Author: Jidarian Alex

IRNA, Iran
Feb 8 2005

Rowhani:Strategic projects important for regional security

Tehran, Feb 8, IRNA — Secretary of Iran`s Supreme National Security
Council (SNSC) Hojatoleslam Hassan Rowhani said here Tuesday that
strategic projects such as gas and power transfer from Iran to
Armenia
is of high importance for regional security and economy.
In a meeting with Secretary of Armenia`s National Security Council
Serzh Sarkisian on Tuesday, Rowhani said Tehran and Yerevan share
deep
cultural and historical commonalties, stressing expansion of cultural

and scientific relations between the two sides.
He said regional states themselves should be involved in the
discussions regarding regional security projects and they should
adopt
proper strategies for collective regional cooperation.
He added that the SNSC is ready to cooperate with regional states
to make the regional strategy successful.
He added that Baku-Yerevan direct dialogue is an effective means
of settling the Karabakh dispute and said Tehran is ready to offer
any
kind of help to resolve the crisis, taking settlement of the crisis
`necessary` for economic development and progress.
Rowhani ruled out military method for settlement of Karabakh
problem and said fair solution, agreed upon by both sides, and taking

into account the wishes of Karabakh citizens in political dialogues
are the proper ways to overcome the Karabakh crisis.
He said the North-South transit corridor is an important axis for
development of regional economy, which has a `significant` impact on
regional stability and security.
He added that there is no impediment to expansion of the Tehran-
Yerevan relations and expansion of ties would further consolidate
peace, stability and security in the region.
The top Iranian security official said Tehran and Yerevan would
never allow foreign agents to interfere in their relations.
For his part, Sarkisian said Tehran-Yerevan cooperation is
integral part of regional security and establishment of a regional
security system with the participation of all regional states is
inevitable.
He called for dialogue among national security council secretaries
of regional states to loon into the establishment of a collective
cooperation system.
He said his country is ready to settle Karabakh crisis within the
framework of a collective settlement of all the issues under dispute.

Sarkisian ruled out any project for step-by-step and phased
settlement of Karabakh dispute and thanked Iran for supporting
Armenia`s membership in the North-South transit corridor.

PRESS RELEASE
Armenian American Society for Studies on Stress & Genocide
130 W 79th Street
New York, NY 10024-6387
Tel: 212-362-4018
Fax: 201-941-5110
E-mail: [email protected]
Web:

Post Tsunami Mental Health Outreach Program in SE Asia

New York, NY: The terrible earthquake and tsunami on December 2004 that
struck 11 countries, from Indonesia to Somalia has had a tremendous impact on the
world. After seeing the devastation left by the tsunami on the news, Dr.
Kalayjian sent an application to mental health practitioners to volunteer both time
and money. Based on her 15 year experience in post disaster mental health
outreach, Dr. Kalayjian realized that psychological aide needed to start
immediately after the physical needs were met. This thought was supported by
Ambassador Bernard Goonatilleke, Permanent Representative of Sri Lanka to the United
Nations. The Association for Disaster and Mass Trauma Studies & the Armenian
American Society for Studies on Stress and Genocide spearheaded by Dr. Anie
Kalayjian organized a Mental Health Outreach Program (MHOP) to Sri Lanka.
MHOP was implemented successfully post 1988 earthquake in Armenia
and the 1999 earthquake in Turkey. MHOP expands on the nursing process from
its five phases into eight phases. The eight phases of the MHOP include:
Preassessment, Assessment, Analysis, Community diagnosis, Planning, Implementation,
Evaluation, and Remodification (Kalayjian, 2003).
The program is designed to address the needs of all those whose lives have
been directly or indirectly impacted by the Tsunami, and places emphasis on
discussing traumatic memories and experiences, and finding positive meaningin
their lives. Special consideration will be given to the impact of religionon
coping, culture specific forms of communication, willingness to share feelings
with strangers, impact of political upheaval as well as varied views on
causality.
Teachers, counselors, paraprofessionals and parents will be trained in the
Six-Step Bio-Psychosocial and Spiritual Model. Dr. Kalayjian’s Six-Step
Bio-Psychosocial and Spiritual – Model is comprised of the following six steps:
Assess levels of distress
Encourage discovery of memories & expression of feelings
Provide empathy and validation
Encourage discovery and expression of positive meaning
Provide didactic information
Provide instructions for diaphragmatic breathing and physical relief (Safety
Science, 2001, 39 pp. 71-81).
MHOP is collaborating with United Sikhs, an NGO based in UK. United Sikhs is
securing shelter for the volunteers. Additionally, MHOP is collaborating with
Columbia University’s School of Public Health, Center for Disaster
Preparedness. The MHOP team will be going to Sri Lanka, Colombo first and then to the
fields and the refugee camps. Each team will have 3-5 people. The first team will
be leaving on February 9th and the second team will meet them around February
20th to receive an orientation and a progress report. The first team
comprised of: Drs.Kalayjian, Kuriansky, Hoven, Mandell, Ms. Moore & Shamamian.
Subsequent teams will follow this same structure. Each team will work in the field
for three weeks.
A research component will be integrated in this outreach. Levels of PTSD,
resiliency and physiological symptoms will be explored.
For more information kindly contact Dr. Kalayjian @ 201-941-2266, E-mail:
[email protected]

MENAFN, Middle East
Feb 4 2005

Azerbaijan Gets SR67.5m Saudi Soft Loan Facility

Arab News – 04/02/2005

Saudi Arabia will provide an SR67.5 million soft loan facility to
Azerbaijan. “The loan agreement will be signed tentatively next month
and the funds will be used for building and expanding infrastructure
to boost potable water and power supplies in that country,” said
Naghi Jaabbarov, an Azeri diplomat, here.

On behalf of the Kingdom, Saudi Fund for Development (SFD) will
allocate the loan. “SFD Executive Director Yusuf Al-Bassam and Azeri
Ambassador Dr. Elman Arasli discussed the modalities of this loan
facility here on Tuesday,” said Jaabbarov, who also attended the
meeting. He pointed out that the terms and conditions of the credit
facility are easy with 20-year repayment period besides a five-year
grace period.

The loan and the funds already made available to Azerbaijan are used
to build infrastructural facilities, which were largely damaged
during the Armenian aggression. The diplomat said that Riyadh has
always been extending a helping hand to Baku. A young nation,
Azerbaijan regained independence after the collapse of the Soviet
Union in 1991.

Asked about other SFD-funded projects, he said the Saudi aid
organization has also signed an agreement with the Azeri government
to fund the construction of five schools for 1,280 children in each
of the five densely populated districts of the Azeri capital. More
than 200 schools have been built in that country over the past eight
years using foreign funds including Saudi money. Azerbaijan is also
seeking SFD’s support to execute a multimillion-riyal road project.

Many Arab organizations including the Jeddah-based Islamic
Development Bank (IDB) have come forward to support Azerbaijan in
implementing projects in different sectors, especially
infrastructural projects. A Saudi entrepreneur has also invested in a
major hotel project.

A group of 63 Azeri doctors arrived in Saudi Arabia recently. It was
the third group of Azeri doctors recruited by the Kingdom to be
deployed at different Saudi health institutions.

Poisoning death of prime minister stuns Georgia

International Herald Tribune
Friday, February 4, 2005

By Steven Lee Myers, The New York Times

MOSCOW — Prime Minister Zurab Zhvania of Georgia, a youthful reformer
and ally of President Mikhail Saakashvili, died early Thursday in what
officials described as a bizarre, but accidental, poisoning.

Zhvania, 41, was asphyxiated by carbon monoxide apparently released by a
space heater in an apartment in Georgia’s capital, Tbilisi, that
belonged to a political acquaintance, Raul Usupov, the officials said.
Usupov, 25, a deputy governor from the Kvemo-Kartli region, also died.

Zhvania’s death stunned the country’s politicians and raised questions
about Saakashvili’s efforts to push through economic and political
reforms in the turbulent and impoverished country without one of his
most influential and popular aides.

“Georgia has lost a great patriot,” Saakashvili said at a meeting of
government ministers, according to a transcript provided by his office.
He added, “I have lost my closest friend, most trusted adviser and
greatest ally.”

Saakashvili later announced he would assume the duties of prime
minister, as well as president, though it was unclear for how long.

By law, he has a week to announce a replacement.

Georgia’s interior minister, Nano Merabishvili, said Zhvania arrived at
Usupov’s apartment around midnight Wednesday, according to news reports
from Tbilisi. About four hours later, after not hearing from Zhvania,
his guards broke into the apartment and found him slumped in a chair.
Usupov was found in the kitchen. There were no indications of violence
or foul play, Merabishvili said.

“It all happened suddenly,” he said, calling the death a “tragic
accident.” The death nonetheless gave birth to rumors and conspiracy
theories, despite the official version.

A member of Parliament, Alexander Shalamberidze, insinuated that the
death was part of a plot orchestrated by “certain forces” in Russia that
included the bombing of a police station in the city of Gori that killed
three this week. His statement prompted a pointed protest from Russia’s
foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov.

A backgammon board was lying open on a table near an Iranian-made gas
heater. Portable gas or wood-burning heaters are common in Georgia,
where central heating networks are scarce, even in the capital.

The official Russian Information Agency reported that 45 Georgians had
died of carbon monoxide poisoning in the last three years.

Guram Donadze, a spokesman for the Interior Ministry, said the heater
was installed two days ago and appeared to work properly. It appeared,
however, that the room lacked proper ventilation.

“There are many rumors, suspicions, various versions,” he said in a
telephone interview. “However, what actually happened was gas poisoning
– nothing else.”

Zhvania was a leader of the popular uprising in the autumn of 2003 that
toppled President Eduard Shevardnadze and swept Saakashvili to the
presidency.

He became prime minister barely a year ago and was a driving force in
much of Saakashvili’s efforts to establish order in the country’s
economy, government and foreign policy.

Like Saakashvili, he was once allied with Shevardnadze, but broke with
him and became an opposition leader, though one considered more
temperate than Saakashvili, who is 37. He often acted as a mediator in
Georgia’s tense disputes with two breakaway regions, Abkhazia and South
Ossetia, and the country that offers them succor, Russia.

The European Union’s foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, said in a
statement that Zhvania “played a pivotal role in consolidating the
political life in Georgia and placing the country on the road to democracy.”

President Vladimir Putin of Russia, whose relations with Georgia have
cooled under Saakashvili’s presidency, expressed condolences in a
statement that called Zhvania “a champion” of friendly relations between
the two countries.

Zhvania, a biologist by education who joined the country’s Green Party
in the 1980’s, is survived by his wife and three children. He became a
chairman of the newly independent country’s Parliament in 1995, a post
he held until 2001.

He has been credited with recruiting Saakashvili into politics.

Alexander Rondeli, president of the Georgian Foundation for Strategic
and International Studies, said that Zhvania’s death would probably not
alter Saakashvili’s policies, but complicate his ability to govern.

“He was, I would say, the most important person, the most important
adviser of the president,” Rondeli said in a telephone interview.

“He was in charge of the economy, of investment. At the same time, he
was very active in foreign affairs. It is a big loss for the president
personally.”

Saakashvili Comments on Zhvania’s Death

Civil Georgia (Tbilisi)
2005-02-03

President Saakashvili presented his condolences regarding the death of
Prime Minister Zurab Zhvania, who was found dead in his friend’s
apartment in Tbilisi early on February 3.

`It is very hard for me to speak today. This is a blow for our country
and for me personally, as for the President and a person. Georgia lost
a great patriot, who devoted his whole life to serving our country,’
Saakashvili said at a special government’s session on February 3.

`I lost the closest friend I had, the most reliable adviser and the
greatest ally. Now, all my thoughts are with Zurab’s wife, his mother
and his children. In these hard times for the country and for us, I
call on everybody to be strong, to stand together and continue to
serve our country, despite any troubles and problems we face,’ the
President added.

ANSA Notiziario Generale in Italiano
January 28, 2005

ITALIA-ARMENIA: BERLUSCONI RICEVE PRESIDENTE KOCHARIAN

ROMA

(ANSA) – ROMA, 28 gen – Il presidente del Consiglio, Silvio
Berlusconi, ha ricevuto oggi a Palazzo Chigi, il presidente
della Repubblica di Armenia, Robert Kocharian, in visita
ufficiale in Italia.

Il presidente Berlusconi ha espresso all’ ospite l’
apprezzamento dell’ Italia per la crescita dell’ economia armena
e per l’ azione riformatrice che ha portato, fra l’ altro, all’
abolizione della pena di morte e alla creazione di una
commissione parlamentare sull’ integrazione delle strutture
europee.

I due Presidenti si sono poi soffermati sulla situazione
internazionale nell’ area caucasica, con particolare riferimento
al Nagorno Karabakh, auspicando una soluzione pacifica della
controversia tra tutte le parti in causa.

E’ stato espresso il comune obiettivo di una riforma delle
Nazioni Unite che sia adottata senza accelerazioni parziali su
singole questioni e sulla base di un accordo che goda del
consenso generale degli Stati membri.

I due presidenti hanno, infine, espresso la volonta’ di
intensificare i rapporti economico-commerciali e quelli in campo
culturale, testimoniati dalla secolare presenza di un centro
culturale nell’ isola veneziana di san Lazzaro che da secoli
svolge un ruolo fondamentale, come faro della cultura armena nel
mondo. (ANSA).

Russia offers Azerbaijan military bloc for Karabakh conflict solution – paper

Yeni Musavat, Baku
3 Feb 05

Text of political department report by Azerbaijani newspaper Yeni
Musavat on 3 February headlined “Ilham Aliyev is visiting Moscow
again” and subheaded “Putin will discuss with him Azerbaijan’s joining
the Collective Security Treaty”

[Azerbaijani President] Ilham Aliyev is expected to pay a two-day
visit to Moscow on 15-16 February, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey
Lavrov said yesterday. Aliyev’s visit to the Russian capital is said
to be related to the opening of the days of Azerbaijan in
Moscow. Agreement was reached last year that the days of Russia would
be held in Azerbaijan and then the days of Azerbaijan would take place
in Russia.

However, the real reason for Aliyev’s another visit to Moscow is not
culture. According to a diplomatic source, Putin has invited him to
Moscow to discuss more serious political issues and, in particular,
Azerbaijan’s joining the Collective Security Treaty Organization
(CST). It was the focal point of Lavrov’s talks in Baku yesterday. The
issue of Azerbaijan’s joining the CST was discussed with Foreign
Minister Elmar Mammadyarov and later with President Aliyev. Informed
sources said that the Kremlin considers Azerbaijan’s CST membership in
the context of a settlement of the Nagornyy Karabakh conflict. In
other words, Russia intends to give its consent to the settlement of
the conflict only in case Azerbaijan agrees to join the military bloc
and have Russian military bases on its territory.

Putin put the issue of Azerbaijan’s joining the CST on the agenda back
in February last year during Ilham Aliyev’s visit to Moscow. Russia’s
influential Kommersant daily has recently claimed that Aliyev has
promised Putin that Azerbaijan will join the CST. But the Kremlin is
concerned that he has not done anything in this direction and has not
specified his position over the past year.

At the same time, Aliyev believes that he first needs to strengthen
his power inside the country in order to decide on such an important
issue as Azerbaijan’s joining the CST. But Moscow seems to be
concerned that Aliyev will renege on his promise and is therefore
increases pressure on him. If Aliyev agrees to Azerbaijan’s joining
the Russian-dominated military bloc, he will deal a serious blow to
the interests of the West. In turn, the West will never be reconciled
with that situation. On the other hand, Aliyev should fulfil its
commitments to Russia, which played a major role in his accession to
power. Only in this case Russia will be prepared to defend his power.

In order to avoid Moscow’s pressure for joining the CST, Azerbaijan
has been saying that it is impossible to be in the same military bloc
with Armenia. But at a traditional annual news conference in December
last year Putin said that Azerbaijan may find a common language with
Armenia if it joins the CST. By saying that Putin dropped a hint that
the resolution of the Karabakh problem may be possible after
Azerbaijan joins the CST, thus staying in the area of Russia’s
military and political influence. Putin is expected to discuss the
issue more specifically in a meeting with Aliyev and try to obtain his
answer.

CIS REPRESENTATIVES WILL HOLD COLLECTIVE DISCUSSION OF REFORMS IN
ORGANIZATION

YEREVAN, JANUARY 29. ARMINFO. The first collective discussion of
possible parameters of reforming the CIS will be held on Jan 31 in
Moscow. Press Secretary of Byelorussian Foreign Ministry Andrey
Savinikh said at a briefing in Moscow, Russian Mass Media
reports. Savinikh says that discussion will be held at a multilateral
meeting of deputy ministers of the Commonwealth. The stages of
elaboration of proposals on the reforms are supposed to ne determine
at experts’ level. After the work is completed, projects of relevant
documents will be submitted for consideration of the Council of
Foreign Minister at March 18 session in Minsk.

In particular, the meeting-participants will discuss formation of
permanently operating Coordination Conference of the Heads of CIS Law
Enforcement Departments attached to the Council of CIS Leaders as part
of the Coordination Council of Prosecutor Generals, the Council of
Interior Ministers, the Council of the Head of Security Bodies and
Special Services, the Council of Frontier troop Commanders, the
Coordination Council of Taxation Services, the Council of Customs
Services. To increase the counter-terrorist and anti-drug potential of
CIS signatories, coordination and complementarity of measures taken by
anti-terrorist structures of CIS with other regional organizations. A
proposal on establishment on an Information Forecasting Center on the
basis of International Statistical Committee will be considered.

The meeting-participants are supposed to consider inventory of CIS
branch cooperation bodies (over 80) as well as CIS contractual basis
to cancel the agreements and treaties which are no longer urgent. They
will exchange opinions on possibilities of activation of CIS
cooperation in the humanitarian sphere, in particular, though signing
of versatile agreement on establishment of a single humanitarian
space. In this aspect, proposals on establishment of a Council for
Humanitarian Cooperation through amalgamation of the existing Council
on Culture, Science, Education, Public Health etc.., as well as
proposal on foundation of the Forum of Creative Intelligence.

Newark Star Ledger, NJ
Jan 28 2005

Grandma’s basement full of secrets

BY PETER FILICHIA
Star-Ledger Staff

Leslie Ayvazian had a feeling that when she went into the
sub-basement of her grandmother’s house in Leonia, she was going to
find something special.

She did indeed: the diaries kept by her maternal grandmother, Marie
Bedikian. They’re the basis of “Rosemary and I,” Ayvazian’s new play,
which begins a three-week run at the Passage Theatre Company in
Trenton on Thursday.

In 1989, after Bedikian’s death, Ayvazian inherited the Bergen County
home and moved in with her husband, Sam Anderson, and son, Ivan. She
then began exploring, somehow expecting to find a hidden treasure or
two.

There were many more. “Drawers and drawers full of diaries,” says
Ayvazian, still sounding astonished at the discovery. “Very little
was in English, and much was in her native Armenian — and in three
other languages, too. I had no idea that she knew five different
languages.”

Ayvazian had Bedikian’s diaries translated — and found more
surprising information.

“She had never told me that she once had a singing career,” Ayvazian
says. “She actively sang for 10 years — in seven different languages
— and even appeared at Carnegie Hall.”

The diaries yielded some tragic stories, too. In 1915, Ayvazian’s
grandparents were living in the Armenian section of Istanbul, where
Bedikian was studying with noted Armenian composer Solomon
Solomonian, better known by his pseudonym, Komitas.

“She was on her way to a lesson,” says Ayvazian, “when a neighbor
leaned out the window and told her to go home because Komitas had
been arrested, and the Armenian massacre by the Turks had begun.”

Komitas was among some 500 Armenians shot by the Turks, yet he
survived the bullet wounds. He went mad from the experience and died
20 years later in a Paris asylum.

“I learned,” says Ayvazian, “that he never spoke another word as long
as he lived.”

Within weeks of the massacre, Ayvazian’s grandparents were on their
way to New York. “They took linens, tablecloths, rugs and trunks full
of other things,” she says, “and yet they kept them in this
sub-basement and never opened them. I found my grandmother’s
costumes, too, made of the most gossamer material.”

Ayvazian started writing. Some of the stories wound up in her play,
“Nine Armenians,” which was produced off-Broadway by the Manhattan
Theatre Club in 1996. Yet the idea of a writer who’s having a
difficult time learning about her family’s hushed-up history turned
into what is now “Rosemary and I.”

“I’d been working on it, on and off, for all these years. For a long
while, it didn’t have a title. I have a problem with titles,”
Ayvazian admits. “My son was 4 days old before we decided on a name
for him. Then, after Rosemary Harris played my grandmother in a
reading — and did it so well — I renamed the character after her.”

Now Passage theatergoers will see the results under the direction of
Blair Brown — the same Blair Brown who won a Tony Award in 2000 for
her performance in “Copenhagen” on Broadway and starred in the 1987
TV series “The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd.”

Their collaboration was engineered by Lisa Loosemore, who’s
Ayvazian’s manager and Brown’s agent. “Lisa read my play ‘Lovely
Day,’ about a Vietnam vet who believes his son should fight in the
current war, while the boy’s mother does not,” says Ayvazian. “She
gave it to Blair, who liked it, and when we met and I told her I
belonged to a writing group, she asked if she could come one night.”

Ayvazian gave everyone writing assignments that night. “No matter
what I asked,” she says, “everything Blair wrote concerned how much
she wanted to be a director. One thing led to another, and now she’s
directing ‘Rosemary and I.’ She even designed the poster, too.”

And she cast Ayvazian as Rosemary’s daughter, Julia — a character
based on Ayvazian’s mother.

“I usually like to sit back and see my plays performed, but when I
did a reading (Passage artistic director) June Ballinger thought I
should do it, and Blair agreed,” says Ayvazian, who’s now commuting
from that Leonia home to Trenton. “But I promise I won’t do the next
production.”

OSCE fact-finding mission set to visit Azerbaijan’s seven occupied districts

Lider TV, Baku
28 Jan 05

[Presenter] The OSCE’s fact-finding mission has arrived in Baku. They
will visit the occupied territories of Azerbaijan. The head of the
mission and the co-chairmen [of the OSCE Minsk Group that mediates
talks between Azerbaijan and Armenia] had a meeting at the Azerbaijani
Foreign Ministry. Russian co-chairman Yuriy Merzlyakov has talked
about the visit:

[Merzlyakov speaking to journalists in Russian] We, the co-chairmen of
the OSCE Minsk Group, and the head of the mission to investigate cases
of settlement in territories around Nagornyy Karabakh, the head of the
OSCE Division at the German Federal Foreign Office, Ms Emily Haber,
have just met deputy ministers and deputy heads of several Azerbaijani
state committees at the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry. They gave us
very detailed and interesting information on all the questions we were
interested in. We have familiarized ourselves with this
information. But we still need to look into it once again. I can say
now that the briefing was very efficient and useful for us. The
mission can start working. This is my statement.

In response to your questions now, I can say that as planned, the
mission will visit all the seven districts around Nagornyy
Karabakh. This was planned by the mission and the co-chairmen, by both
sides. Thanks.