Tag Archives: armenia

08 Jun

Armenian media summary

BBC Monitoring quotes from Armenian press 6 Jun 12
BBC Monitoring International Reports – Friday, June 8, 2012
The following is a selection of quotes from articles and commentaries published in the 6 June editions of Armenian newspapers:

Clinton’s visit to South Caucasus

Zhamanak (opposition), quoting Andrey Piontkovsky, political analyst: “The US secretary of state has many topics to discuss with the South Caucasus countries, which include the Baku-Ceyhan pipeline, the settlement of the Karabakh conflict, taking also into account the fact that the US is a co-chair of the OSCE Minsk Group [which mediates a peaceful solution to the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan ]. However, there is one topic, which is discussed very widely today – that is the possibility of war in the South Caucasus – Middle East area. The possibility of Iran’s nuclear facilities being bombed by Israel and its effects on the South Caucasus is a matter of highest priority.”

Hayots Ashkharh (pro-government), quoting Levon Shirinyan, political analyst: “The major message of Clinton’s visit to the region is: “Be ready for a new stage in Armenian-Turkish relations.” Whether it will be football diplomacy or whether they will find another way to call it, we need to be ready for this process and clarify our position. The USA aims to satisfy its allies’ appetites but also to constrain their appetites. In this respect, Armenia’s strategic location and role are very important.

Azerbaijani act of “sabotage”

Chorrord Inknishkhanutyun (opposition), quoting David Jamalyan, military expert: “The recent act sabotage by Azerbaijan should be linked to the visit by the US secretary of state. If you follow closely the logic of Azerbaijan ‘s negotiation process, you will see that Azerbaijan is trying to present – to us and the international mediators – the fact that they do not start war as a big compromise. This contains a huge bluff, since they create the illusion that they are preparing for war, but in reality they are not ready. At this point in time Azerbaijan clearly understands that war in the region is undesirable for the big powers who have their interests in this region, and during every important visit to the region, they try to demonstrate that they can start war, but they do not.”

Opposition group against government projects

Haykakan Zhamanak (opposition), quoting Levon Zurabyan, member of the opposition umbrella group Armenian National Congress: “Of course, whatever project this government proposes, we will vote against it, because this government has already proven that it is only busy making some of the oligarchs richer. Its activity is not driven by the interests of the country, the people, society or the economy.”

Ramkavar Azatakan Party reforming

Aravot (opposition), quoting Hakob Avetikyan, new head of Ramkavar Azatakan party: “There are many difficulties within our people. The Armenian National Congress thought that they could get more votes by taking advantage of these difficulties and complaints and building up all of their political campaign on these complaints. What happened is quite the opposite. Our party is not going to propose its candidate for the forthcoming presidential election, but we will surely support one of other party candidates. We have not chosen anyone officially yet, but my personal preference is the current president.”
Original Language: English
Section: Azerbaijan , Armenia and Georgia
Index Terms: ARMENIA ; PRESS ; QUOTES ; DOMESTIC POLITICAL
Original Source: Quotes package from BBC Monitoring
Record Number: 13F477B9C58AF5E8
Source: Quotes package from BBC Monitoring, in English 6 Jun 12/BBC Monitoring

BBC Monitoring quotes from Armenian press 7 Jun 12
BBC Monitoring International Reports – Friday, June 8, 2012
The following is a selection of quotes from articles and commentaries published in the 7 June editions of Armenian newspapers:

Clinton visits region

Zhamanak (opposition), quoting David Hovhannisyan, political scientist: “The US is trying to show this region is important. This is already the second high-level visit of the US official in the past two years. In the case of Armenia, the US is very much interested in the normalization of ties between Armenia and Turkey; if the borders between Turkey and Armenia are open, Turkey’s blockade of land routes will be eliminated and the friendly relations between Armenia and Iran will be hard to explain.”

Truce violation

Haykakan Zhamanak (opposition), quoting Galust Sahakyan, faction head of the Republican Party of Armenia in the National Assembly: “Even if we consider that the recent sabotage by Azerbaijan was connected to the visit of the US State Secretary, I think this act was very insulting for the co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group…”

Aravot (opposition), quoting Arman Melikyan, ambassador of separatist Nagornyy Karabakh republic in Armenia: “The latest sabotage by Azerbaijan was a challenge to the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) member countries, and first of all to Russia. It is interesting to see the reaction of the CSTO and Russia, and this reaction should be demanded by Armenia…”

Free Democrats and Dashnaktsutyun: perspectives for cooperation

Hayots Ashkharh (pro-government), quoting Khachatur Kokobelyan, president of Free Democrats party: “I was always sure that the boundary between the Armenian National Movement and the ARFD is artificial. Therefore, the Free Democrats see very good perspective of cooperation with the Dashnaktsutyun. We have passed a long road with the Armenian National Congress. It is a pity that our struggle had not produced the desired effect. But we have left this in the past, and I think we will be able to cooperate in an efficient way in the National Assembly. The Prosperous Armenia party today is the major intrigue of the political life today. It is a very positive result that it did not join the government coalition. This creates an opportunity for serious and healthy developments in the National Assembly.”

Regional developments

Golos Armenii (pro-government), quoting Hrant Melik-Shahnazaryan, political scientist: “Serious changes are expected in the South Caucasus, connected with the developments in Iran and in the Arab world. The interested parties are trying to occupy their places here. Azerbaijan is Turkey’s partner and the US is happy to see Azerbaijan gaining military power to be used against Iran. The US has no potential for a successful war against Iran.”
Original Language: English
Section: Azerbaijan , Armenia and Georgia
Index Terms: ARMENIA ; PRESS ; QUOTES ; DOMESTIC POLITICAL
Original Source: Quotes package from BBC Monitoring
Record Number: 13F477B9A4BFCE70
Source: Quotes package from BBC Monitoring, in English 7 Jun 12/BBC Monitoring

08 Jun

Armenian Mediamax on June 5th events

Armenia blames fatal border incident on Azeribaijan
BBC Monitoring Newsfile [London] 05 June 2012.

Thanks to the vigilance of Armenian soldiers, the sabotage group was tracked down and neutralized following special measures. According to the preliminary data, the Azerbaijani side lost five soldiers and many others were wounded. The other members of the sabotage group managed to retreat and they took with them the wounded and the bodies of the killed.

Yerevan, 5 June: Continuing sabotage actions that they started yesterday [4 May], Azerbaijani troops again attempted to cross the Armenian state border on the night of 4-5 June.

The Azerbaijani sabotage group of 15-20 people tried to get into the Armenian territory near the village of Voskepar of Tavush Region of Armenia, the Armenian Defence Ministry told Mediamax.

“Thanks to the vigilance of Armenian soldiers, the sabotage group was tracked down and neutralized following special measures. According to the preliminary data, the Azerbaijani side lost five soldiers and many others were wounded. The other members of the sabotage group managed to retreat and they took with them the wounded and the bodies of the killed. The Armenian side sustained no casualties,” the Armenian Defence Ministry reported.

[BBCM note: The Azerbaijani Defence Ministry said on 5 June that four Azeri soldiers lost their lives while repulsing an Armenian sabotage group’s attempt to enter Azeri army positions in the country’s western Qazax District]

Credit: Mediamax news agency, Yerevan, in Russian 0840 5 Jun 12

19 May

Attitudes toward homosexuality in the Caucasus

There has been a lot of activity related to homosexuality in the Caucasus this week. Armenia’s favorite LGBT-friendly bar was firebombed, Azerbaijan is hosting Eurovision, and Georgia has had some LGBT activism and negative responses.

So, in light of this, here is some analysis of CRRC data on attitudes toward homosexuality in the Caucasus to get a sense of how the public feels about homosexuality.

Respondents were asked, on a scale of 1-10, how justifable is homosexuality.

I must add though, that all of these responses should be taken with a grain of salt. If one were to really try to measure attitudes toward homosexuality (or more likely measuring homonegativity) in the Caucasus, there would be totally different ways to go about it – like using vignettes or some other more detailed measurement like this one or this.

I don’t think that asking people if homosexuality is justified is an appropriate way to get at this topic. CRRC asked a lot of different questions about values in the Caucasus and I’m glad that they included this, but as a social scientist, I cannot stand behind this sort of jumping into a topic without a lot of work put forth on measurement. (That being said, if anyone is interested and wants to fund this research, please let me know! It’d be a great project.)

But something is better than nothing, so, here it goes…

(This infographic is quite boring, as there isn’t much to say.)



Link to full version

30 Apr

Armenian Parliamentary Elections

More infographics! This time on attitudes toward parliamentary elections (and parliament itself) in Armenia.

As usual, please let me know if you have any questions. I know that there were no gender differences in any of these reported

Link to full view.

20 Apr

Nagorno Karabakh by the numbers

Surveying Armenians and Azerbaijanis about their opinions on the Nagorno Karabakh conflict is very difficult. In both countries, demonstrating a pro-national stance is important. In Azerbaijan especially, despite great efforts, there is a perception that poll takers are connected to the government.

Furthermore, the “rhetorical war” – as described by Tom de Waal – influences public opinion on these matters.

With these caveats in mind, please read this infographic with the perspective of the publicness of public opinion on this topic.



Link to full size

And as always, please let me know if you have any questions. I’m happy to do further analysis on age, gender, etc.

17 Mar

Relationship between desire to migrate and trust in government

Recently Armenian political figure Vartan Oskanian joined Twitter. He tweeted a speech that he gave where  he claimed that lack of trust in government is a cause of migration in Armenia.

Thanks to him for giving me a hypothesis to test!

Using the preliminary 2011 Caucasus Barometer, I looked at the relationship between desire to temporarily or permanently migrate and trust in government. And guess what? Oskanian is right!

For those that want to short-term migrate, they are statistically significantly less likely to trust these institutions than those that do not want to short-term migrate:

education system, army, courts, parliament, president, media, and the church.

Desire to short-term migrate had no effect on trust in these institutions:

healthcare, banks, NGOs, Prime Minster, police, local government, ombudsman, EU, and UN.

And for those that are interested in permanently migrating, it gets even more interesting.

Those with a desire to permanently migrate were statistically significantly less trusting in these institutions:

healthcare system, banks, education system, army, court system, NGOs, parliament, Prime Minister, president, police, media, local government, church, and ombudsman.

There was no impact on trust in the EU or UN.

So, yeah… this is interesting!

For more on who wants to migrate, check this out from 2010. Also I have a paper on trust in the government in Armenia here.