TURKEY SAYS KARABAKH LOCAL ELECTIONS “ILLEGAL”
Anatolia news agency
3 Aug 04
ANKARA
Turkish Foreign Ministry spokesman Namik Tan said on Tuesday (3
August) that Turkey considered municipality elections to be held in
Nagornyy Karabakh in August as illegal. Tan, in a written statement,
said that such kind of unilateral initiatives would not contribute to
efforts to find a peaceful solution to the problem.
Tan said Nagornyy Karabakh problem was nowadays one of the main
elements of instability in southern Caucasia, and also continued to be
an obstacle in front of good neighbourhood relations and cooperation
in the region and integration of the region with the international
community.
Tan said: “It is obvious that municipality elections, scheduled to be
held in August in Nagornyy Karabakh, mean violation of basic rules of
international law and the charters of UN, Council of Europe and OSCE.
Tan said: “Turkey supported a solution within the scope of
Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity and through peaceful means; and
many times, expressed its readiness to contribute to the efforts to
find a solution”.

Tech Central Station
Aug 2 2004
Genocide: Not to Be Alleged Lightly

By Stephen Schwartz Published 08/02/2004

Genocide is a big word; much bigger than it might at first appear to be.
The term did not exist until the aftermath of the Second World War,
when it was coined in reaction to the Nazi attempt to physically
eliminate millions of European Jews as well as to enslave and
culturally degrade whole populations of Slavs, and wipe out Gypsy and
other minorities. It was legally defined by the United Nations in the
1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide.
The definition is specific:
“Genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to
destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or
religious group, as such:
“(a) Killing members of the group;
“(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
“(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life
calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in
part;
“(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
“(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.”
It had other precedents, even before the rise of Nazism. The mass
deportations of Armenians from eastern Turkey to Syria, during the
first world war, constituted a genocide. While few in the West
understand it, Koreans see the campaign by Japan to wipe out their
culture, in the decades when it ruled over their peninsula,
similarly; Koreans were forced to take Japanese names at birth, and
were routinely massacred by their overlords. Japan is also accused of
genocidal crimes by the Chinese. Joseph Stalin committed genocide
when he induced a famine in Ukraine in 1932-33, resulting in millions
of dead. Nikita S. Khrushchev, who eventually succeeded him, said
Stalin would have sent all the Ukrainians to the gulag, but there
were too many of them.
Nazi Germany and imperialist Japan were not the only Axis powers to
engage in genocidal practices. Fascist Italy, although reluctant to
adopt Nazi anti-Jewish policies, sought the expulsion of hundreds of
thousands of Slovenes and Croats and their replacement by Italian
colonists in territories it occupied on the eastern Adriatic coast.
The threatened Slavs then joined the Tito Partisans en masse.
But the Ustasha regime in Croatia, a puppet state whose domain was
divided between Germans and Italians, was busy carrying out its own
murderous assault on the large Serb minority in Croatia and
Bosnia-Hercegovina The result was an uprising in July 1941, about
which the Bosnian historian Enver Redzic, of Muslim origin, has
written, “The establishment of the Independent State of Croatia under
the protection of German and Italian occupying forces was accompanied
by systematic pogroms against the Serbian population throughout the
entire Croatian territory. Bosnia-Hercegovina was transformed into a
slaughterhouse in which unbridled hatred raged against Serbs. The
outbreak of rebellion could not have been prevented by any military
force or by the threat of wholesale extermination.”
Stalin imitated the Nazis during the second world war by liquidating
thousands of Polish officers and deporting entire nations from the
Caucasus, mainly Muslims – thus wiping out half of the Ingushes and
some 40 percent of the Chechens. This partially explains bad
Chechen-Russian relations today.

Political Charges
Large-scale slayings of Armenians, Koreans, Jews, Chinese, Slavs,
Caucasian Muslims, and others were immense, bloody undertakings that
deeply stained the 20th century. But the term “genocide” was, almost
from the time it was introduced, also abused for political purposes.
In 1951, American Communists, pushed by the Soviets to paint the
United States as a fascist regime, declared “We Charge Genocide!” in
a petition to the UN, alleging that denial of African-American civil
rights was equal in evil to Nazism. One would never have imagined,
reading such absurd rhetoric, that President Harry Truman, then in
office, had ordered the desegregation of the U.S. military. Truman’s
civil rights platform enraged the southern white leadership in the
Democratic party, leading to their separate “Dixiecrat” presidential
campaign in 1948. But the Soviets and their agents were hardly
sticklers for consistency in propaganda.
Still, the lesson was learned by “progressives” – “genocide” was a
word that could be thrown around at will. I distinctly remember a day
in 1983 in San Francisco when I heard a leftist mob, protesting U.S.
policy toward Nicaragua, happily chanting, in the merriest of voices,
“Ronald Reagan, you can’t hide, we charge you with genocide!” The
upbeat, buoyant tone of the chorused allegation unintentionally
undermined its seriousness, and made the term “genocide” seem
ridiculously trivial.
Genocide in Mexico?
But genocide is not frivolous, and Mexican judge Julio Cesar Flores
reaffirmed its seriousness on July 24, when he refused to charge
former president Luis Echeverría Alvarez, who ruled Mexico from 1970
to 1976, with that crime.
Echeverría, or LEA as he was universally known, was a stalwart of the
Institutional Revolutionary Party or PRI, which ran Mexico as a de
facto one-party state from 1928 to 2000. In truth, it would be absurd
to minimize the crimes of the PRI-ocracy, especially after it began
abandoning its populist and reforming legacy, with the election of
president Manuel Avila Camacho in 1940. By 1946, and the presidency
of Miguel Alemán Valdés – since 1934 Mexican presidential terms are
limited to six years, without the right of reelection – the party and
its leaders swam in corruption. Mexico’s élite benefited fabulously
from the country’s trade with the U.S. during the second world war.
Mexico’s poor remained poor, or came north across the border, legally
or illegally.
PRI rule was a kind of Sovietism without class ideology, although the
PRI’s claim to represent the “brown” indigenous masses of the country
also made it resemble fascism. The PRI bought off the entire leftist
intellectual class by providing them with government positions
requiring no work. The corruption of the intelligentsia was so
extensive that when, after of the horrific massacre of leftist
students in Tlaltelolco Plaza, in Mexico City in 1968, the poet
Octavio Paz resigned from his ambassadorship in India, few of his
peers believed he was serious. Paz was sincere in his protest, but
for other Mexican writers it was simply impossible to imagine life
without PRI patronage.
The PRI kept its grip on the working class through its system of
state labor unions, and on the peasants, consumers, and indigenous
groups through parallel “people’s” organizations, while also
maintaining rigid control of education and repression of the Catholic
church. The price of dissent in PRI-ocratic Mexico was steep.
Striking workers, discontented peasants, and rebellious indigenous
communities were all susceptible to the punishment meted out to the
student left in Tlaltelolco on the evening of October 2, 1968: the
murder of hundreds of demonstrators, whose bodies were removed and
buried secretly.
The next day the Mexican government daily Excelsior reported that
just after 6 p.m., the Plaza of the Three Cultures was lit up by two
flares, and gunfire “poured from all sides, from the top of a
building of the Unidad Tlaltelolco as well as from the street, where
military forces in light tanks and armoured vehicles fired machine
gun volleys almost without interruption… Three hundred tanks, assault
units, jeeps, and military trucks had surrounded the entire zone…
they permitted nobody to enter or leave unless they could satisfy a
rigorous identity check.”
The atrocity was ordered by then-president Gustavo Díaz Ordaz, and
coordinated by Echeverría, who served him as secretary of the
interior, with responsibility for the maintenance of internal order.
Indeed, Echeverría was the “tapado” or “hidden one,” the PRI-ocratic
successor personally chosen by Díaz Ordaz, whom he replaced two years
later. In 1971, Echeverría summoned gangs of thugs to attack student
leftists in the streets of Mexico City, leaving some dozens dead.
The charge of genocide, which current Mexican special prosecutor
Ignacio Carrillo sought to bring against Echeverría, was based on the
1971 events and drawn under a 1967 Mexican statute.
Nobody doubts the responsibility of Echeverría in either atrocity.
But the PRI itself asks if a genocide accusation would not represent
a form of political revenge by the post-2000 administration of
Vicente Fox. Fox is the leader of the National Action Party or PAN, a
Catholic movement that labored under political restrictions for many
years, and to which even many disfranchised leftists, who sprang from
the people and not the élite, turned for succor against the
PRI-ocracy. Fox is the first non-PRI chief executive in Mexico in
more than 70 years. (Most of his immediate predecessors are better
designated “thief executive,” like President Carlos Salinas, who
ruled from 1988 and 1994, and whose brother organized at least one
political assassination while he was in office. President Salinas
fled to Ireland, but eventually returned to Mexico.)
The greatest irony of Echeverría’s history is that even while he
spilled the blood of his fellow-citizens on the hot pavements of the
Mexican capital, he presented himself to the world as a
“progressive,” a friend of the Palestine Liberation Organization no
less than of Fidel Castro, whose government Mexico long supported as
evidence of its independence from its powerful northern neighbor.
When Salvador Allende’s socialist regime fell in Chile in 1973,
Echeverría took in hundreds of radical refugees from the South
American republic. Yet perhaps that was no irony at all, since most
leftist rulers – the kind-hearted Allende having been an exception –
have shown brutal yearnings, if not habits, in office.
But… genocide?
The Milosevic Comparison
Here is how the indictment of Slobodan Milosevic for genocide in
Bosnia-Hercegovina read, at his trial before the International
Criminal Tribunal for Former Yugoslavia, in The Hague:

“COUNTS 1 and 2
“GENOCIDE OR COMPLICITY IN GENOCIDE
“From on or about 1 March 1992 until 31 December 1995, Slobodan
MILOSEVIC, acting alone or in concert with other members of the joint
criminal enterprise, planned, instigated, ordered, committed or
otherwise aided and abetted the planning, preparation and execution
of the destruction, in whole or in part, of the Bosnian Muslim
national, ethnical, racial or religious groups, as such, in
territories within Bosnia and Herzegovina…. The destruction of
these groups was effected by:
“a. The widespread killing of thousands of Bosnian Muslims during and
after the take-over of territories within Bosnia and Herzegovina…
In many of the territories, educated and leading members of these
groups were specifically targeted for execution, often in accordance
with pre-prepared lists. After the fall of Srebrenica in July 1995,
almost all captured Bosnian Muslim men and boys, altogether several
thousands, were executed at the places where they had been captured
or at sites to which they had been transported for execution.
“b. The killing of thousands of Bosnian Muslims in detention
facilities within Bosnia and Herzegovina…
“c. The causing of serious bodily and mental harm to thousands of
Bosnian Muslims during their confinement in detention facilities
within Bosnia and Herzegovina… Members of these groups, during
their confinement in detention facilities and during their
interrogation at these locations, police stations and military
barracks, were continuously subjected to, or forced to witness,
inhumane acts, including murder, sexual violence, torture and
beatings.
“d. The detention of thousands of Bosnian Muslims in detention
facilities within Bosnia and Herzegovina… under conditions of life
calculated to bring about the partial physical destruction of those
groups, namely through starvation, contaminated water, forced labour,
inadequate medical care and constant physical and psychological
assault.”
Milosevic has yet to be judged, and the opponents of U.S.
intervention to save the Bosnian Muslims, as well as Serb
nationalists and others who have made themselves his defenders for
reasons of their own, typically challenge the Hague indictment. But
the whole world knows what Milosevic did, and what genocide is. To
apply that word to the ordinary habits of corrupt Mexico under the
PRI is to devalue the term and dishonor both groups of victims – the
many millions of dead at the hands of Nazis, Stalinists, Serb
extremists and others, and the too-numerous corpses piled up by the
PRI-ocracy. Mexican judge Flores acted correctly in rejecting the
indictment of ex-president Echeverría.

Azer Tag, Azerbaijan State Info Agency
Aug 2 2004
AFFA EXPRESSES RESOLUTE PROTEST AGAINST FOOTBALL CHAMPIONSHIP IN
SO-CALLED `NAGORNY KARABAKH REPUBLIC’
[August 02, 2004, 22:43:03]
Azerbaijan Association of Football Federations /AFFA/ has issued a
statement expressing resolute protest against football championship
started in the so-called `Nagorny Karabakh Republic’. AzerTAj
accepted the statement that says:
`Internet websites of Armenian and Russian media informed of the
football championship commenced on August 1 in the territory of
Nagorny Karabakh Republic’. Nine local teams and one team from
Armenia will be participating at the illegal championship.
As FIFA and UEFA full member, AFFA expresses resolute protest against
the notorious `Nagorny Karabakh Republic football championship’ and
participation of the team from Armenian town Horadis. Nagorny
Karabakh is occupied Azerbaijani territory. Football clubs of this
region may only compete in the championship of Azerbaijan.
AFFA believes that FIFA and UEFA will prevent this championship
initiated by the Armenian separatists.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

United Press International
Aug 2 2004
Analysis:Top Shiite condemns church bombs
By Roland Flamini
Chief International Correspondent
WASHINGTON, Aug. 2 (UPI) — The most significant voice raised in
condemnation of Sunday’s wave of bomb attacks on Christian churches
in Iraq belonged to Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, the Shiite Muslim
leader.
“We denounce and condemn these terrible crimes,” Sistani declared in
a statement Monday. “We stress the need to respect the rights of
Christians in Iraq and those of other religions, including their
right to live in their own home, Iraq, in peace.” Sistani is
considered the most authoritative cleric in Iraq’s Shiite community
comprising over 60 percent of the population. His quick reaction was
seen as an attempt to distance mainstream Shiites from the bombings.
The bombings — clearly coordinated — were the first open attack on
Iraq’s Christian minority, although the community had been under
mounting pressure for some time. So far, no group has claimed
responsibility, but some Iraqi Christians had privately said Shiite
fundamentalists could have been responsible.
The national security adviser to Iraq’s interim government, however,
blames al-Qaida-linked terrorists. Mowaffaq al-Rubaie, said there was
“no shadow of a doubt that (these attacks) bear the trademark of Abu
Musab al Zarqawi.” The Jordanian-born terrorist who is said to have
links to al-Qaida is blamed for a string of suicide bombings in Iraq.
His group has claimed responsibility for the beheadings of an
American and a South Korean, and the U.S. government has offered a
$25 million reward for his capture.
“It’s clear (Zarqawi and his extremists) want to drive Christians out
of the country,” Rubaie is quoted as saying by the Italian news
agency ANSA. But Iraq’s Christians are going anyway. Once just shy of
a million, the Christian community has dwindled down to about 650,000
because of a steady exodus. Tolerated by the Saddam Hussein regime as
long as they kept a low profile, Iraqi Christians are being driven
out by fears of the present violence and uncertainty about the
future.
The pressure has come from Islamic fundamentalists, according to
Iraqi church sources. Many Christians have received anonymous letters
urging them to convert to Islam. The letters usually include a list
of the consequences of refusal, which include death.
Several Christian businessmen who sold alcohol have been attacked by
Muslim fundamentalists in a recent campaign against alcohol sales in
Iraq. Many of the victims were Armenians, according to reports
published in Iraq, and the first car bomb blast Sunday was outside an
Armenian church in Baghdad.
Also, some Iraqi clerics say Christians have become identified with
the U.S.-led coalition forces, which are mainly from Christian
countries.
The revised death toll from the car bomb blasts outside four churches
in Baghdad and one in Mosul during or immediately after Sunday
services was 11, according to Iraqi authorities Monday. Ten
worshippers died in Baghdad, and one in the northern city of Mosul,
in the Sunni Muslim heartland, 220 miles from Baghdad. A sixth bomb
was found outside another Baghdad church and disarmed by Iraqi
police.
Meanwhile, Pope John Paul II sent a message of condolence to the
Catholic patriarch of Iraq, Emmnuel III Delly. “In this hour of trial
I feel spiritually close to the Iraqi church and Iraqi society, and I
renew my expression of solidarity with the pastors and faithful,” the
pope wrote. He said he would continue to work and pray “so that a
climate of peace and reconciliation will soon return to that beloved
country.”
Vatican sources said Monday that the bombings had alarmed the pope,
who is concerned that a wave of anti-Christian feeling in Iraq could
spread to other Arab countries and turn into a virtual religious war
between Islam and Christianity.
The Russian Orthodox church also issued a statement condemning
Sunday’s attacks. In addition to the Chaldean, Syrian and Assyrian
Catholics in communion with Rome, Iraqi Christian denominations
include Armenian, Syrian and Greek Orthodox churches, Presbyterians
and Anglicans.

RUDOLF KHARATIAN IS GOING TO STAGE “KHACHKAR” BALLET DEDICATED TO
NAREKATSI
YEREVAN, August 2 (Noyan Tapan). Rudolf Kharatian, the Artistic
Director of the “Arka” Washington ballet group, is going to stage the
“Khachkar” ballet dedicated to Grigor Narekatsi, the great Armenian
poet and thinker of the middle ages. The music for the ballet was
written by composer Ruben Altunian. The ballet-master who is on tour
in Armenia mentioned at the August 2 press conference that his goal is
to represent the image of Narekatsi, the depth and the human character
of his philosophy to the world by means of a ballet staging. “The
first goal of my arrival in Yerevan is to represent the modern
American ballet in Armenia,” R.Kharatian mentioned. According to him,
he has worked in Armenia for many years, profoundly studied the
peculiarities of the Armenian and Russian ballet schools. In his
estimation, the Armenian ballet school has deep peculiarities, but
today it’s senseless to stage ballet performances only on the national
ground, one should be able to synthesize the modern peculiarities with
the national ones, as the spectator needs the new. We can’t stage
“Gayane” and “Spartak” for many years running. R.Kharatian mentioned
that he has always wanted to enrich the Armenian ballet with new dance
elements, but he has always met obstacles. Receiving an invitation to
work from one of the giants of the Russian ballet school, Vinogradov,
many years ago, Kharatian left for Washington where he etablished the
“Arka” ballet group in 1999. 4 out of 16 members of the ballet group
are Armenians. According to Kharatian, like the other ballet groups of
America his ballet has no state financing, either, so it’s able to
organize only 2-3 concerts a year. Besides, the group gives several
performances in the Central Park of New York, in schools and so
on. All the members of the “Arka” ballet group also work in other
ballet groups. During the 2-day tour the group will represent the
classical, American and modern ballet to the Armenian spectator. And
especially for this tour the group has prepared the “Khachkar” dance
of Komitas and fragments from the “Gayane” and “Spartak” ballets of
Khachatrian. “Arka” is a prize-winner of a number of international
festivals, and 3 years running the group got the grand prix at the
annual ballet competition held in Washington.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

INTERNATIONAL TOURNAMENT ON TABLE TENNIS HELD IN NKR
STEPANAKERT, August 2 (Noyan Tapan). The international tournament on
table tennis of “the NKR President Cup” is held in Stepanakert
today. According to the NKR Sport Department, sportsmen from Lebanon,
Russia, Georgia and Armenia participate in the tournament.

RA PRIME MINISTER AND PRESIDENT OF REPUBLIC OF KOMI DISCUSS PROSPECTS
OF ECONOMIC COOPERATION
YEREVAN, August 2 (Noyan Tapan). The visit of the President of the
Republic of Komi of Russia and a delegation headed by him will
establish a basis for the development of mutually beneficial and
prospective cooperation with Komi.
This was mentioned during the August 2 meeting of RA Prime Minister
Andranik Margarian with President of the Republic of Komi Vladimir
Torlopov. The interlocutors mentioned that there are already examples
of successful cooperation with the separate regions of Russia, and the
Association of Armenian-Russian Cooperation (“ARADES”, which was
recently established) will contribute to it greatly.
Representatives of the Republic of Komi also participate in the
Association. According to the RA presidential press service, Andranik
Margarian expressed readiness to discuss the proposals directed at the
increase of the volumes of investments made by the economic entities
of the Republic of Komi to the economy of Armenia. The importance of
the organization of an exhibition of Armenian goods in Komi, the
immediate contacts of businessmen of the two countries, the
establishment of joint ventures, as well as boosting cooperation
between the Chambers of Commerce and Industry of the two countries was
also mentioned during the meeting. Vladimir Torlopov mentioned that
the spheres of stone cutting and jewelry’s art may also be prospective
in terms of the development of cooperation. To recap, about a month
ago, on July 7, after an unofficial meeting of the heads of the CIS
countries held in Moscow RA President Robert Kocharian paid a private
visit to this region of Russia at the invitation of President of the
Republic of Komi Vladimir Torlopov.

COMMERCIAL BANKS ATTRACT MORE THAN YEAR DEPOSITS WITH HIGHEST INTEREST
FROM JULY 22-29
YEREVAN, August 2 (Noyan Tapan). In the period from July 22 to 29, the
commercial banks of Armenia attracted more than a year deposits with
the highest interest rate (9%) and 30-day, 60-day and 90-day deposits
with the lowest interest rate (5%). According to the data of the
Central Bank of Armenia, during the same period the commercial banks
extended 180-day, 360-day and more than a year loans with the highest
interest rate (21%) and 30-day loans with the lowest interest rate
(13%). The dynamics of the deposits attracted by commercial banks is
as follows: 22.07.04 29.07.04 30 days 2% 5% 60 days 2% 5% 90 days 8%
5% 180 days 4% 7% 360 days 8% 7% More than a year 8% 9% The dynamics
of the interest rates of the loans issued by commercial banks:
22.07.04 29.07.04 30 days 17% 13% 60 days 25% 20% 90 days 23% 20% 180
days 14% 21% 360 days 20% 21% More than a year 21% 21%

RA PRIME MINISTER AND NEWLY APPOINTED AMBASSADOR OF IRAN TO ARMENIA
EMPHASIZE IMPORTANCE OF TREATY ON CONSTRUCTION OF IRAN-ARMENIA GAS
PIPELINE CONCLUDED IN MAY
YEREVAN, August 2 (Noyan Tapan). Armenia attaches great importance to
bilateral relations with Iran, as well as the widening of multilateral
relations. Contacts on high level and mutual visits contribute to it
essentially. RA Prime Minister Andranik Margarian said about it on
July 30, receiving newly appointed Ambassador Extraordinary and
Plenipotentiary of Iran to Armenia Ali Reza Haqiqian. Congratulating
the Ambassador with the beginning of his diplomatic mission, Andranik
Margarian, in particular, expressed hope that the tradition of the
successful Armenian-Iranian relations will also continue in the period
of his tenure in Armenia. The sides stressed the importance of the
visit of President Mohammed Khatami to Armenia scheduled for September
8-9, 2004. According to the RA government’s press service, Andranik
Margarian and Ali Reza Haqiqian stressed that multilateral cooperation
between Iran and Armenia meets the interests of the two peoples, as
well as it is advantageous for the region on the whole. The Ambassador
of Iran emphasized that both the peace in the region and
intra-political stability and the economic development of neighboring
Armenia is of great importance to his country. The interlocutors
stressed the great importance of, in particular, the signing of the
treaty on the construction of the Iran-Armenia gas pipeline, the joint
construction of the Kajaran tunnel and an HPP on the Arax river. They
highly estimated the work of the 4th joint sitting of the
Inter-Governmental Economic Commission held in Tehran on December
9-11, 2002, and the importance of the documents signed at the sitting.
Andranik Margarian wished the new Ambassador every success in his
mission in Armenia and promised to contribute to his work.

GOSHAVANK UNDER THREAT OF DESTRUCTION
YEREVAN, August 2 (Noyan Tapan). The monastic complex of Goshavank
(Getikavank) is completely accident-prone. Artsrun Hovsepian, Director
of the Historical-Cultural Center, told NT’s correspondent that the
state of the complex sharply worsened after the 1988 earthquake, and
the restoration work hasn’t been carried out here for about 300
years. Only in 1961, the roof was partially renewed (but in a wrong
way), as a result inscriptions made with a cochineal paint (vordan
karmir) started being destroyed of rains. According to Artsrun
Hovsepian, these inscriptions contain historic information about
medieval Armenia. “The destruction of the inscriptions made with this
paint will be an irretrievable loss for the history,” said
A. Hovsepian. It was also mentioned that a museum, which has 10
exhibits, was opened at the temple in 1985. But today the museum is
situated in a timber house. According to A. Hovsepian, the Fund on
Goshavank Saving will be established upon the initiative of several
interested people in the near future. This Fund will find means for
the restoration of the complex. According to preliminary calculations,
about 260,000 dollars will be necessary for this purpose. The
Goshavank complex consists of seven constructions, including the
Cyclopean wall built in the first century, several churches, a chapel
and a vestibule. The first filigree khachkar (cross-stone) is
preserved in Goshavank. In 1184, Mkhitar Gosh, great medieval thinker,
philosopher, lawyer, first Armenian fabulist, created the first
Armenian code of laws, which left a deep trace in the development of
the world juridical thought. The great philosopher of the Middle Ages
established the Supreme Theological University here in 1198, where
along with other subjects they were taught art of wall
inscriptions. Great representatives of the Armenian literary and
spiritual though Kirakos Gandzaketsi, Martiros Sarkavag and Vanakan
Vardapet studied in this theological center.