Author: Navasardian Karapet

Mehr News Agency, Iran
Jan 5 2007

Tjeknavorian conducts Armenian orchestra in "Messenger" symphony

TEHRAN, Jan. 5 (Mehr News Agency) — Iranian musician Loris
Tjeknavorian conducted an Armenian orchestra in a performance of "The
Messenger of Love and Hope" symphony in honor of the Prophet Muhammad
at Tehran’s Vahdat Hall on January 4 in one of the programs of the
22nd Fajr International Music Festival.

Composed by Seyyed Mehdi Shojaii, the symphony features various
stages of the Prophet’s life from Mecca Conquest, Hajjat al-Wadaa
(the Holy Prophet’s Farewell Pilgrimage), and his demise and also
describes Ashura and the appearance of Imam Mahdi.

The symphony is comprised of George Frideric Handel’s "Hallelujah",
Johann Sebastian Bach and Charles François Gounod’s "Ave Maria",
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s "Lacrimosa", Tjeknavorian’s "Birth of the
Prophet Muhammad", Farhad Fakhreddini’s "Imam Ali", and several other
pieces.

The orchestra is scheduled to give a reprise performance tonight.

TODAY THE MILLENNIUM CHALLENGE ACCOUNT-ARMENIA (MCA-ARMENIA) HAS RECEIVED THE SECOND TRANSFER OF THE INITIAL DISBURSEMENT

Yerevan, December 28. ArmInfo. Today the Millennium Challenge
Account-Armenia (MCA-Armenia) has received the second transfer of the
initial disbursement to the sum of $507.653, ArmInfo was told in the
press-service of the Corporation Armenian Office.

Earlier this month the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), on
behalf of the United States Government, made the first transfer of the
initial disbursement to Armenia – USD 882,000. As it was scheduled,
the second transfer of USD 507,653 has been made today.

The funds for Armenia’s Millennium Challenge Compact expected to total
USD 236 million over a five year period are not disbursed as a lump
sum to Armenia. They are approved quarterly by the MCC and disbursed
monthly into MCA-Armenia’s bank account.

TURKISH HISTORIAN DESCRIBES ACCUSATIONS OF ASSYRIAN AND ARMENIAN GENOCIDES AS "BOGUS"

PanARMENIAN.Net
27.12.2006 17:43 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Turkey is now being haunted by claims of an Assyrian
genocide in 1915 during the country’s relocations. Bulent Ozdemir,
head of the Turkish Historical Society’s (TTK) Assyrian Studies
Section, responded yesterday to a draft report by Dutch Christian
Democrat parliamentarian Camiel Eurlings, in which he asserted that
Turkey should acknowledge the Pontic Greek, Assyrian and Armenian
genocides. Ozdemir said that claims regarding an Assyrian genocide
during World War I "are groundless and branded them "bogus" along
with the Armenian Genocide."

Ozdemir said that they had prepared a book on the issue and during its
preparation process they mostly used foreign archive documents rather
than the Ottoman archives to make it more reliable and exact. "After
four months of research at the British National Archives from November
2004, we made a detailed study at the U.S. National Archives in May
last year," he said. "The results of our meticulous research show
that neither the Ottoman Empire nor today’s Turkish Republic can be
accused of genocide during World War I. Foreign archive documents
strengthen the arguments of Turkey on this issue. Compared to the
Armenian Genocide claims the statements about Assyrians can not
trouble Turkey," he said, reports The New Anatolian.

Anatolian Times, Turkey
Dec 22 2006

Open And Shut

BY GUNDUZ AKTAN

RADIKAL- The EU Commission’s proposal was accepted last week and
Turkey’s membership talks were suspended in eight chapters. Thus, the
process of our talks was slowed down. Meanwhile, EU officials and the
press stated that the EU shouldn’t close its doors to Turkey,
otherwise the process of reform might stop. When the word ‘reform’ is
mentioned, we think of the army being subject to civilian authority,
the rights of minorities, in other words, giving collective rights to
Kurds and Christians’ religious rights. It’s understood that the
Justice and Development Party will continue membership talks under
these conditions. In other words, we will be accepting punishment for
a crime we supposedly committed by not fulfilling our ‘obligations’
in the Additional Protocol concerning Cyprus. As we won’t be able to
solve the Cyprus issue within the UN before 2009, we will have to
face the issue of unilaterally opening our harbors and ports to Greek
Cypriots. This way we’ll postpone this crisis to the end of 2009.

Our relations with the EU have been governed with a similar approach
since the mid-’70s. We were even unable to hold Membership Council
meetings due to Greece’s obstructions since 1981, when it became a
full member. We couldn’t get the financial assistance allocated to
us. Our 1987 application for full membership also faced similar
obstructions. The Greek Cypriot administration applied for EU
membership as the representative of the island in 1990. In spite of
all our objections, it was accepted in 1993. As part of the 1995
Customs Union decision, the EU said that if the Cyprus issue could
not be solved by 1998, it would start full membership talks with the
Greek Cypriot administration. And it did. This government has been
ready to do anything with the Turkish Cypriots in order to solve the
Cyprus issue during the process of our candidacy. Nevertheless, the
Greek Cypriot administration became a full member and Turkey was left
outside. The decision taken in December 2004 offered limited and
conditional candidacy. We accepted it. The framework document of
October 2005 invented certain obstacles which were never before
applied to another candidate country. We made no objection. Now it
punished us, as if insulting us. We’re putting up with this.

Every time we think, ‘Let’s get through this, we’ll consider other
issues later.’ This policy was made by paying heavy prices such as
being the only country which has fulfilled its obligations without
any financial assistance and accepting the Customs Union before
becoming a full member. However, we can never reach the goal of full
membership which covers all the areas of our lives without a certain
political will on the other side. The first and foremost reason for
the EU not to have such a will is its prejudices against Turkey.
Other objective factors also strengthen this. Signs of typical
characteristics of a pathological prejudice can be seen in certain EU
member countries which object to our membership. For example, the
French nation and its leaders accuse us of certain bad aspects that
they hate to see in themselves. They turn the genocides that they
committed into claims that we carried out an Armenian genocide. You
wouldn’t want a target group, to which you attribute your own bad
characteristics, to be integrated with you. Because if they make us
an EU member, they would fear that Turkey would bring all such bad
qualities with it. So, the fact that Turkey took the French
Revolution as an example, similarities between the two republics and
the importance they attach to secularism would be ignored, and they
would believe that Turkey wouldn’t be able to fulfill these goals
like France did. On the other hand, France wouldn’t want Turkey,
which has been turned into a bin by France where it can dump its
undesired qualities, to go too far away. It must stay next to Turkey
and use it as a place to accuse of having faults. So, the door is
neither completely closed, nor open for us. Turkey is in a cold,
endless limbo, just like the soul of a dead body which is between
heaven and hell, as in Kipling’s famous poem ‘Tomlinson’.

Published: 12/22/2006

RA QUALITY INSPECTION DOES NOT REVEAL VIOLATIONS OF FOOD SECURITY NORMS IN 2006

Noyan Tapan
Dec 20 2006

YEREVAN, DECEMBER 20, NOYAN TAPAN. In January-November 2006, the
RA Quality Inspection implemented state control of maintaining
the technical regulations’ requirements and the metrological
rules and norms in 2,133 economic entities. 653 violations were
revealed. Robert Dayan, Head of the Standardization, Metrology and
Conformity Certification Department of the RA Ministry of Trade and
Economic Development, said this at the December 20 press conference.

According to him, checkings were mainly conducted in enterprises
producing foodstuffs of plant and animal origin, construction
materials, industrial goods, oil products and delivering services. The
registered violations were related to provision of services without
respective certificates, violation of metrological rules and norms,
non-conformity of goods to technical regulations (absence of
information about goods with marking in Armenian), sale of goods
without respective certificates, sale of goods not corresponding
to physical and chemical indices of the normative documents. It
was noted that administrative fines of the total amount of 39 mln
44 thousand drams (92.8 thousand USD) were used for violations. 18
regulations forbidding production sale, 80 regulations on suspension of
production sale and 91 regulations forbidding the use of measurement
means have been used. R. Dayan expressed his satisfaction at the fact
that unlike the previous years, no violations of food security norms
have been revealed.

BE MORE RESPECTFUL TO OUR OFFICIAL STATEMENTS, ERDOGAN WARNS AMERICANS
By Hakob Chakrian

AZG Armenian Daily
21/12/2006

As we have already reported, Prime Minister of Turkey Erdogan,
after meeting with Clinton, was also to meet with Henry Kissinger,
Richard Holbrook and the heads of the Jewish community of the USA.

On his meeting with former Secretary of State Kissinger and influential
Democrat Holbrook, Erdogan mainly focused on the Iraq problem. He
emphasized the involvement of Iraq’s neighbors in the process of
settlement and noted that Northern Iraq cannot be considered a safe
region as the PKK terrorist organization headquarters is located
there. To be reminded, on November 22 Richard Holbrook already
proposed to concentrate the American corpses in Northern Iraq,
a region controlled by the Kurds, so as to protect them from eth
possible aggression of Turkey and the Americans – from terrorists.

The main subject of Erdogan’s meeting with eth Jewish community
elite became Turkey’s strict position on the events in Lebanon and
the situation with "Hamas".

Erdogan’s meeting with Edward Kennedy nothing is said in the
international media but a short phrase by CNN-Turk that "Kennedy is
known to be an advocate of the Armenian Genocide formulas".

This means that Kennedy-Erdogan meeting wasn’t successful for
the Turkish anti-theory against the Armenia genocide. Most likely,
Erdogan’s visit to New York wasn’t a success for Turkey, either. As,
after the abovementioned meetings, at the press conference, the
journalists asked the following question: "The American printed press
will comment your statements on "Hamas" and on "the civil war in Iraq"
in different ways. Most likely, the mass media sources will state
that Turkey contradicts that the official positions of both Israel
and Washington. What do you think what is the problem?"

In response, Erdogan stated that whether Turkey is deprived of its
right to have its own viewpoint. He also urged to respect their
official positions.

ARMENIA MAY INCREASE ITS PRESENCE IN EU MARKET

Noyan Tapan
Dec 19 2006

YEREVAN, DECEMBER 19, NOYAN TAPAN. The Armenian-European Policy
and Legal Advice Centre (AEPLAC) is making an analysis to determine
the format of further entry of Armenian products into the European
market. The ARPLAC Director Tigran Jrbashian stated this at the
December 19 press conference. According to him, the Armenia-EU Action
Plan outlines the conditions, in case of meeting which Armenia
may increase its presence in the EU market, which is the largest
one in terms of its purchasing power: the total population of EU
countries is 450 million, the annual GDP per capita is 15 thousand
dollars. Particularly, the matter concerns the Armenian food industry’s
production, whose quality and safety certification procedures have
been brought into line with European standards, with appropriate
laboratory conditions being created. It was mentioned that at the
present time Armenis uses the privileges envisaged by the General
System of Preferences, which allows exporters to save up to 4.5 mln
euros in importing goods into EU countries. T. Jrbashian said that
in the future Armenia-EU relations may develop under such formats as
a free trade agreement, a customs union or "European economic areal".

PAPER REPORTS DELAY IN CONSTRUCTION OF IRAN-ARMENIA GAS PIPELINE

Haykakan Zhamanak, Armenia
Dec 14 2006

"They are staging a show"

Our source close to the Armenian government has said that the
Iran-Armenia gas pipeline will not be commissioned on 1 January 2007.

It will be commissioned in mid-2007 at best. Of course, if the
commissioning means that gas will be supplied from Iran to Armenia
via this gas pipeline.

The point is that at present numerous sectors of the pipeline have
not been coupled to each other, especially where turns are present.

Incidentally, the abovementioned does not contradict information that
the opening of the pipeline will take place on 20 December [2006].

Our source says Russia has forced Armenia to stage this show to make
Georgia believe that the Iran-Armenia gas pipeline is ready and at
any stage Russians can suspend the North Caucasus gas pipeline without
doing any harm to their "strategic partner" Armenia.

According to the Russian scenario, in this case Georgians will be
forced to seek reconciliation with them, or, more precisely, they
will beg for reconciliation and ask not to suspend the North Caucasus
gas pipeline.

Azeri Press Agency
Dec 16 2006

Novruz Mammadov: Kocharyan tries to take advantage of Karabakh talks
for presidential and parliamentary elections

[ 16 Dec. 2006 16:31 ]

`Robert Kocharyan’s last statement showed once more that it is not
sincere in the negotiation on the settlement of Nagorno Karabakh.

It is an illogical statement before the world community,’ Novruz
Mammadov, chair of international affairs department of Azerbaijani
President’s Office told APA.
Kocharyan said the negotiations on the settlement of Nagorno Karabakh
will not come to active stage until the parliamentary elections in
Armenia.
Mammadov said that Kocharyan wanted time two weeks ago for
continuation of the talks and arrival in some agreement.
`Making such a statement now proves that Armenian wants to gain time.
Kocharyan wants to take advantage of the talks for his political
interests. It is clear that he tries to gain points for the coming
parliamentary and presidential elections. This kind of behavior
doesn’t bring respect to him,’ he said. /APA/

PanARMENIAN.Net

Christian Ter-Stepanian Appointed Head of CoE Ad Hoc Reflection Group
15.12.2006 15:27 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ December 14 the Council of Europe Committee of
Ministers decreed on forming an ad hoc reflection group responsible
for considering the objectives of a possible Council of Europe action
concerning the religious dimension of intercultural dialogue. The
group is headed by Armenia’s permanent representative in the CoE
Christian Ter-Stepanian, who being a leader of the CoE group of
rapporteurs in the course of the recent two years stood for
intercultural and interconfessional dialogue. The outcomes of the
group’s activities will be submitted to the Committee of Ministers in
May 2007, reports the RA MFA press office.