JEWISH LOBBY TO ASSIST AZERBAIJAN TO LIQUIDATE SECTION 907
PanARMENIAN.Net
15.05.2006 16:31 GMT+04:00
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ The Euro-Asian Jewish Congress (EAJC) intends
to promote liquidation of Section 907, as well as Jackson-Venick
Amendment, adopted by the US Congress regarding Azerbaijan, EAJC Head
Joseph Zisels stated in Baku. “We want to engage Israel and Jewish
lobby to held Azerbaijan eliminate those amendments,” he emphasized.
In his words, sponsored by the EAJC, during their May summit GUAM
member states will adopt a statement addressed to the US Congress,
urging to repeal all discriminating amendments regarding Azerbaijan
and Moldova, which are GUAM members. Zisels also emphasized that the
Jewish lobby understands the idea of unification of Azerbaijan with
South Azerbaijan province in Iran and the EAJC is ready to support
those tendencies, reports Day.az.

AZERI AND TURKISH SCHOLARS UNITE IN ANTI-ARMENIAN STRUGGLE
PanARMENIAN.Net
15.05.2006 17:07 GMT+04:00
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ To make the international community “aware” of the
Armenian Genocide in the Ottoman Empire Azeri and Turkish scholars
will form a joint working group. The decision was made at Armenian
Issue in the History of Azerbaijan and Turkey international conference
May 15. Head of the Department of Turkish History, professor Yusuf
Khalachoglu, and rector of the Baku State University, Abel Maharramov,
signed Baku declaration. The second item of the document envisages
the establishment of the joint working group. Along with Maharramov
and Khalachoglu, the head of the Institute of Azerbaijani History,
Yagub Mahmudov, and the chairman of ATIB, Ahmed Erentok are to be
other 2 co-chairs of the group.
The working group will meet every 3 moths in Baku and Ankara by
turn. The first gathering will be held in Ankara. Moreover, in
compliance with the Baku Declaration, with respect to inform the
international community about “the Khojaly tragedy, as well as those
that happened from the beginning of the 20th century to 1992,” it
was resolved to establish a Coordinating Center to be governed by ATIB.

EU-AZERBAIJAN TALKS POSTPONED FOR UNKNOWN REASONS
PanARMENIAN.Net
15.05.2006 17:15 GMT+04:00
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ The next phase of talks over the EU-Azerbaijan
Action Plan within the European Neighborhood Policy was to be held
today. The new schedule of the talks is not known, as the reasons of
cancellation are not know either.

ROBOT IS IN SOCHI
Lragir.am
15 May 06
Relying on Russian sources, ARKA News Agency reports that a underwater
apparatus PT1000 with a special manipulator will be used to lift from
the sea bottom the black boxes of the Armenian A320, which crashed
near Sochi. The apparatus was created at the Russian State Scientific
Center of Southern Sea Geology. The experts of the center said the
apparatus is an underwater robot with remote control.
Minister of Transport of Russia Igor Levitin announced several days
ago that the lifting of the black boxes will begin on May 16 and will
last for 2-3 days. “The rest depends on the weather.” The robot was
transferred to Sochi on May 15.

ARMENIAN OFFICIALS TO GET MEDALS OF RUSSIA
Lragir.am
15 May 06
On May 16 at the Russian Embassy to Armenia a group of citizens of
Armenia and Russia will receive the medals of the Russian Academy of
Lawfulness, Defense and Security, reports ARKA News Agency.
Peter the Great Degree 1 will be conferred on Nikolay Pavlov,
Russian Ambassador to Armenia, Defense Minister of Armenia Serge
Sargsyan and Attorney-General of Armenia Aghvan Hovsepyan. Michael
Harutiunyan, Chief of the Headquarters of the Armed Forces of Armenia,
and Mher Shahgeldyan, the chair of the Standing Committee of Defense,
National Security and Internal Affairs, will receive Alexander Nevsky
Degree 1. The Medal of the Great Victory will be conferred on Gurgen
Dalibaltayan, the chief military inspector of Armenia. Mikhail
Baghdasarov, the president of Mika Company will receive Peter the
Great Degree 2.

