Pravda, Russia
March 23 2004
Japan sends financial aid to promote stability of South Caucasus
The Armenian agriculture minister, David Lozhan, and an adviser to
the economic section of the Japanese embassy in Russia, Masataka
Esidzave, on Monday signed an agreement for the transfer to Armenia
of a Japanese grant worth USD 1.8 million.
As reported by a Rosbalt correspondent, the grant would be used to
buy fertilizer and agricultural equipment for Armenian farmers.
According to Masataka Esidzave, Japan considers the South Caucasus to
be an extremely important region, both politically and economically.
‘It is important to us that the South Caucasus be stable,’ he said,
noting that Japanese financial aid was intended specifically to
promote stability in the region. In 1997, Japan granted Armenia
financial assistance worth more than USD 19 million.

RIA Novosti, Russia
March 23 2004
ARMENIAN-AZERBAIJAN NEGOTIATIONS ON KARABAKH WILL BE CONTINUED
YEREVAN, March 23, 2004. (RIA Novosti) – Since Azerbaijan has
recognised the fact of the agreements in Key West (USA), Armenia
hopes that in the near future the negotiations on the Nagorny
Karabakh problem will be continued from the point at which they
stopped, not from scratch, says the information of the Armenian
Foreign Minister’s press secretary Gamlet Gasparyan.
“We are glad that the Azerbaijan Foreign Minister, Vilayat Guliyev,
has recognised at last that there is a written document, though not
signed, on the agreements which were achieved at the negotiations in
Paris and Key West. We were constantly saying that there is such a
document and that it was prepared by the OSCE Minsk Group for
settling the Nagorny Karabakh conflict on the basis of negotiations
with the Presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan,” the document says.
“As to Guliyev’s statements that if the document was not signed it
does not exist, I would like to say that if it was signed, the
Nagorny Karabakh conflict would be settled today,” the press
secretary’s information says.
Earlier the Azerbaijan Foreign Minister said that Baku considered it
possible to start negotiations with Yerevan on Nagorny Karabakh from
scratch, because up till now not a single agreement on this problem
has been reached.

RIA Novosti, Russia
March 23 2004
UKRAINE’S PARLIAMENT CONSIDERING REINSTITUTING DEPORTED PEOPLES’
RIGHTS
KIEV, March 23, 2004 (RIA Novosti) – On Tuesday, Ukraine’s parliament
passed a bill, in a first reading, re-instituting the rights of
people deported from Ukraine for ethnic reasons. The bill was
supported by 324 MPs, while 226 votes were necessary to pass the
document.
This government-sponsored bill defines deported persons’ status.
“The state guarantees that the deported persons, who will return to
the places where they had lived before being deported, should enjoy
Ukrainian nationals’ rights stipulated in the Constitution. The state
shall also ensure conditions for settling down, i.e. housing,
employment, education, and conditions for ethnic, cultural and
religious development,” reads the document.
Moreover, the bill says that the authorities must promote deported
persons’ return, their adaptation and integration into Ukrainian
society.
The bill is yet to be adopted in the second reading and signed into
law by the president.
More than 50,000 ethnic Germans were deported from the Crimea in
1941. Over 200,000 Tatars, some 38,000 Armenians, Bulgarians and
Greeks were ousted from the peninsula in 1944. They were deported to
Siberia, Central Asia or Kazakhstan. Around 260,000 Tatars and a few
thousand of people of a different ethnic origin have already returned
to the Crimea.

ArmenPress
March 23 2004
US DEPUTY SECRETARY OF STATE TO VISIT ARMENIA
WASHINGTON, MARCH 23, ARMENPRESS: U.S. Deputy Secretary of State
Richard Armitage will travel to Armenia, Azerbaijan and Ukraine this
week, the State Department announced Monday. He will leave Washington
March 24 for the three-day trip to the three states. Armitage will
travel first to the Ukraine capital Kiev and then continue on to
Yerevan, Armenia and Baku, Azerbaijan.
He will meet with senior government officials and other political
leaders and groups that promote democracy and civil society, the
department said. All three countries are members of the former Soviet
Union and are situated in an area with both strategic and economic
interest for the United States. In Yerevan he will meet with
president Kocharian and foreign minister Oskanian to discuss, among
other issues, also the safety of Armenian nuclear power plant in
Metsamor, for which the US government has released $1 million.

ArmenPress
March 23 2004
AZERI, ARMENIAN FM MINISTERS TO MEET WITH MINSK GROUP ON MARCH 29
YEREVAN, MARCH 23, ARMENPRESS: Armenian and Azerbaijani foreign
ministers, Vartan Oskanian and Vilayat Quliyev will meet on March 29
in Prague with the OSCE Minsk group co-chairs from USA, France and
Russia.
Though the agenda of the meeting is not specified, but according
to an Armenian foreign ministry spokesman, Hamlet Gasparian, “the
Minsk group is supposed to convene the meeting to specify some issues
between the ministers and co-chairs.” He said the frames of to be
discussed questions will be clear only after the meeting.

ArmenPress
March 23 2004
BAGHDASARIAN GETS READY FOR A TRAVEL TO ITALY
YEREVAN, MARCH 23, ARMENPRESS: Armenian parliament chairman,
Arthur Baghdasarian, met today with Italy’s ambassador to Yerevan,
Marco Clemente, to discuss the details of his upcoming visit to
Italy. Mr. Clemente was quoted by parliament press office as saying
that a great deal of preparation work has been done to welcome
Baghdasarian and that a parliamentary Italy-Armenia friendship group
is being formed at the initiative of its lower chamber’s chairman.
Baghdasarian is scheduled to have a series of meetings with senior
Italian officials t discuss the entire scope of bilateral relations.
The Armenian delegation will visit, as part of its itinerary, Toscana
and Friuli Julia Venezia provinces.

Armenian leader, new Danish envoy discuss developing ties
Noyan Tapan news agency
23 Mar 04
YEREVAN
The Danish ambassador to Armenia, Christian Faber-rod, submitted his
credentials to Armenian President Robert Kocharyan today.
This is the second time that Faber-rod has been appointed ambassador
to Armenia. His first tenure was in 1992-1996. Hence, there are
grounds for making a comparison, Kocharyan said.
Viewing Europe as a priority in Armenia’s foreign policy, Kocharyan
noted in this context the significance of developing both bilateral
and multilateral relations with Denmark. The level of bilateral
cooperation is still low and a lot needs to be done, he
said. Encouraging economic partnership is the foremost task, the sides
said and noted the intensification of ties between the business
circles of the two countries.
There was also an exchange of views on pressing international issues,
the Armenian president’s press service told Noyan Tapan news agency.

Italian envoy, Armenian speaker discuss upcoming visit
Noyan Tapan news agency
23 Mar 04

YEREVAN
During a meeting on 23 March, the Italian ambassador to Armenia, Marco
Clemente, discussed with Artur Bagdasaryan, chairman of the Armenian
National Assembly, his upcoming official visit to Italy.
Clemente said that Italy had a lot of interest in the visit and
preparatory work was under way. By the proposal of Pier Ferdinando
Casini, Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies, a deputy group for
Italian-Armenian friendship is being set up in the chamber. Meetings
are scheduled with Italian officials to discuss political, cultural,
scientific and economic ties.

World Armenian Congress urges British envoy’s expulsion over genocide remarks
Azg, Yerevan
23 Mar 04

Text of unattributed report by Armenian newspaper Azg on 23 March
headlined “The World Armenian Congress criticizes the British
ambassador”
The World Armenian Congress resolutely condemns the statement of the
British ambassador to Armenia, Miss Thorda Abbott-Watt, regarding the
Armenian genocide in Turkey, which insults the entire Armenian
nation. Refusing to give an appropriate international legal evaluation
of the premeditated massacre of 1.5m Armenians in Turkey at the
beginning of the 20th century, the British ambassador thought it
expedient to describe the events as an “atrocity”. Miss Abbott-Watt
explained her position by saying that the recognition of the events as
genocide would “not be very useful”.
The ambassador’s position is absolutely different from Britain’s
official stance on the Armenian genocide. The British government was
one of the pioneers in giving a clear political and international
assessment of the 1915 attempt to exterminate the Armenian population
(in Ottoman Turkey). The British government stated that those events
were a “crime against humanity and civilization”. On behalf of Lloyd
George, Lord Kerson, Winston Churchill and other leading British
officials, Britain described the Armenian genocide as the killing of
an entire nation, for which the Turkish government should bear full
political and international legal responsibility.
The international community has recognized the fact of genocide and
the Turkish state should have borne political responsibility for it
when the crime was being committed. The position of Britain’s official
representative in Armenia is not only an insult to the historical
memory of the entire Armenian nation, but can and should be viewed as
incitement to the crime of genocide under the UN Convention on the
Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (Approved and
proposed for signature and ratification or accession by General
Assembly resolution 260 A (III) of 9 December 1948; entry into force
12 January 1951; Article 3).
The ambassador’s opinion that the recognition of the genocide will not
promote Turkish-Armenian relations is not only false, but also
politically harmful. This stance actually suggests committing new
acts of genocide. It is difficult to imagine that the British
ambassador would risk to come up with a similar declaration regarding
the Jewish Holocaust. Apparently, the British government finds that
similar offensive declarations are tolerable in Armenia and that the
Armenian authorities would not dare to protect their legal rights and
interests.
The Armenians all over the world regard the British diplomat’s
behaviour as intolerable. It deserves an appropriate moral, legal and
political assessment. We demand that Miss Abbott-Watt’s behaviour be
qualified as incompatible with the status of Britain’s official
representative in Armenia. We demand that the Armenian government
declares her persona non grata in the country and immediately expels
her from Armenia. Miss Abbott-Watt cannot represent the interests of
her state in the country as she has insulted the feelings of its
people. We hope that the government of Armenia will not give way to
political terrorism and will display its willpower and act in line
with its principles. This is what the independent rights and interests
of the Armenian nation require. At the same time, this demand fully
corresponds to international legal norms. The World Armenian Congress
believes that the condemnation of the Armenian genocide in line with
international law will only help prevent similar crimes from recurring
and will promote the establishment of new relations between the two
neighbouring nations and states [Armenia and Turkey].
[Signed] Ara Abramyan, chairman of the World Armenian Congress, 22
March 2004.

Armenia starts large-scale military exercises
ITAR-TASS news agency, Moscow,
23 Mar 04
YEREVAN
The command and staff exercises of the Armenian armed forces started
on the entire territory of Armenia today.
Seyran Shakhsuvaryan, press secretary of the Armenian Defence
Ministry, told ITAR-TASS that the exercises will continue until
Saturday [27 March]. They are being held within the framework of
preparing the army for 2004. The exercises are led by the chief of the
General Staff and first deputy defence minister of Armenia, Col-Gen
Mikayel Arutyunyan.
In accordance with the plan of the exercises, mobilization reserves
are being called up to increase the number of troops. This is one of
the objectives for the first stage of the exercises, Shakhsuvaryan
said.