Author: Vanyan Gary

CUT TREES BUT SELECTIVELY

Azat Artsakh – Nagorno Karabakh Republic (NKR)
20 Sept 04

It happened so that I went to the village post office to make a call
at midnight. On my way I saw several lorries `Ural’ passing through
the central street of the village. All of them were carrying timber in
which I got certain noticing the white circles of logs shining white
under the light of the street lamps. Why carry them at night? The
first person with whom I shared my anxiety was the mayor of the
village. He did not know who does illegal tree felling. But he stated
that several people turned to him for permit to cut the nut trees
belonging to the community. The community council decided to forbid
felling of nut trees belonging to the village community. The community
of the village Togh used the right for ownership and forbade the
felling of nut trees. It is not easy to find out the situation in the
other communities of the country, however, certain work has been done
already. From July 10 to November 1 of 2003 the temporary commission
of the parliament (chairman Karen Adamian, members Maxim Mirzoyan,
Ararat Petrossian, Souren Sarghissian) checked tree felling in the
territory of NKR for legality, and especially felling of the rare and
expensive kinds of trees included in the Red Book. Of special interest
are the conclusion of the commission and the suggestions (during the
checking illegal cases of tree cutting were also revealed). `The
felling of the mentioned kinds of trees was done according to the
order maintained by the NKR government. However, the legislative
regulations for the sphere need further elaboration and accomplishment.’

The conclusion of the commission dwells on the following problems: `a)
there is no Red Book of NKR regulating the sphere, b) in the package
of legislative acts there are no rules for the felling of timber, c)
absence of inventory, mapping and monitoring of forest, enabling to
maintain the kinds and age of trees, situation, the qualitative and
quantitative characteristics of the forest, which does not favour the
effective implementation of legislative acts, d) the distribution of
the special state agencies charged for protection, reproduction and
use of forests and their rights and duties are not clearly regulated.’
The commission suggests the NKR government: a) confirming the Red Book
of NKR and working out the regulations of the NKR Red Book in the
section of forest flora, b) maintain the `Rules of Tree Felling’, c)
maintain state bodies specially charged with protection and
reproduction of forests distributing clearly their rights and
duties’.

The commission also suggests creating an agency for state protection
and maintaining the order of its activities, regulating the activity
of the forest cadastre and state registration of the forest resources,
publish the results regularly, starting with 2004 maintaining the
quota on tree felling, charge the responsible bodies with checking the
permit for correspondence with the number of the cut trees and the
sums paid to the community for tree felling, working out the main
directions of the strategy of forestry policy for 2004-2010. The head
of the department of nature protection G. Grigorian to whom we turned
to for information on the situation of forests, did not hide that the
problem is very serious. Moreover, he is sure that illegal tree
cutting will continue as the control over tree felling is exercised by
the same body which carries out tree felling. Besides, in NKR the
price for timber is several times lower than in Armenia (which is the
case in other spheres of trade as well), and as soon as the prices are
not equal there will be no end to the `hunters’ for cheap
timber. According to G. Grigorian, the problem will be solved if the
function of control is transferred to the NKR State Department of
Environment and Protection of Natural Resources which is, actually,
supposed to carry out this function. The NKR Minister of Agriculture
B. Bakhshiyan does not fully share this opinion. According to him, the
price for timber in NKR should be lower than in Armenia because the
condition of roads is bad and transporting ti mber from one place to
another costs more than in Armenia. And if the prices become equal, we
will never attract any businessman in this sphere. According to
Mr. Bakhshiyan, the wood working companies simply save the forests of
Karabakh where in the last 10 years no felling was carried out, and
therefore there is a large number of trees which need to be felled. He
agreed to G. Grigorian that the function of controlling tree felling
should be carried out by the department of environment and nature
protection, although he thinks that the situation will not change much
as there are no serious violations in the sphere. In reference to
legal felling, the amount of timber is far less than the demand (to
compare, in 2003 20 thousand cubic meters of oak, 16 thousand cubic
meters of beech and 5 thousand cubic meters of other kinds of timber
was demanded. The government permitted to fell 7 thousand cubic meters
of oak, 6700 thousand cubic meters of beech and 1,7 thousand cubic
meters of other kinds of timber). Besides, the amount permitted is
reducing year by year (in 2004 the government permitted to fell 3
thousand cubic meters of oak, 4 thousand cubic meters of beech and 800
cubic meters of other kinds of timber. During six months 1400 cubic
meters of oak, 1000 cubic meters of beech and 41 cubic meters of other
kinds of timber was felled). And nevertheless there is reason for
worry. There is danger in felling the same kinds of trees every
year. The qualitative change of the forest worries the minister of
agriculture as well. What is more, the number of expensive kinds of
trees is decreasing because of diseases rather than felling because,
according to the minister, there are no specialists in the republic.

The head of the department for environment and nature protection
G. Grigorian also stated that in the republic there are no specialists
of geology, mapping, forestry. Is the top leadership of the country
aware of the problem? Maybe we should send young people to Russia,
Germany (where these specialties are highly developed) to study?
Presently it is impossible to implement an important work such as
forest mapping because of the lack of specialists, which was last time
done in 1980. And at last the question whether in the past 15 years
any trees were planted in NKR nurseries or forests. It turns out that
there were attempts which failed. Instead of the three nurseries
working in NKR in soviet times now there will be only one in
Stepanakert. According to the minister of agriculture, next year it is
planned to provide 25 million drams for tree planting instead of 3 or
5 millions of previous years. According to G. Grigorian, when there
were three nurseries in Karabakh (in Martakert, Hadrout and
Stepanakert) only in the state forest resources 250 hectares of forest
was planted. Besides, another 150 hectares of forest was planted in
the collective farms. Such kinds of trees as peer, cypress, maple,
Greek oak, etc, on the verge of extinction need to be protected by the
law (there is the government decision at least on this matter). And if
expensive kinds of trees are to be cut, felling should be done in a
correct way, selectively. Otherwise, we deprive ourselves of the right
to be considered a civilized nation.

SUSANNA BALAYAN.
20-09-2004

Azeri, Armenian leaders vow to keep up talks on envlave stand-off

Agence France Presse — English
September 16, 2004 Thursday 7:31 AM GMT

ASTANA Sept 16 — The presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan on Thursday
promised to keep up dialogue on the bitter stand-off between their
countries over the enclave of Nagorno-Karabach.

Presidents Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan and Robert Kocharian of Armenia
held more than three hours of late-night talks in the Kazakh capital
mediated by Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, but gave few clues as
to what had passed between them.

“We need time — the president of Azerbaijan knows our position
more concretely — the process is continuing in a constructive way,”
Kocharian said at a joint news conference with Aliyev.

“Further development can resolve this question — we discussed various
questions on the path to a resolution,” Aliyev said.

Aliyev had earlier stressed the importance of Thursday’s talks over
the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, which saw the two neighbours fight a
war in the early 1990s and which remains unresolved.

Aliyev has faced calls in his home country to take a bolder stand
on the Nagorno-Karabakh enclave and the thousands of Azeris who have
fled the disputed area.

International mediators had been urging face-to-face meetings between
the two sides, which had faltered during the transition of power in
Azerbaijan from Aliyev’s father Heidar.

In the early 1990s ethnic Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh, a mountainous
territory wedged between Armenia and Azerbaijan, declared their
independence from Azeri rule.

A war followed in which the separatists, with help from Armenia, forced
out Azeri troops and took de facto control of the enclave. The war left
about 30,000 people dead and forced over a million to flee their homes.

Though a ceasefire was signed in 1994, the war has never been
declared over and Azerbaijan has repeatedly threatened to use force
to re-establish its control over Nagorno-Karabakh.

NORTHERN AVENUE RESIDENTS KEEP PROTESTING

A1 Plus | 17:06:28 | 16-09-2004 | Social |

Residents of Yerevan’s Northern Avenue gathered Thursday in front
of the City Hall entrance saying they had been driven from their
apartments and demanding higher compensation for their eviction.

The people were driven from their homes because their apartments were
due to be pulled down for Northern Avenue construction.

They say the authorities don’t give passports to the children reached
16 and don’t register those young men returning home after completing
their compulsory national service duties in order to leave them
without due money.

All protesters say they were duped. They intend to keep struggling. In
their words, their last resort will be collective appeal to foreign
embassies for asylum.

PRESS RELEASE

Armenian National Committee
San Francisco – Bay Area
51 Commonwealth Avenue
San Francisco, CA 94118
Tel: (415) 387-3433
Fax: (415) 751-0617
[email protected]_ (mailto:[email protected])
_www.ancsf.org_ ()
_www.teachgenocide.org_ ()

Contact: Roxanne Makasdjian (415) 641-0525

ARMENIAN-AMERICANS JOIN “SUDAN: DAY OF CONSCIENCE” IN SAN FRANCISCO

San Francisco, CA August 25, 2004 â^À^Ó Armenian-American community members
joined hands with others at San Franciscoâ^À^Ùs Civic Center to raise public
awareness about continuing massacres in Sudan. The event, called â^À^ÜSudan:
Day of
Conscienceâ^À^Ý was organized by the Save Darfur Coalition in tandem with
several
other organizations, including the Bay Area Armenian National Committee, the
Interfaith Council, Human Rights Watch, the Jewish Community Relations, and
the
United Muslims of America. Local Armenian priests from the St. Gregory and
St. John churches also participated it the rally.

In light of the escalating violence and the looming threat of genocide in
Sudan, representatives spoke about the desperate need for united action on all
levelsâ^À^Ôregionally, statewide, nationwide, and globally. Referring to the
recent past, they illustrated the destructiveness of international blindness
to
gross violations of human rights. It was only ten years ago that the genocide
in Rwanda took the lives of 800,000 victims as the world stood idly by
despite the many warning signs of the atrocities. In Sudan, government-backed
Arab
militias, known as the Janjaweed, have been engaging in campaigns to
displace and wipe out entire communities of African tribal farmers. Witnesses
report
that villages have been razed, women and girls are systematically raped and
branded, men and boys murdered, and food and water supplies specifically
targeted and destroyed. There have also been reports of government aerial
bombardments of explosives as well as barrels of nails, car chassis and old
appliances hurled from planes to crush people and property. Over fifty
thousand have died and over a million have been driven from their homes.
Only in
the past few weeks have humanitarian agencies had limited access to a
portion of the affected region.

Representing the ANC, Haig Baghdassarian spoke to the several hundred people
gathered about the Armenian Genocide and traced the bloody history of the
20th century, pointing to the genocides which followed and condemning
international reluctance to take action. “When will we learn that we cannot
tolerate
this to happen time and time again? Perhaps not until, we as Americans, can
tell our Turkish allies, that although we may be friends, we will not allow
them to deny history and escape with impunity for the murder of a nation. And
perhaps, not until, we as Americans can come to terms with our own bloody
past â^À^Ó and the destruction of the indigenous peoples of America.”

“But these noble goals may take years or even decades to achieve, and we
cannot stand by and watch yet another genocide occur, whether itâ^À^Ùs in
central
Europe or in the heart of Africa, or on the very periphery of human
civilization,” said Bagdassarian

Reverend Father Avedis Torossian, pastor of St. Gregory Armenian Apostolic
Church, and Reverend Father Sarkis Petoyan, pastor of St. John Armenian
Apostolic Church were also present to express their solidarity with the “Sudan:
Day
of Conscience”. The peaceful collaboration of the representatives of the
Armenian community with those of the Jewish, Cambodian, and Rwandan
communities
demonstrated how the one common aspect of these groupsâ^À^Ù histories can
unite
them in trying to prevent genocide from becoming a dark chapter in the lives
and history of another people.

#####

Pilots not in EG ‘for health’
By Mariam Harutunian

News24 , South Africa
Sept 14 2004

Yerevan – The Armenian aircrew on trial in Equatorial Guinea on charges
of plotting a coup are guilty of nothing more serious than trying to
support their families, according to relatives waiting anxiously back
home in their former Soviet republic.

The six Armenians were among some 90 suspected mercenaries hauled
in across Africa and charged with plotting to overthrow Equatorial
Guinea’s President Teodoro Obiang Nguema.

But their families say the six are just innocent airmen who were
unwittingly sucked into the affair when – facing unemployment and
hardship at home – they signed up for work flying shipments of freight
around Africa.

“Our husbands are not fortune-seekers and are not coup plotters,”
Agunik Abazian, wife of jailed flight engineer Razmik Khachatrian,
said from her home in the Armenian capital, Yerevan.

Since March her 52-year-old husband, along with his five colleagues,
has been languishing in the notorious Black Beach jail in Equatorial
Guinea’s capital, Malabo.

The Armenians are caught up in what prosecutors say was an audacious
plot to replace President Obiang, who has ruled his oil-rich republic
in west Africa since 1979, with exiled opposition leader Severo Moto.

The Armenian aircrew are alleged to have been part of an advanced
party stationed in Malabo to await the arrival of the main force
of mercenaries.

They are being held in Malabo along with 13 other men from South
Africa and Equatorial Guinea.

The Armenian aircrew in jail in Equatorial Guinea are from a modest
background, say their families.

The average monthly wage is less than R350. Many doctors and university
lecturers make ends meet by driving taxis or selling cigarettes.

Armenia’s struggling national airline has sacked dozens of pilots
and flight crew.

“Our husbands are highly-qualified specialists, but like many good
pilots today in Armenia, they found themselves without any work,”
said Abazian, who has two children.

“Therefore they were forced to search for work far from home. They
certainly did not set out for Africa for the sake of their health.”

The six men are employed by Tiger Air, an Armenian firm which leased
the crew and their Antonov-12 cargo plane to customers in Africa.

They arrived in Malabo in January this year.

Between then and their arrest, they flew once, to the Democratic
Republic of Congo, but returned with the hold empty, the men told a
court hearing.

Abazian said that with the help of the Red Cross, the families in
Armenia had been able to speak by telephone to the men in jail.

She said she spoke to her husband for just one minute, but he said
he was healthy, and that he was innocent.

Armenia’s ambassador to Egypt, Sergei Manassarian, has visited the
aircrew at the prison in Malabo.

He said: “My meetings and contacts in Malabo have strengthened my
conviction that our pilots are innocent and that they wil be released
in the near future.”

Azeri envoy says cancellation of Baku war games not to affect ties with NATO

MPA news agency
14 Sep 04

Baku, 14 September: The USA welcomes NATO’s decision to cancel the
Cooperative Best Effort 2004 exercises that were due to be held in
Baku as part of the Partnership for Peace programme, a representative
of the US State Department has said.

He said America regretted very much the decision to deny Armenian
officers entry visas.

Commenting on the statement by the State Department representative,
the Azerbaijani ambassador to the USA, Hafiz Pasayev, said that
“unfortunately, America, a country co-chairing the OSCE Minsk Group,
did not take into account the position of the Azerbaijani public on
the Armenian issue and the possibilities for a peaceful solution
to the Karabakh conflict”. The diplomat said the cancellation of
the exercises would not damage Azerbaijan’s long-term cooperation
programme with the alliance.

Russian Railways appeals to countries in Caucasus to unblock railroads

RosBusinessConsulting, Russia
Sept 10 2004

RBC, 10.09.2004, Sukhumi 18:25:13.Russian Railways has appealed
to politicians in the countries of the Caucasus to make a decision
to unblock the railroads in the region, Russian Railways President
Gennady Fadeyev declared at the opening of regular service on the
Sukhumi-Moscow route. According to him, the railroads in Abkhazia
had been out of use over the previous 12 years, which has resulted in
a decrease in the volume of passenger and freight transportation to
Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan, causing losses reaching billions of
dollars. “Economic development of any country is impossible without
the development of railway services, as transportation by rail is
the cheapest way to deliver freight,” Fadeyev pointed out.

Only passenger services have so far been opened on the Sukhumi-Moscow
route. However, talks are being held with the government of Abkhazia
to resume freight transportation in 2005. Fadeyev remarked that 18
trains a day used to go via Sukhumi in both directions before 1992.

Sun-Sentinel Com

Dementieva will play Kuznetsova for women’s U.S. Open title

By Charles Bricker
Staff Writer
Posted September 11 2004

NEW YORK — This would be the final run, the final stretch and the
final futile wave of the racket by Jennifer Capriati, the last Yank
in the tank at the U.S. Open.

Elena Dementieva’s backhand, smoothly struck to the left corner on the
second match point, sped through a brisk wind past America’s hard-luck
queen of tennis, then probably sent half of Russia into euphoria
while simultaneously shipping CBS Sports deeper into depression.

With Lindsay Davenport gimping out against Svetlana Kuznetsova earlier
on this bright and breezy Friday, and with Capriati sent home once
again one day early, the Open is without an American in the final
for the first time since 1988.

The words of former USTA President Harry Marmion, uttered in 1997
when he inaugurated a multimillion-dollar program to revitalize the
junior tennis program, came echoing out of the past:

“I’m not looking forward to the day, four or five years from now,
when we have an Armenian and a Lithuanian in the U.S. Open final,”
Marmion said.

Well, it’s two Russians in the women’s championship match and just
about anyone but an American on the men’s side, and, of all the
surviving suspects, no one deserves this more than Dementieva, who
has fought through an injury to her left leg and the horrors of one of
the worst serves in tennis to reach her second major final of the year.

Dementieva defeated Capriati 6-0, 2-6, 7-6 (5) after the powerfully
built smaller Kuznetsova took advantage of Davenport’s groin injury
to win 1-6, 6-2, 6-4. Capriati had lost the first nine points and
seven games before she seemed to get back in control, but faded late
in the final set.

The men play their semifinals today with one Swiss (Roger Federer),
one Brit (Tim Henman), one Aussie (Lleyton Hewitt) and one surprising
Swede (Joachim Johansson). That’s great for international relations,
but it’s not going to pump up the television ratings today and Sunday.

Dementieva, whose strong lower body is a big key to her destructive
ground strokes, can be edgy on court. But this time, she vowed, she
won’t go into the Open final with the nerves that doomed her against
countrywoman Anastasia Myskina at the French Open.

“At the end of the game today, I was so tired it was no place for
nerves,” she said. “I was always thinking about every point. I wasn’t
nervous at all. Why should I? It’s been a great tournament for me
so far.

“It was not easy to play against this crowd. They were laughing at
my serve, so I was kind of relaxed a little. I was into the game all
the time.”

She hit 67 doubles faults at the French, at one point in the final
screaming, “I hate my serve.” This time, Capriati hated her serve,
even when Dementieva puffed it in at 59 or 63 mph because the slower
the ball, the more it wiggled and dived in the wind.

“You’re off-balance basically all the time,” said Capriati, who never
considered coming in, chipping the serve back down the middle and
racing to the net behind her returns.

“I mean, it’s not my game to chip and charge,” she explained. “It’s
kind of difficult on the forehand, kind of the way she was hitting it,
to do that.”

In fact, Capriati’s second serve was much more vulnerable. In the
decisive set, Dementieva won 10 of the 11 second serve points on
return while Capriati was able to score on 13 of 19.

But it was Dementieva’s persistence in coming to net that made the
difference. She was at net 11 times in the first two sets, 33 in the
final set, and she converted 23 of those points.

“It was very difficult to play with the wind today, so I as trying
to stay close to the ball and go to the net was the only way I could
win this match,” she said. “Especially from one side, when you play
against the wind. There is no other choice to win the point. You have
to go to the net.”

If Capriati had done the same, this match might have turned out
differently. After she broke Dementieva to go up 2-1 in the third,
she made a few sweeping gestures with her hands, as if to say, “Yes,
like that. Get to the net!” But she never tried to force the play
off Dementieva’s weak second serves.

Davenport was equally despondent after her defeat. She had won 22
matches in a row coming into this semifinal and somehow tweaked her
left groin or hip flexor in an easy morning warmup. It was fine while
she slashed through the first set.

But after being broken at 2-1 in the second set after holding 33 games
in a row dating back to the second round, Davenport’s body language
changed. “Somewhere along the line, I believe around 4-2, my leg got
worse. I knew I was at a disadvantage and it was an uphill battle.”

She was retaped after the second set and was up 4-3 in the third,
but she could no longer run and was depending on hitting winning
serves. Playing smartly, Kuznetsova broke her with a backhand winner,
then ran out the match at love with a 103 mph ace.

A few hours later, the last American could have pulled down the
flag. Maybe the famed Russian Tea Room will reopen this weekend.

Copyright © 2004, South Florida Sun-Sentinel

Azeris protest at Russian singers’ concert on Karabakh’s independence day

ANS TV, Baku
7 Sep 04

[Presenter Natavan Babayeva] The Azerbaijani Ministry of Culture has
sent a letter of protest to the Russian Ministry of Culture and Mass
Communications with regard to some Russian singers’ participation in
celebrations of Nagornyy Karabakh’s independence day.

[Correspondent, over archive footage of Russian singers] Russian
singers Nadezhda Babkina, Soso Pavliashvili, Katya Lel, Valentina
Legkostupova, Aleksandr Peskov, Irina Otiyeva and the Chay Vdvoyem
band performed their last concert in Azerbaijan some time ago. To
be more precise, this concert was staged in Stepanakert in Nagornyy
Karabakh. But why was it the last concert? The leader of Nagornyy
Karabakh’s Azerbaijani community, Nizami Bahmanov, believes that
nobody invited them to Nagornyy Karabakh.

[Nizami Bahmanov, in his office] Generally speaking, this move has
offended the Azerbaijani people. They received money and sang, but
achieved nothing. If you remember, when a Georgian chess player took
part in a chess tournament there, our chess federation appealed against
this and they [presumably, the Georgian chess federation] offered
official apologies. Let us wait and see. Polad muallim [Azerbaijani
Minister of Culture Polad Bulbuloglu] will probably receive a written
reply from the Russian Ministry of Culture and Mass Communications.

[Passage omitted: MPs say this move damages Russian-Azerbaijani
cultural relations]

[Correspondent] Polad Bulbuloglu, who is accompanying Azerbaijani
President Ilham Aliyev in his French visit, has appealed to the heads
of the public organizations and agencies, as well as legal entities
and individuals, involved in organizing concerts in Azerbaijan. The
appeal strongly condemns the Russian singers’ recent concert in
Nagornyy Karabakh, which is Azerbaijan’s integral part, and insists
that relevant bodies should never invite the aforesaid singers to
our country again.

[Polad Bulbuloglu, on the telephone] Look, these people do not
respect us. They eat our bread here and get money, we offer our
hospitality to them, but on the other hand, they go there via Armenia
and give concerts.

[Correspondent] As a native of Sushi [town in Karabakh], the minister
believes that the Russian singers’ visit to Stepanakert via Armenia
without the authorization of Azerbaijan’s state, public or private
bodies to hold a concert in Nagornyy Karabakh pointed to complete
disrespect for the Azerbaijani people.

[Polad Bulbuloglu] Some of them say that they did not know why they
were going there. Are they kids, do they go to a kindergarten? Any
person living in this world knows that there are big unresolved
problems around Nagornyy Karabakh. If a person describes himself
as a friend of the Azerbaijani people, he should not do things like
this. But if he disrespects us, what can we do in this situation? We
have to show our disrespect too.

[Correspondent] The Azerbaijani Ministry of Culture has sent an
official letter of protest to Russian Minister of Culture and Mass
Communications Aleksandr Sokolov over the issue. The Azerbaijani
Foreign Ministry has said that many of the aforesaid Russian
singers have repeatedly visited Azerbaijan and they are well aware
that Azerbaijan and Armenia are at war. They understood quite well
where they were going and why. That is why their visit to Nagornyy
Karabakh without taking Azerbaijan’s sovereignty into account should
be described as disrespect, end quote.

The organizers of Soso Pavliashvili’s planned concert in Baku have
already terminated the reached agreement. But I also regret that the
aforesaid Russian singers will never see Baku again. Only because
they will never see these witnesses of the Karabakh Armenians’
attitude to pieces of art and culture.

[Video showed traces of bullets on sculptures of Azerbaijani composer
Uzeir Hacibayov, singer Bulbul and poetess Natavan brought from Susa
to Baku].

Leyla Hasanova, Sehrac Azadoglu for ANS.

President Aliyev starts working visit to France

Assa-Irada, Azerbaijan
Sept 8 2004

Baku, September 7, AssA-Irada

President Ilham Aliyev left for France on September 7.

Aliyev met with his French counterpart Jacques Chirac on Tuesday
evening to discuss issues pertaining to the Upper Garabagh conflict
settlement, Azerbaijan’s integration with the European Union,
bilateral economic cooperation and investments by French companies
in the country, the French Embassy in Baku said.

Following the talks, President Aliyev met with the director of French
International Relations Institute.

On September 8, the President is expected to hold a private meeting
with the French co-chair of the OSCE Minsk Group. He will also
meet with the chairman of French Senate and attend an exhibition of
Azerbaijani artists at the Senate Museum.

On September 9, a ceremony on presenting the goodwill ambassador
title to the President’s wife Mehriban Aliyeva will be held at the
UNESCO residence in Paris.

Commenting on President Aliyev’s visit, prominent political scholar
Rasim Musabayov said that before the forthcoming talks in Astana, the
President may clarify certain details in his meeting with President
Chirac.

“Presidents Chirac and Putin of Russia have leverage to influence
the Armenian leadership. The use of the French President’s political
potential may appear productive to President Aliyev, although such
meetings did not yield any results in the past”, Musabayov said.*