RUSSIAN DUMA MEMBER SUGGESTS ESTABLISHING PARTY SIMILAR TO ARF
Yerkir
15.05.2006 14:08
YEREVAN (YERKIR) – Dmitry Rogozin, the former leader of the Rodina
Party and a member of the Russian State Duma, called for establishing
a party in Russia similar to the Armenian Revolutionary Federation.
As reported by Yerkramas, a newspaper published by the Armenians of
southern Russia, Rogozin, speaking of a patriotic movement’s future
in Russia with a Russian online publication, said the example of the
Armenian Revolutionary Federation could be useful.
“ARF has been the key anti-Turkish force during the genocide of the
Armenian people at the hands of the Ottoman Empire. Armenians became
a ‘scattered’ nation but they had the ARF whose branches operated in
different countries.
There was an international bureau which made decisions on main issues,
there were creative, cultural and educational elites.”

TV REPORTS RUSSIAN TROOPS PULLOUT FROM GEORGIA
NTV Mir, Moscow
15 May 06
Excerpt from report by Russian external TV service NTV Mir “Segodnya”
news on 15 May.
[Presenter] The first echelon with Russian hardware has left the
Akhalkalaki base. The military hopes that this train as well as all
the subsequent ones will not have problems while travelling across
Georgia. The first echelon left three hours ago. The Russian and
Georgian defence ministers have agreed to close down the base and it
has to be closed down completely by the end of 2007. Our correspondent
Vadim Fefilov was watching the withdrawal of the first consignment of
Russian tanks, armoured personnel carriers and reconnaissance patrol
vehicles from the Georgian territory.
[Video shows troops leaving] [Correspondent] Lt-Gen [Valeriy]
Yevnevich makes a short report by satellite telephone to his bosses
in Moscow and the first echelon with Russian hardware pulls out of
the Ahkalkalaki base to make its way across Georgia and Azerbaijan to
Russia. Russian servicemen, just as they had promised to the Georgian
side, have managed to move tanks, combat reconnaissance vehicles,
ammunition and missiles from Akhalkalaki to the railway station of
Tsalka. That was not simple.
[Passage omitted: they had to move along difficult routes in the
mountains at an altitude of 2,500 metres; but the vehicles are in
good order because soldiers are really professional; everything is
proceeding without problems so far.]
[Correspondent, continues] It has transpired that Armenia has feared
that some of the Russian equipment may be left in Azerbaijan for some
reason. Azerbaijan’s military attache are telling their Armenian
colleagues that there is nothing to worry about.
[Passage omitted: Russia and Azerbaijan have agreed the equipment will
not be stopped in Azerbaijan; locals around the base are primarily
ethnic Armenians and they are now losing their jobs because of the
withdrawal]
[Correspondent, continuing] In line with earlier agreements between
the Russian and Georgian defence ministers another 20 echelons with
Russian heavy hardware will leave the area before the end of the year.
[Passage omitted: the correspondent signs off]

RUSSIANS START WITHDRAWAL FROM MILITARY BASE IN GEORGIA
Channel One TV, Moscow
15 May 06
[Presenter] The first convoy of military equipment left the Russian
base at Akhalkalaki two hours ago. It contains 20 tanks and an
equal number of reconnaissance vehicles. The heavy equipment will be
completely removed from Akhalkalaki by the end of the year, and the
personnel by the end of next year. Our correspondent Mikhail Robakidze
reports from Georgia.
[Correspondent] The first convoy of Russian military equipment left
the Tsalka railway station at 10 o’clock. Yesterday the military were
saying that the departure might be delayed until midday because of
customs paperwork. But in the event everything was done in time and
the convoy will cross the Georgia-Azerbaijan border by the end of
the day. It will cross Azerbaijan on its way to Russia.
[Igor Konoshenkov, head of information service, Russian Ground
Troops] The Georgians are responsible for security inside Georgia. In
Azerbaijan, the Azeris are responsible. And on Russian territory,
the Group of Russian Forces in the Caucasus will provide guards to
travel with the convoy.
[Correspondent] The first convoy to leave Akhalkalaki will take seven
tanks, eight infantry fighting vehicles, two radio stations and four
communications vehicles. [Note: figures as heard, at variance with
presenter’s lead-in] In the meantime, enough hardware, weaponry and
other resources for another two convoys have been gathered at Tsalka.
Twenty-one convoys will go from the Akhalkalaki base by the end of
this year. A further one convoy will go from Batumi to Russia via
Azerbaijan. Only a small proportion of the hardware here is planned
for redeployment at the Russian base in the Armenian town of Gyumri.
[The entire process of vacating the base at Akhalkalaki will be
completed on time, the deputy commander-in-chief of Russia’s Ground
Troops told Interfax-AVN Military News Agency. “The first convoy
with armour deployed at military base No 62 in the Georgian town of
Akhalkalaki departed for Russia today in accordance with the plan and
schedule,” Gen Valeriy Yevnevich said in a report at 0646 gmt. “And
there should be no doubt that the other convoys will also leave in
strict compliance with the plan and schedule endorsed by the chief
of the General Staff.”]

A MEDIEVAL CEMETERY VANISHES WITHOUT A TRACE
By Idrak Abbasov
The Moscow Times, Russia
May 16 2006
AZERBAIJANI-IRANIAN BORDER — It has become one of the most bitterly
divisive issues in the Caucasus — but up until now no one has been
able to clear up the mystery surrounding the fate of the famous
medieval Christian cemetery of Jugha in Azerbaijan.
Armenians regarded the cemetery as the biggest and most precious
repository of medieval headstones marked with crosses — called
khachkars — more than 2,000 of which were still there in the late
1980s. Each elaborately carved tombstone was a masterpiece of carving.
Armenians say the cemetery was razed, comparing its destruction
to the demolition of two giant Buddha figures by the Taliban
in Afghanistan. Azerbaijan has hit back by accusing Armenia of
scaremongering and of destroying Azerbaijani monuments on its own
territory.
Now an IWPR contributor has become the first journalist to visit
the site of the cemetery on Azerbaijan’s border with Iran — and has
confirmed that the graveyard has completely vanished.
The European Parliament, UNESCO and Britain’s House of Lords have
all taken an interest in the fate of the Jugha cemetery. But so far
no one has been allowed to visit the site itself.
If international observers can confirm that the cemetery has been
razed, it is sure to spark a new high-voltage row between Azerbaijan
and Armenia, which have engaged in a bitter war of words since fighting
ended in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict in 1994.
The IWPR contributor was accompanied by two Azerbaijani security
service officers and was restricted in his movements. He was unable
to go down to the River Araxes, the site of the former cemetery, as
it lies in a protected border zone. But he was able to see clearly
that there was no cemetery there.
This is one of the most inaccessible parts of Europe, located in the
Azerbaijani exclave of Nakhichevan, which is surrounded by Armenia and
Iran and — because of the unresolved Armenian-Azerbaijani dispute —
is only accessible from the rest of Azerbaijan by air.
Old Julfa, or Jugha as it is known by the Armenians, was a flourishing
Armenian town in the Middle Ages. But in 1604, Shah Abbas of Persia
forcibly resettled the inhabitants to Isfahan, where to this day
there is still an Armenian quarter, New Julfa. The ruined town and
its cemetery remained and were visited by many. Britain’s Sir William
Ouseley arrived in July 1812 and found “a city now in perfect decay,”
and the remains of what had been one of the most famous stone bridges
in the world.
Historian Argam Aivazian, the principal expert on the Armenian
monuments of Nakhichevan, said Jugha was a unique monument of medieval
art and the largest Armenian cemetery in existence. Aivazian last
visited the site in 1987, when it was still mostly intact.
Artist Lusik Aguletsi, a Nakhichevan-born Armenian, also last visited
the cemetery in 1987, although she was under escort. “There is nothing
like it in Armenia,” she said. “It was a thrilling sight. Two hills
completely covered in khachkars. We weren’t allowed to draw or
photograph them.”
Armenian experts now accuse Azerbaijan of a deliberate act of cultural
vandalism. “The destruction of the khachkars of Old Jugha means the
destruction of an entire phenomenon in the history of humanity, because
they are not only proof of the culture of the people who created them,
they are also symbols that tell us about a particular cultural epoch,”
said Hranush Kharatian, head of Armenia’s state department for national
and religious minorities.
Photos copyright Argam Aivazian
A view of the medieval Christian cemetery and its elaborately carved
tombstones marked with crosses in the 1970s.
Although the historical provenance of the cemetery is disputed
in Azerbaijan, its cultural importance is confirmed by the 1986
Azerbaijani book “The Architecture of Ancient and Early Medieval
Azerbaijan” by Davud Akhundov. The book says the stones are of
Caucasian Albanian origin, in line with the official theory taught
in Azerbaijan that Christian monuments there were not the work of
Armenians but of Albanians. Caucasian Albanians, a people unconnected
with Albania, lived in the southeastern Caucasus, but their culture
began to die out in the Middle Ages.
Husein Shukuraliev, editor of a local newspaper, Voice of Araxes,
said the destruction of the cemetery began as early as 1828, when
Azerbaijan became part of the Russian empire. Thousands of tombstones
were then destroyed at the turn of the 20th century when a railway
was constructed, he said.
However, other people said there has been more recent destruction of
the cemetery. A man named Intigam who repairs tin cans in Baku said
he was posted near Julfa with the Soviet Army in 1988 and 1989. In
late 1989, Azerbaijani politician Nemat Panakhov dismantled the
border-posts on the border with Iran. Intigam said part of the Julfa
cemetery was destroyed at that time.
Panakhov declined to comment.
A second witness, who asked that his name not be published, said
there were khachkar stones on the site up until 2002, but they were
removed on orders of the Nakhichevan military command.
Armenian architect Arpiar Petrossyan said he visited the Iranian side
of the border in 1998 with a friend to view monuments there. Looking
across the river into Azerbaijan, he said, they noticed a flat-bed
train apparently removing cross-stones from the cemetery.
Armenian Deputy Culture Minister Gagik Gyurdjian said Armenia raised
the alarm in 1998. “Then we got the entire international community
up in arms and stopped the destruction. But in 2003 the destruction
started again,” he said.
In recent months, the propaganda war over Jugha has reached a new
intensity — just as Karabakh peace talks between Presidents Ilham
Aliyev and Robert Kocharian ran into trouble. Aliyev angrily denied
Armenian claims about the Jugha cemetery last month, calling them
“a lie and a provocation.”
International institutions are now demanding to be allowed to visit
the site of the cemetery. However, Azerbaijan is insisting that it
will only accept a European parliamentary delegation if it visits
Armenia as well. Azerbaijan’s Foreign Ministry says 1,587 mosques
and 23 madrassas have been destroyed in Armenia.
Avetik Ishkhanian, president of Armenia’s Helsinki Committee, blames
the international community for not reacting sooner to the razing
of Jugha, contrasting the response with the outcry that followed the
Taliban’s demolition of the Buddhas of Bamian in 2001. “Why has there
not been the same reaction in this case?” he said.
Reporting also by Shahin Rzayev and Jasur Mamedov in Baku; and Seda
Muradian, Narine Avetian and Karine Ter-Sahakian in Yerevan. This
article comes from the Caucasus Reporting Service of the Institute
for War and Peace Reporting,

TURKEY THREATENS SANCTIONS IF FRANCE ADOPTS ARMENIAN GENOCIDE LAW
Jeannie Shawl
Jurist
School of Law, University of Pittsburgh
May 15 2006
[JURIST] Turkey will impose trade sanctions on France if the French
parliament adopts a bill that would criminalize the denial that the
World War I-era massacre of Armenians [ATI backgrounder] in Turkey
constitutes genocide, according to Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip
Erdogan [BBC profile]. As many as 1.5 million Armenians were killed
in the then-Ottoman Empire between 1915 and 1917 in what Armenians
consider a genocide; Turkey has insisted that the deaths do not
constitute genocide [Turkish DC Embassy backgrounder].
The French National Assembly is slated to consider an opposition
Socialist party-sponsored bill [National Assembly materials] this
Thursday that would make denying the massacre was genocide illegal.
Offenders could face a five-year jail sentence and fines up to
$57,000. France already has a law on the books which recognizes the
massacre as genocide.