RUSSIAN SAILORS RELEASED FROM NIGERIAN PRISON
By Petros Keshishian
AZG Armenian Daily #164
14/09/2005
Russia
Azg informed on September 10 that the Nigerian court decided to release
12 Russian sailors charged with smuggling. Our newspaper also cited
the words of Ara Abrahamian, Goodwill Ambassador of UNESCO, who said
that the sailors will be released on Monday and will be waiting for
the final decision of the court at RF Embassy to Nigeria or at the
Russian Trade Office.
RIA agency informed that the court decided to release the Russian
sailors.
“My representative in Nigeria and the new lawyer of the Russian
sailors went to the prison to transfer them to RF Trade Office so
that they can stay there until the court takes its final decision,”
Ara Abrahamian said in his interview to Azg.
Ara Abrahamian who closely cooperates with RF Foreign Ministry
considers the release of the Russian sailors the victory of Russian
diplomats. “No matter what the Nigerian court decided, the final
decision is after the President of Nigeria,” Mr. Abrahamian emphasized.
RF Embassy prepared apartments and all the required furniture for
the stay of the Russian sailors at the RF Trade Office in Lagos.

UNITED STATES EARMARKS $295 MILLION FOR GEORGIA
By Tatoul Hakobian
AZG Armenian Daily #164
14/09/2005
Neighbors
$102 Million of This To Be Spent On Reconstruction of Infrastructures
and Road Network in Javakhk
The US government confirmed September 12 the size of financial
assistance to Georgia within the frameworks of Millennium Challenges. A
press release of the Millennium Challenges Program says that the
$295.3 million for the Georgian government aim at reducing poverty
and spurring economic growth in Georgia.
The greater part of the US financial support, $102.2 million, will
be spent to rebuild infrastructures and roads in Samtskhe-Javakhk
region. The Georgian authorities will assign additional $20 million
from the state budget for the needs of this Armenian-populated
southern region. The roads to be reconstructed are Ninotsminda-Bavra
highway connecting Armenia with Georgia, Akhalkalak-Karzakh,
Akhalkalak-Akhaltskha and Akhaltskha-Tsalka-Tbilisi stretching in
total 245 kms.
$60 million of the sum will be spent on development of various
infrastructures of Georgia, $49.5 million will be spent on
reconstruction of Russia-Armenia gas pipeline, investments in
enterprises out of Tbilisi will demand another $32.5 million and $15
million will go to agriculture, tourism and irrigation water system.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

LOOSE ASSOCIATION OF FORMER SOVIET STATES HASN’T REPLACED USSR: THEY CAN’T EVEN UNITE FOR A COMMON CAUSE
by David Marples, Freelance
Edmonton Journal (Alberta)
September 12, 2005 Monday
Final Edition
Is the CIS dead? The recent summit, held in Kazan, Tatarstan, despite
official publicity making much of an occasion that coincided with
the 1,000th anniversary of the city, provided clear signs that the
association has become practically defunct, and little more than
ceremonial.
The Commonwealth of Independent States was founded in December 1991
by the leaders of three former Soviet republics — Russia, Ukraine
and Belarus — as a means to accelerate the collapse of the Soviet
Union and to ensure that the Soviet president, Mikhail Gorbachev,
was deprived of any meaningful function. At that time Gorbachev had
tried to persuade several republics to sign a document that would have
prolonged the Soviet Union through decentralization while allowing
Moscow to control defence and foreign policy.
The founders of the CIS anticipated that it would be of benefit to the
various republics (the Baltic States never participated) to continue
to maintain close economic and security links.
Initially the informal capital of the CIS was to be Minsk, Belarus.
Yet, from the outset, there were some serious problems. For one thing,
the legal basis of the new organization was never clarified.
The three leaders who had signed the deal had no consent from their
parliaments, and its secretive nature carried all the hallmarks of
a well-laid plot.
Ukraine never accepted formal membership, though it attended meetings
as an observer. The first Russian president, Boris Yeltsin, never
took the organization very seriously, other than during elections,
when he would use the CIS as a symbol of a Russian-led entity in what
he termed the Near Abroad.
As the Russian 14th Army established a breakaway republic at Tiraspol
in Moldova, several states feared that Russia intended to use the
CIS to control its former partners and to establish a new power base.
Other organizations developed outside and parallel to the CIS from
1996, the most serious being the GUUAM, a partnership that received
support from the United States and consisted of countries around
the Black Sea region (Georgia, Uzbekistan, Ukraine, Azerbaijan and
Moldova); the Russia-Belarus Union (Russia and Belarus); and the Common
Economic Space Group (CES — Russia, Belarus, Ukraine and Kazakhstan).
Other states have maintained a preference for bilateral relations
outside these entities.
According to U.S.-based Russian analyst Sergei Blagov, Russian
president Vladimir Putin has veered from supporting the idea of a
“divorce” among CIS states, to promoting greater unity after the 60th
anniversary of Victory Day in Moscow last May.
However, the Kazan summit appeared to make it plain that the CIS will
soon be dissolved. There are several reasons why.
First, Turkmenistan declined to attend the occasion, and its president,
Saparmurat Niyazov, declared that his state would become no more than
an observer in the future. Second, Georgia, one of the more activist
republics under President Mikhail Saakashvili, has initiated the
formation of what is termed a group of “democratic states” on the
border of Russia that would be oriented toward the United States
and the EU in particular. Third, Ukraine under Viktor Yushchenko has
stalled on the signing of 29 documents on the Common Economic Space,
agreeing to only about half of them.
The presence of Ukraine in Kazan at all was something of a surprise.
A meeting between Yushchenko and Belarusian president Alyaksander
Lukashenka produced few results and a proposed exchange of visits to
each other’s capitals failed to materialize.
Other states that might have resolved longstanding issues also failed
to do so, most notably Armenia and Azerbaijan over the disputed
territory of Nagorno-Karabakh; and the Republic of Moldova and its
separatist enclave, the Transdniester Republic.
Though the separation of the CIS states into authoritarian and
democratic regimes is somewhat facile, there is little doubt that
the states that have undergone political changes in recent times
–Ukraine, Kyrgyszstan and Georgia — are perceived by several others
as dangerously subversive, particularly by the virtual dictatorships of
Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan, and the genuine dictatorship
in Belarus.
But such states have not found a natural home under Moscow’s influence
either.
Russia indeed remains the most enigmatic of the CIS states, as
Putin appears to have accepted a smaller role on the world stage and
focused more on consolidating his own authority and removing internal
enemies. To date, he has tried to maintain cordial relations with the
United States while increasing his control over parliament and the
media through his security forces. He may thus decline to take steps
to dissuade Turkmenistan from its departure, and other republics are
thus likely to follow.
That still leaves scope for Russia to tighten its links with its
closest allies, Kazakhstan and Belarus, while exerting pressure
on its former closest partner, Ukraine, through economic pressure,
particularly the threat to raise oil and gas prices to world levels.
The CIS served the essential function of legitimizing the rise of
Russia over the Soviet Union, and what was essentially an internal
coup d’etat by former president Yeltsin. But as a loose association
of willing partners, it has failed manifestly to replace the USSR,
or even to unite the former republics in a common cause.
David Marples is a professor of history at the University of Alberta
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

ELDAR MAHMUDOV: “NATIONAL SAFETY MINISTRY WON’T ADMIT INSTABILITY IN COUNTRY”
Today, Azerbaijan
Sept 13 2005
Eldar Mahmudov, the Azerbaijani National Safety Minister, said that
if the opposition holds any action within law, security bodies will
not hinder them.
As Trend reports, according to Mahmudov, any illegal action of the
opposition will be prevented.
The Ministry will not admit instability on the eve of the parliamentary
elections. It is capable to prevent similar violations.
Mahmudov also informed journalists about the two Armenian citizens
kept in prison. He noted that handing over them to other country was
very difficult and long process. “We’re working in this direction,
hold negotiations with some countries. It is seems to me that positive
solution will be reached in the issue”,- he added.
URL:

“ENEMY” WAS DEFEATED
A1+
| 16:32:28 | 13-09-2005 | Politics |
There are no obstacles on the way of promotion of the Armenian-Russian
military cooperation,” Secretary of the National Security Council at
the Armenian President, Armenian Defense Minister Serge Sargsyan stated
today when commenting on the Armenian-Russian joint exercise held on
the ground after marshal Baghramyan in Armavir region of Armenia.
1307 servicemen took part in the exercise.
Today the federal forces were eliminating the “enemy” and preventing
terrorist acts. The operations were watched by Armenian Defense
Minister Serge Sargsyan, CSTO Sec. Gen. Nikolay Bordyuzha and Commander
of Russian troops in Transcaucasus Andrey Popov.
“Not the effect of exploding bombs, but efficient cooperation of the
Armed Forces of the two countries is the thing that is important,”
he said. “We observed exercises held at a high level,” Bordyuzha
remarked. At that in his words, there is always space for expansion
of joint activities. “It might be as well for the special forces to
take part in the next exercise to work out counter-terror tasks,”
he summed up,
When commenting on the recent statement by Ilham Aliyev regarding the
Azerbaijani military budget Serge Sargsyan said, “The Azeri President
wished to demonstrate that they have strong army. But it does not
mean that our army is weak. The efficiency of our army is very high”.

WILL TBILISI FACILITATE AN ANTI-ALIEV REVOLUTION IN AZERBAIJAN?
By Zaal Anjaparidze
Eurasia Daily Monitor
The Jamestown Foundation
Sept 13 2005
In recent weeks both the Georgian and the Azerbaijani media have
actively speculated whether the government of Georgian President
Mikheil Saakashvili would support a popular revolution in neighboring
Azerbaijan. Some analysts tend to link the recently cooled relations
between Tbilisi and Baku with this issue.
On August 26 Azerbaijan’s State Border Service detained a Georgian
citizen, Merab Jibuti, for illegally crossing the border of
Azerbaijan. Azerbaijani law-enforcement officials claim that Jibuti was
connected with the Azerbaijani opposition youth movement Yeni Fikir
(New Thinking), and he reportedly admitted to attending a secret
meeting with Yeni Fikir leader Ruslan Bashirli and his associates
in Tbilisi on July 28-29. Moreover, Bashirli, who was arrested on
August 3 on charges of plotting a coup in Azerbaijan, met with an
Armenian special services agent in Tbilisi and received cash from him
to organize public unrest in Baku. Against the backdrop of hitherto
good Georgian-Azerbaijani relations, this widely advertised news
could not pass unnoticed.
Before this incident Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliev had told border
service officials on August 17 that he would not spare any money in
improving control over the border with Georgia in order to “preserve
stability in Azerbaijan.” Aliev’s statement was clear evidence of
Baku’s concerns.
On August 29, the Georgian Intelligence Agency confirmed reports by
Georgian and Azerbaijani media outlet that Batu Kutelia, chief of
Georgian intelligence, had visited Azerbaijan and met with Aliev
to discuss bilateral issues, including cooperation between the
Georgian and Azerbaijani special services to ensure the security of
the region. Meanwhile, the Georgian Interior Ministry denied that
Interior Minister Vano Merabishvili had visited Baku on August 15,
while the Azerbaijani media reported that Merabishvili had met with
Aliev. Georgian media speculated that both of these visits were linked
to the investigation of an alleged revolutionary plot in Azerbaijan and
aimed at warming the chilly relations between Aliev and Saakashvili.
Symptomatically, on September 6 Saakashvili openly stated that
Georgia’s top priority is the victory of democracy worldwide.
Therefore Georgia would always support democracy in any region but
would do so within the parameters of the law. Saakashvili made this
announcement when he welcomed home two activists from the Georgian
youth movement Kmara (Enough) after they had been detained in Belarus
for one week for training the Belarusian opposition youth organization
Zubr in methods of civil disobedience. Kmara was modeled after the
Yugoslav youth group Otpor. It was a key player in the Georgian Rose
Revolution and a contributor to the Ukrainian Orange Revolution.
The Azerbaijani media, both pro-governmental and opposition, have
actively speculated about the possibilities of a Western supported
“color revolution” in Azerbaijan and the inevitable replacement of
Aliev by an “Azerbaijani Saakashvili.” Russian analysts have anxiously
noted that the Azerbaijani opposition widely uses the methods tested
during the Rose and Orange Revolutions, hinting at the possible
involvement of Georgian envoys in training the anti-Aliev opposition
(RBK, August 17; Nezavisimaya gazeta, August 29). Some supporters
of Aliev have also accused Tbilisi of clandestinely supporting the
anti-Aliev opposition groups.
Aliev and his entourage likely suspect that Saakashvili might be
willing to sacrifice his friendship with Aliev to cause of global
democracy. Symptomatically, Aliev has so far refused to join
the declaration about a “Commonwealth of Democratic Choice,” that
Saakashvili and his Ukrainian counterpart Viktor Yushchenko signed at
the Georgian health-resort Borjomi on August 12 (see EDM, August 15).
Most Georgian officials and analysts have vehemently excluded any
possibility of Georgia’s involvement in the would-be revolution
in Azerbaijan.
Any support of an anti-Aliev revolution in Azerbaijan looks almost
suicidal for Georgia both politically and economically, taking into
account neighborly relations and Georgia’s dependence on Azerbaijan’s
goodwill regarding the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline and other joint
international energy projects. However, Saakashvili’s opposition
argues that the concerns of Azerbaijani officials over Saakashvili’s
“revolutionary” plans are not groundless, because Saakashvili wants
to curry favor with the West.
Givi Targamadze, chair of the Georgian parliamentary committee
for defense and security, who was an informal consultant for the
Kyrgyz “Tulip Revolution” (see EDM, March 25) said that the Georgian
government “must help and helps indeed” the nationwide public movements
that fight the authoritarian rules “but it is not any kind of force
that plans revolution.” “So far, I don’t see this kind of movement in
Azerbaijan,” he added. Targamadze, a former member of the influential
NGO Liberty Institute, however said that some attempts “on the level
of individual initiative” might take place.
Meanwhile, Levan Ramishvili, director of the Liberty Institute,
said that although Georgian state bodies must not be involved in the
internal processes of Azerbaijan, “The NGOs’ hands are unbound in this
respect.” “We have contacts with certain Azerbaijani NGOs. We share
with them our experience on how to make the changes in a bloodless
way,” he added.
The meeting between Aliev and Saakashvili on the sidelines of the
August 26-27 Commonwealth of Independent States summit in Kazan was
quite cool, sources say. This suggests that, contrary to the claims by
some Georgian officials, the Azerbaijani leadership remains concerned
about the Georgian leadership’s plans regarding the situation in
Azerbaijan.
(Resonance, August 18, 21; , August 26; Civil Georgia,
Turan, Regnum, RBC daily, August 30;Caucasus Press, September 6)

OSCE HOLDS HUMAN RIGHTS TRAINING FOR LAW ENFORCERS
Civil Georgia, Georgia
Sept 13 2005
Twenty law enforcement officials in Samtskhe-Javakheti started a
three-day OSCE course on international standards for human rights
protection, including the rights of ethnic minorities, the OSCE
Mission to Georgia reported on September 12.
The training course aims at improving the capacity of judges,
prosecutors, lawyers and police officers in the region, which is
mainly populated by ethnic Armenians.
Experts from various Georgian NGOs and the Public Defender’s Office
are presenting the course, which also focuses on combating torture
and ill-treatment.

SECOND SITTING OF THE INTERIM SUBCOMMITTEE ON THE KARABAKH CONFLICT OF THE PARLIAMENTARY ASSEMBLY OF THE CE WAS HELD
Today, Azerbaijan
Sept 13 2005
Second sitting of the interim subcommittee on the Karabakh conflict
of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) was
held in Paris yesterday.
The OSCE Minsk group co-chairmen, rapporteur on the Karabakh conflict
of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly, Swedish parliamentarian Goran
Lenmarker, other representatives of the OSCE member countries,
members of the Azerbaijani and Armenian delegations in PACE, special
representatives of the presidents of Azerbaijan and Armenia on
regulation of the Karabakh conflict participated in the sitting. The
member of the Azerbaijani delegation in PACE, parliamentarian Asim
Mollazade made a speech in the sitting.
A.Mollazade informed APA that he demanded implementation of 4
resolutions adopted by the UNO Security Council in connection with
the Karabakh conflict in his speech.
Besides it, he expressed his gratitude to PACE for observing the
principle of pre-eminence of the right on the Karabakh conflict,
respecting human rights and expressing its opinions on violation of
rights of Azerbaijani citizens in a mass and rude form during the
Karabakh conflict. “I informed that it is important to speed solution
of the conflict in a peaceful way and in stages. We offered that
firstly refugees and displaced people must return to their native
lands, their security must be ensured, then communication lines must
be opened, and normal and civil relations must be established between
the two sides. Only after this the question of juridical solution of
the conflict must be reviewed”.
According to the words of A.Mollazade, the head of the Azerbaijani
delegation in PACE Samad Seyidov, members of the Minsk Group, OSCE
raporteur on the conflict also made speeches in the sitting. Then
the sitting was continued in a closed form.
A.Mollazade informed that declarations of the special representatives
of the presidents of Azerbaijan and Armenia and a document on the
result of the sitting of the subcommittee will be prepared at the
end of the sitting. The working plan on the Karabakh conflict of the
subcommittee will also be asserted in the close sitting.
A.Mollazade will participate in the sitting of the PACE subcommittee
on Chechnya and PACE Political Committee tomorrow. He was intended
to make speeches in these sittings as well.
URL:

ST. PETERSBURG GOVERNOR ARRIVING IN YEREVAN TODAY
Pan Armenian News
13.09.2005 02:34
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Today Saint Petersburg official delegation headed
by Governor Valentina Matvienko is arriving in Yerevan, reported
the Press Service of the St. Petersburg Governor. The delegation
includes Plenipotentiary Representative of the Russian President in
North-Western Federal District Igor Klebanov, St. Petersburg Government
members, chairs of committees. The delegation will take part in the
Saint Petersburg Days held in Yerevan within the framework of the year
of Russia in Armenia. The St. Petersburg Days program provides for a
meeting with Armenian President Robert Kocharian, Yerevan Mayor Yervand
Zakharyan and Minister of Territorial Administration of Armenia Hovik
Abrahamyan. Within the meeting framework an exhibition of Petersburg
artist will open as well as a meeting with students and teaching staff
of the Russian-Armenian University and a concert will be organized,
reported Delovoy Petersburg.

SECOND OPPOSITION YOUTH LEADER DETAINED IN AZERBAIJAN
Agence France Presse — English
September 13, 2005 Tuesday 3:08 PM GMT
Authorities in Azerbaijan said Tuesday they had detained a prominent
opposition youth leader in connection to alleged anti-government
activity that received backing from a US democracy group and
neighbouring Armenia.
Law enforcement officers detained Said Nuri, deputy head of the
Yeni Fikir youth movement, on Monday, a spokesman for the prosecutor
general’s office said.
“It is likely that charges will be pressed tomorrow,” he told AFP.
The spokesman said Nuri’s detention was linked to the arrest last
month of Yeni Fikir’s leader, Ruslan Bashirli, who was charged with
plotting a Ukraine-style uprising backed by the US-based National
Democratic Institute (NDI), a democracy pressure group, and money
from Armenia’s government.
Another deputy leader of Yeni Fikir, Fikret Farmazoglu, said Nuri had
been detained for “preparing to overthrow the government of Azerbaijan
and receiving funds from groups interested in doing this.”
Prosecutors believe Nuri received instructions on how to organize a
revolt similar to that in Ukraine last winter at a recent conference
in Poland sponsored by NDI, Farmazoglu said.
NDI has denied training Yeni Fikir members to overthrow the government,
while Yeni Fikir claims the allegations against it are a government
smear campaign ahead of parliamentary elections in November.
Yeni Fikir participated in a demonstration by some 20,000
anti-government protestors in the capital Baku on Saturday to mark
the official start of election campaigning.
The last national vote in the mostly Muslim republic, the 2003
presidential elections in which President Ilham Aliyev took over from
his father Heydar Aliyev, ended in two days of rioting and hundreds
of arrests.