Author: Chilingarian Babken

KARS-AKHALKALAKI: TO BE OR NOT TO BE?

The Messenger, Georgia
June 20 2006

The meeting of transport ministers from Georgia, Turkey and Azerbaijan,
slated for mid-June, was postponed until July at the request of
Georgia.

This was due to the decision of the US Congress to prohibit the
participation of US companies in the Kars-Akhalkalaki railway project.

The Armenian National Committee of America lobbied Congress in favour
of this decision.

US politicians think that ignoring Armenia’s interests will damage
US-Armenian relations. Congress is in compliance with Yerevan’s
position, arguing that new project is economically unjustified, because
a Kars-Guimri (Armenia)-Tbilisi-Baku railway already exists, but has
been out of use since the Karabakh conflict (due to Turkey closing
the border). Armenia wants to revive this route while Azerbaijan
considers it absolutely unacceptable until the Karabakh conflict is
settled in its favour.

The proposed Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway needs 98 km of new track to
be laid from Akhalkalaki to Kars; 27 km of which are in Georgian
territory. The project also envisages the rehabilitation of the
Akhalkalaki-Tbilisi route.

The project will cost approximately USD 350-450 million.

The project should have started this year. President Ilham Alyiev
of Azerbaijan made statements concerning the setting-up of an
international consortium to build the railway; and Azerbaijan and
Turkey have already accepted the financial liabilities for financing
the project.

The Georgian State Minister for Reforms Coordination, Kakha Bendukidze,
thinks that the Kars-Akhalkalaki railway route could be important
for Georgia, but he added that so far he had not seen any reliable
economic assessments proving the necessity and profitability of this
project. He considers the construction of the Kars-Akhalkalaki railway
as a "distant prospect."

However, there are some more optimistic opinions. Irakli Chogovadze,
the Minister of Economic Development, said if America refuses
to finance the project there are other countries and financial
institutions which will be willing to participate. He says negotiations
are already underway with Kazakhstan and China.

Chogovadze hopes this railway will eventually connect China with
Europe, via Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey. The cargo this
will attract will make this a very attractive project for investors,
and as such the project is more than viable.

Construction will be carried out in two stages, firstly a single track
will be built, and once it has developed sufficient income work on
the second will begin-provided, of course, that the project goes ahead.

PROSECUTOR GENERAL’S OFFICE DENIES ALLEGATIONS OF HUMAN ORGANS SALE

Armenpress
Jun 20 2006

YEREVAN, JUNE 20, ARMENPRESS: Sona Truzian, a spokeswoman for the
office of Armenia’s prosecutor general, denied media allegations
about disappearance of a patient from the mental house in Vardenis,
Gegharkunik province and sale of human organs allegedly cut off from
the bodies of its dead residents.

She said an investigation launched to check these rumors found no
supporting evidence. She said investigators exhumed 11 bodies and
none missed a body or an organ. Ms. Truzian said the inquiry was
going on yet.

The allegations were made public by an independent parliament member,
Emma Khudabashian, who was quoted by local newspapers as saying that
a group of residents of Vardenis asked her in a letter to urge fast
investigation into allegations that the mental house’s management
was involved in the sale of human organs for transplants.

UKRAINIAN FM MEETS WITH HIS ARMENIAN COUNTERPART IN KYIV

NRCU – Ukrainian Radio, Ukraine
June 19 2006

Foreign Ministers Borys Tarasyuk of Ukraine and Vartan Oskanian of
Armenia who is on a working visit to Ukraine, met in Kyiv to discuss
matters of bipartite cooperation.

According to Borys Tarasyuk, Ukrainian – Armenian trade relations are
developing positively. In turn, Vartan Oskanian noted that, though
the parties may feel pleased with the figures of their trade turnover,
their capability has not been exhausted. The meeting also dealt with
the so-called "frozen conflicts," in particular, in Transdniestria
and Karabakh.

In this context Borys Tarasyuk stated Ukraine as interested in
regulating the Karabakh conflict. Ukraine, he said, has suggested to
host quadripartite talks to this effect.

STATE COMMISSION ON POWS, HOSTAGES AND MISSING PERSONS EXPRESSES ATTITUDE TO BIASED AND ONE-SIDED MEDIA REPORTS

AzerTag, Azerbaijan
June 19 2006

Recently, there have been several biased and one-sided media reports
commenting on the June 7-9, 2006 visit to Azerbaijan by Leo Platvoet,
the rapporteur of the PACE Committee on Migration, Refugees and
Population, according to the State Commission of the Azerbaijan
Republic on POWs, Hostages and Missing Persons.

The reports blame the rapporteur for his alleged double-standard
approach to the problem of missing persons, refusal to meet with
their families and accept related materials and so on.

Given the mentioned above, the State Commission once again informs
the public that PACE rapporteur Leo Platvoet met on June 8, 2006 with
parents and relatives of the missing persons, heard them all out, and
expressed his opinion on each case. During the 5-hour meeting over
40 interested persons suggested to the rapporteur that Armenia and
separatist regime of Nagorno-Karabakh withhold the information about
fates of their children, and asked PACE to help in search for them.

In response, Mr. Platvoet described the problem as very painful and
said it was the reason why the decision to prepare a special report
on the problem was made. He noted as well that the goal of the PACE
mission should be gotten right. "Our major goal is to determine the
scale of the problem, get acquainted with positions of the sides and
bring them together to resolve this humanitarian problem," he said.

The State Committee considers that the PACE rapporteur was acting in
the framework of the mission he was charged with, and approached the
problem just in this context. To demand from him some out-of-mission
activities is simply far from being logical, and misunderstanding of
this is a result of inexperience.

At the meeting, Firudin Sadigov, Head of the working group at the
State Commission on POWs, Hostages and Missing Persons provided its
participants with detailed information about the accomplishment
his group has gained so far and problems it comes across in its
work. He stressed the necessity for the opposite side to take real and
constructive steps to obtain positive results. Mr. Sadigov advised
that since the beginning of the conflict, 1381 prisoners of war and
hostages have been released, while the fates of 783 taken captive and
hostage are still unknown as a result of inhumane approach by the
opposite side. He added the documents related to the persons taken
prisoners and hostages during intensive military operations were
systemized and placed on the State Commission’s official website in
2000. Mr. Sadigov also expressed regret at the fact that activity of
the related structure in Armenia was badly organized.

He let the meeting participants know that the lists of 783 of 4604
registered POWs and hostages and related documents, photo and video
materials reflecting vandal actions – including destruction of
historical and cultural monuments, and administrative buildings in
Shusha, Agdam and Khojaly – committed by Armenians in the occupied
lands of Azerbaijan, as well as those confirming illegal settling
ethnic Armenians in these territories, had been handed over to the
PACE mission for it to use them in the final report.

These materials have also been stored on four CDs. Member of
PACE officially accepted them to go through. Apart from that, the
Commission states it had sent necessary materials to PACE even before
the mission’s visit to Azerbaijan.

The information on the meeting held was spread by the State Commission
of the Azerbaijan Republic on POWs, Hostages and Missing Persons
through mass media, as well as placed on its official website.

Television: The War of the World

The Independent – United Kingdom; Jun 17, 2006
Gerard Gilbert

Every historian worth a television series should have a grand unifying
theory, even if that theory (we can safely laugh about it now) says
that we are living at the "end of history". Professor Niall Ferguson,
the poster boy of history TV and, according to Johan Hari in this
newspaper, "a court historian for the imperial US hard right"),
has swept up the entire 20th century for his big one. Those 100
years, he claims as we first encounter him at the end of a sky-blue,
corridor-like set, as if we are visiting an oracle, represented a
vast global struggle. This was not merely about great powers, classes
or ideologies. It was about race, and in particular the decaying,
Western colonial empires and what was once called the Orient. The
20th century wasn’t about "the triumph of the West at all, but the
resurgence of the East".

The empire strikes back, in other words. It might seem
opportunistically modish of Ferguson to make this point at a time
of China’s emergence as an economic superpower. But then it isn’t
necessary to buy wholesale into Ferguson’s grand idea (or its apparent
sub-plot that empires stem from ethnic violence) to appreciate that it
is taking you to interesting places in a century whose conventional
narrative is now over-familiar. Indeed, his stress on the ethnic
nature of the power leads us to such largely buried corners of the
20th century as the Russo-Japanese War (the Russians of 1905 badly
underestimating the "racially inferior" Japanese) and the Armenian
genocide, as modern Turkey emerged from the Ottoman Empire. He also
stresses the Russian civil war of 1918-1922, which in purely human
terms cost almost as many lives as the whole of the First World War.

Ferguson’s series begins with a reading from The War of the Worlds,
HG Wells’s prescient science-fiction novel, written on the eve of the
20th century. Instead of Martians, says Ferguson, it is men who have
been driven to act like Martians – depicting the enemy as aliens in
order to justify the killing. Again, you don’t have to buy into this
artful analysis to be rewarded by an eye-opening traverse of what he
hasn’t yet called the Second Hundred Years War.

MATTHEW BRYZA APPOINTED NEW CO-CHAIRMAN OF OSCE MINSK GROUP

Noyan Tapan
Armenians Today
Jun 15 2006

YEREVAN, JUNE 15, NOYAN TAPAN – ARMENIANS TODAY. Matthew Bryza,
the U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary for State of European and
Eurasian Affairs, was appointed the new Co-Chairman of the OSCE
Minsk Group. Armenian Foreign Minister Vartan Oskanian informed Radio
Liberty about it on June 14.

"The American side informed us that Matthew Bryza will take Steven
Mann’s place, and he will be completely involved in work, after
being affirmed in Vienna. He will probably visit the region to get
acquainted with main performers," Vartan Oskanian mentioned.

Speaking about the negotiations taken place on Tuesday in Paris with
Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mamedyarov, Vartan Oskanian facted
that "the goal of the meeting was to attempt to find additional borders
in those issues on which the Presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan
did not agree."

"I do not think that we succeeded in it, however, it was a useful
discussion, and a continuation will be," Foreign Minister of Armenia
said.

Responding the issue if a new meeting with the Presidents is expected,
Vartan Oskanian answered: "If there is at least not a bit of approach,
the meeting will just have no meaning. I may not predetermine, the
Presidents will decide. But I think additional meetings will take
place at the Ministers’ level."

NOT A PRECEDENT, BUT AN OPPORTUNITY
By Oksana Antonenko
Special to Russia Profile

Russia Profile, Russia
June 15 2006

What Kosovo Can Do for the Former Soviet States

Over the course of this year, the international community aims to
complete negotiations over the final status of Kosovo, which has
remained in flux since NATO’s 1999 bombing campaign. Since that time,
Kosovo has remained territorially a part of Serbia and Montenegro,
but has been governed by the United Nations Interim Administration for
Kosovo. As a result, Kosovo remains a politically dysfunctional and
economically devastated region, where unemployment runs at over 40
percent and relations between ethnic Albanians and Serbs are still
defined by hostility. This situation provides the most powerful
argument for granting Kosovo new internationally recognized status.

In its current form, Kosovo has no prospects for progressing
towards greater stability, democracy and prosperity. A new,
internationally recognized status will allow the people of Kosovo to
take responsibility for their own future, while introducing clear and
strict conditions that will guide future international engagement and
assistance. These conditions include the development of democratic
institutions, including respect for minority rights.

While the United States and the EU have pushed for international
recognition of Kosovo’s independence, Russia has traditionally
supported Serbia’s territorial integrity, with Kosovo as an integral
part. Recently, however, Moscow has indicated a change in its
policy, opening a path towards conditional recognition of Kosovo’s
independence. These conditions were advanced by President Vladimir
Putin in January, when he said that any future recognition of Kosovo’s
independence will create a precedent which could be universally
applied to other unrecognized de facto states, particularly those
that have emerged from the former Soviet Union.

Frozen conflicts

The dissolution of the Soviet Union ignited a number of violent
ethnic clashes across its territory, and in the South Caucasus in
particular. As a result of these conflicts, four self-declared
states emerged in the early 1990s – the republics of Abkhazia,
South Ossetia, Nagorno-Karabakh and Transdnestr. Abkhazia and South
Ossetia seek independence from Georgia, Transdnestr from Moldova and
Nagorno-Karabakh is torn between Armenia and Azerbaijan. All of these
have now existed under such conditions for more than a decade, defying
international isolation and economic, political and humanitarian
constraints emanating from their unrecognized status.

