ITAR-TASS, Russia
April 24 2004

US citizen detained in Yerevan, accused of subversive actions

YEREVAN, April 24 (Itar-Tass) — The Armenian Prosecutor General’s
Office has questioned and detained a former resident of Yerevan,
currently U.S. citizen Artur Vartanian, who `took an active part in
opposition rallies in Yerevan and actions aimed at the forcible
seizure of power,’ the Prosecutor-General’s Office public relations
office chief Gurgen Ambarian has said.

According to the Prosecutor General’s Office the investigators have
found that Artur Vartanian has been permanently resident in the
United States since 1991 and has had U.S. citizenship since 2002.

Although he is a citizen of a different country, Vartanian retained
his Armenian passport and used the rights of an Armenian citizen and
repeatedly crossed Armenia’s state border and participated in
political and electoral processes.

His latest arrival was registered on April 11. Vartanian has since
participated in opposition rallies and actions aimed at the forcible
seizure of power.

Last Thursday Vartanian was detained and charged under two articles
of the criminal code – actions aimed at the forcible seizure of power
and illegal crossing of the state border.

The Armenian Prosecutor-General’s Office has briefed the Foreign
Ministry on the incident. Under the Constitution Armenian citizens
cannot have the citizenship of another country.

`The investigation department of the Prosecutor-General’s Office is
continuing a preliminary probe into the criminal case opened over the
instances of public calls and actions aimed at changing the
constitutional and state system and also public insults against the
authorities,’ the Prosecutor-General’s Office said.

There has been no response from the U.S. embassy to the arrest of
Vartanian yet.

The Opposition says the police has searched the flat of Vartanian’s
friend in Yerevan where the man was staying as a guest.

Nothing illegal was found.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Big News Network.com, Australia
April 25 2004

Iran bans Armenian protest

Iranian authorities Saturday banned Iran’s Armenian community from
demonstrating in front of the Turkish embassy.

The Iranian News Agency said the interior ministry refused to grant
Iranian Armenians a permission to organize the protest to mark the
89th anniversary of Turkey’s 1915 massacre of Armenians.

The ministry, instead, permitted the march be staged in the north of
Tehran away from the Turkish embassy’s building, but the Armenian
community insisted on staging the protest in front of the mission.

ITAR-TASS, Russia
April 24 2004

Armenia’s president Robert Kocharyan to visit France

YEREVAN, April 24 (Itar-Tass) – President Robert Kocharyan of Armenia
will head for France on a working visit on Sunday. He plans to meet
his French counterpart Jacques Chirac on Monday, the presidential
press service reported on Saturday.

One of the key topics of the talks will be the settlement of the
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. France is a co-chairman of the OSCE Minsk
Group on Nagorno-Karabakh alongside with Russia and the USA and takes
an active part in the conflict’s settlement.

During the talks the presidents will also discus bilateral political
dialogue and economic cooperation.

On Sunday evening, Kocharyan and his wife will attend a concert by
Charles Aznavur at the Paris Palace of Congresses that will be
devoted to the 80th birthday of the prominent French singer and
songwriter of Armenian descent.

The Armenian president also plans to meet the head of the French
company `Bouig’ Olivier Bouig.

On April 27, Kocharyan and his delegation will leave Paris for Warsaw
to attend the World Economic Forum. He will take part in a working
meeting on the Caucasus and meet with the Forum’s President Klaus
Schwab. Within the framework of the Forum Kocharyan will meet with
the Polish and Georgian presidents, Alexander Kwasniewski and Mikhail
Saakashvili.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Washington Times, DC
April 24 2004

Armenia’s head to visit France’s Chirac

Yerevan, , Apr. 24 (UPI) — The president of Armenia was to travel
Sunday to France for a meeting with French president Jacques Chirac,
the Itar-Tass news agency reported Saturday.

President Robert Kocharyan will reportedly be discussing efforts to
settle the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

France is a co-chairman of the OSCE Minsk Group on Nagorno-Karabakh,
along with Russia and the United States.

On April 27, Kocharyan and his delegation will leave Paris for Warsaw
to attend the World Economic Forum. He will take part in a working
meeting on the Caucasus and meet with the Forum’s President Klaus
Schwab.

Kocharyan also will meet with the Polish and Georgian presidents,
Alexander Kwasniewski and Mikhail Saakashvili.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Tehran Times, Iran
April 24 2004

Armenia Veteran Protests British Refusal to Recognize ‘Genocide’

YEREVAN (AFP) — An Armenian veteran of World War II decided to
return the medals he earned as a British pilot after Britain’s
ambassador denied that “genocide” was committed when the Ottoman
Empire killed up to 1.5 million Armenians, according to Armenia’s
count, at the end of World War I.

“I was deeply insulted by the British ambassador qualifying these
events as an atrocity, not genocide. I decided to return the medals I
received from Britain’s government, in protest,” Harutun Shiklanian
told reporters Friday.

Shiklanian’s parents fled their homeland after the massacre, which
had killed his grandparents, he said.

Shiklanian, who served as a pilot and photographer in the British air
force during the World War II, was awarded Britain’s Defense Medal
and War Medal last year.

“During the war I fought for human rights, but now I am disappointed.
I know you were not voicing your own opinion, but that of the British
government, and I feel it necessary to return my medals,” the
81-year-old veteran said in a letter to Ambassador Thorda
Abbott-Watt.

The issue of whether various nations recognize the “genocide” is one
of the most sensitive in Armenia.

The episode also remains one of the most controversial in Turkish
history. Turkey recognizes that 300,000 Armenians had died along with
a large number of Turks at the end of the war.

Abbott-Watt recently told the ***California Courier***, an
English-language weekly run by the Armenian diaspora in the United
States, that “the British government had condemned the massacre as an
(atrocity) at the time.

ArmenPress
April 23 2004

GEORGIAN POLICE PULL OUT STONE CROSS IN COMMEMORATION OF GENOCIDE
VICTIMS

AKHALKALAKI, APRIL 23, ARMENPRESS : Georgian police officers have
pulled out a stone cross erected on a hill on the outskirts of
Akhaltsikha down in western Georgia in commemoration of the Armenian
genocide that was to be opened officially on April 24.
A local A-Info news agency reported that police officers detained
Ludwig Petrosian, who was steering the work, who was released after
spending 4 hours in custody. Petrosian later said that the cross
stone was pulled out at the order of local governor Nikoloz
Nikolozishvili ( a former ambassador to Armenia) on grounds that the
erection was not sanctioned by local authorities, however, Petrosian
said the permission was given by Akhaltsikha municipality.
Local Armenians were expected to organize a protest rally today
morning.

ArmenPress
April 23 2004

ARMENIA WELCOMES CANADIAN PARLIAMENT’S GENOCIDE DECISION

YEREVAN, APRIL 23, ARMENPRESS: Armenia welcomed Thursday a
decision by Canada’s parliament to formally recognize the Armenian
genocide. A spokesman for Armenian foreign ministry, Hamlet
Gasparian, told Reuters that “we welcome the April 21 motion of
Canada’s parliament which came to finalize the complete and legal
acknowledgment of the Armenian genocide after the upper chamber of
Commons, Senate, recognized it on June 13 of 2002.”
He said that by that decision Canada has paid tribute to the
memory of the 1915 genocide that claimed the lives of 1.5 million
Armenians.
The spokesman also said that the decision is another evidence that
crimes against humanity are not subject to oblivion, a contribution
to the struggle against the policy of denial adopted by Turkish
government. He said the decision was also the result of a many-year
long campaign of the Canadian Armenian community for the genocide
recognition.

ArmenPress
April 23 2004

PRIME MINISTER ADDRESSES NATION ON OCCASION OF 89-TH ANNIVERSARY OF
ARMENIAN GENOCIDE

YEREVAN, APRIL 23, ARMENPRESS: In a message to the nation on the
occasion of the 89-th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide, Armenian
prime minister Andranik Margarian said the massacres of Armenians in
1915, planned and carried out by the government of the Ottoman Turkey
was a crime against the civilized humanity, which was not prevented,
recognized and condemned at that time, serving as a precedent of
impunity for repetition of future such crimes.
The message says that Armenia hails the united efforts of the
international community aimed to prevent repetition of new genocides
regarding it as one of its foreign policy priorities. “The geography
of nations and parliaments which have officially acknowledged the
Armenian genocide is expanding, which is a key prerequisite for
preventing future such crimes, for strengthening the international
security system and promoting dialogue among civilizations,” the
message says.
It runs further that the protracted policy of denial or distortion
of the historical truth, adopted by heirs of perpetrators of the 1915
genocide who are trying to send it to oblivion is an evidence of
their failure to surmount the feeling of inferiority which cannot
help establish the environment of co-existence and meet the demands
of the modern world. “The climate of impunity is fraught with new
repetitions of such crimes at any moment at any corner of the globe,”
the message says.
“Today when Armenians throughout the world pay tribute to the
memory of thousands of innocent victims of 1915 massacres we once
again underline that Armenia wants to see Turkey a nation free of its
past burden, wants it to give up its policy of denial to become a
country truly coveting to integrate with the family of civilized
European nations,” the message runs.
The prime minister says then that next year will mark the 90-th
anniversary of the Armenian genocide and the 6-th anniversary of the
end of one of the bloodiest wars, WW II, suggesting that the year of
2005 be declared A Year of Commemoration of and Struggle Against
Wars, Genocides, Deportations and Abuse of Human Rights.
The message also says that the issue of the international
recognition of the Armenian genocide and its condemnation will remain
on Armenia’s foreign policy agenda. It says that concurrently Armenia
reaffirms its desire to have natural relations with all its neighbors
and its resolution to build a strong and prosperous country.
“I am confident that Armenia will make its contribution to global
efforts together with other nations for building a just and safe
world,” the message concludes.

ArmenPress
April 24 2004

KOCHARIAN LEAVES FOR PARIS APRIL 25

YEREVAN, APRIL 24, ARMENPRESS: Armenian president Robert Kocharian
is leaving for Paris on April 25 on a working visit. Kocharian’s
press office said that in Paris he will have a meeting with president
Jacques Chirac. President Kocharian and Mrs. Bella Kocharian will
also attend a concert of world famous singer Charles Aznavour at
Palais de Congres. Armenian president will also confer with the chief
manager of French Bouig company Olivier Bouig.
On April 27 the Armenian delegation, consisting also of foreign
minister Vartan Oskanian and trade and economic development minister
Karen Chshmaritian, will leave for Poland to participate in the World
Economic Forum.
President Kocharian will take part in the meeting titled the
Caucasus and will attend the opening of the plenary session. On the
sidelines of the Forum Kocharian will meet with its executive
president Klaus Schwab. In Warsaw Kocharian is scheduled to meet also
with president Alexander Kwasniewski and his Georgian counterpart
Mikhail Saakashvili.

ArmenPress
April 24 2004

JOHN KERRY’S STATEMENT NOT POLITICALLY MOTIVATED, OSKANIAN BELIEVES

YEREVAN, APRIL 24, ARMENPRESS: Armenian foreign affairs minister
Vartan Oskanian commended today a US Democratic presidential hopeful,
John Kerry, who called for international recognition of the Armenian
Genocide Thursday in a statement issued to Armenian Americans marking
the 89th anniversary of that crime against humanity.
“I join Armenian Americans and Armenians worldwide in mourning the
victims of the Armenian Genocide and I call on governments and people
everywhere to formally recognize this tragedy. Only by learning from
this dark period of history and working to prevent future genocides
can we truly honor the memories of those Armenians who suffered so
unjustly,” Kerry said in the statement, outlining his longstanding
support for a broad range of Armenian American concerns.
Speaking to reporters at THE Genocide Memorial today, Oskanian
praised the US-Armenian organizations for their efficient work
towards international recognition of the genocide, downplaying also
allegations that Kerry’s statement was politically motivated to seek
the votes of American Armenians in 2004 autumn polls.
“Of course there were precedents when presidential hopefuls used
to say one thing before the election and different things after being
elected. John Kerry has been supporting the genocide motion when he
was in Senate and I do not think there are political speculations
behind his statement,” Oskanian said, adding that genocide
recognition motions are on agendas of those US states which have not
officially acknowledged it.