Author: Emil Lazarian

ASBAREZ ONLINE
TOP STORIES
08/12/2004
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WEBSITE AT <;HTTP:// 1) Azeris Seek US Involvement in Karabagh, Pledge Further Security Cooperation 2) Legendary Olympic Champion Azarian to Lead Armenia in Opening Ceremonies 3) Armenian Writers' Union Fund Established 4) Armenian-Russian War Games To Take Place in Yerevan 5) Georgia, South Ossetia Row Erupts Into Violence 1) Azeris Seek US Involvement in Karabagh, Pledge Further Security Cooperation BAKU (Reuters)--Azerbaijan asked the United States on Thursday to support its bid to regain control over Karabagh, an Armenian-populated enclave which broke away after the collapse of the Soviet Union. But visiting Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who pledged to build ties with the Caucasus ally, did not offer any help beyond supporting international mediation which has yet to reconcile Azerbaijan with its ex-Soviet neighbor Armenia. Thousands of people were killed in fighting in Karabagh before a truce was struck in 1994. Karabagh Armenians now control the enclave and a swathe of Azeri territory around it. Azerbaijan, upset by a lack of progress in mediation efforts by the Minsk Group of 11 states, led by France, the United States, and Russia, has urged the European Union and other Western powers to get involved directly. "What we want from the United States as our ally and partner is for it to support Azerbaijan in this conflict and demand that Armenia immediately withdraws its occupation forces," Defense Minister Safar Abiyev told a joint news conference with Rumsfeld. At the start of his visit, Rumsfeld said Washington was committed to developing ties with Azerbaijan--an oil-rich country which should start pumping oil to the West through a pipeline across Georgia and Turkey next year. "I agree completely that the security relationship between our two countries continues to grow and strengthen," Rumsfeld said during a meeting with President Ilham Aliyev. AVOIDS RESPONSE But he avoided responding to Abiyev's call. "As you know the United States supports the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan," he told the news conference, adding that Washington was involved in the Minsk group. Ties between the United States and Azerbaijan, which is seeking to develop ties with NATO in contrast with its pro-Russian arch-foe Armenia, strengthened after Baku backed the US intervention in Afghanistan by sending 30 troops. "Our relations are growing, and I am sure that in the future we will continue to be mutual friends and allies," Azeri President Ilham Aliyev told reporters. Azerbaijan became the only predominantly Muslim state to send troops to support the US-led military engagement in Iraq. Around 150 Azeri troops are deployed in Iraq. Russian media reported last month that Azerbaijan was considering sending an extra 250 troops to Iraq. Azeri officials denied such plans and Rumsfeld said the issue was not raised during his visit. "We did not discuss the possibility of expansion of Azeri troops in Afghanistan or Iraq," he said. Rumsfeld told Aliyev his country was an important partner in the fight against terrorism. "We value that relationship and the cooperation that your country has demonstrated at the very outset of the global war on terrorism." US Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld thanked Aliyev on Thursday for his country's support in the war on terrorism. 2) Legendary Olympic Champion Azarian to Lead Armenia in Opening Ceremonies ATHENS--Olympic champion Albert Azarian, will carry the banner of the Armenian delegation at the August 13 opening ceremony of the Olympic Games. Azarian, known as the "king of the rings," was the 1954 and 1958 World Champion, 1955 European Champion, and 1956 and 1960 Olympic Champion. According to the Chairman of the Armenian Olympic Committee Ishkhan Zakarian, Armenia will be represented by 18 athletes in 9 sports in the Olympic Games, including competitions in weight-lifting, wrestling, and boxing. President Robert Kocharian will also be with the delegation leaving for Athens to provide moral support to the Armenian team. The US boxing team includes Vanes Martirosyan from Glendale, CA. Born in Armenia, Martirosyan moved to the US when he was four and started boxing at age 7. Ranked 14th in his weight class in January 2004, Martirosyan persevered and succeeded in making the team. 3) Armenian Writers' Union Fund Established ANTELIAS--Initiated by His Holiness Catholicos Aram I, and through the efforts of the chairman of the Armenian Writers' Union Levon Ananian, a fund has been established in Antelias for the Writers' Union under the auspices of the Armenian Catholicosate of Cilicia. His Holiness had made an appeal for such a fund during a conference of Armenian writers in the Middle East, held on March 26-28. The meeting, attended by 40 writers from Lebanon and Syria, provided the opportunity to raise the issue, as well as begin the initial fundraising. His Holiness also issued a circular requesting all the prelacies and executive councils of the Holy See of Cilicia to take part in the effort. The Armenian Catholicosate of Cilicia appeals to all Armenians to participate in the fund, and help Armenia's writers and intellectuals preserve our history and culture. Donations can be made to: FRANSBANK SAL, Antelias Branch, Lebanon ARMENIAN CATHOLICOSATE OF CILICIA 003 035 22 21 532027.87 FSABLBBX 4) Armenian-Russian War Games To Take Place in Yerevan YEREVAN (Armenpress)--The annual war games between Russia and Armenia are set to take place in Yerevan, August 24-27, announced Armenian Defense Ministry spokesman Seyran Shahsuvarian. Russia's 102nd base will take part in the exercise. 5) Georgia, South Ossetia Row Erupts Into Violence TBILISI (Reuters/AFP)--An artillery bombardment has left three Georgian soldiers dead and other people hurt as villages in South Ossetia came under fire on Thursday in a violent escalation of Georgia's dispute with its breakaway province. "It's obvious that the South Ossetian leadership and some other forces are trying to involve us in a military conflict," Georgia's parliamentary speaker Nino Burdzhanadze said.  "Our soldiers were defending their positions and peaceful residents. We are going to do our best to keep the peace and to escape war," Burdzhanadze told journalists. Georgia says South Ossetia must submit to rule from Tbilisi, but after a separatist war in 1992, local leaders reject any overtures from the central government, preferring to look to Moscow for support for their de facto independence. Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili has already overthrown one local strongman since winning a landslide election victory in January, but he faces far stiffer resistance in South Ossetia and in Abkhazia, another separatist region. Russia, Georgia, and the self-proclaimed South Ossetian administration run a joint peacekeeping force in South Ossetia, but mounting rhetoric and easy access to guns had fuelled fears that violence might shatter the fragile peace. "All night Georgian villages and Georgian peacekeepers' positions have been under massive artillery fire, coming from various types of guns," Aleko Kiknadze, the Georgian peacekeepers' commander, told Reuters early on Thursday. "Three are dead from our side," Georgia's Deputy Security Minister Gigi Ugulava said. HOSPITAL BOMBARDED But a spokeswoman for the unrecognized South Ossetian government said the Georgians had opened fire first, bombarding a hospital in the capital Tskhinvali. "They've been shooting at us all night...It's the start of the war," Irina Gagloyeva told Reuters. A member of a local non-governmental organization told Reuters by telephone that some people at the hospital had been wounded, but there was no word on any deaths. Russian television showed the blackened tail-fin of a mortar bomb lying under a smashed apartment window and doctors comforting children in the dilapidated hospital. "We have new-born babies here. We all went down into the basement. I've never seen and heard anything so terrible in my life," Dr. Tinatin Zakharova told the state TV station Rossiya. South Ossetian President Eduard Kokoity, dressed in camouflage fatigues, also appeared on Rossiya, calling for emergency talks--a suggestion immediately backed by Russia's Foreign Ministry. Col. Nikolai Baranov, spokesman for Russian peacekeepers in the disputed region, said the force had done all it could to stop the fighting. "Our headquarters held talks with the South Ossetian and Georgian leadership and managed to stop the shooting for a time during the night, but it soon restarted with even greater intensity," he told Russian state television. Russian peacekeepers said they had plotted the firing position of the guns which had bombarded South Ossetian villages, Interfax news agency reported. South Ossetia's defense chief Ibragim Gassiyev told Interfax that Georgian forces had destroyed the South Ossetian village of Andisi, wounding two people. He also said Georgian armor was moving to the border with South Ossetia. President Saakashvili is warning against "ethnic cleansing"  in the region. "We must not allow for ethnic cleansing of the Georgian population or a humanitarian catastrophe," he said. Saakashvili says his government faces three major challenges at present: to ensure the safety of the civilian population in South Ossetia, to halt smuggling and other economic crime, and to prevent the conflict in Ossetia from expanding. "We must not permit outside forces to create a scenario that would drag Georgia into a large-scale military conflict," he said. He did not specify which outside forces he meant. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Valery Loshinin has also sounded an alarm over the latest developments in the region. "The situation is worsening by the hour and could spin out of control at any moment," he said. Russia has proposed an emergency meeting of a tripartite Georgian-Ossetian-Russian commission charged with resolving the dispute. Prime minister Zurab Zhvania said Europe and the US must help resolve the escalating military conflict between his former Soviet republic and pro-Russian forces in separatist South Ossetia. "We are asking the international community to use its influence to help launch high-level negotiations," Zhvania told reporters. He said Georgia still wants to engage in direct negotiations with the separatists in the presence of Russian representatives, as all sides work to figure out a way to end a flare of fighting in the volatile Caucasus. All subscription inquiries and changes must be made through the proper carrier and not Asbarez Online. ASBAREZ ONLINE does not transmit address changes and subscription requests. (c) 2004 ASBAREZ ONLINE. All Rights Reserved. ASBAREZ provides this news service to ARMENIAN NEWS NETWORK members for academic research or personal use only and may not be reproduced in or through mass media outlets. From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Schweizerische Depeschenagentur AG (SDA)
SDA – Service de base francais
11 août 2004
Conducteur aux bagages suspects remis à la police genevoise Il voyage
avec 60 paires de chaussures, 51 pantalons et 45 parfums
Genève f
Genève (ats) Les gardes-frontière ont découvert pour plusieurs
milliers de francs de marchandises de provenance douteuse lors du
contrôle d’un véhicule immatriculé à Zurich mardi matin à la douane
de Bardonnex (GE). Le conducteur transportait une quantité étonnante
d’habits neufs.
Pas moins d’une soixantaine de paires de chaussures, 54 chemises et
T-shirts, 31 pullovers, 51 pantalons, 24 vestes et une septantaine de
sous-vêtements homme et femme ont été décomptés dans les bagages du
conducteur, un Arménien déjà connu sous deux autres identités, ont
indiqué mercredi les gardes-frontière.
Du matériel électronique, dont un ordinateur portable déclaré volé
dans le canton d’Argovie, et des produits cosmétiques, dont 45
parfums, figurent aussi dans l’inventaire des gardes-frontière. Les
marchandises et le conducteur, qui s’était présenté à l’entrée en
Suisse mardi vers 07h00, ont été remis à la police.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

ArmenPress
Aug 12 2004
PAN ARMENIAN WEB PAGE DESIGNED
YEREVAN, AUGUST 11, ARMENPRESS: Starting September, this year, a
pan Armenian internet page will start to function
containing information on political, cultural, scientific-educational
and business life of Armenia, Nagorno Karabakh and Diaspora.
Information will be posted on state structures, biography of state
officials, mass media outlets, business companies, show business,
tourism and cultural establishments.
YEREVAN, AUGUST 11, ARMENPRESS: According to the chairman of
Armenia-Artsakh-Diaspora public organization Vahe Harutunian, the
page will raise the awareness of Diaspora Armenians about pan
Armenian issues and promote closer links between Armenia and Armenian
communities worldwide. It will be bilingual – in Armenian and English
languages.

AAP NEWSFEED
August 12, 2004, Thursday 9:52 AM Eastern Time
Chakhoyan hard to find; weightlifting hard to understand
By Glenn Cullen
ATHENS
Sergo Chakhoyan can be a difficult man to find.
The great hope of Australian weightlifting at the Olympics has been
locked away training in Armenia for much of the year in the hope he
can win his adopted country its first gold medal at a Games since
Dean Lukin in 1984.
In the 85kg division he will be challenged by hometown favourite and
triple Olympic gold medallist Pyrros Dimas and a handful of other
competitors for the top prize but must be considered a show given his
No.1 ranking and third place at last year’s world championships.
Chakhoyan’s mobile phone in Armenia is typically answered by his
brother, or Australian coach Luke Borreggine.
The 34-year-old, who arrives in Athens on Saturday for competition on
August 21, is invariably training, eating or sleeping.
Such is the life of a weightlifter.
The Australian Olympic Committee had some trouble getting hold of him
too.
Chakhoyan, who received a two-year suspension for the use of
stanozolol after winning the Goodwill Games with a world
record-breaking lift in 2001, has been in Armenia all year.
AOC president John Coates said there “were some issues concerning the
provision of his whereabouts information” during his three and a half
month absence.
His place on the Australian Olympic team was withheld until results
of a drugs test on July 8 was made known.
He returned a negative result and was nominated as Australia’s sole
men’s weightlifting representative.
But events before his testing also raised questions about
weightlifting in Australia.
Apparently available for May’s Oceania Championships Chakhoyan was
not selected and remained in Armenia.
Without the world No.1 and another top lifter in Alex Karapetyn,
Australia lost the overall title to Nauru – population about 12,000 –
and in the process sacrificed its second men’s spot at the Olympics.
The bungle exasperated many in weightlifting circles but
accountability or definitive reasons for the mistake have yet to be
made public.
Sam Coffa, president of the Australian Weightlifting Federation since
1983 said the issue was “sorted out” internally but said no-one was
sanctioned from the AWF.
“What happened in Fiji wasn’t entirely the fault of the coaches,
managers, whatever,” said Coffa.
“It’s not an individual’s fault, rather our own stupidity with our
selection criteria.”
For former national executive director and Los Angeles Olympics
silver medallist Robert Kabbas it’s a lot more than that.
“It’s the biggest blunder I can recall here and people want to see
someone pay for that blunder,” Kabbas said.
“There’s a lot of frustration and anger within the Australian
weightlifting community for that very reason.”
Despite simmering discontent with his former employer, Kabbas – who
said he left the AWF a year ago because of his “limited influence on
the sport” – said drug taking is not institutionalised in the sport.
“I guess it’s human nature to think that way,” said Kabbas who was
surprised by Chakhoyan’s 2001 positive.
“But I don’t think (drug taking) is institutionalised or a regime or
program that exists within the sport here, if it did you would
probably have less people testing positive.
“I genuinely believe (his non-selection for the Oceania
Championships) was just a stupid mistake.”
For his part, Chakhoyan is no Robinson Crusoe when it comes to
weightlifters and drugs in Australia.
Between 1990 and June 2004 there were 19 positive tests in Australia
and a further four lifters who refused to submit to testing and were
subsequently banned.
The figure ranks it only behind cycling in terms of positive tests
from a sport in Australia during that period.
There have been three positive tests of Australians and two failures
to comply in the last 12 months, including the bizarre incident of
Caroline Pileggi, who was originally nominated as Australia’s sole
women’s representative for Athens.
Pileggi received a two-year ban after running away from testers while
training for the Olympics in Fiji in May.
It was at a gym run by Coffa’s brother Paul.
If the tests from Australians this year were accrued in international
competition and not domestically, the International Weightlifting
Federation – of which Coffa is vice president – would have had the
power to suspend Australia from all competition for a period of up to
two years.
Coffa says, he’s just pleased that people are getting picked up if
they are taking drugs.
“It’s a concern but one positive means one less cheat,” he said.
Ultimately Kabbas just sees a sport he is passionate about, in
decline.
“I think the weightlifting scene over the last few years has been
less than ideal,” Kabbas said.
“The late 70s and 80s were seen as the golden period of Australian
weightlifting and while that may be flattering for those of us who
lifted during that period it’s not a comforting thought to know that
the golden age of your sport was some 20 years ago.”
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

San Antonio Express-News (Texas)
August 11, 2004, Wednesday , METRO
Cry for help over atrocities in Sudan must not be ignored
by Cary Clack
Forty years ago, the name of Kitty Genovese became synonymous with
looking the other way while someone suffered.
In the early morning hours of March 13, 1964, in a middle-class
neighborhood of the New York City borough of Queens, Catherine
“Kitty” Genovese was attacked three times in 32 minutes. The
assailant stalked, raped and stabbed her to death.
During the attacks, Genovese screamed, “Please help me! Please help
me!”
A subsequent police investigation revealed that at least 38 people,
in the comfort of their homes, saw or heard the attacks, but no one
came to Genovese’s aid. The one call to the police came after the
murderer had completed his crimes.
Many times, people don’t act in a time of crisis or don’t do anything
to save lives because they’re unaware of the problem. When they are
aware and still do nothing, it can be attributed to physical or moral
cowardice, sheer callousness or the bystander effect, where people
see someone in need but assume someone else will intervene to help.
Doing nothing and assuming someone else will assume responsibility is
a reason why so many crimes flourish in communities throughout this
nation.
Doing nothing and assuming someone else will assume responsibility is
a reason why millions of people in countries around the world suffer
with little hope that they will be emancipated from their pain.
In the 20th century and these infant years of the 21st, there have
been many regions of the world that were the Kitty Genoveses of the
international community; places where cries of “Please help me!
Please help me!” went unheeded or were answered inexcusably late by
nations in a position to help.
Whether the Armenian genocide in 1915-1916, the Holocaust of World
War II, Bosnia during the 1990s or the slaughter in Rwanda in 1994,
reaction to the worst of brutalities was slow.
This column space is rarely filled with topics of foreign affairs but
replace the word “foreign” with “human” and it’s appropriate.
What is happening in Darfur, in the western region of the Sudan, has
been called by the United Nations and human rights organizations the
greatest humanitarian crisis of our time and merits at least a few
words of attention.
The word “genocide” has been aptly used to describe the plight of
black Africans at the hands of Arab militias, the “Janjaweed,” who
are supported by the Sudan’s monstrous blood-soaked government.
More than a million people have been driven off their lands, women
and girls are routinely raped, more than 30,000 have died and the
U.S. Agency for International Development says that hunger and
disease will kill an additional 300,000 before the year is done.
A U.N. resolution gives the government until Aug. 30 to disarm the
militias. A Human Rights Watch report out today says the Sudanese
government’s pledge to stop the atrocities isn’t credible.
People in this and other nations can do what besieged Sudanese
farmers cannot, and that’s to appeal to their elected representatives
to do something and to contribute to agencies providing food and
medicine.
A people’s pain, no matter how close or far away, can’t be ignored.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Burbank Leader , CA
LATimes.com
Aug 11 2004
Giving it all for their art

Contestants go for the gold at the World Championships of Performing
Arts this week at Hilton Burbank.
By Jackie Conley, The Leader
MEDIA DISTRICT NORTH – Scattered around the Hilton Burbank Airport
and Convention Center on Tuesday morning, vocal competitors and
aspiring actors patiently sat waiting for their turn to represent
their country and impress the judges in the second day of the
competition at the World Championships of Performing Arts.
“The primary thing to do is to develop competitive material,” said
CSM Words and Music producer Shele Sondheim, a judge for the
competition. “The highest high is to come prepared and be really on
top of your game.”
Sondheim said he hopes this competition will spark international
interest in the arts and encourage people to embrace performers like
they do the athletes in the Olympics.
“Music and art is an international language,” Sondheim said.
Ilhama Gulkiyeva has participated in more than 200 competitions
internationally and is a popular singer in her native Azerbaijan,
located between Iran and Russia. But for her, the World Championships
of Performing Arts could bring a significant change in the way the
arts are perceived in her country.
“My president said if we do well here, he will have big prizes
waiting for us when we return,” she said.
Gulkiyeva said the president of her country encourages the performing
arts, and she hopes this will reflect a positive change in the way
artists are viewed around the world.
“It seems like everything is done for athletes and not enough for
performers,” said Griff O’Neil, founder and director of the World
Championships of Performing Arts.
Gospel rap artist Emmanuel Edili, of Nigeria, said out of all the
competitions he’s been in, this one is important because it’s global.
“It helps you to appreciate different artistic styles,” he said.
Edili, 29, said the hardest thing for him in competition is the few
moments before going on stage.
“Because it’s in that moment there that you make a decision whether
or not you’re going to go out there and get through it,” he said.
“But you realize this is the opportunity to show them what you’re
made of.”
Singer Andrey Hovnanyan knows all about these types of opportunities.
At 25, he said he has already performed in several international
competitions in Germany, Japan and Belgium, and has performed in
front of crowds of 8,000 people.
This is the first time the Armenian singer will compete in the World
Championships, and he said he hopes to break into the American
market.
“There’s something special about America,” Hovnanyan said. “It has a
strong influence around the world.”

Azeri official downplays Karabakh polls, war games
Ekspress, Baku
10 Aug 04
Text of Alakbar Raufoglu report by Azerbaijani newspaper Ekspress on
10 August headlined “The Armenians are deceiving themselves”
“By conducting the so-called local government elections and military
exercises in Nagornyy Karabakh, the Armenian separatists are trying to
comfort themselves and this cannot affect the settlement process in
any way,” the head of the foreign relations department of the
Azerbaijani presidential administration, Novruz Mammadov, has told
Express.
“Azerbaijan’s economic and political potential is great and our army
is getting stronger. Concerned about that, the Armenians are trying to
present themselves as being powerful in order to find out what
Azerbaijan’s reaction will be. They organize such activities in order
to comfort themselves. But they are only deceiving themselves. In
other words, they are trying to say that we are there and this is what
we can do,” Mammadov said.
The official added that the OSCE and other prominent international
organizations have stated that they do not recognize the Karabakh
elections.
“Everyone knows that the separatists’ actions are illegal. As for the
military exercises, they don’t even have an army to conduct them. This
is all empty talk,” he said.
Meanwhile, a diplomatic source has told Express that more than 500
troops and retired officers from Armenia were involved in the
large-scale military exercises near Azerbaijan’s Agdam District. The
exercises are held mainly in the village of Xidirli and in Agdam
itself. The Armenians have established a firing range there and are
using anti-aircraft guns and armoured vehicles in the exercises.

SECOND PROGRAM ON SECURITY OF IRRIGATION DIKES OF ARMENIA SIGNED
YEREVAN, August 11 (Noyan Tapan). The second credit agreement on
Security of Irrigation Dikes of Armenia of 6.75 mln dollars was signed
between the RA government and the World Bank on August 10. According
to the press service of the RA Ministry of Finances and Economy, the
credit of the Agency of International Development will finance the
work on the improvement of the condition of 47 dikes needy
reconstruction, establishing the system providing control over their
security, as well as necessary exploitation and preservation.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Azer Tag, Azerbaijan State Info Agency
Aug 10 2004
MEETING AT MINISTRY OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS
[August 10, 2004, 13:59:47]
Meeting at Minister of Foreign Affairs of Azerbaijan Elmar
Mammadyarov received a Pakistani delegation led by Chief of the
Committee of the General Staff Commanders of the Islamic Republic of
Pakistan, General Mohammad Aziz Khan.
During the meeting, Minister Elmar Mammadyarov note in particular
that the Azerbaijan-Pakistan relationship developing towards
strategic partnership, and expressed confidence that the present
visit of the Pakistani delegation would promote expanding military
cooperation between the two countries.
He informed the guest in detail on the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict
over Nagorno-Karabakh, peace process, as well as non-fulfillment of
the UN SC four resolutions by Armenia and related activity of the
OSCE Minsk group. Reminding of the 32 terror acts committed in
Azerbaijan, the Minister told of the part the country has been
playing in fighting terrorism, and participation of Azerbaijani
soldiers in ante-terror operations of the international coalition.
General Mohammad Aziz Khan expressed satisfaction with the level of
existing relationship between Azerbaijan and Pakistan and stated that
the recent official visit by President Pervez Musharraf to Azerbaijan
would contribute to further strengthening of the two countries’
cooperation in political, diplomatic and military spheres. He
stressed Pakistan would continue its assistance in training
Azerbaijani officers.
General Mohammad Aziz further advised the Minister of the political
and military situation in Pakistan, his county’s activity in fighting
international terrorism, and expressed hope for urgent peaceful
resolution of the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

RUSSIAN DEFENSE MINISTER REPORTS TO PRESIDENT ON NEW ARMS AND RECENT
EXERCISES
MOSCOW, August 9 (RIA Novosti) – The Russian Defense Ministry has
decided to provide war fighters Su-24 with a new system of high
precision weapons “shot and forgot”. Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov
said this at the president’s meeting with the government on Monday.
Late last week, the Russian defense minister said that Su-24 fighters
would be modernized and purchased for the Russian Armed Forces, at a
press conference at the Edelveis (Kyrgyzstan) testing range after the
Rubezh-2004 exercises.
“This aircraft can successfully work in the mountains. We are
beginning to modernize aircraft of the Russian Air Force and are
putting them on the production line. We are beginning to purchase this
equipment, and we have no doubt about these aircraft,” said Ivanov.
Ivanov also said that the Russian Defense Ministry would forward
proposals to the president about forming and arming two mountain
brigades.
According to the defense minister, “we are planning to complete the
formation of the two mountain brigades by next year.” Earlier, the
president instructed to form a subdivision to serve in the North
Caucasus and help border guards defend the border.
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov reported to the president and
the government about the exercises on the Kola peninsula and in
Kyrgyzstan.
The minister said that the exercises were aimed to drill measures to
provide security of transporting nuclear materials and eliminating the
consequences of an attack on a convoy.
“The super tank used for transporting nuclear materials was shelled
from grenade throwers, derailed and sunk in a reservoir,” the minister
said.
In his words, the exercises involved 1,000 servicemen of the Defense
Ministry, the Interior Ministry, the FSB, the Federal Agency for
Nuclear Energy, and also 500 units of special equipment.
Ivanov also noted that the exercises were positively assessed by the
attending NATO observers.
“We expect that our experts will be able to gain an insight into the
situation in this sphere in a NATO nuclear country,” said Ivanov.
As for exercises in Kyrgyztsan, the minister noted that these were the
first serious exercises of the Collective Rapid Deployment
Forces. Participating in the exercises were Russia, Kyrgyzstan,
Belarus, and Armenia. On the Russian side, the exercises involved the
commandos of the Volga-Urals military district, and also 30 units of
combat aviation, combat helicopters, transport helicopters and the
Ka-50 helicopter Black Shark.
Ivanov said that the combat aviation used high precision weapons based
on the “shot-and-forgot” principle in Kyrgyzstan.
Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin told the president about the situation
around funding servicemen’s housing. Direct federal spending on the
accumulative and mortgage crediting program for servicemen will amount
to 2.5 billion rubles ($1 equals about 29 rubles) in 2005, he
said. The minister stressed that the federal budget would pay the
first contribution and interest on the mortgage.
Minister of Economic Development and Trade German Gref in turn said
that before the draft law on servicemen’s housing provision comes into
force on January 1, another three draft laws would have to be adopted
along with 20 government resolutions.