Author: Emil Lazarian

Interstate Aviation Committee: Investigation of Airbus A320 crash close to end
Regnum, Russia
July 12 2006
Investigation of the Airbus A320 crash above the Black Sea is coming
to an end. “We are now at the final stage. We have all necessary data
for determining the true causes of the tragedy. By the end of July,
all the materials will be published and the work will be completed,”
Head of the Interstate Aviation Committee Tatyana Anodina is quoted
as saying at a news conference in Yerevan.
As a REGNUM correspondent reports, according to her, communications
of the Airbus A320 crew will not be made public, as it is what the
international regulations require. Speaking on the transcript of the
crew communications recordings published in the press, Tatyana Anodina
expressed her bewilderment on how the documents could be obtained by
the press, and she noted “it was incorrect information.”
“We have thoroughly examined all the documents, analyzed communications
of the pilots. The cause will be certainly found, as we have all
necessary materials” she stressed. Speaking on the actions of air
traffic controllers, Tatyana Anodina is quoted as saying that, under
existing regulations, if weather changes (and the actual weather went
below minimums for Runway 06 at Sochi Airport during the approach),
the controller shall provide the crew with its full details . At the
same time she did not deny the fact that the controller instructed
the pilot to stop descent. It is worth mentioning that the official
statement of the Interstate Aviation Committee concerning the May
3 crash of the Airbus A320 belonging to Armenian Airlines during
a Yerevan-Sochi flight said: “After correcting the deviation the
aircraft started descent in accordance with the approach chart. At
22:10:45 p.m. the pilot reported wheels down and ready to land, and
the controller replied that their distance from the runway was 10 km,
cloud base 190 meters and visibility 4000 meters, and cleared them
for the approach. However, in 30 seconds, the controller informed
the pilot that base of cloud became 100 m and instructed him to stop
descent, turn right, execute a missed approach procedure, climb to
height 600 m and contact the Radar controller.”
“We do not establish somebody’s guilt, national agencies in charge
do it,” Tatyana Anodina said.

ABHAber, Belgium
EU-Turkey News Network
July 12 2006
EP postpones talks on highly-critical Turkey report
The European Parliament on Tuesday postponed debates on a draft
report entitled “Turkey’s Progress Towards Accession” which includes
a variety of criticisms of Turkey, until early September.
Debates on the report, prepared by EP Committee on Foreign Affairs
Rapporteur and MEP Camiel Eurlings, are now set for an EP session
Sept. 4 to 7.
The decision to postpone talks comes after some 400 proposals for
amendments to the draft report were submitted. Moreover at Tuesday’s
session of the EP Foreign Affairs Committee, some members stated that
translation of the amendment requests will take a long time. However
European diplomats stated that there are many conflicting views
surrounding the proposed amendments.
While Eurlings said that more debates about Turkey are necessary,
other MEPs recalled the latest developments on Cyprus as well as
Turkey’s plans to implement certain reforms on women’s rights,
obligatory religious lessons and religious minorities and requested
the inclusion of these developments in the report. Other MEPs noted
that the European Commission will also announce a progress report on
Turkey and underlined the importance of back-to-back issuing of the
two reports.
The draft report criticized a number of issues, including Cyprus, a
slowdown in the EU reform process, the situation in the southeast,
problems with religious minorities, cultural rights and
civil-military relations. It raised particular concerns about the
Semdinli incident, during which a bookshop in the southeast was
allegedly bombed by members of the security forces, and called for an
impartial and objective investigation into the incident.
Turkey’s reservations to open its airports and harbors to the Greek
Cypriots will have serious implications for the EU process and could
even bring it to a halt, warned the draft report. The highly critical
report also called on Turkey to take steps towards the recognition of
the Greek Cypriot administration during the accession process and
raises the idea of an early withdrawal of forces from the Turkish
Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC). It also calls on the European
Council to renew efforts to implement trade regulations with Northern
Cyprus.
The EP report severely condemned the killing of Council of State
Judge Mustafa Yucel Ozbilgin, expressing concern over the low-level
of security offered to judges by the police despite clear and public
threats, and called on the government to rectify the situation. The
EP also condemned a resurgence of violence in the southeast by the
terrorist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and stressed that there can
never be an excuse for violence against Turkish citizens in any part
of the country. The report also expressed solidarity with Turkey in
fighting terrorism.
On the Armenian issue, the EP took note of a Turkish proposal to set
up a bilateral committee of experts to deal with the tragic
experiences of the past and of Armenia’s position on the proposal. It
also urged the Turkish and Armenian governments to continue their
process of reconciliation leading to a mutually acceptable proposal
and asked Turkey to take the necessary steps, without any
preconditions, to establish diplomatic and good neighborly relations
with Armenia and open the land border as soon as possible.
ABHaber 12.07.2006
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

RA NA SPEAKER CONTENT WITH LEBANON’S BALANCED POSITION TOWARDS NAGORNO
KARABAKH PROBLEM
YEREVAN, JULY 12, NOYAN TAPAN – ARMENIANS TODAY. Development of
Armenian-Lebanese relations, as well as other issues of mutual interest
were discussed at the July 11 meeting of RA NA Speaker Tigran Torosian
with the delegation headed by Lebanese Foreign Minister Fawzi Salloukh.
RA NA Speaker emphasized the importance of Armenian-Lebanese
relations not only from point of view of historic contacts, but also
of considerate attitude of Lebanon to Armenians after the Genocide,
condemnation of the Genocide, mentioning that the two states and two
peoples are not disconnected by anything. The Armenian Parliament
Speaker also expressed satisfaction with the balanced position of
Lebanon towards the Nagorno Karabakh issue.
Minister Fawzi Salloukh stated that the relations between the
parliaments of the two friendly peoples should continue and promised
that the group of deputy friendship will be created in the newly
elected Labanese parliament like in the current one. Touching upon
the Nagorno Karabakh settlement, F.Salloukh emphasized the importance
to solve the problem in a peaceful way acceptable for all sides. He
highly evaluated manifestation of friendly attitude of Armenia to
Lebanon at international structures. For the purpose of restoring
the former volumes of economic relations a regular sitting of the
Intergovernmental Commission will be held this year in Beirut, the
agreement about which was reached in Yerevan, during the meeting with
the Armenian Prime Minister.
According to RA Government Press Service, T.Torosian also presented
the Lebanese Foreign Minister the regional interrelations, Armenia’s
home political problems mentioning the parliamentary elections highly
evaluated by observers and the steps of the government formed as a
result of these elections.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

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