KARABAGH ARMY FOILS AZERI ATTEMPTS TO GAIN THEIR REAR

   STEPANAKERT, MARCH 9, ARMENPRESS: Nagorno Karabagh defense
ministry said its army units thwarted an attempt by an Azerbaijani
sabotage-reconnaissance group to cross the line of contact near
village of Seisulan in Karabagh Martuni region on March 7 and to gain
the rear of the Karabagh armed forces.
   The defense ministry said Karabagh forces had to take measures to
prevent the group’s advance. It said Azeris had to retreat after an
exchange of fire. It also said Karabagh troops suffered no
casualties.
   The ministry’s statement accused the Azeri side of trying to
destabilize the situation on the line of contact. The ministry warned
it will take definite measures to foil any such attempt in future and
called on the Azeri side to observe cease-fire.
   Azeri sources said one soldier was killed and another wounded
during a clash with Armenians.

–Boundary_(ID_qZL04AcruDlaHxXNNPdWLw)–

PRESS OFFICE
Diocese of the Armenian Church of America (E.)
630 Second Avenue, New York, NY 10016
Contact: Chris Zakian
Tel: (212) 686-0710; Fax: (212) 779-3558
E-mail: [email protected]
Website:

March 9, 2005
____________________

VARTAN GREGORIAN, STEPHEN FEINSTEIN, AND PETER BALAKIAN TO BE FEATURED
AT BANQUET HONORING GENOCIDE SCHOLAR VAHAKN DADRIAN

Major Figures Will Address Gala “Lifetime Achievement Award” Banquet at
Diocesan Center, NYC, on Apr. 2

* * *

Carnegie Corporation president Vartan Gregorian and Holocaust specialist
Stephen Feinstein will be the keynote speakers, and author Peter
Balakian will be Master of Ceremonies, at the upcoming “Lifetime
Achievement Award” banquet honoring Dr. Vahakn N. Dadrian, the eminent
scholar of the Armenian Genocide.

The Eastern Diocese of the Armenian Church of America will bestow a
special Lifetime Achievement Award on Dr. Dadrian during a gala banquet
on Saturday, April 2, 2005. His Eminence Archbishop Khajag Barsamian,
the Diocesan Primate, will preside over the event and present the award
to Dr. Dadrian.

In addition, the banquet guests will view a multi-media presentation on
Dr. Dadrian’s life and work, by the Zoryan Institute. (For reservation
information, see below.)

Dr. Vahakn N. Dadrian is recognized as the world’s foremost authority on
the Armenian Genocide. Over the past 35 years, he has laid the
scholarly groundwork for the study of the Genocide, and with his mastery
of five languages and his ability to integrate the disciplines of
history, law, and sociology, Dr. Dadrian is uniquely qualified for the
work of piecing together related facts from scattered sources.

In addition to his success in placing the Armenian Genocide in the
mainstream of international scholarship, Dr. Dadrian is one of the
pioneers in the field of comparative genocide research. His multi-level
methodological framework for the field of comparative genocide studies
is considered a major contribution to an ultimate “theory of genocide.”

Biographical sketches of the three major featured guests appear below.

* * *

VARTAN GREGORIAN is the 12th president of Carnegie Corporation of New
York, a grant-making institution founded by Andrew Carnegie in 1911.
Prior to his current position, which he assumed in June 1997, Dr.
Gregorian served for nine years as the 16th president of Brown
University.

He was born in Tabriz, Iran, to Armenian parents, receiving his early
education in Iran and later Lebanon. In 1956 he entered Stanford
University, where he majored in history and the humanities, graduating
with honors in 1958. He was awarded a doctorate in history and
humanities from Stanford in 1964.

Gregorian has taught European and Middle Eastern history at San
Francisco State College, the University of California at Los Angeles,
and the University of Texas at Austin. In 1972, he joined the
University of Pennsylvania faculty and was appointed the Tarzian
Professor of History and professor of South Asian history. He was
founding dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at the University of
Pennsylvania in 1974, and four years later became its 23rd provost,
serving until 1981.

For eight years (1981-1989), Gregorian was president of the New York
Public Library, an institution with a network of four research libraries
and 83 circulating libraries. In 1989 he was appointed president of
Brown University.

Gregorian is the author of The Road to Home: My Life And Times; Islam: A
Mosaic, Not A Monolith; and The Emergence of Modern Afghanistan,
1880-1946. A Phi Beta Kappa and a Ford Foundation Foreign Area Training
Fellow, he is a recipient of numerous fellowships, and is a Fellow of
the American Academy of Arts of Sciences, and the American Philosophical
Society.

