Waiting for triumph of wisdom
It is for 9 years, already, that Nagorny Karabakh and our 7 adjacent to it regions remain under Armenian’s occupation. Unfortunately, we learn about the things occurring beyond the line of front from foreign sources and through the rare trips to the occupied territories and Armenia arranged for Azeri journalists and legal right protectors by the international organisations. A group of Azeri journalists has recently returned from such visit paid to the Nagorny Karabakh and Armenia. The trip was arranged by the OSCE.
Our Yak-40 landed at the Yerevan airport «Zvartnots» early in the morning. Therefrom we headed for the Armenian-Azeri border by bus.
The dull landscape of denuded rocky mountains was boring. The picture began changing with the approach to the Azeri border. Alas, there were no signs indicating the existence of the border. At the entry to the Lachin region the «banner of the so-called NKR» was flapping. The crest with Armenian inscription was installed beneath it. We were not allowed to take shots in Lachin. The town, itself, and the villages were a painful picture. All the settlements have been almost destroyed. Only a few houses were inhabited. We were told that those were the Armenian refugees from Baku and Sumgayit. However, on our way back we still insisted on making stop there and took shots of these bitter realities of Lachin populated nowadays by about several hundred people.
Shusha was even a worse sight. The once flourishing Azeri town is, now, in ruins. The efforts of the receiving side to convince us that the town lives its normal life, were in vain. The marriage cortege was just in time. However, even in the centre of the town the Armenians failed to create the vision that everything was all right. The Shusha five-storey buildings are empty, the state universal store is in ruins... At the same time, two churches are functioning there. It seems that the town has beaten all records on the number of temples per head. The Armenians have installed crests wherever possible. This most likely is aimed at persuading the visitors from the West about Shusha’s Christian origin. Even the residence of the «Artsakh archbishop» has been moved to Shusha with the number of the parishioners hardly reaching ten. The walls are the only remnants of the Moslems mosque. Though they bear the plate saying that the building «is protected by the government», in reality no one cares about it. It rained hard when we were in Shusha, as if the town cried being touched by the meeting with its dear. We also repressed tears, but the strong belief that we will return to Shusha and will live there, helped us to recover from the moment’s weakness. Not easy meetings with the Karabakh separatists leaders were ahead. Their position remains unchanged, they still do not imagine the Nagorny Karabakh to be a part of Azerbaijan. However, to my opinion, they do not believe in possibility of the NK independence, either.
Even if to assume that «Karabakh is de-facto» an independent state, it will never become independent «de jure», as there are no legal, political, social and economic grounds for it.
In all the international legal documents, such as the resolutions of the SC of UN, the decisions OSCE and CE, the Nagorny Karabakh is recognised as the territory of Azerbaijan. Even Armenia is not bold to recognise the independence of the NK and this fact irritates the Armenians of the Karabakh most of all.
The current political situation in the world doesn’t betoken the hopes for the better for the Armenian side. The fight against the Talibans shows, that the world community will not stand the existence of illegal regimes, as it understands, that uncontrolled territories are the potential source for the terrorism, narcotrade, and other types of the international organised crime.
The position of the Armenian side in respect of social and economy development is not in a better condition. It is worth to mention, that we were not invited to visit any industrial enterprise, as there is nothing to boast with. Despite the repeated promises, we were not provided with the statistics of the region’ social and economic development. Though Khankendi reminds, externally, the town with the normal vital activity, this shop- window of well-being, however, hides the hard condition of the Nagorny Karabakh regions located directly at the front line. It is not sudden, that the leaders of the separatist regime refused point-blank to take us to the occupied regions, as in this case we would have seen not only what had been going in the occupied lands, but, also, we could have seen the realities of the Armenian’s settlements.
The Nagorny Karabakh reminds, on the whole, the enclosed space torn away from the rest world. Even the planes do no fly here, as to land in Kankendi, the planes must turn around over the Azeris’ positions. The choppers fly from Yerevan to Khankendi 3 times a week. The receiving side tried to assure us that 30-40 buses run between Armenia and NK daily, however, we drove twice along this route but saw not more than 1-2 buses. Motor cars were not seen, either. It indicates, either, the existence of a strict entry-exit regime, or that people may not afford leaving this place.
As for the sentiments of the local Armenians, they are not thus aggressive in regards of the Azeris, as they used to be in the early 90’s. At that time they used to say that they would agree to be interviewed by the American, African but not Azeri journalists. Today, the nationalist passions have abated. The separatists’ leaders not only speak willingly with the journalists from Baku, but even request them to deliver their audience the «objective» information about the situation in the NK and about the sentiments of local citizens. It should be noted, that while speaking with us, the Armenians of Karabakh recollected with the nostalgia the past times, when they lived with the Azeris at peace. Many of them even remember the Azeri language.
The local people influenced by the separatists stand for the restoration, as they call it, «good neighbourhood» relations with the Azeris, but at the same time, they exclude the possibility of being a part of Azerbaijan. These sentiments, undoubtedly, postpone the prospects of peaceful settlement of the conflict. The sides’ positions are thus unappeasable. One cannot but agree with the ombudsman of the chairman of the OSCE, Ambassador Andjey Kasprshik, who had noted that the wall higher and stronger than the Berlin wall separates the Azeris and Armenians. However, the integration processes going on in the world, as well as the logic of the current civilisation development demand from the both peoples to meet each other half-way.
I hope, that the Armenian people, will, finally, recognise the fatality of the development at the account of occupation of the others’ territories, as this road will bring to nowhere. It is good, that the Armenian elite begins to understand it. At our meeting, the Foreign Minister of Armenia, Vardan Oskanyan, admitted, that though the Armenian side is, de facto, suited by the current situation, it, nevertheless, understands, that without opening the borders with Azerbaijan, and without co-operation with it, the stability in the region will not be reached.
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A package of agreements regarding the project
on Azeri gas export to Turkey submitted
to the parliament of Azerbaijan
To Milli Mejlis (Parliament of Azerbaijan) has been submitted a package of Azeri-Georgian agreements on Azeri gas export from the Shah-Deniz deposit to Turkey.
Media-Press has learnt in MM, that in the nearest future the document officially named “Agreement on transit, transportation and sale of natural gas via the territory and outside Azerbaijan and Georgia due to the system of the South-Caucasian pipeline” would be reviewed by the commission on energy, ecology and natural resources ad discussed then by the parliament. The whole package is expected to be ratified by late November. After a similar procedure in the parliament of Georgia, the agreement will come into effect. Afterwards, the Shah-Deniz project’s shareholders will be able to give sanction for its realization.
It is worthy to remind that the intergovernmental agreement on Azeri gas transportation from the Shah-Deniz deposit via the territory of Georgia to Turkey was signed on September 2001 between Georgia and Azerbaijan. Besides, the two countries signed both Host Government and Tariff Agreements.
In framework of the project by the end of 2004, the BP British-American Company is going together with partners to produce the first two mlrd cu m of gas at the Shah-Deniz deposit to be transported via the gas pipeline. Already in 2005, Georgia will have 100 mln cu m of natural gas (within the tariff payment), but further the 5% envisaged by the agreement will suppose more gas.
Putin Holds Talks with Afghan Opposition Head
Reuters: Russian President Vladimir Putin arrived in ex-Soviet Tajikistan early on Monday to meet a senior leader of the opposition of neighbouring Afghanistan.
Putin arrived in the Tajik capital just past 3 a.m. after attending a 21-nation Asian summit in the Chinese city of Shanghai and was met by the Central Asian country's president, Imomali Rakhmonov.
The two leaders went immediately to Rakhmonov's guest house in the city centre and opened talks. Burhanuddin Rabbani, still recognised by the U.N. and most governments as the legal president of Afghanistan, arrived at the house soon after. Tajik officials said Putin planned to spend no more than two hours in Dushanbe before flying on to Moscow.
Accompanying Putin on board his aircraft was Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov and Russian Security Council Secretary Vladimir Rushailo. Two other close aides and allies of Putin were also in the city - Defence Minister Sergei Ivanov and Nikolai Patrushev, head of the FSB domestic intelligence service. Rabbani fled Kabul when the hardline Taliban movement seized the capital in 1996. He now heads the Northern Alliance opposition movement which holds up to 10 percent of Afghan territory and is led by ethnic Tajiks and Uzbeks from the north of the country. Putin fully backs the U.S-led campaign against the Taliban, who have been sheltering Saudi-born Osama bin Laden, prime U.S. suspect in last month's strikes on New York and Washington.
He has also offered to increase support for the Northern Alliance's forces. Other senior officials from the Alliance, including foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah and military commander Mohammed Fahim, were also in Dushanbe on Sunday. A meeting with Rabbani would probably provide a considerable moral boost for the Alliance. Washington has withheld wholehearted support from the Alliance, apparently fearing that its lack of support among Afghanistan's Pashtun majority could generate fresh conflict if it captured Kabul. U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell told television talk shows in the United States on Sunday that Washington saw the Alliance as a key part of its campaign against the Taliban. But he stepped back from explicit backing for an Alliance drive to seize Kabul, saying the issue was under discussion.
Northern Alliance officials said on Sunday that a planned Taliban counter-offensive had not materialised and neither side had been able to break a standoff near the strategic northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif. Alliance forces had moved to within six km (four miles) of the Taliban-held city a week ago.
Putin lined up as one of U.S. President George W. Bush's firmest backers at the Shanghai summit of the Asia Pacific Cooperation Forum - in contrast to Moscow's denunciation of the 1999 NATO bombings of Yugoslavia. Putin also had a separate meeting with Bush at the summit. Leaders in Shanghai condemned last month's attacks on the United States "in the strongest terms" and Putin described U.S. action in Afghanistan as "measured and adequate".
Russian Defence Minister Ivanov earlier had talks with Rakhmonov in Dushanbe. Tajikistan, gripped by a civil war from 1992-97, relies on Russian troops to guard a 1,300-km (815-mile) frontier with Afghanistan.
Both Tajikistan and Uzbekistan have allowed the United States to use their airspace and bases for humanitarian and rescue operations. Turkmenistan, the third ex-Soviet state bordering Afghanistan, has sent food aid. About 1,000 U.S. troops are reported to be in Uzbekistan to help operations.
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