Assyrian International News Agency
Guest Editorial
Misinformation From a Finnish Immigration Official
Dr. Eden Naby
Posted 01-28-2005, 13:01:32
(AINA) — A member of the Finnish Directorate of Immigration, Antero
Leitzinger published an article called Kurds and the Kurdistans, which
appeared on 1/23/05 at GlobalPolitician.com. The article appeared so
outrageous to a Kurdish supporter that this person called it to the
attention of Dr. Eden Naby, Academic Advisor to the Assyrian Academic
Society. The article below is Dr. Naby’s editorial for AINA
critiquing the misinformation that the author has knowingly or
unwittingly passed into the public domain about Assyrians (ed.).
I am truly appalled at the shallowness of the analysis, lack of
comparative data, and simple (mischievous?) twisting of facts in the
article on Kurds and the Kurdistans, which appeared on 1/23/05 by
Antero Leitzinger at GlobalPolitician.com. In the age of the Internet,
thankfully, one cannot get away with such low quality work. Facts are
easy to check, and propaganda cannot so easily pass for expert
knowledge.
Not only does this author persist on weighing “oranges” against
“apples” and coming up with useless analogies (Scandinavians, divided
into several countries, cannot be equated with Kurds, nor can Turks be
equated with the distant Uighurs of Central Asia, whatever the
language affinities may be), but he treats lightly areas of cultural
history that are very complex
But this is not his most egregious mistake. No, in his references to
Assyrians your editors should not have let pass the absolute
historical and linguistic misinformation being passed along by Kurdish
extremists to unsuspecting western sources: Can Global Politician
maintain its integrity if it presents such appallingly unbalanced
material?
Assyrians have never been “Kurds.” Nor are Jews who lived in northern
Iraq “Kurds.” From reliable Israeli accounts, there are no more than
100 Jews left in all of Iraq, and most of those are in Baghdad and
Basra. The Jewish religious and cultural facilities in places like
Mosul and especially the large village of Alqosh on the Nineveh Plain
have been looked after by the local ChaldoAssyrians once the Jews
finally got permission to flee to Israel after 1949. Assyrians and
Jews in Iraq, because they shared religious status as dhimmis – barely
tolerated non-Muslims – and a common Aramaic speaking heritage,
maintained a close relationship. One of the earliest books published
about Jews in Iraq is by an Assyrian (Ghanima, 1927).
Whatever the new strategic relationship between Iraq’s Kurds and the
Israelis and Americans may be, let us not gloss over the fact that
most Jews living in northern Iraq are today in Israel or somewhere out
of Iraq. Just because they spoke Kurdish does not mean that they were
Kurds. Many minorities speak multiple languages of necessity, even as
a mother language, of necessity. Look at the Uzbek elites or the
Kazakhs who still are more comfortable in Russian than in their own
written languages. Imagine the situation in northern Iraq where Jews
and Assyrians spoke modern forms of Aramaic but of necessity also
communicated in Kurdish, Arabic and in some cases Turkish and
Persian. That is the state of minorities. It is an injustice to parlay
multilingualism into Kurdish ethnicity and deny the existence of
special ethnic minorities who already suffer enough physically and
culturally.
In terms of religion therefore, Kurds do not include many religions.
Absolutely not. They are Muslims of several stripes. Assyrians are
Christians separated into several denominations. The language of
Assyrian church liturgy is Syriac, and sometimes the modern Aramaic
vernacular. If in some churches the knowledge of Aramaic has decreased
due to its suppression in schools, and Arabic, Turkish and even
Kurdish are adopted to carry on the Christian tradition, this does not
make these people Kurds. Aramaic is the oldest continuously written
and spoken language of the Middle East and second only to Chinese in
the entire world. It is on the verge of joining the dead languages of
the world like Latin precisely because of the kinds of persecution
that Christians in parts of the Muslim world have experienced.
In Iraq, northwest Iran and in eastern Turkey, the biggest direct
physical pressure on the Assyrians came from the Kurds, historically
and today. Antero Leitzinger should have reflected a bit more, and
read a great deal more about the First World War in the Middle East
before repeating Kurdish propaganda about who persecuted whom. Written
records alone, of Kurdish attacks on Assyrian villages, go back to the
mid-19th century. They culminated in World War I when Kurds
persistently attacked Urmiyah at a time when the Iranian government
was too weak (caught up in the Constitutional Revolution) to resist
either the Tsarist or Ottoman armies. Kurds took advantage of this
weakness to kill off Assyrians and Armenians in persistent pulses
sweeping down from the Zagros foothills onto the plains of Urmiyah. In
1914, just as the Ottomans joined the Central Powers, their Kurdish
allies launched an attack on Margawar and Targawar, killing all who
could not flee east to relative shelter. In 1915 when the Committee
of Union and Progress (CUP) launched its jihad in earnest against the
Armenians, Assyrians and Pontic Greeks, driving who they could not
kill into the Syrian desert, due to the Kurdish Hamidiya paramilitary
units, very few, less than 50,000 Assyrians managed to reach Urmiyah
since the mountain passes were held by Kurds who had taken over
Margawar and Targawar already. The events of WWI culminated in the
assassination of the Kurdish Shakkak tribe’s honored dinner guest, the
Assyrian Patriarch, titled Mar Shim’un at that time, in 1918; about
130 of Mar Shim’un’s bodyguards were also murdered. Some allege the
after dinner assassination took place because the Kurdish chieftain
Isma’el Agha (Simku) coveted this Assyrian leader’s ring. (Anzali,
1999)
Kurds have also coveted Assyrian and Armenian women, and being in a
more religiously powerful position as Muslims, they have taken these
women and girls as household servants or second wives with little that
their Christian neighbors could do to prevent it, although trying to
get the women back periodically occurred and as late as the 1960s got
whole Christian villages destroyed (August Thiery, 2003). The
offspring of such forced unions may be partly Assyrian, but ethnically
and culturally they grew up Kurds. And Muslims. Forget racial purity
in that part of the Middle East: what matters for identity is
language, religion and heritage.
Due to the polygamous marriages so popular among peasant and
non-peasant Kurds, the rate of population increase among Kurds is one
of the highest in the world although population figures are
notoriously unreliable and we only have the sample Soviet censuses to
provide some evidence. One recent New Yorker article (October 2004)
noted that among the Kurds moving into Kirkuk was a man with two wives
and 21 children! He was interviewed at random. The upshot of all this
is that the villages in Iran identified as Assyrian in 1927 were
reduced drastically in number by the time of the official Iranian
census published in the early 1950s (Razmara). And take a guess as to
who had replaced the Assyrian Christians in and around Urmiyah? Mainly
Kurds, not Azaris. Maybe Antero Leitzinger should have read a little
more about why the Mahabad Republic was located where it was in WWII,
instead of simply wondering why it was not in “Kordestan.”
The same displacement process occurred in southeast Turkey, in
northeast Syria and now with help from misinformation like that
provided in Global Politician, on the Nineveh Plains in northern
Iraq. These replacements are genuine Kurds, not of the variety your
author is presenting as “Christian Kurds” and “Jewish Kurds.”
These ethnic and religious matters in the Middle East are not
simple. To try to deal with them from a biased perspective, or to
create untenable analogies, only leads to disastrously tragic policy
decisions. Global political astuteness requires far greater diligence
and care.
Ethnic cleansing is no joking matter. Careless words can wipe out the
Assyrians, one of the oldest surviving communities in the world. The
culture of the Assyrians of the Middle East is precious in all the
senses of that word: it is old, rich, increasingly fragile, and has
made many contributions to world culture from medicine (Le Coz, 2004)
to agriculture (Abdalla 1980s, 1990s articles) and all the fields of
human knowledge between them. To relegate the Assyrians to a branch of
Kurds, who, for whatever reason, have a low prestige culture and
little written history, is a cultural crime. At the least your author
and you [globalpolitician.com] need to make a retraction.
