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DAVID ATKINSON’S NAME WILL SOON BE FORGOTTEN

A1+
31-01-2005

David Atkinson is from now on an average delegate in PACE without any
other advantages. That is to say, he is on the same conditions with
the other 320 delegates, so the interview he gave to the BBC about the
Karabakh conflict is the opinion of an ordinary delegate.

`They could ask the opinion of the other delegates with the same
success’, says Tigran Torosyan. By the way, in 4 days parliamentary
elections will beheld in Great Britain, in which, according to Tigran
Torosyan, David Atkinson will not take part.

After Atkinson’s report and the adoption of the resolution Armenia is
entering a new phase. A new reporter will be appointed for the region
and anew report will be made. Tigran Torosyan expects that the new
Reporter will represent matters clearly. `I’m sure the situation that
was created with Atkinson will no more be repeated’.

Tigran Torosyan is also convinced that as time goes on, the society
will evaluate the new PACE resolution properly. By the way, the
National Assembly deputy principle foresees that in PACE the future of
the Azerbaijanis is much graver: `Either they will be a country who
has not carried out his responsibilities, or they will have to change
their point of view’.

As for those political figures who still think that the resolution
adopted in PACE will have negative impact on Armenia, Tigran Torosyan
invites them to a discussion. During the discussion he is going to
consider the PACE report point by point.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Armenian Defence Ministry denies tanks repaired in Georgia

Arminfo
2 Feb 05

YEREVAN

Armenian tanks are not being repaired at the Tbilisi tank repairing
plant, Col Seyran Shakhsuvaryan, press secretary of the Armenian
Defence Ministry, has told our Arminfo correspondent.

In an article headlined “A military scandal is brewing between Georgia
and Azerbaijan” in the Baku-based newspaper Zerkalo, the author
maintains that Armenian tanks are being repaired at that plant.

“If Tbilisi continues repairing Armenian tanks, this issue will be
discussed at a parliament session,” the article points out.

[Passage omitted: Details of the Zerkalo article]

OSCE mission interviews locals on their life in Karabakh – Armenian TV

Public Television of Armenia, Yerevan
2 Feb 05

[Presenter] The OSCE fact-finding mission has thanked the Nagornyy
Karabakh authorities for helping their mission. However, the
co-chairmen of the [OSCE] Minsk Group and the members of the
fact-finding mission are not pleased with their visit because the
facts that have been discovered and the documents presented to them in
Baku are not identical. Stepanakert [Xankandi] has repeatedly stated
that it has nothing to hide. This group, which is looking for people
who have settled there, covered a long distance to meet them.

The members of the mission visited Dadivank, one of the medieval
Armenian temples in Kalbacar District, and lit a candle
there. Incidentally, we should point that the US co-chairman of the
Minsk Group, Steven Mann, has already returned from Stepanakert and
left for Washington. The members of the mission visited Agdam without
Mann and saw for themselves that there is no state-run settlement
programme there.

[Correspondent over video of Agdam District and OSCE mission] The OSCE
fact-finding mission has visited Agdam District and several
residential areas around it. The convoy of vehicles first pulled over
near the Agdam mosque. The members of the mission looked at the
surrounding territory from the minaret of the mosque. It was difficult
to say what the mission was looking for in the rubble. They met a few
people who are barely surviving in Agdam. Saying that the
participation of non-authorized personnel was hampering their work,
the experts expressed their desire to talk to residents privately.

[Local resident Levon Arutyunyan] They asked where I was during the
conflict. I said I was in Armenia and then I came here. Then they
[the OSCE mission] wondered about our life here.

[Correspondent] The area where the Arutyunyan family are living at the
moment is called Nor Maraga. The residents of two villages of the
Leninavan state farm, which was one of the biggest and richest state
farms of Karabakh, settled here after they were forced to leave their
place of residence in 1992.

[Local resident Susanna Markosyan] We left our homes, came here and
now live in their flattened houses. Let them return our houses so that
we can go back and live there.

[Unidentified local resident] I am not receiving help from anywhere,
but they think we are getting help.

[Correspondent] The former Maraga residents told the experts about the
atrocities of the Azerbaijani OMON [Special Purpose Police Detachment]
in their village in April 1992. They said that 200 civilians were
brutally killed. A total of 194 people were taken captive and more
than 30 civilians were wounded. Only 400 of Maraga’s 5,000 residents
have settled in this liberated territory. The remaining Maraga
residents went to other countries like the residents of other villages
forced out of Azerbaijan. The members of the fact-finding mission
encountered the same situation in other settlements controlled by
Karabakh.

The head of the mission, Emily Margarethe Haber, answered journalists’
questions after that.

[Haber] I think that all conditions have been created for us to
accomplish our mission.

[Correspondent] Narine Agabalyan and Benik Garakhanyan, “Haylur”,
Stepanakert.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

ITAR-TASS News Agency
TASS
February 1, 2005 Tuesday

Stepanakert ready to cooperate with OSCE mission

By Tigran Liloyan

YEREVAN

Stepanakert is “ready to create all necessary conditions” for the
work of the mission of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation
in Europe (OSCE) and “provide a possibility for visiting any region
of interest to the monitoring group,” President of the unrecognised
Nagorno-Karabakh Republic (NKR) Arkady Gukasyan said receiving the
OSCE mission members who arrived in Stepanakert on Sunday.

According to him, Nagorno-Karabakh authorities are open for
cooperation with the OSCE mission” in collecting of facts about
Armenian settlements in the occupied Azerbaijani territories.

Gukasyan also expressed the hope that the OSCE mission report will
promote the establishment of a constructive atmosphere around the
Karabakh conflict peaceful settlement.

According to the mission head, director of the OSCE department in the
German Foreign Ministry Emily Haber, the mission is rather of
technical nature and does not pursue the goal of giving political
assessment to the situation.

In accordance with the trip plan, the OSCE mission every day will
visit one of seven regions of Azerbaijan occupied by the Armenian
side as a result of combat operations of 1992-1994.

Along with experts from Germany, Italy, Finland and Sweden the
monitoring group also comprises co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group of
Russia, France and the United States.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

ITAR-TASS News Agency
TASS
February 2, 2005 Wednesday 4:19 AM Eastern Time

Russia hopes compromise to be reached in Karabakh settlement

By Kseniya Kaminskaya, Viktor Shulman

BAKU

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Wednesday that Russia
actively participates in the settlement in the mostly Armenian
populated Azerbaijani enclave of Nagorno Karabakh, and expects that a
compromise will be reached in that conflict.

“Russia actively participates in the Karabakh settlement as well as
in the settlement of conflicts in Georgia and Moldova,” Lavrov said
after talks with his Azerbaijani counterpart Elmar Mamedyarov.

As Co-Chair of the OSCE Minsk Group, Russia “has been concentrated
for the past few months on the issue of a peace settlement of the
Karabakh conflict, taking into consideration the ‘Prague Process’.”

In 2004, the Co-Chairs (Russia, France and the United States)
initiated a series of meetings in Prague between the Foreign
Ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan. The “Prague Process” was
designed to reinvigorate dialogue between the sides.

“The Russian co-chairman of the Minsk Group on Nagorno Karabakh, Yuri
Merzlyakov, has recently met with American colleagues,” Lavrov said.
“We expect that the process will end in a compromise,” he emphasized.

Focusing on conflicts in Georgia, the minister said “Moscow comes out
in favor of the implementation of all earlier reached agreements on
Abkhazia, including the Sochi agreements” as well as in favor of
“stabilization of the situation in South Ossetia”.

The Sochi agreements include a return of refugees to the Gali
district of Georgia’s self-style republic, resumption of rail traffic
from Sochi to Tbilisi via Abkhazia, and the renovation of the Inguri
Hydroelectric Station.

“So far as the Dniester Region settlement is concerned, Moscow
believes the memorandum of Dmitry Kozak is a basis for an agreement,”
he said. According to the minister “all components exist for the
settlement of the Dniester Region issue”.

He said Russia would keep working on those settlements with due
regard for its status. In reply to a query about contacts between
Baku and NATO, Lavrov remarked that Azerbaijan “chooses foreign
policy partners proceeding from its interests”. He also stressed that
“Russia enjoys good relations with NATO, which reflects our
interests”.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

ITAR-TASS News Agency
TASS
January 28, 2005 Friday

Armenian activities on occupied lands affect talks – diplomat

By Sevindzh Abdullayeva, Viktor Shulman

BAKU

Intensified actions of Armenia on the occupied Azerbaijani lands
“have a negative effect on the negotiations,” Deputy Foreign Minister
and special representative of the Azerbaijani president to the
Karabakh settlement negotiations Araz Azimov said at a Friday
briefing in Baku.

He said the question of illegal settlements on occupied lands, which
Azerbaijan had raised at the United Nations, was very important.
Azerbaijan “raised the question not for the sake of political
speculations but proceeding from international legal norms,” he said.

“We are ready for negotiations with Armenia but we think that
activities on the occupied lands have a negative effect on the
negotiations. So we suggest stopping these activities,” Azimov said.

He said materials on settlements and economic activities on the
occupied lands had been transferred to the OSCE mission made up of
experts of Russia, the United States, France, Germany, Sweden,
Finland and Italy.

The mission will go to the occupied lands in a day to familiarize
with the local situation, verify facts received from Azerbaijan and
draft a report. The report as such “will not solve the problem,” the
diplomat said. “Our main goal is to stop activities of the occupied
territories.”

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

ARMENIA THIS WEEK

Monday, February 1, 2005

In this issue:

NKR hosts international monitors

Kocharian meets Pope John Paul II, Italian leaders

Armenian leaders take part in Auschwitz commemoration

NKR HOSTS INTERNATIONAL MONITORS

French, Russian and U.S. envoys who have led the Karabakh mediation
efforts joined by officials from four other Organization for Security
and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) states, arrived in the region over the
weekend to inspect areas that have served as a security buffer for
Karabakh since 1993. The monitoring mission, proposed by the mediators
and agreed to by the conflicting parties last year, seeks to determine
the number and nature of Armenian settlements in formerly Azeri areas
under Armenian control.

Meeting with the delegation, Karabakh’s President Arkady Ghoukasian
welcomed their mission, suggesting that it could finally put to rest the
many Azeri claims about Karabakh. Azeri officials had refused to endorse
of similar monitoring in the past. The mission was agreed to last
November after Azerbaijan, succumbing to international pressure, agreed
not to press for a pro-Azeri United Nations resolution with support from
members of the Organization of Islamic Conference.

Azerbaijan has backed off serious negotiations over Karabakh’s status,
with its President Ilham Aliyev saying last year that he was not “in a
hurry” to settle the conflict. Instead Aliyev has called for
intensification of what his officials have described as “information
war” against Armenians in all international venues. The Azeri president
has also significantly boosted spending for the country’s military
forces, long plagued by under-funding and disarray, in an effort to
substantiate his frequent threats to unleash a new war in Karabakh.

Karabakh Defense Army Commander General Seyran Ohanian said last week
that judging by military intelligence reports, “Azerbaijan is not
prepared to start hostilities.” Nevertheless, his command was taking
Azeri threats seriously. Ohanian told a press conference that his forces
made significant progress in improving their defense posture and were
prepared to undertake retaliatory operations should fighting resume.
(Sources: Armenia This Week 11-1; Mediamax 1-26; RFE/RL Armenia Report
1-26; Noyan Tapan 1-27)

PRESIDENT KOCHARIAN VISITS WITH POPE JOHN PAUL II, ITALIAN LEADERS

Armenia’s President Robert Kocharian completed a three-day official
visit to Italy and the Vatican last week. Meeting with Kocharian, Pope
John Paul II underscored “friendly and respectful relations between the
Catholic Church and the Armenian Apostolic Church.” Armenia, having
adopted Christianity in 301 AD, some years before Rome, has had an
independent church since 451 AD. Relations between the two churches have
grown closer since a 1996 joint declaration that addressed theological
differences. Earlier this month, Pope John Paul II blessed the statue of
the Armenian Church founder, St. Gregory the Illuminator, that has been
placed among the founding saints that surround the exterior of St.
Peter’s Basilica in Rome. John Paul II, who visited both Armenia and
Azerbaijan in recent years, also expressed hope that “true and lasting
peace” comes to Nagorno Karabakh.

Kocharian also held talks with Italian President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi
and Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, discussing ways to expand
bilateral economic relations. Armenia’s trade with European Union member
countries has increased substantially in recent years and it now makes
up the largest share of Armenia’s overall foreign trade, but bilateral
trade with Italy stood at just $68 million last year. Kocharian was
accompanied by Trade and Agriculture ministers who met with Italian
businessmen and encouraged them to invest in Armenia. (Sources: Armenia
This Week 10-5-01, 9-6-02; Arminfo 1-28, 2-1; Zenit.org 1-28)

SENIOR ARMENIAN OFFICIALS TAKE PART IN AUSCHWITZ COMMEMORATION

Prime Minister Andranik Margarian and Foreign Minister Vartan Oskanian
last week traveled to Poland and New York, respectively, to pay respect
to victims of the Holocaust. Margarian took part in ceremonies at the
site of what was the largest Nazi death camp in Auschwitz, in
present-day southern Poland, and subsequent conference on the theme in
Krakow. Last week marked the 60th anniversary of Auschwitz’s liberation
by Soviet forces towards the end of World War II. Up to 6 million
civilians, most of them Jews, but also Russians, Poles, Gypsies and
homosexuals, died in the Holocaust, up to 1.5 million at Auschwitz
alone.

Oskanian joined counterparts from Germany, Israel and several other
states at the United Nations special session on the liberation of
Auschwitz. The U.S. was represented at the UN by Deputy Defense
Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, who lost most of his extended family in the
Holocaust, and by Vice-President Dick Cheney in Poland. At the UN,
Oskanian, himself a descendant of Genocide survivors, urged the
international community not to turn a blind eye to continued ethnic
persecution around the world and to undertake immediate action to stop
the ongoing genocidal campaign in Darfur. Speaking of the Holocaust, the
Armenian Genocide and other crimes against humanity, Oskanian stressed
the need for both the victims and perpetrators to transcend the trauma
by renouncing such evils and summoning the good will to forgive.
(Sources: Armenian Foreign Ministry 1-24; Reuters 1-25; Mediamax 1-31)

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

ArmenPress
Feb 1 2005

SPORT POLAND REFUSES FRIENDLY GAME WITH ARMENIA

YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 1, ARMENPRESS: Armenian Football Federation said
Poland’s national team refused to play a friendly game with Armenia,
as was agreed earlier, choosing instead a game with neighboring
Belarus.
The Federation said Armenian footballers will play a friendly game
with another country, either with Saudi Arabia or Mexico.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Assa-Irada, Azerbaijan
Feb 1 2005

OSCE fact-finding mission to visit Azerbaijan’s another occupied region

BAKU

A 10-member OSCE fact-finding mission led by representative of the
German Foreign Ministry, Emily Haver, visited Lachin District,
another Azerbaijani region occupied by Armenia, on Tuesday.
On Monday, the OSCE mission met with the Armenian families settled in
Kalbajar District and conducted a survey to determine how long they
have been settled in the region.
The fact-finding mission will carry out a week long monitoring of the
settlement of Armenians in 7 occupied regions of Azerbaijan.
A report to be prepared by the mission within 10 days will be
presented to the Vienna-based OSCE Permanent Council.
Haver told the Armenian media that some interesting facts had been
discovered during the surveys. `These facts will help give a true
assessment of the situation,’ she noted.*

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Assa-Irada, Azerbaijan
Jan 28 2005

`Armenia stands poor chance at deceiving fact-finding mission’

BAKU

The OSCE fact-finding mission will stay in the occupied Azerbaijani
territories for ten days at the most, Deputy Foreign Minister,
President’s special envoy on the Upper Garabagh conflict, Araz
Azimov, told a news conference on Friday.
The mission will start its work in the Kalbajar district and proceed
according to a map it will receive, containing all the data related
to the territories settled by Armenians.
Azimov said that there are no reasons for concerns over possible
attempts by Armenians to hide the territories that Azerbaijan
considers important and that they stand a poor chance at deceiving
the mission. He said that the mission representatives will be
responsible for visiting those areas and expressed confidence that
they will properly fulfill their duties.
Azimov said that upon conclusion of the visit, the OSCE mission will
compare the data it collects with the materials presented by
Azerbaijan and prepare a relevant report. The document based on these
facts, after being considered by the OSCE Minsk Group, will be
further submitted to the OSCE Permanent Council in Vienna.*

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress