RUSSIA SEEKING TO BECOME LARGEST INVESTOR IN ARMENIA – FRADKOV
Andrei Urban

ITAR-TASS News Agency, Russia
December 1, 2006 Friday

Russia is seeking to become the largest investor in the Armenian
economy, Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov reiterated on Friday,
as he was answering an Itar-Tass question.

"We wish to make use of the potential which exists in trade and
economic relations with Armenia. We’ll be moving on," Fradkov said.

The premier reminded that a number of Russian companies successfully
operate in Armenia.

Vympelkom has invested 500 million dollars in an Armenian
telecommunications company, while Vneshtorgbank has invested in the
Armenian Savings Banks.

Projects in the transport sphere are being implemented.

"Yet, we have problems, rather long-standing and demanding a solution,"
Fradkov acknowledged, noting that "we have discussed these issues at
today’s talks."

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

REFERENDUM ON KARABAKH TO PREVENT SETTLEMENT OF CONFLICT – FM
Sevidzh Abdullayeva and Viktor Shulman

ITAR-TASS News Agency, Russia
December 2, 2006 Saturday 02:36 PM EST

A constitutional referendum" in Nagorno-Karabakh will prevent the
settlement of the conflict in the whole region, the Azerbaijani
Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Saturday.

"An illegal referendum and its results will not have any legal
effect. Any document of Nagorno-Karabakh’s self-determination may be
realised through a legal, democratic and peaceful process with the
equal participation of Armenian and Azerbaijani communities of the
region," the statement says.

Azerbaijan does not recognise such acts, which "fully run counter
the efforts aimed at ensuring a lasting peace and stability in the
region," the document stresses.

HO HO HO! SANTA CLAUS

The Independent (London)
December 4, 2006 Monday
Fourth Edition

Poor old Santa Claus.

He just can’t seem to do anything right these days. In Berlin, he
stands accused of National Socialist sympathies, after shoppers
detected a stiff-armed salute in some miniature wooden statues
on sale. Meanwhile he is lambasted by health campaigners for his
long-standing advertising contract with Coca-Cola.

He has also become a victim of the rampant anti-American sentiment
of our times. Santa is resented for being a brash US upstart who
has eclipsed traditional distributors of seasonal largesse such as
Father Christmas (Britain), Noel Baba (Turkey), Julenissen (Norway),
Viejo Pascuero (Chile), Deda Mraz (Bosnia), Gaghant Baba (Armenia)
and San Nicklaw (Malta).

Now we learn that Czech advertisers have had enough of him too. The
Creative Copywriters’ Club argues that in their country baby Jesus, or
"Jezisek", has always had the job of delivering the gifts. In their
view, Santa should take a flying sleigh ride back to where he came
from. An anti-red-velvet revolution is in the air.

It all seems terribly vindictive to us. What absurdities will this
Santa-bashing result in next? An Asbo to prevent him going anywhere
near a chimney? A campaign to close down elvish sweatshops? A visit
from the RSPCA to Lapland to investigate allegations of reindeer abuse?

It’s a good job Santa’s such a jovial soul. If so much vitriol had
been heaped on a lesser man, we suspect that everyone would be getting
a lump of coal in their stocking this year. And it would serve them
right, too, for being naughty, not nice.
From: Baghdasarian

AZERI MINISTRY CONDEMNS KARABAKH’S PLAN TO HOLD REFERENDUM

Turan News Agency, Azerbaijan
Dec 2 2006

Baku, 2 December: The Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry released today a
statement on the Karabakh separatists’ plan to hold a "constitutional
referendum" in the Armenian-occupied Nagornyy Karabakh region of
Azerbaijan on 10 December.

These actions are violating the Azerbaijani Constitution and
international legal norms and creating obstacles to the peace
process. The so-called "referendum" will have no legal consequences
and its organizers will not be able to mislead the international
community, the document said.

The adoption of any constitutional document about self-determination
of Nagornyy Karabakh region’s population is possible through the
peace process with the full, equal and direct participation of the
region’s Armenian and Azerbaijani populations in it.

Azerbaijan will never recognize such illegal acts based on the wrong
practice of "a fait accompli" which contradicts the efforts to achieve
lasting peace and stability in the region, the Azerbaijani Foreign
Ministry said in its statement.

BAKU TRIES AMERICAN UNIFORM
by Sokhbet Mamedov

Nezavisimaya Gazeta, No 262, p.8
RusData Dialine – Russian Press Digest
December 4, 2006 Monday

Russia’s zone of influence in former Soviet Union is shrinking fast

The elite unit of the Azerbaijani national army, the Baku Corps,
is adopting NATO standards, and the news is highly unexpected,
especially for Moscow. Unlike neighboring Georgia, which has been
loudly proclaiming its support for NATO, Azerbaijan has so far tried
to downplay its contacts with the alliance in order to placate Russia.

Russia does not conceal its interest in Azerbaijan, and it is
developing contacts in all possible spheres of cooperation, including
military and political. Yet it seems that its foothold, both in
Azerbaijan and in the entire region, has weakened. The imperial aspect
of Moscow’s presence in the South Caucasus is exhausted, while attempts
to restore its influence economically have not achieved much.

Apparently, Baku understands very well that the NATO membership of
its neighbor and strategic partner Georgia is now almost certain,
and that this will begin the alliance’s expansion into the South
Caucasus, and farther, into Central Asia. Then, any talk of Russia
restoring its military and political influence in the southern part
of the former Soviet Union will sound like a pipe dream.

Moscow has not welcomed Baku’s move. But Azerbaijan understands that
the Kremlin cannot prevent these developments. It is quite likely that
further development of military contacts with NATO and of economic
relations with Russia will be a trump card for Azerbaijan in further
discussions related to Nagorno-Karabakh’s status.

Armenia, however, is aware of that, and is already moving in order
not to be outmaneuvered. So, while preserving the military-political
strategic union with Moscow, Yerevan is also trying to improve its
relations with Brussels, cautiously but consistently.

The Baltic countries, Ukraine and Georgia, which might join NATO
soon, and Azerbaijan, which might follow later, constitute a "cordon
sanitaire" that is restoring around Russia one that the international
community built around the new Bolshevik state in the first quarter
of the 20th century.

ARMENIAN OFFICIAL RULES OUT FINAL STAGE IN TALKS WITHOUT KARABAKH’S INVOLVEMENT

Armenian Second TV Channel, Yerevan,
Nov 30 2006

Armenian Foreign Minister Vardan Oskanyan has denied that Armenia
and Azerbaijan are reaching a final stage in the Nagornyy Karabakh
peace talks.

In an interview with Armenian Second TV Channel on 30 November,
Oskanyan said: "It is hard to say that we are close to the final stage
of the conflict resolution since we haven’t agreed on and accepted
the main principles of the document."

Oskanyan added that "the problem will not be solved if Karabakh
does not participate in the talks and agree with the final stage of
negotiations. There are still the details that have not been discussed
and resolved yet".

He downplayed Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev’s optimism about
the course of talks.

"First, he said that all disputed issues had already been agreed
upon. Later he said that both sides were getting closer in having
common views. I agree with the second statement. I can tell you
confidently that the first one is not true. There has not been
such an opportunity to reach a total agreement in the talks. Both
presidents had positive views on the meeting generally… It is
even hard to say that both sides had common views. So the process is
ahead of us. … The most important thing is that the talks were not
deadlocked," Oskanyan added.

Oskanyan said that the Nagornyy Karabakh people’s rights to
self-determination and the possibility of a referendum in Karabakh
were the cornerstones of the talks and that Aliyev’s statement
that negotiations were going within the framework of Azerbaijan’s
territorial integrity did not reflect the reality.

ISOLATED ARMENIA LEADS THE WAY IN USING CLEANER CAR FUEL
by Mariam Harutunian

Agence France Presse — English
December 3, 2006 Sunday 3:47 AM GMT

Cut off from world energy markets, the mountainous state of Armenia
is making a virtue of adversity and may be leading the world in using
cleaner car fuel, officials say.

While the European Union is looking at 2020 before 10 percent of
vehicles there will use alternative fuel, in Armenia up to 30 percent
of cars already run on clean compressed gas, officials here say.

This statistic includes about 45,000 private cars and 90 percent of
public transport.

Such high levels of clean fuel use are due "to the fact that Armenia,
which has no energy resources of its own, is trying to use the most
affordable alternative fuel," said Pavel Siradegian, a transport
ministry official.

In this the ex-Soviet republic appears be leading a trend. Around
the world some five million vehicles are run on compressed natural
gas and liquefied natural gas, according to the United States energy
department’s Internet site.

Natural gas vehicles are just as safe as conventional petrol
and diesel-fuelled ones and produce lower harmful emissions, the
department says.

In Armenia, the switch has its origins in the 1991 collapse of the
Soviet Union.

Before then, Armenia got petrol from its oil-rich neighbour
Azerbaijan, but after the two countries plunged into a war over the
Armenian-populated enclave of Nagorny Karabakh, Armenia cut ties with
both Azerbaijan and Turkey.

Armenia buys its gas from Russia for 110 dollars (77 euros) per 1,000
cubic metres, with 84 percent of the population having access to gas
at home.

The gas used for cars is three or four times cheaper than petrol and
half the price of diesel fuel "and so people convert to gas of their
own accord," Siradegian said.

The gas containers are usually imported from Russia or Italy and are
installed in the car’s trunk at licensed centres — an operation that
costs the equivalent of 700 to 1,000 dollars (530-760 euros).

"Even with such high installation prices it’s cheaper to use gas than
petrol. A 20-litre-canister of petrol would cost some 17 dollars,
while topping up with gas costs only four dollars," said the head
of Yerevan’s Ultra taxi service, Aram Hachian, who has converted all
his cars.

"If we used petrol, many people here wouldn’t be able to afford a
taxi," he said.

Armenia currently has 140 filling stations equipped with gas
compressing equipment.

"Drivers have no fear of being left without fuel," Siradegian said.

But some admit the choice has been forced on them.

"If I were rich, I’d fill my car with petrol because gas is bad
for your engine and it is not very nice carrying an 80-kilogramme
container in your trunk," said one Yerevan resident, 37-year-old Artem.

At the country’s environment ministry, officials hail the benefits
of increased gas use after the damage done to the environment in
the 1990s.

"Switching to gas has been a real salvation for… Armenia, whose
forests suffered very much during the energy crisis," said environment
official Martin Tsarukian.

"Gas-using cars emit half the amount of nitric oxide than petrol-driven
cars," he said. "Conversion to gas was an economic necessity, but
there have been ecological benefits as a result."

The ministry is aware that the popularity of compressed gas could be
time-limited if the country pulls itself out of economic hardship —
the average salary is currently 100 dollars a month.

But it is now looking at ways of ensuring drivers stick to compressed
gas — for example through tax benefits.

ARMENIA GENOCIDE IN BRAVE DETAIL
By Carlin Romano

Philadelphia Inquirer

Posted on Sun, Dec. 03, 2006

A Turkish historian has mined and synthesized the Ottoman Empire’s
internal documents and memoirs for moral clarity.

A Shameful Act

The Armenian Genocide and the Question of Turkish Responsibility By
Taner Akcam. Translated by Paul Bessemer.

Metropolitan Books. 483 pp. $30

Pope Benedict XVI’s just-ended magical military tour of Turkey – with
helicopters overhead and riot police bristling on every flank lest he
be plugged on his first visit to a Muslim land – revealed a profound
truth: Those who forget the past sometimes simply want to forget it.

The pope didn’t utter a peep about arriving in a country whose
predecessor state, the Ottoman Empire, committed the largest
genocide in history against Christians. Of course, it may be that the
always-diplomatic Vatican Curia took possession of Benedict’s mind
and body, having exorcised the former Cardinal Ratzinger’s well-known
views about Turkey and Islam.

It may also be that the murder of more than one million non-Catholic
Christians in the Armenian genocide is a non-homefield matter in
the Vatican’s current damage-control foreign policy toward Turkey
and Islam.

But the upshot – a spectacle of supposed reconciliation between the
Papacy and Islam last week that operated without moral memory or
judgment – proved embarrassing to anyone who thinks there is no God
but truth. Thankfully, we have Taner Akcam’s magnificently researched
study, A Shameful Act, as rebuke and counterlesson.

Why, as the world press endlessly repeated this last week, is Turkey
"99 percent Muslim"? One reason is that Ottoman Sultan Abdul Hamid
II, who regarded Armenians as a "degenerate community," ordered the
massacre of 200,000 Turkish Armenian Christians in 1894-96.

Another is that a nucleus of future nationalist leaders of the Turkish
Republic – known as the "Young Turk" government – embarked in the dying
days of the Ottoman Empire (1915-16) on horrific acts of genocide and
"ethnic cleansing" to rid Turkey of Christians.

To put it bluntly: In those dying days, Ottoman leaders killed most of
Turkey’s Christians, just as Nazi Germany would kill most of its Jews.

Hundreds of thousands of Turkey’s Greek Christians had already been
expelled or killed in 1914. But in 1915, as World War I raged and
provided a smokescreen, the Young Turk leaders implemented a "final
solution," murdering an estimated one million to 1.3 million Turkish
Armenian Christians – two-thirds of the remaining Armenian population
of Turkey – through starvation, death marches and execution.

That the Armenian genocide remains little-known in the United States
amounts to amnesia about our own history. As powerfully recounted in
Peter Balakian’s The Burning Tigris (2003), the campaign by prominent
Americans from 1892 to 1920 to prevent genocide in Armenia formed
the first international human-rights movement in our history, the
template for today’s struggle over Darfur.

Feminist leader Julia Ward Howe railed against the sultan’s
massacres. Clara Barton led an 1896 American Red Cross mission to
save Armenians. Congress passed a resolution condemning the sultan.

Americans donated more than $100 million to Armenian relief aid.

In light of how things ended, the force of American outrage
astonishes. Theodore Roosevelt called the Armenian massacres "the
greatest crime" of World War I. The American ambassador to Istanbul
labeled Turkey "a place of horror."

Despite that, by the early 1920s, the United States abandoned its
intent to establish an Armenian homeland and convict Turkish leaders.

The military success of Mustafa Kemal (later Ataturk) in establishing
the Turkish Republic in 1922 against the wishes of the Great Powers,
along with the U.S. decision to let oil politics trump human rights,
pushed the Armenian holocaust off center stage.

Ever since, the Turkish Republic has rejected charges of genocide. It
describes the Armenian deaths as collateral damage, World War
I-style. That’s despite postwar Ottoman courts-martial in which
officials confessed to a genocidal policy. Turkey still mandates
criminal penalties for those who accuse the state of slaughter.

One wishes that all involved in this last week’s stagecraft between
the Vatican and Turkey had been forced to read Akcam’s A Shameful
Act and to comment on it. Turkish Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk calls
Akcam’s work "the definitive account of the organized destruction of
the Ottoman Armenians" by "a brave Turkish scholar."

Some fine earlier books in English have delivered the grim tale. But
no scholar has mined and synthesized the Ottoman Empire’s internal
documents and memoirs with Akcam’s assiduous skill. Like Raul Hilberg’s
The Destruction of the European Jews, A Shameful Act is destined to
become a touchstone for other studies.

Akcam, 56, a Turkish sociologist and historian, obtained political
asylum in Germany after receiving a 10-year prison sentence at home
for working on a student journal. He now teaches at the University of
Minnesota. Hardly anti-Turkish, he dedicates his book to Haji Halil,
a righteous Turk who, at the risk of being hanged, protected eight
members of an Armenian family in his home during the genocide.

As you might expect from an author of such courage, Akcam pulls no
punches. Ottoman Turkish leaders "did deliberately attempt to destroy
the Armenian population." Turkey continues to deny the genocide because
many of the leaders involved in it "later became central figures in
the Turkish government" and "admitted openly that the republic could
only have been established by eliminating the Armenians and removing
their demand for self-determination in Anatolia."

The most striking achievement of A Shameful Act is its depth of
detail. Akcam documents every twist of the story – from the political
and racist origins of Turkish nationalism to the insistence of
Muslims that they had to rule over inferior "infidel" Christians –
with multiple sources and shocking quotations.

How, though, to explain the disappearance of such crucial history
during the pope’s visit? This honesty gap left his visit a moral mess,
a pageant of hypocrisies. Turkish newspapers, for instance, kept asking
whether the pope would offer yet another, fuller "apology" for remarks
on Islam during a recent lecture that had provoked Muslim outrage.

Moral clarity, on the contrary, would suggest that it is Turkey that
still owes the pope, Armenians, Christians, and the rest of the world
an apology for acts far more heinous than provocative citation.

Turkish nationalism, as Akcam shows, took its racist spine partly
from Germany and partly from Islamic jihadism. Turkey could do worse
than look to 21st-century Germany for instruction on decency, honesty
and redemption.

At the same time, the pope won himself no credit by honoring the
Vatican tradition of Pius XII – resisted by both John XXIII and John
Paul II – of failing to speak truth to power when in the latter’s
presence. One couldn’t help thinking of Hitler’s famous question to
his generals eight days before invading Poland in 1939. "Who today,"
he asked, "speaks of the annihilation of the Armenians?"

Not Pope Benedict XVI. Be grateful instead for Taner Akcam. He doesn’t
wear pretty white vestments, but he speaks the holy truth.

RA PRESIDENT’S ADVISER: DRAFT STRATEGY OF NATIONAL SECURITY IS SECOND MOST IMPORTANT DOCUMENT AFTER CONSTITUTION

Yerevan, December 4. ArmInfo. The Adviser for national security affairs
under RA President, Garnik Isagulyan, calls the draft Strategy of
National Security of Armenia the second most important document after
the Constitution.

In the "Urbat" discussion club, G. Isagulyan reminded that an
Inter-departmental Commission was created in the beginning, 2006,
by the RA President’s decree, to work over the document. "RA
Defense Minister, the Secretary of the National Security Council,
Serzh Sarkissyan, had come out, February 16, with a report on the
main principles of the national security. His report was taken as a
basis for further work. Multiple amendments and additions have been
introduced ever since. Large discussions of the developed project
are underway at present", Isagulyan said.

According to him, the document authors have concluded of inexpediency
of its adoption as a Law since it will hamper the introduction of
amendments in it. "According to the decision made, the Strategy will
be approved by the Government after the Inter-departmental Commission
session., then it will be submitted to the President’s approval",
G. Isagulyan said. He did not call the exact terms of approval of
the Strategy of National Security.

ARMENIAN, RUSSIAN PRIME MINISTERS DISCUSS BILATERAL COOPERATION

Public TV, Armenia
Dec 1 2006

[Presenter] Russian Prime Minister [Mikhail Fradkov] is satisfied
with the current level of relations between Armenia and Russia. After
a meeting with Armenian Prime Minister Andranik Markaryan, Fradkov
expressed his confidence that friendly relations with Armenia will
thrive at all levels.

The prime ministers of the two countries noted that the quantity and
quality indicators of bilateral cooperation are improving. A delegation
from Armenia led by the prime minister will attend the official closing
ceremony of the year of Armenia in Russia in St Petersburg tomorrow.

[Correspondent over video of the meeting in Moscow] The year of Armenia
in Russia came to an end. The closing ceremony will take place in St
Petersburg on 2 December.

The Armenian prime minister held one-to-one meeting with his Russian
counterpart today. Then the meeting continued in an extended format.

The sides discussed the future of their economic cooperation. Fradkov
said that Russia is worried that it is only the third in terms of
investment in the Armenian economy and that this situation has to
change. Fradkov also said that the Russian company Armenal’s operations
in Armenia, the VimpelCom mobile phone company’s investment in the
communication sphere to tune of 500m dollars and the successful
cooperation in banking are pleasant facts. He pointed that there are
still some problems in the sphere of cooperation between Armenia and
Russia which have to be tackled immediately.

[Fradkov, in Russian with Armenian voice-over] The programme on
property-for-debt has not received its final solution yet. The
privatization issues also should be resolved.

[Markaryan, in Russian with Armenian voice-over] We discussed these
issues and negotiations continue.

[Corespondent] Markaryan said that information about the North-South
corridor’s infrastructure will be available in the beginning of 2007.

Asked by journalists whether tension between Georgia and Russia can
affect Armenia’s gas supply, Fradkov said:

[Fradkov] We are worried about the current situation but we hope
that there will no reasons to take strict measures. All steps taken
by us should be correspondent to the requirements of the Collective
Security Treaty Organization.

[Correspondent] The delegation led by Armenian Prime Minister Andranik
Markaryan will leave for St Petersburg on 2 December.