Robert Kocharian Becomes Laureate Of 2006 Prize Of Fund Of OrthodoxP

ROBERT KOCHARIAN BECOMES LAUREATE OF 2006 PRIZE OF FUND OF ORTHODOX
PEOPLES’ UNITY

MOSCOW, MARCH 31, NOYAN TAPAN – ARMENIANS TODAY. President of Armenia
Robert Kocharian became laureate of the 2006 prize of the Fund of
the Orthodox Peoples’ Unity. They informed from the Press Center
of the fund that “estimating the efforts of the leader of Armenia,
his striving for satisfying the spiritual demands of Russians living
in Armenia was mentioned in the fund. The President was honoured
with the highest prize just for that.” As Radio Liberty informs,
quoting ITAR-TASS information, the “Gasprom” Russian company was
also honoured with the prize, “for the bright activity addressed to
re-birth of the Orthodox holinesses.” The fund aslo honoured Primate
of the Polish Orthodox Church Savva with the 2006 prize.

Ardshininvestbank To Carry Out Large-Scale Mortgage Crediting Only O

ARDSHININVESTBANK TO CARRY OUT LARGE-SCALE MORTGAGE CREDITING ONLY ON “CLASSIC” TERMS

Noyan Tapan
Mar 30 2006

YEREVAN, MARCH 30, NOYAN TAPAN. The Ardshininvestbank will
carry out a large-scale mortgage crediting only on the “classic”
terms, the chairman of the bank’s board Aram Andreasian told NT
correspondent. According to him, it is envisaged that the minimum
loan repayment periods will make 15 years with quite low interest
rates. He noted that this year the bank does not have enough funds
to provide such loans.

Aliyev Lashes Out At “Armenian Nationalists”

ALIYEV LASHES OUT AT “ARMENIAN NATIONALISTS”
Mina Muradova and Rufat Abbasov 3/29/06

EurasiaNet, NY
March 30 2006

Azerbaijan’s president, Ilham Aliyev, has lashed out at Armenia,
claiming that “Armenian ideologists-nationalists” have pursued a
policy of aggression against Azeris for “about 200 years.” Aliyev’s
vitriolic rhetoric indicates that the window for a negotiated solution
to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is slamming shut.

In his March 28 address, Aliyev said Armenians aimed “to oust
Azerbaijanis from their lands, and create a state of ‘Greater
Armenia.'” He went on to assert that Yerevan was solely responsible
for starting hostilities between the two countries “aiming to forcibly
unify Nagorno-Karabakh with Armenia.” He complained that “the history
of our nation has been roughly distorted” by a comprehensive Armenian
propaganda campaign that “mobilized the Armenia diaspora and lobby
for those purposes,” according to the text of the address distributed
by the official AzerTag news agency.

Aliyev’s speech occurred roughly six weeks after he and his Armenian
counterpart, Robert Kocharian, failed to achieve a breakthrough in
Karabakh peace negotiations during a summit meeting in France. [For
background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. In the weeks leading up
to that meeting, hopes ran high that the two leaders would agree on a
peace framework. Though few details of the discussions have emerged,
observers believe that disagreement over the timing and the scope
of a Karabakh referendum concerning the territory’s political future
emerged as an insurmountable obstacle to a settlement.

Since the summit, international mediators had expressed hope that
a settlement could still be found in 2006. [For background see
the Eurasia Insight archive]. Aliyev’s comments indicate, however,
that Baku doesn’t believe a peaceful settlement is achievable in the
near term.

Claiming that Armenia has “become a hostage to the idea of a ‘great
state,'” Aliyev alleged that peace talks stalled yet again “because
of the destructive and aggressive policy of the Armenian leadership.”

He reiterated that Azerbaijan is committed to a negotiated Karabakh
settlement that provides for “the restoration of our territorial
integrity.” But in comments sure to enrage Yerevan, Aliyev added that
Armenian leaders were conducting an “informational-propagandistic
fight concerning the invented ‘Armenian genocide’ … to prove their
territorial claims and obtain political dividends.”

Armenian officials had no immediate official reaction to the
Azerbaijani president’s comments. A central pillar of Yerevan’s foreign
policy has been securing international recognition of Ottoman Turkey’s
mass killings of Armenians, beginning in 1915, as genocide.

[For background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. President Kocharian
previously cautioned that if Baku did not alter its negotiating
position, the Armenian government would consider recognizing Karabakh’s
independence.

In recent weeks, Aliyev and other officials have repeatedly threatened
that Azerbaijan might resort to military action if Baku determined that
Karabakh peace negotiations stood no chance of success. In comments
made March 27 during a ceremony at the National Security Ministry,
and broadcast by ANS television, Aliyev stressed that Azerbaijan’s
rapid economic growth, driven by the development of the country’s
abundant energy reserves, was enabling the government to embark on
a far-reaching military build-up. He added that the potential for
Karabakh negotiations “has not yet been exhausted.”

“The other side [Armenia] must know that Azerbaijan is capable of
securing its territorial integrity through war,” Aliyev said.

Ceasefire violations in recent weeks have resulted in the deaths of
several Azerbaijani soldiers, Lider television reported. The ArmInfo
news agency on March 28 quoted Armenian Deputy Defense Minister
Artur Agabekyan as saying Azerbaijani forces were responsible for
starting the firefights. “Our servicemen … are in a state of combat
readiness,” Agabekyan said. “They will be prepared to repulse any
attack, be it a local attack or a large-scale one.”

In addition to the build-up, Azerbaijan appears intent on mobilizing
the Azeri diaspora to join in an information offensive to promote
Baku’s interests around the globe, including a Karabakh settlement that
is favorable to Baku. Azerbaijani officials used the second Congress
of World Azerbaijanis, held in mid March, to issue a call for rapid
consolidation of diaspora groups in order to present a unified view
of Azerbaijan and its policy aims to the outside world.

“In today’s world, a successful information policy is one of the
major factors of the overall development and perfect strengthening of
statehood,” Nazim Ibrahimov, the head of Azerbaijan’s State Committee
on Relations with Azerbaijanis Living Abroad, said in a March 16
speech to the congress’ 600 delegates.

According to state committee figures, approximately 50 million Azeris
live in over 70 countries. The largest diaspora communities are found
in Russia, Turkey, Georgia, Ukraine, Germany and the United States.

Approximately 30 million Azerbaijanis also live in modern Iran.

Roughly 8 million Azeris live in Azerbaijan.

In his March 28 speech, Aliyev indicated that Baku would seek to use
the Azeri diaspora to counter the “Armenian lobby abroad.”

Some delegates to the congress acknowledged that Azeri diaspora groups
had not done a good job in promoting Baku’s policies. “The Azerbaijani
diaspora is badly organized because it is young,” Azad Seidov, head of
the Azeri national cultural center in the Russian city Surgut, told
EurasiaNet. “We do not have a common plan of action and Azerbaijani
communities in foreign countries are working on their own. We have
to unite in order to recover our lands, cultural heritage and customs.”

Other representatives of diaspora groups confirmed that the
consolidation effort was intended to influence the Karabakh peace
process. Fahri Kerimli, chairman of board of the Romanian-Azerbaijani
Cultural Assembly, said unification would assist in the “neutralization
of efforts of Armenian diaspora around the world against Azerbaijan,
Azerbaijanis and Turkey.” A major aim of the intended information
offensive, Kerimli added, was to recast Azerbaijan as the victim in
the Karabakh conflict, dispelling the widely held view at present
that Baku was the aggressor.

Seidov and other delegates expressed interest in coordinating actions
with representatives of Turkish diaspora groups. “State interests …

made it necessary for the Azerbaijani and Turkish diasporas to
cooperate – to jointly operate to solve vital problems,” Ibrahimov,
the state committee chief, said.

Editor’s Note: Mina Muradova and Rufat Abbasov are freelance reporters
in Baku.

EBRD Will Invest 40 Million Euros In Armenian Economy In 2006

EBRD WILL INVEST 40 MILLION EUROS IN ARMENIAN ECONOMY IN 2006

AramRadio.am
29.03.2006 16:52

“In the current year the volume of investments of the European Bank for
Reconstruction and Development in the economy of Armenia will total
40 million Euros,” EBRD Director for South Caucasian Countries and
Moldova Mike Davey said during the international banking conference
on commercial financing organized by EBRD and “Armeconombank.”

“We are expanding our activity in Armenia, including the staff list
of the employees of EBRD Office in Armenia,” he underlined.

To remind, last year the volume of EBRD investments in the Armenian
economy totaled 20 million Euros for 11 different projects.

PPA Demands Arrest Of “Pagagits” Daily Reps

PPA DEMANDS ARREST OF “PAGAGITS” DAILY REPS

ARKA News Agency, Armenia
March 27 2006

Yerevan, Match 27. /ARKA/. The Board of the Progressive Party of
Armenia (PPA) demands the arrest of the executives of the “Pakagits”
(Bracket) daily for disseminating the secret information on the party,
offering a bribe for getting this information as well as for libel.

The PPA Board has applied to the RA Prosecutor General’s Office for
initiating criminal proceedings against the “Pakagits’ daily. “The
Yerevan prosecutor’s Office studied the materials concerning the
illegal actions against the PPA, but the case was remitted to the
the Prosecutor’s Office of the Achapnyak community,” says the press
release.

In his turn, the PPA Board member, lawyer A. Martirosyan applied to
the minor court of the Erebuni-Nubarashen community, demanding the
newspaper to be obliged to officially repudiate the false information
on the party.

The PPA calls on political forces and their leaders to organize a
joint action against the “Pakagits” newspaper, which publishes sheer
lies and libel. The PPA also demands that other media outlets that are
executing someone’s orders stop publishing false information and libel.

The “Pakagits” analytical newspaper is has been published since
February 2004. Agape Haikaznuni is Editor-in-Chief.

Weapons are an irrefutable argument

Agency WPS
What the Papers Say Part B (Russia)
March 24, 2006 Friday

WEAPONS ARE AN IRREFUTABLE ARGUMENT

by Ara Tatevosjan, Alexander Reutov

Russia and Armenia: cheap arms as compensation for expensive gas;
Russia and Armenia are supposed to sign a new gas payment arrangement
on April 1, but complete clarity of the issue has not been reached
yet. Moscow and Yerevan are frantically seeking a mutually acceptable
solution to the problem.

Russia and Armenia are supposed to sign a new gas payment arrangement
on April 1, but complete clarity of the issue has not been reached
yet. Moscow and Yerevan are frantically seeking a mutually acceptable
solution to the problem.

When Gazprom spokesman Alexander Medvedev said in late 2005 that the
price of gas for Armenia would be raised to $110 per thousand cubic
meters in 2006, official Moscow made it plain that its mind was made
up. Medvedev emphasized that political alliances have nothing to do
with gas delivery prices. Moscow only promised to consider
compensation options that would make the new price more bearable for
Armenian consumers.

Russia said for example that it could buy a sizeable chunk of
Armrosgazprom from Yerevan. What money Yerevan would have been paid
was more than adequate for maintaining low gas prices for domestic
users in Armenia. Another option proposed by Moscow was for Armenia
to give Russia the fifth bloc of the Razdan Thermal Power Plant and
all of Armenia’s gas transportation system. Russian specialists
valued these facilities at $140 million.

It was Iran, Russia’s “bitter partner,” that disrupted these plans.
It is Tehran that finances construction of the fifth bloc at Razdan
and Iran-Armenia gas pipeline. When the news of the Russian proposals
reached it, Iran vehemently objected and threatened to withdraw from
the projects altogether. Yerevan gave in with ill grace.

President Robert Kocharjan of Armenia visited Moscow in January, but
not even his talks directly with President Vladimir Putin resulted in
any considerable progress in the gas matter. The government of
Armenia was walking on thin ice and knew it. Defense Minister Serzh
Sarkisjan denied the idea of demanding payment from Moscow for its
military base in Armenia.

“I don’t know what the price of gas will be after April 1,” Kocharjan
said. He added that negotiations over “compensation mechanisms” were
under way. Absorbing the shock of new prices for Armenia, these
mechanisms “may function for two or three years only.”

The citizens of Armenia were informed of the solution finally found
on Wednesday night.

According to our sources, the idea was conceived and developed into
the mechanism of salvation in Moscow. Along with the gas, Yerevan
will receive a bonus that will be no less valuable than the main
product as such. The matter concerns Russian arms export to Armenia
at a discount. Some of the future contracts will even stipulate
permanent loans to the Armenians. This year, Armenia expects to get
1.7 billion cubic meters of gas from Russia. Since the new tariffs
are to come into effect on April 1, they will only apply to three
fourths of the volume. It means that Armenia’s actual losses will
amount to about $83 million. Armenia’s entire defense budget is $155
million. Judging by official reports, 15% of the budget or more than
$23 million are channelled into weapons acquisition. Actually,
countries usually spend nearly twice as much on new weapons as they
officially reveal. It means that the Russian bonus will enable
Yerevan to save up to $50 million on weapons. The generosity of the
Russian military-industrial complex knows no limits.

Source: Kommersant, March 24, 2006, p. 9

Translated by A. Ignatkin

ANCA: Over 2,000 Protesters Reject Turkey’s Denial of the Genocide

Armenian National Committee of America – Western Region
104 North Belmont Street, Suite 200
Glendale, California 91206
Phone: 818.500.1918 Fax: 818.246.7353
[email protected]
PRESS RELEASE
Friday, March 24, 2006

Contact: Armen Carapetian
Tel: (818) 500-1918

THOUSANDS PROTEST AGAINST TURKEY’S DEFENSE MINISTER VECDI GÖNÜL

— Armenian Youth Federation Rallies Community Against Genocide Denial

BEVERLY HILLS, CA – The Armenian Youth Federation (AYF) led a
demonstration of over 2,000 Armenian Americans today outside the
Beverly Hills Hotel during a speech given by Turkish Defense Minister
Vecdi Gönül, a key figure in the Turkish state’s campaign to
deny the Armenian Genocide, reported the Armenian National Committee
of America – Western Region (ANCA-WR).

The crowd of protesters marched peacefully and chanted in front of the
Beverly Hills Hotel, where the Defense Minister spoke at a luncheon
hosted by the Los Angeles World Affairs Council about `The Evolving
Security Environment and Turkey’s Strategic Role in Eurasia.’ Among
the thousands of participants in today’s protest were Congressman Brad
Sherman (CA-27) and Burbank Board of Education President Paul
Krekorian.

Before inviting Congressman Sherman to speak, ANCA-WR Board of
Directors member Raffi Hamparian underscored the failure of the US
State Department to live up to American values. `At the same time that
the US government is condemning Belarus for suppressing freedom of
expression, the US State Department is preparing to fire our
Ambassador to Armenia for simply telling the truth about the Armenian
Genocide,’ said Hamparian. `Congressman Brad Sherman is not only a
friend of the Armenian American community, he is an ally and a
champion of justice and human rights,’ said Hamparian in welcoming
Congressman Sherman.

`It is not only those with Armenian heritage who demand that the truth
be recognized. Friends of Turkey should demonstrate that Turkey accept
the Armenian Genocide,’ said Congressman Sherman in his remarks to the
crowd. `Where will Turkey be among the family of nations if it does
not recognize the truth? I will work in Congress every day until the
historical truth of the Armenian Genocide is recognized,’ he
concluded.

Congressman Sherman also commented on Turkey’s failure to provide
access to US military bases in Turkey and necessary passage over its
land and air space during the invasion of Iraq three years ago. `The
casualties stemming from today’s conflict in Iraq are, to some extent,
a direct result of Turkey’s refusal to allow the US-led coalition to
open a northern front,’ said Congressman Sherman.

In his remarks at the luncheon, the Defense Minister addressed the
issue of Turkey’s actions during the run-up to the Iraq War. He
directly contradicted the position of his American counterpart,
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, who has repeatedly said on
national television that Turkey’s refusal to allow US-led coalition
forces to open a northern front has significantly contributed to the
strength of the Iraqi insurgency. `Turkey has supported the US led war
on Iraq from the beginning,’ said the Defense Minister. He added that
`Turkey promotes good neighborly relations.’ This assertion also
stands in sharp contrast to the actions of the Turkish government,
which, on one hand, blockades and seeks to isolate Armenia, and on the
other, denies the Armenian Genocide and continues to harvest the
economic, demographic, and geopolitical fruits of the genocidal crime
it committed against the Armenian nation nine decades ago.

`Defense Minister Gönül’s remarks are consistent with his
government’s campaign to portray a rosy image of itself – despite the
facts on the ground. Increasingly, however, the American public is
seeing through these transparent efforts, and looking instead to
Turkey’s actual conduct – such as its blockade of Armenia, abysmal
human rights record, attempts to revise history, and, more broadly,
its increasingly antagonistic relationship with the United States,’
said Hamparian after listening to the Defense Minister’s speech.

Defense Minister Vecdi Gönül’s visit to Southern California,
home to the largest Armenian population in the US, came exactly one
month prior to the 91st anniversary of the Armenian Genocide on April
24th. California, which is one of 38 states to have recognized the
Armenian Genocide, last year adopted legislation permanently
designating the week of April 24 as California’s week of remembrance
of the Armenian Genocide. The effort to enact legislation on the
Armenian Genocide was led by state legislators such as Senators Chuck
Poochigian (R-Fresno) and Jackie Speier (D-San Francisco), and signed
into law by Governor Schwarzenegger in 2005. California has also
adopted an education curriculum that includes teaching of the history
of the Armenian Genocide, and the Los Angeles Unified School District
is among many public school systems in the state that continue to
train its teachers on implementing a curriculum that teaches about
this crime against humanity.

The Defense Minister’s visit also came at an especially sensitive time
in US-Turkey relations. In recent weeks, `Valley of the Wolves,’ the
most expensive film ever made in Turkey, prompted the US military to
issue warnings to our troops stationed in Turkey due to the film’s
severely anti-American and anti-Semitic nature. The film continues to
remain a box office hit in theatres across Turkey and has been
publicly praised by many Turkish leaders, including Prime Minster
Erdogan. The popularity of `Valley of the Wolves’ is not the only
recent demonstration of anti-Semitic and anti-American sentiment in
Turkey. Last year, Adolf Hilter’s `Mein Kampf’ was a best-seller in
the country.

The Defense Minister’s speech was repeatedly interrupted by chants
coming from protesters demonstrating along Sunset Boulevard. Armenian
Americans attending the luncheon, including Glendale Unified School
District Board Member Greg Krikorian, called on the Defense Minister
to acknowledge Turkey’s past.

However, Defense Minister Gönül said that `these are Armenian
claims, and there is nothing to acknowledge.’ AYF Chairman Tro
Tchekidjian stated at the conclusion of the protest that `We will
never forget what happened in 1915, and we will persist in calling for
recognition of the Armenian Genocide until Turkey comes to terms with
its past.’

The Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA) is the largest and
most influential Armenian American grassroots political
organization. Working in coordination with a network of offices,
chapters, and supporters throughout the United States and affiliated
organizations around the world, the ANCA actively advances the
concerns of the Armenian American community on a broad range of
issues.

www.anca.org

Welcome Players: A New Drive To Help Refugee Scholars Will Benefit N

WELCOME PLAYERS: A NEW DRIVE TO HELP REFUGEE SCHOLARS WILL BENEFIT NOT ONLY THEM BUT ALSO THE CAUSE OF ACADEMIC FREEDOM
Donald Macleod

The Guardian – United Kingdom
Mar 21, 2006

A long, painful journey brought Nahro Zagros from classically trained
violinist and lecturer in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq to playing gigs in
Hull with a band called Yorkshire Kurd.

Soon he is off on another journey to Armenia to study the music and
culture of the semi-nomadic Yezidis. For, with help from the Council
for Assisting Refugee Academics (Cara), Zagros is doing a masters
degree in ethnomusicology at York University, researching how music
can display cultural identity.

The young Kurdish musician is one of about 60 currently being helped
by Cara, an organisation that originated in 1933 to help academic
refugees from Hitler’s Germany. Over the decades the countries of
origin have changed – South Africa in the 1960s, Iraq and Iran in
the 1980s and 1990s – but the need has remained.

Indeed, only a tiny fraction of refugee academics receive help. Last
week the president of New York University, John Sexton, was in London
to launch the UK network of Scholars at Risk, set up in collaboration
with Cara to try and reach more of them.

He told a meeting at the British Academy that by helping academics
under extreme threat, they were protecting their own academic freedom
against less dramatic, but real encroachments.

“There is a vital connection between the aggressive struggle against
the most extreme cases of denial of academic freedom – cases that
take the form of threats and harassment, loss of jobs, and even
imprisonment and physical harm – and the less dramatic, but constant,
struggle against gradual encroachments on our own academic vocations,”
said Sexton, whose university is home to Scholars at Risk.

Zagros found himself among the extreme cases when he was a music
lecturer at Iraq’s Institute of Fine Arts and conductor of an orchestra
that toured in the Middle East and Europe. He worked for a television
station owned by Uday Hussein and was pressured into becoming involved
in events run by Uday.

Following a short visit to Kurdistan to see his relatives, he was
imprisoned for nearly six months in 2000. He fled Iraq shortly
afterwards.

Dispersed to Hull, he sought out other musicians and formed Yorkshire
Kurd, playing gigs to raise money for refugees and giving workshops
and performances in local schools to promote diversity. They have
also performed at festivals in Britain and abroad, playing a fusion
of Middle Eastern music, swing jazz, eastern European Gypsy music and
Jewish klezmer. “We like to combine all these great tunes and show
people we can work together and promote integration through music.”

Without Cara, he says, he could not have resumed study at York and
researched the Yezidis, a group of Kurds from Turkey who took refuge
in Armenia in the 1880s. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union,
a combination of unemployment and resurgent Armenian nationalism is
threatening their culture, says Zagros.

There are plenty of other stories to tell – the Iranian professor
of paediatrics, the Iraqi medical lecturer, both now establishing
themselves in this country, for instance. Applications for refugee
status in the UK are falling, but pleas for help from academics
continue to increase, says John Akker, executive secretary of Cara. He
estimates that of the 10,000 refugees in Glasgow, nearly 1,000 have
a substantial academic background.

Cara has recently been given pounds 500,000 over five years from the
Lisbet Rausing charitable fund to help with grants to scholars. With
the Scholars at Risk network, Cara is planning how universities
could use their services in such areas as HR, student services,
language centres, accommodation, welfare, childcare and international
activities, to help.

So far 15 UK universities have joined. Birkbeck College London,
Cambridge, Leeds Metropolitan, London South Bank University, York,
Glasgow Caledonian, London University, Wolverhampton, Kent and
Universities UK are represented on the board. The Open University,
Luton, School of Oriental and African Studies, Sunderland, Ulster and
Lincoln are members, and University College London, London School of
Economics, Keele, Manchester, King’s College London, and Oxford are
expected to join soon.

The payoff to Britain for sheltering academic refugees has been
spectacular. Of Cara’s former grantees, who included names like
Karl Popper and Max Perutz, 18 became Nobel laureates, 16 received
knighthoods, 71 were made fellows or foreign members of the Royal
Society, and 50 fellows of the British Academy.

But Sexton made a rather different case for the work of Cara and
Scholars at Risk -helping defend academic freedom against more
subtle pressures from outside the university, or even from political
correctness within academe.

“The race of our century will be a race between the university and
the madrasa; and it is important from the outset that we understand
the differences between the two,” he said.

“Xenophobes and ideologues seek to influence the research we undertake,
the books we write or the classes we teach. Thus, for example, in the
United States, research universities are pressurised to forgo stem
cell research, and pressed to meet externally defined ideological
quotas for faculty. And every university president at some point faces
enormous external pressure because a speaker deemed ‘controversial’
is coming to campus . . .

“For if not anchored in the causes and consequences of extreme threats,
our claims on behalf of academic freedom can too easily be construed
as petty disputes by a privileged elite demanding special rights
without corresponding responsibilities. Being able to locate the
complaints and warnings of those who fear government encroachment,
or attempts to quell disturbing speech or provocative research, along
the same spectrum that stretches to the more extreme and violent
forms of intellectual repression, forces a discussion of the central
importance of the principle of academic freedom. By seeing what happens
in societies where universities and scholars are put at extreme risk,
we come to better appreciate why we defend what we do and better
recognise the warning signs of the erosion of those freedoms.”

Cara, London South Bank University Technopark, 90 London Road,
London SE1 6LN Email: [email protected]
du

Iraqi musician Nahro Zagros fled his homeland after he was put under
pressure and imprisoned there Photograph: John Jones.

www.academic-refugees.org
www.scholarsatrisk.nyu.e

Mujgan Suver: Turkey Doesn’t Infringe Rights

Mujgan Suver: Turkey Doesn’t Infringe Rights of Armenians Living on Its Territory

PanARMENIAN.Net
18.03.2006 00:44 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ The Istanbul-Yerevan and Yerevan- Istanbul flights
are exercised not by the government but by private airlines, Mujgan
Suver, President of Human Rights Platform of the Marmara Group
Foundation stated. In her words, the flights are exercised for the
Armenian, citizens of Turkey, whose relatives live in Armenia. She
also noted Turkey doesn’t infringe the rights of Armenians and other
peoples living on its territory, reported APA news agency.

BAKU: US Urges Azerbaijan To Refrain From War

US URGES AZERBAIJAN TO REFRAIN FROM WAR

Assa-Irada, Azerbaijan
March 15 2006

Baku, March 14, AssA-Irada
The United States has said the parties to Upper (Nagorno) Garabagh
conflict should stick to a negotiated settlement, despite the
fruitless outcome of talks between the Azeri and Armenian leaders,
which was followed by Azerbaijan’s threats to launch war to solve
the long-standing dispute.

The resumption of military action will not solve the problem even
in 20 years, said the US co-chair of the mediating OSCE Minsk Group,
Steven Mann, who visited Baku, along with the US Department of State
Assistant Secretary for European and Eurasian Affairs Daniel Fried,
to discuss the Garabagh problem with the top Azerbaijani leadership.

Addressing a news conference upon the results of the visit, Mann
said that although the presidential talks in Rambouillet, France
in February yielded no results, the peace process continues and the
sides are seeking to continue the talks.

“There are issues of concern for both parties that are reflected in
their positions. But the resumption of hostilities would be a tragedy
for both countries. No war will lead to a solution either now or in
20 years.”

The mediator also said that for the conflict to be solved, each side
should be ready to “answer important questions”.

“At the same time, in considering the military option, Azerbaijan
should take into account other factors, such as the importance of
energy projects that will bring profits to the country,” Mann said.

The co-chair continued that both the US government and the
international community supports a settlement strictly through peace
talks. “America is cooperating with Azerbaijan and Armenia and deems
both as friendly nations.”

Asked why the U.S. has not duly assessed Armenia as aggressor,
Mann said such terse questions are frequently asked by Azerbaijanis
as well as representatives of the Armenian Diaspora in the United
States. “But we do not intend to take any sides on these issues and
urge the parties to give preference to peace talks,” Mann said.

Touching on Armenian president Robert Kocharian’s recent statement
that his country may recognize independence of the self-proclaimed
Upper Garabagh republic, the mediator said he is not in favor of
such speculations at the current stage in the negotiations, as such
statements “do nothing to facilitate solving the problem”.

Assistant Secretary Daniel Fried said that during the Baku meetings,
Azerbaijan decisively defended its national interests with regard
to the conflict resolution. “However, our discussions proceeded in
a serious and constructive manner,” he said.

Fried has met with President Ilham Aliyev, Foreign Minister Elmar
Mammadyarov as well as opposition representatives.

“The conclusion we came to is that Azerbaijani representatives have
put forth a strong and resolute stance on the issue,” the Assistant
Secretary said. He reiterated that both parties to the conflict are
interested in solving the protracted dispute.

“We have concluded that Azerbaijanis want to return to their
homeland. We therefore believe that this must happen soon, as a war
would prove disastrous for everyone,” Fried said.

The American official, who is expected to visit Armenia next, said he
would hold intense talks on the Garabagh conflict with its officials
as well. He declined to cite any details, but said he would lay out
certain initiatives.

The news conference was also attended by the US ambassador in Baku
Reno Harnish.