Author: Nahapetian Samvel

“KARABAKH-TELECOM” CJSC CONTINUES ITS BOOSTING ACTIVITIES IN NKR

STEPANAKERT, October 22 (Noyan Tapan). The “Karabakh-Telecom” CJSC
operating in the NKR has some problems with international
organizations, but it continues its boosting activities in the
republic. Boris Alaverdian, Minister of Industrial Infrastructures and
Urban Development, told NT’s correspondent about it in response to the
statement of Minister of Communication and Information of Azerbaijan
Ali Abasov that alLegedly international organizations stopped roming
communication with “Karabakh-Telecom”. According to Boris Alaverdian,
the widening of communication conducted by the company and its
regulation in the territory of the republic is more considerable
today. Ralf Yerikian, Executive Director of “Karabakh-Telecom”,
refused from comments.

The Messenger, Georgia
Oct 22 2004

Electricity imports set for October

By Christina Tashkevich

Georgia will be able to receive imported electricity from Armenia
already this October.

The negotiations on the imports of energy from Armenia are currently
underway, and according to the Minister of Energy Nika Gilauri, these
imports are necessary in order to avoid an energy crisis in the
country.

Talking to reporters on Thursday, he added that imports should have
been started in November but the process was sped up because of the
latest sabotage on the high-voltage line Kartli-2.

“We want to make this winter much better for the population as far as
electricity supplies go,” said the minister. He adds there should not
be any problem of supplying Tbilisi with 24-hour light if not for
some force majeur situation.

On October 9 the Kartli-2 transmission line was knocked out of
operation because of an explosion that officials blame on saboteurs.
To transfer electricity from western Georgia to the east, officials
have been forced to use 200-kilovolt low transmission lines instead
of the 500-kilovolt Kartli-2.

Meanwhile the repairs on the Kartli-2 are underway. According to
Shota Maisuradze, the General Director of SakRusEnergo who is in
charge of the repairs, the line will be operational again in one
week. “One tower of the line is almost repaired, the other is half
repaired,” he told journalists on Thursday.

Gilauri is sure that the energy system needs full rehabilitation.
“There has not been a serious rehabilitation of the system which was
working in force majeur state,” he said adding there has already been
four cases of sabotage on the high voltage line in the last two
months.

Currently the energy sector plans to provide Tbilisi, Kutaisi,
Rustavi and Zugdidi with better energy supply. “We can offer only
eight-hour supply for other regions of Georgia,” says Gilauri.

Meanwhile the government reports the sabotage group which attacked
the Kartli-2 line was eliminated by Georgian special forces. “We will
secure the system so that there is no other sabotage acts in
Georgia,” President Mikheil Saakashvili declared at a Wednesday
briefing after announcing that the group was captured.

Without mentioning where, when or how, President Saakashvili
explained to journalists that “trespassers” were destroyed by
Georgian law-enforcers. “The members of this gang planned to make the
same type of sabotage along other sections of the power line but our
law-enforcers foiled their plans,” Saakashvili said.

According to him, a special forces unit was sent to the whereabouts
of saboteurs, but “the gang members refused to surrender and opened
fire.” As a result of the gunfight, the group was forced to
surrender.

Armenian authorities sanction opposition rally due on 26 October

Arminfo
22 Oct 04

YEREVAN

The Yerevan Mayor’s Office has sanctioned a rally of the Armenian
opposition on Freedom Square scheduled for 26 October. But it banned a
mourning march to the building of the National Assembly on 27 October
to mark the fifth anniversary of the terror act in the Armenian
parliament.

The press service of the capital’s municipal council told Arminfo news
agency that the march was not sanctioned because it was planned to lay
wreaths at the memorial to the victims of the terror act. “Wreaths are
laid with the participation of maximum 15-20 people, but not a crowd
the opposition is planning to gather,” the press service of the
Yerevan Mayor’s Office said.

Turkish Daily News
21 October 2004

If only Derrida hadn’t died

Gunduz Aktan

Debates concerning our membership in France have gone beyond the reasonable
with all the political parties and movements divided. Everyone is offering
an excuse depending upon their political convictions. A racist like Le Pen
and a Jewish socialist like Laurent Fabius find themselves defending the
same opinion.

In parliamentary debates on our membership held on Oct. 15 — brought
forward by the government — many criticisms were aired, but no vote —
which would have been unfavorable to us — was taken. This way, the
possibility of Turkey getting a date to start negotiations at the European
Union summit on Dec. 17 was kept alive.

Meanwhile, President Jacques Chirac is trying to insert an article in the
Constitution allowing a referendum on the accession treaty that will be
signed at the end of the negotiations. This will nullify France’s
international responsibilities that started with the Ankara Treaty signed in
1963, and ask the French people to have their say in violation of the
principle of “pacta sun servanda.”

On the other hand, the argument that “all negotiations are open-ended” is
also wrong. They are asking us to accept, right from the beginning, that
even if we fulfill all the clauses of the negotiations, which may last 10 to
15 years, we might not become members due to unrelated reasons.

There are those who oppose Turkey’s membership in every EU country. However,
none are carried away with their opposition like in France. If Turkey is too
large, populous, situated in a tough location, or is Muslim, this fact is
evident to all the other 24 members, not only to France. Moreover, Turkey
did not acquire these characteristics yesterday — so what’s wrong with
France?

Had Derrida been alive, he would have applied the method of deconstruction
to this bizarre phenomenon in his country. This method, in very general
terms, is based on the creation of a conceptual construction by the
exclusion of its opposite concept. In other words, it is necessary to
exclude the concept of fascism and racist anti-Semitism, as opposed to the
constituent concept of democracy and respect for human rights in order to
realize an integration which would prevent a war like World War II.

In this respect, countries like Turkey that are to become EU members have to
implement democracy and human rights. Turkey is expected to grant rights to
“minorities” like the Kurds and to face the “Armenian genocide” claims, just
like they faced the Jewish Holocaust.

Derrida, who was well acquainted with Freud, would have immediately realized
that Europe was not isolating abstract concepts as the opposite of
“democracy-human rights-minority rights,” but rather Turkey and the Turkish
people as representing these concepts.

The anti-Turkish groups in France and elsewhere believe that Turkey’s
anti-democratic system is based on its founding ideology of Kemalism, will
not change and believe that those who conducted the so-called “genocide” on
Armenians would not grant Kurds any rights. This “unchangeable” character
attributed to us constitutes the proof that we are subjected to exclusion.

According to Freud, the material repressed in the unconscious remains
unchanged there. On the day you return having changed, they do their outmost
not to believe you.

France has another problem with us: We are closer to France than any other
EU member. The Republic of Turkey was influenced by the French Revolution.
French enlightenment and positivism have become an integral element of our
souls. In order to believe that it is the one and only, France
narcissistically exaggerates the minor differences. By projecting the
anti-Semitism of the Vichy regime and the sins of French nationalism
committed in Algeria onto the excluded Turks, “purified” France becomes a
part of the unification of Europe. It believes that the excluded or
repressed material projected onto us would return to the EU through our
membership and that this would be the end of the EU. France fears that its
vision or illusion of the EU will end with our membership.

Derrida used to say that at the end of the deconstruction process a
synthesis would be produced by the amalgamation of the interiorized concept
with the excluded one and that this new concept, which would reflect the
realities, would bring about justice.

This will be the greatest contribution our membership will make to the EU.

NOTE: This article appears in daily Radikal and, after being translated by
the Turkish Daily News staff, in the Turkish Daily News on the same day.

CIS STATES BEGIN AIR-DEFENCE EXERCISES

ITAR-TASS news agency
19 Oct 04

MOSCOW

Over 70 aircraft and helicopters from seven countries are taking part
in a command and HQ exercise of the CIS joint air-defence system that
began today. “Over 1,500 servicemen from Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan,
Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan are involved,” the head
of the Russian Air Force press service, Col Aleksandr Drobyshevskiy,
told ITAR-TASS.

“Mig-31, Mig-29, Su-27, Tu-22, A-50 and Su-24 aircraft and also S-300,
S-75 and S-125 SAM batteries are taking part,” he said. “Over 10
issues concerning improvement of the way the CIS’s airspace is
defended will be tackled.”

The exercise is being overseen by Lt-Gen Aytech Bizhev, deputy
chairman of the CIS air-defence coordination committee. The CIS joint
air-defence system has been in operation since 1995.

Cyprus News Agency
Oct 19 2004

Cyprus House President pays official visit to Armenia

Nicosia, Oct 18 (CNA) — Cyprus House of Representatives President
Demetris Christofias began today a three-day official visit to
Armenia, as head of a parliamentary delegation, at the invitation of
Armenia’s National Assembly President Arthur Baghdasaryan.

Voice of America, DC
Oct 13 2004

Economic Growth in Former Soviet Union Bypasses Millions of Children
Lisa McAdams
Moscow

A report released in Moscow by the United Nation’s Children’s Fund
says economic growth in Russia and the former Soviet Republics has
not improved the lives of children.
The UNICEF report finds that millions of children in Eastern Europe
and Central Asia still live in poverty, despite economic progress in
every country of the so-called transition nations, which are moving
from centralized to market economies.

UNICEF officials say the report shows that economic growth alone is
not enough to improve the lives of children.

Anna Chernyahovskaya, a spokesperson for UNICEF’s office in Moscow
says children bypassed by economic growth are affected in numerous
ways.

“Poverty means violence and desperation,” said Ms. Chernyahovskaya.
“It means children don’t have access to school. For example, there
are families that don’t have enough money to buy school supplies, to
get textbooks and uniforms, and it also means they don’t have access
to school because there are basically no schools around in the area,
if we talk about the remote areas of Russia for example. And also,
poverty could mean and it means actually poor nutrition and poor
health.”

Ms. Chernyahovskaya says that across the region, poverty has also led
to a significant increase in drug and alcohol abuse, which in turn,
has fueled a significant rise in the death rate among the young. For
example, in some countries, she says, up to one-third of all deaths
of 15 to 29-year-old males have been associated with alcohol
consumption. She says countless others are dying from AIDS.

Although the report finds that child poverty has fallen slightly
since 2000, Ms. Chernyahovskaya says the numbers are still
“appalling.” Also appalling, she says, is the lack of money spent on
children by transition nation governments.

“For example, in some countries in the Caucasus and Central Asia and
in Southeastern Europe, including Albania, Armenia and Tajikistan,
public expenditure on health care and education is about four percent
GDP, or less, and this is very low by regional standards,” she added.

Ms. Chernyahovskaya says UNICEF is calling on governments across the
Commonwealth of Independent States to do more to ensure that the
benefits of economic growth are more widely distributed, both
geographically and among all groups.

She says that means governments should not, for example, allow the
decentralization of public services to result in lower service levels
in more economically challenged areas. She says government officials
should also be focusing on one key question: how to make economic
growth benefit children?

TWO ARMENIAN-INDIAN JOINT COMPANIES TO OPEN IN ARMENIA

Azg/am
13 Oct 04

According to Martin Sargsian, chairman of RA Trade-Industrial House,
the most important result of the selling exhibition of Indian goods
and services were two agreements on opening Armenian-Indian joint
companies in Armenia. The first of the companies will produce car
details. The second will produce medicines. Martin Sargsian said this
after signing an agreement on Armenian-Indian economic cooperation
with Gutin, chairman of the Indian Confederation of Producers. Gutin
said that their Confederation has signed over 90 treaties with the
business structures of the world, it has offices in 18 countries of
the world and in the 40 regions of India.

Gutin expressed hope that their organization will soon open an office
in Yerevan, as well, and the signed agreements will be the first
step for the further cooperation between the Armenian and the Indian
businessmen. Gutin stated that in November their Confederation will
hold a large congress in India and they will invite their Armenian
colleagues to participate in it. The Armenian businessmen will
establish new relations with their Indian colleagues and elaborate
a program of priorities for the Armenian-Indian cooperation.

Martin Sargsian said that by signing the agreement on Armenian
and Indian economic cooperation they contribute to establishment of
joint companies, to holding exhibitions and to deepening the economic
relations between the two countries.

The businessmen present at the ceremony stated that during the last
two years the goods turnover between our countries grew. Indian goods
costing $3,3 million were imported to Armenia, while Armenian goods
amounting to $70 thousand were exported to India.

By Ara Martirosian

ATAYAN READINGS

Azat Artsakh – Nagorno Karabakh Republic (NKR)
06 Oct 04

Every year on these days Atayan Readings are held in NKR. Ivan Atayan,
the first and last teacher from Artsakh honoured as Soviet People’s
Teacher, the director of the village school, was famous in the union
for training excellent specialists of physics. During this traditional
gathering the participants remember the great teacher and the
excellent specialist of physics, as wellas make practical steps to
improve the educational system, which was especially obvious this
year. At the gathering in the Artsakh State University were present
the best specialists of physics and mathematics of all the regions of
the republic, as well as the participants of the fourth conference of
young physicists from Armenia who are in NKR on these days. In his
address the minister of education, culture and sport Armen Sarghissian
highly praised this undertaking which has already become a tradition
being held for the forth time. The Ministry awarded the medal
`I. Atayan’ to a group of physicists from Artsakh and Armenia. The
rector of the ArSU H. Grigorian, emphasized the achievements of I.
Atayan not only as a teacher, and also pointed out his political
activity. He was among the avant-garde of the Artsakh movement and was
involved in the delegation that went to Moscow on the question of
Artsakh. And in the period of ` safanovshina’ his home became the
secret place of gathering for theleaders of the movement. There were
reports by specialists of Artsakh and Armenia on the sphere of cadres.

SVETLANA KHACHATRIAN.
06-10-2004

Azeri defence minister, Turkish chief of staff discuss Karabakh

Lider TV, Baku
5 Oct 04

[Presenter Rasad Nasirov] Azerbaijani Defence Minister Safar Abiyev is
on an official visit to Turkey at the invitation of Turkish Chief of
General Staff Hilmi Ozkok. Our special correspondent Matanat Agamirli
has more:

[Agamirli, over the telephone] Rasad, as you know, the delegation led
by Abiyev met Ozkok yesterday [4 October]. The sides discussed
bilateral relations and cooperation.

Abiyev also held meetings at military units. But I would like to draw
your attention to the meeting between Abiyev and Ozkok. Ozkok pointed
to Turkey’s sensitive approach to Azerbaijan’s Nagornyy Karabakh
problem, adding that Turkey had always supported Azerbaijan.

Noting that Azerbaijan relied on Turkey, Abiyev thanked Ozkok for
close cooperation.

The Azerbaijani delegation left for Izmir today. More meetings will be
held at military units there. Turkish President Ahmet Necdet Sezer is
expected to meet Abiyev tomorrow.

This is all for now.

[Presenter] Thank you, Matanat.