ANKARA (Bloomberg)–After beating his army-backed secular opponents in court yesterday, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan now may have to learn to live with them.
Erdogan’s party escaped a ban when the country’s high court rejected charges that he sought to introduce Islamic law in violation of a constitutional mandate for a secular government. The win [...]

SIVAS (ANA)–Archeological excavations carried out at two historic spots in Turkey’s eastern province of Sivas have been completed, uncovering relics dating back to the Ottoman and Seljuk eras together with a memorial grave that experts believe was dedicated to the bishop of Sebastia in Armenia. Sivas, a historic province of Western Armenia, has been under [...]

BAKU (Armenpress)-The Organization for Security and Cooperation is hoping that the Nagorno-Karabakh peace talks between Armenia and Azerbaijan will step up after Azerbaijan’s presidential elections in October, the OSCE chairman-in-office’s special envoy Heikki Talvitie said during a press conference in Baku Thursday.
Talvitie stressed the importance of previous meetings between the foreign ministers of Armenian and [...]

YEREVAN (RFE/RL)–The Armenian government and Russia’s Gazprom energy giant are continuing to negotiate on the new price of Russian natural gas supplied to Armenia, Energy Minister Armen Movsisian said on Wednesday, contradicting earlier reports about agreement reached by the parties.
A Gazprom spokesman and the chief executive of Armenia’s ARG gas distribution network, Karen Karapetian, told [...]

YEREVAN (Armenpress)-Armenia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Gegham Gharibjanian met with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Wednesday during a visit to Tehran to participate in the 15th meeting of foreign ministers from countries in the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM).
Gharibjian, who was in Tehran as an observer to the NAM meeting, held private talks also with the Foreign Ministers of [...]

YEREVAN (Armenpress)-The number of Armenian males applying to the country’s military academies and choosing a career in the military is up from previous years, reported the Defense Ministry of Armenia.
According to Murad Isakhanian, head of the Defense Ministry’s Education and Personal Affairs Department 584 young men have applied to Armenia’s Vazgen Sargsyan Military Academy this [...]

STEPANAKERT (Armenpress)-The number of tourists to the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic rose by 10% this summer, up from last year’s figures, reported the Karabakh Foreign Ministry’s Consular Service.
According to the Consular Service, the majority of tourists visiting Karabakh in the first half of the year were from Russia, the US, France, Germany, Iran, Poland, Japan, Belgium, Greece, [...]

ISTANBUL-Istanbul Patriarchate Locum Tenens Archbishop Shahan Svadjian at a special meeting of the religious council Wednesday announced that Istanbul Patriarch Archbishop Mesrob Mutafyan has been diagnosed with early Alzheimer.
During the meeting, which was chaired by Arch. Svadjian and Arch. Aram Ateshian, Dr. Ardash Akdaghi read a medical report outlining the Patriarch’s condition. The report was [...]

WASHINGTON–In the midst of mounting Senate scrutiny and the prospect of a "hold" on Marie Yovanovitch’s nomination to serve as the next U.S. Ambassador to Armenia, the State Department, today, cleared the way for her approval by retreating from statemen’s calling into question the historical record of the Ottoman Empire’s destruction of its Armenian population, [...]

The following are excerpts from Tuesday’s Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing discussing the confirmation of Amb. Marie Yovanovitch as the next US Ambassador to Armenia.
Chairman Joe Biden (D-DE): "I want to point out that you–Senator Boxer and Senator Menendez–without your sustained push on this, I don’t think the Administration would have come as far [...]

ANKARA (Bloomberg)–Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan survived a court challenge to force him from office, ending months of political uncertainty that threatened to derail the $660 billion economy.
Six of 11 judges on the Constitutional Court voted to close down the party, one short of the seven required, chief judge Hasim Kilic told reporters in [...]

YEREVAN (Combined Sources)–Armenia never stopped and will never stop pressing for international recognition of the Armenian Genocide perpetrated by the Ottoman Empire, Armenian Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian told a news conference in Yerevan Wednesday. "We just want normal relations with our neighbors and stand for normalization of relations with Turkey without preconditions. President Sarkisian’s invitation [...]

CARSON, Calif. ’s Chivas USA of Major League Soccer and the Consulate General of the Republic of Armenia in Los Angeles have joined together to celebrate ‘Armenia Night’ at the match between Chivas USA and the Los Angeles Galaxy, to take place on Thursday, August 14 at The Home Depot Center in Carson.
Various events at [...]

YEREVAN (RFE/RL)–The national telecommunication company ArmenTel was fined 300 million drams ($1 million) by state anti-trust regulators on Wednesday for allegedly seeking to squeeze Armenia’s leading Internet service providers out of business.
The hefty fine relates to the recent launch of a new ArmenTel service that gives users high-speed access to the Internet at a much [...]