Author: Khoyetsian Rose

RA FOREIGN MINISTER MEETS WITH CO-CHAIRS OF OSCE MINSK GROUP ON
KARABAKH SETTLEMENT TODAY IN VIENNA
YEREVAN, June 8. /ARKA/. RA Foreign Minister Vardan Oskanian met with
Co-Chairs of OSCE Minsk Group on Karabakh settlement Steven Mann
(USA), Bernard Fassier (France) and Yuri Merzlyakov (Russia) today in
Vienna. According to the Press and Information Department of RA
Foreign Ministry, the participants of the meeting discussed issues of
conflict settlement, which proceeded from the approaches of Warsaw
talks of Armenian and Azeri Presidents. They also discussed the detail
of the meeting of Vardan Oskanian and Elmar Mamediarov, Armenian and
Azeri Foreign Ministers, scheduled for June 18 to be held through the
mediation of Co-Chairs.
The same day, Oskanian left on a working visit to Washington, where
his meetings with Condoleezza Rice, U.S. Secretary of State and
U.S. President’s National Security Advisor Steven Hadley. L.V.–0–

Macedonian Press Agency, Greece
June 6 2005
DECISION ON THE NEW BSTDB PRESIDENT IN THESSALONIKI NEXT MONTH
Yerevan, 6 June 2005 (15:19 UTC+2)

The crucial decision on who will be the new President of the Black
Sea Trade and Development Bank, BSTDB, will be made in Thessaloniki
in July, while the likelihood of current President Mustafa Gurdin
from Turkey to remain in his post is not ruled out.
According to a statement to MPA by BSTDB Governor Giorgos Mergos, the
boards of directors and governors will meet on July 30 and 31 to
reach a decision on who will take over the bank’s presidency for the
next term. However, he clarified that for the moment is not clear
which of the BSTDB member states will present candidates.
In the 7th Annual General Assembly meeting of the bank’s shareholders
held in Yerevan, Armenia yesterday, it was decided that Azerbaijan
will succeed Armenia in the BSTDB Board of Governors Presidency.
Also, the governors of Moldavia and Russia were elected as Board of
Governors deputy presidents for the period until the BSTDB next
general assembly meeting to take place in Baku, Azerbaijan on June
11, 2006.

Azerbaijan looks to Turkey as model for cult of dead leader
By Vincent Boland
FT
June 4 2005 03:00
Between a supermarket and a hardwarestore on a busy street close to
the centre of Baku, a poster high on an advertising hoarding provides
a glimpse of what the emerging hub of the Caspian Sea oil industry
might yet become: a country built in the image of one man.
The poster displays portraits of Heydar Aliyev, Azerbaijan’s late
president and, in the words of his son, “founder of an independent
Azeri state”, and of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, who really did create
the republic of Turkey from the ruins of the Ottoman Empire.
That the supermarket is Turkish-owned is not coincidental. The
juxtaposition of these two men is no accident either. Azerbaijan and
Turkey are bonded by ethnicity, language, religion and culture. Both
countries emerged from empires – Azerbaijan from the Soviet Union,
Turkey from its Ottoman imperial past.
Now, a growing cult of personality around Aliyev bears striking
parallels to, and may be a conscious attempt to emulate, the cult of
Ataturk, “father of the Turks”, whose legacy still resonates in his
country three generations after his death in 1938.
In Baku, signs of the emerging cult of Aliyev, who died in 2003,
are everywhere. His portrait glowers from posters at traffic
intersections. The airport, schools and factories are named after
him. His bust is in public buildings.
Last week a vast oil pipeline that is the key to Azerbaijan’s
future wealth was solemnly inaugurated as the Heydar Aliyev
Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan Oil Pipeline.
The man guiding this memorialisation of Aliyev is his son, Ilham
Aliyev, Azerbaijan’s current president. At the ceremony to open the
pipeline, Aliyev the younger gave an emotional speech in memory of
his father.
“He was the architect, the strategist of Azerbaijan,” he told
an audience that included the presidents of Turkey, Georgia and
Kazakhstan.
The old man was not present because “destiny has decided otherwise,
but his ideas are eternal for us”.
Azeris are wearily familiar with the cult of personality from their
days as citizens of the Soviet Union. According to some western
observers in Baku, they may also be torn between their Soviet and
Turkish heritage, giving the parallels between the personality cults
of Aliyev and Ataturk added potency.
Some Azeris make the comparison explicit. Samir Sharifov, executive
director of the State Oil Fund in Baku, says that, just as Ataturk
rescued Turkey from occupation and destruction after the first world
war, Aliyev saved Azerbaijan from the same fate after independence from
the Soviet Union and a war with Armenia over the disputed territory
of Nagorno Karabakh. “Heydar Aliyev did for Azerbaijan what Ataturk
did for Turkey,” he says.
Is the parallel justified? The two men could hardly be more
different. Ataturk was one of the great figures of the interwar years
in Europe, forcing Turkey to modernise and turn westward. His legacy
today is a democratic Turkey.
Aliyev was an apparatchik, the first non-Russian to head a KGB
operation in a Soviet republic (Azerbaijan), who climbed the Soviet
power apparatus to become a member of the Politburo. He was not the
first president of independent Azerbaijan, but the third, coming
to power in 1993 after internal unrest that he was instrumental in
fomenting. He changed the constitution to allow his son to succeed him.
Aliyev appears to have left Azerbaijan as a hereditary autocracy
that “he rules from beyond the grave”, as a western official in Baku
puts it.
Nasib Nassibli, director of the Foundation for Azerbaijani Studies in
Baku, points out that Aliyev could have chosen to model his country
on Turkey’s democratic system.
But, from instinct and training, “Heydar Aliyev didn’t like the Turkish
version of democracy.” What appealed, instead, was the memorialisation
of Ataturk, who has been dead for nearly 70 years but is still alive
in Turkey.
“The people of Azerbaijan need to feel that Heydar Aliyev is still
alive,” Prof Nassibli says. “Turkey has given us a very bad example.”

THE RIGHT OF LAND OF THE ARMENIANS LIVING NEAR THE BORDER OF GEORGIA IS IN DANGER
A1plus
| 15:56:46 | 03-06-2005 | Social |
The Georgian Parliament is discussing the new draft Land Code which
has been adopted by first reading.
In the draft law a number of deputies have offered to introduce a
special point. According to it, the only land-owner in the 5-kilometre
border zone can be recognized the country. If the offer is accepted,
it will have e negative effect on the grave social conditions of the
Armenians and Azeris living near the borderline.
During the first discussion of the draft law the offer has bee rejected
by the State Minister Kakha Bendukidze and a number of other deputies.
The information is provided by the agency “A-Info”.

Azeri authorities ban sale of papers in Baku city centre
Azad Azarbaycan TV, Baku
1 Jun 05
[Presenter] Baku’s Trade and Service Department has given international
organizations fresh ammunition to criticize Azerbaijan. Following
Baku metro chief Tagi Ahmadov’s example, the department has imposed
a ban on the sale of newspapers in Fountain Square [Baku city centre].
[Correspondent over video of Baku] The Trade and Service Department
has imposed a ban on the sale of newspapers and magazines in Fountain
Square and Nizami Street. Saying that over 200 people have lost their
jobs following this decision, entrepreneurs complained that employees
of the department do not produce any documents while removing the
newsstands.
[Racab Cafarov, entrepreneur] Everything else is allowed, for example,
ice-cream vendors still have licences. But the situation is difficult
when it comes to the papers. The papers are sold in the streets in
all civilized countries. We have been selling papers in these streets
for many years.
[Ibad Manafov, entrepreneur] I do not understand why only newspapers
cannot be sold in the streets. We have been selling papers to people
and paying taxes for many years. We are legal entities that pay
taxes in a simplified way. We do not understand it. I want to ask if
the department is engaged in racketeering since its employees come,
insult and beat up people and impound their items without introducing
themselves.
[Arif Asgarov, entrepreneur] My press distributing firm has been
operating in Baku for 10 years now. We have been paying taxes in time
throughout this period. We sell the best Azerbaijani magazines and
papers from Moscow and they sell very well. Most of the vendors here
are veterans of the Afghanistan war, the Karabakh war and members of
martyrs’ families.
[Correspondent] The entrepreneurs said that they had lost more than
10bn manats because of the department’s unlawful acts and use of
force while removing the newsstands.
The department’s response was brief – the department chief has issued
an instruction that no information should be given to ATV in this
regard, end quote.
Qalib Sukurov and Arif Mammadov, “Son Xabar”.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Armenian cemetery ‘was being demolished for a car park’
Cyprus Mail, Cyprus
June 1 2005
AN ARMENIAN cemetery, listed as a heritage site, was being demolished
to make way for a parking lot, Green party deputy George Perdikis
said yesterday.
The House Education Committee yesterday discussed the serious damage
caused to the Armenian cemetery near the Ledra Palace Hotel, when the
Armenian Prelature decided last month to dig up the remains and place
them in a communal pit in the new Armenian cemetery on the outskirts
of the capital.
But the move sparked outrage among the Armenian community, who saw
machinery digging indiscriminately, scattering remains all over
the place.
Interior Minister Andreas Christou suggested the procedure resembled
the digging of bunkers to place tanks inside.
Perdikis suggested a crime had been committed, despite the Armenian
Prelature’s good intentions, and claimed that the cemetery was being
demolished to make way for a parking lot.
Christou said the site had been listed since April 2, 2004 though
the Prelature claimed it had not known about it.
Neither did they know that the company, which took on the digging,
would have committed such unpleasant acts, the committee heard.
The Nicosia Municipality said the order declaring the site listed
had been published in three daily newspapers, though the owner had
not been informed in person.
Work at the cemetery had been halted after the Interior Ministry
secured an injunction. Townplanning department representative Athina
Aristotelous stressed that the workers doing the job were not skilled,
smashing the tombstones – some of which date back to the Middle Ages –
and collecting them in a heap.
The Education Committee asked the Prelature to inform them in writing
about what they were planning to do to restore the damage.

RAFFI HOVHANNISSYAN IS ELECTED CHAIRMAN OF “HERITAGE” PARTY
YEREVAN, MAY 30. ARMINFO. Raffi Hovhannissyan was elected the Chairman
of “Heritage” party at its third session, May 30.
He stated in his speech that changing status-quo at Armenia’s internal
political field is party’s priority task. In his words, the heritage
of Armenian people should be saved from representatives of present
ruling regime privatized the power and used it exceptionally in its
own interests.
Hovhannissyan stressed the necessity of overcoming the atmosphere of
distrust existing in Armenia. However, he noted that Armenian people
should not follow signals from Washington, Moscow or Europe. “We should
decide our fate by ourself without any intervention from outside”,
Hovhannissyan stated. As regards the possibility of his nomination
as a presidential contender, Hovhannissyan stressed that this matter
is not priority for him.
To note, representatives of diplomatic corps of foreign countries
accredited to Armenia, as well as leaders of all the opposition forces
(except “Armenian nation-wide movement” and “New Times”) participated
at the session. -r-

Agence France Presse — English
May 28, 2005 Saturday 3:58 PM GMT
Hundreds of thousands remember Armenia’s founding with dance around
mountain
YEREVAN
Some 200,000 Armenians gathered around Armenia’s highest mountain
Saturday to commemorate the country’s founding in 1918, dancing a
round in a chain that stretched more than 160 kilometers.
Virtually all sported an orange hat with a white bill and wore bright
clothing as they formed a chain of 163 kilometers (more than 100
miles) to dance a traditional round around Mount Aragats, 87 years to
the day Armenia was founded — among them President Robert Kocharian.
“The reestablishment of an Armenian state in 1918 was not only a
historical but also a psychological upheaval,” he said.
“The 28th of May is the festival of a people’s rebirth, a people
which was pushed to the limits of destruction,” the president told
his countrymen and -women, in a clear allusion to the massacre of
Armenians between 1915 and 1917 by the Turks — which Yerevan
qualifies as genocide but an accusation which Ankara rejects.
Several ceremonies and dances also took place in other countries with
large Armenian expatriate communities.
The ceremony was followed by a festival featuring performances by
around 200 professional dance groups.

Thousands of Armenians encircle country’s highest mountain in dance of unity
Arminfo
28 May 05
YEREVAN
A “round dance of unity” started around Armenia’s highest Mount
Aragats today.
According to the organizers’ list, 350,000 people were to participate
in the round dance, but those joining it numbered 500,000.
It had been planned that 160,000 people would be enough to hold the
round dance of unity.
The event was also joined by Armenian President Robert Kocharyan,
Nagornyy Karabakh President Arkadiy Gukasyan, Armenian government
officials led by Defence Minister Serzh Sarkisyan and members of
parliament.
The two countries’ presidents took part in the dance of unity near the
village of Artavan where they arrived by helicopter after attending a
ceremony at the historical complex of Sardarapat.
[Passage omitted: Armenians living in all foreign countries joined the
event]

EU CRITICIZES TURKEY FOR REFUSING TO HOST CONFERENCE ON ARMENIAN
GENOCIDE
YEREVAN, MAY 27. ARMINFO. The European Union has criticized the
refusal of the Turkish authorities to hold in the Istanbul first
conference on the Armenian Genocide by professor-historians of 3 three
universities.
German media report a EU high ranking diplomat as calling this an
authoritarian step actualizing the necessity of reforms in Turkey. The
Turkish government should reconsider its decision as it will hardly
facilitate Turkey’s admission into the EU.
To remind, the May 25 conference by Bosfor, Bilgi and Sabanci
universities was cancelled with Turkish Justice Minister Cemil Cicek
charging the organizers with high treason.