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]

Mediamax news agency, Yerevan, in Russian
14 Sep 06
ARMENIAN MINISTER AGAINST REFERRING KARABAKH ISSUE TO UN
Yerevan, 14 September: The extension of the Karabakh settlement
process outside the framework of the OSCE Minsk Group is
unacceptable, Armenian Foreign Minister Vardan Oskanyan said in
Yerevan today.
The minister said that “there are serious proposals on the
negotiating table and opportunities to make progress”. He called on
Azerbaijan to concentrate on this, Mediamax reports.
“If Azerbaijan pursues other aims and wants to refer the process to
the UN, Armenia will not take part in these games,” Oskanyan said.

Regnum, Moscow, in Russian
14 Sep 06
GEORGIA STOPS RUSSIAN CITIZENS ENTERING SOUTH OSSETIA – SEPARATIST
MINISTER
[No dateline as received] South Ossetian interior minister Mikhail
Mindzayev has told Regnum that on 14 September Georgia began
preventing persons carrying Russian passports from passing through
South Ossetian territory.
He said that citizens of Russia, Armenia and other countries, with
the exception of residents of South Ossetia, were not being allowed
through. Mindzayev added that the Georgian side was stopping these
persons from travelling in either direction – both from Russia and
from Georgia.
“In response we have denied passage through South Ossetian territory
to persons with Georgian passports, excluding those who live on the
territory of the republic of South Ossetia in so-called Georgian
enclaves (predominantly Georgian-populated villages),” he said.
Mindzayev added that the situation in the Georgian-Ossetian conflict
zone was calm and that no incidents had been recorded for several
days.
“The Georgian leadership has not received new foreign tranches
intended for further action against South Ossetia,” he said.

Independent, UK
17 September 2006

Welcome to the House of Chaos
By Jen Wainwright in Paris
Published: 17 September 2006

The village of Saint-Romain-au-Mont-d’Or, near Lyons,
has several historical monuments of which its citizens
are rightly proud. But they are distinctly less happy
with the Demeure du Chaos (Home of Chaos), an open-air
“museum” created by eccentric resident Thierry
Ehrmann.
Since 1999, Mr Ehrmann, 44, has developed the
two-and-a-half-acre site into an apocalyptic work of
art. The grounds of the once-elegant house are
dominated by an enormous reconstruction of the attacks
on the World Trade Centre. A helicopter lies destroyed
in the front garden. Portraits of Osama bin Laden
adorn the outer walls. A swimming pool is filled with
water the colour of blood.
Inside the 17th-century house, the walls are also
decorated with scenes of chaos. “There we have
Chernobyl, here the Armenian massacre, over there
Guantanamo Bay,” Mr Ehrmann explains.
What is it for? “When we settled here we realised we
were in grave danger of becoming bourgeois,” he said.
“All that remains of the bourgeois condition should be
drowned in a state of permanent warfare.”
The house, which is regularly opened to the public,
provokes strong reactions. Some love it, some hate it.
Mayor Pierre Dumont wanted it demolished, claiming it
was in breach of local planning laws. But after two
years of legal wrangling, the Lyons appeal court
rejected the Mayor’s complaints. Three appeal judges
decided the site had artistic merit and was therefore
partially exempt from planning laws.
An earlier judgment that parts of the museum should be
destroyed was set aside. However, Mr Ehrmann was fined
200,000 (£135,000) for exceeding legal height limits.
Mayor Dumont was disappointed. “What has become of the
law if what is forbidden for some is permissible for
others?” he said.
Mr Ehrmann, founder of a company specialising in the
distribution of legal databases, is said to be the
307th richest man in France. He was jubilant despite
the heavy fine, claiming that he had achieved a
“victory over obscurantism”.
The village of Saint-Romain-au-Mont-d’Or, near Lyons,
has several historical monuments of which its citizens
are rightly proud. But they are distinctly less happy
with the Demeure du Chaos (Home of Chaos), an open-air
“museum” created by eccentric resident Thierry
Ehrmann.
Since 1999, Mr Ehrmann, 44, has developed the
two-and-a-half-acre site into an apocalyptic work of
art. The grounds of the once-elegant house are
dominated by an enormous reconstruction of the attacks
on the World Trade Centre. A helicopter lies destroyed
in the front garden. Portraits of Osama bin Laden
adorn the outer walls. A swimming pool is filled with
water the colour of blood.
Inside the 17th-century house, the walls are also
decorated with scenes of chaos. “There we have
Chernobyl, here the Armenian massacre, over there
Guantanamo Bay,” Mr Ehrmann explains.
What is it for? “When we settled here we realised we
were in grave danger of becoming bourgeois,” he said.
“All that remains of the bourgeois condition should be
drowned in a state of permanent warfare.”
The house, which is regularly opened to the public,
provokes strong reactions. Some love it, some hate it.
Mayor Pierre Dumont wanted it demolished, claiming it
was in breach of local planning laws. But after two
years of legal wrangling, the Lyons appeal court
rejected the Mayor’s complaints. Three appeal judges
decided the site had artistic merit and was therefore
partially exempt from planning laws.
An earlier judgment that parts of the museum should be
destroyed was set aside. However, Mr Ehrmann was fined
200,000 (£135,000) for exceeding legal height limits.
Mayor Dumont was disappointed. “What has become of the
law if what is forbidden for some is permissible for
others?” he said.
Mr Ehrmann, founder of a company specialising in the
distribution of legal databases, is said to be the
307th richest man in France. He was jubilant despite
the heavy fine, claiming that he had achieved a
“victory over obscurantism”.