Author: Tumanian Talar

FESTIVE ARRANGEMENTS WILL BE CONDUCTED IN NKR ON SEPTEMBER 2

NKR Government Information and Public Relations Department
August 12, 2009

Today, a regular sitting of the governmental commission on organizing
and regulating of celebrations in view of the 18th anniversary of
proclamation of the NKR’s independence has taken place. The sitting
was conducted by the Chairman of the Commission, Vice Prime Minister
Spartak Tevosyan. At the session it was decided that a number of
arrangements will take place both in the capital Stepanakert and
in regions of the Republic. According to the programme affirmed
by the governmental commission, on September 1, the first lesson
of school-year 2008-2009 in all educational establishments of the
Republic will be dedicated to the independence day: the NKR Security
Council members, members of the Government and deputies of NA will
participate in the lesson.

On September 2, military columns will pass the streets of the capital
and administrative centres of the Republic in ceremonial step. The
state governmental deligation will direct from the Rebirth Square of
Stepanakert to the Memorial Complex of the capital, where lying of
wreaths and marching of military band will take place. On that day,
concerts, athletic performances and outdoor folk fetes will take
place in Stepanakert and towns of the regions.

In the evening, reception at the NKR President in view of the day
will take place.

A festive concert followed by salute will take place in the Rebirth
Square. According to the Mayor’s assurance, accomplishment works
and planting of greenery in streets and parks of the capital will be
completed by August 20. At present, an accomplishment of the territory
of the Memorial Complex is in going on. S.Tevosyan has charged the
commission members with a task to complete the preparatory works in
order their final review will be carried out at the next sitting

BUCHAREST FILM FEST GETS NAME CHANGE
By Stuart Kemp

Hollywood Reporter
Aug 12, 2009, 10:08 AM ET

Romania International Film Festival to run Sept. 27 – Oct. 4

LONDON — The Bucharest International Film Festival in Romania
is changing its name to the Romania International Film Festival,
organizers said Wednesday.

The newly named event will take place in the city of Arad Sept. 27
through Oct. 4 and will feature an official competition strand and
a competitive international film section.

The official competition lineup, named CineBlackSea, focuses on movies
produced in either Russia, Republic of Moldavia, Ukraine, Georgia,
Armenia, Azerbaidjan, Bulgaria, Turkey, Greece or Romania.

A competitive international section aims to focus on women in cinema
and will feature both features and documentaries directed by women.

AZERBAIJANI FILM FESTIVAL TO BE HELD IN YEREVAN IN OCTOBER

ArmInfo
2009-08-12 10:53:00

ArmInfo. The Caucasian Center of Peaceful Initiatives is organizing
an Azerbaijani Film Festival in Yerevan in October 2009.

Georgy Vanyan, Director of the Caucasian Center of Peaceful
Initiatives, told ArmInfo documentary, animation and feature
movies will be demonstrated during the festival. "Together with our
partners we will try to find young Azerbaijani film makers. We have
already established contacts with some cinematographers," G. Vanyan
said. Despite demonstration at Yerevan cinemas, special demonstrations
will be organized for individuals and legal entities if requested. Like
in the Turkish Film Festival held in Yerevan earlier this year, the
best film will be selected by voting. The key goal of the festival
is to promote dialogue between Armenia and Azerbaijan.

The festival will be held with the support of the US Embassy in
Armenia.

ASSOCIATION FOR FIGHTING GROUNDLESS CLAIMS OF GENOCIDE (ASIMED) LAUNCHED COUNTER-CAMPAIGN AGAINST ARMENIAN DIASPORA

ArmInfo
2009-08-12 17:10:00

ArmInfo. The California State Assembly Education Committee’s recent
passage of a piece of legislation that calls on the California State
Curriculum Commission to consider the inclusion of an oral history
component in its already mandatory genocide education curriculum has
prompted the Association for Fighting Groundless Claims of Genocide
(ASIMED) to launch an e-mail campaign against the legislation, which
will lead to terming the World War I killings of Anatolian Armenians
as genocide.

The influential US-based Armenian diaspora organization, the Armenian
National Committee of America (ANCA), last week announced that the
legislation, authored by Republican California Senator Mark Wyland
and known as SB 234, the Genocide Awareness Act. Both the existing
curriculum and SB 234 make explicit reference to the allegations
of Armenian genocide in addition to several other genocides of the
20th century. The California State Senate unanimously passed the bill
on June 3 this year. Having cleared the CA State Assembly Education
Committee, SB 234 now moves to the CA State Assembly Appropriations
Committee for consideration, ANCA noted on Friday.

Assistant Professor Savas Egilmez of the Erzurum-based Ataturk
University, who heads ASIMED, has warned about the probable
implications of the bill, announcing that ASIMED has been preparing
to launch an e-mail campaign protesting the bill, the Cihan news
agency reported.

"This bill will cause the equalizing of the 1915 events with the
Holocaust and the Cambodian and Rwandan genocides," Egilmez was quoted
as saying, referring to the killings of Anatolian Armenians during
the early 20th century as "the 1915 events."

If the legislation is adopted, Turkish-American children attending
schools in California will also be exposed to the Armenian lobby’s
campaigns, Egilmez said. "Young people from other ethnic origins
will label Turks as barbarians and will have prejudice and enmity
against Turks. Recognition of this legislation in a state will trigger
similar legislation in other states or at least it will encourage
the diaspora on this issue. That’s why both citizens of the Turkish
Republic and Turks living in the United States should lend support to
the protest campaign against this legislation," he said, adding that
he would guide people who would like to join the protest campaign if
they send their e-mails to [email protected].

FREIGHT TRANSPORTATION TARGETS 90.4% FULFILLED BY SOUTH CAUCASUS RAILROAD IN JULY

ARKA
Aug 12, 2009
Yerevan

YEREVAN, August 12. /ARKA/. Cargo transportation targets were fulfilled
by 90.4% by the South Caucasus Railroad company in July 2009.

According to preliminary information of the company’s transport
servicing road center, 251,085 tons of cargoes were transported in
July against 277,600 tons planned. Freight turnover totaled 58,778,276
tons over the month.

Actual exports were 24,614 tons in July that was 38.7% of the
planned budget. The main transportation articles are cement,
construction materials, metal scrap, industrial raw materials and
metal concentrates.

Actual import transportation was 98,045 tons – 96.1% of the planned
budget. Main items were sugar, cereals, bulk-oil, mineral fertilizers,
metals.

A total of 113,607 tons (mainly industrial raw materials, cement,
nonferrous metal ore) were transported locally – 101.4% of the
planned budget.

South Caucasus Railroad fully owned by the Russian Railways is the
operator of the Armenian Railways under a 30-year concession agreement
signed on February 13 2008. N.V.

TURKS PRESS U.S. FOR ACTION ON REBELS

SunJournal
Nov 03, 2007
ANKARA

Turkey (AP) – Faced with the prospect of another front opening in
the already difficult Iraq war, the United States struggled Friday to
persuade Turkey not to send its army across the Iraqi border to attack
guerrillas who use the remote terrain to launch strikes inside Turkey.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice urged calm and cooperation in a
string of meetings with top Turkish leaders fed up with rebel attacks
and insistent that Turkey will do what it must to stop them.

She made a similar argument later Friday in a separate meeting with
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, whose government has said
it will not stand for any cross-border assault. Foreign Minister
Ali Babacan sounded impatient, and he offered no public promise of
the restraint Washington seeks. "We have great expectations from
the United States," Babacan said at a news conference following
his meeting with Rice. "We are at the point where words have been
exhausted and where there is need for action." Ankara has said Turkey
wants to hear specifics about what the United States is prepared to
do to counter the rebel Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, or Turkey
will launch an attack. Rebel attacks against Turkish positions over
the last month have left 47 dead, including 35 soldiers, according to
government and media reports. Many Turks are furious with the United
States for its perceived failure to pressure Iraq into cracking down
on the PKK, which operates from bases in the semiautonomous Kurdish
region of northern Iraq. Street protesters have urged the government
to send forces across the border even if it means deepening the rift
with the U.S., their NATO ally. Turkey’s military chief has said the
country will wait until after Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan meets
with President Bush next week in Washington to make a final decision
about an assault. Washington worries a Turkish incursion would bring
instability to what has been the calmest part of Iraq, and could set
a precedent for other countries, like Iran, that also have conflicts
with Kurdish rebels. Babacan returned from a trip to Iran last week,
lobbying for support for the Turkish side and underscoring that Turkey
will act as it sees fit, regardless of U.S. pressure.

"We all need to redouble our efforts and the United States is
committed to redoubling our efforts," Rice said. "No one should doubt
the commitment of the United States in this situation." She said the
United States is working to broaden its sharing of intelligence and
has begun discussing longer-term solutions that would involve Turkey,
Iraq and the United States. In a sign of potential cooperation, the
Kurdish region’s Minister of Culture Falkadin Kakei told The Associated
Press in Baghdad that Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party
has agreed to meet a delegation of Iraqi Kurds to discuss the crisis.

"This is a positive development, before Erdogan refused to meet with
(Iraqi Kurd leader Massoud) Barzani or deal with the Kurdish government
as an official entity, now this is happening on the level of political
parties," he said without giving a date for the meeting.

Kakei, who is reportedly on Turkey’s wanted list for his ties to
the PKK, said he expected these talks to lead eventually to a direct
dialogue between Ankara and Irbil, something the Turkish government has
refused to do so far, accusing Iraq’s Kurds of "aiding and abetting"
the separatist guerrillas. The United States charges that weapons
and foreign fighters flow over Iraq’s borders from Iran and Syria
to confront U.S. forces, but until now the border area with Turkey
has been relatively quiet. "It is our hope and our desire that as a
country that has been the target of a big terror attack the U.S. will
understand the situation we are in, understand the frustration we
feel, the outrage," Babacan said, according to a simultaneous English
translation of his words. The conflict between Turkey and the Kurdish
rebels predates the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq and has little to do
with the sectarian divisions that have all but paralyzed Iraq’s fragile
U.S.-backed government and prolonged the war. The United States paid
little attention to the issue, despite Turkish complaints, until the
burst of rebel attacks this fall threatened to bring open warfare to
Iraq’s largely self-governing north – the only part of the country
that has been relatively safe, stable and economically sound.

Bush had named a former NATO supreme commander – retired Air Force
Gen. Joseph Ralston – as a U.S. envoy to try to defuse tensions,
but the general resigned in apparent frustration last month.

Rice’s visit to Ankara is a sign of the priority Washington now
places on cooling a conflict that places the U.S. between important
NATO ally Turkey, the weak U.S.-backed government in Baghdad and
the self-governing Kurds in Iraq’s oil-rich north. Rice rearranged a
previously scheduled trip to Turkey to add meetings in the capital,
where she also tried to soothe lingering Turkish irritation over
a vote in Congress last month that labeled as genocide the 1915
killings of Armenians by Ottoman Turks.

Trend, Azerbaijan
Aug 8 2009

U.S Co-Chairman of OSCE Minsk Group discusses Nagorno-Karabakh problem
with Armenian FM

Armenian Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian discussed settlement of
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict with U.S Deputy Assistant Secretary of
State, Co-Chairman of OSCE Minsk Group, Matthew Bryza, on August 8,
Novosti-Armenia said with reference to press-service of the foreign
ministry.

"Last development of negotiating process on settlement of
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict was discussed during the meeting", the
message said. The interlocutors also considered Armenian-U.S
relations.

The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988
when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan
lost all of Nagorno-Karabakh except for Shusha and Khojali in December
1991. In 1992-93, Armenian armed forces occupied Shusha, Khojali and 7
districts surrounding Nagorno-Karabakh. Azerbaijan and Armenia signed
a ceasefire in 1994. The co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group – Russia,
France, and the U.S. – are currently holding the peace negotiations.

People in Rostov-on-Don paid respect to victims of Assyrian Genocide
in Turkey 08.08.2009 11:03 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ On August 7, Staro-Pokrovskiy Temple in
Rostov-on-Don hosted a public liturgy to commemorate the 1.5 million
victims of 1914-1923 Assyrian Genocide in Ottoman Empire.
Saving their skins from Turkish yataghans, Assyrians settled on the
territory of Russian Empire, mostly – in Armenia and Georgia. After
the collapse of USSR, many Assyrian families moved to Russia from
Transcaucasus. Most of them settled in Rostov region which currently
has an Assyrian population of 15 thousand, united in a regional
national-cultural autonomy, `Yerkramas’ newspaper reports.

news.am, Armenia
Aug 8 2009

Russian President: New geopolitical situation developing in
Transcaucasia

11:26 / 08/08/2009Presently Georgia, South Ossetia and Abkhazia should
sign binding agreements on non-use of force that will guarantee the
security of South Ossetians and Abkhazians, RF President Dmitry
Medvedev said in his letter to the President of France Nicolas Sarkozy
on the occasion of the 1st anniversary of the tragic events in South
Ossetia.

`I sure it is only such a legal basis that will prevent new outbreaks
of violence and recurrence of tragedies similar to last year’s one,’
the letter reads. Medvedev is convinced that `all the countries should
abstain from supplying arms and military hardware to Georgia for a
long time.’ He supposes international community should take over joint
responsibility `for Georgian authorities not to create illusions that
they can settle all problems by force with impunity.’

Medvedev underlined that Fench President Sarkozy `played a significant
role in the solution to the Georgian-Ossetian crisis.’ He is also
satisfied with the activity of the EU Monitoring mission in Georgia.

The President considers that August 2008 events will remain in the
center of the internatioinal community’s attention: `It is obviously,
that Saakashvili’s adventurist policy brought about a new geopolitical
situation in the Transcaucasia. One can hardly ignore the fact of two
new states existing in the region. Today the main objective is to
guarantee peace and security in Transcaucasia in the interests of all
peoples of the region.’

Medvedev expressed concern about Georgia’s actions ‘ `from persistent
threats to restore their `territorial integrity’ by force and
day-to-day warlike rhetoric to the deployment of troops on the borders
with South Ossetia and Abkhazia and serious provocations in the
frontier zone.’

Today’s Zaman, Turkey
Aug 8 2009

Third indictment reveals appalling Ergenekon plots

The judges hearing the trial of Ergenekon, a clandestine gang charged
with plotting to overthrow the government, last Wednesday accepted a
third indictment in the case.

In the indictment, prosecutors provide evidence that the gang was
plotting to kill some of Turkey’s most respected public figures,
including minority leaders and famous writers.

The indictment strongly stresses for the first time that Ergenekon is
a terrorist organization in accordance with Articles 1, 3 and 4 of the
Law on the Fight Against Terrorism and Articles 220, 302, 314 and 316
of the Turkish Penal Code (TCK). Ergenekon had not been labeled a
terrorist organization in the first two indictments. A countless
number of weapons, including hand grenades, guns, rifles, explosives,
Kalash-nikovs, Dragunov sniper rifles, thousands of cartridges,
flamethrowers, rocket launchers and even anti-tank weapons have been
found up to this point in the ongoing investigation into Ergenekon.

In the new document, the prosecution argues that Ergenekon devised
plots to assassinate dozens of people, including bureaucrats, judges,
journalists, politicians and writers. The assassination plots were
prepared in graphic detail, including the names of the would-be hit
men.

The third indictment in the Ergenekon case, which was accepted by
Ä°stanbul’s 13th High Criminal Court on Wednesday, says many
assassinations previously thought unrelated to Ergenekon were the
result of the organization’s work. The indictment claims that an
attack in Sivas in 1993 by a fundamentalist mob at a hotel where
visiting Alevi poets and intellectuals were staying was also
orchestrated by Ergenekon.

The indictment also includes a breakdown of the assassinations and
attacks planned for the future by the group, based on organizational
documents acquired during the investigation. According to this, the
group was planning to assassinate members of the higher judiciary,
Armenian Patriarch Mesrob Mutafyan and Minas Durmaz Güler, head
of the Sivas Armenian Community. Other targets of the group included
Ali Balkız, chairman of the Alevi-BektaÅ?i federation and
the federation’s secretary-general, Kazım Genç, both
very important figures in the Alevi community. The prosecution also
claims that the group had plans to assassinate journalist and author
Fehmi Koru, Turkish Nobel laureate author Orhan Pamuk, Democratic
Society Party (DTP) leader Ahmet Türk, Diyarbakır Mayor
and DTP politician Osman Baydemir and DTP deputy Sebahat Tuncel. The
indictment also notes that Selim Akkurt, one of the hit men recruited
for these assassinations, was arrested shortly
after a conversation between him and Ergenekon suspect Fikri
KaradaÄ? was heard by police monitoring the conversations in
order to avoid an `unwanted incident.’

The assassinations were to be carried out through a structure
established by Ä°brahim Å?ahin, the founder and later
deputy chief of the National Police Department’s Special Operations
Unit. The prosecution’s alleges that Å?ahin worked to form a
structure called S-1, which would include teams of police officers
with experience in special operations and would act as death squads.

Two Ergenekon trials merged

Also in the past week, the court ruled to combine the second and third
trials launched in the investigation into Ergenekon. The new trial now
has a total of 108 defendants.

The second and third indictments focus on the prosecution’s
allegations that a coup d’état was plotted against the
democratically elected Justice and Development Party (AK Party)
government. The first hearing on the merged trial is slated for
Sept. 7.

The court announced its decision to merge the two cases on Thursday
during a hearing of the trial based on the second indictment, which
indicts 56 defendants, including senior generals HurÅ?it Tolon
and Å?ener Eruygur. The decision effectively connects all
allegations that the organization actively tried to overthrow the
government during the 2003-2004 period.

The prosecution submitted the third indictment on July 20. The new
document is 1,454 pages long and indicts 52 people. The three
Ergenekon indictments come as part of an investigation that was
launched on June 12, 2007, after a house full of weapons and
ammunition was discovered in Ä°stanbul’s Ã`mraniye district.

09 August 2009, Sunday