SHAHIN RZAYEV: THOSE WHO SPREAD ANTI-ARMENIAN HYSTERIA ALIENATE KARABAKH FROM AZERBAIJAN
PanARMENIAN.Net
01.05.2006 21:15 GMT+04:00
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ “Azerbaijan starts and wins” national campaign
launched by initiative of Zerkalo newspaper is a “brain storm”,
an attempt to find out and generalize the public opinion, head of
the Baku Office of the Institute for War and Peace Reporting (IWPR),
journalist Shahin Rzayev stated in an interview with PanARMENIAN.Net
reporter. “I myself took part in the campaign. Some participants did
offer to launch a propaganda war but it doesn’t mean that all agree
with the viewpoint,’ the Azeri journalist remarked.
At the same time he noted that “some Armenian political figures have
waged propaganda war against Azerbaijan since 1980-ies. At that time
we spoke of fraternity and were proud of our internationalism. In
this issue we fell behind hopelessly,” he said.
However, head of the IWPR Baku Office emphasized that information war
is better than a real one. “I am going to write one more article where
I will offer to organize more discussions of disputable issues. The
parties to the Karabakh conflict are not well aware of each other’s
positions and warmongers use it,” Rzayev considers.
He subjected the anti-Armenian hysteria to sharp criticism and said,
” I think that those who spread the hysteria do alienate Karabakh
from Azerbaijan and thus favor the opposition party,’ he remarked.
Rzayev is convinced that in the 21st century political disputes are
not solved by territorial invasions.
“There exists the international law. Armenia has undertaken
certain commitments at the entry to the UN, OSCE and the Council
of Europe. That is why all the disputable issues should be settled
within the international law framework. The same refers to the
self-determination of the Karabakh Armenians. But to settle the
self-determination issue we should return to the legal field that
doesn’t admit annexation and seizure of land belonging to another
states. In my opinion, the Armenian leadership came to understand
it and demonstrates readiness for the stepwise settlement of the
conflict,” he said.

TOP CHRISTIAN LEADERS JOIN ‘SAVE DARFUR’ RALLY
Christian Post, CA
May 1 2006
WASHINGTON – Christian speakers were among the religious leaders,
human rights activists, politicians, athletes and actors that convened
to rally for greater U.S. involvement in the Darfur conflict on Sunday.
Tens of thousands of demonstrators wearing T-shirts and waving signs
such as “Never Again – Stop the Genocide,” “Don’t allow Sudan’s
sin to become a shame on the World!” and “No Excuses!” filled the
National Mall demanding an end to what the United Nation calls one
of the world’s worst humanitarian disasters.
Prominent Christian leaders were among politicians, a Nobel Prize
winner, an Academy Award Winner, and heads of non-government
organizations invited to speak at the “Save Darfur” rally.
The Rev. Richard Cizik, vice president for governmental affairs of
the National Association of Evangelicals, prayed for the situation
in Darfur during his speech.
“We pray your blessings, your comforting will fall upon the enslaved,
the victims on this day. They are there but we are here and when
they are persecuted, we are persecuted,” prayed Cizik. “When they
are hungry, we are hungry. Grant us the knowledge to understand that,
Heavenly Father.
“We pray as well for the political leaders of the world, that their
conscience would be stricken with the lost and suffering and that
they would be moved to action. We are people of conscience and
together we can stop the genocide. May it be so. Amen,” concluded
the NAE representative.
Cardinal Theodore McCarrick of the Archdiocese of Washington, D.C.,
also called for action, encouraging the United States and other
countries to make a stronger commitment to saving Darfur.
“Our nation has to get onboard,” declared McCarrick. “Every nation
has to get onboard. Now is the time. Now is the time to put our money
where our mouth is. Now is the time!”
With at least 180,000 people dead and some 2 million homeless,
according to The Associated Press, the ongoing violence between the
government militias and ethnic minority rebels in the western Darfur
region is one of the most serious in the world today.
“This issue that we face today is not only an issue for Americans
but for every citizen of the world,” the Rev. Geoff Tunnicliffe,
international director of the World Evangelical Alliance, said
on Sunday.
“The Scriptures make it very clear that we must stand with those who
are voiceless and powerless. Today we stand with the Darfur people
and speak out loudly against the outrageous atrocities they are being
subjected,” Tunnicliffe said.
Other Christian leaders that spoke at the Save Darfur rally included
Dr. Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention Ethics &
Religious Liberties Commission; the Rev. Walter Fauntroy of New Bethel
Baptist Church of Washington, D.C.; the Rev. John L. McCullough,
executive director and CEO of Church World Service; Tony Kireopoulos
of the National Council of Churches; and the Rev. Fr. Tateos Abdalian
of the Holy Trinity Armenian Apostolic Church.

AZERI OFFICIAL SEES ‘POSITIVE’ CHANGE IN U.S. STANCE ON KARABAKH
By Emil Danielyan
Radio Liberty, Czech Rep.
May 1 2006
The United Sates will be more sympathetic to Azerbaijan’s position on
the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict after Friday’s negotiations in Washington
between Presidents George W. Bush and Ilham Aliev, a senior aide to
the Azerbaijani leader said over the weekend.
“The U.S. president followed the [Karabakh] issue very attentively
and inquired about it,” Novruz Mammadov, head of the foreign affairs
department in Aliev’s administration, told Azad Azarbaycan television,
commenting on the talks. “I think that following the meeting, we
will observe certain changes in the U.S. position on the peace talks,
that’s to say positive steps to resolve the conflict.”
Mammadov did not specify what those changes will be, saying only
that Washington “will from now on provide Azerbaijan with strategic
support in all areas.”
Bush and Aliev made scant reference to the Karabakh conflict as
they briefly spoke with reporters following their talks at the
White House. The U.S. president mentioned it in passing, saying that
“relations with Armenia” were on the agenda of the “candid discussion”
along with issues such as Iran’s controversial nuclear program and
oil-rich Azerbaijan’s “very important role” in energy security.
Aliev, for his part, said he briefed Bush on “the latest status of
the negotiations and expressed my hope that a peaceful settlement of
the conflict will happen and will serve to the peace and stability
in the whole region.”
It is thus not clear if the two leaders reached any agreements on
U.S.-led international efforts to get the conflicting parties to cut
a framework peace deal on Karabakh before the end of this year. The
U.S., Russian and French mediators co-chairing the OSCE Minsk Group
hope that Aliev and Armenian President Robert Kocharian will again
meet early this summer and try to achieve a breakthrough.
In separate comments made outside the White House, Aliev reiterated
that Azerbaijan will not compromise on its territorial integrity
for the sake of Karabakh peace. Other top Azerbaijani officials
have complained recently that the mediators are not pushing for
restoration of Azerbaijani control over Karabakh. “America should
understand … that the Azerbaijani state will not only disagree
with a partition of the lands, but also prevent it,” Deputy Foreign
Minister Araz Azimov said last month.
The Minsk Group’s most recent peace plan, discussed by Aliev and
Kocharian in France last February, reportedly calls for the holding
of a referendum in Karabakh that would almost certainly legitimize its
secession from Azerbaijan. The peace formula seems largely acceptable
to Yerevan. But Karabakh’s ethnic Armenian leadership has expressed
serious misgivings about the idea.
Armenia’s Foreign Minister appeared to have tried to placate the
Karabakh Armenians during a two-day visit to Stepanakert late last
week. “I do not know what the political status of the Nagorno-Karabakh
Republic will be like, but I know for sure what it will not be
like. That is, Nagorno-Karabakh will never be part of Azerbaijan,”
Oskanian declared at a meeting with students of Karabakh State
University on Friday.

THE ACCIDENTAL TOURIST
by Jan Verwoert
frieze, UK
May 1 2006
In these days of cultural complexity it’s important to ask ‘what is
local’ and ‘what does it need’?
The other day I had lunch in the new restaurant da Karlo near where I
live on Karl-Marx-Allee in Berlin. They serve Italian food and play
Brazilian music, and the waiters speak Spanish. With a good view of
the Stalinist architecture of the Allee, I read an essay by a French
filmmaker who recounted how, when he first saw a Jonas Mekas film, he
didn’t understand a word of the American voice-over, which was spoken
with a Lithuanian accent, but still loved every minute of the movie.
As my pizza Napoli arrived, to the strains of a melancholy samba
tune, it struck me that it is precisely these moments of cultural
interference that I look for in art.
By ‘interference’ I don’t mean to evoke the notion of ‘diversity’
that the advertisers and ideologues of the 1990s seized on as
a way to brand urban consumer culture as the earthly paradise
of capitalist liberalism. I’m thinking more of those accidental
moments when different voices and languages overlap at the opening
of an exhibition or during a break at a conference, or when different
meanings clash in an art work or a text, or in your mind when you try
to piece together memories of a show, discussion or journey. No doubt,
simulating such moments of cultural complexity has today become a
routine affair for art professionals. Yet what routines cannot procure
are interferences. They have to occur of their own volition, and when
they do, they don’t necessarily make sense. Take the constellation
of a defunct Soviet Modernism, a sad samba, a book about American
underground cinema and a pizza Napoli. This could be a perfect or a
meaningless moment (or both). It could be a typical Berlin moment,
but then it could also occur in any place with a socialist past where
they serve pizza.
This is also why I believe that the genius loci of a particular
city can be an important factor but never the sole reason for the
occurrence of magical moments. Who knows, special things could also
happen when in some out-of-the-way place a motley crew of characters
from various countries meet at an exhibition, conference, art school
or residency. In fact, even when they take place in a metropolis,
gatherings of international artists and intellectuals can feel
distinctively marginal in exactly the same way as they would if
they had happened somewhere ‘provincial’. I remember, for instance,
the experience of a panel discussion in the Guggenheim New York as
being not substantially different from that of a seminar in a disused
convent in Cork. With about 20 people listening on both occasions,
the discussion was marked by a similar amount of interference, some
of it white noise with people talking at cross purposes, but some
of it very inspiring when the improvised discourse suddenly threw up
terms that made it possible to agree or disagree in a meaningful way.
I have had this experience in many places, and it makes me think about
the close relationship between internationality and marginality. It
seems to me that internationalism in art today is primarily about
mediating eccentric positions from different cultural contexts in
front of a small local audience. The common ground for this new
internationalism could in fact be a feeling of marginality shared by
artists and intellectuals from various countries. What I appreciate
about this international discourse is that through its fickleness it
is a counterpoint to what happens if a local or national art scene
is left to focus on itself for too long. The outcome is usually that
the members of such scenes feel forced to defend the position they
took up years ago in a never-ending trench warfare. To keep on the
margins of such pointless local quarrels and instead look for a more
open exchange with like-minded people in an international discourse
has always seemed preferable to me.
Discussing such ideas of internationalism and marginality with a
small group of artists and writers in the garden of an art school
in a suburb of Yerevan, Armenia, the sociologist Hraech Bayadyan
made a good point. He described how the post-Soviet condition had
changed the social status of the intellectual from being that of a
dissident to that of a marginal figure. While the political regime
still occupied itself with dissidents (and both censored and sponsored
them), new capitalism simply marginalizes intellectual labour as
economically unprofitable and thus pushes it into oblivion. I argued
that if this marginal position is not recognized inside the country,
it would be in an international discourse. Bayadyan countered this by
saying that such recognition only make a difference when it affects
local struggles. He saw his task therefore as being to translate
international discourse into Armenian and thereby try to bring up to
date a language that had suffered a time-lag through being displaced
by modern Russian. This position made me wonder about how, on my part,
a flirtation with the international may also always imply an escape
from a commitment to the local. Still, I have difficulty figuring
out what the local could want from me. Writing this in Umeå, Sweden,
with everything outside covered in deep snow, while back in Berlin
spring and another biennial have just arrived, I come to no conclusion.
Jan Verwoert is contributing editor of frieze. Although based in
Berlin he teaches at the Academy of Fine Arts Umeå and the Piet Zwart
Institute Rotterdam.
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FREEDOM HOUSE: ARMENIAN GOVERNMENT CONTINUES TO RESTRICT FREEDOM OF THE PRESS
Regnum, Russia
May 1 2006
“Although, Armenia has influential independent and opposition printed
mass-media and its constitution protects freedom of word and press,
its government continues to restrict full mass-media freedom in the
country,” Mass-Media Freedom – 2006: Global Survey of Mass-Media
Independence report of non-governmental Freedom House organization
maintains.
Research was conducted in 3 global categories: legal sphere of
mass-media functioning, political influence on information and
access to information, as well as economic pressure on content and
distribution of information. Such survey, which analyses events in
2005, evaluates both deeds of government and mass-media themselves,
for example, level of mass-media independence, corruption among
journalists.
According to the report, decrease of level of press freedom was evident
in Latin America, Russia, several African and Asian countries in
2005. Press is free in 73 of 194 analyzed countries; it is “partially
free” in 54 countries, and “not free” – in 67 countries.
Armenia takes 137th place of the list, USA – 17th one, Ukraine – 113th,
Georgia – 118th, Azerbaijan – 161st, Kazakhstan – 165th, Tajikistan
– 167th, Byelorussia – 185th, Uzbekistan – 187th, Turkmenistan –
190th. Burma, Cuba, Libya, North Korea, and Turkmenistan are recognized
to be the worst countries of worst ones in the aspect.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

ARMENIA SHOULD LOOK FORWARD FOR FUTURE NOT KEEPING PAST MEMORIES- PACE CHAIRMAN
Journal of Turkish Weekly, Turkey
May 1 2006
In order to normalize its relations with Turkey Armenia “should look
forward for future not keeping past memories,” the chairman of the
Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), Rene Van der
Linden told in exclusive interview to MediaMax.
“The fact that both Armenia and Turkey are members of the Council
of Europe allows MPs from both countries to meet and hold joint
discussions. I think that if you live in the same region and you
don’t have any open relations in trade, economy, culture you are not
benefiting your own countries in the first place. You can not create
a stable future in the region if you are isolated from your neighbors.”
“If you are looking for a solution you will find it. Though, you
will never find a 100% solution. Compromise is always a must as both
sides have their own arguments and if you will only stay on your own
principles and feelings it won` t be possible to find appropriate
peaceful solution for future,” Van der Linden said.

GUL CRITICIZES FRANCE OVER BILLS PROPOSING JAIL TIME, FINES FOR “GENOCIDE” DENIAL
Turkish Press
Milliyet
May 1 2006
Press Review
Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul has sharply criticized France for five
bills in the legislative pipeline proposing jail sentences of up to
one year and fines for denying the so-called Armenian genocide. Last
week, Gul met with his French counterpart Philippe Douste-Blazy
during the NATO foreign ministers’ meeting in Sofia. Gul said that
if Turkish politicians paying an official visit to France are asked
by reporters about the so-called Armenian genocide, they would say
that the allegations don’t reflect the facts. “Then will you put
these politicians in jail?” asked Gul.

ARMENIAN DOCTOR’S JOURNEYS HOME BENEFITED HIS PEOPLE
By Diane Haines
NorthJersey.com, NJ
Herald News
May 1 2006
A Paterson-based physician has given life to his ancestral homeland
of Armenia.
Over the past 10 years, Dr. Haroutune Mekhjian has performed open-heart
surgery on 70 to 80 patients in Armenia. He also has trained Armenian
physicians to do the delicate operations.
His first humanitarian trip was in 1996, only months after the only
heart surgeon in Armenia died unexpectedly at the age of 60.
Mekhjian helped fill the void by providing the much needed surgery
during yearly visits.
“The need for cardiac surgery was so much there,” he says. “There are
young women who have had rheumatic fever and their valves are badly
damaged. The operation costs $2,000 and it was nearly impossible to
get that kind of money to be treated. We didn’t charge anything.”
And those missions are only part of his contribution to Armenia. He
also has shipped medical supplies donated by various vendors and by
St. Joseph’s Regional Medical Center in Paterson.
The irony is that Mekhjian nearly left school to go into the bed
manufacturing business with his father in Syria. Instead, he listened
to his mother.
“I didn’t want to go to school after I finished elementary school
training,” he recalls. “My father was a successful businessman and
he wanted me to go into the business. He manufactured beds. But my
mother insisted I should go and get my education.”
He attended a high school run by American missionaries, where he
learned English. After graduation, he went to the American University
of Beirut — a renowned university worldwide, but especially in the
Middle East.
In 1916 his ancestors escaped the Turks, who then controlled the area
now known as Armenia. Mekhjian was born on Easter Sunday in 1939 in
Aleppo, Syria, where he attended high school. He traveled to Beirut
to complete medical school and study general surgery. After marrying
his wife, Shake, a registered nurse, the couple emigrated to New York
City in June 1969. Mekhjian began his residency in cardiac surgery
at Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center, then went on to St. Luke’s
Hospital, where he remained in private practice for the next 12 years.
By 1982, he says, “St. Joseph’s had the largest cardio-cauterization
department in the whole metropolitan area, with 2,000 cases as
compared to 500 or 600 at New York hospitals.” At the time, the chief
of cardiology at St. Joseph’s was referring cases to St. Luke’s.
It was Mekhjian who launched the open-heart surgery practice at St.
Joseph’s that year. He had to wait another 13 years, however, before
taking his first exploratory trip to Armenia, which was virtually
closed to travel while part of the former Soviet Union.
“In 1991, the Soviet Union broke up and Armenia was one of 20 republics
which got its independence,” Mekhjian says, “and it was a lot easier
for us to travel. There was news about poverty and the miserable
conditions the people were in. In 1995, I went on a fact-finding
mission with my wife.”
After two weeks of collecting information, he returned to New Jersey
and organized a trip for the following year to begin cardiac surgery.
Seated behind his large, wooden desk at the hospital, the 66-year-old
Mekhjian, who lives in Alpine, wears a white lab coat and gestures
frequently with his hands. His neatly ordered desk has piles of
paperwork and a pencil holder with an American flag. Two computers and
a plastic model heart sit on nearby cabinets. The pale green walls
are hung with a large map of the United States and pictures of the
doctor taken at the Vatican with the world leader of the Armenian
Apostolic Church and Pope John Paul II.
On Mekhjian’s first working trip to Armenia, he was accompanied by
his wife, a cardiac anesthesiologist and the chief of perfusion (the
operator of the heart and lung machine). There were 15 operations
scheduled over 12 days at Mikaelian Heart Institute in Yerevan,
the capital. All the patients survived and returned home.
The following year, Mekhjian brought a whole team from Armenia
to America.
“They spent one month at St. Joseph’s and one month at Westchester
Medical Center (in Westchester County, New York),” he says. “After the
training, I felt confident they could handle the situation themselves.”
Over the years, Mekhjian and his team have operated on between 70
and 80 patients, all of whom recovered. Although he has returned to
Armenia each year, it is strictly to consult and deliver supplies.
“They thought we were magicians,” he says. “I believe we made a
major contribution.”

RELIGIOUS LEADERS COME TOGETHER FOR TOURISM
By Aslihan Aydin, Ankara
Zaman Online, Turkey
May 1 2006
“Faith Tourism Days III” jointly organized by Turkey’s Department
of Religious Affairs and Travel Agencies Association (TURSAB) will
bring religious leaders together for a three day meeting chaired by
the Director of Religious Affairs Professor, Ali Bardakoglu.
Leaders of different religious communities in Turkey including
Turkish-Armenian Patriarch Mesrob Mutafyan, Turkish Jews Chief Rabbi
Isak Haleva, Istanbul Greek Orthodox Patriarch Bartholomeos, and
Syriac Catholic Community Patriarchal Vicar Bishop Yusuf Sag will
come together for this meeting.
The organization will be held in the Anatolia Auditorium at the
Istanbul Lutfi Kirdar International Congress Center on March 12-13-14.
The Third Faith Tourism Days meeting is perceived as the “meeting of
religions” for the spiritual leaders, while travel agencies see it is
an important step to developing an alternative to sea-sand-sun tourism.
Ali Bardakoglu will chair the first session titled, “Concept of
traveling and visitors in religions.”
The panel titles of the second days are: “Istanbul: Intersection of
Civilizations,” “Leaders and evidence of organized religions in the
Balkans,” “Religious tourist sites in Istanbul and its surrounding
neighborhood,” and “The past, present and future of living in Istanbul,
an example of multiculturalism.”
Tourist traders will make speeches on the last day of the meeting
as part of the discussion titled, “The past, present and future of
faith tourism.”
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

OSCE MINSK GROUP CO-CHAIRS MEET IN MOSCOW TOMORROW
Azeri Press Agency, Azerbaijan
May 1 2006
OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs– Yuri Merzlyakov (Russia), Steven Mann
(the USA), Bernar Fasie (France) and personal representative of OSCE
chair- in-office Andrzey Kasprzyk will come together tomorrow in
Moscow, Baku Office of Andrzey Kasprzyk has informed APA.
The co-chairs will precise new details on regulation of Nagorno
Garabagh conflict. In tomorrow’s meeting the co-chairs will identify
the date of the next visit to the region. During the visit to
the region new proposals will be submitted to Azerbaijan-Armenia
leadership.