President of Azerbaijan advocates closer ties with China

President of Azerbaijan advocates closer ties with China

Interfax
25 Oct. 2004

Baku. (Interfax-Azerbaijan) – Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev
on Saturday expressed satisfaction with the state of Azerbaijani-
Chinese economic relations and voiced hopes for closer cooperation.

During a meeting in Baku with Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing,
“the president expressed satisfaction with the activity of Chinese
companies in Azerbaijan, especially in the fuel and energy sector,
and expressed hopes for successful cooperation in non-oil sectors as
well,” the Azerbaijani presidential press service told Interfax.

Aliyev and Li also discussed territorial problems. “Mutual support
by Baku and Beijing was noted on the Nagorno-Karabakh and Taiwan
problems,” the press service said.

Li said he hopes the planned visit by Aliyev to Beijing in 2005 will
strengthen relations.

Preparations for the visit and monitoring the enforcement of
Azerbaijani- Chinese agreements are the main goals of Li’s visit
to Baku.

Tbilisi: Russo-Georgian Border Reopened

Civil Georgia, Georgia
Oct 22 2004

Russo-Georgian Border Reopened

/ Civil Georgia, Tbilisi / 2004-10-22 15:37:04
Reports say that Russia reopened its border with Georgia at the
Larsi checkpoint on October 22, after an almost two-month closure
following the Beslan hostage-taking tragedy in Russia’s North
Ossetian Republic in early September.

`Starting today the Larsi checkpoint will work at full capacity. The
Georgian Foreign Ministry and the Border Guard Department have
received relevant notes from Russia regarding the opening of the
checkpoint,’ Chairman of the Georgian Border Guard Department Badri
Bitsadze said on October 22.

The Larsi checkpoint, which is the only land border with Georgia
under Tbilisi’s control, was reopened only 4 times since September.
Closure of the border hit the revenues of the Georgian customs
department hard and also triggered concerns from Armenia, as the
Larsi checkpoint is the only land link with Russia for Armenian
citizens.

Russian media reported that Russia also lifted restrictions at the
Russian-Azerbaijani border on October 22.

Erdogan raises EU issue on visit to France

Erdogan raises EU issue on visit to France

Irish Times
Oct 22, 2004

PARIS: The issues that have dogged Turkey’s application for EU
membership resurfaced during a two-day visit to Paris by the Turkish
Prime Minister, Mr Recep Tayyip Erdogan writes Lara Marlowe in Paris.

Though rarely said, the main issue is that Turkey’s 70 million people
are almost all Muslim.

In the week that French schools began expelling Muslim girls who
insisted on wearing Islamic headscarves, Mr Erdogan, the leader of the
moderate Islamist Justice and Development Party, won no friends in
France by telling LCI television station that his daughters study in
the US to escape the ban on headscarves in Turkish universities.

At a press conference yesterday, Mr Erdogan tried to evade a question
from The Irish Times about article 305 of the new Turkish penal code
by saying that offences which constitute “anti-national activities”
are not specifically defined in the law. The EU demanded that Ankara
withdraw another article that would have made adultery a criminal
offence, but article 305 apparently went unnoticed.

An explanatory memorandum drawn up by the Turkish Justice Commission
provided only two examples of “anti-national activity”: demands for
the recognition of the Armenian genocide, and support for the
withdrawal of Turkish troops from Cyprus. The commission’s findings
would serve as the basis for implementing the law. “Anti-national
activity” is punishable by 10 years in prison, 15 years for publishers
and journalists.

In 1987 the European Parliament made recognition of the killing of 1.5
million Armenians in 1915, the resolution of the Cyprus and Kurdish
conflicts, and an end to human rights abuses, conditions for Turkish
accession to Europe. In 2001 the French National Assembly voted for a
law recognising the Armenian genocide.

But Mr Erdogan showed no sign of budging on the Armenian issue. “It
has never been studied on the basis of Ottoman archives,” he said. “We
say, ‘leave it up to the historians’. The archives are open. Let them
come and examine the archives in an objective fashion.” Ankara has
welcomed the work of a British historian who claims that “only”
600,000 Armenians were slaughtered by Turks, and that Turkish Muslims
were also victims.

Though Turkey invaded Cyprus in 1974, Mr Erdogan said, “Turkey should
not withdraw its troops from Cyprus” because a 65 per cent majority of
Turkish Cypriots voted to accept a reunification plan drawn up by UN
Secretary General Mr Kofi Annan.

Mr Erdogan said he was “saddened” by French opposition to Turkey’s
application and objected to the holding of a referendum. He appealed
to President Jacques Chirac to stop the issue being exploited in
domestic politics.

Our Citizens Are “Hostages”

OUR CITIZENS ARE “HOSTAGES”

A1+
21-10-2004

‘What is the state looking at while our citizens are kept
hostages-Many Armenians have been facing a deadlock in the
Russian-Georgian frontier for more than a month. Isn’t it possible to
move those in the gravest situation to an airport nearby and to
transport them to Armenia in a special flight, `A1+’ receives many
e-mails like this.

What do Authorities do in fact? They just carry on telephone
negotiations. As a result of them frontier is periodically opened for
a few minutes, several cars are let out and the boundary is again
closed. No other kind of state support is provided to our citizens in
the frontier.

During the conversation with us a high state official said:
`Peopleimport cars and make profit by their business. Why should we
worry about it?â=80=9D.

BAKU: Moscow welcomes Azerbaijani-Armenian dialogue

Assa-Irada, Azerbaijan
Oct 20 2004

Moscow welcomes Azerbaijani-Armenian dialogue

Russia is ready to guarantee for possible agreement between
Azerbaijan and Armenia over the settlement of the Upper Garabagh
conflict, spokesman for the Russian Foreign Ministry Alexander
Yakovenko has stated.
Moscow welcomes the talks of all level between the conflicting sides,
Yakovenko said. `We think that the conflicting sides themselves must
reach common agreement on the issue,’ he noted.
Yakovenko added that his country is ready to assist Yerevan and Baku
in solving the conflict as co-chair of the OSCE Minsk Group and
guarantee for agreement to be reached between the conflicting sides.*

Armenian books to be presented at Istanbul fair

ArmenPress
Oct 18 2004

ARMENIAN BOOKS TO PRESENTED AT ISTANBUL FAIR

YEREVAN, OCTOBER 18, ARMENPRESS. Armenian books will be for the
first time presented at the 23d international fair in Istanbul from
October 23 to 30. About 300 books of Armenian classics, modern
writers will be presented.
Vahan Khachatrian, head of the Armenian Publishers Association,
told Armenpress that the agreement on the Armenian participation was
signed during the 56th international fair in Frankfurt October 6-11.
The fair leadership and the Turkish Publishers Association will
take care of the expenditures of the participation of the Armenian
delegation and the transfer of the books.
The Armenian publishers will also take part in the “Neighborhood
through culture, art and literature” symposium dedicated to the
book-publishing issues.

Soccer-Armenian league champions since 1992

Soccer-Armenian league champions since 1992

YEREVAN, Oct 19 (Reuters) – Title winners and runners-up

since the Armenian championship was formed in 1992 after the

collapse of the Soviet Union (to 1994 spring-autumn, 1995-96 and

1996-97 autumn-spring, 1997 autumn only, 1998 onward

spring-autumn):

Champions Runners-up

1992 Shirak Gyumri Pyunik Yerevan

1993 Ararat Yerevan Shirak Gyumri

1994 Shirak Gyumri Omentment Yerevan

1995-96 Pyunik Yerevan Shirak Gyumri

1996-97 Pyunik Yerevan Ararat Yerevan

1997 Yerevan Shirak Gyumri

1998 Tsement Ararat Shirak Gyumri

1999 Shirak Gyumri Ararat Yerevan

2000 Araks Ararat Ararat Yerevan

2001 Pyunik Yerevan Zvartnots Yerevan

2002 Pyunik Yerevan Shirak Gyumri

2003 Pyunik Yerevan Banants Yerevan

2004 Pyunik Yerevan to be decided

Total wins since 1992:

6 – Pyunik Yerevan

3 – Shirak Gyumri

2 – Araks Ararat

1 – Ararat Yerevan, Yerevan

Note: Tsement Ararat changed their name to Araks Ararat in

1999.

Ararat Yerevan won the Soviet championship in 1973, the only

Armenian club to do so in the 55-year history of the league.

10/19/04 13:41 ET

Himnadram: New school in Shosh

PRESS RELEASE
“Hayastan” All-Armenian Fund
Governmental Building 3, Yerevan, RA
Contact: Artak Harutyunyan
Tel: 3741 52 09 40
Fax: 3741 52 37 95
E-mail: [email protected]
Web:

2004-10-11
New school in Shosh

On October 10, the inauguration of the new school took place in Shosh
village, NKR. The construction of the new school building started in
2003 by sponsorship of the “Hayastan” All-Armenian Fund’s Toronto
affiliate. The new school designed for 120 students meets all modern
standards.

The President of NKR Arkadi Ghoukasian, the “Hayastan” Fund’s

Executive Director Naira Melkoumian, the Chairman of the Fund’s
affiliate in Toronto Migirdich Migirdichyan, as well as
representatives of Canadian Community and NKR Government participated
in the opening ceremony.

http://www.himnadram.org/

NATO’s Caucasus policy not against Russia – US researcher

NATO’s Caucasus policy not against Russia, US researcher tells Armenian agency

Mediamax news agency, Yerevan
18 Oct 04

A senior US researcher has said that NATO’s cooperation with countries
of the South Caucasus and Central Asia is not directed against
Russia. In an exclusive interview with Mediamax news agency, he said
that the organization wants “to help anchor these countries to the
West, reduce the likelihood of future conflicts developing in this
region… and eliminate new threats to our security that could emerge,
especially from further south in the wider Middle East”. Ronald
D. Asmus called on NATO to pursue “a dual track strategy where it
expands its outreach to this region and tries to deepen its
cooperation with Moscow in parallel”. He told the agency that NATO’s
cooperation with each individual country depends on the latter’s
“performance”. “NATO responds to those partners who are performing,
domestically in terms of democratic reforms at home as well as
strategic cooperation in foreign policy,” he added. He urged Armenia
to improve its ties with Turkey, “an important and valued NATO ally”,
as this would allow it to deepen relations with NATO. The following is
the text of the report in English by the Armenian news agency
Mediamax; subheadings have been inserted editorially:

An exclusive interview with Ronald D. Asmus, Senior Transatlantic
Fellow, German Marshall Fund of the United States, [Adjunct Senior
Fellow, Council on Foreign Relations] former deputy assistant
secretary of state for European affairs in the Clinton administration
(1997-2000), to the Armenian Mediamax news agency.

[Correspondent] In your opinion, what is the activation of
Armenia-NATO relations conditioned by?

[Asmus] I don’t think it would be appropriate for me to try to
interpret Armenian foreign policy motivations. But I can talk about
why there is a growing interest in the West and in NATO in a wider
Black Sea region and Armenia. And, in a nutshell, the case goes as
follows. The main strategic challenge the Alliance faced in the 1990s
was to eliminate the potential causes of future conflicts on the
continent in the wake of the collapse of communism and the Soviet
Union. The West sought to do so by halting ethnic war in the Balkans,
anchoring and integrating Central and Eastern Europe in the West
through EU and NATO enlargement and by seeking to build a new and
cooperative relationship with Russia. That was the agenda of the
1990s.

Today much of that agenda has been fulfilled. That part of Europe
where two world wars and the Cold War originated are now democratic,
peaceful and secure. And the impact of the terrorist attacks of the
11th of September has shifted the strategic focus of the Alliance
eastward and southward. It is after all, from the broader Middle East
that the greatest threats to western security are now likely to
originate.

Looking into the future, one can suggest that one of the greatest
challenges facing the Alliance over the next decade is to stabilize
the southern flank of the Euro-Atlantic community starting with a
final settlement in the Balkans and extending through the wider Black
Sea region into Central Asia. It is an important goal in its own right
but also with an eye toward major strategic challenges confronting us
in the wider Middle East. Moreover, many of the countries in this
region themselves are now seeking a closer relation sip with
institutions like the EU and NATO. It is not a secret, for example,
that many leaders in Georgia have been inspired by the successful
example of the Baltic states successfully integrating themselves into
the West.

NATO is therefore now starting to debate whether it should make the
anchoring of this region to the West a top priority and how it can or
should pursue that goal. Last year I led a project at the German
Marshall Fund of the United States that brought together a team of
American and Europeans experts to try to sketch out what such a
strategy could and should look like. It is one of several
contributions to this emerging debate. Your readers can find that
paper on our web site at

West concerned about Russia’s “authoritarian direction”

[Correspondent] Will Armenia be able to maintain the balance between
preserving close relations with Russia and striving for further
integration into NATO?

[Asmus] It is of course up to Armenia to decide what kind of
relationship it wants to have with NATO as well as with Russia. For
the last decade NATO has been trying to build a new and cooperative
NATO-Russia relationship where we can work together in pursuit of
common security objectives. It has not been easy and we are not as far
as many of us had originally hoped. And we must note that today
relations are not getting easier as there is growing concern in the
West over the authoritarian direction in which Russia is headed.

That said, let’s go back to what Western objectives are. Our goal is
or should be to extend the zone of peace and security in the
Euro-Atlantic community to the wider Black Sea region. We want to help
anchor these countries to the West, reduce the likelihood of future
conflicts developing in this region and to be better prepared to
confront and eliminate new threats to our security that could emerge,
especially from further south in the wider Middle East. None of this
is aimed against Russia. Indeed, I would argue that in principle
Moscow should share these goals as a major Black Sea power. I believe
that the Alliance needs to try to pursue a dual track strategy where
it expands its outreach to this region and tries to deepen its
cooperation with Moscow in parallel. It is clearly in our as well as
Armenia’s interest that we succeed in doing so.

NATO wants “more regional security”, not dividing lines

[Correspondent] Armenian Foreign Minister Vardan Oskanyan said: “If it
happens so that Georgia and Azerbaijan become NATO members at last and
Armenia not, this will obviously bring about the appearance of new
separation lines in the Caucasus.” Are such fears justified?

[Asmus] My view is that NATO should want to reach out and deepen its
cooperation with countries in the region in a way that enhances the
security of the region as a whole. After all, the goal here is to
produce more regional security, not create new dividing lines. The
Alliance will undoubtedly be sensitive to the need to expand
cooperation in a way that helps and does not undercut the security of
other countries. We faced this question many times in Central and
Eastern Europe in the 1990s and always found ways of resolving these
issues.

At the same time, the Alliance is also not going to forgo or hold back
on cooperation just because another country may find it a bit awkward
or inconvenient. Sometimes moving forward with one or another country
can provide an inducement for other countries to reorient themselves
and also step up their cooperation. If the prospect of closer ties
between the West and Georgia also encourages Armenia to step up its
ties with us that is not necessarily a bad thing, in my view.

NATO membership depends on “performance”

[Correspondent] We can very often come across comments in the West
that NATO should forget about Armenia and pay special attention to
Georgia and Azerbaijan. What do you think about this?

[Asmus] NATO deals with countries on an individual basis. It is a core
principle of the Alliance thinking that no third country has a veto
over how NATO pursues its relations with any partner. Obviously NATO
also takes into account how its dealings with one country can affect
regional concerns and stability as well. In addition, NATO also takes
into account a country’s aspirations. Georgia and Azerbaijan have
declared their aspiration to eventually become members of the
alliance. Armenia today has not.

But the most important factor is performance. You can have the right
aspirations but if a country is not performing those declarations
won’t get you very far. NATO responds to those partners who are
performing domestically in terms of democratic reforms at home as well
as strategic cooperation in foreign policy. Look at how the West
responded to the Rose Revolution and the prospect for a democratic
breakthrough in Georgia. The history of the last decade has shown that
the most important factor in accelerating relationships between and
the Alliance is often domestic democratic reforms and the embrace of
those values that NATO represents and is pledged to defend.

NATO-Armenian ties to deepen after rapprochement with Turkey

[Correspondent] Do you agree with the point of view that NATO is ready
to go as far in its relations with Armenia as Armenia itself is ready
for it?

[Asmus] One of the advantages we have today compared to the early
1990s is that NATO now has a decade of experience in how to use
Partnership tools and programs to build relations with non-members
like Armenia. Moreover, NATO has set up these programs in a manner
that a partner country like Armenia can itself help determine the pace
or scope of cooperation. One of the points we made in the GMF strategy
paper on the wider Black Sea region was that the Prague summit gave us
new tools for building such cooperation. There are plenty of talented
people at NATO headquarters willing and able to build expanded
cooperation if the political will to do so exists on both sides. Of
course Armenia has to meet the political requirements for expanded
cooperation as well.

[Correspondent] Don’t you think that the unsettled Armenian-Turkish
relations has a negative effect on Armenia’s cooperation with NATO?

[Asmus] I am not an expert on Armenia’s public opinion. But progress
towards Turkish-Armenian reconciliation would be a very positive thing
first and foremost for the peoples of both nations as well as for
regional stability. Good neighbourly relations are at the core of the
kind of cooperative security that the alliance is all
about. Obviously, an improved Turkish-Armenian rapprochement would
make it easier to deepen NATO-Armenian relations as well. Turkey is an
important and valued NATO ally. Its importance is on the increase
given the new priority the Alliance attaches both to the wider Black
Sea region as well as the wider Middle East. I very much hope that
both sides will make this a priority in the years ahead.

South Caucasus and Central Asia belong to different “baskets”

[Correspondent] Don’t you think that NATO is not quite right to
consider the regions of the South Caucasus and Central Asia in one
plane? Taking into account serious differences between these regions,
especially different problems in the security sphere, won’t the
individualized approach to each of these regions be more effective?

[Asmus] I agree, NATO needs to modernize its approach in this
regard. I am among those arguing that the West needs to rethink how it
approaches the region. That is why I have been referring to the wider
Black Sea region. Putting the South Caucasus and Central Asia in the
same basket no longer makes sense given the different aspirations of
countries in these regions and the new strategic context. It is a
bureaucratic habit or way of thinking that is increasingly
anachronistic and which we now need to move beyond. I think it is only
a matter of time before the alliance does so.

www.gmfus.org.

Karabakh Premier Back Home After US Fund-Raising Visit

KARABAKH PREMIER BACK HOME AFTER US FUND-RAISING VISIT

Mediamax news agency
18 Oct 04

YEREVAN

The prime minister of the Nagornyy Karabakh Republic (NKR), Anushavan
Danielyan, has completed his visit to the USA. The aim of the visit
was to prepare the upcoming telemarathon here in November to raise
funds for the construction of a North-South highway in Nagornyy
Karabakh.

At the end of the visit, Anushavan Danielyan met Californian
Congressman Adam Schiff. On behalf of the NKR authorities, Danielyan
thanked the congressman for the US humanitarian aid to Nagornyy
Karabakh.

Adam Schiff expressed concern about Baku’s belligerent statements,
noting that they do not contribute to the establishment of a lasting
peace and stability in the region.