Month: November 2006

Armenians together in spirit and electrons
A Glendale telethon unites the globally dispersed community to help the
homeland.
By James Ricci, Times Staff Writer
November 24, 2006
For 12 hours on Thursday, the world’s Armenians ? from the 3 million in the
Republic of Armenia to the 1.4 million in the United States and maybe even
the eight in Vietnam ? held each other in an electronic embrace, defying a
thousand years of being geographically scattered by the forces of history.
The occasion was the ninth annual Armenia Fund telethon, whose tentacles,
reaching out from a studio in Glendale, spread throughout the world via live
television and Web casting, gathering pledges from all corners.
“This is an incredible network of people that comes alive for a 12-hour
period, all over the world,” said a harried fund chairwoman Maria Mehranian,
who served as sometime on-air hostess and full-time overseer of the hundreds
of volunteers, honored guests, Armenian entertainers and security guards at
Glendale Studios. “There are people who might never meet, who might not even
like each other if they did meet, but it’s so much fun to create this
vehicle of unity. We have wanted unity for 11 centuries.”
The fund, which is based in Glendale and has chapters in a score of
countries, raises money from the world’s approximately 10 million Armenians
? which includes, according to the website armeniadiaspora.com, eight in
Vietnam ? to build roads, schools, hospitals and other infrastructure in the
Armenian Republic.
In the 15 years of its existence, it has raised $160 million. Thursday’s
telethon, which ran from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. and had a goal of $13.5 million in
pledges, ultimately added $13.6 million. About 92% of funds pledged are
ultimately collected, fund officials said. The telethon was broadcast
locally on KSCI-TV Channel 18.
Inside the studio complex was a scene of controlled chaos, as furrow-browed
officials in business suits hurried about, murmuring into walkie-talkies,
marshaling on-air guests around four stages. Security guards were ubiquitous
? not, Mehranian said, because of fear of crime, but to maintain order in
case the studio was besieged by eager donors from Glendale’s heavily
Armenian citizenry, hoping to cop a little airtime.
In an upstairs office, a young man named Greg Boyrazian strove to control
the traffic in live television feeds coming in from distant locales. “OK,
Boston’s gonna come on live,” he said into his headset. “It’s now. Boston is
live. This is crazy?. We still have Boston, Armenia, Paris.”
On the main production floor early Thursday afternoon, scores of young
people clad in special T-shirts staffed the phone banks, fielding calls from
around the world. Their shirts read: “I [image of a pomegranate with a heart
inside] Armenia.”
“It’s a very Armenian fruit,” Mehranian explained. “Very symbolic of life,
of survival.”
“One thousand dollars from New York,” one phone staffer shouted, prompting a
chorus of yelps and hand-clapping. On a large monitor with a red background,
the total pledges edged upward with each round of ringing telephones.
$2,693,644 ? $2,893,644?.
On the air, Hacop Baghdasarian, proprietor of the International Grill at the
Glendale Galleria and a man who’d pledged more than $100,000 in previous
telethons, announced to wild applause that he was pledging $30,000 to a
hospital in war-torn Hadrut in Armenia’s satellite republic Nagorno
Karabakh.
$3,193,654 ? $3,232,704?.
The international hookup raised the question of fielding calls in numerous
languages.
Not a problem, Mehranian said. “The average Armenian speaks three or four
languages. It’s the curse of not having had a country.” For her part,
Mehranian speaks English, Armenian, French and Farsi, “and a bit of
Spanish.”
Tamar Artin, a 19-year-old biology major at Pierce College in Woodland Hills
and a phone bank supervisor, said language was not nearly so much a problem
as one might think. “We mostly get English or Armenian,” she said, “but we
get lots of international calls, so it’s really important to have an ear for
what language a person is speaking. We know in advance which of our people
speaks what language, and we can direct the caller to them ? sometimes it’s
Russian, very rarely Arabic and sometimes Farsi.”
The Armenia Fund’s concentration on infrastructure is aimed at helping the
Armenian economy ? already growing at a rate of 14% a year, according to
fund officials ? grow even faster.
The Armenian diaspora in the wealthy countries is an enormous asset to the
young republic, “a jewel,” Mehranian said. The Republic of Armenia became an
independent state after the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991. The work of
the fund aside, Armenians in the diaspora remit about half a billion dollars
a year to family members in Armenia, said Sarkis Kotanjian, executive
director of the fund.
Armenian Americans, he said, not only provide funds but establish goals for
improved quality.
“Take, for example, a backward, Soviet-era hospital,” he said. “We want it
to become an American hospital, with all the modern standards. We don’t want
to just put on a coat of paint but to train the doctors and reconstruct the
way the hospital works so that it makes sense.”
For those driving the telethon, which is held on Thanksgiving partly because
people are off from work and school and also to give thanks for the
existence of an Armenian homeland, the effort clearly was about more than
raising money or raising standards. Raising the sense of worldwide Armenian
identity was also part of the program.
Narbeh Issagholian, a 24-year-old computer consultant, spent the day rushing
back and forth making sure the telethon’s 50 computers were behaving.
He said giving up the Thanksgiving holiday to work the telethon flowed
naturally from “what my parents have taught me and what I learned in
Armenian schools about our culture and history. I want to do what I can to
pass it on to future generations and make sure it doesn’t die.
“This ties you in to the entire Armenian community in the world today.”
[email protected]
From: Baghdasarian

Critics’ Forum
Literature
The Authentic in Fiction: Aris Janigian’s Bloodvine
By Hovig Tchalian
After several articles on topical subjects, I would like to discuss a
novel published before the advent of Critics’ Forum – Aris Janigian’s
Bloodvine (Heyday, 2003; Great Valley Books, 2005; all page
references are to the later edition). Perhaps the nearly four years
that have passed since its publication will help provide some
perspective on the novel.
Reviews at the time of publication ranged from the lukewarm – Booklist
noting the author’s “obviously heartfelt effort” – to the overblown – the
San Francisco Chronicle comparing Janigian to William Saroyan.
Ironically, the novel was also a finalist for Stanford University’s
William Saroyan International Prize for Writing, in the category of
fiction, in 2005. A close look at Bloodvine reveals a good first
effort but one whose flaws and missteps say as much about the current
state of English-language Armenian literature as they do about the
novel itself.
The premise of Bloodvine originates in autobiography. Janigian’s
father, nearing death, calls his son to his native Fresno and tells
him the story of the rift (the novel later calls it a “kehn”) between
him and his brother, a subject that to that point the father has
avoided bringing up with his son. In the book’s prologue, Janigian
maintains that his father’s deathbed confession drove him to
investigate the matter and write about it, albeit in fictional form.
The characterization of the work as fiction is a critical one. The
novel is certainly a fictional retelling of the feud that took place
between two brothers, now named Andy (Antranik) Demerjian and Abe
(Abraham) Voskijian, in and around 1950’s Fresno. But it also
harbors what might be called more “historical” ambitions. Perhaps as
a result, the reader feels the need both to connect with the novel
and judge it by the yardstick of its own ambitions, ones that,
unfortunately, it is not quite able to live up to.
The first few pages of Bloodvine make it clear that the novel’s fate
is intertwined with the history of the Genocide. We learn early on
that Andy and Abe are actually half-brothers. Abe’s father, a
gentleman in his community, is killed by Turkish soldiers. His
mother escapes the pogroms and makes her way to Fresno, where she
meets another immigrant, Yervant. Andy is the first of two children
and the only son the mother bears with her second husband. Yervant
turns out to be quite a volatile man, prone to pathological behavior
and fits of violence, most of which he directs toward his wife’s
first-born son, Abe. We also find out that Yervant’s father (Andy’s
grandfather), Jonig, may have been an “agha,” a Turkish sympathizer
who saved himself and his family by betraying the whereabouts of
other Armenians.
The novel’s central storyline turns on this seminal event. Abe
marries Zabel, and together they have three children. Andy marries
much later in the novel and continues until then to live with Abe’s
family on land that her mother has willed to her two sons. This
uncomfortable living arrangement eventually precipitates the feud
between the brothers, which the novel makes clear is also instigated
by Abe’s wife, Zabel. The larger issue at stake is what Zabel refers
to as the family’s bad luck, or “pakht,” and which she is certain has
revealed itself in the family’s disastrous harvests and business
dealings. Zabel attributes their collective pakht to Andy, the ill-
begotten son, and through him to Yervant, and through Yervant to his
father and what we might call his “original sin” (92-3). From
Zabel’s perspective, the fact that Andy is a “cripple” (one of his
legs is shorter than the other) may be explained biologically – he had
polio as a child – but must be understood genealogically – he is the
descendant of a traitor.
The impetus behind this genealogical perspective is the novel’s own
worldview. In the prologue, Janigian characterizes his novel as “old-
fashioned,” which no doubt it is. But its emphasis on the
relationships between fathers and sons and the propagation of sin,
treachery and violence also suggests a profoundly biblical
perspective.
The brothers’ story, in fact, concludes in an act of betrayal
reminiscent of the Old Testament story of Jacob and Esau. A few
years after Andy signs his half of the land over to Abe to help
secure a GI loan, on a handshake, Abe kicks Andy off the land,
denying him what Andy feels is his birthright, just as in the
biblical story, Jacob tricks his older brother, Esau, into signing
over his birthright for a bowl of lentil stew. Jacob will later also
trick his father (who bears the name of one of the brothers in the
novel, Abraham) into giving him his blessing. In the biblical story,
Jacob is his mother Rebecca’s favorite, as in the novel the maternal
Zabel (Abe’s pet name for her is “Ma”) prefers Abe.
This somewhat weighty purpose intrudes itself into the novel at
various points-we are subtly, and sometimes not so subtly, made to
remember that the scenery of Fresno and the surrounding valleys is
imbued with a larger, almost metaphorical, character signifying the
mysterious connection between land and blood suggested in the novel’s
title.
The book’s very first scene, in fact, makes this point quite
explicitly. A bishop and a priest are on their way to visit the
Voskijians, in order to “exorcise” their land of the curse Zabel is
convinced has befallen it. As they near their destination, the
bishop looks out of the car window at the grapevines and remarks (8):

