Nagorno-Karabakh Needs Resolution

NAGORNO-KARABAKH NEEDS RESOLUTION

Voice of America
Sept 1 2005

Armenian President Robert Kocharian and Azerbaijani President
Ilham Aliyev met in Kazan, Russia, to discuss Nagomo-Karabakh, a
predominantly ethnic Armenian region of Azerbaijan, which, along
with seven surrounding Azerbaijan territories, is under Armenian
military control.

The local Armenian population declared independence from Azerbaijan
in 1991 and formed the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic. But it is not
recognized by any country in the world.

War broke out between Armenia and Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh and
an estimated thirty-five thousand people died. The fighting and the
expulsion of Armenians from Azerbaijan and Azerbaijanis from Armenia
displaced more than a million people. Armenia and Azerbaijan have
observed a cease-fire agreement since 1994.

Some one-hundred-thousand Azerbaijanis remain in refugee
camps today, where conditions are often desperate. The U.S. is
providing humanitarian assistance to ethnic Armenian residents of
Nagorno-Karabakh and Azeris and others displaced to areas outside
the region. U.S. aid includes housing, health care, and clean water.

The U.S. supports the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan and believes
that the future status of Nagorno-Karabakh should be decided through
negotiation. U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice urged both
Mr. Kocharian and Mr. Aliyev to make the necessary compromises to
achieve an accord. In addition, Ms. Rice urged president Aliyev to hold
free and fair parliamentary elections this November in Azerbaijan. She
also told President Kocharian she hoped Armenia would enact a package
of constitutional reforms now before the parliament.

A permanent peace agreement in Nagorno-Karabakh would help bring
stability to Armenia, Azerbaijan, and the Caucasus region. Democratic
reforms could further improve economic and political prospects for
both Armenia and Azerbaijan.

The preceding was an editorial reflecting the views of the United
States Government.

BAKU: Reports on alleged Armenian capital in Kazakh bank dismissed

REPORTS ON ALLEGED ARMENIAN CAPITAL IN KAZAKH BANK DISMISSED

Assa-Irada, Azerbaijan
Aug 30 2005

Baku, August 29, AssA-Irada

The National Bank of Azerbaijan (NBA) has dismissed recent media
reports suggesting that Armenian capital is involved in the shares
of Kazakhstan’s major bank TuranAlem, which is planning to open a
representation in Azerbaijan. The NBA said that it has not registered
the Kazakh bank and TuranAlem simply applied over opening an office
in Baku. Unlike affiliates and subsidiary banks, representations
do not carry out banking transactions and simply represent banks.
TuranAlem has submitted all the information on its structure and
shareholders. Its capital is not owned by Mobilex Energy Ltd or any
other shareholder of Armenian affiliation, the same source said. Among
the bank’s shareholders are such influential financial institutions
as EBRD and International Finance Corporation (IFC), it said. The NBA
also indicated that just like all financial institutions, a part of
TuranAlem shares are sold and purchased in local and foreign stock
markets and 12% of its shares are invested in US. According to the
reports currently available, there is no Armenian capital among
the shares sold in the markets. TuranAlem has purchased a share in
the charter capital of Mezhinvestbank, a commercial bank operating
in Armenia. Another shareholder of the bank is Mobilex Energy Ltd
headed by an ethnically-Armenian person. The company has no bearing
on TuranAlem bank’s shares and its management, the NBA source said.*

Russian defence minister to observe CIS air defence exercises

RUSSIAN DEFENCE MINISTER TO OBSERVE CIS AIR DEFENCE EXERCISES

Interfax-AVN military news agency website, Moscow
29 Aug 05

Moscow, 29 August: Russian Defence Minister Sergey Ivanov left for
Astrakhan by air today to observe the active stage of the Combat
Commonwealth-2005, the coalition exercises of the CIS Unified Air
Defence System.

Approximately 2,000 servicemen, more than 40 aircraft and also the
S-300, S-125 and S-75 anti-aircraft missile complexes and systems are
taking part in the exercises, being held at the Ashuluk test range,
Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Air Force Army Gen Vladimir Mikhaylov
has told Interfax-AVN news agency.

“Questions of interaction between anti-aircraft missile troops and
radio-technical troops and also aviation will be practised in the
course of the exercises,” Mikhaylov said.

Anti-aircraft complexes will carry out live firing during the
exercises, he said. “Frontal aviation will carry out ground-attack
bombing raids against the notional enemy’s ground troops, whilst
the fighter aviation will destroy cruise missiles in mid-air,” the
commander-in-chief said.

“Subunits of the air forces and air defence forces from Armenia,
Belarus, Russia and Tajikistan will be active at the Ashuluk test
range today and tomorrow, because other CIS countries have already
gone through exercises before, in July and at the start of August,”
the general said.

Mikhaylov, who is in charge of the exercises, noted that heads of
defence ministries of CIS member countries and heads of a number of
defence enterprises had been invited to the exercises.

Construction at Yerevan State University

CONSTRUCTION AT YEREVAN STATE UNIVERSITY
By Tamar Minasian

AZG Armenian Daily #150

25/08/2005

Education

New Building of University to Be Built Soon

The construction of the Yerevan State University~Rs new compound
will be completed in less than two months. Sargis Shahazizian,
pro-rector of the Yerevan State University, said in the interview to
Azg. At present, the interior works are being done in the building,
the auditoriums are being renovated. Afterwards, the yard, as well
as the auxiliary buildings will be renovated.

The new compound is situated in Abovian Street and is near the oldest
building of the university built in 1922. Mr. Shahazizian said that
the new building is built on the place of the old sports complex
and the auxiliary buildings. The new building keeps in line with all
modern criteria. It is being built thanks to the financial assistance
rendered by the U.S. Union of Yerevan State University~Rs Friends, RA
Government and the University. The construction works cost about $1,5
million and the bigger part of the financial sources were allocated
by the Yerevan State University. The new building has three stories,
about 70 rooms, chairs and deans’ offices. It is envisaged for 1500
students. The faculties of philosophy, psychology and philology will
be moved to this new building. “We want to decrease the congestion of
the buildings. There are buildings that aren~Rt capable of standing
the large number of students,” Mr. Shahazizian stated.

They need to renovate only the physics and chemists faculties in the
main building of the Yerevan State University that is in Alek Manukian
Street. Thus, the construction works of the university launched in
the course of the latest two years will be completed. The biology
faculty also needs to be renovated. Mr. Shahazizian added that the
students should also take care for the buildings they are studying in.

The Yerevan State University envisages to renovate its resorts
in Dilijan. In autumn the graduate students of the university will
gather and the administration of the university plans to accumulate
the required sum and replace the old cottages of the resort with new
ones as soon as possible.

Turk intellectuals press aheadw w/Armenia conf. branded as ‘treason’

Agence France Presse — English
August 24, 2005 Wednesday 12:30 PM GMT

Turkish intellectuals press ahead with Armenia conference branded as
‘treason’

ISTANBUL

A conference questioning the official line on massacres of Armenians
under the Ottoman Empire, aborted after Turkey’s justice minister
branded it an act of treason, will go ahead in September, organisers
said on Wednesday.

The event baptised “Ottoman Armenians of an Empire in Decline” has
been scheduled for September 23-25 at Istanbul’s Bogazici university.

Featuring academics and intellectuals who dispute Ankara’s version of
the 1915-1917 killings, the conference was postponed in May after
Justice Minister Cemil Cicek condemned the initiative as “treason”
and a “stab in the back of the Turkish nation”.

He also said the organisers deserved to be prosecuted.

The outburst raised eyebrows in European diplomatic circles about
Ankara’s commitment to democratic reforms, a requirement for October
3 negotiations over its adhesion to the European Union.

But diplomats said the incident could also prove to be a watershed if
the Turkish government acted to correct Cicek’s remarks.

Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul has now agreed to take part in
the conference’s opening session, the Hurriyet newspaper reported on
Wednesday.

“There was no reason to adjourn the conference. We can easily discuss
this question,” the newspaper quoted the minister as saying.

Ankara’s quest for European Union membership struck another hurdle
last month when it continued to insist it would not recognise the
Greek Cypriot government of Cyprus despite extending a customs
agreement to the 10 new EU members.

Several countries have recognised the Armenian massacres as genocide
and Brussels has called on Turkey to confront its past and to allow
greater freedom of speech.

Ankara recognises that the massacres took place, but strongly rejects
that they amounted to genocide.

Armenians claim up to 1.5 million of their people were slaughtered in
mass killings under the Ottoman Empire, forerunner to the Turkish
republic.

Ankara claims that 300,000 Armenians, who sided with Russian forces
against the Turks, were killed in the uprising and in deportations to
Syria. A similar number of Turks were also killed in the conflict,
according to the official version.

Ceremonial closing of retraining courses for teachers from diaspora

CEREMONIAL CLOSING OF RETRAINING COURSES FOR ARMENIAN TEACHERS FROM
DIASPORA HELD AT HOLY ECHMIAZDIN

YEREVAN, August 22. /ARKA/. A ceremonial closing of retraining
courses for Armenian teachers from diaspora has been held at the Holy
See of Echmiadzin. The press service of the Holy See reports that the
1-month courses were conducted at the Gevorgyan ecclesiastical
seminary under the patronage of Catholicos of All Armenians Garegin
II. RA Minister of Education and Science Sergo Yeritsyan made a
congratulatory speech at the ceremony. He pointed out new programs of
retraining diasporan teachers and organizing the rest of 500
diasporan students in Armenia. Garegin II sent his blessings to the
teachers as well. He expressed confidence in a high mission of
educating Armenian children.
After the teachers’ speeches of welcome, the RA Minister of Education
and Science and the Leader of the Armenian Church issued certificates
to them. P.T. -0–

On this day – Aug 23

ON THIS DAY

1979: Kurdish revolt grows in Iran

Kurds in Iran have ousted government troops from a large area near
the Iraqi border.
However, they have full control of only one town, Mahabad, the centre
of Iranian Kurdistan in the north-west of the country.

The revolt began last week when Kurdish tribesmen overpowered Iranian
soldiers in the nearby town of Paveh.

The fighting later spread to the towns of Divan Darreh, Saqqez and
Mahabad which was briefly the capital of an independent Kurdish
republic from 1946-7.

Iran’s four million Kurds have been disappointed the ousting of the
Shah and the setting up of an Islamic state has not brought them more
autonomy.

Hiding

Many of the 15 million Kurds inhabiting the mountainous area where
Iran, Iraq, Turkey, Syria and the Soviet republic of Armenia meet
want it to be declared an independent state.

But Turkey and Iraq in particular have always resisted giving up
sovereignty over their portions of Kurdistan.

Earlier this year Kurdish leaders met Iran’s spiritual leader,
Ayatollah Khomeini, who warned them against trying to break away from
Iran.

Many Kurdish leaders have now gone into hiding after Ayatollah
Khomeini ordered their arrest.

In spite of the current fighting, Iran’s Kurds say they do not want
to sever the territory from the rest of the country.

“If we cut ourselves off we would have only the mountains and the
goats. We would die from hunger,” said one Kurdish leader.

Iranian newspaper reports have put the number killed so far at about
600.

Traditionally, Iran’s Kurds have been less strident in their demands
for independence and have rarely resorted to violence.

They have more in common with the majority population who are
Persians than Kurds in Turkey and Iraq have with the majority Arabs
there.

The Burning Tigris: The Armenian Genocide and America’s Response

The Burning Tigris: The Armenian Genocide and America’s Response by
Peter Balakian

IHC Review
22 Aug 05

The First World War made it clear the old idea that `war is politics
by another means’ is outdated in the 20th century. In the case of
Armenians in the Ottoman Empire, war meant extermination. Speaking to
his top generals days before invading Poland in September 1939, Adolf
Hitler praised the virtues of power and brutality, referring to how
easy it had been to destroy defenseless people like the
Armenians. `Who today, after all, speaks of the annihilation of the
Armenians?’ he asked. Under the cover of war, Muslim Turks (with
German help) completed the massacre of Christian Armenians begun in
the 1890s. On the eve of WW II, Hitler was readying his own apparatus
of death for annihilating the Jews of Europe, knowing he could do so
with impunity.

This book deals at length with U.S. government involvement (or the
insufficiency thereof, depending on one’s point of view) in supporting
fellow-Christian Armenian victims. It brings to light President
Woodrow Wilson’s proposal to extend United States dominion and
protection over the Armenian Republic. At Wilson’s insistence, Henry
Morgenthau, a wealthy Jewish-American lawyer, financier and supporter
who helped Wilson win the election, was appointed in 1913 American
Consul in Istanbul. Reluctant to accept the post at first, he was
convinced by Rabbi Stephen Wise that a Jew in that position could be
of great help not only to the sizeable Jewish community in Turkey, but
also to the Zionists in Palestine, which was under Turkish rule at the
time.

Deutsche Bank financed and German engineers built the railway systems
in the Ottoman empire, Germany’s most important foreign
project. Better-educated Armenians made up the main work force
operating the railways, which `introduced into modern history railway
transport of civilian populations as part of the plan of race
extermination.’ The Armenian workers were thus initially spared, but
eventually they too were swept up in the all-embracing Armenian
genocide. There is a close parallel between the two genocides, of the
Nazi deportation of Jews, which `began in the trains, the locked box
cars, eighty to a hundred people per car, crossing Europe to the camps
in Poland’ and the Armenians `starving, in terror, defecating on
themselves.’

The German military was in command of Ottoman troops and was involved
in the deportations and massacres. The German ambassador in
Constantinople, Baron von Wagenheim, and his U.S. counterpart, Count
von Bernstorff, declared that what the Turks were doing to the
Armenians was `entirely justified…Their own fault.’ Between 1915 and
1922, close to 1.5 million Armenians lost their lives. Significantly,
the U.S. never declared war on Turkey, in spite of the
Constantinople-Berlin axis. With more than two decades of American
anger against the Turks for their treatment of the Armenians, American
public opinion favored war with the Turks. On the other side of the
fence, a formal declaration of war would mean the seizure of vast
American missionary holdings in Turkey, valued at $123 million, and
perhaps expulsion, ending what little humanitarian relief the
missionaries were able to provide the Armenians.

For a `refresher’ in Muslim brutality, eyewitness reports are quoted
in the book. The British consul in Aleppo Province in 1890, Henry
Burnham, related how the killing of Armenians was motivated by Islamic
fanaticism and a jihad mentality: `…armed with clubs and cleavers,
cut down the Christians, with cries of `Allahu Akbar!’ broke down the
doors of houses with pickaxes and levers, or scaled the walls with
ladders. Then when mid-day came they knelt down and said their
prayers, and then jumped up and resumed their dreadful work, carrying
it far into the night. Whenever they were unable to break down the
door, they fired the houses with petroleum.’

Mosques were used as rallying points for mobs during Friday prayers. A
survivor, Abraham Hartunian, described the desecration of two Armenian
churches: `The mob had plundered the Gregorian church, desecrated it,
murdered all who had sought shelter there and as a sacrifice, beheaded
the sexton on the stone threshold. (At another church) The leader of
the mob cried: `Deny your religion!’ No one answered…The leader gave
the order to massacre. The first attack was on our pastor. The blow of
an axe decapitated him.’

In a letter home that came into the hands of another British consul, a
Turkish soldier writes: `My brother, if you want news from here, we
have killed 1,200 Armenians, all of them as food for the
dogs…Mother, I am safe and sound. Father, we made war on the
Armenian unbelievers. Through God’s grace no harm befell us…May God
bless you.’

In the best of Islamic brutal tradition, women suffered the worst
fate. If they were not killed, they were raped and sold into slavery
or harems. `The game of swords’ was witnessed by Aurora Mardiganian
near Aleppo, where Turkish killing squads `planted their swords in the
ground, blade up, in a row at several yards intervals, the men on
horseback each grabbed a girl. At the signal, given by a shout, they
rode their horses at a controlled gallop, throwing the girl with the
intent of killing her by impaling her on a sword. If the killer missed
and the girl was only injured, she would be scooped up again until she
was impaled on the protruding blade. It was a game, a contest.’ The
Turks then forced the Jews of the city to gather up the bodies and
throw them into the Tigris River.

As Queen Victoria’s Prime Minister William Gladstone wrote: `The very
worst things that men have ever done have been done when they were
performing acts of violence in the name of religion.’ It takes a
diabolically sadistic and evil mind to conjure up schemes whereby
deportees were forced to pay first-class fare for a box car, or where
a condemned man’s family is forced to pay for his execution. While
some German civil employees reacted with revulsion to such `Turkish
Delights’, the fact remains that racial extermination `technology’ was
observed, brought home and put to full use in Hitler’s attempted
extermination of the Jewish people.

The Turks to this day downplay the massacres they (along with the
Germans and Kurds) committed against Armenians. Professor Deborah
Lipstadt of Emory University has written: `Denial of genocide –
whether that of the Turks against the Armenians or the Nazis against
Jews – is not an act of historical reinterpretation . . . it is the
final stage of genocide, because it strives to reshape history in
order to demonize the victims and rehabilitate the perpetrators.’ To
this, Elie Wiesel adds that denying genocide is a `double killing’
because it murders the memory of events.

Radical Islam declared war on the West with the first World Trade
Center attack in 1993. It is the stated aim of the spiritual leaders
of a billion Muslims, from Southeast Asia across two continents to the
Atlantic, to re-conquer Europe (and eventually the rest of the world)
and reestablish a Caliphate ruled by the dictates of the Koran. Recent
events in Eurabia, such as the ritual murder of Dutch filmmaker Theo
van Gogh, for example, afford a preview of what’s in store once Islam
takes over.

President Bush’s Saudi pals continue to export radical Islamist
`education’ world-wide, while Iran – Islamic terror export hub to the
world – thumbs its nose at the West in pursuit of a nuclear weapons
capability, with the declared aim of obliterating the State of
Israel. They do so with the tacit or active collaboration of China and
Russia. A nuclear-armed Pakistan is another source of uncertainty and
instability.

The wrongheaded internment of Japanese-Americans following Pearl
Harbor was an emergency measure justified on grounds of national
security. Surely now is a time of even greater peril for Western
civilizations, when severe restrictive measures should be applied to
extreme-Muslim sources of incitement (mosques and religious schools),
fundraising organizations, and the expulsion of illegal `students’ and
other undesirable elements. If the American-Japanese community was
considered a security risk in 1941, does not the same apply to the
Muslim community in the U.S., which provided the infrastructure
enabling the September 11 attacks to take place?

While Spain’s shameful capitulation handed al-Qaeda a victory, Britain
and other European democracies are finally awakening to the
life-threatening dangers of the radical Islamic cancer eating at them
from within. A malignancy calls for painful surgery, unpleasant
medicine and everlasting vigilance if the patient ` Western
Civilization – is to survive.

————————————————————————
HarperCollins; October 2003; ISBN: 0060198400; 496 pages.
Review written by Giv Cornfield, Ph.D.
Edited by IHC Staff,

www.infoisrael.net.

Sahakashvili: Glad People From Armenia Come to Georgia for Rest

MIKHAIL SAHAKASHVILI: I AM VERY GLAD THAT PEOPLE FROM ARMENIA LEAVE
FOR GEORGIA TO HAVE A REST

YEREVAN, AUGUST 22. ARMINFO. “I am very glad that people from Armenia
leave for Georgia to have a rest”, stated journalists Georgia’s
President Mikhail Sahakashvili being in Armenia on an informal visit.

In his words, both the unification of economic systems of both
countries and their mutual integration are with tomorrow. It will be
much more difficult for both Armenia and Georgia one by one than
together. Sahakashvili expressed satisfaction that Armenia’s residents
may freely leave for Georgia and no one may stand on their way or rob
them as it was earlier. He especially noted that there is no political
discords between Yerevan and Tbilisi at present, but there are
successful cooperation with extensive prospects there.

Antelias: HH Aram I receives spiritual and ecumenical guests

PRESS RELEASE
Catholicosate of Cilicia
Communication and Information Department
Contact: V.Rev.Fr. Krikor Chiftjian, Communications Officer
Tel: (04) 410001, 410003
Fax: (04) 419724
E- mail: [email protected]
Web:

PO Box 70 317
Antelias-Lebanon

Armenian version:

HIS HOLINESS RECEIVED SPIRITUAL AND ECUMENICAL GUESTS

His Holiness Aram I held a series of meetings with various spiritual and
secular guests on August 19.

The Primate of the Syrian Orthodox Church in Beirut, Metropolitan George
Saliba, visited His Holiness to give him a copy of a book about the Armenian
Genocide written in Arabic by an Syrian author.

He invited the Catholicos to the ceremonies to be held in Damascus next
month, on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the enthronement of
Patriarch Zakka Iwas I, Head of the Syrian Orthodox Church. His Holiness
assured that he will send a high-level delegation of Archbishops to attend
the ceremonies.

The deputy director of the Central Bank of Lebanon, Alain Balian, also
visited His Holiness Aram I. He informed the Catholicos about the activities
of the Central Bank and his efforts to involve Armenian employees in these
activities.

His Holiness praised the work carried out by Balian and stressed the
importance of placing Armenian employees in governmental posts and securing
the rights of the Armenian community.

His Holiness then received Arda Ekmekdji, the representative of the Armenian
Community in the 12 member committee for the formulation of a Lebanese
Election Law. Ekmekdji talked about the work carried our by the committee
till now.

His Holiness pointed out that he expects Ekmekdji to rightly represent the
Armenian Community’s viewpoints and rights in the committee. He stressed
that the 2000 electoral law should undergo necessary changes to allow wider
participation by the people and secure the internal unity of Lebanon’s
different communities.

The president of the Maronite League and former minister Michel Edde also
visited His Holiness. The two sides emphasized the importance of
inter-Christian cooperation during the meeting. They also discussed the
necessity of making a comprehensive list of the Lebanese Diaspora in order
to involve them in the electoral process.

##

View picture here:

*****

The Armenian Catholicosate of Cilicia is one of the two Catholicosates of
the Armenian Orthodox Church. For detailed information about the history and
the mission of the Cilician Catholicosate, you may refer to the web page of
the Catholicosate, The Cilician Catholicosate, the
administrative center of the church is located in Antelias, Lebanon.

http://www.cathcil.org/
http://www.cathcil.org/v04/doc/Armenian.htm
http://www.cathcil.org/v04/doc/Photos/Pictures59.htm
http://www.cathcil.org/