Author: Andres-Papazian

PM: NAGORNO-KARABAKH CONFLICT RESOLUTION WILL AFFECT NORMALIZATION OF TURKISH-ARMENIAN RELATIONS

Trend News Agency
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News
March 16, 2011 Wednesday
Baku, Azerbaijan

March 16–BAKU MARCH 16 / , Azerbaijan — Resolution of the
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict will affect a normalization of the
Turkish-Armenian relations, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip
Erdogan Enhanced Coverage LinkingRecep Tayyip Erdogan -Search using:
Biographies Plus News News, Most Recent 60 Days said at the Moscow
State Institute on Wednesday, the Russia 24 television channel
reported.

“Resolution of the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict will play a certain role
in a normalization of the Turkey — Armenia relations,” Erdogan said.

Diplomatic relations between Armenia and Turkey have been broken due
to Armenia’s claims of an alleged genocide, and its occupation of
Azerbaijani lands. The border between them has been broken since 1993.

The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988
when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. Armenian
armed forces have occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan since 1992,
including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and 7 surrounding districts.

Azerbaijan and Armenia signed a ceasefire agreement in 1994. The
co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group — Russia, France, and the U.S. —
are currently holding the peace negotiations.

Armenia has not yet implemented the U.N. Security Council’s four
resolutions on the liberation of the Nagorno-Karabakh and the
surrounding regions.

Erdogan also stressed Russia’s role in the negotiation process.

“Organization of the trilateral talks with Russia, Azerbaijan and
Armenia is an important initiative,” Erdogan said.

The meeting held in Sochi on March 5 was the eighth tripartite meeting
of the Presidents of Azerbaijan, Armenia and Russia.

Astrakhan hosted a trilateral meeting of the presidents of Azerbaijan,
Armenia and Russia — Ilham Aliyev, Dmitry Medvedev Enhanced Coverage
LinkingDmitry Medvedev -Search using: Biographies Plus News News,
Most Recent 60 Days and Serzh Sargsyan on Oct. 27. The parties signed
a declaration envisaging the return of POWs. It is of humanitarian
nature.

Erdogan said the Turkey- Russia cooperation will create conditions
for development and prosperity of throughout the region.

Erdogan, who arrived with a three-day visit to Moscow on Tuesday, is
expected to hold talks with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev Enhanced
Coverage LinkingDmitry Medvedev -Search using: Biographies Plus News
News, Most Recent 60 Days and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin today.

The meetings will focus on trade and economic cooperation, including
the construction of Turkey’s first nuclear power plant, Samsun-Ceyhan
oil pipeline and South Stream.

As a part of the visit timed to the 90th anniversary of the
Russia-Turkey treaty of friendship, Erdogan will attend the
Russian-Turkish Cooperation Council’s meeting.

He is accompanied by seven ministers, including foreign, energy,
industry and agriculture, as well as about 200 representatives of
Turkish business circles.

On Tuesday, Medvedev and Erdogan already met at a working dinner and
discussed economic cooperation between the two countries, including
in energy sector. Medvedev and Erdogan also discussed regional issues
including the situation in Iraq and the Middle East in general.

From: A. Papazian

OSCE, ARMENIAN OFFICIALS DISCUSS ASSEMBLIES BILL

Mediamax
March 11 2011
Armenia

Yerevan, 11 March: The director of the OSCE ODIHR [Office for
Democratic Institutions and Human Rights], Ambassador Janez Lenarcic,
believes that the Armenian draft law “On assemblies” is an “essential
step” on the path towards establishment of democratic values.

Lenarcic said this at meeting with a deputy chief of the [Armenian]
Police, Artur Osikyan, in Yerevan, the press service of the Armenian
Police reported.

Osikyan said representatives of the Police had taken an active part
in designing the draft law.

The sides reached agreement at the meeting that the OSCE ODIHR would
provide experts to the Armenian Police

From: A. Papazian

OSCE CALLS FOR WITHDRAWAL OF ARMENIAN AND AZERBAIJANI SNIPERS AROUND NAGORNO-KARABAKH
BYLINE: Matt Clements

Global Insight
March 15, 2011

The Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE)
yesterday (14 March) urged Armenia and Azerbaijan to remove snipers
from around the Nagorno-Karabakh enclave. In making the request,
OSCE Chairman-in-Office and Lithuanian minister of foreign affairs
Audronius Azubalis was quoted by Reuters as saying “the withdrawal
of snipers would set a good example and would be appreciated by the
political community”. The comments came after Azerbaijan claimed that
a 10-year-old boy was killed by an Armenian sniper on 8 March close
to the Line of Contact (LoC) that separates the two sides around the
separatist region of Nagorno-Karabakh. Armenia has denied that the
incident took place.

The OSCE statement comes as the organisation’s mediators visit
Baku as part of a tour of the region that will also take them to
Nagorno-Karabakh and the Armenian capital Yerevan. There have been a
number of fatal clashes between Armenian and Azerbaijani forces around
Nagorno-Karabakh in recent months, leading to a number of deaths. This
has been accompanied by major increases in defence spending by
Azerbaijan, with the 2011 defence budget reaching USD3.1 billion.

However, talks between the Armenian and Azerbaijani leadership on
a settlement to the issue of Nagorno-Karabakh have continued, with
talks being held most recently on 5 March (seeArmenia – Azerbaijan:
5 March 2011:).

Significance:The OSCE is seeking to calm tensions around
Nagorno-Karabakh amid ongoing clashes and provocative statements,
particularly by the Azerbaijani leadership. However, there is little
chance that either side will be willing to withdraw any military
forces from around the LoC. Nevertheless, despite these tensions and
an ongoing arms race between the two states, there is little risk
of any renewed conflict, at least over the short to medium term,
although the longer settlement talks remain stalemated, the greater
the risk that localised tensions could escalate to a dangerous level.

From: A. Papazian

OSCE MINSK GROUP COCHAIRMEN HOLD POLITICAL CONSULTATIONS IN BAKU

ITAR-TASS
March 15 2011
Russia

The OSCE Minsk Group cochairmen mediating the Karabakh peace process
held political consultations in Baku on Tuesday.

“The international mediators met with Foreign Minister Elmar Mamedyarov
to discuss the settlement of the Karabakh conflict,” the Azerbaijani
Foreign Ministry said.

The Russian, U.S. and French cochairmen also met with Azerbaijani
President Ilham Aliyev “to discuss the current state and prospects
for the negotiations,” the ministry said.

The intermediaries left Baku for Armenia for further consultations.

The French intermediary told reporters before the departure that they
focused on the latest Sochi meeting of the Azerbaijani, Armenian and
Russian presidents, a report of the OSCE monitoring mission and the
pullout of snipers from the contact line. He said that the report
would not be published until it was studied by all the sides.

As for the latest incidents along the contact line, he said that the
cochairmen had been insisting on the pullout of snipers for two years.

From: A. Papazian

JAPAN NPP ACCIDENTS NOT TO AFFECT WORLD NUCLEAR POWER GENERATION

ITAR-TASS
March 15 2011
Russia

The State Duma lower house of the Russian parliament believes that the
accidents at Japanese nuclear power plants caused by the devastating
earthquake on March 11, will not make a negative influence on the
development of world nuclear power generation.

“It is difficult to say what nuclear power plant can stand magnitude
9 tremor, given the fact that Japan’s nuclear power engineering
factored in seismicity from the beginning,” deputy speaker Valery
Yazev, who supervises the energy theme, told Itar-Tass.

“We /Russia/ don’t build NPPs in such zones. However, you remember
that the Armenian nuclear power plant, in effect, withstood the test
of earthquake,” Yazev said.

In this connection, Yazev did not rule out that the situation in
Japan “will complicate decision-making,” for example, by Europe, on a
sweeping increase in the number of nuclear power generation facilities.

He agreed that “perhaps, it is not expedient to build NPPs in certain
regions of the world given such factors as high seismicity.”

“But this does not imply that one has to scale it down altogether,”
the parliamentarian said.

Furthermore, Yazev believes that despite the demolitions and difficult
situation in the area of Japanese NPPs, the nuclear power generation
of that country “passed the test by an earthquake of that unique
magnitude.”

“Nobody will be stopping the functioning plants. A nuclear renaissance
is obviously underway in the world, with decisions on building new
NPPs made in Europe, Asia and the USA.

“Perhaps, the critics of these decisions will get additional arguments
as they look at Japan now, but the world almost has no such regions,
except Japan, which would have unique seismic situation and nuclear
power generation.

“So I don not think that by mature analysis, this /situation in
Japan/ will introduce some negative factors in the development of
world nuclear power generation. However, it will give everybody,
including Russia, additional information, in order to work out extra
means of protection of the earthquake of that magnitude,” Yazev said.

From: A. Papazian

OSCE ASSESSMENT MISSION’S REPORT SUBMITTED TO AZERBAIJANI SIDE (UPDATE)

Trend Daily News
March 15, 2011 Tuesday 7:35 PM GMT +4
Azerbaijan

French co-chair’s remarks and background added after the first
paragraph (the first version was posted at 16:20)

Azerbaijan, Baku, March 15 / Trend, V. Zhavoronkova / A report of the
OSCE assessment mission on the situation in the occupied territories
of Azerbaijan has been submitted to the Azerbaijani side, the OSCE
Minsk Group’s French co-chair Bernard Fassier told journalists before
his departure from Baku.

“OSCE Minsk Group has decided not to publicize the assessment mission’s
report on the occupied territories until all sides have been briefed
on its content. The report has been submitted to only Azerbaijani
President Ilham Aliyev yet, who has read it, as the other side,
after which the co-chairs and the conflict sides will discuss its
content during next meeting,” Fassier said.

The OSCE assessment mission examined the situation in the Azerbaijani
occupied territories at Azerbaijan’s initiative in early October 2010.

The co-chairs also discussed the method of investigation of incidents
at the contact line that occurred before and after three presidents’
summit in Sochi in the light of a declaration signed there.

“Learning about the incident with the child, we issued a press
communique, and started our investigation. The OSCE Special
Representative Andrzej Kasprzyk and his team are engaged in it,”
Fassier said.

He said that the investigation is underway and it is early to speak
about its outcome.

“We’ve always talked about the need to strengthen the ceasefire. The
co-chairs have been insisting on withdrawal of snipers from the
contact line already for two years. If this request is fulfilled,
such an incident will not happen,” Fassier said.

The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988
when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. Armenian
armed forces have occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan since 1992,
including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and 7 surrounding districts.

Azerbaijan and Armenia signed a ceasefire agreement in 1994. The
co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group – Russia, France, and the U.S. –
are currently holding the peace negotiations.

Armenia has not yet implemented the U.N. Security Council’s four
resolutions on the liberation of the Nagorno-Karabakh and the
surrounding regions.

Presidents of Azerbaijan, Russia and Armenia Ilham Aliyev, Dmitry
Medvedev and Serzh Sargsyan met at the Krasnaya Polyana ski resort
near Sochi on March 5.

After the talks, the presidents of Azerbaijan, Russia and Armenia
adopted a joint statement on the Nagorno-Karabakh settlement. The
document stresses the desire to resolve all disputed issues by peaceful
means and to investigate possible incidents along the ceasefire line,
with the participation of the parties under the aegis of the OSCE Minsk
Group co-chairmen with the assistance of the Special Representative
of the OSCE Chairman.

From: A. Papazian

TURKISH EXPERT: NPP IN ARMENIA – ATOMIC BOMB THAT CAN EXPLODE AT ANY MINUTE

Trend Daily News
March 15, 2011 Tuesday 7:22 PM GMT +4
Azerbaijan

Given that the Metsamor nuclear power plant was built based on nuclear
technology of the first generation, and is located on a seismically
active area, at present the plant poses a great threat to Armenia
and neighboring countries, expert believes.

“This is not just a nuclear power plant, it is an atomic bomb that
can explode at any minute,” the head of the Turkish Center for
International Relations and Strategic Analysis (TURKSAM), chairman
of the Turkish-Azerbaijani Circle (TAD) Sinan Ogan said.

Metsamor nuclear power plant, which began its work in 1976, is located
in a seismically active area approximately in 30 kilometers from
west of Yerevan. After the devastating earthquake in Spitak in 1988,
Armenian authorities decided to close the Metsamor NPP. But economic
straits have forced the country’s leadership to restore the plant’s
activity in 1993. The reactor’s operation term expired in 2001.

Ogan believes that the explosion which occurred at the nuclear power
plant in Japan should serve as a lesson to all, and the world community
should think about what consequences may be if an earthquake measuring
at least seven points hits Armenia.

“A nuclear power plant in Japan was constructed based on nuclear
technology of the third generation, while the Metsamor nuclear power
plant was built, according to the nuclear technology of the first
generation, and this increases its danger for the region,” he added.

Ogan said that given the fact that Armenia is an undemocratic state,
the country’s population can not protest against this plant’s
operation.

From: A. Papazian

YEREVAN AGREES TO RETURN TWO AZERBAIJANI SOLDIERS WITHOUT PRECONDITIONS

Trend Daily News
March 15, 2011 Tuesday 12:22 PM GMT +4
Azerbaijan

Armenia is ready to return two Azerbaijani POWs that are at the
Armenian side’s disposal without any preconditions through the
International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).

As reliable sources told Mediamax, the transfer of the POWs to
Azerbaijan can take place only if the POWs agree to the transfer.

The Armenian Defense Ministry said on March 14 that it is ready to
transfer the Azerbaijani POWs in pursuance of agreements reached
between the two countries’ presidents on March 5.

The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988
when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. Armenian
armed forces have occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan since 1992,
including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and 7 surrounding districts.

Azerbaijan and Armenia signed a ceasefire agreement in 1994. The
co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group – Russia, France, and the U.S. –
are currently holding the peace negotiations.

Armenia has not yet implemented the U.N. Security Council’s four
resolutions on the liberation of the Nagorno-Karabakh and the
surrounding regions.

From: A. Papazian

ARMENIAN NUCLEAR POWER PLANT CONSTITUTES NO THREAT: AUTHORITIES

Xinhua General News Service
March 15, 2011 Tuesday 1:16 AM EST
China

Nuclear energy authorities of Armenia on Tuesday assured the public
that the country’s nuclear power plant is operating in normal
exploitation regime and therefore constitutes no safety threat to
the country or the region.

Ashot Martirosyan, chief of the Armenian state committee for nuclear
security, told local media that there is no need for additional
safety control, as the emergency situation at the Fukushima nuclear
power plant in Japan has made Armenian specialists more careful and
attentive to the country’s own nuclear power plant.

Apart from the routine observations by Russian, European and American
experts, Martirosyan said, the International Atomic Energy Agency
(IAEA) will send German experts in April to check on the Armenian
nuclear power plant.

Known as Metsamor, the Armenian nuclear power plant was built in 1976
some 30 kilometers west of the country’s capital Yerevan.

The Metsamor nuclear plant was closed down due to the 1988 7.2-
magnitude earthquake in the country, but was re-opened in 1993 due
to an acute electricity shortage. One of the two Metsamor nuclear
reactors was brought back into operation in 1995 and is now expected
to be phased out of operation in 2016.

The authorities of Armenia formally agreed in 2007 to close down
the Metsamor plant after several years of pressure from the European
Union and the United States, which allege that the nuclear plant has
inherent safety issues. The European Union has reportedly classified
the Metsamor light water-cooled reactors as the “oldest and least
reliable” reactors of all the 66 Soviet reactors built in Eastern
Europe and the former Soviet republics.

The Metsamor plant now produces 40 percent of Armenia’s electricity.

Armenia is currently mulling the construction of a new nuclear power
plant of either 1,000 or 1,200 megawatts.

Global concerns about nuclear safety were sparked by last Friday’s
9.0-magnitude earthquake and tsunami in Japan, which caused explosions
and exposure of the radioactive materials at the Fukushima nuclear
power plant.

From: A. Papazian

AZERBAIJAN, GEORGIA CONCERNED ABOUT SAFETY OF ARMENIA’S NUCLEAR POWER PLANT

Xinhua General News Service
March 15, 2011 Tuesday 1:16 AM EST

Nuclear specialists in Azerbaijan and Georgia on Tuesday aired
concerns about the safety of the Metsamor nuclear power plant in
their neighboring country of Armenia in the wake of the Fukushima
nuclear emergency in Japan.

Adil Garibov, director of the radiation problems institute under the
Azerbaijani National Academy of Sciences, said that the functioning
of the Metsamor plant is dangerous for the region.

The specialist made the comment while referring to the Fukushima
emergency in Japan.

“As an expert, I can say that it is time to stop the operation of this
reactor,” said Adil Garibov, “According to the UN relevant conventions,
the use of harmful and hazardous technologies must be evaluated by
neighboring countries.

“The term of operation of the reactor was completed in 2001. During
former IAEA head Mohamed ElBaradei’s visit to Azerbaijan in 2002,
Heydar Aliyev (former president of Azerbaijan) raised this issue
and said that this atomic power station must stop working as it uses
old technologies.”

In Tbilisi, capital of Georgia, another nuclear specialist also
aired concerns by saying that the Armenian nuclear power plant would
constitute a real threat to the South Caucasus region should there
be a major earthquake in the country.

Gia Arabidze, dean of the energy and telecommunication faculty of
the Technical University of Georgia, made the comment on Tuesday.

Known as Metsamor, the Armenian nuclear power plant was closed down in
1988 due to that year’s 7.2-magnitude earthquake in the country. It
was re-opened in 1993 due to an acute electricity shortage. One of
the two Metsamor reactors was re-commissioned to operation to generate
up to 40 percent of Armenia’s electricity now.

The authorities of Armenia formally agreed in 2007 to close down the
Metsamor nuclear power plant after several years of pressure from
the European Union and the United States.

The European Union reportedly classified the Metsamor reactors as the
“oldest and least reliable” reactors among all the 66 Soviet reactors
built in Eastern Europe in the former Soviet republics.

The Metsamor nuclear power plant uses the light water-cooled reactors
built in 1976.

However, nuclear energy authorities of Armenia on Tuesday assured
the public that the country’s nuclear power plant is operating in
normal exploitation regime and therefore constitutes no threat to
the country or to the region.

Ashot Martirosyan, chief of the Armenian state committee for nuclear
security, told local media that there is no need for additional
safety control in that the emergency situation at the Fukushima
nuclear power plant in Japan had already made Armenian specialists
more careful and attentive to the country’s own nuclear power plant.

Apart from the routine observations by Russian, European and American
experts, according to Ashot Martirosyan, the IAEA will send German
experts in April to check against the Armenian nuclear power plant.

From: A. Papazian