Author: Kalashian Nyrie

Azerbaijan, Armenia: Conflict settlement concept elaborated
Baku Today
June 1 2005
Deputy Foreign Minister and the President’s special envoy on the
Nagorno Karabakh conflict Araz Azimov has elaborated on the Azerbaijani
government’s concept on the Nagorno Karabakh conflict settlement
Azimov told a news conference on Monday that the concept, based
on international legal norms and the recommendations indicated in
the last resolution on the Nagorno Karabakh conflict passed by the
Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, envisions liberating
occupied lands, repatriating refugees, establishing relations between
the Azerbaijani and Armenian communities and normalizing ties between
the two countries.
Azerbaijan considers Armenians living in Nagorno Karabakh its citizens
and believes that the conflict cannot be settled only by freeing the
occupied lands, he said.
“We consider the liberation of lands a beginning of this process,”
said Azimov, noting that areas should be cleared from landmines
and communication links restored in the future. He added that these
activities will be impossible without the support of the international
community.

HEADS OF PRESIDENTIAL ADMINISTRATIONS MET
A1plus
| 17:05:26 | 31-05-2005 | Official |
RA Presidential administration head Artashes Tumanyan and head of
the Russian presidential administration Dmitry Medvedev met today
to discuss a number of issues referring to the Armenian-Russian
cooperation.
Specifically, the parties noted the necessity of launching the
enterprises conveyed to Russia within Property for Debt agreement as
well as a number regional economic programs including the Iran-Armenia
gas pipeline.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

INTER-GOVERNMENTAL RELATIONS WITH ARMENIA ON TURKEY’S AGENDA
AZG Armenian Daily #099, 01/06/2005
Turkey
On April 10, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan sent a letter
to Armenian President Robert Kocharian. On April 26, Kocharian sent
a reply letter. The exchange of correspondence seemed to suggest a
meeting between two leaders in Warsaw summit of the Council of Europe,
May 16-17.
But Armenian President’s speech at the summit and Turkish side’s
morbid response stifled all hopes for a meeting. Turkish Prime Minister
preferred responding to Kocharian’s speech in a press conference rather
than discuss issues face to face. But before the President’s speech,
Turkish side had to officially respond to Kocharian’s letter of April
26. On May 31, Turkish Zaman daily wrote on this occasion in an article
titled “If Yerevan Does Not Take A Step Forward, Kocharian Will Not
Get Second Letter”, “The correspondence launched between Turkey and
Armenia after hot discussions over the so-called Armenian genocide
is falling short because of Yerevan’s inappropriate approach. Given
this situation, Ankara will not reply to Armenian President Robert
Kocharian’s letter. Though PM Erdogan’s proposal of ‘leaving the
study of the events of 1915 to historians and other specialists’
meet Kocharian’s ‘establishment of diplomatic relations first and
then discussing all issues’ was far from fully satisfying Ankara,
but it still was taken ‘positively’. But during the last month Yerevan
displayed no approach we hoped for. The failure of Kocharian-Erdogan
meeting in Warsaw as well as Armenian President’s tough stance at
the CE summit made it impossible to reply to the letter”.
Zaman notes that diplomatic circles complain that “Planes fly from
Istanbul to Yerevan and Turkish goods enter Armenia via Georgia,
meanwhile thousands of Armenians work in Turkey but the authorities
do not inform the people about this”.
Zaman quoted those circles as saying, “The only good news that
reached Ankara from Yerevan recently was Armenian foreign minister
Vartan Oskanian’s statement about Kars Treaty, ‘As long as there
are no new treaties, ones signed by the USSR are in force’. Ankara
wants to receive this statement from the RA Foreign Ministry website
‘via official ways”.
This publication of Zaman should be considered kind of a signal. We
don’t exclude that it was launched to check out moods in Armenia. Yet,
this signal shows that though Ankara avoids diplomatic relations
with Armenia, establishment of intergovernmental relations is high on
its agenda. Otherwise Turkey simply would not touch upon Kocharian’s
reply to Erdogan’s letter, the Turkish press would not occasionally
return to RA President’s speech in CE summit nor would it write about
Kocharian-Erdogan might-have-been meeting.
By Hakob Chakrian
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

US president “highly assesses” relations with Armenia
Public Television of Armenia, Yerevan
30 May 05
Armenian ambassador to the USA Tatul Markaryan has presented his
credentials to US President George Bush.
The traditional exchange of messages took place during the
ceremony. Ambassador Markaryan highly assessed the current level of
Armenian-American relations, noting that the Armenian-US cooperation
is based on common interests and values, as well as friendship between
the two nations. The ambassador thanked the United States for the
assistance to Armenia during the independence years. He emphasized
the Armenian-US cooperation in political, military, trade and economic
spheres and expressed the Armenian authorities’ readiness to continue
partnership relations with the USA.
President Bush highly assessed the level of the Armenian-US relations,
saying that the two countries have historical ties. Beginning from
1991when Armenia declared its independence, we have been working
together to establish democratic institutes and economic basis so that
Armenia can overcome the consequences of the destructive earthquake
of 1988, the collapse of the USSR and war with Azerbaijan for Nagornyy
Karabakh, the US president said in his message.
The US president also stressed that owing to great progress registered
in Armenia during the past 15 years the republic had been involved
in the Millennium Challenge programme.
The US president praised Armenia for its contribution to the struggle
against international terrorism and for sending peacekeepers to
Iraq. The US president’s message once again confirmed his country’s
readiness to assist the peaceful resolution of the Karabakh conflict
and normalization of Armenian-Turkish relations.

OVER 20% OF COMPLAINTS OF HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS IN ARMENIA SOLVE POSITIVELY
Pan Armenian News
31.05.2005 07:13
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Over 20% of complaints referring to violation of
rights of private persons are decided positively, Armenian Ombudsperson
Larisa Alaverdian stated in the course of an on-line interview
with OpenArmenia.com. In her words, the indicator is considered a
positive one in the international practice. As noted by Alaverdian,
the statistics over the complaints, received by the Ombudsperson
Administration, are published in the Ombudsperson’s Annual Report and
it will appear on the website one of these days. At that she noted that
the most number of complaints from Armenian citizens were received over
questions of violation of civil rights, specifically, property rights
(256 complaints). Complaints of functionaries breaking the Criminal
Code are on the second place (218 complaints). “Complaints are made
of the violation of human rights due to “bad administration”, there
are 126 “complainants”, which include groups of persons and working
staffs of enterprises that were privatized or became bankrupt, as
well as enterprises, which do not fulfill their obligations to their
workers. Violations of the Labor Code and the human right for labor
on the whole are registered in 108 complaints,” she stated.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

l
Anzeige gegen türkischen Minister
VON GERD HÃ~VHLER, 30.05.05, 07:22h
Ministerpräsident Tayyip Erdogan unterstützt seinen Justizminister
nicht.Ankara – In der Türkei flammt die Kontroverse um die
Armenier-Verfolgungen im Osmanischen Reich wieder auf. Nachdem
Justizminister Cemil Cicek vergangene Woche die Teilnehmer einer
geplanten Akademikerkonferenz über die Armenierfrage als
â~@~^Verräterâ~@~ gebrandmarkt und damit die Absage der Tagung
erreicht hatte, muss sich nun die Staatsanwaltschaft mit dem Fall
beschäftigen: Ein Anwaltsverband und der Menschenrechtsverein von
Izmir erstatteten am Wochenende Anzeige gegen den Minister. Er habe
mit seinen Ã~DuÃ~_erungen gegen die Verfassung verstoÃ~_en, lautet
die Begründung.
Die Konferenz, zu der sich auch zahlreiche namhafte ausländische
Wissenschaftler angemeldet hatten, sollte sich mit dem Schicksal der
Armenier im Ersten Weltkrieg beschäftigen. Nach armenischer
Darstellung, die von den meisten internationalen Historikern geteilt
wird, fielen damals im untergehenden Osmanischen Reich fast 1,5
Millionen Armenier einem Völkermord zum Opfer. Die Türkei
bestreitet das. Justizminister Cicek hatte den Veranstaltern und
Teilnehmern der geplanten Konferenz mit dem Titel â~@~^Ottomanische
Armenier während dem Fall des Reichesâ~@~ vorgeworfen, sie
stieÃ~_en â~@~^der Türkei einen Dolch in den Rückenâ~@~ und
strafrechtliche Konsequenzen angedeutet. Die staatliche
Bosporus-Universität, an der die Konferenz stattfinden sollte, sagte
die Veranstaltung daraufhin ab.
Die Intervention des Justizministers hat in Teilen der türkischen
Ã~Vffentlichkeit und im Ausland Kritik und Empörung ausgelöst.
â~@~^Wir haben wieder einmal das getan, was wir am besten können:
uns selbst ins Bein geschossenâ~@~, kommentierte der angesehene
Kolumnist Metin Münir in der Zeitung â~@~^Vatanâ~@~. Der Historiker
Andreas Riedlmayer von der Harvard Universität meinte: â~@~^Dies ist
kein guter Tag für die akademische Freiheit in der Türkei.â~@~ Ein
EU-Diplomat in Ankara sagte, die â~@~^autoritärenâ~@~
Ã~DuÃ~_erungen des Justizministers stellten den Reformprozess in der
Türkei in Frage. Ministerpräsident Tayyip Erdogan ging auf Distanz
zu seinem Minister und sagte, ihn hätte es nicht gestört, wenn die
Konferenz stattgefunden hätte.
(KStA)
–Boundary_(ID_NKu2qm+vatXMaSigV5LMEg)–

ARMENIA’s CAPITAL IS PARALYZED BECAUSE OF ROUND DANCE AROUND ARAGATS
MOUNTAIN
YEREVAN, MAY 28. ARMINFO. Today in the morning Armenia’s capital was
paralyzed lost in fact the whole transport. The reason is simple
enough – the whole Yerevan bus and route-taxi depot was directed to
serve people dancing around Aragats Mountain. To remind, a round dance
round Aragats Mountain is organized today, on the Day of the First
Republic, on the initiative of Armenia’s prosecutor general Aghvan
Hovsepyan. About 200.000 people will participate there. The action
will start at 15:00 and last 15 minutes. The record pretended to find
itself in the Giness Records Book, will be shown by CNN TV-company.
According to official data, a non-ordinary situation in Yerevan given
its residents a lot of moral and material discomforts has not told
upon their health yet. Deputy director of “Emergency” CJSC Nune
Zhamkochyan informed ARMINFO that company’s workers were informed that
a hard day is expected and reported for work in time. There is no
information about a number of “emergency” calls yet. According to
Armenia’s Police press-service, the situation in Yerevan is normal, no
emergency situations are registered.

The Guide: Television Wednesday 1: Watch This
The Guardian – United Kingdom
May 28, 2005
ANDREW MUELLER, JOSS HUTTON AND RICHARD VINE

Holidays In The Danger Zone: Places That Don’t Exist
7.30pm, BBC2
This final instalment of Simon Reeve’s survey of the world’s
non-nations visits Nagorno-Karabakh, an unruly slice of the Caucusus
whose restless natives harbour ambitions of setting up the world’s
least spellable country in between Armenia and Azerbaijan. This is
potentially fascinating, but this episode suffers, like the rest of
the series, from an apparent assumption that the audience has no
attention span at all. Reeve is engaging, but never manages to build a
coherent narrative -instead, we get an unrelated series of
occasionally interesting observations that feels like watching
someone’s randomly sorted holiday snaps. AM
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

AZG Armenian Daily #097, 28/05/2005
Turkey
EUROPE RESPONDS TO POSTPONED CONFERENCE IN TURKEY
The university administration of Bosphorus University in Turkey postponed
“Ottoman Armenians at decline of the Empire. Scientific Responsibility and
Issues of Democracy” workshop after the threatening speech of Turkish
justice minister Cemil Ciceq on May 24.
The fact of the conference’s postponement was largely echoed in both Turkey
and Europe. The decision of the university administration hit the headlines
of many influential papers of the world.
If the Turkish press aims at minister Ciceq, the government and political
parties then Europe’s target is Turkey as a whole.
As a significant counterattack came the statements of the Union of Human
Rights of Turkey and Turkish History Foundation on May 25. If the Union
“condemns all politicians in the persons of justice minister and
oppositional party speaker who do not tolerate freedom of thought in the
country and threaten Bosphorus University to wreck the workshop”, then the
Foundation underscores that “the campaign against the workshop that launched
in Mejlis is the next manifestation of Turkish chauvinism peculiar to ruling
elite. It once again blocks the roads leading to democracy and mutual
understanding”.
Meanwhile, the organizers of the workshop turned to the American Historical
Association, Middle East International Establishment and International Union
of Lawyers. And Bosphorus University published a statement with 109
signatures of the University staff.
The statement expresses worry that the scientific thought is being
encroached upon, condemns every political interference, indicates that it
contradicts Turkey’s official stance of “impartial discussion of the
Armenian issue” and reveals University’s resolution to hold the workshop the
soonest possible.
On May 26, Bilgi University of Istanbul released an identical statement
signed by 130 staff members condemning officials’ encroachment on
independent activities of the university. The 43 scientists including Taner
Akcam, Murad Belge and Halil Berktay that were supposed to report at the
workshop also came out with a statement.
Turkish Milliyet newspaper writes about international response to the
postponement in its May 26 issue. The paper writes that European diplomats
commissioned in Ankara strongly opposed to the fact of rescheduling. They
said that the justice minister’s words disappointed them and emphasized that
the statement disagrees with Prime Minister Erdogan’s and Turkish
parliament’s position that was also widely received in the US and Europe.
Response came from the EU as well, which noted that the postponement will
not assist Turkey’s accession. According to Milliyet, a EU official
expressed hope that Turkey will mature to openly discuss the Armenian cause.
He called the suspension of the workshop “display of intolerance”.
A representative of EU Commissioner for Enlargement, Oli Ren, confirmed
latter’s words saying, “EU wants and contributes to creation of atmosphere
of mutual trust between Armenia and Turkey. We hope that this atmosphere
will have positive impact on Turkey’s EU membership”. Joost Lagendijk,
co-chair of the EU-Turkey Joint Parliament Committee, responded from
Brussels. In a written statement he said that the fact of putting the
conference off will open doors for comments over absence of free scientific
thought and existence of taboos in Turkey. Answering to Milliyet’s question
Lagendijk said, “The words of justice minister Ciceq show that in Turkey it
is still the state that decides should an issue be discussed at a university
or not”. Those are serious responses, and Turkey is expected to hand out
official reply.
Turkish Foreign Ministry accepted that the postponement of the workshop
contradicts the spirit of both “Erdogan’s letter to RA President Kocharian”
and “reforms unfolded in the country on its way to the EU”.
Opposition to the suspension of the workshop having gone far beyond Turkey’s
borders cannot go without consequences for Turkey. A May 26 article in
Milliyet considers postponement “a big mistake”, saying that it will pose
Turkey to international pressure, moreover, will show Turkey as a country
that does not tolerate free discussion over historic issues, thus adding
momentum to Armenians efforts for getting the Genocide recognized.
By Hakob Chakrian

Eurasia Daily Monitor, DC
May 27 2005
TALYSH ISSUE, DORMANT IN AZERBAIJAN, REOPENED IN ARMENIA
By Vladimir Socor
Friday, May 27, 2005
On May 20-22, in Armenia’s resort town of Tsaghkadzor, an event
billed as the “First International Conference on Talysh Studies” was
hosted by Yerevan State University’s Iranian Studies Department and
the Yerevan-based Center for Iranian Studies. Almost certainly, some
political circles in Armenia were behind this initiative. The
conference appeared designed at least in part to resurrect the issue
of autonomy for the Talysh ethnic group in Azerbaijan.
Such intentions draw inspiration from the would-be “Talysh-Mugan
Republic,” declared on June 21, 1993, in southeastern Azerbaijan by a
group of ethnic Talysh officers under the leadership of Colonel
Alikram Gumbatov. Their rebellion was correlated with a massive
Armenian offensive on the Karabakh front and seizure of territories
deep inside western Azerbaijan by Armenian forces. The Talysh rebels
proclaimed the independence of a seven-district area in southeastern
Azerbaijan, but did not elicit significant support among their own
ethnic group. On August 24 that year, Azerbaijani-loyal troops put an
end to the Talysh “republic” and arrested its leaders. Gumbatov,
sentenced to imprisonment for treason, became a cause celebre as a
“political prisoner” during the ensuing decade.
A self-styled Talysh National Movement surfaced unexpectedly for the
purposes of the conference just held in Armenia. TNM leader Fahraddin
Abbos-Zoda and several members arrived from Azerbaijan to participate
in the conference. Members of a Talysh diaspora group from Moscow
also participated, alongside academic experts from Armenia and Iran.
The latter country has its own Talysh minority, near the
Iran-Azerbaijan border.
Abbos-Zoda and others told the conference that the Talysh are
“oppressed” in Azerbaijan and called for autonomy of the
Talysh-inhabited area. The TNM asked the conference to appeal to the
United Nations, the OSCE, and other international organizations “to
help put an end to violations of the basic rights of Talysh in
Azerbaijan.” This seems to have been the initial goal of the
conference organizers. However, the participants from Iran, where the
Talysh are not recognized as an ethnic group, blocked that proposal.
The conference in Armenia did resolve to found an International
Talysh Association, elected the association’s steering committee, and
announced plans to hold follow-up conferences and publish reference
material on the Talysh with a view to helping preserve their ethnic
identity, language, and cultural heritage.
A Moscow-based, obscure “Party for Equality of the Peoples of
Azerbaijan,” formerly known as the Talysh People’s Party, has
distanced itself from the conference in Armenia. The party described
the Moscow Talysh who attended that conference as “nationalist
adventurers.” The party professes loyalty to a “multi-national
Azerbaijan,” seeks broader opportunities for Talysh self-expression,
and has entered dialogue with the state authorities.
The Talysh are a largely agricultural, Shia Muslim population,
speaking dialects closely related to Farsi. They reside for the most
part near Azerbaijan’ border with Iran, around the towns of Lerik,
Lenkoran, and Astara on the Caspian Sea. Azerbaijan’s official
statistics put the number of Talysh at approximately 80,000. Some
Talysh estimate the size of their group at up to half a million in
Azerbaijan (and a comparable number across the border in Iran). The
attempt by unidentified circles in Armenia to reopen the dormant
Talysh issue coincides with reports of significant progress in the
negotiations with Azerbaijan over Karabakh, and may be designed to
complicate the overall situation.