Current Condition of Armenia

[Mos]

Re: Current Condition of Armenia

Yes, the signed that agreement which has not been ratified by either parliament, so for now it is as worthless as the paper it was typed on. Also, wikileaks showed that aliyev doesn't like erdogan or his party. I think the Russians wanted the Protocols to go thru so as to weaken turkish-azeri relations, which would be in Moscow's interests. I also do not think that the drive to open the border is over yet, after the next turkish elections there is a good chance talks will resume and the border will be opened.

Yeah, the AKP party is afraid that supporting protocols will harm its elections chances, so naturally it has taken a hard stance against them. Though if they want to get serious with EU membership, then they will have to approve the protocols - and approve them according to the original conditions, that were agreed upon.

The Genocide issue will not be lost if Armenia has open borders with turkey. Open borders would also lesson georgia's role in the Armenian economy, and provide our oligarchs more room to make investments, I think this would only help Armenia.

It will be greatly harmed if a commission is created between us and turks to discuss it. There are many economic benefits for us in opening such a border, of course, but the key thing is that it is done prudently - we cannot trust the Turks, and must be suspicious of their motives, especially when it comes to genocide commissions with them.

Of course turkey has some things to gain from open borders but remember, they want to keep the kurds under foot, and a more developed eastern turkey may not be fully in their interest. Also, the turkish public is not much less keen on joining the EU than a few years ago and the dominant players of the EU, Germany & France are dead set against turkish membership, not to mention Cyprus and Austria. Overall thought turkey would rather keep Armenia isolated and not strain relations with baku.

Of course Turkey can do without open borders, but the fact of the matter is there are so many external powers pressuring Turkey, that it may eventually cave in. There's going to be a clash between the Turkish liberals who want EU and open borders, and Turkish nationalists who want strong relations with Baku and are sceptical of the West's intentions.

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Austria is an interesting country in term of foreign relations, especially there relations with Iran which are very close. You would think, they are a EU country in central Europe their relations wouldn't be good, but they actually are. Economic realtions between the two are flourishing, Austria has often rejected additional sanctions on Iran and been lenient on Iran in international settings, it has even supplied Iranian Revolutionary Guard with advanced Austrian rifles, namley snipers, which were used in Iraq! From wikileaks, we see the West, especially US and even Germany, are displeased with Austria and have pressured it to stop its relations with Iran, but Austria has effectively said f*ck you, we do what we want, we are not your puppet! I like the independent thinking of Austria. (plus they are not part of NATO and are a permanently neutral country).

Some interesting articles:

http://www.worldpress.org/Mideast/3534.cfm

http://www.haaretz.com/news/top-german-officials-slam-austrian-trade-ties-with-iran-1.237732

wikileaks about US-Austria tensions

http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,732941,00.html

and finally, Nalbandian is in Vienna and President of Austria will be visiting

http://news.am/eng/news/49876.html

[Armanen]

Re: Current Condition of Armenia

Yes, Austria is a cool country. I also like it that since they are not consistently burdened with the holocaust, like their German cousins, they can be more conservative and openly anti turkish. I'd like to see their right wing party come to power, maybe if the eu economy continues to be bad their chances will improve.

I'm aware of the good relations between Austria and Iran. I met a number of Iranians who were studyingin Vienna when I was there. During the Cold War, Vienna was a middle ground for western and eastern spooks, they would often exchange prisoners and talk shop with each other even though they were from opposite sides.

I'd like to see closer relations between Austria and Armenia.

[Mos]

Re: Current Condition of Armenia

Yes, Austria is a cool country. I also like it that since they are not consistently burdened with the holocaust, like their German cousins, they can be more conservative and openly anti turkish. I'd like to see their right wing party come to power, maybe if the eu economy continues to be bad their chances will improve.

I'm aware of the good relations between Austria and Iran. I met a number of Iranians who were studyingin Vienna when I was there. During the Cold War, Vienna was a middle ground for western and eastern spooks, they would often exchange prisoners and talk shop with each other even though they were from opposite sides.

I'd like to see closer relations between Austria and Armenia.

Yes Austria is openly anti-Turkish, and Austria kicked Turkey's a*s during their attempt to invade Vienna few hundred years ago. In terms of the right-wing party, I'm hesitant to throw my support for them as they have said some controversial things, namely, Nazi sympathising, anti-Semitic remarks, and Islamaphobic remarks.

Here's a famous speech by an Austrian parliamentarian against the Turkish ambassador whose sitting in the room,

[KanadaHye]

Re: Current Condition of Armenia

Switzerland, Austria, Germany, all the same shiite to me.

[Mos]

Re: Current Condition of Armenia

Switzerland, Austria, Germany, all the same shiite to me.

First off, they are all different from each other, second off, why are they shiite?

[KanadaHye]

Re: Current Condition of Armenia

First off, they are all different from each other, second off, why are they shiite?

The regular folk people are generally cool. Just my own personal dealings with some people from those regions. Their history and involvement in the two world wars has them carrying around this uncertain sense of guilt and secrecy. Switzerland who wasn't directly involved in either is probably the one that's most suspicious. Their banking sector seems to have been some sort of force field

[KarotheGreat]

Re: Current Condition of Armenia

I would say that the LTp's wife doesn't matter at all in his acting towards Armenia. Even if his wife wasn't xxxish he would have sold us out. He's an agent of the Western interests and will even stay so after his wife is dead.

[Federate]

Re: Current Condition of Armenia

Well in a way Serzh also did the same thing with the AG issue when he agreed to the protocols with Turkey for normalisation. His agreement on that was seen by many Armenians as a sell-out. Who was Serzh influenced by?

About the Karabakh sell out, I'm still very sceptical that Israel was directly involved in influencing LTP to sell Karabakh. I see it more him being desperate because of the economy, and wanting to make this decision in order to open borders. Of course a very stupid decision.

I don't believe all j3ws fall into the same ethnicity. That being said, Muslim is not associate with any specific ethnicity, but remember a great majority of Muslims in the end of the day would support Azerbaijan and Turkey over Armenia, solely based on religion. The Islamic Organisation of States worked overnight in their support of Azerbaijan, sent weapons, money, and frequently condemns Armenia. Iran of course is a notable exception, but their government decision not to take Azerbaijan's side in my opinion is more based on strategic interests rather than some cultural or historical solidarity.

I agree with you about the commission to study the AG, it's just trolling by Turkey's part and they will use this as a basis to say that "see, we don't know yet so we'll study" and it could've been used a filibuster of sorts. There is simply nothing to discuss, historians almost unanimously agree, the study has been done already by neutral parties. Could you imagine Israel and Germany setting up a commission to study the Jewish massacres?

Having said this, Serge's intentions were not to abandon the AG but he was using a path he perceives as best to gain recognition, it was still included in Armenia's foreign policy. LTP threw it out completely, even fired Raffi Hovhanisyan from his FM job for uttering "AG" in Turkey.

The thing about J3ws is that it's hard to define a J3w because everyone has different definitions, you must answer the question "who/what is a J3w". A tangent to this question is "Is being a J3w an ethnicity or a religion? I don't agree that a great majority of Muslims would support Azerbaijan over Armenia. Maybe if you count countries like Indonesia (no exposure to Armenians) and Pakistan, you might be correct. But Arabs have more history with Armenians than Azeris and Arabs are majority Sunni too. We're respected in Lebanon, Syria, Egypt, Jordan, Palestine, UAE etc. The OIC really has no influence, it's just Muslims pretending they are all fine with each other and offering non-binding lip service to each other while they all hate each other in reality. When Az puts UN resolutions at vote, Lebanon, Syria, Egypt and Iran all abstain. There's no record of the OIC helping Azeris during the war, only Afghans and Chechens helped. I also agree about your opinion on Iran but that applies to every single country. Chka cultural yev historical solidarity realpolitikum, miayn ka shah.

Anyway, coming back to LTP's relations with J3ws, we can't really prove it unless he comes out himself or is exposed by someone else. But we must remain cautious. I also agree with KarotheGreat's assessment that LTP would do it regardless of infiltration or not.

[KanadaHye]

Re: Current Condition of Armenia

The thing about J3ws is that it's hard to define a J3w because everyone has different definitions, you must answer the question "who/what is a J3w". A tangent to this question is "Is being a J3w an ethnicity or a religion?

Judaism is a religion. J3ws are J3ws. The term J3w is usually referred to traitors, sellouts or cheapskates. Although the Pope just wrote a book claiming they had nothing to do with Jesus' death so it looks like the Papality is going down with Berlusconi

[Federate]

Re: Current Condition of Armenia

Armenian blogger Ditord's views on yesterday's rally.
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Opposition rally everything but a revolution
Posted on March 2, 2011 by Observer| 4 Comments

Armenia’s radical opposition rallied thousands in capital Yerevan on March 1st. The date was set to coincide with the 3rd anniversary of deadly street-violence in the capital after 2008 presidential elections, where 10 people died in clashes between supporters of opposition presidential candidate Levon Ter-Petrossian and riot police forces.

More than 10,000 people came to listen to the opposition leader Levon Ter-Petrossian encouraged by the recent revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia, agitated by the worsened socioeconomic situation in the country and ready for a revolution.

There was also a full-length livestreaming video from the opposition rally, Twitter and Facebook with some (albeit little) activity of the more geeky-politicized crowd findable by the hashtag #1mar.

There was everything, except for a revolution.

Ter-Petrossian cooled the crowd so effectively, that my jaw dropped. Sure, the usual demand of fresh elections and letting out the political prisoners was there. But the resignation demand was downgraded – instead of pushing for President Serzh Sargsian’s resignation, it was the Prime Minister Tigran Sargian and some other less important officials.

Then Ter-Petrossian sent the crowd marching down central Yerevan, lighting candles… and than home, with a promise to return for another rally on March 17.

It was such an effective neutralization of revolutionary moods, that the police and security forces couldn’t even dream of. And done by the great crowd-controller, Ter-Petrossian himself. The man, who can stirr up a revolution from out of nothing… Not that Armenia needs or wants a revolution, especially ahead of fresh Karabakh talks on March 5th and an increasingly hostile Azerbaijan stepping up cease-fire violations on Armenia-Azerbaijan front-line.

Is there a secret coalition-agreement between President Serzh Sargsian and opposition leader Levon Ter-Petrossian? I have my doubts by now…

http://ditord.com/2011/03/02/opposition-rally-everything-but-a-revolution/