Author: Madatian Greg

New Polish ambassador, Armenian leader hail dynamic ties

Noyan Tapan news agency
13 Aug 04

YEREVAN

Armenian-Polish relations are developing quite dynamically, Armenian
President Robert Kocharyan said on 13 August at a meeting with the new
Polish ambassador to Armenia, Tomasz Knothe, who presented his
credentials to the president.

Kocharyan noted the importance of developing bilateral relations with
Poland in the context of the European direction of Armenia’s foreign
policy.

[Passage omitted: The president said he would visit Poland on 5
September; no details]

United Press International
August 10, 2004 Tuesday 12:28 PM Eastern Time

Analysis: Where does Europe end?

By GARETH HARDING

BRUSSELS, Aug. 10 (UPI)

In the second century A.D. the historian Tacitus reported on a heated
discussion in the Senate about how far east the Roman Empire should
expand. Two thousand years later, a similar debate about where the
European Union’s eastern borders lie is raging in Brussels.

The soul-searching has been prompted by the EU’s biggest ever
enlargement on May 1, when Cyprus, Malta and eight central and east
European countries joined the world’s biggest trading bloc.
Overnight, the Union’s members jumped from 15 to 25 and its
population from 375 million to 450 million. But more important, it
altered the geographical make-up of the “old continent.” States that
were previously considered on Europe’s eastern fringes, like Poland
and Estonia, returned to their rightful place at the heart of the
continent.

The Brussels-based club, which started out with just six members
almost a half-century ago, also found itself with a clutch of new
neighbors on May 1. The EU-25 now shares frontiers with Croatia,
Serbia and Montenegro, Romania, Ukraine and Belarus and its borders
with Russia have been lengthened by the accession of Latvia and
Estonia.

The EU’s boundaries will continue to move east in the near future.
Bulgaria and Romania are due to join in 2007, and Croatia is expected
to become the 28th member of the bloc shortly afterward. In addition,
Albania and the former Yugoslav Republics of Bosnia-Herzegovina,
Macedonia and Serbia and Montenegro have all been promised EU
membership once ethnic tensions subside and democracy takes root.

But it is Turkey’s membership application that raises the biggest
questions about the European Union’s eastern limits. If Ankara joins
— a decision on whether to start accession talks is due to be taken
by EU leaders in December — the predominantly Muslim state will
become the EU’s most populous nation by 2020 and will expand the
club’s borders to the fringes of Iraq, Iran, Syria and Armenia.

Then what? If Turkey, a country with over 90 percent of its landmass
in Asia, is allowed to join the Union, it will be difficult for EU
leaders to refuse the candidacies of the Ukraine, Belarus and Moldova
once the three former Soviet republics become fully-fledged
democracies with free-market economies. It will also make it hard for
Brussels to turn down any possible advance from Russia, a country
with a sizeable chunk of its population in Europe.

The EU treaty is clear about which countries can and cannot join the
bloc. “Any European state” which respects the basic principles of the
Union may apply for membership, it says. But this begs the question
of where the continent starts and ends.

There is general agreement, among cartographers at least, that the
Arctic and Atlantic Oceans represent the northern and western limits
of Europe and the Mediterranean Sea marks a natural divide with
Africa in the south. But when it comes to defining the continent’s
eastern edges, it seems there has been little progress since Tacitus’
time.

The Ural mountain range in western Russia is widely seen as Europe’s
northeastern border, firmly placing Ukraine, Belarus and Moldova
within the EU’s orbit. But what about the continent’s southeastern
frontiers? The Caucasus mountain range stretching from the Black Sea
to the Caspian Sea would seem to be the natural dividing line between
Europe and the Middle East, but this would bar Georgia, Armenia and
Azerbaijan from future membership.

Asked whether it was time to settle Europe’s frontiers once and for
all, EU Enlargement Commissioner Gunther Verheugen told reporters in
June: “I do not foresee a debate about the borders of Europe. It
makes no sense.”

Given European leaders disastrous attempts at marking down boundaries
in the past, notably at Versailles in 1919 and Yalta in 1945, it is
easy to see why some politicians are reluctant about setting the EU’s
eastern frontier in stone. But not doing so is only likely to cause
confusion and sow the seeds of frustration among those queuing up for
EU entry.

In an interview with United Press International earlier this year,
Verheugen said: “In theory, all members of the Council of Europe (the
45-nation human rights body stretching from Vigo to Vladivostock) can
join. But practically, the western border of the former Soviet Union
will be the eastern border of the EU for a very long time, with the
exception of the three Baltic states.”

The EU’s “Neighborhood Strategy,” a kind of EU-lite for nations on
the bloc’s eastern and southern confines, may be politically
expedient given the task of absorbing up to 15 new or future members
over the next decade, but it reeks of double standards. Bosnia and
Herzegovina — a hopelessly divided country run almost as a United
Nations fiefdom — will be allowed to enter, but Ukraine, which could
become a healthy democracy if it dispensed with autocratic president
Leonid Kuchma, will not. Turkey will probably join within the next 15
years, but Russia — which has an equal claim to be part of Europe —
would almost certainly be blocked if it ever applied for EU
membership.

Supporters of the EU’s unlimited expansion claim Europe is not a
geographical entity but a union of values. Only last week, Belgium’s
new Europe Minister Didier Donfut told La Libre Belgique newspaper:
“The Union, as a community of values, should also turn towards the
Mediterranean countries, especially Morocco, even if this goes beyond
the historical European geographical limits.” If one accepts this
reasoning, what is to stop the United States or Australia — two
countries that share common values with European states — from
joining the EU? And if all states are potential members, what is to
prevent the EU from becoming a “regional organization of Europe and
the near east,” in the words of former French President Valery
Giscard d’Estaing?

Despite the fact that Turkey is predominantly an Asian country, it is
now almost impossible to deny it EU membership 40 years after it
first applied to join the club and almost half a century after it
entered the Council of Europe. But the way to avoid such confusion in
the future is to set the boundaries of Europe first and then see
whether applicant countries within those limits have met the EU’s
political and economic criteria for entry. Only when the
cartographers have finished their work should the politicians be
allowed back into the room.

NKR LEADERSHIP EXPRESSES PERPLEXITY ON OCCASION OF STATEMENT OF CE
SECRETARY GENERAL

STEPANAKERT, August 9 (Noyan Tapan). “The NKR leadership thinks that
the election of the government bodies of all the levels on the basis
of the principles of democracy is an important step on the way to the
construction of the free democratic society.” It is mentioned in
comments of the press service of the NKR Ministry of Foreign Affairs
in connection with the statement of Secretary General of the Council
of Euorpe Walter Schwimmer on the inadmissibility of the holding of
the NKR local elections. Reminding that W. Schwimmer comes up not for
the first time with such statements, in which the holding of the
elections in Nagorno Karabakh is condemned, the comments express
perplexity in connection with the fact that it is not clear how the
elections may negatively influence the process of the settlement of
the Karabakh conflict, because it is obvious that only the legitimate
power may bear the responsibility for the entrusted territories and
has necessary authorities for carrying on peaceful negotiations on the
settlement of the Nagorno Karabakh conflict. “The NKR for over 10
years has lived as a sovereign state, which bears no relation to
Azerbaijan and independently organizes its life in the territory that
historically belongs to the Armenians of Karabakh. An impression has
grown up in us that all the international structures that come up with
such statements render political support to the regime, which
unleashed the large-scale war against Nagorno Karabakh and doesn’t
refuse from the attempts to aply force against the NKR. Meanwhile,
according to many independent experts, Nagorno Karabakh takes the lead
over Azerbajan on the level of its democracy,” reads the comments of
the press service of the NKR Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

ArmenPress
Aug 4 2004

ARMENIAN DEFENSE MINISTRY DENIES AZERI REPORTS ON TRUCE VIOLATION

YEREVAN, AUGUST 4, ARMENPRESS: The Armenian Defense Ministry has
denied another report by the Azerbaijani side on an alleged
cease-fire violation. “This information again does not correspond to
reality,” the Armenian Defense Ministry said.
The ministry denied the report by the press service of the
Azerbaijani Defense Ministry. The report said: “Between 0055 and 0130
on 2 August [1955 and 2030 gmt on 1 August] units of the Armenian
armed forces from their positions in the south of the occupied
village of Asagi Askipara of Qazax District fired on the positions of
the Azerbaijani armed forces in the east of the same village. There
were no casualties.”.

The Globe and Mail, Canada
Aug 3 2004

Iraq’s Christians shaken after attacks

By ORLY HALPERN
>From Tuesday’s Globe and Mail

Baghdad – As they removed body parts from still-smouldering cars at
the parking lot of the St. Peter and Paul church yesterday in
Baghdad, Christian Iraqis wondered when and where they would be
attacked next.

A series of co-ordinated car bombings that hit five Catholic churches
in Baghdad and Mosul during Sunday-evening prayers, killing at least
12 and injuring dozens, raised many questions and fears about the
future of the small Christian community in Iraq.

“I am now scared to go to church,” said Louis Climis, a leader in the
Syriac Catholic community who was injured Sunday. He was helping the
priest during the mass when a car bomb exploded outside his church in
the heavily Christian Karada district of Baghdad.

“I feel I am a target,” he said.

There were other Christian targets. Coalition forces reported that
the Iraqi National Guard found another bomb outside a second Mosul
church. Baher Butti, a Syriac Orthodox Church leader from Baghdad,
said there were reports of bombing attempts outside three other
churches in the capital.

“I called the Metropolit [Syriac Orthodox religious leader],” Dr.
Butti said. “He was very worried. They think that every church might
be hit now.”

Dr. Butti also fears that Christian religious leaders may be
assassinated. “We can’t anticipate what the terrorists will do next.
I’m so confused. What are they thinking?”

Christians, who make up about 3 per cent of Iraq’s population of 25
million people, have traditionally kept a relatively low profile. A
spate of attacks on alcohol sellers fuelled fears that Christians
might be singled out for attack, but unlike the mosques targeted by
extremists for bombings in the past year, their places of worship had
seemed safe until Sunday.

Most Christians interviewed were sure the bombers were not Iraqi. The
driver of the explosive-laden car who stopped near Our Lady of
Salvation church spoke in an Egyptian dialect, witnesses said.

Church leaders said they were unsure what should be done to prevent
future attacks.

At the St. Peter and Paul church, a single guard armed with an AK-47
was at the site to defend the building and an adjacent convent.

Father Firas Toma, of St. Peter and Paul, was stunned as he surveyed
the parking lot where 12 people from his church were burned alive in
their cars after a suicide bomber detonated a car outside the church
gate. Six churchgoers were still missing yesterday.

“We were already attacked,” he said, when asked about security
measures. “What worse can happen than this?”

At Our Lady of Salvation church, Armenian Catholic leaders closed off
the street with barbed wire and were considering what more to do.

“I don’t think we’ll have mass next Sunday,” said Nubar Antoine, a
member of the Armenian Catholic leadership council. “We Catholic
churches must have a meeting and talk to the Patriarch in Beirut and
the papal embassy in Baghdad and take a joint decision.”

Iraqi Muslim religious leaders have condemned the church bombings,
calling them terrorist attacks intended to create havoc.

Rev. Andrew White, the director of the International Centre for
Reconciliation, was more specific. “They want to identify the
Christians as part of the West and say that the Christians are not
real Iraqis,” Canon White said. “They want to try to move them out.”

But some Iraqi Christians were defiant. “This is my home,” said an
Armenian nun, Fidel Rahbe. “I was born here and will die here.”

PARTICIPANTS OF 9 DETACHMENTS OF ARTSAKH LIBERATION MOVEMENT GO ON
TERMLESS SIT-STRIKE IN YERABLUR ON AUGUST 3

YEREVAN, August 3 (Noyan Tapan). On August 3, the participants of the
Artsakh liberation movement went on a termless sit-strike in
Yerablur. They, in particular, demand to carry out allocations from
the state budget for the purpose of providing them with apartments.
Armen Avetisian, the Chairman of the Armenian Aryan Unity, told Noyan
Tapan that the Commission compiled by the RA Ministry of Defence
submitted a special list, in which it’s mentioned that the families of
the perished freedom-fighters and the disabled freedom-fighters should
be provided with apartments. But, according to him, the government of
Armenia doesn’t carry out any allocations for this purpose. The
participants of the sit-strike demand that the government of Armenia
and the NA should adopt a law on conferment of the status of a
freedom-fighter to the volunteers who were at war in advanced
detachments for 6 months and more, as well as should restore the
privileges and rights of all the freedom-fighters by the law. One of
the demands is equating of the pension of the disabled freedom-fighters
of the 3rd group with the pension of a warrant officer. Armen
Avetisian also said that the government and parliament were informed
about the sit-strike and the strike will stop only after the
government and the freedom-fighters come to an agreement.

Interfax
July 30 2004

Yerevan suggests conducting meetings of Armenian, Azerbaijani border
guards

Yerevan. (Interfax) – Yerevan has suggested starting a program of
ensuring personal contact between Armenian and Azerbaijani border
guards under the OSCE aegis, according to a statement of the Armenian
Defense Ministry distributed on Thursday.

The suggestion was made during the monitoring of the
Armenian-Azerbaijani border by OSCE representatives on Wednesday.

“Personal contacts may aid the process of establishing peace and
tranquility on the two countries’ borders,” the statement said.

Currently, the Armenian and Azerbaijani servicemen communicate over
radio.

Azerbaijan lost control of Nagorno-Karabakh and seven neighboring
districts in a bloody conflict with Armenia in the 1990s. The UN
Security council has denounced Armenia’s occupation of Azerbaijani
lands and demanded that it withdraw its forces. The OSCE Minsk Group,
composed of representatives from the U.S., Russia and France, is
working to help settle the conflict.

Turan news agency, Baku, in Russian
28 Jul 04

AZERI DEFENCE CHIEF, US AIR FORCE COMMANDER DISCUSS COOPERATION

Baku, 28 July: Azerbaijani Defence Minister Safar Abiyev today
received the commander of the US Air Forces in Europe (USAFE), Gen
Robert H. Foglesong.

The two men exchanged views on bilateral cooperation in the
military-political sphere. Gen Foglesong thanked Azerbaijan for its
support for operations against international terrorism.

Talking about the aim of his visit to Baku, he said he would like to
familiarize himself with the Azerbaijani air forces. “I believe that
cooperation between the air forces of our countries will strengthen
after my visit,” he said.

Abiyev criticized the US government for allocating equal military aid
to Armenia and Azerbaijan and also for allocating 5m dollars to the
separatists in Nagornyy Karabakh.

In turn, Foglesong voiced his hope that Azerbaijan will choose a
peaceful way to resolve the Karabakh conflict.

Internews Monthly Bulletin
June 2004

The Mineral Water Tragedy
And other mysteries revealed by Aniv Investigation

Last summer, when twelve-year-old Margarita bought a bottle of
mineral water she couldn’t even imagine she would lose her eyesight
as a result. The glass bottle exploded and damaged her eye when she
put the bag of groceries down to catch her breath on her way to the
apartment where she lived. Her family tried to file a lawsuit against
the mineral water company and get reimbursement in order to regain
Margarita’s eyesight but failed…

This is just one of the stories investigated by Internews Armenia
radio production group and broadcast in the framework of the new
project Aniv Radio Investigation at Yerevan-based Ardzagank and
Public Radio stations, as well as at Shant in Gyumri and Interkap in
Vanadzor. The program on the mineral water tragedy was on the air
this week, evoking lots of feedback from listeners in three cities.
As told by Robert Balayan, a radio producer from Interkap, Vanadzor:
`We had lots of phone calls from our audience. They insisted that the
problems of our city should be covered as well.’

Aniv Investigation is a two-part program with an average running time
of 30 minutes. As stated by the Internews Armenia production manager
Harutyun Mansuryan, `While we produced Aniv Talk Show and Aniv Radio
Hour, we constantly came across striking and impressive facts that we
couldn’t explore to the end because the program format didn’t allow
us. We realized we had enough materials to investigate, to launch a
new program and to grab listeners’ attention. Plus, we already had
the television investigative program and we thought: why not make a
radio show?’

Prepared by the Internews team and freelancers, Aniv Investigation
supposes comprehensive and thorough research of the topic. The
producers and reporters search and reveal hidden facts and previously
unknown details in their attempts to get the truth. Other topics
covered by Aniv Investigation include: the safety of dairy products
in Armenia, the issue of adoption, the suicide of a prisoner accused
of the assassinations in the parliament in October, 1999.

The audio files of the radio investigation are available at the
Internews Armenia web site:

Ekho, Baku, in Russian
29 Jul 04 pp 1, 2

Azeri diplomatic corps discusses its problems with cabinet – paper

A recent meeting between Azerbaijani ambassadors and government
members noted the importance of intensifying the work of the
country’s diplomatic missions abroad, the Azerbaijani newspaper Ekho
has said. Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov stated that
it was necessary to continue the “unrelenting struggle” against
Armenian propaganda and to intensify propaganda and information work
using modern information technologies, according to the newspaper. In
turn, other ministers touched on the problems that their departments
encounter in their international activities and drew the ambassadors’
attention to the need to increase control over budget expenditure at
the embassies. In reply, the ambassadors spoke about problems in
performing banking transactions with Azerbaijan and voiced many other
complaints. The following is the text of R. Orucov and N. Aliyev
report by Azerbaijani newspaper Ekho on 29 July headlined “The
Foreign Ministry decided not to wash its dirty linen in public” and
subheaded “Although, according to some reports, it did announce the
recall of ambassadors from a number of countries”. Subheadings have
been inserted editorially:

Diplomatic missions have to intensify work

The first joint session of the country’s diplomatic corps ended in
Baku yesterday. It emerged yesterday that President Ilham Aliyev
called on the Azerbaijani embassies abroad to work with the mass
media more closely. “Great attention should be paid to this sphere,”
Aliyev said. He said that a special post should be created in the
embassies for this purpose. At present, the embassies react to some
events or publications post factum in most cases. In Aliyev’s
opinion, the embassies should be proactive and should strive to get
the reports that are advantageous to Azerbaijan published (Turan news
agency).

Most of yesterday’s meeting was taken by speeches of government
members. According to the press service of the Azerbaijani Foreign
Ministry, effectively all the main members of the cabinet took part
in the meeting yesterday. In his speech, Defence Minister Safar
Abiyev reminded the audience of the tasks that the head of state has
set for the diplomats. Then the floor was taken by Interior Minister
Ramil Usubov who spoke about the need to intensify the diplomatic
missions’ work in terms of combating crime and ensuring internal
security at the foreign relations level. In turn, National Security
Minister Eldar Mahmudov spoke about great similarities in the work of
the diplomats and staffers of the special services. He said that
close cooperation between all government structures to ensure
national security was very important.

It has to be noted that almost all the members of the Azerbaijani
government delivered their speeches yesterday. And they all spoke to
the ambassadors about the problems that their departments encounter
in their international activities.

Ambassadors raise problems

The ambassadors replied with their own questions and suggestions.
They identified as one of the major problems the issue of extending
the validity period of the passports of our countrymen abroad and
issuing them quickly. Incidentally, it was decided at the session to
send a high-level official from the Interior Ministry on a business
trip to the embassies in those countries where the problem exists
with the extension of the passport validity period in order to
elaborate jointly with the diplomats a plan of measures to resolve
this issue.

First Deputy Finance Minister Ilqar Fatizada drew the diplomats’
attention to the need to increase control over budget expenditure at
the embassies. He reminded them of the rules of using office cars and
of the need to elaborate normative documents to celebrate the
national holidays of Azerbaijan.

In reply, the ambassadors told the representatives of the ministries
of finance and taxation about big problems that the foreign missions
experience when performing banking transactions with the home
country. Complaints about many other issues were also voiced.

As diplomatic sources told Ekho, the concluding speech by the chief
of the Presidential Executive Staff, Ramiz Mehdiyev, proved to be
most interesting. Most of the speech was dedicated to describing
different flaws in the work of the embassies. Some reports about the
session also say that the fate of different diplomats was also
discussed, but no details have been disclosed yet.

Unrelenting struggle against Armenian propaganda

Incidentally, according to the Turan news agency, Foreign Minister
Elmar Mammadyarov said at the meeting that the Azerbaijani
ambassadors to the USA, Russia, France and Egypt would be recalled
soon. Touching on the main objectives of the Azerbaijani diplomatic
service, the minister noted that the unrelenting struggle should be
continued against Armenian propaganda which strives to “discredit”
Azerbaijan. Using modern information technologies, information and
propaganda work should be intensified both in Azerbaijan and abroad.
Activities directed at continuing the provision of aid to the
refugees and internally displaced persons should be carried out. The
foreign missions should closely follow the reports by the local mass
media about Azerbaijan, analyse them, and inform the Foreign Ministry
in time, Mammadyarov said. He pointed out the need to intensify
cooperation with the local and foreign mass media and to hold regular
news briefings. Mammadyarov also deems it important to broaden the
propaganda and information work using the Internet.

As one of the participants in the meeting noted in a conversation
with Ekho yesterday, “the event was very useful to all sides; I can
bring a visual example: yesterday some members of the diplomatic
corps saw one another for the first time in their lives.” He also
noted that some speeches touched on the financial activities of
ambassadors. But, he said, “nothing specific was said about recalling
some heads of missions,” although the source did not rule out the
possibility that the rotation of the ambassadors might take place.