AGAIN INJUSTICE WON IN THE JUDICIAL SYSTEM OF ARMENIA
ArmRadio.am
01.06.2006 16:17
RA Court of Appeal sentenced three 20-year-old young men Razmik
Sargsyan, Araik Zalyan and Musa Serobyan to life imprisonment. The
young people are charged with murdering fellow servicemen.
To remind, the accident occurred in 2003. First Instance Court of
Syunik marz charged the three soldiers with murder and sentenced
them to 15 years imprisonment. Disagreeing with the verdict they were
keeping a hunger strike for several months. They were assuring they
are in no way related to the crime.
Nevertheless, this fact was taken into consideration neither by the
First Instance Court nor by the Court of Appeal. Currently their
health condition is extreme. Law enforcers and attorneys said today
that parents of the killed soldiers also disbelieve that the murder
was carried out by the three young men.
“The investigation of this case at the Court of Appeal came to an
end, and again injustice won in the judicial system of Armenia,”
said Avetik Ishkhanyan, President of the “Helsinki” Committee.
According to Ishkhanyan, the Court based on the testimony of one of
the defendants only and cast a life sentence without considering the
most essential principles of trial.
“The Judge presiding over the hearing at the Court of Appeal solely
rejected all the mediations of the defense side,” said defender of
Razmik Sargsyan’s interests, attorney Zaruhi Postanjyan.
The attorneys assure they will apply both the Constitutional Court
and the European Court. They still hope to retrieve the justice.

ARMENIAN CHESS PLAYERS SET TO WIN TURIN OLYMPIAD
Armenpress
Jun 1 2006
TURIN, JUNE 1, ARMENPRESS: Armenian male chess played prevailed
yesterday over Chinese team scoring 2.5-0.5 in the 10th round of the
World Olympiad in Italian Turin. Now with 29 points Armenians are
set to win the first place. Armenians played versus all their major
rivals and in general nothing extraordinary is expected.
The Chinese team comes now second with 27 points, and the Russian
team are third with 26.5 points after beating Ukraine 3:1.
Vladimir Hakobian celebrated his victory in the Armenian team meeting
with China and provided his team’s win.

TIGRAN TOROSYAN IS THE SOLE CANDIDATE
A1+
[02:20 pm] 01 June, 2006
The NA deputies will elect NA Speaker today.
Despite all predictions and expectations, two candidates were put
forward from the Republican party – Tigran Torosyan and Galoust
Sahakyan.
Galoust Sahakyan proposed NA deputy Speaker Tigran Torosyan’s candidacy
for the NA Speaker, and the candidacy of Galoust Sahakyn was put
forward by Hakob Hakobyan, member of the “National Deputy” faction.
Galoust Sahakyan’s candidacy was proposed for a few minutes as he
announced rejection to his nomination.
He didn’t want to bring grounds for his decision and promised to
divulge the motives later on.
According to the NA agenda-regulation Tigran Torosyan presented his
program and answered the questions of the deputies. The NA parties
and factions will share their opinions on the elections in an hour.

NKR FOREIGN MINISTRY RESPONSE TO REFERENDUM IN MONTENEGRO
Azat Artsakh, Nagorno Karabakh Republic [NKR]
01 June 2006
Holding a referendum on independence in Montenegro on May 25, 2006 and
the willingness of the international community to recognize its results
are, on the whole, a positive fact. We believe that honouring the right
of a nation for self-determination expressed through a referendum is a
cornerstone in the settlement of similar situations and a real tool in
establishing political stability in the area of conflict. With regard
to this it is proper to remind that the violation of the right of the
people of Nagorno Karabakh, who voted for independence on December
10, 1991, enabled Azerbaijan to launch military aggression, which
killed many people and caused destruction. Neglecting the right of the
people of NKR for self-determination and the right for guarantees of
their political independence, economic and military security in the
settlement of the Karabakh-Azerbaijani conflict put off the prospect
of mutually acceptable settlements and sustainable peace and mutual
understanding in the region.

A FOREST-PLANTING WILL INITIATE
A1+
[12:54 pm] 01 June, 2006
Forest-planting will initiate in different regions of about 175
hectares in Shirak marz next year.
Though the Gymri branch of the “Armenian Forest” company placed an
order for 500 hectares only 35% was confirmed.
Anyway, the initiators assure that such large scale work has not been
realized in the marz within the recent 12 years and this is great
progress on this score.
TV Company “Tsayg” of Gyumri

PARLIAMENT AGAIN BLOCKS GOVERNMENT BILL ON INCOME DISCLOSURE
By Ruzanna Khachatrian
Radio Liberty, Czech Rep.
May 31 2006
The Armenian government again failed to push through parliament on
Wednesday a bill that would obligate all well-to-do Armenians to
regularly declare their personal incomes and other assets.
The bill, which is aimed at complicating widespread tax evasion, has
been bogged down in the National Assembly for nearly two years, meeting
with strong resistance from some wealthy lawmakers. The government
has so far only managed to have it passed in the first reading.
Only 47 of the 131 members of the assembly voted to pass it in the
second reading. The proposed legislation is openly opposed by the
Orinats Yerkir party of former parliament speaker Artur Baghdasarian.
One of the nine Orinats Yerkir deputies, Hovannes Markarian, insisted
that “Armenian society is not ready” for mass income declarations.
Also refusing to back it are the 17 ostensibly independent deputies
making up the People’s Deputy group. All of them are wealthy
businessmen loyal to the country’s leadership.
Armen Alaverdian, deputy head of the State Taxation Service, said the
government will again put the bill to the parliament vote soon. “We
have to work with those factions to find out reasons for their
opposition,” he told RFE/RL.
Armenia already has a law on financial disclosure that covers only the
president of the republic, all members of the parliament, ministers
and other senior government officials. But the law has proved largely
meaningless, with most senior officials grossly understating their
assets in annual income declarations filed with tax authorities. The
latter have no right to check the veracity of those statements.
The government bill would extend mandatory income declaration to
all those citizens who earn at least 500,000 drams ($1,160) a month,
or ten times more than the official average salary in the country.
President Robert Kocharian’s former anti-corruption adviser, Bagrat
Yesayan, has been one of the strongest supporters of the measure.
Yesayan has argued that a much broader financial disclosure would
enable the authorities to uncover expensive property which is owned
by corrupt government officials but is officially registered in their
relatives’ names.

KONSTANTIN KOSACHEV: “RUSSIA TO BACK ANY DECISION ON KARABAKH”
Today, Azerbaijan
May 31 2006
Russia will uphold any decision on Nagorno-Karabakh that will meet
the interests of Armenia and Azerbaijan, said Konstantin Kosachev,
chairman of the State Duma Foreign Affairs Committee.
According to Itar-Tass, in an interview with the Ekho Moskvy radio
station on Wednesday, Kosachev said Russia did not pursue any own
goals in the Karabakh settlement and upheld any decision, which would
meet the interests of Armenia and Azerbaijan.
“The situation in Nagorno-Karabakh remains very difficult and Russia
is ready to support any decision, which will satisfy the demands of
both Armenia and Azerbaijan. If mutual accord is reached to deploy a
peacekeeping contingent in the enclave, Russia should support their
address and facilitate its implementation,” the Duma lawmaker said.
Kosachev commented on Vice-Prime Minister and Defence Minister Sergei
Ivanov’s statement on the possible deployment of peacekeeping forces in
Nagorno Karabakh. Peacekeeping units could appear in Nagorno-Karabakh,
the vice-prime minister said.
“As concerns Nagorno Karabakh, I do not exclude that peacekeeping
forces can appear there in a foreseeable future for guaranteeing the
fulfilment of all political accords that will be achieved sooner or
later,” he told reporters.
“The acey-deucy situation, excuse me for mauve ton, cannot continue
endlessly,” he said.
The fragile truce in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict area lasts for 12
years, since May 1994.
“There have been not less, but more flash points like Nagorno Karabakh
in the world from year to year, and this causes regret,” Ivanov said.
URL:

ARMENIA, AZERBAIJAN UNDER STRONG PRESSURE TO HAMMER OUT NK PEACE
By Emil Danielyan
Eurasia Daily Monitor, DC
May 31 2006
The United States, Russia, and France are stepping up pressure on
Armenia and Azerbaijan in a last-ditch attempt to secure a framework
agreement settling the Karabakh conflict this year. The three powers
co-chairing the OSCE Minsk Group have set the stage for yet another
Armenian-Azerbaijani summit that could prove decisive in eliminating
the number one source of instability in the South Caucasus.
Official Baku and Yerevan announced last week that Presidents Ilham
Aliyev and Robert Kocharian will meet for a second time in less than
four months on the sidelines of a high-level forum of Black Sea states
that is scheduled to take place in Bucharest on June 4-6. All signs
suggest that the two leaders are as close to striking a compromise deal
as ever. Their failure to do so would be an enormous setback that would
keep the bitter territorial dispute unresolved at least until 2009.
High-ranking French, Russian, and U.S. diplomats underscored this
reality as they paid an extraordinary joint visit to the Azerbaijani
and Armenian capitals on May 24-25. (Such trips are usually made by
lower-level diplomats representing the two states.) In a statement
issued after talks with Aliyev and Kocharian, U.S. Assistant Secretary
of State Daniel Fried, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin,
and a senior French Foreign Ministry official, Pierre Morel, emphasized
that “now is the time for the sides to reach agreement on the basic
principles of a settlement.” The conflicting parties, they said, are
now “at the point where a mutually beneficial agreement is achievable.”
Aliyev and Kocharian were already widely expected to hammer out such
an agreement when they last met at the Rambouillet chateau near Paris
on February 10-11. However, the talks collapsed despite indications
that the two sides had agreed in principle to a gradual resolution
of the conflict as proposed by the mediators. The peace plan would
reportedly enable Karabakh’s predominantly Armenian population to
decide the disputed region’s status in a referendum to be held after
the restoration of six of the seven Armenian-occupied districts
in Azerbaijan proper. Few observers doubt that such a vote would
formalize and legitimize Armenia’s de facto reunification of Karabakh
that followed its victorious 1991-94 war with Azerbaijan.
Armenian officials have implied that the Rambouillet talks failed to
yield a breakthrough because of Aliyev’s last-minute rejection of this
peace formula. Indeed, the Azerbaijani president toughened his rhetoric
following the summit, repeatedly saying that he will never accept a
de jure loss of Karabakh. In a May 26 speech in Baku, he stated, “All
the occupied territories of Azerbaijan should be liberated without any
conditions.” However, Aliyev’s foreign minister, Elmar Mammadyarov,
appeared to have endorsed the referendum option in separate comments
made on the same day. Azerbaijani news agencies quoted Mammadyarov
as saying that Karabakh’s status must be determined “not only by
Karabakh’s Armenian community but also with the participation in the
process of the Azerbaijani community, after the return of Azerbaijanis
that used to live there.”
The remarks may be not only the result of the mediators’ latest
regional tour but also of Aliyev’s April talks in Washington with
U.S. President George W. Bush. Some Armenian commentators have
suggested that the high-profile White House reception, which boosted
the domestic and international legitimacy of Aliyev’s regime, was
part of U.S. efforts to coax Baku into signing up to the Minsk Group
plan. The Turan news agency reported that, in a congratulatory message
on Azerbaijan’s Day of the Republic celebrated on May 28, Bush said he
expects Aliyev to do his best to resolve the Karabakh conflict. Aliyev
also received last week a letter from French President Jacques Chirac
who urged him not to miss a “unique opportunity” for Karabakh peace,
according to the Azerbaijani ANS television.
The West does not have to exert the same amount of pressure on
Armenia, whose leadership seems to be largely going along with the
mediators’ most recent peace proposals. Local analysts agree that,
by accepting the proposed solution, Kocharian would almost certainly
secure Western support for his reputed plans to hand over power to
his most influential associate, Defense Minister Serge Sarkisian,
in 2008. Kocharian would hardly face strong opposition from
hardline political elements in his government, notably the Armenian
Revolutionary Federation (HHD). The Yerevan daily Aravot quoted on May
27 Armen Rustamian, an HHD leader who heads the Armenian parliament’s
foreign relations committed, as saying that the referendum option is
“not unfavorable for Armenia and Karabakh.”
Still, the Kocharian-Sarkisian duo would have to reckon with the
position of the Yerkrapah Union, an influential organization uniting
thousands of Armenian veterans of the Karabakh war. Its hardline
chairman, General Manvel Grigorian, and other leaders hold senior
positions in the Armenian military. Grigorian declared on May 8 that
the Armenians “have no lands to surrender.” Karabakh’s ethnic Armenian
leadership is also less than supportive of the Minsk Group plan,
arguing that the Karabakh Armenians had already voted to secede from
Azerbaijan in 1991. “Even if the Karabakh side agrees to it for some
reason, which I don’t consider likely, I doubt that such a referendum
will ever be held,” a senior aide to Arkady Ghukasian, president of
the self-proclaimed Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, told RFE/RL on May 22.
The mediators are clearly not of the same opinion. “The two sides are
closer to an agreement than they have been in the past,” Fried’s deputy
Matthew Bryza told congressional hearings in Washington on May 15. “We
look at these next couple of months as a real window of opportunity.”
(Joint statement by Daniel Fried, Grigory Karasin, and Pierre Morel,
May 25; ANS, Aravot, May 27; Turan, Day.az, May 26; RFE/RL Armenia
Report, May 22; Associated Press, May 15)

CONFLICT PARTIES HAVE POTENTIAL FOR PEACE TALKS
E. Babayan
Azat Artsakh, Nagorno Karabakh Republic [NKR]
01 June 2006
An international seminar entitled “Evolution and Effective Management
of Conflicts. Principles, Approaches and Technologies” was held on May
18 and 19 in Tbilisi, Georgia. The seminar included representatives
from Georgia, Russia, Ukraine, Armenia, Azerbaijan, South Osetia,
and Nagorno Karabakh. Our country’s representative was Albert
Voskanian, the director of the Civic Action Centre human rights NGO,
the coordinator of the task force on the missing, hostages and POWs
in the Karabakh conflict area. On returning from Tbilisi Albert
Voskanian told our reporter that he had presented a report on “The
Problem of Disadvantages of Negotiation Formats. Double Standards”
noting that the Karabakh conflict had been artificially moved from the
Karabakh-Azerbaijani to the Armenian-Azerbaijani plane, distorting
the essence of the conflict. “The armistice in 1994 was signed
by three parties: Nagorno Karabakh, Azerbaijan, and Armenia. It
is unfair and wrong that Nagorno Karabakh was forced out of the
talks. The people of Karabakh should decide their fate themselves at
the table of negotiations with Azerbaijan directly. The legitimate
government of Nagorno Karabakh must participate in the talks and
represent the interests of its people,” said Albert Voskanian, adding
that in the referendum in 1991 the people of Nagorno Karabakh made
their choice. After his report during the seminar Albert Voskanian
received a number of questions, which mainly referred to the occupied
territories and refugees. Albert Voskanian stated that these are
questions that should be settled at the table of negotiations. “When
we consider the return of Azerbaijani refugees, we should not forget
about the Armenian refugees, who also have the right to live where
they used to live. For the territories occupied during the war,
these are now a “security area” for Nagorno Karabakh, guaranteeing
the security of Nagorno Karabakh settlements in case Azerbaijan
bombs these settlements.” He also reminded the participants about
the territories of Nagorno Karabakh controlled by Azerbaijan, namely
the region of Shahumian, a number of settlements in the regions of
Martakert and Martuni. Albert Voskanian thinks that it is necessary
to prepare the publics of the conflict sides for possible compromise
to achieve progress in the peace talks. “The leaderships of the
conflict parties should work with their publics, prepare them for the
idea that compromise in signing a peace agreement is inevitable and
it is a practical step, not a half measure. This perception lacks,
the Azerbaijani side constantly threatens to start military actions,
and Karabakh displays its readiness to counterattack.” At the same
time, he said the conflict over Karabakh is the only conflict in the
post-Soviet space where no peacemakers are involved. “The military
actions did not resume after signing the armistice on May 12, 1994,
and tens of thousands of lives were spared. This allows concluding
that the conflict sides have the potential for peace talks,” said
Albert Voskanian. Elchin Behbutov, the chairman of the Committee
Against Torture, has stated recently that there are secret prisons
in Karabakh, and the Armenians torture Azerbaijani POWs. In answer to
this statement Albert Voskanian said this is but misinformation. “Our
organization regularly conducts monitoring in the penitentiaries in
the country, the remand prison of Stepanakert and the prison of Shushi
for over four years, to find out the state of sanitation and hygiene,
rights of prisoners, etc. In the reports, which are extended to the
Council of Europe, the UN High Commissioner on Human Rights, the OSCE
and other international organizations, we have noted a number of times
that the inmates are Armenians only. If there were inmates of other
nationalities, including Azerbaijanis, we would write about it by
all means,” said Albert Voskanian. “The officers of the International
Committee of the Red Cross in Stepanakert also visit the penitentiaries
of Nagorno Karabakh, and there are no closed doors for them. I think
they will also refute the information on Azerbaijani POWs in the
prisons in Karabakh. After the ceasefire in the Karabakh conflict area
Azerbaijani human rights defenders visited the prisons in Karabakh. So,
the information in the Azerbaijani mass media that Azerbaijani soldiers
undergo violence in the prison of Shushi is false.”

RUSSIA TO BACK ANY DECISION ON KARABAKH – KONSTANTIN KOSACHEV
ITAR-TASS, Russia
May 31 2006
MOSCOW, May 31 (Itar-Tass) – Russia will uphold any decision
on Nagorno-Karabakh that will meet the interests of Armenia and
Azerbaijan, said Konstantin Kosachev, chairman of the State Duma
Foreign Affairs Committee.
In an interview with the Ekho Moskvy radio station on Wednesday,
Kosachev said Russia did not pursue any own goals in the Karabakh
settlement and upheld any decision, which would meet the interests
of Armenia and Azerbaijan.
“The situation in Nagorno-Karabakh remains very difficult and Russia
is ready to support any decision, which will satisfy the demands of
both Armenia and Azerbaijan. If mutual accord is reached to deploy a
peacekeeping contingent in the enclave, Russia should support their
address and facilitate its implementation,” the Duma lawmaker said.
Kosachev commented on Vice-Prime Minister and Defence Minister Sergei
Ivanov’s statement on the possible deployment of peacekeeping forces in
Nagorno-Karabakh. Peacekeeping units could appear in Nagorno-Karabakh,
the vice-prime minister said.
“As concerns Nagorno-Karabakh, I do not exclude that peacekeeping
forces can appear there in a foreseeable future for guaranteeing the
fulfilment of all political accords that will be achieved sooner or
later,” he told reporters.
“The acey-deucy situation, excuse me for mauve ton, cannot continue
endlessly,” he said.
The fragile truce in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict area lasts for 12
years, since May 1994.
“There have been not less, but more flash points like Nagorno-Karabakh
in the world from year to year, and this causes regret,” Ivanov said.