CE MINISTERIAL COMMITTEE TO CONSIDER ISSUE ON NEW OCCUPATION PLANS OF ARMENIA IN S CAUCASUS
Author: R.Abdullayev
TREND Information, Azerbaijan
April 11 2006
MP Rafael Huseynov, an Azerbaijani parliamentary representative to
the PACE, has prepared an official inquiry to the CE Ministerial
Committee, which will be finally discussed on the level of permanent
representatives. Huseynov told about it a correspondent of Trend,
who was dispatched to Strasbourg to cover the PACE spring session.
The document titled “New occupation plans by Arena, an aggressor
country, which seriously damages stability and progress in South
Caucasus’ has been submitted to the CE Secretariat.
“A special CE resolution 1416, dated 2005, notes that Armenia pursued
an ethnic cleansing policy in respect to Azerbaijan. Recently the
country has anew intensified the military actions in the conflict zone,
which indicates to the development of new aggression plans.
Armenian calls 7 districts occupied around Nagorno-Karabakh as a
‘buffer zone’. Armenia fires the Azerbaijani territory which is 100km
far from the territory of Nagorno-Karabakh and by this way extends
the perimeter of the conflict. The population of border regions
is imposed to great danger. On the other hand, Armenia ahs started
openly stating on the plans of occupation of Nakhchivan. Specific
military and intelligence bodies have been established in Armenia in
this respect and they try spread disinformation on the destruction
of Armenian tombs in Nakhchivan and by this way try to lay grounds
for territorial claims,” the document reads.
The situation causes a question: “What discussions and steps can be
taken within the framework of the CE Ministerial Committee to prevent
threats coming out from Armenia, which has been officially recognized
by the CE as an aggressor country?”
Huseynov said that the issue will be considered shortly and publicized
it as an official document of the PACE.
A written letter will be officially submitted to the consideration
of the CE Ministerial Committee on 11 April 2006.

MINISTER OF DEFENCE MEETS NATO SPECIAL REPRESENTATIVE
AzerTag, Azerbaijan
April 11 2006
On april 10, Minister of Defence of Azerbaijan, Colonel-General Safar
Abiyev met with Robert Simons, the NATO Secretary General’s special
representative for the South Caucasus and Central Asia.
Minister Abiyev said Azerbaijan is closely cooperating with NATO
successfully fulfilling its obligations under the Individual
Partnership Action Plan (IPAP).
He noted Azerbaijan’s aim is to integrate into European security
structures, but the Armenia-Azerbaijan, Nagorno-Karabakh conflict
prevents Azerbaijan-NATO relations from developing.
Robert Simons said Azerbaijan-NATO relations have big prospects and
IPAP would give an impetus to the improvement of Azerbaijan’s defence.
Speaking of the Nagorno-Karabakh problem, Mr. Simons said NATO espouses
peaceful settlement of the conflict.
Safar Abiyev also noted Armenia has been violating all international
norms.
“The international community should press Armenia on this dispute.
Azerbaijan will itself restore its territorial integrity if the
problem is not peacefully solved”, Mr. Abiyev added.
They also discussed the military-plitical situation in the South
Caucasus as well as prospects of Azerbaijan-NATO relations and
participation of Azerbaijan in peacemaking operations.

WHAT THE SULTAN SAW
By Matthew Kaminski
Opinion Journal, NJ
April 11 2006
Practicing a tolerant strain of Islam, the Ottomans clashed with
fundamentalists.
The Ottoman Empire passed into history in 1922, a mere lifetime ago.
Yet in a certain way it feels as distant as ancient Athens or Rome,
known to us mostly through architectural relics, a few striking events
and a mythical aura. Kemal Ataturk’s secular Turkish republic, the
empire’s successor state, consciously rejected much of the Ottoman
heritage and most of its traditions, while the empire’s colonial
outposts have reverted to the imperatives of their local identities.
Yet the religious aspect of the 9/11 attacks has made the Ottomans,
who led the Muslim world for half a millennium, topical again. The
sultans are famous for sacking Constantinople in the 15th century and
besieging Vienna in the 16th. Both events became symbols of Muslim
aggression against Christendom. And the “barbarian Turk” is still
a villain in the folklore of the empire’s northern reaches. Yet
such caricature fails to do justice to the remarkable Ottomans,
whose story is a corrective to the perceived wisdom that Islam is
inherently unable to reconcile itself with the West.
Caroline Finkel takes the title of her Ottoman history, “Osman’s
Dream,” from a founding myth, apparently invented in the 1500s, nearly
two centuries after the death of the first sultan, Osman. It was said
that one memorable night, Osman dreamed of a beautiful, enormous tree
growing from his navel, a tree whose shade “compassed the world,”
including distant mountains and mighty rivers. It was a tale heavy
with imperial symbolism, meant for a young state that, despite humble
beginnings, had come to dominate parts of Europe and would eventually
extend across northern Africa, including Egypt, through the Middle
East and eastward toward Persia. Osman’s tribe was, after all, only
one of many Turkomen groups that had ventured into Anatolia from
Central Asia and fought against other Muslims for supremacy.
The Ottomans first got Europe’s attention by conquering parts of
Byzantium, the eastern half of the Roman Empire and the protector
of the eastern Christian church. They went on to take the Balkan
peninsula and moved northward toward Hungary. Indeed, for much of
their history, the Ottomans were a notable European power–and not only
geographically. For all the empire’s exoticism, it was flexible enough,
as it spread across continents, to accommodate local laws and customs,
even local ideas and religions. Unlike many European states of the day,
the Ottoman regime was tolerant, multiracial and highly decentralized,
all apparent keys to its success. Jews and Christians weren’t forced
to mass convert, although many did in order to pursue a better career
or lower tax bill.
When Spain expelled its Jews in 1492, the Ottomans opened their arms.
“Can you call such a king”–i.e., Spain’s Ferdinand–“wise and
intelligent?” asked Sultan Bayezid at the time. “He is impoverishing
his country and enriching mine.” Even so, the Ottoman embrace was
limited. To take but one example: The Jews brought the printing press
to Ottoman lands from Spain and Portugal, but Sultan Bayezid II soon
made publishing a crime punishable by death. Only two centuries later,
during the so-called Tulip Age, when European influence was at its
height, did the Ottomans allow the printing of books in Arabic script.
Throughout the empire’s history, architecture expressed its blending
character. Ottoman mosques are decorative and warm by comparison with
those in Arab countries. They often resemble Christian churches,
which isn’t surprising, since Armenian architects designed a lot
of them. When Sultan Mehmed II captured the seat of the Orthodox
Christian church in Constantinople, the Hagia Sophia (the Church of
Holy Wisdom), he turned it into a mosque with only a few alterations.
Practicing a more tolerant strain of Islam, the Ottomans clashed
with fundamentalists, like the Wahhabi who rose up against them
on the Saudi peninsula in the 18th century. This conflict rages on
today in different forms. In the Balkans and now in Iraq, Saudi money
pays for the razing of Ottoman houses of worship. The zealots prefer
glass-and-steel mosques.
The peak of the Pax Ottomanica came in the 16th century under Suleyman
the Magnificent, who ruled, lest we forget, at the same time as
Britain’s Henry VIII and Russia’s Ivan the Terrible. He surpassed both
in the glories of his court, the arts of his culture and the extent
of his lands. Suleyman defied tradition in one crucial respect: He
fell in love with a slave girl, Hurrem, and had five sons by her; by
convention, concubines were to bear only one. When the sultan married
her, “Hurrem was accused of having bewitched him,” writes Ms. Finkel.
While the empire’s source of legitimacy was the Islamic caliphate in
Istanbul, religion played a fitful role in political life, just as
it did in Christian lands. Wars were justified as “holy” often after
the fact. At various times the French, British and Germans–even the
pope in Rome–stood with the Ottomans against Russia, the Hapsburgs
and the Poles. Such affiliations were built on the universal concept
of self-interest. Before joining the Axis powers in World War I, the
Ottoman rulers called for jihad against the Allies, but geopolitics
obviously had more to do with the alliance than religion.
Ms. Finkel describes the rise of the Ottomans in exhaustive detail,
and their fall, too. Financial trouble, internal strife, wayward
foreign ventures and rising local nationalism–all helped to hasten
the empire’s decline. Napoleon seized Egypt at the turn of the 19th
century. By the middle of it the Ottoman Empire was the “sick man of
Europe,” a phrase coined by Russia’s Nicholas I, who did his share
to enfeeble his own country, not least by leading Russia against the
Ottomans and courting defeat in the Crimean War.
One wishes that Ms. Finkel had taken up the hard questions about the
empire’s end. Was there a fatal flaw–imperial overreach, for example,
or the lack of a renaissance in the Ottomans’ intellectual culture? Was
there something in Islam itself, even the Ottoman version, that could
not adapt to modernity? Ms. Finkel does not say.
But her clear prose keeps the story going right up to the end, where
we get another surprise: After the Turks killed more than a million
Armenians in 1915–the number, the reason and the responsibility
are hotly debated to this day–the Ottoman powers investigated the
soldiers involved and started to put on “the first war crimes trials
in history.”
Ataturk put a quick stop to the trials, drawing a black line through
parts of the past after his new Turkish state was born in the
so-called 1921-22 war of independence (from whom, exactly?). Just
as the Ottomans replaced the turban with the fez in the late 1820s,
aiming to “Europeanize” their culture, Ataturk forced the brim-hat
on his people, to de-Islamicize his own. His experiment in social
engineering went well beyond clothing design.
Will Ataturk’s imperfect secular creation morph into a thriving
democracy or fail again to modernize itself? The jury is out. Yet in
no small part thanks to the remnants of the Ottoman heritage, it is
hard to think of a Muslim country that has a better chance than Turkey
of putting in place a modern economy and a liberal political order.
Mr. Kaminski is editorial page editor of The Wall Street Journal
Europe. You can buy “Osman’s Dream” from the OpinionJournal bookstore.
10008215

REHABILITATING INFRASTRUCTURE, TRANSFORMING LIVES
Cooperative Housing Foundation International
April 11 2006
When he first saw an announcement for vocational training, 24-year-old
Tigran Babayan had no idea that the opportunity would transform his
life. “I didn’t think it could be the start of a career for me. I had
been registered in the unemployment center for the past three years
but, because I didn’t have any specific skills, I couldn’t find a job,”
Tigran recalled.
But, through Building and Rehabilitating Infrastructure for Development
and Growth in Employment (BRIDGE) program — funded by the American
People through the US Agency for International Development (USAID),
and implemented by CHF International — hundreds of unemployed and
underemployed Armenians like Tigran are attending training courses
that are empowering them to secure jobs rehabilitating the country’s
dilapidated infrastructure.
Tigran’s vocational training in painting and wood flooring enabled
USAID/Armenia, CHF International and Vanadzor Municipality to open a
new Sports Hall at Vanadzor School #6 on March 24, 2006. The newly
renovated sports hall is the only facility of its kind in Tsalkut
District the community and provides space for sporting and other
community events.
The renovation of the sports hall was not only prioritized by
the community, but it also provided 45 vulnerable residents with
short-term employment opportunities, and incorporated vocational
training in painting/plastering and wood flooring construction
trades. The trainings were overwhelmingly successful; 28 trainees
completed classroom training and on-the-job internships in the process,
gaining valuable marketable skills in construction trades.
Tigran performed well during the internship. Aghababyan Ltd., a
construction firm subcontracted by CHF International to renovate
the sports hall, was so impressed that they hired him as a permanent
employee. Aghababyan has also invested in his further training, with
Tigran and three other trainees spending time in Yerevan learning
specialized techniques in installing metallic window and door frames.
The construction firm plans to open a workshop for this trade in
Vanadzor, and will employ Tigran and three fellow graduates of the
BRIDGE program.
The training opportunity was also important for 19-year old Lyova
Vardanov: “The USAID Public Works Program changed our lives. I was a
bit skeptical in the beginning. I had some hope to learn some skills
and gain short-term employment on the project, but I never expected I’d
get a permanent job out of it. This is something I never dreamed of.”
Ararat Poghosyan, head engineer at Aghababyan Ltd., feels quite
positive about the program. He noted that his company has faced
difficulties in the past finding younger skilled workers. Many skilled
laborers have left the country for employment opportunities abroad,
and the company relies on older craftsmen (many of whom will soon be
retiring) for skilled work in painting and wood flooring. In addition,
there are very few in-country training programs to adequately equip
a new workforce with the necessary knowledge and skills to enter
professions in the construction sector. Mr. Poghosyan believes
the USAID/CHF program is helping to fill a big gap in the Armenian
labor market.
Aghababyan Ltd. was so pleased with the skills of the Vanadzor trainees
that, in total, they hired 15 BRIDGE program interns. Mr.
Poghosyan says that Aghababyan hired the trainees because of “their
knowledge of the trades they were trained in, good work attitudes,
and great sense of responsibility.”
Now that the Vanadzor School #6 Sports Hall is finished, Tigran and
other BRIDGE graduates are preparing to work on a project renovating
Vanadzor Engineering University with Aghababyan, in another opportunity
to further hone the skills they have acquired through the USAID Public
Works project.

U.S. STILL CAN’T SAY THE WORD
Infoshop News
April 11 2006
Monday, April 10 2006 @ 02:13 PM PDT
Contributed by: Oread Daily
In 1915, the Ottoman Empire embarked on a campaign to exterminate
the Armenian population through slaughter and mass deportation. It
succeded in killing about 1.2 million people. More than 90 years later
the US State Department still can’t say the word “genocide” in regards
to what happened then. The State Department officially refers to the
“massacre” of Armenians under the Ottoman Turkish Empire but has never
described the conflict as a deliberate attempt to eliminate an entire
race of people. It doesn’t want to upset a strategic ally – Turkey.
US STILL CAN’T SAY THE WORD
In 1915, the Ottoman Empire embarked on a campaign to exterminate
the Armenian population through slaughter and mass deportation. It
succeded in killing about 1.2 million people. More than 90 years later
the US State Department still can’t say the word “genocide” in regards
to what happened then. The State Department officially refers to the
“massacre” of Armenians under the Ottoman Turkish Empire but has never
described the conflict as a deliberate attempt to eliminate an entire
race of people. It doesn’t want to upset a strategic ally – Turkey.
Earlier this year, the U.S. Ambassador to Armenia John Evans publicly
referred to the 1915 slaughter as `genocide.”
A firestorm arose. Turkey, in particular, was outraged.
Unhappy lawmakers and activists contend Evans is being forced from
his post because of those comments.
Sounding as if he were reciting carefully prepared talking points,
Evans himself spoke delicately about his current status.
“I am still the ambassador,” Evans said in a brief interview recently
during a Washington visit. “I have not submitted my retirement papers.”
At the same time, Evans underscored the temporary nature of any
diplomatic posting.
In any event, the following is from Asbarez Armenian Daily.
—————————————— ———-
Rock Band Launches Washington, DC Campaign for Armenian Genocide
Recognition
LOS ANGELES — Serj Tankian and John Dolmayan of the Grammy
Award-winning band System Of A Down will travel to Washington, DC on
April 24 for a three-day campaign to urge Speaker of the House Dennis
Hastert and other Congressional leaders to end their complicity in
Turkey’s ongoing denial of the Armenian genocide.
On the evening of Monday, April 24, starting at 5:00 PM, band
members will join with the Armenian National Committee of America
and Armenian Youth Federation in leading a grassroots demonstration
outside the gates of the Turkish Embassy at 2525 Massachusetts Ave., in
Northwest Washington, DC. The Turkish government, through its Embassy
in Washington, spends millions of dollars each year to bully, threaten,
and blackmail the US government not to recognize the Armenian genocide.
The band members will devote Tuesday, April 25 to providing interviews
to the political media in Washington, and, in the evening, hosting a
Congressional screening of “Screamers,” a new documentary by filmmaker
Carla Garapedian about the band’s worldwide campaign for Armenian
genocide recognition.
On Wednesday April 26, System will meet with key Members of Congress
to urge them to allow a vote on legislation recognizing the Armenian
genocide, and at 5:30 PM will participate in the annual Capitol Hill
commemoration of the Armenian genocide. This event, now in its 11th
year, is regularly attended by over 30 Members of Congress, diplomats,
ethnic community leaders, human rights activists, genocide prevention
advocates, and Armenian Americans from across the country.
Beginning on April 24, 1915, the Ottoman Turkish government began a
centrally planned and systematically executed campaign to annihilate
the Armenian people from their ancient homeland. By 1923 over 1.5
million Armenians were killed and hundreds of thousands deported,
in what constituted the first genocide of the 20th century.
Congressional legislation recognizing this crime (HR 316 / HCR195
/ SR320) has broad bipartisan support, but has been blocked from
coming to a vote by Congressional leaders, despite the fact that,
five years ago, US House Speaker Dennis Hastert promised to allow
Members to vote on this human rights measure.
In September of last year, Serj Tankian and John Dolmayan from the
band traveled to the Speaker’s hometown of Batavia, Illinois to
lead a rally urging him to allow a vote on the Armenian genocide
legislation. During the rally, Tankian delivered a personal and
powerfully worded message calling on the Speaker to do the right
thing, and stressing that “historical truths should never be denied
in a democracy–especially one with such a proud heritage of freedom.”
Speaker Hastert has it in his power to accomplish one of System’s
goals–official US recognition of Turkey’s destruction of 1.5 million
Armenians between 1915 and 1923. By allowing Congress to vote on this
legislation, Speaker Hastert can end US denial of this crime and open
the doors to justice–to the restoration, reparation, and restitution
owed to the victims of genocide. By continuing to block a vote on
this legislation, Hastert effectively joins in the denial of this
crime against humanity, and the denial of justice to an entire nation.
The members of System Of A Down, Serj Tankian, Daron Malakian,
John Dolmayan, and Shavo Odadjian all personally lost family members
and family history to the Armenian genocide. “Because so much of my
family history was lost in the Armenian genocide,” said Malakian,
“my grandfather, who was very young at the time, doesn’t know his
true age. How many people can say they don’t know how old they are?”
Tankian, Dolmayan, and Odadjian all identify their grandparents’
memories as the only links they have to their respective family
histories, as most of their families were obliterated during the
Armenian genocide.
“It’s important for people to be aware of the Armenian genocide,”
explained Tankian, “and that those actions continue to be covered up by
the Turkish government, the US State Department, Turkey’s allies in the
defense and oil industries, and by our present US Administration. Had
the Armenian genocide been acknowledged as a crime against humanity
as it was, Hitler might not have thought he could get away with the
Jewish Holocaust. History does and will repeat itself, unless we stop
that cycle.”
?story=20060410141352806

GREECE: OIKOTIMES AND ESCTODAY INTERVIEW AT GREEK MAGAZINE DOWN TOWN
Michalis Vranis reporting from Kavala (Greece)
source: DownTown magazine
oikotimes.org, Greece
April 10 2006
In this week’s magazine Down Town in Greece, our chief editor gave
an interview concerning Eurovision (of course). Presenting Mr. Fotis
Konstantopoulos as the “Greek Eurostar”. Also, the magazine hosts
another Eurovision star, Sietse Bakker from esctoday.com presented as
“the Eurovision expert”.
Mr. Konstantopoulos is presented not only because he’s involved with
oikotimes but also as the director of the ERT Eurovision Channel.
Yiannis Poulopoulos (the journalist) asks, “We read on oikotimes that
the song “Everything” is leading at the predictions and polls. You
believe that those predictions can become true?” and the answer given
is that everything is floating. In the past we saw favorites not
winning and outsiders getting the first place. Mr. Konstantopoulos
believes that the songs are close to win, except “Everything” are the
Romanian and the Swedish. Also he personally believes that Russia is
a favorite as well as Armenia, Turkey Estonia and Denmark.
Also, there was also an interview of Sietse Bakker at the same copy
of the Down Town magazine. For the first time we have a clear answer
of what Mr. Bakker along with Mr. Konstantopoulos vote at the Greek
pre selection this year. Of course their vote was for “Everything”.
He personally believes that last year Greece was leading the polls
and for sure it was the winner, but this year things are different.
This happens because there are more good songs competing. Concerning
the final result, Sietse Bakker believes that Swden, Greece, Romania,
United Kingdom and Finland are the top 5 countries for the grand
prize. And from the semifinal, Armenia, Albania, Belgium, Fyrom,
Turkey, Finland, Netherlands, Sweden, Bosnia and Herzegovina and
Iceland will proceed to the final.

THERE ARE PEOPLE IN ARMENIA, “FOR WHOM ‘RUSSIA’ WORD IS LIKE RED COLOR FOR A BULL”
Regnum, Russia
April 11 2006
“Deal in selling to Russia 5th energy unit of Hrazdan TPS is
favorable for Armenia,” stated Secretary of Armenian Presidential
Security Council, Defense Minister Serzh Sarkisyan being interviewed
by journalists.
“It is a very favorable deal. It is strange, everybody, who wishes,
speaks about it, without any knowledge about the 5th unit. The 5th
unit is, figuratively speaking, like a three-storied building, which
basement is built, and there is nothing else. The expenditures would
be compensated in about 10 years at best. It means we might have a
profitable enterprise only in 2017 at best. What kind of profit will
it be, by how many percents gas tariffs will have raised till the
time? Only prophet might foretell it,” stressed the minister.
“What is needed by us today, both people and the state: to sell
the unfinished object for $250 millions, or to wait till we will be
able to earn some kopeks in 2017? And then, do ones think at all,
who speaks so much, what consequences did threaten us, if gas were
supplied to Armenia for price, which had been planned? Policy and
economy must not be mixed, otherwise, there is neither policy nor
economy,” stated Sarkisyan, commenting on critical feelings of some
forces in connection with the deal.
Also, Serge Sarkisyan stated, there are some individuals and groups in
Armenian society, “on which nerves ‘Russia’ word gets, as red color
on bull’s ones.” “We have no right to create problems for ourselves,
and then, heroically to overcome them,” stated the Armenian defense
minister.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

HUSEYNOV TO PRESENT A DOCUMENT TO COMMITTEE OF MINISTERS TO DENOUNCE ARMENIA’S AGGRESSIVE PLANS AGAINST AZERBAIJAN
Azeri Press Agency, Azerbaijan
April 11 2006
Rafael Huseynov, member of Azerbaijani delegation to the Council of
Europe Parliamentary Assembly (PACE), who is attending PACE spring
session, has prepared a document to denounce Armenia’s aggressive
plans against Azerbaijan. The parliamentarian told the correspondent
of the Europe bureau of APA at the session that the document is titled
“Aggressive Armenia’s new aggressive plans that pose strong threat
to stability and development in the South Caucasus”.
The document addressed to the Council of Europe Committee of
Ministers reads: “Armenia, which occupied Nagorno Garabagh and seven
surrounding regions, has been conducting regular military operations
against Azerbaijan’s positions in the front line recently. These
attacks accompanied by great causalities among peaceful Azerbaijani
population and military contingent as well as great damages to
the country obviously demonstrate Armenia’s ambitions to occupy new
territories. Armenia’s intensified military pressures represent great
danger to local residents in Azerbaijan’s regions and create serious
ground for emerging of new internally displaced persons. On the other
hand, Armenia now more obviously announces its previous ambitions to
occupy Azerbaijan’s province of Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic. For
the purpose of proving their territorial claims by false ways they
began to release false information as if old Armenian graves are
destructed in Nakhchivan. Yerevan started new wave of ideological war,”
the document continued.
In the document, Mr.Huseynov addresses a question to the Committee
of Ministers, “In the period when Armenia, which was officially
confirmed by the Council of Europe as an aggressor, puts forward its
new aggressive ambitions and takes specific steps for this purpose,
what discussions and urgent measures can the Committee of Ministers
hold within its authorities in order to prevent the aggressor and
prevent this danger.”

AKHUNDOVA: “NK CONFLICT CAUSES EDUCATIONAL PROBLEMS FOR NATIONAL MINORITIES”
Today, Azerbaijan
April 11 2006
A report on teaching of native language at secondary schools was
presented at the session of PACE which started yesterday.
The correspondent of the Europe bureau of APA reports from the session
that Azerbaijani parliamentarians Elmira Akhundova and Rafael Huseynov
delivered a speech on the issue.
Ms.Akhundova said that European Convention main recommendations on
protection of rights of national minorities in Azerbaijan has been
implemented successfully, and national minorities in Azerbaijan were
enjoying their right to receive education in their native tongues
without any restrictions.
“However, internally displaced Kurds from Lachin, Gubadli, Kalbajar,
which were occupied by Armenians as a result of the Karabakh conflict,
faced difficulties to get education in native language now.
If the conflict is solved on the basis of the principle of preserving
territorial integrity of Azerbaijan, the government can provide more
intensive assistance for the education of the national minorities,”
she said.
Azerbaijani MP Rafael Huseynov said that there were no problems on
national minorities in Azerbaijan and added that there were many
national minorities speaking different languages, and these nations
are provided great opportunities to read and write in their native
language in the country.
URL:

GARABAGH TALKS NOT AS HOPELESS, US OFFICIAL SAYS
Assa-Irada, Azerbaijan
April 11 2006
Baku, April 10, AssA-Irada
The current prospects for resolving the long-standing Upper (Nagorno)
Garabagh conflict are not as dim as they were in the wake of the
Rambouillet meeting, the Department of State Assistant Secretary for
European and Eurasian Affairs Daniel Fried has said.
He indicated that the presidents of Azerbaijan and Armenia failed to
reach agreement on a number of issues during the last round of talks
in February. He added that he had accompanied the US co-chairman of
the mediating OSCE’s Minsk Group, Steven Mann, during his visit to
the region shortly after the negotiations.
“We have held a series of effective meetings with the Azerbaijani
and Armenian administrations,” the US diplomat said, referring to
the negotiations with Armenian Foreign Minister Vardan Oskanian and
Azerbaijani Deputy Foreign Minister Araz Azimov in Washington. He
said both countries had confirmed their readiness to continue the
peace process.
“This is why the situation is not hopeless,” Fried said.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress