Author: Hovhannisian John

ENCIRCLEMENT OF ARMENIA MAY BECOME TIGHTER
Vardan Grigoryan

Hayots Ashkhar Daily
02 Sep 2008
Armenia

If no non-standard steps are undertaken

Although, after the recent events in South Ossetia, the
Armenian-Georgian railway communication has already been restored,
the swift developments in the region come to show that in case of
relying upon the restricted communication resources our country may
face serious problems in the near future.

On August 28, right after Russia’s recognition of the independence of
South Ossetia and Abkhazia, Georgia broke off its diplomatic and all
kinds of other ties with Moscow. Tbilisi has not only terminated the
communication between the two countries, but also refused to comply
with its commitments within the frameworks of the International Civil
Aviation Organization (ICAO) which obliged the country to allow
the Russian air companies to carry out flights to Armenia via the
Georgian territory.

During the recent days, the Russian planes leaving Volgograd and other
towns have been arriving in Yerevan via the Azerbaijani airspace,
and our neighbor is trying to take advantage of the situation.

The Mass Media of Baku have already raised a wave of protest, however,
the Azerbaijani authorities say that Yerevan allows the airplanes
heading for Nakhijevan to fly over their territory, therefore they
can’t create obstacles for the aircraft entering Armenia.

Following the re cognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, Russia
has been facing the real threat of being cut off from Armenia, its
strategic ally. Moreover, there also exists the problem of helping the
Russian military bases located in our country to overcome the blockade
– a prospect in which neither Georgia nor Azerbaijan have any interest.

The threat of encircling Armenia may increase still further if
the recent publications of the foreign press regarding Israel’s
plans of bombing the nuclear reserves of Iran with the help of the
United States become a reality this autumn. In that case, Armenia may
actually find itself in a total political-military blockade, as all
the roads ensuring the protection of our state will be closed. It
will be possible to import the required quantity of petrol, diesel
fuel and wheat via the Georgian territory at best till the beginning
of winter; as to the rest, we will have to take care of it on our own.

However, our country cannot feel totally secure in that sense
either. The thing is that, after the recent Russian-Georgian armed
conflict, Georgia has been looking upon our close military-political
cooperation with Russia in a kind of scowling manner. Now, the
Georgian propaganda never misses the occasion of reminding Russia about
Armenia’s dependence upon the Georgian transportation-communication
channels.

"The Kremlin overlooked even the fact that Georgia could have used all
its economic levers against Armenia, its closest partner, in case it
wished so," a certain Fridon Dochia writes in "The Georgiana Times",
"and it could have done that at the time when the Russians themselves
were pouring oil on the flames." Such remainders often take the form
of obvious pressures, the improper delays in the entry of the trains
to Armenia being one of their manifestations from time to time.

And that these are political pressures is substantiated by the
publication of the same "Georgian Times". In an article entitled "
‘Lookoil’ and ‘Rompetrol’ Save Armenia from Blockade", the newspaper
conducts thorough studies of the companies supplying Armenia with power
generating substances and finds out that some of those companies have
Russian origins. Furthermore, the companies realizing the export of
the supplies from Burgas to Poti and form Romania to Batumi, i.e.

"Lookoil" and "Rompetrol", as well as the addressees, i.e.

the RA Ministry of Defense and "Flash" company, are studied one by one.

The whole information published by the Georgian correspondent has
also appeared in the Azerbaijani press which actively discusses the
possibilities for hindering the transportation of the supplies to
the relevant agencies of Armenia via the Georgia territory.

Regardless whether the above-mentioned publication results from
mere curiosity or is some provocation instructed to Fridon Dochia,
the correspondent of "The Georgian Times", it objectively becomes a
forewarning addressed to Armenia which, in case of undertaking any step
undesirable for Georgia, may be deprived of petrol and diesel fuel.

Naturally, the issue cannot be overlooked by the Armenian and Russian
Presidents during their meeting held in Sochi today. Armenia has
become faced with an extremely difficult and dangerous dilemma. And
our strategic ally should take that fact into consideration. Obviously
Armenia is not Belarus, and it has to demonstrate utmost cautiousness.

Russia in its turn is also undertaking active steps towards
accelerating the process of opening the Armenian-Turkish border. The
recent press publications on Russian customs officers’ "delaying"
the entry of around 10 thousand big Turkish trailers into Russia can
probably be accounted for by this. It is also necessary to keep in
mind that Russia is the supplier of around 60 percent of the gas and
56.4 percent of the coal used in Turkey.

All that forces Ankara to adopt strictly cautious attitudes towards
the recent developments in Georgia. However, the Russian side is no
longer satisfied with that because the issue at stake is actually
concerned with the existence of its military base in Gyumri, the
only fulcrum it has in the South Caucasus, and the future of the
Armenian-Russian relations.

Thus,20the new barrier faced by Russia after the recognition of the
independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia has become a new circle of
blockade for Armenia, with Turkey being the only way towards overcoming
it in a peaceful manner. Otherwise, unpredictable developments may
be expected in the region.

ARMENIAN PRESIDENT TO VISIT RUSSIA ON SEPT 2

Interfax
Sept 1 2008
Russia

Armenian President Serzh Sargsian will make a working visit to Russia
on Tuesday, the Kremlin reported on Monday.Sargsian will be coming at
the invitation of Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, the report says.

ECONOMIC CRIMES RATE GOES 37.5% UP IN ARMENIA IN JAN-JULY 2008

ARKA
Sep 1, 2008

YEREVAN, September 1. /ARKA/. National Statistical Service of Armenia
says 220 crimes against economic activity were committed in the
country in Jan-July 2008.

This is 37.5% greater number than that of the same period of the
previous year.

The statistical report based on the police’s figures says that 55 of
these economic crimes were cases of money counterfeiting or forging
securities. This figure is 2.1 times greater than that of the same
period a year earlier.

According to the report, 165 other economic crimes were committed in
Jan-July 2008 (23.1% greater number, compared with the same period
of the previous year).

WATER SUPPLY OF PART OF YEREVAN’S SOUTH-WESTERN DISTRICT TO BE CUT OFF ON SEPTEMBER 3

Noyan Tapan

Se p 1, 2008

YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 1, NOYAN TAPAN. The water supply of B1, B2 and B4
South-Western districts of Yerevan’s Malatia-Sebastia community will
be cut off on September 3 from 10 am to 10 pm due to construction work,
NT was informed by Yerevan Water CJSC.

LETTER: DECEPTIVE CALM IN NAGORNO-KARABAKH

ISN
Sept 1 2008
Switzerland

In the breakaway Armenian enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh inside Azerbaijan
there is a feeling of short-term security and long-term dread.

Image: WikipediaBy Ben Judah in Stepanakert for ISN Security Watch
(01/09/08)

Outside the Defense Ministry in Stepanakert, the capital of
Nagorno-Karabakh, a dozen teenage conscripts, some barely over 17, are
waiting for orders. Laughing and trying to sneak coffee or cigarettes
into the base without being caught, they readily confess how lucky
they feel.

Intensely wary, like everyone I spoke to in the enclave, they asked
for their names to be changed. Sergei knows he’s lucky. "We are
spending our days guarding the HQ; however, our friends are down at
the frontlines. There is shooting everyday down there…you know…the
volume goes up and down on the killing."

Sergei translates for some of the other boys. One claims to have seen
an Azeri troop build-up through his binoculars; others stress that
the enemy is scared of their troops and is wary about attacking.

I ask Sergei how many of the conscripts think there will be war
within the next year. Of the group of 12 or so, two shake their
heads. When I ask is if war will come "eventually," they all seem in
agreement. Sergei tries to explain: "They cannot allow us to live on
our land. When that happens what else can you do but fight?"

Across the road from the Defense Ministry, a small building barely
bigger than a large post office houses the Foreign Ministry. A senior
official who refused to disclose his name gave me a curt briefing on
the situation in Nagorno-Karabakh.

He sits before a map of the Caucasus showing six carefully drawn out
states. Abkhazia, South Ossetia and Nagorno Karabakh are all displayed
in this cartography as sovereign and equal alongside Armenia, Georgia
and Azerbaijan.

He begins, "We have been working with the OSCE group since 1994
and are committed to a solution. The other side, however, is still
refusing to acknowledge and therefore there can be no movement. What
makes this conflict so intractable is that they are Muslims, we are
Christian. They are violent by nature."

The conversation turns to recent events in the Caucasus and the
official gestures to the map: "We are not like South Ossetia or
Abkhazia – we are not a Russian puppet. We are more independent than
them. However, this is a tough situation. These are uncertain and
serious times."

And then he hisses, "just remember before you start accusing Russia
that your country is doing whatever it can to help the Muslims
swallow us."

My encounter in the Foreign Ministry brought me face-to-face with what
Caucasian expert and historian Tom de Waal has termed the deepening
of the "hate-narratives" that simplify and distort the conflict into
easily digestible and mutually exclusive world-views.

Most of the other people I encountered in Stepanakert, having lived
through the bitter war that followed the break-up of the Soviet Union
held this world view close to heart. When I asked a taxi driver what
his feelings were toward Azerbaijan, he laughed and asked: "What are
your feelings towards cockroaches? They breed fast and you want them
out of your house!"

In the same way that the frozen conflict in Georgia began to heat up
slowly in 2007 with sporadic shootings and a cranking up of rhetoric
that eventually led to war, there have been disturbing signs of a
thaw in Nagorno-Karabakh.

In March, during the Armenian election crisis, a small group of Azeri
troops tried to pierce the lines near Stepanakert and the resulting
fire-fight – the most intense since the unofficial cease-fire came
into effect in 1994 – caused deep concern for stability in the region.

Azeri rhetoric continued to rise with calls from Baku that it may be
"forced to re-take the region by military means."

However, since the war broke out in Georgia, things have frozen
over once more; yet they are far from being resolved. Nothing is
certain in this great power game, and this has left the inhabitants
of Nagorno-Karabakh on edge.

In the village of Shushi, 5 kilometers from Stepanakert, local
businessman Nelson Ketchurian shared his fears with me.

"I have been trying to make a living here since the Azeris withdrew
from Shushi. They used this town as a position to bomb Stepanakert
and almost destroyed it. How do I know that will not happen again?

"Right now I think they are scared of us and they will not attack. We
don’t want war. We are peaceful people. But I think they do – and
sooner or later, war will be coming back. Right now we just can’t say –
and it’s hard living like this, never knowing."

In Stepanakert, the streets are tidy and clean and the massive
investment made by the Armenian Diaspora has returned economic
vitality to the town. But in the midst of an atmosphere of calm and
short-term security, almost banality, recent events in the Caucasus
have triggered a sense of long-term dread for those living on the
fault-lines of this frozen conflict.

Ben Judah is a senior correspondent for ISN Security Watch, currently
writing from the Caucasus and Russia.

The views and opinions expressed herein are those of the author only,
not the International Relations and Security Network (ISN).

‘Letters’ is an ISN Security Watch series in which our correspondents
give their thoughts on day-to-day life in their communities and areas
from which they report.

THE SITUATION BEING SETTLED

Hayots Ashkhar Daily
29 Aug 2008
Armenia

The transportation of the goods from Yerevan to Georgia has been
significantly settled. This is the announcement by which Prime Minister
Tigran Sargsyan came out during the government session.

"Unfortunately our rivals were trying to gain political dividends even
in this situation, making comparisons with the past, which is really
ridiculous. They were saying that they managed to lead this country
perfectly in the state of emergency, saying that this government
can’t control even petrol price, which is 1000 dram a liter.

On the other hand they give lots of advice, they dictate us how we
should lead the country. Similar situation is really regrettable."

THE GEORGIA CRISIS IN THE NEW COLD-WAR ATMOSPHERE
by Mehdi Yari

Keyhan website
Aug 27 2008
Tehran, Iran

Following the collapse of the [Former] Soviet Union and end of the
Cold War and the subsequent decline in power of the Eastern block,
the formation of the Republics of Azerbaijan and Armenia and the
immense energy resources of the Caspian Sea have attracted the
attention of regional and supra-regional powers and paved the way
for their rivalries in the region. America, perceiving its power to
be unchallenged, proceeded to extent its influence in the region,
relying on the idea of a world with a single superpower. The southern
Caucasus is of special concern to America and in reality to the oil
and gas cartels that wield the power in America, for being a route
for the transfer of Caspian energy resources. America’s policy in
this region has been to curb the traditional influence of Russia and
deprive it of a role in exploiting the region’s oil and gas resources.

It is trying, by all possible means, to take in hand the control and
transfer of the region’s immense oil and gas resources. The Baku-Ceyhan
oil transfer route that crosses Georgia, was built at great expense
and at America’s insistence, and currently transfers some of the oil
from the Caspian to the Turkish port of Ceyhan. Russia has no role in
this project. From the time the republics of the southern Caucasus
won their independence, America has declared support for and the
strengthening of these republics to be an important foreign policy
principle. American foreign policy decision-makers try to act to curb
Russia’s power in the region and prevent any weakening of the newly
independent republics. Their measures include America’s presence in the
sensitive and strategic region of the southern Caucasus in the context
of NATO, and economic, political and military agreements signed.

But Russia has moved forward since the Putin presidency and refuses
to stop its strategy; it is thus opposed to the American presence in
its former spheres of influence, that is Central Asia, the Caucasus
and even Eastern Europe, and has reacted in these areas to issues
including the missile shield in Poland and construction of the radar
installation in the Czech Republic.

America and its main backer the Zionist regime have in turn trained and
equipped in recent years Georgian military and security forces and,
in encouraging that state to attack the autonomous South Ossetian
region, pursued several aims we may briefly list:

1 – Create a military and security cordon on Russia’s frontiers,
and curb its influence in the southern Caucasus region,

2 – Reduce Russia’s control over transfer routes for Caspian energy
resources in this region,

3 – Thwart Russia’s traditional strategy of winning access to warm
waters,

4 – Raise the security level and control over the oil transfer route
from Baku to Ceyhan,

5 – Provoke fear among other Caucasus former Soviet republics and
encourage them to leave the Commonwealth of Independent States,

6 – Justify the formation of the missile shield in Poland and radar
installation in the Czech Republic, and hasten their implementation,

7 – Distract world opinion from the failures in the Middle East and
Caucasus regions.

But Russia’s swift reaction and attack against Georgia, Georgia’s
defeat and America’s failure to back Georgia against Russia, have
overshadowed America’s goals. These can undermine the confidence of
other former Soviet republics and even Eastern European nations in
America and strengthen the perspective that America is no longer able
to shape world politics. America’s move in the Caucasus can also cause
a new turn in Russia’s conduct within international interactions. These
can include:

1 – Refusing to cooperate with America in world political affairs
given its right of veto in the UN Security Council,

2 – Change its positions on Iran’s nuclear dossier,

3 – Set up a missile base in Syria and provide that country with
equipment, in order to punish Israel for its significant role in
creating this conflict,

4 – Establish its political, economic and military presence in Latin
America including in Venezuela and Cuba,

5 – Change its policy of cooperation with NATO.

Generally one may say the recent crisis between Russia and Georgia,
in whose creation America and Israel played a pertinent role, has
created a new cold-war atmosphere that can in turn influence the
international system.

RUSSIAN FOREIGN MINISTER ADVICES HIS BRITISH COUNTERPART NOT TO WORRY SO MUCH ABOUT DNISTER REGION AND NAGORNYY KARABAKH

arminfo
2008-08-28 17:57:00

ArmInfo. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has advised his British
counterpart David Miliband not to worry so much about Dnister region
and Nagornyy Karabakh.

When commenting on Foreign Secretary Miliband’s statement regarding
Abkhazia and South Ossetia in which he recommends to get the end of
the empire and reach peaceful settlement of the conflicts at the
post-Soviet territory mentioning the Dnister region and Nagornyy
Karabakh, Lavrov said: . At the same time Russian foreign minister
said that Moscow is for the principle of territorial integrity if
its neighbours which think about it within the frame of law.

NAGORNO-KARABAKH REPUBLIC HAILS RECOGNITION OF ABKHAZIA AND SOUTH OSSETIA INDEPENDENCE

ARMENPRESS
Aug 28, 2008

STEPANAKERT, AUGUST 28, ARMENPRESS: The foreign ministry of
Nagorno-Karabakh Republic (NKR) hailed today Russia’s recognition of
the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

In a statement the ministry said the recognition of both republics’
independence is in full compliance with the basic principles of the
peoples’ right to self-determination, as it is fixed in the fundamental
documents and legal standards of the OSCE, UN and other international
organizations. "We have warned many a time that threats of use of
force, the excessive military build-up and the strive to resolve
problems by force are fraught with humanitarian catastrophes,’ the
statement said adding that Nagorno-Karabakh hopes that all stakeholders
will draw right conclusions from the latest developments in the South
Caucasus and will make concrete steps to solve all existing conflict
exclusively through peaceful means and restore the region’s stability.

AKP MP MEETS US OFFICIAL IN DEMOCRATIC CONVENTION

bulletin.net/news_detail.php?id=27249
Aug 27 2008
Turkey

Egemen Bagis, an MP from the ruling AKP, met Madeleine Albright,
a former U.S. secretary of state and the chairperson of the Board
of Directors of a think-tank named National Democratic Institute
over breakfast.

A Turkish parliamentarian had a meeting with a former U.S. secretary
of state in the United States on Tuesday.

Egemen Bagis, an MP from the ruling Justice & Development (AK) Party,
met Madeleine Albright, a former U.S. secretary of state and the
chairperson of the Board of Directors of a think-tank named National
Democratic Institute (NDI), over breakfast.

The NDI is an organization created by the United States government by
way of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) to channel grants
for furthering democracy in developing nations.

Bagis is representing AK Party in a convention of the Democratic
Party in Denver.

Bagis and Albright discussed the crisis between Georgia and
Russia, recent developments in Caucasus, energy security, Middle
East peace process, Turkey’s European Union (EU) membership bid,
Turkish-U.S. relations and Armenian allegations regarding the incidents
of 1915.

During the meeting, Albrigt appreciated Turkish Premier Recep Tayyip
Erdogan’s efforts for world peace and underlined Erdogan’s Caucasus
Pact idea which could bring together the parties in a peaceful
platform.

Also, both Bagis and Albrigt reaffirmed importance of Turkey’s role
as a mediator between Israel and Syria.

Bagis said that Albright, an influential person in the foreign policy
team of Barrack Obama–the presidential candidate for Democratic
Party, was one of the people in the United States who had perceived
Turkey’s importance.

Therefore, Bagis requested that Albright should prevent initiatives
that could harm relations in a possible Democrat Party administration,
and that she should boost relations.

Albright assured Bagis that she would continue to do her best to
further improve Turkish-U.S. relations.

Bagis also had talks with NDI President Kenneth Wollack, Georgia’s
Vice Premier Giorgi Baramidze, British parliamentarian Baroness Uddin,
and Reinhard Butikofer of the Greens party in Germany.

Albright is the first woman to become the U.S. Secretary of State. She
was appointed by President Bill Clinton on December 5th, 1996 and
was unanimously confirmed by the Senate 99-0. She was sworn in on
January 23rd, 1997 and served as the secretary till January 20th, 2001.