Author: Nahapetian Samvel

Minister’s Son Arrested in Armenia for Shootout That Injured Five

Russia, Saint-Petersburg
Date: 2004.04.05 18:28

YEREVAN, April 5. The son of the Armenian construction minister, Ara
Aramian, was arrested Monday in connection with a criminal ‘settling of
scores.’ As reported to a Rosbalt correspondent by the press office of the
Armenian Procurator’s Office, Aik Aramian was arrested for his role in a
March 12 shootout which left five people hospitalized with gunshot wounds. A
criminal investigation established that the minister’s son had been the
shooter.

The gunfight took place less than 50 meters from the jazz cafe Aragast,
where a meeting between Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili and Armenian
President Robert Kacharian was going on at the time.

————————————————————————
©2001-2002 Rosbalt News Agency

Azat Artsakh – Republic of Nagorno Karabakh (NKR)
March 30, 2004

NK AGAIN CONFIRMS

The NK authorities confirm their willingness to receive the
international monitoring group and prove the falsehood of the
accusations on the part of Azerbaijan whose representatives keep
insisting that the territory of the region serves for illegal transit
of narcotics. NKR vice foreign minister of Masis Mayilian told the
Stepanakert reporter of the news agency “Regnum” that the government
of the republic is willing to provide necessary conditions for the
international monitoring group to work in all the parts of the
republic. “The members of the group must be truly independent
international experts who will be ready for conducting an unbiased
survey,” mentioned M. Mayilian. The vice minister denied the claims of
official Baku that Nagorni Karabakh and the nearby areas under the
control of the Karabakh party have been turned into a transit area of
which the drug dealers of the southern route make successful use.
Masis Mayilian reminded that in spite of the wishes of Baku, in the
strategic account of the US State Department on drugs control Nagorni
Karabakh is not mentioned at all, whereas it is stated once again that
the territory of Azerbaijan is one of the main international transit
routes of narcotics. “The NKR authorities are greatly responsible for
the situation in the republic and the nearby territories under its
control. For preventing the groundless and openly hostile accusations
of Baku the NKR authorities have for a great number of times in the
recent years applied to the UN, PACE, OSCE and other influential
international organizations, as well as the corresponding body of the
US State Department with the request to send an independent monitoring
group to Nagorni Karabakh to get acquainted with the situation on the
spot,” mentioned Mayilian. By the way, during the meeting of the UN
Office on Drugs and Crime Control held in Vienna one of the
suggestions discussed was the necessity of inviting a group of experts
of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, as well as experts of the
Interpol and other international organizations to study the situation
in a number of countries, including Nagorni Karabakh in relation with
narcotics. According to the UNODC, the claims of Azerbaijan that the
territory of Nagorni Karabakh is allegedly used for transit of drugs
were not confirmed by the UN. In answer to the question whether Baku
has proofs to this, the UN department on drugs and crimes gave a
negative answer.

AA

Armenian agency says Azerbaijan “destroyed” possible Karabakh peace plan

Mediamax news agency, Yerevan
29 Mar 04

Armenian news agency Mediamax has claimed that preliminary agreements
were reached during mediated talks between the Azerbaijani and
Armenian leaders in Key West, the USA, in 2001. Under the agreement,
Nagornyy Karabakh and the corridor linking it to Armenia were to go to
Armenia, the agency said, quoting reliable sources. However, the then
Azerbaijani president, Heydar Aliyev, did not think of putting into
practice the Key West agreement, but gained time to ensure the
handover of power to his son. The incumbent Azerbaijani president “is
finishing the game started by his talented father”, the agency
said. The following is an excerpt from report by Armenian news agency
Mediamax on 29 March headlined “Key West agreements dead”; subheadings
inserted editorially:

It became obvious last week that the Paris and Key West [Florida, the
USA] agreements on the settlement of the Nagornyy Karabakh conflict
reached in the spring of 2001 by the Armenian and Azerbaijani
presidents with the mediators’ participation are “dead”.

Talks started between the Armenian and Azerbaijani presidents with the
participation of the OSCE Minsk Group cochairmen in Key West three
years ago, on 3 April 2001. The initiative to hold the meetings in Key
West came from the USA – the US cochairman of the OSCE Minsk Group,
Carey Cavanaugh, suggested meeting in Florida after two rounds of
negotiations between the Armenian and Azerbaijani presidents in Paris
with the active participation of French President Jacques Chirac.

Key West agreement did exist

Mediamax agency has for a long time possessed information from
reliable sources about the content of agreements reached in Key
West. We did not disclose this information taking into account the
fact that formally the Key West agreements remained on the negotiating
table. Today we think we have the right to make public some excerpts
from this document.

Despite the statements by the Azerbaijani authorities about the
absence of a “hardcopy” of the Key West agreements, it was precisely
the “rough draft” of a peace accord drawn up by the mediators after
the Paris meeting that the Armenian and Azerbaijani leaders discussed
during the talks in Florida. It was expected that the peace agreement
would be drawn out on the basis of this “rough draft” and that it
would be initialled by the Armenian and Azerbaijani presidents in the
presence of the US, Russian and French foreign ministers at a meeting
in Geneva in June 2001. A final and comprehensive peace agreement was
expected to be signed later in the capital of one of the co-chairing
countries of the OSCE Minsk Group with the participation of George
W. Bush, Vladimir Putin and Jacques Chirac.

Karabakh was to go to Armenia

Thus, it was written in black and white in the document discussed in
Key West that Nagornyy Karabakh together with the Lachin corridor
[linking Armenia and Karabakh] “shall be handed over under Armenia’s
sovereignty”. That was why Armenian Foreign Minister Vardan Oskanyan
said in Yerevan on 17 March that “the content of talks between
Armenian and Azerbaijani Presidents Robert Kocharyan and Heydar Aliyev
had justified the fact that Karabakh representatives were not involved
in them”. Vardan Oskanyan explained that this was a reason for a
recent statement by the Armenian Foreign Ministry saying that “if Baku
wants to start the negotiations from scratch it should appeal only to
Stepanakert”.

In exchange, Baku would get back the occupied territories and a
highway linking Azerbaijan and the Naxcivan exclave. Despite rumours
spread by the Armenian opposition that Armenia had agreed to cede the
region of Megri to Azerbaijan, in reality the document said that an
Azerbaijan-Naxcivan highway remained under Armenian control, and the
possible attraction of international peacekeeping forces to ensure its
security would be negotiated further. Moreover, the mediators
presented five highway routes to the parties and only one of them was
contiguous with the Armenian-Iranian border. Preliminary construction
estimates were attached to each route description.

Heydar Aliyev’s “brilliant game”

Heydar Aliyev’s consent to solve the problem this way seemed
unbelievable. That was why, according to Mediamax sources, before the
Key West talks Armenian top negotiators had several times asked Carey
Cavanaugh whether the US mediator was sure that Heydar Aliyev was
really ready to confirm the “Paris principles” on the paper? Every
time Cavanaugh’s answer was affirmative. For this reason, the
statement by US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage that “the
parties reached progress but not agreements” in Key West can be
argued, since Heydar Aliyev said “yes” in Florida, i.e. he gave his
preliminary consent, and said “no” a month after he returned to
Baku. Therefore, we have every reason to say that in reality there
were the Key West agreements.

Although Armenian leaders, and in particular Foreign Minister Vardan
Oskanyan, say that Heydar Aliyev was ready to take “decisive steps” to
solve the problem, we think that the late Azerbaijani president played
a brilliant game, pulling the wool over the eyes of both Armenia and
the mediating countries. There is every reason to suppose that Heydar
Aliyev did not really think of putting into practice the Key West
agreements. He was just trying to gain time necessary to pass power to
his son. The policy pursued by Aliyev junior today attests that he is
finishing the game started by his talented father.

Today, when three years have passed since the Key West agreements, we
decided to present in a chronological order all the main developments
and statements of the parties around these talks. In our opinion,
having read this material, any reasonable person will understand that:

a) the Paris and Key West agreements did exist;

b) the mediators were trying to keep in force those agreements until
recently;

c) the previous and current Azerbaijani authorities did everything to
destroy the peace plan drafted with the active participation of
Russia, the USA and France.

[Passage omitted: chronological order of events in 2001-2004]

Glendale News Press
LATimes.com
March 26 2004

Mending discord between students

Community leaders and pupils say relations have improved, but more
can be done

By Gary Moskowitz, News-Press

GLENDALE – Differences among local youth – be it racial,
socioeconomic or just simple misunderstand- ings – have led to
tragedy in Glendale.

On May 5, 2000, Hoover High School student Raul Aguirre was stabbed
to death across the street from his school in what police believe was
a gang-related incident. Aguirre was not a gang member. The man
accused of stabbing Aguirre is Armenian American.

A group called We Care for Youth, which formed in 1992 to work toward
stopping youth violence in the community, offered Hoover High
students grief support after the incident.

Group co-founder Jose Quintanar said representatives from the local
schools, city, Glendale Community College and the community held
forums in the late 1980s and early ’90s, during which people would
meet in each other’s homes to discuss ways to improve relations. He
would like to bring the forums back.

“I think what [co-founder Linda Maxwell] and I face much too often is
whatever is going on at the home gets brought to school,” Quintanar
said. “The community needs to really start looking at their own
issues. We see how kids’ ideas of the community are formed at the
dinner table or in front of the TV when the family is together.

“I don’t think there are many students around who have the personal
experience of [the Aguirre incident]. But many remember, and it comes
up from time to time from kids who were in middle school at the time.
And they were deeply affected by it. Something like that has got to
scar you.

“I think [Aguirre’s death] brought people together, but it wasn’t
sustaining. Soon after, the emotion of it wore off, and we became
complacent,” Quintanar said.

“Could it happen again? I hope not. But are the conditions present?
Yes. Ignorance and fear of other people, and not knowing people,
exists. This is a large city now, and it’s harder to know people.”

In recent years, Hoover students created a Unity Garden and a
Friendship Garden on campus as a way of promoting peace and unity in
the Glendale community. Events like Aguirre’s death and the terrorist
attacks of Sept. 11 prompted students to create the gardens.

Hoover High senior Jessica Luevano said it is usually teachers who
bring up the Aguirre incident, not students. Teachers might mention
it in class when something new happens in the Aguirre case, Jessica
said. The case is awaiting a second trial after a Nov. 7 mistrial.

“If anything, I think it kind of brought us all closer together,”
said Jessica, 17. “There are bad people in every culture. I think
most of the fights we see here are among kids within the same race.”

Daily High School Principal Gail Rosental said that although some
parents tell her they perceive Daily – the district’s continuation
high school for students who are at risk of not graduating on
schedule – as the school for “bad kids,” she has few issues with race
and culture among students on campus. Students come to Daily from all
of the district’s comprehensive high schools.

“Because we are so small, nobody is invisible here, and we don’t have
the same kinds of problems the huge schools have,” Rosental said. “We
tend not to have intercultural tensions. When we do have tensions,
it’s rare, and it’s usually not rooted in ethnic problems.

“It’s usually more of a ‘You were talking to my girlfriend’ or ‘You
said something about me to somebody’ kind of thing. If anything, it’s
two people who used to be friends, and it’s social and personal.”

Agency WPS
DEFENSE and SECURITY (Russia)
March 19, 2004, Friday

KANT WANTS TO BE FRIENDS WITH MANAS

SOURCE: Russky Kurier, March 16, 2004, p. 2

by Vitaly Strugovets

Operational conference of the United Headquarters of the Organization
of the CIS Collective Security Treaty begins in Moscow. Lieutenant
General Vasily Zavgorodny, Senior Deputy Chief-of-Staff, says that
the conference will be attended by chiefs-of-staff of national
armies, General Secretary Nikolai Bordyuzha, and Major General Sergei
Chernomordin, Commander of the Central Asian Fast Response Collective
Forces.

The decision to establish the United Headquarters as “a permanent
working body of the Organization of the CIS Collective Security
Treaty and its Council of Defense Ministers” was made almost a year
ago, in April 2003. Fifty-five staff officers represent members of
the Organization of the CIS Collective Security Treaty in accordance
with their financial contributions. Russia accounts for 50% of the
budget and other countries (Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan,
and Tajikistan) 10% each.

Chief-of-staff always represents the country whose defense minister
is currently chairman of the Council of Defense Ministers. Nowadays,
it is Tajikistan. Needless to say, chief-of-staff is quartered in his
native country and not in Moscow. Daily activities of the United
Headquarters are supervised by senior deputy chief-of-staff. The
United Headquarters commands army groups – West, Caucasus, and
Central Asia.

Military experts call the Organization of the CIS Collective Security
Treaty a mini-NATO. There truly are some aspects similar to both
alliances. For example, whenever a country of one of the bloc finds
itself under attack, all of the alliance regards it as an attack on
all. This is a major difference between the Organization of the CIS
Collective Security Treaty and the 1992 Treaty. “There are but two
organizations in the world nowadays that view security matters as the
first priority. They are NATO and the Organization of the CIS
Collective Security Treaty,” General Secretary Nikolai Bordyuzha
(formerly Secretary of the Security Council of the Russian
Federation, head of the presidential administration, and Ambassador
to Denmark) said not long ago. He believes therefore that the two
alliances must interact. “The Organization of the CIS Collective
Security Treaty already has a plan of cooperation and interaction
with NATO,” he said. “Distance between military bases of the
Organization of the CIS Collective Security Treaty and forces of the
counter-terrorism operation in Afghanistan (that means NATO) is under
three dozen clicks.” Needless to say, Bordyuzha meant airfields in
Kyrgyzstan, Kant and Manas. According to what information this
newspaper has compiled, the Council of Foreign Ministers of the
Organization of the CIS Collective Security Treaty has already
drafted a document which will suggest military cooperation between
bases in Kant and Manas.

Unlike NATO, however, its CIS analog is financially unstable. That is
what generates friction among its members. It is clear nowadays that
the Organization of the CIS Collective Security Treaty owes its
existence mostly to the Russian budget. All its structures are
financed by Russia by at least 50%. Actually, Russian contribution is
even larger than that. Consider for example the Kremlin’s decision to
sell military hardware to countries of the Organization of the CIS
Collective Security Treaty at the prices demanded from Russian
buyers. Not even NATO has come up with that. This lenient terms
regime only applies to the units involved in international
contingents these days, but official Moscow contemplates its
application to all armed forces of all members of the Organization of
the CIS Collective Security Treaty. This assistance may even be made
mandatory.

Russia is also prepared to face the bill of training officers for CIS
national armies. 2,700 men from armies of the Organization of the CIS
Collective Security Treaty are being trained in Russia. Members of
the Organization of the CIS Collective Security Treaty pay $1,000 for
every trainee annually. The subject of training them without charge
is being considered now. Russia pays for maintenance of the forces
comprising the nucleus of all army groups of the Organization of the
CIS Collective Security Treaty. First and foremost, the matter
concerns AF bases in Kyrgyzstan and Armenia.

Aircraft based in Kant, for example, are officially recognized as a
part of the Fast Response Collective Forces. Still, Russia alone
finances the base. It will cost $10 million to outfit the base only,
and annual maintenance is estimated at $4 million more. It is not
exactly a “grant” as some politicians present it.

As a matter of fact, the anti-Taliban coalition pays Kyrgyzstan
$7,000 for every takeoff or landing in Manas. It is this easy money
that spoils the relations between Moscow and Dushanbe, Bishkek,
Astana. The United States alone intends to transact over $6 million
to Kyrgyzstan by way of military assistance (discounting what this
country is paid for the use of the Manas facility, that is). The sum
is double what Kyrgyzstan received in 2003. Kazakhstan is promised
helicopters, military transport planes, and ships under 1,000 tons
water displacement. Considerable technical aid is promised Tajikistan
too. Forget Central Asia for a minute. Even official Minsk in the
course of the recent “gas crisis” began talking of the necessity to
take money from Russia for “the military objects located on the
territory of Belarus.”

It does not take a genius to see that Russia cannot hope to satisfy
all of the demands its “allies” come up with. Financially, that is.
It follows that weapons and military hardware should be offered.
Sources in the United Headquarters say that these deliveries exactly
will be in the focus of attention of the operational conference of
the Organization of the CIS Collective Security Treaty in Moscow.
Defense ministers will even visit Granit, the foremost provider of
antiaircraft means for the Russian Armed Forces. It is common
knowledge that antiaircraft defense is our allies’ major headache.

Official commentary

Major General Sergei Chernomordin, Commander of the Fast Response
Collective Forces: The Taliban has never been abolished

Chernomordin: Headquarters of the Fast Response Collective Forces is
located in Bishkek. The operational group comprising officers from
all countries is quartered there too. National armies of participants
of the Organization of the CIS Collective Security Treaty are
represented in the Fast Response Collective Forces by a reinforced
battalion each. These are units of permanent combat readiness that do
not need a lot of time to up their readiness status. These units are
fully staffed and equipment. Whenever the order is received, the
units are ready for combat in the plains or in the mountains in
virtually no time. These are not ordinary units. I mean, infantry.
The Kazakh Armed Forces for example are represented by a battalion of
paratroops. Hence the weapons – light weapons and portable grenade
launchers. The battalion is quite mobile, up to missions in all
conditions. The national army of Tajikistan is represented by a
similar unit. Kyrgyzstan is represented by a battalion of
mountaineers. All Kyrgyz servicemen are seasoned fighters. The
nucleus of the Kyrgyz battalion is comprised of the veterans who
fought in the Batken region in 1999.

The battalion tactical group of the Russian 201st Motorized Infantry
Division is equipped and trained for mountainous warfare. It has
tanks, armored personnel carriers, mobile artillery systems. All
these units will be promptly airlifted to the endangered area and
deploy there. I do not doubt their efficiency.

Question: Do the Fast Response Collective Forces have an action plan?

Sergei Chernomordin: We have the deployment plan for potential
actions on the territory of any of the four countries. Usually, all
officers and units of the Fast Response Collective Forces remain at
their permanent quarters, working in line with their own curricula.
They come together only in the special period. they have to be
drilled constantly, taught to operate in the designated area. That is
why our units are deployed in Tajikistan today, and tomorrow
exercises may be run in Kazakhstan or Kyrgyzstan. This is how we
train our units the year round. Along with everything else, we remain
in close contact with the CIS Counter-Terrorism Center and national
armies. Whenever necessary, the Fast Response Collective Forces may
operate under the command of a national defense minister. Together
with armed forces and other security structures, of course. If the
appropriate decision is made, I will submit to the defense minister
of the country where our involvement is needed. Or else, I may
operate independently.

Question: What do you think of the situation in Central Asia?

Sergei Chernomordin: The counter-terrorism operation has hurt the
Taliban but never abolished it altogether. Moreover, Taliban
detachments mount more and more resolute attacks on forces of the
counter-terrorism coalition and the government of Khamid Karzai.
Tribal strife continues as well. Instability has not been routed out,
nor weapons have been laid down. Trafficking via Central Asia to
Europe and America increases in scope. This is what worries the
governments of Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Russia, and Kyrgyzstan first
and foremost. Traffic means inevitable infiltration of the
territories of Central Asian countries by armed gangs.

Specialist’s opinion

The Fast Response Collective Forces is the Central Asian army group
of the Organization of the CIS Collective Security Treaty. It
comprises Kazbat paratroops battalion, battalion of Kyrgyz
mountaineers, Tajik paratroops battalion, Russian motorized infantry
battalion (of the 201st Motorized Infantry Division quartered in
Tajikistan), and communications units. Numerical strength approaches
1,500 men. Aviation of the Fast Response Collective Forces based in
Kant includes ten SU-25 and SU-27 aircraft, nine military transport
planes, four training planes, and two helicopters (all of them
Russian). Meeting of the Council of Defense Ministers in December
2003 found it necessary to up numerical strength of the Fast Response
Collective Forces 2.5 times this year. Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, and
Russia are expected to provide another battalion each, Tajikistan two
battalions.

The Caucasus group comprises units of the Russian and Armenian
armies. Russia is represented by the 102nd Military Base in Gyumri.
There is also a considerable antiaircraft group – a wing of eighteen
MIG-29 aircraft and a battery of complexes with radars.

The West group was first mentioned during President Vladimir Putin’s
visit to Belarus in May 2002. A group 3,000 men strong was mentioned
then. The Defense Ministry of Russia explained afterwards that the
group would comprise some units of the Moscow and Leningrad military
districts, Baltic Fleet, and the Belarusian army. Whenever necessary,
they would follow common operational plans. United headquarters were
established for the duration of command exercises on two occasions.

The Toronto Star
March 18, 2004 Thursday Ontario Edition

Very dramatic tale of overcoming

by Robert Crew, Toronto Star

Rogues Of Urfa a personal and ancestral battle Araxi Arslanian
triumphs over vascular ills

Araxi Arslanian and her family know all about survival.

Arslanian, 32, has successfully fended off a life-threatening,
neurological disorder known as AVM; her Armenian grandfather survived
the massacres in Turkey in the early part of the 20th century.

And exploring and learning from both these experiences is the purpose
of Arslanian’s new play, The Rogues Of Urfa, which opens at Artword
Theatre next Wednesday. It was when Arslanian was at Montreal’s
National Theatre School that the symptoms of her condition began to
affect her seriously.

AVM – Arteriovenous Malformations – is caused by the malformation of
blood vessels (arteries and veins) and can lead to seizures and
strokes

Arslanian was having difficulty speaking, talking and walking and
attempted to cover up her behaviour with “crazy stories.”

She was asked to leave and, “I have so successfully creeped out
everyone in my class that nobody wanted me there and I don’t blame
them.”

She was in the University of Alberta’s drama program when the grand
mal seizures began. Her doctors initially accused her of faking it,
but finally diagnosed AVM.

“The misshapen vein is so deep inside my head that they can’t do
anything about it. They would have to cut through a lot of healthy
brain tissue to get at it and that would mean paralysis at best,
death at worst.”

She was put on medication and was seizure-free for eight years. Then
she and her husband moved to Toronto. The medication suddenly became
ineffective and the seizures returned with a vengeance.

“My life to all intents and purposes was over. I couldn’t get an
agent, I couldn’t go to auditions. I was bedridden for two months and
housebound for another two. I had 11 grand mal seizures a day, on
average.

“I went through seven months of hell before the doctors at Toronto
Western found the right cocktail for me.”

She is 6 feet tall, weighs 200-plus pounds – “I am a big, big girl” –
and is a forceful and outspoken character. But she was deeply hurt
and torn with self-doubt by her experiences during the second show
she did after her return to acting.

The production of Our Country’s Good “was one of the most horrific
experiences of my professional life because, for whatever reason,
four or five people in the show decided that I was an outcast and
treated me horribly.

“They had decided that I was the most incredible loser in the world
and were spreading rumours about me. I was treated as a piece of
garbage every day by people that I respected and adored.”

But she was the one who got a Dora Award nomination for her work in
the show and that affirmation was a turning point. “This is when I
thought there is no way anything is going to stop me,” Arslanian
says.

It was also when she began wondering why she was able to survive when
others fell by the wayside. What was different about her? Was
survival in her genes?

It was then that she began to ask her father (who is Armenian) and
her mother (who is Irish) about family history.

She learned that her grandfather, a determined young soldier named
Hovannes, was one of a handful of Armenians from the city of Urfa to
survive the tumult during and after World War I.

Arslanian recounts details of the dramatic story of his escape in the
course of the play, along with her own story.

“Although I would not in a million years, wish such difficulties on
anyone, I wouldn’t trade my life experience, mostly because I feel
there isn’t anything I cannot do or handle,” she says.

“That’s a gift. I am extremely proud of who I am and what I have
overcome and where I come from. That’s the point of this piece.”

And she is eloquent about the blessings she has received.

“When all guarantees are removed and all the trappings of who you are
supposed to be are gone, that is when you become your truest and
purest self.

“I know who I am, not who I am supposed to be. Every tragedy is an
opportunity to know yourself and to know the majesty and miracle that
is life.”

She hopes The Rogues Of Urfa, an earlier version of which was
presented at SummerWorks last year, will attract a decent audience.

“It is always a challenge for a solo female performer to attract a
large audience unless you take off your top and are really stacked,
which I don’t intend to do, at least not in this show.”

“But it doesn’t matter to me at this point if the show sells out
every night. The people who see it are meant to see it.”

Her job as an artist is to create for the audience, she says, in
typically forthright fashion. “I am there for them, they are not
there for me.

“My greatest rage as an artist is expressed towards people who are
too busy waiting for what the audience can do for them: ‘How are you
going to make me feel good about myself by applauding me, what tricks
do I have that are going to make you applaud?’ I think there is a lot
of that in Toronto.” What: The Rogues Of Urfa by Araxi Aslanian

Where: Artword Theatre, 75 Portland St.

When: Previews March 23, opens March 24, runs until April 4

Tickets: $10 – $20 @ 416-504-7529

GRAPHIC: Araxi Arslanian’s new play opens at the Artword Theatre
Wednesday.

INTERNATIONAL WORKING GROUP DISBANDED

Azat Artsakh – Republic of Nagorno Karabakh (NKR)
15-03-2004

>From now on together with the state committee the Center of Civil
Undertakings will deal with the search for missing soldiers and
hostages, as well as work with their families in Karabakh. In the
current year the center organized computer courses for the children of
the missing soldiers and former hostages. The Karabakh
non-governmental organization Center of Civil Undertakings conducts
monitoring of prisons of the republic. According to the director of
the center Albert Voskanian, certain novelties were introduced in this
sphere of the republic. For example, according to the international
standards the wooden blinds of the windows of the dormitories of the
Department of Administration of Criminal Punishment (the former prison
of Shoushi) attached to the NKR Police were dismantled since February
1 of the current year. In autumn of 2003 the parliament of Karabakh
adopted the law about elimination of the capital punishment.
According to the DACP staff, at the beginning of the current year the
sentence of the last of the 15 convicts sentenced to capital
punishment was changed by 15 years imprisonment. According to
A. Voskanian, the Center of Civil Undertakings continues to support
the undertaking of passing the NKR prisons from the Police under the
authority of the Ministry of Justice.

NAIRA HAYRUMIAN.
15-03-2004

NEW DIRECTOR OF ICRC OFFICE

Azat Artsakh – Republic of Nagorno Karabakh (NKR)
15-03-2004

On March 11 NKR president Arkady Ghukassian met with the director of
the office of the Red Cross in Stepanakert Charlotte Hardford whose
term of duties in Nagorni Karabakh has completed. Ms. Hardford
introduced to the president the new director of the ICRC office in
Stepanakert Mireille Benard. She thankedthe government of the republic
for assistance to the humanitarian activities of the ICRC in
NKR. Speaking about the main directions of activity of the Karabakh
office of ICRC in 2003 Ms. Hardford told that the office will pursue
implementation of humanitarian programs in Nagorni Karabakh. In the
future they will deal with the problem of the missing soldiers, will
visit prisoners, find out their state of health, the conditions they
are kept in. Touching upon programs in the sphere of health care the
ICRC representative mentioned that the mission assists to the
reconstruction of 68 surgeries in different regions of Nagorni
Karabakh and helps to provide them with necessary equipment. According
to her, the ICRC mission also deals with providing them with
medication. In his turn, Arkady Ghukassian highly appreciated the
importance of the activitiesof the ICRC in Nagorni Karabakh, which was
the first among the international organizations to aid NKR. At the
same time the president emphasized the importance of further
activities of the ICRC mission in Nagorni Karabakh.

AA.
15-03-2004

A1+ web site in Russian
9 Mar 04

Armenian leader hopes Hungary to punish officer’s murderer

Armenian President Robert Kocharyan today received the new Hungarian
ambassador to Armenia, Ferenc Kontra (residency in Moscow).

On behalf of the Hungarian government, the ambassador expressed his
deep condolences on the killing of Armenian officer Gurgen Markaryan
in Hungary.

In turn, Robert Kocharyan expressed his confidence that the Hungarian
law-enforcement agencies would be consistent and the murderer would
be punished to the fullest extent of the law.

Hungary will become a member of the European Union next month.
Ambassador Kontra said that his country was ready to do everything
possible to facilitate the strengthening of ties between Armenia and
the European Union.

ITAR-TASS News Agency
TASS
March 9, 2004 Tuesday

Yerevan, Tbilisi to discuss cargo transit through Georgia

By Tigran Liloyan

YEREVAN

Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili will visit Armenia, to discuss
with its leadership arrangements for cargo transportation through
Georgia and terms of payment for it. Saakashvili will make a two-day
visit to Armenia on Friday, the press service of the Armenian
president told Itar-Tass on Tuesday.

Under conditions of the transport blockade of Armenia, Georgia is the
only state through which cargoes are delivered to Armenian towns,
including fuel and food from Russia.

Armenian President Robert Kocharyan praised the level of relations
with Georgia. “Good personal ties between the heads of state give
impulses for a better development of good neighborly relations,”
Kocharyan said.

The program of the visit envisions a one-on-one meeting between the
two presidents, Saakashvili’s talks with the parliament speaker and
Armenia’s prime minister, and his meeting with representatives of the
Georgian community in the republic.

The Georgian president will visit Echmiadzin, where he will be
received by Catholicos of all the Armenians Garegin II.