ARMENIA: FRONTIER RESTRICTIONS PROMPT EXODUS
Yeranuhi Soghoian
Institute for War and Peace Reporting IWPR
July 31 2009
UK
Empty Armenian border villages raise security concerns.
Villages along Armenia's border with Turkey are emptying, with
their inhabitants blaming strict border regulations for making life
impossible, in an exodus that some analysts say threatens the security
of the state.
In the village of Kharkov, for example, on the bank of the river
Akhurian facing Turkish territory over the water, just one family
remains.
In 1949, when the barbed wire was installed and the Cold War made the
Turkish-Soviet border the frontline between communism and capitalism,
80 Armenian families lived here.
Turkey and Armenia still have no diplomatic ties, and the closed
border between them today is a legacy of Armenia's war with Turkish
ally Azerbaijan in the early 1990s.
The Khachatrians were the most recent emigrants from Kharkov in 2008,
and now live in the village of Ani, about seven kilometres away. They
say they had no choice but to abandon their homes, so they gathered
up their belongings and locked the door behind them.
"My grandson had to go to school, so like it or not, we had to leave
Kharkov," said Avetik Khachatrian, the head of the family.
He said people started to leave the village, which is surrounded by
barbed wire, as early as the 1960s, as they struggled to deal with
the harsh Soviet border conditions. The school taught children only
for the first four years, and the roads were in such a poor state
that they were almost impassable.
The Khachatrians had to show special passes at a border checkpoint
to reach the outside world, they said, and had to give prior warning
if anyone wanted to visit them, including for weddings or funerals.
"They counted them in, and then on the next day they counted them out
again," said Avetik's wife, Melsida. "Outsiders could not stay in the
village. There were cases when, because of extended document checks,
the funeral ceremony had to be postponed until 8 pm."
Now, the only village residents are the Vardanians, a couple in their
70s. When they go, the village will be empty, and that part of the
border deserted.
This movement away from the border zone profoundly troubles Stepan
Safarian, a political commentator and member of parliament for the
Heritage Party.
"These farmers guard our border, and it is especially hard since our
enemy is on the other side. The government does not provide decent
living conditions for the residents of the border areas, which raises
questions about the existence of a border at all," he said.
"If there are no villages on the border, then you either have to have
a strong army, and our country cannot afford that for any extended
period, or you have to decide not to defend the border. In this case
the biggest danger is that this area won't be deserted for long,
since in the modern world of globalisation other people will quickly
move there. And maybe they'll be from Turkey."
The local priest, Mikael Ajapahian of the Shirak diocese, can list
villages that have either been moved back from the border or were
relocated to make way for the Akhurian reservoir. He said an attempt
by a group of farmers to move back to Kharkov in the 1980s failed
and no one had tried to resurrect the village since.
"In the Soviet years, when everything was done to empty the villages
or evacuate people further from the Armenian-Turkish border, of course
such an initiative was doomed," he said.
Ajapahian said the Turkish government's treatment of villages on its
side of the border was different, "There is no barbed wire there,
and everything is done to develop these villages.
"For me, it is degrading to see the current situation in Kharkov. What
law says a village must be surrounded by barbed wire? If there is
already a natural border in the form of a reservoir and a river then
why is an artificial one needed too?"
Lida Nanian, the governor of the Shirak region where Kharkov
is located, did not deny that the emptying of the villages
was a side-effect of the strict border regulations but said the
administration was doing all it could to provide modern amenities
for the villagers.
"There was a problem with the village of Meghrashat. The issue was
that the cowshed was right on the Armenian-Turkish border and not
long ago there was a case of livestock being stolen," she said.
"The border guards demanded that the residents moved their cowshed
further from the border and did not send their livestock into those
pastures. I did not agree with this but it is their job; it is what
they are paid to do."
The border guards' involvement does not end with the location of
cowsheds. In order to graze their livestock, local people have to
carry a pass, something they find offensive.
"I no longer live in Kharkov, but I still have some land there,
and now I need to go there to cultivate it," said Avetik Khachatrian.
"I already have a pass for entering and exiting until the end of the
year but believe me, they do not make it easy. A few days ago, I had to
wait at the checkpoint from 8 am to 1 pm. for them to open it. They did
not even let me work properly. They came at 8 pm and told me to leave."
Yeranuhi Soghoian is freelance journalist in Gyumri.
Sarkisian Steps Up Criticism Of Turkey
Armenia -- President Serzh Sarkisian poses for a photograpah with
visiting young Armenians from the Diaspora on 30Jul2009
31.07.2009
Emil Danielyan
President Serzh Sarkisian has stepped up his criticism of Turkeys
preconditions for normalizing Turkish-Armenian relations, saying that
they run counter to agreements reached by Ankara and Yerevan during
their year-long negotiations.
The criticism was echoed by more than 80 U.S. lawmakers who accused
Ankara of backpedaling on a U.S.-brokered roadmap to establishing
diplomatic relations between the two neighboring nations and reopening
their border.
For one year, Armenia and Turkey held negotiations and agreed on two
documents, Sarkisian said in televised remarks aired late on
Thursday. But since that some political forces in Turkey have been
trying to set conditions and link the establishment of diplomatic
relations with Armenia with the resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh
conflict and Armenias relations with Azerbaijan.
We do accept that Turkey is a big country, we do accept its role both
in the region and the entire world, he said. But at the same time, we
Armenians are an independent nation, and it is inadmissible to talk to
us in the language of preconditions. Any tough step brings about
counter-steps. He did not elaborate on the warning.
Sarkisian spoke during a visit to Lake Sevan where he attended a
summer festival organized by his government for visiting young people
from the worldwide Armenian Diaspora. Many in the Diaspora have
followed with unease Armenias dramatic rapprochement with Turkey that
began shortly after Sarkisian took office in April last year. Like
opposition politicians in Yerevan, some Diaspora leaders have been
openly critical of the Western-backed process, saying that it has
earned Armenia no tangible benefits and only hampered efforts to get
more countries of the world recognize the 1915 Armenian massacres in
Ottoman Turkey as genocide.
WORLD BANK APPROVES ANOTHER ANTI-CRISIS LOAN TO ARMENIA
Asbarez
July 30, 2009
YEREVAN (RFE/RL)-In a further effort to mitigate the impact of the
global recession, the World Bank allocated late Tuesday a new $30
million loan to Armenia aimed at rehabilitating some of the country's
battered irrigation networks.
In a statement issued after a meeting in Washington of its Board of
Executive Directors, the bank said the concessional loan, repayable
in 27 years, will finance capital repairs on almost 84 kilometers
of canals in the Armavir and Aragatsotn regions. It said the project
will help bring irrigation back to about 7,300 hectares of land and
benefit around 39,000 farmers.
Armenia's Soviet-built networks of canals are already undergoing
a large-scale reconstruction under a $168 million project financed
by the U.S. Millennium Challenge Corporation. A lack of irrigation
has been one of the most acute problems facing Armenian agriculture
since the break-up of the Soviet Union and the ensuing degradation
of rural infrastructure.
The World Bank statement said the loan will also result in new jobs
and thereby ease socioeconomic hardship in the unemployment-stricken
areas. "Creating jobs and boosting incomes, particularly in rural
areas where most of the poor live, is critical in the current crisis
environment," Asad Alam, the bank's director for the South Caucasus,
was quoted as saying. "What is important about this Project is that
this is done in a way that will also help improve long-term growth
and productivity in agriculture."
The latest allocation raised to $200 million the total amount of
anti-crisis loans to Armenia approved by the World Bank this year. They
are due to be used for financing Armenia's widening budget deficit,
supporting small and medium-sized enterprises, rebuilding rural roads
and implementing reforms of the education sector.
The World Bank pledged earlier this year to lend at least $670 million
to the country in 2009-2012. The total amount of its loans allocated
since 1992 exceeds $1.27 billion.
ARMENIAN ELECTED TO KURDISTAN PARLIAMENT
PanARMENIAN.Net/
31.07.2009 11:20 GMT+04:00
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ An Armenian was elected to the parliament of
Kurdistan.
Aram Shahin Bakoyan, a member of Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP)
led by Masoud Barzani, will have a mandate in the 111-seat parliament.
Chairman of the central national administration of Iraq, Paruyr
Hakopian said all Armenian candidates are Kurdish-speaking. "Aram
Shahin is a native of Artsruk. He used to fight in Barzani's guerilla
units," he said, kurdistan.ru reports.
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