Iran calls for closer ties
Baku Sun: Azerbaijan
Dec 24 2004
BAKU (AP) – Iran’s defense minister on Wednesday called for closer
military ties between his country and Azerbaijan.
Ali Shamkhani’s visit to neighboring Azerbaijan is the second in
less than a week by a top Iranian security official. Last week,
Iran’s Minister for Intelligence Ali Yunesi met with Azerbaijani
President Ilham Aliev, announcing that the two neighboring countries
were working together on security.
“Azerbaijan’s security is our security. Our defense capability is your
defense capability,” Shamkhani told his Azerbaijani counterpart, Safar
Abiyev. “We have all possibilities for broadening our relations. A
statement released by Azerbaijani Defense Ministry said the two
ministers exchanged opinions on a wide range of issues concerning
the development of military ties.
Abiyev said Iran should help to resolve the dispute surrounding the
Nagorno-Karabakh enclave, whose status sparked a war between Armenia
and Azerbaijan in the 1990s. The two Caucasus countries continue to
have tense relations.
Shamkhani was also expected to meet with Aliev and other top Azeri
officials.
Earlier this month, several top Iranian diplomats as well as Iran’s
health and environment ministers made official visits to Azerbaijan.

CENN – DECEMBER 24, 2004 DAILY DIGEST
Table of Contents:
1. SOCAR Thinks Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan Pipeline May be 11 % Over Budget
2. BP, TNK-BP Discuss Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan Pipe
3. Detained Poacher has Wounded Employee of Ministry of Ecology and
Natural Resources
4. Ceremony Marks Opening of Aerial Tramway at Tsakhkadzor Resort
5. Iranian gas pipeline to ensure diverse energy sources for Armenia
6. Unluckiest Village in Armenia
7. Armenia Eligible to Receive Loan from OPEC Fund for International
Development
8. UNECE seminar of the Working Group on IWRM of the Water Convention
9. USA Ambassador in Azerbaijan Mr. Reno Harnish Expressed Concern About
the Events Taken Place in Azerbaijani advocacy
1. SOCAR THINKS BAKU-TBILISI-CEYHAN PIPELINE MAY BE 11 % OVER BUDGET
Source: EINnews, December 23, 2004
The cost of building the nearly completed Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil export
pipeline could hit $ 4 bn, SOCAR said, just days after Azerbaijan’s
state oil company downplayed the extend of cost overruns. The pipeline
was originally budgeted to cost $ 3.6 bn.
“Total expenses may increase by $ 350 mm-$ 450 mm,” SOCAR General
Director Natik Aliyev said. “We’ve reached the conclusion that costs may
reach $ 4 bn.” Aliyev said the pipeline could exceed its budget by 5 %
to 7 %. Costs of $ 4 bn represent an 11 % increase.
One reason for the increase is the rising price of oil. After a pipeline
is built, the operator must fill it with the requisite minimum amount of
oil that’s to be in the pipeline at all times. BP, which leads the
consortium of companies that own the pipeline, originally estimated that
it would have to spend $ 40 a barrel on this so-called technical crude,
Aliyev said.
Pipeline shareholders plan to buy 10 mm barrel of oil from the nearby
Azer-Chirac-Guneshli project to fill the pipeline in the first stage.
“But now it’s impossible to tell what the price will be in January or
February of next year,” he added. “It could be $ 60 a barrel, or it
could fall.”
Rising global demand and political instability in the Middle East have
caused prices to rise to as high as $ 55 a barrel in the past several
months. Other reasons behind the cost overruns include responding to
protests by nongovernmental organizations, a temporary work stoppage in
Georgia, a rise in the costs of transporting pipes from Japan and an
increase in the price of those pipes.
The falling dollar also played a role, Aliyev said.
“Most of the equipment was procured in Europe, and its
dollar-denominated price rose” with the falling dollar, he said.
Apart from BP, SOCAR, ENI, Itochu, Unocal, Statoil, ConocoPhillips and
Total are shareholders in the project.
2 BP, TNK-BP DISCUSS BAKU-TBILISI-CEYHAN PIPE
Source: Interfax, December 21, 2004
British Petroleum and TNK-BP are discussing the possibility of
transporting TNK-BP oil through the Baku- Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline, BP
Azerbaijan President David Woodward said.
He said that they have not yet reached the stage of discussing volumes
and transport schedules and that they are only discussing transport
options and possibilities.
He said that one potential option for transporting Russian oil through
the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline might be to reverse the Baku-
Novorossiisk pipeline to Baku. David Woodward also said that it is
possible to supply oil by sea from Astrakhan to Baku, for further
transportation through the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline.
3 DETAINED POACHER HAS WOUNDED EMPLOYEE OF MINISTRY OF ECOLOGY AND
NATURAL RESOURCES
Source: State Telegraphic Agency of the Republic of Azerbaijan, Azertag,
December 22, 2004
During a raid aimed at revealing of the illegal facts of hunting, which
was held by the 2nd Territorial Department of the Ministry of Ecology
and Natural Resources in territory of Duyarli village of Shamkir region
was detained by poaching the resident of region Samir Ismailov.
As informed correspondent AzerTAj from the press-service of the
Ministry, the poacher who has not obeyed requirements of ecologists, has
opened fire and wound the employee of department Elmar Aliyev. The case
investigated by the Office of Public Prosecutor Shamkir region.
4 CEREMONY MARKS OPENING OF AERIAL TRAMWAY AT TSAKHKADZOR RESORT
Source: President.am, December, 2004
President Robert Kocharian participated in the opening ceremony of the
newly renovated aerial tramway at the Tsakhkadzor resort.
Kocharian hailed the completion, adding that the last section of the
tramway would be ready by next year, meeting all international
standards. “The new aerial tramway is built on a higher level than
Tsakhkadzor’s entire infrastructure. We should encourage businesses and
investors to build new hotels here, introduce services and leisure
places to make Tsakhkadzor a true tourist attraction. Only in that case
can we claim that we reached our goal,” Kocharian stressed.
The 2500 meters long aerial tramway has been renovated by a prominent
Swiss company specializing in assembling aerial tramways and other
construction works. The Tsakhkadzor resort is on the eastern slope of
Mount Teghenis and is famous for its numerous lodges and sport
facilities
5 IRANIAN GAS PIPELINE TO ENSURE DIVERSE ENERGY SOURCES FOR ARMENIA
Source: Mediamax news agency, December 22, 2004
Yerevan, December 22, 2004: The possible transit of gas by the
Iran-Armenia gas pipeline is “an issue of the future”, Armenian Foreign
Minister Vardan Oskanyan said in Yerevan today.
Oskanyan told a press conference at the National Press Club that the
main goal in the construction of the gas pipeline is to have diverse
energy sources for Armenia.
Asked if Russia could interfere in this issue, Oskanyan said “Armenia is
always taking into account the interests of the neighbouring countries,
but is acting, first of all, in line with its own interests”.
Commenting on a project to construct a railway between Iran and Armenia,
Oskanyan said the project requires large funds. However, he said as the
trade between Armenia and Iran is growing day by day, there is a need
for a railway between the two countries.
“This issue needs to be discussed and analysed seriously,” Oskanyan
said.
6 UNLUCKIEST VILLAGE IN ARMENIA
Source: Institute for War and Peace Reporting, December 22, 2004
The New Year will not be a cheerful one in Vanand. Outside it may be the
21st century, but the villagers will be celebrating the arrival of 2005
as they have done for centuries – in the dark without electricity, gas
or running water.
Vanand is located in the Armavir district of western Armenia right on
the border with Turkey. It has a population of 500, with the same number
having left over the past decade, mainly for Russia.
Like nowhere else, this place feels the impact of the seasons, being
very hot in summer and bitterly cold in winter. In cold weather they use
whatever comes to hand to heat their houses, mainly timber and dry dung.
Winter can be easier than summer. Karine Hakopian, a mother of three,
said, “Maybe nature will take pity on us and we will get a snowy winter.
Then we can melt the snow and there will be water for us and our
animals.”
Drinking water is worth more than gold here. Ohanes Margarian, a
40-year-old villager, told IWPR that water is brought into the village
once or twice a week in churns. “We can’t even drink an extra cup of
coffee, let alone have a hot meal,” he said. “Because of lack of water
we often have to eat dried food. I believe that the local authorities
are to blame that we live in such primitive conditions. They couldn’t
care less about us. This is a border village and they can’t be bothered
with it.”
That makes the hot season especially hard. Javan Manukian, the head of
the community, said that last summer they had been given irrigation
water on just three occasions, even though temperatures at that time of
year in the Ararat valley, where Vanand is located, can rise to 50
degrees centigrade.
When the villagers asked the local authorities for help, they were told
they had to pay for the water. “And where can people get money from?”
Manukian asked. “There’s no work and no harvest. Take a look yourself,
all the trees in the peasants’ plots have withered. The peaches, apples
and grapes have gone because of the lack of water.
In 2003, the Armenian government adopted a programme on improving the
socio-economic condition of border villages with plans to provide them
with gas and water. Parandzem Karapetian, head of administration in the
Armavir mayor’s office, said, “We do what we can but our capacities are
limited.”
Meri Harutiunian, head of the Armenian government’s press office, said
that Vanand was on a list of border villages which were entitled to
government investment in a special programme due to begin next year. But
details of the plan are still sketchy.
The villagers say they have never had gas, but before independence in
1991 they at least did not have the mass unemployment they have now.
The bread factory worked properly and there were farms that employed
local people. Nowadays the bread factory works at five per cent of its
capacity and the farms are just memories.
A gas supply is just a distant dream. Shushan Sardarian, press secretary
of the gas company ArmRosgazprom, told IWPR, “Today we are laying gas
pipes in the towns and big villages of Armenia. Only when that is
completed can we begin to talk about gas supplies for outlying
villages.”
Karine Hakopian’s two school-age children, Arevik and Araik, go to
school ten kilometres away in the next village of Artamet on foot. If
the road is blocked by snow, they do not make it to school at all.
And even when they get there, it is hard to call it a school at all. It
is a collection of railway carriages, each holding a class, some with as
little as two pupils.
Some children in Vanand and Artamet do not go to school at all because
their parents can’t afford to clothe them. “My son hasn’t been going to
school since September,” said Ripsime Danielian. “My husband recently
went to work in Russia and he can’t help us at the moment. And the boy
is ashamed of going in old clothes. Never mind, he can help me round the
house for the time being and next year if things get better in our
family he can start his studies again.”
The Danielian family is, like most households in this village, headed by
the mother because the father is away in Russia, sending home occasional
remittances.
They get electricity once a day and sometimes less than that. “We’re
used to it,” said Ripsime. “We use wood-burning stoves. Though wood
costs money too, it’s hard for us to get it. Some people get help from
relatives, others get by somehow. We pass the long winter evenings by
kerosene lamps. It’s not so bad for us adults but I feel sorry for the
children who have to live in the dark. I don’t know who should answer
for the way we live in the Stone Age.”
Despite all the hardships of living in Vanand, IWPR found that people
are still planning to stay here. “Those who wanted to leave have already
done so. As for me, I’m not going anywhere,” said Seiran Muradian.
“A few times people have given my family the chance to move to the town
and offered them help with moving and finding a flat. But I can’t leave
the land where my ancestors are buried. And after all our village is
right on the border with Turkey. It’s like a wall and we are the
defenders of our country.”
“Our young men went off to war from here,” said a young woman named
Srbui. “Many of them didn’t come back. We put up memorials to them.
We are poor but at least the cemetery is well looked after. I love my
village and my neighbours and I hope that life will sort itself out
here. There ought to be a party one day on our street too.”
7 ARMENIA ELIGIBLE TO RECEIVE LOAN FROM OPEC FUND FOR INTERNATIONAL
DEVELOPMENT
Source: ArmenPress, December 22, 2004
United Arab Emirates-chaired OPEC Fund for International Development
announced December 21 it approved loans worth a total of USD
157.4million at a recent board of governors meeting in the Fund’s Vienna
offices.
Jamal Nasser Lutah, the board’s chairman and assistant undersecretary of
Industry at the UAE Ministry of Finance and Industry (MOFI), unveiled
the details of the loans. He said: ‘The board has approved 17 loans
totaling $157.4 million to offer credit finance for projects in Angola,
Armenia, Bosnia, Congo, Jordan, Turkey and Turkmenistan.”
The loans are for as long as 20 years. The first five years offer a
grace period and the interest payable varies from 1 per cent to 1.75 per
cent.’
The announcement did not say how much Armenia is expected to get. The
Armenian finance and economy ministry said it did not discuss yet how
the loan could be used.
The OPEC Fund for International Development was established in January
1976 by the member countries of the Organization of the Petroleum
Exporting Countries (OPEC). The Fund was established to support
low-income countries in their efforts to make economic and social
progress. It aims to promote cooperation between member countries of
OEPC and other developing nations.
8 UNECE SEMINAR OF THE WORKING GROUP ON IWRM OF THE WATER CONVENTION
Dear Friends,
At the UNECE seminar on ecosystems as water suppliers (13-14 December
2004 in
Geneva)(),
the annexed draft decision on Integrated Management of Water Resources
for the 23rd session of the Governing Council of UNEP (Nairobi, Kenya,
21-25 February 2005) was given to the Swiss delegation for consideration
by the Mexican delegation.
Given the importance of water-related ecosystems for water management
that was demonstrated during the seminar Switzerland proposed to
distribute the draft decision to all of us, participants of this seminar
and the meeting Working Group on IWRM of the Water Convention that took
place on 15 December 2004.
As participant of mentioned seminars I just received e-mail from Sibylle
Vermont, Head of mentioned working group for comments to attached draft
documents.
If you are interested in providing comments you can send them to me. I
will collect them and send them to her.
They need your support on this decision. Our region has a lot of
experience on the relation of ecosystems and water. It is time now to
promote it to other regions and stimulate further work on the topic.
My personal opinion regarding to this document is positive and in order
to corporate it with the Statement of UNEP which is sent to you by me
two days ago I would suggest to add following comments:
– Importance for UNEP to work on the implementation of JPOI and EU water
– initiative and support:
– Development of IWRM plans in all countries;
– Actively support and promote involvment of civil society in this
process
You cal also add comments on transboundary(national level) issues like:
Support and promotion of upstream and downstream level data exchange,
dialoge and activity coordination;
Best regards and I wish you all Happy New Year!
Rafig Verdiyev,
ECORES
E- mail: [email protected]
9 USA AMBASSADOR IN AZERBAIJAN MR. RENO HARNISH EXPRESSED CONCERN ABOUT
THE EVENTS TAKEN PLACE IN AZERBAIJANI ADVOCACY
Dear Colleagues,
Please find the statement of USA Embassy in Azerbaijan concerning the
establishment of advocacy in Azerbaijan.
Statement of USA Embassy in Azerbaijan:
Ambassador in Azerbaijan Mr.doc
Intigam Aliyev,
Co-chairman of Azerbaijan Lawyers’ Forum
Tel.:(994 12) 498-81-75, 498-94-80
Mob.: (994 50) 204-70-10
Email: [email protected]
Address: 199 Shamil Azizbeyov str, Apt. 7
AZ 1010, Baku, Azerbaijan
—
*******************************************
CENN INFO
Caucasus Environmental NGO Network (CENN)
Tel: ++995 32 92 39 46
Fax: ++995 32 92 39 47
E-mail: [email protected]
URL:
–Boundary_(ID_1RZE/rRs+nyR/nQCWMvF9w)–

Friday, December 24, 2004
expressindia
Indian Express Group
Cabinet nod for Rs 2,800 cr combat jets
Express News Service & Agencies
Posted online: Friday, December 24, 2004 at 1813 hours IST
Updated: Friday, December 24, 2004 at 2032 hours IST
New Delhi, December 24: The Cabinet Committee on Security has approved
the revised cost estimate of Rs 2800 crore for the development of
indigenous Kaveri engine for the LCA (Tejas) project. Already, the
Defence Research Development Organisation has spent Rs 1300 crore on
the prestigious project.
This was stated by Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee after the CCS
meeting chaired by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
The CCS “approved the revised cost estimate of Kaveri engine” which
has been placed at Rs 2,800 crore, Mukherjee said adding that Rs
1,300 crore had already been spent earlier on the indigenous project.
Two prototypes of LCA being developed by Hindustan Aeronautics Limited
(HAL), Bangalore, have been test flown including at supersonic speeds.
LCA, a versatile, light weight and multi-role combat aircraft, is
expected to be ready for induction in the Air force in another three
years time.
Mukherjee said the CCS also approved a defence cooperation agreement
with Armenia which had been reached by the previous NDA regime in
May last year.

Armenia to Deploy 46 Troops to Iraq
By AVET DEMOURIAN
The Associated Press
12/24/04 14:07 EST
YEREVAN, Armenia (AP) – Armenia’s parliament voted Friday to send
46 non-combat troops to Iraq, a move that was backed by President
Robert Kocharian but drew sharp criticism from many Armenians and
opposition groups.
After more than seven hours of debate behind closed doors, lawmakers
in the National Assembly voted 91-23, with one abstention, to send
the contingent, which will include bomb-disposal experts, doctors
and transport specialists.
The troops could be deployed to Iraq as early as next month and could
serve in Iraq for up to a year, said Defense Minister Serzh Sarkisyan,
adding that the contingent would only conduct humanitarian operations.
“There is not, and will not be an Armenian military presence in
Iraq,” Foreign Minister Vardan Oskanyan said. “In the humanitarian
aspect, it is preferable for Armenia to contribute to the postwar
reconstruction of Iraq, in establishing democracy in this country
which has important significance for the region and which could have
an impact on the Caucasus.”
The troops would serve as part of the Polish-led multinational force,
officials said. That force operates in a belt of territory south of
Baghdad, though Armenia has not specified where its troops will deploy.
The Constitutional Court ruled earlier this month that Kocharian’s
plan to send non-combat troops to Iraq did not violate the country’s
constitution.
Kocharian has sought to portray the decision to send troops to Iraq
as a way to boost ties with Europe.
But the proposal had been widely criticized by opposition parties,
many Armenians and even the 30,000-strong Armenian community in Iraq,
which feared being targeted for attacks if the troops were sent.
“We shouldn’t even be sending humanitarian troops to Iraq, because we
can’t jeopardize the security of Armenians living Iraq, said Viktor
Dalakyan, a leader with the opposition party Justice. “Moreover their
lives are already being threatened.”
In August, an Armenian Apostolic church in Baghdad was hit in a wave
of attacks on Iraq’s minority Christians that that killed 11 people
and injured more than 50.
The troops will join a multinational division that includes troops
from other former Soviet countries, such as Georgia and Armenia’s
archrival, Azerbaijan.
Other former Soviet republics that have also sent troops to Iraq are
Ukraine, Georgia and the three Baltic countries.

New Armenian deputy foreign minister appointed
A1+ web site
24 Dec 04
24 December: Armen Bayburdyan has been appointed Armenian deputy
foreign minister.
Before the appointment, he was Armenia’s ambassador to India. Under
the presidential decree, Bayburdyan was relieved of this post on 25
November 2004.

Freedom of Speech – in Any Language
Middle East Quarterly
Summer 2004
By Jonathan Eric Lewis
Following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, many have rightly
cited the Middle East’s democracy deficit as one of the prime reasons
that the region has produced so much terrorism and political violence.
In a November 2003 speech to the National Endowment for Democracy,
President George W. Bush argued that while we should not expect
democratizing societies in the Middle East to be identical to
post-industrial America, there are some common features to what he
termed “successful societies.” These include the limited power of the
state and its military, the impartial rule of law, a robust civil
society, property rights, religious freedom, and the rights of women.[1]
But if Washington is to be successful in fostering democratic change in
the Middle East and in promoting stability within states that have
ongoing ethnic conflicts, it must put linguistic freedom—the right to
freely speak and educate one’s children in one’s native language—on par
with other concepts such as women’s rights and religious freedom. The
lack of linguistic freedom in much of the Middle East is part and parcel
of the region’s general stagnation under archaic political systems.
Given the vast diversity of ethno-linguistic groups throughout North
Africa, Anatolia, the Levant and Mesopotamia, and the Persian Gulf, it
is striking that just three regional languages dominate the public
arena: Arabic, Persian, and Turkish. This is the legacy of
European-style nationalism in the Middle East: linguistic conformity has
been made a staple of national identity, as states still labor to
achieve a nineteenth-century European ideal of the nation-state.
There is nothing wrong with a state imposing a certain degree of
linguistic uniformity in order to achieve a measure of national
cohesiveness, such as the case in Israel where modern Hebrew acted as a
means of fostering a new, unifying national identity. However, when a
state’s policy shifts from using a language as a means of fostering
national unity to a deliberate policy of denying or eradicating the
cultural identity of minority groups, it bodes ill for tolerance in the
polity as a whole. Such has been the case with the Assyrians in Iraq,
the Kabyles in Algeria, and the Kurds in Turkey. A proper balance would
allow simultaneously for a unifying national language, such as Arabic or
Hebrew, together with a legally protected right for all minority groups
to speak their native languages at home and to print material in these
languages for personal use without fear of state repression.
The ideal of linguistic conformity, however, is pervasive throughout the
Middle East although actual policies have differed from state to state.
Baathist Iraq, perhaps the most totalitarian of all the Middle Eastern
regimes and certainly the most violent, had an extremely harsh language
policy that conformed to its fascistic interpretation of Arab
nationalism. Algeria’s Kabyles and Turkey’s Kurds have also been
subjected to state pressures, and have reacted by developing political
movements that have resisted official language policy. By contrast,
Israel, through its laissez-faire linguistic policies, has defused some
of the resentment of its large Arabic-speaking minority. By according
official standing to Arabic, it has bought the acquiescence of a large
Arabic-speaking Muslim minority that has yet to come to terms with the
legitimacy of Israel as a Jewish state.[2]
These four countries—Algeria, Iraq, Israel, and Turkey—provide different
models for the relationship between state power and linguistic freedom.
The Arabization policies of Iraq and Algeria ultimately foreshadowed
infernos of political violence. Turkey’s language policies led to
internal destabilization, particularly in the primarily ethnic Kurdish
southeast. The linguistic policies of Israel have contributed to a
relative degree of internal stability. What this variation shows is that
there is a high correlation between the suppression of languages, the
suppression of dissent, and political violence. As U.S. policymakers
raise the flag of women’s rights and religious freedom, they should
consider whether linguistic freedom, of the kind practiced in the United
States, isn’t just as suitable for promotion in the Middle East.
Iraq as Babel?
While significant attention has been devoted to guaranteeing religious
pluralism in post-Baathist Iraq, particularly for the minority
Christians and the majority Shi’ites, scarce attention has been devoted
to the need for linguistic pluralism.
Iraq, upon independence in 1933, was a linguistically pluralistic state
whose inhabitants spoke Iraqi Arabic (in several local dialects),
Armenian, Assyrian, Judeo-Arabic, Kurdish, and Turkmen. Over the
remaining century, and particularly under Baathist rule (1968 to 2003),
Iraq became an increasingly Arab state in which Arabic enjoyed a
privileged and dominant status. Under Saddam Hussein, ethno-linguistic
minority groups such as the Kurds, Assyrians and Turkmen experienced
extreme persecution and were severely restricted in their ability to
speak and educate their children in their own language.
In the new Iraq, first steps have been taken to restore linguistic
pluralism. Article 9 of the transitional Iraqi constitution, promulgated
in March 2004, defines both Arabic and Kurdish as the two official
languages of Iraq and also guarantees the “right of Iraqis to educate
their children in their mother tongue, such as Turcoman [i.e., Turkmen],
Syriac, or Armenian, in government educational institutions in
accordance with educational guidelines, or in any other language in
private educational institutions.”[3] The fact that this was agreed upon
by the Iraqi Governing Council should be seen as an underreported
victory of the Coalition Provisional Authority in its efforts to foster
a pluralistic polity, embracing not only Kurds but also Assyrians and
Turkmen.
Nevertheless, more needs to be done to guarantee the linguistic rights
of the Iraqi Shi’ite community. Najaf has long had a history of
linguistic pluralism with Shi’ites from Persia, Azerbaijan, Bukhara, and
Lebanon studying in the city’s madrasas (Islamic schools). Indeed, from
the mid-eighteenth-century to the most recent decades, the majority of
Najaf’s students were not Arabic-speakers at all. Historian Yitzhak
Nakash writes:
Iraqi Shi’is asserted that unlike intellectual activity at al-Azhar,
which was molded by the local culture and trends in modern Egypt,
activity at Najaf became less influenced by the city’s indigenous Arab
environment and instead was dominated by a Persian spirit. The strong
Persian presence in the madrasa distanced Najaf from Baghdad, thereby
hindering the potential social and intellectual exchange between Sunnis
and Shi’is in Iraq. Foreign linguistic elements penetrated into the
Arabic dialect of Najaf, and the method of study became patterned after
the Persian.[4]
Given that the Grand Ayatollah ‘Ali as-Sistani, the country’s pivotal
power-broker, speaks Arabic with a Persian accent, there is an obvious
need for guarantees of linguistic pluralism for the ethnically diverse
Shi’ites who will be returning to Najaf for scholarship. While
Washington should not actively take part in intra-Shi’ite theological
disputes, it should use its leverage in Iraq to guarantee that speakers
of Persian and Persian-influenced Arabic are not discriminated against
in the public administration of Iraq.
Nowhere in the Middle East does the United States have a greater
opportunity to foster linguistic pluralism than in Iraq. The provisional
constitution, while theoretically protecting the linguistic rights of
Armenians, Assyrians, and Turkmen, will be but a piece of paper unless
its provisions for linguistic freedom are vigorously enforced by the
Iraqi judiciary. Washington further has the obligation to make sure that
the Kurdish authorities in northern Iraq do not abuse their newfound
freedoms to discriminate against non-Kurdish speakers, particularly
Assyrians, who fear that they will lose opportunities for bilingual
Arabic and Assyrian education. Given the strong correlation between the
persecution of ethno-linguistic minorities and state violence in Iraq,
policymakers should consider the status of linguistic pluralism as a
bellwether for Iraq’s success in nation-building.
Overly Arabized Algeria
Algeria, although a member of the Arab League, is linguistically
diverse. A majority of the country’s inhabitants speak Algerian-dialect
spoken Arabic. But Algeria’s heritage includes Berber, Roman, Jewish,
Moor, Arabic, Ottoman, and French influences.[5] Both Tamazigh (Berber)
and French are spoken by large numbers of Algerians as first languages.
In the name of national unity and the consolidation of identity, the
state has pursued a policy of Arabization against both languages, which
has had dire consequences for the political stability of the country.
The first target of Arabization was French. During the long period of
French colonial rule from 1830 to 1962, many Algerians, particularly
members of the educated and urban classes, used French as a primary
language. Such was the degree of French linguistic influence on Algerian
society and politics that Algeria’s first president, Ahmed Ben Bella, on
release from French prison, proclaimed his adherence to Arab nationalism
in French: “Nous sommes des Arabes!”(“We are Arabs!”).”[6] Ben Bella’s
use of French to proclaim his anti-imperialism and Arab-Islamic
nationalism was paradoxical, for it was he who, as president (1962-65),
initiated the policy of linguistic Arabization in the country’s primary
schools.
Arabization took a particular form. The leaders of independent Algeria
wished to link the country to the wider Arab world, which it regarded as
the cultural counter-weight to France. Hugh Roberts, vice-president of
the Society for Algerian Studies, has written:
The Arabisation policy was based on the premise that neither French nor
the colloquial Arabic and Berber spoken in Algeria could serve as the
language of education and administration. Its aim was accordingly to
make the modern literary Arabic, which had been developed as the lingua
franca of the Mashriq, the national language of Algeria.[7]
The promotion of this brand of Arabization gained momentum under
President Houari Boumedienne (1965-78), who declared a révolution
culturelle to accompany the country’s radical economic and foreign
policies. Boumedienne’s Arabization drive was intended to link Algeria
to revolutionary ideologies in the rest of the Arab world. But due to
the lack of native speakers of modern standard Arabic, Algeria imported
teachers from the Levant and Egypt, many of whom were sympathetic to
Islamism. Their teaching had an unintended consequence of strengthening
Islamism as an ideology in Algerian public life.
Also, because French remained the language of commerce, young educated
speakers of Arabic—the so-called Arabisants—did not command adequate
French for career advancement. These Arabisants gravitated to the study
Islamic law and literature at the university level, rather than the
francophone science and technology courses. This made them susceptible
to Islamist teaching.[8] The migration of lower class, rural Arabisants
into Algerian cities also played into the hands of Islamists. They would
become the shock troops of the Islamist insurgency of the 1990s.
Islamists still had to resort to French in order to recruit more
educated followers. One of the best-selling Islamist newspapers in newly
independent Algeria, Humanisme Musulman, was in French, not in
Arabic.[9] Likewise, La Cause, the diaspora newspaper of the Front
Islamique du Salut (FIS), an Islamist group, was published in French.
But the Arabic-French divide largely came to subsume the
Islamist-secular split, which itself resulted in part from forced
Arabization.
All of Algeria paid a price for Arabization, but it posed a direct
threat to the identity of the Kabyles. Numbering approximately 20
percent of Algeria’s population and a disproportionately large number of
its intellectual class, Kabyles are a non-Arab, nominally Muslim
community. Their ancestral homelands of Greater and Lesser Kabylia
border the Mediterranean Sea. Kabyles speak Tamazigh, an Afro-Asiatic
language linguistically unrelated to Arabic, and they trace their
descent to the pre-Islamic Berber community indigenous to North Africa.
Kabyles played a significant role in the Front de Libération Nationale
(FLN), the Algerian nationalist movement that fought for independence
from France, only to be politically sidelined by the Arab-Muslim
elements within the FLN once independence was achieved in 1962.
Governmental restrictions on Tamazigh-related activity began immediately
upon independence. They included the abolition of the chair of Berber
studies at Algiers University in 1962 and the criminalizing of the
possession of Tamazigh dictionaries. After the cancellation of a lecture
on Berber poetry by Kabyle activist Moulaoud Mammeri in the Kabyle city
of Tizi Ouzou in 1980, a series of riots and demonstrations were
sparked, often termed the Tizi Ouzou Spring, leaving several hundred
dead or wounded. More recently, Algerian president Abdelaziz Bouteflika,
in a nation-wide television address, termed Tamazigh “a factory of
division in national unity.”[10]
The pressure has come not only from the state. Algerian Islamists have
likewise victimized the Kabyle community and are responsible for bomb
attacks against Kabyle music concerts and the kidnapping and eventual
murder of the famous Kabyle singer Matoub Lounes, who had told a Kabyle
newspaper that he was “neither Arab nor Muslim.”[11]
Linguistic freedom has been one of the linchpins of the Kabyle political
movement. The Movement for the Autonomy of Kabylia (MAK, founded 2001)
is the most politically sophisticated of all the Kabyle ethno-linguistic
political movements. The MAK, partially led by Ferhat Mehenni, a Kabyle
singer-activist, advocates autonomy for Kabylia along the lines of that
enjoyed by the Catalonians, Flemish, Welsh, and Scottish peoples.[12]
The MAK boycotted the April 2004 Algerian presidential elections on the
grounds that Algiers has refused to recognize Tamazigh as an official
(rather than just a “national”) language.
Algeria’s Arabization policy has had repercussions for both Europe and
the United States. It has contributed to the growth of militant Islam
within the Algerian public sphere, fueling not only the Algerian civil
war but also the growth of a fundamentalist Arabisant Algerian diaspora
in both Europe and North America. More recently, continuing clashes
between the Kabyle minority and the country’s security forces have
clouded Algerian-U.S. cooperation in the ongoing war on terror, as
Washington is reluctant to work with security forces responsible for
suppression of a peaceful minority.
Unfortunately, President Bouteflika is using a restrictive linguistic
policy to forge a national consensus. He seeks to reconcile Arab
nationalists and Islamists by refusing to grant broad linguistic rights
to the increasingly restless Kabyle minority. Arabization has become one
more prop of an authoritarian regime that refuses to engage in
much-needed economic and political reforms. The very least the United
States can do, to begin to move Algeria in the direction of those
reforms, is to stand on the side of linguistic diversity and urge the
regime to abandon Arabization. Otherwise, the number of Arabisant
Islamists will continue to swell into the next decade, and so too will
the resentment of the Kabyles.
Talking Turkish
Although Turkey is one of the most Western, and certainly pro-American
countries, in the Middle East, Turkey’s language policy nevertheless
remains one of the harshest and most uncompromising. That policy has
become one of the prime impediments to Turkey’s possible accession to
the European Union (EU). A recent report from the European parliament
that argued against Turkey’s accession cited Ankara’s treatment of its
linguistic minorities among the reasons for denying Turkey’s entry.[13]
The policy in question is Ankara’s denial of linguistic freedom for its
Kurdish minority.
To understand Turkey’s harsh restrictions on speaking and publishing in
non-Turkish languages, it is necessary to recall the difficult
circumstances that faced the nascent Turkish republic at independence.
From the late Ottoman period onwards, the country’s elite sought
acceptance in Europe by embracing European-style notions of the nation.
By a process of Turkification, they also sought to prevent the emergence
of alternative national identities. They had learned, from long and
bitter experience, that national groups under Ottoman rule could appeal
to European powers to support separatist aspirations. By this process,
the empire had lost most of its Balkan possessions.
The Treaty of Lausanne of 1923 ended the Turkish war of independence
against both European and Greek forces and gave birth to the secular
Turkish Republic. By its terms, Turkey had to recognize the rights of
non-Muslim minorities such as Armenians and Greeks to educate in their
own language. But these were small minorities whose national aspirations
were being realized outside of Turkey’s borders. The danger, in the
minds of the Turkish-speaking elite, lay in Anatolia, among Muslim
minority groups within the Turkish Republic. What was to keep them from
making separatist demands? Turkey therefore successfully excluded their
linguistic rights from the treaty.[14] Indeed, such disparate
ethno-linguistic groups as the Albanians, Abkhaz, Arabs, Bosnians,
Chechens, Circassians, Kurds, and Laz are not officially recognized by
the state and have instead been subsumed under a monolithic Turkish
identi ty.
Mustafa Kemal Atatürk’s adamant secularism, or Kemalism, has likewise
determined Turkish linguistic policies. As a means of breaking with the
Islamic past, not only did Atatürk abolish the caliphate, but he also
rid Turkish of Arabic and Persian elements, and replaced its Arabic
script with a Latin one. This policy was deliberately intended to lessen
the strength of Islam, by making the great body of extant religious
literature inaccessible even to literate Turks. In 1932, the newly
formed Türk Dil Kurumu (TDK), an organization devoted to promoting the
Turkish language and protecting it from foreign influences, excised
thousands of Arabic and Persian words from the new, modern Turkish
lexicon.[15] The degree of success of this process is evident in both
the generally high literacy rate among Turks, and the inability of the
vast majority of Turks to read Ottoman-script Turkish documents. But e
ven this success has not prevented the reassertion of Islam in Turkish
politics.
The real cost of Turkification, however, has been paid by the state in
its relationship with its Kurdish citizenry. Steven Kinzer of The New
York Times, an observer of Turkish affairs, correctly assessed that “by
banning almost every kind of Kurdish organization, the government made
it impossible for moderate Kurdish leaders to emerge.”[16] One of the
most persistent demands of the mainstream Kurdish movement has been for
the freedom to use Kurdish in schools and the media, both of which have
been viewed with suspicion by Turkish authorities that rigorously adhere
to the indivisible and unitary character of the state. More recently,
the state has made some concessions, including the noteworthy granting
of permission by the Turkish authorities for Kurdish-language teaching
in private schools in Van, Batman, and Sanliurfa.[17] In June 2004,
Turkish state radio and television (TRT) began short broadcasts in two
Kurdish dialects, Zaza and Kurmanjy, as well as in Arabic, Bosnian, and
Circassian. There will likely be increasing demands for Kurdish language
classes in state-funded schools, and a growing demand by other
ethno-linguistic groups, such as the Circassians, for more linguistic
freedom than they have enjoyed to date.
Recent relaxations of government policy have been billed as concessions
to the EU. In particular, Ankara’s stringent policies on the public use
of Kurdish have been a constant source of friction with the EU, as well
as international human rights organizations. At the same time, there may
be a realization in the Turkish political elite that past policies have
been counter-productive. Those past policies were inspired by a
nineteenth-century European ideal of linguistic conformity—an ideal that
even Europe has abandoned as dangerous and divisive. The United States,
however, has taken a less adamant stance on linguistic freedom in
Turkey. This is one issue on which Washington might amplify the message
coming from Brussels: Turkey will be stronger if it allows a greater
measure of linguistic freedom. Far from prompting political separatism,
such liberalization will tend to neutralize it.
Israeli Diversity
Israel, in contrast to its Muslim neighbors, has a comparatively open
and tolerant linguistic policy, allowing for its Arab, Christian,
Circassian, and Druze minorities to speak their languages both in public
and private without state reprisals, and to educate their children in
their native languages. Indeed, the state-subsidized educational system
of the Arab sector teaches the majority of its curriculum in
Palestinian-dialect Arabic.
Israel has neither a constitutional provision nor a law that
specifically articulates the state’s language policy.[18] This affords
both central and local governmental authorities great flexibility in
shaping Israeli society’s use of various languages in private and public
life and allows for the state to reshape its policies in relation to
both the ongoing conflict with its adversaries and the emerging
challenges to Hebrew-language dominance.
In order to comprehend Israel’s relative degree of linguistic pluralism
within the context of the Middle East, one must take into account
several things: Israel’s history of Jewish immigration and the rebirth
of Hebrew as a vernacular language for the country’s Jewish citizens,
the granting to Arabic the status of an official language of the Jewish
state, Israel’s laissez-faire attitude toward the country’s Armenian and
Circassian minorities, and contemporary attempts to promote
bilingualism. Despite the rising numbers of Israel’s Arab citizens
involved in terrorist activities—still an extremely small number in
proportion to the numerical strength of the Arab sector—Israel’s policy
of linguistic tolerance has helped to stem the tide of radicalization of
its minority communities.
Hebrew, as the most widely spoken language and as the language of
government, has become to Israel what English is to the United States:
the language to be used by immigrants (whose native languages number in
the hundreds) so as to create a monolithic Israeli linguistic identity.
Given the importance of the rebirth of Hebrew as a vernacular for the
modern Zionist project, Hebrew has become the Israeli language, par
excellence. In the early years of the state, Hebrew primacy came at the
expense of the numerous languages spoken by Jewish immigrants,
particularly Yiddish, Judeo-Arabic, Judeo-Persian, and Judeo-Berber,
vernacular languages that were both discouraged and marginalized in the
new Hebrew-speaking society. (Speech in other European languages spoken
by immigrants, such German and Polish, was also discouraged.)
But the State of Israel’s promotion of Hebrew as the dominant language
of its majority actually discriminated more against rival Judaic (and
European) languages than against languages spoken by the country’s
non-Jewish minorities. Certainly Israel’s Arab citizens are also
required to learn Hebrew in school. However, Arabic is an official
language of the Jewish state, a status it shares only with Hebrew. Not
only does Israel allow its Arabic-speaking citizens to maintain their
own linguistic identity, the government funds Arabic-language schools
for its Palestinian Arab citizenry. Likewise, signs in Israel are often
found in both Hebrew and Arabic, and there is no shortage of
Arabic-language newspapers and broadcasts.
Due to the growing demographic and numerical strength of Israel’s Arab
citizens, it is conceivable that Arabic will become an increasingly
influential language in the Jewish state. This partially explains the
attempts by some Israeli political activists to press for a greater
Hebrew-Arabic bilingualism among Jews, a move with significant political
implications. The Swiss government, for example, has given financial
support for an Arab-Jewish bilingual school in Jerusalem.[19] Haifa
mayor Yona Yahav recently argued that “one of the barriers that
exacerbates the Jewish-Arab conflict is the language barrier,” a clear
indication that he believes that an increased appreciation and
understanding of Arabic by all Haifa schoolchildren could help to lessen
the potential ethnic and political conflicts within the municipality.[20]
The effort to create a bilingual society in Israel will face many
obstacles, not least of which is the perception that Arabic is the
language of the enemy. There is also the fact that the million-plus
immigrants who arrived from the former Soviet Union in the 1990s have
differed from past Jewish immigrants. They have maintained their Russian
language, imparted it to the next generation, and supported cultural
activities in Russian. Over the past decade, Russian has emerged as a
second language of Israeli Jews, easily on par with Arabic in the media,
politics, and advertising.
In sum, Israel is more linguistically diverse than ever, and the absence
of linguistic legislation allows for a great deal of creativity and
flexibility. This laissez-faire attitude has served the state well,
compensating Arabic-speaking communities for other forms of perceived
social and political discrimination, and integrating large numbers of
Russian-speakers into society, even before they have mastered Hebrew.
Linguistic pluralism has been of crucial importance in strengthening
Israeli democracy, and in reinforcing a respect for political and
religious pluralism. It is no accident that the most vibrant democracy
in the Middle East is also the most tolerant of diversity in languages.
American Incentives
Whereas most people in the West take for granted the ability to speak or
publish newspapers in any language they wish, this very concept is still
viewed with suspicion, if not outright hostility, in much of the Middle
East. Here the idea of exclusive nationalism, with its pressures for
linguistic conformity, still holds rulers and intellectuals in its
thrall. The “new Arab media” actually reinforce this trend. The leading
journalists and thinkers who dominate the Arab media tend to ignore
issues dealing with minority rights, particularly of those who are not
Arabic-speakers. They thus contribute to marginalizing ethno-political
groups whose primary vernacular is a non-Arabic language, be it
Armenian, Assyrian, Bosnian, Chechen, Circassian, French, Kurdish,
Persian, or Tamazigh.
This is where the United States can and should play a role. Just as
Washington has an interest in a democratic Middle East, it also has an
interest in a Middle East that respects linguistic freedom. Its absence
is usually a sign of a dangerously dysfunctional political system. So it
was in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, where the oppression of Kurds and threats
to U.S. security went hand in hand. So it was in Algeria, where growing
Arabization led to civil war and the emergence of radicalized Islamist
cadres that have posed a clear danger to U.S. national interests. So it
was in Turkey, where a stringent policy against Kurdish contributed to
blocking Turkey’s path to the EU, a clear U.S. interest and one that
President Bush, despite opposition from French president Jacques Chirac,
rightly promoted at the June 2004 North Atlantic Treaty Organization
summit in Istanbul.
Washington can help to promote linguistic diversity if it raises the
issue to the same level as religious freedom and gender equality. It
should use its not-inconsiderable influence to assure that the new Iraq
protects linguistic freedom and pluralism. Indeed, it is unlikely that
Iraq will break with its sorry record of abusing minorities, or achieve
even a semblance of democracy, without guaranteeing such freedom.
Washington likewise should urge Algeria to stop placating Islamists at
the expense of Kabyles. The United States also should work with the
European Union to create still more incentives for Turkey to liberalize
its linguistic policies, especially vis-à-vis Kurdish. This can only
strengthen Turkish democracy, which is not only important for U.S.
strategic interests, but which also provides a working model for other
regional states, notably the fledgling Iraqi polity. As for governments
at odds with the United States, such as Iran and Syria, their policies
toward language freedom, particularly against their Kurdish citizens,
should be monitored and reported, just as the United States monitors
their involvement in terrorism.
It is in America’s long-term national interest for Washington to promote
linguistic freedom in a region stagnating under archaic economic and
political systems and generating totalitarian movements, religious and
secular, that are hostile to American national security. One way to do
that is to promote freedom of speech in its fullest sense. That means
not just the freedom to speak one’s mind. It means the freedom to speak
whatever language comes most readily to one’s lips.
Jonathan Eric Lewis is a New York-based political analyst and consultant
specializing in the history of Middle Eastern minority groups and their
political movements in the diaspora.
NOTES
[1] “President Bush Discusses Freedom in Iraq and Middle East,” remarks
at the National Endowment for Democracy, Washington, D.C., Nov. 6, 2003,
at
[2] I refer to Israel in its pre-1967 configuration.
[3] “The Law of Administration for the State of Iraq for the
Transitional Period,” at
[4] Yitzhak Nakash, The Shi’is of Iraq (Princeton: Princeton University
Press, 1994), p. 257.
[5] Hugh Roberts, “Historical and Unhistorical Approaches to the Problem
of Identity in Algeria,” in Hugh Roberts, The Battlefield: Algeria
1988-2002 (London:
Verso, 2003), p. 142.
[6] Ibid., p. 139.
[7] Ibid., pp. 12-3.
[8] Martin Stone, The Tragedy of Algeria (New York: Columbia University
Press, 1993), p. 52. See also James Coffman, “Does the Arabic Language
Encourage Radical Islam?” Middle East Quarterly, Dec. 1995, pp. 51-7, at
[9] Michael Willis, The Islamist Challenge in Algeria: A Political
History (New York: New York University Press, 1996), pp. 140-3.
[10] Le Matin (Algiers), Mar. 17, 2004.
[11] Stone, The Tragedy of Algeria, p. 213.
[12] Official website of the MAK, at
;page_centre=mak-pak-english.
[13] Reuters, Apr. 1, 2004.
[14] See “Treaty of Peace with Turkey Signed at Lausanne, July 24,
1923,” at
[15] Martin Gani, “Euro-Turkish,” The World & I, Feb. 2004, pp. 170-7.
[16] Stephen Kinzer, Crescent and Star: Turkey between Two Worlds (New
York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2001), p. 114.
[17] Associated Press, Apr. 2, 2004.
[18] Bernard Spolsky, “Multilingualism in Israel,” Annual Review of
Applied Linguistics, vol. 17, 1996, at
[19] The Jewish Week (New York), Mar. 19, 2004.
[20] Jerusalem Post, Mar. 11, 2004.
This item is available on the Middle East Forum website, at
–Boundary_(ID_nBnCcmQ+LbP1dyRUmuOD9g)–
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Azeri, Armenian foreign ministers to meet in Prague on 15 January
ANS TV, Baku
23 Dec 04
[Presenter] The time of the next round of talks between the Azerbaijani
and Armenian foreign ministers on resolving the Nagornyy Karabakh
conflict has been agreed on. It is expected that the talks will be
more specific this time, Yuriy Merzlyakov, Russian co-chairman of
the OSCE Minsk Group tackling the conflict, has said.
[Correspondent over archive footage] The next round of consultations
between the Azerbaijani and Armenian foreign ministers on how to settle
the Nagornyy Karabakh conflict will be held in Prague on 15 January,
Merzlyakov told ANS. He thus indirectly responded to the Armenian
Foreign Minister Vardan Oskanyan’s latest remarks.
Oskanyan said at yesterday’s [22 December] press conference that
Armenia was ready to speed up the process of resolving the issue of
Nagornyy Karabakh’s self-determination.
[Merzlyakov on telephone, with Azeri voice-over] We are now working
on a specific task, on holding consultations on 15 January. The sides
will lay out their positions in Prague and we will try to bring them
closer. No comments or declarations must be made at this point.
[Correspondent] In Merzlyakov’s words, specific issues will be
discussed on 15 January in Prague.
[Merzlyakov] We are now working on specific elements of the talks. The
sides have already expressed their positions. Therefore, we are
working on proposals.
I would also like to point that there are no very contentious issues
in their stances. There is a subject of the talks and the sides are
not rejecting it.
[Correspondent] Bernard Fassier, France’s newly appointed co-chairman
of the OSCE Minsk Group, will take part for the first time in the
Prague talks.

Karabakh president names new foreign minister
Mediamax news agency
24 Dec 04
Yerevan, 24 December: Today the president of the Nagornyy Karabakh
Republic (NKR), Arkadiy Gukasyan, appointed Arman Melikyan, who held
the post of Nagornyy Karabakh’s permanent representative in Armenia,
new foreign minister of the republic.
Former NKR Foreign Minister Ashot Gulyan has been appointed minister
of education and culture, our Mediamax correspondent reports from
Stepanakert.
Presenting the new foreign minister to the Foreign Ministry staff,
Arkadiy Gukasyan noted that the decision on the staff reshuffle was
due to the necessity to speed up the work of the NKR Foreign Ministry
in the light of recent developments on the international scene.
According to Gukasyan, part of the NKR Foreign Ministry’s work should
be transferred to Armenia, where the representations of diplomatic
missions and international organizations are situated. In this
connection, he said that Arman Melikyan would also continue holding
the post of NKR permanent representative in Armenia for some time.
Today the NKR president also appointed Vahram Bagdasaryan minister
of agriculture. Earlier, Vahram Bagdasaryan held the post of deputy
minister of agriculture. Former Minister Benik Bakhshyan has been
appointed adviser to the NKR prime minister.

Azeri ex-aide says USA to resolve Karabakh conflict
Ekspress, Baku
24 Dec 04 p 3
Excerpt from Alakbar Raufoglu’s report by Azerbaijani newspaper
Ekspress on 24 December headlined “The Kremlin denies its interference
in the Karabakh conflict” and subheaded “Vladimir Putin: ‘Armenia is a
strategic partner of Russia, and Azerbaijan is a friend'”, “Russia will
continue its military presence in Armenia”. Subheading as published:
“There is a problem in the Nagornyy Karabakh settlement,” Russian
President Vladimir Putin told a news conference in the Kremlin
yesterday when he was asked about the Karabakh conflict by an Armenian
journalist.
[Passage omitted: reported details]
Vafa Quluzada: “Russia does not regard Armenia as a state”
Putin’s remarks have not been accepted unequivocally in Azerbaijan.
“Russia feigns ignorance. By presenting Russia simply as a mediator in
this conflict, Putin actually feigns ignorance. Meanwhile, the whole
world knows that it is Russia itself which has occupied our lands,”
the former state policy adviser, Vafa Quluzada, has told Ekspress.
He thinks that the Russian president’s statement was aimed at
correcting the opinions of [Russian State Duma Speaker Boris] Gryzlov
about Armenia’s being an outpost [of Russia in the South Caucasus].
“Russia does not actually regard Armenia as a state and uses the
Armenians as a tool. Because all their economic, military and other
spheres are in Russia’s hands. Putin simply did not want to insult
the Armenians.”
Quluzada described Moscow’s role in the Karabakh settlement as an
“empty view”. The political scientist thinks if Azerbaijan wants
to resolve the conflict, then it should forget about the OSCE Minsk
Group. “It is an ineffective organization.”
Quluzada thinks that only the USA has the key to the problem.
“I state with full responsibility that the USA will resolve the
Karabakh conflict. Simply, the time has not come for this yet. However,
the time is already approaching,” the former state policy adviser said.

Armenian pressure group urges MPs not to endorse sending troops to Iraq
A1+ web site
24 Dec 04
23 December: The Defence of the Liberated Territories public initiative
sent an open letter to the members of the [Armenian] National Assembly
today. The National Assembly is to adopt a decision tomorrow on
sending to Iraq a 50-strong group of Armenian military doctors,
sappers and drivers.
“At this decisive moment I am calling on everybody to be vigilant.
Responsibility for sending mercenaries to Iraq is put on the
shoulders of the deputies today. Nobody can cite a single logical
reason justifying Armenia’s participation in the US-British escapade
in Iraq. You know that there is no reason of this kind,” the letter
says. The authors of the open letter are sure that one or two persons
are responsible for everything, and this is being done “in order to
mitigate the outside danger directed against their personal power
and its successful handover”.
“One does not have to pretend to be a diplomat: cunning and
cowardliness alone are too little for that. Dare not defame the
honour of our arms. Each deputy, moreover, each faction are obliged
to do the impossible to not allow this agreement to be ratified. The
Armenian people demand this today,” says the letter signed by the
commander of the special battalion of the Artsakh [Nagornyy Karabakh]
war and coordinator of the Defence of the Liberated Territories public
initiative, Zhirayr Sefilyan.