Author: Kajoyan Gevork

Putin to meet Armenian, Azerbaijani presidents at CIS summit
By Viktoria Sokolova

ITAR-TASS News Agency
September 15, 2004 Wednesday 12:26 AM Eastern Time

MOSCOW, September 15 — Russian President Vladimir Putin will meet
the Armenian and Azerbaijani presidents, Robert Kocharyan and Ilkham
Aliyev, at the CIS summit opening in Kazakhstan on Wednesday.

The president’s aide Sergei Prikhodko told Itar-Tass that the
three-party format of such meeting had proved useful.

The Kremlin proceeds from the assumption that the presidents of
Armenia and Azerbaijan “should come to agreement between each other”,
and Russia “can make its contribution to the development and deepening
of the dialogue”.

“Moscow has been the initiator of the three-party meeting of the
presidents,” a source in the presidential administration told
Itar-Tass.

The Kremlin does not rule out that Kocharyan and Aliyev will hold a
face-to-face meeting on the sidelines of the summit in Astana.

Analysis: NATO Cancels Planned Maneuvers In Azerbaijan
By Liz Fuller

RFE/RL

13 September 2004 — NATO’s Cooperative Best Effort-2004 exercises,
scheduled to take place on 14-27 September in Azerbaijan, have been
canceled, according to a NATO press release of 13 September.

“We regret that the principle of inclusiveness could not be upheld
in this case,” the press release stated, without elaborating. But
Lieutenant-Colonel Ludger Terbrueggen, who is a spokesman for NATO
military command, told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service the same day that
“the reason…is that Azerbaijan did not grant visas to soldiers and
officers of Armenia.”

Since January, Baku has sought repeatedly to thwart the
planned Armenian presence at this year’s Cooperative Best Effort
maneuvers. Three Armenian military officers who tried to travel to Baku
in early January first from Turkey and then from Georgia to attend
a planning conference for the maneuvers were prevented from doing
so. In June, members of the radical Karabakh Liberation Organization
(QAT) picketed, and then forced their way into, a Baku hotel where
two Armenian officers were attending a second planning conference
in preparation for the exercises. Five of those QAT activists were
arrested and sentenced in late August to between three and five years’
imprisonment on charges of hooliganism, violating public order, and
obstructing government officials. Those verdicts triggered protests
from across the political spectrum, fueling public opposition to the
Armenians’ anticipated arrival.

In April, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev assured Deputy Commander
of the U.S. European Command General Charles Wald that there were
no obstacles to the Armenian participation in the September war
games. Other visiting U.S. officials also sought to impress on
Azerbaijan the importance of allowing the Armenian contingent
to attend. But in recent weeks, the Azerbaijani government has
made increasingly clear its hostility to the planned Armenian
participation. On 27 July, the independent ANS TV quoted Deputy
Foreign Minister Araz Azimov as saying that Baku has stipulated that
only noncombat personnel — military journalists, public-relations
officials, and military doctors — would be permitted to attend, and
that the number of Armenian participants would be limited to three. (On
4 September, however, Armenian Deputy Defense Minister Major General
Artur Aghabekian said seven Armenian officers would take part in the
exercises, while the number denied visas by the Azerbaijani Embassy in
Tbilisi was given as five.)On 10 September, the Azerbaijani parliament
adopted an appeal to NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer to
retract the invitation extended to the Armenian side, citing what it
termed Armenia’s aggression and policy of ethnic cleansing.

The opposition daily “Azadlig” on 10 September quoted Foreign Minister
Elmar Mammadyarov as saying that Azerbaijan would not grant visas
to the Armenians. And on 10 September, the Azerbaijani parliament
adopted an appeal to NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer to
retract the invitation extended to the Armenian side, citing what
it termed Armenia’s aggression and policy of ethnic cleansing. The
parliamentarians argued that the presence in Baku of Armenian military
personnel could aggravate tensions in the region. President Aliyev
stated while visiting the Barda region on 11 September, “I do not
want the Armenians to come to Azerbaijan.”

In an apparent last-ditch effort to persuade Baku to abandon its
obstructionist approach, de Hoop Scheffer summoned Azerbaijani Foreign
Minister Mammadyarov and his Armenian counterpart Vartan Oskanian to
Brussels on 13 September for talks. Oskanian subsequently praised the
NATO decision to call off the exercises, adding at the same time that
he regrets the “lost opportunity for regional cooperation.”

Armenia hosted the NATO Cooperative Best Effort-2003 exercises,
in which some 400 troops from 19 countries, including the United
States, the United Kingdom, Russia, Georgia, and Turkey practiced
routine peacekeeping exercises. Azerbaijan declined to participate. In
February 2004, a junior Azerbaijani officer attending a NATO-sponsored
English language course in Budapest hacked a sleeping Armenian fellow
student to death with an axe.

The full impact of Azerbaijan’s violation of NATO’s “principle of
inclusiveness” and of NATO’s ensuing decision to cancel the planned
exercises is difficult to predict. The move is likely to corroborate
many Azerbaijanis’ conviction that NATO is guilty of double standards
and bias toward Armenia. It may also give rise to a certain coolness
between Brussels and Washington, in light of persistent rumors that the
United States is considering Azerbaijan as a possible location for a
rapid-reaction force. Certainly the prediction by one Western analyst
that “Azerbaijan will enter NATO by 2005,” which made headlines in
the Azerbaijani press in July 2002, now seems somewhat overoptimistic.

Special plane flies to Beslan to bring 15 injured to Moscow

ITAR-TASS News Agency  
September 11, 2004 Saturday

MOSCOW — A special plane Il-76 of the Russian Emergency Situations
Ministry flew to Beslan from the Moscow Domodedovo airport at 10.40 on
Saturday to bring another group of 15 injured in the Beslan terrorist
attack to the Russian capital. There are both children and adults
in this group.

The same flight will take to North Ossetia a group of specialists from
the federal centre of emergency medicine Zashchita (Protection). Their
task will be to assess the condition of the injured and to accompany
the patients during the flight. The plane with the injured is scheduled
to arrive in Moscow towards Saturday evening.

Besides, it will bring to the North Ossetian town four tonnes of
medicines provided by the Russian Red Cross. “All these medicines are
necessary for treating the injured,” a representative of the Emergency
Situations Ministry said. He stressed that as of September 4, when
the first plane with medical equipment on board from Italy landed
in Beslan, almost 150 tonnes of international humanitarian cargoes,
including donor blood, have been delivered to this North Ossetian
city from Greece and Armenia.

According to the Emergency Situations Ministry, as of September 4,
planes of the Emergency Situations and Defence Ministries have brought
114 people, the majority of who are children, to the Russian capital
from Beslan.

Iranian president highlights importance of signed documents in Armenia

Public Television of Armenia, Yerevan
8 Sep 04

[Presenter] President of the Islamic Republic of Iran Mohammad
Khatami is on a two-day official visit in Yerevan at the invitation
of Armenian President Robert Kocharyan. [Passage omitted: depiction
of welcome ceremony]

Our region needs stability, Iranian President Khatami said in
Yerevan. He believes that the development of science and education
guarantees security. Khatami spoke more about economic issues
in Armenian-Iranian relations and many of the documents signed in
Yerevan are manifestation of this. The Iranian leader believes that
his country’s policy is designed to build friendly relations with all
its neighbours. Armenian-Iranian relations could be a good example
for those wishing to coexist peacefully.

[Correspondent] The presidents noted the importance of permanent
consultations of the two countries’ legislative and executive
bodies. The protocol of the fifth session of the Armenian-Iranian
commission on economic cooperation, co-chaired by Artashes
Tumanyan [the head of the Armenian presidential administration] and
[Iranian Minister of Economic Affairs and Finance] Safdar Hoseyni
was also endorsed. A cultural cooperation programme for 2004-2007
was signed. The memorandum on Armenian-Iranian mutual understanding
stipulates cooperation in the customs and energy sectors. [Passage
omitted: covered aspects of Kocharyan’s speech.]

[Khatami, speaking in Persian with Armenian voice-over] We have
common interests in this region which could overshadow differences
of opinion. If we choose the way leading to peace, we shall manage
to resolve all problems.

[Passage omitted: economic cooperation dominates the agenda.]

[Khatami, with Armenian voice-over] Energy and communications are
signs of a country’s development. The major part of our agreements
covers this sectors. Armenia is on the North-South corridor. The more
opportunities Armenia gets in this project, the more the countries
along this corridor would benefit. The North-South corridor connects
Europe with the Caspian Sea. And the more we cooperate in these two
sectors, the more the region’s development would benefit from this.

[Passage omitted: the presidents spoke about Karabakh, the terrorist
attack in North Ossetia.]

FIFA World Cup qualifying matches continue

Sports Network
Sept 8 2004

Zurich, Switzerland (Sports Network) – FIFA World Cup qualifying
continued Wednesday with matches in the Asian, European, and North
and Central American and Caribbean groups.

Eight groups and a total of 22 matches were scheduled in Group 4 of
European play. France rebounded from a scoreless draw with Israel
over the weekend with a 2-0 win in the Faroe Islands. The new-look
Les Bleus squad overcame the expulsion of captain Patrick Vieira for
diving in the 50th minute while holding just a one-goal lead.

Ludovic Giuly gave France that advantage when he put home a rebound
of a shot by Robert Pires in the first half. Djibril Cisse, who helped
set up Pires for the shot on the first goal, later added an important
strike in the second half to give France some much-needed breathing
room. Anything but a victory would have raised a red flag on the new
Raymond Domenech era. Domenech took over for Jacques Santini following
France’s failure at Euro 2004 earlier this summer.

Results from other European matches were as follows: Romania
easily defeated Andorra, 5-1, for its third win in as many tries in
qualifying; Finland won at Armenia, 2-0; Ukraine outlasted Kazakhstan,
2-1; Georgia posted a 2-0 win at home over Albania; and Lithuania
easily beat San Marino, 4-0.

All the North and Central American and Caribbean matches are scheduled
for Wednesday night.

Asia’s qualifying was in full swing with eight groups and 16 matches
played. Iraq highlighted the action in the region when it continued
to build on the momentum gained from a fourth-place finish at the
Olympics. The Iraqis won handily at Taiwan, 4-1, to remain just
slightly behind Uzbekistan, a 3-0 winner over Palestine on Wednesday,
in the Group 2 standings.

Results from other Asian matches were as follows: Qatar crushed Laos,
6-1; Iran beat Jordan, 2-0; Oman recorded a 2-0 win over Singapore;
Japan put four goals on the board at India during a 4-0 victory;
Kuwait won at Hong Kong, 2-0; China managed a 1-0 triumph at Malaysia;
Bahrain edged Kyrgyzstan, 2-1; Syria squeezed past Tajikistan with a
2-1 win; North Korea posted a 4-1 victory at home over Thailand; Yemen
beat U.A.E., 3-1; the Korean Republic won at Vietnam, 2-1; Lebanon
exploded for five goals in a 5-2 rout of Maldives; Indonesia won 2-0
at Sri Lanka; and Saudi Arabia collected a 1-0 triumph at Turkmenistan.

Azer Tag, Azerbaijan State Info Agency
Sept 4 2004

FOREIGN MINISTER TO VISIT ITALY
[September 04, 2004, 23:28:33]

Minister of Foreign Affairs of Azerbaijan Elmar Mammadyarov will
leave for Italy on September 7. The goal of the visit is to negotiate
development of cooperation between the two countries in all spheres.
Italy has also concern in that, and I hope the negotiations will be
fruitful, he stated.

During the trip Minister Mammadyarov is expected to meet with his
Italian counterpart and other officials.

***

Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov also told AzerTAj that the peace
talks on Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict are on a due level so far,
and give a chance to hope for good result. The next meeting of the
two countries Presidents is expected during September 15 summit of
the CIS Heads of State in Astana, Kazakhstan. Reportedly, the OSCE
Minsk group co-chairs will also arrive in Astana and meet there with
President Ilham Aliyev.

Azeri president in favour of continuing Karabakh talks

Trend news agency
2 Sep 04

Baku, 2 September, Trend correspondent I. Qasimli: “If I have not
refused the talks, it means that I hope they will bear fruit. I
do not intend to have talks for imitation and if I see there is
no result or benefit, Azerbaijan will be the first to interrupt
the talks”, Trend news agency quoted Azerbaijani President Ilham
Aliyev as telling journalists on 2 September on the significance of
the bilateral talks for the settlement of the Armenian-Azerbaijani
Nagornyy Karabakh conflict.

The head of state said that the talks should be continued at this
point. Aliyev noted that the parties have not reached any agreement,
however, the negotiations are proceeding on specific topics. “We
hope that these talks will yield results: Azerbaijan’s lands will
be liberated and its territorial integrity will be restored”, the
president stressed.

POSSIBLE CHANGE OF PLACE OF CONSTRUCION OF SECTOR OF
BAKU-TBILISI-JEIHAN OIL PIPELINE AROUSES DIFFICULTIES IN TSALKA REGION

AKHALKALAKI, August 31 (Noyan Tapan) – A-INFO. According to the experts
of the “British Petroleum” company, a sector of the Baku-Tbilisi-Jeihan
oil pipeline constructed in the vicinity of the village of Ashkala of
the Tsalka region doesn’t correspond to the current standards, and the
place of the construction should be changed immediately. It aroused new
difficulties in the Tsalka region. Though people receive compensations
for the used lands of this region, the reason for difficulties is
that arable lands (by the way, which are barren) become more not used.

Travels with someone’s aunt; Art: Preview

Time Out
September 01, 2004

‘Off the Beaten Track’: women bitten by the travel bug.

When British traveller Mark Sykes met Gertrude Bell in Jerusalem in
1906 he described the archaeologist as a ‘conceited, gushing,
flat-chested, man-woman, globe-trotting, rumpwagging, blethering
ass’. Bell had been foolish enough to share with him her passion for
the Middle East where she flouted convention byriding on a masculine
saddle and, in her divided skirt, frequently passed as a man. When at
home, though, she was careful not to challenge masculine pride by
behaving as a dutiful daughter, refusing to walk unchaperoned along
Piccadilly and helping to found the AntiSuffrage League.

Mary Kingsley even wore the restrictive dress of a Victorian spinster
on her travels in West Africa, which began in 1892 after the death of
her parents. ‘Youhave no right’, she wrote in her book ‘Travels in
West Africa’, ‘to go about Africa in things you would be ashamed to
be seen in at home.’ And when lecturingon her findings back home, she
would ask her audience whether or not she reminded them of a maiden
aunt. In Arthur King’s photograph, which was taken in 1900 as a
publicity shot, she looks every inch the tight-lipped matron who
wouldn’t dream of stepping an inch out of line.

Despite celebrating the many women who escaped the tedium of the
limited lives offered their sex in nineteenth- and early
twentieth-century British society by hoofing it to foreign parts, the
National Portrait Gallery’s ‘Off the Beaten Track’ conveys the
stifling atmosphere that they left behind rather than the freedom
which they attained abroad. So keen were these middle- and
upper-class women not to appear disreputable to their families,
friends and audiences that, when sitting for paintings or
photographs, they presented themselves as the embodiment of
respectability. You would be hard pressed to spot the spirit of
adventure in any of the images on display.

Isabella Bird travelled the world to the US, Australia, Hawaii,
Japan, India, Persia, Korea, China and Morocco gathering material for
innumerable books. Photographed by Sir Benjamin Stone outside the
Houses of Parliament in 1899, wearing a white lace shawl over a long
black dress, her hair hidden beneath a high bonnet and her face by a
tight veil, this diminutive figure (under five feet tall) looks as
though she would scarcely contemplate crossing the road, letalone
sailing the world’s oceans or regaling the House on ‘the Armenian
question’ the status of Armenian Christians in the Turkish Empire, of
which she had first-hand knowledge.

Like several of these travellers, Bird first went abroad for health
reasons.

Free from the suffocating atmosphere of British society, her spinal
problems andnumerous other complaints miraculously disappeared, only
to return when she did.’I am well’, she wrote to a friend, ‘as long
as I live on horseback, go to bed at eight, sleep out of doors or in
a log cabin, and lead in all respects a completely unconventional
life.’ The captions and accompanying book downplay theachievements of
these remarkable women. There is no mention, for instance, that Dame
Freya Stark was the first person to make detailed maps of many areas
of theMiddle East. Little distinction is made between the courageous
women who, havingcreated opportunities for themselves, set off alone
in search of adventure, health or knowledge and those who simply
followed diplomat husbands or brothers overseas. The result is to put
the achievements of women such as the renowned anthropologist Mary
Douglas, the botanists Maria Graham and Marianne North or
archaeologists Gertrude Bell and Dame Kathleen Kenyon on a par with
the watercolours of dilettantes such as Jane Digby, who married an
Arab sheik, and Lady Canning, whose husband was Governor General of
India. A fascinating if somewhat frustrating journey, none the less.

Sarah Kent For details see National Portrait Gallery.

Metropolitan News-Enterprise, CA
Aug 30 2004

U.S. District Judges Tevrizian, Taylor to Take Senior Status

By a MetNews Staff Writer

U.S. District Judges Dickran M. Tevrizian Jr. and Gary L. Taylor will
take senior status within the next year, the MetNews has learned.

Taylor will take the semi-retired status on Dec. 8, his 66th
birthday. Tevrizian will do so on Aug. 5 of next year, the day after
he turns 65.

Sixty-five is the minimum age for senior status, which allows a judge
to draw full salary for carrying as little as a 25 percent caseload,
if the judge has at least 15 years of service. Judges who are older
than 65 and have at least 10 years of service may take senior status
if their ages and years of service total at least 80.

Traditionally, most judges have waited until shortly before the
effective date to give notice of their intent to leave active status.
The early announcements by Tevrizian and Taylor are in keeping with
President Bush’s call for judges to give notice up to a year in
advance, so as to minimize the length of time a seat remains vacant.

Los Angeles Native

Tevrizian, a Los Angeles native, has been a judge for most of the
past three decades. He was appointed to the federal bench in 1985 and
previously served more than 10 years as a trial judge in Los Angeles
County.

The jurist majored in finance and accounting at USC, graduating in
1962, then earned a law degree there in 1965. He worked for a
national accounting firm before joining the law firm of Kirtland &
Packard where he worked from 1966 to 1972.

Tevrizian was 31 when he was appointed to the old Los Angeles
Municipal Court by then-Gov. Ronald Reagan in 1972, making him the
youngest of Reagan’s judicial appointees. Reagan’s successor, Jerry
Brown, elevated him to the Superior Court in 1978, but in 1982 he
retired to return to law practice as a partner in the law firm of
Manatt, Phelps, Rothenberg & Tunney.

Reagan, as president, appointed Tevrizian to the federal bench in
1985.

Tevrizian, who in 1987 was named Trial Judge of the Year by the
California Trial Lawyers Association, is one of the few federal
judges to have won the County Bar’s Outstanding Trial Jurist Award.
Bar officials gave him that honor in 1995, citing his demeanor and
skillful handling of complex cases.

The Malibu Bar Association honored him as Federal Court Trial Judge
of the Year in 1998.

Gold Medal

The judge is an active member of the local Armenian American
community. He received the Peter the Great Gold Medal of Honor from
the U.S. section of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences,
recognizing his accomplishments in the legal field.

In 1999, the National Ethnic Coalition of Organizations, Inc. awarded
him the Ellis Island Medal of Honor, given `to Americans of diverse
origins for their outstanding contributions to their own ethnic
groups and to American society.’

He has served on the boards of Southwestern School of Law and the
Glendale Memorial Health Foundation.

Taylor was an Orange Superior Court judge when then-President George
Bush appointed him to the federal bench in 1990. A 1963 graduate of
UCLA School of Law, he served in the Army Judge Advocate General’s
Corps from 1964 to 1966, then practiced in Newport Beach for 20 years
before then-Gov. George Deukmejian named him to the Superior Court in
1986.

He was an active member of the Orange County Bar Association before
becoming a judge, chairing its delegation to the State Bar Conference
of Delegates twice and its Business Litigation Section three times.