Category: News

The Seattle Times
Sunday, July 18, 2004 – Page updated at 12:00 A.M.
Knock on the door old Soviet-era leaders dread
By Kim Murphy
Los Angeles Times
MOSCOW – If you are one of the world’s dwindling number of old Soviet-era
leaders, trapped in your villa with the annoying winds of democracy blowing
in the streets outside, there might be worse things than having longtime
Russian foreign minister Igor Ivanov knock on your door.
But not many.
Former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic got the Ivanov knock on Oct. 6,
2000, right when he was counting most on Russia’s support against the wave
of opposition supporters who were in the streets proclaiming the victory of
his popularly supported rival, Vojislav Kostunica. Within hours of meeting
with Ivanov, the Serbian dictator conceded defeat.
Eduard Shevardnadze of Georgia heard it on Nov. 23, 2003, when Ivanov
delivered the news that Russia feared that bloodshed could result from the
Georgian president’s standoff with the forces of the “rose revolution”
unfolding in the streets outside. Shevardnadze, within hours, bowed to the
inevitable.
By early May, another standoff was brewing in the Black Sea region of
Adzharia, where longtime Moscow ally Aslan Abashidze repeatedly proclaimed
his intention never to back down in his standoff with the new,
democratically elected Georgian authorities. Then Ivanov darkened his door.
Abashidze left on Ivanov’s plane for Moscow that night.
Speech to old allies
As the aircraft rose through the Georgian darkness, Ivanov poured the
now-former Adzhari leader a glass of whiskey. He told him whatever it is
that the Russians tell old allies whose relationships have grown
inconvenient – no, impossible – in a world in which Russia is no longer a
superpower.
Increasingly, Russia has been forced to rethink old relationships, faced
with NATO’s expansion into former Soviet republics; democratic movements
springing up in countries including Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, Armenia
and Yugoslavia, and the United States establishing diplomatic and military
foothold from Central Asia to the Baltic Sea.
Ivanov’s role as the Terminator of Russian diplomacy underscores an
important shift that has occurred in its foreign policy in the past decade,
as Russia has moved from playing the role of global powerbroker to focusing
on its “near abroad,” the former Soviet republics around its borders whose
futures it sees as inextricably linked with its own.
Ivanov has also championed the move to supplant the confrontational dialogue
with the United States that characterized the Cold War with an attempt to
form global alliances against what he sees as the common threat of
international terrorism.
That meant that Shevardnadze, with whom Ivanov worked years ago in Moscow
when both served under the same government, had to be held accountable not
only to popular democratic forces, but for years of reluctance to crack down
on Chechen separatist rebels who had used Georgia’s Pankisi Gorge as a base
for attacks on Russia.
Outlived usefulness
It meant recognizing that Milosevic had outlived any usefulness to Russia,
said Gleb Pavlovsky of the Effective Policy Fund, a political-strategy group
with close ties to the Kremlin.
“What kind of guarantor was he of Russia’s national interests?” Pavlovsky
said. “Russia’s historical clout in the Balkans was being sacrificed (by
Milosevic) for the sake of the interests of a number of shadow-economy
corporations that traded in weapons, cigarettes and gasoline. … Milosevic
failed to become a donor in Russia-Yugoslav relations. He was only a
beneficiary of Russia’s political gifts.”
Ivanov’s role as “an angel of political death” called on to deliver “the
political version of euthanasia” underscores what Oriel College-Oxford
lecturer Mark Almond, in a recent Moscow Times commentary, thinks is
Russia’s attempt to eliminate anything that ultimately could impair control
over its most significant economic resource, oil and gas.
As the United States opens military bases near the Caspian Sea and eases in
friendly leaders along a key oil pipeline route in Georgia, “Russia’s own
energy resources are falling under the shadow of U.S. power, and the routes
to export Russian oil or gas, independent of Washington’s sphere of
influence, are narrowing,” Almond said.
The “Ivanov retreat” in Tbilisi and Adzharia allowed Moscow to address a
source of instability directly on its southern border. A failed state in
Georgia, or civil war between the Georgian capital and a rebellious republic
such as Adzharia, easily could spill into Russia’s troubled southern
republics. A new Georgian government hostile to Moscow likewise could foment
trouble there.
Although it is “a normal reality” that these nations pursue their own
expanded relations with the United States, Ivanov said, “At the same time,
we would consider it wrong and contradictory to our interests to … start
pushing Russia away from this space.
If the United States thinks that it is correct to declare the zone of the
Caspian Sea as a zone of their vital interest, then I do not need to explain
that Russia has many more grounds to claim the entire … (region) as the
zone of our vital interest, because it is the zone which passes all around
or borders.”
Russia has kept many of its former republics dependent on Moscow by becoming
a key supplier of oil and natural gas, literally capable of keeping the heat
turned on in satellite nations including Belarus.
With Shevardnadze, Ivanov said, he never attempted to force the Georgian
president to step down. “The term ‘resignation’ was never featured in my
consultations with Shevardnadze or with the opposition leaders. I did not
persuade Shevardnadze to resign. … It would have been senseless, knowing
Shevardnadze, with whom I had worked for six years as an aide. The decision
he made was made by himself, when I had already left Tbilisi.”
In Adzharia, the oil-rich region of Georgia that had maintained close ties
to Russia even after Georgian independence, Ivanov said he made it clear to
Abashidze that a crisis was possible if he did not come to terms with
Georgia’s newly elected leader, Mikhail Saakashvili.
“And after the consultations, Mr. Abashidze came in and said to me that he
had only two ways: either to leave the country and thus avoid bloodshed, or
to resort to armed resistance, which would lead to … loss of human life.
And he said, ‘In the interests of my people, I have made the decision to
leave the country.’ And we got on the plane and flew away.”
The real issue for Russian diplomacy, some analysts suggest, might be
whether it manages to go the next step, from easing out the old dictators, a
role in which Moscow now seems quite adept, to forming strategic alliances
with the pro-democracy movements angling to take their place.
In countries such as Ukraine and Belarus, said Andrey Kortunov, vice
president of the Eurasia Foundation in Moscow, “The question is, at what
point is Russia ready to revise its position and take risks by supporting
the more radical, more progressive and more flamboyant candidates?
“Probably, for something like this, you need someone who will be more
willing to take risks than Ivanov, someone ready to step down to a new
generation of leaders.”
Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company

Armenian president dismisses deputy prosecutor-general
Arminfo, Yerevan
17 Jul 04
Armenian President Robert Kocharyan has signed a decree dismissing
Zhirayr Kharatyan from the post of deputy prosecutor-general as he has
reached the age limit, the Armenian news agency Arminfo has said.
With the same decree, the president also reshuffled various district
prosecutors.

Ex-president using opposition to return to power – Armenian aide
Hayots Ashkharh, Yerevan
17 Jul 04
All the post-election actions of the opposition are guided by
Armenia’s former ruling party and ex-President Levon Ter-Petrosyan,
the adviser to the Armenian president for national security issues,
Garnik Isagulyan, has told Hayots Ashkharh newspaper. The forces
within the radical opposition come forward only with their own
leaders, each of them remains a leader only for his own party and
circle and cannot influence the processes or adopt decisions. The
experienced functionaries of the former ruling party, as well as
foreign forces, which have certain interests in Armenia, could not but
notice this situation and made the best use of the fact that the
radicals were not united and lacked an ideology, Isagulyan said. Now
they are trying to delude the radicals into thinking that the
opposition has no charismatic leader, and in this case, the leader can
be only ex-President Levon Ter-Petrosyan, he said. The following is
the text of Gevorg Arutyunyan’s report by Armenian newspaper Hayots
Ashkharh on 17 July headlined “The former president will not keep
quiet for a long time”. Subheadings have been inserted editorially:
An interview with the president’s adviser on security issues, Garnik
Isagulyan.
Opposition leader’s post vacant
Hayots Ashkharh correspondent The opposition leader’s post is in fact
vacant. Can the factor of the former president Levon Ter-Petrosyan
unite the opposition around the Armenian Pan-National Movement APNM ?
Garnik Isagulyan It was clear from the very beginning that all the
post-election actions of the opposition are guided by the APNM. In
fact, the whole intellectual potential of the opposition and people
who have certain political experience are concentrated in the APNM.
The forces within the radical opposition come forward only with their
own leaders. It is not accidental that each of them: the leader of the
National Unity Party NUP , Artashes Gegamyan, the leader of the
People’s Party of Armenia PPA , Stepan Demirchyan, and the leader of
the Anrapetutyun Republic Party, Aram Sarkisyan, remained a leader
only for his own party and circle. Incidentally, low-level party
leaders could not influence the processes or adopt decisions.
Naturally, the experienced functionaries of the APNM, as well as
foreign forces, which have certain interests in Armenia, could not but
notice this situation. Only these forces made the best use of the fact
that the radicals were not united and lacked an ideology. Today they
are trying to delude the radicals and those who are displeased into
thinking that the opposition has no charismatic leader, and in this
case, the leader can be Levon Ter-Petrosyan, who is well-known in the
world, has preserved his influence on the country’s domestic political
life, and has a strict position and options for settling the problems
of Armenia.
It is also hinted that by promising some post to the party leaders, he
will unite the opposition forces and also drum up serious support from
the external world. That is, there is a situation in which the aim is
to persuade everybody that the opposition may win if Ter-Petrosyan
returns.
Pan-national offensive
Correspondent Mr Isagulyan, do you not think that this programme
contains serious elements that break state stability and security?
Isagulyan It certainly does and the main reason for this is that in
fact, no personnel changes have taken place in the middle and higher
echelons of the authorities. Not only did people who had designs on
serious posts in the 1990s and occupy influential positions today
preserve what they had under the former authorities, they also
accumulated serious capital and are playing a certain role in the
economy. It is not so important for these people who combined
authority and capital, who the country’s president will be and what
his position on the state and nationwide problems will be? For these
people, the authorities’ attitude towards them is the only important
condition.
This is what the APNM and its propagandists are promoting today,
saying that they will be very loyal to all those who had posts earlier
and remain today and that they will continue to work and influence the
economy. At this stage of the domestic political developments, only
these factors lead the APNM to reject the role of a hidden ideological
leader and refuse to come forward openly and with its own leader.
Certainly, they will also unite around themselves the radicals who
have experience in street fighting, as there will be a demand to
increase speculation on social and economic difficulties, which they
will not be able to do having the burden of the past. In short,
everything is being done for creating a serious base for a
pan-national offensive in autumn.
Ter-Petrosyan will not keep quiet for a long time
It is not accidental at all that the leader of the PPA, Stepan
Demirchyan, has been invited to a meeting of the US Democratic
Party. During his trips abroad and his meetings with diplomats here,
this leader said many times that it would be better if the opposition
was loyal to Levon Ter-Petrosyan and his possible return. In case of
support, Demirchyan was also promised financial aid, which will make
it possible to carry out the desired change of power.
Foreign forces have an undisguised interest here, because if power
changes and Levon Ter-Petrosyan returns, they will be able to
implement all their interests incomparably better, which will
certainly not be in favour of Armenia. I do not think that after
intensifying his activities in autumn, Levon Ter-Petrosyan will keep
quiet for a long time. At some point he will reply to the calls for
his return, but as an experienced person, he will not immediately
announce his political resurrection. It is evident that the current
hints in the APNM press are co-ordinated with the former president and
contain hidden tendencies.
Correspondent Can the article in the Armenian Report, which the
pro-APNM press is trying to present as an official American view, be
one of these hints?
Isagulyan Indeed, the American press occasionally touches on Armenia’s
foreign and domestic policy and our problems, but they never use harsh
expressions like the Armenian Report does. This publication cannot be
regarded as an official view. This is simply a propaganda method, as
society does not even know what kind of publication and whose
mouthpiece it is. Simply, they are trying to create an opinion that
the American press is criticizing Armenian President Robert Kocharyan
and sees the alternative only in Levon Ter-Petrosyan. It is evident
that the above article also finds room in the APNM’s strategy and
propaganda. All this creates a demand for a very serious
counteraction. If we do not take the necessary measures in time, then
it will be more difficult to control the reality later.

“TURKEY’S CHAIRMANSHIP AT PACE PRVENTED BY ARMENIA”
Stated Foreign Minister of Cyprus
Azg/AM
17 July 2004
Haruth Sasunian, publisher of “The Californian Curier’ , has informed
in the July 14 issue of Azg about the decision of the Turkish
Government to give up its determination to take up PACE chairmanship,
conditioning it by RA Foreign Minister Vartan Oskanian’s statement
saying that Armenia wil exercise its right for veto against Turkey’s
candidacy.
This gave Sasunian to make conclusions about the Armenian diplomatic
victory and the failure of Turkey and the U.S. in their attempts to
exert pressure on Armenia. His conclusion was affirmed by Hathem
Jabbarlu, employee of te Eurasian Center for Strategic Researches in
Ankara, in his article “ArmeniaConducts More Dynamic and Succesful
Policy, Particularly against Turkey andAzerbaijan” that was published
in translation in the previous issue of Azg.
As for the conclusion made by Haruth Sasunian, it is also affirmed by
Yorgo Yakovo, Foreign Minister of Cyprus. According to data provided
by Anatolu agency, he denied the statements of the Greek press that
“Cyprus prevented Turkey’s candidacy for Chairmanship at PACE”, saying
that “though we were not going to support a country that refuses to
compline its commitments, cyprus has done nothing to prevent Turkey’s
candidacy for Chairmanship at PACE.” Then he added the Turkey’s
candidacy for chairmanship at PACe was prevented by Armenia’s threat
to excersise its right for veto.
By Hakob Chaqrian

Zaman, Turkey
July 18 2004
‘Anti-Turkey’ Alain Juppe Resigns in France
General President of the Unity of Public Movement (UMP) in power in
France, Alain Juppé, has resigned. The President, who is not
sympathetic to Turkey’s European Union (EU) membership, was expected
to visit Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
A suit was filed against Juppe for financial irregularities during
the time Jacques Chirac was Mayor of Paris. Juppe was found guilty
and as part of his sentence he is barred from public office for 10
years. The resignation of Juppé, known as the right hand of Chirac,
is interpreted as Chirac losing his grip on power.
Minister of Economy Nicolas Sarkozy, one of the names as a candidate
for the leadership of the party, is not sympathetic towards Turkey
either. Chirac asked Sarkozy, expected to be his biggest competitor
in the 2007 Presidential election, to resign.
Sarkozy, who seems to have obtained the support of most of the
Parliament, has become strong. Some French diplomats speaking to
Zaman have reported that Armenian Patric Deveciyan would be the Prime
Minister provided Sarkozy became President.
It is declared that Chirac found Prime Minister Jean Pierre Raffarin
suitable for the leadership of the party.
07.18.2004
Ali Ýhsan Aydýn, Paris

ABS CBN News, Philippines
July 18 2004
Rañola unbeaten in four rounds
By Manny Benitez
TODAY Chess Columnist
Filipino National Master (NM) Yves Rañola defeated Spanish NM Jose
Luis Ramon Perez in the third round and drew with Cuban International
Master (IM) Yuri Gonzales in the fourth to tie for second to 11th
places with 10 others in the Balaguer International Open chess
tournament in Spain.
In first place was Grandmaster Karen Movzsizsian of Armenia, who had
a perfect 4.0 points.
IM Jayson Gonzales, however, settled for two straight draws, while IM
Ronald Bancod had a win and a loss in the third and fourth rounds.
Both had 3.0 points to stay half a point behind the runners-up.
Both Rañola, who is campaigning for his third and final IM norm, and
Gonzales remained unbeaten after four rounds.
The Tai Yuan Grandmasters chess tournament, meanwhile, got off to a
flying start for Alexey Dreev of Russia and Nigel Short of England,
who both won their first assignments, with White against Chinese GMs
Ye Jiangchuan and Xu Jun, respectively, over the weekend.
Three other first-round games in the 10-player event ended in draws
— Bu Xiangzhi vs Zhang Zhong, both of China, in 31 moves of an
English Symmetrical duel; Smbat Lputian of Armenia vs Xie Jun,
China’s former world women’s champion; and Ni Hua of China vs Joel
Lautier of France.
Dreev beat Ye in 49 moves of a King’s Indian, Saemisch variation,
while Short taught former Asian continental champion Xu a lesson in
55 moves of a Sicilian Najdorf.
Meanwhile, defending champion Alexander Morozevich of Russia is the
odds-on favorite to win the Biel Grandmasters Tournament, which gets
under way in the Swiss city on Monday (Tuesday in Manila).
Another favorite is past world champion Ruslan Ponomariov. The other
players in the super event are Etienne Bacrot of France, Krishnan
Sasikiran of India, Luke McShane of England and Yannick Pelletier of
Switzerland.
The GM contest is part of the celebration of the annual chess
festival in Biel city, also known in the predominately
French-speaking Swiss canton as Bienne.
In Tuguegarao, Manila bets Froilan Bolico III and Michael Adarlo
zeroed in on the top two North Luzon leg berths by posting their
fifth straight victories in the Shell National Youth Active
Championships.
The top-seeded Bolico trounced Baguio City’s Alex Siblagan, while
Adarlo beat another Manila player, Carl Espallardo, to emerge the
only unbeaten players in the juniors (20-under) division of the
two-category tournament.

Moscow Times, Russia
July 19 2004
Magazine Editor Murdered
By Carl Schreck
Staff Writer The Armenian editor of a Russian-language magazine
focusing on Armenian issues was beaten and stabbed to death Saturday,
and his body dumped on the outskirts of Moscow, police said.
Pail Peloyan, editor of Armyansky Pereulok, was found dead with knife
wounds to the chest and severe trauma to the head at 7 a.m. Saturday
just outside the Moscow Ring Road on the southwestern edge of the
city, a city police spokesman told Interfax. He died between 2 a.m.
and 3 a.m.
Deputy city prosecutor Alexander Krokhmal said investigators were at
the crime scene Saturday, Interfax reported.
No one answered the telephone Sunday at the City Prosecutor’s Office.
The newspaper Gazeta reported on its web site that investigators were
not excluding the possibility that the murder was connected to
Peloyan’s journalistic work.
Peloyan was the second magazine editor to be killed in Moscow in a
little over a week. On July 9, Forbes Russia editor Paul Klebnikov
was shot by unknown assailants.
Their publications, however, could not be more different.
Armyansky Pereulok had a circulation of 1,000 and covered harmless
topics ranging from Armenian history to Russian-Armenian friendship,
said Levon Osepyan, a well-known Armenian author and the magazine’s
founder.
“It was a friendly magazine,” Osepyan said by telephone Sunday.
Osepyan said he has had no connection with the magazine for over a
year and a half and that he did not know Peloyan.
Armyansky Pereulok has not released an issue since 2002 due to
financial difficulties, Gazeta.ru reported. The web site cited a
source close to the magazine’s publishing house as saying Peloyan
“was only nominally the editor.” It was unclear whether the source
was referring to the two-year lull in the magazine’s output or
something else.
The source said Peloyan’s death was likely “connected to his business
activities, which he preferred to keep quiet.”
Armen Gevondyan, spokesman for the Armenian Embassy in Moscow, told
Interfax on Saturday that the embassy is in contact with the Russian
authorities regarding the murder.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
July 18, 2004 Sunday Home Edition
BOOKS: 1915 genocide haunts, taunts young survivor
by ELLEN EMRY HELTZEL
FICTION
The Daydreaming Boy. By Micheline Aharonian Marcom. Riverhead Books.
$23.95. 212 pages.
The verdict: An elegant, unsettling story of survival.
“In Paradise there is no past,” observes the young Catholic Rachel in
Micheline Aharonian Marcom’s acclaimed first novel, “Three Apples
Fell From Heaven.” She is speaking from the grave after drowning
herself to avoid being raped by Turkish soldiers. For her, hell is
the pain of memory.
In her new novel, “The Daydreaming Boy,” Marcom reprises this theme,
her subject once again the Ottoman Empire’s 1915 genocide against the
Armenians. This time, the story remains in the land of the living,
told by a fictional narrator who’s looking back a half-century after
the killings.
Vahe Tcheubjian lives in Beirut, Lebanon. He is both an unexceptional
figure and a tragic one, describing himself as “a smallish man, a man
whose middle has begun to soften and protrude, his long toes hidden
in scuffed dress shoes.” Beneath this bland exterior, however, lies a
person “undone by history.”
Vahe has lived a life of suppressing the events that scarred him and
destroyed his family. When he was 7, his father was bludgeoned to
death and his mother delivered to an unknown fate, while he was sent
by boxcar to Lebanon and the Bird’s Nest Orphanage. There, he grew up
among what he calls the “Adams in the wasteland” — child refugees
who were pulled from their homes and herded together in a
survival-of-the-fittest environment.
Vahe remembers how he ached with loneliness. He wrote letters to the
mother who never replied. He cherished the weekly assembly-line
baths, a brisk scrub-down by a dour-looking matron, because it gave
him the chance to recall a maternal touch.
After leaving the orphanage, he worked as a carpenter, got married.
And then, as a middle-aged man, Vahe can’t stop thinking about
Vostanig, the outcast who was sexually and physically abused by the
other boys, including himself, at the Bird’s Nest. “The stranger: he
was all of us, the damned exiled race in its puny and starved and
pathetic scabbed body,” he recalls. “How we longed to kill him.”
For years, Vahe made a habit of visiting the Beirut zoo on Sundays,
where he shared a smoke with the tobacco-loving chimp Jumba. But
before handing over the cigarette, he would poke its burning end into
the chimp’s flesh, exacting his price. If there’s any doubt that Vahe
is a deeply damaged man, this gratuitous cruelty dispels it.
Jumba and his fellow primates are a motif in the book, their
captivity and behavior reflecting how Vahe perceives a hostile world.
A newspaper article datelined South Africa announces the discovery
that man and gorilla share the same brain size and capacity,
underscoring the primal connection. The metaphor threatens to
overpower the story, but Vahe is too compelling to ignore.
Vahe has learned to translate his grief and emptiness into lust,
braiding sex and violence together, as he was taught. Having been
victimized himself, he becomes victimizer, as indicated by this
simple exchange with the servant girl Beatrice:
“Would you like a chocolate?”
“No, merci.”
“No, merci? Here, take it. I’ve bought these chocolates and I would
like for you to take it.” She is still looking at the floor and I’ve
grabbed her hand and pushed the gold truffles into her small hand.
Dialogue is the exception in a story built mostly on interior speech,
using poetic, even mnemonic, devices that reflect how memory works.
For Vahe, the past returns in intermittent blasts, like power surges
traveling down the neural pathways. Through his eyes we see the lies
and obfuscations gradually fall away.
What remains is a man who sees himself for what he is, “the ragged
round left by absence of affection and knowing.”
Ellen Emry Heltzel is a book critic and writer who lives in Portland,
Ore. With Margo Hammond she writes the weekly column “Book Babes,”
which can be found at

The Independent
Second editor killed in 10 days as fear grips Moscow
By Andrew Osborn in Moscow
19 July 2004
Russia’s jittery foreign press corps was plunged into mourning yesterday
for the second time in as many weeks after another foreign journalist was
murdered in Moscow.
The killing of Paila Peloyan, the Armenian editor of the Russian-language
monthly, Armenian Lane, comes barely a week after Paul Klebnikov, the US
editor of the Russian version of Forbes magazine, was gunned down in cold
blood. Nobody has been arrested for his murder.
Mr Peloyan’s body was found dumped by the side of the city’s outer ring
road or MKAD far from the city centre on Saturday morning.
He had multiple stab wounds in the chest and had been savagely beaten; his
skull was cracked and his face covered in blood and bruises.
Information about his last movements is sketchy, though he is known to
have died between two and three o’clock on Saturday morning and his body
lay undiscovered for at least four hours.
Investigators say they have crawled over the crime scene in order to try
to find out what happened and prosecutors have opened a criminal case into
the killing.
They are not ruling out the possibility that Mr Peloyan was murdered
because of his professional activity.
In contrast to the late Mr Klebnikov, however, Mr Peloyan’s work appears
relatively uncontroversial. While the dead American journalist made waves
by publicising the names of Russia’s wealthiest people and delving into
their often insalubrious financial affairs, Mr Peloyan’s magazine was an
arts publication.
Moscow’s Armenian diaspora, Armenian Lanecarried features about
literature, the arts and history and included prose and poetry from
Armenian writers. Nobody was answering the phones at the magazine’s Moscow
office yesterday.
That Mr Peloyan’s murder comes so soon after that of Mr Klebnikov is
likely to unsettle foreign and Russian journalists alike. Mr Klebnikov was
killed in a drive-by shooting by at least two gunmen and died in a hail of
bullets just yards from his office. His murder had all the hallmarks of a
contract killing.
An online news site, the Russia Journal, spoke yesterday of “an undeclared
war against media representatives” and claimed that Russian and foreign
journalists had become an endangered species in Moscow.
It said: “These two senseless killings have once again put the issue of
journalists’ safety in Russia back on the agenda and raised well-founded
concerns among representatives of the fourth estate.
“This is not because killing journalists is a rarity in Moscow or in
Russia at large but two murders of journalists in less than 10 days in a
city that is not at war is something unusual, even by Russian standards.”
The Russian media itself made far less of Mr Peloyan’s murder, possibly
because as an Armenian hailing from a part of the former Soviet Union once
ruled by the Russians, he would not be considered a bona fide foreigner
like Mr Klebnikov.
It is estimated that two million Armenians live in Russia and the two
countries have a close relationship going back hundreds of years.
Officials at the Armenian embassy in Moscow said that they were profoundly
shocked by Mr Peloyan’s murder. “Naturally we learnt of this information
with great regret,” Armen Gevondyan, the embassy press secretary, told
Interfax news agency.
“We are taking all the measures we can together with Russia’s law
enforcement authorities to ascertain the circumstances of Mr Peloyan’s
death.” Mr Peloyan is the 16th journalist to be murdered in Russia since
2000 when Vladimir Putin assumed the presidency. The US-based Committee to
Protect Journalists says the country is one of the deadliest places to be
a reporter. It addressed an open letter to Mr Putin after Mr Klebnikov’s
killing, complaining about “the climate of lawlessness and impunity”.
“Cases [of journalists being killed] have not been properly investigated
or prosecuted, a testament to the ongoing lawlessness in Russia and your
failure to reform the country’s weak and politicised criminal justice
system,” it said.
JOURNALISTS MURDERED IN RUSSIA
Paul Klebnikov, editor of ‘Forbes’ magazine (Russian edition)
Age: 41
Died: 9 July 2004
Gunned down from passing car while leaving office in Moscow. Had exposed
workings of the country’s shadowy billionaires
Aleksei Sidorov, editor-in-chief of ‘Tolyatinskoye Obozreniye’
Age: 31
Died: 9 October 2003
Stabbed several times in the chest by unidentified assailant outside home.
Newspaper known for investigative reporting on organised crime, government
corruption and shady corporate deals
Valery Ivanov, editor-in-chief of ‘Tolyatinskoye Obozreniye’
Age: 32
Died: 29 April 2002
Shot eight times in head at point-blank range by assassin using a pistol
with a silencer. Murdered in Togliatti after paper exposed controversial
business deals linked to organised crime and government corruption
Natalya Skryl, business reporter, ‘Nashe Vremya’
Age: 29
Died: 9 March 2002
The reporter was repeatedly struck on the head while returning home in
Rostov-on-Don late at night. She was investigating a struggle for the
control of Tagmet, a local metallurgical plant. Just before her death, Ms
Skryl told colleagues that she had obtained sensitive information about
the story and was planning to publish it
Eduard Markevich, editor and publisher of ‘Novy Reft’
Age: 29
Died: 18 September 2001
Shot in the back. The paper, in the Sverdlovsk region, often criticised
local officials. Mr Markevich received threatening calls before the fatal
attack
Igor Domnikov, reporter and special projects editor of ‘Novaya Gazeta’
Age: 42
Died: 16 July 2000
Died in Moscow two months after being attacked by an unidentified
assailant and left lying in pool of blood in the entryway of his apartment
building. His colleagues and police were initially certain the attack was
related to his professional activity or that of the newspaper. It was also
believed for a while that the assailant mistook Mr Domnikov for a Novaya
Gazeta investigative reporter, Oleg Sultanov, who lived in the same
building. Mr Sultanov claimed to have received threats from the Federal
Security Service for reporting on corruption in the Russian oil industry
Natalya Skryl, business reporter, ‘Nashe Vremya’
Age: 29
Died: 9 March 2002
The reporter was repeatedly struck on the head while returning home in
Rostov-on-Don late at night. She was investigating a struggle for the
control of Tagmet, a local metallurgical plant. Just before her death, Ms
Skryl told colleagues that she had obtained sensitive information about
the story and was planning to publish it
Eduard Markevich, editor and publisher of ‘Novy Reft’
Age: 29
Died: 18 September 2001
Shot in the back. The paper, in the Sverdlovsk region, often criticised
local officials. Mr Markevich received threatening calls before the fatal
attack
Igor Domnikov, reporter and special projects editor of ‘Novaya Gazeta’
Age: 42
Died: 16 July 2000
Died in Moscow two months after being attacked by an unidentified
assailant and left lying in pool of blood in the entryway of his apartment
building. His colleagues and police were initially certain the attack was
related to his professional activity or that of the newspaper. It was also
believed for a while that the assailant mistook Mr Domnikov for a Novaya
Gazeta investigative reporter, Oleg Sultanov, who lived in the same
building. Mr Sultanov claimed to have received threats from the Federal
Security Service for reporting on corruption in the Russian oil industry

Agence France Presse
July 17, 2004 Saturday
Erdogan en France pour promouvoir la candidature turque a l’UE avant
decembre(AVANT-PAPIER)
Par Burak AKINCI
ANKARA
BODY: Le Premier ministre turc Recep Tayyip Erdogan effectue de lundi
a mercredi une visite officielle en France pour promouvoir aupres des
dirigeants francais la candidature de son pays a l’Union europeenne,
epineux sujet qui divise la scene politique francaise.
M. Erdogan doit s’entretenir avec son homologue Jean-Pierre Raffarin
au premier jour de sa visite et etre recu le lendemain a l’Elysee par
le president Jacques Chirac lors d’un dejeuner de travail.
“C’est une visite importante dans un Etat important de l’UE”, a
precise un diplomate turc sous couvert d’anonymat. Outre la
candidature turque, les relations bilaterales et commerciales seront
egalement au menu des entretiens, a-t-on precise de meme source.
La Commission europeenne doit remettre en octobre sa recommandation
sur l’ouverture de negociations d’adhesion avec la Turquie, que
decideront ou non les dirigeants europeens en decembre.
La Turquie a obtenu le statut de candidat a l’UE en 1999.
Estimant avoir rempli les conditions politiques –les criteres de
Copenhague– pour ouvrir ces negociations, le gouvernement de M.
Erdogan, qui dirige un parti issu de la mouvance islamiste, l’AKP, a
fait passer au parlement plusieurs reformes democratiques. Il espere
que ces discussions debuteront des debut 2005.
La question de l’entree dans l’UE de la Turquie, pays musulman mais
laieque de plus de 70 millions d’habitants, divise profondement les
opinions europeennes et les partis politiques francais.
Le 29 juin, lors du sommet de l’OTAN a Istanbul, M. Chirac avait
vivement critique la prise de position du president americain George
W. Bush en faveur d’une adhesion de la Turquie a l’UE, y voyant une
ingerence dans les affaires europeennes.
Le president francais avait toutefois juge “irreversible” la marche
d’Ankara vers l’UE, estimant que “la Turquie a une vocation
europeenne, historique, tres ancienne”, meme si son parti, l’Union
pour la majorite presidentielle (UMP), s’est prononce contre une
adhesion.
L’entree de la Turquie dans l’UE signerait “a terme la fin de
l’Europe”, avait declare le president de l’UMP, Alain Juppe,
proposant plutot pour Ankara la solution d'”un voisinage rapproche”.
M. Erdogan doit avoir un tete-a-tete avec M. Juppe ainsi qu’avec le
president du parti centriste UDF Francois Bayrou et avec le premier
secretaire du parti socialiste (PS), Francois Hollande.
A la difference des partis de droite, le PS, premier parti
d’opposition en France, est favorable au principe de l’entree de la
Turquie dans l’UE mais conditionne pour sa part l’ouverture de
negociations d’adhesion a la reconnaissance par ce pays du genocide
armenien de 1915, pendant l’empire ottoman.
La Turquie, qui rejette categoriquement la these d’un “genocide”,
avait ete particulierement irritee par l’adoption par le parlement
francais en 2001 d’une loi reconnaissant le genocide armenien.
Lors de sa visite M. Erdogan doit egalement evoquer les relations
economiques. Les echanges entre les deux pays se sont chiffres en
2003 a quelque 6 milliards d’euros.
La France est le deuxieme partenaire commercial de la Turquie et son
quatrieme fournisseur.
La compagnie nationale Turkish Airlines se prepare a acheter pres de
cinquante avions de ligne, notamment moyen et long courrier, pour
renouveler sa flotte vieillissante. Le consortium aeronautique
europeen Airbus et l’americain Boeing sont en lice.
M. Erdogan souhaiterait se servir de ce contrat de deux milliards de
dollars (1,6 milliard euros), qui devrait en principe etre partage
entre les deux constructeurs, pour “inciter” les Francais a donner
leur aval a l’ouverture des negociations d’adhesion avec Ankara,
a-t-on indique de source proche du dossier.