Author: Chmshkian Vicken

OQANESYAN: TURKEY AND AZERBAIJAN PREPARED PROGRAM CONSIDERING ARMENIA’S ISOLATION
Azeri Press Agency, Azerbaijan
Nov 2 2006
“Turkey and Azerbaijan prepared a program considering the isolation
of Armenia,” Amayak Ovannisyan, Armenian parliamentarian and the
chief of Armenian Political Scientists Union said, APA reports.
He said that Azerbaijan and Turkey intend to build 12 villages
along the part of Kars-Akhalkalaki-Tbilisi railway in Chavakhetiya
for placing Ahiska Turks, pretexting that they ensure the security
of Kars-Akhalkalaki-Tbilisi railway. Ovannisyan said that it is
unacceptable for Armenia, because it means the isolation from the
world.

PETROSIAN VS THE ELITE
by Ray Keene and Julian Simpole, Batsford, 299 pages, £15.99.
British Chess Magazine, UK
Nov 2 2006
BCM Chess Book Reviews : November 2006
Now that we have a manoeuvring, positional player in place as the
undisputed world champion and Garry Kasparov has retired, one wonders
whether fashion will change and there will be shift of focus by
students of the game towards the great technical players of the past.
Kramnik has often been compared to Petrosian, and it seems like a very
opportune moment to review the career of the Armenian world champion
of the 1960s. One of the reviewer’s personal regrets is that I was
too prone to hero-worship the likes of Fischer in my youth.
Like many, I was carried along by the zeitgeist, but I now feel I would
have learnt far more about practical chess technique by studying the
games of Petrosian. Too late for me, but younger readers might do well
to buy this book and study the 71 victories of Iron Tigran contained
within it. Julian Simpole is acknowledged as providing the bulk of
the text. He has not relied on computer analysis, and the contents do
not overlap to any significant degree with Peter Clarke’s collection
of Petrosian games nor Kasparov’s chapter on Petrosian in My Great
Predecessors. This looks like a most enjoyable read. JS.
[for other books on chess, go to
ml ]
–Boundary_(ID_FI1EwKLu0N8yAPw723C3AQ)–

TURKISH SCHOLAR WHO MOCKED HEAD SCARVES IS ACQUITTED
New York Times, NY
Nov 2 2006
ISTANBUL, Nov. 1 – In the latest case challenging freedom of expression
in Turkey, an Istanbul court on Wednesday acquitted a 92-year-old
academic of inciting religious hatred by putting the head scarf
in ancient history in a sexual context and by criticizing abusive
religious marriages.
In one of her published letters, Muazzez Ilmiye Cig, an expert on
Sumerian civilization, asserted that 5,000 years ago, the head scarf
was a symbol to distinguish the temple priestess who had ritual sex
with young men to celebrate fertility. As such, her satirical letter
argued, the wearing of a head scarf should not indicate a woman’s
morality or religious devotion in today’s world.
This comparison and other satires appeared in her book “My Reactions
as a Citizen” and prompted Yusuf Akin, an Islamic-oriented lawyer
based in Izmir, to file a complaint against Ms. Cig and her publisher,
Ismet Ogutcu.
More than 50 people chanted slogans supporting Ms. Cig and applauded
as she left the courthouse after a hearing of only half an hour. She
and Mr. Ogutcu each faced up to a year and a half in jail if convicted.
So far, most of the cases challenging freedom of expression in Turkey
have concerned references to the mass killings of Armenians in the
1910s, partly because it is illegal to insult the Turkish state or
identity. Intellectuals like the Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk and the
novelist Elif Shafak have been tried in that regard. Ms. Cig’s case,
however, falls under a separate law.
Charges of insulting the Turkish identity brought against Mr. Pamuk
were dropped, and Ms. Shafak was acquitted. But the laws under which
the cases have been brought cause contention within the European Union,
which Turkey wants to join. The recent cases are likely to generate
scorn when the union reports next on Turkey, next Wednesday.
Ms. Cig, a devotee of Ataturk, the founder of the Turkish Republic,
and his secular principles, said her case was not a blot on Turkey’s
progress in human rights or freedom of expression. Instead, she said:
“My trial acted as a tool to display the strength of the secular
tradition in Turkey against the fundamentalists. This will encourage
people like me to think more, act more courageously and voice their
opposition more openly.”
In Turkey, a predominantly Muslim country, head scarves are common in
public life but banned from government offices, including universities,
to protect the secular character of the state. Head scarves were an
electoral issue in 2002 when the current government came to power
with promises to remove the ban. The secular establishment, however,
backed by strong institutions like the military, upholds the ban.
Ms. Cig has also criticized Emine Erdogan, the wife of Turkey’s prime
minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, for wearing a head scarf that excludes
her from state functions, and asked her to give up her covered looks
to prevent a misrepresentation of modern Turkish women.

