Author: Badalian Vardan

SOCHI REMAINS A LOW-BUDGET RESORT

Vestnik Kavkaza, Russia
May 15 2014

15 May 2014 – 11:41am
By Vestnik Kavkaza

When the Olympics were over, Sochi began to prepare for the resort
season. Mayor of the city Anatoly Pakhomov decided to get involved in
attracting tourists: “Sochi is a city for everybody; it is affordable.

Sometimes people say: “Everything is expensive there; the resort is
for wealthy people.” No, it is not. This is a family resort. There
are the lowest prices on the Black Sea Shore, including Crimea. Last
year I was in Lazarevka at the central beach. There was barely room to
move. Now suburban trains are running, and we will construct stations
in hard-to-get-to beaches to redistribute tourist flows.”

Pakhomov admits that the main resort of the country has had a lot of
disadvantages for years. “But today this is a new city. The city has
wonderful seafronts, beaches, three Five-Star Radisson Blu Hotels,
a Marriott Hotel; there are various brands and management companies
in Sochi. The beautiful Olympic Park is situated in the Adler region,
as well as a magnificent seafront. I am sure people will fall in
love with the scenery. The water is pure; there are unique five-star
hotels with vast recreational territories, spas, restaurants, and cafes
nearby. 25 thousand additional rooms were built for the Olympic Games.”

According to the mayor, “the Olympics gave a powerful impetus to the
development of the resort. In five years the only subtropical resort
of the Russian Black Sea Shore became a symbol of revival and the
unique capacities of new Russia… Today we will probably get into
the top 10 of the world’s best cities, and we should think not only
about hotels and commercial facilities, but also about preservation
of the historic heritage.”

Pakhomov told Vestnik Kavkaza that Sochi is a multinational city:
“Representatives of 124 nations live in our city. I can say that
traditionally these people live in peace and friendship. We pay great
attention to work with our ethnic communities. There are only two
differences between us – our language and our culture. At the same
time, all our ethnic groups and communities have an opportunity to
give concerts, speak about their culture and history. These things
improve our relations, which have always been warm. Yesterday we held
a football championship among teams of our communities. The Armenian
community won. The Greeks took second place, while the Russians took
third place. We give an opportunity to compete in sporting and cultural
festivals. We are really an example of life in peace and friendship.

NORTH-SOUTH MOTORWAY CONSTRUCTION IN ARMENIA UNDERWAY

The Messenger, Georgia
May 15 2014

By Messenger Staff
Thursday, May 15

Certain segments of the trans-Armenian motorway connecting north
with south will be finished in 2014. The search for investors for
the other segments is underway. The motorway will cross Armenia from
Iran’s border to Georgia’s border. Its length is around 500 kilometers.

The Asian Development Bank is among the major donors of the project.

However, more investors are needed.

ARMENIA’S PENSION OF DISCONTENT

EurasiaNet.org
May 15 2014

May 15, 2014 – 9:04am, by Giorgi Lomsadze

The Armenian government has revised its controversial pension
plan umpteen times, but many Armenians just don’t like it. And the
government just does not give up.

The main problem — mandatory salary deductions for a national
retirement plan — was discarded after a wave of protests, battles
in parliament and a smack-down by the Constitutional Court. In a
rare policy-concession to the opposition, the ruling establishment
gave workers the discretion to opt out of contributing five percent
of their salaries to the pension fund, but now questions are asked
about how optional is optional.

On May 13, Armenia’s parliament reluctantly approved in its first
reading a truncated, deductions-optional version of the original bill.

Some political parties welcomed the “free will” addition to the draft,
but still the ruling Republican Party of Armenia was the bill’s lone
supporter. Others chose to abstain or oppose.

The most ardent critic of the pension scheme, and of the government
in general – the Armenian National Congress (ANC) – maintained that,
despite the compromise, a compulsory savings system has been forced on
Armenia. The government has the means to put pressure on public and
even private companies to force employees to make the transfers to
the pension fund no matter what their individual decisions, asserted
the ANC, RFE/RL reported.

The claim is debatable, but some media reports already alleged that
the government is putting pressure on public servants to keep pitching
into the pension fund.

Labor Minister Artem Asatrian denied these allegations, but skepticism
persists. In a country that has experienced several economic slowdowns,
the pension epic only highlighted the lack of public trust in the
government’s ability to handle both the economy and people’s savings.

