Author: Talalian Arpi

RA COURT OF APPEAL STARTS CONSIDERING VARDAN ZURNACHYAN’s APPEAL

YEREVAN, JULY 21. ARMINFO. The RA Court of Appeal has started
considering an appeal lodged by Vardan Zurnachyan, lawyer of the
opposition activist Lavrenty Kirakosyan.

Advancing arguments for his appeal, Zurnachyan stated that the
investigation was conducted with gross violations of the Code of
Criminal Procedure. Kirakosyan’s flat was searched on the last day of
his being under arrest for participating in the opposition’s rallies
not sanctioned by the authorities. “After a telephone conversation,
during which the policemen reported that nothing suspicious had been
found, they came back and searched the tank once more and found a
package with green substance. Moreover, my client was subjected to
violence at the police station. This and other violations testify that
the investigation was not impartial and the case is trumped up,”
Zurnachyan said. The lawyer asked the court to invite as witnesses the
Head Physician of the Baghramyan regional hospital and the medical
nurse who rendered medical aid to Kirakosyan that day.

Speaking in court, Kirakosyan pointed out that he is being persecuted
for political reasons. “Since 1995, the time of dictatorship of the
Armenian National Movement, I have been persecuted by the police. A
testimony to that is the criminal charge of unlawful possession of
arms trumped up against me at that time, for which I was unfairly
imprisoned for six months. And now I am being persecuted for my being
honest and committed to principles during last year’s elections and
latest developments in this spring,” he said.

Lavrenty Kirakosyan, the active member of the National-Democratic
Union, which is part of the opposition bloc “Justice”, was sentenced
to 18 months of imprisonment for unlawful possession of drugs. The
convict and his lawyer claim that the drugs were put stealthily by the
policemen during the search in his house. The trial is to be resumed
on July 26.

IRAN NEEDS TO FIND SOME $30 BLN FOR EXPORT OF GAS TO WORLD MARKETS

YEREVAN, JULY 20. ARMINFO. Iran needs to find $30 bln to export its
gas to world markets. General Director of the national company of
export of Iranian gas Rukuddin Javadi said, Iran.ru informs.

During the seminar “Energy development and cooperation” Javadi said,
now Iran exports 10 bln cubic meters of gas to Turkey per a day, and
the export of Iranian gas to UAE will begin in 2005, and in 2006 to
Armenia and Nakhichevan. Since 2009 Iran will start the export of
liquified natural gas to the markets of Europe, Asia, and first of
all, to China and India. He added that according to the last
statistical data, gas production level in Iran totals in average 313
mln cubic meters per a day, and till the end of the 4th program of the
economic development this level will reach 586 mln cubic meter per a
day.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
July 18, 2004 Sunday Home Edition

BOOKS: 1915 genocide haunts, taunts young survivor

by ELLEN EMRY HELTZEL

FICTION
The Daydreaming Boy. By Micheline Aharonian Marcom. Riverhead Books.
$23.95. 212 pages.
The verdict: An elegant, unsettling story of survival.

“In Paradise there is no past,” observes the young Catholic Rachel in
Micheline Aharonian Marcom’s acclaimed first novel, “Three Apples
Fell From Heaven.” She is speaking from the grave after drowning
herself to avoid being raped by Turkish soldiers. For her, hell is
the pain of memory.

In her new novel, “The Daydreaming Boy,” Marcom reprises this theme,
her subject once again the Ottoman Empire’s 1915 genocide against the
Armenians. This time, the story remains in the land of the living,
told by a fictional narrator who’s looking back a half-century after
the killings.

Vahe Tcheubjian lives in Beirut, Lebanon. He is both an unexceptional
figure and a tragic one, describing himself as “a smallish man, a man
whose middle has begun to soften and protrude, his long toes hidden
in scuffed dress shoes.” Beneath this bland exterior, however, lies a
person “undone by history.”

