RIA Novosti, Russia
March 18 2004
MOSCOW REJECTS ACCUSATIONS OF NON-FULFILLMENT OF ISTANBUL AGREEMENTS
MOSCOW, March 18, 2004. (RIA Novosti) – Accusations of Russia’s
non-fulfillment of the agreements reached at the Istanbul OSCE summit
in 1999 is the pretext for delaying the ratification of the adapted
Conventional Forces in Europe treaty, Russian First Deputy Foreign
Minister Vyacheslav Trubnikov said in an interview with journalists.
“We pursue the policy of constructive relations with the United
States and NATO. Sometimes our partners aberrate from it and float
the idea that without the liquidation of the Russian military bases
in Georgia ratification of CFE treaty is impossible (two Russian
military bases remain in Georgia: one in Batumi, capital of the
Adzharian autonomy, and the other in Akhalkalaki on the border with
Armenia)”, he said.
“We see the attempts to put the blame on us for ‘the non-fulfilment
of the Istanbul agreements’ as an invented pretext for
procrastinating the ratification of the agreement on the adaptation
of the CFE treaty,” Vyacheslav Trubnikov stressed.
Russia has early and in full performed all its obligations for the
pullout of arms and military equipment, limited by the treaty, from
Georgia and Moldova, the interview says. “We have substantially
become close to the solution of problems unrelated to the CFE treaty
– the closure of the Russian military bases in Georgia and the
withdrawal of military equipment from Transdniestria (the land on the
left bank of the Dniester river populated by multiethnic
Russian-speaking people. In the early 90s it proclaimed itself the
“independent” Transdniestrian Moldovan republic with the capital in
Tiraspol),” Trubnikov said.
“There are no legal obstacles for the start of ratification of the
agreement on the CFE treaty adaptation. We invite our partners to
begin it without artificial procrastination,” he said.

Houston Press, TX
March 18 2004
Village Person
Arshile Gorky changed his name, but he couldn’t change his painful
past
BY JOHN DEVINE
[email protected]

Many artists have had difficult childhoods, but by any measure,
Arshile Gorky’s was particularly traumatic. He was born Vosdanik
Adoian in the village of Khorkom in Turkish Armenia in 1904. Two
years later, his father emigrated to America. Whether he left to find
work or to avoid arrest for being an Armenian nationalist has never
been clear, but it would be nearly 15 years before father and son met
again. By then, Gorky would have experienced the loss of his village,
witnessed the genocide of his people by the Turkish government,
endured the refugee poverty and famine that killed his mother when he
was 15, and, finally, with his younger sister Vartoosh, sailed to
America, leaving behind forever his mother’s grave, his homeland and
his beloved village. But not his past.
That past resonates through “Arshile Gorky: A Retrospective of
Drawings,” on view at the Menil Collection. Curated by Janie C. Lee,
adjunct curator of drawings at the Whitney Museum of American Art,
the exhibition offers an intimate introduction to one of America’s
most influential artists.
After a few years in Providence and Boston, the young Armenian artist
moved to New York City in 1924. He had already rechristened himself
Arshile Gorky; the first name was a variant of an Armenian royal
name, and the surname means “bitter one” in Russian. (By all
accounts, Gorky was an inveterate raconteur and rarely let the facts
interfere with a good story. If you wanted to believe he was related
to the great Russian writer Maxim Gorky, he wouldn’t disillusion you
— despite the fact that the writer’s name was also an assumed one.
The writer of his New York Times obituary was one such mistaken
soul.) In New York, Gorky’s talent was recognized almost immediately,
and he managed to eke out a living teaching drawing, both
academically and privately; by the early 1930s, his work began
appearing in group shows.
An incessant drawer from early childhood, Gorky was essentially
self-taught — one of his sisters remembers him finding a dead fish
and drawing it over and over in the sand. (Later, he would be fired
from a Boston rubber factory for drawing on the molds.) His major
influences were the great 19th-century French classicist
Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, as well as contemporaries Pablo
Picasso and Henri Matisse. As installed in the Menil, the first three
galleries of the exhibit (which has been judiciously edited down from
the ungainly sprawl and visual overload of the Whitney’s version)
show how in his early work, Gorky worked to incorporate their
disparate approaches into a pictorial language of his own.
Of particular note are the drawings of his mother, especially the
portrait on loan from the Art Institute of Chicago. Gorky faithfully
rendered his mother’s face from a formal 1912 photograph of the two
of them, taken to send to his father. It’s a beautiful, loving
portrait, intimate and yet reserved. The profound depths of her eyes
are matched only by the eyes of her young son in some other drawings
on display. One of the pleasures of seeing this retrospective at the
Menil are the echoes that occur not only within Gorky’s body of work
but between it and the rest of the museum’s collection. The portrait
of his mother resonates with some Egyptian Fayum mummy portraits in
the Menil’s classical galleries (Gorky kept a reproduction of one
from the Metropolitan Museum’s extensive Egyptian collection in his
studio).
The other series of note in these first rooms is the Nighttime,
Enigma, and Nostalgia series. Composed in 1931 and 1932, the group of
works demonstrates Gorky’s habit of repeating forms and motifs
through different mediums — here, principally graphite or ink — and
methods, such as crosshatching and shading, to create numerous
variations on a theme. The series demonstrates the countless formal
possibilities of drawing (this one alone runs to more than 50 works).
Inhabited by entangled biomorphic shapes of no particular provenance,
the melancholy meditations of Nighttime, Enigma, and Nostalgia compel
our lingering attention. When asked what personal or symbolic
significance the series’ imagery held, Gorky’s response was “wounded
birds, poverty, and one whole week of rain.” A related drawing, Image
at Khorkom (1934-36), references the village of his birth.
Gorky’s mature work began in the early 1940s, when he encountered the
surrealists, who were here in America to escape the Nazis. He would
incorporate their ideas into his own work and become the link between
the surrealists and artists like Willem de Kooning and Jackson
Pollock. Of prime importance to Gorky’s development was Roberto
Matta, who encouraged him in the surrealist technique of automatic
drawing — the hand moving unguided by the mind. Around this time,
Gorky left New York for Connecticut and began drawing from nature.
The combination seems to have unleashed a torrent of creative
invention in Gorky as he filtered the world he saw before him through
his imagination and memory. In Drawing (1946), two figures in the
lower half are clearly cows, but a foreleg of one cow ends in not a
hoof but a scythelike shape. And in the lovely large drawing The Plow
and the Song (1946), the sinuous vertical figure in the center
suggests an Armenian plow from Gorky’s childhood.
But this is not to say that to appreciate Gorky’s art one must play a
game of identification; form was more important to him than the
object that suggests the form. It’s the whole composition as an
abstraction, the interplay of forms, and the assuredness and economy
of draftsmanship that seduces. In Study for Charred Beloved (1946),
there isn’t a wasted line or gesture, as if, in executing this
delicate composition, Gorky barely removed pencil from paper.
The last drawings in the exhibit are dated 1946-47. In January 1946,
a studio fire destroyed about 25 of Gorky’s paintings. That March, he
underwent a colostomy operation necessitated by rectal cancer. A
fastidious man, Gorky was deeply embarrassed by the procedure. He
also had marital problems. Still, Gorky continued to work through
1947. In 1948, his marriage collapsed, and in June, his collarbone
and two neck vertebrae were broken in an auto accident. Confined by
an immobilization collar and constrained from working, on July 21
Gorky wrote “Goodbye my loveds” on a wooden crate in his Connecticut
studio, and then he hung himself.
Through May 9 at the Menil Collection, 1515 Sul Ross, 713-525-9400.
Through April 25 at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, 1001 Bissonnet,
713-639-7300.
One Hell of a Gift
Caroline Wiess Law has been very, very good to the MFAH. An art
collector and philanthropist, Law died last Christmas Eve on her 85th
birthday. She left the museum a $25 million endowment and a cache of
55 artworks, with an estimated value of between $60 million and $85
million.
Law was Houston to the core. She was the daughter of Harry Wiess,
co-founder of Humble Oil & Refining Co., which became Exxon. Her
first husband was a partner at the law firm Vinson, Elkins, Weems &
Francis; after he died, she married Theodore Newton Law, founder of
Falcon Seaboard Drilling Co. Wiess’s parents were founding members of
the MFAH, and Law herself was an MFAH supporter for four decades. In
1998, the Watkins-Mies building was named after her.
“A Spirited Vision: Highlights of the Bequest of Caroline Wiess Law
to the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston” presents works from some of the
major names in 20th-century art. Philip Guston’s Passage (1957) is an
early ab-ex-inspired work that feels incredibly fresh. Its smears and
brushy smudges of color have a visceral feeling. They remind you of
the hues used for those plastic models of the human body from biology
class — the rosy pink of flesh; the pale, greenish-blue of veins;
the deep red of the heart; the brownish red of the liver.
Joan Miró’s Painting (The Circus Horse) (1927) is especially nice,
with the lush, chalky blue of the background playing host to the
artist’s tentatively elegant linear elements. One of the more
appealing works by Hans Hoffman in the show features brushy
rectangles of near-primary colors on a pale ground. It hangs
especially well between two vivid works by Lucio Fontana, one an
intense red and the other a powerful, almost artificial green. True
to form, Fontana has interrupted their saturated monochromatic
surfaces by elegantly slicing through the canvases.
There are some early, colorful works by Franz Kline that are okay,
but they make you glad he switched to the black and white of his 1961
Corinthian II. Picasso’s Two Women in Front of a Window (1927) was
donated in 1964 but remained in Law’s home until her death. It’s a
notable work and a definite feather in the cap for the MFAH, but
there’s so much Picasso in the museum world (the MFAH alone has 80),
it’s hard to be visually excited about it. Andy Warhol’s Caroline,
four 1976 portraits of Law, is also included. Warhol cranked out
scads of portraits of collectors and celebrities in the ’70s and
’80s. This is a particularly unflattering series that gives Law the
look of a not-overly-convincing transvestite. She must have really
loved Warhol to keep those around.
Neither Law’s upbringing nor her education predisposed her toward the
modern art she came to love. When she was furnishing her home in the
’50s, dealers kept showing up with impressionist paintings. According
to Law, “I just couldn’t get interested in those things. They didn’t
talk to me.” Law went on to find artworks that did talk to her — and
now they’re holding forth at the MFAH. – Kelly Klaasmeyr
Through April 25 at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, 1001 Bissonnet,
713-639-7300.

Institute for War and Peace Reporting
March 18 2004
Karabakh Rejects Drug Claims
Allegation made to the UN that Nagorny Karabakh is used as narcotics
route is angrily denied by the Armenians.
By Ashot Beglarian in Stepanakert (CRS No. 223, 18-Mar-04)
The Armenian authorities in Nagorny Karabakh have invited
international officials to come and monitor the territories they
control, after allegations from Azerbaijan that the region is a
transit corridor for the drugs trade.
The issue cropped up this week at a Vienna meeting of the United
Nations Commission on Narcotic Drugs. One item on the agenda proposed
that, `The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, in coordination
with the appropriate organs of the United Nations system, Interpol
and other international organisations should be invited to study the
drugs situation in the territories outside the control of the
legitimate governments of the countries in the region (Afghanistan,
Iraq and the Nagorny Karabakh region of Azerbaijan).’
In response, Masis Mailian, deputy foreign minister of the
unrecognised republic of Nagorny Karabakh told IWPR that his
government was happy to welcome an independent international
monitoring group to visit all of the territory it controlled – both
Karabakh itself and the Armenian-occupied territories around it.
`The group must include truly independent international experts who
would conduct an objective investigation,’ said Mailian.
Azerbaijan claims that Nagorny Karabakh and the surrounding lands
under Armenian control have become a transit point for narcotics on
the `southern route’ of the heroin trade, that originates in
Afghanistan and passes through Iran on its way to Europe. It says the
long stretch of border along the Araxes river between Iran and the
empty lands controlled by the Karabakh Armenians is entirely
unmonitored, and is therefore a good entry point for drug
traffickers.
Ali Hassanov, chairman of Azerbaijan’s State Commission to Combat
Drug Abuse and Illegal Trafficking, said the main problem his
commission faced was `the uncontrolled territories occupied by
Armenia, where narcotics are cultivated, and through which they are
trafficked’.
However, Karabakh Armenian official Mailian challenged anyone to
provide evidence of this, noting that the US State Department’s
International Narcotics Control Strategy Report published on March 1
this year failed even to mention Nagorny Karabakh, while stating that
Azerbaijan is one of the main transit routes for international
trafficking.
IWPR also asked the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, UNODC. in Vienna
whether it had evidence of Karabakh being used as a transit point.
The response was that UNODC had no available evidence, although a
change of personnel in its Tehran office meant it was unable to check
fully with its sources in Iran.
The Karabakh Armenian authorities say that, on the contrary, they
have been waging a persistent campaign against the cultivation of
opium poppies and wild cannabis that used to grow in Karabakh.
Locals now admit that the territory suffered from a drug problem
during the war of 1991-94, but they say that this has now been
brought under control.
`The problem of cultivating narcotic plants was particularly
difficult during the war, in 1992-1993,’ said one villager. `You
should have seen the care – that should have been put to better use –
with which some people grew poppies. There’s nothing surprising about
that – the plant is easier and cheaper to grow, and profits from
selling it are much higher, than many other plants, vegetables and
fruits.’ He explained that drugs were sometimes bartered for flour,
sugar and other items that were then in short supply
When fighting was still going on in 1993, the police force launched
their first operation Mak (Poppy), which has been repeated every year
since then in Karabakh and the surrounding territories. On average up
to five tons of wild cannabis and up to 15 kilos of unprocessed opium
poppies are found and destroyed each year.
`Two years running, in 1993 and 1994, I was involved in Mak
operations as part of various internal affairs ministry groups,’
Albert Voskanian, a retired lieutenant colonel in the police, told
IWPR. `We searched through all the regions, all the fields and garden
plots where opium poppy could possibly be grown. We began the
operation at a time when the poppies were almost ready, but it was
still too early to harvest. We uprooted the plants that we found,
registered them in a report and took them away to burn.
`Many owners were reluctant to give up the harvest voluntarily, and
there were cases of resistance. The operation was so important that
some troops were called in from the front to assist.’
Voskanian said that in the first year the owners of plantations were
not punished, only warned. This proved to be effective – there was
much less cannabis and poppy during the second year.
Slavik Gasparian, another veteran of these operations, also says they
were broadly very successful. `During the war I served as a senior
sergeant in a unit of the Karabakh army and I knew about all the
operations to destroy poppy and cannabis plantations. I can say just
one thing – the joint efforts of the law enforcement forces, army and
other agencies produced an excellent result. At least after 1995,
people were afraid to grow even one poppy plant openly.’
Karabakh’s interior ministry says that in 1998-2003, the authorities
uncovered 156 drug-related crimes, half of which were related to
cultivating illegal narcotic plants and the rest to the illegal
purchase, possession and abuse of drugs. It says that drug-related
crimes comprise only five per cent of all offences.
Representatives of the penal institutions of Nagorny Karabakh said
that interior ministry doctors provide compulsory treatment for all
drug addicts in custody.
Sociologist David Sarkisian said that some Karabakhis experimented
with cannabis, but there was a strong social taboo against drug
taking as a whole in society.
`There are no objective preconditions for the wide dissemination of
drugs and drug abuse in Nagorny Karabakh,’ Sarkisian said. `Our
society categorically rejects drug addicts, considering them the most
degraded members of society – worse than even the most miserable
drunkards. Many young people try cannabis and other weed either out
of curiosity or from a mistaken idea of self-assertion.’
The more controversial matter of whether drugs are passing through
Karabakh from Iran will remain disputed as long as there is no
verdict from international agencies. The UN has so far not decided
whether to send a delegation to the region to study the claims.
Ashot Beglarian is a freelance journalist based in Stepanakert.

The Toronto Star
March 18, 2004 Thursday Ontario Edition
Very dramatic tale of overcoming
by Robert Crew, Toronto Star
Rogues Of Urfa a personal and ancestral battle Araxi Arslanian
triumphs over vascular ills
Araxi Arslanian and her family know all about survival.
Arslanian, 32, has successfully fended off a life-threatening,
neurological disorder known as AVM; her Armenian grandfather survived
the massacres in Turkey in the early part of the 20th century.
And exploring and learning from both these experiences is the purpose
of Arslanian’s new play, The Rogues Of Urfa, which opens at Artword
Theatre next Wednesday. It was when Arslanian was at Montreal’s
National Theatre School that the symptoms of her condition began to
affect her seriously.
AVM – Arteriovenous Malformations – is caused by the malformation of
blood vessels (arteries and veins) and can lead to seizures and
strokes
Arslanian was having difficulty speaking, talking and walking and
attempted to cover up her behaviour with “crazy stories.”
She was asked to leave and, “I have so successfully creeped out
everyone in my class that nobody wanted me there and I don’t blame
them.”
She was in the University of Alberta’s drama program when the grand
mal seizures began. Her doctors initially accused her of faking it,
but finally diagnosed AVM.
“The misshapen vein is so deep inside my head that they can’t do
anything about it. They would have to cut through a lot of healthy
brain tissue to get at it and that would mean paralysis at best,
death at worst.”
She was put on medication and was seizure-free for eight years. Then
she and her husband moved to Toronto. The medication suddenly became
ineffective and the seizures returned with a vengeance.
“My life to all intents and purposes was over. I couldn’t get an
agent, I couldn’t go to auditions. I was bedridden for two months and
housebound for another two. I had 11 grand mal seizures a day, on
average.
“I went through seven months of hell before the doctors at Toronto
Western found the right cocktail for me.”
She is 6 feet tall, weighs 200-plus pounds – “I am a big, big girl” –
and is a forceful and outspoken character. But she was deeply hurt
and torn with self-doubt by her experiences during the second show
she did after her return to acting.
The production of Our Country’s Good “was one of the most horrific
experiences of my professional life because, for whatever reason,
four or five people in the show decided that I was an outcast and
treated me horribly.
“They had decided that I was the most incredible loser in the world
and were spreading rumours about me. I was treated as a piece of
garbage every day by people that I respected and adored.”
But she was the one who got a Dora Award nomination for her work in
the show and that affirmation was a turning point. “This is when I
thought there is no way anything is going to stop me,” Arslanian
says.
It was also when she began wondering why she was able to survive when
others fell by the wayside. What was different about her? Was
survival in her genes?
It was then that she began to ask her father (who is Armenian) and
her mother (who is Irish) about family history.
She learned that her grandfather, a determined young soldier named
Hovannes, was one of a handful of Armenians from the city of Urfa to
survive the tumult during and after World War I.
Arslanian recounts details of the dramatic story of his escape in the
course of the play, along with her own story.
“Although I would not in a million years, wish such difficulties on
anyone, I wouldn’t trade my life experience, mostly because I feel
there isn’t anything I cannot do or handle,” she says.
“That’s a gift. I am extremely proud of who I am and what I have
overcome and where I come from. That’s the point of this piece.”
And she is eloquent about the blessings she has received.
“When all guarantees are removed and all the trappings of who you are
supposed to be are gone, that is when you become your truest and
purest self.
“I know who I am, not who I am supposed to be. Every tragedy is an
opportunity to know yourself and to know the majesty and miracle that
is life.”
She hopes The Rogues Of Urfa, an earlier version of which was
presented at SummerWorks last year, will attract a decent audience.
“It is always a challenge for a solo female performer to attract a
large audience unless you take off your top and are really stacked,
which I don’t intend to do, at least not in this show.”
“But it doesn’t matter to me at this point if the show sells out
every night. The people who see it are meant to see it.”
Her job as an artist is to create for the audience, she says, in
typically forthright fashion. “I am there for them, they are not
there for me.
“My greatest rage as an artist is expressed towards people who are
too busy waiting for what the audience can do for them: ‘How are you
going to make me feel good about myself by applauding me, what tricks
do I have that are going to make you applaud?’ I think there is a lot
of that in Toronto.” What: The Rogues Of Urfa by Araxi Aslanian
Where: Artword Theatre, 75 Portland St.
When: Previews March 23, opens March 24, runs until April 4
Tickets: $10 – $20 @ 416-504-7529
GRAPHIC: Araxi Arslanian’s new play opens at the Artword Theatre
Wednesday.

The Vancouver Sun (British Columbia)
March 18, 2004 Thursday Final Edition
Singing won out for exceptionally gifted soprano
by Lloyd Dykk
Isabel Bayrakdarian, one of the freshest voices to have come by in
long while, makes her second visit to Vancouver a little later than
planned. The Vancouver Recital Society originally booked her for Feb.
29 but Bayrakdarian, 29, became ill and the concert was rescheduled
for Friday at the Orpheum.
Speaking from her home base in Toronto, she regrets missing that
first date, because it happened to fall on Rossini’s birthday. She
loves Rossini and was going to make the program exclusive to him. Now
she’s making it a half-Rossini night. The program includes several of
his delightfully witty or sad late songs, which aren’t like his
operas at all.
Bayrakdarian is something exceptional in music. Academically
distinguished, she got a degree in biomedical engineering and was
fielding offers from bio-med companies, also won the Metropolitan
Opera auditions and, at age 14, a national championship in bicycle
racing in Lebanon.
Singing won out and it wasn’t a hard choice, she says. “When you’re
in sync with the flow, you don’t resist it. And I never looked at
sports as a profession. It was more for morale and building
self-confidence.”
Her musical career takes her throughout the world, “but I’ll always
be based in Toronto. If you counted the days that I actually spend in
one place, I wouldn’t be a resident of anywhere,” she says with a
laugh.
Her ravishing lyric soprano is booked through 2008. Her Met debut
last year was an unusual one: William Bolcom’s View from the Bridge.
Recently at the Met she starred in Berlioz’s almost never-done epic,
Benvenuto Cellini. Next year, Mozart’s Don Giovanni. She just sang
Mozart’s Requiem three nights in a row in Minnesota. “It was heaven,
heaven, heaven. For me, it all comes down to Mozart. Susanna [in
Marriage of Figaro] is the core for me.”
Wherever she’s appearing, she tries to find an Armenian church choir
where she just slips in and sings. “I don’t do it for publicity and I
stay anonymous. I figure that’s the only way my prayers will be
heard.”
Her pianist is Serouj Kradjian, soon to become her husband. The
concert’s at 8 p.m.

Agency WPS
What the Papers Say. Part B (Russia)
March 17, 2004, Wednesday
RUSSIA WON’T YIELD ITS POSITION IN THE CIS TO ANYONE
SOURCE: Vremya Novostei, March 17, 2004, p. 5
by Katerina Labetskaya
The United States, NATO, and the EU are expanding their activities in
the CIS, which is more often called post-Soviet territory. Is this
contrary to Russia’s interests? We discussed this issue with Senior
Deputy Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Trubnikov, presidential envoy to
the CIS with the status of federal minister.
Vyacheslav Trubnikov: The CIS is the natural and traditional area of
Russia’s interests. Russia itself is an area of interest for its CIS
partners. The course aimed at development of neighborly relations
with the CIS is the priority in our foreign policy. However, under
conditions of the quickly developing globalization process no state
or a regional union can stay isolated. We have no intention to
indicate to our CIS partners how and with what states they should
build their relations. However, we are based on the fact that our
partners, for instance in the CIS Common Security Treaty Organization
(CSTO), won’t break the allied commitments (the CSTO was founded on
September 18, 2003. It consists of Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan,
Kyrgyzstan, Russia, and Tajikistan. – ed. note).
Question: Aren’t you concerned about NATO penetration into the CIS?
Vyacheslav Trubnikov: Together with our CIS partners, we are ready to
deepen our cooperation with NATO, primarily in adjusting its
cooperation with the CSTO. This is an urgent issue, especially since
NATO is involved in Afghanistan operations. The combination of
abilities of these two military-political alliances will profit to
both its members and the entire world community. Resistance would
mean reviving the Cold War. We are not seeking that and expect NATO
to act likewise. However, we don’t welcome expansion of the Alliance
and its proximity to Russia’s borders, for one reason: NATO ought to
be transformed from a military bloc into a political organization.
Contradictory processes are now developing inside NATO: it still has
forces which think in the categories of the Cold War.
We have a policy of constructive relations with the United States and
NATO. At times, our partners deviate from this line, saying that
ratification of the Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE) Treaty
is impossible unless Russian military bases are withdrawn from
Georgia. We assess any attempts of reproaching us with “a failure to
execute Istanbul commitments” as strained plea for protraction of
ratifying the agreement on adaptation of the CFE Treaty. Russia has
fully fulfilled all commitments on withdrawal of arms and military
equipment, which are restricted by the treaty, from Georgia and
Moldova ahead of time. We have made a considerable advancement in the
settlement of problems which have nothing to do with the CFE Treaty –
liquidation of Russian military bases in Georgia and withdrawal of
military property from Transnistria. There are no juridical obstacles
hampering the process of ratifying the agreement on adaptation of the
CFE Treaty. We urge our partners to join it without artificial
delays.
Question: Does it mean that our bases in Georgia are a subject for
discussion between Moscow and Tbilisi alone?
Vyacheslav Trubnikov: We need to determine the timeframe and the
format of our presence there. So far, we don’t nee a third party in
this issue. We assume that the constructive approach announced by the
new Georgian leaders will help us resume the bilateral negotiation
process. We haven’t met to discuss the problem of withdrawal of our
bases for a long.
Question: Will withdrawal of our bases from Georgia actually take 11
years?
Vyacheslav Trubnikov: We started dancing from this in the talks.
However, as our economic and financial positions strengthen we may
reduce this timing at the expense of our efforts. Our military men
are to determine the limit.
Question: NATO hopes to enhance cooperation with Russia in
Afghanistan. Will Russia return there after a 15-year break?
Vyacheslav Trubnikov: We don’t have any such plans. Assistance is
possible in critical situations, but not a military presence.
Question: The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) is described as
another conflict of interests between the West and Russia.
Vyacheslav Trubnikov: We don’t have a clash here. The organization’s
targets are aimed at stability in the region and security of its six
member states (Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and
Uzbekistan. – ed. note). There are broad prospects for the SCO’s
cooperation with the US in combating terrorism and drug-trafficking.
The SCO has no intention to fence itself off from NATO. We hope this
vision of the SCO’s essence will prevail around the world and end the
false rumors.
Question: Does the West’s heightened attention towards conflicts
inside the CIS evidence its contradictions with Russia?
Vyacheslav Trubnikov: Conflicts occur worldwide. Settlement of
conflicts inside the CIS cannot imply any improper cooperation with
the US or the EU. Russia has never declined the widest international
cooperation, assigning the peacekeeping forces stationed in zones of
conflicts inside the CIS the international and regional status, with
involvement of the CIS, the UN, the OSCE. However, attempts of
settlement through “constraining to peace” make a serious delusion.
They are forcing the conflicts inside. We object to the thoughtless,
hasty breaking of the formats of settlement which have been formed.
Question: Do you agree with political consultants who propose that
Russia, as a regional power, should re-orient itself exclusively
towards the post-Soviet area?
Vyacheslav Trubnikov: I disagree. Due to its historical and
geopolitical significance Russia cannot be confined within the
regional framework, although it is as vast as the CIS. I’m certain
our country will take a proper position by becoming a pole in the
multi-polar world order. We already have formal signs for that:
affiliation with the nuclear club, permanent membership in the UN
Security Council. Undoubtedly, Russia’s economic mightiness will
determine its role of a great power. Slowly but surely we are
increasing our economic potential. This is the Euro-Asian Economic
Community within the framework of the CIS, the common economic area.
Russia has been the driving force for integration processes across
post-Soviet territory, which is a very difficult and responsible
occupation. Those who are afraid of this burden like the thesis that
our CIS partners demand much from Russia, but give little in return –
therefore, we must supposedly part company. If we did that, our niche
would be filled immediately – this is reality. It would be a rash
move.
Translated by Andrei Ryabochkin

Agency WPS
What the Papers Say. Part B (Russia)
March 17, 2004, Wednesday
“ANTI-NATO” EXPANSION
SOURCE: Vremya Novostei, March 17, 2004, p. 2
by Nikolai Poroskov
Anatoly Kvashnin, chairman of the CIS committee of chiefs of general
staff, announced that the Commonwealth Southern Shield 2004 staff
command exercises, scheduled for April, will not take place then.
This doesn’t mean the exercises have been canceled due to funding
shortages, as often occurred in the 1990s, or armies of CIS countries
have bogged down in disputes and cannot coordinate the plan and aims
of the exercises. The situation is quite the reverse. According to
Anatoly Kvashnin’s statement at the first assembly of the Joint Staff
of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO, which unites
Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia and Tajikistan),
Boundary 2004 – a tactical exercise – will be held in second half of
2004 instead of the staff command exercise scheduled for April.
Besides forces of the CIS and the CSTO (meant are the units of the
Collective Rapid Deployment Forces and the Russian aviation stationed
at the Kant airfield in Kyrgyzstan), the exercise will involve units
and military observers of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization
(SCO). In other words, the list of participants will be extended at
the expense of Uzbek and Chinese military (the SCO includes Russia,
China, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Kyrgyzstan).
Military experts say that attempts to expand and enhance the
Euro-Asian military-political alliance are evident. In fact, CSTO
Secretary General Nikolai Bordyuzha announced that over a month ago.
He admitted that some CIS states are involved in the talks on their
potential joining the CSTO. Quite possibly, we may soon evidence
expansion of an “anti-NATO.”
The speed with which the military component of the CIS is gaining
strength allow for that assumption. The CSTO Joint Staff started
functioning on January 1, 2004, but has already managed to merit
praises from chief of the Russian General Staff. “My assessment is
positive. The Joint Staff started working actively; what’s important,
since its first moves are practical,” Anatoly Kvashnin said
yesterday. In his words, establishing close cooperation between the
Armed Forces of Russia, CIS states and the CSTO structures has been a
success. In particular, over past six months the strength of the
Collective Rapid Deployment Forces doubled; in addition to general
troops it is planned to form the Special Forces in its structure.
One of the main tasks of the meeting, which will finish tomorrow, is
to develop a system of operations control for the Rapid Deployment
Forces.
Also under discussion are plans of joint operational and combat
training, an algorithm of actions of the collective forces for
maintenance of peace in South Ossetia and Abkhazia, an opportunity of
unifying the legislation in the sphere of defense and security,
Lieutenant General Vasily Zavgorodny, senior deputy chief of the CSTO
Joint Staff.
Translated by Andrei Ryabochkin

ITAR-TASS News Agency
TASS
March 18, 2004 Thursday
Armenia parliament turns down smoking control bill
By Tigran Liloyan
YEREVAN
The Armenian parliament has turned down a draft law restricting
smoking. The bill had suggested imposing of ban on sales of tobacco
products to underage persons, as well as smoking at all health,
culture, sports, educational facilities, at other public premises and
at transport.
The author of the bill, Chairwoman of the Permanent Parliamentary
Commission for issues of science and education, culture and youth
Granush Akopyan said the number of smokers is steadily growing in the
republic.
Armenian residents spend 25 million dollars a year for cigarettes and
other tobacco products. The after-effects of this addiction are
manifested in the growth of lung and cardio-vascular diseases and
malignant tumors. The spread of the smoking habit among adolescents
and young people, as well as women is especially disturbing.
Local observers are certain the bill has been voted down by
influential parliamentarians engaged in the import of tobacco or
lobbying the tobacco business.
Incidentally, Akopyan even made certain concessions to her colleagues
who own cafes and restaurants. She proposed to allow smoking in bars
at separate places, but even the softened variant of the bill was
rejected.
In the meantime, there are clouds of smoke at breaks between
parliamentary meetings, as the mps cannot make themselves give up
smoking.

ITAR-TASS News Agency
TASS
March 18, 2004 Thursday
Six Armenians arrested in Equatorial Guinea on state coup charges
By Tigran Liloyan
YEREVAN
The Armenian Foreign Ministry has undertaken steps to clarify
information about Armenian citizens who were arrested in Equatorial
Guinea and to render necessary legal assistance to them.
The Armenian Foreign Ministry official spokesman, Gamlet Gasparyan,
said in a statement that six Armenian nationals had been arrested in
Equatorial Guinea on March 8 on state coup charges. A group of
Armenian civil aviation pilots is working in Equatorial Guinea on
contracts with private companies, the Armenian Foreign Ministry went
on to say.
The Armenian ambassadors in New York and Moscow have met their
counterparts from Equatorial Guinea. Given that Armenia has no
diplomatic representations in Equatorial Africa, the Armenian Foreign
Ministry has turned for assistance to friendly countries, which have
certain influence in Equatorial Guinea, the Armenian Foreign Ministry
said in its statement.

Polish Press Agency
March 18, 2004 Thursday
Bagdasarian on cooperation with Lublin province
Lublin
Head of the Armenian National Assembly Artur Bagdasarian discussed
possibilities of cooperation between Armenia and Lublin province at a
meeting with Lublin city and provincial authorities on Thursday.
Bagdasarian would like to establish cooperation with Poland in
science, education and agriculture. Development of information
technologies is a priority in Armenia at present, he said and added
that his country would like to exchange experience in sugar beet
growing and processing. We are also interested in imports of
fertilisers, he said.
Bagdasarian invited Lublin authorities to visit Armenia, and proposed
to create a mission of Lublin in his country. A similar mission
promoting Armenian commodities and culture could be set up in Lublin
province.
Head of the Lublin provincial assembly Henryk Makarewicz assured the
guest about readiness to establish cooperation. There are considerable
opportunities for this and Armenia has priority in regional cooperation,
he said. Makarewicz expressed the hope that details of the accord
would be set soon.