Month: April 2007

WORLD-FAMOUS CELLIST MISHA MAISKY TO PERFORM AT ARAM KHACHATURIAN CONCERT HALL ON APRIL 29

Noyan Tapan
Apr 25 2007

YEREVAN, APRIL 25, NOYAN TAPAN. World-famous cellist Misha Maisky
from Israel will perform at the Aram Khachaturian concert hall with
only one concert on April 29, within the framework of the "Prospects
of 21st" 8th international music festival initiated by the Armenian
Music Information Center. He will perform Antonin Dvorak’s Cello
Concerto accompanied by the State Philharmonic Orchestra of Armenia.

As festival Chairman, composer Stepan Rostomian stated at the April
25 press conference, it is a great event in the music life of our
country as one of the best cellists of the world arrives in Armenia. In
his words, though such musicians are capricious and they themselves
choose to what country they will go and with what orchestra they will
play, but M. Maisky immediately received the invitation to perform
in Armenia.

Edvard Topchian, the SPOA artistic head and conductor expressed an
anxiety on the occasion that the visit of a musician of such greatness
is not covered by any Armenian mass media. "There are 4 days till the
concert, but almost no tickets were sold. We always shout that we are
a cultural people, but, it is a pity, concerts of similar musicians
pass in Yerevan in half-empty halls," he mentioned.

In E. Topchian’s words, if it continues in this way, world-famous
musicians will refuse performing concerts in Yerevan. "If they prefer
in Yerevan to listen to cheap music, and mass media, particularly,
the Public Television Company must not touch upon the classic music,
but must propagandize "shprots" (sprats), then the struggle is useless,
and I will prefer leaving," the conductor mentioned.
From: Baghdasarian

EU REPRESENTATIVE APPEALS TO ARMENIAN AUTHORITIES TO TAKE ALL MEASURES FOR HOLDING PARLIAMENTARY ELECTIONS IN LINE WITH INTERNATIONAL STANDARDS

Noyan Tapan
Apr 25 2007

BRUSSELS, APRIL 25, NOYAN TAPAN. Regional problems and Armenian-Turkish
relations were discussed at the April 25 meeting of the Armenian
foreign minister Vartan Oskanian, who is on a working visit to
Belgium, and the EU Special Representative to the South Caucasus Peter
Sembeby. According to the RA MFA Press and Information Department,
the sides also addressed the GUAM’s initiative in the UN General
Assembly, and in this connection V. Oskanian reasserted Armenia’s
position on the resolution to be presented.

Speaking about the upcoming parliamentary elections in Armenia, the EU
special representative pointed out that EU countries and the European
Commission attach great importance to holding these elections in line
with international standards. P. Semneby appealed to the Armenian
authorities to take all measures in this direction. V. Oskanian in
his turn assured him that today there are all conditions for holding
free and fair elections in the country.

The interlocutors also discussed issues related to implementation of
the EU-Armenian Action Plan. In this connection V. Oskanian noted the
expediency to make the action plan implementation-related contacts
between the RA mission in the EU and the European Commission most
coordinated.

During the meeting, the sides also exchanged ideas on the results of
the Belgrade stage of negotiations on the Nagorno Karabakh conflict
settlement. P. Semneby said that later the same day he is going to
Baku in order to participate in a conference dedicated to the mass
media, within the framework of which a meeting with the Azerbaijani
foreign minister is planned.

LEADER OF HERITAGE: WE’LL COME TO POWER AFTER THE PARLIAMENTARY ELECTION, SO WE NEED NO DEALS WITH THE PRESENT AUTHORITIES

Arminfo
2007-04-25 21:33:00

"We’ll come to power after the May 12 parliamentary election, so
we need no deals with the present authorities," Raffi Hovannisian,
the leader of the opposition Heritage party and the first foreign
minister of independent Armenia, said to ArmInfo correspondent.

According to him, some mass media’s absurd rumors about the Heritage’s
collusion with the authorities, along with other various defamatory
information, are the direct evidence of the fact that the Heritage
party has turned into a large political force. "So our enemies only
have to spread rumors verging on nonsense, which cannot hinder our
victory," R.Hovannisian said in conclusion.

WHAT ARMENIAN VOTERS WANT: NO POLICY PROPOSALS, PLEASE
Gayane Abrahamyan

EurasiaNet, NY
April 25 2007

Do ideas count in Armenia’s May 12 parliamentary vote? The answer
appears to be no.

