Author: Chakhmakhchian Vatche

WHO ARE WE, WHO ARE OUR ENEMIES – THE COST OF HISTORICAL AMNESIA
>From the desk of Fjordman
Brussels Journal, Belgium
Oct 3 2006
“The Jihad, the Islamic so-called Holy War, has been a fact of life in
Europe, Asia, Africa and the Near and Middle East for more than 1300
years, but this is the first history of the Muslim wars in Europe
ever to be published. Hundreds of books, however, have appeared on
its Christian counterpart, the Crusades, to which the Jihad is often
compared, although they lasted less than two hundred years and unlike
the Jihad, which is universal, were largely but not completely confined
to the Holy Land. Moreover, the Crusades have been over for more than
700 years, while a Jihad is still going on in the world. The Jihad has
been the most unrecorded and disregarded major event of history. It
has, in fact, been largely ignored. For instance, the Encyclopaedia
Britannica gives the Crusades eighty times more space than the Jihad.”
The quote is from Paul Fregosi’s book Jihad in the West from 1998.
Mr. Fregosi found that his book about the history of Islamic Holy War
in Europe from the 7th to the 20th centuries was difficult to get
published in the mid-1990s, when publishers had the Salman Rushdie
case in fresh memory.
A few years later, an even more comprehensive book, The Legacy of
Jihad, was published by Andrew G. Bostom. Bostom has written about
what he calls “America’s First War on Terror.”
Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, then serving as American ambassadors
to France and Britain, respectively, met in 1786 in London with the
Tripolitan Ambassador to Britain, Sidi Haji Abdul Rahman Adja. These
future American presidents were attempting to negotiate a peace treaty
which would spare the United States the ravages of Jihad piracy –
murder and enslavement emanating from the so-called Barbary States
of North Africa, corresponding to modern Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia,
and Libya.
Andrew Bostom notes that “an aggressive jihad was already being waged
against the United States almost 200 years prior to America becoming
a dominant international power in the Middle East.” Israel has thus
nothing to do with it.
The Barbary Jihad piracy had been going on since the earliest
Arab-Islamic expansion in the 7th and 8th centuries. Francisco Gabrieli
states that:
“According to present-day concepts of international relations, such
activities amounted to piracy, but they correspond perfectly to jihad,
an Islamic religious duty. The conquest of Crete, in the east, and a
good portion of the corsair warfare along the Provencal and Italian
coasts, in the West, are among the most conspicuous instances of
such ‘private initiative’ which contributed to Arab domination in
the Mediterranean.”
A proto-typical Muslim naval razzia occurred in 846 when a fleet of
Arab Jihadists arrived at the mouth of the Tiber, made their way to
Rome, sacked the city, and carried away from the basilica of St. Peter
all of the gold and silver it contained.
During the 16th and 17th centuries, as many Europeans were captured,
sold, and enslaved by the Barbary corsairs as were West Africans made
captive and shipped for plantation labor in the Americas by European
slave traders. Robert Davis’ methodical enumeration indicates that
between one, and one and one-quarter million white European Christians
were enslaved by the Barbary Muslims from 1530 through 1780.
White Gold, Giles Milton’s remarkable account of Cornish cabin
boy Thomas Pellow, captured by Barbary corsairs in 1716, documents
how Jihad razzias had extended to England [p. 13, “By the end of
the dreadful summer of 1625, the mayor of Plymouth reckoned that
1,000 skiffs had been destroyed, and a similar number of villagers
carried off into slavery”], Wales, southern Ireland [p.16, “In 1631
[…] 200 Islamic soldiers […] sailed to the village of Baltimore,
storming ashore with swords drawn and catching the villagers totally by
surprise. [They] carried off 237 men, women, and children and took them
to Algiers […] The French padre Pierre Dan was in the city (Algiers)
at the time […] He witnessed the sale of the captives in the slave
auction. ‘It was a pitiful sight to see them exposed in the market
[…] Women were separated from their husbands and the children from
their fathers […] on one side a husband was sold; on the other his
wife; and her daughter was torn from her arms without the hope that
they’d ever see each other again’.”], and even Reykjavik, Iceland!
Bostom notes that “By June/July 1815 the ably commanded U.S. naval
forces had dealt their Barbary jihadist adversaries a quick series
of crushing defeats. This success ignited the imagination of the Old
World powers to rise up against the Barbary pirates.”
Yet some Arabs seem to miss the good, old days when they could extract
Jizya payments from the West. Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi has stated
that he thinks that European nations should pay 10 billion euros
($12.7 billion dollars) a year to Africa to help it stop migrants
seeking a better life flooding northwards into Europe. He added without
elaborating: “Earth belongs to everybody. Why they (young Africans)
emigrated to Europe – this should be answered by Europeans.”
Apart from being a clear-cut example of how migration, or rather
population dumping by Third World countries, has become a tool for
blackmail in the 21st century, this is a throwback to the age when
Tripoli could extract payments from Europe.
Sadly, Americans seem to have forgotten the lessons from this proud
chapter in their history, when they refused to pay ransom to Muslims
like the Europeans did and instead sent warships to the Mediterranean
under the slogan “Millions for defense, not one penny for tribute!”
Since WW2, we’ve had three major conflicts in the Balkans: In Cyprus,
in Bosnia and in Kosovo. On all three occasions, the United States
have interfered on behalf of Muslims. Yet despite this fact, two of
the 9/11 hijackers said that their actions were inspired by an urge
to avenge the suffering of Muslims in Bosnia.
As Efraim Karsh, author of the book Islamic Imperialism: A History
points out, America is reviled in the Muslim world not because of
its specific policies “but because, as the pre-eminent world power,
it blocks the final realization of this same age-old dream of a
universal Islamic empire (or umma).”
According to Hugh Fitzgerald, “One must keep in mind both the way in
which some atrocities ascribed to Serbs were exaggerated, while the
atrocities inflicted on them were minimized or ignored altogether.
But what was most disturbing was that there was no context to anything:
nothing about the centuries of Muslim rule.
Had such a history been discussed early on, Western governments might
have understood and attempted to assuage the deep fears evoked by the
Bosnian Muslim leader, Izetbegovic, when he wrote that he intended to
create a Muslim state in Bosnia and impose the Sharia not merely there,
but everywhere that Muslims had once ruled in the Balkans. Had the
Western world shown the slightest intelligent sympathy or understanding
of what that set off in the imagination of many Serbs (and elsewhere,
among the Christians in the Balkans and in Greece), there might never
have been such a violent Serbian reaction, and someone like [Slobodan]
Milosevic might never have obtained power.”
In 1809, after the battle on Cegar Hill, by order of Turkish pasha
Hurshid the skulls of the killed Serbian soldiers were built in a
tower, Skull Tower, on the way to Constantinople. 3 meters high,
Skull Tower was built out of 952 skulls as a warning to the Serbian
people not to oppose their Muslim rulers. Some years later, a chapel
was built over the skulls.
Similar Jihad massacres were committed not only against the Serbs,
but against the Greeks, the Bulgarians and other non-Muslims who
slowly rebelled against the Ottoman Empire throughout the 19th
century. Professor Vahakn Dadrian and others have clearly identified
Jihad as a critical factor in the Armenian genocide in the early
20th century. This genocide by the Turks allegedly inspired Adolf
Hitler in his Holocaust against the Jews later: “Who, after all,
speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?”
As Efraim Karsh notes, “The Ottomans embarked on an orgy of
bloodletting in response to the nationalist aspirations of their
European subjects. The Greek war of independence of the 1820s, the
Danubian uprisings of 1848 and the attendant Crimean war, the Balkan
explosion of the 1870s, the Greco-Ottoman war of 1897 – all were
painful reminders of the costs of resisting Islamic imperial rule.”
In his book Onward Muslim Soldiers, Robert Spencer quotes a letter
from Bosnia, written in 1860 by the acting British Consul in Sarajevo,
James Zohrab:
“The hatred of the Christians toward the Bosniak Mussulmans is
intense. During a period of nearly 300 years they were subjected to
much oppression and cruelty. For them no other law but the caprice
of their masters existed. […] Oppression cannot now be carried
on as openly as formerly, but it must not be supposed that, because
the Government employes do not generally appear as the oppressors,
the Christians are well treated and protected.”
Bosnia’s wartime president Alija Izetbegovic died in 2003, hailed
worldwide as a moderate Muslim leader. Little was said in Western
media about the fact that in his 1970 Islamic Declaration, which got
him jailed by the Communists in Yugoslavia, he advocated “a struggle
for creating a great Islamic federation from Morocco to Indonesia,
from the tropical Africa to the Central Asia. The Islamic movement
should and must start taking over the power as soon as it is morally
and numerically strong enough to not only overthrow the existing
non-Islamic, but also to build up a new Islamic authority.”
Alija Izetbegovic also received money from a Saudi businessman,
Yassin al-Kadi, who has been designated by the United States, the
United Nations, and the European Union as a financier of al-Qaeda
terrorists. Evan F. Kohlmann, author of Al-Qaeda’s Jihad in Europe:
The Afghan-Bosnian Network, argues that the “key to understanding Al
Qaida’s European cells lies in the Bosnian war of the 1990s.” In 1992,
the Bosnian Muslim government of Alija Izetbegovic issued a passport
in the Vienna embassy to Osama bin Laden. The Wall Street Journal
reported in 2001 that “for the past 10 years, the most senior leaders
of al Qaeda have visited the Balkans, including bin Laden himself on
three occasions between 1994 and 1996. The Egyptian surgeon turned
terrorist leader Ayman Al-Zawahiri has operated terrorist training
camps, weapons of mass destruction factories and money-laundering
and drug-trading networks throughout Albania, Kosovo, Macedonia,
Bulgaria, Turkey and Bosnia.”
Samuel Huntington mentioned already in 1993 in his famous article
“The Clash of Civilizations” in the journal Foreign Affairs that
both the Shi’a Muslims of Iran and the Sunni Muslims of Saudi Arabia
supplied substantial funding, weapons and men to the Bosnians.
Thousands of foreign fighters or ‘Mujahadeen’ from Islamic countries
came to Bosnia to fight on the side of local Muslims in the bloody
1992-1995 civil war. Many of these Mujahadeen remained in Bosnia
after the war, and some have been operating terrorist training camps
and indoctrinating local youths.
Terrorists have been working, not just in Bosnia but in Albania and
all over the Balkans, to recruit non-Arab sympathizers – so-called
“white Muslims” with Western features who theoretically could more
easily blend into European cities and execute attacks.
