MG MEDIATORS MAKE NEW PUSH FOR NK SETTLEMENT
Havilah Hoffman
EurasiaNet, NY
May 4 2006
International mediators are making another push to break the deadlock
in the Nagorno-Karabakh peace talks.
The co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group, which is charged with
mediating peace talks between Armenia and Azerbaijan, met in Moscow
on May 2-3. They decided to dispatch the French Minsk Group co-chair
Bernard Fassier to Yerevan and Baku to update Armenian and Azerbaijani
officials on negotiation proposals. Fassier is expected to arrive in
Baku on May 5, the Trend news agency reported. Hopes for a breakthrough
in peace talks diminished in February, when a summit meeting between
Armenian President Robert Kocharian and his Azerbaijani counterpart,
Ilham Aliyev, failed to make headway on a settlement framework. [For
background see the Eurasia Insight archive].
The meeting of the Minsk Group co-chairs followed Aliyev’s visit to
Washington in late April. The Karabakh peace issue figured prominently
in Aliyev’s meeting with US President George W. Bush [For background
see the Eurasia Insight archive]. Those talks gave top Azerbaijani
officials the impression that the United States, which is represented
in the Minsk Group, would strengthen its backing for Azerbaijan’s
negotiating position. In a May 1 interview with Lider TV, Azerbaijani
Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov said that “the US president and
government are ready to take any measures necessary for the rapid
settlement of the conflict.”
Meanwhile, a recent report prepared by the Crisis Group called on
the European Union to assume a more active role in the Karabakh peace
process, independent of the Minsk Group’s mediation efforts. France
is the only state that has Minsk Group representation, as well as EU
membership. Russia is the other Minsk Group co-chair.
The report, titled Conflict Resolution in the Caucasus: The EU Role,
urged the EU to enhance its diplomatic influence by opening “fully
staffed European Commission delegations in Baku and Yerevan.” The
EU should also formulate initiatives that create a more favorable
negotiating environment, the report argued. “Sending military and
civilian assessment missions to the region could give new impetus to
the negotiation process,” it said.
Using “the lure of greater integration into Europe,” the EU can
encourage negotiating flexibility from both Armenia and Azerbaijan,
the report suggested. “Compared with other actors, the EU can offer
added value as an ‘honest broker’ – free from traditional US/Russia
rivalries,” the report said.
So far, the EU has refrained from a direct role in the Karabakh
peace process. Brussels has been more active in promoting security
in Georgia, where the government in Tbilisi wants to reintegrate the
separatist entities of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. At the same time,
the EU isn’t playing a direct role in political talks covering South
Ossetia and Abkhazia. “The South Caucasus is one of the few regions
where the EU has the crisis management capabilities to address existing
conflicts,” the report said. “It should do more with the instruments
at its disposal.”
The report warned that all three conflicts retain the potential
to reignite, citing the fact that “gunfire is still exchanged,
especially on the Nagorno-Karabakh ceasefire line.” Stronger EU
participation could keep the peace processes from derailing, the
report indicated. “If the Georgian-South Ossetian and Nagorno-Karabakh
conflicts continue to deteriorate, the EU may find itself unprepared
for responding to wars among its neighbors,” the report cautioned.
Editor’s Note: Havilah Hoffman is an editorial assistant for EurasiaNet
in New York.

BATHYSCAPH CONVEYED FROM MOSCOW TO SOCHI
PanARMENIAN.Net
04.05.2006 00:56 GMT+04:00
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ At 8 p.m. Moscow time another sitting of the
commission for the investigation of the jet crash will be held in
Sochi. As Armenian Ambassador to Russia Armen Smbatyan informed,
the details of the crash investigation and process of the search
works will be discussed. Armen Smbatyan said at 4 p.m. Russian
Minister of transport Igor Levtin and Secretary of the Security
Council at the RA President Serge Sargsyan held the first sitting
of the commission. According to the Armenian diplomat, the weather
in Sochi is still very unfavorable; it’s raining heavily. “According
to the preliminary date, the crash occurred over bad meteorological
conditions,” the Amb. said. In his words, bodies of 50 people that
can be identified have been found so far.
“The rescuers are searching for the record box. Since the depth of
the water reaches 500 meters, a bathyscaph was conveyed from Moscow
to Sochi,” Armen Smbatyan said, reported IA Regnum.

EXAMINATION OF RECORDS OF TALKS BETWEEN FLYING CONTROL OFFICERS AND A-320 CREW STARTED
PanARMENIAN.Net
04.05.2006 01:04 GMT+04:00
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ The prosecution office has withdrawn and proceeded
to the examination of the records of talks held between the Sochi
airport flying control officers and the crew of the crashed jet. “The
experts started working,” prosecutor general of the Krasnodar region
Sergey Yeremin stated. He also informed that the examination of the
jet tail-end has been already started. “The rescuers have found some
more fragments of bodies,” the prosecutor said, reported Interfax.

VLADIMIR PUTIN ORDERED RF GOVERNMENT TO RENDER ASSISTANCE TO FAMILIES OF KILLED
PanARMENIAN.Net
04.05.2006 01:21 GMT+04:00
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the RF
Government to render assistance to the families of those killed in
the A-320 crash, reported the press service of the Russian leader. By
decision of the Russian and Armenian Presidents mourning will be
declared in both states May 5.

Press Release
Catholicosate of Cilicia
Communication and Information Department
Contact: V.Rev.Fr.Krikor Chiftjian, Communications Officer
Tel: (04) 410001, 410003
Fax: (04) 419724
E-mail: [email protected]
Web:
PO Box 70 317
Antelias-Lebanon
Armenian version:
THE ANNUAL CONFERENCE OF THE ARMENIAN CHURCH UNIVERSITY STUDENTS’
ASSOCIATION (HEHOM)
IS HELD IN JBEIL
The Armenian Church University Students’ Association (HEHOM) organized
its annual conference in the Bird’s Nest school in Jbeil on April
29-30. About 25 young students, who contribute to the mission of
the Armenian Church through the Catholicosate of Cilicia, gathered
to enrich their information on the church and religion so they can
continue their work with further understanding and realization.
Bishop Nareg Alemezian, Ecumenical Officer of the Catholicosate of
Cilicia, delivered a special lecture during the conference, talking
about the main families of Christian Churches. The Bishop explained
the history of these churches and of their differences with the
Armenian Church.
In the second part of his lecture Bishop Alemezian spoke about the
ecumenical movement and the role of the Catholicosate of Cilicia. He
explained the reasons behind the church having various families
currently, the main theological differences between various church
groupings, the history of the ecumenical movement and its principal
aim, the theoretical unity of churches. The Bishop also spoke about
the religious, humanitarian, social and other multi-faceted functions
of this international movement.
The interest showed by the attendants in these subjects rendered the
lecture a two way discussion.
The spiritual advisor of the association, Rev. Fr. Housig Mardirossian,
spoke about the seven sacraments of the Armenian Church, their history
and their role in Christian life. He also explained details related
to each of them.
Enriching moments of Bible reading were also held during the
conference.
##
View photo here: tm
*****
The Armenian Catholicosate of Cilicia is one of the two Catholicosates
of the Armenian Orthodox Church. For detailed information about the
youth activities of the Cilician Catholicosate, you may refer to the
web page of the Catholicosate, The Cilician
Catholicosate, the administrative center of the church is located in
Antelias, Lebanon.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

ASSYRIANS FACE ESCALATING ABUSES IN ‘NEW IRAQ’
By Lisa Soderlindh
Assyrian International News Agency
May 4 2006
UNITED NATIONS (IPS) — The longstanding persecution of ethnic
minorities in Iraq is quietly writing the end chapter to Iraqi Assyrian
history: if the world doesn’t wake up to the plight of this people,
they will soon be shoved through the door of extinction, warn patrons
and human rights defenders.
The Assyrian Christian population of Iraq, historically traceable
to the Mesopotamian cradle of civilisation, has increasingly become
the target of both ethnic and religious attacks since the U.S.-led
invasion and the overthrow of the Saddam Hussein regime in 2003.
“Today, the situation is the worst we have ever lived in Iraq,” Andy
Darmoo, head of the “Save the Assyrians” campaign, told a recent news
conference at U.N. headquarters in New York.
The non-political human rights campaign, aimed at saving the Assyrian
people of Iraq from oblivion and helping them reclaim their rights,
was launched in January 2005 by the former British Archbishop of
Canterbury, Lord Carey.
Fellow campaigner Glyn Ford, a Labour member of the
European Parliament, said that torture, kidnapping, extortion,
harassment, church bombings, forced religious conversion, political
disenfranchisement and property destruction are some of the deliberate
human rights violations that are wreaking havoc in the lives of the
hundreds of thousands of remaining Assyrians in Iraq.
The atrocities are rapidly spreading and escalating in the
Assyrian-concentrated northern region, and in cities such as Kirkuk,
Mosul and Baghdad, said Darmoo.
“The dangers we are facing are even greater now than a few hundred
years ago,” he continued, recalling the 13th century when Mongolian
forces led by the warrior Prince Hulagu, the grandson of Genghis Kahn,
swept across ancient Mesopotamia — now Iraq — and killed an estimated
800,000 people.
According to various sources, eight to 12 percent of the Iraqi
population of 26 million belongs to a Christian denomination, mostly
Assyrians, Chaldeans, Armenians and Catholics.
Iraqi’s Assyrians speak a classical Syricac, an offshoot of Aramaic
— the language of Jesus Christ — and most belong to one of the four
churches: the Chaldean Uniate, the Syrian Orthodox Church, the Syrian
Catholic and the Assyrian Church of the East. They were estimated
at around one million before the recent exodus of Assyrians seeking
refuge outside Iraq.
With over half of the Assyrian Iraqi community residing in the north,
primarily in the Nineveh Plains and its surrounding areas, the illegal
confiscation of Assyrian lands in northern Iraq under the Kurdish
Regional Government (KRG) remains a challenging issue confronting
the ethnic-religious minorities, Shamiran Mako, an analyst with the
Council for Assyrian Research and Development (CARD), a Canadian-based
think-tank, told IPS.
She said that since the “liberation” of Iraq, oppression has become
more prevalent.
“Recently, there have been systematic measures taken by the Kurdish
Democratic Party (KDP) officials, under the Kurdish-controlled areas
to marginalise and suppress Assyrians through the dictatorial policies
of the KRG.”
There, the recent vast exodus of Assyrians has been two-fold,
Mako continued: it has been due to the rise of insurgency against
those residing in the targeted cities; and in the north it has been
directly as a result of the discriminatory measures of the KRG,
under the auspices of the KDP and the second main Kurdish party,
the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK).
Though the number of refugees in the world has been declining in recent
years, the international system for dealing with human displacement
has reached a critical juncture, including the challenge of a tougher
climate awaiting refugees fleeing their homeland, according to a
recent U.N. report on the worldwide refugee situation.
Statistics from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
(UNHCR) in October 2005 show that out of the about 700,000 Iraqis who
took refuge in Syria between October 2003 and March 2005, 36 percent
were Iraqi Christians.
Despite the vast number of Iraqi Assyrian refugees living under
terrible conditions, Darmoo was astonished “that there is yet no help
whatsoever from any quarter.”
“But we are not going to stop this time until we get our human rights,”
he told IPS.
Save the Assyrians has taken their case to the British and European
Parliaments. In a session devoted to human rights at the beginning of
April, a resolution was passed on Iraqi Assyrians recognising their
plight and calling on the Iraqi authorities, the European Commission,
the Council of the European Union, and the international community
to take action.
In the months preceding the new federal Iraq, the campaign sought
to influence the drafting of the country’s new constitution, which
was adopted in October 2005, with respect to Assyrians and other
minorities. But despite some minor revisions, Darmoo said it did not
really change anything.
“The constitution means nothing unless our rights are guaranteed by the
U.N. and by the superpowers,” he told IPS. “The Iraqi government will
not give us our rights — so international pressure must be enforced,”
he added.
But Mako, who represented the Assyrians at the 11th session of the
U.N. Working Group on Minorities in May-June 2005, said that the
world body, which has a limited presence inside Iraq, “has not doing
anything tangible”.
“The representatives on the ground are not attentive to the plight
of Assyrians following the fall of Saddam’s regime,” she told IPS.
“Instead, they focus on the oppression inflicted upon the Shiites
and Sunni Arabs, and the Kurds.”
However, the U.N. could play a key role by offering Assyrian refugees
residing in neighbouring countries the right of return, “as it has
for Kurdish settlers arriving from neighbouring Iran and Turkey,”
reasoned Mako.
Since 2005, the Council for Assyrian Research and Development has
sought to record the abuses endured by Assyrians living in the
heartland of northern Iraq, southeastern Turkey, western Iran and
eastern Syria, and those in the diaspora, by way of its Assyrian
Human Rights Documentation Project.
“At the current rates of ethnic cleansing, forced assimilation and
migration, the indigenous Assyrian Christians will be fully eradicated
from the new ‘democratic Iraq’ in less than 10 years,” warns the
first outcome paper, arguing that “the Kurdification, Arabisation,
and Islamification of Iraq have left an ancient people at the doors
of extinction”.
The paper argues for a special territory for Iraq’s Assyrian population
and calls on the world to help secure the return of all Assyrians
refugees to their ancestral homeland in northern Iraq.
“We and all other ethnic and religious parts of Iraqi society are
entitled to basic human rights, same as the larger ethnic religious
groups in Iraq,” Edison A. Ishaya, president of the Assyrian Academic
Society, a U.S.-based group with members worldwide, told IPS.
“We plead to the world, and especially to all brothers and sisters
from all sectors of Iraqi society, for protection and basic human
rights,” he said. “All we pray for is to live in peace and continue
to be a productive and contributing part of Iraqi society — as we
have always been.”

IN VLADIMIR PRYAKHIN’S OPINION, LEGISLATION IN SPHERE OF ARMENIAN MEDIA IS NOT PERFECT YET
Noyan Tapan
May 03 2006
YEREVAN, MAY 3, NOYAN TAPAN. “Free press is an integral part of
democratic society: without free press it is impossible to completely
ensure human rights, to effectively fight corruption, etc”. Consuelo
Vidal, Head of UN Yerevan Office, declared this at the May 3 event
dedicated to the International Press Freedom Day. She said that
often the journalists’ work is connected with risk and is not
safe. C.Vidal reminded that cases of violence towards journalists
are frequent in the modern world. She congratulated the Armenian
journalists with the International Press Freedom Day and wished them
to more minutely cover such an important world problem as poverty
reduction. Ambassador Vladimir Pryakhin, Head of OSCE Yerevan Office,
informed that the office is actively working with the state structures
and NGOs of Armenia for the purpose of assisting the development
of free press. The Ambassador regretted to say that the Armenian
legislation in this sphere is not perfect yet. According to Hranush
Hakobian, Chairwoman of NA Standing Committee on Issues of Science,
Education, Culture and Youth, great progress has been registered in
the sphere of development of media during the years of Armenia’s
independence. Meanwhile the MP wished the Armenian mass media to
strive for perfecting the quality of their work. To recap, the event
was organized by the Yerevan Offices of UN and OSCE, as well as by
the initiative “Cooperation for the Sake of Free Society”.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

BENEDICT XVI PRAYS FOR AIRLINER VICTIMS
Zenit News Agency, Italy
May 4 2006
VATICAN CITY, MAY 3, 2006 (Zenit.org).- Benedict XVI expressed his
sympathy on receiving the news of an airliner that smashed into the
Black Sea killing 113.
The crash occurred early today in Russian territory and involved a
plane from Armenian Airlines.
In a telegram sent in his name by Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal
Angelo Sodano, the Pope invoked “the mercy of the Lord, praying that
he will receive” the victims “in his Kingdom of Peace.”
The Holy Father assured his prayers for the families of the deceased,
“the authorities and all the Armenian people.”

ROW OVER GENOCIDE
7DAYS, United Arab Emirates
May 4 2006
Turkey warned France yesterday that bilateral ties could suffer if
the French parliament adopts a bill that would criminalise any denial
that Armenians massacred during World War I were victims of genocide.
“In our meetings (with French officials), we stress that adoption
of the bill could lead to irreparable damage in long-standing
Turkish-French ties and that this should not be allowed,” foreign
ministry spokesman Namik Tan said.
Expected to be voted on later this month, it provides for one year’s
imprisonment and a $57,000 fine for denying that Armenians were
victims of genocide.
If adopted, it will follow a 2001 French decision that infuriated
Turkey by acknowledging that the mass killings in the dying days of
the Ottoman Empire amounted to genocide.
Armenians say up to 1.5 million of their kin were slaughtered in
orchestrated killings between 1915 and 1917 by Turks, as the Ottoman
Empire was falling apart. Turkey rejects that, saying 300,000 Armenians
and at least as many Turks died in civil strife.
enocide.html

Armenia Fund, Inc.
111 N. Jackson St. Ste. 205
Glendale, CA 91206
Tel: 818-243-6222
Fax: 818-243-7222
[email protected]
www.armeniafund .org
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
MAY 4, 2006
Armenia Fund Mourns Over Armavia Air Disaster
U.S. Western Region Leadership at Zvartnots Airport
Los Angeles, CA – Armenia Fund U.S. Western Region offered its deepest
condolences to the families of the victims of the Armavia airliner
crash that occurred on May 2, 2006. The tragedy happened over the
Black Sea, six kilometers off the Russian resort city of Sochi.
Armenia Fund’s leadership, Chairperson Maria Mehranian and Executive
Director Sarkis Kotanjian, were both at Zvartnots International
Airport in Yerevan immediately following the air disaster. Mehranian
and Kotanjian are currently in Armenia representing the U.S. Western
Region at the Armenia Fund’s International Board of Trustees meeting
which will be held on Friday, May 5, 2006.
“Today marks a tragic event in Armenian history. I deeply share the
pain and sorrow of the victims’ families. My thoughts and prayers go
out to those who lost loved ones”, said Maria Mehranian after seeing
first hand the waves of families and friends, lined up at the airport,
asking questions and demanding answers.
Armenia Fund, Inc., is a non-profit 501(c)(3) tax-exempt corporation
established in 1994 to facilitate large-scale humanitarian and
infrastructure development assistance to Armenia and Nagorno Karabakh.
Armenia Fund, Inc. is the U.S. Western Region affiliate of “Hayastan”
All-Armenian Fund. Tax ID# 95-4485698