YEREVAN, APTIL 5, NOYAN TAPAN - ARMENIANS TODAY. The goal of the archeological excavations implemented during the last one year in three places of Artsakh, in historic Tigranakert (Martakert region), in Shushi and at the Hanberd monastic complex (the region of Karvajar) is to again remind the authorities of Armenia that towards those territories "the Armenian people has a historic national obligation to make them Armenian, and if it doesn't, the history will condemn us." Vigen Arabian, the Executive Director of the U.S. branch of the "Yerkir" Union of NGOs' for Repatriation and Settlement, stated about this at the April 4 opening ceremony of the "Culture of Borders" archeological researches' exhibition at the "Narekatsi" cultural center. Results of joint archeological excavations in the liberated territories of Artsakh of the "Yerkir" union and "Kenats Tsar" cultural reseaches center are presented at the exhibiton. According to Vigen Arabian, the goal of those excavations is one: "re-settlement of the liberated, especially strategic bordering territories of the Fatherland with Armenians and keeping them Armenian." The most part of them, including the NK Autonomous Region, was annexed to Azerbaijan during the last 80 years, as a consequence of what not only the number of the Armenian inhabitation reduced, but the centuries-old Armenian culture existed in them was destroyed. "We came to implement a propaganda and educational work in general for an Armenian, particularly, for our state," Vigen Arabian emphasized. He is sure that one liberates a land not only by fighting: that war will be valued only at the time when Armenian will live in those territories. V.Arabian also mentioned that since 1994 if the war has not been finished, then it has been stopped, "but we were not able to solve that problem, we gave a huge number of victims and economic losses for those territories." "Our people paid the price of those territories but they are less populated today: there is a problem of re-populating the solution of which is, in fact, left for public organizations. And the state has no clear policy of re-populating and keeping them Armenian yet," he stated. Vigen Arabian is sure that "we'll not historically be the owners of those territories for a long time as they are empty."

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