COURT AGREES TO START PROCEEDINGS AGAINST HOSPITALIZED EX-SENATOR -1

RIA Novosti, Russia
Dec 8 2006

MOSCOW, December 8 (RIA Novosti) – Russia’s Supreme Court has agreed to
launch criminal proceedings in absentia against former senator Levon
Chakhmakhchyan, currently in hospital, a RIA Novosti correspondent
reported Friday.

The court accepted fraud charges against Chakhmakhchyan filed by the
Prosecutor General’s Office.

Chakhmakhchyan was dismissed from his post as deputy head of the
Federation Council’s committee for self-government after being caught
up in a bribery scandal. However, the former senator was immune from
prosecution, and was not arrested.

In a sting operation in June, FSB operatives found $300,000 in cash,
which had been previously marked with special ink, in the office of
the chief accountant of the Association of Russian-Armenian Business,
of which Chakhmakhchyan was vice president. The FSB alleged that the
funds had been taken as bribe money.

Prosecutors say Chakhmakhchyan formed an organized crime group to
extort funds from companies including air carrier Transaero.

Boris Kuznetsov, a lawyer for Chakhmakhchyan, said two suspects in the
case had so far been arrested. However, he said his client dismisses
all accusations as "absolute nonsense."

The lawyer also said he intended to appeal the Supreme Court’s decision
to start criminal proceedings against his client.

"I will appeal, so today’s decision will not come into force, and
the Prosecutor General’s Office will not be able to obtain an arrest
warrant for my client," the lawyer said.

When the scandal broke out in June, several MPs questioned the
legality of measures against Chakhmakhchyan and asked for a special
investigation into the case; however, 136 senators in parliament’s
upper house voted for Chakhmakhchyan’s dismissal.

Following a call from President Vladimir Putin in May for stronger
anti-corruption measures, several senior officials in the customs
and security services have been sacked.

TROJAN HORSE: ANKARA INFLUENCED DUTCH ELECTION RESULTS

Brussels Journal, Belgium
Dec 8 2006

>From the desk of Paul Belien on Fri, 2006-12-08 15:27

Yesterday evening, the Dutch television program Nova caused
considerable embarrassment in the Netherlands by revealing how the
Turkish government influenced last months’ Dutch general elections.

In an e-mail sent to thousands of ethnic Turks in the Netherlands
the Turkish Ministry of Religious Affairs called on them to vote for
Fatma Koser Kaya, a 38-year old woman whose family emigrated to the
Netherlands when she was six years old. Koser Kaya is a member of the
leftist "social-liberal" Democrats 66 (D66) party. On 22 November,
D66 lost three of its previous six seats in Parliament. Koser Kaya,
however, though only sixth on the list of D66 candidates, was
elected as one of the party’s three parliamentarians thanks to the
34,564 individual votes she got, possibly as a result of the Turkish
government’s interference.

Immigrants are known to overwhelmingly vote for candidates of their
own ethnic group. Since they have often not integrated in the country
where they have settled their loyalties lie with their countries
of origin. This has created a situation where the immigrants in
Western democracies become Trojan horses of foreign nationalism and
religious fanaticism. This phenomenon became apparent in this year’s
local elections in the Netherlands and in neighbouring Belgium. It
tipped the balance in favour of parties that put forward immigrant
candidates. At the same time, however, it worked to the disadvantage
of indigenous candidates on these parties’ lists, causing considerable
resentment among the latter.

In an e-mail, sent from a government address in Ankara, the Turks in
the Netherlands were asked to vote for Koser Kaya. The e-mail was
sent by Ali Alaybeyoglu, the advisor to Mehmet Aydin, the Turkish
minister of Religious Affairs. The first paragraph reads:

"We all realize that no-one can represent Turks better than Turks.

The Turkish community is threatened by assimilation. If we do not
unite and vote for a common candidate our position will only worsen
in future."

The e-mail lists five reasons why Turks should vote for Koser Kaya.

The most important one is the fact that D66 does not recognize the
Turkish genocide of the Armenians in 1915. The four other reasons
have to do with D66’s opposition to the policies of Rita Verdonk,
the Dutch minister of Integration.

The Armenian issue became a topic in the Dutch general elections when
the two leading parties in the country, the Christian-Democrats and
Labour, refused to put forward candidates of Turkish origin who did
not accept the party line that there was a genocide of the Armenians
in 1915. As a reaction Turkish lobby groups initiated a campaign
to urge Dutch voters of Turkish ancestry to boycott any party that
labels the 1915 mass killing of Armenians a genocide.

The e-mail from the Turkish ministry lists the Dutch parties and
points out why, apart from D66, they are not acceptable to Turks. The
Christian-Democrats and Labour are excluded because of their position
on the genocide, the Liberal Party VVD because it "is the party of
Verdonk and Hirsi Ali," the Animal Rights Party because it considers
"animals to be more important than Turks," and the Calvinist Party
because it "is preparing a new crusade."

Today, the Dutch ministry of Foreign Affairs contacted Ankara about
the affair. The Turkish Minister of Religious Affairs said he knows
nothing about an e-mail. Minister Aydin added that if this e-mail
had indeed been sent he strongly condemns it. "We do not interfere in
the internal politics of our friends," he said. Aydin’s collaborator
Alaybeyoglu, the man who allegedly sent the e-mail, said that several
people have access to his e-mail address. According to the Dutch
ministry the matter is still under investigation.

e/1739

DASHNAK LEADER WANTS CAUTIOUS LINE ON NATO
By Ruben Meloyan

Radio Liberty, Czech Rep.
Dec 8 2006

Armenia should exercise caution in forging closer links with NATO
because of its strained relationship with alliance member Turkey,
a leader of the governing Armenian Revolutionary Federation
(Dashnaktsutyun) said on Friday.

Deputy parliament speaker Vahan Hovannisian claimed that Ankara has
long been acting against "Armenian national and state interests"
and may use NATO for that purpose.

"We have many unresolved issues with Turkey," he told an international
conference in Yerevan. "We must not let Turkey put those unresolved
problems on NATO’s shoulders. We don’t need that. We have a problem
with Turkey, not NATO."

Hovannisian and his nationalist party, a member of Armenia’s governing
coalition, regards Turkey as a grave threat to Armenia’s national
security. Dashnaktsutyun also takes the view that Turkish recognition
of the 1915 Armenian genocide must be the main prerequisite for
normalizing relations between the two nations.

President Robert Kocharian and his administration as a whole favor
a softer line, saying that Ankara should establish diplomatic
relations with Yerevan and open the Turkish-Armenian border without
any preconditions. But they share Dashnaktsutyun’s position, reaffirmed
by Hovannisian, that membership of NATO should not be on the Armenian
foreign policy agenda in the near future, despite growing public
support for it.

Yerevan is instead trying to step up cooperation with the U.S.-led
alliance under an "individual partnership action plan," or IPAP,
launched earlier this year. Foreign Minister Vartan Oskanian discussed
the implementation of Armenia’s IPAP with NATO’s Secretary General
Jaap de Hoop Scheffer in Brussels on Wednesday.

Speaking at the Yerevan conference, Oskanian’s deputy Arman Kirakosian
said closer ties with NATO will not only strengthen Armenia’s security
but also facilitate its "European integration."

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

RUSSIAN-ARMENIAN TYCOON LINKED WITH POLITICIAN’S BEATING
By Ruzanna Stepanian

Radio Liberty, Czech Rep.
Dec 8 2006

The leader of a small pro-establishment party, which used to be
sponsored by Ara Abrahamian but is now at loggerheads with him,
claimed on Friday that the influential Russian-Armenian tycoon may
have been behind his alleged beating.

Harutiun Arakelian of the Ramkavar Azatakan Party of Armenia (HRAK)
said he was ambushed and beaten up by two unknown men outside his
office in central Yerevan on Thursday. The attackers fled the scene
after prompting an outcry from passers-by, according to him.

Police said they are investigating the allegations and could open a
criminal case.

The reported incident followed a bitter war of words between the HRAK
and Abrahamian, an Armenian-born Russian businessman who sponsored
the party’s unsuccessful participation in the last parliamentary
election. The row was in turn sparked by the HRAK’s decision last
month to pull out of Abrahamian’s Moscow-based World Congress of
Armenians. The Kremlin-connected tycoon publicly shrugged off the move,
claiming that he does not know who leads the party loyal to President
Robert Kocharian.

Asked by RFE/RL whether he believes Abrahamian ordered the alleged
assault, Arakelian said, "I don’t want to rule out anything. But I
don’t want to accuse anyone either." He argued that he lacks evidence
to directly implicate anyone.

KOCHARIAN AGAIN SLAMS ARMENIAN TAX COLLECTION
By Emil Danielyan

Radio Liberty, Czech Rep.
Dec 8 2006

President Robert Kocharian again lambasted Armenia’s tax and customs
authorities on Friday, saying that the amount of taxes collected
by them remains too low and "does not correspond to the existing
potential."

The criticism came at a special meeting between Kocharian and a group
of top officials, including Prime Minister Andranik Markarian, Finance
Minister Vartan Khachatrian and Central Bank chief Tigran Torosian. The
heads of the State Tax Service (STS) and the State Customs Committee
(SCC) were also in attendance.

"In the president’s words, some work has been done in the past few
years to improve the tax and customs administration, but it is still
far from being satisfactory," Kocharian’s office said in a statement.

