Category: News

FrontPage Magazine
April 7 2004

The Pulitzer Prize: No Conservatives Need Apply

By George Shadroui
FrontPageMagazine.com | April 7, 2004

The Pulitzer Prizes announced this week demonstrate again the
stranglehold that liberals and leftists enjoy when it comes to
garnering recognition from those who bestow honors for outstanding
journalism and writing.

While it is laudable that Anne Applebaum, who serves on the liberal
Washington Post editorial board, won for documenting the terrors of
the Soviet Gulag, it should be recalled that Solzhenitsyn’s
monumental work on the same subject appeared in the 1970s. Likewise,
the award given to William Taubman for his Khrushchev biography comes
long after the Soviet Union itself had admitted to the crimes and
repression documented. It has apparently taken the liberal and
leftist establishment decades to accept and document crimes that many
anti-communists were assailed for daring to mention back in 1940s and
1950s.

The rest of the awards, however, went pretty much as expected, with
liberal and left-driven journalism taking the honors. In the category
for commentary, the winner and all those nominated were liberals. The
public service writing award went to two PBS leftists. The
investigative reporting award went for a series about American
atrocities in Vietnam, which is standard fare in the awards business.
The national reporting award went to a series attacking Wal-Mart — a
favorite bete noir of the Left. The international reporting award
went to the Washington Post for a series on the reactions of Iraqis
to the American invasion, much of it casting U.S. efforts in a
negative light. The beat reporting award went to a story on college
admissions preferences for the wealthy (not one of the extraordinary
investigations into race preference admissions has ever won). The
drama award went to a play whose lone character is a transvestite.
The non-fiction book award went to a book by a leftist about race
struggles.

In short, like many national awards of this kind, the Pulitzer is a
political prize bestowed almost exclusively on writers, journalists
and thinkers who cater to suitably liberal or left-wing points of
view. It wasn’t always thus, but since the 1960s that’s been the
case. Writers Peter Collier and David Horowitz, for example, were
nominated for a National Book Award for the first of their four
best-selling biographies of American dynastic families. That was when
they were on the Left. Although their book on the Kennedys earned
them the sobriquet “the premier chroniclers of American dynastic
tragedy” and the New York Times described their book on the Fords as
an “irresistible epic,” they were never nominated for an award again.

Having spent more than 20 years working as a journalist or with
journalists, I can attest to what even internal surveys by academics
and journalists have shown: most journalists are either liberal/Left
or so cynical that they resist easy characterization. In fact, in
nearly a decade of working as a local reporter, I do not recall
stumbling across another conservative. So do liberals dominate the
reporting awards? The answer is obvious. And it’s not because the few
conservative journalists don’t write worthy stories. Heather
MacDonald, Michael Fumento, William Tucker, Bill Gertz and the late
Mike Kelly have produced prize-worthy work by any standard, but none
of them have been rewarded by the Pulitzer Board.

Still, many of the awards honor legitimate feats of journalism and
many focus on local news coverage that defies easy ideological
characterization, so let us put aside the journalism categories for
now and look instead at the major book or commentary awards, which
are more high profile and often more slanted. For the purposes of
this analysis, four categories – general non-fiction, commentary,
autobiography/biography and history – are relevant. A review of
winners over 40 years shows that conservatives are basically
excluded.

The category for commentary is an exception. Since 1970, when
commentary was first singled out for recognition as part of the
Pulitzer Prizes, several prominent conservatives have won, including
George Will, William Safire, Charles Krauthammer, Vermont Royster and
Paul Gigot.

But liberals have still dominated, with winners including Mike Royko,
David Broder, Mary McGrory, Ellen Goodman, Russell Baker, Art
Buchwald, Claude Sitton, Murray Kempton, Jimmy Breslin, Clarence
Page, Jimmie Hoagland, Anna Quindlen, Colbert King, Thomas Friedman,
Maureen Dowd and William Raspberry. William F. Buckley, Irving
Kristol, Norman Podhoretz, and Thomas Sowell, to mention just four
obvious conservatives whose work is impressive in scope and quality,
have never won.

A 4 to 1 ratio is actually a victory of sorts for conservatives when
compared to most other categories or awards. Not a single discernible
conservative has won in the other three major categories being
considered here. Not one. There is a long list of leftists and
liberals, however. Among those honored for their work in history, we
find Dean Acheson, James MacGregor Burns, Leon Litwack, Taylor
Branch, Joseph Ellis, Robert Caro, Stanley Karnow, Gordon Wood, Louis
Menand, and Doris Kearns Goodwin.

In the general non-fiction category, winners have included Barbara
Tuchman, David McCullough, Tina Rosenberg, Garry Wills, Richard
Hofstader, Theodore White, Norman Mailer, Frances Fitzgerald, Annie
Dillard, James Lelyveld, J. Anthony Lukas, Neil Sheehan, Jonathan
Weiner, John Dower, John McPhee, Samantha Power and David Remnick. In
the biography and auto-biography category we have W.A. Swanberg,
Arthur Schlesinger Jr., Robert Caro, Joseph Lash, George Kennan,
Edmund Morris, Russell Baker, Katherine Graham, David McCullough,
etc.

Some of these awardees wrote great books and their work deserved
recognition, irrespective of ideological pedigree. It cannot be
ignored, however, that conservative authors are totally overlooked
(or snubbed) going back to the 1960s. No awards for Allan Bloom (The
Closing of the American Mind), George Gilder (Wealth and Poverty),
Charles Murray (Losing Ground), Abigail and Stephan Thernstrom
(America in Black and White), whose books helped set the terms of
national discussion and policy.

Why? For starters, Joseph Pulitzer was a crusader who coined a
much-cited definition of journalistic excellence: to afflict the
comfortable and comfort the afflicted. By this standard, documenting
the defects in society is a priority, often with the goal of
stimulating government activism to redress specific issues. When not
pushing for more government to solve seemingly intractable social
problems, the press is routinely focused on corporate malfeasance.
Finding victims and documenting failure is the paradigm through which
journalists practice their craft — except, alas, when it might cut
against the liberal grain. There will be no Pulitzers for exposing
the destructive effects of liberal programs like welfare, for
example, or the political subversion of the public health system by
the AIDS lobby.

To show just how prevalent this bias is, consider for a moment John
Stossel, the Emmy-winning television reporter, who recently published
a book, Give Us a Break, in which he documents how he was ostracized
by the journalism community when he turned his reporting talents from
major corporations to big government. Once a touted and celebrated
reporter, suddenly he was on the outside among the liberal elite.
Bernard Goldberg, in his books, Bias and Arrogance, also documents
the liberal slant of major news organizations.

This political culture within the profession discourages journalists
from tackling certain stories that would provide a more balanced view
of public policy and international issues. How is it, for example,
that the media have gladly focused on the victims of American and
corporate power, yet done so little to document the suffering of
victims of Ba’athist tyranny in Iraq? Could it be that the media is
reluctant to give moral credence to what is an unpopular war among
leftists and Democrats? Prisons were emptied, mass graves uncovered,
and yet coverage that has explored these issues in depth or
interviewed families or victims at length has been scarce since
Saddam was toppled. Certainly, compared to the coverage given Richard
Clarke’s attacks on the Bush policy in Iraq, efforts to document the
atrocities uncovered by our troops has been miniscule. It is as if we
had defeated the Germans and then no one bothered to document the
concentration camps or the Nazi killing machine, but rather focused
on the imperfections of D-Day.

This bias is evident in coverage of Cold War issues, as well. Again,
it took decades before liberals finally documented atrocities
perpetrated by communism. Yet, their work was quickly recognized.
Meanwhile, the work of Richard Pipes, Robert Conquest and Martin
Malia has never received a Pulitzer. As this year shows again, there
is no shortage of honored books or authors who “dare” to report on
American “crimes” in Southeast Asia or Central America – among them
Frances Fitzgerald, Neil Sheehan, Norman Mailer, Tina Rosenberg and
Gloria Emerson – or for work that takes the traditional liberal slant
on our nation’s race problems. The result is that even well-intended
and more fair-minded journalists or historians often seem to view
issues through the paradigms constructed by anti-American critics
like Noam Chomsky and Howard Zinn.

Take as one example recent Pulitzer winner Samantha Power. In her
book on genocide, A Problem from Hell, she documents what she calls
the reluctance of the United States to take any action to thwart the
genocidal policies of other governments. Power, it should be noted,
reviewed Chomsky’s recent book, Hegemony or Survival, for the New
York Times. The book is another in a long line of his anti-American
fulminations. Though Power concedes that Chomsky can be one-sided,
her own work is in some ways a testimony to his influence.

Power, like many critics of American foreign policy on the Left,
views American decision-making outside of historical context. She
judges our action or inaction against some unachievable ideal rather
than against what other nations or governments were doing. If our
record is less than satisfactory, it seems fair to ask how it
compares with the action or inaction of others? To attack the United
States because it has neither the capacity nor the will to right
every horrific wrong being committed across the globe is to hold our
nation to a standard unmatched in history. As we are finding in Iraq
today, the choices are not painless or uncomplicated, but these
factors often are forgotten over time.

For example, what would she have had the American government do to
stop the Holocaust or the Armenian genocide beyond exercising our
maximum military and diplomatic might against the regimes
perpetrating these crimes, which we did once involved in both World
War I and World War II? We lost almost a million men in both wars and
it was not a given that we would triumph. Nor is it a given we will
win in Iraq against a clearly fascist enemy, but our harshest critics
for acting against a tyrannical regime are on the Left.

Back in the 1980s, J. Douglas Bates, a former newspaper editor,
offered some criticism of the Pulitzers in his book, The Pulitzer
Prize. He documented a bias evident in the Pulitzers, not against
conservatives, but against those who worked in the heartland or out
West. His argument was that Easterners had the advantage. Bates also
documented the lobbying effort by leftists on behalf of the work of
Toni Morrison and James Baldwin. When a group of leftist writers took
out an ad in the New York Review of Books arguing that Morrison
should win in the fiction category, the Pulitzer Board a few weeks
later honored her novel Beloved. You can rest assured that those
writers never organized on behalf of black author Shelby Steele,
known for his rejection of politically correct views.

Bates has plenty of sympathy for liberals he feels have been
overlooked by the Pulitzers, including I.F. Stone, Leonard Bernstein
and Neil Sheehan for his reporting on the Vietnam war (though Sheehan
would later win for his history of Vietnam). Yet, not once in his
250-page book did Bates explore the issue of bias against
conservative writers or journalists who cut against the liberal
grain.

The awards, of course, are administered by the Columbia Journalism
School, which is itself a bastion of liberal/Left attitudes. One
Columbia University student once reportedly remarked – all my
professors come from The Nation and the Village Voice. There is not a
single identifiable conservative on the Columbia Journalism faculty.
Bernard Goldberg, in his most recent book, Arrogance, reports that a
blue ribbon panel was established a few years ago to review the
school’s operations in an effort to improve its performance and the
practice of good journalism. Goldberg notes that the panel consisted
almost entirely of known leftists and liberals, while prominent and
respected conservatives were not invited to contribute.

Awards are symbolic but also important. They are the trademark of
excellence and they often make or break careers. They should be based
on the quality of the work being considered, not on the political
prejudices of judges or the industry as a whole. Most conservatives,
I am confident, want fair and balanced reporting even when it cuts
against the grain of their own ideology. This is the bulwark of a
free society. What they can’t accept as easily is the kind of
spectacle witnessed over the past couple of weeks, when Richard
Clarke was given unprecedented air time, during a time of war, to
espouse views at odds with those of conservative administration
trying to win that war.

A self critical journalism community must ask itself why such noted
conservative writers and authors as William F. Buckley Jr., David
Horowitz, Peter Collier, Michael Novak, George Gilder, Charles
Murray, Allen Bloom, William Gertz, Gerald Posner, Dinesh D’Souza,
Thomas Sowell, Florence King and many others have been overlooked by
so many contests that honor writing or letters.

However difficult it might be for liberal elites to acknowledge it,
every major award given for writing or public affairs reporting is
dominated or controlled by the leftist or liberal intelligentsia. Is
it an accident that Jimmy Carter was given the Nobel Prize precisely
when a conservative president whose policies Carter detests was
trying to mobilize the international community against worldwide
terrorism?

Those who would claim to be the standard-bearers of excellence and
the defenders of the marketplace of ideas should be embarrassed by
the discriminatory practices evident in these cherished awards. None
dare call it bias – but bias it is.

International Herald Tribune

Chechnya and war through the camera

Joan Dupont IHT Tuesday, April 6, 2004

PARIS-There is a generation of filmmakers who risk their lives to expose the
terror and humiliation of war. They work independent of television and cable
news channels and are not in the business of being embedded.

Gilles de Maistre, a leading French reporter, for instance, is known for
“J’ai 12 ans et je fais la guerre” (I’m 12 years old, and I make war), an
investigation of preteen warriors that won an international Emmy.

And Mylène Sauloy is one of a handful of women to enter Chechnya
clandestinely, draped in a headscarf. “Then, I put my camera in a plastic
bag, and pile bananas on top – I could be a housewife coming back from
market,” she said.

Raised in Marrakech by a Moroccan doctor father and Russian-Hungarian
mother, the director lived in Colombia for 17 years, making films. She also
worked with de Maistre, interviewing street kids in Bogotá for a
documentary.

“One day, I read an article in Le Monde about this small rebel people in
Caucasia who resist colonization. It wasn’t a European story like Bosnia,
about ethnic racism – it was about a fight for freedom.” When the first war
broke out in 1994, she negotiated with the cultural television channel Arte
to make a film in Chechnya. “I went right from Bogotá to Grozny,” she says.

Sauloy has filmed broken families, shattered homes and a children’s dance
troupe that made it out of the country to perform in Paris but couldn’t wait
to return home to Grozny.

Her first film, “Le Loup et l’Amazone” (The Wolf and the Amazon), made from
1995 to 2000, was inspired by independent-minded women in the mountains of
Caucasia, who, legend has it, may be descended from the Amazons. “It’s a
poetic idea,” she says. The Amazon theme crops up again in her current
project, which focuses on an army of women hiding in the mountains of Iraq.

In her headscarf and long skirts, Sauloy has crossed borders into Chechnya
14 times, turning out films such as “Le 51,” about an apartment house in
Grozny inhabited Chechens, Armenians and Jews. “Grozny used to be a modern
city, like Algiers, cosmopolitan, with an intelligentsia.”

Two wars – from 1994 to 1996 and from 1999 to today – and a reign of terror
have reduced Grozny to rubble. The prewar population was less than a
million; 250,000 have been killed, 200,000 live in exile.

Sauloy’s latest film, “Danse Avec les Ruines” (Dance With the Ruins), tells
the story of a Chechen choreographer and his family who return from exile in
Turkey. “I hopped a bus with them in Istanbul, without realizing they were
really going back home. I was there when they walked into their bombed-out
house.”

She followed the troupe of 30 children – originally 60 – to Grozny and shot
the family repairing their home, fitting windows, returning to rehearsal and
to school. The children sewed their costumes and dreamed of the tour to
France, “a country where we won’t be greeted as terrorists,” in the words of
a teenage daughter.

Recently, Sauloy, 45, split her weekend between a screening of “Danse Avec
les Ruines” at the International Women’s Film Festival in Créteil, a Paris
suburb, and her own festival of films on Chechnya at the Cinéma des
Cinéastes in Paris. “Tchétchénie Criblée d’Images” (Chechnya, Riddled with
Images), as the festival was called, screened films of rare beauty, such as
“Eliso” (1928), a silent film by the Georgian director Nikoloz Shengelaya
about the first deportation of the Chechen people in 1864, under the czars.
And there were recent films like Andrei Konchalovsky’s “House of Fools”
(2002) and Sergei Bodrov’s “Prisoner of the Mountain” (1996), which show
sympathy for the predicament of the Chechen people.

In the public imagination, Chechnya has never been a popular cause but a
thorn in the side of the Russian government, and an embarrassment to Europe.
Perceived as poor refugees at best, bandits, terrorists and radical
Islamists at worst, this mountain people of Caucasia live with a terror that
takes a daily toll on both Russians and Chechens.

Five years ago, Sauloy founded an arts association, Marcho Doryila (“Let
freedom be with you”), and recruited figures like the stage and film
director Ariane Mnouchkine and the philosopher André Glucksman to support
Chechen artists. Mnouchkine opened her Théâtre du Soleil in Vincennes, a
suburb of Paris, to the dance troupe from Grozny; at the film festival,
Glucksman led a debate after the screenings, calling Chechnya Europe’s
guilty conscience.

Sauloy started filming three years after the collapse of the Soviet Union,
when some interpreters, journalists and humanitarian workers also worked as
informers. Her first interpreter in Chechnya was “crazy and dangerous,” she
said, “a regular Russian Mata Hari,” which decided her to learn Russian. “I
was raised with several languages. My grandfather spoke Hungarian, and my
grandparents spoke Yiddish together. At first, I wrote out questions in
Russian, but I couldn’t understand a word of their answers until I went home
and translated.”

For Sauloy, the problem is not a Chechen problem, but a Russian one. “It’s
about dehumanization, and it’s about our silent complicity. The Chechens are
the last resistants in the Caucasian mountains, and as a filmmaker, I’m
interested in resistance, in showing what is left of humanity in wartime.”

She sees the Chechens as an endangered species living in a codified society.
Hospitality is sacred. “When I enter a Chechen home, my host sits next to
the door and seats me furthest away from the door so, if we are attacked, he
will be killed, not I.”

Sauloy balks at the way Chechens have been demonized, yet admits that the
situation has changed since the October elections, which installed a
pro-Russian Chechen government. “Before, when you crossed a Russian
checkpoint, you knew where you were. Now, there’s a Chechen militia, paid to
do the dirty work. Life is becoming more dangerous, the way it was in France
under the Occupation.”

After the first war, Saudi Arabia recruited 2,000 Chechen students, who
became hardline Islamists. “Things have changed,” she says, “since the first
woman Chechen suicide bomber blew herself up in front of Russian military
quarters, and the whole number was filmed on video.” Sauloy has talked to
the orphaned families of these kamikazes, “women who aren’t real Islamists,
but university educated, and who have adopted the look, the headscarf, the
business of reciting the Koran.”

The Chechens traditionally practice Sufism, a mystic form of religion,
“something like the whirling dervishes. But now I know dancers and actors
who never prayed before, who pray. There’s a saying, the more bombs fall,
the more beards grow.”

Now, Sauloy is making a film from a Russian soldier’s home video. “You see
his friends shoot and kill and hear him comment on what he does and sees.
That video has been sold all over. Watching people kill has become a
business.”

Her work, she insists, is more dangerous for those who help her than for
herself. “It’s not that I’m fearless, but these people, and these children,
teach me courage.”

Is her family frightened for her?

“Oh yes, they are afraid, and they are proud of me,” she said.

International Herald Tribune

NT Highlights #13 (515)
5 April, 2004

Much Ado About Nothing?
By Haroutiun Khachatrian

Outsiders visiting Armenia on these days may be surprised to learn from mass
media, (including the state-owned ones) that there is a political tension in
this country.
There are almost no real signs to prove this.

In fact, I believe the people saying that there is little basis for
extensive shock and shaking in Armenia are right.

The opposition has declared a single goal: to force Robert Kocharian to
resign, as the results of his re-elections last year were falsified. Event
if one agrees with this allegation, it still remains to see what are the
resources the opposition plans to use to force Kocharian to leave the
President’s office? Its leaders mention one single resource: the people will
organize, in reply to the appeals of these leaders, mass actions of protest
and civil disobedience.

Will they? I doubt deeply. These same opposition leaders failed to persuade
the population to participate in such actions a year ago, immediately after
the presidential elections, when emotions were much higher than now. The
simple fact that Geghamian and Demirchain act jointly now (they failed to
coordinate their actions last year) is evidently insufficient to spark a
large-scale “people movement”now. Despite the high level of negative
emotions towards the authorities and Kocharian personally.

Those seeing parallels between today’s Armenia and Georgia of the last
November miss an important factor: both the life standards and the
capacities of the state machinery in Armenia are much higher than in the
neighboring country. Hence, the basis for a type of “rose revolution” here
is very small if any.

For this reason, the nervous reaction of authorities to the threats of the
opposition leaders look often exaggerated, to put it mildly. The ridiculous
actions of egg-throwing or organizing faked funeral ceremonies to prevent
the actions of oppositions are followed by criminal cases which cannot be
explained by common reason. The same is true for the anti-opposition
campaign in state-run media. I may be wrong, but it seems that this reaction
roots in peculiarities of the character of Robert Kocharian, who takes every
criticism as a personal insult. Anyway, these actions may bring the
situation to even higher degree of tension (and cause more damage) than it
could be in case if the authorities had a more sober stance.

—

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

A1 Plus | 15:20:31 | 06-04-2004 | Politics |

STATEMENT OF NATIONAL PRESS CLUB ON VIOLENCE AGAINST JOURNALISTS YESTERDAY

That disgustful action was directed against speech freedom aiming to hamper
unbiased information in Armenia and to reflect the reality in the anomalous
mirror.

National Press Club condemns the violence demanding the Authorities and the
law-enforcement bodies who neglected their professional obligations to take
urgent steps to punish the pogrom-makers and to exclude such accidents in
the future or else violence may spread among our public.

In the 21st century speech freedom has no alternative in Armenia, too, and
the Armenian journalists must strive for it. NPC calls upon its colleagues
who abet the thugs by distorting what happened, to respect their
professional duty.

—

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

A1 Plus | 14:51:39 | 06-04-2004 | Social |

STATEMENT BY ONNIK KRIKORIAN

At the rally on April 5 Armenian from Diaspora Onnik Krikorian, press
photographer of “Hetq” Internet site of Investigating Journalists’
Association, was beaten while performing his professional duties.

He has appeared today with a statement. Here we represent it.

“In the aftermath of yesterday’s attack on journalists and photographers
covering the rally organized by the National Unity Party of Artashes
Geghamian, I am obliged to issue a statement regarding the events that
resulted in a number of media representatives being attacked by men
identified as working for the authorities.

In particular, I am concerned by coverage of the event on state-sponsored
Public TV. In their reports, Public Television — which is broadcast via
satellite to the Diaspora — lay the blame on the opposition for the attacks
despite all eye witness accounts identifying the men as having the
protection of the state.

As a British citizen who was hit in the face by one of the thugs and who
approached two policemen who witnessed events but refused to intervene, I
can state quite categorically in the instances that I witnessed at least,
that nobody in the crowd responded to the provocation. Moreover, it was
plainly clear that the group of men were there with the full knowledge and
protection of the Armenian police.

In light of Public TV’s attempts to propagandize yesterday’s events as
evidence of violence by those attending an otherwise peaceful rally, the
authorities must respect the role of journalists in this period of
confrontation. I urge Public TV to report the facts and not to disseminate
propaganda that they know to be untrue in order to fulfil the orders of the
state and to escalate an already tense situation.

In particular, it should be noted that Public TV did not report the presence
of half a dozen men believed to be hired muscle despite the large number of
people, including foreign citizens, that saw them attack journalists and
citizens alike without any provocation.

Journalists are not parties to this conflict between the opposition and the
government. Journalists are responsible for covering the events and I call
upon both sides and especially the police to respect that role”.

—

PRESS RELEASE
Land and Culture Organization
P.O. Box 1386
Hoboken, NJ 07030
Contact: Raffi Niziblian
Tel: 1-888-LCO-1555
E-mail: [email protected]
Web:

LCO IS ACCEPTING APPLICATIONS FOR ITS 2004 SUMMER CAMPAIGNS

The Land and Culture Organization (LCO) has begun recruiting
volunteers for its 2004 summer campaigns.

Established in France in 1977, the Land and Culture Organization is an
international, non-profit organization that has undertaken a variety
of challenging activities ranging from restoration projects of
national historical monuments, to social and economic assistance
programs for Armenian communities living on ancestral lands. The LCO
creates enriching opportunities for men and women of all backgrounds
and interests to directly participate in the process of getting back
to their roots, bridging gaps between past and present and forging
links with today and tomorrow. For over 27 years, Armenians of all
ages have participated in LCO summer campaigns from North and South
America, Europe, Australia, Armenia and the Middle East and
experienced their ancestral homeland beyond the hotels and tourist
spots in Yerevan. They meet and work with local villagers and interact
with their land in a way that deepens their understanding and bonds
them to their heritage.

The LCO first began holding restoration projects in the Aterpatakan
region of northwest Iran and eventually spread its activities to
Kessab in Syria, Armenia and Nagorno Karabagh. This year, the LCO is
proud to be celebrating 15 years of activity in Armenia. A few of our
past projects were the reconstruction of the St. Astvadzazin Church
(Holy Mother of God) in Gogaran, the renovation of the St. Minas
Church in Tatev and the restoration of the Saghmosavank Monastery in
the Ashtarak Region. The LCO has also completed social assistance and
economic projects such as the building of solar fruit dryers in
Madrasa (now called Dprevan) and last year in Ayroum, a refugee
village located in the Northern part of the country near the Georgian
border.

The LCO has also been very active in the Nagorno Karabakh Republic
(NKR) since 1997, when it adopted the war-torn village of
Karintak. This village, situated below the rock on which the town of
Shushi sits, has earned the reputation of being a heroic village,
particularly during the clashes for the liberation of Shushi by
Armenian forces. The four-year project included the renovation of
their cultural center, the village church, its kindergarten and
finally its school. Since 2001, the LCO has renovated vital parts of
the Shushi polyclinic and General Hospital, including the Delivery
Room, the Maternity Ward and several hospital rooms. In 2003, the LCO
volunteers undertook the renovation of the water pipeline which
provides the hospital with running water and the septic system.

The work sites and projects approved for 2004 during its Annual
Assembly held in Paris in February of this year, the International
Union of Land and Culture Organizations selected (1) the
reconstruction of the school in the refugee village of Shatvan located
in the Vartenis region of Armenia; (2) the continuing effort to
renovate the operating rooms of the Shushi Hospital, and (3),
continuation of our ongoing restoration work in Kessab, Syria.

The reconstruction of the village school in the refugee community of
Shatvan located to the east of Lake Sevan in the province of
Gegharkunik is one of the 34 villages in the Vartenis area that was
predominantly settled by Azeris during the soviet years. As of late
1988, the village of Shatvan has been repopulated by Armenian refugees
who have arrived from 33 different parts of Azerbaijan. The total
number of the current population is 834. The main concern is to
provide the basics for young families to help them settle down
permanently, and as such the village school is a major
priority. Currently it has 114 students with a staff of 20. The
building is in a very dangerous state. The roof is completely damaged
and parts of the floor on both levels are to be replaced. The
renovation of this building demands immediate attention.

The second project is in Nagorno Karabagh. There, LCO will continue
its commitment to the Regional Hospital of Shushi. This picturesque
town which had a population of 17,000 inhabitants before the war, is
now home to only 3000 people. While this is a huge building, it only
needs to cater to 3000-5000 people. In consultation with the chief
physician, Dr Vigen Khachadryan, and the Minister of health Zoya
Balayan, it was decided that only the East Wing of the hospital would
be restored and all the wards would be concentrated there. This
summer, it is expected that our volunteers will renovate the operating
ward.

As for our third site, we will continue our restoration work of the
houses in Kessab that represent typical Armenian architecture. Last
year, twenty-five LCO volunteers renovated a house that is destined to
become an Armenian ethnographic museum. Kessab is a small
Armenian-populated town in Syria, near the Mediterranean Sea. It dates
back to the Cilician Kingdom. The LCO has been holding campaigns in
Kessab for the last 14 years. For 2004, LCO will complete this
project. The campaign in Kessab is held only during the month of
August.

We have already started accepting volunteer applications for these
campaigns and invite volunteers to join us and take a month off this
summer to “Explore – Dream – Discover” Armenia. The effort is
voluntary, the results are far reaching! The deadline to apply for the
campaigns of July and August is May 21, 2004. You will be able to
download all application information and forms from our website or by
asking us to mail you a volunteer package. All applicants must be a
minimum of 18 years of age to be considered. We are also looking to
fill two site leader positions. These positions are open only to
returning LCO participants. For information about applying for a site
leader position, please contact the Projects Coordinator at
[email protected]. The deadline for these positions is April
30, 2004.

For more information about the Land and Culture Organization an dour
activities in the Aterpatakan region, Kessab, Armenia and Nagorno
Karabagh, please visit or contact us at
1-888-LCO-1555 or write to [email protected].

A1 Plus | 16:01:27 | 06-04-2004 | Politics |

SERJ SARGSSYAN’S BROTHER’S BODY-GUARDS BEAT JOURNALISTS

“Body-guards of Sashik Sargssyan, brother of Serj Sargssyan, were the main
provokers of yesterday meeting”, “National Unity” Party Chair Artashes
Geghamyan announced at the press conference in the party office.

According to him, the body-guards of other oligarchs were “just watchers”.
Mr Geghamyan has appealed to the Embassies in Armenia over the incidents
occurred in “Nairi” Cinema yesterday. In the appeal he accused “the most
intimate oligarchs of Armenian President” who have attacked journalists.

“All these are the logical continuation of Poghos Poghosyan’s murder by
Robert Kocharyan’s body-guards”, Geghamyan said in the letter to the
Embassies.

He announced that the Armenian Authorities merged with the criminal
elements. “We expect support of USA and Russia in the situations we have”,
Geghamyan said at the end of the letter.

He added that the arrests are senseless since Authorities arrest even those
who have held the flag of Armenia at the rallies.

—

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

A1 Plus | 16:10:49 | 06-04-2004 | Politics |

DASHNAKS READY FOR CONCESSIONS

Dashnaktsutyun party issued Monday a statement with package of proposals to
the opposition in it.

Dashnaks offer opposition representatives membership in the
president-affiliated Security Commettee headed by Defence Ministry Serge
Sargssyan as one of the ways out of political turmoil in Armenia.

Dashnaktsutyun party board member Armen Rustamyan and Dashnaktsutyun
parliamentary fraction member Levon Lazarian answered the questions
journalists put to them.

Q:Was the statement coordinated with the coalition?

A.R.: This is a call for dialogue, which is already offered by the coalition
other member parties.

Q: Do you view yesterday’s arrest of Republic party member Suren Surenyants,
attack on the head of the party’s Ararat office and today’s detention of six
opposition activists as a call for dialogue?

L.M.: If the opposition has no intention to abandon its ambitions of
obtaining power, it should dictate political situation.

Q: What way Dashnaktsutyun will act in the event of facing confrontation
with people?

A.R.: People don’t want confrontation. Dashnaks intend to do their best to
prevent confrontation. If we fail to avoid it, we will consider other
solutions.

Q: Don’t you think that deadlock situation is created?

A.R.: Incompatibility run high and tomorrow we can grow even worse. All
possible efforts should be made to prevent any clash.

Q: If clashes occur, don’t you think they can escalate into civil war?

A.R.: I don’t think confrontation can turn into civil war. There are some
rational ideas in the opposition stance but, at the same time, there is a
hard-line approach. Authorities consider the opposition as revolutionary
force. In all countries, the authorities’ main tool is the law. Our current
constitution gives the authorities sweeping powers while the opposition
activists put themselves above the law.

Q: If the coalition rejects your proposals, then what will be your attitude?

A.R.: Possible agreement could speed up our country’s development.

Q: Is it possible you will quit the coalition in case of failure to reach
accord?

A.R.: We are not fastened with the current status quo. Dashnaktsutyun party
is eager for compromise and ready to prove that right now.

Q: Asked about the idea of appointing opposition members to any post,
Defence Minister answered he found it ridiculous. How you imagine an
opposition representative in Security Committee?

A.R.: Any step will be well thought-out. Today’s situation needs concessions
from at least one side.

Q: Over what issues you are ready for compromise?

A.R.: Anticorruption campaign and constitutional reforms.

—

Forgetfulness and Denial

04/06/2004

In my book, Civilization and Its Enemies, I wrote that the West is
suffering from forgetfulness. After reading and listening to some of
the responses from the Right to Fallujah, I am inclined to believe
that I was being an optimist in my assessment. The problem, it is
beginning to appear, is not forgetfulness, but denial. It is not that
we in the West have forgotten what our enemy is like; it is that we
refuse to see what he is like even when it is being shown right before
our eyes, as was the case with the atrocities in Fallujah. Just as
the editorial board of The New York Times, on the second anniversary
of 9/11, wanted to persuade us that 9/11 was simply a fluke, unlikely
to happen again, so many on those on the opposite side of the
political spectrum have wanted to persuade us that Fallujah was a
similar fluke. Just as the left wants us to think that 9/11 tells us
nothing about the nature of the enemy we are facing, so now the right
wants us to think the exact same thing about Fallujah. For both
parties, it has become politically necessary to deny theevidence of
their senses in order to bolster the ideology of their own pet
fantasies.

“Fallujah was contrived. It was all the fault of the cameramen. It was
a cunning tactic used in the hope of causing reprisals.”

It is not as if the savagery so endemic to the Arab world needs new
apologists; the Left, all around the world, have been working night
and dayto make excuses for precisely the kind of horror that was
enacted in Fallujah. Eachtime a Palestinian elects to martyr himself
in the name of Allah and to murder innocent Israelis in the process,
there is someone to tell us that this is the only way that the
Palestinians can express their desperation — though oddly enough no
other desperate group, such as the Armenians or the Jews, has ever
chosen to express their desperation by encouraging their children to
blow themselves up.

The apologists of the Left argue that 9/11 is a natural response to
the wickedness of the West. The apologists of the Right argue that
Fallujah is a response to the wickedness of Saddam Hussein. On both
readings, neither event is seen as evidence of a profound
civilizational chasm between us and them — a chasm so wide and deep
that it will inevitably swallow even the best-intentioned efforts to
bridge it.

Both sides of the political spectrum today have developed cottage
industries designed to minimize the crisis that we are facing, and to
minimize it by denying the plain and self-evident fact that we in the
West can no longer even imagine doing what the men and boys of the
Arab world dream of doing. 9/11,the suicide bombings, Fallujah —
these are not flukes or isolated events. Theyare the sordid hopes and
aspirations of literally millions of young Muslims around the world.

“Only four men were killed in Fallujah.” What is so significant about
the death of four men?

In reading these words I was reminded of an article written by Father
Andrew Greeley after 9/11. Only two thousand people died on 9/11, he
said. What is that compared to the forty thousand Americans who are
killed each year on our highways? We accept those deaths as a matter
of routine. Why not these two thousand? In a couple of years, he
wrote, who will really remember them?

In the case of Fallujah, the passage of years was unnecessary in the
minds of many on the Right. A few hours seemed to do the trick.

And so, on both Right and Left, there are astute minds always ready to
deny that the Enemy exists, always prepared to minimize his cruelty
and his utter indifference to human life, always quick to explain away
acts of the most horrendous savagery, always willing to sacrifice
judgment in the name of party line.

Our collective refusal to face up to the nature of our enemy imperils
the future of the civilization that it has taken centuries upon
centuries to achieve, and those who contribute to this refusal by
minimizing the brutality and ruthlessness of Fallujah are acting no
different from those who minimize the brutality and ruthlessness of
9/11.

The American obsession with putting partisan politics above all else
is robbing us of the only thing that can save us: the will to see the
world asit is, and not as we wish it to be.

Lee Harris recently wrote for TCS about The Lesson of Fallujah. He is
author of Civilization and Its Enemies.

Copyright © 2004 Tech Central Station –

[03-04-2004 ‘Karabagh Conflict’]
————————————————- ———————
BY CYPRUS EXPERIENCE?
Source : `Echo’ newspaper (Azerbaijan)
Author: R. ORUJEV

There is an opinion in Turkish media that Washington is ready to
publicize the `Cyprus option’ of settlement for the territorial
problem of Azerbaijan

By May 1, international community anticipates final resolution of the
Cyprus issue. As `Radical’ Turkish newspaper reported yesterday, the
current option of Cyprus problem settlement is considered by official
Washington and European Union as quite applicable for other conflicts
of the Middle East, in particular Mountainous Karabagh. `Radical’
newspaper reports that Washington has `more than one aim in Cyprus
problem settlement”. Resolution of the conflict in Eastern
Mediterranean may serve as an example for the conflicts between Israel
and Palestine, Armenia and Azerbaijan. However, the newspaper states
that Armenian Diaspora in USA may serve as an impediment. At the same
time, the author of the article asserts, `Cyprus settlement might help
USA in making Armenians change their minds”.

It is common knowledge that EU and USA worked out a joint plan for
conflict settlement in Europe. Initially it was planned to be
pre-tested in Cyprus and later to apply the experience of successful
resolution of a rooted dispute to Armenian-Azerbaijani and
Georgian-Abkhaz conflicts. The idea rests on the proposal initiated by
UN Secretary General Kofi Annan.

The Cyprus example suggests the following: united Cyprus emerges as `a
bizonal, bicommunal federation’. Greek Cypriotes will get the
reunified island and regain part of the territory under their control;
Turkish Cypriotes will be ensured autonomous territory. The main
attraction of this plan is accession to the European Union, right of
the citizens for work and residence in any EU country, as well as
funds provided to post-conflict parties through European Union
assistance programs.

In case of Karabagh conflict, it is probably something close to
`common state’ that is meant – Baku rejected this concept at the time,
as you know. The bait, as in case of Cyprus settlement, is most likely
the same – European integration, European money, etc.

But there are doubts that the European Union pays as much attention to
Mountainous Karabagh problem as to the Cyprus issue. The Cyprus
problem certainly raises concern of the Brussels because it is purely
a European issue for Greece is involved in this conflict, and is a EU
member. Besides, Turkey and Greece are members of NATO, and
aggravation of conflict between them may have direct consequences for
EU.

The Cyprus option may hardly be applicable in our case since the
countries of our region are not even included in the list of
candidates for accession to EU.

Among other things, as `Echo’ already reported, at the Istanbul summit
of 1999 the idea of immediate integration of Azerbaijan and Armenia as
NATO members was put forward, in case they quickly resolve the
Karabagh problem. At that time, Turkish President Suleyman Demirel
proposed his Caucasus stability pact. He also considered those options
for resolution that are now suggested to Cyprus. The three states of
the Caucasus were proposed to withdraw all foreign armed forces from
their territories, to sign a security agreement among themselves,
after which EU and USA were to provide vital investments (in millions
of dollars) in the development of Armenian, Azerbaijani and Georgian
economies. Russia and Turkey were to act as parties ensuring agreement
compliance. Initially, Armenia accepted this plan but later evidently
under Russia’s pressure, refused to sign the pact. This document was
very similar to the Cyprus option of settlement; it also contained the
factor of encouragement for the parties to the conflict.

It is interesting how seriously the Foreign Office of Azerbaijan
considers such settlement options of our territorial conflict. Also
whether the activity of RA MFA pays due attention to studying foreign
experience in conflict resolution.

Unfortunately, MFA press service failed to provide a more or less
satisfactory answer to these questions. As press secretary of the
Ministry, Metin Mirza declared to `Echo’, “the officials directly
involved in Karabagh conflict settlement need to be addressed in this
case”. However it is always very difficult to directly contact these
persons…

“For the time being, even the attempts to settle the situation in the
Cyprus did not succeed’, former Ambassador to China Tamerlan Garaev
says. `And commenting on how the Cyprus option is applicable for
Mountainous Karabagh conflict is no easy task for present. Will this
plan really work in Cyprus and lead to the results aspired for by the
parties?’

According to the expert, “The situation we have is somewhat
different. In our case, it is not a sort of enclave that is meant. The
point is that a war broke out between the two countries, as a result
of which Armenia, taking advantage of USSR disintegration and absence
of troops in Azerbaijan, occupied part of our state territory. I do
not know how the Cyprus situation may be related to the development of
events in our region”.

As for the programs of large financial assistance to the parties of
the conflict and guarantees for their future accession to EU,
T. Garaev holds that this instrument of influence should primarily be
directed at Armenia, “at the attempt to convince Armenia to take more
constructive position”. “The point is how successful will be the
option of urging Armenia towards peaceful resolution of Karabagh
conflict on the part of USA and EU, taking into consideration
territorial integrity of Azerbaijan? It is not easy to discuss, yet
basically possible because in accordance to commonly accepted
international standards, Karabagh conflict resolution is possible only
through ensuring territorial integrity of our country”, the expert
concluded.

[01-04-2004 ‘Economic Development’]
———————————————————————-
GORDIAN KNOT OF CASPIAN ENERGY RESOURCES
(abridged)
Source : `Golos Armenii’ newspaper (Armenia)
Author: Edward Safarian, Master of Energy
Politics, Delaware University, USA

For the past 10 years, the Caspian Sea has been the focus of attention
for world superpowers and large energy companies. It interests experts
in different spheres – political scientists, economists, power
engineering specialists – due to its abundance of natural resources,
oil and gas fields in the first place. There are certain opinions that
the Caspian is rich in hydrocarbon resources, which may be competitive
with the oil deposits of the Persian Gulf. Others assert that the
attempts of international energy companies, to get multimillion
profits out of oil and gas extraction from the bottom of the lake,
resemble a venture similar to the `Gold Rush’ in Wild West at the
beginning of the past century.

The truth, as usual, is somewhere in the middle. For instance, Energy
Information Administration (EIA) of US Energy Department estimates the
official oil deposits in the Caspian at 10 milliard barrels. Still 233
milliard more barrels, as the source states, may potentially be
discovered. It is to be noted, that EIA has a reputation of a too
optimistic information source among the experts. According to USA
Geological Inspection (the most reliable source for the experts),
there is 50% confidence that Azerbaijani sector of the Caspian
contains up to 5.8 milliard barrels of oil and about 68 trillion cubic
feet of gas. Besides, American expert Lagerer asserts that among
developing CIS countries and states there is a tradition of
deliberately inflating data on oil and gas deposits to attract foreign
capital in the country.

In expert evaluations, construction of Baku-Ceyhan main export
pipeline, enabling to transport Azerbaijani and potentially Kazakh and
Russian oil to the Turkish Mediterranean coast, will be economically
viable if in the course of pipeline exploitation no less than 6
milliard barrels of oil are pumped through it. According to
information stated, there is 50% possibility of Azerbaijan’s having
these oil resources. In other words, if exclusively Azerbaijani oil is
pumped through the pipeline, the completed project will finally cover
only its prime cost. The construction of Baku-Ceyhan pipeline may
bring profit only in case Kazakh and/or Russian oil is transported
through it. Then why Western companies and `British Petroleum’ (BP) in
the first place, as the main investor and operator of the project, are
eager to have this dubious project implemented?

First, BP, despite its name, is essentially an American company. In
USA this company develops activity equal to the United Kingdom in its
scale and, similarly to all large companies, it is dependent on the
political forces of this country. This dependence became more obvious
after George Bush’s victory in 2000 USA presidential elections; his
family has old ties with oil business. After accession to the White
House, Bush administration sharply reduced financing of projects on
alternative energy sources and started to support large projects on
extraction and transportation of hydrocarbons. One of the instances of
such projects, provoking public discontent in USA, is extraction of
the deposits on the territory of national natural reserve in
Alaska. Despite the fact that the initiative of constructing
Baku-Ceyhan pipeline came from Bill Clinton administration, yet it is
during George Bush’s government that this project got a chance for
implementation.

One of Bush administration’s top priorities was provision of new
routes of oil import (the portion of imported oil in USA amounts to
over 55%) and decreasing the dependence of the country on supply from
such unstable countries- exporters as Columbia, Venezuela and
Nigeria. Therefore, Bush administration supported even such
inefficient projects as Baku-Ceyhan, placing the burden of financing
on the dependent oil companies. In any case, oil giants will pay off
only about 30% of the project costs, while the rest of financing will
be provided by international structures – World Bank and European Bank
for Reconstruction and Development. State Oil Company of Azerbaijani
Republic (SOCAR), BP and ExxonMobil already expressed their desire to
finance their shares.

It is now the turn of international financial structures that do not
yet hasten to provide funds for implementation of this project, whose
costs surpass 3 milliard USD. Certain experts even think that pipeline
construction costs will be much higher than previously expected,
amounting to 4 milliards. The decision-makers, responsible for
provision of credits, are primarily concerned over the circumstance
that the pipeline is very close to the hotbeds of open ethnic
conflicts – such as Mountainous Karabagh, Abkhazia, South Ossetia. One
more crisis point, Ajaria, was added in the list. Besides, a
considerable part of the pipeline passes through Eastern regions of
Turkey, mostly populated by the Kurds not very loyally disposed to the
Turkish authorities. Inspired by the success of their compatriots in
Iraq, they are ready for resistance. In all these regions, military
operations may potentially be resumed, which cannot but impede regular
exploitation of the pipeline.

But the truth is that American authorities, which are most interested
din this project implementation, are not very much concerned with
these circumstances. The priority for them is getting one more
alternative route for import of the oil so essential for its
economy. According to USDA special representative in the Caspian
region, Steven Mann at the conference devoted to Caspian energy
resources (New Orleans in 2003), this project is more political than
economic. Apparently, USA is least interested in economic profit of
the countries participants of the project or the countries on whose
territory it will be implemented.

One more interesting factor is that Azerbaijan has considerable
reserves of natural gas, in particular Shakh Deniz deposit, which
contains up to 1 trillion cubic meters of gas according to expert
estimates. This volume of gas is sufficient to be commercially
attractive for Western energy companies. But there are certain nuances
here. It is a disadvantage for Azerbaijan that this deposit is located
in the region where various countries have much larger gas reserves,
which they would willingly export on the world energy markets.
Suffice it to say that cumulative gas reserves of Russia and Iran
equal almost 50% of world reserves of this energy
resource. Turkmenistan, where the ratio of gas reserves to the volume
of production is 180 years, does not lag far behind.

It is to be noted that the characteristic of gas as an energy source
considerably differs from that of oil. And if the portion of
transportation in the oil cost, delivered to the immediate consumer,
does not surpass 10%, allowing to transport this product at farther
distances with no considerable expenses, then in case of gas this
portion is higher than 40%. Therefore, usually natural gas is not
transported at long distances from those regions where it is produced.

The exception is a technology of liquefying natural gas when it is
cooled up to 160 degrees and as a result passes to liquid phase, which
allows transporting gas in special tankers at long distances,
similarly to oil. But this option is not acceptable for Azerbaijan
since it is common knowledge that this country has no access to high
seas, making this type of transportation a complex task. To make
things worse, the technology itself (terminals for gas conversion, as
well as special tankers which are far more expensive than oil)
requires tangible investments.

It was initially planned that the gas extracted in Shakh Deniz deposit
will be delivered to Turkey, where economic boom was expected, and as
a result – sharp increase of gas consumption. However, the
expectations of Turkish economists and BOTAS state oil company were
not justified. For the past few years, economic recession and decrease
of GDP were observed in Turkey. For this reason the Turkish company,
having already signed the agreement with `Gasprom’ on the supply of
gas through `Blue Stream’ gas pipeline via Black Sea bottom, even
turned to the Russian side with a request for decrease of the supply
volume. Thus, the economic expediency of Azerbaijani gas supply to
Turkey is out of the question. At best, Turkey may serve as a transit
country for Azerbaijani gas, whose streams will flow to Europe, though
this option is hardly likely, given the mentioned specifics of gas
transportation economy.

In conclusion, it needs to be sated that Azerbaijan possesses
hydrocarbon resources, which through advantageous development of
events on world energy markets, may yield profits for this
country. However, too many factors come to prove that these profits
will be much lower contrary to the expectations of our neighbors and
those in our country who are too much concerned over fast enrichment
of the Azerbaijanis and, consequently, over the possibility of
breaking the balance in the region.

[01-04-2004 ‘Region’]
———————————————————————-
WHO WILL BENEFIT FROM CYPRUS PROBLEM RESOLUTION AND HOW?
Source : `Radikal’ newspaper (Turkey)
Author: Murat Yetkin

Greek Cypriots are most reluctant to see the problem resolved. The
settlement is beneficial for EU, USA and Russia.

Not far ahead is the outcome of the disputes on Cyprus problem
resolution. To discuss the current state of affairs, Ankara convened a
session of the Ministry of National Security again. Conferences of
similar type will be conducted in other capitals as well. It really
makes sense for everyone to discuss what expectations and prospects
they have from resolving one of today’s most acute problems.

CYPRUS GREEK STATE: It is the side least of all supporting Cyprus
problem resolution to be adopted on May 1, 2004. Despite the economic
and political embargo imposed by the Turkish part of the island, there
is a certain progress. Although no option of dividing the island is
proposed, the Greek side already feels comfortable as a member of EU.
However, the issue of relations with the Turkish part of the island
and the international pressure induced by it are still on the agenda.

CYPRUS TURKISH STATE: The greatest expectations of Lefkosia are
getting international recognition, accession to EU, preserving the
guarantees of Turkey and the status quo. The position of President
Rauf Denktas on the referendum appears to have no future for
present. In case the people approve of the agreement, the coalition
between Mehmet Ali Talat and Serdar Denktas may prove to be the
victorious party.

GREECE: If the sides do not come to agreement, Greek Cypriotes will
become members of EU, and the Athens will keep the promise given by
the Greek side to Lefkosia. But in this case EU may be placed under
still greater pressure having problems not only with division of the
island but with alienation of Turkey as well. If no solution is found
for Cyprus problem, it will have consequences for the whole Aegean
region.

TURKEY: Stable resolution of the Cyprus problem will be advantageous
for Turkey from various aspects. In the first place, this option will
allow removing the greatest obstacle for Turkey’s accession to
EU. Second, it will prove that Turkey keeps to the framework of the
European culture of political agreement. And it is has much to do with
Copenhagen criteria. Third, Turkey will be able to more efficiently
use all the potential of its foreign policy directed at Cyprus in the
past 30 years. Middle East, Balkans and the Caucasus will have a
chance to take more active steps for consolidating their independence.

ENGLAND: England, one of the three guarantor states in Cyprus, will be
more secure in case of simultaneous accession of Greek and Turkish
sides to EU. The Cyprus problem will become a part of EU system as a
whole. If this process eventually ends up with Turkey’s accession to
EU, stability and security will be ensured on southern borders of
Europe.

EUROPEAN UNION: The Cyprus problem resolution will undermine the
positions of those who are against Turkish EU membership or view this
prospect with certain fear. It will also strengthen the position of
Turkish supporters. Thus there will be an impetus to Germany’s
conception by which Muslim and Soviet Turkey, becoming a part of
Europe and adopting European values, will serve as a sort of bridge
between the Old World and many powerful Muslim countries. France,
with its ties enlarged, will also strengthen its positions. With
Turkish influence in EU, Europe’s southern and eastern borders will be
expanded; consequently it will become a more integral and strong
contingent.

USA: Washington is one of the capitals to receive most benefit from
Cyprus problem resolution. Such an outcome of solving this political
problem, in USA opinion, may serve as an example for settling
conflicts between Israel and Palestine, also between Azerbaijan and
Armenia. Israel is one more proponent of this scenario. However, in
case of Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict, the Armenian Diaspora in USA is
the greatest obstacle to `world for security’ principle applied in
Cyprus. At the same time, any option on Cyprus may result in the fact
that USA, with Turkey’s and most likely Russia’s assistance, will
induce Armenia to comply with this plan.

RUSSIA: Moscow will benefit from the stable and predictable policy of
Turkey in the Caucasus, which is one of the most problematic regions
for Russia. Strengthening of democracy in Turkey, necessitated by this
country’s possible accession to EU, will contribute to
it. Consequently, Cyprus problem resolution will help Russia defend
its most vital interests.

—
Yerevan Press Club of Armenia, ‘Yeni Nesil’ Journalists’ Union of
Azerbaijan and Association of Diplomacy Correspondents of Turkey
present ‘Armenia-Azerbaijan-Turkey: Journalist Initiative-2002’
Project. As a part of the project web site has
been designed, featuring the most interesting publications from the
press of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Turkey on issues of mutual
concern. The latest updates on the site are weekly delivered to the
subscribers.