Author: nina hovnanian

RUSSIAN MILITARY PILOTS BEING TRAINED AT EREBUNI AIRPORT

February 10, 2015 11:32

Photo: Russian military base

Yerevan/Mediamax/. At the Erebuni military airdrome, the Russian
aviation base pilots are being trained for flights in adverse weather
conditions at altitudes of 4-5 km above sea level.

“The pilots’ training in the modern 4th generation MiG-29 fighters
which will last till February 2015 is led by Commander of Aviation
Unit, Colonel Alexander Petrov”, the press release of the Russian
base reads.

During the daytime and nightly flights, the pilots will develop
piloting skills in wintertime. The pilots will conduct up to 30
flights a day with the total flight of the crew of over 10 hours.

After the training course, the pilots will be taught skills of simple
and complex aerobatics as well as the basics of military use of modern
fighters during air battles.

OUR ATLANTIS MOVIE ON ARMENIAN GENOCIDE INCLUDED IN ISTANBUL’S FILM FESTIVAL PROGRAM

10:02, 10 February, 2015

YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 10, ARMENPRESS. Our Atlantis, documentary telling
about the terrible consequences of the Armenian Genocide, has been
included in the main program of the 14th Istanbul International
Independent Film Festival. In a conversation with “Armenpress”,
the director of the movie Arthur Sukiasyan noted that it has been
included in the “Home” program of the film festival.

Among other things, the filmmaker underscored: “The documentary will
be screened in Istanbul. Within the framework of the 14th Istanbul
International Independent Film Festival, there will be a special
program dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide,
where the Armenian and Turkish filmmakers will reflect on personal
stories and revealing the complicated issues through movies.”

The movie is a joint production of Armenia, France, and Turkey. The
documentary tells about an Armenian camp in Istanbul (Turkey), which
was built by orphans in 1960’s and later on taken away by Turkish
authorities. This is a journey between the past and present of the
camp showing how 30 years later children of this camp try not to lose
their camp memories.

As this documentary collects main protagonists personal stories and
memories about camp, a larger story begins to unfold.

In a conversation with “Armenpress”, the director of the movie
Arthur Sukiasyan underscored that the film is not about the Genocide,
notwithstanding, it introduces the consequences of that tragedy.

“The movie has been completed. The documentary was cut in France in
the spring and summer. The creation of the movie was supported by
the National Cinema Center of Armenia and “Hrant Dink” foundation,”
Arthur Sukiasyan noted.

SOCIOLOGIST: ARMENIA IS THE 56TH BY THE NUMBER OF DELIBERATE MURDERS IN THE WORLD

by Marat Kadamyan

Tuesday, February 10, 16:23

Armenia has occupied the 56th place in the world by the number
of deliberate murders, director of the “Sociometer” centre
for sociological research, Aharon Adibelyan, said at today’s
press-conference.

“The total of 73 murders were registered in Armenia in 2014, 20 of
which the grave ones. There are numerous reasons of such a number of
murder cases in our country. In particular, first of all, I mean the
high level of aggression in the Armenian society stemming from the
social reasons. Unfortunately, sometimes this aggression has harmful
consequences”, -he said.

The second reason is self-abandonment of many potential murderers,
which sometimes feel sorry after committing a crime. The third reason
is today’s Armenian mentality which supposes settlement of conflicts
through violence.

The sociologist thinks that upbringing of people since their tender
age is panacea that may promote to avert violence and murder cases
in Armenia.

To recall, according to UNODC report for 2014, 2,8 cases of murder for
100 thsd people were registered in Armenia, 2 cases in Azerbaijan,
4 – in Georgia and 11,2 – in Russia. African countries occupy the
first places of the “rating”.

SINCE MARCH 1ST, 2008, KIM BALAYAN’S SONS KEEP GETTING PROMOTED

02.10.2015 13:48 epress.am

Armenia’s Constitutional Court member Kim Balayan’s first son
Davit Balayan, has received a promotion and been given the title of
presiding judge of the Court of First Instance of Shengavit District,
replacing Prosecutor General Gevorg Kostanyan’s father. Until now,
Davit Babayan was a judge at the Court of General Jurisdiction of
Ajapnyak and Davtashen Administrative Districts.

The Zhoghovurt daily stresses that after the March 1st, 2008 incidents,
Kim Balayan’s family members’ official promotions have not stopped. The
paper recalled an unclassified document released by Wikileaks which
stated that US embassy officials were approached by Valery Poghosyan,
one of Armenia’s nine Constitutional Court justices, on Mar. 6,
2008, for a secret meeting in which he declared that then president
of Armenia Robert Kocharian fixed the court’s upcoming Mar.

8 decision to decide against the complaint by ex-president Levon
Ter-Petrossian alleging vote fraud in the disputed February 19
presidential election.

According to the document, Kim Balayan was then promised that his
son Tigran Balayan would be given the position of the spokesperson
of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, if he voted for a verdict against
Ter-Petrosyan. Balayan was later given the position.

ARMENIAN HISTORIAN: THERE WILL BE NO MORE COMMISSIONS AND PROTOCOLS WITH TURKS

by Ashot Safaryan

Tuesday, February 10, 16:17

Armenia has both political and legal arguments for appealing to
international courts for compensation for the Armenian Genocide,
Director of the History Institute of the National Academy of Sciences
of Armenia Ashot Melkonyan told journalists on Tuesday.

“We have huge work to do. I think that the next centennial of the
Armenian Genocide will be a period of compensation,” Melkonyan said.

He believes that the political mentality of the Armenians has changed.

“We will have no more Armenian-Turkish reconciliation commissions
or protocols. We will just claim recognition and compensation,”
Melkonyan said.

LA CHAMBRE DE COMMERCE ET D’INDUSTRIE D’ARMENIE ET L’ASSOCIATION DES ENTREPRENEURS DE MOSCOU SIGNENT UN PROTOCOLE D’ENTENTE

ARMENIE

Le president de la Chambre de Commerce et d’Industrie d’Armenie
Andranik Aleksanyan et Irina Albertyan de l’Association des
entrepreneurs de Moscou (MAP), qui est en charge des relations avec
l’Armenie, ont signe un protocole d’entente dans la capitale armenienne
entre les deux organisations .

Le document a ete signe dans le cadre de la conference russo-armenienne
intitule :

UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA-LINCOLN TO HOST INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE MARKING GENOCIDE CENTENNIAL

Monday, February 9th, 2015

University of Nebraska-Lincoln will host a major international
conference to mark the centennial of the Armenian Genocide

LINCOLN, Neb.–On the occasion of the Centennial of the Armenian
Genocide, the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL) will host a two-day
conference from March 19-20, 2015 entitled “Crossing the Centennial:
The Historiography of the Armenian Genocide Re-Evaluated” at the Wick
Alumni Center – Great Hall, 1520 R Street.

Organized by Prof. Bedross Der Matossian from the Department of History
at UNL, the conference is sponsored by the Norman and Bernice Harris
Center for Judaic Studies, the National Association for Armenian
Studies and Research (NAASR) in Belmont, Mass., the Society for
Armenian Studies (SAS), the Department of History, the Faculty Senate
Convocation Committee, the Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs
Program, the Women’s and Gender Studies program, and the Institute
of Ethnic Studies at UNL.

The conference will focus on four under-researched themes that
have recently gained scholarly attention and analytical depth:
a) humanitarianism and humanitarian intervention in the Armenian
Genocide; b) women and children in the Armenian Genocide; c)
comparative dimensions of the Armenian Genocide; d) and the impact
of the Armenian Genocide on society, politics, literature, and culture.

Twenty-two scholars from Armenia, Cambodia, Canada, Holland, Hungary,
Israel, and the United States representing 17 different academic
institutions will participate in five panels of the conference.

