ARMENIAN PRESIDENT HANDS ST. MESROP MASHTOTS ORDER TO GASPROM OJSC CHAIRMAN

YEREVAN, June 16. /ARKA/. Armenian President Robert Kocharyan handed
St. Mesrop Mashtots order to Gasprom OJSC Board Chairman Alexey
Miller for considerable contribution to Armenian-Russian economic
relations development. According to Armenian Presidential Press
Service, Kocharyan and Miller discussed Armgasprom CJSC activity and
expressed satisfaction with it.

They also talked about Iran-Armenia gas pipeline and Gasprom’s other
investment programs in Armenia. The sides also discussed regional
energy programs.

ArmRosgasprom CJSC is the only natural gas provider to Armenia. The
company was established in 1997. Its cofounders are Gasprom Russian
OJSC (45%), ITERA (10%) and Armenian Energy Ministry (45%).

ArmRosGasprom CJSC authorized capital totals $270mln. M.V. -0–

DEVELOPMENT OF ARMENIAN -RUSSIAN COOPERATION FOSTERED BY MUTUALLY
ADVANTAGEOUS COOPERATION BETWEEN THE GOVERNMENTS OF THE TWO STATES

YEREVAN, June 16. /ARKA/. Development of Armenian -Russian
cooperation is fostered by mutually advantageous cooperation between
the governments of the two states, as well as the municipalities
of Yerevan and Moscow. According to RA Government’s Press Service
Department, RA Prime Minister Andranik Margaryan told about it during
the meeting with the Vice-Mayor of Moscow Vladimir Resin. According
to him, the cooperation is concordant with the logic of development
of immediate relations between separate administrative subjects and
stimulation of trade-economic relations. The Premier expressed his
gratitude to Resin for his input in further development of mutually
advantageous cooperation between the municipalities of RF and RA.

In his turn Resin noted that 17 years later after the earthquake in
1988 he was impressed by the changes in the country, especially in
the zone of disaster. According to him, being a constructor, he highly
appreciates the quality of the construction in Armenia. Resin attached
importance to the construction of a House of Moscow in Yerevan and
a House of Yerevan in Moscow.

The sides mentioned unutilized potential of bilateral relations, and
exchanged opinions about activation of Moscow business circles in the
economy of Armenia, attraction of additional investments. The sides
noted that Days of Armenia in Russia and Days of Russia in Armenia
facilitate the development of bilateral relations. A.H. -0–

Institute for War & Peace Reporting
June 16 2005

ARMENIA AND NATO EDGING CLOSER

How far down the road towards NATO membership is Armenia likely to
go?

By Ara Tadevosian in Yerevan

Armenia’s defence minister Serzh Sarkisian and NATO secretary general

Jaap de Hoop Scheffer have come to an agreement that many see as
proof of a new strategic shift by Armenia towards the West.

At a meeting in Brussels on June 10, Sarkisian formally presented
de Hoop Scheffer with his country’s so-called Individual Partnership
Action Plan, IPAP, as well as a personal letter from President Robert
Kocharian.

The event marked a breakthrough in relations between Armenia and NATO,
which were once quite frosty. It also lays out many new obligations
on Yerevan, which NATO will now monitor very closely.

Essentially, the latest agreement leaves Armenia facing a long-term
strategic choice: when the IPAP expires in two years’ time, will
Yerevan take the next logical step and seek to apply for NATO
membership?

Since gaining independence from the former Soviet Union in 1991,
Armenia has been a close military ally of Russia. Moscow still
maintains a large military base in Gyumri, in the north-west of
the country.

But a slight cooling of relations with Russia, overtures from the
West and the NATO aspirations of neighbouring Georgia and Azerbaijan
have changed the picture. Visiting Georgia last month, US president
George W Bush made it clear that he welcomed the idea of Georgia
joining the alliance.

“If it turns out that Georgia and Azerbaijan eventually become members
of NATO and Armenia does not, then obviously this will lead to new
lines of division in the Caucasus,” Armenian foreign minister Vardan
Oskanian said last year.

In April, Sarkisian insisted, “After we set ourselves the goal of
joining the European family, we must have close relations with NATO
and be responsible for guaranteeing security in Europe.”

Armenia and NATO began to develop a closer relationship prior to the
alliance’s Prague summit in 2002. In November 2002, George Robertson,
then secretary general of NATO, told the Armenian news agency Mediamax
that the alliance should pay more attention to the “specific needs
of its partners in the Caucasus”.

“We need to organise NATO’s advice and assistance on an individual
basis and put our resources where they are needed the most,”
said Robertson. “We need to improve liaison arrangements between
Brussels and capitals in the region. In a word – we need to develop
‘smarter’ instruments of cooperation, to make the most efficient use
of our resources.”

This new approach led to the development at the Prague summit of IPAPs
for countries from the South Caucasus and Central Asia, setting out
practical steps by which they could converge with NATO standards.

In June 2003, Armenia played host for the first time to NATO’s
so-called “Cooperative Best Effort 03” military exercise, which was
hailed as a success. And in February 2004 Yerevan sent peacekeeping
troops to join the international presence in Kosovo.

The recent meeting between Sarkisian and de Hoop Scheffer in Brussels
coincided with the start of moves to shift weaponry from Russian
bases in Georgia to the Gyumri base.

But in a sign of a change in atmosphere, a leading official in
Armenia’s opposition Republic Party Suren Sureniants criticised the
move, saying it “only reinforced the prevailing opinion in the West
that Armenia is Russia’s forward post in the Caucasus”. Sureniants
also said the time had come when “the Armenian political elite ought to
raise the issue of the withdrawal of Russian bases from the territory
of our country”.

But many Armenians remain deeply suspicious of NATO, of which Armenia’s
historical enemy Turkey is a member, and continue to regard Russia as
a more reliable ally. “If NATO needs us so badly, then why doesn’t
it force Turkey to open its border with Armenia?” asked 55-year-old
teacher Misak Alexanian.

President Kocharian declined to attend a NATO summit in Istanbul
last year because of Turkey’s refusal to begin diplomatic relations
with Armenia and open the two states’ shared border. But the protest
achieved little, with NATO officials pointing out that it is not the
role of the alliance to act as a referee between two countries or to
insist that a member state change its foreign policy.

At the same time, Armenians have welcomed the position taken by NATO
on relations with Azerbaijan. Last September the alliance cancelled
a planned “Cooperative Best Effort 04” exercise in Azerbaijan, after
the Azerbaijani government refused to allow Armenian officers to take
part in the manoeuvres.

Kocharian had previously won admiration within NATO for permitting
Turkish officers to travel to Armenia for the 2003 exercises. The
president said, “On an emotional level I am not thrilled about the
possibility of a Turkish contingent taking part in exercises on our
territory…However, as president I understand that well-constructed
relations with NATO are more important for the country.”

Another problem facing Armenia is that it now finds itself in the
tricky position of being both a member of the Russian-led Collective
Security Pact of the Commonwealth of Independent States and a growing
friend of NATO.

Nicholas Burns, formerly US ambassador to NATO and now under secretary
of state, suggested to IWPR last year that Armenia would need to adapt
to allow for the differences of approach between the two alliances.

“There are indeed substantial differences in the ways NATO and Russia
organize their military forces and defence organizations,” he said.
“If Armenia wants to significantly improve its interoperability with
NATO, it will have to revise some of those structures.”

American political analyst Ronald Asmus, one of the chief advocates of
NATO’s eastern expansion, told IWPR that the alliance, for its part,
“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”.

Armenia will also have to bring its own armed forces under democratic
control – not an easy process for a country where the military has
big political clout and whose conflict with Azerbaijan over Nagorny
Karabakh remains unresolved.

In the meantime, public interest in Armenia about possible NATO
membership – in contrast to Georgia and Azerbaijan – remains very low.
Only one of the country’s daily newspapers printed a small article
about the presentation of the IPAP in Brussels.

And the government has other more serious problems to deal with. A
decision will have to be made about what will happen to the strategic
alliance with Moscow when the two-year IPAP comes to an end. And
Yerevan must consider that NATO now identifies itself as a political
as much as a military organisation, meaning that Armenia will need
to implement democratic reforms to achieve a closer relationship with
the organisation.

Ultimately, the strategic choice about whether to apply for NATO
membership will be in the hands of the successful candidate in the
next round of presidential elections in 2008.

Ara Tadevosian is director of the Armenian news agency Mediamax
in Yerevan.

Azeri military doctrine to be ready by autumn – official

Trend news agency
16 Jun 05

Baku, 16 June, Trend correspondent S. Logmanoglu: Azerbaijan is
currently drawing up its military doctrine. I believe that the
document will be discussed and adopted in the autumn session of the
Milli Majlis [parliament], Azerbaijani Deputy Speaker Ziyafat Asgarov
has told Trend.

He said that the members of a working group, which was set up on
the president’s instruction in early 2005, are quite experienced
specialists and that there was no need to involve additional foreign
experts.

“During their work, the group’s members are learning foreign
countries’ experience in this sphere. However, this does not mean
that Azerbaijan’s military doctrine will duplicate that of other
countries. On the contrary, our purpose is to draw up a perfect
document. Undoubtedly, the interests of the Azerbaijani statehood
will come first in the document,” Asgarov said.

The deputy speaker did not name the country whose experience the
specialists used while drawing up the country’s military doctrine.

Azeri pressure group slams authorities for “inaction” over Karabakh
polls

MPA news agency, Baku
16 Jun 05

Baku, 16 June: The Karabakh Liberation Organization (KLO) has adopted
a statement over “parliamentary elections” in the so-called Nagornyy
Karabakh republic, MPA reports.

The statement says that Nagornyy Karabakh is an inseparable part of
Azerbaijan and elections held there cannot have a legal effect. The
KLO also expressed its concern with the inaction of the Azerbaijani
authorities and international organizations.

Under the current circumstances, it is just not enough to send
observers to the region and to issue declarations on non-recognition
of these “elections”, the statement said.

By confining themselves to these measures, international organizations
and the Azerbaijani authorities actually promote the strengthening
of the occupiers’ positions on the occupied territories. The KLO
believes that the Azerbaijani leadership should alert international
organizations to the issue and reconsider relations with the states
which will send their representatives to the “elections”.

“The Azerbaijani authorities should either start the war themselves
or not prevent the people from waging it,” the KLO statement says.

SPIEGEL ONLINE – 16. Juni 2005, 11:35
URL: ,1518,36074 1,00.html
Armenier-Massaker

Turkei bestellt deutschen Diplomaten ein

Die unterschiedliche Interpretation des Volkermords an den Armeniern
belastet erneut das deutsch-turkische Verhältnis. Der Gesandte der deutschen
Botschaft in Ankara wurde wegen eines anstehenden Bundestagsbeschlusses zu
dem Thema ins turkische Außenministerium zitiert.

AFP
Aufnahme aus dem Jahr 1915: Turkische Soldaten stehen in Aleppo neben
gehängten Armeniern
Ankara – Mit Blick auf die gemeinsame Entschließung der deutschen
Bundestagsfraktionen zum Gedenken an die Massaker an den Armeniern in der
Zeit des Ersten Weltkriegs sei dem deutschen Diplomaten die turkische
Position verdeutlicht worden, sagte ein Sprecher des turkischen
Außenministeriums.

Außenminister Abdullah Gul kritisiere den im Bundestag vorliegenden Antrag
als “verletzend” fur die Turkei und die in Deutschland lebenden Turken,
sagte der Sprecher weiter. Der Antrag sollte im Laufe des Tages im Bundestag
ohne Debatte verabschiedet werden. Der Begriff “Volkermord” taucht nicht im
Text des Antrages selbst, wohl aber in der Begrundung auf.

Armenien und ein Großteil der internationalen Offentlichkeit stufen den Tod
von mehreren hunderttausend Armeniern zwischen 1915 und 1917 als Volkermord
ein. Aus Sicht der Turkei handelte es sich bei den Ereignissen dagegen um
die tragischen Folgen einer Zwangsumsiedlung, die wegen des Krieges
erforderlich gewesen sei.

Bei den Massakern und Todesmärschen starben zwischen 300.000 und 1,5
Millionen Menschen. Der Volkermordsstreit verhindert bis heute eine
Normalisierung der Beziehungen zwischen der Turkei und dem Nachbarstaat
Armenien.

–Boundary_(ID_WE6h5yOHExpG0VWaEgC/KQ)–

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Armenian Assembly of America
1140 19th Street, NW, Suite 600
Washington, DC 20036
Phone: 202-393-3434
Fax: 202-638-4904
Email: [email protected]
Web:
 
PRESS RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 16, 2005
CONTACT: Christine Kojoian
Email: [email protected]

HOUSE FOREIGN AID PANEL APPROVES NEARLY $68 MILLION FOR ARMENIA FOR
FY 2006

Assembly Commends Armenian Caucus Co-Chair Knollenberg

Washington, DC – The Armenian Assembly praised members of a key House
Appropriations Subcommittee today for maintaining robust aid levels
to Armenia and Nagorno Karabakh despite ongoing overall reductions
to former Soviet states. The Fiscal Year (FY) 2006 Foreign Operations
Appropriations Bill, which lawmakers passed by voice vote, calls for
$67.5 million for Armenia, up to $5 million for Nagorno Karabakh and
maintains military assistance parity between Armenia and Azerbaijan
with $5.75 million allocated to each country.

“Given the current budget restraints, we appreciate the leadership of
Armenian Caucus Co-Chair Joe Knollenberg (R-MI) and commend Chairman
Jim Kolbe (R-AZ) and his Subcommittee for securing this assistance to
Armenia and Karabakh,” said Assembly Executive Director Bryan Ardouny.
“We also thank Ranking Member Nita Lowey (D-NY) for her steadfast
support.”

The level of funding for Armenia is $12.5 million above the Bush
Administration’s request submitted to Congress earlier this year.
The overall request level is part of a continued trend that reflects
a serious drop in U.S. assistance to the former Soviet states –
specifically from $555 million in FY 2005 to $477 million for FY 2006.

Today’s action also allocated $5 million in Foreign Military Financing
and $750,000 for International Military Education and Training to
both Armenia and Azerbaijan, as requested by the Bush Administration.
These funds will improve inter-operability between Armenia’s military
and its Western partners, upgrade Armenia’s communication systems
and better its personnel training.

In April, the Assembly submitted testimony before the House Foreign
Operations Appropriations Subcommittee, outlining the need for
Congress to continue funding to Armenia and Nagorno Karabakh. The
Assembly said that such assistance has helped both countries move
forward as independent, market-reformed and democratic states.

Also that same month, the Assembly sent separate letters to
Chairman Kolbe and Ranking Member Lowey, reiterating the Assembly’s
priorities for the South Caucasus generally, and Armenia and Karabakh
specifically. The Assembly also supported a similar letter to both
lawmakers that was initiated by Armenian Caucus Co-Chair Frank Pallone,
Jr. (D-NJ) and Congressman George Radanovich (R-CA) and supported by
43 additional Members of Congress.

The bill will next be considered by the full House Appropriations
Committee. Once the full House and Senate complete action on their
version of the bill, a joint House-Senate Conference Committee will
reconcile the differences.

The Armenian Assembly of America is the largest Washington-based
nationwide organization promoting public understanding and awareness of
Armenian issues. It is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt membership organization.

NR#2005-067

–Boundary_(ID_EuaYl2jYPZrQWdKj0P46MQ)–

History as paranoia: Iran and the game of nations
BY MATEIN KHALID (AT HOME)

Khaleej Times, United Arab Emirates
June 16 2005

FEW societies on earth are as conscious of their past as modern Iran.

The philosophic poetry of the medieval poets, Hafiz and Saadi continues
to enchant Iranians centuries after their death and their marble
tombs in Shiraz are as much a pilgrimage to Persian nationalism as
the desert ruins of ancient Persepolis.

The last Pahlavi Shah gave his parvenu dynasty a touch of badly
needed class by linking it to the Achaemenid empire that was once
the superpower of the ancient world. Celebrating the 2,500 years of
Persian monarchy amid the ruins of Persepolis, in an extravaganza
created by Maxims of Paris and ornamented by Lanvin and Baccarat,
the Shah declared “Sleep, Cyrus, for we are awake!”

Even Ayatollah Khomeini, while he expunged Iran’s pre-Islamic past
from the rhetoric of revolution, evoked the poet Firdousi and scholars
of Qom to boost Persian nationalist passions in the war with Iraq. Yet
Iranian diplomacy has been the modern Bermuda Triangle of international
relations, a black hole of inexplicable web of treachery, U-turns
and paranoia. Persian history, in its third millennium, underpins
Iran’s role on the global stage, its existential choices in the game
of nations.

It is ironic that Herodotus, the ancient Greek historian who chronicled
Alexander the Great’s rampage across the Persian Empire, declared
Iranians to be the most open of people to foreign customs.

Yet the Islamic republic, after all, was born amid xenophobia and
extreme nationalism, the world’s first theocratic state rejected the
bulldozer Westernisation of the Pahlavi regime. The Persian concept of
Garbzedeghi is as difficult for Westerners to understand as pronounce
but it refers to the sort of “West-intoxication embodied by the last
Shah and Empress of Iran, a cultural surrender that outraged all the
enemies of the Peacock Throne, from the clerics of Qom to the Marxist
Leninists of the communist Tudeh Party to the pious merchants of the
Teheran bazaar.

Few societies in the Middle East have evolved as exquisite a mass
conviction of victimhood as modern Iran. Derived from the Shia belief
that history is all about suffering and injustice, an incessant
struggle between good and evil, an ethos whose roots lay in the
ancient Sassanian theology and fire temples of Zoroaster, Iran has
been the geopolitical football of the Great Powers in modern times.

The Ottoman Turks waged war against Safavid Persia for centuries for
control of the Levant and the Gulf. The British Empire dealt with the
Qajar Shahs as puppets and vassals. Iran was a sideshow in its quest to
protect the sealanes to its Indian Raj, a pawn in its Great Game with
Tsarist Russia, its tobacco monopolies and the Abandon refineries of
BP once the Royal Navy warships shifted from coal to oil. The United
States replaced Britain as the puppeteer of the Peacock Throne after
World War Two.

Washington threatened Stalin with nuclear war to force the Soviet Union
out of Azerbaijan, unleashed the CIA in a countercoup to overthrow
the nationalist Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh in the notorious
Operation Ajax, assisted the Shah’s repressive Savak secret police
and the Imperial Iranian Armed Forces to act as the gendarmes of the
West in civil wars everywhere from Iraqi Kurdistan to Dhofar, Lebanon,
Afghanistan and Baluchistan.

Even the Shah’s hawkishness in Opec was viewed by most Iranians
as Kissinger’s Machiavellian scheme to bankroll a servile, pro-US
client regime with billions of petrodollars to reshape the politics of
the Middle East. It was therefore no coincidence that hatred of the
United States, symbol and protector of the megalomaniac, repressive
Shah, defined the cataclysmic passions of the Iranian Revolution. The
1979-80 hostage crisis was the climax of the pathological historical
experience between the US and Iran.

Its toxic images, the blindfolded diplomats, the “Death to America”
chants, Ayatollah Khomeni’s threats to export his revolution to
US allies in the Gulf, the truck bombers who massacred the Marines
and CIA spooks in Beirut, the gutted Delta Force helicopters in the
Dasht-e-Kavir, still poison the prisms of American foreign policy
towards Iran.

History is quicksand for the international relations of Iran. The
mass slaughter on the Shatt-al-Arab, inaugurated by Saddam Hussein’s
invasion in September 1980, was Iran’s most traumatic military invasion
since the medieval Mongol holocausts of Halagu Khan and Taimur. Yet
Iran fought the bloodiest war in Islamic history.

Saddam Hussein was financed and supported by friends near and far.

The United States “tilted” to Baghdad after the epic Iranian
victorious in Fao and Khorramshahr, delivered satellite intelligence,
clandestine bank loans, Exocet missiles and Etenard fighters, even
chemical weapons (via Paris and Berlin)to Saddam. The historic Persian
sense of victimhood is not misplaced. After all, as Kissinger once
observed “even paranoids have real enemies”. The Islamic Republic,
with good reason, sees itself encircled by the friends of its sworn
enemy, the Great Satan” which continues to demonise, isolate and
wage economic war (via blocked IMF/World Bank loans, and sanctions)
against Iran. American military bases and American dollars buttress
everyone in Iran’s neighbourhood, from Karzai in Kabul, to Musharraf
in Islamabad to Jaafari and Talabani in Baghdad to the post-Soviet
republics of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan.

The tragedies of Persian history shape the violent, intrigue driven
politics of Iran. The ayatollahs were not the original architect of
Iran’s nuclear programme, the Shah built a nuclear reactor in Bushehr
with German assistance decades before the Kremlin ever got involved.

So the language of neocon imperialism in Washington, sanctions and
preemptive strikes and ultimatums, evokes Iran’s historic sense of
outrage and victimhood. History, the paranoia of the past, chokes
Iran in the new axis of crisis in the Middle East.

Matein Khalid is a Dubai based investment banker

Armenia urges enhancement of bilateral ties

IranMania News, Iran
June 16 2005

Thursday, June 16, 2005 – ©2005 IranMania.com

LONDON, June 16 (IranMania) – Iranian Education Minister Morteza Haji
met with Armenian Prime Minister Andranik Markarian on Wednesday to
discuss issues of mutual interest.

The Armenian premier expressed his deep concern over the recent
terrorist attacks in Iran and the martyrdom of a number of Iranian
civilians, Iran Daily reported.

Markarian noted that Iran and Armenia have a record of bilateral
collaboration, stressing that Tehran and Yerevan should expand their
relations in educational and scientific fields.

Referring to expansion of economic cooperation between Iran and
Armenia, Markarian asserted that implementation of big economic
projects will positively influence regional relations.

Haji, for his part, noted that enhanced scientific and educational
cooperation between the two countries is very significant. He also
noted that the activities of the Center for Iranian Studies in Armenia
should be qualitatively improved. Haji is presently on a three-day
tour to Armenia.

In another meeting with the head of Armenia’s Presidential
Office, Artash Tumanyan and the Armenian co-chair of the joint
economic commission, Haji placed special focus on closer bilateral
interactions. He stressed the role of Iran-Armenia Economic Commission
in strengthening mutual relations.

The Armenian official referred to the importance of Haji’s visit
to his country and referred to the growing trend of bilateral ties
as positive.

He urged the need to expand collaboration in the domains of science
and research within the framework of the joint economic commission.

Tumanyan maintained that Iran’s significant regional status is of great
importance in Armenia’s foreign relations. “Since a considerable number
of Iranian students are currently studying in Armenian universities,
special attention should be paid to broadening cooperation in the
field,” he concluded.

–Boundary_(ID_LNplUgaiO1qDmRMdqT/Pbg)–

Press-Enterprise (subscription), CA
June 16 2005

Armenian Christians’ leader to bless church

RELIGION: “This is like our pope,” says the pastor. Hundreds are
expected to attend.

By DAVID OLSON / The Press-Enterprise

RANCHO MIRAGE – The pontiff for the world’s 7 million Armenian
Apostolic Christians will visit Rancho Mirage on Friday to bless the
foundation stone of what will become the first Armenian church
sanctuary in Riverside County.

Hundreds of Armenians from Inland Southern California are expected to
travel to Rancho Mirage to see His Holiness Karekin II, said the Rev.
Dr. Stepanos Dingilian, pastor of the desert church.

“This is like our pope,” Dingilian said. “For him to take the time to
come to a small (church) … like this is really significant.”

Karekin II, Supreme Patriarch and Catholicos of All Armenians, will
also anoint the foundation stone with holy oil, he said. After the
ceremony, the church will host a reception and banquet for the
pontiff in the church social hall, where the congregation has been
worshipping since November, Dingilian said.

The Rancho Mirage appearance is part of a three-week visit to the
United States by the pontiff, who lives in Armenia, a former Soviet
republic in southwestern Asia.

“His Holiness felt it was important he see this and preside over this
event as a sign of support and encouragement,” said the Rev. Ktrij
Devejian, the pontiff’s foreign press secretary.

About 100 people attend each of the bimonthly services at the church,
Dingilian said. There are between 2,000 and 5,000 Armenians in the
Coachella Valley, he estimated.

Arthur Swajian’s two grandsons, ages 5 and 8, will present flowers to
Karekin II. Swajian, 85, of Palm Desert, said he has never seen the
pontiff in person.

“It’s a once-in-a-lifetime event that he is visiting here,” he said.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress