PanARMENIAN.Net
PACE Calls to Settle Conflicts in South Caucasus

15.04.2006 21:34 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ During its spring session on April 13 the
Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) urged
Azerbaijan, Armenia and Georgia to continue their activities to work
out a peaceful and lasting solution to disputes in various conflict
zones of the region, which creates conditions for a voluntary return
of refugees and displaced persons.
The MPs hailed efforts of Azerbaijan, Armenia and, to a less degree,
Georgia, who set about implementation of programs on refugee
integration in local communities. At that PACE members emphasized that
urgent humanitarian needs still remain and international assistance is
necessary to meet these, reports the PACE communication department.

More Iranians to flee to Azerbaijan due to rising tension with USA – website
Institute for War and Peace Reporting website, London
15 Apr 06
Ethnic Azeris from Iran are fleeing to Azerbaijan for fear of a
possible US attack, the website of the London-based Institute for War
and Peace Reporting has said. They have chosen Azerbaijan because they
speak the same language spoken north of the border and often have
relatives in Azerbaijan, it said. At the same time, the website quoted
several experts as saying that in 2005 the number of Iranians applying
for refugee status in Azerbaijan was 10 times the 2004 figure, rising
from 14 to 147. If the tension between Iran and the United States
continues to rise, it seems inevitable that many more Iranian
nationals will want to make Baku their new home, the IWPR said. The
following is the text of Kamal Ali’s report by London-based Institute
for War and Peace Reporting website on 15 April headlined “Iranian
Azerbaijanis move north.
Growing numbers are moving from Iran to Azerbaijan, especially since
the upsurge in tension between Washington and Tehran”. Subheadings
have been inserted editorially:
Safe haven
I would never have thought they were from Iran. Said Soleymani, 42,
and his family members looked like regular residents of Baku. Women in
the Azerbaijani capital do occasionally wear black headscarves, and
there was nothing unusual about the denim gear worn by Said and his
two sons. Only their accent betrayed that they were southerners,
possibly from Iran.
I met them in Baku’s Zavokzalnyy district beyond the railway station,
which used to be an Armenian neighbourhood before the war over
Nagornyy Karabakh, and which then became a haven for Azerbaijani
refugees.
Now there are reports that the area has become a haven for a new kind
of migrants. Semen Kastrulin, a journalist who lives in this
neighbourhood, says Zavokzalnyy is now home to large numbers of ethnic
Azerbaijanis from Iran.
Said and his bashful and silent wife agreed to talk to me. They come
from around Tabriz, the capital of Iran’s East Azarbayjan
Province. They said they had come to Baku for about three weeks, to do
some sightseeing and shop for cheap goods.
According to Said, their visit had nothing to do with fears of an
American attack on Iran, in the dispute over its development of
nuclear technology. He said they had long been planning to come. But
he conceded that they might stay a bit longer, waiting for things to
quieten down back home.
I met another Iranian, Nazim Mohammadi, 60, in Cafe Tabriz close to
the Iranian embassy. Apparently, this is now the local Iranian
community’s favourite place to hang out and discuss the latest
political and sports news.
Mohammadi and his two sons came to Baku at the end of March. They are
staying with his wife’s relatives, who emigrated from Iran during the
Soviet era, fleeing political persecution in the wake of the Red
Army’s withdrawal from northern Iran at the end of the Second World
War.
“We are from Tehran, where we own a beautiful two-storey house with a
courtyard,” said Mohammadi. “We have a family car repair business. My
brother and his family are staying there now, looking after the house
and the business.”
Nazim is playing with the idea of starting a car repair centre in
Baku, but he is not sure he can compete with the locals. “We are not
going to stay here forever; we’ll see how it goes. If we’re lucky,
we’ll probably go to Europe.
If not, we’ll go back home,” he said.
The Iranian Azerbaijani migrants are hard to spot in Baku – still less
count – partly because they blend in with the locals, but also because
they keep a low profile and come and go from Iran.
Sharp rise in migration from Iran
IWPR contacted Majid Feyzullahi, press spokesman for the Iranian
embassy in Baku, for a comment on newspaper reports that Azerbaijan
was being “overrun” by refugees from Iran. The Ekspress newspaper, for
example, had reported that the flow of migrants to Baku had
intensified to such an extent that housing and land prices had gone
up.
Feyzullahi appeared annoyed and said he could only repeat what his
ambassador, Afshar Soleymani, had already said – that the embassy had
no information about this matter.
Word-of-mouth reports however suggest a sharp rise in migration from
Iran.
Political analyst Rovsan Novruzoglu told IWPR he knows of more than
150 Iranian families who have fled to Azerbaijan in fear of an
American attack on Iran.
But Iranian immigrants are nothing new for Baku. Ethnic Azerbaijanis
came across from Iran in the Soviet period, fleeing persecution by the
shah’s regime before it was overthrown in 1979.
Novruzoglu also claimed that Iranian security agents were in the
country disguised as migrants, creating a threat to Azerbaijan’s
national security.
Why have Iranian nationals chosen Azerbaijan as a safe haven? Iran’s
ethnic Azerbaijanis speak the same language spoken north of the border
and often have relatives in Azerbaijan. However, Persian-speaking
Iranians also come to Azerbaijan.
It is easy and inexpensive for Iranian nationals to obtain an
Azerbaijani visa. A three-month renewable visa costs them 40 US
dollars. Under a 2005 bilateral agreement – yet to be ratified by the
Azerbaijani parliament – both Iranian and Azerbaijani nationals living
within 40 kilometres of the frontier will be entitled to cross without
a visa.
Another Iranian, Ahmad, who had arrived in Baku a few weeks before,
said he believed the Azerbaijani authorities were stalling on the
visa-free border agreement for fear of being overrun by Islamic
fundamentalists from Iran.
Azerbaijan’s National Committee on Refugees and Forced Migrants
reported that in 2005 the number of Iranians applying for refugee
status was 10 times the 2004 figure, rising from 14 to 147. In 2005,
the applications of 40 Iranian families were approved, according to
the committee’s press spokesman Sanan Huseynov.
Vuqar Abdusalimov, press spokesman for the Azerbaijani office of the
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, told IWPR the numbers
had not really changed despite the talk of an increased refugee flow
prompted by the threat of conflict.
Baku residents are wary of their more affluent cousins from Iran,
believing that they bump up property prices in a city already bursting
with other migrants and refugees from the Karabakh conflict.
According to Baku’s Birzha newspaper, the average price of a
three-room apartment in a good Baku neighbourhood has gone up from
22,000 or 23,000 US dollars to 35,000-40,000 dollars in just 12
months. Property prices are also reported to be on the rise in
Naxcivan, the Azerbaijani exclave that borders Iran.
Westernized Baku is a strong contrast to the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Kastrulin said he noticed that Iranian men enjoy the freedom to drink
alcohol in restaurants – something they are denied at home, while the
women are frequently seen on the street without the obligatory
headscarf.
If the tension between Iran and the United States continues to rise,
it seems inevitable that many more Iranian nationals will want to make
Baku their new home.
Kamal Ali is the editor-in-chief of Birzha Plus newspaper in Baku.

Greenwich Time, CT
April 15 2006
Armenians reflect on horror of genocide

By Martin B. Cassidy
Staff Writer
Published April 15 2006
Shortly after sending his wife and young son to Constantinople to
escape 89 years ago, Elia Boyajian and other unarmed Armenian men in
the village of Kharpert were slaughtered by Ottoman Turkish soldiers,
Sarah Mushegian said.
Mushegian, a Milbank Avenue resident, said her late father, Fred
Boyajian, never recovered from the loss of his father, or from
spending years in the protective custody of American authorities in
Constantinople during the Armenian Genocide, when 1.5 million to 2
million Armenians living under the rule of Muslim Turks within the
Ottoman Empire killed or starved to death during an eight-year
period.
“He lost his father and was confined for years with his mother as
his only link to the world,” said the 50-year-old who grew up near
Hartford. “My father had a perpetual sadness and maybe that was part
of his personality, but I think some of us are probably unable to
recover from a trauma like that and live a joyful life.”
Armenians around the world observe National Remembrance Day on April
24 to memorialize those killed during the genocide, which lasted from
1915 to 1923.
For Armenians commemorating the dead, April 24, 1915, is considered
the true beginning of the genocide, when Turkish authorities rounded
up and executed more than 200 Armenian community leaders in
Constantinople.
While many were killed outright, others died slowly in concentration
camps or of starvation or disease trying to escape.
“It’s a major event for any Armenian-American,” said Harry Keleshian,
a Greenwich resident whose father escaped the genocide.
“The significance of April 24 is not to forget those who died trying
to salvage their lives as they were mass deported into the deserts or
massacred,” George Leylegian, a Stamford resident whose parents’
families were murdered.
On Monday, PBS will air a new documentary called “The Armenian
Genocide” at 10 p.m. which Armenian-Americans are hoping will educate
younger Armenians about the tragedy.
“I’m well aware of the show,” the 75-year-old Leylegian said. “The
handful of people who were able to survive have always believed in
the need for education and advancement of awareness in the countries
that we live in.”
Even before its broadcast the documentary created a flap, in part
because PBS commissioned a 25-minute panel discussion to run
afterward. The panel features two academics who believe that the
killings constituted genocide, and two who argued that a holocaust
did not occur, according to the Los Angeles Times.
An Armenian group launched an online petition against the panel
program and several members of Congress complained to PBS. They
argued that the network would never follow a documentary about the
genocide of Jews during World War II with a panel discussion
featuring holocaust deniers, according to the Los Angeles Times. A
PBS affiliate in Los Angeles has refused to broadcast the
documentary.
While Armenians and most of Europe have called on the Turkish
government to acknowledge, apologize and pay reparations for the
genocide, Turkish leaders maintain that the killing and deportations
were part of World War I, not a systematic ethnic cleansing program.
Almost without exception, Armenian families living in the United
States lost relatives in the widespread persecution and killing,
Leylegian said.
“This was a planned governmental action to kill Armenians, not
something that happened randomly,” Leylegian said. “We never had the
luxury of growing up with a normal family life with grandparents,
aunts or uncles. So many didn’t survive.”
Leylegian’s father, Arsen, witnessed the decapitation of his father,
Donig, by Turkish authorities, and his mother, Sarah, and other adult
relatives killed in various ways, Leylegian said.
Both his parents grew up in an American orphanage set up to house
Armenian children, the retired executive said.
“My father lived through it and passed away at the age of 90,”
Leylegian said. “He used to tell the stories and break down and cry.”
Following an earthquake that killed 75,000 people in Armenia in 1988,
Leylegian has visited the country 24 times, often as part of
humanitarian and medical aid missions.
On those trips, the sight of small Armenian children living in
post-quake poverty made Leylegian upset, he said, evoking thoughts of
the plight of his own orphaned parents.
“We feel a responsibility to our parents,” Leylegian said.
Mushegian said she and her husband and four children plan to watch
the PBS documentary on Monday night.
While disappointed that the United States has not done more to
pressure Turkey to apologize and acknowledge its actions, she hopes
the show will contribute toward keeping alive the memory of those who
were killed.
“I don’t think this has been at the forefront or more people would
know and understand this period of history,” Mushegian said. “I can’t
say it (the documentary) is of any comfort other than that perhaps
help to make the facts more well known.”
rmeniansapr15,0,7359841.story?coll=green-news-loca l-headlines

ITAR-TASS, Russia
April 15 2006
R&D expenditures in CIS countries 2-4 times lower than in 1991

MOSCOW, April 15 (Itar-Tass) — Current research and development
expenditures in CIS countries (except Russia and Ukraine) are 2-4
times lower than in 1991, panellists said at the 1st Forum of CIS
Scientific and Creative Intellectuals in Moscow on Saturday.
`R and D expenditures in CIS countries, except Russia and Ukraine,
have remained practically on the same level over the past several
years and have not exceeded 0.1-0.7 percent of GDP,’ the Forum’s
Science and Technology Section said.
The panelists noted that this is 2-4 times less than in 1991. The
situation is much better only Russia and Ukraine.
`In Russia, the proportion of R and D expenditures in the gross
domestic product has been growing steadily since 2000 and had reached
the 1991 level by 2004,’ they said.
According to an academician of the Armenian Academy of Sciences, the
director of the Research Institute of Biochemistry, Konstantin
Karagezyan, `The decisions made today should be brought to the
attention of the governments and presidents of the CIS countries so
that they could address the problems of science immediately and
without delay.’
He said `science is falling apart in CIS countries’ and stressed,
`Its humiliating treatment must be revised immediately.’
The panelists proposed to create a common electronic library of
Russian-language scientific and reference literature on the Internet
and introduce a system of training for so-called `science managers’

TMCnet
April 15 2006
Azerbaijan to ask for extradition of murderer sentenced to life
(Hungarian News Agency Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge)Budapest, April 15
(MTI) – Azerbaijan authorities will ask Hungary to extradite the
Azerbaijani army officer who was sentenced to life imprisonment by a
Budapest Court last Thursday for the murder of an Armenian.
Ramil Safarov, when he was 27, killed an Armenian classmate during a
NATO Partnership for Peace course in Budapest two years ago. He used
an ax to hack to death his sleeping colleague Gurgen Markarian, 26,
of Armenia, in the dormitory of Miklos Zrinyi National Defence
University, where both of them were attending a three-month
English-language course.
“No matter the seriousness of the Hungarian court verdict, Hungary,
as a signatory to the Council of Europe’s 1983 convention, should
extradite Safarov to the Azeri authorities,” the BakuTODAY.net portal
quoted a senior Justice Ministry official as saying.
Safarov, who showed no repentance in court, said the murder had been
a revenge for a 1992 Armenian assault of Azerbaijanis in the
Nagorno-Karabakh region, which he witnessed as a child. The
Azerbaijani officer said that the Armenians he had met in the
dormitory “were smiling mockingly and were behaving the way members
of a victorious army usually behave towards the defeated”.
Safarov was charged with premeditated murder carried out with unusual
cruelty and vicious motives and sentenced to life in prison without
any chance of parole.

United Press International
April 15 2006
Trump Calls Miss Iraq ‘Very Brave’
by UPI Wire
Apr 15, 2006

NEW YORK, April 14, 2006 (UPI) — Miss Universe pageant owner Donald
Trump says he is considering a tribute to the newly crowned Miss
Iraq, who has been hiding amid death threats.
“She is very proud to have won, and now she is in a very tough
position,” Trump told Friday’s New York Post. “She is extremely
brave.”
Silvia Shahakian, 23, a Christian of Armenian ancestry, was crowned
Sunday when the original winner stepped down after receiving threats
from extremists.
Shahakian told ABC’s “Good Morning America” she was going into
hiding, but the Post said it is believed she is still in Iraq.
Trump said there may be a special salute to Shahakian during the Miss
Universe pageant July 23 in Los Angeles.
“We’ve had countries in the contest before where it was not the most
popular thing to do, but never like this,” he said.
ment/article_21214647.shtml
From: Baghdasarian

American Chronicle
April 15 2006
Gringo, Go Back to England!
David Kessel
April 15, 2006
Somehow, no hateful outburst in America is complete without telling
somebody to go back to `their’ country or continent. I have seen many
such events happen and heard the same thing from people who have been
victimized by such volunteer `travel advisors’ more than once: there
is always some bozo who tells someone to leave America and return to
his or her homeland. I wish these clowns would provide visas and
ticket money every time they attempt to send others on such a trip.
How about a job waiting for them there? Can they set one up, too?
This `travel order’ sooner or later affects quite a big variety of
people in the US. Some years back, I have seen an African-American
lady was involved in a traffic accident with a Hispanic female in LA.
Both ladies faced off and started advising each other to begin
traveling to all these exciting places, the Hispanic lady was told to
go back to Mexico, and the Black lady was, as you would expect, told
by the Hispanic lady to go back to Africa.
On another occasion, another African American fellow who was sitting
in a Korean fast food place suddenly started telling the Korean cook
there to `go back to China’. When the Korean cook protested that he
was not Chinese, the `travel counselor’ proceeded to tell him to go
back to Japan. Ouch! Japan wreaked havoc on Korea for so long and now
he must go `back `there?
Iranian Americans were told to go back to Arabia and Armenians were
probably told to go back to Russia. Only that Russia does not like
Armenians nowadays. But that is beside the point. It’s just another
day in LA’s model multi-ethnic community.
White Americans are just as guilty of giving people orders to leave
America for all these exotic destinations as anybody else. Many Asian
people in the US, many of whom are US citizens, are routinely advised
by some white bigots to go back to Taiwan, Vietnam, China, Japan and
a few other Asian countries. Usually, they would get the country
wrong and ask a Vietnamese-American to go back to Taiwan. Boat people
have tried doing it, but Taiwan does not give political asylum to
those as a rule.
As a red-blooded naturalized US citizen, I have been told to go back
to my country a few times only that at the time, I simply couldn’t.
The country was closed and I would not qualify to get a visa there.
Now I could go, but I would be treated as a foreigner, have to apply
for a tourist visa and pay for extensions. If I overstay, I will be
fined and kicked out. They will send me `back to the US’. Too bad the
person who told me to go there that did not know about it.
But seriously, when I read about the new slogan of `Gringo, go back
to England!’ being proposed as the new war cry of illegal alien
marchers in California, it was so funny I had to sit down and laugh
long and hard. Somehow, it had a deeper philosophical meaning- it
showed how fragile everyone was and how insecure. How everyone in
America probably wanted to be friends with everyone else, but felt
that they couldn’t. It was the last desperate plea, a childish,
kindergarten attempt to fight back what they viewed as the last
remaining oppressor- the Gringo. Send the Gringo back to England and
everything will be fine.
My Slavic mother, who grew up in Uzbek orphanages, and who starved
during WWII, and fainted from being hungry so many times when she was
growing up that she almost died, was called a `gringa’ on our last
journey to Mexico in 2001. To an average Mexican, I guess, she was of
exactly the same race and nationality as the Yankee blue-bloods of
the New England aristocracy and the cowgirls of Texas. How wonderful!
And now my mom needs to go back to England, of all places, I guess.
Wow! Now the last thing we need is an authorization from England to
take us in. Last time I went there I only got six months at the
airport. How about if these illegal demonstrators go to the UK
consulate and start marching there asking Her Majesty to accept us?
That is where they should be protesting. I would love to live in
England.
The American prejudice has finally gone around full circle. It was
probably the first time that Gringos were being told to go back to
England. First it was the Gringos telling the Blacks to go back to
Africa, then those Blacks who were bigoted against Asians and
Hispanics would tell them to go back to Asia and Mexico respectively,
and now you have all these people now marching in California telling
the `original’ US settlers to go back to England. Somehow the cycle
has been completed. We are back where we had started. And now we even
have a new weapon phrase against white racists, `Gringo, go back to
England!’ Funny as heck, if you ask me. Somehow, even in the trying
times of the Civil Rights movement, African American activists did
not stoop as low as telling the white racists to `go back to
England’. I always wondered why. Maybe the idea seemed too wacky to
them.
In most cases though, American citizens cannot go back to England,
Africa, Germany, etc. There are some countries that recognize dual
nationality, but in the case of the UK, asking them to take it
hundreds of millions of `bloody Yanks’ now will be more than
preposterous. It will be a legal impossibility in most cases. The
same thing with lots and lots of Blacks who were told to go back to
Africa. Which country do you want to send them to? Gabon? Cameroon,
Senegal? How about Nigeria? How many of these would accept these
Americans?
There are people of dual nationality in the US, but by and large,
most Gringos do not have it and most will not qualify for it and;
therefore, will not be able to `go back to England’. And if they go
as tourists and their visa lapses, the UK Immigration Panel will
throw them out. Unless they have a job there, or something.
But I will look into it. Maybe there are some visa programs, and I
too, could `go back’ to England. After all, I am a Gringo now. At
least, according to the people who were marching in LA on that
auspicious day.

Azeri Press Agency, Azerbaijan
April 15 2006
Lenkeran Aliyev: `Azerbaijan’s Armed Forces are the strongest in the
South Caucasus’
[ 15 Apr. 2006 16:29 ]
`Our officers-leading force of the Azerbaijan’s Army is ready to
fight war. However, we are training more professional officers for
the Azerbaijani Armed Forces,’ chief of Defense Ministry Training and
Education Center (TEC), Major-General Lenkeran Aliyev told
journalists (APA).
Mr. Aliyev said the Azerbaijani Armed Forces are the most trained and
the strongest in the whole South Caucasus. He stressed the hostile
Armenia’s Army is many times weaker from moral-psychological and
professionalism aspects.
`Armenians depend on the Russian military bases in the country.
Therefore, their national Army is many times weaker than ours,’ the
Ministry official underscored.
Aliyev also said youths have begun to show more interest in military
sphere recently. In his words, the young men conscripted into the
army are trained beforehand.
`We have a normal base which provides an opportunity to meet NATO
standards in military training. Our military training is many times
professional than that of Armenians. Belarusian officers also confirm
it. But I think the military training is still not in satisfactory
level. Much needs to be done and more professional officers should be
trained,’ Aliyev added.
Touching on housing of servicemen, the General said they have raised
this question at the Defense Ministry and the Supreme Commander-in-
Chief.
`Our proposals have been positively responded. The Supreme
Commander-in- Chief is interested in living conditions of out
military men. I made it urgent to provide military trainers in the
center with houses. Most of military trainers have no house to live,’
he underlined.
Lenkeran Aliyev considers it important to publicise truths on the
Army to remove negative stereotypes in the public regarding the Army.
Admitting that there are some shortfalls in the Army, Aliyev said
measures are being implemented to remove these deficiencies.
`You witness the processes in other structures. If compared, the Army
looks stronger,’ the General concluded./APA/

Azeri Press Agency, Azerbaijan
April 15 2006
GLO suggests political, diplomatic and economic relations with
Hungary should be reconsidered
[ 15 Apr. 2006 15:19 ]
Today Garabagh Liberation Organization chief Akif Naghi held a press
conference on life sentence to Azerbaijani Army senior lieutenant
Ramil Safarov accused of murder of Armenian officer and mass actions
protesting this fact in the country (APA).
Mr. Naghi said that Ramil Safarov is an officer; review of his case
in a civilian court is violation of law. Saying they don’t entrust
the destiny of Azerbaijani officer to Hungarian court and prisons,
Mr. Naghi insisted that it is necessary to reconsider his case and to
take all measures for extradition of him to Azerbaijan. He made
concrete proposals.
He stated Azerbaijani government should return Ramil Safarov to the
country and organize his extraction urgently. He stressed that
Ramil’s life is in danger in Hungary every day. Saying there is no
need to file an appeal to any other Hungarian Courts, he stated that
this case has to be reconsidered in military court within NATO or in
any other European country. He said that actions should be continued
in Azerbaijan and abroad demanding release of Azerbaijan officer, law
enforcement bodies should refrain from interfere in protests and
political, diplomatic and economic relations with Hungary should be
reconsidered. Akif Naghi said that it is necessary to declare
official and unofficial Hungarians and all Hungarians as unacceptable
person. He said protest actions are planned to be held in Baku and
other regions of Azerbaijan on April 17. Georgian citizen Tatiana
Chaladze attending the press conference said that all the signatures
gathered by GLO on release of Ramil Safarov have been sent to the
Hungarian Court, they wanted to politicize this matter but lawyer
Adil Ismayilov prevented them.
`He told us that there is no need for this. The lawyer thinks this
matter should be approached as legal one, and he prevented expansion
of campaign’. /APA/

Azeri Press Agency, Azerbaijan
April 15 2006
Azerbaijani people continue protesting against severe verdict on
Ramil Safarov
[ 15 Apr. 2006 15:20 ]
Protest actions are being held in different cities and regions of
Azerbaijan regarding to the Budapest court jailing Azerbaijani army
officer Ramil Safarov to life in prison for murdering of an Armenian
officer.
The Mil-Mughan bureau of APA reports that today the internally
displaced persons from Jabrail, Fuzuli, Zengilan regions, who have
settled in `Shahriyar’ displaced-persons camp organized a
demonstration protesting against the severe verdict on Lt. Ramil
Safarov. The police prevented the protesters who were trying to march
till `Kyur’ bridge near the Ali Bayramli region. The demonstrators
had to read the resolution which denounces the life sentence on
Safarov, and demands fair reconsideration of his case.
The Garabagh Liberation Organization (GLO) today organized a protest
action in the center of Mingechevir city too. The GLO told APA that
the protest brought together GLO members, veterans of the Garabagh
war, and IDPs. The protesters demanded releasing of Ramil Safarov.
The protest action did not suffer any incident./APA/