ARMENIAN FM’S REFUSAL FROM A MEETING WITH AZERI PEER – FEELING OF WEAKNESS OF OWN ARGUMENTS, BAKU STATES
Author: A.Ismayilova
TREND
Today 18.09.2006
Tahir Tagizade, the chief of Press and Information of the Azerbaijani
Foreign Ministry said that Armenian Foreign Minister Vardan Oskanian’s
refusal from the talks means a feeling of weakness of own arguments.
He stated that the most important is to move forward the negotiation
process. “All statements by the Armenian FM on Azerbaijan’s activities
at UN testify the real level of engagement of Armenia by the regional
and world policy,” Tagizade underscored
Oskanian said that Azerbaijan puts every effort to distract the
attention from the ‘Minsk process’.
Inclusion of an item on delayed conflicts in the territory of GUAM
(Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan and Moldova) member-states into the
agenda of the General Assembly.
Tagizade noted that the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs still adhere an
opinion that the next meet should be organized between the Foreign
Ministers.
During the last meeting of the Azerbaijani and Armenian Foreign
Ministers with the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs in Europe it was resolved
to organize next round of consultations between FMs in New York on
25 or 26 September within the framework of the 61st session of the
UN General Assembly.

Regions.ru
September 12, 2006
“DOES ARMENIA FIND ITSELF ON THE VERGE OF AN ENVIRONMENTAL DISASTER?”
While predatory deforestation is in full progress in the Republic, the
Minister of Environment is involved in big business.
/The former Minister of Environment Karine Danielyan claims that today
Yerevan, and Armenia as a whole, are on the verge of an environmental
disaster. According to her, during the last 10 years the incidence of
cases of bronchial asthma, upper respiratory tract and acute
intestinal infections has increased sharply. ?The ?lungs? of the
city, the green zones which were supposed to clean the city air, were
eliminated?, the former Minister noted. However it looks like the
acting head of the Republic?s environmental department does not share
the concern of his predecessor./
Armenia?s ecology today finds itself in the most pitiable condition in
the whole history of the country. This is being spoken out by
representatives of the various environmental and public organizations
of the Republic. Since the time when the former businessman and
politician Vardan Avazyan took the position of Armenia?s Minister of
Environment in 2001 the situation in the environment protection
department has practically gone out of control. Not having any
experience of environmental work, Avazyan preferred to be involved in
the issues which were more familiar to him, that is, to participate in
negotiations with potential investors forcing them to pay the
?environmental tributes?, and in other ?money matters?. As for the
nature, it was left to itself and at the disposal of the few
businessmen who managed to find understanding with the Minister.
The results of such a policy turned out to be predictable. The former
Minister Karine Danielyan who currently is Chairman of the public
organization ?In the Name of Stable Development? is willing to share
her negative estimate of the environmental situation in Armenia even
at the international community level. Currently the organization
together with the UN environment program is preparing a report on the
environmental situation in the country. Also ?In the Name of Stable
Development? has carried out a sociological poll, according to which
57% of respondents were not satisfied wit the condition of environment
in Yerevan, and 32.2% estimated it as disastrous. 84% of the
inhabitants are concerned about destruction of the ?green? areas of
the capital due to building up of permanent commercial establishments,
57% are extremely dissatisfied with the profuse insanitation in the
capital, and 51% consider the atmosphere over Yerevan to be extremely
polluted. 52% think that it is the environmental condition of the city
that causes the negative impact on the health of the city dwellers,
besides, 41.5% complained about the pollution of drinking water, 38%
complained about the noise, and 25% about the pollution of soil.
Judging by publications in the local mass media, deforestation in the
last five years has become disastrous over the whole territory of
Armenia. This, in particular, was recently reported by Susan
Yagoubyan-Klein, Regional director of the ?Planting Trees in Armenia?
Program. She noted that the tendency is ?terrifying?, as in the past
years the forest coverage of the Republic?s territory constituted 25%,
and in the 90?s around 20%. ?Never before was Armenia closer to the
environmental disaster?, S. Yagoubyan-Klein said. She emphasized that
if such a tendency is allowed to continue, in 20 years Armenia will be
facing a real threat of desertification.
S. Yagoubyan-Klein also noted that the unlawful cutting of trees
continues up to this day.
In the meantime the current Minister of Environment of RA Vardan
Aivazyan is still not inclined to overestimate the problems existing
in the Republic. Speaking at the recent hearing held in the Parliament
titled ?Environmental Problems in Yerevan?, Aivazyan, replying to the
criticism aimed at himself, joked, ?If we look at everything in
absolute terms, then we should prohibit playing the violin, as a wood
rosin emission takes place in the course of playing?.
The Minister?s relative tranquility is understandable, as he is busy
with issues which are rather distant from protection of green
plantations. As observed by the eyewitnesses, Aivazyan is a lot more
enthusiastic about conflicts and disputes with various ?economic
subjects?, and about other issues which are somehow or other connected
with the ?real cash?. The main ?enemies? of the Environment Minister
today are large ore and gold mining companies operating on the
territory of the Republic. Revision of old contracts, refusal to issue
mining licenses, laying down the additional conditions to the existing
agreements: all these worrisome but lucrative concerns steal away a
lot of Aivazyan?s time and strength.
As a result multi-billion projects agreed on and approved at the
highest government and even inter-government level are facing a threat
today ?thanks? to the restless and clearly irrelevant activity of one
single Minister. Therefore it is quite expectable that not only
independent ecologists, but also Aivazyan?s colleagues in the
government of Armenia are dissatisfied with his activities. For
several months now the local media has put new wind in the rumors of
possible resignation of Aivazyan. They say that the Minister?s ?lot?
will be decided on already in February.
It is characteristic that the Minister himself saw the reason for the
rumors of his possible resignation not in the evidently disastrous
environmental situation in Armenia, but in the ?intrigues of external
forces? which, in the official?s opinion, in his person are nearly
infringing the sovereignty of the entire Republic. As it often happens
in such cases, patriotism pushed into the foreground has become
Aivazyan?s last resort. Under the slogan of protecting the country
from foreign influence, he is trying as hard as he can to create for
himself an image of a fighter for the interests of Armenia. However,
thanks to Aivazyan?s efforts, the country is already left without
forests and tomorrow it may be left without foreign investors who are
already perplexed by the Minister?s behavior.
12.09.2006 Ruben Azaryan, Regions.ru

ARMINFO News Agency
September 14, 2006 Thursday
USA AMBASSADOR TO BAKU: WE WANT MISSION WITH PARTICIPATION OF UN AND
OSCE REPRESENTATIVES TO VISIT BURNED TERRITORIES OF AZERBAIJAN
“We are satisfied with the adoption of the UN resolution about the
burnings of Azerbaijan territories. We want a mission with the UN and
OSCE representatives to visit the territory to settle this issue”,
Anne Darse, USA Ambassador to Azerbaijan, told the journalists, APA
informs. Having noted that she had participated in the meeting of FM
of Azerbaijan and Armenia, organized within the frames of OSCE Minsk
Group, the Ambassador said definite results are being expected from
the last meetings.

ARMINFO News Agency
September 14, 2006 Thursday
RA PRESIDENT AND AMBASSADOR OF BRAZIL TO ARMENIA DISCUSSED PROSPECTS
OF BRAZIL EMBASSY OPENING IN YEREVAN
The Ambassador Plenipotentiary and Extraordinary of Brazil, Renate
Stille, has presented today her credentials to RA President Robert
Kocharyan.
As ArmInfo was told in the RA President’s press-office, Robert
Kocharyan congratulated the Brazilian diplomat with the new
appointment and noted that he expects activation of the
Armenian-Brazilian cooperation in view of the decision to open the
Embassy of Brazil in Armenia. In her turn, R. Stille emphasized that,
being in Armenia, the Embassy will be able to function more
efficiently, trying to activate the bilateral economic contacts.
According to her, the Armenian Diaspora of Brazil, with some
representatives of which she had met before visiting Yerevan, can
also assist in the cooperation development.

ARMINFO News Agency
September 14, 2006 Thursday
FM OF TURKEY FEARS FOR POSSIBLE COLLISIONS BETWEEN ARMENIAN AND
TURKISH COMMUNITIES IN FRANCE DURING CELEBRATION OF “YEAR OF ARMENIA”
THERE
The Foreign Minister of Turkey, Abdullah Gul, fears for the possible
collisions between the Armenian and Turkish communities in France
during the celebration of the “Year of Armenia” there.
As the Turkish “Zanam” newspaper informs, the Turkey’s MFA
participates in the meeting being held in France and devoted to the
intercultural dialogue, which has coincided with the celebration of
the “Year of Armenia” there. Having noted that Turkey ill not
interfere with the relations of France with the third parties, the
Minister said that “notorious Armenian Question” will not harm the
Turkey-France bilateral relations, which have much tightened
recently. During the press-conference in Paris, A. Gul reminded that
over 400,000 Turks live in France and that France and Turkey have to
take preventive measures to avoid the possible collision between the
country’s Armenian and Turkish communities.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

ARMINFO News Agency
September 14, 2006 Thursday
ARMENIAN FOREIGN MINISTRY CONTINUES NEGOTIATIONS WITH GEORGIAN PARTY
REGARDING DETENTION OF ARMENIAN CITIZENS
The Foreign Ministry of Armenia continues negotiating with the
Georgian party regarding detention of Armenian citizens, Arman
Kirakosyan, Deputy Foreign Minister of Armenia, told journalists,
Thursday.
“These are very serious negotiations as they concern a great number
of Armenian citizens,” A. Kirakosyan said.
Earlier, “Azg” Armenian newspaper wrote that about 100 citizens of
Armenia are kept in prisons in Georgia. Article 334.2 of the Georgian
Criminal Code stipulates a 2,000 USD fine for violation of the
Georgian-Russian border. A repeated violation of the border leads to
5 years of imprisonment. The newspaper reported that the above
citizens of Armenia are sentenced to imprisonment for violation of
the above article. The newspaper explains that a visit to Abkhazia or
South Ossetia from the territory of Russia is considered a violation
of the Georgian border.

ARMINFO News Agency
September 14, 2006 Thursday
TRANSFER OF KARABAKH PEACE PROCESS FROM OSCE TO OTHER FORUMS IS
CATEGORICALLY UNACCEPTABLE FOR ARMENIA: ARMENIAN FM ACTING SPOKESMAN
Armenia accepts and respects the right of each country to present a
question or an agenda item at the UN, acting spokesman of the
Armenian Foreign Ministry Vladimir Karapetyan says to ArmenPress news
agency in response to the question: How does Armenia assess
yesterday’s initiative by GUAM, and the vote that followed, to place
protracted conflicts on the agenda of the UN General Assembly?
Karapetyan says: Although this particular item has reached the
General Assembly Agenda according to UN procedures, however the fact
that the UN General Committee rejected this initiative and that the
item passed into the General Assembly with a mere 16 in favor, 15
against, clearly indicates the mood of the international community.
The initiative has been presented by GUAM, of which Azerbaijan is a
part. The fact that Azerbaijan has presented such an initiative in
such a forum is evidence again that Azerbaijan is backing down from
the right of self-determination identified in the last version of the
negotiating document that the Co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group have
put on the table, as well as from discussions surrounding the right
of Nagorno Karabakh to determine its status through a referendum.
On the other hand, if Azerbaijan’s purpose is to delay and postpone
the settlement process within the OSCE framework with the intention
of later transferring that process to other forums, that is
categorically unacceptable for Armenia. In that case, Azerbaijan must
sit around the negotiating table with Nagorno Karabakh.

The Japan Times
Sunday, Sept. 17, 2006
Take a wild ride on the Orient Express
By MARK SCHREIBER
THE OTTOMAN CAGE by Barbara Nadel. New York: Thomas
Dunne Books, 2005, 312 pp., $ 23.95 (cloth).
DRAGON FIRE by William S. Cohen. New York: Tom Doherty
Associates, 2006, 383 pp., $ 24.95 (cloth).
“One of the most frequently asked questions that I get
as a British author,” Barbara Nadel tells the e-zine
Shots ( ), “is ‘why do you set your
crime series in Istanbul?’ I generally finish my now
familiar diatribe with . . . ‘Istanbul has a lot of
places in which to hide bodies.’ ”
Since her release of “Belshazzar’s Daughter” in 1999,
Nadel has continued to prove her point in an ongoing
series of police procedural novels set in Istanbul
featuring inspector Cetin Ikmen. The work under review
is for the U.S. edition, initially released in Britain
under the title “A Chemical Prison.”
Ikmen, Nadel’s series character, is a tough Turkish
cop, a chain smoker and plodding investigator out of
the Simenon-Maigret mold, so old-fashioned he still
hasn’t figured out how to use his cell phone. From his
personal life we see he’s also something of a male
chauvinist. Problems at home, including a senile
father who needs to be institutionalized, are taking a
toll on his subservient wife.
In “The Ottoman Cage,” police find themselves
confounded by the crime scene. Located in a house next
to Topkapi palace, it bears a striking resemblance to
what is known as a Kafes apartment, where the old
Ottomans used to keep rivals confined in a sort of
urban exile. The victim, a young man, had been
strangled, and the atrophied condition of his body
suggests he has been prisoner in the room for a
considerable duration, kept in a sedated state by
injections of a synthetic opiate that only doctors can
easily obtain, and thereby casting suspicion on the
city’s close-knit community of well-to-do Armenian
physicians.
Part of book’s appeal is in how well Nadel presents
Turkey’s social classes and ethnic diversity, with a
Jewish police detective, Armenian physicians and
people smuggled into the country from parts of the
former Soviet Union. A side plot involves an
on-the-job relationship: Sgt. Farsakoglu, an
attractive, single policewoman, has the hots for
Suleyman, her unhappily married male colleague.
The London-born Nadel, who is intimately familiar with
Turkey, also has a background in counseling sexually
abused teenagers and teaching psychology, which
doubtless has influenced her various insights into the
sexual mores of a predominantly Muslim country that
are touched upon in this book.
Those interested in reading other mysteries set in
Turkey might enjoy contrasting Nadel’s series with the
translated works of Turkish mystery author Orhan
Pamuk, whose novel “My Name Is Red,” set in
16th-century Istanbul, was reviewed here last March.
Title fatigue
With a name like “Dragon Fire,” it’s got to be a
potboiler involving China, right? Fortunately, this
thriller by William S. Cohen, who was U.S. Secretary
of Defense from 1997 to 2001, turned out to be more
original than its cliched title.
The protagonist is the U.S. defense secretary — not
Donald Rumsfeld but Michael Patrick Santini, a former
senator who spent several years as a prisoner of war
in the Hanoi Hilton and who accepted the Cabinet
appointment after his predecessor died mysteriously of
anthrax.
Threats from Middle Eastern terrorists barely figure
in this work. Instead, poor America is in danger of
being blindsided by a host of other foreign intrigues,
beginning with a militant faction in China that is
plotting to hamstring the civilian party leadership so
it can pounce on Taiwan.
First, however, it needs to keep the U.S. Navy out of
the Taiwan Strait. The Chinese conspirators outsource
their skulduggery to someone with money and influence:
a billionaire Russian oligarch who hopes to forge an
alliance with Germany, and who will sell drugs,
high-tech weaponry or assassination services to all
comers, if the price is right. To add to the intrigue,
Elena, a beautiful and mysterious Israeli assassin,
sashays into the picture.
Aside from having a John McCain clone as his main
protagonist, Cohen does not succumb to the temptation
of caricaturing specific individuals in the Bush
administration. But that does not mean he doesn’t have
a serious message, which seems to be that Americans
seem bent on being their own worst enemies. The heroic
Santini, unable to dissuade the president from the
aggressive strategies pushed by saber-rattling
conservatives, is driven out of desperation to disobey
his boss’s orders and put his country first.
This cliffhanger is convincingly spun as only a
Washington insider of Cohen’s caliber can do, although
its climax, a Dodge City shootout at Tiananmen Square,
seems a bit contrived. I was pleased to see Chinese
names in the story rendered more or less correctly
using hanyu pinyin spellings — usually a bete noir
for American proofreaders — although a “Hsu” (using
the old Wade-Giles romanization) was allowed to slip
in. It should have been “Xu.” But as I like to say, if
the Hsu fits, wear it.
The Japan Times
(C) All rights reserved

Anatolia news agency, Ankara, in English
14 Sep 06
Turkish, French foreign ministers discuss Armenian genocide claims,
Iran
Paris, 14 September: Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul debated
so-called Armenian genocide allegations, Iran and Afghanistan during
his working dinner with his French counterpart Philippe Douste-Blazy
last night, diplomats said today.
According to diplomatic sources, Gul expressed Turkey’s concerns
about the resolution, submitted to the French parliament by the
Socialist Party, which considers denial of so-called Armenian
genocide claims a crime.
Gul asked Douste-Blazy whether or not bringing this resolution, which
will totally restrict freedom of expression and thought, to the
French parliament is a dilemma when EU countries call on Turkey to
abolish the Article 301 of the Turkish Penal Code.
Recalling Turkey’s proposal to set up a joint commission of
(Turkish-Armenian) historians to deal with this matter, Gul said that
experts from other countries, including France, can also join this
commission.
Gul stated that these calls of Turkey remain unanswered, and added:
“We will never accept any moves aiming to make a historical matter a
political one.”
On the other hand, Turkish and French foreign ministers said that
their countries do not want to increase the number of troops they
have sent to Afghanistan.
Douste-Blazy briefed Gul on EU member’s proposal to Iran, and
expressed their concern that Tehran did not respond to it.
Gul’s meeting with Balladur
FM Gul later met Edouard Balladur, the head of the French
Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee, and debated Turkey’s EU
membership bid, Cyprus and Lebanon.
Balladur said that they have always seen Turkey in EU vision, but
noted that the Union has to make some institutional reforms before a
new wave of enlargement.
On the other hand, Gul said that Turkish government is open to
criticisms regarding Turkey’s EU membership bid.
Noting that [self-declared] TRNC’s [Turkish Republic of Northern
Cyprus] economic isolation has not been ended despite the promises,
Gul said that Turkey cannot open its ports and airports to Greek
Cypriot ships and planes unless isolation of TRNC is ended.
Regarding developments in Lebanon, Balladur expressed France’s
willingness to host an international conference to resolve problems
in Lebanon and welcomed Turkish government’s decision to send troops
to Lebanon.
Gul also had talks with senators
Meanwhile, during the working lunch he had with members of the French
parliament’s EU Follow-Up Group and French-Turkish Friendship Group,
Gul discussed bilateral relations, Turkey’s EU membership bid, and
regional and international topics.
Gul also interviewed with LCI news channel and leading French daily
Le Monde today.
FM Gul will depart from Paris after participating in a conference on
“Turkey-EU relations” at the French Institute of International
Relations (IFRI) tonight.

Arminfo, Yerevan, in Russian
14 Sep 06
ARMENIAN POLICE ARREST SUSPECTS IN MURDER OF TAX SERVICE OFFICER
Yerevan, 14 September: Some people have been detained in connection
with the murder of the head of the investigation department of the
Armenian Tax Service, Shagen Ovasapyan, the press secretary of the
Prosecutor-General’s Office, Sona Truzyan, has told an Arminfo
correspondent.
She said that two men had been arrested. However, in the interest of
the investigation she did not disclose their names. There are media
reports that one of the detainees is a former police officer [name
omitted].
[Passage omitted: known details of the murder]