Author: Nahapetian Samvel

RF EMBASSY IN ARMENIA CONGRATULATES RUSSIAN CITIZENS IN ARMENIA ON DAY
OF RUSSIA
YEREVAN, June 8. /ARKA/. The RF Embassy in Armenia congratulates all
Russian citizens living in Armenia on the Day of Russia, says a press
release of the RF Embassy in Armenia. The RF Embassy wished the
Russian citizens good health, prosperity and success in all their
businesses, and thanks everybody for congratulations addressed to the
RF Embassy. On June 12, the Russian people mark Day of Russia.
Fifteen years ago, the 1st Congress of People’s Deputies of the RSFR
adopted a declaration on state sovereignty of the Russian Federation.
Since 1994, under a decree of the RF President this date has been
marked as a sate holiday. On February 1, 2002, this holiday received a
new official name, Day of Russia.P.T. -0–
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

ARMENIA’S HUMAN RIGHTS PROTECTOR NEEDS PROTECTION HERSELF: NEW TIMES
PARTY
YEREVAN, JUNE 7. ARMINFO. The New Times party condemns any
encroachments on the ombudsman institution – a visit card of any
democratic state.
The party expresses its solidarity with Armenia’s Ombudsman Larisa
Alaverdyan who has been consistently executing her duties in the last
year. However in Armenia any independent initiative is presently
persecuted in by the government and Alaverdyan and her initiatives are
no exception. The authorities are presently trying to legislatively
restrict Alaverdyan in her already restricted powers. It is
ridiculous but Armenia’s human rights protector appears to need
protection herself, says the party.

Agence France Presse
4 juin 2005 samedi 4:22 PM GMT
L’avion des footballeurs macédoniens empêché d’aller en Arménie par
Ankara (journal)
SKOPJE 4 juin
L’avion transportant l’équipe macédonienne de football qui se rendait
en Arménie pour un match de qualification pour la Coupe du monde a
été empêché d’y atterrir par les autorités turques qui lui ont
interdit le survol de leur territoire, menaçant de l’abattre, a
affirmé samedi un journal macédonien.
L’appareil a été encadré par deux avions militaires turcs et s’est vu
refuser l’autorisation d’atterrir en Arménie voisine au moment où il
s’apprêtait à entamer sa descente, à 20 km de sa destination, a
affirmé le quotidien macédonien Utrinski Vesnik.
L’incident s’est produit jeudi, selon le journal. Les joueurs de
l’équipe macédonienne devaient disputer dimanche le match de
qualification pour la Coupe du monde les opposant aux Arméniens.
Le pilote a décidé de rebrousser chemin et de retourner à Skopje. Les
joueurs macédoniens ont dû, après cinq heures de vol, attendre encore
cinq heures à l’aéroport pendant que les discussions se poursuivaient
sur l’attitude à adopter après cet incident.
Epuisés et furieux, les membres de l’aquipe macédonienne ont demandé
à l’Union européenne de football (UEFA) d’annuler le match, mais les
dirigeants de l’UEFA ont décidé que le match prévu dimanche devait
avoir lieu.
Les autorités macédoniennes se sont plaintes auprès d’Ankara et de
Bruxelles.
A Istanbul, une source au ministère turc des Affaires étrangères a
confirmé que les autorités turques avaient demandé à l’avion de
rebrousser chemin, mais sans corroborer les informations sur des
avions de la chasse turque menaçant de l’abattre.
“Les autorités compétentes ont confirmé que l’avion en question est
entré dans l’espace aérien turc sans aucune autorisation. Elles lui
ont demandé un numéro d’autorisation de survol et le pilote a donné
un faux numéro. Il lui a alors été demandé de faire demi-tour. Le
pilote n’a pas non plus donné la raison de son vol vers l’Arménie.
Les autorités turques peuvent permettre exceptionnellement le survol
du territoire en l’absence d’autorisation de vol en cas de raison
sérieuse, mais ce n’était pas le cas”, a affirmé la source au
ministère.

Hamburger Abendblatt
6. Juni 2005
Kurzarbeit für Susi Kentikian;
BOXEN
Björn Jensen
Aschersleben/Hamburg – Es war wie immer in der noch kurzen
Profibox-Laufbahn der Susianna Kentikian. Auf der SES-Gala des
Magdeburger Promoters Ulf Steinforth in Aschersleben stieg die 17
Jahre alte Hamburgerin aus dem Spotlight-Stall zu ihrem fünften
Profikampf in den Ring – und nach nur 213 Sekunden schon wieder
heraus. Ihre zehn Jahre ältere Gegnerin Albena Atsewa aus Bulgarien
wurde nach harten Treffern aus dem Kampf genommen, die weiter
unbesiegte Kentikian durfte über den vierten Knockout-Sieg in Folge
jubeln.
Daß dieser Jubel verhalten ausfiel, spricht für die explosive
Fliegengewichtlerin. “Das war nicht die Leistung, die ich von mir
erwarte. Ich war zu hektisch”, analysierte sie selbstkritisch. Gern
hätte sie mehr gezeigt, “aber leider wollen meine Gegnerinnen oft
nicht weitermachen, wenn ich einen richtigen Treffer setze.” Die
Auswahl ihrer Kontrahentinnen will die Wandsbekerin, die in einigen
Medien schon als “Million Dollar Baby” gefeiert wurde, nicht
kritisieren. “Ich bin in der Aufbauphase. Die harten Gegnerinnen
kommen mit der Zeit. Ich muß noch viel lernen, und jeder Kampf bringt
mich weiter.”
Kämpfen hat die Armenierin, die 1996 mit ihrer Familie als
Kriegsflüchtling nach Hamburg kam, früh gelernt. Nach 20
Amateurfights wechselte sie im Januar dieses Jahres ins Profilager –
und fühlt sich dort bereits zu Hause. “Die wichtigste Änderung ist,
daß ich viele neue Fans gewonnen habe”, sagt sie. Diese neue
Bekanntheit war auch von Vorteil, als ihre psychisch kranke Mutter
Makruhi vor einigen Wochen verschwunden war. Durch
Vermißten-Meldungen in vielen Hamburger Medien wurde die
Öffentlichkeit in die Suche einbezogen, nach nur 24 Stunden war die
Mama wieder im Kreise der Familie. “Wir lassen sie jetzt keine Minute
mehr allein, aus diesem Schock haben wir gelernt”, sagt Susi.
Lernen muß die Schülerin der Berufsfachschule für Ernährung und
Hauswirtschaft auch in den kommenden drei Wochen. Im Restaurant
“Lukullion” absolviert sie ihr Betriebspraktikum. “Darauf freue ich
mich”, sagt sie. Auch wenn die Arbeit länger dauern wird als 213
Sekunden … (bj)
* In Aschersleben siegten auch die Spotlight-Boxer Enad Licina
(Cruiser, T. k. o. Runde zwei gegen den Weißrussen Solomka) und
Mahamet Ali (Halbschwer, T. k. o. Runde eins gegen den Ungarn
Geregely). Licina war für Pavel Melkomian eingesprungen, der sich
einen Bandscheiben-Einriß zugezogen hat.

Dallas Morning News , TX
June 4 2005
Winery lends flavor to city
Couple pop the cork on a new company
By JENNIFER AREND / The Dallas Morning News
Two years ago, engineer and Grand Prairie resident Rick Sala saw the
writing on the wall.
Layoffs had already started at BancTec in Irving, where he worked,
so he began looking for other opportunities.
“I was tired of the same old manufacturing jobs,” said Mr. Sala, who
had also worked for Motorola, Fujitsu and Peterbilt, among other
companies.
Customers can buy or sample the house wines or bottle their own
creations at The Winery in Grand Prairie. In 2003, he came across
Wine Not, a winery franchise company. The company has eight winery
locations in the United States, including one in San Antonio, and
several in Canada.
Mr. Sala had always enjoyed drinking wine, so he and his wife, Debra
– another engineer – decided they would open their own winery in
Grand Prairie. The Winery in Grand Prairie opened about five weeks
ago, at Robinson Road and Crossland Boulevard.
The Wine Not wineries don’t deal with the grapes themselves. They
import the grape juice, or “must,” as it’s called. Then the juice is
blended and customized, and the fermentation process begins.
Suppliers buy grapes from all over the world, including Italy, France
and California.
“In a way, it’s like making anything else,” Mr. Sala said, adding
that it didn’t hurt that he started out in school as a chemical
engineer. He became a master vintner after training sessions in
Canada.
Chardonnays, merlots, zinfandels, even fruit-flavored wines – the
variety of wines that Mr. Sala can make is extensive.
The winery is already doing a brisk business.
Groups have booked private tastings and parties, and others have
wandered in after driving by and wondering about the new business.
Mr. Sala has already sold more than half of his original stock, and
there’s a waiting list for some varieties. Last week, Mr. Sala
entered some of his wines in the Lone Star International Wine
Competition, held at Lone Star Park. The competition is organized by
the Texas Wine and Grape Growers Association.
Mr. Sala said he’s enjoyed people’s reactions to the new business.
“Their jaws will kind of drop, and they’ll say, ‘So, what do you make
here?’ As if it wouldn’t be obvious from the name,” Mr. Sala said
with a laugh.
“It’s as if having a winery in Grand Prairie is an oxymoron.”
The new 3,400-square-foot building was designed to look like a cross
between a church and a warehouse, Mr. Sala said. The open floor plan
allows customers to view the wine laboratory, including three giant
stainless-steel fermentation vats and bottling machinery. Making the
wine is a four- to six-week process, and the winery can produce up to
4,000 bottles per month.
Bottles range from $12 to $25, and tastings, which include three wine
varieties, are $6.
The wine is only available at the winery now, but Mr. Sala said he
hopes to sell his wine at restaurants and stores in the future.
“A lot of people make wine too pretentious,” Mr. Sala said. “That
tends to turn people off.
“I want to make it fun,” he added. “I don’t want people to be made to
feel stupid.”
He said that eventually, he plans to offer classes on wine that would
teach topics such as which wines are traditionally paired with
certain foods.
“But if you like white wine with steak, that’s fine,” he said.
For customers who want to bottle their own vintage, a batch costs
between $195 and $280, but that produces about 29 bottles of wine.
Customers can also customize the labels on the bottles.
Dr. Dean Peyton, a longtime Grand Prairie resident, spent a few
mornings recently filtering and then bottling his first batch of
wine, which he named “Bubba Blanc,” an homage to his nickname.
Dr. Peyton said having a winery in Grand Prairie is surreal.
“It’s crazy as hell,” he said. “I thought, ‘Could this possibly be
real?’ ”
Dr. Peyton said he didn’t know anything about wine before visiting
the winery.
“I just liked to drink it,” he said. But he was willing to learn how
wine is made, so Mr. Sala gave him step-by-step lessons. “This is
fun, to have something like this in Grand Prairie.”
Anush Gharibyan, marketing director for the winery, heard about Mr.
Sala’s business plans when she was still a graduate assistant at the
University of Dallas, where she was completing her MBA.
A lover of wine who spent her undergraduate years in Armenia studying
the winemaking process, Ms. Gharibyan encourages people to take part
in “wine culture.”
“Wine-drinking is a lifestyle,” said Ms. Gharibyan, who dreams of
having her own winery someday. “And if you drink moderately, it is
healthy.”

Plane carrying Macedonian football team to Armenia forced back mid-air
Agence France Presse — English
June 4, 2005 Saturday 4:28 PM GMT
SKOPJE June 4 — A plane carrying the Macedonian football team was
forced to turn back mid-air after being denied permission to land
in Armenia by Turkish authorities, who threatened to shoot it down,
media here reported Saturday.
The plane carrying the players to their World Cup qualifying match
with Armenia was surrounded by two military jets and denied permission
to land in neighbouring Armenia as it prepared for its descent just
20 kilometres from its destination, the Macedonian daily Utrinski
Vesnik reported.
Instead the pilot decided to return to Skopje. After their five-hour
return flight Thursday the players were stranded at Skopje airport
for five hours more as discussions continued about what to do.
Tired and angry at their ordeal, the Macedonian team asked UEFA,
European football’s governing body, to cancel their match but the
officials ruled the match on Sunday had to go ahead.
“When we arrived back in Skopje we didn’t want to fly back again and
asked for the match to be cancelled,” said Goce Sedloski, captain of
the Macedonian team, and Dinamo Zagreb player.
“If UEFA and FIFA (the world football governing body) organise the
matches it’s better if the Macedonian team don’t play in them if we
have these kinds of problems,” added player Goran Pandev, who plays
for Italian side Lazio.
Macedonian officials have complained to Turkish authorities and
Brussels about the incident, the paper reported.
In Ankara, the foreign ministry confirmed that Turkish authorities
had asked a Macedonian aircraft to leave Turkish airspace, but did
not confirm that it had been threatened with shooting.
“The relevant authorities confirmed that the plane entered Turkish
airspace without authorisation. They asked it for an authorisation
number but the pilot gave them a false number and was then asked to
turn back,” an official at the ministry said.
“The pilot did not give the reason for his flight to Armenia — the
authorities can exceptionally allow an unauthorised flight through
Turkish airspace if there is a serious reason, but this was not the
case,” he said.

Russia did not intend to transfer bases to Abkhazia – ambassador at large
RIA Novosti, Russia
June 3 2005
MOSCOW, June 3 (RIA Novosti) – Russia did not intend to transfer its
bases from Georgia to Abkhazia, Russian Foreign Ministry’s ambassador
at large Igor Savolsky said.
“We did not regard Abkhazia as a site for redeploying the bases. We
mentioned Armenia because the base in Akhalkalaki (Georgia) is located
100 km away from our base in Gyumri (Armenia),” Savolsky said.
However, it is hard to say what armaments and property will be
transferred to Armenia because exact terms of the withdrawal of
Russian bases in Georgia have not been fixed yet, he added.
“Anyway, military hardware and property will be transferred from one
Russian base to another. Nothing extraordinary is going to happen,”
he said. Therefore, Baku’s concerns that it will reinforce the Armenian
army are groundless.
“Russian military hardware will not be handed to the Armenian side.
It will be stationed at the Russian base,” Savolsky said.

Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline: another West-East fault line – Part 2
TDN
Friday, June 3, 2005
OPINIONS
K. Gajendra SINGH
Ilham Aliyev’s late father Haydar, popularly called Baba (father)
of the nation and Azerbaijan’s ruler for nearly three decades,
can be considered the major brain behind the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan
(BTC) pipeline. Before dying at the end of 2003 in a U.S. medical
clinic, he ensured succession for his 41-year-old son in presidential
elections that were disputed by opposition leaders at home and others
outside. Both the United states and Russia acquiesced because, with
the Middle East in turmoil, stability in the Caspian Basin was vital
with its vast energy resources.
Born in the Nakhichevan enclave adjoining Turkey, Haydar Aliyev
was brought to Moscow in 1982 after a successful career in the KGB
in Azerbaijan and became the first Muslim member of the Politburo,
almost reaching the very top. But Mikhail Gorbachev, who took over in
1985 and ushered in the unclearly thought out policies of Perestroika
and Glasnost, dismissed Aliyev in 1987 for opposing the reforms.
But after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Azerbaijan declared
independence like other Soviet republics. The wily and resilient
Aliyev, now donning the mantle of nationalism, denounced Soviet
intervention in Baku and re-emerged from Nakhichevan. He soon muscled
his way to become president in June 1993. Among his many admirers,
neither Georgia’s Eduard Sheverdnadzde nor Uzbek President Islam
Karimov have been as successful as Aliyev, who established dynastic
rule.
This writer, accredited to Baku, recalls his meetings with Aliyev
during 1993-96 when Aliyev was still trying to find his feet and
acquire legitimacy at home and respectability abroad. Because of
his KGB background, the West treated him like a pariah. Neither Iran
nor Turkey — as his predecessor was very pro-Turkish — were happy
at his return. Aliyev had bad vibes with Boris Yeltsin and opposed
Russian defense installations in Azerbaijan. Aliyev met with Russian
President Yeltsin and soothed Turkey’s fears, having established
friendly relations with President Suleyman Demirel.
Aliyev also knew many in the Indian leadership from his Moscow days
where he received them as a senior party member, a success story from
one of the Turkic-speaking republics with historic linkages and ties
to India. To break out from his isolation, Aliyev was ready to fly
to India on short notice. He tried frantically to establish contacts
with Western leaders, almost anyone.
Like the Baku-born chess player Garry Kasparov, Aliyev moved
stealthily and aggressively if required. He would turn up in
Istanbul and elsewhere for meetings with Western leaders, and finally
succeeded. He also courted Israel (there were still 100,000 Jews in
Azerbaijan; 50,000 had migrated to Israel), which was happy to have
a watch post in Baku over Iran in the south. Iran has twice as many
Turkic-speaking Shiite Azeris as Azerbaijan. Israeli Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu even visited Baku.
Aliyev’s contacts with Israel and European leaders paved the way
for direct contacts with the Americans, especially the powerful
Jewish lobby, to counteract the influential Armenian diaspora in
United States. He seduced the U.S.-led West to his side in the new
Great Game of acquiring and controlling scarce energy resources. In
September 1995, a $7.4 billion deal with an oil consortium led by BP
to exploit Azerbaijan’s extensive energy resources laid the foundations
for the BTC.
Aliyev was a stunning success in Washington. During his 1997 visit
to the United States he met with President Bill Clinton and signed
oil deals with U.S. oil giants worth nearly $10 billion. More
than 400 American VIPs, including many senior officials such as
former secretaries of state and defense, lobbyists, consultants,
investors and facilitators, lined up for a $250-per-plate banquet
in his honor. In a few years from being a pariah, Aliyev had become
a U.S. darling. Verily, the qualities to reach the top rung in any
system are perhaps not so different.
Under Aliyev a new constitution was approved in 1995. He brought
stability and peace to Azerbaijan; a cease-fire with Armenia signed
in 1994 still holds. He enacted economic reforms that brought massive
foreign investment. The BTC project to transport Caspian Basin oil
to the Mediterranean began under him.
Apart from the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) and the
Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), Azerbaijan joined
the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE),
the Council of Europe and other Western organizations. Baku also
expressed a desire to join NATO. In the illegal U.S. war on Iraq,
Azerbaijan sided with Washington.
Baku, located on the Caspian Sea, was an important stop on the old
silk routes. It produced half of the world’s oil at the turn of the
last century. It has a rich past and a cosmopolitan culture with its
opera houses and fine buildings. It became the center of the Soviet
oil industry and many Indians were trained here.
But in November 1993 it looked gray, bleak and depressing when we
— five ambassadors based in Ankara — went there to present our
credentials to Aliyev. Conditions improved as investments flowed in,
but disparities still remain. This writer saw Afghan war-experienced
mujahaddin, flown in on Pakistani planes to fight in the enclave
of Nagorno-Karabakh, swaggering in the hotel lobbies. They proved
expensive and rather ineffective mercenaries against Russian-armed
Armenian Nagorno-Karabakh forces.
For South Asians, especially Parsees, there is Atishgah — a
fire-worship temple near Baku. The present complex opened in the 17th
century and was used up to the mid-19th century, but the original
Atishgah goes back to very ancient times. From time immemorial
natural gas has seeped out of the earth and catches on fire. Aryans
and Parsees, both Indo-Iranians, worshipped fire. Parsees in India
still do so, as Hindus worship Agni (fire). The Azerbaijani foreign
minister told this writer that Azerbaijan was known as Aagban, which
means “forest of fire” or “arrow of fire.” The temple claimed many
miraculous powers, bringing happiness and well being to visitors
and devotees alike. Located on the silk route, many Indian traders
— Parsees, Punjabis, Gujaratis and others — started visiting the
temple and built Dharamshala-like rooms to stay in. An elderly lady
in charge at Atishgh told this writer that Jawaharlal Nehru and his
daughter Indira Gandhi had once visited.
An Indian restaurant, Caravansaray, also operated in the city in
the 19th century. Pepe Escobar, a recent visitor to Baku, wrote:
“The only other flourishing industry in the Caucasus, apart from oil,
is kidnapping. Not to mention Kristina, the top belly-dancer at the
Karavanserai, a favorite restaurant of the oil oligarchy, who is in
a class all by herself.”
Next door to Daghestan and Chechnya, Azerbaijan is a centerpiece in
the strategic multiethnic and potentially explosive mosaic called
the Caucasus. Azerbaijan and Georgia are essential for the transport
of gas and petroleum to the West via Turkey or the Black Sea and the
Balkans from not only the Caspian Basin but also from Central Asian
republics such as Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan.
Conclusion:
The 1973 oil price crisis surely did not compel the United States to
use energy as efficiently as the Europeans and the Japanese did.
Neither did the United States invest heavily to find other energy
alternatives. Instead, it has tried to acquire a stronghold over
energy resources around the world by bribing presidents in Central
Asia, Africa and Latin America.
Former Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, now president of
the World Bank, boasted soon after the Iraqi invasion and “mission
accomplished” that Iraqi weapons of mass destruction and other
accusations were just bureaucratic excuses for controlling Iraqi
oil. Former UK Environment Minister Michael Meacher recently told Al
Jazeera in Lisbon, “The reason they [United States] attacked Iraq has
nothing to do with weapons of mass destruction, it has nothing to do
with democracy in Iraq, it has nothing to do with the human rights
abuses of Saddam Hussein.”
“It was principally, totally and comprehensively because of oil,”
Meacher continued. “This was about assuming control over the Middle
East and over Iraq, the second largest producer, and also over Saudi
Arabia next door. It was about securing as much as possible of the
remaining supplies of oil and also over supplies in the Caspian Basin.”
Meacher also added that the United States had poor environmental
standards. “American power plants waste more energy than is needed
to run the whole Japanese economy,” he said. “They have set their
face against the Kyoto protocol.”
UK Labour Party MP George Galloway, while putting to the sword false
accusations against him of money transactions with Saddam Hussein,
instead accused a U.S. Senate Subcommittee of creating the mother
of all “smokescreens” to hide an unaccounted disappearance of
$8.8 billion of Iraqi oil revenues under the rule in Iraq of Paul
Bremer, the first U.S. viceroy to Baghdad and a symbol of a wastage
of hundreds of billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars in a war that has
become a quagmire for the United States.
It should be a lesson for the pawns in the Caspian Basin. The BTC
pipeline will become just another fault line between East and West
for control of energy sources with Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey
playing crucial roles.
This is a region of uneven topography and ethnic and other fault
lines, and the pipeline would only exacerbate them. There are two
breakaway provinces in Georgia having close relations to Russia. If
the Muslim Chechens, who are now fighting Russia with Georgia not
checking them, decide to take on the United States, they could
sabotage the pipeline. The same jihadis who fought against Soviet
Russia to help the United States avenge its humiliation in Vietnam
also bombed U.S. missions in Kenya and Tanzania and were responsible
for the Sept. 11 attacks. Baku, with tense relations with Moscow and
Tehran in the South, can be infiltrated to create instability. The
pipeline passes through turbulent Kurdish regions of Turkey. In spite
of Kurds in Turkey having recently gained many rights, the situation
remains tense in its Kurdish regions. It is not likely to be helped
if Iraq starts unraveling, which cannot be ruled out considering
Iraqi Kurdistan becoming autonomous, if not independent.
K. Gajendra Singh, served as Indian ambassador to Turkey and Azerbaijan
in 1992-96. Prior to that, he served as ambassador to Jordan (during
the 1990-91 Gulf war), Romania and Senegal. He is currently chairman
of the Foundation for Indo-Turkic Studies. The views expressed here
are his own. E-mail: [email protected]

Georgia to take part in financing expenses of bases’ pullout-FM
By Ksenia Kaminskaya and Tamara Frolkina
ITAR-TASS News Agency
May 30, 2005 Monday 1:06 PM Eastern Time
MOSCOW, May 30 — Georgian Foreign Minister Salome Zurabishvili said
Tbilisi would take part in financing the expenses of the withdrawal
of the Russian bases from Akhalkalaki and Batumi.
At the same time, Zurabishvili stressed, “Georgia and Russia intend
to address their partners in order to search for additional funding
for this purpose.”
The Georgian minister said on Monday, “This is not an obligatory
condition for fulfilling obligations. The major part of hardware will
be drawn out to Russia.”
However, she did not rule out that the part of hardware “will be
redeployed to other places, for example to Armenia.” In her words,
“We’ll do our best to draw out the major part of hardware to Russia.”
“Georgia isn’t interested in deploying military forces in its territory
and in Caucasian countries adjacent to it,” Zurabishvili pointed out.

Russia, Georgia agree to withdrawal of bases
AFX Europe (Focus)
May 30, 2005
MOSCOW (AFX) – Moscow and Tbilisi have agreed on the pullout by the
end of 2008 of Russia’s last two Soviet-era military bases in Georgia,
signalling a resolution to a long-running and bitter dispute between
the two neighbours.
“The final pullout will be finished during 2008,” Foreign Minister
Sergei Lavrov said, following talks in Moscow with his Georgian
counterpart Salome Zurabishvili.
“We have taken an important and constructive step. We have achieved
our goal,” Zurabishvili told journalists.
Lavrov said a joint statement detailing the precise timetable for
the withdrawal of troops and equipment will be issued later today.
However, Interfax news agency quoted a high-ranking military source
as saying that the pullout wil not begin until 2006.
About 3,000 servicemen are stationed at the bases — one in
Akhalkalaki, near the Georgian-Armenian border, the other in Batumi,
on the Black Sea coast.
The two bases date from the Soviet era, when they were part of the
Soviet Union’s south-western flank with NATO.
Russia’s refusal to make a speedy withdrawal has contributed to tense
relations with its neighbour since the collapse of the Soviet Union,
especially since Georgia’s pro-Western president Mikhail Saakashvili
came to power in the “rose revolution” of November 2003.
In another sign of a possible thaw in relations, Lavrov said there
has also been a decision made to agree, before the end of the year,
on delimitation of the Georgian-Russian border, which runs along the
Caucasus mountains range.
“We will do everything” to contribute to peaceful resolutions
of Georgia’s separatist conflicts in Abkhazia and South Ossetia,
Lavrov added.
Moscow-backed separatist forces control both regions, which are on
the Georgian side of the rugged border.
Russia’s relationship with Georgia has long been complicated by
Moscow’s attempts to stem an erosion of its influence in the Caucasus,
where the US has become an increasingly important player.
Georgia has applied for membership in NATO and hosts a small contingent
of US military trainers, prompting Moscow to seek assurances that
foreign troops will not be allowed in after its own forces leave.
President Vladimir Putin recently said such a deplyment would “affect
our security.”
However, he has also acknowledged that Moscow could not drag its feet.
“Foreign bases of all countries in the world — if they are not
occupying troops — are there with the agreement of their partners. If
there is no such desire among our partners, then we have no choice. We
have to take this step. For better or worse, we are leaving there,”
he said.
Georgia is impoverished and has a population of less than 5 mln, but
has gained in strategic importance with the building of an oil export
pipeline that stretches from the Caspian Sea to the Mediterranean
with a section passing through Georgia.
Its troubled border with Russia also includes a section shared with
Chechnya, where tens of thousands of Russian troops are tied down in
the second guerrilla war in a decade.