The unfulfilled promises of previous campaigns have left a large
segment of the Armenian electorate feeling disillusioned. Pollsters,
candidates and voters all state that handouts and free pop concerts
are doing more to sway attitudes about a particular party or candidate
than are specific policy proposals. Many Armenians, in fact, joke that
a prize should be given to anyone who can find five differences between
the platforms of the 24 parties competing for parliamentary seats.

Members of the Council of Europe’s Parliamentary Assembly observation
mission have bemoaned the lack of emphasis on public policy, telling
journalists on April 14 that "no significant differences can be found
in the platforms of the candidates and the parties."

"Many perceive this election as a struggle between political elites,
not ideas and principles," said the PACE mission head, Leo Platvoet.

A member of the ruling Republican Party of Armenia’s political council,
MP Armen Ashotian, similarly lamented the lack of political debate. But
he contended that little can change until living standards rise. His
recommendation? Wait for the next parliamentary elections — in 2012.

Gevorg Poghosian, head of the Armenian Sociological Association, said
voters should not be faulted for harboring cynical attitudes toward
the campaign. He pointed to past experience which shows that campaign
promises are rarely kept. "They [potential voters] are simply tired
of hearing about programs that can’t be realized, and understand that
party promises and programs very rarely come true," said Poghosian.

"That is why they prefer making use of the moment and selling their
votes."

Practical considerations often dominate the decision-making process,
said Hrant Movsisian, an 18-year-old student at the Yerevan Fine Arts
College and a resident of Etchmiadzin, a town about 15 kilometers from
Yerevan. "We will give our votes to whomever gives us free buses [to
travel] from Etchmiadzin to Yerevan," he said. One former Republican
Party candidate, already eliminated from the race in Etchmiadzin,
was known for providing such bus rides. [For background see the
Eurasia Insight archive]. Those free fares were crucial for Movsisian
because without them he might not have been able to attend school
in the capital. He explained that his family relies on his mother’s
$50-per-month salary as a kindergarten teacher, making $4-per-day
bus rides to Yerevan for Movsisian and his sister prohibitively
expensive. "Everyone who has a student in the family studying in
Yerevan thinks the same way, because their most important problem is
this [transportation]."

Such handouts — usually termed "acts of charity" — have become
closely associated with the pro-government Prosperous Armenia Party,
which has experienced a meteoric rise in its membership over the
past year. [For details, see the Eurasia Insight archive]. Based
on an early April survey of 2,000 respondents, the British pollster
Populus estimates that the party, little known before last year, now
commands the support of 27 percent of voters, slightly behind the
ruling Republican Party of Armenia which reportedly has 31 percent
of voters’ support.

Party members openly acknowledge that the party’s popularity is closely
linked to the image of its leader, tycoon Gagik Tsarukian, who is
viewed as a deep-pocketed benefactor. The provision of free bus rides
for university students, or the establishment of regional healthcare
clinics merely show that "he is capable of solving the problems and the
social issues of which a significant part of the population complain,"
said Vardan Bostanjian, a Prosperous Armenia candidate.

Runaway corruption is a frequent complaint, and one that some voters
believe requires a wealthy parliamentarian to withstand. A candidate
who shows his wealth is a candidate with no need to rob the state once
elected to parliament, commented 67-year-old retiree Stepan Poghosian.

"Let him [the candidate] be a well-off man, full of everything, not to
think about people’s pensions and allowances, not to fill his pocket
with aid coming from abroad," said Poghosian, whose chief source of
income is a $35 monthly pension. "That’s the reason I will be voting
for the wealthiest person."

One opposition member, however, worries that this mindset, over
the long term, could contribute to the "collapse" of a functioning
democratic political system. "Everyone talks about whose balloon
or poster is larger, whose song is what in the campaign," said Aram
Manukian, a member of the Armenian National Movement. "And people feel
happy when their own stolen money returns to them through bribes,
and [they] qualify it as the candidates’ strong inclination for
benevolent acts."

Nonetheless, voter criteria for what makes a good individual candidate
outside of personal wealth or handouts do exist. Thirty-one percent of
1,200 voters surveyed in 2006 by the Gallup Institute and the Armenian
Sociological Association named a candidate’s honesty and objectivity as
the most important qualifications for election, followed by 30 percent
who cited his or her commitment to democratic values. A high level of
education was desirable for 28 percent of the respondents, while 19
percent cited the candidate’s readiness to care for people’s needs. The
poll was conducted for the International Republican Institute. A
fresh survey by the Gallup Institute in March 2007 showed that those
expectations remain largely unchanged, noted Gallup representative
Rasa Alisauskiene, who trained field workers for the survey.

Editor’s Note: Gayane Abrahamyan is a reporter for the ArmeniaNow
online weekly in Yerevan.

THE DIPLOMAT WHO CRACKED
By Matt Welch

Los Angeles Times, CA
April 25 2007

An interview with former U.S. ambassador to Armenia John Evans, who
lost his job after referring to the Armenian genocide as "genocide."

John Marshall Evans, a career U.S. diplomat with extensive experience
in Central and Eastern Europe, was sworn in as ambassador to Armenia
in August 2004. In February 2005, Evans made a trip to California, the
capital state of the Armenian diaspora. At three different meetings
with Armenian-American groups, when asked about Washington’s lack of
official recognition of the 1915-23 Armenian genocide as a "genocide,"
Evans said some variation of the following: "I will today call it
the Armenian Genocide."

Since this deviated from State Department guidelines, Evans was
eventually asked to resign. Now the mild-mannered foreign service
veteran is preparing a book about his "intellectual journey" that
led him "rock the boat" of U.S. policy.

I caught up with Evans this March, a few days after he gave the
keynote speech explaining his dissent to the second annual banquet
for USC’s Institute of Armenian Studies. The following is an edited
transcript of our conversation.

To start with, when did it become unusual, your preparation for
this job? When you said that basically you wanted to read up on this
controversial historical thing before assuming the ambassadorship,
one does that before one goes to a foreign posting, anyway; at what
point did that process become different than your usual diplomatic
posting, in terms of fact-gathering, and conclusions that you might
come up with? […]

[M]y nomination for Yerevan was announced in the first half of May
2004. I was confirmed in late June, I can give you the exact dates.

And then I had a window of a couple weeks in which I went into a kind
of monastic retreat and read everything I possibly could about Armenia.

Now, I had the advantage that […] [in] 1989, that year I had received
a Cox Fellowship, and was spending a year reading Ottoman history at
the Wilson Center in Washington, at the Kennan Institute.

And so I read a lot of history. So I wasn’t coming to the issue
of Armenian history with a totally blank slate; I’d read mostly
mainstream books — Lord Kinross and various others who have written
about Ottoman history. […]

I read as much as I could before I went out to Yerevan. I read [former
U.S. ambassador Henry] Morgenthau’s story, which had a profound impact
on me, and […] I proceeded [to Yerevan], but not before having a
discussion with my immediate boss about the issue of the genocide,
and how it was treated in State Department materials. I felt that it
was not being adequately addressed, but at that point I had no sense
that we couldn’t do a better job basically in the same lines that
we were already using. I had not abandoned the policy, but I felt we
could do a much better job with that policy, and in particular using
the things that had been said by President Bush and President Clinton.

So I went out there and I became increasingly frustrated when I
returned to that subject, at the fact that it was considered taboo.

And it was; I couldn’t really get it onto the agenda for at least a
discussion. […]

Let me also just say that I never departed from the U.S. policy line
in Armenia. The question, if you look at public opinion polls in
Armenia, what you see is that although the question of recognition
of the genocide is on the minds of people, it’s sort of the ninth
or tenth issue behind social stability, having a job, worrying about
their retirement, you know, worrying about Nagorno-Karabakh. And then
you get down to the single digits, the people who put the recognition
of the genocide at the top of their lists. Single digits.

So in a way it’s much bigger for the diaspora?

That’s right. That’s correct. And I did not ever — I rarely got a
question about it when serving as U.S. ambassador to Armenia, and I
never used the word ‘genocide’ in answering any question there.

Almost never; I can’t remember a time when a local journalist asked
me about it.

By the time of my trip out here in February in 2005 I’d been in place
for about six months, and I’d done more reading. I was more upset than
ever about both the issue and the policy, and about the prospect that
this is just going to be a situation that was going to continue ad
infinitum. I mean, Turkish interests, and U.S. interests in Turkey;
a country with 72 million, a member of NATO of long standing, with
valuable strategic property in the Middle East, secular, Muslim,
in a time when we’re contending with forces in the Muslim world that
have produced this fundamentalist ideology and terrorism. Turkey is
a hugely important ally, and little landlocked Armenia, population 3
million at best, is never going weigh in those scales in such a way
as to even make a showing.

And yet, the facts of the matter, the facts of the historical
matter, and the legal definition of genocide as basically codified
in the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide,
which we ratified, does count for something in my view. I felt that
something had to be done to rock the boat, and to open up some space
around this taboo subject, which in the State Department was routinely
referred to as "the G-word." Which to me is sort of reminiscent of
potty training. […]

I never in 35 years had encountered a U.S. policy that I could not
at least live with. Certainly not one in my own area of responsibility.

I wonder how much of that is the fact that you had the good fortune,
mind you, to spend most of your life basically working in what in
retrospect can seem like the most virtuous of American endeavors,
which is —

Winning the Cold War

Winning the Cold War in Central Europe in particular. You know, it’s
a lot different having done that than if you had to deal with Saudi
Arabia, ever, you know, or other parts of the world where we have a
much more realpolitik type of appraoch.

Well you bring to mind another point that I made Sunday night, and
that is since 1989, American diplomats have spent a lot of their
time encouraging the growth of civil society. […] Civil society
does matter, and when civil society, taken together — that is,
historians, journalists, public people who’ve thought about issues —
when the vast majority of them perceive that there was a genocide of
Armenians in 1915, and we are withholding that in our declared policy,
it sets up a very difficult situation: You can’t call it cognitive
dissonance, exactly, but as I expressed it the other night, when a
policy is perceived as not conforming to the broadly accepted truth,
the policy becomes less supportable, and may not be supportable.

I came to the point where I felt this strongly, that it couldn’t be —
it was not — sustainable. That this flew in the face of the facts
as we know them from people I hugely respect, starting with Henry
Morgenthau, and our past diplomatic colleagues. […] The truth as
we know it from very good sources had diverged to an unsustainable
degree. […]

But was it reasonable for you to imagine that your rocking the boat
wouldn’t get you fired? […]

Clearly when I was here in February 2005, I knew that by mentioning
this word, I could get myself in trouble. I didn’t know precisely
what the degree of that trouble would be, but I knew that it could
range from a slap on the wrist to being immediately canned. And as it
turned out it was something between those extremes: I got more than
a mere slap on the wrist, I wasn’t immediately canned. I basically
was eased out after about 18 months, although I had more time on my
clock. […] I was basically asked to go ahead and retire. […]

How would you characterize the reaction of your superiors or even
just your colleagues when you said "Hey, this is a policy that I’m
beginning to believe is untenable, we need to shift it this way"? And
when I ask you how would you characterize it, is it your impression
that they, too believed that this is a historically settled issue,
it’s just one that is inconvenient to talk about?

Nobody ever used those terms, and I never had that kind of a
conversation. […]

The problem for me was not that we were having an argument about it,
the problem for me was we couldn’t talk about it. I couldn’t even
get it on the agenda. And I couldn’t take the policy positions that
had been devised for dealing with this, I couldn’t get them properly
deployed, because nobody wanted to even touch it. I kept running into
this sort of impossible Maginot Line, or just obstacle to even getting
the issue onto the table, and that’s where I decided to do an end run.

So it was less that people were saying, you know, "Stop knocking
on this door"; it was more of just like, "Oh, I gotta go fill up my
water glass now"?

Well, it was sort of "Now’s not the time." But there never — given
the realities — there never would be a good time to face this issue,
if one does the traditional calculations of well, Turkey is 72 million,
Armenia is 3 million, it was 92 years and counting, and so on and so
forth. This is a formula for it to go on for 500 years.

THIRD MILITARY CONVOY LEAVES RUSSIAN BASE IN GEORGIA

RIA Novosti, Russia
April 25 2007

TBILISI, April 25 (RIA Novosti) – The third military convoy left a
Russian military base in Georgia Wednesday as part of a deal on the
withdrawal of Russian military bases from the South Caucasus country,
signed in 2006.

The military convoy, consisting of 10 trucks carrying 35 tons of cargo,
left the Akhalkalaki base in the south of the country heading for
Gyumri in neighboring Armenia, where Russia retains Military Base 102.

The next convoy is scheduled for May 4.

The Akhalkalaki base located in a region populated largely by ethnic
Armenians is to be completely evacuated before the end of the year,
while the base in the Black Sea port of Batumi is to close by the
end of 2008.

Russia completed the withdrawal of its military garrison from the
Georgian capital, Tbilisi, handing over control of its headquarters
to Georgia’s Defense Ministry, last December.

Thirteen of the garrison’s 387 personnel will remain in Georgia
overseeing the withdrawal of Russia’s two Soviet-era bases.

Georgia’s Western-leaning leadership, which is seeking to join NATO, is
uneasy about Russia’s continued military presence, and has repeatedly
urged Moscow to close its Soviet-era bases.

All in all, Russia has agreed to dispatch five truck convoys and ten
trains to withdraw the remaining equipment from the Akhalkalaki base
by the yearend.

U.S. SENATOR REAFFIRMS ‘HOLD’ ON ARMENIA ENVOY PICK
By Emil Danielyan

Radio Liberty, Czech Republic
April 25 2007

A U.S. senator has pledged to continue to block the congressional
confirmation of President George W. Bush’s nominee to be the next
U.S. ambassador to Armenia over his failure to describe as genocide
the mass killings of Armenians in Ottoman Turkey.

Bush, meanwhile, again refused to use the term "genocide" with regard
to what he called "one of the greatest tragedies of the 20th century"
in an annual message to the Armenian community in the United States.

Bush has twice nominated career diplomat Richard Hoagland to
replace John Evans, the previous U.S. ambassador in Yerevan. Evans
is believed to have been recalled by the White House last year
for publicly referring the 1915 slaughter of some 1.5 million
Armenians in the Ottoman Empire as the first genocide of the 20th
century. The statements made two years ago contradicted successive
U.S. administrations’ policy on the highly sensitive issue which takes
into account Turkey’s long-standing strong denial of the genocide.

Senator Robert Menendez, a New Jersey Democrat, blocked Hoagland’s
mandatory endorsement by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee last
September and reaffirmed the so-called "hold" in January. Menendez
remained adamant in opposing the ambassadorial appointment on
Tuesday as he spoke at a ceremony on Capitol Hill that marked the
92nd anniversary of the genocide.

"I wish the Ambassador [Evans] was back in Armenia, but if we
cannot get him there, I refuse to release my hold on Ambassador
Hoagland because of his testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee," he said, according to the Armenian National Committee of
America (ANCA).

Evans also attended the event along with about two dozen lawmakers.

"If we dare not call the 1915 events genocide, we make it more likely
that current genocides, such as that in Darfur, will continue and
future genocides will occur," he was reported to say.

The ANCA is strongly opposed to Hoagland’s appointment, having
branded him a "genocide denier." But the more moderate Armenian
Assembly of America has effectively urged the Senate to confirm Bush’s
nominee. Assembly leaders say that Hoagland never explicitly denied
the genocide and that the prolonged absence of a U.S. ambassador in
Yerevan is damaging Armenia’s interests.

Both lobbying groups criticized Bush on Tuesday for his continuing
refusal to characterize the Armenian massacres as genocide. In a
statement, Aram Hamparian, the ANCA executive director, said the
president "missed yet another opportunity to speak with moral clarity
about the Armenian Genocide and to bring America back to the right
side of this key human rights issue."

"I join my fellow Americans and Armenian people around the world in
commemorating this tragedy and honoring the memory of the innocent
lives that were taken," Bush said in his April 24 statement. "The
world must never forget this painful chapter of its history."

Bush said a "sincere and open examination of the historic events of
the late-Ottoman period" should be an "essential part" of efforts to
improve Turkish-Armenian relations. He went on to praise Washington’s
"strong and vibrant ties" with Armenia. "Our Nation is grateful for
Armenia’s contributions to the war on terror, particularly for its
efforts to help build a peaceful and democratic Iraq," he said.

The ANCA the Assembly have been lobbying Congress to pass a
resolution affirming the genocide and urging the U.S. president to
do the same. The draft resolution was introduced to the House of
Representatives in January and has since been co-sponsored by more
than 190 members of the chamber. Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other top
House Democrats have supported such bills in the past.

KOCHARIAN VOWS ‘PARTICULAR ATTENTION’ TO ARMY
By Emil Danielyan

Radio Liberty, Czech Republic
April 25 2007

President Robert Kocharian promised more government efforts to reform
and strengthen the military as he introduced Armenia’s newly appointed
defense minister, Colonel-General Mikael Harutiunian, to the Defense
Ministry staff on Wednesday.

The appointment was announced by Kocharian’s office late Tuesday.

In a separate presidential decree, Harutiunian, 61, was dismissed as
chief of the army staff and discharged from the Armed Forces to run
the Defense Ministry as a civilian. That significantly increases his
chances of serving as defense minister in Armenia’s next government
to be formed after the May 12 parliamentary elections.

Harutiunian, 61, was until now not regarded as the favorite to occupy
the post that became vacant following Serzh Sarkisian’s appointment as
prime minister on April 4. Two other top army generals, Seyran Ohanian
and Artur Aghabekian, were thought to be more likely to get the job.

Addressing the ministry staff, Kocharian said Harutiunian will
strengthen the army and carry on with defense reforms stemming from
Armenia’s individual partnership action plan with NATO. "Security
is a high priority for the country, and our policy is aimed and
will be aimed at further boosting the army’s combat-readiness and
paying particular attention to security issues in general," he said
in televised remarks.

Kocharian also thanked Sarkisian for his "large-scale and effective
work" at the helm of the Defense Ministry.

TSARUKIAN ALLY TO SUE GOVERNMENT-BACKED RIVAL
By Ruzanna Khachatrian

Radio Liberty, Czech Republic
April 25 2007

The election candidate of Gagik Tsarukian’s Prosperous Armenia Party
(BHK) in a constituency in the southeastern Vayots Dzor region demanded
on Wednesday that his main rival representing the governing Republican
Party (HHK) be disqualified from the race.

The candidate, Sergey Bagratian, claimed that Samvel Sargsian, Vayots
Dzor’s Republican governor running for parliament, is campaigning
during work hours and using state symbols in violation of Armenia’s
election law. He also accused Sargsian of forcing local government
employees to campaign for his victory in the election. He said this
is sufficient grounds for removing the HHK-backed from the ballot.

Bagratian’s demand for his rival’s disqualification from the campaign
was rejected by the district election commission as unfounded
last week, however. Only one of the commission’s nine members, who
represents the Armenian Revolutionary Federation, found it justified.

Bagratian said he will take his case to a local court. Speaking at
a news conference in Yerevan, he showed a campaign poster in which
his rival is pictured against the backdrop of the Armenian flag.

Armenia’s election code bans election candidates from using the flag,
the national emblem or any other state symbol in their campaigns.

The BHK candidate himself is facing accusations of unfair play voiced
by the Republicans. They say, in particular, that he is handing out
vote bribes to Vayots Dzor residents.

Bagratian admitted distributing flour to local voters but denied
that this constitutes vote buying. "Flour was indeed distributed in
the region by all parties," he said. "As you know, it was presented
as charitable work. I don’t think people were asked to vote for a
particular candidate in return."

"I have repeatedly stated that that is benevolence and that nobody
has to vote for the force which distributes aid," he added.

The BHK has been dogged by allegations of vote buying since Tsarukian
began providing agricultural relief, free medical aid and other
public services to scores of people across the country last fall. The
tycoon and his aides claim that the aid is not connected with the
May 12 elections.

Bagratian also acknowledged that his son was placed under a criminal
investigation after assaulting tax officials in Vayots Dzor last
month. "Tax officials there were forcing people to vote for the
governor," he explained. "When you complain and your complaint is
ignored, you are forced to fight with folksy methods. We don’t like
those methods and have apologized to the people for the incident."

It is not clear whether tensions in the Vayots Dzor constituency
will contribute to a potential confrontation between the two top
election contenders, which is anticipated by some commentators. BHK
and HHK candidates are facing each other only in a handful of the 41
single-member electoral districts.

US AMBASSADOR ANNE DERSE: NAGORNO KARABAKH IS A PART OF AZERBAIJAN

Azeri Press Agency, Azerbaijan
April 25 2007

"I know how delicate question is Nagorno Karabakh for Azerbaijani
government and every Azerbaijani. I understand uneasiness of people
about different interpretation of the Nagorno Karabakh issue and
its status.

I restate that the United States has not changed its position on
Nagorno Karabakh and its status," US ambassador to Azerbaijan Anne
Derse told journalists, APA reports.

The Ambassador said the US recognizes Azerbaijan’s independence,
sovereignty and territorial integrity. "We never denied that Nagorno
Karabakh is a part of Azerbaijan. Nagorno Karabakh is not recognized
and will not be recognized. We accept it as the part of Azerbaijan.

We are making strong efforts within the Minsk Group to reach peaceful
solution of the conflict. We will further carry out our important
mission as a friend and partner of Azerbaijan," the US Ambassador
underlined.