Author: Baghdasarian Karlen

Washington Post, DC
June 9 2005

Association Withdraws Award to U.S. Envoy
Ambassador Was to Be Honored for Dissent

By Glenn Kessler
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, June 9, 2005; Page A19

The American Foreign Service Association recently announced that John
M. Evans, the U.S. ambassador to Armenia, was to receive a
prestigious award for “constructive dissent” for characterizing as
genocide the deaths of 1.5 million Armenians in the waning days of
the Ottoman Empire in 1915. His comments stirred such a diplomatic
tempest that Evans not only had to retract his remarks but also had
to later clarify his retraction.

Earlier this week, however, the selection committee met again and
decided to withdraw the honor, known as the Christian A. Herter
Award. They decided not to offer any award in the category, reserved
for a senior foreign service officer. Other awards are issued for
officers at lower levels.

The timing of the association’s decision appeared curious, given it
came just before Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan arrived
in Washington for a meeting with President Bush to bolster strained
U.S.-Turkish relations. John W. Limbert, president of the
association, said that no one at the organization can remember an
award being withdrawn after it had been announced.

“It is not something we do easily,” he said.

The award is intended to foster creative thinking and intellectual
courage within the State Department bureaucracy, and the secretary of
state usually attends the award ceremony. One of last year’s awards,
for instance, went to a mid-level foreign service officer who sent a
cable challenging the administration’s policy in Iraq. “Dissent is
supposed to be controversial,” Limbert said.

Speaking to an Armenian group in California, Evans referred to the
“Armenian genocide” and said that the U.S. government owes “you, our
fellow citizens, a more frank and honest way of discussing the
problem.” He added that “there is no doubt in my mind what happened”
and it was “unbecoming of us, as Americans, to play word games here.”

Armenian groups hailed his comment, noting Evans was the first U.S.
official since President Ronald Reagan in 1981 to refer to the
Armenian deaths as genocide. But the comments infuriated Turkey.
Evans issued a statement saying U.S. policy, in which the United
States “acknowledges the tragedy” and encourages “scholarly, civil
society and diplomatic discussion” of the event, had not changed.

Evans said he used the term “genocide” in “my personal capacity”
during “informal meetings” and “this was inappropriate.” After more
complaints from Turkey, Evans corrected the statement a day later and
removed a reference to genocide, instead calling it “the Armenian
tragedy.”

Limbert said the committee, made up of current and former State
Department officials, concluded that the award to Evans did not meet
the selection criteria. He declined to comment further, saying State
Department officials would have to explain their concerns.

L. Bruce Laingen, who chaired the selection committee, said “very
serious people from the State Department in particular” expressed
concern about the award to Evans. But he said they did not raise
political issues. Instead, he said, they focused on the fact that the
award criteria specifically says the actions must be taken while
“working in the system”; Evans made his comments in speeches.

“Dissent has to be within the system,” Laingen said. He said the
committee did not focus on that fact until it was reminded by the
State Department.

But when the committee decided to withdraw the award, it was faced
with a dilemma. The committee had received only two nominations, and
it had already concluded the other nominee did not meet the criteria.
So no award could be offered.

Laingen said the committee generally receives few examples of dissent
at senior levels of the agency. “That is regrettable,” he said. “It
does not reflect well on the foreign service broadly at that level
for dissent within the system.”
From: Baghdasarian

A1plus

| 17:27:44 | 08-06-2005 | Official |

NATO IN ARMENIA IN NOVEMBER

On October 6-9 in Yerevan a seminar titled `Rose-Road’ will be organized.
And the NATO Parliamentary Assembly Fall session will take place in November
again in Yerevan.

80-100 members of the Parliamentary Assembly will take part in the session.
They will discuss issues of regional importance, as well as those referring
global policy.
From: Baghdasarian

Baltic News Service
June 7, 2005

LITHUANIA OFFERS ITS EURO-INTEGRATION EXPERIENCE TO AZERBAIJAN

VILNIUS

Lithuania is prepared to share its experience in conducting
democratic reforms, integration into the EU and NATO, regional
cooperation and peaceful solution of conflicts.

According to a press release from the parliament, this opinion was
voiced by Parliamentary Speaker Arturas Paulauskas, who is currently
visiting Azerbaijan.

This is the Lithuanian parliamentary speaker’s first visit to
Azerbaijan after the restoration of Lithuania’s Independence in 1990.

The parliamentary speaker has met with Azerbaijan’s President Ilgam
Aliev, President of Azerbaijan’s State Oil Company Natik Aliev, Prime
Minister Artur Rasizade, Parliamentary Speaker Murtuz Aleskerov,
Foreign Minister Elmar Mamedyarov.

During the meetings with Lithuania’s delegation, the leaders of
Azerbaijan’s parliament stressed that Azerbaijan was interested in
experience in the legislation area, especially when it comes to
regulation of the solution of social issues.

The president of Azerbaijan approved of Lithuania’s initiative to
activate mutual ties and voiced an idea to set up an
intergovernmental commission tasked with developing mutual
relationship between Lithuania and Azerbaijan.

The Lithuanian delegation ran a presentation for the leaders of
Azerbaijan on the Klaipeda sea port and the possibilities of reaching
remote EU markets from it.

The meetings with Azerbaijan’s president, leaders of the parliament
and of the government focused on the possibilities to regulate the
unresolved conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia over the Mountain
Karabah.

Paulauskas accentuated that Lithuania was interested in solving the
conflict peacefully and emphasized that the solving of this matter
should have the widest possible representation of international
community.

Azerbaijan is demanding that Armenia should withdraw its troops from
the Mountain Karabah.

Later this week, the parliamentary speaker will also visit Georgia
and Armenia.
From: Baghdasarian

A1plus

| 13:27:51 | 06-06-2005 | Social |

YERVAND ZAKHARYAN LOOKS AT THE CITIZENS FROM THE WINDOW

At the beginning of the year in the Yerevan municipality and the communities
the principle of `one window’ was introduced. That is, another `opportunity’
was created for the citizens and their application-letters to reach the
authorities `quickly’.

Today the guest of the municipality briefing was Souren Koshetsyan, head of
the Yerevan mayor staff and the program `One Window’. According to him, up
to May 31 there have been 6766 official letters. The working group has
answered about 14% of the letters. The letters have been about land
allotment, leasing and privatization.

By the way, the ex-residents of the North Avenue who organize numerous
marches just in front of the municipality building demanding a meeting with
the mayor in order to restore their violated rights, cannot use the right of
`One window’. Souren Koshetsyan explains this by the fact that Yervand
Zakharyan has received them and the issue is `almost’ in the solution phase.
The staff head is not aware what `solution phase’ means, but he hopes that
it is in favor of the residents.
From: Baghdasarian

THE GEORGIAN AUTHORITIES ACCEPTED THE ARMENIAN HELP GLADLY

A1plus

| 15:35:53 | 03-06-2005 | Social |

During the meeting of RA Prime Minister Andranik Margaryan with the
Georgian Parliament President Nino Burjanadze and Prime Minister
Zourab Noghaideli the sides spoke about the improvement of the social
-economical condition of Javakhq.

The RA Prime Minister offered to help the reconstruction of the roads
of Javakhq and the improvement of the social-economical conditions
of Javakhq. The Georgian officials have expressed their readiness to
gladly accept help from Armenia.

The information is provided by the agency “A-Info”.
From: Baghdasarian

Who will manage Ataturk Airport Terminals.

Posted on Thursday, June 02, 2005 @ 9:40 PM CEST by webmaster

Luchtzak Aviation, Belgium
June 2 2005

SN30952 writes “This are the firms that bid for the management
contract Ataturk Airport Terminals (tender scheduled for June 10.)
Here is the list:

Turkish Ictas operates Antalya Airport’s second international terminal
(AYT Terminal 2) and joins with british TBI (Luton Airport-Britain).

Turkish Celebi joins with german Fraport that manages Antalya
international lines terminal with turkish Bayindir.

Canadian company, SNC joins with french ADP (Aero de Paris) that
operates airports in France.

Malaysian Company KLI joins with italian ADR (Auroport Di Roma)
that operates Leonardo Da Vinci and Fiominico airport in Rome.

Alsim Alarko joins the bidding with argentinian Corporacion
America SA, owned by an Argentinean Armenian businessman. Eduardo
Eurnekian’s consortium operates 32 airports in Argentina and Zvartnots
International Airport in Armenia.

The company that provides the highest bid in a closed envelope bid
will win the lease for the international and domestic airport terminals
for a period of 15.5 years.”
From: Baghdasarian

The Daily Star, Lebanon
May 30 2005

Security tight for first phase of crucial Lebanon elections
Disabled voters made it through to cast their ballots despite no
recognition from government and a lack of help at polling stations

By Jessy Chahine
Daily Star staff
Monday, May 30, 2005

BEIRUT: On Sunday morning, Beirut resembled a giant barricade with
security tight across the capital for the first phase of the
four-round elections. However, after four hours of voting, barely one
in 10 voters had cast their ballot despite opposition calls for a
high turnout.

“For me, this day will concretize all what we demonstrated for on
March 14 in Martyrs’ Square,” said Abu Ali, a campaign delegate for a
voting poll in Mosseitebeh, “even if we do not agree on the current
electoral law, even if we do not agree on the current electoral
machinery, voting is the only way out for us to put an end to all
this.”

Abu Ali said: “Unfortunately,” Beirutis were “unaware of this.”

In the first election not under Syrian or Lebanese intelligence
control and free from pressure on the voters’ choice, many Beirutis –
mainly Christians – felt reluctant to take part in the election
process on Sunday.

“I’m not going to vote,” said Elias Hajal. “What for? I’d rather go
to the beach. We already know who has won and who hasn’t, even before
the election process started.”

However, other voters described the current elections as “historical”
and “mandatory for the winds of change to come.”

“Now that the Syrians are gone, there is no pressure,” said Kamal
Badran, a 52-year-old butcher who voted for Saad Hariri’s list.

Giant pictures of the slain former Premier Rafik Hariri with his son
and random posters of independent candidates filled the streets of
Beirut, with campaign banners reading “the truth,” referring to the
public demand to uncover the culprits behind Hariri’s assassination,
posted outside some polling stations.

However, disabled Lebanese who had to vote in other polling stations
still had to face many obstacles, most notably the presence of
numerous stairs in every polling station.

Disabled voters’ access to polling stations was as hard as ever,
despite an exemplary polling station set up for disabled voters in
Makassed Harj High School in Beirut’s first district.

“I had to be carried to the sixth floor to vote,” said Rima Najjar,
36. “People were fighting over who would carry me up, but were much
less enthusiastic about bringing me down later on.”

Interior Minister Hassan Sabaa, when approached by a disabled woman
demanding that the government rectify the situation for the 900
disabled eligible to vote in Beirut, said: “I wasn’t aware of that
presence.”

Others, mainly members of the Free Patriotic Movement (FPM) and the
Armenian Tachnag Party – both of whom boycotted the elections –
roamed the streets of Beirut, especially Achrafieh, singing patriotic
hymns of “freedom,” carrying posters of General Michel Aoun and
distributing leaflets reading “do not vote.”

“What is taking place now are not ‘elections,’ they are merely
‘nominations,'” said Paul Achkar, an FPM supporter, “everything has
been planned in advance, they’re only making us believe these
elections are democratic. They’re not.”

Taking place a month after the last Syrian soldier left Lebanon, the
polls were being staged under international supervision for the first
time with over 100 European Union and UN observers on the ground.

White cars bearing large stickers with the logo of the EU and the
words “international observers” were seen touring the streets of
Beirut, checking the various polling stations.

The presence of other local volunteer observers, belonging to the
Lebanese Association for Democratic Elections (LADE), was also a
first for Lebanon.

“For the first time, we were granted permission by the Interior
Ministry to access the polls and our observers were allowed in there,
to closely follow up and monitor the elections process,” said Ziyad
Baroud, LADE’s secretary general.

Nevertheless, some continued to complain at pressure being exerted on
them not to vote.

“A man called me at home this morning asking me not to vote,” said
Abraham, a voter preferred not to give his last name, “and my
neighbors were given false tickets featuring the names of candidate
who have already won unopposed.”

Ayman, a LADE volunteer, said this kind of fraud was not the
responsibility of the observer teams.

“People know how to read and write, don’t they?” he said, “so they
can distinguish a legitimate ticket from an illicit one.”
From: Baghdasarian

ITAR-TASS News Agency
TASS
May 28, 2005 Saturday 10:18 AM Eastern Time

French singer Aznavour to visit Georgia Sunday

By Tengiz Pachkoria

TBILISI

French singer and composer Charles Aznavour will visit Georgia on
Sunday at the invitation of its president.

It will be his first trip to Georgia. Aznavour, 81, is expected to
arrive in Tbilisi Sunday noon. He will then make a helicopter trip to
Akhaltsikhe, a town in the south of Georgia, where his father was
born and where his grandparents are buried.

Aznavour is of Armenian decent. About 100 years ago, the Aznavuryan
family left Georgia for Greece and then went to France, where Charles
was born.

His distant relatives live in Akhaltsikhe. One of them, Laura
Bagdasaryan, told journalists several days ago that “the photographs
of the singer’s grandfather, grandmother and father are kept here
with reverence”.

Akhaltsikhe is preparing a concert and a warm reception for Aznavour.
The singer will end his visit to Georgia on Sunday evening.
From: Baghdasarian

Armenpress

22-MEMBER US DELEGATION VISITS ARMENIA

YEREVAN, MAY 27, ARMENPRESS: The US Embassy in Yerevan told Armenpress
that Adjutant General of the Kansas National Guard, Major General Tod M.
Bunting, leads a delegation of Military and Civilian Leaders from Kansas
visiting Armenia under the State Partnership Program.
It said a delegation of 22 military and civilian leaders is visiting
Armenia from the 25th to the 30th of May, 2005, to discuss areas of possible
cooperation between Kansas and Armenia under the auspices of the State
Partnership Program (SPP). This is Major General Bunting’s second trip to
Armenia and the first delegation to include civic leaders. Delegation
members will be meeting with Armenian government officials including the
Ministry of Defense, Emergency Management Administration, Ministry of
Health, National Institute of Health, National Education Institute,
universities, agricultural projects, law enforcement agencies, and
representatives from the National Assembly.
The Kansas delegation includes state senators and representatives,
members of the armed forces , and representatives involved in agriculture,
law enforcement, education, media, and health. The State Partnership Program
is initiated with the National Guard of a given state, with coordination
provided by the Office of Defense Cooperation at the U.S. Embassy, and may
include military-to-military, military-to-civilian, and civilian-to-civilian
programs of cooperation.
The National Guard consists of men and women who, though working at
regular civilian jobs in their home state, dedicate a part of their time to
military service. Every state and territory has its own National Guard as
provided by the Constitution of the United States. The Guard in each state
is made up of Army National Guard and Air National Guard units. Guard units
may serve to assist during natural disasters, to support regular Army or Air
Force units, and, when called upon, to bear arms against their nation’s
enemies. The National Guard of a given state is under the control of the
governor during peacetime, yet is available to the President during national
emergencies.
The State Partnership Program links National Guard states and territories
with partner countries for the purpose of fostering mutual interests and
establishing long-term relationships across all levels of society. The SPP
between Kansas and Armenia began with initial discussions in March 2003. The
Kansas-Armenia SPP was officially inaugurated during the fall of 2003. The
Armenian military has asked Kansas for assistance in the two major areas:
Peacekeeping Operations and Health/Medical programs. Other areas of
cooperation include Emergency Management and Planning and Disaster Response.
Further programs in different areas are expected to follow in time as the
relationship develops and widens. This visit is a key step in that
direction.
From: Baghdasarian

Journal of Turkish Weekly
May 27 2005

Startup of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan Pipeline: Turkey’s Energy Role

Soner Cagaptay and Nazli Gencsoy
May 27, 2005

On May 25, the presidents of Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Georgia, and
Turkey inaugurated the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline (BTC), a major
artery linking oil fields in the Caspian Sea region to the
Mediterranean Sea and Western markets beyond. It will take several
months for oil pumped from Baku, Azerbaijan, to pass through Tbilisi,
Georgia, and reach the Turkish coast at Ceyhan. Eventually, BTC will
carry up to 1 million barrels per day (bbl/d) of crude oil to the
Mediterranean. With growing concern over Western dependence on Middle
Eastern oil and rising global oil prices, Turkey is emerging as a key
country in providing Caspian oil to the Western world.
Background: A Pipeline Born of U.S.-Turkish Cooperation

According to British Petroleum’s Statistical Review of World Energy,
proven oil reserves in the Caspian Basin total 16.5 billion barrels,
comparable to the reserves of Canada, Mexico, or the OPEC member
state Qatar.

President Bill Clinton and Turkish President Suleyman Demirel settled
heated debate in the mid-1990s over how best to bring Caspian oil to
world markets by throwing their weight behind the BTC. Washington and
Ankara saw the BTC as a key east-west corridor that would ensure the
independence and economic viability of the newly independent states
in the Caspian Basin. The BTC also made strategic sense to the United
States and Turkey because it would bypass politically unstable places
like Iran, the northern Caucasus (including Chechnya), and
Armenian-occupied parts of Azerbaijan.

Further, the BTC was seen as useful to easing the burdens on the
Turkish Straits of the Bosporus and the Dardanelles. Today, more than
5,000 tankers cross the Turkish Straits each year, carrying Caspian
oil from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean. The sea traffic through
the narrow, zigzagging straits carries grave risks, especially since
any accident could cause an environmental catastrophe in downtown
Istanbul, which sits along the Bosporus.

When others questioned the project’s feasibility, Clinton appointed a
special envoy for Caspian energy affairs and Demirel visited Georgia
and Azerbaijan to push for the project. The unprecedented level of
U.S.-Turkish cooperation, as well as successful coordination by both
countries’ diplomats, made the seemingly impossible pipeline
possible.

Building the BTC

In 1997, Western oil companies started to explore the commercial
viability of the BTC project. An international consortium of eleven
partners — Britain’s BP; Azerbaijan’s SOCAR; Norway’s Statoil; U.S.
based Unocal, Amerada Hess, and ConocoPhillips; Turkey’s TPAO;
Italy’s Eni; Japan’s INPEX and Itochu; and France’s TotalFinaElf —
began construction of the pipeline in May 2003. With a 30 percent
share in the project, BP is the largest stakeholder, and served as
acting leader for the project’s design and construction phases.

The BTC, which cost an estimated $3.7 billion for construction,
financing, and line-fill, has received limited public funding. The
European Bank of Reconstruction and Development and the International
Finance Corporation, the World Bank’s private-sector arm, pledged
$250 million in loans. Although a small amount compared to the
project’s total funding, World Bank participation acted as a catalyst
to bring foreign direct investors to the project.

Because it traverses 176 widely varied and sensitive terrains while
crossing the politically unstable Caucasus region, the BTC was
bedeviled by worries about its security and environmental risks.
Accordingly, the U.S. military’s Special Forces trained 1,500-2,000
Georgian soldiers in anti-terrorism techniques under a $64 million
program aimed at protecting the pipeline against saboteurs. In
addition, a BP-led consortium granted an additional $25 million to
local non-governmental organizations to manage environmental
programs.

