GETTING BLACK BOXES WILL BE UNPRECEDENTED IF IT HAPPENS

Lragir.am
5 May 06

In the place of the crash of A320 of Armavia Airlines the Kalmar
Complex devised by Russian specialists for the Army Navy of Russia.

The complex is designed to carry out search and research at a depth
of 600 meters. Nevertheless, the minister of transport of Russia,
the head of the operational headquarters Igor Levitin stated May 5
he could not assess the possibility of getting the black boxes from
water. Levitin said statistics has not seen a fact when the black box
was lifted from a depth of 680 meters. The black boxes of Armenian
plane that crashed in the Black Sea on May 2 and 3 are at such a
depth. So far the experts have only managed to receive the radio
signal of the black boxes. Levitin said this is an unprecedented
attempt to get the black boxes from such a depth.

CE COMMISSIONER FOR HUMAN RIGHTS WILL MAKE REPORT ON HUMAN RIGHTS PROBLEMS IN AFTERMATH OF ARMENIAN-AZERBAIJAN CONFLICT

Azeri Press Agency, Azerbaijan
May 4 2006

“During my visit to Azerbaijan, I intend to acquaint myself with
firsthand the plight in human rights caused by Armenian-Azerbaijan
conflict,” CE Commissioner for Human Rights Thomas Hammarberg told
APA Europe Bureau exclusively in his statement.

He said that he isn’t aware of missing people as a result of conflict
and so, he will leave Azerbaijan for Armenia in order to get large
information about the matter.

Saying he has been familiar with the report of, Leo Platvoeti, PACE
reporter on missing people, Mr. Hammarberg noted that he is sensitive
about any information concerning this problem.

He said that he will work on the problem personally’ “I want to make
a report on the problem at the end”.

ARMAVIA HEAD: A-320 WAS TO RETURN TO YEREVAN

Regnum, Russia
May 4 2006

Head of Armavia Airlines Mikhail Bagdasarov insists that the A-320
plane that was flying from Yerevan to Sochi, was in perfect state.

According to him, in April the airbus was subjected to a major overhaul
in Belgium and was filled in with 10 tons of fuel before the flight.

“The crew consisted of professionals. If the first command to come
back had been fulfilled, there were no problems,” Bagdasarov said.

“The plane and passengers were insured by an Armenian company, which,
in turn, reinsured risks in London. About $20,000 will be paid to
family of every victim. Of course, I understand, that this loss
cannot be made up for by money,” Bagdasarov is quoted as saying by
Radio Liberty.

The Armenian Grand Insurance Company, which insured passengers of the
A-320 flight, earlier denied reports on its intention to pay $20,000
worth compensations to the relatives. Head of Grand Artak Antonyan
announced that passengers and the crew of the A-320 airbus belonging
to Armavia and the passengers were reinsured by an insurance company in
London. The sum of compensation to the relatives will determined after
representatives of the London company visit Armenia and familiarize
themselves with all the details.

BULGARIAN NATIONAL UNITY PARTY URGES PARLIAMENT TO RECOGNIZE “ARMENIAN GENOCIDE”

Azeri Press Agency, Azerbaijan
May 4 2006

Bulgarian National Unity Party called on parliament to recognize bogus
“Armenian Genocide”.

APA Europe Bureau reports that this party has prepared a declaration
which urges the government to recognize Armenians’ counterfeited
ideas. Party chief Boyko Vatev claims that his country is one of the
modern countries not recognizing killing of Armenians by Turks.

In reality Armenians killed Turks and the genocide invented by
Armenians is therefore called “false Armenian Genocide”.

TWO PLANES BELONGING TO ARMENIAN COMPANIES COMPLETELY BURNT IN BELGIUM

ArmRadio.am
05.05.2006 14:14

Few minutes ago “Radiolur” was told that last night four “A-320”
planes were completely burnt in an air base in Belgium as a result
of a conflagration.

Two of the planes belonged to Armenian air companies.

One of the jets belonged to “Armavia” Company. According to our
information, the other Armenian plane belonged to “International
Armenian Airlines” owned by businessmen Versant Hakobyan.

The planes, manufactured in 1996, had left for Belgium for recurrent
technical examination. According to our information, there are no
human victims.

TURKEY EXTENDS CONDOLENCES TO ARMENIA OVER ACCIDENT

New Anatolian, Turkey
May 4 2006

Ankara yesterday set aside its deep political differences with
neighboring Armenia to extend sympathy over the tragic death of
Armenian citizens in a jet crash.

Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul sent a message to his Armenian
counterpart Vartan Oskanian and expressed sincere condolences to
relatives of Armenian citizens killed in the crash, The New Anatolian
learned.

Turkey and Armenia do not have diplomatic relations and the two
countries are at odds over the Armenian claims of genocide. The
Armenian diaspora accuses the Ottoman Empire of deliberately massacring
up to 1.5 million Armenians between 1915 and 1919. Turkey stresses
that these figures are inflated and says that far fewer Armenians
died, due to civil unrest under the conditions of World War I and
the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. Ankara suspended its diplomatic
relations with Yerevan a decade ago due to Armenian occupation of
the Azeri territories of Nagorno-Karabakh.

Turkish sources confirmed to The New Anatolian yesterday that Gul’s
message of condolence to Oskanian would be sent to Yerevan through
diplomatic channels. They didn’t provide any more details.

Last year, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan sent a letter to
Armenian President Robert Kocharian suggesting putting an end to
the dispute over genocide claims through a joint study of Turkish
and Armenian scholars. But the Armenian president turned down the
suggestion, asking first that Ankara revive diplomatic relations and
discuss all issues of concern on an intergovernmental platform. At
that time, the messages were sent through the embassies of both
countries in neighboring Georgia.

Clash leaves 113 dead

A total of 113 people are dead after an Armenian-owned Airbus plunged
into the Black Sea in the early hours of Wednesday morning.

According to the report by RIA Novosti news agency, the A-320
passenger jet, which was flying from Yerevan to an airport servicing
the popular Russian resort of Sochi, disappeared from radar screens
at 2:15 a.m. local time (Tuesday, 10:15 p.m. GMT).

Russia’s Emergency Situations Ministry said that the most likely
cause of the crash was bad weather — the Armavia Airlines plane
had reportedly been trying to make its second landing attempt in
heavy rain — and an expert with Russia’s Air Traffic Organization
concurred that poor visibility may have caused the accident.

“These were the actual weather conditions at the moment of the crash:
the lowest level of cloud lay at 100 meters, visibility was at four
kilometers, and it was raining heavily,” the expert said.

Prosecutors ruled out the possibility of a terrorist attack and a
representative of the Interior Ministry in the southern Krasnodar
Territory said investigators were considering three possibilities.

“We are considering several versions: a mistake made by the pilot,
a technical malfunction or a mistake by air traffic controllers,”
Igor Zhukov of the North Caucasus transport police said.

However, Artyom Movsisyan, the head of Armenia’s main civil aviation
department, ruled out the possibility of a technical error. He said
the A-320 had undergone a complete technical overhaul last month
and experts from Sabina Technics had given a positive report on its
technical condition shortly before takeoff.

Movsisyan said the plane had been filled with 10 metric tons of fuel
and a flight to Sochi lasting less than an hour needed only 3.5 tons.

SECOND RADIO BEACON DETECTED AT BLACK SEA CRASH SITE

RIA Novosti, Russia
May 4 2006

SOCHI, May 4 (RIA Novosti) – A second radio beacon is believed to have
been discovered at the site where an Armenian Airbus A-320 airliner
crashed off Russia’s Black Sea coast, an emergencies ministry official
said Thursday.

He said a radio signal had been detected near the point where another
signal had been detected earlier in the day.

The plane, belonging to Armenia’s Armavia Airlines, crashed while
flying from the country’s capital Yerevan to an airport in Adler,
which services the Russian resort of Sochi. The A-320 plummeted into
the sea about six kilometers from the Russian coast. All 113 passengers
and crew were killed.

An Emergency Situations Ministry official in Moscow said the
first radio signal, picked up by Airbus specialists, had yet to
be identified.

“It is premature to say that the signal picked up from the seabed
near Sochi is from the flight recorder,” Andrei Legoshin said.

Experts from European aircraft producer Airbus are using special
equipment to search for flight data recorders from the plane. Two
emergencies ministry teams are also working at the site, using radars
to pick up signals.

Transportation Minister Igor Levitin said earlier on Thursday that
parts of the plane had been found at a depth of 680 meters (2,230
feet).

TURKISH CIVIL GROUPS SPEARHEAD FRENCH BOYCOTT CAMPAIGN

New Anatolian, Turkey
May 4 2006

A Turkish civil group began to boycott French products and services
in Turkey yesterday in a move to encourage rejection of a bill
prescribing prison terms and fines for people who question Armenian
genocide claims.

The boycott was launched ahead of the French Parliament gathering on
May 18 to debate the bill, which calls for prison terms of up to one
year and fines of up to 45,000 euros for deniers of the so-called
Armenian genocide.

With its slogan, “It’s time to move,” the group aims to
raise public awareness in Turkey through their Internet site
(). The campaign comes just ahead
of France’s critical decision, which, according to political analysts,
would undermine reconciliation efforts between Turks and Armenians,
the normalization of relations between the two countries and further
damage relations between Turkey and France.

According to the group, the ailing French economy was hurt even
more when the government was forced to withdraw the proposed labor
bill as a result of a month-long protest by French youth to block
the implementation of the bill. Underlining that a Turkish boycott
will further damage the French economy in its fragile condition,
the group also seeks to spark reaction and criticism by the French
public against the Armenian bill.

Apart from winning public support, the civil society group also
seeks to gain the support of the Turkish government and Parliament
for the boycott.

French goods and services and companies that are being targeted by the
boycott include, among others, Total, Elf, Carrefour, Gima, Dia Endi,
ChampionSA, Air France, BIC, Sheaffer, Danone, Evian, Tefal, Michelin,
Uniroyal, Renault, Peugeot, Citroen, AXA, Peugot, Lacoste, Givenchy,
L’Oreal, Studio Line, Lancome, Clarins, Bledina, Mellin, Majorette,
Biotherm, Christian Dior, Drakkar Noir, Fahrenheit, Alcatel, Lafarge,
Societe General Bank, Servier, Fournier, Guerbet, and Pierre Fabre.

Economic relations and cooperation between Turkey and France have
quickly reached a significant level, especially after Turkey’s
accession to the Customs Union. Turkey is France’s sixth-largest
export market, and sectoral performance analysts say that the French
has played an important role in development and growth of the Turkish
economy.

Armenian organizations in France announced last week that a bill
stipulating prison sentences for Armenian genocide deniers would
be brought for debate to the floor of the French Parliament by the
Socialist Party (PS). Later last week, the bill won the support of 100
government deputies, which increased the chances of the Parliament’s
approval of the bill.

The Armenian diaspora accuses the Ottoman Empire of deliberately
massacring up to 1.5 million Armenians between 1915 and 1919. Turkey
stresses that these figures are inflated and says that far fewer
Armenians died, due to civil unrest under the conditions of World War
I and the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. Turkey also claims that
during the ethnic conflict, thousands of Turks were also killed by
Armenian militants.

Ankara rejects France’s ‘double standards’

Turkish Foreign Ministry spokesperson Namik Tan stated yesterday that
it is impossible for Turkey to accept France’s contradictory manner
and double standards towards Turkey, underlining that approval of the
Armenian bill would wreak irreversible damage in Turkish-French ties.

Tan called on French officials to show common sense regarding the
controversial Armenian issue, just as they have towards their own
history.

Other initiatives to block Armenian bill

Other members of the Turkish civil society have also launched a
campaign to convince French deputies that it would be an enormous
mistake to pass the Armenian bill.

Representatives of Turkish businessmen, scholars and parliamentarians
will visit Paris in the coming weeks to convey messages from the
Turks to their French counterparts.

Turkish diplomats told The New Anatolian that if the French Parliament
passes the bill it would be a much more serious decision against Turkey
than the Parliament’s recognition of the Armenian genocide claims in
2001. They said that Ankara is considering taking a tougher stance
than it did in 2001, and that among several other, tougher options,
it could withdraw the Turkish ambassador to France.

Turkish Parliament Speaker Bulent Arinc sent a letter to his
French counterpart on Monday asking him not to take sides in the
controversial matter of the Armenian genocide. Underlining that
judging history should be left to historians, not Parliaments,
Arinc said that the French bill, which stipulates punishment for
those who deny the Armenian genocide claims, is both anti-freedom of
expression and anti-freedom of thought. He referred to the leading
role played by France in the implementation of basic human rights in
the international arena.

GEORGIA TO TAKE PART IN ARMENIAN PLANE CRASH PROBE

ITAR-TASS, Russia
May 4 2006

TBILISI, May 4 (Itar-Tass) – Investigators from the Armenian Prosecutor
General’s Office agreed to participation of Georgian specialists
in the probe into the Airbus A-320 crash near Sochi, head of the
Gruzavianavigatsiya company Georgy Karbelashvili told.

The Georgian aviation service offered “cooperation to the group of
investigators from the Armenian Prosecutor General’s Office in the
plane crash probe, and received support in this issue,” Karbelashvili
said.

He said Georgia “will hand over all the available materials to the
investigation commission – the radiogram of the A-320 flight, the audio
recording of talks between the Georgian air traffic controller and
the plane crew and other materials necessary for the investigation.”

The head of Gruzavianavigatsiya met with the Armenian investigators
in Tbilisi earlier on Thursday.

There were 113 people on board the plane that met with an accident
on the approach to Sochi on May 3. As of now, 53 bodies have been
identified, including those of a crewmember and an airhostess.

According to the information of the Russian Foreign Ministry, 26
victims had Russian citizenship. There was a Ukrainian woman and a
Georgian man among the passengers, spokeswoman for the prosecutor’s
office of the Krasnodar territory Yulia Vlasova told Tass, which was
confirmed by the Ukrainian and Georgian embassies in Moscow.

JUST A FEW NAIVE QUESTIONS ON THE ‘ARMENIAN GENOCIDE’
Cem Oguz

New Anatolian, Turkey
May 4 2006

At a symposium held in Kayseri recently Turkish Armenians’ Patriarch
Mesrob Mutafyan II wisely argued that it’s unethical for both Armenians
and Turks “to ignore each other’s responsibility or completely put it
on the other side although responsibilities weren’t equal in the brutal
consequence.” He then criticized the great powers of the time, ranging
from France to the U.S., since they bore a responsibility as well.

What might be the responsibility of the great powers that the patriarch
touched upon? And what is its relevance today?

During his visit to Ankara two weeks ago, Polish Foreign Minister
Stefan Meller, in response to Turkish criticism regarding the Polish
Parliament’s recognition of the so-called Armenian genocide, said that
the decision neither has a binding impact on his country’s foreign
policy nor reflects the view of his government. Supposedly the decision
wasn’t one taken against Turkey. Since a number Polish citizens
with Armenian roots have carried out significant duties in Poland,
the Polish Parliament considered the decision moral compensation for
Armenian suffering and pain stemming from the 1915 tragedy.

The foreign minister’s statement begs one simple question: Is the
Polish Parliament’s decision indeed so apolitical?

Just as was the case when the U.S. public TV network PBS a short
while ago aired a controversial documentary on the so-called Armenian
genocide but gave little opportunity for scholars supporting the
Turkish thesis to have a say, every defensive attempt by Turks are
zealously blocked by Armenian diaspora organizations.

If our Armenian friends are so sure that our arguments are baseless
why are they so hesitant about giving us a chance to fall flat on
our faces?

A memorial in Lyon, France honoring those killed in the so-called
Armenian genocide was vandalized just a week before it was to be
unveiled, which, as The New Anatolian’s Nazlan Ertan two days ago
wrote, has created a fertile atmosphere for the new law that would
punish genocide deniers with time in prison.

Who might the vandals be? Some men with moustaches, as some circles
are trying to portray, or teenagers being paid in a dark alley by a
guy in a suit?

As of today the number of U.S. states that have passed resolutions
supporting the Armenian allegations has reached 36 in total.

Why then are we heartened on April 24 every year to see that the U.S.

president, whoever he is at the time, has avoided using the term
“genocide” in his message to Armenia and the Armenian Americans? Are
these resolutions passed by U.S. states, on the other hand,
just like the controversial movie “Midnight Express,” a sign of
anti-Turkishness? As our U.S. friends do about “The Valley of Wolves
Iraq,” shall we complain about it as well?

George W. Bush, in his presidential message this year, interestingly
expressed his willingness to strengthen Armenia’s inclusion in the
Euro-Atlantic family.

Doesn’t the U.S. president or other Western leaders realize that
the biased Western stance towards the Armenian claims, in turn,
is accelerating the Turkish people’s alienation from the West?

TNA recently published a striking news story entitled “New measures
to fight Armenian claims.” Due to the fait accompli of the Armenian
diaspora, a high-level and unnamed Turkish source ironically asserted
that sometimes even the foreign ministries of some countries find out,
much to their “surprise,” that their parliament took a decision on
the matter. Supposedly Venezuela was a good example. Its Foreign
Ministry officials discovered that a resolution supporting the
Armenian allegations was passed in their Parliament only after it
was condemned by Turkish diplomats. The way these resolutions are
passed is also worth considering. In several cases previously such
drafts were brought to Parliaments during late evening sessions when
the number of deputies present was very few indeed.

This leaves us scratching our heads, wondering why the Turkish
diplomats in Venezuela didn’t inform their colleagues before the law
was passed. Or are such arguments merely another reflection of our
diplomats’ professional kindness?

Last, but not least, why doesn’t Parliament Speaker Bulent Arinc,
instead of making speculative speeches that further divide the public,
convene Parliament on his own initiative to formulate a national
declaration, to be signed by all political parties in and outside
Parliament, reaffirming that the Armenian allegations are unacceptable
and Turkey is ready to pay the consequences of its alleged “denial”
whatever they are? Why do opposition parties, in turn, make this
national cause simply another matter of domestic polemics and populism
despite the fact that they’re equally responsible?

Can nobody see that the Turkish people won’t forgive those who are
trying to attribute a grave moral flaw to them?

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress