Category: News

Glendale News Press
LATimes.com
Nov 12 2004
Holiday business outlook positive
Retailers forecast between 3% and 6% growth in sales at Glendale
stores.
By Darleene Barrientos, News-Press and Leader
DOWNTOWN GLENDALE — At John Drayman’s store, where he fulfills orders
to restore and preserve old photographs, business has been very
healthy in October. And over the years, he’s learned a good October
in his store is a merry Christmas in the Montrose Shopping Park.
“In my particular business, Christmas orders have to go in early, and
it has been a very good October,” said Drayman, a member of the
Montrose Shopping Park Assn. “That usually means a very good
Christmas season. I think we’re poised for a terrific shopping season
up here.”
During a holiday economic and trend forecast this week at the
Glendale Galleria, retailers predicted healthy growth for this year’s
Christmas shopping season, both in sales and in trends that lean
toward more luxury and higher-end merchandise.
“We’re projecting a 3% to 4% increase over last year,” Galleria
Senior General Manager JoAnne Brosi said. “What we’re seeing now is
earlier holiday shopping. I think the season is starting already — as
of last weekend we have not had a parking spot on Saturday or Sunday.
I saw a lot more people with shopping bags, and there seems to be
more of an urgency about starting earlier.”
If the number of stores opening this year were any indication of
growth, the Galleria would be ahead of the game. New stores will
include Metropark, a retailer catering to hip, urban men and women;
Club Libby Lu; Melt Gelato; Biotherm; and 4 Love 21, an accessory
retailer from the creators of Forever 21, scheduled to open next
month.
To Jack Kyser, senior vice president and chief economist for the Los
Angeles County Development Corp., the optimism for Glendale is in
line with the brighter future predicted for the rest of the
Southland.
“Our forecast in Christmas in Southern California is for an 8.5%
increase,” Kyser said. And if mid-range department stores like
Robinsons-May fulfill their promises of providing more customer
service, the end result might be a jump in holiday jobs, he said.
“In Christmas 2003, there was an 11,500-increase in the number of
retail jobs during the Christmas season,” Kyser said. “We should
probably match that and probably exceed it if the mid-range stores
follow through.”
But because of the high gas prices, cost of housing and lines of
credit topping off, Armenian-American Chamber of Commerce President
Joe Dermenjian believes discretionary funds will be limited.
“It will probably be slower than last year,” said Dermenjian, a
financial planner. “Many consumers depend on credit and many are
maxed out on credit. All the prices are coming up, from food to
clothing and everything else.”
But because Dermenjian believes the job market is better than it was
last year, retailers can probably look forward to next year.
“It’s a tight time,” Dermenjian said. “[People are] going to have to
think twice before they spend money, but they won’t stop shopping.
Next year, it will probably be much better, and hopefully, the stock
market will pick up, too.”
–Boundary_(ID_eopcWHXxD1UBqZPHhfy3hw)–
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

‘A dancing star’ is born
Watertown TAB & Press, MA
Nov 12 2004
More than five years in the making, the dream of the Arsenal Center
for the Arts has become a reality.
A ceremony commemorating the groundbreaking of the center was
held this past week near the future site of what planners and
developers are expecting will serve as a regional arts center.
Huddled inside a large heated tent built for the ceremony were
about 250 Watertown faces, those who gave time, money and
encouragement while the arts center was planned, snacking on hors
d’oeuvres and drinking coffee to keep warm through the chilly
November morning.
“It’s a glorious day,” said Board of Directors member Jonathan
Hecht, as he tried to find a seat in the crowd.
“It’s exciting,” said Watertown resident Joyce Munger.
“Everybody’s here,” said Jonathan Bockian, clerk of the Board of
Directors.
The ceremony was led by the center’s executive director, Michael
Miner. Following the singing of the National Anthem by Kristen
Borgstrom from Perkins School for the Blind, Board of Directors
President Barbara Epstein thanked many people who were involved.
“Every step of this process has been an amazing, amazing
experience,” she said.
“What a wonderful day it is,” said Town Manager Michael
Driscoll. “Well, ladies and gentlemen, we have come a long way.”
Driscoll described the journey the Arsenal site took, from 1989
when the Arsenal Re-use Committee was established to make
recommendations for reuses of the site, to the establishment of the
Watertown Arsenal Development Corporation and the twists and turns
along the way, including the property’s sale to Harvard University,
that has culminated in the development of the 37-acre Arsenal on the
Charles site with restaurants, shopping, office facilities and now
the arts center.
The New Repertory Theatre, as well as the Watertown Children’s
Theatre, will be companies in residence.
The center will include a mix of interior spaces, including a
380-seat theater named for million-dollar donor Charles Mosesian, a
black-box performance space, classrooms, artist studios and
galleries. With programming scheduled to take place morning through
night for people of all ages, the center will be a cultural facility
and a regional resource.
“Nobody is happier than I am that this day has finally come,”
said Watertown Arsenal Development Corporation President John
Airasian, calling the process a journey, an “emotional roller
coaster” and “a labor of love.”
When completed, which is anticipated by late spring of 2005, the
arts center will be a 28,000-square-foot, state-of-the-art endeavor.
“It will be a major feather in Watertown’s cap,” he said.
Airasian and arts center board member Roberta Miller presented
Mosesian with a plaque, thanking him for his donation to the theater.
He described Mosesian as an Armenian businessman who grew up in the
East End, made his money through business in the East End and can now
give back to the community.
Mosesian, who did not make any comments during the ceremony,
received a standing ovation.
The center has already raised more than $6.5 million for the
construction of the building, and received a $1.2 million loan from
the Watertown Savings Bank which allowed them to move forward.
The director of the Office of the Arts at Harvard University,
which owns the Arsenal buildings, but agreed to lease them to the
WADC for $1 for 99 years, also spoke, saying that he grew up in
Watertown and remembers the windows of the Arsenal, when it served as
a facility for the U.S. Army, always being a scary place. He said he
was excited about the future.
Former U.S. Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky explained that the word
“arsenal” through translation actually means “the place of art,” or
where things are made. He said it suggests that art is not at the
fringes of human intelligence, but “right at the middle of who we
are.”
Mina McCandless, a program director of the Massachusetts
Cultural Council, said what was going on at the Arsenal was “nothing
short of miraculous.
“What you’re undertaking here today is truly inspirational,” she
said.
“Today, we celebrate the start of our brand-new space,” said
Miner. He said he survived the trials and travails of the project
with one motivating quote by German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche.
“You must have a little chaos within you to give birth to a
dancing star,” he said, quoting Nietzsche.
Following the ceremony, attendees were encouraged to sign a
large white beam, that would be embedded into the construction of the
new center.

A Libertarian Explanation of Genocide
by R.J. Rummel
Antiwar.com, CA
Nov 12 2004
Often it is said that we should understand genocide to prevent it.
This is wrong. Understanding is not the key. An explanation is:
specifically, explaining genocide as due to unlimited power.
Let’s first consider the Holocaust, which is the paradigm case
of genocide. Scholars and historians have tried to understand the
Holocaust in terms of Nazi racism, their hatred of the Jews and belief
that the Jews were “vermin”; their idea that the betterment and future
of German society demanded purifying it of these “bloodsuckers”;
traditional German submission to authority, even to their racist Nazi
rulers; and so on.
But to prevent genocide or mass murder generally, understanding
the Holocaust in this way is not enough, not if one wants to know
as well why Jews were murdered in earlier times by the Poles,
Romanians, Hungarians, Croatians, Ukrainians, Russians, etc. Nor
is this understanding of the Holocaust sufficient to have prevented
the Rwandan rulers’ murder of up to a million Tutsi; the Young Turks’
murder en masse of nearly 2 million Armenians; the Pakistani military’s
mass murder of over a million East Pakistan Bengalis and Hindus; the
Khmer Rouge’s murder of hundreds of thousands of Buddhist monks, Chams,
and Vietnamese-Cambodians; and so on. To deal with these genocides,
we need an explanation.
An explanation provides the basis for predicting a behavior will
occur. Understanding helps form an explanation, but also may inhibit
it. That is, understanding that the Nazis characterized the Jews as
vermin that they were eradicating does not help in predicting genocide
elsewhere. For example, the belief of top leaders that the Jews (or
some other minority group) are something like vermin would not have
forecast many other major genocides in the 20th century. For example,
some French and Polish political and military leaders held this view,
and yet did not try to promote a large-scale genocide of Jews in
their respective countries.
Many sociologists and political scientists have been searching for an
explanation of genocide and mass murder that would give us a warning of
when it might happen. The problem has been that what seems predictive
via understanding in one national/cultural context has not been in
another. Accordingly, some of us have taken a different approach. Can
we find a condition X, such that its presence or absence makes it more
likely for situationally unique factors to result in genocide and mass
murder? We have studied many such possible predisposing conditions,
such as education, ethnic/racial diversity, population density,
religion, ethnicity or race, regional location, and culture. For
example, is genocide more likely when there are many ethnic groups in
a country and when one particular ethnic group dominates others? The
answer is no, not generally.
But, one condition does stand out in all such research, and that is
the kind of political system that a nation has, and particularly,
the power at the center. Virtually all genocides and non-genocidal
mass murders obey the following social law:The more power those who
rule have, the less libertarian the government, the more likely the
rulers will commit genocide and mass murder.
Note that throughout contemporary Europe, including Germany, Rumania,
Hungary, Russia, and Ukraine, any repeat of a mass murder of Jews is
inconceivable at present. So it will be as long as these countries
remain free. For free countries commit no such murder of their
citizens; totalitarian regimes murder in the millions, and some
in the tens of millions, such as the Soviet Union, China, and Nazi
Germany. Power kills, absolute power kills absolutely.
This is the explanation of the Holocaust and almost all genocides. It
says that when any regime, such as the Nazis, can command their
subjects as they wish, then those unique elements, such as hatred,
economic envy, threats to power, etc., can have their lethal effects.
So understanding does have a crucial role. It provides insight into
why, given authoritarian or totalitarian rule, something like the
Holocaust can occur. But alone, this understanding will not provide
much help to prevent it or other genocides. The explanation in terms
of power does, however.
Therefore, how do we try to assure “never again”? Foster freedom –
reduce power at the center.
–Boundary_(ID_/TcSlYEz55SUckXXarJs2g)–

1939: That class had class
By Bob Kaprielian/ Guest Commentary
Watertown TAB & Press, MA
Nov 12 2004
A few months ago my daughters, Rachel and Myra, were strolling my
grandson, Will, down Marion Road, where they came upon a discarded
Watertown High School yearbook from 1939. Knowing of my inventory of
WHS athletic histories, they thought it might be useful to add to my
collection.
Upon receipt, I immediately went to the section of arguably the
best baseball team ever to play at Watertown High. This 1939 team,
coached by Dan Sullivan and captained by Oscar Khederian, went on to
be inducted into the Watertown High School Athletic Hall of Fame.
This truly great team had five Hall of Famers: Mike Calden, Bill
Shannon, George Yankowski, Bill Kearns and Khederian.
Reflecting upon this discarded annual, I wondered about the
owner. The book was in pristine condition after 65 years, but
contained no indication as to who the owner was. My speculation is
that the owner was deceased, with no progeny to treasure this legacy.
My curiosity made me read this book of memories from cover to cover,
and to think about the teenagers pictured therein in the flower of
their youth.
Little did that generation realize that in mere months, Europe
would be at war and America would enter World War II in a year and a
half. This group of graduates had just lived through the Great
Depression which was beginning to abate. Roosevelt’s New Deal was
showing success with programs such as the Works Progress
Administration. The Daughters of the American Revolution refused to
allow singer Marian Anderson to perform at Constitution Hall in
Washington. First lady Eleanor Roosevelt arranged for the 37-year-old
Anderson to sing at the Lincoln Memorial. Dying Lou Gehrig gave his
“luckiest man alive” speech at Yankee Stadium. The World’s Fair
opened in New York. “Gone With the Wind” and “The Wizard of Oz” were
released that year.
The 1939 graduates would be now celebrating their 83rd or 84th
birthdays this year. There were about 400 Watertown High graduates in
1939. The principal was Herbert Archibald.
The aspirations for many of the female graduates typically
seemed to be for entering the business world, like Helen Avtgis of
Pleasant Street, who wanted to be a buyer. Dora Palladino, also of
Pleasant Street, wanted to go to business school. Phyllis Danner of
Common Street had her sights set on Wheaton College, and Betty Davis
of Oliver Street wanted to go to Lasell Junior College.
Stuart Newell, president of the class, was interested in going
to college. Varoujian “Juicy” Samuelian of Dexter Avenue went to
Harvard and later became the longtime editor of the Armenian Mirror
Spectator.
The Glee Club had 76 members. The band and the orchestra had
approximately 60 members each. Another sizable club was the Knitting
Club, advised by Miss Sweet. Each member was expected to complete two
sweaters or the equivalent during the year.
The girls basketball team was undefeated in its five-game
schedule, beating Winchester, 50-12, and Newton, 27-6. Their coach,
Sally Biggane, looked the same when I saw her 15 years after her
yearbook photo.
All these lives would change after Dec. 7, 1941, with America’s
entry into World War II. Bill Kearns would find himself in the Navy
through the war, and was present at the Japanese surrender in Tokyo
Bay in 1945. George Yankowski would be in the U.S. Army infantry, and
he fought in the Battle of the Bulge, where he was a sniper. Bill
Shannon was a Marine who fought at Iwo Jima, where he would receive
the highest decoration a Marine can receive, the Navy Cross.
These 1939 graduates faced the greatest of challenges in the
20th century: living through the Depression; fighting and winning in
the largest conflict in world history; and building America into the
greatest country in the world into the 21st century. These are the
reasons that these graduates are part of what is called “the Greatest
Generation.” Their deeds and accomplishments are truly remarkable. I
believe recent and current graduating classes can look to the 1939
graduates with admiration and resolve to follow their legacy of honor
and excellence.
Bob Kaprielian is the director of the Watertown High School
Athletic Hall of Fame and a local cable television host, among other
things. He lives on Mount Auburn Street.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

GEORGIAN OMBUDSMAN VISITING ARMENIA
A1 Plus | 15:17:36 | 12-11-2004 | Official |
On November 15 Sozar Subari, People’s Ombudsman of Georgia will arrive
in Armenia. The goal of the 2-day-long visit is to become acquainted
with the experience of the activity of the Armenian Ombudsman, the
structure of the staff and the works, which were assessed as efficient
and worthy for study, according to the results of the recent meetings
of Ombudsmen of CIS and Eastern Europe states.
The visit of Sozar Subari who has recently been nominated for the
Ombudsman post is viewed in the context of regional cooperation of
the national institutions for right defense of South Caucasus states
as the action supporting development of cooperation between Armenian
and Georgian Ombudsmen.

Arafat’s Soviet Connection: Another ”Legacy” the Media Will Ignore
Written by Cinnamon Stillwell
ChronWatch, CA
Nov 12 2004
Earlier this year, Frontpage.com interviewed Ion Mihai Pacepa,
former acting chief of Communist Romania’s espionage service. In the
course of the interview, Pacepa elaborated on his previous dealings
with Yassir Arafat and the PLO. It turns out that both were
creations of the Soviet Union, whose classic anti-Semitism combined
with Cold War geopolitical alliances, made them hostile to Israel.
And in Arafat, they found the perfect mouthpiece through which to try
and destroy the Jewish State.
Although ultimately unsuccessful in this goal, the propaganda
offensive did incalculable damage to Israe’s reputation, even to this
day. In particular, the language of anti-Zionism, also created by
the Soviet Union (read more about that here:
), made a lasting impression.
In light of Arafat’s recent demise and the mainstream media’s
collective amnesia about his legacy of tyranny and terrorism, it
seemed fitting to revive the Pacepa interview. The section dealing
with Arafat and the PLO is excerpted below. To read the entire
interview, follow the link at the bottom.
FP: Tell us about the PLO and its connection to the Soviet regime.
Pacepa: The PLO was dreamt up by the KGB, which had a penchant for
”liberation” organizations. There was the National Liberation Army
of Bolivia, created by the KGB in 1964 with help from Ernesto ”Che”
Guevara. Then there was the National Liberation Army of Colombia,
created by the KGB in 1965 with help from Fidel Castro, which was
soon deeply involved in kidnappings, hijackings, bombings, and
guerrilla warfare. In later years the KGB also created the
Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, which carried out
numerous bombing attacks on the ”Palestinian territories” occupied
by Israel, and the ”Secret Army for Liberation of Armenia,” created
by the KGB in 1975, which organized numerous bombing attacks against
U.S. airline offices in Western Europe.
In 1964 the first PLO Council, consisting of 422 Palestinian
representatives handpicked by the KGB, approved the Palestinian
National Charter–a document that had been drafted in Moscow. The
Palestinian National Covenant and the Palestinian Constitution were
also born in Moscow, with the help of Ahmed Shuqairy, a KGB influence
agent who became the first PLO chairman. (During the Six-Day War he
escaped from Jerusalem disguised as a woman, thereafter becoming such
a symbol within the bloc intelligence community that one of its later
influence operations–aimed at making the West consider Arafat a
moderate–was given the codename ”Shuqairy.”) This new PLO was
headed by a Soviet-style Executive Committee made up of 15 members
who, like their comrades in Moscow, also headed departments. As in
Moscow–and Bucharest–the chairman of the Executive Committee became
the general commander of the armed forces as well. The new PLO also
had a General Assembly, which was the Soviet-inspired name given to
all East European parliaments after World War II.
Based on another ”socialist division of labor,” the Romanian
espionage service (DIE) was responsible for providing the PLO with
logistical support. Except for the arms, which were supplied by the
KGB and the East German Stasi, everything else came from Bucharest.
Even the PLO uniforms and the PLO stationery were manufactured in
Romania free of charge, as a ”comradely help.” During those years,
two Romanian cargo planes filled with goodies for the PLO landed in
Beirut every week, and were unloaded by Arafat’s men.
FP: You have discussed your personal knowledge of how Arafat was
created and cultivated by the KGB and how the Soviets actually
designed him to be the future leader of the PLO. Illuminate this
picture for us please.
Pacepa: ”Tovarishch Mohammed Abd al-Rahman Abd al-Raouf Arafat
al-Qudwa al-Husseini, nom de guerre Abu Ammar,” was built into a
Palestinian leader by the KGB in the aftermath of the 1967 Six-Day
Arab-Israeli War. In that war Israel humiliated two of the Soviet
Union’s most important allies in the Arab world of that time, Egypt
and Syria, and the Kremlin thought that Arafat could help repair the
Soviet prestige. Arafat had begun his political career as leader of
the Palestinian terrorist organization al-Fatah, whose fedayeen were
being secretly trained in the Soviet Union. In 1969, the KGB managed
to catapult him up as chairman of the PLO executive committee.
Egyptian ruler Gamal Abdel Nasser, who was also a Soviet puppet,
publicly proposed the appointment.
Soon after that, the KGB tasked Arafat to declare war on American
”imperial-Zionism” during the first summit of the Black
International, an organization that was also financed by the KGB.
Arafat claimed to have coined the word ”imperial-Zionism,” but in
fact Moscow had invented this battle cry many years earlier,
combining the traditionally Russian anti-Semitism with the new
Marxist anti-Americanism.
FP: Why has the American and Israeli leadership been deceived so long
about Arafat’s criminal and terrorist activities?
Pacepa: Because Arafat is a master of deceit–and I unfortunately
contributed to that. In March 1978, for instance, I secretly brought
Arafat to Bucharest to involve him in a long-planned Soviet/Romanian
disinformation plot. Its goal was to get the United States to
establish diplomatic relations with him, by having him pretend to
transform the terrorist PLO into a government-in-exile that was
willing to renounce terrorism. Soviet president Leonid Brezhnev
believed that newly elected U.S. president Jimmy Carter would swallow
the bait. Therefore, he told the Romanian dictator that conditions
were ripe for introducing Arafat into the White House. Moscow gave
Ceausescu the job because by 1978 my boss had become Washington’s
most favored tyrant. ”The only thing people in the West care about
is our leaders,” the KGB chairman said, when he enrolled me in the
effort of making Arafat popular in Washington. ”The more they come
to love them, the better they will like us.”
”But we are a revolution,” Arafat exploded, after Ceausescu
explained what the Kremlin wanted from him. ”We were born as a
revolution, and we should remain an unfettered revolution.” Arafat
expostulated that the Palestinians lacked the tradition, unity, and
discipline to become a formal state. That statehood was only
something for a future generation. That all governments, even
Communist ones, were limited by laws and international agreements,
and he was not willing to put any laws or other obstacles in the way
of the Palestinian struggle to eradicate the state of Israel.
My former boss was able to persuade Arafat into tricking President
Carter only by resorting to dialectical materialism, for both were
fanatical Stalinists who knew their Marxism by heart. Ceausescu
sympathetically agreed that ”a war of terror is your only realistic
weapon,” but he also told his guest that, if he would transform the
PLO into a government-in-exile and would pretend to break with
terrorism, the West would shower him with money and glory. ”But you
have to keep on pretending, over and over,” my boss emphasized.
Ceausescu pointed out that political influence, like dialectical
materialism, was built upon the same basic tenet that quantitative
accumulation generates qualitative transformation. Both work like
cocaine, let’s say. If you sniff it once or twice, it may not change
your life. If you use it day after day, though, it will make you
into an addict, a different man. That’s the qualitative
transformation. And in the shadow of your government-in-exile you
can keep as many terrorist groups as you want, as long as they are
not publicly connected with your name.
In April 1978 I accompanied Ceausescu to Washington, where he
convinced President Jimmy Carter that he could persuade Arafat to
transform his PLO into a law-abiding government-in-exile, if the
United States would establish official relations with him.
Thereupon, President Carter publicly hailed Ceausescu as a ”great
national and international leader” who had ”taken on a role of
leadership in the entire international community.”
Three months later I was granted political asylum by the United
States, and Romania’s tyrant lost his dream of getting the Nobel
Peace Prize. A quarter of a century later, however, Arafat remains
in place as the PLO chairman and seems to still be on track with the
Kremlin’s game of deception. In 1994, Arafat was granted the Nobel
Peace Prize because he agreed to transform his terrorist organization
into a kind of government-in-exile (the Palestinian Authority) and
pretended, over and over, that he would abolish the articles in the
1964 PLO Covenant that call for the destruction of the state of
Israel and would eradicate Palestinian terrorism. At the end of the
1998-99 Palestinian school year, however, all one hundred and fifty
new schoolbooks used by Arafat’s Palestinian Authority described
Israel as the ”Zionist enemy” and equated Zionism with Nazism. Two
years after the Oslo Accords were signed, the number of Israelis
killed by Palestinian terrorists rose by 73% compared to the two year
period preceding the agreement.
To read the entire interview, go to:
–Boundary_(ID_pMYD5ATIpSI4gwemSvsh/w)–

IP SERVICES VS GOVERNMENT DECISION
A1 Plus | 14:51:41 | 12-11-2004 | Social |
Besides one-day-long strike, companies rendering Internet phone
services, held a protest action near Parliament building. Hundreds
of employees of about 200 managing establishments doing IP service
have today assembled at Demirchyan Street entrance of Parliament.
They were holding placards with the following expressions on:
“Government has turned off telephone, so try later, please!”,
“Justice is inaccessible or it is beyond the society”, “Is honor
beyond the reach?” etc.
The participants of the demonstration demanded Parliament to receive
their representatives in order that they should introduce the appeals
bearing 12.000 signatures and the open letter to Parliament Speaker,
MPs, parties and groups.
“Parliament must review the 24th article of the Armenian Law
on “Communication and Telecommunication” that runs counter to
Constitution, and discuss it”, the letter says.
MP Viktor Dallaqyan who came to Parliament during the demonstration
suggested the protestors to take the package in and promised to put
it on the table of Arthur Baghdasaryan.
If the protestors don’t receive response from Parliament by 5:00
PM, they will keep protesting using all the methods provided by
Constitution, right up to a long-term strike.

ARMENIAN INDUSTRY TO BE REPRESENTED IN GEORGIA
A1 Plus | 15:03:38 | 12-11-2004 | Economy |
On November 16-18 the first exhibition of Armenian goods and services
on “Armenia Now EXPO-2005” will be held in Tbilisi, Georgia.
The product of various branches of Armenia’s industry – foodstuffs,
drinks, paints, lacquer etc will be introduced to the exposition.
The aim of the exhibition of the Armenian goods and services is to
expand the opportunities for export of the output of the Armenian
enterprises, establish the mutually beneficial cooperation with the
Georgian businessmen, consolidate the relations with the Armenian
Commune in Georgia etc.
38 organizations will partake in the exposition.
Leaders of Georgian huge companies, state officials, representatives
of the Armenian Commune etc will visit the exhibition.

ARMENIA ADVOCATES AGREEMENT ON IGLA, STRELA SYSTEMS
RIA Novosti, Russia
Nov 12 2004
YEREVAN, November 12 (RIA Novosti’s Gamlet Matevosyan) – The
Armenian government advocates signing of the agreement on exchange of
information between the CIS member states on sold (handed over) and
acquired Igla and Strela anti-aircraft defense systems, RIA Novosti
learned from the Armenian government’s PR and press department.
In September 2003 CIS heads of state endorsed and adopted at the Yalta
summit decisions on measures to control sale of portable anti-aircraft
defense systems like Igla and Strela within the Commonwealth of
Independent States, as proposed by the Russian Defense Ministry
and taking into account the results of the G8 Evian summit in June
2003. Then Turkmenistan was the only country not to sign the agreement
referring to its neutral status.
“Everyone understands how dangerous the weapons are and that they are
already used by all kinds of terrorists,” Russian Defense Minister
Sergei Ivanov emphasized then.
Every CIS member undertakes to inform others about exports and imports
of the systems, as well as to provide information about systems it has,
he explained.
The authorized body from the Russian side is the Defense Ministry’s
committee for military and technical cooperation.
The work on the decision was intensive, but hard, the minister
pointed out. At first Georgia, Ukraine and Azerbaijan had objects,
but later were convinced in the need to take the decision, which is in
line with interests of all states in the fight against international
terrorism. The minister believes the decision is a great accomplishment
of the CIS Yalta summit.

Armenia may back out of peace talks
Assa-Irada, Azerbaijan
Nov 11 2004
Armenian foreign minister Vardan Oskanian told “Azadlig” radio on
Wednesday that his country has officially agreed to continue the
Prague talks. He said, however, that the negotiations cannot be held
at a time the issue on the occupied Azerbaijani lands is discussed
at the 59th session of the UN General Assembly.
“If Azerbaijan does not give up the discussions on the issue at the
United Nations, the talks will not take place and Azerbaijan will
have to negotiate with the Armenian community of Upper Garabagh.”
In reply to the utterance, the Azerbaijan Foreign Ministry press
spokesman Matin Mirza said that the Ministry has not received any
official information on the continuation of the talks. As for the
proposal to consider the issue on the occupied territories at the
UN, this is due to the fact that Armenia is engaged in activity
contradicting international law in these territories, which should
not be disregarded by the international community, Mirza said.
The Ministry press spokesman pointed out that any discussions with
the self-proclaimed ‘Upper Garabagh republic’ are unacceptable.
“According to the OSCE Minsk Group by-laws, Azerbaijan and Armenia
should be involved as parties in peace talks, while the Azerbaijani and
Armenian communities of Upper Garabagh are just interested parties.”,
Mirza added.