The conference will start at 2:00pm on Thursday, March 19, with
welcoming remarks by Prof. William G. Thomas III, the chair of the
Department of History at UNL, and opening remarks by Prof. Bedross
Der Matossian from the Department of History.

The first panel, entitled “Humanitarianism and Humanitarian
Intervention” will be moderated by Prof. David Forsythe (UNL),
who is widely regarded as being among the first scholars who have
established the study of human rights and humanitarian affairs in the
disciplines of political science and international relations. The
panel will feature the following speakers and topics: Dr. Hilmar
Kaiser (Phnom Penh, Cambodia), “Humanitarian Intervention and
Ottoman Opposition to Extermination: A Neglected Aspect”; PeÃŒ~Ater
PaÃŒ~Al KraÃŒ~Anitz (Pázmány Péter Catholic University), “Armenian
Refugees, Humanitarian Assistance and Hungary”; and Prof. Mark
Toufayan (University of Ottawa), “Between Intimacy and Alienation:
Armenian Property, Denationalization and the Passions of ‘Protection’
in French Mandated Cilicia, 1918-1923”.

The second panel, which will be the featured one of the Conference,
will be moderated by Prof. Jean Cahan, the director of the Harris
Center for Judaic Studies and will include three speakers: Prof.

Richard G. Hovannisian (University of California-Los Angeles),
“The Centenary of the Armenian Genocide: What Have We Learned?”; Prof.

Michelle Tusan (University of Nevada-Las Vegas), “Humanitarian Empire:
Britain’s Response to the Armenian Genocide,”; and Prof. Keith
Watenpaugh (University of California-Davis), “Armenia, Armenians,
The League of Nations and Modern Humanitarianism.”

The second day of the conference will start at 9:00am and will feature
four panels. The first panel entitled “Women and Children during
the Genocide” will be chaired by Prof. Patrice McMahon, an expert on
international security, conflict, and human rights, and will feature
the following speakers and subjects: Prof. Benny Morris (Ben-Gurion
University), “Women and Children in the Turkish Ethnic Cleansing
of Armenians and Greeks, 1919-1923”; Prof. Carina Karapetian Giorgi
(Pomona College), “Critical Examination of the Historiography of Women
during the Armenian Genocide”; Anna Aleksanyan (Clark University),
“‘Neutral home’ and the Issue of Identity of the Surviving Armenian
Women and Children”; and Tugce Kayaal (University of Michigan-Ann
Arbor), “A Critique of the Concept of the “Genocide Survivor”:
Armenian Orphans in Aleppo Between the Years of 1915-1918.”

The second panel entitled “The Armenian Genocide and the Holocaust”
will be chaired by Prof. Ari Kohen, the director of the Human Rights
and Humanitarian Affairs Program at UNL and will feature the following
speakers and subjects: Umit Kurt (Clark University), “‘Legal’ and
‘Official’ Plundering of Armenian and Jewish Properties during the
Armenian Genocide and the Holocaust within a Comparative Perspective”;
Prof. Stefan Ihrig (Van Leer Institute, Jerusalem), “From the Armenian
Genocide to the Holocaust – A Connected Perspective”; and Prof.

Harutyun Marutyan (National Academy of Sciences of Armenia), “The
Institute of Righteous Among the Nations in the Armenian and the
Jewish Cases.”

The last panel of the conference entitled “Aftermath of the Genocide:
Politics, Culture, Society, and Literature,” will be chaired by Prof.

Chantal Kalisa, an expert on the Rwandan Genocide and director of
the Women’s and Gender Studies program at UNL, and will feature the
following speakers and subjects: Prof. Tsolin Nalbantian (Leiden
University), “Armenian Nation Building through Sport: The Armenian
Olympiad Before and After the Armenian Genocide”; Prof. Heghnar
Watenpaugh (University of California-Davis), “Art, Heritage, and the
Armenian Genocide: Toros Roslin’s Zeytun Gospels between 1915 and
2015”; Prof. Talar Chahinian (California State University-Long Beach),
“Impossible Testimonies: Literature and Aesthetics in the Aftermath of
the Armenian Genocide”; and Dr. Seyhan Bayraktar (Historical Seminar
of the University of Zurich), “The Armenian Genocide and the Politics
of Denial: on Turkey, Civil Society, and EU Recognition Politics.”

Closing remarks will be delivered by Prof. Lloyd Ambrosius from
the Department of History. “It is a great honor for the University
of Nebraska-Lincoln to hold the largest conference in the Midwest
to mark the Centennial of the Armenian Genocide,” said conference
organizer Prof. Der Matossian. “It is not only that we are bringing
scholars from various disciplines to discuss different aspects of the
Armenian Genocide but that we also should think of this Conference as
a unique opportunity for the University community at large to benefit
from the expertise of top scholars in the field and understand better
one of the first genocides of the modern period.”

The poster of the conference was prepared by Ruben Malayan, a renowned
artist from Armenia. The poster displays Malayan’s expression of the
experiences of the Armenian nation (represented by women and children)
on the death marches of the Genocide. The white auras around their
heads symbolize the sanctity of the victims. The stark contrast of
black and white background represents the inhuman suffering people had
to endure before perishing. The work was inspired by a real photograph
of an Armenian family taken during expulsion and extermination of 1915.

The event is open to the public. For further information, please
contact Prof. Der Matossian at [email protected] or (402)
472-2417.

AZERBAIJAN NOT TO ATTEND EURONEST PA SESSION IN YEREVAN

APA, Azerbaijan
Feb 9 2015

Elkhan Suleymanov: “This organization keeps Armenia under its umbrella
and attempts to insure Armenia from any sanctions and responsibility
for its aggressive criminal actions against Azerbaijan”

Azerbaijan will not attend the Euronest PA session to take place in
Yerevan on 1618 March, Elkhan Suleymanov, Chairman of Azerbaijani
Delegation to the Euronest PA, told APA.

E. Suleymanov said bureau meeting of the Euronest PA will take place
in Strasbourg on February 11, 2015. The meeting will discuss the draft
agenda of the 4th plenary session, among other issues. The 4th plenary
session of the Euronest PA will be held in Yerevan between 16th and
18th March of 2015, and this decision was adopted by Bureau in 2014.

“It should be noted that the Azerbaijani delegation repeatedly and
resolutely expressed its objection against holding the Euronest PA
sessions, Bureau and Committees’ meetings in Armenia, as well as
against cochairmanship of Armenia to the Euronest PA, during Bureau
meetings between 2011 and 2014.

The Azerbaijani delegation highlighted in its statements that it is
inadmissible to hold the Euronest PA sessions, Bureau and Committees’
meetings in Armenia and to allow Armenia to cochair the Euronest PA
until Nagorno Karabakh and 7 surrounding provinces are liberated,
threat for frontier provinces of Azerbaijan with 400 thousand
population is fully eliminated as a result of the occupation of
Sarsang reservoir for over 23 years, blockade of Nakhchivan is ended.

Furthermore, the Azerbaijani delegation unambiguously stated that
it won’t attend plenary sessions and meetings of the institution to
be held in Armenia. Therefore, the decision on holding the plenary
session of the Euronest PA in Yerevan was adopted despite resolute
objections of Azerbaijani delegation,” he noted.

E. Suleymanov added that the point of attention is that the 4th session
of the Euronest PA in Yerevan will coincide with 100th anniversary
of socalled Armenian genocide. Undoubtedly, the Armenian side will
use this international event as a means of propagation of socalled
Armenian genocide.

“I’d like particularly underline that despite the fact that Armenia
signed a Customs Union agreement and joined the the Eurasian Economic
Union, the Euronest PA neither expressed its attitude towards this
fact nor discussed this situation.

On the contrary, the fact that the plenary session of the Euronest PA
will be held in this country in such situation proves the approval of
Armenia’s political decisions to join the abovementioned institutions.

And this means that Armenia will achieve the adoption of any decision
in favor of its own interests during Yerevan session of the Euronest
PA. On the other hand, Yerevan session provides the Armenian side
with additional opportunities for propaganda of 100th anniversary of
socalled Armenian genocide.

We witnessed double standards policy regarding Azerbaijan for
several times within the Euronest PA, as it was the case in other
international organizations. Despite our multiple efforts, it was
impossible so far to discuss the fact of the occupation of 20% of
Azerbaijani territories by Armenia for over 23 years in Committees’
meetings and plenary sessions of Euronest PA.

We always faced a statement that Euronest PA is not an institution able
to solve the issue of NagornoKarabakh and other occupied territories,”
he underlined.

E. Suleymanov went on to add that it’s clear that on the background
of the annexation of Crimea to Russia and armed confrontations
in the southeast of Ukraine, a number of leading world states
and international organizations, as well as the European Union,
demonstrate highlevel support to Ukraine.

“Nevertheless, despite the fact that we claimed the adoption of
documents regarding sanctions against aggressor Armenia by demanding
the same level of support to Azerbaijan, territories of which have
been occupied for long, our efforts were definitely blocked by
different means.

Thus, as other international organizations, the Euronest PA, a
parliamentary institution of the European Union within the framework
of Eastern Partnership program, keeps Armenia under its umbrella and
attempts to insure Armenia from any sanctions and responsibility for
its aggressive criminal actions against Azerbaijan.

At the same time, Euronest PA confirms itself to be a propagation
facility in promoting these stupid claims among the world community
by holding its 4th session in Yerevan on the eve of 100th anniversary
of socalled Armenian genocide.

Interestingly, this institution, which actually supports socalled
Armenian genocide, doesn’t take into account that Armenians, who
are going to celebrate 100th anniversary of socalled claims, have
been committing genocide crimes against the Azerbaijani people since
1905 and that genocide crimes of Armenians against Azerbaijani people
continues for already 110 years.

Finally, I’d like to stress once again that Azerbaijani delegation
insists on its position, and we won’t attend the plenary session to
be held in Yerevan,” he completed.

HERITAGE: AUTHORITIES ARE TAKING REVENGE ON ACTIVISTS

14:30 | February 9,2015 | Politics

The Heritage party expresses its concerns over the weekend attack on
Artak Khachatryan, a member of the Political Council of the Prosperous
Armenia Party (BHK).

In a statement issued on Monday, the party said it strongly condemns
the chase of citizens for their political views and the vicious
practices of terrorizing citizens, viewing it as ‘a silent permission’
given by the authorities that came to power through rigged elections
and law enforcement agencies.

“The recent attacks make us assume that the authorities are taking
revenge on those activists who are trying to raise a voice of protest
against permissiveness and anarchy in the country.

We demand that relevant agencies, particularly the Armenian Police,
take drastic measures to disclose the assailants and identify the
effeminate perpetrators of the attack, giving each of them his due
punishment, since violence and impunity, as we can see, give birth
to new atrocities,” the party said expressing its support to Artak
Khachatryan and all citizens who are fighting justice.

The party calls on everyone to be united and unyielding in the fight
against the illegitimate regime.

AZERI POLITICAL SCIENTIST VIEWS ALIYEV’S PROPOSALS FOR NK CONFLICT SETTLEMENT AS RIDICULOUS

17:23, 9 February, 2015

YEREVAN, 9 FEBRUARY, ARMENPRESS. Director of the “East-West” Research
Center of Azerbaijan, political scientist Arastun Orujlu views
President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev’s “proposals” for the settlement
of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict at the Munich Security Conference as
“absolutely ridiculous”.

As “Armenpress” reports, touching upon Aliyev’s speech in Munich in an
interview with Azerbaijan’s Meydan TV, Orujlu said Aliyev’s thoughts
on “supporting” the civil society of Nagorno-Karabakh “are nothing
but ironic”.