STUDENT CONFESSES TO METRO STABBING
By Carl Schreck – Staff Writer
Vladimir Filonov / MT
Moscow Times, Russia
April 25, 2006
Vladimir Akinchev, left, with friends at the cemetery on Monday,
had known Vagan Abramyants since childhood.
Police arrested a high-school student in the weekend killing of an
Armenian teenager on a crowded metro platform at Pushkin Square and
he has confessed to the crime, city prosecutors said Monday.
The circumstances surrounding the killing, however, grew less clear.
Conflicting accounts appeared Monday, including some indicating that
the two boys had been acquainted.
Police detained the 17-year-old boy Sunday, and he confessed to
stabbing Vagan Abramyants, 17, a first-year student at the Moscow
Management Institute, early Saturday evening on the platform of the
Pushkinskaya metro station, City Prosecutor’s Office spokesman Sergei
Marchenko said.
Witnesses said the attackers had shaved heads, black clothes and boots,
police said following the attack. Armenian community leaders called
Abramyants a victim of a hate crime.
Marchenko declined to disclose any details about the investigation,
saying several possible motives were being investigated, including
racism.
According to his companions’ initial statements to police, Abramyants
was going with them to a weekly meeting of the Armenian diaspora being
held at the Itar-Tass building, a short walk away. As they gathered
on the platform around 5 p.m., a train heading to Vykhino entered
the station, and seven young men got off. Abramyants, who was with
11 others, was attacked, witnesses told police.
Interfax, citing police, said one of the men stabbed Abramyants in
the chest and that all of them fled on a departing train. Abramyants
died on the spot.
The investigation took a strange twist Monday when an unidentified law
enforcement source told Gazeta.ru that the suspect — an 11th-grader
at a city high school — knew Abramyants and stabbed him after the two
got into a fight. “It didn’t take long to find the probable killer,
because everyone who was on the platform knew him well,” the source
told Gazeta.ru. “Of course, in order not to turn in their acquaintance,
friends [of both boys] made up a story that some skinheads had attacked
the Armenian student after sprinting out of a metro car.”
According to other reports citing unidentified police sources,
Abramyants and his killer were part of a large group of fans of the
football club Lokomotiv who had met on the platform to go drinking.
At some point, the two teens got into an argument over a girl they
both liked, after which Abramyants was stabbed, the reports said.
Simon Tsaturyan, a lawyer representing Abramyants’ family, called
the police leaks an attempt to “falsify” what he said was “obviously
a racially motivated attack.”
“They are trying to paint this as an everyday crime,” Tsaturyan said
Monday at the Armenian Cemetery in northwest Moscow.
Dozens of Abramyants’ friends and fellow students came to the cemetery
along with hundreds of Armenians to commemorate the 1915 Armenian
genocide. Several declined to be interviewed.
One group of young men described Abramyants as “kind-hearted” and
“a great person.”
“We’d known him since childhood,” said Vladimir Akinchev, a student
at the Moscow Management Institute. “We are in shock.”
Vyacheslav Galustyan, vice president of the Union of Armenians in
Russia, said Abramyants would be buried in the Armenian Cemetery on
Tuesday or Wednesday.
Several people placed flowers at the site of the attack on Monday.

MEETING AT COUNCIL OF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
AzerTag, Azerbaijan
April 26 2006
President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev, in the frame of his first visit
to the United States, on 26 April held a meeting at the Council on
International Relations in Washington.
The former US president’s National Security Advisor general Brent
Scowcroft opened the meeting. He updated on the biography of Ilham
Aliyev, noting that Azerbaijan is one of the strategic partners of the
United States. Speaking of the Armenia-Azerbaijan, Nagorno Karabakh
conflict, he said the Armenian troops had occupied territories of
Azerbaijan. He appraised Azerbaijan’s efforts for settlement of the
conflict and stressed they would and henceforth support Azerbaijan’s
fair position.
President Ilham Aliyev gave a speech. He, in particular, said
Azerbaijan experiences the period of development. He spoke of
hardships in the first years of independence, on the socio-political
situation that led the country to verge of civil war. And when
Heydar Aliyev returned to power in the Republic, it was he who
established socio-political stability in the country and launched
many international projects.
President Aliyev said Azerbaijan attaches strategic importance
to partnership with the United States of America. There is mutual
understanding on cooperation with USA in the field of safety and
economy, he stressed.
The president informed on riches of Azerbaijan and the huge investments
involved in the country’s economy. He also gave detailed information on
the Armenia-Azerbaijan, Nagorno Karabakh conflict, its hard sequences
and negotiation process for settlement of the problem.
President Ilham Aliyev answered many questions.
The head of the Azerbaijan State also dwelt on the Azerbaijan-Russia
relations, noting these ties successfully develop. Azerbaijan is on
economic progress and never will become a space of confrontation,
he emphasized.
President Aliyev responded the questions on democratization process
in Azerbaijan, bilateral relations between Azerbaijan and USA and
“orange revolutions”.

RUSSIA: RACISM ON THE RISE
Zygmunt Dzieciolowski
Open Democracy, UK
April 26 2006
A spate of attacks against ethnic minorities and African students
reflects a wider growth of nationalist political sentiment, says
Zygmunt Dzieciolowski.
Anjani Kumar is a 23-year-old student at St Petersburg’s Mechnikoff
Medical Academy. As he was returning to his hostel one night, a group
of youths attacked him, stabbing him in the neck.
Zaut Tutov is the minister of culture for the autonomous republic of
Kabardino-Balkaria in the northern Caucasus. He was taking his daughter
home from dance classes when fifteen skinheads surrounded him, shouting
“Russia for the Russians”, and beat him up.
Both Anjani Kumar and Zaut Tutov were lucky: they survived. Dozens
of other victims of racially motivated assaults over the past fifteen
months did not. Recent victims were a nine-year-old Tajik girl in St
Petersburg, a Chinese street-trader in Vladivostok, and students from
Guinea-Bissau and Peru who were killed in Voronezh. In the central
Russian city of Volzhsky, a man and a woman died when skinheads armed
with steel rods attacked a gypsy camp.
Zygmunt Dzieciolowski is a Polish journalist and writer who has
reported on Russia for leading German, Swiss and Polish newspapers
since 1989. He is the author of the book Planet Russia, published in
Poland in 2005.
In what appear to be the latest cases, a 17-year-old ethnic Armenian
university student died on 22 April after being stabbed on a Moscow
metro station platform, and a young Tajik man died from knife wounds
on 24 April after he and his companion were attacked while walking
in Moscow.
“We have been living in Moscow for nearly ten years”, a Tajik friend
told me. “We experienced no fear when we arrived. We felt at home,
despite the anti-Caucasian sentiment following the fighting in
Chechnya. It’s different now. We are worried that the Asian features
of our teenaged children might lead to them being beaten up. I told
them to be especially careful if they’re out late or visiting friends
in remote neighbourhoods.”
Even in a country with 140 million people, the number of attacks is
alarming. In 2005, twenty-eight people died in hate attacks in Russia,
and 366 were wounded. The number of murders in 2006 is already well
into double figures. Human-rights activists say these figures hide
the true number, and that people of different races, skin colours
and anti-fascist groups are all targets of street violence.
Groups calling for Russia to be cleansed of foreigners, and using
fascist salutes and emblems, are now active in nearly every major
Russian city. On 20 April, the birthday of Adolf Hitler, most black
students living in Russia spent the day at home rather than risk
being caught outside by skinheads.
The members of these gangs are generally young, aged from thirteen to
thirty, according to a report by the website gazeta.ru. They tend to
come from low-income families and live in rundown suburbs. Around 1,000
skinheads live in the Moscow region, most of them outside the capital
itself. A majority of attacks take place on suburban trains and in
neighbourhoods away from the bustling main streets of the city centre.
The statistics in St Petersburg are even more alarming. The local
governor, Valentina Matviyenko, has been unable to stop the city on
the River Neva earning a reputation for hate crimes. The twenty large
skinhead gangs in St Petersburg have an estimated 12,000 members.
Across Russia, there are thought to be as many as 70,000 skinheads.
Small Russian towns are covered in nationalist graffiti, swastikas
and slogans like “Russia for the Russians” and “Death to Jews”.
The authorities have been unable or unwilling to deal with the
explosion in these gangs, and some minorities have set up self-defence
groups in response. At Moscow’s Peoples’ Friendship University
(formerly Patrice Lumumba University), African students have set up
their own self-defence groups.
The roots of violence
Much of the problem dates from the late 1980s, the years of Soviet
collapse. At that time, members of the Pamyat group dressed in black
and openly paraded their anti-semitism. Vladimir Zhirinovsky, the
populist leader of the Liberal Democratic party, achieved unexpectedly
good results in the 1993 parliamentary elections on the back of
nationalist rhetoric; his party came in first, capturing nearly a
quarter of the votes cast.
The two wars in Chechnya and a series of terrorist attacks on
targets across Russia fuelled ill-feeling towards Chechens and other
Caucasians. Public opinion has also turned against Ukrainians,
Georgians, Poles and Moldovans for their roles in the various
“colour”, or “flower”, revolutions that have swept through a number
of Russia’s neighbours. Estonians, Latvians and Lithuanians have also
been criticised, thanks to the perceived prejudice and discrimination
against Russian minorities in the Baltic states.
The change and uncertainty that the collapse of the Soviet Union caused
turned Russia into fertile ground for racism. But some journalists and
opposition activists believe the alarming recent growth in xenophobic
gangs is the result of something far more sinister. They think some
interests are benefiting from the rise in nationalist sentiments, and
argue that some politicians and secret services might be manipulating
events as part of their struggle for power, wealth and influence. Some
point out that powerful interest groups in the Kremlin are looking for
ways to keep power in the same hands even after the end of Vladimir
Putin’s presidency in 2008.
Many Russians, especially those with memories of the horrors of the
Nazi invasion, wonder why Putin’s government is so tolerant of those
who use slogans reminiscent of Hitler’s Germany. In his column for
, Georgy Bovt, the editor of Profil magazine, writes of
his suspicion that skinheads are being used to intimidate and frighten
the public into sticking with the establishment at the polls in 2008.
Dmitri Rogozin, the former leader of the Rodina (Motherland) faction
in the Duma and an enthusiastic supporter of nationalist politics,
argues something similar. He sees the skinhead violence playing
into the hands of those in the Kremlin at the next parliamentary
and presidential elections. In a television interview in March, he
predicted that politics would be “a struggle between the authorities
and the fascists. This would help them to sell these undemocratic
elections to the west. And as there were no real fascists in Russia,
they were having to create them.”
Such a game, if the conspiracy theorists are right, would be extremely
dangerous. Vyacheslav Nikonov, a member of the recently founded Public
Chamber (an advisory body set up by the government as a bridge between
the state and civil society after the 2004 Beslan school siege by
Chechen guerrillas) believes the country’s unity is at stake. “The
ultimate result of slogans like ‘Russia for the Russians’,” he said
in a recent speech, “is slogans like ‘Tatarstan for the Tatars’ or
‘Kabardino-Balkaria for the Kabardins and Balkarians’.”
The Kremlin’s critics are even more outspoken in their warnings. They
say Russia’s multiculturalism, its future as a civilised state and
even its continued existence as they know it could be under threat.

AZERBAIJAN PRESIDENT ALIYEV BEGINS CRUCIAL US VISIT
Journal of Turkish Weekly
April 26 2006
Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev set off to the United States
yesterday for a critical official visit taking place at a time when
the Iranian crisis has deepened. Aliyev will meet US President George
W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld,
and Secretary of Energy Samuel Bodman.
The issues in the nuclear crisis with Azerbaijan’s neighbor, Iran,
and the Upper Karabag (Karabagh) under the Armenian occupation,
are expected to mark Aliyev’s three-day visit. About 20 percent of
Azerbaijani territories have been under Armenian occupation and more
than 1 million Azeris have been refugees since the war.
Aliyev’s foreign policy adviser, Novruz Mammadov, told Turkish
newspaper Zaman that four main subjects such as dual relations,
energy, regional security and international terrorism will be handled,
but the Iran and Karabagh issues will be the main focus of the
Aliyev-Bush talks.
Mammadov announced Baku wants the crisis over Iran’s nuclear program
to be overcome by the International Atomic Energy Agency and the
United Nations.
“There are enough problems in the region already. As the nation of
Azerbaijan, we have never had and we will never have any intention
of interfering in Iran’s domestic affairs. We are ready to offer the
necessary support for this issue to be solved by peaceful means.”
The Azeri official also criticized Tehran for following a policy
favoring Yerevan over the Karabagh issue despite Baku’s policy of
mutual respect and good neighborly relations. The European Union and
the OSCE have named Armenia ‘occupier’ in the region. Iran claims its
regime is Islamist yet supports ‘Christian Armenia’ instead of ‘Muslim’
Azerbaijan. Dr. Nilgun Gulcan says that Iran does not follow an
Islamic foreign policy and the matter is not religion in the region”.
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Davut Sahiner, from the USAK, also told the JTW
that there are two blocks in the region: “One is the Western Block
including Turkey, georgia, Azerbaijan and Israel with the US and
the EU. The second block includes Armenia, Iran and Russia. Armenia
has good relations with all the anti-American countries. However teh
Armenian diaspora tries to show the facts as the reverse” he added.
Aliyev’s foreign policy adviser, Novruz Mammadov, criticizing the
US on the Armenian issue, highlighted that Washington remains silent
regarding Armenia that continues to occupy one fifth of Azerbaijan’s
territory.
“The United States may instantly take action for disagreements in
other countries. We think it should show the same sensitivity for
Azerbaijan, too,” the Azeri official added.
Mammadov said the OSCE (Organization for Security and Co-operation in
Europe) Minsk Group co-chairs have not been able to make any concrete
progress in the Karabagh case for years. “We believe the problem will
be solved if the US shows necessary sensitivity.”
Strategist Rasim Musabaev said Aliyev’s visit, taken at a time when
the Tehran-Washington conflict is at its peak, is no coincidence.
One of the most important ways for Baku to emerge from the Iranian
crisis with least damage is to follow a policy parallel to Turkey,
Musabaev added.
The Azeri official maintained Turkey and Azerbaijan are facing
US pressure over the Iranian issue. “It is difficult for these two
countries to say ‘yes’ to the United States because Iran is neighbors
both countries; therefore, we should focus on ways of solving the
problem peacefully.”
The Azeris also indicate the importance of the visit Turkish Prime
Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan will pay to Baku on May 5.
Turkey’s Ambassador to Baku Turan Morali said Turkey and Azerbaijan
carefully follow Iran’s nuclear crisis and said the two brother
countries want the problem to be solved through peaceful means.
Dr. Sedat Laciner, head of the USAK, says that the foremost problem
is the Armenian occupation in the region:
“Turkey, Georgia and Azerbaijan cannot form a strong block against
instablity in the region due to the Armenian occupation in Karabakh.
Armenia should also join these countries’ efforts to integrate with
the Western world instead of relying on Russia. As a matter of fact
that Armenia’s stability and welfare in co-operation with the Turkic
states and Georgia. However the ultra-nationalist and pro-Russian
groups prevent Yerevan Government to take concrete steps to solve the
problems with the neigbours. As a first step Armenia should recognise
Turkey’s and Azerbaijan’s national borders, and the US should encourage
Armenia to do so. Otherwise Armenian aggressive foreign policy will
continue to undermine the Western policies in the region.”

ARMENIAN SIDE FIRES THREE TIMES ON GAZAKH REGION LAST NIGHT
Baku Today, Azerbaijan
April 26 2006
Yesterday at 11.00 p.m. Armenian troops fired on Azerbaijani army
positions in the Gazakh region. The gunfire came from Armenian
occupied Azerbaijani villages Ashagy Askipara and Boganis Ayrym in
the same region.
At 2.50 a.m. Armenian troops fired on Azerbaijani positions near
Gushchu Ayrym village and at 5.15 a.m. Armenian divisions opened fire
at Azerbaijani positions near Jafarli village in the Gazakh region.
The Azerbaijani side returned fire. Casualties are not reported by
Azerbaijan Defense Ministry’s press office.

AZERBAIJAN LEADER STAYING OUT OF IRAN FRAY
By Barry Schweid
Washington Post
April 26 2006
WASHINGTON — President Ilham Aliev of Azerbaijan opened a three-day
visit to the United States on Wednesday by saying he would not
allow his country to be used by the U.S. for any operations against
neighboring Iran.
Aliev, scheduled to meet with President Bush on Friday, cited a
“very clear” agreement with Iran that the two countries would not
permit their territory to be used for operations against the other.
His visit comes at a time of rising U.S. tensions with Iran over its
nuclear program, and Aliev said he would remain at arms’ length from
that conflict.
“Azerbaijan will not be engaged in any kind of potential operation
against Iran,” he said in remarks at the private Council on Foreign
Relations.
The Caspian nation, which shares a border with Iran and Russia, is
strategically important to the U.S. because of its location and its
role in supplying the West with oil.
Azerbaijan wants to remain an “island of stability” in the region,
Aliev said. At the same time, he said Azerbaijan had sent troops
to Iraq, Afghanistan and Kosovo, and would “do its best to stand
shoulder-to-shoulder” with the United States on security.
The president, who took office in October 2003, has the potential to
be an intermediary between the Bush administration and Iran. Iranian
Defense Minister Mustafa Mohammad Najjar, on a visit to Baku last
week, said Aliev could use his talks in Washington to “explain”
Iran’s views to the United States.
Aliev said he did not think Iran would be a “major aspect” of his
talks in Washington, which are due to include a meeting with Vice
President Dick Cheney. But he said “if the question of regional
security arises we will discuss it.”
Azerbaijan is committed to peace in the region, he said. “We need to
try to provide peace and stability.”
“At this time,” he said, “it is best to concentrate on a peaceful
resolution” of the dispute over Iran’s nuclear programs, which the
United States and European allies say seek development of a nuclear
bomb.
On another issue, Aliev conceded there was need for political reform
in his country, a former Soviet republic that became independent 16
years ago. Referring to Azerbaijan’s energy boom, Aliev said “economic
reform without political reform will lead to severe problems.” He
said his country was moving forward on both fronts.
Human rights groups have criticized the nation for restricting
political and human rights and questioned whether U.S. criticism
would be muted due to Azerbaijan’s role in supplying the West with oil.
Freedom House on Tuesday said Azerbaijan restricts political and human
rights and is among the lowest-ranked countries in the private rights
group’s annual surveys.
“President Bush has made democracy promotion a priority of his
presidency,” Freedom House executive director Jennifer Windsor said
in a statement. “His upcoming meeting with President Aliev presents
an important opportunity for him to discuss Azerbaijan’s democracy
deficit.”
Aliev, in response to questions Wednesday, rejected the description
of his government as a “regime” and said, “We have all the major
freedoms.”
In his remarks, Aliev spoke most about a dispute with Armenia over the
Nagorno-Karabakh enclave of Azerbaijian. Ethnic Armenian forces occupy
the region, in what Aliev called an occupation. He said Azerbaijan’s
recovery of the territory was not subject to negotiations.
Photo: Azerbaijani President, then Prime Minister, Ilham Aliev,
speaks to the media in Baku, Azerbaijan, in this Monday, Oct. 13,
2003 file photo. As the starting point for a pipeline that will pump
1 million barrels of oil a day to Western markets, the former Soviet
republic Azerbaijan has long ranked as a strategic foothold for the
United States in the Caspian Sea region. But it’s the shared border
with Iran, where up to 30 million ethnic Azeris live, that has earned
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliev an invitation to the White House
this week, analysts say. Aliev leaves Tuesday for a three-day visit on
the invitation of President George W. Bush. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky,
File) (Efrem Lukatsky – AP).

VALCAV HAVEL: ARMENIANS ALSO SUFFERED HOLOCAUST
Jewish Telegraphic Agency, NY
April 26 2006
Former Czech President Vaclav Havel equated the Turkish killing of
Armenians during World War I to the slaughter of Jews in World War II.
Havel made his comments yesterday during a speech in Prague at a
Council of Europe conference on Holocaust education, saying that
civilization’s moral failings were responsible for genocides, “be it
the holocaust of Armenians or Jews.”
“These big catastrophes in fact are monstrous but in a way
understandable products of this civilization.”
Up to 1 million Armenians died in ethnic strife under the Ottoman
Empire from 1915-1917.
Twenty-four countries officially recognize the Armenian deaths as a
genocide, but Turkey is adamant that no genocide occurred.

TURKEY CANNOT SHARE SOME EXPRESSIONS OF BUSH, TAN
Anatolian Times, Turkey
April 26 2006
ANKARA – “It is not possible for Turkey to share some expressions of
U.S. President George Bush in his statement released on April 24th.
On the other hand, the reference to creation of joint commissions
is positive,” said Turkish Foreign Ministry spokesman Namik Tan
on Tuesday.
Replying a question about President Bush’s statement on so-called
Armenian genocide anniversary, Tan said, “President Bush displayed
his regular attitude of releasing a written statement on ‘Armenian
remembrance day’ on April 24th this year as well. It is not possible
for Turkey to share some assessments in the statement.”
“History can only be written and assessed on the basis of official
documents. The resource is the archives,” he noted.
“Controversial part of Turkish-Armenian joint history can only be
researched on scientific aspect, and the assessments can be made
under the results of these researches,” he added.
Tan said, “Thus, Turkey’s proposal (to Armenia) to investigate
incidents before and after 1915 by a joint history commission (and to
share results with people) can enlighten this period of history and
normalize the relations between the two countries, and this initiative
should be supported.”
U.S. President George Bush said in his statement (released on April
24th), “today, we remember one of the horrible tragedies of the
20th century — the mass killings and forced exile of as many as 1.5
million Armenians in the final days of the Ottoman Empire in 1915.
This was a tragedy for all humanity and one that we and the world must
never forget. We mourn this terrible chapter of history and recognize
that it remains a source of pain for people in Armenia and for all
those who believe in freedom, tolerance, and the dignity and value
of every human life. We encourage dialogues, including through joint
commissions, that strive for a shared understanding of these tragic
events and move Armenia and Turkey towards normalized relations.”

SO STRIKES AGAIN IN DUBAI CHESS
By Arman Armero
Manila Standard Today, Philippines
April 27 2006
FIDE master Wesley So, a 12-year-old kid among chess giants,
secured his second win in three matches to bring himself closer to
an international master norm after three rounds in the eighth Dubai
Open Chess Championship late Tuesday at the Dubai Chess and Culture
Club in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
So, the country’s youngest chess whiz from Bacoor, Cavite, demolished
IM Sale Srdjan of Croatia after 42 pushes of a Benko Opening to be
in the company of 10 other players in the event, historically the
strongest open tournament in Asia.
Also in So’s company in a tie from 11th to 21st places are grandmasters
Ashot Anastasian of Armenia, Levan Pantsulaia of Georgiz, Tigran
Petrosian of Armenia, Moussa Taleb of the UAE and IMs Oleg Kulicov
of Russia, Farid Abbasov of Azerbaijan, SA Sarsam of Iraq, Abhijeet
Gupta of India, Fouad El Taher of Egypt and fellow FM Eltaj Safari
of Azerbaijan.
So’s fourth-round opponent is Taher, formerly a Board 1 player for
Egypt in various world team championships.
Standings after three rounds: Izoria, Sadvakasov, Sargissian,
Miroshnichenko, Kacheishvili, Maghami, Fedorchuk, Gelashvili, Kotsur,
Gagunashvili 3.0 points; So, Pantsulaia, Petrosia, Taleb, Kulicov,
Abbasov, Taher, Sarsam, Gupta. Safari.

VALDAS ADAMKUS: “WHAT BELONGS TO YOU SHOULD BE YOURS”
DeFacto Agency, Armenia
April 26 2006
“Any person, any country has got the right to be free and the right of
territorial integrity – this is a basic principle”, stated President
of Lithuania Valdas Adamkus, who is in Yerevan on an official visit,
at a meeting with the students and professorial staff of the Yerevan
State University April 26.
While commenting on the Nagorno Karabakh conflict settlement process
President of Lithuania noted: “What belongs to you should be yours”,
REGNUM correspondent reports. At the same time he said military
solution of the conflict was inadmissible. “A dialogue is necessary
for the conflict’s peaceful settlement. I call on you to speak to
each other. One can find the ways for the problem solution only via
mutual understanding and a dialogue,” the Lithuanian President stated.