Author: Chatinian Lara

EU official calls on Armenia, Turkey to improve ties
Arminfo
17 Mar 04
YEREVAN
If Turkey wants to become a European Union member, it should fulfil
all the requirements of this organization and normalize relations with
Armenia, the chairman of the European Parliament’s committee for
constitutional issues, Ursula Schleicher, told a news conference
today, devoted to the results of the sixth session of the commission
for Armenia-European Union interparliamentary cooperation.
She said that both sides should show the political will to normalize
Armenian-Turkish relations. Schleicher noted that both Armenia and
Turkey were attempting to normalize bilateral relations. She believes
these countries should start communicating at a higher level in order
to normalize ties. The agreement that was signed on the results of the
sixth session of the Armenian-European Union cooperation commission
called on Turkey “to gradually start unblocking the border” and remove
obstacles on the path to trade cooperation with Armenia.
The European Union called on the Armenian and Turkish governments to
create the conditions for establishing friendly relations. The
document also pointed out the need for dialogue between Armenian and
Turkish academics to “overcome the tragic experience of the past”.

Armenia attempts to help arrested citizens in Equatorial Guinea
Arminfo
18 Mar 04
YEREVAN
The Armenian Foreign Ministry is taking diplomatic measures to render
legal assistance to six Armenian citizens arrested in Equatorial
Guinea on 8 March on charges of attempting a state coup, the Armenian
Foreign Ministry press service has told Arminfo.
The source said that the Armenian envoys in Russia and the USA had
already met their Guinean colleagues. Taking into account the fact
that Armenia has no diplomatic mission in Equatorial Guinea, the
Armenian Foreign Ministry asked the diplomatic representations of
friendly third countries for help in this issue.

IranMania News, Iran
March 17 2004
Spring Games for Iranian Armenians

Isfahan, March 17 (IranMania) — According to Iran’s State News
Agency (IRNA) Armenians will start their competitions in Spring Games
in this historical city of Iran Thursday, celebrating the 400th
anniversary of their settlement in Jolfa, central Isfahan.
Ararat Sports-Cultural Club will host the six-day event, which
includes basketball, track-and-field, table tennis, and football.
The Republic of Armenia and Georgia have dispatched their sportsmen
to Isfahan. The grand prelate of Isfahan, Shahan Sarkissian, will
light the Torch at Vank Church, which will be carried to Ararat Club
by national Armenian athletes.

Armenian National Committee of America
Eastern Region
80 Bigelow Avenue
Watertown, MA 02472
Tel: 617-923-1918
Fax: 617-926-5525
[email protected]
PRESS RELEASE
March 16, 2004
Contact: Arin Gregorian
617-923-1918; [email protected]
MAINE ARMENIAN ACTIVISTS DISCUSS
COMMUNITY CONCERNS WITH SEN. SNOWE
— Thank Senator for Cosponsoring Genocide Resolution;
Pledge to Work on Armenia Aid; Military Aid Parity Issue
PORTLAND, ME–Maine Armenian activists met with Republican Senator Olympia
Snowe yesterday to discuss a range of issues, including concerns about the
Bush Administration request to break its agreement to maintain military aid
parity between Armenia and Azerbaijan, the ongoing blockade of Armenia and
Nagorno Karabagh and the peaceful resolution of the Karabagh conflict,
reported the Armenian National Committee Eastern Region (ANCA ER).
“I was proud to be part of the Maine Armenian community team to discuss
pressing issues of concern with Senator Snowe,” explained longtime ANC
activist Kathy Durgerian. “We look forward to working closely with the
Senator to ensure a stronger US-Armenia relationship and proper recognition
of the Armenian Genocide.”
Armenian Cultural Association of Maine members Paul Proudian, Jirair
Kiladjian, and Kathy Durgerian, thanked the Senator for cosponsoring the
Genocide Resolution (S.Res.164) and her past support of Armenian Genocide
commemorative efforts in the state. In April of 2003, an Armenian American
aide to Sen. Snowe participated in an Armenian Genocide observance and
unveiling of an Armenian Genocide monument. At the event, held in Portland,
she read a statement from the Senator commemorating the victims of the
Genocide.
The group stressed the importance of expanding US-Armenia trade levels by
passing the Permanent Normal Trade Relations (PNTR) measure currently before
the Senate. The activists also expressed particular concern about the Bush
Administration’s proposed FY 2005 budget, which calls for an $8 million
military aid package for Azerbaijan, while only allocating $2 million for
Armenia. Citing Azerbaijan’s blockade of Armenia and Nagorno Karabagh, as
well as the Azerbaijani leadership’s belligerent statements in support of a
military solution to the Karabagh conflict, the activists argued that
breaking military parity would only serve to encourage Azerbaijan in its
destructive behavior.
The Armenian National Committee of America is the largest and most
influential Armenian American grassroots political organization. Working in
coordination with a network of offices, chapters, and supporters throughout
the United States and affiliated organizations around the world, the ANCA
actively advances the concerns of the Armenian American community on a broad
range of issues.
#####

NATO-sponsored border security course held in Azerbaijan
Trend news agency
15 Mar 04

BAKU
Trend correspondent R. Abbasov: NATO participation in a settlement of
the Nagornyy Karabakh conflict is in the interests of Azerbaijan,
Maj-Gen Omer Bayrakli, the military attache of the Turkish embassy in
Azerbaijan, said at a ceremony to open “Border Security Control
Course” in Baku on 15 March. The course was organized by the Turkish
Defence Ministry.
Despite the fact that Azerbaijan officially made no appeal for NATO
membership, it is intensively developing its relations with the
North-Atlantic Alliance, he said. “Among the CIS states, Azerbaijan is
a country which closely cooperates with NATO. Ex-president Heydar
Aliyev repeatedly said that NATO should be involved in solving
conflicts in the Caucasus,” Bayrakli said.
The head of the Azerbaijani Defence Ministry department for
inspections, Mammad Beydullayev, said that the course is being held
from 15 to 19 March at the ministry’s training centre. Along with
military servicemen, representatives of the Foreign, National
Security, Interior Ministries, the State Customs Service and other
bodies will attend the course.
A lecturer and colonel of the Turkish army, Tuqay Bakkal, said that
the main goal of the course was to familiarize the Azerbaijani armed
forces with methods of preventing illegal border incursions, the
trafficking of drugs, weapons, human organs and so on. He noted that
the training was being conducted by the study centre of the
Partnership for Peace programme of the Turkish armed forces.
Up to now, 1,100 people have attended this course, including 320
Azerbaijani servicemen. Azerbaijan ranks second among 51 countries in
terms of the number of its participants. The course will also be held
in Ukraine, Romania, Albania, Macedonia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan,
Tajikistan and Moldova.

Azat Artsakh, Republic of Nagorno Karabakh
March 8 2004
“LOST TERRITORIES OF THE WINNER COUNTRY”
One who is unaware of their losses is on the verge of new losses.
This was the concern of the exhibition opened on February 25 at the
museum-institute of Alexander Tamanian devoted to North Artsakh, part
of our historical territory cleansed of Armenians by our enemy of
centuries in 1988-1992. Through about 100 colored large-format
photographs and a number of maps (demographic, historical monuments,
names of places) the small and large settlements, various historical
and cultural monuments of the region estranged from us not because of
the power of the enemy but our indifference and drowsiness was
presented to public. The aim of the exhibition is to increase the
knowledge of our country, the lack of which was felt as in the Soviet
times so as at present, however strange and inadmissible it may seem.
The exhibition will last till March 18 and on March 10-12 it will be
exposed at the Ministry of Defence.
RAA.

Yerkir web site, Yerevan, in English
9 Mar 04
Ethnic Armenians in Georgia against Azeri oil pipeline
AKHALKALAKI
During his recent visit to Baku, Georgian President Mikheil
Saakashvili, speaking about the security of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan
oil pipeline, said that the Armenians living in the regions that will
be bisected by the pipeline have no problems with the construction of
the pipeline.
The Armenian population of Tsalka, Borjomi and Akhaltsikha, however,
have been continuously voicing their complaints about it.
The residents of the Armenian-populated village of Tapatskur in the
Borjomi region have not yet received compensation for the property
taken from them for the pipeline.

United Press International
March 12, 2004 Friday 15:06 PM Eastern Time
Analysis: Iraq’s Shiite-Kurd differences
By HUSSAIN HINDAWI
LONDON, March 12 (UPI)
Although Iraq’s interim constitution was endorsed unanimously by the
country’s Governing Council, which represents all sectarian and
ethnic factions, deep divisions are simmering between the Shiite
majority community and the Kurds.
The signing of the document was delayed for three days till this past
Monday due to Shiite objections about the prerogatives and powers
granted to the Kurds, who constitute 20 percent of Iraq’s population
of 25 million.
The Shiite are believed to make up 60 percent of Iraqis.
A source close to the U.S.-sponsored Iraq Governing Council projected
more complications ahead.
“It will be very difficult to achieve consensus between the two sides
over the formation of the future transitional government and the
names of candidates who will enter the enlarged Governing Council
expected to be declared before the official transfer of powers from
the Coalition Authority to Iraqis on July 1st,” the source told
United Press International on condition of anonymity.
The interim constitution will govern Iraq for a transitional phase
until elections are held for a legislative council, which will be
entrusted with drafting the country’s permanent constitution.
The deep differences pitting Shiites against Kurds surfaced on the
eve of the signing of the interim constitution, when five Shiite
council members rejected a clause that fostered Kurdish powers.
“Shiite suspicion about the Kurds’ separatist intentions was the real
and main reason behind their objection,” the source said.
A clause in the interim constitution granted power to two-thirds of
the inhabitants of three Iraqi provinces, referring to Iraq’s
Kurdistan, to veto the country’s future permanent constitution.
The five Shiite council members whose objections delayed the
ratification of the document agreed to sign after consultations with
the leading Shiite religious authority, Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, who
expressed reservations after the endorsement.
The source said the Shiites and Kurds also disagree over several
other issues, including the naming of new Iraqi ambassadors abroad.
This was the cause of a heated debate this week between Foreign
Minister Hoshiar Zibari, a member of the Kurdish Democratic Party, or
KDP, and Shiite council members.
Senior Shiite cleric Ayatollah Taki al-Mudarissi said in recent press
comments that the clause that refers to the federation in the interim
constitution is tantamount to a “time bomb” that could cause civil
strife in Iraq.
The clause grants the minority Kurdish community the right to reject
the decisions of the majority Arab population, and consequently the
power to influence Iraq’s future status if they opt for secession.
But Kurdish leader Jalal Talabani, head of the Patriotic Union of
Kurdistan, or PUK, and member of the Governing Council, played down
Shiite fears in a recent press declaration.
“It is in the interest of Iraq’s Kurds to choose voluntary union with
the Arab population of Iraq within the framework of national unity
based on democracy, federation and human rights,” Talabani said.
But Kurdish expert and Paris University professor Halkut Hakim
described the powers granted to the Kurds as unprecedented, “whose
dimensions are difficult to predict in a country like Iraq and in the
region.”
Evaluating the significance of the event for the Kurds on a historic,
political and moral scale, Hakim said: “It is the third time in
history that the Kurds’ cause and mere existence is placed within a
legal framework — if we exclude the 1920 Sevres treaty, which was
stillborn for both the Kurds and Armenians.”
“The first time was in 1958, when the Iraqi constitution recognized
the existence of the Kurdish people as a separate ethnicity and
community in the country. … The second time was in 1970, under the
self-rule law that recognized officially certain rights for the
Kurds. But the law was annulled four years later,” Hakim said.
At present, Hakim said, “The Kurdish cause was incorporated inside
the official legislation and placed in the preamble of the interim
constitution, which Kurdish representatives helped draft making sure
Kurdish rights are guaranteed.”
He said the document constituted a framework for regularizing future
relations between the Kurdish enclave in northern Iraq and the
central authorities “and at the same time protected the institutions
that Kurds have built since 1991.”
Control of the Kurdish north has been shared between the Talabani’s
PUK and the KDP led by Massoud Barzani after breaking out of
Baghdad’s control in the wake of the 1991 Gulf War.
Hakim noted that recognizing the Kurdish language as Iraq’s second
official language after Arabic is of major legal importance for the
Kurds since they got their self-controlled enclave in 1991.
On the political level, the interim constitution rallied all Kurdish
factions around it, especially because it was the fruit of efforts by
both leading Kurdish parties, the PUK and KDP.
On a morale level, Hakim said, “one can sense the widespread
jubilation and rejoicing among Kurds inside and outside Iraq over the
consecration of the entity they have created in northern Iraq without
official international or regional recognition.”
“There is no doubt that the new constitution consecrated the status
quo in Iraq’s Kurdistan and added momentum to Kurdish hopes and
aspirations in having their own entity,” he added.
In the meantime, trouble is looming over the controversial clause
that gives fewer than 1 million Kurds in a country of 25 million the
power to veto Iraq’s future permanent constitution.