He serves on the boards of the Institute for Advanced Study at
Princeton, Human Rights Watch, and the Museum of Modern Art. He served
on the boards of J. Paul Getty Trust, the Aga Khan University, the
McGraw-Hill Companies, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. He
has been decorated by the French, Italian, Austrian, and Portuguese
governments. His numerous civic and academic honors include some 56
honorary degrees.

In 1998, President Clinton awarded him the National Humanities Medal.
In 2004, President George W. Bush awarded him the Medal of Freedom, the
nation’s highest civil award.

* * *

STEPHEN C. FEINSTEIN is Emeritus Professor of History at the University
of Wisconsin-River Falls, where he has taught history and art history
since l969. Dr. Feinstein received his bachelor’s degree from Villanova
University, and a doctorate in Russian history from New York University.
He has taught courses on Russian art and architecture and lectures on
Western European art.

He was guest curator for the 5,000 square foot exhibition, Witness and
Legacy: Contemporary Art About the Holocaust, at the Minnesota Museum of
American Art. The exhibition was on tour through the year 2002 at 16
other museum sites across the United States. In 1999, Dr. Feinstein was
curator of a 7,000 square foot exhibition at the University of
Minnesota’s Nash Gallery, Absence/Presence: The Artistic Memory of the
Holocaust and Genocide.

Dr. Feinstein has been a frequent lecturer at universities in the U.S.
and Europe on artistic responses to the Holocaust and problems of
representation. He was an invited scholar to the Stockholm
International Conference (2000), and the European Union Conference on
Holocaust Education through the Arts (2002). He is also a curatorial
consultant for the Florida Holocaust Museum in St. Petersburg, FL, and a
member of the board of directors of the Association of Holocaust
Organizations (AHO).

He served recently as the Ida B. King Distinguished Professor of
Holocaust Studies at New Jersey’s Richard Stockton University. A book
edited by Dr. Feinstein, Absence/Presence: Critical Essays and
Reflections on Art of the Holocaust, will be published by Syracuse
University Press in 2005.

Since September 1997, Dr. Feinstein has served as director for the
Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at the University of
Minnesota, whose purpose is to provide a resource for teaching about the
Holocaust and other forms of genocide. Since the establishment of CHGS,
issues surrounding the history and memory of the Armenian Genocide have
been a central part of both the program and the center’s website
().

* * *

PETER BALAKIAN holds a bachelor’s degree from Bucknell University, and a
doctorate in American Civilization from Brown University. He teaches at
Colgate University, where he is a Donald M. and Constance H. Rebar
Professor of the Humanities; he specializes in American poetry, poetry
writing, American literature, modern Irish poetry, and genocide studies.

His dramatic 1997 memoir, Black Dog of Fate, told the story of his
awakening to the Armenian Genocide, and its unspoken effects on his own
family. The book proved to be a milestone in the popular recognition of
the Genocide, and has gained worldwide notice through its numerous
translated editions. It was listed among the New York Times and Los
Angeles Times “Notable Books,” and won the PEN/Martha Albrand Prize for
memoirs.

In Dr. Balakian’s recent book, The Burning Tigris: The Armenian Genocide
and America’s Response (2003), he returns to the theme of the tragedy of
1915–this time from the perspective of contemporary humanitarian
responses to the widely reported annihilation of Turkey’s Armenian
population. The book spent a number of weeks on the New York Times
bestseller list, and was a “Notable Book” for both the Times and
Publishers Weekly.

Beyond his roles as scholar, memoirist, and advocate, Dr. Balakian’s
first vocation is as a poet; collections of his arresting poems include:
June-tree: New and Selected Poems, 1974-2000 (2001), Dyer’s Thistle
(1996), a translation of Siamanto’s Bloody News From My Friend (1996),
Reply From Wilderness Island (1988), Sad Days of Light (1983), and
Father Fisheye (1979). He has contributed his poetry and essays to The
Nation, Art in America, American Poetry Review, Kenyon Review, Partisan
Review, Virginia Quarterly Review, and Poetry, among other periodicals.
He is the recipient of many awards, including a Guggenheim Fellowship.

* * *

The Lifetime Achievement Award banquet honoring Dr. Vahakn Dadrian will
take place on Saturday, April 2, 2005, at Haik and Alice Kavookjian
Auditorium of the Diocese of the Armenian Church of America (630 Second
Avenue, New York City). A reception starting at 6:30 p.m. will precede
the dinner and program at 7:30 p.m. The donation for this event is $125
per person, and tables of ten can be reserved for $1,250. Proceeds will
be used to establish a special fund in Dr. Dadrian’s honor.

Reservations for the event are still being taken, and may be made by
calling the Diocese of the Armenian Church of America (Eastern), at
(212) 686-0710, ext. 36.

–3/9/05

E-mail photos available on request. Photos also viewable in the News
and Events section of the Eastern Diocese’s website,

(1) PHOTO CAPTION: Vartan Gregorian, president of Carnegie Corporation
of New York, will be one of two keynote speakers at the Lifetime
Achievement Award banquet honoring Genocide scholar Dr. Vahakn Dadrian,
on April 2, at the Diocesan Center in New York City.

(2) PHOTO CAPTION: Stephen C. Feinstein, director for the Center for
Holocaust and Genocide Studies at the University of Minnesota, will also
deliver a keynote address during the Dadrian banquet.

(3) PHOTO CAPTION: Peter Balakian, author of Black Dog of Fate and The
Burning Tigris, both of which deal with the Armenian Genocide and its
aftermath, will be Master of Ceremonies at the April 2 Dadrian banquet.

# # #

PRESS OFFICE
Diocese of the Armenian Church of America (Eastern)
630 Second Avenue, New York, NY 10016
Contact: Jake Goshert, Coordinator of Information Services
Tel: (212) 686-0710 Ext. 60; Fax: (212) 779-3558
E-mail: [email protected]
Website:

February 9, 2005
___________________

SISTER CHURCHES REMEMBER SLAINED LOVED-ONES

On Saturday February 18, 2005, Sts. George and Shenouda Coptic Orthodox
Church in Jersey City, under the auspices of His grace Bishop David, the
primate of the Coptic Orthodox Church, held a 40th Day Memorial Service
for the Armanious family — Hossam and Amal and their daughters,
16-year-old Sylvia and 9-year-old Monica — who were violently murdered
in their home in Jersey City.

The service was attended by hundreds of mourners, the Jersey City mayor,
and various dignitaries who offered words of consolation to the family.
At least 50 clergymen from the Coptic Church and sister churches were in
attendance also.

Many dignitaries and clergyman spoke inspiring and comforting words.
Fr. Shnork Souin, pastor of the St. Mary Church in Livingston, NJ,
representing Archbishop Khajag Barsamian, delivered a message from the
Primate to the congregation and the members of the Armanious family.

“The Armanious family was a devout Christian family who had Christ and
their church at the center of their family and their lives. They live
on as witnesses to their faith and are being viewed as martyrs by many
of the faithful,” Fr. Souin said. “Their murderers have yet to be
brought to justice. May God, illuminate the souls of the departed,
grant consolation to the community, and family and give guidance to law
enforcement in their pursuit of justice.”

— 3/9/05

# # #

PRESS OFFICE
Diocese of the Armenian Church of America (Eastern)
630 Second Avenue, New York, NY 10016
Contact: Jake Goshert, Coordinator of Information Services
Tel: (212) 686-0710 Ext. 60; Fax: (212) 779-3558
E-mail: [email protected]
Website:

March 9, 2005
___________________

DIOCESAN CAMPS REVAMP CURRICULUM, ADD ELECTIVES

Young people are full of dreams — from staring in a Broadway show to
serving as an international interpreter to singing at Carnegie Hall.
This year, St. Vartan Camp will help young people reach for their dreams
through new, intensive, week-long elective programs.

Each week, campers at the Diocesan summer camp will be able to choose
among new electives — arts and crafts, beginner’s Armenian language
instruction, music appreciation, drama, altar server training, and more.
Whatever elective they chose, campers will spend their time that week in
an in-depth study with specially trained instructors.

“Our new electives allow students to have more control over their
program,” said St. Vartan Camp Director Yn. Arpi Kouzouian. “Electives
are a way to tailor the camp program to meet the needs and wants of our
campers. Also, spending a week focused on a subject they love means
they will truly get a deep and thorough understanding of that area.”

St. Vartan Camp offers both one- and two-week sessions. So campers in
the two-week session will be able to chose two electives, one for each
week.

Another great aspect about the elective system is those classes will be
open to all campers of all ages. That will allow older kids to serve as
mentors to younger students.

“That will be a positive interaction, giving the youngest campers new
role models and providing the older campers with a sense of leadership
and responsibility,” Yn. Kouzouian said. “Campers will really love the
electives and having that option. The new plan will only increase the
value of the time they spend at St. Vartan Camp.”

NEW GENERAL CURRICULUM

Along with the new electives, a group of educators and youth ministers
have been meeting since last year to refine and refresh the entire
curriculum for both St. Vartan and Midwest Hye Camp.

The general curriculum focuses on the Armenian culture and faith, and
this year campers will find the new updated curriculum an interesting
and exciting part of camp.

“We’re trying to not only make our offerings more challenging, but to
update our approaches and our lessons to address the changing needs of
our youth,” said Dr. Sam Mikaelian, executive director of the Eastern
Diocese. “The new plans improve and strengthen the core curriculum of
the camp, making it an even more beneficial Armenian Christian
environment for young people.”

St. Vartan Camp will run for three sessions — each offering one- and
two-week stays — June 26, July 10, and July 24. Hye Camp runs from
July 31 to August 6.

The early registration discount for St. Vartan Camp lasts until March
15.

For more information visit or contact Yn. Kouzouian
at [email protected] or by calling (617) 876-2700.

— 3/9/05

# # #

A Half Million Lebanese March for Syria

Counterpunch
March 9, 2005

Another Species of Cedar

By ROBERT FISK

It was a warning. They came in their tens of thousands, Lebanese Shia
Muslim families with babies in arms and children in front, walking
past my Beirut home. They reminded me of the tens of thousands of
Iraqi Shia Muslims who walked with their families to the polls in
Iraq, despite the gunfire and the suicide bombers.

And now they came from southern Lebanon and the Bekaa to say they
rejected America’s plans in Lebanon, and wanted – so they claimed –
to know who killed Rafiq Hariri, the former prime minister murdered
on 14 February, and to reject UN Security Council Resolution 1559
which demands a Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon and the disarmament of
the Hizbollah guerrilla movement, and to express their “thanks” to
Syria. This was a tall order in Lebanon.

But only 100 yards from the Lebanese opposition protests, the
half-million – for that was an approachable figure, given Hizbollah’s
extraordinary organisational abilities – stood for an hour with
Lebanese flags, and posed a challenge to President George Bush’s
project in the Middle East. “America is the source of terrorism”, one
poster proclaimed. “All our disasters come from America”.

Many of those tens of thousands were Hizbollah families who had
fought the Israelis during their occupation of southern Lebanon, been
arrested by the Israelis, imprisoned by the Israelis and feared that
American support for Lebanon meant not “democracy” but an imposed
Israeli-Lebanese peace treaty.

There were Syrians in the crowds – indeed, I saw buses with Syrian
registration plates that had brought families from Damascus – but
almost all the half million were Lebanese Shias and they wanted to
reject 1559 because it called for Hizbollah to be disarmed. They were
perfectly happy to see the Syrians leave (who now remembers the
Syrian massacre of Hizbollah members in Beirut in 1987?) but, bearing
in mind Syria’s transit of weapons from Iran to Lebanon, Hizbollah
wanted to be regarded as a resistance movement, not a “militia” to be
disarmed. What the Shia were saying was that they were a power, just
as they said when they voted in Iraq. In Lebanon, Shia Muslims are
the largest religious community.

Syria is run by a clique of Alawis – who are Shia – and Iraq is now
dominated by Shia Muslims who voted themselves into power, and Iran
is a Shia nation. So when President Bush said “the Lebanese people
have the right to determine their future free from domination of a
foreign power”, the power the Shias were thinking of was not Syria
but the United States and Israel.

And 100 yards away, the demonstrators who have bravely protested
against the murder of Rafik Hariri have become factionalised,
courtesy of the Syrians. At night, the opposition protesters are
largely Christian. Yesterday’s Hizbollah rally, while it contained
the usual pro-Syrian Christians, was essentially Shia. And their
message was not one of thanks to President Bush.

“The fleets came in the past and were defeated; and they will be
defeated again,” Hizbollah’s leader, Sayed Hassan Nasrallah, said in
reference to the Americans. Ironically, President Bush was to refer
within hours to the killing of 241 US Marines in Beirut in October
1982, as if their deaths were the responsibility of al-Qa’ida. To the
Israelis, Nasrallah said: “Let go of your dreams for Lebanon. To the
enemy entrenched on our border, occupying our country and imprisoning
our people, ‘There is no place for you here and there is no life for
you among us: Death to Israel’.”

Nasrallah’s take on the 1975-90 Lebanese civil war was predictable.
The crowds were meeting on the front lines that had separated the
Lebanese during the civil war; indeed, on the very location of the
Christian-Muslim trenches of that conflict. “We meet today to remind
the world and our partners in the country,” Nasrallah said, “that
this arena that joins us, or the other one in Martyrs’ Square, was
destroyed by Israel and civil war and was united by Syria and the
blood of its soldiers and officers.”

This was an inventive piece of history. Israel certainly killed many
thousands of Lebanese – more than the Syrians, although their
soldiers took the lives of many hundreds – but the half million
roared their approval.

So what did all this prove? That there was another voice in Lebanon.
That if the Lebanese “opposition” – pro-Hariri and increasingly
Christian – claim to speak for Lebanon and enjoy the support of
President Bush, there is a pro-Syrian, nationalist voice which does
not go along with their anti-Syrian demands but which has identified
what it believes is the true reason for Washington’s support for
Lebanon: Israel’s plans for the Middle East.

The Beirut demonstration yesterday was handled in the usual Hizbollah
way: maximum security, lots of young men in black shirts with two-way
radios, and frightening discipline. No one was allowed to carry a gun
or a Hizbollah flag. There was no violence. When one man brandished a
Syrian flag, it was immediately taken from him. Law and order, not
“terrorism”, was what Hizbollah wished. Syria had spoken. President
Bashar Assad’s sarcastic remark about the Hariri protesters needing a
“zoom lens” to show their numbers had been answered by a
demonstration of Shia power which needed no “zoom”.

And in the mountains above Beirut, still frozen under their winter
snows, few Syrians moved. There were Syrian military trucks on the
international highway to Damascus but no withdrawal, no retreat, no
redeployment. The Taif agreement of 1989 stipulated that the Syrians
should withdraw to the Mdeirej heights above Beirut, which they have
now agreed to do, 14 years later than they should have done.

The official document released by the Lebanese-Syrian military
delegation in Damascus suggests this is a new redeployment and that
in April the Syrian forces, along with their military intelligence
personnel, will withdraw to the Lebanese-Syrian border.

But the question remains: will they retreat to the Syrian side of the
frontier, or sit in the Lebanese-Armenian town of Aanjar, on the
Lebanese side, where Brigadier General Rustum Gazale, the head of
Syrian military intelligence, still maintains his white-painted
villa?

Either way, Lebanon can no longer be taken for granted. The “cedar”
revolution now has a larger dimension, one that does not necessarily
favour America’s plans. If the Shia of Iraq can be painted as
defenders of democracy, the Shias of Lebanon cannot be portrayed as
the defenders of “terrorism”. So what does Washington make of
yesterday’s extraordinary events in Beirut?

Robert Fisk is a reporter for The Independent and author of Pity the
Nation. He is also a contributor to CounterPunch’s hot new book, The
Politics of Anti-Semitism.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Armenian minister denies plan to sign deal with Azerbaijan

Mediamax news agency
9 Mar 05

Yerevan, 9 March: Armenian Foreign Minister Vardan Oskanyan has
described as “absolutely false” the statement that in the near future
Armenia and Azerbaijan will sign an agreement on the settlement of
the Nagornyy Karabakh problem.

Vardan Oskanyan said in Yerevan today that there is no concrete
agreement yet regarding the meeting between the Armenian and
Azerbaijani presidents, Mediamax reports. As to a dialogue at the
level of the two countries’ foreign ministers, Oskanyan said that the
date of a regular meeting will be specified over the next several days.

A regular round of talks between the Armenian and Azerbaijani foreign
ministers was supposed to take place in Prague on 2 March, however
because of the Armenian foreign minister’s illness, it was not held.
Oskanyan had a pneumonia.

The Armenian foreign minister expressed his disagreement today
with the statements that the Armenian side “suffers defeats in the
settlement process”. Vardan Oskanyan pointed out that the issue of
self-determination of the Nagornyy Karabakh people continues to be
most important for Yerevan. However, the minister said, “there is also
the territorial component, since the territory on which the people of
Nagornyy Karabakh achieved their self-determination has never been
a part of independent Azerbaijan.” According to Vardan Oskanyan, “a
hybrid of these two approaches strengthens our negotiating position.”

The Armenian foreign minister said that the Armenian and Nagornyy
Karabakh authorities have no disagreement over the settlement issue.
“Although, representatives of Stepanakert [Xankandi] do not take part
in the talks directly, they are well informed about their content,”
Oskanyan said.

Azeri defence minister, visiting US delegation praise ties

Bilik Dunyasi news agency
9 Mar 05

Baku, 9 March: The USA attaches special importance to cooperation with
Azerbaijan. This idea was voiced during Azerbaijani Defence Minister
Safar Abiyev’s meeting with US Ambassador Reno Harnish and a visiting
delegation of the US Air Force College.

After welcoming the guests, Abiyev pointed to the importance of such
meetings. The minister also spoke about Azerbaijan’s independence
history.

“From the first days of its independence Azerbaijan embarked on the
course of integration into European security bodies. Today, Azerbaijan
views the USA as its strategic ally and closely cooperates with NATO
within the framework of the Partnership for Peace programme. In 2004,
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev presented an individual cooperation
plan to the NATO secretary-general. We are now working to implement
that plan and we intend to fulfil all its provisions. Our goal is
to get as close to NATO as possible. Azerbaijan attaches special
importance to cooperation with the United States,” Abiyev said.

Informing the visiting delegation of the military and political
situation in the South Caucasus, the history and implications of the
Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict, Col-Gen Safar Abiyev said: “Although
the sides reached a cease-fire agreement in 1994, there has been
no breakthrough in the conflict settlement. Despite the fact that
the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe [PACE] recently
recognized Armenia as an aggressor and the Nagornyy Karabakh forces
as separatists, Armenia is still not honouring four UN Security
Council resolutions demanding its unconditional withdrawal from
the occupied Azerbaijani territories. We are stating again that the
people of Azerbaijan will never come to terms with the occupation of
their lands.”

After thanking Col-Gen Safar Abiyev for the cordial welcome and
detailed information, Reno Harnish said the USA attaches particular
importance to cooperation with Azerbaijan and considers it a strategic
partner.

Turkey’s “procedures” with Armenia now handled by embassy in Georgia

Anatolia news agency
9 Mar 05

Ankara, 9 March: Turkey has decided to carry out all procedures
regarding Armenia via its embassy in Georgian capital of Tbilisi,
Namik Tan, the spokesman of Turkish Foreign Ministry, said on Wednesday
[9 March].

Tan told a weekly press conference that Turkey was one of the first
countries recognizing Armenia, which declared its independence on 16
December 1991.

Recalling that procedures regarding Armenia had been carried out via
Turkey’s embassy in Russian capital of Moscow, Tan said that from
now on, they would be carried out via Turkey’s embassy in Tbilisi.

Russia’s former Karabakh mediator says delays in talks hurt peace process

Trend news agency
9 Mar 05

Baku, 9 March: Time is neither on Armenia’s nor on Azerbaijan’s side
in the Nagornyy Karabakh conflict, the former Russian co-chairman of
the OSCE Minsk Group, Nikolay Gribkov, has told Trend commenting on
the current status of the negotiations.

Gribkov said that the loss of time in negotiations distances the
sides from peace and exacerbates the problem.

“Since the conflict has not been resolved, Armenia has been sidelined
from the region’s economic development. As far as Azerbaijan is
concerned, it has 1m refugees and its lands are under occupation,”
Gribkov said.

The Russian diplomat is concerned that new generations are growing
up in both countries that consider each other an enemy.

He said the co-chairmen have to lean on “public opinion in their
future work and for that the authorities and the opposition in both
countries have to unite”.

“It is up to the sides themselves to solve the problem. This reality
is observed in the latest negotiations as well,” he said.

Touching on the latest series of talks, Gribkov said with some regret
that the parties to the conflict are not making any compromise.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Report: ex-Soviet security body to sign military agreements at summer summit

AP Worldstream
Mar 09, 2005

Members of an ex-Soviet states’ security body plan to sign agreements
on military cooperation at a summer summit, a senior foreign ministry
official said Wednesday, the Interfax news agency reported.

Members of the Collective Security Treaty Organization, the security
arm of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), a 12-nation
grouping of former Soviet republics, have agreed a set of accords
aimed at strengthening the body, said Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei
Razov. He did not specify the date.

Razov said the deals will involve an agreement on training personnel
and shipping military products between member states at lower prices.

The Russia-dominated Collective Security Treaty unites six ex-Soviet
republics _ Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Belarus and
Armenia. Ukraine and Georgia, where pro-Western governments have come
to power, are not members of the security body although they belong
to the CIS.

Razov also said foreign ministers of CIS member states will meet in the
Belarusian capital Minsk on March 18 to discuss ways of improving and
streamlining the work of CIS bodies. If a draft document on the reform
is adopted, it will then be discussed at the CIS summit in Moscow in
May, held as part of ceremonies marking the 60th anniversary of the
end of World War II.