The head of state was cited as demanding a "qualitative change" in
the work of his government’s two revenue collection agencies next year.

The Armenian budget for 2007, approved by parliament last week,
calls for an almost 16 percent increase in public spending which is
projected to total a record-high 558.7 billion drams ($1.51 billion).

This will require a corresponding rise in tax revenues, something
which was stressed by Kocharian during the meeting.

According to official data released by the Finance Ministry, the STS
and SCC collected 346 billion drams in combined revenues during the
first ten months of this year. This represents an almost 20 percent
rise from the same period in 2005, putting the government on track
to meet its 2006 budgetary targets.

Despite having grown steadily over the past decade, the tax revenues
are still worth less than 15 percent of Gross Domestic Product,
one of the lowest rates in the former Soviet Union highlighting the
scale of tax evasion in Armenia. Kocharian’s chief economic adviser,
Vahram Nercissiantz, has repeatedly singled out the disproportionately
low figure as a key economic challenge facing the country.

"It is evident that considering our robust economic growth, it should
have been possible to collect much more tax revenues," Nercissiantz
admitted in a RFE/RL interview last June. He said Armenia’s continuing
double-digit economic growth makes the tax shortfall particularly
glaring.

Kocharian was reported to instruct the tax authorities to tackle the
problem by eliminating unspecified legal loopholes for tax avoidance
and creating a level playing field for all Armenian businesses. It
is not clear if he agreed with a widespread perception that wealthy
government-connected entrepreneurs get away with grossly underreporting
their earnings.

The latest list of the country’s 300 largest corporate taxpayers made
public by STS last month shows that many of the so-called "oligarchs"
continue to post modest profits contrasting with their conspicuous
wealth. Gagik Tsarukian, arguably the most influential and ambitious
of them, was again a case in point. The biggest of the companies
known to be owned by him held a lowly 76 place in the STS rankings,
with only 411 million drams ($1.1 million) in taxes and other duties
paid from January through August.

GERMAN AMBASSADOR: MOST OF AZERBAIJANI CITIZENS LIVING AND KEEN TO GET POLITICAL ASYLUM IN GERMANY ARE ARMENIANS
Author: I. Alizadeh

TREND, Azerbaijan
Dec 8 2006

Per Christopher Stankina, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary
of Germany to Azerbaijan, said that most of the Azerbaijani citizens
who found political asylum in the Federative Republic of Germany
(FRG) are Armenians in origin, Trend reports.

According to him, the number of Azerbaijani citizens that live in
Germany reach 6,500 people, and they have appealed to corresponding
bodies of Germany with a request to receive political asylum. The
German diplomat said that despite the appeals, these Azerbaijani
citizens have not been granted with their request.

"Placement of 6,500 Azerbaijani citizens in Germany is a large
number. After checking the information, it was revealed that most of
them are Armenians in their origin, and not Azerbaijanis. After the
German Government has checked and studied this information thoroughly,
they came to a conclusion that the legal situation connected with
obtaining the citizenship was complex", said the German Ambassador.

According to Mr. Stankina, these people want to stay in Germany. The
diplomat said that they will impede the work in this direction, since
during the check up they said that they were Azerbaijanis. But the
point is that they are not, said the diplomat.

ARMENIAN ROCKER SINGS THE BLUES

The Berlin Paper, Germany
Dec 8 2006

8 December: Eastern Europe-inspired noise rock meets Emirsian’s slow
folk guitar

Noise rock gets a sip of melancholy Friday when Armenian singer
Aren Emirze plays tracks from his first solo album in ten years at
Bastard club. In contrast to his heavier, more metal-infused past,
Aren’s new album is more personal – gyspy-esque guitar chords seem
to retrace memories from his past. (tbp, 08 Dec 2006)

,%20music /41715.html

AZERBAIJANI SOLDIER TAKEN A PRISONER

Azeri Press Agency, Azerbaijan
Dec 8 2006

Azerbaijani soldier Vusal Garachayev, 18, was taken a prisoner by
Armenian Armed Forces in the contact line in Aghdam, APA reports
quoting to Panarmenian agency.

State Committee on Work with Prisoners and Loss People investigates the
reasons. The missions of OSCE and International Red Cross Organization
are informed about it.

Azerbaijani Defense Ministry Press Service Chief Ramiz Maliakov said
he was unaware of it.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

NKR PARLIAMENT ADOPTED RESOLUTION ON PARDON ON OCCASION OF 15TH ANNIVERSARY OF REPUBLIC’S FORMATION

DeFacto Agency, Armenia
Dec 8 2006

Today, in the course of an extraordinary sitting, the Nagorno-Karabakh
Republic National Assembly unanimously adopted a resolution on
proclaiming an amnesty in the Republic.

According to the information DE FACTO got at the NKR President’s
Administration, a proposal on pardon arranged for the 15th Anniversary
of the NKR’s proclamation had been put forward by the NKR President
Arkady Ghoukassian.

"The essence of the NKR’s penitentiary policy is that a state endued
with a function of punishment should also be able to forgive, and
yet not only on memorable days", stated NKR Parliament Speaker Ashot
Gulian in the course of the sitting.

The pardon applies to the persons, who committed crimes before November
1, 2006, and will be in force up to next March 1.

The pardon will not apply to those who committed grave crimes and to
the persons, who committed return to crime after mercy or amnesty.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

EMERGENCY RESTORATIONS COMPLETED ON ST. THADDEUS CHURCH
Maryam Tabeshian

Cultural Heritage News, Iran
Dec 8 2006

Photo: St.Thaddeus Cathedral, known as Qara Kelisa (Black Church),
West Azarbaijan provice, northwest Iran St. Thaddeus Cathedral,
also known as Qara Kelisa (The Black Church), northwest Iran, was
renovated by experts in an attempt to register this 1700-year-old
church in UNESCO’s list.

Tehran, 8 December 2006 (CHN Foreign Desk) — Renovation experts
ended their emergency restorations on the Church of Saint Thaddeus,
locally known as Qara Kelisa (The Black Church), built 1700 years
ago in the Iranian northwestern province of West Azarbaijan, in an
attempt to inscribe this ancient monument in UNESCO’s list of World
Heritage Sites in 2008.

Qara Kelisa had previously been put up by Iran for UNESCO world
registration in 2007, but the international organization turned down
the application due to lack of substantial documents including those
pertaining to the value of the building and maps of its precincts.

Experts of Iran’s Cultural Heritage and Tourism Organization (ICHTO)
are now working on the Church’s dossier to be forwarded to UNESCO
for a final review in 2008.

According to Qara Kelisa project manager, Mehdi Shoja-del, an
equivalent of 60,000 US dollars had been allocated to the Church’s
initial restorations which recently came to an end.

Heavy rains had washed away the mortar gluing the stones on the
dome of the St. Thaddeus Church, causing cracks on the dome and its
columns which, according to Shoja-del, were restored by experts during
the initial phase of this project. He also said that the Church’s
surrounding site was reorganized, the northern fortified tower was
restored and the southwestern one was strengthened during the recent
restoration works by experts.

This expert further added that the next phase of the project will
begin once its plan is approved by the Council for the Management
of Churches in Iran and will include restoration of stones on the
Church’s facade, renovation of its museum, and construction of a
center for archiving documents close to the Church.

Northwest Iran is home to the oldest churches in the country among
which Qara Kelisa, St. Stepanous, and Zoorzoor stand out because of
their antiquity.

The Thaddeus Church, locally known as Qara Kelisa or the Black
Church, is considered one of the oldest churches in the world, whose
construction began 1700 years ago. Historians believe that the Church
is the tomb of Thaddeus who is said to have been one of Christ’s
disciples who traveled to Armenia, then part of the Persian Empire,
for preaching the teachings of Christ.

Armenians, an ethnic group living in the Persian Empire, followed
Thaddeus’ teachings and converted to Christianity in 300 AD. Thaddeus
was later martyred and buried in present-day West Azarbaijan
province. A tomb was erected on his burial place by his followers who
turned it into a small prayer house. The building was later changed
into a cathedral in the seventh century AD.

According to the inscriptions remained there, the Church was ruined
in by a devastating earthquake but was later restored in its current
form by a Christian religious figure.

Today the church is known as Qara Kelisa and belongs to the Armenian
community of Iran. It has an international reputation and hosts annual
meetings of world Armenians each year in July-August.

Initially, this church comprised of a small hall with a pyramid-shaped
dome on the top and 12 crevices similar to the Islamic dome-shaped
buildings from the Mongol era. The main part of this pyramid structure
followed Byzantine (Eastern Roman) architecture, including the
horizontal and parallel fringes made of white and black stones in
the interior and black stones on the exterior facing.

The monument has two sections: The old one which is made of black
stones, hence the name Qara (black) Kelisa (church) was given to it
by the locals, and the new one which is made of white stones, each
with its specific engravings.

Special features, antiquity, architectural style, decorations, its
religious importance among the world Armenians, and the celebrations
held annually in Qara Kelisa make the Church worthy of inscription
in UNESCO’s list.

Experts from Iran’s Cultural Heritage and Tourism Organization are
also intending to have other famous churches in the province such
as St. Stepanous Cathedral in Khoy and Zoorzoor Church in Chaldoran
included as annexes to St. Thaddeus Cathedral after its registration.

View images of Qara Kelisa here
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