—
Dr. Eden Naby is a cultural historian on the modern Middle East with a
concentration on the area from Iraq to Central Asia. She has published
extensively on Assyrians, as well as the Afghans, Turkmens, Uighurs
and Kurds. Dr. Nab y’s book Afghanistan: Mullah, Marx And Mujahid
(Westview Press, rpt. 2002), co-authored with the Prof. Ralph
H. Magnus, is a seminal source on modern Afghanistan and particularly
useful for its analysis of that country’s ethnic and religious
minorities. Her most recent writing about Assyrians is From Lingua
Franca to Endangered Language: The Legal Aspects of the Preservation
of Aramaic in Iraq, a paper in On The Margins Of Nations: Endangered
Languages And Language Rights (Joan A. Argenter and R. McKenna Brown,
ed., 2004).
Views and opinions expressed in guest editorials do not necessarily
reflect the views and opinions of AINA. Guest Editorial Policy
Copyright (C) 2005, Assyrian International News Agency. All Rights
Reserved.

GLOBAL CATHOLIC NEWS
Rome’s Zenit News
Pope Urges Resolution to Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict
VATICAN CITY, JAN. 28, 2005 (Zenit.org).- John Paul II encouraged a solution
to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict when he received Armenian President Robert
Kocharian in audience.
In his address delivered today in Russian, the Pope spoke about the
president’s concern in regard to the long conflict with Muslim Azerbaijan
over Nagorno-Karabakh, a primarily Armenian-populated region, assigned to
Soviet Azerbaijan in the 1920s by Moscow.
Armenia, a country with some 3 million inhabitants, and Azerbaijan began
fighting over the area in 1988. The struggle escalated after both countries
attained independence from the Soviet Union in 1991.
By May 1994, when a cease-fire took hold, Armenian forces held not only
Nagorno-Karabakh but also a significant portion of Azerbaijan proper.
The economies of both sides have been hurt by their inability to make
substantial progress toward a peaceful resolution.
“I hope that true and lasting peace comes to the region of Nagorno-Karabakh
where you, President Kocharian, come from,” the Holy Father said. “This will
come about by a decisive rejection of violence and a patient dialogue
between the parties, and also to active international mediation.”
The Holy See “which over the centuries has not failed to denounce violence
and defend the rights of the weak, will continue to support all efforts
aimed at building a solid and lasting peace,” the Pope continued.
John Paul II promoted the solution of the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh when
he visited Armenia in September 2001 for the celebration of the 1,700
anniversary of the Armenian people’s conversion to the Christian faith.
Armenia prides itself on being the first nation to formally adopt
Christianity, in the year 301.
Jan. 19 the Pope blessed a statue of St. Gregory the Illuminator (or the
Armenian), apostle of Armenia and founder of the Armenian Church, which has
been placed among the founding saints that surround the exterior of St.
Peter’s Basilica.
During today’s audience, the Pope expressed to the Armenian president, who
was accompanied by his wife, his “sincere appreciation for the good
relations between the Holy See and the government of your country.”
“I know that the Catholic community is welcomed and respected, and that its
various activities contribute to the well-being of the entire nation,” added
John Paul II. “Everyone earnestly hopes that the collaboration between the
Holy See and the Armenian government will continue to grow and, where the
situation calls for it, that eventual improvements to the status of the
Catholic Church will be made.”
The Holy Father then referred to the “friendly and respectful relations
between the Catholic Church and the Armenian Apostolic Church.”
“This understanding,” he said, “which is even more active thanks to the
initiative of the Catholicos Karekin II, will certainly have positive
repercussions for the peaceful coexistence of the entire Armenian people,
who are called to face no small number of social and economic challenges.”
Around 90% of Armenian Catholics obey the Armenian Apostolic Patriarchate,
which separated from Rome after the Council of Chalcedon in 451. A decisive
step to overcome this division was taken in 1996, when the Pope and the
previous Catholicos Karekin I signed a joint declaration that resolved
misunderstandings on the nature of Jesus.
The patriarch of Cilicia of the Armenians, His Beatitude Nerses Bedros XIX
— whose see is in Lebanon, and who leads around 10% of Armenian Christians
living in their homeland and in the diaspora, and who are in communion with
Rome — has been visiting Rome in recent days to participate in the blessing
of the statue of St. Gregory the Illuminator.
After his visit with the Pope, President Kocharian went to see the statue of
St. Gregory the Illuminator that now stands in the Vatican.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

La Padania, Italia
venerdì 28 gennaio 2005
Ballaman a colloquio con il presidente Kocharian: pensiamo ai popoli
e non al mercato
«Lobby turca contro la causa armena»

FRANCESCA MORANDI
«Cancellare il genocidio degli armeni. Questo è lo scopo di alcuni
gruppi di pressione favorevoli all’ingresso della Turchia nell’Unione
Europea per ragioni economiche». Di questo hanno parlato l’onorevole
Edouard Ballaman e il presidente armeno Robert Kocharian ieri in
visita ufficiale in Italia. È lo stesso Ballaman a raccontare dei
colloqui avuti con la massima carica politica armena in un clima di
perfetta intesa.
«Abbiamo discusso delle responsabilità di Ankara sullo sterminio che
nel 1915 portò al massacro di un milione e mezzo di armeni residenti
in territorio turco – spiega il deputato leghista – Proprio in questi
giorni si parla della shoah ed ho l’impressione che per alcuni
esistano dei genocidi di serie A ed altri di serie B».
«Il presidente Kocharian mi ha parlato di come negli ultimi anni
abbia osservato uno stallo nell’apertura di alcuni Paesi europei
verso l’Armenia – prosegue l’esponente del Carroccio – Questo a causa
di una lobby economica favorevole all’ingresso di Ankara in Ue che
mira a cancellare ogni traccia della `questione armena’. Ricordiamo,
tra l’altro, che la Turchia continua a negare le proprie
responsabilità sul genocidio. La storia armena è la storia di un
popolo che ha comunità in tutto il mondo ma ciononostante ha
mantenuto una propria identità culturale ed una profonda memoria
storica che non deve essere dimenticata, anzi, nel caso del
genocidio, deve essere riconosciuta e resa conoscibile a tutti».
«È stato come parlare con uno dei nostri – ha sottolineato Ballaman –
Il presidente Kocharian ha espresso grande apprezzamento per le
posizioni della Lega circa le legittime rivendicazioni degli armeni
sul genocidio e relativamente alle differenze culturali, religiose,
geografiche e storiche tra la Turchia e l’Europa. Proprio come
sostiene la Lega, il presidente armeno ha puntato il dito contro
coloro che caldeggiano l’ingresso di Ankara in Ue per interessi
economici e non per vantaggi ai cittadini».
«Abbiamo poi affrontato lo spinoso tema del Nagorno-Karabakh, una
enclave armena, e quindi cristiana, formalmente controllata dal
musulmano Azerbaigian – continua Ballaman – Un’altra situazione
questa, dove le differenze religiose e culturali provocano una grave
crisi tuttora irrisolta».
«Durante la visita alla Camera dei deputati – dice ancora Ballaman –
ho mostrato al capo di Stato armeno un dipinto che raffigura la
battaglia di Lepanto tra cristiani e ottomani e con stupore ho
osservato che, di fronte al quadro, i suoi occhi sono diventati
lucidi. Questo a testimonianza di una sensibilità verso la Storia che
credo si avvicini molto alla percezione e al valore che la Lega dà
alle sofferenze dei popoli e alle loro legittime esigenze
identitarie».

Agence France Presse
27 janvier 2005 jeudi 6:13 PM GMT
L’Italie aidera l’Arménie à se rapprocher de l’Europe (Ciampi)
ROME
L’Italie appuiera l’Arménie dans son rapprochement de l’Union
européenne, a déclaré jeudi le président italien, Carlo Azeglio
Ciampi, en recevant son homologue arménien, Robert Kotcharian.
M. Ciampi a invité son hôte, en visite officielle pour la première
fois à Rome, à “consolider” les fondements de l’économie de marché et
à poursuivre “avec ténacité” sur la voie des réformes.
Le chef d’Etat italien a souligné que “l’Union européenne tire sa
force du fait qu’elle a surmonté les divisions du passé et de sa
vocation à construire un avenir commun entre des peuples qui
partagent la même histoire, la même culture et qui poursuivent des
intérêts communs”.
M. Kotcharian a répondu que l’aide de l’Italie serait précieuse et
tout en jugeant les rapports bilatéraux très bons, il a espéré encore
un développement des relations économiques.

Agence France Presse
28 janvier 2005 vendredi 9:21 AM GMT
Une assurance américaine va indemniser des victimes du génocide
arménien (MAGAZINE)
EREVAN
Petros Petrossian n’avait que cinq ans lorsqu’il a vu ses parents et
sa petite soeur se faire tuer lors du génocide arménien de 1915-1917,
puis son frère mourir au cours de leur fuite, mais il ne savait rien
de l’assurance-vie américaine que son père avait contractée au début
du siècle.
Près de 90 ans après, et suite à une décision en juillet d’un
tribunal américain, la compagnie d’assurance New York Life Insurance
a assuré qu’elle indemniserait les descendants de ses 2.300 clients
morts au cours de ce génocide organisé par les autorités de l’empire
ottoman.
“Quand nous avons appris que le grand-père de mon mari était sur la
liste de la compagnie d’assurance, nous avons été surpris et très
émus”, reconnaît Anaïd Petrossian, 50 ans, qui a entamé les
procédures pour bénéficier des indemnités dues à sa famille.
“Plus personne n’espérait voir le jour où les victimes du génocide et
leurs familles pourraient récupérer ne serait-ce qu’une miette de ce
qu’elles avaient perdu dans l’ouest de l’Arménie”, a-t-elle ajouté.
La famille Petrossian a pu faire valoir ses droits grce à un groupe
de juristes, mis en place par le ministère arménien de la Justice,
chargé d’aider les bénéficiaires potentiels à compléter leurs
dossiers avant la date butoir du 28 février.
Ce travail, commencé en septembre, s’avère cependant très difficile.
La majorité des rescapés du génocide ayant pris la fuite avec
seulement quelques vêtements, laissant le plus souvent derrière eux
tous leurs papiers, y compris les polices d’assurance.
“Nous enregistrons les demandes, nous ouvrons des dossiers et
cherchons les preuves de liens de parenté dans les archives”, a
indiqué à l’AFP le porte-parole du ministère de la Justice, Ara
Sagatelian.
Dans toute l’ex-URSS, des familles de victimes recherchent avec
l’aide des autorités arméniennes les certificats de mariage, les
actes de naissance, des lettres ou encore des photos pouvant prouver
leur lien de parenté avec un client de la New York Life Insurance.
“Jusqu’à présent, 700 personnes nous ont soumis une demande après
avoir trouvé le nom d’un proche sur les listes de la compagnie
d’assurance. Neuf seulement avaient encore la police d’assurance. Il
y aussi des personnes qui ont la police mais qui ne sont pas sur les
listes”, a ajouté M. Sagatelian.
Selon le ministère arménien de la Justice, 180 dossiers ont pu être
transmis à la fondation mise en place à New York par la justice
américaine pour rassembler les demandes d’indemnisation.
La New York Life Insurance a d’ores et déjà promis de payer un total
de 20 millions de dollars, dont 11,9 millions devraient revenir aux
familles des victimes. Trois millions doivent aller à des
organisations caritatives arméniennes et le reste à l’Eglise
arménienne, compte-tenu du fait que dans de nombreux cas les
indemnités ne pourront pas être perçues, faute d’héritiers. En effet,
nombreux sont les clients de la compagnie dont la famille entière a
été exterminée.
Les massacres et déportations d’Arméniens de 1915 à 1917, ont fait
1,5 million de morts, selon les Arméniens, entre 300.000 et 500.000,
selon la Turquie, héritière de l’empire ottoman, qui n’a jamais
reconnu sa responsabilité.
“La Turquie refuse de reconnaître le génocide notamment parce qu’elle
craint que les Arméniens ne réclament ensuite des compensations pour
les biens qu’ils ont perdu”, a expliqué à l’AFP un expert arménien,
Akob Tchakrian.

CONTRADICTORY STATEMENTS BY PACE RAPPORTEUR ON NAGORNY KARABAKH
PREVENT CONFIDENCE BUILDING IN THE REGION
STEPANAKERT, JANUARY 28. ARMINFO. The statements by PACE rapporteur on
Nagorny Karabakh David Atkinson are contradictory and are not
contributive to the regional confidence building and Karabakh conflict
settlement, says NKR presidential executive David Babayan commenting
on Atkinson’s interview to BBC.
Babayan says that Atkinson’s statements contradict both one another
and PACE’s position on ethnic conflict settlement. Particularly
Atkinson says that the principle of a nation’s right to
self-determination cannot be applied in the Karabakh peace process and
this issue should be settled in the framework of Azerbaijan’s
territorial integrity. At the same time he hopes that the Azeri
authorities will start contacting with Nagorny Karabakh
representatives. It is not clear what they can discuss if the
settlement formula is already predetermined and is unacceptable for
all the conflicting parties.
Babayan sees no logic in assuming that Karabakh may have independence
in case of Azerbaijan’s consent and stating right away that Azerbaijan
will never give such a consent. Doesn’t this mean that PACE has no
clear position on the issue? Why is PACE based on Azerbaijan’s rather
than Nagorny Karabakh’s position? Doesn’t this mean that PACE is
partial? Babayan hopes that this is Atkinson’s personal opinion rather
than the stance of the whole European community whose policy is based
on the human values of equality and democracy.

Kommersant, Russia
Jan 28 2005
Doing unto Others: The Price of the Question
World Practice
There have been too many coincidences to think that it is accidental.
Mikhail Saakashvili is making the rounds in Strasbourg with new peace
proposals for South Ossetia and Abkhazia, and what do you know?, at
the very same time the leaders of the two unrecognized states, Eduard
Kokoity and Sergey Bagapsh, turn up in Moscow and shriek in chorus
that the peace proposals are practically a declaration of war and
hitting him on both fronts at once. The next day, the UN Security
Council discusses Abkhazia on Moscow’s initiative and without any
representation from Georgia. It becomes clear that Russia sees no
reason for the Georgian ambassador to be present at discussions of
the Abkhazian problem. But you have to think that the problem has a
little to do with Georgia too.
Bagapsh, leader of sunny Abkhazia, has declared how happy he is to
have met Kokoity in snowy Moscow and that he intends to `coordinate
actions’ with the presidents of unrecognized Transdniestr Republic
and Nagorny Karabakh. Very touching, of course.
We have already forgotten our righteous anger over the intriguing of
outside forces in Ukraine. And it didn’t stop us from thinking that
our own actions were only for the sake of greater stability in
Ukraine, Georgia, Moldova, Azerbaijan and everywhere else. We know
best, of course, what the former Soviet republics and their citizens
really need. They couldn’t cope without us. We are a great power and
they are our buffer zone and underbelly. The present Russian-Georgian
collision has dispelled any doubts. The linchpin of Moscow’s position
among the former Soviet countries will be Abkhazia, South Ossetia
and, unseen, Transdniestr, Eastern Ukraine and area in similar
circumstances. It sounds scary, but it seems to be what’s happening.
We don’t have any other ways of keeping the West away yet. At least
in those places we still pull some weight. We have our own people. We
lost Aslan Abashidze in Ajaria, but there’s still Kokoity and
Bagapsh/Khadzjimba and Igor Smirnov in Transdniestr. We can give
Arkady Gukasyan in Karabakh a go if need be to. And there’s still
Viktor Yanukovich. He’s not finished yet and is putting gout signals
that he could use a hand – a sure sign of life.
It would seem that it is a no-lose, irrefutable position. But we have
to be morally prepared for to pay the high price of having our own
weapons used against us. They’ll use our experience and know-how.
There are lots more places to do it in. Just the North Caucasus, with
its eternal reputation as a tinderbox, is enough. Then we’ll remember
the old truth that people who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw
stones.
by Sergey Strokan

AT THE NKR GOVERNMENT SESSION
STEPANAKERT, January 28 (Noyan Tapan). On January 26, the first 2005
session of the NKR Government chaired by the republic’s Prime-Minister
Anoushavan Dayelian took place. In his speech, the head of the
Ministers’ Cabinet focused at the achievements of the previous year,
noting that the growth of the domestic gross product had comprised
17,5% or 42 billion drams in comparison with 2003 and this index would
be raised to 48 billion drams this year. According to the Information
and Analytical Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the
Republic of Nagorno Karabakh, the document “On the Events Providing
the Execution of the Budget of the Nagorno Karabakh Republic for 2005”
was adopted at the session. The Government adopted also a number of
decrees, in particular, on the creation of the Staff of the NKR
Ministry of Town-building. Bills on making amendments and supplements
in the NKR Law “On State Pensions” and on making supplements in the
NKR Law “On the Repressed”, as well as bills related to culture and
sport were adopted. The members of the Cabinet of Ministers adopted a
number of programs including those of the activity of the NKR
Government and the NKR Ministry of Education, Culture and Sport for
2005. Resolutions related to the authority of a number of stock
societies, privatization of state and municipal property were also
adopted.

Agence France Presse
28 janvier 2005 vendredi 11:56 AM GMT
Le pape souhaite une paix stable au Nagorny-Karabakh
CITE DU VATICAN
Le pape Jean Paul II a souhaité une “paix stable” au
Nagorny-Karabakh, en recevant vendredi au Vatican le président
arménien Robert Kotcharian.
“Je souhaite une paix véritable et stable dans la région du
Nagorny-Karabakh”, a-t-il déclaré, en soulignant que celle-ci “ne
pourra venir que d’un refus ferme de la violence et d’un dialogue
patient entre les parties, grce à une médiation internationale
active”.
“Le Saint-Siège qui, au cours des siècles n’a pas manqué de dénoncer
la violence et de défendre le droit des faibles, continuera à
soutenir tout effort destiné à btir une paix solide et durable”, a
ajouté le pape polonais.
Il a ensuite rappelé que des rapports d’estime et d’amitié lient
l’Eglise catholique à l’Eglise apostolique arménienne, une entente
“qui aura certainement des retombées positives pour la coexistence
pacifique du peuple arménien tout entier confronté à de nombreux
défis sociaux et économiques”, a-t-il dit.
Le pape a souhaité, sans autres précisions, que le statut de l’Eglise
catholique dans le pays soit éventuellement “perfectionné”, là où la
situation le demande.
Le président arménien avait rencontré jeudi le président italien
Carlo Azeglio Ciampi qui lui a promis l’appui de l’Italie dans son
rapprochement avec l’Union européenne.
Enclave à population majoritairement arménienne en Azerbaïdjan, le
Nagorny-Karabakh a été le thétre d’un conflit meurtrier au début des
années 1990 au moment de la désintégration de l’Union soviétique. Il
reste, depuis un cessez-le-feu en 1994, sous le contrôle des
Arméniens, qui l’avaient emporté sur le terrain.
Bakou considère toujours que l’enclave fait partie de l’Azerbaïdjan
et a menacé de recourir à la force pour reprendre le contrôle du
territoire.
Des négociations de paix se déroulent par intermittence depuis dix
ans avec la médiation du groupe de Minsk (Etats-Unis, Russie,
France), qui opère sous le mandat de l’Organisation pour la sécurité
et la coopération en Europe (OSCE).

82% OF EXPOSED CASES OF VIOLATION OF AGRARIAN RULES ELIMINATED IN 2004
YEREVAN, January 28 (Noyan Tapan). 185 cases of violation of agrarian
rules were registered as a result of 965 check-ups conducted in 2004
by the State Inspection on Farming of the RA Ministry of Agriculture,
which is less by 7 cases in comparison with last year’s
index. According to the Inspection, 152 cases, or 82%, out of the
indicated violations were eliminated (about 86% – in 2003). 68 cases
of violation of rules of production and import of sapling materials
and seeds, 66 cases of violation of rules of use and preservation of
pesticides, 20 cases of violation of rules of struggle against
diseases and weeds, 21 cases of violation of rules of land cultivation
were registered last year.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress