AZERBAIJAN, ARMENIA SEE EYE-TO-EYE ON CLEARANCE OF MINES
by E. Huseynov
Trend news agency, Azerbaijan
Oct 4 2005
Baku, 4 October: An agreement on the clearance of mines has already
been secured during the talks on the peaceful resolution of the
Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict over Nagornyy Karabakh, Azerbaijani
Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov has told journalists, Trend news
agency reports.
He said that the clearance of mines is a crucial process and will
be of overriding importance once Armenia pulls out of the occupied
territories. The clearance of mines is one of the topics on which an
agreement was reached during the consultations with Armenia and the
OSCE Minsk Group co-chairmen.
The next round of the talks may take place in Ljubljana on 3-4
December on the sidelines of the OSCE foreign ministers’ summit,
Mammadyarov said. “The meeting in Ljubljana is not definite yet, but
I will certainly be there,” the minister said and added that during
the consultations, the discussion will continue within the framework
of the “Prague process”.
Asked about possible work on a draft agreement on the peaceful
resolution of the conflict, Mammadyarov said: “We still have to agree
on conceptual issues. Only after that, can we say whether there will
be a document or not. It is still too early and there is no talk
about any document.”
There has been some progress during the talks, but there is no talk
about an official document, the minister said. “Certainly, something
is taken down and is under discussion. We will summarize our position
and so will Armenia, and the co-chairmen are working to summarize
this. But it is still too early to talk about an official document,”
Mammadyarov said.

ARMENIA HOPES THAT AMID EU ACCESSION TALKS, TURKEY WILL RECOGNIZE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE
Associated Press Worldstream
October 5, 2005 Wednesday 4:13 AM Eastern Time
YEREVAN, Armenia
Armenia hopes that Turkey will recognize the early 20th-century
massacre of Armenians as genocide during its accession talks with
the European Union, the Foreign Ministry said Wednesday.
Ministry spokesman Gamlet Gasparian said Yerevan also hoped the talks
would push Turkey to open its border with Armenia and “take real
steps in its country for the full guarantee of rights and freedoms
of national minorities.”
Eastern Turkey was once a heartland of Armenian culture but was
consumed by ethnic conflict as the Ottoman Empire splintered at the
end of World War I.
Yerevan says Turks slaughtered 1.5 million Armenians. Turkey strongly
denies there was any genocide, saying Armenians were killed due to
civil unrest.
Turkey is under pressure from the European Union to address the
genocide issue.
Turkey closed its border with Armenia in 1993 during Christian
Armenia’s six-year war with Muslim Azerbaijan. Landlocked Armenia
says the border closure is devastating its economy.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

ARMENIA BUYS WAR PLANES FROM RUSSIA – AZERI AGENCY
Turan news agency, Azerbaijan
Oct 3 2005
Baku, 3 October: Armenian Deputy Defence Minister Artur Agabekyan
said few days ago that Armenia had bought 10 fighter jets. But he
did not name the model of the jets and a country where they were made.
The Armenian media reported yesterday that these were new Russian-made
SU-27 fighter jets bought from Slovakia. Turan news agency has learned
from informed military sources that only two or three of those jets
are SU-27. The other aircraft are SU-25 and several MI-24 helicopter
gunships. But even if this is the case, the purchase of this military
hardware must be seriously analysed.
First of all, this means that Moscow made a serious and unfriendly
step against Baku. The point is that the new SU-27 fighter jets are
produced only in Russia (in Komsomolsk-na-Amure) and Slovakia could
be only a middleman in this deal.
As for the SU-25 jets and MI-24 helicopter gunships, they are probably
second-hand jets and helicopters, which could also be bought from
Russia. In Russia, as well as in many other countries, arms trade is
the prerogative of the state, i.e. part of state policy.
Moscow knows very well that by selling this military hardware to
Yerevan it considerably increases Armenia’s military potential.
However, the deal is also interesting from the commercial point of
view. The point is that SU-27, which costs 20m dollars, is one of
the most expensive fighter jets which Armenia cannot afford. Why did
Moscow present Armenia with a gift like this? There can be several
reasons for this.
There is no doubt this move is aimed only at exerting pressure on
Baku. This might be a response to Baku’s rapprochement with NATO and
the country’s readiness for further military cooperation with the USA,
particularly its consent to implement the Caspian Guard project.
It is also known that some high-ranking officials in Russia are
involved in arms trade, using bogus or partner companies in Slovakia.
Finally, as a member of the CSTO (the Collective Security Treaty
Organization) Russia can sell arms to other member of the alliance
at low prices.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

AZERI MINISTER BLAMES ARMENIANS FOR FLOOD IN WESTERN DISTRICT
ANS TV, Azerbaijan
Oct 4 2005
[Presenter] Minister of Ecology and Natural Resources Huseyn Bagirov
has explained why 150 ha of arable land and over 20 houses have been
flooded in the villages of Zangisali and Mahrizli in Agdam District.
Armenians are using the water reservoir in the Armenian-occupied
village of Saricali precisely for this purpose.
[Bagirov] According to information available to us, this is rain
water. I do not believe that it collected naturally because if this was
the case, it would have also collected earlier and these streams would
have existed earlier. The Armenians have fortifications, and the troops
of the occupying army are not far from there. We suppose that this
is an artificial lake and that was the intention, which they achieved.

THE GREEK DM TO VISIT ARMENIA
Source: “Regnum”, October 3, 2005
Agency WPS
DEFENSE and SECURITY (Russia)
October 5, 2005, Wednesday
the Greek delegation headed by the Defense Minister Spilios
Spiliotolus will visit Armenia on October 4. This statement was made
by Colonel Seyran Shakhsuvaryan, press secretary of the Armenian
defense minister. The visit plans meetings with President Robert
Kochyaryan of Armenia, Prime Minister Andrannik Margaryan, Defense
Minister Serge Sarkisyan.

INTERVIEW WITH PATRICK DEVEDJIAN: “TURKEY HAS GIVEN NO EVIDENCE OF DEMOCRACY”
Interviewed by Charles Jaigu
Le Figaro, France (Translated from French)
Oct 4 2005
[Jaigu] You have regained your seat as deputy on the eve of the
start of the negotiations with Turkey. Are you still demanding their
suspension?
[Devedjian] I want this because Turkey is not a democratic state. I
do not see why Erdogan’s Turkey should be exempted from what we
demanded from Salazar’s Portugal, the colonels’ Greece, and very
recently Croatia. [European Commission Vice-President] Guenter
Vergeugen’s 2004 report states that torture is no longer practised
“systematically”. How reassuring! I would add that the island of
Cyprus is now part of European territory and that the Turkish Army
occupies part of that territory. This is the first time in its history
that the EU has negotiated with an occupying army! Those who cite
[former French President] General de Gaulle really should realize
how scandalous this is.
[Jaigu] Is Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan not right to
criticize the opponents of Turkey’s candidacy for their adherence to a
“Christian club”?
[Devedjian] Europe is not a Christian club: it is a democrats’ club.
Mr Erdogan is in the worst position to accuse us Europeans of forming
a religious club. We must remember that he leads a country that
has driven out almost all Christians and Jews. By opposing northern
Cyprus’s EU membership, he denied many Muslims living there accession
to the Union.
[Jaigu] Is it not rather late to call for France to veto the start
of negotiations?
[Devedjian] Turkey has pledged to become a democratic country! But it
has given no evidence of it. On the contrary, it has promulgated a new
criminal code that destroys press freedom, it refuses to recognize
Cyprus, it still uses torture, and it refuses to countenance a
recognition of the Armenian genocide, which shows that it is unable
to come to terms with its past.
[Jaigu] Nicolas Sarkozy himself has chosen “not to exaggerate”
his disagreements with the president over the Turkish question. He
has pointed out that the French people will without fail vote in a
referendum once the negotiations are over.
[Devedjian] There has already been a first referendum, 29 May, which
amply demonstrated that the French public oppose Turkey’s accession
and the EU’s indefinite enlargement. At the same time, we cannot say
that we were wrong to “keep Turkey waiting” for 14 years, while at
the same time proposing to continue doing so for a further 15 years.
Our government can well use its veto rights, as Austria is considering
doing. I would point out that [Prime Minister] Dominique de Villepin
said on 2 August that it was impossible to envisage starting
negotiations until Turkey had recognized Cyprus. I would be pleased
with that stance, if it were to be maintained. But it seems to me
that the prime minister has abandoned it.
[Jaigu] What is your reply to Jean-Louis Debre, who said on Sunday
[2 October] that “if we do not honour political loyalty, we are living
in a republic that I do not like”?
[Devedjian] I am not a member of the government, so I am entirely free
to speak. My mandate has just been renewed by voters who often convey
to me their criticisms of the government for not taking account of
the referendum and allowing European enlargement by Turkey to take
place. I would also point out that Jean-Louis Debre, speaker of the
National Assembly, accused then Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin
of pursuing a “self-seeking” policy. Neither I nor my friends have
gone as far when speaking about a prime minister. In any case, a
distinction must be drawn between substantive criticisms, which are
constructive, and personal attacks, which are to be deplored.
[Jaigu] Nevertheless since last week we have seen a desire to calm
the climate on Nicolas Sarkozy’s part.
[Devedjian] I think that it is part of his role as party leader to
rally the coalition forces together while clearing the way ahead. But
he clearly has a responsibility to government solidarity, which also
explains his desire to calm the situation.
[Jaigu] According to a TNS-Sofres opinion poll conducted for Le
Figaro Magazine , Nicolas Sarkozy has been overtaken by Dominique de
Villepin in terms of popularity. The UMP chairman has apparently lost
some points, particularly among left-wing voters.
[Devedjian] Dominique de Villepin’s anti-US posture in 2003 greatly
pleased the left. But I would point out that if Dominique de Villepin
wants to compete in the second round of the presidential election he
first needs to be elected in the first round, and by the right.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

LATVIAN LEADER BACKS AZERBAIJAN’S TERRITORIAL INTEGRITY
Turan news agency, Azerbaijan
Oct 3 2005
Baku, 3 October: “Latvia’s position on the Armenian-Azerbaijani
conflict coincides with that of the European Union. We support
the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan,” Latvian President Vaira
Vike-Freiberga told a news conference following her talks with
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev today.
She said that it is worrying when territorial integrity of sovereign
states is violated. At the same time, she spoke for a peaceful solution
to the conflict on the basis of mutual compromises.
In turn, Aliyev said that the conflict should be solved within the
territorial integrity of Azerbaijan and Nagornyy Karabakh can be
granted autonomy similar to these existing in Europe.
Vike-Freiberga welcomed Azerbaijan’s aspiration to close cooperation
with the European Union.

DIVA IS DEAD-SET: DIAMANDA GALAS
by ALISON BARCLAY
Herald Sun (Melbourne, Australia)
October 5, 2005 Wednesday
Defixiones: Friday, 8pm.
Songs of Exile: Monday, 8pm. Where: Hamer Hall.
Tickets: $19-$65.
Bookings: 1300 136 166.
SHE was born 50 years ago and hasn’t died yet. If Diamanda Galas can
wrest her ancestral gods of Olympus to her desires, she never will.
“We Greeks don’t really believe in life after death. We believe
in death after death,” the Greek-American musician says with
blood-curdling emphasis.
“We are absolutely mortified by death — ooh, bad word. Terrified
by death.”
Terrified? This from the woman who sings of the worst types of death
and has spent the past 20 years becoming an expert on it?
But Galas is sharp on her subject. For the brother and friends she
lost to AIDS, she wrote Plague Mass.
Last in Melbourne in 2001 with La Serpenta Canta, she returns this
weekend with Songs of Exile and Defixiones: Orders from the Dead.
The latter is an operatic mass for those who died in the Armenian,
Assyrian and Pontic Greek genocides from 1914-23.
Most of these she has recorded, but the question about whether her
work will survive her, whether she may achieve immortality via CD,
brings a sigh of profound longing.
“One would love to think such things, but it isn’t true,” she says.
“Greeks certainly feel we should live forever — and what is wrong
with that? I really do not appreciate this sentence of mortality. I
take issue with the gods about that!”
Styled for a concert, Galas is the nightmare life-in-death, with
sootened eyes and talons that recall that oddly comforting rumour
about fingernails continuing to grow after the ghost has left the body.
But on the phone from Italy, where she toured before coming here,
she is energetic, funny and friendly.
Unlike the Greek Americans she complains are “invisible” — and silent
about past atrocities committed against them — Galas has a big mouth.
She loves Greek Australians because they do, too.
“There is no comparison. When I have spoken to Greeks in Australia,
wow, there are so many genocide scholars in Australia.
“And I’m telling you, there is no comparison between the consciousness
of the Australian Greeks and the American Greeks. It is a completely
different world.
“A lot of the Greeks don’t even want to discuss it in Greece, and
they don’t want to be Greek. They want to be French!
“They say ‘Oh, let’s be friends with the Turks’. And I say shut the
f— up!”
She wonders if her outspokenness cost her a gig at the Athens Olympics
last year.
“I was going to sing, but they chose Bjork instead,” she says.
“She is a lovely singer, but what she has to do with Greece is beyond
me. Instead of a Greek singer they chose an Icelandic singer because
they don’t want to be Greek. They want to be European.”
THAT genocides are allowed to keep happening has much to do with
nations protecting trade, Galas says.
Mass death “is an insignificant problem, economically speaking,
if it gets in the way of larger interests”.
Hurricane Katrina is a case in point. “Here we have in our own country
a disaster in which the individuals must take action because the
government completely ignores it,” she says.
“If anyone had any doubt about what was going on in Iraq, they now
know for sure. If Bush is treating his own people like this, imagine
what he is doing in Iraq.”
In speaking, as in singing, Galas barely pauses for breath, a legacy of
her training in bel canto technique, for which another Greek American,
Maria Callas, was famous.
Of Callas, Galas says: “I adore her beyond words. She was such a
magnificent musician.”
But it’s the Welsh tigress Shirley Bassey who makes her roar with
admiration: “She has a monstrous great voice. I am just astounded at
how great she is.”
From: Baghdasarian

KOCHARIAN WELCOMES IDEA OF CREATING REGIONAL CENTER OF LOCAL SELF-GOVERNMENT BODIES
Noyan Tapan News Agency
Oct 5 2005
YEREVAN, OCTOBER 5, NOYAN TAPAN. Completely established local
self-government bodies are important factors of stability of the
state. RA President Robert Kocharian stated about this receiving
Giovanni Di Stasi, the President of the Congress of Local and Regional
Authorities of Council of Europe, on October 5.
The President of the republic welcame the practical relations
established between the Congress of the Council of Europe and the
Government of Armenia.
According to Robert Kocharian, the decentralization is the main
direction of the regional policy what, first of all, means development
of local self-government. According to the President, that course
found its expressionin the draft constitutional reforms as well.
As Noyan Tapan was informed by the RA President’s Press Office, the
interlocutors exchanged opinions concerning the regional cooperation.
The Congress President of the Council of Europe arose idea of
creating a regional center of local self-government bodies, what,
according to him, will support establishment of economic, social,
cultural cooperation among them.
Welcoming that idea, the President of the republic said that Armenia
has always been for the regional cooperation and is of the opinion
that the cooperation will help creation of an atmosphere of mutual
confidence among parties and support an easier settlement of regional
problems.

RAFFI HOVHANNISIAN CONTINUES POLITICAL CONSULTATIONS AND STARTS MEETINGS IN ARMENIAN REGIONS
Noyan Tapan News Agency
Oct 5 2005
YEREVAN, OCTOBER 5, NOYAN TAPAN – ARMENIANS TODAY. Raffi Hovhannisian,
founder and head of the Armenian Center for National and International
Studies, Chairman of the “Zharangutiun” (“Heritage”) party, starts a
series of meetings with representatives of public and his supporters
in different regions of the country on the coming Sunday. Raffi
Hovhannisian informed representatives of mass media about it at the
reception in honor of the 11th anniversary of foundation of the
Center. It’s supposed that during these meetings he will explain
party’s negative position on draft constitutional amendments put to
the referendum. Other issues worrying the Armenian society will be
also discussed during the numerous scheduled meetings.
R.Hovhannisian also confirmed that he continues political consultations
on the issue of cooperation with both representatives of opposition
and civil society and the representatives of Armenian power who
realize the seriousness of the situation formed in the country and
the necessity in radical changes.
Raffi Hovhannisian considers that the most important task at the
current stage is to hold the referendum exactly in correspondence
with the international obligations assumed by Armenia. He especially
emphasized that all the stages of the process should be democratic
and transparent, starting from the moment of agitation up to the
calculation of votes, which should guarantee the trust of the society
in the referendum results.