ARKADI GHUKASYAN: NAGORNO-KARABAKH HAS ALL THE GROUNDS FOR BEING RECOGNIZED BY THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY
ArmRadio.am
25.05.2006 17:20
“Nagorno-Karabakh has all grounds to get the recognition of the
international community,” NKR President Arkadi Ghukasyan declared
today in Moscow during the meeting of the Union of Armenians of Russia.
“The recent referendum in Chernogoria is a very important precedent. If
the international community is ready to accept the independence of
Chernogoria and Kosovo, I think it will be very hard to explain why
it should not accept the independence of Nagorno-Karabakh,” Arkadi
Ghukasyan said.
In Arkadi Ghukasyan’s words, Nagorno-Karabakh has even greater grounds
for the recognition of its independence.
“If we remember that the people of Nagorno-Karabakh resisted the war
imposed by Azerbaijan and is currently building its independence,
then I think we have all the grounds for being recognized by the
international community. I see no alternative. NKR is independent
and will continue do be, and this does not depend on the will of
Azerbaijan,” Arkadi Ghukasyan said.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

NKR MINISTRY OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS ISSUES A STATEMENT ON THE REFERENDUM IN CHERNOGORIA
ArmRadio.am
25.05.2006 18:05
The NKR Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a statement on the
referendum on independence in Chernogoria. The document says,
“The referendum in Chernogoria and the recognition of its results
by the international community is a positive fact, in general. We
are confidant that the right for self-determination realized via a
nationwide referendum is of pivotal importance for overcoming similar
situations and is a stable tool for establishing political peace in
the conflict zone.”

PRESIDENT ROBERT KOCHARYAN MET OSCE MINSK GROUP CO-CHAIRS
ArmRadio.am
25.05.2006 18:20
Presidnet Robert Kocharyan received today the OSCE Minsk Group
Co-Chairs Yuri Merzlyakov (Russia), Steven Mann (USA), Bernard
Fassier (France), as well as the Russian Deputy Foreign Minister
Grigori Karasin, US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Daniel Fried
and representative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of France,
Ambassador Pierre Morel. The meeting was attended also by Personal
Representative of the OSCE Chairman-in-Office Andrzej Kasprzyk.
Participants of the meeting discussed the principles and approaches of
the current stage of settlement of the Karabakh conflict and exchanged
views on the prospects of resolution of the issue.

KARABAKH REPUBLIC HAILS MONTENEGRIN INDEPENDENCE VOTE
Mediamax news agency
25 May 06
Yerevan, May 25: The foreign ministry of the Nagornyy Karabakh
republic today issued a statement about the referendum on independence
in Montenegro.
The statement says the following:
“It is a positive event that a referendum on independence was held
in Montenegro and the international community showed its readiness
to recognize its results. We are sure that the respect for a nation’s
right to self-determination exercised through a nation-wide referendum
is a cornerstone of the settlement of similar situations and is a
tool for establishing political stability in a conflict region.
“In this connection, it is expedient to recall that the disrespect
for the right of the people of Nagornyy Karabakh, who voted for
independence at a referendum on 10 December 1991, in fact resulted
in Azerbaijan’s military aggression against the Nagornyy Karabakh
republic which led to human casualties and destruction.
“In the process of settlement of the Nagornyy Karabakh conflict,
the disregard of the right of the people of Nagornyy Karabakh to
self-determination and to political independence and economic and
military security, will reduce the possibility of finding a mutually
acceptable solution and establishing lasting peace and mutual
understanding in the region.”

STRIKING SIMILARITY
Aram Abrahamian
Aravot.am
25 May 06
When two persons fight and pass all limits of human ethics, it is
amusing for large mass of people. When two oppositionists fight
authorities rejoice over it because the fighters are compromised and
the authority finds itself in ” white gauntlets”. So responsible TV
Companies would like to broadcast ”NU”-OEP mutual curses all day long
with a very clear pretext; ”Shame on you”. But in favor of justice we
should say that Artashes Geghamian provoked that unpleasant quarrel,
consequently if it is spoken about “concert on demand”, the ”NU”
leader plays the first violin here.
But each occasion can’t have only a reason, there are more. The
severest and terrible struggle is carried in the same type as it is in
nature. On that case the OEP and ”NU” have a lot of similarities. It
has been spoken a lot about their contacts with Serge Sargsian. Next
interesting similarity is the ”leadership” which reaches to the
cult of personality. It is excluded that any deputy from the OEP
or ”NU” makes a speech and not cite any ingenious thought or
action of his leader. I’m inclined to relate it not to the ideology
of the party but morbid ambitions of the leaders. There are more
authoritarian political powers in our country but I’ve never heard
its representatives to say constantly “as comrade Vahan mentioned in
his speech”, “as predicted comrade Tovmasian”. By the way the complex
of stressing their own person makes Geghamian and Baghdasarian answer
to every critic striking a fatal blow.
But there is also a global reason. Vazgen Manoukian rightly noticed
that places in the opposition were unlimitted; each person can declare
himself as the opposition. Instead sources for the opposition are
too limited. Mr. Geghamian has improved his English lately, made some
reverences to the West and could pretend to the assistance of the West.
Certainly both of them won’t be come the RAPresident in 2008. But
the point isn’t becoming the president but earning money.
–Boundary_(ID_W0nSh/yNCzuXoF/lbFC79A)–

THEY DIDN’T DESERVE THEIR POSTS
Anna Israelian
Aravot.am
25 May 06
Deputy of “National Unity” group Gagik Kostandian marks in this way
the circumstance that the OEP members awry grounds about his economic
activities.
”Can anybody prove the opposite today that it is possible to supply
goods to the Ministry of Defense without serious contacts or agreement
with first figures”, – Arthur Baghdasarian interpreted in this way the
circumstance that the ”NU” member Gagik Kostandian’s establishment
performs orders of the Ministry of Defense. ”Geghamian speaks against
Serge Sargsian but the member of his fraction supplies goods to the
Ministry led by Serge Sargsian. W tried to find out what goods the MD
“NU” member has supplied. It was found out that it was spoken about
”Gor” LTD the director of which was Gagik Kostandian in 1996-1999
and now his wife fills that post. ”I have inherited that fabric from
my father”, – the deputy affirmed.
“We aren’t engaged in mediation buying a computer from a place and
selling it in another, Mr. Kostandian alludes to Arthur Baghdasarian’s
brother business. But as we know he has already sold his ”Computer
City”. -But we are producers”. According to the ”Gor” company
owner deputy ”That fabric was built in 1988, we have neither bought
it nor taken. We have formed an industry, which has already had
300 workers. We don’t have any debts to the state. We mainly produce
uniforms. We make the fur and fabric into ready-made production. And we
mainly export it to Russia and Iran”. That’s why they didn’t have time
to perform great orders in Armenia. ”There were years when contests
for our army had been declared. We had lack for 1-2 times when there
were honest contests and we won there. We don’t have monopoly but we
are the single producer.”
Gagik Kostandian had declared from the NA pulpit that the information
as if ”NU” was ”indirectly financed and engaged in supplies”
was ”false and old”.
To our question when had they supplied Mr. Kostandian answered; 2
years ago; ”But when I became the member of the opposition we didn’t
allowed for taking part in those contests. And it doesn’t only refer
to the Ministry of Defense but to other contests in which we wanted
to participate legally.”
Buy Gagik Kostandian’s remarks OEP members ”proved once more that they
didn’t deserve those posts which they filled. If they deserved they
would know when we had won those contests and in what conditions. If
the chairman of the commission of Defense, National Security and home
policy doesn’t know such things so neither he nor the NA chairman
filled right posts. If the chairman of the commission wanted to give
right information let him study the facts”.
Gagik Kostandian was ready ”to perform the orders of Ministry of
Defense, Police and private establishments. But they don’t place
orders because he is from the opposition. Never mind. We’ll wait.”
–Boundary_(ID_of0yAh5UWKcoHDz9Pq5lvQ)–

SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST
By Katherine Shonk
The Moscow Times, Russia
May 26 2006
In DBC Pierre’s latest novel, a pair of newly unconjoined twins in
London and a young woman fleeing the war-torn Caucasus find themselves
similarly unversed in the ways of the world.
A pair of newly unconjoined twins, set loose in London, must decide
whether to embrace freedom or remain within their safe, familiar
cocoon.
A young woman from a war-torn republic in the Caucasus leaves home
in search of a better future for herself and her family.
These are the two storylines that DBC Pierre launches in alternating
and eventually intersecting chapters in his second novel, “Ludmila’s
Broken English.” (His first, “Vernon God Little,” won Britain’s
prestigious Man Booker Prize in 2003.) Though they inhabit very
different corners of the globe, twin brothers Blair and Gordon “Bunny”
Heath and Ludmila Derev face a similar challenge — the need to adapt
to an alien environment — and are similarly ill-equipped to face
the adventures that will befall them.
Blair and Bunny, born attached at the trunk, are lifelong wards of
Britain, sequestered in the Albion House Institution, a “centuries-old
jumble of menacing architectures crouched deep in the northern
countryside.” Acting on the theory that Bunny has become Blair’s
parasite, the British health service, “newly privatised” in the
novel’s slightly futuristic setting, arranges for the brothers to
be surgically extricated from each other at the age of 33. Once they
have recovered, they are dispatched for four weeks’ community leave
in the bustling capital.
Meanwhile, in the fictitious post-Soviet backwater of Ublilsk
Administrative District Forty-One, Ludmila and the rest of her family
find themselves similarly cut adrift by a formerly paternalistic
state. Farcically, the Soviet Union abdicated its responsibility
for the Derevs’ well-being to the drunken, incestuous head of the
household. Just pages into the novel, Ludmila’s grandfather attacks
her, leaving her with a sobering choice. “The equation was suddenly
this: if Aleksandr sodomised her, he would more quickly be persuaded
to sign his pension voucher, and bread would appear on the family
table that night. … And if she wet the air with lusty squeaks,
there might even be orange Fanta.” Soon after accidentally killing
Grandpa by stuffing a glove in his mouth, the young heroine confronts
another crude Catch-22: Her grandmother advises her to make up for
the deceased’s pension by choosing between prostitution and work in
the munitions plant. Ludmila lucks out only when the family realizes
that the sale of their tractor might temporarily stave off the wolves
at the door.
So the novel’s three protagonists set forth on what might have been
a collision course, if only it didn’t take such a very long time for
their paths to cross. Blair leaves the institution without looking
back, eager to plunge into the sex, hedonism and sheer normality
he has been denied. Asexual Bunny would just as soon cower through
the month of freedom, eating bacon and sipping gin. Ludmila, after
killing a second man (the tractor’s buyer) for untoward advances,
has the most ambitious plan. She heads to neighboring Kuzhnisk to meet
up with boyfriend Misha, a deserting soldier from the local conflict.
Together they intend to travel overseas and join the ranks of those
who “wouldn’t tolerate the inconvenience of war in the place where
they lived.”
“Ludmila’s Broken English” begins boldly, perhaps too boldly; played
for laughs, the passage in which Ludmila kills her lustful grandfather
is liable to lose a few faint-hearted readers. Subsequent chapters,
in which Blair and Bunny quibble endlessly over the possibilities
afforded by their liberation, are likely to turn off even more, due
to tedium and, for non-Brits at least, an excess of slang and inside
jokes. Which is a shame because, after this uneven start, passages of
brilliance lie nestled within the novel’s dense, darkly comedic middle.
Most successful is Pierre’s cutting portrayal of Ublilsk, a
civilization in rapid decline. The novelist researched this portion
of his book by visiting Armenia and frequenting Russian-bride web
sites, and he fixes a keen eye on the degradation and desperation
that can exist in forgotten pockets of the world. This description
of the region’s bread delivery echoes the matter-of-fact bleakness
of Alexander Solzhenitsyn:
“As keeper of the bread depot, the last registered business of any kind
in the district, Lubov’s power was absolute. The depot was a mildewed
cockpit from which she piloted the destinies of the district’s last
mollusc-like inhabitants. Every week, a forlorn box-car was uncoupled
from a train on the main line, and pushed on to a disused siding that
ran to within four kilometres of Ublilsk. …
Oafish young men met the wagon each week, carrying metal bars and
sharpened chains for security. Rumour had it they now also carried a
gun. They were Lubov’s retarded son and nephew — for the stigma of
feeble blood twice stained her — and they would heave and pull the
wagon as far as the track would allow, then unload the bread into
sacks, and carry it over their backs to the depot. … The town had
several simple faces rumoured to be the cost of a dirty loaf.”
Eamonn McCabe
DBC Pierre received Britain’s prestigious Man Booker Prize for his
first novel, “Vernon God Little,” in 2003.
Even more vivid is Ubli, the tongue Pierre gifts his characters,
“said to be the language most exquisitely tailored to the expression
of disdain.” The Ublis’ dialogue is presented as word-for-word
translation, a technique that at first feels stilted. But once the
reader acclimates to common Ubli turns of phrase such as “gather
your cuckoos,” “don’t toss gas,” “cut your hatch,” and the ubiquitous
“Hoh!” it becomes delightfully daffy, as does the natives’ constant
pushing of their chins at anyone who gets the slightest bit on
their nerves. In Ublilsk, contempt is the local currency; beyond the
district’s borders, its expression is the only source of power.
“Imagine!” Ludmila scolds a sweet young woman who attempts to befriend
her in Kuzhnisk. “A new and important visitor and you waste the
crucial first hour, the golden hour, with squeakings about yourself!”
Ludmila’s unwavering crabbiness lends the story some inspired humor;
unfortunately, it stands in the way of her development as a fully
rounded character. When a crooked Kuzhnisk biznesmen signs her up on an
“Internet introduction service,” it’s clearly time to start worrying,
but the girl’s tough exterior impenetrably lacquers over her underlying
pathos and naivete. The story of what happens when conjoined twins
are separated and cut loose in society should also set the stage
for compelling drama, but the brothers remain too rigidly defined —
Blair is the wild one, Bunny the priss — to retain much interest. And
Pierre’s failure to recount the specifics of their separation —
we are told that they “shared certain organs,” but not how they are
divided up on the operating table, or how the twins are (or are not)
physically altered by the procedure — seems an odd oversight for an
otherwise scatological writer.
When the twins do finally meet up with Ludmila (yes, the introduction
web site plays a role), the results are unsatisfyingly brief. Nearly
all of the novel’s major characters converge in Ublilsk for a gruesome
finale that seems to want to be chilling, but instead comes off
feeling flat, even predictable.
Still, those who like their literature in the grotesque vein of
William Faulkner and Flannery O’Connor will appreciate Pierre’s
transplantation of the tradition to a very different southern clime.
The Caucasus is unexplored territory in contemporary English-language
fiction, and in many sections of “Ludmila’s Broken English,” Pierre
does an admirable job of introducing a new audience to the apparent
horror and black humor to be found there.
Katherine Shonk is the author of “The Red Passport,” a collection of
short stories set in contemporary Russia.

TURKEY BATTLES BOUT OF EU REFORM FATIGUE
Yigal Schleifer 5/25/06
EurasiaNet, NY
May 26 2006
Though Turkey is continuing with preparations for the start of
accession negotiations with the European Union, some troubling
developments in recent months have prompted European diplomats and
local observers to question the country’s determination to enact and
adhere to EU-related reforms.
“Watching it from Ankara, there’s a sense that the political will
in Ankara is not as strong as it was, if there’s any left at all,
to invest in this process with Europe,” says a diplomat from an EU
country, who asked not to be named due to the sensitivity of the issue.
“There’s a perception among international observers in Ankara that
the initiatives that they [Turkish officials] are still announcing,
and the commitment to the EU process that they are still professing
is less convincing because its not being reflected by their actions,”
the diplomat added.
Most troubling from the EU perspective have been a number of court
cases in which writers have been accused of insulting the state and
“Turkishness,” raising concern about Turkey’s commitment to freedom of
speech. Rights activists are worried that a new anti-terror bill that
the government plans to introduce contains several troubling articles,
including one that would allow for the jailing of journalists accused
of “propagating terrorism.” Such a bill could mark a step back in
Turkey’s legal reform process.
There is also worry that renewed violence in Turkey’s
predominantly-Kurdish southeast will prompt the military to reassert
itself in domestic affairs. A revival of the Kurdish separatist issue
could also cause the judicial system to backslide on human rights.
Already, some 36 Kurdish children are currently awaiting trial for
their involvement in violent riots that took place in the southeastern
city of Diyarbakir in late March, some of them facing as much as 24
years in prison.
Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul tried to brush aside
suggestions that Ankara is experiencing reform fatigue, saying in a
recent statement, “our reform efforts aimed at raising standards and
practices in all areas of life to the highest contemporary standards
will resolutely continue.”
Foreign Ministry officials point out that Turkey and the EU have
already successfully agreed on negotiation points for 19 of the 35
“chapters” on which the accession talks will be based, adding that
actual negotiations on two of those chapters will start in the
coming months.
Despite the Turkish assurances on reforms, EU officials remain
skeptical. Speaking to reporters during a recent visit to Bulgaria, EU
Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn voiced dissatisfaction with Turkey’s
reform pace, and strongly admonished the Turkish government to get back
on track. “It is necessary that the Turkish government take immediate
action to restart the momentum of the reforms in the country,” he said.
“This is the best and only way to avoid a train crash later this
year in the negotiations between the European Union and Turkey,”
Rehn added. “It’s really in the hands of the Turkish government,
parliament and civil society to achieve this.”
There is very likely a domestic consideration to the reform slowdown.
While public support for EU membership was close to 80 percent two
years ago, it now hovers at around 50 percent. Many Turks believe
the EU has betrayed Turkey on the Cyprus issue by not rewarding
a successful Turkish Cypriot referendum vote to accept a UN plan
to unify the island. Many also feel that moves, such as a recently
shelved French bill that would criminalize the denial of the Armenian
genocide, are an outgrowth of a wider European unwillingness to see
Turkey join the EU.
With Turkey facing elections in 2007, analysts say the ruling Justice
and Development Party (AKP) is reluctant to be viewed as intimately
connected with Turkey’s EU project. “There is a rising nationalism
in the country and [the AKP] also has a constituency that is rather
conservative in a nationalist sense,” says Mensur Akgun, foreign
policy director at the Turkish Economic and Social Studies Foundation,
an Istanbul-based think tank. “They can do a lot more, if they wanted
to, but they don’t want to take a risk.”
“What [the government leaders] are doing is focusing on elections and
on the mood in the country, and that mood is very inward looking and
with a feeling of vulnerability on several issues,” says the European
diplomat. “Instead of showing a way and leadership, the government
is listening much more to these ghosts that have been haunting Turkey
for decades, and somehow they have been caught up in all of that.”
There is some concern now that growing political tension in Turkey
may further hinder the reform process. The recent killing of a
top judge in Ankara has placed the AKP government firmly on the
defensive. There have been large-scale demonstrations in support of
the country’s secular order and Turkey’s top general, in a rare move,
publicly urged Turks to continue such demonstrations. [For background
see the Eurasia Insight archive].
But some of the reform slowdown might also be attributed to a kind
of disillusionment with the EU within the inner circles of the AKP,
a liberal Islamic party. A European Court of Human Right ruling late
last year supporting Turkey’s headscarf ban in public universities
stunned many in the party, who thought EU membership would lead to
greater religious freedoms.
“Concerning the EU process, it doesn’t seem as if Europe will admit
Turkey together with its Islamic identity,” Ali Bulac, a leading
Islamic intellectual, recently wrote in the daily newspaper Zaman.
“Europe does not accept the existence of any other civilization apart
from its own.”
Adds Fehmi Koru, a columnist with the liberal Islamic newspaper
Yeni Safak, which is considered to be close to the AKP government:
“Of course there are some disappointments, especially in the field
of human rights. Intellectuals who support the AKP had the idea that
with the headscarf issue and other issues related to basic human
rights would be solved by becoming EU members, but of course this
hasn’t been realized.”
Editor’s Note: Yigal Schleifer is a freelance journalist based in
Istanbul.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

KARABAKH FOREIGN MINISTRY ON MONTENEGRO REFERENDUM
Regnum, Russia
May 26 2006
Respect for the right of nations to self-determination will provide
for security in the region
The Nagorno Karabakh Foreign Ministry has released a statement in
connection with a referendum on Montenegro independence. REGNUM
publishes English translation of the text.
“Referendum on Montenegro independence and readiness of the
international community to recognize its outcome are a positive fact
on the whole. We are sure that respect for the right of a nation to
self-determination realized by means if a nation-wide referendum is a
corner stone in settling such situations and an effective instrument
for establishing political stability in the conflict region.
“In this connection it is worth reminding that disrespect for the
right of the Nagorno Karabakh people, who voted at a referendum for
its independence on December 10, 1991, was taken as basis for further
direct military aggression by Azerbaijan against the Republic of
Nagorno Karabakh that brought about numerous human deaths and damage.
“Further ignoring of the NKR people right for self-determination in the
Azerbaijani-Karabakh conflict and achieving conditions, under which its
political independence, economic and military safety is secured, would
put off the prospect of finding a mutually admissible decision and
establishment of lasting peace and mutual understanding in the region.”

YEREVAN, WASHINGTON, MOSCOW AND PARIS DISCUSSED PRINCIPLES AND WAYS OF NK CONFLICT SETTLEMENT
Regnum, Russia
May 26 2006
On May 25, Armenian Foreign Minister Vardan Oskanyan received
representatives of the OSCE Minsk Group co-chair countries – US
Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Daniel
Fried, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin and spokesman
for the French Foreign Ministry, Ambassador Pierre Morel.
Mediators in the conflict settlement, Yuri Merzlyakov (Russia),
Steven Mann (US) and Bernard Fassier (France), as well as personal
representative of the OSCE chairman-in-office Andrzej Kasprzyk, also
participated in the meeting, REGNUM is told at the Armenian foreign
ministry press office.
The parties pointed out significance of the high-rank visit, discussed
principles and ways of the Nagorno Karabakh conflict settlement. After
paying attention to issues that are unsettled yet, the parties
exchanged opinions concerning prospects for settlement of the conflict.