AZERBAIJAN LEADER URGES AGGRESSIVE METHODS TO GET BACK ENCLAVE
Agence France Presse — English
October 2, 2006 Monday 4:00 PM GMT
Azerbaijan must use aggressive methods against its neighbour Armenia
in order to get back the Nagorny Karabakh enclave, President Ilham
Aliyev told parliament in its opening session Monday.
“Our policies must be aggressive. We must attack,” Aliyev said,
adding that Azerbaijan could use economic and political pressure
to force Armenia to give up control of the ethnic-Armenian enclave
in Azerbaijan.
“We must step up an information and economic attack while strengthening
our military potential,” Aliyev told legislators on their first day
of work.
Aliyev said that only if it was forced into doing so would Armenia
loosen its hold on Karabakh and seven surrounding Azerbaijani regions
it has controlled since a war in the early 1990s.
“We must increase pressure on Armenia. Otherwise they are not likely
to give back our territories. We must be ready for war,” Aliyev said.
“Maybe when we are 100 times stronger than Armenia, war will not be
necessary,” he said.
Azerbaijan, which is reaping the benefits of a sky-rocketing oil
boom, has steadily increased its defense expenditures over the last
few years.
Aliyev said increasing such spending was a top priority of his
administration.
His comments come ahead of the arrival here Tuesday of the heads
of the so-called Minsk Group, a tri-party committee mediating the
Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict.
Aliyev’s administration has criticized international mediators in
the conflict for not producing a settlement and has urged the United
Nations to discuss the conflict.
“We’re not saying no to this format,” Aliyev said of the Minsk group,
“but we think other international organizations can give their input
to the peace process,” he said.
Armenia has indicated that a departure from the Minsk group format
would signal a breakdown in peace talks and has opposed proposals to
take the issue to the UN.

DON’T CHANGE RULES MIDSTREAM FOR TURKEY’S EU ENTRY: COUNCIL OF EUROPE
Agence France Presse — English
October 2, 2006 Monday
The Council of Europe’s parliamentary leader criticized Monday
suggestions by French President Jacques Chirac that Ankara should
recognize World War I era massacres of Armenians as genocide if it
wanted to join the European Union.
“One can’t change the rules in the middle of the game,” Dutch
parliament President Rene van der Linden told reporters, referring
to EU membership conditions for Turkey.
Referring to the French President, who said Saturday that Turkey
needed to come to terms with its Ottoman past, van der Linden said:
“This is not the first time he has changed his mind.”
The EU has not made recognizing the 1915-1917 massacres as genocide
a condition for entry into the block, and up until Saturday France
had refused to make a direct link between the two.
But when asked in Yerevan whether the two should be linked, Chirac said
“Honestly, I think so.”
“If there are serious questions, we will tackle them but we don’t
add to (existing) conditions,” van der Linden said in describing the
procedure for entry into the EU.
“If there is a loss of confidence, we create mistrust then the entire
negotiation will suffer,” then lawmaker added.
Founded 60 years ago, the Strasbourg-based Council of Europe is not
part of the European Union.

Ex-diplomat saw Iraq as ‘I quit’ issue
John Brady Kiesling’s new book tells why U.S. invasion
plans forced his 2003 resignation
STYLE & CULTURE
Los Angeles Times
September 25, 2006
By Bob Thompson, Washington Post Writer
WASHINGTON – When John Brady Kiesling decided, in February 2003, that
the looming United States invasion of Iraq would make it impossible
for him, in good conscience, to remain in the U.S. Foreign Service, he
carefully crafted a letter of resignation from his post as political
counselor in the Athens embassy. Widely praised for its eloquence,
the letter briefly made Kiesling semi-famous. Eventually, it helped
earn him a tiny advance from Potomac Books.
Yet when he later reread the letter, says the author of the newly
published “Diplomacy Lessons: Realism for an Unloved Superpower,”
he was startled to find that it contained a hole.
“It was so obvious to me that Iraq was going to be a disaster,”
Kiesling says, “that nowhere in my letter had I explained why it was
going to be a disaster…. My knowledge that Iraq would be a disaster
was intuitive.”
One way of looking at his book is as a two-year effort “to figure
out where that intuition came from.”
The short answer is that it came from 20 years of diplomatic
postings in places such as Morocco, Greece and Armenia, where he
worked extremely hard – motivated in part by what he calls his
“intellectual vanity” – to understand the way Moroccans, Greeks and
Armenians thought and acted. That is a diplomat’s fundamental job,
he says, and “a resource for the United States of America.”
The longer answer involves specific mistakes made and lessons learned.
In a chapter titled “Diplomatic Skepticism and the Lessons of Iraq,”
for example, he tells the story of his “failure to prevent a Florida
con man from bilking the government of Romania out of $250,000.” He
then speculates pointedly as to whether this kind of humbling
experience might have kept Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense
Secretary Donald Rumsfeld from falling so hard for Iraqi exile Ahmed
Chalabi, “an indicted embezzler who had already been written off by
both the CIA and the State Department as a swindler.”
Mainly, however, “Diplomacy Lessons” is a plea that Kiesling’s old
profession be taken more seriously.
“Diplomacy is not a miracle cure for anything,” he says. “Diplomats
bust their butts for years, and most of the time what they achieve
is that the planet is still spinning around on its axis at about the
same speed it was when they started. But that’s actually an incredibly
important task.”
tyle/la-et-diplomacy25sep25,1,2541339.story
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

PRESS RELEASE
Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin, Information Services
Address:  Vagharshapat, Republic of Armenia
Contact:  Rev. Fr. Ktrij Devejian
Tel:  (374 10) 517 163
Fax:  (374 10) 517 301
E-Mail:  [email protected]
Website: 
October 3, 2006
Nine New Priests Ordained in the Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin
Father Varag, Father Ashot, Father Toros, Father Shirak, Father
Movses, Father Hakob, Father Nshan, Father Arsen and Father Psak are
the names of the newest priests of the Armenian Church.
Nine in number, the young men, all graduates of the Gevorkian
Theological Seminary or the Accelerated Academic Course for the
Priesthood, were ordained to the holy order of priesthood last
Sunday, October 1, on the Feast of the Holy Cross of Varag in the
Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin.  The celebrant of the Divine Liturgy
and ordaining bishop was His Eminence Archbishop Nerses Bozabalian,
one of the senior members of the Brotherhood of Holy Etchmiadzin.
His Holiness Karekin II, Supreme Patriarch and Catholicos of All
Armenians, presided during the liturgy and ordination service.
In his message addressed to the newly ordained priests, Archbishop
Bozabalian stated in part, “Dear brothers-in-Christ, we celebrated
the consecration of your priesthood. We gave each of you a new name,
for each of you has become a new man. And as a new man inspired by
the Holy Spirit, sustained with the Holy Spirit, and endowed with
divine gifts, you will have new duties and responsibilities in the
life of our nation. May God help you conquer all difficulties you
shall face.  May the Holy Spirit deliver his gifts in your everyday
pastoral life and support you. Wherever you serve, you must never
forget the mercy of God nor the Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin where
you were nurtured and ordained as priests.”
The nine former deacons, Hovhannes Yaparian, Sahak Ghazarian, Khosrov
Yesayan, Samvel Khanoyan, Armen Ashurian, Hovhannes Grigorian,
Andre Sargsian, Karekin Hambardzumian and Gevork Mkrtchian will be
in seclusion for the traditional 40 day period on the grounds of the
Mother See, following which they will be appointed by His Holiness
to begin their spiritual service within the various dioceses.
##
–Boundary_(ID_ZOyuQlNJ9CNkN3Zf4stb cA)–

DEVELOPPEMENT ARMENIE VISITE PLEINE D’EMOTION DE JACQUES CHIRAC
Schweizerische Depeschenagentur AG (SDA)
SDA – Service de base francais
30 septembre 2006
Erevan (ats/afp) Le president francais Jacques Chirac a effectue samedi
une visite d’Etat empreinte d’emotion en Armenie. Il a juge que la
Turquie devait reconnaître le genocide armenien de 1915-1917 dans
l’Empire ottoman avant de pouvoir adherer a l’Union europeenne (UE).
“C’est avec une emotion profonde que je decouvre la terre d’Armenie”,
a lance M. Chirac, saluant “l’histoire heroïque et tourmentee de ce
peuple d’Armenie issu de la plus haute antiquite”.
“Je pense a tous les survivants de cette tragedie qui durent prendre
les chemins d’un douloureux exil”, a-t-il ajoute en evoquant, devant
plusieurs milliers d’Armeniens reunis sur la “place de France”
a peine inauguree a Erevan, les tueries de 1915-1917.
Invites
M. Chirac a debute la première journee de sa visite d’Etat par un
hommage aux victimes. Accompagne de son epouse Bernadette, le chef
de l’Etat francais a depose une gerbe au pied du Tsitsernakaberd,
le “Monument au genocide des Armeniens”, en presence du couple
presidentiel armenien.
Parmi ses invites de la diaspora armenienne, le numero un mondial
du caviar Armen Petrossian confiait etre “submerge par l’emotion”,
le journaliste Daniel Bilalian eclatait en sanglot et le footballeur
Youri Djorkaeff observait, fige, la minute de silence.
La France est devenue en 2001 le premier grand pays europeen a
reconnaître comme “genocide” ces evenements par une loi, alors qu’un
grand nombre de pays ne retiennent pas cette qualification.
Interroge au cours d’une conference de presse sur le fait de savoir
si la Turquie devait, pour entrer dans l’UE, reconnaître un caractère
de genocide aux massacres d’Armeniens perpetres entre 1915 et 1917,
il a repondu : “honnetement, je le crois”.
“Erreurs”
Jusqu’a present, la France s’etait toujours refusee a etablir un lien
direct entre la question du genocide armenien et celle de l’entree
de la Turquie dans l’Union europeenne.
“Tout pays se grandit en reconnaissant ses drames et ses erreurs”,
a ajoute M. Chirac.
“Quand de surcroît il s’agit de s’integrer dans un ensemble qui
revendique l’appartenance a une meme societe et la croyance en de memes
valeurs, je pense qu’effectivement la Turquie serait bien inspiree
(…) d’en tirer les consequences”, a poursuivi M. Chirac.
Le president armenien Robert Kotcharian a lui declare ne voir “aucun
danger dans ce processus” de negociations entre Ankara et Bruxelles.
“Mais nous voudrions que nos interets soient egalement discutes”,
a-t-il ajoute.
La Turquie a entame en octobre 2005 des negociations en vue d’une
entree dans l’UE dans dix ou quinze ans. Les Armeniens estiment
que jusqu’a un million et demi des leurs ont peri dans un genocide
orchestre par l’Empire ottoman entre 1915 et 1917. Ankara recuse les
accusations de genocide.
“Bon travail”
Sur le differend entre l’Armenie et l’Azerbaïdjan sur le
Nagorny-Karabakh, M. Chirac a estime que “les experts du groupe de
Minsk, depuis des annees, font un bon travail, naturellement sur un
sujet infiniment complexe”.
Poursuite des negociations
Sans vouloir exclure le groupe de Minsk, l’Azerbaïdjan, qui critique
ces mediateurs, souhaite que d’autres organisations, notamment les
Nations unies et le Conseil de l’Europe, se penchent sur cette question
de l’enclave disputee du Nagorny Karabakh.
Le processus de negociations continue malgre l’echec des entretiens de
Rambouillet (France) en fevrier. Le groupe de Minsk est mandate par
l’Organisation pour la securite et la cooperation en Europe (OSCE)
et constitue des Etats-Unis, de la France et de la Russie.
M. Chirac s’est lance dans un long bain de foule “place de France”,
suivi par Charles Aznavour, veritable star en Armenie, dont les
chansons etaient diffusees a plein volume et qu’il a qualifie de
“grand Francais, grand Armenien et immense artiste”.
Charles Aznavour devait lancer samedi soir l’annee de l’Armenie en
France par un concert exceptionnel sur la “place de la Republique”,
devant M. Chirac et des milliers d’Armeniens.
–Boundary_(ID_QizbV5rhO29vc7RIFXw1Y w)–

“QUELQUES NOTES D’ARMENIE” OUVRENT L’ANNEE DE L’ARMENIE A ¨MARSEILLE
Agence France Presse
30 septembre 2006 samedi 6:17 AM GMT
L’annee de l’Armenie a Marseille s’ouvre dimanche avec une soiree
phare intitulee “Quelques notes d’Armenie”, donnee devant 1.800
personnes a l’opera de Marseille.
Ce concert organise par l’association musicale et culturelle d’Armenie,
presidee par le compositeur marseillais Vahik Papikian, sera l’occasion
de decouvrir des idoles des jeunes Armeniens et des adaptations de
musiques traditionnelles au jazz. Ce concert est très attendu par l’une
des communautes armeniennes les plus importantes de France, avec plus
de 80.000 personnes. Il sera retransmis sur une chaîne armenienne de
television hertzienne et devrait toucher 1.000.000 de telespectateurs.
Plus d’une cinquantaine de manifestations culturelles sont inscrites au
programme de cette annee baptisee “Armenie mon amie” a Marseille, avec
pour temps forts un colloque sur l’Armenie chretienne (2 decembre),
un festival du livre armenien (le 16 decembre), un festival du film
armenien parraine par le realisateur marseillais Robert Guediguian
(au premier semestre 2007), des chorales de chants de Noël armeniens,
un concert de l’orchestre philharmonique d’Armenie (le 13 fevrier) avec
Rachmaninov et Khatchatourian au programme, ainsi qu’une exposition
sur l’ecriture et la langue armenienne (mars-avril 2007).
Une exposition photo retracant l’exode des Armeniens est en outre
prevue a Arles où le conseil general des Bouches-du-Rhône presente
egalement une exposition (entre août et avril) de 150 oeuvres
archeologiques des musees d’Erevan.
–Boundary_(ID_LQ0cfbS7ZrHOVjB7jqMcjg)- –
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

PRESIDENT KOCHARIAN CONGRATULATES TEACHERS
Armenpress
Oct 02 2006
YEREVAN, OCTOBER 2, ARMENPRESS: On the occasion of Teachers Day
president Robert Kocharian addressed a message of congratulations to
Armenian school teachers today.
In the message Kocharian wished all teachers good health and success,
saying that school teachers are on the forefront now of a broad
educational reform, which he said is very important for shaping the
country’s tomorrow.
Kocharian also said secondary education continues to remain in the
government’s limelight. and pledged every effort to improve teachers’
social and working conditions.
Prime minister Andranik Margarian also congratulated teachers in a
message, assuring them that the government is determined to continue
school reforming and improving teachers’ social conditions.

THE LIMITS OF TOLERANCE
By Seth Wikas
Jerusalem POst
Oct 2 2006
“Do you want a bracha?” I’ve been asked this question before, at the
various synagogues I have attended in the United States and Europe.
The shamash comes around and asks if someone would like an honor
during the Torah service.
But this time was different; I was in a synagogue in northern Teheran.
It was a bright Shabbat morning, and about 50 people had gathered in
the small synagogue to pray. I had been invited by the vice president
of Teheran’s Jewish Association.
As I looked around the auditorium, sparsely decorated aside from a
large Magen David at the front and the bima in the middle, my host
Fayzlallah Saketkhoo asked again if I wanted to say a blessing over
the Torah reading. After numerous pleas I went up to the bima, where
the Sephardi-style Torah scroll stood upright, and said the prayer
before and after the Torah reading with my American Ashkenazi Hebrew.
Men and women were seated on opposite sites of the room. There was
no mehitza (partition separating men and women), but all the women
had their hair covered.
As an honor to his American guest, Saketkhoo next asked if I wanted
to read the haftara, and I assented. Following the service, he asked
me to recite kiddush for the congregation.
When I grew up in the 1980s, Teheran was synonymous with violence and
terror. Having been born just before the Islamic Revolution in 1979,
I knew Iran only as America and Israel’s great foe. It was not until
I was in college that I learned it had not always been this way.
As a kid, it seemed that not a day went by without some news about
the evil regime that kidnapped American civilians and preached hatred
against the United States, the Great Satan. Things certainly haven’t
improved since, with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad preaching hatred
against Israel and the Jews via a relentless campaign of Holocaust
denial.
So it was a great surprise when, on my first Friday evening in Teheran,
my friends took me to the large synagogue in Yosefabad, in central
Teheran, a neighborhood that is home to a large Jewish population,
and I found the sanctuary packed. Inside the main gate there were
ads for Hebrew lessons and family activities sponsored by the Jewish
Association.
There was an Iranian policeman on guard outside, but with the exception
of the signs in Farsi, the Hebrew-Farsi prayer books and the style of
the women’s hair coverings, this could have been an Orthodox synagogue
in America.
Excepting Israel, Iran boasts the Middle East’s largest Jewish
community. While there are no accurate numbers, the capital
contains around 10,000 Jews as well as Jewish schools that serve
2,000 students. Teheran also has a Jewish retirement home with 50
residents, and its Jewish Association owns a number of buildings,
including a large library used by Jews and non-Jews alike.
Why are the Jews still here? Answers differed across the generations.
For many older people like Saketkhoo, Iran is simply their home. As
the owner of a successful carpet and souvenir shop, Saketkhoo has
provided well for his three children, and devotes a good deal of time
to Jewish Association activities. At his home on Friday night after
services, where he showed me his collection of Kabbala books and a
large tapestry of Moses splitting the sea, he told me about how he
had traveled around the world only to learn that nothing was better
than home.
Asked about the future of the Iranian Jewish community, he replied:
“Did you see how many children were there tonight?”
He was right. It was hard to concentrate on praying in the synagogue,
where at least 300 people had come, because of all the children
running up and down the aisles and chattering outside.
But there is a difference between children and young adults. Peyman,
Saketkhoo’s 27-year-old son, was fond of saying, “Everyone in Iran
has a problem,” meaning that everyone – Jewish and non-Jewish –
wants to leave.
It’s not just the political situation, he said, but the fact that
with the rise of Ahmadinejad, the economic situation has worsened
and poverty has deepened. For college graduates, it is hard to find
jobs in their field; Peyman is an architect by training but works in
his father’s shop. As he and other young Iranians attest, both the
political and the economic situation are getting harder to bear.
“Don’t you want to leave?” I asked.
“Of course, but I have a problem,” he said.
His particular problem is that he did not serve in the military.
Before Ahmadinejad’s election in 2005, Iranians could pay money
rather than perform military service, and Peyman paid for such an
exemption. But now this practice has been canceled, and only those
who have completed military service can travel abroad.
“So why don’t you just serve in the army?” I asked.
Peyman demurred, saying that two years – the service requirement –
is a long time, and he makes a decent living working for his father;
leaving his normal life for two years is out of the question.
“But is there any social life here? Don’t you want to marry someone
Jewish?” I asked.
Social life in Iran is limited, as bars, dance clubs and other
non-Islamic establishments are illegal. Peyman talked about meeting
people – including women – through friends, and noted that there
are social activities arranged through the Jewish Association and
the synagogue.
WHAT WAS most interesting about our conversation was that Peyman’s
friend Arash, a Muslim and a member of Teheran’s police force, was in
the room as we spoke. When I asked Arash about friendships between
Jews and non-Jews in Iran, he considered it a non-issue, preferring
instead to lambaste the regime.
“With Ahmadinejad,” he said, “the police force has become political
and corrupt. Many people who have joined are more concerned with
politics and religion than with protecting the people.”
As Arash saw it, there were no problems between Iranians on a religious
basis. On the issue of Jewish/non-Jewish relations, other Iranians of
different ages, Jewish and Muslim, pointed to a unifying national idea.
Iranian culture dates back nearly 2,500 years, to the days of Cyrus
the Great and Darius, founders of the Persian Achaemenid dynasty (ca.
600 BCE) mentioned in the Bible. Throughout Iran, citizens of all
religions are proud of their national history, and of the various
pre-Islamic leaders and dynasties. Many parents even name their
children Darius or Cyrus.
Following the advent of Islam in the seventh century, the Persian
language adopted Arabic characters but remained distinct from Arabic.
National holidays that existed before Islam are celebrated by the
Jewish community as well. This past spring, Iranians celebrated Norouz
(New Day), the Persian New Year, which begins on March 21, and the
rabbi in Yosefabad spoke about Norouz in his sermon.
The Jewish Association’s calendar begins not on January 1, but on
March 21. This pre-Islamic culture, even in the Islamic Republic of
Iran, is still respected and unifies Iranians of different backgrounds.
Most indicative of this tacit acceptance of religious diversity is a
huge picture on the side of a building in north Teheran. Like many
pictures in the capital, it commemorates Iranian soldiers who fell
during the 1980-8 Iran-Iraq war. But this one is different. It is
dedicated to the minorities who served their country, and depicts
five Iranians of various religions and ethnicities. Four represent
Assyrian and Armenian ethnicities and members of the Christian and
Zoroastrian communities. Right in the center is an Iranian Jew,
with his name spelled in Farsi and Hebrew.
I FOUND great tolerance when I told people I was Jewish. Israel,
however, was a different matter. My friend’s uncle, a mullah and
professor of theology, said “We like Jews, but we hate Zionists.”
My tour guide in Shiraz, in southern Iran, compared the Israelis
to the Arabs, recalling the Arab conquests of the seventh century,
saying the two peoples were invaders and occupiers.
Hajar, a university graduate with perfect English, asked, “Do you
think Israel is a real country?”
Most of the Iranians with whom I spoke, when asked about Israel,
saw it as an occupying entity that had displaced the Palestinians
and did whatever it wanted with American consent.
Iranians, especially in the capital, are constantly reminded of this
narrative. Pictures on the sides of buildings encourage martyrdom, and
downtown, near the old Israeli Embassy (now the Palestinian Embassy),
is Palestine Square. At the center is a large sculpture of Israel,
flanked by masked men throwing rocks while crushing a Star of David
under their feet, and a mother holding her fallen, martyred son.
I asked the leaders of the Jewish community what they thought of
Ahmadinejad’s relentless proclamations that the Holocaust was a myth
and that he wanted to “wipe Israel off the map.”
The president of the Jewish Association, a successful businessman, told
me he had written a letter to Ahmadinejad denouncing the president’s
statements and retorting that if the Holocaust was a myth, then the
Israeli killing of Palestinians must also be a myth.
Nourani, a Jewish shop owner in Shiraz, says this of Ahmadinejad’s
statements: “It’s all just talk. It’s just propaganda to make people
forget about their problems.”
Nourani sells kitchen appliances in the town, which is home to Iran’s
second-largest community of Jews, numbering between 6,000 and 8,000.
Shiraz was Persia’s capital 250 years ago, and is famous for its
wide avenues and beautiful gardens. Many Jews own shops in Shiraz’s
commercial district, and conduct business undisturbed. Some even have
Hebrew prayers or pictures of rabbis tacked up behind their registers.
Nourani and I talked about Jewish observance, but when I asked him
if he celebrated the festivals, he looked at me as if insulted.
“The Jews of Shiraz are very religious – much more religious than
the Jews of Teheran,” he said.
“On Pessah, what do you do for matza?” I asked.
“Would you like to see?” he answered. We left his shop and went for a
15-minute walk across town. On the way, Nourani said he had actually
lived in Israel in the 1970s, but came back because he didn’t like
it there. “The Israelis don’t appreciate what they have. Iran is a
better place to be an observant Jew,” he asserted.
We walked down a number of alleys and finally reached what looked
to be an abandoned ranch house on a barren plot of land. As we got
closer, I saw a sight one might have expected in Monsey, New York, or
Deal, New Jersey, but definitely not in Shiraz. I saw men and boys in
kippot, boxes printed with Farsi and Hebrew, and heard the machinery,
but couldn’t believe it. Shiraz has a matza bakery.
I couldn’t actually comprehend what I was seeing, but it was there:
One room contained the mixers needed to combine the flour and water,
and the other contained the oven and conveyor belt. The prayer said
when ritually removing a piece of dough from the mix was written on
the wall in Hebrew and Farsi. One of the older men there, Qudrat,
spoke fluent Hebrew. He had learned it in Iran, in religious school,
and since I didn’t speak Farsi and he didn’t speak English, we spoke
in Hebrew.
LATER IN the day Qudrat invited my friend and me for a picnic with
his family. The 10 of us all went to a public park and ate a feast
of Iranian stew, vegetables, Iranian sweets and tea. Perhaps most
amazing was that Qudrat wore his kippa in a public park, where dozens
of religious Muslim families – including women covered head-to-toe
in black – were also picnicking.
Everyone at our picnic asked if I was Orthodox, if I kept kosher and
if I observed Shabbat. Qudrat’s children and grandchildren had been
to Israel. His 12-year-old granddaughter, Sepideh, said she liked
Eilat best but added, surprisingly, that Jerusalem was “too religious.”
Qudrat’s son-in-law Farshid, who was looking to leave Iran for the
United States to find work, was also very interested in my level
of Jewish observance. He, like many other potential migr s, hopes
to move to Los Angeles which, with its large Iranian population,
is well-known as Teherangeles.
Following our picnic, Qudrat took me to one of Shiraz’s 13 synagogues
to pray. We came to a large courtyard in the neighborhood of
Rabiazadeh, and there were about 40 men assembled, ready for the
afternoon service. I wonder how many cities there are in the world
where a community of fewer than 10,000 Jews have a synagogue and can
assemble 10 men for daily afternoon prayers.
Even more incredible was the fact that after we left, another group
of worshipers came in. I was told that there are at least three shifts
that come every morning and four or five every afternoon.
“Do you like it here?” someone asked me as I walked out.
“It’s a very nice country, and it’s nice to see so many Jews,” I said.
“Well, you know, I was one of the 13 Jews put in jail,” he said.
N. (to protect his privacy), along with 12 other Jews from Shiraz,
had been arrested in 1988 on charges of being Israeli spies. Despite
international pressure, 10 of the 13 were sentenced to prison terms
of up to 13 years.
N. still doesn’t know why he was put in jail.
“We’ll never know,” he said. “I was a government employee and
was honest. I never took a bribe. I spent 17 months in solitary
confinement, yet at one point all 13 of us shared a cell.”
N. was finally released in 2002, but still can’t leave the
country and was reticent about the circumstances of his arrest and
imprisonment. The government, he said, has limited what he can say
to foreigners.
All he would say was: “You never know what will happen. In Iran,
you never know what will happen.”
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

AZERBAIJAN LEADER FAVORS ACTIVE POLICY IN KARABAKH SETTLEMENT
Itar-Tass, Russia
Oct 2 2006
BAKU, October 2 (Itar-Tass) – Azerbaijan’s President Ilkham Aliyev
said on Monday he was in favor of an active policy in the settlement
of the conflict around the mostly Armenian populated Azerbaijani
enclave of Nagorno Karabakh.
The president emphasized a need to use all possibilities for a
peaceful settlement of the conflict, noting that “Azerbaijan will
continue cooperation with international organizations on that issue.”
He told a parliament session that co-chairmen of the OSCE Minsk group
for Nagorno Karabakh arrived on Monday in Baku and stressed that his
country “is not going to reject that format of the settlement”.
“However, we believe that the activity of other international
organizations can also contribute to a peace process,” Aliyev said.
At the same time he stressed that “Azerbaijan will never allow the
setting up of a second Armenian state on its territory.” “Azerbaijan
will never sign a peace agreement that would not meet the national
interests of the country,” he said. “As a president, I will never
sign it,” he emphasized.
The president also said that under a 2007 draft budget, Azerbaijan’s
defense expenditures will grow 17.8 percent, and will reach 900
million dollars.
He said “The growth of military expenses must not worry anyone”.
“This is our sovereign right. Besides, a growth of the military budget
cannot automatically lead to a war. We must ensure our security and
be ready for any development of the events,” the president said.

OSKANIAN: THE DOCUMENT PRESENTED BY THE MEDIATORS IS THE LESSER OF EVILS
Tatul Hakobyan
Public Radio of Armenia
Sept 29 2006
In RA Foreign Minister Vardan Oskanian’s words, the meeting with
the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs in New York was productive, since to
some extent it clarified the situation. “Next week the Co-Chairs will
arrive in Armenia in the framework of a regional visit. The meeting
of the Foreign Ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan depends on the
results of the visit,” the Minister said in a press conference today.
A fact-finding mission to assess the situation with fires at the
contact line is also expected to visit the territories bordering
Nagorno Karabakh next week.
Vardan Oskanian dwelt on the resolution the European Parliament adopted
one of these days, “We assess the decision of the European Parliament
connected with Turkey’s membership as positive, irrespective of the
fact that the clause on the Armenian Genocide was abolished at the
last moment. I would name this document ideal if the clause were
not eliminated. The resolution calls on Turkey to lift the blockade
and establish diplomatic relations with Armenia. Turkey is required
to open the border with Armenia without any preconditions, and this
is a prerequisite for Turkey’s entry into the EU. This is a serious
political document although it is a Parliamentary decision.”
Vardan Oskanyan noted that in case the resolution on frozen conflicts
on GUAM territory is adopted in the UN, the question of Karabakh
participation will not be considered a matter of time. It will become a
condition, since in case of adoption of a similar resolution Armenia
will certainly try to relief its burden by involving Karabakh in
the talks, “Of course, Armenia will contunue participating in the
negotiations, but Karabakh’s involvement will be necessary.”
In response to “Radiolur” question why the Minister did not meet with
Mammadyarov in New York, Vardan Oskanian said, “These meetings should
not be an end in itself. The Ministers meet when exact questions are
suggested. Only a week preceding our meeting the GUAM initiative was
put on UN agenda and the situation changed. Under these new conditions,
without clarifying the situation the meeting would be an end in
itself. I can say that the meeting was not rejected, it was delayed,
since some clarifications are needed. The cancellation of the meeting
with Mammadyarov should not be considered as Armenia’s avoidance from
talks, since the document on the table today is generally acceptable
for Armenia. Although it is not an ideal document but the lesser of
evils, we think that it can open the way for the settlement of the
issue. I clearly stated in my speech in the UN that we have given
our agreement to all the strategic points of the 2.5 page document.”
What will Armenia do if Azerbaijan once again tries to resolve
the Karabakh issue in a military way? “Armenia will not sit idly if
Azerbaijan refuses from talks or carries in mind the idea of settling
the issue in a military way as an alternative. The security of Karabakh
people is extremely important for us, and if we get convinced that
Azerbaijan intends to launch military actions, Armenia will not stop
before anything. Armenia will take the correct steps to fully guarantee
the security of Karabakh people,” the Foreign Minister declared.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress