Author: Mamian George

ALIYEV AND SARKSYAN MEET IN MOSCOW
Saban Kardas

Jamestown Foundation
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July 21 2009

Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev met his Armenian counterpart Serzh
Sarksyan in Moscow on July 17 in their latest round of reconciliation
talks. Turkey has closely followed the talks between the two
presidents, facilitated by the Russian President Dmitry Medvedev,
hoping that the resolution of the Karabakh issue might also facilitate
Turkish-Armenian rapprochement.

The meeting was the sixth between Aliyev and Sarksyan since their first
meeting in June 2008. As one of the co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk group,
Russia accelerated its peacemaking efforts toward finding a solution
to the dispute between Armenia and Azerbaijan. Medvedev hosted the two
presidents in Moscow for a second time in November 2008, and since
then the two leaders have met in Zurich, Prague and St. Petersburg
(Trend News, July 17).

The meeting came in the context of growing international
interest. Other major actors had also expressed their support for this
mechanism, hoping that it might facilitate a solution. The presidents
of Russia, France and the United States issued a statement during
the G8 summit in Italy the previous week, and urged all sides to step
up their work toward the resolution of the remaining differences on
Karabakh, on the basis of the principles outlined in the 2007 Madrid
agreement (, July 10).

Representatives from the other two co-chairs of the Minsk group
and the OSCE representatives were also in Moscow. On July 17, the
Azeri Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov and his Armenian counterpart
Edward Nalbandyan met with the Minsk group co-chairmen Yuri Merzlyakov
(Russia), Bernard Fassier (France) and Matthew Bryza (United States),
as well as the OSCE Chairman’s Special Envoy Andzey Kasprzyk. The
Azeri and Armenian presidents also held bilateral talks, and later
the ministers as well as the co-chairs joined them. The following day,
the leaders held trilateral talks with the participation of Medvedev.

No documents were signed at the meeting and no official statement was
issued. Medvedev’s spokesperson told reporters that the parties had a
chance to discuss in detail the remaining issues. He added that he is
optimistic that "it will be possible to settle the Karabakh conflict
in the foreseeable future." According to Armenian diplomatic sources,
the presidents instructed their foreign ministers to work in close
cooperation with the Minsk group co-chairs to organize a high-level
meeting on Karabakh in the fall. The co-chairs of the Minsk group
reiterated their support for the ongoing talks. They added that they
would continue their contacts in the region. The two presidents
might meet again in September, they added (Trend News, ITAR-TASS,
, July 18).

On July 20, Mammadyarov said that some progress was achieved in
Moscow. He added that the parties agreed on some principles of
a possible solution, but that further work was required on the
precise details. He maintained that both sides were working toward a
schedule for withdrawal of the Armenian forces from the occupied Azeri
territories. Once this is achieved, it will be possible to discuss
other issues such as the repatriation of refugees, the rebuilding
of the region and determining the status of Karabakh. However, he
ruled out independence for Karabakh by saying "whatever its status,
Karabakh will remain part of Azerbaijan" (, July 20).

Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt, the head of the E.U. troika
delegation visiting the region, said in Yerevan that the
E.U. supported the Minsk group’s activities and was ready to assist
in the implementation of an agreement. However, in implicit defiance
of Mammadyarov’s statements, Nalbandyan said that the "return of any
territories to Azerbaijan was not discussed in Moscow." He also added
that Armenia did not officially endorse the Madrid principles (ANKA,
July 20; Trend News, July 21).

Despite the contradictory accounts from Yerevan and Baku, it appears
that the removal of Armenian forces from the occupied Azeri territories
has been on the agenda for some time. Prior to the meeting in Moscow,
Aliyev had explained the details of the plan to a Russian TV station
(, July 8). According to the Turkish press, the two
presidents in fact discussed the specifics of Armenian withdrawal
from the occupied Azeri territories, even including the deployment
of international forces. Whereas, the Armenian side insisted on
Russian forces, the Azeris requested Turkish troops. Turkey reportedly
expressed its readiness to send troops, if the parties agreed on such
a solution (Zaman, July 19). However, no official Turkish diplomatic
source has corroborated this proposal.

Turkey has been supportive of the process led by the Minsk group and
Russian initiatives. Ankara reportedly plans to contribute to the
initiatives of the Minsk group through a new round of contacts with
Baku and Yerevan. Nonetheless, currently the earliest direct talks
between Yerevan and Ankara to discuss Turkish-Armenian normalization
are scheduled in September at the U.N. General Assembly (Sabah,
July 20).

After intensive diplomatic traffic between Turkey and Armenia,
which resulted in the announcement of a roadmap for normalization
in April, Ankara had to slow down the process to satisfy concerns in
Baku. During his visit to Baku in May, Turkish Prime Minister Recep
Tayyip Erdogan underlined clearly that Ankara would not proceed with
its Turkish-Armenian rapprochement before a solution over the Karabakh
issue could be achieved. Although Ankara came under criticism for
stalling its dialogue with Yerevan, diplomatic sources maintain that
secret talks between the two countries are continuing (EDM, June 30).

Commenting on these recent developments, Foreign Minister Ahmet
Davutoglu denied that Turkish-Armenian normalization was stalled. He
said that "[Turkish-Armenian and Azeri-Armenian] processes would
affect each other positively." Though declining to set a date on the
opening of the Turkish-Armenian border, he expressed his hope that
positive developments might take place before the end of the year
(Hurriyet Daily News, July 20).

Erdogan took a very clear position, saying that he will maintain
his support for Azerbaijan over the Karabakh dispute. It would be
difficult for him to step back from this, given the enormous costs
of such a move to his popularity at home and in Baku. Therefore,
before taking any steps to revitalize its relations with Yerevan,
Ankara hopes that the recent initiatives could produce at least
partial progress between Baku and Yerevan.

BIGOTRY AND RACISM IN AMERICA: WHAT HARVEY LEFT US
Dan Agin

Huffington Post
July 20 2009

Grandchildren are prone to think of the lives of their grandparents
as ancient history, a collection of sentimental anecdotes of no use in
deciding what slogan to put on your tee-shirt. But history is history,
it’s our history, and before we argue about the way things should
be it’s wise to understand the way things were and how we got to
where we are now. After watching elected representatives of Alabama
and South Carolina badger an Hispanic woman who has more gumption,
class, and intelligence in one of her little fingers than they have
in their whole heads, I started thinking about Harvey Cushing, the
great neurosurgeon at Harvard who did so much to poison us with his
bigotry and racism, it’s a wonder we’re still here.

In 1901, the renowned neurophysiologist and future Nobel Prize
laureate Charles Sherrington, while he was a professor in Liverpool,
was visited by a young American named Harvey Cushing, a neurosurgeon
at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore. Gracious as always with guests,
Sherrington showed 32-year-old Cushing his animals and talked about his
experiments. He allowed Cushing three weeks in his laboratory. Neither
man knew that Cushing was destined to become the foremost neurosurgeon
in the world.

>From Cushing’s letters to his parents, it’s apparent he was hardly
impressed with Sherrington. Was he offended by Sherrington’s middle
class origins? Cushing was in fact a dedicated snob, more impressed
with one of Sherrington’s gorillas than with Sherrington. Cushing wrote
to his mother in America about the gorilla in Sherrington’s laboratory:
"Coal black — I don’t believe you could have distinguished his ear
from a darkies [sic]. He smelled just like a dirty Negro — behaved
like one."

In later years, Harvey Cushing, a famous surgeon in his post at Harvard
University, would be one of the major forces in American medicine
restricting the entry of blacks, Jews, and Italians into American
medical schools. (See the book by Michael Bliss: Harvey Cushing:
A Life in Surgery, Oxford University Press, 2005.)

Cushing was particularly opposed to the hiring of Jews in medical
departments. In 1925, he objected to having three Jews on his staff
at Brigham Hospital in Boston. He wrote in a letter: "I have no
objections to Hebrews, but I do not like too many of them all at once."

Cushing was even opposed to the hiring of black nurses in municipal
hospitals, and in 1929 he wrote to Cleveland’s director of public
health and welfare: "I am sure that colored women would often
make excellent trained nurses as they have shown themselves to be
excellent nursery maids. But this will mean that colored men who
are their friends and visitors will have to appear at the nurses’
parties and receptions and this would be absolutely disastrous to
the whole social status of your training school."

In 1938, Cushing was apparently more horrified by the method of the
Nazi extermination of the Jews than by the extermination itself. He
wrote in a letter, "What sticks in my craw is the Nazi treatment of
the Jews. It would be almost better, it seems to me, to exterminate
them as the Turks attempted to exterminate the Armenians."

Cushing was not a Southerner but a Northerner, born and raised in
Cleveland in a long line of physicians that first settled in Cleveland
in 1835. Aside from his skills as a surgeon, it seems Cushing was
a hardened bigot and racist — in effect, a moral imbecile. Was he
merely a man of his time? He apparently had insufficient intelligence
to rise above the ugly prejudices of that time. It’s difficult to
imagine that a physician with such strong aversions could isolate
such aversions from his treatment of patients.

We live in a strange country. We have so much diversity in America,
it can hardly be cataloged. And yet of all advanced countries in the
world, we excel in tribal hatreds that apparently seep everywhere in
the American psyche. We babble about "core values" while we do our
best to ignore the festering rot that underlies those values. It’s
a rot left to us by people like Harvey Cushing — and a rot that
still bubbles in too many people in our South, and in the politicians
elected by those people.

I wish a time will come for us when politicians of our South will
no longer remind us of people like Harvey Cushing. Some people might
think it’s much better to forget the past, but I don’t agree. We need
the past to inform us why we’re the way we are. Without that we will
never change. And without change our hatreds may eventually destroy us.

Meeting of presidents of Armenia, Russia and Azerbaijan in Moscow is over

2009-07-18 16:58:00

ArmInfo. The trilateral meeting of Presidents of Armenia, Russia and
Azerbaijan, Serzh Sargsyan, Dmitry Medvedev and Ilham Aliyev in Moscow
is over.

ArmInfo correspondent reports from Moscow that the closed meeting of
the three countries’ presidents covered the issue of the Karabakh
conflict settlement. No comments were done after the meeting.

The Armenian delegation headed by President Serzh Sargsyan has
completed its working visit to Moscow and is leaving for Yerevan.

ALL FAMILIES LEFT HOMELESS BY EARTHQUAKE TO HAVE APARTMENTS BY 2013, OFFICIALS SAY

Noyan Tapan
July 17, 2009

YEREVAN, JULY 17, NOYAN TAPAN. Excavation work for building a new
town in the city of Spitak in Lori marz began on July 15. Armenian
President Serzh Sargsyan had arrived in the earthquake zone to
familiarize himself with the construction process in Spitak, as well
as Mush-2 district in the city of Gyumri.

He participated in the festivities "Spitak as a City of Friendship"
attended by the ambassadors and consuls of the countries that have
contributed to the elimination of the consequences of the 1988 Spitak
earthquake, other guests.

RA Minister of Urban Development Vardan Vardanian stated that in
accordance with the consept on the earthquake zone’s restoration,
the apartment problem of about 7,000 families left homeless will be
solved by 2013. More than 3,000 apartments will be built in Gyumri,
and starting from November, 1,320 families will receive apartments
in Mush-2 district. The construction of Ani district in Gyumri has
already begun and another 254 apartments will be delivered for use
in July, 2010. In the words of the minister, nearly 400 families
will have house-warming parties in Lori marz in 2009: apartment
houses will be constructed in such communities as Shirakamut (former
Nalband, which was the epicenter of the 1988 earthqake), Mets Parni,
Geghasar, Arevashogh, Gogaran, Lusaghbyur, Sarahart, Hartagyugh and
Stepanavan. The provision of certificates for apartment purchase will
continue, and residents of the earthquake zone and about a thousand
families of refugees from Azerbaijan who currently live in other
regions of Armenia will receive such certificates.

More than 1,100 builders are engaged in construction work in Gyumri
alone.

According to the minister, most of them are locals with a montly
salary of 150 thousand drams (about 410 USD).

The minister said that under the project, it is also envisaged
building 354 dwelling houses with their adjoining plots in a 40-ha
area in Spitak, 36 houses of which will form the District of Masters
with apartments and workshops of handicraftsmen.

The construction work is being done by Glendale Hills company with the
RA state budget’s money. According to the company’s director general
Vahe Almoyan, initially it was planned to spend 43 billion drams
(about 118 million USD) on construction in Gyumri, but later the
program was optimized and expenses were reduced to about 30 billion
drams. 26 billion drams will be spent on construction of private
dwelling houses in rural communities of Shirak and Lori marzes.

MR. HOVIK ABRAHAMYAN, PRESIDENT OF THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY OF THE REPUBLIC OF ARMENIA ADDRESSES MESSAGES

National Assembly of RA
July 17 2009
Armenia

The President of the National Assembly congratulated Ms. Yachevich
on the occasion of being elected President of the National Assembly
of the Republic of Bulgaria.

Mr. Hovik Abrahamyan, the President of the National Assembly
congratulated Ms. Yachevich on the occasion of being elected President
of the National Assembly of the Republic of Bulgaria.

The message particularly says:

"On Behalf of the National Assembly of the Republic of Bulgaria
and myself personally I warmly congratulate on the occasion of being
elected President of the National Assembly of the Republic of Bulgaria,
wishing you success in realizing this high and responsible mission.

I am confident that friendly relations, existing between Bulgaria and
Armenia, as well as the close inter-parliamentary ties will become
even more lively and strong for the benefit of our peoples."

The President of the National Assembly congratulated Mr. Jerzy Buzeki,
on the occasion of being elected president of the European Parliament.

Mr. Hovik Abrahamyan, the President of the National Assembly
congratulated Mr. Jerzy Buzeki, on the occasion of being elected
president of the European Parliament. The message particularly reads:

"On Behalf of the National Assembly of the Republic of Bulgaria and
myself personally I warmly congratulate you on the occasion of being
elected to the high post of President of the European Parliament.

We highly praise the importance of developing and strengthening
cooperation between the European Union and its representative body –
the European Parliament and the National Assembly of the Republic of
Armenia. The EU – Armenia Parliamentary Cooperation Assembly with
its important and productive work has its significant contribution
in this activity.

I am confident that in the nearest future, the Western association,
with its parliamentary standard, will record a new stage in our
relations, greatly promoting the Euro- integration process of Armenia
as well as of the whole region."

‘BLACK BOXES’ OF THE CRASHED TU-154M AIRPLANE FOUND

ArmInfo
2009-07-16 12:22:00

ArmInfo. Two of the three "black boxes"of Tu-154M airplane, which
crashed on Wednesday near the Iranian city of Qazvin, have been
found. As Vesti TV channel reports quoting Head of the Crisis Working
Group of Iran’s Road and Transportation Ministry, Ahmad Majidi, the
found flight recorders have been seriously damaged. Nevertheless, the
Iranian specialists will do their best to decode the data and find
out the reasons of the tragedy. "If efforts to retrieve data from
the boxes fail, we shall have to request assistance of specialists
of the producer country", Majidi said. President of Iran Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad urged to hold a quick investigation of circumstances of
the plane crash. He also expressed his condolences to the families of
the killed and the whole Iranian people in view of the tragedy. Tu-154
airplane was flying from Tehran to Yerevan on Wednesday and crashed
near city of Qazvin.

According to the latest data, fire in one of the engines has become
the reason of the crash. The airplane has been fully destructed. Total
of 153 passengers and 15 crew members were on board of the crashed
plane. According to the Iranian sources’ data, all of them were
killed. Mourning has been declared in Armenia.

ARF SENDS LETTERS TO THE US, RUSSIAN AND FRENCH EMBASSIES IN ARMENIA
Siranush Muradyan

"Radiolur"
16.07.2009 17:48

The Supreme Body of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation
Dashnaktsutyun has come forth with a statement and has sent letters to
the Ambassadors of the United States, Russia and France to Armenia,
expressing concern over the processes around the settlement of the
Karabakh issue, representative of the ARF Supreme Body, MP Armen
Rustamyan told a press conference today.

In the letters the ARF expresses deep dissatisfaction with the
unreasonable pressure from the Minsk Group co-chair countries to
ensure unilateral and dangerous concessions.

Applying to the Ambassadors of the co-chair countries to Armenia,
the ARF Supreme Body has stressed, in part: "Following the summit of
the Group of Eight and on the eve of the meeting of the Presidents
of Armenia and Azerbaijani in Moscow on July 17, we apply to you
to express the disappointment of world-spread Armenians with the
unreasonable pressure from the co-chair countries to ensure unilateral
and dangerous concessions."

ARF ensures in the letter that "the concessions will imperil the
security of Armenia, the Nagorno Karabagh Republic (NKR) and the
Armenian people; increase the prospects of renewed Azerbaijani
aggression; and undermine the ability of the actual parties to this
conflict to reach a truly lasting and durable peace."=0 D

Armen Rustamyan presented also the statement of the Supreme Body
with which they require the resignation of Foreign Minister Edward
Nalbandian.

"The President has an opportunity not to sign this document. Should he
sign it, we’ll apply to other means of struggle. We do not demand the
President to resign, giving him a chance to keep the process moving,"
he said

ARF considers that a Turkish-Azerbaijani tandem has been created,
which works coordinated on the issue. Armen Rustamyan considers that
Armenia and Nagorno Karabakh should respond in the same way.

ARMENIANS OF CYPRUS TO HOLD ACTS OF PROTEST IN FRONT OF EMBASSIES OF MINSK GROUP CO-CHAIRING COUNTRIES

Noyan Tapan
July 16, 2009

NICOSIA, JULY 16, NOYAN TAPAN – ARMENIANS TODAY. The Armenian Cypriot
website states that Armenians of Cyprus will organize acts of protest
in front of the embassies of the OSCE Minsk Group three co-chairing
countries in Nicosia on July 16 to protest against those pressures
which are "improperly and illogically put on Armenia for the Armenian
side makes one-sided and dangerous consessions in the issue of the
Nagorno Karabakh conflict."

Quoting the website, Marmara states that the first act of protest will
be held in front of the Embassy of Russia, then it will be continued
in front of the U.S. Embassy and the third act of protest will take
place in front of the French Embassy. All the Armenians of Cyprus
were called to take active part in those acts of protest.

YEARS NEEDED FOR KARABAKH CONFLICT RESOLUTION

/PanARMENIAN.Net/
16.07.2009 18:08 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Promulgation of Madrid Principles on resolution of
the Nagorno Karabakh conflict has hotted up the forthcoming meeting of
the Armenian and Azerbaijani Presidents in Moscow, an Armenian MP said.

"Expectations are high, the more so because mediators are speaking
of "open window" or "golden opportunity". However, the problem is
complicated and its solution will take years," said Hermine Naghdalyan,
member of Republican Party of Armenia.

"Baku has not provided an exact response to Madrid Principles
yet. Moreover, we still hear warlike statements," she said, adding
that each presidential meeting makes solution closer

US HAILS KARABAKH PEACE TALKS AS ‘BREAKTHROUGH’

TurkishNY
-hails-karabakh-peace-talks-as.html
July 15 2009

Ahead of the Armenian and Azerbaijani presidents’ key meeting in
Russia, US mediator of the Minsk Group Matt Bryza tells the Daily News
that the strengthening dialogue has brought mediation efforts to a
‘new and hopeful level’ and welcomes Moscow’s contributions

The United States has welcomed the progress in the peace process
between regional rivals Armenia and Azerbaijan concerning the disputed
Nagorno-Karabakh territory.

"There is a real breakthrough in negotiations," said Matt Bryza,
U.S. deputy assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian
affairs. The U.S. official on Monday attended the European Union’s
flagship Nabucco natural gas pipeline project signing ceremony in
Ankara, where he spoke to the Hurriyet Daily News & Economic Review.

Together with Russia and France, the United States is co-chairing an
international panel, the Minsk Group of the Organization for Security
and Cooperation in Europe, or OSCE, which has sought to mediate the
dispute between the two countries.

The presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan are due to meet in Russia
on Friday for the sixth time in 13 months and the third time in
three months.

"The OSCE Minsk Group’s mediation of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict
is accelerating. … The increasing pace of their meetings reflects
a strengthening of the dialogue between the presidents," Bryza said.

"These factors have brought our mediation effort to a new and hopeful
level. We hope the presidents’ meeting on July 17 will build on the
important progress they made in St. Petersburg on June 4, and clear
the way to finalize the set of basic principles proposed by the Minsk
Group co-chairs in Madrid in November 2007."

He stressed President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary
Clinton were providing their personal support to his efforts as the
U.S. mediator.

"The three Minsk Group co-chairs, from the United States, Russia,
and France, work together as a strong and collaborative team. We
welcome the important and positive contributions by Russian President
Medvedev," said Bryza.

In recent remarks marking the most revealing announcement to date on
the details of the peace process, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev
said the Armenian pullback from five territories was reflected in
the Minsk Group’s proposals and only after the complete withdrawal
could there be discussion about the status of Karabakh.

"The question of the phased withdrawal of Armenian forces from occupied
territories outside Nagorno-Karabakh is the first stage. Immediately
after the signing of agreements, troops are slated to be withdrawn
from five regions," Aliyev was quoted as saying, adding that the
withdrawal of forces from the two regions would take place five years
after the initial pull back.

While in London on Monday, Aliyev, who did not attend the Nabucco
signing ceremony in Ankara, instead sending his energy minister
Natik Aliyev, said Nagorno-Karabakh would never be recognized as an
independent country.