Author: Navasardian Karapet

PanArmenian News
March 11 2005

ATKINSON’S REPORT ON KARABAKH – VERY IMPORTANT DOCUMENT, BRITISH
EXPERT CONSIDERS

11.03.2005 04:12

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ “David Atkinson’s report on the situation over
Nagorno Karabakh is a very important document, which should be
thoroughly examined”, Secretary General of International Alert British
NGO Dan Smith stated in Stepanakert. In his words, the document
reflects numerous legal principles for settling the conflict. “The
report makes many questions clear, the rest should be dealt with
by the politicians and the way the they will use the report in the
negotiation process depends on them exclusively”, he noted.

PanArmenian News
March 11 2005

ARMENIAN GENOCIDE TO BE DISCUSSED IN TURKEY

11.03.2005 06:01

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ An international symposium, during which the “ideas
of the Armenian Genocide” will be discussed is to be held in Ankara
May 28-29. The event initiator is the Institute of the Armenian
Researches of the Center for Strategic and International Studies of
Eurasia. Well-known historians from different states will be invited
to the symposium entitled “1915-1916: Genocide, Right, Psychology
and History”. The participation of three Armenian scientists is as
well expected.

Karabakh accuse Azerbaijan of truce violations – Armenian report

Mediamax news agency
10 Mar 05

Yerevan, 10 March: The press service of the Defence Ministry of
the Nagornyy Karabakh Republic (NKR) reported today that on 9 March
the Azerbaijani units had used fire again in an attempt to get their
posts closer to the frontier of the NKR Defence Army near the Seysulan
settlement of the NKR’s Mardakert District.

A Mediamax correspondent reports from the NKR capital Stepanakert
[Xankandi] that the military of the NKR armed forces opened a
retaliatory fire. As a result of the skirmish, both sides suffered
losses.

The NKR Defence Ministry’s press service alarmed that “despite Nagornyy
Karabakh’s frequent calls, the Azerbaijani military leadership does
not stop provocations which may seriously hurt the situation, both
on the contact line and in the whole region”.

The statement reads that the NKR authorities informed relevant
international organizations about destructive actions of Azerbaijan
and the developments on the demarcation line.

Mediamax recalls that on 7 March on the same part of the contact line
an Azerbaijani intelligence and sabotage group made an attempt to get
into the rear of the NKR Defence Army. However, the NKR military took
necessary measures to neutralize it.

AzerTag, Azerbaijan
March 7 2005

USA ATTACHES GREAT IMPORTANCE TO RELATIONS WITH AZERBAIJAN
[March 07, 2005, 22:25:21]

The idea was stated at the meeting of the defense minister of
Azerbaijan, colonel-general Safar Abiyev with ambassador of the
United States to Azerbaijan Reno Harnish and a group of tutors of
the US Air Forces College.

The Minister, greeting the guests, stressed importance of such
meetings. Speaking of the independence history of Azerbaijan, he
said: ~SAzerbaijan from the first days of its sovereignty has chosen
integration to the European safety structures. Today, Azerbaijan
considers the United States its partner and cooperates with NATO in
the PfP program. In 2004, President of the Azerbaijan Republic Ilham
Aliyev has presented Individual Partnership Plan of Activities to
the NATO Secretary General. Currently, we are working on this Plan
and will fulfill all its items. Our goal is to maximum come close
to the NATO. Azerbaijan attaches special importance to the relations
with the United States~T.

Then, Mr. Abiyev updated the guests on the existing socio-political
situation in the South Caucasus region, the history of the
Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict and sequences: ~SDespite we have reached
ceasefire in 1994, there is no advance in settlement of the conflict.
The Azerbaijan side hopes for much from the OSCE Minsk Group in the
settlement of problem. Recently, the Council of Europe Parliamentary
Assembly has adopted a resolution whereby it called the forces in
Nagorno Karabakh ~Sseparatist forces~T. However, Armenia ignores
the UN four Resolutions on unconditional release of the occupied
Azerbaijan lands.

We once again state that the people of Azerbaijan will never reconcile
with the fact of occupation of its lands~S.

Reno Harnish expressed gratitude to Mr. Safar Abiyev for warm reception
and provided information, emphasizing that the United States attaches
special importance to cooperation links with Azerbaijan and considers
Azerbaijan its strategic partner.

LRAPER BULLETIN
Armenian Patriarchate
34130 Kumkapi, Istanbul
T: +90 212 517 0970
F: +90 212 516 4833
[email protected]
[email protected]
Contact: Revd. Fr. Drtad Uzunyan

Regarding ADL Party Statement

The Statement of the Central Committee of the ADL Party, first published in
its original Armenian in its press organs on February 26, 2005, and the
English translation then published as an editorial of the Armenian
Mirror-Spectator, has been reviewed. The writings of the Central Committee’
s President, Mr. Edmond Edward Azadian, always in the same ungracious style,
have been appearing in the party press since 1999. This Statement, rife
with baseless accusations, is self-evident proof of this clique’s moral
standards and ideological bankruptcy and is unworthy of being dignified with
a response. With regard to the AGBU and all the ADL members thereby
involved, in the name and memory of the magnanimous benefactor Garabed
Melkonian and on behalf of Patriarch Zaven of blessed memory and the
supporters of the Melkonian Educational Institute around the world, we say,
`give an account of thy stewardship.’ (Luke 16:2).

Divan of the Armenian Patriarchate
Istanbul, March 5, 2005

ITAR-TASS News Agency
TASS
March 4, 2005 Friday

Azerbaijan’s president pins great hopes on coop with Georgia

By Sevindzh Abdullayeva, Viktor Shulman

BAKU

Azerbaijan’s President Ilkham Aliyev believes that the potential of
economic cooperation with Georgia must be used to the maximum extent
possible. He made a statement to this effect at a meeting with
Georgian Prime Minister Zurab Nogaideli, who has arrived in Baku on a
working visit.

About the condition of Azerbaijani-Georgian relations Aliyev said
“mutual understanding, cooperation and mutual support between the two
countries is at the highest level.”

Aliyev said this was a very important factor to both Azerbaijan and
Georgia, whose well-being was tightly inter-connected.

The Georgian prime minister said he would exert every effort to make
bilateral relations more dynamic. As he talked to journalists,
Nogaideli mentioned such major themes of negotiations in Baku as
preparations for the meeting of the bilateral inter-government
commission for economic cooperation, to be held in Tbilisi in April,
and cooperation in the customs, transport and financial spheres.

According to some sources, Nogaidelli discussed the rescheduling of
Georgia’s debt to Azerbaijan on the earlier extended loans, and the
situation on the border, where about 500 railway carriages with
transit cargoes are waiting for customs clearance.

Azerbaijan since 2004 has thoroughly checked all transit cargoes
bound for Georgia in order to prevent their eventual delivery to
Armenia, with which Baku has no economic ties due to the continuing
dispute over Nagorno-Karabakh.

Azerbaijan’s First Deputy Prime Minister Abbas Abbasov has told the
media Georgia has expressed the readiness to provide guarantees
including those in writing the transit cargoes from Azerbaijan would
not be taken to Armenia.

Journal of Turkish Weekly, Turkey
March 3 2005

“We’ll be pleased to see Turkey in EU”

French Ambassador in Ankara Paul Poudade said, ”we will be pleased
to see Turkey in EU”.

Poudade visited Bursa Metropolitan Mayor Hikmet Sahin on Thursday.

”We are pleased that Turkey got a date for EU entry talks. It will
be a long path but I believe everything will be good,” said Poudade.

Replying questions of reporters, Poudade said, ”EU entry talks with
Turkey will start on October 3rd. This will be a long negotiation
process for Turkey’s adjustment to the EU. We should wait for the
talks to start. We will be pleased to see Turkey in EU. The result is
up to Turkey.”

Poudade later visited Bursa Governor Oguz Kagan Koksal.

When Koksal asked for the support of France to Turkey for its EU
membership bid, Poudade said, ”the French President clearly
expressed his support to Turkey’s negotiation process.”

There is a strong anti-Turkish lobbying in France. The rightist and
anti-Muslim groups with Armenian lobbies make efforts to prevent
Turkey’s membership. The rightiest political groups claim that there
is no place in Europe to a Muslim state.

(AA and Hurriyet, JTW)

Armenian party intends to pass bill condemning “genocide” in Azerbaijan

Arminfo
1 Mar 05

YEREVAN

The faction of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation – Dashnaktsutyun
[ARFD] intends to put up for debate by the National Assembly a draft
law condemning the genocide of Armenians in the Azerbaijani town of
Sumqayit in 1988, the head of the ARFD faction, Levon Lazarian, told
the National Assembly today.

The adoption of such a law is topical against the backdrop of
Azerbaijan’s intensifying propaganda, which is trying to divert the
international community’s attention from the Armenian genocide in
Ottoman Turkey in the early 20th century and in Azerbaijan in the late
20th century to “the alleged genocide of Azerbaijanis in Xocali”, he
said. This policy of Azerbaijan is mainly dictated by Turkey,
Lazarian noted.

The adoption of this law will familiarize the international community
with the real essence of the developments in 1988-90, he stressed.

Lazarian recalled that the massacre of Armenians, which started in
Sumqayit, continued in Shaumyan [Azerbaijan’s Goranboy District] and
Getashen [Caykand in Azerbaijan’s Xanlar District]. It is precisely
Azerbaijan’s policy with regard to the Armenians living there that
prompted the population of Nagornyy Karabakh to stand up for their
motherland and start a national liberation st ruggle.

In turn, a representative of the Republican Party, Gagik Melikyan,
called on the international community to denounce the Armenian
genocide in Ottoman Turkey and in the Azerbaijani town of Sumqayit in
order to prevent similar crimes against humanity in the future. The
fact that the organizers of the Armenian genocide in Ottoman Turkey in
the early 20th century were not punished served as a prerequisite for
committing similar crimes against other nations in the 20th century,
the Armenian genocide in Sumqayit and the murder of a sleeping
Armenian officer by an Azerbaijani serviceman in Budapest.

The deputy chairman of the Orinats Yerkir [Law-Governed Country] Party
and head of the commission on defence, national security and interior
issues, Mger Shakhgeldyan, and a member of the opposition Justice
bloc, Grant Khachatryan, made statements condemning the Armenian
genocide in Sumqayit.

Armenian MPs staged a march to the Tsitsernakabert memorial to the
victims of the Armenian genocide on the anniversary of the Sumqayit
massacre.

MONUMENT TO ADMIRAL ISAKOV TO BE ERECTED IN YEREVAN

YEREVAN, MARCH 2. ARMINFO. Secretary of the National Security Council
at Armenia’s President, Defence Minister Serje Sargsyan met today with
the Chairman of CIS Executive Committee, Executive Secretary Vladimir
Rushaylo.

Minister’s press-secretary, colonel Seyran Shakhsuvaryan informed
ARMINFO that a number of issues concerning the cooperation of CIS
countries and their Defence Ministries, as well as the joint Air-Raid
system were discussed during the meeting. The parties also discussed a
program of actions within the framework of celebrating the 60th
anniversary of Victory in the Great Patriotic war. Sargsyan presented
in details the festive program and stressed that a monument to admiral
Isakov will be opened on Isakov avenue on May 9. Monuments to marshals
Babadjanyan and Khudyakov will be erected within the nearest three
years, too.

Opposition leader urges Armenia not to take US envoy’s remark at face value

Arminfo
2 Mar 05

YEREVAN

The statement by the US ambassador to Armenia, John Evans, that
Nagornyy Karabakh cannot be given back to Azerbaijan and that the
massacre of Armenians in Ottoman Turkey in the early 20th century can
be classified as genocide could have been made intentionally in order
to please the 1m-strong Armenian community of the USA and perhaps even
Armenia itself, the leader of the Democratic Party of Armenia, Aram
Sarkisyan, told Arminfo today.

He said the 1m-strong Armenian community of the USA is actively
involved in the country’s public and political life and of course it
is in the interests of the US administration to have its support. He
added that it would be wrong to take the ambassador’s statements at
face value or hope that the US policy to Armenia has changed.

Aram Sarkisyan said the ambassador’s statement only reflected his own
opinion, while Washington’s opinion has repeatedly been voiced by the
US State Department which recognizes Azerbaijan’s territorial
integrity and refuses to see the developments of the early last
century in Ottoman Turkey as genocide.

“It is wrong to think on the basis of the ambassador’s statement that
the US position towards its strategic partner, Turkey, has changed,”
the DPA leader said.