Vahe has lived a life of suppressing the events that scarred him and
destroyed his family. When he was 7, his father was bludgeoned to
death and his mother delivered to an unknown fate, while he was sent
by boxcar to Lebanon and the Bird’s Nest Orphanage. There, he grew up
among what he calls the “Adams in the wasteland” — child refugees
who were pulled from their homes and herded together in a
survival-of-the-fittest environment.

Vahe remembers how he ached with loneliness. He wrote letters to the
mother who never replied. He cherished the weekly assembly-line
baths, a brisk scrub-down by a dour-looking matron, because it gave
him the chance to recall a maternal touch.

After leaving the orphanage, he worked as a carpenter, got married.
And then, as a middle-aged man, Vahe can’t stop thinking about
Vostanig, the outcast who was sexually and physically abused by the
other boys, including himself, at the Bird’s Nest. “The stranger: he
was all of us, the damned exiled race in its puny and starved and
pathetic scabbed body,” he recalls. “How we longed to kill him.”

For years, Vahe made a habit of visiting the Beirut zoo on Sundays,
where he shared a smoke with the tobacco-loving chimp Jumba. But
before handing over the cigarette, he would poke its burning end into
the chimp’s flesh, exacting his price. If there’s any doubt that Vahe
is a deeply damaged man, this gratuitous cruelty dispels it.

Jumba and his fellow primates are a motif in the book, their
captivity and behavior reflecting how Vahe perceives a hostile world.
A newspaper article datelined South Africa announces the discovery
that man and gorilla share the same brain size and capacity,
underscoring the primal connection. The metaphor threatens to
overpower the story, but Vahe is too compelling to ignore.

Vahe has learned to translate his grief and emptiness into lust,
braiding sex and violence together, as he was taught. Having been
victimized himself, he becomes victimizer, as indicated by this
simple exchange with the servant girl Beatrice:

“Would you like a chocolate?”

“No, merci.”

“No, merci? Here, take it. I’ve bought these chocolates and I would
like for you to take it.” She is still looking at the floor and I’ve
grabbed her hand and pushed the gold truffles into her small hand.

Dialogue is the exception in a story built mostly on interior speech,
using poetic, even mnemonic, devices that reflect how memory works.
For Vahe, the past returns in intermittent blasts, like power surges
traveling down the neural pathways. Through his eyes we see the lies
and obfuscations gradually fall away.

What remains is a man who sees himself for what he is, “the ragged
round left by absence of affection and knowing.”

Ellen Emry Heltzel is a book critic and writer who lives in Portland,
Ore. With Margo Hammond she writes the weekly column “Book Babes,”
which can be found at

EG trial ‘unlikely to be fair’

15/07/2004 14:38 – (SA)

Cape Town – The DA says it “cautiously welcomes” an announcement by
Foreign Affairs Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma that government
officials will travel to Equatorial Guinea to monitor the trial of
eight South Africans accused of plotting to overthrow the regime in
that country.

“However, the DA remains deeply concerned about the prospects of a
fair trial actually taking place,” Democratic Alliance foreign affairs
spokesperson Douglas Gibson said in a statement on Thursday.

This is in contrast to reports earlier in the day that the eight
alleged mercenaries will receive a fair trial, following assurances
made in this regard to President Thabo Mbeki by his counterpart in the
West African country, President Teodoro Obiang Nguema.

According to South Africa’s foreign affairs, officials from their own
and three other local government departments – justice, safety and
security, and correctional services – will go to the former Spanish
colony and monitor the trial of the eight alleged mercenaries.

The trial will take place within a month, but no firm date has been
set.

Gibson said Equatorial Guinea had a notorious history of gross human
rights violations.

“President Teodoro Obiang Nguema has for many decades been viewed as
the one of the worst dictators in the world.

“He has instigated waves of repression, including killings and torture
in prisons, which has resulted in Equatorial Guinea becoming one of
the most corrupt, oppressive and anti-democratic states in the world.

“In April this year, Jan Henning of the national prosecuting authority
stated that South Africa should take no part in legal proceedings in
that country, as there is no chance that a fair trial can take place.

“This assessment has been echoed by Amnesty International, who stated
in May this year that it has ‘documented for years the routine use of
torture in detention facilities in Equatorial Guinea’.

“Furthermore, Amnesty raised the concern that ‘accused persons in that
country are subjected to trial proceedings which routinely fail to
meet international standards of fair trial’.”

A further cause for concern was that when the death penalty was
imposed in that country, it was swiftly applied.

“These grave concerns about Equatorial Guinea’s justice system are
borne out by the fact that since their arrest more than four months
ago, the alleged mercenaries have not appeared in court, nor been
allowed access to their lawyers. This in itself constitutes a serious
violation of the men’s basic legal rights,” he said.

Eight South Africans and six Armenians, accused of being the advance
party in a planned coup, are being detained in Black Beach Prison,
outside Equatorial Guninea’s capital city, Malabo.

Press Release
Armenia Fund USA
152 Madison Ave, #803
New York, NY 10016
Contact: Lisa Markarian
Tel: 212-689-5307
Fax: 212-689-5317
E-mail: [email protected]
Web: <;

Armenia Fund USA Puts the Future Back into the Hands of the People of
Karabakh

Armenia Fund USA is redefining the very idea of sustainability by taking
training to a new level with the staff and physicians of the new Armine
Pagoumian Polyclinic and Diagnostic Center in Karabakh’s capital of
Stepanakert. Under the leadership of public health expert Dr. Alina
Dorian, the Polyclinic project has blossomed into a comprehensive health
care program that involves everything from intensive training for
administration and health care professionals to state of the art
equipment with technicians and Armenian language manuals.

“Developing a quality health system is a long-term process requiring
fundamental changes in the culture of quality,” says Dr. Alina Dorian.
“The scope of quality includes not only the achievement of best outcome
but also equity, safety, effectiveness, efficiency, appropriateness,
availability, access, acceptability, and user choice. The main
challenge is to bring together the key stakeholders; this project brings
together health care providers, health authorities, and the community to
apply evidence-based thinking at the level of everyday practice.” On
board for the development and implementation of the training modules is
an impressive list of collaborators including: UCLA’s Center for
International Emergency Medicine, Yerevan’s Academy of Medicine, the
American University of Armenia’s Center for Health Services Research and
Development, Johns Hopkins University’s Center for International
Emergency Disaster and Refugee Studies, MediTech Company, and members
from Karabakh’s local community for whom the Polyclinic is the only
viable channel for medical care.

Comprehensive training and the power of new medical knowledge and
treatment modalities constitute the most direct route to ensuring the
sustainability for both the Center and the state of healthcare in the
Republic. Health care professionals in Karabakh have not undergone
retraining since 1988. Since independence, the system has been severely
plagued with a lack of funding and shortages of basic supplies,
reagents, and modern equipment for diagnosis, treatment, and
sterilization. Health education and counseling training are non-existent
in the current health institute curricula.

Once buildings are complete and equipment is delivered, it is the
administrators, health professionals, and support staff that must manage
and promote new standards for healthcare in Karabakh. The Center’s
training program involves four Modules that cover the spectrum in care
and management.

Designated modules will utilize multimedia CD-ROMS created exclusively
for the health care needs of Karabakh, a first for the region. The
educational program will also aim to improve the history and physical
examination skills of care providers. The multimedia medical education
program is efficient, portable, reality-based, and cost-effective.
Large volumes of medical information, radiographic images, and
patient-care scenarios are compiled into a resource that is both
portable and easily duplicated. In order to provide comprehensive
training support, five personal computers will be provided to the
Polyclinic for ongoing educational purposes.

“We are not just producing a building; buildings don’t save lives. We
are focusing on the physicians, the nurses, and the very people
themselves. We are giving Karabakh an opportunity to be their own
primary care givers and takers; we are empowering them with the ability
to heal themselves, and that is far more powerful than the most
impressive of building exteriors.” Close to $300,000 worth of X-ray,
ECG, EEG, and MRI equipment is being acquired from Meditech, a medical
equipment and technology company based in Yerevan. The equipment will
come ready with Armenian language operating manuals and will be staffed
by engineers specially trained to maintain and repair the equipment.
Furnishings ranging from beds and curtains to conference rooms are also
incorporated in the facility plan.

The Polyclinic and Diagnostic Center has many visionary philanthropists
behind its success. Hirair and Anna Hovnanian made a generous
contribution of $400,000 towards a journey of healing for the Republic
of Karabakh.

Fundraising efforts for the new medical complex were recently closed
with a generous donation of $125,000 in addition to an existing
commitment of $750,000 from philanthropist George Pagoumian.

Thanks to the conscience of generous benefactors, the leadership of
dedicated visionaries, and the involvement of leading health advocators,
Karabakh stands the chance at providing its people with competent
healthcare. Karabakh cannot be a viable and strong nation unless it is
first a healthy one.

Those who want to support Armenia Fund USA projects can send in a 100%
tax deductible contribution to Armenia Fund USA, Inc., 152 Madison
Avenue, Suite 803, New York, NY 10016. Or, visit us on the web at
<; to make your
contribution online and learn more about our mission and projects.

Armenia Fund USA us a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization dedicated
exclusively to supporting large scale, self-sustaining, humanitarian
initiatives in Armenia and Karabakh, as defined and determined by the
rules and regulations in the Internal Revenue Code. All contributions
are 100% tax deductible.

Malay Mail, Malaysia
July 3 2004

Feature: Giving refugees back their homes and dignity
Meera Murugesan

IF a house is on fire, we don’t send people back into it. Volker
Turk, the representative of the United Nations High Commissioner for
Refugees (UNHCR) in Malaysia, who said that, certainly has a point.

There are about 17.1 million people around the world today whose
`houses’ are `on fire’ but surprisingly, the overwhelming majority of
them still nurse hopes of returning to these homes some day.

It is a myth that refugees want to stay put in their host countries,
said Turk, during a presentation at Wisma UN in Kuala Lumpur, in
conjunction with World Refugee Day on June 20.

`Very often, the most fervent wish of a refugee is to return home,
but they are unable to do so until there is a change in the situation
that drove them out in the first place,’ he said.

This statement is backed by UNHCR figures which, among others,
indicated that three million Afghan refugees have made the move back
home from places like Pakistan and Iran since the situation in
Afghanistan started to improve towards the end of 2001.

Refugees from countries like Angola, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Burundi,
Liberia and Somalia have also decided to return in large numbers.
Last year alone, some 1.1 million refugees around the world returned
home.

But the work of the UNHCR doesn’t stop with `returnees’ making their
way home through voluntary repatriation programmes.

The agency continues its work by monitoring the returnees and looking
into human rights issues that affect them. It focuses on
reconstruction and rehabilitation work as well, to ensure that the
returnees can go home to conditions of safety and dignity.

The UNHCR also assists in rebuilding homes and communities and in the
reconstruction of important structures for living such as wells,
schools, clinics and roads.

Of the more than 21 million people worldwide under the care and
protection of the UNHCR, more than half are children. Children
naturally suffer the most when war breaks out, and some refugee
children may sit in total silence all day, or rock back and forth
endlessly, or throw uncontrollable tantrums.

Their memories are full of terrifying nightmares and, whenever
possible, the UNHCR provides medical and psychological treatment for
these desperate children. Slowly, with loving care and a routine of
lessons and play, many recover to lead normal lives again.

While voluntary repatriation works for some refugees, there will
always be those who can never return or are forced to remain in the
host country for a long period.

For such people, there is the challenge of finding a practical
solution to their problem. Generally, there are two options, one
being resettlement in a third country and the other, the possibility
of integration into the host country itself.

The better solution would be integration into the host community
itself, said Turk, and over the years, the UNHCR has seen some
positive examples of this.

The Armenian Government, for example, has naturalised between 50,000
and 60,000 refugees of Armenian origin who were originally from
Azerbaijan. These people fled their country for Armenia when conflict
broke out between the two countries in 1988.

However, if a solution cannot be found in the host country, then
placing refugees in a third country is usually the method undertaken.

Last year, the UNHCR helped to resettle some 28,000 refugees
worldwide in countries like the United States, Canada, Australia and
a number of European countries.

But for many people today, the image of a refugee is fast becoming
one associated with criminals and illegal migrants, said Turk, and
these perceptions have to be changed if refugees are to receive the
help they deserve.

`I think we have seen more public hostility towards refugees both in
the media and among politicians worldwide,’ he said.

`It is unfortunate that the positive role that refugees can play in a
country is rarely highlighted, nor the inspiring stories of these
individuals. Very often, refugees are resourceful people who have
demonstrated tremendous strength and courage in overcoming obstacles.
What we need to hear are these stories because they help to create an
awareness and an understanding of their plight.’

Over the past five decades, the UNHCR has helped more than 50 million
people uprooted by the turmoil of conflict to find a new home and
start their lives over again.

In honour of every refugee’s dream to return home and live in dignity
and security, this year’s World Refugee Day had the theme: `A Place
To Call Home’.

EXPECTING PROGRESS

Azat Artsakh – Republic of Nagorno Karabakh (NKR)
02 July 2004

In the framework of the regional visit the special representative of
the EU on the South Caucasus Heikki Talvitie was in Stepanakert on
June 29-30. Heikki Talvitie summed up the results of the visit during
the press conference. He mentioned that his mandate is not limited to
coordination of relationships between the EU and Armenia, Azerbaijan
and Georgia but supposes aid for the peaceful regulation of the
regional conflicts. Heikki Talvitie stated that the EU pays serious
attention to the South Caucasus and would like the countries of the
region to profit from the possibilities provided. In particular it was
mentioned that Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia are already involved in
the program ` Wider Europe: New Neighbours’. Speaking about the role
of the EU inthe peaceful settlement of the Karabakh conflict, Heikki
Talvitie mentioned that in 1996-1998 he was the co-chairman of the
OSCE Minsk Group on the settlement of the Karabakh conflict and
naturally is directly acquainted with the conflict. He emphasized that
formerly the EU was for implementing rehabilitation programs in the
Karabakh conflict area only after the political settlement of the
issue but now the situation has changed. The EU intends to implement a
progressive policy and undertake projects for maintaining an
atmosphere of mutual confidence and restoration of the economy and
communications as soon as there is the least progress in the
negotiation process. Heikki Talvitie did not say whathe meant by
saying progress but he pointed out that there are situations when we
have to understand once another. In regard to the negative reaction of
Azerbaijan to the upcoming elections to the municipalities in NKR
Heikki Talvitie mentioned that the European Union has not yet worked
out mechanisms for dealing with such situations. He said that similar
situation occurred in Abkhazia, and now the EU is thinking whether to
send there official observers or not. According to him, most probably
they will send representatives of non-governmental organizations. He
also emphasized that each society must organize their lives themselves
and not to wait for the interference of the international community.

Actually the representative of the EU confessed the simple truth
against which Baku makes appeals. Heikki Talvitie mentioned the
importance of the settlement of conflicts for the development of the
region. In this context he pointed out that the new policy of the
Georgian authorities and their attempt to establish relationships with
Russia shifted the process of peaceful settlement to a new plain. Now
the restoration of communications is considered. The same will be
possible in the Karabakh conflict area again in the case of progress
in the peaceful process for which the OSCE is responsible. As Heikki
Talvitie mentioned at the beginning of the press conference, it is
impossible to assist to the peaceful process not being in Karabakh. He
emphasized that he came to get acquainted. In this reference the
representative of the EU emphasized that he noticed significant
differences between the present situation and the situation ten years
ago. He said that the people of Karabakh managed to restore much with
their own efforts and this corresponds to the interests of the EU. He
mentioned that during the meetings they clarified the frames of what
the EUcan do for Karabakh. According to him, for this first of all the
wish and will of the conflict parties is required. At this moment
three countries of the region are involved in the program `Wider
Europe: New Neighbours’, said Heikki Talvitie answering the question
what status the EU accepts for Karabakh. Although he added that they
try to view the region as one entity. Heikki Talvitie mentioned that
he does not expect miracles from his visit because the negotiation
process lasting for ten years did not produce results. However, he
hopes that there will come the time when an atmosphere of confidence
will be established and they will try to understand one another.

NAIRA AHYRUMIAN.
02-07-2004

Ottawa Citizen
July 2, 2004 Friday Final Edition

For argument’s sake, draw your own analogies

by John Robson

When the Athenian statesman Phocion gave a speech that the public
applauded, Plutarch claims, he turned to some friends and asked, “Have
I inadvertently said something foolish?” How many politicians would
ever have such a reaction today? Yet how many should? I sure missed
Plutarch during this election.

For one thing, I treasure his anecdote of Cato the Elder who, told it
was odd that there was no monument to him in Rome, said he would far
rather have people ask why he didn’t have a statue than why he did.
What a useful standard by which to judge the personal qualities of
politicians. When Bill Clinton claims in his memoirs that “in politics,
if you don’t toot your own horn, it usually stays untooted” you might
reasonably conclude that, in Cato’s situation, he would have put one up
himself.

Some readers may be puzzled by my periodic tendency to enthuse about
some author who wrote long before Jennifer Lopez’s first marriage; if
so I reply that it is not a boast to find nothing interesting in books.
(Or quote American commentator Florence King that in high school “the
girls who recited Mickey Rooney’s wives in the cafeteria made fun of me
for reciting Henry VIII’s wives in history class …”)

All argument is in some sense argument by analogy: This thing is like
that thing, it is not like that other thing, it is more like this thing
than like that, and so on. But if we do not carry around with us a
supply of material suitable for the drawing of analogies, what sort of
reasoning is likely to result? That’s why Plutarch wrote The Lives of
the Noble Grecians and Romans.

A person without knowledge of the past is liable to react to a promise
of free money the same way Homer Simpson reacts to the word “doughnut.”
Would it not be better instead to flinch as George Washington would
have at any political program reminiscent of Rome’s “bread and
circuses” for the urban mob? Or recall another Plutarch story about
Cato the Elder: “Being once desirous to dissuade the common people of
Rome from their unseasonable and impetuous clamour for largesses and
distributions of corn, he began thus to harangue them: ‘It is a
difficult task, O citizens, to make speeches to the belly, which has no
ears.'”

Paul Martin would have been well-advised a year ago to ponder
Plutarch’s report that Pompey the Great once had the chance “to lead
Tigranes, King of Armenia, in triumph,” but “chose rather to make him a
confederate of the Romans, saying that a single day was worth less than
all future time.”

My admiration for Plutarch is not uncritical. He likes the Spartans too
much, and unfairly casts Marc Antony as too besotted with Cleopatra to
attend to affairs of the state. But it’s interesting to see him praise
Cleopatra’s personality and intellect over her raw physical beauty, and
slam Julius Caesar, who “looking upon all changes and commotions in the
state as materials useful for his own purposes, desired rather to
increase than extinguish them …”

Perhaps his correspondingly high opinion of Caesar’s assassin Brutus is
overdone. But it would be nice to have some sort of opinion on Brutus
that doesn’t also involve Popeye the sailor man. Lest you smell dust
here, I promise that Plutarch is also full of intrigue, illicit sex and
gruesome violence. For instance, the orator Cicero, who backed Brutus,
was assassinated and, on the orders of Marc Antony, his head and hands
were severed, brought to Rome, and “fastened up over the rostra, where
the orators spoke; a sight which the Roman people shuddered to behold,
and they believed they saw there, not the face of Cicero, but the image
of Antony’s own soul.” A useful anecdote to have whenever someone
triumphantly waves an enemy’s head in public.

Plutarch also records that Phocion once “answered King Antipater, who
sought his approbation of some unworthy action, ‘I cannot be your
flatterer, and your friend.'” And he advises the politically ambitious
likewise to “answer the people, ‘I cannot govern and obey you.'” Of
course anyone who did so might not win, but hey, most candidates lose
anyway. (Besides, Cato the Younger once lost an election for consul,
declined to run again because the people obviously didn’t want him, and
happily went on with his life.) And it would surely raise the level of
debate to go about dismissing people as “another Lepidus” or hailing
them as “a second Brutus” instead of wracking our brains trying to
remember who was in Joe Clark’s cabinet. Speaking of people who should
certainly have spent more time asking friends if they’d inadvertently
said something foolish.

John Robson’s column appears Wednesday and Friday. Listen to him
weeknights from 8 to 10 on CFRA 580 AM.

Associated Press Worldstream
July 1, 2004 Thursday

Armenian forces detain Azerbaijani soldier in Nagorno-Karabakh

Armenia forces in the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh territory detained an
Azerbaijani soldier who allegedly crossed into Armenian-held land,
authorities said Thursday.

The Azerbaijani soldier, identified as Gusein Aidyn of the Azerbaijani
capital, Baku, was detained along the eastern section of
Nagorno-Karabakh border on Wednesday, officials in Nagorno-Karabakh
said.

Armenian-backed forces won control of Nagorno-Karabakh, a largely
ethnic Armenian enclave in Azerbaijan, after a 1988-94 war. More than
30,000 people were killed and a million driven from their homes during
the conflict.

Despite a cease-fire, the two countries continue to face off across a
heavily fortified no man’s land, and shooting occasionally erupts.

Nagorno-Karabakh officials said they notified the International
Committee of the Red Cross and the Organization of Security and
Cooperation in Europe about the detention, and that the Red Cross was
welcome to visit the captured soldier.

Meanwhile, in Azerbaijan, the Foreign Ministry said it was concerned
about the U.S. Congress’ move to grant US$5 million in aid to
Nagorno-Karabakh. The money “could be directed at the encouragement of
illegal activity, extremism and aggressive separatism on the territory
of Azerbaijan,” the Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

NTV MSNBC, Turkey
June 30 2004

Turkey pushes for peace between Azerbaijan and Armenia

There was hope that continued talks at the Foreign Ministry level
would held resolve the dispute between the two countries, Erdogan
said.

June 30 – Turkey has used the NATO heads of government summit in
Istanbul to reopen a process of dialogue between Armenia and
Azerbaijan, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Tuesday.

Turkey has organised a series of meetings between Turkish Azeri and
Armenian officials on the sidelines of the summit, which wound up on
Tuesday, Erdogan told a press conference.
`I held talks with Foreign Minister Vartan Oskanyan of Armenia
during the summit,’ Erdogan said. `I also had the chance of bringing
Oskanyan and President Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan together.
Meanwhile, Foreign Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Abdullah Gul
has initiated a process by bringing together foreign ministers of
Armenia and Azerbaijan.’
Turkey wanted a solution to be found to Azerbaijan-Armenia
dispute on the basis of the understanding of win-win, he said.
`However, wishes are not enough at all. The most important
thing is to come to a conclusion,’ Erdogan said.
The Prime Minister said that the decision taken at Gul’s
trilateral meeting on Monday with Foreign Minister Elmar Memmedyarov
of Azerbaijan and Armenia’s Foreign Minister Vartan Oskanyan to
continue talks brought the hope that such meetings would contribute
to regional stability and the resolution of regional disputes.