KARABAKH CONDEMNS TERRORISM IN NORTH OSSETIA
STEPANAKERT, September 9 (Noyan Tapan). Many thousands of Karabakhi
people gathered in the streets of capital Stepanakert for a peaceful
march with candles and flowers thus condemning the act of terrrism that
was carried out in the North Ossetian city of Beslan. The participants
moved from the Renaissance Square to the memorial complex to pay
trubute to the memory of the victims. The humanitarian event was
organized by the NKR Fund of Motherhood.

Iran-Khatami-Tajikistan
Khatami arrives in Tajikistan Dushanbe, Sept 11, IRNA — President
Seyed Mohammad Khatami arrived here in the Tajik capital on Saturday
on the last leg of his three-nation tour of Armenia, Belarus and
Tajikistan. Khatami was officially welcomed on arrival by his Tajik
counterpart Emomali Rakhmonov. The welcoming ceremony began with
the playing of the national anthems of the two countries followed
by the review of a guard of honor by the two presidents. Khatami
is due to hold talks with top Tajik officials on ways of bolstering
Tehran-Dushanbe ties.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

AZERBAIJAN PROTESTS AT RUSSIAN CONCERT ON KARABAKH INDEPENDENCE DAY
ANS TV, Baku
11 Sep 04
Quoting the Foreign Ministry press service, the Trend news agency
has reported that Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov
has given a note of protest to the outgoing Russian ambassador to
Azerbaijan, Nikolay Ryabov, complaining about the participation
of Russian musicians in the festivities in the occupied Nagornyy
Karabakh territory.
Meeting the ambassador at the end of his diplomatic mission to
Azerbaijan, the minister expressed his regret about this case.
To recap, Russia’s well-known musicians took part in the festivities
to mark the so-called independence of Nagornyy Karabakh.

Armenian paper questions terms of gas pipeline loan agreement with Iran
Aykakan Zhamanak, Yerevan
11 Sep 04
Two out of three contracts signed during Iranian President Mohammad
Khatami’s two-day official visit to Armenia are related to the
Iran-Armenia gas pipeline. A contract signed by Armenian Energy
Minister Armen Movsisyan and the director of the Export Development
Bank of Iran, Noruz Kohzadi, deals with the financing of construction
of the Megri-Kadzharan section of the Iran-Armenia gas pipeline. The
second contract was signed by the director of the Yerevan high-voltage
network, Saak Abraamyan, and director of the Iranian company Sanir
Alireza Kadhoda’i to appoint a contractor for the above construction
project under the agreed financing. That is, the bank will give a
credit and Sanir will lay the Megri-Kadzharan section of the gas
pipeline. The credit will be paid off by Armenia.
At first sight, everything seems all right. But one look at the terms
of the loan results in quite a different impression. The bank gives a
30m-dollar loan for a period of seven and half years at an interest
rate of 5 per cent. That is, the sum which should be paid off by
Armenia, is 41m dollars. Is this an expensive loan or not?
During the Armenian prime minister’s visit to Moscow [in mid-July],
where an option of Russian financing for the gas pipeline construction
was also discussed, the proposed terms were much more favourable: an
interest rate of 1 per cent and a payback period of 15 years. These
terms would have been the best. But we did not manage to enter into
a contract with the Russian side.
Quite possibly, the signed contract is a “reward” to the Iranian
side for finally reaching an agreement which had been delayed for 10
years. But in this case, if new financing organizations come forward,
they will undoubtedly take into account the terms which are at the
basis of the contract made with the Iranian bank. However, this is
not the most interesting part.
The point is that after building the Megri-Kadzharan section of
the pipeline, Iranian gas can flow through Armenia’s existing and
functioning network. But in this case only 300m cu.m. of gas will
be able to enter Armenia annually. In order to reach the gas volume
envisaged in the contract – 2.2bn cu.m. annually – it is necessary
to get an additional 90m dollars and to build one more pipeline in
Armenia. A new pipeline is necessary for the efficient use of the
existing one.
In this case our task is becoming more difficult in the sense of
finding cheaper credits. A potential investor would have an extra
trump card on their hands: knowing that for paying off 30m dollars
that are already spent Armenia needs 90m US dollars, naturally the
investor will come up with tougher terms.
Certainly, it is not ruled out that the loan received from the
Iranian bank may be paid off with electricity. This would make the
loan noticeably cheaper. But not as cheaper as an international
tender would have done. Incidentally, some of our officials were
earlier speaking about the need for such a tender. But as we know,
this most fruitful method was not applied in Armenia.

TV questions Azerbaijan’s need for NATO membership
ANS TV, Baku
10 Sep 04
[Presenter] Our next report is about people’s expectations from NATO
and NATO’s failure to meet them.
[Correspondent] The fact that NATO is interested in sending
Armenians to Baku has made us reassess our view of this body. Back
in 1991, Azerbaijan needed support from NATO in order to maintain its
territorial integrity and put up resistance to pressure from the north,
that is from Russia, and from the south, that is from Iran. For the
fear of finding itself in Russia’s zone of influence, Azerbaijan
decided not to join the Collective Security Treaty Organization,
which was set up in Russia, and turned to NATO. In order to strengthen
integration with the West, Azerbaijan sent its servicemen to Kosovo
and Afghanistan within international peacekeeping groups.
Saying that ensuring stability and independence in the
newly-independent states of Europe is one of its main tasks, NATO,
however, has never taken any steps towards respect for Azerbaijan’s
interests over the Karabakh issue. On the contrary, it is trying to
talk officers of the country subjected to aggression into having
a joint exercise with officers of the aggressor country. Ordinary
people, however, are against this.
[An unidentified man speaking into ANS microphone] I have never seen
any help from international organizations over the Karabakh issue. I
do not think it is right to rely on them.
[Another unidentified man] Instead of helping us, they are bringing
the enemies to our country. It is not right.
[Another unidentified man] The blood of our people has not dried yet,
why are they doing that?
[Another man] This is pressure on our country and the government.
[Passage omitted: more criticism from people.]
[Correspondent] Being in need of NATO’s support over the Nagornyy
Karabakh problem, Azerbaijan has had to make every compromise to this
body and turned itself into this organization’s hostage for the sake
of its territorial integrity. NATO, however, sees Azerbaijan only as
a testing ground and is now bringing Armenian servicemen to Baku.
Azerbaijan became independent from Moscow. Did it do so in order to
become dependent from NATO today? It is worth thinking about this.
Zamina Aliyeva, Azad Ibrahimov and Ramin Yaqubov, ANS.

Special plane flies to Beslan to bring 15 injured to Moscow
ITAR-TASS News Agency  
September 11, 2004 Saturday
MOSCOW — A special plane Il-76 of the Russian Emergency Situations
Ministry flew to Beslan from the Moscow Domodedovo airport at 10.40 on
Saturday to bring another group of 15 injured in the Beslan terrorist
attack to the Russian capital. There are both children and adults
in this group.
The same flight will take to North Ossetia a group of specialists from
the federal centre of emergency medicine Zashchita (Protection). Their
task will be to assess the condition of the injured and to accompany
the patients during the flight. The plane with the injured is scheduled
to arrive in Moscow towards Saturday evening.
Besides, it will bring to the North Ossetian town four tonnes of
medicines provided by the Russian Red Cross. “All these medicines are
necessary for treating the injured,” a representative of the Emergency
Situations Ministry said. He stressed that as of September 4, when
the first plane with medical equipment on board from Italy landed
in Beslan, almost 150 tonnes of international humanitarian cargoes,
including donor blood, have been delivered to this North Ossetian
city from Greece and Armenia.
According to the Emergency Situations Ministry, as of September 4,
planes of the Emergency Situations and Defence Ministries have brought
114 people, the majority of who are children, to the Russian capital
from Beslan.

ARMENIAN MP, ARTASHES GEGHAMYAN, CALLES ARMENIAN PRESIDENT TO DISSOLVE
PARLIAMENT AND BECOME GUARANTOR OF NEW FAIR PARLIAMENTARY ELECTIONS
YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 11. ARMINFO. Friday, an Armenian MP, Artashes
Geghamyan, called Armenian President Robert Kocharyan to dissolve the
parliament and become a guarantor of new fair parliamentary elections
in the country.
Speaking at an assembly of the National Unity party’s activists,
Geghamyan said that such a step would justify the president’s “previous
sins.” He also urged the former ruling party of Armenia, the Armenian
Pan National Movement (APNM), not to “bomb” the opposition with its
biting sarcasm, but to join it for restoration of the Constitutional
order in Armenia.
In his speech, Geghamyan also touched upon a possible departure of
Armenian militaries to Iraq. Of course, we must combat terrorism,
but Armenia has no moral right to send its experts to other country
struggling against terrorism when terrorism prospers inside it
and the killers of the Georgian citizen Poghos Poghosyan and the
organizers of the terrorist act in the Parliament have not been
punished so far. Artashes Geghyamyan touched upon the failure of
Armenian sportsmen at the Olympic Games in the Athens, the heavy
socio-economic situation in the country, the inevitability of the
Karabakh clan’s exile from Armenia, his vacation in the Spanish
Valensia and others things. However, during 2-hour sitting of the
party’s activists, no one remembered the tragic events in Beslan,
which took the lives of 300 hundreds of people, including 9 Armenians.

TRADE OBJECTS OF ARMENIANS AND AZERBAIJANIS DESTROYED IN YEKATERINBURG
BAKU, SEPTEMBER 10. ARMINFO-TURAN. Four cafes belonging to the
Armenians and Azerbaijanis were destroyed in Ekaterinburg and in its
suburb Verkhnaya Pishma on September 9 at night. One man is killed,
the Moscow newspaper “Commersant” reports. An action was brought on
the Article “Hooliganism” on the facts. The owners of the destroyed
objects believe that the attacks express their intolerance to the
origins from Caucasus.
The first attack was made at 1:50 on cafe “Oasis plus”, 20 people
run into the cafe with sticks and lashes. For several minutes they
beat the people and broke furniture and then hid away. As a result
four Armenians were injured and two of them were hospitalized with
trauma in their brains.
In an hour the case “Caspian” in the Proyezaya street was attacked. The
attackers destroyed all they could and then threw bottles with burning
substances into the cafe. The cafe burnt out. As a result of fire the
relative of the owner of cafe 52 years old Safarov died. Half an hour
later the bandits threw several bottles with burning substances into
the snack- bar “Shartash”.
The same day the attackers threw several bottles with burning
substance into the window of the accounting office of the restaurant
“David’s”. The eye-witnesses tell that the bandits were in masks. The
militia detained 8 people. The owners of the destroyed cafes suppose
that the attacks on their objects is a result of the intolerance
to people coming Caucasus after the latest acts of terrorism in the
planes, in Moscow and in Beslan.
However, militia states that the attackers are the “criminal
clarifications”. It is not the first case of attack on the origins
from Caucasus over the last days. Thus, at night on September 6
two strangers shoot from sub-machine gun the visitors of the cafe
“Snezinka” . Then four people died and five were wounded. Among the
suffered are the people from Azerbaijan and Daghestan.
Two days ago in Moscow two militiamen beat the former secretary of
the security Council of Daghestan Magomed Tolboyev.–
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Leading Article: Darfur: Action not words
Guardian Leader
The Guardian/UK
11 Sept 2004
America’s declaration that genocide is taking place in Sudan has
injected fresh urgency – and controversy – into the international
debate about what the UN unhesitatingly calls the world’s worst
humanitarian crisis. It was only to be expected that the Khartoum
government would reject the charge, but there has also been a lukewarm
response elsewhere to Colin Powell’s statement to the Senate foreign
relations committee. The US secretary of state says genocide is
taking place on the basis of evidence that black African villagers
in Darfur are being targeted with the specific intent of destroying
“a group in whole or part”. Human rights organisations have welcomed
the shift. Britain’s official response is that grave crimes are
being committed by the government-backed Janjaweed Arab militias and
that the UN should mount an urgent investigation. Is this a case of
diplomatic sensibilities masking a brutal truth? Is it right to have
reservations about using the G word?
Situations previously characterised as genocide include the Turkish
massacre of 1.5 million Armenians during the first world war and,
less controversially, the Nazis’ extermination of six million Jews
in the second world war, when the term was coined from the Greek
word genos (race or tribe) with the Latin word cide (to kill). It
has been widely applied to Pol Pot’s Cambodia of the 1970s and made
bloody reappearances in Rwanda in 1994 and in the aftermath of the
wars of the Yugoslavian succession. Slobodan Milosevic, the former
Serbian president, is facing a genocide charge at the Hague war crimes
tribunal. Radislav Krstic, a Bosnian Serb general, was convicted of
genocide for his role in the Srebrenica massacre of 7,000 Muslim men
and boys.
Sudanese officials will admit to nothing more than a humanitarian
crisis created by ethnic strife and have contemptuously accused Mr
Powell of seeking black votes in the forthcoming US pres idential
election. Khartoum also argues that the intervention will undermine
delicate peace negotiations with Darfur rebel groups in Nigeria. Most
of the facts, though, are indisputable: 50,000 people have died since
February 2003 and over a million have been displaced. Aid workers
yesterday reported a new mass influx of refugees into one camp in
southern Darfur. Harrowing images have been on our TV screens for
long enough to fuel demands for something that goes beyond agonised
handwringing and ineffective quiet diplomacy
It is true that behind the debate in the US lies guilt about
the shameful failure to act when the first reports of genocide
emerged from Rwanda a decade ago. That is only natural. The genocide
characterisation may also be intended to galvanise the international
community -though targeted sanctions such as an assets freeze and a
travel ban on senior Sudanese officials would be more effective than
the oil embargo currently being proposed by Washington. That is opposed
by China, an importer of Sudanese oil and a security council member,
as well as by Pakistan and Algeria. And there is the familiar dilemma
that such sanctions are a notoriously blunt instrument, as the Iraqi
experience taught. But urgent though the crisis is, Washington and
London are still not trying the sort of heavy-duty arm-twisting they
tried when seeking a second UN resolution authorising war on Saddam.
Mr Powell’s intervention puts the US a step ahead of the EU, which
says it wants a UN investigation. But the real question is not about
a dictionary definition of genocide. No one can claim that Sudan
is not experiencing a terrible human tragedy. As Oxfam has been
warning in appeals for help to save lives: time is short and people
are dying. Recognising the scale of human suffering is a prerequisite
to action. Words, however resonant, are not enough.

Azerbaijan, Armenia To Have ‘Make-or-break’ Peace Talks
TurkishPress.com
Saturday, September 11, 2004
AFP: 9/11/2004
BARDA, Azerbaijan, Sept 11 (AFP) – Talks next week between the
leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan could make or break the fragile
peace process between the warring neighbours, Azeri President Ilham
Aliyev said Saturday.
Aliyev is due to meet face-to-face with his Armenian counterpart
Robert Kocharian on the sidelines of a summit of former Soviet
republics which begins on September 15 in Kazakhstan`s capital, Astana.
The Azeri president said the meeting could be a watershed after a
decade of unsuccessful negotiations which followed a war between
Azerbaijan and Armenia in the early 1990s over the enclave of
Nagorno-Karabakh.
“A lot depends on the meeting in Astana,” Aliyev said on a visit to
Barda, in north-western Azerbaijan.
“It could bring clarity to the question of where we are, whether we
are getting closer to an agreement or whether we are going in the
opposite direction.”
“Now there is a chance to determine the road map for achieving an
agreement. This is the main thing: real, fundamental negotiations
will start only after that.”
Aliyev added: “First of all we must agree on the principles. If we
achieve that, afterwards the detailed negotiations can get underway.”
Azerbaijan and Armenia fought a five-year war over
Nagorno-Karabakh. Some 35,000 people were killed and about one million
civilians were displaced by the fighting.
The conflict ended with Armenian forces in control of Nagorno-Karabakh,
which is internationally recognised as part of Azerbaijan`s territory.
Though a fragile ceasefire is in force, the two sides are still
officially in a state of war. Azerbaijan has threatened to renew
hostilities unless peace talks produce results soon.