Month: November 2006

VARTAN OSKANIAN SPOKE AT THE SITTING OF BSEC COUNCIL OF FOREIGN MINISTERS
ArmRadio.am
01.11.2006 18:00
October 31 – November 1 RA Foreign Minister Vartan Oskanian
participated and delivered a speech at the 15th sitting of the Black
Sea Economic Cooperation Organization (BSECO) Council of Foreign
Ministers.
In his speech Minister Oskanian said in particular that despite
the existing bilateral problems, BSEC countries have a number of
similarities. For establishment of a harmonic atmosphere for resolving
the political problems, these similarities should prevail over the
difficulties.
Turning to Bulgaria’s and Romania’s upcoming accession to the EU,
Minister Oskanian underlined that it creates a new opportunity for
close cooperation between BSEC and EU, considering the common interests
and membership of some countries to both organizations.
A joint communiqué was adopted at the end of the meeting of the
Foreign Ministers Council and the presidency was transferred from
Russia to Serbia.
In the framework of the sitting RA Foreign Minister met with his
Russian counterpart ergey Lavrov.
–Boundary_(ID_EK/A94G75LdjS7mFvAXFXA)–

AZERBAIJAN SPREADS RECURRENT MISINFORMATION
ArmRadio.am
01.11.2006 17:39
Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Safar Abiev’s statement that the question
of ” withdrawal of Armenian troops from the occupied territories of
Azerbaijan” was raised during his meeting with the Foreign Minister of
Armenia at Ijevan-Ghazakh part of the contact line do not correspond
to reality, RA MOD Press Secretary Seyran Shahsuvaryan informs.
In reality the question has not been discussed at all.
As it had been announced earlier, only issues related to border
control and maintenance of the cease-fire regime were discussed.

INTERNATION CONFERENCE ON MEDICAL SCIENCE TO TAKE PLACE ON NOVEMBER 11-17, WITHIN FRAMEWORK OF YEAR OF ARMENIA IN FRANCE
Noyan Tapan
Nov 01 2006
YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 1, NOYAN TAPAN. An International Conference on
Medical Science will be held in Paris on November 11-17, within the
framework of the Year of Armenia in France. Health Minister Norayr
Davidian will participate in it. Narine Beglarian, the main specialist
of the International Ties Department of the Ministry informed the Noyan
Tapan correspondent about it. It was mentioned that the conference
organizers are the RA National Academy of Sciences and “Ararat”
International Academy of France.

WITH FINANCING OF U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE, RESTORATION WORKS DONE IN YEREVAN SPECIAL SCHOOL FOR CHILDREN HARD OF HEARING
Noyan Tapan
Nov 01 2006
YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 1, NOYAN TAPAN. On the initiative of the American
Counterpart International organization, restoration of the lavatory of
the Yerevan special boarding school No15 for children hard of hearing
was implemented. As Armine Khachatrian, the Armenian Office Director
of the Community Humanitarian Assistance Program of the organization
mentioned at the solemn ceremony of the restored lavatory on November
1, the children’s life will be improved at some extent, as a result
of the done work. She informed the journalists that the lavatory of
the school, which was earlier in a too bad state, was fundamentally
restored owing to the financial assistance of the U.S. Department
of State. In A.Khachatrian’s words, the CHAP Armenian Office has
cooperated with this boarding school since the first day of the
latter’s foundation and strived to assist the school within the limits
of possibility, showing various humanitarians assistances. School
Director Ashot Avetisian emphasized in his turn that the implemented
program has a great importance for this educational institution being
the only one of its type in the republic. In his words, children hard
of hearing get at school not only secondary education but also study
carpet making, hairdressing, dress-making, show making as well as
study profession of computer operator in the case of their wish.

DELEGATION LED BY MIKAYEL HAROUTIUNIAN TO TAKE PART IN SITTING OF HEADS OF CIS COUNTRIES’ GENERAL HEADQUARTERS
Noyan Tapan
Nov 01 2006
YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 1, NOYAN TAPAN. Delegation led by Colonel-General
Mikayel Haroutiunian, first Deputy Defence Minister, Head of RA Armed
Forces General Headquarters, left for Moscow on November 1 to take
part in the consultation of Heads of CSTO member states’ Armed Forces
General Headquarters. NT was informed about it from RA Defence Ministry
Press Service. It is planned to discuss the following issues during the
consultation: – CSTO coalition army building project until 2010 and
in further prospect, – formation of mechanism of cooperation between
member countries’ general headquarters and CSTO united headquarters,
– military-technical cooperation, joint training of cadres and
specialists to the advantage of CSTO member countries’ armed forces,
– results of Rubezh-2006 joint complex operative-tactical exercises.

MORE THAN ONE WAY TO THE SQUARE
est/504/20061031/13711330.html
Oct 31 2006
We were standing at the top of a church tower. My father had brought
me to this spot in a small Italian town not far from our home in
Rome. I wondered why.
Look down, Elsa,¡Father said. I gathered all my courage and looked
down. I saw the square in the center of the village. And I saw the
crisscross1 of twisting, turning streets leading to the square.
See, my dear, Father said gently. There is more than one way to the
square. Life is like that. If you can’t get to the place where you
want to go by one road, try another.¡±
Now I understood why I was there. Earlier that day I had begged my
mother to do something about the awful lunches that were served at
school. But she refused because she could not believe the lunches
were as bad as I said.
When I turned to Father for help, he would not interfere.
Instead, he brought me to this high tower to give me a lesson. By
the time we reached home, I had a plan.
At school the next day, I secretly poured my luncheon soup into a
bottle and brought it home. Then I talked the cook into serving it
to Mother at dinner. The plan worked perfectly. She swallowed2 one
spoonful3 and sputtered4, The cook must have gone mad!¡Quickly I told
what I had done, and Mother stated firmly that she would take up the
matter of lunches at school the next day!
In the years that followed I often remembered the lesson Father
taught me. I knew where I wanted to go in life. I wanted to be a
fashion designer. And on the way to my first small success I found
the road blocked. What could I do? Accept the roadblock5 and fail£¿Or
use imagination and wits to find another road to my goal£¿
I had come to Paris, the center of the world of fashion, with my
sketches6. But none of the famous fashion designers seemed interested
in buying them. Then one day I met a friend who was wearing a very
beautiful sweater. It was plain in color, but it had a lovely and
unusual stitch7.
Did you knit8 that sweater?¡I asked her.
No,¡she answered. It was done by a woman here in Paris.¡±
What an interesting stitch!¡I continued.
My friend had an explanation. The woman her name is Mrs.
Vidian¡ªtold me she learned the stitch in Armenia, her native
country.¡±
Suddenly I pictured a daring design knitted into such a sweater.
Then an even more daring idea came to me. Why not open my own house
of fashion? Why not design, make and sell clothes from the house of
Schiaparelli9! I would do it, and I would begin with a sweater.
I drew a bold black and white butterfly pattern and took it to
Mrs. Vidian. She knitted it into a sweater. The result, I thought, was
wonderful. Then came the test. I wore the sweater to a luncheon which
people in the fashion business would attend. To my great pleasure,
the sweater was noticed. In fact, the representative of a large New
York store wanted 40 sweaters to be ready in two weeks. I accepted
the order and walked out on a cloud of happiness.
My cloud disappeared suddenly, however, when I stood in front of
Mrs. Vidian. But it took me almost a week to knit that one sweater,¡±
she said. Forty sweaters in two weeks? It is not possible!¡±
I was crushed to be so close to success and then to be blocked!
Sadly I walked away. All at once I stopped short. There must be
another way. This stitch did take special skill. But surely there
must be other Armenian women in Paris who knew how to do it.
I went back to Mrs. Vidian and explained my plan. She really didn’t
think it would work, but she agreed to help.
We were like detectives10, Mrs. Vidian and I. We put ourselves on the
trail11 of any Armenians who lived in Paris. One friend led us to
another. At last we tracked down 20 women, each of whom could knit
the special stitch. Two weeks later the sweaters were finished. And
the first shipment from the new house of Schiaparelli was on its way
to the United States!
–Boundary_(ID_KYa0q59fPXfjXZvbAmVp8g)–

GEORGIA’S DANGEROUS GAME
By Jon Sawyer
Foreign Policy
Oct 31 2006
The former Soviet republic is determined to antagonize Russia, and
it thinks the United States has its back. It had better think again.
Domestic discontent: The Georgian government is under pressure to
resign by opposition groups at home.
VANO SHLAMOV/AFP/Getty Images
While much of the world has been distracted by crises in Iran,
Iraq, and North Korea, a dangerous dispute over espionage, energy,
and ethnicity has been growing between Russia and its diminutive
neighbor Georgia.
The relationship, prickly since the breakup of the former Soviet
Union, took a sharp turn for the worse in late September, when Georgia
arrested four Russian soldiers for alleged spying and threatened to
block Russia’s accession to the World Trade Organization. Russia
responded with a ham-fisted crackdown on all things Georgian,
cutting off trade and telecommunications to the country and deporting
planeloads of Georgian citizens.
Media coverage of the dispute has focused on the behavior of the
principal antagonists, Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili and
Russian President Vladimir Putin. But there is another powerful player
who has remained far off stage: the United States. Its fingerprints
aren’t obvious, but Washington has helped to fuel this crisis-by
showering Georgia with cash and praise, by extending the promise
of NATO membership, and by standing silent as Saakashvili and his
government made ever rasher attacks on Russia.
U.S. security aid to Georgia totaled $30.5 million in fiscal year
2006, on top of $60.5 million the previous year and $60 million the
year before that. Due in large part to American largesse, Georgia’s
overall military expenditures shot up 143 percent last year. Georgia
has also been a favorite of the Millennium Challenge Corporation, the
Bush administration’s signature program that was intended to reward
those developing countries that demonstrate effective governance.
Contracts totaling $295.3 million have been signed with Georgia,
making it fourth in the world in total Millennium Challenge aid.
Flush with cash and the superpower’s blessing, the American-educated
Saakashvili has become more brash with time, seizing every opportunity
to stick it to the colossus to the north. “We can’t be treated as some
second-rate backyard to some kind of re-emerging empire,” Saakashvili
told reporters earlier this month as the latest crisis gained momentum.
The tough talk plays well at home, as evidenced this month when
Saakashvili’s United National Movement party swept more than three
quarters of the vote in local elections. But it is a triumph of bluster
over geographical common sense in a nation that remains very much in
Russia’s shadow.
Georgia, with fewer than 5 million people, depends on Russia for
natural gas, a lesson reinforced last winter when Russia used the
excuse of a still-unexplained pipeline explosion to cut off the taps.
Last spring, Russia ratcheted up the pressure, shutting its market to
wine and Borjomi mineral water, Georgia’s two most important exports.
Now, it is threatening the country’s biggest source of hard currency,
cash sent home by the nearly 1 million Georgians who work in Moscow
and St. Petersburg.
Saakashvili’s claim to be fighting the good fight against a hegemonic
Russia has been dented by the way he’s handled his country’s own
territorial disputes. He came to power promising to reunite Georgia
with South Ossetia and Abkhazia, two regions that broke away in the
bloodshed following the collapse of the Soviet Union. He has spent
more time rattling sabers than building trust, however, with the
predictable result that many of the residents in those regions have
taken Russian passports and now look to Moscow, not Tbilisi, as the
more reliable engine of jobs and security.
Saakashvili has also come under fire for his management of the
parts of Georgia his government controls. Ethnic Armenians and
Azerbaijanis say they are as marginalized as ever. Human Rights Watch,
the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe and other
outside groups have documented judicial corruption, police abuse,
and the gross mistreatment of prison inmates, including the deaths
of seven prisoners last March in a “riot” that critics say was set
off by prison authorities themselves.
That same week in Tbilisi, hundreds of demonstrators protested
the government ‘s alleged cover-up of the Interior Ministry’s
involvement in a high-profile murder. One of the country’s most
prominent television newscasters quit her job on camera, to protest
attempts to censor the news at the government-affiliated channel.
And where was Saakashvili during all the turmoil? He was at the White
House, basking in the glow of President George W. Bush’s praise.
Saakashvili “is a man who shares the same values I share,” Bush said.
“He believes in the universality of freedom.”
Bush even singled out Saakashvili’s work in law enforcement, the
issue that had sent protesters to the streets and brought the sharpest
criticism from groups like Human Rights Watch. “[H]e cleaned out the
police forces in order to rid the country of corruption in the law
enforcement,” Bush said, ignoring critics who say that the Georgian
president has run roughshod over basic human rights.
Saakashvili shouldn’t believe everything he hears from Washington.
Despite the fulsome rhetoric and American largess, make no mistake-the
United States would not come to Georgia’s aid if its confrontation
with Russia heats up. Georgia is in Russia’s backyard.
Given its military exposure elsewhere and its interest in Russian help
on issues like North Korea and Iran, the United States will almost
always side with Russia, or at the very least, remain on the sidelines.
America’s true interests were on display in this month’s debate on
Security Council sanctions against North Korea. The United States
needed Russia’s vote, and Russia’s vote it got, but only after the
United States acquiesced to a separate Russian-backed resolution.
That resolution endorsed the presence of Moscow’s soldiers in the
Georgia breakaway regions and criticized Georgia for its military
incursion into Abkhazia this summer.
U.S. officials insist there was no quid pro quo, that in fact they
successfully softened an earlier Russian draft that was even tougher
on Georgia. To many Georgians, however, the U.N. episode was a splash
of cold water, a reminder that loose cash and looser talk on the
American side has done little more than fuel reckless behavior by
Georgia’s leader.
If Saakashvili gets the war with Russia he has sometimes appeared to
seek, it is the people of his country who will pay the price. But,
far away from the fighting, the United States will bear a large part
of the blame.
Jon Sawyer is director of the Washington-based Pulitzer Center on
Crisis Reporting. He traveled to Georgia and other South Caucasus
countries this summer.
p?story_id=3625

BREAKING A STALEMATE
Andrey Kolesnikov
Kommersant, Russia
Oct 31 2006
Russia’s leader Vladimir Putin met Armenian President Robert Kocheryan
on Monday. Kommersant special correspondent Andrey Kolesnikov reports
how the Armenian president got himself into a stalemate and how he
managed to find a way-out.
Meetings between Russian and Armenian president bring as many
unexpected turns as there can be. It can be an utter failure as it
was the case in Sochi last December when Putin and Kocheryan went
to have some beer at the press center after talks and could not get
enough of it because their throats were really parched. Quite on the
contrary, their get-togethers can be triumphal as it was in Sochi in
March when the two presidents first fell out but finally agreed on
a Russian fuel price hike for Armenia.
There is also a third kind of meetings which Monday’s meeting showed –
a time when the negotiators seem to do everything to guess each other
wishes and fulfilling instantly.
Russia’s president greeted Robert Kocheryan and said to him he was
going to meet him back in October in Minsk but something was in the
way. To tell the truth, the Kremlin itself derailed the CIS summit in
Minsk after which Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said he
was ready to go anywhere for the meeting, even to Astana. Apparently as
a response to Lukashenko’s statement, a new summit has been scheduled
in Minsk again.
Vladimir Putin admitted that he was disappointed with net Russian
investments in the Armenian economy.
“Unfortunately, Russian investments in the Armenian economy occupy
the shameful third place,” he said.
The Russian president must have derived pleasure from the perky word
he used, so he decided to repeat it.”
“I’m saying it is shameful because it is not number one.”
In fact, it was not worth wondering at the fact or use such words as
‘shameful’. Investments are indeed shamefully small probably because
Armenia has been giving aways its assets to Russia in the recent
years to pay for various services, including those of mediation,
so there is no need to invest in it.
“Thank you for your kind words,” Robert Kocheryan replied to Vladimir
Putin and gave a warm smile. “Thank you for your invitation.”
At this point the Russian president looked at him with some kind of
child astonishment.
“The invitation that I really have fished for…” Kocharayan carried
on and gave a sigh.
The Armenian president said that “all major agreements on energy
projects with Gazprom are about to be implemented” as “they were
endorsed by Gazprom’s board a few days ago.”
Armenia’s leader did not say exactly what projects they were.
However, there are reports that Armenia will be paying a new price
for Russian gas starting from April. Still, Armenian consumers will
have rebates to make up for rising prices. The treaty will be valid
through January 1, 2009 and will send numerous investments into
the Armenian economy as payment for additional issuing of stocks of
ArmRosGazprom. The money is to be spent to finish the construction of
the fifth block of the Razdanskaya thermo electrical power station and
finance the construction of the Iran-Armenia gas pipeline which will
be controlled by Gazprom – Putin’s main or even the only geopolitical
win in the region in the recent years, I daresay.
All the aforementioned agreements were fully endorsed after Monday
talks, therefore the Armenian president felt perfectly comfortable
to say to Putin:
“The implementation has begun, and the investment component which
you have aptly called shameful…”
He paused, unable to get out of the logical stalemate he had put
himself into without any help. However, he found no succor with the
Russian president and decided to lay it on the line:
“It will be changed substantially next year – I am sure of this.”
Robert Kocharyan did not mention, though, whether investments will
rise or fall – just to be on the safe side.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

ARMENIAN LAW DESIGNED TO KEEP TURKEY OUT OF THE EU
Gwynne Dyer, Arab News
Arab News, Saudi Arabia
Oct 31 2006
Words matter. The holocaust of the European Jews during World War II
was a genocide. The mass deportation of Chechens from their Caucasian
homeland during the same war was a crime but not a genocide, even
though half of them died, because Moscow’s aim was to keep them from
collaborating with German troops who were nearing Chechnya, not to
exterminate them. Which brings us to the far more controversial case
of the Armenians and the Turks.
On Oct. 12, the French Parliament passed a law declaring that anyone
who denies that the mass murder of Armenians in eastern Turkey in
1915-17 was a genocide will face a year in prison. But the French
Foreign Ministry called the law “unnecessary and untimely,” and
President Jacques Chirac telephoned Turkish Prime Minister Recep
Tayyib Erdogan to apologize.
“Chirac called me and told me he was sorry. He said that he is
listening to our statements and he thinks we are right and he will do
what he can in the upcoming process (of ratifying the legislation),”
said Erdogan later. Since Chirac can veto the law, that should be
the end of that, but the point of passing the law was never really to
get it on the books. It was to alienate Turkish public opinion and to
curry favor with the half-million French citizens of Armenian descent.
Why would the conservative majority in the French Parliament
deliberately set out to annoy the Turks, knowing that the law would
eventually be vetoed by the president? Because they hope to provoke a
nationalist backlash in Turkey that would further damage that country’s
already difficult relationship with the European Union.
French public opinion is already in a xenophobic mood over the last
expansion of the EU, with folk-tales of “Polish plumbers” working for
peanuts and stealing the jobs of honest French workers causing outrage,
especially among right-wing voters who never much liked foreigners
anyway. The prospect of eighty million Turks – Muslim Turks – joining
the European Union, even if it is at least ten years away, is enough
to make their blood boil. So a big row with Turkey should attract
lots of votes to the right’s presidential candidate in next May’s
election, who is likely to be none other than current Prime Minister
Nicolas Sarkozy – who announced last month that Turkey should never
be allowed to join the EU: “We have to say who is European and who
isn’t. It’s no longer possible to leave this question open.” The new
law is not really about Armenians or Turks.
It’s about the French election.
Meanwhile, in Turkey, anti-EU nationalists have their own game
underway. While Turkey was busy amending its penal code to make
it conform to EU standards over the past few years, hard-line
lawyers and bureaucrats smuggled in a new law, Article 301, that
provides severe penalties for “insulting Turkishness.” In practice,
that mainly means trying to ban public discussion of the Armenian
massacres, and some seventy prosecutions have already been brought
by the ultra-right-wing Union of Lawyers against Turkish authors,
journalists and other public figures.
For several generations the Turkish government flatly denied any guilt
for the Armenian massacres, insisting that they didn’t happen and
if they did, it was the Armenians’ own fault for rebelling against
the Turkish state in wartime. Latterly, a new generation of Turkish
intellectuals has been saying that a million or more Armenians did
die in the mass deportations from eastern Anatolia, and that Turkey
needs to admit its guilt and apologize – though most still refuse to
call it a genocide.
Most Armenians, of course, desperately want the label “genocide”
to be applied to their ancestors’ suffering, since they feel that
any other term demotes it to a lower rank of tragedy. But there is
room for dialogue and even reconciliation here, if people can get
past the issue of nomenclature.
The prosecutions for “insulting Turkishness” – even against Turkey’s
greatest living novelist, Nobel Prize winner Orhan Pamuk – are not
just an attempt to stifle this dialogue among Turks, or between
Turks and Armenians. The ultra-nationalists also want to derail the
negotiations for EU membership by painting Turkey as an authoritarian
and intolerant state that does not belong in Europe. They are, in
effect, Sarkozy’s objective allies.
But Prime Minister Erdogan will probably repeal Article 301 once next
year’s elections are past. France’s law, which requires people to
discuss the Armenian massacres in precisely the terms that 301 bans,
will probably be vetoed by Chirac. And Turkey’s best-known Armenian
journalist, Hrant Dink, who has already been prosecuted several times
under 301, has just announced that he will go to France “to protest
against this madness and violate the (new) law…And I will commit the
crime to be prosecuted there, so that these two irrational mentalities
can race to put me into jail.”
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REPORT PUTS TURKEY’S EU HOPES IN JEOPARDY
By Daniel Dombey in London and Fidelius Schmid in Brussels
Financial Times, UK
Oct 31 2006
Turkey’s bid for European Union membership will be dealt a fresh blow
next week when an official report will slate Ankara for failing to
make enough progress on freedom of expression, curbing the use of
torture and establishing civilian control over the military.
The draft European Commission report, obtained by FT Deutschland,
the FT’s sister paper, comes at a particularly sensitive time, with
EU officials struggling to keep the accession talks alive.
Some EU member states, including the UK, fear that the pro-European
consensus within Turkey may be fragmenting, and that the debate within
the union on future enlargement has had the effect of alienating Turks,
rather than encouraged reform.
“We would have hoped that Turkey would have delivered a lot more during
the past 18 months, certainly since the beginning of negotiations in
October last year,” said one EU official. “If Turkey had been moving
more, if there was greater freedom of expression, if there wasn’t
any torture, things would be a lot more promising.”
Instead, the debate over Turkey’s accession will come to a head at
an EU summit in December, when Ankara will be judged both for its
reaction to an EU deadline to open up its ports to ships from Cyprus –
which so far it has refused to do – and to its broader reform record.
The Commission’s report faults Ankara for failing to allow access
to Cypriot ships, which it states infringes the EU’s customs union
agreement with Turkey. It is this issue that could formally halt
negotiations, since as an EU member state, Cyprus wields a veto over
Turkey’s possible accession.
However, Turkey’s reform record will also set the mood in December.
“Turkey needs to relaunch the reform process with full determination,”
Olli Rehn, the EU’s enlargement Commissioner said last week, urging
EU member states to focus on the issue.
The draft report, which Mr Rehn will present in its final form next
week, says that “prosecutions and convictions for the expression of
non-violent opinion…are a cause for serious concern.” It cites the
example of a journalist who was given a suspended six months prison
sentence for articles he wrote on Armenian identity.
Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey’s prime minister, said at the weekend
that he had no plans to change the article of the penal code used in
such cases, which makes it a crime to insult the Turkish state. “On
this matter, there is no work in hand,” he said.
The Commisison draft adds that “cases of torture and ill treatment
are still being reported, in particular outside detention centres,”
although it also notes a diminution in the incidence of torture.
“The armed forces have continued to exercise significant political
influence,” the report also says, citing statements made by senior
military officials on Cyprus, secularism and the country’s Kurdish
minority.
The draft report faults Turkey for corruption, insufficient
independence of the judiciary, and inadequate protection of minority
rights.
However, it does commend Ankara for training the judiciary and for
its steps towards establishing an ombudsman to help citizens win
redress against the government.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress