VAHAN HOVHANNISYAN: PRESIDENT OF AZERBAIJAN IS NOT READY FOR CONCESSIONS
ArmRadio.am
08.06.2006 18:06
“We have seen many times that the President of Azerbaijan is not
ready for concessions, and this can be explained with the public
opinion in Azerbaijan.
We should not forget, however, that the public opinion was formed
mostly with the influence of the aggressive statements of the Azeri
President,” NA Deputy Speaker Vahan Hovhannisyan said.
The Deputy Speaker considers it is irrefutable that the oil factor
has a certain role in the settlement of the Karabakh conflict. He
does not think, however, that Baku can use this as a guarantee that
no pressure will be exerted over it in any case.
“In reality, it is not that difficult to match the positions
of the parties, only Azerbaijan should recognize the right of
self-determination of people of Nagorno-Karabakh. International
experience shous that it is an applicable mechanism,” Vahan
Hovhannisyan said, turning to possible developments of further
development.
The current world processes, in Vahan Hovhannisyan’s opinion, will
at last make Azerbaijan realize the necessity of a more tolerating
approach.

DEMOGRAPHIC INDICES FOR 2006
Azat Artsakh, Nagorno Karabakh Republic [NKR]
07 June 2006
In the months of January-May 2006 793 children were born in Nagorno
Karabakh Republic, which is down by 37 or 4.5 percent compared with the
same months in 2005. The death rate totaled 547 over the past months of
2006, and is down by 39 or 6.7 percent, compared with the same period
in 2005. Hence, the natural growth of the population totaled 246 over
the past five months of 2006, and is up by 0.8 percent, compared
with January-May 2005. Over the past months 309 people arrived in
NKR and 212 people left. In this period 241 marriages were reported,
increasing by 13 or 5.7 percent compared with January-May 2005.
The rate of divorce totaled 49 and is up by 4.3 percent.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

CONSTITUTIONAL TASK FORCE MET JUNE 5
Azat Artsakh, Nagorno Karabakh Republic [NKR]
07 June 2006
On June 5 NKR President Arkady Ghukassian conducted the meeting of
the NKR Task Force for the Constitution. Arkady Ghukassian highly
appreciated the work done in drafting the main law of the country,
stressing that it has already received positive opinions from
experts. Then the head of the Task Force Armen Zalinian presented
a report on the work of the Task Force. The representatives of the
political forces, government and the National Assembly expressed
their opinions on the draft. Summing up the opinions and approaches,
Arkady Ghukassian decided to introduce the draft constitution to the
National Assembly. At the same time, the head of state instructed
the Task Force to go on to study the proposals on the draft.

NKR PRESIDENT CONGRATULATED
Azat Artsakh, Nagorno Karabakh Republic [NKR]
07 June 2006
NKR President Arkady Ghukassian congratulated the president of the
Chess Federation of Armenia Serge Sargissian and the men’s chess
team of Armenia on the victory on the 37th World Chess Olympiad. “The
absolute success of the men’s team of Armenia in Italy displayed the
high quality of the national chess school, upholding the glorious
tradition established by Tigran Petrossian. At the same time, the
victory of the Armenian chess players denotes the great intellectual
potential of our people, its reliance on its strength. All through the
Olympiad Nagorno Karabakh cheered and gave its support to you. Today
we are proud of our people, who gave birth to such sons for the world,
for your victory is the victory of the entire Armenian people. Your
success in Torino will spur the development of chess in Armenia and
Nagorno Karabakh.” In the end the president wished new achievements
to the chess players and invited them to Artsakh.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

GOVERNMENT AWARDED CHESS PLAYERS
Lragir.am
08 June 06
At the June 8 meeting the government decided to award the men’s chess
team of Armenia which became champion on the World Chess Olympiad. The
chess players and the coaches were awarded 2.5 million drams each,
plus 5 million dollars each from the reserve funds of the government.

LEAVING ORINATS YERKIR DID NOT HELP GOVERNOR OF GEGHARKUNIK
Lragir.am
08 June 06
On June 8 the government of Armenia, relying on the May 6, 1997 order
of the president on regional governance, dismissed Stepan Barseghyan
from the post of governor of the region of Gegharkunik. Arsen Grigoryan
was appointed governor of Gegharkunik. Stepan Barseghyan, being a
member of the Orinats Yerkir Party, became governor thanks to the
coalition agreement. After the secession of the Orinats Yerkir Party
from the coalition Stepan Barseghyan left the party.

VARDAN OSKANYAN DID NOT LISTEN TO SERGE SARGSYAN
Lragir.am
08 June 06
Foreign Minister Vardan Oskanyan stated June 8 that he had not heard
the June 7 statement of Defense Minister Serge Sargsyan. The defense
minister announced June 7 that judging by the information he has about
the meeting in Bucharest Azerbaijan is missing the opportunity of a
peace settlement of the Karabakh conflict. Vardan Oskanyan declined
to comment on Serge Sargsyan’s opinion but he, nevertheless, set
forward suggestions on what it could emanate from.
“After every round of negotiations one tends to think that another
opportunity was missed. Maybe this is what the defense minister had
meant. I have just told you that we must carry on the talks. There
is no other alternative. It is Armenia that keeps stating, asserting
that the Karabakh issue cannot be settled through a war. If it could,
it should have been settled long before,” said Vardan Oskanyan. He
announced that despite the failure of the talks in Bucharest the
presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan will use the open “window”
in 2006 and reach an agreement on the key principles of the
resolution. However, the presidents rejected the agreement of the
mediators on this dispute, and it is interesting whether the new
meeting will not be an opportunity for a new refusal.
“I think that every party thinks that it is not acceptable for them,
but maybe it is close to its goal and can persuade the opposite
party to accept it. I think the presidents keep this in their
minds in approaching the issue and preparing to meet,” says Vardan
Oskanyan, adding that it is difficult for both parties to reach an
agreement because they have major controversies. Vardan Oskanyan did
not mention the exact time of the next meeting of the presidents,
saying that there were no arrangements in Bucharest. He mentioned
that they promised to meet as soon as there was an invitation. Hence,
everything depends on the co-chairs.
“All the problems of settlement of the issue are on the table, all the
problems. Different sides are offered different proposals; therefore,
every party stresses the issue that is favorable for it.
For us, we have asserted for several times that self-determination and
recognition of Nagorno Karabakh by Azerbaijan is primary. Then we can
discuss different consequences of the conflict,” Vardan Oskanyan once
again expressed the stance of the Armenian side on June 8. According
to him, there is no outside pressure on the process of settlement,
and there will be no pressure. Vardan Oskanyan said it is pointless to
apply the model of Dayton, adding that in Dayton the great powers had
to stop a blood-shed, whereas there is no such a problem in Karabakh.

TURKISH-ARMENIAN RELATIONS INDEPENDENT FROM ERDOGHAN AND KOCHARYAN
Lragir.am
08 June 06
Turkish-Armenian relations have always been on different planes and
are not confidential, stated Foreign Minister Vardan Oskanyan June 8.
He was asked by news reporters to comment on recent information in
Turkish press about Turkish-Armenian secret negotiations. “There
have always been regular meetings, sometimes top level, sometimes
on a foreign minister level, sometimes on a deputy foreign minister
level. There are no secrets, there is a dialogue,” says Vardan
Oskanyan. The minister disagrees with the observation in the Turkish
press that this relation was set up by the letter of Erdoghan and
Robert Kocharyan’s answer. The Turkish-Armenian relations have nothing
to do with it, said Vardan Oskanyan, adding that there is no news
about progress in Turkish-Armenian relations.
Instead the foreign minister of Armenia commended the news about the
nuclear program of Iran, particularly the prospects for negotiating
the issue. Vardan Oskanyan said Armenia commends the willingness to
negotiate and is hopeful that the nuclear problem will be settled
peacefully.

EX-AZERI LEADER BEGGED FOR APARTMENT
By Anatoly Medetsky
Staff Writer
Aida Sultanova
The Moscow Times, Russia
June 9 2006
The first president of independent Azerbaijan, Ayaz Mutalibov, had
to beg the Kremlin for an apartment after he fled a rebellion in 1992.
Mutalibov left Baku aboard a Russian military plane just three months
into his term. He is wanted in Azerbaijan on charges of negligence
for an Armenian attack in February 1992 that killed hundreds of
Azeris. Baku also accuses him of involvement in a coup plot in 2001.
Mutalibov, who dismissed the accusations as “political intrigue,”
said by telephone that one of the first things he did upon arriving
in Moscow was to ask the Kremlin for a home.
The Presidential Property Department provided him with a state
apartment in 1994, but he was not allowed to register there and had
to apply for a new guest visa every 45 days, Mutalibov recalled. The
government finally donated a four-room apartment to him and his family
in 1997, in the remote district of Zhulebino, where he still lives.
In 1999, then-President Boris Yeltsin granted him the status of
political refugee, and only at the end of last year did he receive
a refugee card allowing him to travel abroad, Mutalibov said.
Despite the apartment problems, Mutalibov said he remained a friend
of Russia. “We think that relations with Russia are a priority for
Azerbaijan because we are neighbors that have long lived as a single
country,” he said. “We are linked by a lot of things — for example,
the fact that about 2 million of my countrymen live here.”
During Mutalibov’s short term as president, Azerbaijan joined the
Commonwealth of Independent States, a loose group that replaced the
Soviet Union.
Mutalibov said Russia had never tried to use him to influence
Azeri politics and that he had not sought the Kremlin’s support for
his political ambitions. He heads the Social Democratic Party of
Azerbaijan, which does not have any seats in the Azeri parliament.
Still a citizen of Azerbaijan, Mutalibov said he hoped to return to
his home country.
“It is a disgrace that the first president of Azerbaijan has to live
abroad,” he said.

REFUGEES UNHAPPY WITH GEORGIAN HOTEL PROJECT
By Revaz Sakevarishvili in Batumi
Institute for War and Peace Reporting, UK
June 8 2006
People displaced by war and now living in Black Sea hotels complain
that they are being short-changed by a scheme to rehouse them, to
make way for a huge redevelopment programme.
A massive tourism investment project on Georgia’s Black Sea coast is
getting under way despite complaints from refugees who say they will
not move out of their hotel accommodation because the compensation
on offer is too small.
Georgian president Mikhail Saakashvili, visiting Kazakstan late
last year, said a consortium of Kazakh investors led by TuranAlem
Bank would invest “between 800 million and one billion [US] dollars”
in developing tourist infrastructure on the Black Sea coast of Ajaria.
The announcement raised high hopes in Ajaria, but media reports in
Kazakstan are now suggesting the scale of the investment will be much
lower, at around 200 million dollars. It is unclear why the figure
has fallen so much.
TuranAlem’s press secretary in Almaty, Valentina Vladimirskaya, told
IWPR that many parts of the investment project, for which the bank
is providing financing, were still at an early stage.
“TuranAlem Bank is giving credits to companies which are investing
this money in various projects in Georgia,” she said. “Some of these
projects are being negotiated, while others have reached the signing
stage. Kazakh banks plan to attract western partners and finance
these projects gradually.
“The reconstruction of the Radisson Iveria in Tbilisi and the
surrounding territory area has already been agreed – this project
specifically is worth 150 million dollars. As for the overall sum [for
the whole of Georgia including Ajaria], it’s very hard to name it.”
In Ajaria, people have been eagerly anticipating the investment boom
as a potential source of jobs and money.
The regional government of Ajaria has been working since the beginning
of the year to make the project a reality. In February, the head
of the local government Levan Varshalomidze ordered that the entire
state-owned company Resorts of Ajaria consisting of 20 hotels, rest
homes and sanatoria should be sold to a new company, Ajaria Resorts
Holding, established to implement the Kazak investment project. A 53
per cent share of the Meskheti Hotel was also included in the sale.
The total price for the sites, including the Meskheti shares, was set
at 17.5 million dollars, of which just four million is the value of
the state-owned hotels.
The other 13.5 million dollars represents compensation to help rehouse
just under 2,000 refugees from Georgia’s civil wars, who have lived
in the hotels for more than a decade.
Ajaria’s deputy finance minister Tamaz Mgebrishvili, who has been
overseeing the process, rejected suggestions that the 21 hotels were
being sold off cheap. “Given the condition of these buildings, it is
a very realistic price, since most of them need serious repairs and
several need to be completely demolished,” he said.
Tourism has been a major source of income for Ajaria, especially since
Georgia lost the Black Sea coast of Abkhazia following the conflict
of 1992-93. Every summer, Ajarian resorts overflow with holidaymakers
from Georgia and further afield.
Last year, there was a big influx of tourists from Armenia. Tengiz
Surmanadze, head of the ABK+ tourist firm, told IWPR, “This year we
forecast that there will be even more Armenian tourists. The flow
has increased from Ukraine and Russia and also from Central Asia.
“As for Georgians, you know the joke: if you can’t find someone in
Tbilisi in summer, go to Batumi and you’ll definitely see him there.”
The compensation money is intended to help the refugees, mostly from
Abkhazia, and works out at about 7,000 dollars for each of the 1,921
families still housed in the Black Sea hotels.
However, this part of the plan has not gone smoothly. All the refugees
were supposed to have moved out of the hotels by May 30, but some
are still there.
Paata Jalagonia, who chairs a regional human rights group, said 500
families were holding out because they had not agreed to the terms
of the compensation package.
“They are six to eight people in a family occupying two or three
rooms, but for the 7,000 dollars on offer they can’t even buy a
one-room apartment, which in Batumi goes for an average of 11,000 or
12,000 dollars. So they are demanding an increase in the scale of the
compensation, so that it corresponds to the amount of space they now
occupy,” he said.
However, it looks unlikely that the refugees will get what they want.
Nodar Andguladze, a spokesman for Ajaria Resorts Holding, said the
compensation had been allocated according to a definition of family
size agreed with the Georgian government.
“The list of families who ought to receive compensation was given
us by the health ministry,” he said. “So if someone has a complaint,
they should apply to the ministry.”
Many families are contesting the way they were designated. Among
the 116 cases being reviewed by the prosecutor’s office in Ajaria is
that of Mirian Kalandia, who currently lives in two hotel rooms with
his wife, daughter, son-in-law and grandson. Until March, they were
defined as being two families, but are now being treated as one and
are thus only entitled to a single compensation package.
While these arguments go on, the investors have already begun work.
In the Kolkhida sanatorium, the glass has been taken out of windows
even though there are still refugees living there.
“The time-frame has already been decided on by us and the government,”
said Andguladze. “For example, the Medea and Meskheti hotels and the
Kobuleti sanatorium should begin operating in 2007.
Five thousand people, mostly locals, will be employed at each stage
of the project. The hotels we build will serve all sections of the
population and there is big demand for them. So we definitely have
to meet our deadlines.”
Deputy health minister Aleko Shvelidze said that if the investors
and the refugees could not agree, “other options” would be used to
rehouse the refugees. “In any case, I promise that no family will be
left on the street,” he said.
This reassurance is not enough for a group of refugees, who have been
demonstrating outside government headquarters in Batumi in recent days.
“There is no other way we can achieve anything,” said Vakhtang Ardia,
who said he was almost removed from the list of registered refugees.
“A grandfather, grandmother, two children, two daughters-in-law and
a grandson are living in two rooms. We are being driven out and given
money just for one room,” he said.
“If they want to tell us to our faces that we shouldn’t have children,
then we can go and look for somewhere else to live, somewhere where
people will treat us like normal human beings.”
Revaz Sakevarishvili is a Georgian freelance journalist.