANT MEURT APRES UNE ERREUR MEDICALE DE L’HEPITAL

Le Figaro, France
25 Mars 2010

Un surdosage médicamenteux lors d’une chimiothérapie a entraîné
a la mort d’un garcon de six ans a l’hôpital de la Timone a Marseille.

Originaire d’Arménie, Tovmasyan était arrivé avec son père
a Marseille pour faire soigner son cancer. Hospitalisé a la
Timone, le garcon âgé de six ans a été victime d’une surdose
de chimiothérapie le 3 février dernier. Un médicament très
puissant, le Navlebine, lui a été administré Â"a des taux nettement
supérieursÂ" a ce qu’ils auraient dÃ" être, explique Pierre Pinzelli,
le directeur de l’hôpital. Une enquête est en cours pour déterminer
les causes de cette erreur. Une source proche de l’enquête évoque
Â"des fautes cumuléesÂ" : Â"une erreur possible de virguleÂ" dans
la rédaction ou la lecture de l’ordonnance et la délivrance d’une
quantité excessive de produit par la pharmacie de l’hôpital.

Avant de se rendre a Marseille, le père et l’enfant étaient déja
passés par plusieurs pays d’Europe de l’Est, a la recherche d’un
hôpital et d’un traitement pour guérir Tovmasyan. Le 28 décembre,
quand ils arrivent a la gare St-Charles, ils ne parlent pas un mot de
francais mais, par chance, rencontrent un chauffeur de taxi d’origine
arménienne qui les conduit aux urgences de l’hôpital de la Timone.

Â"Ils sont arrivés dans un état de détresse totale, sans valises,
avec des vêtements troués, raconte Pierre Pinzelli. L’enfant était
très fatigué et dénutrieÂ". L’hôpital fait d’abord un bilan
global de l’état de santé du garcon, qui est ensuite transféré
le 31 décembre dans le service d’oncologie pédiatrique. Tovmasyan
souffre d’un cancer Â"a un stade très avancé, avec pronostic vital
engagéÂ" qui nécessite un traitement lourd.

Rapport dans les prochains jours

Devant la détresse du père, la direction de l’hôpital tente d’aider.

Le personnel de l’hôpital fournit au père des produits quotidiens
comme un rasoir ou des serviettes de toilette, et accepte qu’il
séjourne dans la chambre de son fils. Le visa de tourisme du père
arrivant a expiration, le directeur de la Timone fait le nécessaire
auprès de la préfecture pour le prolonger.

Le 18 janvier, l’état de l’enfant se dégrade fortement et il est
transféré en service de réanimation. Le surdosage médicamenteux
aurait eu lieu juste avant cette date. La direction de l’hôpital
saisit alors immédiatement l’Agence régionale de l’hospitalisation
(ARH), qui diligente une enquête administrative. Un rapport devrait
être rendu dans les prochains jours sur le circuit du médicament
et sur l’organisation médicale.

Â"Le personnel soignant effondréÂ"

Reste a savoir si les conclusions de l’enquête seront ensuite
transmises au parquet. Le père, qui est reparti en Arménie le 11
février n’aurait pas manifesté une volonté d’intenter une action
contre l’établissement. Selon le directeur de la Timone, Â"il voulait
rentrer le plus tôt possible dans son pays et n’était pas dans une
attitude de reproche vis-a-vis de l’équipeÂ". L’assureur de l’AP-HM
(Assistance publique-hôpitaux de Marseille), la SHAM, a débloqué
10.000 euros pour le rapatriement du corps de l’enfant en Arménie.

Le drame a particulièrement ému le personnel soignant. Â"Dans un
hôpital pour enfant, le lien avec les patients sont très fortsÂ",
décrit Pierre Pinzelli. Â"Tout le monde a été effondré et
s’est tout de suite remis en causeÂ". Une cellule d’accompagnement
psychologique a été mise en place pour le personnel. Surtout,
dès le constat de l’erreur de dosage, le circuit du médicament a
été renforcé et les procédures de distribution de cytostatiques
[médicaments administrés dans le cadre de chimiothérapies] revues,
afin d’éviter qu’un tel accident ne se reproduise.

ce/2010/03/25/01016-20100325ARTFIG00545-un-enfant- meurt-apres-une-erreur-medicale-de-l-hopital-.php

SARKSYAN: NORMALIZATION NOT LINKED TO GENOCIDE DEBATES

Today’s Zaman
March 24 2010
Turkey

According to Armenian President Serzh Sarksyan, a US House committee’s
adoption of a resolution recognizing the killings of Anatolian
Armenians under Ottoman rule during World War I as genocide should
not be accorded any relevance in regard to the ongoing process of
normalization between Ankara and Yerevan.

Earlier this month the US House Committee on Foreign Affairs approved
a nonbinding resolution condemning the 1915 killings. It was followed
by the Swedish parliament’s vote recognizing the early-20th-century
killings of Anatolian Armenians as genocide.

In both cases Turkey responded angrily, withdrawing its ambassadors
to Washington and Stockholm while also suggesting that these votes
would have a damaging impact on the normalization process between
Armenia and Turkey.

President Sarksyan’s remarks on the issue came in Damascus as he
arrived in the Syrian capital on Monday for a official three-day visit.

In an interview with the Syrian Al-Watan newspaper, Sarksyan was
asked what influence the passage of the Armenian genocide resolution
by the US committee could have on the process of normalization of
Armenian-Turkish relations, Public Radio of Armenia reported on Tuesday
on its Web page. "The resolution considered at the US committee is an
internal affair for that country which we are not interfering with. We
did not make the recognition of the Armenian genocide a precondition
for the establishment of Armenian-Turkish relations, since we support
the improvement of relations with Turkey without any preconditions,"
Sarksyan was quoted as saying in response.

"I do not think the attempts to tie the process to the recognition
of the Armenian genocide by other countries are proper. One thing
is obvious to me — the longer it takes to normalize our relations,
the more countries will adopt such resolutions," Sarksyan also warned.

A senior Turkish diplomat underlined earlier this month that the
US resolution, which Ankara expects will not reach the House floor,
and the normalization process "must" definitely be dealt with as two
separate processes that are independent from each other.

"The normalization process has by no means died. Ever since the
protocols were signed between Turkey and Armenia, the normalization
process has continued along its natural course," the same diplomat,
speaking on the condition of anonymity, told Today’s Zaman at the
time, while noting that third-party interventions such as that by the
US vote have a strong potential to have a deleterious impact on this
natural process.

In Damascus, meanwhile, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, voiced his
country’s willingness to "play a role in building common ground for
relations between Armenia and Turkey."

The remarks by Assad, who has warm relations with Turkey’s Prime
Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and whose country last year established
a high-level strategic cooperation council with Turkey aiming at
deepening bilateral cooperation, came at a joint press conference
following his talks with the visiting Sarksyan on Monday.

While reiterating that it is necessary to overcome all differences
between Armenia and Turkey, resorting to dialogue to continue the
process of confidence building, Assad hailed Sarksyan’s decision
to develop relations with Turkey as "courageous and based on a
far-sighted vision."

BOURJ HAMMOUD GETS FACE LIFT WITH NEW MONUMENT

Daily Star
on_id=1&categ_id=1&article_id=113097
March 24 2010
Lebanon

BEIRUT: A brand new monument was unveiled on Tuesday in the Greater
Beirut suburb of Bourj Hammoud.

Information Minister Tarek Mitri, Industry Minister Abraham Dedeyan,
Bourj Hammoud Mayor Anto Misrelian and Spanish Ambassador to Lebanon
Juan Carlos Gafo were at the ceremony to make public the mural and
abstract sculpture along the neighborhood’s coastal road.

The mosaic and metal-work installations were designed and created by
Lena Kelekian, a celebrated artist specializing in icon painting and
restoration, who won the 2008 Beijing Olympics gold medal and Olympic
Torch for the arts. Kelekian also collaborates with her husband,
architect Hagop Sulahian, on urban art projects across Beirut.

"It’s high time we restore to the city the glamor it lost," said
Mitri, thanking Bourj Hammoud Municipality for taking the initiative
to enhance the appearance of Greater Beirut. "Beirut’s image has
been mutilated twice, through destruction and then reconstruction,"
he added. "We should preserve what’s left of its glamor." The location
of the sculpture, Mitri noted, would allow motorists stuck in traffic
to admire it from their cars.

"The Municipal Council [of Bourj Hammoud] is eager to offer the best
to our city, as we believe in continuing the heritage of the past …

and in the present, where we look forward to contributing to the
prosperity of the future of Bourj Hammoud," said Deputy Mayor Raffi
Oglanian.

He said the sculpture and mural were part of ongoing plans to combat
the dreary urbanized look of Beirut’s Armenian neighborhood.

"Bourj Hammoud, being a densely populated city, has been overwhelmingly
covered with grey cement buildings and paved with black asphalt,"
Oglanian said. "It was the idea of the Municipal Council to create
green spaces and areas with artistic works that would embellish the
city" and give a sense of calm to visitors, he added. – The Daily Star

AREAS AROUND KARABAKH CAN BE RETURNED TO AZERBAIJAN

Interfax
March 23 2010
Russia

Armenia will return the territories around Nagorno-Karabakh to
Azerbaijan only after receiving guarantees on the security of
Stepanakert, President Serzh Sargsyan said.

"When the people of Karabakh get the real chance to exercise
their right to self-determination and to create effective security
and development mechanisms, Armenia might consider returning the
territories around Nagorno-Karabakh to Azerbaijan, as a mutual
concession, while preserving Nagorno-Karabakh and, of course, the
corridor linking it to Armenia," Sargsyan said in an interview with
the Syrian Al Watan newspaper, the text of which was released by the
Armenian president’s office on Tuesday.

"I have repeatedly stated this. However, the key element in the notion
of "mutual concession" is the principle of reciprocity, and one has to
realize that in such situations unilateral concessions only aggravate
the existing threats," the Armenian president said.

Baku lost control over Nagorno-Karabakh and seven adjacent areas
during a violent conflict which began in the 1990s between Armenia and
Azerbaijan over the status of Karabakh. As a result, around one million
Azerbaijanis became refugees and displaced persons. Using resolutions
the United Nations Security Council condemned the occupation of the
Azerbaijani territories and demanded the withdrawal of Armenian forces.

Currently, internationally-brokered negotiations on this problem
involve co-chairmen of the OSCE (Organization for Security and
Cooperation in Europe) Minsk Group, consisting of the United States,
Russia and France.

The status of this region is the stumbling block in the Nagorno-
Karabakh talks. In solving this problem, the mediators are trying to
combine two principles of international law: territorial integrity (on
which Baku is relying) and the right of a nation’s self-determination
(Yerevan’s approach).

ARMENIAN PRESIDENT RESPONDS TO HILLARY CLINTON’S STATEMENTS?

Tert.am
17:37 ~U 24.03.10

We don’t accept the style of references to the Armenian-Turkish
dialogue in attempts to avoid recognizing the Armenian Genocide,
said Armenian President Serzh Sargysan in Deir ez-Zor, while on a
three-day official visit to Syria.

"I don’t think it helps the process. Moreover, it is irrelevant
to cite some Commission of Historians, since the Armenian-Turkish
protocols provide for merely a governmental sub-commission on historic
dimension. I assume everyone understands what it means and what the
difference is.

I ask all those who will have an occasion to elaborate or express
themselves on the topic of the recognition of the Armenian Genocide:
remember of this dessert, millions of ruined human fortunes and this
ancient people deprived of their motherland and with pain in their
hearts, before you make up your minds," reads a press release of
Sargsyan’s Deir ez-Zor statement issued by the RA presidential office.

Yesterday, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, in an interview
with Vladimir Pozner of Russia’s Channel One, and responding to a
question by a viewer, said that neither she nor President Barack Obama
had forgotten their pledge of support to recognizing the Armenian
Genocide. Clinton referred to the Armenia-Turkey rapprochement and
the process of normalizing relations outlined in the Armenia-Turkey
Protocols.

"And in those protocols, there was an agreement between the two
countries to establish a historical commission that would look at
all of the issues that are part of the past," she said.

SPAIN’S GOVERNMENT SEEKING TO BLOCK THE ARMENIANGENOCIDE BILL

Armradio.am
24.03.2010 17:11

The Government of Spain is taking steps to prevent the Parliament from
passing a resolution condemning the genocide of Armenians at the hands
of Turkish Ottoman Empire during the First World War. The government
is aware that such a decision would cause great unrest in Turkey.

According to Spanish ABC newspaper, Foreign Minister Miguel Angel
Moratinos has been in contact in recent days with Jose Bono, Speaker
of the Congress of Deputies, to try to stop the initiative.

A similar proposal was approved by all groups in the Parliament of
Catalonia, so the government fears the same could happen in Madrid.

The Government is afraid that what happened in Turkey’s relations
with the U.S. and Sweden, where similar measures were approved,
could repeat.

NALBANDIAN TO ATTEND CIS, CSTO FOREIGN MINISTERS MEETING

PanARMENIAN.Net
24.03.2010 13:45 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Armenian Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian will be
in Moscow on a working visit on March 25 and 26 to attend a meeting
of Foreign Ministers of the Collective Security Treaty Organization
and Commonwealth of Independent States, RA MFA press office reported.