Author: Emil Lazarian

AZERI-TURKS OPEN FIRE ON PEACEFUL RESIDENT
Panorama.am
13:35 04/11/06
Azerbaijan has rudely violated the cease-fire regime yesterday
shooting a peaceful resident of a borderline village. Colonel
S. Shahsuvaryan, press secretary of the Armenian defense ministry,
said Maxim Poghosyan, 28, was shot by an Azeri sniper on November 3
at 13:50 on Aigepar Movses road. Poghosyan is transported to medical
unit of Berd.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

MASS BURIAL OF POSSIBLE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE VICTIMS DISCOVERED IN TURKEY
PanARMENIAN.Net
04.11.2006 16:18 GMT+04:00
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Turkish Gendarmerie has instructed local villagers of
a southeastern region to keep silence about a mass grave, discovered
on October 17, that might contain remains of Armenian Genocide
victims. According to a Kurdish newspaper published in Turkish
Ulkede Ozgur Gundem, villagers from Xirabebaba (Kuru) were digging
a grave for one of their relatives when they came across to a cave
full of skulls and bones of reportedly 40 people. The Xirabebaba
residents assumed they had uncovered a mass grave of 300 Armenian
villagers massacred during the Genocide of 1915. They informed Akarsu
Gendarmerie headquarters, the local military unit, about the discovered
remains. Turkish army officers, according to the Kurdish newspaper,
instructed the villagers to block the cave entrance and make no mention
of the remains buried in it. The officers said an investigation would
take place. The newspaper reported on the developments and the Turkish
military’s attempt to hide the news. Journalists, who had arrived to
obtain more information, were denied access to the cave.
As the mass burial made news, local Gendarmerie made another visit
to the villagers. The latter were pressed to report the name of
the person who leaked the mass burial discovery to the press. The
villagers were warned not to show anyone directions to the cave.
The victims of the mass grave, according to Sodertorn University
History Professor David Gaunt, are most likely the 150 Armenian and
120 Assyrian males from the nearby town of Dara (now Oguz) killed on
June 14, 1915, reports Asbarez.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

LEFT OUT IN THE COLD – ‘LIBERATION MOVEMENTS: A NOVEL’ BY OLEN STEINHAUER
By Paula L. Woods
The Los Angeles Times
Calendar Live
Nov 4 2006
Beginning with 2003’s “The Bridge of Sighs,” Olen Steinhauer has
followed detectives from the People’s Militia as they’ve investigated
three decades’ worth of murders in a fictional Eastern Bloc country.
In the process, readers have been privy to the frustrations, betrayals
and backstabbing they’ve endured (and sometimes instigated). These
men include “Bridge’s” idealistic rookie Emil Brod’s investigation
of a songwriter’s murder, a doomed detective-novelist caught up in
1950s Soviet repression (“The Confession”) and devious Brano Sev,
who does double duty as a spy for the country’s KGB-like Ministry of
State Security (“36 Yalta Boulevard”). Brano has always cast a pall
over the series, and his actions have driven the stories into morally
ambiguous territory, earning Steinhauer favorable comparisons with
Graham Greene, John le Carre and Alan Furst. Yet his novels retain
enough elements of classic detective mysteries so that he can, more
or less, keep a foot in both camps.
Now comes “Liberation Movements,” which expands Steinhauer’s literary
landscape in a number of important ways. He juxtaposes two very
different locales and stories – that of Peter, a hapless student caught
trying to escape Czechoslovakia during the failed 1968 reform movement,
and the story of the explosion of a hijacked commercial airliner bound
for Istanbul, Turkey, in 1975. As if the dual story lines and locations
weren’t difficult enough to juggle, readers familiar with the series
will find that one of the militia squad’s members, Libarid Terzian,
is on that flight en route to an Interpol conference. The Armenian’s
presence on the plane raises intriguing questions: Is he a secret
sympathizer with the Army of the Liberation of Armenia, who hijack
the plane? Is it a coincidence that he encounters Zrinka Martrich,
who may or may not be a militiawoman but certainly seems to know more
about him than she should?
Seeking answers, Emil Brod, now head of the People’s Militia, sends
Brano Sev and his new partner, 29-year-old Gavra Noukas, to Istanbul
to investigate. Even though the case is not in their jurisdiction,
the two men decide that, since the hijackers boarded in their capital,
the best way to honor their comrade Terzian’s memory and fulfill their
duty is to reconstruct the hijackers’ last days in their homeland
and turn the information over to Turkish officials.
The combination of old spymaster and younger detective energizes a
series whose characters, on the job for almost 30 years, one feared
could be getting a little long in the tooth. Part of the charge comes
from the pair’s very different personalities – Brano is a cold,
calculating mentor while Gavra is a passionate man who is “always
falling victim to that word Brano enjoyed harping on – sentimentality.
” ‘It is,’ Brano had told him numerous times, ‘the demise of all good
operatives, resulting in the most fatalities. But you’re young. You
just don’t understand yet.’ ” Another young addition to the militia
and integral part of the team is Katja Drdova, 24 and the only woman
in the unit. Driven by a tragedy in her early life, Katja is obsessed
with being successful and painfully aware of “the condescension from
[her] workmates.” She too is mentored and manipulated by Brano in ways
too intricate to reveal here but diabolical and effective nonetheless.
“Liberation Movements” also goes beyond the tighter point of view
of the previous novels to give readers five different perspectives,
three of them from the militia plus the young woman Zrinka, who plays
a pivotal, if incredible, role in the action. But Steinhauer saves
some of the most unsettling chapters for Ludvik Mas, a ruthless yet
memorable character whose tradecraft and surprising connections to
the events of 1968 as well as to Brano, Katja and even Zrinka are
doled out in deliciously suspenseful doses.
Beyond the expanded relationships of these principal characters,
Steinhauer does a good job of evoking Istanbul’s bars and bazaars,
hotels and churches, which form the backdrop for the team’s search for
the men who set the hijacking in motion. He also provides just enough
background information on the genocide of a multitude of Armenians by
the Turkish militia in 1915 to understand why the crimes still feel
so personal to these young terrorists more than 60 years later –
and why they could spur the real-life assassination of two Turkish
consuls by an Armenian American in Santa Barbara in 1975.
And the echoes Steinhauer creates between the motives of terrorist
groups like the fictional Army of the Liberation of Armenia, the
real-life Red Army Faction and others of that day (and, by extension,
those of our own) are unexpectedly chilling. Perhaps it is, as one
character says, that “[t]he political, in fact, is really only the
personal dressed up in more flamboyant clothes.”
With its plots and counterplots, secret identities and tradecraft taken
straight from the Soviet playbook of the day, “Liberation Movements”
is an entertaining, if sometimes implausible, read that should put
Steinhauer squarely in the front of the pack of today’s espionage
writers. And with complex, engaging characters like Gavra and Katja
carrying on the work of Emil, Libarid, Brano and the older hands,
it is an exhilarating and enjoyable ride.
Paula L. Woods is the author of the Charlotte Justice mystery series,
including “Strange Bedfellows.”
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

INTERSTATE BANK FINANCES CREDIT PROGRAMS OF ABOUT 110 MILLION DOLLARS IN ARMENIA
Noyan Tapan
Nov 04 2006
YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 4, NOYAN TAPAN. The Interstate Bank has implemented
tens of projects in Armenia by providing credits of a total of 110
mln dollars.
Tigran Sargsian, Chairman of the Central Bank of Armenia (CBA),
current Chairman of the Interstate Bank, said this at the press
conference to summarize the results of the Interstate Bank’s sitting
in Yerevan on November 3. Chairman of the RF Central Bank Sergei
Ignatyev and Chairman of Kazakhstan’s National Bank Anvar Saydenov
also participated in the press conference. According to T. Sargsian,
the projects implemented by the Interstate Bank in Armenia are related
to such spheres as energy, chemical industry, Yerevan inner city
transport. The bank’s loans carried 9-12% interest rates. “Armenia is
actively cooperating with the Interstate Bank,” he noted, adding that
Belarus, Russia and Ukraine have also implemented projects with this
bank. He said that issues related to the Interstate Bank’s activities,
credit policy and its cooperation with the Eurasian Development
Bank were on the aganda of the Yerevan sitting of the Interstate
Bank Board. S. Ignatyev did not rule out the possibility of a merger
between the Interstate Bank and the Eurasian Development Bank (wose
founders are Russia and Kazakhstan). In his words, the Interstate Bank
does not have yet a financial opportunity to assist with projects
on formation of new financial infrastructures in CIS countries. The
Interstate Bank was founded in 1993 based on an agreement signed by
the leaders of Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrghyzstan, Moldova,
Russia, Tadjikistan, Turmenistan, Uzbekistan and Ukraine. The bank’s
authorized capital makes 20 million rubles (about 7.22 mln USD),
with Armenia’s share amounting to 300 thousand rubles (1.8%).
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Constructive dialogue is the only answer to the PKK-Turkey conflict
Kurdish Media, UK
Nov 3 2006
11/3/2006 KurdishMedia.com – By Rauf Naqishbendi
The diplomatic efforts between Washington and Ankara have been
incessant since the beginning of the Iraqi Liberation Campaign,
with the Turks hounding the United States’ officials, pushing three
of their main agendas: muting the Iraqi Kurds’ demand for statehood,
crushing the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), and of course, as always,
begging for foreign aid and more weapons.
Muting the Iraqi Kurds’ Demand for Statehood
Since the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, the mindset of the Turks
regarding the Kurds has been that if they were to renounce their
heritage, abdicate their culture, abandon their language and proudly
announce themselves Turks, then they could be free, not as Turks but
as moderate second-class citizens. To accomplish this, they engaged
in a campaign of intimidation, cruelty and repression. And they
didn’t stop with the idea of the wholesale conversion of Kurds to
Turks, but claim that freedom would be like a serpent to the Kurds,
their sovereignty poisoning them and the region as a whole. Sadly,
this kind of bigotry has been allowed although it has been pointed
out several times to high ranking US officials in both the White
House and the State Department.
It is imperative that US officials not allow this Turkish
opprobrium; they need to live up to the founding fathers’ principle of
comprehensive human dignity, and not allow themselves to be infatuated
with Turkey knowing its inhumane treatment of people and system
and government. They should not continue to involve themselves in
Turkish crimes against humanity by financing them as they have for
more than half a century. They should tell their Turkish friends
that Kurds are entitled to their sovereignty as much as they are,
the Kurds will become a free nation at last, and they better start
getting used to it. Moreover, they should not allow themselves to
be bullied by vicious elements of the Turkish government that are
attempting to manage our foreign policy. A line needs to be drawn
between friendly relations and bullying, and justice and injustice.
All this should be communicated to the Turkish authorities with great
courage and supplication to humble them into descending from their
high horse.
Crushing the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK)
Injustice does not bring fortune, nor is there immunity from it. At
its best, humanity has always fought injustice. In Turkey, the Kurds
have tried every peaceful means to secure their rights, yet their
peaceful struggle has ever been refuted with acts of tyranny by the
Turkish authorities: their leaders have been imprisoned, many have
perished by barbaric torture, and many have fled to the mountains
fearing for their lives. This is why the PKK was born, and this is
why they resorted to an armed struggle. If Turkey had treated the
Kurds with a sense of decency, the PKK would not exist.
Against this backdrop, the State Department ignorantly and unfairly
listed the PKK as a terror organization, ignoring the fact that the
birth of the PKK was merely an effect of the brutality of Turks. The
PKK is by far more peace-loving and civilized than the Turkish
authorities. For proof, consider the fact that just recently for the
fifth time they unilaterally declared a ceasefire, and pleaded for
constructive dialogue.
The response from Turkey was, “No dialogue.”
Turkey is trying to have America fight the PKK who found safe haven
in Kurdistan in Iraq. Turkey has been fighting the PKK for nearly
two decades without apparent success. Now they want America to assume
their failing endeavor and engage in a bloody fight with the PKK. If
America does that, they will alienate their only friend in the Islamic
world, the Kurds, and cause further deterioration of the already
fragile security of Iraq. It’s about time for the Turkish hatred to
relent; words of wisdom are needed from President Bush advising that
peaceful dialogue should not be decapitated by the ignorant desire
for violence. The Turks should be told that their abuse of human
rights was the cause of what they now dread, and that now it’s time
for humility and humanity from Turks – dialogue, not violence.
And of course, as always, begging for foreign aid and more weapons
Every high official the Turks send to the US comes begging for
foreign aid and more weapons. Indeed, Turkey, since America’s rise
as a world superpower after World War II, has been a welfare state
thanks to America’s sponsorship. Without it Turkey’s economy would
have remained as bruised as any third world country’s; the US’s
generosity was rendered unconditionally. On the other hand, consider
how the European Union dealt with Turkey – when Turkey applied for
membership in the EU, they made Turkey’s improved human rights toward
Kurds and other minorities a precondition of their consideration.
That was a right course of action, and brings up the question of why,
for half a century, the US ignored all Turkey’s human rights violations
and let Turks use American monetary and military aid to advance their
brutality against innocent civilians. Doesn’t Washington understand
that assisting these reactionary governments is a conscientious
endorsement to further advance their atrocities against humanity,
and what all this tells the world about America?
Shouldn’t the State Department, in an attempt to enhance America’s
standing regarding the promotion of human rights, deal with Turkey as
the EU has? America should make it clear to the Turkish authorities
that no more American aid is to be used for human atrocities and that
Turkey will not receive any more aid at all unless it improves its
human rights record in a verifiable fashion, just as the EU required.
President Bush should not trivialize constructive dialogue between the
PKK and Turkey. To this end, he should pressure the Turks politically
and economically to straighten out their treatment of minorities’
human rights, and to embark on the formation of a democratic system not
benefiting Turks alone, but rather all citizens of Turkey. Indubitably,
anyone who is familiar with Turkey cannot deny the magnitude of the
suffering that has been inflicted upon Kurds, Assyrians and Armenians
as a result of the misplaced American aid to Turkey. The remedy is
long overdue and the time to right the wrong is now.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Merrimack River Current, MA
Nov 3 2006
Chamber Ensemble
By J. C. Lockwood
Friday, November 3, 2006
Interested?
You can’t bundle up the 17 short compositions that make up
“VOCE,” the debut release of the Vardan Ovsepian Chamber Ensemble,
into a self-contained little package and describe the work as a whole
– other than advancing Gunther Schuller’s third stream theories –
essentially a fusing of classical and jazz.
No, this music is a world unto itself and, because of the
ensemble’s instrumentation – which includes Celtic harp and duduk, an
ancient Armenian instrument that looks like a recorder and sounds
like a cross between cello and human voice – it is a big world
indeed. The nine-piece ensemble weaves together improvisational jazz
that is equally informed by traditional classical music, 12-tone
serial composition and European art songs.
All that being said, perhaps the best way to understand these
pieces is to lift them completely out of their musical context. The
compositions are like poems, short films or, more accurately, like
paintings – appropriate because in its premiere performance this year
at the Firehouse Center for the Performing Arts, the ensemble, in
abbreviated form, played a series of compositions inspired by
paintings by Newburyport painter Gordon Przybyla, around which
swirled a multimedia show and dancers.
Yet, despite all of Ovsepian’s apparent compositional
adventurousness, there is a cohesiveness to the album that is
intuitive and structural. It has to do with the underlying sound as
well as the shape or character of the compositions – and that, says
the composer, is crucial.
“The instrumentation allows us to go to some very different
places,” says Ovsepian. “I love that. But if there were no underlying
unity to the pieces, it would be a bad collection of different songs.
It would be a failure. The last thing I want to have is a bunch of
songs that are different from each other.”
Assembling the band
Ovsepian started playing piano at age 5. In the early ’90s, he
studied music theory at Melikyan Music College and classical
composition at Yerevan Komitas State Conservatory, both in his native
Armenia. After studying contemporary composition at the Estonian
Music Academy, he jumped across the Gulf of Finland to attend the
Helsinki Jazz Conservatory and, from there, across the Atlantic for a
gig studying piano performance at Berklee College of Music.
Since graduating from Berklee in May 2000, he has been teaching
at The Musical Suite in Newburyport, and performing solo as well as
in groups with artists such as George Garzone, Mick Goodrick, Tim
Miller and others. He’s released three albums with the
Barcelona-based Fresh Sound- New Talent label: “Abandoned Wheel,” his
2001 solo piano project; “Sketch Book,” a 2002 release that features
future VOCE bassist Joshua Davis and percussionist Take Toriyama in
his quartet; and, in 2004, “Akunc,” a new project that features the
quartet and cellist Agnieszka Dziubak.
Chamber Ensemble
By J. C. Lockwood
Friday, November 3, 2006
Interested?
You can’t bundle up the 17 short compositions that make up
“VOCE,” the debut release of the Vardan Ovsepian Chamber Ensemble,
into a self-contained little package and describe the work as a whole
– other than advancing Gunther Schuller’s third stream theories –
essentially a fusing of classical and jazz.
No, this music is a world unto itself and, because of the
ensemble’s instrumentation – which includes Celtic harp and duduk, an
ancient Armenian instrument that looks like a recorder and sounds
like a cross between cello and human voice – it is a big world
indeed. The nine-piece ensemble weaves together improvisational jazz
that is equally informed by traditional classical music, 12-tone
serial composition and European art songs.
All that being said, perhaps the best way to understand these
pieces is to lift them completely out of their musical context. The
compositions are like poems, short films or, more accurately, like
paintings – appropriate because in its premiere performance this year
at the Firehouse Center for the Performing Arts, the ensemble, in
abbreviated form, played a series of compositions inspired by
paintings by Newburyport painter Gordon Przybyla, around which
swirled a multimedia show and dancers.
Yet, despite all of Ovsepian’s apparent compositional
adventurousness, there is a cohesiveness to the album that is
intuitive and structural. It has to do with the underlying sound as
well as the shape or character of the compositions – and that, says
the composer, is crucial.
“The instrumentation allows us to go to some very different
places,” says Ovsepian. “I love that. But if there were no underlying
unity to the pieces, it would be a bad collection of different songs.
It would be a failure. The last thing I want to have is a bunch of
songs that are different from each other.”
Assembling the band
Ovsepian started playing piano at age 5. In the early ’90s, he
studied music theory at Melikyan Music College and classical
composition at Yerevan Komitas State Conservatory, both in his native
Armenia. After studying contemporary composition at the Estonian
Music Academy, he jumped across the Gulf of Finland to attend the
Helsinki Jazz Conservatory and, from there, across the Atlantic for a
gig studying piano performance at Berklee College of Music.
Since graduating from Berklee in May 2000, he has been teaching
at The Musical Suite in Newburyport, and performing solo as well as
in groups with artists such as George Garzone, Mick Goodrick, Tim
Miller and others. He’s released three albums with the
Barcelona-based Fresh Sound- New Talent label: “Abandoned Wheel,” his
2001 solo piano project; “Sketch Book,” a 2002 release that features
future VOCE bassist Joshua Davis and percussionist Take Toriyama in
his quartet; and, in 2004, “Akunc,” a new project that features the
quartet and cellist Agnieszka Dziubak.
VOCE, which has members spread across three states and has performed
as a unit only two times before, came together quickly after Megumi
Sasaki, a violinist who teaches with Ovsepian at The Musical Suite,
brought up the idea in an off-hand way in October 2005.
“Everything started with her,” says Ovsepian.
He started collecting musicians, and by January he had a complete
band, starting with Sasaki and then signing on quartet members Davis
and Toriyama, then adding Andrew Eng on violin, Fabrizzio Mazzetta on
cello, Yulia Musayelyan on flute, Maeve Gilchrist on Celtic harp and
Martin Haroutunian on duduk.
Band in place, the pianist started writing and, within three
months, just about the time of VOCE’s Firehouse performance, had
penned most of the tunes for the new album. But he didn’t stop there.
In rehearsal, he kept getting ideas and kept writing. The musicians
in the ensemble “were very patient with me,” Ovsepian said. The
inspiration came “so massively,” that the 17 songs on the disc
represent only about 30 percent of the creative output.
The ensemble performed for the second time at Rutman’s Violins in
Boston, just a week before the album was recorded in May at PBS
Studio in Westwood and released, albeit unofficially, this week. The
disc features a series of energetic, evocative photographs by Hanayo
Takai at the Rutman’s performance. Her work became a part of the
performance, a last-minute improvisation that felt right. On stage
during the show, getting up close to the musicians, sometimes
blocking the sight lines of the audience, she looked like part of the
ensemble, almost like a dancer – recalling the “Stories as One”
performance. “It felt not like a nine-piece but a 10-piece ensemble,”
says Ovsepian. “It was an important part of the performance. It
affected everybody.”
Tight discipline
On “VOCE,” labels fall away. Songs feel and sound both modern and
ancient, are beautiful and sad, are moody and contemplative. Many
flow into each other. Titles like “Elegant Madness,” “Dew,” and
“Dreaming Paris” invoke a landscape, attitude or presence, but,
ultimately it’s a world left to the listener. The role of
improvisation is an important part of “third stream” compositions,
but on the VOCE debut, Ovsepian maintains a tight discipline over the
material, limiting the improvisational impulse – hinting, teasing.
This stance is most apparent on “Earth.” The three-minute piece opens
with achingly beautiful violin and cello lines and then, led by piano
and flute, swerves in a completely different, happier, direction.
And, as the song builds to what should be a spot for the pianist to
stretch out, the song fades out.
Ovsepian says he is trying to capture a mood, or palette of
colors – all of which would get lost in an avalanche of soloing, no
matter how inspired.
“You listen to music and have a certain image in your head,” he
says. “They have a certain character or presence. That would be swept
away by the ‘improv.’ I try to capture that mood and leave it there.
I don’t want to change or lose the mood or the color of the pieces.”
In other settings, in concert, he says, “the ‘improv’ will take care
of itself.”
Ultimately, the collection is held together by the sound of the band,
and the color and structure of the compositions, as Ovsepian says,
but, perhaps as important, is the emotional immediacy, the
insistency, of the pieces.
The release party for “VOCE” will be a loose event – not a
traditional record release party, not exactly a concert. The ensemble
will perform, they’ll shmooze a little, they’ll play a little more,
they’ll sell a few CDs. A formal release party will be scheduled
later this year.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

RUSSIA CEMENTS CONTROL OF ARMENIA’S ENERGY SYSTEM
By Vladimir Socor
Eurasia Daily Monitor, DC
Nov 3 2006
Friday, November 3, 2006
President Robert Kocharian President Robert Kocharian’s October
30-November 1 working visit to the Kremlin sealed arrangements to
deepen Russian control of Armenia’s gas and electricity supply systems.
Under these arrangements, Gazprom is de facto taking over the
Iran-Armenia gas pipeline, even as Tehran and Yerevan are about to
complete the pipeline’s construction under an earlier bilateral
agreement. Moreover, Gazprom has now raised its stake in the
Russian-Armenian company ArmRosGazprom from 45% to 58% by approving
an additional issue of shares worth $119 million. That amount is to
cover the acquisition of the Iran-Armenia gas pipeline and of the
Hrazdan electricity generating plant’s fifth power bloc (Hrazdan-5),
the leading unit in the country, by ArmRosGazprom.
The Armenian government’s stake in ArmRosGazprom, hitherto 45%,
is said to decline correspondingly to Gazprom’s increase, thus
apparently leaving Armenia with 32%. Gazprom’s old offshoot Itera
owns the remaining 10%.
The basis for these Armenian handovers had been laid in March-April
of this year as part of a deal for low-priced Russian gas. Under the
supply agreement signed in April, Gazprom raised the price of gas to
Armenia from the traditional, “fraternal” $54 to a still preferential
$110 per 1,000 cubic meters, which is to remain in force until January
1, 2009. In return for this short-term relief, official Yerevan seems
content to accept the long-term monopolization of Armenia’s energy
systems by Russian interests.
Armenia had earlier attempted to diversify energy supply sources
and infrastructure away from full Russian control. The Iran-Armenia
agreement, signed in May 2004, envisaged the construction of a gas
pipeline from the joint border to Yerevan and potentially to the
Armenia-Georgia border, as well as the completion of the Hrazdan-5
power bloc, with mainly Iranian funding. Armenia was to consume most
of the electricity generated with Iranian gas at Hrazdan and also to
use part of that electricity to repay Iran during the first years of
the 20-year project. Hrazdan-5 is due to be completed in mid-2008 at
a cost of $180 million.
>>From the start of the project, official Yerevan accepted Moscow’s
demand to limit the Iran-Armenia pipeline’s diameter to 700
millimeters, instead of the 1,420 millimeters in the original design.
Thus, Moscow and its allies in Yerevan precluded the possibility
of this pipeline being used for transit of Iranian gas via Armenia
to Georgia and potentially to Ukraine via the Black Sea. Last year,
the Ukrainian government of Yulia Tymoshenko showed keen interest in
an Armenian transit route for Iranian gas. However, this pipeline,
with an initial capacity 300 to 400 million cubic meters per year,
can only meet the needs of a part of Armenia’s internal market. The
Iranian-Armenian project had envisaged 1.1 billion cubic meters
annually in the first stage
The pipeline’s 40 kilometer first section, from Kajaran on the
Iran-Armenia border to Meghri, is set to be commissioned on schedule
at the end of December. The second section is planned to reach
Armenia’s Ararat district, there to connect with the existing gas
supply system under ArmRosGazprom. Thus, instead of a jointly owned
Iranian-Armenian pipeline dedicated to Iranian gas, the new line
becomes a Gazprom-controlled link from Iran to the Gazprom-controlled
pipeline system within Armenia. As one Yerevan commentator noted when
the outline of the deal emerged, “The pipeline goes to ArmRosGaz in
appearance only. In reality, the pipeline is packaged in ArmRosGaz
and given to Gazprom” (Lragir, October 27).
Attempting to rationalize this decision, Prime Minister Andranik
Markarian argues that separate ownership of the Iran-Armenia supply
pipeline would be “illogical,” since Gazprom already controls Armenia’s
gas transport and distribution systems, thereby controlling also
the access of Iranian gas to Armenian consumers. European countries
consenting to monopolistic long-term contracts with Gazprom might look
at the situation described by Markarian as a harbinger for their own
countries, if that trend persists.
Armenia’s gas market is small and not lucrative for Russia.
ArmRosGazprom expects only $3.75 million in profits in 2006,
partly because tariffs to household consumers in Armenia are
state-controlled. However, Moscow wants to control for Armenia’s gas
market for geopolitical reasons. Such control enables it to foreclose
a possible route for Iranian or Turkmen gas via Armenia to Georgia,
Ukraine, and potentially European Union territory, where such gas
could compete with and indeed out compete Gazprom’s.
With Iran supplying part of Armenia’s needs, Russia can redirect
corresponding volumes of Russian gas to Europe at more than double
the price it charges to Armenia. At the same time, Gazprom retains
discretionary control of the Armenian gas market through control of
the distribution system in the country.
(Noyan Tapan, Mediamax, Armenpress, October 29-November 2; RFE/RL
Armenia Report, October 31)
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

TREND Information, Azerbaijan
Nov 3 2006
British State Minister States on UK’s Recognition of Territorial
Integrity of Azerbaijan
Source: Trend
Author: A.Mammadova
03.11.2006
Mr. Geoff Hoon, the British Minister of State for Europe, Foreign &
Commonwealth, stated that the UK recognizes the sovereignty and
territorial integrity of Azerbaijan to include Nagorno-Karabakh. He
made the statement at a meeting of British parliament, Trend reports.
The statement testifies UK’s unambiguous attitude towards belligerent
Armenia’s separatist actions against Azerbaijan.
We also support the efforts of the Organization for Security and
Co-operation in Europe Minsk Group to find a negotiated settlement of
the conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia over Nagorno-Karabakh
(NK).
He also commented on other conflicts in the region. The UK recognizes
the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Georgia to include South
Ossetia and Abkhazia. “We do not recognize the claims to independence
of the separatist movements in these regions. The UK supports the
peaceful resolution of the conflicts in these regions and is working
to address the recent tension between Georgia and Russia. We
co-sponsored UN Security Council Resolution 1716 extending the
mandate of the UN Observer Mission in Abkhiazia. The EU issued a
statement on 17 October calling on Georgia and Russia to resume
dialogue and focus on reaching a peaceful resolution of the conflicts
in Abkhazia and South Ossetia, with full respect for Georgia’s
sovereignty and territorial integrity.”
The UK also recognizes the sovereignty and territorial integrity of
the Russian Federation to include all of the republics of the North
Caucasus, including Chechnya.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

RATE OF CRIME GOES UP BUT STATE OF NEIGHBORS COMFORTS US
Lragir, Armenia
Nov 3 2006
The state of crime has been under control over the past 9 months in
the Republic of Armenia, stated Ararat Mahtesyan, the deputy chief of
the Police November 3. Meanwhile, this year 7529 crimes were reported
against 6724 in the first three quarters of 2005. The rate of crime
grew by 2.5 percent. And the rate of revealed crime totaled 81.5
percent against 84.8 percent last year.
The deputy chief of the Police says the crime rate of 2005 is equal
to that of 1983, the crime rate of this year is closer to that of
2004. However, the Police does not worry, the situation in Armenia
is much better. For instance, by the rate of crime per 100 thousand
people we are 4.4 times better than Georgia, 6.5 times better than
Belarus, 9 times better than Russia and Latvia, 4.7 times better than
Romania and 55 times better than Finland. Or presently an annual 2500
robberies have reported in Armenia, whereas 13-15 years ago the rate
of robberies mounted to 6000. Meanwhile, the rate of robberies over
the past months grew from 1775 in the first three quarters of 2005
to 2310. The rate of robbery, fraud, assault and murder and attempts
grew (from 52 to 74). The rate of rape went down by 9, the rate of
assaults by 7, the cases of misappropriation or dissipation by 44.
702 cases of drug crimes were revealed compared with 461 in the first
nine months of the previous year.
“The number of female convicts went down by 0.5 percent, but the cases
involving female offenders grew by 7.5 percent,” the Police reports.
Deputy Chief of the Police Ararat Mahtesyan said recently there
have been fewer publications on corruption in the Police. In this
respect, traffic wardens remain a painful issue for the Police. There
is another problem for the solution of which the Police asks for
everyone’s help. First, the citizens who witness offenses in broad
daylight refuse to give evidence, and deny that they have seen or
heard anything. “It is possible that the Police is also to blame,”
says Ararat Mahtesyan. Meanwhile, for the other vice, the shift of the
values of young people to the “criminal world, criminal approaches”
all of us, the whole society is to blame.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

ARMENIA FAILS TO COMPLY WITH INTERNATIONAL REQUIREMENTS
Lragir, Armenia
Nov 3 2006
Armenia does not fully comply with the international requirements to
reach the European market. The news agency ARKA reports that this was
stated by the chief executive officer of the World Bank Yerevan
Office on November 3 in Yerevan. He says most legal and institutional
standards are based on the Soviet standards.
The representative of the World Bank emphasized that the agricultural
security of Armenia is greatly hindered by the transition from the
plan to market economy, which is not over yet. The representative of
the World Bank noticed that over the past decade Armenia has carried
out considerable reforms, which enabled it to become an exporting
country, however, the export markets are mainly the CIS countries.
The representative of the World Bank said most products do not comply
with the requirements of the EU and U.S. markets.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress