ARMENIAN OPPOSITION MPS PLEASED WITH COUNCIL OF EUROPE’S ATTENTION
A1+ TV web site, Yerevan
30 Apr 04
Armenian opposition MPs in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council
of Europe (PACE), Shavarsh Kocharyan and Artashes Gegamyan, met
Council of Europe Secretary-General Walter Schwimmer today.
Shavarsh Kocharyan believes that this circumstance is unprecedented:
“This shows how seriously the European structures take the Armenian
issue and how resolute they are. We also had a meeting with (PACE
President Peter) Schieder, and all groups and political forces have a
great interest (as published). This position shows that Armenia is
facing a choice: we will either become a full member of Europe or have
problems. The main thing is that problems are not created by the
Armenian people who are ready to live according to European
standards. They are created by people in power who are ready to make
Armenia a backward country for the sake of their posts.”
Artashes Gegamyan said: “Of course, neither the Armenian authorities
nor our centuries-old ‘friends’ like these discussions. Only real
friends of Armenia are interested in establishing democratic norms in
the country. The well-known Biblical principle is working here – ‘but
blessed are your eyes, for they see’. Europe has seen what has been
going on in Armenia over the last two or three months.
From: Baghdasarian

ARMENIA’S OMBUDSMAN REFUSES TO ADMIT COMPLAINT APPLICATION BY OPPOSITION
MEMBER
A1+ TV web site, Yerevan
30 Apr 04
Ombudsman Larisa Alaverdyan has taken another step to strengthen the
formation of distrust in this institution, which is designed to
protect human rights in Armenia.
On 23 April, Mrs Alaverdyan refused to set in motion an application by
the wife of academician Rafael Kazaryan, Grizelda Kazaryan, in which
Mrs Kazaryan indicated facts of violence against her and her son on
Bagramyan Avenue on 13 April.
“Bearing in mind that under Article 10 of the Armenian law ‘On
protection of human rights’, the ombudsman does not consider
complaints, problems contained in it could be resolved by another
state body or officials,” a decision to reject the application said.
Grizelda Kazaryan’s complaints should be considered by the
prosecutor’s (office) of the Arabkir and Kanaker-Zeytun community,
ombudsman Alaverdyan believes.

AZERI MINISTER REVEALS DETAILS OF KARABAKH TALKS
ITAR-TASS news agency, Moscow
30 Apr 04
BAKU
The next meeting of the Azerbaijani and Armenian foreign ministers
will be held on 12 May, most probably on the sidelines of a session of
the Council of Foreign Ministers of the Council of Europe in
Strasbourg, Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov told
journalists today.
Asked by an ITAR-TASS correspondent whether the sides were ready for
compromises, the foreign minister said that “this is a subject of
negotiations”. “We are discussing a number of ideas,” Mammadyarov
said, adding that one of them was the liberation of seven districts of
Azerbaijan in exchange for the reopening of transport links with
Armenia.
The foreign minister believes that a useful exchange of opinion was
held between the Azerbaijani and Armenian presidents within the
framework of the European economic forum in Warsaw on 28 April. He
also said that Baku had given the green light to Ankara’s initiative
to hold a trilateral meeting between the foreign ministers of
Azerbaijan, Armenia and Turkey.

ARMENIAN FOREIGN MINISTER, BRITISH REP DISCUSS REGIONAL COOPERATION,
CONFLICTS
Noyan Tapan news agency
30 Apr 04
YEREVAN
Armenian Foreign Minister Vardan Oskanyan today received the special
representative of the Great Britain and Northern Ireland in the South
Caucasus, Brian Fall.
The meeting discussed the South Caucasus issues, the latest
developments in the Karabakh settlement and the coordination of the
Armenian-Turkish relations.
The sides discussed in detail the issue of involvement of the South
Caucasus countries in the European Union’s Wider Europe – New
Neighbours programme, the press service of the Armenian Foreign
Ministry told Noyan Tapan news agency.
Minister Oskanyan and the special representative, Brian Fall,
underlined the importance of quick involvement of the South Caucasus
countries in this initiative, thanks to which European future
prospects for these countries acquire a real shape.

CIS SECURITY BODY NEEDS TO RESOLVE INTERNAL PROBLEMS – RUSSIAN MP
Interfax-AVN military news agency web site
30 Apr 04
MOSCOW
Member-states of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO)
should work out an efficient mechanism of enforcing mutual commitments
in the military sphere, Viktor Zavarzin, chairman of the State Duma
Defence Committee, said today.
“All CSTO member-states (Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan,
Russia and Tajikistan) should develop their own mechanisms for
enforcing military-technical cooperation agreements that have been
reached. Legislation, regulating such a mechanism, has not been
developed yet because of domestic interdepartmental differences,”
Zavarzin told Interfax-Military News Agency.
Zavarzin emphasized that CSTO member-states have not shown the proper
interest in armament modernization and overhaul programmes proposed by
Russia within the framework of the Intergovernmental
Military-Technical Cooperation Commission.
As a positive example of cooperation within the CSTO framework he
cited cooperation, pertaining to CSTO infrastructure security
(railways, airlines, pipelines, sea routes, largest power plants,
etc.), which directly influences all the national security components
of each member-state. “For instance, this January the Russian
president submitted the bill “On ratifying the agreement on
establishing a single protection system for the railways of CSTO
member states” to the State Duma for consideration. The agreement
coordinates joint planning in this sphere,” he noted.
Zavarzin said that, on the whole, there were a number of serious
problems and difficulties in each CSTO workstream. Should such
problems be solved, the organization could achieve a qualitatively new
level of cooperation, and enforce decisions, meeting the challenges of
the contemporary military-political environment in CSTO member
states. It is also necessary to refine policy pertaining to
contemporary challenges and threats, Zavarzin said. He added that one
of the priorities consisted in establishing contacts between CSTO and
UN, and CSTO and OSCE. “The organization may also coordinate its
efforts with NATO in the future, first and foremost, in the sphere of
combating terrorism, religious extremism and drug trafficking,” he
said. (Passage omitted)

RUSSIAN DUMA OFFICIAL WARNS AGAINST USE OF FORCE IN GEORGIA’S AJARIA
RIA news agency, Moscow
30 Apr 04
MOSCOW
Andrey Kokoshin, chairman of the State Duma Committee on the CIS and
Relations with Compatriots, has warned against attempts by Georgia to
resolve the Ajaria problem by force.
“Developments with regard to Ajaria is causing great concern yet
again,” Andrey Kokoshin has told RIA-Novosti.
In his view, “the destabilization of the situation in the region
caused by the Georgian authorities’ attempts to resolve this problem
by force directly touches on the interests of Russia’s national
security. This was stated in the Duma’s recent appeal to Georgian
MPs.”
Kokoshin believes that in dealing with the Ajaria problem, “the Muslim
factor and the overall difficult configuration of the international
situation – the worsening situation in Iraq, an upsurge of terrorism
in Uzbekistan and Spain, the signs of growing influence of radical
Islamism in Turkey and a number of other factors – should be taken
into account”. “Attempts to resolve the Ajaria problem by force may
have such consequences for stability in the region that even joint
actions by Russia, the West, Georgia, Armenia and other countries
aimed at normalizing the situation in the region may turn out very
costly indeed,” Andrey Kokoshin stressed.

30.04.2004 07:55:00 GMT
Armenia counting on $20 mln World Bank roads loan
Yerevan. April 29 (Interfax) – The government of Armenia is engaged in loan
talks with the World Bank for $20 million for revitalizing local roadways,
First Deputy Transport and Communications Minster Grand Beglaryan announced
at a Thursday briefing.
The government has already applied to the World Bank and the amount of work
ahead is being figured out. It will take around $300 million to revitalize
all the country’s local road networks.

Hellenic Resources Network
OVER 100,000 FOREIGN STUDENTS STUDY IN GREEK SCHOOLS
Athens, 30 April 2004 (14:22 UTC+2)
A total of 98,241 students whose parents are foreigners and 31,873 students
whose parents are repatriated Greeks study in Greek schools making up 9% of
the student population in the country.
The overwhelming majority (72%) comes from Albania, Bulgaria (3%), Georgia
(2.2%), Russia (2.1%), Ukraine (1.5%), Romania (1.2%) and Armenia (1.1%).

REMEMBERING THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE
______

HON. BRAD SHERMAN
of california
in the house of representatives
Wednesday, April 28, 2004
Mr. SHERMAN. Mr. Speaker, I join with my colleagues tonight in somber
remembrance of the Armenian Genocide. Early in the 20th Century, during
World War I and its aftermath, the Ottoman Empire attempted the
complete liquidation of the Armenian population of Eastern Anatolia.
We must come down to the House floor tonight not only to remember
this tragic event, but we must also proclaim that the Armenian Genocide
is an historical fact. There are many who deny that this first genocide
of the 20th Century actually took place.
The American ambassador to the Ottoman Empire in 1919 was an
eyewitness. In his memoirs, he said, “When the Turkish authorities
gave the order for these deportations they were merely giving the death
warrant to an entire race. They understood this well and in their
conversations with me made no particular attempt to conceal this
fact.”
He went on to describe what he saw at the Euphrates River. He said,
as our eyes and ears in the Ottoman Empire, “I have by no means told
the most terrible details, for a complete narration of the sadistic
orgies of which they, the Armenian men and women, are victims can never
be printed in an American publication. Whatever crimes the most
perverted instincts of the human mind can devise, whatever refinements
of persecution and injustice the most debased imagination can conceive,
became the daily misfortune of the Armenian people.”
We can never forget that 8 days before he invaded Poland, Adolf
Hitler turned to his inner circle and said, “Who today remembers the
extermination of the Armenians?” The impunity with which the Turkish
government acted in annihilating the Armenian people emboldened Adolf
Hitler and his inner circle to carry out the Holocaust of the Jewish
people.
It is time for Turkey to acknowledge this genocide, because only in
that way can the Turkish government and its people rise above it. The
German government has been quite forthcoming in acknowledging the
Holocaust, and in doing so it has at least been respected by the
peoples of the world for its honesty. Turkey should follow that example
rather than trying to deny history.
It is also time–indeed it is far overdue–for our Congress to
recognize the Armenian Genocide.
Mr. Speaker, I again call on my colleagues to recognize the Armenian
Genocide and to urge my fellow Americans to remember this tragic event.

OBSERVING THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE
______

HON. RUSH D. HOLT
of new jersey
in the house of representatives
Wednesday, April 28, 2004
Mr. HOLT. Mr. Speaker, April 24, 2004 marked the 89th anniversary of
one of the most harrowing events in modern day history–the beginning
of the Armenian Genocide. The Armenian community is too familiar with
the details of this tragedy. They know well the accounts of Armenian
leaders, writers and professionals in Constantinople that were rounded
up, deported and killed; the accounts of men, women and children were
driven into the desert between Terablus and Derzor to die of
starvation, disease and exposure; and the accounts of families that
were burned alive in wooden houses or chained together and drowned in
Lake Van.
Unfortunately, few outside of the Armenian community know of the
Armenian Genocide–
[[Page E701]]
one of the most awful events in modern history. Many are not aware that
Ottoman officials expelled millions of Armenians from the homelands
they had inhabited for over 2,500 years. They are not aware that
Ottoman officials attempted to exterminate the Armenian race and the
precedent this event set for the genocides that followed. It is
distressing that horrors of this magnitude have largely been forgotten.
Even more disturbing are the governments, institutions, scholars, and
individuals who deny the enormity of these crimes against humanity. It
is inconceivable that individuals and governments continue to ignore
the substantial evidence–including numerous survivor accounts,
photodocumentaries, and official documents in the archives of the
United States, Britain, France, Austria, and the Vatican–that prove
these atrocities took place. It is also frustrating that some
rationalize these crimes or refuse to recognize this premeditated
ethnic cleansing as genocide.
The international community must deal honestly with this senseless
genocide. World leaders must rise above indifference and the political
considerations that they have cowered behind. They must unequivocally
acknowledge the murders of one and a half million Armenians that began
in 1915 for what it is–genocide. They must use their position to
reveal the truth and bring attention to this tragedy that has been
overlooked and brushed aside for too long.
We all want to forget these horrific tragedies in our history and
bury them in the past. However, understanding the immeasurable wrongs
the Armenian people endured–and the mass scale on which they
occurred–is vital to grasping the impact these events continue to have
on the stability of the region. It is only through the painful process
of acknowledging and discussing these horrific events that we can
prevent similar iniquity in the future.
We owe full recognition and acceptance of these crimes to the one and
half million victims of the Armenian Genocide. Anything less is an
insult to their memory.