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09/20/2005
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1) Cyprus Threatens to Veto EU’s Draft Text on Turkey
2) Sharjah Ruler Commemorates Armenian Genocide Victims
3) Youth Activists in Azerbaijan Say They Are Being Targeted By Government
4) Azeri Shots Force OSCE Mission to End Monitoring
5) Catholicos Aram I to Visit Los Angeles Armenian Evangelical Community

1) Cyprus Threatens to Veto EU’s Draft Text on Turkey

(Bloomberg)–The Cypriot government threatened to veto a European Union (EU)
declaration on ties with Turkey, imperiling EU plans to start Turkish
membership talks on October 3.
The last-minute threat prevented European governments today from agreeing
on a
response to Turkey’s diplomatic boycott of EU member Cyprus and may force the
25-nation bloc to hold an emergency meeting. The UK, current holder of the
EU’s
rotating presidency, brokered an accord among diplomats yesterday and expected
routine approval today.
“There is no agreement yet,” Stavros Papagianneas, a spokesman for the
Cypriot
mission to the EU, said by telephone in Brussels today. “There is a
proposal by
the UK presidency which is being studied by us.”
The month-long debate over the declaration has sidetracked the EU, holding up
the passage of a negotiating plan for Turkey that needs the backing of all
member nations. The plan covers 35 areas from customs and public
procurement to
energy and fisheries where Turkey would have to meet the bloc’s regulatory
standards.
The Turkish government said in July that its signature of a protocol
extending
a European trade accord to Cyprus wasn’t tantamount to recognizing the
Mediterranean island, whose northern tier Turkey has occupied since 1974.
Signing the protocol was a condition the EU set in December for starting
decade-long membership talks.

RECOGNITION

The declaration agreed on yesterday by EU government representatives urges
Turkey to ensure free trade with Cyprus while moving toward normal political
ties “as soon as possible.'” The EU will review progress in 2006, the
statement
says.
“There was approval at ambassadorial level but not ministerial level,”
Jonathan Allen, a British government spokesman, said by telephone today in
Brussels.
He said EU diplomats would return to the issue tomorrow and did not exclude
the possibility of a special meeting of EU foreign ministers on September 26.
“We don’t want to drag foreign ministers to Brussels, but if we he have
to, we
will,” Allen said.
Papagianneas declined to say when the Cypriot government would decide on its
final position and what the government’s remaining concerns might be.
Cypriot government demands for tougher warnings against Turkey over trade
obstacles and non-recognition helped scuttle four attempts to agree on the
declaration this month until yesterday’s breakthrough among diplomats. The
trade curbs include a ban on Cypriot ships unloading goods in Turkish ports
and
Cypriot planes landing at Turkish airports.
Turkey, a nation of 72 million people, is counting on the accession talks to
attract record foreign investment to its $300 billion economy. It would be one
of the two most populous EU nations along with Germany, become the bloc’s
first
mainly Muslim member and widen the EU’s borders to Iraq.

2) Sharjah Ruler Commemorates Armenian Genocide Victims

YEREVAN (Armenpress)–The Ruler of Emirate of Sharjah, HH Dr. Sheikh Sultan
bin
Mohammed Al Qasimi, paid his respects, on Tuesday, to the victims of Armenian
genocide by visiting Yerevan’s Genocide Memorial and a nearby genocide museum.
The Sheikh, who is on an official visit to Armenia to open the Days of Arab
Culture there, initially met with the head of the Armenian National Academy of
Sciences to review scientific cooperation, specifically joint research
projects
in the near future.
“We are happy that, despite the burden of pressing problems, Armenia opens
its
doors to Sharjah. We respect that, along with the determination to expand our
relationship,” said the Arab leader.
He said that cooperation with Armenia developed after President Robert
Kocharian’s visit to the United Arab Emirates in April 2002.
The Sheikh also met with Armenian Prime Minister Andranik Markarian to
evaluate implementation of projects in recent years, and the various
cooperation agreements the two countries have in place.
They spoke of developing economic cooperation, and noted the need to expand
their collaboration in the areas education, science, culture, tourism, and the
exporting of agricultural products.
The prime minister the Sheikh’s visit and the celebration of cultural days of
Sharjah in Armenia will give new impetus to their relationship. Margarian
stressed the importance of establishing an Arab cultural center in Armenia and
thanked the Sheikh for readiness to provide financial support.

3) Youth Activists in Azerbaijan Say They Are Being Targeted By Government

(Eurasianet.org)–As Azerbaijan’s November 6 parliamentary elections draw
closer, opposition and youth organization representatives say they are feeling
increased pressure from the government. Their concerns have been fueled by the
recent arrests of youth activists, one of them a Ukrainian citizen.
On September 12, Yeni Fikir Deputy chair Said Nuri was detained for 48 hours
on suspicion of conspiring to stage a coup against the Azeri government. While
attending a training session in Poland that was sponsored by the National
Democratic Institute, Nuri allegedly received instruction on organizing
anti-government protests with the aim of overthrowing the established order,
Azerbaijani officials contend. Nuri had assumed responsibility for running
Yeni
Fikir, a youth group loosely aligned with the opposition Popular Front
Party of
Azerbaijan, shortly after the August arrest of Ruslan Bashirli, the group’s
leader. Bashirli was charged with conspiring with Armenian special services to
foment unrest in Azerbaijan. The same day as Nuri’s detention, Ramin Tagiyev,
another Yeni Fikir deputy chairperson, was sentenced to a three-month prison
term for his role in a supposed coup plot.
The US State Department has sharply criticized Nuri’s arrest. In a September
15 interview broadcast by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s Azeri Service,
Terry Davidson, a US State Department official, expressed concern that
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev’s administration was trying to squelch
legitimate domestic political opposition. “The US government is concerned [by]
the arrest of youth leaders in Azerbaijan as well as the campaign against the
Popular Front Party,” Davidson said. `We urge the Azeri government to provide
basic civil liberties in preparation for the parliamentary elections,
including
freedom of assembly, equal access to the media and not being a subject of
pressure.”
In an interview with EurasiaNet, Popular Front Party Chairman Ali Kerimli
stated that the arrests were motivated by the authorities’ fear of Yeni
Fikir’s
increasing popularity and the related need to reduce youth activism in
Azerbaijan. “They [authorities] think that the only way to make these young
people stop the struggle is to isolate them,” Kerimli said “However, the
opposition’s rallies demonstrate that, more and more, orange-clad youth have
joined the nationwide struggle against dictatorship.”
The scandals surrounding Yeni Fikir show no signs of abating. On September
15,
organization members reportedly discovered three hand grenades and a cartridge
of TNT in the group’s main office in Baku. Media reported that the police
officer called to the scene to investigate refused to remove the explosives.
The building also houses the offices of the opposition newspaper Azadliq and
the Popular Front. Azadliq Editor Ganimat Zahidov, reportedly accompanied by
foreign and local journalists, eventually took a bag with the explosives to
the
local police station. Zahidov claimed that the explosives were deliberately
planted by authorities to provide justification for another Yeni Fikir arrest,
and to search the organization’s headquarters. Zahidov has since ordered all
individuals entering the building to be checked. Police pledged to conduct a
thorough investigation of the incident, but have not issued any updates.
Some human rights activists believe that the arrests of Yeni Fikir members
are
designed to reduce the potential for an election-related protest in Baku akin
to those that occurred in Georgia and Ukraine in 2003 and 2004 respectively.
Those protests resulted in regime-change in Tbilisi and Kyiv. Georgian and
Ukrainian youth groups played key roles in organizing those demonstrations.
“The former leaderships of Georgia and Ukraine never took such tough action
against youth leaders,” said Saida Gojamanli, director of the Bureau of Human
Rights and Law Observance.
The arrest of a representative of the Ukrainian youth group Pora in Baku has
helped fuel speculation that the government plans to discourage such
organizations from playing any role in Azerbaijan’s parliamentary elections.
Azerbaijani authorities detained Sergei Yevtushenko–an advisor to the
Ukrainian foreign minister, and a Pora leader–at Baku airport on September
15.
Two days later, he was forcibly returned to Ukraine. Yevtushenko had traveled
to Azerbaijan at the invitation of the opposition election bloc Azadliq to
attend a conference on democratization in Azerbaijan and Belarus.
No official reason was given for Yevtushenko’s detention. The Ukrainian
consul
was allowed to meet with Yevtushenko only after the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry
lodged a formal diplomatic protest. In a September 16 interview with Trend
news
agency, the country’s ambassador to Baku, Igor Kizima stated that Azerbaijani
officials had violated international agreements by making the Ukrainian consul
wait five hours before seeing Yevtushenko. Ukrainian officials also accused
Azerbaijan of violating bilateral agreements that provide for a no-visa entry
to Azerbaijan for Ukrainian citizens.

4) Azeri Shots Force OSCE Mission to End Monitoring

YEREVAN (Armenpress)–An OSCE team had to cut short its routine monitoring of
the line of contact between Armenian troops of Mountainous Karabagh and Azeri
troops near a village in Fizuli region on Tuesday.
At the very start of the monitoring, a single shot in the direction of the
Mission was fired from Azeri positions. Andrzej Kasprzyk, the special envoy of
the OSCE chairman-in-office supervising the monitoring, reported the
observation was ceased for security reasons.
Representatives of the Mountainous Karabagh Republic’s Foreign Affairs and
Defense Ministries were accompanying the OSCE mission.

5) Catholicos Aram I to Visit Los Angeles Armenian Evangelical Community

The Armenian Evangelical Union of North America has announced that His
Holiness
Aram I, Catholicos of the Great House of Cilicia has accepted the Church’s
invitation to visit the Evangelical community of Southern California, during
His upcoming Pontifical visit to the Western Prelacy, October 5-19.
The Evangelical Church will welcome the Catholicos on Friday, October 7, 3PM
at the United Armenian Congregational Church located at 3480 Cahuenga Blvd.
West, in Los Angeles. A reception will follow at the adjoining Ayvazian Hall.

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