All of them have developed some form of functioning economy and
security systems and have conducted referenda on independence and
held several rounds of elections, none of which were recognized or
properly observed by the international community. This situation has
created a generation of "citizens" who are committed to preserving
and defending their independence.

These republics see the Kosovo precedent as possible means to advance
their aims of gaining recognition. The president of Abkhazia, Sergei
Bagapsh, has said that the recognition of an independent Kosovo
could accelerate the recognition of an independent Abkhazia. Eduard
Kokoity, the president of South Ossetia, has described the change
in Russia’s position as a symbol of the end of a "double standard"
approach towards the plight of all unrecognized states.

However, Russia’s plea for universality, backed by heightened
expectations from the unrecognized states themselves, is unlikely to
be endorsed by the international community. The EU and the United
States have already responded with statements that any decision on
Kosovo’s status should be treated on its own merits, and not as
a precedent for other conflicts, which must be resolved based on
their unique characteristics and on existing international legal
strictures. This response takes into account a number of pragmatic,
strategic and geopolitical factors.

The pragmatists contend that there are major differences between the
Kosovo case and those of the unrecognized post-Soviet entities.

Indeed, while there are some clear similarities between Balkan
conflicts and those of the former Soviet states, there are also major
differences, mainly deriving from how the entities were formed.

Post-1999 Kosovo was shaped by a broad international consensus,
with major powers playing an active role in the development of its
political institutions, as well as in guaranteeing security and order
on the ground.

In contrast, Abkhazia, South Ossetia and Transdnestr developed
in isolation from the wider international community, with Russia
playing the role of key mediator and sole guarantor of security and
economic survival. Moreover, each of the entities differs in terms of
demographic characteristics, political aspirations, degree of "real"
independence, viability of government institutions and attitudes
towards refugees and ethnic minorities. Finally, unlike Kosovo,
where the international community seeks Serbia’s acquiescence to its
independence and offers the prospect of European integration as an
incentive, Europe and the United States both support the territorial
integrity of Georgia and Moldova.

Strategic arguments focus on the fact that any recognition of
Kosovo as a "precedent" could have strategic implications not only
for Eurasia, but also for other parts of the world where ethnic,
separatist conflicts have occurred and might be reignited. The
integration of a new state into the international community requires
significant political and financial resources – the case of East Timor
proves the point – and, in the cases of a number of such states,
the entire post-Cold war political landscape of a wider Europe has
to be revisited.

Geopolitically, Russia and the West are increasingly engaged in a new
rivalry in Eurasia that is particularly evident in the case of the
"frozen" conflicts. Both Russia and the West include the resolution
of these conflicts among their important foreign and security policy
priorities. The Western stance is based not only on the principle
of supporting the territorial integrity of Georgia and Moldova, but
also on the assumption that the restoration of territorial integrity
by peaceful means is possible.

Many Russian policy makers and experts neither support the practical
reintegration of unrecognized entities into states nor believe that
such an reintegration can be achieved at all, even by military force.

Europe and the United States have provided military assistance and
political backing to the governments of Georgia and Moldova. Both seek
to distance themselves from Russia and aspire to integrate themselves
into Euro-Atlantic structures. Russia, in turn, provides significant
economic assistance to Abkhazia, South Ossetia and Transdnestr and
maintains a military presence in these areas.

Additionally, Russia has granted citizenship to the majority of the
population of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

The more tension between Russia and the West, the less likely it
is that a Kosovo resolution could offer even a slim opportunity
to devise a more realistic and co-operative approach towards the
"frozen conflicts." Any new approach should address a few core issues.

First, it is no longer possible to ignore the fact that these
unrecognized entities exist. Kosovo helped to put them on the
international agenda, and a review is now required to develop a new
international policy towards each. This policy should combine new
efforts at conflict resolution with a renewed dialogue that could be
pursued until the issue of status is resolved through negotiations.

Another challenge could be finding a way to grant these entities some
voice within international organizations without legitimizing their
unilateral political aspirations.

Secondly, it is important to lower expectations and to develop
assurances that the "Kosovo precedent" does not rekindle prior
tensions, particularly in South Ossetia.

Thirdly, it is important to develop a set of principles that can
determine the degree of international engagement. These should
be derived from the Kosovo standards and relate to democratic
institutions, civil and minority rights and security.

Genuine international recognition cannot come without international
consensus. While the United States and the EU are likely to secure
such consensus with regard to Kosovo, Russia has little or no chance
of doing the same for Abkhazia, South Ossetia or Transdnestr. Any
attempt by Russia to declare unilateral recognition for some or
all of these entities is bound to postpone their integration into
the international community further. However, it is precisely this
integration, rather than recognition, that the unrecognized entities
should hope to achieve.

Oksana Antonenko is a Senior Fellow at the London-based International
Institute for Strategic Studies, and has set up meetings between
high-level Georgian and South Ossetian officials with the aim of
promoting conflict resolution in South Ossetia.

al/2006/6/15/3874.wbp

DONALD KNUTH: ARMENIA HAS POTENTIAL FOR IT DEVELOPMENT

ARKA News Agency, Armenia
June 13 2006

YEREVAN, June 14. /ARKA/. Armenia has necessary potential for
developing its IT sector, Donald Knuth, Professor Emeritus, Stanford
University, USA, told reporters.

He welcomed the fact that this sector is considered a priority of
economic development by the Armenian Government.

He pointed out the pleasant fact that programming is valued in Armenia
as much as such classical sciences as mathematics and physics.

Professor Knuth added that the title of Honorary Doctor of the
Armenian National Academy of Sciences is a great honor for him as a
representative of a young science.

Professor Knuth is the authors of numerous works. He is on a visit
to Armenia at the invitation of the RA Academy of Sciences, Yerevan
State University and State Engineering University of Armenia.

FM MEETS WITH DELEGATION OF FM OF SOUTH AFRICA

AzerTag, Azerbaijan
June 13 2006

Azeri Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov met with visiting delegation
of the South African Foreign Ministry’s Department of Central and East
Asia led by the country’s Ambassador to Kazakhstan Bhekizizwe Gila,
according to the press service of the Azerbaijan’s Foreign Ministry.

The Ambassador said that the main goal of the visit is to explore
ways of boosting relations between the two countries.

The Azeri Minister pointed out great potential for cooperation in
various areas between Azerbaijan and South Africa, which he said is
one of the leading countries in the United Nations system.

The sides agreed on organizing reciprocal visits and meetings of
businessmen and relevant authorities of the two countries to improve
their ties in the fields of politics, economy, tourism and etc.

Mr. Mammadyarov answered a wide range of questions covering political,
social and economic situation in Azerbaijan, the country’s relationship
with other nations of the region, and other topics.

He said Azerbaijan is an initiator of the large scaled energy and
transport projects, and is experiencing rapid economic development
with 26 percent GDP and 47 percent industrial production growth.

Touching on the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh,
Elmar Mammadyarov said Armenia occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan’s
territory, and conducted ethnic cleansing here. He noted that
Azerbaijan supports peaceful solution to the conflict adding that
Armenia must release the occupied territories and Azerbaijani refugees
and internally displaces persons return to their home lands," he said.

The parties also discussed a wide range of other issues of mutual
interest.

FOREIGN COMPANIES TAKE INTEREST IN ARMENIAN SEISMIC INSULATORS AND THEIR USE TECHNOLOGIES

Noyan Tapan
Jun 14 2006

YEREVAN, JUNE 14, NOYAN TAPAN. Negotiations on sale of rubber-metal
seismic insulators made in Armenia and their use technologies are
underway with companies from the US, Russia, Romania, Italy, Turkey,
Iran, India and Nepal.

Mikael Melkumian, chief expert of the engineering research center of
the American University of Armenia, Chairman of the Armenian Seismic
Resistant Construction Association, stated this at a press conference
on June 13.

According to him, so far Armenia has sold seismic insulators in the
US and Syria. Seismic insulators are produced in many countries, with
each manufacturer having its own technology secrets. M. Melkumian noted
that despite their high quality, the price of Armenian insulators is
lower: a complete set of seismic insulators produced at 4 Armenian
plants costs 550-750 dollars. At the same time, these plants do not
yet intend to transfer their production technologies.