Armenian News‏

Escaping a vile past
A move towards detente with Armenia will lift the taboo and ease
Turkey's path to EU membership
Christopher de Ballaigue
guardian.co.uk,
Sunday 3 May 2009 23.00 BST


During the past week, 10 Turkish soldiers have been killed in fighting
with militants from the Kurdish  - nationalist PKK, the country's top
soldier has  - denied involvement in a  - conspiracy to overthrow the
mildly Islamist government of Recep Tayyip  - Erdogan and the prime
minister has talked down the prospect of better relations with Armenia,
Turkey's old foe to the east. If this looks like a snapshot from the
bad old days, look again: Turkey's demons, militarism and ethnic
hatred, wear a  - ragged air.

That's the hope that brought President Barack Obama to Turkey at the
end of his European tour, and which emboldened him to urge Turkey's
admission into the European Union, meet a top Kurdish nationalist and
advocate a concession to the country's Greek minority. Most important,
Obama endorsed a process of negotiations with Armenia. On 23 April, the
Turks and the Armenians announced agreement on a plan to normalise
relations. The small print will need to address the restoration of
formal ties and the reopening of the land border. Progress could snag
on a parallel, territorial dispute, between Armenia and Azerbaijan, a
Turkic nation supported by Ankara. The Turkish and Armenian governments
are vulnerable to hawks. But the main obstacle is the past.

Turkey has abandoned its insistence that there is no such thing as a
Kurd ` only a "mountain Turk". The Greeks, old Aegean rivals, are now
friends. But a taboo remains: the suffering of Anatolia's Armenian
inhabitants when, in 1915, fearful they would act as a fifth column for
invading Russians, the Ottoman Turks deported them south. The process
led to the death of at least a million Armenians, in what much of the
world considers a genocide. As successor state to the Ottomans, modern
Turkey denies the charge, but at a heavy cost.

Until recently, this process had been distinguished by revenge attacks
by Armenian terrorists on Turkish diplomats, anti-Armenian tirades in
Turkey and, most galling for the Turks, an effective Armenian campaign
to persuade several countries to recognise the genocide. As recently as
2007, Hrant Dink, a prominent member of Istanbul's small Armenian
minority, was gunned down by a Turkish nationalist and Turkey's
Nobel-prizewinning novelist, Orhan Pamuk, was forced into exile for
speaking his mind about the Armenian tragedy. It seemed that Turkey
would retreat into isolation.

That has not happened. Turkey is a nation of commerce and a regional
power. What could be more natural than detente with its neighbour? This
is what many Turks want; 30,000 have signed a petition apologising for
1915, for which act of atonement they may be investigated legally. So
the present, and the future, line up against the vile past.

For the last three years this vileness has been my companion as I
tramped around the remote district of Varto in eastern Turkey. Home to
Kurds, Turks, Armenians and Alevis (a religious minority), Varto was
not only the scene of an appalling massacre of Armenians in 1915; its
Alevi population was ravaged by Armenian revenge squads and locals have
since been active in the Kurdish nationalist movement. History had been
silenced, and it took me months to extract information from a
distrustful people. But this process needs to be replicated across
Anatolia. And it is Turks, not foreigners, who must lead the way.

That would make Turkey, already a strong contender for EU membership,
difficult to resist. Obama has done his bit. For the people of this
conflicted part of the world, knowing the past may prove the best way
of escaping it.

Interfax, Russia
April 29 2009
Armenian economy contracts 6.1% in Q1
YEREVAN April 29

Armenia saw its GDP decline 6.1% in the first quarter of 2008 compared
to the same period of 2008, Armenian Economics Minister Nerses
Yeritsian said at a press conference on Wednesday.

Armenian GDP grew 8.8% in the first quarter of 2008.

Yeritsian said Armenia saw the peak of the economic slump in the first
quarter.

Armenia will receive a large amount of budget and external financing
for the development of infrastructure in July and business activity is
expected to pick up, he said.

The country's budget envisions GDP growth of 9.2% in 2009 and
inflation of 4% minus 1.5 percentage points.

The Armenian authorities have not announced plans to revise the
macroeconomic forecast. The Central Bank's latest monetary and credit
policy says GDP could decline 3% in 2009 and inflation could be 5.9%.

The International Monetary Fund has lowered its forecast for the
decline in the Armenian economy in 2009 to 5% from 1.5%. The IMF said
Armenia could see zero growth in 2010. The IMF also predicted
inflation would total 3.6% in 2009 and 7.2% in 2010.

World Markets Research Centre
Global Insight
May 1 2009
Rapid Rise of Service Prices Drives Accelerating Armenian Inflation in
April
by Venla Sipila


Service and consumer prices in Armenia increased by 3.2%
month-on-month (m/m) in April, in a significant acceleration compared
with the inflation rate of 1.4% m/m seen in March. Different price
categories displayed very varied developments. Specifically, food
prices increased by 2.1% m/m and non-food good prices gained 2.8%
m/m. Meanwhile, reaching 5.6% m/m, the growth of service tariffs
clearly exceeded headline inflation. Annual inflation also accelerated
significantly in April, reaching 3.1% after standing at just 1.0%
year-on-year (y/y) in March. Service prices posted by far the most
rapid gain also in annual comparison; their surge of 11.7% y/y,
comparing to growth of 2.8% y/y in non-food prices, and an annual fall
of 1.6% in food prices. April data brought the cumulative gain in
Armenian consumer prices since the beginning of the year to 3.9%,
while annual inflation for the January-April period came in at 2.3%.

Significance:April inflation developments continue the renewed
intensification in Armenian price pressures. The acceleration seen in
March inflation had mainly been the result of the devaluation of the
dram exchange rate seen earlier in the month, while the April jump in
inflation is mainly attributed to the increase in import prices of
Russian gas. The Russian gas giant Gazprom increased the price of gas
sold to Armenia from $110US/1,000 cubic metres (cm) last year to
$154US/1,000 cm from the beginning of April, and this is reflected in
the rapid acceleration in service tariff growth. While this increase
is lower than initially sought by Gazprom, a previous agreement sees
Armenian gas prices rising to $200US/1,000 cm next year and up to
European market prices in 2011. Service price growth will push
Armenian inflation up in annual terms in the coming months, but the
overall sharp cooling in economic activity will have the opposite
effect. Average monthly inflation still remains clearly below its
year-ago level, and given downward economic momentum, the Central Bank
of Armenia (CBA) may consider further interest rate cuts in the coming
months (see Armenia: 9 April 2009: ). Then again, the potential of
even sharp renewed upward price pressures certainly exist, given the
vulnerability of the dram exchange rate amid Armenia's high external
financing requirement.

PanARMENIAN.Net
Turkish journalist may be sentenced to 17 years in prison for writing
book about Hrant Dink
02.05.2009 14:47 GMT+04:00
 
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Nedim Shener, journalist of Turkish Milliyet
periodical, may be sentenced to 17 years in prison for writing a book
entitled `Dink's Murder and the Falsehood of Secret Services'.

The book describes how Turkish security forces failed to prevent
Dink's murder. Several lawsuits have been filed against Shener. The
first hearing is due on June 26. The lawsuits have been filed by
police officers Mukhitin Zenit, Head of Police Investigative
Department Ramazan Akurek and Head of Istanbul Police Investigative
Bureau Ali Fuat Yulmazar.

`I am alone with murderers in Istanbul Criminal Court. The officers
who filed a case against me failed to conduct a proper investigation
into the reports containing information about plans for assassinating
Dink. They targeted me because I wrote the truth,' the journalist
said.

According to Mr. Shener, the investigators forged documents for
concealing false information. `The false document issued by the Prime
Minister's Investigative Committee revealed that falsehood. In
particular, it says that Ataturk and Ilmazar failed to perform their
duties. The report was undersigned by the Prime Minister. And I wrote
about that. This is the only crime I committed.'

Hrant Dink, Editor-in-Chief of Agos Armenian periodical, was killed
near his office by nationalist Ogun Samast on January 19,
2007. However, Turkish media recently reported the name of a different
killer.


Armenia -- Argishti Kivirian, editor of "Armenia Today" news agency
beaten on 30Apr2009. Photo courtesy of Gagik Shamshian
30.04.2009
Irina Hovannisian

Argishti Kivirian, the editor of a private Armenian news agency, was
badly beaten by unknown assailants outside his Yerevan apartment early
on Thursday in yet another assault on local journalists. (UPDATED)

Kivirian, 36, was rushed to hospital and placed under intensive care
shortly after the incident that occurred as he returned home early in
the morning. According to his sister Armenika, the attackers used wooden
sticks to inflict serious injuries on his head and body.

Armenia -- Blood-stained stick used in the beating of Argishti Kiviryan,
editor of Armenia Today, Yerevan, 30Apr2009 Photo courtesy of
photojournalist Gagik Shamshian

`They also had firearms,' she told RFE/RL at Yerevan's Erebuni Medical
Center. `We heard three gunshots. As soon as Argishti's wife and I heard
noise we dashed out of the apartment and went downstairs. Fortunately,
he wasn't hit by bullets.'

She said the assailants were gone by the time they found the
blood-stained journalist lying on the ground. `There are injuries all
over his body and especially his head,' she said.

According to Harutyun Mangoyan, head of Erebuni's intensive care unit,
Kivirian did not sustain any gun wounds. `The skull injuries were deemed
of medium severity,' he told RFE/RL.

The Armenian police swiftly announced a criminal investigation into the
incident. A police statement said investigators visited the Erebuni
hospital but were unable to question Kivirian because of his grave
condition. The statement identified him as the director of a private law
firm.

Kivirian is better known as the founding editor of the Armenia Today
online news service. Its website, www.armtoday.net, was not operational
on Thursday. Armenika Kivirian, who is also a journalist, declined to
speculate about why her brother may have been attacked.

Armenia -- Argishti Kiviryan, editor of Armenia Today news agency
beaten, 30Apr2009

Kivrian's wife, Lusine Sahakian, linked the attack to his professional
activities. `Neither he, nor I have had any personal problems,' she told
RFE/RL.

Sahakian could not say whether the beating may have been related to her
own professional activities. She has risen to prominence in the past
year as the defense lawyer of former Deputy Prosecutor-General Gagik
Jahangirian, who was arrested shortly after publicly voicing support for
opposition leader Levon Ter-Petrosian in February 2008.

Jahangirian was sentenced to three years in prison on highly
controversial charges on March 23. Like her client, Sahakian rejected
the charges as baseless and politically motivated throughout the
high-profile trial. Armenia's Court of Appeals is to start hearings on
their appeal against the verdict soon.

When asked whether she or her husbands have received threats of late,
Sahakian said: `I can't mention concrete threats. But he did face
harrassment before the incident.' She did not elaborate.

Kivirian's beating was condemned by more than a dozen Armenian
non-governmental organizations involved in media freedom and human
rights advocacy. In a joint statement, they said it was made possible by
the authorities' failure to punish the perpeptrators of past attacks on
journalists. A similar statement was also issued by Armen Harutiunian,
the state human rights ombudsman.

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