Author: Lilit Nahapetian

Leaders of ex-Soviet republics meet in Moscow
By HENRY MEYER
AP Worldstream
May 08, 2005
Russian President Vladimir Putin told leaders of the Commonwealth
of Independent States on Sunday that their grouping of ex-Soviet
republics remained relevant today.
“It’s precisely because of our efforts that the U.N. General Assembly
proclaimed May 8 and 9 the day of reconciliation and memory, and
called on states to unite their efforts to combat the successors of
Nazism, terrorism, and also ideological doctrines based on racism
and xenophobia,” Putin said.
“I’m convinced that the CIS is capable of becoming an effective
instrument of such … work.”
He said that six decades after the end of what Russia terms the Great
Patriotic War, the fraternity the peoples of the Soviet Union felt
as they fought in World War II was still palpable today. Maintaining
“historical unity” was a good basis for stable development of the
countries, he said.
The meeting convened amid growing questions about the viability
of the CIS, which brings together leaders of ex-Soviet republics
with increasingly diametric views of how their countries and their
region should develop following the uprisings against the entrenched
leaderships of Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan.
In a reflection of the disputes between the member-countries, two of
the leaders, Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili and Azerbaijani
President Ilham Aliev, were not attending.
Saakashvili was staying away from Sunday’s meeting, as well as Monday’s
Victory in Europe Day celebration in Moscow, because Georgia failed
to win agreement last week on the withdrawal of Russian bases.
Aliev was boycotting because of the attendance of Armenian President
Robert Kocharian, and because Sunday is a day of mourning, marking
a key battle during the six-year war between Armenia and Azerbaijan
over the disputed enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh.
The CIS was born in the collapse of the Soviet Union, and its advocates
hoped it would foster closer integration between the newly independent
countries. However, many of its initiatives have foundered _ including
the plans to remove trade barriers that have dominated the CIS agenda
since its creation _ and it has long been criticized for being little
more than a talking shop.
The group’s attempts to prove otherwise have often only fostered more
discord. Its peacekeepers have been accused of destabilizing conflict
zones in the former Soviet Union, and its election monitors _ deployed
to provide a counterbalance to Western-dominated observer missions
from such groups as the Council of Europe and the Organization for
Security and Cooperation in Europe _ have consistently given high
marks to blatantly fraudulent ballots.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Egypt Today, Egypt
May 5 2005
Taken Care Of
An accomplice of the notorious Khedive Ismail, Ismail bey Sadyk
El-Muffatich disappeared under dubious circumstances
By Fayza Hassan
Khedive Ismail (r.1863-1879), the ambitious and unscrupulous prince
who succeeded viceroy Said on the throne of Egypt, managed in 16
short years to bring about his country’s bankruptcy as well as his
own downfall. In doing so, he was assisted by a number of compliant
courtesans, unaware that by following their master’s bidding they
were sealing their own disastrous fate.
Even though the Armenian Prime-Minister Boghos Nubar always comes
to mind when mentioning the khedive’s catastrophic policies, a
lesser-known figure, Ismail bey Sadyk El-Muffatish (the inspector)
played an equally sinister role in the financial debacle that brought
Egypt under foreign domination. He was, however, cruelly punished for
having tried to satisfy his sovereign’s insatiable appetite for riches.
He wasthen hustled on board of one of the vice regal steamers,
which was lying along the palace ready to sail. Sadyk put up a
strong resistance but was overpowered, bundled up and locked up.
Ismail Sadyk was born in Algeria, but is believed to have come to
Egypt at an early age. The first mention of Sadyk is by Wilfred Scawen
Blunt, the famous British traveler and author of Secret History of
the English Occupation of Egypt (1895), who noted Sadyk rose quickly
(thanks to his natural abilities) to vice regal service. Sadyk was
first hired as a superintendent of Abbas I’s stud farm. Under Said
and Ismail he had served in various official capacities, but he
was aiming higher and managed to attract the attention of Ismail,
who recognized his special gifts. El-Muffatish became the khedive’s
main agent in the management of his estates and the arm that reached
deep into the pockets of the fellahin peasants to extract the last
few piasters that they may have been hiding to feed their families.
Khedive Ismail had been a landowner of great acumen, managing his
own properties in Upper Egypt in accordance with the most enlightened
modern methods. European travelers marveled at the new machinery he
had imported and the wealth invested in the land to increase its yield
manifolds. The grandson of Muhammad Ali, he had obviously inherited
some of the commercial aptitude that distinguished the family.
Yet, Ismail’s succession to the viceroyalty had been unexpected:
until a few months before the death of Viceroy Said, the successor
should have been Ismail’s older brother Ahmed, who died in a mysterious
train accident, thus paving the way for Ismail.
The new viceroy seems to have been somewhat confused as to his duties,
acting as if the country was his personal inheritance to do with as
he pleased, rather than keeping it in trust for its people. Since he
was also inordinately vain, he surrounded himself with sycophants,
who promised time and again to make of him not only the richest
financier in the world, but also the greatest of Oriental sovereigns.
Following their advice, his first act in that direction was to raise
the land tax progressively to four times its initial value. The
peasantry in the time of Said, his predecessor, had been living
comfortably off since cotton was selling well. They could afford
the tax increase by curtailing non-essential expenses. When this
initiative worked, Ismail was emboldened to go further. Courtesans
reminded him, and El-Muffatish may have been one of them, that in the
days of his grandfather the whole land was considered the viceroy’s
personal property and that Muhammad Ali had exercised a monopoly on
all foreign trade for a long time. This was the kind of argument
Ismail’s dreams were made of, but being careful to project the
image of an enlightened sovereign in the face of European opinion
he had to devise covert strategies to gain his ends. Intimidation
and administrative pressure unnoticed by foreign powers could become
powerful instruments of dispossession, forcing harassed landowners
to get rid of their land at nominal prices.
By these methods the khedive managed to avail himself of an
enormous domain which, he believed, would provide him with unlimited
resources. He was wrong however: while he had been very successful in
the exploitation of a relatively small land property, his gigantic
territory proved impossible to control. On such a scale, whatever
he attempted seemed destined to collapse. Huge investment in new
machinery, increase of forced labor, establishment of factories
directed by European technicians on his estates every new initiative
was followed by resounding failure. His agents robbed him in a
thousand ways, and their chief in this disastrous history was Ismail
El-Muffatish who, under the cover of serving his master well, amassed
an enormous personal fortune.
Whether Khedive Ismail was aware of El-Muffatish’s treachery and
bided his time or had genuinely trusted him will never be known, but
the Khedive kept El-Muffatish near him during all his tribulations
to extract himself from the claws of his European creditors. At the
time of his untimely death El-Muffatish was finance minister and
very much a party to the game the Khedive played with the European
commissioners checking on his debt payments. With the help of Sadyk
the Khedive used to present false statements of his debts, concealing
the truth of his extreme extravagances.
Finally a new commission was formed, tipped off this time by one of the
Khedive’s ministers. They put severe pressure on him to disclose the
extent of his spending. The Khedive panicked: what if the stress became
too much for his aging finance minister and he told the commission
the facts? It was imperative to silence El-Mufattish before the
commission got to him and Ismail took the matters in his own hands:
It was the habit of Khedive Ismail to drop in at the Finance Office
and take his finance minister (with whom he had a strong friendship)
for a long drive to Shubra or to one of his numerous palaces. On
that particular afternoon they drove to the Gezira Palace and the
khedive invited El-Mufattish in. As soon as they were inside, the
Khedive excused himself, and his two young sons, Hussein and Hassan,
entered the room accompanied by the khedive’s aide-de-camp Mustafa
Bey Fahmi. The princes threw themselves on the unarmed minister,
insulting him and aggressing him bodily. He was then hustled on board
of one of the vice regal steamers, which was lying along the palace
ready to sail. Sadyk put up a strong resistance but was overpowered,
bundled up and locked up.
What happened to him from this point on is a matter of speculation.
Was he thrown in the Nile like so many of Ismail’s enemies? Was he
strangled before by the Khedive’s henchmen and then disposed of on
their arrival at Wadi Halfa where the steamer was officially headed?
All we know is that he was never seen alive again. A few weeks later,
it was officially announced that El-Mufattish had been holidaying in
Upper Egypt where he took to drink and died from an overdose.
El-Mufattish, cruel as he may have been in secret to the fellahin,
was well liked by Cairo’s society and esteemed for the lavish parties
with which he honored his guests. By all accounts he was never stingy
with his ill-acquired wealth and was therefore a popular figure
among the elite. That is possibly why his friends immediately gave
credence to the tale of Mustafa Bey Fahmi, who fell ill and in his
delirium recounted in detail the events of that terrible night. An
Algerian himself like Sadyk, he had been so horrified by the role he
had been ordered to play that upon his return from the Gezira Palace,
he was struck by a severe fever that nearly killed him. et
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Pan Armenian News
AZERI POLITICAL SCIENTIST COMMENTING ON ILHAM ALIYEV’S ANTI-ARMENIAN
POSITION
29.04.2005 07:10
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Ilham Aliyev gave the nod to preventing participation of
Armenian officers in Cooperative Best Effort 2004 NATO exercise in Baku last
September, Head of the Department of Conflictology and Migration of the
Azerbaijani Institute of Peace and Democracy Arif Yunusov stated in Yerevan
today. In his words, during the press conference held after the cancellation
of the exercise Ilham Aliyev openly said it was his wish. The Azerbaijan
President also supported the Organization for Karabakh liberation, whose
activists assaulted the Armenian officers during the NATO planning
conference.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Reuters AlertNet, UK
April 26 2005
Lebanese say breath easy as last Syrians leave
Source: Reuters

By Lin Noueihed
ANJAR, Lebanon, April 26 (Reuters) – For almost 30 years Anjar’s
claim to fame was not the ruins of an 8th century city but the
headquarters of the Syrian intelligence that once brokered Lebanese
politics from the border town.
As the last Syrian soldiers and spies trundled home on Tuesday,
residents of Lebanon’s border towns said they could finally stop
looking over their shoulder.
“I couldn’t breath easy until they were gone,” said Karam Yousef, who
works in a gift shop at Anjar’s archeological site.
“My brother quarreled with the Syrian labourers working on his farm
and they threatened to put the intelligence on him. They would just
come and take whatever they wanted from the fields. Who dared say
no?” he said.
Fresh-faced Lebanese soldiers in fatigues now stand guard outside the
intelligence headquarters, replacing the Syrian agents in faded
leather jackets that once warded off visitors.
But locals still drop into a whisper when they joke that Lebanon’s
governments have been made and broken in Anjar for years, that it was
Syria’s capital in Lebanon, not Beirut.
Rustum Ghazaleh, the head of Syrian intelligence in Lebanon, lived
there from 2002, until he went home on Monday, effectively ending
Syria’s 29-year military and security presence.
His predecessor Ghazi Kanaan was based in Anjar, which is closer to
Damascus than Beirut, for 20 years.
Syrian troops and officers occupied property belonging to Lebanese.
They abandoned villas in the mountains weeks ago, but remained in the
eastern Bekaa Valley until this week.
“Twenty-eight years ago, the Syrians asked for a house to use for a
few months,” said Andre Hosepian a grocer in Anjar.
“A few days ago, a Syrian officer invited me for a cup of coffee and
gave me the key back. I had two houses the Syrians stayed in
rent-free all those years. Now I have both back.”
BREATHING EASY
Locals watched until the last of the Syrian troops had crossed the
border before a small group unfurled a couple of Lebanese flags and
broke into a traditional dabke dance.
“I am relieved because there is no one they did not harm,” said
Mahmoud Laiss, who runs an insurance and exchange shop on the Masnaa
border post.
“They would go into a shop to buy something and insist on paying
below cost or nothing at all. If you try to say no you don’t know
what might happen. Let them go and leave us alone.”
Another insurance salesman standing nearby chipped in to ask when the
Syrians would release three men from the nearby town of Majdal Anjar,
whom he said had been jailed in Syria for over 20 years. Syria says
it has no Lebanese detainees in its jails.
But residents of Anjar itself say they had no quarrel with the
Syrians, who protected it through the 1975-1990 civil war.
Living at the nerve-centre of Syrian influence in Lebanon had its
benefits. Anjar was safe. Its residents, mostly of Armenian descent,
were protected from an old land dispute with Muslims.
But most hoped for a fresh start now the Syrians were gone.
“When I used to bring groups of tourists here, they would see all
these Syrians and get confused. They would ask are we in Lebanon or
Syria?” said Henri Baghdassarian, a tour guide. “Now, how do you
explain a thing like that?”
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

The PLANNED, ORGANIZED, and EXECUTED GENOCIDE of the ARMENIANS
by Jack Manuelian
PanArmenian News
March 27 2005
Were the plans of the 1915-23 Armenian Genocide actually drawn up and
were in place by the year 1910 or 1912? According to some sources
definitely yes.
There is the book “Inner Folds of the Ottoman Revolution” written by
Mevlan Zadeh Rifat and published in 1929, the author, a pro-sultan
Turk, claims that the “Armenian genocide was decided in August 1910
and October 1911, by a Young Turk committee composed entirely of
displaced Balkan Jews in the format of a syncretist Jewish-Muslim
sect which included Talaat, Enver, Behaeddin Shakir, Jemal, and Nizam
posting as Muslims. It met in the Rothschild-funded Grand Orient
loge/hotel of Salonika.” Syncretism means a combination of different
forms of belief or practice; masonism fits that description.
A 1994 conference paper/lecture by Joseph Brewda of Schiller
Institute entitled “Palmerson launches Young Turks to permanently
control Middle East ” claims the founder of the Young Turks to be a
certain Jew by the name of Emmanuel Carasso. He states: “Carasso set
up the Young Turk secret society in the 1890s in Salonika, then part
of Turkey, and now part of Greece. Carasso was also the grand master
of an Italian masonic lodge there, called ‘Macedonia Resurrected.’
The lodge was the headquarters of the Young Turks, and all the top
Young Turk leadership were members.”
Further on Mr. Brewda says: “During the Young Turk regime, Carasso
continued to play a leading role. He met with the sultan, to tell him
that he was overthrown. He was in charge of putting the sultan under
house arrest. He ran the Young Turk intelligence network in the
Balkans. And he was in charge of all food supplies in the empire
during World War I.” It is ironic that five centuries after the
Turkish sultans welcomed the expelled European Jews into Turkey,
certain Jews belonging to secret societies and to Zionism will kick
the sultan out of power early in 20th century, destroy the Ottoman
Empire, and celebrate their victory by massacring by proxy almost the
whole Christian Armenian people, one million and half Armenians; half
million Greeks; and half million Christian Assyrians & Arameans.
In 1982, after the Israeli army conquered Lebanon, they celebrated
their victory by massacring by proxy children and women in the
Palestinian camp of Shattila, in Lebanon, by allowing Lebanise
Phalange militia fighters to move into the camp for two days and
murder its inhabitants. Eighty percent of the camp were killed.
Nearly all of the dead were old men, women and children and all of
them had been unarmed. Not one gun, not one knife was found in their
possession, claims a Palestinian witness.
All this according to the percepts of the Talmud, the Satanic Bible
of the Jews, which encourages Jews to kill, directly or indirectly,
by sayings like: “Every Jew who spills the blood of the godless, is
doing the same as making a sacrifice to God.” Talmud: Bammidber Raba
c21 & Jalkut 772. In the eyes of Tamudists all non-Jews are godless.
And “It is the law to kill anyone who denies the Torah. The
Christians belong to the denying ones of the Torah.” Talmud: Coschen
Hamischpat, Hagah 425. Very neatly put sentence indeed.
Mr. Brewda writes: “Another important area was the press. While in
power, the Young Turks ran several newspapers, including ‘The Young
Turk,’ whose editor was none other than the Russian Zionist leader
Vladimir Jabotinsky. Jabotinsky had been educated as a young man in
Italy.”
Mr. Brewda, ignoring the possibility that Talaat could have been a
secret infiltrated Jew, writes: “Of course, there were also some
Turks who helped lead the Young Turk movement. For example, Talaat
Pasha. Talaat was the interior minister and dictator of the regime
during World war I. He had been a member of Carasso’s Italian masonic
lodge in Salonika. One year prior to the 1908 coup, Talaat became the
grand master of the Scottish Rite Masons in the Ottoman Empire. If
you go to the [archives of] Scottish Rite headquarters in Washington,
D.C., you can find that most of the Young Turk leaders were officials
in the Scottish Rite.”
Mr. Brewda also mentions the novel “Greenmantle,” whose hero is a
British spy who led the Young Turks, and that the book’s author, John
Buchan, later identified the novel’s hero as the English nobleman
Aubrey Herbert, who was the top British spy master in the Middle East
during WW I. And that Lawrence of Arabia later identified Herbert as
having been, at one time, the head of the Young Turks. According to
Mr. Brewda, Carasso also appears in that novel under the name
Carusso.
By 1916 the British and French, overpowered by greed, already had a
secret agreement to divide the Ottoman Empire between themselves.
Presently Hitler’s “Mien Kempt ” anti-semitic book is a best-seller
in Turkey, it is published by various Turkish publishers by thousands
and thousands. Are the Turks finally waking up and realizing that
their Sultan’s refusal to grant Palestine to the Zionist Jews as a
homeland had cost them their centuries-old empire?
Talaat was a living witness to the Genocide and history.
He should not have been assassinated. His silencing for good by
hot-tempered Armenians only served those who planned and executed the
Genocide. Had he been left alone, who knows he might have confessed
everything at his old age or at his deathbed.
Another source is the lengthy article “The Armenian & Jewish Genocide
Project: Eliminating Ethnic Conflict Along the Oil Route From Baku to
the Suez Canal Region ” written by Clifford Shack and posted in his
web-site.
Mr. Shack writes: “In the 1880’s, the French branch of the Rothschild
family acquired interests in Russia’s Baku oil fields in an effort to
supply their refinery on the Adriatic with cheap Russian oil. In
exchange for these interests they built a railroad linking Baku to
the newly acquired Black Sea port of Batum. This opened up the Baku
oil, a major world supply, to the world. With the success of the new
railroad, the Rothschilds had more oil than they could actually sell.
Overcoming their fear of competing with the giant Standard oil [of
USA], they sought out the huge [Far East] markets east of Suez.”
Further on Mr. Shack makes his point: “The decision by the shrewd
French Rothschild branch to diversify into other areas of oil
exploitation was, presumably, a calculated one. Three years after
they joined Royal Dutch, production at Baku would come to an abrupt
halt in 1905. Although shaken by political activity, the principal
disruption was due to the violence of the ethnic conflict between the
region’s Muslims and the minority population of Armenians who are
Christians. This ethnic conflict caused the first interruption of oil
distribution to the world market. Standard oil was quick to supplant
the needs of the effected markets as its source was operating under
the blanket of peace. The Royal/Dutch/Shell Group (and the Nobles)
watched their Baku investments go up in flames. Ethnic conflict was
at the root of the matter. It could be safely assumed that they were
taking measures to eliminate the possibility of that happening in the
future.” Oil corporations seem to have learned their lessons from
history because before the construction of present-day Baku-Ceyhan
pipeline has began, someone has made sure that no Armenians were left
in Baku anymore. Although the Armenian threat to that pipeline has
been neutralized, yet there is still a Turkish ultra-nationalist
revival threat, and a threat from Iran if Iran comes under attack
from USA or Israel. There is a very clean prophecy of Nostradamus
stating: “By firepower of armies, not far from the Black Sea, he will
come from Persia/Iran to occupy Trebizond.” Trebizond is located at
the shore of the Black Sea and its occupation will virtually cut the
Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline in half. Another prophecy of Nostradamus
reads: “Toward Persia/Iran a sizable army of a million. The serpent
Satan invading Byzantium and Egypt.” Byzantium & Egypt could be a
mystical name for modern Istanbul as Sodom & Egypt is the mystical
name given for Jerusalem in the book Revelation 11:8.
Mr. Shack notes that “the mere elimination of the Armenian population
of Baku would not solve the problem of ethnic conflict in that
region. The surrounding areas would provide reservoir effect in
resupplying the conflicting minority element.” And he asks: “was the
removal [in 1915-23] of a small minority like the Armenians [from
historical Armenia] a fair price to pay for the peace in a region so
crucial to the development and investment of the Far East?”
Apparently Mr. Shack ignores the factor of revenge raging in the
heart of human beasts.
Mr. Shacks answers his own question by stating in his article about
the big business or big corporations: “It would be fair to say that
the genocide of a group of a million or so, to serve the benefit of a
billion or so [in the Far East], is less of a question of should it
be done, than how it could be done. So as not to reveal any plausible
motive which could link the actual planners to the genocide, the
scheme involved a proxy party [namely the muslim Turks, Kurds &
Azeris] , which was manipulated through layers of influence,
providing sufficient cover for the planners.”
The fool said in his ignorance, “There was no planned and organized
and executed genocide of the Armenians.”
In chapter 30 of the book of Isaiah we read God speaking by His
prophet: “Woe to the rebellious children, who execute a plan, but not
Mine, and make an alliance, but not of My Spirit, in order to add sin
to sin;…For this is a rebellious people, false sons, sons who
refuse to listen to the instruction of the Lord.”
P.S. For Joseph Brewda’s article go to : SchillerInstitute.org then
put the name of the author or title of his article in the search tab
of the web-site of the institute. For Clifford Shack’s article put
his name in the search tap of Yahoo in order to find his web-site
where his article is posted.
John Buchan’s novel “Greenmantle” is available from Amazon.com. The
Turkish book “Inner Folds of the Ottoman Revolution” has no known
English translation. It was translated into Armenian in 1939 in
Beirut, Lebanon, by Donigian Press.
Jack Manuelian is the author of the book “Nostradamus: Predictions of
World War III” ISBN: 0938294520.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

<>< <>< <>< <>< <>< <>< <>< <>< <>< <>< LRAPER Church Bulletin Armenian Patriarchate TR-34130 Kumkapý, Istanbul Licensee: The Revd. Fr. Drtad Uzunyan Editors: The Revd. Archpriest Krikor Damatyan, The Revd. Deacon Vagarsag Seropyan Press Officer: Attorney Mrs. Luiz Bakar T: +90 (212) 517-0970 F: +90 (212) 516-4833 [email protected] [email protected] <>< <>< <>< <>< <>< <>< <>< <>< <>< <>< PATRIARCHATE DISAPPROVES OF FR. KALAYJIAN'S STATEMENT ISTANBUL (Lraper Church Bulletin, 15/04/2005) - In a press communiqué released by the press office of the Armenian Patriarchate of Istanbul, attorney Mrs. Luiz Bakar stated that the Chancellery of the Patriarchate has taken note of numerous articles in the Turkish press concerning the remarks of the Revd. Fr. Vertanes Kalayjian of Washington about the founder of the Turkish Republic, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. According to news widely circulated in Turkey, Fr. Kalayjian called Ataturk `a butcher' during the United States Helsinki Commission briefing on Religious Freedom in Turkey, held at the Rayburn House in Washington on 12 April 2005. The transcripts of the briefing released by the Commission state Fr. Kalayjian as saying: `Something very drastic happened. And that was the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire. And with that, unfortunately, the paranoid attitude of the leaders, both sultans and the successive Ittihad and Terakki Party and their successor, Kemal, who is now being regarded as a hero, was another butcher, if you ask me'. Representing the Armenian Patriarchate of Istanbul, press spokesperson Mrs. Bakar said, `The priest who has uttered these words is not a member of the Armenian community in Turkey, and has no ties with either the Armenian Patriarchate or the Armenian Church in Turkey. Regardless of who has uttered that word, one should question his grasp of history. The military and political genius of the founder of the Turkish Republic renders all sorts of accusations meaningless and void. A look at the geographical situation of Turkey within her present borders should be more than sufficient to understand and to evaluate Ataturk. We disapprove of Fr. Kalayjian's mode of speech, and presume that such sorties do not help in the efforts being made as regards the Turkish-Armenian dialogue'. From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Azeris expect OSCE prove Armenia’s involvement in resettlement in Karabakh
ANS TV, Baku
21 Mar 05
[Presenter] Azerbaijan has a strong army to liberate the territories
under occupation, [Azerbaijani] Defence Minister Safar Abiyev has
said, while Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov does not rule out that
regular violations of the cease-fire by Armenia could be a calculated
act of sabotage.
[Correspondent, over video of Mammadyarov outside the Foreign Ministry]
Mammadyarov is pleased with the report of the OSCE fact-finding
mission on the settlement of Armenians in Nagornyy Karabakh. He
said that official Baku would issue a statement on 22 March over
the findings of the mission. Despite considering the report to be
objective, the minister said he is unhappy with some points.
[Mammadyarov, captioned, shown speaking to ANS] There are a few
points in the report that we cannot accept. It is stated there
that official Yerevan does not deal with this issue [settlement of
Armenians in Nagornyy Karabakh and occupied districts of Azerbaijan].
But we have information that it does. Now, the fact-finding mission
must continue its work and prove that official Yerevan actually deals
with the illegal settlement.
[Correspondent] The minister also commented on the recent frequent
cases of violation of the cease-fire. Mammadyarov did not rule out
that the breach of the cease-fire could be in the interests of the
Armenian leadership.
[Mammadyarov] We have already expressed our position. We think that
some provocation will be in place as long as negotiations are under
way. We think that the violation of the cease-fire is provocation.
[Correspondent] However, the foreign minister does not believe that
the violations could affect the course of the talks.
In turn, Safar Abiyev says that measures are being taken to minimize
casualties. On the kind of measures, the defence minister said that
it is their business.
[Safar Abiyev, captioned, speaking to journalists] The war will
continue as long as our lands are under occupation.
[Correspondent] Who knows, maybe the real name of the cease-fire,
which is accompanied with frequent violations, is war indeed.
Eldaniz Valiyev, Ali Ahmadov, Hikmat Asgarov for ANS.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Christian Science Monitor
March 15 2005
Arms smuggling sting shows need for vigilance
FBI says bust uncovers efforts to sell Russian weapons in US.
By Ron Scherer
NEW YORK A shadowy arms broker starts negotiating with some Russian
mafia types to buy antitank weapons, surface-to-air missiles,
rocket-propelled grenade launchers, and machine guns. The broker
makes it clear: The weapons are for terrorists in the United States,
probably connected to Al Qaeda. The arms sellers don’t care: Just so
long as they get their money.
But the arms broker actually worked for the FBI as a confidential
informant. And Monday night, the whole scheme as described by US
authorities fell apart for 18 men now accused of trying to smuggle in
an arsenal for $2.5 million.
“It reads like a Hollywood script, but the plot is undeniably real,”
says Andrew Arena, the special agent in charge of the criminal
division of the FBI in New York.
According to the indictment handed down Tuesday, men with nicknames
such as “Soso,” “Jabs,” and “Tiko” claimed to have access to weapons
in such countries as Armenia and Georgia. Over the course of a year,
the men, mostly in the US illegally, began to trust the FBI’s
informant. Authorities say they delivered eight automatic weapons to
storage sheds in Los Angeles, New York, and Fort Lauderdale, Fla.
Also according to the indictment, they intimated that they not only
could get more weapons, but also had access to weapons-grade uranium.
Security experts say the bust shows that the nation still has to be
vigilant.
“If these people are so inclined, they can get weapons to carry out
serious attacks,” says John Cohen, senior homeland policy adviser to
the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. “It’s very scary that there
continues to be an open market for these types of weapons, and it
clearly has to be one of our top priorities to do something about
them.”
At a press conference announcing the indictments, David Kelley, the
US attorney for the Southern District of New York, said the US was
working with foreign governments to try to locate the weapons and
shut down the ring. “It appears to be some rogue folks in the Eastern
European military circles we’re dealing with,” said Mr. Kelley. “It’s
hard to say at this point whether it’s coming directly out of the
military or some sort of black market.”
The sting operation began last March when a confidential informant
alleged to the FBI that a South African man, Christiaan Dewet Spies,
said he had connections to the Russian mafia in New York and Los
Angeles. The paid informant told Mr. Spies he was interested in
buying 10 to 15 rocket-propelled grenade launchers. According to
federal authorities, Spies said he was only interested in selling a
full crate of 2,000 RPGs at a time.
The government alleges that Spies then introduced the informant to
his contact, “Alex,” also known as Artur Solomonyan, an Armenian, in
a Manhattan restaurant. That’s when the serious negotiations began.
According to the indictment, Mr. Solomonyan indicated the weapons
would come from Russia and would take two months or less to get to
the US by ship – at the port of Los Angeles, New York, or Miami. The
informant indicated he was willing to spend $2.5 million.
Their next meeting was in a sauna and hot tub at a Brooklyn spa. At
this point, according to the indictment, Solomonyan said the RPGs
would be known as “fliers,” and he described them as military surplus
from Chechnya. He also said his group already had weapons in the US
earmarked for other customers. If that deal fell through, he is
alleged to have said, then the informant could buy them.
By last summer, the meetings increased. It was here that Solomonyan
is alleged to have offered enriched uranium, which the indictment
says, “could be used in the subway system.”
However, US officials doubt there ever was any uranium. “It was not
followed up … uranium was never discussed again,” said Kelley.
Authorities say the defendants started to revert to code words for
the weapons they wanted to sell. Machine guns became “condos” or
“small properties” or “apartments.” The RPGs became known as “large
apartments.” At yet another time, weapons became known as “cars,”
some with automatic transmissions, according to the indictment.
By late September, the FBI informant had purchased a machine gun in
Los Angeles for $2,000. In October, two military assault rifles were
delivered to a storage area rented by the FBI. By now, a much larger
group of illegal arms dealers were involved, including
African-Americans and Hispanics. The weapons now became “dogs,”
“puppies,” and “toys.” Money exchanged hands, and the government was
wiretapping everything.
At this point, the indictment says, the defendants indicated they
could not leave the country to get larger weapons because they were
apparently in the US illegally. The FBI’s source said he could get
them a “green card,” an immigration work visa. The US Citizenship and
Immigration Services provided the FBI with green cards that were
shown to Solomonyan. “This could be yours,” he was told, says Mr.
Arena.
On Monday night, Solomonyan and Spies showed up evidently to get
their green cards so they could travel overseas. Instead, they were
met by law-enforcement officers who packed them off to jail.
None of the defendants could be reached for comment.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Turkish Press.com
Tuesday, March 08, 2005
Syrians Accuse The U.S For Having Double Standards In Global Politics
Published: 3/7/2005
ANKARA/DAMASCUS – Man in the street in Syria believe that the U.S. is
incapable of attacking Syria.
In exclusive interviews by A.A correspondents in the streets
of Damascus, the majority of the Syrians expressed that they do
not expect any attack from the U.S.. “America is too tired of its
war in Iraq, both psychologically and financially. More than 1,000
U.S. soldiers died in a meaningless war. We do not give a slight
chance to the possibility of a new war in the Middle East,” said an
elderly Syrian citizen.
Asked about the U.S. attempts to bring “democracy” to the region,
most Syrians answered that the concept of democracy should not be
imposed on the peoples. “Democracy should be a movement that arises
from the grassroots of a society. If the U.S. is a staunch supporter
of ‘democracy,’ why does it continue to refuse recognition of the
Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, which has been a successfully
functioning democracy since its independence in 1983? ‘Why does the
U.S. administration uses double standards in global politics? Perhaps
history will answer such questions,” Syrians said.
According to the results of a private survey received by A.A
correspondents, the majority of Syrians love Turks who are staunch
supporters of Ataturk’s principle of “peace at home, peace in the
world.”
“Regardless of our ethnic backgrounds, whether it is Arabic, Kurdish,
Assyrian or Armenian, we Syrians have excellent historical ties in
not only commercial areas but also social and cultural areas. As a
candidate to European Union membership, Turkey is a good role model for
the countries in the region,” told a young history teacher in Damascus.
Another Syrian, Dr. Shafiq Rifki, has told the A.A that what is
actually going on in the Middle East is like a small and meaningless
game. “The present situation in the Middle East is already out of
control. We do not think that the U.S. administration will risk its
interests in the region by declaring war on another country, after
demolishing the Iraqi society. Americans told the world –before the
war– that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. However the
reality is that there were absolutely no such weapons in Iraq. If
there have been no weapons found, why is the U.S. insisting on
staying in Iraq? We are confident that the U.S. administration will
not want any other new war in the region. Just look at what happened
in Vietnam….,” said Rifki.
Meanwhile, 30-year-old watch repair shop owner Yusuf Safran has
indicated that it is in fact Israel that has killed and continues
to kill the residents of the region (Middle East). The U.S. would
be better off by cutting its commercial and political ties with
Israel. We do not believe that 350 million Americans would want to
sacrifice their future for 4 million Israelis!”
Jamila Kamel, a mother of five, said that as a mother she does not
want to see violence going on in the upcoming year. “We have lost too
many precious lives in the region due to the policies of Israel and
U.S.. This is high time to say “NO” to further violence. We deserve
to live in peace as humans.”
Meanwhile, Syrian deputy Serif Hamdi Abaza, who is actually of
Abhaza origin, indicated that Turkey can help Syria with its global
experiences in finance, commerce, education, politics and especially
diplomatics.
“Turkey is about to become our door giving on the European
Union. Likewise, we (Syria) will be Turkey’s door to the Middle
East. For the past two years, hundreds of Syrian students have chosen
Turkish universities for their education. Syrian students are indeed
very happy to be studying in Turkey. We have various projects coming
up in the educational sector and hope to see Turkish universities
open departments in Syrian cities,” remarked Abaza.
Turkish Press
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

PanArmenian News
March 4 2005
`MEASURES TO PREVENT’ ADOPTION OF DRAFT RESOLUTION ON ARMENIAN
GENOCIDE IN BUNDESTAG TAKEN IN ANKARA AND BERLIN
04.03.2005 14:07
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Measures were undertaken both in Ankara and Berlin
to prevent the adoption of the draft resolution `Commemoration day on
occasion of the 90-th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide – Germany
should contribute to the reconciliation of Turks and Armenians’,
stated Turkish MFA Press Secretary Namik Tan during yesterday’s press
conference. In his words, the adoption of resolutions on the Armenian
Genocide recognition has not contributed to surmount problems
available between Turkey and Armenia so far. N. Tan noted that
official Ankara does believe that the German ruling coalition will
not approve the initiative. `We believe that both parties attach much
importance to the problem and will give a correct assessment to it
thus preventing collapse of the excellent relationships between
Germany and Turkey’, Mr. Tan said. To remind, the other day leader of
the Christian Democratic Union Angela Merkel submitted the above
mentioned draft resolution, which was included into the April agenda
of the Bundestag.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress