No hasty pullout of Russian bases from Georgia-defense minister
By Alexander Konovalov, Tigran Liloyan

ITAR-TASS News Agency
May 20, 2004 Thursday

YEREVAN, May 20 — Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov has ruled
out hurried withdrawal of Russian troops from the military bases
in Georgia.

“There can be no haste about the removal of Russian military bases
from Georgia. This is out of the question. There will be no repetition
of what happened in the early 90’s when Russian troops were removed
from Germany,” Ivanov said after talks with his Armenian counterpart
Serge Sarkisian. “To remove bases from Georgia Russia will need time
and great financial resources to create infrastructures at the troops’
new location in Russia.”

Of late, the process of talks on the removal of Russian military
from Georgia slowed down somewhat for objective reasons following
the change of governments in Russia and Georgia.

“As soon as new delegates are appointed, the negotiations on the
removal of bases will be continued. The talks concern pullout dates
and the status of bases, which are part of the Russian military group
in the Caucasus.”

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

No plans to build up military personnel at base in Armenia-Ivanov
By Alexander Konovalov, Tigran Liloyan

ITAR-TASS News Agency
May 20, 2004 Thursday

YEREVAN, May 20 — Russia has no plans for building up the strength
of its contingent at the 102nd military base in Armenia, Russian
Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov has said after talks with his Armenian
counterpart Serge Sarkisian.

“There are no plans for increasing the contingent at the Gyumri base.
We believe that the number of military we have there is sufficient
and optimal. It is not quantitative, but qualitative parameters of
the base’s operation that really count, and we have monitored its
condition and performance very closely to ensure that the Russian
military base in Armenia, which is part of the Russian military group
in the Caucasus, be well supplied with ammunition, hold training under
the expected schedule and improve itself technically. Increasing the
number of Russian military at the Gyumri base will make no sense and
there are no reasons for this.”

OSCE monitors Azeri-Armenian contact line

Space TV, Baku
21 May 04

In line with the mandate of the personal representative of the OSCE
chairman-in-office, routine monitoring was held on the contact line
between the Azerbaijani and Armenian armed forces in the village of
Yusifcanli in Agdam District today.

On the Azerbaijani side, the monitoring was conducted by Andrzej
Kasprzyk, personal representative of the OSCE chairman-in-office, and
his field assistants [names indistinct], and on the Armenian side –
by field assistants [names indistinct] of the personal representative
of the OSCE chairman-in-office.

Russia’s military base at Gyumri faces no problems – Ivanov
By Alexander Konovalov, Tigran Liloyan

ITAR-TASS News Agency
May 20, 2004 Thursday

YEREVAN, May 20 — Relations between Russia and Armenia in the sphere
of defense and security have been developing dynamically and steadily
and there have been no major problems in military affairs, including
the operation of the 102nd military base at Gyumri, Russian Defense
Minister Sergei Ivanov said upon arrival in Armenia on a working visit.

Russia supplies Armenia with military products at internal prices.

“These matters have been discussed regularly within the framework of
the Collective Security Treaty Organization. Armenia is entitled to
the same opportunities to buy Russian military hardware as the other
CSTO member-states.”

Later on Thursday Ivanov will hold talks with his Armenian counterpart
Serge Sarkisian to look into Russian-Armenian cooperation in the
field of defense, military-technological cooperation and military
personnel training.

“Regional security issues and situations in trouble spots will be
discussed, too,” Ivanov said.

Agency WPS
DEFENSE and SECURITY (Russia)
May 21, 2004, Friday

LUKASHENKO JEALOUS OF NATO

SOURCE: Nezavisimaya Gazeta, May 18, 2004, p. 5

by Olga Mazayeva

Nikolai Bordyuzha, General Secretary of the Organization of the CIS
Collective Security Treaty, visited Minsk last week. The visit was
not pre-announced even though Bordyuzha met with President Alexander
Lukashenko. The meeting looked hasty and generated a lot of
speculations – after all, Bordyuzha had already visited Minsk two
weeks ago. All of that made local observers wonder that Bordyuzha
perhaps could have some clandestine mission to accomplish. The
impression the visit left was that Bordyuzha had come to gauge
Lukashenko’s meed before his meeting with Vladimir Putin in Yalta on
May 21 and 22.

All leaks to the official media concerned Lukashenko’s extreme
displeasure over the contacts of CIS countries and particularly
Russia with NATO. The president of Belarus told Bordyuzha irritably
that he wondered if the Organization of the CIS Collective Security
Treaty was that necessary in the first place (the organization
comprises Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia,
Tajikistan). According to Lukashenko, he did not “understand the
behavior of participants of the Organization of the CIS Collective
Security Treaty… There are NATO troops in Tajikistan under the
pretext of fighting terrorism. We support it. But Belarus did not
know anything about it nobody had asked for its opinion despite
appropriate provisions of the Treaty. What if Belarus let some other
bloc deploy troops on its territory? What would our colleagues have
said? They’d have objected.” The president of Belarus also wondered
of Armenia’s and Kazakhstan’s contacts with NATO. “Some separate
negotiations are under way – always with plausible explanations,” he
said. Lukashenko was particularly irked by the fact that “even Russia
cooperates with NATO and we discover it from newspapers.” Bordyuzha
agreed that the Organization of the CIS Collective Security Treaty
should clarify its position and stop being amorphous when the United
States and Europe were expanding their clout eastward.

Summing up the meeting, Lukashenko said that every organization
should promote security of its members and that he did not want to
waste money on membership otherwise. In short, there is no
information on what Bordyuzha’s mission was about but Lukashenko’s
response to it is very revealing. “NATO is on the borders of the
Russian-Belarusian Union now,” Lukashenko told Bordyuzha. He said
that Moscow and Minsk set up a joint army group capable of “repelling
any threat” and therefore should stick to each other.

THE DAILY TELEGRAPH(LONDON)
May 21, 2004, Friday

A festival crammed with delights The films in Cannes ranged from a
balletic martial-arts epic to a gripping family drama made for just
$218

By SUKHDEV SANDHU

This was meant to be the year when Asian cinema conquered everything
before it at Cannes. Korean pulp maestro Chan-Wook Park certainly
didn’t take any prisoners with Old Boy. It’s a dark revenger’s tale
about a wild-haired guy who is hellbent on finding out why he was
imprisoned in a windowless apartment for 15 years and who it was that
killed his family.

Violent, nasty and thoroughly exciting, it features gag-or-glee
scenes in which characters eat live octopuses and chop out their own
tongues. One terrific kung-fu scene where the guy takes out more than
a dozen assassins, a scene shot in profile and almost in silence,
will have had Quentin Tarantino (head of the voting panel and a huge
Park fan) in raptures.

More poetic was Zhang Yimou’s House of Flying Daggers. This Chinese
martial arts epic about a love triangle that develops between members
of the ninth-century Tang Dynasty and its radical opponents has very
little blood-letting. Instead, the fighting is choreographed with a
deftness and grace that turns it into a form of ballet. It’s rare to
see a female lead, Zhang Ziyi, play such a prominent role, not least
since she portrays a blind double agent. Costume and music are used
to ravishing effect, while the russet colours of the landscapes in
which the drama unfolds are both unusual and deeply lovely.

Coffee and Cigarettes by American indie giant Jim Jarmusch is a
low-key but delightfully droll collection of dialogues between
well-known and counter-cultural faves, mostly playing themselves.
Cate Blanchett is a feted Australian actress who is visited during a
press junket by a snarky, punky cousin (also played by Blanchett).
Iggy Pop pow-wows with Tom Waits; Jack and Meg White of the White
Stripes have a curious dialogue about motor technology; Bill Murray
works undercover as coffee-guzzling restaurant hand, before being
spotted by members of the WuTang Clan. Best of all is a double-header
in which Alfred Molina arranges a meeting with Steve Coogan to inform
him that they’re cousins. Coogan, in LA to hustle for Hollywood
roles, is distinctly unimpressed – until he learns that Molina is a
friend of Spike Jonze. The film is a tribute to the joys of creative
idling and ends with a nice touch: the slogan “Long live Joe
Strummer”.

One of the more subtle pleasures of the festival has been Argentinian
director Lucrecia Martel’s La Nina Santa. It’s an oblique and
elliptical comedy of manners set in a small hotel that’s hosting a
medical convention. It’s run by a glamorous middle-aged mother who is
attracted to a delegate with an unfortunate tendency to rub against
young girls, one of whom is his suitor’s teen daughter. Not that she
minds – she’s a languorous adolescent who wants to use the Catholic
doctrines she studies in school to try to save him. The plot is full
of false turns, and belly laughs are scarce. Still, as both an
exquisitely constructed strand of higher sitcom, as well as a
portrait of the tensions around burgeoning adulthood, this is an
attractive curio.

Made for $218.32, Tarnation by Jonathan Crouette is a painfully
revelatory documentary about the director’s mother, who was
needlessly given electric shock therapy for much of her life, and
about his own subsequent descent into drug abuse and self-mutilation.

Intercut with home footage, it uses techniques associated with
experimental cinema (split screens, sound distortion), but puts them
to unusually emotional effect. Sumptuously soundtracked by Nick Drake
and Belle and Sebastian, and executive-produced by Gus Van Sant, it’s
likely to attract big audiences when it’s released in the UK.

Cannes prides itself on its respect for celluloid history, and this
year saw a welcome showcase for some of the key films of the
Brazilian Cinema Novo movement of the early 1960s, and a great print
of Mehboob Khan’s 1957 social epic Mother India.

Also of note has been Wall, Simone Bitton’s investigation of the
barriers constructed to separate Israelis from Palestinians, which
expands into an urgent and deeply felt tone poem about the psychology
and politics of the Middle East. I Died In Childhood is a haunting
portrait of the great Armenian director Sergei Paradjanov made by his
nephew. Including footage from now-unknown classics such as The
Colour of Pomegranates, it will be of interest to fans of Russian
Ark.

So who will win this year’s Palme d’Or, to be announced on Sunday?
The smart money’s on Walter Salles’s The Motorcycle Diaries and Wong
Kar Wai’s 2046 (due to be shown last night, after a race against time
to get it finished). The strangest film, though, was Thai director
Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s wild and imaginatively unfettered
Tropical Malady. That, and Michael Winterbottom’s audacious and very
affecting 9 Songs, have been my favourites of Cannes 2004.

THE DAILY TELEGRAPH(LONDON)
May 21, 2004, Friday

Jobava jumps ahead

By Malcolm Pein

BAADUR JOBAVA, the Georgian Grandmaster whose fine win from round two
was given in Wednesday’s paper, carried on his winning ways and moved
to 3/3 at the fifth European Individual Championship organised by the
Turkish Chess Federation and the ECU at Antalya.

In round three Jobava overcame the dangerous Armenian GM Artashes
Minasian, a former winner of the New York Open. Jobava, 20, faces
another prodigy David Navara, 19, of the Czech Republic in round
four. These two are the only players on 3/3.

The favourite Vassily Ivanchuk is recovering from a disastrous start
and has won two straight games to reach 2/3. My thanks to Michael
Boyce for writing in and pointing out that Ivanchuk’s conqueror in
the first round Julian Radulski played a couple of similar games in
the recently concluded Bulgarian Championship.

The local boys Lenier Dominguez and Lazaro Bruzon continue to
dominate the Capablanca Memorial at Havana and have 8.5/10 and 8/10
respectively with a game to play. Bruzon is at his brutal best in
this strange game. Black is in desperate trouble after 7 Qb3! because
the follow-up g4-g5 wins the d5 pawn. The black bishop on g6 then
becomes a target for the white pawn advance and its absence proves
fatal as an exchange sacrifice creates a pawn wedge on f7 and total
white squared domination for the first player. The Bf8 never sees the
light of day. If 16Qg3+ 17.Nf2 and every black defensive try is met
by another sacrifice.

L.Bruzon – A.Ramirez

Capablanca Mem Havana (10)

Slav Defence

1 d4 d5 2 c4 c6 3 Nc3 Nf6 4 e3 a6 5 Qc2 Bg4 6 f3 Bh5 7 Qb3! b5 8 cxd5
cxd5 9 g4! Bg6 10 g5 Nfd7 11 h4 h6 12 h5!! hxg5 13 hxg6 Rxh1 14 Qxd5
Qc7 15 gxf7+ Kd8 16 Nh3! Ra7 17 f4 Qc6 18 Nxg5 Qh6 19 Bd2 Qh4+ 20 Ke2
Kc8 21 Nxb5! Rh2+ 22 Kd3 axb5 23 Ne6 Rxd2+ 24 Kxd2 Qf2+ 25 Be2 Nb6 26
Rc1+ Nc4+ 27 Rxc4+! bxc4 28 Qc5+ Kb7 29 Nd8+ Ka8 30 Qd5+ Nc6 31 Qxc6+
Kb8 32 Qb6+ Ka8 33 Nc6 1-0

Ramirez ) p p k p

7 p o b o
f ‘ p p p p p p p
p c n n p p p n p b n d A g p p p p p

Bruzon

Final position after 33.Nc6

Armenian ethnic leader blames Georgia for misreporting soccer incident

Yerkir, Yerevan
21 May 04

Text of S. Akopyan’s report by Armenian newspaper Yerkir on 21 May
headlined “The Tsalka events are presented in a distorted way”

The co-chairman of the unregistered Virk Party, editor of Akunk
newspaper, Mels Torosyan, comments on the Tsalka events on 6 May
[clashes between ethnic Georgians and Armenians during a football match
in Tsalka, southern Georgia]. He said that the local authorities and
law-enforcement agencies, as well as the central authorities in Tbilisi
and the Georgian mass media present distorted events to the public.

The reality is the following: after the victory of our young football
players, 50 or 60 Ajarians entered the pitch and started beating up
Armenian children. The incident took place in the regional centre which
is not populated by Armenians. The Armenians who were present there
went to the Armenian villages that are 10km away from the regional
centre and asked for help, after which a big clash took place.

The distortion of facts started after that. Tbilisi’s Imeti TV
company presented the event as an armed conflict and aired a video
report. But in reality, nobody was filming the events, there was not
even a camera. It became clear that the video report was about an
armed conflict that recently took place between the local Svan and
Ajarian residents.

Immediately after the conflict, the Ajarians went to Tbilisi and
organized a protest demonstration. And the police immediately
supported them.

According to Torosyan, this event is not the only one in Ajaria, there
have been many events of the sort. “Certainly, it is not a coincidence,
but a reality planned by the authorities, which aims to cleanse
Georgia of ethnic minorities. There are all grounds to think so.”

The current and previous authorities differ only by one feature:
“The current leaders create ethnic conflicts under the cover of
friendship, while [ex-Georgian President Zviad] Gamsakhurdia’s
government acted under the slogan ‘Georgia only for the Georgians’,”
Torosyan said. Incidentally, the chairwoman of the Georgian parliament,
Nino Burjanadze, believes that the problem was raised on the basis
of everyday conflicts and rules out an ethnic aspect. In doing so,
the authorities are trying to avert a possible wave of protests that
the incident might cause.

The police are trying to find weapons. There is a question: why was
there no investigation after the conflict between the Ajarians and
Svans and why were guns not confiscated? It was only announced that
the Armenians were armed. Torosyan thinks that this is also national
discrimination.

“It is time to talk about all the problems openly, it is time to raise
political, economic, ethnic and other problems, organize discussions
and make compromises to settle the problems. The time when everybody
acted secretly and hid the truth has passed.”

Armenian defence minister praises army’s role

Public Television of Armenia, Yerevan
15 May 04

[Armenian Defence Minister Serzh Sarkisyan] The cease-fire proposal
made on 12 May 1994 was acceptable to us. Although there are opinions
that if the cease-fire had not been thrust upon us and if we had not
concluded the cease-fire agreement, we could have achieved greater
successes.

Over the last 10 years, I have asked myself more than 10 times. If we
had the opportunity not to sign the cease-fire and to continue the
hostilities, we could have achieved success that would have forced
the enemy to ask for peace and solve our problem once and for all. I
have always drawn the conclusion that we had no such opportunities.

Possibly, if we had continued the hostilities, we could have
achieved some success, but to this end, we needed a greater amount
of weapons first of all, and we also had to answer the question of
whether our achievements would justify our losses. Apart from this,
the Azerbaijani army was entirely defeated, but unfortunately our
losses were increasing.

What did these 10 years of neither war nor peace give us? We managed
to complete the build-up of the army and now we are implementing this
work according to schedule. We managed to get a sufficient number of
weapons for our army, increase army discipline, educate our officers
and train young professional officers. We managed to bring our army
into combat readiness. We must admit that this is not only our own
assessment of our army’s combat readiness.

What the army needs to do today is to defend and improve the current
situation. Of course, financing is needed. But the most important
thing is the national attitude to the army. The Armenian army is the
army of the Armenian people and we must support it.

Cyprus, Armenian FMs discuss regional issues, bilateral ties, XINHUA

Xinhua, China
May 20, 2004 Thursday

NICOSIA, May 20 (Xinhua) — Cyprus Foreign Minister George Iacovou
and his Armenia’s counterpart Vartan Oskanian discussed Thursday the
Cyprus problem, Cyprus’ accession to the EU and bilateral ties.

In his statements to the press after the talks, Oskanian, who is
paying a working visit to Cyprus, said Cyprus’ accession to the EU is
very important for Armenia, noting that “we see Cyprus as a friendly
country, as an insider in the EU and that we can rely on its help to
further advance our integration processes with European structures
and particularly with the EU”.

Oskanian said the two sides also talked about other regional matters,
particularly Armenia’s relations with its neighbors, Turkey in
particular, adding as a goal his country has normalized ties with
Turkey.

He also said that the reason of his visit to the island is first of
all to advance and deepen the bilateral ties at all levels.

He added that he was extremely satisfied with his talks with Iacovou
and that their discussion was very useful.

On his part, Iacovou said Armenia is a friendly country with very old
ties with Cyprus and that their modern ties develop continuously at
all levels and mostly at the political level.

He referred to the presence of many Armenians in Cyprus that
participate in the economic, social and political life of the country
and noted they discussed various issues.

Iacovou said he briefed Oskanian on the latest developments in the
Cyprus problem, Cyprus’ accession to the EU and the prospects created
by it while Oskanian briefed him on the problems at Caucasus region
and Nakorno Karabagh.