Category: News

Settlers in Karabakh say they will be happy to go back – TV
Artsakh Public TV, Stepanakert
2 Feb 05
Today the OSCE fact-finding mission continued its visits to the
regions controlled by Armenian forces.
Today, it was a bit different from other days since this time
journalists were allowed to accompany the group and less places were
visited, while previous visits had been very hectic and tiring.
In Agdam, the group stopped at an Azerbaijani mosque and inspected it
for some time. Afterwards they spoke to some herdsmen. They spoke to
people without the presence of journalists.
The next stop on the way to Mardakert was the village of Nor
Maraga. People living there are from Maraga that is currently under
Azerbaijani occupation. They said that they would be happy to return
to their native village once it was possible. Until then they have no
other place to go. There, too, the group talked to people
individually.
Asked by journalists whether the information they had been provided by
the Azerbaijani side was true, [head of the mission] Ms [Emily]
Margarethe Haber said that it was early to make any judgments as
yet. We will have to sit and talk, all of us, to analyse the facts we
have found once our mission is over and only after that we will be
able to say something in this regard, she said.
Asked whether the group would also visit the north of Karabakh,
currently under Azerbaijani occupation, Margarethe Haber answered that
they were a technical group and that they did what they were asked
to. It is up to the OSCE to decide what they should do.
The group is continuing visits to the remaining districts.

Azeri paper warns of row with Georgia over military aid to Armenia
Zerkalo, Baku
2 Feb 05

Excerpt from C. Sumarinli and M. Yasaroglu report by Azerbaijani
newspaper Zerkalo on 2 February headlined “A military scandal is
brewing between Georgia and Azerbaijan” an subheaded “If Tbilisi
continues repairing Armenian tanks, this issue will be discussed at a
parliament session”
Zerkalo has repeatedly written about Georgia’s inconsistent and more
than strange policy towards Azerbaijan. In some issues, our Georgian
neighbours pretend that they are giving us all-out support, but do
quite the opposite in other cases.
The information we have discovered may trigger a new incident between
the two countries’ authorities as it is directly related to
Azerbaijan’s interests in the Karabakh issue. The point is that
[Russia’s] Nezavisimaya Gazeta reported yesterday that the Tbilisi
tank repairing plant of the Group of Russian Troops in the
Transcaucasus [GRTT], which is the only plant of the sort in the South
Caucasus, has been handed over to the Georgian Defence Ministry.
[Passage omitted: details of the Nezavisimaya Gazeta report]
In a word, no problem is anticipated between the Georgian and Russian
defence ministries. However, problems may arise with Azerbaijan.
The point is that until recently, not only Russian and Georgian tanks,
but also armoured vehicles of the Armenian army were repaired in
Tbilisi. Let us recall that several years ago, official Baku accused
Georgia of giving military aid to unfriendly Yerevan. Official Baku
turned down the Georgian and GRTT offer to provide the Azerbaijani
army with the same services.
What will neighbouring Georgia do now that it owns the plant? And one
should not forget that Georgia is Azerbaijan’s strategic partner.
[Passage omitted: details of the Nezavisimaya Gazeta report]
Interestingly, Azerbaijan’s Defence Ministry displayed “enviable
awareness” of the issue. To put it simply, the Azerbaijani Defence
Ministry has no idea about this at all. At least this is what Col
Ramiz Malikov, head of the Defence Ministry’s press office, told our
Zerkalo correspondent.
“I have no idea about this information and that’s why I cannot say
anything specific,” he said.
Despite the spartan calm of the head of the Defence Ministry press
office, a member of the parliament’s standing commission for defence
and national security, Alimammad Nuriyev, views this issue as quite
serious. He says that official Baku should focus on the issue,
“carefully study it and express its concern to the Georgian side”.
Nuriyev believes that the handover of the tank repairing plant to
Georgia has fundamentally changed the situation. Given the fact that
Russia and Armenia are military and strategic partners, the repairing
of Armenian military hard ware at the Georgian plant is a logical
reality, which, however, is not in Azerbaijan’s interests. But if the
situation has changed in favour of Georgia, official Tbilisi simply
has to take into account the interests of Baku, which is its strategic
partner. What’s more, like Azerbaijan, Georgia has chosen to integrate
into NATO.
“Given all these factors, one should not view normally the fact that
Georgia is repairing Armenian military hardware,” Nuriyev said. He
voiced his hope that the Azerbaijani government will express its
position on the issue.
Nuriyev believes that if the situation develops in the direction that
goes against Azerbaijan’s interests, the issue will be raised at the
Azerbaijani parliament. He said Azerbaijan has many levers to pressure
Georgia, and the Georgian side understands this. However, he refused
to elaborate on this, as Azerbaijan has not announced its official
position.
In turn, independent military expert Col-Lt Uzeyir Cafarov said that
official Tbilisi should take account of Azerbaijan’s interests and,
most importantly, of the fact that we are at war with Armenia. Georgia
should limit its military cooperation with Armenia. Otherwise, the
expert said, tensions may emerge in Azerbaijani-Georgian relations in
the near future.
Cafarov is sure that Armenia will continue having its military
hardware repaired at that plant for a long time. However, sooner or
later official Tbilisi will have to take into account Azerbaijan’s
interest, he said.
The expert thinks that it is of benefit to Azerbaijan to have its
tanks repaired at this plant instead of Armenia. As a person who used
to serve in Georgia, he also noted the high professionalism of the
plant’s staff in this sphere. Many, including Azerbaijan, have
refused the services of the plant, as a result of which the capacity
of the plant has halved.
“I think that the plant will be upgraded to modern international
standards with the help of NATO. This will be possible in three or
four years. It will be good if Azerbaijan also used the services of
this plant,” he said. [Passage omitted: minor details]

Azeri official rules out territorial compromise with Armenia
MPA news agency, Baku
2 Feb 05
BAKU
Certain changes are observed in the process of settling the
Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict, Azerbaijani Deputy Foreign Minister
Araz Azimov has told MPA.
He said Azerbaijan continues to adhere to a negotiated settlement to
the problem, to the restoration of contacts between Karabakh’s
Armenian and Azerbaijani communities and between Baku and
Yerevan. However, territorial compromises are ruled out. In other
words, it is impossible to resolve the problem by these kinds of
concessions.
As a member of European organizations, Azerbaijan has acquired some
European experience, Azimov said. At issue is not the transfer of
lands from one state to another, but their integration. Those
observing the situation in the region have to pay attention to two
factors. Several suggestions of Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili
towards resolving the conflict with South Ossetia were voiced at a
Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe [PACE] session and
some of them could facilitate solution to the Karabakh problem. The
latest PACE resolution pertaining to the Nagornyy Karabakh conflict,
Azimov said, attests to the fact that this European organization is
moving in the right direction.
“A solution to the Karabakh conflict represents special importance for
the region’s integration into Europe,” the Azerbaijani diplomat said.

International mediators to pressure Armenia over Karabakh – paper
Haykakan Zhamanak, Yerevan
2 Feb 05

Text of unattributed report by Armenian newspaper Haykakan Zhamanak on
2 February headlined “Cat’s game is death for mice”
While the OSCE’s mission is continuing to monitor the
liberated-occupied territories, political analysts are trying to guess
what consequences this may have for Armenia, Karabakh and for the
further settlement of the Karabakh issue on the whole.
There is a wrong approach against this background, according to which
the monitoring mission is conceived as an event. It would be more
correct to say that this is the beginning of a new process in the
Karabakh settlement which may take a long time and whose main purpose
is to gain a new lever to put pressure on the authorities of
Armenia. The fact that the OSCE monitoring mission has refused to
visit Shaumyan and Getashen districts shows that the authorities of
Armenia will be the main target of this pressure. Thus, the mission’s
report on the result of the monitoring will greatly depend on whether
the Armenian authorities will be able to assure the world community
that they are ready to settle the problem.
It is also important that assurances of the Armenian authorities are
not fragmentary and turn into a businesslike process. This logic
prompts that at the first stage the monitoring mission will
demonstrate that it acts solely within its mandate, i.e. it is only
trying to clarify to what extent Armenia has settled the
liberated-occupied territories, but their report could go beyond this
framework.
But due to the political necessity, members of the monitoring mission
will make revelations in their interviews and commentaries on the
topic “What I have seen in the occupied territories”. This will happen
if the OSCE is convinced that Armenia is not in a hurry to make
compromises. But in case Armenia continues to follow its “victorious”
policy, the members of the monitoring mission will make harsher
revelations. This will be followed by the second and third visits of
the mission to the region.
Incidentally, this is not a political complication, as the world
community has already fixed in several documents that the
liberated-occupied territories are an integral part of Azerbaijan.
That is, to return to these areas they only need new monitoring
themes suggested by Azerbaijan. In this case international documents
will contain provisions that will aim not to encourage the Armenian
authorities to be constructive but have quite a different purpose.

ASBAREZ ONLINE
TOP STORIES
02/02/2005
TO ACCESS PREVIOUS ASBAREZ ONLINE EDITIONS PLEASE VISIT OUR
WEBSITE AT <;HTTP:// 1) Karabagh TV Airs Flip-flopping by PACE's Atkinson 2) AGBU Addresses Lawsuit Filed by Archbishop Mutafyan 3) Phillips Discusses History of TARC in New Book 4) Nine Candidates Approved for City Clerk Race 1) Karabagh TV Airs Flip-flopping by PACE's Atkinson STEPANAKERT (Combined Sources)--The Public TV and Radio Broadcasting Company of Mountainous Karabagh Republic recently aired a 1993 interview with the current Parliamentary of Council of Europe's (PACE) Rapporteur on Mountainous Karabagh David Atkinson, in which Atkinson affirms the rights of the people of Mountainous Karabagh, and condemns Azerbaijan for launching the war in the region. "I think the people of Karabagh have the right to decide their own destiny and future. Our organization and I shall personally do everything so that the Karabagh Armenians live a free and full life on their land," David Atkinson notes in a 1993 interview conducted in the village of Kichan, in the Mardakert region of Karabagh. But after his 2004 appointment as Rapporteur, he sharply announced that the principle of right to self-determination is not applicable to Mountainous Karabagh Republic. Just last week, in his recommendations presented to PACE, Atkinson criticized Armenian forces for occupying considerable parts of Azerbaijan's territory, and said that the 1988-94 war has led to large-scale ethnic expulsions and the creation of mono-ethnic areas that "resemble the terrible concept of ethnic cleansing." In 1993, Atkinson categorically blames Azerbaijan for starting the war, "What I have seen is above my imagination. Here is a real war which is taking away many lives on a daily basis. It is obvious that Azerbaijan launched this war; Azerbaijan will not be a member of the Council of Europe unless it is stopped." He further describes the Azeris as "vandals" for desecrating Christian churches in Shushi. 2) AGBU Addresses Lawsuit Filed by Archbishop Mutafyan NEW YORK--The AGBU Central Board of Directors responded to the lawsuit filed by Archbishop Mesrob Mutafyan against the New York-based organization on January 13. The suit was filed in the Superior Court of the State of California, addressing the formal announcement made by the AGBU in March 2004 that it would be closing the Melkonian Educational Institution in Nicosia, Cyprus at the end of the 2005 school year. In a statement released on January 28, the AGBU Board of Directors expressed that Archbishop Mutafyan "has not been fully informed of the true position with regard to AGBU's operation of the Melkonian Educational Institute." The statement continues to stress AGBU's committment "to serve and pursue the best interests of the Armenian nation and not the particular interests of the few, no matter how vocal." "The decision to close the Melkonian Educational Institute was carefully considered and is fully permitted under the terms of the unconditional grant made to AGBU. In addition, contrary to the allegations made, through the years AGBU has paid to the Patriarchate of Constantinople, pursuant to Garabed Melkonian's wishes, all sums provided for by him and much more, as evidenced by receipts and other documents," it concludes. 3) Phillips Discusses History of TARC in New Book YEREVAN (RFE/RL)--In a new book titled `Unsilencing the Past,' former chair of the Turkish-Armenian Reconciliation Commission (TARC), David Phillips offers his perspective on the activities of the controversial organization, and its relationship with high-ranking government officials and political organizations in Armenia and abroad. The 170-page publication delves into the history behind the creation of the panel, which was largely the brainchild of the US government. According to the book, Phillips was approached by Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Marc Grossman in 2000 with the idea of creating an Armenian-Turkish joint commission. At the time of their meeting, Phillips held senior positions at the Council on Foreign Relations, the American University in Washington and the Diplomatic Academy of Vienna. He also served as an advisor to the State Department on issues of democracy and regional stability. Additionally, Phillips had in the past worked to help bridge the Greek and Kurdish communities with their Turkish neighbors. The United States's approach, labeled `Track-Two diplomacy,' held that various sections of civil societies can facilitate the resolution of long-running ethnic disputes through meetings in which root causes are dissected and analyzed. According to Phillips, Grossman believed that the Track-Two efforts, as applied in Turkey and Cyprus, could be used to resolve the Turkish-Armenian conflict, `one of the world's most intractable problems.' Once the work began, the State Department, as noted by Phillips, covered only `some of TARC's direct costs' and `never interfered in [his] work.' That work was effectively catalyzed by Armenian threats to veto the choice of Istanbul as the venue for the December 1999 summit of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, in protest of Turkey's refusal to normalize relations with Armenia. Phillips contends that the threats were used by the authorities in Yerevan to provoke stronger US pressure on Ankara. He also states that Van Krikorian, the then chairman of the Armenian Assembly of America who would later become a key member of TARC, was asked to `undertake discussions with the State Department,' circumventing Armenia's ambassador to Washington. Once the foundation was laid, senior State Department officials approached the Armenian and Turkish governments several months later with a formal offer, which according to Phillips, was welcomed by both sides. Discord, however, resulted in October 2000, when President Clinton blocked a congressional resolution recognizing the Armenian genocide. The process regained momentum soon after, when the sides agreed to meet in Vienna in early 2001. The idea, according to Phillips, was backed by Armenian officials. `I had met with [Foreign Minister Vartan] Oskanian on several occasions to brief him,' he writes. `At every turn, he endorsed the initiative. Robert Kocharian also directly communicated his support for TARC.' The first official reaction from the Armenian government offered support to the newly developed group. `Armenia has always had a positive attitude towards public contacts and dialogue between the two peoples, which allow for the exchange of opinions and discussions on the existing problems,' a Foreign Ministry spokeswoman stated. However, according to Phillips, when pressure was exerted by a number of Armenian groups, most notably the Armenian Revolutionary Federation, the Armenian government decided to reverse its stance. `Instead of publicly endorsing the initiative, which Oskanian had committed to do, the Armenian government got nervous about being associated with TARC,' the book reads. Armenian critics of TARC argued that it has no popular mandate to deal with the issue and accused the Armenian members of the commission of participating in a Turkey-US conspiracy to derail international recognition of the genocide. Given this sentiment, Phillips asserts that the Armenian commissioners insisted during the process that then government of Turkey needs to come to terms with its past. The commissioners and were also `incensed' with comments made by TARC member Gunduz Aktan, whose aggressive denials of the genocide nearly disrupted initial efforts to form the commission. `Do you know how we feel when you try to embarrass us by introducing resolutions in parliaments around the world? Our feelings are hurt,' Aktan is quoted in the book as telling his Armenian counterparts at the Vienna meeting in 2001. `How do you think we feel?' former Armenian foreign minister Alexander Arzoumanian is said to have replied. `We are the ones who were genocided.' `The Armenians saw TARC as a vehicle for approaching Turkish elites and initiating a dialogue about the genocide. Even if the Turks are sympathetic to the suffering of Armenians, they were not prepared to have TARC acknowledge the genocide,' Phillips explains. This problem, Phillips notes, is rooted in the `selective memory' of the modern Turkish state founded by Mustafa Kemal in the aftermath of the Armenian genocide. `Turks refuse to acknowledge the genocide because acknowledgement contradicts their noble self-image...In addition, the government of Turkey fears that the campaign is laying the legal groundwork for reparations or territorial claims.' Turkey's persistent denials of the genocide prevented TARC from conducting meaningful work. Meeting in New York in November 2003, the organization agreed to ask the International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ), a New York-based human rights organization, to conduct a study on the applicability of the 1948 UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide to the mass killings and deportations of Armenians in Ottoman Turkey. Shortly afterward, two of the Turkish commissioners bypassed their colleagues by instructing the ICTJ to `refrain from studying the subject matter.' The Armenian members responded with an angry statement stating that `TARC is not going to proceed.' `I insinuated that Ankara was responsible for scuttling the initiative. Just mentioning the Genocide Convention stirred anxiety in the Turkish Foreign Ministry,' Phillips writes. He then appealed to US officials to help salvage the endeavor. Despite the dispute, TARC decided to go ahead with the ICTJ study when its members converged on the Turkish resort town of Bodrum in July 2002. According to Phillips, Van Krikorian and Aktan appeared before an ICTJ panel in September 2002 to present the Armenian and Turkish interpretations of what happened in 1915. Aktan, in Phillips's words, promised to `destroy' ICTJ researchers with his legal arguments but appeared `nervous' after making his case. He had reason to be edgy. On February 4, 2003, the ICTJ submitted to TARC a detailed analysis which concluded that the slaughter of an estimated 1.5 million Ottoman Armenians includes `all the elements of the crime of genocide as defined by the [UN] Convention.' The study at the same time found that the Armenians can not use the Convention to make `legal financial or territorial claims arising out of the Events.' `In a private conversation with Van, Oskanian `offered congratulations' and said it was a great accomplishment,' Phillips says. `However, he refused to publicly embrace the ICTJ analysis.' Armenian political groups and public figures also barely reacted to it. Phillips's discontent with the Armenian government's repudiation of his work found an outlet in his article on Armenia that appeared in `The Wall Street Journal' last April. It slammed Kocharian's regime as `corrupt and inept' and welcomed opposition attempts to topple the Armenian president. In his book, Phillips bluntly accuses Kocharian of `stealing' the 2003 presidential election from opposition leader Stepan Demirchian. TARC, meanwhile, held several more meetings before announcing the end of its mission in Moscow on April 14, 2004 and submitting a list of policy recommendations to the Turkish and Armenian governments. The first and foremost of them was an unconditional opening of the Turkish-Armenian border. However, Ankara seems unlikely to drop its preconditions for lifting Armenia's economic blockade in the foreseeable future. Although the initiative failed, Phillips believes `TARC broke the ice and helped catalyze a wide array of civil society Track Two activities,' he concludes. `It was also a lightning rod for criticism, thereby enabling other civil society initiatives to proceed `under the radar.' Though people-to-people contacts cannot solve core political problems, they can help prepare the ground for negotiations.' 4) Nine Candidates Approved for City Clerk Race GLENDALE (Combined Sources)--As the city clerk race heats up, the petitions of nine candidates have been finalized for the April 5 municipal election. The City Clerk verified the petitions to certify that the candidates have been nominated by a minimum of 100 registered voters. The list of qualified candidates and the order in which the names will appear on the ballot was announced on February 2. Ardashes Kassakhian began a 10-week sabbatical from the Armenian National Committee to focus on his campaign for city clerk. He will campaign full-time for the April 5 election, he said. The other eight candidates are Paulette Mardikian, a customer service representative for the city's Building and Safety Department, Lorna Vartanian, a financial accounting manager for a law firm, Narineh Barzegar, a graduate student, Stephanie Landregan, a landscape artist, George McCullough, Gary Sysock, deputy executive officer with Los Angeles County Clerk of the Board, Kathryn Van Houten, an attorney, and Stephen L. Ropfogel, an independent business owner. All candidates filed the necessary signatures to appear on the ballot by Tuesday's deadline. Since 1929, the city clerk position has been a political hand-me-down, with incumbents retiring mid-term and the council choosing a replacement. During those 75 years, the incumbent has never lost. All subscription inquiries and changes must be made through the proper carrier and not Asbarez Online. ASBAREZ ONLINE does not transmit address changes and subscription requests. (c) 2005 ASBAREZ ONLINE. All Rights Reserved. ASBAREZ provides this news service to ARMENIAN NEWS NETWORK members for academic research or personal use only and may not be reproduced in or through mass media outlets.

Armenian Defence Ministry denies tanks repaired in Georgia
Arminfo
2 Feb 05
YEREVAN
Armenian tanks are not being repaired at the Tbilisi tank repairing
plant, Col Seyran Shakhsuvaryan, press secretary of the Armenian
Defence Ministry, has told our Arminfo correspondent.
In an article headlined “A military scandal is brewing between Georgia
and Azerbaijan” in the Baku-based newspaper Zerkalo, the author
maintains that Armenian tanks are being repaired at that plant.
“If Tbilisi continues repairing Armenian tanks, this issue will be
discussed at a parliament session,” the article points out.
[Passage omitted: Details of the Zerkalo article]

OSCE mission interviews locals on their life in Karabakh – Armenian TV
Public Television of Armenia, Yerevan
2 Feb 05
[Presenter] The OSCE fact-finding mission has thanked the Nagornyy
Karabakh authorities for helping their mission. However, the
co-chairmen of the [OSCE] Minsk Group and the members of the
fact-finding mission are not pleased with their visit because the
facts that have been discovered and the documents presented to them in
Baku are not identical. Stepanakert [Xankandi] has repeatedly stated
that it has nothing to hide. This group, which is looking for people
who have settled there, covered a long distance to meet them.
The members of the mission visited Dadivank, one of the medieval
Armenian temples in Kalbacar District, and lit a candle
there. Incidentally, we should point that the US co-chairman of the
Minsk Group, Steven Mann, has already returned from Stepanakert and
left for Washington. The members of the mission visited Agdam without
Mann and saw for themselves that there is no state-run settlement
programme there.
[Correspondent over video of Agdam District and OSCE mission] The OSCE
fact-finding mission has visited Agdam District and several
residential areas around it. The convoy of vehicles first pulled over
near the Agdam mosque. The members of the mission looked at the
surrounding territory from the minaret of the mosque. It was difficult
to say what the mission was looking for in the rubble. They met a few
people who are barely surviving in Agdam. Saying that the
participation of non-authorized personnel was hampering their work,
the experts expressed their desire to talk to residents privately.
[Local resident Levon Arutyunyan] They asked where I was during the
conflict. I said I was in Armenia and then I came here. Then they
[the OSCE mission] wondered about our life here.
[Correspondent] The area where the Arutyunyan family are living at the
moment is called Nor Maraga. The residents of two villages of the
Leninavan state farm, which was one of the biggest and richest state
farms of Karabakh, settled here after they were forced to leave their
place of residence in 1992.
[Local resident Susanna Markosyan] We left our homes, came here and
now live in their flattened houses. Let them return our houses so that
we can go back and live there.
[Unidentified local resident] I am not receiving help from anywhere,
but they think we are getting help.
[Correspondent] The former Maraga residents told the experts about the
atrocities of the Azerbaijani OMON [Special Purpose Police Detachment]
in their village in April 1992. They said that 200 civilians were
brutally killed. A total of 194 people were taken captive and more
than 30 civilians were wounded. Only 400 of Maraga’s 5,000 residents
have settled in this liberated territory. The remaining Maraga
residents went to other countries like the residents of other villages
forced out of Azerbaijan. The members of the fact-finding mission
encountered the same situation in other settlements controlled by
Karabakh.
The head of the mission, Emily Margarethe Haber, answered journalists’
questions after that.
[Haber] I think that all conditions have been created for us to
accomplish our mission.
[Correspondent] Narine Agabalyan and Benik Garakhanyan, “Haylur”,
Stepanakert.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

International mission fails to find settlers in Karabakh – Armenian paper
Azg, Yerevan
2 Feb 05

Text of Tatul Akopyan’s report by Armenian newspaper Azg on 2 February
headlined “OSCE monitoring mission on banks of Araz” and subheaded
“They are looking for settlers in these territories”
A retired Italian diplomat, (?Mario Sika), has told us that he and the
other members of the [OSCE] monitoring mission do not want journalist
to approach them when they talked to locals. Sika used to be the
assistant of Mario Raffaelli, the first chairman of the OSCE Minsk
Group, and unlike other diplomats, he visited the NKR [Nagornyy
Karabakh Republic] at the time when Azerbaijan had occupied 48 per
cent of its area.
There has been no case of hindering the activities of the monitoring
mission, as Europeans and an American, who have covered dozens of
kilometres inspecting the region, have met only a shepherd, a farmer
and a few people passing the road.
On 2 February, Yuriy Merzlyakov and Bernard Fassier, the OSCE Minsk
Group co-chairs, spent the whole day on the left bank of the Araz
River in Cabrayil and Fuzuli districts that formerly belonged to
Azerbaijan. Steven Mann, the US co-chair, returned to Washington after
having visited Karvachar [Kalbacar].
Ms Emily Haber, head of the monitoring mission, in response to our
question whether the Karabakh authorities supported their activities
or created any technical obstacles to hinder the mission’s work, said
that everything was wonderful and that they visited any area they
wished.
“Ms Haber, may I write in our newspaper that the Karabakh authorities
have created all the required conditions for your activities?” I asked
the German lady who kept smiling all the time. “Yes, you may write
that,” she said. This seems to be the only comment I managed to
get. Neither Ms Haber nor the members of the mission nor the OSCE
co-chairs answered other questions. “No comment. It is a technical not
a political mission,” Ms Haber said, though they had promised earlier
that they would have a press spokesman.
Obviously, the monitoring mission arrived in the NKR from Baku through
Yerevan “armed” with maps. The members of the mission are looking for
settlers in different places, but they fail to find them. In Cabrayil
and Fuzuli they did not find a single inhabited house. The situation
differed in Karvachar, where residents of Shaumyan [Goranboy],
Getashen [Caykand] and Mardakert [Agdara] occupied by Azerbaijan
settled after their houses and possessions were seized in 1991-92.
After finishing the monitoring, the OSCE mission will prepare a report
for the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs. They have to find out whether
Armenia and the NKR are conducting an official policy of settlement in
areas outside Nagornyy Karabakh’s administrative border.
A Minsk Group co-chair has said in a conversation with us that
processes like this do not contribute to the settlement of the
Karabakh issue but to some extent distract attention from the essence
of the conflict. Asked about whether they are going to carry out
monitoring [of the part] of Shaumyan, Getashen and Mardakert occupied
by Azerbaijan, a member of the mission said that this could not be
ruled out if Armenia applied to the UN in this regard.
In 1991, the Azerbaijani authorities settled people in over 100,000
houses. Armenians used to live in those houses and were forced to
leave their permanent place of residence.
The OSCE monitoring mission and the Minsk Group co-chairs are expected
to continue inspecting the left bank of Araz in Zangilan District that
formerly belonged to Azerbaijan.

Karabakh official accuses Azerbaijan of hampering confidence building
Arminfo, Yerevan
2 Feb 05
STEPANAKERT
Three of the four prisoners of war, Aristakes Martirosyan, Gevorg
Khlgatyan and Egiya Unanyan, who were recently handed over to the
Armenian side by Azerbaijan, are contract servicemen of the Nagornyy
Karabakh defence army, not residents of Karabakh, Viktor Kocharyan,
chairman of the state commission of the Nagornyy Karabakh Republic
[NKR] for prisoners of war, hostages and missing persons, has told our
Arminfo correspondent in Stepanakert.
Viktor Kocharyan said that they lost their way while on duty on 26
November 2004 and found themselves on enemy territory, where they were
captured by the Azerbaijani army. On the day of the incident, the
state commission asked the head of the Stepanakert office of the
International Committee of the Red Cross, (?Mireille Pinard), to help
find out about the fate of the prisoners of war and take measures to
free them. The verbal reply of the office head showed that she had no
information about this issue. He said this was not the first time that
the Azerbaijani authorities had not informed the representative office
of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Azerbaijan about
Armenian captives.
“As for the NKR state commission for prisoners of war, hostages and
missing persons, in these cases, it immediately notifies the local
representative office of the International Committee of the Red Cross
and takes joint measures to return them home,” he pointed out.
Meanwhile, the Azerbaijani Defence Ministry was well aware that the
Armenian servicemen had been taken captive, the chairman of the state
commission stressed. Under a preliminary agreement, it should have
handed them over to the Armenian side in the village of Bas Qarvand
[in Agdam District] on 31 December. He said that representatives of
the Armenian side vainly spent five hours at the appointed place,
waiting for the Azerbaijani side to turn up.
“The prisoners of war were handed over only on 28 January, and there
was no machine gun fire on the positions of the Azerbaijani armed
forces, as the Azerbaijani media reported,” Viktor Kocharyan
said. This is not the only piece of disinformation disseminated by the
Azerbaijani media, he said. He pointed out that the Azerbaijani media
had disseminated information saying that “the Armenian prisoners of
war had allegedly confessed that corruption is reigning in the
Armenian army”. “The NKR state commission for prisoners of war,
hostages and missing persons has reliable information about thriving
corruption in the Azerbaijani army,” Viktor Kocharyan said. He
stressed that the latest defections of Azerbaijani servicemen to the
Armenian side took place, according to the defectors themselves,
because their commanders had been treating them cruelly and the
military conscription offices had been extorting large sums of money
from them.
Viktor Kocharyan stressed that such anti-Armenian reports in the
Azerbaijani media, which are far from reality, do not further the
building of confidence between the conflicting sides and may
complicate cooperation in discovering and handing over prisoners of
war, hostages and missing persons.

Associated Press Worldstream
February 2, 2005 Wednesday 12:11 PM Eastern Time
Russian, Azerbaijani officials hail bilateral ties
by AIDA SULTANOVA; Associated Press Writer
BAKU, Azerbaijan
Russia’s foreign minister on Wednesday repeated Moscow’s backing for
international mediators’ efforts to resolve a decade-old conflict
between Azerbaijan and Armenia over a disputed enclave.
Speaking during a trip to this Caspian Sea nation, Foreign Minister
Sergey Lavrov pledged that Moscow would continue working with other
mediators to resolve the impasse over Nagorno-Karabakh – a largely
ethnic Armenian enclave in Azerbaijan that has been controlled by
ethnic Armenian forces for more than a decade.
“We hope that this process will lead to an agreement,” Lavrov said
after talks with his Azerbaijani counterpart, Elmar Mammadyarov.
Azerbaijan and Armenia fought a six-year war that killed some 30,000
people and drove a million from their homes, before ending in a shaky
cease fire in 1994.
Repeated efforts to negotiate a resolution to the conflict have
failed, and tensions between the two former Soviet countries remain
hostile. The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe has
actively been trying to broker a final deal.
During the 1990s, Azerbaijan often accused Russia of backing Armenia,
but relations between Moscow and Baku have improved in recent years.
Mammadyarov said Russian-Azerbaijani ties were developing in a
“stable and very intensive way, particularly over the last year.”
“We highly assess the strategic partnership with Azerbaijan,” Lavrov
said.
Azerbaijan, an oil-rich nation on the Caspian Sea that borders Russia
in the volatile Caucasus Mountains region, has sought to cultivate
relations with the United States and other Western nations to balance
Moscow’s influence in the region.
The U.S. administration sees the Caspian region as key to reducing
dependence on Middle East oil, and it has strongly backed a US$3.6
billion ([euro]2.8 billion) pipeline that will pump Caspian Sea oil
through Georgia to Turkey’s Mediterranean coast for export to Western
markets.
Asked about Azerbaijan’s efforts to develop closer ties with NATO,
Lavrov said that Russia had no complaints and added that Moscow also
had friendly ties with the alliance.
“Azerbaijan is a sovereign state, and like any sovereign state is
free to choose its foreign policy partners,” Lavrov said.