ITAR-TASS News Agency
TASS
April 21, 2004 Wednesday

Armenian opposition organises march in central Yerevan

By Tigran Liloyan

YEREVAN

About 2,000 people marched through the centre of Yerevan on Wednesday
evening, bringing an unauthorised opposition rally to an end.

Police escorted the march but did not interfere. No incidents were
reported.

The opposition said it would organise a march on Saturday, April 24,
when the victims of the Ottoman empire’s genocide in 1915 will be
remembered.

IPR Strategic Business Information Database
April 21, 2004

UPPER KARABAKH ISSUE MUST BE RESOLVED BEFORE ARMENIAN BORDER CAN BE
OPENED

According to Turkiye, commenting on recent rumors that the border
between Turkey and Armenia would be opened, Foreign Minister Abdullah
Gul said that Ankara first wanted Azerbaijan and Armenia to reach a
settlement on the upper Karabakh issue and was making efforts towards
this end. Urging all observers to take lessons from a possible Cyprus
settlement, Gul stated that Turkey didn’dt want the upper Karabakh
issue to remain unresolved, explaining. The foreign minister also
added that during Istanbul’ds NATO summit this June, a tripartite
meeting could be held to discuss the issue.

Deutsche Presse-Agentur
April 21, 2004, Wednesday

German foreign minister presses Azerbaijan on human rights

Baku

The oil-rich Caucasus republic of Azerbaijan should clean up its
record on human rights and speed economic reforms to help its
relations with the European Union, German Foreign Minister Joschka
Fischer said in Baku Wednesday.

Germany and the E.U., meanwhile, will redouble efforts to help
resolve the simmering conflict around the ethnic Armenian enclave of
Nagorny-Karabakh, Fischer said after talks with his Azeri counterpart
Elmar Mammadiarov.

The union places great importance on achieving stability in the
Caucasus and was working on new policy suggestions to help calm the
tense relations between countries in the region, he said.

The minister welcomed the move by President Ilham Aliyev to amnesty
numerous political prisoners in Azerbaijan after his election last
October.

But the measure must now be extended to cover all political
detainees, he stressed.

Azerbaijan, a Moslem former Soviet republic, has benefited from its
huge oil reserves in recent years but has been destabilized by the
conflict with Christian Armenia over the Nagorny-Karabakh region.

A shaky ceasefire has held since 1994, but both sides front a heavy
military presence against each other amid the continuing dispute. dpa
dh na sc

Agency WPS
DEFENSE and SECURITY (Russia)
April 21, 2004, Wednesday

THE FUTURE OF KARABAKH IN THE HANDS OF MAJOR BUSINESSES[]

SOURCE: Nezavisimaya Gazeta, April 19, 2004, p. 11

by Rauf Mirkadyrov

WASHINGTON IS OUT TO PREVENT NEW HOSTILITIES IN THE KARABAKH CONFLICT
AREA BEFORE THE BAKU – TBILISI – DZHEIKHAN PIPELINE IS TURNED ON

Baku and Yerevan openly discuss the possibility of renewed
hostilities in the Karabakh conflict area for the first time in a
decade. Defense minister of Azerbaijan said last week that a war
between Azerbaijan and Armenia could begin any minute and blamed
everything on the authorities of Armenia that he said were losing
control over the situation and letting the country slide into a
political crisis.

Some staff changes took place simultaneously within the framework of
the Karabakh talks. Elmar Memedjarov, a career diplomat and
ex-advisor to the Azerbaijani Embassy in the United States, became
foreign minister of Azerbaijan. Rudolph Perina, American chairman of
the Minsk OSCE Group for Karabakh, is about to be replaced with
Stephen Mann (US President’s envoy to the Caspian region), according
to US Ambassador to Rhino Harnisch who met with Defense Minister of
Azerbaijan Safar Abiyev not long ago. The diplomat said that it would
probably facilitate the process of settlement and said that US
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld (just like official Baku) advocated
a gradual settlement.

Virtually no details on Harnisch’s meeting with Abiyev are available,
indicating serious problems with the Karabakh negotiations. Firstly,
it is not a coincidence that the US ambassador broke every rule in
the book revealing the name of the new American chairman of the Minsk
OSCE Group at a meeting with the defense minister of Azerbaijan.
Staff changes on that level are first disclosed to national leaders
or foreign ministers who are directly in charge of peace talks. It
seems that the United States is afraid that the military may get out
of political control and provoke the new outbreak of hostilities.

Mann’s promotion is the best indication of how the latest
developments in the sphere of the Armenian-Azerbaijani worry the
United States. Unlike Perina and Perina’s predecessor Kerry
Cavanough, Mann knows the region. As the US President’s envoy to the
Caspian region, he had the involved countries agree to construction
of the Baku – Tbilisi – Dzheikhan pipeline and even assured
Kazakhstan’s involvement in the project. The diplomat successfully
tackled the task of directing oil from the Caspian region in the
direction convenient for Washington. As a matter of fact, he bested
his vis-a-vis, Russian President’s envoy Viktor Kalyuzhny.

Mann has established perfect relations with leaders of Azerbaijan,
one of the warring sides, and with all Western oil companies involved
in the region. Perhaps, Washington does want an impetus to the
process o settlement. More likely, however, is that Mann has a task
of preventing a new outbreak of hostilities between Armenia and
Azerbaijan before 2005, the moment when the Baku – Tbilisi –
Dzheikhan pipeline is turned on. After that, security of the pipeline
will become an international affair. The West will never permit the
warring sides another outbreak of hostilities then.

Actually, Vladimir Kazimirov (former Russian chairman of the Minsk
OSCE Group for Karabakh), is convinced that Mann’s experience as US
president’s envoy in the Caspian region will not help him much.
“There are lots of leverages that may be used to prevent an outbreak
of hostilities,” Kazimirov said. “These leverages do not really need
the smell of oil.”

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Agence France Presse
April 21, 2004 Wednesday 8:06 AM Eastern Time

Armenia’s “rose revolution” fails to put down roots

by MARIAM HARUTUNIAN

YEREVAN

As opposition supporters in Armenia’s capital prepared late last week
for a rally calling for the resignation of President Robert
Kocharian, staff in a computer salesroom on the city’s Abovian Street
were too busy smoking cigarettes to pay much attention.

They said they had no intention of joining the protests. “They’ll
just get hit on the head by police and go home,” said Samvel, the
store manager, while he watched an opposition leader on the
television set in his office. “So what?”

This indifference from Armenia’s middle classes is one of the
reasons, analysts say, why Armenia is highly unlikely to emulate the
“rose revolution” in its neighbour Georgia which swept that country’s
unpopular rulers from power last year.

On the face of it, Armenia, a former Soviet republic of three million
people in the Caucasus mountains, has all the makings of a
Georgian-style revolution.

Like in Georgia, Armenia’s economy is still reeling from the collapse
of the Soviet Union. According to World Bank figures, 49 percent of
the population lives below the poverty line.

Like its neighbour, Armenia has a massive gulf between the rich and
poor — something many people blame on official corruption.

And as in Georgia, the government stands accused of rigging elections
to preserve its power. A presidential election last year which gave
Kocharian a second term in office was flawed, according to
international observers.

When a coalition of opposition parties began a campaign of mass
demonstrations this month, comparisons were quickly drawn with
Georgia’s revolution.

Some protesters even carried chrysanthemums, mimicking their Georgian
counterparts who demonstrated with rose stems in their hands.

Yet Armenia’s opposition campaign has failed to capture the popular
imagination. At the latest rally in the capital, Yerevan, last
Friday, the core of opposition support — mostly low-income,
middle-aged people with a preponderance of women — was out in force.

But the students and well-heeled members of the middle class who gave
Georgia’s revolution its unstoppable momentum stayed at home.

“I do not think that all these demonstrations can lead to a change in
power,” said analyst Gevorg Pogossian. “A large part of the
population … is continuing to behave like distant observers and not
active participants.”

Analysts point to several factors. The first is that unlike his
ousted Georgian counterpart, 50-year-old Kocharian has a tight grip
on the state machinery.

This means that though pensions and state sector wages are miserly,
they are at least paid on time. It also gives Kocharian the
confidence to use the police against protesters, as he did earlier
this month when water cannon and truncheons were used to disperse an
opposition rally.

Another factor, say analysts, is that Armenia’s opposition lacks a
charismatic figure like Georgia’s Mikhail Saakashvili, who led that
country’s protests and went on to become president.

“Our opposition is very weak and not very convincing,” said Rolan
Minassian, a 59-year-old scientist.

The opposition does not have the advantage its Georgian counterparts
had of regular access to the television airwaves. All of Armenia’s
television stations are loyal to the president.

Finally, though many Armenians grumble about low living standards
they blame not Kocharian, but a crippling economic blockade imposed
on the country by two of its neighbours, Turkey and Azerbaijan.

The blockade is linked to a row about pogroms against ethnic
Armenians in Ottoman Turkey at the start of the last century, and a
still-unresolved war with Azerbaijan over the disputed territory of
Nagorno-Karabakh.

For now at least, most ordinary people are fully behind Kocharian in
opposing any concessions which could see the blockade lifted.

“After upheavals like these, the collapse of the Soviet Union, the
Karabakh war, the blockade, no president could have put the country
and the people back on its feet,” said Sergei Arutyunian, a
74-year-old pensioner.

Agence France Presse
April 21, 2004 Wednesday 8:06 AM Eastern Time

German FM backs stability in strife-torn Caucasus region

BAKU, April 21

Germany Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer said on a visit to the
former republic of Azerbaijan on Wednesday that the European Union
was committed to helping the volatile Caucasus region achieve
stability.

Fischer, who had arrived in Azerbaijan from a trip to Afghanistan,
was speaking at the start of a tour of the region which will also
take in the neighbouring states of Georgia and Armenia.

“I told my colleague that we are interested in stability in the
region and the European Union is ready to do everything in this
regard,” the German foreign minister, speaking through an
interpreter, told reporters after talks with his Azeri counterpart
Elmar Mamedyarov.

He said Germany was keen to see an end to the long-running conflict
between Azerbaijan and Armenia over the disputed territory of
Nagorno-Karabakh.

The row is seen as a major source of instability in the region, which
is becoming a strategic crossroads for oil exports from the Caspian
Sea to Western markets.

“We discussed the conflict and reached the conclusion that the two
sides should make steps toward one another, with the support of the
international community,” Fischer said. “We want the conflict to be
resolved as quickly as possible.”

Commenting on Azerbaijan’s human rights record, which has drawn
criticism from the international community, Fischer said he welcomed
the recent release from jail of a number of alleged political
prisoners. “I think it should be extended to all other political
prisoners,” he added.

Fischer was due to meet Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev later
Wednesday. On Thursday morning he is scheduled to travel to Armenia.
The following day he is due in Georgia, from where he will return to
Germany.

Agence France Presse
April 21, 2004 Wednesday 8:06 AM Eastern Time

Latest anti-government rally draws more than 10,000 in Armenia

YEREVAN, April 21

More than 10,000 demonstrators poured onto the rainy streets of
Armenia’s capital Wednesday, in the latest of a wave of protests
demanding the resignation of President Robert Kocharian.

“Kocharian’s resignation is necessary in order to organize a new
presidential election, this one fair,” one of the leaders of the
opposition Justice party, Chavarch Kocharian, told between 10,000 and
12,000 protestors.

A new election, in turn, “will enable the organization of fundamental
changes and true development in the country,” said Kocharian, who is
no relation to the Armenian leader.

Wednesday’s demonstration in Yerevan’s central Freedom Square was the
latest in a string of protests organized this month by opposition
parties in Armenia, a nation of three million people in the Caucasus
mountains.

The Armenian opposition says that Kocharian rigged a run-off
presidential vote in March 2003 to secure a second term in office and
is demanding that he either organize a national referendum of
confidence in his rule or step down.

On April 13, the police broke up an anti-government demonstration in
the capital Yerevan using water cannon and reportedly injuring dozens
of protestors.

“After April 13 we are living in a new political situation, in a
police state where terror reigns,” Aram Sarkissian, the leader of the
Democratic Party, told Wednesday’s gathering.

The protests in Armenia, the world’s first state to adopt
Christianity, have drawn comparisons with last year’s “rose
revolution” that ousted the leadership in neighbouring Georgia.

But despite the widespread discontent in Armenia over low living
standards, analysts say Kocharian is too strong, and the opposition
too weak, for the Georgian scenario to be repeated in Armenia.

Agence France Presse
April 21, 2004 Wednesday 8:06 AM Eastern Time

German FM urges Azerbaijan to shape up on democracy, rights

BAKU

German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer, on a visit to the former
Soviet republic of Azerbaijan Wednesday, said the country’s rulers
need to improve their record on human rights and democratic freedoms.

Speaking after a meeting with Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev,
the German minister said the oil-rich state should “increase its
efforts” to meet its commitments as a member of pro-democracy club
the Council of Europe.

“For more than three years Azerbaijan has been a member of the
Council of Europe,” Fischer said, speaking through an interpreter.

“We are pleased about that and we supported Azerbaijan’s accession.
The Council of Europe insists on certain standards which include the
democratisation of society, human rights, freedom of speech, the
independence of the courts, and we hope that you will increase your
efforts in this regard.”

Fischer is the most senior European Union politician to visit
Azerbaijan, a nation of eight million people on the shores of the
oil-rich Caspian Sea, for several years.

Azerbaijan’s leadership has been accused of locking up its political
opponents after a disputed presidential election last year, and
subjecting some of them to torture in jail. Officials have denied the
charges.

Fischer, who arrived in Azerbaijan from a trip to Afghanistan, was
speaking at the start of a tour of the region which will also take in
neighbouring Armenia and Georgia.

He said Germany was keen to see an end to the long-running conflict
between Azerbaijan and Armenia over the disputed territory of
Nagorno-Karabakh.

The row is seen as a major source of instability in the region, which
is becoming a strategic crossroads for oil exports from the Caspian
Sea to Western markets.

“We discussed the conflict and reached the conclusion that the two
sides should make steps toward one another, with the support of the
international community,” Fischer said. “We want the conflict to be
resolved as quickly as possible.

Fischer also said he saw Azerbaijan as the economic power-house of
the region and was keen to see German companies invest in the
country.

He is due to stay overnight in Azerbaijan’s capital, Baku. On
Thursday morning he is scheduled to travel to Armenia. The following
day he is due in Georgia, from where he will return to Germany.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

City News Service
April 20, 2004 Tuesday

Suspect Sought

GLENDALE

Glendale police asked the public’s help today in finding a would-be
bandit who accidentally fired at a 51-year-old man while they were
struggling over the gun. The intended victim had just gotten home
from shopping about 9 p.m. on April 14, in the 900 block of Patterson
Avenue, when a gunman walked up and demanded the resident’s wallet,
Glendale police Officer Leticia Chang said. A struggle ensued, and
the intended victim managed to get the gun from the would-be robber,
who ran to a dark-colored car and fled with two other people, Chang
said. The suspect was described as a skinny Armenian, about 5 feet 8
inches tall, with black short hair, a white baggy jersey type shirt
with a logo on the front, white shorts and white tennis shoes. Anyone
with more information about the robbery attempt is asked to call
Glendale detectives at (818) 548-3987 or the department’s main
number, (818) 548-4840. Anonymous calls can be made to (818)
506-STOP.

Associated Press Worldstream
April 21, 2004 Wednesday 2:05 PM Eastern Time

Armenian opposition presses ahead in campaign to force president out

YEREVAN, Armenia

Armenian opposition parties pushed forward in their campaign against
President Robert Kocharian, holding a protest rally that attracted an
estimated 10,000 people to the center of the capital.

The opposition has been holding rallies every few days to press its
grievances, including calls for Kocharian’s resignation.

Kocharian won a second term in presidential elections a year ago that
sparked mass protests, including nearly daily demonstrations between
the first round and the runoff.

Opposition groups alleged widespread violations in both rounds of the
election, which was followed by a parliamentary ballot in which the
pro-government party won the most votes.

Lingering anger over the alleged election fraud is aggravated by
Armenia’s economic struggles. Once one of the most industrialized
regions of the Soviet Union, its economy collapsed after the Soviet
breakup and recovery efforts have been hampered by the closure of its
borders with Turkey and Azerbaijan.

“Armenia would be a country like Latvia, if it weren’t led by Robert
Kocharian,” said Shavarsh Kocharian of the opposition Justice Party,
referring to one of the former Soviet Baltic states that are about to
join the European Union.

Police forcefully broke up a protest rally on April 13, detaining
more than 100 people, reportedly causing injuries and raising
tensions.

“Before a dialogue can begin, both sides must be legitimate and
Robert Kocharian showed on April 13 that he is outside the law,”
Justice Party leader Stepan Demirchian told the rally.