The entire length of the 1,094-mile BTC, the longest oil-export
pipeline in the world, is buried. Once the pipeline becomes fully
operational, Azerbaijan will be the main beneficiary of the sale of
its oil in international markets, collecting (at current prices)
about $29 billion per year in oil revenues, while Georgia and Turkey
will respectively collect transit fees of $600 million and $1.5
billion per year.

Ceyhan Becomes a Nexus of Global Energy Lines

With BTC, Ceyhan will emerge as a major energy supplier to the world.
Ceyhan’s port, Yumurtalik, is already the terminus of Kirkuk-Ceyhan
pipeline, which has the capacity to bring about 1.5 million bbl/d oil
to the Mediterranean from northern Iraq (though it is presently
closed due to continuing attacks by Iraqi insurgents). Another
pipeline is now under consideration to bring Caspian gas from Baku,
via Tbilisi, to Erzurum in eastern Turkey from where it would be
transported to Ceyhan. There are other new projects designed to make
Ceyhan into an even bigger hub of energy supply:

-Samsun-Ceyhan gas/ oil lines and terminal. Turkey intends to enlarge
its natural-gas transmission by extending the Blue Stream pipeline,
which connects Russia with Ankara through the Black Sea, through an
Ankara-to-Ceyhan extension. After a liquid-natural-gas export
terminal is built in Ceyhan, this plan would enable Turkey to
re-export Russian gas. Turkey also wants to build a cross-Anatolian
oil line, from Samsun on the Black Sea to Ceyhan on the
Mediterranean, to further decrease traffic through the Turkish
Straits.

-Kazakhstan Extension. In March 2005, Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan
agreed to build the Aktau-Baku pipeline, connecting the Kashagan
offshore oil fields near Aktau in Kazakhstan to the BTC in Baku via a
sub-Caspian in 2008. The Kashagan field is expected to produce 1.2
million bbl/d by 2016, when 600,000 bbl/d of its production is to be
shipped across the Caspian Sea to be fed into the BTC line.

-Ceyhan-Haifa Pipeline. This project, first discussed during Turkish
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s May 2005 visit to Israel, aims
to bring BTC oil to Israel via a sub-Mediterranean pipeline through
Cyprus. There are also plans for parallel pipelines to carry water,
gas, and electricity, and perhaps fiber-optic lines, to Israel, as
well as to Northern Cyprus, Jordan, and the Palestinian territories,
bringing the latter closer to Turkey and Israel economically and
politically.

Implications of Turkey’s Emergence as an Energy Entrepot

Turkey’s new position as a way-station for energy distribution could
be a useful asset in its relations with both the European Union and
the United States. Turkish membership would give the EU a direct
route to Caspian energy resources that does not cross Russia; as a
major energy producer; Russia has not been very helpful getting
Caspian energy to outside markets.

In the post-Iraq War period, the energy issue should also strengthen
U.S.-Turkish relations. Turkey’s strategic value sometimes comes
under doubt. But Turkey is an important route for the export of oil
from northern Iraq. By binding the Caucasus region with the West
through the BTC, Turkey is now a key country in accessing the energy
sources of the landlocked Caspian Basin. And the BTC has
significantly limited the share of Caspian oil that must be
transported through Iran. Tehran currently transports a mere 35,000
bbl/d Caspian oil, which it buys from Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan
through a swapping agreement. The BTC and other projects involving
Turkey should remind Americans and Turks alike that as members of the
Western world, they have shared interests that can be promoted
through cooperation.

Soner Cagaptay is a senior fellow and director of the Turkish
Research Program at The Washington Institute. Nazli Gencsoy, a Dr.
Marcia Robbins-Wilf young scholar, is a research assistant at the
Institute.

Copyright 2005 THE WASHINGTON INSTITUTE for Near East Policy
From: Baghdasarian