WITHIN THE FRAMEWORK OF DEEPENING ARMENIAN-UKRAINIAN TIES
National Assembly of RA, Armenia
April 17 2006
On April 17 RA NA President Artur Baghdasaryan received Alexander
Bozhko, Ambassador of Ukraine to Armenia.
The Ambassador informed the President about the parliamentary
elections of Ukraine and inner political last developments and
said that according to the results of the elections, a coalition
extended signing of the agreement is prepared, which will regulate the
activities of the parliament and government. The fulfillment of the
inter-parliamentary agreement with the new parliament signed during
the NA President’s official visit to Ukraine was highlighted.
Evaluating the overcoming of the post-electoral difficulties in the
inner-political field, the NA President congratulated the establishment
of the orange colour coalition and expressed a hope that will promote
the strengthening of the stability of the country and deepening
of democracy.
Both sides highlighted that the elections passed according to
democratic standards, equal opportunities were created for political
forces and enjoyed the positive evaluation of the international
structures.
At the Ambassador’s request Artur Baghdasaryan, NA President, presented
evaluations on the political situation and parliamentary activities
of Armenia.
During the meeting both sides also discussed other issues.

DM SAFAR ABIYEV RECEIVES US AMBASSADOR RENO HARNISH
Azeri Press Agency
April 17 2006
Azerbaijan’s Defense Minister, Colonel-General Safar Abiyev received
US extraordinary and plenipotentiary ambassador to Azerbaijan Reno
Harnish, the Ministry’s press service told APA.
After greeting the visitor, the Minister said during his mission as an
ambassador, Mr.Harnish made a lot of contributions to the development
of bilateral relations as well as the military cooperation relations
between Azerbaijan and the United States.
Touching on the settlement of the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict,
Mr.Abiyev said the United States should make much more efforts for
the settlement of the conflict within international law norms and
territorial integrity of the states.
“I hope American co-chair Steven Mann’s visit to the region will
have a positive impact in the solution of the conflict,” the Minister
underlined.
Ambassador Harnish said that there exists strategic cooperation
between the US and Azerbaijan. He noted that Azerbaijan’s President
Ilham Aliyev’s upcoming official visit to the United States will
give an impulse to the further development of relations between the
two countries.
The sides discussed the prospects of the relations between the two
states.

STEVEN MANN TO VISIT AZERBAIJAN ON 20 APRIL
Azeri Press Agency
April 17 2006
OSCE Minsk Group American co-chair Steven Mann will arrive in Baku
on April 20.
The Public Affairs Officer of the US Embassy in Azerbaijan, Jonathan
Henick told APA that the American co-chair will start his visit to
the South Caucasus by visiting Armenia first. The objective of the
visit is to familiarize with Azerbaijan’s and Armenia’s opinions on
the co-chairs’ new proposals regarding the settlement of the Nagorno
Garabagh conflict.
This will be Mr.Mann’s second visit to the region after the meeting
of Azerbaijani and Armenian Presidents at Rambouillet, which gave no
results. The American co-chair together with Daniel Fried, US Assistant
Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs visited Baku on
13 March this year.

IS THIS DIYARBAKIR?
By Mehmet Kamis
Zaman, Turkey
April 17 2006
Bedri Mermutlu has made interesting findings about cities in the
preface to the book titled, “Seyahatnamelerde Diyarbekir” (Diyarbakir
in Travel Books).
These findings are about Diyarbakir in particular. Contemporary
Diyarbakir is a lost city as if it has been shaken and destroyed by
the trauma of modernity. It is impossible to understand this city
just by looking at it from its present state. He drew a perfect
picture of Diyarbakir in the past describing the vineyards that,
40 years ago, used to exist around the city. The people who lived in
that period could never have imagined the vandalism that has turned
these wonderful vineyards into a modern ugly Baglar district of the
city. The modern people living in Baglar district today can never
imagine that there were wonderful vineyards in Baglar district 40 years
ago, if someone does not tell them about that. Diyarbakir is a unique
city which existed in its own authentic world, but unfortunately, its
silhouette becomes indistinct day by day. There was a neatly dressed,
conversational Diyarbakir gentleman, whose attitude we used to watch
in admiration and his dignity in trying to know what time it was by
looking at the chain watch he carried in the pocket of his waistcoat.
If the things we are saying about Diyarbakir today are not about
its culture, accumulation or the things it wants to tell modernity,
then what are they about? Burned tires, stone throwing children,
red-yellow-green flags and highly politicized people… A cosmopolitan
city of civilization, where Turks, Armenians, Kurds, Syrians, Keldanis,
Jews and even Greeks could live altogether in the beginning of the
20th century, Diyarbakir has now turned into a weird city which cannot
tolerate the existence of anything different from itself.
Southeastern Anatolia is between the paws of terrorism and conflict
again. Ethnic terror in the region, which was almost ceased after
[terrorist leader] Abdullah Ocalan was captured in 1999, has been on
the rise since 2004. It seems reforms implemented in the European Union
(EU) process and politicians taking initiatives for the betterment of
the region did not please the PKK. The recent positive developments
in the region falsify the views of the PKK that the people there are
poor and are cruelly treated. This situation, of course, undermines
the views of the PKK. In order for the PKK to maintain its power,
the conditions that keep it alive should remain in the region. For
this reason, the rights of the people in the region must be taken
away from them. The PKK wants the villages to be evacuated, people’s
native languages to be banned, the state of emergency to continue and
all the people in the region to be treated as “terrorists.” Kurdish
intellectual Umit Firat said in his remarks published in Radikal daily:
“The PKK cannot exist in an EU member country. Trying to solve the
Kurdish problem like the problems solved in the EU is something that
the “hawks” on both sides do not want.”
The old Diyarbakir ought to rid itself of politicization in a bid to
help the old orient emerge. That profound mysticism can only surface
in this way. Thousands of years of accumulation of knowledge can
direct the modern world in many directions. What great stories
are there about Ahlat, Ercis, Mardin, Hasankeyf, Mem u Zin and
Ishakpasha. The re-emergence of those stories necessitates an end to
over-politicization and chauvinistic nationalism. This end must come
regardless of the warlords.
Then it will be understood that we have many things to offer to the
whole world. These wise lands will have a better chance to express
the accumulation of experience over the human spirit and the lifelong
spiritual journey. The excellent and awe-inspiring sunrise over the
Suphan Mountain and centuries of friendship in Adilcevaz will all be
open to observation.
The whole region is covered in the dust of the ashes left over from
the fire caused by terrorism here. Once cleared, we will, perhaps,
discover that Diyarbakir gentleman, who is serious, conversational
and wearing a chain watch…

DANISH CARTOON CONTROVERSY INFLAMES ‘CLASH OF CIVILATIONS’
Michael Mirliss
Staff Writer
The Graphic, Malibu
April 17 2006
Samuel Huntington, who predicted the “clash of civilizations,” has
been getting much mileage out of his theory post Sept. 11. Naturally,
the phrase is used in the West, not as an objective evaluation of
the world climate, but as a euphemism for “the barbarians want to
destroy our blessed civilization.”
These analysts were thrilled with the recent Islamic uproar over
those Danish cartoons, making their familiar cries of Islamo-fascism
at their intolerance of a free press. This was ample evidence that
the secular West and mainstream Islam are incompatible, right?
Islamists really do hate U.S. freedoms.
A look at the facts, however, shows that the Danish cartoonists had
a clear objective to provoke, as evidenced by their tour of Egypt
in which they paraded the newspaper cartoons and more unpublished
material, portraying the prophet Mohammed as everything from a
terrorist to a pedophile.
Denmark’s government is run by ultraconservatives and anti-Arab
sentiment runs rampant in the land of this war-on-terror ally. The
cartoons were not perceived as a few cartoonists expressing themselves,
but quite justifiably, as another Western attack on all that Muslims
consider sacred. And while this was allowed by the European free press,
Holocaust and Armenian genocide denial are not.
They seem to recognize the importance of prohibiting the provocation
of certain groups, but not Muslims.
This kind of hypocrisy runs rampant in the United States as well.
Those politicians who hail the Islamic “rejection” of the free press
as an indication that they “hate our freedom,” are the same people
who seek to pass sedition laws on the home-front, limiting freedom
of speech in wartimes.
Some keen observers still remember the Christian reaction when Martin
Scorsese’s “The Last Temptation of Christ,” hit theaters in 1988. Not
only were there mass protests throughout the United States and Europe,
but a theater in Paris was burned to the ground, killing one person. To
understand why the Muslim protests became so violent, it is necessary
to revisit the roots of the so-called “clash of civilizations.”
Muslims perceive the United States as having precipitated a war on
the Arab world that began many years ago. This perception is not
without merit. In 1958 President Eisenhower questioned the “campaign
of hatred” against the United States. The answer came back from the
National Security Counsel saying, “In the eyes of the majority of
Arabs, the United States appears to be opposed to the goals of Arab
(secular) nationalism.
They believe the United States is seeking to protect its interest in
Near East oil by supporting the status quo and opposing political or
economic progress.” In the late 50s, they “hated” the United States
for blocking democracy and development.
Flash forward to the War on Terror.” The U.S. government’s apparent
aim in fighting these wars has little to do with reducing the threat
of terror. Take the case of Syria, which is on the United States
list of states sponsoring terrorism. In 2004 the Bush administration
imposed further sanctions on the nation despite the admission that
Syria had not been implicated in terrorist acts in many years and had
been cooperative in providing the United States with intelligence on
al-Qaeda and other such groups.
Why the sanctions then? The answer lies in how quickly Clinton was
prepared to take Syria off the list if they agreed to U.S.-Israeli
peace terms. The priority here is the continued backing of the Israeli
occupation of Palestine through economic support, or lack thereof,
in Syria’s case.
Even more evident was the invasion of Iraq and former U.S.-backed
dictator, Saddam Hussein, which U.S. intelligence agencies had warned
would increase the risk of terror.
The National Intelligence Agency reported that “Iraq and other
possible conflicts in the future could provide recruitment, training
grounds, technical skills and language proficiency for a new class
of terrorists who are ‘professionalized.'” Indeed, 5 percent to 10
percent of the foreign insurgency had no prior record of association
with terrorist groups.
The ongoing U.S. economic relationship with the Saudi royal family is
another telling aspect of U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. The
arrangement provides for the flow of oil and money to the West
while domestic human rights abuses in Saudi Arabia and impoverished
citizens in the region are ignored. It’s not surprising that 16 of
the 20 terrorists involved in Sept. 11 hailed from Saudi Arabia. This
country, led by an ultra-fundamentalist regime, has been a breeding
ground for terrorists for many years, but that doesn’t prevent the
United States from doing business with them.
The answer to why Middle-Eastern Arabs hate us doesn’t have much to
do with Islamic fundamentalism. Suicide terrorism expert Robert Pape
argues that al-Qaeda-style terror is “a product of a simple strategic
goal: to compel the United States and Western allies to withdraw
combat forces from the Arabian Peninsula and other Muslim countries.”
They may be right, based on the fact that this is exactly what bin
Laden and followers espouse, consistently condemning any Muslim who
would attempt to conquer new lands. Case in point, bin Laden and
his U.S.-funded terror group deserted Russia after the Soviets had
retreated from Afghanistan in the late 80s
This civilization is not comprised of a “backwards” people who hate
our freedom and Western culture, but a people who feel wronged by the
only remaining world super power and want their grievances addressed.
After Sept. 11, a vast majority of jihadis viewed al-Qaeda as a
dangerous fringe group, but the Bush administration decided that
rather than tap into that sentiment, they would forcibly change
unfriendly Middle-Eastern regimes. In doing so, the United States
proved to be bin Laden’s most “indispensable ally” by legitimating
al-Qaeda’s contention that the U.S. was at war with all Arabs and
further radicalizing the Middle East. There are a few reasons why
the cartoons caused such a violent uproar.
With the West at war with Arabs, dehumanization of the enemy is
seen as an attempt to rationalize violence against them. If they are
just terrorists or just uncivilized barbarians and not complex human
beings, then why not clash against their civilization and ignore their
legitimate demands? In protesting, Muslims were fighting against the
stereotypes that allow Western powers to violate their human rights.

CYPRUS-ARMENIA CENTRAL BANKS SIGN MOU
Reporter.gr, Greece
April 17 2006
09:57 – 17 April 2006 – The Central Banks of Cyprus and Armenia
signed here Thursday a memorandum of understanding on April 13
during the visit to Cyprus of the governor of the Central Bank of
Armenia, Tigran Sargsyan, reports Financial Mirror. The “Memorandum
of Understanding” will promote exchange of information between the
two supervisory authorities in order to help the supervision of
cross-border establishments and to ensure the sound functioning of
credit institutions in their respective countries.
The Central Bank of Cyprus has already signed “Memoranda of
Understanding” with other Central Banks of countries whose banks
already have or may have, in the immediate future, a physical presence
in Cyprus.
These include the Central Bank of the Russian Federation, the Bulgarian
National Bank, the National Bank of Ukraine, the National Bank of the
Republic of Belarus, the National Bank of Yugoslavia, the National Bank
of Romania, the Financial and Capital Market Commission of the Republic
of Latvia, the National Bank of Slovakia, the Bank of Tanzania,
the Central Bank of Jordan, the Bank of Greece and the Banque du Liban.
Negotiations are currently being carried out with another ten overseas
banking supervisory authorities for the signing of similar documents,
the statement added.

MAKERS OF A FORGED $1MLN BILL RED-HANDED IN UZBEKISTAN
Akipress (subscription), Kyrgyzstan
April 17 2006
– A Russian and an Armenian have been detained in Uzbekistan while
trying to sell a $1 million banknote at half price, Uzbek prosecutors
said Friday.
“The counterfeit banknote was seized as it was being traded off to an
Uzbek national for $500,000,” said Zuraf Yuldashev, senior inspector
at the Prosecutor General’s Office.
The would-be buyer said the men had offered him the bill at a discount,
citing an urgent need for small change.
“A forensic examination has shown that the $1mln banknote is a
skillfully made fake,” Yuldashev said.
According to finance specialists, dollar bills with a face value of
1 million are issued for interbank operations.

PROTEST RALLY IN RAMIL SAFAROV’S SAKE TO BE HELD BY FORCED MIGRANTS IN DARNAGUL
Author: S. Ilhamgyzy
TREND Information, Azerbaijan
April 17 2006
On April 15 students have arranged a protest rally in Baku, a rally
that started from the State Language University. Trend reports that by
this rally the youth protested the unjust sentence issued on Azeri
military officer Ramil Safarov by Budapest municipal court. The
students advanced along Rashid Beybutov street. However, the rally
was stopped by police, several students were apprehended.
Today, April 15, another protest action will be held in town of
Darnagul, where forced migrants live. The action is organized by
Karabakh Liberation Organization (KLO).
Life sentence has caused a wave of protests in all towns and villages
of Azerbaijan. Rallies and meetings are held across the republic.
Today in Ganja dwellers alongside the refugees and forced migrants
came to streets to take part in the protest rally, but police chased
them away. The protest rallies are expected to arrange in refugees
camps today as well.

DATES OF MEETINGS BETWEEN MINISTERS AND PRESIDENTS OF ARMENIAN AND AZERBAIJAN NOT COORDINATED – NOVRUZ MAMEDOV, PRESIDENT’S ADMINISTRATION
Author: S.Agayeva
TREND Information, Azerbaijan
April 17 2006
The dates of the following meetings between presidents and minister
of Armenia and Azerbaijan have not been coordinated to date, Trend
reports with reference to Novruz Mamedov, head of foreign relations
with Executive Administration of Azerbaijan’s President.
He said individual suggestions on conversation process by cochairmen
of OSCE’s Minsk Group (MG) are ‘not fully agreed’ and for this reason
dates of consultations are not identified yet. Concerning the messages
stating that MG’s American and French cochairmen are putting forward
some specific suggestions on peaceful resolution of the conflict,
Mr Mamedov said a time is required to compile the suggestions of both
cochairmen into something that would make more sense. He added that
Azeri side would speak on these suggestions after Armenians.
Mr Mamedov said boosting the conversation process gives much hope
to official Baku. “We suggest that in case Armenian side takes some
steps based on good sense, some certain advancements will take place
during this year. This is desirable by all the sides”, – he concluded.
From: Baghdasarian

ON A SHIFTING STAGE
Zeeshan Jawed
Calcutta Telegraph, India
April 17 2006
>From being a beloved on the local stage, Shayne Hyrapiet is fast
becoming a favourite for corporate shows in India and abroad. And he
sure is not complaining.
Last year saw Shayne going on a four-month-long whirlwind tour of
Switzerland, playing for tourists from all over the world. This year
too, SOTC (the company that signed him on last) is taking him on a
five-month tour of Switzerland. “I am quite excited about the upcoming
tour. I represented my country last year and my work was appreciated
by the people. I travelled to different cities and sang for people who
had only a faint idea about India and its culture. I hope this time
too I live up to my reputation of being a popular Indi-pop singer,”
says Shayne.
The singer from Chandni Chowk is also being kept busy by a string of
corporate and private shows. “The major shows that I did in the past
one year were for Hope Foundation and Jet Airways. In December I did
more than 20 shows in 30 days. I was travelling almost every day. It
was hectic but very satisfying,” smiles Shayne.
The young Armenian is also planning to produce a Christmas carol album
at the end of the year, to be circulated among schools, colleges,
churches and members of the Christian community.
photo:
060417/asp/calcutta/story_6085768.asp