Armenia, Azerbaijan `Close To Karabakh Deal'

[Joseph]

I believe that the Armenians of Artsakh would rather chew glass or live next door to lepers than ever be considered part of Azerbaijan.



Hatreds die hard in Nagorno-Karabakh
by Matthew Collin
BBC News, Nagorno-Karabakh

There are still signs of Muslim influence in Shusha, a rural town in Nagorno-Karabakh which was devastated by the war between Azeri and Armenian forces in the 1990s.
As old Turkish bath-house stands derelict, and the damaged minaret of a mosque once used by Azeris who used to live in Shusha pokes out over a gutted office building.

The ethnic Armenians who now control Nagorno-Karabakh are renovating another of Shusha's mosques as part of the reconstruction effort.

But no Azeris are likely to come back here to pray.

"No Muslims live here now, of course," says Father Andreas at Shusha's imposing Christian church, which has also been rebuilt. "The mosques are just historical monuments."

"Evil dogs"

More than a decade after the ceasefire, a lot of hatred remains.


Valery Baghdassarian, who sells fruit and vegetables in Shusha's town centre, says the Azeris will never be able to return.

"You can't live together with an evil dog. There was bloodshed here and you can't give away land which was bought with blood. Shusha was never Azeri and never will be."

Nagorno-Karabakh is a tiny mountainous enclave within Azerbaijan. Violence broke out here just before the collapse of the Soviet Union, when ethnic Armenians demanded independence.

Some 30,000 people died and more than a million Azeris and Armenians fled their homes.

A ceasefire was agreed in 1994 after the Armenians effectively won the war for the territory, but years of negotiations have not delivered a peace deal.

Unrecognised polls

Azerbaijan insists Nagorno-Karabakh must never be allowed to break away. But Armenia says it should have the right to choose its own destiny.


The politicians campaigning in Thursday's presidential elections in Nagorno-Karabakh say the polls are another step towards being recognised as an independent state.

"The main thing is that here we have a society that wants to live in a democratic way, and we understand that we're doing it first of all for us, not to show to anybody that we are so democratic," says the separatist deputy foreign minister, Masis Mailian.

"But on the other hand it's not bad to show to the international community that our population chose a democratic way of development."

However, the polls have been condemned by Azerbaijan, which says they violate international law and will be ignored by the rest of the world.

Poverty and hatred

"The separatist regime in the occupied territories of Azerbaijan represents nothing but an illegal structure established by Armenia on the basis of ethnic cleansing of the Azeri population," said a statement from Azerbaijan's foreign ministry.


Despite financial support from the Armenian government and the huge Armenian diaspora, Nagorno-Karabakh remains a poor, largely agricultural region, struggling economically in international isolation.

"Karabakh was already a backward region in Soviet times," says Artur Gabrielian, the director of a vodka and wine factory in the town of Askeran.

"After the war, it is much more difficult to expand the economy. Again it's because of the political status of Nagorno-Karabakh, which prevents economic development."

While the dispute over Nagorno-Karabakh continues, the poverty and the hatred are likely to continue too.


Story from BBC NEWS:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/europe/6905648.stm

Published: 2007/07/19 01:08:45 GMT

© BBC MMVII

[Joseph]

Nagorno-Karabakh holds elections
by Matthew Collin
BBC News, Stepanakert

People in the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh are voting in presidential elections, which they hope will further their aim of independence.
But Nagorno-Karabakh lies within Azerbaijan, which has condemned the polls as illegal.

Azeri and Armenian forces fought a bitter war over the territory in the 1990s, which left some 30,000 people dead.

No country recognises the independence of the breakaway region.

Nagorno-Karabakh wants to prove it could become an independent, democratic state.

But this tiny, mountainous region is still the subject of a bitter dispute between Armenia and Azerbaijan, more than a decade after the ceasefire. Armenian forces won the war and now control Nagorno-Karabakh, after the Azeri population fled and years of negotiations have failed to deliver a peace deal.

Unrecognized poll

One of the candidates for president, Bako Sahakian, says the election will demonstrate the democratic progress Nagorno-Karabakh has made.



"It is the most civilised way towards building democracy and civil society. It is the best and the most progressive way to build a state. We will try to do everything possible to get the international community to recognise Nagorno-Karabakh.", Bako Sahakian says.

But Azerbaijan says the elections are being held by a separatist regime which was established by ethnic cleansing.

The Azeri foreign ministry spokesman, Khazar Ibrahim, says they are effectively meaningless.

"These are so-called elections conducted by the illegal regime which has basically occupied this region of Azerbaijan. These so-called elections have no legal effect because they contradict the norms and principles of international law," he said.

While Azerbaijan says Nagorno-Karabakh must not be allowed to break away. Armenia insists the region has the right to choose its own destiny.

The results of these elections are unlikely to bring a peaceful solution any closer.

Story from BBC NEWS:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/europe/6905670.stm

Published: 2007/07/19 00:43:15 GMT

© BBC MMVII

[Joseph]

http://www.iwpr.net/?p=crs&s=f&o=337417&apc_state=henh

Two States in One
An Abkhaz journalist on the elusive statehood of Nagorny Karabakh.

By Akhra Smyr (CRS No. 403 25-Jul-07)

Although Nagorny Karabakh - or Artsakh as the Armenians like to call it - seems to be a fully self-sufficient state and has all the attributes of one, the reality of its situation is rather different.

Nagorny Karabakh is today basically a province of Armenia but its uniqueness lies in the fact that its statehood makes Armenia a state of two parts. The point is not that Karabakh has its own state bodies and organs - you could elect a president in every province of Armenia and nothing would change. The point is that for Armenians all over the world Karabakh is more than a place where people live, much more than a military victory and much more than a single idea.

It was here after all that Armenians achieved a victory for the first time since the 1915 Genocide – and not so much a military as an ideological victory made possible by a consolidation of forces and resources by Armenians from all over the world. So for Armenians, Karabakh became the foundation of a new, positive sense of identity. For the first time in a millennium, Armenians felt that they were a victorious nation.

This special status of Karabakh could not but affect developments in Armenia itself. Karabakh Armenian leader Robert Kocharian moved into the presidential chair in Armenia. The Karabakh elite has had a huge influence on the development of life in Armenia and even the telecommunications company Karabakh Telecom, the local monopoly, has squeezed the Armenian firm ArmenTelecom out of the market.

It is a two-way street. The current elite in Armenia also influences what happens in Karabakh and it can be hard to work out which is the tail and which is the dog. That is what makes Armenia two states in one in the context of the international non-recognition of the statehood of Karabakh.

The Goris-Stepanakert road looks very modern. In contrast to the roads of much of the former USSR, it is well kept and not pot-holed. This road was built after the war with the money of the Armenian Diaspora. Some rich Karabakhis are also building. Levon Hairapetian, who comes from the village of Vank, has built a series of factories, a shopping centre and a hotel in his home village - not something that can be said of many Caucasian villages.

In contrast to this, Shusha, a town that once had a majority Azerbaijani population and is now home to three thousand Armenians, is a depressing sight. There is practically no life here, just the splendid architectural heritage that survived the war.

War did not just destroy human lives. War burned houses, destroyed confidence in tomorrow and built a powerful wall of mutual hostility. You feel this keenly in Shusha. The contrast between the restored church, the hotel refurbished by the Dashnaks, an Armenian nationalist party, and the magnificent scenery on the one hand, and on the other the faces of the Armenian refugees from Baku living among the ruins is overwhelming. In Shusha, you want to believe that you are in a scene from a surrealist film and not in a current-day reality.

Overall Karabakh does not look like this. If you overlook the fairly infrequent traces of war you can feel as if you are in a pastoral idyll. Karabakh is a place which its inhabitants believe in, a place with a future.

Karabakhis are generally no different from other people on Earth. Like others, they go to work, create works of art, dress their children in nice clothes to go out for a stroll in the evening. Their desire to live a normal life has erased practically all traces of death and destruction. They want to believe in a future without war, whose lingering traces distract them from fine thoughts and make them remember with pain the tribulations of their recent history.

Akhra Smyr is a correspondent with Chegemskaya Pravda newspaper in Abkhazia.

This report is one of three first-person accounts of journalists from and visiting Nagorny Karabakh during the presidential elections as part of IWPR’s Cross Caucasus Journalism Network project. Different in style from our usual reports, they give an impression of the polls and life in this remote but important territory in the South Caucasus.

[Joseph]

"OUR BORDER IS WHERE ARMENIAN SOLDIER STANDS," NKR PERMANENT REPRESENTATIVE IN RA DECLARES

Noyan Tapan
Jul 30, 2007

YEREVAN, JULY 30, NOYAN TAPAN. Karlen Avetisian, the permanent
representative of the Republic of Nagorno Karabakh in the Republic of
Armenia, does not agree to the two extreme points of views expressed by
Armenian and Karabakh media, according to which either the presidential
elections of the Republic of Nagorno Karabakh are considered to have
passed in an excellent way or Karabakh is regarded as a province, the
people of which "do not understand anything in political processes."

"Reality is in their midst. The elections have been held. Both society
and all the candidates for the post of the president have recognized
the results of the elections. This is the principle estimation of those
elections," Karlen Avetisian said at the July 27 press conference.

In respect of the infringements registered in these elections Karlen
Avetisian did not exclude that the number of infringements, in reality,
may be more than those registered. However, according to him, "it
is impossible to organize such an electoral process where there are
no infringements." At the same time Karlen Avetisian mentioned that
those infringements did not play an essential role in the results of
the elections.

As for the participation perspective of the Republic of Nagorno
Karabakh in the negotiations directed at the Karabakh conflict
settlement, Karlen Avetisian believes that it "is of principle
significance." According to him, without the participation of Nagorno
Karabakh the format of the process of the negotiations totally changes:
"the right of self-determination changes into a territorial one." "The
thing is not that that Karabakh should substitude for Armenia. Armenia
was forced to become envolved in this conflict and, first of all,
it stands surely for the physical security of the population of the
Republic of Nagorno Karabakh," Karlen Avetisian said.

Answering the question concerning territories, the permanent
representative of the Republic of Nagorno Karabakh mentioned that
Bako Sahakian, who has been elected President, has expressed his
opinion and that he also believes that "at present, our border is
where an Armenian soldier stands." "The main problem of our policy
is that we should be able to fix what exists, and continue to move
forward as a result of the negotiations," Karlen Avetisian declared.

[Joseph]

Hmm, very interesting considering Fried is more or less a neo-con.


DANIEL FRIED WARNS BAKU WAR TO BECOME CATASTROPHE FOR COUNTRY'S FUTURE

PanARMENIAN.Net
09.08.2007 16:57 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ War will become a catastrophe for Azerbaijan's
future, US Assistant Secretary Daniel Fried stated to the Azeri service
of RFE RL. Answering the question if the hope for the Nagorno Karabakh
conflicts settlement has become less and if presidents of Armenia and
Azerbaijan have missed such an opportunity, taking into account the
fact that soon in both countries presidential campaigns will launch,
Daniel Fried said, "I do not want to criticize, but I think we all
are disappointed. The last meeting of presidents did not produce any
results that we were expecting. There were good talks, I would even say
a good dialog, a certain progress was fixed". He expressed hope that
"in a certain stage the presidents would find a common way to move
forward". "After all, it proceeds from the interests of all parties.

Azerbaijan's future is vague until this problem is resolved,"
the American diplomat underlined. He expressed assurance that the
Nagorno Karabakh conflict can be resolved only via peaceful way. War
will destroy Azerbaijan's future. Peaceful solution of the Karabakh
problem is the way to go through. We have passed such a way and I hope
we will reach the solution of the problem," Daniel Fried concluded.

[Gavur]

Mr. Fried is a seasoned diplomat and he is the soft glov of this administration,probably the only one that is human.

[Joseph]

From 1991- Operation Ring

http://www.csmonitor.com/1991/0507/07052.html

Archive
from the May 07, 1991 edition

Armenians and Azerbaijanis Clash in Two Soviet Villages
Daniel Sneider, Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
MOSCOW—
THE nationalist-led Soviet republic of Armenia is facing new pressures from Soviet security agencies following bloody frontier clashes with neighboring Azerbaijan. The conflict, involving two Armenian-populated villages within Azerbaijan, threatens to expand into a wider battle, possibly between Armenian militia and Soviet Army and Interior Ministry troops. During the weekend, the Soviet Defense and Interior ministries openly sided with Azerbaijan, placing blame for the conflict on the Armenian government and militia units.

"Armenian militants' attacks on federal Interior Ministry troops are acquiring a systematic and increasingly daring nature," Lt. Gen. Boris Smyslov, deputy commander of Interior Ministry troops, told the official Tass news agency. According to reports, about 200 Soviet Army troops were flown into Yerevan, the Armenian capital, this weekend, after protesters marched in the hundreds of thousands. On Sunday, the Armenian interior minister and the Soviet Army commander agreed to take steps to protect Soviet Army facilities in Armenia.

Anti-Army sentiments have risen since Soviet Army units, for the first time, joined Azerbaijani units against Armenian militants. The conflict escalated almost two weeks ago, when Azerbaijani special Interior Ministry troops attempted to move into the two villages, ostensibly to check passports. Army units, backed by tanks, supported Azeri troops when they came under fire.

Armenian officials charge that the Soviet authorities are favoring Azerbaijan because of its decision to remain within the Soviet Union. Armenia is one of six republics that intends to secede.

The conflict has intensified, despite the intervention of Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, who met separately on Friday with Armenian leader Levon Ter-Petrosyan and Azerbaijani leader Ayaz Mutalibov. The villages are surrounded by Azeri troops, says Felix Mamikonyan, the head of the Armenian government mission in Moscow. Some women, children, and wounded have been evacuated by helicopter, a situation the Armenian official characterizes as "a creeping deportation."

The villages, Getashen (pop., 2,000) and Martunashen (pop., 260), are near the Armenian-populated region of Nagorno-Karabakh. Armed Armenian militants are in the villages to protect them from frequent Azeri attacks, Armenian officials say.

THE fighting, which Armenians say claimed 36 lives, is the outgrowth of the desire of that region to become part of Armenia. The battle over Nagorno-Karbakh, which is under virtual martial law, has claimed hundreds of lives in more than two years; the majority of the Azeri minority in Armenia and the Armenians living in Azerbaijan have fled as refugees.

Armenian officials say the latest incident arises out of an effort by the Azerbaijani government to deport the Armenians inhabiting villages on their territory. A similar deportation took place in the villages of Azat and Kamo, a senior Armenian Interior Ministry official told the Monitor in an interview earlier in Yerevan. Repeated attempts to bring this situation to the attention of authorities in Moscow were ignored, he said.

The difference this time, the official argues, is that Gen. Yuri Shatalin, the local Soviet Interior Minister Commander, is acting in clear support of the Azerbaijan government to heat up the conflict. Partly it is an attempt to block Armenian independence, he says, but the immediate cause is to strengthen the hands of the Azerbaijan Communist leadership, which is fighting an intense internal battle with more militant nationalist elements.

'The Communist regime in Azerbaijan is in a political crisis, because their authority is based on the bayonets of the Soviet Army and they have no support from the people," the senior Armenian official says. The Mutalibov leadership is challenged by a group led by Prime Minister Hasan Hasanov, which includes radicals from the Azerbaijan Popular Front who favor independence from Moscow. The recent conflict is an effort to give Mr. Mutalibov some nationalist credentials in that battle, he says.

[Joseph]

Caroline Cox

http://sumgait.info/maraga/maraga-eng/survivors-maraghar.htm

Survivors of Maraghar massacre: It was truly like a contemporary Golgotha many times over

The ancient kingdom of Armenia was the first nation to embrace Christianity — in AD 301. Modern Armenia, formerly a Soviet republic, declared autonomy in September 1991 and today exists as a member of the Commonwealth of Independent States. There you find many of the oldest churches in the world, and a people who have upheld the faith for nearly 1,700 years, often at great cost.

Nowhere has the cost been greater than in the little piece of ancient Armenia called Nagorno-Karabakh, cruelly cut off from the rest of Armenia by Stalin in 1921, and isolated today as a Christian enclave within Islamic Azerbaijan. Only 100 miles north to south, 50 miles east to west, there are mountains, forests, fertile valleys, and an abundance of ancient churches, monasteries, and beautifully carved stone crosses dating from the fourth century.

This paradise became hell in 1991. Vying with Armenia for control of this enclave, Azerbaijan began a policy of ethnic cleansing of the Armenians of Karabakh, and 150,000 Armenians were forced to fight for the right to live in their historic homeland. It was a war against impossible odds: 7 million-strong Azerbaijan, helped by Turkey and, at one stage, several thousand mujahideen mercenaries.

On April 10, 1992, forces from Azerbaijan attacked the Armenian village of Maraghar in northeastern Karabakh. The villagers awoke at 7 a.m. to the sound of heavy shelling; then tanks rolled in, followed by infantry, followed by civilians with pick-up trucks to take home the pickings of the looting they knew would follow the eviction of the villagers.

Azeri soldiers sawed off the heads of 45 villagers, burnt others, took 100 women and children away as hostages, looted and set fire to all the homes, and left with all the pickings from the looting.

I, along with my team from Christian Solidarity Worldwide, arrived within hours to find homes still smoldering, decapitated corpses, charred human remains, and survivors in shock. This was truly like a contemporary Golgotha many times over.

I visited the nearby hospital and met the chief nurse. Hours before, she had seen her son's head sawn off, and she had lost 14 members of her extended family. I wept with her: there could be no words.

With the fragile cease-fire that began in May 1994, we have been able to visit survivors of the massacre at Maraghar. Unable to return to their village, which is still in Azeri hands, they are building "New Maraghar" in the devastated ruins of another village. Their "homes" are empty shells with no roofs, doors, or windows, but their priority was the building of a memorial to those who died in the massacre.

We were greeted with the traditional Armenian ceremony of gifts of bread and salt. Then a dignified elderly lady made a speech of gracious welcome, with no hint of reference to personal suffering. She seemed so serene that I thought she had been away on that terrible day of the massacre. She replied: "As you have asked, I will tell you that my four sons were killed that morning, trying to defend us — but what could they do with hunting rifles against tanks? And then we saw things no human should ever have to see: heads that were too far from their bodies; people hacked into quarters like pigs. I also lost my daughter and her husband—we only found his bloodstained cap. We still don't know what happened to them. I now bring up their children. But they have forgotten the taste of milk, as the Azeris took all our cows."

How can one respond to such suffering and such dignity? Since the cease-fire, we have undertaken a program to supply cows. On our last visit, we met this grandmother, and, smiling, she said: "Thank you. Our children now know the taste of milk."

Nagorno-Karabakh is a place where we have found miracles of grace. The day of the massacre I asked the chief nurse, whose son had been beheaded, if she would like me to take a message to the rest of the world. She nodded, and I took out my notebook.

With great dignity, she said: "I want to say, 'Thank you.' I am a nurse. I have seen how the medicines you have brought have saved many lives and eased much suffering. I just want to say, 'Thank you,' to all those who have not forgotten us in these dark days."

Baroness Caroline Cox
April 1998

[Joseph]

Past Article

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,975278-3,00.html

[Joseph]

Chechen Terrorist Shamil Basayev in Artsakh fighting for the Azeirs

Terror in Karabakh
Chechen Warlord Shamil Basayev's Tenure in Azerbaijan


By Khatchig M.


On July 10, 2006, Chechen guerrilla leader Shamil Basayev was killed in the village of Ekazhevo, in Ingushetia. Notorious for his responsibility in the Moscow Theatre siege (October 2002) and the Beslan school siege (September 2004), Basayev was Moscow's most wanted man, and a national hero for many Chechens. His tenure in Abkhazia, Afghanistan, and Russia is well documented. Little is written, however, on Basayev's short tenure in Nagorno Karabakh in the early 1990s. Bits and pieces of information on Basayev's participation in the Karabakh war on the side of the Azeries could be found scattered in news reports, interviews, and commentaries published at the time in the Azeri, Armenian, and Russian media.

Jihad in Karabakh

Basayev arrived in Azerbaijan with his unit sometime in the early 1990s to fight against the Karabakh army along with the Azeris, allegedly at the invitation of official Baku. The exact date of his arrival proved to be difficult to specify by the information available with this writer, because of the conflicting reports.

During and after the war, Chechen political figures often declined to comment on Basayev's tenure. For example, in an interview with Chechen opposition leader Movladi Udugov, published in "Golos Armenii" in July 28 1999, the former prime minister was asked how real are the rumors that Chechen detachments headed by commander Shamil Basayev and Ruslan Gelayev took part in the Karabakh war. Udugov refused to comment.

However, there are a number of statements made by Azeri political and military figures acknowledging Basayev's role in the war against the Armenians in Karabakh. In 2005, for example, Azeri Colonel Azer Rustamov, who had participated in the Karabakh war, recounts that in 1992, "hundreds of Chechen volunteers rendered us invaluable help in these battles led by Shamil Basayev and Salman Raduev."

Last to Leave Shushi

"One of the last fighters to leave Shusha (The Azeri name for Shushi) was the Chechen volunteer Shamil Basayev," states Thomas De Waal in his Book Black Garden: Armenia and Azerbaijan Through Peace and War (NYU Press, 2003). Shushi was captured May 1992. According to some reports in the Russian media, Basayev barely escaped being captured.

In 2000, interviewed in Chechnya, Basayev told the Azerbaijani television company ANS: " Shusha was just abandoned. About 700 Armenians launched an offensive and it was just a veneer. With such a strong garrison and so many weapons, especially as Shusha itself is in a strategically significant position, one hundred men could hold it for a year easily. There was no organization. Today, we can take one specific general or minister, we can just take them and say you betrayed it, you took it, you sold it. It is all talk. There was no single management. No one was responsible for anything."

According to Russian news reports, Basayev said that during his career as a fighter, he and his battalion only lost once, and that defeat came in Karabakh. He went on to say that the defeat was against the "Dashnak battalion".

No Sign of Jihad

As Sanobar Shermatova writes in an article on "(Amir Ibn) Khattab and Central Asia", published in Moscow News on September 13, 2000: "Chechen and Afghan fighters continued to fight in Nagorno-Karabakh until 1994. It is noteworthy that Kabul-Baku flights carried Afghan fighters while return flights took Chechens to training camps near the towns of Kunduz and Taloqan that were also home to bases of Tajik opposition whose armed units had by then been pushed out of the country and into Afghanistan."

Basayev did not stay in Karabakh for long, because he thought the war had little to do with Jihad and so much more to do with nationalism. In an interview aired by Azerbaijani TV station ANS on June 14, 2000, he says: "Frankly, I personally took the mojahedins out of Azerbaijan. We did not arrived there (Karabakh) for personal gains but for jihad".

In another interview, Basayev tells ANS: "We were greatly surprised by the enthusiasm and patriotism of the rank-and-file personnel of the Azerbaijani army and the apathy and mood of time-serving amongst the officer corps. We came there not for trophies, but for jihad and to help for the sake of God. But when we saw the situation, there was no sign of jihad. Often when great casualties were sustained because of the lack of talent and stupidity of the officers, simply because of the stupidity of commanders, no commander was punished."

Would Basayev have helped Azeris in case war broke again in Nagorno Karabakh? In a report by Azerbaijani newspaper Yeni Musavat titled "Any method can be used to liberate Karabakh," The director of the Chechen Rights Centre and independent journalist Mayrbek Taramov says "Chechen leaders, for instance Shamil Basayev, used to say that they were ready to assist Azerbaijan in re-taking Karabakh. The Chechens are ready to keep their word". "The Chechens have once proven that and they are ready to help the Azerbaijani people for a second or third time. The Chechen mojahedin consider this their holy duty," adds Taramov.

The short time Basayev spent in the region was crucial in his "career", because, according to some reports, it was there that he met Amir Ibn Khattab, sent to the region by Osama Bin Laden to participate in the civil war in Tajikistan and assist the Azeries in the war against the Armenians. It is with Khattab that Basayev later traveled to Afghanistan.


From:The Armenian Weekly On-Line: AWOL
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