Author: Samvel Nahapetian

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                                        Tuesday, 

Armenian PM Continues To Eye Long Tenure


 . Anush Muradian


Armenia - Prime Minister Karen Karapetian speaks at the Sixth
Armenia-Diaspora Conference in Yerevan, 19Sep2017.

Prime Minister Karen Karapetian again made clear on Tuesday that he
wants to retain his post after President Serzh Sarkisian's final term
in office ends in April.

Karapetian also insisted that the leadership of the ruling Republican
Party of Armenia (HHK) has still not decided who should be the
country's prime minister then.

Some senior HHK figures, notably former parliament speaker Galust
Sahakian, have stated in recent weeks that Sarkisian should continue
to govern Armenia as prime minister or in another capacity.

"This is their personal opinion," Karapetian told reporters. "The
party has no decision yet. As soon as the party makes a decision we
will announce it."

The Armenian president, who is the HHK's top leader, himself has shed
little light on his political plans so far. The end of his decade-long
presidency will be followed by Armenia's transformation into a
parliamentary republic in which the prime minister will be, at least
on paper, the most powerful state official.

Karapetian spoke to the press after delivering a speech at the Sixth
Armenia-Diaspora Conference in Yerevan and answering questions from
some of its participants. One of them, a Lebanese-Armenian
businessman, wondered whether he would like to stay on as prime
minister next year. "Yes," the premier replied briefly.

He has repeatedly made similar statements since being appointed by
Sarkisian as prime minister in September 2016.

In his speech at the government-organized forum, Karapetian again
defended his one-year track record and reaffirmed his pledges to
implement far-reaching economic reforms. He cited official statistical
data showing faster economic growth, rising exports and improved tax
collection in the country. Critics dismiss these figures, saying that
they have had little impact on living standards in the past year.

"We do realize that these results of our one-year work are not enough
to qualitatively change the lives of Armenia's residents," said
Karapetian. "We must actively continue our policies while developing
and implementing new programs."

Karapetian renewed his calls for Diaspora Armenians' involvement in
his reform drive, saying that they "understand very well what kind of
environment foreign investors expect and can guide us accordingly."
"For that purpose, we are planning to hold next autumn a big economic
and investment forum in Armenia during which we will discuss Armenia's
future and our vision for Armenia," he said.



Turkish-Armenian Politician To Seek Genocide Recognition


 . Tatevik Lazarian


Armenia - Garo Paylan, an ethnic Armenian member of Turkey's
parliament, arrives for an Armenia-Diaspora conference in Yerevan,
18Sep2017.

Garo Paylan, an ethnic Armenian member of Turkey's parliament, on
Tuesday pledged to continue fighting for an official Turkish
recognition of the 1915 Armenian genocide in the Ottoman Empire.

Paylan is among 1,800 Armenians from around the world who converged on
Yerevan to take part in the latest government-organized conference on
Armenia's relations with its worldwide Diaspora. The conference got
underway on Monday in the presence of President Serzh Sarkisian and
other senior Armenian officials.

"Turkey is again in a dark period," Paylan declared in his speech at
the forum. "And we know very well that such tendencies lead to
crimes. A great crime, a genocide, was perpetrated 102 years ago and
that crime is continuing because a crime that goes unpunished causes
new crimes."

"I do believe that one day we will achieve justice leading to the
recognition of the genocide and I will continue to fight for it," he
added, sparking rapturous applause.

Paylan, 44, is one of the three Istanbul Armenians who were elected to
the Turkish parliament from different political parties in 2015. He is
affiliated with the pro-Kurdish People's Democratic Party (HDP), which
is in opposition to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

The HDP is the only major Turkish party to have recognized the World
War One-era mass killings of some 1.5 million Armenians as
genocide. Successive Turkish governments have for decades claimed that
Ottoman Armenians died in smaller numbers and not as a result of a
government policy of extermination.

"The HDP knows that without facing up to the genocide Turkey can
neither solve the Kurdish problem nor establish democracy," said
Paylan.

Paylan, who has previously run an Armenian school in Istanbul, pledged
to challenge Ankara's genocide denial shortly after being elected to
the Turkish parliament. In April 2016, he read out on the parliament
floor the names of Armenian intellectuals who were rounded up in 1915
and subsequently executed by the Ottoman authorities at the start of
the genocide.

He was suspended from the legislature for three days in January after
referring the "genocides" of Armenians and other Ottoman
minorities. In July, the Turkish parliament passed a law that banned
its members from mentioning the Armenian genocide in the chamber.

Armenia's Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian praised Paylan's
activities when the two men met in Yerevan on Monday. Nalbandian's
press office said they discussed, among other things, the "resolution
of regional problems."

Paylan said in his speech that only "a democratic Turkey" would agree
to normalize relations with Armenia. "Unless Turkey becomes a
democracy we could wait [for that] for decades," he said.



U.S. Lawmakers Discuss Karabakh, Investments In Yerevan


 . Astghik Bedevian


Armenia - Members of the U.S. House of Representatives at a meeting
with Armenian parliamentarians in Yerevan, 19Sep2017.

Six members of the U.S. House of Representatives discussed the
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and obstacles to closer U.S.-Armenian
commercial ties with Armenian government officials and
parliamentarians during a visit to Yerevan on Tuesday.

The congressional delegation met with Prime Minister Karen Karapetian,
parliament speaker Ara Babloyan and several other Armenian lawmakers
representing different political parties. The delegation comprised
three of the four co-chairs of the Congressional Caucasus on Armenian
Issues: Frank Pallone, Jackie Speier and David Valadao.

The unresolved Karabakh dispute was high on the agenda of the
meetings, with Karapetian and Babloayn praising U.S. mediation of
Armenian-Azerbaijani peace talks. Both sides agreed on the need for
the conflict's peaceful resolution.

Anna Eshoo, another member of the U.S. delegation, said she and her
colleagues stressed the importance of a Karabakh settlement for
Armenia's economic development. "I think that the future of Armenia
very much rests on a peaceful resolution," she told RFE/RL's Armenian
service (Azatutyun.am).

Eshoo insisted that a compromise solution to the conflict is possible
despite the current deadlock in the negotiation process. "I think that
we need to be optimistic," said the California Democrat.

Most of the visiting lawmakers have strongly supported direct
U.S. economic assistance to Karabakh provided for almost two
decades. Some of that aid has been spent on humanitarian demining
operations conducted by the HALO Trust, a British charity. As recently
as two weeks ago the House of Representatives approved $1.5 million in
fresh funding for such activities.

Valadao, who represents another California constituency home to many
Armenian Americans, travelled to Karabakh on Monday to inspect the
HALO Trust's mine-clearing activities. He said in Yerevan that he is
not worried about being blacklisted by Azerbaijan for visiting the
Armenian-populated territory without Baku's permission.

"That's their choice to make those types of decisions," the Republican
congressman told RFE/RL's Armenian service. "I can't worry about
that."

The U.S. lawmakers also spoke with their Armenian colleagues about
ways of boosting U.S. investments in Armenia. Eshoo said they stressed
the importance of combatting government corruption in the
country. "[Corruption] is anathema to American companies," she said.

"They listened very carefully," the congresswoman said of the Armenian
parliamentarians. "I think it's important that friends always tell
friends the truth."

The meeting with Karapetian also touched upon prospects for signing a
U.S.-Armenian agreement on the avoidance of double taxation.

An Armenian deputy minister for transport and communications, Boris
Demirkhanian, said such an agreement is especially important for
Armenia's burgeoning information technology (IT) sector when he spoke
at the American delegation's separate meeting with local tech
executives. The visiting legislators were briefed on strong
U.S. presence in the sector, according to a statement by the Armenian
Ministry of Transport, Communications and Information Technology.

The sector has expanded by an average of over 20 percent annually in
the past decade. It is dominated by the Armenian branches of U.S. tech
giants like as Synopsys, National Instruments, Mentor Graphics and
VMware.



Czech Government `Unaware' Of Arms Sales To Azerbaijan


 . Armen Koloyan


Czech Republic - A DANA-M1 self-propelled gun-howitzer. (Photo
courtesy of www.army-technology.com)

The government of the Czech Republic on Tuesday claimed to have not
authorized the newly disclosed delivery to Azerbaijan of Czech-made
heavy artillery systems.

The Azerbaijani military began on Monday large-scale exercises which
it said are involving 15,000 troops as well as hundreds of tanks,
armored personnel carriers, cannons and other military
hardware. Photographs released by it showed two columns of Dana
self-propelled howitzers and RM-70 multiple-launch rocket systems
joining the drills.

Both weapons are manufactured by Czech companies. The Azerbaijani
Defense Ministry did not demonstrate them until this year. It is not
clear when and how it got hold of them.

In a statement to RFE/RL's Armenian service (Azatutyun.am), the
Foreign Ministry in Prague insisted that in recent years the Czech
government has not issued mandatory licenses for the sale of any
"lethal weapons" to Azerbaijan. What is more, it said, the government
turned down in 2017 and 2016 Azerbaijani requests for the purchase of
the 152-milimeter Dana howitzers and the 122-milimeter RM-70 rockets
and informed the European Union about that.

The ministry added that it does not know just how they were delivered
to Azerbaijan. It promised to look into the matter.

The United States and other key NATO members states have long
maintained embargoes on sales of offensive weapons to Armenia and
Azerbaijan. The Czech Republic joined the alliance in 1999.

The Czech Foreign Ministry said the Central European nation is
strongly opposed to any attempts at a military solution to the
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.



Press Review



"Zhamanak" reports on President Serzh Sarkisian's speech at the latest
Armenia-Diaspora conference and, in particular, his calls for Diaspora
Armenians to relocate to their ancestral homeland en masse. The paper
says that the economic situation in Armenia is anything but favorable
for such immigration.

"Haykakan Zhamanak" points to the organizers' failure to invite
representatives of the Yelk alliance and other major opposition groups
to the conference. "As Diaspora Minister Hranush Hakobian stressed in
her speech, some 1,800 guests from 71 countries were taking part in
the event," writes the paper. "But there was no room for the
parliamentary opposition." It cites Sarkisian's claims that his
administration "welcomes and appreciates pluralism." It suggests that
Sarkisian referred not to pluralism within Armenia but differences
among various Diaspora organizations.

"Hraparak" comments on Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian's remark at
the conference that Armenian territorial concessions to Azerbaijan are
on the agenda of ongoing peace talks on Nagorno-Karabakh. Nalbandian
referred to those lands whose return to Azerbaijan would create no
"security threats to Karabakh" itself. The paper claims that this runs
counter to statements made by Armenian officials just a few weeks ago.

"Aravot" is critical of the Armenian government's plans to intensify
Russian language classes in Armenia's schools. "The language is not a
secondary issue and they are well aware of this in imperial centers,"
editorializes the paper. "Speaking a foreign language is a good
thing. It doesn't hurt to speak Russian, to put it mildly # But
speaking a foreign language and giving it any official status are
different things. That has nothing to do with Russia." The paper says
it would be just as critical of if the United States pressured Armenia
to give English an official status.

(Tigran Avetisian)


Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
Copyright (c) 2017 Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, Inc.
1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.
www.rferl.org

Ouest-France
mardi 15 août 2017


Un public enchanté par le trio Gayaneh


Samedi, dans l'église, le public est tombé sous le charme du trio
familial Gayaneh, composé de Richard Kayadjanian, le père, d'origine
arménienne, de Marie-Jeanne Lechaux, la maman, et d'Amandine, leur
fille. Au violon, dès le premier coup d'archet de Marie-Jeanne, tout
le monde s'est laissé emporter dans une java.

La promenade musicale a continué et a traversé la Bretagne, l'Irlande,
l'Amérique, sans oublier le peuple gitan juif d'Espagne, et l'Arménie.
Richard a délaissé son violon de concertiste pour la guitare, la
darbouka et même l'harmonica, et Amandine l'a accompagné à la flûte
traversière.

Le trio sera présent ce mardi, devant le rocher de la Vierge
Notre-Dame de la Garde, pour assurer le programme musical de la messe
qui aura lieu à 10 h 30. En cas de mauvais temps, l'office aura lieu
dans l'église Notre-Dame de l'Assomption.

Un CD a été enregistré et est vendu au prix de 5 ¤.