15 MILLION EU GRANT FOR IMPROVING WATER SUPPLY SYSTEM IN ARMENIA

May 14, 2014 | 17:35

YEREVAN. – The signature ceremony of the â~B¬15 million grant financing
agreement for the Communal Infrastructure Water Programme, Phase 3,
provided by the EU within the Neighbourhood Investment Facility,
took place at the Ministry of Finance on Wednesday.

The agreement was signed between the Government of the Republic of
Armenia and KfW Development Bank. Authorised representatives from the
Armenian side included the Minister of Finance, Gagik Khachatryan and
the President of the State Committee on Water Supply of the Ministry
of Territorial Administration, Andranik Andreasyan.

On behalf of KfW Development Bank, Regional Manager Lars Oermann and
Head of District Infrastructure Arne Gooss signed the agreement. The
EU was represented by the Head of the EU Delegation in Armenia,
Traian Hristea.

The Communal Infrastructure Programme is aimed at improving water
supply systems in different regions of Armenia. The total budget of
the programme is â~B¬73 million: this is broken down into tranches
of â~B¬30 million provided by KfW Development Bank, a â~B¬2.5
million grant from KfW itself, a loan of â~B¬25.5 million from the
European Investment Bank, and â~B¬15 million from the EU Neighbourhood
Investment Facility. â~B¬10 million from the grant budget will be used
to supply villages with drinking water and improve irrigation systems;
a sewage-cleaning station worth â~B¬2 million will be built in Armavir;
â~B¬3 million will be used to pay for a management agreement with
four water-supply companies – Armenian Water and Sewage, Lori Water
and Sewage, Shirak Water and Sewage, and Nor Akunq.

News from Armenia – NEWS.am

FRANCE WAITS FOR ECHR ON ‘GENOCIDE’ BILL

Hurriyet Daily News, Turkey
May 14 2014

Arzu Cakır Morin YEREVAN

France will wait for a final decision from the European Court of Human
Rights (ECHR) before reintroducing a bill criminalizing the denial of
the 1915 mass killings of Armenians as genocide, President Francois
Hollande said May 12.

In 2012, France’s Constitutional Council struck down a
government-backed law criminalizing denials of the 1915 events as
genocide on the grounds that it contradicted the French Constitution.

And late last year, the ECHR ruled that denial of the 1915 mass
killings of Armenians as genocide falls within the limits of freedom
of expression, following an appeal from a Turkish politician against
his conviction in Switzerland. The decision was referred to the ECHR’s
Grand Chamber by the Swiss Justice Ministry for the final ruling.

Speaking to a group of reporters during a visit to Yerevan, Hollande
said they would wait for the final decision of the ECHR and that the
law should be compatible with the Constitutional Council.

Workers’ Party (Ä°P) Chairman Dogu Perincek, who had described the
Armenian genocide as an “international lie,” had complained that Swiss
courts had breached his freedom of expression, based on Article 10
covering freedom of expression.

The ECHR ruling stated that “the free exercise of the right to openly
discuss questions of a sensitive and controversial nature is one of
the fundamental aspects of freedom of expression and distinguishes
a tolerant and pluralistic democratic society from a totalitarian or
dictatorial regime.”

Elaborating on Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s recent statement
in which he offered condolences to the families of more than 1 million
Armenians who were massacred during World War I, Hollande said the
gesture was an advance but not enough, calling on Turkey to recognize
the killings as genocide and suggested that the recognition would
“unite, not divide.”

May/13/2014

‘NORMALIZATION WITH ARMENIA HOSTAGE TO TURKISH DOMESTIC POLITICS’

Cihan News Agency, Turkey
May 14 2014

ISTANBUL – 14.05.2014 19:44:45

The normalization of relations between estranged neighbors Turkey
and Armenia is hostage to Turkish domestic politics, said Richard
Giragosian, founding director of the Yerevan-based independent think
tank Regional Studies Center (RSC), on Tuesday.

According to Giragosian, a recent statement from Prime Minister Recep
Tayyip Erdogan regarding the 1915 killings of Armenians in eastern
Anatolia, in which he extended condolences from Turkey to Armenians
for the first time in the history of the Turkish Republic, has raised
expectations internationally. He said the Armenian side is waiting
for more tangible and concrete steps from Erdogan rather than words
and gestures of good will.

“At the heart of the matter, the flowery language in the April 23
statement of Erdogan was designed to make him look more presidential,
with a softer political image. In other words, it was designed to
emphasize Erdogan’s [presence] more than Turkish President Abdullah
Gul in the eyes of the public. It also aimed to change the view of
the international community [concerning] Erdogan,” Giragosian said
in an exclusive interview with Today’s Zaman in Yerevan on Tuesday.

Welcoming Erdogan’s 1915 statement, Giragosian noted that it was very
significant in terms of its diverse audience. “Beside the international
community, the Armenian diaspora and the Armenian government, the
most important target of Erdogan’s statement was Turkish domestic
politics,” he added.

Giragosian also said that normalizing ties with Armenia is something
Turkey wants to do once Erdogan has becomes the president of Turkey.

“The strategy of the Turkish side toward Armenia is related to domestic
politics in the country. Whether this strategy will work or not is
another issue,” he said.

Touching upon the 100th anniversary of the 1915 tragedy, which
Armenians say amounts to genocide, he said the Turkish side was
exaggerating the importance of the year 2015 to be greater than it
actually need be. “This is a psychological burden created by Turkey
in terms of making the year 2015 a big issue. Turkey overreacting to
the anniversary will only make the issue a bigger one,” he said.

–Turkey’s ‘three-plan strategy’ towards Armenia for 2017

He also noted that Turkey is working on a “three-plan strategy”
with regards to Armenia for the year 2017.

“The first plan is to accredit a key representative to Armenia,
like Turkish Ambassador to Georgia Levent Gumrukcu. The second
[would be to] make the unofficial diplomatic relations official; if
an ambassadorial accreditation [cannot be made], then consulate-level
relations could be established. If that does not work, perhaps [the]
third plan is a Swiss mediation between Turkey and Armenia, which is
actually a more realistic plan,” Giragosian said.

He also said that rather than opening the closed border between
Turkey and Armenia, the Turkish side could establish two border
crossing points in which goods can pass from one and the other can
be used for tourism. Turkey closed its border with Armenia in 1993
in solidarity with Azerbaijan after Yerevan and Baku clashed over
the Nagorno-Karabakh region.

Giragosian said that when compared to previous years, there was
sincerity and good will on both sides regarding the normalization. He
added that the Armenian side has learned lots of lessons from a
historic reconciliation process launched in 2009 and that Turkey
should also take action according to it. The two sides signed twin
protocols to normalize diplomatic relations, but the move was not
well received by Azerbaijan. The protocols, signed in Zurich, shook
Turkish-Azerbaijani relations, and the Nagorno-Karabakh territorial
conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan has yet to be resolved.

— For Turkey, having good ties with Armenia ‘low-hanging fruit’

Giragosian noted that Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu’s
visit to Yerevan last December was not the first time a Turkish
foreign minister had visited the capital, but he said it was a very
significant one.

“It was a clear indication of Turkish willingness toward Armenia.

Today, the door between the two countries is closed, but it is
not locked, and much effort is not needed to reopen that door,”
Giragosian said.

According to the analyst, Armenia is low-hanging fruit for Turkey, and
if the latter were to want normalization, it could be an easy victory.

He also added that a letter from Gul to his Armenian counterpart,
Serzh Sarksyan, was followed by Davutoglu’s visit. “It is not public
knowledge, but there is a standing invitation from Gul to meet with
his Armenian counterpart,” Giragosian said.

— Russia manipulated Kessab issue, fooled Armenians

There were several reports claiming that a recent attack by Syrian
opposition forces on the ethnically Armenian town of Kessab in northern
Syria was facilitated by the Turkish government.

Giragosian said it was Russia that actively promoted and provoked
the Kessab issue and led Armenians to believe that there was some
kind of Turkish hand in the problem.

“What is interesting about the Kessab issue is that it demonstrates the
inherited mistrust between Armenia and Turkey. When we look closely
at the issue, we see that the Armenian side was fooled into reacting
immediately and emotionally, putting the blame on Turkey. …

I believe this was manipulated by Russia,” Giragosian said.

