Baku Today, Azerbaijan
June 25 2004
Armenian Troops Fire at Azeri Army in Horadiz, Report Says
Armenian troops stationed in the occupied southwestern Fuzuli
District fired at Azerbaijan’s army positions in Horadiz settlement
on Friday, the Karabakh bureau of ANS reported.
According to the report, Armenians ceased shooting after Azerbaijani
soldiers fired back and shot one Armenian soldier to death.
ANS said the press office of Azerbaijan’s Ministry of Defense neither
confirmed nor refuted the report.
Armenia and Azerbaijan, two former Soviet republics in the Southern
Caucasus, are at a state of no war no peace after a cease-fire
agreement was signed between the two in May 1994.
During a three-year war between the two countries in early 1990s,
Armenia has invaded and taken control over one-fifth of Azerbaijan’s
territories, forcing over 700,000 civilians to leave their homes.
The shaky cease-fire agreement that has kept the status quo since
1994 is frequently violated by sporadic exchange of fires in the
frontline separating Azerbaian from its occupied territories.

Baku Sun, Azerbaijan
June 25 2004
Cold reception for Armenians
by Zulfugar Agayev (Staff Writer)

A protester is held back at Baku’s Grand Hotel Europe
earlier this week. The arrival of Armenian officers
in Baku for a NATO conference angered many
Azerbaijani citizens. (Photo from TURAN Information Agency)
BAKU – While the Azerbaijani army was grieving for its loss of a
23-year-old officer, Lieutenant Teymur Panahov, who fell victim to an
Armenian sniper bullet early Tuesday, several young Azeris broke into
a Baku-hosted NATO conference the same day in protest of Armenian
participation at the controversial event.
According to the press office of Azerbaijan’s ministry of defense,
the officer Panahov received a fatal wound to the head, in
Dashsalahli village, of the western Qazakh District bordering
Armenia.
Outraged by the arrival of two Armenian officers in Baku – Colonel
Murad Isakhanyan and Senior Lieutenant Aram Hovhanesian – a group of
activists from the Karabakh Liberation Organization (KLO) managed to
push through police cordons and stormed into the capital’s Grand
Hotel Europe, where the conference was taking place.
As a result, the conference was halted for about ten minutes before
police arrested 12 protestors. The protestors broke several glass
windows of the hotel while fighting to get into the conference hall.
There was no report of serious injuries on either side as a result of
the incident.
A criminal case was filed against five of the arrested KLO members,
including the chairman of the organization, Akif Naghi, on charges of
hooliganism. A KLO deputy chairman, Shamil Mehdi, said that the
spirit of all those arrested is high and that they do not feel any
repentance for their action.
The planning conference for NATO’s `Cooperative Best Effort-2004′
military exercises, which are planned to be held in Azerbaijan in
September, brought together 21 NATO member states and partners on
Tuesday and Wednesday.
Several non-governmental organizations in Baku, particularly the KLO,
had warned the Armenian delegation against attending the Baku
conference. They accused the Armenian officers of participating in
the occupation of Azerbaijan’s territories in the 1991-94 war,
slaughtering over 20,000 Azerbaijanis and expelling nearly 1 million
people from their homes.
Armenian delegation failed to show up at a similar Baku-hosted NATO
conference in January for reasons still unclear.
The arrival of the Armenians also angered members of Milli Majlis
(parliament).
`These [Armenian] officers might have gained their military ranks for
their services during the war against Azerbaijan,’ Zahid Oruc, an MP
from the pro-government Motherland party, said during a parliamentary
meeting on Tuesday.
Another MP, Sabir Rustamkhanli, from the opposition Citizens’
Solidarity Party, said it was a disgrace to have allowed officers of
an enemy army, `whose hands are imbrued with Azerbaijani blood,’ to
visit Baku.
Although the parliamentary speaker, Murtuz Aleskerov, sought to sooth
the ire of the legislators by saying that the Armenian officers have
arrived in the Azeri capital secretly, the ministry of foreign
affairs was quick to respond that the officers have nor arrived
underhandedly at all.
A statement by the foreign ministry on Wednesday said that Deputy
Foreign Minister Araz Azimov had made a statement about the
Armenians’ expected visit three days before the conference opened on
Tuesday.
Ali Hasanov, head of the social-political department at the
president’s apparatus, on Wednesday said that the anger among the
Azerbaijani public over the Armenian officer’s visit to Baku is
understandable. However, Hasanov noted that the public has to take
into account the situation of the Azerbaijani state as well.
`It is possible to protest. Through this, we express our protest
against the occupation of our lands. But this protest should not be
demonstrated by breaking windows of the hotel where the conference is
held,’ Hasanov told reporters.
Anger among ordinary citizens was also obvious.
`What are the Armenians seeking here?’ asked Imarat Abbsova, 50, an
internally displaced woman from the occupied Aghdam District. `How
can they come here and sit with us at the same table after all that
they have done against us?’
KLO activists put the blame on Azerbaijan’s government for their
failure to impede the Armenian officers’ coming to Baku.
`The Azerbaijani government should have placed a clear demand on NATO
to prevent Armenian officers coming to Azerbaijan until they stop
occupying our territories,’ Barat Imani, a deputy KLO chairman, told
Baku Sun.
`The Armenian flag waving in Baku was an insult against the people of
Azerbaijan,’ said Imami in response to the Armenian flag, along with
those of the other attending NATO countries at the conference being
mounted outside Grand Hotel Europe in Baku.
Imani also accused international organizations, including NATO, of
double standards, urging them to `call the aggressor by its real
name.’
An MP from the opposition Compatriot party, Mais Safarli, also
believes that the government should have stopped the Armenians’
participating in the Baku conference.
`It was disrespectful to the souls of our martyrs. Armenian officers’
hands have been stained with our martyrs’ blood,’ said Safarli.
The MP promised that he would demand the parliament to release the
arrested KLO members.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Azer Tag, Azerbaijan State Info Agency
June 25 2004
REPORT ON NAGORNY KARABAKH TO BE DISCUSSED ON NEXT SESSION
[June 25, 2004, 20:16:16]
Session of Political Committee of PACE was held on 24 June. The
permanent representative of Azerbaijan at the Council of Europe
ambassador Agshin Mehdiyev who was taking part in session, has given
interview to correspondent of AzerTAj. He has told:
`At the session was heard statement of the Rapporteur on Nagorny
Karabakh Terry Davis.
In my opinion, the English deputy spoke about the recognition of the
conflict, than about the report. His statement had positive
character. Having touched the statement of the President of Armenia
at session of PACE, Mr. T. Davis has expressed his attitude to R.
Kochariana’s opinion `Nagorny Karabakh never was territory of
independent Azerbaijan’, openly having declared, that in the
resolution of the United Nations was repeatedly emphasized that
`Nagorny Karabakh is the integral part of Azerbaijan’.
Speaking about negotiations in Key West, Mr. T. Davis has noted, that
there the sides really in the certain degree were close to solution
of the question, however, any document at this time has not been
signed and any arrangement not achieved.
Terry Davis, especially having emphasized, that during his visit to
Azerbaijan has visited camps of refugees and IDPs, that these people
ousted from their native lands, live in hard conditions, has informed
members of the Committee, that it is extremely serious universal
problem, that people driven from Nagorny Karabakh and adjoining to it
regions, want to return to the native lands, and has stated that the
question shortly should find its solution.
Having put forward in the statement the idea of attraction to
negotiations of the population of Nagorny Karabakh he has emphasized,
that Nagorny Karabakh all is the Azerbaijan territory, and its
inhabitants – citizens of Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan, therefore, should
not refuse from negotiations with its citizens.
The English deputy has once again reminded, that works above the
report, and informed, that the report will be discussed on
forthcoming October session of pace.
On June 24, the discussions continued.

Xinhua, China
June 25 2004
Russian legislature ratifies European conventional forces treaty

2004-06-25 23:55:18
MOSCOW, June 25 (Xinhuanet) — Russia’s lower house of parliament
on Friday ratified the Conventional Armed Forces in Europe Treaty
(CFE), which regulates the deployment of heavy weapons across the
European continent.
The State Duma passed the treaty by a vote of 355 to 28 with two
abstentions, an Interfax news agency report said.
The amended accord could significantly reduce the deployment
ofwarplanes, tanks and other heavy non-nuclear weapons in European
nations as well as the United States and Canada. It would take effect
after ratification of the 30 signatory countries.
Under the treaty, Russia could have 6,350 tanks, 11,280
armoredpersonnel carriers, 6,315 artillery, 3,416 combat aircraft,
and 885 helicopter gunships.
Russia can also keep its weapons and military hardware in Armenia
and Ukraine under the treaty. Russian forces are expected to remain
in neighboring Georgia to a certain level even after a bilateral
agreement was signed.
The original CFE treaty was approved in 1990 by the 22 members of
the NATO and Warsaw Pact alliances.
An amended version of the treaty was signed in 1999 following the
collapse of former Soviet Union.

Interfax
June 25 2004
Duma ratifies agreement on adapted CFE Treaty
MOSCOW. June 25 (Interfax) – The State Duma voted 355-28 with two
abstentions on Friday to ratify an agreement on the adapted
Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE) Treaty, which was signed in
Istanbul in November 1999.
An explanatory note to the document says the treaty must be ratified
by all 30 signatory countries to take effect.
The adapted CFE Treaty will significantly reduce the conventional
arsenals of Europe’s most powerful nations, as well as the United
States and Canada.
“The overall number of tanks to be reduced in NATO’s 19 nations will
total 4,800, armored personnel carriers 4,000, and artillery pieces
4,000, which is equivalent to the arsenal of nearly one dozen
motorized divisions equipped under NATO standards,” the note reads.
The treaty’s enactment will not lead to any automatic cut in Russia’s
arsenal. Under CFE Treaty requirements, Russia will be allowed to
have 6,350 tanks, 11,280 armored personnel carriers, 6,315 artillery
pieces, 3,416 combat aircraft, and 885 helicopter gunships.
The adapted CFE Treaty will allow Russia to keep its weapons and
military hardware in Armenia and Ukraine. Bilateral agreements with
Georgia will enable Russia to keep its 153 tanks, 241 armored
personnel carriers, and 140 artillery pieces in that country.

The Age, Australia
June 26 2004
Stalin and his Hangmen
Reviewer Gideon Haigh
By Donald Rayfield
Viking, $49.95
In her 1922 poem I Am Not One Of Those Who Has Left the Land, the
Russian Anna Akhmatova described her countrymen as “the people
without tears/straighter than you, more proud”.
Given Joseph Stalin had just ascended to the post of Communist Party
general secretary, it would prove a handy national attribute.
In Stalin’s three decades of homicidal misrule of the Soviet Union,
as Donald Rayfield presents it, there seems scarcely to have been
time for grief or sadness, so utterly was the environment one of
fear, pain and blood. The reader of Stalin and his Hangmen, however,
will almost certainly feel differently. This is a harrowing account,
occasionally painful to read, of a time when “terror” was a daily
reality rather than a political buzzword worn hollow.
Rayfield’s approach is to analyse the relationships between Stalin
and Feliks Dzierzynski, Viacheslav Mezkhnisky, Genrikh Iagoda,
Nikolai Ezhov and Lavrenti Beria – the chiefs, consecutively, of
Russia’s security services.
Yet referring to the Cheka and its successors, the OGPU, NKVD and
KGB, as “security services” at all is almost to collude, because by
all accounts they secured only Stalin, never his country.
Almost without exception, the threats they neutralised were phantoms
of imagination or contrivances of propaganda.
Simon Sebag Montefiore’s recent biography dared to try to humanise
the man of steel; Rayfield’s Stalin is mostly inscrutable, an
originator of the most nihilistic aphorisms (“Gratitude is a dog’s
virtue”; “There will be unity only in the cemetery”) and the bleakest
jests (when his son tried to shoot himself, Stalin laughed; “Ha, so
you missed!”).
In this, the author is shrewd: Stalin’s gift as a dictator was the
distance he preserved from his subordinates, so that none ever felt
other than on probation and all competed for his favour.
Stalin’s recurring bouts of paranoid psychosis afforded ample
opportunities to be the most loyal, the most doctrinaire, the most
punitive.
And, as Rayfield says: “Party workers knew that going too far was far
less dangerous than not going far enough.” The numbers in Stalin and
his Hangmen bear this out.
Stalin’s own estimate was that collectivisation of agriculture, by
bullet and noose, cost 10 million lives. The NKVD’s photo archive was
at one time the world’s largest, containing 10 million images.
NKVD records of 1937’s Great Terror show the implausibly precise
aggregate of 681,692 shot of the 1.44 million convicted of
“counter-revolutionary crimes”, although Rayfield notes dryly that
the service eventually simply “ran out of paper” to record sentences
and executions.
Yet, heeding Stalin’s advice about a single death being a tragedy and
a million a statistic, Rayfield’s narrative brings individuals
sharply into focus.
Dzierzynski, for example, is a chilling figure, so extreme in his
puritanism that he once spurned pancakes made by his sister because
she had bought the flour from a private trader, and prone to musings
of deepest morbidity: “My thought orders me to be terrible and I have
the will to follow my thought to the end . . .”
For all the bloodiness of their rises, Iagoda and Beria cut tragic
figures in their falls. Dismissed from his post, Iagoda awaited
arrest in his new office, making paper aeroplanes.
He responded to questions at his show trial by repeating: “It wasn’t
like that, but it doesn’t matter.” With two guns at the back of his
head in a central committee meeting, Beria wrote 19 times the word
“alarm”.
The stories from Stalin’s charnel houses are so vivid as to make Abu
Ghraib look like Butlins, whether of a theatre director being
tortured until mute and paralysed then shot, or of an Armenian who
appealed for clemency by slitting his wrists and writing in his own
blood.
But nothing is quite so haunting as the letters to Stalin of his
former colleagues Zinoviev and Bukharin while awaiting their fates.
“Can’t you see,” pleaded Zinoviev, “that I am no longer your enemy,
that I am yours body and soul, that I have understood everything,
that I am ready to do everything to earn forgiveness, mercy?”
“I still want to do something good,” Bukharin entreated. “And now I
must tell you straight: my only hope is you.”
Rayfield writes expertly and stylishly. Sometimes even he sounds
incredulous. “An observer of the show trials,” he muses, “would have
had to conclude that all Lenin’s party except for a tiny circle
around Stalin had for some reason carried out a simulated Bolshevik
revolution at the behest of world capitalism.”
This outstanding book might have been better still had Rayfield
addressed more closely the questions of public pathology that he
poses at intervals; in essence, as he puts it: “How could a literate
urban population submit to a reign of terror and actively, even
enthusiastically, collaborate in offering victims up to it?”
What does the thrall exerted by Stalin’s hangmen tell us about the
hanged, and survivors too?
Akhmatova’s reflection on her people may be as true today as ever –
Russia being ruled, with increasingly brutality, by a former secret
policeman.

PRESS OFFICE
Armenian Holy Apostolic Church Canadian Diocese
Contact; Deacon Hagop Arslanian, Assistant to the Primate
615 Stuart Avenue, Outremont Quebec H2V 3H2
Tel; 514-276-9479, Fax; 514-276-9960
Email; [email protected] Website;
A HISTORIC DAY AND A NEW MISSION IN THE LIFE OF THE CANADIAN ARMENIAN
DIOCESE
Holy Cross Armenian Church of Toronto is received under the auspices
of the Canadian Diocese of the Armenian Church
June 23, 2004 will remain a historic date in the annals of the Diocese
of the Armenian Church of Canada. Following several months of
consultations between the Diocesan Council and the Board of Directors
of Toronto’s Holy Cross Church, it was agreed that henceforth, Holy
Cross School of Toronto will function under the auspices of the
Diocese. The text of the preliminary agreement is as follows:
“The undersigned, as representatives of the Diocesan Council of the
Armenian Holy Apostolic Church of Canada and Holy Cross Armenian
Church, are both pleased to announce that they have conducted
bilateral discussions and have reached an understanding in principle
to structure the Toronto based Holy Cross Armenian Day School to
operate under the auspices of the Diocese of the Armenian Holy
Apostolic Church of Canada”.
***
The year-end graduation ceremonies and festivities of the Holy Cross
School was held in the Magaros Artinian Hall, which on this happy
occasion was graciously availed by the Holy Trinity Armenian Church.
Over 300 parents and friends of the school attended the “Hantes”,
which was presided by H. E. Bishop Bagrat Gastanian. Present also were
Rev. Fr. Zareh Zargarian, Pastor, representatives of the Parish
Council, directors of the community’s Armenian day and Saturday as
well as Sunday schools, and representatives of community organization.
A cultural program of recitations, songs and dances was staged by the
students of the school, followed by words of congratulations by
Mr. Jirair Tchopouroglu, Chairman of the school’s Board of
Directors. A surprise announcement was made by member of the Diocesan
council Deacon Hrant Chitak, who read the text of the agreement
arrived at between the School and the Diocese, to bring Holy Cross
School under the auspices of the diocese. The news was received with
an enthusiastic applause.
Graduation certificates were then handed to 9 graduates from the 6th
grade and 11 from the kindergarten. Over a dozen of successful
students received special prizes. Rev. Fr. Zargarian congratulated the
graduates and added his good wishes and blessings on the occasion of
the School being received under the auspices of the Diocese.
In his closing remarks His Eminence Bishop Galstanian stressed that
with this new agreement, the Diocese assumes a new mission of
educating the new generations, a role that has been traditional for
the Armenian Church. The Primate mentioned that he had informed about
this development to His Holiness Karekin II, Catholicos of All
Armenians, who has blessed this endeavor and has wished success in
this new mission. His Eminence said, “May this become an example to
other organizations to work together in harmony and to create a
peaceful and productive environment for our new generations.”
The mood of elation and happiness was evident in the audience as the
Primate concluded the gathering by a prayer and blessings.
Divan of the Diocese

ArmenPress
June 25 2004
CONSTRUCTION OF ARMENIAN GENOCIDE MUSEUM AND MEMORIAL IN WASHINGTON
REQUIRES BIG MONEY
YEREVAN, JUNE 25, ARMENPRESS: Armenian ambassador to the USA,
Arman Kirakosian, said today that the repair of a building in
downtown Washington, purchased by the Armenian Assembly of America to
rebuild it into the Armenian Genocide Museum and Memorial to detail
the genocide of 1.5 million Armenians by the Turkish government from
1915-23, may take years, “as the project requires huge financial
support.”
According to Rouben Adalian, director of the Armenian National
Institute in D.C. ,a research organization created by the Armenian
Assembly of America, the museum project likely will cost about $100
million. Two years ago, the Armenian Assembly of America bought the
30,000-square-foot National Bank of Washington building at 14th and G
streets NW for $7.25 million to house the museum.
The Museum and Memorial will have 90,000 square feet of space,
consisting of approximately 60,000 square feet of newly constructed
space, and 32,000 square feet in the historical former National Bank
of Washington building. The museum and memorial will combine the
power of architecture, art and contemporary technologies with
artifacts, archival texts and photographs to communicate the
historical experience of the Armenian people, the trauma and legacy
of the Armenian genocide, and the role of American and international
philanthropy in rescuing the survivors.

ArmenPress
June 25 2004
GOVERNMENT, OTE SEEK OUT OF COURT SETTLEMENT OF THEIR DISPUTE
YEREVAN, JUNE 25, ARMENPRESS: Armenian justice minister David
Harutunian is currently negotiating in London with representatives of
the Hellenic Telecommunication Organization (OTE) in an effort to
reach an out-of-court settlement of the bitter dispute between the
government and OTE’s subsidiary ArmenTel operator.
The OTE subsidiary is accused by Armenian government of abusing
the 15-year exclusive rights granted in 1998, failing to provide good
quality communication and maintaining high cost of its services.
These charges are denied by the Greek side, which says the government
itself violated the 1998 takeover contract. Earlier this year the OTE
and Armentel filed a lawsuit to the London-based International Court
of Economic Arbitration, seeking hundreds of millions of US Dollars
in million in compensatory damages.
Harutunian is negotiating with the newly appointed chief manager
of Armentel, Vasily Fetsis. Armenpress learned from well-informed
sources that an amicable settlement of the dispute is possible in the
event of mutually beneficial proposals, which were not disclosed yet.
For the Armenian side this means good quality communication.
OTE’s priority in Armenia’s market is to enlarge the network of
mobile phone communication, that will allow it to improve its
financial standing, but despite this change in its policy Armenian
government decision stripping ArmenTel of its lucrative monopoly on
mobile phone services and Armenia’s Internet traffic with the outside
world enters into force on June 30.
Armentel says it has invested some $217 million in Armenia’s
telecommunications and plans to invest another 25 million euros this
year to expand mobile phone network.

ArmenPress
June 25 2004
GEORGIAN POLICE ARREST TWO ARMENIANS ON TRAFFICKING CHARGES
TBILISI, JUNE 25, ARMENPRESS: Georgian police have arrested two
ethnic Armenians, Ashot Hovhanesian and Marina Mnatsakanian, on
charges of running a criminal group involved in trafficking of women.
The Armenians are accused of trying to transport 15 young women
from Uzbekistan to the United Arab Emirates UAE). The women had been
promised jobs in Georgia, but when they arrived in the Georgian
capital they were told they would get their passports only in Dubai,
the girls however refused to travel to the UAE and were locked in a
Tbilisi apartment.
According to Georgian laws, the criminals could face up to 20 year
imprisonment. “We have to carry out a detailed investigation, as the
group seems to be well-organized and most likely that was not its
first attempt to transport women for prostitution,” a prosecutor
Boris Mchkheidze was quoted by RFE/RL as saying.