Armenia's Access To Turkish Airspace Restricted

By Ruzanna Stepanian

Turkey has banned Armenian civilian aircraft from flying over its
territory en route to Syria and Lebanon, government officials in Yerevan
said on Thursday.

They told RFE/RL that Turkish aviation authorities have cited
unspecified `technical reasons' for the ban in separate letters to the
Armenian government's Civil Aviation Department and the Armavia national
airline, which carries out regular flights from Yerevan to Beirut and
Aleppo. The letters were sent after an Armavia plane bound for the
Lebanese capital was denied access to Turkish airspace and had return to
Yerevan Tuesday.

`Turkish aviation authorities have officially notified us that there are
problems relating to the Yerevan-Aleppo and Yerevan-Beirut flights and
that those flights will not be serviced by them temporarily and will
have to rerouted,' said Gayane Davtian, a spokeswoman for the
department.

Both Davtian and Armavia officials said the Turkish side did not
elaborate on reasons for the restriction that does not seem to apply to
the Syrian airline Astrom that operates weekly flights services from
Aleppo and Damascus to the Armenian capital. An Astrom representative
in Yerevan said its next flight scheduled for Saturday will go ahead as
planned.

`Through diplomatic channels we yesterday asked the Turkish authorities
to clarify the situation,' Vladimir Karapetian, a spokesman for the
Armenian Foreign Ministry, told RFE/RL. `We have not yet received a
reply.'

Turkey has kept its airspace open to passenger jets flying to and from
Armenia for the past several years while refusing to reopen the
Turkish-Armenian land border and establish diplomatic relations with
Yerevan. Some Turkish officials and politicians warned recently that
Ankara could scrap the over-flying rights if the U.S. Congress passes a
resolution recognizing the mass killings of Armenians in the Ottoman
Empire as genocide.

Davtian said Turkey has so far placed on restrictions on weekly flights
Yerevan and Istanbul as well as Armenian and other aircraft flying to
and from Europe via Turkish territory. She also said that Turkish planes
continue to use Armenia's airspace for carrying out flights to third
countries. `Armenia's airspace remains open to all countries,' added the
official.

More Remains Of Plane Crash Victims Flown To Armenia
By Ruben Meloyan

More than 18 months after the deadly crash of an Armenian airliner in
southern Russia Armenia received on Thursday the remains of ten more
victims of the worst air disaster in its history.

The disfigured corpses of three people, among them a former head of
Soviet Armenia's secret police, and body fragments of seven others were
flown to Yerevan after lengthy DNA tests conducted by Russian forensic
experts. Officials said all of them have been identified and will be
handed over to family members.

The Airbus A-320 of the Armavia national airline plunged into the Black
Sea as it tried to land in the Russian resort city of Sochi in May 2006,
killing all 113 people on board. Only the bodies of 46 of them have been
fully or partially recovered from the sea and identified by forensic
experts.

Russian aviation authorities that led an official investigation into the
crash concluded in July 2006 that it was essentially caused by pilot
error. They said the A-320 crew lost control of the plane as they made a
second attempt to land at the Black Sea city's airport.

The Armenian government's Civil Aviation Department questioned some of
the conclusions drawn by Russian investigators, though. It said in
particular that they failed to take note of Sochi airport's alleged
failure to `detect dangerous weather conditions' that are thought to
have prevented the plane belonging to the national airline Armavia from
landing safely on first attempt.

Armavia's owner Mikhail Baghdasarian insists that the A-320 would have
avoided the crash had it not received a last-minute order to veer away
from the airport's runway and make a second approach.

SIRUSHO TO REPRESENT ARMENIA AT EUROVISION SONG CONTEST
ARMENPRESS
Nov 15, 2007

YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 15, ARMENPRESS; Sirusho, a 20 year-old singer and
songwriter, will represent Armenia at the 2008 Eurovision Song Contest
in Belgrade.

The news has been announced by the national broadcaster-Public TV-
November 14 evening.

Sirusho's first public performance was at the age of 7 and with only 9
years of age, she received an award for her song "Lusabats". Sirusho
released her first album in 1999 and her second one, Sheram followed
in 2005.

Sirusho was voted Future of Armenian pop music in the first ever
Armenian national music awards. She has given concerts in many
countries around the world including Canada, Belgium, Greece, Poland ,
Syria, Iran, Russia, Georgia, Jordan and the USA.

Armenian composers have been invited to write songs for Sirusho,
5-7 of them will be selected by a special jury and the song which
will represent the country in the 2008 Eurovision Song Contest will
be chosen during a national final during January or February.