(Cihan/Today’s Zamamn)

KASSAB’S ARMENIANS FIND SAFE HAVEN IN TURKEY

Al-Monitor
May 14 2014

Author: Dominique Soguel
Posted May 14, 2014

VAKIFLI, Turkey — Evicted by Islamist rebels from the last Armenian
village in Syria, a group of elderly apple farmers have found an
idyllic refuge across the border in the land of their historic enemy,
Turkey.

Seated on plastic chairs, three brothers recounted how after years
of life in the shadow of conflict, war came knocking at their door
in Kassab, a Christian Armenian town just across the border from the
village of Vakifli.

“The bearded men gunned down our doors and destroyed our homes,”
said 68-year-old Asbed Djurian. “Everybody had fled but we had no
car to escape, so they caught us.”

Djurian said 10 armed men burst into his home at 6 a.m., yelling for
him to put his hands over his head. His brothers Babken and Jacob,
along with their 92-year-old mother, were rounded up in the same
dawn raid. The brothers said they were detained in a small room for
14 days before being handed over to Turkey.

“They took away our papers and cell phones,” said the eldest brother,
Jacob, who identified the assailants as “Muslims, mostly foreigners,
but also Syrians. All of them al-Qaeda.”

When militants overran Kassab in late March, most residents fled to
the Latakia coastal areas controlled by President Bashar al-Assad’s
regime, which portrays itself as a protector of minorities caught
in a war against terrorists and Islamist extremists. Ankara, once
a close ally of Damascus, now backs the opposition and is home to
nearly 1 million Syrian refugees.

In general, refugees say Turkey’s policy toward its “guests”
show greater hospitality and solidarity than that of Syria’s Arab
neighbors. But for Syrian Armenians, descendants of the survivors
of the 1915 massacre and mass displacement of Armenians in Ottoman
Turkey, it was not an obvious choice of safe haven.

The Djurian brothers are among 22 Syrian Armenian refugees settled
by the Turkish authorities in the village of 130 people, whose mayor
says the population can jump to 500 in the summer months. Most of
the refugees are men in their 70s who were either unable or unwilling
to leave Kassab when the fighting erupted. They wound up in Vakifli
by chance, not choice, turned over to Turkey by rebels or evacuated
among the wounded. The Armenians from Kassab were placed in Vakifli
because of the historic and cultural ties between the two villages.

“This is the first time we’ve received Syrian Armenian refugees. We
didn’t expect this to happen, but it happened,” said Berc Cartun,
who has served as mayor for the past two decades and was recently
re-elected.

Vakifli, with its stone houses and terraced orange orchards that
overlook the Mediterranean coastline of Syria, is reputed to be the
last Christian Armenian village left in Turkey. Its residents, who eke
a living from organic farming and sell sweet jams to tourists, share
language, history and kinship with the refugees from Kassab, a border
town and crossing just 43 kilometers (27 miles) south of Vakifli.

The Syrian Armenians, who arrived in early April with no documents
or belongings, have been housed in three simple lodging houses run by
the church. They have new clothes now, and spend the days chatting in
the cool shade of pine trees. The government and families are helping
provide for them, according to the mayor.

Cem Capar, the president of a local Armenian foundation, said the
refugees, among them nine women but no children, arrived “completely
terrified and traumatized.” Most had been detained for two weeks
after their village was seized.

The refugees say privately they want to return to Syria or Lebanon
to rejoin their relatives, rather than stay in Turkey.

On the 99th anniversary of what the Armenians (backed by many
historians) insist was a state-ordered genocide launched on April
24, 1915, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan offered condolences
to descendants of the victims. It was the first such gesture by a
Turkish leader. But he fell short of using the word “genocide.”

George Kortmosian, another apple farmer from Kassab, said he was
grateful to Ankara for the treatment he had received, although he
too was keen to return Syria to rejoin his wife. He told Agence
France-Presse, “I’ve been treated very well both here in the village
and at the hospital.” The septuagenarian rolled up his blue shirt to
reveal a jagged pink scar across his stomach left by shrapnel when
the rebels launched their assault on Kassab.

Kortmosian regained consciousness days later in a Turkish hospital.

The assault on Kassab — a town of nearly 2,000 people in peacetime
— inflamed passions in the Armenian diaspora, which accused Turkey
of having facilitated the operation. Activists turned to Twitter to
spread the message #SaveKassab. US celebrities Kim Kardashian and
Cher, both of Armenian parentage, joined the campaign. “Please let’s
not let history repeat itself!!!” tweeted Kardashian.

