Author: Antonian Lara

Russian paper analyses Putin’s meeting with separatist leaders

Nezavisimaya Gazeta, Moscow
7 Apr 05

The clandestine meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and
the leaders of the two unrecognized republic’s of South Ossetia and
Abkhazia last week was an unprecedented event and will have
interesting consequences for relations with Georgia, the Russian
newspaper Nezavisimaya Gazeta writes. According to an Abkhaz official,
the leaders discussed the peaceful settlement of the conflicts between
the two separatist republics and Georgia, of which they are legally
part. Tbilisi said news of the meeting came as no great surprise and
was symptomatic of Moscow’s ambivalent attitude towards its southern
neighbour. The following is the text of the report by the Russian
newspaper Nezavisimaya Gazeta on 7 April. Subheadings have been added
editorially:

Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin received the president of
Abkhazia, Sergey Bagapsh, and president of South Ossetia, Eduard
Kokoiti, at his Bocharov Ruchey residence in Sochi last Tuesday [5
April]. It was an entirely closed, effectively secret meeting: Its
participants declined to confirm or deny the very fact of the
tripartite talks.

Hushed-up talks

As Nezavisimaya Gazeta managed to ascertain, the meeting with the
unrecognized republics’ leaders was held in the second half of the day
virtually immediately after the completion of the Russian president’s
conversation with [EU High Representative for Common Foreign and
Security Policy] Javier Solana. However, there were no official
reports on the issue: Even employees of the leading news agencies were
asked to leave the residence. The duration of the meeting, let alone
the agenda of the talks, remained a mystery. No mention of the evening
event could be seen on the Kremlin’s official website the following
day. Nor did we manage to obtain any comments on the issue from the
presidential press service.

The presidents of the unrecognized republics themselves avoided making
any comments. The telephones of Bagapsh and Kokoiti suddenly “went out
of service” and remained out of service for a long time. Having said
that, some details of the Sochi meeting did surface yesterday,
although, as the Abkhaz president’s press secretary Kristian Bzhania
told Nezavisimaya Gazeta on the phone, “the very fact of Vladimir
Putin’s talks with Sergey Bagapsh and Eduard Kokoiti, indeed, was not
initially published”.

“It had been agreed that it would be an entirely closed meeting – no
comments and no coverage. Unfortunately, the information was somehow
leaked. Basically, we have to justify our actions now; we had to
disseminate a short official commentary on Wednesday [6 April],”
Bagapsh’s press secretary told Nezavisimaya Gazeta. According to him,
the meeting with Putin “was not planned in advance”. Negotiations
between the Abkhaz and South Ossetian presidents took place in Sochi
on Tuesday [5 April]. Bagapsh and Kokoiti were unexpectedly invited to
Bocharov Ruchey in the second half of the day,” Kristian Bzhania
said. He also read out the text of the official commentary released by
the Abkhaz president’s press service, according to which “prospects
for the peaceful settlement of the Georgian-Abkhaz and Georgian-South
Ossetian conflicts and issues of socioeconomic support for Russian
Federation citizens residing in Abkhazia were discussed during the
meeting”. The commentary also stated that “republic of Abkhazia leader
Sergey Bagapsh highly values the results of the meeting”. Bagapsh’s
spokesman attributed the brevity of the commentary to the fact that
Abkhazia “does not want to expose the Russian side” and hinted that “a
relevant request” had been received from Russia.

As regards South Ossetia, it did not comment in any way on the Sochi
meeting and has not even confirmed that the meeting took place.

Unprecedented event

It was an unprecedented event in Moscow’s relations with the
unrecognized republics. Admittedly, Putin met absolutely publicly with
the then Abkhaz president, Raul Khadzhimba, in Sochi last autumn. Back
then, however, everything happened sort-of spontaneously: Abkhaz World
War II veterans invited the Russian president to their meeting, and
Khadzhimba happened to be there “by chance”.

There were no “chances” this time around. Statements that Putin’s
meeting with the leaders of the unrecognized republics, which legally
are part of Georgia, was “unplanned” do not fully correspond to
reality. It was prepared in advance. Abkhazia’s foreign minister,
Sergey Shamba, made a chance remark to this effect in his interview
with Nezavisimaya Gazeta. Speaking about a hypothetical meeting
between incumbent Abkhaz leader Sergey Bagapsh and Georgian President
Mikheil Saakashvili, Shamba stated: “This kind of meeting, in addition
attended by South Ossetia’s president, Eduard Kokoiti, could have been
held in Sochi the other day, mediated by Russian Federation President
Vladimir Putin. Unfortunately, Tbilisi did not express any interest
in this opportunity.”

Meanwhile, Tbilisi showed heightened interest in the 5 April
negotiations between the Russian president and the leaders of Abkhaz
and South Ossetian separatists in Tbilisi. As Nezavisimaya Gazeta was
told at the Georgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, “the country’s
foreign policy department will present Moscow with an extremely sharp
protest note as early as Wednesday night [6 April].” Georgian
Minister of State for Conflict Settlement Giorgi Khaindrava also
expressed official Tbilisi’s standpoint on the meeting before his
departure to Geneva to attend a Georgian-Abkhaz meeting under the
auspices of the Group of Friends of the UN Secretary-General for
Georgia. “The very fact of the Russian president’s meeting with the
separatist leaders is nothing sensational for us,” he stated. “We have
repeatedly seen that Russia, on the one hand, sort of supports
Georgia’s territorial integrity and even pledges its friendship to
Georgia, but, on the other hand, supports separatist movements in
every possible way. The only new thing is that this is now done at
the highest, presidential level.”

Interesting consequences

All the indications are that the Sochi meeting will have interesting
consequences. Having said that, these consequences can already be
seen: On Tuesday evening, the Georgian authorities banned the flight
of a Russian A-50 radar surveillance military plane through the
country’s airspace. The plane was heading for Armenia to take part in
a major exercise held by the Russian air force. The Russian military
interpreted Tbilisi’s actions as unfriendly. However, President
Saakashvili immediately stated harshly that he “does not quite
understand” the Russian side’s complaints. “Georgia is a country of
the law. Everything is regulated within legal boundaries and,
naturally, we cannot allow foreign aircraft to fly over our country
whenever they want,” he said when commenting on the incident over the
Russian military plane. He then linked it to the problem of Russian
military bases in Georgia. According to Saakashvili, these kinds of
situations will recur in Russian-Georgian relations until a specific
decision to withdraw the bases has been made. “Negotiations are
currently under way between Georgia and Russia on the dates and terms
for the withdrawal of the Russian military bases still stationed on
Georgian territory. The Russian military have stayed in Georgia for
around 200 years without any legal grounds. It is probably more than
enough. It is now time to move on to a more civilized form of
relations. We are discussing with Russia how to achieve a civilized
solution to the military bases problem. We suggested its
stage-by-stage withdrawal and offered it various transit rights, but
everything has to be done in a package. The first round of
negotiations took place on 3 April; the second round will take place
from 7 to 8 April, and I hope that we will soon get some clarity on
the issue.” The Georgian leader implied that the exact dates for the
liquidation of the Batumi and Akhalkalaki bases would soon be
announced. Nobody in Tbilisi doubts that the bases will be withdrawn.

Armenian leader “forced” to take constructive stance on Karabakh – Azeri pundit

Trend news agency
6 Apr 05

Baku, 6 April, Trend correspondent S. Ilhamqizi: [Armenian President]
Robert Kocharyan is forced to take a constructive stance on the talks
because the current situation requires that, political analyst Aydin
Mirzazada has said in an interview with Trend news agency.

In Mirzazada’s view, the Armenian leadership is avoiding the
negotiations under various pretexts and this shows that Azerbaijan has
an advantage in the sphere of diplomacy. Kocharyan’s regime will lose
everything if he does not take a constructive stance. Hence, he has no
choice but to take decisions that go against his will, Mirzazada said.

Armenia’s aggressive policy has put it in a difficult situation,
the population is emigrating in great numbers and there is a threat
of a revolution. What’s more, the situation in diplomacy has changed
in favour of Azerbaijan. There is no-one left in Karabakh except for
the Armenian troops, Mirzazada said.

The April meeting between the Azerbaijani and Armenian foreign
ministers is expected to bring about positive changes. If concrete
results are achieved during the talks, a meeting between the presidents
will be scheduled, Mirzazada said.

ARMENIA AND GERMANY SIGNED TWO MAJOR PROGRAMS

Pan Armenian News

08.04.2005 03:12

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ April 7 the Armenian government in the person of
Minister of Finance and Economy Vardan Khachatrian and Germany in
the person of Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary Heike
Renate Peitsch within the frames of the Armenian-German financial
cooperation signed two agreements – “The program of conservancy- South
Caucasus-Armenia” and “The program of contribution to use of sources
of recreative energy”, IA Regnum reports. Within the first program 22
million euro will be allocated to the Armenian government. According
to Vardan Khachatrian it is based on the strategy of development and
preservation of fauna and flora and is one of the possible fields
of cooperation between Armenia, Georgia and Azerbaijan. The second
program calls for a 6 million euro credit for the reconstruction,
expansion and perfection of small hydroelectric stations as well as
processing of solar and wind energy and a 1.5 million euro grant. In
the Minister’s words, an Armenian-German Foundation of Recreative
Energy will be formed and headed by President of RA Central Bank Tigran
Sargsian and government members. An inter-departmental commission
(with the participation of German KfW Bank), which will decide on the
partner-banks and small hydroelectric stations, determine the general
strategy as well as keep control over the program implementation. Both
programs will be launched this autumn and last for three years. Vardan
Khachatrian also informed that the Foundation will receive 15 million
euro for the development of small and middle business. April 17-21 the
Armenian delegation will depart for Germany to outline the financial
cooperation for the next 2-3 years. It should be noted that Armenia
occupied the 8-th position in her consistency in fulfilling the
commitments among Germany’s 80 states- financial partners.

RA SECURITIES COMMISSION BECOMES IOSCO FULL MEMBER

YEREVAN, APRIL 6, NOYAN TAPAN. According to the decision made at the
April 5 sitting of the Committee of Chairmen of IOSCO (International
Organization of Securities Commissions) in Sri Lanka, the RA Securities
Commission has become a full member of this organization. NT was
informed from the RA Securities Commission that this will enable
Armenia to establish international cooperation in the securities and
financial markets and exchange the respective information. It was
noted that the Armenian commission submitted to IOSCO the official
application for membership as far back as 2003. For this purpose,
certain amendments and additions were made to the RA Law on Securities
Market Regulation last year.

Times Online, UK

Books

April 02, 2005

Ottoman of his time

By Jason Goodwin

In Turkey his novels, chronicling the country’s upheavals, have made him as
famous as a footballer. But Orhan Pamuk says it’s time to stop speaking for
the nation and tell his own stories

Remember angst? Germans produced it, where the French had anomie; and we all
know melancholy and tristesse. Now Orhan Pamuk, Turkey’s leading novelist,
and in Istanbul the chronicler of the inescapable decline of the great
Ottoman metropolis and the disintegration of the Pamuk family within it, has
given us hüzün. It’s hüzün when wealth ebbs away; when the lovely wooden
mansions of the pashas burn to the ground; when Pamuk’s mother sits up late,
smoking and half-watching the TV, waiting for her erring husband to get
home. Even love is doomed, for old-fashioned reasons: Pamuk wants to become
an artist, and a nice girl won’t marry one in 1960s Istanbul. In Istanbul
Pamuk writes: `I stay in the same city, on the same street, in the same
house, gazing at the same view. Istanbul’s fate is my fate: I am attached to
this city because it has made me who I am.’
What with this and that and a cartoon portrait of the author which recently
appeared in The Guardian, I half expected to find Pamuk the jowly
personification of Balkan gloom when I met him in New York last week. Not
without cause, perhaps: last month, Pamuk made an off-the-cuff
acknowledgement of Turkey’s responsibility for the death of a million
Armenians in the final days of the Ottoman Empire. His remarks provoked
outrage in his native land, where he is famous like a footballer. Though his
novels revel in clever postmodern games and tread unerringly on ground Pamuk
shares with writers such as Borges and García Márquez, his 2001 novel My
Name Is Red became the fastest selling book in Turkish history; elsewhere it
also cemented his reputation as a master storyteller. It was followed in
2003 by Snow, a political thriller and love story of fierce imaginative
scope: if ever you find yourself justifying secular values to a religious
assassin, the dialogue has been written by Pamuk. His books, he says as we
order lunch, have been translated into 36 languages. He isn’t boasting: it’s
just that he has to get things right.

Pamuk is a tall, lightly built man of 53. He speaks English fluently, and is
neatly dressed in a white shirt and a black corduroy jacket; in his
gold-rimmed spectacles he resembles a sort of Turkish Harry Potter. As for
that portrait: `The Guardian people told me it was their policy to make
authors look ugly.’ He pauses, laughs. `I’ll sue them!’

`I’ve written 240 pages a year, for the past 30 years,’ he reminds me more
than once. He would know the exact average: with all his charm, Pamuk is a
precise and hard-driven craftsman, clamped to his desk 11 hours a day,
re-reading pitilessly, cutting `like a ruthless Hollywood producer. For me
being a fiction writer is imposing self-torture.’ To get period details
correct he reads old newspapers; for his English translations he goes over
the text with his translator line by line. Outside dialogue, there’s no
slang in his prose. `I use the Turkish of my mother and my grandmother.’ He
writes with a fountain pen.

>From our table we watch a tug foaming against the current, while across the
water the city stands silhouetted in the spring sunshine. A patrol boat
idles for a moment near the towers of the Brooklyn Bridge, and then speeds
off towards Pier 47. `New York,’ says Pamuk, `is my second city.’

In 1985 he followed his wife there for her PhD in Ottoman history. (They
were divorced four years ago, but back in Istanbul Pamuk still regularly
drops round for meals with her and their 15-year-old daughter.) They stayed
in New York for three years, at a time when his international reputation was
beginning to grow. `I was 33. It was flattering.’ At Columbia he found
students of Turkish studying his own first novel, while The White Castle, a
story about a 17th-century Muslim master and Christian slave who swap
places, had just been published in translation.

`My first time I was enchanted, bewitched by NY; but I can’t say I liked it.
I was happy because my marriage was happy. This library – two million books,
a cubicle.’ He wrote The Black Book there, but New York never opened out to
him like Istanbul. `I was an outsider. In Istanbul I know what’s happening
behind the windows, but here it was all blank – except the novels of Saul
Bellow and Paul Auster.’

He is, by his own admission, a very bookish man. When he talks about his
craft his head sinks forward in an attitude of earnest concentration and his
speech is fast. Between the ages of seven and 22 he wanted to be an artist,
until everyone persuaded him that Istanbul in the 1960s and 1970s was too
poor and provincial a place for a serious artist to make a living. Yet being
a novelist, he thinks, repeats the same `essential gesture of being alone in
a room and attempting to legitimise your fantasies’.

The opening chapter of Istanbul describes the sense he possessed as a child
of there being another Pamuk living somewhere in the city; another him,
unknown and unseen. Years later he discovered his father’s secret love-nest
to be a copy of his parents’ room at home, down to the bridge books
teetering on the bedside table. Doubles inhabit almost all his fictions: he
calls them `two sides of the same psychic focus, persona, and never
symmetrical’. He finds himself increasingly drawn to explore the role of
those westernised elites which, like his own, mediate between the local
cultural tradition of the people and the expectations of the wider world,
and are to some extent alienated from both. `A subject I love is that of the
true believer who has doubts, and the true atheist who has secret beliefs,’
he says. `I imply that no one can be completely one thing. If you think you
are a perfect Muslim or modernist, you have a problem.’

He admits to seeing something in his `second city’ which shadows Istanbul.

`It’s that the streets are crowded – a sense that so much is going on. This
is a cultural and economic capital, and it’s so complex. We are the edge of
the water – Istanbul is so open to its water.’ He suspects that the cities
share a certain energy – `though it’s my joke that we only have this energy
on the streets in Istanbul because there’s no subway’. The prevailing mood
of the two cities could not be less similar.

The end-of-empire melancholy, the particular resignation of his home city,
shares nothing with New York. `Istanbul – tristesse! New York – success!’ He
won’t be writing a New York novel. It’s just a place to work, a set of
books, closed doors, beautiful views. A refuge.

Before we leave the restaurant, Pamuk does a quick sketch in my copy of
Istanbul of the skyline framed in the windows overlooking the East River. I
ask him if he’s going back to work and he says no, today’s a holiday for
him, he’s going to buy himself a pair of shoes at Macy’s. One of his black
brogues is peeling from the toe. It’s a beautiful day, the first day of the
New York spring, and we agree to walk uptown, over the Brooklyn Bridge and
up on to Broadway. I can tell from the easy way he swings through the crowds
that he enjoys the exercise as much as the colour of downtown Manhattan.

Turkey’s prospective entry into the EU he sees in terms of stories: in this
case, the stories that a nation tells itself. The collapse of the Ottoman
Empire after the First World War was a trauma for the Turks, prompting a
retreat into inwardness and isolation. At some level, as Istanbul suggests,
the Turks learnt to derive a gloomy satisfaction from their own abrupt
demotion from power status to insignificance, a certain pride in their
collective recognition of the h üzün of end-of-empire.

While happy to lend his support to Turkey’s entry into the EU, Pamuk, who
has been a vociferous supporter of human rights and the rights of minorities
in Turkey, no longer feels the same need to speak out. Death threats and a
potential court prosecution followed his well-publicised reference to the
Armenian massacres. But he acknowledges that Turkey has travelled a long way
towards creating a more open, pluralistic society. There’s also the issue of
what he owes to himself as a writer. If the Turks need a new story as part
of their move into the European mainstream, it’s not his job, he thinks, to
find them one.

The process of adaptation will be as hard as writing, but `with freedom of
speech, with the spirit of creativity, they will invent a new past’. The
Turkey of his childhood had become `scared of its own imagination’. But the
situation has moved on already, with encouraging signs everywhere of colour
returning: his Istanbul describes a city that his own daughter might find it
hard to recognise. `In 20 years she will read this book and say: Daddy, you
are such a sad man!’ `The child inside will come out,’ he predicts.
`Imagination can serve the country better than suppression. Xenophobia and
nationalism will fade away as Turks grow proud of that imagination.’ Ottoman
history needn’t be a catalogue of martial glories: an unexpected prod in the
right direction has come from Israel. `They said: `You Turks treated the
Jews well.’ Sometimes these things get forgotten.’
But he no longer feels he must speak for Turkey, in his fiction at least. `I
have another five or seven novels I want to write,’ he says. `I’m not
looking at literature as representing a country or a culture but as
representing myself. I have to catch my demons rather than catch Turkey’s
demons. I think that the country is becoming a more bourgeois civil society
so I think my demons will be, in the end, more representative.’

A quarter of a billion people, he observes, speak Turkish. `The structure of
Turkish is that the verb is at the end; so that what will happen is a
surprise.’

Istanbul by Orhan Pamuk is published by Faber & Faber, £16.99 (offer,
£13.59).

OSCE says Akayev should resign; warns new leaders against infighting

AP Worldstream
Mar 31, 2005

STEVE GUTTERMAN

The head of a key European security organization called on ousted
Kyrgyz President Askar Akayev to resign and urged the Central Asian
nation’s new leadership on Thursday to avoid dangerous infighting
before a new election.

The current chief of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in
Europe said Akayev should cooperate with efforts to secure his
resignation and that the “cooperation should be effective and as short
as possible,” in order to ease persistent uncertainty in Kyrgyzstan.

In the third visit by a high-level OSCE official to Kyrgyzstan since
the upheaval that led Akayev to flee to Russia, current chairman
Dimitrij Rupel said the 55-nation organization backs the new
parliament’s effort to hold talks to win Akayev’s resignation.

“The OSCE supports negotiations; excluding President Akayev from this
volatile period would be dangerous,” he said. But he stressed that the
OSCE recognizes the new leadership as legitimate and legal.

Akayev fled to Russia after opposition protesters stormed his
headquarters a week ago and took power in the ex-Soviet republic. He
has said is prepared to resign if he receives guarantees of security
and immunity from prosecution.

He urged the new Kyrgyz leaders to work together and avoid infighting
that could lead to new unrest as competition begins before a June 26
presidential election.

“I have urged against _ and this is perhaps the most serious challenge
_ against taking the elections to the street,” Rupel said. “I would
say that competition in the group is worrying; something that should
concern us all,” he said.

Rupel cut short a visit to Armenia to come to Kyrgyzstan to meet with
acting President Kurmanbek Bakiyev, Foreign Minister Roza Otunbayeva,
parliament speaker Omurbek Tekebayev and Felix Kulov, who resigned as
law enforcement coordinator Wednesday.

Kulov’s resignation was interpreted by some as sign he could be
planning a presidential bid against Bakiyev, who has announced plans
to run. Bakiyev said Wednesday that it would be dangerous for Akayev
to return in the near future; Kulov indicated he should come back to
resign.

Rupel said the legal status of Kulov, who was imprisoned under Akayev
and released a week ago during the power seizure, should be cleared up
in time for him to run in the election if he chooses. He said Kulov
gave him the impression in their meeting that he would run.

Rupel, who is Slovenia’s foreign minister, said that until recently
the new Kyrgyz leaders been united largely by their criticism of
Akayev’s regime.

Now, he said, their differences should be “recognized and channeled”
toward a good elections process and should not lead to “exclusion.”

He also expressed concern about disorder on the nation’s borders,
although he did not go into details, and about persistent power
struggles in provinces outside the capital, where he said he was told
that in some cases two or more people were claiming regional and local
leadership.

The OSCE has struggled to keep up with the fast-moving situation in
Kyrgyzstan. One top envoy arrived before Akayev’s ouster to seek a
settlement between the government and opposition and a second came
last week during a conflict between two parliaments over legitimacy.

MOSCOW HOUSE IN YEREVAN

A1+
31-03-2005

The Armenian government allowed the Yerevan City Administration to
conclude an agreement on building up the territories adjacent to the
Yerevan Wine factory. The 3500 area will be used for the construction
of the Moscow House in Argishti Street.

To note, the Moscow authorities have already marked out corresponding
territory for the construction of the Yerevan House.

PENSIONS RAISED

The Armenian government decreed on raising the basic pensions with
1000 drams, thus fixing the sum on 4000 instead of former 3000.

FUNDS ALLOCATED

13 million 502 thousand AMD was assigned to the Ministry of Culture
and Youth for the publication of literature dedicated to the 90-th
anniversary of the Armenian Genocide and the 1600-th anniversary of
the Armenian alphabet.

DATABASE ABOUT ARMENIAN HOTELS CREATED

YEREVAN, MARCH 30, ARMENPRESS: Armenian trade and economic
development ministry has centralized information about 400 Armenian
hotels and inns in a single database. Arthur Zakarian, head of tourism
development department ofthe ministry, said information will also be
collected about private mansions whose owners rent them to tourists.

He said overall Armenian hotels can accommodate 25,000 visitors,
2,500 of which in first class hotels. Zakarian said his department has
not yet received applications from hotel owners, which are necessary
to classify hotels.

He said the deadline is until June and those who fail to do so
andwill continue to advertise themselves as being 3, 4 or 5 start
hotels, will be subjected to penalties.

He said hotel business continues to be a lucrative investment and 4
new hotels are expected to open this year.

SwissInfo, Suisse
Mardi 29 Mars 2005

Micheline Calmy-Rey en Turquie: rencontre avec le président

ANKARA – La conseillère fédérale Micheline Calmy-Rey entame une
visite de trois jours en Turquie. A son arrivée, en début
d’après-midi, elle sera reçue par le président turc Ahmet Necdet
Sezer et par le ministre des affaires étrangères Abdullah Gül.
Les deux ministres doivent faire «un large tour d’horizon» des sujets
qui touchent les deux pays, comme «les droits de l’Homme, la question
des minorités ou les relations économiques» entre les deux pays,
selon le conseiller diplomatique de Mme Calmy-Rey, Roberto
Balzaretti. La dernière rencontre entre les chefs de la diplomatie
suisse et turc remonte à 2001.
Des questions «régionales et globales» figurent aussi au menu des
entretiens, selon le Département fédéral des affaires étrangères
(DFAE). Mme Calmy-Rey et M. Gül devraient notamment évoquer la crise
en Irak, pays voisin de la Turquie, et le conflit au Proche-Orient.
Les deux ministres des affaires étrangères doivent en outre aborder
l’avenir européen de la Turquie. Si Ankara rejoint l’Union européenne
(UE), l’économie helvétique bénéficiera d’un marché élargi, avait
indiqué en décembre dernier la conseillère fédérale.
Enfin, la cheffe du DFAE pourrait soulever la question du génocide
arménien, sujet de discorde entre les deux pays qui avait causé
l’annulation d’un voyage de Mme Calmy-Rey en Turquie, prévu en
septembre 2003.
Micheline Calmy-Rey se rendra mercredi dans le sud-est kurde du pays,
à Diyarbakir, avant de rejoindre la capitale économique, Istanbul.

VARDAN OSKANYAN: WAR BETWEEN ARMENIA AND AZERBAIJAN WILL BE THE THIRD
AND MAYBE THE LAST MISTAKE OF AZERBAIJAN

YEREVAN, MARCH 29. ARMINFO. The negotiation process for peaceful
settlement of Karabakh conflict is at rather complicated stage – on
the one hand, Azerbaijan confirms its readiness to continue the
negotiation process, on the other hand, it speculates with it at
international structures and advances its positions on the
contact-line of the Armenian and Azerbaijani armies. Armenian Foreign
Minister Vardan Oskanyan says today in the course of parliamentary
hearings on settlement of Karabakh conflict.

We are concerned over the behavior of the Azerbaijani party, but we
are not afraid of it as we are ready to respond to Azerbaijan’s
probable initiative of unleashing a new war, which will be its third
and maybe the last mistake, Oskanyan says. In his words, the Armenian
party has shared its concern with the Minsk Group mediators and this
issue will be discussed during their next meeting. Oskanyan says that
despite some common approaches, the sides are far in their positions
on settlement of the conflict and the mediators are unlikely to make
their positions closer in the course of their forthcoming meeting.
One should hope for the Azerbaijani party will come to the meeting in
a constructive mood, the minister says. Commenting on the stage by
stage settlement-scheme (return of the territories outside Nagorny
Karabakh to Azerbaijan with further negotiations for status of
Karabakh), he says that if Ilham Aliyev is awakened at 3 o’clock at
night, he will sign this document. This settlement-scheme can be
discussed and implemented at any time, Oskanyan says. In response to
the question on possible compromises the minister says that he cannot
calculate them all. He only notes that the Armenian side cannot yield
Karabakh to Azerbaijan, it cannot allow that Karabakh becomes an
enclave as well as it cannot endanger the security of the people
residing in Karabakh.