Saudi Arabia is said to have invested more than $1 billion in the
Sarajevo region alone, for projects that include the construction
of 158 mosques. The Islamic world is thus using the Balkans as a
launching pad for Jihad against the rest of Europe and the West.
“There are religious centres in Bulgaria that belong to Islamic
groups financed mostly by Saudi Arabian groups,” the head of Bulgarian
military intelligence warned. According to him, the centres were in
southern and southeastern Bulgaria, where the country’s Muslims,
mainly of Turkish origin, are concentrated, and “had links with
similar organisations in Kosovo, Bosnia and Macedonia. For them
Bulgaria seems to be a transit point to Western Europe.” He said
the steps were taken to prevent terrorist groups gaining a foothold
in Bulgaria, which shares a border with Turkey. Bulgaria’s Turkish
minority accounts for 10 percent of the country’s population.
The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia passed a law allowing ethnic
Albanians to display the Albanian national flag in areas where they
form the majority. The decision came as a result of seven months of
heavy fighting in 2001 involving Albanian separatists, and following
pressure from the European Union, always ready to please Muslims.
Ethnic Albanians make up about 25 per cent of Macedonia’s population.
If the demographic trends are anything like in Kosovo, where the
predominantly Muslim Albanians have been out-breeding their non-Muslim
neighbors, the Macedonians could be facing serious trouble in the
near future. In Kosovo, dozens of churches and monasteries have been
destroyed or seriously damaged following ethnic cleansing of Christian
Serbs, all under the auspices of NATO soldiers.
In a commentary, “We bombed the wrong side?” former Canadian UNPROFOR
Commander Lewis MacKenzie wrote, “The Kosovo-Albanians have played
us like a Stradivarius. We have subsidized and indirectly supported
their violent campaign for an ethnically pure and independent Kosovo.
We have never blamed them for being the perpetrators of the violence
in the early ’90s and we continue to portray them as the designated
victim today in spite of evidence to the contrary. When they achieve
independence with the help of our tax dollars combined with those of
bin Laden and al-Qaeda, just consider the message of encouragement
this sends to other terrorist-supported independence movements around
the world.”
Martti Ahtisaari, former President of Finland and now Chief United
Nations negotiator for Kosovo, caused anger in Serbia when he stated
that “Serbs are guilty as people,” implying that they would have
to pay for it, possibly by losing the province of Kosovo which is
seeking independence.
I disagree with Mr. Ahtisaari. It is one thing to criticize the
brutality of the Milosevic regime. It is quite another thing to claim
that “Serbs are guilty as a people.” If anybody in the Balkans can
be called guilty as a people, it is the Turks, not the Serbs. The
Turks have left a trail of blood across much of Europe and the
Mediterranean for centuries, culminating in the Armenian genocide
in the 20th century, which Turkey still refuses to acknowledge,
let alone apologize for.
Dimitar Angelov elucidates the impact of the Ottoman Jihad on the
vanquished Balkan populations:
“[T]he conquest of the Balkan Peninsula accomplished by the Turks
over the course of about two centuries caused the incalculable ruin
of material goods, countless massacres, the enslavement and exile of
a great part of the population – in a word, a general and protracted
decline of productivity, as was the case with Asia Minor after it
was occupied by the same invaders. This decline in productivity is
all the more striking when one recalls that in the mid-fourteenth
century, as the Ottomans were gaining a foothold on the peninsula,
the States that existed there – Byzantium, Bulgaria and Serbia –
had already reached a rather high level of economic and cultural
development. […] The campaigns of Mourad II (1421-1451) and
especially those of his successor, Mahomet II (1451-1481) in Serbia,
Bosnia, Albania and in the Byzantine princedom of the Peloponnesus,
were of a particularly devastating character.”
This Ottoman Jihad tradition is still continued by “secular” Turkey
to this day. Michael J. Totten visited Varosha, the Ghost City of
Cyprus, in 2005. The city was deserted during the Turkish invasion
of Cyprus in 1974 and is now fenced off and patrolled by the Turkish
occupiers. The Turks carved up the island. Greek Cypriot citizens
in Varosha expected to return to their homes within days. Instead,
the Turks seized the empty city and wrapped it in fencing and wire.
In March 2006, Italian Luigi Geninazzi made a report from the same
area. 180,000 persons live in the northern part of the island,
100,000 of whom are colonists originally from mainland Turkey.
According to Geninazzi, the Islamization of the north of Cyprus has
been concretized in the destruction of all that was Christian. Yannis
Eliades, director of the Byzantine Museum of Nicosia, calculates
that 25,000 icons have disappeared from the churches in the zone
occupied by the Turks. Stupendous Byzantine and Romanesque churches,
imposing monasteries, mosaics and frescoes have been sacked,
violated, and destroyed. Many have been turned into restaurants,
bars, and nightclubs.
Geninazzi confronted Huseyn Ozel, a government spokesman for the
self-proclaimed Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, with this. Most
of the mosques in Greek Cypriot territory have been restored. So
why are churches still today being turned into mosques? The Turkish
Cypriot functionary spreads his arms wide: “It is an Ottoman custom…”
A person from Finland, one of the northernmost countries in Europe
which has had very little direct experience with Jihad, can perhaps
be excused for understanding so little of it. But people from Russia,
a country which was once under the Tartar Yoke, should know better.
So why are the Russians helping the Islamic Republic of Iran with
missile and nuclear technology that will eventually be used to
intimidate the West? Are the Russians so naive that they believe this
beast won’t eventually come back to bite them, too? Iran is secretly
training Chechen rebels in sophisticated terror techniques to enable
them to carry out more effective attacks against Russian forces,
The Sunday Telegraph has revealed.
Islam was controlled in the Soviet Union but has had a renaissance
since its downfall in 1991, helped by funds from the Middle East.
This re-Islamization of Central Asia should really worry the
Russians. They are spending hundreds of millions of dollars on a border
security project in the region, partly to avoid being demographically
overwhelmed by Muslims. But the problem exists within Russia itself,
too.
Russia’s non-Muslim population is declining, but numbers are rising
in Muslim regions. Will the country called Russia still exist in the
future? And if so, will it be the Russia of Pushkin or of Abdullah?
It is understandable that the Russians have Great Power ambitions of
their own. However, one would hope that they will wake up, remember
their history and realize that there are worse threats out there than
American power.
Paul Fregosi has pointed out that “Western colonization of nearby
Muslim lands lasted 130 years, from the 1830s to the 1960s. Muslim
colonization of nearby European lands lasted 1300 years, from the 600s
to the mid-1960s. Yet, strangely, it is the Muslims, the Arabs and the
Moors to be precise, who are the most bitter about colonialism and the
humiliations to which they have been subjected; and it is the Europeans
who harbor the shame and the guilt. It should be the other way around.”
Janos (John) Hunyadi, Hungarian warrior and captain-general, is today
virtually unknown outside Hungary, but he probably did more than any
other individual in stemming the Turkish invasion in the fifteenth
century. His actions spanned all the countries of the Balkans,
leading international armies, negotiating with kings and popes.
Hunyadi died of plague after having destroyed an Ottoman fleet outside
Belgrade in 1456. His work slowed the Muslim advance, and may thus
have saved Western Europe from falling to Islam. By extension, he may
have helped save Western civilization in North America and Australia,
too. Yet hardly anybody in West knows who he is. Our children don’t
learn his name, they are only taught about the evils of Western
colonialism and the dangers of Islamophobia.
Western Europe today is a strange and very dangerous mix of arrogance
and self-loathing. Muslims are creating havoc and attacking their
non-Muslim neighbors from Thailand to India. It is extremely arrogant
to believe that the result will be any different in the Netherlands,
Britain or Italy, or for that matter in the United States or Canada,
than it has been everywhere else. It won’t. If we had the humility
to listen to the advice of the Hindus of India or even our Christian
cousins in south-eastern Europe, we wouldn’t be in as much trouble
as we are now.
On the other hand, if we didn’t have such a culture of self-loathing,
where our own cultural traditions are ridiculed in favor of a
meaningless Multicultural cocktail, we probably wouldn’t have
allowed massive Muslim immigration, either. There doesn’t have to be
a contradiction between being proud of your own cultural heritage and
knowing that there may still be lessons you can learn from others. A
wise man can do both. Westerners of or our age do neither. Sun Tzu,
a contemporary of the great Chinese thinker Confucius, wrote The
Art of War, the influential book on military strategy, 2500 years
ago. It is a book that deserves to be read in full, but perhaps the
most famous quotation from it is this one:
“So it is said that if you know your enemies and know yourself,
you will not be imperiled in a hundred battles; if you do not know
your enemies but do know yourself, you will win one and lose one;
if you do not know your enemies nor yourself, you will be imperiled
in every single battle.”
The West has forgotten who our enemies are, but worse, we have also
forgotten who we are. We are going to pay a heavy price for this
historical amnesia.

PRESIDENT OF ROMANIA TO ARRIVE ON TWO-DAY OFFICIAL VISIT IN ARMENIA
Noyan Tapan News Agency, Armenia
Oct 3 2006
YEREVAN, OCTOBER 3, NOYAN TAPAN – ARMENIANS TODAY. By RA President
Robert Kocharian’s invitation, President of Romania Traian Basescu will
arrive on an official visit in Armenia on October 4-5. The main goal of
the visit is to strengthen interstate ties, to plan primary tasks and
directions of the economic cooperation between the two countries, to
stimulate development of the scientific-educational and cultural ties.
The official ceremony of meeting the President of Romania will take
place at the RA President’s residence on October 4. The ceremony
will be followed by a private conversation of Presidents Robert
Kocharian and Traian Basescu. Then the meeting with enlarged staff of
the official delegations will take place, after what joint documents
will be signed between the two countries’ governments. The Presidens
of Armenia and Romania will hold a joint press conference.
During the Armenian visit, Traian Basescu will also visit the Armenian
Genocide memorial complex, lay a wreath to the monument to victims,
will visit the Armenian Genocide Museum, plant a tree in the Memory
park.
The President of Romania will meet on Octoner 5 with Prime Minister
Andranik Margarian. His Holiness Karekin II Supreme Patriarch and
Catholicos of All Armenians will receive the President on the same
day. Traian Basescu will have a meeting with the professors’ and
lecturers’ staff and students of the Yerevan State University.
The delegation headed by the President of Romania will leave Yerevan
on the same day.
According to the information submitted to Noyan Tapan by the RA
President’s Press Office, Romania is one of the first countries
recognized the independence of Armenia and established diplomatic
relations with the RA. The Armenian-Romanian mutual relations have
always been friendly ones which are assisted by the Romanian Armenian
community having centuries-old history. About 20 thousand Armenians
found refuge in Romania during the years followed the Armenian
Genocide.
Relations between Armenia and Romania are dinamically being developed
at present. The political dialogue is especially active. 35 agreements
and legal documents were signed between the two countries.
Appreciating the present level of bilateral relations, our country
is aimed to more strengthen the cooperation.
RA President Robert Kocharian’s state visit paid to Romania on November
16-18, 2003, greatly assisted guarantee of continuous character
and development of the bilateral relations. The two countries’
heads attached primary importance to development of the economic
cooperation. The Armenian-Romanian first business forum and opening
of the exhibition of production of Armenian enterprises took place
during the visit days.
RA President Robert Kocharian participated on June 5, 2006,
in Bucharest in works of the summit of the Black Sea Forun for
Partnership and Dialogue organized by Romania.
In the affair of development of the Armenian-Romanian relations,
the Armenian side especially attached importance to bilateral
contacts, guarantee of the continuous character of the high-ranking
mutual visits, necessity of close cooperation of the two countries’
representatives both in European structures and other international
organizations.
Armenia welcame efforts of Romania aimed to the EU membership and is
full of hopes that the year of 2007 will become a historic year for
the Romanian people. Armenia expects that Romania’s EU membership
will have a positive influence on deepening of the Armenian-Romanian
relations as well.
Unlike approaches of activization of the political dialogue,
commercial-economic relations between the two countries develop
slowly. Particularly, indexes of export from Armenia are low compared
with ones of import. However, the trade circulation between Armenia
and Russia grew in 2005 nearly twice, making 75 mln 537.9 thousand
U.S. dollars, instead of 34 mln 260.6. thousand U.S. dollars of 2004.
A number of important steps were taken during 2005 in the sphere of
the bilateral economic cooperation. Particularly, constant sale of
Armenian jewelry production was organized in Bucharest (the Yerevan
Jewelry Factory LTD signed an agreement with the Romanian ELDORADO
jewelry firm on exporting Armenian jewelry goods to Romania), a
lot of Armenian brandy samples was given to a Romanian interested
structure to study future possibilities of importing, an agreement on
exporting Cigarone cigarrettes to Romania was reached (the Romanian
DOCNET company was interested in cooperation with the Cigarone LTD),
works are continued in the direction of going on importing Romanian
furniture (the World of Furniture LTD imports Romanian furniture to
Armenia), medicine (an agreement on exporting medicine from Romania
to Armenia was signed in 2005 between the Romanian ROMFARMACHIM and
Armenian LAMBRON FARMIMPEX companies) and other goods in Armenia. The
Romanian DELTAYEL company is interested in cooperation in the sphere
of telecommunication (some specialists of the company were sent on
mission to Armenia in 2005).
A beneficial legal field exists for the economic cooperation between
Armenia and Romania, corresponding bilateral agreements are signed.
As of Novemner 30, 2005, 37 Armenian-Romanian joint enterprises were
registered in Romania, which made investment of 3 mln 538.1 thousand
U.S. dollars in the economy of Romania.
The Armenian-Romanian intergovernmental commission for
commercial-economic and scientific-technical cooperation, the second
sitting of which will take place in Yerevan on October 4, is of
important role in the sense of activization of the commercial-economic
relations. It will outline primary directions of development of the
economic cooperation. Activity of the Armenian-Romanian Trade and
Industrial Chamber founded in Bucharest in 2004 is also significant
in the sense of deepening the economic relations.
1780 people live in Romania. The community having almost millenial
history is fully involved in the public life of Romania.
The eparchic residence of the Romanian and Bulgarian Diocese of
the Armenian Apostolic Church is Bucharest. A church built in 1915
functions here. Armenian Apostolic churches function in Costanza,
Suceava, Pitesti, Braila Galatz, Iasi. Armenian Catholic churches
function in the city of Gerla, Transilvania, the community of which
is mainly formed of Hungarians of the Armenian origin.
The Romanian Armenian community organizes numerous community events,
the bilingual, Armenian and Romanian, “New Life” and Romanian “Ararat”
newspapers are published. The “Ararat” publishing house of the
Romanian-Armenian union periodically publishes Armenian and Romanian
authors’ works on Armenian themes, mainly in the Romanian language. 102
titles of books were published in 1994-2005, 10 of which in 2005.
The Grigor Zambakhchian gallery belonging to the Romanian state and
famous in the country functions in Bucharest. The Museum of Collections
opened after the reconstruction in December 2005, in the center of
Bucharest, where rich collections of Hurmuz Aznavourian, Professor
Karapet Avagian, Beatrice and Hrant Avagian occupy significant places.

EU-TURKEY: EUROPEAN COMMISSIONER DISAGREES WITH CHIRAC
PanARMENIAN.Net
03.10.2006 18:04 GMT+04:00
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ EU Aid and Development Commissioner Louis Michel
responded to French President Jacques Chirac, who said during a visit
to Armenia that Turkey should recognize the Armenian Genocide to
become a European Union member. Belgian Commissioner Michel stated on
Sunday that the EU could not produce new political criteria regarding
Turkey’s EU membership.
Commissioner Michel stressed that “some people are trying to change
the rules after the game has begun.”
“We have to understand the importance of Turkey,” he stressed. Michel
added that Turkey was important for the bloc and it played a key role
in the region, citing that one must merely look at the crossroads of
energy pipelines to see how important Turkey was.
“Turkey needs the EU, but the EU needs Turkey more,” Michel
highlighted, the Zaman Turkish newspaper writes.
When asked whether Turkey should recognize the Armenian Genocide
to join the European Union, Chirac said: “Honestly, I believe it
should. Each country grows by acknowledging its dramas and mistakes
of the past” during a visit to the Armenian capital Yerevan.

AZERI, ARMENIAN FOREIGN MINISTERS TO MEET IN MOSCOW OCT. 6
Today, Azerbaijan
Oct 3 2006
The OSCE Minsk group has not finished its work, claim the Co-Chairs.
Today they announced that the Armenian and Azeri Foreign Ministers
will meet in Moscow on October 6.
The Co-Chairs are a little indignant at yesterday’s meetings in Baku
and the interpretation of the Azeri mass media. US Co-Chair Mettew
Bryza says that he couldn’t sleep the whole night after seeing his
announcement on GUAM in the press. According to the Azeri press
data, Mr. Bryza said that GUAM countries can render assistance to
OSCE Minsk group in Karabakh conflict settlement. Today Mr. Bryza
read his opinion on the GUAM in front of the Armenian journalists;
“GUAM member countries are not OSCE members.”
Bernard Fassier, French Co-Chair says that he didn’t announce in
Baku that Karabakh cannot participate in the negotiation process at
present. He didn’t answer the same question in Yerevan either. He
didn’t exclude the possibility that peaceful troops may be located
in vacated territories by 2006.
Tomorrow the Co-Chairs will leave for Karabakh. Mr. Bryza assured that
the Co-Chairs are of the same opinion on all questions, and there
is no discord among them. “I can assure that the Karabakh conflict
settlement has not a military solution,” said Mettew Bryza.
Bernard Fassier said that unless Armenians and Azeris are ready
to live side by side as neighbours, the Karabakh conflict won’t
be settled. As for the time when the conflict will find its final
solution, Mr. Fassier said, “Let’s live and see.”
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“WE SHOULD DOUBLE OUR EFFORTS AND CARRY ON MORE DELICATE DIPLOMACY,” VARTAN OSKANIAN SAYS
Noyan Tapan News Agency, Armenia
Sept 29 2006
YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 29, NOYAN TAPAN. “Placing of the issue on protracted
conflicts in the post-Soviet area on the agenda of UN General Assembly
on the initiative of GUAM is not Azerbaijan’s diplomatic victory
and does not cause our anxiety.” RA Foreign Minister Vartan Oskanian
declared this at the September 29 press conference.
At the same time, he emphasized that this policy of Azerbaijan is
unequivocally a new challenge for the Armenian side: “One thing is
when you fight one country and another thing is four countries at the
same international instance and in this sense this is a new challenge,
but this does not intimidate us. We should double our efforts and
carry on more delicate diplomacy,” Vartan Oskanian declared adding:
“I cannot make prognoses, but we have no problems connected with
processes in UN.”
The Minister emphasized that Nagorno Karabakh Republic’s participation
is always on the agenda of the negotiations process. At the same
time, if the resolution on protracted conflicts is approved by the
General Assembly, NKR’s participation in the negotiations will become a
necessity and Armenia remaining in the negotiations process “will throw
off from itself the main burden of conducting the negotiations.” He
again reminded that the decisions of UN General Assembly have only
a consultation character and are not subject, in difference to the
decisions of UN Security Council, to obligatory fulfilment.
Touching upon the forthcoming visit of French President Jacques Chirac
to Armenia, Vartan Oskanian declared that this is a historical and very
important visit having a very important political significance. Issues
of political, economic and cultural cooperation will be discussed
within the framework of the visit. The Minister reminded that France
is one of the OSCE Minsk Group country co-chairs and President
Chirac himself takes an active part in the peaceful settlement of
the conflict.
The Minister did not exclude Armenian servicemen’s possible
participation in the peacekeeping mission in Lebanon. However, for
this, in his words, we should wait until Israel gives maps of mine
fields. The Minister declared that the issue on sending sappers
“is on our agenda.”

MINISTER SPEAKS OF DIVERSIFIED ENERGY SUPPLIES
Civil Georgia, Georgia
Oct 1 2006
Georgian Energy Minister Nika Gilauri said on September 30 that
“in case of necessity” Georgia will import electricity from Turkey,
Armenia, Azerbaijan and Iran during winter.
Speaking at a press conference in Tbilisi Nika Gilauri said that a
trilateral meeting was held in Armenian capital Yerevan among the
Georgian, Armenian and Iranian Energy Ministers on September 29,
where a document was signed enabling Georgia to import electricity
from Armenia and Iran.
“We will be able to import at least 50 megawatts of electricity. We
will continue talks over the increase of this amount,” Nika Gilauri
said shortly after return from Armenia.
He said that this will be a barter deal, so Georgia will not pay
cash. Instead, Georgia will export the same amount of electricity
back to Iran and Armenia in the summer period, when Georgia usually
generates extra electricity.
He also said that similar deal has already been reached with Turkey.
“If necessary, Georgia will import 100 megawatts of electricity
from Turkey and return the same amount during the summer period. So,
we will not have to pay a cash,” the Energy Minister said.
He also said that starting from this November Georgia will also
be able to receive 300 million cubic meters of gas through the
Shah-Deniz project, instead of 60 million cubic meters as envisaged
by the project initially.
“This became possible as a result of intensive negotiations with the
State Oil Company of Azerbaijani Republic [SOCAR] and President Natig
Aliyev already gave his consent,” the Minister said.
He said that the price for the extra amount of gas has not been
agreed yet; but the price of 60 million cubic meters was set at USD
55 per 1000 cubic meters by the agreement which was signed before
construction of the Shah-Deniz pipeline was launched.
The Georgian Energy Minister said although Russian energy giant
Gazprom still remains Georgia’s major gas supplier, “we will do our
best to strengthen our energy security and be ready for any possible
surprises.”

Panorama.am
29:18 29/09/06

SEIRANYAN EXPLAINS FUNCTIONS OF PRESIDENT’S ADVISER
`The main role of the adviser to the president of the Republic is to
give advise on economic issues to the president and not to this or
that political force. He is paid for that function by the taxpayers,’
Spartak Seiranyan, Armenian Revolutionary Federation (Dashnakcutiun)
member, told a news conference today speaking about the recent
statement made by Vahram Nersisyants that `Dashnakcutiun should be
guided by its socialist ideology and not touch liberal forces because
by doing so they will have better chance to fight corruption.’
He regrets that Nersisyants does not consider the fact that
Dashnakcutiun pursues the programs of the coalition government and not
the party. `May be Mr. Nersisyants did not have time to learn about
social-democratic theories, particularly connected with economy,’
Seiranyan comments.
Speaking about corruption in general Seiranyan said that Dashnakcutiun
favored a body separate from the government whereas Prime Minister
Andranik Margaryan chairs the corruption board today. /Panorama.am/

TURKISH CANDIDATE PENALIZED FOR REFUSING TO SUPPORT ARMENIAN CLAIMS
Hurriyet, Turkey
Sept 27 2006
In the Netherlands, a Turkish candidate for MP status in the Social
Democrat Workers’ Party has been removed from the party’s candidate
list following his refusal to acknowledge Armenian claims of genocide
by Turkey.
Ethnically Turkish Dutch citizen Erdinc Sacan was previously on the
list for the upcoming November 22 elections in the Netherlands,
this after being elected to a leadership position in 2003 in the
Netherland’s Brabant State. The leader of the Dutch Social Democrat
Workers’ Party commented on the situation, saying “It was a difficult
decision. But there cannot be any ambiguity within our party with
regards to our stance on this question. The fact that Sacan was not
giving his support clearly to the party on this position left us with
no other choice.”

BAKU ACCUSES YEREVAN OF EVADING DIRECT TALKS
Regnum, Russia
Sept 26 2006
Breakthrough in the Nagorno Karabakh conflict settlement is unlikely
due to Armenia’s evading direct negotiations with Azerbaijan and
sticking to a destructive approach in the conflict management, minister
of foreign affairs of Azerbaijan Elmar Mamedyarov said talking Sep 25
at the 61th session of UN General Assembly in New York, Day.az reports.
According to the minister, “there are two main issues on which
the sides confront – defining the status of the Nagorno Karabakh
region and withdrawal of Armenian troops from occupied Azerbaijani
territories.” “The status cannot be decided upon today, is has to
be decided by means of a democratic and legal process with direct
participation of both Azerbaijani and Armenian communities of the
Nagorno Karabakh region,” Mamedyarov said.
“Our position is based on the relevant resolutions of the UN Security
Council and OSCE decisions that demand immediate withdrawal of the
occupation forces from all the occupied territories, and restoration
of sovereignty and territorial integrity of Azerbaijan,” Azerbaijan
foreign ministry head declared. Only after that, he says, can Armenia
join regional economic projects, which would positively affect the
whole region development and strengthen mutual trust.

GEORGIA GOES ON THE OFFENSIVE
Dmitry Sidorov, Washington; Vladimir Solovyev
Kommersant, Russia
Sept 25 2006
NATO prepares to accept its first member from the CIS Speaking at
the United Nations last week, Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili
accused Russia of “annexation” and “bandit occupation” of Abkhazia
and South Ossetia. His sharp tone was related to approval by the
top foreign officials of the NATO states of an “intensive dialog”
with Tbilisi, which is practically the same as an invitation to
membership. That promises nothing good for Russia.
Dreams Come True
Saakashvili made his eyebrow-raising appearance at the Friday session
of the UN General Assembly in New York. During his 20-minute expose of
Russia’s destructive role in the restoration of Georgian territorial
integrity, he demanded that Moscow withdraw its peacekeeping troops
from Abkhazia and South Ossetia immediately, since “their mission has
nothing to do with maintaining peace.” Then the Georgian president
criticized Kremlin policy toward Georgia.
“Those regions,” he said, referring again to Abkhazia and South
Ossetia, were annexed by our neighbor to the north, Russia, which
supports their inclusion as part of it, intentionally mass issuance of
Russian passports in violation of international law… The residents
of the disputed regions live under the bandit occupation of Russia. I
doubt that there is anyone in this auditorium who would tolerate that
type of interference on their territory.”
Saakashvili’s strong words were unprecedented. Russia had never been
accused of “annexation” before, much less from the floor of the UN.
Previously, Tbilisi had criticized Moscow through Georgian
Defense Minister Irakly Okruashvili and the fact that such serious
accusations are now coming from the head of state is an indication
that Georgian-Russian relations have reached a new level of
hostility. According to information obtained by Kommersant, the U.S.
administration asked Saakashvili to tone down his statements.
Nonetheless, such phrases as “bandit occupation” and “accomplices of
the Russian peacekeepers” remained.
The Georgian president’s boldness is obviously a byproduct of Tbilisi’s
recent diplomatic victory. Before Saakashvili’s UN appearance the top
foreign officials of the 28 member states of NATO decided to integrate
Georgia more closely into their ranks and approved the transition to
a phase of “intensive dialog” with the country.
Former Czech president Vaclav Havel coined the term “intensive
dialog.” The phase implies closer integration into NATO and is
essentially the penultimate step toward membership in the alliance.
The Czech Republic, Poland and Hungary were the first country to
complete the intensive dialog phase successfully and the phase has been
a mandatory step for all entrants since 1997. Thus Georgia, which has
always made its desire for membership clearly known, has received the
signal that its wish may become reality. Georgia is the first, and so
far only, CIS country that can boast of this close relationship with
NATO. NATO’s step is exceptional also because one of the conditions for
accession to the organization is the lack of conflicts on the territory
of the candidate state. Georgia has two conflict zones, Abkhazia and
South Ossetia, and armed conflicts breaks out in them from time to
time. It seems Brussels has decided to close its eyes to that detail.
Georgian authorities are unabashedly happy and they are certain
that nothing will interfere with their speedy progress in NATO. “We
are close to NATO membership,” Saakashvili said yesterday as he
congratulated Georgian judoists on their victory over their Russian
opponents in a world championship finals match in Paris. “The Russian
judo team has created certain problems for the Georgian sportsmen,
just as Russia is creating problems for Georgia on its way to NATO.
But Georgia is already in the semifinal in that question, and nothing
will stop it from going to the final.”
Russia Resists
Georgia’s accusations did not go unnoticed by Russia, although Moscow
responded in a softer tone. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov,
who was also at the session of the UN General Assembly in New York,
stated that the Georgian president had “twisted facts” and Georgia was
buying “a large quantity of offensive weapons.” Lavrov complained of
“numerous violations by Tbilisi of the agreement on the settlement
of the Abkhazian conflict.” “The problems can only be solved with
mutual respect and on the basis of fact,” Lavrov said. “I did not hear
either in Mikhail Saakashvili’s speech.” Russian President Vladimir
Putin was still more reserved. “Mikhail Nikolaevich [Saakashvili] is
a hot-blooded person,” he noted. “In the Caucasus, all politicians
are marked by particular emotionality. All the more so since he is
concerned about his country and the situation that is developing
in the government.” He added that, should a compromise solution be
found to the conflicts on the territory of Georgia, Moscow was ready
to act as guarantor of such agreements.
The prospect of Georgia’s joining NATO caused a bigger stir in
Russia. The Russian Foreign Ministry and Defense Ministry reacted
differently to the possibility of the organization’s appearance within
Russia’s zone of interests in the Caucasus. Russian Defense Minister
and Deputy Prime Minister Sergey Ivanov did not ascribe particular
meaning to it, saying that Georgia’s accession to NATO will not damage
Russia’s military security. Ivanov noted that Russia has the means
to neutralize the negative effects of the move. “We are building two
modern mountain brigades in the Caucasus now,” he said.
“Their personnel will operate in the mountains at high elevations.
Both brigades will be stationed directly on the border with Georgia,
so Russia’s security will not suffer.”
The Foreign Ministry did not share Ivanov’s calm and optimism but
reacted nervously to the NATO decision. “Any expansion of the alliance
will bring changes in security, but the case with Georgia has a special
character because of its proximity to Russia and the obvious complexity
pf the Caucasus problem,” reads the official statement of the Foreign
Ministry. “The accession of Georgia to the current, untransformed NATO,
if that intention is realized, will seriously affect the political,
military and economic interests of Russia and be negatively reflected
in the fragile situation in the Caucasus.” The ministry openly stated
Moscow’s displeasure. “The beginning of an intensive dialog means
that Georgia has been given new a status in relation to NATO. Our
negative attitude toward that is known.”
The Circle Narrows
The euphoria of Georgian authorities over the beginning of that
intensive dialog is connected with hopes for a quick settlement of
the Georgian-Abkhazian and Georgian-South Ossetian conflicts. Tbilisi
is convinced that Moscow will obstruct that process and is counting
on NATO’s help to make Russia change its position. “We are certain
that the support of the leading powers will help solve the problem of
our territorial integrity,” stated Givi Targamadze, chairman of the
Georgian parliamentary committee on security and defense. “We hope
that it will also put an end to the tension in relations with Russia.”
Georgia’s hope may be justified, although settling territorial
conflicts in favor of Georgia is hardly NATO’s main goal in the
region. The Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline opened this year in the
Turkish city of Ceyhan. The pipeline goes to Europe around Russia and
is so far pumping oil from Caspian deposits belonging to Azerbaijan.
In the near future, Kazakh oil is to flow through the line as well.
The West, which was the main sponsor of the construction, needs
a firm guarantee of the line’s security, all the more so since the
Baku-Ceyhan leg of the pipeline passes through unstable areas. NATO’s
entry into the area could guarantee that stability.
The membership of Georgia alone may be insufficient to sooth Western
nerves, however. Therefore, increasing NATO activity in Azerbaijan
and Armenia may be expected. They already participate in NATO programs.