Author: Virabian Jhanna

AZERI DEFENCE MINISTRY CONFIRMS SOLDIER TAKEN CAPTIVE BY ARMENIANS

Source: ITV, Baku, in Azeri 1100 gmt 9 Dec 06
ITV, Public Television, Azerbaijan
Dec 9 2006

Vusal Qaracayev, 18-year-old soldier of the Azerbaijani army, has
been taken captive by the Armenian armed forces on the contact line
between the [Armenian and Azerbaijani] armed forces in Agdam District.

[passage omitted: quoting an Armenian report]

The head of the Defence Ministry press service, Col Ramiz Malikov,
has confirmed this. He said that soldier Vusal Qaracayev lost his
way and crossed over to the Armenian positions while carrying out
his duties on the morning of 7 December.

The head of the Defence Ministry press service also told ITV that
that the Azerbaijani Defence Ministry had reported the issue to
relevant international organizations and that work was under way to
free the soldier.

BREAKAWAY KARABAKH PARLIAMENT ANNOUNCES AMNESTY AHEAD OF REFERENDUM

Mediamax News Agency, Armenia
Dec 8 2006

Yerevan, 8 December: The Nagornyy Karabakh republic [NKR] parliament
adopted unanimously a decree on amnesty in the republic at its special
session today.

A proposal on the amnesty, devoted to the 15th anniversary of the
NKR’s independence and the forthcoming constitutional referendum on
10 December, was submitted to the parliament by the NKR president,
Arkadiy Gukasyan.

The amnesty will include persons, who had committed crimes until 1
November of 2006, and will be valid till 1 March 2007.

The amnesty will not cover people who have committed especially grave
crimes as well recidivists after a pardon or an amnesty.

DEPUTY MINISTER SAYS IPAP TO HELP ARMENIA BUILD DEMOCRATIC SOCIETY

Armenpress
Dec 08 2006

YEREVAN, DECEMBER 8, ARMENPRESS: Deputy foreign minister Arman
Kirakosian, a keynote speaker at an international conference on
Armenia-NATO: New Partnership Agenda, said Armenia’s Individual
Partnership Action Plan (IPAP) with NATO raises Armenia’s relations
with this organization to a new higher level.

He said Armenia will make use of mechanisms offered by IPAP to reform
its defense and security systems and strengthen partnership cooperation
with its allies.

The deputy minister said the ultimate objective of the planned
reforms is to crate a defense system that will be in conformity with
requirements of a democratic society.

He added that the program aims also to add to the efforts of advancing
democracy in Armenia and build a true civic society.

KEEP GEORGIA (AND ARMENIA) ON YOUR MIND
By David B. Boyajian November 16, 2006, freelance writer based in Massachusetts

AZG Armenian Daily
09/12/2006

If Georgia isn’t on your mind, it should be.

Armenia’s northern neighbor has for years enraged Moscow by cozying up
to the US and NATO. So, using Georgia’s recent arrest of four Russian
officers for spying as a convenient pretext, the Kremlin has severed
its land, rail, air, and sea traffic with that country and imposed
various other sanctions. Russia may even – as it has done before –
double the price, or shut off, the natural gas upon which Georgia is
heavily dependent.

In reality, though, this crisis isn’t between Russia and Georgia. It’s
between Russia and the US/NATO.

They’ve been engaged in a high-stakes tug-of-war to prevent the other
from dominating the oil and gas rich Caspian Sea region.

What makes little, impoverished Georgia so important?

Geography. Georgia is currently the West’s (and Turkey’s) only land
and pipeline route to and from Azerbaijan and the Caspian basin.

Every other route from the west crosses Iran or Russia and is,
therefore, unacceptable to Washington.

Recall, of course, that Turkey and Azerbaijan have shut their borders
with Armenia. Thus, only Georgia, not Armenia, can serve as an
east-west corridor at this time.

The NATO Threat

Moscow aims to strong-arm Georgia back into Russia’s orbit, thereby
slamming the door to the Caspian in NATO’s face.

If, however, Georgia joins NATO – Washington already trains and
equips Georgia’s soldiers – the Russian bear could never again lay
a paw on Georgia.

Azerbaijan would probably follow Georgia into NATO.

Russia’s position in the Caucasus would then all but collapse.]

NATO could then jump across the Caspian Sea and march straight into
Muslim Central Asia, posing a possibly mortal threat to Russia.

Can Russia subdue Georgia and forestall such a disaster?

Russian Leverage

Russia supplies nearly all of Georgia’s natural gas and owns or
controls a considerable portion of its energy infrastructure. And
though Tbilisi is frantically seeking alternative energy supplies from
Azerbaijan, Iran, and Turkey, Russia is probably capable of freezing
Georgia and severely damaging its economy in the near-term.

Even a Russian military attack on Georgia cannot be ruled out.

Short of that, Russia is clearly hoping to intimidate Georgians
into dumping their pro-NATO, American educated president, Mikheil
Saakashvili, whom one Russian official calls "an American puppet."

Presumably, a pro-Russian leader would then replace him and bring
Georgia back into the Russian fold.

Something roughly similar occurred earlier this year in Ukraine, where
its pro-NATO President Yuschenko had been giving Moscow nightmares. Due
in part to Moscow’s use of its natural gas weapon, Ukraine recently
reinstalled the pro-Russian Viktor Yanukovich as Prime Minister.

In the meantime, the Georgian crisis is giving Armenia pause for
thought.

Armenia Blockaded

"By blockading Georgia," says one Armenian analyst, "Russia is also
blockading Armenia."

That’s because most of Armenia’s trade transits Georgian ports or the
Georgian – Russian border. More importantly, Armenia gets its natural
gas from Russia through the same pipeline that supplies Georgia.

As in Georgia, Russia owns or controls much of Armenia’s energy
infrastructure, including the Metzamor nuclear power facility.

Russia has been long nonchalant about the pain it inflicts on its
"strategic ally" Armenia whenever it has shut its border with, or
gas pipeline to, Georgia.

That’s the Kremlin’s way of telling Yerevan that it could suffer
the same fate as Tbilisi if it becomes too friendly with America and
NATO. Should Armenia be concerned?

Armenia Next?

Since independence in 1991, Yerevan has walked a tightrope between
Russia and the United States.

Unlike Georgia, which is hostile to Russia and friendly to Turkey,
Armenia is Russia’s ally and looks to it for military support against
Turkey. Indeed, Russia’s only friends in the Caucasus are Armenia
and Artsakh/Karabagh.

At the same time, Armenia has excellent relations with the US and
Europe, with which it has major historical, cultural, and Diasporan
links.

That makes the Kremlin nervous. It worries that Armenia could, like
Georgia, give NATO a path to the Caspian.

Armenia itself worries that, historically, Russia has often taken
Armenians for granted and betrayed them to Turks and Azerbaijanis. Even
today, Russia’s burgeoning economic and political relations with
Turkey raise the specter of Russia’s selling out Armenia.

On the other hand, Yerevan is aware that the West would itself be
an unreliable ally, having always sided, in the final analysis,
with Turks against Armenians.

Yet despite its vulnerability, Christian Armenia is by far the most
stable and ethnically homogenous nation in the Caucasus. That makes
it a very attractive partner for those who wish to shut out NATO
or, alternatively, bring NATO to the shores of the Caspian. That is
Armenia’s power – its potential trump card.

Will Armenia leverage that power in the long term and weather the
present crisis? Only if its leaders are totally dedicated to the
people and intolerant of corruption, which saps the nation’s and the
Diaspora’s resources and morale.

KAZIMIROV: NAGORNO KARABAKH STATUS REMAINS HARDEST PROBLEM

PanARMENIAN.Net
06.12.2006 15:53 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Any statistics in the negotiation process on the
Nagorno Karabakh conflict settlement is doubtful, former OSCE Minsk
Group Co-chair Vladimir Kazimirov told a PanARMENIAN.Net reporter
when commenting on the statement by Azeri FM Elmar Mammadyarov about
the only unsettled item.

"Does it take into account the weight of each of 8-9
principles? Anyway the status of Karabakh remains the key problem. If
the question is settled it would open the way to resolution of other
problems even complicated ones. Quoting the Azeri Constitution is
inappropriate. Everyone understand when and why the amendments to the
Constitution were made. Moreover, the history has recorded cases of
referenda during the recent decades," Kazimirov said.

EX-SOVIET IMMIGRANTS FACE HOSTILE RUSSIA
by Dario Thuburn

Agence France Presse — English
December 4, 2006 Monday 2:46 AM GMT

They were once citizens of a single state. But 15 years after the
Soviet Union’s collapse, immigrants from former Soviet republics are
now considered undesirable foreigners in Russia.

"I see this every day," said Gavkhar Dzhurayeva, who heads the Law
and Migration centre in Moscow, an organisation that aids thousands
of labour migrants from across the former Soviet Union.

Many Russians refer to their former Soviet brothers with open contempt,
blaming them for crime and dirty streets. People from Central Asia
get called "churki" ("idiots"), those from the Caucasus "khachi"
("simpletons").

But Dzhurayeva, who fled from the Central Asian state of Tajikistan
after a civil war erupted in 1992, said she could not shake the
feeling that she ought to be welcome in Russia.

"For me it’s very difficult to change my consciousness and see Russia
as a different country. I still have a Soviet mentality," she said.

Hundreds of thousands of migrants leave their homes in poor former
Soviet republics each year to find work in Russia, mostly in major
cities like Moscow, and send money home to their families.

Many work on the rumbling construction sites that are ubiquitous in
Moscow and other Russian cities, or else work as cleaners, stallholders
and street sweepers, eking out a precarious existence in the shadow
of police abuses, organised crime and racist violence.

One of the most prominent and deadly cases of recent racist violence
came in August, when a group of ethnic Russian ultranationalists
detonated a bomb in a market frequented by many immigrants from
Central Asia and the Caucasus, killing 11 people.

"These foreigners are considered second-class citizens because of
their ethnic appearance," said Alexander Verkhovsky, head of the Sova
Centre in Moscow, which researches racism in Russia.

However they are treated, the influx of immigrants is turning Moscow
into a multi-ethnic city.

Between 1989 and 2002, the percentage of Russians in Moscow fell from
93.3 percent to 85 percent, while the proportion of immigrants from
the Caucasus states of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia multiplied
five times to 4.5 percent, according to the Institute of Geography
at the Russian Academy of Sciences.

Olga Vendina, an institute expert and author of a report entitled
"Ethnic Moscow," said southern parts of the capital had been most
affected, with the proportion of ethnic minorities rising from five
to 15 percent since 1989.

"Immigrants mostly try to fit into Moscow life and become like
everyone, not stick with their diasporas," Vendina told Russian media,
adding that the appearance of "ethnic ghettos" was linked to poverty.

President Vladimir Putin said earlier this year that the number of
immigrants, most of them illegal, may have reached 15 million, which
would give Russia the highest immigration rate in the world.

The trend is supported by the visa-free travel regime between most of
the former Soviet republics, which allows many immigrants to settle
in Russia illegally.

The high levels of immigration have led many in Russia, from
ultra-nationalist groups to mainstream politicians, to turn against
the visa-free regime.

"Everyone used to live in one country surrounded by barbed wire,
now everyone lives in a place that’s open to anyone and everyone,"
said Vladimir Zharikhin, head of the CIS Institute in Moscow.

"This is not normal," said Zharikhin, adding that the only solution
would be for individual countries of the former Soviet Union to
strengthen their borders with each other and impose visas.

Negative attitudes towards former Soviet immigrants are not shared
by all Russians, however, as many, particularly in older generations,
cling to the Soviet ideal of "friendship of the peoples."

A study conducted by the All-Russian Centre for the Study of Public
Opinion in July found that 33 percent of Russians polled considered
citizens of former Soviet republics their "compatriots."

The leaders of Belarus, Russia and Ukraine met in Belovezh Forest near
Minsk on December 8, 1991 and signed the Belavezha Accords dissolving
the Soviet Union.

Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev announced his resignation 17
days later.

TURKEY MUST PROVE IT IS FIT FOR THE EU
By Boston Herald Editorial Staff

Boston Herald, MA
Dec 3 2006

Pope Benedict XVI took the occasion of his visit to Turkey to let it
be known that he no longer believes Turkey should be excluded from
the European Union. That may help Vatican diplomacy in the wake
of the Pope’s September quoting of a Byzantine emperor of half a
millennium ago on the violent nature of Islam. But it’s not proof
that EU membership is a good idea.

We have supported Turkey’s membership, but now we welcome the
just-arisen impasse in negotiations. It can provide the opportunity
for a long pause, as recommended by the EU Commission, while Europe
and the world see what kind of country Turkey is going to become.

(The impasse arises because of Turkey’s refusal to let ships from
Cypriot ports trade to Turkish ports.)

Turkey asked to join Europe in 1993 and for years seemed to be making
a good case. It even abolished its death penalty to qualify.

But recently Turkey has been backsliding.

The Muslim nature of the country is not an issue for us, though it
is for much of Europe and once was for the pope. Turkey’s secular
revolution of 1923 remains firmly in place. Support for Sharia, strict
Islamic law, has declined from 21 percent to 9 percent in the past
seven years. Prime Minister Recep Erdogan’s Islamist government has
only nibbled at the dominant secularism of public life to accommodate
a measure of religious expression.

But the country has long refused to permit free religious expression
for others. The tiny Christian community is forbidden to operate a
seminary or to publish anything.

Last year prosecutors charged Orhan Pamuk, winner of the Nobel Prize
in literature this year, with "public denigration of the Turkish
identity" because of interview comments about Turkey’s treatment of
its Kurdish and Armenian minorities. The case was later dropped,
but the brand-new law on which it was based, making it a crime to
discuss the 1915 massacre of hundreds of thousands of Armenians –
a true attempted genocide – remains in force.

The military, which staged coups in 1960, 1971 and 1980 and forced
the resignation of a prime minister in 1997, retains the last word,
and the top general regularly reminds the country of this. This is
quite foreign to real democracy.

As long as Turkish life is curbed in these ways, there is no point
in discussing Cypriot ports.

FROMMER BIDS FAREWELL
By Anthony Kim

Burbank Leader, CA
Dec 2 2006

Dario Frommer, who terms out today after six years of service, says
he’ll find work in the private sector.

GLENDALE – Assemblyman Dario Frommer made merry with friends and
co-workers Wednesday night at the Alex Theatre, celebrating the end
of his six years of service in the state legislature.

"It’s great to see a lot of our friends," Frommer said.

"It’s really nice to see a lot of people you know and have a lot
of fun."

Hoover High School’s jazz band performed an eclectic mix of music as
a crowd socialized in the outside patio.

Many familiar faces made appearances to meet Frommer in his final
major event as the Assembly Majority Leader.

"It’s been a very nice celebration of the six years of service Dario
has given to the state," State Sen. Jack Scott said.

Paul Krekorian, who will be replacing Frommer following a swearing-in
ceremony Monday, said he was enjoying the atmosphere and looking
forward to his new position.

"I’m going to meet with Dario to discuss transitioning as seamlessly
as possible for the constituents," he said. advertisement

After representing the 43rd Assembly District for the maximum of three
two-year terms, the assemblyman is taking a break from public service.

"I have a young family," he said.

"I enjoyed [being assemblyman], but it’s very demanding."

He has not yet decided what he will do for a living, but for now it
will be in the private sector, Frommer said.

His departure had created a mood around his Glendale office of a
blend of poignancy and bustle.

"The packing has been chaotic," staff member Narine Zardarian said.

Zardarian is moving on to become the community-relations director
for the Armenian Assembly of America.

"It’s very bittersweet," she said. "This was the best job I ever had,
I can honestly say."

Most of the staff have found jobs working for elected officials or
the public sector, Frommer said.

"We ensured that everyone pretty much has a place to land," he said.

Frommer’s staff will not have a problem moving onto better positions,
said Chief of Staff Dan Reeves.

"You’re judged by who you work for," he said.

Some politicians only go through the motions, he said. Their staffers
have to be exceptional to find other positions.

"Then there are people like Dario, who is a political animal,"
Reeves said.

"He’s young and energetic."

Working for the assemblyman has turned staffers like Zenay Loera on
to politics.

"It’s probably the most important type of job, whether it be working
for the city … or an elected official," she said.

Loera started out as a volunteer six years ago, going door to door
campaigning for Frommer. She will be moving onto work for Los Angeles
councilmember Jose Huizar in six weeks. "Everyone is getting a little
bit sad," Frommer said.

"It’s their last days working for me, but we’re working right up to
the end."

THE ISSUE OF MISSING PERSONS "HAS BECOME A TRADE"

A1+
[04:13 pm] 01 December, 2006

The country does nothing in order to clarify the fates of the missing
persons. Moreover, when their families spare no effort in order to
find their relatives, the country hinders their work. This statement
was made Arthur Sakunts, the head of the Helsinki Citizens Assembly
of Vanadzor, during the press conference titled "Issue of missing
persons in South Caucasus".

"The families are given a piece of paper saying that their son
is missing in action. When they try to find information, they
fail. Finally they are forced to turn to court in order to declare
the person dead and settle social problems", the lawyer says.

According to the RA Defense Ministry, 213 soldiers are missing in
action after military operations. 130 of them have already been
declared dead by the court. "In order to find the missing people
we need to find out where they were lost and how. Both Armenia and
Azerbaijan claim their missing soldiers are in the other country",
Arthur Sakunts noted. He thinks that the two countries are "in a
trade", as they assure they will find the missing soldiers of the
other as soon as the other does the same.

In Georgia the number missing persons is 500, and in Azerbaijan –
4998. "The Azeris were frank enough to tell us that the number includes
people who have not participated in military operations but have died
of freezing, etc", Arthur Sakunts said.

On November 24-25 a regional conference has been held in Vanadzor
titled "Issues of missing persons in South Caucasus". Representatives
of Georgia, Azerbaijan, Armenia and NKR participated in it. The
participants have worked out a joint statement to the heads of the
three countries and international organizations: the UN, the EU,
the OSCE, etc.

"WINDOW OF HOPE" IN KARABAKH SETTLEMENT REMAINS OPEN

PanARMENIAN.Net
30.11.2006 16:32 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ The "window of hope" in settlement of the
Nagorno Karabakh conflict remains open, Chair of Parliament Standing
Commission on Foreign Relations Armen Rustamyan told a PanARMENIAN.Net
reporter. In his words, there is hope always and 2007 may become
another "window." "Nothing significant happened in 2006. Maybe next
year, or after 2008, when Armenia will have a new President, changes
will occur," he remarked.

In the opinion of the Chair of the Parliament Commission, coming
changes should not be considered as negative ones or those hampering
the talks.