FAKING IT: VODKA FLAVORED WITH CELERY AND TEA: A SEMI-OFFICIAL REVIEW
by Corina Zappia
Village Voice, NY
April 24 2006
Modern Spirits Vodka’s Grapefruit Honey infusion
photo: Corina Zappia
Occasionally we’re thrown a compliment we don’t quite deserve. A
PR rep or spirits company mistakes us for a seasoned oenophile or
fine-drink connoisseur, and an invite to an intimate tequila tasting
or a meal of beer-glazed specialties finds its way into our mailbox.
So we’ll swirl the $60-a-bottle liquor in the glass, or take a gentle,
modest sip vs. the happy-hour whore gulp.
At a vodka-pairing dinner we were recently invited to, it is clear
they mistook us for a serious critic. The maker of a new line of
infused vodkas, Modern Spirits, had invited us to try his wares with
a few select experts and distributors. It was a huge compliment. It
was also seven vodkas in a row.
The night’s recap:
Grapefruit Honey vodka Clean, sharp and vivid, grapefruit honey is
mildly tart with a hint of bitterness and a touch of sweetness from
a dollop of honey.
We walk into the private dining room at the Harrison and take our seat
with all the other people invited for the night’s event-the executive
editor of Saveur, Wine & Spirits folks, the president of James
Beard. The boozing commences with the creator/owner explaining the
origins of his company-he would make special flavored vodkas for his
wife to take to family functions, as she found the vodka his Armenian
relatives normally drank a bit hard to swallow. A heartwarming tale
of the lengths one will go to for love, granted, but clearly not the
most aggressive PR: Grapefruit-honey vodka needs a grander marketing
scheme. Grapefruit-honey vodka needs Mr. T endorsements.
Celery Peppercorn vodka The ultimate power drink. The celery’s green
bouquet is complemented by savory spices and a touch of heat from
Malabar peppercorn and dried red chilies.
This is our favorite: We like the peppery kick-it’s like a bloody
mary without tomato juice-and can’t help but notice at the end of the
party, all the foodie witches snatch away the freebie bottles of this
vodka first.
Black Truffle vodka Infused exclusively during the season, the
telltale scents of port, rich soil, pineapple and chocolate make this
a first-class libation.
It is around this time that the Wine & Spirits art director next
to us instructs us on the “swirl,” and why people do it. When you
swirl the liquor in a glass, the motion stirs up the oxygen and
releases the aroma. It actually works, and then you are supposed to
inhale deeply into your drink. Now we feel bad for making fun of the
critics who face-dive into their liquor, for there we are, face-diving
ourselves. (No. That’s a lie. We don’t feel bad. It looks dumb.)
We have a hard time comparing the taste to truffle oil, our only
prior experience with this mushroom. Truffle oil never seems that
memorable to us, beyond the fact that it’s expensive presence must
be formally announced whenever included in any dish.
Pear Lavender vodka Combining the lingering sweetness of pears with a
light touch of lavender creates an intimate and delicate infusion. It
is our ode to poetry.
We miss out on that ode for some reason. Nor can we taste the pear
or smell the lavender really. We have a feeling this is no reflection
on the liquor but has more to do with the multi-vodka diet we’ve been
on since the night began.
The evening wears on, and several more vodkas are tried: a candied
ginger (tastes exactly like ginger), tea (tastes like tea) and even
chocolate-orange (like eating a box of Godiva, without feeling like the
big fat pig you really are). We become completely wasted, drunkenly
catching our chair on the rug and stumbling to the bathroom, almost
spilling chocolate-orange vodka on our skirt, pushing past someone
to grab our free bottle of booze. We thank the alcohol maker for the
compliment of including us-then haul it out of there as fast as we can.

MOSCOW TEEN BEING HELD IN ALLEGED RACIALLY MOTIVATED SLAYING
Ayinde O. Chase – All Headline News Staff Writer
All Headline News
April 24 2006
Atlanta, GA (AHN) – Moscow police are holding a high school student
tied to the killing of an Armenian teenager in the Moscow subway over
the weekend.
A spokesman for the Moscow Prosecutor’s Office says, “A 17-year-old
student from a Moscow high school has been detained in connection with
the killing of an Armenian committed last Saturday,” adding that the
teenager had admitted his involvement in the incident.
Prosecutors believed the case to be racially motivated due to a string
of recent attacks aimed at foreigners or people with darker skin.
The latest victim was Vagan Abramyants, 17, of the Moscow Academy
of Management was attacked and stabbed to death on the platform of
Pushkinskaya metro station in the center of the capital at about 5
p.m. on Saturday.

ACTIVITY DEDICATED TO ARMENIAN GENOCIDE VICTIMS IN OTTOMAN EMPIRE IN 1915 HELD IN SWEDEN
ARKA News Agency, Armenia
April 24 2006
YEREVAN, April 24. /ARKA/. An activity dedicated to the Armenian
genocide victims in Ottoman Empire in 1915 was held in Upsala,
Sweden. The coordination center of Armenian unions of Sweden reported
that hundreds of Armenians, Swedes, representatives of political
entities and NGOs kept a moment of silence in the memory of the
Armenian genocide victims.
During the activity the professor of the university of Lund, the
author of the books “From Ararat to Nagorno-Karabakh” and “History
of the Genocide” Claus-Joran Karlsson held a lecture. In his turn,
the MP Ulla Hoffman pointed out the necessity for Sweden and other
European countries to support Armenia.
She denounced the Turkish policy of denying the genocide. “Without
Turkey’s recognizing the genocide and reconsidering her past,
development of real Armenian-Turkish relations and reconciliation
cannot be attained,” she said.
The representative of the green party, the member of Upsala’s town
council and candidate to Riksdag Helena Liedner pointed out that the
Swedish society should know about the Armenian genocide as much as
it knows about the Jews’ holocaust.
This activity was organized on the initiative of the Coordination
center of Armenian Unions of Sweden and the Armenian Cultural Union
of Upsala with the support of church councils, “Hayastan” All-Armenian
Foundation and the country’s NGOs.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

TURKEY: ARMENIANS RECALL ANNIVERSARY OF ‘GENOCIDE’
AKI, Italy
April 24 2006
Istanbul, 24 April (AKI) – Armenians worldwide Monday commemorated the
anniversary of the alleged genocide of more than 1,3 million Armenians
in 1915-1921 with the biggest demonstrations in New York, Brussels
and Paris. Turkey, which is seeking to join the European Union, is
under growing pressure to recognise its role in the slaughter. Ankara
firmly maintains the deaths of Armenians during the collapse of the
Ottoman empire were not part of a genocidal campaign, arguing that
many ethnic Turks were also killed in that period.
The Istanbul chief of Human Rights Association, Eren Keskin on Monday
said that 24 April symbolises the Armenian genocide and the state
should face with this fact.
“Denying the word ‘genocide’ is also denying the huge pain that
Armenians lived. Denying the genocide is a violation of human rights.
Denying the genocide is also preventing the mourning of Armenians”
she said in a press released on Monday.
The official view that the 1915-21 mass killings of Christian Armenians
under Muslim Ottoman rule never took place
Nearly 5,000 people marched after the service in St. Sarkisian
Church in Tehran. Under heavy security, the protestors chanted
‘Accept the genocide.’
In December 2005, French foreign minister Michel Barnier announced
that Turkey would be expected to recognize the event during EU
accession negotiations.
Best-selling Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk was prosecuted last year for
“insulting Turkish identity” by referring to the Armenian genocide in
a Swiss newspaper interview. Charges were dropped in February after
considerable international protest.
Small Armenian groups protested in front of the Turkish Embassy in
both Jerusalem and Tbilisi, Georgia.
Photo: Armenian protestors in Tehran insisting that the genocide of
1915-21 is recognised by Turkey.
.php?cat=Politics&loid=8.0.290459974&par=0
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

TURKS IN NY CITY MARCH AGAINST ARMENIAN ALLEGATIONS
STAR
Turkish Press
April 24 2006
Press Review
After years of being the scene of Armenian demonstrations, over
the weekend New York’s famous Times Square played host to Turkish
counter-demonstrations. In response to Armenians’ demonstrations for
today, April 24, which they call the anniversary of the so-called
genocide, Turks living in the US organized a rally entitled “End to
Armenian Lies.” Many Turks including Turkey’s Consul General to New
York Omer Onhon and Turkish Americans attended the demonstration
held by the Federation of Turkish-American Associations (FTAA) and
Association of Young Turks. “This march is Turkish society’s reaction
to the constant repetition of the Armenians’ baseless allegations,”
said Onhon.

ARMENIANS TO DEMONSTRATE TO MARK SO-CALLED GENOCIDE
Milliyet
Turkish Press
April 24 2006
Press Review
Armenians are expected to demonstrate up through next Tuesday in
front of the Turkish Embassy in Washington to mark what they call
Armenian commemoration day. A meeting to commemorate the so-called
Armenian genocide is also expected to be held at the US Congress. In
related news, US President George Bush is expected to release a
written statement on the issue, but not use the word “genocide,”
just s in previous years.

ARMENIAN PATRIARCH ADDRESSES SYMPOSIUM
Milliyet
Turkish Press
April 24 2006
Press Review
Mesrob II, the patriarch of Armenians in Turkey, yesterday addressed
a symposium held by Erciyes University, saying that it wasn’t morally
appropriate to put responsibility on just one side concerning the
so-called Armenian genocide. Mesrob stated that reflecting the truth
wasn’t always easy, adding that the new generation must learn the
facts about the issue.

WEST HOLLYWOOD REMEMBERS ARMENIAN GENOCIDE
CBS2 TV, CA
April 24 2006
(CBS) WEST HOLLYWOOD, Calif. Flags will fly at half-staff in West
Hollywood Monday to honor Armenian victims of genocide.
Monday is the 91st anniversary of what many Armenians consider the
start of the genocide, when Turkish authorities arrested 200 Armenian
community leaders.
An estimated 1.5 million Armenians died between 1915 and 1923 in the
waning days of Turkey’s Ottoman Empire.
The Turkish government maintains allegations of genocide have never
been proven.
“Armenian allegations of genocide have never been historically or
legally substantiated,” Turkish Ambassador Nabi Sensoy said in response
to the Public Broadcasting Service’s “Armenian Genocide” documentary.
The West Hollywood City Council has passed a resolution “condemning
the human rights violations of the Turkish government,” according to
City Councilman Jeffrey Prang’s office. The resolution was introduced
by Prang and Councilwoman Abbe Land.

KOCHARIAN BLAMES TURKEY AS ARMENIANS MARK GENOCIDE ANNIVERSARY
By Emil Danielyan and Astghik Bedevian
Radio Liberty, Czech Rep
April 24 2006
President Robert Kocharian said on Monday that modern-day Turkey is
responsible for the 1915 genocide of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire
as Armenia somberly marked the 91st anniversary of the start of the
mass killings and deportations.
Hundreds of thousands of people silently marched to a hilltop
memorial in Yerevan and laid flowers by its eternal fire in an annual
remembrance of some 1.5 million victims of what many historians believe
was the first genocide of the 20th century. Some of them carried
Armenian flags and banners denouncing Turkey’s long-standing claims
that the massacres occurred on a much smaller scale and therefore
did not constitute a genocide.
The day-long procession began, as usual, with a prayer service in
memory of the dead that was led by the head of the Armenian Apostolic
Church, Catholicos Garegin II, in the presence of President Robert
Kocharian, members of his government and other senior officials.
The heads of foreign diplomatic missions in Yerevan were the next to
lay wreathes at twelve bending columns that encircle the eternal fire
on Tsitsernakabert Hill overlooking the city center. Among them was
U.S. Ambassador to Armenia John Evans, the first American official
since President Ronald Reagan to publicly refer to the 1915-1918
massacres as genocide. “The Armenian Genocide was the first genocide of
the 20th century,” he declared in a February 2005 speech in California.
The U.S. government, which has so far avoided officially recognizing
the genocide for fear of antagonizing Turkey, disavowed Evans’s
remarks, saying that they reflected only his personal opinion. The
State Department reportedly plans to recall the envoy, a move which
would enrage the influential Armenian community in the United States.
Armenia’s leadership, meanwhile, reaffirmed its pledge to seek
worldwide recognition of the genocide in collaboration with Diaspora
Armenian lobbying groups in the West and to continue to raise the
issue in its dealings Turkey. “Our pain is all the more intense as we
are forced to struggle for the recognition and condemnation of that
black page of our history,” Kocharian said in a traditional April
24 written address to the nation. “As the defender of the interests
of the Armenians living in the homeland and around the world, the
Republic of Armenia will continue that struggle.”
Kocharian indicated that Ankara’s unrepentant stance on the issue
amounts to complicity in the genocide. “Ottoman Turkey and its legal
successor bear full responsibility for this crime,” he said.
Armenian leaders have refrained in the past from implicating the
existing Turkish state in the 1915 genocide. Kocharian’s statement
was welcomed as an “interesting news” by a spokesman for the Armenian
Revolutionary Federation, a nationalist governing party that favors
a firm Armenian stand on the issue. Giro Manoyan told RFE/RL that he
thinks Kocharian thus held Ankara responsible for “carrying out the
final phase of the genocide.”
Armenia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Arman Kirakosian, for his part
was quoted on Monday by the Turkish daily “Zaman” as saying that the
authorities in Yerevan “believe the Turkish people are not responsible
for the events of 1915.” “The Turkish administration at that time is
the responsible party,” Kirakosian said, according to “Zaman.”
In a famous 1987 resolution, the European Parliament denounced the
mass killings as a genocide but said “the present Turkey cannot be
held responsible for the tragedy experienced by the Armenians of the
Ottoman Empire.”

WHO IS AT THE TURN OF INTERESTS? US, RUSSIA AND NEW REALITY ON THE BORDER WITH IRAN
Regnum, Russia
April 24 2006
An unprecedented stir is up over Nagorno Karabakh. It seems that the
Armenian-Azeri presidential meeting in Rambouillet, on February 10-11,
has broken the very logic and the very format of the peace talks,
the OSCE Minsk Group has been mediating for as many as 15 years so far.
The remarkable meeting of Robert Kocharyan and Ilham Aliyev in France,
when the sides – as the Armenian President said – failed to agree
on “one key issue,” was followed by a meeting of the mediators in
Washington on March 9 – a rendezvous that gave the process quite an
sudden turn. For some unknown reasons, the OSCE MG co-chairs began
acting autonomously, and the Russian co-chair Yuri Merzlyakov –
the most passively of all. US Assistant Secretary of State for
Europe and Eurasia Daniel Fried visits the region on March 13-16 and
March 20 the co-chairs meet in Istanbul without Merzlyakov. Then,
the Armenian and Azeri FMs are invited to Washington, and Fried’s
deputy Matthew Bryza visits Yerevan and Baku. In the meantime, the
Armenian FM goes to Moscow, while the US and French co-chairs come
to Yerevan and Baku. Then comes the climax: the visit of the Iranian
DM to Baku, the consultation of the regional (Turkey, Azerbaijan,
Georgia) ambassadors of Russia and the Russian Deputy FM in Yerevan
(Moscow makes a kind of diplomatic gesture by holding such a meeting in
Yerevan), and the preparations for Ilham Aliyev’s visit to Washington.
This chronology will help us to see what may happen in the Karabakh
peace process in connection with the growing activity of the US and
the prospects of the key regional factor – the Iranian nuclear problem.
Much has been said and written about Washington’s plans and
specific efforts to involve Iran’s neighbor Azerbaijan in its future
anti-Iranian coalition and to use that country’s territory as a base
for its relevant actions. The US has been and is making these efforts
with persistence it would better apply for better purposes. For the
first time, US sources said that the final agreement on the matter
was reached during the “noiseless” visit of US Secretary of Defense
Donald Rumsfeld to Baku on April 12, 2005. They obviously hurried with
the news as Baku was stalwartly resisting. Baku’s motives are clear
and come from its full insight into Washington’s plan to put Tehran
down. With all mercantile interests put aside, the Bush administration
just wants Baku to be an accomplice in its in-depth destabilization
of the whole Black Sea-Caspian Sea region. Whatever its outcome,
this operation will be hardly pleasant for the South Caucasus –
and hardly short – considering the US’ endless campaign in Iraq.
But this is obviously the least concern for Washington, who is already
so keen on its Great Game that it no longer sees states and nations
around. Even more, since recently – more precisely, after the scandals
over the tortures in Abu Ghraib, CIA jails in some “democratized”
countries and phone tapping in the US – the Bush administration began
acting bluntly. They are no longer bothering with the fading-out
democracy flag – now their stakes are on the power of arms and bucks.
The interweaving aspects of the Karabakh and Iranian problems give
experts a certain foreboding: the almost simultaneous escalation of
diplomatic activity over the problems, the magic-like up-and-downs
in Azeri-Iranian relations, Tehran’s changeability towards Yerevan
and Baku, the unambiguous statements of the Iranian DM in Baku (he
expressed hope in Baku on April 20 that in Washington Azeri President
Ilham Aliyev will explain to the Americans that they should think
over their attitude towards Iran and said that Iran is ready to
help Azerbaijan to settle the Karabakh conflict) – all this looks
like somebody is trying to mix these two problems and to serve this
fire-damp mixture on one plate to the Azeri leadership.
If so, we should also think about what trumps the US may have promised
to Azerbaijan in exchange for its “anti-Iranian loyalty.” In fact,
there might be several promises: not to interfere in the internal
political affairs of that country, to help to return the territories
controlled by the Armenians and, later, to solve the Karabakh problem
itself – and also, probably, to become the security guarantor and
the stable buyer of the Azeri oil and to do everything possible for
the international markets not to notice the catastrophic shortage
of that oil. i.e. to do its best to involve Kazakhstan in the oil-
and gas-transit projects of Azerbaijan and Turkey. Quite a lot, as
we see. We can’t be sure, but the US may offer another attraction
for Azerbaijan’s national consciousness – the factor of Southern
Azerbaijan and the possibility of territorial enlargement at the
expense of Iran. This may seem a utopia, at the first glance, but
who could imagine some ten years ago that there would be a de facto
Kurdish state in the north of Iraq? But how to act in case of failure
– how to solve the ensuing conflict with Iran? Here Azerbaijan has
little choice.
Let’s note that though bigger than Armenia’s, Azerbaijan’s military,
diplomatic and human resources are still not enough for it to solve
the Karabakh problem independently from the general geo-politics.
Today, it’s, in fact, all the same for the Azeri authorities how the
problem will be solved. What they actually care for is the internal
political stability, and the Karabakh problem is the key threat to it.
Meanwhile, it was the father of the present Azeri president, Haydar
Aliyev, who first said that “Karabakh is lost for us.” On July 22,
2002, while receiving the founders of the Baku Press-Club in his
palace, Aliyev made a number of avowals. The full text of Aliyev’s
interview was published by Zerkalo daily on July 23, 2002. In
particular, Aliyev said that as the first secretary of the Central
Committee of the Communist Party of the USSR “he did much to help
Nagorno Karabakh to develop, but, at the same time, he tried to change
the local demography.” “Nagorno Karabakh asked for an institute. I
decided to open one, but on condition that it would have three sectors
– Azeri, Russian and Armenia. We opened the institute and began sending
Azeris from nearby districts there rather than to Baku. We also opened
a big shoe factory. Stepanakert had no sufficient labor force, so we
began sending there Azeris from places around the region. By doing this
I tried to increase the number of Azeris and to reduce the number of
Armenians,” Aliyev said. He also noted that “when I left Azerbaijan,
the situation there got worse – Armenia’s influence grew bigger, and
our authorities did nothing and missed the moment.” “When in Feb 1991
I was elected deputy from Naxcivan and came to Baku and said in the
parliament that Nagorno Karabakh was already lost,” Haydar Aliyev said.
Returning to our topic, let’s try to describe the consequences the
war in Iran may have for Armenia.
The armed crisis in Iran, the preventive strikes on or the military
invasion of the US and the “accomplice-countries” in that country and
the possible consequences this may have for Armenia are a question that
can knock out any Armenian politician. They in Armenia have no answer
to this question – they just well realize how serious this threat
is. The possibility of a US-Azeri or any other conspiracy over the
Karabakh-Iranian problem as a whole is an even bigger trap for the
Armenians. We can hardly imagine them to rule out this possibility
at all. The region is too small, and there is just one step from
Iran (and, most importantly, from its regions where the ethnic Azeri
majority is several times bigger than the whole population of Armenia)
to Karabakh.
Yes, it’s not calm in Armenia, and not only because of the
daily shuttle visits of US politicians and diplomats. In fact,
any destabilization will reveal the real balance of forces in the
region and will blow up the whole foreign political doctrine of
Armenia. The country will have to instantly choose which camp to
join. The situation is going beyond short-term predictability, which
means the end of the epoch of complimentarity – a wait-and-see policy,
a policy of balance between the interests of macro-players.
Yerevan seems to have already taken the first steps in this
direction… not without Moscow. In the chronology we give in the
preamble shows that after the usual OSCE MG format broke up and the
Russian co-chair went into the shadow, it was only the Armenian FM
that visited Moscow. But this was overshadowed by an unprecedented
meeting of the Russian ambassadors to Georgia, Azerbaijan and
Turkey and Russian Deputy FM Grigory Karasin in Yerevan. Even in
calmer times such a meeting would look intriguing. The N1 topic
before and after the military exercises in Nagorno Karabakh was
the Armenian-Russian military cooperation. Apr 19 the chief of the
general staff of Armenia’s armed forces Mikayel Haroutyunyan said that
“Armenia and Russia should conduct joint exercises more frequently and
should involve the Karabakh armed forces therein.” In the meantime,
Armenian Defense Serzh Sargsyan said in an interview to Krasnaya
Zvezda newspaper that Armenia would welcome the training of Russian
military students in highland conditions.
Such statements during military exercises in Nagorno Karabakh can’t
but have a serious implication. The region is facing hard times, and
for Armenia things are even harder. The fact is that it’s Azerbaijan
and not Armenia the US is talking with – including about the Karabakh
problem. Even more, the US has already made it clear that it is
concerned over the growing presence of Russia in the South Caucasus.
On April 14, the chairman of the subcommittee on foreign operations
Jim Kolbe said that the US is actually concerned for Russia’s
growing presence in the South Caucasus. And where is Russia present
most of all? Certainly, Kolbe’s hint was at Armenia. But the US’
concern is in no way for Russia’s economic growth in Armenia, and
it’s quite remarkable that the statement was made in Baku. Earlier
the UK special representative Bryan Fall clearly said that there
are states and organizations who would not object to replacing the
Russian military bases in Armenia.
Is a local war in Karabakh possible? It is – as war is still regarded
as one of the possible ways to resolve the dragging conflict. But
who will it benefit? The benefits are many, but they depend on what
the beneficiaries want. Let’s consider some of the possible scenarios:
The US involves Azerbaijan in a local war with Armenia and deploys
its military bases in the Azeri territory to protect its oil-gas
interests and, at the same time, pressures on Iran from the north.
This scenario fits well into the US’ strategic plan of Iran’s
military-political encirclement.
The US persuades Azerbaijan and Armenia into starting a new local
war and actively puts it down to Armenia’s disadvantage, thereby
showing Yerevan the inutility of the Russian presence. This scenario
will allow the Americans to force the Russians further out of the
South Caucasus. Objectively, if Azerbaijan attacks Armenia, Russia
will have to help its strategic partner and CSTO ally. But given
Armenia’s communication blockade and Russia narrow operation scope
(due mostly to the US’ efforts in Georgia), the Russian help may prove
ineffective. This may urge Armenia to change its national security
course towards the Atlantic system.
The mediators in the Karabakh peace process (the US, Russia and France)
and the parties to the conflict agree to start a local war for giving
back to Azerbaijan the territories occupied by the Armenian side,
and, as Armenian FM Vardan Oskanyan put it, “for legalizing the
self-determination of Nagorno Karabakh” – with no internal political
shocks in Armenia and Azerbaijan. Thereby the mediators keep their
promise to resolve the conflict in 2006.
Azerbaijan goes into battle voluntarily, with no coercion, to see
itself and to show to its people the final of the conflict. This is
the least probable scenario – for this adventure will bring Azerbaijan
to nothing but a new long bloodshed with Armenia and new instability
in the region.
The US and Russia are beginning to re-share the region again – Russia
gives OK to the US’ strikes on Iran, the US uses the region as a base,
but agrees not to torpedo Russia’s policy and economic interests in the
South Caucasus. This is also quite possible, especially as Iran has,
in fact, rejected all Russia’s initiatives to solve the nuclear problem
and may in the future become Moscow’s real rival in the region, an
alternative energy policy-maker and a potential nuclear bomb-owner. On
the other hand, Russia needs the US’ non-interference in its relations
with the post-Soviet republics, especially with Ukraine and Georgia.
Conclusion
In fact, there may be a few more scenarios. In any of them a new war
in Karabakh will lead to a new reality in the whole region.
Obviously, the US and Europe have quite different positions on Karabakh
– the US is openly trying to use this factor in its own plans and
projects and to slow down the flow of solutions by the European
mediators. Washington needs the Karabakh conflict at this crucial
historical point. In fact, it wants to use the Karabakh factor in its
plans against Iran by implicating Baku in something that may end in a
catastrophe for the whole region. Experts perfectly see that the US’
key priority is Iran and all the other factors and countries will be
made subservient to it.
Speaking of Russia, we should keep in mind that in the present
historical period its regional policy is based on two platforms –
Iran and Armenia. Russia still is dominant over the balance of forces
in the conflict zone and, knowing this, one can hardly imagine how
the US will come to terms with Azerbaijan. Possibly, in cooperation
with Russia. However, the key question here is in what cooperation?
The MG co-chairs are visiting the region separately, their states
are at variance on Iran and, obviously, on Armenia, too. Can a new
war reconcile them? Or, perhaps, they can still agree by harmonizing
their positions on Armenia? There is, at least, one fact that gives
us such hope – Azerbaijan is getting involved in the anti-Iranian
processes separately from its strategic ally Turkey. Today Ankara is
very busy with the Kurdish problem, which is being actively kindled
by the selfsame US. While Baku is weighing the “pros” and “cons,”
the Turkish army is planning a big campaign in the south-east of its
own country. The headquarters of the Turkish land troops are being
moved closer to the borders with Iraq, Iran and Syria for organizing
the large-scale decisive blow on the Kurdish armed units.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress