Turkish Forum

Category: Armenia

  • CFP- Armenia and Armenians in International Treaties, U of Mich, Mar 18-21, ’09

    CFP- Armenia and Armenians in International Treaties, U of Mich, Mar 18-21, ’09

    Posted by: Gloria Caudill <[email protected]>

    Armenian Studies Program
    University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

    Call For Papers
    International Conference on Armenia and Armenians in International Treaties

    The Armenian Studies Program (ASP) at the University of Michigan, Ann
    Arbor    , will be convening an international conference on the theme
    Armenia and Armenians in International Treaties. The conference will
    be held on the campus of the University of Michigan, March 18-21, 2009.

    International treaties represent critical moments in the history of
    Armenia     and of the Armenian people that had serious implications for
    their status and future as well as that of neighboring peoples and
    countries. International treaties also constitute the linchpin of
    diplomatic history, an aspect of Armenian history that has been
    neglected. The purpose of the conference is to determine patterns and
    processes which might shed light on the challenges faced by Armenia
    and Armenians in their long history.

    For the purposes of this conference the term treaties will include
    also international agreements such as the one between the Armenian
    merchants of India and the British East India Company in 1688 or the
    May 1896 agreement regarding the Eastern provinces of the Ottoman Empire.

    Scholars interested in the subject of Armenian diplomatic history from
    earliest times to the present are invited to submit abstracts for
    their proposed papers on the theme to Ms. Gloria Caudill, ASP
    Administrator, ([email protected]) by Friday, October 3, 2008. ASP
    will notify scholars regarding the acceptance of their proposal by the
    end of October, 2008. Final papers should be submitted two weeks
    before the conference, by February 18, 2009. The papers will be made
    available to all participants in order to limit presentations during
    the conference to 20 minutes per participant and provide time for
    discussion during panels.

    The conference will begin with a reception on the evening of
    Wednesday, March 18, followed by three full days of panels. The
    conference will be webcast live internationally. Professor Gerard
    Libaridian is the main convener of the conference.

    The language of the conference will be English, although presentations
    in Armenian as well as in French, Russian and Spanish will be accepted
    as long as the presenter can provide an English translation of the
    paper two weeks before the conference

    ASP will cover all expenses related to travel, lodging and meals for
    participants.

    For further information, please contact Ms. Gloria Caudill at the ASP office:
    Email: [email protected]
    Telephone: (1) 734-763-0622.

  • Russian aircraft bombing Tbilisi took off from Armenia

    Russian aircraft bombing Tbilisi took off from Armenia

     
     

    [ 08 Aug 2008 18:12 ]
    Moscow – APA. Russia’s Defense Ministry confirmed that additional forces had been sent to support peacekeepers in Georgia-Ossetia conflict zone, APA reports quoting RIA Novosti.

    The ministry said necessary assistance would be offered to the Russian peacekeepers and citizens of unrecognized republic. North Caucasus military district said that Russian combat equipment entered Tskhinvali. Georgian new agencies report that Russian military aircrafts bombed Vaziani base near Tbilisi at 15.10 by local time. Two bombs were reportedly dropped on the military base. No casualties are reported in the base. Gruziya Online website reports that the aircraft that bombed Vaziani base had taken off from the territory of Armenia. The agency mentions that there is an air regiment in Russian army’s 102nd base in Gumru, Armenia. According to the agreement signed between Georgia and Armenia, Armenia can not allow any other state to attack Georgia from its territory.

    U.S. President George Bush met with Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in Beijing and called on the parties to cease the fire in Georgia-Ossetia conflict zone immediately. European Union and OSCE released analogous messages.

  • Armenia Concerned About South Ossetia Fighting

    Armenia Concerned About South Ossetia Fighting

     

     

     

     

     

    By Ruben Meloyan

    Armenia joined the international community on Friday in expressing serious concern about the outbreak of deadly fighting in South Ossetia that threatened to degenerate into an all-out war between neighboring Georgia and Russia.

    The Armenian Foreign Ministry said official Yerevan is closely monitoring the situation and urging the conflicting parties to call a halt to military operations..

    “We are certainly concerned about the situation and hope that a solution will be found very quickly,” Deputy Foreign Minister Gegham Gharibjanian told RFE/RL. “We hope that the parties will make maximum efforts to quickly stop bloodshed and find peaceful solutions to contentious issues,” he said.

    A separate statement by the Foreign Ministry said Armenia’s embassy in Tbilisi and the consulate general in Batumi have been instructed to be “in constant touch with Georgia’s central and regional authorities.” It said the diplomatic missions will also provide “necessary assistance” to Armenian citizens in Georgia who will wish to return home.

    Georgian troops launched a major military offensive on Friday morning to regain control over South Ossetia which had won de facto independence from Tbilisi in a 1992 war. They reportedly seized much of the regional capital Tskhinvali by early afternoon, triggering a Russian military intervention.

    News reports from South Ossetia said a convoy of Russian tanks and other military vehicles was moving towards Tskhinvali from Russia’s republic of North Ossetia later in the day. Also, Georgian government officials said Russian military aircraft bombed Georgian army positions in South Ossetia and the Vaziani military airbase near Tbilisi. The airbase is less than 50 kilometers from Georgia’s border with Armenia.

    Observers believe that a large-scale Russian-Georgian war is a nightmare scenario for Armenia, which uses Georgia’s territory as its main commercial conduit to the outside world and maintains close political and especially military ties with Russia.

    The spiraling hostilities prompted the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe to call a special meeting of its decision-making Permanent Council in Vienna on Friday afternoon. Finland, the current holder of the OSCE’s rotating presidency, warned that the conflict could escalate into “a full-fledged war.” “War would have a devastating impact for the entire region,” Finnish Foreign Minister Alexander Stubb said in a statement.

  • Cash Transfers To Armenia Jump To New High

    Cash Transfers To Armenia Jump To New High

     

     

     

     

     

    By Emil Danielyan

    Cash remittances sent home by Armenians working abroad jumped by 57.5 percent to $668.6 million in the first half of this year, helping Armenia to sustain robust economic growth and finance its massive trade deficit.

    The figure released to RFE/RL by the Central Bank of Armenia (CBA) on Tuesday is equivalent to 15 percent of the country’s first-half Gross Domestic Product. It measures only the amount of remittances processed by Armenian commercial banks. Comparable sums are believed to enter the country through non-bank transfer systems.

    The bank transfers, most of them coming from Russia and the United States, already rose by 37 percent to a record-high level of $1.32 billion last year. The latest CBA data put them on course to set a new record in 2008.

    The multimillion-dollar remittances have been a key source of revenue for a considerable part of Armenia’s population ever since the economic collapse of the early 1990s that forced hundreds of thousands of people to go abroad, mainly to Russia, in search of employment. Economists agree that they have also been a major factor behind Armenia’s economic growth, significantly boosting domestic consumer demand and the booming construction and services sectors. According to official statistics, the Armenian economy expanded by 10.3 percent in the first half of 2008 and is thus on track to register a double-digit growth rate for the seventh consecutive years.

    The remittances have also been the main source of financing for the country’s widening current-account trade deficits. Official figures for the first half show the trade imbalance skyrocketing by 66 percent to $1.39 billion on the back of a 40 percent surge in imports. Armenian exports, by contrast, fell by about one percent to $520 million.

    The rising amounts of money sent by migrant Armenian workers to their relatives are also thought to have been instrumental in the more than 90 percent nominal appreciation of the Armenian national currency, the dram, against the U.S. dollar registered in the past five years. The dram’s strengthening stopped late last year, possibly due to the start of Armenia’s dramatic presidential race and the resulting political turmoil. The process resumed in May, with the dram gaining more than 2 percent in additional value against both the dollar and the euro since then.

  • Senate Confirms U.S. Envoy To Armenia

    Senate Confirms U.S. Envoy To Armenia

     

     

     

     

     

    Monday 4, August 2008
    AP

    The U.S. Senate confirmed the Bush administration’s nominee as ambassador to Armenian after a delay by lawmakers who were unhappy with White House policies on the country.

    Lawmakers had delayed consideration of Marie Yovanovitch’s nomination to Armenia in a dispute over the U.S. refusal to label as genocide the World War I-era killings of huge numbers of Armenians. The issue had come up in the nominee’s confirmation hearings.

    Armenian-American groups have sought to force the adminsitration to change its policy on the Armenian killings. The administration has avoided the word genocide out of concern of alienating its ally, Turkey.

    Historians estimate that up to 1.5 million Armenians were killed, an event widely viewed by genocide scholars as the first genocide of the 20th century. Turkey denies that the deaths constituted genocide, saying the toll has been inflated, and that those killed were victims of civil war and unrest.

    In August, the White House withdrew its nomination of career diplomat Richard Hoagland after Democratic Senator Robert Menendez held up his confirmation through a Senate procedure.

    Hoagland’s predecessor, John Evans, reportedly had his tour of duty in Armenia cut short by the administration because, in a social setting, he referred to the killings as genocide. Armenian-American groups sought to prevent Hoagland’s nomination unless he made a clear statement affirming the genocide.

  • KLO: “Matthew Bryza’s last report prejudices Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity”

    KLO: “Matthew Bryza’s last report prejudices Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity”

     

    [ 02 Aug 2008 15:22 ]

    Baku. Ramil Mammadli-APA. Karabakh Liberty Organization made a statement on Deputy Assistant Secretary of State, OSCE MG Co-Chair Matthew Bryza’s report on the solution to the Nagorno Karabakh conflict. KLO Press Service told APA.
    “Matthew Bryza stated that liberation of regions around Nagorno Karabakh, deployment of peacekeeping forces in the region, voting on the status of Nagorno Karabakh had been discussed during the negotiations. KLO stated many times that this plan and discussions directed to give Nagorno Karabakh to Armenia forever. Bryza’s report prejudices Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity. KLO considers that Azerbaijan should refuse negotiations within the framework of OSCE MG. Moreover, U.S. Embassy in Azerbaijan should clear up absurd report”, the statement says.