Author: Karabekian Emil

Ukraine will not join NATO without referendum – PM Tymoshenko

18:40 | 19/ 01/ 2008

KIEV, January 19 (RIA Novosti) – A decision on whether Ukraine should
join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization will only be taken through
a referendum, the country’s prime minister said on Saturday.

On Friday members of the opposition blocked parliament’s work in
protest against the government’s efforts to gain membership in the
Western military alliance.

Yulia Tymoshenko was quoted by the government’s press service as saying
a decision on whether to join NATO "will be taken exclusively by the
Ukrainian people through a nationwide referendum."

The coalition agreement between her eponymous party and the Our
Ukraine-People’s Self-Defense Bloc stipulates that a referendum must be
held on the issue, Tymoshenko said.

On Friday Foreign Minister Volodymyr Ohryzko handed a request for Kiev
to join NATO’S Membership Action Plan to the alliance’s secretary
general, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer.

Another former Soviet state, Georgia, held a referendum on NATO
membership on January 5. An overwhelming 77% voted in favor of joining
the alliance.

Daily Times, Pakistan
Jan 20 2008

BOOK REVIEW: Russia’s conquest of Azerbaijan by Khaled Ahmed

On the Religious Frontier: Tsarist Russia and Islam in the Caucasus
By Firouzeh Mostashari
IB Tauris 2006
Pp203; Price £45
Available in bookstores in Pakistan

The Brits did not come to settle in India. A few thousand ran India
and got Indians to help them in administration, but in the Caucasus
ordinary Russians migrated and became the `privileged’ lower classes
over the local lower classes but not over the local elites. Thus when
`revolution’ came to the region, it came with the Russians, and the
Azerbaijani intelligentsia gravitated to it

The book is actually about how the Russians separated a part of
Azerbaijan from Persia and later incorporated it into the Soviet
Union. Under the tsars, the policy was to advance towards the
Caucasus as a kind of civilising mission, a Toynbean formulation of
acceptance of `challenge’ that raises nations to empires, which the
Americans did too in regard to the Red Indians. In actual fact, it
was Russia’s encounter with Islam because the varieties of Christian
faith encountered in Armenia and Georgia were more easily subsumed in
the Orthodox Church and their elites accepted into the Court in St
Petersberg. There was also the long-drawn out war with Turkey with
whom the Muslims of Caucasia identified.

Russia looked at its southern neighbourhood from a number of points
of view. They saw the Caucasus as the border across which other
Europeans were making their colonial encroachments. It also saw the
`savage’ people living there as a challenge for the civilising spirit
of a new Russia given birth by Peter the Great. Orientalists stoked
the imagination as usual and the initial expertise on Muslim Asia was
not very enlightened. For instance, they saw the Caucasian Muslims
from the prism of their relations with Turkey, feeling threatened by
them when the relations were bad and romanticising them when they
were good.

Orientalist N Dubrovin for example thought that Sunnis were good
because they believed they had to obey whoever was in power over them
provided he let them practise shariat. The Shiites were rated `bad’
and as enemies by him because they wanted the tsar to be a Muslim
before they could accept him. This applied to the Transcaucasian
Azerbaijan where the khanates were Turkic but Shiite. The 19th
century Russian orientalists dubbed the Muslims as Tatars,
stereotyping them as lazy, dishonest and conniving. Dubrovin recalls
early British assessment of the Afghan Pakhtun when he sees them
`spending all their time idly when not stealing their neighbour’s
horse’.

Just as the Americans grabbed land belonging to the Red Indians,
Russians first diagnosed the Transcaucasus as `turbulent frontier’,
then set about evolving policy to pacify it. The invasion began in
1804 and ended in 1828 leading to wars with Persia which owned the
region and gave it the honour of deriving its Turkic crown prince
from it. What they invaded were the khanates owing allegiance to the
Persian Shah. The khanates made their job easy by pursuing
internecine quarrels just like the Indian princes did when East India
Company arrived in India. The Gulistan Treaty, which Russia signed
with a defeated Persia in 1813, made over the khanates of Karabakh,
Ganje, Sheki, Shirvan, Derbent and Kuba to Russia, precisely the
region which is today known as Azerbaijan.

Generals ruled the region thereafter with General Ermolov becoming
the virtual ruler, alternating policies of localism with those of
extreme cruelty with great poets like Pushkin immortalising them in
their poetry. The second Russo-Persian War (1826-28) ended in the
Turkmanchai Treaty which gave Russia the khanates of Nakhichevan and
Erevan (later to be the capital of Armenian Soviet Republic) to
complete the laying down of Russia’s boundary with Persia. Defeated
Persia paid war indemnities and gave Russians exclusive rights of
navigation in the Caspian Sea. It also gave Russia the first
extraterritorial rights on its soil, thus accepting its hegemony.

The next governor in the person of General Vorontsov in 1845 was a
Russian hero of the Napoleonic wars. What the region got in the shape
of administration was his gradualist assimilatory policy towards the
conquered territory. His policy it was that sought to integrate the
Caucasian elites into the Russian upper crust in St Petersberg. He
gave land rights to the old elites and allowed landlords to become
civil servants in the Russian government. This pattern became
dominant in the decades to come till the rising Azerbaijani
intelligentsia began to mimic everything Russian, only to become
involved in the struggle for independence and rights later on, more
or less in the same process that was followed by the intelligentsia
in India.

The Brits did not come to settle in India. A few thousand ran India
and got Indians to help them in administration, but in the Caucasus
ordinary Russians migrated and became the `privileged’ lower classes
over the local lower classes but not over the local elites. Thus when
`revolution’ came to the region, it came with the Russians, and the
Azerbaijani intelligentsia gravitated to it. All over Central Asia,
the same kind of development among the local educated class took
place with many sacrifices that the Soviet Union later celebrated.
Hasan Beg Zardabi, HZA Taghiev, Nariman Narimanov and Ali Mardan
Topchibashov led literary and social movements that finally joined
the larger Soviet revolutionary stream in later times.

The anti-colonial backlash in Azerbaijan developed on the basis of
the colonial experience, just as in India the anti-British reaction
most effectively came from the westernised elite. The Russian
intelligentsia was struggling against the tsarist regime for a long
time and it often found itself in solidarity with the Muslims of the
borderlands. The chemistry was bilateral as both wanted strength from
each other. But the Azerbaijani intelligentsia lost its moorings in
the Islamic roots as it advanced towards the modernist concept of
human rights rather than the sharia. This had a long term consequence
after 1991 when the Soviet Union broke up and Azerbaijan found itself
a free republic.

The pan-Islamic vision came from the Caucasus and was centred on the
Khilafat of Turkey, but the leaders who thought of a global Muslim
community were from the Crimean Tatars who actually thought of
pan-Turkism and were not clerical in their outlook. In India it
appealed only to the clergy and Congress and it swayed all the
Muslims. Today the people of Azerbaijan are spiritually separated
from Iran by the weight of their modernist association with the
Soviet Union even though the new Azeri nationalism is hardly
nostalgic about Soviet days.

In 1905 the Muslims of the Caucasus were holding their first Congress
to call for their rights together with the social-democrat Russians.
Religion came to the fore but the rise of the Khilafat Movement kept
Shia Azerbaijan away from it. In the First World War Russia was
arrayed against Turkey and St Petersberg was convinced that the
Caucasian Muslims would not be loyal as soldiers because of their
pro-Turkish sentiments and kept them out of the army. The nationality
policies of the Tsar and then of the Soviet Union under Stalin left a
deep impression on the Muslim consciousness in these regions. Falling
within the Russian Federation, they have not been freed as the other
Muslims living in new republics. *

Russia & CIS General Newswire
January 19, 2008 Saturday 5:07 PM MSK

Azerbaijan: 97 Azeris held prisoner after N.-Karabakh conflict

BAKU Jan 19

Azerbaijan’s State Commission for Prisoners of War, Hostages and
Missing in Action has announced that 97 Azeri citizens are held
prisoner on Azeri territories occupied in the course of the
Azeri-Armenian conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh.

Also, 4,354 Azeris have been declared missing after the conflict and
783 of them are considered to have been taken either prisoner or
hostage, the commission said on its website.

In this number, 3,503 are known to be servicemen and 841 are known to
be civilians. It is unclear whether the remaining 10 are servicemen
or civilians, the commission said.

The commission said 550 people had died from various causes while in
captivity and that 1,393 had been released from captivity.

STREET IN FRENCH LYON TO BE NAMED AFTER HRANT DINK

ARMENPRESS
Jan 17 2007

YEREVAN, JANUARY 17, ARMENPRESS: A street in France’s second largest
city of Lyon will be named after Hrant Dink, a prominent Turkish
Armenian journalist killed a year ago outside the office of his
bilingual Agos weekly in Istanbul.

Ms. Hilda Choboyan, chairwoman of the European Armenian Federation
for Justice, said to Armenpress the ceremony will be attended by
Lyon mayor.

She said commemorative events will be held also in many European
cities on January 19, which will mark the first anniversary of Dink’s
murder. One of the events will be held in the Dutch city of Assen’s
De Boskampe cemetery near a monument to the victims of the Armenian
genocide.

In a related event the International Press Institute (IPI), the global
network of editors, media executives and leading journalists in over
120 countries, criticized in an open letter the ongoing failure of
the Turkish government to reform the internationally denounced article
301 of the Turkish penal code.

IPI recognized Hrant Dink last year as World Press Freedom Hero.

"Article 301, which criminalizes ‘insults to Turkishness’, has serious
ramifications for freedom of speech in Turkey," said David Dadge,
IPI Director.

"By silencing speech on certain issues, the article risks fuelling
hatred and violence in Turkish society.

Bearing in mind that Dink was murdered by a Turkish nationalist,
it is possible that his murderer felt in some way justified by the
fact that Dink had broken this pernicious law. Indeed, it is likely
that he may have become a target in the first place due to the high
profile nature of the trial."

"For this reason, article 301 may encourage a vicious cycle of
violence, leaving those brave enough to speak out on taboo subjects
in Turkey isolated and possibly in grave danger."

The IPI strongly urged the government of Turkey to ensure that article
301 is repealed, along with other articles in the Turkish penal code
which inhibit freedom of expression and which do not conform to the
standards expected of a modern democracy.

MELKONIAN COLLEGE SHOULD BE REOPENED

AZG Armenian Daily
18/01/2008

Similar statement made Cyprus’ presidential candidate
Iyohanis Casulides Nikosia while meeting with local Armenian
community. Casulides mentioned that not only Armenians but also others
should be proud of having a college like Melkonian College.

RUSSIAN COMPANY TAKES OVER ARMENIAN RAILWAY
By Shakeh Avoyan

Radio Liberty, Czech Republic
Jan 16 2008

Russia’s state-run railway operator formally took over the long-term
management of Armenia’s rail network on Wednesday, pledging to
give it a new lease of life with hundreds of millions of dollars
in investments.

Transport and Communications Minister Andranik Manukian signed a
30-year management contract with Vladimir Yakunin, the visiting chief
executive of the Russian Railways company, after officially declaring
the latter the winner of an international tender.

The Russians, who have the option of extending the deal by another 20
years, are to make a one-off payment of $5.5 million to the Armenian
government and invest at least $570 million in the Armenian railway.

Of that, $220 million is supposed to be invested in the next five
years. The government will also get 2 percent of its annual operating
revenues.

Manukian said the deal is the only way to prevent the cash-strapped
and underused network from collapse. "Please understand that if we
left the railway in the current state, we would have no train fleet a
few years later," he told reporters during the signing ceremony. "And
you also know the state of rail tracks and other infrastructure."

Manukian also argued that Russian Railways’ investment commitments
exceed the $170 million minimum set by the government in its bidding
specifications. "That is why I believe we are making a very good deal,"
he said.

Under the terms of the agreement, the Russian investments will jump to
$1.8 billion if Armenia restores its rail communication with Turkey
and Azerbaijan. The sum is to total about $2.2 billion in the event
of the reopening of the Abkhaz section of Georgia’s railway linking
the region to Russia.

But Yakunin made it clear that reopening those rail links, closed in
1992-1993 because of the conflicts in Nagorno-Karabakh and Abkhazia,
is "not our job." "We are not politicians, we are railway workers,"
he said. "What we are saying is that we will do everything in our
power to help end the isolation of the Armenian railway."

According to Yakunin, Russian Railways found the Armenian rail network
to be in a better shape that it expected and is buoyed by a growing
volume of rail cargo shipments to and from Armenia. Yakunin also said
that the new network operator avoid drastically raising Armenian rail
tariffs and will seek to further boost the cargo turnover instead.

Press and Information Department
of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs
of the Republic of Armenia
Tel. + 37410 544041. ext. 202
Fax. + 37410 565601
e-mail: [email protected]
web:

On the occasion of the one-year anniversary of the assassination of Hrant
Dink, Editor of the weekly Agos newspaper of Istanbul, Minister Vartan
Oskanian wrote an opinion piece, at the request of the Agos newspaper. The
piece appeared in the Thursday, January 17 edition of Agos in Armenian and
in Turkish, and in English in the Turkish daily newspaper Today’s Zaman.

By VARTAN OSKANIAN
Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Armenia

I can confess that I have lived two deep and unforgettable shocks during my
years in this office — once in 1999 when the stability of Armenia was
threatened by gunmen and the second time last year when I received the call
that Hrant Dink had been assassinated. Both were attacks not on men, but on
ideas and values.

Hrant’s murder was an assault at democratic state-building – of the Turkish
state. His murderers took aim at his vision of a Turkey that allowed free
speech, that tolerated open discourse, and that embraced its minority
citizens, like himself.

We miss Hrant. He would come to Armenia a couple of times a year. In
September 2006, when he spoke at the third Armenia Diaspora Conference, his
message was that as members of the European family, Turkey and Armenia would
have normal relations, because even the unwilling in Turkey would be induced
to find a way to dialogue. That was music to our ears, echoing as it did our
own wishes.

He also addressed the "International Conference on the 90th Anniversary of
the Armenian Genocide" we held in Yerevan in April, 2005. Everyone respected
his ardent, reasoned plea for dialogue, for distinguishing between today’s
Turkish Republic and the perpetrators of atrocities nearly 100 years ago. He
recounted passionately how he had explained to Turkish authorities that
Armenians are looking for their roots – the same roots which the Ottoman
Empire slashed when it attempted to completely eradicate a people and tear
it away from its home, its culture and its traditions.

Each time he came to Yerevan, we would find a few minutes to talk. It was
important that I hear from him about the mood in Turkey. Hrant was the right
person to ask, because he was not just an Armenian living in Turkey. He was
proud of both his identities – Turkish and Armenian – and was insulted and
angered that while trying to reconcile them he was accused of ‘insulting
Turkishness’.

When he was first charged under Article 301 for ‘insulting Turkishness’, I
asked whether it would help if I wrote a letter or spoke publicly. He
responded confidently. "My thanks and gratitude, but right now, I’m all I
need. So help me God, I’m going to take my struggle and my rights all the
way to the end."

Later, he wondered how "On the one hand, they call for dialogue with Armenia
and Armenians, on the other hand they want to condemn or neutralize their
own citizen who is working for dialogue."

Hrant Dink was candid and courageous, but not naive. Still, he could not
have predicted this kind of ‘neutralization’. His honest and brave voice
was silenced. Worse, some saw in this assassination a clear message that the
danger they face lies deeper than a mere judicial conviction.

This message is just one of the dividends that this killing offered those
who contributed to the fanatical nationalist environment which colors
Turkish politics in and out of Turkey. The brutality, the impunity, the
violence of Hrant’s murder serves several political ends. First, it makes
Turkey less interesting for Europe, which is exactly what some in the
Turkish establishment want. Second, it scares away Armenians and other
minorities in Turkey, from pursuing their civil and human rights. Third, it
scares those bold Turks who are beginning to explore these complicated,
sensitive subjects in earnest.

In Armenia, we have insisted for more than a decade, that although we are
the victims of historical injustice, and although we are on the other side
of a border that Turkey has kept closed, we are prepared at any time for
dialogue with our neighbor on any subject, so long as there are normal
relations between us, so long as this last closed border in Europe is
opened, so long as someone on the other side wants to talk. We are ready.

A year ago, we were moved by the outpouring of fundamental, human grief at
all levels of Turkish society, especially by those who have been scared by
the demonstration of such violence on the part of an adolescent, and seen it
for what it is — the continuation of hatred and enmity into the next
generation.

Hrant Dink’s family, his colleagues at and around Agos, his friends in
Armenia and in Turkey, will find some comfort knowing that today and
tomorrow, Hrant will be remembered – by Armenians, who share his vision of
understanding and harmony among peoples, and by Turks, who share his dream
of living in peace with neighbors and with history.

PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS WILL HAVE NO IMPACT ON PROCESS OF NAGORNO
KARABAKH SETTLEMENT, MATTHEW BRYZA CONSIDERS

YEREVAN, JANUARY 15, NOYAN TAPAN. The presidential elections to be held
in Armenia and Azerbaijan will play no role in the process of Nagorno
Karabakh settlement. Matthew Bryza, the American Co-chair of the OSCE
Minsk Group, expressed such an opinion in his January 15 interview to
journalists. "I do not agree to the opinion that "the window of
possibilities" is closed. I think that if there is will in society,
that window is always open. As far as I know, all candidates for
presidency in both countries approve our actions," he said.

According to M. Bryza, in Madrid the OSCE MG Co-chairs had proposed a
new document containing the main principles of conflict settlement,
about provisions of which he exchanged opinions with the RA President
and Foreign Minister during this visit, as he had done this in Baku
before. "We should finish working out that document, though I cannot
say whether we will manage to do it before the presidential elections
to be held in Armenia. I know that both Presidents have their firm
views, however, I consider that they are ready to find common
language," he said.

M. Bryza affirmed that there are some positive shifts in the
negotiations process. "It is difficult to say whether a document will
be signed or an oral agreement will be reached between the parties this
year, but I feel a new constructive spirit. I notice that the
Presidents are very attentive to every word: it means that a serious
work is being done." Quotting Azeri President Ilham Aliyev’s statement
of the previous day that this year should be decisive for the
negotiations process, the OSCE MG American Co-chair expressed the hope
that it will be this way indeed.

The Co-chairs will visit Artsakh, in M. Bryza’s words, to get
acquainted with the situation and people better on the spot. Then they
will return to Yerevan and will leave for Baku again.

Lragir, Armenia
Jan 11 2008

FORUM OF INTELLIGENTSIA DEMANDS INVITING PRIME MINISTER’S BROTHER AND
EDITOR OF OPPOSITION NEWSPAPER

On January 11 the member of the board of the forum of intelligentsia
made an interesting statement. They referred to the news in the
December 27 issue of the Haykakan Zhamanak Newspaper that Serge
Sargsyan’s brother, Member of Parliament Sashik Sargsyan had stated
in the presence of a group of people: `We did in so many people in
parliament not to give away power that easily. If we need, we’ll do
in others.’

The board of the Forum of Intelligentsia, `indignant with this
statement’, proposes that the board of the Legitimate President 2008
civil initiative invite Member of Parliament Sashik Sargsyan and the
editor of the Haykakan Zhamanak Newspaper Nichol Pashinyan to one of
its upcoming meetings to have this information confirmed or refuted,
as well as to appeal to the Prosecutor General to bring charges
against either Sashik Sargsyan or Nichol Pashinyan.

The authors of the statement are members of the Board of the Forum of
Intelligentsia Ohan Duryan, Yervand Manaryan, Hrachia Matevosyan,
Robert Karayan.

"RUSSIAN RAILROADS" COMPANY MADE A BRILLIANT PROPOSAL, ASSURES TRANSPORT AND COMMUNICATIONS MINISTER

AZG Armenian Daily
11/01/2008

Economy

On January 8 was considered the proposal package of the "Russian
Railroads" company, the only contender for governance of the "Armenian
Railroads" governmental enterprise. The proposal package provides
for AMD 1,7 billion for the concession of "Armenian Railroads"
and $570 million investments. In 2008 $230 million are supposed to
be invested in case the railroad communications of Armenia remain
under blockade, and $2,3 billion in case the blockade is removed from
Armenia-Azerbaijan and Armenia-Turkey routes.

The proposal of the Russian company was esteemed as "brilliant". Due to
the investments of the Russian side, the Minister said, the railways,
the depots and the terminals shall be repaired and modernized. The
technical staff shall also be renewed. The agreement, which is
supposed to be signed between the Armenian Government and the
"Russian Railroads" enterprise also provides for allocation of 2%
of "Armenian Railroads" annual income to the state budget of the
Republic of Armenia. It is expected that in the 30th year of "Armenian
Roailroads" concession to the Russian company the 2% income shall
reach AMD 38 million.

The final decision of concession is to be made on January 16, 2008.

The Transportation and Communications Minister also informed that the
"Armenian Railroads" company is functioning with profit. In 2008 the
company transported 3 million tons of goods against 2,7 million tons
in 2006.