“AZERBAIJAN WILL NOT COMPROMISE WHEN IT COMES TO TERRITORIAL INTEGRITY”
A1+
[02:46 pm] 30 October, 2006
“The ten-year negotiations have resulted fruitless because of the
approach of Armenia which does not want to respect international
laws”, said President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliev during the meeting
with representatives of foreign Mass Media accredited in Russia.
But Aliev also said that the Prague process can create chances for
peaceful settlement of the conflict, day.az reports. The President of
Azerbaijan announced that the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan is
not subject to negotiations and that Armenia must fulfill the four
resolutions of the UN Security Council which demand to take out the
Armenian armed forces from the territory of Azerbaijan.
“The approach of Armenia is based on wishes and expectations. They
think that the temporary success they had in military operations with
the help of another country gives them the right to think about taking
Karabakh away from us. It will not happen.
That’s why the RA authorities must understand that Azerbaijan will
never compromise when it comes to its territorial integrity”, announced
Ilham Aliev.
He also announced that the approach of Azerbaijan is that the Armenians
and Azeris of Nagorno Karabakh who will return there will be given
the highest possible sovereignty in the world.

THE FALLEN BRIDGE OVER THE BOSPORUS
By Spengler
Asia Times, Hong Kong
Oct 30 2006
Not since Boris Pasternak refused the Nobel Prize for literature
in 1958 has a Nobel laureate regarded the award with such mixed
feelings as Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk. He set out to be a political
dilettante, as befits a postmodern European novelist, and to his
profound consternation has had to become a man of principle. That in
no way diminishes the poignancy of Pamuk’s position, but it makes him
more interesting than the average martyr, in a postmodern sort of way.
I reviewed his most important book Snow two years ago, [1] and
have just read it again, working through a box of oval Turkish
cigarettes. Unlike Austrian pornographer Elfriede Jelinek, 2004’s
winner, or last year’s laureate, the tedious Harold Pinter, Pamuk
richly deserves his award. British playwright and critic Simon
Gray produced the definitive critique of Pinter, who wrote gnomic
verses and sent them to various literati. Pinter sent a poem to Gray
that reads in its entirety: “I saw Len Hutton in his prime/Another
time/Another time.” After some weeks he called Gray to ask his opinion;
Gray returned, “I am sorry, Harold, but I haven’t finished it yet.”
Whatever the political motivations of the Swedish Academy might have
been, Snow is an indispensable tale of civilizational tragedy. The
pity is that Pamuk’s own case would have made an even better novel;
in the best self-referential fashion, he has become the protagonist
of his own fiction in the theater of the real. Jorge Luis Borges
would have been amused.
When Pamuk told a Swiss interviewer in February 2005 that Turkey had
massacred “a million Armenians” during World War I (the actual number
was more than twice that), he joined a number of Turkish academics who
broached the great taboo of Turkish history. But he underestimated
his country’s swing toward political Islam under Prime Minister
Recep Erdogan. The following June, Turkey enacted the notorious
Article 301 making it a crime to “insult Turkishness”, and Pamuk was
charged retroactively. A storm of international protest persuaded
the Turkish government to drop the charges, but Pamuk now lives in
effective exile in New York, where Columbia University shelters him
with a visiting professorship.
During a June 2004 visit to Turkey, US President George W Bush
offered: The Turkish writer Orhan Pamuk has said that the finest view
of Istanbul is not from the shores of Europe, or from the shores of
Asia, but from a bridge that unites them, and lets you see both. His
work has been a bridge between cultures, and so is the Republic of
Turkey. The people of this land understand, as that great writer
has observed, that “what is important is not [a] clash of parties,
civilizations, cultures, East and West”. What is important, he says,
is to realize “that other people in other continents and civilizations”
are “exactly like you”.
The bridge has fallen, leaving Pamuk gasping for breath on the
Western shore. Turkey’s Western loyalties were founded upon a secular
nationalism that sought to bury Islam under modernizing reforms.
Pamuk’s theme in Snow is the horrible emptiness of secular Turkey,
with its poverty, inertia, bureaucratic sclerosis and official
brutality. Thoroughly secular in upbringing and outlook, Pamuk
nonetheless evinces profound sympathy for the Islamic loyalties of
the Turkish poor, as well as the terrible attraction that political
Islam holds for Turkey’s disappointed elite.
The poet Ka, the novel’s protagonist, has fled Turkey for Germany
after a military cracked down on left-wing intellectuals. His poetic
faculties dry up in Germany, but reawaken during a winter’s journey
to the eastern border city of Kars, where he has traveled to report
on a wave of suicides by young women. Depression lies as heavy upon
eastern Anatolia as the snow that isolates Kars from the rest of the
world. Dead-eyed, the jobless spend their days watching television
in tea-houses. Young women expelled from schools for refusing to
remove the Islamic headscarf in keeping with Turkey’s secular law
hang themselves in protest.
Kars, as I noted in my 2004 review, was an Armenian city when World
War I broke out. The Armenians were butchered, and their churches,
some a thousand years old, remain as a ghastly admonition to the
impoverished and largely idle Turkish inhabitants. “The Turks of Kars,”
I wrote, “live on foreign ground, buffeted by the Westernizing ideas
of Kemal Ataturk and the Arabic ideas of the Koran. Ultimately they
have nothing of their own, and dwell on the idea of suicide.”
There is a museum of “Armenian massacres”, Pamuk’s narrator notes
dryly, which surprises the odd foreign visitor, for it represents
the genocide as Armenian murder of Turks.
Ka has an ulterior motive, to seek out the beautiful Ipek, a schoolmate
who recently divorced and might be available. Her former husband
Muhtar has become the leader of the local Islamist party, and tells
Ka about his conversion from secular leftist to impassioned Muslim:
Years went by, the military took over and we all went to prison, and
like everyone else, when I was released I drifted like an idiot. The
people I had once tried to imitate had changed, those whose approval I
once wanted had disappeared, and none of my dreams had come true, not
in poetry or in life … It was as if I’d been erased from history,
banished from civilization. The civilized world seemed far away
[from Kars] and I couldn’t imitate it.
Muhtar resolves to die by freezing, but is interrupted by followers
of a Sufi sheikh whom he meets and resolves to follow. His poetic
faculty returns and he reverts to politics, but as an Islamist rather
than a Marxist.
Contact with people of Islamic faith rekindles Ka’s long-dead poetic
voice as well. He becomes embroiled in the vicious intrigues between
the Islamists and the local security forces, who use him to flush out
a notorious Islamist terrorist nicknamed “Blue”. Blue, it emerges,
has dallied with Ka’s beloved Ipek. Wearing a tape recorder with
the police on his heels, Ka meets with Blue. He tells the terrorist,
“Before I got here, I hadn’t written a poem in years … But since
coming to Kars, all the roads on which poetry travels have reopened.
I attribute this to the love of God I’ve felt here.”
Blue responds, “In a place like this, if you worship God as a European,
you’re bound to be a laughing-stock. Then you cannot even believe you
believe. You don’t belong to this country; you’re not even a Turk
anymore. First try to be like everyone else. Then try to believe
in God.”
The security forces kill Blue in a night of grotesque violence. Ipek
abandons Ka in disgust. Ka returns to Germany distraught, where he
is gunned down in the street some time later. The cycle of poems Ka
has composed in Kars is lost forever. At first this struck me as an
irritating conceit: if poetry is the subject of the novel, one might
expect the author to provide some actual poems. But there is a deeper
and more disturbing point. There is no “there” in modern Turkey,
Pamuk seems to say. The Islamism of Muhtar and even Blue is not the
Islam of the past, but a vehicle for ex-Marxists who have lost their
intellectual compass. The Islam of the brutalized and brutal Anatolian
peasants is a protest against a world in which they have no place.
Blue, the doomed terrorist, demands that Ka “be like everyone else”
rather than masquerade as a Turk while his soul resides in Europe.
But Blue is as globalized as Ka, or indeed the author. He eschews the
cigarettes of his own country in favor of Marlboro Reds, an expression
of globalized American taste as insipid as California Zinfandels
or Ralph Lauren suits. Blue not only smokes them, but praises them
in panegyrics: “Ah, the best thing America ever gave the world were
these red Marlboros. I could smoke these Marlboros for the rest of
my life.” That is as close to poetry as we get in Orhan Pamuk’s Snow.
Note 1. In defense of Turkish cigarettes, August 24, 2004. Snow by
Orhan Pamuk. Faber and Faber Ltd, August 2004. ISBN: 057121830X. Price:
17 pounds (US$31.85), 448 pages.

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE HOLDS TRAINING ON EUROPEAN COURT OF HUMAN RIGHTS
Panorama.am
12:55 30/10/06
The United States Department of Justice (DOJ) has organized a seminar
to educate trainers for Armenian prosecutors, judges, and advocates
on the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) and on advanced case
studies. The seminar will be led by the Honorable Richard G. Stearns,
United States District Court Judge; Gediminas Sagatys, Senior Advisor
to the Parliament of the Republic of Lithuania and Professor of Law
at Mykolas Romeris University in Vilnius; and Henrikas Mickevicius,
Executive Director of the Human Rights Monitoring Institute in
Vilnius. The training seminar will last a day and a half and will
be held on October 30-31, as well as November 1-2, 2006. The seminar
will include advanced discussions and case studies of Articles 5 and 6
from the European Convention on Human Rights, as well as a comparative
analysis of the recent amendments to the Armenian criminal procedure
code with the ECHR. There will also be discussions on how the ECHR
has changed the constitutional, legislative, and case law landscape
in Lithuania, and lessons learned from this transition.
Armenia has been a signatory to the European Court of Human Rights
since 2002. This training is especially relevant since the number
of Armenian petitioners who have made applications to the Court has
increased from 89 in 2003 to 340 in 2005. This will be Judge Stearns”s
second trip to Armenia at the invitation of the U.S. Government. In
June, 2006, Judge Stearns conducted training sessions for Armenian
judges, the Prosecutor General”s Office, and the Armenian Police
Department on trafficking in persons issues, and specifically on
victims” rights and the protection of witnesses.

“TRACING BACK OUR CULTURE” PERFORMANCE GIVES CENTER STAGE TO CHILDREN WITH SPECIAL NEEDS
Reuters, UK
Oct 30 2006
Source: World Vision Middle East/Eastern Europe office (MEERO)
Over 30 children with special needs, living in especially difficult
circumstances presented a stunning two hour historical review of
Armenia through a theatre performance under the title ‘Tracing back
our Culture’ in Gyumri, Armenia recently.
‘I know the story of many of these children, and it is unbelievable
that they play in such a delightful performance’, said Hasmik
Dzvakeryan, a teacher of the Gyumri Children House- one of the numerous
guests of the event.
‘Such programs are of multifaceted importance, we not only try
to integrate these children into our society, but also prepare
the society, acquaint it with the existence of these children and
their capabilities to assist integration,’ says Zara Aslanyan, Child
Protection Programme (CPP) Senior Social Worker, World Vision Armenia.
The children explored the complete history, culture, traditions and
the legends of Armenia including Shirak marz, west-north region of
Armenia, and the 10th century Marmashen monastery which provided the
setting and inspiration for the event.
‘Unless you learn the history and the culture of your own nation,
you’ll be unable to recognize the whole world’, was the slogan of
the organizers.
‘We want to teach these children the history and the culture of their
homeland and thus help them become fully integrated members of this
society’, said Karine Kurghinyan CPP Coordinator of the Gyumri Area
Development Programme (ADP).
‘I am surprised how well these children know the history of their
church. Now I am sure that future generation is able to build a truly
Christian community’ said, Archbishop Michael Ajapahyan, the head of
Shirak diocese of Armenian Apostolic Church, the honorable guest of
the event.
The Armenian Apostolic Church can be traced back to the time of the
Apostles and is one of the oldest denominations in Christianity.
‘It’s so amazing when the children themselves were asking to rehearse
the performance whenever they have spare time. I was so happy to see
‘my’ children reciting and playing their parts as well as real actors
would do’, said children’s tutor Ervandanush Asatryan – ‘Aunt Anik’,
as the children lovingly call her.
Currently, 72 children and their parents attend Gyumri ADP Community
Centre. They are assisted by psychologists, speech therapists, social
workers and a special educator. They also take part in a number of
art classes organized by the World Vision Armenia CPP department.
The ‘Tracing back our culture’ program will continue in the following
months with further performances being dedicated to other monasteries
and historical monuments of Armenia.

OSCE ORGANIZES ARMENIAN OMBUDSMAN VISIT TO LITHUANIA
Panorama.am
13:35 30/10/06
The Armenian Ombudsman, Armen Harutyunyan, today wrapped up a five-day
visit to the Ombudsman institution of Lithuania’s Parliament (Seimas),
which was organized by the OSCE.
The visit aimed at strengthening the co-operation between the two
institutions. Mr Harutyunyan talked to his Lithuanian counterparts
about the investigation of individual human rights complaints, staff
selection, and public relations matters.
He also visited a penitentiary institution and met the Lithuanian
Minister of Justice Mr. Betras Baguska, the Deputy Speaker of Seimas
Mr. Ceflovas Jursenas and a representative of the Committee on
Human Rights.
“This trip was beneficial and very useful because it allowed us to
exchange our experience and approaches on the effective functioning
of Ombudsman institutions,” Mr Harutyunyan said.
Lars Gerold, Rule of Law expert with the OSCE Office for Democratic
Institutions and Human Rights, which together with the OSCE Office
in Yerevan organized Mr Harutyunyan’s visit, said:
“National human rights institutions play a key role in the protection
of human rights. The co-operation between these two Ombudsman
institutions is an excellent example of sharing experience and best
practices, which will no doubt benefit both.”
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

HUSEYN BAGIROV: “CITES’S BAN ON STURGEON AND BLACK CAVIAR EXPORT HAS POLITICAL AIM AND NO LOSS FOR AZERBAIJAN”
Azeri Press Agency, Azerbaijan
Oct 30 2006
“The place where the Volga joins the Caspian constitutes 75-80%
of the Sea pollution”
APA interviews Ecology and Natural Resources Minister Huseyn Baghirov
– What activities will be implemented under Presidential decree on
improvement of ecological situation?
– The environment is that which is affected by any human activities
in industry, household and lands. A number of documents have been
approved for improvement of the situation. 5 national and state
programs were approved by Presidents- Heydar Aliyev and Ilham Aliyev.
The first problems appear in Absheron because of oil pollution.
Azerbaijan has been producing oil for over 160 years industrially.
90% of the world oil had been produced in Azerbaijan in primitive
methods. 15 000 hectares of land have been left completely polluted
with oil and 30 000 hectares partially. Besides oil, industrial
development also caused complex ecological situation in Absheron. The
Caspian now has a number of over-polluted hotspots. The most polluted
zone is the junction of the Volga with the Caspian which is 75-80%
of the totally polluted territories. The second over-polluted zone is
the Iranian shore. The third is junction of the Kyur with the Caspian
which comes through Armenia and Georgia. Mingechevir Reservoir is not
in capacity to completely prevent the pollution. The fourth zone is
Absheron peninsula.
All these problems are planned to be removed. Waste water let to the
Caspian will be completely prevented by 2010. Much of the oil-polluted
territories will be purified and special organization will be set up
to implement these activities.
– Ecology and natural Resources Ministry experience the pressure of
state Organizations and officials while fighting the damage to the
environment. What measures will be taken to prevent these cases?
– This problem doesn’t only apply to the state organizations. For
example, a shepherd damages the nature. 3-4 sheep should be grazed in
a hectare. But, it is not so in reality. Which shepherd observes this
rule? On the other hand, it should be engraved in the mind of every
enterprise that they can’t work with purification equipment. The
State can do nothing by chasing 8m people. The Ministry therefore
increases awareness.
– What amendments will be made to the law in order to be able to
prevent nature damage? Some articles will be included in the Criminal
Code, I think….
– Monetary penalties of 556m were imposed on the culprits a year by
2001. this Figure reached 33bn in 2005. Penalties of 55-60bn manats
were imposed but only 10% has to date been paid. Besides tightening
the punishment and penalties, people’s approach to the nature should
be changed. It should be known as a guilt or sin to damage the nature.
– International organizations, in particular foreign oil companies
operating in Azerbaijan also harm the nature. Most companies don’t
pay the penalties. What is your view?
– These companies use high-tech equipment but their approach to the
Nature is different. We demand them to approach the nature as they do
in their country. A lawsuit was brought against Salyan Oil for the
penalties of AZN 111 650 because of oil pollution. Garadagh Cement
has twice been brought to the court for penalties of AZN 64 503 and
AZN 69 850. Gobustan Operating Company was fined AZN 143 935, Caspian
Specialist Service AZN 1980. Karasu Operating Company was brought
to the court for AZN 96 162 and the company cleaned the polluted
territories. Shirvan Oil was fined AZN 55 and a claim of AZN 8531
against this company in trial.
– CITES (the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species
of Wild Fauna and Flora) kept effective the ban on black caviar and
Caspian sturgeon. This ban is applicable for the Caspian States except
Iran. What is your view on the problem?
– CITES’s decision is illogical. US support for this ban is very
incredible. On the other side, what is the meaning of this decision
is not clear. It is not loss for Azerbaijan. We would understand the
decision if it had banned all littoral states to export black caviar
and sturgeon. This decision has political aims and no connection to
the damage to the nature.
– Azerbaijan has only 10% of the water reserves of the South
Caucasus. 2/3 of the world population will be faced water shortage
in 2025. What about Azerbaijan?
– Ecology and natural Resources Ministry submitted a number of
proposals to the Cabinet. We see water as strategic resource.
Azerbaijani population should be ready for re-purification of the
used water. World countries use this method. Israel uses this method
too. But, the purification technology should meet the standards
of the World Health Organization. 30-32% of Azerbaijan’s water
reserves is in rivers, of which 28% in the Kyur. Azerbaijan is not
expected to experience water shortage by 2050. But, we should use
water economically.
– Foreign Companies are tapping gold deposits in Azerbaijani lands
under occupation by Armenia. What measures will be taken?
– Armenia is an aggressor. It killed thousands, evicted millions of
people. Azerbaijan authorized Canadian R.V. Investment to tap the
gold deposits in these territories. This Company has to prevent the
illegal tapping of the gold deposits and bring them to international
court. Canadian First Dynasty Mines (FDM) company is tapping the
gold deposits illegally in these lands. R.V. Investment can solve
the problem in accordance with the law of their country.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

COMSTAR BUYS 75 PCT OF ARMENIAN TELECOMMUNICATIONS GROUPS CALLNET, CORNET
Hemscott, UK
Oct 30 2006
LONDON (AFX) – Comstar United TeleSystems, which provides
telecommunication services in Russia and the Commonwealth of
Independent States (CIS), said it has bought 75 pct of CallNet and
its subsidiary Cornet in the Republic of Armenia.
‘This is the first transaction in a pipeline of new acquisitions which
we announced in October 2006 to make use of IPO proceeds in order to
implement our investment programme in the regions,’ said Eric Franke,
CEO of Comstar.
CallNet and Cornet together comprise the second largest alternative
telecommunications group in the Republic of Armenia. Cornet services
76 pct of the banking sector in Armenia.
Financial details of the acquisition were not disclosed. Comstar has
an option to buy out the remaining shares in CallNet.
/item.do?newsId=37142877208879
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

ARMENIA’S PRESIDENT DUE IN MOSCOW
TREND Information, Azerbaijan
Oct 30 2006
(RBC) – RBC, 30.10.2006, Moscow 10:26:59.Armenia’s President Robert
Kocharian is expected in Russia for an official visit on October
30-31, 2006. In Moscow, President Kocharian will have talks with his
Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin. The two presidents are scheduled
to consider the most urgent cooperation issues and the performance of
top-level agreements with regards to enhancing the Russian-Armenian
interaction, specifically, in fuel and energy and transportation
spheres, as well as direct economic ties between various regions of
Russia and Armenia, reports Trend.
The two heads of states will also share their views concerning
the intensification of interaction in the context of the Collective
Security Treaty Organization. Efforts for the recovery in the Caucasus
as well as for the fostering of confidence and cooperation will also
be in the focus.
As reported earlier, 2005 was the Year of Russia in Armenia, and the
year 2006 will be celebrated in Russia as the Year of Armenia.

‘TURKISH ACCESSION DANGER FOR EUROPE, ILLUSION FOR TURKEY’
Fulya Ozerkan
Turkish Daily News
Oct 30 2006
Jacques Toubon, French member of the European Parliament, voiced
strong opposition to Turkey’s bid to join the European Union, defending
privileged partnership for Ankara instead of full membership.
“Our position is to be against full accession of Turkey into the
EU and in favor of privileged partnership. We think Europe will no
longer be Europe we want if Turkey becomes a full member of the bloc,”
Toubon, a Christian Democrat, former French minister of budget and
spokesperson of President Jacques Chirac’s government, told a group
of Turkish reporters here.
The European parliamentarian argued that Turkey was not European in any
sense and accused one of the Turkish reporters of being provocative
when they asked if Turkey and Greek Cyprus were located on the same
longitude, how was it possible to say that Turkey did not belong to
Europe geographically, while the latter did.
“In Turkey this EU issue is a fantasy… The EU accession is not
[your] only destiny. You have a good future without the EU. Turkey’s
accession is a danger for Europe and an illusion for Turkey,” he said.
“Why is Article 301 already on the penal code? It is a question of
national sovereignty. Are you ready to abandon your sovereignty? Are
you ready to get rid of your principals?” he asked.
Toubon also criticized the French bill penalizing any denial of the
alleged Armenian genocide, saying: “I’m strongly against it. History
is not made by law. History is made by facts. If we want to discuss
[history] we have to avoid provocation.”
He also stressed the EU was not a Christian club and said if Turkey
remained as regional power and privileged partner of the EU, the bloc
would then have a strong ally “in this crucial region of the world.”

A FRIEND’S BLOW TO ORHAN PAMUK
Turkish Daily News
Turkish Press Yesterday
Oct 30 2006
Major headlines from Turkish newspapers and their summaries on
Oct. 29, 2006
Sabah yesterday reported that Taner Akcam, a Turkish academic who
maintains that mass killings of Armenians in 1915 were part of an
organized campaign tantamount to genocide, is set to publish a book
on the alleged genocide in the United States. The report referred
to academic Taner Akcam as a “writer of the books accusing Turkey of
genocide of Armenians.”The book, titled “A Shameful Act,” includes a
letter from Orhan Pamuk, controversial Turkish winner of the Nobel
Prize in Literature this year. After Pamuk’s award was announced,
he was criticized at home for having “sold out” his country to clinch
the Nobel. Pamuk had previously said that Turks killed 30,000 Kurds
and 1,000,000 Armenians, subjects about which the Turkish people are
very sensitive. Some Turks felt that his political statements were the
major reason he was awarded the Nobel. In its report, Sabah recalled
that, following reactions to his words and his Nobel, Pamuk had toned
down his stance on the Armenian genocide allegations.
However, his letter in Akcam’s book says, “This book is a perfect
retrospective on the organized destruction of Ottoman Armenians written
by a daring Turkish academic who has dedicated his life to record
historical realities.”Sabah said these expressions would be likely
to give Pamuk a difficult time when he was in the midst of making an
effort to deaden the Armenian controversy surrounding his Nobel.