Armenia

Turkey and Armenia are likely to announce a deal soon aimed at easing their conflict, diplomats said Friday in a development that would sweeten President Obama's visit to Turkey next week. The two countries are expected this month to announce an agreement to resume official contacts and reopen borders that have been closed since 1993, said the diplomats, who spoke on condition of anonymity, citing the sensitivity of the subject.

Turkey and Armenia signed a landmark agreement Saturday to establish diplomatic relations and open their sealed border after a century of enmity, as U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton helped the two sides clear a last-minute hurdle. The contentious issue of whether the killing of as many as 1.5 million Armenians during the final days of the Ottoman Empire amounted to genocide is only hinted at in the agreement. Better ties between Turkey, a regional heavyweight, and landlocked Armenia have been a priority for President Obama, and Clinton had flown to Switzerland to witness the signing, not help close the deal.

Armenian police said eight people were killed and 33 officers injured in clashes between police and protesters demonstrating over alleged election fraud. Police spokesman Sayat Shirinian announced the deaths in a statement today. He did not say whether the eight killed were protesters or police, or give other details. Outgoing President Robert Kocharyan imposed a state of emergency late Saturday night after a day of violence between police and about 15,000 demonstrators.

The nominee to be the U.S. ambassador to Armenia avoided using the phrase "Armenian genocide" in her Senate confirmation hearing Thursday, but she acknowledged that Armenians had suffered mass deaths, rapes and forced exile at the hands of Turks between 1915 and 1923. Marie L.

When music promoter Debbie Ohanian calls from her home in Miami Beach to tip me to some great new band, I always listen. In the past decade, she was one of the pioneers in bringing cutting-edge Cuban bands to the U.S., sometimes at personal risk, as when she staged the first concert in Miami for Los Van Van, despite violent protests. With the Cuban scene fading, I hadn't heard from Ohanian in a while -- until she called to rave about something that was totally foreign to me.

Nearly two years ago, John Evans did something no U.S. ambassador to Armenia before him had done: He used the word "genocide" -- in public -- to describe the deaths of about 1.2 million Armenians at the hands of Ottoman Turks. It has long been a sore point with Armenian Americans that the U.S. government does not refer to the killings that began in 1915 as genocide, and Evans' use of the word did not signal a change in that policy.

Armenian President Robert Kocharyan appointed Serzh Sarksyan as the nation's prime minister, and many expect the new official to run for president next year when Kocharyan's final term expires. Prime Minister Andranik Margaryan died of a heart attack March 25.

It was the year 2000, and Rep. George P. Radanovich was on his way to the Capitol, expecting the House to pass a long-debated resolution he was sponsoring to recognize the Armenian genocide almost a century ago. But just as the Republican from Mariposa prepared to step onto the House floor, Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) called off the vote because President Clinton personally had warned him that the symbolic but emotion-charged resolution could damage national security.

Pro-presidential parties won a large majority in the Armenian parliamentary election, a poll that monitors said was fair and which confirmed support for the prime minister. The Republican Party, led by Prime Minister Serge Sargsyan, won control of about 40% of the 131 seats in parliament. Sargsyan, a 52-year-old former welder and a trusted lieutenant of President Robert Kocharyan, previously served as defense minister.

In the summer of 2003, budget-cutting California lawmakers closed state trade promotion offices in London, Hong Kong, Mexico City and other world business centers, a dozen in all. But they voted to keep one open -- in Yerevan. That's in Armenia. Responding to an enthusiastic pitch from California's large and influential Armenian American community, the Legislature passed a law creating the California-Armenia Trade Office.