Author: Ekmekjian Janet

34.8% RISE IN HOUSING PRICES RECORDED IN YEREVAN IN FIRST HALF OF 2004
YEREVAN, JULY 23. ARMINFO. In the first half of 2004, the average
price of 1sq. meter of housing in Yerevan was 214.3 USD, a 34.8%
increase as against the first half of 2003, and a 14.1% increase as
against the second half of 2003.
The press service of the RA State Registry of Immovable Property
reports that in the first half of 2004, in Yerevan’s Center community
(North Avenue under construction not considered), the average price of
1sq. meter of housing was 438.8 USD. In the other communities the
situation was as follows: Arabkir, 341 USD,
Kanaker-Zeitun, 211 USD, Nor-Nork 175 USD, Avan 166.5 USD, Erebuni,
172.6 USD, Shengavit, 189.4 USD, Davidashen 211.4 USD, Achapnyak 189
USD, Malatiya-Sebastiya 197.7 USD, Nubarashen 74 USD. In the first
half of 2004, a total of 2,941 purchase-and-sale deals with private
houses were recorded, 579 of them in Yerevan. The average price of
1sq. meter of housing in private houses increased by 31.9% in the
first half of 2004 as against the first half of 2003. From the second
half of 2003 to the first half of 2004, a 13.1% increase in prices was
recorded. In the first half of 2004, 1sq. meter of housing in private
houses in Yerevan averaged 231 USD: in the Center community,
452.8 USD, in Arabkir 346.8 USD, in Kanaker-Zeitun 212.9 USD, in
Nork-Marash 326.4 USD, in Avan 168.9 USD, in Erebuni 174.7 USD, in
Shengavit 190 USD, in Davidashen 212.5 USD, in Achapnyak 168.9 USD, in
Malatiya-Sebastiya 189.2 USD, and in Nubarashen 75.4 USD.

ArmenPress
July 21 2004
ARMENIAN, AZERI YOUNG FOOTBALL PLAYERS MAY PLAY A FRIENDLY GAME IN
ITALY
YEREVAN, JULY 21, ARMENPRESS: The Italian embassy in Yerevan said
today it has issued visas to a delegation of the Football Federation
of Armenia composed of a team of 14 young players aged between 9 and
14 who have been invited to participate in a competition in Italy
organized by the FIGC – Federazione Italiana Gioco Calcio.
The competition is scheduled to take place in the Summer Center of
FIGC in Norcia (near Perugia) in Central Italy from 25 to 31 July. A
similar delegation from the Football Federation of Azerbaijan was
also invited by FIGC to the stage. It is likely that the two teams
might play a friendly match. All the expenses regarding travel and
accommodation are being covered by the FIGC.

Le Figaro, France
19 juillet 2004
La visite à Paris du Premier ministre turc Recep Tayyip Erdogan, qui
débute aujourd’hui, relance le débat sur la candidature d’Ankara
La Turquie, une idée neuve pour l’Union
PAR DOMINIQUE REYNIÉ*
Le 7 mai dernier, le Parlement turc amendait la Constitution dans le
but de permettre l’ouverture des négociations avec l’Union européenne
: suppression des cours de sûreté de l’Etat, suppression de toute
référence à la peine de mort, pour en rendre le retour impossible
après son abolition en août 2002, proclamation de l’égalité entre les
sexes, adoption d’un nouveau Code civil, mise en place d’une nouvelle
formation pour les juges, reconnaissance de la prééminence des
traités internationaux sur la loi nationale. Des droits inédits ont
été accordés aux Kurdes, on commence à débattre très librement de la
question arménienne… Il se passe quelque chose en Turquie. Les
racines de cette transformation sont certes anciennes, mais ses
manifestations les plus spectaculaires sont présentes. L’ardent désir
d’intégrer notre Union est le moteur de cette accélération et ce ne
sera pas le moindre de nos mérites que d’en être la cause principale,
dans le droit-fil de l’esprit de réconciliation et de pacification
qui présidait à la naissance de l’Europe nouvelle, au lendemain de la
Seconde Guerre mondiale.
Aujourd’hui, quelques-uns contestent le destin européen de la Turquie
au nom de la géographie. L’argument, si souvent entendu, ou bien
n’est pas sérieux ou bien n’est pas honnête. Au nom de quelle règle
la proportion continentale du territoire turc (5%) est-elle jugée
insuffisante ? Quel est le seuil nécessaire ? Et pourquoi ne pas
retenir qu’un cinquième des Turcs vivent sur cette partie de leur
territoire ? Et pourquoi la Turquie serait-elle en Asie quand Chypre
vient d’entrer dans l’Union, tandis qu’elle est plus à l’Orient
qu’Ankara ? N’avons-nous pas une frontière commune avec la Turquie
depuis 1981, par la Grèce, et n’en aurons-nous pas une nouvelle en
2007, avec la Bulgarie ? Avec la Turquie dans l’Union, nous dit-on,
nous aurons des frontières avec l’Iran, comme si cela devait
souligner le caractère étrange de cette candidature. Lorsque les
Européens possédaient leurs empires coloniaux, ils savaient pourtant
voir plus grand et cela n’étonnait pas les Français d’avoir trois
départements en Algérie. Serait-ce de l’amnésie ? De même,
aujourd’hui, les Européens ne paraissent pas perturbés par cette
frontière commune avec le Brésil que nous devons à la Guyane, autre
département français. En fait, nul ne l’ignore, la géographie cache
mal la crainte inspirée par l’idée d’accueillir parmi nous un pays
musulman. Mais que ferons-nous des 12 millions d’Européens musulmans
? Quel sera l’avenir des Bosniaques, des Albanais et des Macédoniens
contre lesquels l’argument géographique ne pourra rien non plus. Au
fond, le problème de la Turquie n’est pas d’être un pays musulman,
mais d’être un «grand» pays musulman, ce qui n’est pas discutable,
même si, membre de l’Union, il ne représenterait pas plus de 15% de
la population totale.
C’est donc l’islam qui nous inquiète. Ce n’est pas sans raison. Il y
a aujourd’hui dans le monde un incontestable problème musulman. Trop
souvent, cette religion se montre sous un jour rétrograde,
oligarchique, tyrannique et violent. Mais nous savons pourtant que la
plupart des musulmans ne sont ni des fondamentalistes ni des
terroristes. Très simplement, dans leur grande majorité, ils aspirent
à la sécurité et à la prospérité. Nous savons aussi que le XXIe
siècle sera chaotique, voire catastrophique, si nous ne parvenons pas
à résoudre cette épineuse question. La Turquie est à ce jour une
pièce maîtresse de la solution, peut-être la seule, si bien que les
Européens ont en main la clé d’un monde stabilisé, pacifié et
progressiste. En effet, la Turquie est un pays musulman à proprement
parler incomparable. Seul pays musulman membre de l’Otan, depuis
1952, et membre fondateur de l’OCDE en 1961, la Turquie est installée
dans une laïcité originale depuis plus de quatre-vingts ans, dotée
d’institutions représentatives, habituée au multipartisme, où les
femmes votent depuis 1934, 10 ans avant les Françaises et 46 ans
avant les Portugaises. On y trouve une classe moyenne importante, un
patronat dynamique, des élites bien formées, des universités
prestigieuses, qui ne compensent cependant pas un grave déficit en
matière d’éducation, une société civile en voie d’émancipation et une
pratique originale de l’islam, multiple, privatisée et de plus en
plus souvent individualisée.
Maintenant que l’empire soviétique s’est effondré, pouvons-nous
oublier que, dès 1945, la Turquie s’est engagée, à nos côtés, dans la
lutte contre le communisme ? Membres de l’Otan dès 1952, les Turcs
ont ainsi payé le plus lourd tribut en vies humaines pendant la
guerre de Corée, après les Etats-Unis et la Grande-Bretagne.
Pouvons-nous oublier que la Turquie est l’un des plus fidèles alliés
d’Israël ? C’est en Turquie que trouveront refuge les juifs chassés
d’Espagne par Isabelle la Catholique. C’est en Turquie que trouveront
refuge des milliers de juifs européens fuyant le nazisme. En ce
domaine, l’Europe est débitrice et force est de constater qu’elle a
plus de leçons à recevoir qu’à donner. Dès 1948, la Turquie
reconnaîtra l’Etat d’Israël. C’est dans le ciel turc que peuvent
s’entraîner les pilotes israéliens. De même, les deux pays partagent
leurs équipements portuaires pour recevoir leurs marines de guerre.
L’eau, dont manque cruellement Israël, est fournie, chèrement, par la
Turquie, tandis que des entreprises israéliennes participent à
l’irrigation du sud-est de l’Anatolie, clé du développement de cette
région pauvre et donc, indirectement, l’une des clés du problème
kurde comme de l’islamisme radical qui sévit localement.
Pays exceptionnel encore lorsque, en 2002, la victoire du Parti de la
justice et du développement (AKP) nous offrait le premier exemple
historique d’un parti de culture musulmane accédant au pouvoir par la
voie démocratique. L’AKP a été soutenu par un électorat
qu’exaspéraient les dévaluations et les problèmes de corruption mais
aussi persuadé qu’il est le plus capable de réussir les profondes
réformes nécessaires à l’ouverture des négociations. Loin d’être un
«parti islamique» ou «islamiste», l’AKP est une sorte de parti
musulman-démocrate, qui fait songer à nos partis
chrétiens-démocrates, malgré quelques éléments radicaux comme l’on en
trouve dans toutes nos démocraties. L’AK est un parti libéral sur le
plan économique et franchement proeuropéen, à la différence des
islamistes du RP, ou Refah, parti fondé en 1983 et dissous en 1998
pour non-respect de la laïcité.
Au lendemain de la victoire de l’AK, Abdullah Gül, l’actuel ministre
des Affaires étrangères, déclarait : «Notre ambition est de montrer
au monde entier qu’un pays peuplé de musulmans peut aussi être
démocrate, transparent, moderne et peut aussi coopérer avec le reste
du monde.» Les partis musulmans-démocrates ne sont pas nombreux. Un
seul à ce jour a pu accéder au pouvoir par la voie électorale. Est-il
juste, est-il conforme à notre intérêt de compromettre les chances de
succès de cet islam moderne et pro-occidental unique au monde ?
Aujourd’hui, en Turquie, l’ouverture des négociations est une cause
partagée par la société civile tout entière. Elle dépasse les
clivages politiques internes. C’est toute la Turquie démocratique qui
place ses espoirs dans l’ouverture des négociations.
* Professeur des Universités à l’Institut d’études politiques de
Paris. Dernières publications : Les Européens en 2004, Paris, 2004,
Editions Odile Jacob/Fondation Robert Schuman et La Fracture
occidentale. Naissance d’une opinion européenne, Paris, 2004,
Editions de La Table Ronde.
demain, deuxième et dernier volet de cette tribune.

Allentown Morning Call, PA
July 18 2004
The transformation of Turkey
The moderate, modern Muslim country, if assimilated into the European
Union, would be an attractive role model for other countries
Eli Schwartz
In Victorian England, there was a common reference to “the
unspeakable Turks.” Much has changed. Today, Turkey is an
independent, modernized country of about 70 million inhabitants. It
is a charter member of NATO and is currently knocking on the door for
admission to the European Union.
In fact, columnist George F. Will noted last week, it is to this
country’s advantage to have Turkey in the EU. Its economy has a long
way to go, in comparison with others in Europe, but it is a nation
that is democratic, secular — and Muslim.
Turkey was not alway democratic and secular, of course, and I believe
that its story is helpful to us today, especially in light of
President Bush’s dream of seeing democracy spread throughout the
Middle East.
The modern history of Turkey starts from the defeat of the Turkish
Ottoman Empire at the end of World War I. In 1920, the victorious
allies sat down to dispose of the Arab territories and carve up Asia
Minor.
Of the Arab countries, the French were given a League of Nations
mandate over Lebanon and Syria; the British received mandates for
Mesopotamia (Iraq), Palestine, and some adjoining territories.
Turkey, in Asia Minor, was divided into Italian and French spheres of
influence, an autonomous Kurdish area, a section given to an Armenian
Republic in Causasia, and a Greek enclave starting out from the city
of Smyrna (now Izmir) on the Aegean Sea. A small area encompassing
the city of Constantinople and an oval on the Asiatic side enclosing
the sea of Marmora and the straits to the Black Sea was left to the
Sultan of Turkey. The whole was endorsed by the Treaty of Sevres,
signed by the Sultan in Constantinople.
In the meantime, a nationalist reform party lead by Mustafa Kemal
(later to become Kemal Ataturk) coalesced around the city of Ankara
in central Turkey. In 1920, the dissident assembly declared Turkey a
republic, and an army formed around Mustafa Kemal launched a series
of attacks on the Kurds, the Armenians, and on the Greek army
occupying the area coming out of Izmir. The campaigns were undeniably
victorious, marred by internecine warfare and by what is now
sardonically called “ethnic cleansing”; much of this has never been
clearly expiated to this day.
Suffice it to say, the war ended with the victorious Turkish Army
taking Smyrna in 1922. The abortive Sevres treaty was dropped and the
new treaty of Lausanne in 1923 assigned to the new republic of
Turkey, the territory it currently holds in Asia Minor, and in
Europe, the cosmopolitan city of Constantinople (now Istanbul) and
the strategic straits between the Mediterranean and the Black Sea.
No one reigns completely alone, but the foundation of modern Turkey
rests with Mustafa Kemal, given the honorific name Kemal Ataturk
(Noble Father of the Turks), who as president ruled with a hard hand
from 1923 until his death in 1938. Kemal’s main goal was to wrest
Turkey into the modern world.
One by one, the edicts came down. The Sultan and his family were
exiled, the Caliphate was abolished, the Sharia, Islamic law, was
replaced by the Swiss Code as the basic law of the state, and the
Italian Penal Code and the German Commerce Code were adopted. This
essentially made Turkey a secular state.
Kemal made the wearing of the fez (traditional male headdress)
illegal, and he discouraged the wearing of the female head scarf. The
Islamic clergy were paid a stipend by the government, but the weekly
sermon was set by the state. The call to prayer was changed from
Arabic to Turkish.
Perhaps Kemal’s most revolutionary move was to enforce a change from
the Arabic script to the Latin alphabet. All the citizens from six to
40 years old were made to attend school to learn the new letters.
After four years, it was made illegal to use the old Arabic script. A
consistent increase in literacy followed.
There was a massive importation of typewriters and, under the law of
unintended consequences, the increased demand for stenographers led
to the increased employment of women and helped in the emancipation
of Turkish womanhood.
Even those quite critical of his methods acknowledge that Ataturk
left a legacy that has served as an obstacle to the rise of
anti-Western Islamists in Turkey.
Kemal Ataturk succeeded in modernizing Turkey, whereas operating at
the Eastern end of the Golden Crescent, the Pahlavi family (the
Shahs) failed in the avowed task of modernizing Iran.
Now, 66 years after Kemal Ataturk’s death, comes perhaps the final
test of the Turkish transition. In December of this year, the Turks
hope to start negotiations on the entry to the European Union. Many
questions arise.
Turkey is a poor country. It is not an undeveloped country, but it
ranks in the bottom rung of the class of developed countries. The per
capita GDP is about one third of the average for the EU. On the other
hand, the recent real growth rate of 4 percent to 6 percent per annum
exceeds that of the EU, and a recent report by The Economist magazine
shows Turkey with an astounding increase of 15 percent in the last
quarter in manufacturing and mining output, well above any other
country listed.
Trade with the European Union has been growing; since 1996; the
amount of exports to the EU has more than doubled from $10 billion to
$25 billion and imports have gone from $20 billion to $32 billion.
One third of new television sets sold in the EU last year came from
Turkey.
The inflation rate which had been running at a double digit rate for
35 years finally fell to a single digit level this February. The
government deficit of 10 percent of the GDP far exceeds the EU target
of 3 percent. Be that as it may, the stated economic criteria for
admission to the European Union is not perfection but the existence
of a “functioning market economy.”
Some political and social sticking points remain. The average
literacy rate is 87 percent with a significantly higher rate of 94
percent for males as against only 88 percent for females. However,
elementary school education is now compulsory for children of both
sexes. Average life expectancy at birth of 72 years is only slightly
below the developed world average, but the rate of 42 infant deaths
per 1,000 live births is shamefully high.
Of course, the main problem is the unrest and unease among the
minority Kurds, who constitute 20 percent of the population. The
current administration has eased relations with the Kurds, allowing
the public use of the Kurdish language and the development of Kurdish
culture. At any rate, Turkey would not be the sole EU member with a
minority problem; Spain has the Basques, Slovakia has the Gypsies,
and Great Britain has the IRA of Northern Ireland. The social,
political criteria for entrance to the EU is phrased as a “union of
values.”
>From my readings and experience of visiting the Middle East and
Turkey, I believe the admission of Turkey to the European Union would
be a worthwhile accomplishment. Certainly, it would help the Turkish
economy. But perhaps, more importantly, the successful assimilation
of a moderate, modern Muslim country into a vital democratic,
economic society would provide an attractive role model for other
countries to follow.
Eli Schwartz of Allentown is professor emeritus of business and
economics at Lehigh University in Bethlehem.
,0,6258142.story?coll=all-newsopinion-hed

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (Wisconsin)
July 18, 2004 Sunday ALL EDITION
Midwest Passages
MIKE MAGNUSON AND JUDITH CLAIRE MITCHELL
Former Menomonee Falls resident Mike Magnuson (author of “Lummox”)
returns to the Milwaukee area this week to read from his new book,
“Heft on Wheels,” a memoir about a big man’s determination to turn
his life around.
Magnuson weighed 250 pounds a few years ago. Booze, cigarettes and a
rotten diet were his way. But he joined a biking club — and began
cycling slowly as part of a balanced diet-and-exercise routine.
Instead of being nuts on parties, he became nuts on cycling.
The man is 175 pounds today and cycles in tournaments. “Heft on
Wheels” is a humorous look at a makeover. Magnuson, now head of
Southwestern Illinois College’s creative writing department, has
arranged his book tour to Milwaukee to coincide with Saturday’s
Downer Avenue bike race. Yes, he plans to ride.
A few years ago, a friend gave University of Wisconsin-Madison
creative writing teacher Judith Claire Mitchell a stack of letters to
read.
They were written by the friend’s great aunt, who had been a YMCA
volunteer in France in 1919. One of the letters mentioned an Armenian
who lost his family during deportations.
Mitchell used that tiny thread to begin weaving her debut novel, “The
Last Day of the War.”
She reads on Wednesday from this love story between a Jewish girl
from St. Louis and an Armenian-American soldier in Paris at the end
of World War I.
IF YOU GO
What: Talk Who: Mike Magnuson When and where: 7 p.m. Tuesday at Harry
W. Schwartz Bookshops, 2559 N. Downer Ave.
What: Discussion, reading Who: Judith Claire Mitchell When and where:
7 p.m. Wednesday at Harry W. Schwartz Bookshops, 4093 N. Oakland
Ave., Shorewood.

ARMENIA 82-TH ACCORDING TO INDEX OF LIVING STANDARDS
16.07.2004 13:42
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Norway, Sweden and Australia are considered the most
prosperous states out of 177 countries included in the so-called Human
Development Index annually issued by the UN. The Index is determined
according to the income per head, quality of education and medical
care and lifetime. Armenia is the 82-th in this list. Other republics
of the former USSR occupy the following positions: Russia – 57-th,
Ukraine – 70-th, Azerbaijan – 91-th, Georgia – 97-th. The report
prepared by the UN Development Program is compiled due to the data of
2002.

RosBusinessConsulting Database
July 13, 2004 Tuesday
Armenia to continue upgrading its military forces
The first meeting of a joint Russian-Armenian intergovernmental
commission on cooperation in the military sphere will take place in
September to October 2004. Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov
made a corresponding statement after negotiations with his Armenian
counterpart Andranik Markarian, who is on an official visit in
Moscow. According to Fradkov, this cooperation will continue within
the framework of modernization of Armenian military forces.

New Straits Times, Malaysia
July 10 2004
ENTERTAINMENT: Ballard revisits `Titanic’ wreck
Faridul Anwar Farinordin

IN the 1997 Academy Award-winning movie Titanic, directed by James
Cameron, a fictional underwater expedition led by Brock Lovett
(played by Bill Paxton) probed the wreck to look for a precious
pendant called the Heart of the Ocean.
Believe it or not, this actually reflects the situation today. Since
the wreck of the Titanic was first discovered by Dr Robert Ballard in
1985 after sinking 3,600 metres into the Atlantic Ocean in 1912, its
watery grave has been visited by people with questionable intentions.
“People have gone down and got married there. Treasure hunters have
been going there and tearing it apart with their equipment. They use
submersibles, land on the the wreck’s deck and bump things down. It’s
like a circus unfolding when it should be a memorial,” said Ballard
in a recent phone interview.
It has been estimated that as many as 8,000 artifacts may have been
ransacked from the liner – everything from porcelain and plates to a
part of its hull.
His increasing concern over the future of the wreck prompted Ballard
to make a bittersweet return to the Titanic – this time, to determine
the factors hastening the deterioration of the wreck and lobby for
international co-operation towards protecting the site from further
desecration.
A documentary of this 32-member expedition called Return To Titanic
will be aired on the National Geographic Channel (Astro Channel 52)
at 9pm tomorrow. There will be never-seen-before footage of the wreck
– inside the passenger cabins, suites and dining room.
“This time, we focus on the human aspect of the tragedy. We hope to
touch people’s hearts and raise awareness that this is a special ship
and deserves more respect. The footages are very moving – we show
where the bodies landed… but we didn’t touch anything,” he said.
The images, said Ballard, a professor of oceanography at the
University of Rhode Island in the United States and director of its
Institute for Archaeological Oceanography, tell many heart-wrenching
stories.
“We saw shoes which could have belonged to a mother and her daughter.
Next to them was a mirror and a comb. Immediately you can imagine
that the mother was probably combing her daughter’s hair when the
tragedy struck. The images are so powerful, as if the ship is
speaking to us.”
The expedition arrived at the site in June on board the National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) research ship Ronald H.
Brown. It was funded by the National Geographic Society, Mystic
Aquarium & Institute for Exploration (MA/IFE), NOAA, Partisan
Pictures, the JASON Foundation for Education and the University of
Rhode Island.
As the person who discovered the wreck, Ballard feels a strong sense
of responsibility towards its preservation. “Before 1985, I had no
attachment to the ship. I was an engineer and a scientist. Even when
I discovered the wreck, I saw it as a quest, a feat just like
reaching the peak of Mount Everest.
“It was only later that I became more attached to her (Titanic) and
feel that she is special in so many ways. She is to me what Everest
is to Edmund Hillary (the first man to conquer Mount Everest), who
urged people not to turn it into a junkyard,” he said.
An international treaty was recently signed by the US and Britain to
protect the site from further damage. “Hopefully France and Russia
will join in the future,” he said, adding “at the same time, we plan
to carry out preservation work on the ship using modern technology
such as underwater robots which can be employed to clean and repaint
the ship.” Born on June 30, 1942 in Wichita, Kansas, Ballard said he
grew up wanting to be Captain Nemo from the Jules Verne classic
fiction 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.
Naturally, this adventurer has been nicknamed anything from Nemo and
“oceanography’s answer to Indiana Jones” to “underwater cowboy” (“I
actually view the ocean as a Wide West!” he said with a laugh).
Ballard’s other discoveries include the underwater hydrothermal vents
which shed new light on the origins of life (1977), two ancient
Phoenician ships – the oldest ship wrecks ever found in deep water
(1999) – and four 1,500-year-old wooden ships in the Black Sea
(2000), which suggested evidence of a great flood and ultimately
supported the biblical story of Noah’s Ark. An Armenian newspaper
reported that Ballard is interested in locating Noah’s Ark on top of
Mount Ararat in Turkey, but he claimed it was just a rumour.
“I am more interested in finding evidence of civilisation before the
great flood.” Also an author of 18 best-selling books including The
Lost Ships of Guadalcanal, The Eternal Darkness, Graveyards of the
Pacific and an autobiography Explorations, he received the National
Geography Society’s prestigious Hubbard medal in 1996 for his
accomplishments in the world of underwater explorations.
With the Titanic, he said “she continues to fascinate me because she
is still there. She landed on the seabed in such a way that the mud
was pushed in front of her as if she’s still going to New York City.
“She is an amazingly frozen piece of history, like the pyramids of
the deep. Of course there are the mysteries, the grandeur of the
`unsinkable’ liner, the horror of the disaster and the human stories
of the passengers – the band members who kept playing as she was
sinking, the captain who chose to go down with her and a boy who
turned 17 and refused to board the life boat because he just turned
into a man.”
Will he visit the Titanic again soon? “Perhaps in another 20 years,”
he said.

Armen Press
July 7 2004
NO ROAD SURRENDERED TO AZERBAIJAN, ARMENIAN DEPUTY DM SAYS
YEREVAN, JULY 7, ARMENPRESS: Deputy defense minister Mikael
Harutunian denied on Tuesday allegation of some political figures
that a road connecting two Armenian towns of Ijevan and Noyemberian
was surrendered to the Azerbaijani side. “The road (built in Soviet
times) was working and will be working,” Mikaelian told a group of
journalists, whom the ministry took to the northern province of
Tavush, bordering with Azerbaijan and where a string of heavy
skirmishes between the two rival nations’ troops were reported last
month.
The road stretching along the border was the scene of surprise
attacks on Armenian vehicles, buses and local farmers. “We have taken
appropriate measures to ensure the road’s security,’ Mikaelian said.
The reporters were then driven along five Armenian villages, located
on the border, which are supplied with water from Jokhaz water
reservoir.
The latest skirmishes erupted after Azerbaijani troops tried to
occupy a hill near the regional town of Ijevan which overlooks the
water reservoir. Mikaelian said Armenian forces responded by moving
their positions forward in order to defend the water pumping facility
supplying irrigation water to five nearby villages. Mikaelian said
the location is being now reinforced, adding also that any such
attempt in future will be retaliated .

Paper reports high turnout in Azeri march in Iran
Vatandas Hamrayliyi, Baku
4 Jul 04
Text of Mansura Sattarova report by Azerbaijani newspaper Vatandas
Hamrayliyi on 4 July headlined “Our tricolour was raised over Fort
Bazz” and subheaded “Despite serious resistance by the Persian police,
200,000 of our compatriots managed to get into the fort”
“The march to Fort Bazz has been staged for eight years, but never
before has there been so much pressure and resistance against the
participants. Moreover, there were attempts to reduce the number of
demonstrators by changing the timing of the march. Despite this, the
march to Fort Bazz was successful,” said Ali Nicat, head of the
analytical-information centre of the Southern Azerbaijan Department of
the Congress of Azerbaijanis of the World CAW . In all, more than
500,000 Azeris took part in the march, he said.
It started on the evening of 30 June and became a mass rally on 1
July, Nicat said. The Iranian government resorted to some measures,
including pressure and intimidation, to prevent the march, and the
fort was surrounded by the police and the special forces, he
said. There were about 40,000 policemen and servicemen around it. In
addition, one of the two roads to the fort was closed. “Buses were
stopped on the road and forced to turn back. There were six
checkpoints on the 10-kilometre road between the fort and the town of
?Kalheydar . There were over 20 checkpoints on the road between the
fort and Tabriz. Hotels near the fort – ?Azadliq and Babak – were also
closed and entry into the nearby village was banned. The government
tried everything possible to dissuade the people from attending the
march. They even staged military exercises around the fort and
announced that this was a military zone.”
The activists of the National Liberation Movement NLM , including
members of Shams-e Tabriz, were officially banned in advance from
joining the march and placed under house arrest on 1 and 2 July, Nicat
said. “The police asked the people on 1 July to leave the fort, but
nobody took notice of it. The police did not allow the 400,000 Azeris
inside and outside the fort to come together. Some 200,000 managed to
get into the castle, but the rest could not cross the police
barriers. In order to show their unity, the people inside and outside
the fort shouted the slogan ‘Unity’. There had been several clashes
between the police and Azeris by 3 July. More than 200 demonstrators
were arrested, including well-known intellectuals and activists of the
NLM – Ali Suleymani, Seyid Calil Huseyni, Mansur Mahammadi and Huseyn
Abid all names untraced . On 2 July, the police and people in plain
clothes attempted to destroy the tents around the fort. They beat up
some demonstrators and injured 60 women.”
There were more than 300 bonfires in the area. While slogans such as
“Long live United Azerbaijan”, “Russians, Persians and Armenians are
enemies of Turks”, “Death to the enemies of Azerbaijan” and “Karabakh
or death” were chanted, the people around the bonfires sang various
songs in their mother tongue. On the night of 2-3 July, at about 0000
2030 gmt on 2 July , they sang the national anthem of Azerbaijan and
raised the tricolour in and around the fort, Nicat said.
Although the 3 July was the last day of the march, some people were
arrested and faced police resistance yesterday. “A person named ?Lavai
went to the top of the fort and spoke about the life of Babak Azeri
national hero who fought the Arabs in the 8th century , his actions
and the significance of the march. The police arrested Lavai and 30
others.”
The police did not allow filming outside the fort and all cameras were
broken.
There are seven CAW members among those arrested. There is no official
information as to where the detainees are kept. Reports from some
sources suggest that most of them are in Tabriz and others in Ardabil.