ARMENIAN AND RUSSIAN DEPUTY FMS DISCUSSED BILATERAL RELATIONS
PanARMENIAN.Net
30.06.2006 14:06 GMT+04:00
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin
held consultations with RA Deputy FM Gegham Gharibjanian. The parties
discussed bilateral relations, Russia-Armenia cooperation within
the CIS and some regional problems. They stressed the importance of
coordinated efforts for the development of integration processes in
the post soviet space, the CIS reformation and CSTO strengthening. On
behalf of the Armenian Foreign Ministry Gegham Gharibjanian expressed
condolences on the tragic death of the Russian diplomats in Iraq.

“UNION FOR ARMENIA” DOES NOT EXCLUDE COOPERATION WITH ANY OTHER PARTY
ArmRadio.am
30.06.2006 16:18
The “Union for Armenia” Party is going to have an important place in
the National Assembly to be formed in 2007, member of the People’s
Deputy group Vahram Baghdasaryan assured today. In the fall the Party
will hold a sitting, and then it will become clear how they are going
to participate in the elections – within a block or alone.
Secretary of the People’s Deputy group, member of the initiating
group of the “Union for Armenia” Party Vahram Baghdasaryan urges the
journalists and political forces not to be troubled about the fate
of the “Union for Armenia” Party.
According to Vahram Baghdasaryan, currently the Party has about 30
thousand members. This was the firs time the number of the adherents
of the Party was made public.
Turning to the most burning issue of the recent days – the statement
of the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs – member of the People’s Deputy
group noted that opening the cards in the middle of the process means
that the Co-Chairs are in a stress, and the settlement of the Karabakh
issue will be further protracted.
Mr. Baghdasaryan is confident that the decisive resolution of the
Karabakh issue will suggest serious changes in the domestic life of
Armenia. Vahram Baghdasaryan remarked that still from 1988 the shifts
of power have been connected just with this issue. Therefore, today
he called on the political forces not to make the Karabakh issue a
matter of their intrigues. Vahram Baghdasaryan does not see the rapid
resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

NKR FM AND PARLIAMENT SPEAKER MET WITH MATTHEW BRYZA
PanARMENIAN.Net
30.06.2006 14:14 GMT+04:00
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Within the framework of the U.S. visit NKR National
Assembly Speaker Ashot Ghulyan and Foreign Minister Georgy Petrosyan
met with the OSCE Minsk Group U.S. Co-chair Matthew Bryza. The
interlocutors discussed the current stage of the Nagorno Karabakh
conflict settlement and regional developments. The NKR officials
briefed on Nagorno Karabakh’s position on the settlement process
and pointed out to the necessity of legal aspect of the problem. The
parties agreed on continuation of consultations, in Stepanakert as
well, reported the NKR MFA press office.

OSCE MG DOESN’T SEE POINT IN INITIATING FURTHER PRESIDENTIAL MEETINGS
PanARMENIAN.Net
30.06.2006 14:22 GMT+04:00
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ “We see no point right now in continuing the
intensive shuttle diplomacy we have engaged in over the past several
months. We also see no point in initiating further presidential
meetings until the sides demonstrate enough political will to overcome
their remaining differences. Of course, the Co-Chairs will remain
available to both parties to serve faithfully and impartially as
mediators,” says the statement made by the OSCE Minsk Group Co-chairs
and submitted to the OSCE Permanent Council in Vienna June 22. “Acting
in complete unity among the mediators, we have delivered a product
reflecting our best efforts, and we strongly believe that it is now
time for the two Presidents to take the initiative for achieving a
breakthrough in the settlement process. It is the only way to secure
the positive results already achieved through the last two years of
negotiations, in order not to restart them later from scratch. We
will remain vigilant. We will continue our analysis and close
consultations among ourselves in our unified and effective framework,
in our continuing capacity as Co-Chairs of the Minsk Group, supported
by Ambassador Kasprzyk and his team. We will be ready to reengage if
indeed the parties decide to pursue the talks with the political will
that has thus far been lacking.
In conclusion, we would like to express our sincere gratitude to
the Chairman in Office, Minister de Gucht, whose close interest and
constant attention to the issues of the Nagorno-Karabakh settlement,
including his introductory remarks before the last meeting of two
Presidents in Bucharest, have contributed greatly to our work in the
first half of 2006,” the statement says.

GAZPROM GOING TO PURCHASE IRAN-ARMENIA GAS PIPELINE
PanARMENIAN.Net
30.06.2006 14:41 GMT+04:00
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ When addressing Gazprom stockholders at the annual
sitting Deputy Chairman of Gazprom’s Management Committee Alexander
Ryazanov said Gazprom is going to purchase the abuilding Iran-Armenia
gas pipeline. In his words, the purchase of the Iran-Armenia gas
pipeline is conditioned by the necessity of raising the durability of
gas delivery to Armenia because of instability of gas delivery via
Georgia, which misappropriates some amount of gas. The gas pipeline
is likely to be put into operation in 2007, its’ capacity will make
1.2 billion of cubic meters per year, reported Russian media.

G8 SUPPORTS OSCE MG MEDIATING EFFORTS
PanARMENIAN.Net
30.06.2006 14:45 GMT+04:00
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ The Foreign Ministers confirmed that the G8 supports
the mediating efforts of the OSCE Minsk Group for the peaceful
settlement in the Nagorno Karabakh conflict, says the statement by
the G8 chairman made at the meeting of the G8 Foreign Ministers. “We
stressed the necessity of the soonest coordination of fundamental
principles of the Nagorno Karabakh conflict settlement in order to make
it possible in 2006. We call on Azerbaijan and Armenia to demonstrate
political will and reach an agreement during the current year and
prepare the publics for peace but not for war,” says the document,
reported RF MFA press office.

SENATE COMMITTEE GRILLS AMBASSADOR TO ARMENIA DESIGNATE OVER U.S. POLICY ON ARMENIAN GENOCIDE
Washington, DC, June 29. ArmInfo. While Members of Congress and
the Armenian community demand a full explanation for the premature
replacement of Ambassador to Armenia John M. Evans, the Senate Foreign
Relations Committee today held a hearing on the Administration’s
nominee, Richard E. Hoagland, reports Armenian Assembly of America.
If confirmed, Hoagland would replace Evans who was rebuked by State
Department officials last year after publicly affirming the Armenian
Genocide during his meetings with Armenian-American communities. In
those exchanges, Evans declared that “the Armenian Genocide was the
first genocide of the twentieth century.” In making his statements,
Evans pointed to the International Center for Transitional Justice
(ICTJ), which concluded that the events could be properly characterized
as genocide.
Senator George Allen (R-VA), who chaired today’s proceedings, noted
that there have been serious concerns that Evans was forced to
prematurely end his service as a result of those public declarations.
“I don’t know this to be true,” Allen said, referring to the
circumstances surrounding Evans’ departure. “[I] will say that many
of my colleagues and I refer to the tragic events of 1915 as genocide
and have strongly encouraged the President to do so as well.”
-Switching topics, Coleman questioned Hoagland over the Turkish
blockade against Armenia, asking him how he plans to address this
issue. Hoagland responded that he would support talks between the
countries, noting that a peaceful resolution to the NK conflict
was paramount.
Allen, for his part, expressed concern over the proposed railroad
linking Turkey, Georgia and Azerbaijan, that would bypass Armenia.
Hoagland said it would make economic sense to rehabilitate the existing
rail line which traverses Armenia, adding that the U.S.
supports regional cooperation and economic integration. The Senator
also reaffirmed his commitment to ensure security assistance parity
between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
In his opening statement, Hoagland stressed the importance of
strengthening U.S.-Armenia ties and said that if confirmed, he would
work to advance democratic and social reforms. He expressed concern
that Armenia’s elections have not met international standards, and
said he would work to implement electoral reforms in the run-up to
the parliamentary and presidential elections in 2007 and 2008.

ECUMENICAL PATRIARCH BARTHOLOMEW I PUBLISHES HIS CHILDHOOD MEMOIRS IN TURKISH
Benjamin Harvey
AP Worldstream
Jun 30, 2006
A cocktail party may be the last place you’d expect to see the holiest
man in Orthodox Christendom.
But there was Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, spiritual leader
of the Orthodox Church, standing at one end of a hotel terrace
overlooking the Sea of Marmara, throwing his own cocktail party on
a recent Thursday evening.
The event was the release in Turkish of Bartholomew’s book, “When a
Patriarch was a Child.”
Bartholomew was, of course, the life of the party.
He wore a long black robe and a thick white beard, a black hat,
glasses and a silver sun medallion around his neck. He gave a short
speech and then the music started _ among the songs was a throaty
rendition of “My Way.”
Then Bartholomew began to mingle, shaking hands, kissing people on
the cheek, signing autographs, talking with a man in a wheelchair. You
might have thought he was running for public office.
And that’s what some Turks are afraid of. Every action Bartholomew
takes in this militantly secular, 99 percent Muslim country is loaded
with political undercurrents.
For those who don’t know the importance of the patriarch, the
explanation of many Orthodox Christians is often this: “He’s like
the pope.”
Not really.
Bartholomew is “first among equals” in the more than 250 million-strong
Orthodox church. He controls several Greek Orthodox churches directly,
but has trouble reining others in, like the Russian Orthodox and
Armenian Orthodox, who seem to enjoy their independence.
Today he heads a Christian community that for more than 17 centuries
has been centered in Istanbul. Only back then it was called
Constantinople, and Turkey wasn’t 99 percent Muslim like it is today.
At the head of the Orthodox hierarchy, Bartholomew denies a pope-like
role, but says his power is in coordinating the works of the Orthodox
worldwide.
Turkey refuses to officially recognize that power, saying Bartholomew
is not the “ecumenical” patriarch, but the leader only of Turkey’s
tiny Greek Orthodox community, which numbers just a couple thousand.
His book of 89 childhood memoirs, translated recently from Greek
to Turkish, aims to assuage Turkish fears that Bartholomew wants to
increase his power and carve out an autonomous, Vatican-like state
in Turkey.
Some here see that as a serious threat, and protests follow the
patriarch whenever he leaves his wooden dwelling on Istanbul’s Golden
Horn. Kemal Kerincsiz, the ultranationalist head of the Turkish
Lawyers’ Union, told The Associated Press this week that he submitted
a petition with 2.5 million signatures to the government, asking for
the patriarchate to be transplanted to Greece.
Kerincsiz said Bartholomew’s book was a ruse. “Patriarch Bartholomew
from beginning to end has been hiding his real goals,” he said. “This
is nothing more than a road to the establishment of a mini religious
state.”
Kerincsiz’s 2.5 million are especially fearful that the European Union,
which has demanded that Turkey improve its treatment of religious
minorities and reopen the Heybeliada Seminary where Bartholomew
trained, will support the patriarch. They think Europeans, especially
Greeks, have always been hoping to carve Muslim Turkey into pieces.
An ethnically Greek Turkish citizen born on February 29th of a leap
year, Bartholomew seemed destined to inhabit a strange world.
“When a Patriarch was a Child” gives Turks a glimpse into that world.
The self portrait that emerges is often one of startling innocence,
given the accusations of political plotting swirling around him. We
read about a child _ then called Dimitrios Arhondonis _ who grew up
on a predominantly Greek island called Gokceada (Imroz in Greek),
who loved books, his family, his country and nature, and who then
found God and decided to become a priest.
In his earliest writings, the 10-year-old Bartholomew talks mostly
about nature, farm work and animals. Charmingly childish sentences
abound, like: “We have to love and protect birds, who are our best
friends.”
Bartholomew shows an early attraction to fables with clearly stated
morals.
Over the course of the book, we see these fables fade out and get
replaced by religious feeling, which seems to combine his moral sense
with his awe of nature.
“I believe in God because the mountains, seas, rivers and everything
I see around me cannot have been created by man,” he writes. He says
he also believes because he thinks most injustices go unpunished in
this world and must be punished in the next _ and because he has seen
his prayers answered.
Significantly, much of the book focuses on Bartholomew’s high school
years at the Halki Theological School on Heybeliada Island, which he
refers to as “a part of heaven” during the book.
The school was closed in 1971 by the Turkish government, when Turkey
decided that independent religious institutions were incompatible
with the secular state. Bartholomew says he sees the closure of the
school as an attempt to starve the patriarchate of new leaders.
“This means that the government of the Republic of Turkey wants to
shut down the patriarchate. Because if it has no personnel, how can
it function?” he asks in the introduction.
Under Turkish law, all religious leaders _ including the patriarch _
must be Turkish citizens, which means the pool of potential Orthodox
leaders to choose from has shrunk dramatically over the years along
with Turkey’s shrinking Greek minority. This is another reason why
Greeks are so desperate to reopen the Halki seminary.
Bartholomew says he remains an optimist, and that with Turkey striving
for EU membership, the situation can change.
For many people, it’s surprising just how loyal Bartholomew is to
Turkey, despite all the protests and his claims that Christians are
treated as second-class citizens.
Speaking Turkish slowly, deliberately and with a heavy accent, the
patriarch spoke to the group gathered around him at the launch.
“Inshallah, this small book will add a small piece to the society’s
peace and togetherness.”
Then he went back under a small canopy and signed autographs.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

DISAGREEMENT OF YEREVAN AND BAKU ON KARABAKH SETTLEMENT PRINCIPLES WOULD BE TRAGIC LOSS
PanARMENIAN.Net
30.06.2006 13:43 GMT+04:00
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ “We have heard both sides say repeatedly that
they have never before been so close to an agreement. It would be
a tragically wasted opportunity for the two Presidents to let this
window of opportunity close in 2006 without even the basic principles
in place for a future peace agreement for Nagorno-Karabakh. As you
know, election cycles are approaching, first in Armenia and then in
Azerbaijan during 2007-2008,” says the statement made by the OSCE
Minsk Group Co-chairs and submitted to the OSCE Permanent Council
in Vienna June 22. “We have seen before the negative effect that
national elections can have on negotiations, and we continue to
believe that now is the time for the two Presidents to summon the
political will to take a courageous step forward together toward
peace. Mr. Chairman, as Co-Chairs, we have reached the limits of our
creativity in the identification, formulation, and finalization of
these principles. We do not believe additional alternatives advanced
by the mediators through additional meetings with the sides will
produce a different result.
We hope that the Permanent Council will join us in urging the parties
to the conflict to reach an agreement as soon as possible based on
the core principles we have recommended. If the two sides are unable
to agree on those principles we have put forward, we believe it is
now contingent upon them to work together to reach an alternative
agreement that both find acceptable. We remain ready to assist. As
mediators, however, we cannot make the difficult decisions for the
parties. We think the parties would be well-served at this point by
allowing their publics to engage in a robust discussion of the many
viewpoints on these issues. We are confident that neither society wants
renewed conflict, and we urge the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan to
work with their publics and to work with each other to formulate an
agreement on core principles that both find acceptable. Ultimately,
it is the two sides that will be held accountable by their peoples
and by the international community if their actions lead to war and
not peace,” the statement says.

‘NO CASES OF ARSON RECORDED’
AZG Armenian Daily
30/06/2006
On June 28, field assistants of Andrzej Kasprzyk, representative of
OSCE chairman for Nagorno Karabakh, carried out a monitoring upon the
request of Karabakh authorities. No cases of arson were recorded during
the monitoring. To remind, Azerbaijanis continually make a fuss about
the Armenian side setting fire to Azeri forests. The monitoring was
carried out along the Armenian-Azeri contact line and in the sites
of alleged fires.