Author: Baghdasarian Karlen

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

ARMENIA’s NSS ARRESTED OMBUDSMAN STAFF WORKER CHARGED WITH SWINDLE
YEREVAN, MAY 27. ARMINFO. On May 26, institutions of Armenia’s
National Security Service arrested a worker of Ombudsman staff Serob
Antinyan.
As ARMINFO was informed in the RA NSS press-service, he was arrested
in suspicion on swindle. It is informed that he blackmailed and took
$300 bribe from the director of a bar-restaurant in Yerevan.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Armenian, Finnish foreign ministers discuss developing ties
Arminfo
26 May 05
YEREVAN
Armenian Foreign Minister Vardan Oskanyan, who is on a two-day visit
to Helsinki, today had a meeting with his Finnish counterpart Erkki
Tuomioja.
The sides discussed a number of issues, including bilateral relations,
the Nagornyy Karabakh conflict, Armenian-Turkish ties, EU-Armenia
cooperation within the EU’s New Neighbourhood Policy and the action
plan, the Armenian Foreign Ministry press service has told Arminfo.
The foreign ministers gave a news conference after the meeting.
The Armenian foreign minister also visited the Finnish parliament and
met members of the parliamentary commission for foreign relations and
the Finland-Armenia parliamentary friendship group.
A meeting between Oskanyan and Finnish Defence Minister Seppo
Kaeariaeinen has been scheduled for 27 May. The foreign minister will
return home on the same day.
From: Baghdasarian

AUTHORITIES TO EXERT EVERY EFFORT NOT TO ALLOW IN REPUBLIC ANY
REVOLUTION FROM OUTSIDE: ANDRANIK MARGARYAM
YEREVAN, MAY 25. ARMINFO. Armenia is in one of those regions where,
according to the US President George Bush, democratic revolutions
should be fulfilled, Armenia’s Prime Minister Andranik Margaryan
stated journalists today.
He stressed that Armenia’s authorities should undertake all the steps
not to allow to fulfill any revolution from the outside. “We should
create no political or economical preconditions for such a development
of the situation”, Margaryan stated. To remind, George Bush during his
recent visit to Tbilisi stated that democratic changes should be done
in the Southern Caucasian countries and stressed that Georgia is their
engine. -r-
From: Baghdasarian

A1plus
| 16:13:00 | 24-05-2005 | Official |
FIRST MEETINGS IN BELGIUM
Formal visit of Armenian National Assembly Speaker Arthur Baghdasaryan to
the Benelux states is going on.
In Brussels the Armenian delegation met with the representatives of the
diplomatic missions and various international organizations including the
Eurasia Foundation, Institute of Open Society, European Office on Human
Rights, European Commission, European Center of Civic Studies as well as
with the representatives of Turkey, Ukranine, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria and other
EU states.
During the meeting the parties discussed the issues referring to the
democratic reforms in Armenia, relations with the neighbors as well as the
regional cooperation and the Karabakh conflict settlement process.
Arthur Baghdasaryan stated that the democratic processes in Armenia are
irrevocable and cover all the fields of public life. In part, the meeting
participants touched upon the constitutional reforms, Election Code and the
law `On Rallies, Meetings, Marches and Demonstrations’
One parliament for Caucasus
Arthur Baghdasaryan noted that Armenia is for the establishment of normal
relations with all the neighbors and the formation of parliamentary congress
on the basis of the functioning parliamentary initiative could become a
considerable contribution to the development of political, economic,
scientific and cultural ties.
Compromise in certain frames
As for the Karabakh conflict settlement it was noted that Armenia adheres to
the peaceful resolution of the problem. Justice Bloc member Aram Sargsyan
noted that the people of Karabakh started struggle for independence and took
all the measures in accord with the international law.
Representative of the Turkish Embassy in his turn states that Armenia does
not acknowledge Turkey’s borders and besides the Constitution mentions of
Eastern Armenia. The RA NA Chairman assures that no mention of the kind
exists in the Constitution and one can make certain of that by visiting the
appropriate website. `We consider that the relations with Turkey should be
normalized without any preconditions. We should live in peace, face the
future and think about the coming generations’, Arthur Baghdasaryan said
adding that Armenia does not protest against Turkey’s accession to the EU
but speaks against double standards.
From: Baghdasarian

Hye Arvest magazine to also be published in English
Yerkir/am
May 20, 2005
Yerkir has written about the magazine Hye Arvest (Armenian Art), which
was a joint project of the Momik Cultural Center and Seven Arts
Society.
In addition to interesting stories, the latest issue of the magazine
pleasantly surprised with two news, first being that from now on the
Armenian National Picture Gallery is the publisher of the magazine.
The second news is that the magazine will also have an
English-language edition, making it easier for the English-speaking
Diaspora Armenians to read it. The Armenian art and culture thus will
be presented to a wider public around the world.
One of the most remarkable articles of the latest issue is the story
titled “1600-year-old Challenge” by the editor of the magazine, Karen
Matevosian. The author is concerned that the Armenian alphabet
creation celebrations may turn into a show as it usually happens in
such cases.
Matevosian, citing Catholicos Garegin I as saying “the 1700th
anniversary of the Christianity should become a second arrival of
Christ,” notes that unfortunately it didn’t. He then hopes that the
alphabet’s 1600th anniversary celebrations are held appropriately and
become the unifying force for the world Armenians.
Armenians all over the globe must realize that there is no other
powerful weapon than the Armenian language and the Armenian alphabet
capable of saving them from assimilation.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

ECONOMY CAN DEVELOP WITHOUT LINS FUND
A1plus
| 20:25:47 | 20-05-2005 | Economy |
NA Standing Committee on Financial-Credit, Budgetary and Economic
Affairs head Gagik Minasyan has been cheered up by the discussions
of the budget. As a result of the discussions he has learned that
there is a positive tendency, particularly, it is the 4th year that
the economy has bee developing, and the first when the income part of
the budget has been over fulfilled for 2.4% without the Lins Fund.
Gagik Minasyan was also satisfied by the tax incomes. As for the combat
against shadow economy, as a result of the discussions Mr. Minasyan
came to the conclusion that the combat is fruitful.
From: Baghdasarian

Russian General Staff on military bases in Georgia
RosBusinessConsulting Database
May 19, 2005 Thursday
Russia and Georgia are planning to agree upon the withdrawal of
Russian military bases in the near future, chief of the Russian General
Staff Yury Baluyevsky has reported. He commented that the bases would
be transferred to Russia. However, Baluyevsky did not rule out the
possibility that part of servicemen would be withdrawn to the Russian
base in Armenia. This will help to decrease the withdrawal period
from 10 to 4 years, he said.
From: Baghdasarian