AGREEMENT ON COOPERATION BETWEEN ARMENIA AND ROSTOV REGION TO BE SIGNED IN AUTUMN
Noyan Tapan
Apr 18 2006
ROSTOV-ON-DON, APRIL 18, NOYAN TAPAN. The current state and prospects
of development of the Armenian-Russian inter-regional cooperation
were discussed during a meeting of the RA Minister of Territorial
Administration Hovik Abrahamian and the Governor of Rostov region
(Russia) Vladimir Chub on April 17. The sides pointed out the necessity
to use the existing potential for inter-regional cooperation to
the full. H. Abrahamian attached importance to further extension
of direct cooperation with Rostov region, underlining that Rostov
region is a highly attractive partner for Armenia in terms of its
geographical location, production and scientific potential. Noting
that commodity turnover between Armenia and Rostov region made 6 mln
dollars in 2005 and is continuing to grow each year, V. Chub stressed
the need for further increase in the bilateral trade turnover. Issues
of mutual interrest such as the necessity to attract more investments
of the Russian business circles in Armenia’s economy, to set up joint
ventures and establish economically efficient transport communication
between the two countries, etc. were discussed at the meeting. The
sides reached an agreement, in accordance with which the governor of
Rostov region will visit Armenia this autumn with the aim of signing
an agreement on trade, economic, scientific, technical and cultural
cooperation between Armenia and Rostov region. According to the RA
MFA Press and Information Department, the Armenian delegation headed
by H. Abrahamian is in Rostov region in order to participate in Days
of Armenia held on April 16-19.

VOTING FOR THE BNP IS ABOUT RAGE RATHER THAN RACE
by Rachel Sylvester
The Daily Telegraph (LONDON)
April 18, 2006 Tuesday
Racism is no longer a black-and-white issue. A taxi driver told me
the other day that he was worried about the influx of “people with
a European complexion” coming into this country. With immigrants
arriving in Britain from Kosovo and Poland, as well as Somalia and
Bangladesh, newcomers these days are as likely to have a pink skin as
a brown one. And yet fear of change (whatever the colour of its face)
remains a powerful force.
A report from the Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust, publicised yesterday,
claims that a quarter of voters in London are considering supporting
the British National Party in next month’s local elections. Margaret
Hodge, the employment minister, warned at the weekend that white,
working-class families in her Barking constituency were deserting
Labour for the far Right. Searchlight, the anti-fascist campaign group,
said recently that the BNP needs a swing of only five per cent to
win as many as 70 council seats on May 4.
There is, of course, a danger in talking up the threat from the BNP.
Nick Griffin, who likes to claim that he leads Britain’s fourth-largest
political party, must be basking in his 15 minutes of front-page
fame. I find it hard to believe that a sixth of people in this
tolerant, decent and middle-of-the-road country really will – as
the Rowntree report also claims – put an X in the far-Right box when
they fill in their ballot papers in two weeks’ time. A few may feel
emboldened to do so by the recent coverage.
The BNP deserves scorn rather than scare-mongering. Not only is it
utterly pernicious (a leaflet distributed by the party after the July
7 bombings said, “If only they had listened to the BNP”), it is also
useless if faced with the reality of power. When a handful of BNP
councillors were elected in Burnley in 2003, they failed to turn up
to the first budget debate, one of the most crucial moments in the
local government year. In Barking, a BNP councillor stood down after
eight months, telling his local paper: “Those meetings go right over
my head and there’s little point in me being there.” Another elected
representative left the party, claiming she had not realised it
propagated extremist views – in fact, she said, she had cited Nelson
Mandela as her political hero at her selection interview. Meanwhile,
Punch and Judy politics appear to be too timid for the BNP. One of its
councillors was forced to resign after smashing a bottle in the face
of a colleague and another has been convicted, since his election,
of attacking his wife and a police officer.
And yet the BNP cannot be completely laughed off. There is a new
professionalism to its campaigns that is beginning to worry the
mainstream parties. It has recently for the first time started to
send out carefully targeted direct mailshots.
Mr Griffin, the Cambridge-educated son of a farmer, has toned down
the extremist rhetoric and prefers to surround himself with pretty,
long-haired women, rather than tattooed, skinheaded men. Campaign
leaflets in white working-class areas describe the BNP as “the Labour
Party your grandfathers voted for”. Other literature says the party
is “people just like you making a difference”. To the irritation
of some members, the BNP has recently selected an ethnic minority
candidate – Sharif Abdel Bawad, who is described by the party as a
“totally assimilated Greek-Armenian”.
The BNP’s website now sells Make Poverty History-style wristbands
(printed with the slogan “English and proud”) and T-shirts emblazoned
with the words “cool to be white”. The party even has a fund-raising
campaign that urges supporters to donate the price of a pot of Earl
Grey tea – which is, its advertisement says, when combined with a
Garibaldi biscuit, the “perfectly British way to warm up a winter’s
afternoon”. The aim is to make the BNP unthreatening in a Coronation
Street sort of way.
There may be some exaggeration of the BNP’s appeal, but it is likely
that the far-Right party will win at least some extra seats in next
month’s council elections. And there is a danger that any victory,
however small, will be used to try to force the mainstream parties
away from the centre ground. Right-wingers will urge David Cameron
to blow the immigration dog whistle, used to such disastrous effect
by his predecessor Michael Howard; Left-wingers will tell Tony Blair
to do more to appeal to Labour’s white working-class core voters, who
feel neglected by their public school-educated leader’s love of Middle
England. It would be a mistake for either of them to follow the advice.
The truth is that support for the BNP is not really a protest vote
against a racially mixed society: it is a cry of rage about the
quality of life in some of the poorest areas in the country. There
is not much cheerleading for the far Right in the streets of Chelsea.
The BNP is exploiting a growing sense of frustration with genuine
problems: the lack of affordable housing, the increase in low-level
crime, the failure of inner-city schools, the loss of a sense of
identity among white working-class men following the collapse of
traditional industries. These failures are not really anything to
do with race – although, of course, the more people come to live in
an area, the more stretched local resources will be – but the BNP
has diverted a general sense of grievance into a specific feeling
of unfairness based on a perception that there is “us and them”. It
is true, for example, that asylum seekers in a way “jump the queue”
for council houses because they are destitute when they arrive in an
area, whereas those on a waiting list for a bigger home are not. The
solution is not to try to recreate a homogeneous white population but
to find more affordable housing, and speed up the way in which homes
are allocated to local people. The Government, and the Opposition
parties, should not try to ramp up the rhetoric on race, they need
to deal with the often appalling way in which too many people have
to live their lives.
In some white working-class areas, Labour has, as one Downing Street
adviser admitted to me yesterday, effectively run a “one-party state”
for too long. With no effective challenge from the Conservatives or the
Liberal Democrats, it has become complacent and its councillors have
resisted public service reform. The rise of the BNP should shock the
mainstream political parties out of their torpor. But it must not be
allowed to change the direction or the tone of British politics. That
really would be a victory for the extremists.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

ARMENIAN WOMEN PREFER TO BE INVOLVED IN SOCIAL RATHER THAN POLITICAL ACTIVITIES
Noyan Tapan
Apr 18 2006
YEREVAN, APRIL 18, NOYAN TAPAN. Trafficking and family vilence are
unusual phenomena in sharp contrast to Armenian traditions and make up
an insignificant percentage in the country. Head of the RA National
Assembly’s delegation in the PACE, Vice Speaker of the National
Assembly Tigran Torosian stated this on April 17 during a meeting
with Rapporteur of the PACE commission on issues of equality of the
rights of man and women Vera Oskina, who is on a working visit to
Armenia. Speaking about participation of women in political processes,
T. Torosian noted that the Armenian women prefer to be engaged in
social rather than political activities: women constitute about 99%
of heads of NGOs.
As regards the allocation of 25% in ballot papers to women, the NA
Vice Speaker expressed an opinion that such positive discrimination is
unacceptable: women’s involvement in politics should not be encouraged
in an unnatural way.
According to the RA National Assembly PR Department, V. Oskina informed
T. Torosian that she is preparing a report on the state of women in
Armenia, Georgia and Azerbaijan.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

ARMENIAN SAMBISTS WIN TWO MEDALS IN EUROPE CHAMPIONSHIP
Noyan Tapan
Apr 18 2006
BELGRADE, APRIL 18, NOYAN TAPAN. The representatives of Armenia
performed successfully in the sambo Europe championship held in
the capital of Serbia-Chernogoria Belgrade. Two of them became
prize-winners. In the 74 kg weight category Ashot Danielian took second
place and won a silver medal. Davit Khachatrian (68 kg weight category)
took third place and won a bronze medal.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

ARMENIAN LAWYER SAYS HUNGARY CANNOT EXTRADITE AZERI OFFICER
Mediamax news agency
18 Apr 06
Yerevan, 18 April: “Ramil Safarov does not regret killing Armenian
officer Gurgen Markaryan,” the lawyer of the Markaryans family,
Nazeli Vardanyan, said in Yerevan today.
Addressing a news conference in Yerevan today, the lawyer said that
Safarov had not regretted the cruel murder in his final plea in court
but only said that he had lost self-control, Mediamax reports.
Speaking about the possibility of Ramil Safarov being extradited
to Baku, the lawyer said that Hungarian legislation does not allow
extradition of criminals serving life imprisonment.

ARMENIAN FOREIGN MINISTER HOPES FOR PROGRESS IN KARABAKH TALKS
Mediamax news agency
18 Apr 06
Yerevan, 18 April: Armenian Foreign Minister Vardan Oskanyan said
in Yerevan today that “the Armenian and Azerbaijani presidents did
not manage to achieve progress in Rambouillet. However, we do not
consider the meeting to be a ‘debacle’.”
Addressing a meeting of the Armenian-EU parliamentary cooperation
commission in Yerevan today, Oskanyan said that “the failure at
Rambouillet does not mean the debacle of the entire negotiating
process”, Mediamax reports. In this regard, the Armenian foreign
minister recalled that the decision to hold a meeting at Rambouillet
had been made on the basis of the substantial progress achieved in
the negotiating process in 2005.
Oskanyan noted that taking into account agreements reached earlier
and the [OSCE] mediators’ activity, there are grounds to hope that
progress in the negotiating process will be achieved.
The minister pointed out that while earlier Yerevan said that it
would discuss the elimination of the consequences of the conflict
only after the determination of the political status of Nagornyy
Karabakh, today the Armenian side has made “a serious compromise”
and its position is somewhat different.
“If Azerbaijan agrees that the people of Nagornyy Karabakh have a right
for self-determination which can be implemented not at once but in
the future, then the Armenian side is ready to discuss already today
the elimination of the consequences of the conflict – territories,
refugees and other security issues,” Oskanyan said.

RUSSIA AGAINST HASTE IN RESOLVING GEORGIAN-OSSETIAN CONFLICT
RIA Novosti, Moscow
18 Apr 06
Tbilisi, 18 April: Hastening the process of settlement in South Ossetia
and Abkhazia could lead to the situation deteriorating, Russian Deputy
Foreign Minister and Foreign Ministry’s State Secretary Grigoriy
Karasin told RIA-Novosti today.
Karasin was in Georgia on a one-day working visit, during which he
held talks with representatives of the Georgian Foreign Ministry,
the leaders of the republic of South Ossetia and the command of the
Joint Peacekeeping Forces in the Georgian-Ossetian conflict zone.
“I think the theory of rushing and acceleration is unjustifiable. The
main condition for progressing in such conflicts is to nurture mutual
trust between conflicting sides. This should be done not through
intimidating but persuading that the situation must be resolved by
predictable peaceful means,” Karasin believes.
He noted that during the consultations they “discussed the whole
range of bilateral relations, including the most difficult aspects,
which have accumulated in the last months and years”.
“I would described the consultations in Tbilisi as not easy but
useful. They have given us good food for thought and let us compare
out attitudes towards the problems. First of all, we discussed the
atmosphere of bilateral relations, because it is very difficult and
causes anxiety. Both sides clearly see that they need to continue
contacts on various levels, exchange opinions in a frankly and
business-like manner and try to make them closer wherever possible,”
he said.
Karasin said that in South Ossetia he had been able “to see what
a conflict zone is, what Tkhinvali is, how people live”. “This is
very important for understanding what happens around South Ossetia,”
he said.
“We have once again confirmed our view that our peacekeepers are a
very important and necessary part of a settlement, as they prevent
escalation and bloodshed. We have seen once again that the format of
the Joint Control Commission is the most efficient and unique method
of moving forward and there is no point in breaking it under various
pretexts,” Karasin said.
He believes that “one has to fully honour the agreements which have
already been reached and try to find new ways to move forward”.
Earlier this morning Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Grigoriy Karasin
left Tbilisi for Yerevan, where a regional conference of Russian
ambassadors to Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Turkey will take place.
In addition, Karasin said, meetings with Armenian leaders are planned
in Yerevan.

SILENT FOR TOO LONG, THE WITNESSES TO EVIL
Robert Fisk
The Independent – United Kingdom
Apr 08, 2006
A quote from the cops. I was in Oslo when I received the SMS on my
Lebanese mobile phone from the country’s Internal Security Forces,
Lebanon’s paramilitary ISF. “Dear citizen,” it began – and I have
to admit, I liked the assumption of Lebanese citizenship. “Starting
March 15th, the Internal Security Forces will be dealing strictly
with traffic contraventions. Be co-operative for your safety. The ISF.”
Now I’m sure the “for your safety” bit was just a figure of speech’
I would be safer in my car if I wore my seatbelt, wouldn’t I? Was that
why my driver Abed met me at Beirut airport strapped into his seatbelt
for the first time? Or was there a threat? That in order to be “safe”
I should be “‘co-operative”?
All the same, I like cops. They know what we journalists want to know
(along, I suppose, with criminals whose own mentality, I suspect,
has a lot in common with policemen and reporters). But in Lebanon
these past few days, we’ve been learning quite a lot about what the
cops know – or knew – about the past: like who killed the Lebanese
Druze leader Kemal Jumblatt.
Jumblatt Senior – as opposed to his mercifully still living son Walid
who is under constant threat of Syrian assassination – was murdered
on 16 March 1977, shot dead in his car as he drove near his home in
the Chouf mountains. We all suspected at the time that the Syrians
were involved’ Kemal had turned down an invitation to visit the
late President Hafez el-Assad of Syria in Damascus to discuss the
Lebanese civil war – the equivalent at that time, of refusing Henry
VIII a divorce.
But now along comes my old friend General Issam Abu Zaki, former
head of the Lebanese judicial police, to spill the beans. For General
Abu Zaki – a man so generous he once gave away his much-loved worry
beads because a female friend of mine was rash enough to admire them –
turns out to have been the cop in charge of the Jumblatt murder case.
In 1977, an American car containing drugs had been discovered at
Beirut port, the general has revealed in the Beirut daily AnNahar
newspaper. But outside the gates of the port, the vehicle was stopped
at a Syrian military checkpoint. The Lebanese judicial police later
confirmed that a Syrian intelligence officer based in the Beirut
suburb of Sin el-Fil – a major in rank – stated in writing that he
was in possession of the car.
“A short time later,” Abu Zaki writes, “the car made an appearance in
the Chouf, lying in wait for Kemal Jumblatt as he headed … to attend
a party political meeting. As Jumblatt’s car passed the American car,
the latter pulled out and tailed the Druze leader’s vehicle. The
pursuing car had four people in it, two in civilian clothes, the
other two in military uniforms. Upon leaving the town of Baaqleen,
the suspect American vehicle intercepted Jumblatt’s car.
“Kemal Jumblatt’s bodyguards were bundled into the American vehicle,
and two of the pursuers replaced them… the two cars had barely
travelled 900 metres when something happened that evidently took the
abductors by surprise, for they braked suddenly, as evidenced by the
tyre skid marks on the road left by Jumblatt’ s car. The sudden stop
led to the American car crashing into the back of Jumblatt’ s car. At
this moment the heinous crime took place.”
Jumblatt was murdered with a shot in the head – his brains splashed
over the morning news-paperhehadbeen reading when he was ambushed –
and the killers made their escape. From the knives found in Jumblatt’s
car, Abu Zaki and his cops suspected the attackers intended to take
the Druze leader to a neighbouring Christian village where they
would have cut his throat and thus provoked further atrocities in
Lebanon’s already two-year-old civil war. But Jumblatt struggled with
the Syrians who were forced to shoot him on the spot.
Or so Abu Zaki surmises. Jumblatt’s son Walid told me this week he
believes this story to be true – just as did a Beirut flower seller
called Abu Talib who reported to Abu Zaki back in 1977 that the Syrian
killers had later stopped at a Hamra Street hotel in the city.
So too, apparently, did the Lebanese judicial investigative judge,
Hassan Qawass, who survived an abduction attempt and a missile attack
on his Beirut home when he refused to drop the case. Alas, a “highly
placed legal authority” in Lebanon was later suborned to close the
Jumblatt file.
But now we know a little more about that 1977 murder and so Abu Zaki
wonders whether we will also know the truth about the assassination
last year of former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq Hariri whose death
is being investigated, in ever more lacklustre a fashion, it seems,
by the UN. Yet it raises other, bigger questions.
Why, for example, don’t cops and diplomats and statesmen come out
with the facts at the time? Why do they wait till their retirement
to blurt out the truth? Why did we only know the truth from the top
about Vietnam after Robert McNamara had become a Grand Old Man of
Letters? Why did we have to wait for decades to know that General
Sir Douglas Haig lied in 1916? Why do we have to wait until 2006 to
learn that we tortured Germans in 1946?
Well, just look at what has happened to John Evans, the US ambassador
to Armenia who – while in office – told the truth about the Armenian
holocaust, the genocide by the Ottoman Turks which killed one and
a half million Armenian Christians in 1915. Before he was elected
president, George W Bush promised the Armenians of America that he
would acknowledge this genocide. Once in office, however, he caved in,
gutlessly calling it a “tragedy” so that he wouldn’t get his fingers
burned by that wonderful democratic Nato ally – and would-be EU member
– called Turkey.
But there was Ambassador Evans on 19 February this year telling
Armenians in the Bay area of San Francisco that “as someone who has
studied it, there’s no doubt in my mind what happened. I think it is
unbecoming of us, as Americans, to play word games here. I believe
in calling things by their name. I will today call it the Armenian
genocide”.
The luckless but over-truthful ambassador has since been constrained by
the State Department to remark that “although I told my audience that
United States policy on the Armenian tragedy (sic) has not changed,
I used the term ‘genocide’, speaking in what I characterised as my
personal capacity”.
Phew! But I think I get it. If you want to spill the beans while in
office, you have to tell the truth only in “a personal capacity”. The
mass rape and slaughter of tens of thousands of Armenian girls in
1915 can only be acknowledged in a “personal capacity”. The mass
murder of Turkish Armenia’s manhood in 1915 can only be conceded in a
“personal capacity”. And even then you are liable to get fired.
Well, I have a little nudge of the arm to make here. In October,
I shall be lecturing in Turkey on the Armenian genocide. I shall be
doing so as Middle East correspondent of The Independent as well as
author of a book whose Turkish edition will carry a whole chapter on
the Armenian holocaust. I don’t have to talk in a “personal capacity”
although I might like to have General Abu Zaki at my side. For what
the Lebanese ISF would no doubt call my “safety”.
If you want to spill the beans while in office, you have to do it in
‘a personal capacity’.

AZERBAIJAN LEADER’S U.S. VISIT RAISES EYEBROWS
By C. J. Chivers
The New York Times
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 19, 2006
MOSCOW Next week, after years of waiting for an unequivocal nod
of Western approval, President Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan will
fly to Washington to be received at the White House, a visit his
administration hopes will enhance his stature.
Being a guest of President George W. Bush is being billed in Aliyev’s
circle as a chance for the 44-year-old president – marked with
allegations of corruption, election rigging and pinpointed repression
against opposition figures – to gain more international legitimacy.
“We have long waited for this visit,” said Ali Gasanov, head of the
president’s public and political office. “Now it has been scheduled
and we hope that we will be able to discuss global issues.”
For President George W. Bush, who has made democracy promotion a
prominent theme of his foreign policy, Aliyev’s visit could prove
tricky.
Aliyev’s invitation arrived at time of increasing diplomatic
difficulties between the United States and both Russian and Iran,
two counties that border Azerbaijan.
But while Azerbaijan’s strategic location could hardly be better and
its relations with the United States have mostly been warm, no leader
in the region more fully embodies the sometimes conflicting pulls of
American objectives in the former Soviet Union than its president,
an ally with political warts.
Aliyev is a secular Muslim politician who is steering his nation’s
oil and gas to Western markets and who has lent public and military
support the war in Iraq. But his administration has never held a
clean election, and it has used riot police officers to break up
anti-government demonstrations with force.
The invitation has raised eyebrows in the former Soviet world, where
Bush’s calls for democratization have increased tensions between
opposition movements and the entrenched autocrats.
Opposition leaders have long said the United States’ desire to
diversify Western energy sources and to encourage democratic growth
have collided in Azerbaijan. With Aliyev’s invitation to the White
House, made last week, they now say Bush has made a choice: Oil and
location trump other concerns.
Ali Kerimli, leader of the Popular Front of Azerbaijan, noted that
when Aliyev was elected in 2003 in a vote deemed neither free nor
fair, the White House withheld an invitation, waiting for improvement
in Azerbaijan’s record of promoting civil society and recognizing
human rights.
“It is difficult for Azerbaijan’s democratic forces to understand what
changed,” said Kerimli, who was beaten by police officers in front
of this correspondent with several thousand demonstrators during a
crackdown on a protest against fraudulent parliamentary elections
last fall. The demonstration had been peaceful until police rushed
in with clubs.
“I think the White House must explain what has happened when three
years ago Aliyev was not wanted for a reception in the White House,
and now he falsifies another election and is received,” he said.
American officials insist nothing has changed, and that Aliyev has
been invited to what they call a “working visit,” during which he
will be urged to liberalize his government and its economy, which is
tightly controlled by state officials and clans.
“If we are going to elevate our relationship with Azerbaijan to
something that is qualitatively different, than there has to be
progress on democratic and market reforms,” a senior State Department
official said. “I am sure we will talk in these clear and blunt terms.”
The United States’ relationship with Azerbaijan rests on three
principal issues: access to energy resources, international security
cooperation, and democratic and economic reforms.
On the first two of these issues the United States has made clear
its satisfaction. Aliyev has supported new pipelines to pump Caspian
hydrocarbons away from Russia and Iran to Western customers, and
provided troops to U.S.-led military operations in Afghanistan
and Iraq.
Azerbaijan also grants overflight rights to the American military and
is cooperating with a Pentagon-sponsored modernization of a former
Soviet airfield that could be used by American military planes.
Aliyev often greets foreign delegations in Baku, the capital,
briefing them in smooth English on his efforts to push his nation
toward Western models of democracy and free markets.
But Azerbaijan has remained undemocratic.
No election held under the Aliyevs’ rule has been judged free or fair
by the principal international observers; instead, fraud and abuse
of state resources for chosen candidates have been widespread.
Aliyev’s government also maintains a distinctly Soviet state television
network and its elevation of the late Heydar Aliyev, the president’s
father, has created a minor personality cult.
Moreover, the Azeri government is often described as one of the
world’s most corrupt; an ongoing criminal case in federal court in
New York, against three international speculators, describes massive
shakedowns and bribes in the late 1990s at Socar, Azerbaijan’s state
oil company. Aliyev was a Socar vice president at the time.
American officials say that Azerbaijan has been liberalizing slowly,
and evolving into a more responsible state. But given Aliyev’s uneven
record and the allegations against him, his visit has raised questions
about the degree to which American standards are malleable.
“Russian public opinion, when it looks at the United States policy in
Azerbaijan, can not ignore the fact that the United States has a desire
not in favor of democracy but in favor of profits and geopolitical
domination,” said Sergei Markov, director of the Institute of Political
Studies in Moscow and an advisor to the Kremlin.
Markov and others have noted that the West has applied sanctions
against Belarus for police crackdowns after tainted elections last
month.
“This is one of the reasons that Russian public opinion is very
suspicious of United States policies in the former Soviet political
sphere, and its propaganda about democracy,” he said.
“Ilham Aliyev will be in the White House not because he promotes
democracy.
He will be in the White House because he controls oil.”
In Armenia, which has fought a war with Azerbaijan over
Nagorno-Karabakh, a wedge of Azeri territory that both nations claim,
Aliyev’s invitation has also generated interest. The conflict has
been frozen for several years, but Aliyev’s statements in recent
months have often been bellicose.
“The visit at this time should not be viewed as appreciation of their
democratic or other policies,” Vartan Oskanian, Armenia’s foreign
minister, said in an e-mail message. “There are also serious issues
which need to be raised with them.”
Diplomats insist that Azeri leaders are cooperative in private
sessions, and pledge to move the country on a democratic path. But in
public the Azeri leadership typically acknowledges Western criticism
in passing, and sometimes has waved the complaints away.
About the post-election criticism, Gasanov said, “We consider that
criticism between friendly nations and we hope that the reasons for
the criticism will not be raised again.”
MOSCOW Next week, after years of waiting for an unequivocal nod
of Western approval, President Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan will
fly to Washington to be received at the White House, a visit his
administration hopes will enhance his stature.
Being a guest of President George W. Bush is being billed in Aliyev’s
circle as a chance for the 44-year-old president – marked with
allegations of corruption, election rigging and pinpointed repression
against opposition figures – to gain more international legitimacy.
“We have long waited for this visit,” said Ali Gasanov, head of the
president’s public and political office. “Now it has been scheduled
and we hope that we will be able to discuss global issues.”
For President George W. Bush, who has made democracy promotion a
prominent theme of his foreign policy, Aliyev’s visit could prove
tricky.
Aliyev’s invitation arrived at time of increasing diplomatic
difficulties between the United States and both Russian and Iran,
two counties that border Azerbaijan.
But while Azerbaijan’s strategic location could hardly be better and
its relations with the United States have mostly been warm, no leader
in the region more fully embodies the sometimes conflicting pulls of
American objectives in the former Soviet Union than its president,
an ally with political warts.
Aliyev is a secular Muslim politician who is steering his nation’s
oil and gas to Western markets and who has lent public and military
support the war in Iraq. But his administration has never held a
clean election, and it has used riot police officers to break up
anti-government demonstrations with force.
The invitation has raised eyebrows in the former Soviet world, where
Bush’s calls for democratization have increased tensions between
opposition movements and the entrenched autocrats.
Opposition leaders have long said the United States’ desire to
diversify Western energy sources and to encourage democratic growth
have collided in Azerbaijan. With Aliyev’s invitation to the White
House, made last week, they now say Bush has made a choice: Oil and
location trump other concerns.
Ali Kerimli, leader of the Popular Front of Azerbaijan, noted that
when Aliyev was elected in 2003 in a vote deemed neither free nor
fair, the White House withheld an invitation, waiting for improvement
in Azerbaijan’s record of promoting civil society and recognizing
human rights.
“It is difficult for Azerbaijan’s democratic forces to understand what
changed,” said Kerimli, who was beaten by police officers in front
of this correspondent with several thousand demonstrators during a
crackdown on a protest against fraudulent parliamentary elections
last fall. The demonstration had been peaceful until police rushed
in with clubs.
“I think the White House must explain what has happened when three
years ago Aliyev was not wanted for a reception in the White House,
and now he falsifies another election and is received,” he said.
American officials insist nothing has changed, and that Aliyev has
been invited to what they call a “working visit,” during which he
will be urged to liberalize his government and its economy, which is
tightly controlled by state officials and clans.
“If we are going to elevate our relationship with Azerbaijan to
something that is qualitatively different, than there has to be
progress on democratic and market reforms,” a senior State Department
official said. “I am sure we will talk in these clear and blunt terms.”
The United States’ relationship with Azerbaijan rests on three
principal issues: access to energy resources, international security
cooperation, and democratic and economic reforms.
On the first two of these issues the United States has made clear
its satisfaction. Aliyev has supported new pipelines to pump Caspian
hydrocarbons away from Russia and Iran to Western customers, and
provided troops to U.S.-led military operations in Afghanistan
and Iraq.
Azerbaijan also grants overflight rights to the American military and
is cooperating with a Pentagon-sponsored modernization of a former
Soviet airfield that could be used by American military planes.
Aliyev often greets foreign delegations in Baku, the capital,
briefing them in smooth English on his efforts to push his nation
toward Western models of democracy and free markets.
But Azerbaijan has remained undemocratic.
No election held under the Aliyevs’ rule has been judged free or fair
by the principal international observers; instead, fraud and abuse
of state resources for chosen candidates have been widespread.
Aliyev’s government also maintains a distinctly Soviet state television
network and its elevation of the late Heydar Aliyev, the president’s
father, has created a minor personality cult.
Moreover, the Azeri government is often described as one of the
world’s most corrupt; an ongoing criminal case in federal court in
New York, against three international speculators, describes massive
shakedowns and bribes in the late 1990s at Socar, Azerbaijan’s state
oil company. Aliyev was a Socar vice president at the time.
American officials say that Azerbaijan has been liberalizing slowly,
and evolving into a more responsible state. But given Aliyev’s uneven
record and the allegations against him, his visit has raised questions
about the degree to which American standards are malleable.
“Russian public opinion, when it looks at the United States policy in
Azerbaijan, can not ignore the fact that the United States has a desire
not in favor of democracy but in favor of profits and geopolitical
domination,” said Sergei Markov, director of the Institute of Political
Studies in Moscow and an advisor to the Kremlin.
Markov and others have noted that the West has applied sanctions
against Belarus for police crackdowns after tainted elections last
month.
“This is one of the reasons that Russian public opinion is very
suspicious of United States policies in the former Soviet political
sphere, and its propaganda about democracy,” he said.
“Ilham Aliyev will be in the White House not because he promotes
democracy.
He will be in the White House because he controls oil.”
In Armenia, which has fought a war with Azerbaijan over
Nagorno-Karabakh, a wedge of Azeri territory that both nations claim,
Aliyev’s invitation has also generated interest. The conflict has
been frozen for several years, but Aliyev’s statements in recent
months have often been bellicose.
“The visit at this time should not be viewed as appreciation of their
democratic or other policies,” Vartan Oskanian, Armenia’s foreign
minister, said in an e-mail message. “There are also serious issues
which need to be raised with them.”
Diplomats insist that Azeri leaders are cooperative in private
sessions, and pledge to move the country on a democratic path. But in
public the Azeri leadership typically acknowledges Western criticism
in passing, and sometimes has waved the complaints away.
About the post-election criticism, Gasanov said, “We consider that
criticism between friendly nations and we hope that the reasons for
the criticism will not be raised again.”

GREECE COMMEMORATES ARMENIAN GENOCIDE VICTIMS
PanARMENIAN.Net
18.04.2006 23:30 GMT+04:00
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ The Armenian Embassy in Greece along with
the Armenian community hold a series of events, marking the
91st anniversary of the Armenian Genocide in Ottoman Turkey in
1915-1923. April 15 a mourning liturgy was offered in Nea Smirna
Athenian region, where a monument to Armenian Genocide victims is
established.
Armenian Ambassador to Greece Vahram Kazhoyan, Athens Municipality
representatives and other officials addressed the ceremony. Cadets from
Armenia, who study in Greece, also laid flowers to the monument. After
the ceremony a procession headed to the Turkish Embassy in Athens.
April 16 in Atikon Hall a session with participation of the authorities
of the Greek capital, ARFD and Ramkavar Azatakan Party was held. Public
representatives, Greek MPs, as well as Ambassador Kazhoyan addressed
those present. The event then continued into a procession to the
Sinagma Square and laying flowers to the grave of the unknown soldier,
reports the Press Service of the Armenian MFA.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress