Author: Emil Lazarian

ZHIRAYR SEFILIAN: FIRST AND FOREMOST TASK IS TO PREVENT REPRODUCTION
OF CURRENT AUTHORITIES
YEREVAN, JULY 12, NOYAN TAPAN. “Today there is no notion of the
Karabakh problem: the issue was solved long ago and in spite of
all conversations, there is no danger in the respect of ceding
territories,” Zhirayr Sefilian, Commander of the Shoushi special
battalion, Head of the In Defence of Liberated Territories NGO,
declared at the July 12 meeting with journalists at the National
Press Club.
According to him, the current authorities making “pitiful and
defeatest” statements pursue traitorous goals. And the statements
of Foreign Minister Vartan Oskanian about the acceptability of the
frame agreement proposed by the OSCE Minsk Group Co-chairs are made
by the order of RA President Robert Kocharian who by this wants to
say to the Americans that “I am ready to do anything.”
In Sefilian’s opinion, the processes around the Nagorno Karabakh
settlement led the Armenian side to a deadlock, which strengthens
war danger. “This situation is the result of the non-competent policy
of the Armenian authorities.
The sooner we get rid of them the more real the possibility to delay
the war will be,” he considers.
Sefilian mentioned that the political elite is isolated from the
people in Armenia and there is something to think of here. According
to him, the Americans disclosing the frame agreement uncovered the
Armenian authorities. “Only one thing remains after it, to unite and
not to permit the reproduction of the current authorities. And in
this respect we, Armenian volunteers conduct an initiative, about
which the society will learn soon.” He again confirmed that today
the first and foremost task is prevention of the reproduction of
the current authorities.
In connection with the position of the U.S. in the issue of Nagorno
Karabakh settlement Sefilian emphasized that the Americans have
been never interested in the solution of this problem. “They are
not interested, to whom Aghdam belongs today, to the Armenians or
the Azeris. They are interested in the possibility to strengthen
control in this region and in ousting the Russians. At the same time,
we all know that the Armenian authorities have a status of heads of
the Russian province,” Zhirayr Sefilian declared.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

IGOR LEVITIN AND TATYANA ANODINA INFORM ROBERT KOCHARIAN ABOUT RESULTS
OF A-320 PLANE ACCIDENT INVESTIGATION
YEREVAN, JULY 12, NOYAN TAPAN – ARMENIANS TODAY. Igor Levitin,
RF Transport Minister, Co-chairman of the Armenian-Russian
Intergovernmental Commission on Economic Cooperation, and Tatyana
Anodina, Chairwoman of CIS Interstate Aviation Committee, informed
about the results of the investigation of the accident of Armavia
airline’s A-320 plane crashed on May 3 in Sochi at the July 12 meeting
with RA President Robert Kocharian.
It was mentioned that the situation, in which the Armenian plane
appeared before the accident was modelled in the French city of
Toulouse. The work was done with participation of French, Russian and
Armenian specialists. During the medelling the flight instructions
were given proceeding from the information the specialists decoded
from the plane “black boxes.”
The summing up of the investigation results is underway at present. The
Interstate Aviation Committee has been charged to finish the work in
as short terms as possible and to publicize the final results.
According to RA President’s Press Office, Robert Kocharian discussed
a number of urgent issues on the agenda of bilateral relations with
Igor Levitin. In particular, they touched upon the closure of the
Verin Lars check-point, which the Transport Minister conditioned by
construction works.
The sides exchanged thoughts on prospects of transport communication
development. Igor Levitin also informed that currently the Russian
side tries to give a quick solution to the issue of relaunching of
the Mars enterprise.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

VLADIMIR KARAPETIAN: IT IS STRANGE THAT AZERBAIJANI DIPLOMAT TAKES
AS BASIS NOT OFFICIAL DOCUMENT, BUT EXPERT’S COMMENTARY
YEREVAN, JULY 11, NOYAN TAPAN. It is strange that the Azerbaijani
diplomat takes as a basis not the official document, but the expert’s
commentary.
Vladimir Karapetian, Acting Spokesperson of RA Foreign Ministry,
declared this presenting the position of the Armenian foreign political
department in connection with the latest statements of Tair Taghizade,
Head of Azerbaijani Press and Information Policy Department, at the
request of media.
Commenting and as a proof quotting the statement of Manvel Sargsian,
expert of the Caucasus Armenian analytical center, about resettlement
in NKR liberated territories, Taghizade mentioned that “the Armenian
expert’s statement is the best argument of the Azerbaijani position’s
being right.”
“The OSCE Minsk Group fact-finding mission that visited these areas
in 2005 March precisely formulated in its report presented to the
OSCE Permanent Council: “The mission did not come to the conclusion
that such a resettlement is the result of the policy carried on
deliberately by the Armenian government.”
The report also read: “The fact-finding mission did not register any
evidence of Armenian authorities’ direct interference in the indicated
areas,” the Acting Spokesperson of RA Foreign Ministry emphasized.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

“GOLDEN APRICOT” DEPICTS ARMENIAN GENOCIDE WIHT HELP OF FOURTH
GENERATION OF GENOCIDE SURVIVERS’S DESCENDANTS
Yerevan, July 11. ArmInfo. “Genocide Inside Me” film by young Canadian
film director Araz Artinian is represented in the competition program
of “Golden Apricot” Film Festival.
Artinian stated at today’s press conference that she was aimed to
show the feelings of the fourth generation of the genocide survivors’
descendants. She said that any Armenian in various countries of the
world could constantly feel the gap between the Armenians and the
Turks. She went to Turkey, to visit the village of her ancestors.
Getting a Turk guide for her trip, she began communicating with him and
tried to fancy the feelings of the very Turks, who, according to her,
in many cases have no idea about the genocide. The Turk guide was no
exception. Learning about the genocide, Enver wrote to Araz, already
his pen friend, that he is ready to kill even now, as the desire to
kill is in his blood. In the end of the film, Artinian tries to find
out whether it is possible to overcome the hatred to the Turks. It
turned out that even after a century neither the Armenians not the
Turks can’t communicate with each other without any contexts.

Armenian premier, Iranian health minister discuss joint projects
Arminfo
11 Jul 06
Yerevan, 11 July: Armenian Prime Minister Andranik Markaryan today
met Iran’s Minister of Health, Treatment and Medical Education Kamran
Baqeri-Lankarani in Yerevan.
The sides highly assessed economic and political relations between
the two countries, the press service of the Armenian government
told Arminfo. They discussed the construction of the Iran-Armenia
gas pipeline, a third power line, a hydroelectric power station on
the River Araz, the repairs of a part of the Armenia-Iran road and
wind power stations built in Armenia with the help of the Iranian
government.
Markaryan said that the Armenian-Iranian intergovernmental commission
is soon to discuss implementation of the projects which were agreed
during Armenian President Robert Kocharyan’s recent visit to Iran.
In turn, Kamran Baqeri-Lankarani said that the Iranian and Armenian
health ministries agreed to implement several joint projects in 2005.
On behalf of Iran’s first vice-president, he also extended an
invitation to Armenian Prime Minister Andranik Markaryan to pay a
visit to the Islamic Republic of Iran in the near future.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Azeri, Armenian leaders not invited to G8 summit in St-Petersburg, official says
Trend news agency, Baku
10 Jul 06
The Azerbaijani and Armenian presidents [Ilham Aliyev and Robert
Kocharyan] have not been invited to the G8 summit in St-Petersburg to
discuss the peaceful settlement of the Nagornyy Karabakh conflict,
Novruz Mammadov, head of the foreign relations department at the
Azerbaijani presidential administration, has told Trend.
He voiced his surprise at the local media reports which were circulated
on behalf of the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry, on a possible meeting
of the Armenian and Azerbaijani in St-Petersburg within the framework
of the G8 summit,
“I do not have any precise information about this. An invitation to the
summit by the G8 leaders is an option that suits us well. Meanwhile,
there is no information about this,” Mammadov said and added that
chances to be intived to the summit are very low.
There has been no invitation so far and I do not know whether they
will be issued, Mammadov said.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

The Life and Death of a PR Terrorist
By Thomas de Waal
The Moscow Times, Russia
July 12 2006
In Shamil Basayev, public relations and terrorist cunning met in a
diabolical combination. He cultivated his image as Russia’s public
enemy No. 1. His most hideous operations, the seizure of the theater in
Moscow in 2002 and of the school in Beslan in 2004, were orchestrated
with the aim of terrifying the Russian public, attracting world media
attention, embarrassing the Kremlin to the greatest possible degree
and winning support from jihadists abroad — and in his own terms
he succeeded. The killing of innocents was almost incidental to the
design, the matter of whether hostages lived or died being a remote
concern for someone whose worldview had no space for the lives of
little people.
Basayev was not an Islamist. He came from a fairly pious Chechen
family, but grew up in a Soviet world, studying in Moscow, selling
computers and speaking Russian. Later on, he allied himself with
visiting jihadists, such as the Saudi Emir Khattab, more because he
valued their military and financial support than because he signed up
fully to their beliefs. I have seen no evidence that he and Khattab
made their incursion into Dagestan in 1999 out of a desire to set up
a caliphate, as some Russians have claimed. That assumption attributes
a long-term vision to a short-term military adventure.
Basayev was not a politician. In his brief and nonsensical tenure
as prime minister of Chechnya, he undermined Aslan Maskhadov, his
president and rival, and took no interest in matters as boring as
the Chechen economy. Although he talked constantly about Chechen
independence, he made nothing of the de facto independence granted to
the region from 1996 to 1998. Yet he was actually more pragmatic than
he liked to let on: I find it impossible to believe that he survived
and evaded capture for so long in Chechnya without making deals and
non-aggression pacts with his rivals in the pro-Moscow government.
The only time I met Basayev, in 1998, I ran into nothing but
cynicism. I had come to Grozny to try to learn something about the
fate of the two British hostages, Camilla Carr and Jon Jones. I went
to his house and saw the fearsome Khattab standing outside with his
black medusa-like locks. The two men were a contrasting pair. While
Khattab glowered at me with a terrifying stare, but refused to speak
to me, Basayev, in a T-shirt and baseball cap, willingly came out and
talked. The reality was far less frightening than the image. He was
soft-spoken and did not look me in the eyes as he treated me to his
rambling views about world politics, the tragic fate of Russia and
the future of Chechnya. The hostages did not interest him. It later
transpired that Basayev knew a great deal about who was holding Camilla
and Jon, but he taunted me by saying, “The country that invented
James Bond should be able to find two missing people in Chechnya.”
Basayev was a permanent warrior. From Nagorno-Karabakh in 1992
(he was one of the last men to leave the besieged Azeri citadel of
Shusha before the Armenians came in) to Abkhazia in 1993, Chechnya in
1994, Budyonnovsk in 1995 and Dagestan in 1999, he treated life as an
eternal conflict in which no opportunity to fight a battle should be
ignored. To that was added an obsession with vengeance against Russia,
born out of the Chechen blood revenge culture and, in particular, the
deaths of 11 members of his close family in a Russian bombing in 1995.
His fearlessness, cunning, propaganda skills and cruelty made him
unique. Although loathed by many Chechens, mainly women, he was a
hero to a certain category of Chechen young men, who celebrated his
death-defying exploits and outrageous mockery of the Kremlin.
The good news is that Basayev is almost irreplaceable. Two of his
kind do not come around twice in a generation. The bad news is that
his removal came many years too late — and not just because many
hundreds of people might otherwise be alive. The Russian leadership has
eliminated or exiled the moderate wing of the Chechen pro-independence
movement, which wanted to negotiate and could have brought alienated
Chechens back into some kind of political process.
Consider the situation of a young twentysomething Chechen male who
has been part of the rebel movement for the last decade. He has seen
friends and family members die and quite probably has been wounded or
tortured by Russian security forces. He has almost no education. If he
watches Russian television he will see reports of his comrades being
“destroyed” as if they were vermin.
Now this man has no leaders left. What route does he follow? One route
is collaboration. The so-called “Kadyrovtsy” who comprise Chechnya’s
pro-Moscow security forces are mainly ex-fighters, taking a rest
from the hills and earning a decent salary in a new uniform. Their
loyalty is entirely provisional and on the day after their leader,
Chechen Prime Minister Ramzan Kadyrov, is replaced or arrested,
there is no knowing what they will do next.
The other road is radical Islam. In the last five years, a network of
shadowy jamaats, or Islamic groups, has sprung up across the North
Caucasus, from Dagestan to Karachayevo-Cherkessia. Its adherents
are anonymous pious young men from marginalized social groups. Not
for them the theatrics of Basayev; they will operate like tiny ants
gnawing away at the fundamentals of Russian power in the region.
Nine years is a long time in the North Caucasus. It is interesting to
look at a set of pictures from the inauguration of Aslan Maskhadov
as president of Chechnya in February 1997 — a ceremony attended,
lest we forget, by officials from more than 40 regions of Russia. In
one photograph Maskhadov is seated on the right of Akhmad Kadyrov,
then mufti of Chechnya, later the man who would betray him, join up
with Vladimir Putin and become a hero of Russia. On Maskhadov’s left
are Ruslan Aushev, then president of Ingushetia and Alexander Lebed,
the man who signed the agreement with Maskhadov to end the first
Chechen war. Nearby is Basayev. Of these men, Aushev is the only one
still alive, and he has been removed from power.
The grouping of these men together is a reminder how different and
subtle the politics of the North Caucasus are. Even seeming enemies
keep in touch and communicate and do deals. They do not live by the
vague categories of “hero,” “terrorist” or “patriot.” They are driven
by ties of obligation to large groups of people. But this generation
of leaders is all but gone now and we now have the more difficult
task of predicting the intentions of a mass of anonymous gray men,
who are not interested, as Basayev was, in broadcasting their views
far and wide to the outside world.
Thomas de Waal is Caucasus editor at the Institute for War and Peace
Reporting in London.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Moldovan president: It is exteremely incompetent to see something
anti-Moldovan in Russia’s new approach to gas export
Regnum, Russia
July 12 2006
Moldovan president believes that there is no political component in
events, which happens between Russia and Republic Moldova in sphere
of supplying energy carriers; Vladimir Voronin stated at a news
conference in Chisinau on July 11, a REGNUM correspondent informs.
“Russia has changed its course in the sphere of gas export concerning
all countries without exception: Ukraine, Belarus, Georgia, and
Armenia. It is the highest degree of incompetence to see here something
exclusively anti-Moldovan,” Mr. Voronin admitted.
The Moldovan president stated that such logic is very unusual,
especially for ordinary people in CIS countries; “however, we are ready
to get used to the logic.” “Really, if we have proclaimed ourselves
to be an independent state, let us be independent according to honest
rating,” Mr. Voronin said.
At the same time, the situation is a little different in wine embargo
situation. “But exclusion confirms the rule here too,” Mr. Voronin
pointed out. “Though the Republic of Moldova has not received any
official document concerning law quality of our production from the
Russian side, in reality, it is very difficult to find political
component in this case too. Look, the Russian market is practically
closed today for wine export from the whole world. Wine embargo has
been put de facto on France, Chile, and Argentina.”
Russia just entered the stage of its foreign policy’s reforming and
renewing, the Moldovan president concluded.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Turkish author back in court
United Press International
July 11 2006
ANKARA, Turkey, July 11 (UPI) — The case against Turkish author Elif
Shafak, who is charged with “insulting Turkishness” under Article 301
in the Turkish Criminal Code, was reopened.
Shafak wrote “The Bastard of Istanbul,” in which a character
references Armenian genocide, Thebookstandard.com reported Tuesday.
An Istanbul public prosecutor dismissed the charges last month, based
on arguments that the book is a work of fiction and therefore cannot
be prosecuted.
But a complaint from a member of the Unity of Jurists caused the
seventh high criminal court to overrule the decision. Similar charges
have also been brought against Shafak’s translator Asli Bican and
publisher Semi Soekmen, of the Metis Publishing House.
“The situation in Turkey has changed since the introduction of
Article 301 last year,” Director of the Writers in Prison Committee
at International PEN Sara Whyatt, told Thebookstandard. “I think the
trials are intended to harass and intimidate these writers and
journalists. Elif Shafak is at the beginning of what could be a long
and painful process.”

Kurdish Aspect, CO
July 11 2006
Independent South Kurdistan after 15 years of Self-Rule
Book Review – “Independent South Kurdistan” by Steve Tataii
Kurd Net
THE WAR OF LIBERATION AFTER 85 YEARS Unfair treatment of the Kurds
by Turkey shows it is still the true terrorist military regime in
the region without improvement since 1915 Kamal Ataturk’s Tyrannical
Rule with his forceful Westernization. [This is the Modified version
of my article first posted by Kurdistan Observer on April 10, 2003]
This war and all other wars in Southern and Northern Kurdistan have
been caused by Turkey’s barbaric and senseless prevention of forming
an Independent Kurdistan in 1920, keeping the 5-7 million Kurds in
Southern Kurdistan and more tan 25 million Kurds in North Kurdistan (a
figure Turkey has tried to conceal), [as well as over 2.5 million Kurds
in West Kurdistan Syria Cannot deny], in constant bloody clashes and
wars for freedom in the past 85 years. If the League of Nations had
implemented an independent Kurdistan in 1920s; there would have been
no wars, and no Tyrant regimes in Iraq would have dared to emerge. What
Turkey did against Kurds in 1920 has had a similar domino effect in the
other 3 Kurdish parts. As I have stated before, and I say it again: in
simple terms, Turkey, which has the gall to accuse the Kurdish freedom
fighters as terrorists and render this malicious verbal assault on
Kurds and endanger our U.S. troops while in action to liberate Iraq,
is the most dangerous terrorist regime itself; hence Turkey has been
the only major threat to peace, security, and stability in the region,
and in essence must be disarmed immediately.
American and Kurdish Peshmarga must always keep this crucial fact in
mind and deal with it accordingly as a move to disarm Turkish terrorist
military establishment as quickly as possible if they refuse to have
a positive change in their military-Ruled regime. Here is a quick
and comprehensive look at Turkey’s major international crimes since
1920: The origin of the whole dilemma causing a war for liberation by
Kurds in their own ancient homeland encompassing an area as large as
California began around 85 years ago. By 1920 the vast Ottoman Empire
fell apart after the WWI, and its nations were left with no central
power to answer to Sultans in the fallen Capitol City of the Ottoman
Empire in Constantinople, today known as Istanbul.
Kurdistan was scheduled to be an Independent country of its own
together with a few other nations on the listed nations of the
drafted treaty of Sevres being implemented by the League of Nations
to bring peace, security, and stability in the post ottoman empire
era. All those nations living peacefully side by side within the
Ottoman Empire including those located in Lebanon, Jordan, Syria,
Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and the reduced portion of the Empire itself,
Turkey, did achieve their independence through that treaty, but the
nations of Kurdistan, Azerbaijan, and Armenia did not because of the
left over and reduced portion of the Empire, namely “Turkey.” With
its expansionist greedy nature, a hegemony of its predecessor bigger
Ottoman, it was still trying to act with ambition for land snatching,
even if it would trample upon Kurdistan’s sovereignty.
Kurdistan, today home to over 45 million Kurds, is the largest
nation without a country, no thanks to Turkey with the help of its
supporters Great Britain and France, which continued its tyrannical
and dictatorial stranglehold on its own nearly 25 million Kurds, and
forcing their war of Liberation to continue in the past 85 years. The
other two major portions of Kurdistan are in Iraq with 5-7 million
Kurds, and Iran with over 15 million Kurds, and Syria with 2.5 million
Kurds, each causing the Kurds wars, genocides, executions, ethnic
cleansings, torture, imprisonments, and oppression. In short, this
war is mainly due to what Turkey initiated, and other parts followed
in a domino effect since around 1920. When Turkey, under the brutal
regime of Kemal Ataturk, who continued its campaigns of genocide
against Kurds and Armenians, killing over a million Kurds along with
their political leaders, as well as over 2 million Armenians.
This was the beginning of a prolonged war for liberation by Kurds,
Armenians, and Azeris. Armenia and Azerbaijan luckily obtained their
independence after the fall of another Empire, the USSR, after the
end of the Cold War in 1989, but Kurds remained captive. Therefore,
this war has many untold stories, but there is no question about
Turkey’s initial foul play when it interfered with the implementation
of the treaty of Serves by the League of Nations Independence treaty,
when the League did not safeguard the plan for Kurds, Armenians,
and Azeri nations within the fallen Empire due to Ataturk’s iron fist
colonialist military attacks, when the League abandoned its obligation
to the most ancient nation of Kurds with 12,000 years of civilization.
Although Armenia and Azerbaijan got their Independence in 1989 after
the fall of U.S.S.R., but Kurdistan, mainly outside of U.S.S.R.,
continues to remain without an officially recognized state to this
day. Particularly, the Independent South Kurdistan is yet to be
officially recognized as a UN member state even while we have Liberated
the Iraqi region after invasion, but it is totally unrealistic and
ludicrous to even think that the two nations of Kurds and Arabs in
Iraq since 1920s wrongfully drawn up map aimed to exploit Kurdish
natural resources in Kirkuk Kurdistan, and Basra oilfields in the
South, after 85 years of wars; suddenly restart another chapter of
wars to be left alone, and live in their own independent states
in peace and security. This intended piracy of the colonial past
has become the most vicious and malicious plot against the entire
nation of Kurds, which has so far left around 3.5 million innocent
Kurdish civilians killed in series of wars, and bombings, but most of
all Ethnic cleansing in the large provinces of Kirkuk Kurdistan and
Mosul against the Kurds in the artificial Iraq, and North Kurdistan
usurped by Turkey, as well as West Kurdistan usurped by Syria. Our
attempt at unification of the two totally diverse ethnic groups of
Ancient Kurds and the desert Arabs of South is utterly irresponsible
and insensitive. Some of our administration’s spokespersons immature
and nave statements of the Kurds themselves told me they don’t want
to be independent is unbelievably stupid and internationally criminal.
The Kurds have held half a dozen of Referendums and elections since
our invasion in 2003, and have signed declarations at the rate of 98%
of their entire Kurdish population, declaring that they want to live
in an Independent South Kurdistan as you’ll read in my book series
printed published articles. What we must focus on now; is to declare
and recognize an Independent South Kurdistan as quickly as possible
before it is later than the three years gone by, and before we cause
further tensions, and possible clashes between Kurds and Arabs in
Kirkuk, the inseparable part of Kurdistan. The unstable part of the
defunct Iraq in South is not and should not be imposed on the Kurds.
To establish security in the South should not be prerequisite to
Kurdish Independence in South Kurdistan, ready to be officially
recognized as a nation state in the past 15 years. All those wise
guy journalists trumpeting their statements about Kirkuk having other
minorities other than Kurds should really shut the hell up, because
it is obvious that they their own paid agendas to do their dirty work
for their masters, and the pushing of this anti-Kurd agenda has gone
on far enough. Our U.S. Administration should wake up and smell the
coffee, because they’re forcing the Kurds to fight for what belongs
to them and has been their homeland and their territory from time
immemorial. Finally, the Kurds have gone far beyond their line of
duties to help our Iraq Liberation.
They understand; that it would have taken longer to Liberate Kirkuk
and Mosul if it wasn’t for our invasion to remove the pathetic Saddam,
but there should not be any negotiations over the fact that Kurds want
their Independence, and there should not be any doubts about Kirkuk
Kurdistan’s inclusion within the Independent South Kurdistan. The
more we prolong this matter; the closer it may get to another war
within the already existing unfinished war to secure the South. We
have repeatedly admitted we are not there for oil. What we should do
then, we must get on with Liberating the Kurds, and securing an Arab
government for the South. We can’t have it both ways, and we won’t
succeed in our plan of unification as an exit strategy. Once we have
an official Independent South Kurdistan, then we may focus on the
remainder of the task, which appears to be the lack of security in
the Arab provinces. The Kurds have done their share. Isn’t it time we
let the Kurds be, and instead help their nation after 85 years of wars?
Book Review – “Independent South Kurdistan” by Steve Tataii
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress