T.TOROSIAN: PAWNING FOR GETTING OFF WITH CALL UP IS AN UNSUCCESSFUL SOLUTION
Noyan Tapan
Aug 10 2006
YEREVAN, AUGUST 10, NOYAN TAPAN. Tigran Torosian, the RA National
Assembly Speaker, believes that the pawn for getting off with the
call up for studying abroad is an unsuccessful solution. Responding
a reader’s question in the “Azg” daily internet site, he said that
this system brings to a fact that children from poor families lose
the possibility of getting high-quality education, even if the
foreign university covers all expenses. The one asking the question
criticized that decision of the RA Government, according to which,
boys going abroad to study, are obliged to pay pawn equivalent to 10-15
thousand dollars to the state treasure house for being transferred
to the reserve.
“Though the goal is understandable: to make students interested
in returning Armenia. And a student, got the privilege, who is
transferred to the reserve, must be under an obligation towards
the Fatherland. But this student must be returned Armenia owing
to attention and care,” the NA Speaker said. Tigran Torosian also
said that the Ministry of Education and Science must keep an eye on
the process and progress of education of students studying abroad,
and after they return Armenia, it must propose a job of at least 1-2
years at a state structure. “Still in 1999 I gave this idea to the
Minister of Education of that time, who considered it very attractive,
but no step has been taken by now.
Probably, it needs to be fixed by a law,” the NA Speaker said in
his answer.

BRITISH INTERNET SITE DEVOTED TO KARABAKH CONFLICT
Author: R. Aghayev
TREND Information, Azerbaijan
Aug. 9, 2006
There is an Internet site ( ) devoted to the
Karabakh Conflict that functions in Great Bratain, the Chairman of
the London-Azerbaijan Society Talekh Heydarov told Trend.
The Internet site represents the full information about the
Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict, the history of Karabakh, its famous
faces in history, a lot of photographs and video files. The site will
particularly focus its attention on fires committed by Armenians on the
occupied territories of Azerbaijan, mass destruction of Azerbaijani
historical and cultural and religion monuments in Karabakh and many
other things.
“It should be mentioned that the Armenian lobby has worked and lived
there for over hundred years. However, over the last 10-15 years we
have seen that the British common people`s opinions about Azerbaijan
has been changed for the better. We do all possible to overcome
Armenians and bear the truth about Karabakh, and I think that we
have won Armenians in this direction, since many British people have
already known whom Karabakh is belong to. There are many Britons who
are aware of Armenia as well. However, those Britons who are aware
both of Armenia and Azerbaijan support Azerbaijan, since they know
alt the truth. We have done a good job and will work even better in
the future. Our weapons is information”, told T. Heydarov. He also
added that the London-Azerbaijan Society also publishes the magazine
of “Visions of Azerbaijan in Britain” devoted to policy, economy,
culture and history of Azerbaijan.
T. Heydarov expressed his satisfaction with British-Azerbaijani
relations at all levels, and added that the British Government supports
and acknowledges the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan.

PEOPLE’S OPINION TO BE OF DECISIVE ROLE IN ISSUE OF ACCEPTING RA NEW HYMN
Noyan Tapan
Aug 10 2006
YEREVAN, AUGUST 10, NOYAN TAPAN. The RA Ministry of Culture and Youth
Issues got 85 claims for participation in the competition of the
RA new hymn from June 8 to August 1 inclusive. As Minister Hasmik
Poghosian stated at the August 9 press-conference, the claims were
dispensed among the following nominations: “New Word and New Music,”
“Famous Word and New Music,” “Famous Word and Famous Music,” “Famous
Music and New Word.” By results of the first stage of the competition,
5 of the presented works entered the second stage. Those are works
written on Tigran Mansurian’s music and Yeghishe Charents’ text,
Yervand Yerznkian’s music and text of an author with “Ararat B” pen
name, on Edgar Hovhannisian’s music and Vahagn Davtian’s text, Aram
Khachatrian’s music and Arsen Soghomonian’s text, Robert Amirkhanian’s
music and Lyudvig Durian’s text. H.Poghosian mentioned that during
the second stage of the competition which will be held in the form
of public hearings, the mentioned 5 works will be performed in two
variants: by a symphony orchestra and by a choir to the accompaniment
of symphony orchestra. According to the Minister, though a competition
board consisting of 22 people will make the final decision, but the
public opinion will be of a decisive role in the issue of choice of
the RA new hymn.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

SECOND AZERI SCHOOL TO BE OPENED IN LONDON
Author: R.Agayev
TREND Information, Azerbaijan
Aug. 9, 2006
An Azerbaijani school is already functioning in London, and the second
one is intended to be opened, the chairman of London-Azerbaijani
Society Taleh Heydarov told Trend.
He stressed that the society has been functioning in London since
2004. “I think that such type of organization assumes a great
importance for Azerbaijan because there are few imagines about
Azerbaijan in the world, especially in Europe. Therefore, our goal
is to present Azerbaijan, its history, culture, etc to British people.
We have held many measures in this direction. Our first measures
was a cultural night of Azerbaijan and more than 200 British people,
including students got familiar with our national music and kitchen,”
Heydarov told.
The second measure was dedicated to Karabakh, to which we had invited
the American journalist Tomas Golth who has seen the horrors of
Khojali tragedy committed by Armenians in 1992. During the measures,
reports were delivered by Azerbaijani ambassador to Britain, former
British ambassador to Azerbaijan Rojer Tomas and Prof. of Edinburgh
University Gulam Rza Sabiri Tebrizi. Besides, the event brought
together more than 100 students, professors and politicians.
Heydarov pointed out that the society has very close relations with
Turkish, Russian and Iranian organizations which support each others.
“We participate in each other’s measures. Yet our relations with Moslem
organizations are inactive, but we will activate them,” he said, adding
that together with many organizations, including Anglo-Azeri Society we
have provided assistance to refugees and orphan children in Azerbaijan.
Besides, the chairman of the society mentioned the intention of the
society to actively participate at the forum world Azerbaijani youths
scheduled for August 12 in Baku.

AZERI FM CONCLUDES HIS VISIT TO SWEDEN
Author: A.Ismayilova
TREND Information, Azerbaijan
Aug. 9, 2006
The Azerbaijani Foreign Minister, Elmar Mammadyarov, is to be back
from Sweden on 9 August.
The Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry told Trend that Azerbaijani on 8
August Mammadyarov had a meeting with the Swedish Secretary of State
for Industry and Trade, Oven Erik Seder. Talks were held at the Trade
Council of Sweden and the Russian Swedish Trade Chamber.
The Azerbaijani FM also met with the Vice President of the
Parliamentary Assembly of OSCE, Swedish MP, Ton Finskard.
The Azerbaijani FM discussed the problem of Nagorno-Karabakh in
a meeting with the Parliamentary Assembly of the OSCE, special
representative of the organization on Nagorno-Karabakh conflict,
Goran Lennmarker.

DM MEETS WITH NEW AMBASSADOR OF RUSSIA
AzerTag, Azerbaijan
Aug. 9, 2006
Defense Minister Colonel-General Safar Abiyev met August 8 with the
newly appointed Ambassador Plenipotentiary and Extraordinary of the
Russian Federation to Azerbaijan Vasiliy Istratov.
The Minister expressed Azerbaijan’s intention to continue cooperation
with Russia in many fields, including the military one. “Russia is
our historical neighbor. We should keep and develop traditions of
good neighborhood by all means. It was not by accident that it was
Baku that hosted the 50th anniversary session of the Council of the
CIS Defense Ministers.”, he said.
Ambassador Vasiliy Istratov, in his turn, said: “I’m very satisfied
with my appointment as the ambassador to Azerbaijan. I believe
nothing will hinder the development of the bilateral ties between
our two countries. Azerbaijan-Russia partnership should cover all
the fields. We’ll do our best to achieve this. Presidents Vladimir
Putin of Russia and Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan have also directed
their efforts to this. We will also continue our military cooperation
with Azerbaijan”.
On the situation over the Azerbaijan-Armenia, Nagorno-Karabakh, Safar
Abiyev said: “We want the Russian Federation, as a co-chairing country,
to be more active in the settlement of the conflict, as Russia knows
well the history and origin of this conflict”.
Mr. Istratov said that Azerbaijan is an important country for the
Russia in the South Caucasus, adding that “Russia will seek earliest
settlement of the dispute”.
Safar Abiyev and Vasiliy Istratov also discussed ways to further
develop the all-round bilateral relations.

PROF’S TRIAL TO START 4 DAYS BEFORE BABY’S BIRTH IS DUE
Mike Cronin
AZ Central.com, AZ
Aug. 9, 2006
The trial for University of Arizona Professor Elif Shafak has been
scheduled for Sept. 21 in Istanbul, Turkey, just four days before
she is due to deliver her baby.
Shafak’s lawyer requested the trial be postponed because of her due
date, but the court refused.
However, Marly Rusoff, Shafak’s New York-based agent, is confident
the trial date ultimately will be moved. advertisement
Shafak, a native of Turkey, has been charged with “insulting
Turkishness” under the controversial Article 301 of that country’s
penal code. If found guilty, Shafak could serve up to three years
in prison.
The European Union has repeatedly warned Turkey that the existence
of the law could hinder its chance to become an EU member.
The charges arose after Shafak’s second novel written in English,
The Bastard of Istanbul, was translated into Turkish and published
in Turkey in March. It is already a bestseller there.
The book is set to be published in the United States by Viking in
early 2007.
Fictional characters in the book refer to “Turkish butchers.” They
also talk about the genocide of Turkey’s Armenian population from
1915 to 1923. The Turkish government, like the U.S. government, does
not recognize the death of up to 1.5 million Armenians during that
time as genocide.
But the International Association of Genocide Scholars, the definitive
body of researchers who study genocide, has affirmed the historical
fact of the Armenian genocide. Polish jurist Raphael Lemkin, when
he coined the term genocide in 1944, cited the Turkish extermination
of the Armenians and the Nazi extermination of the Jews as defining
examples of what he meant.
9uaprof0809.html

A FRIEND FULL OF GAS
by Alexander Kabakov
Kommersant, Russia
Aug. 9, 2006
The Price Of The Question
The average observer, a thinking consumer of openly accessible
political and economic news, will be mystified by the Russian-Armenian
natural gas problem. In the public consciousness, the word “gas” has
been associated lately with political pressure on Ukraine, and that
pressure is logical, whether it is correct from the point of view
of international relations or not. Some say that the Russians are
acting unconscionably to take revenge with their energy resources on
the Orange Ukrainian democrats who defeated pro-Kremlin forces the
year before last. Others approve of that revenge because the overly
independent should be put in their places by reminding them whose
hand turns the valve. But no one, not even the most naive, fails to
understand the essence of what is going on.
The situation in Armenia is completely different. Unlike loudly
independent Ukraine and arrogant Georgia, Armenia has had an
unswervingly pro-Russian orientation. A faithful friend might expect
an allowance to be made in the form of cheap gas in light of the
friendly feelings and good behavior. But then again… It turns
out that obedient Armenia is being charged as much as willful (even
pro-American!) Georgia. Can’t Russia be cajoled somehow? It could do
Armenia a good deed if it wanted to.
Of all the possible explanations for Russia’s behavior, one cynical
one sticks in the mind. It is that Armenia has been used to lend
credence to the official Russian account of the causes of the gas war
with Ukraine. That account sounds like a quotation from a Hollywood
action film. “Nothing personal. It’s only business.” Please. They are
even charging their friends money. It’s the law of the market and
nothing to do with the Ukrainian Orange. Armenia was just the most
convenient demonstration model. They even offered it credit for the
more expensive gas, just as they did Ukraine. And if you don’t want
credit, then pay with property like our real friends the Belarusians…
Leaving aside ethical fine points, the plan makes sense. But, as it
often happens with Russian foreign policy strategies, they failed
to reckon with at least one possible scenario that will completely
foil their plans. What will happen just as soon as that pipe from
Iran stretches onto Armenian soil? Russia had a faithful strategic
ally, whose faithfulness was controlled by Gazprom. Now there will be
one more offended and annoyed state in the Caucasus independent of
Gazprom. It is well known that there are those who are always ready
to soothe the offended and even help them materially. In any case,
Armenia already has a plan for individual partnership with NATO and
money is already on its way from America.

THERE IS SOMETHING GEORGIAN IN ARMENIAN COGNAC
Kommersant, Russia
Aug. 9, 2006
The wholesale license of P.R. Rus, Russia’s subsidiary of French
Pernod Ricard, has been suspended, the Moscow branch of Federal
Service on Consumer Rights Supervision reported via the web-site
yesterday. P.R. Rus is an exclusive supplier of product made at
Yerevan Cognac Enterprise and for a few other world brands of alcohol.
The Moscow Service on Consumer Rights Supervision carried out its
probe in late July. The result was suspension of wholesale licenses
for nine alcohol dealers, including P.R. Rus.
The formal reason voiced by the supervision body was “the breach of
sanitary laws.” Employees of one of the affected firms, Vitaveritas,
said the inspectors leeched as the warehouse director had no
photofluorogram available, the mops weren’t numbered and the walls
weren’t painted.
By strange coincidence, all punished companies used to be big importers
of wine of Georgia and Moldova. Pernod Ricard, for instance, owns
Cahetian GWS winery, which was focused on Russia’s deliveries. Besides,
Vitaveritas was the sole wholesaler that proved through the court
that the Federal Service on Consumer Rights Supervision had no right
to confiscate and destroy the wine owned by it.
For P.R. Rus, the root problem could be its leading standing on
Russia’s market of elite alcohol. In terms of value, Business-Analitika
says, Pernod Ricard covers around 22 percent of the whisky market,
has roughly 12.5 percent on the brandy market and 12 percent on the
market of French cognac. The share on tequila market nears 40 percent.
Moreover, P.R. Rus is an exclusive supplier of product made by Yerevan
Cognac Enterprise, which is owned by Pernod Ricard. The company
controls 55 percent of Armenian cognac market in Russia. More likely
than not, all these achievements prompted the bureaucrats to benefit
from the import alcohol crisis and attempt to squeeze even such majors
as Pernod Ricard.

SEEKING ROOTS BEYOND THE NATION THEY HELPED ESTABLISH
By Michael Slackman
New York Times, NY
Aug. 9, 2006
AMMAN, Jordan – The search for personal identity can be a trap for
people like Yinal T’haghapsau, who lives in the no man’s land between
the only home he knows and the land of his ancestors.
Like many children of immigrants, he has found that he does not fit
perfectly in either place. His great-great-grandfather fled the czar’s
armies in the northern Caucasus in the 1860’s and settled in a small
desert region that became the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.
Now, four generations later, he has one desire: to return to the land
of his ancestors.
“For me, my dream is to go back there,” he said, in accented English.
“It is something that lives in me, whether I like it or not.”
Mr. T’haghapsau is Circassian, a member of a diaspora created when
hundreds of thousands were forced from their mountainous lands in
what is now southern Russia, just north of Azerbaijan and Georgia.
Theirs is a quiet diaspora, one that has not roused passions or
militias but has quietly assimilated in places like Jordan, Turkey,
Syria and the United States.
The Circassian experience in Jordan is in many ways typical of the
immigrant experience for many around the world. It is about holding
on and letting go. Blending in and standing out. But in Jordan, a
nation that has struggled since its inception to define what it is
to be Jordanian, the challenge of fourth-generation Circassians has
special resonance.
Jordanians who are not Circassian bristle at the very notion that some
of their neighbors feel like they do not fully connect. To suggest
that is perceived as an affront to a nation that tells the world it
has, at last, defined what it means to be Jordanian.
“There is no issue, no issue at all,” shot back Raouf Abu Jaber, a
Jordanian businessman and historian, when told that some Circassians
said they were eager to return to the land of their ancestors. “I am
personally surprised.”
Of course, not all of the Circassians in Jordan, estimated to number as
many as 100,000, want to go. In all likelihood, only a minority would,
judging from interviews with more than a dozen people of different
ages. But that does not minimize the struggle of identity for a group
that has tried to meld with the Arab landscape while holding onto a
very different culture. It can be as simple as men and women dancing
together (which they still do) or as complicated as passing on a
language (most young people say that neither they nor their friends
speak the Circassian language).
“Most of the young people here do not know anything about their
history,” said Mr. T’haghapsau, who moved to the Caucasus for a year
but returned to Jordan after seeing how hard it would be to build a
new life there. “They don’t speak the language. But tell them they
are not Circassian, and they will kill you.”
Jordan is a small, dry patch of land carved out of the Middle East
by the British in the 1920’s when it was called the Arab Emirate of
Transjordan. When the first Hashemite king, Abdullah I, took power, the
Circassians were already longtime residents. They had been successful
farmers and wealthy landowners and worked closely with the new king
to forge their new nation. In 1946, Jordan got its independence,
and soon after took its current name.
But from the beginning Jordan was more a creation of history than
a place that passed through history. From its very inception, the
concept of being Jordanian was an abstraction. It was and remains an
amalgam of people, a Middle Eastern mosaic of nationalities, sects and
religions: Palestinians, Armenians, Syrians, Chechens, people from the
Arabian Peninsula called Hejazi, Druse and Christians. And Circassians.
Outsiders told Jordanian leaders that its very existence simply did not
make sense. And from the beginning, the Circassian minority, the people
thrown off their own land, helped try to prove those outsiders wrong.
King Abdullah was so grateful to the Circassians and so taken by
their loyalty and colorful traditions that he made them the private
protocol guard of the Royal Court. To this day, visitors to the king’s
offices are greeted by steely looking men in uniforms that resemble
old Cossack costumes.
Over the years, Circassians have held the highest positions in the
government, including prime minister and important posts in the
security services. But today many Circassians say they are feeling
edged out, all but excluded from important government positions. And
they resent all of the attention heaped on another important ethnic
group, the Palestinians, and their quest for an independent state.
Jordan had annexed the West Bank in 1950 but lost it in the
Arab-Israeli war of 1967.
Ahmed Wumar, 26, a recent university graduate, said that the historical
slight against the Circassians was far worse.
Palestinians, he said, at least get to live in their own geographical
neighborhood, surrounded by people who share their language and
customs.
“Our problem is hundreds of years old,” he said. “We are here 143 years
already in Jordan. Everybody knows the Palestinians. No one knows us.”
Mr. Wumar also tried to move back to his ancestral home, which is now
in Russia, and stuck it out for two years before returning to Jordan.
“I wanted to get a Russian passport, but they would not give it to me,”
he said.
The Circassian cultural center is a nondescript building on a small
street in a middle-class neighborhood of Amman. Inside on a recent
evening, young men and women were finishing up dance practice. Unlike
their Arab neighbors, Circassian men and women dance together in an
almost martial choreography, with a lot of spinning and fist pumping
for the men and chest-thrust-forward preening for the women.
“I am Circassian, but my nationality is Jordanian,” said Shamil
Shroukh, 16, who does not speak the Circassian language, but has been
dancing for 10 years.
Tamer Qunash, 21, said: “All of us consider ourselves Jordanian. This
is our home.”
Their instructor is a hard-driving man with a clean-shaven head named
Yinal Hatyk. He is 32 years old and is the chief of staff to Prince
Ali bin al-Hussein, the brother of the current king, Abdullah II. He
pressed the dancers to get it right, to spin and preen with confidence
and perfection.
“We are truly Circassian and truly Jordanian,” he said, after giving
the dancers a break. But, he said, “a lot of Circassians want to
go back.”