Author: Tadevosian Garnik

Exodus Is New Chapter of Loss in Armenia’s Sad Story
By Susan B. Glasser
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, July 12, 2004; Page A01

His best friend, a professor, gave up his $70-a-month salary recently to
move to Vancouver. He’s now working in a furniture plant, but at least,
reports Tovmasyan, who got an e-mail update from him last week, “he will get
more money than his wife for the first time in his life.”

“It’s the good part of the population that’s gone, the economically active
part,” Pogosyan said. “They are the ones who are supposed to create a middle
class here. Instead, where is this middle class? It’s in Europe and Russia.”

And still it continues. Several times a day, travel agent Diana Asatryan
said, she gets customers with telltale questions: What happens if you
overstay a visa abroad? Can I buy a one-way ticket? “The ones who are
leaving, they always reveal themselves,” she said. Black-market prices for
European visas are well-known in the business, she said — a reported $8,000
to $10,000 for a visa to enter any of the 15 European countries known as the
Schengen zone. Favorite destinations are France — “if you have a baby
there, you get residency,” she noted — and the United States, “if you’re a
young person.”

No one knows just how few Armenians remain. A long-delayed official
census — the first since the Soviet collapse — was conducted in 2001 and
just released in full this year; it found an official population of 3.2
million. Independent experts, opposition politicians and many ordinary
Armenians find that figure impossible to believe. “By the numbers, nothing
changed,” said Asatryan. “But even in my own family, 10 people left.
Officially they are still here, they are still registered. But they are not
here!”

Several experts said the country’s population today likely is at between 2
million and 2.5 million.

The disputed figures have become a subject of urgent political debate.
Opposition leaders, who united to protest vote fraud in last year’s presiden
tial election, claim the census was deliberately inflated to provide more
voters for President Robert Kocharian’s reelection.

More broadly, they say the constant loss of Armenians represents a
widespread skepticism about the country’s prospects. “Armenia is
disappearing, broken into pieces,” said Artashes Geghamian, head of the
opposition National Unity Party. “The authorities took away the feeling of
having a future from the people.”

In an interview, Kocharian said there is not “a serious person in Armenia”
who would dispute the accuracy of the census, and he said that “migration
out of Armenia has stopped” as a result of strong economic growth on his
watch that pushed the gross domestic product up by 13.7 percent last year.

U.S. Ambassador John Ordway endorsed the official head count, pointing to
U.S. technical assistance. “We are very confident there was no artificial
manipulation of the census figures,” Ordway said. “It’s not as if the last
person is about to slam the door and turn the lights off,” he said.

But the head of the government agency created in 2000 to deal with the
migration crisis is less sanguine. “To say that the wave of migration has
stopped would be wrong,” said Gagik Yeganyan. Armenian society, he said, is
permanently marked by the “very negative demographic and social
consequences” of its lost population — even if there are tentative signs of
improvement. Births, for example, are down from about 90,000 a year in the
early 1990s to around 35,000 today.

Most migrants were reluctant to leave and might be persuaded to come home if
conditions in Armenia improved, Yeganyan said.

“We have a national idea — ‘One country, one nation, one culture, one
religion.’ It means that Armenia is considered the motherland for all
Armenians living around the world, even though only 30 percent of Armenians
live on the territory of the motherland,” he said. “Armenians who leave
always think they are not leaving forever.”

Yeganyan acknowledged the government has yet to produce a comprehensive
strategy for luring them back and providing opportunities once they are
here. A study from 1998, he said, offered a cautionary tale: Out of 1,500
Armenians deported from Germany that year, 92 percent returned to Germany
within a year.

To entice some Armenians back, at least those at the upper end of the income
scale, manicured lawns and immaculate California-style suburban houses are
taking shape on the outskirts of Yerevan in what is billed as the first
American-inspired gated community in the South Caucasus. “Come home to
Armenia,” reads the sign outside the guardhouse at the Vahakni Homes and
Timeshare Resort.

The brainchild of a building magnate based in New Jersey, it was originally
pitched to successful expatriate Armenians ready to rebuild the country.
Company owner Vahak Hovnanian “firmly believes the future growth of an
independent Armenia lies in the diaspora actively coming back, not just
sending money,” said Arthur Havighorst, the firm’s vice president.

But of about 32 houses built or in mid-construction, at prices starting at
$190,000, 65 percent have been bought by local Armenians. The remainder,
executive director Karekin Odabashian said, are being sold to people who
left in recent years to make money in Moscow and elsewhere in East European
countries and now want a place in the old country. Not a single resident has
come from the United States.

Havighorst said the company has modified its pitch. In addition to
ownership, it is offering overseas Armenians time shares at the rate of
$6,000 for 20 years’ worth of one-week vacations in the motherland. “We’re
very optimistic,” he said. In a week in late June, he said, the firm found
two takers for that deal — “both in California.”

Azeri general reportedly becomes police chief

Yeni Musavat, Baku
7 Jul 04

The Interior Ministry’s special commission has finished an
investigation into the incident which occurred during the Armenian
officers’ visit to Baku [for a NATO planning conference]. The chief of
the Nasimi district [of Baku] police department, Bagir Bagirov, has
been dismissed and several police officials given a severe reprimand
for a failure to ensure the security of the NATO-organized conference
participants.

Let us recall that members of the Karabakh Liberation Organization
picketed Hotel Europe, the venue of the conference, on 22 June.

[Passage omitted: Bagirov becomes deputy head of the Interior Ministry
main public security department]

PS: According to information received at a later hour, [chief of the
Interior Ministry department to combat organized crime] Vilayat
Eyvazov, who has recently been promoted to general, was appointed the
chief of the Nasimi district police department. You will read our
comments on this appointment in the context of relations within the
power-wielding circles in tomorrow’s issue.

Azeri MP defends prominent writer’s stance on Karabakh

Ekho, Baku
26 Jun 04

An Azerbaijani pro-government MP has defended writer Rustam
Ibrahimbayov’s stance on the Nagornyy Karabakh problem. In his open
letter to the writer in the Azerbaijani newspaper Ekho, Anar
Mammadxanov blamed “false patriots”, who have criticized
Ibrahimbayov’s recent interview on Karabakh with the foreign media, of
uncivilized methods of struggle and accused them of abysmal ignorance
and treason. The following is the text of MP Anar Mammadxanov’s report
by Azerbaijani newspaper Ekho on 26 June headlined “A letter to Rustam
Ibrahimbayov”:

Falling out with “false patriots”

So finally they have set about you too, Rustam Ibrahimbayov! You too
are blamed for all the troubles of our nation. You too have fallen out
of favour with our false patriots. You too, just like Anar, Aziza
Mustafazada and many other representatives of the Azerbaijani cultural
elite not so long ago, became a subject of, to be polite, accusations
or even attacks, and of, excuse me for the expression, persecution, if
we speak otherwise.

Rustam Ibragimovich, let us remember what we everybody said in 1988:
“Who are the Armenians? One warning shot in the air is enough for them
to run away.”

Did they run away?

You, for example, said that the Armenians are talented. And I am
certain that you said this after thoroughly thinking it all
through. Because if the Armenians are talentless and obtuse, then who
are we, who have lost to them, albeit temporarily?

I understand you very well when you try to make our flag-wavers
understand that an information war has its rules as well and that
everyone plays his or her role in it. And every role depends on who
plays it to boot.

For example, everyone knows well that, when a criminal is
interrogated, the method of “good” and “bad” investigator is used. It
is obvious even from the point of view of the foundations of
psychology: the interrogated person rejects the “bad” one for his
anger and aggression and leans towards the “good” one for his kindness
and understanding and, as a result, is willing to make a full
confession to him in order to spite the “bad” one. And it will not
occur to anyone to accuse the “good” investigator of being too lenient
with the criminal because everyone understands that this is part of
the game.

A game to score into our own goal

But how should you explain this to your own compatriots, who regard
the Karabakh problem as a game to score into our own goal, rather than
the opponent’s?

No-one even wants to read your interview carefully. Meanwhile, there
is a very interesting phrase in it: “And even if the Armenian side
manages to prove that historically, politically and so on these lands
should be separated from Azerbaijan, dealing with this problem in the
20th and 21st centuries by using a method of armed annexation is, in
my opinion, a crime against the entire humanity.”

In other words, you effectively accused the Armenians of a crime
against humanity, but no-one wants to take note of this in our
country! As for the Armenians, they, as experienced soldiers of the
information front, noticed your statement, understood it and published
an angry rebuff in the 27 May 2004 issue of the official presidential
newspaper Voice of Armenia, in which they, in passing, also alleged
that, in fact, it was not you who wrote the script of the movie “The
White Sun of the Desert”!

In other part of the interview, you, as a master of eloquence, used
another method, which is described in manuals for waging information
wars – “to cause confusion in the enemy camp by all means”. The
opinion that you expressed, that the Armenians used to live well in
Baku and might now live even better, will certainly not be refuted
and, just as certainly, will evoke not the best feelings and
reminiscences in the souls of the Armenians from Baku, and from
Azerbaijan in general, towards their countrymen who incited the
Karabakh conflict.

Culture and urbanity

But how should this be explained to our side, Rustam Ibragimovich?

You are being accused of saying that the city is in the hands of
people who come from villages. I cannot understand: are you being
accused of saying this or of distorting something? Frankly speaking, I
personally cannot see anything wrong in the fact that the city is in
the hands of people from villages. Quite on the contrary, the
villagers, who are closer to the country, are more prone to
development than the elite and refined stratum of the city (read
Bakuvian) subculture, which has been and is stewing in its own juice,
and during the beginning of the period of both the Karabakh conflict
and national liberation movement, isolated itself from everything and,
first and foremost, from the people, having failed to have their
say. Besides, the country people, who are the main bearers of national
culture, very quickly accustomed themselves to the amenities of the
city life. And culture and urbanity is much better than just urbanity.

I do not understand, therefore, why these words caused this
reaction. And why the collocation “villagers” is an insult.

I encountered an interesting phrase recently: tigers respect lions,
elephants and hippopotami, whereas cockroaches do not respect
anyone. The same here, you deal with the people who can insult, brand,
accuse someone of treason and so on and get away with it. On the one
hand, it is unbecoming to respond to these, but if you do not, they
become even cheekier.

Abysmal ignorance and treason

In addition, it is impossible to explain to them that a writer of
world renown cannot yell “Death to the Armenians!” even if he wants
to, for if he does, he will be ostracized no matter what. If someone
wants Rustam Ibrahimbayov to be ostracized, then no-one should curse
their fate when some Armenian replaces Ibrahimbayov.

I remember how movie actor Armen Dzhigarkhanyan openly and squarely
said in the “Kinoserpantin” TV show in 1992 that the Armenians of
Nagornyy Karabakh lived very well and that they have to blame
themselves for everything that happened. Do you think that it occurred
to any Armenian journalist to call him a traitor? Right, it did not!
Because it does not matter to them what Dzhigarkhanyan says, what is
important for them is the fact that they simply have Dzhigarkhanyan
whom they can be proud of and whose greatness as an Armenian they can
show off. And the same French singer of Armenian origin Charles
Aznavour has also never said anything negative about us. He simply
works and is being useful. He works and is being useful.

What is better – the Azerbaijani team which beats Yerevan at KVN TV
game , or “Guys from Baku” name of the Azerbaijani KVN team who appear
on the stage to physically bash the Armenian KVN players? What is
better – Teymur Racabov, who beats Garri Kasparov at chess, or Teymur
Racabov who gives the best chess player in the world a slap in the
face before the game? And finally, what is better – Rustam
Ibrahimbayov who is known and read all over the world, or Rustam
Ibrahimbayov who is a rabid chauvinist?

To accuse of treason the only Azeri who was awarded an Oscar, the only
Azeri who is a member of the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts
and Sciences and one of the Azeris who are known and respected around
the world is a sign of abysmal ignorance at the very least, and in
other words, it is an instance of treason.

Armenian leader says domestic crisis is over

Arminfo
30 Jun 04

YEREVAN

The question of the aggravation of the political situation in Armenia
can be regarded as closed, Armenian President Robert Kocharyan told
reporters in Vanadzor today, commenting on the estimates of some
opposition leaders about his speech at the session of the
Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe [PACE].

[Passage omitted: reported details of Kocharyan’s PACE speech]

PRESS RELEASE
Eastern Prelacy of the Armenian Apostolic Church of America
138 East 39th Street
New York, NY 10016
Tel: 212-689-7810
Fax: 212-689-7168
e-mail: [email protected]
Website:
Contact: Iris Papazian

June 30, 2004

2004 PRELACY RAFFLE DRAWING
TAKES PLACE DURING ANNUAL ASSEMBLY

NEW YORK, NY-The annual raffle campaign by the Eastern Prelacy of the
Armenian Apostolic Church of America, came to a conclusion during the
closing banquet of the National Representative Assembly in Philadelphia,
with the drawing of the winning tickets.
The annual raffle, which is a major fundraiser for the Prelacy, helps to
sustain the many religious and educational programs organized by the
Prelacy. For the fifth consecutive year the raffle has been spearheaded by
Antranig Boudakian who during his tenure has increased the sales of the
tickets manifold. For his part, Mr. Boudakian is quick to credit the many
loyal supporters who purchase tickets each year. “I want to thank everyone
for helping me make this effort very successful,” Mr. Boudakian said.
The winners this year are as follows: First prize ($5,000), Nerme &
Albert Sarkissian of Melrose Park, Pennsylvania; Second prize ($3,000),
Zaven Sarkissian, Toronto, Canada; Third prize ($2,000), Amalia
Deravedisian, Springfield, Pennsylvania; Fourth and Fifth prizes ($1,000
each), Bedros Givelekian, Flushing, New York and Dr. V. Khachadourian,
Franklin Square, New York.
The funds raised through the raffle are allocated to the Prelacy’s
various religious and language education programs. “Our programs are
sustained by the money raised by the raffle. We are also able to expand our
programs because of the extraordinary success of the raffle for the past
several years. We are very grateful to Antranig Boudakian for his
exceptional efforts,” said Archbishop Oshagan, the Prelate.

Transitions Online, Czech Republic
June 24 2004

A Dictator in the Making

YEREVAN, Armenia – Handcuffed and defenseless, Grisha Virabian endured
hours of merciless blows to his crotch and sides. Only after a night
of agonizing pain was he reluctantly allowed to undergo surgery. As a
result of his torture, one of his testicles had to be removed. But
the person who may find himself in jail is Virabian, not one of his
sadistic interrogators. The charge: that he put up resistance.

Virabian’s cardinal sin, though, was to lead a group of a hundred
people from Artashat, a town 30 kilometers south of Yerevan, on a
march to the Armenian capital on 9 April. There, they joined up with
the country’s main opposition groups, which had begun a campaign of
street protests aimed at toppling President Robert Kocharian, a man
controversially reelected last year. Police officers visited his home
on an almost daily basis until he stopped hiding and showed up for
interrogation on 23 April. Virabian, 44, says he was first assaulted
by Hovannes Movsisian, head of the criminal investigations division
at the Artashat police, and hit the latter in the face in
self-defense with a mobile phone recharging device lying on a table.
This is what apparently made the officers go berserk.

Yet if one is to believe the Armenian authorities, Virabian himself
is the culprit because he attacked a `state official performing his
duties.’ Criminal charges, carrying up to three years’ imprisonment,
have already been brought by prosecutors in Yerevan. Virabian has
been cross-examined face to face with a dozen Artashat police
officers, all of them testifying that he went on a rampage at their
headquarters. `They avoided looking me in the eyes,’ says this
soft-spoken father of two.

`ON THE PATH TO DICTATORSHIP’

The case against Virabian has become a potent symbol of unprecedented
repression unleashed by Kocharian in response to the opposition drive
for regime change, repression that is turning Armenia into a vicious
police state where human rights are worth nothing when they threaten
the ruling regime’s grip on power. Hundreds of people around the
country have been rounded up, detained, mistreated, and imprisoned
over the past three months in blatant violation of the law. About two
dozen opposition activists have faced prosecution on trumped-up
criminal charges.

The crackdown demonstrates that an independent judiciary is as
nonexistent in contemporary Armenia as it was in the Soviet era. It
also shows that Armenia’s corrupt law enforcement bodies are growing
even more brutal in their treatment of ordinary citizens. In an
ominous sign for the country’s democratic future, they have been
given a new KGB-style function of keeping track of and suppressing
opposition activity. This is especially true of the areas outside
Yerevan, where just about everyone challenging the regime is on the
police watch list.

`Armenia has taken a big step backward in the past three months in
terms of human rights protection,’ says Vartan Harutiunian, a
prominent human rights campaigner who himself spent eight years in
Soviet labor camps as a political prisoner. `We are now firmly on a
path leading to dictatorship.’

The most common (and benign) form of political persecution has been
`administrative’ imprisonments for up to 15 days for participants in
opposition demonstrations. Hundreds are believed to have faced such
punishment under the Soviet-era Code of Administrative Offenses for
allegedly `disrupting order’ or defying police. In reality, they were
simply randomly detained by plainclothes police officers after
virtually every opposition rally this spring and were promptly
sentenced in closed overnight trials without being granted access to
lawyers. Judges hearing such cases usually act like notaries,
rubber-stamping police fabrications. The purpose of the
administrative arrests seems obvious: to discourage as many Armenians
from attending anti-Kocharian protests as possible.

The practice, equally widespread during last year’s disputed
presidential election, has been strongly and repeatedly condemned by
domestic and international human rights groups. The Parliamentary
Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) again called for its
immediate end in a resolution on the political crisis in Armenia
adopted on 28 April.

The arrests pale in comparison with other human rights abuses. As the
campaign for Kocharian’s ouster gained momentum in late March scores
of opposition activists in various parts of the country were rounded
up for what the police described as `prophylactic conversations.’ The
oppositionists said they were bullied and warned against
participating in the upcoming rallies in Yerevan.

The first major show of government force came at an opposition rally
in Armenia’s second-largest city of Gyumri on 28 March. Authorities
there refused to sanction the protest, saying that they could not
guarantee its security because the local police were too busy solving
a serious crime. The rally went ahead but was nearly disrupted by
several men who threw eggs at organizers. They, as it turned out,
were police officers. Some opposition activists hardly knew this when
they clashed with the men and were arrested on the spot by dozens of
other plainclothes police. Four of the activists were eventually
sentenced to between nine and 15 months in prison for `hooliganism.’

Tension rose further when the opposition, buoyed by the success of
the November `rose revolution’ in neighboring Georgia, took its
campaign to Yerevan. The authorities effectively disrupted transport
between the capital and the rest of the country in a bid to reduce
attendance at the opposition rallies.

The confrontation culminated in a march on 12 April by thousands of
opposition supporters in the direction of Kocharian’s official
residence in the city center. Baton-wielding riot police stopped the
crowd from approaching the presidential palace and brutally dispersed
it in the early hours of 13 April, using water cannons, stun
grenades, and, according to some eyewitness accounts, electric-shock
equipment. The security forces left no escape routes for the fleeing
protesters, relentlessly beating and arresting scores of them.

This was immediately followed by the police ransacking and the
closure of the offices of the three largest opposition parties. Among
those arrested were more than a dozen women working for the most
radical opposition party, Hanrapetutiun (Republic). Some of them
later gave harrowing accounts of mistreatment and humiliation at the
hands of the police chief in Yerevan’s Erebuni district, Nver
Hovannisian. One young woman told a Human Rights Watch researcher,
`He came in and said, `Ah, it was you who was at the protest.’ I said
`No, it wasn’t me.’ He began to beat me with his fists and knees to
my stomach. I fell and he kicked me on my back. He said, `Now all our
men will come in and rape you.’ ‘

The crackdown also saw the worst-ever violence against Armenian
journalists. Four were severely beaten by the police while covering
how police broke up the 12-13 April demonstration. According to Hayk
Gevorgian of the Haykakan Zhamanak daily, the deputy chief of the
national police service, General Hovannes Varian, personally
confiscated his camera and then ordered subordinates to attack him.
Gevorgian had already lost a camera a week before that when he and
other photographers and cameramen pictured a group of burly men
attempting to disrupt another opposition rally in Yerevan. Almost all
of them had their cameras smashed by the thugs, who reportedly work
as `bodyguards’ for some government-connected tycoons. Police
officers led by Varian stood by and watched, refusing to intervene.

The authorities made an awkward attempt to dispel the widespread
belief that they orchestrated the ugly scene by having a Yerevan
court fine two of the thugs $180 each on 10 June. It was a travesty
of justice, with about 30 well-built men packing the courtroom and
refusing to let anyone in. They gave in only after a plea (not an
order) from the court chairman. `We were twice humiliated, first in
the street and then in the court,’ said Anna Israelian, a veteran
correspondent for the Aravot daily who was attacked by the one of the
defendants.

THE COUNCIL OF THE BLIND

Strangely enough, international reaction to the events in Armenia has
been rather muted. Only Human Rights Watch has made an explicit
condemnation of the `cycle of repression’ in a detailed report on 4
May. The PACE resolution also criticized the crackdown, threatening
Yerevan with political sanctions. However, the Strasbourg-based
assembly’s official in charge of assessing Armenia’s compliance with
the resolution, Jerzy Jaskiernia, is notorious for his leniency
toward Kocharian’s regime. The Polish parliamentarian’s fact-finding
trip to Yerevan on 11-14 June was marred by a scandal over the recent
publication of the Armenian version of his book about the PACE, which
was sponsored by the Kocharian-controlled parliament. Opposition
leaders have accused Jaskiernia of taking a `bribe.’

Seeking to placate the Council of Europe, the authorities have
already released all prominent members of the opposition arrested in
April. But they are showing no clemency for the jailed rank-and-file
oppositionists. It remains to be seen whether the PACE will care
about the likes of Edgar Arakelian, a 24-year-old man jailed who got
an 18-month jail term for hurling a plastic bottle at a police
officer on 13 April, or Lavrenti Kirakosian who, on 22 June, was sent
to prison for 18 months for allegedly keeping 59 grams of marijuana
at home.

For Grisha Virabian, meanwhile, Europe is the only place where he can
bring his tormentors to justice. His government has refused to
prosecute them, and he plans to file a lawsuit with the European
Court of Human Rights. `The Armenian government won’t punish any of
those individuals,’ he says, `because the whole system created by
them would crumble as a result.’

The Gazette (Montreal, Quebec)
June 23, 2004 Wednesday Final Edition

>From Bangladesh to Tory candidate: ‘They’re very pleased that one of
their Muslim brothers is running to be an MP’

by JEFF HEINRICH

Mustaque Sarker ran as an independent in the last federal election,
and lost.

Now he’s running for the Conservatives and thinks he can win.

One reason: the ethnic vote, and specifically, the Muslim vote.

“They’re very pleased that one of their Muslim brothers is running to
be an MP,” said Sarker, an accountant from Bangladesh.

“I have had lots of calls supporting me,” he said as he set up his
Papineau riding headquarters this month.

But he’s only willing to play the Muslim card so far.

“I am a Muslim, yes, but I am first a loving, caring human being. And
in this riding, I must represent all ethnic communities.”

The ecumenical approach is the standard line among the federal
political parties these days.

“We don’t ghettoize anybody – every vote counts,” said Marie-Claude
Lavigne, spokesperson for the federal Liberals in Quebec, who have
traditionally counted on immigrants’ votes.

But the Liberals are in a tight race, and immigrant votes are not
necessarily a sure thing.

The Bloc Quebecois, for example, is trying to eat away at Liberal
support by going after mostly north African, francophone Arab voters
who are sympathetic to Quebec nationalism, oppose the war on Iraq and
complain of discriminatory hiring practices, said Francois Rebello,
33, a Bloc candidate in Outremont.

His generation has been more exposed to Muslims and Arabs than other
Quebecers and can better understand their differences, said Rebello,
whose father is a Christian from India and whose mother is
Quebecoise.

“It’s easier to break through into their milieus and segment them out
– Moroccans, Algerian Arabs, Algerian Berbers,” he said.

Sarker’s north-end riding, Papineau, is home to more than a dozen
ethnic communities. It also has the seventh-highest concentration of
Muslims in Canada – 9,630, or 9.3 per cent of the riding’s total
population.

The riding is now held by federal health minister Pierre Pettigrew, a
Liberal who got an “F” on a pre-election “report card” issued in
April by the Canadian Islamic Congress.

Sarker came to Canada 22 years ago. He lives in Cote St. Luc and runs
his business in Park Extension. On one typical campaign day this
month, he stumped to fellow Muslims at the Islamic Turkish Community
Centre on Villeray St. in the afternoon, then moved on to a Hindu
centre in Mile End for an evening speech.

Local Turks back him because of what he isn’t: an MP who voted for a
resolution in April in the House of Commons that denounced the
Ottoman Empire for committing genocide against Armenians in 1915.

That resolution – backed by Liberal backbenchers, some Tories, and
the NDP and the Bloc Quebecois – angered many in Canada’s Turkish
communities who deny the genocide.

In Montreal, local Turkish leader Yilmaz Ekinci said in this election
his community has been told to vote Conservative. It helps that
Sarker is already a known quantity, too – he’s Ekinci’s accountant.

“I don’t care what he is, Muslim or not Muslim,” said Ekinci, who
runs a wholesale meat business.

“He just has to be a good guy. We like people to be honest.”

Armenian president points out areas of CSTO, NATO cooperation – Kazakh TV

Kazakh Television first channel
18 Jun 04

[Presenter] Military-political cooperation between Eurasian countries
was discussed in Astana today.

At the session of the CSTO [Collective Security Treaty Organization;
members are Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and
Russia] member states, the presidents of the organization had talks
in private.

[Passage omitted: The CSTO secretary-general, Nikolay Bordyuzha,
took part in the private talks of the presidents; the CSTO countries
signed cooperation documents]

A document was also signed today on the key areas of cooperation
between the CSTO and NATO.

[Armenian President Robert Kocharyan, addressing a news conference]
The organization reacts to this calmly and positively assesses the
possibility for cooperation between the states and NATO, as well as
in the NATO-CSTO format. The document also indicates the areas of
cooperation. These are regional, international security; the fight
against terrorism; that is the drugs threat; proliferation of weapons
of mass destruction and missile technologies.

The Washington Times
June 17, 2004, Thursday, Final Edition

EMBASSY ROW

By James Morrison, THE WASHINGTON TIMES

[parts omitted]

Beneficial embargo

Turkey’s economic embargo on Armenia has had an unexpected positive
effect on the economy, said Armenian Foreign Minister Vardan Oskanian.

Turkey’s embargo is meant to force Armenia to relinquish land it
captured from Turkey’s ally, Azerbaijan, in the 1990s during a civil
war in the ethnic Armenian enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh, which declared
independence from Azerbaijan in 1988. One million Azerbaijanis were
displaced, and the conflict has yet to be resolved. An unofficial
cease-fire has held since 1994.

Although State Department reports say the embargo has devastated
the economy of landlocked Armenia, Mr. Oskanian said his country
has diversified.

“We are developing and developing well. We are more efficient, more
effective,” he told our correspondent Tom Carter in an interview at
the Armenian Embassy this week.

“We have strengthened our [information technology] industry. We have
diversified into diamonds and jewelry: things that can go out on
satellite or in small pouches on airplanes.”

Mr. Oskanian met with Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, National
Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice and a variety of senators during
his brief “working” visit.

He said that Armenia was gratified that it had met the qualifications
necessary to be a part of the Millennium Challenge Account, which
will give Armenia access to U.S. financial aid in the next three to
five years.

“There are billions of dollars available, which will be extremely
valuable to our economy,” said Mr. Oskanian, predicting that his
country will continue to liberalize the economy, invest in “human
capital” and improve human rights and the rule of law.

Mr. Oskanian said Armenia supported the U.S.-led effort to liberate
Iraq, although it did not provide troops. Armenia granted permission
for coalition planes to fly over its territory and is prepared to
send a specialist team to help remove land mines.

Mr. Oskanian also said Armenia’s relationship with the European Union
improved this week when the union welcomed Armenia, Azerbaijan and
Georgia under its “neighborhood policy,” which is aimed at encouraging
ties with the European bloc. However, he added that the designation
does not guarantee membership.

“This was a first signal saying, ‘Why not?’ It has not been ruled out,
but there is no firm commitment,” Mr. Oskanian said.

NATO SEEKING NEW WAYS OF SETTLEMENT OF NAGORNY KARABAKH CONFLICT
[June 14, 2004, 21:12:25]

Azer Tag, Azerbaijan State Info Agency
June 14 2004

On June 13, Minister of Defense of the Azerbaijan Republic
colonel-general Safar Abiyev has met the deputy secretary general of
the NATO on science, environment and public diplomacy Mr. Jean Furne.

As was informed to AzerTAj from the press service of the Ministry
of Defense, colonel-general S. Abiyev has congratulated the visitor
on the beginning in Azerbaijan of the week of “Summer School” of
NATO and that he heads the representative delegation consisting of
representatives of 26 states.

In detail having informed the visitor about the successes achieved
by our country after gaining of independence, about the history,
the reasons and consequences of the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict,
the Minister has noted, that, despite of all these difficulties,
our republic successfully continues integration into the European
structures of safety, cooperation with the Council of Europe,
the European Union and within the framework of the program of the
NATO “Partnership for Peace” Program. The Minister has especially
emphasized participation of Azerbaijan in more than 300 actions,
spent annually by the NATO, active preparation of our country for
doctrines “Cooperative Best Effort-04 ” and to the Istanbul summit.

Having expressed to the Minister of Defense gratitude for warm
reception, chief negotiator J. Furne has noted, that carrying out in
Baku the week of “Summer School”, certainly, will renders positive
influence on all-around development of relations of Azerbaijan and
the NATO. Meetings of the President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev with
the secretary general of NATO and ambassadors of other countries
during the visit to Brussels were very interesting and important.
Azerbaijan is one of the first states, which have presented in the
NATO the “Plan of activity on individual cooperation”.

The visitor has in detail informed colonel-general S. Abiyev on the
department he leads in the NATO.

Colonel-general S. Abiyev has in details dwelt on relations of
Azerbaijan and the NATO, had comprehensive exchange of views on
existing in the region of Southern Caucasus of the military-political
situation, large-scale economic projects carried out in our republic
and their safety, has noted, that Armenia till now has not executed
the requirement of the United Nations of four resolutions adopted by
Security Council on the unconditional withdrawal of occupational forces
from the Azerbaijan lands. Besides, joining the “PfP” program of the
NATO, Armenia has taken obligation about recognition of territorial
integrity of partner states. The NATO can demand from it performance
of the given obligations.

Occupation of a part of the Azerbaijan lands by Armenia is the
fact, which cannot be denied. Therefore, we are surprised that
the international public till now has not recognized Armenia as a
state-aggressor. It speaks about the approach to settlement of the
conflict from a position of double standards.

Having thanked colonel-general S. Abiyev for the stated position of
principle, Mr. J. Furne has told: “We in the NATO perfectly know
about everything, that you spoke, and are looking for new ways of
settlement of the conflict”.

In conclusion, colonel-general S. Abiyev has wished successes to the
NATO forthcoming week in Azerbaijan.