EUROPEAN AIRLINE BLACKLISTS CRITICISED
Airline Industry Information
September 5, 2005
Airline Industry Information-©1997-2005 M2 Communications Ltd
European media and analysts have said that the airline blacklists
released by Belgium, France and Switzerland do not go far enough in
addressing safety concerns.
Switzerland’s list contains only two airlines that are banned from
using the country’s airports or airspace because of issues with safety
or maintenance records, while Belgium and France have a total of 14
airlines on their lists. According to those who criticised the lists
as failing to address the safety concerns after recent crashes, the
number fails to include all the companies that are a cause for concern.
Pierre Condom, editorial director of the magazine Interavia, said the
Swiss list is “a farce” because one airline has no aircraft anymore
and the other transports cargo. According to the Swiss federal office
for civil aviation (BAZL), the two banned airlines are Flash Airlines
(Egypt) and Air Van Airlines (Armenia).
–Boundary_(ID_OZdxql6KwjeoQR89rtSd/g)–

HUNGARIAN ORGANIST WINS COMPETITION IN RUSSIA
Hungarian News Agency (MTI)
September 5, 2005
Moscow, September 5 (MTI) – A Hungarian organist won the fourth
Mikael Tariverdiev International Organ Competition in Kaliningrad,
Russia this weekend.
Out of 19 participants, the 25 year-old Istvan Matyas won the first
prize and the accompanying USD 5,000 award.
Tariverdiev (1931-1996) was born in an Armenian family in Tbilisi and
became popular in the 1960 for revolutionarising Soviet film music.
He wrote his compositions for organ in the mid-1980s, inspired by
global problems such as the nuclear catastrophe in Chernobyl.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

ARMENIA AND AZERBAIJAN MOVE CLOSER TO DEAL ON ENCLAVE
Agence France Presse — English
September 6, 2005 Tuesday 3:38 PM GMT
Armenia and Azerbaijan are making progress on resolving their conflict
over the ethnic Armenian enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh, the head of
the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) said
in the Armenian capital Yerevan on Tuesday.
After meeting leaders of the two countries, OSCE President Dimitrij
Rupel told reporters there were “signs” an agreement could be reached
over the separatist enclave, which is completely surrounded by Azeri
territory.
Rupel said that in principle both nations took a “very similar”
position but he also sounded a note of caution. “On the level of
details there are still problems,” he said.
The OSCE president urged the hostile parties to try and “reach a
peaceful agreement”.
Nagorno-Karabakh was part of Armenia until 1923 when the Soviet leader
Josef Stalin ceded it to the republic of Azerbaijan and granted it
autonomy. Both Armenia and Azerbaijan had at the time been included
in the young Soviet Union.
Between 1988 and 1994, after the collapse of the Soviet state,
the two nations fought a bloody war over the disputed territory,
in which nearly 30,000 people died.
In 1991, Armenia won effective control of the region and declared
unilateral independance. Azerbaijan, however, wants to take back
control.
Azerbaijan claims about 20,000 Azeris have been exiled during the
conflict and nearly a million people displaced.

NAGORNO-KARABAKH PROGRESS
Written by Brussels journalist David Ferguson
Euro-reporters.com, Belgium
Sept 6 2005
“Resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict can be achieved only
through political dialog,” said OSCE Chairman Dimitrij Rupel.
Speaking in Baku, Azerbaijan’s capital, Rupel, currently Slovenian
Foreign Minister, saw ‘signs of progress’ on Nagorno-Karabakh issue.
The armed spat over Nagorno-Karabakh that broke out between Armenia
and Azerbaijan in the dying days of the Soviet Union, leaving 30,000
dead, is far from frozen. By the time a ceasefire was brokered in
1994, the conflict had left significant Azeri territories occupied
and over a million displaced people in miserable conditions on both
sides. “Several people are killed along the line-of-contact every
year,” said Swedish MP Goran Lennmarker, who, in 2002, was appointed
OSCE Parliamentary Assembly Special Representative on the Nagorno
Karabakh conflict.
However, in Baku on Monday, OSCE Chair Rupel praised recent progress
and high-level contacts between Azerbaijan and Armenia. Both countries
presidents also met on 27 August at the Commonwealth of Independent
States’ Summit in Kazan, Russia. The OSCE’s Minsk group on the
conflict has been active also bringing together Armenian and Azeri
foreign ministers.
“I hope that everything possible will be done in order to prevent
any increase of tension along the front lines,” said Rupel, who also
met Azeri President Ilham Aliyev and other high level officials.
Azerbaijan will hold parliamentary elections in November, although
opposition parties are still complaining of controlled media and fear
a repeat of the electoral fraud seen in October 2003.
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ARMENIAN OPPOSITION PARTY SPLITS OVER FOREIGN POLICY COURSE
The Associated Press
09/06/05 14:16 EDT
YEREVAN, Armenia (AP) – Several top members of a leading opposition
party said Tuesday that they were quitting in protest over what they
described as the party’s pro-Western stance.
Albert Bazeian, who left the Anrapetutsyun (Republic) party along
with six comrades, said its leaders’ push for Armenia’s membership
in NATO and withdrawal from the Russian-dominated alliances was wrong.
The Anrapetutsyun party’s leader, former Prime Minister Aram Sarkisian,
has recently called for Armenia to quit the Commonwealth of Independent
States, a loose alliance of ex-Soviet nations.
“It’s too early to speak about that,” Bazeian, a member of national
parliament and former mayor of Yerevan, said at a news conference.
“Armenia faces no threat from Russia.”
While many other ex-Soviet nations looked increasingly toward closer
integration into Western structures, Armenia has remained a staunch
Russian ally. It hosts a Russian military base, which has become even
more important for Moscow after neighboring Georgia pushed for the
withdrawal of Russian troops.
Russia’s energy monopoly assumed financial control of Armenia’s only
nuclear plant in 2003, and earlier this year it also has acquired
the right to manage and receive profits from Armenia’s national grid
company for the next 99 years. Armenia also depends on Russia for
natural gas supplies.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

A SECOND CHANCE FOR POST-SOVIET DEMOCRACY?
Levan Ramishvili and Giorgi Meladze 9/06/05
EurasiaNet, NY
Sept 6 2005
The revolutions in Serbia, Georgia and Ukraine underscore that the
opening for genuine democratization — an opportunity missed throughout
parts of the former Soviet bloc in the late 1980s and early 1990s —
has reappeared. There exists a great opportunity for the post-Soviet
world to free itself finally from its totalitarian heritage.
Who might be the next dictator to fall? The answer to that question
lies in all countries where citizens’ rights have been neglected.
Belarus is among them.
Giorgi Kandelaki and Luka Tsuladze, two members of the pro-democracy
Georgian youth movement Kmara (Enough), were arrested by Belarussian
police in Minsk on August 24, and incarcerated in a police station for
nine days. [Giorgi Kandelaki formerly worked as an editorial assistant
for and, later, as an occasional contributor to EurasiaNet]. They were
charged with hooliganism and violation of border rules. In an August
25 television broadcast, a Belarussian security official claimed
that the pair had “made contacts with representatives of radical,
politicized, unregistered structures, such as Zubr, Youth Front, and
Limon, and held a number of training seminars on organizing acts of
civil disobedience, similar to those that occurred during the [2003]
colored revolution in Georgia.”
Responding to the announcement, Amnesty International declared
Kandelaki and Tsuladze prisoners of conscience who should be
immediately and unconditionally released. After an outcry from civil
society groups, a court on September 2 finally ordered their release.
Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko is no different from
other dictators. The arrest of these two Georgian activists was a
clear demonstration of the brute force that dictatorial regimes use
to suppress civil society initiatives. By putting the Kmara activists
in jail, Lukashenko tried to demonstrate his resolve. What he proved
instead was his own weakness in the face of the values of freedom.
The fight for freedom can assume various forms. We have witnessed
both successful, non-violent campaigns, like the ones in Poland,
the Czech Republic, Georgia, Ukraine, Serbia, and Lebanon. [For
background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. There have also been
chaotic and bloody clashes like those in Azerbaijan and Uzbekistan.
[For background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. The successful
examples have had an impact on many countries where dictatorship
and poor governance are still in place. They can play the role of a
catalyst in initiating democratic changes.
The peaceful revolution in Serbia in 2000, resulting in the ouster of
former President Slobodan Milosevic, set an inspiring precedent and
drew international attention. Still, it was not enough to convince the
international community that the method of non-violent resistance to
dictatorial regimes was really working. The Georgian case, in November
2003, was next. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive].
Even though various influential political figures from the US had
visited Georgia prior to the Rose Revolution, and the international
community had expressed interest in political developments there, it
would be fair to say that this uprising was home grown. At the time,
the international community believed that the parliamentary elections
in Georgia in November 2003 would largely follow the precedent set by
earlier presidential elections in Armenia and Azerbaijan, which were
both marred by international criticism over voting irregularities.
[For background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. But the non-violent
revolutions in Tbilisi and, in 2004, the Georgian autonomous region
of Ajara made the opposing argument. Hence, when Ukraine’s campaign
for democratic change bore fruit in December 2004, the country and
its Orange Revolution received much more international attention
and assistance.
Successful change is impossible without sharing experiences and
learning about the process of democratic reform. Georgia’s experience
can thus serve as an example for other countries in the post-Soviet
world.
In their struggle for democracy, civil society movements here met
a battery of obstacles, from nihilistic attitudes to the lack of an
established political and civic culture in society. The disengagement
of youth from political life prompted many to doubt the vision of the
Liberty Institute and others who advocated that young people should
serve as agents of change. These were the barriers that Kmara had to
overcome to be successful in its quest for democracy.
Civil society movements and the changes they strive to bring about
are often associated with disturbances, anarchy, civil war and human
loss. When the student movement Kmara first became active in Georgia,
it was regarded as a destabilizing force, guided by external actors
who hoped to unleash chaos in the country. Only the activists’
hard work made it possible for Kmara to gain popularity and break
these stereotypes.
Badly prepared action on the part of the civil society activists
can be dangerous and cause failure, as happened in Azerbaijan. [For
background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. Non-violence is crucial
for democratic change. We are firm believers in peaceful resistance and
the practice shows that with proper preparation – strong opposition,
mass mobilization, a strong and clear message with youth in the
vanguard, and coordinated international support – a non-violent
approach can be extremely effective.
Unfortunately, nowadays, the situation in the post-Soviet region
remains unprepared for coordinated action, and the debate on the role
of the international community is dominated by mixed messages. Some
claim that changes are imposed by external forces and do not match
the will of the people. According to this position, only citizens
of Western countries are able to understand democracy and bring
about peaceful change. We consider this position to be racist. These
arguments do not even consider that people in those countries long
for change and for protection of their rights.
Others support the position that external actors should not intervene
in the affairs of another state. Many prefer to remain on the
sidelines and simply observe those suffering under a given regime.
Both of these arguments are dangerous and hinder the role of the
international community.
A refusal to promote human rights by those who enjoy them, and who
live their daily lives without thinking that many people are not given
the same opportunities, is immoral. Such an isolationist position is
also dangerous. This is the case in Belarus, where every day people
become victims of their own government.
Overcoming these problems is sometimes impossible without international
support. Practice shows that coordination is possible and can be
very effective.
At the same time, the voices of civil society from different parts
of the world are becoming louder. All people deserve the right to
live in a democracy. If we are giving others hope and inspiration by
our examples of successful change, we should also provide them with
practical assistance. Successful examples can be followed not only
by civil society groups, but also by oppressive regimes.
Without activists speaking out and providing these examples, such
regimes will only become more violent and further endanger the dignity,
safety and rights of their citizens. It should be the duty of the
democratic part of the world to avoid such a scenario.
Editor’s Note: Levan Ramishvili is the chairman of the Liberty
Institute, a Georgian non-governmental organization that works to
promote civil liberties, and has been instrumental in support for
Kmara. Giorgi Meladze is a program director at the Liberty Institute.

RUSSIA-GEORGIA MILITARY NEGOTIATIONS HAVE GOOD PROSPECTS-DIPLOMAT
By Ksenia Kaminskaya
ITAR-TASS News Agency
September 6, 2005 Tuesday 3:04 PM Eastern Time
Russian-Georgian military negotiations have good prospects, Russian
Foreign Ministry Ambassador Lev Mironov told Itar-Tass ahead of a
Russian delegation visit to Tbilisi.
Negotiations on the Russian bases’ pullout from the territory of
Georgia will be held in Tbilisi on Wednesday.
“We want to coordinate an agreement on transit of military cargo
across Georgia. The bases are being pulled out, and we are taking
away property. Some cargo is being transported to Russia, and some
goes to Armenia, where a Russian base is located,” Mironov said.
Russian Foreign Ministry Representative for CIS Affairs, Ambassador
Igor Savolsky and Georgian Deputy Foreign Minister Merab Antadze will
hold the negotiations as the heads of delegations, while Mironov
and his Georgian counterpart Malkhaz Mikeladze will hold expert
consultations.

KARABAKH LEADER DOWNBEAT ON CONFLICT SETTLEMENT IN 2005
Mediamax news agency
6 Sep 05
Yerevan, 6 September: The president of the Nagornyy Karabakh republic
[NKR], Arkadiy Gukasyan, thinks that the settlement of the [Karabakh]
conflict by the end of this year is “unrealistic”.
Arkadiy Gukasyan said this after a meeting with the OSCE
chairman-in-office and Slovenian Foreign Minister Dimitrij Rupel on
the evening of 5 September, Mediamax reports.
“At present, Azerbaijan acts more constructively, however, it is still
difficult to make tangible progress,” Gukasyan said. At the same time,
he described as positive the fact that Azerbaijan is speaking about
the possibility of holding a referendum on the status of Nagornyy
Karabakh. Gukasyan himself “does not imagine the NKR’s status other
than independence”.
Gukasyan welcomes regular meetings between the Armenian and Azerbaijani
presidents, but insists that “it is impossible to resolve the
problem without Nagornyy Karabakh’s involvement”. He believes that
“Karabakh’s non-involvement in the negotiations damages not so much
Nagornyy Karabakh as the negotiating process itself”.
“The conflict can be resolved if the sides demonstrate political will
and readiness to take risks,” the Karabakh president believes. “None
of the sides in the settlement process will get what they dream
of, i.e. it is to give something up in order to get something else
instead.” Moreover, “this applies both to Azerbaijan and Nagornyy
Karabakh, and to a lesser extent to Armenia”, Gukasyan thinks.
Gukasyan said that the NKR leadership “realizes that there may be
unpopular decisions, however, they should be the same for all, not only
for one of the sides”. “For example, there is a group of people in the
NKR who do not accept even negotiations with Azerbaijan,” he admitted.
“We are ready to go our part of the way if Azerbaijan is ready for
this,” the NKR president said.

AZERI FOREIGN MINISTER TO TOUCH ON KARABAKH PROBLEM IN AUSTRIA
Bilik Dunyasi news agency
6 Sep 05
Baku: 6 September: Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov
left for Austria yesterday evening.
Mammadyarov said he will talk about the Nagornyy Karabakh problem
in his address to the OSCE’s permanent council in Vienna on 6
September. He will meet the OSCE secretary-general [Ambassador Marc
Perrin de Brichambaut] and members of the permanent council.
Mammadyarov’s official visit to Austria will commence on 7
September. He will meet Austrian President Heinz Fischer and Foreign
Minister Ursula Plassnik. Mammadyarov is also expected to hold talks
at the UN office in Vienna. He will wrap up his visit on 8 September.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

AZERBAIJANI OPPOSITION COMES UNDER FIRE
Khadija Ismayilova 9/06/05
EurasiaNet, NY
Sept 6 2005
With two months of campaigning remaining before Azerbaijan’s
parliamentary election, President Ilham Aliyev’s administration
appears to be on a collision course with the country’s leading
opposition parties.
The country’s opposition has come under increasing pressure in recent
weeks. Several opposition and youth group activists have been arrested
— some of them accused of planning action aimed at undermining
political stability. Meanwhile, a lawsuit filed by the Popular Front
Party of Azerbaijan (PFPA) against the Ministry of National Security
for allegedly attempting to orchestrate the ouster of party leader
Ali Kerimli suggests that what is already a contentious campaign
atmosphere could become explosive.
At an August 22 news conference, Ramiz Tagiyev, a former political
prisoner and advisor to Kerimli, alleged that Security Ministry
agents offered him $1,000 to foment discord within Kerimli’s PFPA. If
party infighting culminated in Kerimli’s ouster as leader, Security
Ministry officials indicated that they would pay him a bonus,
Tagiyev said at the news conference. “I was promised full support,
money for recruiting people inside the party and all benefits, after
the successful completion of the operation,” he said.
According to Tagiyev, ministry agents told him that the August 3
arrest of Ruslan Bashirli, leader of Yeni Fikir, a youth group with
ties to the Popular Front Party of Azerbaijan (PFPA), was among the
“provocations” planned against the opposition party. [For background
see the Eurasia Insight archive]. Bashirli was imprisoned on charges
of attempting to stage a coup with the help of the Armenian special
services. After Bashirli’s arrest, violent pickets took place for
several days outside of PFPA headquarters. Baku police have since
faced criticism for doing little to prevent the attacks.
Tagiyev’s accusations do not target the government alone. The
PFPA advisor claims that Igbal Agazade, leader of the opposition
Umid Party, invited him to meet with two Security Ministry agents,
identified as Ilgar Agayev and Elchin Guliyev, to discuss the plan.
Agazade, released from prison in 2005 for allegedly helping to incite
the riots that followed President Aliyev’s October 2003 election,
has since denied any collaboration with the Security Ministry,
attributing the accusation down to a PFPA bias against his party.
[For additional information see the Eurasia Insight archive].
Appearing at the news conference with Tagiyev, Kerimli stated that
he had been informed about the actions planned against the PFPA, and
had, therefore, told party members not to respond to the attacks on
PFPA headquarters that followed Bashirli’s arrest. “It is a flagrant
illegality and violation of the law by the country’s special services,”
Kerimli said. “Instead of fighting threats to national security,
the ministry is involved in a dirty struggle against the nation.”
Commenting on the charges, ministry spokesperson Arif Babayev called
Tagiyev’s allegations “nonsense.” The fact that the Tagiyev-Kerimli
news conference coincided with a visit to Azerbaijan by Parliamentary
Assembly of the Council of Europe President Rene van der Linden was
not accidental, Babayev argued. “They [the opposition] always prepare
some ‘provocations’ for such guests,” Babayev said. The PFPA has since
filed a lawsuit against the ministry in Sabayil District Court in Baku.
Some human rights activists support Tagiyev’s charge that the
government is attempting to interfere in the election process.
Isakhan Ashurov, chairman of the Independent Lawyers League and a
member of the opposition Musavat Party, told EurasiaNet that Elchin
Guliyev came to his office in June 2005 to arrest Pirali Orujev,
a Musavat activist on charges of allegedly planning a terrorist act
against Bakhram Shukurov, an appeals court judge and president of
the pro-government Azad Azerbaijan television station.
The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) strongly
condemned the attacks on the PFPA headquarters, which took place amid a
breakdown in OSCE-sponsored talks between the government and opposition
parties on ways to foster a peaceful campaign environment. Like the
Council of Europe, the OSCE has strongly pressured President Aliyev
to hold free and fair parliamentary elections, scheduled for November
6. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive].
At a September 1 news conference in Baku, Special Representative of the
Council of Europe to Azerbaijan Mats Lindberg expressed optimism for a
free and fair vote, noting that, aside from delays in issuing identity
cards and voter cards, the registration of candidates appeared to be
going largely according to plan. “No one has been denied registration,
and it seems that this process will finish according to schedule,”
Lindberg said, the news agency Bilik Dunyasi reported.
Nonetheless, opposition members and activists continue to be targeted
for harassment and arrest. In recent weeks, scores of young members of
the PFPA, Musavat and Democratic Party of Azerbaijan have been arrested
for dissemination of leaflets urging people to check that their names
are correctly listed on official voter lists. Individual activists
in the regions, particularly the autonomous republic of Nakhichivan,
have been arrested on a variety of minor charges, and in May 2005,
Almaz Guliyeva, a British national and the niece of exiled Democratic
Party of Azerbaijan Chairman Rasul Guliyev, was arrested at the Baku
airport under suspicion of carrying a gun.
Of late, opposition rallies have been held with little interference
by authorities. Attendance at the latest demonstration, on August
27, was estimated at about 15,000, the Russian news agency ITAR-TASS
reported. “The last opposition rally gathered even more people than
the opposition had in their rally before the [Ruslan] Bashirli case,”
noted Hikmet Hajizade, head of the Far-Center: [For additional
information see the Eurasia Insight archive].
The recent arrest of Merab Jibutia, a Georgian citizen identified
by the Azerbaijani government as one of the alleged Armenian agents
working with Bashirli, has further aroused PFPA suspicions. On
August 26, Azerbaijani border guards arrested Jibutia crossing
into Azerbaijan from Georgia, allegedly to “meet with Bashirli
and clarify the situation,” according to a statement issued by the
prosecutor-general’s office.
Fuad Mustafayev, deputy chairman of the Popular Front, argued that the
prosecutor’s statement was flawed: “Why would a person declared by the
Azerbaijani government to be an Armenian spy come to Azerbaijan? Where
would he meet Bashirli? In jail? The authorities have stirred up
trouble, and now . . . are sinking into the lie more and more.”
International organizations have not responded to charges of government
provocation against the opposition. Rather, their focus remains on
encouraging authorities to hold an above-board vote. Said Lindberg:
“We very much hope and expect that the [November parliamentary]
election will be free and fair and that the presidential instruction
in this regard will be implemented in full.”
Editor’s Note: Khadija Ismayilova is a freelance journalist based
in Baku.