MEETING WITH SECRETARY OF NKR COUNCIL FOR SECURITY
Azat Artsakh, Nagorno Karabakh Republic [NKR]
03 April 2006
On March 31 Karen Baburian, the head of the administration of NKR
President, Secretary of the Council for Security of NKR, met with the
co-chairs of the US-Russian working group of the Dartmouth Conference
Vitaly Naumkin and Harold Saunders, who arrived in Stepanakert on
March 30 in the framework of their regional visit. Introducing the
official stance of official Stepanakert on the settlement of the
conflict over Karabakh, the Secretary of the NKR Council for Security
highly appreciated the efforts of the Dartmouth Conference to establish
dialogue and mutual confidence within the neighbour societies. Karen
Baburian said for its part Karabakh is ready to sign an agreement
with the other conflict parties on the prevention of dissemination of
hatred and assistance in the peace settlement of the conflict. The
participants of the meeting emphasized the importance of settlement
on the level of representatives of the societies of the conflict
parties. It was stated that although the Dartmouth Conference cannot
replace the talks conducted under the auspices of the OSCE, it could,
nevertheless, favor the atmosphere around the conflict and foster
the peace settlement of the conflict.

AGREEMENT SIGNED BETWEEN GOVERNMENT, TRADE UNIONS AND PRODUCERS
Azat Artsakh, Nagorno Karabakh Republic [NKR]
03 April 2006
On March 30 the official meeting of the members of government, the
Federation of Trade Unions, the Union of Producers and Businessmen
and the National Assembly took place to sign a document setting on
cooperation of the government, the Federation of Trade Unions and
the Union of Producers and Businessmen.
NKR Deputy Prime Minister Ararat Danielian mentioned in his address
that the Federation of Trade Unions of Karabakh was established in
1968 and operated until 1996. In 2003 the National Assembly adopted
the law on trade unions.
Under this law trade unions were again founded in 2003 and
2004. Emphasizing the importance of the principles set down in the
document, Ararat Danielian pointed out the role of the trilateral
agreement for our young republic, which has chosen the way of
democracy. The president of the NKR Federation of Trade Unions Ara
Ghahramanian said the document defending the interests of workers is
an indicator of the development of democracy in the country. “We have
been to different building companies and saw that the interests of
workers in a number of companies are violated. For instance, workers
do not even have overalls. I think this is a pressing problem,
and it is extremely important to take actions with regard to this
and other issues, infringing on the interests of workers,” said Ara
Ghahramanian. Then the parties signed an agreement of 17 articles,
which will be in force for a year.

DEPUTY FOREIGN MINISTER’S VISIT TO UNITED STATES
Azat Artsakh, Nagorno Karabakh Republic [NKR]
03 April 2006
On March 22 the deputy minister of foreign affairs of NKR Masis
Mayilian left for the United States on a working visit. On the first
day of the visit Masis Mayilian met with the Primate of the Eastern
Diocese of the Armenian Apostolic Church (the Diocese of Cilicia)
Archbishop Oshakan Choloyan. During this meeting they discussed the
relations of Karabakh and the Diaspora, the settlement of the Karabakh
issue and a number of other questions. Then Deputy Minister Masis
Mayilian visited the Representation of the Republic of Armenia to
the UN and met with its staff to discuss cooperation. In New York he
also met with local businessmen. The businessmen became interested in
products, made in Karabakh. The minister of foreign affairs pointed
out the interest of Karabakh in the development of foreign economic
relations. They also discussed questions regarding export of Karabakh
products. On March 23 the deputy minister of foreign affairs Masis
Mayilian visited Connecticut to deliver a lecture at the University
of Connecticut on the topic “NKR as a Factor of Peace and Stability
in the South Caucasian Region.” On the same day the deputy minister
met with the dean of the School of Social Studies Kay Davidson
and the teaching staff, and discussed prospects of cooperation
and future projects. Kay Davidson thanked the NKR foreign minister
for accepting the invitation of the university. In the morning of
March 24 the deputy minister of foreign affairs visited the State
Assembly of Connecticut where he met a group of representatives of
the legislative. At the beginning of the meeting John Kirakosyan,
a member of the State Assembly, introduced the deputy minister of
foreign affairs of NKR, after which Masis Mayilian spoke about the
settlement of the conflict over Nagorno Karabakh and the present
situation in NKR. On March 25 the deputy foreign minister of NKR met
with the representatives of the Armenian community of Connecticut
at the local church. There were also professors and students of
the University of Connecticut, members of the State Assembly, as
well as several dozens of Armenian refugees from Azerbaijan at the
meeting. Masis Mayilian made a speech on the topic “Nagorno Karabakh
Republic: Years of State Building and Prospects of Development.” By
the end of his address the deputy foreign minister of NKR called the
Armenian Diaspora for more active engagement in different programs for
Nagorno Karabakh. During this meeting the Permanent Representative of
NKR to the United States Vardan Barseghian touched upon the activity
of the NKR legation and the current plans. On March 26 Masis Mayilian
arrived in Washington where he participated in the ceremony of opening
of the National Conference of the Armenian Assembly of America. In his
address the NKR deputy foreign minister thanked the Armenian Diaspora
for their assistance to Nagorno Karabakh and called for more activity
for the international recognition of NKR. During the short meetings
with the AAA leadership the leadership of the AAA confirmed their
willingness to assist in strengthening NKR. On March 27 the deputy
foreign minister of NKR took part in the National Conference. NKR
Permanent Representation to the United States, Washington, March 28.

BEIRUT TO HOST THIRD PAN-ARMENIAN WRITERS CONFERENCE
Armenpress
April 3 2006
YEREVAN, APRIL 3, ARMENPRESS: The third pan-Armenian jamboree of
writers, to open on April 6 in Lebanon’s capital Beirut, will bring
together about 150 Armenian writers from Armenia, Nagorno-Karabakh
and Diaspora communities.
Levon Ananian, the chairman of the Union of Armenian Writers, told a
news conference today 50 writers will be from Armenia and Karabakh,
others from Diaspora communities. Lebanese ambassador to Armenia,
Jebrail Zhaara, said Beirut has always been open for Armenians.

DON’T EXPLOIT THE ARMENIANS’ DESIRE TO LIVE IN PEACE
By Gayane Movsessian
Yerkir.am
April 01, 2006
To restore the trust between the Armenians and the Azeris, to
encourage the population of Azerbaijan, Armenia and Nagorno Karabagh
to think about peace (and not war) and foster a willingness to accept
a consensus.
This was the goal declared by the members of the working group
of Dortmund Regional Conference on Conflicts Harold Sonders
(ex-deputy secretary of state, USA), Vitaly Naumkin (director of
strategic research center) and their deputies Philip Stuart and Irina
Zvyagelskaya at the roundtable discussion on Karabagh settlement held
in Yerevan on March 29.
The working group on Karabagh settlement has held 9 rounds of
discussions in the past 4.5 years in the framework of the Dortmund
conference. As a result of the eighth and ninth rounds of discussions
the text of the Framework Agreement was drafted. The draft has already
been published in the media and will be submitted to the co-chairs
of the OSCE Minsk Group and the leaders of the three countries.
The working group members, all experts with extensive experience
in diplomatic work in conflict regions, are sure that the official
negotiations carried our in the framework of the Minsk Group are
not sufficient.
This is why they are trying to fill in this gap through negotiations
at the level of representatives of the three societies. “We are
not here to suggest final solutions. That is the prerogative of the
Minsk Group. We are here to suggest how to get to those solutions,”
one of the famous co-authors of the Camp David Accord on Arab-Israeli
conflict Harold Sonders noted.
“The Karabagh settlement process does not inspire optimism in
terms of a rapid and comprehensive settlement that would reflect the
interests of all parties engaged. This is why we propose to start with
something: let the troops withdraw, let a peace accord be signed and
then implemented. This process shows that problems can be settled
and that they cannot be settled without participation of Nagorno
Karabagh representatives.
And since the parties will sign the accords and be responsible for
their implementation they must have a certain status. We call it an
intermediate status. It is the acceptance of the fact that Nagorno
Karabagh is a party to the conflict. I think this is very important,”
Irina Zvyagelskaya said in her interview with Yerkir.
It is true that the working group members don’t know how to motivate
Azerbaijan to cooperate with Armenia and Karabagh. Zvyagelskaya
believes there are people in the three countries who are ready for
constructive cooperation and even risk for the sake of realization
of new ideas. However, such people do not have a say, especially in
the Azeri society.
Baku is constantly voicing calls for a new war and destruction of
Armenia and the Armenian nation. In this context mutual concessions
seem like attempts of unilateral concessions on the part of Armenians.
Head of the Sociology Chair at Yerevan State University Lyudmila
Harutyunian expressed her surprise that the international community is
trying to think of some concessions to make Azerbaijan see an obvious
fact – the fact that Nagorno Karabagh is a party of the conflict.
Harutyunian believes “negative peace and a tendency for positive peace”
already exist in Armenia and Nagorno Karabagh while in Azerbaijan there
are no signs of even negative peace. The international community is
favoring Azerbaijan more which means that it is demanding unilateral
concessions from Armenia.
“We forget that Camp David did not solve the Arab-Israeli
conflict. These are conflicts with historical roots that demand
alternative solutions. I think the Armenians’ desire to live in
peace should not be manipulated by the international community. The
international community should not tolerate Azerbaijan’s desire to
settle all problems in its favor,” Harutyunian stressed.
Harutyunian believes the peace building process has not started
yet. The Karabagh conflict still remains as a tool of settling various
issues for different actors engaged in the region. “If Armenians
agree to some intermediate solutions at this stage they will lose.
We don’t see any desire for peace. We speak about peace a lot
but when a peace building process starts a peace fund is usually
established. Why isn’t it established now to help settle the Karabagh
conflict? This means that we are still a long way from peace and
Armenians should not put down their arms being so far away from peace,”
Harutyunian stressed.

I INQUIRED ABOUT THE MATTER AND CLARIFIED IT FOR MYSELF
Levon Tokmajian Sculptor, academic
Yerkir.am
April 01, 2006
Recently you can hear on TV and radio or read in the newspapers
that illegal facilities are built on top of different buildings
belonging to art workers unions. The Armenian Artists’ Union was
not an exception. Construction works have started in the exhibition
halls. As a member of the Artists’ Union for forty years, I feel pain.
I am upset by the changes that have occurred after the collapse of the
Soviet system. Even though the art workers’ unions were established
based on socialist ideology they played an important role in developing
arts: they contributed to the organization of exhibitions and sale
of the artists’ works, they organized various trips for the artists,
allocated apartments and studios to them. In other words, they did
everything possible to encourage and unite artists.
Today nothing is left except the buildings and the exhibition
halls. The administration, the secretariat, the departments and
the president of the Artists ‘ Union are also left from the past. A
natural question arises: is it worth to preserve a structure that
does not function? Yes, the exhibition halls were demolished with
the intention of building new ones. I visited the construction site
because people call me from newspapers and TV asking what is going
on at the Artists’ Union.
I met the architect of the design Ruben Azatian and found out
that a construction company called “Renga” has arranged with the
administration and the secretariat of the Union to build a three-floor
building in the location of the exhibition halls. The basement
floor will host a cafeteria, the first and second floors will have
exhibition halls and will belong to the Union while the third floor
will be used by the construction company as office space. This is
what is happening with the Artists’ Union. How will the Union benefit?
It will benefit because it will get more space to use as exhibition
halls.
Wasn’t it possible to request the consent of at least some of the
1000 members of the Union? Of course it was possible. Today people
make a big noise of this issue saying that everything was done in a
secret manner without informing the members of the Union.
Everything around us is being destroyed and sold. Poor artists,
they are trying to do their job as well as they can and then suddenly
someone calls them and asks, do you know what is going on in the yard
of the Artists’ Union?
What are they supposed to answer? Then once again the question arises:
what is the purpose of the existence of the Artists’ Union?
Of course, the painters and sculptors need exhibition halls to show
their works. Then why not create an administration of the exhibition
halls that would organize the exhibitions for artists? Today the whole
concept of the Artists’ Union has been modified. Life has changed,
relations between people have changed. Armenians, Armenian art and
Armenian artists have changed. But the structure of our Artists’ Union
has remained the same. This is the reason why we don’t know what is
going on around us especially in the yard of the Artists’ Union. Thanks
God, I inquired about the matter and clarified it for myself.

REVERSAL OF FORTUNE: SHOULD RUSSIA BE BOOTED OUT OF THE WEST’S EXCLUSIVE CLUB, THE G8? OF COURSE NOT
By Owen Matthews
Newsweek International
Newsweek
April 2 2006
April 10-17, 2006 issue – Peter the Great built St. Petersburg in hopes
that its sweeping neoclassical boulevards would prove to a skeptical
Europe that Russia was no longer a barbarous Asian principality but
part of mainstream Western civilization. As Vladimir Putin prepares
to host this summer’s G8 summit in the old imperial capital, he
faces a similar challenge. Buoyed by a windfall of petrodollars,
Russia’s president has transformed his country from a dysfunctional,
debt-ridden post-Soviet wasteland into a major world economic and
political player. All that’s missing is recognition from his peers
that Russia is a full member in the club of the world’s leading
industrialized, democratic nations.
He’s likely to be kept waiting. Instead of a triumph, the St
Petersburg summit is fast shaping up as the biggest rethink of
Russia’s relationship with the West since the collapse of the Soviet
Union. Rather than the recognition that Putin craves, there’s talk of
diluting Russia’s G8 membership with a revival of the old G7. Just last
week, his old friend George W. Bush responded to calls to boycott the
summit, after it was alleged that Russia had passed military secrets
to Saddam, with a less-than-ringing endorsement: “I haven’t given up
on Russia.” Give up on Russia? It was only eight years ago that Russia
was ceremoniously welcomed into the G8. Yet now, critics in Brussels
and Washington seem to talk of it as a borderline outlaw nation.
Russia’s reversal of fortune¡ªin the eyes of the West¡ªhas been swift
and remarkable. Europeans’ confidence was shaken this winter, when
the Kremlin cut off gas supplies to Ukraine just as much of Europe
was finalizing long-term energy strategies tied to Russia. Then came
a new Kremlin law restricting foreign NGOs working to build civil
society in Russia¡ªreceiving, for their pains, a barrage of hostility
and accusations of espionage. In recent weeks Europe’s last dictator,
Aleksandr Lukashenka of Belarus, was re-elected amid police brutality
and heavy support from Moscow. Now, NEWSWEEK has learned, the European
Court of Human Rights (already reviewing hundreds of other human-rights
complaints concerning Russia) has fast-tracked a complaint by the
former Yukos Oil oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky, jailed on charges
of tax evasion and fraud after he challenged Putin politically. Soon
European judges will have their say on the fairness of a case that,
to many, has come to symbolize the Kremlin’s abuse of power.
Nowhere has the shift been sharper than in America. A tipping
point came late last month, when the Pentagon claimed that Russia’s
ambassador to Iraq had passed U.S. war plans to Saddam Hussein on
the eve of the invasion. That sparked a chorus of denunciations from
Congress. “They’ve endangered American lives,” thundered Sen. Edward
Kennedy. “I think you’d have to rethink whether we’re going to the
G8 conference.” More, the news set off a mini-avalanche of criticism
of Russia’s sins, from Putin’s steady repression of civil society at
home to his support of obnoxious dictators in Russia’s near abroad.
The new thinking is clearly set out in the White House’s latest
national-security strategy, issued last month. Washington’s principal
foreign policy objective, the paper said, was now the “support of
democratic movements and institutions around the world.” And U.S.
Under-Secretary of State Nicholas Burns didn’t mince words, either,
when he spoke of exactly which regions of the world Washington has in
mind. The United States would make a point of “encouraging democracy
and withstanding oppression in Central Asia and the Caucasus,” said
Burns, as well as urging “Ukraine and Georgia to work toward ties
with NATO and the EU.” In the U.S. view, it seems, Russia has become
a major obstacle to America’s geostrategic interests.
What a change from 2000, when Bush famously looked into Putin’s
“soul” at a meeting in Slovenia and found a reliable partner. Putin
subsequently wasted little time engineering his vision of
“democracy”¡ªdismantling any sources of opposition, closing down
independent TV stations and scrapping elections for regional governors,
as well as waging a bloody war in Chechnya. But here’s the rub. Much of
Putin’s anti-democratic crackdown took place in his first term, when he
was still in good odor in Washington. So what’s changed? The answer,
says Alexei Arbatov, former chairman of the national Parliament’s
Defense Committee, is that “Russia is becoming more independent in
its foreign policy; it’s becoming more actively assertive in the
former Soviet Union.”
>From the Kremlin’s point of view, the “rethink” of Russian relations
is sheer hypocrisy, sparked by perceptions that Russia is crossing
U.S. interests. It began, perhaps, with the Kremlin’s opposition to
a U.S. war in Iraq. It grew with the ongoing nuclear confrontation
with Iran. More recently, when Moscow invited Hamas representatives
to Russia in the wake of their election victory, Washington complained
that the Kremlin was abetting terrorism. “From now on the main criteria
in the relationship between the United States and other countries will
be their conformity to American notions of democracy,” a spokesman
for Russia’s Foreign ministry said in an indignant rebuttal. And
indeed, why shouldn’t Russia pursue independent policies, its elites
ask. After the mess the United States has made in Iraq, is Moscow
supposed to stand idly by as, for example, Washington puts pressure
on Tehran and the Palestinians?
For all the hoopla surrounding the G8, and whether Russia should be
considered a member in good standing, Moscow has ready and often
reasonable answers to most of the charges against it. Clearly,
democracy is in retreat under Putin, much as he tries to deny it. Yet
it is also true that the Russian president has not been alone. His
predecessor, Boris Yeltsin, long Washington’s darling, was no slouch
in browbeating practically all of Russia’s media into supporting him
when he was up for re-election in 1996. Yet when Putin did the same
in 2004, the U.S. NGO Freedom House downgraded Russia’s status from
“partially free” to “unfree.” (U.S. allies Jordan, Kuwait and Yemen,
however, remained “partially free.”) By the same token, Russia has
been condemned in Europe and the United States for intriguing in its
near abroad, from meddling in Ukraine’s 2004 elections to backing
repressive regimes from Belarus to Uzbekistan. Yet here, too, not
only did Yeltsin support Lukashenka, but he also sponsored separatist
wars in Abkhazia, Transdnistr, South Ossetia and Nagorno-Karabakh¡ª
specifically to punish breakaway republics for disloyalty to Moscow.
Putin has rightly been tarred with Chechnya, but he inherited that
war from none other than Boris Yeltsin.
Perhaps nothing symbolizes Russia’s new anti-democratic era more
than the Khodorkovsky affair. Seen from the West, it’s the case of a
modern, reform-minded businessman cum dissident taken down by jealous
bureaucrats threatened by his power. The charges against him¡ªfrom
tax evasion to fraud and money-laundering¡ªhave been dismissed
as exaggerated if not trumped up. But while there’s little doubt
that the decision to prosecute Khodorkovsky was indeed politically
motivated, the lesser-known truth is that the case against him was
also deserved. As the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg
prepares to hear a complaint by the oligarch’s lawyers that the state
“persecuted” their client, they would do well to heed such attorneys
as Peter Clateman, a lawyer for Renaissance Capital in Moscow who
has been following the case closely. As he tells it, the prosecutors’
case was not only well put together but proved its claims beyond any
reasonable doubt. “Khodorkovsky is guilty as charged,” he says. The
Yukos magnate went to extraordinary lengths to evade Russian laws
and bilk the country of hundreds of millions (if not billions) of
dollars. “You can’t prevent a country from enforcing its own laws,”
says Clateman. Indeed, even the CIA listed Khodorkovsky’s Menatep
Bank as one of Russia’s most criminal in the late 1990s.
Now come other flaps. In late March Putin accused Washington of
“artificially pushing back” Russian accession to the World Trade
Organization. “We have received a list of questions from our American
colleagues requiring additional agreement which we considered settled
long ago,” complained Putin. And he has a point. Russia’s the only
major economy outside the 149-member WTO, and it has been trying to
gain admission for 13 years. Washington says Russia needs to open up
its banking sector and cut down on DVD piracy. Yet WTO member China
has stricter controls on foreign banks and, admits Dan Glickman,
president of the Motion Picture Association of America, pirates more
DVDs. As if to add insult to injury, Ukraine, a major intellectual
property infringer, is on the verge of WTO membership, thanks to U.S.
support.
It remains to be seen how reports that Russia’s ambassador to
Baghdad, Vladimir Titorenko, passed sensitive war intelligence
to Iraqi officials will play out. Russian officials say they have
nothing to hide. “It was no secret that we maintained diplomatic
relations right up to the end,” says one Russian diplomat in Moscow,
speaking on background. “In the framework of those relations, there
were extensive briefings and exchanges of analysis.” Both the Kremlin
and the Bush administration seem determined to keep such tensions
from escalating. But there’s no mistaking the chill in the air. A
recent report by the influential Council on Foreign Relations in
New York urges “the democratic members of the G8, including the
United States,” to “protect the credibility of the organization” by
“effectively reviving the G7 within the G8.” The purpose: to “convince
Russia’s leaders that ground that has been won can also be lost.”
Is Russia’s membership in the Western club really so precarious? Of
course not. President Bush, for one, hasn’t even flirted with the idea
of not going to St Petersburg. But Russia-baiting is a dangerous
game, even so, for it risks alienating the West’s main ally in
Russia¡ªPutin himself. For all his faults, he is a modernizer and
far more benignly disposed toward Europe and the United States than
most in the Kremlin¡ªor the Russian population. “Being valued by the
West is very important to Putin,” says Arbatov. “He considers Russia
a great Western power¡ªthat’s the basis of his world view. Excluding
him would be a personal insult, like spitting in his face.” As if
sensing that danger, Bush tried to tone down the rhetoric: “I still
think Russia understands that it’s in her interest to be West, to work
with the West, and to act in concert with the West.” Fair enough. But
having to say so only testifies to how wide the divide has grown.
–Boundary_(ID_6LOFC0GOkJ1ntXZ8sos5Rg)–

GEORGIA: RUSSIA PLEDGES TO COMPLETE MILITARY PULLOUT ON SCHEDULE
Jean-Christophe Peuch 4/01/06
A EurasiaNet Partner Post from RFE/RL
EurasiaNet, NY
April 2 2006
Russia has agreed on the practical details of its military pullout
from Georgia. Envoys from Moscow tand Tbilisi signed two documents
to that effect in the Russian Black Sea resort of Sochi on March
31. The agreements confirm a pledge given by Russia last year that
the withdrawal would be completed within months.
Under the terms of a preliminary agreement reached May 30, 2005 in
Moscow, Russia had pledged to vacate the two former Soviet military
bases it retains in Georgia by the end of 2008.
The two documents signed March 31 by Georgian Deputy Defense Minister
Mamuka Kudava and General Aleksei Maslov, the commander-in-chief of
the Russian Ground Forces, set a detailed time frame for the planned
pullout.
Russia news agencies cite the Sochi agreements as saying the two
Russian bases in Akhalkalaki and Batumi are already operating in
preparation for pullout.
Out By Year’s End
Under the terms of the documents, Russia is to withdraw heavy military
hardware from the two bases — including equipment that falls under
the 1990 Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE) Treaty — by the
end of 2006. All other weapons must leave Georgia at the latest by
December 31, 2007.
The closure of the Akhalkalaki base and the transfer to the Georgian
Defense Ministry of all other military facilities that are not
formally part of the two Russian bases must be completed within the
same time frame.
Addressing a news briefing in Tbilisi, Georgian Defense Minister
Irakli Okruashvili welcomed the signing of the Sochi agreements.
“We welcome the constructive approach adopted by the Russian side,
which in the past two weeks has worked intensively so that an agreement
could be reached on those documents,” Okruashvili said.
Proof Required
Okruashvili said, however, that Georgia would insist that Russia
provide evidence that it has vacated another base in the separatist
region of Abkhazia.
Russian troops officially pulled out from the Gudauta military facility
in 2001, but Tbilisi — which has no control over Abkhazia — insists
that it be allowed to inspect the base to make sure it is no longer
in use.
“There remains the problem of the base in Gudauta. We will work
actively so that the other side doesn’t try to beat around the bush,
and that the base is effectively vacated,” Okruashvili said.
Neither of the Sochi agreements makes any specific mention of the Black
Sea base of Batumi, through which most Russian military equipment is
to leave Georgia.
But after the March 31 signing ceremony, Russian General Maslov said
the Batumi base would be vacated within the next two years.
“During the course of the year 2008 we will vacate the Batumi military
base and [relocate] the command of the Russian Group of Forces in
the Transcaucasus,” Maslov said.
Provisional Concerns
Maslov also said part of the military equipment would be sent to army
units based in the North Caucasus region and that another part would
be given to the military base Russia maintains in the Armenian city
of Gyumri.
There have been concerns in Azerbaijan that Russia may give weapons and
military hardware to Armenia, with which it is linked by a military
alliance pact. Azerbaijan remains formally at war with Armenia over
its separatist enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh.
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has said that Russia’s plans
for the military relocation justify calls for an increase in Baku’s
defense spending.
Talking to RFE/RL last year shortly after Russia announced it would
withdraw its bases from Georgia, the Armenian Army Chief of Staff,
General Mikayel Harutiunian, denied his country would benefit from
the planned transfer.
“The presence of the 102nd Russian military base [in Gyumri] on
Armenia’s territory is covered by a [bilateral] agreement,” Harutiunian
said. “What type of weapons should be stored at this base is up to
Russia to decide. As for a possible transfer of materiel or equipment
to Armenia, there is no agreement and there will not be any. Armenia
can equip its armed forces on its own within the limits of the [CFE
treaty] quotas.”
Heavy Weapons
Russia’s Defense Ministry said on March 17 equipment transferred
to the Gyumri base would include 370 pieces of military hardware,
including 35 tanks and armored vehicles.
Pullout operations through Batumi are expected to begin in May and
last until mid-August.
The Russian Foreign Ministry said in a March 31 statement the Sochi
documents require that Georgia “create normal conditions for the
activities of the bases until they are closed.”
Georgian authorities have in recent months detained a number of Russian
servicemen on charges of violating domestic travel regulations. Moscow
says the detentions aimed at hindering the functioning of its bases.

HOVANNISIAN: ARMENIA IS LESS DEMOCRATIC THAN TURKEY
Journal of Turkish Weekly
April 2 2006
Richard Hovannisian, a renowned U.S. academic of Armenian descent,
named Armenia a “failed state”, Armenian press reported.
Richard Hovannisian, a senior professor of Armenian and Near Eastern
History at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), claimed
that domestic policies pursued by the administration of President
Robert Kocharian have alienated a large part of the country’s
population and the influential Armenian community in the United States.
“Watching from the outside, we follow with pain the continuing
electoral and other illegalities committed in Armenia,” he told RFE/RL
in an interview.
“We would have loved to see freedom of speech and thought in Armenia,
instead of repression, secret police persecution and lies spread by
state media” Prof. Dr. Richard Hovannisian added.
Hovannisian, who is arguably the most famous of Armenian-American
historians, believes that Armenia is now less democratic state
than Turkey.
Richard Hovannisian argued that Turkish press is freer than the press
in Armenia.
According to Ruzanna Stepanian from Armenia Liberty “The remark is
extraordinary for a scholar who has spent several decades researching
the 1915 Armenian genocide in the Ottoman Empire and campaigning for
its recognition by modern-day Turkey and the international community.”
Hovannisian serves on the board of directors of nine scholarly and
civic organizations, including the International Institute on the
Holocaust and Genocide and the Washington-based Armenian National
Institute. He also became in 1990 the first foreign social scientist
to be elected a member of Armenia’s National Academy of Sciences.
“We must not become a failed state. If this state also fails, we will
have no future,” he added.
“As long as our rulers fail to realize that they are not on the right
track, that they must accept the people’s will, that they must allow
political freedoms, I won’t be able to say that there will be positive
change in this country.”
Similarly Assoc. Prof. Dr. Sedat Laciner, director of Ankara-based
USAK, shares the idea of “failed state”:
“Armenians failed to preserve their first independent Armenia. They
sacrificed it for the so-called revenge. If they seek to survive as
a state, they should have good relations with the neigbours. That’s
the first and foremost thing they have to realise. They relied on the
Russians, British, French and Americans. Time passed and all of them
went to their homes. And the Armenians with the Turks shared the same
fate. Now the Armenians should not sacrifice their independent state.
They need Turkey, if they want an independent Armenia. Otherwise,
Armenia will be a tool in other nations’ national interests.”
?id=29133
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

THE BEAUTY OF BEIRUT
By Fergal Keane
Daily Mail (London)
April 1, 2006 Saturday
Lebanon may not be your first choice for a family trip, but the BBC’s
Special Correspondent is spellbound.
LET’S get the negative stuff out of the way first. My mother-in-law’s
question spoke for nearly everyone we knew. In her inimitably
down-to-earth, west of Ireland manner, she asked: ‘What, in the
name of God, are you going to that place for?’ For a moment, I was
stumped. I tried talking about the Beirut I knew and loved but I
could hear my credibility as a son-in-law draining away with every
word. Mrs Flaherty spoke for many.
Most of our friends consider the Middle East as a place to be avoided
and regard the word ‘Beirut’ with varying degrees of dread.
For them, it is still the city where Terry Waite, John McCarthy and
Brian Keenan were kidnapped by Islamic extremists and held for years.
And yet more civilians have been killed by terrorists in London in
the last year than in Beirut, a statistic the Lebanese would be far
too polite to point out, but it’s worth remembering nonetheless.
I realise that a veteran war reporter’s concept of ‘safe’ may be
different from that of the ordinary citizen. After my experiences in
Rwanda and Iraq, you might think I have a twisted sense of proportion
when it comes to risk assessment.
But as far as the safety of my family goes I am an absolutist. I
refuse to take chances. And so if I think Beirut is a safe place to
take my wife Anne and our children Daniel, ten, and Holly Mei, two,
that’s because it is.
Beirut is quite simply the most exciting, exotic, culturally
stimulating place within four hours’ flying time of London.
For a start there are 300 days of sun a year in a place that basks
by the blue waters of the Mediterranean. Add to that the glistening
peaks of the mountains beyond the city and you have the tantalising
possibility of mornings on the beach and afternoons in the fresh
mountain air, or vice-versa.
And over the past decade the city has undergone a stunning facelift.
The architectural wreckage of the civil war has been largely cleared
away, though there are still a few shell-pocked buildings to add a
frisson to an otherwise serene vista.
The downtown district of Solidere, which saw some of the worst of
the fighting, has had many of its Ottoman era buildings restored and
is now a pedestrianised zone full of restaurants, cafes and haute
couture boutiques.
We were welcomed warmly wherever we went. Actually that’s an
understatement.
I don’t think words could do justice to the hospitality we encountered.
It began with a welcome dinner at the home of Armenian friends of
mine in the hills above the city.
We entered the small flat to find a table crowded with Middle Eastern
delicacies. There was tender lamb on a bed of scented rice and pine
nuts, marinated raw minced meat (I passed), wonderfully juicy stuffed
vine leaves, and at least 20 other meat and vegetable dishes.
THE FEAST was followed by an Arabic dance in which our children
excelled. To raucous cheers from the assembled group Holly Mei copied
the belly dancing of the daughters of the house while Daniel performed
his own hip-hop adaptation.
At midnight we attempted to make our excuses and leave. Our host was
horrified. ‘This is Beirut!’ he said. ‘ Parties only start to get
going at midnight.
We will be here until breakfast.’ And so we were dragged back to the
table. More lamb. More fish.
More belly dancing. At 3am, we staggered out to our taxi with Holly
still dancing.
This is a city that loves children. They get attention without
seeking it.
On the streets, Lebanese of all persuasions stopped to admire our
fairhaired son Daniel and his adopted baby sister Holly Mei.
Miss Hurricane Holly, as she is known by her exhausted parents, was
a sensation on the streets of Beirut. I imagine that they have seen
very few Chinese babies. Everywhere we went she was fawned over,
cuddled, offered sweets.
All of this attention she accepted with grace, though towards the end
of the week I noticed a certain imperiousness creeping into her manner.
When she threw a rare tantrum (over having to sit in her buggy while we
climbed a steep hill) a man emerged from a small bread shop to harangue
me in Arabic. I think the gist of it was that I was a wholly unsuitable
father if all I could do was let my child scream her lungs out.
Beirut traffic can be grim, but the city is compact. Even in the worst
of gridlock it shouldn’t take more than 20 minutes to get from east
to west. We just walked a great deal.
>>From one neighbourhood to the next, the sense of where you are can
alter profoundly. ‘I never knew it would feel so amazingly French,
like France in times gone by,’ my wife remarked as we strolled through
the quaint narrow streets of Christian Ashrafiya.
The women of these Beirut streets are haughty and handsome, and
they know that no man would be foolish enough to wolf-whistle. As a
Lebanese friend of mine put it: ‘They take no nonsense. They would
eat the men alive if they did anything like that.’ Food is one of
the big attractions. In a week of many memorable meals one of the
best was at Abdel Wahab on Rue Abdel Wahab al Inglezi.
This is an Ottoman-era gem with high roofs and a cool interior. The
variety of meze – cold and hot starters – can be bewildering.
We ordered far too much and by the time the ritual grilled chicken
and lamb arrived we were glutted and wordless. A pot of fresh mint
tea helped sort that out and we were eating again in no time.
But the city offers a great deal more than fantastic Middle Eastern
cuisine.
There are also excellent French, Italian and Asian restaurants. Some
of the top-end Continental restaurants can be pricey and tend towards
the pretentious. My advice is to investigate the huge variety of
Lebanese food.
WITHIN a few minutes of eating in Ashrafiya or shopping in the
upmarket ABC Mall with its Seattle Coffee shop and Virgin Megastore
you can be driving through the southern suburbs near the airport,
the strongholds of the Shia, traditionally the poorest and most
downtrodden of Lebanon’s groups.
Here, stern mullahs hold sway and many of the women wear headscarves
or veils.
But this too is a place of change. You simply would not have gone
near these suburbs in the 1980s and early Nineties. It was where
Waite and McCarthy spent the years of their confinement.
Now the kidnap gangs have gone. There is an easygoing tolerance
of visitors.
It is a good place to drink the strong bitter Arabic coffee and smoke
a narghile, the water pipes whose fruity aroma fills the cafes.
One of my favourite spots is the Armenian district of Bourj Hammoud.
This is a warren of small streets crowded with shops selling spices and
jewellery with excellent value in gold rings, necklaces and bracelets.
And of course on a cultural level, Lebanon is fabulously rich.
It boasts the finest Roman ruins in the region at the UNESCO world
heritage site of Baalbek, which the Romans knew as Heliopolis.
Then there is the heritage of its Phoenician seafarer origins and
the remnants of every invading power to have marched through, from
the armies of Alexander the Great through to the Crusaders, Turks,
French, Israelis and Syrians.
In the city centre the churches of the Christians (they make up 40 per
cent of the population) stand beside the mosques of the Sunni and the
Shia, the sound of church bells blends with the call of the muezzin.
The assassination of the country’s prime minister last year was a
serious blow to tourism.
The attack was blamed on Syria. Suddenly Lebanon was bad news again.
However, (as I told my motherinlaw) these brutal attacks were targeted
specifically against Syria’s local enemies.
Tourists were and are not a target. Nor was there any hint of a return
to the fratricidal days of the civil war – Lebanon saw some of the
biggest peaceful protests in the history of the Middle East. This
country has had enough of war.
One of our loveliest afternoons was spent in the ancient city of
Byblos. The Bible took its name from the papyrus reed paper produced
here and it is said to be the world’s oldest continuously inhabited
city. Daniel and I climbed the ruins of ancient temples and a Crusader
citadel while Anne and Holly wandered through the souks.
Afterwards we went to the restaurant of Pepe Abed overlooking the
Phoenician harbour and dined on fresh seafood while the ancient owner
observed us from a corner. He was here when General De Gaulle came
during World War II and welcomed film stars like Brigitte Bardot and
David Niven when Beirut was the playground of the Med.
The celebrities and playboys were driven away by the war but I suspect
they will be back.
Lebanon is too much fun to stay ignored for too long.
COX & Kings (020 7873 5000; coxandkings.co.uk) offers five nights’
bed and breakfast at the Movenpick, including British Airways flights
and transfers, from Pounds 865 per person. The company’s programme
of family holidays, Family Explorer, will be launched this spring.