NKR AUTHORITIES REPORTED TO SUPPORT SETTLERS IN SOME REGIONS
CONTROLLED BY NKR ARMY

YEREVAN, MARCH 18. ARMINFO. The OSCE Minsk Group Fact-Finding Mission
(FFM) to the occupied territories of Azerbaijan surrounding Nagorno
Karabakh (NK) says that it has found evidence of the presence of
settlers in the above territories and the NK authorities are the
primary responsible party in questions regarding support of settlement
activity.

The mission did not determine that such settlement resulted from a
deliberate policy by the Government of Armenia. There was evidence of
various degrees of support by the authorities of NK to settlers in
some regions.

The co-chairs have not assessed the degree to which there is
coordination between the NK authorities and the government of
Armenia. The NK authorities stated to the co-chairs at the outset of
the mission that they did indeed encourage settlements in Lachin, The
co-chairs note that Lachin has been treated as a separate case in
previous negotiations.

The FFM notes that it was not a census-taking team and its
observations cannot be seen as an exhaustive and statistically
accurate picture of the current situation in the occupied
territories., However the co-chairs believe that the FFM’s findings
closely reflect the situation in these areas.

The conclusions are as follows: the mission was a positive achievement
made possible by the compromise agreed by the parties to the Nagorno
Karabakh conflict.

There is little disagreement between the sides on the number of
settlers in the occupied territories and the nature of the
settlements. The FFM’s findings are broadly consistent with
information provided by the sides. The areas of disagreement between
the sides are the question of government sponsorship and the places
from which the settlers come.

The areas in question have undergone complete destruction. Therefore
all settlers arriving in these areas have had to construct basic
shelter, there being virtually no undamaged structures surviving the
conflict and its consequences.

It is apparent that any settlement allowing the return of internally
displaced persons and refugees must be preceded and accompanied by
substantial international assistance for construction of shelter and
infrastructures such as water supply and sanitation, electricity and
agricultural irrigation as well as demining in specific areas and
restoration of transportation links including the completely
dismantled railway in the south formerly connecting Baku, Nakhichevan
and Yerevan.

ARMENIAN DIASPORA PROVIDES LIMITED SUPPORT TO POLICY OF RE-SETTLEMENT
OF TERRITORIES UNDER NAGORNY KARABAKH’S CONTROL

YEREVAN, MARCH 18. ARMINFO. In some cases the Armenian diaspora
provides indirect support to the policy of re-settlement of the
territories under the control of Nagorny Karabakh. It is said in the
Report of OSCE Mission to the territories under NKR’s control.

According to the document, local authorities and residents of the
territories under Karabakh’s control often stress the rope of the
Armenian diaspora’s role in financing restoration of infrastructures,
health-care, social security and construction of houses. In several
situations the local leadership is not informed about these efforts.
However, the result of such an assistance is obvious.

Itar-Tass, Russia
March 19 2005

CIS may sign declaration on humanitarian cooperation in May

MINSK, March 19 (Itar-Tass) — The CIS heads of state may sign a
declaration on humanitarian cooperation in May of this year.

The Russian delegation issued the text of the document at a meeting
of the CIS Executive Committee in Minsk on Friday.

`No one is ready to evaluate it now,’ an official at the CIS
Executive Secretariat told Itar-Tass.

The participants in the meeting discussed 21 issues and adopted
relevant decisions. `All documents were signed by the Collective
Security Treaty Organisation member states (Armenia, Belarus,
Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, and Tajikistan),’ he said.

The GUAM countries (Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, and Moldova) signed
six documents.

`Uzbekistan did not sign any documents because it was represented by
acting permanent representative to the CIS bodies,’ the official
said.

Los Angeles Daily News
March 19 2005

Fair planners hope Latinos, Armenians attend

By Rachel Uranga, Staff Writer

The San Fernando Valley Fair will add more exhibits and animal shows
and reach out to the Armenian and Latino communities to boost
attendance at this summer’s event, organizers say.
Last year’s attendance of 28,750 was up from 23,000 in 2003, but it
fell far short of the 50,000 peak reached in the 1990s.

“We have to reinvent ourselves,” said David Honda, president of the
San Fernando Fair Board, an appointed state board that runs the
annual event. “We have a huge market for the fair in the San Fernando
Valley but we have not been able to draw from it.”

The 59th annual fair is slated to run June 9-12 at the Hansen Dam
Sports Center.

Honda said there has been no major overhaul in operations. But
organizers are working to expand the number of exhibits and increase
attendance by at least 15 percent.

In 2003, the fair was held at Castaic Lake and attendance slipped.
The board brought it back to Hansen Dam last year and hired a
full-time executive director. In January, it secured a $10,000 lease
from the city to run the four-day fair at Hansen Dam through 2007.

But still, there is no permanent home, one reason fair board members
said it’s difficult to draw sponsorship and develop a following.

“We are really making a concentrated effort to bring in the whole
community,” said Catherine Garcia, the fair’s executive director.

This year, officials plan to advertise in Armenian newspapers and add
more Spanish-language radio stations spots to their marketing
campaign. Officials contacted dozens of schools and boys and girls
clubs left out in previous years.

Even local equestrian groups opposed to the fair board’s proposal to
permanently locate the fair at the Equestrian Center on the east side
of Hansen Dam are joining the fair for the first time with a vaquero
show.

“We wanted to bring horses and that part of our rural heritage to the
fair,” said Debra Baumann, executive director of the Tujunga
Watershed Council and Stakeholder who is organizing the vaquero show.

The board has also added more animal-themed exhibits such as a sea
lion splash show and “Tigers of India.”

New York Post

TWO MORE ARRESTS IN ARMS PLOT

By CARL CAMPANILE

March 19, 2005 — Two Armenians were busted as part of a multimillion-dollar
plot to ship shoulder-to-air missiles into the United States that could be
used by terrorists to shoot down airplanes, federal authorities announced
yesterday.
Eighteen other people involved in the scheme were arrested earlier this week
in New York, Los Angeles and Miami.

“There have been two additional arrests made by Armenian authorities based
on information we provided them concerning the supply of weapons,” Assistant
U.S. Attorney Benjamin Lawsky said during a hearing yesterday in Manhattan
federal court.

“This just shows that the plot wasn’t just talk. These were real weapons
with real people planning to ship them,” Lawsky said.

The two Armenians arrested were Vahajn Yeribekyan, 25, and Razmik
Barsenghyan, 32.

It is believed that the pair had photographed rocket-propelled grenade
launchers, shoulder-to-air missiles and other Russian weapons they planned
to smuggle into the United States through co-conspirators here.

What they didn’t know is that the FBI had conducted a sting on arms
smuggling, and the buyer they were dealing with was an informant.

The investigation continues. “We are working with our counterparts overseas
to get the weapons,” Manhattan U.S. Attorney David Kelley said.

Baku Today

President Aliyev expects no changes in Yerevan’s position

AssA-Irada 19/03/2005 12:22

President Ilham Aliyev, who is in China on an official visit, told
journalists while visiting the Great Wall of China on Friday that Armenia is
pursuing a destructive policy and he does not expect official Yerevan to
change its position on the Nagorno Karabakh conflict settlement.

Aliyev said Baku will take adequate steps if peace talks turn out fruitless.

Commenting on the report by the OSCE fact-finding mission on the illegal
settlement of Armenians in the occupied regions of Azerbaijan, President
Aliyev said the document includes provisions directed at resolving the
conflict and official Baku should use them.

`The peace talks that have continued for over 10 years have yielded no
results yet. The Azerbaijani people’s patience is not endless,’ Aliyev said.

With regard to punishing the former leadership of the Ministry of National
Security, who were informed 4 years ago about the recently-seized criminal
group but took no steps to eliminate it, President Aliyev said that
everything will be clarified after investigation into the case is over.

Agence France Presse
March 18 2005

Car bomb rocks Beirut, eight injured
Henri Mamarbachi
Posted Sat, 19 Mar 2005

A car bomb rocked a Christian suburb of the Lebanese capital on
Saturday, injuring eight and causing extensive damage a month after
the assassination of former premier Rafiq Hariri sent shockwaves
through the country.

The explosion, which happened shortly after midnight (10.30pm GMT on
Friday), was the first attack since the February 14 assassination,
and the first sign of violence which some fear will surround the
forthcoming anniversary of the start of the devastating 15-year civil
war in April 1975.

“The explosion of the Japanese Datsun-make car left eight people
slightly injured,” a police spokesperson said.

Extensive damage caused

The blast caused extensive damage in the northern Beirut residential
neighbourhood of Jdeide, along a coastal road, damaging several
buildings and destroying cars parked in the street where the
explosion took place.

Police sealed off the neighbourhood, and the blast, which could be
heard in central Beirut, brought many people out into the street who
had been woken from their sleep.

“The… car belonged to an Armenian living in the building in front
of which the explosion took place. The explosive was placed under his
vehicle,” a police spokesperson said.

“An inquiry has been opened by the police who went immediately to the
scene,” he added.

Syria pulling out troops

The explosion was the first serious incident since the February
assassination of Hariri, which led neighbouring Syria, which has
dominated Lebanon for the past 30 years, to bow to international
pressure to start pulling out its troops.

Syria had an estimated 14 000 soldiers in Lebanon when the
redeployment began on March 7.

The Syrian army Thursday completed the first stage of the planned
pullback ahead of schedule, with about 4000 troops having returned
home.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad last weekend gave a commitment to
re-deploy his ground troops and intelligence agents to the Bekaa by
the end of March, ahead of a final pullout, in compliance with a UN
Security Council resolution.

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, meanwhile, said he expects a
complete withdrawal of Syrian forces from Lebanon before legislative
elections are held, according to his spokesperson in New York, Fred
Eckhard.

Death of former premier

An estimated one million demonstrators poured into central Beirut
Monday in a spectacular rejection of Syria’s role in Lebanon, hurling
a potent challenge at the pro-Syrian Lebanese administration.

The death of Hariri also brought political turmoil to Lebanon and
ultimately deadlock, casting a cloud over the very elections in May
that are supposed to signal a new chapter in the country’s Syria-free
history.

Prime Minister a Syrian sympathiser

Reacting to public fury following the Hariri assassination, Prime
Minister Omar Karameh, considered a Syrian sympathiser, has so far
appealed in vain to the opposition to join him in a government of
national unity to prepare parliamentary elections later this spring.

The Lebanese opposition, made up largely but not exclusively of Sunni
Muslims, Christians and Druze, takes a far tougher line toward Syria
than the current government and has agitated strenuously for a speedy
departure from the country of the estimated 14 000 Syrian troops.

Reacting to public fury following the Hariri assassination Karameh
resigned on February 28, only to be called back to office ten days
later by President Emile Lahoud.

In his quest to form a government he has run into – and rejected –
opposition demands for the removal of Lebanon’s security chiefs and
an international probe into Hariri’s death.

AFP

700 TONNES OF FERTILIZERS

Azat Artsakh – Nagorno Karabakh Republic (NKR)
18 March 05

The NKR Ministry of Agriculture informed that about 700 tonnes of
ammonium nitrate had been imported to the republic by March 15 at a
considerably low price. According to the minister of agriculture
V. Baghdassarian, the demand for fertilizers in the republic has grown
against the previous years, which means that farmers began practising
more effective farming methods.

AA.
18-03-2005

THE PRESS RELEASE OF NKR CEC

Azat Artsakh – Nagorno Karabakh Republic (NKR)
18 March 05

On March 16 the meeting of the NKR Central Election Committee took
place, which confirmed the work schedule of the election committees,
the election costs and financial means provided for this purpose, as
well as about 29 decisions on the election to the National Assembly on
June 19, 2005. According to the schedule confirmed by the CEC, the
period of nomination of party candidates and no party candidates will
last from April 5 till 18:00 on April 10. The period of registering
candidacy with the NKR central and the district committee will be from
May 10 till 18:00 on May 15. Election campaign will last from May 16
till 24.00 on June 17.

AA.
18-03-2005

ASSOCIATED PRESS INTENDS TO PREPARE CYCLE OF REPORTS ON NAGORNY
KARABAKH

STEPANAKERT, MARCH 18. ARMINFO. Journalist of Moscow Bureau of
American Agency “Associated Press” Mike Ekkel visited Nagorny Karabakh
in order to prepare several review materials concerning the life of
NKR people, on his imaginations of settlement of the Karabakh
conflict.

Telling NKR journalists about his impressions, Mike Ekkel mentioned
the people here is trying to overcome the consequences of the war and
build a new life, without war and violence. According to the
journalist, as a result of the meetings with representatives of the
leadership and simple people he also learnt about the problems of the
economic and public-political plan.