The very land itself, it seems, is a symbol of its people’s apparent
fate, bearing its fruits in the shape of tears. And just in case we
miss that metaphorical point, the bishop adds a little further on (8):
<"[T]he vines in Armenia date back from the time of our Lord. Just imagine, brother, the pestilence, the flood and fire, the drought and terrible earthquake they've endured. They," he said in a survivor's emotional voice, "have proven as resilient as the Armenian people themselves.">
The larger point, however, is somewhat more intriguing – the suggestion
of a kind of fall from grace, from an edenic homeland that cannot be
recreated anywhere else, as the bishop once again makes clear (9):

Ironically, later in the novel, Andy’s wife Kareen, an Armenian born
in Egypt, will compare the same expanse of land unflatteringly to her
own birthplace, Alexandria (167). Janigian does more than suggest
the simple nostalgia for homeland or home in this passage; he
captures something of the tragic desire for return that seems to
propagate itself endlessly, hopelessly, in the immigrant experience.
The other side of that desire, the novel seems to suggest, is the
kind of hatred born of betrayal, a product of an agha’s actions as
much as a result of the Genocide as such. That hatred turns to self-
hatred in the brothers’ story, culminating in the final act of
betrayal captured in the title. We can hear its whispers even early
on, in the bishop’s repeated reference to the priest as “brother” (as
in the two extended quotations above). To the novel’s credit, the
tension between brotherly love and a hatred born of blind allegiance
to land is never quite resolved. Even at the very end of the novel,
before he “betrays” his brother Andy, Abe tells him, “brothers is one
thing, this land’s another” (252). But after the event, Andy
declares to himself, “your life has changed, Andy. In a matter of
minutes, thirty years of brotherhood is pulverized. Over what? Over
a piece of dirt” (265).
Janigian is at his most lyrical when describing the land the brothers
are fighting over and the wider landscape of the San Joaquin Valley,
sometimes in ominous detail (270):

In other instances, Janigian displays a keen eye for detail, such as
in this early scene, describing Abe walking into his house, during
the bishop’s exorcism (12):
<"He is cleansing the house of evil spirits," the wife whispered. Evil spirits? Abe bowed his head and crossed his arms over his stomach. "Shhh," she said, as though Abe's puzzlement was audible.>
The paradoxical phrase about Abe’s puzzlement shows Janigian at his
best, allowing us to understand something about Zabel’s state of mind
and the near absurdity of the scene taking place.
But even such details, and the moving descriptions of the landscape,
when repeated in various ways throughout the novel, seem less lyrical
than repetitive. Janigian spends a good deal of time describing the
mundane details of farming life, punctuated by the “crude” speech of
farmers, barhops, family members. But we are often left to wonder
for what purpose.
Unfortunately, even the biblical parallels made at the beginning and
at the end of the novel are never developed in a clear and compelling
way, and the novel eventually loses its hold on the story and its
details and seems more confined than liberated by its promising
premise. The logic of that premise unwinds itself slowly,
inevitably, with only occasional glimpses of depth or complexity,
until nearly everything in the novel seems either weighed down by its
ponderous purpose or adrift in uneven, sometimes inconsequential,
prose. As a result, the novel begins to plod along a little less
than halfway through, as though hoping to generate momentum through
the various descriptions themselves.
The descriptions that proliferate in the novel, therefore, often get
the better of the story. Many of the book’s less successful moments
are a result of Janigian giving in a little too much to his penchant
for metaphor and comparison. In the crucial moment after Abe
threatens Andy and asks him to leave their land for good, Andy
considers what it means, and we are told: “when a man is in the
clutch of such unknowns, time thickens, time turns into a beehive,
palpable and agonizingly porous” (265). The phrases here are awkward
and oddly misplaced. Why should time be a “beehive,” and why are we
to imagine that it is “porous”?
In other instances, it is difficult to see what purpose a comparison
serves at all. When Andy is confused by the reaction of a prostitute
he meets, we read the following simile: “This was like giving a
photograph to a blind man and getting upset that he didn’t appreciate
it. Even after he told you he was blind, even after you saw that he
lived among the blind, in a blind world.” (43). In yet other cases,
the description could simply benefit from more or better editing,
such as when we see Andy making his early morning drive to work the
land (262):
[Crossed out by
author of article.]
Janigian crafts the description well, giving us a sense of Andy’s
mood, not only at this moment but more generally. But the passage
also exhibits the writer’s occasional inability to exhibit restraint
and his tendency of saying too much.
An additional result of these inconsistencies is that the thrust of
the story is sometimes overwhelmed by details, so that even the
subtler ones are not given their due. A perfect example is an
interesting parallel between the descriptions of two very different
characters, Abe and the prostitute mentioned earlier. Both are
described as agitated and nervous, barely able to sit still. When
Andy and Abe sit on the porch early in the novel, we see that “Abe
pulled up a chair and sat on the edge, as if he might soon have to
leave” (19). A few pages later, we see Andy reluctantly visiting a
whorehouse. The woman he meets there, once she finds out Andy only
wants some company, is described in almost identical terms as Abe: we
are told that “she sat on the edge, like she might have to go at any
second,” presumably to talk with more promising clients (42).
The descriptions together form a kind of word picture, a visible
symbol of “displacement,” of people whose itinerant nature has made
them unable to sit still in their own seats – Abe as a second-
generation farmer struggling to survive and the prostitute as someone
moving restlessly from one client to the next. The parallel phrasing
imagines a fate shared by two people from entirely different walks of
life. For a brief moment, the “immigrant experience” belongs to the
local as much as to the Armenian.
But perhaps this is reading too much into an otherwise accidental
parallel. Unfortunately, without the novelist’s sure hand guiding
us, we are left to ponder the coincidence on our own. The effect
carries through the entire novel. Perhaps we are meant to see the
metaphorical grafting of old vines to new, ancient land to modern, as
a different representation of the family itself – Abe’s family having
been “grafted” unnaturally to Andy’s by way of Yervant’s marriage.
The issue of birthright in the biblical parallels seems to point
here. Andy’s given name, for instance, is Antranik (“first-born,” in
Armenian). And although he is not his mother’s first-born son, the
fact that he is his father’s eldest seems to compel him, despite
himself, to live up to his name and form a family of his own.
Numerous parallels such as these exist. But very few of them are
tied together or developed convincingly.
The most glaring example here is the final “betrayal” in the novel,
when Abe walks up to Andy, shotgun by his side, and seems to threaten
him into leaving their land for good (264):
<"You've got nothing left here," Abe says. "It's over." There is a certain hysteria in his voice, a kind of panic. There's Andy, looking down the barrel of a shotgun. . . . "All right, Abe," Andy says. Abe drops the gun to his side, slowly, like he might lift it up again. Andy doesn't know if he's shivering from the cold or the uncanniness of it all or both. Already he knows, even before he's out of harm's way, that nothing will ever match this moment.>
This long-anticipated “moment” in the novel, when it arrives, is
oddly devoid of significance, symbolic or otherwise, or a compelling
connection to the themes of home or birthright. Fixated as it is on
the mundane fact of the shotgun itself, the passage comes across as
neither epic nor even particularly profound, descending instead into
melodrama, a simple spat between two brothers. The passage tells us
that this is indeed a momentous event but fails to show us that it is
so.
Later in the novel, Abe will get his comeuppance of sorts, losing
his sanity for a time and, some weeks later, spilling his blood on a
vine after crashing his tractor into the post holding it up, which
leads to his death. That post, it turns out, is the same one next to
which Abe threatened his brother. The symbolic point is made, but
far too late to generate thematic or dramatic tension.
Aris Janigian’s Bloodvine represents a strong first effort and a
promising start to a writing career. But the novel’s flaws also say
as much about the future of English-language Armenian literature as
they do about Janigian’s own career. The concerns mentioned above
are not insurmountable. The novel’s only unforgivable offense, in
fact, is its characterization of Zabel and her mother, Angel. With
their connivances, superstitions and constant stream of akhhs, they
are little more than caricatures.
This final point brings us full circle, back to the issue we started
with – the novel’s status as fiction. We can now recast that statement
as the novel’s view of its own “authenticity,” in other words, its
relationship to the diasporan Armenian experience in all its
complexity, from the historical Genocide to the fictional spirits
haunting Angel’s memory. A final excerpt from the novel related to
this point will help us conclude.
A third of the way through the novel, the brothers meet with an
attorney named Saroyan, who turns out to be a “distant cousin”
of “this writer Saroyan” (89). When the three sit down in his
office, the attorney suggests that his more famous relative is only
interested in talking about “Armenians, old-time Armenian things that
only an odar would be interested in. What the hell do I need to hear
about Armenians?,” the attorney laments. “I’ve got them barking in
my ear every day” (89). The irony of the statement is deepened by
our sense of the anonymous identity of those “Armenians” – the ones
inhabiting the novel’s fictional world as well as the attorney’s
office in it – as much as of the unnamed “odar.”
Perhaps it is entirely fitting, then, that Bloodvine has been
compared to William Saroyan’s works and been nominated for an award
named after him. Saroyan’s legacy, far more than Angel’s spirits,
haunts the novel and beckons to the reader, from somewhere between
the odar world and the Armenian.
All Rights Reserved: Critics Forum, 2006
Hovig Tchalian holds a PhD in English literature from UCLA. He has
edited several journals and also published articles of his own.
You can reach him or any of the other contributors to Critics’ Forum
at [email protected]. This and all other articles published
in this series are available online at To sign
up for a weekly electronic version of new articles, go to
Critics’ Forum is a group created to
discuss issues relating to Armenian art and culture in the Diaspora.

LEBANON NEW WEBSITE FOR ARMENIAN RADIO STATION
BBC Monitoring Research, UK
Nov 22 2006
BBC Monitoring observes Lebanese Armenian radio station Voice of Van
on a new website at The site is texted in English
and Armenian, and offers an extensive archive of on-demand audio files
of most of their programmes, posted online soon after live broadcast.
The station broadcasts round the clock with programmes in Armenian and
Arabic on 94.7 MHz FM from studios in Beirut. Main news bulletins in
Armenian are at 0830 and 1830 local time, in Arabic at 0930 and 1630
local time (currently gmt +2 hours).
Founded in 1986, Voice of Van describes itself on the website as “the
official radio station of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation in
Lebanon” (Dashnaktsutyun). The mother organization of this political
party has a website at
Two other Beirut radio stations have recently established a web
presence.
Voice of the People has an Arabic website at ,
offering an on-demand audio archive of their main news bulletin for the
last seven days. The station broadcasts in Arabic on 103.7 and 104.0
MHz in the FM band, between the hours of 0600-0100 hours local time.
The second programme of state-owned Radio Lebanon has a
website at Radio Liban 96.2 FM broadcasts on
that frequency round the clock in French, English and Armenian,
including several hours relaying French programming from external
broadcaster Radio France International. An associated website at
has further information and
a programme guide.

AZERI OFFICIAL DENIES ANTI-IRAN COALITION EXISTS
Day.az, Azerbaijan
Nov 22 2006
An exclusive interview of Day.az with the head of the press and
information policy department of the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry,
Tahir Tagizada.
[Correspondent] Tahir muallim [mode of address], do you think it was
a surprise that senators known for their pro-Armenian position were
elected as leaders of the Democrats and Republicans in the US Senate?
Or was it the expected consequence of the coordinated and methodical
work of the Armenian lobby?
[Tagizada] It is a very hard and thankless thing to comment on the
policies of another state. It is especially so if at issue is the
world’s largest super power which is a strategic partner of Azerbaijan.
Therefore, I think it is incorrect to divide parties into a
ruling and opposition ones on the basis of their attitude to the
Armenian-Azerbaijani Karabakh conflict.
You actually know that the working group for developing Azerbaijani-US
relations comprises congressmen from both the Democratic and Republican
parties.
[Passage omitted: Tagizada says Azerbaijan should rely on the
Azerbaijani community in the USA in its relations with the USA; the
two countries have political and economic cooperation and are allies
in the fight against global terrorism]
[Correspondent] What do Azerbaijan’s national interests dictate in
the sphere of building relations with Iran?
[Tagizada] I have already said that Azerbaijan’s national interests
are invariable and do not depend on which country or international
organizations they are being built with.
But if you mean the talk about the existence of some “anti-Iran
coalition”, it simply does not exist. But even if it did, Azerbaijan
would not join it.
For Azerbaijan, the question here is very clear-cut and definite
– our region, which is strategically important both for building
international relations and for the international security system,
is already so full of conflict that the limit of durability of peace
in our region has already been reached.
Besides, Azerbaijan favours not a military but a diplomatic resolution
of problems, both in the Iranian and the Karabakh issues.
[Correspondent] In the meantime, last weekend [18-19 November]
the Iranian TV channel Sahar aired for an hour calls for a coup in
Azerbaijan. How would you comment on this?
[Tagizada] Unfortunately, I am not yet familiar with what exactly the
Iranian TV channel Sahar broadcast. Therefore, give me time to become
acquainted with this information. Then, I can give them [the calls]
a precise evaluation.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

AZERI FOREIGN MINISTER, MINSK GROUP MEDIATORS DISCUSS KARABAKH
Turan News Agency, Azerbaijan
Nov 22 2006
Baku, 22 November: Two of the three co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk
Group, Yuriy Merzlyakov and Bernard Fassier, today had consultations
with Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov. They discussed
the possibility of organizing a meeting between the Armenian and
Azerbaijani presidents on the sidelines of the CIS summit in Minsk.
After the meeting, the co-chairs refused to comment on the outcome
of the talks for reporters. Asked whether a meeting between Aliyev
and Kocharyan will take place, Yuriy Merzlyakov said that it would be
clear after a meeting between President Ilham Aliyev and the co-chairs.
After the meeting at the Foreign Ministry, Bernard Fassier and Yuriy
Merzlyakov immediately headed for a meeting with the Azerbaijani
president promising to issue a communique on the outcome of the visit.
The US co-chair of the OSCE Minsk Group, Matthew Bryza, did not arrive
in the region because of his “workload”.

ARMENIA TO COOPERATE WITH BOTH NATO, CIS DEFENCE BODY – DEFENCE CHIEF
Public TV, Armenia
Nov 22 2006
[Presenter] A delegation headed by Defence Minister Serzh Sarkisyan
left for Belarus today to attend the sessions of the Defence Ministers
Council of the Collective Security Treaty Organization [CSTO] to be
held in Brest on 23 November.
The Armenian delegation will also take part in the gathering of the
Security Council secretaries of the CSTO member states in Minsk on
24-25 November. An agreement on military cooperation in 2007 will be
signed by the Russian, Belarussian and Ukrainian defence ministers.
Before departure Serzh Sarkisyan told journalists at the airport that
Armenia is a member of the CSTO and at the same time is implementing
a partnership plan with NATO.
[Serzh Sarkisyan captioned] I have announced that membership in the
CSTO and cooperation with NATO follow from our policies and do not run
counter to each other. It is high time to realize that all military
and political alliances are created for and not against something. NATO
was not established against something, but for Europe’s security.
The Collective Security Treaty was signed not against NATO, but to
ensure security of the CSTO member countries.

OSCE MEDIATORS UPBEAT ON FORTHCOMING MEETING OF ARMENIAN, AZERI LEADERS
Artur Grigoryan, Romik Khachatryan, “Aylur”
Public TV, Armenia
Nov 22 2006
[Presenter] President Robert Kocharyan received the Russian and French
co-chairmen of the OSCE Minsk Group on 21 November. Yuriy Merzlyakov
and Bernard Fassier today met journalists at the airport before their
departure and talked about the results of the talks.
The co-chairs noted that bellicose statements had become muted recently
and explained why the US co-chairman had not arrived in Yerevan. The
co-chairs have agreed to divide their responsibilities.
[US co-chairman] Matthew Bryza is to meet the president of the Nagornyy
Karabakh republic, Arkadiy Gukasyan, who is currently in the USA.
[Correspondent] The co-chairs said the main result of their visit
was that the Armenian side had agreed to a meeting between [Armenian
President Robert] Kocharyan and [Azerbaijani President Ilham] Aliyev
in Minsk on 28 November.
[French co-chair Bernard Fassier, captioned, speaking in Russian
with Armenian voice-over] We hope very much that the Armenian and
Azerbaijani presidents will achieve a rapprochement between the two
countries’ positions on some complex issues.
[Correspondent] The co-chairs know from their own experience that
pre-election periods have limited influence on the talks.
[Russian co-chair Yuriy Merzlyakov, captioned, speaking in Russian
with Armenian voice-over] I do not think that the forthcoming elections
in Armenia will be an exception. The foundations we managed to create
this year will allow for smooth negotiations before the election and
during the election period.
[Correspondent] The mediators are leaving Yerevan for Baku to get
the Azerbaijani side’s agreement to the meeting.

AZERI KILLER SENTENCED FOR ASSAULTING PRISON GUARDS
Hungarian News Agency (MTI)
November 20, 2006 Monday
Budapest, November 20 (MTI) – An Azeri national, currently serving
a life sentence for murder in Hungary, has received another sentence
for assaulting his guards, the Municipal Court of Budapest told MTI
on Monday.
Twenty-nine-year old Ramil Saharov Sahib was accused of attacking
prison guards while in pre-trial detention preceding his trial for
murdering an Armenian student during a NATO Partnership for Peace
course in Budapest two years ago. Sahib then was sentenced to life
imprisonment for pre-mediated murder.
The defendant appealed against the second sentence of eight months
in prison, suspended for two years. The law court is expected to hear
the case in the second instance next spring.

ARMENIAN, AZERBAIJANI PRESIDENTS TO MEET AT CIS SUMMIT
Agence France Presse — English
November 22, 2006 Wednesday 9:07 PM GMT
Armenia’s President Robert Kocharyan will meet with his Azerbaijani
counterpart Ilham Aliyev next week in Minsk, on the sidelines of the
summit of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), OSCE officials
said Wednesday.
“I want to inform you that the Armenian president agreed to a meeting
with his Azerbaijani colleague in Minsk” on November 27-28, the
Russian co-chairman of the OSCE Minsk group on the Karabakh conflict,
Yuri Merzlyakov, told reporters.
“This meeting was being prepared very meticulously and for a long
time. It will no doubt prove another step forward in resolving this
conflict, because this is a third such meeting this year, and there
never was such a full schedule,” Merzlyakov said.
A source in the Azerbaijani presidential administration told AFP that
Aliyev also agreed to meet with Kocharyan.
Azerbaijan and Armenia have been locked in a territorial dispute
over the Nagorny Karabakh ethnic-Armenian enclave since before the
break-up of the Soviet Union.
Azerbaijan lost control of the territory and seven surrounding regions
during a war in the early 1990s, but Karabakh’s status has yet to
be settled.

POLAND TO HELP TURKEY AND ARMENIA?
PAP Polish Press Agency
November 20, 2006 Monday
The Polish foreign ministry has offered to mediate in talks between
Turkey and Armenia in a move to help establish dialogue between the
two countries to end the two-year-long conflict.
Once the offer is accepted the Polish diplomacy will score a great
success, writes Gazeta Wyborcza Daily on Monday.
Polish diplomats told the daily they would not dare to engage Poland
in solving conflicts in the region of Caucasus and that the idea to
invite Turks and Armenians to Warsaw for a conference was born still
under Foreign Minister Stefan Meller at the start of this year.
According to Piotr Iwaszkiewicz from the foreign ministry eastern
policy department Poland would like to share its experience from the
reconciliation process with Germany as the conflict between Turkey
and Armenia also involves genocide, apart from other ailing problems.
In August the Polish side presented another proposal offering Polish
embassies in respective countries to represent Armenian interests
in Turkey and Turkish interests in Armenia but the proposal has been
left unanswered.