Category: News

HAILSTORM DAMAGES CROPS IN ARMENIAN DISTRICT
Public Television of Armenia, Yerevan
10 Jul 04
(Presenter) A hailstorm has hit Armenia’s Armavir district. The
farmers of this district have been deprived of their harvest, annual
income, and have got into serious debt. The farmers joke that what is
brought by water is also gone with water.
(Correspondent over video of villages damaged by hailstorm) About 810
hectares of vineyards, grain and vegetable fields of Armavir
District’s village of Janfida were completely damaged by a strong
hailstorm on Friday (9 July). The strong wind broke the windows and
roofs of schools, village and district houses and damaged the
village’s roads. Seven villages of the district have been greatly
damaged.
(Passage omitted: The farmers are complaining about their losses)
(Correspondent) Land is the only source of income for the farmers of
Janfida and other villages. The natural disaster has put these people
in a difficult situation. As well as being deprived of their annual
income, the farmers have got into serious debt. They do not know how
to return bank loans and pay interest rates. The farmers’ only hope is
the government’s support and selling at a high price the part of the
harvest that survived.
A special group set up in the district council is estimating the
damage caused by the hail.
Anna Vartanyan for “Aylur”.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

ARMENIAN PRESIDENT MEETS OSCE MINSK GROUP COCHAIRS
Mediamax news agency
12 Jul 04
YEREVAN
Armenian President Robert Kocharyan received the cochairmen of the
OSCE Minsk Group on the Nagornyy Karabakh settlement, Yuriy Merzlyakov
(Russia), Henry Jacolin (France) and Steven Mann (USA) in Yerevan
today.
The presidential press service told our agency that “the sides
discussed issues connected with the current stage of the peaceful
settlement of the conflict”.

–Boundary_(ID_jX71HT7MxwMuYtFYPFuD7w)
Armenian NGOs call for peace in Georgia’s South Ossetia conflict
X-Sender: Asbed Bedrossian
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Arminfo
12 Jul 04
YEREVAN
The Stability movement which includes a number of Armenian NGOs has
expressed its concern about the deterioration of the situation in the
South Ossetia.
The possibility of military operations and engagement in the conflict
of several districts in the region may result in a large-scale war in
the North Caucasus and this causes serious concern, the movement said
in a statement sent to Arminfo news agency. The possible war will have
a destructive impact on the stability of the entire region. It will
also have a negative influence on the dynamics of development of
various spheres and areas in Armenia. “On behalf of Armenia’s NGOs, we
call on the NGOs operating in Georgia to join their efforts in order
to influence the Georgian leadership and to resolve the conflict
peacefully within the framework of humanity and values of the
mankind,” the statement said.

Azeri leader focuses on unresolved Karabakh issue at meeting with new envoys
Lider TV, Baku
12 Jul 04
[Presenter] Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity has been violated and,
despite international efforts, Armenia is not retreating from the
occupied territories. We are demanding that our territorial integrity
be restored and the international community express its attitude
towards this, [Azerbaijani] President Ilham Aliyev said at today’s
ceremony when receiving the credentials from the newly-appointed
ambassadors to Azerbaijan from France, Canada, Philippines, Ghana,
Algeria and the United Arab Emirates.
[Correspondent over videos of diplomats and the Azeri president]
France and Azerbaijan are friendly countries. During my tenure as
ambassador, I will further contribute to the comprehensive development
of the relations, the newly-appointed French ambassador to Azerbaijan,
Roland Blatmann, said. He also spoke about the Nagornyy Karabakh
settlement.
The ambassador said that France did nor recognize Karabakh’s
independence and supported Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity. France
supports tete-a-tete meetings between the Azerbaijani and Armenian
presidents, and including foreign ministers, the diplomat said. France
is for a peaceful solution of the conflict.
Speaking about Azerbaijani-French relations, President Ilham Aliyev
said that relations had strengthened after his visit to France at the
beginning of the year. Commenting on the Karabakh settlement, the
president said that Azerbaijan recognized the territorial integrity of
all states and wanted the same attitude towards ourselves.
[Aliyev, voice] France is a cochairmen of the OSCE Minsk Group and is
working as a cochairman. We hope that in the near future, the
Armenian-Azerbaijani-Nagornyy Karabakh conflict will be resolved on
the basis of international legal norms.
[Correspondent] Receiving the credentials of ambassadors from Canada,
Ghana, Philippines, the UAE and the Algerian People’s Democratic
Republic, President Ilham Aliyev said that the relations between these
countries would further develop. At the meeting with ambassadors of
the five states, the president also mentioned the Nagornyy Karabakh
problem.
[Aliyev] The most serious issue our country is facing is the
Armenian-Azerbaijan-Nagornyy Karabakh conflict. Despite all
international efforts, Armenia is not retreating from the occupied
lands and thus the conflict remains unresolved. Azerbaijan’s
territorial integrity has been violated and we demand that
Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity be restored and the international
community express a keener attitude to this issue.
[Correspondent] President Ilham Aliyev has stated that the Nagornyy
Karabakh conflict will soon be resolved fairly with the support of the
international organizations.
Vahid Abbas for Lider TV.

Armenian official says foreign funds make nuclear plant “more safe”
Arminfo
8 Jul 04
YEREVAN
The head of the Armenian State Atomic Inspection Directorate, Ashot
Martirosyan, has told an Arminfo correspondent that the programme of
technical upgrading of the Armenian nuclear station will cost 40m
dollars. He said that the money will be used to carry out some
technical and logistic measures which will make the station more safe.
Ashot Martirosyan said that the US had recently announced the
allocation of 1m dollars to be used when the station would close for
major repairs on 23 July this year. The head of the Armenian State
Atomic Inspection Directorate said that the assistance was mainly
provided by the USA and the European Union although the latter has
lately become less active in the allocation of funds for these
purposes. “The European Union has helped us a lot in improving the
station’s safety as part of TACIS programme however, this help has
lately been frozen due to political constraints,” he said. He added,
however, that since the station remains to be a high risk facility,
the EU will continue to allocate funds to improve its safety. Britain
has also allocated funds towards that. He noted that Russia provides
only technical support in maintaining the plant’s safety at a proper
level.
[Passage omitted: recap of reports on earlier funds]
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Official says European Union committed to raise Armenia’s power plant’s
safety
Arminfo
9 Jul 04
YEREVAN
The European Union is not yet ready to fulfil the commitments it took
on to allocate funds to increase the safety of the Armenian nuclear
station, an Arminfo correspondent has learnt from the EU Head of
Delegation to Armenia and Georgia, Torben Holtze.
He said that two years ago the EU took the commitment to allocate 4 to
5m euros for these purposes, but it has not yet done so. The funds
have not been allocated because the “Armenian side has not yet
submitted a specific programme on increasing the safety of the nuclear
station”. He said that the EU is worried about the nuclear station’s
safety.
About 10 to 15m dollars had been allocated for these purposes in the
past. “We have never said that we are refusing to fund the programme
to increase the safety of the Armenian nuclear station,” he said.

Azeri paper urges government to be more resolute in relations with NATO
Zerkalo, Baku
10 Jul 04

The problem brought about by the participation of Armenian officers in
the Cooperative Best Effort-2004 exercises within NATO’s Partnership
for Peace seems to be drawing to an end.
We have effectively witnessed the Armenian’s victory in this
diplomatic and procedural struggle. And they appear not to have
applied any particular effort to visit Azerbaijan and attend a
preliminary conference for the mentioned NATO exercises. Apparently,
they have simply used ordinary technical facilities by applying to
appropriate bodies in Brussels. This time the Armenians were more
careful not to repeat the past when they could not attend similar
conferences thanks to our efforts.
It turns out that the authorities and society stick to completely
different positions on the issue. The authorities proved too weak to
withstand the pressure from NATO officials and, in a move to justify
themselves, said this was an international event and if the Armenian
officers were to be barred from attending the conference it would deal
a blow to Azerbaijan’s international image and strain its relations
with NATO.
To be frank, we are surprised at the position of NATO
officials. Because unlike Armenia, Azerbaijan is actively cooperating
with NATO. Why does Brussels insist on the participation of the
Armenian officers in the exercises held in Azerbaijan knowing only too
well that this hurts the feelings of our people? Are there
pro-Armenian forces in Brussels who think that the Armenian officers
must attend the exercises by all means? And our authorities hope that
after seeing how fast Azerbaijan is developing, the Armenian officers
will realize that their position is not right and urge their leaders
to sit down at the negotiating table with Azerbaijan.
Let’s note, however, that the Armenians are unlikely to understand
that. First of all, because they will hardly be able to visit the
sites that testify to high living standards (high-rise buildings,
roads, factories, etc.). Secondly, why do they need to see everything
with their own eyes if they can easily see Azerbaijan’s achievements
using the advantages of our 21st-century world?
[Passage omitted: minor details]
The latest developments have set a dangerous precedent. Azerbaijan is
not a NATO member yet but is already retreating under pressure from
the alliance. Our country’s defeat in the issue, though not material
or physical, is beyond doubt. And this deals a moral blow to our
international image as of a partner country. In other words, it
appears that Azerbaijan can make concessions if put under pressure.
We have been hearing quite often that seven Armenian officers are
expected to come to Baku within NATO’s Partnership for Peace programme
in September. A short while ago the deputy foreign minister, Araz
Azimov, said two Armenian officers might attend the exercises. What
will our government’s reaction be? How will society respond? Or, more
importantly, what is to be done?
My suggestion: The foreign affairs and defence ministries have got to
make it clear to NATO officials in a harsher tone than before that
this must not happen again. In principle, our authorities have already
sent the message. Or the mentioned state agencies have to put forward
the initiative to hold activities within Partnership for Peace in
another country aspiring to a NATO membership, such as Ukraine or
Georgia. I don’t think Azerbaijan will end up losing a lot by refusing
to host the alliance’s exercises on its soil.
[Passage omitted: minor details]
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Analyst plays down possibility of Armenia vacating Azeri lands
Yeni Musavat, Baku
11 Jul 04
Text of F. Mammadov report by Azerbaijani newspaper Yeni Musavat on 11
July headlined “Unsuccessful propaganda of ‘successful Karabakh
policy'”
In an interview with Zerkalo newspaper former state adviser and
currently political analyst Vafa Quluzada has said that the reports
suggesting that the Armenians are allegedly preparing to vacate some
of the occupied Azerbaijani districts and that negotiations to that
end are allegedly under way is nothing but empty speculation.
Quluzada added that the possibility of Armenia vacating some districts
is discussed only in Azerbaijan, while Armenia is not making any
preparations for leaving the territories. The political analyst said
that this could happen only if Azerbaijan agreed either to the
annexation of Nagornyy Karabakh and Lacin [Lachin] District to Armenia
or to the provision of Nagornyy Karabakh with the status of
independence.
Quluzada is an experienced diplomat who was involved in the Karabakh
talks for many years and is still believed to be one of the most
competent people on the issue. From this standpoint, his statements
reflect the real situation around Nagornyy Karabakh very
accurately. The point is that on seeing a lack of progress in the
negotiations, the government propaganda has started “generating”
speculation that some of Azerbaijan’s occupied districts may be
freed. For instance, there has been a report that the Turkish,
Azerbaijani and Armenian foreign ministers had recently reached a
preliminary agreement that Armenia would vacate seven Azerbaijani
districts. It wasn’t long, however, before this report proved to be
wide of the mark. Or, reports are spread after every meeting between
the Azerbaijani and Armenian foreign ministers that the sides have
discussed the liberation of five or six districts.
In reality, however, the liberation of Azerbaijani territories can be
discussed only when and if Azerbaijan agrees to the annexation of
Nagornyy Karabakh together with Susa and Lacin Districts to
Armenia. Only against this backdrop can Armenia agree to negotiate the
issue of leaving the other territories.
However, the government propaganda machine is trying to create the
impression that thanks to the “successful” policy of [Azerbaijani
President] Ilham Aliyev the situation is changing for the better and
that the Armenians are about to agree to vacate a number of
districts. This primitive and futile technology has already been used
and is now designed to convince the public of Ilham Aliyev’s
“successful Karabakh policy”.

Saakashvili tells Ossetian rally Georgia committed to peace
Rustavi-2 TV, Tbilisi
11 Jul 04

[Presenter] Some 300 ethnic Ossetians have been rallying outside the
State Chancellery since this morning. Speakers have been attacking
[South Ossetian separatist leader Eduard] Kokoiti’s government and
calling for peace.
The Georgian president came out of his office to meet the
demonstrators. Mikheil Saakashvili promised the ethnic Ossetians to
do his utmost to preserve peace.
He said that full reintegration of Samachablo [South Ossetia] into
Georgia would take a year at most. [Passage omitted]
[Saakashvili, speaking to demonstrators] If the Georgian government
had wanted to start a war, it has had more than enough grounds to do
so. Our soldiers have been forced to go down on their knees, people
have been kidnapped, people have been wounded, and roads have been
attacked. What other grounds would have been needed if we had really
wanted to start a war? We have been doing everything possible for it
not to happen, we have been swallowing everything. What other country
would have put up with seeing all that on television? Why are we doing
it? Because I want to fight for peace every day and because I am sure
that, within a year at most, both Tskhinvali and Java
[separatist-controlled areas in South Ossetia] will simply integrate
into Georgia peacefully. They know it all too well, and so do we.
Everyone has left Tskhinvali except 7,000 people. Only several dozen
children and women have been unable to leave because they have nowhere
to go. They no longer have anyone to stay with even in Vladikavkaz
[capital of Russia’s North Ossetia] or in villages. As long as these
people are there, I will do everything possible to stop even a single
bullet being fired and even a single grenade exploding because the
spilling of innocent blood is totally unacceptable to me. [Applause]
[Female demonstrator, to Saakashvili] No-one is going to flee
Georgia. We are staying here.
[Saakashvili] Ossetians should not go anywhere from here. Those who
want Ossetians to go should leave themselves.
Some people have been saying that I am Ossetian, others that I am
Armenian, yet others that I am Azerbaijani. I have told them all that
those who hate Armenians can count me as Armenian, those who hate
Azerbaijanis can count me as Azerbaijani, and those who hate Ossetians
can count me as Ossetian through and through, because I believe that
that is the position of a Georgian patriot. [Passage omitted]

Christian Science Monitor
July 12 2004
Iraq’s Christians consider fleeing as attacks on them rise
By Annia Ciezadlo | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor
BAGHDAD – It was 10:30 in the morning, almost four months ago, and
the children were getting ready for church. Aziz Raad Azzo, 5 years
old, was drinking his milk; his 14-year-old sister Raneen was putting
on her new clothes. When they heard a car pull up, Raneen, thinking
her father was home, ran to the window and flung open the shutters.
Four men shot her and her little brother in the head.
The children’s crime: Their father, a Christian storekeeper, had sold
alcohol.
Before the murders, the family received a photocopied death threat.
“We are warning you, the enemies of God and Islam, from selling
alcohol again, and unless you stop we will kill you and send you to
hell where a worse fate awaits you,” reads the warning, signed by
“Harakat Ansar al-Islam,” the Partisans of Islam Movement.
Shortly after the murders, their father wrote a letter to an Iraqi
human rights group. “Please save me,” he begged, “and help me leave
the country.”
Facing a rising tide of persecution, Iraq’s tiny Christian minority
has a terrible choice: stay and risk their lives, or leave and
abandon those left behind. Afraid of an Islamic future in which they
would be outcasts, thousands are trying to flee. “It’s like a huge
amount of people lined up at the starting line, waiting for the gun
to go off, and now it’s going off,” says the Rev. Ken Joseph, an
Iraqi-American Christian activist in Baghdad. “For them to leave is a
very big step, but that shows how badly people want to get out.”
It is difficult to gauge the exodus, because most Christian groups,
desperately wanting Christians to stay, deny that there is any
problem. (Iraq’s new minister of displacement and migration, Pascale
Isho Warda, was in Europe and unavailable for comment.) But Issaq
Issaq, director of international relations for the Assyrian
Democratic Movement, estimates that about 2,000 families have tried
to leave since summer began. “They want to leave, because they heard
they can get asylum in Australia,” he says. “We are trying to keep
these people in Iraq, because it is their country.”
In 1987, the Iraqi census showed about 1.4 million Christians. Then
came Saddam Hussein’s anfal (“spoils of war’) campaign. In the late
1980s, the army rampaged through the country’s north, attacking
ethnic Kurds and systematically destroying more than 100 small
Christian villages, razing scores of ancient monasteries and churches
and deporting thousands of Christian families to Baghdad.
During the 1990s, a steady stream of Christians poured out of Iraq to
Canada, Switzerland, Australia, and the United States – wherever they
could get asylum. Today, fewer than 1 million remain in Iraq, divided
among Assyrians, Chaldean Catholics, Armenians, and Syriac
Christians.
In this dwindling community, talk of persecution is taboo. Those who
admit to it are accused of helping the terrorists. “Newspapers
publish this kind of thing in order to make propaganda, and scare the
Christians into leaving the country,” says the priest at the Sacred
Heart Catholic church in central Baghdad. He begged not to have his
name published. But he swears there is no Muslim-Christian hostility.
“We are brothers,” says the priest, sweating inside the stifling
rectory. “There is always this sympathy, and this tie of brotherhood
between the Christians and the Muslims. Baghdad is considered a
center of Christianity.”
Outside the church, under the punishing 120-degree sun, the priest’s
bodyguard laughs. “Don’t believe what our father said,” he says,
pointing out a fresh bullet hole next to the rectory door and
reciting a litany of recent death threats. “He can go anywhere he
likes, he can leave the country if he wants to. But he is not
thinking about us, the poor Christians. That’s why he doesn’t want me
to talk to you frankly and openly about this…. There is an
immigration bureau in Syria, and most of the Christians are going
there.”
Ten minutes away, in the Bab Sharji market, Ahmed al-Maamouri scorns
Christian claims of brotherhood.
“I am unhappy about them, because Iraq is our country,” says the
young Muslim merchant. “They are like a white termite: They are
eating the country from the inside. But if they hear a loud voice,
they will keep quiet. The Christians are cowards – they are not going
to fight.”
Attacks have increased. Saturday, Islamic militants in Mosul and
Baquba blew up four liquor stores. Sunday, fanatics attacked a liquor
store in downtown Baghdad, shouting “God is great” as they
machine-gunned bottles of beer and wine and kidnapped an employee.
Not all Christians are killed by Islamic militants. Issaq has
compiled a list of 102 Christians killed since April 9, 2003. Some
were killed for selling alcohol; others for working with Americans as
translators or laundresses. (About 10 percent were killed by
coalition troops, casualties of postwar violence.) Many were
kidnapped and killed for money, a fate that befalls Muslims, too.
But sometimes it’s hard to separate kidnappings from religious
murders. Among Iraqis, there’s a widespread belief that Christians
are wealthy. This stereotype, too, can kill. On June 2, gangs
kidnapped a young Christian storekeeper named Saher Faraj Mirkhai.
Thinking he was rich, the gang demanded a ransom of $100,000. After
selling their furniture, his 16-year-old truck, and the stock of his
downtown Baghdad store, his family scraped together all the money
they could find: about $13,500.
After they paid, the family got a phone call from Saher’s cellphone.
“We asked for $100,000, and you paid this miserable amount of money,”
said the voice, cursing them with foul language. The next day, police
found Saher’s body, pierced by over 30 bullets and severely
mutilated.
Because of their religion, and the fact that many Christians speak
English or have relatives abroad, there’s also a widespread
perception that Christians are pro-American.
“There is a common ground between them and the Americans, so it was
very easy for them to work with the Americans,” says Khaled Abed, a
Muslim street peddler who believes that “about 40 percent” of
Christians work for occupation forces. “So you could say that the
Christians used the current situation for their own benefit.”
Like many others, Mr. Maamouri, the Muslim merchant, sees Christians
as sympathetic to the American occupiers. “When the Americans invaded
Iraq, they thought God had delivered them,” he says. “They think that
this is their day.”
The peace between Christians and Muslims in Iraq, ever fragile, has
always cracked in the crucible of national crisis. In 1931, as the
British Empire handed over Iraq to a “sovereign” government of its
choosing, the country’s Assyrian Christian minority begged for a
protected enclave or permission to migrate en masse. The British
rejected both, offering them a deal instead: Assyrian soldiers could
guard Britain’s air bases inside Iraq.
This illusory British “protection” proved fatal. In July 1933, a band
of armed Assyrians tried to flee into neighboring Syria, and a border
skirmish erupted. Iraqi authorities portrayed it as a full-blown
insurrection by an Assyrian fifth column trying to bring back their
imperialist protectors. That summer, Iraqi troops and armed Kurdish
tribesmen led a massacre against Assyrians, culminating in the
slaughter of hundreds of helpless Assyrian villagers on August 11. On
their return to Baghdad, a cheering populace showered the troops with
rose water and pelted them with flowers for their victory in crushing
the Assyrian “revolt.”
Today, Assyrians are again asking for a protected province in the
north, as well as money to fund a hotline and three safe houses for
victims of anti-Christian crimes. “If we can get a zone in the north
of Iraq, the rest of Iraq is going to go to hell, but we can be
safe,” says Mr. Joseph. “Otherwise, Chicago and San Diego and Detroit
had better get ready for another flood of Assyrian refugees.”
About a month ago, a rumor tore through Baghdad’s Christian
community, half a million strong, that Australia had agreed to give
Christians political asylum. Frantic asylum-seekers flooded passport
offices and churches trying to get copies of their baptismal
certificates.
Salwan, who asked that his last name not be published, was one of
them. On June 19, he took a $10 taxi from Baghdad to Damascus. The
next morning, he went to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees office
on Maliki Street. On the sidewalk, hundreds of Iraqis waited in line.
Most had slept there overnight, hoping to get in and register as
refugees.
Salwan, a moonfaced young businessman, had already camped out
overnight on the pavement twice. Each time, the office closed before
he reached the head of the line. This time, he talked his way to the
head of the line and got his prize: an official UNHCR document noting
that he is an Armenian Catholic and giving him six months to apply
for refugee status.
Now back in Baghdad, he says he loves Iraq, but he is hoping the UN
will call him and tell him he can go to Australia: “Because of the
situation, and because all my family is there, and because I cannot
bear the life here anymore.”