Author: Boshkezenian Garik

ARMENIAN FREESTYLE WRESTLING NATIONAL TEAM WINS THREE MEDALS IN EUROPEAN CHAMPIONSHIP

Noyan Tapan
Apr 2, 2009

VILNIUS, APRIL 2, NOYAN TAPAN. The European freestyle Wrestling
Championship finished on April 1 in Vilnius. Artur Arakelian (60kg,
Yerevan), Suren Markosian (74 kg, Garni), and Edgar Yenokian
(96 kg, Yerevan) performed from Armenia on the last day of the
championship. Only E. Yenokian managed to take the third place and
to become a bronze medal winner.

Thus, the Armenian freestyle wrestling national team won 1 silver
and 2 bronze medals in the European Championship.

Greco-Roman wrestlers will compete on April 4 in Vilnius for European
Championship medals. The Armenian sportsmen will perform in all seven
weight categories.

Armenian Assembly of America
1140 19th Street, NW, Suite 600
Washington, DC 20036
Phone: 202-393-3434
Fax: 202-638-4904
Email: [email protected]
Web:

PRESS RELEASE

April 2, 2009
Contact: Michael A Zachariades
Email: [email protected]
Phone: (202) 393-3434

SENIOR WHITE HOUSE POLICY ADVISORS MEET WITH ARMENIAN-AMERICAN
ORGANIZATIONS PRIOR TO OBAMA’S TRIP TO TURKEY

Washington, DC – On March 24, representatives of the Armenian Assembly
of America and the Armenian National Committee of America met, at the
invitation of the White House, with President Barack Obama’s senior
foreign policy advisors prior to the President’s departure for his first
overseas trip to Europe, which will include a visit to Turkey.

The Armenian-American leadership continues to look forward, this April,
to President Obama honoring his repeated pledges to properly recognize
the Armenian Genocide, to broaden U.S.-Armenia relations, and to support
other issues impacting Armenia and the surrounding region.

Established in 1972, the Armenian Assembly of America is the largest
Washington-based nationwide organization promoting public understanding
and awareness of Armenian issues. The Assembly is a 501(c) (3)
tax-exempt membership organization.

###

NR#2009-023

MASSACRE OF ADANA ARMENIANS IN 1909 IS A CLASSIC EXAMPLE OF GENOCIDE PRELUDE

PanARMENIAN.Net
01.04.2009 20:27 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Massacre of Adana Armenians in 1909 is a classic
example of Genocide prelude (similar example, Kristallnacht in
Holocaust chronicles), orientalist and historian Suren Manukyan told
a PanARMENIAN.Net reporter.

Adana population was heartened with promises of "Liberty, Equality
and Fraternity" proclaimed by the new authorities of Ottoman Empire
a year before tragic events. Armenians demanded appointments to
governmental offices. An atmosphere of amicability was established
between Armenians and Turks of Adana region, the more unexpected was
the blow to Adana Armenians. People of Adana and adjusting villages
were subjected to all the tortures employed during the Genocide of
1915-23: hatred fomentation with religious mottos of "fighting the
unfaithful" and violence towards Christians. The Ottoman government
sent in the Army of Young Turks to keep peace, but instead they
tolerated the violence or participated in it.

In the aftermath of Adana massacres, the government of Turkey, as
well as some Turkish writers and nationalists, tried to deny the
pogroms. Young Turks tried to shift the responsibility for massacres
upon their political rival Abdul Hamid and even out the number of
those killed in the massacre, both massacre victims and perpetrators
(362 people were arrested: 149 Muslims and 213 Christians). Thus,
the impunity was the major total of Adana massacre. 9 Muslims and
6 Armenians were beheaded on May 28. Beheaded Muslims were common
people, none of the notables, yet true perpetrators of disturbances
were not made accountable. And the only fault of beheaded Armenians
was trying to protect themselves.

"Impunity of perpetrators and inconsistence of the Great Powers
created a firm perception of unpunishability of killing an Armenian,"
Suren Manukyan emphasized.

The tension erupted into riots on April 1, 1909, which soon escalated
into organized violence against the Armenian population of Adana and
in several surrounding cities. Reports estimated that the massacres
in Adana Province resulted in 30,000 deaths.

Turkish and Armenian revolutionary groups had worked together to
secure the restoration of constitutional rule, in 1908. On 31 March
(or 13 April, by the Western calendar) a military revolt directed
against the Committee of Union and Progress seized Istanbul. While the
revolt lasted only ten days, it precipitated a massacre of Armenians
in the province of Adana that lasted over a month.

The awakening of Turkish nationalism, and the perception of the
Armenians as a separatist, European-controlled entity, also contributed
to the violence.

AZERBAIJAN AND RUSSIA INK TENTATIVE GAS AGREEMENT
by Roman Kupchinsky

Jamestown Foundation
April 1 2009

On March 27 Russia’s state owned gas monopoly Gazprom signed a
memorandum of understanding with Azerbaijan’s state-owned oil and Gas
Company, SOCAR, which would provide for deliveries of Azeri gas to
Russia starting in January 2010. The report in the Russian newspaper
Vedomosti on March 30 did not disclose any details, merely confirming
that Gazprom Chief Executive Alexei Miller signed the memorandum in
Moscow with the president of SOCAR, Rovnag Abdullayev, and that the two
sides will begin talks on importing Azeri gas in 2010. Vedomosti mooted
that the deal was part of Gazprom’s plans to buy all the export gas
produced in Central Asia and the South Caucasus in order to terminate
the pro-Western Nabucco pipeline project, intended to supply the EU
with non-Russian gas via a new route by-passing Russian territory.

The vagueness of the memorandum’s wording suggests however, that Baku
might be using the rather nebulous agreement to maximize pressure
on the indecisive Europeans to finally make a firm commitment to
Nabucco. Azerbaijan is the only gas producing country in the former
Soviet Union besides Ukraine, which does not export gas, with which
Russia does not have a gas purchase contract. Gazprom’s talks with
SOCAR began last year while it was negotiating the 2009 gas price with
Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. These negotiations ended with
Gazprom offering to pay these producers the "European price" of gas,
based on the price of petroleum products. In the case of Azerbaijan,
Russia has apparently made a similar offer and the Azeri’s are
reportedly weighing their options between Gazprom’s firm offer and
the EU’s wavering stance on Nabucco.

In June 2008 Gazprom offered to buy the projected production of 16
billion cubic meters of gas annually from the second phase of the
giant Azeri Shakh Deniz gas field. (Kommersant, March 30). However,
the second output phase of gas from Shakh-Deniz, estimated to cost
$10 billion, will only come online in 2014 at the earliest, two years
later than previous estimates.

Gazprom’s approach to Azerbaijan is not limited to buying its gas,
even if it costs substantially more than in previous years. The
geopolitical and strategic factors tangential to the deal are of
critical importance to the U.S. Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) system
in an effort to prevent Iran from potentially deploying a missile
delivery system capable of delivering nuclear warheads to Central
European, Central Asian, Caspian and potentially Russian cities.

Azerbaijan’s Gabala radar station, currently used by Russia is a
case in point. The Russian military is concerned that the station
could fall into U.S. hands and be used against Moscow. According to
Michael Coffey, a California-based specialist on BMD:

Moscow’s air and missile defense systems have lost significant overseas
assets in recent years. The breakup of the Soviet Union curtailed the
Kremlin’s access to numerous BMD ground sites, many of which landed
in newly independent nations. In any case, insufficient resources
were available for the support and maintenance of the system and many
sites simply went offline (, August 28, 2007).

Russian support of the embryonic Caspian Economic Cooperation
Organization (CECO) is yet another factor behind Gazprom’s seduction
of Azeri President Ilham Aliyev. On December 24, 2008 the Azeri
Constitutional Court ruled to allow a referendum in which the
possibility of unlimited presidential terms would be put to the
public thus allowing Aliyev to extend his time in office beyond the
constitutional limit of two consecutive terms. "The chairman of the
Constitutional Court, Farhad Abdullayev, said there were no legal
obstacles to parliament agreeing to sanction a referendum that would
approve or reject the constitutional change" (, December
24, 2008). Aliyev duly won the referendum on March 18.

If Moscow is convinced that Aliyev will remain in office for the
duration, the plan appears to be to draw his country into the CECO
along with Iran, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan and Russia in order to
consolidate Russian control over the Caspian region and it vast
resources.

Aliyev, in the meantime, has been playing off Russia against the West
in order to put leverage on the United States and Europe which have
been backing off in their support for Nabucco. It is no secret that
he is upset by Russian arms deliveries to Armenia and has publicly
opposed this. The issue of Karabakh is sensitive for most Azerbaijanis
and he cannot afford to been seen as "soft" on this issue. And while
he has posed as being closer to the West than to Russia, it appears
that in the final analysis he might go where the money is -Gazprom
and the Kremlin.

ARMENIANS, GEORGIANS IN UNHOLY ROW OVER DISPUTED CHURCH
Nina Akhmeteli

Expatica Germany
re/news_focus/Armenians_-Georgians-in-unholy-row-o ver-disputed-church-_13867.html
April 1 2009

In a country that has undergone years of ethnic and political discord,
including a war with Russia last August, a debate over the ownership
of a church is only one of its many divisive internal battles.

Amidst the rambling homes and cobblestone streets of the Georgian
capital Tbilisi’s old town, two stone churches stand side-by-side,
sharing a snow-covered courtyard.

One, the Georgian Orthodox Church of Jvaris Mama, is alive with
parishioners and lit candles. Its neighbour, the Norashen Church,
sits lonely and locked.

Unused for nearly seven decades, the Norashen Church is at the heart
of long-running dispute between the Armenian Apostolic and the Georgian
Orthodox Churches.

The dispute has flared again in recent months, raising ethnic tensions
in Georgia as it is still recovering from an August war with Russia
over the South Ossetia region, where ethnic Ossetian separatists
broke from Georgian control in the early 1990s.

Ownership disputes between the two churches are common but the Norashen
Church has come to symbolise what some in the local Armenian community
say is the "Georgianisation" of traditionally Armenian churches.

Armenian experts say the Norashen Church was built in the 15th century
for the local Armenian community and continued to operate until it was
shut down during the Soviet Union’s anti-religion drive in the 1930s.

The Georgian church says there is no conclusive evidence that Norashen
was Armenian and that its origins are open to debate. When the Soviet
Union collapsed in 1991, ownership of the church fell to the Georgian
government and the dispute has yet to be resolved.

The latest flare-up occurred when local Armenians claimed that
the priest of the Georgian church next to Norashen, Father Tariel
Sikinchelashvili, tried to remove Armenian tombstones from its
graveyard.

Alexander Ohanian, the head of the head of Armenian Cooperation Centre
of Georgia, said that in mid-November he saw a bulldozer working in
the churchyard and that two Armenian tombstones had been removed.

Local Armenians gathered in the yard and confronted Father Tariel,
accusing him of seeking to remove evidence that the church is Armenian.

The tombstones were later returned but Ohanian said local Armenians
don’t believe their removal was an accident.

‘All I can do now is pray’

"It is too naive to think that he acted alone, without permission
from his superiors," Ohanian said.

A senior Armenian priest in Tbilisi, Father Narek Kushian, said the
Georgian church has been trying to convert the building since 1989.

"Father Tariel is trying to seize the church and add Orthodox
attributes to raise questions about its origin," Kushian said. "The
inscription on the cupola of the church was erased by him and the
main attributes showing this church is Armenian, such as the altar,
have also been destroyed."

Approached in his church, Father Tariel refused to comment on the
allegations.

"I am just too tired of it all," he said. "I’ve done as much as I
can and all I can do now is pray."

A spokesman for the Georgian Orthodox Church, Davit Sharashenidze, said
a commission is to resolve ownership disputes between the two churches.

"We can’t say unambiguously that it is an Armenian church, as there
is also evidence backing opposite claims," he said. "The Georgian
side has similar claims regarding Georgian churches in Armenia and
these issues need study and research by scientists."

A complicated politics

But the dispute has already become political as well as religious.

In recent weeks, hundreds of Armenians have participated in rallies
in Yerevan to protest against the alleged destruction of Armenian
cultural monuments in Georgia.

The dispute was also raised during a December visit by Armenian Prime
Minister Tigran Sarkisian to Georgia.

Georgian Prime Minister Grigol Mgaloblishvili said after meeting his
Armenian counterpart that he hoped no issues would be "politically
exploited" to drive a wedge between the two peoples.

The issue is especially sensitive in Georgia, where interethnic
conflicts in South Ossetia and another separatist region, Abkhazia,
have left thousands dead.

After the Abkhaz and Ossetians, Armenians are the third-largest ethnic
minority in Georgia, with nearly 250,000 Armenians in the country of
4.3 million.

WHEN THEY DO NOT UNDERSTAND, OR HAVE TO PRETEND NOT TO UNDERSTAND THE ESSENCE OF THE MAYOR ELECTION
Hakob Badalyan

LRAGIR.AM
11:22:24 – 01/04/2009

On March 31, the parliamentary member from ARF Dashnaktsutyun, member
of the parliamentary committee to study March1 Artyusha Shahbazyan
stated that the Yerevan mayor election is not a possibility for
a system change in Armenia. The reason for Artyusha Shahbazyan’s
statement is evident. He stated this because, like all the other
coalition parties, the Dashnaktsutyun has a question of lowering the
Mayor election’s importance, in which result the governmental forces
will be possible to be at an advantage over Levon Ter-Petrosyan. The
governmental parties have all the rights to bring the election at
any level but how they will ground the acquisition of that right.

>From this point of view, for example, the statement of the
Dashnaktsutyun parliamentary member is out of any logic. It is either
above or too below the logic. The point is that the Mayor election
already means a system change. In other words, when in accordance
with the amendments to the Constitution, the Mayor is being elected
and not appointed; this supposes a system change in the country. It
is a little difficult to say what the ARF Dashnaktsutyun means by
saying a system change, but it the system is clear to be changed in
the country to every extent.

In other words, the opposition is given a chance to have power in
the capital. If the mechanism of election is launched, consequently,
it creates a possibility that for the opposition to win too. And if
the opposition wins power in Yerevan it changes the balance of the
governmental system bringing about a competitive situation instead
of a monolith pyramid. It is all the same even if we assume that the
Yerevan authorities will have only the streets cleaning and trees
and flowers planting function, the situation is changed completely
anyway; when the garbage of the capital is cleaned this means that
the garbage of the half of the country is cleaned by an oppositional
force. And the garbage should not be underestimated, because due to
it all the country is overwhelmed with garbage now.

Thus, if we watch the Mayor election from the governmental point of
view and situate it in the framework of daily problems solutions,
the system change is inevitable the same, if another political force
assumes the responsibility for solving these problems. So, the daily
round, which seems a trump to the government, is just an illusion a
conscious or unconscious illusion, which is showed by the governmental
party members who do not understand the logic of the mayor election,
or just pretend not to understand it.

ARMENIA SACK COACH POULSEN

Agence France Presse
March 31 2009
France

YEREVAN (AFP) — The Armenian football federation announced on Tuesday
their decision to sack national manager Jan Poulsen after a 2-2 home
draw with Estonia in the 2010 World Cup qualifying match.

The 63-year-old Poulsen took over Armenia’s national side in January
2009, but in the qualifiers to date, his side have suffered four
defeats and just the one draw against Estonia.

IS TURKEY ASIAN OR EUROPEAN? (1)
By Kadir Ayhan

Today’s Zaman
March 31 2009
Turkey

As a Turkish citizen living abroad, I have received countless
questions from foreigners related to Turkish history, politics and
culture. However, none of the questions has been asked more frequently
than that of whether Turkey is Asian or European. There can be very
many answers to this question, depending on the approach one takes
in analyzing Turkey’s identity.

My first reaction to this question is always this: "Why does it
matter? For me, it is just a matter of crossing the bridge." I am
making two points with this answer: 1) Identities are not constant,
but relative; they can change contextually. Since identities are
relative, Turkey, or any other country for that matter, does not
have to be strictly of one identity or another. 2) Istanbul indeed
is a bridge between Europe and Asia, and that gives Turkey a unique
geopolitical significance and a natural role of bridging Europe
(the West) and Asia (the East, indeed the Middle East).

First of all, the wording of the question is wrong since it reduces
the dimension to geographical identity alone. That is because there
is no such thing as an Asian identity, but there are not well defined
sub-Asian identities. Asia is the largest continent in the world and is
home to diverse ethnic, cultural and religious identities. The Asian
identity has been discussed in East Asia since the 19th century,
but it is usually limited to the East Asian countries — and yet
there is still no definition of an East Asian identity. Indeed,
in East Asia not many people can picture Arabs, Pakistanis, Indians
and even Russians as "Asian." On the other hand, the simple question
"Asian or European" makes sense from a traditional Western point of
view since it hints at "Oriental or Occidental?" However, the term
Orient itself is very ignorant, because it implies a meaning of simply
"non-West" in a "West vs. the rest" setting.

The question can be paraphrased in this way: "What is Turkey’s
identity?" This question can be answered from three different
approaches: 1) What identity does the Republic of Turkey attach itself
to? 2) What identity does the general Turkish public attach itself
to? 3) What identity does the world attach to Turkey? Each question
can be dealt with in a comprehensive analysis, but this article’s aim
is to suggest an identity for Turkey that can arguably be an optimum
answer to all three questions.

Turkey is located where Asia meets Europe and geographically has land
on both continents. The capital Ankara and the larger portion of the
country are in Asia. Turkey is the successor of the Ottoman Empire,
which had been the leader (caliph) of the Muslim world for about 400
years. Today, 99 percent of the Turkish population is officially
Muslim. Yet these facts are not enough to place Turkey under an
Islamic identity. The Republic of Turkey imported Western systems,
including democracy, laicism (secularism), the Latin alphabet, the
educational system, the justice system, etc. In addition to these
systems, Turkey also imported Western music, Western clothes (the
"hat revolution" being the most symbolic) and Western arts — all
elements of the Western culture that usually come as a set together
with modernization. These changes were made under Mustafa Kemal
Ataturk’s revolution in the 1920s. Today, Turkey is a country with a
99 percent Muslim population that is enacting more Western reforms in
order to be able to join the European Union. Turkey is also a member
of organizations that originated in the West, such as the Organization
for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and NATO.

Two different images

The question in the title comes up because of two apparently
different images of Turkey. Samuel Huntington, in his unconvincing yet
significant contribution, the theory of a "clash of civilizations,"
categorizes Turkey as a torn country that is in the middle of two
civilizations: the Muslim world and the West. According to his theory,
the elites of Turkey see their country as Western, while some of the
Turkish society attaches itself to the Middle East and the Muslim
world. Although Huntington does not clearly mention what he means by
"elites" nor who sees Turkey as part of the Muslim world, he most
probably thought that secularist (not secular) Turks identify Turkey
as Western while conservative (or practicing Muslim) Turks side with
the Muslim world. Having been rejected by the West, Huntington argues,
Turkey may turn to the Turkic countries of Central Asia in search
of a new identity. Until not long ago, Turkey, as a torn country,
was destined to be alone in the international arena; the West used to
see it as part of the Muslim world while at the same time the Muslim
world used to see it as "overly Westernized." Being a torn country
meant being stuck in the middle, having neither a Muslim identity
nor a Western one.

However, the reality today is very different from what Huntington
argued 16 years ago. The conservative Justice and Development Party (AK
Party) government, most of its supporters and most other conservatives
enthusiastically support Turkey’s negotiations with the European
Union. This at a time when there are mixed feelings about EU reforms in
secularist circles. Moreover, Turkey today is not only craving the EU,
but also engaging more with the Middle East, the Caucasus and Central
Asia. Turkey’s significant geopolitical location provides the country
with a unique role of bridging different cultures of various regions
(or different civilizations, as Huntington puts it).

Turkey no longer has to be stuck in the middle, with no clear
identity; it can assume the role of a peaceful mediator, with a dual
(or multiple) identity. One identity should not come at the expense of
another. In order to be part of the Western world (e.g., NATO, the EU)
as a democratic nation, Turkey does not have to ignore its population’s
Muslim identity, nor does Turkey have to turn its back on the Muslim
world. As will be discussed below, Turkey became closer to both the
Muslim world and the Western world (and indeed the Caucasus). This
fact offers prospects for Turkey serving as a mediator between the
Western world and the Muslim world.

Negotiations between Turkey and the European Union started in 2005,
and a number of reforms have been implemented in accordance with
the Copenhagen criteria within the last decade. Recently, State
Minister Egemen BagıÅ~_ was appointed minister for EU affairs and
chief negotiator in order to accelerate negotiations with the European
Union. The EU is Turkey’s number one trading partner, particularly due
to Turkey’s membership in the customs union, which it joined in 1995.

Turkey’s relationship with the Muslim world

Relations with the Muslim world have gotten better compared to
a decade ago. Turkey has been attending Arab League summits as an
observer since 2005. Relations with its neighbor to the south, Syria,
have improved tremendously, considering that the two sides drew very
close to war only a decade ago. Last year, Turkey was very active in
mediating between Syria and Israel. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan
also offered US President Barack Obama and Iranian President Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad Turkish meditation. Despite tension from time to time,
relations with Iraq and the regional administration in northern Iraq
are relatively peaceful. The secretary-general of the Organization
of the Islamic Conference (OIC) is a Turkish professor, Ekmeleddin
Ä°hsanoglu. Trade interdependence with the Middle East has increased
a great deal; energy agreements are being signed with Iran and the
Arab countries.

A subgroup within the Muslim world is culturally closer to Turkey:
the Turkic countries of Central Asia. Azerbaijan is Turkey’s closest
ally, or maybe closer than an ally, and other Turkic countries also
are very interdependent on Turkey. Turkish businessmen and Turkish NGOs
are very active in the region connecting the newly independent former
Soviet republics to their historical brother country, Turkey. Learning
Turkish and studying at Turkish universities are an increasing trend
in Central Asia. Many Turkish soap operas are being watched all over
Central Asia and in most Arab countries.

In addition to Europe and the Middle East, Turkey also engages
more with the Caucasus. The Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline
started operating in 2005. This pipeline is becoming an important oil
supplier in the East-West energy corridor and thus offers Turkey more
strategic significance in the Caucasus. Turkey does not have diplomatic
relations with Armenia, but there has been progress — especially
within the last year. Turkish President Abdullah Gul went to Armenia
upon an invitation from Armenian President Serzh Sarksyan to watch an
Armenia-Turkey soccer match and discuss bilateral issues. There have
been more diplomatic summits at the prime ministerial and foreign
affairs ministerial levels since last year’s soccer game. Moreover,
Turkey proposed the creation of a Caucasus Stability and Cooperation
Platform in order to avoid clashes in the region. Right after last
year’s conflict in South Ossetia, Prime Minister Erdogan visited both
Georgia and Russia to discuss the cooperation initiative. The idea
was welcomed by Russia, Georgia, Armenia and even NATO.

Turkey’s ties with Europe, the Muslim world and countries in
the Caucasus are simultaneously getting closer. This proves
that close relations with different "civilizations" are not
mutually exclusive. Indeed, Turkey’s close ties with Europe are an
opportunity for the Muslim world and the Caucasus, while Turkey’s
ties with the Muslim world offer prospects for Europe and the West
in general. Economic benefits are easy to point to as the reason
for Turkey being an intermediary between the two regions; however,
what is more significant is Turkey’s role in preventing the "clash
of civilizations."

*Kadir Ayhan is a student at the Graduate School of International
Studies of Seoul National University.

FOOTBALL EXHIBITION IN YEREVAN

Panorama.am
10:36 30/03/2009

"Photo planet" agency launched its photo exhibition in the Painters’
Union of Armenia presenting Hakob Berberyan’s photos from football
matches.

The photo exhibition performs photos from "Euro-2008" matches,
"Championship of Armenia", "Armenia-Turkey" football match, "Champions’
League", etc.

160 photos are presented in the exhibition. According to the
photographer this is the first football exhibition launched in
Yerevan. The President of Football Federation of Amrenia Ruben
Hayrapetyan and the Minister of Sport and Youth Affairs Armen Grigoryan
also attended the exhibition.

SERGE SARGSYAN UNDERSCORED THE RELATIONS WITH GERMANY

LRAGIR.AM
18:31:39 – 30/03/2009

The press office of the president informs that today, Serge Sargsyan
met with the State Secretary of the German foreign ministry Gernot
Erler, the head of the German Bundestag’s German-South Caucasus
parliamentary group Shetffan Raikh and the German ambassador to
Armenia Andrea-Joanna Maria Victorin.

Serge Sargsyan attached great importance to the further expansion of
the Armenian and German relations.

According to Gernot Erler, his visit proves the great interest that
Germany has towards the events happening in the region of the Western
Caucasus, especially after the events of the last August. He noted
that Germany is absolutely against the use of force while solving
disputable regional questions.

The collocutors dwelt on the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh issue,
the European Union Eastern Partnership and democratic reforms.