Author: Zaminian Bedik

New Leadership Is Established In Kyrgyzstan
By Karl Vick

washingtonpost.com
Mar 26, 2005

BISHKEK, Kyrgyzstan, March 25 — A day after chasing out a president
who ruled this mountainous former Soviet republic for 15 years,
Kyrgyzstan’s new leaders named an interim government Friday and
struggled to suppress the looting and arson that have ruined scores
of shops in the capital.

Kurmanbek Bakiyev, a former prime minister turned opposition leader,
was returned to his former post by parliament. He was also given the
duties of president, the title held since 1990 by Askar Akayev, who
disappeared Thursday as demonstrators surged into his headquarters,
known as the White House, in the third successful street revolt in
a former Soviet republic in 16 months.

The United States and Russia, which both maintain military bases
in the poor, largely Muslim country of 5 million people, signaled
Friday they were ready to do business with the new leadership that
was taking shape.

“Who’s running our country?” asked the banner headline in a newspaper
here in the capital.

Bakiyev said he was, and called on his countrymen to prevent a repeat
of the looting and violence that erupted after nightfall Thursday,
causing at least three deaths and scores of injuries.

“As the prime minister and the acting president of Kyrgyzstan, I
address you and ask you to be wise, be patient and happy,” Bakiyev
told a respectful crowd of several thousand in front of the White
House, which protesters had overrun 24 hours earlier. “Let’s work on
concrete things now.”

But Akayev appeared to argue that he was still the legitimate leader.
In neighboring Kazakhstan, where Russian media reports said he took
refuge before leaving for some other destination, a statement bearing
his name declared that “an unconstitutional coup d’etat has been
staged in Kyrgyzstan.”

It said that “my current stay outside the country is temporary.
Rumors of my resignation are deliberate, malicious lies.” The statement
said he had possessed the means to suppress the insurrection but chose
not to, so as to avoid violence. There was no way to authenticate
the statement.

A mountainous nation with a nomadic heritage, Kyrgyzstan is one of
five sparsely inhabited republics in Central Asia that were ruled
from Moscow during Soviet days. Akayev, a physicist and former
Soviet legislator, led it into independence and governed as one of
the region’s more tolerant leaders. But, remaining year after year,
he came to be widely viewed in the country as an authoritarian ruler
who used his power to enrich his family.

On Friday night, officials organized civilian patrols to bolster
the handful of uniformed police officers who returned to duty after
disappearing from the streets in face of the demonstrators’ advance.
Gunfire sounded about midnight, apparently warning shots that combined
with a rainstorm to disperse a crowd of hundreds of youths approaching
a shopping center.

“God forbid anybody would have to have such a revolution,” Felix Kulov,
a political prisoner who was freed from jail Thursday, said of the
violence. “It was a rampage of looting, just like in Iraq.” On Friday,
Kulov was put in charge of security services.

By day, the capital, which sprawls at the foot of the mountain range
that defines this striking country, was almost serene. Traffic was
steady, and city work crews in orange vests kept busy clearing debris
from the scores of stores looted or burned overnight. “Who needs to
tell us to do this? This is our work. This is our responsibility,”
said Jildash Abdikulov, who was supervising a crew in front of a
charred store.

Knots of men stood sentry outside the barricaded gates of the city’s
main market, an improvised warren of steel shipping containers and
stalls. The mood was subdued, not tense, and women and children joined
men thronging the sidewalks in the spring weather.

In the city’s main square, crowds listened for much of the day
to speakers who mounted a portable podium one after another. They
alternately congratulated the gathering for the revolution, condemned
Akayev as greedy and urged control of the streets after dark.

“We’re all really frustrated because of what happened last night,”
one woman told the crowd, which was sprinkled with young men who had
tied red cloths around their coat sleeves to show they were militia
volunteers.

A day after the government fell, there were suggestions that dissidents
in other parts of the former Soviet Union might try to replicate
the revolt’s quick, unforeseen success. In Uzbekistan, which borders
Kyrgyzstan, opposition parties issued a joint statement expressing
certainty that “the process of democratic reforms that started in
Kyrgyzstan will highly influence all parts of Central Asia.”

In Minsk, the capital of Belarus, about 1,000 people gathered near
the palace of President Alexander Lukashenko in hopes of touching off
a larger movement, but they were dispersed by riot police, according
to the Associated Press.

Russian President Vladimir Putin gave the appearance of taking the
revolution in stride. After backing the losing side in revolts in
Georgia and Ukraine, the Kremlin made no public effort to protect
Akayev, though Putin said he would be welcome in Russia.

