Author: Kanayan Tamar

A DIFFERENT NARRATIVE FOR THE ARMENIAN-AZERBAIJANI CONFLICT

The Christian Science Monitor
June 18, 2014 Wednesday

We take issue with Svante E. Cornell’s characterization of the
Nagorno-Karabakh (Artaskh in Armenian) conflict in his June 10 op-ed
“Why America must step up its role in resolving Armenian-Azerbaijani
conflict.”

by Vilen Khlgatyan Op-ed contributor, Armen Sahakyan Op-ed contributor

With the recent developments happening in and around Ukraine, Svante
E. Cornell’s June 10 op-ed “Why America must step up its role in
resolving Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict” attempts to compare the
Nagorno-Karabakh (Artsakh in Armenian) conflict with Crimea. This
attempted comparison disregards important historical, geographic,
legal, and political differences that exist between the two conflicts.

The Artsakh conflict has deep historical and legal roots with various
junctures along the way. The most recent phase of the conflict began in
February of 1988, when the citizens of the Armenian Soviet Socialist
Republic and Nagorno Karabakh Autonomous Oblast (NKAO) began peaceful
demonstrations to once again petition the Soviet authorities in Moscow
for re-unification of NKAO with the Armenian SSR. Tensions rose rapidly
after the anti-Armenian pogroms in the Azerbaijani cities of Baku
(the capital), Sumgait, Kirovabad, and Maragha, among others.

Tensions spilled eventually turned into a full-scale war that lasted
until 1994.

Shortly after the Russian-brokered ceasefire agreement (signed by the
representatives of Azerbaijan, Artsakh, and Armenia) came into force
in 1994, the OSCE Minsk Group began its operations with the task of
mediating the conflict. France, Russia, and the United States are the
co-chairs of the Minsk Group and work hand-in-hand attempting to help
the parties to the conflict reach a lasting peace agreement.

Moscow’s role (both under the USSR and the Russian Federation) in the
Artsakh conflict mediation is usually overemphasized. At the same
time, the genuine desire of the people of Artsakh Republic to live
in a state and society of their own choosing is often disregarded.

Although Russia has been active in the Artsakh peace process, their
motivation is not nearly as nefarious as Dr. Cornell claims.

During the Artsakh-Azerbaijan war, Baku recruited Afghan mujahideen and
Chechen insurgents to fight on its side, many of whom would end up in
Russia’s North Caucasus region in pursuit of jihad, thus presenting
a direct national security threat to Russia. Given its geographic
proximity and Russia’s own problems in its North Caucasus region,
Moscow could not and cannot disregard the Artsakh peace process.

The US has also been active in the mediation process of the Artsakh
conflict within the framework of the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairmanship,
which is the only agreed upon international format for the peace
talks. One notable example was the US-organized talks in Key West
in the summer of 2001, which was the closest the parties had ever
come to reaching a peace deal since the ceasefire agreement seven
years earlier.

A number of targeted public relations stunts have attempted to present
Azerbaijan as a model partner for the West. However, Azerbaijan’s
allegiance to the Western international order is dubious, especially
when it comes to democratic norms, rule of law, and respect for human
rights. In recent times, experienced analysts of the South Caucasus
and government officials, such as Richard Kauzlarich, Thomas De Waal,
Eric Rubin, and others have criticized Azerbaijan’s faulty human
rights track record, its attempt to lead on both the West and Russia,
and its waning importance as a US ally.

Recent examples of Baku’s crackdown on critics both foreign and
domestic include: criticism of the US ambassador to Baku, Richard
Morningstar; criticism of OSCE Minsk Group US co-chairman James
Warlick; and government jailings of and crackdowns on representatives
of the National Democratic Institute, Radio Free Europe, and other
organizations operating in Azerbaijan, etc.

Human Right Watch periodically reports on egregious arrests of bloggers
and journalists, including the recent airport detainment of prominent
human rights defender Leyla Yunus and her husband. Another example
is the extradition of Rauf Mirkadirov, a Turkey-based Azerbaijani
journalist, who, due to his critical stance against the Baku regime,
is now potentially facing a life-imprisonment based on questionable
espionage charges.

Another factor that presents a challenge to the premise that Azerbaijan
is a reliable Western ally is its recent major arms acquisitions from
Russia, valued at $4 billion. Moreover, the geopolitical significance
of the country is blown out of proportion.

For instance its gas supplies to Europe are negligible in the larger
picture (only 2 percent of EU demand) and could not replace Russia’s
volumes. And within the context of improving relations between the
West and Iran, Azerbaijan’s role will likely shrink further. The
US withdrawal from Afghanistan, the recent shale gas revolution,
and the general pivot to Asia add additional reasons why the South
Caucasus will lose its strategic significance for the US and the West
in general.

A related aspect of Azerbaijan’s PR campaign has been to conflate the
Artsakh conflict with the separate issue of Armenia-Turkey bilateral
relations. This is yet another attempt at misdirection that some
observers have tried to make. Turkey and Azerbaijan are separate
states, with different ethnic identities, divergent strains of Islam,
and do not have identical national interests. It took Azerbaijani
threats of raising the price of natural gas it supplies to Turkey
as well as a fierce public diplomacy campaign to rally support among
Turks for their “little brother” Azerbaijan in order to place Turkey’s
peace protocols with Armenia in limbo.

Several events, including the pardon and promotion of the axe-murderer
Ramil Safarov, the destruction of Armenian cultural sites in
Azerbaijan, the declaration by Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev
that “Armenians of the world” are the number one enemy of Azerbaijan,
the regular cross border sniper shootings on civilian populations,
and many other incidents are not properly condemned by the US and
other OSCE Minsk Group co-chair states.

Convincing Baku to remove the snipers from the line of contact (to
which they do not agree) and to establish an international monitoring
system for ceasefire violations (both of which Armenia and Artsakh have
repeatedly agreed to) would be a positive step forward, and the US can
spearhead those initiatives within the Minsk Group co-chairmanship
framework. Reinstatement of the Artsakh Republic representation at
the negotiations table is also imperative, as no durable peace is
possible without the involvement of the people affected the most.

The US needs to play an active role in the mediation process, together
with the other co-chair countries. But a final agreement to end
the Artsakh conflict cannot be imposed from the outside and needs
to be reached by the three parties themselves exclusively through
peaceful means.

Vilen Khlgatyan is vice-chairman of Political Developments Research
Center (PDRC), a virtual think tank based in Yerevan, Armenia.

Armen Sahakyan is executive director of the Eurasian Research and
Analysis (ERA) Institute (Washington, D.C. branch) and an analyst
of Eurasian Affairs at PDRC. He previously served as an adviser to
the Permanent Representative of the Republic of Armenia to the UN in
New York.

THERE IS NO AL-SHAM

Foreign Policy Magazine
June 18 2014

Militants in Iraq and Syria are trying to re-create a nation that
never existed.

BY Nick Danforth, a doctoral candidate in Turkish history at Georgetown
University. He writes about Middle Eastern history, politics, and
maps at midafternoonmap.com.

Over the past few years, as Syria has dissolved into warring fiefdoms
and Iraq has struggled to emerge from its disastrous civil war,
American commentators have listed the many failings of the Sykes-Picot
Agreement, upon which the Middle East’s state system was based. The
1916 arrangement divided the Ottoman Empire’s dominions in the
Arab world into British and French “zones of influence,” laying the
foundation for the region’s modern borders. The intense criticism of
Sykes-Picot has provoked a backlash of sorts, as some analysts have
suggested that piling blame on the agreement has distracted from what
has really ailed the Middle East in the post-colonial period.

After capturing Mosul, Iraq, the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham
(ISIS) announced “the beginning of the end of the Sykes Picot
agreement,” as the Guardian put it. The arrival of better-armed critics
of the agreement seemed to herald a fundamental transformation of
the Middle East’s borders — but behind ISIS’s recent success lie a
number of ironies inherent in both the group’s rhetoric and our own
assumptions about the Middle East.

For all the imagination with which we’ve mentally remapped the region,
we remain strangely wedded to the notion that political upheaval
could reveal a new, more authentic set of Middle Eastern borders —
based on ethnic and sectarian divisions, perhaps, or the re-emergence
of some pre-imperialist geography. But recent developments suggest
that if things do change dramatically, force and chance will play
a greater role in determining what happens next than demography,
geography, or history.

Consider the moniker “Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham.” Both Iraq
and al-Sham are place names with their own historical and political
cachet, but it’s telling that ISIS’s leadership couldn’t come up with
a single geographical term to describe its current area of operations.

Al-Sham — which has sometimes been translated as Syria, though
perhaps “Greater Syria” or “the Levant” gives a clearer sense of the
geography — was most recently the name of an Ottoman province based
in Damascus. Iraq, by contrast, was a geographical term that came
into its own with the arrival of the British in the 1920s.

Operating on the sound logic of opportunism, ISIS is claiming to
unite two regions that even the first opponents of the European
mandate system were content to treat as separate.

Operating on the sound logic of opportunism, ISIS is claiming to
unite two regions that even the first opponents of the European
mandate system were content to treat as separate. In the immediate
aftermath of World War I, some of the earliest Arab nationalists came
together in defense of a state covering the entire Levant. When Faisal,
champion of the Arab revolt and later king of Iraq, proclaimed in
1920 a short-lived Arab Kingdom based in Damascus, he imagined its
territory stretching from the Taurus Mountains in southern Turkey to
the Sinai Peninsula, but not east into Iraq.

The fate of subsequent plans to bring together Iraq and Syria is also
telling. After World War II, the Hashemite rulers of Jordan and Iraq
expressed interest in various schemes for uniting the region. Syria’s
leaders, unsurprisingly, thought that they would lose out in this
arrangement, which came to naught anyway when Iraq’s army ousted its
Hashemite king, alleging among other things that he was a British
puppet.

Subsequently, the rise of secular-socialist Baath parties in both
Iraq and Syria seemed to offer grounds for unification — but power
politics and the intricacies of Baathist ideology almost immediately
created a newfound hostility between Damascus and Baghdad.

Syria’s attempt to unite with Egypt under the banner of Arab
nationalism was no more successful.

ISIS, which now finds itself allied with Sunni Baathists in Iraq while
fighting to the death against Alawite Baathists in Syria, is no more
likely to triumph over regional particularism than the regimes that
came before it. Instead, the most enduring link between Iraq and Syria
today might be the millions of refugees who, over the past decade, have
crossed and recrossed the border fleeing violence in both directions.

Dreams of transnational unification aside, one of the most striking
historical precedents for the area ISIS controlled before last week
was the far older division between the settled and nomadic parts of
the Middle East. A fascinating Ottoman map from World War I describes
as “Syrian” the inhabitants of the western agricultural region that
includes all of Syria’s major cities, while those living farther east
in the desert are “Arabs.” British geography texts from the same period
show the same division, in this case between settled “Ottomans” and
wandering Arabs who lived in the empty space between Iraq and Syria.

As a result, the territory separating Iraq and Syria was never of
much importance to the creators of the Sykes-Picot system. At its
southern end, this border crosses a stretch of desert that Ottoman and
Western cartographers often left blank. The relatively more populous
stretch of the border that ISIS’s new pseudo-state straddles made up
the Ottoman province of Deir ez-Zor, best known today as the place
Ottoman Armenians were sent to die of thirst in 1915.

Subsequently, when the British and French carved up the region,
it was at least a decade before they bothered to properly demarcate
this border. The matter was seemingly of so little consequence that
the European powers left it up to a League of Nations commission. The
result, complete with thalwegs, trigonometric points, and boundary
stones, must have seemed particularly arbitrary to the tribes whose
territory spread across it — but it also might not have mattered
that much. Throughout the colonial period, the tribes’ transborder
grazing and watering practices continued unchanged.

In short, ISIS has so far succeeded not by remaking the state system
but by operating, like many guerrilla groups before it, from the
ungoverned areas between existing states.

In short, ISIS has so far succeeded not by remaking the state system
but by operating, like many guerrilla groups before it, from the
ungoverned areas between existing states.

The backlash provoked by ISIS’s brutal tactics and rapid success also
reveals the limits of conceiving of the Middle East along ethnic and
sectarian lines. The group’s religious extremism has alienated even
its most radical Sunni allies in the fight against Syrian President
Bashar al-Assad and has driven half a million Iraqis out of Mosul.

Syrians and Iraqis alike have deployed the language of nationalism
to denounce ISIS fighters as foreign interlopers in their territory,
while Iraqi Shiites are now all the more likely to see Iranian troops
on their soil as coreligionists instead of Persian invaders.

Indeed, ISIS has inspired an unprecedented degree of consensus between
Turks, Kurds, Iraqis, and Iranians on the need to defeat the jihadi
group. With ISIS taking 49 people hostage after overrunning Turkey’s
consulate in Mosul, Turkish commentators reminded readers that their
prime minister’s piety would not keep Turkey on the group’s good side.

Violent chaos on Turkey’s southern border has also been an added factor
behind the Turkish government’s ongoing effort to make peace with the
country’s Kurdish minority. Although agonizingly slow and beset with
false steps, this initiative has nonetheless brought Turkey closer
than ever before to ending decades of internal violence and securing
its territorial integrity.

At the same time, ISIS’s rise has strengthened the hand of Iraq’s
Kurds. The Kurdish Peshmerga has taken control of Kirkuk, but rather
than trigger a civil war with Iraq’s central government — as it
likely would have in the past — Baghdad remains at least temporarily
dependent on the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG)’s cooperation. Of
all the region’s actors, the KRG now stands perhaps the best chance
of having its independence recognized.

Yes, this is a tribute to the power of Kurdish nationalism in
overcoming intra-Kurdish political differences. But it’s also a tribute
to the KRG’s pragmatism. For over a decade, it has built a functioning
state by, among other things, cooperating with Turkey instead of making
any effort to liberate what, in the Kurdish post-Sykes-Picot fantasy,
would be Northern Kurdistan.

The KRG’s coming challenges, however, offer one more testament to
why redrawing borders along ethnic lines remains an ugly, impractical
business. If Kurdish forces hope to maintain a firm hold on Kirkuk,
they will have to show they can provide security for all the city’s
inhabitants — not just ethnic Kurds. Once again, the prevailing
approach to drawing the borders of modern states — basing them on
ethnic identity or historical claims – will be shown to make little
sense. It’s an old story: Try to figure out how to adjudicate between
proponents of Kurdistan and Greater Armenia, say, with reference to
these maximalist maps of Armenian- and Kurdish-inhabited territory
in Anatolia. (Too easy? Try it with Assyrian claims as well.)

Of course, the alternative of simply deferring to precedent and
affirming existing borders is often just as illogical. There are plenty
of excellent reasons for defending Ukraine’s territorial integrity
against Russian aggression — but it’s still awkward that the country
took on its present shape when Joseph Stalin gave it a large chunk of
what was once Poland. Or consider Saddam Hussein’s selectivity when he
justified his invasion of Kuwait by accusing the British of stealing it
from Iraq — without ever thanking them for putting together the rest
of his country. More recently, efforts to determine the exact frontier
between Sudan and South Sudan stumbled when, after searching libraries
in Khartoum, Cairo, and London, no one could find any maps showing
in detail the provincial borders that the British drew a century ago.

Ironically, the most successful effort yet at eliminating outdated
borders drawn by 19th-century Europeans remains the European Union.

And that consensus only emerged from the belated realization that
a century of fighting over the continent’s true borders hadn’t done
anyone any good.

Sadly, the EU’s gilded dysfunction remains more than the Middle East
can hope for in the near future. But the EU’s fundamental insight
remains sound: If we are going to discuss the end of Sykes-Picot,
let’s first recognize that — no matter how little sense those borders
make — none of the alternatives are intrinsically more sensible.

GEORGIAN, ARMENIAN PRESIDENTS AGREE TO STEP UP TRADE, ECONOMIC COOPERATION

ITAR-TASS, Russia
June 18, 2014 Wednesday 07:29 PM GMT+4

TBILISI June 18

– Georgian President Georgy Margvelashvili and his Armenian counterpart
Serzh Sargsyan have agreed to step up the work of the intergovernmental
commission on trade and economic cooperation.

The presidents of both countries “called for using the potential
of trade and economic cooperation”, Sargsyan told a news briefing
on Wednesday.

“Armenia and Georgia develop active cooperation in transport, energy,
tourism, agriculture and other fields,” he said.

“We believe that there is the potential for using the existing
possibilities in the sphere,” Sargsyan said.

As part of the two-day visit to Tbilisi Sargsyan met with Georgian
parliament speaker David Usupashvili. He will confer with Georgian
Prime Minister Irakly Garibashvili on Thursday, June 19.

Armenia attaches much importance to strengthening good-neighbourly
relations with Georgia.

Armenia has no common border with Russia and it has no access to the
sea. Russia and other countries supply grain, petroleum and other
cargoes to Georgia’s Black Sea ports of Poti and Batumi. Then cargoes
are delivered to Armenia by railways or by motor transport via Georgia.

Tourism is the major sphere of cooperation between Armenia and
Georgia. Georgia’s geographical location and accessible prices attract
Armenian citizens for holidaying on the Black Sea coast. Over 1.2
million Armenian citizens visited Georgia in 2013.

CALIFORNIA: AB-1915 PUPIL INSTRUCTION: SOCIAL SCIENCES: ARMENIAN GENOCIDE.

US Official News
June 18, 2014 Wednesday

Sacramento

Office of the Senate, The State of California has issued the following
news release:

AB 1915, as amended, Nazarian. Pupil instruction: social sciences:
Armenian Genocide.

Existing law requires the adopted course of study for grades 7 to 12,
inclusive, to offer courses in specified areas of study, including
social sciences. Existing law requires the instruction in social
studies to provide instruction in, among other things, human rights
issues, with particular attention to the study of the inhumanity of
genocide, slavery, and the Holocaust.

This bill would enact the Armenian Genocide Education Act and would
require the instruction in human rights issues to also include
particular attention to the study of the inhumanity of the Armenian
Genocide, as defined. To the extent this bill would increase the
level of service required to be provided by school districts, the
bill would impose a state-mandated local program.

Existing law requires the State Department of Education to incorporate
materials relating to civil rights, human rights violations, genocide,
slavery, and the Holocaust into publications that provide examples
of curriculum resources, consistent with the subject frameworks on
history and social science and other requirements. Under existing law,
the Legislature encourages the incorporation of survivor, rescuer,
liberator, and witness testimony into the teaching of human rights,
genocide, and the Holocaust. Existing law establishes the Instructional
Quality Commission and requires the commission to, among other things,
recommend curriculum frameworks to the State Board of Education.

This bill would also encourage the department to incorporate materials
related to the Armenian, Cambodian, Darfur, and Rwandan genocides into
those publications, and would require the commission to consider the
Armenian, Cambodian, Darfur, and Rwandan genocides for inclusion in the
history-social science curriculum framework when the history-social
science curriculum framework is revised as required by law. The bill
would also specify that the Legislature encourages the incorporation of
survivor, rescuer, liberator, and witness testimony into the teaching
of human rights, the Holocaust, and genocide, including the Armenian,
Cambodian, Darfur, and Rwandan genocides.

The California Constitution requires the state to reimburse local
agencies and school districts for certain costs mandated by the state.

Statutory provisions establish procedures for making that
reimbursement.

This bill would provide that, if the Commission on State Mandates
determines that the bill contains costs mandated by the state,
reimbursement for those costs shall be made pursuant to these statutory
provisions.

Digest Key Vote: MAJORITY Appropriation: NO Fiscal Committee: YES
Local Program: YES Bill Text The people of the State of California
do enact as follows:

SECTION 1.

This act shall be known, and may be cited, as the Armenian Genocide
Education Act.

SEC. 2.

Section 51220 of the Education Code is amended to read:

51220.

The adopted course of study for grades 7 to 12, inclusive,
shall offer courses in the following areas of study: (a) English,
including knowledge of and appreciation for literature, language,
and composition, and the skills of reading, listening, and speaking.

(b) Social sciences, drawing upon the disciplines of anthropology,
economics, geography, history, political science, psychology, and
sociology, designed to fit the maturity of the pupils. Instruction
shall provide a foundation for understanding the history, resources,
development, and government of California and the United States of
America; instruction in our American legal system, the operation of
the juvenile and adult criminal justice systems, and the rights and
duties of citizens under the criminal and civil law and the State and
Federal Constitutions; the development of the American economic system,
including the role of the entrepreneur and labor; the relations of
persons to their human and natural environment; eastern and western
cultures and civilizations; human rights issues, with particular
attention to the study of the inhumanity of genocide, slavery, the
Armenian Genocide, and the Holocaust, and contemporary issues.

(c) Foreign language or languages, beginning not later than grade 7,
designed to develop a facility for understanding, speaking, reading,
and writing the particular language.

(d) Physical education, with emphasis given to physical activities
that are conducive to health and to vigor of body and mind, as required
by Section 51222.

(e) Science, including the physical and biological aspects, with
emphasis on basic concepts, theories, and processes of scientific
investigation and on the place of humans in ecological systems, and
with appropriate applications of the interrelation and interdependence
of the sciences.

(f) Mathematics, including instruction designed to develop mathematical
understandings, operational skills, and insight into problem-solving
procedures.

(g) Visual and performing arts, including dance, music, theater, and
visual arts, with emphasis upon development of aesthetic appreciation
and the skills of creative expression.

(h) Applied arts, including instruction in the areas of consumer and
homemaking education, industrial arts, general business education,
or general agriculture.

(i) Career technical education designed and conducted for the purpose
of preparing youth for gainful employment in the occupations and in
the numbers that are appropriate to the personnel needs of the state
and the community served and relevant to the career desires and needs
of the pupils.

(j) Automobile driver education, designed to develop a knowledge
of the provisions of the Vehicle Code and other laws of this state
relating to the operation of motor vehicles, a proper acceptance
of personal responsibility in traffic, a true appreciation of the
causes, seriousness, and consequences of traffic accidents, and to
develop the knowledge and attitudes necessary for the safe operation
of motor vehicles. A course in automobile driver education shall
include education in the safe operation of motorcycles.

(k) Other studies as may be prescribed by the governing board.

SEC. 3.

Section 51226.3 of the Education Code is amended to read:

51226.3.

(a) (1) The department shall incorporate into publications that
provide examples of curriculum resources for teacher use those
materials developed by publishers of nonfiction, trade books, and
primary sources, or other public or private organizations, that
are age-appropriate and consistent with the subject frameworks on
history and social science that deal with civil rights, human rights
violations, genocide, slavery, and the Holocaust.

(2) The Legislature encourages the department to incorporate into
publications that provide examples of curriculum resources for teacher
use those materials developed by publishers of nonfiction, trade books,
and primary sources, or other public or private organizations, that
are age-appropriate and consistent with the subject frameworks on
history and social science that deal with the Armenian, Cambodian,
Darfur, and Rwandan genocides.

(b) The Legislature encourages the incorporation of survivor, rescuer,
liberator, and witness testimony into the teaching of human rights, the
Holocaust, and genocide, including, but not limited to, the Armenian,
Cambodian, Darfur, and Rwandan genocides.

(c) The Legislature encourages all state and local professional
development activities to provide teachers with content background
and resources to assist them in teaching about civil rights, human
rights violations, genocide, slavery, the Armenian Genocide, and
the Holocaust.

(d) The Legislature encourages all state and local professional
development activities to provide teachers with content background
and resources to assist them in teaching about the Great Irish Famine
of 1845-50.

(e) The Great Irish Famine of 1845-50 shall be considered in the next
cycle in which the history-social science curriculum framework and
its accompanying instructional materials are adopted.

(f) When the history-social science curriculum framework is revised as
required by law, the Instructional Quality Commission shall consider
including the Armenian, Cambodian, Darfur, and Rwandan genocides in
the history-social science curriculum framework.

(g) The Model Curriculum for Human Rights and Genocide adopted by the
state board, pursuant to Section 51226, shall be made available to
schools in grades 7 to 12, inclusive, as soon as funding is available
for this purpose. In addition, the department shall make the curriculum
available on its Internet Web site.

(h) For purposes of this article, “Armenian Genocide” means the
torture, starvation, and murder of 1,500,000 Armenians, which included
death marches into the Syrian desert, by the rulers of the Ottoman
Turkish Empire and the exile of more than 500,000 innocent people
during the period from 1915 to 1923, inclusive.

SEC. 4.

If the Commission on State Mandates determines that this act contains
costs mandated by the state, reimbursement to local agencies and school
districts for those costs shall be made pursuant to Part 7 (commencing
with Section 17500) of Division 4 of Title 2 of the Government Code.

For further information please visit:

RUSSIA ASSURES AZERBAIJAN ON EXCLUSION OF ARTSAKH IN CUSTOMS UNION

Wednesday, June 18th, 2014

Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov (left) and Russian
Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov at a press conference in Baku

BAKU–Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov is on an official visit
to Baku to discuss bilateral relations.

Lavrov met his Azerbaijani counterpart Elmar Mammadyarov on Wednesday.

Addressing a briefing held after the meeting, Lavrov said cooperation
between Azerbaijan and Russia is developing intensively not only on
a bilateral but also on a regional level.

“The talks were useful,” the Russian foreign minister said. “We
develop relationships based on friendship and mutual understanding.

During the past year, our most intense exchange of delegations has
taken place with Azerbaijan.”

Lavrov said the Russian-Azerbaijani forum will be held in the near
future with the participation of over 200 representatives of Russian
businessmen. He noted that the humanitarian forum will also be held
under the patronage of the two countries’ presidents in October, 2014.

Mammadyarov, in turn, said relations between Azerbaijan and Russia
are strategic. He also added that the trade turnover between the two
countries is increasing.

Touching upon the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, Lavrov said the OSCE Minsk
Group is trying to promote the initiatives that have been previously
reached by the presidents of the two countries.

Lavrov also emphasized that Armenia will join the Eurasian Economic
Union according to borders recognized by the UN. Earlier, Armenian
President Serzh Sarkisian told local media that the country will
join the organization within the borders recognized by Armenia. He
made the remarks in response to recent statements by Kazakh President
Nursultan Nazarbayev.

“Integration processes are carried out on the territory of the member
countries of the Customs Union. Nagorno-Karabakh is not one of them,
but is the subject of negotiations, which are being held on the basis
of agreed principles,” the Russian minister added.

Lavrov added that Armenia has previously stated that it is involved
in the integration processes within the UN-recognized borders.

“The same thing will happen within the Eurasian process,” he said,
adding that Russia as the co-chair of the OSCE Minsk Group will
continue to facilitate the resolution of the conflict in a peaceful
way.

Touching upon the prospects of Azerbaijan’s accession to the Eurasian
Union, Lavrov said Azerbaijan had not received an official invitation
to join the organization. He added however that Moscow has always
been glad to see its partners showing interest in the Eurasian space.

Mammadyarov, in turn, commented on a meeting of the presidents of
Azerbaijan and Armenia in the near future.

“There is a proposal from French President Francois Hollande for
holding a meeting between presidents of Azerbaijan and Armenia. We
are now waiting for a response from France on the organization of
this meeting,” Azerbaijan’s foreign minister said.

Mammadyarov further said Russian State Duma Speaker Sergei Naryshkin
and Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin will visit Azerbaijan
by the end of the year, adding that relations between Russia and
Azerbaijan are developing in a positive way.

“We consider Azerbaijan as a serious partner in the South Caucasus.

The country is interested in deepening bilateral relations. After
last year’s visit of Russian President Vladimir Putin to Azerbaijan,
the relations have expanded,” Lavrov underscored.

ACTIVISTS FROM “OUT OF OUR POCKET” CIVIC INITIATIVE DEMAND CANCELLATION OF PAID STREET PARKING SYSTEM

YEREVAN, June 18. / ARKA /. Young activists from a new civic initiative
called “Out of Our Pocket” staged a protest today in front of the
government demanding that the authorities cancel paid street parking
system in the capital city.

“We believe that paid street parking is illegal and we demand that the
government cancels it,” Artashes Misakyan, one of the young activists,
told reporters.

He downplayed a municipality decision to extend the free parking time
in Yerevan from 5 to 15 minutes, saying the system must be eliminated
altogether.

He said they demand also that the authorities cut the sizes of
fines for various traffic rules violations recorded by speed cameras
installed along the roads in the city and outside it as well as an
amnesty for all previously fined drivers. He said on June 19 the
civic initiative will reiterate its demands.

Fees from parking spaces on busy streets across the Armenian capital
are collected by Parking City Service, which together with Lokator
company won a tender announced by the municipality. Parking City
Service pledged to invest $10 million in preparing paid parking spaces
for 20,000 cars.

It is also installing surveillance cameras that are used for charging
drivers 100 drams (25 U.S. cents) per hour, 500 drams per day, 1000
drams per week, 2000 drams per month and 12,000 drams per year. Thirty
percent of the revenues go to the municipality. ($ 1 – 410.61 drams).

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– See more at:

PM: GOVERNMENT STARTED TO REHABILITATE INFRASTRUCTURE IN KASSAB TOWN

Jun 18, 2014

Damascus, (SANA) – Prime Minister, Dr. Wael al-Halaqi, stressed that
the government has started repairing the infrastructure in Kassab city
to facilitate the return of families to their houses, pointing out that
the Syrian people will achieve victory and reconstruct Syria thanks
to their unity and determination to carry out national recon citations.

During the weekly session of the Cabinet, the prime minister noted
that the government’s priotiy in the current and upcoming stage
is rehabilitating the public industrial, agricultural, service and
administrative sectors and enhancing the capabilities of the private
sector, in addition to encouraging Syrian businessmen inside and
outside Syria to invest in their homeland.

The ministers presented their proposals about the positive government
interference in the market to control prices and secure goods for
citizens.

Deputy Prime Minister, Foreign and Expatriates Minister, Walid
al-Moallem, presented a political review of the Syrian situation
and the importance of assembling the capacities of the homeland to
confront all challenges.

The cabinet approved a draft law to establish a syndicate for workers
in financial and accounting jobs based in Damascus.

The cabinet also approved another draft law concerning the Public
Housing Establishment.

Granting licenses to new mobile telecommunications companies were
also discussed during the cabinet’s session.

F.Allafi

‘AZERBAIJAN HAS IMPORTANT STATUS IN IRAN’S FOREIGN POLICY’ POLITICAL DESK

On Line: 18 June 2014 16:14
In Print: Thursday 19 June 2014

TEHRAN – Iranian First Vice President Es’haq Jahangiri has said
that Tehran attaches great importance to relations with neighboring
countries and Azerbaijan has an important status in this respect.

Jahangiri made the remarks during a meeting with Azeri Minister of
Communications and Information Technologies Ali Abbasov in Tehran
on Wednesday.

He said cultural, religious and historical affinities between Iran
and Azerbaijan have paved the way for expansion of fraternal relations.

He stated that it is necessary to take steps to increase economic
interactions between the two neighbors.

Jahangiri added that Azeri President Ilham Aliyev’s trip to Iran
opened new chapter in relations.

In April, the Azeri president made a trip to Iran during which
three memorandums of understanding and one agreement for bilateral
cooperation were signed.

For his part, Abbasov praised Iran for its stance toward the
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

Abbasov described his visits with Iranian officials as positive and
said that an Azeri private sector delegation will hold talks with
their Iranian counterparts to study expansion of economic cooperation.

He went on to say that a joint economic committee’s meeting will be
held in near future, expressing hope that it would help promotion of
economic interactions.

NA/PA

ARMENIAN CATHOLICOS AND GERMAN MP CONFER ON CHURCH-STATE RELATIONS

June 18, 2014 | 13:53

Catholicos of All Armenians Karekin II on Wednesday received, at the
Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin, a delegation led by Germany Bundestag
(Parliament) member, Dr. Martin Patzold.

Karekin II attested to the friendly and cordial relations between
the two peoples, and the cooperation between the two countries.

In the ensuing talk, the Catholicos reflected on the historic role
which the Armenian Church has played in the national and spiritual
life of the Armenian nation.

Speaking on the difficulties which the Armenian Church has faced
throughout history, Karekin II specifically pointed to the dire losses
which the Armenian nation and Church have suffered as a result of the
Armenian Genocide. In this connection, the Catholicos expressed the
hope that in 2015, when the Armenians will commemorate the centennial
of the Genocide, international community will support the Armenian
people in the Genocide’s international recognition and condemnation.

The interlocutors also discussed Church-state relations, the Church
engagement in societal life, the activities of a variety of religious
currents and organizations, the socioeconomic life in Armenia, and
the challenges which the Armenian people face.

News from Armenia – NEWS.am

ORIENTALIST: SECURITY OF KESSAB’S ARMENIANS IS FULLY ENSURED WITHIN THE SHORT-TERM OUTLOOK

Tuesday, June 17, 17:37

The security of Kessab’s Armenians is fully ensured within the
short-term outlook, Ruben Safrastyan, Head of the Institute of
Oriental Studies, National Academy of Sciences of Armenia, said at
a press conference on Tuesday.

“I think the Armenians of Keesab will start returning home now. The
militants have destroyed the town but it can be restored”, said the
expert. He thinks that one cannot speak of long-term security, because
if the power in Syria weakens, Turks will not miss the chance to get
to Northern Syria via Latakia and to get the opportunity to control
the Mediterranean coast.

Safrastyan thinks that Ankara has failed to carry out the given plan
due to the protests and condemnation of the Kessab developments by
the international community.

To recall, on June 15 the Syrian governmental troops liberated the
Aermenian-populated town of Kessab seized by the armed Islamists on
21 March 2014.