BILL PROHIBITING CONSTRUCTION OF RAILWAY BYPASSING ARMENIA IN SOUTH CAUCASUS SUBMITTED TO US SENATE
ARKA News Agency, Armenia
March 29 2006
Yerevan, March 29. /ARKA/. A bill prohibiting the construction
of a railway bypassing Armenia in the South Caucasus
(Kars-Akhalkalaki-Tbilisi-Baklu) estimated at $800mln. Armenian
Assembly of America reports that the bill was authored by Rick Santorum
and Robert Menendez.
The planned construction of the railway in the South Caucasus will
not only impinge the USA’s long-term interests in the region, but
also result in Armenia’s isolation, Santorum said. The USA’s policy
in the South Caucasus encourages regional stability, cooperation and
re-opening of borders and transport corridors, he added.
In May 2005, in Baku, the Azerbaijani, Georgian and Turkish
Presidents pronounced for the creation of an international transport
corridor Kars-Akhalkalaki-Tbilisi-Baku. They backed up the project of
constructing a railway between Kars and Akhalkalaki. Armenia is against
this project as economically unsound, because the new railway will
be constructed despite the existence of the Kars-Gyumri-Tbilisi-Baku
railway.

SABINE FREIZER: KARABAKH CONFLICT NOT FROZEN
PanARMENIAN.Net
29.03.2006 20:27 GMT+04:00
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Sabine Freizer, Caucasus project director for
the International Crisis Group, said March 28 in Washington that
the Nagorno Karabakh conflict is not a frozen conflict. “There are
still people being killed regularly,” she underlined. As many as 19
people, including eight civilians, have been killed in cease-fire
violations over the past month, following inconclusive peace talks in
Rambouillet, she said. As many as 90 people were killed in 2005. She
said renewed warfare does not seem imminent but could be triggered by
“an unraveling” along the tense, heavily armed confrontation line.
Many of the Armenian-occupied towns outside of Nagorno Karabakh
have been destroyed and would require substantial rebuilding,
Freizer said. The region is especially sensitive because of its
geography. Renewed fighting in Nagorno Karabakh potentially could
involve Russia, Iran, the Republic of Georgia and Turkey, Freizer said,
reported Trend news agency.

EUROPEAN COMMISSION’S MOVE ANGERS AZERI OFFICIALS
Assa-Irada, Azerbaijan
March 29 2006
Baku, March 28, AssA-Irada
A row emerged after the European Commission indicated Azerbaijan’s
territories occupied by Armenia and the exclave of Nakhchivan as
Armenian territories on its website.
The Azeri representative at the EU Arif Mammadov has sent an enquiry
to the organization over this.
Mammadov said the European Commission has pledged to alter the data
on its web-page in a day’s time. He noted that the Azeri embassy in
Belgium is scrutinizing the reasons for the move.
“We are trying to establish whether the step resulted from negligence
or was taken on purpose. If this was done deliberately, the person
responsible will lose his job in the Commission,” the diplomat added.
This is not the first such mistake made by European organizations. A
map of the South Caucasus region uploaded to the European Parliament’s
website in February presented Upper Garabagh not as Azerbaijani,
but Armenian territory.

EBRD HOPES ARMENIA TO GET SOVEREIGN RATING IN 2006
Arka News Agency, Armenia
March 29 2006
YEREVAN, March 29. /ARKA/. European Bank for Reconstruction and
Development hopes Armenia to get sovereign rating in 2006, EBRD
Regional Director Michael Davey said Wednesday at a press conference
in Yerevan. In his words, negotiations between Armenian Government
and certain financial organizations are under way now.
Tigran Sargsyan, Chairman of the Central Bank of Armenia, speaking
Tuesday in Yerevan at an international banking conference focused on
foreign trade financing, said the Government’s negotiations with two
world rating companies are expected to result in receiving sovereign
investment rating by Armenia.
Sargsyan said all potential investments would recognize Armenia in
the world fiscal map and keep watch on changes in the republic’s
rating. He thinks it would be very important for the country.

THREE AZERBAIJANI SOLDIERS HIT ARMENIAN LANDMINES, TWO’S LEGS AMPUTATED
Today, Azerbaijan
March 29 2006
Three soldiers of Azerbaijani Army hit landmines at the frontline in
the territory of Gadabey region on Tuesday.
APA western region bureau told APA that first, unnamed miltary unit
soldier hit a landmine and was wounded.
As Military Unit specialist-sapper party soldier and Gazakh Military
Prosecutor’s Office inspector, Babak Suleymanov, came to the scene
to examine the situation, they struck by another landmine. Suleymanov
was wounded slightly but specialist-sapper party soldier was wounded
seriously. Defense Ministry spokesman Ilgar Verdiyev confirmed
the fact.
He told that the wounded were taken to Baku Central Hospital and one
leg of the both military men was amputated.
The hospital official informed that conditions of the wounded are
satisfactory.
Military Prosecutor’s Office press service told that Suleymanov was
slightly wounded and continued his service.
URL:

DIPLOMATS IN WASHINGTON WORK TO FILL GUL’S SHOES
Turkish Press
March 29 2006
Press Review
SABAH
In the wake of Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul’s grounding due to
ear problems, other Foreign Ministry diplomats flew this week to
Washington. The high-level diplomats will attend an American-Turkish
Business Council (ATC) meeting, hold contacts at the US State
Department and meet with representatives of the Jewish lobby. During
the meetings, the so-called genocide allegations set to be considered
by Congress in the runup to April 24 will be discussed, along with
Iraq, the terrorist PKK and the Armenian lobby.

DEPUTY FM TO VISIT ARMENIA ON TUESDAY
Athens News Agency, Greece
March 28 2006
Deputy Foreign Minister Evripidis Stylianidis will be departing for
a two-day visit to Armenia on Tuesday in order to promote bilateral
economic ties.
To this end, the 4th Greek-Armenian Interministerial Committee will
convene to discuss cooperation in the agricultural, commercial,
tourism, bank, energy, transport, cultural, educational and
seismological sectors.
Cooperation between the municipal authorities of Athens and Yerevan
will also be discussed.
After the interministerial committee meeting, the two sides will sign
a protocol of bilateral economic cooperation.
During his two-day visit, Stylianidis will be meeting with Armenian
President Robert Kocharian, Prime Minister Andranik Margaryan and
other government officials.
Stylianidis will also be meeting with Patriarch of Armenia Karekin
II and members of the Greek community.

CAMPUS NO PLACE TO CENSOR
The Calgary Herald (Alberta)
March 29, 2006 Wednesday
Final Edition
It’s been some time since institutions of higher learning have been
incubators of free expression and dissent from orthodoxy. Quite
the opposite.
When universities are not busy creating speech codes, they are
otherwise engaged in thumping on opinions they deem unsuitable.
Consider Harvard University’s recent harassment of its own now
ex-president, Lawrence Summers, after he mused on why women have not
garnered more awards in science and mathematics.
In a laudable exception this week, the University of Calgary’s
administration showed good judgment. It allowed the campus pro-life
association to set up a display with graphic images of aborted fetuses
(albeit under pressure from the association’s lawyers, noting the
constitutional grounds for such displays).
Less admirable was the attempt by the university’s students’ union to
restrict it. Since the display was to be on union-leased property,
the students’ union agreed to allow it to stand only if the graphic
posters were turned inward. A SU spokesman called it a reasonable
compromise. (The club chose instead to set up the display on non-SU
controlled grounds.)
One wonders whether the students’ union would make such a demand to
a group that wanted to publicize, say, pictures of the East Coast
seal hunt, or Armenian genocide. Indeed, one SU spokesman said he
was unaware of any similar demand on other groups.
If all controversial exhibits were asked to self-censor, competing
campus factions would be left to debate today’s weather forecast.
The issue at stake is not one’s position on abortion, or who finds
what disturbing — it’s about the right to dissent. That’s something
many university students fancy themselves in favour of.
The students’ union might recall the words Abigail Thernstrom,
vice-chair of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, that universities
are “islands of repression in a sea of freedom.”
The students’ union should try not to live up to that quip.

NO SHORTAGE OF STORIES FOR THIS BOOKER PRIZE WINNER
Canberra Times
March 29, 2006 Wednesday
Booker Prize-winning author DBC Pierre says he really likes Australia
now he doesn’t have to appear in court.
That’s a joke, although the Australian- born 44-year-old did face court
in Adelaide for his dad’s corn husks, found by customs officials in
boxes the grieving 20-year-old had packed – “with a desperate hangover”
– and sent from the family home in Mexico after his agricultural
scientist father died.
And so Pierre was charged and convicted in the “beautiful old court
building” by the “nice affable guys” who, he readily points out,
were just doing their job. There is no shortage of stories when it
comes to DBC Pierre, in Canberra last night to give a reading from
his second novel, Ludmila’s Broken English, at Tilley’s in Lyneham.
Set in an area of the world he had never visited before, near the
dangerous border region of the former Soviet republics of Armenia
and Azerbaijan, the novel has been described as the unlikely meeting
between East and West that follows Ludmila Derev’s appearance on
a Russian brides website. Seen as a swipe at globalisation, it
examines human atrocities in the Caucasus and is what he calls an
“honest portrayal of the chaos and disorder that passes for daily
life in that part of the world”.
Born Peter Finlay in Reynella, South Australia, Pierre left for Mexico
with his family at the age of six. Waywardness and adventures followed,
until his spectacular debut on the literary stage at age 41 when his
first novel, Vernon God Little, won the 2003 Man Booker Prize.
Before it won, it was published in 38 countries – but its blistering
assault on the superpower that gave the world the Big Mac, The
Jerry Springer Show and the high-school massacre raised such ire in
America that nobody would publish it there. And it didn’t help that
the manuscript for Vernon literally arrived on American publishers’
desks the day after September 11.
Hot on the heels of the Booker came the news that Pierre owed money
to several people, including some angry people in Texas, which, by
his own cheerful admission, he had let slip through his fingers in
a happy-go-round of drugs, the odd libation, and big ideas.
Stories such as these surround DBC Pierre, and he retold them last
night in a rich voice, with his sense of humour constantly rattling
sabres.
Astute and smart, he doesn’t take himself seriously either. But there
is no mistaking his commitment to his art, and Ludmila’s Broken English
(Faber) will no doubt be very closely scrutinised.
As for the name, it comes from his teenage nickname “Dirty Pierre”
and, after a chequered, varied career, including as a cartoonist,
he came up with “Dirty But Clean”.
He abbreviated that, and took the literary world by storm.

THE US IS PUTTING ON LINE THREE NEW MILITARY OBJECTS IN AZERBAIJAN
by Movsun Gadzhiyev (Baku)
Source: Moscow News, No 10, March 24 – 31, 2006, p. 14
Agency WPS
DEFENSE and SECURITY (Russia)
March 29, 2006 Wednesday
The role of azerbaijan in the american plans of a military operation
Against Iran; Analysis of the role reserved for Afghanistan in American
military plans.
A group of US AF officers walked Baku all week long. The Yankees had
come to the capital of Azerbaijan to attend a seminar with quite an
interesting name, “Airspace Control”. Who, how, and by what means is
going to control Azerbaijani airspace? Answer to the question was
given by the local authorities when they announced the opening of
two new radar installations on the territory of the country – one in
Astara in the south, the other near Khachmaz on the Russian-Azerbaijani
border. Both radars were built by the US Army and, according to Baku,
turned over to Azerbaijan within the framework of the bilateral
treaty “On mutual assistance in the war on the terrorist threat”
signed in 2001. In any case, both radars are being put on line at
this moment precisely, when the American-Iranian relations are at
their all-time low.
The Americans and Azerbaijanis are also rebuilding the old Soviet
radar station near the town of Akstafa from which specialists say
the USSR eavesdropped on all satellite-linked communications from
Turkey to India. Experts believe that the radars will be geared to
keep an electronic eye on the Caucasus, Armenia, and Iran. Technically
speaking, it is not a problem at all.
As a matter of fact, there is more to the military-technical
cooperation between Washington and Baku than the radars alone.
Several military airfields were modernized in Azerbaijan in the
space of the last several years – in Nasosnoye, Kyurdamir, Yevlakh,
Lenkoran, and Saljan. The runways were reconstructed first and
foremost, and the airfields can receive heavy American bombers and
transports now. Territories for construction of missile bases have
been allocated on the southern borders of Azerbaijan – in the environs
of the towns of Astara and Lerik. Granted the status of classified
objects, they are faithfully guarded by the Internal Troops now.
The Azerbaijani authorities have not yet bothered with any coherent
response to media reports on the American military presence in the
country. The Azerbaijani Defense Ministry keeps calling the radars
and bases “just military aid” under the 2001 treaty. It never misses
a chance to point out that the American and Azerbaijani military work
there “side by side.” What for? Azerbaijani Deputy Foreign Minister
Araz Azimov does not rule out the possibility that the republic may
become involved “in various programs within the framework of the
counter-terrorism coalition…”
Materials by Scott Ritter, former UN inspector in Iran, posted on the
web site of Al-Jazeera only added fuel to the fire of speculations and
innuendo. Ritter wrote in his article “America’s War With Iran Is On”
that “… the US Army is building an operational bridgehead on the
northern borders of Iran, in nearby Azerbaijan, to make the task of
overrunning Tehran easier.” According to Ritter, the West may fail to
see what US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld finds in Azerbaijan,
but Russia and the Caucasus know what Rumsfeld’s interest is. The
matter concerns the role Azerbaijan will be playing in the upcoming
war on Iran. The USSR once used the ties between the Northerners
and the Southerners, the Iranians and the Azerbaijanis, to gather
sensitive information and so on in the Cold War period. It is the
CIA that is deploying this tactic now. Its instructors and advisors
discuss with the Azerbaijani military establishment of joint fast
response forces and special reconnaissance teams for operations in
Iran. Ritter maintains that teams are supposed, among other things,
foment a confrontation between the Iranian intelligentsia and religious
leadership.
Ritter claims as well that the US intends to use airfields in
Azerbaijan for air raids against Tehran and other Iranian cities.
Neither shall we forget the advantages offered by the shortest possible
road to Tehran – a highway along the Caspian Sea coast.
It is clear that American military strategists are already designing
scenarios of a military operation against Iran with Azerbaijan’s
involvement that may include deployment of multipurpose forces on
the territory of the republic.
VERBATIM
Eldar Orudzhev, the head of the oppositionist Movement Against Tyranny:
In fact, establishment of US military bases is already under way. De
facto, that is. Three radar installations cannot be called humanitarian
or commercial enterprises by any stretch of the imagination. The only
question is to what extent Washington intends to use Azerbaijan. The
United States has a secret pact with President Ilham Aliyev on the
use of the territory of Azerbaijan in a war against Iran. It was this
pact with the Americans that permitted Aliyev to win the parliamentary
election and neutralize the opposition when he thwarted the Georgian
and Ukrainian scenarios in Azerbaijan.