The Armenian Committee of America urged US lawmakers to probe “Turkey’s
role in this al-Qaeda-linked aggression.” The Syrian opposition, in the
face of concerns raised by Moscow and the United Nations, stressed that
Armenians were not targeted and their places of worship not damaged.

Back in Vakifli, Asbed Djurian, another Kassabji, as its residents
are known, said he “wishes for peace” and “dreams of his apples.” But
peace, he stressed, would remain a distant dream so long as the United
States continues to support jihadist groups fighting Assad.

GENOCIDE ARMENIEN : HOLLANDE SALUE LES MESSAGES D’APAISEMENT “D’O QU’ILS VIENNENT”

RTL.fr, France
12 mai 2014

En visite officielle en Armenie, Francois Hollande a appele a “saluer”
les messages d’apaisement, “d’où qu’ils viennent”, dans une allusion
a la Turquie.

Francois Hollande a appele ce lundi 12 mai a “saluer” les messages
“d’apaisement” d’où qu’ils viennent pour la reconnaissance du genocide
armenien, dans une allusion a la Turquie, lors de sa visite a Erevan.

“Tous les messages de comprehension, d’apaisement, de tolerance
doivent etre salues, d’où qu’ils viennent”, a declare le president
de la Republique lors des toasts du dîner d’Etat offert en son
honneur par son homologue armenien, Serge Sarkissian. Il a ajoute :
“Car la reconnaissance du genocide n’est pas destinee a diviser mais a
rassembler afin d’eviter que ne se repètent de semblables abominations,
ailleurs dans le monde”.

“Condoleances” du Premier ministre turc

Le Premier ministre turc Recep Tayyip Erdogan a fait un geste
inattendu a l’occasion du 99e anniversaire du genocide perpetre
sous l’Empire ottoman, presentant les condoleances de la Turquie “aux
petits-enfants des Armeniens tues en 1915”. Mais l’Armenie avait rejete
ces condoleances, reclamant reconnaissance du genocide et “repentir”.

Francois Hollande avait alors estime que les condoleances de Recep
Tayyip Erdogan constituaient “une evolution” mais n’etaient pas
suffisantes. Ce lundi, il a souligne : “Aucune porte ne peut etre
entrouverte au negationnisme”. Il a juge que “le negationnisme n’est
pas une opinion” mais “un outrage a la verite, une insulte aux victimes
et a leurs descendants”.

Hollande en Armenie pour le 100e anniversaire du genocide

Francois Hollande a egalement confirme qu’il se rendrait en Armenie le
24 avril 2015 pour les commemoration du 100e anniversaire du genocide.

“Je serai donc a Erevan a vos côtes au nom du devoir de memoire mais
aussi en coherence avec la reconnaissance du genocide par la Republique
francaise”, a-t-il declare sous les applaudissements. Cette loi de
2001, a-t-il egalement rappele, a ete votee “par toutes les familles
politiques francaises”.

Selon les Armeniens, 1,5 million des leurs furent tues lors des
persecutions et deportations. La Turquie reconnaît des massacres qui
ont coûte la vie a 300.000 personnes, tout en refutant leur caractère
genocidaire.

FUTURE WITH A FLAVOR

Orange County Register (California)
May 12, 2014 Monday

by LAUREN WILLIAMS staff writer, The Orange County Register

Vicky Demirci says she can see what lies ahead by reading coffee
grounds.

Editor’s note: This story is part of a weekly series focusing on the
stories of unique people in our community.

ew things quiet Vicky Demirci’s mind like poring over a cup of
coffee grounds.

An effusive woman who wears bright, flowing clothes and gold cat-eye
glasses, Demirci flits between her past in New York and her love
of her maternal grandmother in the same breath, one moment teary,
another breathless from laughter.

She likes to give hugs, and on this Sunday afternoon Demirci gave them
freely to anyone who asked her about the thick, chocolate-colored
grounds oozing from beneath the lip of each cup, spilling secrets
only she could read.

For the better part of 60 years, Demirci has carried on the tradition
of reading coffee grounds, a gift bestowed upon her when she was 18
by her Armenian grandmother, who had reappeared in Demirci’s life
after leaving suddenly years earlier.

“I believe a lot of times our deepest talents are revealed in moments
of loss,” Demirci said. “Maybe it has to do with loss, suffering and
recovery. I’ve had all of that.”

Now 73, Demirci reads at the Belmont Heights coffeehouse Viento y
Agua on Sunday afternoons, a practice she has kept up for six years.

The gift of looking into the bottom of a mug and seeing someone’s
fortune is a way of channeling her intuition, a sort of stream
of consciousness and return to childhood for the retired clinical
social worker.

“When you’re a kid, you don’t know what you should say and not say.

You just say it. That’s intuition,” Demirci said. “So to me this is
like being a kid, just doing what comes, the moment it comes and it
feels good that way. It’s freeing.”

On this warm Sunday afternoon, Demirci met with three women who waited
for her to arrive with the burning questions that young people face.

When will they find love? What should they do with their lives?

Each had sipped a cup of coffee down to the grounds, ready by the
time Demirci arrived. Sisters Emily, 28, and Melissa Simonian, 30,
brought their friend Julia Lerno, 30, for a reading.

The Simonian sisters grew up in an Armenian family and felt compelled
to return after Demirci correctly predicted their youngest sister
would be getting married and moving out of state.

Demirci was the first to know the news by seeing it in the bottom of
their mother’s mug.

For Lerno, the reading would be a first. She hoped Demirci would be
able to look into the cup and point her life in the right direction.

“I’m a little bit lost right now,” Lerno said. “I want to believe.”

Demirci quietly turned Lerno’s saucer methodically, peering past the
upturned cup with Lerno’s pink lip gloss on the rim.

Demirci saw hesitation, “like your feet are holding you back.”

“Do not be weary,” Demirci said. “It won’t be as complicated as you
might think.”

Down the inside the cup, streaks of brown with dots formed the long
neck of a giraffe. Later, Lerno revealed a planned trip to Africa.

Among the three women, several similar themes emerged. A love of
animals, travel and the letter J all appeared in their reading.

Demirci doles out advice in a tone that is between supportive mom
and friendly stranger, telling each young woman that she is ready for
the challenges of life or that she will find what she is looking for.

After each session, Demirci gushed over the findings, eager to discover
what resonated with the women.

“Now you can tell me what I’m dying to hear,” she said, cupping her
head in her hands after each reading.

As the women walked out of the shop, Melissa Simonian turned to
Demirci, saying, “We’ll let you know what else comes true!”

Although the women were skeptical about the eerie similarities,
they felt the experience was a decent way to spend a Sunday afternoon.

“I think she definitely reads energy really well,” Emily Simonian
said. “It’s fun either way.”

For Demirci, every time she looks into a cup, what she sees is
different.

“It’s an adventure,” she said. “I just look forward to it.”

It’s more than a hobby. It saved her life once.

On a Sunday two years ago, Demirci walked from her small home on
Ximeno Avenue to Viento y Agua on Fourth Street and felt out of breath.

She took a seat and drank some cold ice water and felt well enough
to read the coffee grounds of four young women.

When she got up to wait for the bathroom, she collapsed from a
heart attack.

If such an incident had happened in her apartment, where she lives
alone, or inside the bathroom, she could have died.

But in the coffeehouse, people called the paramedics and she survived.

“That makes me even more bonded here,” Demirci said. “That’s the way
people are here.”

She doesn’t plan to stop reading coffee grounds any time soon.

“As long as I can breathe,” Demirci said, “because I see the glow in
people’s eye.”

FEARS FOR AZERI-ARMENIAN CITIZEN DIPLOMACY

Institute for War and Peace Reporting, UK
IWPR Caucasus Reporting #735
May 13 2014

“Everyone knows what we’ve been doing all these years,” says Armenian
activist involved in joint projects, who is now cited in Azerbaijani
“spy” case.

By Gayane Lazarian – Caucasus

As the Azerbaijani authorities accuse a journalist involved in
cross-border projects of spying for Armenia, NGOs in Yerevan are
worried that painstaking efforts to work towards reconciliation through
“citizen diplomacy” will be derailed.

Rauf Mirqadirov, an Azerbaijani journalist, was deported from
Turkey and arrested on arrival in Baku on April 21. The Azerbaijani
prosecution service claimed that Mirqadirov had been spying for
Armenia since 2008. His lawyer says he regards the charge as absurd.

(See Azerbaijani Journalist Accused of Spying for Armenia.)

Prosecutors say Mirqadirov passed secret information to Laura
Baghdasaryan, who heads the Region Research Centre in Yerevan.

Baghdasaryan’s organisation has, like a number of NGOs in both
countries, been involved in cross-border projects intended to build
connections between the two societies.

The idea between this work, often called “track two diplomacy”,
is to foster greater understanding and a more conciliatory approach
despite the tensions between the Azerbaijani and Armenian governments,
which are technically still at war over Nagorny Karabakh.

Baghdasaryan told IWPR of her shock at the allegations.

“I think everyone in Armenia and Azerbaijan knows what we’ve been doing
all these years, since our activities have been open to everyone,”
she said. “We have always tried to find ways to connect people in
Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan. It came as a complete surprise to me
to hear my name cited in connection with grave allegations of treason.”

On April 26, Baghdasaryan and Leyla Yunus, a well-known human rights
activist in Azerbaijan, issued a joint statement expressing concern
at Mirqadirov’s arrest and calling for his release.

“We are two women – a rights activist and a journalist, both of us
mothers – from Azerbaijan and Armenia,” they said. “We have worked
together for ten years and stood shoulder to shoulder in the difficult
task of creating and strengthening public dialogue between our nations,
which have been in a state of war for 20 years.”

Two days later, Yunus and her husband Arif were stopped at Baku airport
and taken back to the city to be questioned about the Mirqadirov
case. (See Leading Rights Activist Questioned in Azerbaijan.)

This apparent widening of the net in the “espionage case” caused even
greater alarm in Yerevan.

“These are people who defend the national and state interests of
their country in every possible venue and on all possible platforms,”
Larisa Alaverdyan, who heads an Armenian NGO called Against Legal
Arbitrariness, told IWPR. “Their only crime is doing this in places
where there are Armenians, as well. It is a blow to public diplomacy
in our region.”

Sergei Minasyan, deputy director of the Caucasus Institute in Yerevan,
described what he thought lay behind the potent allegation of treason
in Azerbaijan.

“It’s easier to accuse these people of being Armenian spies than
to admit that they’re critics of the government who expose cases of
corruption and human rights abuses,” he told IWPR.

Azerbaijan and Armenia have never signed a peace agreement since the
Nagorny Karabakh war ended with a ceasefire in 1994. Fatal shootings
occur frequently on the “line of contact” around Armenian-controlled
Karabakh and across the Armenian-Azerbaijani state border.

Little progress has been made towards a formal settlement, in a
long-running talks process mediated by the OSCE’s Minsk Group, which
is chaired by France, Russia and the United States.

The Minsk Group has encouraged “track two diplomacy” as a means of
easing tensions and exploring ways of moving beyond deadlock.

As Hrant Melik-Shahnazaryan, the editor of Armenian news site Times.am,
explained, “The West and Russia have expended serious efforts over
many years to create spaces where Azerbaijani and Armenian experts
and NGOs could hold conversations.”

“Azerbaijan is basically blocking this as a possibility,” he told
IWPR. “After driving the talks process into a dead end, now they are
trying to stop any chance of discussion…. The only alternatives are
a continuation of the current frozen conflict, or worse still, war.”

For Alaverdyan, a veteran rights activist, the new mood is especially
worrying given that NGOs and journalists from Armenia and Azerbaijan
were able to maintain contact even at the height of the Karabakh
conflict in the early 1990s.

“I’ve been to Baku five times,” she said. “I went there with groups of
people from Armenia…. I can’t imagine who would run such projects
now.

“In Azerbaijan, they blame Armenians for all bad and annoying things.

Of course that’s much simpler than trying to investigate what their
own government is doing. I am truly sad about it…. At the end of
the day, who doesn’t want to have good neighbours?”

Every year on May 15, close to the anniversary of the Karabakh
ceasefire signing, the Caucasus Institute in Yerevan holds an annual
conference attended by experts from across the region, including
Azerbaijan.

This year, no one from Azerbaijan will attend.

“They have confirmed this,” Minasyan said. “We have worked with
Mirqadirov, with the Yunuses and with many other Azerbaijanis.”

Gayane Lazarian is a reporter for ArmeniaNow.com.