BBC News, UK
Jan 25 2005

Regions and territories: Nagorno-Karabakh

Situated in south-western Azerbaijan, Nagorno-Karabakh is a richly
fertile area of striking beauty scarred by its violent history.
The word Karabakh has Turkic and Persian roots and means “black
garden”. The word Nagorno is Russian and means mountainous.

OVERVIEW

The ongoing bitter rivalry for control between ethnic Armenians and
Azeris has roots dating back well over a century into competition
between Christian Armenian and Muslim Turkic and Persian influences.

AT A GLANCE

Territory is inside Azerbaijan, but population predominantly ethnic
Armenian
War followed 1991 declaration of independence; up to 30,000 were
killed, more than one million fled their homes
Ceasefire was signed in 1994, but peace talks are bogged down and
refugees remain stranded

History

Populated for hundreds of years by Armenian and Turkic farmers,
herdsmen and traders, Karabakh became part of the Russian empire in
the 19th century.

Armenia insists that it was part of an early Christian kingdom,
citing the presence of ancient churches as evidence. Azeri historians
argue that the churches were built by the Caucasian Albanians, a
Christian nation whom they regard as among the forebears of the Azeri
people.

Islam arrived in the region more than a millennium ago.

For long periods Christian Armenians and Turkic Azeris lived in peace
but they were both guilty of acts of brutality in the early 20th
century. These live on in the popular memory and fuel mutual
antagonism.

There have been many deaths to mourn

The end of World War I and the aftermath of the Bolshevik revolution
in Russia brought carving up of borders. As part of their
divide-and-rule policy in the area, the Soviets established the
Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Region, of which the population was
predominantly ethnic Armenian, within Azerbaijan in the early 1920s.

Armenian discontent at this situation smouldered throughout the
Soviet period. Ethnic Armenian-Azeri frictions exploded into furious
violence in the late 1980s in the twilight years of the USSR.

As the violence escalated, the ethnic Azeri population fled Karabakh
and Armenia while ethnic Armenians fled the rest of Azerbaijan. With
the break-up of the Soviet Union, in late 1991, Karabakh declared
itself an independent republic. That de facto status remains
unrecognised elsewhere.

Although there was no formal declaration of war, there was
large-scale combat between Azerbaijani and ethnic Armenian forces.
That fighting ultimately brought victory for the ethnic Armenians who
then pushed on to occupy Azeri territory outside Karabakh, creating a
buffer zone linking Karabakh and Armenia.

Ceasefire but no final settlement

A Russian-brokered ceasefire was signed in 1994 leaving Karabakh de
facto under ethnic Armenian control. The deal also left swathes of
Azeri territory around the enclave in Armenian hands. No final
settlement has ever been signed. Both sides have had soldiers killed
in sporadic breaches of the ceasefire. The closure of borders with
Turkey and Azerbaijan has caused landlocked Armenia severe economic
problems for nearly 15 years.

It is estimated that between 20,000 and 30,000 people lost their
lives during half a decade of conflict, and that more than one
million fled their homes. The Azeris have yet to return to areas of
Azerbaijan now under ethnic Armenian control and have little prospect
of returning to Karabakh itself. Similarly, the Armenians who fled
Azerbaijan during the conflict have not returned there.

The ethnic Armenians who now account for virtually the entire
population of Nagorno-Karabakh prefer to call it Artsakh, an ancient
name dating back around 1,500 years.

Guns now silent, future unresolved

The situation throughout over a decade since the ceasefire agreement
has been one of simmering stalemate. Azeris bitterly resent the loss
of the land which they regard as rightfully theirs. The Armenians
show no sign of willingness to compromise or give one square
centimetre of it back.

Russia, France and the USA co-chair the OSCE’s Minsk Group which has
been attempting to broker an end to the dispute for over a decade.

In 1997 the group tabled settlement proposals seen as a starting
point for negotiations by Azerbaijan and Armenia but not by the de
facto authorities in Nagorno-Karabakh itself. When the then Armenian
president, Levon Ter-Petrosyan, tried to encourage Nagorno-Karabakh
to enter into talks he was forced to resign amid cries of betrayal.

Hopes of a peace deal were raised in 2001, after a series of meetings
between Armenian President Robert Kocharyan and Heydar Aliyev, the
late president of Azerbaijan.

However, ultimately the talks came to nothing, and contacts between
the two countries’ presidents have never looked so promising again.

FACTS

Status: de jure part of the Republic of Azerbaijan, unilaterally
declared itself an independent republic in 1991
Capital: Stepanakert/Khenkendi
Area: 4,400 sq km
Main religion: Christianity
Languages spoken: Armenian, Russian
Currency in use: Dram

LEADERS

President: Arkadiy Gukasyan

First elected president of the unrecognised republic of
Nagorno-Karabakh in 1997, Mr Gukasyan won a second term in 2002.

He survived an assassination attempt in 2000. Samuel Babayan, whom he
had recently sacked as defence minister, was convicted of organizing
the attack and sentenced to 14 years in prison.

Although Mr Gukasyan has expressed the desire for a peaceful solution
to the dispute over the republic’s status, he has pledged never to
compromise on Nagorno-Karabakh’s independence. He insists that the
unrecognised republic must have full representation at any future
negotiations on the way forward.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

The Gazette (Montreal)
January 25, 2005 Tuesday
Final Edition

For the Record

A story in the Jan. 19 paper about Jewish school funding in Quebec
incorrectly stated that Armenian private schools have for many years
received 100-per-cent government subsidies for their secular
curriculum.

In fact, Armenian schools have never received 100-per-cent funding.
They get no more than 60-per-cent funding, as other private schools
do.

The Gazette regrets the error.

The Gazette (Montreal)
January 25, 2005 Tuesday
Final Edition

‘I was counting on that’: Witness shocked his account was blocked

by PAUL DELEAN, The Gazette

His years are numbered since a diagnosis of terminal cancer three
years ago, but clothing importer Ara Markarian, 58, cannot access
most of his savings at CIBC Wood Gundy.

The brokerage has blocked him from touching about $380,000 in his
investment account, claiming it covers a guarantee made on the
trading account of his business partner and cousin, Harry Markarian.

Ara Markarian said he had no knowledge of the guarantee until he
called the brokerage in February 2002, hoping to take out $250,000
for a business opportunity that had come up.

The adviser who replaced his previous CIBC broker, Harry Migirdic,
told him she could still manage the portfolio for him, but couldn’t
withdraw the money.

“For the years I have left, I can’t do much with my money blocked. I
was counting on that money for my retirement,” Ara Markarian
testified yesterday in Superior Court.

He was a witness in the lawsuit of his brother and sister-in-law,
retirees Haroutioun and Alice Markarian, two other former Migirdic
clients who are seeking from CIBC World Markets (parent company of
CIBC Wood Gundy) $1.4 million they claim was taken from them by the
CIBC under fraudulent guarantees, as well as $10 million in punitive
damages.

Ara Markarian said he became a Migirdic client in the late 1980s,
when both were members of the Canadian Armenian Business Council.

His instructions to the broker, he said, were to put money in the
safest, most secure investments.

At first, Migirdic complied, but later he recommended more
speculative titles such as Intergold and Bre-X, Markarian said.

In the early 1990s, he recalled receiving a phone call one morning
from Migirdic who said his bosses wanted to update the files and
needed him to sign a guarantee covering the investment account of his
wife, Janet.

When Migirdic arrived at his home that night with the form, Markarian
said, “I noticed there was no name of who I was guaranteeing,”

Markarian said he planned to write Janet’s name in the blank space,
but Migirdic told him it had be typed in and he’d take care of it at
the office. Markarian signed, but said he asked Migirdic to send him
a copy, and was assured that would be done.

He never did get a copy, and forgot about it, Markarian said.

Asked why he signed, Markarian replied: “I had invested $500,000 with
him. …To invest half a million, you have to believe it’s in good
hands. It’s a reputable firm, supposedly.”

Evidence introduced at the trial indicated the name on the guarantee
was Harry Markarian, Ara Markarian’s cousin and business partner.

But Ara Markarian said he always assumed the guarantee was for his
wife and never had cause to doubt it, since there was never a
follow-up communication from CIBC.

Even a phone call from his brother, Haroutioun, in the summer of
2001, advising him to look closely at his CIBC statement, did not
spark any concerns. Though the actual name of the person he was
guaranteeing did not appear on the statement, there was an account
number, and since it was only one digit higher than his own
eight-digit number, Ara Markarian said he felt reassured it was
indeed his wife.

He found out otherwise in 2002. On the copy of the guarantee document
in CIBC’s files, the witness was someone he said he didn’t know.

Surprised and “very mad,” Markarian confronted his partner. But Harry
Markarian – also a Migirdic client – denied knowing about or asking
for any guarantee.

“He was very upset by the situation,” Ara Markarian said.

Throughout a partnership that dated from 1970, the two had always
kept their personal and business interests separate, Ara Markarian
testified. “I didn’t know his investments; he didn’t know mine. We
never did anything together in our private accounts.”

When they called Migirdic, Markarian said the broker told them: ”
‘I’m sorry. I regret what happened. I talked to my bosses. They
know.’ ”

The trial resumes next week.

Deutsche Presse-Agentur
January 25, 2005, Tuesday
12:31:34 Central European Time

COE parliament calls for resolution of Nagorny Karabakh crisis

Strasbourg

Eleven years after a ceasefire was declared in the disputed region of
Nagorny Karabakh the parliamentary assembly of the Council of Europe
(COE) called Tuesday on the parties to the conflict, Armenia and
Azerbaijan, to reach a political solution.

The parliamentary assembly passed a resolution stating that the
conflict in the Armenian enclave has not been resolved and calling on
Armenia and Azerbaijan to commence talks to do so.

The resolution said that the admittance of the two Central Asian
countries to the Council of Europe in 2001 obliged them to find a
peaceful solution and it confirmed the right of return for people
displaced from their homeland by the crisis.

Nagorny Karabakh, a 4,400-square-kilometre part of Azerbaijan, is
mostly populated by Armenians. A 1992-1994 war saw 750,000
Azerbaijanis flee their homes. A ceasefire was agreed in May 1994 and
Armenia continues to control the disputed region.

The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe groups 630
parliamentarians from 46 national parliaments. dpa hs pmc

RIA Novosti, Russia
Jan 25 2005

ABKHAZIA PLANS TO COORDINATE ITS FOREIGN POLICY WITH RUSSIA – BAGAPSH

MOSCOW, January 25 (RIA Novosti) – Abkhazia plans to coordinate its
foreign policy with Russia, announced president-elect of the
self-proclaimed republic of Abkhazia Sergei Bagapsh during a joint
press conference with vice-president Raul Khadzhimba in Moscow.

“The future of Abkhazia in becoming an independent state. We will
build partnership relations with Russia and will orient ourselves on
Russia and strengthening economic relations with it,” Mr. Bagapsh
underlined.

“We will participate in the meeting of the Russian Security Council
today. We plan to discuss existing economic issues and problems at
the meeting,” Mr. Bagapsh continued.

He said the discussion of economic issues at the meeting would be
held with participation of “representatives of other structures that
deal with economic issues in Russia.” The participants also plan to
discuss the reopening of the railway transit through Abkhazia to
Armenia and the issues related to energy industry.

Talking about the necessity of coordinating the Russian and Abkhazian
legislation, Mr. Bagapsh explained, “We have to do it in order to
avoid controversy in our economic relations, in order to protect
investments.” “Nobody is trying to change the Russian legislation,”
Mr. Bagapsh added.

Answering the question about the future relations with the Georgian
leadership, Mr. Bagapsh stated that the Abkhazian position on the
Georgian-Abkhazian settlement remains unchanged.

Mr. Bagapsh stated that the forcible solution of the
Georgian-Abkhazian conflict was unacceptable and all issues must be
settled through negotiations.

One of the journalists asked Mr. Bagapsh whether Abkhazia was going
to choose the alliance with Russia or it would prefer the alliance
with Georgia.

“If we are forced to make a choice, and the issue does not include
only Georgia, but also some Western countries, we will make it
immediately,” Sergei Bagapsh stressed.

Speaking about the possibility of his personal meeting with Georgian
President Mikhail Saakashvili, Mr. Bagapsh stated that such a meeting
would have to be thoroughly prepared. “If the sides have too many
antagonisms, such a meeting will be unreasonable. Meeting without a
purpose does not make any sense,” Mr. Bagapsh said. He mentioned that
there were Georgian-Abkhazian working groups and committees that must
tackle the entire range of bilateral issues.

ArmenPress
Jan 25 2005

NATURAL GAS OPERATOR DOES NOT PLAN PRICE RISE FOR 2005

YEREVAN, JANUARY 25, ARMENPRESS: Hayrusgazard natural gas operator
has dismissed rumours that it may raise the price of natural gas in
2005. The Russian-Armenian company, which is the sole supplier of
Russian gas to Armenia, has sent its 2005-2007 investment program to
Public Utilities Regulating Commission to seek its approval.
The company plans to invest more than 22 billion drams in three
years and wants to end the full gasification of the country in 2007.
Before the collapse of the Soviet Union Armenia had 450,000 gas
consumers. Hayrusgard’s ambitious plans envisage to surpass this
number.
Last year 1.330 billion cubic meters of gas were shipped to
Armenia from Russia, in 2005 some 1.680 billion cubic meters are
expected to be delivered. In 1991 Armenia imported more than 6
billion cubic meters of gas.

ArmenPress
Jan 25 2005

ARMENIAN PRESIDENT TO VISIT ITALY

YEREVAN, JANUARY 25, ARMENPRESS: Armenian president Robert
Kocharian is flying January 27 to Italy for an official three-day
visit at the invitation of his Italian counterpart Carlo Azeglio
Ciampi. Foreign minister Vartan Oskanian, trade and economic
development and agricultural ministers, other officials and
businessmen will accompany the president.
In Rome Kocharian will be received by the President of the Senate
Marcello Pera, the President of the Chamber of Deputies (the Italian
Parliament’s Lower Chamber) Pier Ferdinando Casini and Prime Minister
Silvio Berlusconi. Meetings are also scheduled with representatives
of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and
Italian businessmen.
Armenian and Italian officials will sign a Memorandum on the Small
and Medium Enterprises Sector and an agreement on co-operation
between the two Ministries of Justice. A Joint Declaration will be
also issued during the visit.
In Vatican Kocharian will be welcomed by Pope John Paul II and
Cardinal Angelo Sodano. Kocharian will also meet with Patriarch
Nerses-Poghos, the head of Catholic Armenians and will watch also the
recently erected monument to Gregory the Enlightener in Vatican.
On January 28 Kocharian will travel to Venice to meet with its
mayor and members of the Italian Armenian community. In Venice
Kocharian will visit Murad Rafaelian School and the Mkhetarist
Congregation.
This will be the second official visit by Kocharian to Italy.
In an interview to Armenpress Italian ambassador to Armenia, Marco
Clemente, described bilateral political relations as “excellent.”

RIA Novosti, Russia
Jan 25 2005

RUSSIA’S NUCLEAR POWER OUTPUT DOWN

MOSCOW, January 25 (RIA Novosti) – Russia’s nuclear power plants cut
electricity generation by 3.8 percent last year, said the chief
engineers of Russian, Ukrainian and Armenian nuclear power plants at
a conference that began Tuesday.

“In 2004 Russia’s nuclear power stations generated 142.9 billion
kilowatts per hour of electricity, or 96.2 percent of the
corresponding period last year,” Rosenergoatom said in a press
release.

“Simultaneously, last year’s performance merits a positive
assessment. In 2004, upon modernization, 300 megawatt-limitations
were lifted for Unit Two of the Kursk Nuclear Power Station, service
life extended for 15 years for Unit Two of the Kola Nuclear Power
Station, modernization completed and service life extended for Unit
One of the Leningrad Nuclear Power Station [and] Unit Three of the
Kalinin Nuclear Power Station was put into service,” Rosenergoatom
reported.

“Already this year, return from these attainments will mean an
increasing utilization rate of the installed capacity and, of course,
an increasing commercial output,” the press release stated.

Knight Ridder Newspapers
Jan 25 2005

16 years after earthquake devastated Armenia, international aid
continues

By Mark McDonald

SPITAK, Armenia – When rescuers began pulling victims from the rubble
of the sugar factory here in 1988, the corpses seemed like ghastly,
crimson ghosts: The bodies were covered with an awful goo, a
coagulating mixture of blood and powdered sugar.

The earthquake that crushed the sugar plant also destroyed every
other factory in this mountainous patch of northern Armenia. The
6.9-magnitude quake flattened schools, churches, homes and hospitals.
More than 25,000 people died. Half a million were left homeless.

The 1988 disaster was hardly on the scale of last month’s Asian
tsunami, but the grief and horror were the same. So was the
international response – massive, immediate, global and heartfelt.

But despite the huge donations and numerous successes,
post-earthquake Armenia could serve as a cautionary tale for the
tsunami region: Even the most heavily financed and best-intentioned
relief missions can be derailed by the aftershocks of economic
crises, corruption, politics and war.

“The people in the tsunami, their pain is our pain,” said Asya
Khakchikyan, 70, who lost her husband, daughter and granddaughter in
the Spitak quake. “When I see the faces of those poor people in Asia,
I see the faces of the ones I lost.”

Other disaster zones have had bitter experiences with relief efforts
that dwindled or disappeared almost as soon as they started. When the
news media move on, aid missions often do the same.

That didn’t happen here, government officials, diplomats, aid workers
and survivors agree. After 16 years, international relief efforts
continue, many of them generous and effective.

A housing program under the U.S. Agency for International Development
ended only last month in the shattered city of Gyumri. The Peace
Corps has 85 volunteers in Armenia, several U.N. programs remain
active and dozens of international agencies and private foundations
continue to work in the region.

“We haven’t recovered yet, but at least say we’re no longer dying,”
said Albert Papoyan, the mayor of the hardscrabble village of
Shirmakoot, the epicenter of the quake. “We’re finally starting to
breathe.”

An estimated 20,000 people across the quake zone still occupy the
metal shipping containers known here as “domiks.” The containers once
held emergency provisions that came from abroad. Now people live in
them.

Only one of Spitak’s factories is back in business, and it employs
only a small fraction of the people it did before.

Some aid workers complain that some people still expect handouts.

Spitak lost 5,003 people to the earthquake, nearly a fourth of its
population. The quake struck Dec. 7, just before noon, when children
were in school and most adults were working at the sugar plant, the
elevator factory, the leather tannery or the sewing collective.

Spitak Mayor Vanik Asatryan said every house and apartment building
in his city collapsed – all 5,635 of them. Other towns and villages
also were reduced to rubble.

“Everyone,” he said, “was homeless.”

Asatryan and others praised the quick response of the Soviet
government – Armenia was part of the Soviet Union in 1988 – although
communist construction teams inexplicably began putting up row upon
row of low-quality, concrete apartment blocks, exactly like the ones
that had just collapsed.

International aid also poured in. The grand total after 16 years is
difficult to estimate, although government officials suggest it could
be close to $2 billion, half of what’s been pledged for tsunami
relief.

“The whole world helped Spitak,” Asatryan said.

Today, Spitak’s new neighborhoods – built to exacting new codes – are
known as the French, Italian and Uzbek districts, commemorating the
countries that financed them.

The immediate U.S. response was a planeload of search-and-rescue dogs
and rescue teams from Fairfax County, Va. The plane took off without
a flight plan, and U.S. officials weren’t sure it would be allowed to
land in Soviet territory or that the rescuers, who had no visas,
would be allowed to get off.

American tents, heaters, food and medicine soon followed. Trauma
counselors also arrived, along with some teachers of transcendental
meditation.

Today, Armenia is one of the largest per-capita recipients of U.S.
government aid in the world, reportedly second only to Israel. A
large and influential immigrant population in the United States helps
drive those government appropriations.

Armenian-American businesspeople also donate heavily. The Lincy
Foundation, underwritten by the billionaire Kirk Kerkorian, has been
particularly effective in building housing, roads and tunnels in the
quake zone.

Aid workers grumble that the deluge of assistance created a caste of
“professional victims” hooked on handouts. One former Red Cross
worker said residents would become enraged when he was a day or two
late delivering free medicine.

“They think all the world owes them everything,” said Yulia Antonyan,
a program officer at the Eurasia Foundation. “People will sit around
a table saying this country gave us too little or the Uzbeks build
bad buildings.”

The cash-strapped Armenian government has been hard-pressed to create
housing, jobs and development programs on its own.

Tens of thousands of former factory workers, for example, now rely on
small subsistence plots of potatoes and cabbage. The soil is thin,
the winters are brutal and freak summer hailstorms wrecked the wheat
harvest for two years running.

The hollow shells of ruined factories add a ghostly gloom to the
area, and only one of the Soviet-era enterprises has managed to
reopen: Asatryan, Spitak’s mayor, got a World Bank loan to
resuscitate the sewing collective, and he has 250 employees stitching
military uniforms for the Dutch, British and Americans.

Before the quake, however, the sewing factory had 5,000 employees.
Two-thirds of local adults are still unemployed, and the average
salary is about $2.50 a day.

“I feel completely abandoned by the government,” said the widow
Khachikyan, who subsists on a $13 monthly pension, half of which she
spends on an asthma inhaler. She picks wormy apples from a nearby
park and lives in a metal trailer left behind by the Italians.

“I’ve been in this domik for 15 years. They keep saying they’ll give
me an apartment, but they never do.”

She managed a shrug and a wheezing laugh, and said, “I guess they’ll
give me an apartment when I die.”

Radio Free Europe, Czech Republic
Jan 25 2005

UN: ‘Never Again’ Echoes At Auschwitz Remembrance, But Darfur Poses
Challenge

By Robert McMahon

Refugees from Darfur in Chad (file photo)

Reflecting on the 60th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz
death camp, leading UN member states have vowed to act to prevent the
recurrence of genocide. But they face an immediate challenge in
Sudan’s Darfur region, where UN experts have raised alarm about
atrocities and the mass abuse of human rights for more than a year.
An international commission is due to report today on whether or not
genocide is occurring in Darfur. UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, in
a speech about Auschwitz, called on the UN Security Council to be
ready to respond to the commission’s findings.

United Nations, 25 January 2005 (RFE/RL) — “Never again” was the
refrain at a high-level meeting of the UN General Assembly session
commemorating the liberation of Auschwitz.

But speakers at the session expressed dismay at the world’s failure
to stop the genocides in Cambodia, Rwanda, and the Balkans during the
last quarter of the 20th century.

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan also used the assembly’s first-ever
commemoration of the Holocaust to remind countries of the current
humanitarian disaster in Sudan’s western Darfur region. Annan said an
international commission of inquiry, requested by the UN Security
Council, is due to report to him today on the extent of the abuses.
He urged the Security Council to be prepared to act.

“That report will determine whether or not acts of genocide have
occurred in Darfur. But also, and no less important, it will identify
the gross violations of international humanitarian law and human
rights which undoubtedly have occurred,” Annan said.

Darfur has been embroiled in violence for nearly two years, after two
rebel groups began an armed resistance against the government in a
clash over resources.

Since then, Arab militias known as Janjaweed have retaliated by
rampaging through the area. Tens of thousands of civilians have died
and nearly 2 million have been displaced since the fighting began.
The Sudanese government denies links to the Janjaweed, but there have
been numerous reports that the militia is equipped by Khartoum.

The UN Security Council is divided over a course of action to bring
an end to the abuses. There is a growing debate over whether it
should refer cases of major abusers to the new International Criminal
Court, which the United States strongly opposes.

French Foreign Minister Michel Barnier told reporters at UN
headquarters today that “terrible things” have been done to Darfur’s
civilians. But he stressed that any solution should involve
engagement with the Sudanese government. “It’s my conviction that we
won’t solve this dramatic situation without the Sudan or against the
Sudan but with the Sudan, and that is the aim of the mediating
efforts that have been carried out in the United Nations and
particularly by the African Union,” Barnier said.

Aside from the UN secretary-general, few speakers mentioned the
Darfur tragedy by name during the Auschwitz session.

But Armenian Foreign Minister Vartan Oskanian made a strong appeal to
the international community to do more to track down the perpetrators
of atrocities in Darfur. “Recognizing the victims and acknowledging
them is also to recognize that there are perpetrators, but this is
absolutely not the same as to name them, shame them, to dissuade
them, to isolate them and to punish them,” he said.

Oskanian said that, based on its own experience, Armenia has a
special understanding of the trauma caused by genocide and
international indifference. Armenia says 1.5 million ethnic Armenians
were killed by Ottoman Turks between 1915 and 1923 in a genocidal
campaign. Turkey denies genocide occurred.