“We know these people pretty well,” Putin told reporters during a
visit to Armenia, referring to the opposition. “And they have done
quite a lot to establish good relations between Russia and Kyrgyzstan.”

“For its part, Russia will do its best to keep up the current level
of relations between the states and improve relations between the
people,” he said.

But some Russian analysts called the development bad news for Moscow.
“The Central Asian region now faces a risk of Islamization,” said
Sergei Markov, an architect of Putin’s quasi-authoritarian governing
policy known as managed democracy, according to the Knight Ridder
newspaper chain. “In addition, drug trafficking from Central Asia to
Europe via Russia will certainly grow.”

Akayev was a favorite of Washington, which welcomed his early
initiatives to reform a Soviet-style economy and nurture democratic
institutions. But there were signs Friday that the United States was
readily accepting his demise.

As Bakiyev worked his way Friday from the plaza podium toward the
parliament building behind a human chain of security volunteers,
he told reporters he had spoken with the U.S. ambassador in Bishkek,
Stephen Young. “He says, and I agree with him, that we are going to
work together,” Bakiyev said. “We will continue our cooperation.”

The State Department said that Young had met with Bakiyev on Thursday
evening and that the ambassador had been in regular telephone contact
with him and other interim leaders.

A Western observer who lives in Bishkek said Akayev had worn out
his welcome with his own people. When protests first erupted in the
southern part of the country, an area both poorer and ethnically
distinct from Akayev’s native north, the incumbent dismissed the
uproar and refused to meet with the opposition.

“The fact is the government didn’t have much support and it just
started crumbling,” said the observer, who spoke on condition that
he not be further identified.

On Thursday, Ishenbai Kadyrbekov was briefly made acting president
because of his position as speaker of the legislative assembly, the
Interfax news agency said. But on Friday he was replaced by Bakiyev,
a native of Jalal-Abad, a city in the south and an early center of
opposition. Bakiyev served as prime minister from 2000 to 2002, before
resigning after security forces killed six protesters in a clash.

The government he began putting in place Friday is drawn largely from
other mainstream politicians who had fallen out of favor with Akayev.

Kulov, for instance, once served as mayor of Bishkek. Roza Otunbayeva,
a frequent guest on English-language news shows, has been named
foreign minister, a post she held under Akayev. She said a presidential
contest may be set for June.

Residents said this country’s sense of close kinship made Thursday
night’s violence particularly hard to accept. Smoke was still pouring
from one downtown mall at midday. Pizza shops and other businesses
were missing windows. By afternoon, shop owners were emptying their
shelves and preparing to guard stock too heavy to pack up.

Staff writer Robin Wright in Washington contributed to this report.

AGBU Press Office
55 East 59th Street
New York, NY 10022-1112
Phone 212.319.6383 x.118
Fax 212.319.6507
Email [email protected]
Website

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Friday, March 25, 2005

AGBU CO-SPONSORS DIASPORA CONFERENCE WITH INTERNATIONAL YEHUDI
MENUHIN FOUNDATION

Brussels, Belgium – AGBU, in partnership with the International
Yehudi Menuhin Foundation and several organizations, co-sponsored
an international conference on “Europe’s Diasporas and European
Citizenship” in Barcelona, Spain from January 27th to 29th, 2005.

The Barcelona conference brought together academics, civil society
organizations, specialists of European citizenship, and public
officials to discuss the Diasporas’ participation in the process
of European integration, and the contribution they can make to the
establishment of a genuine European citizenship.

The conference’s conclusions defined European Diasporas as enduring
networks and transnational communities with a strong attachment to
Europe. Among those present were organizations associated with the
Armenian, Greek, Jewish, and Roma Diasporas.

One of the conference topics concerned the contribution Diasporas
can make in giving substance to European citizenship. Tony Venables,
Director of the European Citizen Action Service, suggested that, in
view of their multi-faceted identities, Diasporas should be considered
the “vanguard of Europe.”

The conference also emphasized the challenges, such as cultural
erosion, as well as the opportunities available in developing their
cultural networks across national borders and contributing to the
process of European integration.

A report of the conference and conference papers will be made available
at

AGBU is the largest Armenian non-profit organization in the world and
annually touches the lives of 400,000 Armenians. For more information
on AGBU and its programs, please visit

Agency WPS
DEFENSE and SECURITY (Russia)
March 23, 2005, Wednesday

FOUR ARMED RUSSIAN PEACEKEEPERS DETAINED IN THE ZONE OF THE
GEORGIAN-ABKHAZIAN CONFLICT

Four armed Russian peacekeepers (one is originally from Armenia, two
– from Russia and one from Kabardino-Balkaria) were detained by
Georgian law enforcement agencies in the zone of the
Georgian-Abkhazian conflict. Police of the Samegrelo district stated
that the Russian peacekeepers did not have documents. They refused to
give up and Georgian policemen had to open fire in the air. After
that the peacekeepers surrendered. The peacekeepers stated that they
were looking for a horse, which ran away from their unit. Georgian
policemen currently question the soldiers. They will soon be passed
over to the command of Russian peacekeepers.

Source: Regnum information agency, March 21, 2005

Following December’s EU Summit, Turkey Forced to Reassess Issue of “Minorities”
By Jon Gorvett

Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, Middle East
pages 48-49
March 2005 Issue

Talking Turkey

TURKISH PRIME MINISTER Recip Tayyip Erdogan certainly was not
exaggerating when he told the nation after December’s historic
European Union summit that “We have a difficult journey ahead of us,
littered with obstacles.” While Turkey now has a date to start EU
membership talks later this year, a whole string of tough issues
still waits to be resolved-and with nothing guaranteed on any side.

Yet while the difficulty of Turkey’s relationship with Cyprus grabbed
most of the worry-along with a skillfully obscured question mark over
the status of any “permanent” conditions on Turkey’s membership, such
as freedom of movement-one of the thorniest issues in the year ahead
is likely to be that of “minorities.”

This touches on a real raw nerve in Ankara and elsewhere in the
country, and already is causing a degree of outraged debate.

The issue concerns EU views of Turkey’s patchwork of religious,
linguistic and ethnic groups. While the nation’s Kurds are probably
the most well known of these, there are literally dozens of others
that are less high profile. These range from the Laz-the Black Sea
people who have their own language and culture-to the Yoruks,
originally nomadic people of the Anatolian steppes. There also are
many ethnic groups that arrived in Turkey during the rollback of the
Ottoman Empire, with Caucasians and Circassians, Slavs and Albanians
forming considerable groups, almost all of whom have also become
integrated with other Anatolian-based ethnicities. Ironically enough,
many of these groups were ethnically cleansed in the 18th, 19th and
20th centuries-from the Balkans in particular-because they had become
identified via their Muslim religion with “the Turks.”

Crosscutting through these ethnic identities, moreover, are religious
ones. There are a multiplicity of groups within Islam itself, in
addition to the major fault line of Shi’i and Sunni, with the
largest-and most problematic-of these others in Turkey being the
Alevis.

Indeed, some would argue that the division between the Alevis and
Sunnis is sufficiently wide for the Alevis not to be considered
Muslim at all. It is in this controversial area, too, that the EU has
recently jumped feet first.

In the lead up to the EU summit last December which fixed a date for
Turkey to start membership talks, the suggestion came from Brussels
that the Alevis should be considered a “minority.” In mathematical
terms, with anywhere between 5 million and 12 million Alevis in
Turkey, a country of around 60 million, a minority they clearly are.
But in Turkey, as elsewhere, the definition of “minority” has far
more political and social baggage attached to it than simple
statistics.

At the end of the conflict that led to the founding of modern Turkey,
back in the 1920s, the peace treaty that established the state’s
frontiers contained provision for the security of three officially
recognized “minorities”-the Armenians, Greeks and Jews. These were,
of course, religious groups as well as ethnic, representing the old
Ottoman Empire’s three largest non-Muslim communities. This
dovetailed with Ottoman administrative practice, which had always
used religion to define the status of its citizens.

Since then, all three official minorities have declined in numbers to
the point where the Greek community numbers no more than a couple of
thousand, the Armenians perhaps five times that and the Jews ten
times. The Greek community, in particular, became the whipping boy
for decades of antagonism between Greece and Turkey, with major
anti-Greek riots in the 1950s and 1960s causing much of the community
to emigrate. Given the widespread view that to be a Turk is also to
be a Muslim, most Muslim Turks view all three minorities with some
degree of suspicion. As a result of this-along with the tendency of
states such as Greece, Armenia and Israel to see these people as
overseas communities that should have some allegiance to them-they
often are seen as basically foreigners. Discrimination against them
has been commonplace over the years.

To be identified as a “minority,” therefore, is seen by many in
Turkey as highly negative. Rather than as a way of guaranteeing
cultural and educational rights and combating discrimination, it
often is seen as a form of alienation, division and a kind of
singling out. And Turkey’s history is replete with examples of why
being “singled out” is not a good thing. Likewise, the Turkish
Republic’s stated principle of unity has sometimes been a defense for
different religious groupings, who are able to point to shared
citizenship as a testament to their loyalty. As a result, some of the
loudest voices against the idea of the Alevis being a minority have
been Alevis themselves.

The Ambiguity of Alevism
Too, because of religion’s key role in the definition of minority,
this dispute also has focused on the argument over what Alevism
actually is. Here, the community has become divided, with some
arguing that it is quite a distinct religious position from Islam,
while others argue that it is a subset-either of Shi’i Islam, or a
combination of Shi’i and Anatolian animist beliefs that predate the
arrival of Islam.

The former idea is clearly the more risky, as it plays along with the
beliefs of many Sunnis that there was always something a bit dodgy
about the Alevis. They do not pray five times a day, do not go to
mosque, but instead to their own temple, known as a cemevi. They also
do not observe Ramadan and other mainstream Muslim festivals, while
they do celebrate days that look suspiciously like Christmas, Easter
and Epiphany, leading some to conclude that old Christian festivals
from pre-Islamic Anatolia have lived on with them. At the same time,
their women and men pray together and have no prohibition on alcohol.
They see Ali, rather than Mohammed, as the key figure in Islam,
linking them to Shi’ism, yet from this, too, they greatly differ.
They traditionally have voted for the left, and have provided the
country with some of its best-known and most radical secularists-both
bad marks for the traditionally right-wing Islamists, whose party now
runs the country.

Yet at the same time, it is also the idea that most strongly lays the
basis for defining the Alevis as a minority. Advocates argue that
this is the best way to counter discrimination, which for many Alevis
is very real. Even those who are opposed to the idea of minority
status concede that Alevism is marginalized and officially excluded.
While the country allows Jewish, Greek and Armenian schools, Alevis
go to state schools, where Sunni ideas are taught and their existence
denied. The community overall has a generally lower standard of
living, while the religion enjoys no official financial support,
unlike Sunni Islam, which is administered in Turkey via an official
government body.

The EU’s intervention in the issue may have mixed results, then.
Anything that appears to attack social unity-perceived as a denial of
difference-is widely frowned on. This is particularly true when it
comes from the Europeans, who, Turks are still taught, have long
sought to divide Turkey as a way of dominating it. Before the 1923
Treaty of Lausanne, which established the minorities, was the
never-implemented 1920 Treaty of Sèvres, which saw the Ottoman Empire
carved up like a Thanksgiving Turkey by World War One’s victorious
Allied powers. The Europeans, many Turks still believe, have a
“Sèvres mentality.”

The road to EU membership, therefore, is sure to be a bumpy one.

Jon Gorvett is a free-lance journalist based in Istanbul.

–Boundary_(ID_1q5GJN+cU6XxIpE8D0uhdQ)–

REPORT OF OSCE FACT-FINDING MISSION TO LIBERATED TERRITORIES WILL
HAVE POSITIVE IMPACT ON PEACEFUL SETTLEMENT OF KARABAH CONFLICT,
SAYS ARMENIAN FM

YEREVAN, MARCH 21. ARMINFO. The report of OSCE fact-finding mission to
the liberated territories will have a positive impact on the process of
peaceful settlement of Karabah conflict, says Armenian Foreign Minister
Vardan Oskanyan in his interview to the Armenian Public Television.

He says that due to the activity of OSCE mission, the arguments
of Azerbaijan proved to be left aside. At the same time, it has
become evident that the problem of refugees is a mutual problem
as Azerbaijan has always stated that there is only the problem of
Azerbaijani refugees. Meanwhile, OSCE mission has proved that in
spite of the small number of people residing in these territories,
majority of them are Armenian refugees from Azerbaijani territories.
All this allowed the Armenian party to demand a similar mission to
the territories wherefrom they were expelled – Shahumyan region,
Northern Mardakert, Eastern Martuni. This issue becomes more and more
urgent and it will work against Azerbaijan. However, this issue will
not become an obstacle for the negotiation process, the minister says.

He notes that everything depends on further steps of Azerbaijan,
as it was well aware that the problem of Armenian refugees exists.
Azerbaijan tried to move the problem to the field of the UN, but it
failed, then the OSCE mission was invited and here is the result.
Everything depends on how Azerbaijan will try to speculate on all
this. Armenia’s position here is evident – if the issue is moved to
the UN field, Azerbaijan will have to deal with Nagorny Karabakh not
with Armenia, Oskanyan says.

In response to those native political figures who express regret in
connection that the above territories are not settled with Armenian
refugees, the minister says that it is the very issue wherein Armenia
must not feel itself in a role of a side defending or justifying
itself, “that’s a bit too tick!’ Armenia has never refused from
helping its homeless compatriots, as they had no elementary shelter
and they want to return to their homes, to Mardakert, Shahumyan and
others which are part of Karabakh. Armenia’s participation in the
problem’s solution could not and cannot work against the Armenia side,
even on the contrary. Well, the OSCE mission has already called in
its report to refrain from settlement of the liberated territories,
but there are specific proposals to the Azerbaijani side as well. And
if realized, these proposals can be useful both for Armenian refugees
and the whole settlement process, the minister says.

Anti-racism talk inspires teenagers;

Event exposes youth to lessons from history

The Record (Kitchener, Ontario, Canada)
March 22, 2005
Page: B1

BY LIZ MONTEIRO, RECORD STAFF

KITCHENER — A talk yesterday about the massacre of Armenians 90 years
ago and then a graphic video of corpses have left a group of Kitchener
teenagers wondering about hate. “It’s disgusting,” said 13-year-old
Tash Nourafkan, a Grade 7 student at Sunnyside Public School. “I feel
like, why? We have to try to make a difference, to help people. “Racism
happens and it’s everywhere around us.” Nourafkan and his family came
to Canada from Iran seven years ago. He was among 200 students who
attended a day-long program yesterday at Kitchener City Hall to mark
the United Nation’s international day for the elimination of racial
discrimination. The event coincided with a new poll indicating that
four million Canadians believe they have been victims of racism.
About 17 per cent of those surveyed in the poll believe racism has
increased in the last five years, and 13 per cent believe it has
decreased. The poll also indicated that 1.7 million Canadians would
not welcome someone of another race as a next-door neighbour.

“Working towards harmony is a work in progress and needs to continue,”
said Gehan Sabry, who organized the Kitchener anti-racism event,
which was co-sponsored by the magazine Cross Cultures and the City
of Kitchener. “We are all of different cultures but we accept each
other,” said Govana Zdralic, who was dressed in traditional Serbian
dress. “We are friends and hopefully we are setting an example.”

Nourafkan and some of his classmates watched a video about the causes
of the Armenian genocide and wondered how people could hate each other.

Aris Babikian, Ontario vice- president of the Armenian National
Committee of Canada based in Toronto, spoke to the students about
Armenia, a former Soviet republic.

Babikian was introduced by Supt. Matt Torigian of Waterloo regional
police, a fellow Armenian. Torigian, whose parents were born in
Ontario, recalls listening to stories from his grandparents, who
escaped then-occupied Armenia.

Babikian went back further, to the Ottoman Empire, and described
how the genocide of 1.5 million people began in 1915 when Armenians
lived under Turkish rule. The Turkish government still denies its
involvement in the massacre, Babikian said. It’s only in recent
years that countries around the world have acknowledged the Armenian
genocide, he said. The Canadian Parliament recognized the genocide
last year. The mass killings were not a religious genocide but a
racist policy by the Turkish government, Babikian said.

He encouraged the students to know their neighbours and classmates.
“You will be the future generation,” he said. “Learn tolerance and
understand the differences of your neighbours. We need to respect our
differences and defend our neighbours when it is time.” For Babikian,
knowing your neighbour has special significance. A Turkish neighbour
saved his grandfather and his great grandmother from being killed
after 42 members of their family were murdered.

Photo Caption: Photo: MATHEW MCCARTHY, RECORD STAFF / Aris Babikian
of the Armenian National Committee of Canada, speaks in Kitchener
yesterday on the international day for the elimination of racial
discrimination.

Foreign countries back China’s Anti-Secession Law

People’s Daily Online, China
March 22 2005

The international community has continued to express support for the
adoption of the Anti-Secession Law by China’s legislature, which is
intended to prevent Taiwan’s secession from China.

In a letter to the Chinese ambassador to Tonga, Tongan Foreign
Minister Sonatane Tu’akinamolahi Taumoepeau-Tupou reaffirmed his
country’s commitment to the one-China policy and voiced appreciation
for the Anti-Secession Law, approved last week by China’s National
People’s Congress.

Taiwan is an inalienable part of China and the Taiwan question is
China’s internal affair, in which no foreign forces have the right
to interfere, he said.

The Tongan government understands China’s move to enact the law and
supports China’s reunification cause, the minister said.

An Armenian Foreign Ministry spokesman said Monday that Armenia
supports the Chinese people’s endeavor to achieve national
reunification and wishes their efforts, including the newly-enacted
Anti-Secession Law, bear fruits.

Armenia made clear its position on the one-China principle in the
joint declaration signed last September by the heads of state of
Armenia and China, the spokesman said.

In a letter to his Chinese counterpart, Li Zhaoxing, Yemeni Foreign
Minister Abu Bakr Abdullah al-Kurbi said Yemen backs China’s move to
protect its territorial integrity and supports the adoption of the
Anti-Secession Law by China’s legislature.

Source: Xinhua

The Providence Journal (Rhode Island)
March 16, 2005 Wednesday

Iannazzi would ensure history studies don’t ignore the ugly side

by DANIEL BARBARISI, Journal Staff Writer

CRANSTON – It is said that those who do not remember the past are
doomed to repeat it. A School Committee member wants to ensure that
the city’s public schools aren’t part of that equation.

When it comes to teaching about some of the uglier episodes in world
history, Cranston’s two high schools don’t flinch. They are among the
relatively few in Rhode Island where students learn about such low
points as the Holocaust, the 1915 Armenian genocide carried out by
the Ottomon Turks, and South Africa’s era of apartheid.

But treating these subjects is discretionary; they are not a formal
part of the schools’ history curriculum. School Commmittee member
Andrea Iannazzi wants to change that.

Iannazzi has introduced a resolution, to be taken up at Monday’s
board meeting, that would require that the high school history
curriculum formally include the Holocaust, the Armenian genocide and
apartheid, as well as the Irish potato famine of the 1840s and
atrocities committed under the fascist regime of Italy’s Benito
Mussolini.

Students should not have to wait for college, as she did, to learn
about such episodes, Iannazzi said.

“History curriculum often overlooks key issues that still impact
today’s society. Introducing a human rights component to Cranston’s
secondary history curriculum will affect our students’ decision
making. Whether it is racism, homophobia, prejudice or some other
cause, hatred and lack of respect for one’s basic human rights are
too often ignored,” she said.

Iannazzi’s resolution has the support of City Council President Aram
Garabedian — who sponsored a similar, failed resolution during his
time in the state House of Representatives — and Mayor Stephen P.
Laffey.

Laffey and Iannazzi said that outside of areas with a significant
Armenian-American population — such as Cranston — the Armenian
genocide in particular is a little-known event.

“I want every child who graduates from the Cranston School Department
to know what happened to the Armenians, and School Committee member
Iannazzi’s resolution is a tremendous step toward making this
happen,” Laffey said in a statement.

Iannazzi said that she expects there may be some opposition to her
proposal, out of concern that it could necessitate new textbooks or
teaching materials. Similar opposition killed Garabedian’s measure in
the House, she said.

She said that the curriculum amendment would cost the city nothing
because the topics are already covered in the schools. She said her
resolution, if approved, might lead to treating the topics in greater
depth but that she has identified activist organizations willing to
provide supplemental teaching materials at no cost.

Russian president to visit Armenia on 25-26 March

Arminfo
17 Mar 05

YEREVAN

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s official visit to Armenia will take
place on 25-26 March, Arminfo has learnt from diplomatic sources.
Vladimir Putin will meet Armenian President Robert Kocharyan.

Within the framework of the programme of the visit, the Russian
president will lay a wreath at the memorial to the victims of the
Armenian genocide in Ottoman Turkey. Putin’s visit to Yerevan will
give a start to events devoted to the year of Russia in Armenia.

OSCE MONITORING MISSION’S REPORT IS BENEFICIAL FOR ARMENIA

Azg/arm
18 March 05

Answering journalists questions about the OSCE monitoring mission’s
report on Armenia, Armen Martirosian, Armenian’s permanent
representative to UN, said:

“This report is rather beneficial for Armenia. I mean Azerbaijan’s
accusations at the UN General Assembly to carry out monitoring proved
groundless.

Azerbaijan’s hopes that the monitoring mission will prove that Armenia
conducts state policy of inhabitation in the so-called occupied
territories faded. Lachin stands as exception and it is mentioned in
all suggestions in a separate line.

All countries closely watching the peace talk process have noticed
Azeris belligerent and destructive policy. They explain that Ilham
Aliyev’s policy is figured on the Azeri people. It’s interesting what
they are going to do after this report to gain people’s support and
how will they present their next ‘success ‘”.

By Ara Martirosian