Author: Chalian Meline

No Armenian Arms Sold Illegally to U.S.: Defense Minister
By AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, YEREVAN
DefenseNews.com
Posted 03/25/05 15:04
None of Armenia’s weapons or ammunition have been illegally exported
abroad, the country’s defense minister said during investigation of
a criminal ring trafficking assault weapons to the United States.
“Joint Armenian-U.S. investigation showed that not one item of
Armenia’s weapons or ammunition was taken out to the United States
or any other country,” Serge Sargsyan said late March 24, adding that
security was stepped up at all arms depots in Armenia.
On March 15, the United States announced it was prosecuting 18 people
suspected of attempting to bring illegal assault weapons from eastern
Europe across U.S. borders. Armenia arrested three more suspected
accomplices earlier this week.
Among them is 26-year-old Armenian Artur Solomonian, who has been
sought by Armenian police for desertion since 2002.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Russia Year in Armenia – key event of Putin’s visit to Yerevan
By Mikhail Petrov
ITAR-TASS News Agency
March 25, 2005 Friday
YEREVAN, March 25 — President Vladimir Putin believes the Russia
Year in Armenia is a most important event.
“It is extremely important from the point of view of our cooperation,
since it is not a one-time function, but a long-term undertaking,”
Putin noted on Friday during his negotiations with President Robert
Kocharyan.
“Our artists will visit Armenia throughout the year and I hope not
only Yerevan alone,” he added. In Putin’s opinion, the Russia Year
in Armenia will allow the sides to promote their relations not only
in the humanitarian domain, but in the political sphere, too.
“The holding of such functions with other countries has revealed
their very positive effect not only on humanitarian contacts, but has
also helped to lay a very good foundation for economic cooperation,
has created a favourable atmosphere for the development of political
relations. I hope very much that this will be so in the given case,
too, since our two countries are known to have amicable, longstanding
relations,” Putin stated.
Kocharyan noted, in turn, that the Russia Year in Armenia was a key
event of the Russian President’s visit to Yerevan. “I hope we shall
be able to replete this Year with Russia’s active participation so
that it would produce an indelible impression on our people. I also
hope very much that we shall be able to discuss the current state of
our bilateral relations during this visit,” he added.

NKR FOREIGN MINISTRY URGES WORLD COMMUNITY TO FOLLOW ARMENIA’S AND USA’S EXAMPLE
Azg/arm
25 March 05
The Foreign Ministry of Nagorno Karabakh issued a press release
yesterday urging the world community to follow the example of Armenia
and the USA in providing humanitarian, financial and other aid to
Nagorno Karabakh.
The Nagorno Karabakh Republic proclaimed independence in 1991 but no
state of the world has so far recognized the right of Artsakhi people
for free life Armenia and the USA are the only UN member states that
have separate paragraphs in their state budges to assign financial
aid to Nagorno Karabakh.
The deputy foreign minister of NKR, Masis Mayilian, in phoned talk
with daily Azg labeled “high objectivity” the report of the OSCE Minsk
group’s fact-finding mission. The report indicates that the number of
settlers in neighboring territories of Nagorno Karabakh is 15 thousand.
“The NKR authorities accept their responsibility for the lives of
those people and will make every effort to improve their life, restore
their rights and compensate their lost possessions”, Mayilian said.
The Foreign Ministry’s press release reads: “Despite the fact that
the NKR authorities responded to RA Foreign Ministry’s request and
agreed to receive the OSCE fact-finding mission and provide them with
necessary technical support, the NKR authorities’ appeal to OSCE to
allow NKR representatives to take part in the hearing of the mission’s
report was turned down.
“It must be noted that the mission’s investigation was within the
territories, which are under NKR’s control since the ceasefire and
for that reason do not depict the overall picture of the humanitarian
disaster that took place after the war provoked by Azerbaijan and when
500 thousand Armenians turned into refugees losing their possession,
homeland and faith in future”.
Mayilian expressed hope that the world community will put an end to
double standards and will take a look at the Armenian refugees who
found shelter in the territory of Nagorno Karabakh.
The Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry also issued a press release on the
OSCE fact-finding mission’s report on March 22. Expressing satisfaction
on the whole, Baku noted: “If the fact-finding mission did not find
direct evidence of Armenia’s participation in the settlement then it
shows only that Armenia acted in this case with the hands of Karabakh
secessionists”. “The attempts to leave Armenia out of the frameworks
of this issue are inexplicable and groundless”, the release reads. In
an interview to Baku ANS TV Russian OSCE Minsk group co-chair, Yuri
Merzlyakov, confirmed that the fact-finding mission found no evidence
proving that inhabitation of neighboring territories of Karabakh is
the result of Armenia’s policy.
“The Nagorno Karabakh authorities informed the OSCE co-chairs from
the very beginning of the fact-finding that they encourage formation
of new settlements in Lachin”, Merzlyakov said.
By Tatoul Hakobian

PREMIER CANNOT BE FRIGHTENED WITH EXPLOSIONS
A1+
24-03-2005
Before proceeding to the discussion of the agenda today Armenian
Prime Minister Andranik Margaryan touched upon the explosion at the
State Customs Committee building.
Andranik Margaryan condemned the incident and said that if the
terrorist act was directed against the activities of the bodies,
which provide the flows to the state budget – the customs and tax
services, the initiators should know that the state bodies will
carry out the orders of the President and government. «No actions of
the kind can impede the activities of the above mentioned bodies»,
the Premier stated.
–Boundary_(ID_wMsqUY+tjJKCg9VEtT9uSA)–

Economist, UK
March 23 2005
Christian Jerusalem
Ridiculous and sublime
IN EVERY place where Palestinian Christians live, church choirs are
getting ready to celebrate what they regard as the defining event in
local history. Some will mark Easter along with the western Christian
world on Sunday; the majority, followers of the eastern calendar,
have another five weeks to wait before their rich Arabic voices take
up the Hebrew poetry of the Paschal hymn: ~SShine, shine, Oh new
Jerusalem, for the glory of the Lord has dawned upon you!~T
Christ himself counselled people not to be too concerned with the
specifics of holy places; it was more important to offer prayers ~Sin
spirit and in truth~T than to pray on the right mountainside or in the
right city. But Palestinian worshippers would hardly be human if they
did not give a rather literal interpretation to the words they were
singing. As a tiny minority within a minority whose lives have been
turned upside down since the intifada began, they yearn to travel
more easily to and from the earthly Jerusalem of family, friends and
cherished places of worship.
Israel
Religion
Macmillan, Ms Clark~Rs publisher, has information about her book.
But not all of Jerusalem’s Christians sympathise with them. While the
Christian communities of the Old City (Armenians and Ethiopians, as
well as Palestinians) dwindle in numbers and morale, there is a
powerful new force on the religious scene: a dynamic body of
evangelical Christians, many of them American, who side with the far
right of Israeli politics. They believe that the Jews are the only
people with a right to the land of Israel as defined by scripture,
and that all others should leave. Many of the older Christian
communities find it hard to regard these newcomers as their
co-religionists.
This tension is one of the many themes investigated by Victoria
Clark, who spent a year and a half as a part-time resident of the Old
City, staying in a damp ex-monastery as lodger and friend of two
Palestinian Christian sisters with an endearing attachment to gossip
and cigarettes. Against a background of violence, fear and economic
depression, Ms Clark has written a rich and insightful essay on
Christian Jerusalem, harking back as far as 325AD, when the Emperor
Constantine and his mother, Helena, are said to have announced the
discovery of Christ’s tomb.
Ever since, this tiny shrine has drawn hundreds of thousands of
people, some as conquerors using the Holy Sepulchre as an excuse for
military adventures, others believing that they could be redeemed
both by the journey and the destination. The conquerors insisted that
only by possessing the shrine, and killing everybody who stood in
their way, could Christian powers be guaranteed access to the holiest
place of their faith. The reality experienced by ordinary believers
was different. For at least two centuries after Muslims took control
of Jerusalem in 638AD, Christians enjoyed uninterrupted visits to the
Sepulchre and the sacred sites around it. Another period of peaceful
access was the 400 years of Ottoman rule; the Sultans were cheerfully
venal about who administered the holy premises, and gave the lion’s
share to the Greeks who were the best payers.
In the 19th century, Anglo-Saxon Protestants were horrified by the
annual Easter ritual of the Holy Fire. This is a ceremony in which a
flame~Wkindled in some mysterious way in the heart of the tomb~Wis used
to light the candles of thousands of excited believers from every
corner of eastern Christendom.
As Ms Clark points out, there is indeed something close to farce
about many aspects of the Sepulchre, including the regime under which
six Christian communities co-exist in an atmosphere of intense mutual
suspicion, which can degenerate into fisticuffs.
In any description of elaborate ritual conducted by fallible human
beings, the ridiculous is never far away and no description of
Christian Jerusalem would be complete without a dose of slapstick. Ms
Clark provides plenty: Cypriot monks with halitosis, Franciscans who
~Shitch up their skirts~T as they sit down, and Armenian tour guides
with wandering eyes.
But what about the sublime? Striking by its absence from her book is
any word from pilgrims who are transformed by the visit. She focuses
instead on Victorian travellers, full of contempt for the Greek and
Russian peasants who thronged the Sepulchre. One traveller, Robert
Curzon, watched in horror in 1834 as the ceremony of the Holy Fire
led to a stampede in which many people were killed. Small wonder, as
Ms Clark points out, that most Victorian visitors preferred to spend
their time outdoors, mapping biblical sites.
But not every modern pilgrim treats the Sepulchre with such disdain.
One very recent visitor, a well-educated American nun whom Ms Clark
did not meet, said she was utterly overwhelmed by the place:
~SPressing your forehead against the cool marble slab, you know beyond
reason and sentiment that this tiny shrine is the precise spiritual
centre of the universe, and that all beauty, all religious truth and
every created being spins on an inner axis around this sun.~T
What such descriptions evoke is the mystery at the heart of all holy
places. They may be located in specific points on the map, but they
are also thresholds which take the pilgrim into a reality beyond time
and space. The holiness of such places~Wtheir role as gateway to an
entirely different reality~Wis organically connected to the worldly
battles they trigger, but is also entirely separate. While earthly
movements, of which the ultra-Zionists are only the most recent, view
the Holy Land as a place to possess and transform, pilgrims down the
centuries have experienced it as a place where they undergo
transformation. The Palestinian Christians have a healthy instinctive
sense of this paradox. They adore the Holy Sepulchre, while
maintaining a lively disrespect for most of the Greek bishops who
lord and squabble over it.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Putin to visit Armenia
Ros Business Consulting, Russia
March 22 2005
MOSCOW. March 22 (Interfax) – Russian President Vladimir Putin will
pay a working visit to Armenia on March 24-25 to attend a ceremony
that will open the Year of Russia in Armenia, the presidential press
service said.

LONG STAY OF SETTLERS IN NAGORNO KARABAKH CONTROLLED TERRITORIES TO
SERIOUSLY COMPLICATE NAGORNO KARABAKH PEACE PROCESS
YEREVAN, MARCH 18. ARMINFO. The OSCE Minsk Group Fact-Finding Mission
says in its conclusions from a visit to the territories controlled by
Nagorno Karabakh that although most settlers interview by the FFM
expressed a desire to return to the areas from which they fled it is
clear that the longer they remain in the controlled territories the
deeper their roots and attachments to their present places of
residence will become.
Prolonged continuation of this situation could leader to a fait
accompli that would seriously complicate the peace process.
In most areas examined except Lachin settlers were found living in
miserable and isolated conditions, In this respect their situation is
comparable to that of many persons dislocated by the conflict.
Considering also the appalling conditions of the refugees and IDPs on
the Azerbaijan side the situation in the occupied territories should
also be seen in humanitarian terms as an additional factor motivating
efforts to achieve a negotiated settlement., Prolonged lack of
resolution of the conflict hampers economic development and impedes
the possibility of improving living conditions for all its victims.
In conclusion the co-chairs appreciate the cooperation extended by the
governments of Azerbaijan and Armenia as well as by the NK authorities
before and during the work do the mission.

ROADWORKS ON `NORTH-SOUTH’ GO ON
Azat Artsakh – Nagorno Karabakh Republic (NKR)
18 March 05
During the telethon held by the all-Armenian fund `Hayastan’ in Los
Angeles and phonothon in a number of European countries last November
more than 11 million dollars was raised for the construction of the
highway `North – South’ in NKR. The construction of the backbone of
Artsakh was resumed at the beginning of this year, at several parts
simultaneously: Tsakuri – Hadrut 11.2 km, Kichan – Chldran 10.3 km and
Stepanakert (crossroad of Shushi) – Avetaranots – crossroad of
Sarushen 8.7 km. The construction of the mountainous parts of the road
brings about many problems. In this reference the road Stepanakert –
Sarushen is especially difficult. Road works are done by `Karavan’
Ltd. which also built the 14 km section of the road connecting
Sarushen and Karmir Shuka. Especially the mountainous road
Stepanakert – Avetaranots requires much effort. The huge rocks near
Zarun Bagh can be removed only through explosions. Moreover, during
the roadworks on the rocky edge of the gorge the traffic between
Stepanakert and the southern and southwestern areas of the republic
will be blocked. We had a talk with the president of `Karavan’
Ltd.Hakob Hakobian on the problems occurring during the construction
of the highway. `There are all the necessary conditions for finishing
work in time and even ahead of schedule. Another favourable condition
is that our builders gained very good experience working in the
mountain pass of Selim.’ He added that the company is equipped with
powerful machines which will enable working efficiently. The company
also owns two tarmac factories. Hakob Hakobian said there will be need
to involve in the roadworks several other companies specialized in
overcoming landslides, rocks. Arrangements were made with the company
`Bekor’ fromYerevan which will deal with explosions. The volume of
explosions will total 180 thousand cubic meters. The total sum of
money provided for the construction of this part of the road is 2
million 418 thousand drams, that is to say, there will be no financial
problems. Roadworks started a month and a half ago.
NIKOLAY BAGHDASSARIAN.
18-03-2005

The Messenger
Friday, March 18, 2005, #049 (0823)
Business news in brief:
Noghaideli seeks closer economic ties with Armenia
The development of economic relations between Armenia and Georgia topped the
agenda during Prime Minister Zurab Noghaideli’s two-day visit to Yerevan on
March 10-12.
Noghaideli and Armenian President Robert Kocharyan met on March 11 to talk
about cooperation in the energy sector and the expansion of trade links.
News agency Ria Novosti reports that Kocharyan expressed his satisfaction at
the meeting that the Armenian-Georgian intergovernmental commission on
economic relations will continue its activities headed by the prime
ministers of the two countries.
“Armenian-Georgian relations have always included a wide spectrum of issues
of mutual interests,” he said.
The sides positively assessed the increase in trade turnover between the
countries last year, which according to Armenian Prime Minister Andranik
Margaryan rose by 51.1 percent.
The National Department of Statistics of Armenia reports that trade turnover
between Armenia and Georgia equaled USD 78 million in 2004 compared to USD
51 million in 2003.
The two countries hope that better communications will further increase
trade, and Noghaideli reported to his Armenian colleagues about the
completion of the construction of the road between Sadakhlo on the
Georgia-Armenia border and Marneuli. The sides also discussed the
construction of a new border checkpoint in Sadakhlo.

PRICE FOR GAS IN ARMENIA WILL GROW, DEPUTY HEAD OF GASPROM SAYS
MOSCOW, MARCH 17. ARMINFO. It will be difficult for Russia to keep up
the price for gas, which comes to Armenia. Deputy Chairman of the
Board of Gasprom ojsc Alexander Ryazanov said.
As Regnum agency reports with reference to Armenian TV channel Yerkir
Media, Ryazanov stressed it today on the border of Armenia the price
for gas is $56,000 per 1,000 cubic meter, then 1-1.5 years later it
will exceed $60. At the same time the deputy head of Gasprom mentioned
that today the gas comes to Armenia from Turkmenistan, as well as from
Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan. “All these countries orientate to European
prices and follow the way of sharp increase in prices.”
In the number of urgent problems Alexander Ryazanov mentioned the
technical state of the transit capacities, in particular, of the
Georgian section of the transit gas main passing from Russia to
Armenia. According to him, the Georgian side has not practically
invested funds in modernization of the main, as the main is not of
strategic importance for the country so much as for Armenia.
Ryazanov said it will possible to modernize the main and provide more
reliable supply of gas to Armenia. The deputy head of Gasprom said the
company does not put a task to receive a surplus profit in Armenia, as
it realizes that at rather a high level of demand for gas the solvency
of the population is limited.