AZERBAIJANIANS-NATIVES OF ARMENIA DEMAND AUTONOMY STATUS IN THEIR “HISTORICAL MOTHERLAND”
ArmInfo News Agency, Armenia
Oct 31 2006
The unity “Return to Western Azerbaijan (Armenia)” has held a
conference the day before, during which it clarified its position
for some issues.
As the Baku “Zerkalo” newspaper reports, one of the Organization’s
demands is “return to their historical Motherland “, i.e. to Armenia.
“Why a 60-70-thousand Armenian population of Nagorno Karabakh can
be given autonomy but half-million Azerbaijanians in Armenia –
no? We think that the issue of autonomy is to be considered in
parallel, that is, status of NKR Armenians must be such as we shall
have here, in Armenia”, the Head of Organization, Rizvan Takhirov
said. However, the Organization’s demands are not limited to the claims
to RA authorities. The leaders of the “Return” have problems with
Azerbaijan authorities as well, which refuse to officially register
the Organization. The Organization members suppose that giving a
status of a “legal” structure will help them to fulfill the main
task, that is, assistance to the compatriots in their return to the
“historical Motherland”. Moreover, the “returners” propose to create
funds to accumulate the means from Caspian gas recovery, mining of
copper and natural resources and to distribute these means between
Azerbaijan’s citizens at the end of each year.

29% OF ARMENIAN POPULATION ARE UNDERFED
Lragir, Armenia
Nov 1 2006
29 percent of the population of Armenia are underfed, states the report
of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization. The report states that
Armenia has managed to halve hungry people. The authors of the report
point to the immense number of malnourished people in Uzbekistan and
Tajikistan. These countries and Armenia are included in the list
of countries which are facing serious food security problems. The
experts state that Azerbaijan and Georgia have made considerable
progess in this sphere. There are 700-800 thousand underfed people
in these countries against 2.5 million in 1993-1995.
The UN report states that there are 25 million undernourished people
in the countries with a transitional economy, 21 million live in
the CIS. The worst situation is in Tajikistan, 60 percent of the
population is underfed.
The report states that it will be impossible to bring into being the
goal set in 1996 in the summit of Rome to halve hungry people in the
world by 2015.

NO ISSUE RELATING TO WITHDRAWING TROOPS DISCUSSED AT MEETING BETWEEN ARMENIAN AND AZERBAIJANI DEFENCE MINISTERS
Noyan Tapan
Nov 01 2006
YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 1, NOYAN TAPAN. Azerbaijani Defence Minister Safar
Abiyev’s statement, according to which allegedly at the October 20
meeting between Armenian and Azerbaijani Defence Ministers the first
issue raised by him and discussed related to “withdrawing Armenian
troops from occupied Azerbaijani territories” does not correspond
to reality. According to the report provided to Noyan Tapan from RA
Defence Ministry Press Service, no issue of the kind was discussed at
the meeting held in the Ijevan-Ghazakh part of Armenian-Azerbaijani
border, at the suggestion of Andrzej Kasprczik, Personal Representative
to OSCE Chairman-in-Office, within the framework of measures aimed
at increasing mutual confidence between the sides. They only spoke
about border control and cease-fire preservation.

MONUMENT TO ARAM KHACHATRYAN OPENED IN MOSCOW
ArmRadio.am
01.11.2006 10:53
A monument to world famous composer Aram Khachaturian was opened
in the center of Moscow, not far from the House of Composers. The
festive ceremony was attended by RA President Robert Kocharyan, the
Mayor of Moscow Yuri Luzhkov, and the First Lady of Russia Lyudmila
Putina. The bronze statue was installed not far from the house,
where the composer lived and worked. Sculptor Georgy Frangulyan
and architect Igor Voskresenski pictured the maestro surrounded with
musical instruments. “It is very symbolic that the monument was placed
in this area, not far from the House of Composers,” Lyudmila Putina
said during the opening ceremony.

RUSSIA CAN MAKE ANY MOVE TO PREVENT GEORGIA FROM JOINING NATO
PanARMENIAN.Net
30.10.2006 17:23 GMT+04:00
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Russia has two clear objectives as regards Georgia,
Chief of the Department of CIS Countries of the Russian Institute of
Strategic Research, Candidate of Historical Sciences Alexander Skakov
said in an interview with PanARMENIAN.Net. “I am nor speaking of a
fantastic dream to see Georgia a friendly state. Russia insists on
maintenance of the current format of peacekeeping operation in Abkhazia
and South Ossetia without making any attempt to internationalize
the peaceful process. It first of all wishes the settlement to be
convenient not for Moscow or Tbilisi but for the people of these
unrecognized republics,” Skakov remarked.
He underscored that Georgia’s aspiration to join the NATO tenses
the relations. “We do not eye the NATO as hostile organization but
the anti-Russian vector has strengthened after Latvia, Estonia and
to some extent Lithuania and Poland joint the Alliance. Georgia will
boost this anti-Russian mood. We do not think that Georgia’s joining
the NATO is a decoded matter Influential states like Germany, France
and Canada hold an opinion that the further enlargement of the NATO
is inappropriate. Besides, Georgia will not meet the NATO standards
in the near future not to mention the unsettled conflicts on the
Georgian territory. The matter concerns only Tbilisi’s joining the ID
(Intense Dialogue). It does not lay any obligation on the Alliance
and does not determine Georgia’s membership on the NATO. That is why
it cannot arouse Russia’s discontent. Each country itself decided
its military allies,” the Russian expert said. However, he remarked
Russian can take any move to prevent Georgia’s membership in the
NATO. “Some forces in Tbilisi, Washington or Brussels may think that
Russia “swallowing” NATO’s enlargement towards the Baltic states will
tolerate Georgia’s joining the Alliance.
Russia can for example one-sidedly recognize the independence of
Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Thus.
Georgia will have to choose whether to grant independence to seceded
autonomies and bravely head for the NATO or stay in actual war with
Russia and forger about the NATO, since the Alliance will never accept
Georgia, which is in state of war with its northern neighbor. Tbilisi
can get into its own trap,” Skakov underscored.

NATIONAL UNITY COULD NOT VOTE FOR OR AGAINST ELECTORAL CODE’S AMENDED VARIANT, FACTION SECRETARY SAYS
Noyan Tapan
Oct 30 2006
YEREVAN, OCTOBER 30, NOYAN TAPAN. 90% of proposals of the National
Unity and Ardarutiun (Justice) factions was included in the new draft
Electoral Code, as a result of which the code was considerably improved
and voting against would be wrong from moral point of view. Alexan
Karapetian, Secretary of RA NA National Unity faction, reported this
at the October 30 dispute at the Hayeli Mirror club, explaining the
faction’s decision not to take part in voting of draft of amendments
and additions to the Electoral Code. In his words, the National
Unity could not, either vote for the draft as it did not include the
opposition’s proposal of passing to 100% proportional electoral system.
A.Karapetian gave assurance that only 100% proportional electoral
system can result in liquidation of many electoral violations that
are mainly committed by candidates nominated by the majoritarian
system. Samvel Nikoyan, RPA faction member, expressed bewilderment
in connection with the fact that issues not included in the draft are
discussed in connection with the amendments to the Electoral Code. In
his words, as early as a year ago when political forces represented
at NA started to work out amendments to the Electoral Code, an
agreement was reached not to touch upon proportional-majoritarian
electoral systems and formation of electoral commissions, as it
was clear from the very start that approaches towards these issues
will differ. Besides, in 2005 NA had already made amendment to the
Electoral Code, according to which correlation of MPs elected by
majoritarian and proportional systems from 56/75 became 41/90. In
response, A.Karapetian said that this was not a political agreement,
but a bargain, as a result of which the People’s Deputy group that
does not represent a political force received one seat at electoral
commissions. In the MP’s words, the fact that the Business MP group
has no such right is evidence of a double approach.

ARMENIAN PRESIDENT LEAVES FOR MOSCOW
ARKA News Agency, Armenia
Oct 30 2006
YEREVAN, October 30. /ARKA/. RA President Robert Kocharyan has left
for a two-day working visit to Moscow. The RA presidential press
service reports that Robert Kocharyan is to hold a private meeting
with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin.
The RA President is also scheduled to hold meetings with RF Premier
Mikhail Fradkov and Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov.
In Moscow President Robert Kocharyan is to take part in a ceremonial
unveiling of a monument to the great Armenian composer Aram
Khachaturyan.