BRUSSELS SEEKS WAYS TO KEEP EU-TURKEY TALKS AFLOAT
ABHaber, Belgium
EU-Turkey News Network
Sept 6 2006
In a bid to keep EU-Turkey talks from derailing completely, Brussels
is considering ways of putting off dealing with the thorny Cyprus
question until after Turkish elections next year.
The Financial Times reports that enlargement commissioner Olli Rehn
is seeking to put the nub of the issue – access to Turkey ports and
airports by Cyprus – before the European Court of Justice.
This would effectively defer the question until next year and after
Turkey has been through its parliamentary elections.
Member states have given Turkey until the end of this year to open
its ports to Cyprus but Ankara has refused to do so until the EU
makes good on a promise to end the isolation of Turkish Cypriots in
the northern part of the island.
The EU insists that the two issues are not linked resulting in a
stalemate which analysts suggest will be almost impossible to get
out of before Turkey’s elections.
The FT quotes a senior commission official as saying “We need a plan
B to limit the damage and avoid a complete suspension of negotiations,
because that would kill the momentum.”
“We have to find ways and means to muddle through until after the
Turkish elections.”
But diplomats quoted by the paper suggest that neither side would be
in favour of the court option with Turkey likely to lose any legal
battle on the issue and Cyprus likely to be unhappy that Ankara would
no longer be under pressure to act this year.
The tone between Brussels and Ankara has considerably hardened in
recent months with the EU feeling that Turkey has slowed down its
reform process and Ankara feeling that the bloc is not serious about
having it as a member.
On Monday (5 September) there was once again a hard exchange of words
after MEPs passed a tough report on Turkey in which they complained
about its lack of progress on human rights and called on Turkey to
recognise the massacre of Armenians in the first world war as genocide.
Responding to the parliament’s report, prime minister Recep Tayyip
Erdogan pointed out that it is not binding and said that the parliament
is dreaming if it thinks it would change its stance on the Armenia
issue.
“Our position regarding the so-called Armenian genocide is very clear,
and nobody should expect us to change it.”
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

TURKEY’S GROWING PAIN TOWARDS EU ACCESSION
Journal of Turkish Weekly, Turkey
Sept 6 2006
Emre Ozkan, JTW – Ankara / The Committee on Foreign Affairs of the
European Parliament (EP) approved Turkey Report late on September 4th,
which was prepared by Christian Democrat MEP Camiel Eurlings.
EP, in the report, repeated its call for recognition of so-called
Armenian genocide prior to EU full membership of Turkey. Different
from previous reports, the report claimed that Turkey committed
genocide against Pontus Greeks and Assyrians besides Armenians.
The report also complains that the pace of the reforms slowed in 2005
and the implementation of reforms still remains uneven, underlining
that significant further efforts are required in regard to fundamental
freedoms and human rights, in particular freedom of expression,
women’s rights, religious freedoms, trade union rights and cultural
rights, and the further strengthening of the fight against torture
and ill-treatment.
According to Hurriyet, Eurlings said that the report is positive and
urged Turkey to take steps on the path to democratization.
Eurlings said that he welcomed the report in general. Noting that
the report strongly condemned PKK terrorism, Eurlings said that PKK
terrorism couldn’t be considered legitimate, adding that the report
shows that they will never tolerate terrorism.
On the other hand, the report of the EP which requires Turkey to
recognize the so-called Armenian genocide as well as Pontus and Syrian
genocides was even reacted by European Union circles: “Let’s not
offend Turkey. We are being ridiculous. This report has no balance.”
The Turkish Foreign Ministry on Tuesday said it strongly rejected the
EP report compiled by the Dutch legislator Camiel Eurlings, saying
that it was incompatible with the prestige and gravity of the EP.
Moreover, Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has dismissed
elements of the report adopted on Turkey’s progress towards meeting
the criteria of European Union membership. “The resolutions adopted
by the European Parliament are not binding,” Erdogan said during a
press conference in Ankara. “We have not accepted anything about the
so-called Armenian genocide. Our stance on that issue is obvious.”
Foreign Ministry spokesman Namik Tan said that the controversial
report would not contribute to the improvement of ties between Turkey
and the European Union. “The report lacks commonsense and objectivity.”
Spokesman Tan added that the European lawmakers should act with
consideration and amend the draft report.
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that the European Parliament
was dreaming if it felt that Turkey would change its position on issues
such as accepting claims that the Ottoman Empire had carried out an
act of genocide against its Armenian population during World War I.
Assos. Prof. Dr. Mehmet Ozcan, Head of European Studies Center of
Ankara based think-tank International Strategic Research Organization
(ISRO), argued that the report is asking for impossible things from
Turkey. “Turkey cannot bring stones from the Moon”, he stated. He
also mentions that how Belgium explains her acts in Congo or France in
Algeria? “If you are going to hold Turkey accountable for acts in its
past, then how will you explain your own past of genocide respectively
in Congo and Algeria and violence in the World War II”, he added. He
emphasized that the report will be amended in the coming meetings.
Stating that he is not happy with the report of Eurlings, Mixed
Parliament Commission Co-chairman Joost Lagendijk also said: “Instead
of encouraging Turkey’s membership, Eurlings has put more provisions.
Turkey will think that the EP will keep demanding new provisions
every year. The report confused me, it does not have a balance.”
The controversial report asks Turkey for recognizing so-called Armenian
genocide as well as Assyrian and Pontus genocides. With this report,
so-called Pontus and Assyrian genocides have entered in an official
EU report for the first time.
The report raises questions on Turkish public opinion about the
objectivity of the EP and EU officials. The report will be voted in
the general session of the EP in Strasbourg, which will take place
between September 25th and 28th.

SENIOR TAX OFFICIAL KILLED IN CAR BLAST
By Karine Kalantarian
Radio Liberty, Czech Rep.
Sept 6 2006
The Armenian government’s top official in charge of detecting and
investigating tax evasion was killed in a car explosion in downtown
Yerevan early on Wednesday.
Shahen Hovasapian, head of a State Taxation Service (STS) division
tasked with combating tax fraud, was found in a critical condition
in his government-owned car after it was rocked by the blast just
50 meters from his apartment building. He died while being rushed to
hospital, police and other security officials at the scene told RFE/RL.
They said that an explosive device planted under a front seat occupied
by Hovasapian went off just seconds after he and his teenage son
were driven away from their home. They said the driver suffered
minor injuries, while the young man survived unscathed. The blast
left a gaping hole under the car’s front seat next to the driver’s,
suggesting that Hovasapian was its main target.
President Robert Kocharian was quick to condemn the killing and link it
with Hovasapian’s professional activities. “The criminal conduct, which
is directed against the state’s efforts to toughen tax administration
and create equal taxation conditions for everyone, is extremely
condemnable and can not change the resolute state policy pursued in
that area,” his spokesman, Victor Soghomonian, said in a statement.
Soghomonian also said that Kocharian issued the law-enforcement
authorities with “strict instructions to take all measures to solve
the crime as rapidly as possible.”
State prosecutors immediately launched a criminal investigation into
the apparent assassination but reported no arrests in the following
hours. Law-enforcement officials refused to come up with possible
theories of the crime.
Despite holding an important government post, Hovasapian has rarely
figured in the news and is not known to have initiated high-profile
tax evasion cases against big companies controlled by influential
individuals. The assassinated official himself was a wealthy
businessman, reportedly owning one of Armenia’s two main liquefied
gas companies, Goshgaz. The other company involved in the lucrative
gas business, Multi-Leon, is controlled by Gagik Tsarukian, a powerful
government-connected tycoon.
Hovasapian, who is a native of Nagorno-Karabakh and was a field
commander during the war with Azerbaijan, is the first high-ranking
Armenian tax official killed while in office. Gagik Poghosian, who
briefly headed the government’s tax collection agency in 2000, died
in a grenade attack under similarly mysterious circumstances five
years ago. The apparent contract killing has still not been solved.
Hovasapian’s violent death continued recent months’ series of
high-profile murders that have raised widespread concern about the
situation with crime and rule of law in Armenia. Among their victims
were a businessman, a reputed crime figure and a senior member of the
influential Yerkrapah Union of Karabakh war veterans. Nobody has been
prosecuted in connection with those crimes so far.

EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT SLAMS TURKEY ANEW
AINA, CA
Assyrian International News Agency
Sept 6 2006
Brussels — Marking the start of looming crisis between Europe and
Ankara over its accession bid, European lawmakers overwhelmingly
approved last Monday a highly critical Report, accusing Turkey
of slowing down necessary political and institutional reforms for
accession into the 25 members bloc.
The Committee of Foreign Affairs of the European Parliament voted
through a Report, which slammed Turkey for not fulfilling the
commitments it undertook when it received the green light last October
to start talks.
“The European Parliament … regrets the slowing down of the reform
process,” the Report said, pointing to what it called “persistent
shortcomings” in a range of areas. The lawmakers said Turkey had shown
“insufficient progress” in the areas of freedom of __expression,
religious and minority rights, women’s rights and law enforcement
since EU leaders agreed to start accession talks 11 months ago.
“We are not saying that we are not still committed to the talks or that
we do not want Turkey to join the EU,” said Dutch MP Camiel Eurlings,
who prepared the Report. “But we are sending a clear signal to Turkey
that it must move quickly with its reforms,” he told the Foreign
Affairs Committee.
Turkey must recognize Cyprus, withdraw its troops from the island
The Report also urged Ankara to recognise the Republic of Cyprus,
a UN and EU member-state, and urged it to “take concrete steps for
the normalization of bilateral relations with the Republic as soon as
possible.” It also called Ankara to open its ports and air to Cypriot
traffic, to stop vetoeing Cyprus’ access to various international
organizations and to withdraw in a reasonable timetable its occupation
troops, estimated at 40.000, from the northern areas of Cyprus.
Turkey must respect religious and ethnic minorities, women rights
The Report also censured insufficient progress on freedom of
__expression and raised concerns over the lot of Turkey’s Christian
religious minorities, calling for the recognition of the Ecumenical
Patriarch, the leader of the world’s Orthodox Christians, and
the reopening of the Theological Schools of the Greek and Armenian
Communities. The Report also criticised the unusually high threshold
for parliamentary representation, under which a political party must
score 10 percent nationwide; the latter aims at making difficult
or eliminating the possibility of Kurds being elected in Turkey’s
national assembly. Violence against women and wide corruption were
also pointed out as serious problems in the Report.
Turkey must ackowledge the Genocide
Moreover the Report demanded that, as a precondition of EU membership,
Ankara should acknowledge that its predecessor, Ottoman Turkey,
committed Genocide against Armenians, Greeks and Assyrians (Arameans)
during WWI.
Armenian, Greek and Assyrian (Aramean) circles have welcomed the
Parliament’s Report as objective and reflecting historical truth and
highlighted the necessity for Turkey to cleanse its past in the same
way as Germany did after WWII.
Turkey Snubs the Report
In an angrily reaction, the Turkish Foreign Ministry dismissed the
Report, saying that it lacked common sense and smelled of political
bias against Turkey.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Namik Tan told a press conference that
Turkey has no intention to open its ports and air to Cypriot traffic.
The Turkish Prime Minister T. Erdogan also snubed the value of the
Report as non binding and dismissed any genocide recognition.
Turkey ostensibly denies having committed a Genocide against its
indigenous Christian populations of Armenian, Greeks and Assyrians,
while its Penal Code maintains relevant provisions punishing any
discussion, in oral or written form, on the genocide issue.
If by December 2006 Turkey has not complied, the annual EU summit
of heads of state and government is likely to put on hold or revoke
Turkey’s accession talks.
Any country wishing to join the 25-member bloc requires the approval
of both the European Parliament and the agreement of all member
states. The Report will go before a full parliament session at the
end of the month and is likely to be raised when chief Turkish EU
negotiator Ali Babacan visits Brussels from Wednesday. The conservative
EPP-ED, the assembly’s largest political group, still favours a
“privileged partnership” with Turkey rather than full EU membership,
pointing at wide and profound opposition from the European public
opinion for an eventual EU accession of a pre-dominentaly Muslim
country.
Forum Against Genocide

ARAB CHURCH LEADERS REJECT CHRISTIAN ZIONISM AS ‘FALSE TEACHING’
By David Dolan
CNSNews.com, VA
Sept 6 2006
Jerusalem (CNSNews.com) – Following the recent Israeli-Hizballah war
in Lebanon, four Arab church leaders based in Jerusalem have issued a
scathing attack on Christians who actively support the Jewish state,
indirectly including President George W. Bush.
In a statement published just one week after a United Nations ceasefire
went into effect on August 14, Nazareth-born Roman Catholic Patriarch
Michel Sabbah was joined by two Arab Protestant bishops and one Arab
Orthodox archbishop, in charging that “the Christian Zionist program
provides a worldview where the Gospel is identified with the ideology
of empire, colonialism and militarism.”
“We categorically reject Christian Zionist doctrines as false
teaching that corrupts the biblical message of love, justice and
reconciliation,” the statement said.
Signed by Syrian Orthodox Archbishop Swerios Malki Mourad, along with
Sabah and the Episcopal and Evangelical Lutheran bishops of Jerusalem,
the joint statement indirectly denounced President Bush for declaring
his support last May for Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s plan
to hold onto some Jewish settlements in the disputed West Bank after
unilaterally withdrawing from many others.
“We further reject the contemporary alliance of Christian Zionist
leaders and organizations with elements in the governments of Israel
and the United States that are presently imposing their unilateral
pre-emptive borders and domination over Palestine.”
The clerical statement, titled “The Jerusalem Declaration on Christian
Zionism,” alleged that “Christian Zionism advances racial exclusivity
and perpetual war rather than the Gospel of universal love, redemption
and reconciliation taught by Jesus Christ.”
(Zionism refers to the modern movement for a Jewish national homeland,
which started in the 1800s.)
The church leaders’ statement also mentioned the Arab-Christian
contention that international Christians who actively support Israel
desire to bring on the Apocalypse and the Second Coming of Jesus.
“Rather than condemn the world to the doom of Armageddon, we call
upon everyone to liberate themselves from the ideologies of militarism
and occupation.”
Three Jerusalem-based Christian Zionist leaders — two Americans
and one South African — picked up the gauntlet by issuing their own
joint rebuttal one week later. They said that “certain church clerics”
had used “inflammatory language to express views that are far from
the truth.”
“Christian Zionism is not heretical. In fact, Christians from all
traditional backgrounds have held such a view for two thousand years,”
said the statement.
It was signed by Malcolm Heading, who leads the 26-year-old
International Christian Embassy in Jerusalem, along with Ray Sanders,
who has headed the Christian Friends of Israel group since 1985,
and Rebecca Brimmer of Bridges for Peace.
Together, the three Jerusalem-based Christian Zionist organizations
maintain staffs of several hundred permanent and volunteer workers,
and branches in dozens of countries around the globe.
The three prominent Christian leaders, who have each lived in Israel
for many years, issued a six-point rebuttal of the Arab bishops’
central charge that Christian Zionism is heretical.
Stating that such Christians believe in a literal interpretation of
the Bible, they pointed out that “replacement theology” (which teaches
that the church has totally supplanted the Jewish people in God’s
plans and purposes) has played “a pivotal role in the persecution of
Jews through the centuries.”
Addressing the bishop’s “apocalypse” contention, the three leaders
wrote that “Christian Zionists do not base their theological positions
on end-time prophecy, but on the faithful covenant promises of God
given to Abraham some four thousand years ago.”
The counter-statement ended by noting that the four Jerusalem
church officials had “totally ignored the jihadist goals of the
Hamas government, and turned a blind eye to terrorism perpetrated by
this regime.” It added that such a “one-sided unbalanced view of the
conflict is in fact unhelpful to the peace process, and contributing
to its failure.”
Christian Embassy spokesman David Parsons told Cybercast News Service
that it was not the first time that the four Arab church leaders had
joined together to attack Christians who support Israel.
He pointed out that the bishops lead flocks “that are actually
fairly small” in the Holy Land, even if they are “part of much larger
international bodies, especially the Roman Catholic Church.”
“There are far more Greek Orthodox, Greek Catholic and Armenian
Orthodox Christians living in the land, but their leaders did not
endorse the acerbic statement,” Parsons pointed out.
“These four Arab bishops also don’t represent the millions of
Catholics, Episcopalians and Lutherans, including the Vatican itself,
who recognize that the biblical covenants made between God and the
Jewish people remain in effect.”
The American-born Parsons, who also edits the Jerusalem Post
International Christian Edition and has written extensively about
Christian Zionism, noted that the bishop’s August 22nd statement
borrowed heavily from a similar one issued at the end of a 2004
anti-Zionist church conference held in Jerusalem, attended and
addressed by the same four clerics, among others.
Parsons said one of the four Arab church leaders, Nazareth-born
Anglican Bishop Riah Abu El-Assal, is widely known for his outspoken
Palestinian nationalism.
He added that the local Episcopal leader “has publicly stated several
times that Palestinian martyrs, including Muslim suicide terrorists,
receive eternal life.”
.asp?Page=/ForeignBureaus/archive/200609/INT200609 06c.html

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Armenian National Committee of Texas
11301 Richmond Ave. # K108
Houston, Texas 77082
Phone: 281.558.1918
[email protected]
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
PRESS RELEASE +++ PRESS RELEASE
For Immediate Release: Tuesday, September 5, 2006
Contact: Vatche Hovsepian
Tel: (281) 558-1918
Texas ANC Meets with Congressman Al Green
-Meeting Is Part of Western Region Effort to Increase Understanding
of Armenian Issues
HOUSTON, TX – The Armenian National Committee of Texas met with
Congressman Al Green (D- Houston)at his district office on Tuesday,
August 8th as part of series of meetings to connect Armenian Americans
with their representatives and update them on issues of concern to
the community.
Vatche Hovsepian, Chairman of ANC Texas, was joined by community
members Ani Frankian and Ellen Hovsepian in thanking Congressman
Green for his co-sponsorship of H.Res.316, the Armenian Genocide
resolution. During the meeting, attendees informed the Congressman
about the current concerns of the Armenian American community.
The Texas Armenian American community expressed their concern regarding
the firing of US Ambassador to Armenia, John Marshall Evans and the
current Ambassador-designate, Richard Hoagland. Congressman Green was
very interested to learn about the situation and what the response
had been from his colleagues in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Meeting attendees also informed the Congressman about the importance
of H.R.3361, which prevents the United States from financing a railway
in the southern Caucasus region that excludes Armenia, and H.R.3103,
the Open Railways Act, which calls on the Republic of Turkey to end
its blockade of Armenia. Hovsepian emphasized the need to maintain
military aid parity between Armenia and Azerbaijan – especially in
light of continued war rhetoric issued by Azeri President, Ilham
Aliyev and other members of the Azeri government.
Rep. Green expressed his appreciation for the opportunity to meet with
the Armenian American community in Houston. After the meeting, he was
presented with a copy of Peter Balakian’s book, “The Burning Tigris”.
Congressman Al Green represents Texas’ 9th district which includes
the southwest metropolitan portion of the City of Houston and the
City of Missouri City in Fort Bend County. His district is home to
a significant number of Armenian Americans.
Editor’s Note: Photo included (left to right): Ani Frankian, Vatche
Hovsepian, Congressman Al Green, and Ellen Hovsepian.

PROGRAM ON PRESENTING ARTSAKH’S MATERIAL CULTURE TO INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY BEING DRAWN UP
DeFacto Agency, Armenia
Sept 6 2006
September 5 Nagorno Karabakh Republic President Arkady Ghoukasyan
received a representative of the Washington organization Council of
Leaders on Human Rights Catherine Porter.
In the course of the talk Mrs. Porter informed the NKR President
of the programs on presenting Artsakh’s material culture to the
international community, NKR MFA reports.
The organization’s head noted the monuments of the Christian period
and rich pre – Christian heritage might become a stimulus for
the development of tourism in Nagorno Karabakh and the country’s
presentation to the international scientific circles.
Arkady Ghoukasyan welcomed the Porter’s initiative and stated the
NKR leadership was ready to cooperate in the above-mentioned field.

FRENCH ENTERTAINER AZNAVOUR, 82, PLANS HIS NORTH AMERICAN SWAN SONG
San Francisco Chronicle, CA
Sept 6 2006
(09-06) 04:00 PDT Mouriès, France — He came to Ellis Island in 1948,
a French Armenian singer who once sold fake silk stockings to Nazi
soldiers, a struggling artist with no visa but big dreams of performing
in America.
Some six decades, 60 movies and 740 recorded songs later, Charles
Aznavour returns to the United States this month for a series of
concerts — including a Sept. 13 performance in San Francisco and a
later date at the Mountain Winery — billed as his farewell tour of
North America.
[ Listen/Download: Mp3 excerpt of Charles Aznavour’s “Yesterday When
I Was Young”]
The surviving icon of an era branded by Frank Sinatra, Marlene
Dietrich, Liza Minnelli and Ray Charles, Aznavour is among only a
handful of French entertainers to reach international stardom. He was
voted entertainer of the century in a 1998 Time magazine Internet poll,
beating out Elvis Presley and Bob Dylan.
Even today, Aznavour remains a prolific writer and composer — still
mesmerizing and sometimes outraging audiences with his frank lyrics.
“Strictly speaking, his music is suited for the ’60s and ’70s,” says
Philippe Rezzonico, music critic for the Quebec newspaper Le Journal
de Montreal, who has followed Aznavour’s career for years. “But his
songs are about contemporary issues. His melancholy is universal.”
At his summer home in Provence, Aznavour sketches in a series of
goodbye concerts he is scheduling by language and region. After
touring Germany and Japan, he is now focusing on English-speaking
countries before moving on to perform in Spanish-speaking ones.
“When it comes to singing, it will be over,” Aznavour says of live
performances — although he will never bid adieu on a French stage.
“But there are other things besides songs.”
Casually dressed in dark shorts and a white T-shirt, Aznavour brims
with energy and looks at least a decade younger than his 82 years.
His hair is white now, but his dark eyes are as bright as ever.
He quickly segues to plans for his next album, to be recorded this
fall in Cuba with the island’s leading jazz player, Chucho Valdes.
“He’s a very good musician,” Aznavour says. “And since I’m going to
record hard songs, I want to lighten them with jazz music.”
Aznavour, a singer, actor, writer and part-time diplomat, gets up at 6
each morning to work. He is a voracious reader — currently immersed
in a world-history series (he’s reached Egypt’s Pharaonic era). He
exudes a delight in life — he’s easily seduced by good food, wine
and shopping trips — yet his lyrics capture its harsher edges.
And his musical imprint is everywhere. He has written for Edith Piaf
and performed with Luciano Pavarotti, Elton John and Sting. Charles,
Minnelli and Elvis Costello have recorded his songs.
Why has Aznavour survived? Maybe because, however edgy his lyrics,
he remains synonymous with the traditional French “chanson,”
stirring images of Paris drizzle and unrequited love. Or because he
is considered a spectacular performer. Or because he writes about
themes everyone understands: loss, AIDS, depression, aging.
“I ran so fast that time and youth at last ran out/ I never stopped to
think what life was all about,” he wrote in his 1960s hit “Yesterday,
When I Was Young.”
“When you’re young, you want to have No. 1 hits. I’ve done it around
the world,” Aznavour says. “I can’t live in the past. I need to keep
coming back with subjects that disturb the public.”
Nostalgia sells, though, and a large chunk of Aznavour listeners
are the 50-and-older crowd eager for old favorites such as “She” and
“La Boheme.”
“His songs will be cherished among people who love French music,”
says Rezzonico, the Montreal music critic. “I think his legacy will
stand on that.”
But Aznavour believes his songs also can resonate with a generation
nourished on hip-hop and rap. He keeps up with musical trends —
owning publishing rights to music by Grand Corps Malade, a French
slam poet who catapulted to fame this year.
For his forthcoming album, Aznavour has written about France’s
immigrant-laced suburban ghettos, about ghost villages where only
the elderly remain, about environmental degradation. “I always have
something to say to them,” he says of younger listeners. “I talk
about racism, about homosexuality. I talk about things that aren’t
discussed.”
And of course, he talks about love. “They fall into my basket when
they’re in love,” Aznavour says, with a chuckle.
Audiences have not always fallen so easily. Aznavour, born Chahnour
Varinag Aznavourian in Paris in 1924, is the son of Armenian
immigrants who had fled the Turkish massacre in their homeland. They
were restaurateurs by trade, artists at heart: Aznavour’s father was
a singer, his mother an actress.
He became both. Aznavour made his stage debut at the age of 9, quit
school and shortened his Armenian surname.
But success proved elusive. To make ends meet during World War II,
Aznavour sold cheap chocolates and fake silk stockings to German
troops occupying Paris.
“My shortcomings are my voice, my height, my gestures, my lack of
culture and education, my frankness and my lack of personality,”
Aznavour wrote a few years later, still struggling at 26.
Still, the breaks came soon afterward, partly because Piaf took him
under her wing and on tour in France and the United States. The two
French singers, both survivors of gritty Paris childhoods, became
close friends.
In 1964, Aznavour sold out Carnegie Hall. But today, he prefers to
reminisce about his first musical appearance in New York, shortly
after the war.
“I had no visa. I didn’t speak English. And I didn’t have a return
ticket,” he says about his Ellis Island landing. “Fortunately, we
had a good relationship with the judge.”
Aznavour planned a two-week trip to the United States and Canada. He
stayed far longer, performing at Cafe Society Downtown, a popular
Greenwich Village club. “I didn’t break any windows,” he says,
“but it was a credible success.”
Sixty years later, he still has a following in the United States,
while most contemporary French musicians do not.
His filmography boasts the 1960s Francois Truffaut classic “Shoot the
Piano Player,” and he has founded a charity to help Armenia; a square
in Yerevan bears his name. Indeed, the Armenian government has granted
him the status of ambassador at large, a job Aznavour takes seriously.
“It’s rare to find someone as free as he is in the largest sense of the
word — so tolerant and open to other traditions, cultures, religions,
thinking,” says Edward Nalbandian, Armenia’s ambassador to France,
who is an old friend of Aznavour’s. “He’s not a political man, but
when he discusses political issues, he speaks frankly and sincerely.”
Not all the reviews are positive. A number of British newspapers panned
Aznavour’s musical “Lautrec,” about the French artist, when it opened
in London’s Shaftesbury Theater in 2000. The show, wrote the Guardian,
was teeming “with skirt-waving bawdiness, allusions to split-crotch
panties and vertically challenged sex.” Aznavour’s songs were “vapid.”
French critics, however, praised the same songs, repackaged in
“Insolitement Votre.” Today, he is focused on preparing for his
forthcoming concert and album — and on writing several novels. He
might also consider future movie appearances, but he says he will
turn down leading roles.
“I don’t have the time. I’m 82 years old, and I’ve only got 20, 25, 35
years left to live,” he says, brown eyes twinkling. “I’m an optimist,
but still, that’s not a lot.”
–Boundary_(ID_L1pGpf5R+lZdcNfi2nowXw) —

COURT VERDICT ON SECOND HEARING OF AZERI MILITARY OFFICER CASE TO BE ISSUED ON 17 NOVEMBER
Author: S.Aliyev
TREND Information, Azerbaijan
Sept 6 2006
The next hearing of the lawsuit which had been filed by the prison
guards against Azeri Military Officer Ramil Safarov was held today
in Pest Central District Court, Trend reports with reference to Azeri
Embassy to Hungary.
At the hearing three prison guards at Ramil Safarov Prison gave
evidence on the case. The next session of the court will be held on 17
November with the appearance of two more witnesses. The court verdict
on this case may be issued on the same day, said Embassy officials.
Ramil Safarov has already been sentenced to life imprisonment for
murdering Armenian Military Officer Gurgen Markaryan.

RA DM: FOR THE LAST TWO YEARS ARMENIAN-AMERICAN RELATIONS HAVE BEEN DEEPENED GREATLY
DeFacto Agency, Armenia
Sept 6 2006
September 5 the Secretary of the Security Council under the RA
President, RA DM Serge Sargsyan received the U. S. Ambassador
Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to RA John Evans in connection with
the completion of his diplomatic mission in RA.
According to the information DE FACTO received at the RA MOD Press
Service, having expressed his gratitude for the mission fulfilled in
Armenia, Serge Sargsyan stated the Armenian – American relations had
been deepened greatly for the last two years.
While touching on the Karabakh conflict settlement, RA DM highly
estimated the OSCE Minsk group Co-Chairs’ activity. Serge Sargsyan
is convinced the means for the conflict’s peaceful settlement has
not been exhausted yet.
In the course of the meeting the parties discussed the issues of
regional security, as well as a number of issues of mutual interest.