TREND Information, Azerbaijan
April 8 2006
US expect progress in the Karabakh conflict settlement

Source: Trend
Author: Z. Ibrahimli

08.04.2006

The United States have expressed hope in the peaceful settlement of
the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. This statement has been issued during
the talks between the Azerbaijani Foreign Minister, Elmar Mammedyarov
and US State Secretary, Condolisa Rise, Trend reports.
Before meeting with her Azerbaijani counterpart, Rise has spoken by
phone with Armenian and Azerbaijani presidents, Russia Voice reports.

TREND Information, Azerbaijan
April 8 2006
Armistice breach at the front lines

Source: Trend
Author: E. Javadova

08.04.2006

Armenian Armed forces has again breached the armistice on April 2,
the Defense Ministry told Trend.
Azerbaijani positions located in the Kedabeck district came under
small arms fire from the Armenian positions located on the Lagziyal
mountain at the Krasnoselsk district of Armenia from 15:00 P.M. to
15:10 P.M. And from 19:10 P.M. to 19:15 P.M. Azerbaijani armed forces
positions came under from the opposing side in Kazakh district.
Fire has been returned, no casualties reported.

Ringsidereport.com, VA
April 8 2006
Boxing: Super Welterweight Prospect Vanes `The Nightmare’ Martirosyan
stops by RSR
By Geno McGahee – April 7, 2006
With many superstars reaching the end of their career road, such as
Shane Mosley, Oscar De La Hoya, and Fernando Vargas, a new boxer on
the scene hopes to fill the gap. Vanes `The Nightmare’ Martirosyan
was born in Abovyan, Armenia, but now resides in Glendale, California
and sports a record of, 7-0, 4 KO’s. As an amateur, he compiled a
record of, 120 wins, 10 losses, and went on to represent the United
States in the 2004 Olympics. He made it all the way to the
quarterfinals, before losing to Cuba’s Lorenzo Aragon, who would go
on to capture the Silver Medal. Martirosyan is managed by Shelly
Finkel, and is promoted by Top Rank. His trainer is the legendary
Freddie Roach, who was honored by the Boxing Writer’s Association of
America as the `2003 Trainer of the Year.’ He has worked with James
Toney, Mike Tyson, and Manny Pacquiao. He has a proven track record
of working with championship level boxers and will certainly be an
asset to the camp of this young fighter. At this point in his career,
`The Nightmare’ has a lot going for him and he has a very powerful
team to increase his chances of success.
On April 8th, on the under card of `Sworn Enemies’ Judah Vs.
Mayweather, JR., Martirosyan continues his quest for a championship
as he faces the undefeated: Teefo Seetso. It’s a testament to the
confidence that the team has in their fighter as they consistently
match him with boxers that have winning records. I have seen many
other prospects put in constantly with boxers that either have losing
records or are making their professional debut and have never put on
a pair of gloves before. RSR was able to catch up with `The
Nightmare’ as he goes into his upcoming bout with Teefo Seetso and
talked about his aspirations and his career as a boxer.
GM: You have a very interesting nickname. Where did the `Nightmare’
nickname come from?
During my Olympic Trials in 2004 and the U.S. Championships, I was
just coming out of nowhere and beating highly ranked opponents like
Timothy Bradley and Rondel Mason. Opposing teams eventually started
saying I was something out of a bad dream, hence the name
`Nightmare.’ My fellow Armenian fans picked up on this fast and would
always scream out-loud: `Armenian Nightmare’ when I would enter the
ring.
GM: You are currently being trained by Freddie Roach. How is your
relationship working out and how has he improved your game?
I feel very blessed to have Freddie Roach in my corner. Freddie, to
me, is now more than just a trainer. He is a great friend and mentor
that is showing me the right path to success and possible world
championships. It gives me strength knowing I have one of the best
trainers in the world on my back. He always points out where I need
improvement after each fight and makes sure that we work in that
area.
GM: On April 8th, you are fighting on the under card of
Judah-Mayweather, JR. What can you tell us about your opponent, Tefo
Seetso, and how does it feel to box on the under card of a card that
features so many important bouts?
It is quite an honor for me to be on such a terrific card at my young
age of 19. I, myself, was a 2004 U.S. Olympian, and its nice to be on
the under card of a fellow former U.S. Olympian, the Bronze
Medallist, Floyd Mayweather, JR. As for my opponent, I have watched a
video of one of Tefo Seetso’s fights and must say he is an aggressive
boxer. It will definitely be an exciting fight. I have put countless
hours at the gym with Freddie and Justin Fortune, my physical
trainer. I am in great shape and ready for my April 8 bout.
GM: What got you into the sport of boxing?
My father, Norik Martirosyan got me into boxing at the young age of
seven. My elder and younger brother also got me into boxing, but I
guess they weren’t as passionate toward it as I turned out to be. My
father saw it in me the most and never let me quit. He has always
pushed me hard to get the best out of me and still does. I owe
everything to him for his encouragement and support.
GM: You had an outstanding amateur career. Can you tell us about
your time as an amateur and your memorable experiences?
The highlight of my amateur career was, of course, the 2004 Olympics
in Athens, Greece. It was an amazing feeling to represent the United
States of America and quite a confidence builder. Our U.S. Olympic
boxing team fought the best in the world and never shied down. After
winning my first round against the Algerian, Benamar Meskine, I was a
local hero in my hometown of Glendale, CA. Altogether, it was an
incredible experience and I will never forget it for the rest of my
life. Aside from the Athens Olympics, I also have extensive amateur
boxing experience here in the U.S. My record was something like
120-10, with more than 80 of my wins by stoppage. All this experience
definitely helped jumpstart a professional career that is looking
real good for me so far at, 7-0, 4 KO’s.
GM: Who are your boxing idols and why?
One of my boxing idols has to be Oscar De La Hoya. I am in the same
super welterweight division as him and have always enjoyed his boxing
style. Oscar, to me, is the ideal image of a boxer because he is a
great fighter in the ring, a real gentleman outside of it, and on top
of all that, he is quite a businessman, which is important in the
boxing industry.
GM: What is your opinion of the Super Welterweight division and what
boxers are your gearing toward as future opponents?
I think that the super welterweight division is one of the most
exciting divisions right now in boxing. I am very lucky to be coming
up at such a great time for my division with the likes of Mosley,
Vargas, De La Hoya, Trinidad, and Mayorga, to name a few. As far as
my future opponents are concerned, it all really depends on my
management team, headed by Shelly Finkel, along with my promoters:
Top Rank and Bob Arum. Once they give me the go on an opponent, and
my father and uncle Serge approve, it’s on! I trust my team very
much, and who ever they want me to fight, Freddie and Justin will
make sure I’m well prepared.
GM: Why are you a future World Champion?
I simply believe in my abilities and strengths as a professional
boxer. I possess the qualities of a champion because I work very hard
and my determination is there. Everyone at the WildCard Gym reminds
me everyday that I have what it takes to be a world champion. It is
up to me to prove them right and I won’t stop until I do so.
GM: Should we expect to see you on national television anytime in the
near future?
It is expected that sometime by the end of this year, I will have a
fight that will be televised nationwide. I’m not sure when and where,
but I guarantee an exciting fight when my T.V. debut arrives.
GM: What do you want the boxing world to know about yourself and do
you have any message for the fans?
I want them to know that the Armenian-American, Vanes Martirosyan is
here to stay and that I am on a mission to be a world champion in my
division one day. As for my fans, I hear every encouraging remark
shouted during my fights when I am in the ring. So thank you for
believing in me and having my back. My Armenian fans from Glendale
have been amazing and have traveled everywhere with me to watch my
fights. Thank you and God bless you. When I bring home the
championship belt, it will be for you.
Writers Note:
I encourage everyone to check out his website: ,
for all the information on this prospect and his upcoming bouts.
Vanes Martirosyan
(Junior Middleweight)
Professional record l: 7 fights; 7+ (4 KO’s)
– 2005 –
+ (Apr-8-2005, Fountain Hills) Jesse ORTA 4
+ (May-28-2005, Los Angeles) Giovanni RUBIO kot 1
+ (Aug-26-2005, Houston) Fernando VELA 4
+ (Sep-10-2005, Los Angeles) Gerardo Cesar PRIETO 6
+ (Oct-8-2005, Las Vegas) Antonio Tony MORALES kot 1
+ (Nov-12-2005, Las Vegas) Abdias CASTILLO kot 5
+ (Feb-18-2006, Las Vegas) Juan Pablo Montes de Oca kot3
Bottom of Form

IranOilGas.com , Iran
April 8 2006
Armenian Official Denies gas Pipeline Deal
07/04/2006,YEREVAN, Armenia (AP)
Armenia’s energy minister denied Friday that the impoverished
Caucasus Mountain nation had struck a deal with Russia’s state-run
gas monopoly to hand it control of part of a new Armenian-Iranian gas
pipeline.
OAO Gazprom a day earlier announced that it had struck a 25-year-deal
giving Gazprom’s Armenian joint venture ownership rights to the
Armenian segment of a planned pipeline bringing Iranian gas to the
country and an electricity power generating unit.

ITAR-TASS, Russia
April 8 2006
Karabakh asks Yerevan, Baku to affirm peace settlement

YEREVAN, April 8 (Itar-Tass) — Nagorno-Karabakh has called on
Armenia and Azerbaijan to affirm their readiness for peace settlement
of the Karabakh conflict, says a statement by the unrecognized
republic’s Foreign Ministry presented to new special representative
of the European Union for the South Caucasus Peter Semneby.
Karabakh Foreign Minister Georgy Petrosyan said he was concerned
about the increased violations of the cease-fire status along the
contact line between Azerbaijan and Nagorno-Karabakh, a source at the
Karabakh office in Yerevan told Itar-Tass.
Petrosyan informed Semneby of the official position of Stepanakert on
the Karabakh settlement. He said that Nagorno-Karabakh should be an
equal party to the negotiations. The minister also spoke of Karabakh
democratization.
Semneby said that the mandate of the EU special representative for
the South Caucasus had been extended into the prevention and
settlement of conflicts.

Today, Azerbaijan
April 8 2006
Defense Ministry: “Rumors about order of mobilization in Azerbaijan
are not true”

08 April 2006 [08:01] – Today.Az

“Some TV channels and newspapers aim at generating public excitement
by having recently spread reports that mobilization has been ordered
in Azerbaijan, and military units in home front have been dislocated
to battle field,” Defense Ministry spokesman, major Ilgar Verdiyev,
stated.

As APA reports, he said that ratification of the bill on mobilization
by the Supreme Commander-in-Chief did not mean the start of
mobilization. This law existed in all countries worldwide, including
the former Soviet countries.
“However, some aims to cause public panic. Mobilization is ordered by
the Supreme Commander-in-Chief,” the Defense Ministry spokesman said.

Major Verdiyev also commented on dislocation of military units in
Armenia-Azerbaijan frontline and sending of soldiers drafted in April
to the battle field directly. He said that military units and
equipment could be dislocated in any place in the country and it’s a
regular process.

“As coming to send new draftees directly to the frontline, it is
possible only after 6 months of service. Majority of units of the
Azerbaijan’s Armed Forces are located near the front line. Do not
believe in hearsays that aim to make people worry,’ Verdiyev
stressed.

According to the bill on mobilization, not only citizens but also
conditions of various spheres of the country economy, cars owned by
civilians and other equipment and etc should be registered.

The mobilization in Azerbaijan is carried out by the same system
existed in the Soviet Army, and servicemen in reserve have not been
called to meetings since 1994.

URL:

Today, Azerbaijan
April 8 2006
Vardan Oskanyan: “We are ready to host Azerbaijani team in Yerevan”

08 April 2006 [08:29] – Today.Az

“We are ready to provide all conditions to conduct the meeting
against Azerbaijani national football team in Yerevan,” said Armenian
FM Vardan Oskanian.
The matter is, though Azerbaijani and Armenian national teams have to
meet within the qualifying stage of the European Cup in Austria and
Switzerland in 2008, the Foreign Minister of the aggressive country
said he had talks with International Football Federation-FIFA not
with European Football Union-UEFA.
“We are having talks with FIFA. I hope Azerbaijan will provide
everything for meeting in Baku,” Oskanyan said.
Secretary General of Azerbaijan Football Federation (AFFA) Fuad
Asadov told APA that he was not informed about Armenians talking with
FIFA.
“Armenians might have talks with FIFA. However, AFFA is determined in
its position,” Asadov stated, APA informs.

URL:
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

NewKerala.com, India
April 8 2006
Armenia swaps pipeline for cheaper gas
YEREVAN, Armenia: Armenia agreed to surrender a small but crucial
section of a natural gas pipeline to Russia in exchange for
discounted imports of natural gas.
The discounts, which will last until 2009, come in exchange for
letting OAO Gazprom buy a 24-mile stretch of a gas pipeline
connecting Armenia and Iran, the New York Times reported Friday.
Gazprom also was granted a concession to build a larger second
pipeline along the 24-mile route.

NewsByUs, ID
April 8 2006
Free Kurdistan
By: Bruce Walker: on Apr 07, 2006
Recent nuances and nudges in government policy as well as tacit
support for the most obscene anti-Semitism and anti-Americanism by
the ruling political party of Turkey ought to cause the United States
to begin to rethink its comprehensive policy toward Asia in general
and toward one non-Arab minority in Iraq in particular: the Kurds.
What, today, is the most intractable political problem in Iraq? It
is the very real political and religious aims of Shiite, Sunni and
Kurdish regions of the nation. Since the inception of Operation
Iraqi Freedom, President Bush has maintained that the unity of the
nation of Iraq was non-negotiable. In politics and in war, however,
nothing should be non-negotiable.
Iraq is not a nation in any real sense, but it was rather three
separate concentration camps each with differing degrees of
oppression. The Sunnis, the smallest group in the economically and
landlocked center of Iraq, had the most to gain by making peace
quickly and joining a unity government. Coalition forces have
supported the ungrateful Sunnis by opposing a partition of Iraq. Now
President Bush should embrace such a division.
This would divide Iraq into three separate nations: a relatively
unimportant Bagdad Iraq of Sunnis, a Basra Iraq of Shiites who could
govern themselves without the need for Iranian support, and an Mosul
Iraq which would be the first true homeland for Kurds in many
centuries, an oil rich area that is well able to defend itself and
has shown the most gratitude to America of the three nations of Iraq.
Why has America shied away from this approach? The principal reason
is that Kurds are a dispossessed people whose natural homeland
stretches across much of the Middle East. A substantial number of
Kurds live in Iran, which is as close to a mortal enemy of the United
States as there is in the world today. American support for
reclaiming those colonial possession of Teheran and the incorporation
of those lands into Kurdistan would roughly double the area of the
Iraqi Kurds.
A significant, but smaller, number of Kurds live in Syria, an enemy
of America and a supporter both of the Iraqi insurgency and of
international terrorism. If the Baathist regime did not give up its
Kurdish lands, then the Kurds, with American military support, should
smash the Syrian Army and force as humiliating a peace treaty as
possible on Damascus.
The majority of the thirty million or so Kurds, however, live in
Turkey – almost one quarter of the population of Turkey. That, more
than anything else, has stayed our hand so far. Kurdistan with the
southeast quarter of Turkey, is a fairly large nation.
Traditionally, Turkey has been an ally of America, but that has been
changing fast and Turkish support for American policies has always
been based entirely on cynical self-interest. We owe Turkey –
neutral in World War Two and our enemy in World War One – nothing.
Our support for Turkey costs us the goodwill of Greeks, Armenians and
other European nations that suffered through centuries of Turkish
oppression. It also has cost of much of the goodwill of Kurds, who
would otherwise welcome the presence of a superpower that was not
intolerant, not Arab, and sought nothing but friendly relations with
it.
Another important reason for supporting a true Kurdistan is that the
Kurds are a genuinely diverse people. Although they were forced to
covert to Islam, today only about seventy percent of the Kurds are
Moslem, and many of those only nominally, Jews, Christians,
Zoroastrians (or a faith much akin to that) and Bahai have lived
within the long-persecuted Kurdish community with their first
allegiance as Kurds, and there is no single branch of Islam that
clearly dominates the Kurdish community.
Kurdistan could then be a democracy with an Islamic majority that was
genuinely inclusive of all faiths, both needing the support of all
Kurds to survive (much like Israel) and also because of centuries of
living largely underground, tolerant of all Kurds. There is little
doubt that it would become an affluent nation as capable of defending
itself as Israel is today, and that along with the establishment of a
truly free and democratic Lebanon, would create three strong, free
and prosperous democracies which would naturally become allies or at
least friends.
The dismemberment of Iran, which would lose ten percent of its
population, and the humiliation of Syria, which would be forced into
a very precarious position, would be great peripheral benefits. The
downside has always been the impact on Turkey, but a Turkey which
continues to deny its Armenian holocaust and is rapidly moving toward
denial of HaShoah as it embraces vicious anti-Semitism, should
increasingly lose our concern about its interests.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Bahrain News Agency
April 8, 2006 Saturday 10:02 AM EST
Assad meets Oskanian
Syrian President Bashar Al Assad met here today with Armenian Foreign
Minister Vartan Oskanian , currently visiting Damascus.
The meeting covered strong bilateral relations and developments in
the region.