Slovene OSCE chairman leaving for tour of Caucasus on 30 March

Slovene OSCE chairman leaving for tour of Caucasus on 30 March

STA news agency
30 Mar 05

Ljubljana, 30 March: Foreign Minister Dimitrij Rupel, the incumbent
OSCE chairman, is leaving for a tour of the Caucasus on Wednesday [30
March], making his first stop in Armenia. The crisis in Kyrgyzstan has
somewhat changed the chairman’s initial plans, however, so that he
will break the tour for a visit to Bishkek, and then continue his
journey in Georgia and Azerbaijan.

Rupel is to head for Bishkek from Armenia, where he is due to hold
talks later today, in a bid to find a peaceful solution to the
crisis. He is to meet representatives of the Kyrgyz new leadership who
toppled President Askar Akayev and seized control following protests
over the recent parliamentary elections. [Passage omitted]

Before visiting the hot spot, the OSCE chairman is scheduled to stop
in Yerevan to meet Armenian President Robert Kocharyan, Foreign
Minister Vartan Oskanyan and other Armenian leaders, as well as the
political leader of Nagornyy Karabakh Arkadiy Gukasyan.

The simmering conflict in Nagornyy Karabakh, the ethnic-Armenian
enclave in Azerbaijan, is one of the issues in which the OSCE is
trying to assist the parties involved to find a peaceful
solution. Since February 2000, the organization has its office in
Yerevan.

After Armenia and Kyrgyzstan, Rupel is to make his next stop in the
Georgian capital Tbilisi on Friday. There too, he is to meet all top
officials, including President Mikheil Saakashvili. He is also due to
take part in a round-table debate with representatives of the
opposition.

The OSCE chairman is to wrap up his tour on Saturday, with a visit to
Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, where he is to meet President Ilham
Aliyev, Prime Minister Artur Rasizada, Foreign Minister Elmar
Mammadyarov and representatives of the opposition and NGOs.

The minister’s entourage includes a delegation of corporate executives
who already do business on the markets there or are keen to do so. A
business conference will be organized in each of the countries, as
well as separate talks with government economics officials and
business partners. [Passage omitted]

US Military Forces General in Yerevan

A1 Plus | 11:27:51 | 30-03-2005 | Official |

US MILITARY FORCES GENERAL IN YEREVAN

General Charles F. Wold, the deputy commander of the US European
headquarters in Stuttgart, Germany, will arrive in Armenian on March 30
and will leave on March 31.

The US Military Forces European command is responsible for the US forces
in about 91 countries, in particular Europe, Africa, Russia, in some
parts of Asia and others.

On March 30 and 31 General Wold and the accompanying officials will been
Robert Kocharyan, Defense Minister Serge Sargsyan and higher officials
of Armenian armed forces. The aim of the meeting is to discuss the
developing Armenian-American relations in the field of defense.

Reversal Made on Benon Sevan’s Legal Fees

New York Sun
March 29 2005

Reversal Made on Sevan’s Legal Fees

BY BENNY AVNI – Special to the Sun
March 29, 2005

UNITED NATIONS – On the eve of a crucial report on Secretary-General
Annan’s role in the oil-for-food scandal, and amid a flurry of new
press allegations of improprieties at the organization, the United
Nations was forced to reverse a decision to reimburse Benon Sevan for
his legal expenses.

One week after The New York Sun disclosed that Mr. Annan had decided
to cover Mr. Sevan’s legal expenses, using an account that drew on
Iraq’s oil money, spokesman Fred Eckhard said yesterday, “It has been
decided that it is not appropriate” that the fees be paid by the U.N.

The about-face came on a day when new leaks from the oil-for-food
investigation committee headed by a former Federal Reserve chairman,
Paul Volcker, appeared to indicate that its interim report, expected
to be released today, could potentially damage Mr. Annan much more
than previously expected.

U.N. officials had to address questions about new damaging press
reports from such disparate sources as the Arab press and the
American right blogosphere. Mr. Eckhard, who at one point described
the onslaught as “death by a thousand cuts,” addressed accusations
ranging from sexual harassment by the U.N.’s top election official to
abuse of power.

“It seems almost as if now that every allegation is being listened to
by the press, people use the rumor mill to settle scores,” one
official who asked that his name not be used told the Sun yesterday.

Here are several of yesterday’s allegations:

KOJO ANNAN: According to a report published on the Internet, in
August 1998, Mr. Annan’s son Kojo presented Cotecna business cards to
the Iraqi ambassador to Nigeria. The Swiss company later won a U.N.
contract for inspection of goods in the oil-for-food program.

Frontpagemag.com claims that its source is the Volcker committee
report, which based its allegations on interviews with Pierre
Mouselli, a businessman in Paris who was Kojo’s business partner.
According to the Web site, Mr. Mouselli told the Volcker committee
that, in September 1998, he and Kojo Annan met the U.N.
secretary-general to get his blessing to contact Iraqi officials. The
contacts were allegedly made on behalf of Cotecna.

A Cotecna spokesman, Seth Goldschlager, told the Sun yesterday that
this is the first time he has heard these new allegations, adding
that “it would not be appropriate to comment on speculations.” In the
past Cotecna denied that Kojo Annan, who had worked in Africa on the
company’s behalf, had any connection to Iraq or the oil-for-food
contract. The Volcker committee will not release any part of its
report before noon today.

BENON SEVAN: The decision to reverse the policy of reimbursing Mr.
Sevan for his legal fees was announced yesterday after a week in
which Iraqi officials expressed outrage at the intended payment.

Mr. Eckhard said yesterday that no money had been disbursed yet,
adding that the organization might still decide to reimburse Mr.
Sevan if the allegations against him prove to be untrue. He refused
to confirm the Sun’s report that Mr. Sevan has demanded payments
exceeding $300,000. Mr. Sevan’s attorney, Eric Lewis, did not return
phone calls yesterday.

IQBAL RIZA: Mr. Eckhard yesterday faced new questioning also about a
U.N. arrangement that allows former officials, including the outgoing
chief of staff Iqbal Riza, to continue enjoying diplomatic
privileges, after leaving the organization, for the salary of $1 a
year. Questions about the arrangement first appeared in the Sun
yesterday.

According to Mr. Eckhard, there are at least 10 officials who enjoy
the $1 salary at the undersecretary-general, and two at the level of
assistant secretary-general. All are entitled to reimbursement of
expenses when they travel abroad on behalf of Mr. Annan, he added.
Payments on such trips could be as high as $400 a day – double that
in areas considered high-risk.

DILEEP NAIR: Mr. Eckhard refused to reveal the result of a meeting
Mr. Annan had last week with the head of the U.N.’s watchdog office,
the Office of Internal Oversight Services, Dileep Nair. The meeting
came after a decision to reopen an investigation into staff
allegations that Mr. Nair had abused his position.

Last Thursday’s meeting was designed to allow Mr. Nair to appeal the
conclusions reached by the new investigation against him, but Mr.
Annan said he could not reveal anything on the conclusions, the
appeal, or any other details about the meeting.

Dashnaks Threatening

DASHNAKS THREATENING

A1+
24-03-2005

Today on the initiative of the ARFD Nikol Agbalyan students’ union,
the ARFD Youth Union and the Youth Union of Armenia about 30 youth
and student organizations sent a protest letter to the organizers of
Philip Kirkorov’s concerts in Yerevan and demanded their cancellation.

As the principal argument they present anti-Armenian, moreover,
pro-Turkish orientation of Kirkorov, who has recently cursed an
Armenian journalist and spoke of her origin with disdain. On the
threshold of the 90-th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide, the
protesters consider the invitation of the singer to be immoral and
inadmissible.

The youth organizations promise to undertake measures to foil the
concerts if they are not cancelled.

Turkey’s lurch toward hawkish nationalism confounds EU

Turkey’s lurch toward hawkish nationalism confounds EU

Irish Times
Mar 23, 2005

Turkey: An increasing tendency toward gesture politics has dismayed
many Turks, reports Nicholas Birch in Istanbul

When he returned from Brussels last December with a provisional date
to start negotiations with the European Union, many Turks hailed
prime minister Tayyip Erdogan as a miracle worker.

In the 40 years since first applying for membership, they had lurched
from crisis to crisis, from coup to coup. Here, finally, was a leader
whose pro-European sentiments seemed unimpeachable.

Less than a 100 days later, the festivities have been replaced by
general bafflement.

With a decision on Turkey’s accession application due this October,
Erdogan and his colleagues haven’t even got round to choosing a senior
negotiator yet. Last year they revolutionised Ankara’s traditionally
inflexible policy on Cyprus. Now they appear petrified of signing a
customs protocol with the Greek Cypriots.

“Since December they have been treading water”, said one EU diplomat.

But it is not just the government’s lethargy that troubles observers.
They are equally alarmed by governing party AKP’s increasing reliance
on the hawkish discourse and nationalist gesture politics Turks had
hoped were a thing of the past.

Faced with international condemnation when police beat female
protesters on March 6th, Erdogan responded by accusing the Turkish
press of pandering to the West. Down at the environment ministry,
meanwhile, his cabinet colleague raised smirks by removing references
to Armenia and Kurdistan from the scientific names of a local species
of fox and sheep. Vulpes vulpes kurdistanica and ovis armeniana,
Osman Pepe explained, were a threat to national unity.

Shaken by the recent resignations of half a dozen MPs and one cabinet
minister, AKP whips are tightening party discipline. With the leaks
drying up, analysts can only speculate on the reasons behind the
government’s apparent change of direction.

For some, Cyprus is the key. Erdogan, they argue, had gone to Brussels
on December 17th hoping his support for pro-European Turkish Cypriots
had finally persuaded the international community that it was Greek
Cyprus, not Turkey, that was responsible for stalling reunification
of the island, divided since 1974.

To an outsider, EU insistence instead that he sign a customs union
with Cyprus seems a mere trifle. To many Turks, it means recognising
a state they believe once tried to wipe out the island’s Muslims.

That is a major issue: just last week, Turkey’s president cancelled
an official visit to Finland when he heard he would be sharing dinner
with a Greek Cypriot leader.

With almost two-thirds of the seats in parliament, AKP should have
little reason to fear this sort of nationalist backlash. But it is
less powerful than it looks.

Built from the wreckage of a string of traditional anti-western
Islamist parties, AKP owed its success in the 2002 elections to support
for its pro-European policies that extended far beyond its traditional
religious base. Now the demands of supporters – and cadres – seem to
be splitting.

“For many conservative supporters, AKP has done enough on Europe
for the time being”, argues Cuneyt Ulsever, a columnist with the
mass-market daily Hurriyet.

“They want the party to concentrate on issues they consider important –
lifting the ban on headscarves in universities, and so on.”

It is a current of opinion particularly strong among senior party
officials, around 70 per cent of whom have their political roots in
the unreconstructed political Islam of the 1970s and 1980s.

Political scientist Ihsan Dagi believes AKP’s fundamental problem
lies in gauging even its traditional support base. “Opinion polls
regularly show AKP’s conservative supporters to be more pro-European
than Turks as a whole”, he says. “Yet at the same time, these are
the people more susceptible to nationalist rhetoric.”

AKP’s efforts to patch up such contradictions have so far been counter
-productive. Last year’s aborted plans to criminalise adultery were
just the start of a progressive alienation of mainstream supporters.

“The government must realise that its strength is rooted in support for
its policy of change, not in the party itself”, writes Ali Bayramoglu,
a columnist with the Islamist daily Zaman.

With parliamentary opposition in disarray, the government shouldn’t
have to worry about its temporary loss of direction. But nature abhors
a vacuum, and in Turkey there is always someone to fill the gap.

Since last August, when Turkey’s chief of staff told his men to shut
up, the generals have been unusually quiet. Last week, though, one
pointedly commemorated six Turkish policemen killed by the British
in the first World War. The ceremony had been dropped in the 1950s.

A couple of days later, to the anger of ministers, the general tipped
to take over the top post in a year’s time also weighed in with a
criticism of government policy on Iraq.

It could be the start of a trend.

BAKU: Another scandal around Georgian section of BTC

Another scandal around Georgian section of BTC

Assa-Irada, Azerbaijan
March 23 2005

Baku, March 22, AssA-Irada — Residents of Akhalkalaki district in
Georgia have declared that they will impede the construction of the
Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline by all means unless BP rehabilitates
the irrigation system in the area, Lider TV reported.

The protesters accuse BP of destroying the irrigation system in the
district and claim that in result they were unable to pick crops in
an area covering 250 hectares.

90% of population of Akhalkalaki is Armenians who were settled in
the district after World War II.

The spokeswoman for BP-Azerbaijan Tamam Bayatly told AssA-Irada that
the company received no information on the matter.*

BAKU: Armenian military forces keep attacking Azerbaijani positions

Azerbaijan News Service
March 22 2005

ARMENIAN MILITARY FORCES KEEP ATTACKING AZERBAIJANI POSITIONS
2005-03-22 15:11

Armenian forces keep shooting at Azerbaijani positions in occupied
Agdam region. Two Armenian soldiers are reported killed and one
wounded as the result of shooting on March 21 at about 6-7 pm.
Meanwhile Ruslan Rajabov, Azerbaijani soldier martyed while
preventing attack of Armenian forces on March 20 will be buried in
his native Lenkeran region.

Azerbaijan has no right to guarantee Karabakh’s security – Armenianm

Azerbaijan has no right to guarantee Karabakh’s security – Armenian minister

Arminfo
21 Mar 05

Yerevan, 21 March: Nagornyy Karabakh gained independence in line
with all the laws and constitutions that were valid in that period,
Armenian Foreign Minister Vardan Oskanyan said in an interview with
Armenian Public TV.

He said that apart from this, Nagornyy Karabakh declared its
independence on the territory which had never been part of Azerbaijan
because when the Azerbaijani state was founded for the first time in
1918, Nagornyy Karabakh was not an integral part of it.

Another important component, which is passed over in silence
for unknown reasons, is the violation of the people’s right to
self-determination in the context of human rights violations, because
when the people of Karabakh attempted to declare their independence,
Azerbaijan decided to resolve this problem by exterminating a
whole people. For this reason, today Azerbaijan does not have the
moral right to give any security guarantees to the Karabakh people.
Azerbaijan has already lost this right in the context of human rights,
the Armenian foreign minister said.

Azeri DM: OSCE MG has not attained positive outcome in NK settlement

PanArmenian News
March 19 2005

OSCE MG HAS NOT ATTAINED ANY POSITIVE OUTCOME IN KARABAKH SETTLEMENT,
AZERI DEFENSE MINISTER CONSIDERS

19.03.2005 03:33

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ «While Azeri lands are occupied by Armenia,
Azerbaijan will not agree to any peace with that country,» Azeri
Defense Minister Safar Abiyev stated at a meeting with Commander of
the US Oklahoma State National Guard, Major General Harry White,
Trend news agency reported. «I note with regret that the OSCE Minsk
Group, which deals with the conflict settlement, has not attained any
positive outcome yet. A considerable number of arms and ammunition is
accumulated in the occupied Azeri lands, which poses threat to the
Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan main export oil pipeline, which will start
operating soon. We expect much of the US Ambassador to the Minsk
Group in the conflict settlement,» S. Abiyev said. In H. White’s
words, «the new period will open new opportunities, Azerbaijan will
turn into a leading state in the South Caucasus.» He said Oklahoma
State is ready to share defense experience. S. Abiyev noted that the
basic interests of Azerbaijan and the US coincide, and that after
«the liberation of the lands seized by Armenia,» Azerbaijan will
develop faster and will become a leading state in the South Caucasus.

Gazprom mulls buying fifth block of Armenia’s major power plant

Prime-Tass English-language Business Newswire
March 17, 2005

Gazprom mulls buying fifth block of Armenia’s major power plant

MOSCOW, Mar 17 (Prime-Tass) — Russia’s natural gas monopoly Gazprom
is considering a deal to buy the fifth power generating unit of
Armenia’s Razdanskaya power plant, the company’s press service
reported Thursday.

The issue was discussed during the meeting between Gazprom’s deputy
chairman Alexander Ryazanov and Armenia’s President Robert Kocharyan.

In 2003, Razdanskaya power plant, which accounts for 20% of Armenia’s
domestic power output, was transferred to Russia to pay off Armenia’s
U.S. USD 31 million debt. Currently, the company is managed by
Russia’s Inter RAO UES.

Inter RAO UES is 60% owned by Russia’s power grid monopoly UES and
40% by Russia’s state nuclear power holding Rosenergoatom.

In 2004, Armenia announced a tender to sell the fifth block of the
plant, which is still under construction, in order to attract
investments into the country’s power sector.

Gazprom is also considering the use of Armenia’s Abovyanskoe gas
storage and is looking at the possibility of increase the facility’s
capacity to 240 million cubic meters from the current 85 million
cubic meters, the press service without elaborating. End